New Awareness

[MajestyJo]

You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go

The Good Feelings

Let yourself feel the good feelings too.

Yes, sometimes, good feelings can be as distracting as the painful, more difficult ones. Yes, good feelings can be anxiety producing to those of us unaccustomed to them. But go ahead and feel the good feelings anyway.

Feel and accept the joy. The love. The warmth. The excitement. The pleasure. The satisfaction. The elation. The tenderness. The comfort.

Let yourself feel the victory, the delight.

Let yourself feel cared for.

Let yourself feel respected, important, and special.

These are only feelings, but they feel good. They are full of positive, upbeat energy - and we deserve to feel that when it comes our way.

We don't have to repress. We don't have to talk ourselves out of feeling good - not for a moment.

If we feel it, it's ours for the moment. Own it. If it's good, enjoy it.

Today, God, help me be open to the joy and good feelings available to me.

In today's reading, I was reminded out much my life was focused on the negative instead of the positive. I had trouble finding the positive, mainly because I wasn't looking for it. It seemed like my whole live was filled with bad feelings and bad thoughts.

Over the years I used different things to stuff those negative feelings. I didn't know that when I stuffed negative I was also stuffing the positive, although at the time, I didn't know it was there.

When I came into recovery, I had to balance out my character defects with positive attributes. I was reminded that my using wasn't the issue, the problem was me. Even when I got by the prescription drugs and alcohol, I had to look at all the other things that I used to focused outside of myself instead of looking in and connecting with my Higher Power. Over the years it has been relationships, long hours of work, food, shopping (especially buying things I didn't need or could afford), getting caught up in busy i.e. service, my computer which led me to sites and playing games, and reading (burying my nose in a book and shutting the world off). All things are good in their place but not when used as an escape from feeling and reality.

There has to be time for fun. I had to learn to let my inner child to play. Yet I also had to put her to rest and be responsible too.

I was looking outside for validation, self-worth, affirmation, self-esteem, self-respect, forgiveness, compassion, and love. I couldn't find them in me so I looked to find them from you.

The tools of the program lead to new awareness. Do I utilize this gift to it's fullest in my life to change and grow or do I continue to practice old behaviors and patterns.

A post from another site dated June 21, 2009