Simple truth – When all is NOT well

The simple truth is this; most people never have their emotional needs met simply because they are drawing from wells that are dry to them. Each one of us have a ‘well of emotions’ but we choose selectively; we decided who can and when they can draw from it.  Unfortunately you may be one such person who goes with your bucket to these wells that are mostly if not always closed to you.

The result is devastating.  A thirsty person is not merely disappointed but they end up being despondent. So here is what you need to do if your emotional needs are not met, simply change the well you are drawing from. Now before some start insinuating that I am suggesting adultery, I am not. I am talking about emotional needs generically and not specifically to marriage.

Let me explain myself. A constant complaint from many people is that those closest to them, a friend, relative, parent or child often don’t meet the basic emotional need or the attention that one ought to get. Their several efforts to draw from these wells are met with rejection or dryness. It’s not that they have not tried; the size of the emotional bucket has been compromised so often that it is now a small jug, yet the results are the same, the well is dry.

Ironically these same wells are filled with sweet water for others and this alarming fact stares us in the face. The same well that yields us not a drop seems to have flowing water for others. This all too evident irony is often smothered with self-blame. “Perhaps it is my fault because I came too often at this well” or “It’s my fault because I came to draw water at the wrong time”. These and several more excuses don’t assuage the truth that stares you in the face. These wells have water but they have none for you.

Move on, find another well. If your colleague or best friend of ten years is ignoring you despite several outreaches on your part, move on. If a parent only meets you only with negativity then draw your positivity from someone else, the well of your parents may be open to many other things you need but you are not going to get positivity from them. If your spouse does not meet an emotional need draw the love you seek from the well of your children (adultery is not the solution)

This article does not rule out reactivating dry wells but for that you need to be equipped emotionally and spiritually and truth be told, most people are not. The result is that they constantly end up dry and rejected. Stop being obsessed with going to this one particular well only. There are wells of friendship, love, joy, peace, prayer, happiness and understanding and these are all around you. It could be a sibling, a person in Church, a community member, a colleague at work, a parent or a friend.

So where does the solution lay? It lies with you deciding to stop being rejected at the well you draw from and choose several others that are overflowing. You and only you can stop being a victim of emotional rejection.

In the Gospel of John, the Samaritan woman draws water from a well, yet her spirit was dry. When Jesus encounters her she treats him with contempt and cynicism even poking fun at him. “You have no bucket sir, yet you speak of giving me living water.” Yet once she realised that she had been drawing from the wrong well she went to proclaim to her people the joy of finding living water  in a well that required no bucket.

Pray about this one

Fr Warner D’Souza