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How do we process feelings in order to bring about healing into our relationships, rather than cause tension and strife?
Can we trust our feelings?
Do you struggle to interpret your spouses feelings? Does your spouse misinterpret your feelings?
This podcast will help give some guidance about healthy ways to process our feelings and the feelings of those who are in our lives.
What is your compass?
Although feelings are real, feelings can be a disastrous compass. Feelings are volatile, unpredictable, and often, not even accurate to reality.
There is a MUCH better compass to live by!
In order to act in wisdom with our feelings, they cannot be our leader! Rather than react to our feelings, we need to respond to our feelings.
To be direct in our communication is often easier for the speaker, but it is harder for the listener. Does our communication style make those who hear us feel safe, cherished, respected, admired, and loved?
Yes, feelings – wisely handled – can be so helpful in so many ways! I invite you into this podcast with Belah as she shares some valuable insights on this subject.
On behalf of Belah, ~ Darcy
PS If you would like help with your marriage, you are invited to click on this link to schedule a free Clarity Call with a DYM advisor.
PPS EXTENSION: We’ve decided to leave the Ladies Masterclass open through this weekend. It will be closing Monday morning. Sign up here.
transcription
0:02
Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. You’re joining me belah rose as I dive deep into the beauty, power and truth about intimacy, learn not only the practicals, but the heart behind what making love is all about delight your marriage. Hey, there welcome. Oh my goodness, Christmas is right around the corner. And I really want to post this conversation because there’s so many feelings that happened around the holidays, whether it’s, you know, just past hurts from people in our family or expectations that have not been filled, or hopes and dreams that are just not reality right now in your family life. And that’s why I want to talk about feelings and helping you to process this season, and helping you to have some guidance on your feelings that they’re important. But they also need to bow their knee to wisdom and, and how to do that inner play, and how God can use our feelings effectively, to help heal relationships. So I’m going to give some examples about interactions with in my life that hopefully will also give some insight into your situations as well. Now, before we dive in, if this is a topic and something that you are feeling like yes, I really need this insights for my marriage. And let’s say you’ve been listening to the podcast for a little bit. And you have already gained some really great tools and you’re starting to see things change in your marriage, I want to invite you that this is really the time to get more support. Like right in the beginning, as you’re changing things and changing your perspective on how your marriage works, I want to invite you to consider going further and actually taking the step to get on a call with my darling clarity advisor who if you have listened to any of the podcasts, specifically, Dana’s I would encourage you to go back and listen to hers. But she’s now a clarity advisor herself. And so she can help walk you through your story and find out if we can help you specifically whether you’re a husband, or a wife, and what you’re going through. And she is just just wonderful. And I encourage you to to get that now, one insight I want to give you from a husband who’s going through the men’s training, I just want to say one quick thing he said, looking back, I don’t think there is any way I would have found or practiced all the things that is being delivered in the MR course. I mean, there are things you find it in books and in podcasts, and that stuff is really good. But those are usually one offs, or you find a few golden nuggets to learn and practice from them. It is absolutely amazing how much is delivered in this course and how strategic it is in helping give a woman what she needs 12 weeks ago, or 12 weeks of so many layers of things that guys can work on, that women want and need. I just don’t think I have, I would have been able to do all this on my own, or to the depth and understanding that this course brings the cherry on top is that this past this past week, my wife said she’s feeling loved and cherished and was kind of doing a gut check to see if she was happy with my progress and growth. And she said she is amazed at how differently I’m treating her. He’s also said some really cool things. But you know, these men truly are transformed with the work so I want to invite you if you have been toying with the idea of doing a program with me get on a clarity call, find out if it’s the right fit for your situation, and get started right away. The holidays are busy, but this might be the exact right time for you to dip your toe in and get started right in time for the new year and have a totally different transformation for 2020 to go to delight your marriage.com/cc Alright, let’s dive in
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so God is a good God and He gives us feelings on purpose. And they are important. Now, I want to note that our society really elevates feelings in a way that because people don’t have the Spirit of God guiding them and the word of God guiding them, something has got to guide them. And so they guide they are guided by their feelings. Because all of us want to be guided, right we need, we all want to do the right thing I think that’s innately in who we are as humans, and so they’re guided by their feelings. But we are followers of Jesus, we’re not guided by our feelings. Now, God gave us feelings, they were important. They teach us things, they show us things, they even may motivate healing and growth for us. But we have to make sure that feelings are not our master. They’re not our guide. And so when you have strong feelings, whether you’re a husband or a man, you know, I was really maybe edified by my teaching assistant yesterday, because of an interaction that happened on the call. And then he had a really fantastic insight after the call. And basically, it was this, we were talking about how extreme feelings either very low feelings or very high feelings for a man very well may motivate him to sex, like, really great thing happened, he wants to have sex, a really terrible thing happened or stress or sadness, or all this stuff, he wants to have sex. And for a wife, it’s more like the extremes are like, she wants to be held and cuddled and listened to, in a really terrible thing happening, or a really great thing happening, cuddled and listened to, and the motivation isn’t the same when we have strong strong feelings as husband and wives. That that’s just one example. And that may ring true for you, it may help you to perceive your spouse, with more grace of like, we just had this incredible experience together. And she doesn’t want to make love this doesn’t make any sense to me. Or, as a wife, if you’re like, oh my gosh, we just had this incredible experience together can’t be satisfied. But it’s it’s the natural result of husbands and wives being so different. So keep that in mind as we go through this, that you guys are experiencing life, completely different. And that’s a great, that’s a good thing. It also causes us to get out of ourselves over and over and over again, to see things differently, and to remember, Oh, my goodness, this, this human, this wonderful creature that God has made, that’s living in my house with me, experiences life, very different, very different. They’re not the same as me. They don’t understand things the same as me, we are different humans. So again, we shouldn’t be led by our feelings. That’s why I really hope that you start a practice of being in the Word. And even if it starts by one scripture a day, really literally one scripture. And it can be as fun as simple as buying yourself a Bible, I would say, really get a physical Bible because it’s nice to have, you know, the phone Bible app. But the problem with that is I think there’s a bit of, first of all, there’s temptation to distraction. And there’s, that’s real, it’s real. For me, it’s real for all of us. It’s a dopamine hit when we’re in the distraction seeking mode. But so it’s very scientifically accurate, that distractions feel good, and they go anyway. The point is, though, that I would encourage you to get a Bible. And literally, I’m so happy for you to flip open the Bible and read one scripture or a chunk of scriptures and see what God might be speaking to you in it. And, and not that, and yeah, it’s a little bit. You know, as you grow in your reading of the word, you’ll probably find more you know, more meat if you are a bit more methodical about it, but just start, don’t feel like the Bible is above your head. It’s not if you could just, if you could just start the practice, you’ll be surprised so Psalms and Proverbs and
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in the gospels, like those are so simple to open up to any chunk, any page of those and you’re going to get something really tangible and as you start loving the Word of God, you will be able to you know, maybe tackle some of the harder chapters and the the harder texts and you get, you know, certainly there’s so many chunks of the New Testament that are also super easy to flip open to and, and also the Old Testament, there’s plenty but there’s such richness and beauty And the Word of God. And the reason that’s so important is because that is what should inform what we do and are they that should be our guide. So when I was in my first marriage, I was really, I was really surrender to God, I really did try my very, very best to be the right wife tried to submit, I tried to do all the things. But I just didn’t have wisdom, I didn’t have the right wisdom to inform who I should have been in my marriage. And the fact that you’re listening to this means that you are seeking wisdom, in your life and in your marriage, I just want to applaud you, you’re doing the right thing. This is good. And you should really be applauding yourself that you are seeking to honor God in the way you think and what you do and how you act, and how you are with your spouse. And feelings are huge, because so often, we immediately react to our feelings, and we do our knee jerk reaction. And a lot of times, our knee jerk reaction is based upon what we saw our parents do in fights in interactions. When they responded to their feelings, how did they treat other people? Another thing that that could come from is just our regular role models in life. So maybe it’s not our parents, maybe it’s other people we grew up with? Or maybe it’s at this point, the stories we’ve heard, how do people react to this emotion? And so where do we get those stories? A lot of times, they come from media, they come from movies, they come from what we’re feeling are, what stories are, are filling our minds. And so if we’re getting our, our template, for behavior, from movies, we have to realize that’s not, that’s not what God actually wants us to do. And that’s really something I’ve definitely been fallen prey to at times. Because you know, movies are so fun, and they just are exciting. And, you know, we identify with the characters, and you know, and then there’s drama and intrigue. But the problem is, it’s a really bad template for healthy relationship, it doesn’t, it doesn’t actually lead us closer to what God wants us to be about in our, in our actual relationship. So when we have feelings, I want to kind of give you some steps to take, first of all, see what you can do to actually acknowledge the feelings. When you have an intense feeling. See what you can do to name it.
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What is the feeling you’re having? Is it disappointment? Is it feeling left out? Is it feeling hurt? You know, and it’s not I feel like XYZ, it’s,
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I feel blank. Because a lot of times we’ll get to, I feel like my wife should do dot dot dot data. Or I feel like my husband should be dot dot dot data, or whatever it may be. But that’s not actually a feeling. What’s a feeling is I feel lonely, I feel disconnected. I feel sad. Those are feeling words. Now, if you can just name those. First of all, that’s the thing that’s this is internal work, right is naming them first. Now, if you’re an external processor, like myself, the better way to do this is maybe you journal it, maybe you have a safe friends that you can share these feeling words with. You know, and when I say safe, you want to make sure that there’s an understanding that what you talk about is confidential, that it’s not going anywhere that you share your feelings, but it’s not it’s not going to be shared elsewhere. I have a few close friends like this and it is just invaluable that I can share feelings without being judged without feeling like like my you know, I’ve got a filter my feelings like it just helps me process and if you’re like me, get some really healthy good friendships like that. And if you don’t have those, get on a clarity call with one of my with a clarity advisor because we can help you there. That’s a huge part of this ministry is having healthy good friendships that can help you because you know how weddings you have, you know, however many people joined your wedding. Think about that for a second, how many people joined your wedding? I think the reason it’s actually good to have weddings and people attending them is because you want a bunch of people supporting your marriage. And that’s my, that’s I think the actual beauty of having people attending your wedding is they are there for you there for your marriage, you want to have support for your marriage, it is not always easy to have that deep true connection with your spouse, but do not. They should be supporting your marriage. What I hate witnessing is that people have been struggling and suffering in their marriage for so long. And they’ve been doing it all by themselves. They’ve been privately separating suffering, isolating themselves, because they think that they can’t let anyone in and if anyone knew, and that’s betraying their spouse by sharing how they’re feeling with others. And I think I don’t think that’s right. Honestly, I don’t. Now you do have to be careful with who you share it with, like probably family members, unless there’s true maturity with your family member, unless there’s someone who is going to truly not not share what you’re what you’re going through with others. That’s the person you want to be able to share struggles in your marriage with but not to share it with people who are not mature, and are not, you know, godly and have your best interests at heart, don’t share your marriage struggles with them. That’s not going to help your marriage. But when the intent is to help your marriage, I think sharing and getting advice and getting help. That is valuable, I think that is godly. Don’t suffer by yourself, and then get to a place where your feelings are so pressed down that they overflow into terrible actions towards your spouse. See, that’s not right. We need places to, to process and to share and to get wise Godly counsel. So yeah, the first step is to acknowledge the feeling, name, the feeling. And again, feelings don’t have to all be negative, they can certainly be positive, I feel overjoyed, I feel loved.
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I feel grateful. I feel encouraged, I feel honored, I feel respected, those are all feeling words that are good. And then I would say appreciate that there may be value in your feelings.
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So if you’re feeling overloaded, if you’re feeling overwhelmed, Anthony Robbins, talks about being careful about the like, name, the feeling, and then see if you can switch it into something that’s empowering. So when I feel overwhelmed, switch that word to I feel overloaded. And once I get to say, Oh, I feel overloaded, then I actually can do some actions to it rather than I feel overwhelmed. And that gives me the picture of like, I’m, you know, head underwater drowning, you know, rather than overloaded. Okay, I’ve got too many logs I’m trying to carry all at once. Like, that’s, that’s not Jesus best for me. You know, he says, His yoke is easy, and His burden is light. So if I’m feeling overloaded, I can, you know, come to Jesus and rest and say, Okay, Lord, you take the lead here, I’m trying to do it on my own strength. That’s why I’m feeling overwhelmed and overloaded. So appreciate that there’s value in those feelings. You know, don’t be one that that ignores them, to the extent that you don’t take the lessons that God may be trying to teach you. I’ve talked many times about our rest day or our Sabbath, that’s on Saturdays, and we try our best not to plan anything on Saturdays. And if there’s ever anything that could be stressful, we definitely don’t do that. But even just things that might be good, they’re just not resting. They’re just not. You know, the main, the main thing that for me is that I, I am not to have commitments. So it’s almost like, we wake up that day and decide, hey, if I want to do this, I can do it. But I don’t have to. Every now and then we miss a rest day, maybe once every two or three months. But for the most part every Saturday is our opportunity as a family to just reconnect and rejuvenate. And why that’s so important is that I have a chance to rejuvenate. And a lot of times our feelings, really, they just need a place to breathe, they need to be processed, and we need silence and calmness in our life to be able to process, the many things that are going on for us, whether it’s about our marriage, and our family, and our kids and all this or it’s about work, or it’s about anything, if you’re Go, go go all the time, you don’t have time to process, and you’re in a rush all the time. And so honoring your feelings and honoring what God might be saying to you, in your feelings through your feelings is important. Now, here’s the point I want to really make is they don’t get to guide your actions necessarily. So you want to have a curious heart. God, what? What does this mean? I’m feeling this way? How, how do you want me to interpret this? How do I? How do I process this? You want to be the one who responds to your feelings, not reacts, you want to by choice and with wisdom, choose your actions in response to your feelings. So I’m going to give this example in my own life. This is recent. But basically, let me let me describe it. I’ve had a hard relationship with someone that I love deeply. And I felt hurt about something recently in an interaction. I ended that conversation before there was further hurt. And I’m really grateful. I think that was the right thing to do is I saw the conversation was going south, it was opening old wounds. And I, the I saw the hurt right away, and I felt hurt. And so I ended that conversation before more bad things happened. And so after that, I went for a walk. And I prayed. And I talked to God. That’s one thing that I think is pretty cool about wearing masks during the, during the age of COVID is I live in New York City. So we’ve got to, we’ve got to wear our masks everywhere. But it was kind of great because I can talk and pray all the time with my mask on. And it’s no one can tell him doing either one. And it’s really great. So that’s an encouragement for you is you can talk and pray to yourself and no one will know. Who knows, I might keep wearing masks after this whole thing is over, we’ll see. It’s a good excuse to talk and pray to myself. Anyway, what happened next,
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so I was praying. And you know, one thing I was trying to do was just remember the source, and remember what that person is going through in their life. And that’s something I was praying and just asking God, like I I know, they’ve been going through this situation, I know that, you know, they don’t value rest, I know that there are other things going on in their life. And they live very differently than me. And they think very differently than me. And I’ve seen them interact and in ways that I don’t think is kind in other ways. So it makes sense that they would then interact with me this way. And, you know, I just tried to spell it all out to God. But also, I was pretty unfiltered in my heart of like this person. So mean, and why would they say such a thing? And how could they and I was doing it because I was done. You know, I had all sorts of self righteous things to tell God about it. So. But that’s my unfiltered feelings. And I had, um, you don’t have march in my life to process those feelings. Now, if I didn’t have merge in my life to process it, I probably would have just called the person back and been like, listen, let me tell you all the things that are bad about you, and then just spilled it all out. And that all that would have gone is is further away from where I ultimately want us to be is to have a healed, good relationship. And that’s for you as well think about it. So I’m hoping this applies to you and your relationship with your spouse. So when you feel affronted when you feel accused, when you feel criticized when you feel it’s unfair. Okay, remove yourself from the situation. get time to process whether it’s out loud with God, whether it’s in a journal, whether it’s speaking to a trusted friend who is not going to judge and this is a confidential friend, and they are for your marriage. They are rooting for your marriage. Those are the kinds of things that you absolutely want to have in place in process your feelings. Okay, so all unfiltered stuff went to God. And by the end of it, I was able to have grace and perspective that there are gaps in this person’s life. And they are reacting to the past themselves. And and, and then I spoke to Oh, okay, so then the next step of this story is a few days later, as I’m, you know, still working to let this thing go. Another thing came up, and it triggered that recent hurtful interaction. And, again, I spoke to a couple safe people that, that it wasn’t going to go anywhere. And I had enough processing done that when I spoke to the person, I was able to own what I could, and say that this is probably my fault in these ways. And I even shared that I think my feelings were triggered by that past hurtful interaction. And this was all in a text message, by the way, and then I suggested a playful self deprecating remark, you know, just why not end it playfully. And, you know, whatever it is, like give a give a funny, self deprecating remark. And then the person was able to send a kind text message back, and we both saved face as a result. But not just save face, I think that because of me, gently owning my feelings, and, and sharing that I felt triggered by that recent interaction. And, you know, this is on me, and my feelings, I was able to pave the way for them to also own there’s no, there’s no guarantee. And I didn’t have expectation that that person would, but God did it. So here’s my suggestion, feelings are real. And they have many sources are the source of feelings, maybe a few things, one, that your life is too busy, and you have not processed painful things in your life. And so one little thing that happens, you blow up because of it. And it’s out of a place of
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running on empty in your life. So there’s that. Another reason might be that, you know, hormones, obviously, is an important thing to be thinking about, where if you’re a woman were on your cycle, are you and, you know, you might be reacting to this in a strong way. But don’t take that out on somebody else, be really cautious. You know, have your feelings have safe places to bring them out, but not in an accusatory mean way to others. And at the same time, dear husbands also recognize that there might be other sources, impacting why your wife is feeling strong feelings, and she doesn’t realize that there are other things. One thing that’s been really helpful for me as I’ve been learning more about parenting in a recent season, is that sometimes, if you have kids, you know, this might have been for you all, it’s almost like right before bed, the kids just, you know, some tiny thing will make them just melt down in a puddle of tears. And it feels like it’s during, or right after school, they’ll just become this, you know, meltdown or whatever. And a lot of times, it’s because we kind of they, they have to hold in their feelings for all day, because they’re in front of their friends or their teacher or whatever is going on in their, in their life, whatever their day looked like. And then finally, they’re in a safe place and they just let it all out. And they can finally expel all this feelings and and let it out and let it flow. And there’s a teacher, Gordon Neufeld, Dr. Gordon Neufeld, and he’s, he teaches about parenting and one thing he talks about is that you know, just like food has got to be taken in and processed and then expelled. He talks about emotions in a similar way taken in processed and expelled and sometimes the expelling is messy and uncomfortable and it doesn’t, it doesn’t feel like all of he elaborates on that. I know it’s a gross metaphor, you men probably would think that metaphor is funny, but I’m just I’m just always surprised how men think potty humor their whole life, from age five to 65. They just seem to always think it’s funny. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, the Yeah, I just want to encourage you that, yeah, getting your emotions out is good. So I encourage for those of you men that have trouble with anger, why not get a punching bag, why not expel your anger somewhere productive, I’m serious early on in my husband in my relationship, I even got him a punching bag, because he was having a hard time knowing what to do with his anger. And that punching bag was really important to help him process. And just because you don’t process the way your wife does with words, or maybe you do and it’s in its flipped, it doesn’t really matter, maybe your wife and you don’t process with words, that’s totally fine. Find your way to process your feelings. But don’t pretend they’re not there. They do need to be processed, you do need to be gentle with yourself and figure out what’s going on and in process through it. You know, that walk when I was describing my situation was really important. I really needed to physically handle the feelings, you know, sometimes it’s, it’s a expelling the intensity of emotion. So then you can get to a place where you’re actually feeling a you’re sorry, you’re actually thinking clearly. That’s also something in child psychology that I’ve loved learning about is, when your child is having strong emotions, it’s their logical reasoning part of the brain is cut off. It’s almost like the door got closed on the logical part. Because currently, they’re in the emotional, hysterical part. And so if we think about our own brains and our own feelings, that way, we need to process through the feelings, let them die down far enough so that we can then look back and say, Okay, what what happened here. So when I say never argue, I’m not saying that you’re not going to have strong feelings. I’m not saying that you’re not going to get offended sometimes and hurt and have these strong feelings. It’s that your response to them is different
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than maybe it has been in the past and has been, as you’ve seen, modeled for you. Now, let’s talk about wisdom. Let’s talk about the right way to see it, and actually act in wisdom. So our feelings can’t be our leader. They can’t Jesus has to be our leader. And the way he expects us to act and love our spouse, well, you know, there’s so many indications in the Word of God that sexual intimacy is vital for a family for a marriage. It’s important. It’s really important for your husband. If you’re listening to this, and you have not felt in the mood. I understand you, oh, my gosh, do I understand you? And there have been times that I have gone to God, I literally I’ve had this prayer and said, Lord, I’m not interested. I really am not. I need your help. I need you to help me get on the other side of this because I love this man. And I know we need to connect. I know the fruits. I know it’s important for our family. I know it’s important for my husband, I want to love him. Well, I want him to have a great day tomorrow. So help me God give me grace. I’m serious. Those mean that that’s my words. And there are certain seasons where my gosh, I’m like ready to go no big deal. Like not only no big deal, I’m excited. I’m craving that that connection, that intimacy, all of that that closeness. But there are times that it is a it is a it is a recognition that something is more important than my feelings. Something else is more important than my feelings. And I think men have to do this too. When they’re seeking to love their wife, well, they have to put their desires aside and they have to say you know what, she’s hurting right now. And I’m going to ask her how she’s doing. What’s going on for her I’m going to have a curious attitude and heart even though I’m exhausted from the day and it takes so much energy to listen and take so much energy to do something sweet and special for her. We both need to do that to love ourselves. Well, you know, it’s much easier to be direct with our spouse. That’s the easier way. But it’s easiest for the communicator. But it’s hardest for the receiver. When we are communicating with our spouse, it’s easiest to be direct, but it’s hardest for the listener. And so think about that, when you’re a wife. To respect your husband is harder than just telling them what to do. It’s harder to be respectful. But it’s most effective. It’s definitely most effective. And it’s, um, it’s more, it’s in line with what God is asking us to do. And the way to love your husband well, with appreciation with admiration, with respect with love, all of these things. And with your wife, it’s, it’s also easier to be direct, but it’s harder for her, it’s harder for her. So instead to make sure that you make her feel safe and cherished and known. And elevate the culture of your marriage. So what to do with feelings, they’re important, because, for example, with this situation that I described, where I felt hurt, and then etc, etc, processed, and then you know, had a little bit more openness, but I also own my own feelings in it all. It led to healing, had I not had the strong feelings and not had to process them and not had to ponder and apply wisdom to it and process with a with some safe people, we wouldn’t have gone to healing on the other side of it. And God has been so kind to bring more healing to that relationship. So the feeling was important, the whole process of messiness.
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Don’t you hate how messy feelings are oh my gosh, couldn’t we just bottle those up and never have to feel the feelings my gosh, wouldn’t that be easier. But that’s not how God created us. Feelings are messy, and they are hard, but you know what God can use them, we need to process through them, we need to have wisdom, we need to realize they’re important. Because if I didn’t realize my own feelings were important, I wouldn’t have taken the time to process them. And I wouldn’t have taken the time to, to have some conversations that help me to process and help me to have wisdom about it, and then approach it in a kind, respectful way with that individual. And now there’s more healing between both of us. That’s the value of feelings. But the nuisance of feelings is that it’s messy. And it’s confusing, and it’s hard. And it’s easy to respond in immaturity. And it’s also hard to know, what’s the source of the feeling? And where did it come from, and why and sometimes we react to a feeling, even though it has nothing. We think it came from somewhere, but it’s not. And we accuse our spouse for making us miserable, even though it wasn’t their fault. And the real culprit is that our lives are too stressed. And we’re doing too many things. And that’s why we’re lashing out at other people. So I would encourage you to make this superduper practical. Number one, slow down your life. Slow down your life. If you’re doing a million things if you’re expecting yourself to do and accomplish a million things. Remember, having faith in God meaning means God is the one that is going to take care of you. He’s taking care of your family you can trust you can believe and that includes resting and relaxing, slowing down your life. That all is connected to having faith in God. I’m serious. So that’s number one. Number two, feel your feelings. Feel your feelings, acknowledge them, name them. Name your feelings. What are you feeling? Number three, process your feelings. And that kind of connects with number two, they’re processing them. Letting yourself come down off the the the strongness of the feeling and there are many ways to process whether it’s a punching bag a walk out loud conversation with God, a journaling conversation with God, a conversation with a safe, non judgmental friend. Process those feelings. Don’t expect yourself to be able to have Have a helpful conversation when those feelings are not processed. And then number four, respond in wisdom, respond in wisdom, maybe your husband is being a jerk because he doesn’t feel loved. Because it’s been a long time since you all have had passionate intimacy where you have felt. Yeah, passionate, engaged and enjoying intimacy. Or even just frequency or whatever, maybe that’s why he’s having those things. That’s reacting with wisdom that’s responding, sorry, that’s responding to the situation with wisdom. Maybe there are other things that your wife is upset about that really isn’t about the small, little tiny thing she’s accusing you of. Maybe it’s about a whole lot of other things. And you can respond with graciousness, and forgiveness and kindness. And it’ll help loosen her load. And have a curious heart. Number five, in all of this, have a curious heart of yourself, have a curious art of your spouse, have a curious heart of what God’s trying to teach you? And be okay, that you’re the reason something changes? You know, yes, it’s messy, that all those, you know, different people involved in this situation where I said, my, a couple of friends who have to have no judgment, you know, they have to be confidential. My husband processing it with my, the, the person, you know, had I not had strong feelings about it.
41:47
But you know, what, that that’s a great example for them, of processing and all of that for especially the individual that I had the hard situation with, like, I want them to process their feelings to in seek to honor me best. And so it’s all of its good. All of it’s good. If we can do this well, even if we think we look like an idiot in front of others. No, we look like a healthy human who has Messy emotions, just like everyone else does. And we’re not going to do it perfectly. Because motions are messy. Feelings are messy, but we are going to do our best. And that’s what you’re doing. You’re here because you’re doing your best. So your feelings have value, process them. Name them. respond in wisdom and throughout the whole thing. Be curious. God’s at work, he is at work in your life. Slow yourself down. Trust Him, believe that he’s at work in your life, even though feelings are messy, and hard sometimes. Let me pray for you. Father, I asked God that you would give this person wisdom. Give them wisdom. Give them insight and perspective. God help them to respond to the situations in their marriage, in their family, with their kids with their friendships, all of these different areas guide give them grace to respond to their feelings around it, with grace with themselves and with purpose to not be led by their fear feelings. Put to respond to them to process them to have slowness to to see what you might be wanting them to see about themselves through it. Jesus, you had feelings you were moved to tears you had compassion. You felt disappointed by your friends. God these are real. And Jesus you felt these ways. Help us to not sin in response to our feelings but help us to love others well.
44:09
Help us to love others well. Help us to heal as we process feelings as well God that you want to heal us through it all. In Jesus name, we love you. Thank you for loving us. Amen.
44:35
Thank you so much for listening today. And yeah, it’s a lot at you but hopefully, God’s gonna use maybe just one little sparkle in this conversation to help you to think through something a little differently in your own life. God bless you and it was wonderful hanging out with you today. Have a phenomenal start to your Christmas season. Love you. Bye