I Feel Happy of Myself!

Watch this video and then read my commentary.

For more information on parenting, see Phoenix Parent Consulting.com or Post Institute.com. My commentary below is a combination of what I have learned from the author of Phoenix Parent Consulting.com, along with my own story. See another blog entry of mine for more on my story about men and emotions called Jump Starting Emotions.



Son: I feel.
Dad: Do you feel alive?
Son: I feel. I feel happy of myself.

This boy is at a crucial moment in his emotional development. It took him a few moments, but he was able to identify his feelings. He knew how to say he felt happy of himself. He could feel real endorphins or seratonine or whatever chemicals they are moving around in his body. His identification of being happy wasn't intellectual. It was connected to his body.

Right now, one of evil's main goals is to separate this boy from his feelings over the next several years. In fact, it has already begun. When he is disregulating and can't calm himself down, he will be taught to calm down by plugging into a TV. Or, when he is emotionally upset, he will learn how to calm himself by plugging into an iPhone or texting a million text messages in order to avoid the pain, sadness, anger, or joy that he feels. Food or shopping or reading books might be another option. As he gets older, he will learn how lust is an even quicker way to disconnect. He will learn how to disconnect from his feelings and his body in order to calm down, rather learn how to stay with his feelings, continue to name them, and learn how to calm down through communcation and physical contact.

The father in this video asks a great question: "How do you feel?" Furthermore, he needs to do something extremely important in more difficult situations. When his son is angry and voicing his anger or extremely sad and crying at home or in a public situation, he needs to pull him aside and ask him, "How do you feel?" Once his son answers the question, he needs to ask the follow up question, "Can you tell me what happened? Can you tell me your story?" After hearing his story, he needs to affirm his son's feelings. He also needs help his son learn to take action if an injustice was done against him or he needs to validate his son's anger or sadness of an injustice occurred and it is unable to be resolved. He needs to maintain a boundary if his son was angry over a "no" that had been given by the dad, but he still needs to affirm and identify with the sadness or anger that his son is experiencing over the "no" that he received.

Now, I know that in real life, parents aren't always able to do this in many situations. Sometimes, things are moving too quickly. However, so often, I've seen parents shame their children in public or at home because they don't know what to do with them. They either go silent, yell at their children to shut up or stop crying (thus invalidating the child's feelings), or they pacify the child by giving them what they want. Their children learn one thing: If I get disregulated and lose control of my emotions, then mom or dad or guardian won't help me to calm down through conversation and physical contact. They will yell at me or hide their face from me. Therefore, I will do the only thing I know how - I'll do what I've watched them do when they are angry or sad and - I'll go watch TV, play on my iPhone, send text messages, eat, read, and do anything to disconnect from these out of control emotions because I don't know how calm myself and mom or dad or guardian don't know how to help me.

Over the years, this boy, if his father continues to ask him how he feels and comfort him and listen to him during times of high emotion, he will learn to stay connected to his emotions and his body and he will have a better understanding of how to calm himself when he's either angry, sad, or elated. If his father stops communicating to him about his feelings and listening to his stories behind those feelings, then this boy will calm himself by disconnecting and he will enter the world as an adult male who is incapable of being a man who can connect relationally with his wife, much less connect to other men. Not only will he be disconnected from anger and sadness, but he will be disconnected from joy as well. His wife will ask him how he feels and he will say he feels "good" or "bad". The sad reality is he will speak these words from a heart that is dead to emotion. He won't be able to say "I feel happy for myself!" He won't be able to say "I feel sad" or "I feel exposed" or "I feel nervous". He will be disconnected from those endorphins or seratonine or whatever chemicals that used to run through his body during childhood and he and his wife won't know how to connect with one another. What this son will continue to look for from his parental figures is protection - those who will validate his feelings and help him to continue to name them into adulthood. Then he will be very powerful.

One final thought: Adult men who have lost connection with their emotions and their bodies are not lost. It can be a long and difficult process, but men can learn how to feel once again and become very powerful in their lives. For more information on this and my story, see my blog entry called Jump Starting Emotions.

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For more information on parenting go to Phoenix Parent Consulting.com

For more information on doing Time-In's instead of Time-Out's, see the following funny video on You-Tube. The man in the video does have credentials and his website is: Post Institute.com. He's trying to show the difference between disregulation and disobedience, and how we can often get them mixed up.

Getting Serious about Play

There is a book called "Play" by Stuart Brown, M.D. This person has done a lot of research on the importance of play in our lives. He talks about how we are wired with a need to work, play, and rest. We need all three but most of us are only good at one or two of them. We have names for the sorts of people who are only good at one of them: workaholics, thrill-seekers, and sloths. I fall under the workaholic portion.

Recently, I realized my need to play more. I'm usually afraid of people who like to play because I don't do it too well anymore. But, when I read the opening chapter to Brown's book called "Play", I realized the serious nature of play. Play is spiritually healing. It isn't an option that we have as adults. We have to play. We are designed to play. Sadly, most of us spend our entire lives working, eating, and watching movies. It's a really boring existence.

If you feel like you lost your ability to play, then this is what you gotta do. You gotta get out there and try new stuff. It sounds scary because it involves risk, but if you haven't been playing for a long time, then you probably don't even know or remember what you like to do. I think the old adage which says "I'll try anything once" is a good place to start. I mean, maybe you don't wanna drop a rock in a crack pipe and start smoking, but there's a lot of stuff out there to do that isn't going to kill you if you try it once.

For those of you who are engineers and think too much, here are the properties of play as outlined by Brown:

• Apparently purposeless (Done for its own sake)
• Voluntary
• Inherent attraction
• Freedom from Time
• Diminished consciousness of self
• Improvisational potential
• Continuation desire

For those of you who are married or dating, there's a lot of "Creative Dating" books out there that can help you get started. I think that's a great place to start. I typed it into Amazon.com and five creative dating books popped up right away. Also, double dating and group dating is a great way to get out of your shell. Just try a whole bunch of things and then tell your partner honestly which things you love, find okay, and hate. Then, see where you guys line up. It's like a Venn Diagram. You see what each of you loves separately and which things you love together.

In addition to play with others there is also personal play. For example, I collect jazz records. I've got a turntable. I'll stop at the record store downtown and sift through two dollar records for half an hour before I go home. Women, you can go out to the shoe store and decorate yourself with all sorts of nice high heels and glitter this and stylistic straps that, but I'll do my man shopping at the record store. It's my shoe shopping.

So, get serious about play. If you're lounging around on the couch all day, you might have the opposite problem and need to work, but if you're too serious about life, it's probably time to get serious about play. Don't walk down to the corner and pick up a rock from the dealer, but there's a lot of stuff you can do to play and rejuvenate your soul.

No Condemnation Turns Hatred into Sadness

There are two kinds of hatred: Others-centered hatred and self-centered hatred. In both types of hatred we have condemned ourselves and others. The other morning I woke up very sad and I had the following thought: No condemnation turns into sadness. The person who knows they aren't condemned can begin to feel anger, sadness, sorrow, and grief over loss and injustice. These losses and injustices have been imposed on by others and are also self-imposed. Sadness oozes above the surface of resentment, bitterness, and anxiety which are feelings that indicate self-condemnation. It grows stronger and more powerful as we wade through the waters of No Condemnation*.

• It is Jesus putting his hand on your shoulder and you are a prostitute.
• It is Jesus inviting you into community and you never had one.
• It is Jesus putting his hand on you and you are a leper.
• It is Jesus sticking with you for three years and maintaining boundaries you so desire.
• It is Jesus defending you from being stoned by those who condemn you.
• It is Jesus fighting for you and turning tables over and telling people to get out of your house.

When Jesus puts His hand on our shoulder and we feel the warmth of No Condemnation, the years of injustice and loss for both others and ourselves turn from resentment, bitterness, and anxiety into sadness. Sadness is very freeing, very powerful, and in sadness we feel connected to God.

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*Romans 8:1

Jump Starting Emotions

Do you suffer from a failure to feel emotions except for anxiety and resentment? The resentment could be pointed towards others or towards yourself. Well, if you do, you aren't alone. There are many many people in this world who suffer from this sort of problem. Stereotypically, men are thought most likely to be out of touch with their feelings. - unable to name them or even feel them. However, there are many women who suffer from this problem as well.

About two years ago, I identified this problem in myself. I felt dead. No feelings. A tragedy would occur and I'd feel nothing. An amazing event of love or overcoming obstacles would occur and I'd feel no joy or admiration. I remember watching 9/11 and I had no feelings about it. I knew I was supposed to feel sad, but I felt nothing. Now that is truly sad.

Once I identified the problem, I faced a bigger problem. How do I get these emotions back? I knew I had feelings when I was a child, but something turned off and I didn't even seem to know why. I started talking with other men in my church about the problem and that was at least the beginning of the process. But, still there really wasn't much progress.

About three to six months ago (I'm horrible with timeframes), I stumbled on something that helped me to jump start my emotions. Now, I'm not saying this will work for everyone, but I'm just going to tell you my story and maybe it might help you - or maybe it won't. I don't know. You'll have to tell me if you try it.

The thing which has helped me recently is watching a number of very emotional movies. Most of these movies are about black men and women overcoming huge obstacles in their lives. The themes range from suffering, to temporary moments of victory, to life-shattering horror, to resolutions of peace. I've felt sadness, admiration, respect, honor, anger, joy, triumph, and peace.

The big thing I started to notice is that I've slowly begun to feel these sorts of feelings in my own life. For example, last month, my entire class did a project that was extremely difficult to accomplish. I made it just strong enough so that a couple of them wouldn't make it. I knew all of them could accomplish the task, but I was predicting a few of them would give up. It was my way of testing to see if they could make it at the next level. Not only did all of them make it, but they wrote amazing paragraphs. Their writing was so impressive to me that I started sharing their writings with other teachers. All of the sudden, I realized that I was having feelings of being "proud" of them. I had real hormones or endorphins or seratonine or whatever all that stuff is going around in my body. It was a real feeling. I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt "proud" in more than just words. I actually felt connected to my body.

The other thing that has occurred is I've been revisiting the difficult stories of my past through things like journaling or quiet contemplation, and so forth. Many of these memories used to be laced with resentment and bitterness. Although the resentment and bitterness are real, huge buckets of sadness have begun to accompany those memories. Loss. Sadness. Etc. They have come alive. Before, the stories were dead. They had no feeling. They had no life.

Why all this emphasis on feelings anyway? The reason is that brain research is telling us more and more that fear, anxiety, and resentment block access to emotions and that emotions are necessary for higher cognitive functioning. We need our emotions to regulate ourselves and have a mental state capable of operating in the higher cognitive areas. Basically, the idea that we can be rational without use of our emotions is being disproved through a ton of research.

Just picture a child who is throwing a temper tantrum. They are totally irrational. You are the parent and you are trying to get them to calm down. If you try to engage them at a cognitive or logical level, it will never work. They are incapable of operating at that kind of level. You have to assist them in calming down, draw them close to you when they are ready, and then engage their emotions and ask them why they are so angry or sad. Once all of this occurs, then they are able to talk rationally. Before that moment, there is no rationality and they are completely disconnected.

So, let's take this to a theological level. In a biblical context, God is our father - our parent. In order to really connect with God, many of us need to recognize that we've live our lives completely disconnected from Him. We've felt dead - living with only fear and resentment, which block our access to all of our other emotions. We've lived very irrational, temper tantrum based lives that are incapable of talking with God in a rational and whole hearted way. Why? Because inside we live lives of silent temper tantrums. Some of us express these temper tantrums vocally and others hide them inside. Nevertheless, we try to connect with God in a rational way (the way of Western philosophy) but fail to see that only when we can be calmed and really feel our feelings, will we be able to commune with Him using our whole brain and whole body. Our emotions are access to higher cognition and even connection with our body and with God.

Many of us spend our entire lives lashing out against God (actively or passively) and keep arguing that He isn't showing himself or doing enough for us or for those around us. The reality is that many of us are entirely irrational and in a state of throwing a fit, failing to realize that God is right there with us. For many of us, God has been in the process of calming us over years or even decades in order to ask us how we feel. Engaging our feelings is a way in which God is drawing us near to Him, just like a human parent slowly draws their child close to them to whisper words of safety in their ear and ask about their sadness or anger. When we get to this point with God, then explosions of possibilities and depth with God abound. The grace involved is that God is right there with us the whole way through this slow process and never loses sight of what He is accomplishing, despite our tempers. His aim is to calm us and engage our emotions. I think Jesus is the perfect example of how to see this aspect of God. In the gospels, His disciples were basically throwing fits all the time, often questioning Jesus, and competing with each other. Jesus kept going with them and offering safety every step of the way. Then he died for them in order to guarantee they would be with him forever. Now that is serious passion, grace, patience, and endurance. He wants to walk every step of the way with us forever. That is a loving parent who wants to calm us - connect with our emotions - to go to greater depths of intimacy than we've ever thought possible. This is what I believe.

Here are the movies I've seen (in reverse order):

A Lesson Before Dying

Boyz N the Hood

Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story

The Express (Ernie Davis story)

Remember the Titans

Coach Carter

Finding Forrester

Anwtone Fisher

The Vernon Johns Story

Scottsboro: An American Tragedy

Freedom Song

The Rosa Parks Story

Eyes on the Prize

Freedom Riders

Freedom Writers

Dalai Lama: The South of Tibet

The Massachusetts 54th Colored Infantry

The Tuskegee Airmen

10,000 Black Men Named George