So … staying sober is easy for me since I know I’ll die if I relapse. What isn’t so easy is navigating the emotions I get when I’m stressed out and struggling. I get upset and hole within myself. Radical honesty doesn’t necessarily help when accepting things hurt.
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Girl I feel this.
Personally, I’ve been working on giving myself permission to feel emotions I was raised to believe were negative & “wrong.” Anger & sadness, mainly. When I feel angry or sad, I accept it & just try my best to sit with the feeling. I tell myself it’s perfectly okay to feel those emotions, while also reminding myself to not let them take over completely. I don’t know if any of that helps, but I’m rooting for you!
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Thank you! I appreciate the support. I got angry a while ago and it consumed me … I couldn’t see past it. I guess I’m still learning how to breathe and accept.
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Oh absolutely! I think is just being aware of it & making an effort to process it is a huge accomplishment in itself! I’ve found that with most things, it takes practice! We’ll keep getting better the more we work at it!
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I agree. Pausing when things upset us is huge.
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Yessss! This is the hardest thing for me too. I learned from long ago (early childhood trauma) to shut down and not feel in order to protect myself from being hurt. I’m just awful at confrontation, especially when it comes from anger. This exact situation came up the other night at home. My wife and I are both very frustrated with our oldest kid. I take his bad attitude because I know he’s hurting. My wife OTOH reacts in a totally different way. She blows up and goes on the attack. Once she does this, I just clam up because I’m so darn uncomfortable. While I feel similar to her, I shut down because of the way she expresses her feelings (hurt and anger). It’s so frustrating because she feels like I’m not supporting her. I feel like she’s attacking our kid. I just know that I need to feel. I need to learn how to express my feelings better. I drank/drugged and did many F’d up things due to not dealing with this. I can’t afford not to grow and learn. The cost of not healing is way too high. Thanks for bringing this up. I’m with you on this. Let’s continue to push thru the pain and discomfort so that we can learn to live a happier and healthier life
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Setting boundaries and having them, for me is a struggle too since I’m such a people pleaser. But I’m with you … when someone is reacting so explosively it’s like … “bye” but I stuff that stress in my diaphragm and sit with it. I have made myself sick doing this.
I need to learn to release them. I’m glad bringing this up was helpful.
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What you said right there accepting. Acceptance is the answer. Accepting that the only thing you're in control of is you, and you can only do your best each day and let the rest play out as they may. People, places & things will never be exactly how we want them to be so we must focus our energy on what we can do to improve our lives& not worry as much about what out of our hands
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I'd strongly recommend reading Acceptance is the Answer in the big book. And Bill Wilson's essay on Emotional Sobriety. Both those helped me tremendously. Best of luck to you. Keep working.
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That’s my favorite. You’re right. I do need to re-read it. Thank you!
Love yourself for being a good person(: I’m only two months in but the acceptance, and continuous analyzation of myself helps me see some of the reasons why people or things react because of certain factors/ events happened. There’s always going to be that cause and effect! They do something aggravating to us and sometimes try to hurt us.. and it could be something else that they’re angry about. My ex-spouse for instance, she lashes out on me due to her grief from her mother passing.. that’s a simple one because it’s so major; it helps me understand other people can’t feel what I feel in the moment because we’re really not all One with each other. If that makes sense, idk lol but I’m still struggling too and freak out here and there with it being so new.
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Navigating the emotions that you feel when you get stressed is part ofearly recovery. Everyone goes through that. We have to learn to live all over again without picking up a drink or a drug. In the book of Alcoholics Anonymous there is a chapter entitled The Doctor's Opinion. In that chapter it is referred to as an entire psychic change."
Let me give you something that really stuck out for me when I first read it.
Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are
restless, irritable and discontented
unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks—drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the
phenomenon of craving
develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an
entire psychic change
there is very little hope of his or her recovery.”
The part about restless irritable and discontented is the same thing as those emotions that you were describing.
If you want to know how to get this psychic change, I suggest that you start going to AA meethings and start talking with people that have been around a while.
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Radical acceptance. Using the wise mind to handle situations involving emotions. Imagine this, you are Daenerys head of your council. Your Wiseman, Aka your council are your emotions. They advise you and you listen. Process the feelings collectively and then respond. In doing so, one shouldn't remain in thoughts of feelings
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Just a couple days ago I voiced in a meeting that I love acceptance so much because I suck so bad at it.
It just takes me time to process things and eventually I accept what is and move on.
But during that processing time it’s so hard to not be reactive or emotionally unjust …
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Yes! Thank you for pointing this out. I needed to reread this today too !
FYI: fun fact I just learned about a year ago, women tend toward anger/arguing/yelling when they are in fear. Sounds like whatever is going on with the kiddo is really scaring her. Maybe that’s the only emotion you could exercise right now is empathy for her. She already knows you clam up and turn inward. Maybe surprise her by caring for her while she is hurting. I’m sure if nothing else she will feel like you are getting more and more “solid” in your sobriety. Just a thought… IDK.