Being Emotional
Emotions and feelings. Helpful or problematic? To be paid attention to or mostly ignored? On one hand we can rightly be concerned that our culture holds up emotions and feelings as a justification for a whole host of behaviors and decisions (think gender ideology… “I feel like a boy” so I must try to become one). On the other end of the spectrum we have the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” and “just get over it” mentality that seems to want to brush aside our emotions in navigating daily life. Another form of this latter mindset has certainly trickled into the thinking of many faithful Christians, seen in something like this: “Why do I get so angry sometimes? Why am I still struggling with this sin? I think I just need to try harder and pray more.”
I grew up in what I describe as an emotionally dysfunctional family. Were there displays of emotion? Oh yes, plenty, especially anger, and especially from one parent in particular. But when it came to talking about our emotions and feelings, this was virtually non-existent. I remember as a young adult, after having begun my healing journey in counseling, trying to share what I was feeling at a family holiday dinner, only to be met with a sarcastic response, tinged with cynicism, “If we’re going to talk about our feelings…I’ll tell you what I’m feeling.” Needless to say, I was very slow to bring up my feelings again with this same family member.
I don’t know how your experiences have shaped your perception of the role of emotions in your daily life, in your mental health and in the bigger picture of life in general. Maybe you’re someone who is quite comfortable expressing your emotions with those around you, a “wearing your heart on your sleeve” kind of person. Or maybe you’re more emotionally reserved and tend you keep your true feelings “under-wraps” out of fear of upsetting others, or for some other (unknown) reason… you’ve never really thought about why.
Likely regardless of where you fall on this spectrum of emotional expression or lack-of expression, you haven’t put too much deep thought into the role of emotions—why we have them and how to approach them.
As I continued my healing journey over the years into adulthood, marriage, motherhood, and now my calling to become a mental health counselor, I have become convinced of the beautiful and vital (although not always easy) role our emotions play in our lives in helping us understand ourselves—our behaviors, our struggles, our sins—the light they can shed on our past experiences, our life story—and ultimately the role our emotions play in helping us open to the incredible healing our good God wants to work in each of our lives.
So what are emotions? Emotions are our primarily bodily reaction to the world outside us (people, places, events, etc.), as influenced by our vast (sometimes less examined) inner-world (thoughts, memories, past experiences, etc.), that help us attain the goods to which we are inherently ordered (nourishment, safety, security, acceptance, connection, etc.). Stay with me here… I know this last part is getting very philosophical. To put it more simply, emotions are our bodies helping us know where we are and what we need.
Let’s look at some concrete examples. My 6 year-old daughter is both hungry and in need of some “mama-time” so asks for a snack after school and for time together (looking for the goods of nourishment as well as connection). When I get side-tracked because I realize my baby desperately needs a diaper change, my daughter starts to get very whinny and demanding. She likely is feeling some anger (probably also is “hangry”) and underneath her anger is possibly some disappointment and sadness (anger is a secondary emotion—often underneath it is a less easily expressed and/or identified emotion, e.g. disappointment, embarrassment, shame, grief) because she was so longing for the connection with me that she needs, especially after a long day at school. Add to the immediate external sources of her emotions her past very painful experience of being replaced as the baby of the family and a break in her bond with me during that post-partum window, and she possibly is being reminded (subconsciously) of my unavailability to her because of the new baby and is experiencing the added pain from this past event in her life on top of the current situation.
While not every emotional reaction is influenced by past experiences, a big clue that there may be more going on in us than just the current event is when our emotional reaction seems disproportionate to the external event. I certainly find this happening to me at times, and confess that prior to my healing journey (largely through counseling) I was a bit of “mine-field”—you never knew when you would step on a mine, causing sudden and big emotional explosion.
What I’ve come to understand in counseling and through the 12-step program Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families is that my childhood was deeply lacking in much needed emotional connection with my parents. So in my relationship with my husband, anytime I felt emotionally alone/unsupported by him, I was feeling not only the pain of not experiencing what I was looking for from my husband, but also the added unprocessed emotional abandonment pain from my childhood. On the outside I looked like a wife who exploded in anger way beyond what my husband’s late arrival home from work seems to warrant. And yes, I’ve hurt my husband in such moments, and have brought my outward expressions of anger into the confessional.
However, these seemingly disproportionate bursts of anger are understandable given my history of feeling emotionally alone in my childhood and the unprocessed pain that I still held from this.
Do I sin in these moments? Yes, because I am responsible for my actions. Is my culpability lessened because of my childhood history? Probably yes. Does God desire for me to hold on to my unprocessed childhood pain and to stay in these sinful patterns? Most definitely not, for our God is a God of healing and eagerly desires the “redemption of our bodies”—the redemption of every aspect of our lives and histories, so that we might come to the “glorious freedom of the children of God”(Romans 8:22-23).
God has invited me and is inviting you to take a deeper look at what’s underneath our emotions, to have curiosity when our bodily reactions surprise us—whether because of their depth and intensity or because of our lack of emotional reaction to something that upon reflection is itself a little strange. For along with intense outbursts of our pain, another bodily reaction we can have to cope with painful experiences is to shut down out feelings, to “numb out” bodily or to use a more psychological term, disassociate. While on the outside, this may seem like better management of our pain, because at least we’re not hurting others right and left through our lack of emotional control, we’re also (inadvertently) holding back from others some of the full gift of ourselves. Through shutting down emotionally, our ability to enter into deep relationship with others is being stifled. And we are made for deep relationship, both with God and with the people he places in our lives.
You may be familiar with a phrase that has become popular in recent years, emotional intelligence—usually used to refer to people that are good relationally, that seem to know how to navigate relationships in a healthy and effective way. I propose that becoming emotionally “intelligent” is part of what God desires for each of us—to look at our emotional reactions with our God-given intelligence, and to use them as clues to show us where we are in need of deeper healing and integration.
What are some concrete ways we can do this? First, start to pay attention to our bodily reactions to things. If we are not used to “tuning in” to our bodily reactions, this may seem uncomfortable at first (hint: this could itself be a clue to earlier life experiences, parental attitudes towards emotions, etc.). Second, when you notice what seems a somewhat exaggerated reaction to something, either on the “too much” or on the “too little” end of the spectrum, take mental note. And when you have time, even just 5-10 minutes, find a safe place and try jotting down in an unfiltered way what’s coming up for you. Sometimes, our pain can start to surface simply through writing and connecting to it—and this itself is part of the necessary healing that comes through feeling and processing our emotions. Let yourself cry, if tears start to surface. Sometimes other forms of physical release can help—I’ve occasionally turned to hitting my pillow or the floor. (Obviously, make sure it’s the appropriate time and place so as not to disturb or scare others.) Third, if we find ourselves starting to surface more pain than we know how to handle, this can be God’s gentle nudge towards getting support through counseling. Or if we generally finding ourselves struggling to even connect with our emotions, this itself can be another indicator that you may have disassociated some as a way to handle intense unprocessed pain. A counselor can be very helpful here as well.
Good friends, God wants to offer you more healing and freedom than you ever probably imagined possible. He gave us our bodies and our emotions to help us navigate our daily lives towards the goods for which we are made—and most importantly the good of deep relationship with the people in our lives—and ultimately deep relationship with Him.