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Podcast 30 - Emotions (Part 1)
0 Playsin 10 hours
Join us as we discuss how we tend to hold onto things even when they do not help our spiritual well-being
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Transcript
Introduction and Topic Setting
00:00:08
Speaker
Welcome to the Grove Hill podcast where we talk about real life and real faith. And there's a lot of things that we want to discuss today. And we always throw these topics out. Ridley usually has kind of said, Hey, this is what we're talking about.
00:00:22
Speaker
today
Understanding Emotional Baggage
00:00:23
Speaker
in and about an hour. So today, as we begin to start some of these things, the topic of emotional baggage came out. And I know you're probably thinking, ah wow, this is going to be a lot. Some of you may liken it to the the baggage rack on the top of your a car at the vacation. And who knows what it catches? It's Probably like that. So emotional baggage today is going to be what we dive into and we want to help frame what this is. So have you ever dealt with a situation where you thought maybe that was a little excessive? Like today or just in general? Even today. That's why Lori and I are here.
00:01:05
Speaker
Even in the moment, sometimes even up to our current state of the last 24 hours, we deal with things because we walk through a circumstance. We walk through a situation in a season of our life and we've kind of taken some things from that. Some healthy, some unhealthy. So I want to ask you all, have you ever reacted stronger than the situation deserved?
00:01:30
Speaker
In any situation? Yes. Yes. Okay. Divulge. Have you? Yes. oh Yes, I have. Yeah. Can we get one qualifying question out? Okay. Yes.
Gender Differences in Emotional Baggage
00:01:41
Speaker
In all seriousness, because it's a pink and blue thing, do men deal with emotional baggage? Oh, yes. Oh, okay. Good. Yes. right I mean, not good, but... oh Well, you know, I think there... and think a lot times women get...
00:01:54
Speaker
kind of uh labeled with more emotional baggage than men so it was ah it was a genuine yeah i think it is a pink and blue thing that there is sometimes the connotation where women get the bad rap and they're like oh we're the emotional ones you know as far as they're making certain reactions and seasons of life and they follow that up with more patterns but i think guys do the same thing okay i think their responses women tend to be a little bit more vocal with our emotional responses and men maybe deal with it maybe with chocolate or with let's go on a run or whatever. I think women sometimes are a little bit more vocal too. I think they can rear their ugly heads in a whole lot of ways, but I want to share a story i want to hear from you guys. i want to hear from maybe ah an instance that happened in a certain season in
Forgiveness and Personal Growth
00:02:39
Speaker
your life. And you felt like as you look back on it, maybe this was a little excessive and you can tie that to some emotional baggage that you gained from your childhood, maybe even from a circumstance in your adulthood, early adulthood.
00:02:53
Speaker
Go ahead. Well, you said yours was as recent as today. so Well, I just got a little spicy with a nurse on the phone regarding some of my son's medical records that I'd wanted transferred a little bit quicker than they were willing to do. So I probably did not react very kindly, but.
00:03:09
Speaker
ah i you You go ahead, Lisa. Your story's probably better than mine. Everybody has a story. That's true. But I think um I immediately go to the obvious with my story, and that's having been married twice before. There is a lot of emotional baggage that comes with that.
00:03:28
Speaker
And in my years of women's ministry, I've kind of made a joke about you can you can have a duffel bag of emotional baggage,
00:03:39
Speaker
But you don't need to pack up a yeah U-Haul and stay there with your emotional baggage. And so it's it's a real thing. Our emotions were given to us by God. But I think what gets out of control is when the emotions take the reins and our obedience our disobedience almost seems justified because our emotions are running so strong. So obviously for me, I go back to um mainly my second divorce and um there was infidelity there. and you talk about some emotional baggage because it was with a girl that worked for me.
00:04:16
Speaker
And so there's some Jerry Springer in this girl that wanted to come out And sometimes it did, but ultimately um forgiveness had to play a huge part in those emotions. And there was a day that God told me I had to forgive her. And I said, yeah, yeah, okay. I know that's part of being a ah believer. And he was like, no, you have to tell her you forgive her.
00:04:40
Speaker
And I was like, but do I have to mean it? And he said, yes, you do. You have to forgive her. And so I called her and told her that I forgave her. and since that day, all these years later, i still have to forgive over and over again because it comes up.
00:04:58
Speaker
So yeah, there's some baggage, but it's what you do with it, I think, that makes or breaks our testimony.
Identifying Emotional Triggers and Sources
00:05:04
Speaker
Yeah. And as they have shared, there's things in my own life that are kind of kicking up. as I think back towards my childhood and things that I've brought into my adulthood. And we don't always want to, but I don't know if we can ever fully release of every piece of emotional baggage. It's how we recognize it. What is emotional baggage? And so as we define the term, I know we've kind of talked about that, but what are some forms of emotional baggage and how do they present themselves? What, maybe what are the sources of those emotional pieces of baggage?
00:05:37
Speaker
I think of one, for instance, maybe a sense of perfectionism is an emotional piece of baggage that in some ways I've even brought into my own marriage where I grew up in an area of not just church culture, but in family culture where you felt like you wanted to do the right thing. And if you didn't do the right thing,
00:06:00
Speaker
that, oh man, it's always a letdown. So sometimes i pursued perfectionism and it man is the weight crushing. yeah So that can be a piece of emotional baggage that I have expectations on others.
00:06:14
Speaker
And is it fair? Definitely not. Right. So what are some other pieces of those emotional baggage that we can think of? For me, it was those false beliefs of I'm not good enough. Nobody loves me. I'll never be, um worthy to be someone's wife. Um, so those were things that I had to deal with and wrestle with for a long time in the early stages of our marriage. Thankfully I had a husband who walked me through that and constantly reminded me of who I was and who I was not.
00:06:45
Speaker
so I think for me, um it's a little bit different because now that I'm married to Ridley, there are still triggers yeah that kind of bring some of that emotional baggage to the forefront. And if you don't learn to recognize what those triggers are,
00:07:03
Speaker
they can really overwhelm you emotionally again and then cause you to react in a negative way from those. And so he and I have had to talk a lot about what those triggers are for me. And it's really hard because it's not fair to him.
00:07:18
Speaker
But um yeah, I'm pretty sure early on in our marriage, he has shared that I threw a remote at his head because he said something and did something that was a trigger for me that basically said, i'm i'm not safe here emotionally. And so, yeah, i'm just hummed a remote at him.
00:07:37
Speaker
It's amazing and maybe not so amazing how dysfunctional pieces of our life. And and by the way, Viewers, we all have some bit of dysfunctional in our life. It's not just the one person. It is every one of us that walked through life. We all have dysfunctional. It's about how we recognize it and see the the triggers of like, oh okay, this is what it is.
00:08:02
Speaker
Don't be paralyzed by it, but recognize it and know when you need to take action and how you take action. And i want to be clear that it's not how I should have responded to it. i do not promote this behavior.
00:08:16
Speaker
That's good. That's good. listen it so you guys got some passages in scripture yeah that we kind of see where it's either Christ laying out for us what those elements that kind of hit us, or maybe some areas where our heart is just, we have original sin. We have a bent towards the dysfunctional. So Start with you, Lisa. You have a passage that you'd like to share with do. It's Luke chapter 6, verse 45, and it says, A good person produces good out of the good stored up in his heart.
Scriptural Guidance for Emotional Control
00:08:51
Speaker
An evil person produces evil out of the evil stored stirred up and stored up in his heart. For his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart. And this is so much of what I think God has taught me in dealing with some of that baggage and some of those triggers is that it's about what I store up in my heart day to day so that if there are triggers or there are situations that really hit us wrong, it's got to be in there. yeah And I've got to pull from that because at the end of the day, my emotions do not get to justify disobedience. yeah And I don't get to blame anybody else who might
00:09:28
Speaker
set the trigger in motion. Ultimately, it's how I respond and how I obey that at the end of the day, I'm responsible for. And so it's got to be stored up in there. So the overflow is just an automatic Christ-like response. And that's hard.
00:09:44
Speaker
That is really hard. it is. It's the... It's the perspective with which we come. Like I said, we can't remove the full dysfunctional unless we have God as the inflow of what's going in our heart. so Well, and and for me, mine, I've really been talking to my soul care counselor about where it stems from and why do I let my emotions control me and,
00:10:03
Speaker
He explained it to me. He said, your thoughts become your emotions and which become your behavior. So I have to go back to my thoughts and I have to align them with Christ and I have to list the truth and I have to list the facts and I have to get in the word. And so there's two different scriptures that I have to reference regularly for myself. And one is Philippians 4, 8. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any moral excellence and if there is anything praiseworthy, dwell on these things.
00:10:37
Speaker
Then Isaiah 26 verse 3, you will keep the mind that is dependent on you in perfect peace, for it is trusting in you. Trust in the Lord forever because the Lord, the Lord himself is an everlasting rock. So I have to daily align my thoughts with Christ because that's where the devil likes to get is in my mind. And so then my behaviors become out of line. um And then my actions become out of line. So I have to work very hard.
00:11:09
Speaker
at all the relationships that I have my husband, my kids, my friends, all those things. I have to list the truth. I have to align with the Christ word, then my emotions, and then I behave either Christ-like or I don't. And I have to go back and fix those things. I mean, I've had to go back and apologize to somebody that I had strong ill feelings towards for over 10 years and i had to go back and say i need you to forgive me and it was like why what did I do I'm like I you know it's a list of things that I have let dwell um in my mind and made worse and it was like okay I mean it was over and I you know but it took me 10 years to get my thought process right and my then my behaviors had to align with my thoughts so those are just some things that i have to do literally daily because it's something that it's probably my it's probably my biggest struggle it takes long time to change patterns yeah and i don't really know where it necessarily stems from i do part it partly but a lot of it is just i think just my my
00:12:12
Speaker
my DNA, my makeup, and I have to work hard at being what Christ has called me to be. and was doing that There's some family things that they hold very deep. yeah And there's some things that we even see, not just on one generation, but two and three generations. And it's very much a, okay, Lord, I'm giving it to you because you're going have to walk with me as I pursue you and you break this generational
Impact of Emotional Baggage on Identity
00:12:38
Speaker
curse. I want to make that very pointed as you do this, you can try to behavior modify, but to your point in Luke six, this isn't behavior modification. This is you walking inside the covering of God, his son, and the spirit that seals you. And then out of that, you walk with a better response to the actions. So I want to point out three things. in the the spheres of influence which this impacts us.
00:13:03
Speaker
So it impacts the identity of who we are. it impacts the relationships that we're in and how we view God. So in some of these areas that we're breaking apart,
00:13:16
Speaker
How well could we walk in those areas, the view of ourselves, the view of these relationships, and the view of God, if we had the the weight off our backs? Yeah. I think Lori had a great point, though, is that many times we excuse away our sin by just saying, well, this is just how I was raised, or this is just who I am. and I just recently was studying on a clean and pure heart comes from repentance. And so it we see repentance is almost like a negative thing or a punishment, but it's actually so we can keep a pure and clean heart. And the things that are in our heart, the overflow is a result of that just staying right with God. And it's it's pretty hard to say, this is just who i am if we're not dying to self. Right. And so we don't get to claim that as believers. This is just who I am. Because it's not about who we are. It's about who he is. Yeah. And when we share an identity that isn't Christ, what we're saying is Christ's identity wasn't good enough. Right. Yeah. And that's ah the sobering thought. And you're like, if he says that I'm an adopted son or a daughter, and then I'm still associating with my pain of the past,
00:14:30
Speaker
What are you saying about what God means to you? Right. Ephesians 2.10, for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do. We are His. He made us on purpose for a purpose. Who are we to say, you didn't make us well enough?
00:14:46
Speaker
This is a ah common topic for women, so I can't speak to men. You can chime in on this. But the mind is truly our first battlefield with the enemy in... um Lori's point to a great counseling technique is what do you know to be true? Because the truth, when we start to um say it and we start to believe it, pushes the emotion not away to disqualify it, but it keeps it in its right place that we're speaking from a place of truth and what God says and not just what our emotions are taking the lead on. And so that was a great point.
00:15:24
Speaker
I would say too that sometimes in the culture of today and you see it in, and I want to be very careful to say that there is benefit as you walk through and try to understand whether it's with counselors, whether it's with ministry staff, as you walk in your journey in faith, there are ways
Reasons Behind Holding onto Emotional Baggage
00:15:42
Speaker
to recognize. And to your point, there are ways that you can also do it in an unhealthy way of them saying, oh, i recognized it. No, you're living in it. You are dwelling in it. You're letting it be the place you reside in. Backing up that yeah U-Haul and staying in it. in it It's also ah a good thing because you have people around you in a community of faith. that By the way, that's why a community of faith, like a local church, is so important because you have other people around you helping you evaluate yep whether you're living in it or whether you're just struggling with the season of seeing it
00:16:16
Speaker
pop up because those are two things that are very different. You're always going to deal with the emotional things of where your past has maybe taught you how to deal with things in an unhealthy or healthy way. But when you gravitate to those in a pattern like form, That's the beauty of, hey brother, hey sister, I noticed you're struggling with this.
00:16:37
Speaker
We've got to look at it in that way. So I want to talk talk about a little bit of why we hold on to this. ah we We see things like ah control. um We like to control the narrative. But what are some other reasons why we love to hold to this baggage when we see sometimes that it has negative ramifications?
00:16:59
Speaker
I think sometimes we use it as an excuse for your behavior. We're like, oh, well, that's because I was in an abusive relationship. That's why it's okay for me to behave that way. Yeah. We use it as excuses sometimes. I think people um in walking with others, I have found that they hang on to it because it's familiar. That's true. And a life of faith causes us to really just go places that we don't have everything figured out yet. And so sometimes it just feels safer in an odd way to hang on to what you know and you've experienced versus being brave enough to walk into what you haven't experienced yet with the Lord. And so... It it seems odd on the outside, but it's a very common behavior
Breaking Generational Patterns with Wise Counsel
00:17:41
Speaker
in people. the The whole hamster wheel mentality of I'll just stay on this because I know how it works and I know what to expect and I can't be shocked or surprised or caught off guard by the unexpected anymore. i want to take a little side note. Isn't it a a wild thing as you see the people in your life that you grew up around and you saw something as negative And then maybe and not something just massive, but maybe as you grow older, you notice that thing that you thought was negative in your own journey. And you're like, oh, wow.
00:18:17
Speaker
and And it hasn't been broken. um I love what Hebrews says, we're at sea to it that no bitter root grows. So how do we cut those bitter roots off in our life? And I think there's some practical and spiritual ways that we do that.
00:18:32
Speaker
But from a practical standpoint, how do we do that? We maybe have touched on some of those already, but how do we practically cut off the root of bitterness and cut off the root of emotional baggage that kind of blocks us from good relationship with others, ourselves, and even God?
00:18:50
Speaker
h Well, first of all, you got to define the root. You can't cut something off if you don't take the time to really go back and see where it originated from. Many times I think we're just dealing with the symptoms of something and we never take the time to really face whatever the root of that problem is, an upbringing or an experience that we just don't want to revisit. And so it's not to stay in that place, but to say this is where it originated, and this is what has caused me to feel this way. Yeah, yeah. No, I...
00:19:25
Speaker
Yes. I think one of the things that I've found out as I've grown and, if my parents are listening to this, I love you. I think there are some areas too that we know, um as we look back at our childhood or even in our early adulthood where we kind of gained some things where we were getting some teachable moments, we find out that we're maturing when we become listeners and better evaluators of if somebody's speaking into my life that,
00:19:56
Speaker
has a little bit of godly wisdom, has a little bit of some years on me, maybe I should stop and listen. But I think one of the areas where it's a marker of, oh, they're they're continuing to be just the loud, noisy gong, the loud, noisy ah person, I think it's because they're not allowing evaluation to come into their life.
00:20:19
Speaker
We have to be good listeners to us to move from a place of dysfunction to a place of
Truth and Relationships: Human vs Divine
00:20:26
Speaker
fruitfulness. Well, and your notes say this, but it's also, my my counselors also told me this too, is to say things out loud. When you're praying, pray it out loud. Because then then when you hear it, it becomes even more real. Because a lot of times, us women especially, we get all in our head.
00:20:42
Speaker
But when we speak things out, like, okay, this no longer has control over me. This no longer defines who I am. If we say it out loud to the Lord, it's, it's brought out into the open even more. So that's something that you can practically do to, to start to begin to heal from some of that baggage is just emotionally and excuse me, verbally saying things out loud. Yeah.
00:21:03
Speaker
I think another thing is, too, that we tend to treat our relationship with God the same way that other people have treated us or we've experienced relationships with them. For me, after my second marriage of so much deception and lie and distrust, I had to trust God at a time that I was not trusting anybody, not even myself and the decisions I was making. And so we have to separate that and see that he is the perfect relationship and not carry those evaluations of relationships into the relationship with God.
00:21:39
Speaker
Yeah. it's It's all about um moving and not settling in the the sorrow. and And that's another thing too. um Shame is one of the biggest players into why people stay in their state of dysfunction. Mm-hmm. And their state of just, man, well, this is what I deal with. This is my, this is my U-Haul truck. I'm just gonna, you know, i call it the, the little blankie syndrome. They like to carry their blanket around and it's a comfort for them. But we have to walk into a place of a lot of times, not even looking at forgiveness from the outside, but forgiveness from the inside yeah and knowing that God has forgiven that. So why is that disconnect there? Why do we not forgive ourselves? I don't know, when you say it out loud, it makes no sense why we hang on to things that are so toxic for us and really get in the way of God's best for us. So ah just the humanness, the flesh in us just wants to hang on to these things. Well, and sometimes too, we want our we want to speak our side of the story with things that it's like, that's not really ours to do The Lord will handle that.
Transforming Perceptions with God’s Truth
00:22:48
Speaker
you know
00:22:49
Speaker
Vengeance doesn't belong to us too. And I think sometimes our hurt and our anger becomes this like I want to get even with them but it's we're supposed to walk in righteousness it's so it's so interesting though that we don't have to practice jealousy or anger we're good they just They just come naturally. yeah But these characteristics that God says we need to display because we love Him requires so much discipline and effort. And I think that just speaks to our sinful nature and whether we're going to be led by the flesh or led by the Spirit. and
00:23:25
Speaker
i yeah don't know. It's so odd why we hang on to those things. It is weird because we see the the trail of sorrow and the trail of sometimes... broken families. I still see it in my own family. It's, it's I saw it this week and it just kind of like, man, it rips at you because you see the relationships that could be there that aren't there because of decisions that have been made and because they want to hold onto the thing and they see the damage, but they just can't let it go. So one of the ways that we do that is we replace it with the truth of God's word. You all have laid it out. So I don't know, we can continue on in this, but
00:24:02
Speaker
we replace it with the truth of who God says he is. And we look at his character and we, we continue to draw close to his character. And then we get a little bit better view of how he sees us. Right. And then how we see others in turn. I mentioned it earlier, community support. So both of you name one way, how you can get into a place to where maybe you can start to notice those pieces of emotional baggage and gather yourself around others who can do that in a, an edifying, like ah a wholesome way.
Community and Support Systems
00:24:36
Speaker
Go ahead. I think for me, um it's surrounding myself with people that I know are going to be loving and brave enough to say the hard things to me.
00:24:46
Speaker
And I'll be honest, in ministry, that can be really hard because nobody wants to hurt your feelings. Or ah for me, it's, oh, well, you're the pastor's wife. But I very much need that in my life for somebody to say, hey, that's not how you should behave. And because I love you, I'm not going to let you do that. Yeah.
00:25:04
Speaker
And I have those people in my life. That's good. You need people who will say, going to sit in the trenches with you until you get out. Even when you find them you better hold on to them. People that will answer the phone calls when you say, i just need to get this out. I need you tell me.
00:25:21
Speaker
what I should do next. I need you to get get, seek out people who have godly wisdom, who are truth tellers, who are kind and who are going to love you behind your back. Yeah.
00:25:33
Speaker
yeah So that's, yeah. Yeah. So find solid people around you that are going to speak truth to you. even whenever it maybe doesn't feel all that good. Yeah. It, uh, it'll, it'll be a life changer.
00:25:45
Speaker
So what we want you to do is look at this kind of gather all this information and we want you to ask a few questions.
Reflection and Release of Emotional Baggage
00:25:53
Speaker
What am I still carrying? So is there something emotionally that you have been holding onto? Maybe you've even seen the the path of destruction that it's maybe caused in your own relationships, or maybe even inside your own heart. There's a lot of things that you wrestle with. We've given you some good thoughts today, maybe to think about in your free time. And I would encourage you to go look back over those passages that we've looked in and continue to, hey, do this, memorize scripture as you look to put those good things in, you put the Word of God in, some good things are going to come out of that because God's Word does not return void. But ask one other question.
00:26:31
Speaker
What would it look like to give that to God? I was just going to say, when you said lay it down, i think a real key part that I've learned is when you lay it down, you better quickly pick up something to replace it, or you're just going to go back to that negative habit and pick it back up. And so whatever we lay down, we need to immediately pick up the truth and we need to hold that tighter than we hold on to what is familiar and comfortable. Yeah, very good. Lori, you got anything? I do not.
00:27:03
Speaker
Very, very good thoughts today.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:27:05
Speaker
And to Lisa's point, whatever we say to and as we release, we have to say yes to God. It's not just the refraining, but what we run to. So very good words. I love the panel today. This was fun. need close in prayer. Don't forget. We had a viewer suggest that. We got to close in prayer. So with that said, Lori, you in prayer us? Oh, sure.
00:27:29
Speaker
Father, thank you for the truth tellers in my life. Thank you for the people who have sat in the trenches and dug me out of those emotional moments. Father, forgive me for the ways that we've behaved even today that were not of you.
00:27:43
Speaker
Father, I ask that you be with our viewers and help us to remember that to keep our minds set on you, that you will when our mind is fully dependent on you, you will keep us in perfect peace. Father, thank you for that truth. Thank you for your word. And thank you for our time today. It's in your son's name we pray. Amen.
00:27:58
Speaker
Amen. We are so glad that you joined the Grove Hill Church podcast today. We hope that this has been beneficial as you walk with Christ. And i want you to do a couple of things. Do those questions that we talked about, answer those, and then like, share, and subscribe. We want you to be a part of this. And we would love for you to throw those questions that you're having about life and real circumstances so we can view it of how God desires us to. We love you and we will see you soon. Amen. by Bye.