Dr. Anita Phillips | Embracing Emotions for a Spirit-Filled Life

today's conversation is brought to you by kinet the pro-choice argument is gaining increasing Traction in society and among Christians but does this philosophy fall in line with Jesus's words and example ket's new ebooklet is the pro-choice position consistent with the life and teachings of Jesus explores the biblical case for life in the great commandment the Great Commission the Good Samaritan and more download your free copy at k-net .org click on free resources and choose is the pro-choice position consistent with the life and teachings of Jesus at car-net toorgle Kim Nae president in these conversations we seek to help evangelicals Foster thriving communities and navigate complexity with Biblical clarity as a part of being able to foster a thriving community it's thriving yourself and that includes our mental and emotional health this is an area that Christians have not always given much attention to and we've seen how disastrous that could be Dr Anita Phillips is a trauma therapist life coach and Minister and author of a New York Times bestselling book The Garden within where the war with your emotions ends and your most powerful Life Begins Dr Anita what a privilege to talk with you today thanks so much for joining us thank you for having me I'm super excited to be here well you have this really unique combination of research interests training and that has propelled you to be a thought leader at the intersection of uh mental health Faith culture um how did this happen I'd love to hear a little bit of the backstory of your own life for sure so I am a pastor's kid pastor's grandkid pastor's great grandkid so I come from a Ministry family and as I was growing up I had an older sister who developed a serious mental illness and the symptoms started showing when she was around 11 or 12 years old and got really intense before she was 13 she would wake up in the middle of the night and have hallucinations of demons standing in our bedroom door it was very terrifying this way she would scream like it was just awful and our family of course responded with spiritual warfare I mean we're praying we're believing this because we didn't have any reason to believe there wasn't a demon there we we know that there's a supernatural world that we can't see um but it turns out um we found out that she was actually having hallucinations and it took a long time to figure that out it was 19 you know 79 80 early 80s and we just didn't understand exactly what was happening so the distress around it seeming like the prayers for her weren't working she became addicted to drugs as a young person because she found out the drugs quieted the hallucinations that she would see the huc um the auditory hallucination she would hear things we didn't know she was hearing things and so the drugs quieted that so she ultimately became addicted to drugs and it was just it was just awful for her first and foremost and then for our family and so I definitely grew up with some questions around what is happening what aspect of my sister's suffering is spiritual emotional biological we we didn't know and so I really wanted to seek those answers and so that brought me here wow that that is a painful yet really really powerful story was there ever a moment that you lost faith and how did you actually keep your faith in God as a as an older teenager I definitely did Lose My Faith for a while I always loved church both my parents in Ministry I would W go with my mom and watch her teach and I loved God but I definitely had a crisis of faith when I just couldn't understand why my parents prayers weren't being answered they're leading other people's children are are getting um freedom and people are coming to Jesus and they would be ministering in that way and not even know where my sister was because she would run away and because she was addicted and so sometimes for months at a time they would have no idea whether she was dead or alive and the pain that I saw them going through from that and it seeming like God wasn't doing anything about it it angered me and so for a while there me and God were I never didn't believe in God but we weren't speaking for a few years like I'm not talking to you um but God came and met me personally when I was 19 years old at a Revival service in the town where I was in college in amher Massachusetts and he came and found me for me and so at that moment I realized I needed God more than I needed answers to those questions and so that's how my relationship with him was reestablished and ultimately though he did answer the questions but it came differently than I expected I wanted an explanation through the lens of scripture for illness even though I had all my academic education and he ended up giving me an answer about what it looks like to be well and then to come to understand illness against the backdrop of knowing what it means to be well so your book seems to capture that both the tensions the possibilities the hope as well as an honest look at pain uh the guard within where the war with your emotions ends and your most powerful Life Begins it's a book that's resonating with a lot of people both inside and outside of the church I know that you were on Oprah podcast on the Today's Show so this is gaining a lot of connection and how do you understand what what that connection is right now why are people connecting with this because when they read it it is truth like realizing that our emotions really are Central to our lives and so many people have been battling against their emotional pain feeling like that's necessary that I can't let my emotions control me I can't let them tell me what to do and now realizing that we were created with emotion at the center and I know that rubs a lot of Christians the wrong way when they first hear it because they're like no our spirit's at the center but what God showed me was that we are Gardens and he showed me that first through biology when I took my first Neuroscience class as a PhD student I saw that a neuron actually looked like a plant and it it made me take pause it was that moment of asking do I really believe in the god of my Sunday school book because if I really believe that he created the heavens and the Earth how can I look away from seeing this neuron looking like a plant knowing he made plants on the third day and us on the sixth day that means he patterned us after these plants somehow and so I dug into scripture and found that the soil that that plant is planted in in the scripture is the heart and that made me begin to look at the relationship between our emotions and our thoughts our heart and our mind and recognizing that as we are Gardens the heart is the soil of the garden which means nothing that grows there can exceed the health of the soil and so our emotions are playing that base role in our health and when I began to share that message it resonates with people whether they are Jesus followers or not because it's suddenly they're like yes that's it this is what's been happening and I've been battling my emotions and losing because my emotions are not my enemy I'm fighting the wrong war in the first place and that's resonating with everyone so Dr n up we're gonna we're gonna unpack that uh emotional health but I want to get back to something that you just touched upon e ever so briefly that um there are misconceptions about emotions particularly among Christians um what are some of those misconceptions about emotional health especially in the Christian Community the belief that emotions make us our weaknesses that emotions will make you do things that you should not do that emotions work against your spirit life and none of that is true scripture actually tells us the opposite the challenge has been that our cultural perspective particularly in the west is is that the mind is higher than emotion and that's actually rooted in evolutionary theory the idea that the cognitive part of the brain developed after the emotional part of the brain and so that makes it higher and we've taken that cultural perspective and then attached it to scripture and attributed it to God we have to be so careful on how our own cultural lens impacts the way we read the word of God so we've been focused on the mind the mind the mind because that's what the culture cultural emphasis has been and the scientific emphasis until about 2010 was on how we can control emotion and kind of elevate and free our thinking but there's been a shift in the science where it's catching up with scripture now I need us to catch up with the scripture that we say guides Our Lives emotion is the soil in the garden we see this in the parable of the Seer very explicitly Jesus says that a SE goes out to sew seeds those seeds are words the words of God and that they fall on the soil of our heart this is not a figure of speech Jesus actually describes the various soil types using some emotion words in this in the Wayside soil no emotion is given at all and the seed does not get in to the soil it's stolen in the Stony ground this is Matthew 13 parable of the SE in the Stony ground it says that the seed was received with joy but then that soil became offended anger and the anger killed the plant and then in the thorny ground it says that the thorn of anxiety that's a form of fear we're growing so Jesus is using emotion words to describe soil that he calls the heart so this is actually real the plant then is our mind and that's why our neurons look like plants that's our thinking and then the fruit is what we do our Behavior so seed soil plant fruit Spirit heart mind behavior body that's how we were created to function and so we once we embrace that idea my emotions are the soil of the garden of my life we have to begin to shift our attitude excuse me about emotion we have to begin to shift our attitude it's a big change that is a huge change you're giving us a lens to not only understand ourselves but to even read scripture with a greater sense of perception yeah absolutely that's extraordinary um it's a a recovery of the totality of how God has created us from the beginning every single day of creation actually gives us insight into how we were constructed Romans 1:20 says that which may be known of God is clearly seen clearly seen being understood by the things that he made and it can't get clearer than a neuron looking like a plant he made it clear so that in every era in every culture through every set of eyes we could see it that is so massive and not only do neurons look like plants but the latest research on plants shows that they communicate with each other through the soil using the same chemicals that neurons use to communicate in our brain there's serotonin in soil there's dopamine in soil so I mean God really did a big one with this you know and knowing that for thousands of years we wouldn't see it he planted these answers for me I feel it's so personal to me wanting to understand mental health wanting to understand illness wanting to understand how we function internally and I'll be honest along the way in my studies and some Christian spaces I was chided let to put it lightly admonished against this direction told that the Bible is not for this the Bible doesn't give us psychological information biological information and I had to reject that and stand strong on believing that the Creator had done this on purpose purpose and so I want us as Christians to expand the way we see God we say we see him miraculously but when a revelation and it's not a special Revelation I don't see it as special Revelation because everyone can see it nor on plan um that when we just take the limits off God and allow the word to truly be what it is which is that it has the answer for everything seed soil plant fruit words heart mind body we cannot exceed the health of the soil in the garden of Our Lives this this imagery of garden is it's beautiful it's a beautiful image um but why is it then we experience a war so often well what we experience is pain we have come to believe that that pain is our enemy and so we wore against it we're just like I'm not supposed to be in pain if if I'm sad if I'm angry if I'm afraid then I'm not trusting God somehow we've believed that if we receive Jesus as our savior we are now superhuman but none of us are shocked that we still catch a cold none of us are shocked that we can still break a bone because we know that we live in these bodies that are not perfect anymore and our emotional pain is a part of the human experience and the thing is this Jesus showed us how to live this human life and Jesus never failed to express emotional pain we see Jesus standing at the tomb of Lazarus with tears streaming down his face and there are different thoughts about why he was crying but we know they weren't tears of joy and so Jesus cried at the tomb of Lazarus even though he knew that Lazarus was going to be raised that he was going to be raised one day he still cried and I think that's something that Christians Miss we believe that if we have faith we're not allowed to express the emotional pain of the process but Jesus did Jesus goes to the temple we know the story he sees people changing money instead of changing lives and he is angry and he shows it he's flipping tables he's whipping people I mean he really he really let them know and then shortly after that people flow into the temple and he physically heals them and then we see him in Gethsemane in the ultimate emotional distress he's asking his three close's disciples stay with me he doesn't want to be alone pray with me he says I'm sorrowful unto death like I'm so sad I could die and he begs his father to save him from Death that is the emotion of fear why else didn't Jesus want to die it was gonna be awful and he's literally saying God please save me from this and we don't ever see Jesus repent for showing these emotions we don't see him repent for expressing them verbally physically even though he knew what the outcomes would be he's still in intense pain in some portions of the process I want Christians that give themselves permission to express the pain of the process even though they have faith for the outcome Jesus was showing us how to live this human life and another way that I think we underutilize the cross is by making Jesus less human he was fully Divine but he was fully human because I can hear people listening right now saying yeah but that was Jesus he's different than us well if we don't have Jesus as an example what do we have lean into the fully Human Side of Jesus he allowed these emotions to be expressed so even in the par though in the parable of the SE we see certain emotional pain um undermining the seed of the word it's not the emotional pain that's the problem it's holding it in it's failing to express it because Jesus expressed those emotions and we know his ground of his soil was good it really is the case that having a a deep understanding of Jesus as human makes God's love his empathy his uh solidarity with us his Incarnation all the more powerful meaningful it's a Jesus that we can come to because it's one as you Hebrews talks about is like us has experienced everything yet was without sin and and that's not right there that's the key okay high priest who cannot be touched by the feelings of our infirmities our human weaknesses he was tempted in every way yet without sin Hebrews 4:15 that means if Jesus felt every emotion we feel and he never sinned then no emotion can be a sin does this work out I mean we've been talking about gardening the tilling of the ground the emotions what that pain is a part of life all right take us through some like examples of what transformation actually looks like that involves our emotions the the neurobiology the framework of Jesus vision for the abundant life um how does this actually work itself out in our lives man it's all so much simpler than it seems that's what I love about this um this is not an analogy I said I don't call the garden an analogy it is a lesson plan that God wrote and it's very specific so when you all read the book you will find that I don't say anything in there that isn't proven in our Bible our biology and the botney it shows up in the plants as well if it's not in those three places I left it out because I want you to see that this is a lesson plan that God wrote it's super simple and so the transformation in how we engage with our emotions begins with just allowing ourselves to feel them without condemnation and that's tremendously freeing in itself it's been my experience that when people hear that part they're already Freer than they've ever been because it's like oh I'm allowed to cry this out I'm allowed for grief to last for longer than I want it to I'm allowed angry I'm allowed to experience the emotion of fear not this we're not talking about a spirit of fear but the emotion of fear is human so just embracing that allowing yourself to express and release emotional pain because that keeps what I call the flow going emotion is like water in the soil when it's completely dry it can't nothing happens but when we're feeling things are flowing when we're in pain allow it to be expressed allow it to flow through that keeps the soil healthy emotional health is not painfree it's allowing ourselves to feel all of our feelings in the moment that we're experiencing them and then letting them pass on here's the lesson that I want to definitely teach emotional pain is a form of hunger when we are hungry we eat and then we are satisfied because we needed food and when we eat we do expect to be hungry again later today and tomor tomorrow and next week because as long as we are alive this need will get met and it will continue to be needed and met when we are sad that is a hunger pain for connection when we are angry that is a hunger pain for value for boundaries we get angry when something valuable is treated less than valuably our children is bullied at school I'm angry my child is valuable whatever we value when someone mistreats that we get angry and that's okay and then when we're Afra afraid that's a hunger pay for safety and so what I want you all to do is when you experience that pain recognize it's indicating a need and move to get the need met instead of just pushing your grief aside call a friend call a minister spend time with someone talk about what you're feeling making that connection helps to feed the need that the sadness is indicating when I'm afraid I need to feel safe sometimes when I pray or to God is not to give me what I think I need to feel safe but just asking God to be with me like he was with Jesus in Gethsemane when you're close God I feel safer so I want you to recognize that everyone listening that emotions emotional pain our hunger pangs or a need get the need met I want to use one more hunger example if we don't eat all day long and then we go to the grocery store on the way home from work Are we more likely to go get the fresh fish and go home and cook it or are we more likely to get the Fried Chicken from the deli Fried Chicken from the deli every time if I haven't eaten in 12 hours I may much more likely choose to eat something that's not best for my health emotional pain and needs are the same if I don't get my need for connection met for many many weeks or months I may find myself suddenly connecting with someone in a way that is not in line with my Christian values but it's not because the emotion was bad it's because I let myself starve when I quote unquote lose my temper after being angry for many many months at someone it's not that anger made me do something bad it's that I left the hunger the need unmet for so long rather than bringing it up right away for discussion hey this made me feel less than valued I'd really like to talk about that and get the need met I go hungry and then when I get the fried chicken instead of the fish I blame the hunger it's not the hunger that's bad it was me ignoring it for so long that was bad so I want people to recognize when they're hungry for connection for value for safety to move to get the need met instead of ignoring the emotion Dr Anita this is just so vivid the ways that you illustrate this and it's accessible um but there's this mystery of God's actual transformation through the spirit so um take us into a bit of that mystery I mean what what is God doing is he messing around with our neurons and reshaping them like what is the transformation part of it I take my emotions to God uh you know I no longer want to uh left that uh un need unmet so I'm taking it to the Lord what but what happens then in terms of the transformation part yeah as we keep ourselves emotionally well we make more room for the seed of the word to take root and explode in all of the power that is held within that seed that's the part the seed is the mystery seeds are incredible in fact Recent research on seeds have found that there is a chemical mechanism inside the seed that lets it know if the soil it's in is fertile for it if the soil around it has what it needs to grow the seed will open up if it doesn't the seed will stay closed and so all of us can think about times where we're reading the word or we're listening to the preached word and it does feel like it's falling on Wayside soil like it's just not going there and one of the ways that we can increase our heart's receptivity to God's word is to stay emotionally well it's it makes such a difference and simple example everyone can identify with my heart is always fertile soil for um God will give you the desires of your heart it's not always fertile for forgive 70 time 70 right it's not always good ground for that word and so when I recognize hey I'm hand I'm dealing with anger and I'm willing to acknowledge my anger I'm willing to let it out whether that's punching a pillow or going to someone and saying hey what you did really made me angry and I want to talk about that and being able to release that then I make more room for the word to plant itself deeply in my heart I think that's so critical when Jesus um cried at the tomb of Lazarus a few minutes later he raised him from the dead Jesus expresses his anger at the the temple and then he performs healing Miracles Jesus cries in fear in the garden and then he comes out of the garden says I am he and soldiers are knocked off their feet by the power of His words every time Jesus had what we kind of call a breakdown he had this spiritually powerful breakthrough I want Christians to recognize that sometimes we have to go through that emotional pain place but spiritual power follows right behind because it clears the soil and so the transformation is in one allowing our El to operate the way we were created to operate and then two it makes more fertile space for the word of God to be planted in our hearts and to produce the fruit that is contained within that seed that's the part this this preaches so well break down to break through I love it you need to break down and be human you know and then allow that and even after Jesus said I am be in Gethsemane he still had another moment on the cross he said father why have you forsaken me so I want us as Christians to stop trying to have this oneandone experience with our emotional pain it's a part of the human existence but we as Christians have the power not to be superhuman but to be accompanied by Jesus he will walk with us through the valley of the shadow of death and we don't fear evil because he's with us but man that Valley is tough but we have Jesus with us in a way that those who don't know him don't have and that's so incredibly special I want us to work on our emotional well-being just like we work on our physical well-being it will change everything wow I could see this for individuals I mean clearly in my own life I'm sure our listeners can sense particular issues in their own life struggles I I want to shift to thinking about communities does this work uh in communities whether it's a church Community or we're engaged as a a business leader or in our families or we're involved in the parent you know teacher organization um are these transferable principles to community life in these I I'm okay so what does that look like what does that mean Ephesians 3 says that only together rooted and grounded note that plant language in love the soil the heart can we know God the length the breadth the width the height like the depth I love that because it explains that we all have to come together with one heart to truly know God and so that's the first way that I think about Community is that are we in shared soil and we should be and so I feel like let's reflect on the painful years that we've had in the church 2020 2021 man racial division political division trying to have conversations with each other that didn't net any fruit because we weren't one in heart we were trying to get connected by mind while we have these facts and we have this data but we were not allowing ourselves to open up emotionally to embrace one another you have to connect in heart before you can grow something together and so when it comes to community I want people to pay more attention to how they feel when they're in community and how other people feel that that's where we want to begin is what's happening in the heart space because once we're connected there we're able to grow more so that argument at the PTA meeting listen to what your quote unquote opposition is saying what oops my earring just fell out what emotion do you feel what emotion are they feeling because we have believed that thinking precedes feeling we have failed to connect with people properly because we're trying to get people to think like us instead of feeling with other people and that's not emotional intelligence there's this concept out there emotional intelligence it almost most is correct but it's still not biblical to talk about emotional intelligence is to suggest that I must think emotionally but I must let my thinking be the plant that's growing the fruit of partially how I feel so we need to flip that um does that answer your question because this is a human thing every single person is made in the image of God we haven't really had a way to understand that but one of the ways we are made in the image of God is through this plant lens seed soil plant fruit word heart mind behavior every single human being is operating that way Jesus is a tree of life we're trees too this is one of the ways that we're made in the image of God it it's again beautiful compelling it's also a little scary because um it requires vulnerability it requires staying with it and we don't like those things vulnerability and sticking with people through these difficult kind of conversations and moments of empathy wow it's a new way to live it's a tougher way to live you know we don't it's scary because we have trained ourselves to believe that we have to not be in pain the goal is to escape the pain and now I'm saying be present with the pain allow it express it so that you can keep the soil from flooding let it go through and yeah that's a little bit tough but I think as we I know for me as the stigma of emotion has left my life as I have embraced that this is how God created us I'm I worry less about vulnerability because vulnerability really is just the fear of letting people truly see you I don't have to be vulnerable anymore because I'm not afraid I'm just here being how God made me to be and so I don't mind crying I don't mind letting you know how I'm feeling um shame has left because so many people have shame associated with their their emotional pain I know that it doesn't say anything about my faith that I've G that I'm in grief for a long time or that I'm afraid emotionally at times man it's relaxing once you get to the other side so I invite you to join me here in this place of rest having surrendered um my weapons Waring against how I was created by God and leaning into that I'm struck by how this message as I started a convers ation with you not only resonated with people inside the church but maybe even more so in some ways um opened up doors for people who are on the outside who are exploring um Faith issues who maybe even have experiences that led them to be antagonistic but this is now presenting Christ the church community in different ways H how do you see this in some ways being a new kind of apologetic or a new kind of way of witnessing that the truthfulness of the gospel and I'm beyond the kind of facts of the Bible and the resurrection um what are the opportunities for witness here I thank you for for asking that and I say this humbly because it blows me away but that is what this is this is an apologetic and we have made apologetics about arm wrestling with people you know like I gotta prove this I have to prove that and and and we've often put how they're sinning at the front and this is presenting God for who he is on his terms and the Bible says if I be lifted up I will draw it was my heart's prayer that God would help me to just lift him up in this text to present God in a way that he hasn't been seen before by many and it is having that effect I had a woman come to me recently she was Muslim um dressed in full the hijab the full Muslim everything Garb and she whispered in my ear I have been reading this book and I love this book and I am a Muslim woman and she said and I'm not the only one we are reading this and I just had to pull myself together because I had to greet the next person in line but I was just my H God has spoken for himself just let him I think we need to pay attention to um how we try to make people conform to something before they've had a chance to be changed allow the seed to take root people are reading this book who have nothing in common with my religious tradition but there's so much scripture in the book and I know that means the seeds are falling on their heart and there will be a moment when that seed will germinate and open up and I can't tell you what that means to me but it is my greatest joy it is my greatest joy you you exude this um encouragement the spirit of blessing others it has been a deep blessing to have you on the podcast and as we think about the season of life that many of us are in maybe personally and as we think about as a country the season of life that we're in um what is a final word of hope that you would leave us with I'm desperate to see the body of Christ Embrace humility in a way that we haven't in a long time that's where our hope lies we're coming into another season socially politically where things have the potential to get ugly again um and no matter when you're listening to that this that's probably going to be true um there's so many things that the church is arguing within itself about humility to be willing to accept um not so much that we're wrong but that we have too narrow of a view this Garden has been within us since the days of creation we are just able to see it because now we can see neurons and all of these things so imagine all of the time spent believing that um mental health and illness for example were demonic and now we can like see the neurons and use plants to understand it like as much as this Revelation is hitting you right now about the garden I want you to be willing to admit that there's probably still so much about God that we don't know and move with humility as we hold what we do know and I think that that will change everything that's my hope is that we will stand in such awe of God because of this Garden that we've seen and that a will breathe humility that humility will make more room for love and connection and we might become the body that he wants us to be so he can come back for us we won't be powerful until we're that body rooted and grounded together that's how we'll know the love of God our guests on today's conversation has been Dr Anita Phillips I'm Walter Kim and on behalf of us all thank you Dr Anita

Channel: National Association of Evangelicals

Views: 8,024

Keywords: National Association of Evangelicals, Evangelism, Creation Care, Immigration Reform, discipleship, Christianity, For the health of america

Id: kf2kbPSg_M0

Length: 36min 1sec (2161 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 15 2024