1%

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It’s day 3 of year 2024… so at some point during this 24 hours, 1% of this year will be completed. This means I will be 1% complete with my goal to be relapse-free for the year 2024.

Day 1 was easy. Surrounded by family, it was a really good day! Yesterday was emotionally difficult. I knew it was coming, and still it was hard. Still, it felt abrupt. The tears came, and I let them. This was different for me. I found myself wanting to compartmentalize the pain rather than surrender to it. I think I ended up doing some of both, but more of just allowing it than anything.

Historically, as a child I wasn’t allowed to feel sorrow, to experience grief, or to even be upset about something. My pain was always a trigger for my dad’s pain, and that was something he couldn’t tolerate. So, his response of my dad was to shut it down, whatever that might’ve required.

To this day, my dad he doesn’t deal well with emotional pain. Ironically, but not coincidentally, he is in physical pain 24/7! The body keeps the score. We cannot heal what we cannot (or will not) feel. He is becoming increasingly incapacitated by his pain.

This just gives me more motivation to keep working through the hard stuff. Noticing and allowing it. Connecting with others and writing about it – 1% at a time can become 100% in time!

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17 thoughts on “1%”

  1. “relapse-free for the year 2024” is an overwhelmingly daunting goal. I can manage one month at a time alright. But thinking about it as a 12 month goal feels huge. 😳

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  4. I love this idea of breaking a daunting goal into manageable steps! That reminds me of the show, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.” She said she could handle anything for ten seconds. Then, when those ten seconds were up, she started over again until another ten seconds had passed. Over time, those ten-second periods add up!
    Also, I know first-hand how much damage holding in your emotions can do to your physical health. I’m still learning to just sit with my emotions and feel them. Glad that you have learned that same lesson.

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  7. I practice mindfulness as best I can. I often use it with my kids. They could tell you, I’m sure. They are always in such a rush. Asking me what’s for breakfast tomorrow. Or at breakfast, asking me what’s for dinner. I always reply “are we there yet?” Or something of that nature. I tell them I want to be here in this moment, and we can think about those things when we get there. I hope it instills in them a sense of not looking too far ahead. You could try it as well. Guilt and regret are worry over the past. Anxiety is worry over the future. I am no expert, but I do know when I focus on being here instead of getting through, it changes my perspective.❤️

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    1. Yes! Thanks, Melissa! Practicing mindfulness and living in the moment is an integrating, regulating way of living. Definitely something I *am* practicing – with the mindset of gentleness and even playfulness towards self. I can learn from the past and have hopes or dreams for the future *while* practicing presence.

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      1. My migraines can see (?) the truth of it, as well. Somatic exercise is supposed to be helpful with “trauma stored in the body.” A brisk walk or run works, too, imo.

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