The Endless Echo of Emotion

The Endless Echo of Emotion

Understanding the Fickle Nature of Feelings

Personal reflections from a fellow traveler.  Not AA approved literature.  Shared in the spirit of experience, strength, and hope.

Emotions. Feelings. We all have them. Some keep them locked up; others pour them out. I tend to learn very slowly. Pain and repetition are my best teachers. Occasionally, situations arise where the luxury of repeating mistakes is not welcomed, and I must learn to suppress and surrender rather than plow forward with regret. “Act as if,” they say.

I’ve allowed emotion to lead me since childhood. For years I medicated feelings with substances. Like so many of us, I thought this was how emotions were meant to be handled. And for a time, it worked. But eventually the prescription failed. The relief ran shorter, the shame grew longer, and I found myself sliding further down the ladder of self-deception.

In recovery, I’ve learned that emotions are not always my enemies—they’re signals. They flare up to announce something within me that needs attention, not control. Not all of them are true.  For decades I mistook every feeling for a fact. Anger meant I was right. Fear meant I was doomed. Sadness meant life had cheated me. The truth is, emotions are fleeting guests that often overstay their welcome. Their echo can feel eternal, but like sound in a canyon, it’s only my own voice bouncing back at me.

When I let those echoes rule me, I lose perspective. When I pause, breathe, and let them fade, I begin to hear something deeper: truth. The Steps have taught me that discernment, not denial, is the key. Feelings are like waves; they rise and fall on their own. My job isn’t to stop the tide—it’s to learn how to stand still while it moves.  This still proves challenging for me.

There was a time I thought peace meant the absence of emotion. Now I know peace is found in their acceptance. The trick is to listen without obeying, to feel without becoming. Sometimes I still get it wrong. I react, regret, repeat. But with each cycle, the echo grows fainter, and the stillness that follows lasts longer.

The fickle nature of feelings reminds me that nothing inside me stays forever—neither joy nor sorrow, neither anger nor fear. What does remain is the space beneath it all: a steady center I call faith. When the noise of emotion fades into that stillness, what’s left isn’t emptiness—it’s clarity.

So today, when emotion comes knocking, I try not to slam the door or drown it in distraction. I let it speak, then let it go.
Because every echo, no matter how loud, eventually fades back into silence—and in that silence, I find myself again.

What emotion has been echoing longest in your life—and are you ready to let it fade?