Why Do I Feel Like This?: Understand Your Difficult Emotions and Find Grace to Move Through

by Peace Amadi

Overview

"Why do I feel this way?"

Sometimes life is a mess and we get overwhelmed by all sorts of conflicting, difficult emotions. We might be stressed or weary, anxious or fearful, paralyzed by insecurity or crushed by pain. Worse yet, some well-meaning people invalidate our feelings and tell us to just cheer up and forget our worries.

Rather than bypass the reality of our feelings, we need to enter into them and listen to what they're telling us. Psychology professor and personal development coach Dr. Peace Amadi helps us navigate the complexity of our emotions, from discouragement and hurt to trauma and depression. She explains the dynamics underlying what we feel and gives practical resources for living through our emotions in healthy ways.

With insights from both psychology and Scripture, this book offers you a clear plan to get your peace and freedom back and find your joy again.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780830847723
Publisher:	InterVarsity Press
Publication date:	05/25/2021
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Peace Amadi is a psychology professor, speaker, children's book author, content creator, and host. She holds a BA in psychology from UCLA and a masters and doctorate in psychology from Azusa Pacific University. As a woman of faith, she uses her various platforms to bridge the gap between mental health and faith for the purposes of engaging a deeper healing journey. As a woman of Nigerian descent, she calls for reflection on how healing is affected by culture and family. In Peace's personal time, she enjoys creating meaningful moments with friends and family, sweet iced coffees, and digging up stories she'll find some new way to share.

Table of Contents

Introduction: It's Who We Are
1. The Danger of Spiritual Bypassing
2. Uncovering Our Core Beliefs
3. Trauma: Our Need to Tell Our Story
4. Hurt: Our Need to Recover What’s Lost
5. Discouragement: Our Need for Confidence and Courage
6. Anxiety: Our Need to Feel Safe
7. Sadness and Depression: Our Need for Healthy Thinking, Connection, and Meaning
8. Envy: Our Need for Enoughness
9. Shame: Our Need for Radical Love
10. When and How to Find Therapy
Epilogue: The Night Shines Like Day
Acknowledgments
Small Group Discussion Guide
Notes

What People are Saying About This

Sarah Montana

"If your trauma has ever made you feel alienated in your own body, culture, and spiritual community—this book is a salve. It chucks all of the infuriatingly trite but well-meaning advice out the window in favor of practicable, scientifically backed wisdom placed in a spiritual context. Dr. Peace Amadi uses years of clinical experience and teaching to help us befriend and understand our emotions as our body and spirit's best portal for growth. In a comprehensive approach, she breaks down the barriers and stigmas around getting the help we deserve. If you're feeling lost, alone, or overwhelmed, this book is a beautiful road map to healing."

Amy Simpson

"It comes naturally to avoid what we don't want to feel—especially if we believe we can't heal, that we can't survive the journey into our own pain. Yet I've learned that difficult emotions don't go away—they just go underground. And there they undermine our foundations until finally we must turn our attention their way. In this book you'll find tools for acknowledging complex emotions, bringing them into the light, and welcoming God's healing work. And you'll discover how to move toward a fuller, more hopeful, more compassionate life."

Melinda Watts

"Dr. Peace Amadi recognizes that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to therapy, and her book beautifully navigates different pathways to find solutions to different situations. This is an excellent book for therapists to start learning about different strategies to use within their practices. It is also an excellent read for those who want to live their lives to the fullest by not only understanding their emotions but managing and honoring them as well. You will find yourself and not want to put this book down!"

Heather Thompson Day

"Why Do I Feel Like This? by Peace Amadi helps us navigate the complexity of our emotions. Peace will remind us that it is okay to not be okay."

Tracey Gee

"For far too many of us, important conversations around the emotional realities of anxiety, shame, and depression have been glossed over in the name of trusting God. We've all had experiences of receiving well-meaning but ultimately deeply unhelpful advice that equates having faith in God with being free of any emotional struggle. However, in this timely book, Dr. Peace Amadi shows us a path to a different way. With stunning clarity, wisdom, and compassion, she helps us learn how to reframe the important inner work of engaging with God through our emotions, even when it's difficult and confusing. Her profound expertise in psychology, vibrant faith, and warmth come together to create a unique resource that feels like we're somehow sitting in her classroom and at the same time having a heart-to-heart over coffee with a trusted spiritual mentor and friend. You'll be glad that you invested in the spiritual and emotional foundations of your own life with the embodied wisdom and practical tools that this book has to offer."

Jenny Wang

"Few bridges have been built to connect scientific psychological research and practice with spiritual faith communities. Dr. Peace Amadi's book builds this necessary bridge. It offers tangible tools, helping those struggling with mental health difficulties to better understand how to improve their mental health. This is a gift to the Christian community."

Sheryl J. Anderson

"In this bracing book, Peace Amadi presents a compelling call for women of faith to examine how intertwined their emotional and spiritual health are—and should be. She offers clear-eyed, accessible advice for determining why our lives fall out of balance, and lays out how to regain clarity and power. Read this book. Better yet, read it and discuss it with other women of faith, and grow together."

Editorial Reviews

03/15/2021

Psychologist Amadi debuts with a soothing guide that aims to reassure readers that, no matter how one is feeling, “it’s okay that you feel this way.” Amadi begins with the concept of “spiritual bypassing,” or the use of Christian platitudes to avoid deep emotional work. Yet difficult emotions need healing and healing takes work, she argues, and that is done through self-love: “If there’s one thing I’ve learned as a mental health professional, it’s that you can’t hate yourself into healing. You have to love yourself right on through it.” She bolsters her insights with stories from her own life, clients’ stories, biblical examples, charts, and checklists of activities to encourage growth. For instance, to overcome trauma, she recommends answering five questions to clearly define one’s experience, unearth one’s feelings, and determine one’s current needs. Especially helpful is her chapter on envy, which focuses on “enoughness” and suggests affirmations (“You are worthy”) to embolden readers. This is an excellent primer on difficult emotions and a vigorous call to work through them to heal and grow. (May)

Publishers Weekly

"In this bracing book, Peace Amadi presents a compelling call for women of faith to examine how intertwined their emotional and spiritual health are—and should be. She offers clear-eyed, accessible advice for determining why our lives fall out of balance, and lays out how to regain clarity and power. Read this book. Better yet, read it and discuss it with other women of faith, and grow together."

Sheryl J. Anderson

"Few bridges have been built to connect scientific psychological research and practice with spiritual faith communities. Dr. Peace Amadi's book builds this necessary bridge. It offers tangible tools, helping those struggling with mental health difficulties to better understand how to improve their mental health. This is a gift to the Christian community."

Jenny Wang

"If your trauma has ever made you feel alienated in your own body, culture, and spiritual community—this book is a salve. It chucks all of the infuriatingly trite but well-meaning advice out the window in favor of practicable, scientifically backed wisdom placed in a spiritual context. Dr. Peace Amadi uses years of clinical experience and teaching to help us befriend and understand our emotions as our body and spirit's best portal for growth. In a comprehensive approach, she breaks down the barriers and stigmas around getting the help we deserve. If you're feeling lost, alone, or overwhelmed, this book is a beautiful road map to healing."

Sarah Montana

"Why Do I Feel Like This? by Peace Amadi helps us navigate the complexity of our emotions. Peace will remind us that it is okay to not be okay."

Heather Thompson Day

"For far too many of us, important conversations around the emotional realities of anxiety, shame, and depression have been glossed over in the name of trusting God. We've all had experiences of receiving well-meaning but ultimately deeply unhelpful advice that equates having faith in God with being free of any emotional struggle. However, in this timely book, Dr. Peace Amadi shows us a path to a different way. With stunning clarity, wisdom, and compassion, she helps us learn how to reframe the important inner work of engaging with God through our emotions, even when it's difficult and confusing. Her profound expertise in psychology, vibrant faith, and warmth come together to create a unique resource that feels like we're somehow sitting in her classroom and at the same time having a heart-to-heart over coffee with a trusted spiritual mentor and friend. You'll be glad that you invested in the spiritual and emotional foundations of your own life with the embodied wisdom and practical tools that this book has to offer."

Tracey Gee

"It comes naturally to avoid what we don't want to feel—especially if we believe we can't heal, that we can't survive the journey into our own pain. Yet I've learned that difficult emotions don't go away—they just go underground. And there they undermine our foundations until finally we must turn our attention their way. In this book you'll find tools for acknowledging complex emotions, bringing them into the light, and welcoming God's healing work. And you'll discover how to move toward a fuller, more hopeful, more compassionate life."

Amy Simpson

"Dr. Peace Amadi recognizes that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to therapy, and her book beautifully navigates different pathways to find solutions to different situations. This is an excellent book for therapists to start learning about different strategies to use within their practices. It is also an excellent read for those who want to live their lives to the fullest by not only understanding their emotions but managing and honoring them as well. You will find yourself and not want to put this book down!"

Melinda Watts

"Why Do I Feel Like This? by Peace Amadi helps us navigate the complexity of our emotions. Peace will remind us that it is okay to not be okay."

--Heather Thompson Day, associate professor and author of It's Not Your Turn

"Psychologist Amadi debuts with a soothing guide that aims to reassure readers that, no matter how one is feeling, 'it's okay that you feel this way.' This is an excellent primer on difficult emotions and a vigorous call to work through them to heal and grow."

--Publishers Weekly Review, May 2021

From the Publisher