Dance Lessons

Interesting emotions today. Our guests/friends who have been living with us and ministering to us intensely for several weeks left today. This morning one of them was trying to send value messages, talking to my heart. It occurred to me that I was in a similar situation with similar feelings I had when my Mom tried to talk to my heart many years ago on the edge of my bed. In fact, I couldn't distinctly remember anyone doing that since then. While she was talking I was analyzing my reaction in the present. Was I trying to completely block out all incoming messages like I did before? No, this time I found myself listening with interest but still with a great deal of resistance and disbelief. After years of shame messages to my identity and perceived rejection it is very difficult to just open up and receive affirmations of value without question, as much as I want to be able to.

I also realize, to a little extent anyway, the immense blockage that I have built up over the past 30 years to receiving and giving care for hearts. It is the most difficult thing to believe the sincerity of others compliments or affirmations. In families it is much easier for us to connect with people not related to us than with each other. Of course, if continued this will become our destruction, not only of our family but of our souls as well. But that is negative motivation which, while true, has usually resulted in more resistance and further shutdown. Somehow we have to develop radical new habits of reacting and thinking when we feel attacked, threatened, demeaned and devalued. It is a good step to learn that's what we need to do, it is another to begin exercising and experiencing it.

Rose noted a very interesting insight and relationship between love and trust. True love is unconditional and expects no return for its investment. It is freely given without strings attached. Trust on the other hand expects a return for its investment. We get into trouble when we reverse the two and use them in place of the other. Love needs to be extended first to create an atmosphere where trust can flourish. If we try to trust someone first before we extend love to them, we will likely be disappointed and hurt when they fail our trust and love is never experienced.

I drove them out to the airport this morning so they could fly themselves to Wisconsin. It was almost nostalgic to be around planes again and the old desire to fly started growing as I talked with the friendly people in the hanger. As I drove away I also noted my emotions of attachment pain as Kevin and Rose begin the process of leaving us for good. They will be back for a short time at the end of the month, but we are being weaned to practice what they have worked so hard to teach us and model for us the past few weeks. They have certainly pried deeper into my damaged heart than anyone has ever done before and I am far more vulnerable to both joy and pain than I have been in years. What will flow into the holes and cracks freshly opened will largely be determined by the choices I make over the next few days and weeks. It is both very frightening and tantalizing at the same time. The bonding part of my brain has been somewhat reawakened and I have to overcome some deeply ingrained habits to steer my bonding efforts toward my wife if I want to have any healthy relationships at all for the rest of my life. My little gods are clamoring to stop all this and God is-- well, I'm not sure exactly what He's doing. I keep hearing Him encouraging me in the right direction and I trust He is continuing the plans He has for me and all my relationships.

As I copied some song lyrics off the internet a few minutes ago I suddenly was confronted with this message from God to my heart. It seems to be the theme coming at me from several people interested in my heart. I was moved deeply as I sang, or tried to sing, through the following words.

Lord of the Dance

I danced in the morning when the world was begun, And I danced in the moon and the stars and the sun, And I came down from heaven and I danced on the earth, At Bethlehem I had my birth.

Refrain

Dance, then, wherever you may be; I am the Lord of the Dance, said he. And I’ll lead you all wherever you may be, And I’ll lead you all in the dance, said he.

I danced for the scribe and the Pharisee, But they would not dance and they would not follow me; I danced for the fishermen, for James and John; They came to me and the dance went on.

Refrain

I danced on the sabbath when I cured the lame, The holy people said it was a shame; They whipped and they stripped and they hung me high; And they left me there on a cross to die.

Refrain

I danced on a Friday and the sky turned black; It’s hard to dance with the devil on your back; They buried my body and they thought I’d gone, But I am the dance and I still go on.

Refrain

They cut me down and I leapt up high, I am the life that’ll never, never die; I’ll live in you if you’ll live in me; I am the Lord of the Dance, said he.

Refrain

Internal Floundering

Deeper exposure of evil for evil relationship last night. Nearly all my communication is based on view of other person's resistance. Working very hard to dislocate splinter from another's eye. Definitely need a new heart and new perception.

It is very difficult for me to discern difference between conviction and false gods. False gods are very adept at using my mind to make me feel depressed and self-pity when others don't value me. I especially feel depressed when I believe I have yet again overwhelmed a sensitive person with too much “intimacy” and frightened them away from ever getting near me again. I feel intense shame, beat myself up emotionally, tell myself that I'm a jerk and I never know how to properly relate to people emotionally. It is always too much or too little affection. Every time I try to express what I believe is being honest about how I feel it either scares people off or makes them angry or both. Now on top of that I can add feeling guilty about being an image manager and trying to always control what people think about me.

How can I identify lying spirit gods? It seems I have to know the real laws and my relationship to them. I have to know what is true as well as know God, the source of truth. When I try to argue with the voices they always win because they can always out-feel me.

• I need discernment that I don't have and can't produce by my mind to uncover the disguises of the enemy gods. They are not me, they are sin living in me.

• I need to know solidly how much authority I have in Jesus Christ, not just intellectually but in my deepest spirit.

• I need to exercise that authority against the gods as soon as I identify that they are harassing me again.

• I need to arrest them boldly and decidedly and force them into judgment before the court of heaven.

• Then I need to know how to impose a strong restraining order against them to prevent them from stealing, killing and destroyed my life and marriage and relationships further.

Internal Analysis

I am slowly becoming aware that the immense wall of resistance inside me has a mixture of fear, guilt, pride, shame, rebellion, self-justification, self-defense, fear of death. Sounds like the same ID's as the gods that have been getting exposed. I feel incapable of managing them in this situation as far as getting them to relinquish resistance, they refuse to take directions about this. I stay confused about what method or handle of willpower to use to unlock my mind or even where permission is needed. The exit door is not clearly marked, at least on the inside. And one of them that most people on the outside insist is the only exit clearly looks like it will not only destroy my false identity but my real heart as well, though that fear has been unpacked much better than ever before.

Yesterday Rose observed that my basis for thinking – perceiving reality - is deeply distorted due to a life-long lack of encouragement and affirmation. That feels very true. It feels very strongly that that is one of the primary missing ingredients I need to be able to discern the way out of my trap or take action to move. This is clearly what the Life Model describes as type A trauma. My early years of deep fear of God have not been completely undone yet and the residual effects are still evident far more than I wish was true. Of course, this simply means that I am finally starting to uncover deeper levels of the brain and embedded beliefs that have not yet been exposed over the years of new beliefs that have replaced much of the upper level lies. In fact, I now remember Wilder explaining that when you get down to level 1 and 2 problems and emotions it is beyond the reach of the will or consciousness and can only be changed from the outside. He said the only use for the will at these levels is to trust the other person to make the changes, but with no control either over what is changed or any ability to reverse the changes once they are made.

I don't understand why I don't feel much more appreciation and spontaneous gratitude for what they are doing for us. This is probably the best effort anyone has ever put out for us for the least appreciation. The only positive thing I see in this is that I am not like the people that Regier talks about that shower him with flattery making him realize they didn't get what he was trying to get through to them. This lack of natural gratitude as a constant in my life is baffling to me. Maybe that's because it is rooted in such deep levels of the brain that is is beyond access from my conscious searching. It also makes me afraid they will run out of patience with me and give up because they are not appreciated. Of course there is also the expiration date fast closing in on their stay here that stirs my fears.

Uncovering these emotions is only possible at this point in my journey by capturing them early in the morning and chasing them from one to the next and capturing them in writing before they go deep into hiding again. They only peek out when everything is quiet and my mind is actively digesting the previous day's input and the overnight filing process. Then after awhile they all sink back into hiding and don't emerge again unless some unexpected emotional event occurs. And even then only selected ones surface in response to whatever fits the nature of the event and quickly return to hiding to avoid observation.

Two Languages

I am in the infant stages of learning about real heart communication and identification. I am beginning to learn some of the most elementary principles that seem so obvious and yet so unknown. After they dawn on me, (which probably means they are linked together between my left and right brain), I realize they were right there in the Bible all along and other people have been trying to convey them to me for a very long time. That makes me feel a little stupid. Maybe that's what the Bible is talking about in 1Cor. 3:18-20 Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, he must become foolish, so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. For it is written, "He is THE ONE WHO CATCHES THE WISE IN THEIR CRAFTINESS"; and again, "THE LORD KNOWS THE REASONINGS of the wise, THAT THEY ARE USELESS."

2Co 5:16 “From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way.” I think I may be starting to understand a little of what this might mean. It is highlighting the difference between two languages, the language that most humans typically use and the language of heart communication. Actually they are more like filters than separate languages. We always have filters in place when we think and talk. The problem is not just whether we have correct information but even more so how we interpret it and what part of our brain is allowed to interpret it.

Learning to live from my heart, even a renewed heart, is a real struggle for me right now. It is much easier to interpret others through the filters I have used all my life that were both trained into me by my family, church and culture and ones I have cultivated. But most all of these familiar filters, even though they sound very right, are easily defendable and can even be deeply entrenched in proof texts and quotations, these filters are actually based on formulations of the false gods that have deceived me all these years. These filters are based on the Sarc (or Sarx), which is the Greek word translated in the Bible as “flesh”. That is the natural part of us, human nature, what feels normal and sensible, common sense etc. Much of religion is based on Sarc thinking though that statement would be sure to raise intense controversy. Sarc thinking can be based on very true information and proved beyond a shadow of a doubt but still not be heart-oriented or sensitive.

Heart language requires having “the eyes of heaven”, perceiving not only others but also our own hearts with new appreciation and insight. It is a skill that everyone must have if they are to participate in heaven's kingdom but is so rare it is startling when we see it. In fact, we often mistake it for simple-mindedness, immature thinking or even naivety. It is most easily seen in small children but is soon trained out of them by abuse and lies. It is being able to honestly express the truth about our real emotions and motives, either good or bad. It is also the ability to discern the difference between what originates from an innocent heart and what purports to be from our heart but is actually gods masquerading as our identity. This is the part that is very new and very difficult for me to successfully navigate right now.

But as I consider the alternative - that is, to continue to misjudge and wound the hearts of those around me in my attempts to defend myself or maintain being right – I decide that this venture is more than worth the effort and dis-ease of being out of my comfort zone for a season. Viewing the immense damage I have already caused the hearts of my own wife and children over the past 30 years I believe it is time to accept a radical new direction in my thinking, believing and relating.

This is very unsettling and frightening for me and makes me feel very vulnerable, as I have expressed recently in my blogs. I have to accept the very real possibility that someone, or many ones, will choose to exploit my vulnerability and choose to hurt me deeply. That is the price I have to be willing to pay to unlock my real heart and actually begin to live real life again.

I remember when I was a teenager at LBA in Tennessee going out into the circle and lying down in the grass struggling with this very issue. I sensed that my ability to enjoy beauty and have deep relationships was fast eroding and being replaced by a feeling of callousness and walls of self protection. I no longer could genuinely revel in a beautiful sunset or experience many feelings like I used to do. Intrinsically I realized that my capacity for experiencing joy and connecting meaningfully with other people was the exact same capacity that I was willing to allow myself to be hurt and wounded without cutting myself off. At that time I made a conscious decision to be willing to accept that. I believed for many years that that decision still stood in my life. But over the past few years I have begun to realize that somehow that decision has been largely reversed, but so subtly that I didn't realize it was happening. I again became aware that many of my relationships, especially with close family, were feeling more and more at a distance even though externally they look respectable. But this time I am in the quicksand so deep that I could not get out by myself. I heart is struggling and gasping for it's last violent attempts to breath and I need emergency resuscitation.

I have been praying for months for something more than just another seminar or even a week-long counseling session, as good as those have been. I needed someone, preferably a couple, to literally move in with us and show us what it looks like while teaching and coaching us how to live and love and be real in everyday life. God was so wonderful, as He always is though I often don't perceive it, and sent that very thing into our lives. We are right now going through that very process with the most unusual couple I have ever met who have those exact qualifications. In fact, they have made it their life work to do just what I described, to live with people, provide their professional mediation skills and their wide variety of training along with their more important abilities to live from their hearts transparently in any situation. It is literally taking weeks for me to slowly unfreeze the thick walls encasing my own heart. I often feel very much like the frozen waterfalls in the recent movie Narnia, as they begin to crack and soften and leak, threatening to collapse into a torrent of revived life and free flowing emotions again.

I don't yet have an ending for this to write yet. That's because I'm still in the middle of the process and don't know what's next. I am simply trying to express and understand and share it as it happens.

Heart springs

'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' Matt. 22:37-39

I find it quite interesting that each mention of this in the Bible always lists the heart first and the mind near the last. I think that is very significant. I also am beginning to see that loving your neighbor as yourself cuts two ways and has interesting implications. It also is much more of a heart issue than a mind problem. It is, in fact, a principle as much as a command.

If I don't love my own heart, respect it, value it and care for it I am incapable of effectively doing that for the people closest to me, my spouse and family. I am not referring to selfishness, I am referring to discovering my true identity that God implanted in me at conception and designed for me to be.

I am a human being, not a human doing. But long ago I lost sight of that and have viewed myself in essence on the basis of all my doing. Therefore I became an image manager and live in constant fear of what others might think about me. This also disables me from relating to the hearts of those around me especially in my family.

Pr 4:23 Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life.

I never really understood what this was saying until this morning, at least to a greater degree. My heart is really the “vital connection” to the Source of Life, God Himself. When I am not connected and aware of my heart I have choked off the channel through which I need to receive life. I also am unable to give life to other hearts. If my heart is buried under a mountain of religion, fear, shame, information, worries, distractions, addictions etc. – the spring is clogged up and I don't experience fruitfulness and joy and all the results of living water in a dry land.