Does your day look a little like this?
You wake up early, often, before the sunrise. You get yourself ready for your day – shower/shave/dress etc. You wake the children and get them ready for their day. Check messages, look over the calendar, pack lunches and book-bags and make/serve/eat breakfast. Everyone rushes out the door to work, school or wherever your day takes you.
The day is busy with the work, school, domestic duties, etc. Time for everyone to return home just in time to gather sports equipment, dancing shoes or whatever is needed for your activities, then it’s out the door and in the car you go. Johnny gets dropped off here and Sally gets dropped there for their after-school activities. You circle around and pick everyone up, go through the drive thru for dinner because it is now getting late and homework and showers still need to happen!
You eat in the car on the way home, arrive home to get homework done, shower and off to bed to do this crazy thing called life all over again tomorrow!
May I ask you to think about something for a moment? If your day too often looks similar to the one I just described, what are some of the feelings you and your family may have experienced along the way? That may be a tough question or certainly one you may not have even considered.
If our days are a whirlwind built on where we need to go and what we need to do, when do we have time to learn true emotional intimacy with one another? Where do we discover how to simply “be”? I mean, think about the scenario in the day I described. If you even begin to feel frustration or exhaustion, most likely you may shove that feeling deep down and press on. What about your children? They may feel those same feelings. Their feelings may come out in whining or arguing with one another. What would your reaction be to them? Yell at them? Tell them to “suck it up…we are going”? What does that teach them about what to do with their feelings?
And even when positive, happy emotions are felt, who has time to celebrate and “rejoice with those who rejoice”?
I am not trying to lay a guilt trip on you. In fact, if we are all honest, this is a pretty normal life! These are things we may not even think about as the day is speeding by. Thankfully though, you can think about them now. Learning to understand AND identify your own feelings, then teaching your kids to do the same, make this week’s 52 Week Plan worth your time and attention!
So what is a “feelings vocabulary” anyway?? Kind of weird, right?
A “feelings vocabulary” contains words you can attach to what you are feeling, so you can communicate them to those you trust. Below is a chart of faces showing emotional expressions and a word associated with the feeling.*
Using the chart of emotions and the scenario of the day described above, can you pinpoint words associated with how you might have felt if you were in this situation? Maybe you felt frustrated that you have no time for yourself and feel the need to do everything for everyone in your family. What do you do with that emotion? Do you stuff it down thinking this is “just life”? Say you do stuff it down, what feelings might develop over time? Anger? Depression? Feeling Overwhelmed? Maybe you felt happy about something or grateful for someone.
Suppose you share with your spouse about how you feel? Is it possible that future emotions like anger, depression and feeling overwhelmed might be avoided since you were able to share in the moment or soon after the moment exactly how you were feeling? That sounds better, doesn’t it? It also leads to a deeper intimacy with your spouse/friend or children and a healthier “emotional you”!
Here’s something else to consider about emotional sharing. When people share their feelings with you, what is your normal response? To fix it? Excuse it? State facts about the situation?
Turn this around. If you experienced hurt/rejection and you shared it, what would help you feel comforted? A hug? Talking it out and being heard? What if that person said to you, “Oh! Don’t worry about it! You will feel better tomorrow?” What if they gave you a play by play of examples on how to fix it? What if they sided with the party who offended you, making excuses for what they did? How would you feel? EXACTLY! You would probably feel more hurt and alone.
We have to be careful not to give facts and fixes when it comes to how another feels in a situation. We need to give proper emotion for the shared emotion. Remember..it is how THEY feel. We don’t get to decide how a situation should make another feel based on how we would react. Romans 12:15 is very clear – “rejoice with those who di rejoice and mourn with those who mourn”.
Your spouse/friend and your children need to know that you are a safe place for them to share their heart. Meaning, they won’t be ridiculed, lectured, or ignored! Think of how vital this is for your family!
May I make a suggestion,? Would you make a copy of the feeling faces chart and used it at the dinner table or at bedtime. Simply aske each person to identify one positive/happy emotion and one negative/sad emotion he/she felt during the day, then give the story behind what made that emotion come forward? Might make some great dinner-time conversation, or bedtime, or date time, or any appropriate time!