Finding my middle ground.

This is the article that I tried to write last week but ended up writing about alcohol across the ages instead. In that article, I discuss my need for acceptance and how that has developed into an all-or-nothing attitude. At times this has been helpful to me, it is one of the main reasons that I find abstaining from alcohol easier than moderation. However, I also believe this approach is the reason that I got into this pickle in the first place.

Mindfulness is a bit of a buzzword now, however, there are elements of mindfulness that I’ve found useful. Here are a few of the things that I do to try to stay present.

Daily Journaling

I do this every morning. I track how I’m feeling out of 10 and the reasons why, I also track the trend of my mood if it is going up or down. I find this second metric more helpful than the first as often I won’t realise if I’m heading into a low mood until it is too late. I’m also cautious if I’m feeling over-positive for long periods, as often my mood will crash for no reason following this. Using my journal, I try to explore my feelings and also put in place some of my other coping mechanisms if it looks like I’m heading for a low.

Gratitude lists

This is something, I used to think was a waste of time. However, as I get older, I start to realise that there will always be positives and negatives in life. As humans, we tend to focus on the negatives. I think this was part of our survival in evolution, where negatives would have been a threat to life, however, in the modern-day, negatives tend to be less severe. Every day I write down 3 things that I’m grateful for. Recently, I’ve had some tough news to deal with and writing down a few things that I’m grateful for has helped me deal with this.

Goal setting

I used to set myself goals such as, I want to lose 3 stone in weight, or I want to run a half marathon. While I’ve not always failed at these goals, I’ve found them very difficult to manage. I do still set these larger goals, but now I break them down into much smaller ones. Often making the goal as short as weekly or daily. When setting goals for the day or the week I try to make the first one an easy one. Like making my bed every day, it is amazing how many more things I can achieve if I’ve already made a positive start to the day.

Shutting out social media

I believe that we are very lucky for living with the internet and social media. I’m at an age, where I can remember a time when you did not know something, you could not just Google it and if you wanted to see someone’s holiday pictures, they would bring them to you. Marketing and the media have always gone hand in hand but never more so than since the internet. I can’t help but reflect that if social media was rebranded social marketing, would better reflect the purpose of many websites. Most people only post on social media if they are very happy or very sad offering no balance. Most people are somewhere in the middle. Use social media but don’t overdo it.

Becoming sober helped me feel emotions that I’m not felt before, however, it has taken me a while to develop these strategies and to start to find my middle ground. Living at both ends of the spectrum either very happy or very sad has caused me issues when in reality, I need to be more grateful for the things I do have while accepting some things I cannot change. I hope that you too can use some of these ideas to find your middle ground.

Ben – It's That Sober Guy

Disclaimer – I'm not a trained addiction or mental health professional, information is based on my own life experiences and shared in good faith to help others.