Jennie Allen has done it again. Another heartfelt book on a topic she has learned through personal experience and is still learning that is built to both be a guide for the reader as well as a tool of encouragement. If feelings have either been a foreign scary word to you or your feelings have been so big you don't know what to do with them this book can help. I highly recommend this book!

It’s hard for me to rate this book because the information wasn’t necessarily new and groundbreaking, but that didn’t make it any less important and true. As someone who is guilty of coping with and concealing my feelings, these were good reminders and things I will try to practice moving forward.

Thank you NetGalley and WaterBrook & Multnomah for the ARC.

Untangle Your Emotions by Jennie Allen is a good continuation to her book Get Out of Your Head. This book considers emotions — what they are and how they show up, how we should view them as Christians, and how to learn to deal with our emotions.

This book would be a great read for those truly struggling with emotions — whether we feel like it’s not safe to show them or we don’t even really know how to name our emotions. There is a lot to learn, and sometimes unlearn, about emotions and it can be a long process. However it is an important process to walk through to learn ti recognize and handle our emotions, and this book is a good companion for that.

What an eye opener! This book helped me to discover how I rarely I am in tune with how I feel. Being raised in a home where feelings were not encouraged to be expressed, coupled with well meaning friends from church pointing to scripture as a means to discourage expressing emotion, I didn't realize how often I just stuffed how I felt! Jennie gives insightful instructions on how to begin to identify what your feeling and more importantly, healthy ways to express what your feeling! Her examples of how her family is learning to bring their feelings into their lives brought me such encouragement. I highly recommend this study.

Jennie Allen has, again, taken a topic (emotions) and has done a deep dive into every facet of this human experience. Through many personal experiences as well as multiple examples of people she has encountered over the years, she outlines what our emotions do for us if expressed (in right or wrong ways) or suppressed. Feelings seem to be everything for some today..."feel all the feelings" or "validate my feelings." Older generations at times do tend to put on a strong persona and move on from feelings (unless they're big explosive ones), but Jennie examines the health effects of facing them, spending time with them and not stuffing them away only to have them come back at some point for reckoning. Depression and anxiety are at an all-time high in society and something needs to change; no one can argue with that. She guides us through pulling apart our emotions and being transparent about them, and the reader is left with many tips and real-life examples of how to be more successful in the untangling.

Whenever I read a Jennie Allen book, I find myself snapping and rigorously highlighting. Ms. Allen has a fantastic way with words, capturing powerful biblical truths through her anecdotes. I read Get Out of Your Head, and many of the truths presented in this book reminded me of that text. If you like that work, you should check out this book!!! Something refreshing about this book is Ms. Allen's promotion of therapy and practical activities to improve your emotional intelligence and overall health. The only thing I was disappointed to see was the lack of I wanted biblical citations and direct correlations to scripture (which have been more prevalent in her other books). I do think that this book is perfect for a women's bible study group/book club.
Two of my favorite quotes from the book (and believe me, there are many, many, many more) were
"Let me be clear: you will never be emotionally healthy outside the will of God."
"Feelings were never meant to be fixed; feelings are meant to be felt."
SIS GOOO BUY THIS BOOOK !
Thank you so much to NetGalley and WaterBrook for this powerful e-arc and the chance to give an honest review!
Final Rating 4.75

Thank you, Jennie Allen, for another perceptive, and relatable book. As a church, emotions are not something we really study but the author has decided to tackle the issue in her latest book,
Untangle Your Emotions. The unspoken rule as a society is to shut down any public display of emotions, especially anything that might make other uncomfortable such as sadness, anger, or fear. The author demonstrates to us the importance of feelings for both physically and mental health. She further illustrates how even Jesus Christ displayed emotion during his life on Earth. I found the booking insightful. I have been practicing noticing, naming, feeling, sharing and choosing how I will react to various emotions I am feeling rather than taking out my random moods on my stapler. The book was a helpful start in embracing my everyday emotions.

An ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for a honest review.

There were many helpful things in this book I appreciated. The author was incredibly insightful on how this subject manifests and affects day to day life.

Allen’s analogy of canoeing a river to emotional regulation especially after trama was genius. It was one of the best descriptions I’ve ever heard of emotional regulation and so relatable and understandable.

I particularly enjoyed the section on God’s feelings. The idea that God felt a full range of emotions so therefore cannot be sinful for us to feel them as well. That when we express our emotions in a healthy way we are imaging God.

The passage where scriptures of “fear not”are listed while being instructed to hear them in a loving father’s tone was particularly moving and counter to what many of us experienced growing up in the Church.

What I disliked the most about this book was the formulaic approach to a topic that is anything formulaic. Early in the book Allen presents it as the solution to understanding and feeling emotions. And while she acknowledged this later in the book, I think that’s more than any book can deliver.

Overall, I think this book could be helpful for someone just beginning to approach this topic. She lays out a path to follow that while very helpful I don’t think could be considered a replacement for actual counseling/therapy.

"Feelings aren’t something to fix; they are something to feel."

This book wrecked me, likely because I resonate so much with stuffing down my emotions. I have done it my whole life and it has gotten worse in the last couple years, as we have dealt with serious trauma. God knew I needed this book! I definitely resonate with the fixer attitude that Jennie references.

This book has a conversational tone that we expect from Jennie. It is quick and fast paced, but seemed to take me longer to read because I found myself processing my own emotions as I read.

Jennie shares not only her own experiences with emotions, but her friends/family/coworkers experience with feelings too. I appreciated her honesty about her husband's struggle with depression.

I love that Jennie didn't just leave us with the idea of feeling your emotions; she gave us practical tips on how to feel them and bring them to light, and then what to do with them. Jennie challenges the idea that emotions are something we need to fix, and instead are something we need to feel, which brings up closer to a relationship with God.

Thank you to Netgalley for the arc.

Thank you to NetGalley, Jennie Allen and the publisher, for providing me with this e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

I am always a fan of Jennie Allen and her way of writing so genuinely and making it feel like I am reading the words of a friend. Would highly recommend this book to others.

I have been a fan of Jennie Allen ever since I read “Get Out Of Your Head: Stopping the Spiral of Toxic Thoughts” because it was the perfect marriage between science (cognitive behavioral therapy concepts) and faith. This follow-up book was no different. My phone is chockfull of screenshots from all the different highlights and I’ve sent many of those to friends and family already encouraging them to read this book. No matter where you fall on the spectrum (allowing your emotions to rule you or blocking them out entirely) this book provides practical strategies for how to have a healthier relationship with your emotions, God, and our communities at large.

I learned many new concepts (i.e. emotional granularity) and am even trying out some new apps thanks to her recommendations (i.e. How We Feel). I was most encouraged by the ending and the idea that once we start making progress in our emotional healing, we will start creating again.

This book is based on Christian faith and terminology so if that makes you uncomfortable, this is likely not the book for you. But if you identify as Christian or are open to reading and learning from all kinds of theologies, then this book is worth the read.

I was fortunate enough to read an advanced copy of this through Net Galley, but I will be preordering and adding the physical book to my collection. This is a book I see myself returning to time and time again, whether to give encouragement to loved ones or provide myself with much-needed reminders.

"How applicable is a book about feelings for me," I thought as I opened its pages. Turns out, very, very applicable. In this book, Jennie Allen candidly walks us through her journey back to feeling again and likely outs many of for not feeling much at all...in the most loving way possible. With a gentle voice and a whole lot of real life experience, Jennie shares her process for coming back into her self through interaction with her God-given feelings. If you find yourself feeling numb or unsettled, this book is for you. For too long, believers have been discouraged at best and shamed at the worst for having big or messy feelings. It's time to stop circling this mountain and find our healthiest selves.

This book helped me realize how much I tend to control and conceal my emotions. Everyone is constantly saying “I’m fine” and we brush things off and tell ourselves it’s all going to be okay. The author did a great job of explaining how emotions aren’t sinful and they were created by God for us to seek connection. Backed with biblical and scientific sources.

I now understand that you have to pause and listen to what emotions are trying to tell you. If you consider yourself a “fixer”, this read will help you lean more into becoming a “feeler” and how to use that to get closer to God and closer to friends.

I stuffed my emotions for YEARS!!! I didn't even realize I was doing it for the longest time because it was the way I dealt with things... by not dealing with it. I'm not angry with Little Sarah because she didn't know any better (as Jennie says, "We can't help what we didn't learn), but now I am unlearning and processing years of emotions and *things*. I'm trying to set myself up for better down the road and start to become healthier.

This book was amazing. I was thrilled to learn that I am doing a lot of things well and that my journey to healthy emotions is on the right track. My biggest takeaway is the "share". I have learned, through counseling and other means, to identify and name my emotions. To let myself feel. But I don't share. I don't talk about feelings (other than too my journal). Part of that is that I have not had anyone safe in a while even if I wanted to share, but I do know and so I am starting to share. I also took Jennie's suggestion to tell people how things make me feel and so when a friend shared something very personal, I told her I felt honored that she would share that with me. When my cousin asked me to do her hair, I told her I felt happy that she wanted to spend that time with me.

After reading this book, I am excited. I'm a little nervous too, because I'm healing from some deep wounds, but I have hope that I can be healed one day. I have hope that these emotions won't drown me and that I can have a healthy relationship with my feelings. Like her book "Get Out Of Your Head", this is a book you will want to buy to reference again and again and highlight the HECK out of it.

Here are just a few gems:

"Every feeling should be felt and taken straight to Scripture and Jesus. Every feeling out to prompt us to ask God, 'What should I do?'"

"Feelings can lead to good, and they can lead to bad, even as they themselves are gifts from God.

"Jeremiah 17:9... is a reminder that we need God... We need truth in the midst of our feelings."

"Feelings don't heal when we ignore them; they heal when we are wrapped up by the people we love in the middle of them."

"Our emotions are meant to grow our faith, meant to lead us into deeper relationship with the One who made us and created all these emotions."

This book arrived when I needed to read it the most as if God knew it and delivered it to my doorstep, Himself. It's been quite a while since I read a book and highlighted so many nuggets of goodness. Emotions are a hard and raw topic for anyone - whether you're in the Church or not. Jennie handled the topic with grace. I appreciated her personal examples, showing she and her family are just like the rest of us. I also appreciated her use of scripture to tie everything back to the Bible.

Let me first say, I love and respect Jennie Allen immensely. She is a positive and powerful speaker and encourager in the Christian world, and I am grateful for her insight, whether it be in written or spoken form. Her latest book, Untangle Your Emotions, is a perfect example of her research-driven, faith-based and life-giving manner of helping and healing those in need. This is a self-help book worth reading, whether you think you need self-help or not.

Jennie Allen's Untangle Your Emotions serves as a guide and reminder that in order to navigate our emotions, we must look to our Creator who gave them to us. Our God is a God of emotion, and to contrary belief, we are meant to feel them! This book provides definitions for our emotions backed up by scripture and science. In addition, it contains next steps to take what we now know about ourselves and about God to begin the process of "untangling" the messiness of emotions. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has ever asked the question, "Why do I feel this way?" or said "I'm not sure why I feel like this." The answer comes from God, and the guide is this book!

Summary:
For many feeling your feelings is a hard thing to do. In this book, Jennie is going to show you how it's normal and healthy to feel your emotions- no matter what you've been led to believe. She'll share experiences from her own life that helped her realize feeling her feelings was an impactful breakthrough for her and many others.

By Jennie's own admission, feeling her feelings wasn't something she always did. In fact, it wasn't until college that she even allowed herself to feel them over suppressing them. Add to that, the man she married was also of the camp that you didn't feel feelings, but buried them. As you read Untangle Your Emotions, Jennie shares how she, and many in her world, learned that it was healthy to feel the feelings they had. Not only was it healthy, but God blessed. She walks you through learning that God gave you your emotions with the intention to feel them- not deny them.

Untangle Your Emotions is a great source for those who, like Jennie, were not encouraged to feel their feelings. I know many who were brought up their whole lives with the belief that you buried emotions rather than dealt with them. They learned to think their way through life over feeling their way. And while that may be useful in certain situations, it's not a healthy and ideal way to go through your life. Many feel it's sinful to feel emotions. Jennie is going to address that and where the sin line lies and when we've crossed it.

Jennie gets candid about her own family and their journey with emotions. From her, and her husband's, conceal don't feel mentality growing up to her own children's' struggle with emotions. She's going to give you tips of how to address them so they don't cause unnecessary stress or damage down the line.

While I wasn't her target audience in that I wasn't someone who needed to learn it was okay to feel my emotions, I walked away with a better understanding for those who did. I have many in my own family with the buried it mentality. This book started several great, thought provoking conversations. For many within the church, and out of it, this book could be a great tool to help you realize that you are allowed to- and should- feel all the feelings you have. God not only felt His (as Jennie will show you), but He gives you the boundaries to feel them in a healthy, beneficial way.

Another great book by Jennie Allen! This book covers how to get out of the habit of trying to forget our emotions and “not let them get to us” but rather feel them in a way that is glorifying to God. It talks about how God, the Creator of our body, mind, and soul, not only created our emotions for us to feel, but also for us to depend on Him to guide us through.

I am a huge fan of Jennie Allen, and this book is no exception. She bravely and artfully dives into a topic many others avoid. Jennie’s writing is always a breathe of fresh air; providing relief while also offering the next steps for moving forward.