No doubt I’ve slammed right into a set point, otherwise known as a weight plateau. I’ve never experienced a set point this early in a weight loss program, but I’m thinking I’m here because I’ve already lost the easy weight prior to buying a scale. I know I’ll break through it. But man is it frustrating to be so good and be so stuck. This stuckness doesn’t find me in my happy place, but I’m determined to push through it.
Zero ; 11teen ; M: 86 ; C: 49 ; P/U: 60 ; W : rest day
Health R.O.S.
- Weight: 217.3 pounds
- BMI: 29.4
- Fat %: 22.6
Speaking of my happy place, last night I wrote, or rather, finally finished Unhappy in My Happy Place. The song is inspired by and dedicated to my dad who died of cancer roughly two years ago today. I’ve been working on it since he passed. I’m no songwriter, but this song has been brewing inside me and attempting to manifest itself since he passed. At some point I’ll upload it to the blog and link to it here.
I’ve found the pursuit of meditation, mindfulness, sobriety, and health has opened up a wellspring of creativity within me. Unhappy in My Happy Place is the second song I’ve written in as many weeks. The other song being Little Girls Grow Up. This song discusses the impermanence of childhood from the perspective of a middle aged father, aka me.
Both songs deal with the emotional challenges that often come along with the relentless passage of time and life. You see, I believe working through change is life’s only constant. Everything that begins must eventually come to an end. Happy Place works through my emotional state the day I found out my dad had lost his battle with cancer and was going into hospice. Little Girls Grow Up does the same, but concerns the passage of my children into adolescence and adulthood and my passage into middle and old age.
My Creative Happy Place
Over the past few years, I would reflect on my lost creativity. I often wondered where the hell it disappeared to. When I think of the times I was happiest, truly in my happy place, it was when I was creating. I falsely believed that alcohol and marijuana would somehow unleash my creativity. Sadly, this false belief drove much of my drinking and drugging over the past twenty years and ironically resulted in a dearth of creativity.
In the early years, I often felt quite creative when drunk or high. But that faded over time along with the euphoria of using.
Nearly 3 months of daily meditation, 49 days with no pot use, and drastically reduced alcohol consumption has resulted in an emotional renaissance. Long suppressed emotions are bubbling to the surface and I’m feeling emotion on a level I haven’t in many years. Moreover, creative expression has become a creative force in my life.
And it feels liberating to finally deal with it. Sure it’s emotionally painful, but this creative wellspring is not only helping me to work through the pain, but is gently escorting me back to my happy place. Creativity is yet another unexpected ReturnOnSobriety. Let’s add that to my ever growing list.
You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.
– Maya Angelou
