Dear Diary
There’s a term we use in the counselling and therapy world and it’s known as Naval Gazing. You will notice I love a little reference to theory here and there.Anyway naval gazing is not as you would imagine the ogling of persons within the Royal Navy, it is in fact as the Oxford English Dictionary tells us ‘the activity of spending too much time considering your own thoughts, feelings and problems’. Now as people recovering and stopping drinking I feel this is all we are ever doing and a lot of it necessary of course. So whilst it sounds a little negative in its Oxford version I would imagine this is helpful for so many of us not just in recovery but in our day to day lives. But, and here’s the big but, it feels like we never stop, like we never switch off from the naval gazing. We talk about being in the moment and being mindful but how can we be in the moment and mindful if we are actively naval gazing all the time? Trying to figure out who we are, what we are all about and improve ourselves. All this can take years and years without ever getting where we need to be. There’s a quicker way according to comedian Jimmy Carr though. Now stick with me here as many of you will know him as a foul mouthed, rude on the edge of your seat (ready to walk out of the auditorium) type of comedian, us not him walking out I should clarify. I am the biggest fan of audiobooks and I recently
listened to his ‘before and laughter’ and as it was a comedic self-help book there were some real nuggets of knowledge and information that apply directly to us on our sober journey. I have to add here that the book gave me a whole new perspective on comedy and made me realise there’s more method to it than a person just insulting people for the sake of it. If you wish to learn something different, give it a listen or read, you might surprise yourself. But I digress. We spend all this time trying to figure ourselves out and understand ourselves when according to Jimmy all we really need to know or do to understand ourselves are the following three things.
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