Do you know what the worst part was about shutting down my emotions for such a long time?  It was the fear of encountering something that would trigger me and make me feel those emotions involuntarily.  You see, the emotions never actually went anywhere – they were always there beneath the surface, just strictly controlled by my environment and my logical way of talking myself out of feeling things.

So I swapped out feeling those painful, sad emotions, but they were replaced with fear and anxiety that they could rise up, despite my best efforts.   I tried to look like I was in control, but I knew the truth.  Hearing just a few bars of a country song would throw me into a panic.  Those sad songs of lost love just cut through every defense I have and make me suffer.  I would literally walk out of a room where it was playing, or change the station.

Not until I faced what I was afraid of could I be truly free of the fear.  And not until I faced the emotions I feared could I see the truth of what had actually happened with every person involved.  The enemy had gotten me to believe a devastating lie, and as long as I buried those emotions and thoughts, I also buried any chance to learn the truth and be set free.  As long as they stayed buried, the enemy had me. But once I unearthed them, the battle was over. It was like the light breaking through after being in a long, dark, stale, smothering tunnel. I felt a cool breeze and it smelled like freedom.

Today is nothing like it was at the time of these events years ago. My husband truly does love me.  I now understand that my temperament looks for rejection, and I am always able to find it when I look for it. My husband is not naturally affectionate, nor was he trained to be that way.  He does not compliment me – but he says he also feels uncomfortable receiving compliments.  He doesn’t want to have intimate, deep conversations discussing dreams and goals and plans and take time to explain our differing opinions.

So the things that speak “love” to me are not within his natural language, and what speaks “love” to him is not natural to me.  He just wants me to sit in his presence without being distracted by any other task or people. He wants my full attention, even if it is only directed at a tv screen we are both watching. To me, interaction and compliments are love, so I just always felt rejected by the silence. He also has a habit of making it clear that I annoy the crap out of him pretty often, which always seems to speak confirmation to me that no one will ever want me, but my reaction to that is my defensiveness to making mistakes and not doing everything perfectly (a weakness in my inborn God-given temperament).

The reality is that my husband loves me as much as he can love any person alive.   He had been closed up like I had been, because I hadn’t even tried to meet his needs because he wasn’t meeting mine.  It was a stalemate type of problem, one which I was in the position to change. It was time to clear the board of the playing pieces and reset the game.  It was time to feel emotions, good and bad, so I could be loving and empathetic, even if I never had all of my needs met in that relationship.

In addition, God did something marvelous. He gave me a tender heart as in Ezekiel 36:26.  The New International Version says it this way:

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

But I like the New Living Translation much better, as it describes my experience more accurately:

And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart.

Tender, responsive heart. I can feel and empathize with others now.  Most importantly to me, I FEEL my love for my husband.  I went to bed that night whispering over and over to him (while he was sleeping) how much I loved him – and I really felt it when I said it this time.  The stony heart was broken open.

I know I have stuffed emotions regarding other people as well, and I will need to process each of those, one by one.  However, I am willing to trust God’s wisdom and power in my life to enable me to continue down this path and experience all of my emotions.  Jesus wept, he expressed righteous anger, he laughed and made jokes.  I want to be free to be exactly who and how God created me to be, emotions and all.

Are you ready to be exactly who and how God created you to be, emotions and all?  If so, I challenge you to pray and prepare yourself for turning the faucet handle.

RESET ASSIGNMENT:

• Find a time and place when you will not be interrupted.
• Pray and ask Jesus to come and be with you in that room as you go through this process.  Close your eyes and wait until you see Him enter the room.
• Ask the Holy Spirit to help you access your emotions and release them.
• Write down the things you avoid thinking about.
• If it helps, put on some music that you know evokes your emotions, only this time, don’t stifle them.  Allow yourself to go there.
• Now, go over each of the things that are uncomfortable to think about and feel, one by one.  If you need to, ask Jesus to sit beside you, or to hold you, as you do this.
• Feel and process each item as far as you can. If you need to skip one for now, that’s ok.  You can come back another day.  The point is breaking the cycle of ignoring and avoiding, and discovering for yourself that the emotions won’t kill you.
• When you are done for this session, thank the Father for your emotions, thank Jesus for being there with you, and the Holy Spirit for helping you access your emotions.
• If you have more to process, set up an appointment with yourself in the future to complete the process.

I trust that the Holy Spirit is guiding and leading you right now, and wants to heal you in this area.  That is why you have gotten through to this point in the writing.  Now, let Him prove to you that He is trustworthy, remind yourself that you can trust Him, and be healed in Jesus’ name.