07 Relationships, Connection & Emotions

I would love to delve into the whole area of relationships. And how this can be a main cause of need for counseling in people's lives. So many times when people come to me for some kind of help, a listening ear, some perspective, or actually in-depth counseling, it's to do with a break in some form of relationship.

Whether it's to do with a spouse, with their children, with parents, even if it's adult parents, when you're an adult. In the workplace, especially in church, in community life, or with leaders, there's some kind of disconnection or conflict or disappointment or distress. And it's that which can bring someone to me for help.

As I'm sure you might have experienced the same. Relationships can be the biggest blessing we can ever experience. But then also a real source of pain and struggle and turmoil. And even have a real impact on how we see ourselves and our own value.

Often it's the feelings of hurt, and sometimes anger, feeling misunderstood, frustration and impatience that can actually cause somebody to come for help. And within the church, it is of paramount importance that we're actually able to help people find one another. It is not meant to be an option to shut the door, and that's a relationship in the past.

In Psalm 133, God encourages us that where there is unity, He commands His blessing. And blessing is goodness, it's life, it's peace, it's joy. So, where there's unity, His blessing comes. That is what most of us should want. And so relationship disconnect is a huge part of what I deal with in counseling.

Personal Worth, Security, and Healthy Relationships

With the foundation of the video that I did on understanding what drives us, I would love to take it from there. In that clip I spoke about our base, core need as human beings is to feel a sense of personal worth. The two inputs that go into the sense of personal worth is to feel secure and to feel significant.

I did reiterate this in that video, that our primary source of that sense of personal worth is in the Lord. It is in knowing His voice towards us, really being saturated in His posture towards us as His children. That it would override the voices that we've heard for maybe all our lives, up until that point.

But alongside that, with that parallel is the need for healthy relationships. I have heard in some marriage counseling situations, one of the partners say, "You get that need met in me that is for God alone." My heart goes out to the other partner because the truth is, yes, God does design us to have our needs firstly met in Him.

But He does design us for companionship. And for our relationships to meet a level of need in us that fill us, in a sense. When we only go for a horizontal meeting of needs, what happens in terms of in our relationships, forsaking where our needs can truly be met?

It's like a black hole. A black hole in space doesn't have a bottom; the more you put into it the more it takes. There seems to be no end. That is kind of how it can be when we're looking for our identity and our sense of value in only our horizontal human relationships.

But the truth is we need both. Primarily, our relationships with the Lord and then healthy relationships with people around us. So, I would love to look at what essentially can go wrong in our relationships. If we're talking about content, there are many reasons why people have conflict.

What Causes Conflict Beneath the Surface

You were late. You didn't invite me somewhere. You spoke harshly to me. The content or the factual evidence is, it's just as sort of as far as the east is from the west. But there are some basic things which will help you to understand why we have a disconnection in our relationships.

So often when there's a disconnect, there is a lot of emotion, anger, sort of frustration, impatience. It can vary on a scale from a small measure of feeling to really intense feelings, even up to rage and wanting to escape. So, what I want to say to you is.

This is such a key thing to remember. When we feel those feelings, it's because that relationship is important to us. It's important to us. If we didn't care about that relationship, we wouldn't be bothered. We would be able to sort of brush it off our shoulders, and know it is okay.

But because the relationship is important to us, as well as it saying something about me, that's why there's sort of an emotional heart response to some form of disconnect. If you have a look at this picture, a picture of an iceberg. You only see a part of the actual block of ice.

There is a huge kind of block underneath that's hidden that's invisible to the eye. When a ship sails and it only notices the size of what's on the top, it's in danger of damaging its hull by crashing into what's unseen. It is very similar with us in our relationships.

If we don't acknowledge or understand what's going on underneath the surface, we can end up being in cycles of conflict and turmoil. Where we feel like there is no way to reconcile. And hurt happens and hardening of heart happens. And disillusionment with relationships happen.

When we understand what's below the iceberg that can't be seen, we're able to find one another a little bit more easily. And so the key is to pay attention to our emotions. And we're going to also unpack what is connected to our emotions, which are beliefs and ways of seeing the world. Now what I would like us to do is to stop the video for a few minutes. I would love for you to share either in your small group or with the person next to you: What do emotions mean to you?

Emotions is such a loaded concept for people. Positive and negative. I would love for you to share what first comes to mind for you when I say: I would like to know more about your emotions. I would love to hear what some of the sharing was about in your groups.

Because when we did this exercise with a group of lay counselors in our church family, it was fascinating for me to actually hear some of the feedback. I had one young man say to me, "When you talk about emotions, I just connect that with sin. Just don't go there. It's sinful to feel anything powerful, anything strong." For him, as we started to open this up, it actually felt quite threatening. It went against like a deeper belief system for him. That this is okay to explore how you feel, especially if it's a negative feeling.

Emotions in Scripture and Godly Expression

When you look at Scripture, it's full of emotion. It's full of feeling. It's full of not only God's people experiencing feelings, but also God speaking into feelings—Him ministering, comforting, directing, acknowledging, validating feelings. So, I really do want to dispel the myth that as believers, as people who really love the Lord, we are not meant to feel strong emotions, even negative ones.

It's how we, first of all, express them and how we work with them in a godly way that actually determines how God feels about them. Because we can just go, "I have permission to vent. Emotions are good. It's okay. I have permission to vent."

But the Scripture is very clear about how we deal with our emotions in terms of sinfully expressing them. Whether they're hurting someone else, whether they're displeasing God in the way we're giving sort of full vent to them. And then also it's how much I'm accurately looking at where these emotions are coming from so that I can find peace.

Because Jesus promises peace. He always wants to lead us back to a place of peace. But sometimes it's the acknowledgement and the opening up of the emotion that helps us to be able to hand those emotions over and get to a place of peace.

In Philippians 4:6-7 it says this—I want to read it to you. It says, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."

So, the assumption of that Scripture is what you were feeling was the opposite of peace. What you were needing to hand over—the anxieties and the worries—weren't ones that carried peace. But they were ones that carried turmoil, stress, and many other emotions.

When you look at Jesus, the deep distress and even sometimes anger that He experienced—and there were really honest descriptions of Jesus' emotions in the Scripture—it is all about finding a way through. Understanding them and finding a way through when we feel disconnected from somebody.

How the Body Reveals Hidden Emotions

What we would sometimes feel coming up is probably anger or frustration or irritation or a little bit of turmoil. But I want to give some of you a tip who are maybe not as in touch with your feelings, who are going, "Well, I don't necessarily feel that that often. I feel fine mostly." "Fine" is a more common word. Our body is actually a sort of a signal for us when we're experiencing some kind of emotion. Sometimes our emotions aren't felt first, but our body experiences emotion. If you can think of experiences where you were maybe at a restaurant table and someone said something that was humiliating for you.

Before the concept of "I feel humiliated" could come through your mind, perhaps your sort of face blushed red and your heart beat fast. Or as you're about to go into a work meeting. Before the sort of conscious thought of, "I am afraid that my boss is going to be unhappy with my presentation," maybe your body is feeling tense and your neck is in pain. Because you can feel, oh, something's going on here. Sometimes when my husband and I are about to get into an intense discussion, he'll say, "Angela, your fists are clenched like you're ready to fight."

I'm not really ready to fight. But what it means is that I'm beginning to feel a little bit of stress here because we're about to go into a possible conflict. So, our bodies are a really good indicator of things we're not even aware of emotionally.

A great example is my husband at one stage was really struggling with a hamstring injury. And he went to a number of physios. He used to use all kinds of treatments to try and get the throbbing ache out of his hamstring. And it wasn't working.

He stopped exercise. At one point realized there was a connection between approaching a stressful meeting or stressful day, where his hamstring began to throb. And he became conscious of the thought patterns behind that feeling. And he began to become conscious of bringing those anxieties and pressure to the Lord, as Philippians encourages us to. And he would literally feel the throbbing in his hamstring begin to straighten out and begin to relax. That's sort of a practical example of where our bodies often carry what we're feeling before we're consciously aware of it. So I just want to bring that to your attention.

And I would say regularly men would experience that. As women we can be quite in touch, some more than others, quite in touch with what we feel. I want to talk about why is it important to be in touch? Jesus talks about that a lot.

He'll say to a paralytic or cripple, "Do you want to be well?" He wants to get into the heart. He wants to get into where that person really feels. When God came to Cain, He said, "What is going on with you? Why are you angry? Why are you downcast?" He is noticing the emotion that He wants to get to. Why?

Secondary Emotions and Primary Emotions

So let's take a closer look at the two categories of emotions we experience as human beings. The first one is secondary emotions. Secondary, surface. That helps me to remember it. But surface in terms of what you can see. What's really much easier to observe in somebody. Even in yourself. Even what you feel in your heart is just that much easier to identify. The obvious ones would be anger, frustration, irritation. Other kind of ones would be just a desire to escape.

I just want to get away. I just want to withdraw. That would be a secondary emotion. It's something that we can see on the surface and you can more easily identify. And I'm going to give you three examples.

It would be if your husband is late. He said he was going to come home at five o'clock from work. It's half past six. You're phoning him. He's not answering. And by the time he walks in that door, you are so cross because the supper is cold, the children are waiting for him and you were hoping for a break. So that would be anger, frustration, impatience. And so when he walks in the door, he's not receiving the most warm, kind, friendly reception.

The second example would be, a notorious time in children's lives is during the exams. Moms are feeling like they're writing the exams just as much as the children are. And the frustration and short tempers that happen in homes during exam time.

The other one would be, what would be so common within friendship circles is, a feeling of I'm not invited. Just the irritation and criticism towards other people. I'm not invited. These people are so exclusive. They're so clicky. They don't notice anyone who needs to be invited. Those kind of finger pointing kind of feelings would be the surface emotion.

Actually, secondary emotions are a response to a primary emotion, which is actually the deeper, more vulnerable emotion. It is way more difficult to identify sometimes and then to express. It's way more difficult because it gets much closer to home. And with the background of understanding of our need to feel secure and significant, it's when my feeling of security is triggered and I feel insecure, or when my need for significance is triggered and I feel insignificant. That's when I feel a whole myriad of emotions underneath and it's expressed in a secondary manner.

Within a church context or even in family relationships what would be a very common diagnosis of a relational problem is someone struggling with judgment or bitterness or unforgiveness. And if we aren't careful we observe that response and we just kind of put a scripture to this person and say sort it out. Now there is obviously incredible value in bringing scriptural direction to somebody who's really wrestling with unforgiveness, bitterness, envy or that kind of emotion, which is really destructive if it's acted out. And it's also displeasing to God.

But I want to encourage you. Through many experiences I've seen when I have given someone space, who is battling with unforgiveness and bitterness and frustration, space to actually share and talk about what's going on beneath those emotions. Once they've been heard and validated, they are so much more willing to face those sinful responses. To look at where they've given space for an emotion to take root and a sinful response to result. And they've been so much more willing to repent of that.

Bring it to the Lord and reconciliation can happen. It's a gift to see it in action. It's so important that we have that parallel and understanding that secondary emotions are operating on the surface. And then we have a primary emotion that's a motivating whatever the behavior is.

Never forsaking the call to a biblical response regardless of the situation. Regardless of an injustice. Regardless of sort of being treated incorrectly. There's always a biblical response that God loves and wants to bless. But alongside that an understanding of someone and a compassion for them.

Secondary Emotions Behind Bitterness and Unforgiveness

And before point out their sinful response. Leads him towards an ownership themselves and a true willingness to be able to walk in purity before God. So moving on to primary emotions. These are the emotions that are actually more core emotions. They underlie what we more easily feel.

They're the deeper more vulnerable emotions. And we might be less aware of them. And also find it a lot more threatening to acknowledge them. Even more so to communicate them. But what happens if we don't identify our primary emotions is, conflict between us and people who are important to us can just be focused on content.

Like the husband that came home late, even if it was unintentional. The daughter who's not learning for her exams. The friend who didn't invite me to the party. The content and the discussion about details. We get stuck there and end up not feeling heard and it's like a stalemate.

And you end up walking away from a conflict like that, really discouraged and thinking this relationship is important to me but I feel like we just can't move forward. That can be the feeling at times when we're stuck in our secondary emotions. But when we move to primary, what happens is I'm able to acknowledge where I have felt insecure or insignificant.

Or I felt a deeper more vulnerable emotion. And then I'm able to share that in a safe space. Reconciliation is able to happen. Secondary emotions are like the doorway into our deeper five core emotions. That would be joy, anger, sadness or hurt, fear, and then lastly, shame.

The Five Core Emotions

I'm not going to focus on the joy one. In terms of anger. Why anger in this situation would be a core emotion, it's more like a legitimate just anger. Where there's been something that hasn't been right, like a literally black and white, right and wrong issue.

If you think about Jesus' anger in the temple. When He cleared out the people who were gambling there, not using the temple for the correct purpose. That is a legitimate anger. It's not a secondary emotion that's motivated by something else. That would be one of the core emotions.

Then there is sadness and hurt. This is probably one of the most common. And this would be when I feel lonely or rejected. Or I feel overlooked in a relationship. Or I feel misunderstood or I feel judged and I feel sadness. I feel a level of pain about that.

The fourth one would be fear. How fear is expressed, is sometimes through anxiety or panic. Anxiety is a very common emotion that people experience. But when it's identified for what it really is all about it can be so so helpful. To help that anxiety find the peace of Christ.

The fifth one would be shame. That would be when I experience feelings of being embarrassed or humiliated. Or ashamed of something I've done in the past that I want no one else to know about. I just want it hidden and forgotten about and I never want to think about it again.

Those feelings are really vulnerable and deep down and when they aren't expressed it's like they are put in a box and you hope they go away. But they do not. They give rise to much of our behavior. They give rise to many of our ways of relating to people.

And they form our ways of thinking. In a previous video, I said, as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. It contributes to our way of seeing life, seeing ourselves, and seeing others. The purpose of understanding our primary emotions. Firstly, in counselling, you're able to, with all the skills you've learnt of empathy and good listening.

Bringing Primary Emotions into God’s Presence

And creating a safe space, help someone to move from identifying their secondary emotion into their primary emotion. Just for them to understand their own hearts. Then it would be to help them to bring that into the presence of God. There is nothing as comforting and as soothing and as peace bringing as the presence of God.

And if you look at scripture through that lens, there are countless scriptures which talk about this and the value of bringing our hearts before the Lord. There is a beautiful scripture which says, "cast your burdens onto the Lord because He cares for you."

And that Philippian scripture, do not be anxious about anything, but bring it to the Lord. If you think of Jesus in the garden, He was bringing His primary emotions of fear. There must have been things like hurt, with the betrayal that He had experienced.

He was bringing that into the presence of God. If we don't know ourselves what's going on, what can we bring into the presence of God? Except our secondary emotions. Which is soothing to a point, but doesn't actually meet where our hearts are. And then lastly, the desire of our hearts as counselors, is to help people reconnect with people.

This connection and relationship is inevitable. We are human beings, it's inevitable. It's about how to reconnect, how to find one another again. And to have grace for that. And determination for that. And to pursue that. So, for us as counselors, it's always helping people to understand themselves better, bring themselves into the presence of God, and then to pursue reconnection.

By being able to share those vulnerable emotions in a safe space as possible. So that there can be a response that soothes, that recognizes and reassures that person's heart. When we are stuck in our secondary emotions and we aren't able to give attention to what's going on underneath, those secondary emotions are unbearable.

So, we find ways of soothing them through addictions and escape and circles of conflict. Our privilege is to help people take a step back. Not necessarily only to focus on those surface behaviors, but to take steps back to be able to help them to reconnect in their relationships.

Emotions and the Beliefs Beneath Them

And lastly, another really important part of connection is to understand that our emotions are linked to beliefs. Underneath our emotions, there are beliefs that we've developed about seeing ourselves, others, life. Those are made up from many different experiences. Things that we've been taught actively, or that we've observed in others.

And when we're able to identify those, we're able to bring them into the light, look at them, and think, are these valid? Firstly, are they even logical? Sometimes when you bring your beliefs that are really hidden and you haven't given them much attention and you reevaluate them, then you realize how illogical they are.

Sometimes they're not quite as illogical and they seem really legitimate. But are they in line with the voice of God over your life or the person that you are helping? This is where identifying lies and bringing in truth comes in. Sometimes it's only once you've been able to explore emotions.

Help people identify their own hearts. Their primary and secondary emotions. Giving them space to look at that. Really looking at where they sinfully responded to the pain. Where they've sinfully responded to shame and fear. It's those responses that cover us in a sense, but they can actually be sinful.

Being able to look at them in that light doesn't shame somebody. But it actually empowers them to bring it to the Lord and say, "Okay Lord, how do I work with it now?" So taking those examples I mentioned earlier about the husband coming home late and the wife being enraged and him walking into a really hostile home environment.

And sort of the expressed feelings are anger because you're late and now I've got the burden of the children, but what's really underneath that emotion? Over that hour and a half or two hours of waiting and phoning and checking a watch and what's really underneath that?

It could be a core emotion of fear, fear that he's had an accident. Or fear that he's been retrenched from work because today was going to be a big sort of CEO meeting. Or fear that he's getting up to something that I'm afraid of and maybe there's trust issues and there's a belief that I'm unsafe in this relationship.

Those core emotions point to certain beliefs. And when those beliefs are identified they're able to be challenged with truth. Even the example of a mother getting very frustrated with her child not studying how she wants him to study. Or not being as diligent as she wants him to be.

The fear underneath that is more about, what could happen to my son's life if he fails grade 11? Will he get into varsity? Is his entire life going to fall apart? In those moments sometimes our thoughts are very irrational. But it's those underlying emotions which are linked to beliefs that need to be challenged.

Because it's actually God that holds our life in His hands. It's actually God who holds that young man's life in His hands. And it's actually God who's in charge of his future. And only when we're able to identify the beliefs associated with the emotions can we challenge them with truth.

It is really wonderful to be able to be a place where someone can express what they really feel. And you can help them to understand what lies they're believing, maybe even what false sort of perceptions they have. Challenge them with truth and learn to engage with the Lord, even before a human being, with the struggles of their heart.

Reflection on Secondary and Primary Emotions

Now what I would love for you to do, to end off this video, is to sit for a few minutes and to reflect on a recent conflict situation that you've had. It can be in any context. And I would love you to consider what you felt in terms of a secondary emotion.

What kind of feelings were present for you? Can you recognize them? And maybe even some body responses. You can say, "I remember feeling sort of the heat going up my face," or "I remember immediately getting a back spasm, or a stab in my stomach."

You know, that kind of body response can be quite familiar for us. Then underneath that, what was the primary or core emotion that you felt? And then also, how is that linked to your need for security and significance? So I would love you to reflect on that for five minutes or so and then share in your group.