“Any emotion, if
it is sincere, is involuntary.”
— Mark Twain (1835 – 1910)
I
met with a guy once who felt men could never learn about their emotions from
women. I immediately thought that was
crazy. It’s mainly because emotions have
nothing to do with gender. Emotions are
all about authenticity. Wherever we can
trust ourselves to a situation we can be emotionally present and demonstrate
emotional intelligence.
In
recovering from the breakdown of my first marriage, I used to think I was
getting in touch with my feminine side.
It wasn’t that at all. I was
simply broken sufficiently enough that my defences were down to the point where
authenticity was all I had left.
And
thankfully that sense for authenticity stuck.
When
you’re broken, day after day, month after month, when you’ve no longer got a
defence, but you have a faith, and with that some sense for hope, even if it’s
scant, you get used to being real. Being
inauthentic is no longer attractive. Being
emotionally false gains you nothing. You
wear your emotions externally. Courage
becomes you. You’re not afraid of tear
stains down your cheeks. You’re not put
off by a quivering chin and tear-glazed eyes.
Appearing ‘weak’ is not a deterrent.
And you begin to see the concepts referred to in the Bible as they come
alive in you. Then you realise this is
how Jesus heals us.
***
Emotion and
authenticity are inseparable. If we’re
authentic we’re at peace with our emotions, and no longer in fear of them to
suppress them, which can only cause harm.
Being authentic
is the journey through which we’re to gain emotional mastery. Just because we have command over our
emotions doesn’t mean we need to be ‘emotional’.
***
To be true, to
be real, to be authentic, is to allow the safe expression of our emotion.
Trust our
emotions and we trust God to heal us from the inside out.
And yet, we must
understand trust is an ongoing journey.
© 2016 Steve Wickham.
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