Untangle Your Emotions
Naming What You Feel and Knowing What to Do About It
Book Edition Details
Summary
In the tapestry of our emotional lives, what if the threads of joy, sorrow, anger, and peace are not meant to be snipped away but woven into a grander design? "Untangle Your Emotions" by Jennie Allen invites readers to embrace their feelings as divine signals rather than distractions. With a blend of scientific insights and biblical wisdom, Allen offers a revolutionary five-step approach to understanding emotions as gateways to healing and spiritual depth. Rejecting the myth of emotional sinfulness, this book promises a path to maturity that connects you more deeply with God and others. Whether you’ve been labeled “too emotional” or “not emotional enough,” this guide uncovers the strength in vulnerability and the power in authenticity, urging you to feel your way to a closer walk with the Creator.
Introduction
Picture yourself sitting across from a friend who's sharing something deeply personal about their struggles. As they speak, you notice your chest tightening, your breath becoming shallow. Something about their story is triggering memories you thought you'd buried long ago. In that moment, you face a choice that most of us encounter daily: do you acknowledge what you're feeling, or do you push it down and carry on as if nothing happened? This scenario captures the heart of our modern emotional dilemma. We live in a world that simultaneously tells us our feelings matter while offering us countless ways to avoid actually feeling them. We scroll through phones, binge-watch shows, stay endlessly busy, or simply declare ourselves "fine" when asked how we're doing. Yet beneath this carefully constructed surface, our hearts are crying out for something deeper, something more authentic. The journey from emotional numbness to wholehearted living isn't about becoming more emotional or losing control. It's about discovering that our feelings, even the uncomfortable ones, are actually gifts designed to connect us more deeply to ourselves, to others, and to God. When we learn to notice, name, and share our emotions instead of hiding from them, we unlock a kind of freedom and connection that transforms not just how we feel, but how we live. This exploration will guide you through the tangled mess of emotions we all carry, offering not quick fixes or simple formulas, but rather a pathway toward the kind of emotional health that allows us to experience life in full color. You'll discover why feeling your feelings isn't weakness but courage, and how the very emotions you might fear could become bridges to the most meaningful relationships and experiences of your life.
The Hidden Cost of Emotional Avoidance
When Kate, the author's oldest daughter, casually mentioned over dinner that she and her new husband Charlie were dreaming of adventures that might take them "out of state" or "maybe out of the country," something unexpected happened. The room didn't actually start closing in, but it felt that way. The author's chest tightened, her airways constricted, and despite knowing rationally that this was about Kate's exciting new life, every fiber of her being screamed that this was absolutely all about her. In that moment, she had a choice. She could paste on a smile, play it cool, and stuff down whatever was happening inside her chest. Or she could pay attention to the signals her body was sending. The fascinating thing about this story isn't the initial reaction, it's what happened when she later traced that overwhelming fear back to its source. With her counselor's help, she discovered that Kate's innocent dreams of adventure had triggered memories of sitting in a cold hospital corridor, begging God to spare her husband's life after he'd suffered a small stroke with dangerously high blood pressure. This reveals something profound about how our emotional lives actually work. We think we're reacting to present circumstances, but often we're responding to echoes from our past. The fear of Kate moving away wasn't really about Kate at all. It was about that terrifying season when losing Zac felt imminent, connecting to an even earlier memory of seven-year-old her crying in the backseat after her great-grandmother's funeral, suddenly aware that death meant being utterly alone. What we discover is that every time we choose to avoid, dismiss, or judge our feelings, we miss crucial information about what's really happening inside us. Our emotions aren't random disruptions to be managed, they're messengers trying to tell us something important about our lives, our relationships, and our deepest needs. When we consistently choose emotional avoidance, we don't eliminate the feelings, we just force them underground where they gain power and eventually surface in unexpected ways, often harming the very relationships we're trying to protect.
Rediscovering the Gift of Feeling
Most of us learned early that feelings were something to be controlled rather than felt. The messages came from well-meaning parents who wanted to shield us from embarrassment or help us be strong. They came from churches that taught us not to trust our deceitful hearts, from a culture that prizes rational thinking over emotional intelligence. But what if we've gotten it backwards? What if emotions aren't obstacles to overcome but gifts to unwrap? Consider the story of Zac's transformation. Early in their marriage, this stoic former quarterback lived almost entirely in his head, viewing emotions as potential interference with effectiveness. Their home felt more like a functional roommate situation than a marriage built on emotional intimacy. When they finally sought counseling, something remarkable happened. Over the course of nearly two years, this emotionally absent husband gradually became what the author describes as "the emotional equivalent of Niagara Falls," but in the most beautiful way. The change wasn't just dramatic, it was foundational. Instead of skating across the surface of life, Zac learned to dive deep. He discovered that emotions weren't threats to his masculinity or effectiveness, they were bridges to deeper connection with God, with himself, and with the people he loved. The man who once avoided feelings became someone who could sit with others in their pain, celebrate genuinely in their joy, and show up authentically in every situation. What's particularly striking about Zac's journey is that learning to feel didn't make him weaker or less capable. Instead, it made him more present, more compassionate, and paradoxically more stable. When the next major challenge hit their family years later, he was equipped not just to survive it but to walk through it with grace, allowing his emotions to connect him to support rather than isolate him in shame. This transformation illustrates a fundamental truth about emotional health: our feelings aren't meant to be fixed, they're meant to be felt. When we stop fighting against our emotional reality and start engaging with it, we discover that what we feared would destroy us actually has the power to heal us, connect us, and make us more fully alive.
Learning to Notice, Name, and Share
The journey toward emotional wholeness follows a surprisingly simple progression that most of us have never been taught. It begins with something as basic as stopping long enough to notice what we're actually feeling in any given moment. This sounds elementary, but for people who've spent decades on emotional autopilot, it can feel revolutionary. The author describes standing at her stove one evening, making dinner while family chaos swirled around her, when she felt that familiar "itchy feeling" in her mind and soul. Instead of pushing through and serving dinner, she paused. She closed her eyes and asked herself a simple question: "How am I feeling?" The answer that came back was refreshingly honest: "I feel not okay." Not fine, not good, not even stressed, but simply not okay. This led to the second step: naming the feeling more specifically. As she paid attention, she recognized sadness mixed with despair, which was creating anxiety in her body. The progression from "fine" to "not okay" to "sad with despair creating anxiety" might seem like a small shift, but it represents a fundamental change from emotional numbness to emotional awareness. She was finally tuning in to the rich information her feelings were providing. The third step proved even more transformative: sharing these feelings with safe people. Instead of pretending everything was normal when her family gathered for dinner, she took the risk of being honest. "Hey, how about we sit down and talk about our day? I had a rough one. I have been worried about some things with Dad, and I almost just lost it in the car." What happened next was like magic. One by one, her family members began sharing their own struggles from the day. Rather than creating more chaos, her emotional honesty created connection. The hard feelings didn't disappear, but they became lighter because they were shared. Her son admitted to being picked on at school. Another child confessed to anxiety about a disappointing grade. Their evening transformed from surface-level functioning to genuine intimacy, all because one person was brave enough to feel her feelings and share them authentically. The power of this progression lies not in its complexity but in its simplicity. When we notice what we feel, name it accurately, and share it with people who can handle it, our emotions stop being obstacles and start being bridges to the deeper connections we all crave.
Choosing Connection Over Control
The ultimate choice we face with our emotions isn't whether to feel them or not, they're happening regardless. The choice is whether we'll allow our feelings to connect us more deeply to God and others, or whether we'll continue trying to control, cope with, or conceal them. Each approach leads to dramatically different outcomes in our relationships and our spiritual lives. When Jesus encountered Mary and Martha after their brother Lazarus died, He demonstrated something profound about emotional connection. Martha approached Him with anger: "If you had been here, my brother would not have died." Rather than correcting her theology or defending His timing, Jesus met her anger with comfort and hope. When He found Mary weeping, something even more remarkable happened. The Gospel tells us that Jesus was "deeply moved" by her tears, and despite knowing He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead, He wept with her. This scene reveals everything we need to know about healthy emotional response. Jesus had the power to fix the situation immediately, but He chose first to feel with His friends in their pain. He didn't shame Martha for her anger or tell Mary to stop crying. Instead, He entered into their emotional reality and allowed it to move Him to compassion. This is the model of emotional health: feeling with others rather than trying to fix them, allowing emotions to create connection rather than distance. The author's own transformation became evident in a powerful moment with her small group. Instead of managing her anxiety about work pressures, family struggles, and personal fears, she chose vulnerability. She shared her real struggles with people she trusted, asking not for solutions but for their feelings in response to her honesty. What she received was exactly what her soul needed: "I feel proud of you for telling us." "I feel sad it is so hard for you right now." "I feel compassion for your situation." These simple "I feel" statements created something that all her attempts at emotional control never could: genuine connection, relief, and the assurance that she wasn't alone in her struggles. The walls she'd built to protect herself from emotional overwhelm had also been keeping out the very comfort and support she desperately needed. The choice to move toward connection rather than control isn't just about better relationships, though it certainly creates those. It's about aligning ourselves with how God designed us to live, recognizing that our emotions are meant to draw us closer to Him and to each other, not to be managed away or hidden behind walls of apparent strength.
Summary
The path from emotional numbness to wholehearted living reveals itself as both simpler and more challenging than we might expect. It's simpler because it follows a natural progression: notice what you feel, name it honestly, allow yourself to experience it fully, and share it with safe people. It's more challenging because it requires us to unlearn years of conditioning that taught us emotions were problems to solve rather than experiences to embrace. The stories throughout this exploration point to a revolutionary truth: our feelings aren't obstacles to spiritual maturity or relational health, they're the very pathways to both. When we stop seeing emotions as evidence of weakness or lack of faith, and start recognizing them as God-designed bridges to deeper connection, everything changes. The sadness we've been avoiding becomes an invitation to comfort. The anger we've been suppressing becomes fuel for justice. The fear we've been denying becomes a catalyst for seeking help and community. Perhaps most importantly, this journey teaches us that healing happens in relationship. We aren't meant to untangle our emotional knots alone, just as we aren't meant to celebrate our joys in isolation. The very act of sharing our authentic feelings with trustworthy people creates the conditions for growth, resilience, and the kind of deep satisfaction that comes from being truly known and loved. The invitation before us is both gentle and urgent: to stop settling for emotional numbness and start embracing the full spectrum of human experience. This doesn't mean becoming controlled by our emotions, but rather allowing them to serve their intended purpose of connecting us more deeply to our own hearts, to others, and to the God who created us as feeling beings. In a world that often promotes emotional superficiality, choosing to feel deeply becomes an act of courage, faith, and hope.
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By Jennie Allen
