I feel so powerless. Everything I always hoped for feels suddenly out of sight. My logical mind knows full well this isn't true, but my feelings are working hard to convince me otherwise. But I know better. Thousands of people over five decades, have taught me this in every area of my life - in empowerment workshops, in AA meetings, in church, in school.
Each feeling is but fleeting - simply hanging around until the next one comes along. The problem is each feeling wants desperately to have center stage while it's there. Just like us.
In my life, there have been countless times I've bought this hook, line, and sinker!
I've let my feelings have center stage - and willingly handed them the power to determine how I behave or respond in a given moment.
But, you see, feelings are not who I am! They are more like an intricate warning signal system to help me pay attention to what's going on in my life. They are not me. Feelings are built-in signals to teach us, prompt us to move ahead, to warn us of danger, to know love - and hate.
They are also liars. They don't always serve. They are often triggered by past experiences and events that were sometimes so painful that my mind translated the feeling as reality -- which it isn't. For instance, simply because one man hurt me terribly does not mean the next one will. It is not true that I have to guard myself against every man. My filter dysfuntioned when my mind programmed me to close down to men who were kind to me. Shutting down emotionally was not the answer. Determining whether this person was kind, sober, shared my values, shared my dreams was - and if I was willing to love him even if I might be hurt. Not bracing for him to hurt me - that's living from fear. I never have been one to live in fear. Big lesson in life is anybody can hurt us at anytime. We can't walk around worrying about that. It passes. Each relationship has its lessons to teach us. We have to decide what in our life matters on the journey. I was looking for the adventure, the experience.
It's how I respond to these feelings through action that define me!
When we are sick, our body feels pain. When our body feels pain, it's a signal telling us something is wrong and we seek help to address the root cause of our pain or to eliminate our pain. If the pain or discomfort we're feeling can be removed by taking an aspirin, what do you do? You take an aspirin. Now, what if getting rid of the pain takes more and more painkillers, and now we have a bleeding ulcer? Do we just keep taking the aspirin, or do we go to the doctor to find out why we have the pain in the first place? We're willing to stop taking the aspirin and finally get rid of the pain, right?
We go to the doctor and treat the root cause of the pain!
The same is true for alcohol and drug dependency - or addiction. Addiction is a word that gets thrown around a lot, and can easily be misunderstood. Addiction can mean being physically addicted to a drug or substance. In a physical addiction, withdrawal and quitting are a monumental phsyical effort. However, addiction is also a loosely used word for any dependency - emotional or compulsive - on any crutch we use to numb ourselves or give us false courage.
Lesson #1: When you hear the word addiction on this blog, or in books and articles you read, mentally substitute the word, "Crutch." It is your enemy. It is your destroyer. It is your saboteur. The crutch (also called addiction or dependency) is the thing we lean on to numb us to be more comfortable, to feel different, to take away pain, to be more courageous, to feel bigger than we are in any given moment. It wants you to need it during those times. It wants to win so it can control you, instead of you controlling it.
My life lesson has been it's much more fun to rise above both those options and forget it even exists. It hates that more than anything!
I do not plan on letting it win, and I expect you don't have that plan either.
This blog is my ongoing prayer for you.
It is my way of talking to you when I can't talk to you. When you can't listen to me because I'm your mother. This is all the things I've wanted to say to you...for a long time. All the things I have said and have gone unheard. All the things I've modeled. And all those I haven't.
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