Feelings are Central to Health
I did my psychology graduate studies in the late 70’s and 80’s. At that time I was taught that cognition (thinking) was central to health and emotions often got in the way of people’s healthy development. With the growth of attachment theory and neurological developments we now know that emotions are essential to us healing and maturing. This is a HUGE shift in emphasis from my early training!!!
Here are some things we know about the significance of emotions. From conception until about two years old the infant’s emotional brain is highly active. The cognitive brain does not turn on until about 2 yrs. old. What that means is our foundational neuronal networks (in the brain) are built out of body sensations and emotions. It’s important to remember that the child has limited access to words. So his or her body sense and feelings are experienced (felt) with limited ways to express this experience. What adds to this difficulty is parents are often unaware of how to step over into the child’s world of body sense and feelings, leaving the little one with little help in making sense of these experiences.
Emotions tell you what someone needs. Let me give you some examples of what I mean. Sad says, “I need comfort.” Mad says, “I need to protect from injury.” Shame says, “I need acceptance or I need to hide.” Happy says, “All is well with me.” Fear says, “I need protection.” There truly is a message in our emotions. The challenge when facing another’s feelings is deciphering the message inside the emotional expression. We respond to the emotional expression reflexively and often do not know how to connect to the emotion’s message. Why? I think it’s because other’s emotions activate our emotions. Attack or withdraw are often the outcome. The message in the emotion is lost.
Lastly, our culture, like my early psychology training, steered us away from understanding our emotions. This resulted in high levels of emotional illiteracy. In other words, we lack the ability to speak the language of emotions. We all will need help in this area. You can start today by trying to identify your emotions. This may need to be done after you’ve experienced them. If you can identify the emotion then you can ask, “What did I need?” or “What was the message in my emotions?” Use this list of primary emotions to help you identify your feelings: happy, sad, mad, fear, shame, and surprise. In the next blog we’ll explore how primary emotions are covered over by secondary emotions because primary emotions make us feel vulnerable.
Houston Chronicle Exposes Sexual Abuse Among Southern Baptists
February 22, 2019Uncategorized
The Houston Chronicle reports that over 20 years, 250 people who worked or volunteered in Southern Baptist churches have been charged with sex crimes. The Chronicle goes on to say that much of this was covered up or overlooked. Here’s the link to the article, https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/investigations/article/Southern-Baptist-sexual-abuse-spreads-as-leaders-13588038.php.
Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention and Al Mahler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary have written responses to the Houston Chronicle’s article. Also the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, JD Greear, has appointed a group whose purpose is to consider how Southern Baptists at every level can take discernable action to respond swiftly and compassionately to incidents of abuse, as well as to foster safe environments within churches and institutions.
I appreciate the above mentioned leaders responses to the evil we Southern Baptist have allowed in our midst. I’m greatly saddened that it took so long for us to listen to the ones abused by those who worked or volunteered at our churches. In 2007, Wade Burleson, pastor and twice president of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, recommended the creation of a database to track sexually abusive ministers. The Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention eventually denied Burleson’s motion, stating that it would be impossible to ensure that all convicted sexual predators who ever had a connection with a Baptist church would be included in such a database.
I am greatly saddened and angered at how our leadership ignored the cries of the abused and wounded. It’s absolutely WRONG! UNACCEPTABLE! DEPLORABLE! I don’t have enough strong language to voice my protest!
As a licensed therapist I help the ones abused and misused by others. I am confronted regularly with their open wounds and broken hearts. The very ones that were to protect them often abused and used them (About 90% of children who are victims of sexual abuse know their abuser. Only 10% of sexually abused children are abused by a stranger. Approximately 30% of children who are sexually abused are abused by family members.) http://www.d2l.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/all_statistics_20150619.pdf
My heart grieves…hurts for these precious ones.
As disciples of Jesus we are to bring ALL evil to the light of His presence. Beginning with that which is in us and then that which is in others. We cannot stand by while others are hurt and used, especially not “little ones” (Matthew 18). And God forbid that we turn a blind eye to any form of abuse, especially child abuse!
Report abuse to the authorities. First the leaders of the church then the local authorities. Sexual abuse, as all other abuses, are 100% WRONG. God did not design us to be abused and hurt by another! NEVER! The number for the National Child Abuse Hotline is 800-422-4453. Put this number in your phone so you have it as needed. The NCA can connect you will local authorities who are to step in and aid the hurt child. PLEASE report!
Ups and Downs – Part 2
How did it go reading the Psalms and noticing the Psalmist’s “ups and downs?” Were you able to practice accepting your emotional state? How about being able to practice self-compassion?
In this blog I want to look at how we neurologically develop a specific type of “window of tolerance” and what we can do to expand it so we are not so easily emotionally dysregulated. Let’s begin with the neurobiology of an infant.
Infants do no have the neurological development to regulate their own emotions. If you’re not sure about this just hang out with some infants. Their “ups and downs” are extreme! (I believe the infant’s extreme emotional expression are because the he thinks he may not survive.). They easily go from calmly cooing to a crying meltdown in a matter of seconds. The infants emotional brain is online at birth, maybe even in utero. Their cognitive brain does not turn on until the end of their second year. What this means is the infant and the young chid do not have regulators for their emotions.
So how does the child regulate emotions? The parents are the child’s emotional thermostat. For instance mom can hold the crying infant close and speak softly to him. Often this closeness is enough for the baby to begin to calm and quieten. As this comforting is repeated hundreds of times throughout childhood, the child ever so slowly learns to regulate her own emotions.
If a child does not get a “good enough” amount of emotional comforting and soothing she compensates by some less effective strategy. She may: learn to not depend on others, learn to desperately cling to others, or vacillate between not depending on others and being clingy. Over time these practices become habited and take on a permanent role in her personality.
As an adult your emotional “window of tolerance” was set by the way your parents related to you. This “window of tolerance,” that you learned with your parents, is now a neurological network in your brain. Think of this way, you plug into this young neurological network when you get triggered as an adult and move outside the “window of tolerance” you learned as a child. This idea explains why you can be in an “adult state of mind,” get tapped and shift to a “child state of mind,” that’s characterized by extreme emotion.
Can you see how important self-compassion is when you realize you have plugged into an neurological “child state”? Self-compassion gives you the comfort and soothing that your brain never got as a child. It is also critical that you develop relationships that comfort and soothe. Remember we get hurt in relationships (parents) and we can heal in relationships (adult connections).
Practice. I want to encourage you to keep practicing “self-compassion.” Recall how you treat a good friend that is hurting and treat yourself that way. I have provided the following 3 statements that you can practice when having painful emotions or circumstances.
“May I be kind to myself in this moment.”
“May I hold my pain with tenderness.”
“May I be gentle and understanding with myself.”
These statements come from author Kristin Neff and her writings and research on on self-compassion. Her website is https://self-compassion.org/category/exercises/.
Ups and Downs – Part 1
Take a stroll through the Psalms and you will get a profound experience of emotional “ups and downs”. There are Psalms that end with the writer in an emotional low place. Other Psalms reveal the author starting our in a “down” place but by the end of Psalm he has moved to a really good emotional place. The Psalmist is honest about his thinking and emotions. He seems to fully accept the emotional “ups and downs” of his life.
We are no different than the writer of Psalms when it comes to experiencing emotional “ups and downs.” Personally, I can dip up and down emotionally through out the day. I’m assuming you have experienced this as well.
The mental illness recovery journey requires we travel the path of “ups and downs”. For many of us our “ups and downs” can be more intense and severe than a person who does not deal with mental illness. All of us have an emotional “window of tolerance”. Think of this as the range of your emotions. There is a point when emotions become painful, all-consuming and intolerable. This is called being outside your “window of tolerance.”
If one goes above the “window of tolerance” you get intense anxiety and/or panic attacks. On the other hand if you goes to low you’ll encounter depression and despair. It may be helpful to read back through the Psalms and notice how the Psalmist navigates in and out of his emotional “window of tolerance.”
Here are a couple of practices that have helped me with my “ups and downs.” I’ve learned to accept my emotional state whether “up or down.” Early in my mental health journey I would “should” all over my ‘self,” like “I shouldn’t be feeling this!” or “Good Christians shouldn’t be having this kind of experience!” The “shoulding” only made matters worse for me. I gradually learned to accept that I really was in the throes of painful emotions.
Also I learned to practice self-compassion during these times. At first this was a radical idea for me because I had learned at home and church to ignore my self or be punitive toward my self. A place to begin is to speak kindly to your self, like you would to a friend that is hurting. It may sound like this, “This really is hard right now. The anxiety is really high. It’s OK to experience this. I’ll spend extra time tending me today.” This may take some practice because often we have learned to be vindictive with our selves.
In the next blog we’ll continue investigating the path of emotional “ups and downs.”
You Deserve to Get Better!
Mental illness can wear you down and exhaust you. I recall how fatigued I got because of depression and anxiety. Mornings were the toughest for me. When you get tired enough it begins to mess with your thinking about yourself, others and God.
A depressed and anxious brain produces some awfully distorted thinking. It’s often experienced as if one has no control of one’s thoughts, as if the thoughts have a life of their own. I knew my thinking was distorted but I could not stop it. Some friends tried to assist me by encouraging me to change my thinking. They had no idea that my emotional brain was over-riding my cognitive brain and I was unable to benefit from their advice.
If you are a family-member or friend of someone who is in the grips of clinical depression and anxiety, simple directions are not always helpful. That’s because the person cannot make use of your help due to the fact of an overly stimulated emotional brain. Counseling and/or medication may be required to help with this. Your doctor can help you with this decision.
The highly activated emotional brain makes it very difficult to see the self, others or God accurately. Many times the thoughts about the self can turn negative. Like “I’m no good”, “I’m just a worthless person” or “My life will never get better”. These type of thoughts can velcro themselves to a person’s brain. You will need patience to help your family member or friend with this.
I believe you “deserve to get help, to get better”. Your mind may say, “NO WAY!, You don’t know how horrible and useless I am!” I hear you but I still believe you deserve to get help. Try to hold my words in your mind, even for an short time.
Pursue any and all forms of help available to you: family, friends, mentors, pastors, counselors, physicians and any other source that can help. God has created you for a life that is difficult to see right now. Attempt to trust reliable-other’s view of life. It’s like borrowing their view and faith for a while. I will partner you in learning to believe “You do deserve to get better!”