On Hard Things

So here's the deal.

As in-tune as I think I might be with my emotions and body, I am still super avoidant, and I have done some hard work on myself to identify what I am feeling. I've kind of lapsed on that check in, and channeling the feelings in a healthy-ish way.
Lately, I've started to have emotions that are more raw and, as I see them, darker: anger, sadness, disappointment. I want to get away from these emotions. They make me anxious, restless, and impulsive. I'm on the impulsive side anyway, but it's heightened when I get to feeling this way.
I don't want to sit with these emotions, and I don't want to feel them. At all. Which just makes things worse, I know.
My anxiety makes me needy.  I don't want to be needy because I believe the lies that being needy is bad and a burden on people; I don't need to burden people with my struggles. So I isolate. Or I get super restless. The restlessness leads to the impulsiveness. Which makes me feel out of control. I don't want to, as I see it, waste my energy on reigning that back in. I'm also stubborn as fuck, so if I went to someone to help me out, which I wouldn't because I don't want to burden them, I would probably get defiant and do what I was going to do anyway. I feel like I become really irrational when I'm restless and impulsive.
When I'm impulsive that leads to either two things: spending money or eating. Eating has always been a comfort for me. Especially when I'm restless. I get cravings, and I give into them because I don't want to deal with my emotions and feelings even though I know I should. Even though I know that's what I need to do, and would be best. Sometimes I can catch myself. Other times I'm just like, fuck it, I've already done this or this, might as well do this too!
Spending money is also soothing in the moment. I don't necessarily spend it on random stuff though. I spend on things that make me feel happy, thrilled, peaceful, and somewhat hopeful. Like I have actually met a need so it's hard not to justify it in some way because it did actually help. Sometimes. Not all of my spending sprees are actually positive. I summed up my life like this: "Well, I thought I needed it at the time!"
Okay here's an example of a positive spending thing: A couple of weekends ago, I rented a car because I had just sold mine, and since it was a zippy, super economical car, I knew that I could drive up to Omaha and back on one tank of gas. Because she was small and super economical, I knew that her gas tank wasn't very big, and I would spend less than $30 filling her back up before I took her back to Avis. I also have an annual pass to the SeaLife Aquarium in KC which participates in the reciprocity program. You know what that means? I get half off the admission price at the Henry-Doorly Zoo in Omaha. I left my house a little before 7am, and drove the nearly 3 hours up to Omaha. I had a plan: Go to the zoo, feel the good feels and thoughtfulness that the animals give me, leave the zoo, hit up a Thai restaurant, and then drive back home.
I underestimated how much money I was actually going to spend at the zoo though. I got some magnets from the gift shop, I watched an IMAX movie, I bought a bottle of water, and I got two round-trip tram tickets. I didn't have lunch though! Oh, and I also bought a ticket for the touch the stingrays exhibit--however, THIS one was WORTH IT!!! I didn't need to go see the movie, I didn't need the magnets, I didn't need two round trips on the tram. I had budgeted for just one tram ride, the stingray beach, and the water. However, I had a wonderful time. The stingray beach made me feel the most joyous I had felt in a long time. I mean I was like in paradise, and I was a total child. The bonnethead shark exhibit made me feel the same way. Watching the sharks swim literally 3 or 4 inches from my face? I can't even describe how happy that made me feel. I was happy, and though impulsive AS FUCK, I think I needed that trip in some way. I channeled my restless energy.
My other spending sprees? Here's a perfect example: I just recently purchased two exercise balls from Amazon. I thought I was going to use them WAY more than I actually do. I was going to sit on the exercise ball at work all the time, and roll around on the other one at home like my brother did when he was a kid (it's quite fun actually). It was an impulse buy, and I haven't used them enough to justify the nearly $40 that I spent on them.
Another example: Plants. I buy plants, mostly in the fall and winter. I need some green life around me, and think that I need to take care of a thing even though I already have a cat and two guinea pigs that do take up a lot of my time. I'm sitting at work right now looking at the one plant that is definitely dead, and the other two that are on their way out. Tillandsias have been my weakness. Y'all, I have spent an absurd amount of money in the last 3 years on Tillandsias (air plants). When I think about it, I'm actually really, really embarrassed because I have nothing to show for it at all. Nothing. I have killed most of my investments, and I have decorative pieces just sitting in boxes because I was going to decorate my whole house with them. It never happened. Tillandsias are an instant gratification thing. I'm so happy when I press that order button, I love unboxing them when they arrive, and I LOVE to set up the displays to show them off. But once I'm done? I am angry with myself for spending that money for...plants that I will eventually kill.

I feel shame right now. I don't know how to take the shame away. I feel like a loser. I know I'm sabotaging myself, but why? Why would I do this to myself? Because looking inward at those feelings is going to hurt. A lot. I don't want to hurt anymore than I already am. I just don't want to deal with them right now. Here I thought I was finally getting somewhere, and I'm crashing again. But to get through this, I have to sit with my feelings, and process. Which scares the shit out of me. Is this a constant life process? Checking in with yourself? I think it is. I don't want to spend my life avoiding this process though because it makes things much, much worse.

Help. I need things to counter the shame.