Deborah says:
I just read a blog. Someone has gained a bunch of weight back. They’re not eating the way they know they should, they’re not working out, they’re searching for motivation - nothing new there, we’ve all been there. But then they said something interesting. They said they were angry, having all these horrible feelings and they didn’t like them. I get that - feelings are hard. I’ve only recognized and embraced my feelings for a short time (3 years or so). Before that I just kind of buried them under spaghetti and potato chips. Some of them are great - happiness, joy, pride, elation. Yeah, I’ll take those feelings anytime. But then come some others, sadness, anger, fear, bitterness, sorrow, guilt - the other end of the spectrum. The trick is, those ones are as much a part of life as the happy ones are - we have to learn how to embrace them as well. I mean, I don’t like breaking up with boyfriends, but it happened this year and I spent a solid week on the couch crying (while staring longingly at the fridge to be honest). But I just cried and didn’t eat. And didn’t feel better by the way. And then the next week I only cried every other day. And in between I managed to get to the gym and produce some of those feel good hormones. And now, several months later, I still cry a little, but it’s not frequent. And I feel by going through this, embracing those hard feelings, I finished it or got closure on my feelings for him. I mourned the relationship, let it pass, and am starting to be ready for something new.
Honestly, I didn’t like those feelings either but they come with love. And the other thing I did, is I learned a new habit. It’s okay to cry or work out when you feel bad, but I reinforced that eating is not a way to treat bad feelings. And that makes me proud, which is one of those feelings I quite enjoy. And I think I’m going to focus on that for the rest of the day.
Remember, feelings just are. You can’t get through life without scraping a few knees. It’s the same with feelings. But if the bad ones stick around for too long, if you feel stuck, the other thing to remember is there is lots of help out there.
Arlene says
All feelings are created by patterns in our body/mind. All feelings can be triggered by something we see, hear, taste, touch, smell, think, experience, or remember. Memories of feelings can be pleasant … “remember that time we were all camping and …. it was so hilarious …” and we smile and feel that lightness in our chest.
But we can also remember him saying goodbye and let’s be friends and how awful that is when we remember, how our chest is heavy and our throat is tight with tears. As Deborah says, you have to work through that. Each time we bring up the memory the intensity of the emotion lessens, because we are constantly updating it, putting it in the context of today, which is more days of surviving without him perhaps. So now we realize we can (survive), and we also realize that something funny was still funny, even though he wasn’t around, and then we realize we can survive; that life still holds many wonderful things. Welcome to the marvelous world of our adaptive, recovering brain.
And if you are truly stuck with tough feelings that don’t seem to be changing then I believe you aren’t changing the thinking, you aren’t updating the memory with today’s context …. and you might need some help from a professional to get that started.
