Many of the clients I work with describe a challenge with accessing their emotions. There can be many reasons for this: how they were parented, trauma they experienced, broad cultural expectations thrust upon them, norms in their peer groups, medications that blunt emotions, personality types, mental health disorders, and more. However, from a clinical and biblical perspective, emotions are good. They are the taste buds allowing us to savor the deliciousness of life. Even the bitter sting of loss, the sour notes of anger, the salt of sadness can be elements of a masterpiece far more delightful than pure sweetness.
Consider how a person’s tastes develop. Children comprehend and crave pure sweetness as the pinnacle of flavor, but as they mature, they grow more nuanced, more thoughtful about flavor. They can notice and even enjoy umami, saltiness, spice, sour, bitterness. They can consider many different elements all at once, finding beauty in each individually, as well as a greater appreciation of their interplay and harmony when they together compose a dish.
Emotions are much the same. As children, we crave sweetness, love, play, positivity — and that is all we appreciate. In the healthy course of maturation, however, a person comes to understand the inevitability of hardship. We can even reach a place of gratitude for difficulty, understanding that what is beautiful is sometimes made so by contrast. As salt is used to bring out the sweetness of baked goods, so does God use difficulty in our lives to deepen our enjoyment of and thankfulness for our many blessings, meanwhile nourishing us for growth.
Have you ever noticed how some bites take your senses on a journey? You notice first the appearance: colors, sheen, plating. Then the aroma, foreshadowing the delight to come. The first pillowy touch caresses your tongue, then you taste the crystalline sugar. Soon afterward, the tangy, acidic filling, punctuated with a delightful crunch. Vanilla notes sing a melody overhead as you swallow, the heat of cinnamon echoing on your breath. A buttery aftertaste lingers as you go back in for more.
Likewise, emotions can be simultaneous or sequential. Sometimes, clients find healing by pairing sweet and sour together, which can afford nourishing digestion of what has been sitting on the plate in front of them for so long. Sometimes, though, clients find they have already ingested something painfully spicy, and they cannot consider anything else until they have some milk to assuage the scorching heat. Once they do, though, clients often find they are free to peruse a feast of other options.
It might be helpful to reframe difficult emotions as vegetables, perhaps not as pleasant as some other foods but maybe most nourishing and necessary for growth. And again, many adults come to appreciate properly prepared vegetables as having their own merits and appeal. The adult who refuses to eat vegetables will certainly fall ill, becoming twisted, incapable of doing things he once could do. He will soon be relieved of the life he sought to avoid. Ironically, for want of the vegetables he spurned, his shortened life also left untold delicacies untasted.
We have all witnessed some version of the child who sits forever in front of a plate with three bites of broccoli. He protests and cries and stalls, but once he finally accepts the resolve of his unwavering, loving parents, he realizes the experience was not quite so unpleasant as he built it up to be. Then he recovers instantaneously, cheerily announcing he is ready for cake now. We see his folly so plainly, yet too often we are this child in the face of unwanted emotions.
So if we must experience certain emotions in order to most freely enjoy those we desire, how do we process those unwanted emotions? There are many answers to this question, and this can be a wonderful adventure to pursue in therapy. Even if you feel your emotional “plate” feels insurmountable, consider the age-old wisdom of how to eat an elephant: one bite at a time. Here are some ways to take bites:
Journaling about these feelings. This can take a variety of forms, from a fictional story about a character going through a similar situation to a more “scientific” tracking of emotions, rating how they shift and what variables might be contributing
Looking at pictures that bring up these emotions
Praying about these emotions, verbally processing them with God
Studying scripture to see how God feels about them, to learn from characters in the Bible experiencing similar things, and to discern recommended responses
Talking to a loved one about these feelings
Listening to music that helps metabolize these feelings. Critically, I believe music can move us, it can keep us stuck, or it can make us worse. Be intentional about the effect of the music you are consuming.
On that note, I would like to discuss the role music might play as you begin to unlock a greater range of emotional experiencing. You cannot think your way into feeling more emotions, just as you cannot eat food by thinking about it. We must feel them. To that end, each of the bullets above is designed to invite you into sensing the unresolved emotions. In particular, music is an incredibly powerful tool because it marries cognitive and emotional. While listening to music, the brain enjoys bilateral stimulation, which has been shown to be a powerful ingredient in emotional healing. Furthermore, when we sing along, we are activating other somatic solutions, naturally tapping into the calming effect the body experiences when taking deep breaths with a longer exhale than inhale.
Music has such potent therapeutic effects that it has inspired a specific branch of therapy. A growing number of studies shows the benefits of music for even severe memory loss cases; music literally unlocks parts of the brain. While science is catching up, the value of music has been clear since nearly the beginning of time. Have you ever considered how prevalent music is in the Bible? From Genesis to Revelation, music is evident throughout. Music has eternal value (it is in Heaven, and angels sing). Music is a medium to communicate with God. And consider this: King David, “a man after God’s own heart,” was a prolific musician, composing about half of the Psalms. Notice David was not called a man after God’s mind.
Music moves us. It can inspire us to feel excited, courageous, patriotic, fearful, uneasy, grief-stricken, romantic, and so much more — and all without lyrics! When it includes the added poetry and clarity of lyricism, music can be one of the most profound tools available to us to heal our hearts because music speaks the language of the heart.
Therefore, I will be analyzing some music in this and some future blog posts, sharing therapeutic perspectives along the way. To start, I would like to explore “The Blessing” by Elevation Worship. Based on Numbers 6:24-26, the song is fairly unique amongst popular Christian worship music for several reasons. Here are some things I like about it:
It begins with a beautiful musical rendition of scripture, leaving the text unchanged but leveraging the power of music to add emotional depth to a meaningful biblical blessing.
Many worship songs feel similar to one another, but this one is unique because a congregation essentially sings it to one another and over themselves. There is much more that could be said about the power of blessing and the power of words, but that is another post for another time.
For some reason, I think because of the title, this song reminds me of Luke 6:28 as well. This can be a powerful way to practice forgiveness, blessing and praying for those who have caused us pain. I like that this song resonates from several different perspectives: blessing my brothers and sisters in Christ, how I see myself, and even how I am called to respond to those who mistreat me.
I love the inclusion of amen throughout the song. Sometimes it can lose its meaning as a requisite conclusion to a prayer, but amen means truth, certainty, so let it be, agreement, or confirmation. I love how this song confirms and reminds throughout.
While sometimes repetition can be overly done in worship music, I like it in this song. In literature, repetition highlights the importance of a concept. It is as though our hearts are practicing the feeling, rehearsing the truth, taking another bite of the goodness. This song reminds me of “How He Loves Us,” which is also quite repetitive. However, there are some things it is good for our hearts to repeat over and over and over.
I love the content of the Numbers prayer. This is a blessing God gave to the leaders of Israel to bless his people. In other words, it tells us how God feels about us, how he treats us. He blesses us. He keeps us. His face shines upon us, and he extends us grace. He is attentive to us, and he beams at us when he sees us. He gives us peace. That is true. We can live like it or not, but that is true. I encourage you to meditate on these words and repeat them over and over if there are parts of this that are difficult to accept.
The rest of the song is a pastiche of many passages. You can see all of them here. Not every worship song must be pulled exclusively from scripture, but it can help, especially when our hearts are resistant to the truth. As believers, when we are confronted with the tension between what the Bible says and what we feel is true, we choose a higher authority than our own feelings. As a child who feels unworthy submits to the embrace of a loving parent and soaks in the greater truth that their worth is not conditional, so we are invited to relax into the truths of how God tells us he feels about us — not how we feel he feels about us. In this way, relying on our own feelings about our worth is a strange form of pride, but embracing our surpassing value in Christ is humility. When we struggle with this, I remember Mark 9:24: “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”
It is my conviction that one of the greatest lies the Enemy uses to cripple Christians is the sense that we must be consumed by the weight of our own depravity, that we are prideful if we walk in confidence. That we must be meek, downtrodden, quiet. But let me be clear: that is not true. The Bible gives us some markers of how we can be recognized as Christ’s followers: powerful, loving, mentally healthy, courageous, hopeful, and the other fruit of the spirit (Galatians 5:22-23, 2 Timothy 1:7, 1 Peter 3:15). We see these qualities in Jesus himself and in his disciples; why do we believe they are not for us? Why do we remain starving or scrounging for crumbs on the floor when a feast awaits us?
I pray God would grant you the courage to face the difficulties in your life that have before seemed too daunting. May your heart feel the embrace of his compassion when you feel too scared, too hurt, too weak to venture past the pain to the beauty. May your ears hear the gentle whisper of his invitation, and may hope stir in your soul at the feast before you. May you savor with abandon that which has been lovingly prepared for your good, and as you do so, may the nourishment reach those parts of yourself which have languished for so long. May you grow to be healthy and strong and wise, peaceful and free and joyful. I pray your heart would sing of his goodness, now and forevermore. Amen.
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