Tag: Feelings

Feelings Are Not Shortcomings

But They Can Be Scary

For most of my life, I thought certain feelings meant there was something wrong with me. Recovery has been teaching me something very different: feelings are not shortcomings.

Elijah was a human being with a nature such as we have [with feelings, affections, and a mental and emotional state like ours]… James 5:17

I was reading from one of my devotionals the other day. One sentence stopped me in my tracks: “Feelings are not shortcomings, but my refusal to acknowledge and accept them is.” That sentence challenged something I had believed for most of my life. I grew up believing feelings were either good or bad. And if I had bad feelings, that meant there was something wrong with me. Feeling sad, left out, lonely, hurt, or not good enough were all things I thought were bad and that I should not feel. Good people didn’t feel those things or let them get to them. So I learned to stuff them. Growing up in an alcoholic family, what I thought and what I felt were not important. What mattered was what the alcoholic thought and felt. What kind of mood the alcoholic was in. I learned that my feelings were unimportant and even dangerous. It was safer for me not to have them, or at least not to let anyone know I had them.

When I first started recovery, I heard everyone talking about their feelings. So I thought I would try it, but feeling my feelings was scary. Sometimes it still is. When I allow myself to really feel hurt, sadness, loneliness, or rejection, I can feel flooded. I don’t always know what to expect. I don’t know where the emotion may go, how far it could go, or when it is going to stop. I don’t know how I am supposed to respond or if I am to respond at all. What if I start crying? What if I feel out of control? For years, stuffing my feelings felt safer than allowing myself to experience them at all. But I am learning there is a difference between having a feeling and being controlled by it. I don’t always get to choose the feeling that shows up, but I am responsible for what I do with it when it does. I can feel left out without deciding nobody wants me. I can feel not good enough without accepting that that is who I am. Feelings are not facts. But they are real. And pretending they are not there does not make them go away either.

God gave me emotions. Recovery is not teaching me to become emotionless. Asking God to remove my shortcomings does not mean I’m asking Him to remove my feelings. Sadness, loneliness, hurt, and even anger are not shortcomings or character defects. But what I do with those feelings may reveal my shortcomings. Having these feelings is not proof that something is wrong with me. It is proof that I am human and alive. For most of my life I thought the problem was that I had certain feelings, bad feelings. What I saw in this reading was that refusing to acknowledge and accept that I have those feelings was the problem. When I stuff, ignore, or deny my emotions because I don’t like them, I am letting them quietly control me.

I no longer have to be afraid of my feelings. I can acknowledge them, feel them, bring them honestly to God, and allow Him to show me what is true. Now I ask God to remove my shortcomings, and not my emotions. When I do, I find that He heals the pain and shows me how to respond differently to it. He doesn’t have to remove my emotions for me to change. And that is the gift of recovery for me.

Prayer

God, help me be honest about what I am feeling. Help me feel what I feel. Help me not to stuff it, avoid it, or be afraid of it. Show me how to respond. Amen.

Feelings Follow Actions

Take The Next Step

Change didn’t start when I felt better. It started after I acted.

For we walk by faith, not by sight. 2 Corinthians 5:7

For most of my life I built a wall so I would not have to feel my feelings. I did not want to deal with those unpleasant emotions that made me feel so uncomfortable. I had learned how to shut things down and keep on moving. But when I came into recovery, and once I started working the steps, that door opened. And like a floodgate being released, all of those feelings and emotions I had been holding back for years suddenly started coming out. I was trying to feel them and experience them, but I did not know how. I didn’t know what to do with them. And many times they were confusing too, because they would intermingle and come at the same time. I remember a moment when I received some great amazing news and some horribly bad news within about 30 minutes of each other. My wife and I had just found out we were pregnant after several years of trying. We were elated and so happy. It was wonderful. And then a little later, I received a call that my dad had passed away. I was sad and angry. And then confused. Life and death all in less than an hour’s time. I felt happy and angry and sad all at the same time. I called my sponsor to get some help. He simply said, “Those are and feelings.” I began to realize that it was good that I was no longer running from my feelings. I was finally experiencing my emotions and acknowledging that they were real. But I also started to see how much of a roller coaster life becomes if I allow my emotions to become the determining factor for everything I do.

I’ve heard it said many times in the rooms of recovery, and I have found it to be true in my own life, that you can’t think your way into better behavior, but you can act your way into better thinking. And over time I began to see that the same thing is true with feelings. I cannot feel my way into better behavior, but I can act my way into better feelings. When I let my emotions dictate my actions, my life becomes unstable and reactive. I start making decisions based on how I feel in the moment, and that usually doesn’t lead me anywhere good. But when I choose to take healthy actions first, even when I don’t feel like it, something begins to shift. My behavior starts to change. And as my behavior begins to change, something starts to shift in my thinking. And as my thinking begins to change, my feelings begin to follow. Those simple actions, the ones that don’t seem like much in the moment, begin to calm the storm inside me.

Step Two says that we came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. For me, the action in that step is in the word came. I would have never started believing any of this if I had not come in the first place. I had to get up out of my feel-sorry-for-myself life and take myself down the road to a place where I could hear how to change. Not every action in recovery is grand or dramatic. Many of them are simple and even mundane. Showing up. Listening. Taking the next right step. But those small actions begin to change my behavior, and when my behavior changes it is amazing how my feelings begin to change too. I came, and then I began to believe. And as I kept showing up and taking those simple actions, I started to feel different too.

Prayer
Father, help me to stop letting my feelings run my life. Teach me to walk by faith and take the next right step, even when I don’t feel like it. I surrender the outcome to You. Amen.