Eliminating feelings towards a person

[statman]

Just turn the feelings to hate. Then one day you'll wake up and wonder why you hate that person and then you'll just let it go and all will be well.

Oh sure - and the next thing you know you'll be cutting off your father's hand and then helping him throw his boss down a pit...

[LA Ute]

Can you completely eliminate all feelings you have for a person?

I submit you cannot. You can choose to ignore them as much as possible, to not act on them, to take measures to lessen them.

But entirely destroying them forever? Not under our control.

Had this discussion on CB, and it seems everyone else on the planet disagrees, and believes you certainly can consciously remove all feelings towards another person if you 1. Have a brain and 2. Are emotionally stable.

Thoughts?

FWIW, I think it's best to own our feelings and not to repress them or pretend they don't exist. I've personally found that over time (sometimes a very long time) intense feelings can diminish, become more controllable, and sometimes almost vanish -- although they are always lurking deep beneath the surface and are ready to be revived. In my life I've found that allowing destructive feelings like hatred to control me in any way -- my moods, my actions -- is a problem to deal with head-on and consciously try to get control of. It's an imperfect process, full of stops and starts. I also believe that prayer and persistent effort help. Not all at once, but over time. I know that in my case, anger hatred has been erased and replaced with forgiveness.

This is a story (typical, I think) that shows how long it can take. I admire this woman, and am not at all sure I could have done what she did.

https://www.lds.org/ensign/2011/03/learning-to-forgive?lang=eng

Try as I might, however, I still can't stand YOhio.

[LA Ute]

I dug up this transcript of a podcast I heard some time ago that hit me hard. It's from an interview with Michael Wilcox. It's long but seems relevant here. I know I've seen this principle play out in my own life as I've aged.

Mike. Tell us your thoughts and experience around the idea that some answers need some preparation of our heart and mind or circumstance. I wonder if you’d share that concept with our audience and then share the experience about your father in that context.

Mike: I think the idea originates, at least as far back as I can trace it in my own mind, from something C.S. Lewis said, and Lewis got it from George McDonald who was a Scottish minister who taught as loving a God as you’ll ever hear–I often say I want to be judged by George McDonalds’s God, because He’s so loving.

McDonald refers to holding places, what I call holding places of a heart, as a pocket that God wants to put an answer in–but we have to have a pocket. So sometimes I think the Lord has an answer for us that’s very suitable and good, but there’s no place to put it. He says “Where do I put it, there’s no holding place. Life will create the holding place. Sometimes hard things in life will create the holding place, and when the holding place is created, when the pocket is there, as soon as it’s there, I will answer your question, your need.”

In my own life, my parents were divorced when I was just a baby. That caused certain challenges for my mother, my sisters, myself, as we were growing up. You know, you’re fourteen and you pray a good prayer, “Father in Heaven, help me to forgive my father,” because then he really didn’t have anything to do with us, “help me to forgive my father, to come to peace about this situation.”

No answer.

It’s not that I was angry, but there was an unsettled something in my relationship with my father–and I had a wonderful mother. So you’re giving that prayer at 18 and you’re giving that prayer at 22, and I just want peace I want to forgive, I want understanding of my father’s abandonment of his family.

I got married, had two daughters, then I had two sons, and when this experience took place (I have three sons now, but at this time I only had two) one was 6 the other was 2 years old. I was preparing a talk on families and raising children so they grow up decently–which we all want–and I’m thinking of my mother. I’m going to talk about my mother, my mother was a saint, and my mother was the foundation of every good thing in my life. But the Spirit seemed to say that I should talk about my father, that I should think about my father, and I thought “What am I going to say about my father? I was not raised by my father, I was with my father one or two days a year each year.” But I began to think about my father. And I had made contact with him, and knew him a little better by then, by this time.

My two boys came in and stood in front of me as I sat on the couch, and looked at me, and I starred at those two boys, and the Spirit began to flood my mind with memories–of happy wonderful things I had shared with those two boys: Catching the first fish, carving Halloween pumpkins, blowing out birthday candles, Christmas morning, listening to their first little talk in primary at church, listening to their prayers at night, piggy back rides. Nothing spectacular, nothing earth shattering, just the everyday, little, sweet, lovely moments that a father shares with a son as they’re growing up. And I looked at those boys and realized how much I loved them, and I thought what an honor and a privilege it is to be a father and have sons–or daughters, but for the pocket, for the holding place in my heart, it had to be boys. And just at that moment, when I’m thinking how wonderful it was to be a father of sons, the Lord said in that voice in our mind, “Now that you are a father, now that you know a father’s love, would you be the son who lost his father or the father who lost his son?”

I realized at that moment, that whatever pain I had experienced in my life, whatever tragedy, my father’s was far greater because I knew what he didn’t know. There was a kind of mercy in that; I know more about my father’s tragedy than he does. He doesn’t know what he missed like I know what he missed.

Now I think why didn’t God tell me that when I was fourteen? I would never have understood it. Or when I was married? I’d begin to understand when I was married, when I had daughters I would begin to understand it, but it wasn’t until I had boys and had enough life shared with them to realize how great it was to be a father, that I understood what my father lost. And the Lord would say, “Now there’s a holding place, now I’ll give the answer.” I believe He answered my prayer as quickly as He could.

[myboynoah]

Who cares? Really.

[BigPiney]

I wonder why women say that. I think it is to avoid the cognitive dissonance that comes with the divorce. Yadda yadda so many LDS women are raised with the expectation that they will marry their prince in shining armor, someone designated for them in the pre-existence and it will be beautiful and a marriage made in heaven... yadda yadda.

Then when confronted with a fallible human being, it is much easier to decide that you were wrong all along, and this was not "THE ONE" for you. "THE ONE" is out there, and he's waiting for you to rectify this mistake (your current marriage and kids) and find him, your one true love. To these women, "I never loved you" really means that you are not THE ONE, and it is noble and good for me to keep searching to find my true love. Who is not you.

Thanks, that is a good explanation.

Excellent post. I wonder if both genders follow that "train of thought"? In other words, she wasn't "THE ONE"....

Eternal matchmaking would be so much easier if the veil were removed just enough so that one was sure that someone was "THE ONE" designated for them in the pre-existence. Absent that, a Harry Potter sorting hat would certainly help...

Also, in some (many?) instances, its not just LDS YW (or YM) being raised that there is someone designated for them in the pre-existence. Many patriarchal blessings state as much. The harsh reality is that maybe they did marry "THE ONE"; someone as flawed and inperfect as themself.

The bolded is a great point and I plan on using that in future lessons.

Of course I have always subscribed to the theory that there are lots of people out there for each person and there is not just one, so the whole "the one" is weird to me.

[Indy Coug]

Does this go for gay mormons who have tried everything to alter their feelings or attraction to their same gender but to no avail?

It's a little too soon for Lebowski's Law to be invoked, don't you think?

[Sullyute]

It's a little too soon for Lebowski's Law to be invoked, don't you think?

Maybe you are right. I will retract my question until we reach 50 posts in this thread.

[YOhio]

Who cares? Really.

SandYFan

[Paperback Writer]

Of course I have always subscribed to the theory that there are lots of people out there for each person and there is not just one, so the whole "the one" is weird to me.

And I think that theory (many people could end up being "the one") is probably the better or more healthy approach.

My thoughts fold nicely into LA Ute's beautiful post about having a "pocket" to hold the Lord's answer when it come to "the one". For example, a PB might state: ...there is a special YW (or YM) being prepared for you, one chosen from our Heavenly Father, whom you will marry in the House of the Lord for time and all eternity.... Now, the expectation is that when a YM meets "the one" he will know via a "bolt of lightning" or "a burning in the bosom" (only partly kidding with that term) that she is "the one". But a 21-year old YM (or 25) may not have a "pocket" in which to hold the Lord's answer to the inquiry of whether she is "the one" because he does not yet have the understanding or experience ("a pocket") to comprehend the Lord's answer. After decades of marriage through many exeriences, a pocket is formed and the OM (old man) is ready to comprehend the Lord's answer: "Yes, she is the one for you and now you have an understanding of why." Back when they were dating, the YM wanted a binary, Yes or No answer as to whether she was the one but the Lord's answer was one that needed "a pocket".

[Color Me Badd Fan]

You should contact this person via Facebook and let her know about your feelings. I don't see any drawbacks to being up front about your emotions in this case.

[jay santos]

My relationship pet peeve issue for the day;

When one person/spouse/friend/child/parent/group expresses disdain at their behavior constantly being pecked at, being judged or not loved unconditionally or not accepted or whatever. And then the other party responds "well you're judging me for judging you, so you're just as guilty. Why can't you not judge me for being intolerant. Turns out you're just as judgmental as I am."