Cheryl Ries

The trouble with me is that I can intend to not let my emotions get the best of me, but just when I am resolved to be determined to not let that happen, that is when they get to me the most!  Our mountains, those challenges which we face, are there to strengthen us, but in that process, they can take us down.  We might be stronger ultimately, but in the process of building our strength, of learning our lessons, in shaping our beings internally, we might just fall, flounder, and err.  We might just decide to fail our tests, not purposefully wanting to fail, but just through fatigue, anguish, weakness of our spirit, or whatever may be the case, we might not pass our tests initially.  Sometimes our challenges are hurdles which trip us up numerous times before we finally learn how to pass over them, get by them, or knock them down!  Usually it's because we have too much invested emotionally in our situations, and those emotional swings are like extreme amusement-park rollercoasters, which we ride as unwilling participants in some daunting life adventure!  Emotions are the great wasteland of our lives, if only we could learn to let them not wear us, to not impact us so completely!  Learning to live without reacting to your every and constant emotion is the lesson of a mature spirit.  I'm on my way, but the journey to emotional and spiritual maturity is a long, hard-fought trip through explosions of anger, hurt, futility, pain, pride, and all that makes you feel vulnerable! I aspire to such maturity one day! 

In the meantime, I will probably continue to express the same responses to the same emotions to the same situations.  I don't like repeating my lessons, it makes me feel incompetent, stupid, and truly immature, but it won't happen until the day I learn to give my emotions absolutely no control over my life.  I must learn to feel what I feel in a moment, but then to let it go instead of letting it ruin my day, letting it take my happiness, nor allowing it to fester unresolved inside my spirit. Emotions aren't even always truthful!  They can be manipulating, destructive and false! Why then do we give them such power over our daily happiness?  Learning to be mature spiritually means not living by our emotions, but rather by what we know to be true and real in every single moment. We don't have to always give our feelings such merit and such high regard!  Learn to not be ruled by your own emotions, live in the moments of reality, not your own emotionally-altered versions of reality!  Spiritual maturity means learning to be content and at peace with your life no matter the situation, the condition, nor the emotional response evoked. It takes practice to be in such a state of being.  I will keep on practicing . . for as long as it takes!  I aspire to such maturity one day!