Central Lutheran Church - Elk River
Weekly sermons from our Central Lutheran Church preaching team plus quick reflections from Pastor Ryan Braley.
Real talk, ancient wisdom, and honest questions — all designed to help you learn, grow, and find encouragement when you need it most.
At Central, our mission is simple: FOLLOW Jesus together, be a community where you BELONG, and LOVE our neighbors across the street and around the world.
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Central Lutheran Church - Elk River
You Mad Bro? The Iceberg of Human Emotions {Reflections}
Ever wonder why you sometimes act completely out of character? Those moments when you snap at a coworker or make an impulsive decision that leaves you thinking, "That wasn't like me at all"? This episode dives deep into the hidden emotional forces that drive our behaviors without our awareness.
Starting with the famous Richard Sherman "You mad, bro?" meme, I share my personal journey of emotional awareness that began in childhood therapy following my parents' divorce. Armed with nothing but a simplistic understanding that I was either "angry" or "fine," a therapist's deck of emotion cards opened my eyes to the vast spectrum of human feelings—embarrassment, loneliness, joy, disappointment—that I had been unable to identify in myself. This breakthrough not only transformed my self-understanding but later became crucial in navigating my marriage with Katie.
Drawing on Carl Jung's powerful concept of the shadow self—the unconscious part of our psyche that's like the massive portion of an iceberg hidden beneath the water—we explore how our unacknowledged emotions drive behaviors we don't understand. I share a recent experience with my 19-year-old son making a potentially life-altering decision while emotionally vulnerable, introducing the practical HALT method (Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired) for recognizing when emotions might be compromising our judgment. Through personal stories and psychological insights, this episode offers a roadmap for developing greater self-awareness by asking not just "Am I mad?" but "What am I really feeling beneath the surface?"
Ready to develop a deeper understanding of your emotional landscape and make better decisions even when feelings run high? Listen now, and be sure to subscribe for our follow-up episode on maintaining balance despite emotional turbulence.
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What is up everybody? Hey, Ryan here and welcome to our Reflections podcast. Hey, one of my favorite memes that I've ever seen was it's probably old and outdated now, but it was Richard Sherman who was a defensive back for the Seattle Seahawks back in the day and they were playing Tom Brady. I think Richard Sherman was either a rookie or a young defensive back and Tom Brady was this brash, you know he was a winner, he won all the time, had a bunch of Super Bowls and Tom Brady was this brash, you know he's a winner, he won all the time, had a bunch of Super Bowls and one game the Seahawks they were like this up-and-coming defensive juggernaut and they beat Tom Brady and beat him pretty badly. And so Richard Sherman, who was a notorious trash talker, came over to the sideline and sort of yelling at Tom from the sideline and yelling, hey, you mad bro, you mad bro. And if I was tom I'd be like, oh, I wasn't then but I am now, because you know that would get me going to have someone yell at me and uh. But it became this meme of richard sherman just yelling you mad bro, and I love that was so funny, but it reminded me as a kid.
Speaker 0:When I was a kid, my parents got divorced and and I struggled immensely with anger. And in my mind I thought, oh, I'm, I'm either angry or I'm not angry. And uh, so people would ask me, how are you feeling? And I would say things like, oh, I'm fine. And my therapist was like no, I was a little boy. He's like Ryan, fine, isn't a feeling. I'm like well, I'm angry or I'm not angry, I'm just good. He's like well, there's way more emotions and feelings than just well, what else is there? And he gave me this deck of cards. It was like, hey, take these home, lay on the table and have your mom or your sister or whomever ask you how are you feeling? And you have to pick one of these. And it felt a little bit cheeky, but I was a kid, you know, and the emotions were like things like I'm embarrassed, I'm lonely, I'm joyful, I'm sad, I'm angry, I'm disappointed, I'm bored. Oh, there's a whole bunch going on in the human experience, Not just are you mad, yes or no. In fact, the older I got, me and Katie when we first got married, Katie would be like are you mad? Katie would always think that I was mad at her, and there's a whole bunch of reasons for that. But anyway, and I'm like, no, I'm not mad, but I also I'm not mad. I'm also not not mad. I got some other things happening there.
Speaker 0:So we had like learn as a young couple how to talk about how each of us was really feeling beyond just, are you mad or not mad? And it reminded me of Carl Jung had this idea of the unconscious self and the unconscious self versus the conscious self. If you can imagine an iceberg in the water, like, the conscious self is the part of you that you're well aware of, that you know that you have this self-awareness, but in reality it's the part above the water. It's very little of the self that you know about. The unconscious self is the part under the water, like the big chunk of the iceberg that we just don't know about, we aren't aware of, we're not really, it isn't in our purview. He calls it the shadow. Also, you don't know the shadow because it's the shadow. And so there's this part of us that we just don't know about. And so here's how it comes out to play.
Speaker 0:Sometimes you might be somewhere and you all of a sudden behave in this moment. That's a bit erratic and you do something totally out of character whether it's like flipping somebody off in traffic or yelling something out at one of your coworkers and you're like, why did I do that? Like what happened there? Like that was crazy, that wasn't like me. Generally, Carl Jung would say that's the part of you that you're just not aware of. And so that's still you. You had that reaction, you did that thing, but it's because there's this whole bunch going on in you. It's under the water, you aren't aware of it and it influences and impacts your behavior.
Speaker 0:So rather, instead of being like how did that happen, it's better to ask, hey, what part of me thinks that that's true? What part of me thinks that about that coworker? Or feels that while I'm in traffic, what part of me is experiencing? And you begin to kind of understand the unconscious part of yourself in a deeper way. You begin to kind of understand the unconscious part of yourself in a deeper way. But there are all these things going on in our lives that are way more nuanced than just you know black or white. I'm angry or I'm not angry, and we would do well to take a minute to pause and to reflect. Hey, why did I respond like that what was happening in that moment? Like physically, what was happening? How did I feel? What was I thinking? What did it remind me of, what sensations did I have? And to have real conversations to kind of understand the part of ourselves that really impacts our life and our relationships and our you know our own day, and we just don't even know it.
Speaker 0:Okay, so here's another fun way this kind of plays out, because we think I don't know if you're like me we think sometimes we go throughout our day making decisions in a totally rational way, when really there's this underlying, you know, a vast sea of emotions, this whole chunk of the ice under the water that's informing our decisions. We don't even realize it or recognize it and it's making us behave like maniacs sometimes. So, okay, I dropped my son off at school this past weekend, on Sunday, and we got there Sunday night and we were dropping him off and we're leaving and we're praying for him. It's me and my daughter and him and just having this emotional moment. And right then and there he sort of drops to us this sort of major decision he was been thinking about. I'm like it was like out of the blue. He's like, hey, I think and he kind of told me this big decision he's sort of thinking about making and I'm like, dude, I go, hey, I hear you, but like I'm his dad, I'm a bit more you know, further on in life and I've seen this play out a few times Like, hey, buddy, this is very, very worth worthy of thinking about, but right now is not the time.
Speaker 0:I'm guessing some amount of this decision that you want to make is based in the emotions of the moment. You're missing family. You miss your mom, because me and my daughter dropped him off just the three of us, because Katie and the other kids were down in Florida. But anyway, you're missing home and when we got there he's an RA at the school and there's nobody else around. It was like a ghost town. So there was no buzz, no energy, and he loves energy, and so he's like oh man, I'm like listen, a lot of this is just because you're not feeling yourself right now. It's late, You're tired. In fact, I talked to him a lot about sort of the AA, the HALT, H-A-L-T.
Speaker 0:If you're hungry, angry, lonely or tired, know that that directly impacts how you behave and the decisions you make. And sometimes you shouldn't make decisions or you're not gonna make a good one if you're hungry, angry, lonely or tired, and beware like if you're an alcoholic, beware if you're any one of those four things, because you're vulnerable to fall off the wagon and you just shouldn't make decisions in that state. It's just not. It's why you shouldn't go shopping when you're hungry. You might come home with like a loaf of raisin bread that you ate and you're like this is so good, and then you get home and this is garbage. Why did I buy this? But anyway, so I go, buddy, why don't we talk in the morning and we'll pray about it together and we'll think about it and you, you know you can't decide right now. Anyway, let's give it some, a few months. Even he's 19.
Speaker 0:Of course it's what happens, but it happens to all of us and we don't always know it or recognize it. You know what I mean. So, anyway, I would encourage us, today and tomorrow or whenever, when you experience a moment like it's just out of your normal kind of way of being, like what was that? Take a minute, slow down, pause, like what's going on, what part of me really thinks that's true, or what part of me really was offended by that thing, or what's going on deep beneath the surface, or what are the emotions I'm feeling right now? Are you mad, bro? Am I just mad or is it something? Am I angry or am I lonely? Or am I tired, or am I embarrassed, or am I feeling insecure? Am I gloomy or is it raining out? You know what I mean, and there's all kinds of things that we respond to that just may not, we may not even be aware of it. Okay, so there's that. I'll leave you with that.
Speaker 0:I want to do a part two next and talk about what do you do then? How do you make decisions, Even though your emotions might be all over the place, or you might have a day where you're hungry or angry, or it's been raining for five straight days? How do you live in the world in a way that's good and healthy and maintain some balance when, even when your emotions might be all over, or again it might be kind of just a, you know, a gloomy december in minnesota, like I don't know how to get through this day, but okay, yeah, how do you make decisions? How do you live in spite of some of these emotions that want to derail us? So we'll talk about that next time. So all right, love you guys. Peace.
