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Emotionally Unhealthy Men.

During the day of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he SUFFERED...(Hebrews 5:7-8). 

Peter Scazzero in his workbook, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, says, "Loss is a place where self-knowledge and powerful transformation can happen-if we have the courage to participate fully in the process." The capacity to engage (well) our personal grief and losses is almost a fairytale notion. When was the last time someone modeled for you the ability to emotionally grieve well their pain, loss, or suffering? 

Isn't it true for many of us?  That we have a tendancy to escape into work, entertainment, shpping, alcohol, food, busyness, sex, unhealthy relational attachments, people pleasing, medications, and even unhealthy volunteerism in church to deal with any kind of grief, pain, suffering or loss in our lives.  Anything we can do to escape...or run...hide...or deny the fact that we are hurting. When loss enters our life we love to begin the medicating process of numbing the pain.

Is it normal to avoid year after year the difficulties of our pain and losses of life?  Yes! But, is it healthy? No! Jesus' continually offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to God in hte midst of suffering.The ancient Hebrews used to express thier losses, pain (laments) by tearing their cloths and utilizing sackclothe and ashes. 

What has happen to all the REAL MEN?  Real men don't show emotion! Real men don't cry! Real men don't...and the list goes on. I beleive Hollywood has shaped what a man is suppose to be more than the scriptures has for many men who follow Christ. Men are suppose to be strong, steadfast, an unemotional king. However, the end result of such TOUGH MAN spiirtuality, is a generation of men that have a high probability of becoming: emotional infants, abusive (emotionally, spiritually, or physically), internally hostile, continually live in denial, continually blaming (others, themselves, or God), distracted, medicated (pills, alcholol, or drugs), addicted to porn/sex. Why? Because many men havn't been taught how to EMBRACE the losses, pain, suffering and hurt in their lives from a truly masculine (biblical) approcah. 

The Hope: Experiencing loss and pain confronts us with our humainty. However, one of the central messages of Christ is that through suffering and death brings resurrection and new life. The model and biblical teaching is that we must deal honestly, authetically, and prayerfully with our hurt, pain, and losses (no matter the confsuing and painful emotions that come with dealing with it head on). God has the pontial to enlarge our heart, mind, and soul thrugh our pain, loss, and grief...this is our faith, this is our hope! 

Great Questions for Reflection:

1. In what ways is God bringing you to your knees through grief, pain, and loss in your life? 
2. What might it mean for you to enter the painful reality of your losses rather than avoiding them?
3. In what ways are you tempted to spin or cover over our losses and miss God's deeper work in your interior?
4. Are there any losses you have not yet embraced where new life is still waiting to be birthed? 

Fight the Power!

Most of us understand what it is like to feel the pressure from the expectations of others. Resisting the temptation to live your life according to what other people think of us is a life-long battle. Also, resisting the temptation to become what others want us to be is a life-long battle.

How many of us are living a life that is not the one God intended you to live? Living a life that submits to the unhealthy expectations of others can be crushing, and feel painfully exhausting. Instead of confronting the people who are imposing those unhealthy expectations on us, we relent, and submit to them. Why? Because heaven forbid, we don't want to disappoint and offend. We're addicted to being liked, we want to please, and the core of our self-identity ends up fading away.

How many of us are becoming something others want us to be, Instead of living out our  "true selves" in Christ?  How many of us have become a clone of someone else's unhealthy expectations? This unhealthy pattern of people pleasing shows up more than we like to admit. These unhealthy patterns show up in families, marriages, working relationships, and friendships.

When people don't know who they are, the human tendency is to become what others want us to be. The result is people get controlled, maybe even bullied to become an image of someone else's unhealthy expectations...and it eats away at the fabric of our human-spiritual identity. 

 

Great Question: What might be one specific way that you give into the expectations of others rather than be faithful to what Jesus has for you?

 

Hitting the Wall...full integration of our pain.

In The Cry of the Soul, Dan Allender explain why awareness of our feelings is so important to our relationship with God.

Ignoring our emotions is turning our back on reality. Listening to our emotions ushers us into reality. And reality is where we meet God... Emotions are the language of the soul. They are the cry that gives the heart a voice. However, we often turn a deaf ear - through emotional denial, distortion, orb disengagement. In neglecting our emotions we are false to ourselves and lose a wonderful opportunity to know God. We forget that change comes through brutal honesty and vulnerability before God.

Everyone of us at some point will HIT THE WALL on our journey in life. A place in which we feel STUCK (emotionally, spiritually, physically, and even financially). A place where we continually repeat unhealthy patterns. In return, those patterns give us the same negative, unhealthy outcomes and result...so we continually HIT THE WALL.!

There will be a season in each of our lives where we will be confronted with the brutal facts of our reality. A time in which we can't walk, run, or hide from our pain anymore. Some of us feel so tired, knocked down, beat up, and have been tottering on emotional craziness...why? Because, we've been ignoring the emotional life (what's really hurting us within).

A good starting question to ask ourselves is, "What is your pain?" And then, exploring and engaging the "why" behind that pain.

The challenge is to find integration between our emotional life  with a profound contemplative life with God.  

Quit the denial...get honest, get open, and get help! Start the journey!

Dig It: Ferris Buellerology

 

 

During this year's Super Bowl, Honda introduced it's new commercial ad with actor, Matthew Broderick as the lead. Broderick, is playing the character of Ferris Bueller in the commercial. Do you remember the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off? One of the great movies from the 80's. There is a memorable quote from the movie, which Broderick re-introduces to us in the Honda commercial, he says, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." How true that is for many of us?

That particular Ferris Bueller quote reminded me of a portion of scripture in the Bible. Luke 10:38-42, introduces us to two people: Martha, and her sister Mary. These sisters represent two approaches to the Christian life. Martha is actively, busy serving Jesus, but she is actually missing Jesus. She is caught up in the "doing" of life. Her duties and busyness have overwhelmed her and scuked dry her inner-peace. Life was moving so fast for Martha that she was missing what was really helpful and important to her soul. Martha was the ipedimy of the statement,"If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

Mary, on the other hand, stops, looks around, and "finds" it. She finds a rhythm of tranquility and peace as she sits and listens at the feet of her beloved Jesus. Mary is not running around doing spirituality, she is "being" with Jesus and finds a unique intimacy with God that feeds her soul.

Ferris was right, "If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." Finding God throughout our day and being conscious of Him does wonders to our heart, mind, and soul! Lord, help me NOT to miss You! Help me redefine what is important. 

What things are continually "worrying" and "upsetting" you in your life right now? What things preoccupy you from sitting quietly and meditating quietly?

"As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one.t Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." (Luke 10:38-42 NIV)

The Real You

Sometimes have you ever wondered if anyone ever notices us?  Since childhood, many of us have learned to hide who we really are. You become afraid and uncertain to show people the real YOU inside.Why? For some of us, we've never really had someone take tthe time to encourage, nurture, and empower the heart and soul of our being. The result is that we end up having feelings of chronc loneliness.  We end up keeping to oursleves, never sharing real emotionas, and it becomes hard to open up to others and to God with our broken and desperate hearts. So we end up bringing to the world our "false self" an impostor of who God really created us to be.

A New Paradigm: Start taking the steps to emotional healthy spirituality. Get on the road to healing. One of my deepest desires is to see people become emotionally healthy/spiritual leaders. It's takes time and hard work to integrate real emotional health into our spiritual life. But it's possible. The rewards are enormous.

Some of us are at a place where we are wrestling with our belief about God's goodness. I know many of us don't want to face the atrocities of our pasts. But one good thing to know as you contemplate starting this new journey is this...YOUR NOT ALONE. 

The Strings of People-Pleasing

People-please-rs “want everyone around them to be happy and they will do whatever is asked of them to” keep it that way, according to Susan Newman, Ph.D. 

The Apostle Paul dealt with the challenge of becoming a people-pleaser, he said, "For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ." 

The challenge to shed our need to "people please" will be a catalyst for many of us, in the pursuit of finding our "true selves." Finding our true selves strikes at the core of true spirituality. Many of us have no idea who we really are, and in return feel very "un-spiritual," because we have spent our lives trying to please others.  

People pleasing is exhausting! It can feel crushing at times! We spend our lives not wanting to disappoint those around us, and in return we internally burnout.  

Anyone in leadership who engages in a life of people-pleasing will not last long emotionally or spiritually. However, it's the temptation every leader goes through at some point on the journey. When we submit to this temptation of becoming man-pleasers, we end up hallow on the inside, and not living in our own soul. 

Jesus knew what is was like to feel the pressure from the expectations of others.  In living faithfully to his true self, however, Jesus disappointed a lot of people. Jesus knew who he was, and what he was here to do in his mission. Jesus remained faithful to the Father, and not to the expectations of others.

Jesus, living in his self (taken from the book, Daily Office, by Peter Scazzero)

• He disappointed his family to the point where his mother and siblings woundered if he was out of his mind (Mark 3:21). 

• He disappointed the people he grew up with in Nazareth. When Jesus declared who he really was - the Messiah - they tried to throw him off a cliff (Luke 4:28-29).

• He disappointed his closest friends, the 12 disciples. The projected things onto him about what they wanted him to do and be. When he failed to meet their expectations they quit on him.

• He disappointed the crowds who followed him. They wanted an earthly Messiah who would feed them, fix all there problems, overthrow the Roman oppressors, work miracles, and give inspiring sermons. They walked away from him.

• He disappointed the religious leaders. 

What might be one specific way that you give in to the expectations of others rather than be faithful to what Jesus has for you? 

The search for who I really am...

There are many meaningful and deep questions in life to answer. One of those "deep" questions is this, Who is my true self? 

The pursuit to find meaning in what I do  has confused my understanding of who I really am. The pursuit of recognition, status, popularity, and success has a way of enhancing, once again, what I do...not who I am.

Confession Time: I have found that pastors, clergy, and ministers have a way of hiding their true selves. How? Through their performance of ministry. Pastors can construct an identity tthrough sermons, books, storytelling, and upfront leadership. The more pastors invest in ministry success, the more the true self becomes an impostor (Thanks Brennan Manning). You take away a pastors pulpit, counseling chair, board room chair, and he has no idea who he really is (trust me, it happens more than you think). 

For the last eight years or so, I have journeyed on the path of emotionally healthy spirituality. As I walk this new path of grace, and deal with issues of my past, I find myself becoming internally healthier and discovering who I am (the good, bad, and ugly).

Walking this path has allowed me to deal with who I really am, and deal with my issues. In return, I started to see the false-self which caused me to live in a delusion.  For example, as I find my true self, I don't live in this delusion of needing to be needed and liked by everyone. I also find myself not looking for everyone to pat me on the back, recognize me, thank me, approve me, love me, like me, be my friend, and agree with me...so refreshing to walk away from codependency! 

As Brennan Manning says, "Our false self stubbornly brings each of us to the light and truth of our own emptiness and hollowness. We cannot acknowledge the (pain) and darkness within...we have built life around achievements, success, busyness, and self-centered activities that bring gratification and praise from others...it is the nature of the false self to save us from knowing the truth of our real selves."

There are many people who refuse to be our true self with God-and others. There result is living in this kind of posture for a perid of time is dangerous.   Then we wonder why we lack intimacy with God and others...we become hallow people...searching for acceptance, approval, and love, but never finding it! 

I'm still on the journey...how about you? 

Back to Blogging!

I have served the Lord for 19 years.  I had a profound conversion in February of 1992 in a small African-America church in North Minneapolis. That is the moment God called me to stop hiding, and come openly to Him with all my dysfunction, prejudice, emotional unhealthiness, and sin.  

That moment of conversion was the start of one of my deepest realities. The reality that God was a God of grace, and is relentless in his tenderness, compassion, and mercy...and He was pursuing me, in spite of me! 

Looking back, I reflect how God has taken his time with me in the secret place (Psalm 91)...the secret place is a safe place with God.  The secret place is a place where God takes an individual and puts them on a journey of change and transformation (Rom. 8:29). God's agenda: to conform us into the image of His Son (this process lasts a lifetime). 

What is He transforming in me? 

Accepting the Brokenness and Emotional Wounds in My Human Condition: Spiritual authors conclude this is when we stop living in denial of our past hurts, and start to accept the wounded self. Through the acceptance of the wounded self is when begin the journey of emotional healthy spirituality. This is where we accept that God loves who we really are---whether we like it or not! 

Negative Self-Image: In my 20's I realized that my self-image was very low. Low self-esteem isn't something men talk about with other men (Example: "Hey man, whuz up?" "Nothing dude! How are you?" "Cool, cool...well, not really, I'm feeling pretty low in my self-esteem today"). There were times in my childhood and teenage years where I felt inferior, inadequate, and deep sense of worthlessness.  I carried those feelings of deep self-rejection into my adulthood. 

I felt I was a genus at covering up feelings of inferiority, inadequacies, and low self-esteem. The danger of having these feelings over a long period of time is that we can easily project onto God our own feelings and attitudes toward ourselves. 

Bill Pascal said, "God made man in his own image and man returned the compliment. Thus, if we feel hateful toward ourselves, we assume that God feels hateful toward us." 

My Mission: I feel it is my job to walk this earth as a WOUNDED HEALER! It is my mission to use authentic human connection to empower human development. I do this first by identifying, understanding, and connecting with my own story of pain and soul wounds.  And as God shows hope to me, heals me, and helps me carry those wounds, in return, I can be used to help others find faith, hope, and healing. 

Deitrick Bonhoeffer said, "when we dare to live as forgiven men and women, we join the wounded healers and draw closer to Jesus." The Wounded Healer implies that grace and healing are communicated through vulnerability of men and women who have been fractured and heartbroken by life (Brennan Manning). 

Learning to Love Well: Simply, accepting myself as beloved child of God.  As I'm learning to accept God's love, I'm learning to love myself. And my hope is to love others well for the rest of my life.  

 

 

My Story & The Orchard

I was asked to give my story by my good friend, Scott Hodge, pastor of The Orchard Community.  My wife and I had such a wonderful experience.  The people at The Orchard ROCK! 

I gave my story about pain and hope. The essence of my story had to do with emotionally healthy spirituality - how do we find meaning and hope in the midst of pain. 

My outline was simple:

1. What is your pain?
2. Do you want to get well? 
3. Is there hope? 

Thank you Scott, Amanda, and the people at The Orchard. 

Creative Coaching Moment: Ask Better Questions

I've been thinking a lot lately about the power in asking better questions. Meaning, learn how to ask better questions to get more effective results.

Thinking is asking and answering questions. If you want better answers from you're spouse, family, supervisor, those you lead, then learn to ask better questions.

For example, take control of your question and answering process by asking empowering questions. Don’t ask “why” question (e.g. why can’t I do this?), ask “how” questions (e.g. how can I do this?) Ask happy questions or inspiring questions.

Another example use precision and ask precisely instead of generalizing or abstracting.