Now That You Let It Out…
There is a reason Disney’s Pixar Movie, Inside Out, was such a big hit six years ago.
It hit us right between the eyes in how many of us feel navigating our daily mindset. If you’ve been living underneath that rock we’ve been talking about in previous episodes and haven’t seen it yet, the basic premise is about the internal journey of an eleven year old girl who faces the ups and downs of life. The movie though isn’t about the girl as much as it’s about the girl’s personified emotions interacting with one another inside of her.
It will make you laugh. It will make you cry. And most importantly it gives you the imagery of what it’s like for the different voices of our emotions to echo inside the chambers of our mind.
Daily interactions stir up emotions inside of us that are always dialoguing with us.
In the first third of life, one of the major steps of maturity is sharpening the skill of being able to identify what emotion is driving the voices inside of our heads. Sadly, many of us have been taught this is the end goal. We applaud people “getting things out there” which in relationship with God isn’t the end but the beginning.
I’m sure you’re thinking, “Correct. Welcome to stating the obvious in my world. Tell me something I don’t know.”
Well, here is what you may not know or have realized as you transition into the second third of life. In life with God, there is an invitation to not only identify those voices, but speak to those emotions in such a way that it not only affects our mindset, but makes life better for those around us as well.
This is how the work of God in your life becomes apparent, tangible and good news for yourself and everyone around you. It’s the maturing process of having something new in mind about your mind.
Inner-Actions
It starts with how we define a stable person.
Often, we define a stable (or a mature person) as someone who doesn’t let their emotions get the best of them. They are even keel. They don’t verbally throw up, get upset, or have hang ups. They don’t let bad thoughts, bad moods, or unhealthy thinking into their mind.
This persona, although a few might be close to embodying it, doesn’t seem relatable to me. It seems like all I need to do is roll out of bed and I’m going to run into interactions that stir up all sorts of emotions to bounce around in my mind.
The maturing process in the second third of life isn’t about just naming our strong emotions but also identifying what needs to be spoken to them. Bad days. Bad news. Bad moods. And bad interactions are a part of life. And even though we cannot change their existence, God does invite us into a life to change our posture and perceptions when those moments come to our mind.
This is where I’ve found the spiritual coaching of Mark Thibodeaux to be helpful. As he describes it, when people say hurtful things to us, we will be hurt. When people say things that strike fear in us, we will have emotions of fear. The work of life with God is how we arrange our mental furniture with the reality of those emotions and voices in our mind.
Mark advises all of us to remember we can’t control the interactions outside of us.1 Outside actions of others will spark emotions inside of us. What God can do in us though, is assist us in controlling how we see ourselves, what we do with ourselves, and what action is brought about from ourselves.
What God Has In Mind…
If you’re anything like me, or lived through the year 2020, you might be thinking, “this all sounds exhausting.” Who has the energy to do this type of work? I’m not even really a sharer. Can’t I just lay in bed all day?
And here is where I want you to hear the good news of God as you move closer towards that first number in your age changing from a “2” to a “3.”
There is a beautiful reminder tucked away in a letter of the Bible we call Romans. The reminder is short and simple: “You can count yourself dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”2 In other words, life in Jesus, is a life where you no longer have your old mindset. There is a new mindset that is taking over whether you know it or not.
You have a different mental model. A different mental landscape. A new mental energy that’s at your access.
It’s there, but we have to learn how it’s there. It’s like getting a new pair of shoes. They are new. They are yours. But you have to walk around in them for a while to break them in. You might even have to lace them up and walk differently than you did before. You learn step by step.
Your old way of thinking, the one where each and every emotion drives your entire being, no longer has control over you. You have a new energy accessible to you that will rewrite and rewire the pathways and mindset of your brain.3 When we have discouraging interactions in our life, we tend to instinctively think we are worthless, incompetent, or unloved. Our mindset is hard on ourselves, so we react in hard ways on ourselves and others.
This is the difference with living life with God (which many are tapping into even if they don’t know it). Part of the love of God is reworking our mindsets. Freeing us of our knee jerk reactions to different emotions. God enables a different action from the old ways of responding to different interactions.
Here is an example of how this is on my mind today. I recently accepted and shared the news of taking a new job. This has welcomed all sorts of emotions. Even more, it’s welcomed a lot of strange emotions from others who are also working out their own internal dialogues in light of this news. I’ve received all sorts of responses. Fear. Anger. Joy. Nervousness.
A couple nights this week, I’ve encountered the old invitations to react out of my insecurities. I’m leaving people. I can’t help people. This is a bad idea. If so and so disagrees, then I must have done something wrong. It has, at times, put me on edge. I’ve wanted to snap at people. I’ve wanted to isolate myself. I’ve wanted to react out of anger or cynicism. But these are the ways of the old mindset.
I’ve greatly been comforted by the invitation of God in these moments to not change these emotions, but change how I react to them. They do not define me. They do not need to be the energy I work out of or respond to in how I go about my work from here. In essence, God is giving my mind the energy it needs to react in a different way than it did in the past.
I’m thinking several of you may need this invitation of God for where you are in life. There is a God who is at work in you right now, and providing energy for you to not only name the voices inside of you, but to voice a different response than letting them fuel the engine of your mindset.
A great way to start this maturing process is to simply recognize the internal dialogue inside you and ask God what God thinks about this voice or motivation. The good news is that we don’t stop at getting it all out. The good news of God is that there is Someone outside of us that helps us with what’s going on inside us.
In a creative and artistic way, I’m trying to say you can give God a piece of your mind, because God is ready to give you a peace of God’s mind.
References
1Thibodeaux Mark, God’s Voice Within (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2010), 21-22.
2Romans 6:11
3Ramsey K.J, This Too Shall Last (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Reflective, 2020), 168.