Brazen Bee Beauty

466 days sober

Sobriety is not just not drinking. It’s a calm. It’s the knowledge that I never have to drink again and that knowledge is a feeling of deep relief.
I can meet life on life’s terms and not live in fear.

Which doesn’t mean I don’t have fears, but I don’t live in them. I have been resurrected from the land of the dead. The land where I was numb and where alcohol stopped being a respite and became a master.

Every alcoholic can tell you that story. The alcohol or drugs did exactly what we needed for a time period. Then it turned to subtle foe. Then it turned to a mean dictator that demanded everything and not only didn’t give- but took away our hearts and minds.

The life I have today is one of service. From that service, I find joy and I seek the God of my understanding in each moment.

I do not ask for comfort, I comfort. I do not demand that the way I think is best, I listen.

I am allowed to be myself in ways I didn’t know I could. I need no facade because what other people think of me is none of my concern. For, if I know that I have sought God first, then I have fulfilled this minute as best as I could and there is nothing more to do.

I laugh without embarrassment. I ask questions with sincerity and not with the pointed staves that I used to prod with. I can sit quietly and listen without my mind racing for a reply or an interjection.

I am at peace.

AI is messing with your skincare! Watch this

www.youtube.com

I am so grateful, but I spent last weekend in tears of desperation

that I don't know how to keep my business afloat. I have been doing my best to keep this trouble off-line and out of the limelight while I pray so hard for some kind of breakthrough.

I actually may close down It's been 1 year and 3 months of sobriety. In that time, I have gone through a divorce, moved to a town where I had to build from scratch, started sponsoring other women, tried to remember what self-confidence and a sense of ease feels like. 

https://nle.soundestlink.com/ce/v/0/6a402bfbc6a42f8a6d110e6b

Think you’re buying small batch skincare? Beware!

Fake companies are popping up like crazy right now.
When I order from my suppliers, I have a WEALTH of pre-formulated bases and prepackaged products I could choose from to just resell with my own label.

Now that you can start a page, name it something like “Sarah’s Lotions” and then tell AI to do your marketing and make it look “homegrown”- these fake companies are everywhere.

Sarah didn’t make the lotion. It didn’t cure her baby’s eczema. She’s never had a pimple in her life…. Because Sarah doesn’t exist.

AI can make videos of Sarah, the bot can post pics of her baby, “she” can pull stock photos of unlabeled lotion setting in jars and post it.

Don’t fall for it. You’re still buying from some large company who probably has 5-10 or 100 of these accounts.

I’ve been an herbalist for 30 years and have been acquiring skills, knowledge, data, and even intuition for that long when it comes to helping people.

Recovery Journey, day 444
What a jagged pill.
The interesting thing is that I *thought* I was loving myself. Drinking became a way to “treat” myself because I DESERVED to do whatever I wanted.
I’m not saying that I hated myself. I’m not saying that I was punishing myself with addiction…
I would describe it as longing for something inside myself that I thought I couldn’t find so I would pretend I was finding it.

I seem like a gregarious person who is comfortable in all situations. I’m actually terrified a lot.

I had such bad social anxiety when I spoke at my one-year that I couldn’t hear what people were saying and I literally nearly fainted before I got up. I botched my little speech entirely and felt so embarrassed the whole time.

Not being able to love the scared person who is afraid a room of people are going to think ill of her is, by definition, not loving myself. I would be so compassionate to someone else in my same situation, why can’t I do it for myself?

Ask yourself about the moments you fly into real judgement of yourself. Why do I not love this part of me?
Am I willing to love this part of me?
Would I love this part of someone else and comfort them and see they were doing the best they could?

A healthy relationship with YOURSELF is also 10x harder!
Read that again!
Where do you avoid yourself? Where do you quiet the part of yourself that actually doesn’t like this or that about you? Where do you lie to yourself or justify your feelings or actions? Where are you self-righteous instead of understanding that every other person on the planet is validly looking out for themselves and it’s up to you to gently look out for your own self also?

Getting out of a toxic relationship with myself has been a long process and I’m sure it will never actually be done. I must be vigilant because the person I lied to most over the last 20 years has been ME. I told myself all kinds of stories. I both held myself in high regard while seeking to punish myself.

Now, I’ve had mornings where I woke up sobbing because I was finally able to see that it was so MEAN to me to put myself in terrible relationships. I did that to myself. I could have and had the means to leave anytime. The inability to face public shame seemed to fuel the staying. I now see that part of that pie was my inability to face being wrong. To face judging myself afterward. If I had a friend who was doing what I did, I would have grown tired of listening to their bs and told them I didn’t want to hear about it anymore because it was their choice.

It was my choice. I have free will. I have to face the music of my choices and being a victim isn’t an option.
I wish being a victim hadn’t been an option sooner, but I have to also come to terms with that and forgive myself.

I have to be willing to work 10x harder for a healthy and honest relationship WITH MYSELF. I have to be worth the work, and I am.

So are you.