For most of my life, I have been a bitter, resentful, angry person. The story that I tell myself is that I came by it honestly. I’m a classic case of a person who suffered early childhood trauma around abandonment and rejection issues and much of my life has been spent in trying to get the people in my life now to make up for the things done by the people in my past. When this plan didn’t work [for reasons that are obvious to me now] I reacted with resentment and anger; first toward myself and then toward others… Continue reading “Which wolf will you feed?”→
These are the instructions for love that I have been given. Love yourself. Love something bigger than yourself. Love something smaller than yourself. Love something the same size as yourself. Love as a verb, not a noun. Not a thing, an action. Love whoever comes into your path and seek out those for whom your love is abiding.
Love without resentment something you both love and resent. Love without anger someone you both love and are angry with. Love your anger and resentment if this is not possible.
Love what might be without knowing what it is. For today think of possibility, not uncertainty. Love the absence of trouble in whatever areas your life is trouble-free. Love your troubles, as they are agents of change.
Love the part of you that you love easily with the part of you that you love less so. Love a part of you that is hard to love with a part of you that you love easily. Continue reading “Instruction on Love”→
No matter how long we’ve been recovering, no matter how solid our spiritual ground, we may still feel an overwhelming desire at times to punish, or get even, with another person.
We want revenge.
We want to see the other person hurt the way he or she has hurt us. We want to see life deal that person just rewards. In fact, we would like to help life out.
Those are normal feelings, but we do not have to act on them. These feelings are part of our anger but it’s not our job to deal justice.
We can allow ourselves to feel the anger. It is helpful to go one step deeper and let ourselves feel the other feelings – the hurt, the pain, the anguish. But our goal is to release the feelings, and be finished with them.
We can hold the other person accountable. We can hold the other person responsible. But it is not our responsibility to be judge and jury. Actively seeking revenge will not help us. It will block us and hold us back.
Walk away. Stop playing the game. Unhook. Learn your lesson. Thank the other person for having taught you something valuable. And be finished with it. Put it behind, with the lesson intact.
Acceptance helps. So does forgiveness – not the kind that invites that person to use us again, but a forgiveness that releases the other person and sets him or her free to walk a separate path, while releasing our anger and resentments. That sets us free to walk our own path.
Today, I will be as angry as I need to be, with a goal of finishing my business with others. Once I have released my hurt and anger, I will strive for healthy forgiveness – forgiveness with boundaries. I understand that boundaries, coupled with forgiveness and compassion, will move me forward.” via Just For Today Meditations – Daily Recovery Readings – September 16, 2012.
Decide what it is you want and need, and then go to the person you need it from and ask for it.
Sometimes, it takes hard work and much energy to get what we want and need. We have to go through the pains of identifying what we want, then struggle to believe that we deserve it. Then, we may have to experience the disappointment of asking someone, having the person refuse us, and figuring out what to do next.
Sometimes in life, getting what we want and need is not so difficult. Sometimes, all we need to do is ask.
We can go to another person, or our Higher Power, and ask for what we need.
But because of how difficult it can be, at times, to get what we want and need, we may get trapped in the mind set of believing it will always be that difficult. Sometimes, not wanting to go through the hassle, dreading the struggle, or out of fear, we may make getting what we want and need much more difficult than it needs to be.
We may get angry before we ask, deciding that we’ll never get what we want, or anticipating the “fight” we’ll have to endure. By the time we talk to someone about what we want, we may be so angry that we’re demanding, not asking; thus our anger triggers a power play that didn’t exist except in our mind.
Or we may get so worked up that we don’t ask–or we waste far more energy than necessary fighting with ourselves, only to find out that the other person, or our Higher Power, is happy to give us what we want.
Sometimes, we have to fight and work and wait for what we want and need. Sometimes, we can get it just by asking or stating that this is what we want. Ask. If the answer is no, or not what we want, then we can decide what to do next.
Today, I will not set up a difficult situation that doesn’t exist with other people, or my Higher Power, about getting what I want and need. If there is something I need from someone, I will ask first, before I struggle.” via Just For Today Meditations » Blog.
Since I’ve been a child, I’ve been in an antagonistic relationship with an important emotional part of myself: my feelings. I have consistently tried to ignore, repress, or force my feelings away. I have tried to create unnatural feelings or force away feelings that were present.
I’ve denied I was angry, when in fact I was furious. I have told myself there must be something wrong with me for feeling angry, when anger was a reasonable and logical response to the situation.
I have told myself things didn’t hurt, when they hurt very much. I have told myself stories such as “That person didn’t mean to hurt me.” . . . “He or she doesn’t know any better.” . . . “I need to be more understanding.” The problem was that I had already been too understanding of the other person and not understanding and compassionate enough with myself.
It has not just been the large feelings I have been at war with; I have been battling the whole emotional aspect of myself. I have tried to use spiritual energy, mental energy, and even physical exertion to not feel what I need to feel to be healthy and alive.
I didn’t succeed at my attempts to control emotions. Emotional control has been a survival behavior for me. I can thank that behavior for helping me get through many years and situations where I didn’t have any better options. But I have learned a healthier behavior – accepting my feelings.
We are meant to feel. Part of our dysfunction is trying to deny or change that. Part of our recovery means learning to go with the flow of what we’re feeling and what our feelings are trying to tell us.
We are responsible for our behaviors, but we do not have to control our feelings. We can let them happen. We can learn to embrace, enjoy, and experience – feel – the emotional part of ourselves.
Today, I will stop trying to force and control my emotions. Instead, I will give power and freedom to the emotional part of myself.” via Just For Today Meditations » Blog.
The challenge with curation is often finding the best 3 paragraphs to share. Kute Blackson’s post is so good today that I just grabbed the whole think. Sorry, Kute – hope you don’t mind…
All of your feelings are a gift.
Yet we often judge feelings as good or bad. We often try to eliminate the bad ones and feel only the good ones. However, in doing so, you end up disconnecting from the full range of your heart, self-expression and power.
To the degree that you suppress what you might think of as the negative feelings is to the degree that you also disconnect from your capacity to fully experience the positive feelings.
Ultimately, there are no good or bad feelings. Feelings are just energy moving through your body. Every feeling is a signal, which if you pay attention to will point you in the direction of something that you actually need to deal with, a part of you that needs loving compassion or needs to be released. Even the feelings you label as bad are simply a signal. They are like a fire alarm trying to get you to pay attention to a part of yourself. If you don’t listen, the signal gets louder and louder until you do. If you keep suppressing, the feelings end up coming out anyway most likely in a not so gracious way (AKA -You lose it, or have a meltdown and explode)!
When you suppress your authentic feelings, those feelings simply remain incomplete buried deep within you. You often end up recreating situations and relationships in your life based on those old incomplete feelings, as there is a deep impulse within us to complete what is incomplete.
What you might call “bad” feelings show you the parts of yourself that need your love and healing. Healing is applying love to the parts of yourself that are hurting. When you hold a space of compassion for yourself and the full range of your feelings without any judgment, this compassion has a transformative effect.
As children we learn to disconnect from our authentic feelings. We disconnect as a way to avoid pain, hurt, rejection, shame etc. And it becomes a survival mechanism in order to function and protect ourselves. That way of being may have “worked” for us as children to survive, but take this way of being into our adulthood and end up recreating those same incomplete childhood patterns over and over, it only creates suffering.
What feelings are you suppressing?
What feelings are you disconnecting from?
What feelings are you afraid of feeling and acknowledging within your self?
Take an honest look.
The feelings that you suppress, or are unwilling to acknowledge and embrace, will run you!
The feelings that you are unable to have will end up having you.
When you suppress your real feelings, whether anger, sadness or hurt – over time, you might end up finding yourself feeling depressed, heavy, irritated and lacking aliveness. The heaviness is a sign that you are suppressing and ends up clouding your ability to now feel joy in the present moment.
No feelings last forever. But we are sometimes afraid to feel the feelings we think are bad because we are worried we will stay stuck there. Know this: all feelings pass. None are permanent. To the degree you can feel them, you will let them go and feel more alive.
So do not resist the negative feelings, feel them fully with total awareness whilst connecting to the sensations in your body. They will move through you and dissolve.
Similarly, no positive feelings will last forever either. So when you feel a positive feeling, simply feel it fully with total awareness, without trying to make it stay, and you might find yourself experiencing it longer. What often happens is in an effort to keep the “good” feelings we try to make it stay, which creates a contraction. In doing so we start to lose the positive feeling even more quickly!
When you are willing to embrace and love the dark in you, you are then able to more fully embrace your light. However, let me be clear, it is NOT about wallowing in your negativity and dark feelings using that as an excuse. Feeling authentically isn’t wallowing or indulging. It is simply about acknowledging and integrating what your feelings have to share with you and allowing them to move through you in a healthy way.
Ultimately you are not your feelings, whether good or bad. You are beyond them all. Your relationship with your feelings is as important as the feelings themselves. No need to be afraid or run away from them.
Your feelings are a portal into a deeper dimension of yourself and thus a deeper dimension of your own Divinity and freedom.
Your feelings are a gift. Sometimes you just need to patiently unwrap them, so you can find the important message inside.
When you feel it, you heal it.
And when you heal it, you can be more of the real you that you are meant to be.
“If you’ve ever blown your top, flown off the handle, lost it or stewed about anything, you know how you felt afterward. No matter who was at fault, no matter the outcome, you are still left with a very unpleasant feeling because of the outburst. And if you’ve ever been on the receiving end of a tantrum, you aren’t left feeling exactly happy either.” Read more: How to Control Your Emotions in Any Situation | Love or Above.
Yes. Melody Beattie again. I read her every morning. Today’s post included this thought…
At some point, strive to be done with the anger. But we need to be gentle with ourselves if the feelings surface from time to time.
Thank God for the feelings. Feel them. Release them. Ask God to bless and care for our families. Ask God to help us take freedom and take care of ourselves.
Let the golden light of healing shine upon all we love and upon all with whom we feel anger. Let the golden light of healing shine on us.
Trust that a healing is taking place, now.
Help me accept the potent emotions I may feel toward family memÂbers. Help me be grateful for the lesson they are teaching me. I accept the golden light of healing that is now shining on me and my family. I thank God that healing does not always come in a neat, tidy package.
Anger, fear, sadness, betrayal a lot of emotions can run through us when we stop trying to change the other person and start focusing on taking care of ourselves. The good news is that we’re finally feeling our own feelings instead of trying to figure out what the other person feels.
Maybe all those feelings we’ve been avoiding aren’t the opposite of love. Those feelings could be an important step on the path to love.
Inventory Focus: Is there a relationship in your life right now that is bugging you? Are you willing to explore detachment as a means to improving the relationship and regaining your peace?
Take out a sheet of paper. On the top of it write, “If it was okay to feel whatever I’m feeling, and I wouldn’t be judged as bad or wrong, what would I be feeling?” Then write whatever comes to mind. You can also use the favorite standby of many people in discovering their feelings: writing or journaling. You can keep a diary, write letters you don’t intend to send, or just scribble thoughts onto a note pad. Watch and listen to yourself as an objective third person might.
Listen to your tone of voice and the words you use. What do you hear? Sadness, fear, anger, happiness? What is your body telling you? Is it tense and rigid with anger? Running with fear? Heavy with sadness and grief? Dancing with joy?
Talking to people in recovery helps too. Going to meetings helps. Once we feel safe, many of us find that we open up naturally and with ease to our feelings.
We are on a continual treasure hunt in recovery. One of the treasures we’re seeking is the emotional part of ourselves. We don’t have to do it perfectly. We need only be honest, open, and willing to try. Our emotions are there waiting to share themselves with us.
Today, I will watch myself and listen to myself as I go through my day. I will not judge myself for what I’m feeling; I will accept myself.
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