I redefine showing up

Whenever I think of Glennon Doyle’s earlier work, these words echo between my ears, “Just show up, Glennon. All you have to do is show up and do the next right thing.”

For most of my life, I thought showing up meant never leaving the house without makeup or clean hair. Putting together the perfect outfit, as part of my morning routine, was a dramatic hurricane of emotions, negative self-talk, and flying clothes. When I finally did leave the house, I never forgot to plaster on a bubbly fake smile because I believed niceness was the path to belonging. I thought showing up meant having a full social calendar and a perfectly Instagram-able life.

I thought doing the next right thing meant finishing college and landing a full time, salary, casual-jean-Friday-type job. I thought doing the next right thing meant striving for an expensive fairytale wedding, buying a house, and popping out a few babies all before the age of 30 (none of which happened, btw).

All of my next right things were based on cookie cutter societal norms. It seems like, somewhere along the way, society taught me that showing up meant masking, dulling, and suppressing my truest self in an effort to gain external validation.

Now, in an effort to maintain sobriety and fight off emotional meltdowns, I decided to redefine showing up by adding some self-compassion. My therapist encouraged me to list 3-5 ways I can show up for myself by using self-compassion each morning. 

Today’s list says:

1. Pay off an overdue bill

2. Listen to my favorite podcast while coloring

3. Eat an extra helping at dinner (I have been working to gain some healthy curves)

4. Take a long nature walk with my dog

Past showing up for myself lists include things like: limiting news, social media, caffeine, and marijuana consumption, consistent sleep hygiene, being honest with my therapist, budgeting, hydrating, Tempest calls, videos, and community, doing laundry and the dishes, setting boundaries, engaging in creativity, taking vitamins, having tough conversations, scheduling quiet time, cheering myself on, practicing Hygge, welcoming all emotions, and wearing comfy clothes.

While Glennon is right about showing up and doing the next right thing, in order to maintain my own sobriety, I need to make sure I am not showing up for external validation. Now I understand showing up, especially during recovery, is actually about finding ways to incorporate self-compassion into the chaos of my everyday life.

I redefine showing up.

I am worthy of rest

Hi, my name is Kelsi and I’m an extreme napper. Yesterday I had the luxury of taking 3 naps. It was incredible. Admittingly though, I feel guilty saying that out loud. It can feel like such an indulgence to nap while tired. My question is: Why?

My extreme napping skills were passed down from my dad. When I was a kid, he would nap during the day whenever he got the chance. My mom, on the other hand, would huff and puff and loudly tidy up the house because she didn’t understand how someone could rest during the middle of the damn day. According to my mom, productivity equaled worthiness.

When I was in college I’d attempt 17 or 18 credit semesters, while working 30 hours a week (and mastering my car napping skills) because I thought that’s how it worked. My best friend at the time, who graduated with honors and a full time job, also believed there was a direct correlation between her daily output and her self-esteem. 

Endless work + minimal rest = success. 

It seemed like a simple enough formula.

Every time I went to rehab, our schedules were filled from 7am until 9pm with group therapy, meetings, meals, crafting, trips to the gym or library; anything to occupy our addict brains. We definitely weren’t worthy of naps.

Now, with the help of a therapist, and after experiencing lockdown, I am learning how important rest actually is. As an introvert and easily over-stimulated human, rest is essential to my overall wellbeing and general functioning. I was exhausted for 20 years. It makes sense that I used alcohol, or anything I could get my hands on, in order to survive the day.

In my perfect world, naps would be a requirement for sobriety. As Glennon Doyle would say, we become like exposed nerves when we get sober. Everything is hard and everything is emotional. Everything is changing and everything is surfacing. Here’s a radical thought - maybe rest actually helps us feel better.

Let’s create a new formula and ditch the shame, shall we?

Endless work + minimal rest = torture, self-abuse, emotional instability, addiction

Meaningful work + prioritizing consistent rest = self-compassion, space for healing, potentially fewer emotional meltdowns at the grocery store

I took three naps yesterday and that’s okay. I am worthy of rest.

I seek compassion for myself and others

Last week an old friend, who I haven’t spoken to in about six years, showed up on my caller ID. Thinking it was a butt dial, I let it go to voicemail. When I called her back, she was hysterical. Turns out, her husband had been arrested for his second DUI, just three weeks after their first child was born.

My friend said she was ready to bail on the marriage; take the baby and run. Picking her husband up from jail, with their newborn in the backseat, was not her idea of acceptable. She wanted to send him away and cut ties forever.

Our conversation brought me back to the day my mom picked me up from jail, after my second DUI, just five days after I had completed rehab. I bet my mom hysterically called someone, too.

Honestly, if I didn’t have my own DUI history, I probably would have encouraged my friend to get out and protect her own wellbeing. But in my experience, when people shut me out, called me crazy, and left me in exile, it only made the drinking worse. It only reinforced and increased the shame I was already drinking to cover up.

I told my friend people don’t get DUIs out of choice or because they are lacking a moral compass. People get DUIs because they are in PAIN. And there is nothing worse than being shunned and judged and criminalized for that pain.

The people in our lives who are “acting out” the most, are the ones who need us most. If you woke up hungover this morning, I see you, I feel you, I love you. You will always have a friend in me.

While that phone call left me feeling heavy, it also broke me open with compassion. Maybe, if I can show others compassion after their darkest moments, I can also start to do the same for myself after a decade of shameful drunken behavior. We are all in this together.

I seek compassion for myself and others.

I play the tape through

This morning in the shower, while washing my hair for the first time this week, I was suddenly hit with the desire to crack open an ice cold alcoholic beverage. My mind took me for a trip down the alcohol-brings-joy-and-comfortable-numbness road. Several months into sobriety and I still experience craving thoughts like these on a regular basis.

Typically, I would beat myself up for even having these thoughts. But lately, instead, I have been attempting to lean into these cravings with curiosity and compassion. There must be a reason why the thought of getting buzzed has the power to erase the memory of my last four-day hangover.

Looking back, I notice alcohol has been a part of my life since I was in the womb. “Alcoholism” runs on both sides of my extended family. Plus, my parents are high-functioning daily drinkers. There was always a box of wine and a few beers in my childhood refrigerator. In many ways, alcohol provided a sense of belonging among my family. It makes sense that alcohol became a big part of my life — no need to beat myself up.

Although I struggled with 12-step based rehab programs, one positive that came from those rooms, is the idea of playing the tape through when urges hit. While sitting with seemingly impossible cravings to drink, it helps to take a walk down memory lane.

It helps to remember the crazy shit I drunkenly posted on social media and the nonsensical texts I sent my friends. I remember those first few hours after waking up from a blackout, when alcohol becomes a stimulant, and my mind races. I remember the self-hatred, the brain fog, and the puking in a trash can next to my bed. I remember the night sweats and the frightened look on my dog’s face. I remember the two mornings I woke up in a jail cell after drinking and driving. I remember the alcohol-detecting ankle tether I wore for six months. I remember all the jobs I have lost and all the people I have hurt. I remember it all.

No matter where I am on my recovery journey, I still face cravings and triggers. Drinking often sounds enticing in the moment, but when I pause and play the tape through the next 24 hours, I create space for a longer term sense of gratification.

Do I really want to put myself through all that again? 

Is it really worth it?

I play the tape through.

I create my own magic

At the time of my birth, my dad was employed by the Chicago White Sox and my mom was a competitive triathlete. My childhood was kind of like The Sandlot. We came home to an endless game of catch in the backyard and hot dogs on the grill. 

Year-round, with the exception of one week during the summer, our calendar was jam-packed with travel sports and expectations of excellence. But I always knew when my Aunt Kathy pulled up in her Mercury Cougar, it was time for seven heavenly days at what I called Camp Bladow (her last name).

Rather than hanging at the ball field, days were spent imagining and creating with my brilliant Bladow cousins. After a dip in the pool, we’d turn our towels into fashion, and strut down the back deck catwalk. We’d camp out in the basement writing and developing skits to perform. At night we were free to catch fireflies and pretend to be fairies in the forest. It was mystical and magical and the complete opposite of my rigid life.

The drive home after a week of Camp Bladow always left me feeling blue. As a kid, it was confusing to not feel connected to the Sporty Spice childhood my parents had provided. Now, twenty five years later, I can recognize that icky emotion as shame for being different. Shame so unbearable it led to five arrests, five rehabs, and two hospitalizations all before my 31st birthday.

The key to sobriety, for me, is about honoring that girl from Camp Bladow. It’s about turning off those impossible, self-made expectations and finding myself by cranking up the creativity. It’s about closing my eyes, breathing deeply, tuning in with myself, and brain dumping with glitter and vibrant colors. This is where my truth lives.

Camp Bladow taught me how to create my own magic with my own imagination. It taught me that magical places reside within me, not outside of me. Best of all, my magic is always there waiting for me when I’m ready to welcome it home.

I create my own magic.

I am worthy of forgiveness right now

One of the most harmful things I was repeatedly taught before joining Tempest was, “Your apology doesn’t mean shit until you get some sober time.” Meaning, I wasn’t deserving of forgiveness until I was, say, six months sober or had completed inventory and step whatever.

At that time I couldn’t get more than 72 consecutive hours of sobriety. Let alone sit with my shame long enough to construct a list of my defects, plus reminisce about every single person I’d hurt while drunk. This way of thinking made me wonder if I would ever be worthy of forgiveness, or anything good in life for that matter.

Luckily, about a year before I joined Tempest, I unexpectedly brought home a 14-pound havapoo dog named Teddy. Those first twelve months together were rough. But he was always there, nuzzled up with his neck on mine, when I woke up from a drinking blackout. He was always there to comfort me. Ted’s sweet little face taught me about a type of forgiveness that I can only describe as unconditional.

His forgiveness was not dependent on sobriety time. His love for me right now is exactly the same as it was on my seemingly endless streak of Day Ones.

Maybe there’s a way to reframe this, “I’m not worthy of shit until I get sober” idea. Maybe it’s okay for my loved ones to have their own (healthy) boundaries while I am using. That makes sense. I am not myself (I am a lying, stealing, unconscious human being) while using.

When I am ready to come back, on my own terms, when I have looked at my past with a less shameful, more compassionate eye, and welcomed a bit of self-forgiveness, then those who are on my team will be there whistling from the bleachers. Or welcoming me with the warmest bear hug.

Forgiveness has to come from within. I am worthy of forgiveness right now. And, in my experience, it doesn’t hurt to have a 14-pound havapoo dog named Ted to remind me of my worthiness every single morning.

Sending slobbery kisses,

Kelsi + Teddy = Telsi

(she/her + he/him) = <3

I create space to fill my summer with joy

One of my favorite sobriety practices is a sunrise walk with my dog. Teddy and I live in a touristy town, and last night was the final firework show of the Dog Bowl Festival. Thousands of people and their furry friends gather for competitive events, hot air balloons, live music, and food trucks. As a dog lover, I anticipate this kick-off to summer every year.

However, today on our sunrise walk downtown, Ted and I found more than a dozen semi-full beer cans and mini wine bottles left behind from the night before. Our sacred morning (walking) meditation spot was trashed. I was struck by the urge to chug a few and catch a buzz before my coffee. No one would see me. Feeling triggered as hell, I cried the entire fifteen minute walk home.

Summer, for me, triggers more glorified drinking memories than any other season. Everything we love about summer — weddings, graduation, barbecues, slowpitch softball, boating, bonfires, festivals, concerts — are all accessorized with a red solo cup.

My post-festival morning walk was a reminder that this will be my first attempt at an alcohol-free summer in over a decade. I could feel some serious FOMO surfacing. Sometimes not drinking makes me feel like an outsider.

But, since ditching alcohol several months ago, I can see my hard work paying off. In an effort to fill my summer without wine, I built a cozy twinkle-light-lit balcony garden and have become a devoted plant mom. I am brewing my own fancy iced teas. Ted and I have discovered three new walking trails. My brain is less foggy. And as a special sobriety gift, I splurged on the new Taylor Swift vinyl for my record player.

The point is, by removing alcohol, I have created space to fill my life with things that I love. Drinking alcohol causes us to miss out. Not the other way around.

I am bringing my voice along for the ride

Over the past eight days, my job, city, and closest relationship have been flipped upside down. I am ending one chapter, and opening new doors. This is the space where paralyzing anxiety lives, and dreams are born. While packing my things, I’ve been given time to reflect on the apartment that brought me into sobriety and the lessons I’d like to bring from this place to the next.

When I first moved here for a new job, it only took about three weeks before I was drinking prior to clocking in. After one of my worst episodes, I woke up to find a hole I had ragingly punched through my bedroom door.

Those incidents led me to find a therapist. Together, we uncovered the main reason I have used eating disordered behaviors and binge drinking to cope, is because I didn’t feel like I could use my voice. I felt like I had to physically prove my struggle to the world. For more than a decade, I thought if I got thin or sick enough, someone would come to my rescue. But that never happened.

Before I moved here, I was still using my body and blackout drinking to tell my story. I was physically abusing myself because I never learned to speak up while experiencing pain.

After nearly 15 years of this self-made abuse, I am slowly relearning the importance of kindness. A type of kindness that, for me, is only experienced while using my own voice. When I take the time to honor and heal myself, my ability to show up and speak up multiplies.

It is impossible to say what the future holds. All I know for sure is, the upcoming weeks will be difficult and messy. Moving sucks. This is a massive change. I will have triggers and probably cry twice a day. However, one comforting promise I can make myself is to bring my voice, rather than the abuse, along for the ride.

I have the power to rewrite my story

A few years ago while finishing school, I took an adolescent psychology class. I almost fell out of my chair while reading about a theory stating that kids develop an ideal self and a feared self. I took a screenshot of it on my phone:

“The ideal self is the person an adolescent would like to be (for example: an adolescent may have an ideal of becoming highly popular with peers or highly successful in athletics or music). The feared self is the person the adolescent imagines it is possible to become but dreads becoming (for example: an adolescent might fear becoming an alcoholic, or fear becoming like a disgraced friend or relative).” 

At that time I was showing up to morning classes hungover and bringing a tumbler filled with Pinot Grigio to evening classes. I kept telling myself I’d get my shit together at the end of the semester. And there it was written in scholarly black and white; proof I became the person children fear. 

A few months later, after spending an entire semester drunk, I went to rehab for the first time. Then, five days after being discharged, and on my way home from an AA meeting, I got my second DUI. Now my criminal record was filled with more black and white proof I should be feared. 

For a very long time it felt like the universe was saying there was something wrong with me. I was the one who needed to be sent away and monitored 24/7. I was the one who could not handle life. 

My relationship with alcohol didn’t change until I realized I have the power to rewrite that, “Hi my name is Kelsi, and I should be feared” story. That story is what kept me entangled in addictive patterns for over a decade. It helped to welcome all parts of myself, rather than emphasizing my perceived weakness.

Now, after months of filling my life with Tempest material and brightly colored pens, I have rewritten the story in my head. It goes like this:

“My name is Kelsi and I am not afraid of myself. Sure, I’m awkward, emotional, quiet, and often overstimulated, but I’m also kind, creative, intelligent, and loved. I am someone who courageously and imperfectly challenges society’s view of what it means to struggle with alcohol.”

I have the power to rewrite my story.

I am free to bloom

 Whenever I woke up from a drinking black out, usually around 4 a.m., I would think, “I wish I could crawl into a hole and die.” A few hours later, I would force myself out of bed for a cigarette and shower in the dark. That was my morning ritual for years. 

Maybe I did crawl into that hole for a while. I tried to make it my permanent address because that felt way easier than being with myself through the pain. Eventually, though, I wanted out. 

Years before my sobriety began to stick, I attempted different routines and planted various seeds to aid my recovery. I tried rehab, meetings, halfway houses, several antidepressants and vivitrol, drinking herbal tea, getting a dog, studying Brene, Glennon, and Oprah, writing my own blog, and countless therapists. 

One ritual that really stuck was reading a book of poetry before bed called All Along You Were Blooming by Morgan Harper Nichols. Here is one of my favorite pieces: 

"The sight of old photographs 

sends a sharp pain up your spine. 

The days are not going to look the same 

from this day forward, 

but you will move forward, 

for all you have endured, 

you have blossomed. 

Which was possible only by the rain. 

And perhaps this is your becoming, 

your unfolding into a grace-filled bloom."

Her words reminded me that I was free to bloom, even while buried in that hole I had created. I was still free to dig myself out of the dirt and grow with the sunrise. Now, after a few months of hangover-free mornings and witnessing the perennials fill my life with vibrant color after a long winter, I can feel myself blooming, too.

 Things got dark.

That’s okay. 

 I am free to bloom.

Fifth Time's A Charm

Today was the first day of my last semester of undergrad. For most people that is a pretty exciting day as they wrap up their four year degree and think about finding a full time job or continuing onto graduate school. It's a relatively straight line from point A to point B; graduate high school, pick a four year university, follow a schedule, and graduate. For me, the final semester of my undergrad is a serious milestone. It has been the farthest thing from a straight line. It has been messy, and sometimes cruel.

#firstdayselfie #nerdstatus

My college road map has looked something like this:

I graduated high school in 2006 and went to Central Michigan University without a clue what I wanted to study. Everyone else was going to college, so I thought it made sense to follow suit. Maybe it was the pressure to succeed or the fear of not knowing what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, but these were the years when my eating disorder really took hold of my life. So, naturally, for my first attempt at college, I decided on dietetics as a major because I thought it could "fix" my messed up relationship with food. 

Didn't work. Imagine that.

After two semesters I was placed on academic probation for poor grades and after three I had officially failed out. I didn't tell anyone about this at the time, but I remember finding an empty parking lot and sitting in my car for hours because I was too paralyzed with anxiety to go to class. I was living with my parents at the time and didn't want them to get suspicious about my lack of attendance. 

The next semester I worked a part time job and did not go to school. In fall of 2008, I went back to school for the second time and took two classes at a local community college. I don't think I passed either one. School didn't seem important to me. All it did was cripple me with anxiety and make me feel dumb.

On a whim in 2009, I decided to apply to culinary school and got in. It didn't feel like I had any other choice. No other schools would accept my failing status. To make things worse, my eating disorder had made me so obsessed with food that in my sick mind it made sense to study it. This was now the thrid time I attempted school. Somehow I managed to make some really good friends, do quite well in my classes, landed a dream internship in Aspen, CO, and had a full time job right after graduation. The future seemed bright.

However, a bright future can only last so long when your entire life is engulfed in eating disorder behaviors and now drinking alcohol excessively. In 2012 I got my first DUI, was admitted to a psych ward, and spent four months in a residential eating disorder facility in Ohio. Apparently culinary school was not the best fit for me. 

After gaining fifty pounds, sobering up, and getting my life on track, I went back to school for the fourth time in 2013. This time I decided social work would be a better fit. I was on schedule to graduate in 2016, but ended up getting my second DUI and going to three different rehab facilities during my senior year instead. I was so caught up in making other people happy and adhering to the stereotype life had given me, that I had completely lost myself in the process. My shame was so heavy that it kept me from thinking clearly.

Last fall (2017), for the fifth and final time, I landed back in school with a plan to switch my major to sociology and graduate in the spring of 2018. And here we are. I told you it has been a complicated journey. I can't even count how many times I thought college just wasn't meant for me; that I wasn't smart or capable enough. That other people must not experience this same anxiety or fear of the future.

Today people ask what my post-graduation plans are, and after twelve years I remain unsure. The difference between this fifth attempt at school and the previous four, is that I have finally accepted that it is okay to not know. It is okay to feel lost and afraid of the future. It's okay to not fit the "social norm." My anxiety and shame are still there, but I don't feel the need to run away from it or cover it up with unhealthy behaviors. I have the opportunity to face it every single time I decide to show up for class, and each time it gets a little easier.

Most importantly, I have finally realized I am not the only one who feels this way. In fact, there might be more of us who struggle with this than not. I don't know about you, but anytime life gives me five chances to get something right I feel pretty damn lucky. Opportunities will always present themselves, we just have to be brave enough to reach out and grab them.

Progress.