When we experience emotional pain about our kids and their addiction an urgent panic often comes with that pain.
That only intensifies our experience and makes us want to run from it even more.
The other day I was sitting outside talking with my family and a wave of emotional pain came over me.
I felt nauseous, my stomach tightened, and my heart hurt. Then I felt panicked.
I felt an urgent need to get rid of the emotional pain.
I was homesick.
I just moved to another state and even though I love where I am, I miss my old home, my daughter, and a lot of other things that have changed since I moved.
I missed my daily routine and things I can’t do now because everything is closed.
I longed for familiarity.
I started thinking thoughts like what if I always feel this way?
What if it never stops?
Then I thought, What if nothing is wrong that I feel this way?
I can feel a wave of emotional pain accompanied by other physical sensations in my body like nausea and still be OK.
I should feel this way.
I just changed my whole life and moved halfway across the country.
I live in a different state than my daughter for the first time.
Instead of resisting my emotions and adding panic on top of them, I can lean into them and allow them to eventually pass through me.
Then I can deal with it in a healthy way rather than doing something drastic to try to change it.
The thought that nothing was wrong with how I felt immediately relived the panic.
The nausea and emotional pain were still there, but the panic was gone.
How often do you do this with your emotional pain about your child?
How often do you suffer more than you have to because you feel panicked about normal emotional responses?