Processing Your Emotions; Part 1

This week, I'm diving into emotional health -- one of my favorite topics EVER! Tune in to see what my 4-year-old's mega meltdown reminded me about emotional processing and why it's so critical to our health!

Transcript

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0:11  
Intro! 

1:20  
Well, guys, I am coming at you live again from the very glamorous floor of my closet. Oh, yeah, yeah, yay. And today, I actually wanted to tell you a story of something that just happened, like 10 minutes ago. Okay. So let me tell you a little story about my sweet and beautiful and kind hearted and sensitive and wonderful son, Everett. So, Everett is an incredibly sensitive boy. And I absolutely love this about him. It's something that I really want to steward really well, because I feel like the world doesn't have a whole lot of emotionally healthy and available men. And for whatever reason, our society just really doesn't have a high value for that. I think it's getting better. I think it's turning around. So that's great. But yeah, for whatever reason, we just don't have a high value for emotionally sensitive and aware, boys. So anyway, I take it very seriously stewarding this part of his personality. And we just had a moment. So let me tell you about it. 

2:44  
I actually was in the room. The kids were both napping. Everett has gone back to having a nap every day. I think we're right in the middle of a growth spurt. I know it's not gonna last because he's not been napping for like the past six months. But every day this week, he's wanted to sleep. And I think, yeah, I think we're growing I think that's what's happening. But both the kids were napping and I was in the bedroom, having a few moments to actually pull out my computer and make some notes and get some stuff tracking for Hey There and actually was typing up some podcast layouts and a couple of like scripty things that I want to do. And I hear that Everett is awake and Andy's talking to him and then all of a sudden he hits like meltdown city. The sad kind of meltdown like not even angry, not, you know pitching a fit kind of meltdown, but the like heartbreak melt down and mom's you know the difference. You can hear it instantly. Like this was a child who was actually just so sad. And I heard him and he could not get it together just like crying and crying and crying and crying. And then he seemed to kind of come to down a little bit and a few minutes later I heard him just really like weeping. 

3:59  
Okay. So from my room, I cried out, I said "Everett, come talk to mama, come talk to me." And I hear him go, "okay. Okay, mommy. Okay." Yeah, he's like, really like level 10. He's just so sad. And he comes in, and he climbs up on the bed with me just nestles into me. And I said, "What's going on?" Well, a little backstory. We told him this morning that in two weeks his GiGi which is his Georgia grandmother, Andy's mom and Aunt sissy, which is my sister in law. It's weird to say she's my best friend. So she's Andy sister biologically, but I claim her she's my sister. So Gigi, and Sissy are coming to stay with Everett and Juliet for five whole days while Andy and I go away for our Honeyversary. The Honeyversary is the anniversary of our honeymoon and we take it every single year. So honeyversary is cute. You guys can all go "Awww we're so Cute and clever." And yeah, you can thank us for that little Honeyversay thing. If you use it in your own marriage, you're welcome. 

5:07  
Anyway. Everett learned this morning that Gigi and sissy were coming to stay with him in two weeks, well, I don't think he fully understood what two weeks meant. So he just went on happy about the day that they were coming to visit. Well, after his nap, he asked Andy, what does it mean two weeks? What does two weeks mean? And Andy said, well, it's actually like, it's 13 days from today. 13 days, well, he knows how long a day is. And he knows that 13 days is a lot of days. And he was so sad. So when I asked him, he's in my arms. And I asked him what was going on, he told me that daddy told me that two weeks is 13 days. And he is just so sad. 

5:48  
So in that moment, I had several choices. And the choice was, I could immediately say, "That's right, buddy. But two weeks is going to be so exciting. It's going to go by so fast, and then they'll be here. And that will be awesome. And then it'll be so great. And it'll be so worth it. And two weeks is going to be so fast." And that's a fine response. Or I could have said, "buddy, this is really not a big deal. It's nothing to cry about just it's fine. Just be okay, you're going to be okay." Or I could have even and listen, I'm I'm using these examples, because they're all things that I've done. Or I could have said, "that is sad buddy, let's go get some ice cream. Let's go get something let's go watch a movie together. Let's go do something to fix it." 

6:31  
Okay, these three responses are some of the responses that we have been trained to use, that our own parents used, or that we've seen other people use, or that we even use on ourselves. And the first one is just completely emotionally distant dismissing dismissing it and saying, No, you know what, buddy, it's going to pass so fast, it's going to be fine. And that's actually probably what most of us parents do is try to say it's going to be fast, it's not even a thing, it's going to be fine, but not actually addressing how he feels. 

7:07  
Or we say, this is not a big deal. Just shut this down. And we actually teach our children to shove their emotion and to stuff their emotion, and to not deal with it. Or we actually will train our children to numb their emotions with something that feels good.

7:28  
I'm going to challenge you that if you're listening to this podcast, you yourself actually do this when your emotions come up. Okay? what it looks like for adults is I'm feeling lonely, I'm going to check my Instagram feed. I'm feeling sad, I'm gonna hit that chocolate, or that bottle of wine or whatever. I'm feeling happy. I need to celebrate with pizza. Right? And so I could have in that moment, numbed it with Everett by saying, It's okay, buddy, let's go get some ice cream. And, and the more we do that, the more he associates bad feelings? eat sweets. Bad Day? glass of wine. 

8:12  
Now, look, those aren't bad things in and of themselves. But I think what we're doing is we're not actually dealing with the emotion that's going on inside of us. We're just numbing it. We're just shutting it down. Because it's way easier to just turn to Instagram, to not feel lonely than it is for me to identify. I'm feeling alone. I'm feeling lonely. It's uncomfortable to sit in that feeling. So I tell you this story, on to a purpose. One, hopefully, maybe if you're a parent, you get some parenting takeaways from this. But more importantly, what we're talking about today is emotional health. Everett, my four year old son really just needed to cry. He needed me in that moment to go, "Wow, buddy, that's hard. You really, really want Gigi and sissy to be here because you love them." And what I did, I didn't actually project and say "thats sad", I said, "Wow, you really love them. You really want them to be here." And then I allowed him to identify the emotion. I said, "How does this make you feel right now?" And he said, "sad". I said, "Yeah, that is sad. It is really sad." And I met him right there in the middle of his sadness. I validated how he was feeling. And I let him just cry. I let him cry. And then he kind of started calming down and he said, I want to go watch a movie. 

9:42  
And I felt it in that moment. All right, he actually at four years old, almost five, so four, almost five years old. He's already learning how to numb this. And if he was done and he wanted to just go watch a movie cool, no problem, but I actually wanted to make sure we got full To the other side of this emotion, just get through it and see what happens. So I said, "Okay, buddy, you can go watch a movie if you're ready. or do you feel like, you're still kind of sad and you still need to cry?" He welled up with tears. He said, "You're right, Mommy, I need to cry for just a few more minutes." I think he said, two more minutes, I need to cry or do more minutes. Man, kids are actually really in tune with what they need. So he did, he just bundled right back up into my arms. And he cried. I mean, it's a wail. This is like a weeping, wailing, big, like crocodile tears, the whole thing cry. And I didn't say "shhhh". And I didn't numb. And I didn't say it's gonna be okay. I actually just got comfortable with his discomfort. 

10:52  
And that's a huge thing. moms, dads, if you're listening, something I have really had to learn as a parent is how to be comfortable with my kid being uncomfortable. But what happened in that moment, when I let him just scream, cry, wailing level 10. He did. He went for maybe two more minutes, like 120 seconds max. And they came right back down. And he looked up at me. And I could tell we've, we've reached the end, the first time I knew it wasn't over. But I looked in his eyes. And I saw and he said, "I feel better". I said, "cool. What do you want to do now?"  He said, "I want to go watch my movie." Great. I said, "you know, buddy, if you get sad about this later, we can talk about it later." He said okay. And he just went bounding into the living room. And that was it. 

11:40  
And you know, sometimes this actually looks like an angry meltdown to sometimes he's mad about something even mad at me or mad about something that I have done. And what I want to do is, say, Go to your room, or say, Come on, cheer up. This is enough, shut it down. But what I sometimes will do is I'll go in his room, I won't let him hurt himself or his environment. I won't let him hurt his sister or hurt somebody in the family. But I will put them on the floor and say, get it all out. Get it out, buddy. Hit your pillow. Scream if you need to. Come on, get it all the way out. Let's get to the end of this. And I'll tell them I'm coaching them through as it's happening. I'm actually saying, let's get to the end of this. You're really mad. Yep, I can tell that you're mad. It's okay to be mad. It's okay to be mad. Let's get all the way through it. Come on. And I actually will let him have that level 10 meltdown in the safety of our home and what let him do that at Publix. But in the safety of our home, in his private space, allowing him to go all the way through the emotion of anger, which is a pretty scary emotion for adults even. So imagine being five years old, and having that emotion feel bigger than your body and letting him actually just be mad. Alright, scream, yell, get it out. Yep, be mad. Come on. Eventually, what happens is his little body will relax.

12:57  
He probably cry. And it turns from that rage or anger or, you know, whatever, that expressive emotion into just settling in to what just happened. And it takes maybe 10 seconds. And he'll go. Okay, I'm ready. And we'll have a conversation about what just happened. And I'll say, Are you ready to use kind hands? Are you ready to join the family? And he'll say, Yeah, I am. And then of course, if if he hurt someone or if he disrupted something, then we'll go and we'll clean up our mess. But he just has to come to the end of his feelings. 

13:35  
Now I'm again, using this story about my four year old son to talk about us as emotionally healthy adults. So listen to me, ever it just needed to cry. And as adults, we really don't let ourselves do this. We don't give ourselves the freedom to actually feel what we're feeling. And here's the key listen to this, to feel what you're feeling and strip away the shame that you have attached to it. Yes, I just said you have shame attached to some of your emotions. I'm not saying you're feeling ashamed. You're feeling shameful. But I think shame can sometimes sound really spiritual. Is this really holy shame, right? I shouldn't be feeling this right now. Because I should know better. I shouldn't be feeling angry right now. Because I'm a Christian. I shouldn't be feeling this level of sadness, because I have Jesus. My personal favorite and my go to is I shouldn't be having this meltdown right now because I'm a pastor. Yeah, that's real in my life. 

14:38  
And so therefore, we start shoving every emotion that somehow we've labeled as weak or as wrong, or as bad. There's these emotions that land in this category, right as weak, or these emotions that we've put in the category of dangerous or bad or unhealthy. We're actually we're all healthy if we're all happy all the time, and that just not true. Our needs are weak, sadness is weak, everyone will see that I'm a mess. And that will somehow discredit me or disqualify me, or, etc, etc, etc. That's part of my own story. I believe that I have no needs. And I will not talk about my needs or reach out for help for my needs, because I don't have those because I am healthy. So I have no need. So I'm learning and getting better. I'm getting to the root of this thing. But here's the deal. 

15:33  
Everett had no shame over being sad. He wasn't in his head going, I shouldn't feel this way. I have Jesus, I shouldn't feel this way. I'm a big boy, I need to just pull it together. Because whatever. He was allowed to get totally to the end of his feeling. He was allowed to go all the way through an emotion, telling me exactly what he needed. No, Mommy, I think you're right, I need to cry for two more minutes. He cried it all the way out. And then he moved on. And he truly did he moved on. The adult version of this is one, don't feel it, I feel nothing, I need no one, I have no needs, I am superhuman. And now this might offend you. But Jesus Himself wasn't superhuman. In fact, he lived fully human. And went through every bit of what we go through the differences and I'm going to save this for another day. He came before us so that he could teach us how even in our humanity, we can stay connected to the Father all the time. So it wasn't that he didn't feel what we feel. It's that he knew how to connect to the heart of the Father, even in the middle of it. So we can't say, Well, he didn't have needs, he didn't have sadness. He didn't have XYZ. No, he just actually knew what to do with it. 

17:08  
All right, so that's option number one is just don't feel it, I feel nothing shove it down. Option number two is Okay, you know what, I'm gonna feel it just enough to ease the pain or to kind of relieve some of the pressure, right? Just like if you have a coke bottle, and you shake it, if you just to untwist the cap, just a touch just enough to let some of that pressure out. And then let's shove it back down quickly so that it doesn't explode. So it won't actually fully resolve will feel it just enough to ease it. And that's when some of those numbing techniques might come in or whatever we've we've learned how to process our emotions. So option one is shove it completely. Option two is allow myself to feel some of it so that I can feel it a little, and I actually might give me the illusion of being emotionally healthy. But in actuality, option one, and two are going to result in a bottling up that will build a belief system. When you bottle those things, it will build a belief system that says, either I can manage my emotions up to a certain level, or I don't have emotions, or emotions are bad emotions are scary. I'm afraid of what I'll do if I allow myself to feel XYZ. Or I can handle my emotions with chocolate. I can handle my emotions with wine. I can handle my emotions by numbing with Netflix, or whatever. It will eventually lead to a blow up of some kind. Now when I talk about a blow up, some of you are like I've never blown up.

18:43  
Listen, blow ups can actually be really quiet. We have some people who explode. And you know these people, you've seen it, maybe you are this person and it's okay. Maybe you're the person that has shoved anger and sadness and bad emotions. I'm using air quotes. You can't see them bad emotions for so long, that when they do actually come out, it's an eruption, an absolute eruption because you've never had a safe place to deal with what you need to deal with emotionally. But blow ups can also be implosions. It can be the kind of shutting down, "I will never" -- making vows right? I will never feel this again. I will shut down internally. I won't allow people into this area of my life, I will get really good at self managing and I will implode so you can exploit or you can implode. I, myself have experienced both of those things. 

19:42  
Now there's also option three for how we deal with our emotions and I'm going to save it for another day. Why? Because like I said in my intro, I want these podcasts to be quick tools that you can grab on to find a truth somehow find something that helps You find something you can apply to your actual life and move on for your day to think on this thing all day long, so here's going to be your takeaway for today. And then we're going to wrap it up. 

20:10  
Your takeaway for today is just to think about, okay, what actually happens if I allow myself to get to the full end of an emotion? What happens? If I'm feeling angry, and I allow myself to identify, I'm feeling angry, I'm going to let myself feel angry. Now, what I'm not saying is get to the end of your anger by going and bashing someone's car with a baseball bat. But what I am saying is, what happens if you invite Jesus into those moments? What happens if you give yourself a safe space, to feel it all the way through? What happens if you actually remove your own numbing tactics, and next time you're feeling lonely, not allowing yourself to go to Netflix, or to go to Instagram, or to go to whatever thing it is that usually solves that numbness for you, and sit with it. Get comfortable with your own discomfort, and welcoming Holy Spirit into that moment, and saying, I'm feeling sad. I'm feeling weak. I'm feeling angry. What happens then? 

21:35  
And I know that some of you may have years and years and years of unexpressed emotion in there. And so that's going to take some time, that actually might take some, some counseling, some therapy, big fan of therapy, big fan of counseling over here, it actually might take someone else helping you to walk through that thing. But what I'm challenging you with today is to ask yourself the question, What if I allow myself to feel my emotions all the way through? Even the positive ones? I think sometimes we think, well, I can be happy, but I can't celebrate too much. Because people will think I'm fake, or because it's not, it's not realistic, or because I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop or whatever the lie is attached to it. I can't actually feel that all the way through either, right? But what if you actually allowed yourself to feel your emotions today? 

22:28  
That's your takeaway for today. I hope this was helpful on some level, I hope it If nothing else, just starts a conversation. Hey, catch me on my Instagram. And let me know what you thought about the episode. If you have other questions, put them on there. Let's start a dialogue. My Instagram name is, @Heythere_itsDanielle. And I love to chat with you guys some more. 

22:55  
So Have an awesome day. feel what you feel, name, what you feel, and find a safe place and a safe way for you to actually express your feelings all the way through. When we start doing this really well. We actually start keeping short accounts of our emotions, and they don't get so many years bottled up, you can actually just identify, I'm feeling angry, I need to allow myself to feel this and come to the other side of it relatively quickly. And it's not going to be years worth of bottling or weeks worth or months worth of whatever right ever it got to the end of his sadness really quickly, because we try to create an environment where he's safe to do that and safe to express that so you can create that safe environment for yourself today. 

23:40  
Have an awesome day guys be blessed. And I will catch you next time. Thanks for joining!

Transcribed by https://otter.ai