The Emotional Cup (and how to empty it).

Many of you have heard Bill and Susan Miller describe the Emotional Cup, and I’m going to give you a really brief refresher on it here, then show you how you can help your spouse empty theirs, when it’s filled to the brim with the harder, negative things that life continues to pour into it.

Imagine if you were to pour all your emotions – good and bad – into a cup, jug or bottle.  Once there, those emotions would tend to settle into layers – the pleasant layers drifting easily to the top of the bottle, like fine powdery silt stirred in a creek bed.  We all like to keep pleasant emotional memories near the top so we can marinate our souls in the happy things of life.  That’s because each of us always tries to move from pain to pleasure.  The heavy emotions, fall to the dark bottom where they can bubble, ferment, and foam, building pressure until they boil, rising through those pleasant emotions and push to get out.  Then picture your bottle with a cork, that holds those negative emotions in check.   Or does it?
That cork represents our defensive reactions to ‘situations’ that allow us to hide our emotions from others and “bottle” them up.   Things like pain, anger, hurt, and fear sit there, and too often bubble like soda in acid, until they begin to leak out in our body language, tone of voice, quick tears, sarcasm, anxieties, avoidance, foot dragging, complaining, forgetting, defensiveness, criticism, stonewalling and contempt.¹

Bill and Susan tell us that the Emotional Cup is filled throughout our lives from before birth into adult life, and that we can choose to deal with the older emotional pain in one of five ways.  We can, Turn it Inward on ourselves, we can Project it Onto Others, we can Medicate the Pain with Addictions, we can Deny it by Codependency, OR we can Heal it Through Healthy Mourning It.  We do the latter by leaning into our pain, looking to God for His truth about our pain, and forgiving the offender and ourselves.

Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?”   Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven. Mat 18:21-22

Christian PAIRS (Practical Applications of Intimate Relationship Skills) is a program that has it’s roots in a 30 year proven program that helps married couples bond and connect.  PAIRS training adds to the concept of an Emotional Cup, and deals with the ongoing filling that life brings into it; showing couples how they can help each other empty the jug.

It’s important to recognize that busy people with rushed lives are going to have negative things that flow into the cup.  Jesus, Paul, Peter and James each tell us that trials and tribulations will be in our lives, and to not be ground down by them, or even surprised by them.  (See Matthew, 10 & 24,  Romans 8, 1 Peter 2, 3, & 4, and James 1)

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 1Pe 4:12

Unless those individuals with cups being filled (and that’s all of us) are regularly given the opportunity to deal with and resolve their negative feelings, their marriages will soon be dealing with fully pressurized bottles.   Those bottles will then leak and/or pop, which easily leads to a relationship that may begin and sustain endless power struggles.   Those power struggles are our sin-rooted attempts to move from the pain we’re feeling, to something more known.  Pain always Pursues Pleasure – always seeks to take us to pleasant places, but since we can’t easily get there, we often settle for someplace less painful than where we are, and go for a known pain – a more comfortable pain – rather than the unknown one we’re in at the moment.

Dr. Richard Marks, Director of Christian PAIRS tells us that when we’re filled with pain, fear and anger, there is no room left in our soul to feel love; and when our bottle is filled to the brim with negative emotions, we’re going to be either emotionally flat lined, or leaking those emotions.   Either way our spouse will not feel love and openness being around us.

Dr. Marks calls holding resentments Gunnysacking – and he reminds us that at just the moment when we feel we’re losing a fight, we’ll often drag all that ugliness up and out and spew it like poison – unless we provide a safe environment for the regular discharging of those things.

Christian Pairs teaches several ways that couples can bond and connect, instead of disconnecting and distancing themselves from one another.  Emptying the Emotion Jug is one that allows us to safely share our feelings with our spouse, without requiring or expecting a response other than perhaps some empathy and validation.

The two of you are to sit facing one another holding hands – and the one who is feeling the pressure against their ‘cork’ is to hear four questions from the other partner. Do not rush it, it may take 10 minutes, or 2 hours – let God lead it, and let the burdens be surrendered to His loving hands. The questioning partner is not there to respond, they are there just to ask the questions and LISTEN.  Acceptable responses are hugs, squeezing hands, words such as “I can see how that hurt you”, but at no time, even if it’s about them, are they to defend, deny or criticize the feelings expressed.  To pick up on a recent commercial “What’s said in Vegas, stays in Vegas” – what’s said while emptying the cup, is NEVER to be used against the one emptying their cup.  The questioner is to provide a safe environment for the teller to get their feelings out.  Quiet prayer together afterwards is a great way to wrap up this time.

Question one:  What are you Mad about ?
What else are you mad about ?   (Repeat question until there are no more things to share)
Then:  If you were mad about anything else, what would it be ?

Question two:   What are you Sad about ?
What else are you sad about? (Repeat question until there are no more things to share)
Then:  If were sad about anything else, what would it be?

Question three:   What are you Scared about?
What else are you scared about? (Repeat question until there are no more things to share)
Then:  If were going to be scared about anything else, what would it be?

Question four:   What are you Glad about ?
What else are you glad about? (Repeat question until there are no more things to share)
Then:  If were glad about anything else, what would it be?

It may read here as an awkward exercise, but it works, and will help you bond and connect as you trust the Holy Spirit to break you and heal you and bring you both to the same page and place.