Lean In
Slowing down, paying attention and feeling the emotions.
Start writing… Substack’s prompt for a new post echoes the same call that I feel in my bones… just write.
I sit here, ready to start. A weight presses against my chest and tears prick my eyes and I feel my fingers twitch. There is something nebulous and undefined swirling around my stomach asking to be defined, asking for the gift of emotion and the shape of words.
There is a feeling deep inside of me that is pushing it’s way up and through my fingertips. I don’t know what it is or what it means; all I know right now is that it is important. I have something to say, and the urgency this comes with means that it is something worth saying. At the same time, I am afraid. Afraid of what might spill out of me, afraid of what will happen when it does. These past few weeks I have felt a stirring and nudging inside of me and haven’t paid attention in the way that I know I should.
I am learning that it is important to pay attention to these feelings, that I need to lean in and listen to the nudgings. They are not a mere spark of creativity floating through the ether that I could or could not do something with. They are something much more important than that. They are thoughts and feelings that I have about different things, an insight into what is going on in my heart and mind and an invitation for me to begin the creative process where I worship and am able to connect those emotions and reflections to what I know about my God and his world.
For me, so much of the creative process is grabbing hold of those emotions with both hands and letting them take me to where I need to be. It is leaning in to the niggling emotions and letting them swell and grow so that I am moved by them. Each time I pick up a paintbrush, put paint on a palette, hold a pen above my notebook or hold my fingers above my keyboard, I experience a stillness and quiet that offers space for those emotions to be felt.
That stillness is not always a comfortable place to be and often I find myself reaching for distractions so that I can numb the emotions that come bubbling to the surface. These distractions come in all shapes and sizes: checking my email, looking on social media, remembering that I need to do housework, changing the music I am listening to, looking for something to eat or suddenly finding the urge to organise. On the good days, I push past these distractions and turn back to the quiet, taking a deep breath, saying a short prayer and leaning in.
Sometimes that leaning feels like a dive, a plunge into the depths of a moving river where I am unsure what the banks look like. Othertimes it is a slow and steady wading; a dipping of my toes, feeling the sand underneath my feet and cautiously stepping foward…
Emotions bubble up for all of us in different ways; asking that we pay attention and listen to what they are telling us. They carry with them important information about what is going on in our hearts and minds, offering insight into where we are and what what we love. Our emotional experiences are vast and diverse as are our expressions of creativity and the ways we connect our feelings to what we know of God and his world, yet it is important for each and every one of us to lean in and pay attention to what our emotions are saying.
What this looks like will vary for each and every one of us. There will be different things that nudge and encourage us to pay attention to what is going on in our hearts and lives and different ways that we are able to do it. I know that the process I shared earlier will not work for everyone and instead of giving a prescriptive list of what to do, I would like to share a few biblical principles to hold onto as you grow in being able to engage with your emotions.
1. Find stillness.
God asks us to Be still and know that I am God (Psalm 46:10). It is important that we learn to slow down, breathe deeply and to find our refuge and rest in him. Our current cultural climate finds us hustling to make something of ourselves, always doing something, always pushing for more. Somewhere we have confused a calvinist or protestant work ethic with our worth and define our sense of self in what we do and how well it is don. As a result we are always busy rushing from one thing to the next, continually filling the silence with podcasts, audiobooks and video content, our lives so full that we dare not slow down because it might just swallow us whole.
There are many different ways that we can find stillness. For each of us there will be differnet things that bring joy to our hearts, that lighten us so that we feel as if we are more connected to ourselves and to God. This might include:
Writing in journal
Gardening
Going for a walk (outside)
Enjoying a nice cup of tea
Doing something creative like writing or painting
Sitting outside and paying attention to what is happening around you
Listening to music, or playing an instrument if that is something you enjoy.
Going for a drive
There are many more ways for this and hopefully I will going into stillness in more detail another time.
2. Pay attention.
It is one thing to find the still moment and another all together to listen to what comes up in the silence. Emotions are not comfortable and many of those with a reformed faith background have been taught that our emotions are inconsequential, not really mattering to others or to God.
This couldn’t be further from the truth. We have a God who cares deeply for us and asks us to share what is going on with our emotions. Pslam 62:8 tells us to trust in him at all times, and to pour out our hearts to him for God is our refuge. He continually draws us into relationship and really cares about how we are responding to the things happening in our lives. Our emotions matter.
Pay attention to what comes up. This may take a little while, especially when you haven’t really paid attention in a while. As your emotions bubble to the surface stay curious and lean in to the discomfort they bring. Try not to numb out by reaching for your phone, getting up from your chair or distracting yourself with another task, instead find a way that you can imagine yourself sitting with or holding on to that emotion and let it grow. To start with this might be something that you do for a short time, maybe limiting it to 5 minutes so that you don’t feel as if you will drawn down or suffocated by all the emotions.
3. Connect the Dots
In and of themselves, emotions are neither good nor bad. They are a reflection of something deeper and speak volumes about what is going on for us in our hearts. It is out of the fullness of the heart that the mouth speaks (Luke 6:45), it is by the fruit that we know the tree. When we understand our emotions and our thoughts to be a part of the fruit that we are bearing, they form a guide so that we can gain fruther insight into what is going on in our hearts and minds.
Our emotional experiences do not happen in isolation, they are a response and fruit of our hearts and minds engaging with the things that are happening in the world around us. As differnet things come up it is important that we connect that to where it might have come from, asking questions like:
Why am I feeling this way?
What is happening at this time to make me feel this way?
What does this emotion mean? What am I responding to?
Where could this feeling be coming from?
Continue to be curious. Explore what is going on and take the time to connect the dots between your emotions and the things that are happening around you. Our emotions tell us of the things that we love and are precious to us, and the things that we hate. As we lean in, the thoughts and feelings that come up reveal to us the desires of our hearts. It is those desires that we need to hold to the light of scripture and evaluate, relfecting on what is right and wrong.
4. Evaluate
Once we have taken the time to be curious and pay attention to what the emotions are revealing about our hearts, the next step is to reflect on the desires we have identified in the light of scripture. As we continue to grow, our hearts are shaped to increasingly hate what is evil and cling to what is good (Romans 12:9). Our goal as disciples of Christ is to increasingly love what God loves and hate what he hates.
What do your emotions say about what you love? You might find yourself feeling anxious, angry, distressed, disoriented or frightened because something that you love is threatened in some way. Or you might find yourself happy, joyful, content and hopeful because that same thing you love is secure. Take the time to evaluate if this love is a love that God is asking from you. Reflect in the same way over your emotional responses to the things that you hate.
The loves and desires of our heart can also become disordered. We might find ourselves loving good Godly things but our loves are disproportionate to the love that we have for God. A part of evaluating our emotional repsonses is to look at what they are saying about the strength of our desires for created things as opposed to the creator (Romans 1:22).
A desire for a good thing becomes a bad thing when it becomes a ruling thing - Paul Tripp
Are the good desires of your heart ruling and overtaking you? Are you worshipping things that are created instead of the creator? What are your emotions saying about your love for church, doctrine, family and relationships, education, comfort, peace, work and other good things?
Evaluation like this cannot happen without a humble heart that is ready and open to instruction. A humble heart allows us to realisitically examine the desires and values of our hearts that have been revealed through our emotions without bias. Humility allows us to hold loosely to our thoughts and desires as we hold them up and analyse them in light of what we know from scripture. In this way we have the opportunity to grow and change as God works in us through the Holy Spirit.
5. Act and Respond
The process does not end with introspective evaluation. Scripture describes the love that we have for God and those around us as an active love, a love that moves out in humble service. Emotions are not something that only pass through our minds, they are something that we experience with our full body, empowering us to act in love toward those around us. When it comes to the good desires that we identify we are called to act out of those desires, using those emotions and desires to fuel the way that we serve those around us.
A part of our response will also be coming before God in prayer. When it comes to the disordered loves and desires that our evaluation may have revealed, we need to seek forgiveness for those sinful desires and ask that God helps us to reorder our worship. For the good and right loves that we have identified there is thankfulness and rejoicing for God’s provision and care that we have seen. Within all of this there is the continued prayer that we may continue to grow in relationship with him so that these desires may be rightly ordered.
Different situations will mean that we engage with our emotions in different ways. Sometimes, we will drag ourselves through each of these steps one by one and other times the intensity of our emotions will have us acting even before we realise we are feeling anything. Think of the way that you might jump out of the street or scoop up a child when you see a car coming and only later feel the fear and adrenaline pumping through you,.
There is also personality and the way that God has made us that will make a difference for how we engage with our emotions. There are those of us who might go from 0 to 100 in no time at all and feel completely overwhelmed by our emotions, often finding ways to numb out so that we don’t have to experience the discomfort of them at all. There are also those who are much more steady, not rocked about by emotions but needing to engage with them just as much.
Hold on to your pen, lift that brush to the canvas and lean in to the emotions you find underneath the surface. The journey of finding ways to engage with your emotions may be overwhelming and intimidating but it is worth it. It is worth turing to face the desires of your heart and holding them to the light of scripture. Each step of this process is a way that you can grow and deepen your relationship with your saviour and it is my heartfelt prayer that you may be blessed in this way.