"Happy Sunday!"
Today I thought I would talk about emotional balance. What is emotional balance? How did I achieve it? Did I achieve it? Let me start off by explaining what emotional balance means to me. Emotional balance means finding and maintaining a positive outlook on my life regardless of the situation. Emotional balance means understanding my emotions, which in return, will allow me to respond, not react, to my feelings. Emotional balance allows me to recognize when I am feeling excessive overload to a feeling...for instance, anger, sadness or fear and having the ability to take a breath and calm down, say a prayer, and realize that reacting will only make it worse.
How did I act when I had "NO" emotional balance? When I was drinking anytime something small happened I would make it seem as though the world was ending! Drama! When I was drinking if someone said something to me that I felt was offensive my claws would come out! Thin skinned! When I was drinking and I had a feeling of fear I would cause an argument, chaos and sometimes panic. Insecure! If someone wronged me I would make everyone know what happened to me and what that horrible person did to me...blah, blah, blah. Victim! When I drinking and felt as though no one was listening to me or perhaps felt disconnected I would simply disconnect from all...period! Isolation! Furthermore, there were so many other things I did or said when I was drinking that caused me to show or experience to be emotional unbalanced, but for now those were the one's I remember the most. I was emotionally unbalanced!
How did I become emotionally balanced? When I chose to become sober. When I chose to go to therapy outside the rooms of a 12 Step meeting. When I chose to be true to myself. When I chose to stop feeling "NUMB" to my feelings. When I chose to look at myself and stop judging, criticizing and controlling others. When I chose to learn about me, learn about how to feel, learn about what I was feeling and mostly making my recovery the number one priority in my life! When I chose to learn how to meditate and pray the proper way...without selfishness. Lastly, when I chose to allow others to feel their feelings regardless of how ridiculous they appear or how crazy they are acting or sounding...this allowed me to work on my own character defects of judgement, criticism and control. I wanted emotional balance!
Do I show or feel emotional balance today? I am human and I do not beat myself up if I do not display this. Then again I do have the tendency to beat myself up as some of you have told me in my past postings. How grateful I am to have anyone of you to help me see me! I feel I am a lot better with emotion balance. I feel I have come a long way with being emotional balanced and look forward to those of you who may point things out to me about what I say or do. I look forward in improving my well being. I look forward to allow myself to learn more about myself. I look forward to being the best I can be and help others by sharing my experience, strength and hope. I am positive about my life! I do see myself as emotionally balanced today...that is today! Tomorrow can be another story but that's alright too. On the other hand, the majority of my days I see myself as emotionally balanced! I show emotional balance! However, I am grateful I can realize when I am going to blow a gasket and stop myself before I do...I can realize when I am becoming to dramatic and stop myself and say, "What is really going on with me?" I can realize when I am starting to judge, criticize or control and ask myself, "What are you avoiding?" I can realize that..."Life is a journey not a destination!"...and with these words I know that I still have a chance to better myself no matter what. My sponsor at times will say to me, "Progress not Perfection!" I strive for emotional balance!
Today, do you feel emotionally unbalanced? Do you live with someone who is emotional unbalanced? If so, try working on finding your own balance through prayer, meditation or any other suggestions I had wrote about in this post. Today, I will run with emotional balance in my heart and know that I have come a long way at achieving such a wonderful and freeing way of living!
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