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Processing emotions when life hits you hard
20 Plays4 years ago
Learning to process emotions with Michelle Morris (one of our Directors at Grace Ministries International).
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Transcript
Introduction: Walking Free with Vernon Terrell
00:00:03
Speaker
This is your host Vernon Terrell with Grace Ministries International and it's time for Walking Free!
Broadcasting Live from Dupree Park
00:00:17
Speaker
And we're here live out at Dupree Park in Woodstock, Georgia and you're going to hear some who knows some animal sounds some trash
00:00:29
Speaker
compactor sounds, maybe some kids, you never know, out here at the park, maybe some nice birds as
Michelle Morris on Emotional Processing
00:00:35
Speaker
well. But I'm out here at a table with Michelle Morris. Welcome Michelle. Thank you. And we're going to talk today about a very interesting topic, one that I honestly am not very good at. We're going to talk about this idea of emotional processing.
00:00:58
Speaker
How do you process emotions? Michelle is going to walk us through some of that a little bit. To start off with, Michelle, you had a pretty rough last few months.
Michelle's Accident and Initial Reactions
00:01:12
Speaker
Can you tell us just a quick high level what happened?
00:01:14
Speaker
Sure. So in March of 2021, I was in a pretty serious vehicle accident. It landed me in the hospital for close to a month. And so I'm on my slow, but steady journey to recovery, physically, emotionally, and mentally, and maybe in a few other aspects too. So, wow. This, when it comes to this idea of emotions, I mean,
00:01:44
Speaker
You had to have a flood of emotions hit you once you Woke up in the hospital and you started to comprehend what happened.
Complex Emotions During Recovery
00:01:55
Speaker
Can you describe some of the emotions you felt?
00:01:58
Speaker
Sure. The first emotion was definitely gratitude and relief. I was so grateful. I was alive. I was so grateful that my toes wiggled. One of the thoughts that went through my mind is the concern for paralysis. And so wiggling those toes was a huge blessing.
00:02:20
Speaker
just finding joy and gratitude and relief in God's preservation of my life and my functionality, I guess. Well, so you wibble the toes. You get through that. It's like, wow, okay, this is okay. What happened after that? What other emotions started coming up?
00:02:43
Speaker
Well, it's tough when you put it in the context of the hospital because there's medication and emergency surgery and you're just kind of in an altered state with the extreme pain levels. So that's a tough question to answer to go back to that moment.
Interconnected Thoughts and Feelings
00:03:06
Speaker
It's the whole gamut. Was it more instead of emotions, was there just a lot of thoughts just
00:03:12
Speaker
rushing through your mind in the midst of that or did it you have to really wait till you were out at least in recovery in the hospital and then getting out later.
00:03:24
Speaker
I think it's like every life storm that is one of those life altering storms that we all go through at different seasons is it's all at once. You've got tons of thoughts, tons of feelings, everything's all interconnected. Your core belief about God is tested, his character, who he is. Your relationships are tested and so I think it was just taking it moment by moment
00:03:52
Speaker
literally throughout each day and even even in this season continues to be moment by moment through the day just facing what this moment is and staying present in this moment. In the time when you got out of surgery you're in the hospital up to this point I'm sure you had different emotions that rose to the surface. Do you remember some of those emotions?
00:04:24
Speaker
Let's see, emotions of, boy, that's a tough one. I know. It's a tough one to answer. What's their anger? Did that come up? There's been anger, yeah, definitely. There's been anger, frustration, feeling misunderstood, feeling betrayed, feeling abandoned, feeling supported.
Inviting God into Emotional Healing
00:04:54
Speaker
it's the whole gamut because like I'm saying moment by moment in one moment in one area feeling abandoned and in other moments feeling so loved and cared for and supported feeling angry and feeling comforted feeling confused so
00:05:14
Speaker
It's the elastic band. I have said for years that our emotional capacity, God has given us the ability to concurrently feel what we would consider opposite emotions, to both feel, for example, abandoned in some respect and yet comforted and supported on the other end at the same
Divine Comfort and Spiritual Insights
00:05:36
Speaker
time.
00:05:36
Speaker
Wow. Sometimes we get very confused by that but I kind of set aside the confusion going that that's how God made us to be is we can feel multiple things that we would call opposites at the same time. So is there a way I mean is there when you're feeling these are they is the right word conflicting or what's the right word? Sure that's a great word for it.
00:06:04
Speaker
Conflicting emotions. How do you process through those? Is there is there a formula? Is there I mean, how do you process? This is this is life. This is big challenging life stuff.
00:06:19
Speaker
It really is, it really is. So I'll say at this stage, I have not fully processed through it. My Canadian roots are gonna show. Here it comes, processed. Here comes processed. We'll get through it. I have not fully processed my emotions. And so there are formulas out there. There are guides to it, I would say.
00:06:46
Speaker
yet we're all individuals and the way that we grieve is different. The way we process can be different. Some people need to write it out. Some people need to talk it out. Some people need to pray it out. There's a journey that we go on and I'd say one part of that process is knowing this is a journey. This is not when these big life events hit
00:07:13
Speaker
it's probably not going to be, oh I talked it through with my friends and now I'm good and I'm just past it. It's going to be multiple conversations, multiple journal entries, multiple evenings of prayer, multiple times of crying, all of these different things that get us in touch with identifying what am I feeling in this moment
00:07:40
Speaker
And the biggest thing I would say is inviting the Lord into whatever that feeling is, whether that's that moment of gratitude, Lord, you've preserved my life. Whether that's the moment of abandonment and saying, Lord, I feel abandoned right now. I feel rejected or ignored and really inviting him into the pain of that. I invited Jesus into the physical pain.
00:08:10
Speaker
going through cycles of extreme excruciating pain at times and calling out to him and inviting him into the physical pain as well. And so the thing that I think sometimes often happens is we're in a painful place, we're in a storm, we're in a trial, and we take offense with God.
00:08:35
Speaker
And taking offense with God cuts us off from the divine comfort that we desperately need. Tell me again, define taking offense with God.
00:08:46
Speaker
Why did you let this happen to me? I have served you. I'm in full-time Christian ministry. I am walking with you. I don't have these big crazy sin areas in my life. You've given me victory over so many areas. And I'm here. I'm serving you. How dare you let this happen to me?
00:09:09
Speaker
So when it happens, when the accident happens, the cancer happens, the divorce happens, the affair of our partner happens, all of these things, the getting fired from our job happens, and we turn to God and say, if you really loved me, let me define for you what love is. God, if you loved me, you would not let this happen.
00:09:36
Speaker
So this isn't God being mad at you because this happened? No. So what is it? He's revealing that to me. One thing that I feel God spoke to me when I was in the hospital was that the enemy asked for my life. And God spoke to my heart, not with that audible voice to my ears, but spoke to my spirit and said, the enemy asked for your life. And I said, no.
00:10:06
Speaker
Wow. So that's why I have so much gratitude that my body was broken and my life was preserved.
Understanding God's Love Since 2013
00:10:19
Speaker
And I'm so grateful for that. I see God's hand of love in that. But it's not easy. No, it's not been easy. It's not been comfortable. But it's been good.
00:10:32
Speaker
It's been good. What helps it make it gooder? What has helped you make it better?
00:10:43
Speaker
I think looking for those moments of clarity with God, of what he's up to, of what he's doing, I know in another respect, God's given me a confirmation that a work that he really started in my life in 2013 of experiencing his profound love for me in a very practical way of getting it from my head that Jesus loves me into really experiencing.
00:11:13
Speaker
and walking in and just resting in God's love for me. This whole experience has reconfirmed to me that the work that he started in my life in 2013 in a profound way
00:11:28
Speaker
is rock solid. My favorite pastor is Pastor Steven out in Choctaw at Grace Community Church. And he has said often from the pulpit that everything that can be shaken will be shaken. And you've got to look at what remains after everything is shaken.
00:11:47
Speaker
Only what's founded on Jesus is going to remain. And I feel like through this whole experience, God has said, let me show you some things that you have built on me, on this foundation of Jesus.
00:12:03
Speaker
and I'm going to shake it. I feel like I went inside a snow globe and got shook but hard. And here is Jesus saying, you see what's left? This intimate connection to my love. I'm not trying to convince myself Jesus loves me through this.
00:12:23
Speaker
I'm just resting in knowing and hearing his voice speak to me, his love to me. And that's a work of seeing the fruit of what God started doing many years ago. So it sounds like God's not mad at you. God is simply loving you to say that as he shakes and as things, as life shakes us, as he allows us to be shaken,
00:12:53
Speaker
What remains is Jesus. It's true. And I think my old paradigm was, well, Jesus is with me. And that's true. Jesus is with me. But the gospel is so much more than that. Maybe the old covenant would have been Jesus is with me. Jesus is in me.
00:13:15
Speaker
Jesus is in me. So whether I'm lying in the road, lying in an ambulance,
Community Support in Recovery
00:13:23
Speaker
lying in an ER, lying in the OR, in a recovery room, in a rehab unit, in my own bed, here in the park today.
00:13:34
Speaker
Jesus himself his spirit is actually in me with me Hopefully being manifested through me as I as I just walk hand-in-hand with him in that How have other people Helped you has that been a help having a network of people Yeah community is so great. Sometimes we hear you just need Jesus and only Jesus and
00:14:05
Speaker
There's some truth in that. There's seasons that God strips us of so much and all we're left with is Him. And yet God designed humans to need community, to thrive in community. In fact, I think that healing, both internal and external healing happens best when we are in healthy community where we can show up authentic, where everyone's just showing up authentic, which doesn't, sometimes that's messy for me to be authentic. I'm going to show some of the junk that I'm carrying around.
00:14:35
Speaker
But community has been huge. There's just been a huge outpouring of emotional support, financial support, prayer support has been huge.
Methods for Processing Emotions
00:14:48
Speaker
And that has, I almost in a tangible way have felt the prayers of people being answered in sustaining me through the darkest hours.
00:15:02
Speaker
That's where many of us, we fail. We try to do it alone. And we need each other. We have to have the freedom to ask for help. We have to listen to the spirits prompting of reaching out when people are in need. And I'm grateful that not everybody reached out the first week.
00:15:25
Speaker
I've needed because this is such a long-term situation for me. I need people in each of these different phases. And so some people, they're carrying some guilt that they waited six weeks to reach out to me or eight weeks and I'm like, no.
00:15:41
Speaker
Thank you for waiting because I wasn't, you know, I had other people six weeks ago and now I have you here supporting me, calling me, emailing me, sending me a card. So I think sometimes we beat ourselves up when others in our community need help. Again, we got to let that go, walk in grace and just say, okay, Lord,
00:16:03
Speaker
I felt that prompt for two weeks and yet you know it would take two weeks of prompting to get me here. Let me just trust your timing and send the note now. Make the call now and just leave the results with you. Are the notes and the calls helpful? Absolutely. Absolutely. Because it says, I am for you and I am praying for you. I am with you even though I can't be with you.
00:16:27
Speaker
Wow. So of all these ideas you've mentioned on processing emotions, what were some of the ideal ways that you process? Was it journaling? I know it's all the above. Did you have one that really helped you the most?
00:16:46
Speaker
I'd say in this season, it has been listening to messages online and prayer with the Lord. My normal go-to would be journaling and more reading, but I've not been in that place just because of being on pain medication in a beautiful way. That's my go-to was sort of taken away for this season. How about that?
00:17:16
Speaker
And so I was left with doing something different in this season. And I'm still, I'm doing something different. And it is somewhat day by day, again, taking maybe it's worship, some worship songs have been really precious to my heart in this season. The song Jaira, if you're familiar with that one, wow, that has just been pretty much every day I start my morning listening to that song or
00:17:45
Speaker
wake up in the middle of the night, finding my spirit singing that song in different phrases, different verses of that song, just singing out to the Lord in the night and resting in his provision. What does your routine look like right now? I know it's changed over this as the journey continues. What is your normal routine?
00:18:06
Speaker
It's wake up in the morning and everything just takes time. So it is taking most of the morning just to get up, do some stretching, try to loosen up, eat breakfast, put on worship music while I eat or listen to a message online while I eat breakfast.
00:18:30
Speaker
and set up my medications for the day, and I'm taking a ton of vitamins to give my body nutrients to rebuild itself in this season. And then, wow, every day is just different. Yeah, it's different. There might be doctor's appointments, physical therapy appointments, goodness.
00:18:51
Speaker
visits from people. I have some amazing community that has set up a meal train and so I set it up so folks either bring lunch or dinner and hopefully stay for a visit just to have some personal contact there. I limit my television watching
00:19:11
Speaker
because I don't find that really beneficial for my healing journey.
Advice on Emotions and Podcast Wrap-up
00:19:17
Speaker
I think it's nice to just zone out a little bit sometimes. And then, um, I don't know. I really,
00:19:24
Speaker
Is it what was you said, you know when you got out and you you're a strong lady obviously always have been In your routine that you Had maybe in the past you said your go-to was kind of taken away some of your go-to Were there other go-tos that God just kind of said just put that on hold for a bit and that you love to do But you just can't do it right now. Oh, yeah, well hiking and being really physically active
00:19:55
Speaker
Yeah, going to the gym and working out so that's my gym is now three pound weights I'm used to doing some like ten times that it's like Arm curling doing 40 50 pound arm curls and doing three pound arm curls and going who I gotta breathe through that
00:20:16
Speaker
Wow. For those who might be going through a hard time right now and they're trying to deal with all these conflicting emotions, any other tips or I don't want to say tricks, but any other tips you might have for them.
00:20:34
Speaker
Yeah, I would check in with your heart. If you have taken offense at God or you're taking offense at God, double check if you made a bargain with God for something that He never promised you.
00:20:50
Speaker
God did not promise that I would not be in a vehicle accident. God did not promise that my legs would work. I'm grateful they do, but I double-checked in my concordance and I couldn't find any Bible verse that supports that. There's a guarantee that I'm gonna get the use of my legs or any such thing. The promise is
00:21:15
Speaker
I am with you. In this world, you will have trouble. Take heart. I have overcome the world. My spirit is joined with Jesus' spirit. And so let's make sure that we stand
00:21:30
Speaker
on the promises and I just when you go through something like this and Someone even says that word you got to stand on these promises. I'm grateful I can stand mm-hmm that is a whole new meaning to say I I stand on these promises of Drawing near to the really what God did promise is to be with us to be in us to walk us through this
00:21:53
Speaker
I'm not the only one crying. I know that Jesus has shed some tears over what I've been through. And that's tender. That's just tender to my heart because he loves me. He does.
00:22:06
Speaker
Well, with that, I'm going to close this out. And the purpose of this podcast is to help help others walk free. And that's what Grace Ministries is all about. We want to help others walk through, walk free. And that's in your emotions. That's your entire person. So we hope this has been helpful and we hope you can tune in again to our next podcast.
00:22:33
Speaker
You've been listening to Walking Free, a production of Grace Ministries International in Marietta, Georgia. For more information, go to our website at gment.org. That's gminc.org.