Such an intriguing concept to me now that I am opening to them. A very large playground for my analytical mind to dive into and pick apart. The reason why I am stating this now is to warn those people that don't wish to walk this journey with me. For some people feelings are still a foreign understanding and for others a repulsive action.
I have observed recently how much our society feeds the feel good feelings and teaches us how to go out of our way to avoid the not so good feelings. I am beginning to see how we are rewarded for our positivity and shunned for our balanced counterparts. Staying overly busy is the norm in this western world we live in, being busy leaves no time to feel our wide range of feelings. Thus only affording us time for the feelings we choose to cultivate.
That sounds wonderful... choosing our feelings. Except we can't always choose them, sometimes they choose us to communicate something to us. Our feelings I think... still working on the understanding part... are not like our thoughts. Our feelings are deeper.
I was reminded of our societies idiosyncrasies when a beautiful Spanish man shared at a meeting last week. His accent captured my full attention but his expression of feelings reminded me of a dear Love of mine. I call him Merlin. He was the first man I dated after I left my ex. He was Lebanese raised in Mexico and world traveled, he was in tune to his feelings also. I sometimes long to live in a country that honors and nurtures our true full natures and not just the sunny shine self help in full control of your entire thought/feeling process one hundred percent of the time country for which I was sentenced this lifetime.
Alright I am done my rant...
I have come to understand that I am extremely uncomfortable sitting in my not so blissful feelings. I have come to learn this by identifying my patterns in my life. This is what Step four gifts us, a chance to see the patterns playing out in all areas of our lives. Each time I have worked step four I am shown a different pattern that needs to be removed or changed. It is the same concept as the new agers see as belief re patterning. Our beliefs create our realities, step four shows us very detailed ways our beliefs keep us sick.
How have I been keeping myself sick? By never allowing myself to feel anything negative. Now for myself I must define what is negative and what is positive. Because its not good or bad terms I am dealing with here. I don't believe anything is bad in our realities, everything is balance. To have a good feeling is to also at some point experience an opposite feeling. This is also not referring to a bi-polar pendulum swing of good one day not so much the next. In my youngest years to feel a feeling of anger or sadness or anything on the down side was not good. I can hear the words ring in my head..'stop crying or I will give you something to cry about'. So I have stopped crying about my life.
However that's not entirely true either I am beginning to see. In order to give myself permission to feel my feelings I must be engaged in some kind of situation that is acceptable to my mind to express negative feelings. Oh I see a deeper understanding developing here then the one I originally intended to write about. How exciting, this is why I blog folks!! You see what I wanted to write about was the ways I get out of my negative feelings, but I am seeing that these same ways to get out of them are actually ways of getting into them.
Let me explain.
I live in a feel good mentality. I am always starting something new to create passion and excitement in my world. New job every six months to a year. Once a job gets settled I feign boredom and begin seeking out New adventures. My resume is fifteen pages, front and back!! I am always starting up new friendships but when things get to touchy feely for me I back off for a couple years and reconnect when things will be fresh and new again. I have long term friends but not incredibly deep friendships... just super patient friends. lol
And of course the way I love to get out of my feelings the most is through romance. The excitement of finding a new guy to explore is over the top good feelings for me. I love jumping from guy to guy giving each one six months to a year depending on how entertained they keep me. Some last mere moments, others allow me to keep doing the break up and get back together exciting thing, which I love even more. Lastly is the party time feel good. Although I am not sure if its my age or the fact I have ruined every drug under then sun for myself, but there is never anymore feel good in that, I always fall into the new budding awareness of using to actually afford me an out for my feelings.
And this is the new dawning for me. Each of these ways, maybe not work so much, but definitely using and romance and not so much friendships either..... brings me to a flip side of the excitement which is pain. I am beginning to see that I need these romances to turn ugly so that I can feel the pain that is bubbling under my surface needing an outlet. I can see how I use in order to be able to find my whale song. I can only express my pain in what I identify as a healthy outlet through broken romances and getting loaded.
As I write this I am thinking.... Duh, your just realizing this now.... it does seem kinda logical and maybe normal people can identify this without having to do a Step four fifteen times. I am far from normal.
So now that I have identified the issue how do I solve it. I get not getting into another romantic relationship. Its just hiding my feelings by focusing on the other person and the feel good stuff. That has been a harsh reality for me and I am getting that lesson loud and clear. However I am feeling a down feeling at work these days. The excitement of working this job is wearing off and I am getting antsy. Although now I see it a bit clearer and I am not truly getting bored, I am just beginning to open up to my boss and co-workers and letting people get to know me. All of me, the great makes no mistake employee and the one that fucks up coworker.... Yuck. I am starting to have to walk through some feelings other then the feel good excited ones that a new job brings. I am also feeling this same thing in a couple friendships of mine. Moving past the bolting part, sitting in the never been here what are these feelings about??
I see that I am also feeling that in my fellowship of recovery as well. Having thoughts of moving on and starting something new because I have learned all I need to and it's time to stir up my emotional excitement. When in reality it's truly time for me to push through these not so 'high' feelings and get on to the more grounded and balanced feelings. In step ten its asks if we have felt any extreme happiness or pain today and I am beginning to understand why they ask that. I am always on the high cloud of recovery, new job, new romance, new friendship.... new something. I really never get past that high into the more mundane feelings in a healthy fashion without over eating, getting loaded or sexing my way through it.
I think the key to solving this is to know when to push through the feelings that are uncomfortable for me and when I am truly being prompted by my higher power to seek out a new adventure. I know I am not in for a life of humdrum, I just need to find a bit more of a calmer balance and not strive for those extreme feelings any more. Those are the feelings that swing the pendulum to balance themselves out. Maybe its time to learn to live in the grey and find contentment with happy and sad, instead of excitement and pain. I think to get to this place I need to roll through my feelings as they come up instead of self forcing them by getting into romances that are not for me, or quitting jobs that are for me. Maybe this is part of the trust in the universe that I need to step into.
When I force a situation in order to feel, maybe I am doing so because that way I can identify my feeling and have some form of control over it. I know right now when something comes up out of the blue with no seeming cause I get pretty messed up about it. I can't analyze it or try to figure it out and that scares me and causes me to want to shut it down instantly. Aka... eat a pound cake or smoke a joint. See I got suppression here that I control and then when that suppression gets out of control I jump into a romance to release it!!! Ah fucking dirty patterns!!
Okay I need to stop writing. I don't want to learn anything more about myself today. Back to blissful ignorance.... I'm out.
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