Ever since her senior year of high school, Dr. Jane Sinden has been passionate about rowing. She excelled in the sport while she was an elite athlete, yet she and her teammates experienced difficult mental and physical health issues, being told by coaches to just 鈥渟uck it up and row.鈥 Though she had originally planned on becoming a lawyer, she decided to redirect her academic endeavors toward understanding how elite sport can be improved through social-emotional learning, a topic she has continued to study for more than two decades.
鈥淚 remember thinking, there鈥檚 a lot of us, not just women 鈥 who had lots of complaints about training and many health issues,鈥 says Sinden. 鈥淚f we felt overtrained, we really didn鈥檛 know who to talk to about it because we didn鈥檛 want to look like we weren鈥檛 tough enough to handle it.鈥
Dr. Lisa Devall-Martin has a similar story, though in the context of being a public school principal and experiencing staff burnout. These insights served as inspiration for her doctoral research at Johns Hopkins University on emotional labour in teaching. Realizing the connections between their research鈥攖he similar roles of educators and coaches鈥擲inden and Devall-Martin set out to learn more about emotion in practice and vocation, a process Devall-Martin described as 鈥渓ife-giving.鈥
The Word of God brings healing and restores us, as does prayer. Coaches and teachers, how are you rooting your athletes and students in Christ?
Sinden is an associate professor of kinesiology and physical education, also teaching in the education department, and Devall-Martin is an assistant professor of education. Together, they recently wrote a research paper titled 鈥溾 that was published this past February in the journal Religions for a special issue on sport and Christianity in the 21st century. According to the abstract, the paper presents 鈥渢heoretical, educational, and practical insight into the areas of emotion and spiritual development,鈥 serving as a resource to leaders in sport who seek to mentor and educate athletes on emotional and spiritual formation.
鈥淢y focus in this research is to create a biblical framework with respect to what our emotions reveal to us about our heart, our health and our relationship with God 鈥 And it鈥檚 very biblical to seek to understand our emotions,鈥 says Sinden. 鈥淕od instructs us to examine ourselves.鈥 Sinden finds this self-examination clearly in Scripture, particularly Psalm 51:6: 鈥淏ehold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.鈥
In this publication, Sinden and Devall-Martin explore topics such as emotional norms, clinical sport psychology, the healthy expression of emotions, the fall鈥檚 effect on emotion and spiritual formation, citing figures from philosopher Michel Foucault to Reformed thinker and 麻豆视频入口在线观看 professor emeritus Al Wolters. Toward the end of the paper, they construct a summarizing model that displays the interplay between emotions, fears and inordinate (obsessive) affections. To contrast this visual, another model follows that shows how being rooted in God鈥檚 love and walking in the Spirit can lead athletes down the right emotional path.
One concept that is re-examined in the the paper is Sinden鈥檚 doctoral work on what she called the 鈥渘ormalization of emotion鈥 in sport. She explains that athletic environments can sometimes encourage athletes to conform to certain emotions because of false beliefs that emotions are negative, irrational, private, weak and feminine. Sinden explains that it is these myths about emotions that often lead to the suppression of emotions and subsequently unhealthy behaviour.
Understanding our emotions is the way to understanding why we鈥檙e feeling the way we鈥檙e feeling and our covenantal relationship with God, which leads us to health, fruit and all the good things God wants to give us.
Devall-Martin explains that, with this research, 鈥渢he goal is to destigmatize emotion.鈥 Athletes face incredible pressure to succeed, and overcoming these heavy burdens, she says, requires self-awareness. She shares an example from her personal life: on one occasion, her son came back defeated from an athletic competition with the words, 鈥淵ou have to lose to get the silver.鈥 In a field where anything less than perfection can be understood as a failure, God鈥檚 redemptive power can play an important role.
鈥淭he Word of God brings healing and restores us, as does prayer,鈥 says Devall-Martin. 鈥淐oaches and teachers, how are you rooting your athletes and students in Christ?鈥
To understand emotions from a Christian perspective, according to Sinden, is to see each emotion as neither inherently good nor bad, but in terms of structure and direction. Though our emotions were created good by God (structure), sin has distorted them, and now we must work to discover how we can express emotions in ways that are healthy and pleasing to the Lord, and accept what it feels like to be fully known (direction). Sinden believes emotions play an important role in indicating deeper things about our heart.
鈥淯nderstanding our emotions is the way to understanding why we鈥檙e feeling the way we鈥檙e feeling and our covenantal relationship with God, which leads us to health, fruit and all the good things God wants to give us.鈥
Devall-Martin agrees and reinforces the importance of emotion education. 鈥淐ulture suppresses emotion. We have emotion for a purpose: to connect with God, and connect with each other and be transformed into the likeness of Christ.鈥