By Bo Sanchez

“How are you, Philip?” I asked a friend one day.Philip retorted, “I’m fine. My son died in an accident, my house burned down, my wife ran away with another man, I lost my job last week and my doctor told me I have lung cancer. Aside from that, I’m okay.”

Philip is the model stoic. I’ve exaggerated his calamities to give you a picture of a wrong way of handling negative emotions; to deny them and cover up our pain. I'm not surprised that Philip has cancer. Why? Because any inner pain that we don’t allow ourselves to feel will manifest itself through tumors, hypertension, heart disease, muscle pains, ulcer. Because of this, I have a fascinating hunch: I bet that if I could only help people acknowledge and feel their hidden emotions of anger, fear, worry and grief, I‘d probably be able to remove 50% of their physical disease. Because our bodies are blueprints of our emotional life.

Sandra, on the other hand, is Philip opposite. “How are you Sandra?” I asked her one day. “Oh Bo, “she crumpled down on my shoulder, “I don’t know what to do with my life. Everyone hates me. No one loves me!” Do I cry with her? The first time, yes. But the eighty-sixth time? I’ve gotten used to her drama. Because every time I see Sandra she always breaks down in a river of tears. Only to find out that her world was about to end because of favorite shirt got damaged in the washing machine or her dog didn’t wag his tail at her!

The good news is that between Philip and Sandra, there’s a middle path: when we respect our negative emotions as friends, not monster; as teacher, not masters. Negative emotions are the windows of our soul – and they will teach us about who we are and what exactly we need from God. Simply put, emotions need to be felt. And then, unlike Sandra, you can let go. Because you cannot let go of what you have not held. There are no short cuts. You can’t go around them, over them or under them.

The only way is through the negative emotions. My suggestion is simple. Whenever you feel sad or lonely or depressed or angry or fearful don’t run away from it, cover it up with busyness or entertainment, or worse, silence the negative feeling with an addiction. (All addiction, whether to drink, food, bulimia, shopping or sex are an escape from feelings we don’t want to face.) My prescription: whenever you feel a negative emotion, be alone in a room and just sit down with it and feel it. Don’t judge it, criticize it, intellectualize it, explain it away. Allow yourself to feel the pain. It’s okay. Accompany it, breathe into it, and after a while, you’ll feel the anger or fear or saddened lose its urgency and power. Allow God to tenderly embrace you in your pain.

And then, at the right time, you can let go. When you get healed of 50% of your diseases, I’ll bill you.

Salamat sa Kerygma