October 2011 Newsletter
October 20, 2011
AA A— ?
Cheryle Jones Andrews
No, AAA does not equal the Automobile Association of America! Rather AAA stands for three steps that individuals can use to support and sustain greater mental health.
Simply put, AAA means:
Step 1: Acknowledge feelings.
Step 2: Accept that they just are.
Step 3: Act in response to feelings.
We are blessed with the neurological wiring to experience feelings that will guide us to make healthy choices in life’s circumstances. Pia Mellody, author of Facing Codependence, identifies very specific benefits or gifts that result when we attend to our feelings and use them to forge our lives. Too often we avoid or stuff feelings and end up feeling paralyzed on our life journeys.
The problem for most folks struggling with depression or anxiety is that the ability to tolerate a wide range of feelings has become limited, in part because adult caregivers in their lives did not model or perhaps even know how to handle their own feelings. Such parents did not know how to encourage and support their children to feel and to learn the language of feelings. Ultimately they limited their children’s ability to experience the richness of life. So, Step 1 is to simply notice and acknowledge feelings, basically notice the physical sensations.
Acceptance, Step 2, is to remember that all feelings have purpose and to accept that feelings are just a part of life. Acceptance does mean withholding judgment and not dismissing them as good or bad—it simply means to take an attitude of curiosity about why these feelings are occurring at this time.
Acceptance then makes room for Step 3: Act. We are empowered to choose how we want to act on our feelings through acceptance of them. The choice may be anything from doing something to doing nothing. Consider the feeling anger, a feeling that leaves many squeamish. However, anger can be on a continuum from mild irritation to rage. If we can acknowledge anger and the sensations we experience in our bodies, if we can accept that it’s OK to feel anger, then we can act on the reasons for feeling anger that curiosity reveals.
Mellody identifies energy, strength and assertiveness as the gifts of anger. Whether we choose to state our anger and our wants or we re-evaluate the thinking behind our anger and let it go or we simply explore it further, we are acting on our feelings. Only through acknowledgement and acceptance of our feelings can we be intentional about acting on our own behalf.
When we ignore our feelings, they burrow into our being, like worms into our computers. They don’t go away but cause undue stress that complicates our health, relationships and lives. Not only is it OK to feel our feelings, it’s the healthy, proactive thing to do. AAA takes practice and patience with ourselves, but it works!
Comments
Got something to say?
You must be logged in to post a comment.