Sitting With Your Emotions

    After receiving some exciting and heartbreaking news a few nights ago, I was both excited and sad. I spent the evening crying and upset. I went to bed and figured I would wake up in the morning fine, but I wasn't. I felt just as upset as I was the night before. I was confused by my emotions and tried to distract myself from them all day at work. Unfortunately, that didn't work either. So, after work, I decided to journal through them and see if any other emotions were hiding in my subconscious that would come out through journaling. I was surprised to see/feel that no other emotion was in the background.

    I also expected that even though I was upset, I figured I would be okay as the day went on. But no, emotions were still raw when I got off work. For the most part, if I wake up upset, by lunchtime I have "calmed down" and feel like my "normal" self again. Looking back, clearly, Holy Spirit wanted to teach me this valuable lesson. Thank you, Holy Spirit.

    So, I sat down and journaled out my feelings. After I was done I was a little upset, but much better than before. Nothing had changed, of course, nor did I expect anything to change. That is regarding the circumstances that caused the emotions. I just wanted to understand why I was feeling what I was feeling and if there was anything else under the surface that needed to come up. 

    Through this experience, Holy Spirit taught me the value of sitting with your emotions. We need to give our hearts, minds, souls, and bodies time and space to process emotions. This practice will hopefully allow us to digest our feelings correctly. For some this practice may seem odd and unnecessary, and to others, like myself, scary. You see, despite not liking emotions because they are messy, I am a rather emotional person. I know that God created emotions for our benefit, but I still do not like them.

    This experience reminded me of a practice that my hubby told me about recently that he learned from a YouTuber/psychotherapist. The practice is about turning away from your screens and facing a blank wall. Uncomfortable at first for sure. After a few minutes, your brain/subconcious will bring up the uncomfortable emotions and feelings that you have been repressing and force you to process them. For many, we suppress our emotions by pulling out our phones and other such devices and aimless scroll, and push the negative emotions down as far as we can. By putting your phone and any other device that is distracting you, and staring at a wall, it forces your brain to process the emotions going on inside of you instead of simply consuming the content of your screen.

    My point in all this is that there are a variety of different ways to sit with and process your emotions, and these two work for us. Some people like to think through their emotions while on a walk or a drive. I once had a professor who said that she had an hour-long commute each way to our school, and on her drive to school was her prayer time, and on the way home, the first half hour was for processing her day and then praying afterward.

    The moral of the story is as stated before that emotions are good. They tell us how we are doing, and if we need to make adjustments. They are not a weakness to overcome although they do at times need to be mastered. As much as we need to listen to them and allow them to show us what/how we are feeling, we need to make sure we stay in control of them and not let them run free. Every emotion has its place and time, and it's our job to make sure they are in their correct place. Because emotions change. The circumstances that bring about the emotion may not change, but when a situation does upset us regardless of whether we can change the circumstance, we can change our emotions.

    We mustn't simply stuff them down in our gut and pretend they do not exist. Because eventually, whether you are an explosive person or not, they will come out. A practice I often forget. I have gotten better at venting the big things to my hubby, and now I am working on the little things. When I got the news, I told him about it. Didn't fully explain it, mind you. Because I didn't fully understand them, but I tried. What I have gotten better at is sharing my stress and frustration with him. A couple of weeks ago, we had a lot going on, and I was feeling a little stressed, overwhelmed and frustrated. All the "stressors" were smaller items, but they added up. We were out for a drive, and I told him about what was stressing me out and frustrating me. Neither of us could fix the "problems," nor did we want to. They were simply just things that had to be done or gone through, and then the stress would be over. I remember sitting in the car and venting to hubby and saying that even though I felt ridiculous for sharing such "simple" things, I wanted to practice venting more so as not explode later. He thanked me, and we moved on. None of the things were bad, they were just adult-life problems that we had to go through, and I didn't need or want him to fix anything. I just needed to share my burden with him.

    So friend, don't let your emotions get the better of you. Don't yell at the undeserving bystander next to you. Find the method that works best for you and use it.

I pray this post finds you well and blesses you in whatever way you need.

God Bless

~Hannah

Blessing and I at Point Pelee National Park last weekend. My parents came for a visit and we decided we needed to visit the most southern point of Canada. An hr drive from our current home.