Emotion

Related to our life’s objectives is the investigation of our emotions for purpose of management.  For this there are key words/concepts to consider: comparisons/contrasts, balances/imbalances, illusions/delusions – personality, identification, mystery, mind, motives, and the like.  The individual finding a need for managing emotions, needs to form questions to be answered personally in these areas, dealing with life factors, that make for healthy emotions, self-control and put the understandings into action.  This relates to accumulating wisdom, and finding a full and satisfying life.  The issue of emotional life balance is so great that persons unable to control their emotions have, on occasions taken their lives, or suffering years, even creating miserable life contexts for others, even to the point of murder and suicide.  A few days ago from this writing, a man killed his six children, his estranged wife and wounded himself.  His feelings were wounded – so as to introduce an insanity plea.  His temporary insanity worked for his courtroom defense.

What is emotion?  Marilyn vos Savant was asked: What do you think is the role of emotion in our lives?  Her answer: For the life of the mind, I see intelligence as the food and emotion as the flavor.  The former is essential, but the latter provides all of the fun – and most of the misery.  One feels the observation is a good one, although it is sometimes lost that all the fun may not be in the emotions.  The place of a well thought out solution, applied by those involved in the problem, provides a deep flavor of achievement related to the maturity of persons and the meaning of success, well ordered.  We must remember that God has emotions.  His feelings for mankind offer considerable confidence to me for pleasant outcomes when mankind is amenable to his offerings.  He has sufficient control of his emotions that he will not deny himself in bypassing the holiness of his character and the values that ought to form us.  Emotions for God amount to the icing-on-the-cake of what we do and what we become for his pleasure.  That means we do have some control related to our emotions.  When they visit us unapproved, we are to find the maturity to rein them in, and take whatever steps necessary to suppress (possible) or delete (preferred) them from our experience.  Appropriate counseling and prayer serve well at this point – if treated in honesty and acknowledgment to God and the human counselor.  I have observed what seems almost like miracles when a person has been sincere about escaping negative emotions, exchanging them for affirmative ones.  (This has been most obvious in situations involving broken marriages, and relations between divorced husband and wife, often too with the children – both dependent and adult children from the marriage.  This may also include in-laws.  And, we need the humility of believing we may have caused some of our own despair.)

One ought to learn rather early in life the comparisons or contrasts between those who are overly emotional (leading to folly and prejudice), or healthy emotional (leading to proper motivation), or lacking in emotional life (leading to sullenness and grouchiness, perhaps arrested involvement).  Since many emotions come to us without invitation so are mixed with good (joy and elevation) and ill (despair and hatred) we ought to order contexts that achieve affirmation in personal and social concepts and activity.

Emotions are related to joy, a special human animation response based on a reality, a gift of God offering joy forevermore (never ending).  Emotion belongs to us.  It even provides testing for our maturity.  When right emotions are lost in a marriage, the marriage fails, even when husband and wife remain legally bound.  Emotion relates to love, or ought to, a gift from the nature of God, between child and parent, even self alone or any persons with whom the self has to do.  Emotions cause us to do things both good and ill simply because they have so great force.  They need to be held with some reins, as a great team of horses need to be held in control by the driver.  We need to remember that God, who gave us reflective thought and responsibility for making decisions that sometimes clashed with our emotions, gave us those very emotions that offer personal ecstasy and sometimes violent response.  Emotions demand both self-control and prayer to be used for good in a fulfilled life.  We serve others when we lift their lives with empathy.