Feelings often get stuck in our bodies when we don’t allow ourselves to feel them. If I feel sad about how about how someone else has treated me, I need to be honest with myself about how I’m feeling and allow myself some time to get really sad and upset about it instead of pretending to be okay when I’m not. Another tactic I often use is distraction. If I choose to watch a movie or otherwise try to push it out of my mind, it’ll only come back stronger at a less convenient time. However, if I speak my truth and feel my feelings, though, they dissipate on their own. The more I try to control my feelings, the stronger the grip they have on me. Acceptance of what has happened and acceptance of how I feel regarding what has happened are the only sure way to keep the feelings flowing instead of stopping up my emotions like a clogged pipe. Let it flow. Let it flow. Be honest, open, and then vulnerable. The pain in our lives will continue to control us and be our driving force until we stop fighting it and allow ourselves to integrate the emotions into the realm of our daily human experience.

There are two types of people: controllers and controlees. And yes, there are also people in this world who are responsible enough to assume control over their own lives and empathetic enough not to need to exert control over others. Those are the type of people I strive to emulate. However, I grew up as a controlee with a controller older sister. As if coming into this world as an overly caring, overly sensitive, and overly kind person isn’t hard enough, I was also raised in a household where I was practically attached at the hip to a narcissistic, controlling person. We didn’t just grow up in the same house; we grew up in the same bedroom, often sharing the same bed. We had to share all our toys, all our friends, and we even had the same birthday. We were the embodiment of Hegel’s Master/Slave philosophy. She needed to have me to boss around, and I needed her to tell me what to do because I was incapable of making an assertive decision on my own. I was too afraid of hurting someone else, and too afraid of experiencing more rejection, which occurred daily for me. If no one else rejected me, I projected it onto myself because it was such a strong expectation. To numb the hurt, I dissociated. I first became addicted to the television, then to fantasizing (which I refer to as “theater of the mind”). Then, I fell into full-blown sex addiction. It wasn’t until I got into 12-Step recovery, nearly ten years ago now, that I finally began to heal. I started to learn how to take responsibility for my own choices, how to ask for what I needed, and how to stand up for myself when I thought my boundaries were being violated.

According to neuroscience, “we can use awareness, the mental experience of consciousness, to intentionally alter the structure of the brain.”[i] How mind blowing is that? Read it again. “We can use awareness, the mental experience of consciousness, to intentionally alter the structure of the brain.” We can intentionally alter the physical structure of our brains by paying attention to what we’re thinking and choosing to think something else. Anything else. When we interrupt the firing pattern of neurological synapses, we make it more difficult for our brain to repeat the same pattern in the future. The reverse is also true. The more we allow our brains to go on autopilot, repeating the same old messages, running the same old programming, the more we reinforce that firing pattern and make our brain more likely to repeat it in the future. We have got to get this simple concept through our thick skulls. If I keep thinking the same things I’ve always thought, I’m going to keep getting the same results I’ve always got.

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[i] Daniel Siegel. The Developing Mind 15

Addiction really is a swirling vortex of doom. When I was alone in my little one-bedroom apartment, I remember thinking that my life was stuck in a downward spiral, a whirlpool of misery from which there was no escape. And I was right. Each negative experience generated a new negative expectation, and each negative expectation generated the next negative experience. There was no stopping it. It was a continuous cycle that I was not able to break on my own. It required intervention. Did I get thrown? Yes. Was I injured? Yes. Did it hurt? Hell yes. Did I eventually heal and crawl my way out of the trench I had dug for myself? Yes, or at least, I’m working on it. Ascending from a grave I had spent most of my life digging was going to take time, effort, and a lot of intentionality. But I was willing to do whatever it took to get sober. And it took going to meetings. It took working with a sponsor. It took letting go of all I had previously clung to as my lifeline of hope and taking ahold of something greater, something I had always known existed but was never willing to rely on, connection.

I have come to accept that I have no control over life. I can make choices regarding what I do and how I want to feel, but I don’t have any authority over what happens to me or when. Therefore, my security is not placed in my own strengths or abilities. My confidence lies in knowing that everything will be okay. Okay does not mean what I want. I do not ever expect anything to turn out the way I want it to. I’m grateful when it does, but my happiness doesn’t depend on it. Bad things happen. Hard times happen. Losses happen. There are times to grieve as well as times to celebrate. The human life experience encompasses the full range of emotional experiences. Take it all in. Release your clenched fists and open your hands to receive.

From the way you didn’t care for me, I learned not to care for myself. From the ways in which you put me down, I learned to put myself down. From the ways you didn’t show up for me, I learned to lower my expectations of others. From the ways in which you betrayed my trust, I learned not to trust others. From the trauma you inflicted, I learned to inflict trauma upon others and upon myself. I know no other way. So, I must make it my priority to learn another way now, and in learning a new way to be, I must also be willing to let go of the identity of who I was. No one wants to be a loser, a victim, or a slave, but to be one is better than to be nothing. I tighten my grip upon the identity I don’t want to claim because I don’t know who I would be without it. I’m not a winner. I’m not lucky. I’m not privileged. Most of the time, I’m not even free to make my own decisions about what to do because I’m so thoroughly tossed to and fro by the circumstances of my base survival. What I can choose is to grieve the identity of who I was taught to be. I can let my old self die away and take another step toward the person I want to become. I don’t need to be a winner, lucky, or privileged. I can start by simply being kind, caring, and compassionate instead of striving toward an arbitrary goal of perfection or even the nebulous promise of something better.

Who wouldn’t want the exhilarating high of overcoming one of life’s most ominous challenges? Rock climbers take on foreboding cliffs. Runners surpass marathons and triathlons to ultramarathons, pushing their bodies beyond reasonable limitations. Some summit mountains while others pursue cerebral peaks such as chess tournaments or higher level of education. Why the push? Why the drive? We press forward or die trying. The alternative, remaining stagnant, not pressing forward, not trying, is a more painful death than the first for then we are perpetually haunted by the notion of what might have been.

Life is like “The Good Place.” Most people seem to think life is a time to be savored for whatever joy we can find here when it’s actually a personal hell in disguise. This is the place where there’s weeping and gnashing of teeth. We’re here to learn experientially that we need God’s love and peace in order to feel any semblance of joy. Life is our punishment for thinking we don’t need God, that we can be our own god, that we can be good apart from God. Our cosmic energy shows up here to balance our karma and for God’s glory to be revealed. Some things we deserve, others we don’t. Sometimes we can tell the difference but not always. However, I believe, we will eventually be rewarded with more love and peace if we endure our sufferings patiently and don’t give up.

You didn’t love me, didn’t’ know how to. How was I supposed to feel? You said Jesus loved me, he would always love me, but I needed something real. I needed your big hand to hold my little hand, to show me the way. I need your strong arms to hold my little arms, to make me feel safe. But you weren’t there, and I felt scared, so now all I can say.

I hope you find a love for you to feel loved. I hope you find a hand you want to hold. I hope you see a light showing you the way. I hope you can see now that you’ve grown old. There’s still a little girl, in me you’ll never know. The little girl in me has to let you go. Dear Daddy, I need you to know.

I was broken, when you broke your promises. You weren’t supposed to leave. I was forsaken, for the sake of your shame. You weren’t able to grieve. You left a gaping hole within my little soul, I couldn’t hope to fill. You pushed a jagged shard into my little heart, and it is bleeding still. Now I stand here, though I’m still scared, and all I can say.

So, don’t judge me if I stutter, these few words I need to utter. They bring healing, they bring wholeness to my wounded incompleteness. Maybe someday, I’ll feel better. Maybe I’ll grieve this loss forever. There’s no telling what the future holds, but at least now I know you’ve been told.

I still need a love to make me feel loved.

I still need a hand of someone I can hold.