10/11/15.

11 years sober.

4 AM.

You will not get to the next level unless you give up drinking, a loving but stern voice jolted me awake.

I took my rattled bones downstairs to sit on my meditation cushion so I could gather them, a good two hours.

Then, I made my once-and-for-all vow to finally say goodbye to a most favored relationship. Moderation, even with an accountability coach for years, didn’t work out so well.

It wasn’t a rock bottom, per se, more like an insidious basically behaving lie that kept me just a little numb and controllable.

Three weeks in, at a college visit, we’re having lunch on a gorgeous sunny Saturday. An internal tug-of-war ensues until one of my daughters asks, “Mama, why are you so irritable?”

Clear as day, I tell her, “I’m giving up alcohol, and it’s hard.”

Something loosened in me after that confession, and a kinder, but not-to-be-messed-with, voice took over: It’s not just for you. It’s for them. Keep going.

I began timing my nightly cravings, mostly a robotic five o’clock pull to the kitchen, as a self-observational ritual or Svadhyaha, Patanjali’s fourth Niyama.

The urges started with gusto; a surge of energy crashed through me for about two minutes.

But I learned that if I could stay with myself long enough, place my hands where the sensation was most intense, and breathe a beat or two slower than its rhythm, the peaks would eventually roll out into a valley.

My whole system blanketed by a hallowed maternal quietness.

I later discovered Dr. Candace Pert, a neuroscientist and pharmacologist, and author of Molecules of Emotion, which explains that the actual physiological lifespan of an emotion is only about ninety seconds to two minutes.

When we cut those waves short, whether we lack the time, want to avoid the feeling, or were never shown how, they get archived.

They aren’t gone; they are just hiding, waiting for us to feel safe enough to finally let them move.

A couple of decades later, with a few more refined tools, it’s been the breath for the last eight of them that has been the bridge to my internal world and the key to Know Thyself.

A new level.

It’s not a magic elixir every time, but it’s enough for me to embrace the truth:

If it hurt you, it didn’t mean to hurt you.

Not to say it didn’t hurt; it just wanted to grow you.

And it will wait patiently until you’re ready.

If you’d like.