FamilyLife Today®

Alicia Michelle: I feel there's this pressure in the church right now to be joyful all the time. Be happy, be joyful. Joy is a fruit of the spirit, yes. That's part of living in Christ. But if we are skipping over and pushing down all the things that are making us not feel joyful, then that's not a real joy. That's just faking it.

Dave Wilson: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Dave Wilson.

Ann Wilson: And I'm Ann Wilson. You can find us at familylifetoday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

Dave Wilson: Okay, so we have one more day with Alicia Michelle talking about her book, "Emotional Confidence." Just the title: "Three Simple Steps to Manage Emotions with Science and Scripture."

Ann Wilson: And we get to apply all that to marriage and parenting, and even parenting adult kids. You don't want to miss this one. Let's go.

Alicia Michelle: I think in marriage when you have disappointments, there does come a point where God had to bring me to this point of, "So, you've committed to this person for the rest of your life. You love this person." And you do. You love them. They're wonderful. But then there's this little part right here, right?

So are you going to let this little part grow so that it is blocking the light of all these other beautiful parts of your relationship? Because guess what, Alicia, you have control over that. You get to decide if this disappointment, that is real and plausible, is going to rule your marriage.

So, we have that individual choice, as painful and excruciating as it can be, to say, "God, I am disappointed. Show me how to release this because I don't want to live in this place anymore. I don't want this to poison my marriage."

Dave Wilson: I think most wives would say this, and I know husbands would too, they would say, "I'm disappointed, but it's not a little thing."

Alicia Michelle: Sure. If there is something immoral, abuse, we're not saying, "Well, that's a disappointment. You better just suck it up and work through the Lord with that." No, that's a glaring sign that we need help. You need to get safe, absolutely.

But that's different. This is the stuff like, "I really wish that he would talk to me more about this. I wish that we dated more like we did when we first got to know each other." Things that are meaningful and really hit home and are hard.

But is that a moral lack that's happening in the marriage? Not really. I'm glad we made that distinction because that's important. We're certainly not saying just deal with it if it's immoral.

Ann Wilson: And I think too, Dave, what happens in a woman's heart. I don't know if this happens with men. But as women have kids that are getting older, some of our marriage stuff gets put on the sideline because the stuff that our kids are going through trumps it. And we as women, I don't feel like you do this as much as I do, and maybe some men do.

Dave Wilson: No, but we watch it happen. And we feel like, "Hey, I'm over here." There's a sense of that.

Ann Wilson: Because we're worried about our kids, we're thinking about it. If a woman puts her head down at night, if she has little kids, she can start thinking, "I failed, I failed, I failed." If you get older kids, you're thinking, "I failed, and my kids..." You could take it personally like, "I've created this," but they are struggling with some big issues.

And it can suck the joy out of your life as a mom. And you forget about your husband because it's sucked the joy and energy out of your life. How can we apply it to this? How can the ADD apply to that woman or man?

Alicia Michelle: I think it's just again saying that this is the reality. This is who I am. I know for me as a young mom, that was one of the hardest points of my life. Relentless is the only word that I use to describe it.

Ann Wilson: You're sleeping four hours a night. You had three boys and a girl.

Alicia Michelle: I was sleeping four hours a night. Three boys and a girl. And you homeschooled. Yeah, and my husband traveled 50 percent of the time. One of my children is on the spectrum. Let's just keep adding to it, right? And that's not just "poor Alicia." We all have our own things.

But it builds up. And so I would say to that mom that it's okay to recognize that this is happening.

Dave Wilson: Did you cry much?

Alicia Michelle: There were certain points when I did cry. But I remember, and you'll probably get this as a husband, I remember saying at a breaking point with some of these things, again, the relentless side, "I can't do this anymore. This is so hard," having those kind of conversations with my husband.

And his answer was, which is a guy answer, and I love you, I know you're listening, I love you. He would say, "What do you want me to do about it? Do you want me to quit my job?"

Dave Wilson: Been there, done that.

Alicia Michelle: Right? And he's like, "What do you want me to do? What do you want me to do?" And I'm like, "But it's still hard." "What do you want me to do?" So then at that point, the tears are there, but you're like, "Alright, I guess I'll put the tears away because what am I supposed to do?"

Dave Wilson: You would say the exact same words. "I'll quit my job then, and we'll just..." and I'm like, "That's not the answer. I just want you to hear that this is hard." All you want them to do is hear that it's hard.

Alicia Michelle: Yes. And acknowledge like, "I see you. I see the pain that you're doing. I see it." Interestingly, you brought the adult children stuff up. This is that conversation we've had in the Bible study recently with these other couples. Young families, the young age is that, "I'm stuck in the mud, please help me. I need help."

But after the kids get a little older, they're more independent, it's like there's a lot more space and time for it to come up. And they're not little things, but they are those disappointments that we're like, "Maybe I thought this would have changed. I thought that maybe this would happen," or just the changing roles of the empty nest and things happening.

So, there's just this whole other dynamic that comes up emotionally at that stage.

Ann Wilson: What's that look like for you guys?

Alicia Michelle: It has been freeing because we're like, "Hey, let's go out to eat." We don't have to think about it. Or, "Let's go away for the weekend. The kids can handle the house." And that's beautiful. That kind of stuff is coming back that was not there.

But there is the little things that pop up that you're more aware of. But I think the beauty of that is we've had the maturity and the time to know, "Okay, this is annoying, but this is not everything. This is not something I want to focus on."

The growth has happened in both of us. So, we're more able to sluff things off and just truly love each other and focus. We understand the value of our thoughts, I think, more. Again, what do I want this to be about? So, it's a new phase and I'm sure it'll be different when everybody leaves. A lot more quiet.

Dave Wilson: One of the reasons I ask if you ever cried is because I have guys in my marriage group who say, "My wife cries every day." I'm like, "What?" I mean, everybody's different. Is crying a good or bad thing with emotions? You're the emotion coach. What do you do with that?

Alicia Michelle: So good. Yes. Crying is very helpful. Now, let's talk about crying versus crying. Crying and releasing tension physically, there are hormones that are released through our tears that are stress hormones to help us calm down.

Ann Wilson: Isn't that crazy? I never knew that.

Alicia Michelle: Stress hormones are being released through our tear ducts.

Dave Wilson: Bruce, did you hear that with your daughters?

Bruce: Oh, they have so many hormones, or what was it you said, stress hormones? Oh man, they have a lot. I mean, eight little girls.

Ann Wilson: Yes, all girls.

Dave Wilson: That's good for you to know that there's stress hormones being released. I want to know what's going on in the control booth in there. Bruce, Chance, any thoughts, any questions?

Bruce: Yeah, well, we've been talking about relating it to parenting for sure. The emotions. I was saying what's true that often we have to talk about that with our daughters. Just this past weekend, one of our daughters wouldn't eat because we watched a YouTube video of where they had to eat worms for losing the game.

And then she was afraid that there were worms in the food. And so my wife, Maria, was having to tell her what's true because she's very emotional at the table, can't eat, and it's becoming this big deal. And I'm there just going, "Just eat. You have to eat. Obey me."

And Maria's like, "Now we have to think. Is it true? No, it's true that there are not worms in there." Didn't exactly work, but it was a start.

Alicia Michelle: That is so interesting. And especially for younger kids when they don't have as developed of a frontal lobe, which is the logical part of the mind. The emotion is just going crazy, and of course that's activated again during with extra hormones in the teenage years. Look what you have to look forward to, Bruce.

Ann Wilson: Something else I was thinking about was just what does emotional growth look like, not just emotionally but spiritually and relationally. What does success look like? How would you define success of that?

Alicia Michelle: I think success is different for each person. But in terms of spiritually, it would be that I feel more safe and comfortable and it's easier for me to talk to God about my feelings. Here's the thing that I think is the gift in all of this with emotions and God is that we all say, "I want to see God more every day. I want to see him show up in my life."

Guess what? You already have. You have these emotions happening every day. What if this is an invitation from heaven to say, "I want to be in your real life. I really care about you." Come to me. What if the "come to me" verse that we all quote, what if it's not just when you're desperate?

Dave Wilson: Come to me. Let's say it. Matthew 11 where Jesus says, "Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden. I will give you rest." And that's really, at the end of the day, we have to. That's our only hope. That's our source, right?

Alicia Michelle: Yeah, he is the one who's going to give us rest. And what if that rest is not just a frantic plea, "God, please help me. God, please give me strength." How often do we just pray that?

What if that strength and the hope and the peace comes from entering into this place of emotional conversations with God, and the ADD tool is a great way to do that.

Dave Wilson: I know when I work through the anger stuff in my life, I didn't do ADD. I did ABC that I even taught this at my church. I'm like, "Okay, here's what I've learned to do." First of all, acknowledge that you're angry. Because a lot of times in church world, we want to think anger's a sin.

It can be used in a way in Scripture, "In your anger do not sin." But we want to sort of skip it like, "I'm not angry," when everybody in the room's like, "Yeah, you are." And we think it's sin. It's like, "No, no, admit it. I am. I'm getting pretty hot right now."

B for me was the extension cord. Backtrack to the first emotion. There's an emotion I skipped. Were you hurt? Are you frustrated? Fear sometimes, you just skip fear and go to anger. Whatever it is, go back and go, "Oh, I..." and then C is confess it appropriately.

In my day, we were told let it all hang out. If you're angry, just go for it. That was a really bad advice. Because anger expressed in a hot way is not an appropriate way to do it. There's a way to do it and say, "I was angry. I realize when you said this to me an hour ago, it hurt. I didn't process it. I just yelled. I want to talk about that. Can we talk about that?"

You said that I'm not a good husband, or whatever. That really hurt. And then hopefully your wife or spouse is going to go, "Yeah, I didn't mean to say it that way." Anyway, ADD, ABC, it's a different thing, but I learned that really helped me get underneath what you said earlier, what's boiling inside me. There's something going on there.

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Ann Wilson: I'm still stuck back on our tears are releasing hormones. Talk about a God thing.

Alicia Michelle: Isn't that amazing? And then there's that verse in Psalms, and I'm not going to know the exact verse, but he collects all our tears in a bottle. So when we learn these cool things about our body, how he made us, we see that he does want us to learn how to help ourselves release the stress. And so this kind of goes back to two things.

First, I feel there's this pressure in the church right now to be joyful all the time. Be happy, be joyful. Joy is a fruit of the spirit, yes. That's part of living in Christ. But if we are skipping over and pushing down all the things that are making us not feel joyful, then that's not a real joy. That's just faking it. And then we don't understand why we're just feeling disconnected from God or we feel like we have to show up with a certain way.

But the thing is that we can have these emotions and we need to work through them, but he's also given us what I call emotional prep tools to be able to enter into it. Because in that moment when you're angry, the last thing you feel like doing is saying, "I'm acknowledging that I'm angry." You're just mad.

So the reality is how can I use the tools that God has made inside my body to help me calm down enough to do that? Because when we're stuck in an emotion, it's that primal, subconscious part of our brain that is just reacting, responding, shutting down. The logical mind is on 20 percent is what the stats say. 20 percent! So this is why we can't think logically. We're just like, "Gah!"

Ann Wilson: And think about you're right with kids whose brains haven't even developed all the way. And isn't it true, our boys would be like, we're not fully developed till 25, our brains, is that true?

Alicia Michelle: Boys are less. Boys take longer. Sorry.

Ann Wilson: Be patient, Ann. Yes. And yet you have the emotions many times of the girls. Yes.

Alicia Michelle: So that balance has to happen. So the logical mind comes back on once we can calm our bodies down. So our nervous system is either in two positions: the parasympathetic, which is the rest and digest, the calming side; or the sympathetic, which is the fight or flight side, which we're pretty familiar with at this point a lot of us have heard of fight or flight.

So when you're in an emotion, the fight or flight side is activated. And that's not the logical mind, that's the emotional, let's going to protect myself kind of mind.

We can use tools to kick on the parasympathetic nervous system.

Ann Wilson: What is the parasympathetic?

Alicia Michelle: So the parasympathetic is the side of the nervous system that is a calming side. It's what our body's always trying to go back to. It's that normal stasis where we're not in survival mode, okay?

So we can use all parts of our body, physical, emotional, spiritual, even taste and touch. There's different ways that we can access that. We talked about tears. Tears is one way that we can relax and let the emotions out and for that body to come down.

It can be something as simple as taking a deep breath, learning some different breathing techniques. We've heard about those before, or running fingers on your skin to activate... there are these little parts of our skin... I'm not going to remember the exact term. But when you run your fingers on them, it actually again releases these calming hormones to our body telling us to relax, to calm down.

Ann Wilson: That's why we do it to our kids when they're going to sleep. I'll do that with our grandkids. Yes. Of just touching their skin real lightly. It's calming.

Alicia Michelle: It's calming. So turning on the calm. If we feel like we're in a place where we can't go through a method like ADD to work through it, we can turn on the calm.

And the book gives 18 different kinds of ways to do that, but you start to learn what are the ways that work for me. So I go to this one or that one. That makes it easier to invite God in.

Ann Wilson: What helps to calm you? What do you do?

Alicia Michelle: Deep breathing, the box breathing specifically, which is breathe in for counts of four, hold for four, breathe out for four, and then hold for four. That helps, that's where I usually start.

Swaying or rocking is really helpful. I've just been using that more lately. So just kind of, we do this with babies, we moms know you even if you've never been a mom, you pick up a baby and instantly start this moving.

That's really helpful to me. The things with the skin is really helpful. Interestingly, sometimes the overwhelm we feel in an emotion, we can ask ourselves, "Do I need to get this out, like expel it, or do I need to go inward?" So that's a question I always ask.

Sometimes working out or just, "I'm so frustrated right now. I need to go, like I'm not going to sit here and take a deep breath. That's not helping me. I need to go work out or run or get it out of me." So maybe that's what I need to do.

And exercise of course is one of those that kicks on the endorphins which turns on the parasympathetic too. So that's a good question to ask, "Do I need to just work this out or do I need to go inward and feel that comfort in order to feel calm?"

Ann Wilson: What is the comfort look like when you go inward?

Alicia Michelle: The comfort would be the things we've been talking about, the breathing, that kind of stuff. That's the inward, but the outward is physical. Do you think men feel that side more? Expelling.

Dave Wilson: Different guys different things, but yeah, there's often times I just go work out. And I feel great, the endorphins. But when you were just saying the breathing thing, I literally just did it.

Alicia Michelle: Did you?

Dave Wilson: I'm sitting there going four counts. And I'm like, "Wow, that..."

Alicia Michelle: And hold! And that's what's interesting is the holding part because we think we want to just keep breathing in, breathing in, but it's the exhale and holding because the muscles are relaxing that's signaling the calm to come into our body. So the holding at the bottom and at the top of that breath is a big part of that calm.

Dave Wilson: Alicia, have you done those calming exercises with your kids? Have you taught that to them?

Alicia Michelle: Yes. I've taught them a few. Of course you guys know as parents sometimes they're like, "Yeah mom, whatever." And my son is here today, I'm sure watching us going, "Oh yes, mom's probably talked to us about some of those." But I think it's important to talk to them about them, yes, but at the right time. Right? Not when they're in the middle of a freak out and you're like, "Go take a deep breath and let's learn how to do this," right? So we can teach them those tools though.

Ann Wilson: But I was thinking of Sissy Goff and David Thomas who are both counselors. You've heard of them? David says have a room where they can release their steam to be that outward. But then Sissy has all these calming techniques. So I like that. And as adults, I think that's good too. What do you think you do?

Dave Wilson: I don't know, you're going to tell everybody I guess.

Ann Wilson: No, I have no idea. Go ahead.

Dave Wilson: The bad thing I probably do is I work. I just push it away and I go work.

Alicia Michelle: That would have been my MO before. For sure, working.

Dave Wilson: And then working out really helps me. If I could do it every day I would. I would. I think working out is good for me. My time with God too. I think I get so many of my emotions out now with him where I'm talking, I'm mad, I'm frustrated. Good friends do that too, that you're processing.

Alicia Michelle: Yeah journaling is huge. It's a big part of that. And I love honestly listening or playing worship music. Me too. I really do. I can get lost in a great worship song. Sometimes yeah, that'd be really interesting to know scientifically what happens in our bodies because if God has created music... I mean he's the author and creator of music.

And think about what that can do to us, what we feel, what we experience. And especially worship music then takes you to this higher plane. That's an interesting one.

No, not on that level but on a different level, it's the concept of going to the beach. Do you ever wonder why when you go to the beach you just feel so relaxed afterwards? So there is science that says that when we're at the beach several things are happening which turn on the parasympathetic.

First, the color of the water is very calming. It's very soothing to see that. The sound, the repetitive sound of course is calming, it's turning on these calming waves in our brain. The sensory of just being in a place with not a lot of noise, it's this dull kind of sound around you.

Seagulls and then the waves. And if we're a person of faith, we might see God in that, we might see the consistency of the waves as God's love. So there's just all these things happening at once. And sometimes we don't even have to think about it, you just go to the beach and you feel better. It's our body responding.

Ann Wilson: I think for a lot of people that would be golf as well. If you're hitting the ball well. But it's nature. Anything where you just feel kind of vibed in in nature. Yeah nature. I mean you get on a beautiful golf course, you're like, "It's stunning! This is so beautiful and the sun and..." and then you hit a ball into the woods and it all goes away.

Dave Wilson: Well, we're kind of talking about some of the pathways that we used to talk about of connecting to God. It's nature, it's music, prayer, writing. Kind of all the senses. He's made us to be able to connect with him in all our senses.

Ann Wilson: But I love that you're combining the science, the beauty of God and his word and his spirit with all that he has created and you're helping us learn how to deal with our emotions which are always up and down. What a great ministry God has given you and it started flat on your back.

Dave Wilson: It did. It did. Thank you. This has been good stuff. This is going to help a lot of people. Thank you.

Alicia Michelle: It starts like most ministries from a place of "Why? How did I end up here?" and God reworking it and bringing such beauty out of it. And I think that's what comes from all this. We can learn about all these things about our emotions, but the end of the day we're using them to grow closer to him.

It's an opportunity to grow closer to him like we've said. His truth is always going to reign over our emotions. We can feel it, it's still real, but at the end of the day it's a chance to submit to him, to let him take it, to let him do what he needs to do with it.

Ann Wilson: So good. Thank you for everything. And so you also have a podcast?

Alicia Michelle: I do. It's called "The Christian Mindset Coach with Alicia Michelle." And I just celebrated seven years of podcasting.

Dave Wilson: Congratulations. It's been a great journey. We were on not too long ago.

Alicia Michelle: You were. You guys were on. That was fun.

Dave Wilson: You can get her book, go to familylifetoday.com, click on the link in the show notes. Again, it's called "Emotional Confidence." Great title, by the way. Because I want to be confident in my emotions. Three simple steps to manage emotions with science and scripture. I'd say go to familylifetoday.com right now and get it. Thanks.

Alicia Michelle: Thanks.

Ann Wilson: This has been really good, Alicia. Thanks so much.

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