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Emotions
Gift or Affliction? 🤔
Once upon a time there was a Little. This Little learned very early that life was unpredictable. There could be care and love or there could be yelling and crying--Little’s crying in pain. Little learned very early how to skip Emotions (feelings). As the days, months, years passed on Little became very skilled at protecting- self and quietly fitting into the surroundings in a background kind of way. Slipping into being Hidden became a kind of self-regulated place of safety. A Survival Mode skill or some might say a Knee Jerk type of Reaction.
Big slowly awoke from slumber and jumped into life with a childlike Trust and Innocence that was out of sync with Little who was cautious and fearful. Big learned about Jesus as someone who Loved us, laid His life down for us, and everything would be all right because He loved us with an everlasting love and forgave everything that was repented for and forgiven in others. Life would be just great! Never mind all the things that happened in the life of the Little half-of-Big which only Little was aware of.
On the other hand, Little learned in Catholic School to choose Jesus and go to heaven or else go to Hell, the Fiery Pit. Little didn’t want the Fiery Pit so Little chose Jesus as a kind of fire insurance. The early training that Little received kept her quite watchful, for Little Jesus was a Transactional kind of interaction. Just like the human interactions that taught Little to choose hope that there really was a Heaven instead of what she endured. Little didn’t know there was more to Jesus than Fiery Pit insurance.
As Big awoke more and more, Little slipped deep into Hiding, into the place called Subconscious Beliefs. Big became unaware of Little even though Little was always present in the background quietly guiding with Subconscious Beliefs. Big operated in the everyday world also known as Consciousness or Awareness. Their different experiences and beliefs had a kind of Push-Me Pull-You effect upon their life.
As you can see, Emotions: Gift or Affliction is all about perspective. Whose lens do we look through? 🤔
Little’s?
Big’s?
The King’s?
In all honesty if someone asked me this question about seven years ago--Emotions are an Affliction would have been my answer.
Why? Well my Little and my Big are just like the one in the story above. It has been a process to shift my focus to see the King’s view. Looked at through the Eyes 👀 of typically available help (counseling, therapy, self-help books)--memories were a needed foundation to begin to help me process Emotions which I continued to handle Little’s way—stuffing them—as a Big. The result? My Big had no idea she had any Emotions until the effort to be Calm and Collected wasn’t enough to keep the Anger from erupting like a volcano 🌋. Big didn’t truly experience emotions other than Anger or Numbness. Big didn’t know that stuffing anger resulted in disconnecting all emotions. Emotions are meant to be filtered, sorted, and sifted—Big didn’t know what she didn’t know.
My answer now? Emotions are a gift! A complete one hundred and eighty degree turn. More in my next writing. 😂🤣😂