The "fuck-its"

Sitting quietly is a learned skill

Thanks for reading today. This post arose in my head as most do—out of a real and recent experience. The last couple of weeks have been a mixed bag of blessings and trials. How I perceive them—my frame of mind when outside influences and circumstances come crashing in—is what this essay is about. If you find peace in what I write, I’m grateful. If you find yourself struggling with solitude and the challenge of quiet and critical thinking, I’d love to hear your experiences in the comments below.

I have found that my writing here on “Of a Sober Mind” helps me quiet those thoughts. I find peace in putting the words in my head down on this page. I find comfort in reading the writing of others on the subject. In my own experience, this exercise of trying to sit quietly with myself is a learned skill. I’ve gotten better at it in my recovery. I still have to work at it diligently. Every day. Many times during a typical day. Sometimes five minutes will do the trick. Sometimes it takes longer.

We humans aren’t very good at it. Much of our discomfort arises from not being able to sit quietly alone in a room. Someone quite famous once wrote about “living lives of quiet desperation.” We want to be doing something—something to distract us from the monkey mind within us. From the pain of living. From the guilt and shame and unfulfilled expectations we set on ourselves or imposed by others. From our schedule. From our commitments, real or imagined.

The idea of “not doing anything” for a period of time is not something I was OK with—for a very long time. Constant motion was the cure. I felt compelled—was trained to—either run at something or run away from it. When those two solutions weren’t available—when I could not get away from the ME—I chose to cope in other ways. I self-medicated. How many times in your life have you said to yourself, “I just need to take the edge off. It’s the weekend! It’s a Monday! It’s just fucked and I need to not think about it anymore.”

The “fuck its” are a byproduct of this effort to cope with our own discomfort in unhealthy ways. They are also a symptom of further deepening dependence on that coping mechanism that we’ve chosen. Once you find that thing that works for you to take the edge off, you go back to it again and again. A happy hour drink after work that turns into 8. A glass of wine that turns into 2 bottles. The dessert you don’t need. The extra helping of whatever. The bag of potato chips at 10 pm on the couch. You know it’s not good for you. You also know that it works—that it brings relief. This is where “Fuck it” is most useful. It’s immediate. It lets you off the hook. It lets you indulge. The hell with the consequences. I’ll deal with them later. Right now—this works.

Early in my sobriety when someone with more time told me to just sit with myself and let the thoughts, urges, or cravings pass me by, I’d look at them like they had a second head or a third eye. “I don’t know how to do that,” I’d say. “But you do. You just aren’t very good at it.”

Much of recovery for me now lives in these moment-to-moment choices. Life is still coming at me full throttle. As I wrote about last week, we lost our water well. I also lost a close friend very quickly to pancreatic cancer. As I ruminated on the frustrations of the former, the latter made me realize the folly of my distress. There are always things in life that happen that can cause us anxiety—cause us to want to run or cope. When what we really need to do is sit quietly with our feelings. Feel the pain. Let the grief and anger and frustration wash over us. Process it. We have zero control over these events. We can only choose to act in a different way based upon our newfound wisdom and recovery.

Place is important in this process as well. Many of us have someplace special where we can go and just “be.” Is it the mountains? The shore? A patio spot? The garden? For me, I’ve gotten better at making quiet in many different places. Going 70 MPH on my motorcycle can bring that peace. Sitting at my kitchen table, meditating over morning coffee. Holding one of my dogs tightly in a hug until they can’t stand it. Sometimes just taking a walk will do the trick. I have learned to be in quiet even while I’m in a crowd of people. It takes practice but it does work.

For minds like mine, the alternative isn’t appealing anymore. Fuck it.