Join us for a hope-filled conversation with Alicia Michelle about managing emotions in grief with science and Scripture. Alicia, who previously shared her story of losing her son in an early miscarriage in Episode 12 of the Cradled in Hope Podcast, has recently written a book titled Emotional Confidence.
Using three simple steps from her book, Alicia shares how we can face difficult emotions and choose to live differently in light of them. As we focus on God's character while at the same time caring for our brains & bodies, healing can happen. Alicia shares practical wisdom for grieving moms to navigate their grief journey, blending faith with their emotional well-being.
In this episode, we discussed:
A framework for managing emotions
What are the 3 steps (Acknowledge, Discern, Decide)?
Choosing where we emotionally dwell
What happens if we get stuck?
How to move past culture's expectations of us
The emotional iceberg
It's okay to hate death
Disconnect between our heart and head
Cracks in the foundation of our faith
The mystery of God
What is "emotional prep"?
Being good stewards of our bodies
Full transcript below.
MEET OUR GUEST
Alicia Michelle, ACC, CPLC, is an ICF-certified Christian life coach and NeuroCoach, author of Emotional Confidence, popular conference speaker, and multi-award-winning podcast host of the top-ranked podcast The Christian Mindset Coach with Alicia Michelle.
Through her coaching and courses, Alicia has equipped thousands of women with practical brain-and-biblically-based tools to manage emotions and rewire toxic thought patterns for more calm, confidence, and joy. She loves to travel, cook, draw, paint, and savor life with her beloved husband, four kids, and four dogs. Alicia is a bereaved mom to a baby boy in Heaven.
Connect with Alicia Michelle:
Instagram: @aliciamichellecoach
Facebook: /aliciamichellecoach
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Ashley Opliger is the Executive Director of Bridget's Cradles, a nonprofit organization based in Wichita, Kansas that donates cradles to over 1,500 hospitals in all 50 states and comforts over 30,000 bereaved families a year.
Ashley is married to Matt and they have three children: Bridget (in Heaven), and two sons. She is a follower of Christ who desires to share the hope of Heaven with families grieving the loss of a baby.
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Episode 54 | Managing Emotions in Grief with Science + Scripture | Alicia Michelle
Ashley Opliger: [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Cradled in Hope Podcast. I’m your host, Ashley Opliger. I’m a wife, mom, and follower of Christ who founded Bridget’s Cradles, a nonprofit ministry in memory of my daughter, Bridget, who was stillborn at 24 weeks.
Cradled in Hope is a Gospel-focused podcast for grieving moms to find comfort, hope, and healing after the loss of a baby. We want this to be a safe place for your broken heart to land.
Here, we are going to trust God’s promise to heal our hearts, restore our joy, and use our grief for good. With faith in Jesus and eyes fixed on Heaven, we do not have to grieve without hope. We believe that Jesus cradles us in hope while He cradles our babies in Heaven.
Welcome to the Cradled in Hope Podcast.
Ashley Opliger: [00:00:50] Welcome back to another episode of Cradled in Hope. I am so honored to have my friend, Alicia Michelle, back on the podcast. If you haven't listened to all of Cradled in Hope episodes, Alicia was with us on Episode 12, Renewing Your Mind After Pregnancy Loss. In that episode, she talks about losing her son in an early miscarriage and how she struggled with overwhelming sadness.
Through her journey, God had given her wisdom on how to cope with grief in a healthy way. Now she's back for another episode, and we are going to be talking about managing emotions with science and Scripture.
Alicia just wrote a book called Emotional Confidence, and we're going to be talking about that. She also has a podcast titled The Christian Mindset Coach, where she talks about using brain science and the Bible together to overcome fear and take back control of your thought life for peace and confidence.
I'm excited for her to share with you today more about how to manage emotions when you're going through the deep grief of losing a baby.
If you want to hear Alicia's story of losing her son at 10 weeks, I would encourage you to go back and listen to Episode 12, because in this episode, we're going to have practical wisdom and advice to help you as you're navigating your own grief journey.
Ashley Opliger: [00:02:06] Welcome, Alicia. It's good to have you back on the Cradled in Hope Podcast.
Alicia Michelle: [00:02:11] It is so good to be back. Thank you so much for having me. I love that we get to have this conversation. Well, just our connection has continued from when we first met to now, and we've been able to stay in touch through all these years. So I appreciate it.
Ashley Opliger: [00:02:26] Yeah, I have loved getting to see you at Spark Media conferences through the years and get to see you in person. You let me use your curling iron at the last conference hotel room.
Alicia Michelle: [00:02:35] Oh my gosh, that was so funny. Yes. I remember that. I definitely remember that. That was funny.
Ashley Opliger: [00:02:26] Yes, and you were just at that point, you were telling me about your book that's actually now coming out in November and we're really excited about that.
Alicia Michelle: [00:02:51] Thank you.
Ashley Opliger: [00:02:51] And that's what we're going to be talking about today. Do you want to share a little bit about the behind the scenes of getting the book deal and what the book is about as we go into this conversation about managing our emotions through grief?
Alicia Michelle: [00:03:03] Sure. Well, I mean, it's a process. If you've never walked through it before, it's a several year process of getting an agent and shopping around the proposal and then getting picked up by a publisher, if God allows that. And then you turn the book in about a year before it actually comes out.
So people have asked me, “Oh, you're done writing it?”
And I said, “Yeah, I was done writing it a year ago.” So it's this whole process of turning it in, and writing it, and editing it, and this whole team that works with you, it's been a really great process for me. But I've just seen how God uses every stage of it to make it better, truly, to make the message better, to make it just go out further for more people. And I've loved this process.
But the book itself is called Emotional Confidence, Three Simple Steps to Manage Emotions with Science and Scripture. It has been birthed from clinical work with coaching clients, women, around emotions, around feeling like they're not enough, things like that.
And I also have my own journey in working through emotions that this first started with, and I just realized as I was walking through my own journey and with clients that there are a lot of us who struggle with emotions, but there's not a lot of tools to do it, especially tools that combine both the science side, knowing our bodies, knowing how our minds work, how God created us, and the Bible together.
We might find one or the other, but I think when we can understand both and use them in conjunction together, it makes such a difference. And so God has allowed me to create this template, I think. Sometimes I think you hear, like, “Oh, a method.” Like, “Oh, it's just fast and easy to solve it.” No, that's not what we're saying here.
We're just saying it's a framework or a method for us to be able to know what to do when we deal with an emotion. And that's what we have written this book about, and that's what the book is structured around.
So my prayer is just that if it is a big loss that someone's going through, like I know a lot of you listening are walking through the loss of a baby, I pray that a book like this would help you grow closer to God through that process, really, truly know how to partner with Him to walk through that.
We all do these up-and-down frustrations of going through life. I pray that you can learn these skills too, to be able to enlist the Lord and bring Him in and not run from what we're feeling, but actually grow closer to Him through it. So yeah, I'm excited that it's coming out into the world and just truly opening my hands to say, “Lord, what are You going to do with this? I'm excited to see.”
Ashley Opliger: [00:05:33] I'm very excited for you, too.
Alicia Michelle: [00:05:35] Yeah, thanks.
Ashley Opliger: [00:05:36] And I'm very honored that we get to have this conversation and apply this framework specifically to grieving a baby, because I encouraged our listeners to go back and listen to your initial episode with us. Episode 12.
Thinking back on that episode, I remember you saying you went through the deepest, darkest depression that you had ever been through after your loss.
And so if you could walk back to that hard time in your life, suffering a miscarriage, and then use what the Lord has walked you through and taught you all these years and coaching other women and walking through these things yourself.
So many of our listeners, and including myself right now, are in a deep season of grief.
And you do feel like you're in this hole that you're not going to get out of, and your emotions are all over the place. And you just feel like this is not going to get better. I don't see how my life is ever going to feel joyous again or feel normal because now my life has been turned upside down.
So will you walk us back to where you were at that point and then start piecing what you've learned to help us see how we can get out of that tunnel?
Alicia Michelle: [00:06:47] Yeah. So for me, we lost our fourth child. We now have five total, but we were in a season where we had three kids and we really wanted a fourth and we just kept trying to get pregnant and for some reason it just was not happening.
And we were like, “Okay, God, what is this about?” And we had waited, I think it was a good year, a year-and-a-half. And finally we found out we were pregnant and we were so excited, just over the moon, telling everybody!
And of course we went in to the doctor and we got that news that no mom wants to hear.
We saw the ultrasound and the pregnancy was not viable. And it was so shocking to me.
It was just, “God, how could You do this? Why would You do this? We're a loving family. We want another child. Why wouldn't You give us another child?” So, I just remember being so upset and shell-shocked from that.
And thankfully, our kids were still pretty young, so they didn't understand too much of what was going on, but they knew that there was supposed to be a baby and now there wasn't going to be a baby. And I walked through a series of depression when I was around 19 or 20, a very serious depression and suicidal issues, but I remember almost instantly going back to that state.
And when I had gone through that depression state before, it was years in the making.
But it was like when that loss of the baby came, it was like instant. It was sudden. I had no idea what to do with what I was feeling. It felt like physical pain, it just was so intense.
And I don't want to go too much into the story, but in that Episode 12, I think I shared of how God eventually allowed me to have a vision of my son with Him, holding him, and how my son had said, “It's okay, Mommy, I'm with Jesus. You can stop grieving. It's okay. I'm safe.”
You know, that's the thing. I don't know if it was I was feeling like I was worried that he didn't feel loved. I don't know what I felt, but I just was like, just knowing that I knew Jesus, obviously He's my Lord. And I knew that He was holding my baby and that my baby was somehow sharing that with me. I mean, we don't all understand how all this works supernaturally, but I could sense that. I just knew that. And that allowed me to begin the process of healing.
So fast forward 14 years now, after walking through lots of different kinds of emotions with women, some grief, some just everyday stuff, every side of it. I think if I was to go back and be in that place again, I know that I would definitely have given myself space to feel what I was feeling.
And honestly, I think that was probably the hardest part of going through that grief, was up to that point, I hadn't really allowed myself to feel my feelings. The very first step in this template or method that we talk about, and it's called ADD, Acknowledge, Discern, and Decide, if you're going through an emotion, the first step is Acknowledge.
And this is the step that I think a lot of us never learned, want to go through, want to deal with, because it is that step where we say, “It makes sense why I'm feeling like this because whatever the feeling is, because this was a child that we wanted, because this was sudden, because this was horrific, because …” I mean, all of the things, that is the stage where we allow the Lord's compassion to reign, where we know we're not judging the feeling.
We're not saying it's bad, wrong, whatever. It's just understandable by a loving God who sees pain and who doesn't like pain either, but who knows pain, who's walked with pain.
And we can feel His presence, and that's the part that we lean into.
The second step of the method is to Discern. And in this step is when we begin to recognize what is true and what's not true about the situation.
And so I think while I was processing and acknowledging the reality of why it made sense, I was feeling like that next step would have been to say, “It's true that this is really, really awful and hard and unexpected. And it's also true that God has not abandoned me in it. It's true that I have a husband to walk through this with me, that I have three other children who are comforting me in my loss.
And it's not true that this pain is going to go on forever. It's not true that God can't heal this pain,” because those were things I was telling myself. “It's not true that I'll never get out of this pit,” even though I felt that.
So just allowing God to give me clarity about what's true and what's not true, that's mainly what that Discern second step is about.
And then the third step would be to Decide. So in light of what I'm feeling and in light of what God has revealed as Truth, what is my next step? What do I want to, what does God calling me to do with this?
And in that case, and especially in cases of grief, it's not like there is this, “Well, then I'm just going to pick up my bootstraps and keep going because God is good.” That is certainly not what I would have told myself or recommended or even to anyone listening, that's certainly not this process.
Because as we know, grief is this up and down and in and out and not a two-second thing. But in that part, we can begin to see: What is the next step for this moment? What is the thing that God wants me to do right now? That's it. I don't have to know how it's going to work out six months from now, a year from now. Right now, what is God calling me to do?
And I think that would have been for me, God's calling me to say, “Thank You for allowing me to know this child, even though I never got to know him outside of the womb. Thank You for giving me a family who's been supportive through this. And thank You for the assurance that I will get to see that child again someday.”
We also talk about where am I going to emotionally dwell? So where will I choose to say, “This is where I'm going to allow my attention, my perspective in this.” We can choose after we've gone through this to just go right back to feeling all the difficulties and that's normal. We do also have the opportunity to say, “I'm going to choose.”
Like we see David in the Psalms going back to say, “All these things are happening, but I believe that God is good, but I believe that my God will be victorious.” So we get to decide: Where are we going to emotionally dwell?
And for me, I hope to say, “I'm going to choose to dwell in hope that God will heal me physically. He will heal my heart and hopefully He will give us another child if that's His will. But I am going to live in expectation that this will not last forever. This night will not always go on.”
Looking back, if I could have talked to myself and had some tools like that, how I would have wanted to walk through that, I'm sharing all that to say this is how you can apply a method like this.
But of course, every woman's journey is different. Every moment of that journey is going to vary. It's not like this is a quick fix, like we just said, but I feel like having the ability to acknowledge it, to be able to see the Truth in it and to know what to do next, and most importantly, to see God in all of it is really, really helpful and I hope gives people a lot more structure in dealing with the emotions behind it when they're walking through seasons like this.
Ashley Opliger: [00:14:32] I love this, Alicia. I think it's beautiful. And as you were describing the framework and the steps, I just can see how seamless it seems like as you go through this, these are logical steps to follow.
And I'm sure you talk about this in your book, but I can see where women and grieving mothers could get stuck at step 1 and step 2, getting from 1 to 2 and 2 to 3.
Alicia Michelle: [00:14:59] Yes.
Ashley Opliger: [00:14:59] And so I want to address my thoughts on where people might get stuck and then have you speak into the mom who's stuck at 1 and who's stuck at 2.
Alicia Michelle: [00:15:09] Love it.
Ashley Opliger: [00:15:09] Because, I love what you said, because getting to that number three, deciding to dwell on the Truth of God's Word and deciding to focus on the hope and the Truth that we have, that's where we want to end up because that's where healing happens.
But you're right. We do have to walk through 1 and 2 first. It's sequential and it's not perfect where it's like, “Oh, today I'm on this step. And today I'm in this step.” That's not how it works, but in general, you're working through this framework.
So for the first step, acknowledging, I think sometimes it's really hard to give ourselves permission to grieve and to feel the weight of it. Some of that's cultural, that we don't feel like we have that permission from people on the outside, people in our family, our job.
Just the world in general is not overly sympathetic to grieving people. And there's a lot of pressure to move on, to be strong and get over it and act like you're moving forward.
It's pretty amazing to me how quickly people expect you to be back to normal after losing a baby or a parent or anything. And then there's also, I think, even internally acknowledging our own feelings, because a lot of times, at least for me, I feel like I'll feel something and it's almost like there's a deeper emotion attached to it than what's coming out. I'm irritable, but really there's anger, there's bitterness, there's unforgiveness, whatever. So that's some of the things I can see people getting stuck with number 1.
Alicia Michelle: [00:16:38] You hit the nail on the head on exactly why a big, or at least some of the biggest reasons why women or anyone can get stuck in the Acknowledge step. The first thing you shared was that people can be afraid, maybe, to feel their feelings. Or again, it feels culturally like people are moving on.
Honestly, this is one of the biggest issues, I think, for us in the church in terms of even feeling relatable to each other through hard times, and also being able to relate to God.
I think we have put this immense pressure on ourselves to always be joyful, to always have to have the answer, to always have this perfect platitude to step in that says: This is what you're supposed to feel. Just get there. Why don't you just feel this way?
And you and I know in these deep seasons of grief or any kind of emotion we feel, it's not an active choice to not be joyful. It is something we're walking through. We need more than just this little fix-it.
And yet, like you said, the world is impatient and wants us to move on. So I think the greatest gift we can give ourselves and others who are in pain is to give them space, to understand that everyone's going to take a different amount of time and different ways to get through it, and to give people space to acknowledge this might be, for some people, the very first time that they're able to actually acknowledge some of the really big things that they're feeling.
They may have stuffed their feelings their whole life, but this might be this huge, insurmountable wall that it's like, “Oh, I can't just push this down anymore. I need to address it.” So I think we need to give a lot of space to people, especially in the area of grief and managing emotions.
I guess to say that in terms of that, I would make sure that if we're walking through that, to know that it's okay to have bad days. It's okay to not be joyful. It's okay to know that Truth, but still feel like it doesn't feel like I believe it yet because you're still in that stage of processing with the Lord. And He's fine with that. He's sitting there with you in it. It's okay.
So the second thing that you talked about was the iceberg. And that's something we actually talk about in the book. When we are going through an emotion, often it is like an iceberg.
Sometimes in counseling, you'll hear people talk about the emotional iceberg or the anger iceberg, where what that means is if we think of our emotions like an iceberg, that there is this part above the water that's pretty easy to see, but then there's this whole other area under the water that we don't see.
A lot of times the stuff above the water is more easily accessible emotions to identify, like anger, like overwhelm, frustration, things like that. And we have to be able to see those.
But also know that there may be more work underneath. And if we don't, if we just keep working on the top part of the iceberg and not get down to what's underneath, it's not going to ever eventually be resolved.
So we have to, through time, through different work and things like that, we need to be able to move through the whole emotion and recognize that there often is more underneath than those surface-level emotions. It is a big, messy step, Acknowledge, that first step.
Honestly, I think it's the most important step. I think it's the step we skip. I think it's the step that when we see it and, when we feel heard and we feel known for our pain, every part of us opens up to be able to receive from the Lord. I've seen it. I've experienced it myself.
When we try to stuff it down and say, “But this is the Truth. I'm just going to believe it,” and we just block everything out, it's being hidden. It's not being addressed and it's going to come back later.
So as hard as that work can be, I would encourage you to find a friend, find other people who get it with you, whether that's a group, like something like you do, Ashley, with other women, or even online friends who can help you walk through it and acknowledge the part of this that it's not going to be fixed in one second, and it's okay to sit in that grief a little bit.
Ashley Opliger: [00:20:46] Yes. Amen. I think so often, and you said this earlier, just saying it is understandable to be sad after losing a baby and giving yourself both the permission and the grace and understanding that, yes, what you went through was traumatic. What you went through was devastating and heartbreaking, and it's completely understandable to be sad right now. And you don't need anyone rushing you through it and making you feel bad for being sad.
And just like in Ecclesiastes, there's a season for everything. There's a season for laughing and there's a season for weeping and for all of the different emotions.
I think we associate sadness and all of these other emotions as negative. And it's like, as a Christian, “Oh, we can't, we shouldn't be feeling this. So we better figure out how to quickly get to the joy.”
And I've found in my own personal walk with the Lord, first of all, the trials are always where sanctification happens and intimacy with my Savior, but also, I think in these sad emotions, that's where the healing comes, allowing myself to sit with Jesus in my sadness and bring it all to Him. Because He's not surprised by any of it. He actually associates and relates to us in our weakness.
And so when we try to hide it from Him, not only hide it from other people, but hide it from Him, He already knows what we're feeling. And I think the times that I've just been really honest with God, I remember a time when I was at Bridget's grave at night, and I was screaming at Him yelling and crying in the dark in the cemetery, He met me there and there was healing.
And just being honest with Him of, I use this term now, I call it raging at death because that's how I feel about it. It's like, I rage at death because I hate death. I hate what it's caused, the pain that it's caused in my life and in my family's life. And it's actually understandable and okay to rage at death because Jesus hates death so much that He came and sacrificed His own life to defeat death.
And so it is an acceptable emotion to hate death, and there's nothing wrong with having a righteous anger toward it. So I love that you said that. I love that you also acknowledge the church and just this understanding of let's come alongside people who are grieving and are broken-hearted and agree with their pain instead of just try to make it better immediately. Because sometimes we just need someone to sit with us in it and acknowledge, “Yeah, this is really hard and this really sucks.”
Sometimes when people just tell me, like, “Gosh, what you're going through is so hard, I can't even imagine,” that means more to me than just like, “Oh everything happens for a reason. He's in a better place. Bridget's in a better place.”
I know they are in a better place. I believe that with all my heart, but I still miss them. I'm speaking about Bridget and my Dad right now. But anyway, I love everything you shared.
So can you now talk about the getting stuck between 2 and 3? You said we're discerning the Truth, the lies. And so often this is where Satan attacks, because Satan wants us to believe that God's not good. God caused this. God's punishing you. Somehow you deserve this. There's all sorts of lies that Satan uses at this point to turn a grieving mom's heart away from the Lord.
The way I see it is even if in your head you know the Truth, like you said, you listed all these things. “I know this is true. I know this is true. I'm going to see my baby again. God loves me. He's not abandoned me.” You said all of those things. We might know that in our head, but the step 3 is living it out.
And I write in my book, which is coming out next year, so I totally get the whole year process because it is a long process, but I have a whole section in my book about the difference between your head and your heart and how there can be such a disconnect, even though they're like, I think it's like 12 to 18 inches away, your head and your heart.
Alicia Michelle: [00:24:42] Yeah. Yeah.
Ashley Opliger: [00:24:43] How do you help someone go from knowing the Truth, someone who knows Scripture, believes Jesus is with her and God is going to redeem her pain and she's going to see her baby again, but then deciding to live in a place of hope and Truth, that's hard.
Alicia Michelle: [00:25:00] Absolutely.
Ashley Opliger: [00:25:00] And I'm living that right now, because I preach this all the time, but yet there's days that I feel so hopeless because I am so sad and it's hard to feel what I know in my head to be true.
Alicia Michelle: [00:25:12] Okay, a couple of things. First, going back to that first step of Acknowledge and why that is such an important step that even leads into the third step eventually, in order for us to obey and do what God wants us to do, which eventually is that third step of Decide or even to see Truth, we have to at least obey with the right heart, again, we have to know that God sees us in our pain. Otherwise it's just an obedience out of obligation or just a, “Well, I'm supposed to.” And that makes it a lot harder to live in hope.
So sometimes I think, again, if people are feeling that hesitation about obedience or like, “What do I have to do?” It's like, do you know that God sees you in this, that it's okay, that He knows what you're feeling and He's on your side?
Like Hagar said, “You are the God who sees me.” You know?
Ashley Opliger: [00:26:04] He’s not against you.
Alicia Michelle: [00:26:05] Yeah. He's not against you. And so I wanted to share that.
Ashley Opliger: [00:26:10] We hope you are enjoying this episode so far. We want to take a quick break to tell you about some resources our ministry provides to grieving moms.
On our website, bridgetscradles.com, you can find hope-filled resources on grieving and healing including memorial ideas, quotes & Scripture, featured stories, and recommended books and other organizations. We share ideas on how to navigate difficult days such as due dates, Heaven Days, and holidays.
In addition, every month I lead Christ-centered support groups for bereaved moms called Hope Gatherings, both in-person and online. You can find a list of upcoming dates and sign up for our next support group on our website.
Lastly, we would love for you to connect with us on Facebook and Instagram. You can find us on these three pages: @bridgetscradles, @cradledinhope, and my personal page @ashleyopliger. You can also join our private Cradled in Hope Facebook group for grieving moms to find community. We would be honored to hear your baby’s story and be praying for you by name. Now let’s get back to our episode.
Alicia Michelle: [00:27:20] Going through this process of reconciling all of those things, there is a point in that third step where we have felt all that we're feeling, and we see the Truth, and with God's help, figure out, “What are we going to do with that?”
And that's why in that third step, the courage, we ask God for courage. The first step, we ask for compassion; second, we ask for clarity; in the third for courage, because we have to make a decision about: Are we going to let the emotion and the difficulty continue to override, maybe, what Truth is? And that's not maybe a decision, especially in the deep valley of grief that we can make in a second. I'm not saying that.
We're never going to feel all of the feelings all the time about feeling hopeful. And I don't think that's what you're talking about, but there has to be this trust in God.
There has to be a trust that He's got us, that He loves us, so that we can take that step to surrender whatever it is, surrender the absolute horrificness of what we're walking through, surrender the what-ifs or the misunderstandings or why.
And it's hard to do that if that trust has been shaken, maybe, in other areas. Maybe there's been years of things that you've, just these little tiny questions that haven't been answered about God.
I just think that that's the stage where in the book, I talk about having this foundation of trust with God, and we have these little cracks in that foundation. And this is the stage where if those cracks have not been filled in, it's really hard to move forward.
So it's a reconciling between, do I want to move forward in this? And some days it might be easier to do that than others. And we may not be ready in a two-second thing to get to that place, especially talking about grief.
But it's a point of deeper connection with God and asking Him if there are things that are keeping us from being able to do that.
And again, at the same time, again, we live in these fallen bodies who have feelings and our chemistry of our body changes all the time. So we may not be in a place and we're not saying we're ever going to be in a place where it's just, “Well, now everything is perfect and I'm walking into the sunset,” but we can have a focus for where we want to go.
We've all known that verse in Philippians 4 that talks about fixing our thoughts on what's true and right and holy and pure and lovely. That part is a part that is often told to people who are going through something hard. “Well, just fix your thoughts, change your thoughts.”
And it's like, yes, but you don't want to forget those first two verses that talk about how we are to come to Him and share what we're frustrated about, to thank Him for where He's at, and to see His Truth before we go into that part of fixing our thoughts on what's right and true and holy and pure.
So it's kind of a complicated but deeply intimate step with God, of getting to that place of working through it. And like you said, there's a difference in doing that, a feeling that we have in a second, like a frustration in a day, versus a long journey in a valley like you're walking through right now in grief or some of the ladies listening are walking through in grief. So I don't want to minimize that, is what I'm saying of just, “Decide this.” It’s a wrestling.
Ashley Opliger: [00:30:41] It’s much harder in real life than it is on paper because I have something in my book, it's a little chart and it basically says in real life, a lot of times our circumstances dictate our feelings and then our feelings dictate our thoughts and then our thoughts dictate what we believe about God.
And so I have the reverse also in my book of how it should be like the Truth of God should dictate our thoughts, which should dictate our feelings, which should dictate how we view our circumstances, instead of our circumstances being how we view God. You know?
Alicia Michelle: [00:27:20] Yes. Yes, that’s so true.
Ashley Opliger: [00:31:15] View our circumstances instead of the Truth of God's Word helping us see our circumstances differently. On paper, it's like, “Oh, that makes perfect sense.” Right? We should be viewing our circumstances through the lens of God's Word.
But in reality, it's so easy for our circumstances to skew how we see God.
And to your point with the cracks in the foundation, a lot of times it's through these trials, grief, loss, losing a baby, it's so life-shattering that all of a sudden you're like, “Whoa, there are these cracks.”
And sometimes they're little cracks, but sometimes they're big cracks. Like, “Wait, do I believe God is sovereign? Is this part of His will? Is this how He chose to number my baby's days? Why would He do that?” Those are hard questions to ask.
And sometimes they're like, “Whoa, this feels like a huge crack in the foundation.” And then for me, I start spiraling, like, “Whoa, do I trust God?” And I'm like, “I’m a firm follower of Jesus. I'll follow Him anywhere. I'll talk to anyone about Jesus,” but all of a sudden now I'm questioning His sovereignty.
And I say all this to just give grace to people who are listening because I myself am going through this. And sometimes they feel like, “Whoa, this seems like a big crack in the foundation if I'm questioning His sovereignty.”
But really, sometimes I think we have to go through those loops in our head. I call them theological loops because you can be like, “Okay, well, if God allowed this, then this,” and it leads to all of these questions.
And I think it's okay to have those questions. That's a wrestling with the Lord. It's not a turning away from Him. It's just like, “Okay, I need to actually address these questions because,” and I talk about this a lot on our podcast, these errors in our theology that it exposes. Because ultimately for me what it exposed was that I felt like as long as God was blessing me, that He was good, but if He doesn't bless me and things go wrong, that He must not be good.
But that's not Scripturally accurate whatsoever. And that was a flaw in my understanding of the Word or interpretation of it. And not that I read that and interpreted it that way, but just over the course of growing up, we have the prosperity gospel in our churches and we're really taught, “Oh, if you believe in God, He'll bless you.”
And in fact, in the episode that you and I had last time, you and I talked about the American dream versus the Kingdom dream in all of these things. And so I think those things are more ingrained in our thinking and our faith than we realize. And we have to peel back the layers and be like, “Whoa, I'm believing some things that are not true about God.”
And it’s through the trials that you realize, “I need to have an accurate view of God through His Word and not through these other theologies that have come into my life.”
Alicia Michelle: [00:34:05] Right. No, I agree. And I think if you and I or any of us were to look at different places in Scripture, there is a lot of space for questioning, for asking why. Psalms is filled with that, as a great example there.
But there's a lot of people who just were willing to be honest about what they're feeling.
And I think when we are asking those questions, like you said, even questioning God's sovereignty, you are questioning those things within a context of wanting to figure it out and grow closer to God.
There's a difference of questioning and growing deeper, turning into the questions versus throwing the questions out there and blocking it with a wall.
Ashley Opliger: [00:34:50] Or deconstructing or something like that. Yeah.
Alicia Michelle: [00:34:50] Yeah. Because that's a, “I'm going to put this facade up. I don't want to deal with this. I'm too mad to deal with this right now.” And granted, there are moments when we absolutely might feel like that and that might be part of our story.
But I'm saying that when we can lean into it and start to take the wall down a little bit and lean into it, that's a different sort of questioning and that's the kind of questioning that God can work with. God can help us through that because there's not that wall of resistance up.
I came to the Lord through questioning. I didn't grow up as a Christian and as a 19-year-old I came to the Lord through asking, “But what about this? But what about that?” And He was faithful to help me understand and send people into my life who could help me understand through the Bible, how to work through some of those things.
So I'm a firm believer in if you have questions, our God is big enough and it is all about our perspective in asking the questions.
Ashley Opliger: [00:35:46] Yes, absolutely. And He has grace for us in our humanness and asking questions. I mean, just look at Jesus and Thomas. He needed to put his hands in the nail holes in Jesus’ hands and in His side to believe that it was the resurrected Jesus.
And He has grace for us and our questions.
And something I'm really having to focus on now in my own walk is leaving room for mystery with God, because I think so often I want to figure God out completely.
Alicia Michelle: [00:35:45] Yes, oh my gosh.
Ashley Opliger: [00:35:46] And I just want to have all the theological answers and all the biblical clarity.
I am a theological nerd to the Nth degree and I want answers for everything. At the end of the day, I have to realize that I'm a human. His ways are higher than mine. I am not God.
And there needs to be room for mystery and there's going to be things that I don't understand until I'm in Heaven with Him.
And there's been an aspect for me of just leaning on the faith, which faith, what does the Bible say faith is? It's believing in what we cannot see or understand.
And I think some of my questions about Bridget's life and my Dad's death, it's like, I may not fully understand these things until I get to Heaven. And I need to rest in the fact that God has a good plan and will reveal these things to me in His time and His way. And in the meantime, I can rest in His faithfulness and His goodness and know that He is good.
And He is going to reveal these things. And a lot of it sometimes might not be on this earth.
And that's hard because we want to figure it out. We want to know why these things happen. We want to know what's going to come of it and all of these things, but just to rest in the truth of the Resurrection is coming, and Heaven is going to be eternity.
Something that I was talking about the other day with my pastor's wife, we were talking about the verse on light and momentary and how these things that we're walking through, losing a baby, it does not feel light and momentary at all.
Alicia Michelle: [00:37:50] No, it doesn't. No.
Ashley Opliger: [00:37:50] But when you look at it through the lens of eternity, we're talking like after 10,000 years, there's another 10,000 years and another 10,000 years.
And at some point there's going to be a million years that have gone by and you haven't cried a single tear.
Alicia Michelle: [00:38:05] It’s amazing.
Ashley Opliger: [00:38:05] At that point, can't we say that it was light and momentary?
Alicia Michelle: [00:38:08] Absolutely. Yeah.
Ashley Opliger: [00:38:08] Because it's been millions of years since we've cried since we've known what the pain of death was?
And so we've just been texting each other: Light and momentary. Light and momentary.
Alicia Michelle: [00:38:20] Oh, I love it.
Ashley Opliger: [00:38:08] Think about that. You know?
Alicia Michelle: [00:38:22] That's a great word. That is a great word, looking at things in light of eternity in that perspective. I think something else that's underrated that God has had to teach me a lot about in the last few years is the mystery of God.
We want answers. We want to know all the details. But, I'm sure you've experienced this too, the longer you walk with the Lord, He just does so many incredible things. Just, you had no idea that was coming. You had no idea things would work out like that.
And He just surprises me all the time with things that are going on behind the scenes that in my humanness, I wish I could know every detail. But I've learned to rest in a God who is this loving God who loves to take care of His children and surprise them with good things down the road.
I think when we can start to notice that pattern of who He is, and we can rest in that a little bit, it kind of eases some of the pain of the why questions and the when will it end kind of stuff.
Just knowing His character, this is who He is too. He's a God of mystery and He loves to surprise His children with gifts, and beginning to look for those gifts, beginning to see them every day.
“How did that … Wow! I'm just blown away by You, God.” I think that's where the joy is. I think that's where we can rest in joy in the hard times. Because it's not necessarily like joy that's happening right now, but it's just, “Man, there is this God who is so much bigger and so much greater and who cares about me. And look what He has done! Look what He is doing and I don't even know about it.” You know?
Ashley Opliger: [00:39:55] Yeah. And I think some of it's our perspective too, is if we look for God and we look for good, we'll see it more than if we are only choosing to look for negative things or sadness. I think some of it's just how we reframe things.
I love that you've shared about His character, because I think we do just have to rest in His character and knowing He does love us. He's on our side. He rages at death with us.
And if you just go back to the Gospels, to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and you just study the life of Jesus and you see how He interacted with His disciples, with people around Him, when I watch how He responded with Lazarus and with Mary and Martha after his death, it makes it easier to understand how He is responding to us in our own grief.
Because so often I think we just assume He's this far-off God who doesn't care, who left us, abandoned us.
I don't know where we get these thoughts because this is just so not Jesus whatsoever, but I think it's the enemy wanting us to feel so terribly alone and feel as though we're the only ones that know this pain, and that God has left us and He doesn't care. But it's just so far from the truth.
And I think it's so important to rest in His character and to read the Word, to know who He is and what Jesus' life was like on this earth and how He interacted with everyday humans and the emotions that they faced. And Jesus Himself had these emotions and wept at death, even though He knew He was going to raise Lazarus from the dead.
Our emotions can really, like you said, take the wheel and lead us in a direction. And I think Satan wants to use our emotions against us. And I think the Acknowledgement thing that you mentioned is also good in these circumstances, because sometimes for me, it's just acknowledging, “Whoa, this emotion is leading me in this direction and I really need to be praying or to be focusing on God, reading my Word because I can see how Satan's wanting me to go in a different direction.”
I know I have the tendency to lean on food or scrolling on my phone or something to make myself feel better when I'm sad, and acknowledging, “Wait, I'm trying to cope with something other than Jesus right now.” and trying to get back to, “What emotion am I feeling? And how can I bring that to the Lord?”
So will you close us with some advice on how we partner with God to manage our emotions well?
Alicia Michelle: [00:42:29] Absolutely. As you were talking, I was thinking about how God's Truth and His character and His plans for us are unchanging. They cannot change.
Emotions, the enemy, those can come in and tell us a different story.
And the enemy can't take us out of God's plan. He can't change God's character. He can't change that. He can't. He can't change the fact that God loves us and will never stop loving us. But what he can do is convince us that we're alone, convince us that this has no purpose, that God is far away. He can convince us of all of those things.
And so God gifted us with a brain and a physical body, but He also gifted us with a mind.
And so if we can think of our body and our brain as it's normal to feel alone, it's normal to feel like, “Why did this happen?”
But we also have a mind and that mind is also united with the mind of Christ that can come and say, “Yes, it's understandable you're feeling like this, but let me not let those emotions and what the enemy may want to do in this situation lead you away from the reality of what God is. Let's recenter you back on what the Truth is.”
So we have that power. And I think a lot of us forget that we don't have to believe everything that's in our head. We don't have to follow every feeling and that's it. We have the authority of God to figure out the difference between those things, to see them, but to figure out the difference and to ask for His help, that He wants to partner with us in it.
He's not far off. This is an opportunity for us to see God in our lives every single day through our emotions, every single moment. This is a chance. What if this is an opportunity for us to see God in a very new way or a deeper way, like you said, leaning into that versus running from it?
So the emotions, yeah, it's normal. Being able to discern and have that authority to know that we can still stand on God's Truth through all of it, I think, really is empowering through it and that He loves us through it. Even if we don't perfectly believe every single moment, He's got that grace that's filling in the gaps for those areas.
Another thing that's really important to remember, two more things I want to say before we close, is that before we process an emotion, we have to understand that when we are in an emotional state, our logical brain is not online.
So we can help our bodies and our minds get back into a place where we can process logically using something like ADD by doing something that I call emotional prep. And that is using different ways or methods to turn on this part of our body known as the parasympathetic nervous system.
That is the part that is the rest-and digest. It's our normal default state. But when we are in an emotional state, we're in the sympathetic, which is the fight-or-flight. We are being reactionary versus wanting to process from a logical standpoint. So things that can get us into the parasympathetic nervous system would be different things based on what we are feeling.
Sometimes one of the best things we can do is to figure out: Am I needing to get this energy out of me, the emotional energy out of me? Or do I need to go inward and really keep it inside of me and receive that comfort from the Lord?
Ashley, you and I had talked about the difference between those things and how do we know the difference?
When we feel like all that energy in us, walking or exercising or expending it, is that what would bring relief? We can start to begin to notice that difference in us versus do I just need to have a warm hug? Do I need to have a blanket around me and a candle and be with my journal?
That has been super helpful too in processing the emotions, is just being able to determine the difference between the two, because sometimes we just need to get it out and sometimes we need to comfort it and work through it internally. Have you seen that to be true for you, that difference?
Ashley Opliger: [00:46:39] Yeah, absolutely. There are definitely times for me that I need to verbally process it and get it out with a friend, just talking about something.
But then there's other times where it feels like it needs to be more private, and I need to think about it before I talk about it. And I have this thing that I call my walk and talks, and it's a walk and talk with Jesus, and it's basically just an hour walk where I just go and think and pray.
And something about being out in God's Creation and nature, and a lot of times, like if something during the day really bothered me, or there's this emotional energy built up where it's like throughout the day, it's like, “Oh my goodness!” Like, I just feel like I need to cry or think about this, going on a walk has been really helpful for me.
I think there's something about, like I said, being in God's Creation, moving my body, having the mental space to just think where I'm not having to do something or take care of someone, or it's just me and God and a sidewalk. And I think that's been really helpful for me.
But then there's other times where it's more inward, where I just need to pray or read my Bible or talk to someone, close, trusted friend. And so I think each person listening, you're going to have the things that are healthy ways of coping that are going to be your outlets. And each person is going to be a little bit different.
But I think it comes back to the acknowledging and reflecting on, like, “Okay, what is it that I need?” Alicia and I had that conversation the other day about how neither of us are about the self-help gospel, or that self-care is going to be what heals you. It's going to be the Lord.
But there are things that we can do as good stewards of our brains and our bodies to help Him heal us. For me, walking is one of those things. It's not that I would say, “Oh, walking is what it's going to take to heal you.” No, Jesus is going to be the One to heal you. But if it is a matter of moving your body and giving yourself time and space to talk to Him, then that can be healing.
And so that's something that's helpful for me. It may not be for everybody, but I like how you talk about that in terms of really thinking and reflecting. Do I need to turn inward? Do I need some time to think and pray and have a bath or a massage or a time with my journal and my Bible? Or is it maybe I need to walk? Maybe I need to go to a workout class or kickboxing or play an instrument or whatever it is that is your thing, that might be helpful too.
Alicia Michelle: [00:49:08] I just wanted to say that in terms of like you're saying about the self-care gospel idea, it's almost like if you had a heart condition and your doctor said, “Okay, you might want to change your diet. You might want to exercise more, not drink alcohol,” whatever the recommendations he gives.
And you're like, “I don't need to do that. God can just make me better.” You know? Okay.
God could make you better, absolutely. God could heal you. If He's shown you that you can help your body get better by making some different choices, then why wouldn't you do that?
And that's what I feel like things like emotional prep are. God can change your emotions in a second. He can do anything. Right? But why not get our body and our body chemistry in a place where we can better receive and process His Truth? I think that's part of being a good steward of ourselves and our minds.
Ashley Opliger: [00:50:02] That was beautifully said. I 100 percent agree with you. There's nothing about any of these other ways to heal that are in and of themselves can heal our hearts.
Alicia Michelle: [00:50:11] Amen. Yeah.
Ashley Opliger: [00:50:11] But to your point, God can use other things and ultimately it's going to be the work that He does in our heart and our spirit. But the food that we eat, the way that we move our bodies, the way we spend our time, are we getting enough sleep?
That's another thing is when you're grieving and going through this, it's hard to fall asleep. It's hard to stay asleep. I've been struggling with that the last couple months. And that takes a toll on your mental and your physical state and ability to heal. And so prioritizing sleep, prioritizing getting protein and good nutrition in your body, because if you're running on not enough food or too much junk food, that's also not a way to have the Lord heal our bodies.
Because like you said, when we're in a healthy place mentally and physically, it's easier to receive that spiritual healing. And it’s not to say that, like you said, you can't do it. And so this conversation is not to shame anyone who's struggling with being able to get out of bed and go on a walk or to eat healthy foods. Trust me. I understand how hard it is.
Before his death, I was working out and lifting multiple times a week. I was walking, I was taking my vitamins every day, all of these things. And then all of a sudden, my world got shifted and all of these good habits fell by the wayside. And I'm slowly working them back in.
But there's grace for you and even in that. And I had to do that for myself, I had to say, “Okay. I need to acknowledge that what I'm going through is really hard. And you know what? It's okay that I skipped my vitamins for a couple months because I'll get back to it. But right now I'm in survival mode.”
And I know that feels a little all over the place, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that the Lord's going to meet you where you're at. And there's grace for you wherever you are. And each little step that you take in a healthy direction is good.
For me, I’m now like, “Can I just work out once a week and just kind of get that going again? And then I'll slowly work back to where I was.” And to me, that's progress. And I'm like, “I'm proud of myself for doing that.”
Alicia Michelle: [00:52:13] Absolutely.
Ashley Opliger: [00:52:13] But it's all a journey with the Lord and every person's going to be on their own journey and He's going to meet you where you're at.
Alicia Michelle: [00:52:21] Amen. Absolutely.
Ashley Opliger: [00:50:23] Well, Alicia, I have just loved getting to talk about your new book and just your own testimony, living out the message that you wrote about. Will you share how our listeners can get connected with you, where they can find your book and all of those things?
Alicia Michelle: [00:52:39] Thank you. Yeah, so you can connect with me at my site. It's aliciamichelle.com and that's A-L-I-C-I-A-M-I-C-H-E-L-L-E dot com. And you'll find all kinds of free resources there, free trainings. You can learn more about the book there too, of course, and you can get the book anywhere books are sold. Amazon is obviously an easy place to get it, but it's called Emotional Confidence, Three Simple Steps to Manage Emotions with Science and Scripture.
And if you want to just have a conversation with me or reach out, I'm on Instagram. That's probably the best way to get a hold of me. So it's @aliciamichellecoach on Instagram.
And any of those ways I would love to connect with any of you guys listening further about this topic.
Ashley Opliger: [00:53:20] That's perfect. And you have a podcast, do you want to share about that?
Alicia Michelle: [00:53:23] I do! Yeah, sorry. I have a podcast. Forget about that, no. I have a podcast called The Christian Mindset Coach. And we talk about all things related to emotions. Right now, I'm in the middle of a long series on emotions in light of the book.
And we talk about all kinds of stuff related to mindset.
But yeah, you can get a sense of what the topics are on the podcast from what we talked about today. There's a little bit of science brought in there, but a whole lot of Jesus and Scripture and how we can work through some of the things we feel and experience.
Ashley Opliger: [00:53:51] I love that. Well, thank you so much for sharing.
Alicia Michelle: [00:53:54] Thank you.
Ashley Opliger: [00:53:51] And I hope that everyone listening can go check out her website, her podcast, and her new book that releases here soon. We'll be sharing about it in our show notes and on our website. So you can also find the links on our website for this podcast episode. So Alicia, would you mind closing us in prayer?
Alicia Michelle: [00:54:15] Absolutely.
Father, thank You so much that You're a God who is near to the brokenhearted and a God who wants to walk with us in suffering. You're not a God who turns away from suffering and hard times. You are a God who leans in and cares about the pain that we experience, physical pain or emotional pain, and Lord, that You use it, You transform it.
Even if we don't feel it in the moment or we don't see it right away, we know that You are taking our pain, and in that mystery of God part that we talked about, somehow You surprise us with these beautiful transformations from beauty to ashes, the difficult times that we walk through.
I pray for every woman and man listening that they would know You, that side of You, they could see You in the pain that they're feeling, in the valley that they're walking through.
I pray that they would know Your comfort, they would know how loved they are, and that even in their emotions that feel out of control, they can maybe take some of the things we've talked about today and even just one idea and begin to apply it so that they can grow closer to You through this.
I thank You, God, that You work in ways that are beyond our understanding, that are much bigger than anything we can think about, and that You take all this and You use it for our good and for Your glory. So that's what we're asking for, Lord, in all of our lives, is we want You to be glorified. We want Your Name to be lifted high, and we want our lives to radiate Your light.
So, we ask that You would bring that through all of our experiences today, Jesus. We love You. Amen.
Ashley Opliger: [00:55:46] Amen. Thank you so much, Alicia. Amen.
Alicia Michelle: [00:55:48] You're welcome. Thank you.
Ashley Opliger: [00:55:52] Thank you for listening to the Cradled in Hope Podcast. We pray that you found hope & healing in today’s episode.
Don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss new episodes when they release on the 1st of every month. You can also find this episode’s show notes and a full transcript on our website at bridgetscradles.com/podcast.
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If you’re interested in volunteering or donating to Bridget’s Cradles in memory of a baby in Heaven, you can find information on our website on how you can get involved and spread hope to other grieving families.
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Thank you so much for listening and sharing. Until next time, we will be praying for you. And remember, as Jesus cradles our babies in Heaven, He cradles us in hope. Though we may grieve, we do not grieve without hope. Thank you so much for listening.
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