Sinking Feelings

Anita Delene Manthe
Aug 21, 2017
3 min read

We become overwhelmed and experience sinking feelings when strongly affected by a situation and are left, in that moment, believing we do not know how to respond. We believe we do not have the strength of character, the means, nor the wisdom, to respond in any other way –we allow our emotions to control us – and we feel our countenance lowering. Without a disciplined and determined mindset – yours will fall, mine will fall.

A momentary difficulty will, and does, reveal your deep thoughts, what you truly believe about a situation. It will reveal whom you see yourself to be, and who the most important person is to you. Your real value will be exposed. What is it?

A momentary difficulty can confuse your thoughts. Rather than respond with hope, we are engulfed, blinded, and beat by circumstances and events.

The threatening sinking feeling will weigh you down and when left unchecked, we fall deeper and deeper into a confused state. When this occurs, we’ve been overpowered. We’re beat – leaving us crushed, and believing we’re not able to do anything with the cares, and concerns we face and that now threaten to overthrow us.

How did we end up with sinking feelings becoming the weight controlling our lives?

Instead of an established, intentional and disciplined mindset to direct us to look for hope,
we wrapped ourselves in our negative feelings.
A moment of fear is not confronted with truth.
Rather, in a sinking feeling moment acceptance rather than confrontation of thoughts became believable and normal.
We stifle our thoughts, covering them and burying them.
Then, they get buried deeper and deeper. This is where we find darkness.
Rather than pursue hope, and cultivate different thinking we submerge ourselves in indifference and despair. Our deep dark journey has begun.

Where are you, which path did you take? Darkness or hope? Did you confront your sinking emotions with truth, or did you in the moment consider your response as normal and okay? Did you justify your weakness because of societal acceptance as to what is good and right? Are you ready to sink, still further, allowing difficulties to confuse and conquer you? Are you so caught in your struggle, unable to consider truth and realities found in hope?

How easy it is to reach this point.

Recognizing you are on the way down or already in a pit – one of growing despair – is a good place to be. It is! An honest examination and identification of your heart state is a good place. It affords a moment to see what caused and triggered your negative state, and to put into place all the necessary blocks and defenses to not allow this to occur again.

What roadblocks do you have in place to guard your heart, mind, and soul?

Have you engineered a road, built it for safe journeying?

When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, Thou knewest my path. In the way wherein I walk have they hidden a snare for me (Psalm 142:3).
From the end of the earth I call to you when my heart is faint. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I (Psalm 61:2).
For the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish (Psalm 1:6).
Narrow is the gate, and difficult the way that leads away to life, and few are the ones who find it (Matthew 7:14).