A thought by Henry Cloud, from his book, Changes That Heal (p. 77). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)
And so many people think they are bad.
Henry says, “An alone self seems to be an unloved self, and that translates to a ‘bad self.’
“Lonely people feel bad, or guilty because they feel unloved. Their legalistic brain translates this feeling into something like this: I feel lonely; therefore, I am not loved. If I am not loved, it must be because I am unlovable. I am bad, or someone would love me.”
He goes on, “We derive our self-worth to a large extent from other people. The baby who feels ‘good’ is the baby who is fed, dry, and held; the baby who feels ‘bad’ is the baby who goes hungry, wet, and uncomforted. These feelings are internalized into a description of the self. We all retain images in our emotional brain of this very early, bodily way of thinking. When we’re feeling ‘crummy,’ as we do when we’re lonely, we feel as if we were bad.
“This creates a problem for many people because they feel as though they have done something wrong to cause their feeling of badness. They feel guilty and try all sorts of ways to assuage the guilt. They confess and confess and confess, they read their Bible, they attend classes at church or watch biblical teaching online, they volunteer at the local homeless shelter. Yet they still can’t seem to feel forgiven. They can’t feel forgiven because the root of this kind of guilt is not sin; it’s loneliness and isolation.”
That is why bonding is so important. We really do need each other. We really do. Find someone who is lonely, reach out to them. And you will find it will make a difference for them and also for you. Will you do that?
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