"Ways to identify negative emotions & let them be felt in the moment" - Al-Anon Family Group

thinkstoomuch · Senior Member

"Ways to identify negative emotions & let them be felt in the moment"

Jean4444 · ~*Service Worker*~

I stuffed for years without any leakages whatsoever and found myself thinking that murder was a good sane healthy option for me. This was my rock bottom, needless to say. I can talk about this in my al-anon meetings now and many join in to laugh about our weapons of choice (thank god for al-anon!) but it was the scariest place I had ever been, psychologically and I refuse to ever go back there.

I have learned that all of my feelings (the good ones, the unpleasant ones, the ugly ones, all of 'em) are like water that rains on me and then drains off down into the ground. Feelings are not facts, in al-anon. All feelings are fleeting and mercurial, this is their very nature. They are designed to flow- to come and go quickly. I do my best to sit and identify all my feelings and watch them light and then fly off of me as quickly as possible.

When I get hit with a strong feeling, I just stop. I stop and sit with it. I stop and feel it. I close my eyes, excuse myself if I have to and go and feel whatever it is I am feeling. Sometimes its really useful to say out loud " I am feeling x " to no one (for me it is important to do this alone). Just by saying this and externalizing it, helps enormously.

Feelings were unacceptable in my home growing up unless you were the alcoholic. They got to have all the feelings and the main job of the rest of us was to contort to their feelings. Our own were not allowed. If we had any feelings of our own we were shamed and blamed and called inconsiderate. I believe its really important (for me) to recognize and acknowledge why its so hard to feel and why its so difficult to have feelings.

Pain, in particular, I am finding is just pain. Its not the end of the world. Its not a cattle prod. Its just pain. I do not need to "DO" anything because of it. I can just sit with the pain and give it my full attention. Then it takes off just like a dragonrfly and is gone. I used to do these things when ever a painful feeling came to me: stuff it, deny it, pretend it did not exist, pretend everything was fine, make snap decisions, shut people out, draw people in, eat, drink, take a trip, etc. Now I just sit with it and do nothing but give it my full attention and honor it as if it were a guest visiting. Sit and talk with it if it talks to you. Make friends with it.

I have experienced a ton of pain recently via flashbacks as I have posted here. So much incredible pain but I have needed to do this in order to heal. I have come to realize that when horrible horrible things happened half of the horror of it was me being horrible to myself in those occurances. Me being hard on myself, being mean to myself, blaming and shaming myself. To return and love and be kind to myself in those horrible moments has been incredibly healing.

Hope this helps, thanks for the topic. Hugs, J.

maire rua · ~*Service Worker*~

I can so identify with this post, it was like this in my home growing up with my parents who made sure everyone stuffed except them really. Pretty tough.

Jen · ~*Service Worker*~

Great share, Jean.

In my family I grew up "thinking" that we could talk about anything. In reality there were many subjects that were taboo. If it made my mother uncomfortable she would just ignore it. In the last year or so I really realised how she does this. She has even gone so far as to just turn around and walk away from me in the middle of a conversation. It's very disconcerting.

I am learning to do like Jean, just allow my emotions to be with me. Identify them, take them out and really look because sometimes they aren't what they seem. I have had terrible trouble with rage in the past. Now I have learned that most of my rage is stuffed anger, and my anger is actually masking fear. I was so full of fear. I grew up with terrible fears of abandonment that were completely masked and stuffed. I honestly thought that I grew up fairly secure until I really started this process. It was a shock of sorts to me to realize how often I had felt left behind by people who should have been there for me.

Anyway, I also am learning to stop minimizing everyday frustrations. These also seem to eventually snowball into anger or depression. I used to be affraid to state my feelings about our everyday lives because I felt responsible for my AH's feelings. Example- I wouldn't voice my frustration with our housing because he would feel bad about not providing better. Now I realize I am not responsible for how he reacts to the reality of how we have to live for now. We live in a 24 ft travel trailer, 2 adults and 2 kids. (Well separated right now) It is simply a statement of fact that I am frustrated with the small cramped house.

Since I have allowed him the dignity to deal with his own feelings, he is also able to voice the same frustrations without worrying about how I will feel. Just voicing it in a respectful manner helps us both stuff less and be angry less. Seems to be the same with all of the negative emotions, sad, angry, depression, etc.

It is one area that we have seen vast improvement.

In recovery,

maresie · ~*Service Worker*~

I certainly had to stuff as a child a great deal and learned to do that. I also learned to just explode. My sisters and I used to explode on each other. There is still a great deal of resentment there about lots of stuff that is never really resolved. One thing I do is to really try to sort out my feelings myself and with others and then voice them. Some people do not hear them. I also find myself having lots of anniversary reactions. My grief at the A spills into grief about my mother (I really thought I had worked through that but nope there is more).

I try to voice my feelings carefully. I am so honored to be part of this group. Codependendency is part and parcel of my life and I really need to work it through I know for me it is killer.

Maresie.

thinkstoomuch · Senior Member

Thank you all very much, lots of thought-provoking stuff here.

I totally hear the "learning to stop minimizing everyday frustrations". I finally realized early this year that when I think I'm letting a thing go, often I am instead doing exactly that, minimizing my own frustration - and wham, then the next frustration (or the one after, or the one after that) sets me off.

Sigh, so much to learn - and yet so much awesome support in learning it. Thank you.

Maria123 · ~*Service Worker*~

((((((((((Thinks)))))))))))))),

Not so sure I understand what/how you are stuffing but one thing that became apparent to me a few years ago was that I was always saying yes to others and then became overburdened and resentful so the following poem was something I got right before I came into Alanon and it was amazing because it was on a tape so the way the reader/reciter said these words out loud struck home with me and thus part of the beginning of my journey:

Angela's Word

When Angela was very young,
Age two or three or so,
Her mother and her father
Taught her never to say NO.
They taught her that she must agree
With everything they said,
And if she didn't, she was spanked
And sent upstairs to bed.

So Angela grew up to be
A most agreeable child;
She was never angry
And she was never wild;
She always shared, she always cared,
She never picked a fight,
And no matter what her parents said,
She thought that they were right.

Angela the Angel did very well in school
And, as you might imagine, she followed every rule;
Her teachers said she was so well-bred,
So quiet and so good,
But how Angela felt inside
They never understood.

Angela had lots of friends
Who liked her for her smile;
They knew she was the kind of gal
Who'd go the extra mile;
And even when she had a cold
And really needed rest,
When someone asked her if she'd help
She always answered Yes

When Angela was thirty-three, she was a lawyer's wife.
She had a home and family, and a nice suburban life.
She had a little girl of four
And a little boy of nine,
And if someone asked her how she felt
She always answered, "Fine."

But one cold night near Christmas time
When her family was in bed,
She lay awake as awful thoughts went spinning through her head;
She didn't know why, and she didn't know how,
But she wanted her life to end;
So she begged Whoever put her here
To take her back again.

And then she heard, from deep inside,
A voice that was soft and low;
It only said a single word
And the word it said was... NO.

From that moment on, Angela knew
Exactly what she had to do.
Her life depended on that word,
So this is what her loved ones heard:

NO, I just don't want to;
NO, I don't agree;
NO, that's yours to handle;
NO, that's wrong for me;
NO, I wanted something else;
NO, that hurt a lot!
NO, I'm tired, and NO, I'm busy,
And NO, I'd rather not!

Well, her family found it shocking,
Her friends reacted with surprise;
But Angela was different, you could see it in her eyes;
For they've held no meek submission
Since that night three years ago
When Angela the Angel
Got permission to say NO.

Today Angela's a person first, then a mother and a wife.
She knows where she begins and ends,
She has a separate life.
She has talents and ambitions,
She has feelings, needs and goals.
She has money in the bank and
An opinion at the polls.

And to her boy and girl she says,
"It's nice when we agree;
But if you can't say NO, you'll never grow
To be all you're meant to be.
Because I know I'm sometimes wrong
And because I love you so,
You'll always be my angels
Even when you tell me NO."

Source: Barbara K. Bassett

thinkstoomuch · Senior Member

Jean, I love the image of feelings as rain that are designed to drain off me, relatively quickly - as long as I acknowledge them. No wonder sometimes I feel like I'm drowning...... I'm holding all that rain tight, and not letting it drain off like it's supposed to.

Thank you.

Jen · ~*Service Worker*~

What a beautiful poem, Maria. Thank you for sharing it.

The material presented here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method to exchange information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal level.

Angela's Word