Emotional Chondroid Hamartoma: dealing with your emotional tough nodules

A final hospital visit has ended my lung lump saga with a name: chondroid hamartoma (roughly translated as “tough nodule”).  The discovery makes me wonder if we might also have instances of emotional chondroid hamartoma scattered about our person.

While technical details are available, a simple explanation for my lung lump is that some time in the past 37 years, a gang of my underachieving lung cells grouped together in a “disorganized proliferation” and decided they were too lazy to finish the job of forming proper lung tissue.  Unlike other disorganized proliferations, such as teenagers on the corner at two in the morning or fruit bats in a mango shampoo testing laboratory, this group of cells has no malignant potential.

As the doctor described the characteristics of my lung lump, I began to consider that perhaps there might be a case for the discovery of emotional chondroid hamartoma, or “soul lumps”.  Specifically, do we have emotional lumps that can be expressed through our insecurities, inappropriate optimism, unchecked realism, a need for structure, rampant disorganization, and more?  I explored five attributes the doctor game me about my lump to explore the possibility:

• Formed early on
  My lazy lung cells started hanging out early on, through no instigation on my part.  In the same manner, an event or trigger in our youth completely out of our control started the collection of disorganized thoughts and feelings collecting in random areas of our psyche.

• Not directly detectable
  If I had not had the x-ray for the broken rib, I would never have found my lung lump.  Our emotional “tough nodules” also lie dormant until someone stumbles over them while looking for something else.

• Formed by cells not developing to their true potential
  My lung lump should be a part of my breathing sack, make no doubt about it.  Our pockets of emotional lumps should also be a part of our repertoire of expression and communication with those around us.

• Malignant potential
  I am not going to be on this earth any less time because of those particularly unmotivated lung cells.  Herein we start to see some difference.  While our emotional lumps will not necessarily take us out, they can stop us from achieving that which we know we are capable.

• Difficult to remove
  Even if I were so inclined, I doubt I could convince the Australian health care system to pay to remove my lung lump.  Our emotional lumps are also difficult to remove, but not impossible.

Dealing with your lumps

Now that I am conscious of the possibility of emotional lumps, here is an approach to disrupting your disorganized proliferations of emotional cells:

1. Intentional Discovery
   As we get older, doctors change their recommendations and tell us to start playing with ourselves in the off-chance we may find an unexpected lump about our person.  This is not always comfortable nor is it talked about in public circles.  Similar with our pockets of emotional debris.  I recommend getting intentional about finding them, or else they may be discovered in ways that are even more uncomfortable.
2. Familiarity
   Once you discover those hidden emotional pockets, get familiar with them.  Outside perspectives are great for this, as friends and family may have known about them all along.  As the old GI Joe cartoons said, “knowing is half the battle”.  Be aware of where the lumps are, what activity you do when they flare up, what impacts they can have on your life.
3. Re-distribution
   The cells in my lung lump are not bad, just misplaced.  Same with the pockets of emotion that stop you from achieving your goals are not “bad”.  The focus is not on removal, but re-distribution to areas where those same emotions can be productive.  How this happens is a bit more in-depth than can be offered here.  However, I can say it is a bit like massaging a tight muscle, finding the right balance of working the tissue and letting it rest.

Apologies for not offering a more substantial resolution in our society of quick fix solutions.  To be fully cliché, working through your various lumps is a journey that is as much about the experience as it is the destination.  I wish you and your lumps the best, I will keep you updated on how I go with mine.