“What are you grieving?” No answers. Anytime my students kept themselves muted that long, I knew I had to rephrase the question. “Or let me ask it like this—what have you lost due to the coronavirus?”
Now their answers came quickly: School just closed. And football practice. Prom. Graduation. A family cruise over the summer. Going to church. An internship. A babysitting job. Dates with the boyfriend. Several birthday parties. Visiting grandparents. Orchestra. Concert tickets. Vacations. Youth Con. Youth Camp. Bubble tea.
Once they got started, they couldn’t stop listing things that they lost.
“Grief isn’t just for death,” I said over Zoom on March 27, 2020 during our virtual youth group. “Grief appears anytime there is loss. Whether you realize it or not, you lost a lot.”
We spent that virtual youth group talking about what it feels like to lose something and how grieving helps you grow. And everyone could relate. One high school boy commented, “I didn’t even know what I was feeling was grief.”
In seasons of united crisis, like the Covid-19 pandemic, not all of us can offer the massive concerts, retreats, potlucks, and pizza parties we know and love, but the church can be an especial help by equipping believers with Emotional Intelligence.
Emotional Intelligence is defined as “the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one’s emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically.”
If you can confidently say, “My decisions, actions, and beliefs are rooted in rational logic,” then I’m afraid your sentiment coincides with every Disney Villain who thought they were a hero! It’s easy to believe we’ve got a clear view on the world and look down on others’ “emotional decision-making.” But the truth is, without emotional awareness, your decision-making may be more emotionally-influenced than you realize.
I would like to provide eight ways Emotional Intelligence will empower your decision-making, deepen your connection with Jesus, transform your ministry, and heal your hurts.
1. Name your emotions
Literally just say what they are out loud. Put them paper. List them.
This first exercise may sound the most childish, but it’s requires a surprising amount of maturity and awareness. This can be an especially empowering exercise in youth ministry, when young men & women struggle to identify what they are feeling.
If you struggle putting a name to your feelings, use an emotion wheel to increase your emotional vocabulary. Something strange happens when you see that name of the emotion you’re experiencing, and the Lord quickens it within you, and you think, “Why, I didn’t even realize what I felt was bitterness.”
But once you’ve named it, you know how to pray for it.
As a prayer exercise, you may try listing five emotions your feeling, five requests from God, and five things to thank God for. This prayer helps me recognize what I’m feeling now, what God can do with the future, and what God has already done in the past.
2. Look beneath the surface
Since I learned the word as a teenager, I have prayed for discernment. So often the first thing we see is not the real problem. The problem, like an iceberg, is beneath the surface.
On a middle school trip to the Holocaust Museum, students from our private school began reacting in two seemingly incongruent ways 1) joking inappropriately, 2) getting outspokenly angry. Upon seeing the horrors of the Holocaust, why did students express flippancy and rage? Why couldn’t they express their core sadness, horror, and grief?
Because it’s easier to laugh than feel pain. It’s more socially acceptable to yell than to cry.
Educating students on their emotional worlds help them to acknowledge their disgust at racist discrimination, and channel it into holy lament and action, as opposed to rage and vengeance.
Looking below the surface helps us as leaders to acknowledge our insecurity, and channel it into humility and openness, as opposed to criticism, jealousy, and defensiveness.
It helps us empathize with others, be patient in differences, and speak with gentleness.
3. Allow Yourself and Others to Feel Bad
Why is it that there’s a whole book of the Bible called Lamentations, but so many Christians feel unfaithful admitting one sentence to negative emotions? My husband has an amazing mantra about this: you’re allowed to feel bad, but you’re not allowed to feel bad about feeling bad. (Similarly, you are not a bad person for feeling bad.)
There’s another phrase I see floating around now that I love: sit with your discomfort.
It doesn’t mean you should wallow in misery or keep all your concerns bottled up from others. But it does means you are allowed to have negative emotions and you are able to endure them.
As pastoral leaders, we can normalize the rich variety of our God-given emotions by not rushing to cheer up ourselves or others. Negative feelings are not unfaithful. They are transient. We can let them come and go without judgment, bringing them to God.
4. Acknowledge physical symptoms
Isn’t it funny how our bodies are often more in-tune with our feelings than we are? Symptoms like pain, fatigue, bad dreams, digestive problems, hair loss, muscle tension, headaches, and insomnia are all outward signs of inner stress.
God didn’t intend for us to ignore these things. In fact, I’d reckon he programed us this way precisely to get our attention. So give it your attention.
In fact, take a moment to pause now and ask the Lord, are there any physical symptoms you want me to notice now?
5. Know Yourself
Now this can be fun. Take the time this week to take a personality assessment like Myer-Briggs, Enneagram, or Strength Finders. As ministry leaders, it’s all too easy to play the comparison game and, as they say, “compare your behind-the-scenes to another’s highlight reel.” But personality assessments allow us to tap into our God-given strengths and leverage them.
For young people, there is something powerful about reading the results of an assessment and feeling known, summarized, and understood.
It’s not selfish to know yourself as God created you. In fact, it reminds me of Revelations 2:17 when God promises us, “I will also give that person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it.”
What energizes you? What depletes you? What inspires you? What drives you? What scares you? Invest some time this week to take an assessment and find out.
6. Create healthy outlets for your emotions
During our Stay-At-Home Order, I became really enamored with meal planning. It was a way for me to acknowledge there was very little I could control, but at least I could control what I eat!
Everyone has coping strategies, and some are destructive: overeating, media binging, addictive behaviors. Bless yourself and evaluate your go-to coping mechanisms. A healthy outlet should not intend to eradicate negative emotions entirely, but to experience them decline in a healthy way.
Exercise, art, prayer, long walks, fasting, journaling, home projects are all great ways to be outwardly active as you process inner concerns.
7. Monitor your emotional consumption
Recently during a media fast (abstaining from social media, streaming videos, etc.), I noticed my overall mood beginning to shift quite nicely! Turns out, just 10 minutes of feed-scrolling was enough to sour my chipper outlook on life. I hadn’t realized just how much I was emotionally affected while absorbing everyone’s opinions, conflicts, shocking videos, and arguments all at once! Perhaps you’ve experienced this same drain after 30 minutes of watching the news?
Monitoring your emotional consumption does not mean eliminating world awareness and conflict resolution. It means you are intentional about what you let into your mind. In the same way we might encourage our youth groups to steer clear of that MA-rating or Parental Advisory, we as leaders can be intentional about news binges, Netflix marathons, and social media rants.
Tune in to what content causes you to feel angry, depressed, defensive, or envious. And remember, it’s not enough to press Snooze and avoid a problem. Use your break to bring your root issues to God.
8. Celebrate Sabbath weekly
Those of us who are pastors are representatives of God to our people. And it baffles me how many of us neglect to take a true Sabbath, as instructed by God.
It baffles me because not only is it biblical—it’s so much fun!
For a while, I made a habit of planning out my Sabbaths for the month, scheduling in life-giving activities, things to read, and moments with God. These days, I tend to wing it, but still make a point to be intentional about the day’s activities. I may enjoy a long walk, a good exercise, a nice meal out, or even a trip to a museum. Whatever I do, I try to remember just how big God is. Because his enormity puts all my “big” problems into context.
At first, planning your Sabbath intentionally may be challenging. It’s so much more than a day off work with no meetings, home improvements, or appointments, but it’s so much more than a “day off work.” For those wanting to go deeper on this topic, I recommend Peter Scazzero’s perspective in The Emotional Healthy Leader.
And speaking of being intentional, look back over this list and look ahead for what you have planned in your ministry. Is there a topic or an exercise you feel God may want you to incorporate into your youth ministry?
A CLOSING PRAYER
Lord, as I strive to learn about myself, grant me the discernment to navigate my hidden motives & emotions.
As I strive to understand others, grant me gentleness so that I may be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.
As I strive to lead others, grant me the awareness that emotions are not a tool for manipulation or a reason for derision.
As I strive to know You, may I feel as deeply and love as freely as Jesus.
In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Mandy Monson
Youth Pastor//Bethel A/G, Savage, MD