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.
I have been attending Al-Anon for just over a year.
I entered Al-Anon because my emotional life felt completely unmaneagble--my feelings were up, down, and all-around, and I was often reactive to people close to me. I figured that these feelings probably had their roots in my childhood with my A dad, so I sought out Al-Anon.
As I have worked the steps, and slowly begun working through the fourth step (still very much in progress), I have especially appreciated Al-Anon's emphasis on working through things on an emotional level.
What I have come to realize is that I have very deep feelings of anger, especially anger around abandonment, etc. that I need to work through and heal. These feelings are not at all on the surface--I don't yell at people, I like to seek peaceful resolution to conflict, I try to deal with my life assertively not aggressively. Yet, I find that these deeper feelings (anger, jealously, intense aloneness) can be triggered by something in the present, and then I feel like an emotional wreck, and unsure of how to heal the feelings. My previous approach has been to try to fix the present problem, but I have since realized that this doesn't take care of the root of the problem.
I find that my first step is to acknowledge I have these feelings, because I have habitually denied these feelings, felt ashamed at their intensity and "ugliness". After all, 'good girls' aren't supposed to have these kinds of feelings LOL.
Can anyone relate? How do I heal these feelings? What babysteps can I begin to take? Any ESH with stories, examples, techniques to heal deep feelings would be especially welcome and appreciated.
There are moments in this life when we find ourselves just plain mad.
Something happens that seems unjust, or cruel, or unreasonable, and whatever it is has impacted us or someone we care about. The thing makes us angry, no question about it.
The question is, what do we do with that angry feeling? Is it possible to accept it in without causing damage?
It's possible. Actually, it's more than possible: it's smart.
Just like all the other visitors that stop by our home to say hello, anger is a temporary caller. Most of us have no problem accepting visitors as they are; manners and affection have taught us to pay kind attention to them during their stay. We welcome them in, take their coat, show them to a chair.
What we don't do, of course, is hand over our keys to them and tell them they can have the run of the place. We listen to them, feed them snacks, extend them hospitality. We spend our moments with them and then send them on their way.
So this is precisely the way to deal with any uncomfortable visitors that stop by our mind for a brief while. Irritation, anger, impatience, resentment -- you know their names. They've all come to raise hell, and if we are smart, we will bring them in, sit them down and listen quietly to their story. We may even comfort them: "Sure, I can see why you're feeling that." Because we are generous hosts, we give them a chance to breathe and feel acknowledged. Then we send them on their way -- because they don't, after all, live in our home. They're only visiting.
If, on the other hand, we haven't yet learned that anger is merely a wave of energy -- one that will pass-- we may sometimes confuse our feelings for our identity. If we think the anger is who we are, it is inevitable that we will step into it full force. It is this kind of mis-identity which can do harm. If, after all, I have become the anger that is visiting me, there are all kinds of havoc I may cause -- without noticing that I have handed over the contents of my mind to a distraught and temporary caller.
So the secret of dealing with anger is to receive it without judgment: to neither resist it, or give it ownership of my house. Anger, as all of us know, is a very powerful energy: very persuasive and very contagious.
What I do when heat catches hold of my consciousness is to step out of its noose as soon as I notice it, and invite it to sit down with me for a cup of tea. Deep breath, deep breath, and then I just listen. I let it know I understand why it is there. I even tell it to take its time; hang around as long as it needs to hang around. But in the process of this acceptance, I am becoming free. I am becoming the host, not the victim, of my visitor. And when I am safely out of its fiery clutch, I take steps to address its complaint in a neutral way.
Does this sound like it's too much work?
Perhaps you think it is. Once upon a time, so did I. We all have. For now, I prefer to remain in charge of the house, and keep anger in the role of temporary guest. I honor it, I give it the gift of quiet attention, I may even surround it with Love. But I never, ever let it near the breakable dishes.
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If we think that miracles are normal, we will expect them. And expecting a miracle is the surest way to get one.
Congradulations to you on working the steps (hopefully with a sponsor). One of the wonders of the 4th step is the gift of self discovery. As we find out who we are, the respective layers of ourselves, we come to wonder about ourselves. "Oh god, am I really like that?"
One thing I didn't catch the first time around abut the steps is that they aren't worked only once. There is no 1 time about the 4th step. This step especially is repeated over and over and over. As you continue to work the steps, over time, the anger, jelousy, grief, shame, all these feelings will lessen. And, during the amends steps, a freedom will come with them--even when you make the amends you swore you couldn't make.
Because we are challenged to reach deep into ourselves and rely on a higher power to help us make peace with ourselves and our world, we find ways and solutions that resolve these deep and intense feelings. Things are revealed to us that we couldn't have possibly have known ourselves by our own knowledge; perhaps we persue therapy, and the therapist shows us solutions that "magically" work in our life. If we are entirely willing and entirely thurough on each of the 12 steps, we find within ourselves a peace that is God given, not man given, and we realize that we can move forward with our lives and with our new found knowledge: we want to share about our amends experieces; we laugh about our character defects; we are energized by spiritual experiences, if and only if we are completely willing, no matter how dark the tunnel is now to keep going through.
Please, don't beat yourself up over the feelings and things you are noticing about your 4th step. Rejoyce! You are learning about a long lost person that the family disease of alcholism took away! Please come back.
Thank you for the reminder that with baby steps, one day at a time, I will see progress (but not perfection). I needed the reminder that these changes will take time, and that the feelings will heal with thoughtful attention and gentle attention to the program. Thank you!
Thank you for the wonderful quote from Reflectons on Healing Anger.
I woke up this morning with kernels of anger, impatience irritation all trying to grow in my mind - I said a long sincere prayer asking for help and there it is - a different way of dealing with the negative emotions without "suppressing" them.
