What is Emotional Sobriety?

Today's affirmation entitled "Emotional Sobriety" in the book One Foot in Front of the Other by Tian Dayton, Ph.D,


In this affirmation, Tian talks about living an emotionally sober life and being okay with it. Embracing peace and not feeling like something's missing. Peace is, afer all the highest form of contentment, isn't it?

From her website, Tian defines Emotional Sobriety as:

"Finding and maintaining our emotional equilibrium, our feeling rheostat, the one that

 helps us to adjust the intensity of our emotional responses to life.

 Emotional sobriety is tied up in our ability to self regulate on both a mind and body

 level, to bring ourselves into balance when we fall out of it.

 Issues with excessive self medication say with food, alcohol or drugs or

 compulsive approaches to activities like sex, work or spending tend to reflect 

a lack of ability to comfortable self regulate."

You can read more at http://www.tiandayton.com/emotional-sobriety

 

Emotions are like a barometer that alerts us to our feelings. Like waves passing a ship--they may rock it a little, but they pass as the waters still again.


Tian cautions us to reflect on our feelings before we decide to act. Responding (rather than reaction) is one of the challenges of an ACoA. By responding, she says we allow our inner self-confidence to expand and allows us to be more of who we are. 

"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers."
--M. Scott Peck