Real Talk: Feel Your Emotions

Hey, Beauties!

Have you ever been in a situation where you had sincere feelings/emotions toward something but you block them? Instead of feeling, I tried to ignore them as a way to stay positive. So I FLOPPED this past Sunday while I was leading praise and worship. Ya'll I am not exaggerating, I started singing in a whole different key but the harmony of that key if that makes any sense. I don't know how my brain heard that but it did. I do have to say I was not immediately embarrassed. I was more so in my head like "really zainab?" The crazy thing was I couldn't stop so I was singing the wrong note for a while then I stopped. I drew a blank and I couldn't get another note out. Yo, I was stuck I basically froze. Thank God for the team!

But I found myself suppressing feelings so I wouldn't be sad or so I wouldn't beat myself up. A line from Shakespeare's Macbeth stuck with me this week. The line where Mcduff found out his family was murdered and this other guy basically told him to go after it like a man. Meaning don't feel just act. I loved Mcduff's response when he said, "I will feel like a man." He will mourn his wife and children however it comes out and then address it like a man. I was refusing to FEEL I just wanted to move on from the incident. People seemed funny to me afterward, maybe I let them down and ruined their worship that morning.

I'm sorry.

Monday night I found myself in prayer feeling so distant from God and so close to FEELING those emotions I should have felt on Sunday. I cried. I whined. I cried some more. It was a release for me since I didn't allow myself to feel my emotions. I think emotions are good, feel them. Allow yourself to feel because all you will do is bottle it all up and then explode. I exploded in the best way and in the best place, my prayer closet.  I realized I don't have to deny my feelings because I want to be positive towards myself. I can feel in the moment and then dissect everything through the lens of God's love. I do have to say I didn't feel shame or embarrassment in the moment but I felt loved. I felt like the child who was learning how to ride a bike and kept falling off when daddy let go.

God didn't love me any less because I messed up. He doesn't count me out because I dropped the ball. People might but God never will. Your flops are just as impactful to your growth as your successes are. God uses everything we go through for his Glory and our good. My flop was public maybe yours is private but whatever feelings come with it acknowledge them, feel them, then give them all to God. Giving things to God can be really hard but try it anyway. This journey we are on, we do not need extra baggage. The freer we are the better and easier this all becomes for us. I'm trying to live free and loved. I'm getting a hang of the loved part but I am still working on freedom.