Responding to Negative Emotions

Responding to Negative Emotions 🤍

Philippians 4:6-9 reminds us that we don’t have to sit in anxiety, rejection, or emptiness—we’re called to bring it to God.

There was a time I tried to cope with rejection by seeking temporary connection through sex… thinking it would fill the void. But it only created a cycle—false connections, lack of discipline, and patterns that pulled me further away from peace.

When we don’t go to God with our negative emotions, we end up creating our own solutions… and they often lead to more brokenness.

But God already gave us the strategy:
Pray. Surrender. Refocus.

When we follow His word, He replaces anxiety with peace and confusion with clarity.

You don’t have to respond the same way anymore. There’s a better way.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

And I'm becoming inside. Hey guys, welcome to episode three of Let's Talk 1213. I'm so happy to be here with you and thank you for joining me on this journey. You made it to the third episode. Um, today we're gonna talk about responding to negative emotions, the consequences of disobedience. As you guys know, your girl grew up in a church. Um, I grew up going to church with my grandma at first, and then when I was basically in first, second grade, my brother found this after-school program that all of the kids in the neighborhood were going to, and it was in a church. So I basically did life with that group of people and in church since I was basically in first and second grade. So I was in church my whole life. However, that does not mean that your girl knew the tools and the things in order to deal with negative emotions. And one of the negative emotions I want to talk about that I struggled with was rejection, right? How I dealt with rejection was basically using smoking and sex, the two S's, smoking and sex, which honestly didn't give me no benefits, right? Because through having a lot of sex, I also had abortions, right? I had about three abortions um before I got married. And so because I never really wanted to get married, I never really wanted to have kids. Growing up in my household, things were very estranged, I will say. It wasn't always the healthiest, right? Um, I grew up in a broken home. My mom, my dad was in and out of the house. You know, my mom and my dad got a divorce when I was finally in junior high school. I felt like the outcast in the home. I felt oftentimes rejected by my older brother, by my mom. Um, my dad was like a nurturer, but he wasn't always present. He wasn't always there because he didn't live with us, right? So I just basically did a lot of life by myself and in books. Your girl loved to read. Um, however, as I got older and I went to college, I was introduced to smoking at the age of 19 because me and my mom had got into an argument. And my roommate at the time, she was smoked and she overheard the argument and some of the things that I was going through and dealing with. And she basically introduced me to smoking and was like, girl, this is how I deal with my pain when it comes to my family and my mom. Um, try it. Maybe it'll help you. Did it help? It gave me a momentary gain. I was high, it made me numb, it made me not think about all of the thoughts, and it made me kind of help me with not really crying all the time because I don't know how to really deal with sadness. My sadness ends up turning into anger, right? And because I didn't know how to deal with being sad and crying all the time, because I didn't, I felt like crying was a form of weakness. I grew up with that mentality that crying was a form of weakness. Like, we don't, you don't cry, right? You hold it all together and you keep it going. And so this became a pattern of how I dealt with just dealing with rejection really bad throughout my life within relationships, and it was not a good thing. Like I did those things as a momentary connection because if you smoke, you go, you smoke with people, right? You do scifes, right? And you basically you build a relationship with the Budman. Like these are momentary gains and momentary things that I use to build relationships, false connection. Um, it wasn't connection that was lasting, it was connection that was very momentarily. And I did not discipline myself. I basically went all out. Sex led to me having three abortions. Um, and two of them were somebody that I thought I was in love with or whatever the case may be. But it wasn't real love, it was false connection. I had to, I always felt like I had to fight for love because I always felt rejected. Like I want to be love, I want to be seen, I want people to care about me. I want people to show up for me. Maybe if I give my body to this person, they will see me a little bit more. Or maybe if I do a sife with these group of people, we can all be friends. Like we all hanging out. Um, I remember I used to have smoke sessions in my house. Anytime my mom went away, or we went on the roof, and I used to invite my friends just to feel that connection of like family because I felt so disconnected. Um, I grew up in church, but I didn't build a relationship with God where I leaned on him a little bit more because my household was not godly, right? I didn't see that in my household. What I did see is that we had gatherings and like people had their vices and turned to their things or whatever the case may be. And me, I turned to my vices. I didn't have guidance. I didn't have nobody to really nurture me and guide me or whatever the case may be. Um, as of November 2025, I did stop smoking. Um, I went back to smoking um in 2025, February of 2025, because again, I felt lonely after I separated from my husband, my ex-husband at the time, um February around February 14th, is I can remember it very vividly. He had taken my daughter or whatever for that weekend, and I felt very alone. Instead of leaning on God in that time because I was very angry, I was condemning myself, I was in my flesh, yet again feeling rejected. Um, I turned to smoking again and I ended up turning to fornication again, right? Um, your girl didn't learn her lesson. I fall into these patterns because I didn't trust God to help me understand what it is to deal with the issues of my heart and go to him and like God, this is what I'm feeling, right? Um, it was really hard for me to deal with sadness a lot of these times. And I ended up turning my sadness into anger. And once I'm angry, what's gonna calm me down, right? I'm gonna have sex, like, or I'm gonna smoke. And so when we don't go to God with our negative emotions, he can't help us navigate this life, right? And I feel like oftentimes we try to do things in our own power and try to figure things out on our own. And God is saying, that's not what I called you to do, right? And so we're gonna read in Philippians chapter four, verse six what God calls us to do, he said, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and pleading with things given, let your request be known. So God is saying, when you're feeling anxious, when you're feeling like you're worried, or when you're feeling like you're sad, and with negative emotions, right? Because anxiety is a negative emotion. Let it be known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehensive, all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Now, always sit back and think, like, wow, what if I took a moment to just sit with God and say, God, this is what I'm feeling. And I need you to help me navigate this. I need you to help me not make the same mistake again, right? I don't want to keep falling into these patterns, which is something that I started to recently do. Like I started to really go to God with my negative emotions. Like, God, I'm feeling lonely again. God, I'm feeling rejected again. God, I'm feeling like nobody sees me, nobody understands. And he has been really keeping me in his classroom because at the end of the day, he said, Yes, I know that you're gonna feel these feelings. Jesus is our high priest, right? And he knows what it is to feel these feelings, and he's sitting at the right hand of God, interceding for us. So if we have a high priest who understands what we feel, because he was on this earth, just like us, he dealt with rejection, he dealt with betrayal, he dealt with sadness, but he always went back to the Father and he always focused on purpose. He always focused on, you know what, God, I know what you called me to do. And so not only do we go to God first with our anxieties, with all our angst, with all our pains, with all our negative emotions, so that He can guard our hearts and minds and give us a peace that surpasses all understanding. You gotta understand that God is the one that gives us peace. Oftentimes we're trying to go to the world, find peace, go to a person, find peace, go to things and find peace. When God said, Come to me, because I am the God of peace. I am the one who can guard your heart, I am the one who can guard your mind, I'm the one who can keep you and sustain you, and I am the one who already ordered your life your footsteps. Because in Jeremiah chapter 1, verse 5, it says, Before I formed you in your mother's womb, I knew you. It says in the word of God that our life is already written out in the book of life. So God already has a plan. According to Jeremiah, it says that I have the, I know the plans that I have for you that are not for destruction. So if God has plans, if God already ordered our steps, if he already written out our life, why we're not going to him when we're having negative emotions. So I want to encourage you guys because then we start being disobedient, right? I want you to understand when you don't go to God to guard your hearts and your minds, you start operating in disobedience. You start operating outside of the standards of God, you start falling short, you start condemning yourself, right? And I want to encourage you guys that we, if we don't lean on God in this way, we start operating in disobedience. And let me tell you what disobedience. We're gonna go to 1 Samuel chapter 15, verse 23. We're gonna look at what Samuel says about this. Chapter 15, verse 23. It says, for rebellion is a rehab reprehensible as the sin of divination, and insubordination is as reprehensible as false religion and adultery. So they're connecting rebellion, right? When we don't lean on God and we do the opposite of what he calls us to do, which is disobedience and rebellion, is just as witchcraft. It's the same thing as divination. Like when we are insubordinate to God's commands and we don't do things how he wants us to do it, it's the same thing as false religion and idolatry. So this is what blows my mind. Like as I read God's word, is like, wow, God, so if I don't lean on you and if I don't follow your commands, and if I don't do things according to your word, I'm basically doing the same thing as witchcraft. I'm basically doing the same thing as worshiping another God and practicing false religion. Because if you really think about when we go through our vices and we go to the things of this world, we are doing sin. We are living an evil life, and people don't want to see it like that. You're either saved or unsaved, you're either obedient or disobedient. It's no this or that, it's no Jew or Gentile, right? It's more so like are you worshiping God with your lifestyle or not? Are you gonna submit to him or not? Are you gonna give him the things that bother your heart or not? Right? It's it's no in-between. Because at the end of the day, God is saying, who are you gonna serve? Are you gonna serve the world and do things like the world do it? Or are you gonna serve me and come to me with all of the things so that I can guide you? Right? We're not gonna go to the Apple store with an Android, right? We're not gonna do that. But we're gonna go to Apple store with an Apple. So God is saying, like, come to me because I know you, I formed you. I already know what's aching you and paining you. So let's not be disobedient and start taking things into our own hands, trying to fix it, right? But respond to your negative emotions by going through prayer and supplication. So make it known to God. Come to his throne boldly, let him know what's bothering you. In times of mistakes, in times of rejections, in times of hurt, in times of anxiety, God can give us formula to pray and focus and do he can do it immediately or he can do take his time. But the important part is going to him with it and don't try to fix it on your own, right? We're not supposed to do life on our own. So if you have a brother or sister that you know in Christ that can carry that burden with you, do that because iron sharpens iron. You have to understand, God says that we can't do this walk on our own. We have to lean on each other. So when we're falling, a brother or sister is there to lift us up, to pick us up. Right. And so this is episode three. I hope this is encouraging you guys to really lean on God, really go to him and ask him, God, how do I deal with this emotion? You gave me the God, is he's a jealous God. He knows how to deal with anger. He is, he can get angry too. So he can teach us how to navigate this life through all of those things. Like, lean on him. He's a father, he's a good father that gives good gifts, right? So remember Philippians chapter 4, verses 6 through 9, and remember 1 Samuel chapter 15 and 23. We are not supposed to be doing this life on our own. He is there to guard our hearts and our minds, and he is there to give us a peace that surpasses all understanding. So I hope this encouraged you. How is encouraging me every day? Read the word for yourself. I love you. Welcome and thank you for joining me for episode three.