PITFALL: Living Emotionally Driven Lives

Posted on February 28, 2011 by Steve

I miss Mr. Spock. Not Dr. Spock — the baby-book guy. I miss the pointy-eared Star Trek Mr. Spock from the planet Vulcan. I miss him because he was great illustration material.

Spock was from a society that, while it had emotion, chose to place that emotion inside the chains of rational thought. A constant tension in the Star Trek series was between Spock, who denied his emotional nature, and the humans, who often lived by emotions. Naturally, the humans always came out on top because the scripts were written by humans — not by Vulcans.

I miss Spock, because in many respects, he was right. Not that we should have no emotions. Emotions are part of the nature of God, printed on our being. So I am not saying emotions are bad. But it is essential that we humans do not allow our passions, our lusts, our selfishness, and our feelings to dominate our decision-making processes. When we do that, we fall into the pitfall addressed in this podcast.

The pitfall of emotional helplessness.

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How to Escape the Trap of Self-Pity

Posted on February 2, 2011 by Steve

How do I stop feeling sorry for myself?

Recently, I’ve been talking about pitfalls that people tend to fall into. As I spoke of the pitfall of perfectionism, my guess is that a number of listeners thought: “Oh — yeah — that’s something I probably need to work on.” But I doubt that you felt personally insulted. I never make it my goal to insult you. In fact, I would go out of my way to avoid doing so.

Likewise, when I spoke on being a controller, although you might have noted someone near you poking you in the ribs, you probably weren’t really hurt by the message itself. I never want a podcast to injure you.

But this podcast might feel a little different. You might feel like saying, “OK, Pastor — you just moved from preachin’ to meddlin’!” That’s not my objective.

Still, the reality is that human beings have weaknesses. And if we never address our weaknesses, how are we to overcome them? Part of being compassionate means correcting error.

Years ago I cut myself shaving before church. I’d talked to a dozen people before Lloyd said to me, “Steve — you have a piece of paper tissue on your neck!” I wonder why no one else did that. They probably THOUGHT they were being compassionate. Lloyd was being compassionate. If someone has a character flaw that is trapping him in behavioral or thinking patterns that damage him, compassion corrects.

This podcast speaks of the thinking pattern of Self-Pity and helps you recognize it offers keys to correct it. The keys are hard pills to swallow, but they are worth it.