“But there is another kind of hangover which we all experience whether we are drinking or not. That is the emotional hangover, the direct result of yesterday’s and sometimes today’s excesses of negative emotion—anger, fear, jealousy, and the like.”
-Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (Step Ten)
"There is wisdom in admitting that we simply don’t know everything and in accepting that we don’t have the answer to everything…There is wisdom in doing nothing if we don’t know what to do. We can find serenity by accepting what we can’t change.”
-Discovering Choices: Recovery in Relationships (Al-Anon)
I had a week where every single negative emotion I experienced seemed to be a fact. And these emotions just would not stop coming. It was one oppressive experience after another.
What precipitated this emotional jag? Being over-stressed by life and getting into a conflict with a family member. That conflict sent me into a spiral of self-centered fear. I don’t often cry over the words of another anymore—but I did over this. And even after my family member apologized, I carried this anger and fear with me the rest of the week. I wanted vengeance instead of understanding. I wanted her to change instead of just accepting that things are the way they are. In short, I was fighting reality. And I ended up feeling miserable as a result.
Lucky for me I do a time of morning meditation each day, which includes all of my regular AA and Al-Anon readings. This summer I started reading another Al-Anon book about recovery in relationships. This means ALL relationships, not just romantic ones. Last weekend I took the time to read the chapter on “Detachment.” The tool of detachment has saved me so many times in my constant obsession over alcoholics. The chapter on detachment in this book, however, took an original and interesting perspective on detachment. I highlighted much of the short three-page chapter. Near the end was the quote I re-printed above. I saw four key words: wisdom, accepting, change, and serenity. Now where have I head those words before? Of course! The Serenity Prayer.
Now this didn’t occur to me until about Wednesday. After the three-page reading on “Detachment” there are short personal stories. These real-life accounts tend to help me a lot, so I put them into my morning reading routine. On Wednesday, I flipped back through the first three pages of the chapter and read over my highlights. And then the connection to the Serenity Prayer came to me. So I journalled out everything that was going on with my feelings in light of the Serenity Prayer.
I cannot accept my feelings for what they are. They are just feelings—they are not facts. At a meeting a couple of weeks ago, a wise woman shared that she has learned to “value faith over feelings.” You see, I know that my feelings will not kill me. I have come to believe this through experience. And yet feelings are a nuisance and potentially harmful if I don’t accept that my feelings may be lying to me. My feelings are rarely centered in fact. What they are is a horror movie of life as I fear it may come to be or return to. And it seems truly terrifying. Accepting my feelings is also part of my First Step—lack of power is my dilemma. As I try again and again to control these feelings, they just get worse. And that is because I am powerless. Only God has the power to remove these feelings in his own timing.
Living with negative feelings of anger, fear, and jealousy is exhausting. I am constantly in a state of worry, and I catastrophize. My horror movie will never have a positive outcome. No, no—instead I will be the idiot who runs up the stairs and is then trapped, waiting like a frightened animal to be killed. What if instead of resisting these feelings I embraced them? That would take a great deal of courage. Courage to change my thinking about my own feelings. What if I let me feelings just be? Could I just invite them to stay as long as they needed to? My sponsor has invited me to try this and it works. But I forget this in the middle of incredible fear. So, the Serenity Prayer continues to work as I accept my feelings as not facts and then have the courage not to resist them—to lean into whatever my feelings are.
The wisdom to know the difference is this: I am wired this way. I will always have excesses of emotions. This will be a lifelong journey in recovery for me. I will always return to accepting and having courage. Acceptance of my feelings and courage not to resist them. And all of this with the understanding that it is God who grants me the serenity. He will always be there with me through weeks like this if I remember to seek him. I have to be willing to pray ceaselessly, to journal fervently, to attend meetings as if my life depended on it, and to surrender and live in the Serenity Prayer.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. Thy will not mine be done.