Living Elsewhere — MISSION: SELF-CARE
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Saturday, March 28 (Day 3) =>
“Addiction is a life lived elsewhere.” That one hit hard today. When we are afraid to live in our own bodies, to embrace our own emotions—whether pleasant or unpleasant, to live in the moment—whether a joyful one or a sorrowful one, to take responsibility for the consequences of our own choices—whether positive or negative…. then we are living elsewhere. And a compulsion to live elsewhere defines addiction.
Most of us are very familiar with addiction to “substances” – alcohol, drugs, caffeine, sugar, nicotine, food. But there are also “process addictions.” One category is “relationships.” And the other—the one that hit me between the eyes—is addiction to ACTIVITY. Keeping busy, throwing oneself into work, into volunteerism, into household chores—into controlling, managing, directing, demanding. Restless, uneasy, distracted, not present, always in motion, always “doing”…. unable to just “be.” That’s me.
A life lived elsewhere.
I don’t want it anymore. I’m learning to “come home” to my body. To be OK with feelings of distress or anxiety and not have to run from it. To just sit through it, name it, embrace it as part of me – not a flawed part, but a part of who I am as a whole person. I don’t have to keep it all together. I don’t have to say “I’m fine” when I’m not. I don’t have to just keep moving out of fear I will fall apart if the constant motion finally ceases. I don’t have to live elsewhere—in work, in chores, in busyness. I can live in this moment. I don’t have to run. I don’t have to hide. Jesus is here with me. He always has been–right here, in the here and now, with arms open and with healing love…..waiting for me to just be still and come home.
Sharlene Prinsen 