One of the prevailing messages many of us are taught growing up is that emotions are a bad thing. For those of us who grew up in the West, emotions are often seen as illogical or considered a weakness.

However, the Bible is filled with emotional language because God himself feels emotions! He can be grieved (Genesis 6:6), can rejoice over us with singing (Zephaniah 3:17), and he can love (John 3:16). In the same way, as people made in God’s image, we also can be thankful for the many emotions we are able to experience!

For missions leaders, self-awareness around emotions is critical. In the high-stress environment of field leadership, emotions will be flying all over the place in yourself, your family, and your teammates! It’s critical we learn how to identify our emotions properly, rather than to stifle and ignore them. Our feelings are often a reflection of what is actually going on in our hearts, and can help us to understand our own motivations or those of others. And when we understand these deeper motivations, we are then able to apply real and effective solutions.

Below are some resources that can help us to understand and to access our deeper emotions.

Tool: Feelings Wheel

The feelings wheel is a handy tool that you can regularly reference to help put specific words to the feelings we experience. A good way to daily process your emotions is to pick out 3 emotions that you experienced during the day and to review why you felt those things.

Book: Emotionally Healthy Spirituality

Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Pete Scazzerro makes the point that spiritual maturity is deeply tied into emotional maturity. This books discusses how to integrate the two together for a more holistic discipleship. We recommend this book for basically everyone on our team or any goers we know! He has also written Emotionally Healthy Leader and Emotionally Healthy Discipleship.

Poetry:

If you have a hard time accessing and feeling your emotions, we recommend turning to art (literature, photography, music, etc.) to help you. Here is one of Jenn’s favorite poems:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers | Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.