Is it Better to Release Emotions or Hold Them in?

Is it better to release emotions or hold them in? That depends on the context. 

“There is … a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance” Ecclesiastes 3:4. 

A memorial service is a good time for weeping, but if the county judge were to weep during a press conference before the hurricane comes ashore, it might convey the wrong message. 

Though both sexes do it, men seem to have a special ability to compartmentalize.  You pack your trauma away in a mental cabinet somewhere, close the door, and return to the task at hand.  There is value in that: when your buddy is gunned down next to you on the battlefield, you ignore the emotions, close the door on the problem, and keep fighting.  It’s a critical survival mechanism.  But it is unhealthy.  Emotions packed away tend to fester.  This is an area where American men fail: we become so good at hiding from bad emotions, we lose touch with ALL emotions.  Cutting yourself off from grief can also cut you off from joy, hope, and love, until all you feel is the hopeless ache of depression.

It does not have to be this way.  King David was a man’s man, right?  He killed Goliath, women sang songs about him, and he led Israel’s armies for forty years.  He killed so many men that God called him a man of bloodshed.  David’s masculinity was never in doubt.

But David was also a worshipper, a musician, and a poet.  He was tender, vulnerable, and real.  David knew that he could be a great champion for God AND a great lover of God’s people.  When Jonathan and David had to part ways, “he and Jonathan kissed each other and wept with each other, though David wept more” 1 Samuel 20:41. 

David expressed emotions.  He wrote about them, sang about them, and shed tears.  This hero of heroes never left emotions packed away.  In the right time and place, David released his emotions.

God, give us the courage to express our emotions appropriately.

ΑΩ