Rebuilding Trust With Our Emotions

EPISODE 79 | REBUILDING TRUST WITH YOUR EMOTIONS

Are you so distant from your emotions that you don't even feel them? I think most of us fall into one of these categories, and it's something that I keep coming up against, not just in my own life, but in the people that I meet, in the people that I've journeyed with; there are many people who don't trust their emotions and don't believe they should trust their emotions.

But our emotions are an incredibly important part of who we are, and they are a very necessary part of ourselves to integrate if we want to become more authentic, if we want to journey into wholeness, right? Our emotions are part of the design that God gave us.

[00:00:42] INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Becoming Me, your podcast companion and coach in your journey to a more integrated and authentic self. I am your host, Ann Yeong, and I'm here to help you grow in self-discovery and wholeness. If you long to live a more authentic and integrated life and would like to hear honest insights about the rewards and challenges of this journey, then take a deep breath, relax, and listen on to Becoming Me.

[00:01:18] Now on day four of the 30-day challenge to talk about the interior life. And today I'm going to be talking about rebuilding your trust in your emotions. Or actually, I'm going to be talking about why it is important that you rebuild your trust in your emotions.

[00:01:40] Now, maybe some of you may be thinking, hmm, rebuild trust in my emotions. Like, what has that got to do with the interior life? I imagine that this could land in a few places for different people. I think for some of you, I think the moment you even see the title or you hear me say this title, that you need to rebuild trust with your emotions, you may instinctively feel like, yes, I don't quite know what that means, but I can feel that it is true. I need to rebuild trust in my emotions.

[00:02:11] Some of you may actually feel repulsed by that, like, no, why do I need to rebuild trust with my emotions? Maybe generally talking about emotions or even thinking about emotions, it's not somewhere that you want to go, but you like to go.

[00:02:26] Now, either way, and I'll say maybe even, especially if you kind of feel repulsed about this topic, it may mean that you actually need to hear it because maybe you really are someone that has a broken relationship with your emotions.

[00:02:43] So, I'm going to be talking about basically, what is the nature or the role, I guess, in some sense, that emotions play in our interior life, in our interior journey into authenticity and wholeness. Why is it that some of us can't have the kind of relationship that we need to have with our emotions?

[00:03:03] What happens when that happens? Okay, so kind of like what's the impact when we don't trust our emotions? And just a little bit at the end about what you can do to begin rebuilding trust with your emotions. Because clearly that not only is a big topic, it's a process that you'll need to begin doing, right.

[00:03:20] But first, just for I think today's Live, I want to present a case for you. If you've never considered that this is something that needs to be in place, maybe this could be the thing that can help you take off in your interior journey, okay. Because a lot of us, and I imagine that those who follow me, who actually like my content, are people who are already taking their interior journey somewhat seriously, right?

[00:03:49] It's clearly something that you think is important, but you may be at different points of how consistent you are - different points of different seasons in that growth. And if you have, at some point earlier, felt like you've grown a lot, either spiritually or as a person, you felt that you've healed and you've gotten more authentic, and then it kind of plateaued and you've been stuck for a while.

[00:04:13] There is a high chance that what could be the missing piece for you might be this thing about your relationship with your emotions. So, in day three of my Live, I spoke about coming home to yourself, right? And I said that that was the linchpin of the having this relationship with yourself.

[00:04:32] TRUSTING OUR EMOTIONS
Today's topic is going to go a little bit deeper in one specific area of being in relationship with yourself or looking at the nature of the internal relationship that you can have with yourself. So, if I were to ask you, what kind of relationship do you have with your emotions? Do you trust them? Are you afraid of your emotions?

[00:04:57] Are you so distant from your emotions that you don't even feel them? I think most of us fall into one of these categories, and it's something that I keep coming up against, not just in my own life, but in the people that I meet. In the people that I've journeyed with, there are many people who don't trust their emotions and don't believe they should trust their emotions.

[00:05:23] But our emotions are an incredibly important part of who we are, and they are a very necessary part of ourselves to integrate if we want to become more authentic, if we want to journey into wholeness, right? Our emotions are part of the design that God gave us. I mean, God created us and He said that it was good, right? What He created was good. He gave us an incredible system, right? I mean, if you look at the whole of creation, everything is incredible. So exquisite, right? And we human beings are incredibly designed. I mean, in scripture it says that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, right. Fearfully and wonderfully made.

[00:06:06] And we may marvel at the biology of our bodies. We may marvel at the way our nervous system works, the way our brains work. But at the same time, we don't feel like we're fearfully and wonderfully made, do we? And we don't often pause to realize or to think that our emotions are part of that "fearfully and wonderfully made" us.

[00:06:33] But so often, this is a part of us that we don't know how to live with. We don't quite know how to live with our emotions. And I think a big reason could be that very few of us have been modelled by our parents, by other people when we're kids - say by the adults around us. Very few of us have had good role models to show us what it means to be in a healthy, mature relationship with our own emotion.

[00:07:02] So, if we are often around adults when we were kids that were very dysregulated and they couldn't control their emotions - maybe there was outbursts of anger, or people who were parents or adults that were very cold or passive aggressive; that they were not able to be present to themselves and so, they were not able to be present to us and our emotions.

[00:07:26] Because part of having a healthy relationship with our own emotions and being able to trust our emotions, that usually translates that we are also better able to manage other people's emotions and especially children's emotions, right? Because children haven't learned how to regulate their emotions yet. They have big feelings. We have big feelings still.

[00:07:46] A lot of us as adults, because we never learned how to govern our emotions, we still feel like a small child inside of us. So, a lot of us are either scared of our emotions, don't trust our emotions, want to run away from our emotions, or just stay far away from our emotions, right. And because we've never learned how valuable emotions are, we've never learned how to live with them in a way that we are not overwhelmed by them.

[00:08:12] And nor are we like completely so far from them that we can't feel how we feel. This is so common, right? I mean, when people begin to do interior work - and this may describe you, whoever you are, you know, when you're listening to this - if you begin to go for, let's say counselling or therapy or spiritual direction, or maybe even coaching, right?

[00:08:32] Any of these things that require you to be more self-aware, often, your spiritual director, your counsellor, therapist, may invite you to kind of ask you like, what are you feeling? Right? Or can you feel what you're feeling? And a lot of people actually, that's when they realize I don't know how I feel.

[00:08:51] I don't know how I feel or I can't name what is it that I feel? And then sometimes we can go from being numb to suddenly being really overwhelmed by emotions, and we can be overwhelmed by sadness, or we can be overwhelmed by anger or by grief, or shame. And we don't know why.

[00:09:11] Sometimes, for us, when we have those moments where we go from not feeling anything to suddenly feeling a lot, then we get frustrated because I can't see the reason why I'm feeling this way. And then we kind of dismiss it or we just want to move past it, right? So, most of us, we live with our emotions by suppressing them - ignoring them, suppressing them, trying to control them because we are afraid that we can't manage them.

[00:09:37] Now, why is that going to be an issue? If we want to grow in authenticity, we want to grow in integration, and if we want to have a life where we can make good decisions and be confident of the decisions that we make, if we want to be confident of learning how to discern God's will in our life, for example, to make good decisions for the people that are under our care, under our leadership, our emotions play a very critical role in guiding us in our life.

[00:10:07] PERCEPTION VS NEUROCEPTION
They give us critical data, okay? Critical data for our intellect. So, our rational intellect to process and to deliberate. So, I mean, we have different parts of us, right? And where in my upbringing and my environment and the people that I know and - you know, in Singapore, a lot of people are more comfortable with our intellect, with thinking because we have been kind of like trained. You know, I mean, academics are important, studying is important. So, there's a lot of emphasis on the head.

[00:10:39] And what we don't realize is, I mean, the mind, the intellect has a very important part to play, but it's not the only part of us. And God gave us a system. We were created with a system, and every part needs to play its role in order for the system to work, right?

[00:10:55] So, the intellect can process even if you have flawless logic. Even if you have a really good mind and you're good at interpreting things, you still need data, right. I mean, what's going to be processed? Data, right? So, where's that raw data coming from? A big - I mean it comes from our senses, right?

[00:11:17] What we see, what we smell, what we observe with our senses. But we were also created to sense beyond just the senses, the physical senses. But to sense almost intuitively. Okay, and a lot of times that's when our emotions give us the clue that there's something happening around us. 

[00:11:41] Now, in more recent times, I learned this term called neuroception. Neuro as in N-E-U-R-O, ception, like perception, right? So, the difference between neuroception and perception is that perception is using our five senses, right? What I see, what I hear, what I can touch. 

[00:11:57] Neuroception is another way of receiving data and information that our nervous system does. In a way, it happens at a faster speed than our perception.

[00:12:11] It picks up stuff, it picks up something, it scans. It's not like our five senses. You may not necessarily even be aware that you're seeing something or that you're hearing something, but your nervous system has already picked up certain data in your environment.

[00:12:25] And if it feels that there is potential danger to you, your body will already begin immediately to change how it feels. And often there is a correlating kind of like emotion if we know how to listen to emotions. So, that's the thing. If we are not paying attention and we are disconnected from emotions, we may miss these signals, if we're disconnected from our bodies. And many of us, we may not pick up on these signals.

[00:12:52] So, it's like we lose access to this very important channel that is feeding data to us, right? So, the importance of, for example, something like neuroception is, it reveals so much to us about our state of whether we're safe or not, or why, like when we enter an environment that makes us feel unsafe.

[00:13:17] The nature of what the environment is or the person that we are speaking to, or a person, a particular personality. The fact that we feel unsafe in the environment often says something about some unhealed wound that we have, that maybe at some earlier time in our life we had been hurt or wounded, and so our minds like intellectually - I may not be able to recall that memory, but that's the another amazing thing; our bodies store memories that our intellects cannot recall.

[00:13:45] And so, this kind of receiving of data that then can triggers certain emotions is actually a way that our body, our whole self, is kind of remembering. Something about this doesn't feel right. Something about this doesn't feel safe. I can't pinpoint why. You know, in a sense, like our intellect may not be able to make a connection, this is why I'm feeling unsafe. But it's actually - there's wisdom there.

[00:14:13] But how can we get at the wisdom? We won't be able to have that wisdom unless we take that data and then we process it, right? So, right now, I'm talking just at the point of do we trust our emotions to give us important data? I'm not saying that we bypass our intellect and reason, and that we don't need to deliberate, that we just act according to whatever our emotions seem to be telling us. No, that's not the role of emotions.

[00:14:40] The role of emotions is not to help us deliberate. It's not to help us discern and make a good decision. But they have a very important role and important part to play for us to be able to make good decisions, good discernments, right. So, if we do not have access to our emotions, then our intellect and our understanding will not be able to lead us to a sound and wise decision.

[00:15:06] DISCERNMENT
So, even in the spiritual realm, because let's say in the context of a relationship with God, followers of Christ, for example, like to use the word discernment, like spiritual discernment. Now, spiritual discernment is different from just decision making in general. But it also, it's very similar, in a sense that the first step, we must be able to be attentive to the data, right?

[00:15:31] So, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, who is very well known. His process of discernment of spirits, which is a way of spiritual discernment is - as I'm about to make an important decision, how do I know there's certain influences that I feel? How do I know this is the prompt of the Holy Spirit? Is it a temptation to try to get me to make a decision? Is it from God? Is it not from God? Is it coming from my own insecurities?

[00:15:55] You know, it's a wonderful process to become more self-aware, so that we know, we are in a better space to make decisions, to know how God is working in our life.

[00:16:05] But Saint Ignatius himself, talks about the raw data of discernment is our affect - is data of sense and that data of affect. Okay, I mean, our emotions and how our bodies feel actually come into the equation. And I wonder how many people actually know that. He talks about consolation and desolation, right?

[00:16:26] As in like, first we need to notice how are we feeling? What state are we in? If we're in a state of consolation, we experience peace, hope - you know, a sense of even if we're in difficult circumstances, there is a sense of being able to trust God. So, there's peace, there's hope. He's talking about supernatural experiences, of course - not necessarily just natural, right? 

[00:16:48] But how do you know you're experiencing peace, hope and trust? You have to pay attention to how your body feels. You're going to have to pay attention to what your emotions are telling you. If you don't have access to your emotions, you don't have access to how your body is feeling, you are not going to be able to really tune into, am I in consolation or I am in desolation? 

[00:17:09] I think usually we don't really have that much of a problem knowing when we are in desolation, right? Because you feel bereft of hope, you feel anxiety, you feel often, when we are in desolation, we feel there's this compulsion to act, to make a decision because we want to get out of the situation that's making us feel so anxious, fearful.

[00:17:29] We want to take control of our destiny, of our future, then we want to act. But are we aware that that's actually how we are feeling? So, we're talking about that stepping back and having that meta-awareness that actually I'm feeling anxious, right? Actually, I really want to make a decision because I'm anxious, right? I'm afraid, and I feel like if I don't make a decision now, I'm going to lose out to people and then, my future is going to be affected, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:17:56] We can't make a sound wise decision, much less a sound and wise discernment, unless we can first be aware properly that, what's the lay of the land; that right now, what's influencing me is my anxiety, is my fear of losing out, it is my fear of other people may be thinking that I'm not playing ball, that I'm not a team player, of maybe someone thinking that I'm ungrateful, right?

[00:18:25] All these things could be influencing me to act a certain way to make a decision in one way or the other. If I'm not aware of my emotions, of what my emotions are telling me, I would not have that access, and I may just make a knee jerk reaction - decide based on what will in the moment, make me less uncomfortable. 

[00:18:46] And then sometime later, realize that, oh, actually, that wasn't a wise decision. So, our emotions have to be brought into this process of discernment, of making decisions. So, within ourselves, our interior reality, we need to have a healthy and trusting relationship with our emotions and not just with our emotions, with our intellect, our reason as well, with our bodies, right? So, even if we're just thinking about our intellect and our emotions, for example, and how our bodies also cue us about what's going on - give us data, give the mind and intellect data, we need to have good governance.

[00:19:28] GOVERNANCE
Okay, so that's a big word, a very important word, governance. What's a governor? Someone who governs, someone who rules a leader, right? What happens when you have good governance? Different parts play their role in harmony. The system is in a healthy, stable condition, and it works well.

[00:19:48] When you have poor governance, you will have chaos, right? Different parts are not playing well with one another, you know, some parts that are not supposed to be active, decide to take action when they're supposed to be quiet. Other parts are maybe too frozen to act when we need them to actually come to the fore and contribute.

[00:20:08] So, when we talk about interior life and interior journey, who is the governor? Some of you may default to thinking like, well, Christ, right? Yes, but hold on a second. He doesn't make, how do I put it? He doesn't bypass us. He gave us free will. God gave us free will and gave us conscience, and gave us the ability to, in that sense, self-govern.

[00:20:29] Of course, we need His grace and that relationship with Him to govern well. But the wise and loving governor that we need to ensure that our emotions, our intellect, are working together to help us lead a prudent, a good life, is our core self.

[00:20:48] Okay, so in yesterday's Live, day three, I talked about coming home to our ourself and why that our self is so important. And it's linked to what I'm saying now. Because without an integrated self, core-self inside me, if I don't know who I am. If I don't have any stability, if I keep having to look outside of myself to get some reference point as to who I am, there is no ability within me to have that core-self step up and be that wise governor.

[00:21:21] When your true self begins to emerge, I mean, it's there. It's there, but you know, we haven't found it and it needs to be strengthened and rebuilt. But when you have that core self, what is incredible, in terms of the experience, is that you have more confidence and more trust in yourself.

[00:21:36] I think many of us don't even know how that feels like because we go our whole lives not having that experience of what it's like to be able to trust myself to make good decisions. You see, trust is earned, right? Trust is earned. So, the more we grow into that ability to govern our ourself, to be able to pay attention without fear, to what our emotions and our bodies are trying to submit to us, the data, and being able to let our intellect, our reason come in and deliberate and process the data in a way that pays due attention and reverence and respect to our emotions, to our body - the more we can do that, and the more we find that when we make decisions in this process, we make good decisions, the more we will trust ourselves.

[00:22:23] And the more we trust ourselves, the more confident we become the, the more mature we grow in our ability to govern ourself, right? So, we need to have that good governance from within ourselves, right? That core self. So, it's often because we lack that wise ruler inside us, we lack that wise and loving core self.

[00:22:47] OUR INNER CRITIC
So, remember I said - I'm saying deliberately wise and loving because if the part of us that is, in a sense, always taking over, calling the shots, right? If it's our inner critic, which is actually a part of us also, in a sense, we don't experience our governor as loving, right? Because the inner critic is often pushing, saying, not good enough, not fast enough, not perfect enough, maybe shaming us. Our inner critic also has a role to play, but it shouldn't be the ruler. It shouldn't be the one that governs us.

[00:23:21] And then maybe a part of us that feels often like, I'm lost, I'm the victim. And that's also a part of us because we have often been in the past, wounded, maybe abandoned and in a sense, victimized. And that's a part that we need to listen to as well. It usually shows up with certain emotions, but neither should this part take over and become the governor, because then we'll forever be playing victim being helpless. And always thinking of ourselves as the victim. 

[00:23:51] That's not empowering either. The only way we can be empowered, become more whole and integrated, to live authentically, courageously to follow Christ really, is if we can let that centre of gravity be our true self, that inner core. That adult self that can listen to all these parts. 

[00:24:12] So, what does a good governor do? A good governor would know - what he or she does, would include being able to listen to all parties, pays attention to the needs of all parties with reverence and respect, and then be able to synthesize and make a decision and you know, and deliberate as to what is the best cause of action for the collective, right, for the collective.

[00:24:34] That wise and loving governor is actually what we are trying to build, and what Christ wants to restore to us, in the interior journey, in this core self, okay. This is the missing ingredient for so many of us. And without that core self, we will end up fearing and distrusting our emotions, right?

[00:24:53] Because in the absence of this inner leader, our emotions can often be experienced as being destructive and misleading, right? Because our emotions bring critical data, but they are raw data. Okay, raw data that needs to be processed, considered, weighed in order to have its value understood and acted upon.

[00:25:13] So, our emotions on their own, the value is not very apparent, okay? But if we dismiss it, we don't receive what the emotion is trying to bring us. We will also never be able to extract the value of that emotion because it's meant to guide us somewhere with the help of the rest of us, right - the intellect and the wise governor inside us.

[00:25:35] So, think of like the difference between a raw gem, a raw diamond that looks just like rock. It's not apparent, right? The value's not apparent. But if you polish it and you cut it, whether it's by a skilled craftsman, not only is the value very apparent, it's actual value rises, right? I mean, the actual money value of a polished and cut diamond that is masterfully cut and is much higher than that of a raw diamond.

[00:26:03] Our emotions are, in a sense, like the raw diamonds. There's value there, but there's hidden value there. On its own, if you don't do anything with it, it's just not going to do anything. But it plays an important part for us to know who we are, what we're called to do, what is prudent, what is wise.

[00:26:20] WHY CAN'T WE TRUST OUR EMOTIONS?
Okay, so why is it that so many of us don't trust our emotions? I think the answer for many of us is that we felt betrayed by our emotions before we've experienced what it's like when we go where we feel our emotions are leading us, and then we get bitten, we get betrayed, and so we say no, our emotions are not trustworthy.

[00:26:39] Some of us, maybe from a much younger age, we stopped feeling our emotions because it was just so painful and so difficult to feel them, right? So, we just kind of like cut ourselves off from our emotion. It is very subconscious. Sometimes, some of the brightest, most capable, most wonderful people are completely disconnected from their emotions and they don't even realize it.

[00:27:01] And when they do talk about their emotions, it's almost like it's a foreign part of them, you know? I have a very good friend. She's very smart, very loving, very caring. I mean, she didn't realize how she has identified herself almost like completely with her intellect. Everything is just the intellect and what the intellect understands and being very reasonable and very rational. She's cut off her from her emotions. And she only knows that there's a problem when, let's say, you know, some crisis happens in her life and then she's overwhelmed by a certain emotion.

[00:27:31] So for example, anger. And she knows it's become a problem because it's making her sick. It's even affecting her body. And it's only when she went in to learn about her emotions and how to connect with her emotions in a more healthy manner, that she, in a sense, she realized that emotions are as much a part of her as her intellect is.

[00:27:53] I mean, I didn't trust, I used to be terrified of my emotions because they're so intense, and maybe for some of you, that's the same thing. Emotions can sometimes, for some of us, feel very intense. I didn't realize until I've started doing the healing work that a big reason for that is precisely because no one ever showed me how to receive my emotions, how to let them feel hurt and then be processed. So, it's like they accumulate. I instinctively picked up that somehow it is dangerous to listen to my emotions, almost.

[00:28:26] I put reason on a pedestal. I used to really, really admire people who are so rational. I felt like they were in complete control of themselves because they were so rational. I always used to see emotions as problematic, and I was afraid. But I also knew that the passion that I have, the desire I have to connect with people, emotions, have to be a part of it, right? So, I just didn't know how to deal with emotions.

[00:28:53] WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE CAN'T TRUST OUR EMOTIONS?
So, what happens when we can't trust our emotions? One, we may over rely on our intellect on rational thought. Some of us, depending on temperament, that's the way we would go. Or we really learn that part of our scripts is that we need to be able to logic everything out and improve that something that we want to do is good, purely from a rational point of view - okay, is that we completely dismiss the emotions.

[00:29:16] That's one thing we could do; over rely on the intellect and then therefore, sometimes make bad decisions because like I said, emotions bring valuable and critical data. Or we could over rely on other people's judgments, other people's guidance, let's say other people's authority, because we think I can't trust my emotions.

[00:29:35] And so because of that, I have a pattern of making poor judgments, poor decisions. So, somebody else maybe knows better than I do. I will defer the, in a sense, my responsibility to someone else because they know better.

[00:29:45] You know, it could be parents, and I'm not just talking about children as in when we're still kids. I think so many of us even way into adulthood, not just young adulthood, but way into adulthood, even when we are ourselves, maybe having children, are parents, ourselves - when it comes to certain things, we still let our parents tell us what to do.

[00:30:05] We may resent it, we may resist it. Some part of us may be unhappy with it, but we still allow that to happen because there's a part of us that never learned to trust ourself. There's a part of us that never learned to trust even our emotions. So, even let's say we feel angry at our parents' interference, we don't know how to process that anger; that the anger is trying to tell us that, hey, some important boundary has been breached here, and that's not right. That's not good.

[00:30:33] Some people, when they feel that anger towards, let's say their parents, immediately, they feel shame. They feel guilt because they think, oh, my parent wants the best for me. I shouldn't be feeling angry at them. I will dismiss my anger. I won't listen to my anger. And I'm just going to go along with what I think is so called, let's say maybe filial piety, which is a big virtue for Chinese people and for Asian cultures in general. Which is the respect that you give to your elders.

[00:30:57] But if I don't have a strong integrated core, I don't know how to trust my emotions, what looks like filial piety on the outside, is really abdicating my responsibility over my own life. So, in that sense, we will end up never owning our life when things go wrong and we are unhappy. We'll be blaming somebody else. We'll be blaming our parents. We'll be blaming our leaders in, let's say religious kind of communities and in context, communities. I mean, not like religious communities of people in, religious life. I mean general, let's say church communities for example.

[00:31:27] It is not uncommon for people to let a leader in the community, whether it's a lay leader or let's say, someone who's a clergy; pastor, a priest, give them that authority to make decisions over their own life, like their own personal life because they're not confident in their ability to make a discernment with God.

[00:31:51] It's funny, isn't it? I mean, each of us have been given authority to govern our own lives, our own interior lives, and we have responsibilities that no leader of ours have in our own sphere of influence, right? To abdicate that responsibility to someone else is actually very irresponsible.

[00:32:12] But the reason why we do that, so many of us do that, is because we don't know how to make good decisions or we are not confident of our ability to discern properly. And if you bring it back to the earlier step, it's because so often, we don't know how to be in the right relationship with our emotions.

[00:32:29] We don't know how to bring that into discernment, right? So, when we over rely on our intellect or over rely on other people's guidance or authority whom we think know better than we do, we are not integrated. We cannot be free. We cannot take ownership and responsibility of our own decisions and of our own actions.

[00:32:50] We won't know how to draw appropriate boundaries. And boundaries are so important for me, for you, for each of us to arrive at the full actuality of the potential that we have to live the life that we are created to live. Boundaries are so important. We need to get clearer and clearer as to what is mine and what is not mine to take up, what is mine and not mine to care about. Because we really don't have to care about everything. No one can care about everything.

[00:33:18] Collectively - collectively, we are meant to take care of everyone, of the kingdom, of the world, right? Collectively, as a human race, for example. But each individual, cannot possibly care about everything.

[00:33:31] Even if you bring it smaller to your sphere of influence or the people that you know. People will always come to you with requests and demands. And the needs could be genuine, but each of us has to make a good, wise, prudent deliberation, discernment. Is this mine to take up or is it not mine to take up?

[00:33:50] Because each of us have a very specific, very concrete call. And over time it is by drawing boundaries, by learning how to say no to what is not ours, that we can make more and more impact in the area we are called to make an impact. We need to serve. To serve the kingdom well, we need to know who we are and what is ours and draw boundaries.

[00:34:16] So, if we don't know how to trust our emotions and we don't know how to take ownership of our decisions, if we continue to just over rely on our reason or our guilt or our shame. Because sometimes, that's another way that we go. You know, we may not rely on reason anymore. We just rely on whatever makes me feel less guilty.

[00:34:36] I feel guilty if I don't do this. So, I will do this. You know, I feel like I'll let somebody down and I'll do that. That would also mean there's no boundaries. And don't be surprised if after years and even decades of working really hard trying to help people, you still find that you don't know who you are and you feel frustrated.

[00:34:54] That why is it I've given so much of myself, I've served as much as I can, and why is it that I feel so empty, so hollow, so burnt out? It is because, my dear brother or sister, you haven't learned to draw boundaries and you probably haven't learned to draw boundaries because you haven't yet have a sense of who your inner core who you are in your inner core, your inner self.

[00:35:16] Okay, so, when we don't trust our emotions, we don't heed warning signs that our bodies may be sending us; red flags, that our body may try to signal us with. You know, how sometimes some of us may call it maybe it's like a gut feeling, or you just don't trust someone. I really didn't trust my emotions.

[00:35:35] So last time, whenever I meet - even if I sense that I don't quite trust someone, sometimes it's like I'll tell myself, oh, give the person a chance. You know, you have no evidence. Yes, this person hasn't done anything yet to hurt you or anything. He or she hasn't shown that they're not trustworthy, right?

[00:35:48] So, I would dismiss my gut instinct. I have a husband who is very in tune with his gut instinct, but I think in this case, it's also maybe part of his gift. And so, sometimes my reaction and his reaction, we may pick up a bit of the same signals, or for me, it's usually very muted or sometimes I just don't pick it up at all, because I'm not connected. He's quite connected, right.

[00:36:11] And I used to think that he makes pre-emptive judgments about people when he tells me, for example, to be careful of so and so, or just to be more mindful when you enter this work or this situation or whatever, with another person because he can sense kind of like danger, potential danger ahead.

[00:36:28] BUILDING TRUST WITH MY EMOTIONS
I used to have none of that sense. But I feel, I've realized in the last few years when I've been rebuilding my sense of self, when I've been rebuilding my connection with my emotions, I realize that actually I do have that ability too, and that it often - I am indeed correct.

[00:36:46] So, that's another thing that's uncanny about my husband. He's almost always proven right. He's, in fact, I haven't yet come across a time when he's been wrong in terms of his sense of whether somebody is trustworthy or not or what kind of issues or problems a person may bring. He's very sharp.

[00:37:03] For me, I'm finding that, I used to think that, oh, I just don't have that ability. But I'm realizing now it's not entirely true that I don't have that ability. It's that I have been disconnected from my intuition and my emotions because I didn't use to trust that. And as I rebuilt my trust with my emotions, I've also become much better and able to make good decisions, wise decisions and discernments.

[00:37:28] How do I know that they're wise and good discernments? Usually, the fruit - like after you make a decision, what comes after, if there is good fruit, especially like spiritual fruit coming from it. And I see that I'm continuing to become more integrated, more authentic. I'm able to be more effective in what I'm doing. I'm able to follow Christ with greater peace, more patient in suffering. For example, all these are some examples of fruit.

[00:37:52] Then it means that the decision I'd made was a good decision, right? And I mentioned earlier in this Live, that trust is earned. Even our trust with ourself is earned. So, when you have a very poor record, and I used to have a very poor record of bad decisions. Things happen and I get upset and I think, oh, I did it again, and I don't know what I did again. I just know that I landed in a bad situation again and I never trusted myself because, I was a bad leader, right?

[00:38:18] And for me, that's why I always look to others, try to kind of like sense what other people thought I should do. I used to think, or I used to reason that that's being humble; I'm like trying not to be too sure of myself and I'm actually consulting others.

[00:38:33] Our mind can be very devious sometimes. We only hear people talk about how the heart can be devious, but you know, the mind can be even more devious. Our minds can trick ourselves when our emotions and our bodies don't lie, okay? Because they're just raw. They're just giving you the data. But our minds - because our minds are the ones that try to kind of give a narrative to be able to understand something, our minds can trick us.

[00:38:54] TWO MAJOR THINGS THAT HAPPEN WHEN WE DON'T TRUST OUR EMOTIONS
So, for me, for the longest time, my mind gave me this narrative that the reason why I consult many people before, to make a decision, is that I'm trying to be humble, that I'm trying to know what other people are thinking. But really, it's because I didn't have enough trust in myself. Okay, I wasn't connected with myself. So, when that happens, I just want to talk about 2 problems that can happen.

[00:39:20] #1. EMOTIONALLY UNHEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS
One, we can love in very emotionally unhealthy ways because we are unaware of our inner state. So, when we think we're loving someone, we can be very sincere. I'm really loving someone to the best of my ability. But because I'm disconnected from my own emotions, I do not know when I've entered into an unhealthy place.

[00:39:40] And so, we can enter bad situations as well. I mean, all kinds of relationships, whether it's professional relationship, working relationship, friendship, family relationship, romantic relationship, whatever, what have you, we end up loving in very emotionally unhealthy ways.

[00:39:55] #2. OVER-SPIRITUALIZING
Secondly, in the context of being a person of faith, oh, this happens so, so often - we can over-spiritualise, right? If we don't trust our emotions, we are disconnected from our emotions. We don't have that wise governor that governs our emotions and our intellect, our reason, in order for us to make a proper, like a well weighed, considered decision. We often over-spiritualise. 

[00:40:23] And then we try to follow Christ in ways that actually harm ourselves and others, and we don't know. So, why is it that we can over-spiritualise? Think about it - if I'm not confident that I can make a good decision based on the equipment, in the sense, that God has given me; by being attentive to the data that's coming through my senses, the data that's coming through my emotions, through being able to reason and weigh these things from what I know and understand about who I am, about who God is.

[00:40:52] Let's say, if you're religious as well, kind of like the teachings from your faith. You know, for me, let's say as a Catholic and what the church teaches, none of these things on their own should have the only say. You know what I'm saying? It's like for us to make a discernment, we need to know many things, and we need to be able to incorporate the data that comes from our senses and our emotions to make decisions in the present moment.

[00:41:19] Because many things that our intellect understands, they are not contextualized to what's happening right now. So, when we are talking about loving someone, loving ourselves, making decisions in our life, we always need to be able to make a judgment that is practical, that is in this moment.

[00:41:37] And that requires us to be able to trust our emotions - that's one of the prerequisites. So, what is needed for us to rebuild our trust in our emotions? We need to repair our relationship with ourself. And that's why yesterday's video and today is still about; kind of like this relationship with ourself, how that we need to repair this relationship with ourself. Today, specifically, that we need to repair and rebuild our relationship with our emotions.

[00:42:06] I'm not be going to be able to go into the modalities, right. Like into the how because that's also not my area of expertise. Although I've experienced it for myself. I've gone through things and I've seen others who are on this journey go through different things. So, I will just say for me, what has been very instrumental in helping me to rebuild my relationship with inner self, with my emotions, is inner child healing. Inner child healing.

[00:42:34] On my podcast, I have a whole series on inner child healing, beginning with a conversation that I had with a psychologist and therapist, Dr. Jean Cheng, who does this kind of this work. So, I would say, if you're new to this, you want to learn more about Inner Child healing, go and listen to that series.

[00:42:52] That conversation that I had with Dr. Jean Chang and the subsequent episodes where I talked about the impact of inner child healing on my relationship with myself, my relationship with God, my relationship with other people.

[00:43:04] Okay, so, what happened when I began to rebuild trust in myself in my own emotions. The second thing that has come up a lot in my experience, and it came at a later point in my journey than inner child healing. But it has also been helpful, very helpful in my understanding that I made up of different parts and that it is a wise governor, right - a wise governor, a wise inner self that can help me get more integrated and live more authentically.

[00:43:31] So, that's Internal family systems. You can Google that. There's another person, another psychologist that's also on Instagram, Dr. Allison Cook. You can find her. She has written two books now. 

[00:43:44] Her first book is put specifically on internal family systems, and I think it's a good introduction to, internal family systems, especially from the perspective of someone who is also a Christian. Okay, so it's using a lot of these like inner child healing and internal family systems - they draw from the wisdom, from the sciences, in this case, let's say psychology, and incorporate them.

[00:44:06] They can be incorporated into the context where we are followers of Christ because this tends to the human dimension of what it means to be a follower of Christ. So, that's something that you can check out, a resource that you can check out.

[00:44:20] And I just want to say that the impact of the wounds that we have experienced, the impact of trauma or complex trauma, again, that's a term that some of you may not be familiar with. Complex trauma. If you want, you can Google that as well. Most of us would think that we are not survivors of trauma because we haven't had like huge, horrible, life-threatening things happen to us, but so many of us have.

[00:44:46] In fact, we are not aware, but we bear the impact or the effects of complex trauma in our life. And one of that impact is the disconnection with our emotions. Either that our emotions are too overwhelming and we are afraid of them, or we are so far from our emotions that we cannot feel them.

[00:45:05] It's like when we talk about our emotions, we are completely devoid of any feeling of them. So, our inability to feel safe with ourself, our inability to trust ourselves is due to the brokenness and the wounding that we ha we have experienced. So, even as you go forward on this, remember, be gentle, be patient, be kind with yourself. It's a lot. All these things are a lot.

[00:45:33] And like what I've talked about when I do these kind of sharings, I'm condensing what I've learned over many, many years and I can talk about them as if they're all happening at the same time. It may sound like the process is something that you can do within like maybe, I don't know - months.

[00:45:49] And it's not. But it's worth doing. It's just not the nature of the journey that it can be hurried. It's not the nature of the journey that you can just fix what you want fixed. Although, I understand the desire that you just wish the problems would go away, that you can be okay again, that you can trust yourself. 

[00:46:09] But you can do it with God's grace. You can do it. And I hope that today's sharing has given you something to chew on, something to think about - about rebuilding your relationship with your emotions. 

[00:46:22] So, thank you for popping in, those of you who came in and out. And as usual, if you have any questions, you can ask me, just in general, for future Lives, I will try to address your questions. Bye and see you tomorrow.

[00:46:40] CONCLUSION
Thank you for listening to Becoming Me. The most important thing about making this journey is to keep taking steps in the right direction. No matter how small those steps might be, no matter where you might be in your life right now, it is always possible to begin. The world would be a poorer place without you becoming more fully alive.

If you like what you hear on this podcast, you would like to receive a monthly written reflection from me as well as be updated. On my latest content and offers, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter, Begin Again. You can find the link to do that in the show notes. Until the next episode, happy becoming!