Beauty in Battle Podcast

Dealing With Emotions in Marriage (part 2)

June 14, 2022 Jason Benham, Tori Benham Episode 24
Beauty in Battle Podcast
Dealing With Emotions in Marriage (part 2)
Show Notes Transcript

Last week we looked at the power of emotions and how trapped emotions wreak havoc on our bodies, our souls, and our relationships. This week we'll look into some practical steps we can take to process those emotions.

An emotion is tied to what happened to us. A feeling is tied to how we process that emotion. If we don't process our emotions properly, we'll end up with feelings we never should have had.

In this episode we'll discuss three simple steps to process emotions:

* Let it Out
* Let it Go
* Let it Happen

Within each, we'll share some practical steps on how we can do each of these and live in peace and freedom in our own personal lives as well as our marriage.

Please visit us on our website at BeautyInBattle.com

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

All right. We're back. We're talking to emotions again. We did it last week. And this week we want to jump into some practical things that we can do. That'll help us process emotions because trapped emotions, they wreck your body. They wreck your life. They wreck your relationships. So we want to figure out how we can get to the root of these things and, and release those and how it'll help you in your marriage.

How about that tour? I like it. But we're going to start with a joke. I was waiting before we dive in, before we dive in. Okay. I was really struggling to get my wife's attention. So I sat down on the sofa and looked comfortable and that. Oh, sorry. My phone went black in the middle of me reading it. I wasn't following that.

Okay. So do you get it, but the bed, the best part of the joke was the telling of it. Yeah. Sorry. I was in the middle of reading it and then my phone went black and I just, I kind of went with it, but it didn't really work. I was really struggling to get my wife's attention. So I sat down on the sofa and looked company.

And then she came up and said, you need to get, get busy. Okay. I went to see the doctor about my blocked ear. Which ear is it? He asked 20, 22. I replied. Okay. Now did somebody send those to us? No, that those, I just found online. Okay. I like it. All right. Let's dive in. Okay. So let's. Give our foundation real quick.

When we're talking about emotions, dealing with emotions and dealing with unprocessed emotions, um, and how they can wreck you and how, what we know now is that, uh, for the most part, that emotions go somewhere right in our body. Um, there there's like this list out there. You should, you should Google it. I don't have it on me.

Right. But traditional Chinese medicine where they say certain emotions go like anger to the liver grief to the lungs. Yeah. I think joy or the antithesis of joy goes to the heart. Yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting. And I think that, um, the reason that Chinese medicine is so accurate is because it, it, the premise of it is that we are body, soul and spirit.

Yeah. Right. And I think in Western medicine, we're just interested in finding the problem, putting basically putting a bandaid over it, or, you know, taking away the pain, um, and, and just medicating. Whereas Chinese medicine is more well, what is the root cause? What is the emotion attached and, and really going deep into body, soul spirit.

Instead of just body. Yeah. Cause there's such a connection like that. There's no way we can negate that, that there is a connection between body, soul, and spirit. Right. The Bible is very clear on that. And so I think that's why there's been such success. With Chinese medicine over Western medicine or Eastern medicine versus Western medicine.

Right. And, um, so we're just kind of diving into this and learning more and it's been super interesting. And like you, you talked about, um, what David said in the Psalm search me O God and know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts. Yeah. I just think that is, you know, from a man who was a man after God's own heart.

Right. That's how God talks about Dave in the Bible. Like that's that says a lot, God calls him a man after his own heart. Right. And this is what David is practicing. Right. We can learn any hurtful way inside me and lead me in the way everlasting. This is David saying, okay, test me, you know, show me what's inside of me, show me what's wrong.

And now, and then lead me in the way everlasting. Like I just think it would do us so well if we did this every single morning and we prayed that prayer every single day that we start our, our day with that. And I think that emotions speak right. They, they speak to what is inside of us. And you, you talked about last week, how.

Are an impulse to act like they're supposed to lead us to something. Um, and so if emotions are supposed to, to lead us to do something right, um, I think that we like the, one of the best litmus test to see. Is in side of us and to know, and you know, when we're searching, we're asking God to search our heart is what's coming out of us.

Oh, that's good. Yeah. You're right out of the abundance of the heart. Yeah. Yeah. So if you're kind of like, I don't know, I don't really know what's going on inside of me. I don't know what my emotions are lately. I don't know. Well, what have you been talking about lately? What have been, what have your outbursts spend?

Yeah, what's been bothered. What's been bothering you. Yeah, exactly. 'cause, you know, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And so I think that's a really good place to start. And that's kind of what I've been trying to do lately is what have I been, what's coming out of my mouth because right.

And in some of those things, the Lord has really, um, as I begin to identify them and confess them and say, okay, so what, why did that come out of. Then the Lord has been able to deal with me and lead me in the way everlasting that's right. And, and it's what is coming out of my mouth, but what is my body feeling, right?

Like if, if I'm around a certain person or if I'm in a certain situation and all of a sudden I feel exhausted, or my heart rate goes way up or I feel jittery, or my Palm starts sweating or I feel agitated. I have that feeling of like, I just drank caffeine on an empty stomach for me. I can't do that. Get jittery, but if I haven't had caffeine and I'm about to go into a situation and I'm starting to feel jittery, my body is speaking to me.

My body is saying, okay, something's out of whack. Something's out of balance, which is what happened to me about two months ago. And I realized something was out of balance. I was, I was overworking myself. I wasn't taking time to rest. I'd literally get done writing a book and I'd start thinking about the next one, rather than sitting back and taking.

You know, in, in my mind and just enjoying what I had, but I'd go from one thing to the next. And then my body started speaking. Wow. I started feeling agitated and you know, my, my heart rate started racing. I felt a couple of times, like I was gonna pass out, which is really weird for me because I'm a decently healthy dude.

So your body is always speaking to you. So we have to pay attention. So when David praise search me, O God know my heart, try me, test me. Know my anxious, thoughts. Remember anxiety, excuse me. Fear is about a past or present. Anxiety is about a future threat. And that threat is a threat of powerlessness. So anxiety is projecting powerlessness into the future.

Our job as believers is to project power into the future. And we do that for. And we project power into the future in terms of how it is with our, if we might be struggling with our spouse right now, we don't think that they could ever change or we could ever change as a relationship, as a marriage project power in the future don't project powerlessness.

Yeah, no, that's a slap in God's face. Right? So, and then he goes and says, see if there'd be any hurtful way in me, God put me in a struggle so I can see what's inside me. Right. And these hurtful things, these emotions that are deep down in there. Because an emotion is an impulse to act and one such emotion.

And we got a question from a, from a listener, I think. And I think we should, we should talk about that. Do you have that question that she, that she asked that we can, um, read, if not, don't worry about it. Cause I've got another one here, but when we talk about anger, anger is an emotion with a purpose and the purpose of anger is that, um, God's justice has done.

So when you're feeling angry in that moment, there's been something in you that, that knows that justice hasn't been done. And so I had this one guy reach out to me and said, Hey, so here's the deal? My, my body is, uh, I've been feeling anxious, anxiety it's been crazy. And I actually think that, you know, I had almost a panic attack kind of thing.

And, uh, we were talking through it and, and, uh, he said that he actually took some blood work, found out. He's got. Issues. And I said, well, anger goes to the liver, right? So what have you been struggling with? What emotion he's like? Well, honestly, anger. I feel angry about this and this, and, and now these are legit things that he felt angry about, but in his response to that anger, he's actually masked it, buried it down and not ever let the anger, uh, express itself right now.

You're not ever supposed to express yourself angrily in terms of, you know, screaming at people and reading. The Bible is very clear that says be angry, but don't sin, which means be all about God's justice, but don't be about your justice and don't be screaming, Hooten, and holler, and that kind of stuff.

You don't need to be doing that, but, but even Jesus himself got angry. When the religious leaders he saw were keeping people enslaved with their terrible theology and he's like, Um, essentially, you know, so this buddy of mine was struggling with this. And I knew that that, uh, from talking with him about how he wasn't, you know, with certain people that were saying or doing things and, and he was kind of just being really nice about it, but then harboring anger deep down inside.

So what I told him was pent up emotion. I'm a read this text, pent up emotion is what hurts a lot of people. If you feel something that is righteous going on inside. And the emotion attached to it as anger. Then there are times you should let that emotion out, not in a crazy lunatic way, where you're screaming at everybody, but your body may be telling you that you're not releasing enough of it.

Then you're holding onto it inside your body and it's hurting you. So imagine if one of your sons back talk to your wife and you felt that righteous anger coming over you, but then you responded by simply being conversational whimsical, because you didn't want to offend him. Right. Your body would be barking at you to stand up and put them in.

That'd be the proper response, but if you don't respond like that, it's going to end up staying inside of your body and crushing you as a man. Wow. And then that anger travels down to your liver. Next thing you know, you've got liver problems. Wow. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. So little things like that are so incredibly important.

That's why we wanted to talk more about emotions. And so, yeah, I found that, that, um, that message from the listener, um, she said that she was listening to the emotional intelligence one that we, that we released a few weeks ago about letting. Let it go and let it happen, but was confused about the anger part of that.

Right? She said, there's some generational stuff going on in their family and it's like such a pull to re react in anger. Right. Um, for disrespect from a child or whatever it may be. Um, but how do you, you know, actually let it out, but do do that the correct way. Yep. Are you going to read it? You're going to read the question or just kind of summarize.

Okay. Got it. So, uh, what's your take on that? Or do you want me to give first take you go? Well, I think you just kind of answered that. Yeah. Um, well, if, if I'm looking at that specifically, I think, um, you should feel like. But like the minute someone, especially with our kids, you need to go back and listen to the four phases of parenting.

We stopped. We talked about staying in love while parenting kids, the four phases of parenting that it starts out. You start out as babysitter, then you moved to referee. Then you go to coach and then you go to teammate and if they honor you in each stage, they can move on to the next stage of babysitters, making sure that they don't.

Uh, a referee is the person who outlines the rules and blows the whistles. Wind blows the whistle. When the rule has been, when the rule has been broken, right? The coach is the one who teaches you how to win in the. After you've already learned the rules and the teammate says we're on the same team together.

Let's win together. Right. Right. The ultimate goal of parenting is to get to where your teammate face. Yeah. But if your kid is disrespectful or consistently disobedient, they're bringing you back to referee stage. Right. So as a referee, you have to blow the whistle. What does that. You're actually blowing.

Think about a referee blowing a whistle. I mean, it's loud, it's obnoxious sometimes, you know, it's like Tang, you just throw a flag on me. There's your, kid's supposed to feel like what they just did did not make mom or dad happy. Right. But if they don't know that, then that's a problem. But then on the other side, the referee doesn't go over and punch the athlete in the face.

Right, right. Then the referee doesn't go scream in the face. Uh, and. So you can't, you can't just have these outbursts of anger. So letting it out is, is doing it in a way that's proper, but yet is proper for the, for, for the actual infraction. So if my son, Jake disrespects, Tori, and we're at the dinner table, I promise you, I'm probably going to stand up.

I'm going to walk his direction. I'm going to tell him this. I'm going to tell him to turn around and look at his mom and apologize right now that right there. Uh, I can't say that I've always done it the right way, you know, but that right there is a, is a proper response. Right. But now if she said Jake, take out the trash and he doesn't do it in time, or he forgets about it or something like that.

Well, that's a different response. It's like Jake. Now, what did your mom say to you right now? Let's do it, but that could make. So it's knowing how to properly control your emotions. The moment it happens so that you don't have just this crazy outburst and then letting it out is a matter of just exercising discipline at the proper time.

Yup. And I think, I think another key component is, are you reacting out of fear or responding out of love? Oh, that's good. And I think that when anger arises, sometimes it's actually, uh, out of fear, fear of loss of control. Yeah, I know for me, I actually responded to using an example of myself that I used to when the kids were little and they would ask me to do things that I'd have to say no to, it would make me so mad and angry.

Like I would be like, no, you can't do that. And like, it was this kind of weird. Mad reaction. And they're like, okay, sorry for asking. And I'm like, well, why do I, why do I do that? And this is like an example of when, when an emotion is pointing to something, it's like, why do I get so angry? Every time someone asks me something that I have to say no to?

Yes. And it it's like this lack of control that I feel. I want to be able to, to meet my kids' needs. I want to be able to do like, you know, I kind of found my identity and being their mom and being their protector, the person that takes care of them, you know? And, and then they're going to be mad at me because they want to do something that I don't feel like they should do.

Right. And it's this lack of control. Like, wait a minute. I want to give you so much and I want to do so much for you, but stop asking me things that you're, you're where I'm going to have to say. No. And the Lord really, like, I was like, well, what is that? And there, and the Lord really pointed and really after I learned kind of the Enneagram and, and had a more understanding of myself and how I'm wired and how I respond naturally to things like my, the thing that I hold on to tightest in life is peace.

I really, really. I hold on. I almost have a obsessive bent towards peace. I want everything to be peaceful and good and well, and you know, that song, it is well with my soul. I love it when everything is well with my soul. Right. And so any, when something comes in the way of. Of that thing that I hold on to.

So tightly, I can often react out of this lack of control for something I want so bad. And that's what was happening with me. And then the Lord began to show me like, you need to really loosen your grip, you know, like stop holding on to so tightly, this, this desire for peace. And if you have to say no, don't, it's fine.

Like you not it's this it's, you're making it way bigger than. In your heart than it really should be. Remember when, um, she ran for president in 2012, I think it was, uh, 2008, maybe Michelle Bachmann. We were having a conversation with her to Chick-fil-A once and Tori asked her this great question and Michelle gave us the best parenting advice.

Uh, she said, you know, Tory ass, she has like a lot of kids. Yeah. And she's a doer, she's active kids. She's a great woman, Michelle Bachmann. But she, uh, Tory asked about, you know, us, sometimes we get so angry with our kids. Like how do we control that and all that kind of stuff. And Michelle just looked at us and Dory and I were sitting there and she said, well, are you guys enforcing your rules?

So, uh, yeah, I think so. She said, because what will happen is if your kid does. They infract a rule. They like, they break a rule and you don't enforce justice immediately. Then you're going to start getting angry. You're going to start getting more mad and more mad. And so I realized that it's true. It's like if I, if Tori says Jake, I need you to do this.

To one of our sons and he doesn't do it and I don't say anything or deal with it. Right. Then I took that little emotion away, that little anger emotion that I felt in that moment. I just tuck it away a little bit in my subconscious, not really understanding it or realizing it. And then if Jake does it again and I don't deal with it, then the emotion gets bigger.

It's greater. And then if he does it again, next thing you know, I'm exploding on him all because I did not enforce the rules. I thought that was the best advice you could have given. That's really good. So what I want to do now tour is I want to look at the three process. We talked about how to process emotions.

Um, specifically in terms of, you know, our F our mouths or food processors, so that our bodies can digest the good, uh, food and take and get rid of the bad, the nutrients in the food. And so we need to do the same with emotions. That we need to learn to process them. Uh, and we have let it out, let it go, let it happen.

And we've talked about it in our book. We talked about that in one of our podcasts, but I want to look, look at that, but take a little different spin on it. When we talk about letting it out, we're basically talking about don't hold it in. Like don't just sit there and let emotions sit down inside you.

You've got to recognize what you're feeling. So let me give you four little key points when it comes to letting it out. Number one, identify what your. So this is going to expose it right away and just identifying it, just saying, okay, so this is what I think I'm feeling. Yeah. This is where it's good for you and your spouse to talk with each other a lot.

Right? It's it's especially women help your husbands here. You know, Satori's had to help me feel, helped me understand what I'm feeling. Right. And it's hard. It's hard for a dude to be vulnerable like that, but you have to identify what you're feeling and just, just. Exposing it like that is one of the most important ways of bringing it out.

Uh, number two, see the end result of that feeling. Um, what, what is that, where's that feeling gonna lead you to like, if, if I'm feeling something, if I'm feeling like agitated, the Salma twin brother, I've got a twin brother and we're in business together. If I feel agitated that I did a job that maybe David should have.

But then I don't tell David that and I feel it, but then I don't deal with it. Um, what I need to do is when I expose that feeling, whenever I've talked through it with you tour and I'm feeling agitated, Then, what I have to do is see the end result of that if I keep feeling agitated, but I don't talk to David about that.

Yeah. That agitation is going to turn to bitterness and bitterness breaks relationships, and it just doesn't just break relationships. It breaks people. Yes. So bitterness, it starts to lodge down inside of your body, you know, find some organ that it goes to, and then it starts wreaking havoc on your physical body.

Yeah. It's literally poison. So you have to see the end result of that feeling, but the same is true in the reverse. It might not be up. It might not be a bad emotion. It might be a good one, like gratitude, right? When we talked on our podcasts on how to affair-proof your marriage, if you're feeling gratitude toward another person of the opposite sex outside your marriage, and you're consistently feeling gratitude toward that person.

And then you just let that thing. The natural outgrowth of gratitude is that it releases oxytocin and draws you closer to that person. Yeah. You got to stop thinking about that. You got to bring your spouse into that, you know, so, and so has complimented me the last three days I was at work. Right, right.

Bring your spouse into that because the, if you feel, if you feel something like that felt good. You need to recognize the end result of that feeling is ultimately going to draw you closer to that person and further away from your spouse. And that's not a good thing. So in letting it out, you're identifying what you're feeling.

You're seeing the end result of that feeling. Number three, you're deciding how you're going to think about it. You're just making a decision. This is how I'm going to think about it. Um, which means that if it going back to the gratitude. Allow that gratitude to, uh, be something that you think about with your spouse, because you know, that's going to draw you closer to your spouse, but be transactional with anybody else.

It's like moving from emotional to transactional. So you're gonna have to decide how you're going to think about it. You're gonna be transactional. And then the final thing that I would say about letting it out is literally talking it out, right. Bringing it to God, being verbal with it. I think. Heather Smith when we interviewed her in Denny a few weeks ago.

And she said that her life literally changed for the better after a two year bout with anxiety, when she started praying out loud and projecting it like the vibration coming from her belly to her throat and out her mouth, that's how God spoke the world into existence. And she started speaking her prayers.

So talk it out to God and then talk it out to other. Yeah. And I also think that when you're talking things out, when you have a problem that you're talking out there at the end of that conversation, there has to be some kind of movement towards a solution. It can't just be like, okay, I just aired all of that now, what are we going to do about it?

Am I going to have to do I need to, um, erect boundaries? Do I need to have a conversation with this person? But I think that so often we say all these negative things. About, uh, about someone to our spouse and we just air out everything. Right. And then it just becomes this reoccurring conversation where it's never been dealt with.

It's never, there's never been a salute. There's never been a resolution because we were not arriving at truth. Like, okay, so now what, that's good. You say that because our three-step process that we talk about, let it out, let it go. Let it happen. That's how we're processing. We just talked about four things you need to do in when it comes to let it out.

But that brings us right into that next step, which is to let it go, which is okay, so that person hurt me or that person has said this or that person treats me this way or whatever. And you're getting to the root of that emotion. But at some point. You, you do have to let it go. And when we say let it go, I mean, I hate to be cliche ish, but it is let it go and let God, so let go and let God where you're like, God, okay, I can't control this.

Right? Because remember, anxiety is tied to a lack of control projected into the future. Like, I can't control this. I don't know how this person is going to treat me when I see them again. I don't know how it's going to turn out my relationship. But God, I've already processed this. I've let it out. I've I've talked to you about it.

I've talked to my husband or my, my wife, whichever spouse you are. I've talked to a few, very close friends and that's it. I didn't put it on Facebook and broadcast it. Um, now I'm going to let it go. Yeah. And I'm not going to hold onto this thing, right. Which essentially what we say in the book is talking about receiving forgiveness and granting forgiveness.

We have a whole different take on. And if that's something that you have ever struggled with receiving it or, or giving it go back and listen to our podcast on forgiveness and marriage, it is something that I think will really set you free, but when it comes to letting it go, it's receive forgiveness, grant forgiveness, and then just let the sucker go, you know?

And, and when it comes to dealing with other people, that means, uh, erecting a proper boundary, the only way that you can let things go when it deals. An emotion that's tied to the way someone treated you improperly or said something and properly is to erect a boundary right inside of boundary. There's freedom.

Yeah. So you just put up proper boundaries and one of these days we'll do a podcast fully on boundaries. Okay. I was just going to say that last week we talked about the three were the three ways that emotions are sourced and one of them was projected, right. Projection inherited, experienced, and projected and projected.

And I think that's an important part of, of that, what you were just talking about, let it, so it's let it say those, those, let it out, let it out, let it go. Let it happen. Let it happen. Um, I think it's really important. Those emotions that may have been projected in a relationship, you have a spouse or a friend who's projecting something onto your relationship, right.

That you recognize that, that, that emotion that they have, they have projected that you're not coming into agreement with it. That you're releasing that. Yeah. Um, I just think that would have been so helpful to me many years ago. If I knew the power of projected emotions. You know that just because you are having a hard day doesn't mean that I need to take that on just because you're angry doesn't mean that I needed to take on that emotion.

And I think a lot of times they, they manifest in different ways, depending on the person. So for you, or for me, if, if somebody is projecting anger, then I might just clam up and just become exhausted. Cause I'm taking on that emotion. Right. And that that's a good point because that projected emotion can go negative or it can go positive.

Right. That's why when Gideon was called into battle over the Midianites, the angel showed up and it said, and he said, greetings, oh, you value. Mm, Gideon. Wasn't a warrior at that point, he was a farmer. Yeah. But that's a projected emotion. Right. And, and Gideon did rise up and he was a Valiant warrior. I think we do that.

We should do that with our spouse. That's such a good point. It's like, honey, I know you're struggling, but you have no idea. You've done harder things, you know, you've done. I saw this picture of Tori. She was pregnant with our fourth Lundy and she was laying on the ultrasound table and I saw the back of the nurse and then it.

Jake right up next to her head, he was hugging her and smelling her hair and my hair. He always, yeah. He always held onto my hair. And then, and then Allie was at mom's feet or Tori's feet and she was messing around with something. And then Trey was like, it looked like he was singing a song or something sitting on sitting on top of the bed.

But here Tori was with this massive. On her belly, which is where Lundy was. And these three kids crawling all over her. And I'm like, you were the Mo that you were a superhero, right? In that moment, you have no idea how strong you are, you know, in the moment that I felt the weakest, I was so strong that I was.

Yeah, keep up. That's baller status. A lot of respect to you. Mama's out there in the, in the thick of it. That's all right. So our three, our three little points, let it, let it out, let it go. And then let it happen. Which is don't. Don't worry about the fact that don't try to stop emotion from happening. Just let it happen, and then create an environment where positive emotions can blossom, like create an environment for.

Which means that you're gonna have to, uh, be restful, find, find ways to rest, find ways to recoup, you know, Jesus six, excuse me, not Jesus, but God created on six days. And then on the seventh he recreated, which is recreated. That means. You know, so, um, I'm a real estate guy. Uh, rest for me, could look like me sitting on top of a zero-turn lawnmower and only my lawn.

But if I were a landscaper that looks like work. Yeah. Right. For a landscaper work for him would be going out and looking at real estate deals. Whatever it is. You just have to create an environment where positive emotions can flow. Don't run from the negative emotions, but make sure that you're labeling them.

You're letting them out. You're letting it go. And then you're letting it happen. And what, what, what ultimately ends up happening is that you'll no longer have trapped emotions. You'll be processing things accurately. Your physical body will respond to that. Your relationships will respond to that. And it's a really, really, really powerful place.

Yeah, I totally agree. I'm going to wrap us up with whether you'd rather, we kind of went a little long on this. One's good though. Okay. Would you rather have mushroom pizza as your skin or zucchini noodles as your head? Well, I don't understand. Mushroom pizza is my skin. You look down at your skin and you got mushroom pizza, or look at, look at your hair and it's, uh, I'm probably going to go mushroom pizza.

I'm thinking for sure. Hey, by the way, let me, let me just say this. The gluten-free, um, white. Pizza at Domino's with mushrooms on the top is buying in. It is so good. You guys, you have to try it. You would never guess that Domino's would have the best gluten-free pizza around, but you can't get it with red sauce.

You got to get it with the garlic Parmesan sauce, garlic sauce, right? I think it has butter, whatever it is. I think it's garlic butter. Yes. And then put mushrooms on it. Oh my gosh. I'm not joking. It is blow your hair back. And you guys can thank us later for that one. So thanks for hanging out with us beauty and battle hate listen, rate, review, subscribe, share whatever you want to do, but thanks for hanging out with us.

We love you and God bless. Have a good night.