HEALING
June 16, from “Strengthening My Recovery” daily reader
“There is no Healing Without Feeling” BRB p. 52
“For so many of us, we learned to feel helpless and even hopeless, like giving up was the only intelligent way to endure our childhoods. This hopelessness is part of what feeds the depression we experience as adults. It may seem paradoxical, but in ACA we learn that we need to experience our grief in order to alleviate our depression. It may only be through first-hand experience that we can understand how this works.
There is a difference between the stagnant quality of hopelessness and the flowing quality of grief work. The former seems like a permanent state. It drags us down and makes us feel like there’s no way out. The latter seems more like a temporary phase on the way to acceptance, integration, and peace. One never seems to say goodbye, while the other is about the courage to say goodbye to the losses we’ve sustained and all the things we cannot change.
The thought of doing grief work, of feeling the pain of our past, may seem daunting, but in ACA we come to know that this is the balm that heals our ruptured souls.
On this day I have the courage to grieve my past in order to say hello to the present and the future.”
My Experience:
When I depressed my feelings as a child, I filled up this box of depressed emotions inside of me. This led to me always battling depression like moods as I seemed to always be fighting those demons as they slipped outside of the box. What I never knew is that I needed to deal with those emotions if I was to empty the box and not be in a continuous battle with depression. Then I walk into the rooms of recovery and I am faced with the daunting task of dealing with my losses/emotions of the past. I took the steps needed for self-care as I walked the path of recovery. I was not too hard on myself, I recognized that I did some bad things but was not a bad person, and I knew that with the help of my Higher Power and this program I could heal and restore myself to sanity. It takes courage and trust to walk this path of healing, but it is so worth it. Come and walk the path with me!!
The Abyss
In my life the fight has been remiss
Attempting to stay out of the abyss
Depression is what some might call by another name
But like Hawk said, fancy name, same thing
During these times my focus was askew
So that means I couldn’t concentrate on you
It may have looked like I didn’t care
But really all my energy was focused on this stare
I could feel myself fighting this gravitational pull
Sometimes I succumbed and was in its orbits full
For how long though I never really knew
That is when my isolation was in full view
You may have thought, he does not love me
But I couldn’t share with you because I could not see
But now that I do I am sorry you had to endure
The mood swings, the meanness and all the other obscure
Just know that I needed you much
So much so that I craved your touch
I write this now because you need to hear this
Because of you I will forever fight to stay out of the abyss
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