Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us. Selah

Psalm 62:8

2020. What a year, huh? On this eve of Christmas Eve (lol) :), I wanted to share some wise nuggets I’ve found to be true in life… especially as we walk into a holiday season loaded with emotions, family interactions, hopes and expectations!

I have learned this year (in a very real way) that to talk about an issue is actually the emotionally mature way to deal with life challenges. And the worst way to handle our hearts is to bury an issue.

Those who minimize real hurt and refuse to face it are not more emotionally healthy than those who do. They tend to have buried stuff beneath the surface that they haven’t allowed themselves to process and that manifest in other ways in their lives.

The least healthy reaction to a problem in your life is to bury it. Please know… whatever you refuse to talk about, think about, or face has power over you. It also comes out in other ways.

The Root of Our Addictions (+ Taking Inventory of Yours)

You may have learned from a young age to bury your real feelings & now have a lifelong pattern of running to emotional ‘security blankets’ to self-soothe. We see these in many people’s lives–and we call them addictions.

An obsession with the following is an indication you are emotionally unhealed and compensating elsewhere in your life:

• overworking (not letting yourself rest)
• food/eating and body image
• money
• substances like alcohol, tobacco, or marijuana
• sexual misbehaviors
• shopping
• media (TV/movies, social media, your iPhone, video games…)
• relationships and people-pleasing
• and more

These are all addictions–coping mechanisms/distractions–we may turn to to avoid our feelings and escape our problems.

Instead of living healed and free, many people spend a lifetime running away from pain from childhood or as adults because they never allow themselves to deal with what happened. This isn’t uncommon and it’s not meant to make anyone feel condemnation at all! It’s part of living in a world where ‘many sorrows’ happen, like Jesus predicted they would (but He also promised that He’s overcome the world and thus we can overcome our issues, too, by following His lead!).

It is hard in the moment, but to process your pain–through counseling, talking with trusted people, thinking about things (not ruminating, but acknowledging and accepting past events) and trying to learn from them, praying with God and processing them before Him, praying through painful experiences, and then forgiving the perpetrators– this is the best way to let go of past issues and not relive them in the future (or spend the rest of your days avoiding them).

But if you try to skip straight to forgiving people without accepting what they’ve done to you, you essentially gloss over your pain and fail to acknowledge WHAT IT IS you are forgiving!! You have to come to terms with what happened to you and how you’ve been treated in order to release it to God. I have personally lived the difference and it is crucial you don’t skip this step or minimize what happened in your past.

Many adults, however, don’t allow themselves to do this. They pride themselves on getting over issues quickly, when in reality they don’t get over anything at all–they just avoid their pain & uncomfortable feelings & learn to distract themselves from it all.

Unresolved Pain Always Resurfaces

These feelings always pop up in our lives in other ways. When we refuse to deal with issues head-on, we don’t gain emotional mastery in that area and become unable to have healthy relationships in the places we never allowed our wounds to heal.

You may have heard the saying–You must go back to go forward. This is the truth! What you are avoiding is the very thing you need to FACE in order to grow and be free!!

God has a way of ‘bringing up’ our past to get us to deal with it & rid us of its debilitating effects… but we must cooperate with Him.

What is Your Emotional Age?

In college, I had the incredible experience of attending something called Leadership Summit–where our university’s business college invited a plethora of business leaders to talk about real life experiences and how to succeed, not only in our careers but also in life. It was awesome in many ways and held many life-long nuggets that come back to me from time-to-time.

One of the speakers said this, and I haven’t forgotten it: The age at which a person formed an addiction is the age at which they stopped emotionally maturing.

Wow. That means a 51-year old alcoholic is still inwardly the 16 year old who picked up the bottle to avoid their home life or social rejection. It explains why when triggered by a similar event, people can seem to become toddlers throwing temper tantrums or angry adolescents right before our eyes.

They never allowed themselves to face what was happening in their life because they turned to false comforters. God (our true Comforter) wasn’t given permission to heal their hurts because they never ran to Him with their pain, so they could never mature beyond that point (no matter what age they may be).

In essence, this is idolatry–expecting someone or something else to fill a void in your life that only the Lord was intended to fill! Maybe that’s why “Have no other gods before Me” was His first commandment to us–because He knew what our idols would cost us. Read His words here:

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me.

Exodus 20:2

Do you see the context here? Right before He warns His people to not have idols, He reminds them that He brought them out of past bondage. He seems to be linking the two, as if to say, Do you see the bondage I’ve brought you through in the past? Don’t create more bondage in your life through new idols!

The two seem to be linked! It’s likely that the rest of the 10 Commandments hinge on getting the 1st one right–because if we truly trust Him to meet all our needs, we won’t steal, covet, kill, lie, cheat, dishonor people, or overwork ourselves to try to fill the void in our hearts He alone can fill. Read this part of James 4 to see the connection here. Wow!

He also says this–

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

Galatians 5:1

The Lord sets us free, but we must avoid any ‘yoke’ or attachment to things that enslave us (see this scripture below!):

They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity–for ‘people are slaves to whatever has mastered them.’

1 Peter 2:19

Every Addiction Stems from Lack of Love

In my college years, I read in a book on pain that “Every addiction is rooted in the need to be loved”. This revelation has given me great compassion for people walking through addiction recovery–because they would’ve never formed a dependency if they hadn’t experienced unloving people and relationships in their lives. The strength of their addiction(s) often parallels the depth of pain they’ve lived through.

This is why overcoming addiction can be absolutely excruciating (and why few people are willing to do it)!! Because you aren’t just putting down a bottle; you are opening up many years of bottled emotions you’ve been suppressing through alcohol!

So many addicts relapse because they don’t know this and haven’t learned new, healthy ways to cope with past pain and trauma.

I told my husband this recently: People’s toxic behavior is never without good reason. MANY times, when I’ve been tempted to judge someone’s actions, I remind myself of this. I’ve never walked a mile in their shoes, thus I cannot always understand their pain, but the more I listen to people’s stories, the more I am ASTOUNDED at all they’ve overcome. Their stories–and their reactions to them–ALWAYS make much more sense when you take the time to understand what drove them to their current behaviors.

The problem is when people gloss over listening to people’s hearts and instead shut them down. They don’t want to hear it, often because they don’t deal with their own emotions in a healthy way, so they shut down when people open up about theirs.

This can be further traumatizing to those in deep, unresolved pain and create more issues! I know because this happened to me.

Becoming More Emotionally Healthy & Mature

Going through a very eye-opening course called “Emotionally Healthy Spirituality” (as well as many years of the Lord bringing my heart issues to light), my husband and I learned that we are only as spiritually mature as we are emotionally healthy. We also learned that the healthiest person is one who talks THROUGH their issues. This doesn’t mean they obsess and revisit their hurt feelings for a long time, but that they TAKE THE NECESSARY TIME TO PROCESS THEM.

Many people don’t do this, though, and shut down healthy emotional channels in their lives. Feelings don’t just go away with time (unlike that famous cliche), especially strong ones rooted in painful experiences! You can’t just “choose to focus on the positive” without addressing traumas, abuse and terrible experiences you’ve had. You will NEVER get over it and function in a healthy manner until you do.

At the beginning of “Emotionally Healthy Spirituality”, we all took an assessment: What is your emotional ‘age’ quiz? It was very helpful to see where we were both at and learn better ways to deal with feelings (both old & new) with our small group and the Lord.

Learning NEW, healthy ways to deal with life’s hurts and disappointments (and even traumas) has helped so much. It’s also been greatly opposed by some people in our lives who do NOT want to hear our real experiences/feelings in certain areas and who shut down conversation before it could really get off the ground (thus making real connection between us a challenge).

When you encounter people struggling like this, it’s a signal that they’re ill-equipped to handle your emotions in a healthy way and–unless they seek to change and grow–won’t be an emotionally safe relationship for you (and vice versa). We cannot force people to face reality, accept our past experiences, or understand how they have made us feel.

My Prayer & Desire for You (& All of God’s People!)

My hope and prayer for everyone reading this and EVERY believer is that we all learn healthy emotional coping mechanisms!! I pray we all are able to grow up and mature emotionally because otherwise, our renegade feelings will cripple our ability to be effective for God’s kingdom!

We CANNOT ignore our heart’s condition (or our loved one’s hearts) and expect good fruit!!! This applies to parenthood especially– your children’s ability to thrive in life depends on you being emotionally healthy and teaching THEM the same. Otherwise you will perpetuate your immaturity and cripple them until God has to heal them later in life (if they are willing to surrender to this sometimes painful journey).

You and I will NEVER get over our past truly if we avoid it. WE MUST DEAL WITH IT, or it will deal with us–and everyone we care about! Why? Because of this unavoidable truth:

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.

Proverbs 4:23

Everything you do flows from the heart, so guard it with all diligence. After all, scripture is replete with passages about God seeking after our HEARTS, forgiving people from our HEARTS, all we do and say stemming from our HEARTS. This is truly the “heart” of every matter!

I am someone still healing, learning, and growing, but I am so grateful I’ve been willing to talk through things (not merely ruminate on the past with no resolve!) and then release them through prayer, forgiveness, the kindness and compassion of friends & loved ones, and through safe community.

I’m learning a lot on this journey and don’t pretend to have arrived–nor do I think God expects us to handle our greatest hurts perfectly–but I know I’m becoming much more emotionally aware and healthy (and as a result, spiritually mature).

As I’ve been willing to have hard conversations, face hard truths about people and events in my life, and be honest with God and others (when needed), God has allowed others to minister to me in areas of my brokenness and been faithful to begin healing these wounds.

So He said to the Jews who had believed Him, ‘If you continue in My word, you are truly My disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’

John 8:32

I pray that you, reader, also start to experience this incredible freedom!! And find the power to truly overcome any addictions or unhealthy patterns/dependencies you may have in your life–by learning to acknowledge, accept, process and then *VERY IMPORTANTLY lol* RELEASE your feelings in the safest place ever: With God our Father and with His (safe) people.

This is how we learn to move past our pasts and truly live in the present. It takes emotional and spiritual discipline to do so, but it will yield a beautiful harvest for us and our families if we allow Him to do His work in our hearts!!!

No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields a harvest of righteousness and peace to those who have been trained by it.

Hebrews 12:11

This is how He heals our hearts–one revelation, one honest & genuine conversation, one act of forgiveness, and one emotionally healthy day at a time.

Please know this process takes TIME, especially if you’ve been through severe trauma, abandonment, and pain in your lifetime, but my heart goes out to you– and so does the Lord’s. He sees your pain, HE CARRIED IT and bore it FOR YOU on the cross, and He will give you & I perfect shalom and wholeness in Jesus’ name! Keep pressing in, keep fighting the good fight, and keep pursuing your healing every day. You, your family, and many generations of people will be very blessed if you do–because then you’ll become a healer yourself and be able to live more effectively for His kingdom.

With my voice I cry out to the Lord;
    with my voice I plead for mercy to the Lord.
² I pour out my complaint before Him;
    I tell my trouble before Him.
³ When my spirit faints within me,
    You know my way!
In the path where I walk
    they have hidden a trap for me.
⁴ Look to the right and see:
    there is none who takes notice of me;
no refuge remains to me;
    no one cares for my soul.
⁵ I cry to you, O Lord;
    I say, “You are my refuge,
    my portion in the land of the living.”
⁶ Attend to my cry,
    for I am brought very low!
Deliver me from my persecutors,
    for they are too strong for me!
⁷ Bring me out of prison,
    that I may give thanks to Your name!
The righteous will surround me,
    for You will deal bountifully with me.

Psalm 142