Emotional Breakdown

Emotion, with respect to the subject, I have been quoted as saying "it is the topic we don't mind to talk about as long as we can avoid it at all cost." At the very mention of the word 'emotion', depending upon your experiences in life there is no doubt an array of possible thoughts. For me, thinking about emotion can be happy or sad and to be honest emotion can be both happy and sad within seconds of each other too. Growing up as a child I am sure I expressed unspoken emotion that caused my parents to stop what they were doing and re-directed their attention to see what I was doing. Children cry for a reason and sometimes that reason can simple be our expression of stating we want what we want and no is not the word we wanted to hear. That type of emotion we often describe as selfish and our recommendation is to simply pay no attention, just let this moment run it's course. As an adult, looking back at our individuals lives most of us would admit that our emotions have grown-up over the years. That which we might find disturbing as a child, as an adult we see the way we expressed our emotions back then as childish now. I remember the first time I came into a recognizable moment that my emotions were growing-up. If this is the first time you have ever read my newspaper column then allow me to share that family is extremely important. When I think about individuals who love their family the first person I think of is my father's mother, my grandmother Stella Mills. My grandmother loved 'her people' and to her, there were no others to love totally on the face of the earth. Because of her love for 'her people' I too developed this sense of emotion about family connections. Ethel Hale was one of my grandmother's sister. Growing-up I was blessed to know my great-aunts and uncles and my love for them was real and as I discovered, emotional too. When my Great-Aunt Ethel passed into eternal life I was asked to sing the song, "When I've gone the last mile of the way". I loved my Aunt Ethel and my Uncle Bert, her husband. Singing at her memorial service the words took a hold of my life in reflecting on her's and walking that last mile. Emotion, we would rather talk about it than experience it, but experiences help mold us into the person we are or are becoming. Crying is an emotion that creates a different response from different individuals. Some folks will respond with "it's ok", others might not say anything but they will squeeze you hand to communicate they love you and are with you. Dealing with emotion can be scary. Fears could be that we will be perceived as weak by others or the extreme, we are going to have an emotional breakdown. Personally, I don't have a definition for an emotional breakdown, but if you need to have one, have one. Use that emotion to move your life forward is my only advice. Avoiding emotion seems like a good goal but if you eliminate it from your life you will miss out on several important elements that help to define us, inspire us, and encourage us to press on toward the prize which is the calling of God on our individual lives. Until then