Take Heart

Emotional Resilience as a Caregiver

• Amy J Brown, Carrie Holt and Sara Clime • Season 4 • Episode 151

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0:00 | 45:12

In this collaborative episode, Amy, Sara, and Carrie talk about their own recent experiences and vulnerabilities- feelings of worthlessness, lack of control, and fear that often accompany these calmer seasons. They talk about how to recognize and process these emotions and offer practical advice and wisdom to help listeners navigate the unsettling emotions of transitions and change. They encourage you to welcome emotional resilience by inviting God into the depths of your emotions.

Key Moments:
[9:30] When our work becomes our worth
[13:00] We grow too fond of our suffering
[21:24] I didn’t want to think about how I feel
[25:38] Know your triggers
[40:47] Studies show only feel deep emotions for a short time

Resources:
The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown
Building A Resilient Life by Rebekah Lyons
A PDF copy of Dr. Gloria Wilcox’s Feeling Wheel by www.positivephsychologyprogram.com
Resilient by Jon Eldredge

If you enjoyed the show:

Amy J. Brown

My adult kids don't live near me, so I have to go see them. So when I'm spending the weekend with one of my adult kids, and we're having a great time. They're very healthily attached, then I come home to the crashing re-entry. It's like you're in The Wizard of Oz, and everything's technicolor, and then you go back to the black and white. And re-entry was always hard. And at first, I thought, well, it's cause I'm tired. I stayed up too late, or I ate too much. But I realized that it was coming back to the reality of the rejection and then not attach the relationship I live in. I would be super crabby and tired and overwhelmed, and I thought it was other things, but I'm noticing that it is that feeling of being connected and then coming back to the loneliness. 


Sara Clime

Welcome to Take Heart, a podcast about creating space for connection, hope, and joy as a mom to a child with disabilities or special needs. We want you to feel connected and encouraged as we navigate this messy, emotional, joy-filled life together. 


Hi, I'm Sara Clime. You're listening to episode 151. I'm here with Amy J. Brown and Carrie M. Holt. This month, we have each touched on different emotions and as we discuss in our book, The Other Side is Special, how we, through our relationships with God, ourselves, and others, navigate the messy, emotional, joy-filled life of being a caregiver. Hands down, without even having to think about it, the most difficult part of emotions for me personally have been learning how to not ignore them, not shoving them down into that tidy box where it's all neatly packaged in a nice little bow, where no one can see my vulnerability or the messiness, the crazy, or my struggle just to appear strong. Then you add a role as a full-time caregiver, and, quite frankly, you feel like you don't know what you're doing, and quote-unquote "powering through" is the norm. In fact, I still struggle with not wanting to work around or over my emotions. Somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that I had no time or energy for strong emotions.



Strong emotions only slowed my progress down. If I was too busy feeling, I most likely wasn't checking the boxes on my to-do list fast enough. High emotions equaled low efficiency. Seemingly even worse, high emotions equaled vulnerability. And perhaps for you, high emotions, or at least showing them, equals manipulation. 


Perhaps you know someone who will use your emotions for their gain or misconstrue them in a less than welcome way. They might perceive your moment of weakness that you feel for something bigger. But for whatever reason, maybe like me, you've learned to ignore or numb your emotions out of self-preservation. In her book, The Gifts of Imperfection, Brene Brown says, "'We cannot selectively numb emotions. When we numb the painful emotions, we also numb the positive emotions.'" Does this sound familiar? Don't show you're sad. Don't show your fear. Don't show you're angry, and definitely don't show you're crazy.


Only show the positive. Show your joy, hope, love, optimism. But that's not how life works; we all know that, or at least an authentic life. When we feel, we feel all of the emotions. Life is messy, life is emotional, and yes, life can be joy-filled, even in the midst of all of that. 


What I wanna talk about, ladies, today are the emotions we are each experiencing right now and how we are navigating them well or not so well. We could go with that, too. So, just so the listeners know, before we got on this call, we prayed and Amy says we're coming from a mess. And I think that's where we all are. We all feel that way sometimes, and that's okay. 


So, who wants to go first? 


My question is, what primary emotion are you experiencing right now and why? If you want to share that and, how would you describe that emotion mentally, physically, and or spiritually?


Amy J. Brown

I think I actually said in the prayer we're all coming from a crazy train mess. 


Sara Clime

I just ad-libbed; we're all messes. That was the Cliff Notes version of our prayer. 





Amy J. Brown

Excuse me. Okay, when you sent me this question, I had some ideas, but then I read through the emotions in our book. And the one that struck me was loneliness. And that kind of surprised me.


And this is why I am not in the thick of parenting young kids anymore. And that's a different kind of loneliness. That is, you're busy all the time. You're taking care of things all the time. So, I'm not in that phase. And I remember that phase and just felt like I didn't even have time to reach out to anybody. And plus there was a lot of shame around what was happening in her house. But now that I'm older, and I don't have as many kids at home, and I have my last kid at home, I realize I'm still struggling with loneliness. And part of that is the unique kind of parenting I do. And I've talked to you guys about it before, like moms of kids that have emotional issues, attachment issues, oppositional defiance, any of those things, or even autistic kids who can't show love. Moms like us live with rejection a lot. We just always live with rejection. And so, I was struck by how lonely I feel because I've got rejection-colored glasses on at this point in my parenting journey. I could have a really great time with one of my adult kids, who I'm very close to, and then think, what if I don't see him for a long time, or what if this happens? So, it's a combination of loneliness and fear that I'm noticing in my life.


I recently just went and saw one of my grad school friends and we had a great time on the way home. I thought, well, what if I don't see her again? Or what if, you know, just like that whole wait, I'm waiting to be rejected. And because that's been my parenting journey with my kids. So it's hard to talk about because it's very vulnerable, and it's sad. So, just two days ago, I have Emily P. Freeman's The Next Right Thing journal, and you put every month things that's happening in your life and what's life-giving. And so I went through summer months, and I thought, you know what, I had a lot of connection this summer. It didn't look like I thought it was. And I think we have this idea that we're gonna have one best friend that knows everything about us kind of situation. But when I looked, when I reflected back on the last few months that I had, we had a really fun summer, which is the first time we've had a fun summer in a long time. A lot of different people in and out. And it kind of changed my view of how I kind of think, oh, I don't have the many people in my life. But when I look back at just the small ways that people connected with me, I realized that there was a fuller plate than I actually thought I have. So I think what I feel in my body is that anxious feeling you get with scarcity. I don't have people; I don't have anyone to talk to, which really, my reality, that is not true.


So I think sometimes our muscle memory of our brain, if you're always being on high alert, you know, or rejected or whatever that thing is, it can color how we show up in our lives and how we see the reality of our life. And that was convicting to me. Like, wait a minute, you do have people in your life. 


I kind of think of friendship as like a big buffet table. You're not gonna just have one dish. You're gonna have all kinds of people and dishes that fit into your life. Does that make sense? 


Carrie M. Holt

Yeah.


Sara Clime

I think it does. And you know, you were talking about one best friend. You know, that's a lot of pressure to put on one person, you know. And I love the buffet analogy. And there's going to be times where you don't want to eat a certain dish, you don't want to be a part of that. And I think that's with friends too. There's just times in our lives where we go with an ebb and flow. So I love that. What about you, Carrie?


Carrie M. Holt

Okay, so when I read these questions, I thought I've got nothing. Like, I, and what's, what's interesting is I also feel like, similar to Amy, I'm in a season right now where I think after, you know, the book released in May, and things have slowed down immensely, and we're in a decent rhythm with our school year right now.

Some of the direct education that I've had with a couple of my kids, I have some help with it. And I have just honestly had a time of calm. Toby hasn't had a hospital stay, really a big one, since May or September of 21. I feel a little bit worthless. And with that feeling of worthlessness has brought in shame.


And it's been interesting because what it's bringing out is just that I feel like I'm not doing anything noteworthy or worthwhile. All of a sudden, I'm trying to control all these little things in my life, including my husband. So it's brought about a little bit of conflict and arguments over silly things. But it's almost like I'm afraid of this peace and some of this calm because I'm just waiting for the shoe to drop. And Sara, you made us aware of that study about resilience from Rebecca Lyons. And at first, when you brought it up to Amy and I to kind of do it together, I thought, oh man, I don't really need another study on resilience. And then I'm reading this, and she has a whole chapter on shame and one of the things that she says is there's a fine line that we cross where our work becomes our worth. And I'm just realizing how much of that is happening for me right now. Just trying to figure out what to do with that. And honestly, you know, I hesitated to even share this today because I'm navigating this right now in the moment. It's not something that I've processed real well. So the emotions are high, and the vulnerability is high, and how I'm reacting out of that emotion. It's been really interesting. 


Sara Clime

I think you bring up a really beautiful point, though; what is important to point out for everybody is that it's usually in those calm moments and those steady moments. Sometimes, those are the hardest points because you are you are so hyper vigilant all the time. You're like, I just want to break. I just want some rest. And then when we get it, we're like, we're worthless. We have nothing to do we have, and we have no worth outside of whatever that might be. And a lot of times, it's the caregiving role.

And then you add that fear of waiting for that other shoot a drop like you said. 


Carrie M. Holt

Yeah. 


Sara Clime

That's a lot for somebody to take on. And I love how you said, though, that you're like, I got nothing. Every time, I said, no, I'm good. Usually, my therapist will be like, Oh, I'm going to prove you wrong. We're going to unpack that. So, and there's always an, even an underlying emotion that's going on with everybody. That's just part of it. But I think it's sometimes where you look at it and Amy, like you said, you were surprised by loneliness. And I know, I think that's one of the parts where, and I know I'm partial, but I love reading your guys' part of the book over and over again, or the reflection questions that we have. We each took turns writing parts of those. And so sometimes I was like, that's a really good question, and I'll have to journal it or, and it just sometimes it's more about making you aware of what you're feeling. 


Amy J. Brown

Right. I want to add to what Carrie said, you know, I was just talking to my husband before I got on that I'm a terrible sleeper because we had alarms in our house for years. So, my body is trained not to sleep. And, like, that makes sense. We can, like that's a linear thing. Like you had alarms, you woke up, you don't sleep. But what Carrie said doesn't make sense to us, even though it's true. And I have a mentor that says to me, and I think I mentioned this in an earlier podcast, like how are you contributing to your own chaos? And I'm like, what are you talking about? I want peace. I want it all to be calm. But I'm good in chaos. And most of life has been chaos. So when that is not there, I totally agree with you, Carrie. It's so unsettling. Even though it's the thing we want, it is so unsettling. And just recently, I was talking to my mentor, and I was talking to her about something I was trying really hard to control. And she said you're doing that because that's how you've had to live life. And...

It's funny. We say we want peace; we want this like we wanted the book to be done because it was so much work, and we wanted this next stage to happen. But now that we're in relative calm, our bodies aren't used to it. And they don't know how to act in it. So we kind of make our own chaos. I don't know. However, you do that. I just think that's really so interesting. You said that because I literally just had a conversation like two days about that same thing. So you're not alone in that, for sure. 


Carrie M. Holt

One of my favorite book series to read is called At Home in Mitford by Jay Karon. And I recently have been reading through all of them again. And what's interesting about it is there's a character that she is suffering and one of the things that a mentor says to her is sometimes we grow too fond of our suffering. We count it too dear, and it becomes exquisite, the holy of holies. 


And I just thought it hit me really hard. I actually put it in my like commonplace notebook. I keep like a notebook of quotes and things because it is, it's like when we come down off the mountain top, I guess it's when we're out of the valley when we're kind of up on maybe, you know, a plateau of calm, we don't know what to do. Because, like you said, we're so hypervigilant. And then that's when we kind of have to deal with the reality of who we really are or what's coming up to the surface. 


Sara Clime

So I had to chuckle because when you said, “coming off the mountain” or “in the valley,” I'm like, we don't even know where we are. We don't even know where Calm is. It's true. We need GPS to get to the calm. Anyway, sorry, go ahead, Amy. 


Amy J. Brown

I was gonna say that you know, in a really hard time, like I'm gonna use Carrie for an example. Sorry, Carrie, I'm going to. Let's say you're in the hospital, and you're texting us and saying, I'm tired, da da, you know, I'm up, the doctor. We would say to use Carrie. Give yourself grace, give yourself space, go eat, go drink, go sleep. But we don't think to do that in these periods of calm. And I think sometimes, because we're so adept at doing the hospital stay, that we don't think we need grace and relative peace, but I think we do. 


Sara Clime

And I've heard you, Carrie, say before, too, in those moments of peace and in those moments of calm, that's when we dig deeper into the Word. That's when we go because that's when we can take that information in. So in the moments of chaos, we can pull that, say, oh my gosh, that's what God was trying to tell me in that moment. 


So, my primary emotion right now is fear. And it actually took me, I even, I came up with these questions, and it's still, I honestly, after about day three, I'm like, what was I thinking, giving these questions? I don't even know what to do. 


Carrie M. Holt

I thought that, too. 


Amy J. Brown

Me too. Thanks, Sara. 


Sara Clime

I hit send and then turned off my email. No, I'm kidding. So mine is fear.

You know, as you guys know, and I've talked about TJ's transition into adulthood. He graduated from high school in May of this year. And, you know, I always think what will our future look like? Will I be able to continue to work as much with my clients with my other business? If am I going to be able to still put out good content for the podcast? Am I going to be able to do this? I mean, everything from how will I get my house clean? How will I do this? You know, everything. He wants a job, but how will he get it? Because then I'm going to have to be the one to take him, and that's a whole other podcast. I think I've said this for three months straight, but we're still dealing with trying to get benefits for him because he just happens to be doing so well that they don't; they're fighting with me on benefits. So it's like, it's this fear of what do we do? I'm sure there are other emotions that bubble up, but fear is what's primary right now. And I think it's the unexpected can be immobilizing. And for me, fear often causes me just to shut down emotionally.It's not safe. I feel weak. And I know that's not true because you guys would say I am so fearful of my future of, you know, Carrie, you would say if Toby's future or Amy of your kids future, I'd be like, and that makes me weak. I'd be like, you are crazy. That does not make you weak. That makes you strong. But what, Amy, like you said, when we turn it around on ourself, it's always so different, but I usually just try to outrun or outwork my emotions. If they're too much for me, then I will work. And if I keep busy enough, I take enough things on my plate, I won't have to focus on the fear. I won't have to focus on the emotions. And once I realize what I'm doing, I can tell that my effort to outwork fear from my life, I have also outworked joy and peace and tranquility and quality time with my family.


So, it goes back to that quote from Brene Brown. You can't selectively choose the emotions that you feel because you either feel them or you don't feel any of them. And when fear is allowed to take over and drive, I know that that's usually whenever I've set my relationship aside with God. Because he's no longer in the driver's seat, fear is, or whatever the emotion, insert whatever emotion it is. 


Carrie, you had an email a couple of months ago where you were talking. You said something, or maybe it was in your podcast. I'm sorry. Yeah, you did. It was, I think, September's podcast where you said, I think your therapist was, “are you inviting Jesus into that space?” And that has stuck with me. And I keep asking, where's Jesus? I'm like, I don't even think I've let him in my house, let alone the conversation. So all of that to say, if I'm not trusting God to bring calm to my life, to heal the trauma, or just set with me the way that he wants to set with me in the midst of the hard moments, then I know that I'm on a downward spiral. So my first step is just to stop and say, okay, God set with me. Where do you want to drive? I'm going to; I'm kicking fear or anger or jealousy or whatever those emotions are. I'm kicking them. They're going to be in the car with me. 


And sometimes, I love visualization. So, I will visualize fear is in the backseat. I'm in the passenger. God's in the driver's side and I'm not going to get rid of that fear, but there's no backseat driver. Fear doesn't get to tell me or God what to do with our relationship or where we're going. So that's kind of something that I do. Does that make sense? 


Carrie M. Holt

Yeah, it does. Yeah, that's really good. 


Amy J. Brown

Sara, I was thinking about what you just said and also what you said at the beginning that our emotions, we hide them or we feel guilty about them. It made me think of a line you wrote, Sara, in our loneliness chapter that you are worth knowing. And I had somebody reach out to me and say, I never knew I was worth knowing. And I would say even beyond that, our emotions are worth knowing. They're not things that we need to hide. I think in society and sometimes in the church, we get this idea that we shouldn't have negative emotions. I think it's really important to name those emotions so we can not let them drive. And God wants to know those. He already knows them. It's kind of funny that, well, God cares about that, and He knows it. Of course, He already knows it! It's pretty obvious! And we can't hide anything from Him. 


So I just want to encourage our listeners to go, you know, you're worth knowing, not just the shiny parts of you, but all the parts of you are worth knowing for God, and for people in your life to be able to say, I'm struggling with loneliness. It's not a weakness. Or I'm struggling with anger. It's not a weakness. It takes some vulnerability, but it's important that we name what we're feeling, I think. Because if not; it's just this non-specific. I think I said it's the overs take over, overworking, over thinking, all the overs. That's when I know I'm ignoring something in my life that I need to listen to. So I hope that's an encouragement to our listeners that we feel, first of all, all three of us feel all these emotions, we wrote chapters about them. But just because we wrote the chapters doesn't mean we've moved on and we're, you know, skipping through life. No problem. 


Sara Clime

We have it all figured out as God's like, “Seriously?!” 


Carrie M. Holt

 It's interesting because I was going through some discipleship, kind of diving into my story of origin several years ago. And one of the first things that my mentor had me do was she sent us like a link to, you know, the emotion wheel. So, you can get like really complicated ones, or you can find really simple ones, and maybe we can put a link in the show notes. But so I printed off this emotion wheel and laminated it cause I'm a homeschool mom, and I have a laminator in my house. So, but what's interesting about it is we would, I would be sharing, and it was a group of like two-on-one. So, a mentor with me and another lady. And I would be sharing a story from, you know, my childhood or story where there was strong emotion. And I honestly would get a little bit irritated with my mentor sometimes because she would go, “Well, how did that make you feel?” And in that question was presented to me a lot. It was presented quite a few times to the point where I would just get irritated because I don't want to talk about how I feel. Well, get your emotion wheel out and look. How did that situation make you feel? 


And I think one of the reasons why she did that is we disconnect from it, right? We disconnect, there's disassociation, you know, happens in the body between events and feelings. And so that was part of it. And so I think...You know, even Sara, I think we've all admitted that your questions have irritated us, including yourself, because it takes time. 


Sara Clime

It's a special talent to irritate yourself. 


Carrie M. Holt 

Right? It takes focus and kind of digging down, you know, below that surface of where we live sometimes. John Eldridge talks about that in his book on resilience that we oftentimes live at the surface level to identify actually what is going on. And like you said, Amy, naming all that, all that to say, like naming what we're feeling. 


Sara Clime

And I think sometimes naming it, it's, it's almost a surprise. Like we feel I should be done with this by now. How am I still here? And I think that that's, I have to remind myself, I feel because I'm, I'm alive, and God's given me those feelings, and I should feel them and it's okay. I can set with them and review them for a while. 


So, do you experience certain triggers around those? Are there certain, is it a common emotion for you? Like what we talked about? Is there something that brings it up? 


So like, for example, with fear, especially surrounding TJ's diagnosis, my fear is often triggered by big milestones. And, you know, granted, fear comes out of nowhere most of the time, and I can't prepare for it. But I've learned that anytime a big life event of his is coming up, I know fear usually will accompany that event. And then there's all the residual emotions that come with it, like dances when he was in high school or his peers getting his driver's license or, you know, I can't tell you how many times I got to the point where if it was homecoming or prom or winter sports dance or anything like that, I would turn off my social media for several days because I was happy for his peers, but it was those feelings that would bubble up in me that he doesn't get to do this. And it served no one. I'm like, I can turn off Instagram. I can turn off Facebook. I don't have to look at these. So that's kind of what I'm talking about. I mean, like he just graduated from high school. I knew it was going to be emotional. Groups of his friends were going to be on the field after the ceremony. My son did would not and could not go to project graduation or anything that they had that night. And if he did want to go, one of us was going to have to go with him. And the endless questions at that stage in his life: what's TJ going to do after school? What's TJ going to be up to? You know, those are the kinds of things that I know will trigger it. And so I knew whenever all of his friends are going to go away to school this fall, we moved our family vacation back to the fall. It took some doing, but when they were all going off to school we were going out west on a two week family vacation and had the time of our life. Did it change anything? No, but it helped me. So I don't know. That's what I'm, I guess that's my question. Is there anything that you can tell that triggers it, or is it still just a surprise every time? Cause that could be, too. 


Amy J. Brown

You know, it's a great question, Sara, because I've noticed something about myself. It took me a while to figure it out, but my adult kids don't live near me. So I have to go see them. So when I'm spending the weekend with one of my adult kids, and we're having a great time, and they're very healthily attached. Then I come home to the crashing re-entry. It's like you're in The Wizard of Oz, and everything's technicolor. Then you go back to the black and white. Re-entry was always hard. At first, I thought, well, it's because I'm tired. I stayed up too late, or I ate too much, or I wasn't in my normal routine. But I realized that it was coming back to the reality of the rejection and the non-attached relationship I live in. 


And that took me several, like, I would be super crabby and tired and overwhelmed. And I thought it was other things, but I'm noticing that it is that feeling of being connected and then coming back to the loneliness. And one thing that has, unfortunately, in my brain, I would never say this out loud is I compare the two. Why can't this situation at home be like the situation with healthy attachment? And I've had to remind myself that it's just not possible, not because of a character flaw, or it's just if you guys, you know, it would be really difficult for your kids, impossible to hike to the top of a mountain. It's impossible or very difficult for my kids with attachment disorder to be attached. So, I didn't recognize that for quite a long time and then my husband would go, man, you come back and it's fun, you're with the kids, but then you're so crabby. I'm thinking, oh, this is what it is. So that's another time that I think paying attention and reflection is super important for us. And for people that aren't reflective or don't journal, I don't want you to think, oh, I can't do that. It really is just jotting down. I always feel this way after; I'm always angry after this situation and starting to notice I think is really important.


Sara Clime

Yeah, I think so, too, because you don't have to journal it. And we're writers. So it's just second nature for us. We've done it our whole lives. But, you know, I know, for me, I have a friend of mine that she just notices that her shoulders go up towards her ears. And so it's just something that was like, what is going on with your body? Because sometimes it's just that body manifestation of your you're holding on to it. And then, for me, this comes as a big shocker. Everybody, I just get snotty, I get, like, I snap at people, and it's for no reason. Like if I realize that they have walked into the kitchen to get a glass of water, and that irritates me for some reason, maybe I need to stop and think about what is going on underneath that? There's something that, you know, and I don't have to write that down. And sometimes it's just like, “Okay, God, I am irrationally upset right now. I need you to just take it. I need you to go.” Sometimes at work, sometimes I just need to go to bed at six o'clock. 


Carre M. Holt

I having a hard time processing this a little bit, but I think for me, it's just that I've been realizing it's control. It's when I'm trying to point out, you know, what's wrong kind of with everybody else, like nitpicking different things, you know, nitpicking how my husband does certain caregiving things for our son or in my children, and when I'm trying to perfect everybody else, it's because I am seeing all the imperfections and I'm feeling shame from that because I'm not producing in my own life. I'm not doing something that I feel like is worthwhile and productive. And so when I start feeling like that underneath, I start grasping at all the other things that I feel like I can perfect.


And usually, that's in the other people around me. And it's obviously clearly not healthy because it tends to drive everyone away. You know, it's irritating. But I think that's a huge part for me in my own heart and life. 


Sara Clime

How do we navigate these emotions that we have? Like, do you guys have anything? What are the steps that you take to deal with it? I know we kind of touched on it a little bit.. 


Carrie M. Holt

I think one of the things... You know, it's interesting because this is so raw, but I am realizing that this is the next thing that I need to process with my counselor when I see her in a couple of weeks. And what's funny is the last appointment I had with her, I believe this emotion was definitely underlying, and I couldn't identify it. And when I went into that appointment, I sort of smoke screened with other things to talk about because, first of all, I just don't think I had identified it yet. And secondly, I wasn't ready to talk about it or process it with her. So I think that's one thing is just taking the time to identify it and write down the behaviors that are coming out of that emotion. They're kind of identifying what you're feeling. 


And then also is interesting, I'm gonna go back to this book that I've been reading too, Building a Resilient Life, is one of the chapters she said, you need to list all the ways that you feel shame. And I had to set it aside for a few days to process it when I wasn't, I was with my family, you know, kind of away for a couple of days, and I didn't wanna break down and cry or freak out, you know, in front of everyone. But it just took me several days to go, okay, where, what areas am I feeling this and why? 


So probably just navigating is identifying it and writing about it, talking about it a little bit. Yeah. 


Sara Clime


Amy J. Brown

What about you, Amy? I really, marry what Carrie says it's such a, for me, it's about paying attention. And like we said earlier, the yelling after something were irritated because the dishes aren't done really is probably masking something else.

So, for me, it's about paying attention to what I'm feeling and also not being too hard on myself that I'm feeling those things. 


I think a lot about God giving us what we need when we need it. So if I feel like I either, I'm not, I won't ignore, like I'm not a stuffer of emotion. The other extreme, I think, is wanting to tackle it figure it out, deal with it, and move on. And that's how I would approach it.


And so I think just allowing God, trusting God that he's asking him, show me, show me what I need to notice. And he gives us what we need. I really believe that for an overachiever like myself that wants to figure it all out and check it off, I think it's really important to ask him to show us and then just start noticing. And I do think once you start paying attention to these are all the times I get crabby, maybe you don't have to work too hard to notice those moments and just take a minute to reflect upon them.  And then also, once again, don't shame yourself or guilt yourself into feeling these things because the world likes to hear a teary story of life's really hard, but da da. And I'm not saying we live in constant doldrums, but we are doing ourselves a disservice if we do not name and talk about our emotions, whether that's with a friend, a counselor, a spiritual director, whoever it is; I think we do ourselves a disservice if we either try to tackle them and get rid of them or stuff them. I, like I've been talking about mine right now is fear, but in the in the fear chapter, I have a exercise, and I do this with any of the overwhelming emotions. Like if I just have downright jealousy over my son not being a part of things or, or what have you; where I am angry because, this is going to set Carrie off, somebody once again, 


Amy J. Brown

Oh no, here we go again.


Sara Clime

parks on the blue lines. It's every day. Maybe not every day, but it's close. 


Carrie M. Holt

My husband said we just need to expect that that's the norm. And when somebody doesn't park in the lines, then we're surprised by it. He told me that recently. 


Amy J. Brown

Yeah. I got to tell you guys, if I was bleeding out, I would not park there. I'm so afraid you're coming after me. 


Sara Clime

We have we have changed one person. 


Carrie M. Holt

Anyway, sorry, go ahead. 


Sara Clime

No, anyway, I digress. So, what I do is I just call what's like rewriting my truth. And so, like what I am telling myself versus what the actual truth, what God's truth is in my life. That's where I can get caught up. And so if I am in these swirling emotions, and sometimes I don't know what I'm feeling, or if I'm thinking, sometimes it's just I don't feel right and I don't know what to do, then I know that there may be some unnamed or unidentified emotion that I'm just not dealing I will take out a piece of paper or a book, whatever it takes, and I will write everything out. I do not censor it. If I want to name people out, I will name people out like Suzy; I saw her walking in, and how dare her spend $400 on a purse whenever I can't even get my son's…you know, like that kind of stuff. And I have learned I don't shame myself. Like you said, this is it's not about shame. I do not shame myself because I was told once when you have the negative and unwanted emotions, or you have those unwanted thoughts actually means that you're a good person because it is bothering you and you want to correct it. We all have that nasty side of ourselves, that side that we want to hide. But it's when we bring it forth and say, okay, we're going to bring it up to the light like a vampire, and it's going to just disappear. Then, like, we're going to shine a light on it. And that's what this does. And so I bring it all out. And then I will go back, and I cross out anything that is not absolute fact like a judge would look at it. So if I would say, well, Susie was walking with a $400 purse, and she has no worries whatsoever, I would cross out Susie walked in with a $400 purse, or Susie walked in with the purse because heaven knows I probably don't know how much that was. It could be fake. Who knows? You know, so it's like one of those things where I just write it, and it is amazing. I could start with three pages of just furious chicken scratchings and I will have like two sentences that are the actual truth. And then what I do is I write other truths with it. Susie was going through a hard time last month. Maybe a friend bought it. Maybe it's not any of my business. That's a truth. I will write in there. That's not part of me. That has no bearing on my son's, you know, orthotics or whatever. Here's Scripture where God talks about jealousy. Here is a quote. Here's what, you know, like, Carrie, I wrote down: am I inviting Jesus into my life, into my situations? I have that on a post-it-note in my office. That's a truth I would write down. Remember what Carrie said. And then what I do is I rewrite that story with those truths in it. So I take the two sentences of the facts, and then I take that crazy paper because heaven forbid, Suzy come in and see my piece of paper, and I shred it. I will send it through the shredder. But as I'm sending it through the shredder, I will pray, you know, God forgive my heart. I know I wasn't in a good place. It really has nothing to do with Suzy. Please bless her and take away my jealousy. So it's those kind of things like I do a little exercise like that. And sometimes that might seem a little excess, and I don't I don't do with all of them. But if I notice, it's November, TJ graduated in May, and I'm still struggling with trying to find our new routine. And so I will do that every once in a while with that. 


Amy J. Brown

That's a great practice. 


Carre M. Holt

I love that. 


Sara Clime

So, last question, what lessons are you guys taking forward from this time in your life, or maybe it's something that one of the other ones of us, like any of the three of us, said today, what lessons would you be taking forward from those so that you could tell our listeners? 


Carrie M. Holt

I think for me, the verse came to mind in Zachariah that talks about not despising the small. And I know Amy had, is it Jennifer Dukes Lee with Growing Slow on the podcast this summer. And I really resonated with her podcast and I've been reading that book too, of just that in this time where the work level is lower and sometimes my worth level feels lower, is trying to figure out where that fine line is. And this is where some of the deep work can happen. And it feels small because it's not showy,

flashy, there isn't a lot of production coming out of this time, just recognizing that it's okay to grow slow and to have different seasons and also just remembering that it's the Holy Spirit who I depend on for this work and just to, just keep moving. Like you said, I have to keep asking myself that same question too: Am I inviting Jesus into this space, into me teaching my kids, into leading a Bible study at church or whatever it is, that the season that we're in? Am I inviting Jesus into this and not trying to do it on my own strength? So I feel some sort of value and worth because I'm doing something, I'm accomplishing something.


I think sometimes the deeper work is happening when we're not accomplishing something. 


Amy J. Brown

I would say that what Carrie said, too, that's just the smallness of it. For example, my idea of my emotion of loneliness, saying where am I seeing connection? And it can be very small. And the funny thing is I am a huge introvert. So it's not like I wanna have a million people all the time, but just like where do I see the connection, and where does it look different than what I think it should?


And I think you could apply that to any emotion. You know, we're feeling comparison to joy. Where do I see joy? Instead of focusing on acknowledging that we're comparing, but where am I seeing the joy? And just small little, tiny moments and those moments add up. And you're right, Jennifer Dukes Lee says, those small moments make a life. And we have to remember that. One other thing I wanna add is a lesson that I've thought a lot about. In grad school, we had a trauma therapist talk to us and she said a lot of people don't want to talk about grief or emotions because it'll overtake me. And she said, you know, study show, and I'm going to get this number wrong. Study show when you let yourself feel an emotion, you only truly feel it in an intense manner, for it was very short; I'm not going to say…it was less than a few minutes, is what I remember. I could be wrong, but realizing that these emotions won't overtake us and they don't color everything about our life until just find the little small pieces of connection or joy or contentment and ask yourself, just like inviting Jesus, and where am I seeing that in my life? And I think we'd be surprised at the places we see it. 


Sara Clime

I think for me, it's that we don't have to have all the answers right now. For me, I don't know what is in store for TJ with this diagnosis. I don't know. And that, as uncomfortable and as scary as that is, I don't have to have all the answers right now. And I think, in fact, some of those high emotions, I don't like calling them negative emotions. I just I don't think that they're negative. I just think that they're high, or they just feel stronger. Maybe. I know we've all talked about that before, but whenever I have a high emotion, I think that is my mind and body's way of protecting me. So, right now, I am fearful. I've been fearful for months. So what is that fear trying to tell me? So, like I said, I am big on visualization. So I will sit down and be like, okay, fear, what is it that you're trying to tell me? What is it that you feel I need to protect myself from? And I'll go through answers that I might come up with. And sometimes it is, well, you're fearful because you're not trusting God. And sometimes, it's just that simple. The fear won't go away; it can't be eliminated. The truth of our situation is what it is. But I could either live in that fear and not trust God, or I can just hand it to him and say, you know what, I need you to take this. I know I'm gonna take it back probably tomorrow, and I'll probably give it back to you a million times, but take it because I want to enjoy my day. I want to enjoy the time I have. And so sometimes I just think that sometimes those high emotions are protectors. They protect us from something, and it's worth trying to get and dig down to the bottom of it. 


And I struggle, I'm gonna be honest. I struggle trusting God implicitly. And there are just times where I do that, where I'm like, I don't understand why this is happening. I don't understand what's going on or what have you, or I'm exhausted. Can you not just give me one night of rest? I know you could. I mean, you burned a bush for crying out loud. Can you not just give me eight hours of sleep? Like calm my mind, do something. But that's not what trust is. And trust isn't just when things are going great. Trust is even more when you don't understand. And so that's why my fear needs to draw me to Scripture and needs to draw me to those places where I haven't invited Jesus in and say, okay, here's this part of my life I've not, I've kicked you out, and I need you to come back in. And that's the great thing about our God is that he will never not walk back through. He will never not just sit down. He will be like, finally, I've been waiting outside for you to let me back in. But you have to invite him back in. 


So one of my husband's favorite poets of all time is Robert Frost and Robert Frost says, "The best way out is always through." So may we always find our way out of the messy parts of life straight through to God and his ability to navigate us to a more peaceful and joyful life. 


Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode. Are there emotions that you are trying to navigate and would like to hear us talk more about specifically? Was there something specific you would be taking away from this week's episode? 


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