Day 20: What to Do with Emotions?

Emotions have always been a big part of my life, but I have not always known how to handle them well . . . and to this day, I, at times, struggle to control them.

In April of 2002 I began a journey to understand and manage my emotions. I wanted to find the balance between acting on truth rather than emotion while at the same time acknowledging that emotions are real, valid, and valuable.

From a letter on April 16, 2002:

I realized the other day that emotions are a huge distraction for me. I think emotions cause me to become unfocused more than any other one thing. I respond out of what I FEEL. 

I'm realizing that I've tried two extremes - denying my emotions or giving them too much control. I'm beginning to try to learn to do neither. I'm trying to learn to acknowledge their validity, identify them, and then express them positively.

I have emotions and at times they are overwhelming and seem bigger than I can handle. Sometimes, especially when they are overwhelming, I just don't know what to do with them.

I'm discovering that the first step is to identify them - to just say, "I feel angry," "I feel sad," "I feel ________" and be specific instead of saying I'm upset or overwhelmed or blue, rather to give the emotion a specific, descriptive name.

As I continued to process how to manage my emotions, I began a practice that was helpful to me. Not only did I need to identify what the emotion was, but I needed to discover why I felt that way. We have emotions so that we know what is going on in our inner being. Sensations of pain or pleasure tell us what is happening to our body. Emotions reveal whether our inner being is in a good or bad place. The practice I began was to write out a simple statement: "I FEEL _______________ BECAUSE _____________."

"I FEEL sad BECAUSE one of my students is leaving the school."

"I FEEL disappointed BECAUSE the plans I made fell through."

"I FEEL angry BECAUSE someone disrespected me."

"I FEEL hurt BECAUSE someone was rude to me."

As I began to identify not only how I felt, but also why I felt that way, I could move on to the next question. "What are my emotions telling me? What do I need to do to handle this?"

If I was hurt, sometimes a good cry or a venting session helped, at other times a conversation with the person who hurt me was necessary. If I felt sad, sometimes watching a sad movie and having a good cry or distracting myself with something funny helped. If I felt disappointed, finding something to do that I enjoyed might help.

As I practiced this exercise over and over, I became more aware of what I was feeling and why. Eventually I stopped writing it out and was able to identify it in my head and also much more quickly create a strategy to deal with difficult emotions. Over time, I gained the ability to manage my emotions and to use them to practice healthy self-care.

The most recent stage of understanding emotions has been that they can help me discern what God is directing me to do. The things I am excited about, the things I dread. The things I have peace about, the things that cause me to be unsettled. The things that bring joy or the things that bring discouragement. As I pay attention to what my inner being is telling me through my emotions, I begin to hear the heart of God as He speaks to me too.

What tips can you offer for managing one's emotions?

Picture Source: all faces from Microsoft Clip Art

Day 9: Listening to God

Listening to God . . . another pivot point that began in the summer of 2000. Our youth pastor was challenged by a special speaker at our church and led the youth and mentors to begin a journey that we dubbed "Listening to God."

The premise was that God desires to speak to us to guide our actions and decisions both big and small, therefore we need to listen so that we are aware of His guidance.

Along the way we wrestled with questions such as:

• How did God communicate to us?
• How do we know if what we're hearing is God or something else?

These two questions are closely related and the answers are interwoven. Here are some of the lessons we learned as we hiked along this journey.

1.  The Bible is our starting point for knowing what God is saying to us. It is His written communication to us where He clearly tells us what to do and what not to do. As we obey what we read in the Bible, we begin to understand what God is like and have a sense of what He wants us to do.

The Bible also acts as a filter. As we think we've heard something from God, we can compare it to what the Bible says to discern whether this thing is of God or from ourselves.

2. As we develop an intimate relationship with God, we become familiar with what His voice sounds like. When I was in college, I was waiting for my parents to arrive to take me home. They were to arrive Sunday morning to attend church with me. I waited as long as I could outside of the campus church, but according to the rules it was time to be in my seat. Still they had not arrived and I was anxious. The auditorium was large with seating for 7,000 people. I searched for my parents, but in a room that size, I could not find them. I had difficulty focusing because my mind was on them, until I heard one small sound. I heard my mom's cough. A cough? really? In a room of several thousand people? Yes. I heard her cough. I knew her. I knew her cough and when I heard it, I knew they had arrived safely and I could focus on the service. Listening to God is like that. The more intimately we know God, the quicker we will be able to distinguish His voice and know what He is saying to us.

3. We will experience confirmation from others who are also seeking to follow God. When we believe that we sense God is telling us to do something, it is good to look for confirmation from others who we respect, who are also seeking God. It is easy to be influenced by our emotions, by our natural tendencies or appetites, and our friends and fellow sojourners can help us see pitfalls that we might not see. They can also confirm a thing is of God as they sense a distinct, yet separate and uninfluenced yearning toward the same thing we are feeling.

4. Prayer is important to the process of listening to God. Prayer is the place we typically think of us talking TO God, however prayer can also be a space where we LISTEN to God - a place where we pause and allow God to speak to our spirit and give us direction.

5. What about the circumstances? Do the circumstances seem impossible and suddenly there is a shift and you are able to do what you've felt God telling you to? that's a confirmation. Do circumstances line up perfectly to allow you to follow what God's telling you? that's a confirmation. Several years ago, I had left my job and was leaving my ministry as a youth leader and I didn't know what was next for me. Over a period of a few months, I had felt compelled to pray for a church with a school that I had only been in once. I called a friend who attended this church to ask him to pray about a difficult situation. He invited me to visit. A couple days before I was to visit, he called and asked if I would be interested in a job teaching at the school . . . well, yes. That was part of my dream when I had quit my job. I filled out an application during my visit and talked with the administrator of the school. Things moved quickly. In less than a month, I had been interviewed and hired and found an apartment. The circumstances lined up perfectly with the thing that I had been sensing God wanted me to do.

Our journey of learning to listen to God was filled with experiments . . . and learning. Often we were not sure if what we heard was God, but obeyed when we were reasonably sure that it was. Sometimes our actions led to confirmation that we had indeed heard God, at other times we miserably decided that the voice we'd heard had been our own. Over time, we grew to recognize God's voice more and more and to develop a deep and intimate relationship with God.

How do you discern what God wants you to do?

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If you would like to pursue Listening to God more, here are two books that have had a powerful impact on me:
The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence
Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby and Claude King