Tag: nature

sober lifestyle

Presence

jenwielgusjournalism

My eyes take in some version of the above scene once or twice a week. It flashes before me about a half-hour into my morning jog, just a minute or two after my turnaround point on the Delaware Canal towpath, and then vanishes behind a line of trees within five or six steps. My brain barely has a chance to process anything beyond “Wow,” before my focus has shrunk from that beautiful big-picture perspective to whatever granular “real-world stuff” I’m going to have to face a couple miles down the path.

The other day, I forced myself to stop — OK, slow, not that I ever move particularly fast — long enough to snap a quick picture. Guess you could say I had the presence of mind to realize how seldom I’m truly present in the moments of my life, and here was a perfect example.

(Of course, my intention all along was to use the example in a blog post, in the future, so…maybe that doubly proves the point? 🤔)

See, the human tendency to time travel is truly torturous. We know our time here is finite, and fleeting, and all we really have to work with/revel in is now, and yet our brains insist on ruminating or rushing ahead. Or they immediately conjure up some distraction, usually involving a cell phone, like how I’m currently standing on the deck of this amazing log cabin in the Poconos at 5AM on a Sunday, under a glittering canopy of stars, playing an episode of “Better Call Saul” on the Netflix app while typing in WordPress and posting a new cover photo on my Facebook profile, for some unfathomable reason…

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sober lifestyle

Pleasure

jenwielgusjournalism

On the way to the running path early Saturday morning, with dawn breaking in brilliant pinks and purples and Road Trip Radio pumping Kenny Loggins through my car speakers — the song was “Danger Zone,” which in hindsight is so appropriate — I drove by a place from my sordid past. My brain did a quick calculation: It’s been six years. And out of my mouth shot a short prayer: THANK YOU SO MUCH!

There have been so many topics on my mind lately that I started and stopped writing several different blog posts over the past month. Finally, I just decided to focus on how I really feel at this moment in time. Which is…well, grateful, yes, of course. But overall, just very pleased. And to channel the sentiment in Dr. Doyle’s lovely Instagram post, this good feeling comes without any real “worthiness” qualifications, or reasons why.

I mean, it’s awesome that fall is nearing and for the first time in three years, I don’t have to go back to school. It’s equally awesome that Fall 2024 finds me working in private practice, the job I dreamed of when I decided to enroll at DelVal, study counseling psychology, earn my Masters and become a therapist who helps people with substance use and eating disorders.

Can you frickin’ believe it, y’all? I actually am that.

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sober lifestyle

Ecotherapy

jenwielgusjournalism
View from my picnic spot in the Andorra Natural Area, Sunday, Oct. 22, 2023

The group leaders had “discussion prompts” for us to use in this exercise, but I didn’t wait around to grab the list they were handing out. I heard them say “lunch with a tree” and instantly fled the circle to go explore the surrounding forest and grab a bite with some bark. 😉

It was noon on Sunday, Day 2 of last weekend’s Philadelphia Ecotherapy Fall Training event, and I’d had more than my fill of human contact by that point. I’d signed up (and paid $250 of my husband’s money) to join 15 other trainees in the woods of Wissahickon Valley Park and learn from real therapists integrating nature into their counseling practices throughout the area.

When I first heard the term ecotherapy, I knew it was for me, and though I’m years from hanging my own shingle, my goal in the training was to gain knowledge — What’s the science behind nature’s medicinal effect on our mental health? What does “reciprocity” in our relationship with the environment really mean? How do you say, “I’m from Philly” in the language of the Lenape? — and pick up practical skills and techniques so I can one day help my clients experience nature in a more therapeutic way. 🤞🏻

I also, selfishly, came here craving my own therapeutic experience in the Great Outdoors. There is precious little “eco” in the therapy I’m currently doing as a grad school intern at a drug and alcohol treatment clinic in the suburbs — and I, my friends, am a wild creature who was not built for office, and maybe not even indoor, work. 🐺

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sober lifestyle

Vulnerability

jenwielgusjournalism

“I don’t want to go,” I told my husband. “I’m feeling really vulnerable.”

He looked at me quizzically. “What do you mean?”

Oh boy…how could I put it into black-and-white words? How could I even sift through the avalanche of thoughts that had been rumbling through my brain all morning, as I contemplated the sober women’s retreat I was scheduled to attend?

My mind had been busier than usual, churning out potential excuses. Looking for an out. Strenuously chipping away at my resolve…

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sober lifestyle

Elevation

jenwielgusjournalism
Sunrise at Tyler State Park, on Dec. 7, 2022, my 41st sober month-iversary.

“Try to give it up to your higher power,” my mom wrote me in a text, shortly after we’d hung up from my second distress call of the week.

Her message popped in just before I left for an appointment to get my 3-years-sober celebratory tattoo, and my entire body was a crackling live wire of rumination and worry.

It wasn’t because I’m a needle-phobe, though. I got over that with tatt #2. The issue du jour — yet again! — was work.

In short, it’s a shitshow. The “other shoe” I was afraid would drop since I agreed to re-join this chaotic company on a part-time basis back in January…well, it appears to be in motion, spelling the imminent demise of my rough-and-tumble marketing “career,” about six months too soon.

I was counting on this paycheck to get me through my next semester of grad school, or until it’s time to transition from the 100-hour “practicum” that starts in January to the full-time internship our program requires in Year 3.

So, add financial stress to the ever-present professional anxiety/depression that’s been hanging over me since I left journalism and started over from scratch in my 40s, and I quickly slip into an emotional spiral. It’s so easy to lose perspective, abandon my recovery toolbox, and let my agita run amok!

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sober lifestyle

Tolerance

jenwielgusjournalism
Celebrating 2 years sober (top), 1 year sober, and the end of 100+ years of World Series futility.

Not to brag, but in the span of two weeks, I handled a dental drill to the mouth AND a tattoo needle to the arm without having a complete nervous breakdown. I didn’t even cry! I mean, I’m still kind of sore from the full-body tense-up I held for an hour at a time, and my hands are still stuck in a bit of a claw from death-gripping the chair arms/table sides…but all in all, I did good.

If you want to go back a month to the date of my COVID booster shot, you can even add a drama-free injection to my big-girl resume.

I proudly texted my friend earlier this month, upon returning home from getting inked for the third time (see above: two wolves on left tricep), that my pain tolerance had finally reached adult levels. 💪🏻

I’m a couple months shy of 44. 🤷🏼‍♀️

It only took a few decades of downward-spiraling into in an alcohol addiction, and 31 action-packed months of sobriety, but I’m starting to get the hang of facing my fears — and feelings — without my old favorite security blanket.

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sober lifestyle

Compassion

jenwielgusjournalism
Source: @centerformindfulselfcompassion on Instagram.

RRRRRIIIIIIIIPPPPPP.

A tearing sensation snaked up the right side of my back as I yanked the handle of the rower toward my midsection, and I instantly knew: I was done…probably for a good long while. I released the chain with a snap and toppled stiffly from the seat to the floor, as the digital timer ticked down the final seconds of my workout.

Tears filled my eyes. One thought consumed my brain.

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

I’d just spent almost two months nursing a pulled hamstring, reluctantly ramping down my exercise routine to easy walks and modified yoga, with occasional light rowing and ultra-light lifting. Over a Christmas trip to Illinois, I pushed a little, and was elated to make it around the flat terrain of my childhood hometown in a slow jog, without incident. My patience was paying off!

And now, this. Something worse. A jacked-up back that basically rendered my entire body useless.

OK, universe! I surrender! I’m listening! What exactly are you trying to teach me?!?!

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sober lifestyle

Appearance

jenwielgusjournalism
Another lovely day at the unemployment office.

I’d just snapped the above picture and punched the button in the side of my earbuds to silence the music, thinking, “I just want to listen to nature,” when a familiar voice filled the momentary void.

“Jen, is that you? Girl, you’re looking skinny!”

There it was: The sweet yet shattering sound of my sickness. I know it so well.

Turns out the speaker was an old friend from two gym memberships ago. I hadn’t seen her smiling face in years, and she was pausing her run to pay me a compliment.

It’s not her fault I still struggle to accept one.

Let me just be clear from the jump: This post isn’t about blaming others for my own deep-seated issues.

It’s actually about progress in the weakest part of my recovery “game.” It’s also about messages — the ones we send others, and the ones we tell ourselves. It’s about stopping that cycle of skewed interpretations, where we assign meaning to what someone else says based on our fear, insecurity and need for external validation, instead of our own unshakable personal truth.

I guess, then, it’s really about shaking out what’s true.

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