Love is a skill learned at home from childhood

Love is a skill learned at home. Let’s see an example. Joaquin was a 35-year-old man, a widower without children. He went to seek professional help to overcome depression.

Let’s start with understanding Joaquin’s relationship with his parents, specifically with his mother. He was the youngest of five brothers. His father had been dead for five years, and Joaquin was not close to his mother. The memories he had of his childhood in his home were difficult to process.

Although Joaquin was his father’s favorite son, he never felt his mother’s affection, care, and love. Although she was always physically there cooking and washing his clothes, she never hugged him, nor told him that she loved him. Since his father was not home because he was working most of the time, Joaquin grew up developing an insecure attachment to his parents, especially to his mother.

Joaquin’s problem was not only the distance between him and his mother. His brothers did not give him space in the home either. They were much older than him and did not like him being his father’s favorite son, so there was a distance between them, which contributed to him feeling an emotional void even in his adult life.

Love is a skill learned according real experiences

He was mistreated and suffered harassment from his brothers to the point that he sometimes questioned his existence in this world and thought about taking his own life. He felt he did not fit in the world around him.

Now, Joaquín is an adult and has serious depression problems that negatively affected him while he was married and still affect him today. He feels that not even God loves him, since if He is as good as they say, then, why has He not interfered in his life? Since he does not feel God’s love, he cannot feel the love of the people around him.

His depression was activated when he lost his wife in an accident and since then, he began to question God. He also has problems that have developed in his life. He does not feel fulfilled, he is an insecure person, and he does not know how to have relationships, especially with people of the opposite sex.

Joaquin’s main problem has been the lack of love he experienced in his childhood while developing an attachment to his parents. Emotional damage is almost irreparable when a child does not receive a secure attachment, full of love and affection. Love is a skill learned at home, and when parents do not have a loving relationship with their children, the consequences are terrible. A person is unlikely to be satisfied with life when security at home and love are not received.

Love is a skill learned according Science

It was proven by a study of Romanian orphans abandoned in orphanages. They were rescued and adopted by loving parents with good economic status. Despite establishing loving contact with the adoptive parents and improving their quality of life, contact with others continued to be superficial and fragile.

Considering Joaquin’s parents, it is clear so far that they did not model the essential aspect in their son. He was to know true love and teach him how to love because love is learned. He grew up with limited love, and not feeling loved. So, he did not know how to express his feelings in his relationships. At home, he began to feel out of place.

From his mother’s womb, Joaquin began to develop an effective deficiency. Unfortunately, this first mother-child interaction will remain throughout life. Thus, it is what we call attachment. It is, without a doubt, a natural mechanism. Through it, we seek security. In our next post, we will continue developing this concept.

Awaken your consciousness and discover your potential

Awaken your consciousness and discover your potential. Today, we will learn that if you awaken your consciousness, you will discover your potential and your reach will be unlimited. There will not be a giant in your way that you cannot beat.

– A very poor and young European man decided to visit his relatives in the United States. With great effort, he managed to save enough money to buy a ticket on a boat. He bought his ticket and the ship sailed to America. He made provision to eat sardines with cookies because he had no money to buy food on the ship. His wish was to get to the United States.

The first day, he ate cookies and sardines. The second day, he ate the same. The third day, he got tired of eating the same food and it disgusted him. He was very weak and had no strength. A boat waiter noticed that he was very pale and asked him: “Sir, is there something wrong? I noticed that you are feeling down.” The young man told him that he was hungry and that he did not want to continue eating sardines and cookies because he had been eating the same thing for two days. The waiter told him: the ticket you bought to board this ship included all the meals you wanted to eat on the boat. The young man was starving and having a hard time because he did not know what was included in his ticket.

Many people walk blindly in this world, without knowing the potential they have as sons and daughters of God. They suffer in silence, they do not reach for their dreams, they have no happiness because they believe they do not have the resources to fulfill their dreams and to live extraordinary lives.

I want to challenge you to awaken your consciousness. What do I mean by this? What I want you to do is to look inside yourself. Turn on the light of your consciousness so that you can discover all the things God gave you when He created you, so you can reach your fullness in Jesus.

Not awakening your consciousness has led you to live a miserable life full of failures. You are confused about your identity. You do not think it is possible to make it, to be happy, and achieve the dreams God has for you.

Since you live in the dark, you are continuously looking for the negative aspects of life, and you underestimate the positive ones. This cognitive process is called selective filtering. It leads you to criticize, to complain, to pity yourself because of what you do not have, to see deficiencies and limitations as obstacles to achieve your dreams. You have a negative attitude towards life. When someone mentions how beautiful the day is, you reply, “Yes, but it will rain.” When someone compliments your hairstyle, you reply, “But it was really expensive, and I do not like it.”

If you focus on the negative things in life, your mood will worsen, and you are at risk of having anxiety, depression, and other psychological problems. But mainly, you are at risk of not reaching all the potential you have in Christ. I invite you to awaken your consciousness, to see within yourself and reach your potential in Christ.

Two groups of people: The one with consciousness off and the one with consciousness on

Description of the two groups

In 1 Samuel, the story of Goliath with the people of Israel is told.

– In this story, there are two groups: A, Those who have their consciousness off and do not know each other.

And B, those who have awakened their consciousness and know each other.

Consciousness turned off

– David’s brothers and the whole army.

When they saw the giant Goliath, they told themselves they could not defeat this giant. “We do not have the resources, the courage, the physical preparation, the human condition.” They looked at the situation through the selective filtration and said, “We cannot beat this giant,” and the survival instinct led them to flee and hide from the giant.

The same could be happening in your life. You have your consciousness off. Besides, you live in darkness, you do not look inside yourself. You live on autopilot without knowing what is happening. And the results are evident. You have a negative attitude towards life. You look at everything negative, what you cannot achieve, the limitations you have, the things that are missing in your life.

Besides, you compare yourself with others, and you feel disadvantaged. You think you do not have what you need to defeat the giants that rise up in your life. And this leads you to unhappiness, anguish, despair, depression, fear, and you run away, desperate to hide from the opportunities to grow and achieve your dreams. If you find yourself identifying with these types of people, the ones who  have consciousness off, it is time to awaken your consciousness and to reach your potential.

Consciousness turned on

– The other group is represented by David. A young man who went to visit his brothers and saw how Goliath, the giant, was cursing the children of God, who had their consciousness off. It is terrible to have our own consciousness off.

David, on the other hand, had discovered the power of self-knowledge. The power of having awakened our consciousness to look inside ourselves and discover our true identities.

David observed the problem, and instead of looking at the positive side. Instead of focusing on what he did not have, his limitations, he looked inside himself, at what he did have. All the potential he had by being close to God, all the victories that God had given them in their past. He decided to believe in what God had given him and not in the negative things of life. When you look inside yourself and discover who you are and the strengths you have when being close to Jesus Christ, your reach will be unlimited. There will be no giant that can stand in your presence.

– I ask you, what are the giants that are threatening your life right now? It could be the giant called addiction, poverty, disease, or generational curse. There is no giant impossible for you to defeat if you discover who you are in Jesus.

 How do we awaken our consciousness?

– The mission of the Holy Spirit is to help you awaken your consciousness so that you discover your limitations and your potential. The Holy Spirit wants you to discover who you are in Jesus. If you are a child of God, there is no giant that can get in your way because you can do all this through Christ who gives you strength.

Ask the Holy Spirit to help you discover the things you may need to improve in your life. And set your mind to grow.

Breathe consciously

Conscious breathing is the only activity that can keep us in the present and connect us with ourselves. It is about being attentive to our breathing for at least five or ten minutes daily. You can call it meditation, pause, connection, or breathing. If you can, do it after studying the Bible and praying. After doing this exercise on a daily basis for only five or seven days, you will notice mental clarity and a substantial improvement in your day-to-day life.

You can perform this exercise sitting or lying down. Release emotional tension through meditation.

  1. You can start by placing one hand on the abdomen and the other on your chest.
  2. Breathe deeply and slowly from your abdomen, and count silently up to 4 as you inhale.
  3. Hold your breath and count silently from 1 to 7.
  4. Exhale completely as you count silently from 1 to 8.

Try to get all the air out of your lungs by the time you reach 8.

* Repeat these steps 3 to 7 times, or until you feel calm.

* Notice how you feel at the end of the exercise.

Watch your thoughts

Thought is creative, so what we think will be what we will create. For that reason, the better our thoughts, the better our life will be. Paul said: Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

Conclusion

– Now you can close your eyes and identify the giant that reigns in your life as Goliath did.

– Tell that giant: This is how far you can go, I will not run from your threats anymore.

– Then, I will rise to awaken my consciousness, to discover my potential and to defeat the giant in the name of Jesus Christ.

You are directed by your subconscious mind

We have been studying the power of the subconscious mind and why it is so difficult for us to grow emotionally. And we discovered that it is very important to understand how the brain and mind work. If we do not know how they work, we cannot grow emotionally or have healthy relationships. Today we will study the subconscious mind.

It is proven that the brain is the organ that God gave us so that we can have healthy relationships and be able to connect with other human beings. We have already studied that the mind has two dimensions: the conscious and the subconscious mind.

Subconscious mind

Your subconscious mind directs you. What does this mean? Neuroscience has proven that 95 percent of all your everyday decisions come from your subconscious mind, not the conscious part of your mind. This means that you are not aware of the decisions you are making. Since their origins lie in the subconscious. It is impressive, since the subconscious is linked to all the programming and experiences you have had in your life.

It does not matter if they are positive or negative, they are stored in your subconscious mind, in your memory and, through the amygdala of the brain, which regulates emotions, you express yourself, connect, and make decisions linked to the experiences you have had.

The subconscious mind, a real case

I illustrate this idea with the story of a patient who tells me:

“Pastor, you do not know my life. I will tell you about when I was five years old. My mother taught me how to make pupusas and when they got burned. My mother would beat me in the face with them. She said that I had to learn not to let them burn because we depended on them, to make a living by selling them. At five, I was already working as my mother’s maid. When I did something that she did not like, she would ask my two brothers to carry me over and put me on top of hot sticks on the floor. That was the kind of punishment and abuse that I received from my mother.”

A daughter, victim of the subconscious mind of her mother

We invited the mother to therapy. The mother tells me, “You do not know the whole story. The father of the girl told me that he loved me with his whole heart. He had sex with me, I got pregnant, and after the girl was born, he left me. He went to be with a younger girl. My daughter looked so similar to him. So, every time I saw her, hateful memories would come to me. The memories of that evil man who left me for that younger woman. And all I wanted to do was to blame it on her and do to her what I could not do to that evil man who left me.”

That girl was suffering due to the traumatic experience her mother had in the past and all that was there in the subconscious. The decisions she was making regarding her daughter were decisions based on the experience she had with the girl’s father. And the girl was not to blame. But, the subconscious, that autopilot system that was directing that mother’s life, led her to put all her hate, all her anger, on that unhappy girl.

The big power of the subconscious mind

The subconscious mind is something extraordinary because everything we have experienced is stored there. And maybe you are thinking: “the subconscious mind is annoying”. But no, God created the human being with a subconscious mind so that we can survive in life. Imagine that everything you have experienced, whether positive or negative, all the traumas and difficult situations, are in the conscious, in your present.

You could not survive with all that. God allows all difficult experiences to be in the subconscious and allows it to automate, regulate, to process all that automatically without us having to be aware of the reactions we are having. For example, learning to drive was difficult for me.

I told my father to let me drive, that I knew how to do it. But he told me to consider that it was not an automatic car, to push the clutch and slowly let it out so that the car could move forward. I was just a teenager, I thought I knew everything. So, I got in the car, started it, pushed the clutch, and when I let it go, the car jumped and stayed in the same place.

But, little by little, my dad taught me until I learned how to drive. It was not easy at first because I had to let the clutch go in one certain way, accelerate in a certain way, and stop with the right foot, to keep my eyes looking ahead. But how is it possible that today I can drive and do all those things, and not be aware of everything I am doing? Simply because all learning was registered in the subconscious. It is responsible for how I work and function, and what I have to do effectively because everything is done automatically.

How can we use the subconscious mind?

How can we apply this to our life? Perhaps you are a person who cannot control your anger due to difficult experiences you have lived in your past. Maybe you lived an experience of domestic violence and the behavior you learned. It was recorded in your subconscious. There you saw your father hitting, pushing, and mistreating your mother. It is the same behavior that you are showing today in your life, in your marriage, and with your children.

Why? Because it is a learned behavior. The experience that you have had and that is in your subconscious mind repeats the same unhealthy behavior that you learned in your childhood as though you were on autopilot.

Your life can be better

Maybe you are a sad, and shy person, and that is a result of some experience you lived. Your subconscious leads you to behave that way, and you are not aware that you are doing it. It is simply something you learned in the past. I encourage you to continue reading our posts. We will continue learning about:

  • how the subconscious works and how we can grow in our family relationships,
  • how to improve our relationships with friends, church brothers
  • and how to have emotional intelligence.

God calls you to love your neighbor as yourself. God calls you to learn how to love. It is a commandment. With us, you will learn how to grow emotionally so that you can reflect the relational image of the God who created you.

Do you know the power of your mind?

Let’s discover the Power of the Mind. We would like to continue sharing the book that I have written with Dr. Tortolero, “Learning to Love.” This book has been a great blessing, and many, many copies have been sold.

We have been studying the history of the People of Israel and why only two of the men who left Egypt entered the Promised Land. We have seen how they had difficulties with their sinful nature and did not allow the Spirit of God to transform their lives.

But, we have also gone further and discovered the importance of growing emotionally. Your spiritual growth must be connected to your emotional growth. You cannot grow spiritually if you do not grow emotionally.

Use your mind to grow emotionally

The question is, why is it hard for me to grow emotionally? I want to grow emotionally, I want to be different, treat my wife better, t have a better relationship with my children, a healthy relationship with my coworkers and people in my Church. But why is it hard for me? Where is the problem? Let’s analyze where the problem is.

What were the People of Israel’s problems? They had trouble growing emotionally. I have concluded that it is hard for us because of our lack of knowledge. What does this mean? That unless we know how the mind works, we will not be able to grow emotionally.

God incredibly created us. Each part of the body has its function: the arms, eyes, feet, hands, and others. Unless we learn how every part of the body works, practice, and use them efficiently and wisely, they will not be able to function properly, and we will have limitations. That is why we learn how to move our arms, hands, legs, and feet. And, we do it unconsciously.

God gave us an organ that allows us to connect and have healthy relationships with other people. It is the brain. God put it in our bodies, allowing us to connect and have healthy relationships with other people. Neuroscience proves this today. It explains that the brain is the organ created to be connected with other human beings, to grow emotionally, and to have emotional intelligence.

Using my mind to grow is essential

After two or three years of us being in the United States, my family and I decided to buy a Cadillac. We were five, as I have two brothers. We lived in Philadelphia and decided to buy it. It was not a brand-new car. It was four years old, but it was great. Besides, It had electric shock absorbers, we could not feel a thing on the road.

We were used to driving old Toyotas and Hondas, but now with the Cadillac, we felt we were floating on clouds. We could not believe what happened when we drove a car that was so sophisticated and so efficient. But, the day came when we had to fill the tank because it was almost empty. The five of us got in the car because we wanted to live the experience of fueling it for the first time. When we arrived at the station, we started looking at where the button was to open the little door to fill the tank.

We started comparing and looking at where the Toyotas and the Hondas had the little door. They were the cars we had before. So, we started getting frustrated and looking at each other. We were trying to find it by looking for it in the manual. It was written in English, and we did not know how to read English. We did not understand.

A simple solution

Then, the person in charge of dispensing the fuel comes and asks us why we were standing there and not putting fuel in the car. There is a line of cars waiting. We struggled with our language, trying to explain that we could not open the door. The person told us that it was very easy, we needed to push the door, and it will pop open. We were very surprised, we did not know!

We had a great car, sophisticated and good, but the car was useless if we did not know how to put fuel in it. The same happens to us. If we do not know how our brain works, our mind, and how to operate this machinery that God has put in our body, we will not be able to grow, connect, or t change those habits, patterns, and unhealthy behaviors we have.

Discover the power of your mind

There is power in the mind. An incredible power. Moreover, it controls the entire body. Nowadays, some scientists divide the mind into two areas: the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. Those are the two dimensions of it. Freud divides the mind into a third dimension, but let’s focus only on the division between the conscious mind and the subconscious mind.

The conscious mind is everything you remember today, your memory, your present, now, your short-term memory. It has an extremely important role. For example, it processes 40 bits per second, and that is where positive thinking, identity, and creativity are. All of that is in the conscious mind. But, the subconscious mind is the important part.

The invisible power of the iceberg

If we compare the mind with an iceberg, the top part on the surface is only 10 percent of its totality. The large part is not visible, it is below the surface. The same happens in the brain and the mind. The conscious mind is what happens in the present, it is the tip of the iceberg, the visible part.

The most important thing for us is in the subconscious, at the base of the iceberg, the hidden part. It determines who we are, and how we behave. The subconscious contains all the traumatic, emotional memories, all the things that influence our behaviors are stored there. It determines how we will react to certain situations, which is fascinating.

Your unconscious mind protects you

Let me conclude with this story: my dad had a motorcycle, and we were in Cuba, and I was around eight years old when one day. The bike slipped, and we ended up in one place while the motorcycle was in another. I have a very clear memory that my head was a few inches away from a truck’s giant wheel, which was traumatic for me.

Since then, I have not been able to get on a motorcycle. Why? You see, this is the great thing about the subconscious: it prepares itself in advance, it helps you remember the difficult things that have happened to you in the past, and subconsciously, prepares you.

It prevents you from repeating or exposing yourself to problems, emergencies, and situations that have caused problems in your life before. Every time I think about getting on a motorcycle, the subconscious tells me: remember what happened to you. And I have not been able to do it again.

You must discover the power of your mind. Especially the subconscious. We will analyze how 95 percent of all the behaviors and decisions we make daily come from the subconscious, from all the experiences we have stored in our minds.

I invite you to continue reading our blog and to enjoy, t understand, and discover how to grow emotionally, so you can have healthy relationships. And I also invite you to visit my page, www.drduany.org, so you can learn much more.

 

There is no spiritual growth without emotional transformation

Today, we will talk about emotional transformation and how can we experience spiritual growth. The most important task we have as human beings is to learn how to love God and our neighbors. There is nothing more important in this world than learning how to love.

We have been studying how the People of Israel. That generation that left Egypt, died in the desert, and only two men entered the Promised Land: Joshua and Caleb. This was because they did not allow God’s power to change their lives. And more specifically, they did not experience an emotional transformation.

We have already studied the different stages a person can be in emotionally. And today I want to continue with that topic. I want to start with the following approach: it is impossible to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature. It is impossible. As I grow spiritually, I must grow emotionally. The Spirit that produces spiritual growth is the same Spirit that produces an emotional transformation.

The spiritual growth of Jesus’ disciples

Let’s study the life of Jesus’ disciples. He was with them for three years and if we analyze their lives, especially that of Peter, who was called the “Son of thunder,” they had problems with their emotional growth. They did not know how to express their emotions, despite being close to Jesus.

And I am talking to you, the leader, father of the family, who goes to church every Saturday, believes in God, and has experienced conversion. You may feel that you have experienced spiritual growth while not having it since it must be proportional to your emotional growth.

You cannot be in the church, praying, singing, praising the name of the Lord on Saturday mornings and then cursing with your lips, using your tongue to criticize and censor, and not knowing how to control your emotions in the afternoon because, then, where is the Spirit of God? The Spirit that helps you have a heart full of love for God is the same Spirit that helps you have a heart full of love for your neighbor. “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another” (John 13:34).

The process of the spiritual growth of Jesus’ disciples

Moments before His crucifixion, when Jesus was with His disciples in the garden of Gethsemane, and He was captured, Peter took his sword and cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant. This shows that Peter did not know how to manage his emotions, he had not grown emotionally.

Maybe that could be your case and that is your struggle. You are trying, you go to church, pray, you ask the Lord to help you change because your wife or husband tells you that the way you speak to her/him is not proper, you do not have a good relationship with your children, and you feel that your family is not healthy because you have not discovered this aspect that is so important in the life of every human being.

How I grow spiritually must be the same as how I grow emotionally. How I grow spiritually must be the same as how the Bible says in Ephesians 4:13-17: “until we all reach unity in the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”

That is Paul telling the church of Ephesus: We need to reach maturity, a stature; Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.

Our spiritual growth according to the Bible

That is, there was a stage in your life where you behaved like a child, spiritually and emotionally speaking, but you are expected to mature, to grow, to develop that mind of Christ that leads you to reflect the image of God in your relationships.

The verse culminates by saying that we grow by following the truth with love. Here is the word “grow” again. Let us grow spiritually and emotionally, in everything, towards the One who is the head, Christ. In verse 16, we find: “From him, the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.” God expects us to grow, to mature. And what does mature mean? Complete, whole, perfect, well-developed.

In 1 Corinthians 13:11, Paul, speaking about the excellence of love, says:

“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought and reasoned as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

Here is one of the problems we might be having. We are in the church and have been participating in Communion for years, praising the Lord, and going to church with our family. But we continue behaving like children, fighting.

We continue with the same unhealthy customs and habits we had when we lived outside God’s Kingdom. And Paul tells us: “there was a time in your life when you were a child, but when you meet Jesus Christ, when the Spirit of God takes control of your mind, growth and changes are expected, also that you reach Jesus’ stature, that you be transformed.”

Our spiritual transformation

That transformation that the Spirit comes to do in your mind is spiritual and emotional. Where He renews it, helps you think, handles your mind, and makes it like that of Jesus Christ. Where the Spirit of God is, hate, resentment, and negative emotions that lead you to sin and to destroy the lives of others by your side cannot exist.

Galatians 5: 22-23 tells us about the fruits of the Spirit you receive. When that Spirit comes to make the spiritual and emotional transformation in your life. Remember that these fruits are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, meekness, temperance, and self-control. That is, the control you need to reflect the emotional intelligence that God has given you is a part of the fruits of the Spirit.

If you are struggling in your life with a mind that has not been transformed; with emotions that you have not been able to control. If you feel that you do not have healthy relationships with your husband or wife, your children, or your community; it is time for you to stop and ask the Lord: Transform me, transform my mind. I want to have self-control.

It is time for you to invite Him to come and do special work in your heart. May God bless you. May these lines help you grow and help you stop acting like a child (emotionally speaking). And begin to reach maturity in Jesus Christ.

Discover your emotional level and reach your potential

Today, I want to help you discover your emotional level. In this series of posts, we are considering the people in the story of Israel, and why that generation of men that got out of Egypt could not consummate the dream of entering the promised land. And we discovered that one of the reasons was that the people of Israel did not let the Holy Spirit, the Almighty God, change their lives.

The second reason was that the people of Israel, that generation who got out of Egypt, did not grow emotionally. By not growing emotionally, they did not let the Holy Spirit transform their lives. Why? Simply, because emotional growth must be proportional to our spiritual growth.

Emotional Level

Let’s go deeper into why emotional growth is important. You cannot grow beyond where your parents grew emotionally because they were your first models and instructors when you had to learn how to express your emotions and how to love. I mean that you cannot go beyond the emotional dynamics you learn in your family.

If you are struggling because you do not know how to solve your emotional issues, how to handle your emotions, or how to express your love for your wife and children, and you see that you have issues, maybe the problem is linked to the emotional dynamics you lived back in your childhood. If your parents were not helping you grow emotionally, you could be having problems handling your emotions and expressing your love for other people in the present.

The first school you had when learning about emotional intelligence was at home, with your parents, and in those aspects, many people’s problems lie. Their parents did not teach them how to grow emotionally, and they are struggling in their life today.

Emotional Level by Peter Scazzero

In his book, The Emotionally Healthy Leader, Peter Scazzero presents the different stages people go through in their emotional growth.

The first emotional level

The first stage is the one he considers emotional babies. And many people behave as such. They try to find people who can take care of them, but they find it difficult to enter the emotional world of others because they behave like babies. They are driven by the need to be gratified. So, they use others as objects, so their needs can be met, and they continuously depend on someone else.

The second emotional level

The second stage is the “emotional children.” They manifest themselves when they are under pressure, trying to find solutions or when having problems in life. This kind of person explodes when they have work or home problems. They cannot control themselves because they are emotional children. They interpret disagreement as a personal offense.

Thus, they attack and cannot control themselves. They cannot have healthy relationships because every criticism they receive is an emotional problem for them. Thus, they feel hurt easily, complain a lot, withdraw themselves from situations, manipulate, get revenge, and are sarcastic when they do not get what they want. They find it difficult to talk in a nice, mature, and calm way about their needs and the things they want.

The third emotional level

Then, people can reach the emotional adolescent stage. They are used to being on the defensive. Criticism makes them feel threatened and alarmed. If your wife criticizes you because you left the garbage or your shoes in the wrong place, you take that criticism personally and explode. You do not know how to handle your emotions or how to handle criticism. You take everything personally.

Besides feeling threatened and alarmed by criticism, they keep score of what they give, so they can ask for something in return. I mean, they are continuously giving, serving, and helping, but then they feel bad if people do not provide them the same. They deal with conflicts poorly.

They are generally blaming others, appeasing, going to a third person, building emotional triangles, frowning their faces, or completely ignoring the subject. And, maybe, you see people behaving like this in your own family or your place of work. If so, it is because they are emotional adolescents; They have not grown. They have not reached the emotional maturity they need to reach.

Let’s know about the emotional level. Emotional adolescents are concerned with themselves. They find it difficult to truly listen to other people’s pain, disappointment, or needs. They are critical and judgmental. So, they cannot grow. They do not burst the emotional bubble that keeps them tied to their past, to what they learned in childhood.

The fourth emotional level

Emotional adults also exist. May God help us reach this kind of emotional maturity and help us be emotional adults. They can ask for what they need, want, or prefer in a clear, direct, and honest way. Thus, they recognize, control, and take responsibility for their thoughts and feelings. They do not blame others for the negative experiences or feelings they have.

Besides, they take responsibility and say, I feel this way because I let myself feel this way. Nobody controls how I am going to react to something. They react maturely, and can, even under pressure, affirm their own beliefs and principles without being adverse.

Some people cannot talk to emotional adults because they take everything personally, get agitated, or lose control. This is linked to the fact that a person like this has not grown emotionally. The person who grows emotionally, who reaches adulthood, behaves maturely and knows how to handle emotions and how t respect others without changing them. That person makes room for mistakes and recognizes that he/she is not perfect. Nobody is perfect.

The emotional adult recognizes that people are not perfect and tries to give them the benefit of the doubt because it is necessary when building healthy relationships. He or she also appreciates people as they are: good or bad, and not for what they give in return.

Acceptance

I accept you unconditionally. Jesus accepts you unconditionally, and God does too. But, people who do not grow emotionally accept you under certain conditions. Emotional adults accept you as you are. They evaluate their limits, strengths, and weaknesses with precision, and they can discuss them with others freely.

So, they feel satisfied and happy when they get what they want. They are also in deep harmony with their emotional world. And, they can enter the emotional needs and feelings. And concerns of others without losing themselves in the process. They can solve conflicts maturely and can negotiate solutions taking other people’s perspectives into account.

And you, friend, who are reading this blog, I challenge you to grow. If you are an emotional baby or child, set your mind on growing even more every day in your emotional life, and your relationships.

May God help you discover how to grow emotionally and reach the stature He wants you to reach, through these words about learning how to love, how to be a husband, a father, or a wife and a mother who knows how to handle emotions and to glorify God in everything you do.

Emotional growth is not proportional to biological growth

Your emotional growth is not proportional to your biological growth.

Why did the people of Israel fail? Why, from that entire generation that left Egypt, did only two people, Joshua and Caleb, get into the Promised Land? The people of Israel failed due to their sinful nature. And perhaps, the reason why you have failures in your marriage or your family is because of the sinful nature you have.

But, even though we have this nature, we do not consider it an excuse for not achieving our dreams or having healthy families because the same God who freed the people of Israel from Pharaoh’s hands is the same God who is present in our lives today and frees us from Satan’s hands, so we can experience a new transformation and a new life in Jesus Christ.

Emotional growth

Let’s study this subject a little deeper. There is a factor that we do not often consider when studying spiritual growth, and that is our sinful nature. This has to do with the fact that we do not often grow spiritually because we do not grow emotionally. Your emotional growth greatly influences how you behave with your family and in your relationships.

This means that if you are learning to love, you need to learn something: love is something you learn and your ability to manage your emotions, your emotional intelligence, has a lot to do with how you are going to learn how to love, how you are going to express the love you have for your wife or husband, your children, and your family.

Emotional growth according to the Bible

Many times, we do not grow because we do not mature emotionally. And this was the problem with the people of Israel. They were released from Egypt. God was present, but they never grew emotionally. What does this mean? Let’s analyze it. Whenever they had a problem, stress, or a crisis in their lives, how did they handle their emotions? The Bible has many examples that show us that they lost control. In the first moment, they tended to curse Moses, the leaders of God’s people, and even God Himself.

They threw stones to eliminate and kill the leaders of God’s people because they were not satisfied with the way God had been leading their lives. And nowadays, the same thing often happens in many relationships: family members argue, fight, and they lose control because they cannot control their emotions. That is why there are many families in crisis.

Emotional growth according to example of life

As a therapist, I have many cases with people coming to the office, destroyed, saying: “My husband (or wife) said words that hurt me emotionally, my husband (or wife) did things that I cannot name here.” This happens because the husband or wife did not know how to manage their emotions.

Often, we do not grow spiritually because we do not grow emotionally. A person can be 50 years old and behave like an emotional child or adolescent because his or her emotional growth is not proportional to biological growth. Many people are confused about this subject, and in my practice, I find many cases in which people do not understand the importance of growing emotionally.

Your emotional growth

Your emotional growth will not be proportional to your biological growth unless you intend to grow, mature, and change the way you think, to reflect Christ’s mind. Otherwise, you will not grow emotionally. And, this is why in your relationship as a husband or a wife, you manifest behaviors that surprise you, and you wonder, “Where did these behaviors come from? Why do I not do the good thing I want to do and do the bad thing I do not want to do?”

That happens because you have not grown emotionally. And since you have not done it, you do not know how to handle your emotions, you do not have emotional intelligence, you do not understand your wife’s emotions, your husband’s, your children’s emotions, and you end up screaming, manifesting negative emotions in a way that God does not want you to manifest them. All because you have not grown emotionally.

Your emotional growth should be proportional to your spiritual growth. This means that in the same way you grow spiritually, you need to grow emotionally. The same Spirit that produces spiritual growth produces emotional growth.

What you can do for reaching emotional growth

Maybe you have been in the Kingdom of God for many years and know the Bible completely. Maybe you are married and have a family, but none of this is going to be important or relevant unless you grow up emotionally. A person who grows spiritually and does not grow emotionally is inconceivable because the same Spirit that produces both kinds of growth must be present.

If we go to the book of Ephesians, we will see that Paul talks about the fruit of the Spirit. That is love, joy, and peace. Those fruits are produced by the Holy Spirit. These fruits will not be produced even if you go to church, sing, and read the Bible. But then go home and mistreat your husband or wife, your children, and talk to them improperly. Because you do not have patience, tolerance, or self-control. The same Spirit that leads you to worship and to have the presence of God in your life is the same one that helps you control your emotions.

Due to this confusion, we have decided to present the program “Learning to Love.”

Learning to Love

Yale University has proven and has written many articles that show that 80 percent of people’s success is based on their emotional ability and intelligence.

Maybe you are struggling with your family, with your marriage. Maybe you want a healthy marriage, or to learn to love God and others, but you see that in the middle of that fight, you fail, and like the people of Israel, you give up because you do not know how to do it.

Today, I challenge you to learn something new. If you want to learn how to love, you need to grow, t mature emotionally, to reach Christ’s stature and His mind. This means that you need to reach and develop the emotions Jesus experienced. That is, to have Christ’s mind. You can do it. I also challenge you to start growing emotionally. And, through these posts, we will show you how to grow and develop emotional intelligence.

Through these lines, we want to help you achieve this goal. You can also buy the book Learning to Love on Amazon or contact us.

You can learn how to love and that way, you can transform future generations.

God bless you.

There are no excuses for mistreating other people

Mistreating other people is not new. Reviewing the people of Israel’s story, God takes them out of Egypt with His powerful Hand and leads them through the desert. However, a journey that should have taken just a few days becomes one that lasts 40 years. It got to the point in that journey where God tells the Israelites, “How long are you going to go around the same mountains and continue? How long? How long will you be in the same problems?”

This also applies to our lives. In our relationships, God tells us the same thing: “How long will you be in the same problems, in the same mountains, criticisms, situations, unhealthy behaviors that destroy relationships, marriages, and families? How long?” God is asking us to march, to reach His dream for us, to reach the ideal. And today, I want to deepen this line of thought.

The question is if God had the dream of taking His people to the Promised Land after rescuing them from Egypt after more than 400 years, why did all the men from the generation that left Egypt, except for Joshua and Caleb, die in the desert? Why were Joshua and Caleb the only ones who were able to enter the Promised Land? Where was the problem? We will study this in detail.

Why a person finishes mistreating other people?

It is the same problem you and I have? Why do we manifest the problems we have today in our marriages and families? Why do we do the things we do not want to do?

Analyzing this problem, the first thing that comes to mind is that we act as we do because of the sinful nature we have. It is true, in Psalm 51:5, says, “In sin, my mother conceived me.” That is, since we were in our mothers’ wombs, we have been sinners and act the way we act because of our sinful nature.

The People of Israel were free when they left Egypt by God’s mighty Hand. Although they were freed from Egypt, in their minds, they were still slaves. They were still in servitude. They did not experience the power of God, nor the transformation that occurs when we expose ourselves or allow the power of God to transform our lives.

Their lives and sinful nature led them to act the way they did. And the same happens in our lives. Here we are, we have been freed by the hand of our Almighty God, we have been liberated from Egypt, which, today, is the world. God has brought us to His Kingdom, we have experienced baptism, and we have participated in the Lord’s Supper (Communion).

But, although we have done all these things and have been released by the power of Jesus, we continue to repeat the same problems we have had so far. And why do we do it? Because of our sinful nature.

There are no excuses for mistreating others

There are no excuses to say, for example, “I mistreat my husband or wife, my children, or I act this way with my family because I have been a sinner since I was inside my mother’s womb.” Because, no, sin cannot be justified.

God freed the people of Israel from Egypt and liberated them from slavery so that they would be free and experience His presence. And He has also freed you, so you can experience it too and experience a transformation, a new life. That is, there is no excuse for mistreating or speaking angrily to your husband or your wife, to stop loving, to have the unhealthy, destructive behaviors that you might have now. Because, if there were excuses, Jesus would not have come and died for us.

Sin has no excuses. There are no excuses for mistreating others because Jesus came to die on the cross for our sins at Calvary so that today we could reach a new life, a new mind, and so we could be transformed. There is no excuse.

Cases of people who are mistreating other people

As a therapist, I often meet people who come to my office saying: “Pastor, I act this way because of the past I have lived.” It is true, our past can have a great influence. I act as I act because it is what I have done throughout my life. It all may be true, but that is no excuse to mistreat others. God wants to transform you. God wants to make a new creature out of you.

An anecdote that give us the answer

There is an anecdote that we all know about a scorpion talking to a frog: It was raining in the swamp and the frog wanted to cross to the other side. The scorpion also wants to cross to the other side too, and he says, “Let me climb on your back, so I can go with you to the other side.” The frog had doubts and replied, “Do you think I’m stupid? If I let you climb on my back, you will sting me, and we will both drown and die.” The scorpion replies, “I will not sting you because if I do, we will both die.” The frog agreed, he let the scorpion jump on his back.

When they were in the middle of the lake, the scorpion stung the frog. The frog asked him why he had done it when he had promised that he would not. The scorpion answered, “I felt something inside me that I could not control, and that is why I stung you.” They both drowned.

That anecdote shows us we have a sinful nature that, unconsciously, without even knowing it, leads us to do what we do.

The Bible give us a clue

Paul said, in Romans 7, “I don’t do the good thing I want to do, and the bad thing I don’t want to do, that, I do.” Many marriages and families have this experience and are struggling in their relationships. Husbands who do not want to mistreat or speak negatively to their wives in a way that is destroying their children, husbands, and wives who are struggling with that nature and say that the good they want to do, they don’t do, and the bad they don’t want to do, that, they do.

I have good news for you. The God who freed the people of Israel from the Pharaoh’s hands is the same God who is in your family today, in your life, and your marriage and relationships. That God wants to give you peace, liberation, and victory. You don’t have to mistreat others.

It is possible to succeed, no matter what sinful condition you have, the sin you have committed in the past, or where you have been, God can set you free, give you victory, you can have a new mind, you can learn to love your husband or wife, your family, and children. You can be a new creature in Jesus because you can do everything in Christ, who gives you the strength (Philippians 4:13).

Today, I encourage you to trust the God who instituted marriage and family. That God wants to bless you, free you, and make a new creature out of you. You don’t have to mistreat others. May the experience that happened in the past with the people of Israel not happen in your life. I wish that today you can learn to be victorious in Jesus.