203 - Myth Busters: Emotions Are Bad

You're listening to the Pure Desire podcast. Your safe place to find hope, healing and freedom from sexual addiction, betrayal and relationship issues. Happy day after my birthday to you, listener. I'm your host, Trevor Windsor, and you're listening to episode 203 of the Pure Desire podcast. Here joining me as always is my co host, Nick Stumbo.

Give me a break. Give me a break. Break me off a piece of that Kit Kat bar. I can't bar.

I whispered it.

What?

I honestly so surprised you've never used that before.

Have you seen the sketch where they can't remember the what it is at the end? Give me breaking off a piece of that taco shell.

Yes, yes. So good, so good. Honestly, one of my all time. Here's a little hot take on it. Kit Kats are one of my all time favorites. I do not like them in ice cream though. That's weird. Like, most candies, especially chocolate, can go well with ice cream. Kit Kats don't go well with ice cream.

It's really interesting you think about Kit Kats. They're kind of the American version of a wafer chocolate bar that's really, really popular in Europe. If you go to Europe, there's all these and they're like twice the size of a Kit Kat. They're really big pieces. Do you know what I'm talking about?

No, I don't. Why are they slumming us here in America?

Yeah, they travel to like, that's a huge. I mean, and they sell them in these big packages and it's kind of like America went, we can do better. We're gonna make the wafer smaller and cover it in chocolate and charge twice as much. Yeah. And it's gonna be this tiny little bar that people will pay just as much for. So anyone who's traveled or lived in Europe is. They totally get it. They're like, yep, yep. It's just a total knockoff, the Kit Kat bar. But Yeah, I like KitKat. I mean, I wish. Here's honest truth. I really wish they would make a peanut butter Kit Kat bar.

Really?

Because if there was a layer of peanut butter in the middle, I would be in.

I'm lean more toward caramel because.

Have you ever dipped a Kit Kat in?

I have not.

It's the way to do it.

Justin just gave us like the two hands back there, like touchdown.

Okay.

I thought he was telling us, like, move on. This is the weirdest podcast conversation ever.

I. I'm really interested to see how you tie this in to this one. But we did another Myth Busters episode with Heather Kolb, our neuroscience expert content manager speaker here. And we talked about the myth that emotions are bad.

Yeah, we did. And I think when people express strong emotions, what a lot of us might feel like is, oh, give me a break. Like really, like grow old or move on or why are you so sad? I mean, there's.

We're being so emotional.

Yeah. There's obvious situations where we tend to accept emotion in our society, but outside of those, like, strong emotion is often viewed as a negative or bad thing. And that's what we want to talk about today. And I think it's really critical for a lot of us that grew up in faith based homes, church, going to church a lot, because there were acceptable emotions and unacceptable ones. And we may be living in a way that we still shame ourselves a lot for feeling things that are honestly just a part of the human experience. So I think today was a great conversation about understanding emotions and the role they play and how it can contribute to our growth and recovery in the healing journey.

Yeah. Yeah. And it is a really good conversation. It's definitely one I feel like I'm gonna have to go back and listen to again some things before we get to it. Subscribe to the podcast. We're on all the major platforms. Follow us on social media. Earedesirepdmi. Also, we have full episodes up on YouTube. And then, Nick, I just wanted to mention to our listeners we are getting closer and closer to the second ever Pure Desire Summit. And I just wanted us to kind of give a promo, just let people know that this event is gonna be amazing.

In some ways, it's like the first ever summit redone because last year's was the first and it ended up being 100% virt.

True.

And we. It's ironic that we're saying this because right now in Oregon, cases are spiking again. And it's like, are you serious? Like, there's another summer and. But anyway, let's not dwell on the negative.

Let's dwell on Kit Kats in the summit.

We really believe because of the vaccinations going out and you know, our society in general is just learning how to deal with whatever the case numbers are that we're going to get to be in person, a part of it. But we also learned last year, so there will be the streaming virtual option. So whether you come and join us here in Troutdale, Oregon, or you join us online, it's going to be fantastic. If you're a podcast listener, you know, we're a big fan of Jenna Reimersma and her book altogether you.

Yes.

She is the. She's our headliner. She's the keynote. Going to get to hear from her. Another good friend of the ministry, Ben Bennett and Josh McDowell ministries will be here. And then one of our friends, local pastor but was on the podcast, Keith Jenkins is going to speak and along with the Pure desire team. And it's just going to be great. And so as we've talked about it in the past, like, the summit is kind of that rally point of saying, God's doing something. We're a part of it. And if you're a Pure desire fan group member client, you just love what we do. Like, the summit is for you, and we hope you'll join us in person or online. And I can't wait. I'm super excited.

It's going to be awesome. Yeah, no, 100%. And so it's going to be September 10 and 11 at Harvest Christian Church here in Troutdale, Oregon. And again, as Nick mentioned, it is in person or virtual. And so we are super, super excited to do this with you. If you wanna register for this event, go to PureDesire.org summit2,1. All right, so here is our conversation with Heather Kolb on the myth that emotions are bad. Heather, welcome back to the show.

Glad to be here.

There are just some guests, so you just hear them and you're, like, so calm.

I had to think of the emotion word.

I don't believe you. The what?

The emotion word that I chose.

What were you using? Pensive.

Well, I said glad instead of happy.

She's got a Rolodex because she's a robot. She's got a Rolodex. It's like, what word should I use today? Glad. Okay. All right. Today we are back with another Myth Busters episode. I have just realized how difficult that word, those two words are to say together. That word is hard. Okay, so today we're talking about emotions. If you're anything like me, you grew up and you were taught by your family that emotions are bad. Today we're going to talk through the myth that is emotions are bad. So let's just start with this. Where does this myth come from? It's obviously not like, out of an intent to hurt people. So why do we end up believing and really even teaching this myth that emotions are bad?

This is really a great question. And it comes, I think, not from as much our current culture, but if you look historically at the way that emotions even. I don't know have been studied over time. And this is a huge field. And so even our conversation today is going to be a tiny, tiny drop in the bucket because there are historians and psychologists and sociologists and biologists and neuroscientists and more who study this thing called emotion. And really there is, I think, cultural significance in how we are even taught to experience or express emotion. And so the way that we experience emotion in the United States might be different from other cultures, even places in the United States. And I think too that when you think about historically like some prominent families or some elite type families, they were taught, those children were intentionally taught that emotions, they are unreliable, they are irrational, they're not something that you ever express in public. That's not part of our behavioral code. Some cultures even saw emotion as weakness. So I mean, I think all of those things then are carried down the generations. I even know that in my parents house my dad has a picture of his grandparents and it's a black and white photo and they have this stoic, expressionless picture, even though they're in their best Sunday dress. And they obviously paid to have this portrait taken. But it was non emotional, there was nothing there. And so I think that it's interesting how we got from that to where we are today might fill in some of those gaps of where we get that idea that emotions are bad.

And for a lot of people that grew up in maybe a church culture, church home, Christian culture, they might modify it. And I think I would like for me personally, I didn't necessarily hear emotions were bad, but I heard negative emotions are bad. Because scripture and faith can really teach us that you're supposed to be happy. You know, the joy of the Lord is my strength. I will enter his gates with thanksgiving in my heart. I will enter his courts with praise. And there's the old hymn that says, you know, why should I be discouraged? Why should I be sad when Jesus is my portion? And kind of this idea that like, if we have faith in Christ and the hope of eternity, we're just going to be these happy, you know, hunky dory people the rest of our lives. And so the messages, if, if you have negative emotion of sadness and grief or anger, despair, hopelessness, it can be made to feel like, well then you lack faith.

Yes.

And rather than understanding why I'm feeling these emotions or where they're coming from, we just kind of learned. And I know this is my upbringing and I'm guessing a lot of listeners are maybe kind of nodding along like, yep, that sounds Familiar, like, if you're sad, it's, well, you must not have kept your eyes on Jesus. And so it kind of becomes a faith problem. And while there's some maybe elements of truth to that, because it is true that if we're in the midst of something difficult, focusing our eyes on Christ, the hope of heaven, eternity, that can create maybe a return to some joy or peace or calm. So there's truth to that. And the joy of the Lord can be our strength. But I think, unfortunately, the message became, well, anything that's then not happy, joyful, peaceful, you must lack faith. That message, I think we've got a face to say, is that maybe in some ways doing more harm than good because we're ignoring half of our emotions that actually have a whole lot to teach us if we'll listen to them and understand why we're experiencing what we're experiencing.

Yeah. And I think too, like, in my household, wisdom or doing what's right was really emphasized and making wise decisions was really implied in so many ways. It's void of emotion. You do not make decisions based on emotion. If you make decisions based on emotion, then that's foolish or unwise, or it can get you into trouble, which it can. Like, there is truth to that, that if you do make decisions out of an emotional state, you can make bad decisions. But I also think it's part of just completely misunderstanding the role or function of emotion in our life. Like, you know, if you look at who God is and how he's created us to have a left side and a right side of our brain, to have a logical thinking side and an emotional experiential one, that's a complete misunderstanding of how God actually created us to be. And I personally am reading Van der Kolk's book, the Body Keeps a Score right now. And man, emotions are indicators. They tell us a lot about what's going on. And so I know we're going to get into more of that. But yeah, that was definitely what I was talking about.

It's kind of burying the lead. We're going to get to all that.

I'm sorry. I'm excited. This is a good conversation.

Yeah, it is so good. And I agree. I think I feel like when I would experience negative emotions, my internal dialogue would say I'm doing something wrong. Because if I'm sad, there must be something wrong versus that questioning of why do I feel this? No one ever used that kind of language, so let's just answer it outright. Are emotions bad? And why or why not no, they're not bad.

I think that to label them bad and good doesn't really represent them accurately. I think it's better to think of positive and negative emotions. But even with that, there's a strong subjectivity to it. And so, for example, and this is one of my favorite examples, is that we know that fear. And again, taking into consideration that fear isn't typically defined by one behavior, one action. But when we talk about fear, fear is something that is biological. It's in us. God put it in us to protect us. When we sense something that is dangerous or threatening in our environment, that our brain would react or cause us to react in a way that would help us survive, whether it was to run away or to fight back or something. And so if you think of fear in that context, then I would say that that's a positive emotion. But that culturally is not what we think of when we think of fear. Because at the same time, if we live in a constant state of fear, either there's something in our environment that's creating that, or even in something internally. Like I remember as a young mom thinking, okay, well now I have this baby, what if he gets sick or what if he gets hurt? Or what if something happens? Or even having that constant what if conversation in your head that's driven by fear, I would say that that's probably not going to be a healthy perspective. And that would be viewed then as a negative form of fear.

But some of that's maternal or parental instinct to have concern for the well being of our baby, to feel that it actually indicates our strong love and care for protecting our offspring.

And so it's just one of those things that I don't think that you can ever say that absolutely feelings are either positive or negative. Cause I think that they can be both. But I would think of them as positive and negative, not good and bad.

Well, and I like that redefinition too. I think what's interesting to me is if you look at scripture, God has emotions. God gets angry with Israel a lot in the Old Testament, like you know, even Jesus had emotional reactions. And so, and I think that what we see in that is that perfect example of having emotion but not being sinful. And that's the intention. But I also think about Job. I studied through the book of Job not too long ago, and if you look at Job's reaction or response to God, he makes some pretty emotionally fueled accusations of who God is that are not 100% accurate. And God actually honors the way that he responded he honored that he brought his emotions and where he was to him. You look at the Psalms, David, the same thing. Like anyone who wrote a psalm like that's in that book, there is tons of emotion, mourning, like, all the positive, negative, right? Like, there's some positive, but there's also a lot of negative in there. And so I think that a misrepresentation of our emotions being bad can be just so detrimental because we see it all over in scripture, too.

It'd be a bit like saying, are our senses bad? Like, is our sense of smell bad or our sense of taste? Like, well, they just are. There are things we experience, and that's what emotion. Like, they are things that we experience because we're human. And yeah, there can be bad smells or there can be bad taste, but that doesn't mean the ability to taste or smell is bad. Like, we're designed to feel these things. And so we'd be wise to say, well, why did God design our bodies and our brains to experience emotion? And that's what we're going to talk about more. But I also wanted to pick up, you know, what you were saying, Trevor, that we see it in the Bible. We see God was emotional. Jesus had emotion. The passage that always sticks out to me so strongly is in the Book of John where Jesus learns that his good friend Lazarus has died. And he tells his disciples, I am going. Like, he says, oh, he's asleep. I'm going to wake him up. And they think like, that he's making some illusion. And he says, okay, let me be clear. He's dead. And I am going there to raise him like he's that plain. And then he says to Lazarus, sisters, I am the resurrection and the life, and those who believe in me will live again. And they're like, yeah, okay, one day in eternity. And Jesus is like, no, it's like, your brother's going to rise again. And then they go to the tomb and the people are there mourning. And it says that Jesus wept, not that he felt sad or like. And the word, you know, if you've heard it preached on, you know, the word is a very kind of loud, expressive weeping, which begs the question, what's he crying about? Right? And in our kind of maybe negative emotion concept, we might think, stop your crying. You're about to raise him from the dead. Like you're moments away from seeing him again. Why are you. Yeah, we. It just shows that what I always see is like, Jesus is entering into the emotion of the moment. The crowd that is feeling the Finality of death, the sorrow of loss. And I think he's overcome by what they're feeling and. And his own sadness of feeling how hard death is. And like, so he's weeping. And if Jesus can feel that, knowing he's moments away from saying, rise again.

Yeah.

It says to me, emotions have a role. Emotions do something for us that's good and we need to be willing because. And I maybe identify with that story because of all the emotions like tears and grief are maybe the one I most felt bad about. Like, oh, don't, don't show that. Because for some reason that's either weak or I don't even know what the message is. But that's the one that when I see, oh, Jesus wept openly in front of a crowd, it's like, okay, maybe I need to relearn some things.

Yeah. And I think, you know, in the conversation, thinking about how it was modeled, because how it's modeled to you doesn't mean that that's the right way to do it. Because if Jesus is our motto, we can see that it's okay to express those negative emotions. So if emotions aren't bad, which we've clearly answered, so, you know, if you want to argue, email. Heather. If they're not bad, then what are they? Are they all good? Like, I mean, is it.

Are all.

Because it's easy to make that kind of shift. Well, okay, well, if they're not bad, are they all good? So what do we think?

And so this one, again, is there's not an easy answer for it because, I mean, I know personally, I've never experienced a righteous anger. Usually I'm angry, and it has very selfish motivation. But I think that even anger can help you to get to the core of what you're really feeling. And a lot of people talk about anger as being an easy emotion, that it's really easy for us to feel angry. But then when we are willing to do that deep dive and figure out where it's coming from and do the investigation for ourself, that it can be helpful. I think, too, that when you talk about them being good or bad, I wouldn't necessarily be too quick to throw a label on things because there's so much that goes into our emotions, our personality and our temperament and our experience, and there's so many things that we don't even understand. I think even neuroscientists don't understand all of the different ways that emotion affects our brain. And so I think that it's important to be a little Bit open to that. And especially when we're surrounded by people who tend to be different than we are. So I have one son who. He is very creative, and he's a musician. And he has this very strong melancholy side that he likes. He embraces it. And even when he was a young.

Man, he's a leading musician.

He does kind of a classic. And he will get into a mood sometimes, and he will, on purpose, put on kind of this sad song. And it's not because he wants to run away from it, but it's because he wants to feel it. He really wants to feel that emotion, that depth in his soul, and he'll stay in it for a little while, and then he's good to go. And he gives himself that space to embrace this side of him that. That a lot of people would think that that's a negative emotion, but for him, it just seems to be reviving to him. And even just to have that mindset that he knows himself and that this is just a piece of him that he likes to explore and that he's willing to let himself go there is great.

That makes me itchy.

I can't.

That just sounds terrible.

He knows himself. That's a good way of saying it. I've often thought of emotions as, like, they're like indicator lights on our dashboard. You know, if we were in a car or an airplane, like, there's all these indicator lights, and if our gas tank is full, that might be, like, we're feeling really happy. Well, that's an indicator of something else that, you know, your fuel tank gauge is not the fuel itself. It's the indicator of what's in your tank. And so we can look at it to learn and go, oh, man, I'm really full today of peace or joy or happy. Like, what we would define maybe as the positive emotions. And to say, well, why is that? What filled me up, what's fueling me, what's creating it, versus, you know, when the tank's on empty and the lights coming on and, you know, we're for angry, sad, depressed, whatever negative emotion we're feeling, again, it's an indicator. It's not the thing itself. And so if we get caught up in, I'm sad, what's wrong? I stopped being sad. Instead, see, oh, I'm feeling sad. Why is that? Where's this coming? And sometimes it's obvious. I mean, if we're in the midst of crisis or grief, it's obvious. But I know a lot of days we all feel a range of Emotions that might be like, why did that light just come on my dashboard? I didn't know I was low on oil. I didn't know I was low on energy and was feeling depressed. And that ability to kind of interpret what's going on, to me, that's why we have emotions, because they become indicators or signals of something deeper going on that our body or our brain or our spirit or the Holy Spirit in us is asking us to pay attention to.

Yeah, I just think of Inside out, just such a great movie that, for a lot of people, redefined the role of sadness in life. That sadness can also lead to joy. It's such an integral part to our emotions. But I love it that none of those emotions that are characterized in that movie are bad guys. They're all part of the good guy team. They just all function together. And I just think about it. You can say this for a lot of things, but I don't think that emotions by themselves then are good or bad. It's just what we do with them that can be good or bad. The decisions that we make from an emotional motivation that could be either good or bad. So it's kind of like that. It's neutral in and of itself. They are neutral in and of themselves as far as morality. But what they cause us to do is where that becomes good or bad or right or wrong.

So, Heather, I hear you talking about how emotions probably shouldn't be defined as good or bad, but we need to understand the impact negative, positive. What I hear you saying is our need for some emotional intelligence and awareness. So speak to that a little more. Like, what is the importance of having emotional intelligence in life?

Okay. And we've talked about this on other episodes, but just as a general reminder that emotional intelligence is first, our ability to be able to understand what we're feeling, be able to identify it, and then use that information to navigate our world. And so it really then takes into consideration first us being able to understand and sit with how we're feeling and then be able to express it in a way that makes sense to other people. So that's gonna involve relationships and communication and all of those things, but then also be able to identify emotions in other people and even taking that a little bit farther and being able to say that, okay, well, I noticed that this person is feeling this. And I know when I'm feeling this, it stems from this. And so just being able to not only be sympathetic to them and attentive to them, but builds empathy between people. And, I mean, it does A lot of really great things for us because it's kind of not only raising awareness, but it's an expansion of us being able to use emotions in all different areas of our world.

Which, if you think about the implications of that, then all of our relationships that don't have emotions, if we're someone who are dampening or pushing down or avoiding our emotions and not giving them the value that they have, then we're having a fraction of the type of relationships we could have that I'm not able to have an intimate known and being known or knowing and being known relationship with somebody else. And I mean, I love the empathy because then I can come alongside and we can have this mutuality and understanding what life is like and how we do it together. But, man, I just feel like any relationship with your spouse, with your kid, with your friends, with mentors, whatever it may be, it's just a fraction of what you could be experiencing if you don't have emotional intelligence.

To me, emotional intelligence speaks to the ability to differentiate between what we're experiencing and who we are. The emotions is like what I'm experiencing, but that's not necessarily who I am. And I think we do that a lot where it's like, I am sad, I'm depressed. And we're taking that kind of like, as a mantle of what's wrong with me and why I shouldn't be sad. And that's kind of lacking emotional intelligence. Because if we could turn the phrase a little bit to say I am experiencing some strong sadness, that doesn't mean I'm bad or wrong or a sad person, you know, all the time. But it's like, this is something I'm experiencing. And again, that paying attention to why and where is it coming from, and it can be incredibly insightful versus just getting lost in the emotion and now kind of letting it define who we are. And we can do the same with happiness of like, well, no, I'm. I'm supposed to be a happy person. That's who I am. I'm happy, and my friends know me as happy. And so I always need to be happy. And like, well, no, you might say I often do experience happiness and that's what I like to live in, but that's not who I am. That's not my identity. And so if we can kind of hold our emotions at that appropriate distance away from our identity, it can really inform us a lot about what's going on in our relationships in our world that we, again, need to pay attention to.

Yeah, yeah. And again, like, I think, and we talk about this a lot, my emotions tell me a lot about myself. They tell me a lot about what's going on at the surface, how certain things make me feel, what relationships are helpful for me, which ones are not, what situations are helpful for me, which. Which are not. And so I think they are. And I love your. The visual of just being the dashboard and those indicators that if I don't have the dashboard, I'm going to be driving through life blind. That's like, how fast am I going?

I don't know, Putting a sticker over the warning light, right?

Like, you're not going to pay attention to that, not going to pay attention, and then you're going to crash and then life's going to get worse, you know. And so I think it just. It tells us the truth of where we're at and gives us a sense of direction of where we're going. So I tend to do this a lot, both with positive and negative emotion. As we've addressed, I dampen those emotions. And I think it's something that I'm going to guess happens a lot more in the church, at least that's been my experience. We kind of tend to dampen again out of fear that they might motivate wrong behaviors or emotions might actually be bad. What are some ways you guys have personally or seen people dampen emotion?

So, let's see. For me personally, I think that in my first marriage, emotions didn't seem to serve me very well. They were a distraction. And so I trained myself to not feel emotion just because they got in the way. I didn't have time for that. And they caused me to not be able to do what I needed to do, especially having little kids and whatever. But then I learned, though, that that wasn't healthy, which we'll talk about that a little bit later. But I can see a couple other examples that. So for me, it was more about my survival, was they didn't necessarily have a positive role for me at the time. And so then I would suppress them. I could think of other times where people might, even with positive emotions, if they're an individual who lives with a lot of pain and shame and worthlessness, if they start to feel happy, they might stop themselves and think, okay, I'm not deserving of this, that I can't feel that because I'm not worthy of feeling happy. And then I also could see how if, as a child, you were raised in an environment where if you had emotions or positive emotions and. And Somebody reprimanded you or punished you for having that, or said, well, you're just overreacting those kind of things that then you would feel like, okay, well, I can't behave that way because I experience a negative response when I do.

That for me to feel that way.

And so then I would suppress even positive emotion because of my life experience. So those are a few examples I could see.

Yeah. I mentioned earlier some of my, you know, background or concerns about crying and weeping and some of that being the internal message from my childhood of where I was very emotional when I was hurt. I would cry a lot or we'd lose a game. I'd cry a lot. And kind of hearing that message of like, oh, grow up, stop your crying, it's just a game. Big boys don't cry. And internalizing that message of like, oh, crying is weak and crying is something that only little babies do. And so I can still feel like if a movie's making me emotional and kind of that cry, I don't know what you'd call it. Like there's this little mechanism, you can feel the emotion of tears rising.

Yeah.

And something without even me consciously doing it, something in me kind of go, whoa, hold on there, we don't want to do that. And I realized that a lot of it for me is kind of a fear of what others will think.

Yeah.

And I can do the same with real positive emotion. Like, well, I'm acting a little too happy and people might think I'm weird or like that might bother them because, like, why are you so happy? So it's not necessarily like what you were sharing, Heather, which I think is very legitimate that some people out of shame or self worth issues can stop. It's more that fear for me of how will I be perceived. And I think that's something I have to pay attention to and maybe many others of like, am I limiting my ability to understand my world because I'm so concerned what others will think? And yeah, just that's what comes to mind for me as examples.

Yeah, I definitely run away from negative emotion. I've got two things to share. One of them is I just realized this going through the Genesis process, that I have historically been a Christian who uses profanity and just didn't care. And I realized why, actually very recently, why I do it. And I do it because it's a way for me to express negative emotion. And when I do it, I tend to do it in a funny or humorous way. And so then that's met with Joy or laughter. And then now that I've expressed negative emotion and you've laughed at it, now we can both walk away from that negative emotion and never come back to it. Which may sound kind of meta, but, like, that's. That's legit. Like, I. Since I've realized that, it's not been a struggle for me except a couple days recently where I've had a really bad day and went on some walks with some people and had some language. Anyway, so that's the first one. The other one, Jay Stringer, who's a friend of our ministry. I remember he asked me a question. It was right after we were done shooting the Sexual Integrity 101 course. We were playing pool, had a nice glass of whiskey. We're just hanging out and having a great time. And he asked me what my aspirations were in life. And I just was telling him all this stuff, and he said, hold on a second. I feel like I need to take the knife away from you. What are you talking about, Counselor J? And he's like, I feel like you're cutting yourself over and over and over again. And that basically started this exploration that I'm afraid to feel hope or excitement because I'm afraid of being disappointed. So for me, I don't allow myself to feel joy or actually. And this is if, you know, the enneagram, this is very seven of me, that I have a hard time being present because I'm afraid it'll land flat. So I'm just. I'm always thinking about the next thing. So even in these amazing things that I get to be a part of or these amazing experiences in life, I am already thinking about the next thing so that I won't be disappointed. And so for me, hope is really hard to have. Joy is really hard to have, you know, because it's like, well, maybe I think Brene Brown said it, that we're always wondering when the next shoe's gonna drop. Man, I am in that mindset all the time. And so for me, that's another way I dampen even my positive is because, like, what if. You know, what if this happens and I'm disappointed? Then I'll look like a fool, you know?

Yeah, those are all really helpful examples. And I think probably a lot of people listening can relate. And so what if we find especially that we're kind of in that mode of we don't feel like we're allowed to experience emotions, we try to turn them off, we've been told that they're wrong. How can we Become more aware of our emotions and grow in emotional intelligence.

Yeah, this one is kind of hard. At least I struggled with this initially.

I remember growing up, you used to say, you hurt my feeling.

Yes. It's because my family did that. I only have one feeling. Yeah. So that is true.

So tether's mysterious, in case anybody. Yeah.

So for me, it was when I was in counseling that I was so standoffish when it came to expressing any feelings. And even my counselor had those little cards that she would set around the room that had emotions labeled on them and listed, and she wanted us to explore that. And I was so against it. And so she challenged me this one week to this week. I want you to just let yourself feel what you're feeling. So I cried for the next week almost nonstop unless I was sleeping. And I went back and I said, okay, you broke me, and so this is not working. So fix this.

This is your fault.

Yes, exactly. Not that I haven't felt anything for years, but so then she said, okay, so think of it this way, that you're standing. Imagine yourself standing in a room. And in this room has all these shelves with jars on them, and every jar is labeled with an emotion. And so I want you to imagine yourself in that room.

And.

And you're gonna go. And you're gonna take a jar that you know what you're gonna feel, and you're gonna practice feeling that for three minutes, and then you're gonna put the lid back on the jar and put it back. And so. And I used that for months because it was three minutes. I felt like I could handle that. It wasn't too scary. And then I was getting to decide which emotions I wanted to take off the shelf first, so I didn't have to deal with my deep, dark areas first. That I could just take something that seemed a little bit more. Less threatening to me and hold onto that. And that was really good for me, because then I could teach my kids how to feel emotion. And some of them, like one of my kids. Well, a couple of them, are easily angered. That's just kind of their default setting. And so it was good for us to be able to talk about that. And we had a rule in our house that my kids could say anything they wanted to me as long as they could say it in an agreeable voice. And we even had a couple years where we'd use a talking stick that was basically a toy wand thing that had floating things in it. But if you had the stick, then you could tell anybody in the group, how you were feeling about something and why. And it just really trained them, I think, well, to be able to recognize not only what they're feeling, but then to be able to talk through that. When you did this, like, to their siblings, when you did this, this is how it made me feel. And so they learned to communicate how they were feeling in an agreeable way, which I think has helped them serve them well even as adults. Cause one of my sons, when he started dating his wife, he would get kind of frustrated and he would say, you know, I ask her how she feels, and she doesn't tell me. She says she doesn't know. I had to say, you know what? She might not really know. I mean. Cause they were raised in an environment where they could talk about their feelings, but not everybody has been raised in that environment. And it takes time, totally.

I think that that's the importance of. Because what comes to mind for me initially is just the faster scale. It's an emotional awareness tool that can help you, and it's in our resources. But I think even behind that is actually being in a community of people or a group that is willing to enter into that space. I think of, I'm back in seven pillars right now. And it creates. It gives you tools to dive in and figure out, what am I feeling? Why am I feeling it? What's behind this? What have I experienced before? And it's a safe place to engage in that. And I think that that's so important. I think another thing that's a part of the group experience is being able to listen to other people as they share and the emotions that they felt. Man, there are times where I've had an identical situation, and someone says, and then this is how I felt. And I'm just like, oh, my gosh, I had no idea. I felt the same way. It names it for me. And so I think that those are just some things. But I've learned to also just ask questions. Like, you know, what comes to mind is the Jenna Reimersma episode that we did, where, for me, I even talked to her about it. In the episode Feeling Anger Toward My Son, we talk about the idea of asking anger questions like, why are you here? What are you trying to protect me from? And that, as weird as it sounds, has been really helpful to learn to ask questions like the question of why am I doing what I'm doing? Or why I'm reacting the way I'm reacting. And I think that that starts to really take the hood off the car, and you can start to look under and see what's going on.

Yeah. Yeah. I was actually thinking of Jenna's episode with us as well in her book Altogether your. Because she really emphasizes that point. Of all parts, welcome. All parts welcome. And in her internal family systems, the reference is, there are parts of me that are hurting or weak or scared, and rather than shaming them, I need to welcome them and learn from them. And I think of emotions. That's what I feel like. I'm learning the same thing. Of all emotions, welcome. And rather than shaming myself for feeling something, just go, welcome. Okay, where's that coming from? And learning to just continually ask the why question. So when I wake up and that negative dialogue is in my brain, rather than shaming, like, stop feeling that way, why do you feel down going, huh, I'm really feeling negative today. I wonder why that is. And sometimes realizing, okay, I ate really poorly yesterday, didn't get enough sleep, and I'm really busy. I'm just feeling a little overwhelmed. And that's probably normal, that those things are just kind of popping into my head, like, okay, now I can take a deep breath and kind of face it versus just getting stuck in it. So asking that why question, I think is helping me get underneath the emotions themselves.

Well, and I think that you bring up a good point, that it's not just identifying our emotions. It's also facing them, being able to engage with them, because it's great, like, emotional awareness. And I don't know, I'm starting to think maybe, like, emotional awareness and intelligence might be a little bit different because I can be aware of a problem but not do anything about it. And so emotional awareness is only as good as your ability to put that into practice, or you're aware that it's.

There, but you have no idea where it came from or why it's there.

Yes, I know my car is not working well, but I don't know why. Yeah, it doesn't get you anywhere. We're kind of dipping into this a little bit already. But how does actually feeling our emotions, not just running from them or dampening them, help us in recovery from sexual addiction and also healing from betrayal?

Yeah, I think that that has a lot to do with what you had already said, Nick, is that if we're willing to venture into that scope and discover why they're there and even push it to where it's coming from, we could learn a lot about ourselves. So I know that for me, when I start to feel irritable and especially if it's not something that is really clear where it's coming from, then I will usually. Well, after a day of setting it aside because I don't want to deal with it, then I will make time for it and just sit with it and start to connect those dots and just be able to say that, okay, this conversation happened. And that's when I remember feeling it the first time. And then I say, okay, well, when was the. Before that? When did you feel this way? Okay, well, this is connected to this other incident that happened a few days ago. And usually I can track back even a couple weeks of, you know, not getting good sleep or feeling stressed about a completely different incident or something that is not even connected to everything else that was going on. But yet at the same time, because I really didn't deal with it back then, this irritability has been brewing under there. And so now it's jumping out and attaching to these other things that are really unrelated. And so I think that that's one of the things that ends up when we are willing to investigate is that then we recognize that it's really not usually about the thing that's right in front of us. It has this backstory to it. And the other thing that I try and do is to. If I'm going through that process, even if I'm not sitting in front of my journal, but I'm just working through it for a couple days, I'll tell my husband about it because I don't want him to think that I'm inside my head because of something that he's done or whatever. And I'll just openly say I'm working through this. And so if I'm, you know, seem like I'm in a funk or I'm just inside my head a lot, this is what's going on. And so be patient. It's not about you.

That's such a good point. That, like, unprocessed emotions typically don't just go away. They just simmer and then come out in really strange or inappropriate places where it's like, oh, where'd that anger come from? Where'd that irritability? You know, had my kid suddenly come out, I didn't feel irritable. It's like, oh, it tapped into this thing from work from the other day that I still haven't really processed. And I think a lot of that is the value of journaling, that it's for me, kind of a holy space to sit with God and myself and just kind of process, like, what's going on in my heart and my brain, and what do I need to kind of get out on paper? And then often that can be what helps lead me into getting it out with other people. But I think back to the question of, like, the value in recovery. A lot of recovery is about facing difficult, strong, negative emotions. And what we talk about a lot is allowing the grief cycle to run its course in us. You know, there's a story in the Seven Pillars. Is it George Sitzer or Harold Sitzer or his book where he tells this story about having a dream that he's running from the darkness and trying to catch up with the setting sun, and then he's lost in darkness and thrashing around, and that his breakthrough came from a sister who told him, you know, have you ever thought about that? You need to stop and walk and face the darkness and let it wash over you, and in so doing, catch the rising sun. And that metaphor, to me, is so powerful. Like, those strong, negative emotions, we can run from them forever, but it's just like this beast that will never grow weary of chasing after us. The only way is through it. It's to stop. It's to let it kind of wash over us and feel the sadness, maybe, of what we have done to our relationship, the sadness of what's been done to us, the loss of not having the marriage or relationship we wanted or dreamt we would have. And if we keep trying to run from that, it just. It'll always be there. But when we turn and face it and. And allow the sadness, like you said, you know, cry for a week or whatever it takes, like, face the anger, it can wash through us, and we can move into a healthy place of acceptance and facing reality and then finding that way into joy or peace or friendship with God and others. So to me, that's what recovery is about. Whether we're the struggler or a betrayed spouse. Like, facing it's the only way through it, the only healthy way through it.

Well, there's that quote that you can't heal if you don't feel, or you can't heal what you don't feel. I think about the wounds that motivate so much of our behavior, Whether it's addiction or it's codependency or it's love addiction. The spectrum of what we can go through, especially in the area of sexuality, man, if we don't feel what is motivating that and as you're saying face it, then we're just going to continue running and get exhausted and what's interesting is the darkness is going to overtake you anyway, so it's not like it's going to get better. But yeah, I just recently in my life, I'm noticing that as I'm able to identify the feeling or the negative emotion that's surfacing, it actually helps me make a plan for what I can do to maintain health throughout it. So situation comes up where something's really triggering or something's really difficult, and instead of me wanting to put my hands around it and control it because I know of the negative emotions. And this is why group is so helpful. Because this week, literally two days ago, I was able to say in group, this is what I'm experiencing. And this is like, I realize this is the motion I'm feeling. It's tapping back to this wound, which makes me feel like this, which makes you want to respond like that. But I'm not going to because I'm able to go back to the source of what happened. And so for me, there's just tons and tons of implication of health that can happen if we're able to actually feel emotion.

And I wanted to just add, we get this question a lot where people have gone through a divorce and they're not in a marriage. And we get this, I think, from women quite a bit of saying, well, do I still need to go through group? And I had been divorced for a long time and remarried and had been through counseling and done all the right things. And I remember sitting and listening to Dr. Ted preaching one time and I started bawling because I realized that even though my first marriage had ended and things were amicable with my ex husband and everything was good that I had not let myself grieve that relationship and that that's what I was feeling, was this feeling of sorrow for that. And so I went home and I told my husband, I said, okay, I'm gonna get in this group and it's gonna last for 10 months. And it might make me crazy, but I'm just telling you upfront that I think that this is something that I need to dig a little bit deeper in. And so, which was a great experience because it, again, brought to light all of those other things, these areas of woundedness and these feelings that I had. And I'd say set them aside or suppress them because I didn't think that they were going to serve me any longer. So it's important.

It's a powerful story. This is so good. I mean, and I wonder for some listeners if they're hearing it, it's like, okay, so takeaway is I just need to feel all the emotions all the time.

Be like Heather son just sits in it.

For some people that's like really scary and intimidating. Like I'm going to be crazy or like, so maybe to ask a, a question or some clarity here, is there ever a time during recovery or the healing journey that emotions are bad or negative? Like should we ever be careful with them? What does it look like for someone that is asking that question? Do I just feel all the emotions all the time and I don't know if I can handle that?

Yeah. So not to say bad, but to say that yes, there is a time when too much negative emotion can be detrimental. And I think that that comes from recognizing whether or not you're in a situation where you are so emotionally overwhelmed that you have stopped moving forward, that it is paralyzing you and that it is inhibiting your ability to function on a daily basis. And you find yourself over time just like withdrawing and, and really it's just this overwhelming feeling. Then yes, you need other people and you need professional help. And even we've talked about the group experience a lot and it seems like even in some of those negative motions, like grieving and all of those, there's a process to all of that. And you really do need to allow yourself to go through that entire process. And really some counselors will say it's more of a cycle, that you don't just go through each step nicely, that you might go a couple, it's messy.

Bounce around a little bit.

Exactly. Or go through some areas at a deeper level. And so, I mean, I just think that it's important that you're important and your feelings are important and you need to do your best to make sense of them. And so when you feel like they're bigger than you are and you can't control it anymore, and not control in the negative sense, but have healthy control over what you're feeling. Get some help. Because there are a lot of people who are trained really, really well who are just going to step you through this process in a really grace filled way.

And the thing that sticks out from what you're saying is I think feeling our feelings only in isolation can be really bad. That if we're not allowing other people to be a part of that inner world, that experience that we're having. I'm not saying that you have to share every negative, like, guess what, Heth? I felt this, this, this, this, this in the last five minutes. You know, like you don't want to overwhelm somebody. But. But there is also this, like, you know, if Nick, you are feeling sad, to be able to say to a group member or to a friend, like, I'm feeling sad today. And here's. And here's why. And what you're doing is you're inviting someone in to come alongside you and encourage you. And just, man, sometimes it helps just having someone hear out loud, this is how I'm feeling. I feel like crap today. And here's why, Like, I feel better. Thanks. You know, like some, not everyone's a ticker like me that can just do that. But that does help. But I also think that when you're making decisions about your recovery or healing in one area, I think of, like the recovery action plan, if you are in a highly emotional state, probably not the best time to make decisions about what consequences and recovery and healing is going to look like. As a couple, you know, if you are feeling tons of shame and tons of guilt and all this negative emotion and you're like, I quit my seven pillars group, my unravel group. I'm done. Like, okay, again, don't do that in isolation. Involve other people, but then also don't make decisions like, and I. They're not life or death situation or, excuse me, they're not life or death decisions, but they're significant decisions that are going to dictate your future. It's going to be sketchy to make those decisions if you're really, really emotional.

Yeah, that's where we need to remember that emotions are indicators, not the reality themselves. And so I might feel done, but it'd be better to say, why do I feel like I should be done? And is that really the best course of action for me? You know, the thing that comes to mind for me with emotions, we've talked about paying attention to them and leaning into those emotions, good or bad, negative or positive, can be a perspective that we're starting to look at them. And if that's the only perspective that we're starting to be absorbed by, that can become dangerous. So, you know, we do want to feel sadness, we want to feel grief, we want to feel anger. But if we're doing that so much that we can't also see the good in our lives and the things that we're grateful for and the blessings and the little moments of joy, well, now we become too absorbed in one view. On the flip side, if we're so into the man, life is just good and too blessed to be stressed and we're not willing to kind of also see. But there are things I'm struggling with. There's things that are a challenge for me right now. There's answers to questions I don't have, and that bothers me. So to me, there's a lot of healthy balance as we come. As we come to God. I think that's where we want to have and when we see it. You mentioned the psalms. Like, that's what David was so great at. Like, there could be a psalm where for 20 verses, he's just kind of raging like, God, what is wrong? And why do you let evil? And at the end he goes, but I know you're on your throne, and I know you're good, and I will see your good. And it's like, oh. So in so many of his songs, he's kind of got that balance. And even in some of his very praise, you know, kind of up psalms that we might call them, in the middle, there will be a verse about why do the evil prosper? You know, so he's expressing life as this range of emotions. And so if we're ever into our emotions so deep that we're not kind of seeing the other side, that's where I'd say we need to be careful because we always want to have that understanding of no matter how bad it gets, there's goodness. And no matter how great I feel, there's a reality of there's still hard stuff. And that's, I think, just part of our human experience.

Totally. So thinking about this as we have gone through that emotions are not bad. But, you know, if we know that, that doesn't mean that, you know, you think I think of. I'm assuming you're talking about Sam and like, his, you know, conversations with his girlfriend and now, now wife. Like, you aren't. You aren't sharing your emotions. You don't know. Like, not everyone is just going to be like, oh, yeah, totally got it. Yeah. Okay, here are all my emotions. Here, what I'm feeling. So how do we help people? Because I think in definitely evangelical circles, but then there are just pockets in the world that emotions are just not okay. How do we help people see this myth that emotions are not bad?

It seems like it comes from the language that we use. So I think even in the church, to be able to describe how we're feeling about something, even in our group, we've mentioned this already, but using feeling words, and that's gonna require that we know what they are and that we've experienced them and we know how to express them. But I think the more that we can put a label on something that helps other people make sense of it and see emotions for what they really are. Is it like you were just saying, Nick, that sometimes there are gonna be times when I feel down and I feel sad and disappointed, but then I'm gonna have other times of excitement and passion and these other really great things. And so being able to put lab even, and usually it starts in our own home. Being able to train the people that we're around and to speak in a language that conveys emotion in a healthy way, I think is really positive. And then that's gonna spill over into the church and in our groups and just in the way we do life.

Yeah, I think we need to affirm people in their emotions. I mean, I can't tell you how many times, and I know I've done it too, when someone gets emotional with tears and they say, I'm sorry, I'm sorry for crying.

Yes.

And to be a grace filled person that goes, you don't need to apologize. This matters. Your tears just show this matters. And I'm with you and I kind of can communicate. Oh, I've been given permission to feel and that can be helpful. And the other thing where I've seen that permission given, like in group when someone's having a rough week and they're speaking the language of emotion but they don't realize it. So they may be saying, I'm just so worthless and what's the point? And I can't figure it out and I just want to quit. And they're expressing their reality, but we might be able to step in and say, wow, thank you for sharing how you're feeling because I can tell you're in a dark and rough place, but could I just affirm that's what you're feeling, that's not who you are. You are not worthless. You know, you are not someone that God gives up on. And I know you feel that way. And we're so thankful you're honest about how you're feeling because we all need to feel all the feelings. But then taking someone to see there's a reality that goes beyond those emotions and that I think helps someone in group maybe understand. Oh, okay. There is a distinction between what I feel and who I am. And as we train them in that, then they can experience their emotions and not judge themselves for what they're feeling. But ask those questions, oh, why am I feeling this way? And moving towards God and others in processing Them.

Yeah, I just. I think I've seen. And again, I don't do this to necessarily help people, but, you know, become more emotionally aware. But, like, the way I just talk about my life, I just. I talk about. And this is why I'm feeling this way. And that's how it's like, I'm talking about, like, right now, I'm going through kind of a difficult thing with a number of actually my friends and my wife just even last night was talking about. It just feels like you're closed off. And I was able to share the emotion behind it. And for me, that helps me kind of set course to not continue doing that. But then also that communicates that culture thing that it's an okay place to have those conversations where it's okay to say, hey, this is what I'm feeling emotionally. But I think that I. And I've seen that when people share. I did this because I was feeling this, because this happened. And I'm just like, oh, yeah, I need to think that way too. So I just think there's this, like, modeling that just takes place not just in the home, but just even at work or in your relationships that you can have.

I understand that in the Wesley small groups of ancient church history in Europe, that when they would do their small group system, the question they would ask one another is they would say, how goes it with your soul? That sounds like a pretty deep question. But I think what they were getting at was, we don't just want to hear about the weather and your job and your kids. Let's get under the surface, how goes it with your soul? And they would enter into that emotional conversation of, here's how I'm doing. And I think we would honestly do well in our culture. Now, maybe it feels awkward to say, how goes it with your soul? But to get beyond just, how are you? Because we usually answer, how are you with fine. Kids are good, job's hard, we're busy. We stay surface. You know, that question of, like, you know, how have you been feeling about your world lately? How are you feeling about your job? Allowing people that space to say, let's go a little deeper here. And that, I think, can help. Help just give people, again, permission to feel what they're feeling and be able to express it totally.

So the reality is God created us to feel. He created us with the capacity to have emotions. God himself had emotions. Jesus modeled that in his life, as Nick mentioned. So don't buy into the myth that you're healthy or mature. If you can avoid feeling both positive and negative emotions. We say this a lot around here and we even said it in the episode, you can't heal if you don't feel. So press into your emotions, learn from them, identify where they come from and don't avoid them. They're often, as Nick talked about that dashboard, they're just such great indicators as to what's actually going on under the surface. So guys, I thought this episode was awesome and Heather, thanks for being with us.

Yeah, this was fun.

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