Now Boarding..

"I was an impostor and didn't know it. Like most people in Christian leadership, I worked hard at being ac omitted and loving Christian. I labored at serving people, forgiving people, humbling myself, and being joyful. The problem was that I was miserable much of the time and unable to admit this to anyone, including myself. I couldn't bring myself to believe it. My inner world was not in sync with my exterior behavior.

Exterior world = People to whom we relate and the things going on around us
Interior world = Whatever is going on inside us - represents what we feel, value, honor, esteem, love, hate, fear and believe in.

It takes work, energy, inconvenience, time, courage, solitude, and a solid understanding of the grace of God in the gospel to grow in Christlikedness."

                                                      - The Emotionally Healthy Church (Peter Scazzero)

I'm busy reading this book because my therapist, Gary, who you'll all hear about some more later said there was some good stuff in there. Of course because I'm a defiant little so-and-so who does things my own way sometimes was reading an entirely different chapter than he prescribed but it was still a really good chapter.

I am definitely in a spot where God is helping me understand this chaotic mess that is my emotions right now. What I thought of as being "emotionally mature" was really me forcing myself to be emotional flat-line without spikes and dips in the heart rate. Well, after almost 21 years I think this "maturity" has finally caught up with me. Suffice it to say for now that my exterior and interior are at war with each other and I'm stuck trying to figure out what it all means. Thank God I'm not alone and He's provided me with a super awesome counselor, doctor, mentor, and support system to help me while I'm emotionally limping around. 

This is providing me with a whole new realm of thinking. It's highly possible that I've viewed emotions  in entirely the wrong way, but it's really hard to rewire my thought patterns after so many years!

Here's what I've figured out so far: emotions are really good things. When I'm chiding myself for "being dramatic" or "unreasonable," if I think out a lot of those feelings, it turns out there have been some pretty legitimate reasons for feeling that way.

So. Off I go, embracing this roller-coaster I've avoided for so long called emotion.

All aboard!