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
2 comments:
wow I really like what you've written about emotions. I used to be unable to explain or really experience a full range of emotions too, but God is doing a new thing. I'm glad that, even though I cry more because of things like the famine in Somalia, I am also more hopeful. Its amazing how God cares about us being able to feel, and how important it is to Him that we feel His love and the emotions He's put in us.
Thanks for sharing Erin. I appreciate your comment.
Post a Comment