Blog entry for:

i have whatever i NEED to face the emotions that come up in my life.
there are spiritual traditions that teach that beauty cannot exist without ugly, male without female, black without white, good without evil, order without chaos, and yin without yang. when the world is viewed in that sense, the value judgements i place on my feelings is just plain wrong. the so-called good or positive feelings are no better or worse than the so-called negative or bad feelings.i remember the irony of my early recovery, of me whining about the emotional roller-coaster of emotions that i was an unwilling participant in, and how try as i could, t=every time i tried to suppress those feelings that i was taught were bad, the end result sucked. in fact most of the NINTH STEP amends i made in my second round of steps, stem from me doing my best to foster my “positive” feelings and not feel my “negative” feelings. what i have come to learn is, it is not the feelings and emotions that are good or bad, it is my reaction to them. for me, that is what the SEVENTH STEP is all about, learning to detach those value judgements from my feelings and short-circuit my automatic reactions to whatever feelings that may come down the road.
as i walk down this path, towards becoming a whole, fully-realized individual, in short the man i have always wanted to be, i learn daily that what i struggle with the most, is removing the judgements i make about all sorts of things. yes being capable of making judgements is a good thing. relying on those judgements is not a bad thing either. the problem arises in the filter that the part of me i call addiction has created about the judgements i make on a continual basis. as long as i believe that certain feelings are positive or negative, than i am stuck in a sort of spiritual groundhog day. the feelings come up, i react in the same way i always did, i chastise myself for not knowing better and i blithely go on my way to feel yet another day. the only way out of this vortex of pain, i through the recovery process, as it has come down to me, from those who have walked this path before me. they teach me how to feel without reacting. they have taught me, that i am a work in progress and this process only is advanced, when i actively advance it. by advancing it, it does not mean i just write the steps out time and again, i LIVE THEM! as nice as it sounds, the maintenance of my program ONLY takes place when i work STEPS 10, 11 and 12 daily. my detachment from the past, is only completed when i formally work STEPS 4 through 9. and yes, my connection to the program only occurs when i integrate STEPS 1 through 3 into my daily way of life. learning that,, has been one of the most painful but in the long run rewarding experiences i have and yes i feel warm and fuzzy when i think about the process of recovery, fostered by the fellowship that has given me a new manner in which to live. part of that new way of life is self-support. with that in mind, it is time to get the process rolling to head on over and earn the big bucks that my employer pays me, to do something i love to do. what a fVcking COUNTRY!

∞ DT ∞