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.

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.