Those nasty things called feelings

Feelings; they are always the thing that bring me to my knees the nasty buggers.

I have learnt and re-learnt a lot this week, most of all I have learnt how strong my instinct is to blame someone else when I am feeling low, feeling emotional or am in pain.

I know this is learnt behaviour, that my Mum also instinctively looks for someone to blame when she is feeling overwhelmed by her feelings. She is easily distracted from her feelings, ending up focusing on her anger at someone other than who/ what the immediate problem is about and allowing her to avoid the original pain. It means she gets stuck in situations and feelings, sometimes for years. Somehow I have learnt that behaviour.

You hear people in recovery talk about the elephant in the room that everyone ignores or pretends they can't see, well in my family it was the huge pile of emotional poo that everyone is pretending is not there even though the stench is becoming unbearable.

But this isn't about blaming my parents for who I am, this is about me. I love the freedom that taking responsibility for me offers. If I am responsible for who I am, how I behave and how I react to people and things, then I can change. Living life isn't about what happens to me, it is about what I do with what happens to me.

And this week, I didn't do so well. I spent the week justifying my bad feelings.

I do this in so many ways. If I am feeling low, instead of simply acknowledging that and allowing myself to accept and process the feelings, I look around for justification. I tell myself I'm sad (insert emotion as appropriate) because he upset me. Was selfish. Demanding. If I can't really find anything to target my feelings with, I throw the dart I know that always hits the bull of the dartboard; I over eat. Quickly enough I can be sad, angry, self-hating because I've over-eaten. That original pain is long forgotten.

I get so caught up in the justification, I forget to feel my feelings and they stick to me superglue, unable to let go when I need to.

That's silly. Sometimes you are just sad. Resentful. Angry. It's pk, they can't kill me.

Why is it so hard for me to take responsibility for my feelings, to simply sit with them rather than run away from them by blaming someone else or something (especially food)?