Game-Fast Result - I Deleted My Games!

I just had a moment of strength and deleted all my games off my phone. This is no small feat, as one of them has been a slow slog of building my “empire” here and there a little bit every day over many many months. At the same time, it’s SO not a big deal. It’s just a letting go.

I did my little game fast. (It was only a few days, but it was long enough to go through all the little withdrawal twitches and let myself recalibrate the muscle-memory of how I pattern my days.) I let myself spend some time today enjoying them again. And you know what I noticed? They’re not actually as fun as I thought. Now that I’m sufficiently out of the Habit part of it, I notice that the thing that was keeping me spending my time there was just the habit.

The process I’m noticing is actually really really similar to when I stopped drinking coffee, and how I've basically stopped drinking.

Coffee was the big thing that I never thought I’d ever be able to (or really want to) quit. At times, when I was the most chemically dependent on the caffeine, I made myself cut waaaaay way back to a cup a day in the afternoon, and really take a break and sit and enjoy it. Every time it was hard. I always ended up chain-drinking coffee after a while. Whoops - my cup is getting low better start another. Yeah. I was that person.

Anyhow, one day I got sick. When I get sick coffee stops being appetizing. All I want is tea. When I got better, I went to make a habitual morning cup of coffee, and noticed that I had the same sort of non-appetizing feeling as when I had gotten sick. This was a subtle but powerful choice point. I could just ignore it and make myself a cup and enjoy it and go back to chain drinking, happy as a clam. But I chose, this time, to listen to my body and have a cup of tea instead. Every morning was the same. Coffee just wasn’t appealing any more, if I was really really present with myself. After a week of this, I had a cup of coffee at a networking event. It was unbearable. It blew my mind how bad it was. It was local good quality well made coffee. But it definitely wasn’t for me any more. I almost didn’t know what to do with myself - I had IDENTIFIED with “Coffee Lady” for over a decade and now that it was gone I had to re-decide who I was. It seemed silly but I was actually having a very real identity crisis. I actually love that this happened to me, because I love sharing this story, there’s so much wisdom in it.

A similar thing has been happening with alcohol. I’ve always been a social drinker. I actively worked for years to be able to like beer and wine. (Hahaha how’s that for the Total Opposite of listening to your body.) Eventually I liked them quite a lot. Not to mention those adorable candy cocktails - I mean, what’s not to love?

Anyhow, a few years back, as a part of a spiritual apprenticeship, I gave up drinking for a year. It wasn’t all that hard, but sometimes I missed it, especially in social settings. The hardest was at my high school reunion. I had a lot of social anxiety creep up, and man oh man what I would have given to have a drink in my hand.

The year passed, and I got a great appreciation for life without alcohol. And, I still liked it. So I went back to drinking a little bit here and there. A very little bit. I’m talking like a half a beer. Because after a year of not drinking I was the biggest lightweight ever.

So that’s when we got into the next chapter - by now I’ve had enough practice at noticing how my body feels that I notice that I don’t like it after I’ve had alcohol. I don’t like the wobbly head, I don’t like feeling a little bit underwater. I don’t like the slower processing or the fuzzy logic. I certainly don’t like feeling even a little bit hungover, sick, or in any way sub-par afterwards. So I started turning down drinking, because I wanted to still feel physically awesome tomorrow. I can tell you the last time I had a drink. I think it was early February. A drive-through daiquiri that my friend bought me, because that’s a thing in New Orleans (drive-through liquor seems utterly insane to me) and we figured it was worth experiencing. It was delicious! But you know what? I found myself thinking that it would be better without the alcohol. Because even though I put it in my freezer and drank it over four separate sittings, it still messed with my head. And I don’t care for that sensation any more.

So… for all of these things, once I interrupted the HABIT, there was suddenly space to notice how I really truy felt about the thing NOW. Not how I USED TO feel about it, but NOW. Because duh, we’re always growing, Becky. Things change. Tastes change. We change.

So I’m not making it wrong, the time that I spent doing these things, because now I’ve “seen the light”. Because it’s not like that. They were all a path for me to learn from, each in their own way.

I’m keenly aware of the sheer quantity of time I’ve sunk into these games over the months. But I’m not going to let my critical voice beat myself up about it either. That would be entirely counterproductive. I can accept that it was all a process and I’ve leaned a ton about myself through it. I may even keep learning as I reflect on it.

This turned out to be really long again. I seem to have a knack at that. If you’ve read all the way to the end, I’d love to know what resonated, what you relate to, and what you’re taking away for your own life. ♥ 
Love you!
Becky