Womanly Wednesday: A Guest Post On Embracing And Processing Emotions

My friends and I are obsessed with personality tests, the psychological ones like Myers Briggs or Lion-Otter-Dog-Beaver. One out of five get-togethers has some discussion about psychoanalytic personality profiles. We love to analyze common traits and explore why we behave and react the way we do and how our personalities are programmed. The most common topics we find ourselves coming back to though, are those consisting of thinkers and feelers.

I am a thinker. I rarely, voice how I feel about something. What I think about something, sure. But how I feel? Ummm…I’m not sure….

I use logic and reason as my main tool of response to a situation. I might be feeling one way, but those emotions are filtered by 10 different filters before I respond. If I feel upset, I always ask myself if I have a reason to feel upset. Is my emotional response appropriate for the situation? Do I have all the information? Do I have a right to feel this way, or am I overreacting?

Somewhere along my journey I began to invalidate my own feelings when faced with conflict. I labeled my emotions as wrong, weak, and unimportant. Denied them because I thought they couldn’t be trusted. Declaring them too fickle to be given any power, and therefore I ignored them. And I expected others to do the same.

Any time a friend would share something difficult or we had a conflict, I would tell them all the reasons why they shouldn’t feel what they feel. Our conversations looked a lot like this:
Friend: “I really feel X, Y, and Z.”
Me: “According to A, B, and C, there is no reason to be feeling that way.”
Friend: “But I still feel it.”
Me: “Well, your feelings about the topic don’t matter. What matters is the truth.”
Ouch.I had set up a defense mechanism as a way to protect myself from hurt. If I ever felt any negative emotions I wouldn’t get in a fight with my boyfriend, have conflict with my sister, or tension with my roommate.  My goal was self-preservation instead of growth. I lived out of fear of my own God-given emotions, and did my best to block them out rather than wade into the murky waters of feelings.
Over the course of the last two years, the Lord has been leading me on a journey of softening my heart. He has used friends, relationships, and family members to teach me how to live in the paradox of emotions and reality when talking through hard things. He has been showing me that emotions are a very real piece of our reality, and that they can’t be overlooked and written off.

I’m reminded of 1 Corinthians 13:1-2; “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clangingcymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.”

I used to think that there was only two options, either we act on our feelings (something that is equally unhealthy), or ignore them and then the problem goes away or is easier to solve. I hadn’t ever worked through them, with others, until this process in my life began.

In the past I would offer advice that was rooted in truth, but not love. I came across as hard, sharp, and insensitive. If someone did not respond well to what I was saying, I wrote them off as being weak or not as mature as I was.

But how can I be there for a hurting friend if I am all truth and no understanding of their pain or hurt? How can I mend a broken relationship if I tell them that their feelings have no significance?Is an apology any good if I don’t believe they had any reason to be hurt in the first place? Am I that consistent at being right? Not likely.

We must love people before we correct them, explain something to them, or give them advice.I think this is also called listening.

This process has been teaching me a new way to balance truth and love. Learning to give myself grace with my feelings and allowing myself to work through those rather than ignore them.  It is important for us as Christians to walk the line between grace and truth. I never thought this applied to our emotions until recently.

How do you tell someone something difficult in love and grace? I naturally want to get to the hard cold facts, but Jesus does not do that. His words are covered in love. Even hard words.This doesn’t mean we sugar coat the truth when we speak, but we can speak with graciousness and kindness. I am still a strong believer that we have to keep our emotions in check because it’s not good to not let our feelings dictate how we live our lives day to day.  But I’m learning how to have balance.

For me, this is a paradox, as it runs slightly counter to how I am wired. Maybe you are the opposite of me, and your feelings are so strong sometimes that you feel you might burst or get lost in them. If that is you, I pray that when conflict comes, you are able to take a step back, breathe, and that the truth will ground you. If you are like me and want to go straight to the facts, I pray you take a moment and dig into those feelings. They actually might help you get to the truth and grow. Exploring those feelings is vulnerable, valuable, and good.

I delight in what is true even if it is hard to hear. For so long, I considered emotions unreliable and untrue. I’m learning that they are a very real part of us, worth digging into. It is not good for us to act on them, but not good to ignore them either. When there is a conflict, we need to be able to process through emotions with others. I’m convinced this is the best way to grow. Being vulnerable with my emotions means being vulnerable with my heart. Our feelings do not dictate the whole picture, but they are part of us. And maybe they are the most telling of our personalities.