I don’t know if you watched any commercial television yesterday, but in our family Macy’s Thanksgiving parade is an annual tradition passed down from my grandparents. We begin the day with orange frosted cinnamon rolls (thanks to the Pillsbury Doughboy).

We might have bacon or sausage for protein and then snack on celery and peanut butter until the main attraction around 4 pm. The TV is on throughout the day, moving from parade to pigskin. Commercials provide opportunity to go to the bathroom, baste the turkey and get more snacks.

Yesterday it was just three of us, my husband, younger son and me. We had decided not to do the full blown traditional turkey feast which simplified meal prep for us, resulting in more TV commercial viewing. This year’s commercials seemed to be pulling the heartstrings for us more than we recalled from years past. Tears welled and spilled several times. TV commercials? Yes.

Tender hearts are of high value to God. His desire of us is to be attuned to the movement of Holy Spirit and the needs of those around us.  I don’t remember what was being advertised; I remember how they made me feel. The primary point of advertising is to get us to buy the product by connecting with our emotions. They succeeded in making those connections.

Whether it’s tv commercials or Hallmark Christmas movies or another avenue, making space for emotional connection points is vital for our souls. We’re designed to connect: with God and with others and within ourselves. Often there are challenges in achieving those connections. We’re going to spend some time on this 40-Day Journey making space for emotional connection.

Today let’s simply create an emotional awareness checklist. With some clients there is a need to generate this list from scratch; identifying vocabulary to align with feelings that have been hidden away far too long. Perhaps there wasn’t an invitation to feel emotions in your family of origin or in response to expressing emotion you received diminishment or rejection. Maybe being closed off to emotion was modeled and emotion simply was not valued. Or maybe you find yourself well acquainted with emotion but choose to express only one: anger. Research tells us that anger is not a primary emotion; anger is a secondary emotion given permission for expression because it’s “understandable”.

I realize this may seem too challenging for you OR you look at this and respond with “this is silly, I don’t need to work on feeling emotions.” Perhaps you’re somewhere in the middle. Why am I inviting you to do this exercise?

We all have preferred response patterns that we’ve adopted in various seasons of life. You are on this journey by choice; sensing a need for a change in one or more areas of life. Making space for your soul to breathe includes making space for learning about yourself in several areas.

Whatever the case for you, today I invite you to begin an emotional awareness checklist.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Action step: create your emotional awareness checklist. Your list will look different from others’ but here are some questions to begin asking yourself:

1. What are some words that I use for feeling happy?

2. What are some circumstances when I realize I am feeling happy?

3. What are some words that I use for feeling sad?

4. What are some circumstances when I realize I’m feeling sad?

5. Beyond happy and sad, what other emotions do I give myself permission to express?

6. What are some emotions I am uncomfortable even identifying?

7. What is my go to response to uncomfortable emotions? Humor? Anger? Distancing myself?

8. Am I hiding from emotions I don’t like to feel?

9. How can I move toward giving myself permission to feel or express different emotions?

10. What support do I need when I’m facing challenging emotions?

Tomorrow I’ll share some additional resources you may find both encouraging and helpful.