When Things Blow Up

We recently did a podcast on landmines. Johnny, as usual, had some little known, unusual facts about the number of landmines scattered throughout the world due to all of the various wars through the years. Did you know that there are enough landmines buried underground to circle the world – twice?  It is crazy to think about. 

          Because most of you reading this have lived your life in the United States, we have never experienced living in an area, where there are fences and signs that say STAY OUT, possible landmines. But we do live with our spouse and there are likely landmines buried inside your spouse that you, nor they, are even aware of; hence the danger. We may also have landmines inside of us that we are unaware of until someone's steps on them and they go off. It can certainly cause damage.

          What does it even mean that we might have a landmine buried inside of us? Well, it's the concept that we probably all have areas that are sensitive, maybe we were wounded in that area, that might be buried deep inside. What if your parents held a really high standard for you? Maybe they thought the world of your ability and they pushed you to reach your potential but, in that process, somehow you never felt you quite measured up. What you did accomplish might not have been praised but rather the idea that maybe you could have done something different or even more. The bar was always just slightly higher.

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 Emotional landmines create fear, uncertainty, and they control where and what we can do in that area.

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          The landmine in this case might be that someone never seems to feel quite enough. They always think they are somehow lacking. They push themselves but are never satisfied, and when someone is critical or infers that they could have done more; the BOMB goes off. The pain, the hurt is very real, but it also many times is out of proportion to what was said or done.  The spouse may be left thinking what in the world just happened? I just said, or asked, or suggested something? Why in the world did they respond that way? 

          It may not be that every time we “blow-up” someone has stepped on a buried landmine in us. But certainly, if you seem to see this pattern, we really need to stop and try to decipher what just happened. Once we know, it can help. We may not ever remove everything that is buried over the course of our lives, but we absolutely can start to identify some things. 

          There are several things we can do once we identify where and what that landmine is about. Share it with your spouse; sometimes the power of something begins to lose its effect when we bring it out in the light (dig it up). This allows us to possibly share something about our life that we have never shared (we may not have realized it), but now it does not hold the fear or control over us. Emotional landmines create fear, uncertainty, and they control where and what we can do in that area. But once you know it’s there, you may be able to with some real intentionality start to have it removed or dismantled. There are systems around the world that do just that; they dismantle the buried bomb.

          It would be great to find out the landmine is there before anyone steps on it, but even if we do find out that way, (it blows up on us), once we know we don’t have to keep living in that unsafe area. We can move toward finding them, disarming or dismantling. They do not have to keep us afraid or keep us out. 

~Carla