TGIF :: Awareness #4 (of 8): Of Course We Seek Relief
Weekly Drop || #14
On a walk in the woods near our home, just after his tenth birthday, Tenzin and I came upon a butterfly, a symbol we’d together determined over the years was a way my mom said hi to us from time to time.
“Mom, look, Januni is here.”
“She sure is.” I opened my hand upward beneath the space in which the butterfly danced, a gesture of holding without touching or scaring her. “Hi, Mom.”
We walked a few steps as I tried to imagine her with us, wishing I had memories of walking in nature with her as a kid. We didn’t really do that.
“She’d be so proud of you, Tenzin,” I said, “particularly of how gentle you are with nature, and the way you relate to dogs. She loved dogs. Cats, too, actually.”
“Thanks, Mom,” he said. “I’m happy you broke the chain. I think she’d be proud of you too.”
Perplexed, I paused and looked down at his open face absent of any tension or pinches, awash in the genuine conviction of a child for a point I didn’t yet understand.
“What chain, honey?”
“You broke the family tree, Mom. You changed the family chain of drinking, so none of us after you will have to do that.”
—Excerpt from the forthcoming The Canary
Exploring Why We Dim
The Fourth Awareness is about healing: I seek to understand my trauma, but I do not make it my identity. It is an invitation to examine the role any difficulty, pain, or discomfort has played in our use of dimmers (escapist use of intoxicants, work, spending, generosity, and more), followed by being intentional around how we allow this awareness impact our identity—or not.
I never considered myself an addict, but when my thirty-day alcohol free experiment evolved into an entire year “clear,” I couldn’t help but notice significant changes to my body, my habits, my perspective, and how I spent my time. The magnitude of these shifts made me wonder of I’d been entangled in more than a few years of “bad habits.”
In Contrast with the 12 Steps
Though I never officially joined Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), I attended a few meetings over the years, trying to better understand my relationship with alcohol. I also considered The Twelve Steps as a possible path to introspection and healing, tailoring them to my needs in a Google document (more on this in a future post).
In exploring the impact of our past experiences on our current behaviors, I found the AA approach of admitting “the nature of our wrongs,” requests of God to “remove all these defects of character” and “shortcomings” didn’t fit with my experience. If you’ve been reading for a while, you know that these departures led to the creation of The Eight Awarenesses. Unlike traditional approaches emphasizing powerlessness and surrender, this structure offers agency, choice, and freedom—particularly with regard to understanding the why underlying our behaviors.
Despite the depth of my research, reading, writing, and experimentation, I still had a lot of questions, so I sought out the support of an addiction-savvy therapist, Dr. Bill.
Shining a Compassionate Light
Among our intermittent sessions throughout 2018, Dr. Bill and I explored the meaning of words like “alcoholic,” “addict,” and “recovery”—terms I defiantly bristled at in trying to understand my own ClearLife journey. I defended myself from his comfortable sunlit office sofa: I’m different because I’d abstained from drinking without external support. I knew what an alcoholic looked like—my late mother with her frequent falls, severe nutrition deficiencies, and a mind twisted into a delusional maze corroded by vodka and prescription pain medicine—all defended by extreme denial. That wasn’t me. I was highly functional. I had a lovely family, a commendable career, a 401k, a vibrant social life, and I even hiked on weekends.
Yet, I wanted to better understand my evidently complicated relationship with alcohol, so Dr. Bill and I tackled the intricacies of terminology and addiction progression, themes I discuss in a previous Substack post: Addiction and Choice. Sensing my enduring frustrations with the AA framework and process which I’d continued to deny, Dr. Bill referred me to Dr. Gabor Maté’s work, specifically his In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, Close Encounters with Addiction book. It was among those pages where I found a new perspective that would serve as a cornerstone for my own ClearLife journey and work (summarized on his website):
“in reality there is only one addiction process, its core objective being the self-soothing of deep-seated fears and discomforts.”
This perspective made so much sense to me. So many of us fall into habits or abuse loops because we self-medicate with something that is addictive. But what gets us into these loops in the first place? Often, it’s an understandable pursuit of relief. This view inspired compassion over judgment, love over fear, understanding over dismissal—for myself and loved ones.
Inquiry & Identity
The Fourth Awareness invites us to explore whether there are pains, fears, or discomforts that underlie our inclination to dim ourselves. In understanding the “seed” of our behavior, we can better understand and evolve from it—or outgrow it altogether.
Everyone’s experience is different. For some the answers are immediate and unmistakable. For others it can take years to put the puzzle pieces together—but when we know we’ve unearthed something, we know. Once recognized, we have the opportunity to do the work to understand, heal, or accept—and then try to move forward, lighter.
Trauma & Compassionate Exploration
Trauma is a person’s emotional response to a distressing experience. Both the response and the experience are relative—the emotional response could range from minor to debilitating. Similarly, the distressing experience could be something severe like the unexpected loss of a loved one or something more common (but still severe-feeling), like childhood bullying or divorce. It is not our job to judge others’ trauma as “big” or “small” but rather to expect and understand that most of us live with some consequences of at least one distressing experience.
With this awareness in particular, we must be extremely fluid in our understanding and application. Enduring a trauma does not necessarily result in addiction and not all people suffering with addiction attribute it to trauma. There is no single way, answer, or approach to the compassionate self-inquiry encouraged by The Fourth Awareness.
A member of the ClearLife community recently shared her aversion to a “trauma” label for herself:
“For some of us, it’s just all in a day’s work to deal with the things that can happen in life, and we don’t view these things as “trauma.” I think that’s why some people might correctly bristle at being given a “survivor” title. A challenge happened, it was overcome—now, onward.” (6/5/2023, anonymous)
The Fourth Awareness provides an opportunity to explore whether we use dimmers to alleviate our fears or discomforts, regardless of whether we identify with a “trauma” experience or not. One way to go about this is using a method like Dr. Maté’s Compassionate Inquiry, but really this can be done in any way that works for you (see practices below for some ideas).
Identity & Victimhood
Part of The Fourth Awareness is the option to prevent our discoveries from becoming part of our identity. When we unearth whatever hurt or scared us and evaluate whether we are still reacting to that experience, we have an opportunity to let it “stick” to us or not. If we are fortunate, this is a choice.
Part of that discernment lies in how we relate to the difficulty or pain. We may need or want to feel like a victim “this terrible thing happened to me.” All too many of us have experienced hardship of some kind from circumstances beyond our control—infidelity, illness, poverty, miscarriage, job loss, rejection, physical injury, and so on. Wrapping ourselves in the often comforting cloak of victimhood can be soothing. It can also help us find community in people with similar experiences—or even grant us much needed permission to rest and heal.
The Fourth Awareness offers space to explore our fears and discomforts and then choose to “not carry” that weight any longer. This process can be immediate or or emerge gradually from years of careful, supported work.
“There is a fine balance between honoring the past and losing yourself in it.” – Eckhart Tolle
For example, I (immediately) choose to not call myself a “breast cancer survivor” because I wanted to put my surgery and radiation experience behind me as quickly as possible. Using such a label felt like reinforcing an identity I didn’t want to carry as I continued preventative treatment. However, for some, the value of community and reminder of resilience may have a similar, positive effect. Examining what it is that pains or scares us and then choosing to how we want to relate to it is essential.
My Story
Early in my ClearLife journey, I concluded that I had developed a habit of self-medicating with alcohol (among other less toxic habits) because (1) I was going through a difficult time in my marriage and career and (2) I’d simply been swept into the familial and social currents around daily drinking. As the months then years passed, I was also able to recognize how alcohol had eased social insecurities since I was a teenager, helped me feel confident in intimidating professional situations, and helped me live a safe distance from my authentic self—someone I didn’t trust.
At a certain point I wanted to understand more about our family system, dig deeper: Why did my mom tumble as she had from her prior healthier, happier self? Was I following in her footsteps? How could I ensure my story doesn’t mirror hers without allowing my life to just be One Big Fat Rebellion?
In taking time to examine my history, I identified the moment our family pivoted from a loving, healthy, and engaged unit to one crippled by shame, silence, and fear: It was the tragic and violent death of my beautiful and young teenage cousin when I was in fifth grade. It was then that we shut out the outside world and endured complex pain, loss, and disillusionment in silence. Of course my mother, the one who suffered the most, resorted to self-medication with whatever she could get her hands on to get through each day—for years.
The ripple effect of that event was more like a tidal wave, sparking divorces, cancers, and grave addictive behaviors. I will share more details in a future post, but the key here is that I was able to unearth the “seed” of our family’s suffering. From there the years of silence, self-medication, and survivalism in several forms made enormous sense. The outcome was a profound sense of empathy for myself and a deep, heart-wrenching compassion and love for my mother whom I’d practically despised for her weaknesses when she died in 2011. The ripple effect of this shift has been transformative.
Practices to Discover and Relate to Trauma
Writing about how to unearth and relate to pain is delicate. There is no single or correct way to do it and many of us will need support along the way. Nonetheless, I am inspired to share a few practices collected from the ClearLife community and my own journey:
Curious Self-Inquiry. Allow the space and time for introspection, examining when any escapist or dimming behaviors began. Consider the full arc of your life. Be kind with yourself. Can you identify an event, change, or experience that was difficult to feel? Once discovered, there is no to-do here, just allow yourself to sit with what you endured and hold space to discover and better understand the significance of that time. Allow the feelings to surface. This can be done alone or with the guidance and support of a trusted loved one or professional. Dr. Maté offers a beautiful process for this, Compassionate Inquiry.
Consider Gratitude. This is not for everyone, but some of us can convert resistance and self-soothing to heartfelt gratitude for what we went through. “I wouldn’t be the man I am today if I hadn’t gone through that pain,” a loved one shared recently. Another friend and reader shared beautifully:
“For me, trauma is elusive, along with my identity, when I’m in the flow. These negative experiences called trauma, including my breast cancer, have a way of creeping back into my consciousness at difficult times, and teaching me to expect more. If I give these challenges spaciousness and acknowledgement of their lessons, then a sense of peace with the pain seems their gift, and that I’m still alive!” - Lydia
Put The Weight Down. Sometimes we realize we’ve been “carrying” our difficulties around for years. They can be weighty, slowing us down or holding us back. If you have the capacity for visualization, consider going to a quiet and private place, ideally in nature, and envisioning what you “carry” as something heavy you’ve had in your backpack, trunk, or whatever metaphor works for you. Consider it as something you don’t need anymore and set it down. This approach is reminiscent of Mari Kondo’s Rule 3 on Discarding.
Breaking the Chain
When Tenzin, my now twelve year old, told me I’d broken “the family tree of drinking” I was flooded with emotions, but the primary one was relief. I am sure he will endure suffering—in fact he already has with the divorce of his parents and the complexities that come with that. But he is growing up with an awareness around not suppressing difficulty or fear. He knows that it is safe and important to feel and talk about what hurts or scares us, something our family seeks to model regularly. He’ll surely have other pains to endure and patterns to break in his life, but hopefully unconscious dimming or dulling of his magnificent little being, difficulties and all, won’t be one of them.
May we all know we have a choice to take on the important (and possibly challenging work) of finding this freedom—for our healing is never just for ourselves.
Onward, with Love. ❤️
Miscellaneous…
Still metabolizing… an enormously impactful five days on retreat in the woods amidst dear teachers and friends at Land of Medicine Buddha last week. The female force in this thread of practice and solitary time was mighty and timely.
A Cherry and a Pit of the Week…
Cherry: I am writing this from the west coast of Costa Rica where I’ll be for ten days. It is unstructured, unplanned time with my beloved and some dear friends. Grateful for the many stars that aligned to make this possible.
Pit: Like many parents, I worry about my kids when I’m away. The tension between loving attachment and giving them space for their own independent unfolding is deep and real… growth for us all.
Curious… Do you have comments, feedback, or questions for future posts? You can share below (preferred) or email me directly at cecilydeanemak@gmail.com. I am happy to designate anything as “anonymous” if asked and will adhere to your privacy request with rigor. ✨
I really enjoyed this one!