In This article

• God’s Gift of Emotions
• The Goodness of Emotions
• Core Emotions and Their Purpose
• How to Use Emotions Logically
• In summary

The topic of emotions holds such a controversial view among society.  Emotions are almost even paradoxical.  People sit along a vast spectrum of perspectives, from “living by emotions” to “living by logic.”  Some say feelings make us soft, and others say feelings show strength.  Where one person describes themselves as an “empath,” another human pushes to the other side claiming “not be an emotional person,” at all.  Little girls are called drama queens and little boys are taught to toughen up.  Even the Christian community is split as teachings suggest emotions are not to be trusted but instead are meant to be overcome…that if we had greater faith in God, we wouldn’t experience fear or anger.  Regardless of where you stand, it is clear in our society that emotions seem confusing and intimidating.  And yet we still feel them!  They are a vital part of what makes us human beings.  How is one supposed to live fully and authentically with confidence if they have to suppress a core part of their very being?  The answer is: You can’t.

As a Neuroscience Informed Christian Counselor, I have an understanding of how God wired our body to connect to emotional needs and experiences.  Over the last decade, I have sat with hundreds of men and women who would tell me moving stories about their lives, while fighting back tears or clenching their jaws.  When I slow down to notice their physiological responses in the moment, I inquire about their reason for fighting off the emotion that is trying so hard to rise to the surface. I often hear them retort back, “What’s the point?” or “I don’t know,” as they work to resist feeling something that is clearly uncomfortable or inconvenient to them.  Their answers are so telling of how our society has done a very poor job of teaching why God made us “emotional” human beings in the first place.

God’s Gift of Emotions

Without emotional intelligence, one can never truly experience wholeness as a person.  Emotions are primary to our human experience, and are actually a gift to us.  Because we are made in the image of God, we inherited the ability to feel, express, and use emotions for good, as He does.  So before we discuss what their purpose is, let’s first take a look at where our emotions came from.

The Goodness of Emotions

Scripture is laden with examples of how both God the Father, and Jesus our Savior, are emotional entities (beings).  God so deeply loved the world, that He sent His Son to die for mankind and secure our eternal salvation (John 3:16).  God IS the very definition of Love (1 John 4:8).  God feels jealousy (Joshua 24:19), He hates the sin that puts a wedge between our hearts and His (Proverbs 6:1), and He grieves (Psalm 78:40).  God laughs at His enemies (Psalm 37:13), feels joy (Zephaniah 3:17), and is also full of compassion as He can be moved for His people (Judges 2:18).

We are created in His image (Genesis 1:27) and therefore, we can believe that we have attributes and emotions similar to God’s.  The fall of mankind left a widespread impact on our world, distorting and transforming the way human beings feel and use the emotions that were designed by God.  This is why it is imperative to study the way God sent His son, Jesus, to live life as an emotional human being on Earth, without ever sinning.  He gave us a literal perfect example of how to use the feelings that God gave us for good and purposeful living.  Scripture demonstrates that Jesus also experienced joy (John 15:11), love and grief (John 11:35-38), He battled deep fear and anxiety (Matthew 26:36-42) , was moved by compassion (Matthew 9:36), and (gasp) was even filled with anger as he flipped over the sales tables in the temple of God and rebuked them all for defiling God’s house of prayer (Mark 11: 15-18).  Again Mark 14:32-42 shows examples of where Jesus experienced a multitude of emotions at once, and yet was still able to remain steadfast and sinless, even as He acknowledged these complex emotions.

Feelings are the language of our heart that allow us to tap fully into life.  When we have blindspots in our heart, we are disconnected and unable to invite God into those parts of our lives.  So without awareness and guidance, we are limited in our ability to live authentically and fully.  Knowing this, Jesus allowed his emotions to flow completely, serving as an expression of Himself and the situation. He was never self-serving through His emotional expression, nor did He deny and suppress His emotions, but instead used wisdom and logical action for what His emotions represented.  He is a perfect model for how to successfully function as emotional human beings.

Core Emotions and Their Purpose

Take a moment to think about the last time you felt really hungry.  What signals did you notice your body sending that alert you to feeling hungry?  Physiological experiences of stomach growling and cramping, getting a headache, feeling lethargic, getting moody and “hangry” are reported by many….sound familiar to you?

God designed our body to give physiological cues to tell us that we are feeling something.  That feeling represents a need.  Most people can follow this logic of feeling hungry and are very attuned to their physical hunger cues so that they can meet the need of hunger.  Afterall, our body is a machine, and it will thrive and perform much better when it has the proper fuel it needs to do the job.  This same logic applies to every other feeling.  God hard-wired core emotions and their needs into our nervous system as a way of giving us tools to get things accomplished.  The motivation within our soul to live a thriving life needs to be connected to our core emotional program so that we can make wise decisions throughout our day to day.  How ironic that people want to be told how to make wise decisions and given clarity around their challenges, and yet they resist using the very tool kit that God hard wired into their soul to achieve this!  So, how do we stop viewing emotions as inconvenient and soft, and instead embrace this tool kit for more conscious living?  Let’s begin with emotional awareness and education first.

Psychologists around the globe have identified 6 universal core emotions that provide a hard-wired somatic experience.  These are:  Sadness, Fear, Anger, Joy, Excitement, and Disgust.  We can think of these core emotions the same way that we do primary colors (red, yellow, blue).  From those primary colors, we get secondary and tertiary colors to reflect other varieties of color.  The same is true of our primary emotions.  They have other expressions of affective experiences.  For example, primary fear can flow out into feeling nervous, insecure, terrified, anxious, panicked, worried, etc.  Sadness can have other layers of disappointment, shame, grief, loneliness, etc.  Just like the feeling of hunger, each of these core emotions have a physiological response cued up by your brain.  This can vary for each person or experience, but most of the time, a person can track the presence of their core emotions by looking for the following somatic responses:

Sadness:  heavy or slumped posture, tears, frowns, pit in the stomach or heavy heart, etc.

Fear:  eyes frozen open, pale, cold, sweaty, trembling, jittery, pit in stomach, etc.

Anger:  can be noticed by frowns, clenched muscles, red face, heavy breathing, etc.

Joy:  smiles, eyes crinkled around the edges, relaxed, shoulders up and strong spine, etc.

Excitement:  positive energy inside the body, eyebrows up, increased heart rate, look/listen, etc.

Disgust: lower lip protruding, extruded tongue, sick stomach feeling, pit in stomach or chest, etc.

How to Use Emotions Logically

Once you work on increasing your awareness of your core emotions and how you “feel” them, you can move into step two where you will reflect on the function of your emotion.  Instead of “overcoming” or suppressing an emotion, it is to be worked through to completion.  This results in finding your adaptive need for the circumstance that originally evoked the emotion.  Here are some practical functions of our emotions:

Sadness:  withdraw, recollect, reflect, mourn, seek comfort. Sadness expresses value and moves us to intimacy.

Fear:  flee from danger, run towards or create protection, freeze. Fear awakens us to danger and begins wisdom.

Anger:  fight, assert, defend against self intrusion or violation. Anger hungers for life and healing.

Joy: expand, connect, engage, broaden & build. Joy proves hope of the heart to be true.

Excitement:  pay attention, broaden & build, explore. Excitement seeks to increase and experience.

Disgust:  expel, repel, avoid the person or object. Disgust makes a stand for what is healthy or moral.

These emotions are positive and a gift from God.  With this perspective, they can be viewed as a tool-kit or a guide towards more authentic living of your life.  Now, don’t misunderstand me…I’ll be the first to admit that emotions can often be inconvenient, powerful, and surprising.  But that does not make them bad or sinful.  In fact, Jesus gives us one of the best illustrations of how core emotions and their adaptive functions can serve us.  In Mark 11, Jesus demonstrates how He feels through the most controversial core emotion of all – Anger.  God’s house was being violated by the money changers and salesmen.  Jesus walked in and was moved by anger and disgust.  It was immoral, it was wrong, it was distasteful, and it violated the purpose of the Holy temple.  Notice that Jesus felt into these emotions so that He could act decisively.  It was a response, not a reaction.  And it was purposeful, not sinful.  He scolded, corrected, and he “cleaned house” of the money changers that were using God’s house of prayer immorally.  Notice that he didn’t cuss any one out; He didn’t threaten to withhold their salvation or His relationship from them, and He didn’t hurt anyone (through words or actions).  But His disgust and His anger did motivate His normal calm demeanor to take action, set healthy boundaries, repel the evil from the church, and assert against what was wrong.  He wasn’t caught up by anxiety and people-pleasing.  He accepted that His anger and disgust were valid, and He felt them to completion of action.  This is a wonderful example of how to use your emotions as a tool to live authentically and purposefully.

There are numerous benefits to increasing your emotional intelligence.  The human body is able to regulate more effectively and there can be a reduction in the stress releasing hormone, cortisol.  Being curious about your own emotions and needs also allows you to honor your own humanity, turn to God for wisdom, and provide care for your soul.  Life is hard enough on its own, so we certainly don’t need to make ourselves struggle more.  God wants to help us and guide us through life circumstances, but sometimes instead of giving us outside support, he gives us the key to take action within our own nervous system.  How empowering and thoughtful of our Father!  When we suppress, incorrectly believe our emotions to be sinful, or choose to be ignorant of our needs, then that is when we risk behaving irresponsibly and create negative consequences in our life, body, and relationships.  That is when emotional expression can become sinful and messy.

In summary

The topic of emotions and their functionality could be discussed at great lengths.  My hope and prayer is that this information would inspire a renewing and transforming of the mind from old belief systems.  That the reader would be more equipped to increase their emotional intelligence and adjust their relationship with emotions to one that serves them better. These emotional tools won’t change us, but they indicate where change may need to take place in order to help us identify desires or needs.  God is more committed to our freedom than He is our comfort. By being curious, accepting, and purposeful with their emotional experiences, a person can strategically move through the feelings and discover that there is so much more freedom and understanding than before.  One can achieve clarity, confidence, and discernment regarding life decisions and have a better sense of their Godly identity.  If this sounds exciting to you but still overwhelming and foreign, there are emotion focused Counselors who would love to help empower you.  Because when we know how to use these underrated tools, we can advocate for our needs more clearly, feel more connected in our relationships, experience more calm and compassion about our own humanity, and set goals more confidently.  And that sounds like an authentic life lived more fully and freely!