Repress-able Joy

I woke up in a happy mood this morning. This has been so for two or three of the last three or four days. I've just been waking up happy, joyous. Briefly.

I have a few theories about why this is happening. First, my wife and I made love last night and it was passionate and intimate. It felt good in all the ways I aspire to feel good about sex in my life in recovery. So, that's a factor in feeling good. But I also think the positive sexual experience grew out of other positive experiences lately.

I've started a new creative endeavor. I'm going back and being creative in the way I used to as a young man. It's very free and goofy and I'm really enjoying it. There are opportunities to control in everything I do, but this time I'm doing it with an intention to let go and to have fun.

Another positive development is that I've been very productive at work. On the suggestion of a friend, I've been doing the thing I think is most difficult in the day first, even when I don't want to. I usually don't want to do the difficult thing, usually don't want to do it at all. But I've just been doing it despite my fear and reservations. I've been taking care of the hard things first, and the rest of work has been taking care of itself. I've been able to accomplish some things that have been on my list for a while, in one case, five months.

Concurrent with all this, I've been taking the time to meditate the full 20 minutes every day. I always meditate some, but if I'm tired or rushed or stressed, I might just do 10 minutes, or even 5. And then I take a nap or something. The last week, I've committed to the whole time. And I think that has helped.

So, all of those positive things, I believe, have contributed to a feeling of well-being. And I've been feeling it throughout the day.

But....

But....

This morning, after I awoke in a good mood, feeling some joy, I realized as I brushed my teeth and prepared to meditate that I actually have a habit of building a barrier around my feelings. I feel like I intentionally distract myself, or create busy-ness to disconnect from feeling.

It was like I was telling my joy to just go away.

That doesn't make a lot of sense, right? While I was meditating, I had an intuition that my habit to do this comes from my tendency to feel bad about myself. Stuffing my feelings is a defensive reaction against both the hostile environment of the world, and more seriously, from the hostile environment of my own mind.

So, I've quite naturally held my feelings at arms' length because my feelings tend to be negative.

They weren't negative this morning. They aren't right now. Yet still, my impulse is to escape them, to minimize them, to distrust or demean my feelings.

That's a hard way to live. It's a little adventurous, maybe even heroic to do this if you are actually living a life of terrible events and emotions. But I'm not right now. Things are going pretty well for me. And so it's just pathetic. How good does it have to get before I can be free?

I don't need my environment to get any better today for me to be better. I need to change my attitude. The greatest gift I've received in my recovery is not my sobriety. The greatest gift is knowing that I can change. I have experienced it, and I can change fundamentally with God's help.

So, today, I am mindful of my negative tendencies. I hold them gently as I examine them. I forgive myself for my shortcomings. And I becoming willing to let them go. God, you may take away my negative self-talk. I don't need it any more.

Concentric circles

I woke up this morning with a message from my Higher Power: the spiritual life is like the field of a magnet. The energy flows out from one end of the magnet into the air, and then curves around and flows back into the other end. The energy isn't held; it flows through. If the magnetic field comes in contact with another conductive object -- like a refrigerator -- the waves of the magnet flow with and within the other object.

It's a good message for me today. The last few days I've been thinking of life as give and take. I need something, and I go and get it. Or I need something and I have to give something up to get it. It's a dead-end street mindset. It's a zero-sum game. It's greedy and it's needy.

I haven't been feeling good about myself. I've felt cut off and isolated.

I had a wonderful talk last night with my wife. We took the time to open up and to be honest about how we're feeling about one another and how we're relating. It was emotionally challenging, but we stayed with it, gently. After that, I got into a wonderful conversation with my neighbor about creativity and creativity coaching. So, I was set up for a good change of spiritual weather.

So when I woke up with this magnet idea, I realized that everything is not mine and not not mine. There's a sharing, a mingling of my life with everything else. And that's the truth of the matter. That's the reality. My delusion is that I am alone and cut off. It only feels like reality because that's what I've been lead to believe and have accepted.

I'm working on a new belief system. That's the purpose of my recovery. What I'm walking towards is an acceptance of my connectedness to everything: God, the world, and all people, including you.

I attended a meeting this morning, and I kept the image of the circles -- the sharing -- in my mind and I was able to connect to everyone with compassion. There's a deep yearning for connection in me that I've buried. I think my sexual addiction is a damaged attempt to meet that yearning.

Like every day, I've felt challenged this morning and a little needy and disturbed. In that, I've remembered that I am connected, that what I'm having trouble with is not unique and it's not just my problem. Also, I've remembered that what I like is not all mine, and that I have much to give. I've been feeling more open to other people, with more willingness to look at the possibilities of connection, rather than the opportunities for rejection. And today I have a willingness to live in the reality of connection.

It's making for a good day.

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.

Embracing my suffering

I woke up this morning really suffering. I was away for the weekend visiting family. It was a good time, but I was really in comparison mode, especially with my younger relatives. They seem so happy, they seem so accomplished. They're on the cusp of doing wonderful things.

And I feel like life has passed me by.

So, much negative self-talk this morning. I meditate each morning, 20 minutes. On days like this my meditation can be a string of negative thoughts. Those thoughts reinforce negative attitudes and lead to negative actions. And I go lower and lower.

So, I am suffering today. And I write that to acknowledge it. I'm not acknowledging it to "move on". "Moving on" from suffering is the way I do business. It's part and parcel of my addiction.

Instead, today, I am grateful to write that I am embracing my suffering. During my meditation and since I have silently thought:

"May this suffering awaken my compassion."

It is an affirmation I have learned from Tara Brach. Accepting the bad feeling and gently examining it helps me to experience it right now. It actually stops me from judging "it" or judging me. I'm merely aware of my sadness, and the way it is manifested in my body.

It is not fun. I am very sad, sad as I type this. I am near tears. But these are the tears that are like a spring rain. I am comforted. I am feeling compassion for myself.

My biggest decision so far today is to take things very, very slowly. I took my time driving to work. I have no anxiety about getting done what needs to be done and being content with that. I am dedicated to not losing myself in businesses and not lashing myself for not getting more done.

I am going to take my time and live in my emotions. I will post again this evening. Can I live like this? Can I truly live otherwise?

The border between Me and the Universe

I had a spiritual experience Wednesday morning. I was laying in bed before my alarm, or perhaps between snoozes. My feet hurt and I probably had to go to the bathroom. I was aware of the different sensations of my body. I've been practicing this lately in my meditation: just being aware of my body.

I was aware of sensations all over my body and I realized that these pains, tightnesses, pressures, etc., they were all happening independently of each other and independently of me -- or should I say Me, the self. What I realized is that I was not directing these sensations, I was not controlling these sensations. They didn't radiate out from a central me. I was just observing them. They didn't need me to exist. I -- the self -- was almost outside of them. There were processes in my body that were independent of my controlling self.

I have this tendency to believe that the border between me and the rest of the universe is my skin. Along with this, I believe that I am in control of myself and not in control of what is outside of myself.

The observation of these independent sensations made me realize that the me I think of as Me is really a bundle of sensations that doesn't have a consistent center. The center is something that I, the observer has constructed. A lot of me and my experience of me is outside of my control.

Sorry if I'm boring you. Many of my deepest realizations are pretty elementary. I have a tendency to skip over the obvious.

So if what is going on inside my skin is not all Me, then maybe everything happening outside of my skin is not all not-Me. How do I experience "the rest" of the world? Through my senses. How do I experience my interior physical sensations? Through my senses. Why is one more me than the other?

The world outside my skin seems separate because my mind is always separating things. The main thing it separates is me from the universe. And maybe this separation is not real. Maybe the separation is not only not real, but is a lie I tell myself.

This encourages me to be more intuitive. It gives me a sense of integrity with all other things. This is what I need.

I am vulnerable

I was home alone this morning, just about to leave for work. I had taken some laundry down to the basement and was passing by the television set. I briefly wondered if we still had the DVD of the movie my wife and I had watched a few days ago. It had a brief scene of nudity.

And I thought, "I could look at that again."

Fortunately, I was actually moving, walking across the den carpet, when I had the thought and I just kept moving.

As I walked, I said "No." It was a gentle no, a soft no. I don't like to scold my addictive impulses, but I can't coddle them either.

My second thought was "I am vulnerable." I don't have that many impulses to act out, but when I do, I try to acknowledge them. Denial of my addiction is the strongest part of my addiction. The last time I acted out, I know that I had this suspended sense of reality, where I was actively trying to skirt around the truth of what I was up to.

The other thing I remember about the last time I acted out was that it wasn't the worst day of my life. I wasn't overwhelmed or anything. I was just vulnerable and I was downstairs in my den. A lot like this morning.

So I avoided a wreck. I am grateful for my awareness that helped me through that. I am grateful that I see more hope in the solution than returning to the problem.

And now I've recognized that I'm vulnerable and I need to get some help. I think I'll call my sponsor or another friend in recovery. Right now.

In the meantime, thank you God, for bringing me to this place.

Meditation opens the basement door

I've had an unexpectedly bad experience with meditation lately. When I say unexpected, I mean that I expect meditation to make me feel good, serene, you know? I don't expect it open a door to my pain.

But that is what it has done.

I have a pretty poor record as a meditator. I have a very chatty mind. I'm usually in two modes, I'm either just off in some thought about some something or I'm sitting there critiquing my meditation technique. "If I sat up straighter, my mind would be more clear" or "My mind is too chatty to be able to do meditation."

So I've been stalled. For years. But I've had some recent breakthroughs. There have been several things, but one thing was just to actually devote more time to it. I used to do 10 minutes, then I upped it to 15 and quickly up again to 20. I've been holding steady at 20. It's made a difference. I think the extra time allows me to just settle in.

Another factor is that I've been listening to Tara Brach's weekly podcast. Tara is a Buddhist teacher and a counseling psychologist. She's a very gentle lady and I get a lot out of listening to her podcasts. She also fancies herself a commedian, and I forgive her for that.

The message I'm getting from Tara, and the meditation I'm practicing is simple awareness. I just try to be present to what is going on. This is what is going on in my mind, but also what is going on in my body and emotions. Just being present. My tendency in life is to experience it as an opportunity to judge. I judge everything. Being present is just being there with living.

I practice when I'm meditating, but I also try to practice it the rest of the day. I drive when I'm driving. I fold laundry and just observe the tee shirt. And when I'm feeling something, when there's an emotion, I experience the emotion. My emotions are the most important medium for communication with God right now. These messages are coming in very strongly.

My standard reaction to emotions is to control them. I don't feel my feelings. I don't let them get very far along before I stuff them down. Good or bad, happy or sad, I don't let them play out very long. This is a bit of an overstatement. I've actually become so skilled at stuffing my emotions that they don't often even get to the surface. They come pre-stuffed.

So I've been experiencing my emotions. I've been saying "yes" to them. Acceptance is the lesson I must learn again and again. I'm saying "yes". Not "YEAH!!!". "Yes."

And here's the problem. The reason I've put some much effort, built so many walls against my emotions is that I have some very unpleasant emotions to deal with. I've had them a very, very long time. The big feeling, the big ugly feeling is: I'm not good enough. That is a feeling, a "truth" I believe about myself that is so ugly and so ingrained that I've convinced myself for most of my life that I actually don't feel this way.

I've thought my problem was arrogance. Now I see arrogance as a defense mechanism against my real problem.

Of all my denials, this is the biggest. I've spent most of my life thinking that I did not have issues with self-loathing. But the increased quality of my meditation has opened up this truth to me.

And it has not been pleasant. I wrote about it two weeks ago.

On top of the sadness of getting in touch with my feelings of inferiority, I am also somewhat saddened that I haven't recognized it before. Altho, that thought is along the path of more self-loathing. The healthy thing for me to do is to recognize what I'm learning and be grateful that I am at this point right here when it is safe for me to uncover this truth. To live with it.

Thank you, God, for bringing me to this place.

Honesty as antidote

Just got off the phone with a friend in recovery. He's having a hard time with middle circle behaviors, checking out women. At the same time, he shared with me how he is being honest with his partner about this, and that sharing his struggling helps to defang the obsession.

That gave me a lot of hope. In the last week I've been very miserable about my job, my creative life and even my service in the program. I feel powerless, but also very willful. This is a powerful admixture of negativity.

I seem to have three responses to these sorts of events: acting out, living in misery and letting go. I won't do the first. I can't seem to do the third, so I live in the second. The limbo. The dry, unhappy place.

But this morning, Monday morning, with so much to do and so much anxiety and bitterness around it, I decided to surrender. First off, I told my wife about my anxiety about work, about all the things I need to do today that I should have done last week and my keen sense of inferiority about this. I just told her how I felt.

Second, I came to work and admitted I needed help on my current project. That's equally tough for me, because I get a lot of self-satisfaction out of being capable at my job. I had to admit in a little way that I've not got my act together. I admitted it, asked for help and I'm getting help.

And then this friend called. I am getting a triple message of honesty today, and it is making things a lot more manageable.

I still have much to do, and I need to get back to it. But it's not as scary and not as triggering as it was an hour ago.

Emotional growth or emotional injury?

I was walking my dog through the neighborhood yesterday when I was suddenly overwhelmed by a dark, heavy feeling. It seemed to come out of nowhere. It was a feeling of heaviness, like great grief in my chest and stomach and it felt like there was a weight upon my shoulders. The air seemed close and quiet.

I can't say I've ever felt like that before.

As far as I know, it didn't start from some though, it was just a spontaneous sadness. The feeling came so suddenly, I couldn't do anything but just stand there on the sidewalk.

"What is this?"

Life has been a little different for me since the first of the year. I've been practicing less control really, which means that I feel like I've been open to things. Part of this is just taking the time -- a pause -- to feel my feelings. So I paused, even in the face of this dark wave.

What I experienced in that pause was unsettling. I'd never really felt that bad about just being before. The only equivalent feeling was when I learned my grandmother was dead when I was an adolescent. This was completely out-of-the-blue. Because I couldn't peg it on something made it more unsettling, I think.

So I stayed with it. The mystery of it helped me to stay with it, because my mind had nothing to latch onto. The first thought that came to my head was "I've never felt this bad before." And truly, I haven't. The second thought was, "Is this reality now?" There have been some unique moments of serenity and its opposite in these last few months. And I was wondering: "Is this what I have to put up with when I feel my feelings?"

It's an odd question for me, a deep question. My native inclination is to strenuously avoid negative feelings, to stuff them. Lately I've had a looser grip on my emotions; letting things play out. But really, do I really have to face that level of discomfort? Is that how it's going to be? And furthermore, is that normal? There's always been a fear that if I really let my guard down, if I really jumped into life and let it wash over me that I would be drowned. If I've been afraid of my feelings, I think this experience was just what I was trying to avoid.

Is yesterday the new normal for me? And if so, will I learn to adjust to it? Or will I eventually get well enough adjusted to living my emotions that I don't have those large waves? You know? When you damn yourself up, you can expect a few floods, right?

Or did I crack?

Did one of the supports that holds this whole wild carnival of me together just crack and give out and give way? And is that a good thing, or a bad thing? If my life were destroyed, broken and irreparable, would I cease to be? Or would a new me emerge from the wreckage, like a snake sloughing its skin? Or was it just a touch of the blues on Wednesday afternoon?

So much of my life in recovery is walking into the dark.

The next thought was, "Is this depression? Is this what depressed people feel like?" The blanket of sorrow would be pretty much what I would imagine depression to be. I certainly wouldn't want to work or do anything if that's how I actually felt all the time. I was very worried yesterday, early, that I might feel like that all the time.

I'm pretty proud of my response to it. First, I just stayed with it. I didn't reject the feeling and I didn't reject myself. I didn't panic and try to direct my mind to something -- anything else to forget the feeling. I stayed with it. I walked home, my dog as happy as ever, and let myself in. While I didn't have any thought of acting out (for which I'm grateful), I immediately called my sponsor. He was there and we talked. During the talk I recalled some news I got earlier in the day that may have contributed to the event.

I described it as a "panic attack" to my sponsor. He shared his experience with things like that. It was good to talk with him because I trust him and I know he cares about me. My wife came home at about the same time and we talked too. It was good to open up to her. I have a tendency when I'm sick to get very childish, demanding and pathetic. I didn't do that. I didn't resent her for not dropping everything and making poor me the center of her universe. The aspiration to be present has a lot of unintended positive outcomes.

So, am I going insane or am I maturing emotionally? Both? I guess I'll find out.

In the mean time, I'm feeling better today, definitely better, although I still don't feel very good. I lived. I feel like a shipwreck survivor today: groggy, on edge but very relieved. How many more of those will I experience? I don't know. But I guess I know that I can be okay during and after. That much I've learned.

And that's okay for now.

Slowing down is working my program and vice versa

I've been slowing down lately. Walking slower. I've been driving the speed limit. Part of it has been deliberate and part of it stems from a reduction in the desire to get there and a satisfaction with being "here."

The practice reinforces the principle and the principle supports the practice.

My native inclination is to lean forward, to have my attention always on the next thing. There's a certain hopefulness in that, I guess, but when I'm really honest with myself, it stems from a dissatisfaction with the way things are and the way I am. I think that by getting to the next thing or merely getting away from right "here", that I will find more satisfaction in that other place.

I haven't found that satisfaction in the "other place" because, probably, when I get to the "other place" it has suddenly became "this place." Dang! And so I must press on; an eternally hurried pilgrim who never gets to the destination.

Maybe the destination is here. Here.

That's scary and challenging for me, because "here" -- the reality of who I am -- my imperfections, my emotions, my past -- is an unhappy place. I have worked the Steps and I am freed from the shackles of my addiction, but my release has been into a reality that stills seems dangerous and bleak.

I've wished it weren't so, but my wishing hasn't made it better. Nor has my striving brought me closer. All my effort cannot make it so.

If the destination is here, I must make a home of it. I recall as a young man that I would never decorate my room no matter where I lived. My restlessness never let me settle in. But here I am and despite my best efforts I am still me. "No matter where you go, there you are" as they say in Buckaroo Bonzai. I must admit, I'm think I'm settling in more from a feeling of weariness than a feeling that this is the right place. But it is working all the same.

Being here has a physical sensation: I can feel my feet on the ground. I feel a connection to the earth, even if the surface below my feet is blacktop as I walk from my car to my workplace. I am moving, I am heading someplace, but I am not pushing and I'm not being pulled. I'm just making my way. There is an easiness and relaxation to this walking, a fullness. Fullness.

It affects my mind as well. I'm much more likely to stop thinking and look around, and to see familiar things in a new way. I'm feeling my feelings more and staying with them. And sometimes even my mind is quiet. Quiet.

The practice reinforces the principle and the principle supports the practice.

There's an okay-ness to being here, being present. When this moment is enough, I don't need the future -- the next -- so desperately. I feel like I can live like this. What a tremendous relief. Relief.

Relief.