How to Create Your Own Environment of Influence
Do you feel deep-down-in-your-bones proud of your sobriety?
I hope you do. Authentic pride is a beautiful state to be in!
But maybe you don't, because sober pride feels like paddling against an oncoming tide, full of assumptions, criticisms, being undermined and discouraged at every turn.
The problem is that we’re immersed in a culture that is designed to keep us sick.
Our grocery stores are 70% ultra-processed foods. We centered our city design on cars, not people. Our phones are designed to keep us tethered to them like an oxygen tank. Alcohol and weed are available everywhere. TV programming is full of commercials for prescription medications when what we really need is lifestyle changes. And on and on and on. We all know the grim stats about Americans and health.
ALL of this is normalized,but it is not normal. It’s just where our culture is at this moment in time. That's reality, and accepting reality is the first step to radical change.
To get where you want to be, you have to exercise your freedom of choice to live a healthy life.
Health isn’t just the absence of sickness, but as defined by the World Health Organization)-- health is complete physical, mental, and social wellbeing.
But how do you do it when our environment pressures us in another direction? How do you make choices that align with your highest self?
Here’s how: You take control and design your personal environment, both inside and out.
Years ago, Jim Rohn said that we are the product of the five people we spend the most time with.
Tony Robbins puts it this way: “The quality of a person's life is most often a direct reflection of the expectations of their peer group.”
This is backed up in obesity research that you’re probably familiar with, where they found that what makes obesity spread is when the people around you believe it to be “normal.”
Fortunately, the research shows that it works both ways-- you can be influenced both positively and negatively.
So if you have people close to you who are engaging in unhealthy behaviors, or don’t have an orientation toward thriving, then it's even more important to counteract that by seeking out your own influences.
Why? Because this body and mind is all you have.
If you want to live your most fulfilled, joyful, intentional life, you need to put yourself in spaces where you can be influenced by people who have the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors you know you must have in order to thrive. Where having goals is considered normal. Protecting your inner peace is normal. Striving for a beautiful life is normal.
We’re in the minority here.
Most people are unconsciously drifting along, letting themselves be influenced by this pro-sickness culture capitalism has created. Many numb themselves with constant Amazon purchases, endless Tiktok videos, and chronic “bed rot.” They may intellectually know what’s best for them, but they aren’t acting on it.
-------------------
In Brene Brown’s book The Atlas of the Heart, she describes Pride as “a feeling of pleasure or celebration related to our accomplishments or efforts”. Authentic pride comes from accomplishment. (As opposed to the kind of pride that keeps you from accepting help, or makes you think you are invincible when you aren’t) Authentic pride “is positively associated with self-esteem and negatively associated with shame-proneness”.
You can feel proud of yourself, proud of your friends, and proud of us.
When you tell people that you’ve been working on your running again, or have a goal of getting out into nature more regularly, or that you’ve been off of sugar for the last two months, or you’ve been sober for one whole year and are going to keep going, you need to be around people who celebrate your goals and your attention to vitality. People who in turn want to be influenced by your healthy choices-- it's an upward spiral of encouragement!
The problem with just looking for other sober people is that we don't all see sobriety, and ourselves in the same way.
It's ironic that unhealthy behaviors are considered "normal" as long as they stay within some kind of range, so we're conditioned to think of sobriety as the thing to be ashamed of, that living a sober lifestyle means being worse off than "regular people".
Some sober folks reinforce this view by getting together with other people who feel the same way. To each their own... but it's not for me.
I don't know about you, but sobriety was a hard-won decision, and one of the best I've ever made. I WANT to feel proud about my sobriety.
This isn't the kind of sobriety that means purely an absence of alcohol/substances. It's the kind that welcomes challenge, and opens doors to infinite possibilities of experiencing and contributing to Life.
It isn't about judging other people, but about focusing on our own experience and how this sober life helps us to contribute to the health and wellbeing of the world.
How You Can Create Your Own Environment of Influence:
Pay attention to the people and groups around you. Do they embody the values, beliefs, and behaviors that you want to reinforce within yourself?
Are you finding it challenging to stick to goals? What groups or individuals do you see that have habits or mindset you want to model?
Are you consuming mostly media that is being fed to you by an algorithm, or are you mostly seeking out media that you want to influence you?
You've got this!~ You may feel like you're paddling against the current, but you can create your own channel of influence that will help you flow in the right direction.