If We Can Set Boundaries with Other People, We Can Set Boundaries with Our Feelings


“Sometimes, there’ll be bad news on my welcome mat
Trouble keeps calling, but I ain’t calling back
Why does the midnight gotta treat me like that?
Oooh. But I don’t mind, yeah I’ll be just fine

Suddenly, I’m feeling all kinds of feelings
Mama said, she said it’s alright to feel ‘em
When you got tears streaming down that’s when you feel the realest
Whether it’s good or it’s bad
It’s OK to be sad
Sometimes.”

Adam Friedman, Sad (2017)

How much power do you give to your feelings? I’m in the habit of giving tremendous power to my feelings, as if they are the Boss and I have to quiver before them. And I’m really tired of feeling trapped that way. And who’s trapping me? The feelings? Not really. I think I’ve been choosing to trap myself by habitually giving all of my personal power to difficult feelings, like anxiety, sadness, hopelessness or panic, and allowing them to hold me hostage.

I discovered the song Sad by Adam Friedman at a Panera Bread last autumn, thanks to Shazam. The lyric immediately hit me upside the head and set off a light bulb: “It’s OK to be sad (or feel whatever). Just don’t fight it. When you fight it, you feel powerless and trapped.

Over the past two weeks, I’ve felt powerless and trapped by anxiety bordering on panic. And I’ve given a tremendous amount of power away to those feelings. Why? Because I realize I’ve felt powerless my entire life: Powerless over my parents, teachers, classmates, coworkers, religious beliefs, life in general. From the beginnings of childhood, I have consistently given my power away to people, feelings and experiences.

The struggle today is about taking my power back. I felt anxious this morning as I was getting ready for work, and I started listening to Sad on continuous repeat. “Trouble keeps calling, but I ain’t calling back… I don’t mind, yeah I’LL BE JUST FINE.” As I listened, I asked myself “why is trouble (anxiety) calling me? And why am I giving my power away to it?”

After some thought, I realized that I haven’t been giving in to addictive acting out. Recently, I realized how in denial I’ve been about my shopping addiction. For years, I’ve either bought music or clothes to emotionally medicate. Whenever I’ve felt bad or needy, I bought CDs (MP3s) or clothes. I looked in my closet last Sunday and realized it’s filled with clothes I don’t even wear (yet I tell myself I never seem to have anything to wear). So I cleaned out the closet and gave away three large garbage bags of clothes. Then I realized I haven’t bought a CD since I was in Manhattan a few weeks ago (I did download a Fleetwood Mac EP yesterday. My bad!)

My behavior has changed because I finally realized that none of these material things were bringing me peace and happiness; both of which can only come from within us. We have to turn inside where we meet our Higher Power to find peace and happiness, and that’s what I’ve been trying to do instead of shopping.

 So I wondered this morning if I was anxious because I was suffering from withdrawal, sort of like an alcoholic does when they stop drinking. I also wondered if the anxiety could be tied to the reaction of my Addictive Personality. Was my addictive side screaming out for survival? I’m not feeding it what it wants anymore. When it says “go on Amazon and buy that CD Box Set you want, or that Bluray,” I’ve gone to Amazon and then said “No.” When it says go to the mall and shop, I may go to the mall, but I WALK for exercise. And I’ve been avoiding my favorite store.

With the help of God, this morning I realized it’s OK to be sad or anxious or whatever, but it’s not OK to give my power away to a feeling. Yeah, trouble has been calling, but I’m not calling back. The trouble (anxiety) is present but I don’t have to be trapped by it. I can own my power over it by setting boundaries with my feelings like I would with another person. I can say “feeling, you’re allowed to be here. I’ll give you space to breathe and exhaust yourself, but I’m refusing to give my personal power away to you. I’m primary—you’re secondary.” Then I can say “And if this is withdrawal or the smothering of my addictive personality, then good. Let’s just drain all of that poison out of my system. Here, Higher Power, please do for me what I can’t do for myself. Let’s defeat this “trouble” together!”

Yes. It’s OK to be sad, anxious, etc. We just need to have some conscious contact with our Higher Power and realize that this negative feeling is probably part of the healing process—not something bad. We need to acknowledge the feeling, let it exhaust itself and let it pass through us to nothingness. Don’t feelings just come and go? Yes, they do. Haven’t we gotten past these dark feelings in the past? Yes, we have. No feeling lasts forever—unless maybe we’re playing the victim, or we’re suffering from something like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). If we’re playing the victim, we need to choose to take our power back. If we’re suffering from something like PTSD, we need to seek professional help.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

No One Can Calm Your Codependent Crazies, But You

Image
Ah, the codependent crazies. Those needy, needy feelings. I remember well the deep emotional pain in the pit of my stomach: The throbbing sting of shame, fear, loneliness and anxious desperation. Those feelings that are like fingernails on the blackboard of your soul. They eat you alive from within as they dig deeper and deeper into the black hole of your inner-emptiness. Yes, I remember them well. And I remember evenings of mental and emotional insanity-- squirming with a magazine, pacing back and forth, indulging in chocolate, chasing up and down the stairs hoping the doorbell would ring, and staring endlessly at the telephone for a sign of hope. All I needed was a call from my false higher power; a call that would help me to know that I was OK, that I was needed, that I was worth thinking about in some good way. I was dying to be emotionally caressed on the head like a poodle desperate for the attention of his master. And certainly I had made that other person into my mas...
Read more

Happiness is Something We Cultivate and Share

Who makes you happy? In reality, no one can make you happy. People in your life can enhance your happiness through sharing your interests. Or they can add to your frustrations by pushing your buttons. But no one can be responsible for your happiness or your misery—aside from you. One of the biggest problems for codependents is that we too often enter relationships looking for everlasting happiness. We expect that the person we choose to attach our dreams to should be responsible for making us happy. In our minds, we fantasize that he/she will be focused solely on us, will spend every waking hour with us and will do everything in his/her power to insure that we are as happy as we can possibly be. In other words, we assume this person will meet all of our mental, emotional, physical and spiritual needs in the same way that we plan to meet all of his/her needs. In our little dream world we will smother each other with attention and we will both drip with the honey of happiness. R...
Read more

Where There Is Kindness, There Is Goodness

Image
Author’s Note: The next few meditations will be from a retreat I directed recently called The Good News According to Disney . If you aren’t familiar with the films that are referenced, I’d suggest to take time to see them and to look for the deeper meaning within them. Many people today still live by the biblical adage “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” They actually believe that they will be at peace if they achieve revenge or restitution for any mishap that has befallen them at the hands of another. They believe they will reclaim their personal power once they have achieved their revenge, but this is impossible. Disney’s Cinderella (2015) reveals the true secret to owning one’s personal power and to retaining it no matter what we experience in life: “Have courage and be kind.” On the surface this motto looks a bit simple and wimpy. But in reality, it holds great power. That power comes from the heart of a person, or in this case Ella, who sees the world not a...
Read more

Become the Person You Want to Spend Your Life With Everyday

Image
I really don’t have to say much about the above quote. It says it all and it’s so true. We are too often taught faulty ways of thinking as children. So many of us get the wrong message at very young ages: Love is about finding the right person to love you. Looking back I realize I wasted many years trying to find that “right” person— the one who could love me into loving myself— instead of trying to BE that “right” person myself. It never occurred to me that I needed to love myself, nurture myself and accept myself enough to become the right person— the person I really needed most in my life. After all, what is my life without me? Now I know that I’m what’s been missing from my own life for years. My life is empty without me and without my spiritual Higher Power. This is true for all of us.  Once We find ourselves, become the “right” person God intended us to be, and become the person we want to spend the rest of our lives with, then we attract others into our lives who ca...
Read more