You know those times when you feel irrationally anxious, angry, or whatever, and you know it doesn’t make sense? Maybe a little emotion is appropriate, but not the 0-to-60 that you experience…like the time you found a spider in your bathroom and you were sure that your life was in danger? Or the way you are still agonizing over a silly thing you said 12 years ago, and how everyone there must have thought you were the biggest idiot walking the earth?

Sometimes it’s funny or just annoying, but other times it can be dangerous. Emotions are powerful. This is overwhelmingly the case for survivors of child abuse and other traumas. Intense, debilitating emotions just show up when they want to, whether they are welcome or not, and sometimes the best we can do is survive the storm.

The Most Common Technique

The worldwide response to this problem is to tell yourself to believe the logical truth. Say it out loud if you have to! Put quotes up on the wall to remind you that you’re loved. Listen to songs that claim God is for you and he’ll never leave you. Surround yourself with people who tell you you’re worthy. Use a meditation app to help you relax, so you can tell yourself that everything is going to be ok. Or…stuff it down and hope you get used to it.

Here are a couple (nauseating) Bible verses used to support this technique:

• Phil 4:4 “Rejoice always!” – This is used to say that sadness or anger is inappropriate for a follower of Jesus, who should always be happy. This teaching ignores verses like Lamentations 2:19 or Matthew 5:4.
• Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things…” – This is used to convince you that your “deceitful” heart should be judged and marginalized. If that’s the whole story, then what did Jesus mean by John 7:38?

But this is not something that the Christians made up – it’s universal. And it’s a fight that people from all different backgrounds and situations are fighting. People in other religions do the same. People who have no interest in religion do the same. It’s a common technique for battling an invisible foe.

I knew plenty of self-help advice and I had read a bit of Eastern philosophy, and I had learned the Bible well before my life fell apart from abuse. But all this “pick yourself up by your own bootstraps” stuff wasn’t working, and it was actually making me angrier and more depressed, as I felt less understood and more alone with my problems.

So I stopped.

A Sneaking Cornerstone of Abuse

There is a cornerstone of abuse – a foundational, core value – that gets the very least attention. Abuse cannot operate without this principle and seeks to discredit it at every corner. A victim who confronts it directly feels the greatest shame and exposure, risking total abandonment. It’s the scariest and the most painful to face, and Christians and other religious types often support it, locking it into place with half-truths backed up by God’s supposed authority. To anyone who hasn’t had the most tender and safe upbringing, it is truly frightening. Many counselors in the psychology field are blind to it, and I wonder if perhaps they are also afraid, since there’s plenty of science to back it up. There are some recovery programs that might acknowledge it, but it is far too rare to find one that will engage it directly. Too many who help victims still live their lives while affirming this oppressive principle.

What is that principle? It’s very simple: your feelings don’t matter.

I repeat: YOUR FEELINGS DON’T MATTER.

If you have been abused, neglected, or you are dealing with an impersonal trauma like sickness, war, or disaster, this statement will likely bring up some pretty powerful feelings

• You may feel relief, if you are afraid that you will drown in your emotions.
• You may feel suffocated, if you feel like you will never be able to vent your emotions.
• You may feel totally numb, if you are “just done with it all.” (I know “numb” isn’t technically a feeling, but it’s the sense that feelings have left the building, so it is still the operation of feelings.)
• You may feel liberated, if you’ve been the only one saying this and you’re happy someone else is saying it, too.
• And any number of other emotions and complicated responses.

It is my opinion that every emotional response above is totally understandable and relate-able. As Fezzik so wisely said, “You’ve been mostly dead all day!” (a Princess Bride reference, translated: “There’s a good reason that you are where you are!”)

But if you are sick of where you are (and you aren’t sick of me yet), there is another way…

A Missing Cornerstone of Shalom (Well-being)

So back to that worldwide technique that I don’t do anymore, and which tempted you to read my post in the first place…

It’s been three years since I totally stopped trying to get myself to believe something that I felt wasn’t true, no matter how much I might be intellectually persuaded. In the Christian world, we have a lot of things we believe with all our brains, but with not all our hearts. And we feel like failures because of that greatest commandment we’ve heard a million times. There are fears of not believing those things and being labeled a heretic or a backslider, and getting some really unpleasant treatment from well-meaning and not-so-well-meaning people.

But like I said, it wasn’t working, and I was tired of fighting a battle that wasn’t going anywhere. Survivors have to choose what battles we fight and I was losing hope that this had any return on investment.

I would like to propose that the missing cornerstone of healing is valuing someone’s feelings, regardless of irrationality, sense, or moral definitions. This includes your own feelings. I’m not talking about lip service, but real welcome and without lectures.

The missing cornerstone of healing is valuing someone’s feelings, regardless of rationality, sense, or moral definitions. This includes your own feelings.

This idea is so basic, so simple, and yet it appears to be the most threatening idea in the universe, if you look at the ways we actually behave.

Here are some simple examples of conversations where this principle is in play:

Person A: I feel enough rage that I wish I had the chance to kill my abuser before he died. Person B: It makes sense that you would be angry. Tell me about why you feel that way.

Person A: I feel afraid because I know I will be abandoned by you like everyone else. Person B: I know how terrifying that feels. So did it scare you when I didn’t reply to your message while I was sick?

Person A: I feel anxious every time I walk into the grocery store, as if I’m going to be trapped. Person B: It’s important for you to feel safe. How can you handle this anxiety if you decide to go?

As you may quickly notice, there was no “push-back” from Person B when Person A said something that is hard to hear or accept, even if Person B might normally consider it wrong, offensive, or strange. There was acceptance of the emotion without judgment, and a response that offered to bring that emotion into relationship by discussing it as real and something worth dealing with. Compare this to the opposite: preaching truth. When you do that, you leave the person to deal with it by themselves and you further add a sense of failure, guilt, and abandonment.

So now apply the roles of both Person A and Person B to yourself. I think some counselors call this “the observer self”:

Person A/me: I feel insecure when I talk to that coworker because I don’t think they like me. Person B/me: How does it feel to work around someone that doesn’t seem to like me?

You’ll notice that I didn’t try to reason with myself and say, “Nonsense. Why do you think they don’t like you? What does it matter anyway, if you’re getting paid by the company to work with them?” You can hear contempt in those words, not acceptance. These responses create distance between you and yourself; you find yourself further away from wholeness and integrity, not closer to it.

Scary? You betcha! Rebellious? Maybe. Difficult? Absolutely. It was terrifying to let myself feel what I had denied for 27 years. I was sure that the emotions would overwhelm me, kill me, make me an outcast, or bring more petrifying shame on me. But it was all lies. Slowly, I began to understand that this was my way out, and it became almost reflex over time. Inserting passionate swear words occasionally into the transition did help 😉

One important thing to note: embracing emotions does not mean embracing destructive behavior. Put appropriate limits on destructive behaviors; embrace the emotions that drive them.

The Safety Net in My Descent

Now before you think that I’m surfing the wild ride of my emotions and headed for certain destruction, I will concede that there was a reason this was doable for me.

I’m a girl that embraces calculated risk. I’m addicted to slow, steady change because (1) it’s not quite so scary that way, and (2) much more importantly, I don’t feel trapped, which is anathema to me.

I couldn’t tell myself the truth and believe it; people around me couldn’t tell me the truth so I could believe it; but it turned out that God himself could, if I would ask him. And when he told me the truth, I would never forget it.

About four years ago, I was introduced to Transformation Prayer Ministry (TPM). No, wait…I was introduced to it five years ago, but it took me a year to be desperate enough to overcome my fears of it. I didn’t want anybody messing with that stuff in there!!

But once I was desperate enough to risk it, I quickly learned that it was entirely different from what I pictured. It was painful, but it wasn’t even half as scary as I expected. Plus, I saw a difference in myself immediately: more freedom, more peace, less anger, less fear. It was like a new, natural way of living opened up to me in minutes.

Of course I didn’t want to ask God for answers to my vulnerable questions – ever. He had betrayed me and I had given up on him. But TPM specializes in accepting and resolving that stuff effectively, permanently, and with respect for your reasons. One step at a time, systematically, I brought forward my fears, my anger, my shame, and I received more acceptance and resolution than I could have imagined was possible. Miracle transformations have become commonplace in my inner being.

I hugged each emotion as I found it, loved it, and found that God understood each of my emotions and responded to them with respect and kindness. He let me have them, and he didn’t take them away from me if I wasn’t ready. He showed me when I didn’t need those fears and anger in a way that made sense to my heart.

I’m still dealing with stuff, but I’m now able to do TPM on myself. I don’t think I will ever be finished in this life, but it’s encouraging to know that I’m not where I used to be. Without it, I’m not sure if I could have returned to full-time work, and I might still be imprisoned in the anger and fears that were exhausting me, controlling me, and revisiting the same trauma on my soul over, and over, and over.

My emotions matter. They always mattered, and they have an important story to tell. They need a safe audience willing to sit down and listen.