Post by trout46 on Jul 21, 2010 10:37:34 GMT -5
I'm grateful beyond belief for the significant progress, boardering on a reprieve, that my HP has granted me from the relentless, obsessive thoughts I have long suffered involving my ex-w/POA. I know this is the work (Grace) of my HP, but I also know that it requires the willingness to submit and turn my life and will over to Him. It also requires that I do the work (steps, reading, posting, working with other LRAs) of recovery. (I have long been fond of a phrase I often use at AA first step meetings that captures well what our HP's expect of us: God will move mountains if you bring the shovel.)
My recent trip to visit my best, life long friend, in NYC was incredibly productive in moving my recovery forward. I found myself doing so well with him that I had some anxiety that my forward progress would experience retardation upon my return home. Thankfully, I've now been home for about 36 hours and am still doing/feeling/thinking well.
One of the things we worked on, which I saw in myself and shared with my friend, concerns the dominant role and pole position that my emotions have played in my conscious experience. I have literally been driven or controlled by my emotional feelings (and those emotional feelings have predominantly been about pain, loss, hurt, and other troublesome expressions). Where was my intellect in all of this? I'm a reasonably bright guy, yet my intellect, which could add some rational thinking into the emotional turmoil I have been experiencing, was totally MIA.
Despite the countless hours I have devoted to recovery from LRA (I really identify myself as a relationship addict), I could "see" this problem, but fall short of correcting it. It took working intensely with another person--in the role of a kind of therapist--to push the right "buttons" to facilitate my ability to give my rational mind at least an equal footing in my daily conscious existence.
That has now happened. There are countless reasons why my POA would be the very worst person for me to ever be in a relationship with. Now, when an emotional obsession begins to form about her, I am not held hostage on a wild ride into longing, regret, guilt and desire. Rather, I can add a dose of critical empirical reality into the mix,and consider what would happen were we to "reconcile" once again. That, I am happy to report, essentially dissolves the powerful obsessive thoughts of longing.
I had been approaching my recovery by focusing rather exclusively on my unresolved childhood pain and abandonment. That work is essential, I still believe. Bringing those early painful events and experiences into consciousness, acknowledging and owning them, and coming to an understanding and appreciation of how they became the sources of insecurity and fear in my adult life is, I believe, critically important work. But, completing this work was not the precondition I had thought it was to taming my relentless obsessions. That just (just?!) required working on allowing my rational, analytical, thinking and processing mind to play a role in how I experienced life in my conscious states.
I have wanted to share my recent recovery experiences with you all, and this is today's effort to do so. I hope you can make some sense out of it.
My recent trip to visit my best, life long friend, in NYC was incredibly productive in moving my recovery forward. I found myself doing so well with him that I had some anxiety that my forward progress would experience retardation upon my return home. Thankfully, I've now been home for about 36 hours and am still doing/feeling/thinking well.
One of the things we worked on, which I saw in myself and shared with my friend, concerns the dominant role and pole position that my emotions have played in my conscious experience. I have literally been driven or controlled by my emotional feelings (and those emotional feelings have predominantly been about pain, loss, hurt, and other troublesome expressions). Where was my intellect in all of this? I'm a reasonably bright guy, yet my intellect, which could add some rational thinking into the emotional turmoil I have been experiencing, was totally MIA.
Despite the countless hours I have devoted to recovery from LRA (I really identify myself as a relationship addict), I could "see" this problem, but fall short of correcting it. It took working intensely with another person--in the role of a kind of therapist--to push the right "buttons" to facilitate my ability to give my rational mind at least an equal footing in my daily conscious existence.
That has now happened. There are countless reasons why my POA would be the very worst person for me to ever be in a relationship with. Now, when an emotional obsession begins to form about her, I am not held hostage on a wild ride into longing, regret, guilt and desire. Rather, I can add a dose of critical empirical reality into the mix,and consider what would happen were we to "reconcile" once again. That, I am happy to report, essentially dissolves the powerful obsessive thoughts of longing.
I had been approaching my recovery by focusing rather exclusively on my unresolved childhood pain and abandonment. That work is essential, I still believe. Bringing those early painful events and experiences into consciousness, acknowledging and owning them, and coming to an understanding and appreciation of how they became the sources of insecurity and fear in my adult life is, I believe, critically important work. But, completing this work was not the precondition I had thought it was to taming my relentless obsessions. That just (just?!) required working on allowing my rational, analytical, thinking and processing mind to play a role in how I experienced life in my conscious states.
I have wanted to share my recent recovery experiences with you all, and this is today's effort to do so. I hope you can make some sense out of it.
