The Truth About Emotions

Picture this: you receive an earth shattering call that a friend you love has died. Along with shock, confusion, and anger what would likely be the biggest emotion…sadness. Sadness can be gut wrenching, visceral, and all consuming. For many of us we want to run from that emotion as quickly as possible. 

What if continuing to resist the hard emotions and feelings (sadness, anger, hurt, embarrassment, guilt) in our lives is leading to not being able to feel the emotions we want to feel. It feels counter intuitive to ask someone to dive deeper into the emotions they are feeling when everything in us is telling us to run. What if the answer is resting in those emotions, letting them shine and getting curious about what they are telling us. One example I often use in therapy is looking at exercise. If you had never worked out and had never heard of exercise if someone asked you to do a wall sit it would be terrifying. Your legs would begin shaking, your heart rate would increase, and sweat would begin to form. You might feel like you are going to die or that something is wrong. We all know that is not true though, building physical muscle takes discomfort and practice. The more we practice wall sits the more our body builds that muscle and adapts to the uncomfortability. I would argue the same is true with our emotions. If we continue to resist the hard emotions and run from them we will never get comfortable and be able to work through them.

Now, you may be thinking, what would be so wrong with that? I want to feel good emotions all the time and that is my goal. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but…that is impossible. As humans the one thing that is for sure is that we will struggle. God has not promised us a life of ease. Even with a lot of money, a close family, a good job etc. our lives will be full of seasons of heartbreak, pain, and struggle. If we constantly numb the hard emotions the reality is that we will likely numb the “good” emotions as well.

So maybe we should stop trying to run towards happiness. Happiness will come…and go….and come again.