Removing the frosted glass

You know when you’re at the gym, the spa or maybe your own bathroom and there’s that frosted glass that allows light to pass through and you can see the general shape of the person or object that’s on the other side but you can’t make out the details? You know someone / thing is on the other side but the full scope of it isn’t clear.

That’s how I felt for many years, like I was looking at things through frosted glass. I could generally see what the world was offering me but the details were blurred. I knew that there was something I wanted on the other side but couldn’t really see a means to get there. Through deep reflection, I realized that there were three things that acted like frosted glass in my life:

Booze

Booze numbs, which I learned quickly when I started using it. It was my frosted glass of choice for my 20’s and part of my 30’s. For much of this time I wanted to be cloudy. If I didn’t like where I was, or sometimes who I was with, then I numbed out, I had to escape. The booze softened the sharp edges and uncomfortable emotions, it dulled the tough feelings. I knew I needed to heal at a deeper level but I wasn’t ready to see the full picture, I wasn’t able to do the work. So I drank until I literally could not see straight (that phrase “beer goggles”, yup I was the queen of that), until the hurt ached a little bit less, even just for a short amount of time. I kept the glass frosted so that I didn’t really need to face the feeling. Of course I wasn’t consciously doing this and it was only when I stopped drinking that I could analyze and unpack the behavior and intentions behind them.

Let me say this louder for the folks in the back, booze numbs, distorts and frosts over your availability to see the world with clear eyes. Cut the booze to see better. This might not mean you never have a drink again, but maybe only very rarely. Cutting booze might be hard, especially if you’ve been using it to numb for years like I did. But on the other side, you will lose the frosted glass and see with full and clear eyes (and heart)

Depression Medication

Starting when I was about 15 until the age of 30-something, I was on a cocktail of drugs for mental health issues. At various points I was taking one or a combination of Wellbutrin, Celexa, Klonopin and Prozac. I would take Wellbutrin seasonally from October - March as my depression seemed to be worse in the winter. These drugs worked, in the sense that I wasn’t as sad as I might have been…I was deemed more “stable”. But I also had a tough time accessing joy and happiness. I felt grayed out. And because I wasn’t feeling good, I was still drinking (big no no!) I wanted to feel like I was the same as everyone else, even though I was feeling lonely and isolated.

Booze + mental health medication = disaster It literally says, “Do not consume alcohol l while on this medication” And did my 20-something foolish ass listen? NOPE. And so there was another frosted layer on my view of the world. When I cut the medications, in favor of a blue light, some diet modifications and adding yoga, I noticed my anxiety lessened a bit.

To be clear, I am not telling you to not take medication. For the right person at the right time, these meds can truly be helpful. I know that for me, making other lifestyle changes has been critical. Being off the meds I see how much better I feel…while accessing both the painful and joyful emotions as they are on the spectrum of human experience.

Birth Control

After being on birth control for 20+ years (yessssss, while on depression medication and drinking) I was feeling disconnected to the natural cycles of my body. Removing birth control was a big fear of mine because I didn’t desire motherhood. I thought, like many girls and women in the 1990s through today, that BC would make my skin better, reduce mood swings and manage painful PMS symptoms in addition to pregnancy prevention. Why wouldn’t I want to be on it?

Mostly because I was scared of what 20+ years of hormones were doing to my body. I rarely got my period which at times was convenient but also got to feeling unnatural and a bit weird. So after some soul searching, I decided to get my IUD removed after 5 years.

Being off birth control for the last 6 months felt like the final polish of frosted glass that has helped me to see more clearly. I noticed a difference the very next month, thanks in large part to the skillful recommendations from my acupuncturists at Mend. I’m becoming more attuned to my body, noticing when I feel like I can take on more projects and when I need to rest. There are days of the month that I am more creative and I can harness that energy. I see that the various movement forms I love (yoga, SUP, climbing, running, swimming and weight lifting to name a few) feel better at certain times of the month than others. And that’s okay, that is the feminine energy to ebb and flow. What has been really cool AF, is getting my period on the full moon. Legit amazing and makes me feel connected to all the generations of women who have come before me and all those that will follow after me.

As with mental health medication, I’m not telling you to get off BC. For some folks with wombs this is helpful and maybe even essential. I am asking you to pause and explore how you might be obstructed by something that regulates your hormones and if you’re unintentionally pushing the snooze bar on alarms and sensations from your body.

Of course the more clearly and brightly I can see, my general reaction has been, “WTF, has this been the scene the whole time?” Without the frosted glass between me and the world I can see things with greater clarity. And sometimes that is scary, like really freaking scary. I see people and situations >> read the energy of a space that makes me feel like I have to GFTO quickly and then react in a way that serves me best. Seeing the world clearly is a practice because I was living behind frosted glass for so long. Now that I’m on the other side, I swear colors are brighter, sounds are more nuanced and I’m living with awareness and intention in a way that I haven’t been able to since I was a kid.

Journal prompts / pause for reflection:

Where are the pieces of “frosted glass” in your life?

What could you remove from your life to see more clearly? And what you could invite in?

When was the time of your life (it might be now) that you felt the most clear? How can you return to that feeling?