273: Overcome the Fear of Managing Emotions with 4 Empowering Truths
Let’s address the elephant in the room – many of us struggle with the fear of managing emotions. Fear often prevents us from working through our feelings and finding emotional healing. If you are afraid to manage emotions, tune in for the empowerment to address them.
Join me today as I share 4 empowering truths that will give you permission to relate to your emotions in a fresh new way.
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:
- [1:54] Are You Afraid of What Might Come Up When You Address Your Emotions?
- [04:03] The Fear of Managing Emotions Stripped Away My Identity For Nine Months – How Can You Face The Fear and Move Forward?
- [11:23] Empowering Truth #1: We Are in Control of How We Respond to Our Emotions
- [15:06] Empowering Truth #2: We Can Hold Both Biblical Truth and Our Emotions At The Same Time
- [16:25] Empowering Truth #3: We Do Not Have to Be Imprisoned By The Shame of Our “Out of Control” Emotions
- [18:47] Empowering Truth #4: We Can Give Ourselves Permission to Feel Freely Before God
- [20:35] “It is Safe to Be Messy and Take The First Step Towards Managing Your Emotions” Join The Book Launch Team for Emotional Confidence to Start Your Journey!
[1:54] Are You Afraid of What Might Come Up When You Address Your Emotions?
Many of us are afraid to be introspective and address our emotions because we think that things will get worse if we deal with what we feel inside. We often have this whole doomsday scenario of what could happen with ourselves, our relationships, and with God. Today I want to set you free by sharing four empowering truths that will give you permission to relate to your emotions and move through the fear.
I know the shame that comes for so many of us around a certain ideal of what a Christian should look like. This is a big part of this fear of managing emotions, and so I want to let you know that you are not letting God down by having emotions. You are not letting others down by being vulnerable and real about who you are. Emotions are part of being human and we, as a culture, need growth in this area. We need practical tools to invite both God and science into the process of managing our emotions.
[04:03] The Fear of Managing Emotions Stripped Away My Identity For Nine Months – How Can You Face The Fear and Move Forward?
I understand the very real fear of managing emotions. For most of my life, I ran from my emotions. I allowed a lot of stuff to build up and I kept pushing through. This all accumulated in 2017 when I had a massive medical crisis (you can learn more about this in Episode 125: How the Hustle Culture + Need to Achieve Nearly Took My Life). I had two vertebral artery dissections, which came out of nowhere, and doctors told me that they could not believe I was even alive. I was laid on my back for nine months and had my entire identity stripped away from me. I could not work, homeschool my children, or even buy groceries. Doctors still do not know what happened to me but the one thing they can point out is that I had off-the-charts levels of stress.
My family and I were going through some very big things at that time and I was not sleeping. I slept four hours a night for 10-15 years and I was in survival mode for so long.
But when God laid me out on my back for nine months, He told me that this was my second chance and that there would not be a third. I said, “Okay God, show me what hack I need to pick up” and He reminded me that it was not about hacks, it was that I had to answer these questions:
– Why was I stuck in this “on” position?
– Why did I feel like I always needed to be perfect?
– Why did I have no boundaries in my life?
– Why did I feel like I was never good enough for my kids or husband?
These were all soundtracks in my subconscious mind that had been built in my head about who I was, who I needed to be, and how I needed to show up to feel loved, worthy, and enough. God confronted me and said I needed to deal with the root cause of these issues and I had to look at the fear that I had in managing my emotions.
Fear, as you know, is full of lies. So once we figure out what those lies are, we can combat them with the truth and put fear back in the corner where it came from.
I pray that these four empowering truths will set you free and give you just even the mustard seed-sized bit of courage to begin to work through these feelings inside of you and build confidence in how you manage your feelings. I am living proof that it is possible to find practical ways to work with God through your emotions. I want you to know that there is hope on the other side and that you cannot let fear get in the way. I want you to take the first step with me today by learning these truths and building emotional confidence.
[11:23] Empowering Truth #1: We Are in Control of How We Respond to Our Emotions
The first truth I want to share is that you do not have to run from or be driven by your emotions. You are in control of how you respond to them. If we think of our emotions the same way we think of our senses like touch, taste, sight, hearing, and smell – we are reminded that they are gifts given to us by God. We notice the smell of freshly baked banana bread, we see a beautiful sunset, and we can get comfort from touching a soft blanket – this is how we interact with the world around us. Our emotions also give us the ability to interact and notice what is around us.
When emotions are challenging, we can think of them as “check engine lights.” Just like in our car, we have check engine lights to what is going on in our heart and the deeper things that God is moving us towards. Facing these emotions allows us to get rid of anything that is preventing us from following God.
Emotions are just ways of noticing what we can work through or address. When we see our feelings as tools, they have less power at the moment. We less likely to be run over or driven by them. We can remind ourselves “I do not have to let these emotions run my life because I have the Holy Spirit within me.” This takes a willingness to notice what is going on.
[15:06] Empowering Truth #2: We Can Hold Both Biblical Truth and Our Emotions At The Same Time
The second truth is that expressing your emotions does not mean you are turning away from God. We can hold both our emotions and Biblical truth at the same time.
As Christians, we never want anything, including our feelings, to supersede scriptural truth. There are all kinds of messages in our culture that say “follow your feelings” or “let your heart lead the way.” But when it comes to our feelings, we can choose a middle ground between someone who lets themselves follow every emotion and someone who shuts down and never feels any emotions. Our emotions do not have to take over and dismiss Biblical truths.
[16:25] Empowering Truth #3: We Do Not Have to Be Imprisoned By The Shame of Our “Out of Control” Emotions
We also do not have to be imprisoned by the shame of how out-of-control emotions affect (or have affected) our relationship with others. If our emotions have damaged relationships, we can ask for forgiveness.
Many women tell me that they are filled with shame because they know they have allowed out-of-control emotions to cause damaging behaviors in relationships. They tell me that they’re afraid to work through their feelings because they do not want to turn into that person again.
I understand this fear but in every moment we can decide how we are going to live. Are we going to follow God? Are we going to accept His invitation to become new creations in Christ? Are we going to ask for forgiveness and let it go? Are we going to move forward? Or are we going to keep rehashing it and living in the past being afraid that it is going to happen again?
If we can believe that God has given us forgiveness, then we can move forward and not have to be imprisoned by our shame or fear of our “out of control” emotions coming back. And if we can learn new emotional management tools then we can have a better chance to respond to our emotions in a healthier way.
Part of this is allowing ourselves to be messy as we work through our emotions. We do not have to be perfect, God loves us as we are right now. He wants us to move forward and take a step in a different direction. It is not a perfect walk for any of us and we can move forward even if we have not dealt with our emotions perfectly in the past.
[18:47] Empowering Truth #4: We Can Give Ourselves Permission to Feel Freely Before God
The last empowering truth I have for you is that you do not have to be afraid that you are not a good enough Christian if you have emotions that feel in contrast to how you want to be as a follower of God. You can give yourself permission to feel freely before God because He loves you as you are. Compassion is the gift that God has given us.
The first step to managing emotions is to acknowledge why it makes sense that we have that emotion. We are all imperfect and God is always moving us toward the best version we can be. But this does not mean that we are not loved in the in-between spaces.
[20:35] “It is Safe to Be Messy and Take The First Step Towards Managing Your Emotions” Join The Book Launch Team for Emotional Confidence to Start Your Journey!
I hope these truths give you a sense of confidence so that you can be messy, that you do not have to be imprisoned by your shame, and that you do not have to have a fear of managing emotions. If this has impacted your life at all, I would love to hear from you on Instagram. I would be honored to pray for you and to hear your story.
If this is a topic you are passionate about and you want to help others learn about this topic or support my work, then please Join The Book Launch Team for Emotional Confidence. This is super simple all you have to do is:
- Pre-order Emotional Confidence on Amazon
- Share about the book in some capacity whether that is on social media or with a friend
- Once the book is live, write a review on Amazon or Goodreads
In return, book launch team members get an early-reader copy of the book plus other exclusive bonuses!
This book is full of specific tools that can help you build your emotional confidence. I would love to have you as part of the launch team and please share it with anyone that you believe would be interested! Sign up now to be part of the book launch team at this link.
RESOURCES:
Tired of up-and-down feelings stealing your peace, sabotaging your relationships, and filling your mind with self-defeating thoughts? If so, make sure to join the launch team for my new book, “Emotional Confidence: 3 Simple Steps to Manage Emotions with Science and Scripture”, coming November 12th!
RELATED EPISODES:
271: (New Book!) Emotional Confidence: 3 Simple Steps to Manage Emotions with Science + Scripture
272: Healing from the Shame of Unprocessed Emotions in Your Life and Relationships
