This Good Word, Episode 61: Emotion (ShowNotes)
This week, I talked about emotion.I talked about the role that expressing or repressing emotion plays in our overall health and wholeness. I talked about learning to recognize emotion without judging it, and making room to express it without demeaning anybody, especially yourself. I love what Richard Rohr writes about emotion:
We must go through the stages of feeling, not only in the last death of anything but all the earlier little deaths. If we abort these emotional stages by easy answers, all they do is take a deeper form of disguises and come out in another way. So many people learn that the hard way - by suffering from ulcers or depression, finding themselves victim to chronic irritability or misdirected anger, or by succumbing to all sorts of psychosomatic illnesses - because they refuse to let their emotions run their course, honor them consciously, or find some appropriate place to share them. Emotions are not right or wrong, good or bad. They are merely indicators of what is happening, and must be listened to, usually in the body. People who do not feel deeply finally do not know or love deeply either.
- Richard Rohr, Yes And...Daily Meditations
I told a story about my sweet 7 year old son Ben, and about what I learned from him about expressing emotion. I talked about the time that Jesus said that he's on your side when you express that which is deep inside of you. I talked about the state of our culture, how anger and fear can be overcome by love and vulnerability.It was a good one. Enjoy. Click here if you don't see the media player below.
My work:
Register now for Genderfull, a one day retreat in St. Paul designed to be "a different kind of conversation about masculinity and femininity and how to find fullness - yours and God's - beyond the binaries," hosted by Erin Lane and Steve Wiens. Click here for more details. Enter the coupon code THISGOODWORD to receive 25% off of your ticket!I host a weekly podcast. I wrote a book. I have a website. I am the pastor at a great little church. I am sometimes available to travel to hang with your tribe to help you all become more you. And yes, I do Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Oh, and if you’d like to stay up to date with my writing and events and such, you can subscribe to my email list. There. We’re all caught up.