Falling down the Hippy hole...

So the old boozy me used to poo-poo any sort of 'naval-gazing' (as I used to call it).. any sort of introspection or 'stupid' stuff like meditation or self-help books or even mellow contemplation.

No siree-bob I was all about keeping things cruisy! (glug glug) upbeat! (slurp slurp) fun! (chug chug). Now of course I can see that all I was doing was keeping myself constantly numb with all that enthusiastic wine drinking.  Wine was my great leveller, it kept me on an even keel, smoothed out all my ups and downs..

But now this new sober me feels more, is up and down more, and as a result is an endless study in how to deal with emotional shit naturally. If I was to, say, have a knot of angsty shit in my belly that wouldn't go away.. I'd have to figure out how to ease that angsty shitty pain without glug, slurp, chugging my evenings away.

And so I found myself in bed on Sunday night listening to a talk on You Tube by the gentle, lovely and  wise American psychologist Tara Brach. In bed with my headphones on - trying not to be distracted by Mr D's movie - listening to Tara's gentle voice guide me in some clever breathing techniques to help sooth troubled minds.

I mean what the hell?! Who am I?! I've already admitted to juicing and burning oils like a bloody hippy and now I'm closing my eyes when Tara tells me to and "breathing in to contact the feeling.. breathing out to sense the space".

I have to tell you though, it was amazing. And the angsty knot of shit in my belly (if I was to have one there that is) was somewhat calmed by her words and her techniques. If you want to spend 56-odd minutes listening you can find the talk in two parts here and here.

I'm being bombarded with great brain food at the moment actually. Tara Brach came via one of my brilliant sisters (I have three). Then a friend in my neighbourhood told me about John Krumboltz - a career theorist and psychologist who developed a theory called 'planned happenstance' which is all about keeping an open mind about the future and being open to the complexities and unpredictabilities that are going to come at us in life. There's loads about him on the net, including You Tube clips (yes I did watch a few!).. but I found this good summary of his theory here. And then a friend in Australia sent me some clips of Abraham Hicks, including this one called "New Self-Talk For Addict".. it's great stuff about calming the noisy mind.

It's all a bit hippy-dippy, new-agey, naval-gazey stuff and frankly I don't give a damn. I'm soaking it all up in my on-going quest to live with a peaceful sober mind.

On a lighter note, how much fun are smoke machines??!!! Yes - a smoke machine!! What a great fun tool for a party. Saturday night at my friends joint 40th they had disco lights and a smoke machine set up in their living room and we danced the night away. It was hilarious actually.. at one point they turned the machine on and couldn't switch it off again.. the whole house filled up with smoke.. smoke alarms were going off.. we were waving our hands in front of our faces and couldn't see them..! All the while dancing to 80's rock. Fun fun fun.

Love, Mrs D xxx