SO GOOD QUOTES

If you’ve been taught that it is okay to be in this self-sacrificed type of environment and stay away from relationship, you will never — ever — grow. That is not spirituality.

That spirituality that says, I’m going to be on my own — read, pray, do whatever, and I don’t care about anybody else — you are not part of the body of Christ. You are dismembering yourself from the body of Christ.

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How many of you feel like you on the inside have so much pain? You have so much pain because you have no one to share your pain with. You feel so alone even though you have people around you, but you feel so alone. You will never be your true self until you connect.

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So when we fail to bond…what happens when we fail to bond?  We go through three stages of isolation.  People who can’t make emotional attachments to others—they live in this perpetual ongoing state of hunger, and they don’t know what’s going on inside of them.  People who cannot make emotional attachments—what happens?  You have a crying need within you that’s not being met, and these are the stages of isolation:  First one is, you deal with protests.  You start to protest.  What does that mean?  When you have inner angry feelings or sad feelings that there are no relationships…I want you to think of a lonely child that sits in the corner, and a lonely child that says, “I’m all by myself and nobody wants to play with me.”  I’m protesting.  I’m in this stage of isolation.  I’m staying back and nobody wants to play with me.  We get like this as adults.

Next one is depression and despair.  Depressed people are at least in touch with what they want—they just feel that they will never get it.  They know that they want relationships, but they become depressed because they’ve lost hope that they will get any connection.

The third is detachment.  When you detach both from your own need for others and from the outside world, you get to a sense of meaningless and you start to isolate.  And there are people within your congregation, within your age group, within your college class, or whatever it is that are actually detaching.  And we are ourselves are allowing people to isolate.

When you become isolated and you fail to bond, you begin to suffer from something called emptiness.  It’s the most painful emotion a human can feel [emptiness].  Empty people cannot feel their own need for love and they can’t feel others love for them.  There’s times when I feel empty no matter what people tell me.  People might show me love and I just can’t accept it.  I have sometimes distorted thinking that might have led me to emptiness and people are around me encouraging me, building me up, and I just feel like can’t accept it and I feel this sense of meaninglessness.

Although some people feel that someone else is going to fill them up, it’s impossible.  You could be loved perfectly, but unless they feel the need for love and respond to this love, you’re going to feel empty.  If you do not respond to people’s love – no matter who it is – you’re going to continue with this empty feeling unfulfilled.  You know why?  Because you were meant to be in relationships.  When you fail to bond, emptiness is a direct result of it.

Only when a person owns his or her need and responds to another’s love will this bond begin to fill the emptiness inside.

What are your barriers to bonding?

Barriers to bonding come from past injury.  Because of past injury, you can’t bond with others because you’re driven by fears.  You’re suffering from fears.Another result is addiction.  Addictions aren’t real desires.  Maybe you have an addiction to eating.  Maybe you have an addiction to sexual addictions, addiction to drugs, to alcohol.  What you are doing is you is you are offering yourself a substitute for real bonding.  Because I’m isolated, because I’m alone, because I have nobody, i’ve indulged and I’ve self medicated.  You are medicating yourself away from relationships.

—Fr. Paul Girguis, Redeeming the Time: Setting Boundaries