Living Bright with Donna & Troy
A Qstack Feature Conversation with Donna McArthur of The Bright Life
Welcome to the first edition of Qstack Features—posts that get right to the heart of the people, ideas and connections in our community.
I’m not sure how I first found and her Substack , but I do remember I was instantly enamored of her enormous positivity, and the fact that she's been forthright about her decision to get sober years ago. As a sober person myself, Donna’s uplifting message of inner peace and personal responsibility resonated deeply with me in my own journey out of chronic anxiety and addiction.
Soon came to find out, she is also super sweet and personable—someone I feel I’ve known for ages, and who invites all of her subscribers into her inner circle of fellow travelers. Donna hails from a small mountain town in British Columbia, and has a 30-year chiropractic practice with her husband.
With her work in The Bright Life, she focuses on: "...elevating our energy (how?), living to our greatest potential (may not be what we think), and all things relating to overall well-being & spirituality - I come at it from a heart-centered, evidence-based perspective, because science & spirit are my jam!"
Donna’s message in The Bright Life is simple in words, and spacious in practice:
Be Kind and Forgiving of yourself—We all make mistakes; we all find ourselves in tough spots when we are not our best selves.
Be Courageous—Look deeply into your fears and fondest wishes; decide what is working, and what is definitely not.
Be Bold—Make the change you want to see in yourself and the world, and ask for help when you aren’t sure what to do next.
As a supporter and ally of the Qstack community, Donna cheered from the minute I announced I was putting together a Substack for LGBTQ+ folks, and I’m delighted to share our exchange on how to open ourselves up to more authenticity and happiness in our lives.
We posed ourselves three questions, and then followed-up with another to each of us.
What was the primary tool or turning point that allowed you to see yourself through a greater lens?
DONNA: My personal expansion has been more of an unfolding than a specific moment that created a shift. However, over the years I’ve found my biggest, life-changing decisions, at first glance, appear to be made suddenly and with great impact. From the outside this is how it seemed when I decided to live a sober life, but on the inside my deepest self knew for a very long time that my wine drinking habit had to go. I needed to tear off the band-aid (the stop drinking part) to look at what was underneath (the recovery part).
My dedication to live a wholehearted, conscious life was marred (understatement) by my desire to ‘relax with a glass of wine’. This insidious habit, that had been with me since childhood, numbed me out and left me feeling less-than my full self, due to a lack of clarity. It seemed my soul was nudging me for years, yet I relentlessly ignored the call to put down the wine. I spent a long time trying to figure out a way to serve two Masters and get away with it—I wanted the comfort of sliding under my culturally acceptable numbing agent and I also wanted growth and a deeper spirituality.
I continued to ignore the truth that my beloved wine was taking much more than it was giving until I realized if I continued down this path, I was likely going to become a shell of my former self simply because I would be exhausted with no ability to feel joy. I set up a plan to get a divorce from wine and, in doing so, I began to uncover what was underneath it. While I was still ‘relaxing with a glass of wine’ I began to research what alcohol was doing to my brain. I joined an online organization called She Recovers, and listened to many podcasts to get educated.
TROY: Until just two and a half years ago, I was on a downward spiral I’m convinced would have killed me. My rock bottom moment came on a beach here in Sitges when I woke up from a blackout drunk with the incoming tide washing over me—I could very well have not woken up, washed out to sea and drowned, which happens here in our little party/beach town on occasion.
Drinking and drugs are a big part of gay culture for a lot of folks—it’s one way that many people, including me, deal with the homophobia and anxiety that often still permeates our lives. It’s not a bad thing, partying for fun and freedom, but if you are predisposed to substance abuse, it can be the key to a door that opens onto an abyss.
Substance abuse can wrap you up in an urgent lack and—rather than repair the void you are feeling—keep harming that wounded child inside until it all threatens to engulf you. Sometimes it’s easy to dismiss drunks and addicts because of their bad behavior, but deep down, some of us are very fragile spirits who often have not had good role models for loving kindness toward ourselves and others.
Having that rock bottom moment when I woke up wet and swamped by waves really scared the shit out of me. I had a bout with sobriety before in the late 90s and imagined I was cured, but this time, something clicked on a spiritual level.
Yes, I went back to AA, but it’s been my own pursuit of a spiritual path—through meditation mainly, and through a journaling practice I developed on my own but probably most closely aligned with Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and an organization called Two Way Prayer—that’s led to my feeling at home in our shared cosmos rather than constantly alienated and estranged from life and other people.
How did this impact your life?
DONNA: Sobriety has given me the opportunity to live a more examined life, to draw my spirit back and clear my head. I’m not saying I have it all figured out, far from it, but it seems I have a greater ability to anchor into what is most important to me rather than facing each day from a reactive place.
There are two sides to this beautiful coin. The impact of quitting drinking has, of course, affected my physiology. Being sober allows for much better sleep and nutrition. It’s also improved my time management and the way I act in my relationships. As we age, our ability to metabolize alcohol decreases so the symptoms that come with having a drink are magnified. Getting rid of these symptoms has helped me feel much better. The other side of the coin, which is very important to me, is the spiritual aspect. It became more difficult to access my Higher Self when I was eroding my self-respect day after day. The significance of knowing I can show up for myself and do the hard work of creating change has had a ripple effect on all aspects of my life.
I have learned to recognize the space between everything and it’s in that space that my sense of peace lies. I have much more access to this grace than I did when I was run down from ‘relaxing with a glass of wine’ the night before. Note: I put ‘relaxing with a glass of wine’ in little quotes to indicate it is an insidious cultural myth that wine is the best or only way to chill out, this is not true.
TROY: Thanks to the very stringent Covid lockdown measures here in Spain, before I got sober I had already started meditating regularly, and I wrote my first novel, Watrspout. But I also had a compelling spiritual epiphany one day out on a walk.
For about half an hour, I experienced a sustained apprehension of the Now as the spiritual touchstone of our consciousness and being—it was ineffable, unbidden, and powerful—and it’s left a residue in my awareness which reminds me that every moment and every experience of our lives has a divine component, and that this is true of all life, all matter, everything in existence and in the yet-to-become. I don’t call this divinity “God”—I call it “GG” for secret reasons.
So I think when the old pattern of drinking culminated in that shocking slap in the face on that beach—and at home facing my husband afterward with all my shame and remorse—it was as if that spiritual harmony was already playing silently in my mind, and I just had to switch it off mute to start hearing and feeling the music.
Sobriety also made it possible for me to finally address the anxiety, shame, and grief over having a family with deep patterns of emotional repression, authoritarianism, and conservatism.
I found a great therapist who introduced me to a therapeutic modality with a spiritual component, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, or DBT, and I also finally accepted that I needed help in the form of anti-anxiety medication.
It’s always a work in progress—meditation, channeling creativity and inner wisdom, fully accepting that I can never go back to intoxicating substances to handle the challenges of life—but I have forged ahead with my writing, repaired the damage I inflicted on my relationship with my husband, and have reached a space in my life where acceptance has opened up a deeper sense of curiosity and courage.
At this point in your life what will you allow yourself to receive?
DONNA: “What will you allow yourself to receive” is an enormous idea to contemplate, I find it quite scary!
I want to allow myself to take in love, to learn to receive it fully. I’m talking about a broad-spectrum kind of love – an opening within myself that is capable of holding gentleness alongside the chaos of daily living. This glorious space will receive, with glee, all the goodness that is thrown my way, allowing me to stand fully in my light without needing to shield it. I can accept that I am worthy of this love in all forms, from myself and others. I don’t have to earn the right to receive it, nor do I have to necessarily offer anything in return. I can simply BE, in all my imperfect forms, and allow it in.
This sounds like spiritual blah-blah-blah, I get it.
It’s easy to tune out until we think about it using our mind and our heart. We know that love looks very different each time it’s presented, there is no one right way to show someone you love them. But how does it look, or feel, when it is received? To me, it may linger as a subtle softness, an inner knowing that contains a quiet sense of holding steady without collapsing. This is what I will allow myself to receive.
TROY: Most importantly, the thing I’ve accepted is that life is not meant to be a perpetual series of crashing successes and wild euphoria. We are not doing life wrong if we are sometimes sad, angry, or overwhelmed; I’ve learned to allow the low points in without letting them crush my hope and spirit.
Life is lived in iterations, not perfection. I have no time at all for Get [x] Quick schemes, or “gurus” who promise THE Hack that circumvents disappointment as if it’s a disease.
Like the Buddha’s parable of the mustard seed, loss and mistakes and failure are part of every life’s journey. I can live today aiming toward the things I want or need, sometimes being surprised and appreciating a mark I wasn’t aiming for, and sometimes falling very wide of my target without blaming myself or the world because I’m not perfect.
We really are all of us children of the Divine. As long as we live, there is always another opportunity to try again.
Donna to Troy: I find it fascinating that you had an extraordinary opening of consciousness that seems to have stayed with you. Do you find yourself longing to live in that space, wishing you could chase it down and hold on to it, or is there an overlying sense of contentment that all is as it should be and you’re able to let it go?
With your sense of curiosity and courage guiding you, do you find things happen in a serendipitous manner or do you bravely plan things out and see what happens? What suggestions would you have for someone to help them become more courageously curious?
TROY: I don’t find myself wishing to live in that space all the time—maybe too awe-inspiring to handle as a constant presence. It felt like a tremendous clarity about the unity and equality of all things as expressions of a divine whole. For me right now, it is not an ecstatic state I would or could choose to rest in, but the memory and essence of it restores a sense of balance whenever I need it—a touchstone.
Consistently seeking to come closer to the divine in whatever form it takes for you, in whatever ways feel most productive—meditation, prayer, art, knowledge, science, a spiritual tradition, communing with nature, or helping others—it’s a practice because it is both a sustained endeavor and something we never actually get perfect. Consistently returning, again and again, to honoring the spirit of the divine in ourselves and others is one way we become more resilient.
Courage, curiosity, and contentment naturally arrive when we practice letting go of our attachments to how we think life should be. Sometimes we get what we want and need; sometimes we don’t. We aim, we take our best shot, we accept the result, we try again.
Troy to Donna: I feel profoundly the gentleness you mentioned as a counterbalance to the chaos of our lives, and the space within which receives love and goodness from so many sources, in so many different forms.
If someone were in a dark place—emotionally, spiritually, even financially or in relationships—feeling overwhelmed and stuck, what one powerful act could they take to bring light into their lives and start moving toward that love and gentleness for themselves?
DONNA: There is no one thing that works every time but I’ve found, both in my clinical practice and personally, that the most powerful thing we can do when times are tough is to intentionally move our body as best we can. Physical movement, even if all we can achieve is moving our breath in and out, alters our energetic state both mentally and spiritually. Our body is our transport mechanism through time so shifting our physiology through movement often proves to be a viable anchor that will make us feel different immediately.
However, for a ton of different reasons, not everyone has access to their physical body so there are many other practices that will help us see through a wider lens. I have found prayer and journaling to be powerful acts to help me move forward.
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I loved this conversation so much Troy, thank you❤
“Life is lived in iterations, not perfection.” Loved this conversation between two Buddha-hearts! The wisdom and curiosity born from both your deliberate acts of surrender are so revitalizing to read. Whether it’s a near-death tidal wave or a more subtle tug on the sleeve of numbing-out, we all have opportunities to “wake up” and meet ourselves as we are, and it’s so beautiful to read how two favorite authors over here found the courage to do so…and now here we are, reaping the rewards.❤️