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feelings with optimism is, IMHO, certainly a strange pairing. even when i was using and doing my best to scrapes off the highs and lows of my emotional life, i did not look at feelings as items over which to be optimistic or pessimistic about. even before i grew into the place where i stopped judging feelings as “good” or “bad,” i had no notion of being optimistic or the converse about what feelings i might experience as i went through my day, hence the oddity of this source material title, was rather discordant to me, this morning.
moving beyond what i thought and into what i “heard” as i considered the content that went beyond the “odd” title, i had all sorts of “stuff” come up for me. starting with the notion that ALL feelings are temporary and NO ONE has ever died from a feeling. for me, the whole notion about what i feel and why i feel one way or another has moved beyond the stuff that affects me on a daily basis. for me, feelings just “are,” and my power comes in, on how i respond to any feeling that may arise. i often get amused by how much energy my peers put into dealing with feelings and i know that is part of the whole treatment industry as well. it is no wonder that the world seems to run on the question of what to do with any feelings that one may have, and i know from my experience, that i , too, fell into that trap for a very long time in my life. when i grew enough in my recovery to tolerate feelings, i started to see that i truly had very little power over what i felt. of sure, i could go do things i enjoyed and i most of the time, i feel “happy” when i do so and in the past, if i had an unexpected feeling while doing so, i felt angry and pissed off. once i let go of expecting this feeling or that, i found myself in a much more serene spot and felt better about who i am and the direction my life is taking.
today, before the pall of smoke from the Canadian wild fire takes over my local environs, i think it is time to get out and run my feet off. i might “expect” to feel accomplished or satisfied after i do so. i, however, do NOT give myself permission to expect to feel anything and whatever i feel when i am done, will be what it was meant to be. today and just for today, i will allow myself to feel whatever emotions come down the pike and be thankful that i CAN experience the full range of human emotions these days, after decades of living behind an emotional wall, keeping everyone else at bay and swallowing the poison of my frozen feelings.

∞ DT ∞