Emotions are interesting. Where exactly do we feel them? Where do they come from? I certainly don’t have answers for those questions so we’re going to punt and take a look at a different aspect.
When someone tells you not to be so emotional, what generally are they telling you to do? Stop what emotion? Most often it is anger, sorrow, fear, grief, frustration, and the like. I’ve never had someone tell me to stop being happy, joyful, hopeful, calm, loving.
When someone talks about what we deem negative or difficult emotions, they often express it as “I’m just emotional.”
When someone talks about positive emotions, they generally name the emotion: “I’m so happy!”.
“Emotional” has come to be a catchall phrase for feelings we don’t want to discuss. Maybe we don’t want to acknowledge the feeling or the back story is too hard.
But maybe it would be helpful if we named the hard stuff for what it is. If we did the work to figure out exactly what was lurking in the catchall phrase of emotional. Releasing the hard stuff frees us, especially when we release it to our loving Father God.
He’s never surprised.
Just Sayin' 