Living with emotions is a reality we can never escape in this life. Emotions are like our internal weather or an internal thermostat. When it is raining, and we pretend it is not by walking in the rain like it’s sunny, not dressed warmly, we are likely to suffer the consequences of a cold or the like.
And on a hot summer day, when the thermostat makes the environment very hot instead of cool, we might experience heatstroke or the like. Pretending that what we are experiencing is not really happening can only cause harm. If we are not informed by the internal information, how will we recalibrate accordingly for our wellness?
What is Emotional Suppression?
Emotional suppression is refusing to be informed and disabling ourselves from being equipped to make the right decision. Not because we make our decisions through our emotions, but because the emotion we are suppressing will still dictate our decision. It is positioning ourselves to make the wrong choice for our well-being.
It is choosing a faux comfort now that will later be an explosion of discomfort. It is living in the illusion of walking in the rain being the same as walking in the sunny blue sky. It is making your ocean a desert, and your desert an ocean. Emotional suppression is a delusion.
Emotional suppression is not a thing that happens to us; it is a mechanism we establish through constant practice and a practice we perfect. When we’ve perfected suppressing our emotions, then we have made emotional suppression our default setting for handling our emotions. If this does not trigger stress, anxiety, diseases, and illnesses in the body, nothing else can.
Emotional suppression is dangerous because it is like not defecating or urinating for weeks, months, even years or decades. Or it is like not drinking water for weeks, which kills, or not eating food for over 40 days, which can also kill. That is to say, emotional suppression is depriving ourselves of an essential need as human beings, a need that, if we go without for long, kills us, even through disease or illness.
What is Emotional Stillness?
Emotional stillness doesn’t mean not feeling emotions; it means being still in feeling our emotions. It means feeling our emotions without them leading us anywhere. It is being still and quiet with our emotions when they are happening or raging.
Emotional stillness is the opposite of emotional suppression: it is acknowledging our emotions when they are happening and not trying to change them, but instead being there with them.
As I said before, we cannot escape emotions. We may desire to have still emotions, meaning emotions that are quiet or not there, and some emotions are quiet, but emotions are emotions because they are felt. We don’t always have active emotions; sometimes, we are emotionally still, like those few seconds in mindfulness practice when you manage to not have a thought.
Our job is not to try to remain emotionless, but to try to remain still in emotions. When our emotions do not control or dictate us, and we practice this so much so that it becomes our default emotional power, then we are still in or out of our emotions, and we have authority over our emotions.
Not establishing authority over our emotional entity means our emotions have authority over us, and thus, we move to the feeling of their state.
This makes us puppets to our emotions, and it means we are not living as our greatest selves, the human spirit, but are instead controlled by our flesh and blood, as inspired by our external environment. This means we are not spiritual beings led by the Spirit of God, but instead we are mindless creatures moved by physical instincts like other creatures on the earth.
I do not mean to call animals mindless because, of course, they are smart. But I mean that their smartness, wisdom, and knowledge are all instinctive. They don’t need to think it all out; they just practice their God-given wisdom and knowledge instinctively without thought. Whereas, we, on the other hand, are in the image of God.
We are not only aware of our surroundings, but we are aware that we are aware. We know why we do what we do. And we know why we shouldn’t do what we shouldn’t do. So we cannot live by what our body instinctively tells us, because we know we are not our bodies, we are spirits that have a soul and a body.
Emotional Suppression Vs Emotional Stillness
Emotional stillness, therefore, becomes a practice that differentiates us from other magnificent creatures on earth. Emotional stillness reveals to all creation that we are the one species that is made in the image of God.
A God who has self-control, a God who is spiritually discerning, a God not only full of wisdom and knowledge but also full of understanding. A God who is love and light, holy and just, gracious and kind. And a God who is an eternal Spirit.
Emotional stillness becomes the difference between us relating more to the animals on earth or relating more to God, the Creator of all things.
Emotions create our thoughts; what we feel is translated into what we think. We think what we feel, and what we constantly think feeds what we are already feeling, making it bigger.
So controlling our emotions through emotional stillness is controlling our soul. And controlling our soul means we are living not as flesh and blood, not as our souls, but as our human spirits empowered by the Spirit of God, because only the Spirit of God has the fruit and character that produces such as self-control, patience, peace, gentleness, goodness, love, kindness, joy, and faithfulness.
How to Choose Emotional Stillness Over Emotional Suppression
It is not easy to feel our emotions, but it will also take effort to suppress them. So, choosing to embrace stillness while we feel our emotions may be hard, and very hard at first, almost impossible, but every second of stillness will count, and each second will be practice that establishes emotional stillness in our being.
When an emotion takes over you, acknowledge it by feeling it, feel it by not trying to change it or make it something it’s not. Be still in it by not making decisions through it. And if perhaps life demands a decision from you in that emotion, then make the decision, but not through the emotion; make the decision through a quick (even a one-sentence) prayer and discernment thereof.
Our Helper
A quick, “Lord, I need Your help right now, please,” is enough more times than we realise. Once we uncomplicate prayer, we equip ourselves in all our moments to have help no matter how we feel. If we pray unceasingly, then that includes when our eyes are open because we’re driving, eating, reading, etc.
But I must say, the quicker our prayers are answered is solely determined by the closeness of our relationship with the Holy Spirit. If we do not know Him, because we’ve ignored Him for weeks, months, years, or even decades, why should we think He will jump when we ask? We shouldn’t think so.
He may be gentle and kind, but He is a Personality that deserves respect, honour, and incomprehensible dignity. We can never get away with treating Him less than, for He is the very God we say we serve. The very God whom we cannot lie to, because He is a witness, always.
May your mind be renewed, your faith be strengthened, and your peace be anchored in Christ, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
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