Presence Over Restrictions For Resolutions

The New Year inevitably brings with it resolutions. Maybe you pledged to lose weight, stop smoking, stop using your phone so much, and be a “new you.” Or, you’ve tried resolutions in the past, and they haven’t worked, or maybe you’re sick of hearing about everyone else’s! 

The funny thing is that the thing you want to stop doing is and isn’t the problem. The issue is that the act of numbing or medicating with things like overeating or smoking really works by releasing some feel good chemicals in your brain, and so your brain learns that this feels good, sitting through discomfort feels bad, and things like smoking, shopping, scrolling on the phone, avoiding starts to feel compulsive and out of control.

What do I mean by medicating? Simply put meditating is anything we do to take us out of the present moment. Common medicators including shopping, scrolling on your phone, porn, alcohol and any drugs, smoking, always being busy (cleaning, tidying, worrying, doing 10 things at once), and exercise. Some of these are healthy outlets but become unhealthy when they are done to avoid real life. 

I lost my Dad this year in the middle of a pandemic- it was a hard year. And upon reflection I can trace back my use of shopping and snacking to help comfort and distract me. A perfectly fine New Year’s goal could be cutting down on snacking or reeling in my spending, but I am a pretty resourceful person, and I am 100% sure I would find something else to numb or medicate with. My goal instead this time around is to be fully, probably somewhat uncomfortably, present. 

To be fully present is an allowance of all that is without reacting impulsively to fix or mute what is happening for me. To sit with, tolerate, to feel and allow rather than immediately reacting, ignoring, stuffing, and trying to fix.

To remember and understand that emotions pass, and pushing them down typically results in getting me so much further from the places I want to be. To keep in mind that use of medicators is a short term gain of reducing my discomfort, with longer term consequences.  

What brings you discomfort? Is it stress, anxiety over the future, loneliness, conflict with your partner, your body image, your drinking, financial issues? And, what are your fixers and meditators? And how can you practice the art of non-reactivity this New Year? 

 Painfully, beautifully present,

 Jessica, LCSW, LCAS