Feelings, They Suck A Lot, But Feel Them All The Same

I have written in the past about my journey through substance abuse recovery so far. I have three years sober from alcohol. I have also written about the fact that I smoked cigarettes and couldn’t seem to stop. So I had problems with addiction there too and it’s been six whole months since I’ve had a cigarette and I’m proud and happy with myself for doing it. It is absolutely the same mentality I have applied from the recovery literature, “Since I’m powerless over it, let it go.”

The thing is when you get sober and clean from addictive substances, feelings emerge! Lots of them and fast and furious and it almost knocks you over. I am lucky that I have support groups, friends, and literature to help me in my struggle to stay away from chemical dependency.

"Often it is something we've been doing over the years because it was critical to our survival."

I am also lucky that I have done a couple of life coaching certifications, continue to coach, and been frequently coached myself. It has been helpful in learning to deal with the feelings that emerge, that have lied, not dormant, but unseen for so long. These feelings have a way of thrusting themselves onto your consciousness in sometimes subtle ways and sometimes very loud and obvious ways. This includes:

• Being angry/irritable and not really knowing why

• Feeling tired and exhausted

• Strange thoughts you haven’t had before

• Sudden impulsiveness towards other numbing agents or destructive behavior

• Your body being nervous and tense in situations and with people that it wasn’t before

  
  

This list isn’t exhaustive, there are many ways in which we feel things, but don’t allow ourselves to really understand what they’re about yet. There are lots of reasons we ignore our emotions, but mainly it because they can be painful. Often it is something we've been doing over the years because it was critical to our survival.

Survival mode is exactly what it sounds like, a period of intense stress that you make it through. The problem arises when we don't let go of survival behaviors and engage thriving behaviors instead.

"We have feelings because to be alive and human is to feel. A thriving behavior is honoring your emotions. Not gaslighting yourself into thinking 'it's no big deal' or allowing someone else to do that you too. Because our feelings are not always ‘logical’ or ‘normal’ or ‘accurate’ and somewhere in us, without a conscious thought we know this. As such we’ll dismiss our feelings. "

But they are ours to have and they arise to stimulus in our lives whether we ask for them or not, like; joy at watching puppies play, to anger and hurt at betrayal, to apathy at a systemic issue at the job that keeps going unresolved. We have feelings because to be alive and human is to feel. We need logic to survive and create tools for a better future. We need feelings to inspire creation and have a reason to get up in the morning.

So despite hurt, pain, depression, anger, fear, shame and a few other choice emotions utterly blowing chunks (I am a teenager at heart always, lol), just remember that we have joy, smiles, laughs, excitement, awe, amazement, love, and lets not forget orgasms to make life truly worth living.

Feel those feelings and live!

Santee Blakey is a Life Coach and Licensed Massage Therapist at Soul Growth Wellness. When she's not biking, reading, or biking, or reading (she needs new hobbies, suggest her some:-), she'll be writing and enjoying a caramel frappacino in her favorite Starbucks (this is obviously pre-Covid) *sigh*. Follow her on Youtube for her series --> Self Acceptance: What It's Really Like (A Journey).

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