As I’ve often said, by the time I was five I had learned that “big men” don’t cry so I learned early in life to stuff and deny my emotions, and by the time I was thirty-five, I suffered from miserable hay fever, and had bursitis in both shoulders so that I couldn’t lift my arms above my shoulders without pain. Worse still, while I had plenty of friends, close relationships were non-existent. My marriage of 25 years turned out to be a disaster. Two repressed people living together do not make for a healthy relationship; in fact, they don’t have any kind of meaningful relationship. You live together alone apart; emotionally, that is.

Even though professionally I was doing okay, relationally I was at a loss. Furthermore, emotionally I constantly felt empty and had no idea what my problem was. I just knew I needed help. I had grown up with the belief that feelings weren’t important and couldn’t be trusted. In spite of this, I was so frustrated I got down on my knees and asked God to give me some feelings back anyhow. Whew, that prayer turned my world upside down and made praying for patience look like a Sunday school picnic. It took considerable pain to break through my cast-like defenses.

My recovery and emotional healing didn’t happen overnight, but the good news is that when I learned to break through my defenses and get in touch with my true emotions, and how to express them creatively, over time my life changed dramatically. Plus my physical wellbeing also improved dramatically.

Many of our physical ills can be symbolic. For instance, when I stuff my tears where do they go? For me they apparently expressed themselves in miserable hay fever which I suffered from for many years. I say this because when I was able to sob out years of painful hurt, I was healed of hay fever and have never suffered from it since. And when I learned to resolve years of buried hurt and anger, I was healed of the painful bursitis in my shoulders and have never had this pain recur. And when I was able to resolve lots of buried fear caused by painful hurts in the past, my interpersonal relationships improved out of sight.

In fact, I am physically healthier today than I was at half my age, and I am now in a very happy and fulfilling marriage. I feel that I am now well on the way to fully living and fully loving. My professional life happens to be very fulfilling also.

It may not sound refined, but the fact is that the feelings we stuff, stuff up our lives! Literally.

So you ask, how did you resolve all your personal issues? I wish I had a simple three-step program, but I don’t. I believe in miracles but not magic—miracles take a lot longer. There is no such thing as a quick fix. We take years to become what we are and don’t undo that overnight. However, the following are a few principles to help.

To be continued . . . .

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, as your Word instructs, please help me to: ‘get rid of my feelings of hatred [and all forms of unresolved anger]; stop pretending to be good outwardly, and be done with dishonesty, deception, envy, and fraud . . . and grow up into the fullness of my salvation.’ So help me God. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus name, amen.”

1. 1 Peter 2:1-2 (TLB)(NLT).

There’s an old story about a school teacher who injured his back and had to wear a plaster cast around the upper part of his body. It fit under his shirt and was not noticeable.

On the first day of the term, still with the cast under his shirt, he found himself assigned to the toughest students in school. Walking confidently into the rowdy classroom, he opened the window as wide as possible and then busied himself with desk work. When a strong breeze made his tie flap, he took the desk stapler and stapled the tie to his chest.

He had no trouble with discipline that term!

Sometimes it would be nice if life were that simple; that is, if we could wear a plaster cast around our heart so our feelings wouldn’t ever get hurt!

Not so. Life isn’t that simple. The problem is that when we put a cast or wall around our hurt feelings, that same cast also blocks out our warm and loving feelings! We turn into zombies.

We happen to be feeling beings. Can you imagine what life would be like without emotions? As another has said, it would be like playing a trombone with a stuck slide; that is, deadly dull and boring. The truth is that when our emotions are repressed we are characteristically bored with life.

I’ve led seminars and taught classes on relationships and recovery for many years and the number one complaint I hear from women on both sides of the Pacific is a variation on the theme, “My husband doesn’t understand my feelings and doesn’t share his.” No wonder so many relationships fall apart at the seams. Without being in touch with one’s inner self (his/her emotions) there is no intimacy and no real closeness. Such couples live together alone apart—and their relationship dies a little every day.

Furthermore, when we hide and subsequently bury our feelings, we never bury them dead but very much alive. In so doing, in one way or another they come back to taunt us. What we fail to talk out creatively, we inevitably act out destructively in one way or another. We can act out buried negative feelings by lashing out in anger or hostility at others and those we love the most. We can withdraw and go into silence when we are hurt or angry, which is an equally “dirty way to fight.” We can go into depression, suffer from anxiety attacks, ruin our relationships, set ourselves up to fail, and/or become physically ill. As John Powell put it, “When we bury our emotions, our stomach keeps score.” How true this is.

Furthermore, when our negative emotions are blocked and buried, it is impossible to fully live and fully love as we are so instructed by Jesus.

To be continued. . . .

“Dear God, I know that you have commanded that we, your followers, are to love one another. Please help me to live in harmony with your Word, so that I will be able to truly fully live and fully love. So help me God. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus name, amen.”

1. John 13:34.

A Daily Encounter reader writes, “My new husband is in the military and recently left for his first deployment. I have been feeling very sad and mournful about his leaving. I felt like the Lord showed me that I feel abandoned. I know this is an irrational feeling, because I know he has been working so hard to get to this place for two years. He and I both feel like this is a calling on his life. I knew when I married him that he would be leaving for months at a time. But now that it is here, I can’t help but feel like his love for me is smaller than his love for his job. What steps should I take to deal with my abandonment issue?”

Dear Jane (not her real name), chances are your abandonment issue has little, if anything, to do with your husband being away. His absence has merely triggered unresolved issues from your past—in all probability (as you also implied) going back to your early relationship with your emotionally-uninvolved father and then reinforced by your former marriage. If this is true, you need effective counseling to help you resolve your “father wound.” If you don’t resolve this issue, you will be troubled by it in some way for the rest of your life. Furthermore, it is very important that you don’t project this feeling onto your husband, or the thing you fear you may unconsciously make to happen.

While your feelings of abandonment may seem to be irrational, they are actually logical in that they are authentic feelings based on your past experiences. This is why it is so important not to project these emotions onto your present situation and blame your husband for the way you feel. For those of us who have an abandonment issue, we need in-depth therapy to help us resolve our problem. It seems to me that if we have a “father wound,” we need to resolve this with a trusted male therapist and, if a “mother wound,” with a female therapist.

Unfortunately, there are no simple quick-fix answers. True, God can heal quickly, but more often than not he heals these wounds through healing relationships. That is, as we were damaged in damaging relationships, we are healed in healing relationships. The healing takes place over time as we are connected to a safe, loving, non-threatening counselor or very understanding friend who gets to know all about us and loves and accepts us just as we are—unconditionally and without strings attached. Little by little this experience reprograms our feelings to produce in us what counselors call “object constancy.” In other words we become secure in our love with our loved ones so that when we are separated from them, we no longer feel abandoned nor suffer from separation anxiety.

To start, tell God exactly how you feel and ask him to lead you to a safe counselor and to the help you need to overcome your abandonment issue. And don’t ever give up praying for and getting the help you need until your abandonment issue/father wound is healed. Until you are freed from this past issue, you will not be free to fully live and fully love.*

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, thank you that your love for me is totally unconditional and everlasting. Help me to feel secure in your love and get the help I need to feel secure in my human relationships knowing that I have ‘object constancy.’ Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

1. Job 3:25 (NIV).

*Note: For further help read “Healing a Man’s Father Wound” at: http://tinyurl.com/9dse4. The same principles apply to the healing of a woman’s father wound.