Relating with emotions

I've been experiencing my emotional life with more awareness lately, as a result of moving through some buried feelings, meditating a half hour every day including some emotional meditations, and doing stepwork in CoDA. I think, also, going to meetings and talking with other people has loosened up a lot. 

Painted on the side of an ice cream shop in Todos Santos, BCS

I'm a lot more aware of behaviors I go to in order to numb, and I'm beginning to learn the difference between numbing and self soothing. I have never been very good at self soothing- I think alcoholics in general aren't, and that's where a lot of the desire for alcohol comes from, at least for me. A misguided attempt to just calm down and be reassured- which always turned into being a weird combination of numb and sad and anxious af. 

I think some of these choices are on a spectrum- between self care connected to self soothing, stress relief, relaxtion- and numbing out. The emotion work through meditation and recovery has me thinking about catharsis versus being stuck in emotional expression also. I have long thought catharsis was an unequivocal good, but now I am a bit more skeptical, and, while I still see it's value, I think redirecting the mind, leaving the house and going to a meeting, self soothing and de-escalating all have real value as well. 

Connected with these meanderings regarding how I relate to my feelings, I've been experiencing a lot of self acceptance. In my family, having a feeling was a problem- feelings were problems to be solved, unless they were pleasant, and even then it was important to stay in control. The work I've been doing lately has been accepting all of the feelings as they come and go, even when I dread some of them or when they feel invasive and uninvited at first, and to forget about trying to solve them or being otherwise reactive. It's definitely an active, action oriented form of self love. 

A friend in CoDA and I were talking the other night about how little wisdom and compassion we lived with for many years- lots of smarts and good ideas about how to "solve problems." I recall the compassion meditation from Refuge: May I learn to care about suffering and confusion. May I respond with mercy and compassion to suffering. May I be filled with compassion and understanding. This applies as much to myself as to anyone else. Do I care about my own suffering and confusion or am I trying to kill it, solve it, end it, fix it? I care more now than I used to. What caring about my own suffering and confusion looks like is simply sitting with what I am feeling, without judgment. and without a desire to fix anything- listening to myself. Just listening. 

Feeling heard.