Emotions

I have seen therapists off and on for years.

I have had a few ‘aha’ moments about my past…but to be honest…I never spent a whole lot of time delving into that stuff….

Usually…the morning of my appointment..while I am showering, applying makeup, dressing…I am thinking…about what happened since my last visit…what do I need to talk about??

Sort of like… bringing a friend up to date with my life.

It is amazing what that does for me….having a safe place to talk about…ANYTHING.

I went to lunch with my best friend today. We became friends when we were three years old.

There is nothing that we cannot share with one another.

I knew, before we got there that she has been going through sort of a rough time…so we spent the hour together…talking about what’s going on….our victories…funny stories…our stresses…our pain…grief.

We didn’t SOLVE anything.

When we left….both of our situations were exactly the same as they were when we arrived.

But we felt good.

Both of us.

I see it here too….someone will come across this blog and send me an email ….telling their story..or will post for the first time at gamcre or safe harbor.….finally..finding a place where they can share their story…where there are others…like them…who ‘get’ it.

FINALLY....some RELIEF.

But…it’s not just about the gambling…I mean…we need to tell those stories…but….it’s all the OTHER crap too….

The things that we think we should ‘just suck it up’….or…that….we shouldn’t be compaining..after all…others have it worse than we do….or…that no one wants to hear us whine…or….thinking that we are just having a pity-party…

Trying to ‘stuff’ our feelings….is dangerous for us.

Gambler’s Anonymous says that this is an ‘emotional’ illness.

Our emotions.

Do you know that there are thousands of words that can be used to describe emotions?

Not long ago…my list was pretty basic…

I felt:

Good, bad, angry, happy, sad or scared.

Period.

Now…I was FEELING a lot more than that…anxious, nervous, shame, guilt, hopeless, helpless, pleasure, joy, love…grief.

I FELT all sorts of things.

I couldn’t name them when I tried.
More importantly, I rarely tried.

For me….that was how I practiced AWARENESS in the beginning.

As often as I thought about it (and I tried to think about it a lot)…I would ask myself….’how am I feeling?’

That meant…PHYSICALLY…..and EMOTIONALLY.

I did some looking online…finding lists of words that I might use in my exercises….

Strange…how IDENTIFYING what I was feeling was….ummm….not comforting…no..ummmmm empowering??? Yeah, maybe that’s it.

Whatever I feel is ok.

No matter what I feel, ‘numbing’ at a machine is not an option.

It really doesn’t make the feelings go away you know…it just allows us to ignore them for a while.

Problem is….when we STOP numbing (and from time to time…I had to pause from my gambling)…all of THAT cr*p was there…PLUS, I was ADDING to the stress in my life with the GAMBLING consequences that I was creating.

Becoming AWARE of how I feel…and sharing that in a safe place…no matter WHAT it is that I feel….are necessary….if I am going to overcome this ‘emotional’ illness…..these things are *absolutely* necessary.