You Can Cry If You Want To

I was about 17 when I first realized that I absolutely suck at voicing my thoughts! During the time I was placed out of home for truancy and spent 11 months with a family that was not mine. Their main priority in that home was to teach me skills that I lacked, like instead of yelling just say what your feeling!

Don’t paint me as a statistic but I grew up in a big, black and dysfunctional family that was not a safe place at all for children opening their mouths to speak their mind. I dealt with trauma, heartbreak, abandonment and a plethora of other things so when I came of age I had to finally acknowledge that when it came to talking things out I was not prepared.

While I’m one of those people who can’t hide their emotions because my body language is loud when it comes to verbally expressing what I’m feeling it is SO hard, even when I know exactly what I want to say. Asking me “what’s wrong?” too soon will either get you cussed out or ignored because I want to tell you but mouth just doesn’t work! If you’ve been there then you know what I am talking about!

I’ve been taking the time to learn myself this past year and found peace in the ability to slow down and dissect my emotions and one thing I have noticed and became ok with is this:

Whether I’m happy, frustrated, confused, disappointed sad (obviously) or whatever emotion that is overwhelming me, before I can put it into words I need to cry first.

My husband calls me a cry baby because I shut down when something affects me. It used to offend me but I’ve come to accept I am a sensitive and emotional woman. It also used to bother him when my mood noticeably changed but I reverted to silence, he was not having the “I deal with mental illness” excuse I gave him even though it was a very real thing for me we both had to learn to overcome MY emotions.

I AM an emotional person and I am an empath so I take on not only my own thoughts and perspectives but others’ as well so I can’t get to the bottom of how I’m feeling if I’m too concerned with someone else’s. It’s overwhelming. The only way I can let all that  emotion out calmly is to drop some tears

As elementary as it sounds it’s very important to me now that I know what emotion I feel and note how I would usually respond to them in order to self-regulate because I refuse to be emotionally unstable woman anymore!

We probably have all done some things out of anger but if you’ve noticed even when we get too happy we can do things that don’t make since to ourselves or others like celebratory drinking that turns into binge drinking that turns into relapse after years of sobriety.

Yeah.

Real quick, can I just thank God for all of the stupidly impulsive things I’ve done, things that could’ve gotten me killed as a result of me reacting to a feeling?

God you are so good and I just thank you for keeping me!

Amen

Disclaimer: Your emotions are ALWAYS valid! …

but there’s a time and place for everything and we’ve been shown in the word since the very beginning that there will be times we have to hide what’s going on inside until the time is right to voice it. You can read about it in story of Joseph found in the book of Genesis.

If you’re like me, you could peep something and jump to conclusions, after that everything else is out the door! Don’t judge me too hard like I said, God is still working in me! So keeping your emotions in tact will also allow you to simply get more information. Proverbs 29:11 says only a fool vents all his feelings and I’ve wasted a lot of time raging, so I’m no longer a shoot first kind of woman but when it comes to asking questions, oh yeah let’s talk!

When we can’t identify or regulate how we truly feel it turns into anger making it one of the greatest sins, because out of that one feeling comes a multitude of sins.

My prayer for today is that we let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be erased from our mouths hearts and minds (Ephesians‬ ‭4‬:‭31‬) that we take the time to understand our emotions, what causes them, and how to release them especially when they create negative thoughts toward ourselves and/or others.

Amen.

Until next time, remember to do everything in love! (1 Corinthians 16:14)

Love, Eve