If emotions were a person, some of us wouldn’t just greet them. We would create rooms for them, cook, and ask about their well-being. We all feel things, but then we all feel things differently. Some deeply, loudly, completely or lightly.
So the question for us becomes: “Is there actually a thing as being too emotional, or are we just a little bit uncomfortable with people who feel deeply?”
In friendship, if you are the “deep feeler” of the circle, you deserve to be celebrated and appreciated every single day. Your emotional depth makes you the unofficial therapist, the consultant, the analyst, and the prayer warrior. It is a beautiful design. You are the go-to person, the ever-present, empathetic, and attentive one.
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Your friends call you and you show up; you are the shoulder everyone leans on. Meanwhile, you haven’t processed your own feelings from three weeks ago. But this is where it becomes too much. You are checking on everyone and no one is checking on you. You are constantly burning out for people who don’t care half as much as you pour into them. At that point, you hit exhaustion and drain out, 3and that’s not emotional depth. That’s emotional depletion.
Your emotional depth makes you the unofficial therapist, the consultant, the analyst, and the prayer warrior. It is a beautiful design.
I once knew someone who stayed in a toxic relationship because she felt like a rehabilitation center where the guy could come and get healing. He was emotionally and mentally unstable. The relationship was nothing to write home about. He would get angry, break things, and even resort to self-harm. Thank goodness she later gained the courage to walk away.
Being emotional in love is breathtaking, it can make your knees buckle. You don’t just like someone a little; you like them loudly. You’re already picking out baby names and wedding colors because you are intentionally invested. You care deeply and pay attention to every detail.
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But the imbalance begins when you indulge them and ignore red flags. You start making excuses for poor behavior. You make yourself small to accommodate their smallness. Let’s be honest, some of us have dated people we should have been praying for, not dating. Love needs emotion, but it also needs sense. Holy Ghost sense, for that matter.
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In decision-making, when emotions decide to play boss and fling reasoning out the window, this is where they must be checked the most. I remember a time in my life when I walked away from one of the best sisters God gave me in form of a friend. Emotions were high and raging. I didn’t want to listen or be calmed. Unfortunately, the damage was done before I got to the truth, and our friendship became forever flawed. That will always remain one of my greatest mistakes.
If emotions drive all your decisions, then you are not really making decisions, you are reacting. You don’t quit your job because of one bad day. You don’t say yes just because you don’t want to offend someone. You don’t end friendships over one misunderstanding. Reactions are temporary, but their consequences can be permanent.
The imbalance happens when your mood chooses your actions, when you cannot separate feelings from facts, and when you regret decisions once your emotions cool off.
Emotional becomes “too emotional” when you abandon reasoning, cannot regulate your reactions, take everything personally, disrespect boundaries, or have none at all, lose yourself in caring for others, and begin carrying everyone’s pain. Come on, you are not Superman on a mission to save the world.
Being emotional is beautiful. It is not a flaw. It is part of your design as a human being. But it becomes too much when emotions control your life instead of informing it. The world truly needs soft people, but not soft people without boundaries.
Regulating our emotions may be one of the best things we can ever do for ourselves.
