On Practice

I listen to far too many podcasts. I mean it, I listen to a truly ridiculous number of hours of people talking. They give me so many thoughts and ideas I want to share, but by the time I finish my walk or run or whatever it is I'm doing I have lost the words. Tonight I held onto a few however, so here goes. 

With the exception of a few truly fantastic bright spots, the last few weeks have been pretty unpleasant on this side of the blog. While I normally hold nothing back in regards to my own problems and issues, to go into any detail would involve divulging information about a variety of others and that is not fair to them. What I will say is that among all the mis-steps made, drama deepened, anger faced, hopes dashed, and doubts recalled a much worse thing happened: my childhood monsters came out to play.

I don't think I realized they were there until after they were gone, but the problem with childhood monsters is they cause reversion to childhood coping strategies. I was able to blend in some new strategies when I caught myself using the old, but it still felt like a tremendous backslide. The biggest one I lost my footing on is the healthy living stuff. I have been fighting to regain my progress over the last few months, so the backslide felt like an immense defeat. I was able to put it into perspective when I finally acknowledged the now retreating monsters, but it is still frustrating.

This is where the podcasts come in, though with a slight detour first. Earlier this year we had a speaker at work talk about addictions and learning. This speaker, who happens to be someone I know and adore, discussed the process of recovery including the time when the recoveree "practices" sobriety. I thought it was a great idea, that making changes requires us to practice the choices we want to make. If I have to practice to become a better musician or artist or teacher, really anything, of course I have to practice to build a better life. Then I promptly forgot about this idea. In the aftermath of my backslide however it came to mind as I listened to an Ideas podcast. A bit tangential how I got there from the content, but it clicked again.

Life isn't easy, and it isn't meant to be. It takes work to create the life you want. It takes practice. Instead of sitting and regretting the fact I don't have that life right now I need to just practice living it. Part of practice is it gives you the chance to fall down, to fail, and learn from it. And eventually that practice gets you where you want to be.

Tomorrow is a new day. And I plan to use it to practice. The question I have to ask myself when I get up in the morning now is: what kind of life am I going to practice today?