Navigating COVID - Using Your Emotional Indicator Lights
In my last post I began to talk about the goodness of seeing what was happening in your heart for the purposes of learning how to bring it to the Lord. I went on to talk about some of the barriers that make identifying those emotions difficult. Today I’m going to push a little further in the actual practice of identifying what’s going on in our hearts.
Some of us are good at slowing and putting our finger on what we’re feeling but for many people it’s not quite that simple. You can’t just close your eyes really hard and feel. But even if you are someone who is generally pretty good at identifying what you’re feeling you might be surprised what emotions are hidden beneath some everyday actions. The theme of examining our words and actions as indicators of our hearts is strong in Scripture. Luke 6 might be the easiest place to see it – “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” What’s coming out of us will help us know what’s living in us. If we’re working to become curious about what’s in our hearts, or referring back to our analogy from last week - knowing the indicator lights on our dashboard, here are some places to keep your eyes on:
Words and Tone
Has your language amped up a notch? I’m not necessarily talking about a single phrase or conversation, but a pattern that you might notice. This can take many different forms. The easiest one to point to is swear words. Have they subtly made their way back into your vocabulary when they hadn’t been present in the past? Or perhaps you’ve begun to use words that carry a bit more angst with them. If you see a pattern here it likely has an emotion underneath it.
Has your tone sharpened? Perhaps there’s an edginess behind the way you talk about the world that wasn’t there before. Maybe everything is painted with pessimism?
Sarcasm or jaded speech. I’ll give you a personal example here. I’m single and when my heart is in a good place my speech tends to be gracious towards my brothers in Christ. But when my heart is struggling this is one of the first ways I can tell, I start to sound just a bit jaded, sharp, or critical.
Actions (or Inactions)
Be on the lookout for increased reliance on things that help you escape – Netflix, alcohol, comfort food, excessive exercise. Even cleaning could fall onto this list for some of us. Are you noticing an increase? Has it become your go-to when things feel hard or overwhelming? The tricky thing here is that none of these things are inherently evil, they all have good uses. Keep your eye on them, if you see an increase, stop and begin to wonder what it is you’re escaping from in that moment.
On the flip side look at the things you’re backing away from. Are you pulling away from friends? Isolating? Failing to respond to texts not because you’re actually busy but because it feels too overwhelming? Because it’s hard to engage? Or perhaps it’s the Lord where you feel this. Do you notice yourself hesitant to come to him? Avoiding prayer and Bible reading? Are you neglecting tasks you need to be getting done?
Reactions
Be on the lookout for overreactions. I was talking with a friend of mine awhile back and she was describing how she found herself sitting in her driveway crying after seeing a dead cat at the side of the road on the way home from the store. For her it was a good indicator that the difficulty of our current circumstances was beginning to weigh on her. It was just one more thing that made her sad and she lost it. Overreactions are always good places to stop and pause to see what else might be bothering you.
Do you find yourself shutting down? Sometimes this might feel like you’re being powered down. I had a client once describe it like the lights on a stadium going off one section at a time within her. You’re awake but emotionally you’re not present, cognitively you’re not there. Maybe you’re finding it difficult to make any decisions. Your thoughts simply won’t connect. All of these are good indicators that you’re not ok.
Your own special indicator lights. I’ve listed some of the common ones above but the truth is, you probably have some that are unique to you. Here are a couple of mine that might give you some ideas for what to look for:
When I’m not ok I begin to walk in my sleep. It took me decades to figure out that this was anxiety produced. I wasn’t even aware of the fact that I was anxious. But sure enough, when I feel deeply unsettled about something my brain conjures up elaborate schemes for me to act out in my sleep. I had to learn how to deal with my anxiety in my waking hours for these episodes to go away. On the flip side, now when I start to have wacky dreams I know to stop and pause and consider what’s unsettling me. It’s been a lovely way to come to Lord before anxiety takes over.
When I feel overwhelmed by a chaotic world around me I subconsciously still everything within me and in my immediate world. My affect stills and I become very very calm. My emotions still and I don’t feel big highs or big lows. I shrink my world to things known. During the pandemic I realized that I wasn’t doing anything that had unknowns in it, even if it was things I would normally love to do. The tricky thing about this one is that it follows conventional wisdom and it is quite effective for helping me feel less chaotic. But here’s the rub, it is fundamentally different to have the stillness of Psalm 46 - the city on the hill that is unmoved because the Lord dwells within her, than the self-sufficient stillness I can artificially create within myself. My reality right now is that I don’t live in a still world, I live in a tumultuous world and rather than protecting myself from feeling overwhelmed by that what I needed was the care of my strong Heavenly Father, to be still because he’s with me.
Outside causes. Finally, we’ve looked at things in you that might help you notice that you’re not ok but it’s also helpful to pay attention to certain events that have the propensity to shake us. Here are a few categories I’ve come up with:
The loss of activities and events that are meaningful to you. It was a big deal for me when we couldn’t meet for Easter. It was important for me to stop and feel the grief of that loss. I imagine as we approach the coming holidays there might be more of that in store. But it’s not just holidays – family events, birthdays, weddings, vacations, fall activities. When you’re facing the loss of yet another one of these things take a moment and let yourself feel the loss, give it a language – I’m grieving. I feel discouraged. Sorrow is near.
Things that make your world feel foreign. It can be as small as having to purchase ground beef instead of the pot roast you were planning on because there’s a beef shortage. It’s not that this is a big deal, but it’s that it affects you, especially if it’s in a long list of things that continue to be altered. For me, in the face of this exact situation, naming the fact that this makes me feel weary was all I needed to know how to speak my heart to the Lord but I had to stop and let myself put my finger on that weariness.
Each of these situations might give you access to one of your emotional indicator lights - Something’s amiss, some action ought to be taken. If we go back to our analogy from the last post about the lights on our car’s dashboard, wisdom and maturity mean learning to heed the warnings, to engage our hearts before the Lord, that we might know his care for us in them. In my next post I’m going to talk about some practical steps for what to do when you do begin to realize that you’re not ok.