The Myth of Feeling

It has been a long week. My sleep has been very disregulated. The constant level of stress I've been under has wrecked my immune system. I am fighting a cold and low-level feeling of physical yuck.

It's like I'm a hardboiled egg that hasn't been cooked long enough. Someone is trying to peel me, but the shell is only coming off in small chips. The whole process ends up with the egg looking mangled. That's what my immune system looks like and that's how I feel.

Holy Week creates for me an unrealistic level of expectation for myself. I had a conversation with my 10-year-old daughter last night and it sparked inspiration for this post.

My daughter was a middle child for a few years, until my youngest came along. She struggles with feelings of injustice. She is painfully shy and sees everything through a warped lens. Last night, we were chatting about a bevy of things. I talked with her about HALT and how that can impact our feelings.

At 10 years old, but really at any age, feelings can be so tricky. I don't want to dismiss how my daughter is feeling. There's really nothing worse than someone (actually or metaphorically) patting you on the head after you've expressed a feeling. More than once, I've had people ask me (usually when I'm angry) if I'm PMSing. It is condescending and reductive and it drives me nuts.

So I have to acknowledge how she is feeling. I have to tell her that how she is feeling is a valid way to feel. I also have to explain that sometimes, feelings can lie to us. Feelings do not always equal reality.

For years, I did everything I could to NOT feel. I used food, I used alcohol, I used anything I could get my hands on. I lost the privilege to use alcohol because I wasn't good at it. Ultimately, it stopped working in helping me to not feel.

The problem becomes putting feelings in a proper perspective. It is helpful for me to run things by another person who can be objective about reality. This is what I tried to do for my daughter last night.

I don't want to divulge what she and I discussed because she would be mortified. I will say, in general, that I tried to dismantle what she was saying. I tried to hold it up to logic. That's especially tricky with a 10-year-old girl. Logic can be so fixed and the moods of a 10-year-old girl can be as capricious as springtime weather in Chicago.

There is, however, application between how she process emotions and how I process them.

You see, Holy Week carries (for me, I can't speak for other believers) a heavy weight of expectation. I enter into this week carrying a bag full of shoulds. (E.g., I *should* feel contrite, I *should* feel grateful for Jesus' sacrifice, I *should* feel like I'm looking through rose-colored glasses.)

It's a very heavy bag. It ends up weighing my spirit down. I feel battered by the time Good Friday comes along, like I've been actually punching myself (not in the way an older sibling would torture a younger sibling). It takes me farther away from the cross.

The thing is, I end up feeling like I don't even deserve to celebrate the holiday. I feel like there's no way I can prepare myself enough to approach the cross. I've been reading the Bible using a program in the Bible app. I'm behind in the readings (we will read through the Bible in a year), so the point I'm at is where the Lord is explaining all of the different sacrifices and the procedure for each one. It's interesting.

I do feel grateful that I don't have to go through all of the steps laid out in the Old Testament. I feel grateful that Jesus came to be the perfect sacrifice, that stands in place of all of the rituals.

The thing is, just like Bekah, I can't trust my feelings. Even though I feel inadequate and unprepared, that doesn't prevent me from meeting Jesus at the cross. It's not a black-tie optional invitation, it's a come-as-you-are invitation. Yoga pants are completely acceptable. It doesn't matter that I have gained weight (thanks constant stress and depression), don't have a pretty dress to wear or a sense that all is going to be just fine, thank you very much.

I hope this encourages you, if you are someone who celebrates as I do. even if you don't, please just keep in mind that feelings aren't always telling the truth. There is a children's book by Sandra Boynton called "Happy Hippo, Angry Duck." Toward the end of the book, she writes; "and a difficult mood is not here to stay. Everyone moods will change day to day. (Unless you're that duck. He's always this way.)"

Take heart, dear reader. Though there may be cloudiness today, find a friend who's able to help you focus on the bit of sun in the distance. That, in the end, may just end up saving you.