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.
My therapist says I have choices and just need to stop with all these "feelings" for him. "Feelings" of rejection. "Feelings" of wanting him. "Feelings" of preoccupation. How do you stop feelings?
I do believe that alanon tools would help you with the choices that your therapist is referring to.
Focus on yourself, make a graitude list, live in the now, do not project, detach,meetings and then most importantly work the Steps.
All these are designed to change our feelings from that of despair and obsession on someone else to constructive, positive feelings about handling our own life with serenity, courage and wisdom.
I learned in alanon that feelings were not facts and that feelings are just that Feelings. They pass if I process them and do not clutch them to me.
The program works
-- Edited by hotrod on Wednesday 13th of January 2010 07:47:00 PM
Aloha Code...keep working at it cause there are solutions. For me my sponsor stopped me dead in my tracks when he told me I can choose whatever I wanted to feel and I wanted to react with UH UH...but then kept my mind open and my mouth shut. come to find out he was right again...feelings are an inside job and I started making choices about how I wanted to feel and doing and thinking the stuff that resulted in that. Then later on my therapist tells me..."you are responsible for what you think" and again I wanted to use the UH UH response but instead went with what works...closed mouth and open mind...no wonder he got the big bucks...right again and that is what I practice now. I get to choose the subjects my mind discusses and dwells on while I also get to choose how I feel while my mind does it's thing. I also get to turn feelings and thought on and off when ever I want. I am in control of me. Big Yay!! ((((hugs))))
For me, I think I have CHOICES about how to react to my feelings.
I learned in the program that FEELINGS are NOT facts. That was so liberating for me. Because when I felt burning shame or self hate, there was something historical underneath there that needed to be revealed OR that was rearing its ugly head from childhood and was not a "TODAY, ADULT" issue.
I've been a child of therapy and my OWN issues (hint, hint, it's NOT about the A in my life, fi clearly my issues were before Imet him! Sometimes I'm so thick headed :) and I was once directed towards a book called the Choice Theory which was very powerful for me at the moment. It made me see that I didn't need to be a slave to my emotions and feels of inadequacy that while they FELT really REAL, simply weren't based in reality.
I read in a book this morning when I couldn't sleep about how our minds and our belief systems about ourselves and the world - are often based on total distortions. Our "drives" are formatted in error, so we react in error to many things in life. This doesn't make us GOOD or BAD. It just is. That is something else my sponsor has reminded me about feelings: Feelings are not good or bad. They are just feelings. Emotional energy. We can choose that which we want to react to, but better decisions are based on facts. Because I firmly believe that I am not in a rational frame of mind OR have enough recovery to make decisions rooted in FACt and non-distortion. I have to engage peeps here or other program members to give me more of a recovery based/objective view.
