Day 50
Sobriety Is Within All Of Us
Jo Is In Retreat:
With Jo in retreat for 10 days we thought we’d send you some of her old blogs to tide you over until her return….
“It’s exciting when you go into retreat Jo. You always come out with something new to share and benefit your tribe and inspire others”
Jayne, Online Programme, UK
Blog From August 2015:
It’s an August morning and the weather forecast was for sunshine all day, but what has actually been delivered is cloud and the odd rumble of thunder.
As I teach my backbend yoga class and open my heart and mind, I realise that in fact the day holds so much potential – just like life itself.
Will the sun come out?
Perhaps we will get a dramatic storm?
Or will the day continue to be overcast and nondescript?
As I think about the weather I also think about life’s possibilities:
Will I realise my dreams?
Will I find true and lasting love?
Will I find a job that fulfills me?
Will I ever be financially stable?
Will I be fit and healthy?
Will I visit all the places that I’m drawn to around the world?
Will I ever be debt free?
Will I have brilliant relationships with my family and friends?
Can I be happy?
Are these questions that you ask yourself too?
As another ripple of thunder cuts through the sky I realise that if I had carried on drinking the answer would be NO to all of the above questions. But TODAY on my one-thousandth-and-thirty-eighth day of sobriety I can say YES to everything on the above list!
Just as the sky right now holds endless possibilities of what the day will produce, so does my life. ANYTHING is possible, I really and truly believe that.
I am one half of a supportive loving marriage.
I live in a beautiful mansion and have to pinch myself everyday ‘is this real?!’
I am living my dream life. There is nothing in it that I don’t want there.
I am financially stable.
Being sugar, dairy, gluten and ALCOHOL free means that I am fit and healthy.
I have a daily meditation practice.
I have no more debt.
I have wonderful relationships with my friends and family.
I am well on the way to visiting new and exciting places on the earth that I’ve never been to before: including Bali this December!!!
And my job now is passing on the information that I’ve received so that others can also live a dream life. I’m teaching less yoga classes, and doing more motivational speaking events. Life is constantly changing and evolving, just like the weather, and that would never be the case if my life was still caught up in a cycle of addiction.
Today holds so much potential. The potential for it to be anything, and everything feels possible. Rain, sun, storm, wind, and we even had a meteor shower last week!
Did you see it?
When I was drinking my hangover would prevent me from actually doing my meditation practice in the morning. It would then stretch into my breakfast choices, which would be less than healthy as my acidic body would crave more acidic foods, plus I’d pop a few codeine tablets. I’d then feel like crap and sit around wondering why I felt lethargic and unmotivated to do any work. Then my addiction to codeine would kick in again and I’d HAVE to take some to be able to teach my evening yoga classes.
Of course once completed the wine would make another appearance and the whole sorry pattern would play out once again, caught on the merry-go-round of addiction and unable to make the wretched ride stop.
Why couldn’t I stop it?
Why was I so weak?
Why wasn’t I enough without it?
But the ugly game continued from the age of 15 to 40, my whole adulthood consumed with doing something that I didn’t actually want to do.
How stupid I felt.
How ridiculous a situation it was.
The frustration was unbearable and the tears often came.
And I kept asking myself WHY WAS I SO WEAK?
A life of struggle.
25 years of being stuck.
But the time came when I was finally able to believe in myself, and that I DESERVED a better life.
A brilliant life was in fact possible for me, not just for the people I saw on TV or in magazines.
I started to believe that I could have that too.
I shook off the life of a drunk, and tried on sobriety for size.
I liked it.
It fit.
And now I had opened a new chapter of my life.
The real beauty of it is that I can now be authentic.
I’m no longer hiding.
And I had been the drunk yoga teacher hiding my drinking from my students for such a long time, and I was bored of it.
There was so much SHAME.
And that shame pulled me under and suffocated me.
I often felt that I’d drown in it.
But I didn’t. I sunk to the bottom of the ocean and kicked up again to the surface, where now I am flourishing.
My meditation practice is my support, my teacher, and my saviour.
The hours I sat with cravings rather than give in to them, training myself to think a different way.
And it worked.
Suddenly the urge to drink/smoke/snort GONE.
Now nearly three years later there are never any cravings.
Birthdays are better sober
Celebrations are better sober
Anniversaries are better sober
Christmas is better sober
Holidays are better sober
Parties are better sober
Winter is better sober
Autumn is better sober
Spring is better sober
And summer?
Well summer is just so sexy sober!
Not feeling bloated, fat, and ugly.
Now filling the summer months with vibrancy, energy and hope.
Do you want some of that?
I’d love you to join me in the feeling of AMAZING!
If you’d like to chat to me about our addiction program, then I am here for you. Our August retreat is full but we have spaces on the next one, and please pass this blog on to anyone that you think may need to hear the words.
Be your best, realise that you are ENOUGH, and allow yourself to be your fullest potential. Let me know your thoughts via email, facebook or twitter, and here is to the summer being totally gorgeously sexy! x
Day 51
Are You Willing To Look At The Wound
Rip Off The Plaster.
We can talk all day about the substance that we are abusing, go round and round in circles driving ourselves mad as to why we keep putting the damn glass up to our lips each evening, but unless we are prepared to rip off the plaster and investigate whats underneath we are never going to get to the root of the problem.
What is your why?
There is something ‘charging’ your addiction
A wound that drives the urge to drink / smoke / snort / shop / shout
And the fact that you have been pushing it down and refusing to look at it is the very reason it has festered and become infected; it is the very reason you are in this situation in the first place.
And the substance is not what we are talking about here, it can be any imbalance in your life. I was in a relationship for 10 years that was not healthy for me but I needed to stay that long to understand the lesson of it all. If I had left before the learning had been fully received then I would have taken the plaster off (ending the relationship) and put another one on (begin another similar and equally damaging relationship).
Back then I still hadn’t fully let the wound heal and although I didn’t get into another destructive relationship I did still self-harm in the form of drugs and later alcohol.
Each addiction a different coloured plaster.
Each time I ‘tried’ to stop drinking I found it really difficult.
Wasn’t willing to sit there in my discomfort.
So reached for another plaster to soothe the pain away.
Not realising that I was never going to get fully better this way if I wasn’t willing to deal with the actual wound underneath.
And then I woke up one day and I was ready.
I couldn’t go on like this.
So I went into an intense time of therapy, alongside upping my meditation practice, and off the plaster came. At last I was ready to face it all head on and I released trauma that my body had held on to for many years.
I sat in the fire.
And it wasn’t easy, or pleasant.
But I knew it was the only way.
If I wanted to TRANSCEND addiction I had to face it right in the eye and not back down.
Sometimes I didn’t want to sit in meditation, my mind was too active.
Sometimes it was just too easy to pick up a glass and pour myself a drink and spend the evening anaesthetised on the sofa; i’ll try again tomorrow.
But I watched my life trickle past me day by day.
What a waste.
All that potential ending up in tears each hungover morning as the regret and remorse crept in with daybreak.
At some point you have enough.
You simply can’t do it anymore.
Sick to the back teeth of this self-made hell.
And you peel away the plaster and face head-on the infection that is causing it all.
Will today be YOUR day that you embrace freedom in sobriety?
Day 52
The Quantum Is Listening
What Are You Asking For?
The quantum is intelligent.
It sits waiting and listening to your every command and will orchestrate events, meetings, and energy to match your requests.
From today, reading this, the quantum is your new best friend
From today, reading this, you are breaking up with alcohol / drugs / food
Replace one for the other.
Like you would a decaying relationship that no longer meets your needs.
And perhaps your substance of choice HAS assisted you in the past; it’s numbed you, relaxed you, suppressed you. But because you are reading this (the quantum has made that happen) you are no longer happy with the relationship, and you know that something has to change.
Today.
Is.
The.
Day.
Change the story.
Do something different.
ASK THE QUANTUM FOR HELP
For it is listening, and it will provide for you because it always does.
It wants to help you
It wants to please you
It wants to be your new best friend…
Day 53
“You Changed My Life”
We had a great first day at the Yoga Show yesterday, our sixth one over a five year period, with many old friends and clients coming to see us as well as meeting many new people.
For us country people it’s always fun to be in the hustle of London for a few days and we love the buzz of it, whilst knowing that in just a few days we’ll be back in the comfort of wide open space and the sounds of nature.
In the afternoon a lady approached me on the stand and explained that she had watched my talk last year and it had changed her whole life. She’s been estranged with her family for most of her adult life with it being a very strained situation, and she had longed for some peace and understanding in these difficult relationships.
My words resonated and something shifted deep within her, then just two days after listening to me speak she happened to bump into some family members on the street and went over to them and gave them a long hug,
“Something that I would never have been able to do before” she told me
As she relayed the story she began to cry with gratitude for being able to experience that special moment, and I explained to her that I had been able to ‘unlock’ something within her; THAT WAS THERE ALL ALONG, and that she was ‘coming home’ to her truth, her heart, to love.
And I was reminded of a blog that I wrote for Soberistas back in the summer:
The Keys To Unlocking Your Sobriety
Throughout life we find keys that open us up and take us to the next level. People; places; events; meditations; these teachers come in many different guises. Sometimes you know in that moment that you’re standing in front of one of your keys, and other times, it’s only afterwards as you reflect on how much your life has suddenly changed that you realise you just got unlocked.
Looking back now, I can see the string of teachers that have shown me the way – even difficult-at-the-time relationships that were painful and seemed to tear my heart out were, in reality, pointing me in the direction of where I needed to go.
Soberistas is one of your keys. You are not here by chance! You were led here by your heart, which is always looking for the next doorway to lead you closer back to yourself. Our natural state is one of peace and alignment, yet we find ourselves so far from this truth that we have to work out the route to ‘come home’.
We say,
“Why is this happening to me?”
“It’s not fair, why is life so difficult?”
We feel like a victim of life, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. For the difficult situations are usually our biggest teachers; the places from which we are able to take a quantum leap. Magic routinely lies outside of our comfort zone but why are we so scared to jump? We know categorically that we will be happier when we stop drinking, so why do we continue to find it so difficult to put the wine glass down? Are we that scared of becoming the real us?
Take out all of the chatter and instead be open to these lessons as they come into your life. Watch expectantly for the next teacher, the next opportunity for growth, the next key. Know that the difficulties are opportunities – opportunities for you to walk through the next door. Each one is a new layer to be peeled back to uncover more of your truth.
Perhaps just by reading these words you’ve unlocked something within you and will realise that you do in fact have ALL of the answers already inside. We have all of the knowledge yet often we have forgotten and need our teachers to take us back to ourselves, back to our truth.
So the answers are not outside.
Love is not outside.
Sobriety is not outside.
It is only YOU that can unlock that part of you.
No one can shift for you.
For only YOU can change your mindset.
But each time you hear words that resonate, teachings that pull at your heart, you come home a little bit more. Back to who you really are.
Written by Jo De Rosa for: www.soberistas.com
Day 54
Finding Your Superpower
I have been teaching and speaking each day and the links to the livestreams are below.
Click on the pictures to watch and enjoy:
Day 55
The Three P’s
Jo Is In Retreat.
With Jo in retreat for 10 days we thought we’d send you some of her old blogs to tide you over until her return….
“It’s exciting when you go into retreat Jo. You always come out with something new to share and benefit your tribe and inspire others”
Jayne, Online Programme, UK
Blog From September 2015:
I felt an urge to explain a little further how I got to the decision to stop teaching yoga; and it’s all down to The Three P’s….
Because I regularly go into retreat I gain:
PERSPECTIVE
…and it’s only when we remove ourselves from our ‘normal’ environment that we can achieve this first ‘P’.
You see your life differently, and with that physical ‘outer’ space away from your normality quite often it’s like looking in with new eyes.
There’s no coincidence that I own a retreat centre and facilitate the offering of this physical space to hundreds of people every year!
And as we realise our PERSPECTIVE of experiences in our outer world, we must also look inward: why do we believe certain aspects of ourselves are fixed, when all phenomena is constantly changing.
Can we adapt to this change?
Why do we do, say, and think what we do? It is all down to our:
PERCEPTION
…of where we fit in the world.
Meditation allows us to stop ‘doing’ and just sit with what is. We watch our thoughts, judgments and desires as they continually pass through our mind. In the beginning we get seduced by the juicy thoughts that demand our attention, but slowly we learn to accept and allow the space that sits in between us and our thoughts: because we are NOT our thoughts.
And when we meditate we are creating ‘inner’ space and this connects us to our PERCEPTION of things and gives us an awareness of who we really are.
Then an inner confidence grows. As we connect more and more to our soft spot/source/essence, we realise who we really are and the external façade that we show to the world starts to blend more and more: external experience becoming in tune with internal truth.
This is then when we must honour our deep authentic voice by living our whole lives congruently and:
PRIORITISING
…our truth in our relationships, work, family life etc…
This then becomes urgent: how can we feel one way and speak/act in an opposing manner?
As I find more work/life balance I realise that I must PRIORITISE my time like never before. What is important to me? What MUST I do and what can fall away? Time is so precious; for play; for work; for practice; for family. There is SO MUCH to do everyday!
My 2015 meditation practice has given me so much clarity; I’ve never sat for so long on my cushion as I have over the last 12 months, and it has transformed me.
Meditation changes your brain, and with so many hours on my cushion I couldn’t stay the same. And if you start a meditation practice TODAY then you begin this transformation too….
With this heightened PERSPECTIVE has come a new PERCEPTION which has led me to new PRIORITIES. And teaching a 90 minute yoga class just isn’t the best use of my time any longer. Anyone who has attended my classes will tell you that I spend just as much time talking life philosophy as I do muscles, tendons and alignment, and to be completely honest with you it’s the philosophy that I WANT to talk to you about!
It feeds me and in turn feeds you, and this is why I must step back from the traditional yoga class to focus my time and energy on where I am headed and where my heart is.
It’s funny the first email I got after my last blog (Bye Bye Old Life) was from a past Inner Guidance guest who is about to become a yoga teacher. And in that instant I saw that by me stepping away, space was instantly created for someone else to take that platform.
Beautiful.
At Inner Guidance I am handing my classes over to other yoga teachers and I still love to practice it myself; in my personal time though, not to teach it.
And as soon as I have made this decision a new class format is forming in my mind!! Watch this space!!
The Old Three P’s:
15 years ago when I lived in Thailand a friend used to give me regular tarot card readings, and it was she that first used the phrase ‘The Three P’s’.
But the three P’s that she was referring to were not the ones I have talked about here; life was very different for me back then with my life dogged by my old Three P’s:
Patience
Perseverance
Potential
And as I write these 3 words they take me back to that time, and I feel so sad for the old Jo who was struggling so much. I knew I wanted to be sober, in love, happy, abundant and healthy but I didn’t know how to gift myself these qualities. And the tarot sessions with Sharon were so frustrating because I wanted to shout at her,
“They are the wrong cards! It’s not fair! I don’t want all this struggle!”
But deep down I absolutely knew that they were correct, that it was not yet my time, I had so much more to work out and inner work to complete (plus I had to stop taking so many drugs!).
So much has changed, I have evolved, and as my sweet little business that I set up in Thailand is set to celebrate it’s 15th birthday in a few months, I really KNOW that now is my time; every single cell in my body is ready; all resistance gone; fears evaporated; doubt non-existent; and the circle is complete.
Guess which card I keep pulling out of the deck that I use daily??…..
WHOLENESSAnd there is no word that better describes how I feel.
I have arrived
I am enough
NOthing is missing (I typed that out wrong, went to change it, and decided it looked cool misspelt!)
WHOLENESS
And it is this energy of wholeness that I share with you now.
It is this wholeness that gives me the confidence to walk away from all that I’ve been the last 15 years.
Wholeness lives in my head, my heart, my soul.
And I invite you to discover how you too can get whole, clear, confident, healthy and happier than you’ve ever been before.
I am going into retreat tomorrow.
Ten days to write my book on HOW I got whole.
I’m writing it for YOU.
….so that we can all be free xx
Let me know what you think, but I’ll be responding to emails on my return week commencing 5th October. Have a great 10 days everyone, and see you on the other side!!
And how cool would it be to give YOUrself the gift of a reTREAT? Why not check out the upcoming retreats at Inner Guidance below, and maybe just maybe see you very very soon xx
Day 56
Written By The Heart
Jo Is In Retreat.
With Jo in retreat for 10 days we thought we’d send you some of her old blogs to tide you over until her return….
“It’s exciting when you go into retreat Jo. You always come out with something new to share and benefit your tribe and inspire others”
Jayne, Online Programme, UK
Blog From November 2015:
I chose to spend last weekend in Birmingham surrounded with people who think like me: the half FULL kind.
In front of inspirational speakers for two whole days means I now have a ton of notes, quotes, and ideas to take myself to the next level.
I choose to consume nutritious high vibrational foods and drinks, stopping off at the supermarket on route to the midlands to stock up on salad, houmous, water and other healthy snacks. I know that there will not be my kind of choices at the hotel, so my choice is to take food with me.
On social media I choose to be connected with positive, like-minded souls and my timeline is full of hope, optimism and love.
I choose not to watch the news or read newspapers as it is my belief that we are fed half-truths full of fear to keep us small and controlled.
Instead I fill my head and heart with love
There is no room for fear here.
It is unwelcome and unwanted.
Choose fear or love in your life.
Because EVERYTHING comes from one or the other.
And YOU have a choice.
On my social media there have been two influential people who’s voices have been welcome to me in this latest recent round of violence and destruction. Both of the following posts appeared to me more than once, and both sing from my song-sheet: a tune of love.
The first is from HH Dalai Lama. At the end of one of his talks someone from the audience asked him,
“Why didn’t you fight back against the Chinese?”
The Dalai Lama looked down, swung his feet just a bit, then looked back up and said with a gentle smile,
“Well, war is obsolete, you know.”
Then, after a few moments, his face grave, he said,
“Of course the mind can rationalise fighting back … but the heart, the heart would never understand. Then you would be divided in yourself, the heart and the mind, and the war would be inside you.”
Retaliation or revenge will never work, why on earth do we think that it could?! For has tit for tat ever got us anywhere, from the playground into adulthood?
The second message of inspiration came from Marianne Williamson, the Author, Speaker and American Congressional candidate who last year ran for a seat in the U.S House of Representatives.
“The world has entered into a full on state of global crisis. All of us are integrating the realization that nothing will ever again be quite the same for our generation. The question before us now — as seekers, as global citizens, as lovers of the world — is not just what do we need to do, but who do we need to be in order to do it? We have before us a challenge that only the most evolved civilization can meet effectively, calling each of us to fast, to meditate, to pray, to do whatever it is we need to do to ready ourselves, to purify ourselves, and surrender ourselves for the task at hand. Each of us will be assigned our part, how we ourselves can help uplift the energy and prepare the ground, heal broken hearts and work the miracles that will bring down the Light that disperses darkness. And darkness, in time, will be no more. Amen”
I absolutely believe this.
I know that I am currently being trained to get ready for a new start, a new reality, a new way of being.
A reality where we are directed by love instead of fear.
I am one of the people that Marianne is talking about.
Are you?
Are you living in fear or love?
Are you part of the problem or solution?
Are you getting broiled up in the media shit-storm?
Or
Are you ready for transformation, transmutation, and a new world.
This to me is not ‘woowoo’, this is real.
This is fundamental to our survival as a race.
And the time is NOW to step up and BE THE CHANGE.
For the last couple of weeks since the Paris attacks, our dining room table has been the scene of many discussions about what our planet now faces, and we are all in agreement: LOVE IS THE ANSWER.
And I can see very clearly how WE HOLD THE POWER as the old ways of thinking fall away, and make way for LOVE. And these souls sitting around our table are our world’s future leaders as the power shift is happening, and being redistributed to US.
It is up to you to RAISE YOURSELF UP with the company you keep, food you eat and how you conduct yourself on social media. You create your own destiny with your actions, words, thoughts, beliefs and frequency.
And now is the time for us to all have an awareness of whether we are raising our vibration or lowering it.
We are standing right in the middle of the dawn of a new frontier.
Which way are you going?
Back the way we came from: living in stress, fear and denial?
Or are you, like me, taking a stand and living life in a new way?
There is no room for fear here.
It is unwelcome and unwanted.
I CHOOSE LOVE.
The easiest way of connecting to love is through meditation.
It connects us to our love, and we can then maintain that vibration all day.
We end up sharing it with everyone that we meet because this frequency becomes who we are.
We raised our game.
It’s how we become the change: by BEING it.
So as everyone else is feeling saddened and fearful about terrorism and allowing the outside world to make them feel depressed, why don’t you flip it? Take control, connect with love, and then watch as your happiness radiates outwards reaching the rest of the world.
Because my world is full of love.
And that is my choice.
My body has even started to manifest love: on my left (writing) hand my veins have created a heart shape. It’s bizarre, weird and I can’t explain it, but it’s there. The words in this blog (and in my book) are being formed directly by my heart, and this love has manifested in my hand!
Photos are on our Facebook page, so come on over and check it out!
And if you want to begin meditating I am starting a December challenge:
MEDITATE FOR 5 MINUTES EVERYDAY!
And I will be on our Facebook page everyday giving support and motivation to get your home meditation practice started.
Everyone else is going to be stressed by the time Christmas gets here, but YOU are going to experience the festive period with ease, flow and enjoyment if you can commit to just 5 minutes of meditation a day.
Are you going to join me?
I hope so!
See you over on Facebook…..
I can’t wait to assist you. But if you want to get started NOW then hop on over to our website and check out my meditation downloads and courses.
What are you waiting for?
Get meditating today!!!!
And let me know how you get on x
Member Quotes’ Of The Week.
In this section you will read something that has been said by one of the Quantum Sobriety Online Programme members over on the very lively private forum:
“I’m getting a huge amount from the course and the community.“
M, Online Programme, UK
“To anyone struggling to quit and feeling bad every time they ‘slip up’ I say: allow yourself to quit. You CAN do it. You WILL feel better. TAKE the support that is here for you. Your life is about to improve 100%”
D, Residential Retreat & Online Programme, UK
“I’m 8 months sober so I’m here to tell you it does get easier. It’s tough, deeply searching and letting go. Not always pretty and im still very much doing it now and learning but if your honest with yourself then there’s nothing more natural to your heart than being open. I never forget the reason I’m on this forum is because I’ve had a life of closing everything inwards, holding onto pain, thinking about other people’s reactions. Let a little bit go each month and do it with a smile. Those are free and it makes it feel better. X“
T, Residential Retreat & Online Programme, UK
“Feel like I am moving on to the next stage in sobriety life. . It’s really not about the drinking now, it’s about letting go of the old me.“
J, Online Programme, UK