How to Navigate Seasons of Emotions

“If the fear of feeling emotion has shut you down, silently killing you from the inside out, God has some answers for you.”

By Guest Contributor Lisa Donohue, CLC

Friday nights in junior high year were the highlight of my week. My friends and I piled into our parents’ cars, so crammed into the backseat we sat lap on lap to the rink ten miles west of town. Our conversations, unrelenting.

I remember learning how to shoot-the-duck and skate backwards. When the lights dimmed and the spinning disco ball changed colors, the DJ would announce, “couple skate.” Rustic speakers cough out the riff to Precious and Few and we waited intently while holding our breath.

Oh, so many emotions. Scared. Embarrassed. Curious. Undone. Courageous. Hopeful. Lonely. Excited. Miserable. How could we possibly experience so many emotions at the same time?

The overwhelming need to relive the experience fueled our conversations through the early hours of the morning and the inevitable sleep over which never be labeled “sleep” over.  We’d roll on the floor erupting in laughter then ten minutes later weep over conversations that never happened.

Emotions seemed easy then. More than just easy, they felt easily acceptable and familiar. As the years rolled on, life had a way of coloring its presence in hues of unsettling, disheveled circumstances and emotions grew easier to suppress than express.  But suppressed grief robs one of equally abundant joy, and anger left in the crevasses of the soul can emerge as depression smothered in bitterness.

Every season of life, perhaps every minute of every season of life, contains within the heart revealing layers of emotion.

These emotions make visible the needs of the soul, the source of joy and pain, acceptance, relationship, connection, honor, and care. As weary and wounded adults, understanding this vulnerability explains why it’s so difficult to let your emotions be seen, and perhaps why adults of my generation and previous generations, grew to live comfortably numb.

Did God really know what he was doing when he created us with such extreme propensity for both joy and pain?

Only through Scripture do we learn to comprehend that for one to experience the fullness of emotion is to experience the fullness of Christ, the exact nature of God. And God does not hold back.  Ecclesiastes reveals an extensive list of seasons for emotion. 

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance…Ecclesiastes 3:1-4.

He is the heartbeat in our emotion, allowing us the discovery of our deep desires and ultimately place of refuge.

Here there is no coping or hiding, just being and fully living. To breed life into each day, learn to wake up in each season of emotion.

Wake Up to Seasons of Emotion

Identify the Present Season – Actually Name it

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens… Ecclesiastes 3:1-4.

In its most basic sense, Fall is just a breath away; a spiritual reminder of God’s glory on display and covenantal promises undelayed. Logistically it’s a time to resettle the nest and prepare for winter. It may be time to purge closets or buy a new fall coat. Emotionally, it may reveal milestone celebrations or the loss of a loved one. Using a journal or simple notebook, begin to document the many seasons you might be experiencing. Following are a few questions to get started.

• What season(s) of life are you currently experiencing?

• What changes are occurring in your life today that are seasonal in nature?

• How do you experience Fall?

• Who or what does it remind you of?

• Which fall scent brings you great comfort, why?

The AND Emotion Enhancer

Who put the conditions and boundaries on emotions? Life has never been confined to either/or emotions yet it’s easy to feel that if you give into one emotion, such as anger or sadness, you’ll get stuck there forever. God won’t let that happen. Glancing through Ecclesiastes, he reveals time not by a clock but by seasons of emotion……a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance…Ecclesiastes 3:1-4.

Funerals are a beautiful example of seasoned emotions, all felt in one day. Together in the sadness, tears honor our loved one. Compassion and consolation heal the tender places. Laughter brings reconciliation to the distant family. Weddings, too, take AND to another level. Joy and sadness, joining together and letting go, anger and forgiveness, fear and excitement.

Children begin their first day of school with excitement and fear. Within a nanosecond, their parents experience some combination of joy and sadness, anxiousness and fear, frustration, thankfulness, and despair.

AND is such a gift to the emotionally fearful or apprehensive.

Looking back to your “Season of” journaling, can you identify one or two seemingly conflicting emotions with each? If it’s frustrating getting started, that’s normal. To help, you might consider using music from your childhood or songs with unique memories. You might also consider seeking care from someone credentialed in asking deeply kind questions.

Will It Hurt?

CS Lewis, in his book The Great Divorce, wrote “That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, “No future bliss can make up for it” not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory.”

Life this side of heaven is hard. But emotions left untapped leave hope on the table. If the fear of feeling emotion has shut you down, silently killing you from the inside out, God answers with …we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame. Romans 5.

It’s not easy, it might hurt for a little bit. But healing, even joy, comes through acknowledging and validating emotions.

1. Allow yourself to close your eyes for a moment.

2. Take a few deep belly breaths while you tune into your body.

3. Notice any tightness, pain, or restriction in your body.

4. Tune into the physical sensation you noticed. Most of the time it has a feeling attached.

Allowing yourself to acknowledge the feelings you picked up on such as “sad”, “anxious”, “afraid”, “misunderstood”, will make room for joy as those uncomfortable feelings release.

When we can name and accept the feelings we carry, they no longer rule us (consciously or subconsciously). We feel freed up to welcome whatever comes our way.

Seasons of life bring seasons of emotions, breathing genuine life into our life.

If you can’t remember the last time your head rolled back with delight, you might try recalling the last time you were significantly hurt but pushed it down. It may be time for a new season and a new way to live.  

In the simplest sense, I remember what took us back to the roller rink every Friday night. It wasn’t the sadness, for the tears had come and gone. It was the joy we anticipated!  

Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy!

Psalm 126:5

Lisa Donohue is author of Soul Rest, speaker, and AACC Certified Life Coach at Stonewashed LLC in Birmingham, Alabama.

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