Acknowledging Feelings

It looks like I will be on the road again for awhile. I plan to work on my daughter's house and a friend's house that have been on hold for about 3 years. After that my sister is still anxious for me to finish the job I started on her house the beginning of summer. All this will involve a lot of traveling. This is not necessarily good for increasing my communication abilities but I will work on it whether at home or abroad. Yesterday I experienced an intense emotional experience that revealed some very unpleasant (to put it mildly) traits within me that I was taught to repress most of my life. Since I am adopting new strategies for experiencing reality I chose to recognize the emotions and identify them though if I had acted them out -- well, I will leave it at that. Most people would advise me to simply not feel that way or try to shame me into changing. A lot of good that has done for the last 40+ years. This time I decided to report them, first to myself and then to my wife. Unfortunately it wasn't until this morning that we had time to talk about it, but I do feel much better and that some kind of healing is in the works. Choosing to acknowledge the reality of my own feelings is a first step in that process. Since I am not in charge of the process I don't know what God has in mind for the next step. But learning to be more real is crucial to becoming fully human and fully alive as God created us to be. It is new and foreign territory for me in some ways but also feels more fulfilling and hopeful. The more honest I am about what's inside creates an environment that God can work with much more effectively than trying to look good and managing my image with everyone.