Dear wanderers, it is very easy to hide from the world while wandering. I failed to meditate when I needed to and it left me anxious and hiding. This is not how it should be, as a wanderer you may be aimless, and lost, but the goal is that you are moving, trying, discovering.

Yesterday ended very stressful for me, this led to a restless night’s sleep followed by a delayed awakening this morning. My give a Damn was broken, a term I have not felt the need to use in months. I was defeated by what I felt were my own failures, so I let that keep holding me back. I encourage you, when you feel self defeat, to use that as a rallying point to tackle the task at hand. Accept that you were not happy with your choice, and focus on learning to improve and no matter what continue moving forward. It took me a little while to reach that point today.

Often when I feel I’ve failed myself I take it out on myself. Thus creating more failures and adding to the painful list. It’s the mentality that if I am going to fail at life I better fail big. This is silly, because when the ultimate goal in life is happiness, why do we insist upon compiling a list of failures when there are already enough bumps in the road to happiness? Granted, not every person does this, but I know many who, like me, tend to make their own road bumpier.

So how do we not do this? I would suggest abstaining from the things that cause bumps in your life. Sometimes you find that once your are not practicing self mutilating actions that the world you reside in improves. You may get the occasional hunger for the dark and messy, but that momentary feeling will pass on with time, if you can just stand away from the temptation. The hunger for self made failures can be a hard one to get over.

I used to end my days with “I need a drink”. I think I always knew that was not a smart way to cope, but it felt easy. I had a hard time releasing control over my life sober, so when I felt like I had failed at work or at life and I needed the release of control, I turned to yet more failures and bad decisions. I felt like my actions with alcohol and men made me dark and twisty, that somehow that was an attractive life-giving trait. It wasn’t, it led to cold beds and morning headaches. It pulled the stress in to my life.

And you would think I would learn after it  caused bump after bump in the road, but I was full of excuses. “Jose” was at fault (my favorite liquor), not me, I was just along for the ride. So there I was, making deals with a demon that I wouldn’t end our relationship unless he broke the three rules, 1) no pregnancies 2) no prison 3) no near death or death. So with those three rules I gave in to the release of inhibition. I’ll tell you, he broke the rules. Despite this, I continued. I’d like to say it was because I didn’t know what else to do, but I think it was more because I got off on being dark and twisty. That was more my addiction than anything else. If I was dark and twisty it would make me more interesting, life would be more of an adrenaline rush.

Part of being dark and twisty had to do with under valuing myself, not providing self care, existing between sessions at the bar where I got my fix. It matched well with my PTS and MST symptoms. Life was becoming unmanageable, which I didn’t even realize at the time. When you have to drink and do things you are not proud of to feel alive, you are no longer managing life. You may be existing, compensating, just breathing, but life is not managed, and you are not living.

So my struggle was alcohol and temptation of companionship. This may not be your struggle, but I encourage you to step back and really reflect on your life. Can you make yourself feel better and allow yourself to find happiness with out needing to fill that “void”with something which deteriorates you? Does food draw you in, or the need to buy more and more? Are your computer and video games not just for fun, but a distraction away from this world? Or any other number of options…

I started off by talking about how today I avoided my responsibilities, because the idea of them has me stressed out. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but I sit here anxious anyway. I did not give in to my struggles, though I did find myself in bed all day, which was still running. Avoidance is not the answer with the day to day, or with the tools that you use to escape this life that you may or may not be managing.

So take away all the details of your life, step them from your mind, and ask yourself, without these things, do I love myself, respect myself, care for myself? Then in your mind add things back one by one and ask yourself those questions about each thing. If the answer is not yes, then try abstaining. In order to be successful, use your friends, family, tribe, let them support you in your actions. If they can’t, then let me help support you. You have the power to live your life, to make positive choices for yourself. Don’t go it alone.

Signing off Des Moines, IA