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it is not difficult to think of love, joy, and happiness as gifts, but what about **bad** feelings like anger, sadness, fear, and loneliness? what about them is exactly the question. as the reading points out feelings just **are**, it is me that attaches a value judgment on them, and rates them on some imaginary scale from zero to ten with zero being the **baddest** feelings and ten being the **goodest** feelings. yes i know goodest is not a word, and you can slap my wrist for poor usage of language, but if you consider for a moment that the imaginary scale is rating the *good* value, then *goodest** is appropriate, but so it goes, that is just a brief diversion from what i was saying, and if it distracted me, i am sure it distracted you also.
so where was i anyhow, oh that’s right i was talking about value judgments that i make on my feelings. somewhere, sometime in my life i learned that feelings needed to be rated on that scale i spoke of. where that came from is irrelevant, the only thing that is relevant is that i had that scale, and i used it extensively, even after i started using, and continued to use it until i had a bit of recovery. unlearning the ability to rate my feelings was one of the first tasks my second sponsor had me undertake. that task has yet to be completed today, HOWEVER, i am much further along the line in this respect. detaching my feelings from that silly scale has been one of the greatest gifts that have been given to me. yes anger, sadness, fear and loneliness suck -- and yes that is a value judgment, see what i mean -- however most of the time i can see them for what they really are, just another feeling, and yes i have not died from a feeling yet, nor have i witnessed any addict in recovery die from a felling. i HAVE witnessed the death from feelings or more accurately trying to suppress feelings from addicts who tasted recovery and then decided that they needed to go back to the life for whatever reason. so i do not minimize the effect that feelings have on me, i just know that all feelings, regardless of my particular value judgment of them, will pass PERIOD!
the process of learning to accept feelings as they are, just another feeling may sound difficult, it is not, but it does require a bit of effort in my daily living. i am grateful for all of my feelings today, as they are the best indicators that something is going on that needs my attention. so anyhow enough of this esoteric musing and on to the next task of the day, making a bit of money. life is good today and with that value judgment i can live and recover another day.

∞ DT ∞