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  • Keep Breathing
    • Keep Breathing: Introduction
    • Part 1
      • Stay Grounded
      • Keep Breathing
      • Gather Information
      • Feel What You Feel
      • Take in Support
      • Pray
      • Practice Surrender
      • Notice Your Reactivity
    • Part 2
      • Realize What Is Happening to You
        Is Happening To Everyone in Your Life
      • Take Inventory
      • Let Go of Shame
      • Extend Grace
      • Show Up
      • Learn Vulnerability
      • Make Amends
      • Stay Present in Times of Waiting
    • Part 3
      • Be Still and Keep Moving
      • Know You Are Not Alone
      • Ask for Healing
      • Seek Guidance
      • Meditate
      • Pursue Peace
      • Acknowledge Death
      • Grieve
    • Part 4
      • Express Gratitude
      • Stay Open to Joy
      • Make Room for Laughter
      • Celebrate Each Day
      • Let Yourself Be Carried
      • Be Who You Are
      • Know That You Are Loved
  • Desperate Hope
    • Shocked by the Diagnosis
    • Responding to Feelings of Fear, Anxiety, and Sadness
    • Ordering Desperate Hope
  • TLC Leader’s Manual
    • Group Leader Resources
      • Introduction to TLC
      • Meeting Format
      • Notes to Group Leaders
      • When a Group Member Dies
    • Strong Feelings
      • Understanding our Feelings
      • The Emotional Roller Coaster
      • Living With Fear
      • Dealing With Depression
      • Living with Anger
      • Grieving Our Losses
      • The Experience of Gratitude
      • Celebration and Joy
      • Experiencing Peace
      • Finding Hope
    • Challenges to Faith
      • Stretching Our Faith
      • Prayer
      • Examining Our View of God
      • Healing Prayer
      • The Lord Is With Us
      • God’s Healing Presence
    • Changing Perspectives
      • The Seasons Of Survival
      • Living Sanely in An Insane World
      • One Day At A Time
      • Positive Thinking
      • Accepting Our Need for Help
      • Building Friendships
      • Perspectives on Treatment
      • Coping With Pain
      • Repairing Our Self Esteem
  • Contact

Understanding our Feelings

Feelings are part of our basic equipment for knowing and experiencing ourselves, each other, our world, and God. They give us information about what we need and want. They allow us to know what is in our hearts and on our minds. They open up the possibility of emotional intimacy.

In spite of this, we often live as if our feelings are unacceptable. The feelings which are considered unacceptable are often the feelings most commonly experienced in response to a diagnosis of cancer. Some people believe they need to be cheerful and optimistic even in the face of a crisis. Unpleasant feelings such as sadness and anger and fear are rejected, in spite of how normal these feelings are as a response to the enormous threat that cancer presents.

Scripture provides many examples of God’s faithful people experiencing anger, depression and fear. Jesus himself expressed a wide variety of emotions—including many which we find it difficult to tolerate in ourselves. Jesus angrily drove the money changers out of the temple, he grieved over Jerusalem, he wept at Lazarus’ grave, he groaned in Gethsemane. The experiences of anger, sorrow and agonizing struggle are part of the rich experience of being the people God created us to be.

When we label some feelings as “good” and some as “bad” we usually try very hard to not feel the “bad” emotions. This leads only to falsehood and pretense. It causes us to hide our feelings from ourselves and from others. When we try to “keep the lid on” our feelings they do not go away. Keeping the lid on only redirects them into physical tension, mental distress, or spiritual discouragement. Deception about our feelings will result in bondage. Truth, however, can free us.

Cancer evokes intense, unpleasant feelings. When we are unaccustomed to living with unpleasant feelings, we may become confused or alarmed by these feelings. What can be helpful to us during times when emotions are intense is to write about them, to talk about them with God and to talk about them with trusted friends.

We can learn to respect our feelings and value them as one of God’s gifts to us.

Creator, God,
You gave us a wonderful gift when you gave us the capacity to feel.
You gave us the ability to laugh,
to celebrate and to love.
You also gave us the ability
to be angry at injustice,
to fear danger
and to grieve our losses.

Give us the wisdom we need to respect our feelings
as they come and go.
Give us the honesty we need to live with our feelings.
Help us to talk to you and others about them.
Give us compassion to care for each other
when feelings are intense.
We ask this in the name of Jesus
who wept when it was time for weeping.
Amen.


Feelings

  • are an important part of our basic equipment for knowing and experiencing the world.
  • enrich our lives as a source of pleasure and displeasure.
  • tell us about ourselves, about our expectations, perceptions and needs.

When we ignore or suppress our feelings we

  • spend energy to do so.
  • may experience a “pressure cooker effect.”
  • miss out on the enriching experience those emotions bring us.
  • miss out on the information emotions can give us about ourselves.
  • redirect the emotions into physical tension and spiritual or mental distress.
  • .give the emotions control over our behavior that we may not be aware of.

When we accept and experience our feelings

  • our self awareness is increased.
  • our experience of life is richer.
  • we are able to live more honestly.
  • problems can be identified and resolved.
  • the physical, mental and spiritual tension is relieved or avoided.

Feelings need to be

  • identified.
  • respected.
  • experienced.
  • verbalized.
  • put into perspective.

Questions for Discussion – Session 1

1. How were feelings expressed in your family when you were growing up?

2. Think of a time you were angry or sad as a child. What was your family’s response to your feelings?

3. What strong emotions have you been especially aware of since your journey with cancer first started?

4. What helps you to live with these strong feelings?

Questions for Discussion – Session 2


1. How have you responded to the strong emotions that cancer has brought into your life?

2. When you are sad or angry or afraid what do you most need from a friend?

3. How might it be helpful to you to talk to God about your strong emotions?

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TLC Leader’s Manual

A photocopy-ready version of the TLC Leader's Manual is now available for download. If you are thinking about starting a Cancer Support Group, this might be helpful!

PDF version

MSWord version

Quote of the moment

"One of the things that we tend to dislike about our feelings is that they are not always rational. We feel things that don’t make logical sense to us. . . But our feelings do not go away simply because we try to dismiss them as irrational. On the contrary, the more we resist them because we don’t want to feel them, the more they seem to lay claim on our attention and our limited energy. "
Juanita Ryan

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