Numb No More

How much time do you spend trying to numb out uncomfortable feelings?

Is this numbing what you need in order to get yourself to where you really want to go in your own beautywalk?

Are these numbing habits working for you better than mine are?

I am Sandra Butel and this is my beautywalk.

beautywalk is a special part of my ongoing efforts to reflect on the ins and outs of being a human being. My intention in opening myself up to you is to encourage you to do the same. It is our sameness that can bring us together and that holds the hope of a world with more love and less fear.

Toxin Free

I want to be toxin free.

This is why I continue on my journey of weaning off of Citalopram/Celexa even though I am finding this transition rather challenging.

I share this with you today in the hopes that some part of this will resonate with you; making your own “letting go” process just a little bit easier. As the number of milligrams of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) that I put into my body goes from 40 to 35 to 30 and now to 25, I find myself feeling a whole lot more of everything. There is an energetic fire storm going on inside of my body and my nerve endings are sparking at attention. I have all the feels, both in terms of what my body is experiencing and what my brain has to say about these experiences.

My first reaction is to look for sources of relief and support. I start by adding in supplements such as Vitamin D, Omega 3s and Floradix (a natural source of iron), to my diet. I schedule in 5 to 6 hours of yoga per week and I set time aside each day to write my morning pages, where I can get some of what I am feeling out on the page. I schedule two writing sessions a day to move forward on my book and I try to spend at least 40 minutes a day walking outside. After watching a Netflix documentary on the gut I adopt the practice of ABCs / “always be counting”, aiming for 20 to 30 different fruits and vegetables in my diet each week. I schedule visits with an osteopath, a podiatrist and a massage therapist to try to relieve some of the pain I am feeling in my right hip.?

This whole path of balance is short lived and I soon get worn down by the stress of feeling all the things I am feeling. I end up turning to the familiar numbing activities to give myself a break from the intensity of it all. This includes: drinking alcohol, smoking weed, eating junk food and spending way too much time on TV and scrolling Facebook and playing games on my phone. It would seem that I still have some things to work out as I dive more deeply into the weaning process.

There is a whole industry built upon our human need to go back to stasis; to the last place where we felt comfortable. Or better yet, the last time we felt complete. Billions of dollars are spent to numb our brains in search of relief from whatever we are trying to avoid thinking about.??

Booze Clues

I decided to make the numbing qualities of alcohol the point of departure for my coaching session with my dear friend and new coach, Fiji McAlpine . I wanted to delve more deeply into the practices and habits that will better serve me in my concerted efforts to replace the artificial serotonin in the little white pills with the serotonin that my body used to know how to produce, before perimenopause came and wreaked its hot and sweaty havoc.?

A note here that while I consumed way more than my fair share of booze in my first year University, proudly out drinking a guy nicknamed Psycho Tony who had built a wall in his room with his boxes of empties, I am not and have not been habitually what you would call a big drinker. I spent many years abstaining completely and then found the culture of the music industry just seemed to call for a little bit of social drinking to join into the ongoing party atmosphere. I can count on one hand the times I have been drunk in my adult years and friends comment when this occurs as it is an infrequent experience. My interest in bringing this up in my coaching session is to delve into the impacts that 1 or 2 beers a day has been having on me in the last month in Montreal. The real culprit here for me is the high sugar content and the way that consuming more glucose leads to me craving and consuming even more. I am finding that this new habit of drinking 1 beer a day is not serving me and is leading me to let go of my intention to treat my mind and my body in the best way I possibly can.?

Numbville

Fiji is, as usual, insightful and kind and provides a place of safety and calm where these and other questions can be pondered more deeply. She starts us off with a grounding exercise of being present in the body and connecting with the breath. Her years of teaching yoga contribute greatly to the level of peace and calm that she brings to the prompts and I find myself stilling in both mind and body.?

We chat about “the why” of the alcohol habit rising up again at this time in my life. We delve into the social pressures of drinking. I also realize that it has become a symbol of connection and celebration as I revel in being able to spend more time with my son who is studying here in Montreal. Having access to so many delicious juicy and hazy IPAs in Montreal makes me exclaim, “for the first time in my life I have found booze that tastes good to me”. I also have to admit that I may be sabotaging my desire to get off of this medication once and for all. After giving me a chance to complete my list of reasons why, she leans in and asks me, “Is there any other reason that you can think of that people drink alcohol?”

After a beat, she goes on to say, “When we are drinking alcohol it makes us feel less.” She pauses and adds “With this serotonin weaning process, your body is going - OMG, I am feeling more! In an effort to adjust to this new level of feeling, your body is looking for mechanisms to shut down that heightened response.” She adds with a sly smile, “You are a bold, creative woman who can do pretty much anything that she puts her mind to. When you are drinking, do you notice that it numbs what you are feeling when you are feeling it?”

My mind fills with yeses. Of course, this is what I have been doing. The intensity of delving into my past hurts at the same time as letting myself feel the whole of the world around me has me running to the safety of the numbing process again. In my time today with Fiji, I grasp that listening to my gut has two different meanings that both hold valuable insights for me. Whether it is in the sense of listening to my intuition or it is more about listening to the health of my gut bacteria, both of these practices offer valuable data to me on my journey towards my optimal life. I understand now the myriad of ways we can choose to numb ourselves when we are feeling too much and am able to recognize that my recent habit of drinking alcohol is one of the mechanisms that I have been using.?

Planting the Pillar and Whac-A-Mole

Fiji urges me to lean into the visual image of a pillar of strength that is planted in my gut. She describes it as “a 500 year old cedar tree, tall and strong and wide, the likes of which we saw in Hollyhock on our first meeting over 4 years ago”. My mind replies with an image of its own of an Arbutus tree, strong and open armed with its peeling bark revealing its smooth and tender heart beneath. She encourages me to, “Plant this pillar of strength in your gut and lean into it for strength and stability. Imagine you are planting it there and that it needs to be taken care of.” She points out that, “It is a symbiotic relationship and as much as the planting is going to serve you and give you strength, it will also require caretaking from you in return.”?

Fiji reminds me that we will keep coming back to our familiar anesthetizing practices, even when they are no longer serving us, until we are able to replace them with new habits that are more helpful and healthful. Her eyes sparkle as she mentions, “I am seeing a parallel here with your past life and how you allowed your life to change by letting go of your role and your home and your community.”And then again, “You are changing something by clearing out the medication and your brain is like “How do I get back to what I was feeling like before?”?

Next, she presents a very entertaining little visual. “When we are making our way on our journey and we get clear on where we want to go, there are going to be whac-a-moles that pop up.” She laughs and adds, “If there weren’t? any, we wouldn’t embrace our yeses as much.“ She takes great delight in making whack, whack, whack sound effects as she continues, “We have to wield the whac-a-mole hammer with everything we’ve got to get to our sense of “Yes, I do want to go in this direction, so those pesky moles are just going to have to get the hell out of my way.”?

We talk about the mix of hormones in our bodies and I marvel at how in the past I got myself off the adrenal train and now I was getting myself off of the artificial serotonin train. She asks me “Where did you end up when you jumped off the adrenalin train?” I interject to say, “Well, I didn’t exactly jump off, I was pushed! I ended up on the ground, wounded and scratched and after some healing time I realized that I was better suited to being on the ground instead of being put high above on some kind of idealistic and rickety pedestal.” Fiji smiles and shakes her head in response.

It is time to get myself to the ground again.?

A Devilish Bit of Hell

I tell her of the stories I have heard of others who have taken themselves off of the same medication. The stories of how hellish it is until their body adjusts back to its set point and takes care of producing the serotonin they need.?

Fiji gets quiet and says in a soft voice, “More important than your practices, is your experience of coming off of this, an experience that you acknowledge is for most people a devilish bit of hell.” She asks, “Have you ever been through hell before?” To which I respond, “Yes, of course I have.” She grins, “And, did you make it through to the other side?” To which I smile and reply, “Yes, of course I have.” She then adds, “Was it easy?”?

I don’t even need to answer this one out loud. We both already know that, even though it won’t be easy, I can do the same again and that this recent hell is just another way of delving into more of the depth of the strength that lives inside of me.

Fiji goes on, “You are writing the story of your first hell; you are recounting it, you are remembering it, re-membering literally means to put back together. You are reliving your hell right now for the purpose of documentation, which is important.” Her voice rising into a question mark she queries, “Is it possible that in order to tell your story authentically (writing your book), you are recreating it?

WTF! My interior voice goes blank for a moment. Holy shit, that rings true. As I purposefully excavate the emotions surrounding my terrible trouble with the Regina Folk Festival, I have recreated some of the intense emotions that I was feeling then. My purpose in doing this is to be able to connect on a deeper level with what all this felt like so that I might communicate my experience with clarity and focus and truth. If I am able to embrace the depth of what I am feeling I can use that to be more truthful and vulnerable in the writing of my story. The numbing has been my erroneous way of dealing with the excess emotion from past events. This realization leads me to declare, “Every time I feel something I should just go write it down. It is important that I use what I am feeling as a way of being more authentic in telling my story. It is essential that I feel it and express it and clarify it rather than trying to shut it down.”

Fiji then masterfully flows into a description of energy and starts by saying, “energy moves in one direction only and flows one way or the other way. It has to choose and then move the way it has chosen to move. When you start to feel emotions welling up you have a choice to consume or to create. Consuming means reaching out for something that will help to push the emotions back down (food, alcohol, weed, information) while creating means allowing the energy to flow out of you and transform into something new.”

AHA. Yes, I get it. And how mightily this links up with my recent focus on the gut and on getting the shit moving in there from inside to outside of my body. The work of my osteopath whose gentle touch cleared my guts of stored waste that has been stuck there a long time. And here is my coach guiding me to let the emotional shit flow out of me, metaphorically speaking, to get my story and experience and emotions out of me onto the page. I have been holding onto this waste for a long time and with the lengthy legal process I was forced to keep it hidden up inside of me for way too long.?

It is time to let it out and let it fertilize the next level of my growth cycle.

Gut Feelings

Fiji inquires, “How might you start to think about manufacturing your own serotonin?” She goes on to say that, (and this blows my mind),”serotonin is manufactured in the gut and not in the mind.” Mind blown. Seriously. Or should I say gut driven for more accuracy? It turns out that this latest cycle of growth is all about my gut bacteria and what I am feeding them and in what direction I am urging my energy to move. Either I consume and shove my emotions further down inside my gut or I create and I listen to what my emotions can teach me about myself and others.

Oh those miracle little bacteria that make up our microbiome. Fiji, who has much knowledge to share about the ways of the gut tells me, “that it only takes 72 hours of removing the things that are destroying our guts for these microscopic miracle workers to go and completely repair our microbiome.” This means, Fiji adds, “If you limit as many toxins as you can, eat as many plants as you can, up your intake of fermented foods, within 3 days your gut will start to repair itself.”?

I understand from her words and the depth beneath them that I can, literally and figuratively, allow my body to become a pharmacy as I focus on the soil and with it the clarity and the strength I have inside of me. By the end of the session I have committed to 72 hours of eating as little as I can of anything processed. I will take actual ingredients, organic where possible, including whole grains, a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, organic meats, honey as my only sweetener and I will stay away from booze and weed and dairy (as it brings inflammation).??

Getting to the YESES

I start off this session with the desire to move from a place of shouldn’ts and nos to wills and yeses. I end it with a sense of yes that is strong and that manifests in goose bumps that run from head to toe. I will give my body the best chance to rebuild the serotonin that has been medically replaced in my body for so many years by feeding it only the best things. I will support and serve my gut biome so it can serve me. I? will no longer numb during the process of writing my book and getting off my meds. I will be there for the process - attentive to the feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations and stalwart in my dedication to documenting it all.

I will make better choices for myself that will serve my clarity and focus as I move forward in my healing journey. I commit to sharing the steps with you in all my vulnerability so that you too are encouraged to return to the source of where your true strength and potential for growth lies. Together we will move forward towards the creative life rather than backwards towards the consumer life.?

May all beings be open and free and clear of mind and gut.

I am Sandra Butel and this is my beautywalk. What’s yours?

Resources for Further Study and Personal Growth

• I acknowledge that alcohol has a powerful addictive quality and that many people struggle to have it in their lives in even the smallest amounts. I count myself lucky that I, unlike some of my distant relatives, did not carry the genes or historical markers for alcoholism. It is a powerful and devastating disease and I have great hope that those who suffer from it will find the relief they so gallantly seek.
• I read a wonderful memoir a few years ago by Holly Whitaker called “Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol”, in which she outlines her own path to healing from alcohol addiction. Holly is a coach and the founder of the first female-focused recovery program that offers a groundbreaking look at alcohol and a radical new path to sobriety.
• I am here to listen and be open and to create a space where you can feel seen, heard and understood. If this sounds interesting to you please do not hesitate to reach out to chat about how we might best work together on making your life a little bit more the way you want it to be.
• My new program From Worry to Worthy offers you an opportunity to investigate your own internal experience of the negative voice inside your head and help you to find ways to connect to the deeper truths of your own heart. Check out the full program details and book your first free session with me to get started. Friends and Family discount applied to all newsletter subscribers and your friends and family too!
• If you are interested in signing up for TrustedHouseSitters you can get a 25% discount (as well as pass on 2 free months of membership to me in the process).