Getting the Used Air Out

I knew I needed something. But, I just couldn't quite identify what it was. Yet once it showed itself to me, I knew.  And I found that something in two places, one most unlikely and the other most inevitable.

For awhile now, my emotions have felt like a jumbled mess. I can appreciate the  visual of this "mess"  I discovered years ago by bereavement expert Everett Worthington. Worthington created a picture that looks like a tangled up ball of yarn. In between the twisted threads within this ball he placed numerous descriptive words such as sorrow, disappointment, rage, delight, joy. Worthington named his picture The Tangled Web of Emotions.

In my own emotionally webbed-brain I see specific threads that twist and turn around my emotions; threads of necessary losses such as the deaths of both my Mom and my Dad. Other distinctive threads that are not quite as difficult to bear, but necessary losses just the same; the healthy grief over adult children that find their dreams in "foreign" lands and live miles away from their Dad and me. And woven into these are the unhealthy and unnecessary losses that include missed opportunities and some poor choices I've made along the way. I can name many of the emotions nestled in between the tangled up yarns. Longing, sadness, joy, disappointment, shame, hope, and satisfaction are just a few.

In the midst of this helpful identification of grief and goodness, I continued to sense there was a  certain something God wanted me to do.

Although individual ministry from a seasoned caregiver could facilitate the discovery of this "something," I knew the Holy Spirit was pointing me in a different direction. I held off  making an appointment and God, in his perfect sovereignty, provided.

At the encouragement of my husband, I began reading a biographical account of Theodore Roosevelt called Mornings on Horseback by Pulitzer Price award winner David McCullough. Jim pointed me to a chapter describing the psychosomatic nature of asthma that gravely impacted Roosevelt's childhood years. Here that unlikely place of a new understanding of my emotions presented itself.

"The onset [of an asthma attack]  may be sudden or gradual. The first stage is a tightening of the chest and a dry, hacking cough. Breathing becomes labored and shallow. The child starts to pant for air ("asthma" in Greek means panting). . . . He is battling for breath, tugging, straining, elbows planted on his knees, shoulders hunched high, his head thrown back, eyes popping. Fiercely as he pulls and gulps for air, what he gets is never enough.

Hyperventilation occurs, as less and less air is pulled into the lungs. The feeling, it has been said, is of taking in mere spoonfuls of air, these reaching only the top of the lungs. 

But though the sensation is of being unable to take air in, the problem is actually the reverse: the air already inside cannot be expired as in normal breathing. It is the used air trapped within the swollen lungs that is keeping the child from breathing in the fresh air so desperately wanted. The struggle is to get the used air out." 

Getting the used air out. My emotions were getting stale! They were "used air."  Until I read that, I never realized emotions could get stale. But that was exactly what I felt happening in my brain. They were knotted up in this tangled ball, in need of escape. But I had left them there to get stale. Used, stale and flat. I just wasn't feeling my feelings. At one time I had experienced them all afresh, but their shelf life was short lived.

I needed to figure out how this was occurring in my life. So I made a list of all the events that were losses in my life for the past four years. Then I asked myself two questions. What did I do with all the emotions surrounding those events?  Were they trapped or had I released them?

And then God not only reminded me of the inevitable, but provided it for me as well. A few weeks into my "stale emotions epiphany" I met a friend for coffee and she suggested we form a small group for spiritual formation. Our agenda will be to process life and share how we find God in it. Of course! A small group community is God's inevitable place to breathe fresh air into my "deflatedness." This will be a place where community can help me experience Jesus in my joys and sorrows.  Five ladies that desire to come together to process their journeys and God's faithful presence is God's provision. He provided a group that will give me space to exhale.

Spiritual director and author Thom Gardner shares a study that shows that "there is enough DNA in the condensation of human breath to identify the person who exhales it. When we exhale, the essence of our life is broadcast, carrying with it our DNA- our identity as individuals."

So, what do you do with all the emotions surrounding your losses? Do you exhale? Most of you know the correct answers and how-to's for processing grief. You can list the steps to grieving easily. You can write laments. You can receive formational, healing prayer. You know the necessity of releasing your emotions.

But what if you bypassed looking for the right answers just for the moment and began by honestly asking yourself the question: what do I do with my emotions surrounding my losses?

• Do I get busy and push them aside?
• Do I ignore them?
• Do I keep them to myself?
• Do I read more books about becoming emotionally healthy?
• Do I replace them with food, achievement, the computer, etc. in order not to feel?
• Do I project them onto others?
• Do I isolate myself?

This can be hard healing work, but we can be confident in God's promises.

   "But, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love;
   for he does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men."  Lamentations 3:32-33 (ESV)

Keep breathing,
donna

ps. For a good read to help you with your "breathing habits" check out Thom Gardner's Living the God-Breathed Life.