A reflection on emotional intelligence, hidden pain, and the grace to notice what the soul has been carrying.
By Michael “Maj” Allen

A Safe Place to Land

Some years ago, life took a very drastic turn.  I found myself in a place where I had to start over — not symbolically, not poetically, but practically. I had to rethink career, community, relationships, calling, and the overall direction of my life. There were big decisions to make, and I did not have the luxury of making them from a place of total clarity.  There was fog everywhere.  But even in the fog, one theme kept rising to the surface.  For as long as I can remember, I have often been a safe place to land for other people.  Not because I have all the answers.  Not because I am trying to become anybody’s guru.  And definitely not because my own life is free from confusion.  It is something simpler than that.  I listen.

I remember people’s timelines. I pay attention to details they forget they have shared. I often hear the story beneath the story. I can sense when someone is talking about one thing while carrying something much deeper.  And, by the grace of God, I seem to have an intuition about what the challenge may be trying to teach the person who is sharing it.  Not the surface lesson.  The deeper one.  The soul lesson.  Over time, I realize this has been a consistent thread in my life.

People need a place where they can put down the weight for a minute, tell the truth without being shamed, and feel seen without being studied like a problem.

A Knot in the Soul

In that season of starting over, I found myself standing at an interesting intersection.

Do I go to counseling?  Or do I learn what counselors are learning?  In hindsight, the answer ended up being both.  I went.  And I studied.  During that brief season of study, I was introduced to language I had heard before, but had not yet fully understood.  Words like vulnerability, transparency, shame, fear, attachment, family systems, emotional regulation, and the king of them all: TRAUMA!

That word was everywhere.

At first, I treated trauma like one of those heavy clinical words that belongs in a textbook, a counselor’s office, or a conference breakout session.  But eventually, I began to see it differently.  I started picturing trauma like a knot in a muscle.  Except trauma is not a knot in the body.

It is a knot in the soul.

A knot formed over years, and sometimes decades, by toxins with names like loss, betrayal, abandonment, abuse, disappointment, rejection, and unmet expectations.  Some knots form suddenly.  Others are tied slowly.  Some people can tell you the exact moment it happened. Others carry the knot for so long that they no longer remember life without it.  They only know they are tense. Guarded. Reactive. Numb. Suspicious. Exhausted.  Always bracing for something.  Always protecting something.  Always trying to avoid feeling something they have not yet been able to name.  That picture helped me understand the world differently.  It helped me understand why people can be brilliant and still emotionally stuck.  Gifted and still guarded.  Successful and still scared.  Funny and still grieving.  Spiritual and still wounded.  Strong and still severed from themselves.  Because life is not only hard.  Life is complicated.

No Pain or Know Pain

As I keep looking back over my own life, and listening to the stories of others, I notice how early some of these knots begin forming.  For example, there is a difference between having no pain and learning to know pain.  That distinction matters.  Having “no pain” is often the mask.  It is the performance of strength.  It is the appearance of being fine.  It is what happens when a person has been trained to disconnect from what hurts before they ever learn how to understand what hurts.  But to know pain is different.  To know pain is to be honest enough to name it, humble enough to examine it, and courageous enough to process it instead of pretending it is not there.  Many of us are not taught to know pain.  We are taught to hide it.  The boy is told the traditional coaching of masculinity:  Suck it up.  Don’t cry.  Man up.  Shake it off.  So the boy learns the lesson.

He learns not to feel too much. He learns not to say too much. He learns that vulnerability can get him laughed at. He learns that tenderness must be hidden. He learns that pain is something to bury, not process.  He is never taught that even Jesus wept.  He is never taught that in Gethsemane, Jesus was in such agony that His sweat became “as it were great drops of blood.”  He is never taught that strength and sorrow can occupy the same body.  He is taught that tears make him weak, but he is not taught that the strongest Man who ever lived is not ashamed to grieve, pray, and tell the truth about His sorrow. In other words, he is not taught to know pain.  He is taught to look like he has no pain.  Then the boy becomes a man.  The man meets a woman.  They fall in love.  They get married.  Then one day, the former girl, who is now a woman, goes to the former boy, who is now a man, and says,  “Babe, you haven’t been yourself lately. I’ve been concerned about you for quite some time. What’s going on?”  And his response is,  “I’m Good.”  Why?  Because that man stopped feeling a long time ago.  And here is the part that is almost funny, if it were not so painfully true:  The ol’ boy may literally not know what is wrong.  He is not always being evasive.  He is not always trying to be difficult.  There are moments when he genuinely does not know how to locate what is happening inside of him because he was trained to perform “no pain” before he was ever taught to know pain.  Then comes the kicker.  He has a newborn baby girl.  Now this emotionally severed man has to relate to a child whose first language is emotion.  Her cries mean something.  Her facial expressions mean something.  Her fears mean something.  Her joy means something.  Her need for tenderness, presence, delight, and comfort means something.  And now this man, who was taught to bury his own feelings, is being invited to shepherd the feelings of someone else.  Again, life is complicated.  Life is Real Analysis with Abstract Algebra classes with a little Calculus sprinkled on top for garnish.  And don’t ask me what those classes actually are. I Googled the hardest college courses and trusted the internet.  And to be clear, emotional severing is not just a male issue.

Our sisters carry wounds too.  Women are also taught to hide, perform, survive, over-function, apologize for their needs, distrust their instincts, and carry pain with a smile.  Men and women may be trained differently, but many of us arrive at adulthood carrying knots we do not know how to untie.  Some knots show up in marriage.  Others show up in parenting.  They show up in leadership.  They show up in church.  They show up when someone loves us well and we do not know how to receive it.  They show up when correction sounds like rejection.  They show up when silence feels like abandonment.  They show up when peace feels unfamiliar.  This is where emotional intelligence begins to matter so much to me.  Before we learn how to explain ourselves, we feel.  Before we can define sadness, we cry.  Before we can articulate fear, we reach.  Before we can form a sentence, we communicate through emotion.

Emotion is one of our first languages.  That is why the emotionally severed adult often struggles in the presence of a child.  The child is not asking for a lecture.  The child is not asking for a performance.  The child is asking for presence.  Tenderness.  Attunement.  Comfort.  Safety.  And at times, that invitation exposes how far the adult has traveled from his own heart.  The child’s emotional world becomes a mirror.  And the mirror asks a question:  Can you recognize in me what you were taught to deny in yourself?  That is not simple.  That is not easy.  That is Real Abstract Calculus.

Don’t Misread the Posture

Somewhere along the way, the term emotional intelligence entered the curriculum.  One definition describes it as the ability to recognize, understand, manage, and wisely respond to emotions — both in ourselves and in relationship with others.  When I first began to understand that, it was like a brain explosion.  Wow! Suddenly, so much of life started making sense.  Emotional intelligence is like having the tools to CT scan yourself emotionally.  It helps you look beneath the surface and ask:  What am I actually feeling?  Why does that bother me so much?  Why do I shut down?  Why do I lash out?  Why do I assume the worst?  Why am I calling this wisdom when it might actually be fear?  Why am I calling this discernment when it might actually be suspicion?  Why am I calling this strength when it might actually be numbness?  Emotional intelligence gives us language for what is happening beneath our reactions.  And once we can name what is happening, we can begin to bring it into the light.  That is where healing can begin.  The emotionally severed man and the discouraged person have something in common.  In both cases, the visible posture does not tell the whole story.

One person may say, “I’m Good!,” when something very real is happening beneath the surface.  Another person may appear inactive, unmotivated, or stuck, when something much deeper may be taking place underneath.  This is where emotional intelligence becomes practical.  It does not only help us understand what’s happening inside of ourselves.  It also helps us slow down long enough to see what may be happening inside someone else.  For example, emotional intelligence can help us decipher the discouraged from the lazy.  At first glance, those two postures can look exactly alike.  Both may appear unmotivated.  Both may appear inactive.  Both may seem like they just need to get up and do something.  But the discouraged person and the lazy person may be sitting still for very different reasons.  The discouraged person may have put forth real effort in the past and received unfavorable results.  They may have tried, failed, tried again, been disappointed, been overlooked, been exhausted, or been met with silence after doing everything they knew to do.  Their lack of effort may not be rooted in entitlement.  It may be rooted in disappointment and grief.  The lazy person, on the other hand, may not have put forth meaningful effort at all.  Their lack of effort may be rooted in entitlement, irresponsibility, avoidance, or an unwillingness to carry what is actually theirs to carry.  The two can look similar on the outside.  But they are not the same on the inside.

That distinction matters.  To quickly assess the discouraged person as lazy and simply tell them to “try harder” will crush whatever hope they have left.  And to coddle the lazy person as if they are merely discouraged simply enables the irresponsibility that is keeping them immature.  Both are incredible disservices.

The discouraged person needs compassion, encouragement, patient presence, and help rebuilding hope.  The lazy person needs truth, boundaries, accountability, and a loving invitation to grow up.  Emotional intelligence brings us into a more microscopic view of the need.  It helps us ask better questions before we make loud and uninformed conclusions.  Without emotional intelligence, strength in one area can become arrogance toward someone who struggles there.

They have knots.  We throw stones!

Do we ever take the time to ask:

• What has this person tried?
• What have they lost?
• What are they avoiding?
• What are they grieving?
• What responsibility belongs to them?
• What burden are they carrying that we cannot see?

From that place, we can speak more effectively and with more love.  Not soft when firmness is needed.  Not harsh when tenderness is needed.  Not enabling.  Not condemning.  But discerning.  That is part of the gift of emotional intelligence.  It helps love become more accurate.

Learning to Feel Again

Once we begin naming what is happening beneath our reactions, healing has somewhere to begin.  The issue is not always that we are angry.  Often, anger is just the bodyguard.  Underneath anger is fear.  Underneath fear is grief.  Underneath grief is disappointment.

Underneath disappointment is a story we tell ourselves about what should have happened, who should have stayed, who should have protected us, who should have noticed, who should have called, who should have apologized, who should have known better.  And there it is.  The knot.

The goal is not to shame the knot.  The goal is to notice it, understand it, and stop building an entire personality around avoiding it.  This is where emotional intelligence becomes more than a self-help concept.  It becomes a form of stewardship.   The fact is, if God gave me a soul, then I have a responsibility to pay attention to what is happening inside of it.  Not worship my emotions.  Not be ruled by my emotions.  Not make every feeling a final authority.  But also not ignore them as if they’re meaningless.  Emotions are not always truth.  But they are always information.  They tell us where something is tender.  They tell us where something is unresolved.  They tell us where something needs care, truth, boundaries, forgiveness, grieving, or surrender.  And by surrender, I do not mean a religious phrase we use to avoid the work.  I mean the honest act of bringing the whole self before God.  That distinction matters.  Because in many faith communities, we are often quick to spiritualize what needs to be understood.

We tell people to pray, which is good. We tell people to trust God, which is good. We tell people to give their burdens to Jesus, which is good. But sometimes we skip the part where we sit on the front porch long enough to listen. We skip the part where we ask better questions. We skip the part where we help people to find and name the knot. We offer a verse before offering presence. We use spiritual language to hurry people out of pain because their pain makes us uncomfortable.

I do not say that to dishonor prayer. I say it because prayer should make us more present, not less. The Jesus who heals the soul is not afraid of the soul. He is not intimidated by grief. He is not offended by tears. He is not confused by trauma. He is not impatient with the process. He knows how to ask, “What do you want me to do for you?” He knows how to weep at a tomb even when resurrection is on the schedule. He knows how to sit with people whose lives have become complicated.

So part of becoming emotionally intelligent is becoming more honest in the presence of God and safer in the presence of people. Maybe it means learning to say:

I’m angry, but I need to find out why. 
I’m scared, but I do not want fear to lead me.
I’m hurt, but I do not want to become harmful.
I’m disappointed, but I do not want disappointment to become my identity.
I’m grieving, but I do not want grief to make me unreachable.
I’m triggered, but I do not want my trigger to become someone else’s punishment.

I am learning to feel again.

That process gave language to something I’ve already been doing instinctively for years: Helping people feel again Helping people find words for what was previously just pressure. To recognize the lesson inside the challenge. See the big picture without dismissing the pain of the immediate picture, and understand that the knot may be real, but it does not have to remain the ruler of the soul.