What now?

Using addition not subtraction to create more joy

Nov 22, 2023

*Full Moon Cauldron*, 2019 - a painting about staring into the blank future

Dear readers, as you may already know from reading previous posts, I have been dipping my toe into 12-step programs. About a month in I would like to say that I have found them surprisingly cozy and inspiring. I finally attended a meeting after a critical mass of people telling me that they too have been and how helpful they were.

But the straw that broke the camel’s back was Maria Bamford’s interview on Fresh Air where she talks extensively about her love of 12-step meetings of any kind, regardless of whether she technically qualifies as a member. As she says below they are 1. Free, 2. Free, and 3. A no-shame zone that are basically impossible to get kicked out of.

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A post shared by @mariabamfordcomedy

Jokes aside, this opened the door for me to try them out without the extreme pressure of having to immediately belong somewhere. I have found the mirror offered by other members helpful while trying to figure out what truth and Truth resonates with me. This week, someone in one of the meetings said something that I thought was really inspiring and helpful. It has been sitting with me needing to come out, so here it is.

They offered some thoughts about their own personal growth that they use addition rather than subtraction to support their recovery. Instead of trying to subtract the bad thing/person/behavior from their life, they add things like meetings, calls to friends, hobbies, and healthy habits.

A friend and future The Side Woo guest Amir Hamoui who made a recovery-focused oracle-style deck, said something similar when we spoke last week. His recovery leader with the SMART program told his group to find a project to focus on for their first year of recovery. The idea is this project would take some of the edge off of the inevitable “What now?” that comes up any time you make a huge life change.

“What now is not just a panic-stricken question tossed into a dark unknown. What now can also be our joy. It is a declaration of possibility, of promise, of chance.” - Ann Patchett

I first read this phrase, “What now?” in a book by that title inspired by Ann Patchett’s now famous graduation speech at Sarah Lawrence in 2006. I read it 15 years ago in the middle of a major personal and mental health crisis in New York. Her first experience of what now came when she arrived at college, terrified that she knew no one and unsure what to do next. She decided, to assuage her fears, to make cookies and offer them to her neighbor across the street who turned out to be the head of the English department. Friendship ensued and the rest is history.

Reading this I was on the other hand riding the subway somewhere deep in subterranean Manhattan with artificial lighting as harsh and unflattering as my thoughts. I had been laid off from my job, was deeply depressed, and was applying to graduate school as if my life depended on it.

I was living my best buddha life and it was making me miserable.

But those words stuck with me. I had never allowed myself to really think them because I was too afraid that the answer would be a big resounding void of nothingness. Better to walk blindly into the void ignoring all your alarm bells, then know you are in there, I thought. This approach obviously did not serve me well. I lept into things without looking: took on jobs, friendships, and other commitments whose only function were to keep me from falling into the abyss (which was actually just myself and my needs). I had never really given myself the chance to wonder what now with real curiosity, then sit patiently, quietly while the answer blossomed in my heart.

I knew what I didn’t want, and knew what I thought I should want, but I didn’t know what else. So instead of fully figuring it out, I abstained, withdrew, and tried to make do without. I was living my best buddha life and it was making me miserable.

Hearing this person’s strategy of adding things rather than focusing on removing or staying away from the bad stuff felt like permission to need and want more, even though I wasn’t perfect yet.

Adding not subtracting asks the question, what do I need rather than how much can I do without?

As someone who has leaned heavily into her work, perhaps as the #1 avoidance tactic of all things scary and uncomfortable, I spend and have spent hours alone in my studio, writing, and editing podcasts. I have been mostly single for the better part of a decade and honestly after the pandemic, it does not always occur to me to schedule other people into my life.

Adding not subtracting asks the question, what do I need rather than how much can I do without? It is a good reminder that healing can look like many things including just having more fun with other imperfect people like you.

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