It is one aspect of our lives that we all struggle to control – our emotions.

We struggle to hide our grief, our anger, our infatuation, our disappointment. There is a wide range of human emotions that materialize under a wide range of circumstances. Somehow, we see a display of our emotions as a weakness.

We want to appear to be strong, in control, and unshakable. We want to project an image that we are in charge of our reactions and behavior.

Perhaps all that effort is self-defeating. Perhaps blocking or denying our emotions serves to widen the gap between us and our Creator.

If we reflect on it, we might recognize that many of our emotional swings are based on the foundational emotion of love. Grief, for example, is a reaction to love lost or denied. Likewise, loneliness and depression are strongly linked to a lack of love.

And love is the fundamental force that defines God.

If we review one of the earliest Biblical human directives – the Ten Commandments – we will discover that each of those commandments is an expression of love.

Many of us wonder, throughout our lives, why we can’t seem to make that spiritual connection with God. The answer may be staring us in the face – or, at least in the mirror. By resisting those emotions, by holding back those tears, by putting on the stoic, brave face, we diminish the very energy that links us to the spiritual realm.

In essence, we are distancing ourselves from the only true communication channel with God.

If we stand back a moment from our daily existence, we might recognize that any passion we feel in our life is an emotional-fueled drive, and the more passion we feel, the more energy we expend toward a goal or a desire.

The key to a powerful spiritual connection is to embrace the emotion/passion of love and apply it to our everyday life. We need to look for ways to express that love in all we do.