Feelings Follow Thoughts Like the Night Follows the Day

 

 Feelings follow thoughts, like the night follows the day. 

I have been a slave to my emotions, my entire life. Probably still am to some extent. I’ve got an emotional thermometer attached to my psyche that I negotiate with daily. You can be deceived by your feelings. For people like me, being busy is a good thing. There is an opportunity to refocus the negative talk. Being too busy to obsess on self. Now there’s a concept.

Like many of us I have had my share of anxiety and depression and the rest of the emotional shit that comes with being human.

I remember when I was first getting sober, and my sponsor suggested I take the emotional thermometer out of my ass and put it on the back burner. What a concept. Quite brilliant.

So, what does all this mean? It means you cannot have a feeling without having a thought first.

The issue is we don’t always know what the thought behind the feeling is.

It means that your mind is the culprit. It seems simple to acknowledge and define feelings, whereas almost impossible to trace where they came from unless it’s obvious…hence death, divorce, loss, grief, obsession.

You do not have to be a victim of your emotions. You can win the big battle? No, you cannot win all the battles…and I’m not sure if at the end of this you will win the war…What I am sure of is that there is going to be a lot of negotiating between you and your feelings. (Hence, you and your thinking)

I’ve got a friend that I refer to as, “lotions and potions.” There is no product on the market that promises healing of some kind of relief that this gal doesn’t have. One time when discussing her boyfriend, she said that someone that she was talking to about her romantic relationship had stated that the reason there was probably no future together for her and her boyfriend was their astrological signs weren’t compatible. I say it’s because he’s an asshole.

Go to therapy, stop using your intellect as a buffer against getting better.

Stop pretending you don’t drink too much, or think too much, or whine too much. Figure out who you are and make changes if you want to. Only if you want to.  

Serve others, spend less time thinking of yourself. I know it’s corny…but it works. Feed the homeless. Find a homeless person, that for whatever reason, you connect with and bring them food weekly. Tell no one.  Just do it. Thank-you Nike.

Make not your thoughts your prisons. Shakespeare…Yeah, that guy.

Chase the truth. Find out what’s going on in your mind. Go to therapy, meditate, or?? Take any action to figure out what’s going on in your mind.

Don’t believe everything you think…just because you think it, doesn’t mean it’s true. It just means you think it. Stop hiding from yourself.

Challenge yourself to change.

I do not say any of this lightly. I’ve spent a lifetime in therapy and 12 step programs.

Has it worked. Oh yes! Do I always feel good? Hell no!!!

Do I have the expectation of always feeling good? Probably.

Do I accept not feeling good? Hell, no. I fight like hell, sometimes. And other times, (rarely) I accept it.

My head is too loud. Yup, I get it…Therefore you must get out of there.

As my pal says, when you are in your head you are in a bad neighborhood.

Learn how to get out.

I’ve recently dropped the concept of arriving at mental health and never having all the negative crap feelings that come with human condition. To feel all the crap is to be human. Like it or not. Liking it is not a requirement. 

A couple of years ago, I behaved badly in a business situation. I didn’t do anything wrong…I just spoke too freely to my pal that had hired me. I was too emotional. It was an untenable situation, and I had to get out of it to save my sanity. Besides, I couldn’t accomplish anything on the job. A crazy person was running the show. A crazy person, that I had been close to for over 25 years. A great human who was now enslaved to many forms of addiction. I don’t really know why I thought I could fix the situation. Shame on me. Anyway, I knew it couldn’t work, but I gave it my best. In that process I regressed. I spoke incessantly to my pal about what was going on. That was the mistake. I left the job early.

The result was, after a year and a half, he was fired, but I was never asked back. I spent a year and a half mourning the job, the people that I cared a lot for, and obsessing over my mistakes. I went into a black hole and couldn’t get out. It wasn’t the first time and probably won’t be the last.

What changed? Firstly, I had to face the fact that saving my sanity meant less to me than doing a good job. With the help of a great shrink, I realized that I undervalued the importance of saving my life.

I found that rather interesting. I also learned that sometimes, “it takes what it takes.”

TINSTAAFL

There is never such a thing as a free lunch. There is a price for everything.

Do I regret exposing my vulnerability to the woman that hired me? You bet I do.

There is no going back to the job that I thought would carry me to the finish of Act 3.

One- and one-half years of obsessing, and pining, and crying, and …

That’s what it took to be done.

But what it really took is actively seeking help. 

Did I do the best I could at that time?

The answer is obviously, yes, cause it’s what I did.

I felt bad, cause my thinking was incessantly negative, obsessive, and unrelenting. FOR A YEAR AND ONE HALF.

Get out of your own way and ask for help. Your self-sufficiency is killing you.

Talk to people. You can learn a lot from professionals, but you can also learn a lot from the wounded as well as the healed.

According to google, Robin Sharma and David Foster Wallace said, “The mind is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master.”

That seems to sum it up.