What Evangelicals and Pentecostals Get Wrong About Emotions and What We Should Do Instead…
The Church Spaces that Shaped Me
I would not be who I am without my experiences in African, Caribbean, Black, Pentecostal and Evangelical spaces.
They gave me a deep reverence for the Holy Spirit, the supernatural. Helped me hone and develop leadership gifts and nurtured my love of music and song.
Even with all the ‘higgy hagga’ I have witnessed, I would not change it.
Where Theology meets Therapy
However, the last 5 years have been a significant period in my life where I have been able to look at the good and the bad of my experiences in church and the theology I was taught.
I believe that theology deeply shapes our view of the world, self and others. The only other thing that does this as deeply is trauma.
Training as a therapist and learning from psychologists, theologians and researchers in the field of trauma, complex trauma and spiritual abuse has opened my eyes to the ways that theology can cause serious harm. No matter how well intentioned we are, we need to be able to pay attention to the harm bad theology causes. I believe God wants this for us.
Are Some Emotions Bad for Us?
One of the ways that I think we need to examine our views is in our attitude to emotions. Have you ever felt like some emotions are ‘bad’, ‘wrong’ and should be avoided at all costs?
Well if you have been shaped within Evangelical and Pentecostal spaces, it is likely that you will have been taught (or at least got the message) that some emotions are best avoided. But what if this is just plain wrong and overly simplified?
Anger, jealousy, sadness, disappointment, frustration, grief. All of these have to be felt. If you have been told that you must avoid these emotions, you may have actually learned to suppress them.
The problem with this way of thinking is that biologically, emotions can’t be avoided. They can only be moved through. In other words, you can’t go over and around an emotion like you may have been taught, you have to feel it to move through it. What doesn’t get felt, gets stuck.
Why Emotions Matter
In their book, Why Emotions Matter, trauma recovery therapist Tristen Collins and her husband, co-founder of the Bible Project, Jonathan Collins, talk about how God designed us as emotional beings. Being emotional and feeling emotions is not a bad thing! It is a core part of our design. It is fundamental to us working well.
They go on to explain that emotions are like those grand theatre style curtains that are opened by a single chord. Imagine ‘good’ emotions on one side and ‘bad’ ones on the other. Well if you block out the emotions that have traditionally been deemed ‘bad’ then you automatically block out the ‘good’ ones too. If you suppress your sadness, then unfortunately, you inadvertently dim and lessen your joy.
I think this is unfortunately very common in Evangelical and Pentecostal communities in particular. We do not know how to be with our sadness, our grief, our disappointments in a meaningful way and we unintentionally create spaces that discourage these emotions in others. We create an environment that does not allow people to come in with their full selves and so they are forced to leave these at the door or they may feel pushed out and not be able to come at all.
This can look like, taking the risk to share honestly with Christian friends and being told, ‘God is your strength’. The tone is genuine but the intention is to stop the sadness not truly witness your suffering. It can look like putting yourself out there by saying, ‘I’m not coping’ and being met with, ‘death and life is in the power of the tongue, so don’t say that!’
The Impact of Emotional Avoidance on Black Women and the Complexities of Recovery
In her incredible book, ‘Too Heavy a Yoke: Black Women and the Burden of Strength’, Dr Chanequa Walker-Barnes, looks at the historical, social and theological influences that mean that Black Christian women are more likely to be met with these kinds of responses.
She uses a unique framework that explains how the Strong Black Women stereotype is maintained by three core features:
Emotional strength
Caregiving
Independence
So what do we do? First we need to allow ourselves what we have been deprived of. A space to go from emotional ‘strength’ to emotional vulnerability. Now to be honest, this is not easy as it requires us to be wise about who we are vulnerable with. If you try to be vulnerable with someone who is still deeply rooted in their own Strong Black Woman schema, you will likely be shamed or ridiculed.
The first step that I help clients with is simply to practice listening to their body and noticing the early signs of an emotion. The body is so powerful and intuitive, if we are willing students, it will tell us what is going on long before our minds fully catch on.
Why the Body Matters in Recovery
The notion of listening to your body might feel weird, dangerous even. This is likely because of the idea we have in Evangelical and Pentecostal spaces that the body, (i.e. the flesh) is bad and can only lead us astray. The crazy thing is that learning to appreciate and tune into the wisdom of your body is far from dangerous. In fact, being unaware of your body signals actually makes you more likely to be unable to protect yourself in the event the event that you might need to! (That deserves a whole separate blog post!)
Do you see how impactful our theology is to our wellbeing? Long story short, just because you have inherited a certain idea or theology does not mean it is the only way of thinking. It certainly doe snot mean that it is the only way all Christians think about a problem or have ever thought about it before! Theology evolves and has continued to evolve for as long we we can know. There is no need to stop this now. It might actually be very weird (and arrogant) to think that at this point in history, we have finally ‘got it right’ and know everything there is to know about God and life.
A Framework for Change
Going back to the book I mentioned earlier, ‘Why Emotions Matter’, I want to leave you with another framework that can be helpful when thinking about your emotions. Collins and Collins, encourage the reader to see your emotional landscape like a dashboard. The emotions are like information. Helping you understand what is going on under the surface. This can help you know what parts of you need attention and how to tend to them appropriately. So instead of pushing down the jealousy, why not use it as information about what unfulfilled desires you have that perhaps, you weren’t aware of? Instead of ignoring anger, can you notice the ways it is telling you that a boundary has been crossed. Can you also honour the ways anger gives you energy to make the necessary changes?
If you ignore the lights on your car dashboard, it won’t be long before you have an emergency on your hands. The same with emotions. If you ignore them, they don’t go away, they get stuck and can lead to the very behaviours we might be trying to avoid. For instance, unaddressed jealousy may turn into obsessiveness or learned helplessness. The unattended anger may spill out at the wrong person or may turn inwards onto oneself. Over time, unaddressed anger can impact a person’s immune system, lung capacity and even heart.
Don’t Let the Cycle Continue - You Don’t Have to do It Alone
Many of us have been in pews, communities and relationships that have encouraged us to ignore the dashboard or with overly simplified ideas like, ‘pray it away’. Sadly, when people reach crisis point, they can often be told they didn’t have enough faith or perseverance which increases shame and silence. Teaching them to continue in the hyperindependence and other unhelpful patterns that leave them with unmet needs. And as we have already identified, this is the reality of many Black Christian women. But it does not have to be.
What emotions come to mind when you read this? Which ones do you struggle to make space for? What information are they giving you?
If you would like help with the above questions and are ready to start your therapy journey, I’d be delighted to help you. Book and intro call today.