131. Childish emotions can run you right out of a relationship you want

In many ways as we’ve grown older we’ve become wiser through our experiences. We know that even on a warm day there can be a cool breeze off the ocean, for instance, so we might bring along a light jacket. We don’t do the things kids do inadvertently that cause them to regularly knock over and spill things. We’ve learned a few things about living through the years.

Yet the programming we’ve had since we were small often stays with us and controls our behavior right into our 50s, 60s and beyond unless we challenge old beliefs and assumptions. Left uninvestigated that programming can cause us a huge pile of hurt in our dating. For instance you might have learned along the way as a kid that when you get angry you yell. We may have seen people say hurtful things to others in some wild emotion that they wouldn’t otherwise say.

But if you find yourself letting angry or jealous or hurtful emotions run right off the end of your tongue in words you later realize aren’t true there’s something you can do about it. Grow up! That’s kid stuff, after all. Childish behavior isn’t changed by will power. But it can drop by itself if we’ve got the courage to see the truth about life.

All we have to do is stop and take a look at our emotions and we can see how fickle they are. They’re up and down and sideways and backwards. One minute we feel this way, another moment we feel that way. How believable can our emotions be when they change so readily? One minute we say, “I can’t stand you” and five minutes later we say, “I love you.” Which one is it? The changes are so rapid, do we really want to be guided by that fickle nonsense? Yet we often live as though our emotions are solid and real. Our emotions bark silent orders to us and we jerk around like puppets – all because we’ve never looked at the lies those emotions tell.

We say something one night, for instance, that we clearly recognize the next morning isn’t true for us and never was. In a burst of anger we might say, “I hate you” or “You’re a liar” and even when you say the words you know deep down they’re not true. We don’t really believe that about this person we profess to care about. Yet the lies come sturtting off our tongues like cocky roosters.

Instead of letting feelings control our words we can investigate and see just how true are these emotions we make into little gods and then let them dictate our actions. If we continue to operate from the lies and conditioned responses that have run our lives we’ll probably find ourselves in a lot of pain. We might also find ourselves right flat out of a relationship we really wanted.

Yes, it’s true that we may feel really angry or jealous at our date at any moment, but is it true we really don’t love her at that time? Is love, after all, just an emotion that comes and goes? Have a look and see if you really want to believe the emotional lies that pop up when you’re feeling hurt or neglected. Our feelings may not feel very loving at the time but our deeper being will give us the truth if we just stop and take a minute to listen to it.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer