Contain Yourself

Hey, who super-sized my emotions? I don’t remember ordering an extra large wad of rubber band emotions at the take-out window of life, but, honey, I’ve got ‘em! No wonder I sometimes snarl and snap at folks; it’s all those elastic knots inside me.

This isn’t a new condition for me, but menopause hasn’t exactly enhanced the situation. Instead it has added, ahem, emotional dynamics that my family claims I didn’t need. I took that as a compliment. (My friend Luci’s mantra is, “Take everything as a compliment.”)

I thought, by the time a woman reached my age, she pretty much had her emotions cinched in. Don’t get me wrong; I’ve improved. Honest. Les, my husband of forty-five years, still is alive, and that’s proof I’m doing better (just kidding . . . sorta). The poor guy has had his hands full, dealing in the past with my radical reactions and now my hot-flashing hormones.

Les and I have come to understand that life constantly is pressing our buttons because people, circumstances, changes, hormonal shifts, and our emotions (his too) combine to make us works in progress.

I hope that’s a relief for you to hear. You aren’t the only one who at times feels that you have more mood swings than brain cells and more hormones than halleluiahs. Nor are you the only one who is married to a man with a set of reactive emotions. I’ve raised one husband and two sons, and I promise you that men have emotional cycles, too.

Emotions aren’t an indictment against our spirituality but rather proof of our humanity. Whew!

So take a deep breath and pour a cup of green tea. No, wait, go ahead and pop a dark chocolate bon-bon. We girls are in this together. And there’s nothing like girlfriend gab to help us feel that we aren’t weird but instead are intricately woven together with fine golden filaments . . . okay, would you believe with a surplus of colored rubber bands? But what’s a person supposed to do with all these elasticized ribbons.

Well, Les and I paid our first visit to The Container Store recently. At this stage of life we call a visit to a new store a “date.” We hold hands and walk down the aisles saying, “Oh, look at that . . . Oooh . . . Ah.” I know, I know, that really douses the sizzle in romance.

Anyway, I noticed the employees were wearing t-shirts emblazoned with the words, “Contain Yourself.” It made me giggle.

We saw every kind of container to provide us a custom place to stash our stuff. Les and I left an hour later with big grins and enough containers to organize a flea market.

But the t-shirts kept coming back to my mind. “Contain Yourself.” What a great idea for our emotions, but how does one do that without imploding? Chances are even the most calm and relaxed among us will, before our tour of duty is done down here on Earth, pop her cork, spewing rubber bands hither and yon, because humanity is hard to keep under wraps.

I guess we could try to cram our irritation in an under-bed storage container, or jam our crankiness in a hat box and shove it to the back of our closet, or toss our bad attitudes in a hamper and nail the top shut. But, alas, we can’t. I know; I tried.

What we can do is to recognize that our little rubber band fits can provide clues in our quest to unravel our emotions. . . .

In the pages ahead we will chat about some of the feelings that tie us in knots, and I’ll share what we might do to take the next step in our untangling journey. God’s Word is full of helps for emotions like grief, moodiness, fearfulness, anger, self-pity, and other human responses.

We don’t want our negative emotions to rule our lives and thereby permeate the quality of our existence and relationships. If we’re ruled by anger, we’re likely to become dictatorial; fear, given full reign, will make us a recluse; and loss, unchecked, will cause us to ooze bitterness.

In the chapters ahead we will giggle because I’ve noted that laughter is the key to restoring perspective. Besides, humor rescues us from taking ourselves too seriously. There’s nothing worse than a cranky old woman who can’t see past her furrowed brow or a young woman who can’t see past her own reflection.

A reporter was interviewing a 104-year-old woman and asked her, “So what’s the best thing about being 104?” She quipped, “No peer pressure.”

Now, that makes me laugh aloud. May we all live to be 104 and still have our humor intact. That kind of spunk helps us to survive and thrive ― survive hardships and thrive with a firm grip on joy.

Until then, let’s wend our way through the dense tangle of emotions that make us tender and tough, sweet and surly, forgiving and frightful, calm and tense. We are a study. But guess what? God is up to the task. He wants us to be balanced and beautiful inside and out. His treatments last longer than Botox. And that’s great news for an aging tilt-a-whirl like me.

I love the story about the woman who thought she was “lookin’ good” as she sashayed down Main Street only to discover that last night’s pantyhose were hanging out of her trousers for the world to see . . . Oh, wait, that woman was me. Now, that kind of display, honey, will make a person tense up.

Yes, life exposes our weaknesses, but the good news is we all have them. We have snarls of stretchy emotions and wads of dangling pantyhose. So this will be a book of emotional mutuality . . . no outcasts here.

Sharpen your pencil, because in the back, we’ve included a workbook to help you personalize emotion-comforting truth. And as part of this set, we’ve packaged video clips from messages I’ve done through the years at Women of Faith. Those ought to stir up some lively discussions, as I toss my rubber bands around like a lasso in hopes of capturing your attention and helping you laugh truth into your innermost parts. Watch as I sit on a hot seat, take on an intruder, and become part of a Wild West Show.

Come join me, and let’s add some snap to our zany, emotion-filled lives!

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Excerpted with permission from I Second That Emotion ©2008 Patsy Clairmont. Published by W Publishing Group, a division of Thomas Nelson, Inc. Available at womenoffaith.com.