Encasing my suffering ... in ice

I promised to post again about yesterday. I promised to post again last night, but today will have to do.

I didn't stay with my suffering yesterday. About an hour after I wrote the previous post, I opened up my browser and started reading about Iran. I don't live in Iran, I'm not of Iranian descent, I'm not a diplomat, I'm not a politician. But I decided that it was important that I know just what was going on there.

There's something admirable about staying on top of important news stories; staying informed. But that is not what I was doing.

What I was doing was avoiding. I was in turmoil and I reached out for something that would help me forget. I equate it to putting my emotions on ice. Television is my traditional numbing device. In recent years, the Internet has taken that position. What's yours?

So, there were a couple of hours there where I knew a lot about the pain of Iranian disenfranchisement, but not a lot about my pain. And then, of course, I started to "gently" berate myself for being lazy, for wasting time, for not living up to my word, for not taking care of myself. Do you know this trap?

I realized I was in that trap and started taking better care of myself. I called a friend in recovery, actually two. I made and ate lunch. Then I went to a 12-step meeting after work. These things all brought me back to reality.

Recovery is sort of like a jigsaw puzzle. If you work on it, you'll make progress. If you just leave it there on the card table, you won't. So, I actually had an opportunity to process some of the pain that was lying within me, but I took a pass. It wasn't that the pain was too much, it's just that I decided to go another way. I'm conditioned to avoid. That's just how I am.

This is an example of taking the 2d Step without taking the 3d Step.

I have made a decision to live differently, to feeling my feelings straight through. I didn't do that, not completely. I have a little bit of a raw feeling about that, like I let myself down. I did. But I'm also aware that I am learning, slowly, how to take care of myself. I need to both recognize my shortcomings without shame while acknowledging what progress I have made.

And, all things considered, yesterday was a good day. I took one step forward and no steps back.