Blog entry for:

acquainted with the new ideas that lead to a new way of life. first off, one of the new ideas i have become acquainted with, is allowing others to see, how i feel, and accept the support they offer. another is to look at the petty frustrations that come with living in the real world as just that, petty. yes there have been tectonic changes in my emotional state, and guess what i survived them. for the first time in six days, i have finally felt like i was capable of moving forward and grateful for all i have been given, which includes <GASP> the pain that comes from loss. this is my second attempt at writing this, this morning as my computer decided to shut itself off without warning. WAH-WAH-WAH
i was writing about feelings and my journey to get a whole new set of ideas about what feelings were, and although what i wrote has been consigned to the bit bucket, i am still pretty sure that is what is on my heart this morning.
somewhere in my life, i decided that i could not continue as a human being and divorced myself from the human race. when and where this happened i am not sure of, but the end result was that i learned how to push all the so-called negative feelings into rage and anger, and the so-called positive ones into amusement. my daily goal, was to feel nothing, and when i was incapable of doing that without outside help, there were the substances and the behaviors that comprised the symptoms of my active addiction.
getting clean and accepting the path of recovery was the start of the my reconciliation with being human, and early recovery was quite the thrill ride for me, as i felt all the feelings i had suppressed and far more. i was quickly given the gift of a full range of human emotions and ample opportunity to feel them all. honestly that sucked big time, BUT i survived the experience and as a result i began to understand that this recovery gig had all sorts of ideas that fell outside my belief structure. the belief structure that protected me like a cocoon for so long.
one of the toughest new ideas for me to accept, when i finally got around to it, is that feelings just are, they need not have a value judgment attached to them, based on a relative goodness scale. when that idea finally dawned upon me, i got the gift that what i need to do was accept that i was going to have all sorts of feelings, sometimes they would be predictable reactions to the world and events around, sometimes they would seem to came out of left field. what they were was unimportant, allowing them to hap[pen was my task, and my step work has given me the freedom to feel, without having to automatically react as i always have, i get the chance, sometimes to behave like i want to.
as the darkness of grief starts to lift a bit, i see that i can be okay today. i see that strong feelings, no matter how exhausting they are, do pass and are not injurious to my mental of physical health, even though they feel like they are. coming down off the plateau of being a cold, hard and oh so rational being, is a journey that i never believed i would be capable of enduring, much less surviving. this morning it feels good to be another human being, doing his best to get through today and yes THRIVE.
with the reading in mind, i think i will do my best to open my mind to the world around me and see what new ideas i can grasp today. it is after all a good day to be clean as my friend Joe, reminds me every time i see him, and it is also a good day to be walking in the light of active recovery.
off to the showers and into another day.

∞ DT ∞