What If You Could Set It All Down? 4 Steps for Letting Go of Emotional Weight.

This week you’re in for a treat. My friend and editor, Laurie Davies, is here to invite us into a life that feels lighter and more free. In her new book Emotional Hoarding: Letting Go of the Stuff That Keeps You Stuck, Laurie opened my own eyes to the emotions I hold onto. In fact, in the foreword to her book, I wrote, “You will never think about your inner emotional life the same way again.” Enjoy her incredible insights this week! – Shaunti

By Laurie Davies

It’s amazing how much we can hold on to. In the summer, for example, when the temperature routinely tops 110 in Phoenix, you bet I can carry 18 grocery bags into the house in a single trip. Forget about the 42 pounds of canned goods cutting off circulation in both wrists. I become a grocery sherpa on a mission. I do not make two trips.

We’re experts at carrying more than we should. I travel a lot, and my luggage tag on my carry-on captures this idea. It reads: “My emotional baggage won’t fit into the overhead bin.”

Spoiler alert: Yours won’t either.

Most of us, if we’re honest, have some level of emotional build up. We live buried under mountains of regret. We hold on to grudges (research says 7 of them). We keep secrets (on average, 13). This sounds like more than emotional “baggage.” This is emotional … hoarding. I’ll define this as the accumulation of hard emotions, often with no intention of letting go.

But what if you could let go? What if you could close the worry loop that wakes you up at night? Can you imagine how free you would be if you didn’t feel guilty all the time? Wouldn’t it be something if the bitterness or anger that’s eating up your life were gone for good?

I want that life. I think you do, too.

Shaunti and I had a great conversation about this recently on the I Wish You Could Hear This podcast. Please, catch that episode if you missed it. We laughed, cried, faced some of our own “stuff,” and charted a path forward. Let’s keep moving forward today with 4 steps to find the life of freedom our hearts long for.

Step 1: Have courage to peek into your emotional closets

After years of talking about fixing up my office, I just got a gorgeous floor-to-ceiling office unit. But there is one problem. It doesn’t have drawers. That’s how I used to hide stuff I didn’t want anyone to see.

You know where this is going.

Sometimes we stash our emotional “stuff” out of view. We pretend it’s not there or convince ourselves we’ve got a handle on it—that is until we’re playing an emergency game of emotional Whac-A-Mole when the hard stuff surfaces. (Spoiler alert 2: It will surface, and it’s never convenient timing.)

So, what has accumulated in your heart? When’s the last time you looked? Do you even know? We don’t have to throw every emotional drawer open at once. That could overwhelm even the readiest participant. But it’s important to take a look. We can’t heal what we won’t name.

Step 2: Invite God to lead this process

King David once prayed “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting (Psalm 139:23-24). This is a scary prayer! We don’t always want God to know our hearts. (Spoiler alert 3: He already does.)

But look more closely at the sequence. David invites God to search, know, and see—in order to lead us!God welcomes such humility. He loves it when we grow. He leads us and guides us for His name’s sake (Psalm 31:3). That’s good leadership in a beautiful direction.

So, cozy up in a favorite chair, grab some tissues, and ask God to search your heart. Sometimes our most abrasive, forceful emotions offer cover for harder-to-name, tender emotions. As I wrote in Emotional Hoarding, “the King of kings is not intimidated by the hardest of the hard.” He cares about this. He cares about you.

Step 3: Don’t beat yourself up

The moment we bring what’s hidden into the light, the enemy will unleash what men and women have experienced since the Garden of Eden. Shame. Shame may be bullying us if we:

• Use phrases like I should know better or I don’t deserve
• Speak in absolutes like I always or I never
• Think condemning thoughts like I’m such an idiot or I’m a total disappointment

Hoarded emotions hint that something is wrong. Shame hisses that something is wrong with us.

God wants full reign in our hearts—and He does not reign in an environment of shame. He displaces shame with freedom, grace, second chances, victory, and everything else that makes the Gospel good. So put yourself in the gentle cycle. God sure does.

Step 4: Find people and resources to support you

This life can be hard. We need help on the way. It’s important to build our faith and bring a community of faith into our journey. Here are some ideas:

Discover what the Bible says about the emotions you’re holding onto. Dig deep into these passages. Let them renew your mind. (My favorite online study tools are biblehub.com and blueletterbible.org). As an example, if fear has a grip on your life, search passages on God’s perfect love. This kind of love drives out fear (I John 4:18). My fears feel strong enough to take me out sometimes. But since God’s love can drive them out, His love is what I want to know.

Confess your burden to a trustworthy friend. It’s super vulnerable to say, “I struggle with worthlessness” or “I feel angry all the time.” But a friend can help you carry these burdens. The enemy hates this. Isolation is how he wins.

Meet with a mentor, pastor, lay counselor or clinical counselor. It’s intimidating to face our emotions. Anger, fear, regret, bitterness and shame overlap and overwhelm. It’s okay to seek help, especially if you learned at a young age to keep your feelings inside.

Seek resources such as books, bible studies, support groups or podcasts that point you to freedom. This is the whole reason I wrote Emotional Hoarding. We don’t have to carry 42 pounds of canned emotion around. It’s cutting off the circulation in our hearts.

There’s a better way.

Jesus wants us to be free and at full capacity. For the sake of shining a brighter light in our homes and in this broken world, let’s take Him up on it.

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If you are interested in having Shaunti bring research-based strategies, practical wisdom and biblical principles to your next event, please contact Nicole Owens at [email protected].

On our podcast, I Wish You Could Hear This, Jeff and I offer proven steps to help you thrive in your life, faith and relationships. In other words, we’ll offer the practical help you’ve grown accustomed to right here in this blog space.  You’ll take away specific steps that help you today. Listen, follow, and share with your friends on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other platforms.

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