Listen To Your Heart
It's the last day of July, and if you're like me, summer has felt like being thirsty and drinking water from a fire hose.
Summertime as an adult can feel too busy for me. My Morning Pages this summer are filled with daily reminders to myself to slow down, do less, and rest. Living a sober lifestyle has made me more attuned to my energy levels, thoughts, and emotions. I notice the signals my body is giving me, and it's usually telling me that I'm tired. In the past, when I was drinking, that signal was met with a glass of champagne before lunch and a vodka martini later in the day. Exhaustion could easily be "solved" with booze down the hatch, and it wasn't a problem as long as I kept pouring more until it was time for bed. Drugs were even better, especially the uppers that I liked. Lack of energy was not a problem if I had Adderall, cocaine, ecstasy, or all three to keep me going for 72 hours of bass at the main stage. For me, these fixes started to bleed into my regular life. It's one thing to use drugs and alcohol during a twelve-night stay at Burning Man. It's another thing when I'm drinking, vaping and snorting to get through the workday, the grocery store, and dinner with friends.
There has been a transition happening for me in these 18 months of being alcohol-free. It's an acceptance of being tired. I don't like it, and neither does my brain. My brain's answer was SUGAR. One side effect was that I hit new high on the scale last year. I was okay with this. I thought, 'I'll be fat and sober. That's not a problem.' I did a lot of work around accepting and loving my body, bought bigger clothes, and carried on with the sugar and the sobriety. It was about nine months before the sugar cravings plateaued. It turns out all that sugar is a bit of a problem because my DNA tells me I’m destined for Type 2 diabetes. I’ll share another time about the journey I’ve been on with my doctor to find the medications and eating habits that have really helped me this year.
Along with the sugar, I have a caffeine crutch that I've always relied on. A double espresso in the morning to clear the clouds and wake my senses isn’t a problem. However, when I find myself regularly buying packs of sugar-free Red Bulls and drinking two or three (or four) a day, I know I'm swimming in addictive behaviors and need to check in with myself. I get into the habit of drinking one too fast and then cracking open another one right away. I know this pattern too well. I've done it with alcohol and I've done it with drugs. I need to ask myself, 'Why am I avoiding rest? What is the hurry? Why don't I want to slow down? What is it I need to be so energized to do? Can I do it tired?' Just like with drugs and alcohol, I got to a point with using energy drinks that I actually wasn't feeling energized. I just had to stop. I also cut back on caffeine. I have a Nespresso machine and was using double espresso pods, making it very easy to have four espressos in the morning and usually wanting more. I've changed that up by using a single espresso with a decaf single espresso and making that twice in the morning. Sometimes I still want more but delaying the intensity has helped with that. I have a history of hitting the Easy Button over and over again. Why wouldn't I? IT'S SO EASY.
I've been working with an incredible coach named Cass Estes (www.cassestes.com). Cass is a Sex, Love, and Relationship coach. She helps women “activate their power, unleash their sexuality, awaken their intuition, and stop saying yes when they want to say f*ck no.” I could and will write more about Cass in another post because the work she is doing is incredible. For today, I want to share a really simple and profound lesson that I learned from her regarding the feeling of overwhelm. Overwhelm is the signal that I need to do less. It sounds obvious, but my default response to overwhelm has been I need more energy, not rest.
When I feel overwhelmed, I usually ignore the information that my body is sending me and just overload my system with energy drinks and caffeine. I say no thank you to that SOS signal to rest and instead I flip the TURBO switch. The problem is, the TURBO switch is no longer connected to anything. I can flip it, I can add the caffeine, but my tank is empty, and my system needs a shutdown.
In my coach training through the International Association of Professional Recovery Coaches, I've recently learned that the heart sends more signals to the brain than the brain sends to the heart. The heart signal affects brain function in three ways:
Processing our emotions
Using our higher cognitive/thinking functions
Accessing our critical faculties like attention, perception, memory, and problem-solving.
Different patterns of heart activity have distinct effects on our feelings, thoughts, and related brain functions. When I stopped to notice how my heart was feeling when I drank three Red Bulls, it wasn't calm. It was speedy and anxious. Not really energized, more like stressed. During times of stress, our ability to think clearly, remember, learn, reason, and make effective decisions is limited. The hearts input to the brain has a profound effect on the brains emotional processes. It intensifies stress! You can learn more about this here: www.heartmath.com/science
By learning to self-generate better heart rhythm patterns, we sustain positive emotions that benefit our entire body and overall health.
One technique to do this is called Freeze Frame. Practicing Freeze Frame is like stopping a film at a single frame to take a closer look. It gives you the power to stop your reactions at any moment. It's calling a time-out to gain a clearer perspective on what's happening. By helping you align your head to your heart, it gives you quick and effective access to your heart intelligence.
The FIVE Steps to Freeze Frame:
FREEZE: Recognize the stressful feelings and Freeze Frame it. Take a time-out. Pause.
FOCUS: Shift awareness away from the mind towards the heart. Place your hand on your heart and breathe for ten seconds.
FEELING: Recall a positive feeling or time; feel the feelings again in the body.
ASK: Using your intuition/common sense, sincerely ask your heart, “What would be a better way, a more efficient, desirable response to this situation, one that would minimize future stress?”
LISTEN: Pay attention, tune in, LISTEN, and reflect on what your heart says is the answer to your question.
The research shows that systematic practice of these five steps will yield substantial results. Like all new techniques, this will get easier and faster to do with practice.
Thank you for reading this. I hope you'll come back. I'll be over here.
