This weekend I missed the Empowered to Connect seminar,but I was seeing quotes all over FB-land. This got me to thinking about pain and what we do with it and to avoid it.
It it interesting how we are made. When I was pregnant with my first child, I had premature labor around 24 weeks. I didn't know what I was feeling. I didn't even know enough to fear the sensation and what it might mean to my unborn child. Later when I was close to delivering our third I knew exactly what I was feeling, I had a name for my pains and I sort of knew what to expect. These days when those sensations called heat flashes hit me, I have to tell myself that this feeling has a name and if I don't panic it subsides again. These "normal" feelings are very similar to the cold sweat just before a fainting episode. I fear fainting because it is not "normal" and it is evidence that something is not okay for me.
Well enough about my physical ailments, I was really thinking about heart pain-- no not heart attacks but the emotional pains that we have. We go to great lengths to avoid getting hurt that way, though sometimes we are way to young to identify our pain. We just know something is wrong. If a child stores the pain of abandonment, abuse or neglect inside his heart and does not realize that it is the source of his pain, but only knows to avoid anything that comes close to those feelings. He may grow up knowing that certain feelings bring up subconscious warning flags. "Don't go there." "Don't love that person, it it too scary." On the surface the warnings really don't make sense, but it is easier to simply avoid trusting,or loving so that his heart- his inner self- stays safe.
This lack of trust easily goes into our spiritual lives, trusting God is a huge risk, if you don't really believe you are lovable. Really why would anyone so big, good, and powerful really care about someone so small, bad and really not very lovable all around.
If a feeling can be identified ---go back to my physical ailments---that cold sweat ( heat flashes are associated with cold sweat? yeah a cold sweat is one that you get suddenly, as in "a sweat that is not caused by heat or exertion") is also the same feeling that precedes fainting, low blood sugar, or a heart attack...or a simple, old heat flash. If I can name my reason for my feeling, I can relax and realize this isn't dangerous. I think the same could be said for any number of physical pains...if you can name it, you can tame it.
"Name it to tame it" is a catch phrase that Dan Siegel uses to teach parents to help their children name a feeling. It is amazing how many feelings come out looking like anger. Anger is very helpful, it chases people away, it makes you feel powerful, and you can go off in a snit and not talk things through. If however, you look at anger and realize it is something like grief, fear, or anxiety then things get messy. Then you have to look at what you are grieving, what you fear, and what is causing your anxiety or do you?
Can't you just say " You scared me, I thought you were going to ________." There it is named and now it looks smaller.
How about? "I am sad, I didn't get to hold you when you were a little one." Oh, so sadness on someone's face looks very much like anger?
I realize there is a flip side to this. Sometimes you have a "gut feeling" that something isn't right. How to know?
QOTD: The other day I was explaining the phrase "didn't say squat" to Shekinah. I said it simply means "didn't say anything". She gave me this side-wise look and said, "You mean in Dutch?"
