"What Else?" A Most Powerful Question

This question can come in many forms. Sometimes, it can be said with a great sigh of anticipation for the worst yet to come. "What else can possibly happen to us?!"

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We may also hear it in ways that feel open to plenty: "What else would you like?" said from the drive through microphone.

But the most welcome form I like to hear this most powerful question, is from my pastoral counselor. "What else?" Meaning: "Tell me more... and more...what else, Andi?"

When we have gone through hard transitions and circumstances in life, sometimes we are affronted by very different questions: "Well, what are you going to DO about it?" "Why would you feel that way?" "When will you be able to move forward?" "What will it take for you to get over this?" (The latter of which can seem like a well intentioned open question, but may not be welcome or well received until one is able to experience relief and trust).

All of these statements can feel like shut doors to the soul. When one is seething with anger, deep grief, depression, or anxiousness it feels like a most powerful wet blanket on the ever kindling, but never full blast fires of the rage, resentment and bunched up sadness that MUST be allowed to come out!

Even if it's been years since the upending event(s) occurred, feelings can still be just as freshly felt. Time is inconsequential where unresolved emotional healing is involved. Remember, the nervous system doesn't know the difference! It can send us into the same modes of "survival" emotions such as fear and anger- which then lead to maladaptive behaviors- until those memories have been better addressed and organized. It is why I like to say, "Feelings must me accessed to be able to assessed," rather than "There is no truth to feelings." It is only when we assess them that they can be helped and changed.

If I shut you and your deeply felt and powerful feelings down, I may as well be dragging you and your important story under the water to drown. Even more truly, I am leaving you to stuff those hormonally and chemically charged, physically felt, backed by neurologically based research feelings back into a body that is not meant to put them in storage, but to unlock them and set them free.

"You're always tired. When will you get better, for Heaven's sake?" "Depression is laziness."

"You're always sick. Maybe go to the gym more." Everyone has the answers, doesn't it seem?

But when you have a gaping wound, and everyone is happily filling it with their own brand of guaze, while the body knows it needs air, it is a must that that air is allowed in.

"What else?" is the air. It means: "Don't shut up. Don't dry it up. Please tell me everything you want, I'm listening--truly listening." And the strands of thoughts get to flow freely like a bubbling, winding brook. The heavy tensions of gritty, grizzling, inflated pressure of emotions get to rise up and not just steam out a little--but it all gets to hiiiiisssss and swwwwhhhhhh and be forced out like a pressure cooker ready to be released!

When our bodies and minds cannot express feelings, it is when they have the potential to get more sick, mentally and physically, not less. Furthermore, the mind may start to search for answers in unsafe ways to get out of its ill state. "I could just die," is certainly an "option" a hurting mind may sadly turn to. Or to self harm, like cutting, to release emotions otherwise not allowed to come out. One may start to pick their skin or pull out their hair.

A hurting and feeling helpless person may also vivid dreams to try and process subconsciouly what they cannot while awake. Or they may have disorganized thoughts, memories may pull up at irrelevant times in efforts for the mind to try and understand and process what happened to them. Disorientation or dissociation can start up, or even manic outbursts as the body and mind are trying to exist with the anxieties. Unhelpful beliefs about one's self worth can drum up, as a person doesn't believe they hold value enough to be heard. This is just a short list of what can occur to one who cannot let out their true feelings in authentic ways, and it is a burden to bear.

"What else?" Means: "I'm not tired of listening. I know there is more bothering you. I know you have more on your mind, and more so, bottled up inside that body of yours. Tell me more. If you please, if you want to, if you are comfortable doing that. Please tell me more."

I used to have a client who would go on politely for a moment, and then shyly say, "Anyways..." Meaning, I know this is annoying to hear so I'll shut up. I would say in return, "I sense there is more to that story, can we circle back?" In other words, "I'm not annoyed, I want to hear and help."

Another client would tell me something that was important to her to share, and then seem to pause and wait for my reaction with the look of a little, nervous child. I found out quickly she was waiting for me to correct her words and her narrative as she recalled it. I wouldn't dare. I would simply move on with further inquiries of the things on her heart, not how she said them. "What else?" Not, "No...that's not how that happened. No way. There is no way that happened to you. You don't reeaaallly feel that way." Or "I think you mean this word, technically speaking." That would be dismissive, and will quickly shut down speaker's heart to share.

And when they is hope to share, and one allows their story and the feelings within to bubble to the surface only to be shoved down again by a dismissive audience, it can make the heart "sick."

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick." Proverbs 13:12

"What else? I really want to know, from your perspective, not your sisters' or your aunts', not what your husband or father in law would say. What do you think? How do you feel about that?"

This can feel like a wide open space for the two of us to look together. Beyond the sytax of your sentence or grammar. Beyond whether it happened exactly that way (our emotional minds are sometimes so full of pressure, they aren't even ready to look at things logically yet...that can come later). Beyond time of pressure to be cool, or "not bother" another--this most powerful question can be like a refreshing view of a beautiful landscape, one that beckons the imagination to say, "I can move beyond this awful thing, because I can let it out!"

And when the thing can really be looked at and allowed a chance to heal, it can then, finally "move on," but it can still take time. The important thing is we ask of it to share all that it is holding. One story can hold a treasure trove of important emotions.

"I am angry!" I bet! What else? "And I am also deeply grieved about it!" Right?! What else?? "I am shaken to the core!" I cannot imagine how you couldn't be! What else?!

"What else?" A most powerful question that may just be a refreshing stream to a sandy soul.