Shared Wisdom Guest Post – Featuring Kim Shannon

You may remember Kim when her wonderful interview appeared in the Saturday Selection feature several weeks ago. She is back to share a recent aha moment that she had – one that I think we can all learn from. I love it when we can fully embrace ourselves and come out into the world being completely authentic, raw, and vulnerable. That is what Kim has done below, and I applaud her for that. She is an inspiration to each of us who is learning to love and accept ourselves and stand in our own beautiful power.

Eleven years ago today I arrived in San Francisco. I drove from Boulder in my little tiny Nissan (that in later years became affectionately known as the “beater”) with a super hot guy who I had met through friends. He needed to get to the Bay Area too. We took Route 66 and camped next to red rivers. We had sex in tents and reveled the wind in our hair. We sang at the top of our lungs. We both were moving on to new lives.

I dropped him off at Starbucks in Sausalito just over the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco where his brother whisked him away to points north. I then headed across my most favorite bridge in the world and landed on the doorstep of what became my new home in the Cole Valley section of the city. After unpacking the beater, I promptly crashed, hard into a deep sleep.

The next morning I woke with a start at 6 am or so to drive across yet another bridge, this time the Bay Bridge, to find (with the help of the angels, a lot of luck and as I recall no formal directions) Lake Merrit in order to hear Thich Nhat Hanh speak for the first time.

I was familiar with him but hadn’t read any of his stuff. All I knew when I heard he was speaking the day after I was to arrive in San Francisco was that I was called to go! Called to get my ass up out of my warm, cuddly comforter and drive yet again into my future. I knew instinctively that I needed to be there; I knew intuitively that what he had to say was what I had to hear especially as I embarked on my new adventure.

So I went, and upon arrival I stepped in line with Thich Nhat Hanh, his monastics and hundreds of others to walk in silent meditation in and around trees, through shadow and into bright sunlight. That morning, I felt the exhaustion but wasn’t exactly clear just how bone-tired I was until sitting down on my borrowed blanket in the early blaze of East Bay sun. Almost before Thich Nhat Hanh even began to speak his soft, lyrical message of mindfulness and love, I curled up like a cat and fell fast asleep.

I woke only twice (as I can recall) and upon these two occasions I distinctly and powerfully remember hearing Thich Nhat Hanh say the following words, “don’t drink” and “don’t smoke.”

I have no recollection of any of the other wise remarks he made that day but I have never forgotten his messages of abstinence as I knew in those moments of wakefulness that somehow he was speaking directly to me.

So I am a smart girl. Hell, I am a good girl – at least I have always tried to be. Smart and good is a great combination to lead a straight and narrow life following all the rules. This said, upon arriving in San Francisco I let other parts of my personality reign and chose to file Thich Nhat Hanh’s advice away and be the life of the party, the fun one, the girl who pushed her own boundaries.

I drank and I smoked, I danced and I sang, I created and lived fully, and I damn well enjoyed myself. I loved San Francisco—in fact, I still love San Francisco and I loved myself in San Francisco, until I didn’t love myself anymore because I didn’t recognize myself anymore.

There came a point where I knew I’d crossed a line, a line where cigarettes became more than a crutch, and alcohol—sweet alcohol became a coping mechanism.

To be painfully honest, I can’t remember the amount of times I woke up without remembering the night before, or the number times I woke with my head seemingly splitting wide open, or even the multitude of times I beat myself up and vowed I would never, ever touch the stuff again. For a smart girl, I knew I was acting really, really dumb but at some point I felt powerless to control my intake and the hold it had over me. On the flip side, I also foolishly believed that I could have just one or in my case two or three and be fine. I had myself convinced that two or three glasses of wine per night wasn’t that much. I considered myself only a moderate drinker; a social drinker and for that I felt socially accepted.

On the night of my 36^th birthday in 2004, I gave up cigarettes for good in the cab ride home from an amazing day of celebrating me. I had met my man (or so I had myself convinced) and he didn’t like smoking, so I quit—just like that.

FYI – that’s how I roll. When I make up my mind, and decide to do something I do it and never look back.

So I quit and I loved, and continue to love, being a non-smoker but quitting alcohol wasn’t in my cards…at least not then.

My so-called man drank and drinking was something we had in common. It was something we did together. We didn’t have much else in common although I didn’t see it that way then; I saw it as a bond we shared.

When I got pregnant in 2006 I quit drinking that very day. I reveled in being pregnant and carrying the baby I had always wanted. I enjoyed each moment, even the moments when I was called on to be the designated driver because my man was too inebriated to get us home safely. I was pregnant with joy so I really didn’t care or notice that my relationship kept throwing red flags, that it was faltering before it ever really began, that it just plain wasn’t working. Nothing else mattered and I didn’t need alcohol to get me through because I was a mom and I had always, always, always wanted to be a mom. I focused on the baby within rather than the communication breakdown that swirled around me.

When Jack was born I diligently and lovingly nursed him but from the get-go I had problems with milk production. There just wasn’t enough. He ended up weaning himself at six-months because he is smart boy and knew he wasn’t getting the sustenance he needed. If I had been aware enough then, I might have realized that I too wasn’t getting the sustenance I needed or deserved but I wasn’t that evolved.

When he weaned, I went back to drinking and this time I turned the corner from a so-called moderate and social drinker to an obsessive and addicted one. I needed it! I knew this but couldn’t/wouldn’t admit it. My days spent with Jack were bright and fun, active and social but after he went to bed, when darkness descended, I delved deep into the bottle. I was so unhappy in my relationship but really I was also unhappy within my self. I was so angry, so in pain. I felt so alone.

My nightly pattern was to drink to drunkenness, pop Advil, and then drink glass after glass of water in order to stem the next-morning hangover. From my gut, I can tell you that I hate hangovers so I did everything in my power to mitigate feeling awful and not being able to function at full capacity. I mean how could I not function when my baby greeted me at 6 am with eyes wide and full of love, joy and excitement for the day ahead? I was a mother first and an addict second.

We would get up while my man slept on working off his own hangover. He slept a lot. I didn’t really mind too much (although I vehemently resented the fact that the perfect little family I so needed/wanted/desired and tried to create wasn’t a threesome but a twosome) because I loved Jack, and I loved having mommy and baby time and honestly, I didn’t want or need the interference. My days were joyous and I fiercely protected them so they wouldn’t succumb to the night.

My life inside and out was in turmoil and it stayed that was for 2+ years until daddy, baby and me moved from San Francisco back to Boulder in May 2009. Earlier that year my mom had divined The SHINE Factor and started working with women to help them connect with all of themselves—their power, their center, their core. I had helped her part time from afar but when I moved back, and she asked me to be her partner I gratefully and immediately accepted.

Connecting to my SHINE gave me/allowed me the courage to say the words that had caught in my throat a million times before, and on November 11, 2009 I blurted out, “Mom, I think I am an alcoholic” and asked for help. I haven’t drunk a drop since and I have never looked back. In asking for help, I allowed myself to be seen “warts and all,” and come out of the closet choosing to hide no longer. I was powerful that day. I was in my SHINE that day. It continues to carry me through.

Until two weeks ago, when at lunch with a new friend, I hadn’t shared my story of addiction with anyone outside my inner circle. That day, it came out naturally, with ease. And then, one week ago, I had a huge A-HA. I was having coffee with another new friend telling her about the new book I am writing when she asked me to share my story and again…I did. In the telling to yet another women I didn’t know very well, I realized I was ready and finally able to share my story of addiction with the world.

The A-HA that I was ready just about floored me, and the second A-HA occurring just on the heels of the first left me reeling when I realized just how much I had actually been addicted to. I wasn’t just addicted to cigarettes and alcohol but to underlying behavior patterns that held the substance abuse in place. I realized that my addictions to being the “good girl,” to being perfect, to valuing other people’s opinions and approval more than my own had all driven my addiction along with issues of abandonment, abuse, and my decimated self-worth riding shotgun.

I also realized that day that I couldn’t be the only one in the world driven by such “demons.” I realized that many women could probably relate.

I know I wouldn’t have been able to come out of the closet and into the sunshine without SHINE. It was my lifeline and still is. It is what keeps me centered and on course. It is what maintains my clarity of self, and my purpose.

So here is where Thich Nhat Hanh comes back into my story. I actually had the privilege of hearing him again just this past Saturday night at the Buell Theatre in Denver. I bought the ticket months ago, but as life would have it seeing him occurred just two days after my big A-HA moments.

I knew I was going to get a new installment of wisdom. I had finally ended my addictive dance with cigarettes and alcohol as he suggested (long after the fact, I know…but every one does things when they are ready to do them, right?) and I was ready for what comes next.

There are two things he said that stood out for me—one regarding the journey and another about listening.

He said that suffering can’t exist without happiness and happiness can’t exist without suffering. He said that we all suffer and that by recognizing and getting in touch with the suffering within—the pain, fear, discomfort, and upset—mindfulness occurs and from there compassion arises, and from there healing is generated. Mindfulness and compassion combined allow the tension within to be released. He said to treat the sorrow within like you would treat a crying baby—with a tender embrace. The embrace allows calming and calming is where insight and understanding can occur. It is in the understanding of our own suffering that we are able to understand the suffering of others. It is in the understanding that healing occurs.

He also spoke of the Buddhist tradition of Deep Listening or Compassionate Listening—listening with only one purpose to allow others to speak out and suffer less.  We all need a voice; we all need to be listened to. When we feel safe enough to speak, when we feel the loving embrace of a compassionate listener—someone who had no agenda other than listening and allowing us to use our voice for perhaps the first time this is when healing occurs.

We all need to be heard. I know I held myself down, keeping my voice silent and unexpressed for many years through addiction. I needed to be heard, desired to be heard, willed myself to be heard but until I was ready, until I was thrown a SHINE lifeline, until I found the courage, until I understood, and until I felt safe, I wasn’t able speak my truth and live my SHINE out in the open, and vibrant. Until I felt safe, I hid.

I don’t have to hide anymore and neither do you.

I dedicate this piece to mom for hearing me compassionately, and to Thich Nhat Hanh for nudging me in the direction of myself.

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