Sunday, May 16, 2010

Feelings- Girl stuff? Or not?

Hi all,

Okay, ever had to complain about your guy or another guy you know, that they're just so seemingly dense? They don't pick up on subliminal messages or they just don't understand how you feel? Maybe they seem like a post, totally logic and no emotion at all. Is it unmanly for a guy to be in touch with their feelings? What is it about this topic of emotion/feelings and men that seems to come up so much?

Well, for one, I think it's ridiculous for a man not to be in touch with their feelings. Everyone has feelings. Everyone has emotions. Sometimes people just work really hard to hide them. Often people are scared of feeling vulnerable and being judged or rejected because of it. Sometimes this whole feelings issue can make certain guys really uncomfortable. And even though they may try to blame it on feelings are a woman thing, I don't think that's true. I think you're probably just hitting a soft spot, something they are too uncomfortable to deal with in their private life.

I was watching part of an episode of Wife Swap the other day where there was this woman who was trying to get men in touch with their feminine side. Really strange. Anyway, it got me thinking. Why in the world do we attach gender labels to emotions? There are female and male emotions. I don't know about you but that strikes me as being really stupid. Crying, being sad, expressing your inner self- society sometimes implies those are female things, feminine emotions. I just think they're emotions. If a guy cries, I don't think he's acting like a girl. It's just become more socially acceptable for women to express their emotions in more overt ways than guys.

You know another thing that really bugs me? The whole logic verses emotion debate. Somehow logical people are always promoted as being more intelligent than emotional people. Men know what to do because they are acting on logic and women, well, they can sometimes use some guidance through their emotional web. I think that's totally silly. After all, where does logic come from? Can a logical decision really be divorced from all emotion? When someone makes a 'logical' decision, isn't there some kind of reaction inside, such as a feeling that it is the right decision? But I do think it's important to note that there is a difference between being driven by emotions without thinking them through and reaching out from an emotional response. It's important to think before we act. Just because we're angry, does not mean we can act out in anger. We have to temper our response (that's using logic). So really, logic and emotion walk hand in hand. Think of a mother's concern for her children, when she senses they could be in a dangerous situation, she reacts to protect them. Sometimes we have to listen to our emotions, to what we feel inside. We can't just  say that this is a safe neighbourhood because they haven't had a problem with crime in the last 10 years so let's walk home alone in the dark at night- logic alone can be inadequate, and faulty.

So where em I going with all this? Well, to summarize, emotion should not be attached to gender. We're all people, all capable of feeling in a variety of ways. And logic should not be separate from emotion because God created us as emotional beings, people who feel. Yet God also created us to be wise- which is a big side of the whole using logic issue.

So let's think about God for a moment. When Jesus was on Earth, he came as a man. And he wasn't afraid to feel either. He cried, expressed joy, pain and loss, loneliness- he experienced it all, and right in front of people too. Then if we think on God, who is neither male nor female but creator of all, he created emotion. So there is nothing less, nothing wrong, nothing bad about having emotions. It's natural, part of God's design. Experiencing emotions is nothing to look down on someone for having. It's good to feel. Yet because of the way our society is structured, this can be tough, considering how men and women are often socialized to appear and act a certain way. We need to rid ourselves of these constraints and beliefs, just be who God created us to be and not be scared of feeling but use wisdom in every reaction/action.

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