Warning! Warning! - Emotions Part 2

We are in a series on Emotions. If you missed Part 1 on Checking in - you can read it here.

As we continue in the series, I want to introduce you to something called the emotional dashboard.

Picture the dashboard of your car.

There are several gauges, dials, lights, and so on. When your car is running these gages and dials light up and whirr to life. They tell you several things about what is going on with your car – positive or negative. They indicate when your gas tank is full, your engine is hot, your turn signal is on and when your oil is low. There are also special lights and signals that come on indicating a crisis. I cringe when the check engine light comes on. This typically means huge bills at the mechanic or impending vehicular death.

Our emotional dashboard functions much like a car's dashboard. There are gauges measuring joy and sorrow, stress and peace. There are dials that rise and fall with anger. There are warning lights that come on with fear and distrust. There are mileage meters counting how many times we have felt certain emotions before and memory chips recalling how we handled them in the past.

By God’s grace we even have a check engine light that comes on and flashes in urgency.

 “Check your heart!” –it flashes. “There is impending doom on the horizon. Get to a mechanic IMMEDIATELY!”

As a Christ follower I have found that often other groups of Christ followers are not sure what to do with emotions in their lives. Emotions often get a bad rap. We are instructed to not trust them or pay any attention to them. Sometimes the hidden message is that certain emotions are somehow evil or sinful and we should not be feeling them.

There has been a lot of guilt and self condemnation in my life over certain emotions I found welling up in my heart. I was never taught how to appropriately feel my emotions and process through them in a healthy way so I did what I knew how to do – I didn’t show them at all. I stuffed them down inside. The problem with stuffing is that a person can only hold so much emotion. Imagine a teddy bear being stuffed with cottony white stuffing. That little bear can only hold so much. If he continues to have stuffing shoved down inside of him, what do you think will happen? His seams pull, he unravels, leaks stuffing, and is ruined.

Have you ever met someone that no matter what the conversation piece they had something negative or biting to say about it? On the contrary have you ever met someone who no matter the conversation piece they had something positive to say and seemed to be brimming over with joy and enthusiasm? It is the same thing. They are both overflowing with emotion – just one is expressing and acting out on an emotion we typically view as negative and one is acting out on a positive emotion.

I have found in my studies that the Bible is full of emotions and people expressing emotions. Emotions themselves are neither good nor bad. They are neutral. They are our feelings about someone or something. The focus should not be on the emotion itself, but on what we do with those emotions. It is in the acting out and the reacting to the emotions that can get us into trouble. We will have emotions and feelings. We are human. What we do with them is key.

This is where our emotional dashboard comes in.

If we are paying attention to our dashboard we will not be surprised by any emotions creeping up on us. It would not make sense for me to wake up one morning in a panic attach over work if I had been watching my stress meter on my dashboard and been taking appropriate pre-cautions to release the pressure of that stress in my life.

Same with anger. I should not be having angry outbursts at my children and everyone around me if I have been keeping tabs on my anger gauge on my dashboard and talking to a friend over coffee about the frustrations in my life.

Sometimes we do crash at the expense of someone else’s behavior. THIS- our dashboard cannot warn us about. In these instances we do our best to watch the dashboard for high emotion levels and indicators of any new emotions we need to keep tabs on. We may need to visit a “mechanic” to help us understand these new flashing lights. We may need to spend some extra time with the “Ultimate Mechanic” allowing Him to show us new release valves and broken parts that need to be fixed.

Being aware of the emotions is the first step toward health. Emotions are a part of life. We will have and carry the gamut of them. You have found this out if you have started checking in with yourselves.

Emotions are okay. It is what you do with them that makes the difference. You can pen them up and let the pen explode when it is too full. You can diffuse them by sharing them with a friend or spouse. You can process and work through them by identifying why you are feeling them in the first place, (See Checking in).

Emotions were evil to me in the past. A lie that told me I was not spiritual enough to handle my life.

Now I am thankful for my emotions because they tell me so much about myself and what is going on in my life. I look at my dashboard often and determine what action steps I need to take to keep the gauges in normal range. Sometimes this means a difficult conversation with Husband or a friend. Sometimes this means a walk around the neighborhood to unwind and cool my jets. Sometimes this means scheduling an appointment with my counselor to have him help me work through what I am missing in the big picture. All great responses  if they move me forward toward health.

SO WHAT?? Application time. Take a few minutes to journal through these questions. These action steps could make your day! Grab your journal, laptop, iPad or whatever you want to write on.

1. Write down the top 3 emotions you are you feeling most strongly right now? Remember these can be positive feelings or negative feelings. Identify reasons for each of these emotions? If you are having trouble, pray for the Lord to help you see your circumstances clearly so you can identify. Now write.

2. Each time you feel some strong emotions, picture your dashboard. The dashboard moves you toward action. Write down what action steps you can take TODAY to deal with your top 3.

3. Journal about how taking these action steps made you feel. Did you feel better? Did you feel worse? Were you able to bless someone with your positive emotional outpouring (sending a card, buying a gift, verbally lifting them up)? Were you able to work through some heavier emotions today –maybe grief, sorrow, anger, betrayal –by journaling, taking a walk, sharing or praying with a friend?

4. Send some feedback for all of us to benefit from. Leave a reply at the end of the blog. I would love to hear about your dashboard experiences.  We can all learn from each other! Take action to make your day better one step at a time. 

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