A familiar scent hung in the frigid morning air, and it grew stronger as I traced the usual path from my neighborhood to the state park. I wouldn’t call it pleasant, and it took a while to ascertain that no, my coat hadn’t fallen into a dumpster full of trash juice; there were tractors out fertilizing the fields. But it worked the old magic that smells always do, shooting through my nasal passages straight into my memory bank and time-machining me back to childhood on my grandparents’ farm.
Manure never bothered me anyway. 😉 And my Midwestern blood feels right at home in the cold. Just as I recall bundling up to seek adventure in the frozen Wisconsin woods, dragging my sled on a search for the slightest elevation or white-knuckling rocket-speed snowmobile rides with my dad, I hit the trails of Southeastern PA for daily 4- or 5-mile nature walks, come teen temps or bitter windchills. What was true in ’88 remains so in ’25: Being outside keeps me sane.
Well, sort of.
This winter season, traditionally a minefield of mental health triggers stretching out from January all the way into April, has been fertile ground for my anxiety in the early weeks of this new year. A Thanksgiving back injury, followed by a respiratory bug that hit right after Christmas, has forced me to slow down, pull back and sit still longer than any anxious person would ever voluntarily choose. Particularly an anxious person who’s sober, possesses a social conscience, and is responsible for helping others with their mental health.
You don’t have to be a therapist to understand how compulsively seeking distraction on social media can f*ck with your mind, and by extension your emotions, your behavior, your life. It doesn’t take profound insight to see that coming inside from a cleansing two-hour nature walk to collapse on the couch, transfixed by the latest catastrophes being broadcast on your smartphone, pretty much undoes the self-care you just did.
Add that emotional baggage to the load you carry away from each therapy client, day after day, and it can feel like you’re skating on thin ice over the depths of depression.
I work every day with folks trying to kick their doomscrolling habit, so it hurts to admit my hypocrisy. I’ve tried my best to escape the terror outside via the beauty outside, preferring to freely breathe 10-degree air tinged with animal waste than to choke down hot-off-the-press news peppered with fascist propaganda. But when I return to reality and face the facts, as all responsible adults eventually have to do, I’ve caught myself seeking distraction — maybe numbness? — in online communities.
It’s really no different from how I instinctively grabbed for a liquor bottle, once upon a time. Or raced off to the gym to get lost in a workout.
My one saving grace is that at 5 1/2 years sober, the social media content I consume, and occasionally share or interact with, tends to be in alignment with my values. It tends to be about recovery, therapy, and social justice. It tends to educate, inspire, uplift, validate and motivate me, rather than feed the beast of my addiction. And I only post to be a part of, or maybe add a little of my own experience and wisdom to, what I think are important conversations.
In other words, the “pick-me girl” who used to hit these platforms in search of attention and validation finally got a clue and grew up.
I’m still active on Instagram (@jenwielgus), though, where my feed feels like a cozy blanket, or heating pad, on harsh days when my body is stiff and achy and my spirit sags, weighed down by inner turmoil, client trauma, this climate of fear.
I’m also on Threads and Bluesky (@jenwielgus), where I can get an empowering surge of “woke,” liberal, feminist energy when “freeze” feels like my only available stress response to what’s happening in our world:
Perhaps the most impactful post I saw on social media this winter — and damned if I can find the exact source when I need it! — was someone’s idea for a “Happiness Box”: Each day, you’re supposed to write down one thing that made you happy in the course of that day. You put the scrap of paper in a box. Then, you open the box at the end of the week, month, whatever, and behold all the little things that have added up to make your life rich, full, happy.
Love it! Need it! Who couldn’t use a reminder to live in/for the moment, or you’ll miss your whole life? To focus on what is, not what “could’ve been” or “should be”? To cultivate gratitude and hope, because otherwise, fear and anxiety will consume you, leading to inertia and self-loathing — and then, evil wins!
I started my own box, shaking out the crumbs from a cookie tin someone from Al-Anon gave my husband at Christmas and cutting up old syllabi printouts from grad school that were cluttering up my desk. And while I haven’t followed through on the mission every day, it certainly has not been for lack of fodder.
I’ve experienced an abundance of happy moments in the first two months of this winter season. Some highlights:
- My husband and I got up Christmas morning and hiked around his childhood neighborhood — he’s from the Poconos, so it absolutely was hiking, not walking — and continued our post-election tradition of spending quality time together outdoors, two or three times a week;
- On our usual year’s-end visit to Chicagoland, we road-tripped back to the little Lake Geneva resort where I learned to ski as a kid — for Hubby, these humble slopes felt like slumming — and my back held up well enough to log a good three hours of fun;
- Lured by the novelty of an outdoor NHL game on New Year’s Eve in our favorite baseball stadium, we braved 3+ cold, wet hours in the Wrigley Field stands, watching the Blackhawks, and sadly also The Smashing Pumpkins, bomb at the Winter Classic. NGL, my Gen-X heart broke a little when I beheld what age has done to Billy Corgan, but coming back here someday soon to see Pearl Jam could possibly help me heal…(*checks the PJ tour website for the 20th time this year*)
One happy moment I did scribble down/box up wasn’t even mine: I was driving home a few weeks ago and happened to see folks out skating on a local pond. A few teenagers had hockey sticks and a little net, an older guy was gliding around in long, smooth loops, and some kids were sitting on the periphery, talking and laughing as they laced up. I was immediately struck with a jolt of jealousy, longing to jump out of the car and join them, releasing all my worries to the late-afternoon sky as I’d done in some of my most cherished childhood memories.
Of course, all I could do was witness their revelry and feel the vicarious thrill of fresh air and freedom as I rolled on by down the road. Recording the moment helped me remember something winter is constantly trying to show me; I just don’t always pay attention: Pure joy does still exist, alongside all the ugliness and pain. Joy and beauty are everywhere, accessible at all times, if we keep our eyes and hearts open and we’re willing to fully inhabit our lives.
Can we summon the courage to look at the ugliness when we want to turn away, endure the pain when it’s easier to numb out, and stay awake when we want to crawl in a hole and hibernate until the end of time, so we can be a force for change in our short time on Earth?
That is the central question of recovery. It’s what the universe is asking all of us now.
I came downstairs between virtual therapy sessions last Tuesday to find a party in my living room.
I stood there dumbfounded, wondering what my husband — the obvious culprit — could be thinking. What about this number was cause for celebration?
“It’s 2,025 in 2025!” he said, flashing that mischievous grin I fell in love with 20 years ago and has given me comfort time and again during this crazy timeline. ⬇️
He looked proud — of me, yes, but also of himself, for even thinking to perform this seemingly arbitrary calculation and mark the “milestone” with a balloon bouquet. And this, I realized, was the ultimate Happiness Box moment…a chance to make a big deal out of a “little thing,” to slow down, pull back and snap out of my self-protective stupor. To really notice and soak in what’s going on right now in my real life, where there is plenty of ugliness and pain but also great joy and true love.
Just a few minutes earlier, I had been counseling a client in recovery for whom the new year has been especially hard. I tried to commiserate, quipping, “Yeah, I know! Sometimes, it’s like, ‘Really? I got sober for this?’” 😬
Standing there alongside my beaming hubby with the afternoon sun bouncing off silver mylar in a blinding glare, my whole “sober life” flashed before my eyes, from “rock bottom” through the 12 steps, three years of grad school and now my own therapy practice — Inner Compass Counseling Services is officially registered as an LLC in the new year! — and it felt like the universe was slapping me across the face.
Yes, Jen, really. Wake up and smell the farmland! THIS is all there is!
I’m not nearly as dense when I’m outdoors communing with nature, so when I jogged around the corner at the park just after 7AM last Sunday — Day 2,029 — and glimpsed the above scene, I threw my arms skyward and cheered out loud.
Yes! This is what getting sober is for! To catch a fleeting moment when the cold, harsh, ugly world breaks out its most awesome beauty, and being fully alive feels like the only life worth living.
Jen Wielgus Journalism 