Everything Is Louder in Sobriety

End of week three of 300hr yoga teacher training.

Everything is louder in sobriety.

Things present themselves and your view is no longer blurred, the sound is no longer dulled, the blows are no longer soft.

For me, I’m coming to realize, emotions were the thing I was trying hardest to bubble wrap. My emotions, other people’s emotions, my emotions when coming into contact with other people’s emotions. And alcohol is very good at postponing things we actually should have dealt with years ago. So here I am, dealing with years of back taxes in emotional management.

Having a strong connection and sense of empathy for others is a gift. It is also most definitely a curse if we don’t know how to create a safe space for ourselves. I’ve always felt this huge anxiety of needing to fix, to manage, to accommodate others’ emotions in order to feel safe in my world. It’s the fear. The fear that surrounds the other person’s potential reaction. Our own potential reaction. The aftermath.

And then I realized, the fear is around what we cannot control.

And that nothing is ever in our control anyway.

When I saw someone having a hard time my immediate instinct was to help in whatever way I can, to assuage their pain and make them smile again. When I see someone cry I immediately cry too, it’s something to do with really fucking strong mirror neurons (thanks neurons! Really lovin’ that hustle!). When I feel someone’s frustration I can become so frustrated I feel I need to do everything I can to make that frustration go away, including enlisting with their anger, becoming obsessed with finding a solution for them, and even going so far as to take over whatever need I perceive them to be needing.

All this to say, I often lack emotional boundaries and it’s really fucking unhealthy. And it’s something I’ve been trying to unlearn in the past couple of years. But like anything new, especially something as hard as boundaries when it comes to people we love, it’s often times just trial and error. A lot of error.

So I fucked up the other day. And I got frustrated. And I acted out. And I said things I didn’t mean. And the voice that was speaking was not my own. It was a version of me that was protective, that was accusatory, that was impatient and unkind. All because I exhausted myself these past couple weeks with taking care of everyone else’s emotions (even though no one asked me to) that I forgot to take care of mine, thinking that all the yoga and meditation was enough. It helped a lot. But it’s not enough.

I met a dear friend here doing his own training in another group, someone with an objective point of view. He told me that what I was doing was like, “if I had to charge my phone, but people kept coming up and unplugging my phone to charge theirs first, and it’s like - I need to use my fucking phone” (great analogy, Nathan lol). And recharging for me, I’ve learned, is making sure that I have alone time to process what’s going on in my own heart, and how to nurture it back to health when it’s feeling spent. And he reminded me that my journey here ultimately, as I’d said, was to find inner peace and to hear my own voice. And even though I thought I had achieved that, “like Luke in Star Wars, he thought he was ready, and he wanted to become a Jedi, but…he wasn’t ready,” the journey is actually still ongoing. I’ve not yet arrived (thank you for that other great analogy, Nathan lolol). The peace I made was with things I’d been dealing with back home, and I was able to make that peace by creating the space for clarity that I needed. But as the old adage goes, wherever you go, there you are, and the underlying issue, the loud emotions I’d been trying to quiet, were still there, will always be there, and I still need to learn how to coexist with them.

In order to feel peace, we first have to be a peaceful person.

And I realized, if I keep taking on everyone else’s emotions, I’ll never have peace. Their emotions are not mine to control. Their situations are not mine to control. Their mindscape is not mine to control. The only thing I can control is my inner world, my emotions, situations and mindscape. When I see someone in pain, it is not my job to fix it. It is not my crusade. Everyone is on their own path, and healing might not even be on that path. Just because something is important to me doesn’t make it important to everyone else. And so the only sane thing to do is to focus on my own growth and journey. And what people usually need most when they’re in pain or struggling is just a listening ear, kind eyes, and maybe a reassuring touch or warm hug. That’s it. That’s the end of our job as friends and peers. The rest is between them and their therapist lol. I am not obligated to give advice, to manage their emotions or experience, or worry about them. People don’t want that shit. They just want space to be themselves and be heard and seen.

Meditation and alone time to reflect and write helped dissolve the heavy ache my throat and chest and ribs had been carrying. I realized the conflict had to happen, it was hard but it was a lesson my heart had been asking me to learn for a long time. I apologized to my friend and thankfully she graciously forgave me. And I also realized that I’ve only been sober for three weeks, and there’s a lot of new and intense things going on and it can be overwhelming. My dreams are so vivid it’s like I live two lives. My feelings are so big it’s like my brain just got upgraded to the latest OS. Everything is faster, more vibrant, and I feel more conscious that I have been in years, but it’s also a lot more processing. And for the first time none of this feels scary, but hopeful, because I know that no feeling is big enough to actually harm me. All it’s trying to do is teach me - new ways to metabolize and alchemize everything that comes my way. And in sobriety it’s a lot easier not only to learn boundaries but also put them into practice; power feels more steady and accessible. And in moments where I don’t know what to say, it’s okay to say less. Love doesn’t always have to be expressed in words.

So I’ve been repeating this mantra - Lokha Samastha Sukhino Bhavantu - which translates to May All Beings Everywhere Be Happy and Free. Mantra literally means mind protector, and when the emotions get loud I repeat this mantra to protect my mind, and my heart. To create space is not just physical, but mental as well. Only in that space can love have room to expand, for others, and for ourselves.