Due to the winter weather, we got to create sacred space online! In case you missed the live broadcast via YouTube, here's the link: https://youtu.be/Ekj2DTfNaUY
We're exploring JOY this week as part of our Fruit of the Spirit series. My own personal attempt to cultivate more joy seems to have backfired. Honestly, I've been feeling pretty depressed the past few days.
The worst part is this: I have been resisting my own sadness, and beating myself up for feeling sad - which makes it worse.
My sadness has been met with confusion, self doubt, and self criticism. There's this super loud voice in my head saying, "You have no reason to be sad! You have a roof over your head, work you love to do, a loving family, cute kittens, and you didn't lose power last week! Quit feeling bad and just focus on what's good, plenty of people are a lot worse off than you!"
We live in a society that disregards our emotional lives because they aren't productive or profitable. There's no way to optimize our emotions or become more efficient at feeling them. Our emotions become problems we need to solve and we can't move on until we've fixed ourselves. Galatians 22 itself has been used to perpetuate rejection of emotion, considering it weakness of "the flesh".
If our emotions aren't problems to solve, what are we supposed to do with them?
Emotions must be felt, validated, and expressed. Then, we must accept ourselves for having the felt the feeling. So my inner monologue changes from "Stop feeling sad" to "I feel sad, and I love and accept myself." God has already accepted us for all our negativity, faults, and failures. Our faith falls short when we don't accept ourselves to the extent that God accepts us.
All of this starts with permission. Give yourself permission to be fully yourself. Give yourself permission to feel joy in the midst of overwhelm. Give yourself permission to feel love in the midst of fear.
Is there an emotion or experience that you haven't accepted? Need a little help with it? Email me and we'll set a time to get together in person or talk over the phone. I'm here for you.