277: Step 1: How Can We ACKNOWLEDGE Our Emotions Without Letting Them Take Over?
How can we acknowledge our emotions without letting them take over? Join me as we explore the first step in a powerful method I teach in my upcoming book “Emotional Confidence”. Join me as we discuss the importance of emotional management tools to help us notice our feelings (and validate them!) without judgment – which is essential for emotional health.
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:
- [02:25] Our Emotions Must Be Recognized Before They Can Be Released
- [06:27] How Does Stuffing Our Emotions Impact Our Physical Bodies?
- [07:40] We Can Lean On God’s Compassion to Help Us Acknowledge Our Emotions
- [10:22] Want Practical Tools to Help You Walk Through What You Are Feeling? If So, Join The Book Launch Team for Emotional Confidence!
[02:25] Our Emotions Must Be Recognized Before They Can Be Released
The heart of my book, Emotional Confidence: 3 Simple Steps to Manage Emotions with Science and Scripture is a very specific method called ADD (Acknowledge, Discern, and Decide). This is the method I have used to help thousands of women learn how to honor the emotions they are feeling, invite the Lord and His wisdom in to help guide them, and learn how to move forward.
In this first step “acknowledge”, we simply say “I am feeling X emotion and it makes sense why I'm feeling this way because of XYZ”. In the book, we dive much deeper into this concept and even help you create statements around acknowledging your emotions.
We can look at managing emotions like walking into a messy closet. This first step is like walking in, looking around, and seeing what is there without judgment. This is an incredibly important step that many of us want to skip. We are ready to say “Here's what God wants me to believe so that’s what I want to make myself believe.” Yet this is not helpful because if we don’t address our emotions and acknowledge them then it’s hard to make ourselves believe in God’s truth.
If we were to keep using that example of a closet, when you walk in you want to turn around and leave – not deal with the stuff. However, acknowledging is critical because our emotional self needs to see the feelings recognized before it is willing to let them go. Our mind, soul, and body need to be seen when we are hurting. We are quick to push through because we might be afraid of getting stuck, turning it into a pity party, or that the emotion is going to take over. It is completely natural to want to skip over this step, but if we do not validate the emotion, then it is hard to move towards a healthy alternative and response. We may even get stuck in this emotion longer.
[06:27] How Does Stuffing Our Emotions Impact Our Physical Bodies?
Our emotional self needs to have our feelings recognized from a neutral standpoint – not judgment. We have all seen what happens when we force ourselves to believe something, our emotions get stored and they end up coming out in our physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional health.
There is a great book called “The Body Keeps the Score” and the concept is that our bodies store our emotional experiences and traumatic events. They are keeping track of it and when we do not learn how to express and release those emotions, they can build up and cause disease. Our body needs to be able to let these emotions go or they will keep building up. This concept of acknowledge is so critical because it helps us do exactly that.
[07:40] We Can Lean On God’s Compassion to Help Us Acknowledge Our Emotions
The biggest blessing in all of this is that we can tap into the Lord’s compassion. His compassion is exactly what we need in those moments. We need somebody to see what we are seeing and recognize that it is plausible that we are feeling this way. We know that He understands what we are going through and He is not here to judge – but to help us through. He tells us to cast our cares upon Him.
In John 16:32-33, Jesus assures us that in this world, we will have trouble, but we're not to be overcome by the world's troubles, but to know that He has overcome them so we can make it through. He knows that there will be trouble in our lives and He wants us to come to Him with those troubles and say “Hey, this is bothering me because XYZ.”
God does want to help us respond in a way that honors and obeys His truth, but that is not where we should start. First, we need to rest in the compassionate heart of Jesus. If you have not experienced that side of Him recently (or maybe ever) I completely understand. Many of us struggle with this. That is why I wanted to share a few verses on God’s compassion, to remind us that this is the God who desires to partner with us as we confront everything stirring within us:
Exodus 34:6 says, “The Lord passed in front of Moses, calling out Yahweh! The Lord! The God of compassion and mercy! I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness.”
Psalm 103:13 says, “The Lord is like a father to His children, tender and compassionate to those who fear Him.”
Mark 6:34 says, “Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.”
Our Lord meets us where we are at. He sees that we live in an imperfect world where people hurt us. He wants to meet us in this place but that means we need to first be in a space where we are willing to sit in it and understand that there is a God who cares and has compassion for us. He wants to help us understand and feel all that we are feeling.
[10:22] Want Practical Tools to Help You Walk Through What You Are Feeling? If so, Join The Book Launch Team for Emotional Confidence!
Once we have acknowledged the emotion, seen it without judgment, and made sense as to why we are feeling this way, we can move on to the next step – which we will talk about in the next episode! This concept of acknowledgment is a critical and pivotal part of processing emotions. We cover this a lot more in-depth in the book where again, I teach you how to put each of these steps into an ADD statement to help you walk through what you are feeling.
You will also learn how to apply ADD to six specific emotions, how to use it in conversation as you manage emotions, and how you can build lifestyle habits to make this process easier to use. If this idea of acknowledging your emotions is something you have been wanting to learn more about, I highly encourage you to check out Emotional Confidence. Here is how you can do it:
1. You can preorder it wherever books are sold and they will automatically send it to you the day it launches
2. You can Join The Book Launch Team
If you want to join the book launch team, it is simple and 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 can bring a big transformation in how you acknowledge your emotions, so grab a copy of Emotional Confidence to learn this tool and so much more!
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
273: Overcome the Fear of Managing Emotions with 4 Empowering Truths
274: Are Emotions Sinful? How Can We Honor Emotions While Also Honoring Biblical Truth?
275: How Can I Name What I’m Feeling (When My Emotions Feel So Overwhelming)?
276: Do This BEFORE You Process Your Emotions (Emotional Prep)
