Big Tiny Steps

(At 75% of Full Dosage, and day 3 of taking the Bright Mind natural Adderall alternative)

Wow, well, yesterday was a doozy…

Not only did things in my life go haywire yesterday, but, they went haywire in ways that I couldn’t even imagine. Just stressful situation after stressful situation. There was some joy and fun sprinkled in as well, but oh boy, if ever there was a day where the body and mind might start craving a bit of a “pick me up”, yesterday would have been it.

Nonetheless, I am still experiencing no cravings or psychosomatically-induced withdawal symptoms. I believe that I conducted myself in a pretty good manner in the midst of all hell breaking loose, and I believe that I was able to conduct myself well in the midst of a few very chaotic and stressful events.

Again, I won’t go into specifics here, since that is not the point of this journal, and I want to keep as focused on getting away from Adderall as well as any lessons I’m learning in the process.

But suffice it to say that it felt like I was under a curse of bad luck. But I’ve made the decision to let go of any and all preconceived ideas of when my bad luck “should” end, despite the fact that my life has been unbelievably challenging due to circumstances that have been going on for over a decade.

I often ask myself, or spiritual guidance/Higher Power something along the lines of, “I get that we all have challenges for our personal growth, but my question is what is the purpose of the LENGTH OF TIME in which my challenges have been going on with relatively little change despite my very best efforts, both externally and internally?.

Since I am not (yet) hearing the voice of The Universe booming down at me with a definite answer, I do get subtle inspiration in terms of why it might be happening.

The first reason is that the length of time involved in my struggles will serve to be a beacon of hope for others who have also felt stuck for YEARS at a time. The story of my (very!) extended period of hardship can serve to make others in the same boat feel less alone.

Imagine the feeling of going through some struggle that you’ve never actually seen anyone overcome. It’s a recipe for hopelessness.

There are a wealth of lessons to be learned in any struggle, even if I don’t understand why I’ve been seemingly “stuck” here.

I will say that I am starting to grow tired of all of these “life lessons” as they seem to be less and less fruitful and revalatory, and I often find myself saying to Spirit, “Ok, here we go again with an experience of despair. I am going to fully experience this feeling without trying to numb it, and I am also taking an honest inventory of my inner dialogue, beliefs, actions, words, etc, and see where I can improve. So doesn’t all of that entitle me to life lifting its foot off of my neck, at least for a little while?”

But for some reason, I just haven’t been able to get out from under my challenges, at least not in the physical realm, although I have been able to remain surprisingly even keeled and spiritually connected relative to the level of challenge in my life.

So there are definitely lessons there. And the impetus to quit Adderall is one of those.

I know that if I want a life of freedom from these heavy, heavy burdens, I must embody freedom in as many aspects of my life as possible. And so for me, getting away from Adderall is a major embodiment of freedom. Action is often the greatest “prayer”, and the “language” that the Universe understands as a means of generating the necessary energy to make my consciousness a match for where I’d like to be. So retreating into the comfort of self pity is only going to move me further away from that place by zapping my energy.

I sincerely believe that the only way out is THROUGH.

“Your post will be lost if you leave this page.”

I also heard a great analogy based on the teachings of Bashar (if you’re not into the “woo-woo” stuff, don’t bother clicking the link)….when shifting one’s consciousness to one that is a match for those “high frequency outcomes” that I desire, it’s like the Universe does what a website does when you fill out an online form and attempt to leave the page before submitting that form.

It’s sort of like when you start typing up a post on Facebook, and decide, “nah, I’m not going to post this” and rather than click the “POST” button, you click a link that takes you to another page.

What happens when you do that?

You get a prompt that warns you that your post will be lost if you navigate away from the current page. And so to move forward, you need to click the button telling Facebook, “yes, I am ok with moving on from this attempted post, take me somewhere else”.

Same thing when you’re trying to change your life. As soon as you start living and thinking the new way, it’s like life prompts you, “are you REALLY sure that you really want to live this new way?” And the way we say YES to this “prompt” is to CONTINUE living in accordance with this new life, knowing that this is just a “confirmation prompt”, and remaining in a positive state, which signals something to the Universe.

And what is it that we’re signaling?

I. HAVE. CHANGED.

And so I remind myself of that as shit hits the fan. The Universe is prompting me to confirm my commitment to changing and moving on. And if I decide that I’d like to stay in the curent conditions I’ve been wanting to leave behind, then the way to do that is to return to those same thoughts, feelings, and actions that I’ve experienced while living under those undesireable conditions (self-pity, fear, negativity, self-abuse, misdirected outbursts, proscrastination, people-pleasing, overexerting control, etc).

If I do that, then I am telling the Universe, “I have not changed”.

And so the Universe cannot change my circumstances if I have not changed into the person who is a match for those circumstances. To expect my life to change while I have not would be like looking in the mirror with a frown and expecting to see a smile.

Retreating from the Retreat

So far, weaning off of Adderall has been easier than I anticipated when I formulated my “Advance and Retreat” weaning schedule where I decrease 2 increments, move back one, rinse and repeat.

At this point, I am seeing no reason to retreat from my 5 mg reduction back up to a 2.5 mg reduction. The plan is now to I am going to continue down by another 2.5 mg while reserving the right to temporarily “retreat” back up by 2.5 mg if, and only if needed.

I’ll go ahead and modify the weaning schedule (also linked at in the top menu), using separate tabs for each version of the weaning schedule, but here it is below.

STARTING FROM 20 mg PER DAY, 1 WEEK PER INCREMENT IS THE PLAN, EXTEND OR SHORTEN EACH PHASE AS NEEDED

Week/Phase 1: Reduce to 17.5 mg per day (3.5 x 5 mg tablets).

Week/Phase 2: Reduce to 15 mg per day (3 x 5 mg tablets).

Week/Phase 3: Reduce to 12.5 mg per day (2.5 x 5 mg tablets).

Week/Phase 4: Reduce to 10 mg per day (2 x 5 mg tablets).

Week/Phase 5: Reduce to 7.5 mg per day (1.5 x 5 mg tablets).

Week/Phase 6: Reduce to 5 mg per day (1 x 5 mg tablet).

Week/Phase 7: Reduce to 2.5 mg (0.5 x 5 mg tablets).

Week/Phase 8: Discontinue completely (0 mg) – YOU’RE FREE!

OPTIONAL AT ANY PHASE: Increase dosage by 2.5 mg and then continue decreasing as per the schedule, IF NEEDED, as a temporary “lifeline” to replace the option of relapse.