Don't you want to see the big picture? I think most of my life has been lived with tunnel vision, and poor site to go along with that. I think the largest negative contributors to my inability to see the big picture is my love for myself, my emotions and my lack of knowledge. Have you ever saw a little league coach who knows very little about the game, and maybe he didn't prepare his team vs. an experienced coach who's team has been practiced? The experienced coach many times is calm, he see's the big picture. Where the coach with limited knowledge and preparation will frustrate easily, and may show it by blaming the umpire, hollering at the kids...anything but himself of course...I think this is the way I've treated life, and my marriage relationships many times. It has just become more clear to me as my wife and I's differences spawned so much hopelessness in my tunneled vision heart. The amount of emotional pain I brought on myself over this the past 6 years is staggering. And until I reluctantly started owning it, it was impossible for it to be turned off, or at least down. So, I have to ask myself how do I stop the pain from recurring? The answer is always awareness! Awareness that your enemy is your emotions, your self love, and your lack of knowledge. Why is this hard? Because I want to relax with her, and have things in common. Like us for one...But, here is the problem. Every time I get comfortable enough to let down on my awareness and drift off into my tunnel view of what a marriage should be like...I run into the brick wall of difference. Yep!, acceptance it is:)...It may be lonely much of the time...But, the big picture is, she has a reality, and I have a reality...And there is only a certain few positive things that can help them to intertwine...And seeking or thinking I can force them only destroy's my peace, because the results are always negative, Plus, regardless of my desired out come, the act of trying to force another adult is control. Which is, quiet a desperate and delusional act...
The trap of my limited view....
Submitted by c ur self on 10/19/2014.
Self Respect
Submitted by Standing on
For me, it's not been so. From what I can tell, my view has been limited by my lack of self-respect, my lack of training in emotional intelligence, my belief that I must stuff emotions and deny them in order to function as a competent adult, and my deep sense of responsibility for pleasing those around me.
The amount of emotional pain I have allowed to assault and destabilize me over the past 35 years is ... done and past. I allowed it in to my person. No More.
I will feel my feelings, sit with them for awhile, and then move on. I will not carry the feelings of others in my soul or enable them for the sake of my own temporary relief.
My enemy has been other peoples' emotions, which I have allowed to lead me around by the nose.
A fruit of the spirit is Self control, not getting everyone else to see things my way. Amen to that :)
Your Enemy Has Been Yourself......
Submitted by kellyj on
you just didn't realize it. Now you do! You teach people how to treat you by how you treat yourself. Be good to yourself and people will also be good to you.
It's feaking amazing how well this works!
J
Thank's Standing and J for the welcomed insite!
Submitted by c ur self on
Yes J:) you have stated the short version "I have been my own enemy"...The driving force for it has been my desire to experience some semblance of a fixed unity, a trust or expectation that I can be part of a peaceful oneness of respect and sharing.
But, what I encounter more times than not, seems to run from desperately needy one minute, to independent and cold the next...With both extremes filled with expectations and the desire to use or control.
For me to come along side this behavior in an attempt for understanding; has been like trying to hold onto a a wet eel...Slippery sucker:)
So like you said "I am learning, regardless of the daily product being produced in this marriage, it all starts with self-awareness for myself, no one is responsible for my peace. But, I am responsible to be self-aware, so as to guard against being an instrument of destruction to others peace; regardless of where they seek to find it....
I have been warned about trusting this mind of mine; So, I am without excuse:
Jeremiah 17:9: The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it.
Gave up on all that 9 years ago
Submitted by Standing on
and settled in to do my duty.
I thought that was the best i could do. Now I see that it was taking my life slowly, because it is NOT Godly or proper or healthy or wise to allow someone with whom i am intimately connected to live like an overgrown brat.
Sure, he can choose to spend the rest of his days like that, but i will not be standing alongside.
Yep....I Question Everything Now
Submitted by kellyj on
especially myself!
J
Anger
Submitted by Standing on
c ur self,
Because I know the truth of Jeremiah 17:9, I have had a habit of taking the burden of wrongdoing upon myself in situations where I now believe I really needed to have drawn a line in the sand about the other person's behavior.
So, here's the thing - when verses like this are displayed for the purpose of illustrating one facet of a situation, not in context and not considered along with the entirety of Scripture, they can be misleading to a person like me who has leanings toward an unhealthy form of what is now termed "Codependence" and who has suffered from self-doubt and insecurity all of her life.
When a single Bible passage is put out there as a warning in this way, I see red flags and counter-verses, and I find myself growing angry and uspet. So I ask myself why. And I thank you for this exercise in digging beneath the feeling :)
Not all of these things are as clear-cut to some folks. Like I said, if I were to focus on that one verse out of Jeremiah, right now, today, I could confuse myself right out of the truths that have been made abundantly apparent to me, by experience, about my husband and about myself. This could happen, if I were looking for an "out" from my efforts to break the codependent cycle, to resume the status quo, and to not face the difficult challenges ahead. Or I could pick some other single passage and go off on the dead-end of "hoping" that somehow everything would magically work out alright if I only Try Harder to put myself onto the back burner. Hey, my stew stopped bubbling years ago and it's done spoiled. And as you might imagine, I could go on and on, but I won't.
I hope this makes sense. I have found that anger that was taking a nap and it verges on self-pity. Today I will stick with the verses that will clear THAT up and keep my nose in my own bizness :)
I've found out that most things that refine me are painful also.
Submitted by c ur self on
Here's a few more verses to go along with the prophet Jeremiah's concerning my capacity to administer truth, outside of the experiencing of a spiritually renewed mind...
God speaking concerning the mind of man in Gen. 5: 21: And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.
Paul's letter to the Romans 8: 6&7: For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.
So this is why i stray from trusting in myself...You may ask me at this point are you filled with the spirit, do you have a spiritual mind...Yes, but, what does the bible say to believer's...2 Corinthian 4:11...Those who are alive, shall be delivered to their death, so that the person of Jesus can be seen in their mortal flesh....
So I understand this, the working of Grace in my life, is about me being a vessel for the master's use...Not about my life being saved in this carnal state, although his blessings are constant, I can't fall to the trap of thinking I know how God is producing his will...Jesus said this " my power is made perfect in weakness"
So these truths just produce in me this pray...."Lord save me from myself, so you can be glorified...allow me to live the exchanged life that Jesus purchased for all who believe with his own blood...amen."
Only Thing Worse.....
Submitted by kellyj on
than one insecure little league coach yelling at the ump...is two insecure ones yelling.....and you're the ump. Been there! ha ha
Dude.....this is so hard to do what you're doing and that's admitting the parts where you're wrong or seeing where you've missed the boat. You just earned a stripe in my book and that's deserves some credit. Good job!
One thing to say here...........your emotions aren't your enemy....they're just telling you something. What you choose to do with them is where things go wrong. You're the enemy in this equation if you keep dong the wrong things with them that's the difference in what you said. A minor tweek if you will. lol
Self love is not the enemy either...it's your greatest asset. Selfishness and self centered arrogance is different. These things stem from insecurity. Self love makes you secure and able to share the same with others. When your cup is full you have more to give....when it's empty....you start looking for ways to fill it namely....getting it from other people. I see that different than maybe how you are referring to self love.
I can't remember the bible verse....psalms? about marriage? you know the one....you hear it all the time at weddings. That's a really good way to describe what love is and you can apply that one to yourself and use all of those things....love is this...love is not this......to yourself and it works perfectly to what I am saying about self love. It's very balanced....niether this or that.
Good job! it takes a real man to admit when he is wrong! no shame in that.
J
Thank you J...
Submitted by c ur self on
I should have stated that: emotions I allow to cloud sound judgment, that limits self-awareness, and just produces negative fruit like unchecked anger etc..
Also, the term self love here was being used in my frame of reference as something that cause's me to protect or save my life (Luke 9:24)...I probably should have used the word "Fear"....It was 1:30 in the morning, my wife thinks clear at that time of day...But, I was way past my bedtime:)...It's good to have a forum pal...to help me through this!
Thanks J...
I Kinda Figured That....
Submitted by kellyj on
I'm trying to speak the correct words when I say things..... I realized how often I don't so it's become a habit of mine to correct myself before I say things. Unfortunately I can't stop! lol
J