Accepting Powerlessness - Language of Letting Go
Nature Girl
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Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: By The Lake
Posts: 60,328
Accepting Powerlessness - Language of Letting Go
You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go
Accepting Powerlessness
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.
From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie ©1990, Hazelden Foundation.
Accepting Powerlessness
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.
From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie ©1990, Hazelden Foundation.
Nature Girl
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: By The Lake
Posts: 60,328
I was raised stiff-upper-lip-Anglo. I was taught to be pleasant always but to never show emotion...it was a sign of weakness. Even to be excited and happy was to appear "giddy" and frowned upon.
Sure, I laughed anyway and had tears too, but mostly I held my emotions inside and didn't talk about them to anyone.
It was not until I began recovery that I realized how very much I had "stuffed" over the years. It may have played a big part in my codependent need to be a people pleaser always.
Today I feel my emotions, they tell the rest of me when there is something wrong...or right...and I can look further within to find the cause and decide the solution.
I am not ashamed to express my feelings today, good ones and bad, and I am not ashamed to cry, laugh, dance or appear giddy...giddiness becomes me sometimes.
It's OKAY to feel. It's okay to say how we feel and it is never something we need to feel shamed for....never.
Hugs
Sure, I laughed anyway and had tears too, but mostly I held my emotions inside and didn't talk about them to anyone.
It was not until I began recovery that I realized how very much I had "stuffed" over the years. It may have played a big part in my codependent need to be a people pleaser always.
Today I feel my emotions, they tell the rest of me when there is something wrong...or right...and I can look further within to find the cause and decide the solution.
I am not ashamed to express my feelings today, good ones and bad, and I am not ashamed to cry, laugh, dance or appear giddy...giddiness becomes me sometimes.
It's OKAY to feel. It's okay to say how we feel and it is never something we need to feel shamed for....never.
Hugs
Member
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: Right here, right now!
Posts: 3,424
I loved yesterdays reading and was thinking it would be great to post. However my internet crashed and I was not able to. Someone else was though.
It was so poignant to me. What made it more so it is a birthday of a loved one in my life struggling with A that I am not in touch with. This reading allowed me to say a prayer for him and continue working on me.
It was so poignant to me. What made it more so it is a birthday of a loved one in my life struggling with A that I am not in touch with. This reading allowed me to say a prayer for him and continue working on me.
heartofamama
Join Date: Jul 2011
Posts: 70
feelings r powerful forces
truly a wise person is not quick to obey his/her feelings(urges).
i've done things poorly in that area myself, of course.
but after decades of my being a disappoinment 2 every key person in my life-
i'm finally free of feeling responsible 4 their disappointment.
the family i have is actually very cruel, manipulative & selfish,
which i didn't realize my first 25 yrs of living w them.
i thought i was a freaky defect, loser, unworthy of life, ect.because they had so frequently said so.
then i got to know that God Himself really Loves me, just as i am.
it's awesome to have that burden lifted that had caused me to cower all of my life & to tolerate extreme hardship.
my regrets over wasting the next 25 years in a bad marriage though are harder 2 let go of.
i mean, how did i actually marry someone who never cared about me, except for what need of his i could meet. i began 2 wonder if deep down i hated myself.
but as i grew more aware of God's Love, i realized that i had been drawn to marry what i was most familiar with--nasty persons: simply because it was all i knew.
but as i became more familiar with God, i began 2 know better.
and i was able 2 expect better for me, because i saw how much God values me.
folks-- it's far better& healthier 2 agree with God, & not man.
it does take years to clean out the garbage that others may have put into our heads,
but that's a good life, & time well-spent:
drawing close 2 your Loving God (Who did not put any of that bad on you ever in the first place).
i encourage you to "redeem the time", making it count friends.
i'm here 2 tell everyone about how God's LoveSsaved me & will Save you too
blessings from new york state.
i've done things poorly in that area myself, of course.
but after decades of my being a disappoinment 2 every key person in my life-
i'm finally free of feeling responsible 4 their disappointment.
the family i have is actually very cruel, manipulative & selfish,
which i didn't realize my first 25 yrs of living w them.
i thought i was a freaky defect, loser, unworthy of life, ect.because they had so frequently said so.
then i got to know that God Himself really Loves me, just as i am.
it's awesome to have that burden lifted that had caused me to cower all of my life & to tolerate extreme hardship.
my regrets over wasting the next 25 years in a bad marriage though are harder 2 let go of.
i mean, how did i actually marry someone who never cared about me, except for what need of his i could meet. i began 2 wonder if deep down i hated myself.
but as i grew more aware of God's Love, i realized that i had been drawn to marry what i was most familiar with--nasty persons: simply because it was all i knew.
but as i became more familiar with God, i began 2 know better.
and i was able 2 expect better for me, because i saw how much God values me.
folks-- it's far better& healthier 2 agree with God, & not man.
it does take years to clean out the garbage that others may have put into our heads,
but that's a good life, & time well-spent:
drawing close 2 your Loving God (Who did not put any of that bad on you ever in the first place).
i encourage you to "redeem the time", making it count friends.
i'm here 2 tell everyone about how God's LoveSsaved me & will Save you too
blessings from new york state.
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