One of my most valued insights concerns the power and the importance of emotions. I now believe that the only cure for bad feelings is good feelings; that only creative feelings can outwit destructive feelings.
We are not suffering from too much feeling, but from too little. A curse of our age is a certain feelinglessness, a fear of deep, genuine, and ample emotion. What I want to stress is the fierce reality of emotionality, the immensity of it, the preciousness of it, the inescapability of it, the perils of trying to deny it, the temptations we have to deny it, and the supreme importance of dealing creatively with this endowment of our nature.
Growing up German, I was always taught to be in control and show little feeling. My dad drummed into my consciousness an attitude of “You can take it,” no matter what the circumstance, so that I would show strength.
As a priest and minister, I was trained to be in control at all times in leading services for congregations. That was true until years ago when I celebrated my first cousin’s funeral. Michael attended Monsignor Pitt Learning Center, a school for those with disabilities. During the service, the entire student body stood and sang I Am Special. I lost emotional control, which was a very healthy thing for me to do.
I now firmly believe that to the degree that people consciously or unconsciously resent and reject their emotionality, they will be alienated from themselves and others. They will impoverish their own existence and cut themselves off from deep bonds with other people.
As the word “emotion” reveals, emotion is the source of motion, of energy, of force, of movement, of propulsion. Here are reservoirs of priceless fuel, waiting to be discovered and tapped and channeled.
Human beings have all sorts of feelings, and it is all right to be human. We need to become convinced that in our emotional makeup, in the very equipment we have, there is a proper combination of emotional possibilities to give us balance and harmony. This harmony is produced by the fact that one kind of emotion serves to keep another kind in due proportion, provided all the emotions are in working order. It is powerful to watch children who are connected to their feelings as they deal with grief and act out the emotions of sad, mad, and glad.
The emotions with which we are endowed are full of promise, waiting to become the bridge to deep human satisfaction.
By Bishop Bob Mueller
P.S. Also by Bob Mueller: Deepen Your Connections
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