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alcohol-free

Alcohol-Free is the Way to Be: All the Cool Kids Are Doing It!

by Carla Gericke 01/27/2022

written by Carla Gericke

This memory is 9 years old. To my old self: You were wrong!

Living alcohol-free is the best decision I’ve ever made (and I’ve made some GREAT ones over the years, incl. moving to NH as part of the FSP).

Removing the daily voluntary ingestion of a neurotoxin, improved my life in the following ways:

1. Easier to make good choices & routinely stick to them.
2. Sleep! Your brain needs to detox at night, so getting good, deep sleep is vital to optimal brain function/mood and lifestyle balance.
3. Better, less drama-filled relationships, and the ability to clearly see who enhances your life and how, and then nurturing that.

If YOU’RE interested in quitting alcohol, feel free to reach out or drop a comment below. I’m working on a book about this topic, and want to understand what you want to know!

01/27/2022 0 comments

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Happy New Year! My Mission Is To Persuade YOU to Stop Drinking Alcohol

by Carla Gericke 01/06/2022

written by Carla Gericke

I have been traveling and dealing with family issues, so have not written my annual summation of 2021, but we were all there, and we all know it sucked balls. ‘Nuff said.

Followers know I like to pick a “word of the year” to guide my mindfulness and meditations, a sentiment or notion to circle back to on those days when I’ve lost my “oomph” or need a little brain-trick to stay on the path of health and wellness I have chosen for myself. Past words have included “change,” “vibrance,” and last year, “sthira and sukha” (effort and ease).

This year got off to a rough start, with a difficult Christmas holiday spent with my parents. We all got the Vid, and on top of that, Pa was hospitalized due to a sodium imbalance caused by alcoholism; and my mother’s dementia, in addition to the damage she suffered after her stroke decades ago, is now undeniable.

Their medical challenges are at least partially because of habitual daily drinking, and the negative effects I started to notice a few years ago on their minds and moods, was one of the reasons I quit drinking in 2017.

I haven’t really picked a “word of the year” yet, other than having NETWORKING very forward on my mind, but I’m going to write a book about my decision to quit using alcohol, one that will hopefully persuade you to do so too.

I feel grateful that I have grown enough as a writer over the past few years that, instead of having to work on motivating myself to write, I have created sustainable habits–daily journaling, meditation, regular blogging and fresh content–to support the following achievable commitments:

Three months to write an outline and submit book proposal;
Network with my fellow author friends and publishing contacts to do a formal book deal;
Finish the book by the end of year.

I have been practicing behavioral modification for the last couple of years. One of the reframing techniques I use is identifying when I am suffering from cognitive dissonance, which is just a fancy way of saying, “moments when my behavior and my thoughts are not aligned.”

Because I’ve had other careers, including working as in-house counsel at Fortune 500s through the dotcom era, I have always treated my writing as a “hobby” instead of a job. This is the year this changes.

In my quest for clean living, I’m actively seeking natural ways to get more dopamine hits, and the feeling I got when my first book, The Ecstatic Pessimist: Stories of Hope (Mostly) was published, rates right up there on my internal satisfaction scale. It’s a feeling worth chasing! Every time I see my book, I get a little thrill. As I was journaling this morning, I realized I can replicate that feeling more often if I churn out more books. Go me!

Years ago, before I got cancelled for my views on gun control, I worked with locally-known New Hampshire journalist and historian, John Clayton. He said something in a workshop that’s always stuck with me. He sold his first story for a nominal amount when he was still in high school. Fine. But the important part was he told himself he would never publish anything for which he was not remunerated. As I shift more seriously into writing career path, I am going to apply this to my own life going forward.

Of course, I will still blog and write for the sake of communicating important ideas, but I will also seek to monetize my efforts… Which is just my way of saying: writing is no longer a hobby, it is a calling for which I want and deserve to get paid.

01/06/2022 0 comments

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Decide What to Be and Go Be It

by Carla Gericke 05/03/2021

written by Carla Gericke

There’s an Avett Brothers song, “Head Full Of Doubt / Road Full Of Promise” that always inspires me:

“When nothing is owed or deserved or expected
And your life doesn’t change by the man that’s elected
If you’re loved by someone, you’re never rejected
Decide what to be and go be it.”

Because I’m good at a lot of things, for the longest time, my struggle was “deciding what to be.” I’m a trained lawyer. I’m an author. I do a lot of political activism. I cook. Garden. I lead and mentor. I’ve been told I’m not the world’s worst wife.

In order to be yourself, you have to know yourself.

When I was graduating from high school at sixteen, I was asked during an aptitude test what I wanted to be “when I grow up.” My answer: A writer and a fashionista.

In South Africa in the mid-Eighties, this wasn’t an “acceptable” career choice, so, bowing to societal and family pressure, I ended up practicing law on two continents, including at Logitech and Apple Computer.

Now, more than thirty years later, it’s clear to me that my instincts back then were right. I /still/ want to be a writer and a fashionista. (Really, I just love writing the word “fashionista.” LOL)

We know ourselves. Decide what to be and go be it.

Not sure where to start? Try journaling. Make a promise to yourself to jot down at least a few things daily. “Daily” is important, because it creates a routine, and routines, whether we like it or not, become habits and good habits make life easier. Good habits make it easier to DECIDE WHAT TO BE AND GO BE IT.

In my journal, I make notes about my mood, things I’m grateful about or maybe pissed off about, successes, failures, whether I meditated, did yoga or other exercise, etc. But mostly, with the habit of daily journaling, I was able to “hear” the voices in my head, especially the negative ones who tell you you can’t be who YOU want TO BE. You know the one. Those jerks who usually speak to you in the second person. Who is this person in your head who doesn’t think they’re even part of you? That mofo jerk who holds you back from knowing, deciding, and being your best YOU? Well, I discovered and smothered mine, and YOU can too! (Read more about that here.)

Deciding what to BE is HARD, and not static, so recently I decided a hack I would try was simply to focus on the “GO BE IT” part. Through my journaling, I’ve analyzed where I spend my time, and what of those activities actually make me happy. Not the “hafta dos” or “kinda must dos” but the, I LOVE TO DO THIS AND WISH I CAN TELL EVERYONE IN THE WORLD.

What are you DOING with your TIME?

Once I realized how much of my time I spent drinking or thinking about drinking, and how little I spent on ACTUALLY writing and finishing my first book, The Ecstatic Pessimist now available on Amazon, I knew something needed to change.

So I changed.

I quit drinking in 2017 after reading This Naked Mind, and I have never, ever regretted this DECISION. Know why? Because it was MY choice. MY decision. I owned it and I made myself proud.

These days, I never think about drinking, except sometimes in a “Man, I’m so glad I quit” way because I am too busy living a complete and fulfilling life. I am too busy deciding what to be and then being it.

I want to help YOU on YOUR journey. Tell me something you’re working on, something you’d like to become and be! Change is possible, you just have to CHOOSE to change! If I can, so can YOU!

Catch me being here:
The Art of Independence: www.CarlaGericke.com
On YouTube

PS: I know the 2020 photo does not look chill, but it was literally the moment I uploaded my manuscript and I was tres excite.

05/03/2021 0 comments