And I don’t particularly like the bad ones, either.

The vast majority of staying sober is learning how to feel your feelings. I talk a lot about how our feelings are much more intense than our normie counterparts. For example, on a scale of 1-10, a normie’s fear is around a 4 on average. Mine is a 92 on a good day. No wonder I drank to not feel fear! Who in their right mind would want to feel fearful? Especially when it’s that intense.

If I want to stay sober, if I want to live a life of contentment, I must learn how to feel fearful. I know that sucks, but the reason my fear is a 92 is because I am afraid of it. Let me explain. My actual fear is probably around an 8 or 9, but my fear of the fear is around a 92. I’m actually more afraid of my fear than the fear warrants. I don’t like to feel bad feelings. No one does. I especially don’t. I drank for years to numb that right out. And it worked for a long time.

What happens when I start to feel fear? I immediately start a dialog in my head about the fear. “Oh no, what’s that? Oh I don’t like it. It’s that nasty fear again (if I can even identify my feelings at this point). What’s wrong? Why is it happening? How bad will it get? I bet I know why. This happened or that hasn’t happened. Let me chew on that for a while. I must be doing something wrong. No, here are all the things that I have been doing right. Why aren’t they working? If I do certain things, I should not have this fear. Did I do them right? Am I doing enough?”

Sound familiar? All of this talk is adding to the fear. And notice the resistance to the feeling peppered in there. I don’t want to feel it so I am trying to talk it away. In my head. Not a great idea. And what comes next? The urge to do something about it – to not have the fear anymore. What are my bright ideas to not feel the fear? Usually drink, shop, swipe left, eat, or hide under the covers.

Does that ever work? So not only do I not want the fear, I am coming up with ‘solutions’ to not feel it.

What if I just felt the fear? At the level 8-9 that it is. Yes, it’s uncomfortable. No, I do not like it. But once you get used to feeling your feelings it’s not that bad. And they pass quickly. I once heard “feelings just want to be felt.” They want to process and move through our bodies and on out. They do not want to be suppressed and stored somewhere only to turn up later and an inopportune time.

Take anger, for example. We are taught that anger is not ok. Not for us or for the normies. We are wrong to feel anger or we must be in the wrong if that’s the way we feel. Anger is a powerful emotion and makes me feel out of control. Like the anger is going to take over and turn me into a viscous person. I tell myself that I’m a sober and spiritual person, therefore I can’t feel anger. But guess what I felt so much of in early recovery? And to be honest at various times in my life. Anger. 

Here’s another example. I hate flying. It’s the ultimate no control situation. I have flying terror, not flying anxiety. My mind literally tells me I have a 50/50 shot of making it to my destination. But logically, flying is the safest form of travel. And I ironically love to travel. For some time after the terror kicked in, I couldn’t fly. I took buses or drove, but that became too inconvenient especially when the destination required a 24 hour bus ride. I sought out treatment and tried everything. Hypnosis, exposure therapy, fear of flying classes, talk therapy, you name it. I was committed to not having the fear of flying. Hypnosis worked for about 6 months, but the terror returned. I was angry. Furious that I was working so hard and getting nowhere.

After a year of flying pissed of and terrified, it hit me. I am just afraid of flying. And what if I just flew afraid? What if I stopped resisting the terror and was just terrified on the plane? It was my choice. Either never fly again or fly afraid. So I chose to fly and feel the terror. It wasn’t fun, but I have to tell you that it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. I was afraid that I would lose control and end up in a state of psychosis. I worried that I’d beg the flight attendant for alcohol and throw away my sobriety. I was afraid I just wouldn’t make it, whatever that means.

But I did it anyways. And to be honest, I still do not like flying. But it’s not that bad and certainly not going to keep me from seeing the world. It’s just anxiety and fear. It’s not going to kill me.

When I have “bad” feelings, I not only feel bad, I feel I’ve been bad. And that’s just insane. All feelings are part of the tapestry of life and the more comfortable I am with feeling them, the more content I will be. It just takes practice. I started with setting a timer and allowing myself to feel for 10 minutes at a time. I also worked on my self-talk and not allowing myself to add to the story and make it worse. Today, I still have anxiety, fear, depression and anger. But it’s not a big deal and that is amazing.