Erin Michele:   hi, this is Erin Michele Welcome to steps to trusting it is my goal here to meet you where you are in your faith journey, and to encourage you to continue to take steps, to trusting the Lord more fully.  

[00:00:21] Erin: Hi, everybody. I’m so glad you’re here with me this morning. Today’s conversation we are going to be discussing if any emotion can actually be a negative emotion to be having.  I’m joined for my conversation today by Emma Woodcock. Emma is a writer and she’s currently pursuing her degree in counseling.

[00:00:39]Emma thank you for joining me this morning.

[00:00:42] Emma: Oh, thank you. Thank you.

[00:00:44]Erin: I was so excited to have this conversation because in this time of COVID, you know, there’s all these emotions that you’re having. And it’s like, is that right for me to feel that way? Or is it right for me to,  I don’t know, be stressed or all these emotions   that feel like negative emotions. Emma, as I was just saying many times the different emotions are viewed as positive or negative, like being stressed out or angry or fearful.

[00:01:11] Do you agree with the assessment and how do you view those emotions?

[00:01:17] Emma: Yeah, I think. That’s a really good question. It’s really thought provoking and I think it’s common terminology that we’ve heard a lot around emotions. Is this positive, negative language. And yes, it gives a really healthy sort of framework that we can use to sort of, give some structure to our thoughts and conversations about it.

[00:01:37]But the flip side is when you talk about something being positive, there is a negative, or if there’s a right, there’s a wrong and it can also make it too black and white. Sometimes, we need to allow.  negative emotions just to be emotion. So they don’t have any mental sort of baggage or guilt or shame that may go with thinking, Oh, I’m angry today.

[00:01:58] I just don’t know why I’m angry. I’m just so riled. And then we’ve got spiraled into guilt and shame with that rather than sort of sitting with the emotion and asking what is it trying to teach us? So what’s helpful to have a framework. We’ve got to be careful too, that we’re not just dismissing it with, familiar vocabulary.

[00:02:16]Erin: I love  saying we don’t want to just dismiss this emotion. Right. And that you mentioned that this emotion has something to teach us. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

[00:02:26] Emma: Yeah, sure. so. When COVID started, I was teaching a group of women Bible studies, things like that. And I could sense that there was the spiraling of emotions. There was so much fear, so much feeling of lack of control. And then, some of them started talking to me, well, I’m a Christian, I’m really not supposed to feel this way.

[00:02:46] And  immediately  that jarred with me. I mean, we’re allowed to feel things. It’s just what we do with those feelings. So yeah, in my experience, these emotions are there to tell us something, to recalibrate us with our core values and our beliefs. So for instance, anger, because I just mentioned anger earlier, anger is a great one because we often think that anger is, a problem when it’s actually there, because there’s an injustice, there’s something that we’ve been caring about that’s gone wrong. And either our boundaries have been violated or something’s happened that we’re not okay with. And so anger is as a result of that. and that we need to sort of sit with it a bit, process that emotion and, and see what  has gone on for us to make us feel angry. And then there’s always, you can go too far and stay in an emotion too long or there’s you could watch out, it could go the other way and you could get into violence and harm with anger, but there is a healthy middle ground.

[00:03:45] That is what I’m sort of advocating women particularly. but anyone, I, I use a lot of this sort of talk with my children. They’re both young boys. and so it’s like, as a parent, I often say it’s okay to feel angry. Something’s happened and you don’t feel that it’s been very fair. Do you want to talk about it? And that’s, I think we need to give that to us permission to ourselves as well.

[00:04:07] Erin: I also think, you know, sometimes we see that it’s an injustice that we are angry about, but sometimes we can look at ourselves and realize like I’m angry because. Maybe I’m being selfish or maybe there’s something in me too that needs to change. Right. And I think that’s been something I’ve, I’ve been struggling through a little bit is  to figure out why do I feel this way?

[00:04:29] And what is the problem? I feel like it brings us to the, this place of choice, like you’re saying, like, do we, what do we do with this emotion? So if I am angry because, I mean, let’s just keep looking at COVID:

[00:04:42] because I’m supposed to have a little bit more time in my life to do different things.

[00:04:47] Right. And so I feel angry and frustrated, and I think it’s at the action of the person in front of me. But the reality of, of it is that I am just not feeling okay with this big change in my life. Right. And so I need to go back and look at that change in my life, but it puts me at this place of choice.

[00:05:08] And I think that’s, that’s one thing that I like to talk a lot about on, on the show, because being at that place of choice, we can take a step of trust or we could take a step a different direction. Right. So, How do you feel about when we find ourselves at that place  asking what do I do with this emotion?

[00:05:27] Can I use it to see somehow that I need to take a step of trust?

[00:05:32] Emma: Yeah, I love that. I think that’s really good. we are presented with a choice with our emotions. We can either blend with it, or we can step away and, have a healthy distance. And then when we stepped away that we can see with a little bit more perspective on perhaps what that choice would look like and steps to trusting.

[00:05:53]Recently I’ve come across a concept called Holy curiosity, which is a little bit about this that you would, you would, you would approach it, thought about this. How does this Holy curiosity, right? There’s this choice I’m facing, how does that align with my relationship with God? My core values and beliefs.

[00:06:10]What I know that scripture says to me about these things. And that would direct your step to trusting or your step in this choice, because you’ve taken it back to alignment with those things that are really important with you. It’s when we try to suppress or push through without doing that work without taking that healthy distance from the emotion and getting that perspective that we sort of find that we’re not making that step to trusting that we’re making that step.

[00:06:36] Maybe that’s more of a step to self, or maybe that’s more of a step to confusion instead.

[00:06:41] Erin Michele: I’ve heard you say before

[00:06:42] Erin: holy curiosity takes us to a Holy framework and you talked about the Holy spirit as well. Would you be able to talk about that a little bit?

[00:06:50] Emma: Yeah. So I think to use, Holy curiosity in a  Holy framework it’s about seeing our emotion as an invitation, into being made whole. Instead of  something that we need to hide away or deal with without maybe being truthful about it. So, for me, that’s bringing it out in front of the Lord because, because he’s my true place and my safe place. So, I’ll bring those emotions out there. And instead of seeing them as something that I should feel shame or guilt about, I sit with it with, with him in a Holy curiosity. and it’s an invitation into being made into the full being that he created me to be. We know we’re very familiar with that passage of, of you’re created in your mother’s room.

[00:07:39] And we tie that in with Genesis and we know we’re made in God’s image and yet part of a fallen world. And that’s part of why we don’t process our emotions that well that’s part of just being part of a broken world. And so when we can sit with it in a Holy framework, asking what God wants us to learn from this. What is the Holy spirit discernment inside of us directing us towards. What is, what is, how does this align with what I know of God’s character throughout scripture? What does, what instances are there in the Bible that Jesus dealt with these things? What was his responses when he came across these sorts of emotions? Those are the frameworks that I’m talking about with the Holy curiosity, that’s sort of the nut shell of  it.

[00:08:22] Erin: Yeah, I love that. And actually, would you be able to tell us a little bit more about, I know you’ve done some research about, how would Jesus feel these emotions and react to these emotions? I’d love to hear more about that.

[00:08:34] Emma: Yeah, sure. Well, I love stories. And so for me, one of the ways that helps me keep engaged with scripture reading my Bible is to see it in the story aspect more than. Maybe, I think I was really brought up in a way that sort of saw it as just a book from the Bible. But as I’ve got older and I found the stories that you realize that a lot of the characters in the Bible were humans and that Jesus, he, is the savior of the world, but at the same time did have emotions.

[00:09:04] So, you know, we’ve got those, examples of where he wept in John chapter 11, Jesus wept . Two little words that just completely break my heart. Cause he was, he felt so much for Mary, Martha, Lazarus and the people of that family. And for me, I like to read scripture as a whole.

[00:09:21] So how does Jesus wept, fit with the rest of scripture. And I’m taken towards Isaiah where the prophet Isaiah reveals that the man of sorrows in and through reading the man of sorrows. And I think it’s chapter 53, forgive me if I’m wrong. but when you read through that, painting this picture of the Messiah, who’s coming to save the world, which we know is Jesus.

[00:09:44] Then you. He’s acquainted with grief, he’s acquainted with sorrow, and that fits with the whole expression that Jesus wept  . And so that they can and tie in, Jesus isn’t experiencing his emotions out of alignment with the rest of scripture. In fact that they’re showing him his capacity to be fully human and fully God, and also to relate to us so that we don’t have to have shame when we’re feeling the full impact of grief or sorrow ourselves.

[00:10:11] Then to sit with angry, what we’ve got that very famous story of Jesus, getting angry at the temple. And, that’s in Matthew 21 when he’s goes to the temple and he sees his father’s house, being, not used, not as a house of prayer, but as, a marketplace. And he gets very angry. And the thing that’s  struck me when I was teaching through that story a couple of years ago was Jesus wasn’t reactionary then.

[00:10:36] He, when we read the text and look at the details and spend some times in it, he goes away and he makes a whip, which if we know any details, it was like a platin technique to make a whip. And then he comes back and he sort of cracks the rip at the table and, you know, frightened for people. So he is considered in his actions and his anger.

[00:10:57] And so there’s no judgment or shame around anger. It’s, it’s what we do with it. Like it’s our choice. So if we’re reactionary and just being explosive, that’s only operating from a sort of selfish place, but when we can consider what out anger is about, like in Jesus example. Is this an injustice? Is this doing dishonor to, to someone I love? And we consider it. Then we can react in a way that is  more intentional and helpful for the situation rather than explosive and causing more damage to other than the, in the scene.

[00:11:29] If you know what I mean. So those would be my top two examples.

[00:11:34]Erin: I know you, you use what you have learned about emotions to help people to teach the Bible. but you also had shared with me that, that this was something that you. I got to experience how,  over-reactive emotions were really hard.

[00:11:50] Would you share a little bit about that with us and how you felt when you were on the reactive and of those emotions?

[00:11:58] Emma: Sure. So, obviously your listeners, you guys listening today will hear that my accent is not the same as Erin. So I’m from Melbourne Australia and, I’ve had a pretty multicultural upbringing. My parents were missionaries. I was actually born in New Zealand and  When I was four years old.

[00:12:15]We moved to the Philippines and my parents were missionary there. Yeah. But that’s a pressure cooker pot of a situation to be in when you’re a young family,  in a new culture. Very little support structures in place. So, it was very hard on my parents’ marriage at that time. And we were there for eight years.

[00:12:36] So we were 12 when we came back to Australia to try and resettle. And this was- I’m giving away my age, but it was, you know, back in that early nineties. And,  there was very little time talk about reentry or support around that for missionaries and their families coming back into a very privileged culture from those sorts of areas. So again, that’s more pressure and stress on top of relationships. So not only was it upon my parents relationship together in their marriage, but it was also upon the dynamics between parent and child and sibling to siblings. So there was a lot of tensions in our family at that time.

[00:13:14] And unfortunately my parents’ marriage couldn’t sustain the pressure. They we’re quite reactionary people. So  as my brothers and I, I watched our family unit change and crumble from what we knew it and become single parent or family or divorced family. We were often, sort of aware  of quite, you know, loud arguments or that sort of thing happening in our family home.

[00:13:39] And so I think that was the beginning of my journey of wondering about emotions, how they affect us.   I was pretty young then, so I probably ignored a lot of it, but as I’ve got later in life and I saw some of the tendencies coming out me when I had different situations when I was afraid or when I didn’t want to admit truth.

[00:13:58]And the coping method mechanisms that I innately went to or had picked up. and I realized that they weren’t actually helping me keep friends or they weren’t helping me, live a healthy lifestyle. And I sort of started the journey of exploring that. So I was probably, yeah, towards my early twenties when I started down that, that path of exploring that a little bit more.

[00:14:22]Erin:  Thank you for sharing  about your family.  When you look back at that path of trying to explore what healthy emotions look like or what maybe even feeling again, a negative like air quotes, emotion, right?

[00:14:38]But feeling a negative emotion, but letting it still have a positive effect in your life.   How would you describe those steps of getting on that path and walking towards honoring God with your emotions?

[00:14:53]Emma: Yeah, that was a big, big journey because it did start  in my sort of late teenage, early 20 years, it did start with a lot of denial. It looked to the start of the journey, looked like maybe the faith for me looked like, not coping with or acknowledging God, as part of it. I had to do some work on my faith before I could start working on my emotions, but it was sort of, they were sort of the same journey because as I came towards faith, I could see that the path I had been on and who I was needed transforming. I think it, it, Paul who writes of that, isn’t it?

[00:15:31] The transforming and the renewing of our minds is what happens in Christ.  So I guess it was a matter of like working through that denial or that sort of bitterness that I felt for God for a while. And then once I had. Processed that a little bit, it was more about, noticing my responses to emotions by bringing my awareness to it. So instead of, instead of just accepting that I’m going to respond to this with a very stressful way,  I started to be aware of it.

[00:16:03] That was the first step. I think you have to live a little, a bit more intentionally to notice those. and then I, I’m a big fan. I’m a writer, so I’m a big fan of journal. And so then I started describing them. I made a little note that when I felt something, when I felt out of my comfort zone, when I felt, that I was being envious towards someone else, when I felt that I was stressed, when I felt that I was lonely anything, I would start writing it out.

[00:16:32] I would start describing it. And then before dismissing it, because that’s not healthy to dismiss it, I would spend some time just allowing it well, after I wrote it down, I would a resolve to make a decision about what I’m going to do next, which is hard for me, I’m a very problem solving kind of action person.

[00:16:52] So that was a very difficult and still live difficult to me at sometimes is to, to allow that emotion to be there. Right. It’s okay. I’m not going to have it here for too long, but I’m just going to allow it to be here for a few minutes to get comfortable with it. and then, yeah, and that process of accepting that, that is what I am feeling. And then once you’ve accepted that you’re a much healthier place  to move forward and to make decisions from it. When, when you first, then when you first feel it .

[00:17:22]Erin: I think allowing the emotion is so important, even though it’s outside of our comfort zone often,  but just because you won’t allow yourself to feel and deal with emotion, doesn’t mean it will go away. Right

[00:17:36] Emma: no. I think, you know, when we shove something down or, or the opposite, we can either shut something down and re repress it. We can do the extreme it opposite is replace it with false. Happiness or false or, you know, I think the term that’s very popular on media right now is toxic positivity where it’s so over the top, bubbly, happy that it’s so fake that no one’s sort of resonating or buying into it because it’s, it’s another form of denial.

[00:18:03] So you can either oppress repress it or then, you know, go the other way and make it happy in either of those sort of things  still let shame sort of sneak its little shadow or you felt it there and sit with us like. You know, you’re only pretending to be happy. There’s some shame in you that you haven’t dealt with and it sits there and invested enough and makes us well, essentially it makes us believe in things that aren’t true.

[00:18:29] If we go back to sort of storytelling it, shame likes to prey on the part of the story that we haven’t brought to light. If that makes sense. Yeah,  it fills in the blanks of the story that we never let be witnessed by anyone else. And that’s where shamed that. So, I think to deal with shame, we often have to let God into those places.

[00:18:52] Or if we have a trusted friend, who is a wise and discerning person, we have to let them into those places as well.

[00:19:01]Erin: I agree community and bring things in into the light, is so helpful to deal with those emotions.

[00:19:08]Are there any specific verses, that help you to understand guilt and shame in this way.

[00:19:15] Emma: Oh, that’s a good question. The most pivotal, verse to me about around this area is how we renew our minds and are transformed in Christ, but that doesn’t speak directly to shame, but I feel like that when we’re renewed in Christ, that shame is no longer there, you know?

[00:19:33] Yeah.

[00:19:34] Guilt is like a really healthy response and a clue there as being a misalignment in our lives.

[00:19:40] When we’ve behaved in a way that’s not according to our values. And shame, if it’s more about focusing on self and it’s often our response to feeling like you’ve been oppressed or that you haven’t been given the freedom to be who you are and that you’re not good enough. It’s hard to imagine something that’s uncomfortable or painful being a tool that God could potentially use in our lives. But I think he, he can, like, I think we’re trying to box God in and he’s so much bigger than that. So I do think that, sometimes if we’re feeling shame or guilt , there’s a nudge there.

[00:20:22] For us to acknowledge,  to recognize what’s going on.

[00:20:26] That’s making a think we’re not good enough let God into that and he can heal that.

[00:20:30]Erin: I love this reminder. I love how you’re saying that we can let God into where we’re feeling guilt and shame, but I also love  what you’re saying, that there is a need to let him in. There is this need to turn back to the Lord, right? That we should allow the guilt and the shame to nudge us back towards the Lord, because.

[00:20:53]When sin happens the conviction that happens  that need to turn back to the Lord, that’s there. Right. And that’s right. And that’s good. Okay. That’s part of the Holy framework of us dealing with how we’re feeling. And so we should feel bad or we should feel guilty about that, but that moment gives us the choice of, okay. I feel bad about that. I yelled at my kids. What do I do now? Do I keep yelling or do I tell them , well, I yelled  because you were bad and  put it on them. Or do I actually take the road of seeking the Lord, that humble road of saying   guys, I messed up and we’re going to mess up.

[00:21:32] And I’m so sorry right. Taking that other road. but yet, when I think of shame  I think of sitting in that I’m such a bad mom, because I did this thing right. Instead of actually having a healthy moment where I, I see that it’s wrong and I deal with it.

[00:21:50] And I say  I’m not going to sit in shame. I’m going to ask my kids to forgive me. And I’m going to ask the Lord to forgive me.

[00:21:57] And so I think actually, even part of that conversation, or  part of the things you were saying is, is how we view those words.  For me, the shame is the, is the, Like you said it is different than guilt.

[00:22:11] Guilt is when I know I did something wrong and I can do something about it. shame is  condemning. Shame is when I just feel like I’m terrible or  bad. Would you agree with those, definitions?

[00:22:26]Emma: I would, I really think that’s really insightful, Erin. Yeah, I think it’s much more sort of behavior and action focused. Whereas shame is much more personal and intense, personal feeling. And I think that’s why shame is a bit harder to deal with in a way, because it’s so intensely personal to us.

[00:22:44] We don’t want to bring it to the light. We don’t want to admit that we might be. and I guess that’s where reframing as, would comes really helpful into our thoughts. We could guilt would say, I feel really bad that I didn’t attend that process, but shame would say, I am so lazy and worthless because I didn’t attend that process.

[00:23:04] When reality is one decision does not determine your worth, you know, and so we need to sort of get to that point where we’re reframing, each day, like, so instead of going I’m lazy and worthless, or you can say, I feel bad, I didn’t attend that and stop, and don’t go to shame, right. That, reframe it to say, you know, there will be another opportunity or I can help the cause in this way instead.

[00:23:29]I’m not defined by one decision in my lifetime because I think too, we can. I feel so much about one simple thing. When we, we don’t hold that in perspective and see that there will be more opportunities. God is a God of opportunities. He keeps on giving.  We just have to look through the old Testament, see how many opportunities he gave to the Israelites. You know, over and over again, come back to me, come back to me.

[00:23:52] And they worked for a little while, and then they, you know, not for very long to before they were tempted that to their. Worshiping other gods and their, you know, comfortable ways and he still gave them opportunities. And I think if we just keep that now mind that, you know, I yelled at my kids today that does not define me. I will have opportunities to respond, but tomorrow or whatever, that reframing gives us so much freedom from shame, as well.

[00:24:19] Where else do you see guidance regarding emotions in the Bible?

[00:24:23]Emma: Philippians four, six to seven. stand out to me. ” do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation. By prayer and petition with Thanksgiving, present your request to God.”

[00:24:34] I actually see that too, about our emotions and how we can bring them to God and that home Holy framework, or that Holy curiosity we’ve been speaking about. So I do think, that there are some. Why not explicit and direct, like with the word emotions in it, there is a lot of context in the Bible that directs that.

[00:24:55] So that would be one that I would, understand this sort of thing. You know, you are going to feel anxious. You are going to feel many emotions in life, but bring them to God. He understands he’s going to work. You know, he’s going to work with us in managing that.

[00:25:10]  Erin: As you were talking before you had mentioned, something about the lie that we start believing,  when it turns from  guilt then to  going into shame, feeling . like,

[00:25:22] I’m not worth anything. When you get to that lie I think shame speaks that lie over us. many lives over us. What do you feel like we do in those type of moments to deal with our emotions in a healthy manner?

[00:25:37] Emma: So what do you do,  as in, how do you process that or.

[00:25:41] Erin: I guess, I was just thinking so much about, a time for me in particular,  where I might feel an emotion. I’ve used this example with some friends before.  I introduced two friends and I was at one of my friend’s house and I saw on the refrigerator that they were getting together on her,  calendar, not on purpose, I just glanced.

[00:26:04] And I’m like, Oh, they’re getting together. And I wasn’t invited. Right. And so my first reaction, my first negative feeling is I’m left out. They don’t like me. Right. You know, it goes down, it can go down this road. And so, I don’t know. I just think of  when I stand in , that moment there’s different paths I can take.

[00:26:23] And one of them is  the path  of seeking out or going into shame, starting to feel like, kind of, Rollercoaster down from  this truth of like, okay, I wasn’t invited to, they don’t like me. I am not a good friend or whatever, but instead in that moment to preach truth over the lies that are coming right.

[00:26:44] And sometimes that looks like just being like. You introduce them because you thought they would get along and they’re getting along.  That’s wonderful. Right?  I can preach that truth over myself,  but also to preach the truth over that, them getting together without me doesn’t mean that I’m any less.

[00:27:02] It doesn’t mean that they’re not my friends anymore or whatever. And I think there’s so many truths. That we just need to preach over ourselves that we need to go to God’s word and we need to look at and say, okay, I’m feeling this way. What’s the lie that I’m believing. And what’s the truth that God’s word speaks to this situation.

[00:27:25] And I think so much  like you said, the Bible says it’s , do not be anxious. And that is like, bring your anxieties to the Lord, bring the things you’re worried about. And the emotions are feeling to the Lord, but there’s also all those truths, although they don’t say emotion, like you’re saying they speak to our emotions.

[00:27:44]Because there’s a fullness that knowing who God says we are brings to, how we deal with those emotions. And there’s a fullness to even you were discussing about  knowing God’s character in the beginning of the conversation.  Knowing God’s character and applying the truth of , his character also speaks to my emotions, right.

[00:28:04] Instead of, Instead of the lie that I could let myself believe and  spiraling with my emotions. I’ve heard you say it as blending with the emotion,

[00:28:13] right? Yeah.

[00:28:15]Emma: Yeah, I get what you’re saying. I agree. I think, you know, there are so many choices that we make in the moment that are part of, sort of a negative thought pattern that we’ve established for. So, and this is partly the societal structure that we’ve been brought up with,

[00:28:32]but this is all sorts of influences. Have we had a relationship, you know, as a teenager, that’s hurt us. Then that will form go and reinforce that sort of negative thought pathway that’s already existing in our brain. And the more time we use that, the more, it gets entrenched into our brain pattern waves and our brain is wired to, I sort of go the most comfortable way.

[00:28:54] It doesn’t want to seek out a new path it wants to go with, what’s known. So that’s. why we keep going to those thoughts? And honestly, sometimes  in the moment we get such a shock that we can’t do a very good job of processing, that right then and there, while you’re still looking at your friend’s fridge. We have to admit there’s shock.

[00:29:16]I think most of us can relate to having a similar experience to that Erin. And, I don’t know about you, but if I was in that situation, which I have been. I don’t address it because I don’t really like confrontation, so I’ll go home. And then that’s when the spiral of thoughts comes when I’m home and I’m alone.

[00:29:34] I think if we know that that’s our pattern, then that’s the first step into. What we can do with our choices. I think too, if we speak the truth of God and his promises over us, and we know that we have the Holy spirit indwelling in that with time and with practice, we can rewrite those pathways in our brains to go, Oh, that’s a surprise.  I am shocked by this, but it doesn’t mean lessen my worth, but it’s not going to happen overnight. You know? Cause you are then sort of making new, new pathways in your brain and you, and it doesn’t happen just one time. You have to repeat that over and over until it says worn and comfortable for your brain to choose as your old pathway.  That’s all part of the  process of reframing our thoughts. And for me, that’s part of what renewing our minds is, is choosing. And working from our minds, being conformed to the old patterns, to being renewed or reframed into thoughts that belong to Christ or reframed into thoughts of, I am a child of God.

[00:30:38] I am chosen and daily love, okay. I’m a citizen of heaven or, you know, there are, you know, short phrases that we could equip ourselves with. So when we’re in that hurt, we can repeat them over like a little mantra, like a little breath prayer almost.  You could, inhale “I am a child of God” and breathe out. “He will keep me safe.”  There’s resources like this on my website, but there’s plenty of them out there as well. but you could just have one of those at hand and for those situations that shock you. and that would be the start. Starting of reframing.

[00:31:13] And then when you get home, instead of spiraling and sitting and thinking about it, you can journal about it. Or bring someone into that.

[00:31:21] So you’re not hiding away in that hurt on your own, and allow it. You know, it will probably take a few days but when we’ve got the promises of who God says, we are over who the world says we are, we are at a more balanced place to make  a decision about what I’m going to do next it’s not emotionally reactive.

[00:31:39]What I often teach in my Bible studies is that emotion are not to rule us. They let us experience life. They enhance life, but they don’t rule us. Or we set our ship to sail by them.  I think for me, if I’m studying counseling in a very secular world,  such a part of our healing  to step into the fullness  that God created you to be,   to allow that emotion to be there it’s not going against who you made to be. These emotions are there to tell us something, to recalibrate us with our core values and our beliefs. It’s actually stepping into that and fullness and, and confidence and knowing those things and these aren’t apart from God they are with God.

[00:32:23]Erin: Am  I really love that. And I’m not sure that I’ve thought about it in that way before that emotions are not apart from God, but actually a gift  from him. So as we close here, I just want to take a quick moment to kind of repeat back what you’re saying and tie it together with what we’ve been talking about in this conversation. So we don’t quickly forget.

[00:32:46] God has given us emotions. Emotions are not apart from God, but they are something that he has given to us for a purpose.

[00:32:54] Emotions are there to help us see something that God has put in us. To help us recalibrate our core beliefs and values. Emotions are not negative or positive, but purposeful their purpose is to help bring us to a moment of choice. So how will we treat our emotions?

[00:33:15]Will we let our emotions rule us or will we step back and see how we can use our emotions to trust God more fully?

[00:33:25] I’m so glad we could have this conversation and thank you for helping us think through this and learn a little bit more  about our emotions. And now as we close Emma, I was wondering, would you be willing to close us in prayer.

[00:33:39] Emma: For sure.  Lord, do you a thank you for this opportunity to have this conversation together, even though we’re on opposite sides of the world and opposite sides of the day, we just thank you that we can come together in community beyond borders, and we can learn more of who you are and what you want to teach us for our lives.

[00:34:02]I lift up the conversation here. And lift up the work that Erin is doing through this podcast. And I lift up her listeners before and I asked that, these conversations may be a blessing and a help and a tool  to your people, Lord Jesus and your name. We pray. Amen.

[00:34:18] Erin: Emma. I know that we just scratch the surface of all the resources that you have.

[00:34:25] So, can you tell me a little bit where we can find these resources, that we can connect with you and we can continue to learn about how to use our emotions, in a positive manner.

[00:34:39] Emma: Sure you can find me on Instagram at EmmaWoodcockwrites all one word Emma Woodcock writes, or, my website, which is www.EmmaWoodcock, which is  www.Emma woodcock.com. You can find me there too.

[00:35:01]So, On my website, I have a quick little download that you can get of what could be behind your emotions. Emotions what they can teach us. I have, thoughts are not fact worksheet, which you can check through, just a little tool that you can use to, step back from your thoughts a little bit, and I have breath Prayers. But also, as far as if you’re on Instagram, then look at, Alison cook.

[00:35:28] She’s  a Christian psychologist. Who’s doing some wonderful work, particularly about boundaries, but her work does crossover and talk about emotions a lot. Her Instagram handle is Alison cook PhD. So she’s really one that I go to a lot for understanding some of this stuff I’m a bit further on.  She’s really useful to follow.

[00:35:47] Erin: Guys. I’m going to put all the links in the show notes. You can also reach out and find me on Instagram and Facebook.

[00:35:53] @steps to trusting where I would love to continue this conversation with you. While you are in the show notes, don’t forget to check out the journaling questions included there to help you process this information in a more personal way.

[00:36:06] And if you miss those the season, there are  questions with each of the episodes to help you process.

[00:36:12]  My five-day journaling resource is also linked there and that comes free when you sign up for my newsletter.

[00:36:19] Erin Michele: That resource  is designed specifically with questions 

[00:36:22] Erin: to help you look at scripture and consider what is my next obedient step based on the scripture

[00:36:28] I know Emma has a lot of resources, even just on her Instagram page and  Instagram,  TV.   She has a great one up on there about how to accept our emotions, as well as so many other great resources.

[00:36:42] Emma, thank you so much for joining me today and to our listeners. Thank you so much. I pray that you were blessed by Emma’s encouragement about looking at our emotions, allowing them, feeling them, and then deciding what to do with them. I pray that when you find yourself in those moments of choice that you would see God’s leading, that you would hear his still voice.  That you would think of a scripture that reminds you the character of who God is and what he has to say about you.

[00:37:14] I hope you join us back here next time  for our last show of the season, where we will be talking about renewing your mind and looking forward just a little bit to see what season two has in store.

[00:37:24] Until then I want to leave you with this reminder from Ephesians two 10 for we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Friends. I’m praying for you as you keep on stepping.