Adam and Eve were not ashamed. And they were naked. They were vulnerable, they did not know sin, they did not know shame.
But then sin came, oh no we’ve done something wrong, we have a fear of being judged.
Today I realized that I was numb in my heart because I was suppressing feelings of pain. I felt pain because everytime I go to Taiwan I try to connect with my dad but then when I come back to America it’s a disconnect, it’s like I don’t even exist. Before I didn’t talk to or see my dad for 10 years.
Brene Brown talks about how the most evasive betrayal is not cheating, but neglect. Neglect and the silence.
That disconnect created a pain in my heart that increased by the day, but I didn’t realize I was feeling this. So God brought father figure divine appointments into my life, some were in Mexico, some that I met in LA, some on the airplane. They were all male figures comforting my heart. God brought father figures throughout my whole life.
I felt more and more depressed as I lay there after watching a show’s live taping today.
The issues:
- A family that was searching for the grandma who abandoned her son. The son had depression and killed himself.
As I watched my heart started to feel immense pain and I started crying.
Growing up I tried to be perfect in my mother’s eye, I didn’t want to be a burden as she was already stressed out as a single mother.
So I became the model citizen. I got good grades, excelled in school, won awards, I was a first chair cellist, I was a youth leader, I was esteemed but deep down no one noticed I was actually depressed. I had a sorrow in my heart I could not express and no one asked.
I took care of my own emotional needs through achievement, busy-ness, and when I was tired of striving, masturbation.
Since I could not feel anything emotionally, and I did not want to feel pain I learned how to feel emotions through physical gratification. I was very young and often neglected by my mother, left alone at the age of 5 inside a house by myself. I found that I could grind on my pelvis and I would feel good.
Later my mother told me that she had to put me in a worker’s storage room so she could work and that from 0-1 years old I was raised by my nanny. I started to feel like a ghost, a living body with no soul. No one to connect to.
But when I was 12 years old I felt God’s love and accepted Jesus into my heart. I started to be guided by Him and I felt His love when I could feel nothing else. And yet….church was another thing, they encouraged PERFORMANCE over CONNECTION.
They encouraged us to perform, thinking that if we performed well people would see Jesus in us. They used theology, they used books, but what people really needed was to feel love. They used rules and regulations. There was no grace.
I felt unloved and more over, I was encouraged to PERFORM.
And so PERFORM I did. I performed and achieved in church.
And I was exhausted.
So striving became my default because when you’re busy there is no time to feel. And when you have no time to feel, you don’t have to feel the pain in your heart. The world is that way, full of busy noises, always being entertained, always going somewhere, always achieving, full of noise.
No one wants to feel pain.
Very few people are honest about what they’re feeling and more people are ashamed to be who they are fully. Maybe they’ll sit behind a screen and criticize other people online or they’d rather gossip than confront that person.
And that’s the worse thing about some churches is that they shame people for being imperfect.
A lot of churches don’t talk about issues like sex, masturbation, pornography, addictions, drugs, depression, sexuality in general. When I asked two female leaders at my church what sex felt like they said “we will tell you when you’re about to get married”.
One of my best girl friend found her dad’s sex tape one time and became a porn addict. She watched porn for 8 hours a day. She became self conscious and insecure about her looks.
Why should I be ashamed to be honest?
I have nothing to hide. I’ll say the words penis and vagina out loud, I will talk about whatever I want.
If you are fake your whole life you’ll never meet people who will love you for who you are.
I see tons of prophets who show forth an image of perfection like they have no problems, they smile and wear nice dresses. I’m so tired of fake people.
God didn’t anoint me or choose me because I’m perfect. God chose me because I trust in His grace alone that made me whole.
The other day someone asked me “how do you know you are anointed”. I started to explain and stopped. “Why do I have to explain myself to you?”
I’m a recovering emotional detached person. I had shingles when I was 14 because I was stuffing all the stress inside my heart. I didn’t tell people about my single mother’s anger issue, my mother told me not to tell people my parents are divorced.
I became two-faced. I became the overachiever who took care of her own emotional needs. I read erotica to ease the pain in my heart or I gossiped about other people. Everyone came to me for help and I liked it. But I wasn’t loving myself, and I didn’t know how to ask for help.
I dated a guy who was emotionally absent. He would disappear for days and I found myself having emotional affairs with other people. He didn’t want to get close to me emotionally so I found other avenues.
But I was also emotionally detached, because it was safe to be with another emotionally absent person. That way I wouldn’t get hurt right?
No, I did get hurt. Love is love, you’ll experience pain no matter what. Stop trying to be perfect. Open your heart and just TELL IT LIKE IT IS. You are sad, say it. You are angry, say it. You feel like someone is being fake, tell them. It’s blunt but it’s the truth and the truth will set you free, even if it’s harsh.
So how do I overcome emotional detachment in this season:
- Opening my heart and talking through the issues with my friend.
- Creating videos and talking about how I feel
- Writing
- Telling God how I feel.
And most of it is a lot of anger.
God why did you abandon me?
God why did you allow this to happen to me?
God why do I always become friends or chase people who don’t give back to me?
God help me break this negative cycle.
God help me to open my heart.
God help me to forgive.
God I can’t do this anymore. This heart thing.
What’s appropriate? What’s taboo? Why don’t you lift off the veil of pretend and try being honest?
Are you tired of BS? Why don’t you be honest for twice in your life?
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Rebekka Lien 