The courage of, “I can’t deal with these emotions, BUT I will”

I just love the courage of people who go into counselling rooms and bear their heart and soul in the faith that they can grow.  Inevitably, those who find the courage to open up do in fact grow.  God is indeed faithful.

But of course, this can be one of the hardest things to do; to take that first step, to open up, to trust, and to let the words teem out of the mouth.  It’s the overcoming of many fears:

§     “What if I communicate something wrong?” 

§     “What if nothing comes out?” 

§     “What if what I say is rejected; then what?”

§     Etc.

This is something that was vocalised to me recently.  “I can’t deal with these emotions, BUT I will.”  Said through tears of brokenness, this utterance epitomised the state of the person who will most definitely grow.  From a place of nothingness comes the trust to gallantly enter the unknown.

What this is saying is, “BECAUSE these emotions floor me, I MUST do something about them.”  The very thing that disables us is a thing that we must strive to overcome.  It may take a while.  It may even take a miracle.  But faith is the antecedent of miracles!

If a person presses in upon the trigger point, within the safety of a therapeutic relationship, where everything about the relationship is upside — in that there is only gentle encouragement and unconditional acceptance of limits, where the client is in complete control — there WILL be a breakthrough.  There will be breakTHROUGHS.  Plural.  However small the breakthroughs might seem to some, they’re always significant and life-changing for those who have them.

Whenever any of us are honest we identify that we all have a trigger point or three that can manipulate our emotions in a nanosecond.  This is nothing new and it certainly isn’t anything to be fearful of or to be avoided.

But inevitably we do avoid this territory.  We characteristically want the easier way, and this causes us to make a decision for a short-term comfort rather than our long-term benefit.

I often say that the best decisions are hard to make in the short-term, but they inevitably are a blessing in the longer term.  Our worst decisions, on the other hand, are based in wanting the easy way, which inevitably becomes the hard way.

Whenever we cannot deal with our emotions, it’s the best invitation of all to explore it.

This is always best done with another person, because there’s power in finding words for what we often feel are inexpressible things.  Another human being, especially a pastorally gifted person, will not only listen, but they’ll ask poignant questions to unlock what is needed to be known, and they’ll also listen for what’s not being said.  A gifted pastor or counsellor will journey into the unknown with their person being helped, and when both trust the Holy Spirit, miracles of understanding, perception, realisation, revelation and confidence can occur.

If only more people would say, “I can’t deal with these emotions, and because that’s the case, now I WILL.”

Photo by Sergey Shmidt on Unsplash