Quitting my “Quitter” label and learning to Trust myself…

As a kid, I was always a dreamer and a creative person.

I loved to act, to write poems, write stories, nurture wild dreams of my future, experiment with makeup and clothes…lip sync to songs in the mirror using a thing of Tickle deodorant as a mic.

Didn’t everyone who had a thing of Tickle use it as a mic at some point?

I mean…Tickle was built for it…

I believe I arrived here to earth this way so, of course, my creative heart carried over into my adult life but in my adult life, I was always drunk or hungover so the space to make anything become a reality was never there.

 When I tell you I was always drunk or hungover- it’s pretty true.

Drinking was my main activity, and the first drink of the day signaled the end to productivity for that day. This schedule left me starting a lot of creative projects and quitting just about all of them.

I never was a weekday day drinker.

I was a M thro F,  5:05p drinker.

I was a weekend, late afternoon drinker.

I was hungover every fucking day, to some degree.

All my life, I feel as though I’ve quit everything except drinking and having a good time.

“Quitter” is a label I struggle with letting go of.

 It’s well-established and I identify with it, wholly.

It started when I was a kid, under 10.

Quitting sports, jobs, college, classes, social commitments, creative projects, cities…

This “Quitter” label remains stubbornly attached and it has only been over this last year that I’ve been able to say it out loud…

“You think of yourself as a fucking Quitter.”

 I said it out loud not as a way to punish myself, but as a part of my process to let go of shame and let vulnerability and truth in.  

To finally say out loud that I identify myself as a “Quitter” is progress.  

 It means to me that I’ve taken a step to bring some of my shadowy shame shit out into the light for examination.

This is part of my recovery and my personal growth- the part that involves the taking off of all the masks and the costumes and the armor that I’ve been wearing my whole life.

 So, now I’ve named it and it’s up to me to change it.

And that involves uncovering the reasons, the circumstances & the events around why I allowed for that label to feel like home in the first place.

Honestly, I’m still looking at that.

That’s a foggy web that started in childhood (as shit tends to do) and I’m still piecing all of that together.

Sometimes it gets clear for two seconds and then it sinks back into an abyss of confusion and I can’t get the clarity back.

I’m staying tuned and will report back soon, I hope.

What I can see right now is that alcohol opened the doorway for my adult life to largely be a series of unfinished endeavors.

With ease and little notice.

When I would start to notice, I just drank.

Alcohol numbed, clouded and enveloped my brain.

Alcohol hid huge elements of myself from myself.

That I’m able to see this clearly today does not magically remove from my brain this “Quitter” label I’ve given myself.

So I guess, along with drinking and good-timin,’ I also never quit calling myself names and trying to extinguish my own soul’s fire.

Because I’ve practiced it for so, so long, “Quitter” is a go-to in my brain’s bag of shitty tricks.

It still pops up daily.

Daily.

The difference these days is that I catch myself when the name calling begins.

I actively work on it.

I call it out by noticing it.

I redirect and I change the subject-  over and over.

I think it could take years to UNlearn.

1368 days ago I had my last drink of alcohol and today I trust myself not to drink.

I don’t yet trust myself to not identify as a “Quitter.”

I mentioned it in my last blog post that 10 months ago the message, “Trust & Do,” had flashed in my brain.

The word, TRUST, keeps coming up for me lately.

Like, bigtime- showing up all over the place.

-I noticed “TRUST” written it in huge letters in a recent past journal entry.

 -TRUST was the first oracle card I drew from a spread I did several days ago.

-After I transcribed my recent session with the Medium, I saw that it was THE main message from my guides.

Trust. As in, I had none and need to start working on getting some.

I had no memory of that message while I was in the actual session, but there it was, when I went back and listened to the recording of that session for the first time yesterday.

 And another word that is showing up along with TRUST is PATIENCE. 

Patience also came up in that same oracle card spread

Patience was also a main theme in my session with the Medium.

On these two cards, TRUST and PATIENCE, you can see that the messaging on each references the other…

Yesterday, I sat down to meditate on those 2 words and got this flash message of words:

Listen Trust Courage Patience.

There’s a lot of creative energy flowing in me right now.

I’m being told to Listen.

Listen to my guides & my own intuition and Trust the messages I’m receiving.

I’m being told to have the Courage to take action, whatever it is.

Courage to take the human steps to begin bringing the things I want into my life.

I’m being told to have Patience.

After the seeds are planted, have Patience to stand by them and nurture them and give them space and allow those seeds to grow and blossom.

Keep watering.

Keep moving the dirt around.

Keep everything out in the sunlight.

 My intuition tells me that TRUST is the foundation for all of this.

 Listen Trust Courage Trust Patience Trust

Don’t quit when it gets uncomfortable.

Don’t quit because someone else doesn’t see the vision or value I see in my plan.

See what happens, where things lead.

Don’t quit.

This feels like 2022.

Any 2022 words or phrases coming up for you yet?