The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
Have you ever tried to love someone, but you could feel their emotional walls? You can feel them not letting you in. You can feel the little person trapped inside. Or have you ever felt somebody trying to get to you, but you can feel yourself stopping it? This is how most of us experience relationships. This is what the emotional baggage from our past that we carry.
Sometimes we have so many walls that we can't feel much of anything at all. We can't feel passion. We can't feel excitement. And of course, we can't have real moments. Those walls don't just separate you from other people. They separate you from yourself, making loving and liking yourself very difficult. That source of power and love and passion inside of you, your inner child, is in an emotional prison.
How do we break down those walls? The emotions that you feel and express, you can heal. You can't heal feelings that you stuff inside you. But all those old emotions, and all that old energy, need to come out. I call it unfinished emotional business. We need to actually go back in there, say the things we never said, cry the tears we never cried, get angry about the things we never got angry about, so that we don't need to protect ourselves with those walls any more.
Second, we need to let new love in. The irony about emotional walls is that new love heals old pain. It was from not being loved enough that we built the walls in the first place. So the only thing that can really heal that feeling is new love.
What I'm saying is this. Finding your ability to feel again is the first step toward creating true intimacy with your partner and experiencing real moments in your relationship. To do this, you need to defrost the ice around your heart, to work on healing those emotional wounds, because the more you do, the easier it will be for you to love.
Do some work on healing your unfinished emotional business and allowing the love that's inside you to come out, so you can share it with your partner and create the real moments you deserve.
The kind of intimacy I'm talking about isn't something that happens automatically. Great love requires great courage. It asks you to push past the fears that would keep you protected and invulnerable to your partner, and instead to reveal your most secret hiding place and your most unguarded doorways. Great love demands that you invite your beloved in past the walls, and allow him or her to know all of you — the strength and the despair, the vision and the terror, the confident adult and the lonely child.
And great love insists on showing you every place in your being that is selfish and strong-willed, every shadow in your heart that's not loving or compassionate. Your partner is your teacher, reflecting these things back to you so that you see all the ways you need to grow as a lover.
But the reward is truly magnificent, because when you love deeply, courageously and with commitment, your relationship will be filled with sacred, joy-filled, real moments.
You are absolutely right about dealing with all the internal emotions so that we don't build walls and put up barriers and not let love in.... However, when two people are in a relationship, in which one is completely unhealthy due to their addictive behaviors to the point that it can be abusive, I believe that some of those coping mechanisms that are used in allowing us to suppress our feelings can ultimately save lives.
I also believe that it is not until we are strong enough to face certain memories in our life that those are revealed to us. I recall not remembering sexual abuse as a child for the first 29 years of my life, in which I had been so mean, bitter, and all the emotions came out in other areas of my life, choosing men similar to what I had known as an abused child, as the abuse occured between the ages of 2 and 12 years old.
All of it came out once I had met a man who listened to every word I needed to express at any moment of the day. He offered love and concern as I had never known. In turn, the wall I had built up that was SOLID-- feeling NOTHING had slowly broken down til I was able to cry and then ultimately remember the specific abuse. It changed my life and brought me back to remembering and feeling the love I had as a child before the damage from being shunned, neglected, ignored and abused took over, resulting in numbing myself to ALL emotions and needs. Of course at the time that I experienced this numbness, it helped me cope. However, it also felt as if I would die anyday from the pain as well.
There isn't a day that goes by that I don't thank God for bringing people into my life to help me break down those walls so that I can reclaim that love I had as a child when all I knew was to love, despite the abuse.
Of course, a part of experiencing this love has allowed me to accept the realization that some people, including those that have abused me throughout my life, I had to walk away from to be healthy and to grow in an opposite direction of the learned behaviors and cycles that I keep repeating-- Essentially, all of this was possible because I began to love myself and God first.
Once I discovered this love I had inside of me as I had as a child, I was able to feel internal peace and ultimately, this love led me to my faith in God and recognizing the love He gives us to perservere, offering hope in any circumstance in our life.
In turn, for every negative person that has abused me, there has been a positive to offset that person. I thank God for love and for offering such blessings in people who I can love and love me unconditionally.
In conclusion, I'd like to say that for the first time in my life I can watch a movie, hear something on the radio OR see how people are having Extreme Makeovers on their homes even and have tears of joy swell up. I hear about tragedy and develop tears as I listen to the pain of others. These types of emotions are the BEST I've EVER felt in my life-- it feels good to cry, laugh, be happy for others and not have to suppress or ignore any ONE of my emotions just to cope with my situation.
In knowing this, I've learned that if a situation calls for me having to suppress my emotions to the point that I am not balanced, then it is NOT the relationship for me, will interfere in my growth and possibly weaken my spiritual walk with God.
Thank you for your awesome posts... Much of what you are writing is extremely thought provoking for me and I hope to incorporate this into the conclusion of my autobiography that I hope to have completed by the end of this summer and published someday.
"We need to actually go back in there, say the things we never said, cry the tears we never cried, get angry about the things we never got angry about, so that we don't need to protect ourselves with those walls any more".
You have written so well what I have been feeling and dealing with for some time now. When I was living with my a (my now ex-wife) there were so many times when she would do and say things to me that hurt or angered me so much. But me being the ole people pleasing, peacekeeper that I was would never actually stand up to her and tell her how I really felt. I would dance around the issue and blame the hurt or anger on anything or anyone (usually myself) that was available. But never her!!! We are divorced now (final a month ago), and since we seperated back in august of last year, I have precious few occasions when I could actually talk to her. I have been in recovery for a year now, and am currently working my 4th step. And I have been discovering so many things about myself and about the reality of my marriage, the way it really was, and not the image of what I thought it was at the time. And I have so many things that I now need to express to her. And most of these are about her and her responsibility for our failed marriage. But I feel so much the need to get them out of me for MY well being. She was ever so able to tell me whatever thought came into her head, and she said many, many hurtful damaging things to me, which I never responded to. Now I feel this NEED to respond! With the truth as I know it! I have shared many of these feelings with fellow Al-Anon members and friends. I have tried to share and give them over to my HP. But it doesnt feel complete somehow...
Would love some feedback on this! What do yall think? Do I find a way to tell her these things? Is it a waste of time? Any suggestions or thoughts would be appreciated!!!
I have found that as difficult as it is to forgive and heal from the pain of hurt that was inflicted by someone we love (relating to my ex a) it is imperative to our soul to forgive them. I found that each time I forgave my ex, that I ended up feeling hope of his recovery and so the vicious cycle of being sucked back into "our" life or the potential of "our" life could work out. Of course, with forgiveness comes compassion. The final breakup with him was difficult and initially (a couple of months) so many thoughts of what I NEEDED to say for closure to him, so many questions of why things happened the way they did, wanting explanation consumed my thoughts.... It was VERY difficult. However, what I found is that instead of focusing on those unanswered questions to help ease the pain I felt inside, I began to work on MY relationship with God instead-- any emotions that I had or hadn't expressed to my ex a, I reflected on in prayer and asked God to take this pain from me and allow an answer. It was interesting that although, I NEVER received an answer completely about my ex a-- I did receive an answer about myself, in that God offered the release of pain through deep, heartfelt tears to Him that suddenly relinquished my NEED to express anything to my ex a. I found that I began praying for my ex a as well in his life now and in turn, discovered how God blessed me with peace and serenity even though nothing was expressed to my ex a.
I no longer need answer or to express my feelings to my ex a because healing can only start by us loving ourselves and offering comfort to ourselves. When our thoughts are focused on others in answering questions, healing is haulted because as you well know-- so many times in unhealthy relationship our questions and NEEDS go unmet. If we don't learn how to heal, despite not having closure from someone else, then we remain STUCK where we are....
Thank you so much for your posting- that is just what I needed to hear today. My walls have been up eversine I left my A husband of 10years and now there is a new person in my life but all my old emotional baggage came right along with me and I am having a hard time dealing with those issues that I just don't and I shut down. It's hard but I know I need to "shed my old skin to re-create my new one" Thanks for sharing
