Facing Feelings Gives Me Proper Balance

“Shit happens.”

Ancient Catholic Proverb

A major part of addictive recovery is getting back in touch with feelings. Many of us learned to shut-down our emotions when we were small children. It was a protection mechanism that allowed us to survive life in chaotic households. But being emotionally numbed-out doesn’t serve us well as adults. In fact, it causes us to act-out. In order to suppress the feelings we don’t want to face we drink, over-eat, compulsively shop, or busy ourselves with work, exercise, TV, etc.

It’s important to me to keep track of the feelings I am learning to own. And I had a vivid experience of how well I am progressing this week. My car was at the dealership for some bumper repairs. I went on Wednesday to pick it up. As one of the dealership employees was driving my car around to me, another employee in a parked SUV didn’t see him coming and backed right into the side of my car!

I couldn’t believe my eyes. I stood there in shock-- and shock was exactly what I was feeling. It was a truly odd feeling and I’m not sure I have ever fully experienced it like I did on Wednesday. There were practically no thoughts in my head. The feeling of shock shut down all of the usual chatter. I also felt some denial: The feeling that this couldn’t really have happened.

Both of the dealership employees were visibly upset and verbally expressing it, but I was silent. The employee who backed into my car was very angry with himself. We walked into the service office and he got on the phone. I assume he was calling a superior because he was reporting exactly what happened. Then he said “Yeah, the guy who owns the car is really upset. He’s really mad.” I thought, “How odd. I don’t feel mad at all, much less angry. I just feel shocked.”

I wasn’t mad. I wasn’t screaming or being verbally abusive. But the employee who hit my car was very mad at himself and I think he was projecting his own feelings onto me. He profusely apologized and all I could say was “Shit happens.” I was very kind about it all.

Five years ago, I wouldn’t have been kind about it, though. I would have bypassed feeling shock and denial and I would have jumped right into anger. In those days, I would have been screaming my head off. But I don’t skip-over feelings the way I used to do. All of my feelings came to me naturally on Wednesday and I felt them all. This kept me from blowing my top and making an ass out of myself.

All of this really hit home with me when an employee of the rental car agency picked me up. He said last year his car was recalled. After repairs were done, he went to pick up his car. When he arrived an employee of the dealership was test driving his car and hit another car, knocking the entire front bumper off his car. He said he was furious. As he was telling me just how furious he was at that time, I was thinking about how opposite my reaction was to my car being damaged.

Once I arrived at the rental car agency, I started to feel sad about what happened. Sadness is the healing feeling that helps us to accept what happened and move forward from there. At no time have I felt angry about what happened to my car. Nor have I felt any need to medicate-away my feelings about the incident. I’ve allowed the feelings to be present and I have been preset to them. And all is well.