Internal peace and quiet. If you’re like me, you just gave a big sigh and thought, Wouldn’t that be nice? Well, believe it or not, it’s attainable.

I read Kristi’s article on page 14 of this issue, and boy, could I relate. All that internal noise and confusion… For most of my life, I suppressed my emotions, numbing them with substances and attempting to outrun them with performance. I had zero understanding or guidance on navigating those often overwhelming feelings.

Emotions are our constant companion. They’re integral to our human experience. Some are pleasant and others are not, but all add vibrancy to our life experiences, shape our connections, and influence our decisions. Understanding and welcoming our emotions is vital to experiencing a healthy life. Otherwise, we continuously live in a deep well of discomfort, confusion, and fear.

The world often encourages us to suppress or ignore our feelings, telling us to pretend indifference to any emotion, whether pleasure or pain. How exhausting is that?

True freedom and healing come from facing and embracing our emotions. Doing so leads to more authentic and fulfilling lives and break the vicious cycle of denying, burying, compressing, and suppressing what we feel.

John 10:10 tells us the devil comes to steal, kill, and destroy us. The enemy torments us with our feelings, tricking us into believing we can do nothing, that we’re victims, and we have no power. Why? So that we don’t live in the light of our true identities as free and healed children of God.

God gave us emotions—the ability to feel—to help us navigate life. Emotions are signals from our inner self, like warning lights on a car’s dashboard. They provide insight and communicate depth within us. Ignoring or suppressing these signals can lead to emotional numbness, stress, and physical illness. Facing, embracing, and processing them leads to freedom and healing.

I have found five rhythms or practices that make this pathway to wholeness achievable:

• Name the emotion when it surfaces. Is it anger, sadness, fear, joy, or something deeper? Identification brings the feeling into the open and clarifies it, making it less overwhelming.
• Allow the emotion to be present. Recognize and permit your feelings to exist without passing judgment or removing or changing them. Remember, emotions are a natural part of the human experience. They signal to you and others that something is happening internally.
• Find healthy ways to express your emotions. Emotion is energy in motion; whether positive or negative, that energy must go somewhere. Healthy ways to release your emotions include talking with a trusted friend, journaling, creating art, or engaging in physical activity.
• Reflect on what the emotion is telling you. What is the underlying root cause? What triggered the emotion? Reflection leads to self-awareness and deeper insight into your patterns and behaviors.
• Invite God into this space. Pour your heart out to Him in prayer and seek His comfort and guidance. God cares deeply about you, and He desires to walk with you through your emotional journey. First Peter 5:7 says, “Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you” (NLT).

Emotions are not obstacles to overcome. They are an essential part of your human experience. We honor God and how He designed and created us by making space for our emotions and facing and embracing them. Doing so will also enable us to receive an increased measure of His grace, paving the way for a more authentic, resilient, and fulfilling life.

This process won’t be easy. It requires courage, honesty, vulnerability, and the willingness to confront uncomfortable truths. But by embracing the journey and doing the work, you will ultimately discover the freedom and healing Jesus Christ died to give you (Isaiah 53:5–6).

SHERIDAN CORREA is a biblical counselor who is trained in trauma-informed care. She’s a wife, mother of two teenage boys, singer, and avid runner who has been radically changed by Jesus. She is VL’s director of content development.