I decided to start this blog as a way to compile my thoughts on my growth and journey thus far in my continued effort to reach my dreams. I also hope it can inspire others, as well as myself, when I re-read it as I move forward and continue to glance back.
I'm not a very open person, and I won't get into why that came to be, but the last few years have had a monumental effect on me and I feel that "writing" it out can be extremely enlightening. So if you're interested, cool, read on. If you couldn't give two shits, also cool. Go eat a taco.
I guess my 'self work journey' unexpectedly started a few years back when I first watched "The Secret" and started to gain an interest in (my) our relationship to the universe. At the time I was still full time as a radio imaging producer, but had big dreams of being a full time voice actor and I set up the vision board and everything. (Believe or not, most of that stuff has since been checked off the list - faster than expected). My goals now are so huge I dare not say them out loud for fear of facing others limiting beliefs projected onto myself. After some heartbreaking experiences in the deaths of my mom, grams, and oldest brother all within the same short time period, I was still very focused on my success, so much so, I don't think any of them passing had a truly profound affect on me until much later. It's from those types of shitty experiences I discovered meditation and that's where my life really started to change. I started to see things in a way I never had before and really started to change as a person, all while passing the things I had learned on to those around me (still not knowing the "truth" of what I was experiencing). One pivotal day, I was sitting in my basement playing video games while drinking my 4th beer...by 2pm. At this time I was already working on my own from home, not to say that my drinking hadn't been a problem for me before that. It was like a light switch went off in my head...that I didn't know who I was or where I was or what I was doing...but it wasn't really me. I went on the internet and looked for a book that could help me stop drinking. It sounds odd, but I quit smoking 8 years before that exact same way...except it was a film adaptation of the book "Alan Carr's Easy Way To Quit Smoking". The book I found was called "Kick The Drink Easily" by Jason Vale. I called my wife and told her I needed some time to myself that night, and between 4pm and roughly 9pm I read that book front to cover. That was November 11th, 2018, and I haven't had a drink since that day. 3 Years this November...I think. I honestly don't keep track...I look at it as if that person wasn't really me...just some shell that was hiding the real me. Now...I get that some people struggle their whole life with alcoholism, and go to meetings and I get it, but I'm lucky to not have that desire to drink. It's simply gone - I don't drink. But you can...go for it. I still have fun with people that drink. It just doesn't work for me the way it does for you. I realized the alcohol wasn't the problem. It was a trauma that caused the drinking. Since that day, and around that time, I discovered meditation and it is really what changed my life. I realized I was hiding...for fear of being judged...for fear of being myself...for fear of not being liked...so in our strange human way I coped with it with addiction...something that I could cling to that I had control. I couldn't control how others hurt me but I could control how I hurt me. It could have just as easily have been food, sex, or expensive cars. Trauma is trauma. Now when I say trauma, I feel it's all relative. We all handle trauma in different ways and to different degrees. What could be an extreme trauma for you as a child might be an average Sunday for me, and vice versa. So there you have it. A backstory. This is who I used to be. Come back if you want to find out who I am now. Cause I'm so much more now.