We have been talking mainly about people who have lots of feelings and live by them, but have you ever met someone and thought, Do you even have a pulse? There are people who don’t seem to feel much of anything. In some ways life is easier for them, but cold emotion must be controlled the same as excessive emotion. The two main problems with people whose emotions are minimal are (1) they may not accomplish much in life unless they learn not to let their lack of strong feelings control them, and (2) they can be dull to live with. Just as the emotional person must learn to live by principle rather than emotion, the emotionless person must do the same. Whether we have too much or too little emotion, we cannot live according to it.
Some people may be emotionally cold because they’ve been hurt in life and have become hardened and desensitized. They don’t want to feel because they learned early on that feeling is often painful. They have developed ways to deny or turn off their feelings. Many of these people have addictive behaviors. I recently watched a television show about a woman who was a hoarder. She absolutely could not get rid of anything. Her stuff made her feel secure. This addiction was destroying her family and her life, so she sought professional counseling. The goal of all counseling is to get to the root of problem that is causing the excessive behavior, and they discovered what hers was. During her childhood years, her father had a job that required her family to move almost yearly. Each time they moved, she lost her friends and had to leave behind most of her possessions that she had become attached to. She remembered one painful experience, watching her father burn some of the toys and posessions she was very fond of. Her father should have been more sensitive to her reaction to how he handled the moved, but he wasn’t. He could have allowed her to keep a few of the things that were the most important to her, but sadly, a lot of adults think only of themselves when making decisions that affect the entire family, and they leave a trail of wrecked and wounded people behind them.
As an adult, she associated getting rid of anything with pain and unpleasant memories, so she simply held on to everything. Her entire home looked like one giant trash can. She was addicted to stuff and used that addictin to control feelings of pain connected to loss. As she began to clean out her house with her family members and conselors and get rid of a lot of her posessions, she felt a lot of emotional pain. But she also enjoyed the feeling of freedom she was experiencing. She understood that her healing would not come overnight or easily, but she was determined to overcome her addiction. I am happy for that woman because I love to see people confront their problems, tear down walls of bondage, and learn to enjoy freedom. I suggest that you stop right now and ask yourself if you have any self-made walls that need to come down in your own life.
Many people who seem to be cold and emotionless have merely developed ways to numb their pain. They may have become masters at isolation. They feel safe only when they are not involved with anyone. After all, they cannot get into trouble or face rejection if they do nothing and say nothing.
People who don’t exhibit much emotion need healing just as excessively emotional people do. Anytime we discover that we are out of balance in an area of life, we need to confront it and work with the Holy Spirit to bring it into balance. If one is too emotional, she needs to be less so; and if one is emotionless, he needs to stir himself up a bit. If a person talks too much, she needs to learn how to be quiet. But if someone is too quiet, he needs to learn to make conversation for the sake of relationship and a well-balanced social life.
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