Patterns in Equanimity

Repetition and routine are saving graces for me. I could say that they are specifically beneficial for a person with mental illness, or even everybody. Still, what I truly know, is my own experience, and I know that we all are unique in this world. I have routines around exercise, making my bed, what music I listen to, and even writing this blog which I try to do every 7-10 days. All of the practices which I choose to orient my life around, help me find and ground myself in a reality that is balanced and healthy. I also have routines around laundry, cleaning up the yard, cleaning, and going to support meetings or calling friends. For me, regularity and repetition help greatly.

Luckily, as I crest the forty mark and move further into the fourth decade of my life, I get to let go of expectations that I had around appearances, adventuring, working and socializing. I now mostly socialize with my family and fellow alcoholics. I have made peace with my plus size curves and enormous breasts. I have embraced a simple life where I focus on routine. I don’t plan to travel, return to school, or find work as many people are doing post pandemic 2021. And I am happy about this. I am grateful for all of the comfort that I experience in this simple life, and I am leaning into these behavioral constructs. 

Our little family has shrunk by two members over this last year. We lost my big black cat and my large black lab. Both were suffering in their last moments, so I am glad they are at peace. But it is simpler now with just one dog and one cat. There have been times when I have had three dogs or three cats, and we often have been surrounded by roommates’ dogs. It definitely feels like an ending, and I am more intentional about my interactions with my two living animals. I don’t want them to feel ignored or get lonely. We all feel the absence of Ton-Ton and Bruce the dog. When one is honed in the way that I am on the simplicity of living in a small home and loving our pets very much, their leaving is hugely noticed. The animals were a part of my routines, and these routines have been adjusted with their passing. 

Adapting to loss requires being able to accept change. It requires flexibility and a spiritual practice. We don’t want to get stuck in routine, so that we cannot adapt to change. I reach to stay deeply routed in the moment within my routines. Truly, we must accept one day at a time, and I am able to do this now. Routine, or repeating things that I do daily or throughout the week, allows me to feel comfort within a structured life and environment. Routine can offer this stability. It must not be used as a crutch, however. That being said, why are repetition or patterns so comforting to me? I suppose that I need a constant when my mind and reality can be challenged and ungrounded. Having experienced recent episodes in 2018, 2019 and the beginning of 2021, I desperately need something regular to return to. I am also learning to live sober, and this involves looking at and addressing difficult emotions. This is a huge move up in the world for me; before I mostly experienced mental health symptoms. Now, when I am stable on my medication, I am able to work through my “stuff”, and lean into a spiritual program. I never realized how quitting drinking would change my life forever. I have been in the process of becoming sober for four years now, have indulged scantily in that time period, and now I take recovery very seriously. It took help for me to make it stick.

Sober living is very much like learning to live with mental illness. I am versed in what it takes to be on a spiritual path of recovery. Now, I am tuning in even better, and am removing the coping mechanism of alcohol. I never realized how this prevented improvement in my life living with mental illness. It seems obvious now, but it was not always. I never really thought about it much. I just drank. Now I don’t. Drinking can become a dependent routine, and an unhealthy one at that. I am grateful now to have healthy routine in my life, as well as flexibility to the constructs of change. Obviously, nothing is certain in this life. Gratitude keeps me in the present, and taking everyday in with awe. When at a loss, I return to the constant things that I can find, and they bring me comfort. Balance; it always comes down to a balancing act in this life. I suppose the routines that I have, help me greatly with achieving true equanimity.