Feelings

[caressa]

The Language of Letting Go

Feelings

It's okay to have and feel our feelings - all of them.

Years into recovery, we may still be battling with ourselves about this issue. Of all the prohibitions we've lived with, this one is potentially the most damaging and the most long-lived.

Many of us needed to shut down the emotional part of ourselves to survive certain situations. We shut down the part of us that feels anger, sadness, fear, joy, and love. We may have turned off our sexual or sensual feelings too. Many of us lived in systems with people who refused to tolerate our emotions. We were shamed or reprimanded for expressing feelings, usually by people who were taught to repress their own.

But times have changed. It is okay now for us to acknowledge and accept our emotions. We don't need to allow our emotions to control us; neither do we need to allow our emotions to control us; neither do we need to rigidly repress our feelings. Our emotional center is a valuable part of us. It's connected to our physical well being, our thinking, and our spirituality.

Our feelings are also connected to that great gift, instinct. They enable us to give and receive love.

We are neither weak nor deficient for indulging in our feelings. It means we're becoming healthy and whole.

Today, I will allow myself to recognize and accept whatever feelings pass through me. Without shame, I will tune in to the emotional part of myself.



©1990, Hazelden Foundation.

[caressa]

For many years, I took on false guilt and shame. Those words and sayings were killers. "Look what you made me do!" "If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't do..." Recovery allows me to know what is mine and what isn't and accept my own feelings and how to learn to deal with them. It is surprising how much is projected onto us, often not knowingly, because the other person is sick too.

[majestyjo]

You have to acknowledge and feel the feelings in order to let them go.

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[caressa222]

Like how it says feelings - all of them. There are feelings we don't like, but we need to validate them and acknowledge them before we can let them go.

As the slogan says, "This too shall pass." This means the good as well as the not so good will pass, so enjoy them when you can.

Emotions aren't something we should stuff and hide away. We need to express them in a healthy way. I was remembering tonight that I journaled for the first 6 years of my recovery. It really helped me.