Emotions are not the Ultimate or the enemy.
Emotions are a hot topic. It is good that our cultural dialogue is exploring how to properly deal with emotions, because emotions are important. We are emotional people created by an emotional God who must find a way to emotionally connect with other emotional people.
Proper expression of emotions can be so challenging that many give up completely and resort to suppressing emotions. Suppressed emotions will find a way to come out…typically in unhealthy outbursts that do far more harm than good. Untempered emotions also create chaos because when we do this, we hold no regard for what others are feeling or how our emotional expressions will impact them. We could argue that finding balance is the key, but “balance” is an elusive fairytale that doesn’t exist in the real world. It is not about finding a balance between emotional expression and emotional suppression, but about finding rhythms of healthy, respectful, and thoughtful emotional expressions.
A good emotional base is a great place to start.
Begin by refusing to villainize emotions. Emotions are not our enemy. Emotions help us to experience and enjoy life in community with God and other people. Emotions are essential to navigating life in a way that pleases God. People often think of emotions as being good emotions or bad emotions, but emotion in and of itself is neither good nor bad…it simply is. There are emotions we would all prefer not to feel, but emotion avoidance can cause us to not feel at all.
The Bible reveals that God experiences a wide range of emotions…love, joy, jealousy, hate, delight, anger, sorrow, compassion, and more. Our challenge is not to suppress emotions, but to identify and express emotions in a godly fashion.
While not villainizing emotion, it is also important to not make emotions the ultimate. Emotions do not define us. We can feel something without being that thing. We can feel angry without being angry. We can feel hate without being hateful. We can feel depressed without being depressed. Emotions come and go, but there is always a greater reality to hold onto. Cling to who God is and who you are in relationship to Him. If Jesus is your Lord, do not allow emotions to rule you. Emotions can help guide us but should never drive us.
What are we to do with our emotions?
Allow yourself to feel. Accept that you are an emotional person and that God can use your emotions in wonderful ways.
Identify what you are feeling. What am I feeling? Put a name to the emotion.
Discover why you feel the way you do? What brought this emotion on? Where did it come from? Ask God to show you what the emotion is rooted in.
Decide what you are going to do with that emotion. Is it a keeper? Would you like to discard it? Is it helpful? What does God want you to do with it?
Proceed with an appropriate emotional expression.
This strategy has helped me tremendously. I sometimes feel angry and I HATE feeling angry. When I feel angry, I get angry about being angry. I try to suppress it, but that only leads to an inevitable outburst. I was villainizing anger as an emotion and refusing to deal with it appropriately. An interesting thing I discovered is that when I feel anger, it is usually because there is something I do not understand. I don’t understand why a person said what they said or behaved the way they behaved…this frustrates me and can quickly move into anger. Now, when I feel anger, I slow down and look to see if there is something that I don’t understand. There almost always is and just by simply identifying the source of my frustration, I can make healthy choices on how to proceed. I can seek clarification and understanding to produce a better relationship instead of simply feeling anger. The emotion of anger has become useful to me in relating to others by clueing me into a deeper desire to connect.
When we understand that emotions are not the ultimate or the enemy we are free to use emotions to foster powerful connections with our God and our world.
