| Subject: I laughed...I cried |
Author:
Frizzell
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Date Posted: 06:37:31 04/30/02 Tue
Great question Doug. I am going to go ahead and violate the coolhombres corporate charter and continue talking about last weeks topic.
I will answer your question first in regards to my own life and secondly in more general terms.
I do take a step back and examine where a certain emotion may be headed. But, it is only after I have experienced where that particular emotion has taken me many times before. So in that sense it is a time developed response. I observe a particular emotionally related response, that becomes a perpetual response, that eventually becomes a habit. A bad habit.
For example: When I get angry I withdraw. When my wife gets overbearing I shut down. That is my way to punish her. I don't get combative or obstinate. I don't hurl insults. I don't hurl anything. So what happens is my wife generally gets her way and I suppress my rage. This is not good. In my opionion this is anger that is not directed in a positive way. I used to behave this way all in the name of being a loving husband...I think that I was just being a wimp. I examined this pattern and determined that it was not only distructive but sinful. So how do I channel, or attempt to channel, my anger now? I learned to do something that I hate doing. Arguing.
Julie will always attempt to control me in some way or another, she shouldn't be faulted entirely for it, it is part of the fall. When she does this and my anger stirs I believe that my obligation is to be an affront, not to her, but to her sin. I need to formulate my anger into a positive package of spirited dialogue and debate. That is just college talk for arguing. It is messy because we are not accostomed to it. She cries and accuses and I feel guilty, but after many trial runs we get better at it.
I don't think the anger I feel when she overpowers is bad. I think that it is good because it alerts me to something that isn't right. But it is my responsibility to do something virtuos with it.
Anxiety is a lot tougher. I am an anxious person. The only thing that I can say is that anxiety may be, not an emotion, but the negative outworking of some other emotion. In one sense I think we "do" anxiety. We worry (active). The base emotion that anxiety stems from could be something more nebulous. Like concern. We are concerned about somthing, something that we could even do something about but don't, and eventually we fixate and it envelops our whole life. So to use the direction and channel method: We get concerned about something, something that may be under our influence, and instead of channeling our conern into action upon it, we sit and worry about it and anxiety is the by-product. Conversely, if we are concerned about something and channel our concern into a postive action, we may be able to head off anxiety.
Just another theory.
#1 dad
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