I grew up with a lot of confusion around feelings and communication and coming to an understanding of this and of the unhealthy responses and relationships I developed as a result has taken some time. The following meditation focuses on a male perspective from the fellowship but I find it helpful and very applicable to my own life.
Growing up around dysfunction, I developed an overall confusion about my feelings. My father drank, cried, and rage. My mother didn’t seem to feel much of anything. She rarely cried, and I don’t remember her being very affectionate. Given this childhood environment, how does anyone, particularly a man, learn how to deal with emotions? I dealt with them by hiding, denying, and stuffing them down deep. Then they would come out in inappropriate ways at inappropriate times.
When I joined Al Anon … I found through the sharing and literature that living without feelings was cheating myself of a full life. I learned that happiness was as much a part of life as sorrow, and that denying pain only stunted joy. I started to let my feeling out, and did that ever hurt at first! It was as though I had placed a lifetime of feelings in unlabelled cans on a shelf, and I didn’t know what I was going to get when I opened them. With the aid of the Al Anon tools, my sponsor and some professional help, I was finally able to find healthy ways to express my emotions. I now believe that my greatest recovery gift has been the healing I began when I recognised the trauma of denying my feelings.
We humans are a package deal. When I shy away from pain and sorrow, I risk shutting out joy and happiness.
I recover from the inside out, I don’t have to hide behind a mask any more because everyone can see right through me anyway…. After playing ‘The Great Cover Up’ for so long, it feels good to let the real me out.
Alateen – a day at a time, p. 305
Emerging From The Dark Night 