Since my blog post that I wrote the other day on authenticity I've been thinking more about a couple of ideas that I think I touched on near the end. One of the ideas being that each emotion is never experienced purely on it's own but in symphony with all of our emotions. In counselling this idea is sometimes called parts work. It's the idea that there are parts of us, which can be related to emotions but also about ourselves in general. In relation to emotions this means that while a part of me may be feeling sad, and perhaps largely and overwhelmingly so, there is also a part of me that feels joy or happiness. Perhaps the easiest way to explain this idea is through the word bittersweet. It's a word that many of us know and have felt in our lives. Bittersweet is actually the mixing of emotions, us experiencing more than one emotion at a time in a clearer way, one that most of us can identify without a whole lot of searching or seeking. This might be because it's a blending of emotions that society readily talks about, whereas other times where it's a less obvious blending of emotions we don't really have the words to explain it except for in longer sentences or explanations. I think that within society it's not necessarily acceptable to be feeling more than one thing at a time. An example of this that I can think of is the experience that some mothers have in the first moments after their child is born. From my own experience I know that there were multiple feelings I had at once, and none was more "legitimate" and the existence of the others didn't cancel each other out.
This idea that emotions don't exist in isolation of each other was one of those life realizations for me that has truly made such an impact. I wonder if I would have been more gracious with myself and not felt "fake" had I known about this concept in my late teens and early 20's. Often I think I wrote off some of the sadder and heavier feelings as being illegitimate or not important enough to truly be acknowledged because they would lighten after spending time with close friends. Instead of seeing this as a testament to the incredible impact of a loving and positive community I often saw the lightening of my load as a sign that the heaviness I had been feeling earlier was either not important or not "true". I would then brush it off and tell myself a variety of untrue things that often led to me feeling like I was (or my feelings were) in some way fake or false.
I think that in the Christian community there is also a struggle against feeling anything other than the "good feelings". Often when people are down or sad we don't sit in that feeling with them. We may offer platitudes, tell them to move past the feeling or even communicate that the fact that they are feeling anything other than purely positive emotions is a sign that they're not truly "walking with God". While I truly believe that there is a place to challenge and encourage one another to seek after Christ in every situation we are in I don't think that this will always mean we are feeling joy in the more traditional sense we have come to understand it. If we look at Christ as the utmost example, He expresses a wide variety of emotions (sadness, righteous anger, compassion- which in my experience isn't generally a joyful feeling, exhaustion). He also doesn't always follow these emotions with, "But I know that God loves me and I am in fact God so now I feel better and happy and I'm totally over how I was feeling before." We can't say what His experience was exactly, what we do know that He was fully human so in experiencing human emotions He may have firmly held Hope, Truth, Joy and Love while He was in the midst of the pain that He experienced as a human. I guess this is to say that in the garden when He was facing His own death, while He most likely felt in a part of Himself peace because He knew that God ultimately reigns and will ultimately win and joy because He knew the freedom that His death would provide for all who believe He was also experiencing great sorrow and grief (Mark 14:33-36). In fact Mark 14:34 says that Christ shares with some of his disciples that He "is very sorrowful, even to death." Christ is so overwhelmed by what He knows is to come that He is "distressed and troubled" (Mark 14:33). So, if Christ, who is perfect can experience distress, sorrow and trouble then it can be reasoned that so can we.
Of course in this there is context, circumstance and heart-focus to be taken into account. There a certainly times where the distress, anxiety, sadness or sorrow that we face is due to a lack of trust and reliance on God. However, I don't believe this to always be the case and I think that if we are to check in with ourselves we know in our hearts what is contributing to our emotional experience.
When I first started my counselling degree one of the verses that popped up with me and stuck with me, specifically related to counselling but then it infiltrated more of my life, was Romans 12:15 which is "laugh with those who laugh, mourn with those who mourn". I think that so often we feel that we have to help get people out of a feeling that we aren't able to sit with them in it due to our own discomfort. Brené Brown talks about this idea various times in different contexts. One that stuck out to me recently was a quote by her that says, "I thought faith would say, 'I'll take away the pain and discomfort.' but what it ended up saying was, 'I'll sit with you in it.'" She often talks about this concept of "sitting in the dark" with someone, which to her is where we empathize with the persons experience, reflect it back to them, share our own experience if it's relevant. Instead of saying, "There's more fish in the sea!" we say, "It totally sucks to be rejected and it feels kind of hopeless sometimes." It doesn't mean we have to stay there, I think we all need people to come into those moments and also remind us of truth and light and hope though I do think it would make such a difference for many of us to start there.
It doesn't even mean we have to agree with the person's response! We can reflect back what someone is experiencing and understand how they FEEL and not say that it is an accurate understanding of the situation. It might be their understanding but that doesn't make it the true and only understanding.
I think there is so much power in truly joining with people in their journeys and actually mourning with those who mourn. I think we generally find it easier to rejoice with those who rejoice- unless we are feeling envious, jealous or stuck in a comparative head space where we feel worse about ourselves. When was a time someone sat with you in the darker moments? Or just let you cry before trying to solve the problem...or ask if that's even what you need in the first place? Have you had any friendships or experiences like this?
This makes me wonder how I can do this with myself...how to hold the balance of both the darker, flatter, sadder feelings and allow myself to truly feel that without getting stuck in them. I think there is a way to hold that hope and perspective for ourselves even when the heaviness is at times overwhelming. Maybe that's a thought for another day...
This idea that emotions don't exist in isolation of each other was one of those life realizations for me that has truly made such an impact. I wonder if I would have been more gracious with myself and not felt "fake" had I known about this concept in my late teens and early 20's. Often I think I wrote off some of the sadder and heavier feelings as being illegitimate or not important enough to truly be acknowledged because they would lighten after spending time with close friends. Instead of seeing this as a testament to the incredible impact of a loving and positive community I often saw the lightening of my load as a sign that the heaviness I had been feeling earlier was either not important or not "true". I would then brush it off and tell myself a variety of untrue things that often led to me feeling like I was (or my feelings were) in some way fake or false.
I think that in the Christian community there is also a struggle against feeling anything other than the "good feelings". Often when people are down or sad we don't sit in that feeling with them. We may offer platitudes, tell them to move past the feeling or even communicate that the fact that they are feeling anything other than purely positive emotions is a sign that they're not truly "walking with God". While I truly believe that there is a place to challenge and encourage one another to seek after Christ in every situation we are in I don't think that this will always mean we are feeling joy in the more traditional sense we have come to understand it. If we look at Christ as the utmost example, He expresses a wide variety of emotions (sadness, righteous anger, compassion- which in my experience isn't generally a joyful feeling, exhaustion). He also doesn't always follow these emotions with, "But I know that God loves me and I am in fact God so now I feel better and happy and I'm totally over how I was feeling before." We can't say what His experience was exactly, what we do know that He was fully human so in experiencing human emotions He may have firmly held Hope, Truth, Joy and Love while He was in the midst of the pain that He experienced as a human. I guess this is to say that in the garden when He was facing His own death, while He most likely felt in a part of Himself peace because He knew that God ultimately reigns and will ultimately win and joy because He knew the freedom that His death would provide for all who believe He was also experiencing great sorrow and grief (Mark 14:33-36). In fact Mark 14:34 says that Christ shares with some of his disciples that He "is very sorrowful, even to death." Christ is so overwhelmed by what He knows is to come that He is "distressed and troubled" (Mark 14:33). So, if Christ, who is perfect can experience distress, sorrow and trouble then it can be reasoned that so can we.
Of course in this there is context, circumstance and heart-focus to be taken into account. There a certainly times where the distress, anxiety, sadness or sorrow that we face is due to a lack of trust and reliance on God. However, I don't believe this to always be the case and I think that if we are to check in with ourselves we know in our hearts what is contributing to our emotional experience.
When I first started my counselling degree one of the verses that popped up with me and stuck with me, specifically related to counselling but then it infiltrated more of my life, was Romans 12:15 which is "laugh with those who laugh, mourn with those who mourn". I think that so often we feel that we have to help get people out of a feeling that we aren't able to sit with them in it due to our own discomfort. Brené Brown talks about this idea various times in different contexts. One that stuck out to me recently was a quote by her that says, "I thought faith would say, 'I'll take away the pain and discomfort.' but what it ended up saying was, 'I'll sit with you in it.'" She often talks about this concept of "sitting in the dark" with someone, which to her is where we empathize with the persons experience, reflect it back to them, share our own experience if it's relevant. Instead of saying, "There's more fish in the sea!" we say, "It totally sucks to be rejected and it feels kind of hopeless sometimes." It doesn't mean we have to stay there, I think we all need people to come into those moments and also remind us of truth and light and hope though I do think it would make such a difference for many of us to start there.
It doesn't even mean we have to agree with the person's response! We can reflect back what someone is experiencing and understand how they FEEL and not say that it is an accurate understanding of the situation. It might be their understanding but that doesn't make it the true and only understanding.
I think there is so much power in truly joining with people in their journeys and actually mourning with those who mourn. I think we generally find it easier to rejoice with those who rejoice- unless we are feeling envious, jealous or stuck in a comparative head space where we feel worse about ourselves. When was a time someone sat with you in the darker moments? Or just let you cry before trying to solve the problem...or ask if that's even what you need in the first place? Have you had any friendships or experiences like this?
This makes me wonder how I can do this with myself...how to hold the balance of both the darker, flatter, sadder feelings and allow myself to truly feel that without getting stuck in them. I think there is a way to hold that hope and perspective for ourselves even when the heaviness is at times overwhelming. Maybe that's a thought for another day...
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