(Okay so I got the idea for the title of this blog entry from another blogger who wrote a post called "Sex. Is. Bad." My thanks to you Carrie!) Here's the link :
Click here to read her blog post.
Now - to my post!!
A friend of mine recently said something like, "... Trusting in your emotions as your only guide is not the way to live a balanced life."
I'm glad he said "only guide." I trust in my emotions and my instincts often, because often they are the only things that tell me when something doesn't "feel right."
The church has done a disservice to its members in telling them that emotions are suspect. Many of us have cut off feelings like anger, frustration, sadness, or embarrassment because we've been taught the common Christian myth: Emotions. Are. Bad. But that was never a teaching of the originator of the Church: Jesus! His life was one lived in the fullness of emotion: happiness, joy, sadness, anger, frustration, love ... with no apologies. He felt what He felt WHEN He felt it.
The suspicion surrounding emotion is not a Christian construct, even though the modern church culture has adopted it. In fact, it was the ancient Greeks who thought this one up. A group called the Stoics, to be exact. Socrates and Plato as well attacked the emotions as they saw them as the seat of all evil. What they saw was "self-will run riot" as a book I read once puts it.
I've heard so many people deny their feelings (even deny their circumstances or say they are healed while their body is wracked with pain) and call it "speaking in faith." Sorry, but this is not "speaking in faith." This is "speaking in denial." It is far from virtuous; it is insanity. The reason for this is that once you cut off one emotion, your psyche doesn't discriminate. Eventually, it prevents you from experiencing even the good stuff: happiness, joy, love, tenderness, compassion.
The admission that one is angry, sad, worried, or whatever is not bad. It is when we push feelings down inside of us, deny their existence and pretend we aren't having them, that they find another way to surface. Like physical pain for example: ulcers, high blood pressure, migraines, irritable bowel, possibly even chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia. These have all been associated with high levels of stress. Medical doctors agree that the worst kind of stress is not necessarily that which comes about as a result of circumstances, but as a result of suppressed and/or prolonged emotion.
I've said this before. Emotions. Are. NOT. Bad. Emotions are transient states intended to alert us to something going on in our spirits, something that needs attention. Here's an example. So I'm tensing up, and my hands are clenching and unclenching. I'm pacing. My breathing is faster; my heart rate is up. I check inside and guess what: I'm worried. That's not the time for me to start quoting scripture, though it might come later. That's my first warning sign to look for what's causing it. WHY am I worried? what's behind this? it doesn't take long for me to realize that this particular time, I'm slipping into the mindset of wanting to control the actions of someone else or fix the other person's problems instead of letting go. At the root of my worry is usually my just not trusting that God will do what is best (in other words, I know what's best - God, You're not doing it right!) It is that belief that needs to be addressed... and when it is, the emotion will pass - having served its purpose.
Anger is another one. Christians tend to jump on their anger like a hen on a June bug. Can't have that - gotta forgive !! It's been my experience that Christians want to "forgive and forget" too quickly. As a result - we settle for counterfeits, like "making excuses" (which in essence is saying that what the person did wasn't really bad - which is NOT forgiveness) or "living in denial" (which is saying, "I don't feel what I feel.")
An author I read frequently says this: "Yes, we are striving for forgiveness, but we still want to feel, listen to, and stay with our feelings until it is time to release them appropriately... God is not telling us to not feel; it's our dysfunctional systems. ... We also need to be careful of how we use affirmations; discounting our emotions won't make feelings go away. If we're angry, it's okay to have that feeling. That's part of how we get and stay healthy." (Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go ... © 1990 Hazelden)
Forgiveness is the end result of a process that might take many months, especially if the wrong being forgiven goes very deep or took place over a long period of time. It's not one of those "God-zap" things, although the only source of power for forgiveness comes from God. It's a process which consists of all kinds of things. I have described the process in a book I wrote, a book which is going through what I might call "beta-testing" at this point. (grin)
Some of you know my story of recovery from physical, verbal, emotional, and sexual abuse. I'm still recovering; there are many layers to the kind of self-loathing and shame that accompany this kind of betrayal. But now I can talk about it, having completely forgiven my abusers. I have found the freedom that is there in forgiveness. However, in order to get to that point, I had to experience the kinds of emotions I thought I was never allowed to express ... ever.
It was an eye-opener to me that I was permitted and actually even encouraged by God to "be angry." What a revelation that was!
If the action was wrong ... I was supposed to admit that it was wrong, to admit that I was wronged - and to be angry. Wow. In fact, until I WAS angry, I couldn't get past that hurdle to get to the forgiveness part of the equation. It was actually a crucial part of my healing from those hurts ... to let myself feel the hurt. Once I did, I could move on to look at all the areas that were affected, all the beliefs about myself that were affected, all the self-protective, manipulative behaviors I learned to cope with those suppressed feelings. I asked Him to take those beliefs, and countered them with new ones from Him (repeated over and over until that wounded part of me "got" it).
That's when I could finally allow God to free me of the shame of my past and give me compassion for my abusers; He literally taught me, step by step, how to forgive - and every single time it is the very same process, whether it takes hours or months. That's worth all the concentrated effort it took to get there - effort to continually ask for His strength and His grace, for His love and His power, because I had tried to do it on my own and you know what? It's true what He said. "Without Me, you can do nothing."
Click here to read her blog post.
Now - to my post!!
A friend of mine recently said something like, "... Trusting in your emotions as your only guide is not the way to live a balanced life."
I'm glad he said "only guide." I trust in my emotions and my instincts often, because often they are the only things that tell me when something doesn't "feel right."
The church has done a disservice to its members in telling them that emotions are suspect. Many of us have cut off feelings like anger, frustration, sadness, or embarrassment because we've been taught the common Christian myth: Emotions. Are. Bad. But that was never a teaching of the originator of the Church: Jesus! His life was one lived in the fullness of emotion: happiness, joy, sadness, anger, frustration, love ... with no apologies. He felt what He felt WHEN He felt it.
The suspicion surrounding emotion is not a Christian construct, even though the modern church culture has adopted it. In fact, it was the ancient Greeks who thought this one up. A group called the Stoics, to be exact. Socrates and Plato as well attacked the emotions as they saw them as the seat of all evil. What they saw was "self-will run riot" as a book I read once puts it.
The admission that one is angry, sad, worried, or whatever is not bad. It is when we push feelings down inside of us, deny their existence and pretend we aren't having them, that they find another way to surface. Like physical pain for example: ulcers, high blood pressure, migraines, irritable bowel, possibly even chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia. These have all been associated with high levels of stress. Medical doctors agree that the worst kind of stress is not necessarily that which comes about as a result of circumstances, but as a result of suppressed and/or prolonged emotion.
I've said this before. Emotions. Are. NOT. Bad. Emotions are transient states intended to alert us to something going on in our spirits, something that needs attention. Here's an example. So I'm tensing up, and my hands are clenching and unclenching. I'm pacing. My breathing is faster; my heart rate is up. I check inside and guess what: I'm worried. That's not the time for me to start quoting scripture, though it might come later. That's my first warning sign to look for what's causing it. WHY am I worried? what's behind this? it doesn't take long for me to realize that this particular time, I'm slipping into the mindset of wanting to control the actions of someone else or fix the other person's problems instead of letting go. At the root of my worry is usually my just not trusting that God will do what is best (in other words, I know what's best - God, You're not doing it right!) It is that belief that needs to be addressed... and when it is, the emotion will pass - having served its purpose.
Anger is another one. Christians tend to jump on their anger like a hen on a June bug. Can't have that - gotta forgive !! It's been my experience that Christians want to "forgive and forget" too quickly. As a result - we settle for counterfeits, like "making excuses" (which in essence is saying that what the person did wasn't really bad - which is NOT forgiveness) or "living in denial" (which is saying, "I don't feel what I feel.")
An author I read frequently says this: "Yes, we are striving for forgiveness, but we still want to feel, listen to, and stay with our feelings until it is time to release them appropriately... God is not telling us to not feel; it's our dysfunctional systems. ... We also need to be careful of how we use affirmations; discounting our emotions won't make feelings go away. If we're angry, it's okay to have that feeling. That's part of how we get and stay healthy." (Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go ... © 1990 Hazelden)
Forgiveness is the end result of a process that might take many months, especially if the wrong being forgiven goes very deep or took place over a long period of time. It's not one of those "God-zap" things, although the only source of power for forgiveness comes from God. It's a process which consists of all kinds of things. I have described the process in a book I wrote, a book which is going through what I might call "beta-testing" at this point. (grin)
Some of you know my story of recovery from physical, verbal, emotional, and sexual abuse. I'm still recovering; there are many layers to the kind of self-loathing and shame that accompany this kind of betrayal. But now I can talk about it, having completely forgiven my abusers. I have found the freedom that is there in forgiveness. However, in order to get to that point, I had to experience the kinds of emotions I thought I was never allowed to express ... ever.
It was an eye-opener to me that I was permitted and actually even encouraged by God to "be angry." What a revelation that was!
If the action was wrong ... I was supposed to admit that it was wrong, to admit that I was wronged - and to be angry. Wow. In fact, until I WAS angry, I couldn't get past that hurdle to get to the forgiveness part of the equation. It was actually a crucial part of my healing from those hurts ... to let myself feel the hurt. Once I did, I could move on to look at all the areas that were affected, all the beliefs about myself that were affected, all the self-protective, manipulative behaviors I learned to cope with those suppressed feelings. I asked Him to take those beliefs, and countered them with new ones from Him (repeated over and over until that wounded part of me "got" it).
That's when I could finally allow God to free me of the shame of my past and give me compassion for my abusers; He literally taught me, step by step, how to forgive - and every single time it is the very same process, whether it takes hours or months. That's worth all the concentrated effort it took to get there - effort to continually ask for His strength and His grace, for His love and His power, because I had tried to do it on my own and you know what? It's true what He said. "Without Me, you can do nothing."
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