Welcome to Why Live Today and the Freedom from Addiction and Loneliness Series!
This is the first of three videos where I will answer a repeated question from friends.
In your fight with addiction and loneliness, what helped you the most?
But before I get to that, the Why Live Today store will be opening soon.
A portion of the proceeds of every item purchased will go to fighting addiction, loneliness, and human trafficking. Keep your eye on your email, whylivetoday.com and the YouTube Channel for that announcement and meaningful opportunity!
Back to the P52 Freedom series. This video is titled Pour. Because this is right-side down thinking…or is it upside right? Strike that, reverse it. What even is the red dot?
Let's start with a story. I was sitting on my couch during our first year of marriage and my wife Tena asked me, “Are you ok?” I responded by saying I was fine. I continued to type away on my computer. She asked again, “Are you ok?” I paused, thought about it, and responded, “Yeah, I’m fine.” I think it was the third time she asked the same question that I reflected more and said, “Actually, I am a bit irritated.” She was more aware of my emotional state than I was. In other words, she knew me better than I knew myself and that was our first year of marriage.
Acknowledgment of my feelings of irritation was a small crack in the dam I had built to control my emotions. Why? Like anger, there’s another emotion that can block or hinder us from awareness, acknowledgment and sharing: fear. If we don’t acknowledge the following truth, we’ll be shifting around chairs on the deck of the Titanic. Our greatest need and want is to get right with God and then go deeper in a relationship with God. Fear and anger are also deceptive. We think that we are building a bridge with God by hiding “the bad stuff,” but ironically we are building a wall between us, God and others.
If we don’t acknowledge or share these feelings with God then we can’t have intimacy. A lot of people don’t like the idea of intimacy, and some label it as soft or too messy, but it’s essential because it’s part of the very nature of God. Jesus got mad, Jesus wept, Jesus felt tired…etc. So feelings have to be important! Here is a creative way to remember our need and want for depth of relationship. The depth is called intimacy or Into-Me-See. We have to ask ourselves, "Do I believe this is my greatest need and want? What am I prepared to do about that?"
Our feelings are like the lights on the dashboard of our car which let us know what’s going on deep in the engine. Feelings are connected to the deeper core desires of our hearts (I will address this in a later article and video).
Mole says that I need to be real with you. Ok, so I’ve heard it said that men have three emotions: Mad, glad, and sad. For those out there who struggle in this area, I hope this will make you feel better. I was mostly aware of and shared only one feeling for those 18 years: glad. I buried all the other emotions. I was only happy all the time. My upbeat, idealistic attitude was a gift from God, but became an unhealthy coping mechanism to cover up all other emotions. People complemented me a lot on this, so why wouldn't I just put that mask on even when I didn't feel that way?
My son told me to buy this card with Darth Vader magnets awhile back, saying it would be helpful for Why Live Today’s website and YouTube Channel. You were right buddy!
Darth Vader Emotional Magnets Card - Credit to Disney
Vader is a perfect example of someone who stuffs emotions and uses anger to bury all his other emotions. The feelings are not allowed, acknowledged, or owned, so there is no way they are going to be shared. The helmet is an amazing metaphor of buried or repressed feelings.
Vader’s failure to acknowledge and share emotions fuels his addiction to pride, power and control. This leads to more separation and isolation from real, loving relational connections which results in, you probably guessed it…more loneliness.
It’s a vicious cycle, which is accurately described by this Richard Rohr quote:
“pain that is not transformed is transferred." - Richard Rohr
Peter Scazzero, the author of Emotionally Healthy Spiritually describes a truth that I didn’t want to face during my 18 years of loneliness and addiction:
“It’s impossible to be spiritually mature if you are emotionally immature.”
If there’s hope for Vader (spoiler alert), the number one villain of all time, then there is hope for you and me to dig into our feelings. God says that no one is too far gone! Take hope in that! Even if we deny it and lose hope, God is bigger than that!
So how do we fix this critical problem and address this need for acknowledging, feeling, and sharing emotions? Here’s the critical verse that offers the solution to this problem.
"Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge." [Psa 62:8 NIV]
God is our bomb chamber! We can explode with God! The process of pouring out must be done with God and under God…in other words, we can and should dump the truck with God. The good, the bad, and the ugly! God can handle it! The ultimate goal is connecting and sharing our whole self with God and then we can align with the heart of God. Remember, feelings shouldn’t dictate, but should help us discern what’s going on with the deeper, good core desires of our soul. We need to pour it out, instead of stewing in it too long, burying it, or acting on it without surrendering it to God. God’s like a bomb chamber with padded walls where you can just go crazy without doing evil to yourself or others. The following clip gives you an idea of what this might look like: Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump.
A lot of people hesitate about this process of dumping the truck because we don’t see it in Christian circles, but it is certainly a biblical truth, and it's critical! It’s especially apparent in the many Psalms where David drenches his bed with tears of depression and rages with cries for God to bring the hammer down on his enemies.
Listen to what David expresses to God. This isn’t the sugar-coated prayer you hear nowadays.
Pour out your fury on them; consume them with your burning anger. Let their homes become desolate and their tents be deserted. [Psa 69:24-25 NLT]
It was an a-ha moment when a good friend of mine talked about a problem that a lot of us have…a constipated prayer life. In other words, we don’t express our genuine feelings and thoughts in our prayers.
Per my friend’s advice I have begun to do this when driving and with family where some of the most intense feelings erupt. For example, when I’ve been cut off on the road, I began to share with God how I was feeling: “Lord, I want that person to crash, not kill them, but teach them a lesson not to do that anymore. Too harsh? Not appropriate? It may seem shocking, but that’s honestly where we often are in that moment with how we feel. It’s an intense mixture of vengeance and justice stew, that’s boiling over and needs somewhere to go. How do we do this?
Enter the Red Dot Exercise. Here’s an exercise that can help us acknowledge and share our feelings. I think I first heard this from Larry Crabb and it’s called the Red Dot Exercise. This might be better described as the blue dot because of google maps now, but back in the day, many shopping centers, amusement parks, museums would have maps that showed you how to find things. The key to orienting yourself and finding your way? Find the red dot that says, “You are here.” Once you have this awareness, then you can see where you want to go and how you will get there. The exercise is quite simple.
You can find the red dot exercise in the Freedom Resource Guide.
Red Dot Exercise (credit Larry Crabb)
What is the red dot exercise? Simply ask yourself, “Where am I right now?” In other words, “What am I feeling right now?” Then look over the Red/Green Dot lists of emotions sheet. Then pick out a few words like nervous, inadequate, scared, etc. that fit as closely as possible what you are feeling and ask God for help in expressing them and sharing them.
Sometimes music can is a great medium for truth and can inspire us to express feelings. The song When I’m With You by Citizen Way definitely does just that!
You can find the full song and get the WLT Freedom Songs playlist on Spotify which is on Freedom Resource Guide. The red dot exercise is there also. There’s also a link to an emotional maturity assessment to help you figure out your level of emotional maturity. There are also some raw, pour-out prayers from Jesus, David and Job, the red dot exercise, and more in the description below.
Until next time…Are you digging for the meaning of life’s experiences or checking out?
RESOURCES, REFERENCES AND LINKS…
Click "SHOW MORE" below the Freedom 7 video in YouTube to see a table of contents that allows you to jump to specific topics in the video.
Download the Red Dot Exercise from the Freedom Resource Guide (Free)
Take the Emotional Health Assessment Quiz on the Emotionally Healthy Discipleship website found on our Freedom Resource Guide (Free)
Pouring out prayers from the Bible: Jesus, David and Job
Jesus cried out to the Father if there is a different way than the cross and sweating great drops of blood because he is experiencing such feelings of anguish (Luke 22:39-46 NLT)
David - Acting like a mad man and drooling on his beard because he’s scared to death of his enemy which is too strong for him. - Psalm 34 NLT
Job - Crying out that he wished he’d never been born. - Job 3:1
QUOTE - “Pain that is not transformed is transferred.” - Richard Rohr
QUOTE - “It’s impossible to be spiritually mature if you are emotionally immature.” - Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality
BIBLE - Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge. [Psa 62:8 NIV] - https://www.blueletterbible.org/niv/psa/62/8/s_540008
BIBLE - Pour out your fury on them; consume them with your burning anger. Let their homes become desolate and their tents be deserted. [Psa 69:24-25 NLT