True Recovery

So what do I do about those emotions and thoughts?  I let myself have them, experience them.  After all, we know that if I try and avoid them, they'll just fester and come out at an inopportune time, probably in an inappropriate way.  At the same time, work to make sure I'm not building them up in my mind to be more than they really are.  I'm working hard to NOT let those real and valid emotions get in the way of other things, ruining positive experiences and dominating my life.  In the section on radical acceptance, we talked a bit about this concept as well.  If you're still finding this challenging (as most of us do), go back and review the section.

How can we feel the emotions, and still enjoy life?  Here are some key points to keep in mind:

• Observe your emotions—Acknowledge it to yourself. In your mind, tell yourself "yep, I'm feeling stressed about _____. I'm worried about it.  It's completely understandable, and I need to work on resolving it and accept the fact that it's there now.
• Disconnect—Take a moment and back off the emotion.  Step into Wise Mind for a moment to evaluate what's going on.
• Have the emotion—Sure, we're in a bad situation.  Yes we are worried about it.  It's reasonable to feel the way we do.  Still, we don't need to spend all our time focused on it.  Put it away, long enough, to have some fun and enjoyment.  When you're feeling good, you'll be much more effective in resolving and accepting things.
• Don't fight the emotion—Emotions are there whether we like them or not.  Ignoring it, "stuffing it", pretending it's not there, denying it... doesn't change it.  We're simply tossing it into a closet.  Eventually that closet will fill up and all those pent up emotions will come bursting out, no doubt at the worst possible time, in the worst possible way.  I find writing it down on a notepad works for me.  It's still there, but it's off my mind for the moment.  Later, when I'm ready, I'll spend time thinking about them.  Remember, we only have 24 hours in each day.  When we're worrying, we can't appreciate all the goodness around us.  How much time do you want to spend worrying, and how much time do you want to spend enjoying life?
• Don't define yourself by it—Just because you're feeling bad, doesn't make you a bad person.  Remind yourself, though positive experiences and MASTERy, how wonderful you really are.  Really bad things happen to great people, and we all attach negative emotions to things we judge negatively.