Love is a verb???

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Love is a verb and a feeling: 5 questions to ask yourself when your amygdala has hijacked your brain

I thought this was an interesting article about the amygdala, the part of the brain that which manages and controls our emotions and effect our cognitive functions. It does this when a person feels fear, stress, threatened, or hurt in some way.

Now I get it. That's why I tend to get numb and non-emotional when those kinds of things happen. But I just hide it the best I can and "put on a happy face", as the commercial song goes.

But why does my wonderful family genuinely continue praising God and being joyful , always seeing the bright side when those kinds of things happen to them?

I asked my wife that question, and she simply said, "I just choose to." In other words, she has chooses not to let fear, pain, and threats control the ways she feels. And my two precious kids do the same thing. (Probably learned it from Mom).

The concept seems to be true. At times when I feel threatened or hurt, I close down my emotions and focus only on my own needs and feelings, thus, shutting out everyone else, which causes me to shut out and not make an effort to fully relate to my wife and kids (or anyone else) the way I should. Of course, I put on a happy face and attempt to join in the rejoicing, because I don't want to "rain on their parade and put out their joy, because they really have a gift when it comes to overcoming problems and adversity. The worse it gets for them, the stronger their joy.


So as I continue to ask God to change me somehow to be more like them. I worry about things that don't matter and get stressed out over little things that do matter, but I can't do anything about.  So, God, in Jesus name, I ask for your help in this area.  Then maybe I can at least almost keep up with the rest of the family and not spoil their grand illusion of life that they are so good at living.