Some memes

is an excellent way to describe the emotions i was taught and cultured into believing were **bad.** throughout my life, the message i received was that feelings needed to be judged and those that were not **positive,** needed to be suppressed. after all big boys do not cry! those who sent me that message will probably deny that they ever did, but that is neither here nor there. today, i see that all my feelings are neither good nor bad, they just are. today i see that all of my feelings are valid and i need to honor them bu just being present and feeling them. the damage i did to myself, blindly following what i thought was the “path,” is beyond calculation, but today, right here and right now, i have the necessary ingredients to pitch that into the bit bucket and live a wholly realized emotional life.
i still find many of my emotions uncomfortable, inconvenient or, in my opinion, inappropriate for the situation. that is just the nature of the beast i call myself. what i do with those feelings is more important than what i think of those feelings. it has taken most of my recovery to detach that judgement from how i react or respond to what it is i am feeling. i am far from perfect in living in this manner, but each day i decouple judgement from feelings, i am a little bit healthier and certainly a bit more sane. i am grateful that my recovery path has provided me the ways and means to make a bit of sense of how to live through my feelings. i have yet to die from having a feeling and that gives me the FAITH to carry on. just for today, i can be okay with whatever feeling comes down the pike and know that as those crusty old farts used to tell me, way back when i was a recovery pup; “this too shall pass!”

∞ DT ∞