It's Not Me, It's You

How redefining my relationship with my emotions is helping me put things in motion.

If there’s one thing I can certainly write a book about, it’s marriage. After almost 18 months of unwavering commitment to my ‘I do’, I’ve learned so much about sacrifice, communication, patience, selflessness. The individual who showed up at the altar, is slowly dying away, making space for deeper reservoirs of service and grace I’m building up for my husband. This journey has not only helped me show up as a better wife, but in aiming to mirror the love Jesus has for us, it’s made me a better daughter, sister, friend and more.

One of my favorite things about marriage is the balance that it brings to my life. In many ways, my husband regulates me. He keeps me level headed and within productive emotional bounds to make sure I’m never at the (dangerous) mercy of my ever-fleeting feelings. He strikes a good balance of validation and logic — understanding my feelings for what they are, but identifying them as just that…feelings.

Certified Cry Baby

Naturally, I’m a tearful girl — in every sense of the word. I cry when I’m happy and I cry when I’m sad. I don’t know what it means, but it’s very normal for me to be so moved to tears. The “when’s the last time you cried” question is always easy for me…probably in the last 7 days! But I also pride myself in never being too far from such rich emotion at any given moment.

The last several months have been really emotionally dense for me. As I’ve tried to transition my career, I’ve cried what feels like rivers out of frustration, feelings of bondage and overwhelm, sadness. As I reflect on it, I also cried out of weakness— lacking the capacity to hold the weight of my emotional burdens. Don’t get me wrong, a good cry can be necessary, and many times it did help release the tension in my body. Problem was: the tears and heavy emotions were all I had to show for the cards I was being dealt.

Somewhere in the midst of it all, my husband reminded me there has to be something on the other side of the tears, if the goal is to create a new reality for ourselves. Moments of frustration and overwhelm shouldn’t justify stagnancy, and more importantly, they couldn’t if I wanted different. So much of my journey has required me to refine my relationship with my feelings. I’ve worked to trade in my tears for sweat, making sure I’m never sitting in sadness more than I’m actually grinding to change my circumstances.

Wipe Those Tears, We Got Work to Do

Like I shared just moments ago, it’s hard for me to restrain from crying. So this is not to say I’ve done away with tears completely. But there has been a considerable shift in my behaviors once those emotions come pouring in. What I’ve found is that I can give my tears the space to exist, but I also need to know how to steward them and recognize them for what they are. For me, this has really been about finding ways to create distance between me and my emotions so I can continue to grind.

In heavy moments, I’ve prayed to help free myself of those emotions so they don’t become my identity or dictate my decisions. I usually thank God for all that is He is and all that He’s done to remind myself that He’s still good in the midst of it all. Emotions can be so needy and blinding — I never want to be so consumed by their presence that I can’t see or think beyond them.

I try and quickly pull God into those spaces because as I’m experiencing my emotions, I always feel like there’s a moment where they want to dig deeper. In hindsight, I’d say it feels like a split second where the devil is asking me to go outside and play, but from that decision on it’s often just lies and fears — a very dangerous playing field that’s seldom productive.

While all of these moments can feel small, I’ve found that they’ve gone on to shape weeks of progress for me. It’s the daily choice to surrender even the smallest feelings that has kept me moving forward, one obedient step at a time.

We Got Motion

I wrote about this in a previous Substack article, but part of my recent struggle was I really didn’t know what to do outside of feel what I was feeling. I came from a season where I felt like I couldn’t change my circumstances and it felt like my tears were all I had. But that is and always will be a lie! The grind is always an option if you want it. My grind has been slow, but it’s been steady. With my emotions at bay, I’m reshaping my reality one day at a time and in more ways than one, I know that it’s working.

I hope you enjoyed this post.

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