On Even When, Especially When, It Hurts

This fall, one of the themes that has been swimming around in the noggin has been that emotions are indicators - that they are neutral signposts along the route of recovery with messages that indicate truths, via reactions. Our job is to note what they are, then do the detective work to see the source, the root, the base issue that needs work.

I was in a meeting last night and shared some perspective, and afterwards a participant came up and told me that they didn't want to hear what I had to say, and that it made them uncomfortable. And then they said I often share things that they don't like to hear. But that these things are often the things they need to hear, but don't want to. And they thanked me.

This meeting is relatively new, and it's very small, and gutsy in nature. It's a place of high risk, because we really get into issues, and it's also a place of safety, because we have an unspoken respect for the risks taken there. I am very grateful for such an opportunity. For all the other meetings I attend where I listen, and focus, and keep my mouth shut, I make up for it in this meeting, extruding the issues from my mind in this venue, out into the stark spotlight. I force myself, and allow myself, to let it flow in this venue, and often am amazed at the stream of consciousness that comes forth.

I find I often will bring up something - whether it be a perspective, an analogy, an approach, or a lesson - to illustrate it for others. And then, a few days later, my own denial thins, and I see I was speaking to myself, bouncing off the mirrors in that room.

I'm always taken aback at this, when it happens, surprised. Surprised at the workings of my subconscious, how dead-on it appears to be at identifying the lynch pin in a pile of nuts and bolts. And how clever it is, that I bring it out for others, where I perceive it as safe, because it's not for me, and then, in a few days, something happens where I get a sort of deja vu experience and I re-hear my own words, and see how they apply to me, and how perfectly suited they are.

And so a funny thing has started to happen, as I have learned this pattern. I now watch, I now listen, to what comes out of my mouth, and I start to pay attention to what I say to others, immediately - begin to look for the real McCoy, in my own journey. It's rather like playing hide-and-seek with oneself, where one is both parties.

One of the reasons we cocoon in denial is security. Denial is at heart the avoidance of pain, I suspect. That which we deny is that which we fear. And often, we fear that which is painful, for whatever reason. We don't want to engage our pain, because we instinctively know we'll have to go through it, to get to the other side, to growth.

Perhaps we fear failure - that we haven't the mettle to succeed at this journey through our pain. Perhaps we fear oblivion - that by leaving behind the known, shedding our old selves through pain, we will be left wondering who we now are. It is painful, getting to essential truths, and also emerging from denial that some of our reality is just a liquid construct, and has no answers but instead is a process rather than a concrete destination.

Because those uncomfortable times when that pain is triggered, and our response in group is a fear-derivative emotion like hurt, anger, or defiance, there's a message strong and clear, in the emotions.

As I'm writing this, I have an inner dialogue playing, arguing which is first, the chicken or the egg: which is the inner-core state and which is the resulting reaction - fear or pain. Perhaps it isn't definable, or perhaps it doesn't matter, just that we understand that the two are inextricably linked. Hell, I don't have the answers; I only have the questions.

But my own experience has shown that when I experience one, the other is present in some form, always. And these fraternal twins invariably point to work that needs to be addressed, in our recovery.

And so in our gutsy group, we are evolving this Truth:

Pay Attention Even When, Especially When, It
Hurts.

Food for thought.

-The Traveler