The Feelings Will Not Be Mollified

So I've had kind of a crappy evening. I had a frustrating meeting at work, and then this artsy project that I'm working on is getting slowed down because things on the computer taking longer one expects, and so after I got the supplies I need for the project, I thought I'd go shopping, since I've been extremely bored and annoyed with my wardrobe lately. I don't know why I ever think shopping will make me feel better. It almost never does. Especially these days when the stores are so full of ugly and skimpy.

I got a cute black skirt and that was it. And I came out with that dehydrated, zombie kind of feeling. I'm exhausted. And when I think back to why I'm feeling so crabby, the frustrating meeting stuff comes back up and I just want to cuss and cry.

As I was thinking about it on the way, I thought about prayer, about handing my burden over to Jesus. One of the methods I've frequently recommended for dealing with bad situations is to write a psalm. Psalms, frequently, follow a pattern of whine, accuse, whine, whine, crab, moan, whine, praise God for God's faithfulness. The point being that no matter how bad things seem, God is still there and still good. It's nice to have a happy ending. And usually, the process of writing the psalm, where you get to do all that whining, is, in fact, therapeutic.

The thing is__I didn't feel like like managing my feelings. I didn't want to do something to make myself feel better. Sometimes the best thing we can do with our feelings is to feel them. Just be angry, or frustrated, or crabby, or whiny.

I used to be self-conscious about how emotional I would get sometimes when I had pms. (Which could, in fact, be a factor today as well.) Then, in seminary, a friend pointed out that it might not be that we over-react when we're pms-y; maybe that's just when we're most in touch with our feelings. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Our psyches can give us important signals through our emotions. Important to pay attention to that.

I'm already making some plans for how to deal with some of the stuff that frustrated me today. But probably I should wait to deal with it till next week! ;)