He is faithful

being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Philippians 1:6

 I'm showing up on my blog here today even though I'd rather back out of my commitment to myself to write.

It's stretching to be here when all I want to do is crawl back into anonymity.

Emotions seem to clog my creativity at the least opportune times. What once felt fun and easy in an instant becomes muddled grey. Grief rises unexpectedly. Overwhelm strikes. Uncertainty creeps in with unsubscribes after each new blog post release. I recognize it's part of the shift to the new season, and everybody is shedding what no longer serves them. I also have hit the "unsubscribe" link on many a newsletter. It's not personal. It's simply refining and finding focus.

In these moments, though, my thoughts become detectives looking for reasons and explanations mostly in the form of some kind of blame and/or shame game that can leave me struggling in a pit of despair if I let them.

I am reigning in the thoughts, though, because they are never true and never helpful and instead I am turning my thoughts towards what I know:

God is at work. He began a good work in me and He is faithful to complete it. He doesn't leave me half-baked or unraveled or tangled up. And what feels uncomfortable and often painful are the times when He is working most profoundly in my heart to bring out the treasures of the deep. In this season much of that is happening as sorrow enlarges my soul, increasing my capacity to feel deeply into compassion, both for others as well as for myself.

I choose to partner with God's work, to set my thoughts on things above, and to trust His faithfulness.

 I AM secure

I AM confident

I AM significant

MY GOD is at work

MY GOD is faithful

MY GOD is supplying all that I require for every task I do today.

 God has been teaching me about decrees, so today these are the ones I will be speaking out over my day. In my emotions, I am choosing to stay rooted and grounded in Love and to bring it all into Love rather than allowing anything to wallow in fear. I may have to recommit multiple times today, and that's ok. I acknowledge how I am feeling, name it, and the usher it into Love.

The shift is palpable.

Comfort draws near.

Hope begins to rise.

And I know that I am filled with the fullness of the measure of God that I require for all I have to do today.

It is well with my soul.

Emotions. Do you stuff them?

Swallow hard. Clench your jaw.  Hold back the tears.

Breathe in deep. Inhale…exhale…hold it all in.

Silence. Throat tightened. Bite your tongue.

Just a few of the ways you may be stuffing your emotions, saving them away for another day. There's no harm in a momentary pause in emotion in order to process it in an appropriate time.  The problem for most of us is that time never comes, and emotions get stacked like sardines in the back of our minds and the memories imprinted on our bodies like a record to be replayed again and again.

Later, maybe a day or a week or a few months, perhaps a few years even, something happens to recreate the feeling you had before, the time you stuffed it to take care of another day or hoping it would just go away.  But it didn't.  It just got stored in your body, waiting for its turn to come out and play.  Except an emotion that's been in a closet doesn't play nice anymore, especially since it's been ruminating around with all of the other emotions it found hidden away.

These emotions start to swap stories.  They have ways of organizing themselves with their narratives, each telling more embellished than the last. Sometimes they try to one up each other, there in the recesses of your subconscious mind, replaying over and over and over again their moments of pain and sorrow, fear and regret, shame and guilt…vying for their place in line at the closet door.

Finally, that closet door has so much pressure behind it….all of these emotions vying for their place in line, pushing and shoving, getting louder and louder, more boisterous…more angry.

Until something small happens in your day. It could be you got cut off in traffic. Or perhaps someone was short with you and said something unkind. Maybe your kids left their shoes out one too many times or your husband forgot the most important item on the grocery list. 

Those emotions, they have been waiting.  It's getting hot in that closet and they are tired of being silenced.  Plus, there simply is no more room.

You go to stuff that emotion away only to find a rush of feelings flooding your body, and you react…or, rather, you over react to that situation that just happened.  In your mind, you begin to justify and maybe even blame someone current…"Well if you would have only…if they wouldn't have done…if there had only been…" as you struggle to get those uncomfortable feelings under control and back in the closet and hope no one has noticed the mess that just spilled out.

Has this ever happened to you?

Depending on your mode of operating, after an episode like this you may then add another layer of locks on that closet door, locks like guilt and shame or anger and rage. You want to protect that door at whatever cost because you do not want to ever feel that way again.

The problem is, you will.

You have effectively just told your body to store them for another day because they are just too much or too hard or too painful or too….well, you know, messy.  Emotions are messy.

Yes, yes, they are.  But emotions stuffed are way messier and more toxic to you, your body, your spirit, and your loved ones than you can imagine.  And also easier to process than you've been led to believe.

Next….Emotions. Can they make you sick?

Exercising joy

Did you know that it's important to exercise your "muscle" that remembers positive feelings?

By in large, most of us are conditioned to hold onto negative emotions, to feel fear and anxiety and to use those as motivators to get out of danger, which is good if you are actually in danger, but how often is that? Probably not as many times a day as that gets triggered in you.

Think of a time when you felt happiness, joy, or some other pleasant emotion. Become aware of where you feel that in your body. Focus on that feeling and allow it to expand to fill other areas of your body. Hold that feeling as long as possible.

Next time you find yourself feeling anxious, remember that feeling, how it felt, and allow yourself to feel it again. Practice this throughout the day until it becomes second nature.
 

I am passionate about helping people to become all they are created to be, leaving behind old patterns of thinking, of eating, of feeling, to embrace the life they are meant to live.  If you’d like me to walk with you on this journey, contact me at heather@untethered.life and let’s discuss a plan that works best for you.