Friday, August 28

Emotional sobriety

The topic of today's meeting was emotional sobriety.

The way I picture my emotional sobriety is that I seem very together on the outside, but on the insides I'm feeling like there are monsters at war with heroes. Sometimes I'm the hero, sometimes I'm the monster. Sometimes I'm the frightened villager cowering beneath their massive feet.

And that seems real. The quiet everyday-ness of life seems like an emotional pretense for the all-too-real emotional warfare happening in my head. And my heart. And the base of my neck.

The other thing that comes to mind with emotional sobriety is boundaries. My boundaries are so poor, I don't know where I end and where someone else begins. If I care about you, your problem becomes my problem. And if you care about me, my problem becomes your problem. And then we live in the muck.

Someone in the meeting said something I found very profound. I only hurt the people I feel I have power over. I don't rage against my boss and I don't rage against strangers. But know me well enough, and I'll tell you what I really feel about you. And some of that will be hurtful.

I remember as a child never closing my bedroom door. I always felt, I guess, that that would be interpreted as hiding something, of holding back. I never looked at my room as a refuge from anyone or anything. I never had my own safe place. I always felt like I needed to be around and available.

People were never barred from my room. But no one ever came into my room either.

And now I suffer under this same open boundary in my primary relationship. I can't seem to ask for my own space. I can't seem to find my own emotional space. I'm always dragged in, and I feel no power to stay within myself. My wife is similarly wired. It's like standing in a pool of gasoline asking each other for a light some of time.

I don't have any answers today. I don't have a clue, really. Search... Search... Nope, nothing.

Perhaps... there's probably an amend to make to myself. An amend to take care of myself, to nurture myself. And an amend to all other people to let them be responsible for their own feelings. That's the best I can do today.

Someone shared that they have every intention -- on entering a difficult conversation -- of staying rational, staying balanced. But for them, before ten minutes are out, they are dragged in and part of the havoc. That's how it feels for me. I can have all the best plans and the best intentions, but when the clock starts, when things actually get going, I revert to my patterns with people.

I like the metaphor of the budding sapling. All great trees start as a little twig. Emotional sobriety is a gentle twig I mow down every day.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Website Promotion Directory - Submit your Site Today