I was at a party, and I was really high. I had that giddy feeling from the first few minutes after smoking, plus I was at a house where most people were pot smokers so I decided to let my goofiness out.

Whatever it was I said or did, a friend of my husband’s looked right at me and said, “Wow, Naomi’s been smoking!”.

Immediately I contracted from chemically-induced exuberance to shame.

Goddamnit, I thought to myself. If I can’t even act stoned at a party full of stoners, what’s the point of getting high?

When I finally decided to give sobriety an honest, whole-hearted try, it was in the name of experimentation.

I know what it’s like to live this way: what is it like to live another way? Or as my grandpa used to say, “Been there, done that.”

I made a pact with myself to try it for one whole year. I saw it as a drastically different, completely uncharted mystery, full of possibilities.

I had been trying to put my finger on what it is about being around the sober community that feels so darn good, and when I read this, I felt a sense of recognition.

As we sat at the bar, facing a wall with a “Drink alcohol!” slogan, sipping on a NA beer and eating our fried pickle appetizer, my husband wondered aloud what folks in the My Sober Girlfriends community would think about this scenario.

I looked around to take in the noisy scene as I checked in with myself for any signs of discomfort or tension.

Do you know what a hologram is? It’s those 3-D pictures, right?

Something you may not know— Every single piece of a hologram contains a different perspective of the whole image.

There is also the concept of a personal hologram. It means that a way you show up in one area of your life can give you insight into a way you show up everywhere else in your life.

I started an internal conversation, going back and forth quickly like a ping pong match between two different perspectives.

Let’s not serve booze. Obviously A. won’t be drinking alcohol, and neither will I.

But many of her friends are regular drinkers.

Yes, but there will only be a few guests.

So? More than two will want to drink.

….

I felt like my energy and awareness were free to expand into the entire room. No fear. No constriction. And yet, I was sitting at a bar counter. In a bar.

What I’ve learned the hard way, is that we have to give space to our feelings for them to process. It's taken me time to trust that I can do that, and not drown!

But I’m learning that by giving them space when needed, that is exactly what keeps them from being too much.

How do I give my emotions space?

In my family, you didn’t ask for help.

If anything was going wrong, the appropriate response was private prayers to God. Otherwise, asking for help felt like a request to be punished for doing something wrong.

More questions answered in this video blog!

In this video I answer questions from my last video and add another layer to how you can increase authenticity in your relationships.

This blog post is in video format— What is that one thing that changes everything?