The Best Divorce Ever

 

The Best Divorce Ever

 

Last year I spoke for a graduate counseling class about addiction.  The professor is the daughter of a former neighbor of ours from our days in Annapolis.  This neighbor saw me at my worst whether she realized it at the time or not and has been a big support to me from a distance ever since.  She had mentioned me to her daughter and I was happy to oblige.  She asked me to come back this year and speak and asked if maybe Frank would be willing to go as well and speak from the perspective of a family member.  Frank agreed to go and we drove up to NJ together.

I will admit that I was unexpectedly nervous to speak, because I would be doing so in front of Frank, and then I would be hearing what he had to say.  Now, over the past nearly three years I have spoken at meetings and rehabs and conventions and events and have written in detail about my addiction and it affects, but here I was nervous about what my ex-husband would hear and say, as if he hasn’t heard it all before.

I started speaking and discovered that it isn’t all that different speaking in front of Frank, in fact as the class wore on and I had said my piece and he had said his, we stood together and answered questions.  It became easy and flowing.  It was easy to tell, I guess because it is our story after all, his and mine, spoken from two different viewpoints that sometimes overlapped and sometimes veered off in different directions, but ours none-the-less. 

What a difference time makes.  If someone had asked me three years ago, or even a year ago if we would be able to do this I would have looked at them in utter disbelief.  I am proud of what we have forged and I look forward to co-parenting and enjoying life with Frank in this way till the end.  We joked the other day that we will have to get adjoining rooms at the home when we are old.  Which is not to say that we don't ever get on each other's nerves.  I won't even mention the near disastrous family shopping trip to IKEA earlier this year, but still!

I was talking to a co-worker the other day about our divorce and she said there isn’t a word for it.  She said it’s so rare it’s like a unicorn, something you hear about but never see.  I have to agree.  I hear of other peoples’ situations and there almost always is overwhelming resentment and anger and bitterness on one or both parts and it makes me sad, especially if there are kids involved.  If you have to get divorced (and oddly I will say I am not a proponent unless you have really tried everything), then for the sake of your children you have to do some work.

This is not to say that it was easy.  It may look easy now but the effort it took on both our parts was Herculean and the grief, anger and discomfort were, at times, oceanic.  But it is doable. 

Frank and I were having a painful late lunch together at a diner after Thanksgiving last year when I asked him for a divorce.  It was a bit of an out-of-body experience.  We were once again hashing things over and trying desperately to fix something that couldn’t be fixed.  When it came over me that this wasn’t all about me and it wasn’t all about alcohol.  There were other things involved, fears and hurts that Frank had that I could not control and in some cases had nothing to do with.  I realized that we were causing each other pain just being together as a couple, even though we care very deeply for one another and always will.  It came over me that I no longer wanted to be a source of pain in his life.  If being with me meant he couldn’t be the best version of himself and vice versa, then we had to make a painful change.  It was as if I heard my inner voice say, he does not want to be with you anymore and you no longer want to be with him anymore and it no longer matters why.

I could easily write a book about all the ways Frank has wronged me or hurt me over the course of time knowing him and trust me he could probably write three about me, but what is the point?  What is the point of hanging onto all of the negative and ignoring the positive?  When I hear people bash their exes I often long to say to them, “what does that say about you”?  After all you chose that person, so there must have been something good in there at some point.  Why not try and focus on that.  I know there are some serious exceptions to this, but not all situations are so bad that you can’t at least try and see some things from the other person’s perspective.

We tearfully drove away from lunch together knowing we were entering a period of fear and grief but both feeling a great sense of relief.  I remember relaxing into the idea and seeing him as my friend again.  I made a decision right then and there that we could literally have the best divorce ever and I told him so.  Luckily for me and for the kids, he jumped on board with that idea and we began the work of re-building what being “us” looks like.

I think people feel societal pressure to “stick it out for the sake of the kids”.  I get that, I really do, but what if you staying together is actually bad for the kids?  I know that our kids are better off seeing their parents as friends and not enemies.  I also know that our kids have not come out of this unscathed, but I know that this is part of their story now and that we can’t shield them from all pain.  I know we can honor the pain they feel about the divorce and work together to support them as best we can.  What Frank and I can do is become better chapters in our kids’ stories and our own going forward. 

So much about living a congruent life is acceptance.  It is a concept I learned in recovery.  In order to live congruently, which is something most of us strive to do, it means you have to accept the divine reality of situations and life in general.  If you can do that, then you can move forward with integrity and faith. 

And for the record we are going out for dinner on the 29th of December on what would have been our 15th anniversary, because why not?

“Somewhere in the Middle Lies the Truth”

 

“When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know.  But if you listen, you may learn something new.” Dalai Lama

 

These are divisive times for sure.  Whether you voted for Trump or Clinton you are probably looking at friends who voted the opposite and wondering how they can think the way they do.  I have been caught up with it this week myself, but then I remembered something very simple.  It is a principle I know all too well from growing up and moving through life in recovery.  That principle is, “there are two sides to every story, and somewhere in the middle lies the truth”.

It should no longer astound me that people can look at the same thing and see it very differently.  My brother and I grew up in the same family, in the same house with the same parents and had vastly different experiences.  I can state with assurance that my father was an alcoholic, my brother would argue (and has) that my father was not an alcoholic.  I would tell you without hesitation that my mother is mentally and has been since I was a child.  My brother would tell you that she has dementia that started only a few years ago.  It would appear that we are both right and we are both wrong and somewhere in the middle lies the truth.

I look at my children.  They have the same parents, lived until recently as a family unit and share mostly the same life experiences but they could not be more different.  They see the same incident and come away with different perspectives often.  Wren has her reality and truth and Dermot has his own reality and truth.  But here is the thing…  They have SHARED experiences and they STILL see things differently.  Now imagine if they had vastly DIFFERENT experiences and think how vastly different their realities could/would be?  That is what is being highlighted now I believe.

A close friend of mine posted a cartoon on his Facebook page the other day and I shared it on.  It shows two men facing each other and looking down at a number painted on the floor.  One says, “six”, the other man standing opposite looking at the same number says, “nine”.  They are both right and they are both wrong.  They are seeing the same number but they are looking at that number from different perspectives.

I guess my hope is that we recognize that we are looking at the same number (or country) but some are seeing “sixes” and some are seeing “nines”.  I am attempting, by listening, to make my way at least halfway around the issue to see the other number so I can understand the perspective.  In understanding I think we can find a way to work together and not against each other.

For the record, I agree with peaceful protests but I abhor violence.  I am a fan of debate, as long as it is civil.  I know where I stand on humanitarianism, refugees, immigrants, race, gender and orientation, not I want to understand where others stand on those same issues so we can move forward.  I will continue to post the things I believe in and I will continue to listen to those who see a “six” when I see a “nine’.  Because in the end, “there are two sides to every story and somewhere in the middle lies the truth”.

Coping

                “Coping”

 

 

“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.”  William James

 

I recently helped with an open house at the counseling center I now work with.  A number of clinicians were there and I kept hearing this one counselor saying to others, “People just don’t know how to cope.”

It is so true.  People don’t know how to cope because we don’t teach people how to cope.  Maybe it is a sign of the times or maybe it just isn’t the American way.  I know other countries and societies are better and incorporating meditation and work-life balance than we are.  It seems to me the East is better with meditation and yoga practices and the Scandinavian countries are better with work-life balance.

Portugal is leading the way in terms of how they deal with addiction.  They had one of the worst drug problems in Europe until they changed the way they looked at the problem.  They have now cut their addiction rates basically in half.  How did they do it?  They de-criminalized drugs.   They took the money they used to spend on prosecuting and jailing the drug users and instead put it into getting the drug users into holistic recovery.  They treated the users, taught them about the disease, helped them learn coping skills and got them connected to communities again.  They got them on their feet and gave them purpose.  Even those who radically opposed this method in the beginning are now touting its success.  I got this information from an article in Yes Magazine but I had been hearing about it from many other sources.

I recently read on Upworthy that there is a school in Baltimore that has gotten rid of detention and instead they send the children to the “Mindful Meditation Room”.  They are taken through breathing exercises and meditations to get them centered and then they talk through the problem and their feelings with a teacher there in the room before returning to the classroom.  The school incorporates mindfulness practices and yoga as well and their suspension rate dropped to zero. 

Dermot has been struggling to concentrate lately and it stresses him out when it surrounds homework.  The other night I was with him when he started to get upset over his homework.  I had him stop and got him to sit with his feet on the floor and his back again the back of the chair and I took him through a 2 minute meditation using an app on my phone called Insight Timer.  When the meditation was over he was able to calmly start working again and though it wasn’t perfect concentration, it was improved.

What does this tell you?  We need to teach coping skills so people don’t turn to addictive behaviors and substances.  We need to be kinder, more mindful and more connected so we as a society can cope.

               “Intention”

 

 

      “Our intention creates our reality.”  Wayne Dyer

 

I recently had a conversation with a patient about a legal issue he has to face as a result of his actions while in active addiction.  He was understandably nervous about the outcome of his court case.

He was obsessing about the outcome as you might imagine and kept saying what he wanted to have happen.  He was hoping that the person bringing the charges against him would just drop the case.  When the other counselor working with me started to prepare him for the fact that the other person may not drop the charges, she asked him what he would do if that was did not happen.  The patient started down the road of saying that if the plaintiff did not drop the charges then he would be forced to bring up things about the plaintiff that would damage their reputation.  Basically his tact was going to be tit for tat.

I understand that the legal system will likely advise him to do so and I suppose he will do what he has to but we tried to talk to him about intention.  Rather than shaping the incident in his head around what he wants to have happen, look at it in terms of intention.  We asked him what his intention was and he said it was for peaceful resolution.  We encouraged him to look at it that way rather than think of it in terms of “If they don’t do what I want, then I will have to do such and such.”

I find that if I start going down a rabbit hole in a discussion with someone and I start getting argumentative with them, I have to pause.  If I start to lose my temper or my focus then things generally don’t work out for one or both of us.  However if I stop and say what is my intention in having this discussion, then my focus returns and I am generally able to resolve the situation or problem in a positive manner.

I can get into an argument with someone about an opinion that I have.  I can start getting heated because I repeatedly state my case and I feel I am right in what I am saying.  They can do the same.  We can continue to butt heads all we want, I may never convince the other that I am right and then we just continue down the road of trying to out-argue each other and getting more and more frustrated.  Or one or both of us can pause and assess our intention.

For example, say I am at a family dinner.  The conversation turns to politics (shudder!), and a simple matter of policy is brought up.  I, being a liberal, am going to see this matter of policy on one light and my father-in-law, being a conservative, is going to see it in a much different light.  I could argue with him for hours and we could start to get angry and upset with each other or I could stop and think about my intentions.  My intentions are not to convince him to change his mind, my intentions in that moment are to have a nice family dinner!  That doesn’t mean that I need to lie and say I agree with him or expend energy trying to “be right”, but if I keep my intention as my focus, it will vastly change the way I approach this discussion.

Dermot and Wren recently went back to school and last night Dermot was struggling with a situation he had with his new teacher.  He had asked permission to leave the classroom to retrieve an item he had left in his classroom from last year.  His old teacher said he had kept it for him and asked him to come and get it when he could.  Dermot asked permission several times, (he says he only asked three times, but knowing Dermot it was probably more like 6) and in frustration it sounds like his new teacher told him he had lost the privilege at the end of the day. Dermot was upset about this and making sweeping statements about how his new teacher was really mad at him and that he thinks she hates him in a very defeatist manner.

Frank and I offered him some suggestions on how to approach his teacher about the situation (none of these included us sending an e-mail or calling on his behalf).  He dismissed most of these suggestions as he was so frustrated.  His take was that she was only going to get mad at him and that she would never let him leave the room to get the item he left behind.  We tried to say that if he focused only on getting what he wanted (to leave the room) then his approach might not work.  Instead we encouraged him to speak to his teacher with the intention of understanding where she was coming from and having the opportunity to let her know where he was coming from.  Then, likely they would be able to resolve the issue one way or the other, and they would be able to move forward without hard feelings.

It remains to be seen what the patient will do and indeed what Dermot will do, but I stand by the idea that if your focus is on your intention rather than the outcome, the resolution will be acceptable even if it doesn’t go the way you thought it might.

 

I'm Glad You're Not My Sponsor

“I’m Glad You’re Not My Sponsor”

 

 

“Most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it.”  George R.R. Martin

 

“I’m glad you’re not my sponsor.”  A patient recently said this to me and I smiled.  I had been talking about one of the steps and mentioning that I had called out one of my sponsees for calling me late for their daily check-in.  The same thing happened to me when I was working the steps so I am simply handing down the process in the same way it was handed down to me.

I was asked if I was willing to go to any length in working the steps and I said “yes”.  My sponsor told me she wasn’t going to ask me to do anything that she herself had not done.  I was to pick a time to call her each day.  I had about 5 minutes lee-way before and after that time and I needed to call her then.  I made it a while before I was late.  I was a half-hour late.  She answered the phone and said, “You’re late calling me.”  I was in a recovery house at the time that had only one phone and even though I had a note on the phone asking that no one be on it at 8:00am, someone had grabbed it while I wasn’t looking. I explained this to her and her answer was, “If your recovery isn’t important to you, then why should I make it a priority of mine?”   

Some people will read that and think it harsh.  It stung a little at the time, but I knew it was coming at 8:30 when I dialed.  She had warned me.  She had told me she was serious about my recovery and she was.  It takes time and effort to sponsor someone and it isn’t a job to be taken lightly.  It is a life and death battle you are fighting and your sponsor is your sergeant major.

Tough love is so hard to reconcile.  It is distasteful in the extreme to the people doling it out and to the people meant to swallow it down.  It is, however, an essential nectar.  People attempting recovery are in their situations because they have an illness that sends them to the depths of “self-will run riot”.  Our thought process will constantly be whispering in our ears that we can control our using.  Our thoughts tell us we can handle it. Our thoughts tell us we aren’t that badly off.  Our thoughts tell us we weren’t as bad as some other addicts we know.  Our mental illness tells us that we should be in control when in reality our taking control of the ship lead to its sinking. 

I had another patient tell me that the kind of sponsor that he needed was someone who would celebrate his successes with him but not to get on his case when he slacks a bit.  I smiled and said to him that that was exactly the opposite of the kind of sponsor that he needed.  If you want a cheerleader, then look to family members and friends (if they are still speaking to you).  If you want to truly get better, then you need a drill sergeant.  You need someone that is going to hold your feet to the flame to make sure you get through this process in one piece.  There is no reason this can’t be done, it has after all, been done by many before us.  But you can’t get through it alone.  And if I am lost in the wilderness, then I want a guide who is a survivalist and knows the terrain.  Someone who will get me out alive, not someone that simply knows how to make a comfortable campground in the midst of the void so we can sit in seeming luxury while we wait for the apocalypse.

So I will move forward making sure that the people who ask for my help get the same kind of help from me that I got from others before me.  The kind of help that enabled me to be where I am today.  Tough love is a beautiful thing, it just isn’t for the faint of heart.

The Easter Bunny

The Easter Bunny

 

            So many people struggle with the 12 steps, particularly steps 1, 2 and 3 because they bring up the concept of a higher power and talk about God.  I did and I see many other people struggling with it also.

            As I have mentioned I am working part-time as a counselor’s aide in an addiction treatment program.  At the moment my job is to introduce the patients to the 12 steps and to take them through where they are outlined in the Big Book.  The population of the treatment program is chiefly medical professionals in recovery.  So as you can imagine they are highly educated but I am finding not very spiritual.

            The concept of surrendering to something we can’t see or touch but only hopefully feel is hard for most people.  These patients however, are trained to be rational.  They are trained to be powerful.  A certain amount of arrogance goes with the territory.  We see doctors as authority figures, they are like gods among us and they are often treated as such.  It only goes to follow that they would want to hold onto control and rational thinking, refusing to consider taking leap of faith.

            To lead them in a discussion on spirituality and surrender is no easy feat.  I have had to appeal to them as rationally as I can (which for me isn’t all that simple!).  I was trying to say to them that perhaps we are over-complicating the search.  Maybe, just maybe, we are making this so much more difficult than it needs to be.

            My kids are at an age where they are starting to grow out of some of the childhood staples.  Wren is 9 and she is a skeptic by nature so it is hard to tell if she still believes in such things as Santa, the tooth fairy, the Easter Bunny.  Sometimes she will voice doubts but mostly I think she chooses to play along with a good think.

            Dermot is turning 11 soon and is much more of a dreamer and a magical thinker.  You can see him starting to question these childhood heroes but also willing them to exist. 

This past year we celebrated Easter at my house.  We had Wren’s family birthday at the same time.  We had presents and a meal and cake and an Easter egg hunt with eggs and baskets.  It was fun and just before the kids were leaving with Frank for the night, Dermot called Frank into his bedroom.

            He looked at Frank and said he wanted to talk to him about something.  Frank says he prepared himself a little and asked what was up.  Dermot looked a little sad and said, “You always say you never lied to me, but now I know you have.”  Frank was a little taken aback by this and asked what Dermot was talking about and Dermot quietly said while shaking his head, “I saw you and mom go out the back door with eggs. I figured it out.  That means that Santa isn’t real, or the Elf on the shelf because the Easter Bunny isn’t real.”

            Speaking very wisely, Frank said, “Dermot I have never lied to you.  The Easter Bunny is real… he just looks different than you thought he would.”  Dermot thought about this and seemed to accept it.  He patted Frank on the head and said, “Good job tooth fairy, and don’t worry I want to keep the magic alive for Wren so I won’t say anything.”

            So maybe it’s that simple.  Maybe God, or a higher power is there and that higher power just doesn’t look like we thought it would.

Dancing in the Rain

Dancing in the Rain

 

In recovery they talk a lot about being present and living in the moment.  This is something I think is very difficult for people to grasp in general but especially in today’s modern, fast-paced society.  We seem to rush from appointment to appointment, task to task, chore to chore and are frequently spending most of our days thinking ahead to the next thing on our long to-do lists.  I do this far too much, even now – I am a professional list-maker.  I am one of those people who makes a list and puts on them things I have already done just to get the gratification of being able to immediately cross them off!

But when we spend so much time thinking forward to tasks and then thinking backward to history and possible regrets, when do we actually live?  In reality a certain amount of planning is needed, there are responsibilities to be tended to and looking back over the past is necessary as well to reflect on mistakes and triumphs – the key is not to get stuck on either end of the spectrum and try and balance those with the middle present.

I remember about 5 years ago now when we were living in Annapolis, I had the luck to be shown, by my children, how gratifying truly living in the present can be.  I was working full-time from home and Frank was frequently working long hours and there was always any number of things that had to get done.  It was August and I remember wrapping things up for work before heading out to pick the kids up from day camp.

It was raining pretty hard when I pulled up to the school and I waited as long as I could to leave the car as I had not had an umbrella.  I gave up realizing that the rain was not going to abate and struck out knowing I would get soaked on the way.  I got the kids and we made our way back to the car, all of us getting pretty wet in the process.

The kids gabbled away at me about their day while I drove them home and all the while I was cataloging what I was going to make for dinner, how much laundry still had to be done, feeding the dogs… whatever I had on my on-going list…

We reached the end of our long cul-de-sac and Dermot (just about to turn 6) said urgently, “Mom!  Stop the car!”  I braked suddenly thinking that I was about to run over a small animal I hadn’t seen or something and said tensely, “What is it?”  He looked at me in the rear view mirror with a glint in his eye and said, “I want to run home in the rain!”

I remember staring at him for a moment in shock before something in me decided, “Why not?”  I got out, opened the car door and let him out.  I can’t describe the sheer joy he had on his face as he took off down the sidewalk, his little tanned legs and arms pumping as he ran and whooped.  I drove slowly to our driveway and turned around to look at Wren (then 4.5) and said, “That looks like a lot of fun doesn’t it?”  She agreed and before I knew it we were all three of us stomping in rain puddles, pretending to swim down the street, singing songs and dancing in the rain.  We were soaked to the skin and I didn’t care.  We laid down across the driveway holding hands with me in the middle blinking up at the rain coming down and trying to drink.  We laughed so hard our sides were hurting. 

We finally went in, cold and fingertips wrinkled about 20 minutes later, drenched and happy.  I had for those view precious moments been completely in the now.  Completely present as a mom, as a human being.  My to-do lists were forgotten and I think we may have had leftovers for dinner, but it didn’t matter.  The kids still talk about this as one of their favorite memories with me.

            As I said, life has priorities, responsibilities and forward planning.  It also has regret and pain from the past.  But to get stuck in either one all the time means we can’t experience the real-time magic of life.  To be stuck in either the future or the past means we will miss the chance to dance in the rain.

You'd Think I'd Make a Better Cop

You’d Think I’d Make a Better Cop

 

I recently started working part-time as a counselor’s aide in a drug and alcohol treatment program.  I love it.  Being in a group session with people I can relate to and potentially help is one of the most rewarding things I can do.

I was recently in a group session where one of the patients was checking in on his day and any challenges he had faced.  He had been doing some maintenance work on his property and had offered someone in his home group the opportunity to do some work with him as this other person was struggling financially.  The first day working together had gone really well but the second day had been a disaster.  The person was lethargic, unhelpful, saying they were not feeling well etc…  This made my patient worry that perhaps this person was under the influence.

He struggled with that and with feeling guilty that he was being judgmental and jumping to conclusions.  This had been confusing for him and he was really shaken by the experience.  He said to me, “It’s like, I’ve been a criminal for so long that you would think I’d make a better cop.”

That phrase struck me as being so apt.  The confusion that people feel when dealing with an alcoholic or an addict is like trying to walk a straight line in the midst of heavy fog or stand still in the midst of a tornado. 

Even fellow addicts become confused and question what they are seeing or hearing.  It has happened to me as well.  I have had friends relapse and been swept up in the storm of lies and hidden agendas and confusion.  It is very difficult to deal with this disease from the other side just as it is hard for us to deal with it ourselves.  I know for myself that I want to believe that people are telling the truth.  I want to see the best in others and that can at times come back to bite me.  If you are dealing with a family member who is in active addiction I can’t even imagine how wrenching and exhausting that must be.  Frank and my in-laws and close friends can tell you. 

I have only dealt with it with friends from my program and my connection to them is not nearly as strong, yet I feel some of the pain of seeing someone you care for struggle with this and change for the worse.  I hope that this patient uses this as a learning experience as I have.  That seeing our disease from the other side allows us to feel a small portion of the pain we inflicted on others ourselves.

Buy Yourself Flowers

Buy Yourself Flowers

 

 

“Your problem is you are too busy holding onto your unworthiness.”  Ram Das

 

I recently was in the grocery store with the kids.  It works much better now that they are older!  One pushes the cart and the other checks things off the list and there are very few shananegans anymore.  Just before going to the check-out I told them I wanted to pick out some flowers for the house.  Wren picked out a couple of bouquets and I rejected them for being too expensive and we finally settled on one.

I noticed that Dermot had gotten very quiet, which is rare!  I asked him if he was alright and he told me he was sad.  He was sad for two reasons.  He wanted me not to have to worry about money as much and he found it sad that I was buying flowers for myself because that was something that Frank used to do for me.  In fact the best and most thoughtful gift he ever got for me was a year’s worth of seasonal, monthly flower/plant deliveries from the local florist.

I thought for a moment and answered that it is never a bad thing to be cautious with your spending.  It was something that I never paid attention to when I was in our marriage.  I didn’t really become good at budgeting until I was responsible for myself.  I told him that and I also told him that I love fresh flowers and that there was no shame in me buying them for myself.

This started me thinking.  How often in my life have I not done something because I wasn’t good enough in my own mind or because some societal norm told me that I shouldn’t or couldn’t?  How many times have I denied myself joy because it wasn’t gifted to me from someone else or was outside the realm of the mainstream?  Why have I spent so much of my life navigating by anyone else’s compass than my own?

I am working on challenging myself in my actions going forward, making careful decisions and following my own path because I now know that I am worth it.  I am worth gifting small parcels of joy to myself, I don’t have to wait for someone else to deem me worthy.  We all, I think, need to let go of our unworthiness.  We all need to love ourselves more and treat ourselves more gently.

I wrote a long time ago about being challenged by a chaplain at a rehab to treat myself as I would my own child.  Would I use the same negative language with and to my child as I use to talk to myself?   Of course I wouldn’t, so why do I flay myself over and over again?  Treat yourself as you would treat your own child and be kind, teach, bring joy and nurture.

            So I say, don your bathing suit when the weather gets warm.  Don’t wait until you lose those last 20 pounds.  Don’t wait for someone to ask you out on a date, go out to a movie or enjoy a dinner, take an adventure, do what brings you joy.  Buy yourself flowers.

You're Doing it Wrong

You're Doing it Wrong

 

This topic has been on my mind a lot lately.  It has been churning in my head because I have had many different examples of this crop up in my life lately and in the lives of those close to me so I feel compelled to write about it.

I have written in “Waves” about how feelings are not facts.  Now I want to talk about what to do with negative emotions like guilt, shame, remorse and regret.  These are heavy hitters and they carry a lot of weight. 

What are they for?  I would say that these are here to teach.  If I do something that makes me feel guilty or brings me to feel shame it doesn’t feel good.  I used to use those feelings like whips and self-flagellate, repeatedly and often.  I beat myself frequently for things I had recently done and things I had done years ago.  I would cradle these feelings close to my heart in fear and self-loathing and the more I did it the worse I felt and the more I hated myself.  It was a self-fulfilling prophecy.  I am ashamed of what I have done, I am a bad person, I am destined to do it again because I am such a bad person and then low and behold I would do the thing again and again and again.

 I was doing it wrong.  Some people with tell you that negative feelings are useless and should be avoided at all cost.  I would tell you that negative emotions like these heavy hitting four, are warnings.  They are devices of learning.

If I now do something that makes me feel ashamed or something that makes me feel guilty, I examine the act closely.  I look it over from all angles.  I see the lesson contained therein and recognize my errors and the gravity of the situation.  I take responsibility for my actions and make amends if necessary, apologize and make it right.  I then put those feelings down and walk away from them.  I don’t carry them with me into the next day or experience.

In the past few months I made an error in judgment that was foolish and could have been potentially dangerous to myself.  I had reached out to a friend before doing so and she had rightly been worried.  I felt guilt and did all the self-examination described above for a day or so.  I did apologize to her for worrying her.  Through the course of our conversations though it became apparent that she felt the need to point out my lack of judgment a number of times even after we had put the issue to bed.  I finally had to say, “I think you are expecting me to still feel guilty about this and I don’t.”  I did not say this to be arrogant by any means and what I said came from a place of love, but I needed stick up for myself on that front.  I explained that I had learned from the experience and that I no longer live with regrets as they serve no other purpose than to weight me down spiritually.  I know she was taken aback by this but for so many years I abused myself with negative self-talk that I refuse to do so any longer.

I have seen examples of people “doing it wrong” a lot lately.  At work, a co-worker made an error.  She discovered the problem, put a best practice in place to ensure it does not happen again and sent an e-mail explaining the situation.  She took full responsibility and made an effort to rectify the situation as best she could.  She beat herself up all day, but I would say to her now it’s time to let it go and move on.

I have a friend in the program who recently relapsed.  He is feeling so broken and dejected right now and all I say to him is learn from this.  Accept that it happened and take responsibility.  Reach out for help and put the shame behind you so you can move forward.  If you don’t put the shame down you are going to remain sick.

So many of us hang onto guilt, shame, remorse and regret and it does no one any good.  Shame holds back so many people from seeking help, from seeking recovery, from seeking advice and counsel.  Hanging onto these emotions will keep you in sickness and struggle.

So for those negative emotions.  Learn from them as they are internal warnings that a mistake in judgment has been made.  But once you have received the warning and taken responsibility, turn the alarm off and get on with your day.  If you are hanging onto to these emotions you are simply doing it wrong.