Emotions – Page 2 – "…because you matter!"

Accurate Measuring, Attitude, Emotional Healthy, Growth out of Pain, Humility, Mess, Performance, Renovation, Transformation

Address The Mess: Not So Perfect Picture

We can assume that it is our job to address someone else’s.

Most of the time that is not the case.

Cruise2017a I recently shared this picture on Facebook, and I love it. It captures the sass and the fun that my wife and I frequently have with each other. One of the comments by someone who knows us reasonably well was that it captures our personalities.

What it doesn’t show is the regular, the mundane, the hurt, and the pain that life can hold and sometimes deal out. It doesn’t show the low moments, the struggle moments, or the confusing moments that accompany every relationship and every life. It doesn’t show the hours of conversation or the short nights that it sometimes takes to work through the mess.

We can naively carry on thinking that others have a perfect life and “If I could only have it like them then things would be great.”

Everyone has snapshots that if captured and presented would represent a moment of bliss or euphoria. I am not so concerned about those moments. Instead, I want to address in this series the other 99.99%.

I can think that life is pretty good. I can take care of ‘my side’ and believe that everything is okay. My problem is that I often start with me and work out from there. However, that may not always be the best measurement, and much of the time it can be skewed.

Even though I can look good in a moment to you, or I can look good in my thinking to myself, I also have the potential to affect others, and that will not always have me in a great light. I struggle like you with being human, with getting it right.

I can even go to the scriptural extent that I’m busy trying to take out a sliver from your eye while I am oblivious to the log in my own.

I need to Address The Mess in my own life. That is where I start. Once I come to terms with how short I have fallen, how much I need, how far I have missed the mark of perfection, then maybe, just maybe I can begin to help someone else.

God provides tons of help and encouragement, but it is only available when I can be honest with myself and real with him.

About Pain, Breakthrough, Freedom, Growth out of Pain, Mess, New Path, Now What?, Trust, Walk it Out

You Address The Mess: Walk Free

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Attitude, Duct Tape, Emotional Healthy, Focus

Address The Mess Series: Emotional Duct Tape

I had just turned 50. My wife and family gave me an amazing birthday gift of a Fly-In-Fishing trip into Ryan Lake Alberta, in the Canadian Shield.

I, in turn, bought a place for my son as a graduation gift and we coerced a friend to come with us. The three of us had the lake, lodge and three brand new boats and motors to ourselves for five whole days.

The very first day probably not even an hour on the lake and my brand new fishing rod snapped. Yup? I was angry. I was fortunate in that I had brought an old faithful spare rod.

We had a fantastic trip, and I have tons of stories about it.

The last day we needed to use up our supplies and did I tell you that the friend that I brought was a chef? Let’s just say it was an amazing week, and we ate like kings. But, this last day we had to use our steak, veggies, apples, whip cream and oatmeal. So, Peter made an apple crisp pie and baked it on the BBQ. The only thing I had to do was use the wisp and get the whipping cream whipped.

The whisk was taking so long and not seeming to produce much, so all of a sudden an idea hit me. I call it a Red Green moment.

I had a reel that wasn’t being used, Duct Tape for an emergency and a wisp that could use some torque. Within minutes there was pure whipped cream sitting there waiting to add the fifth star to the restaurant review in the middle of nowhere.

We laughed, ate, and laughed some more. The only thing missing was our wives, a maître d and a bottle of wine.

Duct Tape is made for a moment of need. It isn’t usually meant for a long-term fix.

It just occurred to me yesterday that we have tried to use Emotional Duct Tape to solve long-term problems.

I want to also explore this in future posts.

Here is the connect to my recent book, Path Out-Eliminate the Swirl

(Here’s how you can get a copy. https://philsovdi.com/book-offer/)

About Pain, Attitude, Growth out of Pain, Mess

Address The Mess Series: Intro

So, I was raised in a religious family culture that pretended to deal with mess. Oh, if it was on the obvious top five, or on the faux pas list, as long as it was the other person, it was exposed and dealt with in great manipulative, religious style. But, if the mess were on ‘my,’ the person’s in control, shame list, the embarrassing, face-saving list, depending on whose face was being saved, you would be told to forgive and forget about it.

A prayer would be given, and hushed ‘biblical’ counsel would quickly be cited.

“… Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13-14, NIV)

The idea was that the bible supports dropping and leaving important things with a prayer. If that text weren’t enough, you would be given another.

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17, KJV)

The bible was used to silence pain and create shame misrepresenting the passage and misrepresenting a loving, healing, and forgiving God.

A rule-keeping setting such as what I grew up in is a ripe environment for pain and shame to flourish. Many people experience life-long struggle trying to get over the dominating guilt-induced system of yesteryear.

I’ve come to learn that you cannot forget what you continue to relive on a daily basis.

I’ve also come to know that you can move on and sometimes even forget, once you have stared down and addressed the intimidating and overwhelming.

It really is possible for a person, you, to heal, be restored and be renewed, like it never happened, having the pain, shame, and humiliation gone.

Over the next days/weeks, I want to talk about what that process looks like. I want to talk about how you can walk free and live totally well.

My new book, Path Out – Eliminate the Swirl will serve as a tool in this process.

(Here’s how you can get a copy. https://philsovdi.com/book-offer/)

The very first step to moving out of the swamp and milieu of inner despair is to call it what it is. You need to address the mess, “My life in this area is a mess. I’m no longer hiding, no longer protecting, and no longer excusing the mess. I will, with God’s help take the journey to health and wholeness. So God, will you come right now to me in the middle of my mess and help me? In Jesus powerful name, amen.”

About Pain, Attitude, Breakthrough, Change, Emotional Healthy, Growth out of Pain, Humility, Owning your stuff, Renovation, Transformation

Joseph Series: Family Games

Joseph knew his family’s dysfunction, his brother’s propensity to lie and deceive. He knew that they only lived for their agenda. He didn’t know that it had changed.

Families play games.

My wife and I do, but we do it on purpose, with our kids now adults, and with delightful intent. We’ve done it their whole lives. For the most part, they loved it! How do I know? I told them so. Ha.

It’s the family games that everyone denies that has me greatly concerned. In fact, they aren’t games at all; they could more accurately be called deceptions, family code, and elephants in the room.

You know what I’m talking about. It’s the demand that you fit into your role when you are with the family, the way that you act when your buttons get pushed; and no one can push your buttons like your parents and siblings. It’s the stuff no one will talk about, but everyone knows it’s there. And, you and your family do it every time!

Enter Joseph. Joseph was thirteen plus years removed from the family dysfunction, game, code, and he had to know if the code was still in play. He went to quite some length to make sure things had changed. Joseph tested his brother’s in their most vulnerable spot. He for lack of a better term pushed their buttons. Any future with them, had they not changed, would not have been pretty.

Joseph was satisfied to the depth of his emotions that change had come. What a delightful moment.

Thirteen years had taken its toll on the brothers, on Jacob, their father, as well as on Joseph. The brothers had come to realize that their shameful behavior had cost their family deeply.

They came forward and owned their stuff.

This action gives us an awesome picture of repentance. It was almost that the brothers were getting in line to say, “If there is any blame here it is to fall on me, I’m the one.”

Whether they grew into this or got forced into this through circumstances, they owned it.

In absolute humility they prepared for their fate, they couldn’t expect anything else.

This moment overwhelmed Joseph. I don’t think he could have hoped for such a spectacular outcome. Spectacular happens when such depth and hurt get healed.

So in this story, we see a beautiful picture of repentance and forgiveness. One is not complete without the other.

So this begs the questions?

What do you have to own?

What do you have to forgive?

Attitude, Dream, Emotional Healthy, Future

Joseph Series: Invent Your Future

So many times I get caught in maintenance mode. I wake up to realize that I have been just plugging the system of …whatever.

The other morning a blog by Seth Godin caught me completely by surprise. He talked about people are trying to predict the future, trying to be in the right place at the right time. He then went on to say, “A far more successful and reliable approach is to invent the future. Not all of it, just a little part. But enough to make a difference.” (May 27, 2017, “Seth Godin’s Blog on marketing, tribes and respect.”)

That caused me to do a double take.

Precisely that is what happens every time someone believes in himself or herself, God, a promise, or future, and then they step out and invent that part of their future.

Joseph did that. I’m reasonably convinced that he didn’t sit there in prison and say that he was inventing his future, he just hoped in, believed in, and acted when he had the opportunity. Joseph believed that God was for him.

How about it?

Joseph did, now it’s time for you to invent.

Me too!

You Don’t Have To Live; You Get To!

Attitude, Emotional Healthy

Joseph Series: Forget About It.

To my knowledge, there were no counsellors or emotional support groups when Joseph needed them most.

And yet, Joseph managed to process his stuff and come through in an emotional healthy condition.

Remember:

Rejected

Beaten

Stripped of identity

Discarded

Sold

Purchased like a commodity

Given a break (of sorts) ‘Minor’ success, perspective

Lured trapped and accused

Left identity once again

Stripped again of identity

Plunged deeper

Prisoner

Dream Catcher

Dream interpreter

2nd in command

Joseph did something in his day that clearly spoke to his mental health and showed that he properly and thoroughly processed.

He had two sons and spoke of his life through their names.

1) Manasseh – forget – “It is because God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father’s household.” (Genesis 41:51, NIV)

2) Ephraim – twice fruitful – “It is because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering.” (Genesis 41:52, NIV)

He had this figured out still years before he met his family again.

I find this story amazing and an abundant source of hope.

How about you?

You Don’t Have To Live; You Get To!

Accurate Measuring, Attitude, Change, Focus, Growth out of Pain, Life-Long Learning, New Path

Joseph Series: Mess to Message

In a day of High-Speed Internet, anything short of instant is too long! To think that I used to think my 486 was fast compared to my XT, I just dated myself.

Wouldn’t you just like to wake up to success tomorrow morning? I would. I would love to take the mess of my life, my over-the-top struggle and just watch it vanish in Disney moment. Who wouldn’t? Unfortunately, that is not how gown-up life works.

It sure did not work that way for Joseph. He had to process his life, as do we; we really don’t advance, indeed grow and change, until we do.

Throughout the narrative, Joseph was referred to several times as successful in all that he did. That wouldn’t have been my version of success, I could easily come up with several other words, but from God’s vantage and perspective he was growing and changing even though, from mine, his life seemed to get worse. Sometimes it just doesn’t seem to make sense to me, but God isn’t waiting for me to catch up or for my permission to get or give understanding.

We might even concede to handling the ‘Process,’ but make it happen now. Don’t make me wait until growth happens or seasoning takes place.

There is a little-concealed phrase in the great biblical ‘Hall of Faith’ that is easily missed. It says, “…whose weakness was turned to strength;” (Hebrews 11:34, NIV) the quote is an operational key for life. God uses weakness. Did you hear that? I know you read it, but did you hear it? God uses weakness, then, now, in your life and mine. Stop for a moment; read that last sentence out loud so you can hear yourself saying it; grabbing this concept is so crucial for your equilibrium and wellbeing. It means that the mess, the screw-ups don’t’ have to remain that way. It means that just as Joseph came through and out, you can too.

You can experience a transformation from mess to message. You can leverage your past for success in your future, but even better than that, you can leverage your past for someone else’s future.

Just because it isn’t instant doesn’t mean it won’t happen.

Your life can be an incredible message.

Stay in the game!

You Don’t Have To Live; You Get To!

About Pain, Attitude, Family Dysfunction

The Joseph Series: – Relationally Emotionally Bankrupt

It was that bad!

Don’t you just love/hate when someone gets removed from a situation then they begin to downplay, minimize, or outright falsify the story. “It wasn’t that bad they say.” This forms a pattern and often happens in a cycle of abuse. Once they are out of the terror of the moment, they capitulate and regress on their resolve, and back on the merry-go-round, they go again.

Joseph didn’t get that chance. He moved from bad to worse, to worse, to worse again, and then he was plunged into the worst of it all. He didn’t have time to capitulate or regress. Can you hear him, “You intended to harm me…you actually meant to hurt me… How come you hurt me, you are my brothers? Why don’t you love me?” then around it would go again. Joseph’s cycle was dealing with the facts, not pretending they didn’t happen.

Rejected; abused; lied about; humiliated; abandoned; cast off; demeaned; treated as wholly insignificant; sold, Sold, SOLD; bewildered; hurt; angry; despondent; grief; loss; shock; depression; denial; lonely; all alone; dirty; damaged; mocked.

It was that bad. It really happened. It really hurt badly!

Joseph was forced to be alone and had to process.

Where do you find perspective? Where do you find the will to live another moment?

Recently I wrote the online book, Path Out – Eliminate the Swirl. Get the book, and I will help you process. The book is available through following the links on this site or at Amazon.ca.

We are told that it took thirteen years for Joseph to come up for air. Thirteen years is a long time to process. He did it well, but first, he had to deal with the stuff that he had to process.

Tragically we can miss the depth if we just read it as a nice informative Sunday school story, or if we just moralize it and throw in a pithy saying or two.

There is a real help for real hurt. There is a real process for real emotional damage. There are strong, reliable aids within the depths of this story that will restore your years.

Let me help you.

You Don’t Have To Live; You Get To!

About Pain, Approval, Attitude, Family Dysfunction

The Joseph Series: Sometimes It Gets Bad

There was disdain that the brothers had built toward Joseph; legitimately it could be called hatred. Joseph was his father’s favourite and his brother’s bane. When Joseph was sent to check on his brothers, and they spotted him coming a long way off, they plotted to kill him. Well, most of them.

Joseph was sent by his father to see how the brothers were making out with the family business of shepherding. They had relocated many kilometers away, and in a day with no communication resources, Joseph was the communicator between home/dad and his sons.

A couple of these brothers had previously committed mass murder, it was in their history, and now all but one brother was ready to kill Joseph. Rueben pleaded and they compromised by attacking Joseph, stripping him of his robe, and throwing him into a waterless pit. No sooner did Joseph hit the bottom that they sat down and ate their meal. Heartless. It was just another day in their wilderness, tending sheep.

The brothers, with the exception of Rueben intended to leave Joseph there to die.

Joseph was guilty. Of what? He was guilty of previously sharing his dreams and goals as he tried to find a place within the family dysfunction. He was also guilty of receiving an inordinate amount of favouritism from his father. He had the robe, the Dreamcoat to prove it. Joseph was the firstborn son of Rachel, the wife that Jacob had loved more than the other wives.

Animosity was not new to this brood. The family’s distain and contempt had been growing for a long time.

Unaware and totally naive, Joseph walked straight into the ambush. He was the easy target of a family that was full of anger, disunity, unrest, and deception.

Insult to injury, the brothers had a twisted moment of conscience. They decided, rather than kill him, sell him to a traveling caravan of Ishmaelite’s.

Joseph sold for eight ounces of silver. At today’s price, his life was worth $147.52.

For Joseph, this was not a good day. However, he was able, through thirteen years of processing, to get an accurate perspective. But, it was equally not a good day for his brothers. They just didn’t know it yet.

Much later Joseph said this before he died, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (Genesis 50:20, NIV)

You Don’t Have To Live: You Get To!