My Love/Hate Relationship with Emotions

Being a musician, emotions and feelings are a big part of my life.  Music would be rather bland and pointless if we didn't possess emotions.  I can't tell you how pumped I get in a pile up on a catchy sing-along at a local show.  How great does it feel when you hear a song that can relate to you?  Emotions are such an awesome gift that God has sprinkled into our lives.  Without them we would just be robots.  They allow us to enjoy life and can sometime help us make difficult decisions.  Have you ever found yourself about to make a poor decision and changed your mind because you felt guilty?  I know I have.

Just like all the other blessings God has graciously given us, emotions can be used in ways unintended.  Emotions are great to consider when making difficult decisions, but it seems as if in modern times they have become the sole factor in our decision making process.  Do you think such a vast amount of Americans would suffer from such terrible credit card debt if decisions were based on wise reason rather than rampant emotions?

In order to understand the point I'm making, you need to properly understand emotions (an understanding that most of America lacks).  Emotions are not feelings that just exist with no control or reason, rather emotions are a byproduct of our subconscious.  People tend to think that the emotions that they feel are directly related to their respective circumstances.  This is false.  As we go through life, everything we experience is first filtered through our subconscious and then we are filled with the emotion that our subconscious is trained to respond with.

I'll give you an example.  My father is a musician and my mother is a colored pencil artist (check out her AMAZING work at anitaorsini.blogspot.com!) who grew up in an era filled with self discovery and rebellion of the social norm.  So as I grew up I was always taught to be myself and not care what people thought.  I was enrolled in a private Christian school from Pre-K through 12th grade.  This school had more rules than you could possibly image.  No long hair, no piercing, no facial hair, no tattoos, no flip flops, tuck your shirt in... you get the idea.  So this atmosphere was obviously completely contrary to that which I was raised in.  Therefore, I felt anger towards my school and rebelled by finding any loophole I could in the rules.  Now whenever I am in any atmosphere of legalism, I feel anger.  I feel as if I'm being controlled, changed and dehumanized.  Is this always the case?  Most of the time, no.

Some of my anger may be righteous but when turned to rebellion and discord it is obviously not.  This has been an ongoing struggle in my life.  So who do I blame for my negative feelings and poor reactions?  Myself.  I can't take responsibility for others actions, only mine.  And just because I feel something doesn't make it reality.  Since my feelings are not necessarily reality than it would be foolish to make it reality without serious consideration.

In order to wisely utilize our feelings and emotions we need to learn how to control them by means of controlling our subconscious.  If we let our subconscious run wild then we let our emotions run wild leaving our entire life in chaos and discord.

Marriage: Part 2

If you haven't yet, go ahead and read Marriage: Part 1.

Now how about husbands?  A lot of men enjoy focussing on the first part of Ephesians 5:22-33 and choose ignore the huge paragraph that talks to them.  Let's be honest, it's a lot easier to point the finger and ask someone else to fix themselves rather than take responsibility for yourself.

It starts off by telling husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.  What does that mean?  Christ's entire life here on earth was dedicated to the church.  He loved those who didn't deserve love, He loved without condition, and He loved to the point of torture and death for those completely undeserving.  So as husbands, we are to mirror this type of love.  I find it difficult sometimes to love my wife when she's done something to upset me, but we are called to love unconditionally.  Unconditional love is really the only true form of love and is extremely difficult, requiring much discipline and self control.

What else was Christ to the church?  Christ was, and still is, our leader.  Wives are supposed to submit and follow us as leaders but how can they do so if we don't make ourselves leaders.  That doesn't mean to selfishly dictate and take advantage of our wives.  It means that we need to step up and utilized the tools and resources provided by our Lord to become leaders.  We need to reflect Christ in every way, especially in our marriage.

I heard on Grace FM one time, I wish I could remember who it was so that I could give proper credit, a depiction of the Biblical model of marriage.  We're met with somewhat of a paradox, man and wife are joined and become one flesh (equal) but yet the wife is to submit to the husband seemingly making this balance unequal.  In this model the wife kneels before her husband in love, respect and submission but at the same time the husband lifts up his wife in love, admiration and respect so that they can face one another eye to eye!  I found this to be so poetic and beautiful!  Please read the following from Ephesians with that model in mind, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless."

Doesn't that create such a beautiful and glorious image in your mind?!

This country's divorce rate is not the least bit surprising to me when reading through Ephesians 5.  But my question still remains unanswered, "Why get married if you're not a Christian?"  The only answers that seem to come to mind are to create a stable environment for which to raise children or to create a false sense of a commitment.  Studies do show that homes with both a mother and father produce better functioning children.  As far as commitment goes, marriage just makes for a messy legal breakup known as divorce, which isn't stopping half of America.

So I'm going to conclude this by saying, please don't get married for "tradition" or "because it feels right" or some washed up meaningless reason like that.  Put some freaking work into it and stop turning this beautiful, amazing gift that God has blessed us with into a joke.

Honesty

I'm going to diverge a little bit just to give you a little insight into myself today.

I seem to have been struck with a bout of depression and maybe a hint of anxiety.  I find that when I get depressed it's either a direct cause of something happening in my life or it comes about as though I've caught a cold, I can guess where it came from but it's all just speculation.  I find this particular case to be among the latter as well as the most frustrating.  I've been digging my mind for hours trying to find the source of these debilitating emotions that seem to have latched onto me today.  If I find the source of the problem then I can fix it right?  Sometimes this is true, but even if I can't fix it I feel slightly eased knowing where this is coming from.  

When I was faced with my appendectomy, I was so overwhelmed by the extreme pain in my abdomen.  It was a pain that I had never before experienced.  I was doing ridiculous things like hanging upside down from my bed just to try and ease this mysterious ailment.  When my worried wife and mother finally convinced me to go to the ER and we discovered the source of my agony; I was relieved even though I knew I would soon encounter my first ever surgery.  The words, "You have appendicitis," were more calming than the powerful painkillers they would soon inject intravenously.  Why is this?

It may have something to do with my Mr. Fix It mentality.  Growing up, my father would fix and build everything and much of the time I was by his side helping or watching at least.  Soon after learning how to ride a bike without training wheels, I learned how to fix the chain that I had just popped off the sprocket.  After a hurricane would hit, my dad and I would be out in the backyard replacing the fence that had just been blown over.  It is in my very nature to fix!  Fixing things is part of what, I feel at least, makes me a man.  Therefore I am digging myself deeper in this pit of depression because not only am I depressed, but I can't find the source, meaning I can't fix it which in turn makes me more depressed!  Freakin' catch 22!

I'm pretty sure I suffer from some form of chemical imbalance that can be fixed with some meds.  Now you're probably thinking, "So he tells us to go to a psychologist but he doesn't go himself?!  Hypocrite!"  Yes, I know, I know.  In my defense, my finances aren't quite stable at the moment and, unfortunately, the whole process of becoming properly medicated can be a bit financially draining.  But that is a completely separate rant that will probably be dedicated to its own post later on.  So for now I think I'll wrap this case up by saying that this is the source of a chemical imbalance that will be dealt with when my finances are stable enough to do so.  In fact, just typing this up has made me feel quite a bit better.

I think I'll conclude this with a picture of my recent antidepressants.  Nothing like taking funny Photobooth pictures with the woman of my dreams, my amazing sister in law, Chiara, and the darn coolest puppy ever, Walter: