there's no crying in baseball...



there's no crying in baseball or in any other facet of your life, that's if you're a man, right? why the heck is this the case in our society today? it saddens me to see the results of this mentality in relationships.

so, from my experience this is what happens. family Doe is comprised of man and woman. x event happens. woman is hurt. woman expresses it. man is hurt as well. man doesn't know how to express his pain. consequently, man shuts down. woman thinks man doesn't care. woman is hurt by man. woman pursues man. man withdraws. women thinks man doesn't care. :(

contrary to my gender's belief about emotions, sometimes the way to resolve emotionally potent experiences is just to feel the emotion. i'm not saying you let the emotions override other facets of your life, but acknowledging the emotion and allowing yourself to feel it is how you "fix" them.

i know that for a lot of men emotions are scary. in a lot of cases emotions make them question how well they fulfill their roles as provider, protector and so forth. thus, it becomes easier to ignore your feelings and those of others. this just isn't the way to handle them. it will push people away.

i hate it when people do this, but maybe if you are reading this you can direct me to the proper source. i feel like i've heard from a seventy that the greatest thing Joseph Smith learned from the first vision wasn't that God had a body or that the traditional godhead doctrine was false, but that God loves and continues to love His children on earth. i like this. i like it because it conveys the idea that God continues to be love and to emanate love. and to me, that makes all the difference in my life.

i close by saying quoting President Monson (Finding Joy in the Journey, Oct 2008).

"Stresses in our lives come regardless of our circumstances. We must deal with them the best we can. But we should not let them get in the way of what is most important—and what is most important almost always involves the people around us. Often we assume that they must know how much we love them. But we should never assume; we should let them know. Wrote William Shakespeare, “They do not love that do not show their love.”3 We will never regret the kind words spoken or the affection shown. Rather, our regrets will come if such things are omitted from our relationships with those who mean the most to us.

Despite the changes which come into our lives and with gratitude in our hearts, may we fill our days—as much as we can—with those things which matter most. May we cherish those we hold dear and express our love to them in word and in deed."

I add that we ought to love those around us enough to share with them all of our feelings

Conflicting Messages

I need to write this. Emotionally healthy people can feel opposite emotions at the same time. Angry and hurt, sad and happy, love and hate. This may or may not be a shocker to you. If it is something new to you, I'd invite you to spend time thinking about it. Think about the last time you were angry, think about why you were. I'd be willing to bet it was because someone meaningful to you did something that caused you pain, which lead to being hurt.

I've been thinking about how this applies to our spiritual growth. We are to become like God. We know that God is love. I can't help but think about the Savior on the cross and in the Garden of Gethsemane. We know that He experienced excruciating psychological and emotional pain that caused great hurt. However, it was His love for us that helped Him supersede His circumstances.

I think it is very much the same for us. We all experience pain in our lives. People who should not hurt us, hurt us. People who should be there for us, neglect us. People who should remember us, forget us. People who should be honest to us, lie to us. People who should respect us, disrespect us. It is impossible to catalog the numerous amounts of ways that we can be hurt by those whom ought to know better.

Most likely if this pain comes from our spouses, siblings, parents, friends and children, the pain is hard to escape. Much of our deep soul causing pains never really leave us. For many, this pain is too much to bare. Physical distance, as much as psychological distance is created to numb the pain, but it still resides in our souls.

What are we to do then? Do as the Savior, let His love supersede our pain. Loving those whom have wronged us is perhaps the most difficult thing to do. But it is the only thing that lifts us above the depths of despair and self-loathing.

I think its interesting that the Savior still has marks in His hands and feet. The pain He experienced is still a part of Him. We do not necessarily need to suppress our feelings of hurt or deny them. It's okay to be angry, sad, mad and hurt. Drawing closer to the Savior will allow us grow in love, and those feelings will no longer be at the forefront of our minds.

DTR

Part of a talk I gave in church.

In a general sense, our journey here on earth serves as an archetype for our relationship with God. Each one of us is born on earth to an earthly family in a state of complete dependency as a baby. We are completely dependent upon others for our physical, mental and spiritual welfare. This state of utter dependence highlights our own capacities, or lack thereof, to survive. Luckily for us however, we have people in our lives that naturally love us, not because we love them, but because we are their children. As children we owe everything to these people, they have given us life, they sustain our lives, we look to them for knowledge, we go to them for solace in times of need. They give us a sense of belonging and understanding of who we are.

Over the course of time we begin to be more autonomous, for our earthly parents do not want us to be utterly dependent upon them. For example we learn how to crawl and walk. Just as our physical capacities develop, so do our spiritual and mental. We learn that we are our own entity, thus we have our own thoughts, we learn how to articulate these thoughts via speaking, we develop desires, dreams, and wants. Our parents largely influence these thoughts and help us develop them so that they can flourish.

Then we arrive at a point that I believe many of us are at now. We are emerging adults. It is at this time our relationships with our parents are dramatically changing. We are becoming interdependent, as opposed to dependent or co-dependent in every way possible: psychologically, emotionally, spiritually and intellectually. We no longer see them as we did as children. They have taught us the principles and doctrines of life, and how to live and flourish and we are applying them in our lives according to our circumstances. Hopefully the dynamics of the relationships between us and our parents have changed as well. The idea of love is now reciprocal. Our parents love us and we love them in return. We have each made the conscious decision to love and to do things for one another. Although we maintain respect and reverence for our parents, for the mere fact that they are our parents, we also begin to see them as equals or friends.

Now speaking in regards to our spiritual lives. We are born into this world having a veil over our eyes and understanding of who we are and who God is. Thankfully for us we have someone who fills the role of parent, much like our earthly parents, but in a perfect manner. In 1 John 4:19 we learn that He loves us, but not because we loved Him first. In Acts 17:28 we learn that we are God’s children. Over the course of time we develop spiritual legs to move about, we develop spiritual eyes to see and to discern the things God sees, we develop ears to listen the whisperings of the Holy Ghost, we develop the capacity to feel and to recognize the Holy Ghost, we develop spiritual thoughts and desires.

I want to be careful here. I am not suggesting that our relationship with Heavenly Father exactly mirrors that of ours with our earthly parents. He is our God. We will always be dependent of His love and mercy. However, I believe there are some similarities. They are highlighted by a scripture in John 15: 13-15 “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard my Father I have made known unto you.”

I love this scripture, it has made all the difference in my relationship with Heavenly Father. I suspect, because of the nature of our life situations, that we are at a point in our lives where we are making pivotal decisions in our relationships with Heavenly Father. For us, especially those that are endowed, He has made known unto us the ordinances, principles and doctrines that we need to know in order to return to His presence. According to the scripture in John, we are no longer his servants, but His friends. And we are in the very act of deciding what kind of friends we will be.

This idea of becoming friends with the Lord is mentioned more than once. In doctrine and covenants we learn that the Lord repeated this same admonition to the saints. D&C section 84 contains the oath and the covenant and is instruction to those that are going to serve the Lord, as His representatives. It reads: “And as I said unto mine apostles, even so I say unto you, for you are mine apostles, even God’s high priests; ye are they whom my Father hath given me; ye are my friends;” verse 77 reads: “And again I say unto you, my friends, for from henceforth I shall call you friends, it is expedient that I give unto you this commandment, that ye become even as my friends in days when I was with them, traveling to preach the gospel in my power;” In section 93 we read: “ Verily, I say unto my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., or in other words, I call you friends, for you are my friends, and ye shall have an inheritance with me.”

I like to think I have a lot of friends and that I am a good friend. I also like to think that God is my friend.

hey that hurts!

this past week I was reminded of something I had read in a book about a year ago, and I was surprised to learn I hadn't written it down anywhere. last winter semester I was in a cognitive neuroscience class that required us to read a book about phantom limbs, limbs that have been severed from one's body. even though these people are missing limbs, many of them still feel the limb. for example one might feel that their missing arm is itching or in pain. this can be an excruciating experience given that they cannot do anything to ease the suffering.

example of what I'm talking about: http://pann.nate.com/video/212461511

the book gives several theories as to why something like this would happen. one that is very briefly fleshed out explains that we often think our brains are limited to our body's experience, but this isn't necessarily true. there are several different simple experiments you can do to trick your brain into thinking any innanate object is an extension of your body. (given that its been a year I'm a little bit hazy about these details.) for example you can place one of your hands on top of a table and the other directly underneath it. have a second person gently caress the top of your hand above the table. after a minute or so remove the hand on top of the table as the second person continues to make the same caressing motions, but on the surface of the table. after a minute or so remove the second hand from underneath the table as the second person continues to do the same motion. if done correctly, when the second hand is removed you should/could feel the carassing that is being done to the table.

i did this experiment once and felt like it "kind of worked". the author of the book explained how they did this to someone in one of their labs and then brought in a person with a hammer and with it, acted as if he was going to pound the table. the subject of the experiment wigged out, he thought the guy was going to hit his hand! whether or not this actually works it creates some interesting ideas. despite the fact that the object isn't directly connected to the brain via neuron pathways the brain has designated a portion of itself to feel for the object as if it were.

i wonder if this is connected to the Atonement. how did and is Christ able to vicariously experience our pain and suffering (and joys)? becoming one with the Savior is an interesting idea.

we know that we as humans do not use our brains to their fullest capacity, could it be that our brain isn't used to its fullest capacity because its not all for us? it's not for our experience, but to process and feel the experiences for those around us?

i really like the idea that our experience is not limited to our bodies. for any of those interested about this concept i'd recommend reading "Johnathon Livingston Seagull" by Richard Bach. it's a short, but great book.