Getting It All Out
Let yourself have a good gripe session.
From: " Woman, Sex, and Addiction"
—Charlotte Davis Kasl, Ph.D.
Get it out. Go ahead. Get it all out. Once we begin recovery, we may feel like it's not okay to gripe and complain. We may tell ourselves that if we were really working a good program, we wouldn't need to complain.
What does that mean? We won't have feelings? We won't feel overwhelmed? We won't need to blow off steam or work through some not so pleasant, not so perfect, and not so pretty parts of life?
We can let ourselves get our feelings out, take risks, and be vulnerable with others. We don't have to be all put together, all the time. That sounds more like codependency than recovery.
Getting it all out doesn't mean we need to be victims. It doesn't mean we need to revel in our misery, finding status in our martyrdom. It doesn't mean we won't go on to set boundaries. It doesn't mean we won't take care of ourselves.
Sometimes, getting it all out is an essential part of taking care of ourselves. We reach a point of surrender so we can move forward.
Self-disclosure does not mean only quietly reporting our feelings. It means we occasionally take the risk to share our human side-the side with fears, sadness, hurt, rage, unreasonable anger, weariness, or lack of faith.
We can let our humanity show. In the process, we give others permission to be human too. "Together" people have their not so together moments. Sometimes, falling apart - getting it all out - is how we get put back together.
Today, I will let it all out if I need a release.
From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie ©1990, Hazelden Foundation.
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Embracing recovery does not mean life becomes 'perfect'. It does not mean there will never be bad moments or reasons to gripe & complain. Far from it.
Sometimes, embracing recovery is THE most difficult thing in the world to accomplish. Lots of negative feelings come to the surface, after years of bottling them up inside. It can be difficult to identify the feelings, since they've been squashed for so long, pushed back with food or alcohol or other addictive substances/behaviors.
It's okay to feel............it's okay to allow ALL the feelings to come up and be validated. Negative as well as positive feelings are bound to show up and demand to be released. If I dwell in self-pity and feel victimized when the bad times hit, I am not working my program properly. I am not a victim, nor should I dwell in misery or find relief in martyrdom.
When the griping and complaining need release, I vent those feelings. I seek support from my family and friends, as I share my fears with them. I do not portray myself as the perfect, 'put-together' woman who never struggles. That would be a lie and to do so is to shun recovery.
As a human being, I have my flaws & vulnerabilities. Recovery has taught me that it's okay to have such flaws and vulnerabilities, it's just not okay to stuff them back, pretending my life is all rainbows & unicorns.
Accepting the truth and surrendering my life to my Higher Power is the key to everything. For today, I give myself permission to be human. Falling apart is how I get put back together, one day at a time.
Should you shield the valleys from the windstorms, you would
never see the beauty of their canyons.
--Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
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