#166: Becoming Unrepressed [Counseling]

Nic, John, and Jill talk about moving away from repression in dealing with emotions, and what they have found helpful in becoming unrepressed.

Mentioned in the episode/other resources:
Adult Children of Alcoholics by Janet Geringer Woititz
12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson
The Healing Path by Dan Allender
Hinds Feet in High Places by Hannah Hurnard
Changes that Heal by Cloud and Townsend

Summary of Nic's points:

1. “Feel the feelings” when they come. Don’t put them off—more people who do not feel richly do not welcome feelings if those feelings seem unwelcome. You have to learn to be hospitable to feelings, even before you decide whether they need to be suppressed for social reasons. 

1. Don’t deny you have them, or why you are having them.

2. Stop and feel them when they come—it usually only takes 10–25 seconds to welcome and acknowledge a feeling that comes up, and to know why.

2. Welcome feelings you should have felt—especially laments, and hurts you have denied.

3. Follow the trails of your anxieties and depressions.

1. Many people feel like they’re “working through it” but they aren’t doing the hard work of actually feeling the feelings behind the anxiety.

4. Stop rationalizing away feelings as impractical or useless. I hear this constantly—people say “There’s no use in…” or “It doesn’t do any good to feel…”

1. It is possible to be too solution-oriented too quickly.

5. Listen open-heartedly to others emoting with you/for you—when someone tells you what something is or means, when you’d be prone to minimize it and not feel: “That person should not have treated you that way. It was wrong. You shouldn’t have had to feel that."

6. If you still have strong, negative feelings about an event in the past… (that is more than 14–18 months ago, it is not resolving naturally. The event means something to your more primal mind.)

1. Jordan Peterson has said that the work to be done here is handling the fear that you will face this same situation incompetently or weakly in the future—that you will not have enough courage or competence to overcome the situation. Therefore, your mind needs to keep it as a problem file. Your emotions will keep drawing you back to it.

7. Dreams

1. Especially for “excessively conscious” people—and people that know any, even popular psychology.

1. Write down everything you remember and underline what was “transfigured” or that seemed especially important in the dream. 

2. Ask, what feelings does this story represent? The answer will often present itself.

8. Allow your sins, temptations and fantasies to lead you to your wounds and deeper needs.

1. Jay Stringer—what kind of sexually broken are you? 

2. We either repeat stories of trauma from our past, or we try to reverse them.

E&E #166

Engage & Equip is a resource designed to help form substantive disciples for the local church.
Find more episodes at highpointchurch.org/podcast

Music: HOME—If I’m Wrong (youtu.be/HBynMB054zw)
Remixed by John Sekutowski