Feelings – Finding The Healer

Feelings are the purest form of self-information and feedback. They are the indicator light on your dashboard, your personal barometer, and news bulletin. They tell you what state you are in, mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, and socially, at all times. If your dash light indicates to check your engine, would you snip the electrical wire to make it go away? No! You would follow the signal to find the problem. Feelings indicate that things are either going well or if there is a problem.

Feelings spring from your thoughts, past, and present. Feelings reflect the quality of your self-care, relationships, job satisfaction, and indicate the nature of your relationship to God. Negative feelings can affect your general health.

If you feel good most of the time, keep doing what you’re doing. If you feel bad a lot, this is your mind and body’s merciful way of letting you know, you need to take care of yourself.

A sliver lodged under the skin is a foreign intruder, so the body is signaling to get it out! Because of the symptom of pain, you are motivated to extract the sliver. It seems pretty simple, doesn’t it? But when it comes to emotional pain, we try to evade, numb, escape, deny, ignore, blame, or resort to some other ineffective way to resolve the problem. (Refer to list of Defense Mechanisms in Chapter 1 supplementary material for Love and Life Skills workshop.) This would be the same as covering a sliver with a Band-Aid. This seems silly, but how often do we use the same methods when dealing with emotional slivers?

Numbing, medicating, or ignoring your feelings is the same as cutting the electrical wire to your dashboard indicator light. The symptom is gone but the original problem causing the problem still remains and could lead to greater difficulties later. Be leery of temporary fixes the Defense Mechanisms provide. In their attempt to distract you from unpleasant feelings, they may keep you from truly fixing the cause. Suppressing negative feelings can also suppress pleasant ones, as well.

Feelings are neither right nor wrong, they just are. They are actually blessings that tell you your state of being. Paying attention to your feelings gives you information on which to base decisions. Feelings tell you if you need to take better care of yourself.

There is a condition called H.S.A.N. (Hereditary Sensory and Autonomic Neuropathy), where a person is born with no feeling sensation in the body. One might think a life without pain would be desirable, but it is easy to cause permanent damage or death to one’s self when there is no pain to warn of danger or damage. People with this disease can unknowingly destroy vital parts of their bodies without being aware. Feelings, even painful feelings are blessings. They are your insurance that you will get needed attention. So start paying attention to your feelings. Listen to them. Try to pick up on what they are telling you.

Feelings may be indicating:

The quality of your thinking habits
There might be unresolved memories still affecting you today
Self-neglect or poor boundaries
The quality of your belief systems
You’re being mistreated by others
You are abusing others and feel guilty about it
The quality of your relationships
The quality of your nutrition, physical health or a toxic environment in which you are living
Where to live, what job to stick with, your hobbies and friends
If you are taking care of yourself and have a good self-esteem

A vital part of your self-care is to rid yourself of toxic emotions. Listen to and learn from all of your feelings and then release them in healthy ways. Place the most positive perception on all life events and make practical, logical decisions accordingly. All negative feelings need to find a safe, constructive way to be vented at the time that negative life events occur.

Other feelings that need to be vented are those associated with unresolved life experiences and belief systems stored in your memory bank. A current life event that reminds you of an old, stored unresolved issue can trigger a full memory of the original toxic emotion stored. Those old, leftover feelings from the past need to find a safe and healthy way to be vented also. Venting discharges the power and unpleasantness of the feelings. So it is important to learn how to release feelings in a way that will help rather than hurt you.

Anger means you have been offended and need to take measures to protect yourself. Once you learn the lesson, let the anger go.

Fear means you need to protect yourself and connect with God.

Guilt means you need to make changes, reparation if needed and apologize.

Shame means you are less than perfect and no better than anyone else. Toxic shame means you need to do some work on your self-esteem.

Sadness makes you appreciate what you have instead of taking it for granted.

Loneliness means you are disconnected from the part of yourself and/or God.

Here are the rules for venting emotions, past or present:

Don’t hurt yourself – Don’t hurt others – Don’t hurt property

Healthy ways to vent feelings:

Subconscious Repairing Therapy (SRT)
Talk feelings out.
Crying them out.
Write feelings out on paper, then immediately destroy the paper (do not use a computer as there will be a copy of your writing and you don’t want anyone to see what you are venting.)
Punch a pillow, cushion, or punching bag so you get the emotion out but no one gets hurt.
Talk to an empty chair, as if the person you have bad feelings towards is in it
Run! Think about pounding out your emotion(s) onto the pavement
Talk to a safe person who will not judge, try to fix or gossip about you to others
Scream your feelings into a secluded area or into a pillow.
Throw rocks into a field or pond.
Beat a stick on a bush

Be creative! Come up with your own safe and healthy ways to release negative emotions & keep doing it until all emotions have been sufficiently released or reduced. This can be rather time-consuming and painful as you are venting out feelings, but it is worth it! In order to move past the pain, you must go through it. Effective subconscious healing tools, such as SRT, can make releasing much faster and easier.

Once you are on the other side of the feelings, you’ll find it much easier to see things from a logical perspective and make more rational decisions. Also, put the most positive perception on each event that caused the bad feelings. From positive perceptions spring positive feelings.

By doing you feeling work and changing the perceptions of the original events that produced them, you allow painful life experiences to be stored in memory as resolved.

Toxic Balanced Toxic

Suppress true feelings Expres feelings Vomit toxic feelings

EXTREME: Suppression of true feelings. It is not feelings themselves that are the problem, it is how they are used that causes them to work for or against you.

If you are out of touch with your feelings, you may be unaware of others are abusing you or that you are abusing others.

Example: Only after Ellen became aware of how hard she had been on herself with her perfectionistic tendencies, could she see how hard she had been on her children. Because pain was a normal state to Ellen, she couldn’t see the pain her words and actions were inflicting upon her children.

When feelings are ignored.

Feelings that are ignored or stuffed away, add up. They do not go away. Everything you experience is stored in your memory bank, and that includes FEELINGS. Venting feelings is like letting air out of a balloon. As you allow yourself to feel them, you release them. Even feelings from long ago still need a release.

Mistaken belief about Feelings

Some people believe that some feelings are bad, embarrassing, or should be suppressed or avoided. Some people were punished as children for having and expressing their feelings. Some were allowed only to have or express certain feelings. Denying yourself or others’ feelings is abuse—it’s like an airline trying to function without a weather report or air traffic controllers. Feelings are your honest feedback giving you information to make rational, informed choices upon.

Feelings themselves are neither good nor bad, they just are. But how you handle them makes them productive or destructive. All feelings should be felt and acknowledged so you can learn what they are trying to tell you.

Feelings help you to pace yourself

Before I had my first episode of Adrenal Fatigue, I would ignore the signals my mind and body were giving me that I was exhausted, depressed, overburdened, hurt, and angry. I would take on projects I was not capable of doing and be perfectionistic about doing them. I push myself beyond my capabilities & limits. I’ve heard it said that if you don’t take care of you, your body will do it for you. In my case, that was true. My body said, “I can take NO more of this abuse,” and it shut me down. I laid there for weeks, completely bewildered. What happened to me? Now I know. It was me ignoring my feelings and charging forward AS IF the world depended on me to keep everyone happy and be all things to all people.…but me. Everyone else’s opinions, requests, goals, dreams, and welfare were more important than mine.

My recovery taught me to listen to my feelings in mind and body, and may my choices around that. I have never been as strong since, so I have to be careful about what I take on. I say no quite frequently, to the cruel judgment of some, but today, I don’t let other people’s judgments and feelings make my decisions for me.

Expressing true emotions gives others a chance to know how you are feeling at the time and how their behavior or choices are affecting you. There is a time to put on a false smile, like when you’re still at work and you can’t fall apart yet. But promise yourself that when you get home, you’ll allow yourself to feel what you feel and GET IT OUT! As a general rule, it is wise to be honest about what you are feeling. Just use an assertive style of communication to express them.

THE OTHER EXTREME: Vomiting toxic feelings onto others

“I” statements: One way to keep from hurting others with your feelings is not to blame others for them but to own them. “I feel angry when you talk to me like that.” “When you didn’t keep your promise, I felt sad.” They are springing from you, deal with your own.

Toxic feelings: The opposite of expressing feelings in healthy ways is suppressing them and turning feelings into a club to beat up yourself and/or others. Vomiting your toxic feelings on others may make you feel better but is abusive to others, children or those who are weak or vulnerable.

Indirect Feelings: When feelings are denied direct expression, the tendency is for them to come out in an indirect manner.

Example: A young girl is so full of pain on the inside, she cuts herself to distract from the pain on the inside.

Example: A young mother may not be able to express her anger towards her husband so she takes her frustrations out on her children.

Covering true feelings with a false mask or another feeling. Smiling or pretending that nothing is wrong sends the message, “all is well,” when it isn’t. Owning and expressing real feelings sends a clear message of the true nature of a problem, and carves the path to solutions.

Anger has been called a secondary feeling. Anger is commonly used to cover fear, hurt, shame, and guilt. Some perceive anger as more acceptable, macho, or powerful than the other feelings. Anger can be a defense mechanism used to keep you from awareness of more difficult feelings like fear or shame. If you allow yourself to find a healthy vent for anger, you may find other feelings looming beneath. Dealing directly with feelings can help release and resolve the layers of feelings.

BALANCE: Healthy Expression of Feelings

All feelings should be allowed and validated as long as feelings are expressed in a moderate, constructive way.

What Healthy Feelings are Telling You

Healthy Sadness indicates the loss of something or someone who is important or dear to you. It teaches you to treasure and be thankful for what you have and love. The key to healthy sadness is to feel it, learn the lesson it is trying to teach you, find expression for it so you can move through it, release it, and let it go. Then, to be thankful on the other side of it, for what you do have and enjoy, now.

Healthy Fear is your protective feeling, it keeps you out of harm’s way and reminds you to take measures to protect yourself. You want enough fear to lock your doors at night, never trust strangers, buckle your seatbelt, keep the traffic laws, etc. Healthy fear keeps you safer.

Healthy Guilt is the indicator that says you did something wrong and motivates you to take measures needed to rectify the situation and make things right, i.e. ask forgiveness, make restitution, repent, say you’re sorry, etc. Once you have taken care of your side of the guilty problem, forgive yourself, learn the lesson(s), let it go and move on.

Healthy Shame means: “God knows more than me and it would benefit me to depend on God rather than my own thinking”. Healthy shame is humility, which allows you to be teachable. Shame says, “I am no better than anyone else”. Healthy shame keeps you from running through the streets naked and displaying inappropriate behavior or things in front of others.

Healthy hurt or pain is a merciful signal telling your Conscious mind there is something wrong and it is the only part of your mind that can take measures to eliminate the cause of the pain. If you didn’t have the signal of pain, it would be easy to destroy your body, mind or relationships without awareness. Learn the lesson the pain/hurt is trying to teach you. Find healthy ways to eliminate the pain such as better self-care or other-care.

Pain/hurt/sadness are usually the emotions that create motivation to turn to God for relief and guidance. Allowing yourself to see painful events through God’s perspective, instead of your own, allows you to learn wisdom and growth, which brings comfort and peace.

Healthy Anger is an indicator that you or something dear to you has been violated. Anger motivates you to protect and preserve yourself, others, freedom, possessions, rights, etc. The intent of healthy anger is never to hurt others or property but to take measures to protect and defend what is being violated. Occasionally, protecting what is rightfully yours, may inflict injury to the violator.

Example: America’s reaction to the attack on Pearl Harbor was healthy anger as a reaction to a just cause. Many were hurt on both sides before peace and personal rights could be restored.

Sustained happiness, joy and love indicate that what you’re doing is working and to continue doing it. Happiness springs from a healthy connection to God, good self-esteem, serving others, positive thinking, good boundaries, taking care of your physical health, working through painful events as they happen, learning the lessons, then letting go and moving on.

Feelings, like everything else, can get out of balance. Toxic feelings can be abusive to you or others. Following are some examples of toxic feelings:

Toxic sadness

Suppress or deflect sadness instead of feeling it
Ruminate endlessly over past losses, failures, etc.
Unresolved sadness stuck in the memory bank associated with unresolved memories
The belief that because you’ve experienced sadness you can never get past it (stinkin’ thinkin’)
Chronic Stinkin’ Thinkin’ which produces chronic stinkin’ feelings
Failing to do your grief work after a death, divorce or other major loss
Taking on other peoples emotions (poor emotional boundaries)
Discount or diminish your feelings or others

Sadness is meant to be felt, learned from, and then released so you can move past it. Sadness, when dealt with appropriately, helps you appreciate good times and all your blessings.

Toxic Fear

Chronic worry about all that could go wrong
Fear-based belief systems
Unresolved fear-based experiences from the past
Ungrounded fear keeps a person from taking risks necessary for progress
Perpetrators or opportunists using fear as a weapon to control their victims.
Focusing on all that could go wrong or the worst-case scenario
Fear used to control or manipulate young, powerless, and victims
Well-meaning people using fear to motivate positive behaviors
Fear of going to hell intending to inspire a person to do good
Keeping a child from making his/her own choices and taking risks
Toxic fear keeps a person from assertive, constructive confrontation to resolve problems

Toxic fear tactics can be used to gain compliance or control others. A person with poor emotional boundaries may become a fear-based child/person. People who are fear-based, make their life decisions based on fear rather than their own logical thinking, internal knowing and relationship with God. This is tragic because it cuts a person off from progress, success and enjoying their true, genuine self.

Toxic Shame

Usually a result of abuse
Low Self Esteem
“Worthless, Not good enough, I’m bad”, belief systems
Allow others to determine your worth
Compare yourself to others.
Allow others to hurt or take advantage of you
Won’t try, convinced you’ll fail
Look externally for internal validation
Can’t accept compliments
Constantly apologizing for self

Toxic shame is immobilizing because it strikes at the deepest essence of YOU. Shame the quality of the relationship you have with yourself.

Example: Shame based people tend to find themselves in relationships with people who treat them with the same lack of value as they have for themselves. Shame-based people have a hard time accepting love even if it is freely given to them. Toxic Shame is usually a result of abuse and is always the state underlying addictions and codependency.

Toxic Guilt

Can not let go of past mistakes, continue to beat the self up over them even if you have properly taken care of them.
Toxic guilt is a manipulative tool people use to try and get compliance from others.
The guilt you feel when you haven’t done anything wrong or when you begin taking care of yourself
Taking responsibility for another person’s wrong-doing. Apologize or blame yourself when someone else has made the mistake.
Allow guilt to motivate you to needlessly overdo
Can’t say “no.” Say “yes” when you mean “no.”
Guilt when you set boundaries
Can’t be honest because it might cause someone else to feel bad.
Neglect self-care because you feel guilty or selfish
Guilt that causes you to take on someone else’s problems they should be responsible for themselves.
Guilt that keeps you from allowing your children to experience the natural consequences of their choices.
Guilt for not enabling or entitling others.

Toxic Fear and Guilt and Religion

Tragically, toxic guilt and/or toxic fear are powerful manipulative tactics used by many advocating God or religion. This form of manipulation drives a wedge between a person and God. Using toxic fear or guilt to get compliance is religious or spiritual abuse.

When you tap into the real source, you’ll find God is loving, forgiving, and helpful, which is far from the toxic fear and guilt tactics some people use to gain compliance or control over others.

Toxic hurt or pain

Identify with your pain. “Life’s a bitch and then you die.”
Inflicting or using pain as a tool to manipulate or control others
Putting on a smile when you are hurting
Punish self with pain
Inflict pain to the body to distract from inner pain
Inflicting pain on another
Stuffed pain from the past still affecting your present life
Hide pain behind defense mechanisms

Toxic Anger

Suppressed anger can turn into an explosion of rage if not vented properly.
Turning anger into violence on the self; suicide, cutting, self-condemnation
Hold onto resentments of past offenses; unforgiving
Anger as a defense mechanism to hide fear, hurt, shame, guilt
Anger used to gain compliance, humiliate, gain power-over
Anger used as a secondary feeling to hide other emotions that are difficult to face
Passive-aggressive anger is meant to inflict harm but looks innocent

Toxic “Feel Good”

Addictive high chasing good feelings
Avoidance of responsibility and delayed gratification
A belief that one must “feel good” all the time to be happy

Toxic Happy Yes, happiness can be toxic, too. How, you ask?

When happiness is used as a defense mechanism to cover up true feelings needing expression that lurk beneath the surface.
Happy can also be toxic when a person is not allowed to feel or express any other feelings but happy feelings. This is like covering a pile of manure with daisies. It looks better, but it still stinks. Toxic happiness isn’t real happiness, it’s just a mask.

Feelings and Addiction

Addicts will tell you they indulge in addictive behaviors or substances to change the way they feel. However, the good feeling produced by the addictive substance or behavior only produce temporary relief, then create worse feelings in the long run. Recovery from addiction always entails healing negative feelings and entertaining new positive thinking habits.

One way to help prevent the development of addictions is to find healthy ways to make life feel good by self-care, setting good boundaries, working on your self-esteem. By learning how to create a happy life & relationships, you help eliminate the need to escape negative feelings.

Resist the temptation to discount feelings or shut down their expression:

“I got my feelings hurt!” Reply: “Come on, it wasn’t that bad! What’s wrong with you?”

“I’m really angry.” Reply: “No you’re not. Get over it.”

“I hate my teacher.” Reply: “You’re not supposed to hate anybody.”

“I feel so discouraged.” “You shouldn’t be discouraged. You have so many blessings.”

Instead, find an affirming way to respond:

“I got my feelings hurt!” Reply: “You did! Tell me about it.”

“I’m really angry!” Reply: “I can see you’re angry and hear it in your voice. Do you want to talk about it?”

“I hate my teacher.” Reply: “What happened that you feel that way.”

“I feel so discouraged.” Reply: “You feel discouraged, huh? Tell me more about that.”

Resist the temptation to compare feelings:

“I’m hurting so bad.” Reply, “That’s nothing, what I went through was much worse.

Try something like this instead:

“I’m hurting so bad.” Reply, “I’m sorry you’re hurting badly. Is there anything I can do?”

Validating Feelings: It is important to validate feelings and honor your right and the right of others to feel and express them appropriately.

“I can see you are angry.” “You look very sad.” “It’s okay to cry.” “ I can sense your aggravation.”

Ask open-ended questions to seek a deeper understanding.

“I can see you look irritated.” Reply: “What is going on?”

“I hate my teacher!” Reply: “What happened that caused you to hate your teacher?”

“I feel so discouraged.” “Oh really, what’s going on that you are feeling discouraged.”

Validation shows acceptance of the expression of feeling and gives one permission for further voicing of honest emotions. Balance is allowing expression of genuine feelings but with boundaries so no one is abused or violated by the declarations. Since feelings are part of a healthy, balanced life, it is a gift to give a voice to feelings.

Set boundaries about feelings expressed in an abusive way & refuse to give validation until expressed appropriately.

(A person yells with a hostile look on the face.) “I am pissed off at you?”

Reply in a moderate, assertive tone. “I’ll be happy to talk with you just as soon as you can lower your voice and talk to me using more appropriate words and in a more calm way.”

What IS the appropriate way of expressing honest feelings?

The Love and Life Skills video on ‘Assertive confrontation’ gives a good model:

In normal tones, with a pleasant look of your face state how you feel using feeing words. No blaming or abuse of any kind. Using “I” statements. Just state how you feel.

“I am feeling very angry right now.” “I feel afraid.” “I am so sad.”

A person with poor emotional boundaries might not say anything. However, sometimes painful information is necessary to take care of yourself or others. So how do you express negative emotions and messages in the nicest way?

Examples: “I don’t feel the same way towards you as you to towards me, and I want to break off the relationship,” or “I don’t like the gift you gave me and I’d like to exchange it for something else that would work better for me” or, “When you say that it hurts me, would you say it this way instead?”

The rule of boundaries says you need to let that other person be responsible for handling their own feelings, but the rule of decency says you can state what needs to be said in the most palatable way possible.

Under these awkward or difficult circumstances, state the honesty in as kind a manner as possible, using pleasant tones and a kind look on your face. Use “I” statements, as we talked about earlier and sandwich the negative statement with positive things before and after the unpleasant honesty needing to be delivered.

Examples:

“I really liked your interview, and I’m sure you’ll make a great employee (compliment), However, you have not been selected for the job (unpleasant honesty). However, with your qualifications and professionalism, I’m sure you’ll be able to find a good job soon.” (compliment)

“I think you are an amazing person (compliment), but unfortunately I don’t feel the same way about you as you do about me (unpleasant truth). I’m sure you’ll find someone wonderful because you deserve only the best.” (compliment)

“Thank you so much for the gift, it was so kind of you to give it to me. (compliment) However, there is another article in the same store that will suit my needs better so I am going to exchange it (unpleasant truth). Thank you so much for the kind thought and for making it possible for me to get this other article that will work better.”

A common codependent trait is to avoid confrontation or take the brunt themselves in an attempt to save the other person from having unpleasant feelings. Codependent people may even take on something violating to themselves to keep others from having to feel bad.

Example: Larry sacrifices his chances of having a happy marriage and marries Jennifer because she says she will kill herself if he doesn’t.

In this example, Larry is sacrificing his true desires to insure that Jennifer doesn’t feel so badly that she ends her life. He felt it his duty, but with good boundaries, Larry would realize that if Jennifer decides to commit suicide, it is of her own doing, not his. With healthy emotional boundaries, Larry would let her be responsible for her own feelings and let go of the need to sacrifice his preference of who to marry, to save her from killing herself.

By giving in to manipulation, Larry would be dishonoring himself. Part of recovering from being externally centered is to let others be responsible for their own feelings. It may seem cruel, but when unpleasant truths are expressed in the most appropriate way, you have kept your side of the road clean (AA jargon) in being fair. Be honest but kind.

More rules with expressing feelings:

Don’t shut down feelings
Don’t compare your pain to someone else’s. “Don’t talk to me about how much it hurts. I experienced far worse pain than you when I …….”
Don’t vent negative feelings on others unless you know they have strong emotional boundaries and will not personalize them. Find a way to vent first, that will not hurt you or others or property, then talk to the person rationally, expressing feelings in a moderate way.
Don’t suppress feelings
Don’t punish others for their feelings, simply refuse to discuss the issue until they have their feelings under control and talk about them rationally. (Set emotional Boundary). Wait until that is possible.
Don’t cover one feeling up with another one (Anger to hide hurt or shame, happy to hide disappointment, grandiose to hide shame, etc.)
Don’t discount feelings
Don’t make fun of others for having feelings.

Relationships:

Free expression of all feelings done in a healthy, moderate way with the intention of good communication, clarification, and meeting needs, helps build good relationships.

Sources:

Codependents Anonymous

Chemical Dependency Counseling Course, Rio Salado College, Mesa, AZ 1992-3

Expressing honest feelings in a kind way

Sometimes it is difficult to express honest feelings to another for fear of causing them undue pain. it helps to learn to express true feelings in an appropriate way to make unpleasant messages as painless and palatable as possible for the recipient. A person with poor emotional boundaries might have a hard time delivering a necessary painful message because they don’t want to cause undue pain. However, sometimes painful information is necessary so it is timely to learn how to deliver messages in the most humane way.

It’s down-right mean to tell an ugly person they’re ugly or call a dumb person dumb, but unpleasant honesty is called for in some situations and there’s no way to avoid invoking negative, hurtful or disappointed feelings in others.

Examples: “I don’t feel the same way towards you as you to towards me, and I want to break off the relationship,” or “I don’t really care for the gift you gave me and I’d like to exchange it for something else that would work better for me” or, “You didn’t get the scholarship.”

This can be devastating news, but there are times the messages must be told. The rule of boundaries says you need to let that other person be responsible for handling their own feelings, but the rule of decency says you can state what needs to be said in the most palatable way possible.

Under these awkward or difficult circumstances, state the honesty in as kind a manner as possible, using pleasant tones and a kind look on your face. Use “I” statements (assertive training chapter) and sandwich the negative statement with a “positive” before and after the unpleasant honesty needing to be delivered.

Examples:
“I really liked your interview, and I’m sure you’ll make a great employee (compliment), however, you have not been selected for the job (unpleasant honesty),
But with your qualifications and professionalism, I’m sure you’ll be able to find a good job soon.”(compliment)

A common codependent trait is to avoid confrontation or take the brunt themselves in an attempt to save the other person from having to experience unpleasant feelings as a result of your response. Codependent people may even take on something violating to themselves to keep others from having to feel painful emotions. Example: Larry marries Jennifer because she says she will kill herself if he doesn’t.

In this example, Larry is sacrificing his true desires to insure that Jennifer doesn’t feel so badly that she ends her life. He felt it his duty, but with good emotional boundaries, Larry would have realized that if Jennifer decides to commit suicide, it would be of her own doing, not his. With healthy emotional boundaries, Larry would let her be responsible for her own feelings and let go of the need to sacrifice himself to save her from killing herself.

Jennifer’s desperation was probably just a manipulative ploy to keep Larry in her life, however, there is a chance she might actually carry through with the act. Is it Larry’s fault if Jennifer kills herself because he doesn’t marry her? Absolutely not!

By giving in to a manipulative ploy, Larry would be dishonoring himself. Part of codependent recovery is to let others be responsible for their own feelings. It may seem cruel, but when unpleasant truths are expressed in the most appropriate way, you have done your part in being fair. There are times that all you can do is be as kind as possible with your message. Learn to manage your own feelings and allow others to manage theirs. With good emotional boundaries, you are responsible for your feelings and you allow others to be responsible for theirs.

Do not do the following with feelings:

Don’t shut down feelings
Don’t compare your pain to someone else’s
Don’t try to talk someone out of their feelings (Example: Don’t talk to me about how
much your ( ) hurts, I experienced far worse pain when I …….”
Don’t vent negative feelings on others unless you know they have strong emotional boundaries and will not personalize them. Find a way to vent first, that will not hurt you or others or property, then talk to the person rationally,
Expressing feelings in a moderate way.
Don’t suppress feelings
Don’t punish others for their feelings, simply refuse to discuss the issue until they have their feelings under control and talk about them rationally. (Set emotional Boundary). Wait until that is possible.
Don’t cover one feeling up with another one (Anger to hide hurt or shame, Happy to hide disappointment, grandiose to hide shame, etc.)
Don’t dismiss or diminish your feelings or others

Law of the Garbage Truck:

One day I hopped in a taxi and we took off for the airport.

We were driving in the right lane when suddenly a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and missed the other car by just inches! The driver of the other car whipped his head around and started yelling at us. My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. And I mean, he was really friendly.

So I asked, ‘Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!’ This is when my taxi driver taught me what I now call, ‘The Law of the Garbage Truck.’ He explained that many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment.

As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it and sometimes they’ll dump it on you.

Don’t take it personally. Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Don’t take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets.

The bottom line is that successful people do not let garbage trucks take over their day. Life’s too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, so … Love the people who treat you right. Pray for the ones who don’t.

Life is ten percent what you make it and ninety percent how you take it! Have a wonderful, garbage-free day! ~Author Unknown

Defuse Anger before Assertive Confrontation, by Helen Bair

The purpose of Assertive Confrontation is to resolve difficult issues in a peaceful, constructive way. However, if your anger level is high you need to make sure you properly vent those feelings before attempting your confrontation or it may be anything but peaceful. If your anger is at 10 on a scale of 10 to 0, vent your feelings first so you can remain logical and rational during your confrontation. Otherwise, you may be tempted to take out your anger on the other person and start a battle, rather than information sharing and seeking resolutions.

Look for creative but safe ways to defuse anger before a confrontation. You could talk to a neutral party about the problem (make sure this person will not spread your problems to others) or write about it. Venting on paper has an advantage because if you destroy the paper afterward, you can say ANYTHING you want. Write down ALL thoughts and feelings that come to your mind. Spare no words. No one is going to get offended because you will be destroying the writing later so it can never be read by anyone else. Put it in a paper shredder, burn it, or rip it into tiny pieces and flush them.

Avoid venting on a computer because then there is a permanent record of everything you’ve written. You best not have your toxic venting there for anyone else to find.

If you don’t know what to write about events, just write the emotion over and over again. Example: “I feel angry, angry, angry, angry…” over and over again. If you want to say something mean to a particular person, write it on your paper until the energy is discharged but don’t ever say it to that person.

Talking to an empty chair is another good method of venting. As if the person in question is setting in the chair, say exactly what you want to say and spare NO WORDS!!! If there is no chair available, just say or think the words as if you are telling them directly to the person. Spew, vent, discharge, feel the feelings, swear, whatever helps you get it out! Just get it out.

When venting emotions it is best to use words like, “I feel angry,” rather than “I am angry.” The reason is that “I am” is a statement of creation and you don’t want to be creating more anger. “I feel” is just a feeling, which means it can be released. Also, keep in mind that you are only venting feelings with the intention of defusing your anger, not ever intending to use it on another person.

If you do not have time to vent before your Assertive Confrontation, wait until a later time. Then use the Assertive Confrontation model shown in Chapter 3. Proper venting ahead of time can save you big regrets later.

False beliefs about Anger, Compiled by Rosemary Hansen

It’s okay to feel anger if we can justify our feelings
If we are Christ-like, we will never feel anger
Anger is a sinful emotion.
If we feel angry at someone, it means we don’t love that person anymore
If we feel angry, we have to shout, holler, hit someone or break something.
If we feel angry at someone, that person has to change what he or she is doing so we won’t feel angry anymore.
If we feel angry at someone, the relationship is over and that person has to go away.
If we feel angry, someone else made us feel that way, and that person is responsible for fixing our feelings.
If you are angry at me, it means you don’t love me anymore.
If others are angry at us, we must have done something wrong.
Other people should never feel angry towards us.
People will go away if we get angry at them.
We’ll lose control and go crazy if we do.
We shouldn’t feel angry when we do.
Good, nice people don’t feel angry.
Anger is a waste of time and energy
It’s not okay to feel angry.

Quotes About Feelings

“Do not teach your children never to be angry; teach them how to be angry.” ~Lyman Abbott

“Sometimes when I’m angry I have the right to be angry,
But that doesn’t give me the right to be cruel.” ~Author Unknown

“Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” ~ Malachy McCourt

“Anger ventilated often hurries toward forgiveness; and concealed often hardens into revenge.” ~ Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

“The world needs anger. The world often continues to allow evil because it isn’t angry enough.” ~Bede Jarrett (A reminder that anger is not the problem, it is how anger is expressed that can be the problem or help find constructive solutions. Emotions can help heal or destroy, depending on how they are used.)

“If you kick a stone in anger, you’ll hurt your own foot.” ~Korean Proverb

“Always write angry letters to your enemies.” Never mail them. ~James Fallows (Find a healthy way to vent anger. Writing is a healthy vent)

“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.” ~Buddha

“Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.” ~Ambrose Bierce

“The worst-tempered people I’ve ever met were people who knew they were wrong.” ~Wilson Mizner

“The best remedy for a short temper is a long walk.” ~Jacqueline Schiff

“When a man sends you an impudent letter, sit right down and give it back to him with interest ten times compounded, and then throw both letters in the wastebasket.” ~Elbert Hubbard

“Consider how much more you often suffer from your anger and grief, than from those very things for which you are angry and grieved.” ~Marcus Antonius

The Difference Between Shame and Guilt

Guilt says, “I did something wrong.”

Shame says, “There is something wrong with me.”

Shame is a state of being. It means someone else abused you, which you owned as if you deserved it. Toxic Shame causes you to turn against yourself. “I am not good enough…I am less than…there is something wrong with me…I am unworthy,…it’s my fault that I am being mistreated.”

When children are abused, they tend to blame themselves and may continue doing so long after the original abuse is over. This creates the shame core that sets up the loss of your true self and value.

Recovery from shame means you can give back the responsibility for the abuse that caused the shame, to the abuser and stop owning it.

Healthy Shame: Yes, there is such a thing! It means you have enough shame to realize you don’t know everything; you are teachable, you know that you are no better than anyone else and you’re not going to run around naked in public.

Guilt: Guilt comes from doing things that are wrong. Hopefully, your feelings of guilt will motivate you to make things right.

But guilt becomes toxic when you’ve already taken responsibility for your wrongs, made amends and restitution, but continue to beat yourself up long after the mistake is over. This kind of toxic guilt can add to the shame core that causes the loss of the self and value.

Toxic guilt also means that you blame yourself but you have done nothing wrong. Like for example, when externally centered people begin to take care of themselves and not allow others to take advantage of them, they may feel guilt. That is toxic because you have done nothing wrong but beat yourself up as if you are guilty. If that is the case, ignore the feeling and do the right thing anyway.

Toxic guilt can also be used as a manipulative tool that abusers use to try and guilt others into complying with their demands.

Healthy guilt motivates you to make things right when you are in error. It helps keep you honest so you can live in harmony with your conscience, your neighbors, and society.

To resolve guilt in a healthy way, you need to own your wrong-doing, confess and make apologies (unless doing so would make matters worse), and make amends and restitution when possible. Then forgive yourself and let it go. If you can’t confess directly to the offended party(s), make your confession to another person who will keep your confidence.

Remember, it is not emotions that are the problem, it’s how you handle them that determines whether they will work for or against you.

~Written by Helen P. Bair, but the author of this original information is unknown.

Goals of Recovery:

Communicate openly about feelings, accepting them all.
Feel free to cry, openly express feelings,
Experience your true self by allowing yourself to express true feelings in an appropriate way.
Express your needs to others.
Accept yourself.
Freely express your emotions.
Complete projects.
Actively participate with others.
Cultivate supportive relationships.
Feel free to cry, openly express feelings
Experience your true self.
Tell the truth about how you feel. Be loyal to yourself.
Build your own confidence
Stop rescuing others.
Take care of yourself.
Set Limits.
Develop your own identity.
Recognize dependent relationships and create inter-dependent relationships.
Act with increasing self-esteem.
Stand up for yourself.
Accept constructive criticism.
Interact easily with people in authority.
Be honest about your feelings.
Feel comfortable being alone or with others.
Express confidence.
Consider your own needs as well as others’ needs in all relationships.
Reduce your care-taking traits and become dependent on God and yourself for inner stability.