I have been caffeine free for the last 3+ years. Yep, not just coffee, but caffeine!
Coffee wasn’t something I had always been accustomed to. In fact I hated the taste. I didn’t quite understand what the rage was all about. I was the one you’d invite to a café and I’d be sitting there with a hot chocolate.
At the time I had a baby and toddler, was exhausted and depleted, living off minimal sleep and pushing my body past its limits. After hearing and seeing the so-called utopian effects of coffee I decided to one day give it a go.
First cup… I hated the taste. “How could anyone enjoy that taste?!” But then the buzz came and the rush of energy I was longing for. So I tried again, this time with a little milk because it so-called softens it a bit. Still gross but I still wanted the effect. The next time I added some sweetener and then I was hooked, gone. I got the taste and the energy and before I knew it I couldn’t get through a day without one, or two. I was now a coffee enthusiast.
The effects of coffee wasn’t just the rush of energy. It was the rapid decline – the come down. The caffeine lifted you and when it wore off dropped you like a tonne of bricks – feeding the desire for more. My energy levels were now about the rise and the fall. Other effects included an irritable bowel, headaches and at times brain fuzziness.
One day I took a step back and observed my caffeine use. I didn’t change what I was doing and how I was using caffeine, I merely just watched myself, I became a case study of myself for myself. I took note of how I was feeling when I would reach for a cup, what thoughts were running through my mind and most importantly how my body felt afterwards. Some of my observations were:
The sudden rush of energy came from an external source (the caffeine) rather than from my own body naturally.
The lack of control I had of my body. I felt like my body was moving at a pace that wasn’t, in a sense, mine.
The crash. The moment the effect of caffeine wore off and how I was, once again, feeling the exhaustion.
The crave for more to avoid feeling what was there to be felt… pure exhaustion.
Over time, the more I observed myself the more I realised I wasn’t with myself. I was always reaching for something outside of myself to help me be more ‘me’. Until one day, I had enough of what I saw and couldn’t stand what I was doing to my body that I just stopped. I woke up one day and stopped having coffee (I only had caffeine in the form of coffee, I wasn’t one for energy drinks, etc.). I went cold turkey as they say. I made myself feel where my body was at without it. The first 6 weeks was pretty rough. I was completely and utterly exhausted. When I would reach for a cuppa I would lay down and rest instead. And let me tell you, there was a lot of resting and power naps! In these 6 weeks the massive reality set in that I was plugging into a lifeline that wasn’t truly supportive nor loving. If it was, I wouldn’t experience the ups and downs and the cravings and desires for something external from myself.
I re-developed my relationship with my body and once again how to care for it supportively and lovingly and in doing so returned to honouring it as a vehicle - a vehicle that carries me through life, allows me to be who I truly am and be there lovingly for my husband, children and everyone I interact with. And just like the vehicles we drive on the road, I take note of what I put into my vehicle… my body. If you put diesel in a car that takes unleaded, you get a car that won’t run to its optimum level. If I reach for something that isn’t supportive for my body, and at times I do because there are imperfections, although caffeine no longer has a place in my life, I observe, feel the effects and ask myself….. does this truly support me, allow me to be present with my body and everyone around me?
I take this experience as a remarkable feat of something that I moved away from that is so heavily engrained in humanity. A narrative that is fed to believe that caffeine is something that is required to survive. The conclusion of the case study: What is truly going on when we are reliant on a substance that provides an energy to live?
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