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.

A transformative exploration of embracing emotions rather than suppressing them. Drawing from scientific research, biblical insight, and personal anecdotes, Allen guides readers through a five-step process to acknowledge, understand, and accept their feelings. Challenging the belief that emotions are sinful, the book advocates for emotional maturity to foster deeper connections with God and others. It encourages readers to sit with complex emotions, offering a pathway to discover the depth of God's love and compassion within these feelings. Ultimately, Allen promotes the idea that emotions are not something to fix, but rather something to feel, leading to a closer relationship with God.

✨“We can’t be emotional healthy if we refuse to be emotionally honest.”✨

Jennie’s authenticity always shine’s through, but her passion and conviction to see others set free from dismissing their emotions is also evident. It was encouraging to witness the transformation her husband, Zac, experienced, even as she wrote this book. Their personal stories are woven throughout the steps making the strategies very approachable. I also just really enjoy her writing style. It’s very simple and colloquial, creating a connection with the reader as if she were actually talking to you in the room. This book is a perfect companion to “Get Out of Your Head.”

Thank you @waterbrookmultnomah & @netgalley for the eARC 🥰 This is a powerful book and I’m so thankful I got the chance to read it.

Perfect for you if you like:
Honest perspective
Practical strategies
Re-examining your understanding of emotions

Similar to:
Present Over Perfect by Shauna Niequist
Uninvited by Lisa TerKeurst
Get Out of Your Head by Jennie Allen

One thing that I really like about Jennie Allen is that she's real! She tells it like it is, even if it isn't favorable to her. I also like that we have the same first name. ;) Anyway, I recommend this book! If you're not great at sharing your feelings, or even thinking about or talking about what you're feeling, this book can help.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the advance e-copy of this book! All opinions expressed are entirely my own.

3.5/5

Jennie writes this book from her experience meeting with a counselor and her own research/journey of trying to learn about her own feelings. Jennie shares a lot that she has experienced personally in the last few years in regards to her emotions (fear of losing her husband, feeling abandoned by her daughter wanting to move, etc)- I think that people will really relate to her personal story parts of the book. She shares not only her experiences, but her friends/family/coworkers experience with feelings too (her husbands long struggle with depression). Overall she offers general advice and insight to readers on how to walk through what you may be feeling- notice, name, feel, share, and choose. She also shares big four emotions and how they could be playing out in your life with good questions to ask yourself. I loved her learned experience of sharing feelings within community and how they learned to be present and listening with their responses instead of fixing each other (ex: responding with "I feel ______" instead of "I think ______" when someone has just shared something with you.

I think this would be a good intro book for those who have no idea where to start with navigating their feelings (mainly negative feelings as is this books focus- even though she talks about Joy very briefly). This book is more conversational about her life/learns than research- though some quotes and data are sprinkled in there. I appreciated her mention of focusing on physical health as well as your mental health- not just one or the other.


tbh wish it would have included more scripture. Main spiritual theme/takeaway for readers is "God created feelings and expressed feelings so we should view them as good."


Thank you NetGalley and WaterBrook & Multnomah for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Book will be available on 2/13/24!

Back in the ‘70s, Mr. Spock was my hero. I wanted to be a Vulcan so I didn’t have to deal with emotions. So Jennie Allen’s Untangle Your Emotions hit me where it hurts. In a good way! It’s the perfect companion to her previous book, Get Out of Your Head. With the pair, she walks you through taking your thoughts captive and managing your emotions.
She does a great job of showing that emotions aren’t sinful, but what we do with them can lead us into sin.
Emotions are a gift. A gift that can be mishandled. This book is an encouraging read for anyone who struggles with messy emotions.
In the first part, the author grounds her work in the truth of God’s Word, giving a biblical framework for managing emotions. Then things get dicey. As she says, dealing with emotions can get awkward. And she’s a self-proclaimed over-sharer. For someone who prefers keeping the messy at arm’s length – awkward. She’s real and raw with the emotional struggles her family has had. AWKWARD. But – “We can’t be emotionally healthy if we refuse to be emotionally honest.”
You mean saying, “I’m fine, it’s fine,” isn’t okay when you aren’t fine? Fine. In this epidemic of anxiety and depression, having the skills to work through our emotions is essential. And Jennie Allen has written a great book to help you do just that.

Not for me personally but I am grateful to have had the opportunity to read this book. Thank you to WaterBrook & Multnomah and NetGalley.

"God feels! He feels big feelings, as we will see from Genesis to Revelation and he made us to feel, created it all inside us. So, emotions can’t be evil. They must be good gifts if God feels them.”

What it’s About:
Practical guidance on developing emotional maturity and deepening your connection with God and others.

This one comes out February 13th!

What I thought:
I loved this book and it was the perfect companion for the last two books of hers that I have read. I am hoping her podcast does a bookclub with this like they did with Find Your People

How it made me feel: 🥰👏🏻🙌🏼

Similar Titles:
- Find Your People
- Get Out of Your Head

Untangle Your Emotions is a book about learning how to feel and to express your feelings in a healthy (and Biblical) way.

Major chapters that stood out for me involve learning how to feel with the help and support of others. Jennie Allen delves into this in a way that had me soaking in every word. We as a society are too quick to ditch the village and do everything on our own, but we weren’t made to be alone.

Jennie uses the Bible and science through research and statistics to show the reader how to feel in the healthiest way possible. I also loved the stories of Jesus and how He expressed His feelings.

Parts of the book felt like they dragged on with the same information, but the payout was worth it. I learned a lot and would recommend this to anyone struggling.

I received this book from Netgalley for my honest review.

Jennie’s writing is always honest and vulnerable. I loved Get Out of Your Head and was excited to read this book. I think it’s important to talk about emotional health from a Biblical viewpoint, and I had so many takeaways from this one.

Wow!!! I feel like this book was written for me. It’s like Jennie was having a conversation directly with me. I resonate so much with the fixer attitude. I also am one to suppress and hide my emotions. It is something I am actively working on, so reading this book came at a perfect time.
One thing she talked about that really hit home for me was that anxiety is not a result of lack of faith. It is a struggle as a Christian not to feel ashamed when experiencing anxiety or depression because so often people are told it is due to a lack of faith, but to hear her declare it as not true, using many examples from scripture, is so reassuring and exactly what so many people need to hear.
I felt so seen reading this book, and also relieved to know I’m not the only one who struggles making sense of my emotions.
Thank you NetGalley and WaterBrook & Multnomah for the opportunity to read this book before it is released.

Untangle Your Emotions
by Jennie Allen
Pub Date: FEb.13, 2024
Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest o0pinion.
I was drawn to this book because our church has a women's study group based on other of Allen's bo0ks and people really like it. Allen is a new author for me and I really like her.
The New York Times bestselling author of Get Out of Your Head provides a revolutionary path to embracing a healthy relationship with your emotions, one that leads to life-giving connection with God and others as well as to a richer understanding of yourself.
This book could save you thousands of dollars of therapy. REAd it! Put into action! Watch the positive change in your life.
5 stars

I received an arc from NetGalley and this is my honest opinion.
This is a great author and bases her books on the Bible and scripture. A great book to apply to your everyday living.
There were a couple of times that I questioned the author on her feelings and how she said she never felt this or that and kind of put down her family. Those sections were hard for me to understand and relate.

As I cracked open Jennie Allen’s Untangle Your Emotions, I was hopeful for some guidance in navigating through the chaotic, knotted-up ball that describes our feelings. Overall, her book offers some great, general advice. Feel your feelings before you attempt to simply fix your feelings. We were created to feel, and so our feelings can be gifts from God Himself. Her acknowledgment that we are all feelers was also deeply appreciated. (I always cringe when someone says they’re not emotional. No, we all have emotions even if we’re not all expressive in the same ways.) Her attempt to remind the Church that emotions in and of themselves need not be sin—it is what we do with our emotions that can lead to sin—is a poignant truth we need to acknowledge. It cannot suffice to simply tell someone, “Well, you shouldn’t feel that way,” and leave it at that. At best, it’s unhelpful, and at worst, it’s even more harmful. Particularly helpful was the second section of her book where she framed an approach to notice, name, feel, share, and choose our emotions as a method to untangle them. I found the chapter The Vocabulary of Emotion (naming your emotions) especially helpful, as she named the big four emotions and their secondary counterparts.

That said, I concluded Allen’s book wanting. For starters, while she does dip into the emotion of joy/happiness, like so many other books on our feelings, there was an overwhelming emphasis on the, for lack of a better term, negative emotions. I wholeheartedly agree: it’s okay to not be okay. Let’s be careful to not overcorrect and allow the pendulum to swing too far either: it’s okay to be okay. It’s okay to have joy and happiness and peace and comfort. As I said, she dips into this topic, but I would like more on it from a book that attempts to untangle all our emotions and not just the difficult ones. Furthermore, this was my first book by Jennie Allen, and while I know her conversational tone is her signature, it was almost a bit too much for me. A bit too informal of a writing style, and it wore on me by the end of the book. There was a lot of build up throughout the chapters with what I felt to be little delivery. Yes, Allen’s advice is good and true, but it also wasn’t anything new or all too profound. One chapter suggests exercising more, sleeping more, reducing screen time, and drinking more water. All of this is great advice, and yet also a bit elementary. Lastly, I would have loved some more Scriptural application. We got a lot of information from what her therapist has to say (which is great, by the way), but not as much about what God has to say. Since God is the one who created our emotions, I wish Allen shared more about how God would have us navigate through those emotions in a God-honoring way.

In the end, I’d give this book a 3/5 stars as it gives some good truths but ultimately falls a little flat.

I’m grateful to NetGalley and WaterBrook & Multnomah for the advanced readers copy in return for my honest review.

We all have feelings, and sometimes it seems like they are a giant ball of yarn all knotted up. This book looks at taking those feelings and untangling them. Letting yourself sit in the emotions, not pushing them away. The perfect balance of science, faith, and feeling. I’m always impressed with the way this author sprinkles in the word of god without feeling preachy! This book covers friendships, therapy, medicine, and allowing yourself to experience a full ray of emotions. I loved the personal stories and the practical steps.