This title is a true statement. For some of you, giving up coffee for 31 days doesn't seem like a huge deal...but for me it was.
I love coffee. I love drinking coffee. I love the smell of coffee. I'm thankful for the huge caffeine boost coffee gives me most days.
I've been drinking coffee since I was a child. There is a story that my great-grandmother gave me coffee in a bottle. I always envisioned this as little baby me, nursing on a bottle at under a year old. This vision was shattered when my mom told me I was closer to 2. But that's still a young age, no matter what.
But I gave it up...and some other things too.
Why?
Because my world had become increasingly "loud"...busy...overstimulating. And I needed to cut through the noise and get some peace and some focus.
This year I've struggled with decisions - big & small. Things that shouldn't be a hard choice I made harder by over-analyzing and over thinking. I kept coming back to this idea of fasting. Removing some of the "junk" that was taking up the space in my mind. But I put it off...and then put it off again...and once more. Finally in September I was struggling with a decision and I said "OK...I'm putting some of this stuff to rest...I'm going to re-focus." I decided October would be the month. I wanted a full month - 1st to 31st.
I began to make a list of the things that consume my time & that I had made essential that weren't truly essential. And I decided to forego them all, for the most part. I made some concessions beforehand...I'll describe below...but this is the list that came to me - the things I felt like I needed to give up:
1 - Coffee - I will not tell you again how much I love coffee but I do. And I knew that I could not truly fast without giving this up. I would also like to say that I handled this like a trooper...but I have people (or really just one person) who would be able to tell you I didn't. In fact, I'm actually starting this post a few days before the end of the month and on this very day, giving up coffee was the hardest. I literally could smell someone's coffee from the basement of our office wafting up to my office. The fact that I didn't attack said person for the coffee should be commended, though. And what did I learn from leaving coffee out of my day to day? That I go to sleep much earlier.
2 - ALL beverages except water & green tea - I don't actually drink a lot of other beverages other than coffee & water, but I did give up occasional soft drinks as well. I allowed green tea because I need a little caffeine and because of the health benefits. I did have one cup of wild orange tea & one cup of lemonade at a vendor event where they didn't offer water.
3 - TV - I will be honest...Netflix consumes a great deal of my time. I usually have something on when I'm in the house, I fall asleep watching TV, and a Netflix binge is one of my favorite ways to pass a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Instead, during this month I listened to music & podcasts, read a lot, and kept up to date (for the most part) on my Bible reading. I'm seriously considering limiting my TV time to Saturday's & Sunday's. For the most part, this wasn't terribly hard, but I did have a day toward the end of the month that was blah and I really wanted to watch something that was an "easy" watch. Also, I ended this a little early...I wanted to watch Hocus Pocus before Halloween...so I did. But the TV went off right after that.
**Before I began my fast, I did make concessions on weekends when D was at the house. We watch TV together a lot and he's not fasting. So, I didn't want to disappear & leave him by himself when he was watching something. This was the only time I allowed myself to forego the TV fast...but often I was reading while he was watching.
4 - Sweets, desserts, candy - My lunch & dinner are not complete without a little dessert - candy, cookies, cake, what have you. These should be non-essentials & special occasions, but I've made them a necessity. So I cut them out. This one didn't go *quite* as well, though. I had already made concessions for the two birthdays that I knew I'd be celebrating during October - life is too short to NOT have birthday cake; however, I made 5 cakes during the month of October, one of which was a chocolate pound cake for D. I needed to taste it...twice. ;) Instead of sweets, I tried to make sure I had sweet fruits in the house - i.e. grapes - to give me that "sweet" taste.
5 - Facebook & Instagram - I knew if I wanted to give this up, I would have to physically delete the apps from my phone. I am embarrassed to tell you the level of anxiety I felt when I went to bed on September 30th & deleted those apps. So many thoughts went through my head...how will I know what's going on with all my Facebook friends? What if I miss something? And as I battled these thoughts, a growing thought overtook them all...that this obsession with 24/7 information is why I needed to give them up. So I deleted the apps...not my accounts. I did reinstall Instagram to post a little birthday wish for my nephew, which I shared to Facebook as well, but I deleted it as soon as it was posted. The only other time I was on Facebook was for company stuff (I'm an admin on our company page) or if that was the website for a business I was looking for information. I knew this was were the most traffic & noise in my mind was coming from. They had to go. I realized, though, very quickly that this is where I get all of my information - news (both real & fake) on world events. So, I had to look to other avenues for news information. I also realized that this was my "go to" when I was bored. Sometimes it was what I was doing when I should be engaging with people. And for these reasons, I knew it needed to go.
This past month has really been amazing. There were two things I was considering for next year & trying to figure out how to fit them in because hey...I'm gonna have a graduate in May & we need to celebrate that! I have peace that one needs to be left for now...the other needed a "yes". There are still some things that I need resolution on, but I feel like the answer isn't for right now. And I'm OK with that.
Overall, though, I've enjoyed the quiet. And I know that means I need to let some of these things rest more in my life. I need to stop allowing Facebook & Instagram...as well as Netflix...have such a huge hold in my life. Most of all, I am thankful for the peace that I've gained in some areas of my life.
So, now...I'm gonna go get a cup of coffee. ;)
