Beauty in Battle Podcast

Dealing With Emotions in Marriage (part 1)

June 07, 2022 Jason Benham, Tori Benham Episode 23
Beauty in Battle Podcast
Dealing With Emotions in Marriage (part 1)
Show Notes Transcript

Trapped emotions rob us of joy and destroy our relationships, leaving us a shell of the marriage God intended for us. Not only that, they destroy our physical bodies. 

In this episode, we'll take a look at a powerful verse that shows us the importance of exposing hidden emotions and how God can help us get to the bottom of them. 

Psalms 139:23-24 states, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.”

David essentially asks God, “Put me in a struggle so I can see what’s going on inside me!” 

God knows what emotions we are feeling, even when we aren't sure ourselves. And He knows the emotions that draw us close and those which pull us away from each other. He wants to help us access the power of emotions and expose them for what they are. 

We'll also discuss the three sources of emotion - inherited, experienced, and projected. 

You will enjoy this episode and the one that follows.

Please visit us on our website at BeautyInBattle.com

If you haven't read our book, you can get it here

So we're talking about emotions, uh, Tori and I it's, it's interesting. We've been having a lot of conversations with people, um, who are struggling with anxiety and fear and depression and doubt. And it seems like it's greater than it's ever been. Um, and I think a lot of it has to do with, with some of our environmental stuff.

Not, not in terms of like carbonation or anything, carton, carbon dioxide say carbonation, carbonation, it's the carbon. No, but, but like with social media, all this stuff, I mean, anxiety is at an all time high. Um, and it's not just that it's also, I think, you know, COVID has played into this, whether you've been sick with COVID or you got the vaccine or whatever, there's something in it.

That's making us feel. More anxious and, and, uh, and then the, the lockdowns and all that stuff. But not just that, it's, it's also, as we've been diving into this, we're discovering the, the crazy power over your body that happens with trapped emotions and how it will rip you up. Um, but how it also wreak havoc on your relationships.

Right? So, so we just wanted to do a little podcast where we bring you into our little thought bubble. Cause we're learning some stuff and we'll keep learning some stuff and whatever we learn, we'll pass along to you. Um, oh, before we start, let's do some jokes. I got some good ones from Brooke Peterson.

Thanks Brooke. For sending in your jokes. Um, and she, she must, uh, we must be vibing this week because. She gave some great jokes that I can totally relate to. So I'll start with the first one. What kind of shoe do frogs square? I wouldn't think frogs wear shoes, but open toed sandals. Okay. What kind of tea is hard?

Wait, you, you didn't, you didn't pause for effect. I'm going to go through, I've got three of them, so was kind of going, what kind of tea is hard to swallow? What reality. Okay. Got it. All right. And that's what I meant by she's vibing with me because I'm a tea drinker and obsessed with tea personal, and she has to use the bathroom every 45 seconds because of it.

Yeah. Well, that's a whole nother, that's a whole nother thing. Personal fav. Oh, she said personal fave in honor of your Italian heritage. What do you call a fake noodle? What imposter oh, said like a true new Yorker. Oh, that's awesome. And we're about to go on vacation with my side of the family. Um, so we'll be having some good Italian food this week.

Okay. Can I just say this about vacation? I think a real vacation involves food being made for you where you don't have to make it. Hence, uh, all-inclusive resorts, or if you're going with a bunch of families, you pool together and you get, uh, uh, somebody who can come cook your dinners for you at night.

That to me is a real, yeah, of course. I love that. Yeah. I like it let's make that happen, captain. We've done it a few times. Not many. No, we haven't ever gotten somebody to cook for us. We've gone on all inclusive. No, no, no. We've been on several vacations tour. If you remember where now we didn't pay for it, but we had friends that invited us and they had a chef.

Oh my gosh, it's the way to go. Oh yeah. So if you really want to do something really nice for me and tour for our anniversary, which is December 29, you can hire us an executive chef to come into the house. Okay. Um, now let's get into. Because there's this incredible Bible verse that we want to go to. It's in Psalm 1 39, where date?

Uh, and you know, the Psalms is all about his prayer journal. So he really lets us into the world of what's going on inside of him. And we can really learn a lot from him, but I think about what's going on in marriage and what's going on in relationships and how emotions, if they're not properly dealt. It will not only hurt you physically, but it hurts every relationship that you've got.

It hurts your relationship with God. It hurts your relationship with people. Um, and now as, as I'll be quoting Dr. Caroline leaf and a little bit how your thoughts are real things, and thoughts are like trees and, and that leads to emotion and emotions are like the leaves on the trees. But then what we're also discovering now is that certain things can happen to you where your body experiences a sensation, which is an emotion.

Um, and that leads to a specific thought that then can actually hurt your body if you keep thinking those particular thoughts. Right. And so we're, we're learning all sorts of crazy stuff, but I want to apply this to marriage because especially as a dude, you know, we're not always in touch with what we're thinking or feeling.

Right. We just, we just do stuff. I think for you just being aware that there's such a connection between. Your physical body and your emotions. It's like, you've never been, you've never been more eager to learn about it. It's like, okay, this kind of makes sense. I've been feeling this and I really believe it's connected to this emotion.

And so I just think that this, this kind of new way of thinking has really helped you to, to really get into it. Like what exactly what emotions are affecting. My body. Yeah. And, and it's interesting because last week, if you listened to our podcast with Denny and Heather Smith, how Heather, uh, and Denny were both, um, on pastoral staff at a really big church in Garland, Texas.

And she literally had a panic attack just before she was going to stand on stage and she was going to, um, go up there and sing. And this is something that she's gifted to do. She's really good at doing, but she had taken on so much responsibility and there was some ambition behind it that she had a full blown panic attack.

And then that led to a two year battle with anxiety and all these emotions to where she was debilitated. And, um, and so, I mean, I remember hearing stories like that with people that have suffered from. Never really able to relate until about two months ago, I kind of had my own little episode with anxiety, which is interesting.

And one of these days I'll do a, I'll do a whole podcast on it, on, uh, what happened and, and what I learned. But essentially I was working too hard. I was taking too much on myself and it manifested itself in emotion. That that were coming out of me. And then I had this just deep hurt and anxiety inside me, and I didn't know what to do with it.

And it honestly felt like I was going to die, which is crazy. It's like your body goes into fight or flight. Uh, and, and there's no reason for it to be in fight or flight. You know, you get this adrenaline and all sorts of stuff that's happening and it really doesn't need to be happening. So, uh, anxiety is happening and it's ripping people up and it's tearing them apart.

But even at a, a smaller level, if you don't learn how to deal with your own personal emotions, then you're not going to be able to love your spouse the way that God wants you to. Because we're supposed to love our neighbor as we love ourself. And that would include our spouse trapped emotions can harm us to a point where we don't accept ourselves for who we really are and all sorts of stuff.

So listen to this Bible verse in Psalm 1 39 verse 23 and 24, David is talking and this is his prayer journal. And the first verse here in 23, it says, search me O God and know my. Try me and know my anxious thoughts. Now just stop there for a second, because this whole Psalm is about God revealing, hidden emotions that Rob us of peace, the whole thing, Psalm 1 39, but then we get to this verse and he mentioned anxiety.

He's like, God, here's what I want you to do. I want you to show me the hidden fears that disquiet my soul because anxiety. So, so fear is about a past or a present. Anxiety is about a future potential threat. Anxiety is projected fear, specifically the fear of powerlessness. It's like, I'm going to lose control.

Like, uh, I have this test I've got to take in a month and I'm feeling anxious about it. Well, what is that anxiety tied to, it's tied to the fact that I'm scared I'm going to fail it, right? Like I'm powerless to, to, to pass it. So it's like, we often feel most anxious with things that we haven't ever done.

Yeah, right. So whenever something is new, we often feel like, can I actually do this? I don't know. I've never done it before. You don't have a testimony to stand on because just like I would, if I, what if I get up there and I can't do it, what if I try this? And I actually can't fit. Do it, that creates that feeling of anxiousness because it's projected powerless.

And if one spouse is feeling this in your marriage, it will mess not only that spouse up, but it'll mess the relationship up because they don't realize they're operating out of anxiety and anxiety is going crazy right now. Uh, you know, the Hebrew word for anxiety here toward is. I don't know how to say it the right way.

Saara pain. Saara uh, whatever Sarpy. Oh, okay. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Those are really good. They taste really great. Especially put butter on them. Okay. But Sarpy, it means troubled thoughts, the processing of information, which causes distress in one's mind and heart. So David wants to know what's going on in his subconscious heart and mind.

So that's what he's asking for. This is long before we had brain science, right? It was, as long before we discovered that emotions are actual things and emotions can get trapped into certain organs in our body as traditional Chinese medicine points out that, that now we know over here in America, in the west, as we've adopted it in the last 10 to 20 years where we realized no emotions are real things and they, if we don't process through them, they get trapped into certain organs and they can record.

Like grief in the lungs or anger in the liver or whatever. Like we're learning all these things. It's crazy. But David in this verse is basically saying, put me in a struggle, God, so I can see what's going on inside of me. Wow. And, and marriage, ladies and gentlemen, if you don't already know, this is the context of that struggle, that a struggle for you.

That's why God puts you together with your spouse living. Sometimes it feels like sandpaper. Ruffin each other up a little bit, but you're smoothing each other out so true. Oh my goodness. So David's like, okay, so Lord, here's what I want you to do. And so this is a daring prayer for all of us, and it's going to help you in your marriage.

Search me O God and know my heart, try me, or test me and know my anxious thoughts, which basically means God. I, I pray that somehow some way that you reveal to me, if I'm dealing with anxiety, And, and, and it may be a subconscious anxiety level. Right. And just, just show it to me and let me see it and then help me to deal with it.

But he doesn't stop there. He goes on to verse 24 and he says, and see if there be any hurtful way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. Wow. There are some translations that say, see if there's any offensive way in me. Yeah. But Psalm 1 39 is not talking about God revealing to David certain. Uh, unconscious sin.

He, David prayed that in Psalm 51, where he's like you desire truth in the inmost part. Like you, you don't want me to have any sin. That's right. That's a biting down inside of me, you know, like motivation or attitude or intention or, or bitterness toward a person type thing. That's all sin. And we need to be praying that God reveals that to us so that we can deal with it.

That's Psalm 51, Psalm 1 39 is talking about emotions. Right. So David is. What is hurtful in me. Wow. And the Hebrew word for that is here's another one for you tour M Derrek a sob about that. I'm not even going to try that one. Yeah, no, you need M direct Kasab with, with like a pasta sauce, because then, then you can swallow it a lot better.

Gotcha. Not good. Okay. Good. Okay. So M direct Kasab relates to physical pain and emotional. Hmm. So as I was researching this, and by the way, I did a live stream, uh, my brother and I do a live stream every Thursday morning. Uh, I say it's a live stream. We record it on Wednesday. And then we uploaded on Thursday, used to be live stream, but there's too many technical issues.

And Facebook now shadow bands, me and David. So we're trying to figure out ways around it, but. I did a live stream on this, on Psalm 1 39. So you need to download the Ben brothers app and you can get that and hear the whole thing. But, um, I was reading a theologian about these particular two verses where David is, is basically praying something that all of us should pray.

Right. You know, search me O God, know my heart, try me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there be any hurtful way in me and lead me in the way everlasting, pray that over your, your, yourself and your relationship. Uh, and I was reading this guy, his name is skip Mo and he said, This particular passage is not about unconfessed sin.

David is asking here for inner healing. What is there in me that puts me on the road to emotional, psychological and physical pain and sorrow. This is an assessment of how those unresolved unconscious repressed traumas derail me. Wow. I need divine assessment because I just can't see what's happening in those dark corners of my soul.

More accurately. I won't see when we block feeling. We unknowingly stunt the necessary healing process that can lead us to a natural release. What David teaches us in this song is that he's not interested here in recalling unconfessed sin. He's interested in our recovery and for that to happen, we need God's thorough analysis.

Wow. That's what David is saying here in the Psalm. And as a married couple, the thing that can derail your relationship as quick as anything is unprocessed emotions, it's things that happen. They're trapped deep down. And if you read our book, uh, beauty and battle you'll know that we have a chapter in there.

I forget what I titled that chapter, where I was a 13 year old boy and I had this, this girl that I liked and we went to this party and I had this really good buddy of mine who went with me and, uh, or who was at the party as well. And it was this girl's birthday. And so she was kind of like my girlfriend, but not really, but close as close as you can get and really wanted her to be, be nice to me, to her.

So, uh, then it came time for the, the girls there. They did this little game where they had to ask the boys to dance. So the lights went off in the house and there was like the slow song that came on. And the boy, the girls have an opportunity to ask the boys to dance. And she walked right up into my direction and reached her hand out and asked my buddy to dance with her.

Okay. So that tore me up pretty good. And I just never processed through it. I was just 13 year old boy that elicited very strong emotion in you as a 14 year old. Yeah. 13, 13, 14, same thing. But I didn't even know it until it came out and you need to read our book and you'll get that. You read that chapter, um, where you can see how that manifested itself five years in a marriage with no.

And it's crazy. I know you've, you've told me that you went to the bathroom and you cried. You let you let that emotion out. But then you're like, oh no, nobody's going to know about this. I can't like, I can not let anyone know that this hurt me. And you sucked it up and you walked out like you were the man still.

Right. But I wasn't the man, but you were crushed inside. And so I really believe it became, you didn't deal with that emotion. You cried. But then it was like, Nope, that's not going to hurt. You're not going to reject me. I'm fine. And that became a buried emotion. And it was something that you feared, even in our marriage, like, wait, are you going to leave me?

Or are you going to choose somebody else? It's so weird. It's crazy how that works. Yeah. But, you know, and I thought it was the manly thing to do, like suck it up. Who cares. It's not that big of a deal. She was ugly anyway, you know what I'm saying? And I thought that was a mainly thing to do, but we men struggle with this.

It's like, I can't let my wife into this thing that hurt me. Like she just said one little thing and it actually hurt. Well, what it hurt was probably something that you experienced when you were 14 or when you were eight or when you were three, who knows. But if you don't let your spouse in and let her know that that hurt or that something somebody said at the office or some, somebody did something and it made you so Uber angry and you had an outburst, you know, a lot of times what that's touching is some deep, emotional anger that's been caught that was caused long ago.

And we got to get to the root of those things, right? Yeah. Emotions can tell us so much. And I ended up, that's why God gave them to us because they speak to us. And, um, there are three different ways that, um, emotions are sourced. So they come, yeah. They come from genetics inherited, which totally aligns with the scripture verse three to four generations.

Right. Where. Like the generational curses, your sins are passed down to the third and fourth generation. Yup. These, these things that were on dealt with. Yeah. Your great grandmother may have had an experience. And you have the strong emotion, but yet it doesn't really make sense why you have this strong emotion.

Yeah. But maybe it was something that, that actually your grandmother experienced and you somehow now struggle with jealousy or. You know, whatever, whatever it may be. And it's like, well, I don't really remember like an experience where I should be feeling this, you know, it could be for generation or genetic and then, um, experienced our own lived experiences, you know, with emotions like for you, that was a lived experience.

You felt, felt it very strongly. And it was a buried emotion and then projected, these are, this is when people project their emotions onto you. This one is crazy. Yeah. It's very interesting. And, and I think for women, this is even a bigger deal than maybe it is to men. Maybe not. I don't know. That's totally me speculating, but I know for me that I can take on people's emotions pretty easily by kids.

When my kids are. Sad or upset. Like my whole body is like exhausted, you know, like to a point where I'm like, this is ridiculous. I've got, I've got to learn how to release this. Um, even within friendships before, if I think somebody is upset with me, I, it can ruin my day. Cause there's an, a projected emotion that I've taken over two.

And this happens a lot with guys actually, is that if someone is competing against you, right? Like they're feeling insecure when you're around. You know, they can't ask you any questions, but you ask them questions and, you know, deep down they're competing with you. What it does, especially for a guy, is it causes you to then compete with them.

Right. That's what a projected emotion is. Like. It's like, they're feeling compelled to dominate me. Okay. I'm going to dominate. That's a projected emotion, right? So it's, it's the three sources of emotion inherited experience to projected and getting to the root of these things is, is there there's really no right or wrong way on how to do.

Now Tori and I have a three-step process we've shared. Um, if you go back into our, uh, we, we shared it on a podcast a while back we'll, we'll share it again on our next podcast, but with a little bit of a different spin to it, but I like what Caroline leaf, um, talks about. And she's, she's really good. She's I forget exactly what the name of her book is.

Switch on your brain or something like that, but she teaches how thoughts are real things in the brain. Like trees and emotions are like the leaves. Yeah. And so David, when he's praying this prayer and Psalm 1 39, he's essentially like, okay, now here's what I understand that my thoughts can actually lead to certain emotions.

And if I'm not careful these emotions, if I don't process them them the right way, then they can damage my body in the same way that, um, if I took an entire, uh, head of brown. Did I say that the right way ahead of broccoli? Yeah. Like a big, massive broccoli stock, which is very difficult for your body to digest that, unless it goes through your food processor, which is called your mouth, right?

Like your teeth are food processors. So when you take that broccoli and you put it into your mouth and you're chomping it up, what your mouth is doing with your teeth is it's processing. Right that food, that broccoli, so that you're when you swallow it, your body can take what's good and discard what's bad.

Now, if you just were able to take that full head of broccoli and just jam it down into your stomach, without it being processed, it's going to wreck your digestive system. It's going to wreck. So, yeah. Especially since broccoli gives Tori like really bad was coming. Like I could have just even said it myself, but you know, predictable, it isn't, it doesn't give Tory gas, but it does me.

Let me just tell you it's a party under the sheets at night, just trying to fan that sucker. Okay. Sorry. Shouldn't have done that. Um, but processing emotions there there's you, you can't just experience something like something happened. Some trauma, somebody says something and you feel. And it, and it's actually something that you feel in your.

But then you don't deal with it, right? You don't process through. So that's, this would be our encouragement. And we're going to give you three steps on the next podcast on how to process that and how to do it the proper way. So tune in next week, because we don't have time to do it this week. But if, if you're, uh, w w your God has put you in your relationship with your spouse to help you process and men.

You need to let your wife coach you on this and you need to let her process audibly as she does men often process things. We just think, we just think and think and think and think, and then at some point we'll speak women think with their mouth, they need to to think, yeah, they, they need to, it's not nothing, but they need to verbally process it.

When I learned that that's what Tori was. With her emotions is that she was verbally processing and she didn't need me to fix it, man. That, that really helped our relationship a lot. Yeah. In verbally processing doesn't mean that you are accurately processing. I mean like you and I would go for a walk cause I'm trying to talk, think through some things.

And by the end of the walk, I'm like, okay, disregard everything. I said at the beginning, I got, you know, like, you're you, you just need to start talking it out. And I think for you. You want it to fix it, but by the time, you know, by the end of the walk, I've already kind of worked through it and you're like, oh, okay.

Yes. Um, it's so let me just wrap it up with this. Um, so just, just as a reminder, and an emotion is an impulse to act. So when you are feeling an emotion, it's an impulse to act. So anger is an emotion with a purpose. The purpose of. Is to see that justice is done next week. We're going to answer a question about anger specifically, um, about what, what to do with anger.

Um, but anger is to see that justice has done, um, grief is so that you can help be so, so people can come and, and bear your. And help you bear your burden and you can help others bear their burdens, right? It's it's a burden bearing emotion, right? So every emotion is an impulse to act, but now a feeling is something that's tied to your perception of what happened.

So an emotion is tied to something that happened. A feeling is tied to your perception of what happened. So a feeling now is, is born out of an emotion. So in. You got two, uh, two women who walk into work and their boss notices that both of them got their haircut. And he says to the first, Hey, get your hair cut.

Looks great. She goes, thanks. And she goes to her computer and she starts working. The next one comes and he says, Hey, you got your hair. Cut. It looks great. And she goes, oh, well, thank you. And then she goes back to her computer and she, before she starts working, she starts thinking, wow, that was really nice of him.

You know, I noticed he doesn't have a ring on this. And, you know, what's interesting is my husband, didn't say a word about how my hair was, you know what I'm saying? And now all of a sudden she started to process what he said differently than how the first girl, the first girl took it transactionally.

Right. He just noticed something cool, whatever the next girl is actually processing it. And the way that she's processing it could lead to her having feelings for him. Right. So that's the difference between emotion and. Emotion is tied to something that happened feeling is how you processed what happened.

That's why, if, if you haven't listened to our two podcasts on how to affair-proof your marriage parts one and two, you need to listen to that because we talk about how to make sure that you don't fall for that. Right. And that emotion, that, that second woman, in your example, it was a great emotional gratitude.

Right? I like that. He noticed that he, I appreciate him for noticing. I appreciate, you know, it's an appreciation. Right. Whereas the first one was like, okay, great. So it's not like this deep appreciation. And I think that we need. To utilize the power of appreciation correctly. Yeah. Like we should be appreciating what our spouse does and what they say and, and the things that they do.

But yet we shouldn't be appreciating some of the things that people of the opposite sex might be doing that could elicit that strong feeling of appreciation because appreciation or gratitude is a bonding agent. And so we have to be aware of that. Right. You know, just to, to monitor how we are processing.

Yeah. That's exactly right. Okay. So now if next week we're going to, we're going to dive into how you're going to process emotions properly. Um, but what you can do as a little precursor is you can look back at one of our podcasts and we do share, uh, our little three-step process. Let it out, let it go. Let it.

We share that we also have that in our book on processing emotion next week, we're going to dive in deeper into that and give some practical tips and handles on how you'll be able to process through emotions so that emotions can draw you closer and not draw you further away from your spouse. But this is just the beginning as part, one of talking about emotions, and I think we should finish it with a, um, would you rather do, would you rather, would you rather.

Drink someone else's snap or eat someone else's ear wax. That's just crazy. Are you getting this out of a book? Yeah. What'd you rather book? Oh my gosh. Give me the earwax. Uh, yeah, I'm going to I'll second that, but yeah. Oh, this is crazy. You got to give me something that doesn't give me like this visceral nastiness.

All right, guys. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week. You'll hear us next week or we'll say whatever. Hey, don't forget to send us your jokes. Yes. Bring them. We'll see you.