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Feeling Emotions You’d Rather Not Be Feeling? … Quit Stuffing, Denying, Or Eating Your Feelings

Christian women, your emotional health matters. Find more peace and joy as you learn to accept your emotions as God’s gift to draw closer to Him and others.

Mr. Rogers Left Me Feeling Sad

I walked out of the theater feeling melancholic. I expected A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood to leave me smiling sweetly, like a saccharine-sweet hallmark movie filled with drama that resolves with a predictable happy ending. Instead, I got deep introspection and heaviness.

Yes, it’s true –– after sitting with Mr. Rogers, who decades ago made me feel warm and loved, I am a bit depressed. And the thought went through my head, “What’s wrong with me? Everyone else loves this movie!”

However, I can picture Mr. Rogers with me now. Not condemning my feelings and not apologizing for contributing to them. Just acknowledging them as natural. I see him nodding and saying, “Feelings can be hard. Awww … I’ve felt like that before too. You can talk about your feelings if you like. But you don’t have to.”

Talk About An Emotional Roller Coaster!

I had quite the week. Monday morning I spent a few hours in tears, feeling insecure and beat up. A day later I tip-toed around an angry person. Next came a picture-perfect loving evening with my teenager. Followed by the longest day ever, filled with unruly students that left me boiling angry, super frustrated, and spent. Topping off my roller coaster week was a bit of peaceful solitude where God Himself assured me that He is at work in my life. 

Have you ever had a week like this? Running the entire gamut of emotions?

The “emotional roller coaster” proves to be a great metaphor. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood topped off my week of heightened emotional energy with even more emotion. 

There Are No Shoulds & Shouldn’ts In The World Of Feelings 

What’s wrong with me? … We ask ourselves.

The answer: Absolutely nothing. 

There are lies we’ve been told about our emotions and some we even tell ourselves. 

  • You shouldn’t feel that way.
  • Christians shouldn’t be angry or sad.
  • Some feelings are wrong, bad, or stupid.

Or, how about this one:

 I wouldn’t feel this way if …

  • I was more mature.
  • My faith was stronger.
  • I was a better person.

Anger, depression, and fear … we label these as negative.

While love, joy, and wonder get the gold star.

However, professional Christian counselors and psychiatrists assure me that emotions just “are.” There is no good and bad or right and wrong when it comes to our feelings.

I just wrote a 30-Day Devotional about how all these emotions have the potential to draw us closer to Jesus. And all our emotions, even the good ones, have great power to also pull us farther from Him. 

Click to purchase: My Soul Cries Out, A 30-Day Devotional to be Fully Known and Truly Loved by God. 

Don’t Deny Difficult Emotions: Embrace Them For Better Relationships With God & Others

Difficult emotions can make us feel uncomfortable, occasionally overwhelmed, and sometimes out of control. In our desire to end our discomfort, it seems easier to deny them, explain them away, or shove them under the rug. But long-term, that causes incredible damage.

As far as our emotions go, there are 3 keys to better relationships with God and with others.

  1. Understanding our emotions
  2. Embracing all emotions as God-given gifts
  3. Choosing our responses to our emotions

God Created Us To Feel: Both Happy & Sad

No emotion is good or bad. 

We were created to feel. All of our emotions were created by our genius, Loving Father, who wants to draw us closer to Him and closer to each other.

Mature, normal people feel a wide range of emotions. And often. What makes us wise or foolish as Christian women isn’t what we feel; it is how we choose to respond to our emotions.

Sweeping Only Works In House Cleaning

I’m not a big lover of house cleaning. Because of this, and my multi-tasking self, I tend to have a lot of piles. When I’m expecting visitors, my favorite cleaning method is shove & cover! I simply pick up the piles and throw them in the nearest closet or under a bed. And later, when company has left, I go dig out my real-life stuff again. 

The truth about our emotions, though, is that there isn’t a closet to put them in. And there’s no neat way to bring them out later.

Your heart is not a house. And your feelings aren’t a pile of papers.

Many of us have learned the phrase “sweep it under the rug.” While this might seem to be a short-term fix for unwanted emotions, and it might temporarily end some discomfort, it is no solution.

Imagine actually sweeping things under a rug. A rug can only hold so much stuff inconspicuously. After enough stuff is swept under, the rug begins to swell. Soon its edges start popping up off the floor. And before long, our shoved emotions start coming out sideways.

They might ooze out in ways that catch us off-guard and even surprise us. And swept-under emotions definitely do some damage.

So, if hiding, covering, and denying isn’t the answer, then what is?

Christian Women: Your Emotional Health Matters

The emotional roller coaster of life isn’t a ride we can skip. Although we might wish to opt out, it’s not a choice at an amusement park. Throughout our lives on earth, we all have pain. We all have sorrow. We all experience joy and we all experience anger. 

Although we can’t choose our feelings, we can choose our responses.

And, as Christians, we are commanded to do just that.

Any roller coaster ride loses its thrill if we end up sick, dizzy, and losing our lunch. And similarly, our life ride isn’t so fun if we can’t manage the ups and downs and twists and turns with confidence. 

But just as you can conquer a great roller coaster, with some wise tips, navigating your emotions with God at the center, you can turn a dizzying ride into a life-changing adventure.

  • Build your confidence by studying the ride.
  • Look straight ahead.
  • Scream when you need to.
  • Separate fact from fiction.
  • Keep an eye on your watch.
  • Don’t go it alone.

Those same tips are strangely familiar in navigating your own emotions!

How To Manage Your Emotional Roller Coaster

1. Build Your Confidence By Understanding Your Emotions

Read about emotions. Learn about your psychological self. Quit denying them and accept every emotion as a gift from God. 

The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge, for the ears of the wise seek it out. (Proverbs 18:15)

Buy my devotional book, My Soul Cries Out, to learn how to put this into practice!

2. Look Straight Ahead

Fix your eyes on the author of our faith. Make Him your focus. Not your circumstance. Not what others say. And not your joy and not your pain.

You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. (Isaiah 26:3)

3. Scream When You Need To

Denying our emotions does great damage to our relationship with God, with others, and even with ourselves. To live authentically, we need to express emotion. Sometimes that means sobbing in the shower. Or taking a run in the rain.

You, Lord, hear the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry … (Psalm 10:17)

4. Separate Fact From Fiction

Just as the next drop of the roller coaster isn’t going to kill us and the creepy decorations aren’t real aliens, we need to speak truth to the stories we create around our own reality. Choose your thoughts wisely. While we don’t get to choose our feelings, we are commanded to choose our thoughts as well as our responses.

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:5)

5. Keep An Eye On Your Watch

Again, just like a roller coaster, our peaks and valleys don’t last forever. Sometimes we need a reminder. The sun will come out tomorrow. Your pain will not last forever. 

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens … a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance. (Ecclesiastes 3:1-4)

6. Don’t Go It Alone

God created us to thrive in community. We were not designed to navigate this life solo. We are called to walk together and learn from each other. Great Christian friends and Christian counselors are worth the hunt and the investment.

Listen to advice and accept discipline, and at the end you will be counted among the wise. (Proverbs 19:20)

If you learn to enjoy the ride, the ups as well as the downs, you can come out stronger, healthier, and more confident than ever! 

To Ministry Team Members, Teachers, & Leaders

Our churches aren’t always safe places for expressing emotion. Some of us have unintentionally created a false space where good emotions are welcome and negative emotions are pushed aside or even shamed. 

  • We hide our true selves.
  • We build surface relationships.
  • We ignore conflict and difficulties.

But this is not God’s desire. He created us to be a community that expresses His very being to the world. And we cannot glorify Him if we are not living as He created us. 

Two are better than one ... If either of them falls down, one can help the other up … Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? (Ecclesiastes 4:9-11)

  • How can we help people up when they stumble if we don’t know they have fallen?
  • How can we carry each others’ burdens if we pretend not to have them?
  • How can we deal with conflict in a God-honoring way if we don’t share our anger or hurt?

Change Starts With You

I’d like to suggest that it starts with you –– as the light of the world and a light in your church.

Click to grab my devotional book on Amazon today: My Soul Cries Out (There’s a paperback version as well as Kindle.) And walk with me through 30 powerful emotions. Learn how to fully embrace them and allow each feeling, even the ones you have denied and hidden, to draw you closer to God’s heart. As we learn to walk it and share it, we will start to influence our church cultures.

We are traveling the same road. As I learn to live in more emotional health and wholeness, I am experiencing more of God’s presence, guidance, and healing. I’d love to have you join me on the journey.

I’d also love to hear your thoughts and experiences. How have you seen God move through emotions laid bare? Please comment below.

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