Sad Eyes. Turn the other way.

Or music as a trigger.

You may relate.

It was going to be an evening I'd looked forward to. Maybe the husband and kids were gone and I was alone. Or maybe they went to bed early and I was more than prepared. Before I had kids, a husband, it was always a night that was followed by a day off, because I'd need it to recover.

I'd light candles. I'd have my journal and pens ready. I'd have multiple bottles of wine on hand, because one would have never been enough on these nights. And finally, the thing that would trigger the door to the portal, music. Stacks of records, to be specific, in order of intensity and carefully selected to carry out the job of taking me to a place that I thought I could not access without the candle/wine/music trifecta: that place was melancholy. It was the place I thought was the origin point for all good art. And maybe it sort-of worked, but of course we know how the story ends (spoiler: the alcohol component stunted the follow-through, every. time.) 

After I got sober and began the work of learning how to get there without alcohol, I wanted to share the message. It's why The Unruffled came to be born. Tammi and I have conducted countless interviews with creatives in recovery on The Unruffled Podcast, each story as proof that you don't need alcohol to be creatively abundant.

But what about the core of my behavior? What was that about? What I've learned is that those patterns of behavior were an attempt to stir my emotions. I credit my work with the Enneagram for helping me understand why I was using that as a "technique" for lack of knowledge of better ones. As a Type 7, I am mostly in a mind/body loop, emotions are not just hard to access, they are repressed. I have to do intentional work to "get there". 

So what tools do I use for that now? Well, lots but probably my most helpful is meditation (you knew I was going to say that). It is a means to my emotional center. Often in meditation, actual tears well in my eyes and sometimes it's sadness but more than that, it's awe. I also pull tarot cards and use their meaning as another way to trigger that portal. And wouldn't you know, music still works. Alcohol not necessary.

If you want help exploring the Enneagram as a tool for insight, help establishing practices that will bring out what center you repress (it could be mind/thinking or body/doing for you) and develop real tools to help you in recovery, I'd love to work with you. This link could be your portal to change your story. You just have to open it.