My Two Best Friends

I believed my two best friends.

Some years ago in my late teens, I started my journey with my two best friends.

Who were they?

They were cigarettes and alcohol. I believed these two friends gave me confidence; they made me cool when I was with them. I fitted in nicely with my other peers, some of them had similar friends and some had friends I was not allowed to meet.

When I was with them I was in control, funny, witty and definitely prettier than without them. I knew this because the mirror never lies. I was so popular.

Over time, I found more and more I didn’t want to be without them.

I believed I was lonely, depressed, and sad and obviously no one understood my problems, least of all me.

Every week, sometimes more often, I had a cigarette and a glass of whiskey, just the one, before I went out and had some fun. After all, I was the ultimate party girl. It’s who I believed I was. I truly felt that, and as true friends started to question my drinking habits, I just replied, “There’s nothing wrong with enjoying a drink,” or, “I am not an alcoholic, the old guy on the stool over there is, I just like a drink.”

Total denial

Even when I was taking wine into work in a Tupperware cup and topping up at the pub next door, I believed it was because my manager was making things very difficult for me. This was after she found out I was earning money more than she was. Well, I needed to; I had a lifestyle I had committed to. Obviously, it was all her fault, her behaviour made me drink. This behaviour continued into my forties when my husband and I had a break in our marriage, which is when I learnt to be with myself.

Living magically

When I was 35, a client gave me a book called “Living Magically” by Gil Edwards. This book was the beginning of a new journey and a new story.

I realised after reading it that no one was responsible for making me unhappy, only me. It wasn’t my husband’s fault, it wasn’t any of my bosses or work colleagues, not the government or my neighbours.

It was mine.

However, I didn’t know how I could change this. What I was supposed to do?

So I continued my journey. With my two besties by my side. I believed I could give them up anytime I wanted and actually the evidence was that I could. When I was pregnant, I no longer needed them, my body just rejected them for some of the time. They were my friends and always stood by me when the chips were down. And they often were down. They were my choice and no-one was going to tell me any different.

I read Louise Hay, “You Can Heal Your Life.” Next came, “The Celestine Prophecy.” I cut my finger on the pages so thought it was a sign to buy. It blew me away and explained everything so clearly. Then I moved onto Susan Jeffers, Esther Hicks, Rhonda Byrne and many others.

What was I searching for?

Why am I here? What is my life purpose? Where am I going? Where have I been?

I didn’t know. What I did know, though, as I suspect many of you do too, was that I wanted to be happy, happy in myself, with myself. I wanted to experience and really feel that peace and calm in my heart spreading out throughout my whole being.

What was stoppping me?

I have come to the realisation that all of this was just an illusion, a picture I was painting, a story I was repeating in my head. I was creating a “poor me” landscape.

Why?

Well after the first book I read, I had another huge realisation!

If everything was rosy in my garden, I was happy in my relationship, and I had loads of money, etc., I would have nothing in common with my work colleagues, friends, or neighbours. What would we talk about? Who would be my friends? I need to have something in common with others and in my thoughts it was our partying, drinking, getting drunk, and our poor relationships.

It was easy to stay in the drama of my thoughts.

I have recently come to the realisation that my thoughts were the problem and most definitely also the answer.

You may have heard it all before: change your thoughts and you change the landscape. It also needs to be the right time for you, as they are your thoughts.

What I’ve learnt.

These are thoughts about the past and the future. We can all pull out the short straw of a story but there’s no point being attached to its very essence and reliving every moment in the most minute detail because every time we search for a memory and start to relive it we change an aspect of it. How true is the story you are living and how does it make you feel? When you feel that bad, how do you behave to yourself and others?

I know I was unkind to myself.

That’s what I thought I deserved. Was this the truth? Or was it a story I was creating in my head? It was what I’d been told as a child so I thought it must be true. But it wasn’t, and it isn’t for you either. If we truly examine a story, it can quite often be filled up with they should, they made me feel, I know what they were trying to do or what they were thinking.

Can we ever really know what someone else is thinking or even doing?

Not even a psychic can know truly what you are actually thinking and experiencing, because it is unique to you.

Who would you be without your story?

When I let go of the, “should,” “would haves,” and “you made me feel,” I am calm and peaceful in my heart and head. When a thought arises that challenges and brings up an old negative emotion, I just ask, how do I want to feel and is the thought true now? Usually it is not because it’s normally a thought about how I think someone else should behave. It is their business how they behave and my business is to take good care of me and only me. When I am well and healthy and not attached to a drama or story, I am in the now and present. This is where I can offer my presence to support you with love and peace.

Guess what?

I gave up my two best friends only to recognise some that are actually human.