Another aspect to consider in our journey to self-care is the processing of our emotions.
PROCESS EMOTIONS
Let’s take another look at Elijah. He was so overwhelmed by negative emotions that he actually became suicidal. Yes, biblical characters also suffered with mental health. Remember, nothing under the sun is new.
Like Elijah as you journey through life serving Jesus as well as others, you will at some point in time experience some emotional storms. Ultimately these will try to steer you off course. However, your goal isn’t to shut your emotions off because they are part of what makes you human.
When thinking of Jesus who was the perfect human we presume that He was calm, cool and collected as He walked among excitable humans. But He wasn’t a robot. When we read through the Gospels we see that obstinacy frustrated Him, self-righteousness infuriated Him and simple faith thrilled Him. There were times that He was excitable, He was impulsively “moved with compassion” or “filled with pity”. At other times he had sudden sympathy for someone and exuberant because of the successes of His disciples. He even had a blast of anger because of coldhearted legalists and grieved over an unreceptive city. Most of all He suffered from agony when He had to face His gruesome execution. The moral of the story is that when we look at Jesus’ example we can see that we do not have to try and be a “superhuman” that must simply just cope and not deal with their emotions.
But it is important to understand that at the same time you don’t want to be emotionally hijacked when triggered. When triggered you might feel that your only choice is to react. However, that’s not true, you can choose to respond rather than react. Think of it like this, there’s a “tiny lever” between overwhelming emotional stimuli that you might experience and what you do next.
You must also be aware that there will be times that negative emotions will come over you like a quick squall and at other times it might feel like a hurricane. For example, having a shattered dream, experiencing a devastating accident, going through the end of an intimate relationship or the loss of a loved one can completely crush you to a point where without finding significant help and space given by others you can hardly function like you used to.
It is important to realise that it will do you no good to deny your brokenness, anger or shame because heavy emotions should never be bottled up, shut off, distorted, denied or swept under the rug. By suppressing feelings like sadness and pretending they are not there will not make them go away and if you try to bury them it could manifest in many different ways. For example, increased anxiety and depression. This is why it is important to be real with yourself and others. So the question is how do you do it? Well, one way is to keep a journal in which you name your current emotional state. It is also important to have a trusted friend or two (we all need them) with whom you can share your difficulties and who can walk the journey with you. However, if your problems become particularly crushing it is advisable to find a therapist who can help you even more.
Never keep quiet about any suicidal or self-harm thoughts. Talk to a trusted loved one who can help and support you immediately and then seek professional help. Be aware of the following 3 lies that come together in a suicidal mind:
I am alone
I am a burden
Things will never get better.
But these thoughts misinterpret reality. That is why it is important to reach out to others so that they can help you find the care that you need, the agency that you actually have and the hope that is waiting for you around the corner.
Inspiration is drawn from the Purpose series by CityHill Church
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