Emotional atrophy

I remember when our son broke his leg when he was younger. It was broken so severely that he was off his feet for quite some time. The pain of the process developed a fear in him when he began walking again after recovery. Because of the pain and mental block, it became a struggle for him to get back up again. He had so many mental blocks to plow through. There were many moments of exhaustion as he started to walk again. He had to retrain his brain to make all the needed connections for movement. The moment in the whole process that shocked me the most were the tears shed when they removed the cast. He cried for them to keep it on. That cast had become a form of protection to prevent any more pain. The removal was a reminder of the risks now involved. Would the leg be okay? I'm sure the pain of the break was etched in his brain. How could it not be?

I want to take this visual and apply it to emotional needs. Each one of us is created for deep connection with each other, but that requires us to tap into our emotions, the full spectrum of them. This process is scary. Probably at some point in our lives, someone did not meet our needs expressed through tears and hugs. We might not have been given the attention needed, or we experienced significant loss, so we closed ourselves off, placing our emotions of vulnerability in a cast to stay safe. 

Sadly, this is where most people stay, casted up and atrophied.

Maybe we tried to remove the "cast" and began to walk again too quickly, finding ourselves in pain. So we sat down, never to get up again.

Love and relationships have become such an intense risk for each of us because we live in a world filled with broken people. None of us like to experience any pain; we enjoy the protection of staying closed, but at what cost? This is something that we never consider: what am I missing out on by not allowing myself to feel again? We have to believe that closing ourselves off also closes us off from fully experiencing all that God has for us. Trying to protect ourselves, we easily fall into a robotic response to life because pain or sadness became too much. When we eliminate sadness, we miss out on experiencing the fullness of joy. 

I challenge you to begin the process of connection and feeling again. This means sitting back at the end of the day and logging your emotional responses to the events of the day. If you find that the only emotion that comes up is anger, then you have some digging to do. Anger is only the tip of the iceberg, and there is so much more underneath. 

If you do not have various emotions that change through different events, you might have become numb or detached. Life impacts us whether we would like it to or not, and our avoidance of this only amplifies the issue. 

But I will restore you to health and heal your wounds, declares the LORD.

Jeremiah 30:17a

To connect with the Lord on all the levels that we are created for, we need to become aware of our inner workings. Doing this allows us to begin to pray in sincere and vulnerable capacities. To build a connection with other people, we need to start sharing our thoughts and feelings with those around us. All of this might seem scary, but the first steps always are. Soon, though, you learn how to walk and eventually run!