The Divine Design of Emotions: A Spiritual Perspective
Hey Friends! In today's article, I have the honor of introducing you to my friend and colleague, Erin Karandish, MD, LPC. Erin's journey has taken her from tending to people's physical well-being as a medical doctor to nurturing their emotional health, or as I like to say, caring for their “figurative gut”.
While some might argue that the two are intricately intertwined (a point I'm sure Erin would make!), this article delves into how applying a medical philosophy to our emotions can empower us to better reflect God's image. It encourages us to become more candid about our emotions and our responses to them.
Erin possesses a wealth of wisdom and practical insights to share, so without further delay, let's dive into her article. I am confident that you will find her thoughts both thought-provoking and immensely beneficial. Moreover, we invite you to share this piece with someone in your life who could also benefit from Erin's wisdom.
Before I cared for people as a counselor, my professional focus was their guts. My work as a gastroenterologist entailed all things abdominal, and I performed a lot of those procedures infamous for sleepless nights and endless jokes. I recently had a taste of my own medicine when I underwent a colonoscopy. Thankfully, my doctor removed some polyps but spared my colon, a laughably obvious choice: you don’t remove a major organ because it has a fixable problem.
We don’t always apply the same logic to our emotions. In an effort to protect us from the shrapnel associated with emotions for ourselves and others, we find ways to distance ourselves from them altogether. Instead of delicately and precisely distinguishing our problems with emotions from their substance, we effectively rob ourselves of a defining feature of our humanity. We hack out a vital organ instead of pursuing a patient, careful excision. To preserve our emotions and their benefits, we need to better understand their design, get acquainted with the ways we sabotage them, and establish some positive moves toward emotional reclamation.
Created for Emotions
In Genesis 1:26, God proclaims: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (ESV). Here, the trinitarian God declares an intention to craft a new kind of creation from all that came before, one that reflects its complex - and emotional - maker. A God who feels and is moved by emotions of joy (Zephaniah 3:17), sorrow (John 11:35), fear (Luke 22:42), anger (Exodus 4:14-15), loneliness (Matthew 27:46) and shame (Galatians 3:13). Imaging God means that we don’t deny our emotions but that we embrace, cultivate and steward them, knowing Jesus himself bore our every experience (Hebrews 4:15-16).
As integral as they are to our humanity, emotions aren’t like a colon. They’re not objectively definable or visible with a camera. They can seem elusive, something akin to wind or even fairy dust. The American Psychological Association puts some meat on the bones, describing emotions as “conscious mental reactions…subjectively experienced as strong feelings usually directed toward a specific object and typically accompanied by physiological and behavioral changes in the body”. Don and Sandra E. Hockenbury summarize the main components of emotions: subjective, experiential, physiological, behavioral and expressive. Boiled down, emotions are a subjective, conscious experience of internal and external stimuli that affect mood and body and that influence behavior.
What kind of stimuli are we talking about? Some are familiar to us, found externally in relational interactions or situational challenges, or within your own thoughts and memories. You may easily recognize these if you recall how you felt when you were cut off, scolded or learned difficult news. Other informants are subconscious, emerging from the complex inner workings of our bodies that are masterful at detecting and relaying the slightest stimulus without us even knowing it. It all gets aggregated and processed within the limbic system and presented as emotions. From there, we use other parts of our brain to apply knowledge, enhance understanding, enable interpretation and determine appropriate behavior responses.
“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness...” ”
Running, Numbing and Succumbing
Emotions are the great, experiential linker of all that impacts the embodied human, packaged in a way that we can access. When coupled with judicious reflection and thoughtful action, emotions play a critical role in keeping us safe, promoting survival and health, recognizing sin and its effects, catalyzing change or action, fostering healthy connection with ourselves and others, and pursuing good. Emotions act as compelling guides that help us see more clearly and direct us in the right way if we apply the right attention and responses to them.
On this point, we need a bit of help. Emotions that are intense or left unsatisfied can sometimes feel like a black hole into which we are reluctant to look too closely. To avoid the risk of getting swallowed or overcome, we find ways to diminish the effect of difficult emotions. We push them deep down, deny their existence, lessen their importance or distract ourselves away from them. Some people are masterful at manipulating them into other forms, mischaracterizing them or fixing them away. We drown them out with substances and habits. My own go-to method is to reason my way out of my emotions - if I can convince myself that I shouldn’t feel something, then it will just stop, right? Alas, no. These attempts to subvert the fullness of our emotional experience end up coming out sideways somewhere else, very possibly outside of our control or even awareness, and probably with negative consequences. Bessel van der Kolk, author of the ground-breaking book The Body Keeps the Score, speaks to the enormous effort expended to ignore emotions: “As long as you keep secrets and suppress information, you are fundamentally at war with yourself.”
If emotions are allowed to breathe, one thing is for sure - they make you feel something. And these feelings can be intense. That is, after all, part of the reason we might be eager for an escape from what feels distressing. But sometimes that escape takes the form of indulgence, and emotions take over. Emotions get blamed for a lot of bad behavior - and understandably so. “Acting on emotion” or “being emotional” reflects the synonymous view we take of emotions and their actions, code for acting in ways that are irrational, impulsive, destructive, intense, irresponsible, harmful, or violent.
Emotions can be converted into punishing hurt, whether for myself or for others - hurt feelings, hurt bodies, hurt relationships. We can exalt pleasurable emotions, too, sometimes leading to reckless or short-sighted behaviors to minimize suffering and maximize relief. Assigning more to emotions than they are meant to hold puts them in the position of preeminence and allowing them unfettered expression compromises our holistic health and potential as image-bearers and runs the risk of offending God (Ephesians 4:26).
What Religion Says About Emotions
In religious contexts, emotions may carry the weight of moral judgment. “Good” emotions like happiness or pride in a job well done may be accompanied by skepticism, seen as selfish or sinful, or viewed as counterfeits of true joy and peace. “Bad” emotions like sadness or anger may have their place in limited ways but can quickly come under scrutiny for their supposed link to faithlessness and are ultimately to be countered with scripture, prayer and gospel self-talk. Emotions get characterized as vehicles of sin, betrayers of truth, obstacles to faith, impedances to the Holy Spirit, marauders who exist to steal, kill and destroy. People of faith are mistakenly instructed to avoid trusting their emotions thereby unwittingly surrendering part of their created design. This hinders their ability to sorrow over the pervasive of both the brokenness of the world and within us. It also hinders the ability to recognize beauty, pursue restoration and seek relationship with God.
If emotions are created by God to reflect his image and to lead us toward vitality and connection, we would be wise to pursue their care and cultivation as part of what Jesus came to redeem (John 10:10).
Cultivating Your Unique Emotional Imprint
The depth, breadth, intensity and manifestation of emotions will be unique for everyone, as each image-bearer holds a specific emotional imprint that forms within the context of relationships, culture and experience that is ultimately under the providential umbrella of God’s sovereignty. Even so, there are some general guidelines to help us get started.
Pay attention: Would you know if you had an emotion? Could you sit with it for a minute and see what you notice? Simple actions like deep, purposeful breathing, low humming or placing your hand on your chest may allow you to persist through uncomfortable emotions. How do you experience them? What do they feel like? Are there parts of your body that seem to grab your attention as you recognize particular emotions? Invite the Holy Spirit to know and help you in these moments (Psalms 139:23, Romans 8:26).
Learn the language: Dan Siegel’s idiom, “Name it to tame it”, points to the power of language to integrate and regulate emotions. Language helps us understand and shape our emotions, augmenting their catalyzing effect toward compassion, change, growth, and connection. Practice emotional granularity by applying words to bring precision to what you feel. You might find a visual like Plutchik’s model or the Feelings Wheel helpful in specifying your feelings. Finding a nonjudgmental framework can anchor your approach to engaging your emotions in a new, non- “good or bad” way, even if it’s a simple shift to “pleasant or unpleasant” and “high energy or low energy”. Brene Brown categorizes emotions according to the various places emotions take us in her beautiful work, Atlas of the Heart. The Psalms are a rich taxonomy of emotions and their language. At the same time, it doesn’t need to be overly complicated. A dear friend is still impacted by her childhood categories of mad, sad, glad and scared .
Fold them in: Emotions are not decision-makers. They act more like advisers. What information can you glean from your emotions? What do they say about the brokenness or care you have experienced, losses or violation, needs for safety and connection or desire for movement or rest? As you pause to give space for your emotions, you allow recruitment and collaboration of all the parts of your brain and have greater access to thoughts, images, sensations, stories, beliefs, knowledge, memories and impulses to help you mindfully and prayerfully decide what to do about the way you feel.
Understanding our emotions and their image-bearing function enables us to respond to them in ways that reflect the heart and wisdom of God. When we attend to our emotions instead of cutting them out, giving them ultimate reign or villainizing them, we honor what God has given us and more fully open ourselves to our humanity. We push back the darkness that threatens to destroy, not by denying or indulging emotions but by engaging them with responsibility and care. We become more patient and connected with ourselves, and we are able to respond in ways that seek love and connection within our worlds and relationships. When we understand their design and ways we can either thwart or facilitate their good purpose, a new sense of freedom emerges. A gaze upon the emotions becomes an invitation for wonder at God’s generous concern for the depths of the human experience.
Erin Karandish MD, MA | Guest Blogger
Erin Karandish MD, MA is a provisional licensed professional counselor at Crossroads Counseling Centers in St. Louis, Missouri. She enjoys working with adults who struggle with the impact of relational difficulties, abuse and trauma; challenges with identity or sexuality; vocational concerns; and spiritual uncertainty. Her medical background additionally allows for a level of understanding and common language for those facing or caring for those with chronic medical conditions. Erin uses an interpersonal, holistic and integrative approach that pulls from attachment theory, narrative therapy, somatic experiencing, interpersonal neurobiology and systems perspectives. She helps clients engage with their stories and emotions through counseling that is tailored to their needs, grounded in a safe and authentic relationship and embedded within a redemptive worldview. Erin’s desire for her clients is for them to know their dignity and experience restoration.
Erin grew up on a farm in Peculiar. She completed her medical training at Brown University in Providence, RI and moved to St. Louis as a fellow in Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Saint Louis University. After working in the VA system for several years, she completed her Masters of Arts in Counseling from Covenant Theological Seminary in 2021. Erin enjoys walking, yoga, (easy-ish) crosswords, movies, organizing, tears and laughs with friends, and adventures with her husband and four small children.