Welcome to February! In this edition of the newsletter you can find:
🤔 A thought I’m processing [on self-love]
💕 A thought I’m loving [on attachment]
🗳️ A poll [on feelings]
🔗 Some link love
📆 A full recap & links to this past month’s posts
🤔 A thought I’m processing [on self-love]
It’s so funny, that Christians often experience a resistance to concepts like self-love.
We’re so afraid of being selfish, of becoming narcisists. We forget that even narcissists, at their core, suffer from a lack of love. They demand everyone affirm their worth 24-7, because inside, they are holding back a tidal wave of worthlessness and they need everyone’s help to keep it at bay.
Our selfishness, envy, self-centeredness is born - not out of too big a sense of our worth, but an inner scarcity of love that causes us to fight for our place in the light.
It’s strange to me, that so much time is spent talking about the Gospel of transformation, but that Gospel never really makes its way inward. Don’t get me wrong, the theology of the gospel does; atonement theory and ideas and thoughts and narratives - we are taught to shove those into our minds and hearts. But the Gospel - the good news that there is no part of you too broken or distorted to be loved and redeemed - the experience of that good news: the sensation of Jesus finding every dark corner and every part of you you’ve always wished away, and sitting there and loving that part until it unfurls in the light - this is not just neglected, it sounds dangerous to those afraid of the dark.
Instead, our ‘gospel’ has us stand near the basement - where we have locked the darkest parts of ourselves - and yell sermons through the door. Our ‘gospel’ helps us hack pieces of ourselves off. We ‘honor God’ by refusing to tolerate those dark parts of us - because we hate so much the things those parts do when they feel unloved.
We never even considered that the solution might not be barricaded basements or carving off corners of ourselves - but rather - love. We never even considered that God might so love the darkest part of you, that He might send Jesus to the basement armed with nothing but love.
(BTW - if this resonates, visit me here).
💕 A thought I’m loving [on anxious attachment]
Love this from Shane Kohler:
“A [person] experiencing anxious attachment, at [their] core, is suffering from an inability to let go of control. From a young age…she adapted herself in necessary ways to garner love and approval from her enviornment but over time this became an addiciton to controlling the experience of others to see her in a certain way…
…The skills necessary to create lasting love and commitment differ significantly from what is needed to gain a [person’s] momentary approval and in the need to control [other’s] experience of [them], [they] forgoes the former in place of the latter.
(P.S. for Christian folk —> I have seen so many people forgo genuine connection with God because they are so afraid of bringing their pain/frustration/anger/confusion to the dynamic. They end every sentence with “but, I know you are good…” and short-circuit the process of authentic intimacy with God because they are afraid of causing a relational disruption.)
🗳️ A poll on [what you don’t feel]
I’m noticing that most of my life I feel pretty chill, but there’s something about scrolling social media that causes two strange responses: (1) wrath. Like serious rage. (2) a desire to have MORE of that??? I mean, it’s not conscious, but I notice myself clicking through to the comments on a post that I know is going to make me furious. WHY DO I DO THAT?
Anyway - has me wondering if my anger (in that context) is a cover-up emotion** for fear. Which then has me wondering why I don’t just experience fear. Which then has me thinking about people - and how our upbringing and cultural scripts train us to funnel emotions into different emotions to help us feel safer.
Which leads me to —>
🔗Some link love
A couple of new intensives I’m offering this Spring!
Some winter bingo (things to do in this season) & some February bingo
Most listened to song in January
A beautiful poem for the month of love
📆 What you missed in January
Below are some links to thoughts I’ve shared this past month! (Please note that some of my messier thoughts and musings are behind a paywall. You can read more about why I do that here, and feel free to upgrade your subscription to access them.)
**Cover-up emotions are a thing that a psychologist named Tabi Kahler researched. He created a framework called the Process Communicaiton Model, which I’m trained in, and if you or your people want to learn more about your own cover-up emotion tendencies, I have two intensives which dig into it more.