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Speaker 1: Life Audio.
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Speaker 2: Today's episode brings a powerful lens to a struggle many of us don't even realize we have. Emotional hoarding. We joke about emotional baggage, but most of us are carrying far more than a suitcase. We're holding closets full of unprocessed feelings like worry, pain, regret, false guilt, anger, and shame.
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Speaker 3: Our guest, Moody Publishers Release, offers a gentle, insightful.
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Speaker 2: biblical way to recognize the emotional clutter weighing us down and step into the freedom Christ provides. This is a conversation that will help you name what's been holding you back and learn how to release it for good. Welcome back to your Hope-Filled Perspective with Dr. Michelle Bankson, where it's always our goal to restore hope, renew minds, and empower listeners to live in your God-given identity. Thank you for choosing to spend a few minutes of your week with us. I don't think you'll find it wasted because today we're going to be talking about how to recognize hidden emotional clutter that you don't even know you were carrying. We will dive into this conversation right after this brief word from our sponsor. In this episode of Your Hope-Filled Perspective, we're gonna be talking about how to recognize hidden emotional clutter that you didn't even know you were carrying. Today, I have the joy of welcoming back Lori Davies, author of the book, Emotional Hoarding, Letting.
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Speaker 3: Go of the Stuff That Keeps You Stuck.
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Speaker 2: Lori has a remarkable gift for putting words to the emotional clutter so many of us carry. Things like worry, regret, pride, or bitterness that quietly take up space in our hearts and interfere with the freedom God desires for us. In her book, she shines a compassionate, biblically grounded light on the hidden burdens we tend to collect. She shows us how scripture invites us to release them. I know you'll be encouraged by the hope and clarity it brings to this conversation.
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Speaker 3: Before we get started, I just want.
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Speaker 2: To remind you of Psalm 139 verses 23 through 24 that says, Search me, God, and know my heart.
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Speaker 3: See if there is.
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Speaker 2: Any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. Lori Davies is a writer, national speaker, and lay counselor who helps women deal with their emotional accumulation, letting go of things like regret, grudges, false guilt, and shame. And in her debut book, Emotional Hoarding, Letting Go of the Stuff That Keeps You Stuck, released by Moody Publishers in March, 2026. Lori's writing has been featured in Guideposts and Proverbs 31, verse 5 app.
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Speaker 3: She also serves as lead.
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Speaker 2: Editor on Shanti Felden's Atlanta-based ministry staff. She lives in the Phoenix area with her husband of 30 years and their adult son.
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Speaker 3: Is fortunate enough to live by. Lori, welcome back to the conversation.
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Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for having me. This is a topic that I know is near and dear to your heart too. So I've been really looking forward to this conversation. It's my honor to be here.
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Speaker 3: Frequently.
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Speaker 2: Our ministries, our books, our resources are birthed out of our own experiences or needs. We often write the book that we wish that we could have read. I'd be curious how this might have been true for you too.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I think when we talk about emotional hoarding, I think I even mentioned in the book, like it took me 40 years to kind of figure out whoa, I'm doing this. I think most of us have a frame of reference for hoarding. Michelle, you wrote a great blog about physical hoarding last year. And so whether we've seen the cable show or we know someone who kind of has let their stuff get out of control, I think sometimes in our hearts, we let our emo stuff get out of control. And sometimes like the verse you just referenced, we don't always see it. in real time. We don't always understand the contents of our own hearts. Jeremiah told us as much, and I love David's beautiful prayer for the Lord to search our hearts and reveal to us maybe things that have been kind of lurking in crawl spaces, or maybe we willfully put them there because we just think they're too hard to deal with. Or, One of the things I kind of encountered in the writing of the book is things like maybe regret, which you actually helped me a lot with in the book. You're quoted in the book, and I also relied on you for quite a bit of background. But things like regret and shame, sometimes we think it's actually noble in some way to hold onto those as if that's a continued form of penance or maybe our regret will remind us, hey, I don't want to go down that path again, so I should hold onto this icky feeling because it'll And that's just not it at all. Like, that's not the freedom God wants us to walk in.
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Speaker 3: So, yeah. Let's take a step back.
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Speaker 2: And for my listeners and viewers who haven't read your book yet, and we'll put all the information about Lori and her book in the show notes that you can find at drmichelleb.com. But Lori, let's take a step back and talk about what exactly is.
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Speaker 3: Emotional hoarding and how is it different from... emotional baggage?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a great question. Baggage, as you mentioned, is something we kind of joke about. We share memes on social media about it, or we'll talk about she has a lot of baggage, carrying baggage into a relationship. I think that in short form can kind of reference emotional issues that maybe we carry them around. I have a luggage tag that I put on my carry-on bag and it says, my emotional baggage won't fit into the overhead bin. And it always gets a lot of laughs, but we sort of talk about that in a light way sometimes. My thesis in the book is that we don't actually have an emotional baggage problem. We're emotional hoarders. And so the distinction is physical hoarders of physical belongings are almost paralyzed to let their belongings go. They almost don't notice the physical stuff piling up. And so I think hoarded hearts are very much like hoarded homes. And we can let emotional kind of skyscrapers build in our hearts. And just before we know it, we're just kind of maneuvering our way around with all this clutter, which actually is a lack of freedom. So I would distinguish baggage from hoarding in that hoarding is a much more serious accumulation of emotional stuff. And we are very hesitant to let it go.
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Speaker 2: How can someone realize if they're unintentionally collecting emotional clutter without even realizing it?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I had the luxury in the book of kind of going emotion by emotion. Michelle, you know, in real life, it's never that neat and clean. A lot of these overlap. But I think my eyes were opened as I looked at, let's take, for example, anger. That was one of the really hard chapters to write because anger, as many of your listeners and viewers will know, is a secondary emotion. So how do we know if we're hoarding something that's a secondary emotion? That's kind of complicated, right? So, but with anger, you can kind of tell you're hoarding anger if that's all you express. In other words, you're not expressing and you're not in tune with other emotions that might be driving that anger. You can also tell you're hoarding some of these things, anger, regret, shame, Worry even, that's one of the kind of really universal ones that I covered. If you're, it comes out in our physical bodies. So a lot of times there's, and there's overlap among these. A lot of times there's lack of sleep. Your appetite is wonky one way or the other. You're overeating or undereating or something's wonky with your appetite or digestion. All these kinds of emotions that God, he doesn't want us to haul all of these out to the dumpster. But I do think he wants us to look at them, acknowledge them, process them, and see kind of what he's showing us through them. If we leave all of that undealt with, it's going to come out in our physical bodies, in our relationships with others, and most primarily with some of the really serious ones like bitterness and pride. It's going to come out in our relationship with God. Yeah. And so if we're feeling stress in our physical bodies, in our spiritual walk with the Lord, in our relationships with others, that might be a clue that it's time to kind of get inside there and take a look at, man, am I holding on to stuff that's keeping me stuck?
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: In your book, you cover 10 different emotions that hurt us if we hoard them. But I'd be really curious, and I know my listeners would too, what was the hardest emotion for you to write about and why?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, no doubt it was worthlessness, which is later in the book. I think it's chapter 10. The why answer is that's been my core wound. I struggled most of my life with worthlessness. And the Lord is, I think it's a continuum, right? Like the Lord is continuing to set me free from that. But I just, I knew that chapter belonged in the book and I dreaded writing it because I knew I was going to have to get in my own closets and my own emotional floorboards. So literally I have a friend who has a lake house in Georgia and she said, come stay in my house for a week. And I went into just total isolation for a week and worked it out. with the Lord. And one of the things he showed me that's just so beautiful, Psalm 139, you already mentioned, were fearfully and wonderfully made. And we don't get to change that. The Lord, it would be like, Michelle, if somebody came to you, you're highly educated. You have many clinical hours in. It would be like if someone came to you and said, I get all of that, but I think I should pay you $ 5 an hour. I think that's what your time is worth to me. That would be preposterous. You would never accept that. You've spent years understanding neuropsychology and you'd probably be gracious about it, but you'd be like that. don't get to set my worth. And yet don't we do that with God? He made a masterpiece and we tell him, yeah, I think I'm worth five bucks. It's preposterous. And so I think kind of working through that And to be vulnerable, I continue to work through that. It made it a really hard chapter to write. There were a lot of tears on the floor.
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Speaker 2: Well, and if there's anything I've learned through all the books I've written is that we write about things that the Lord has shown us and grown us in, but it's never a one and done.
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Speaker 3: We continue to have to live out our message.
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Speaker 2: Which means we'll continue to have experiences to put into practice what we've suggested that others do.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and won't the enemy test us on that too?
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Speaker 3: Absolutely.
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Speaker 1: All he has is our history. So all he can come at us with is our past and our pain points that he knows about. So yeah, there's a lot of freedom in the words you spoke. I think any of us who want to put forth that we're 100% healed, that's crazy. I mean, we'll all be looking at each other in heaven, 100% healed. And until then, aren't we glad for the grace of God and the tenderness of the Holy Spirit?
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Speaker 3: Oh, absolutely.
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Speaker 2: Friends, we're going to take a short break for this brief word from our sponsor, but I want you to stick with us to hear Lori share more about how to recognize hidden emotional clutter you didn't know.
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Speaker 3: You were carrying. We'll be right back.
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Speaker 2: The first emotion that you tackle about in the book is worry. Why did you lead with worry and what did you learn about it?
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Speaker 1: That's a great question. Why did I lead with worry? I led with worry because I think at some level that's pretty universal. And it also felt sort of like one we could address quickly. I wanted my readers to understand that because if you're at a place where you're like, oh, I might be an emotional hoarder, maybe you even need an emotional 911. You want to know you can make progress. And I feel like with worry, that possibility exists. Tell a funny story at the beginning of the chapter about my husband and I are tent campers. And one time we were out at this remote campsite in Arkansas and I had to get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. So I had three pretty terrible options, right? Like go in the woods. That wasn't going to happen. Hold it all night, which isn't a terrific option or walk maybe an eighth of a mile to the camp latrine. And while I was in there, I could hear the like nails of a critter coming. So I'm undisposed, situated in stall number one, and this armadillo sticks its nasty beady eyes, pink fleshy nose, dirty nails. So I'm staring this thing down and I go, my screen takes Arkansas to like DEFCON 3 and I'm All of a sudden I feel this worry just surge. Like I have myself dying of leprosy, which they do carry leprosy. When was my last tetanus shot? Is this thing staring at me while I'm naked? All ridiculous things. And of course I made it out of the bathroom just fine and back to the tent just fine. And we usually, stats are pretty compelling that most of the things we worry about never materialize or if they do, they're of far less consequence. than what we're worried about. So I wanted to tackle worry because I could have a little fun with it. And because I think we all experience it. And also because God never promised us a worry-free life. However, there is a path in his word that will lead us to a life that's free of worry.
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Speaker 4: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: So that was exciting.
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Speaker 2: I spent an entire book writing about worry, fear, and anxiety.
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Speaker 1: Yep.
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Speaker 2: And it is something that we have to come back to and come back to and come back to because the enemy knows what those circumstances are that's going to incite worry. And by the way, in the state of Texas, our state animal is the armadillo and you're not allowed to kill them.
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Speaker 3: So there's that.
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Speaker 1: Well, it was such a bright moonlit night that I didn't even take my flashlight to the bathroom with me. So I had nothing to like beat it off with. So I guess there was no danger of me causing harm to an animal. But wow, I didn't know that. I lived in Texas for seven years. I had no idea that was the state animal.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Wow.
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Speaker 3: Anyway, more about that some other time. But later in the book, you tackled pride.
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Speaker 4: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: What was the most surprising thing you discovered about pride?
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Speaker 1: Oh gosh. Well, pride is another hard one. I don't think anyone wakes up in the morning, Michelle, and says, wow, I hope I get a handle on my pride today. I put it later in the book because I felt like by then I'd earned the right to maybe poke in that spot a little bit. But I think about pride. One of the things that I learned is that we all contend with it and it leads to so many of the other hard emotions that we can end up hoarding. And so it's kind of like a gateway. It's not something that we generally walk through life hoping that God will break down because what does that require? It requires something really hard, the way out of pride. And I kind of delve into this a little more in the chapter, but in short form, the way out of pride is to beg God to humble us. And That's a scary thing to do. But I think the thing that was cool that I just found so much freedom in is that God says He gives grace to the humble. Some translations say He gives favor to the humble. So if we really stop and let Him do His work and let Him do His math in the only way He can do it, the thing that feels most like subtraction, humble me, like nobody gives up and prays that, actually becomes addition. when we trust it into God's hands. I think that's just a beautiful thing.
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Speaker 2: It is a beautiful thing that you've discovered. Overall, what finding or truth surprised you the most in researching?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so there's a chapter on bitterness. And I talk a lot about grudge holding. And that's one of the that's one of the other things about emotional hoarding that I sort of encountered when I was researching this, we use the language of accumulation around a lot of these things. So for example, we hold onto grudges, right? Or we live buried under a mountain of regret. But what surprised me in the bitterness chapter, which is kind of the grudge holding thing is I looked, I found a researcher has done some work into this and they, On average, each of us, so your listeners right now and your viewers are holding seven grudges. And that shocked me.
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Speaker 3: I'm actually surprised it's that low.
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Speaker 1: You think it's low?
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Speaker 4: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Oh, okay. I think some people think it's high. It's not something we want to necessarily tangle with in ourselves. Yeah. But I started counting up a few and man, I was... I was convicted. I was repentant. And if you're listening and you think, well, I don't really have any grudges. The bad news is your husband's probably holding 14 or your sister or your best friend statistically. So I was surprised by that statistic. You being in the world you're in, you probably have had to help people kind of navigate really the damage that grudges do on their lives. So I think you've probably... encountered it in a different way. But yeah, that was surprising to me.
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Speaker 2: From your perspective, why do you think believers, even those who love God deeply, why do they struggle to let go of emotions like worry, regret, bitterness?
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Speaker 3: We know they're not good. We know they don't even feel good.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, if we go back to bitterness, I think if we're being honest, sometimes we like the way the grudge feels in our hands. It gives us that little feeling of, I'm not going to let them off the hook. I think with other emotions, as I mentioned, maybe about shame and regret, sometimes we don't think we should let them go. And I think maybe with worry, I hit fear in the book, which often comes out as control. I think with those, sometimes we just think that's how we are. And what a defeating lie to believe, right? And what a defeating imprint to leave on our children. I'm just from a family of warriors. What does that do to our kids when we say that? So I think it can be a variety of reasons. It could be pride. I think sometimes we just, either we think there's something noble about hanging on or in our pride, we don't want to let go. What do you think about that? Let me flip that. I'd love to hear your answer.
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Speaker 3: I think part of it is fear.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: And I think part of it related to fear is we, by our human nature, want to be in control.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: So if we let go of those emotions, we're letting someone off the hook. And then we feel like we're not in control of.
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Speaker 3: That situation anymore.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 4: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Lori, how does scripture address emotional hoarding? And where do you see God inviting us in to release what weighs us down?
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Speaker 1: Well, the first scripture that comes to mind is Galatians 5.1, right? It is for freedom that Christ set us free. So why would we go back to wearing a yoke of slavery? So I think freedom is of high value to the Lord. It's why he came to set the captives free, to set the prisoners free. And so if that's the whole reason he came... Certainly he wants us to be free in the way we live, in the way we carry out his calling on our lives, and in the way we negotiate things on the inside. He lives in our heart. So let's fix it up nice for him. Let's give him room to move and direct us. And if I'm living, holding on tightly to grudges and anger and regret and shame and worthlessness, then my hands aren't open to be able to receive the really good assignments. he wants to send me on. And that's true for every listener in your audience today. So true.
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Speaker 2: Friends, we're going to take a real short break for a brief word from our sponsor, but stick with us because when we come back, as we wrap up the episode, you know, I'm going to ask Lori to share a hope-filled perspective with you about how to recognize these hidden emotional areas of clutter you didn't know you were carrying.
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Speaker 3: We'll be right back.
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Speaker 2: Laurie, how can someone begin the process of identifying and naming these emotions that we've stuffed or ignored for years?
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Speaker 1: Well, I think for some of us, it certainly has been true for me. I've been a women's ministry director and I'm a lay counselor and you see clients. You've seen so many clients over the years, probably thousands. I think it takes a lot of courage. I think it takes courage to say, I'm going to aim the spotlight in here and let the Lord... start maybe tearing down some stacks and stockpiles that I've grown very comfortable with in the surroundings of my own heart. So I think courage would be a good first step. And then just being honest. I think we hit a point in our lives where We don't have to put up these pretenses and be Instagram perfect for anyone. The Lord wants our whole heart. He just wants us to be honest with them. And so I would say courage and honesty would be good places to start. It can be a fearsome thing to tackle things that we've stuffed for a really long time. But I think, I love this question, Michelle, because I think the hope-filled perspective in that is that when we start to face the things that are keeping us stuck, we'll taste a freedom that we won't want to turn back from. It is a game changer, a life changer, and we won't want to go back to the chains we once wore. They just won't fit anymore.
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Speaker 3: And thank the Lord for that.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Do you think it's possible to let go of old regrets without pretending that the past didn't happen?
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Speaker 1: Do I think it's possible to let go of old regrets without pretending that? Yeah, I think actually acknowledging that the past did happen is a good. I think that's the thing that drives us to grace. Regret is a tricky one. And you actually provided some great background in this for me. There's a really helpful step-by-step how to... kind of maneuver regret, if regret of inaction is what it's called. But with regret, there's kind of a fork in the road. Did I sin or did I not sin? And so if the answer is yes, I sinned, there's a scriptural passage written by Paul, the one who most needed to be free from regret, that is a direct lifeline away from regret. But man, those regrets of inaction, loved your quote in the book about it's like fighting a ghost. because it's the thing you didn't do. It's the thing that lacks resolution. And I think the way out of those is just realizing grace is sufficient for us. Grace fills all those gaps where we wish we would have gone left instead of right or done X instead of Z, Y. So yeah, I think looking at a few regrets propped up in the corner is the thing that drives me straight to grace.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, because the enemy will use guilt, false guilt and regret to create a cloak of shame. And what I so appreciate about our Heavenly Father is that He says in Scripture, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. There's no room for shame. There is plenty of room for conviction. And conviction is offered to us as a gift to restore our relationship with God. We don't have to live under the shame. He gives us the gift of confession and repentance so that we can close the door on that. And when the enemy comes a knocking again and says, oh, but remember what you did. We go, nope, I've already confessed it. I've repented of it. I have received his forgiveness. And like you started off early in this episode, Lori, it is finished because of Christ's finished work on the cross.
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Speaker 1: That's a good word, Michelle. The enemy wants to keep us trapped in the past. And if so, if we feel that's another way, I think we can recognize emotional hoarding. If we're constantly living back there, looking through the little rear view mirror instead of through the windshield and moving forward in our lives, that's a real clue that there may be some emotional hoarding going on. In hearing you talk just then, I was thinking about David. He had so many flaws. He engaged in criminal behavior, had a guy murdered, his bad dad. What made him a man after God's own heart? His repentance. was total. And so I think that conviction you're talking about, that's what brings us to the Lord, not pushes us away from him.
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Speaker 2: And I'm so grateful that he offers that as a gift. Think about it in terms of being a parent myself. When my kids come to me and they say, I'm really sorry, or whatever, I want to forgive them. I want to restore relationships. So I'm going to forgive. And that if I want to do that as a mom, I just think how much more does God desire for a restored relationship.
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Speaker 3: With his kids?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's beautiful. That's good.
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Speaker 2: Lori, thank you for sharing your wisdom and knowledge in this area. Friends, I hope that today's episode has challenged you to maybe open up the closet of your mind and heart and ask the Holy Spirit, what am I hoarding? What am I holding onto that doesn't serve me well? And how can I let go of that so that I can have true freedom in Christ? That's our desire for you out of this episode today. There's so much more that we could have talked about. Lori and I probably could have had a three-hour conversation and still only skimmed the surface. But we'll put all the information about Lori and her book, Emotional Hoarding, in the show notes. So make sure you check it out there. I look forward to being with you again next week for another episode of Your Hope-Filled Perspective. And you know, until then, it's always my desire for you that you have a hope-filled week.
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Speaker 4: Your ragged and torn past may be the key to God's future for you. We all endure trials, pain, and hardship in this life. Too often we believe these experiences disqualify us from being useful to God. But the truth is, your past pain and brokenness serve as preparation for what God wants to do in and through you. if you will surrender to and trust him. In Sacred Scars, neuropsychologist and fellow sufferer, Dr. Michelle Bankson helps you understand the suffering from a biblical perspective, discover how the trials of your life serve a purpose, reflect on the healing that God has accomplished, and comfort others with the comfort God has given you. Just as Jesus' scars didn't disappear after his resurrection and confirmed that he was who he said he was and that he did what he said he'd do, our emotional or physical scars tell our story and lend credence to our testimony of God's love and power. If you are ready to turn your past pain into present comfort and future hope, let Dr. Bankson be your compassionate guide. Jill Savage, host of the No More Perfect podcast and author of No More Perfect Marriages, had this to say about sacred scars. While we wish for a pain-free life, the dark seasons are where God invites us into the most growth. In the pages of this book, you will come to understand how God uses pain in powerful ways. If you're human, you need this book. Pick up a copy of Sacred Scars wherever books are sold and watch God turn your pain into purpose.
00:28:40
Speaker 5: Thank you for joining Dr. Bankson for your hope-filled perspective. We hope you were encouraged by her authenticity, vulnerability, and and biblical truths. If you enjoyed today's conversation, why don't you take a moment right now, open up your podcast app, and look for the subscribe button right next to our podcast profile image. We think this podcast is best enjoyed with friends, so tell a friend and click share in your podcast app and send a friend our link to share hope with them. If you have a comment, question, or suggest a topic for a future show, reach out to our staff at info at hopeprevails.org. For additional resources and information about Dr. Bankson's books or free downloads, or to contact her to speak at your next event, please visit drmichelleb.com. Until next time, may you have a hope-filled week.
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Speaker 2: I'd like to take just a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on this podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.
Speaker 1: Life Audio.
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Speaker 2: Today's episode brings a powerful lens to a struggle many of us don't even realize we have. Emotional hoarding. We joke about emotional baggage, but most of us are carrying far more than a suitcase. We're holding closets full of unprocessed feelings like worry, pain, regret, false guilt, anger, and shame.
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Speaker 3: Our guest, Moody Publishers Release, offers a gentle, insightful.
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Speaker 2: biblical way to recognize the emotional clutter weighing us down and step into the freedom Christ provides. This is a conversation that will help you name what's been holding you back and learn how to release it for good. Welcome back to your Hope-Filled Perspective with Dr. Michelle Bankson, where it's always our goal to restore hope, renew minds, and empower listeners to live in your God-given identity. Thank you for choosing to spend a few minutes of your week with us. I don't think you'll find it wasted because today we're going to be talking about how to recognize hidden emotional clutter that you don't even know you were carrying. We will dive into this conversation right after this brief word from our sponsor. In this episode of Your Hope-Filled Perspective, we're gonna be talking about how to recognize hidden emotional clutter that you didn't even know you were carrying. Today, I have the joy of welcoming back Lori Davies, author of the book, Emotional Hoarding, Letting.
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Speaker 3: Go of the Stuff That Keeps You Stuck.
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Speaker 2: Lori has a remarkable gift for putting words to the emotional clutter so many of us carry. Things like worry, regret, pride, or bitterness that quietly take up space in our hearts and interfere with the freedom God desires for us. In her book, she shines a compassionate, biblically grounded light on the hidden burdens we tend to collect. She shows us how scripture invites us to release them. I know you'll be encouraged by the hope and clarity it brings to this conversation.
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Speaker 3: Before we get started, I just want.
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Speaker 2: To remind you of Psalm 139 verses 23 through 24 that says, Search me, God, and know my heart.
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Speaker 3: See if there is.
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Speaker 2: Any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. Lori Davies is a writer, national speaker, and lay counselor who helps women deal with their emotional accumulation, letting go of things like regret, grudges, false guilt, and shame. And in her debut book, Emotional Hoarding, Letting Go of the Stuff That Keeps You Stuck, released by Moody Publishers in March, 2026. Lori's writing has been featured in Guideposts and Proverbs 31, verse 5 app.
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Speaker 3: She also serves as lead.
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Speaker 2: Editor on Shanti Felden's Atlanta-based ministry staff. She lives in the Phoenix area with her husband of 30 years and their adult son.
00:02:45
Speaker 3: Is fortunate enough to live by. Lori, welcome back to the conversation.
00:02:48
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for having me. This is a topic that I know is near and dear to your heart too. So I've been really looking forward to this conversation. It's my honor to be here.
00:02:58
Speaker 3: Frequently.
00:02:59
Speaker 2: Our ministries, our books, our resources are birthed out of our own experiences or needs. We often write the book that we wish that we could have read. I'd be curious how this might have been true for you too.
00:03:11
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I think when we talk about emotional hoarding, I think I even mentioned in the book, like it took me 40 years to kind of figure out whoa, I'm doing this. I think most of us have a frame of reference for hoarding. Michelle, you wrote a great blog about physical hoarding last year. And so whether we've seen the cable show or we know someone who kind of has let their stuff get out of control, I think sometimes in our hearts, we let our emo stuff get out of control. And sometimes like the verse you just referenced, we don't always see it. in real time. We don't always understand the contents of our own hearts. Jeremiah told us as much, and I love David's beautiful prayer for the Lord to search our hearts and reveal to us maybe things that have been kind of lurking in crawl spaces, or maybe we willfully put them there because we just think they're too hard to deal with. Or, One of the things I kind of encountered in the writing of the book is things like maybe regret, which you actually helped me a lot with in the book. You're quoted in the book, and I also relied on you for quite a bit of background. But things like regret and shame, sometimes we think it's actually noble in some way to hold onto those as if that's a continued form of penance or maybe our regret will remind us, hey, I don't want to go down that path again, so I should hold onto this icky feeling because it'll And that's just not it at all. Like, that's not the freedom God wants us to walk in.
00:04:43
Speaker 3: So, yeah. Let's take a step back.
00:04:46
Speaker 2: And for my listeners and viewers who haven't read your book yet, and we'll put all the information about Lori and her book in the show notes that you can find at drmichelleb.com. But Lori, let's take a step back and talk about what exactly is.
00:04:59
Speaker 3: Emotional hoarding and how is it different from... emotional baggage?
00:05:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a great question. Baggage, as you mentioned, is something we kind of joke about. We share memes on social media about it, or we'll talk about she has a lot of baggage, carrying baggage into a relationship. I think that in short form can kind of reference emotional issues that maybe we carry them around. I have a luggage tag that I put on my carry-on bag and it says, my emotional baggage won't fit into the overhead bin. And it always gets a lot of laughs, but we sort of talk about that in a light way sometimes. My thesis in the book is that we don't actually have an emotional baggage problem. We're emotional hoarders. And so the distinction is physical hoarders of physical belongings are almost paralyzed to let their belongings go. They almost don't notice the physical stuff piling up. And so I think hoarded hearts are very much like hoarded homes. And we can let emotional kind of skyscrapers build in our hearts. And just before we know it, we're just kind of maneuvering our way around with all this clutter, which actually is a lack of freedom. So I would distinguish baggage from hoarding in that hoarding is a much more serious accumulation of emotional stuff. And we are very hesitant to let it go.
00:06:19
Speaker 2: How can someone realize if they're unintentionally collecting emotional clutter without even realizing it?
00:06:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I had the luxury in the book of kind of going emotion by emotion. Michelle, you know, in real life, it's never that neat and clean. A lot of these overlap. But I think my eyes were opened as I looked at, let's take, for example, anger. That was one of the really hard chapters to write because anger, as many of your listeners and viewers will know, is a secondary emotion. So how do we know if we're hoarding something that's a secondary emotion? That's kind of complicated, right? So, but with anger, you can kind of tell you're hoarding anger if that's all you express. In other words, you're not expressing and you're not in tune with other emotions that might be driving that anger. You can also tell you're hoarding some of these things, anger, regret, shame, Worry even, that's one of the kind of really universal ones that I covered. If you're, it comes out in our physical bodies. So a lot of times there's, and there's overlap among these. A lot of times there's lack of sleep. Your appetite is wonky one way or the other. You're overeating or undereating or something's wonky with your appetite or digestion. All these kinds of emotions that God, he doesn't want us to haul all of these out to the dumpster. But I do think he wants us to look at them, acknowledge them, process them, and see kind of what he's showing us through them. If we leave all of that undealt with, it's going to come out in our physical bodies, in our relationships with others, and most primarily with some of the really serious ones like bitterness and pride. It's going to come out in our relationship with God. Yeah. And so if we're feeling stress in our physical bodies, in our spiritual walk with the Lord, in our relationships with others, that might be a clue that it's time to kind of get inside there and take a look at, man, am I holding on to stuff that's keeping me stuck?
00:08:25
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:08:25
Speaker 2: In your book, you cover 10 different emotions that hurt us if we hoard them. But I'd be really curious, and I know my listeners would too, what was the hardest emotion for you to write about and why?
00:08:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, no doubt it was worthlessness, which is later in the book. I think it's chapter 10. The why answer is that's been my core wound. I struggled most of my life with worthlessness. And the Lord is, I think it's a continuum, right? Like the Lord is continuing to set me free from that. But I just, I knew that chapter belonged in the book and I dreaded writing it because I knew I was going to have to get in my own closets and my own emotional floorboards. So literally I have a friend who has a lake house in Georgia and she said, come stay in my house for a week. And I went into just total isolation for a week and worked it out. with the Lord. And one of the things he showed me that's just so beautiful, Psalm 139, you already mentioned, were fearfully and wonderfully made. And we don't get to change that. The Lord, it would be like, Michelle, if somebody came to you, you're highly educated. You have many clinical hours in. It would be like if someone came to you and said, I get all of that, but I think I should pay you $ 5 an hour. I think that's what your time is worth to me. That would be preposterous. You would never accept that. You've spent years understanding neuropsychology and you'd probably be gracious about it, but you'd be like that. don't get to set my worth. And yet don't we do that with God? He made a masterpiece and we tell him, yeah, I think I'm worth five bucks. It's preposterous. And so I think kind of working through that And to be vulnerable, I continue to work through that. It made it a really hard chapter to write. There were a lot of tears on the floor.
00:10:21
Speaker 2: Well, and if there's anything I've learned through all the books I've written is that we write about things that the Lord has shown us and grown us in, but it's never a one and done.
00:10:32
Speaker 3: We continue to have to live out our message.
00:10:35
Speaker 2: Which means we'll continue to have experiences to put into practice what we've suggested that others do.
00:10:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, and won't the enemy test us on that too?
00:10:44
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
00:10:45
Speaker 1: All he has is our history. So all he can come at us with is our past and our pain points that he knows about. So yeah, there's a lot of freedom in the words you spoke. I think any of us who want to put forth that we're 100% healed, that's crazy. I mean, we'll all be looking at each other in heaven, 100% healed. And until then, aren't we glad for the grace of God and the tenderness of the Holy Spirit?
00:11:11
Speaker 3: Oh, absolutely.
00:11:12
Speaker 2: Friends, we're going to take a short break for this brief word from our sponsor, but I want you to stick with us to hear Lori share more about how to recognize hidden emotional clutter you didn't know.
00:11:22
Speaker 3: You were carrying. We'll be right back.
00:11:28
Speaker 2: The first emotion that you tackle about in the book is worry. Why did you lead with worry and what did you learn about it?
00:11:36
Speaker 1: That's a great question. Why did I lead with worry? I led with worry because I think at some level that's pretty universal. And it also felt sort of like one we could address quickly. I wanted my readers to understand that because if you're at a place where you're like, oh, I might be an emotional hoarder, maybe you even need an emotional 911. You want to know you can make progress. And I feel like with worry, that possibility exists. Tell a funny story at the beginning of the chapter about my husband and I are tent campers. And one time we were out at this remote campsite in Arkansas and I had to get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. So I had three pretty terrible options, right? Like go in the woods. That wasn't going to happen. Hold it all night, which isn't a terrific option or walk maybe an eighth of a mile to the camp latrine. And while I was in there, I could hear the like nails of a critter coming. So I'm undisposed, situated in stall number one, and this armadillo sticks its nasty beady eyes, pink fleshy nose, dirty nails. So I'm staring this thing down and I go, my screen takes Arkansas to like DEFCON 3 and I'm All of a sudden I feel this worry just surge. Like I have myself dying of leprosy, which they do carry leprosy. When was my last tetanus shot? Is this thing staring at me while I'm naked? All ridiculous things. And of course I made it out of the bathroom just fine and back to the tent just fine. And we usually, stats are pretty compelling that most of the things we worry about never materialize or if they do, they're of far less consequence. than what we're worried about. So I wanted to tackle worry because I could have a little fun with it. And because I think we all experience it. And also because God never promised us a worry-free life. However, there is a path in his word that will lead us to a life that's free of worry.
00:13:42
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:13:43
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:13:44
Speaker 1: So that was exciting.
00:13:45
Speaker 2: I spent an entire book writing about worry, fear, and anxiety.
00:13:49
Speaker 1: Yep.
00:13:50
Speaker 2: And it is something that we have to come back to and come back to and come back to because the enemy knows what those circumstances are that's going to incite worry. And by the way, in the state of Texas, our state animal is the armadillo and you're not allowed to kill them.
00:14:02
Speaker 3: So there's that.
00:14:03
Speaker 1: Well, it was such a bright moonlit night that I didn't even take my flashlight to the bathroom with me. So I had nothing to like beat it off with. So I guess there was no danger of me causing harm to an animal. But wow, I didn't know that. I lived in Texas for seven years. I had no idea that was the state animal.
00:14:19
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:14:19
Speaker 1: Wow.
00:14:20
Speaker 3: Anyway, more about that some other time. But later in the book, you tackled pride.
00:14:25
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:14:25
Speaker 2: What was the most surprising thing you discovered about pride?
00:14:29
Speaker 1: Oh gosh. Well, pride is another hard one. I don't think anyone wakes up in the morning, Michelle, and says, wow, I hope I get a handle on my pride today. I put it later in the book because I felt like by then I'd earned the right to maybe poke in that spot a little bit. But I think about pride. One of the things that I learned is that we all contend with it and it leads to so many of the other hard emotions that we can end up hoarding. And so it's kind of like a gateway. It's not something that we generally walk through life hoping that God will break down because what does that require? It requires something really hard, the way out of pride. And I kind of delve into this a little more in the chapter, but in short form, the way out of pride is to beg God to humble us. And That's a scary thing to do. But I think the thing that was cool that I just found so much freedom in is that God says He gives grace to the humble. Some translations say He gives favor to the humble. So if we really stop and let Him do His work and let Him do His math in the only way He can do it, the thing that feels most like subtraction, humble me, like nobody gives up and prays that, actually becomes addition. when we trust it into God's hands. I think that's just a beautiful thing.
00:15:51
Speaker 2: It is a beautiful thing that you've discovered. Overall, what finding or truth surprised you the most in researching?
00:15:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, so there's a chapter on bitterness. And I talk a lot about grudge holding. And that's one of the that's one of the other things about emotional hoarding that I sort of encountered when I was researching this, we use the language of accumulation around a lot of these things. So for example, we hold onto grudges, right? Or we live buried under a mountain of regret. But what surprised me in the bitterness chapter, which is kind of the grudge holding thing is I looked, I found a researcher has done some work into this and they, On average, each of us, so your listeners right now and your viewers are holding seven grudges. And that shocked me.
00:16:44
Speaker 3: I'm actually surprised it's that low.
00:16:46
Speaker 1: You think it's low?
00:16:47
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:16:48
Speaker 1: Oh, okay. I think some people think it's high. It's not something we want to necessarily tangle with in ourselves. Yeah. But I started counting up a few and man, I was... I was convicted. I was repentant. And if you're listening and you think, well, I don't really have any grudges. The bad news is your husband's probably holding 14 or your sister or your best friend statistically. So I was surprised by that statistic. You being in the world you're in, you probably have had to help people kind of navigate really the damage that grudges do on their lives. So I think you've probably... encountered it in a different way. But yeah, that was surprising to me.
00:17:29
Speaker 2: From your perspective, why do you think believers, even those who love God deeply, why do they struggle to let go of emotions like worry, regret, bitterness?
00:17:40
Speaker 3: We know they're not good. We know they don't even feel good.
00:17:43
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, if we go back to bitterness, I think if we're being honest, sometimes we like the way the grudge feels in our hands. It gives us that little feeling of, I'm not going to let them off the hook. I think with other emotions, as I mentioned, maybe about shame and regret, sometimes we don't think we should let them go. And I think maybe with worry, I hit fear in the book, which often comes out as control. I think with those, sometimes we just think that's how we are. And what a defeating lie to believe, right? And what a defeating imprint to leave on our children. I'm just from a family of warriors. What does that do to our kids when we say that? So I think it can be a variety of reasons. It could be pride. I think sometimes we just, either we think there's something noble about hanging on or in our pride, we don't want to let go. What do you think about that? Let me flip that. I'd love to hear your answer.
00:18:40
Speaker 3: I think part of it is fear.
00:18:41
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:18:41
Speaker 2: And I think part of it related to fear is we, by our human nature, want to be in control.
00:18:49
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:18:50
Speaker 2: So if we let go of those emotions, we're letting someone off the hook. And then we feel like we're not in control of.
00:18:57
Speaker 3: That situation anymore.
00:18:59
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:19:00
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:19:00
Speaker 2: Lori, how does scripture address emotional hoarding? And where do you see God inviting us in to release what weighs us down?
00:19:08
Speaker 1: Well, the first scripture that comes to mind is Galatians 5.1, right? It is for freedom that Christ set us free. So why would we go back to wearing a yoke of slavery? So I think freedom is of high value to the Lord. It's why he came to set the captives free, to set the prisoners free. And so if that's the whole reason he came... Certainly he wants us to be free in the way we live, in the way we carry out his calling on our lives, and in the way we negotiate things on the inside. He lives in our heart. So let's fix it up nice for him. Let's give him room to move and direct us. And if I'm living, holding on tightly to grudges and anger and regret and shame and worthlessness, then my hands aren't open to be able to receive the really good assignments. he wants to send me on. And that's true for every listener in your audience today. So true.
00:20:12
Speaker 2: Friends, we're going to take a real short break for a brief word from our sponsor, but stick with us because when we come back, as we wrap up the episode, you know, I'm going to ask Lori to share a hope-filled perspective with you about how to recognize these hidden emotional areas of clutter you didn't know you were carrying.
00:20:27
Speaker 3: We'll be right back.
00:20:31
Speaker 2: Laurie, how can someone begin the process of identifying and naming these emotions that we've stuffed or ignored for years?
00:20:40
Speaker 1: Well, I think for some of us, it certainly has been true for me. I've been a women's ministry director and I'm a lay counselor and you see clients. You've seen so many clients over the years, probably thousands. I think it takes a lot of courage. I think it takes courage to say, I'm going to aim the spotlight in here and let the Lord... start maybe tearing down some stacks and stockpiles that I've grown very comfortable with in the surroundings of my own heart. So I think courage would be a good first step. And then just being honest. I think we hit a point in our lives where We don't have to put up these pretenses and be Instagram perfect for anyone. The Lord wants our whole heart. He just wants us to be honest with them. And so I would say courage and honesty would be good places to start. It can be a fearsome thing to tackle things that we've stuffed for a really long time. But I think, I love this question, Michelle, because I think the hope-filled perspective in that is that when we start to face the things that are keeping us stuck, we'll taste a freedom that we won't want to turn back from. It is a game changer, a life changer, and we won't want to go back to the chains we once wore. They just won't fit anymore.
00:21:59
Speaker 3: And thank the Lord for that.
00:22:02
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:22:03
Speaker 2: Do you think it's possible to let go of old regrets without pretending that the past didn't happen?
00:22:09
Speaker 1: Do I think it's possible to let go of old regrets without pretending that? Yeah, I think actually acknowledging that the past did happen is a good. I think that's the thing that drives us to grace. Regret is a tricky one. And you actually provided some great background in this for me. There's a really helpful step-by-step how to... kind of maneuver regret, if regret of inaction is what it's called. But with regret, there's kind of a fork in the road. Did I sin or did I not sin? And so if the answer is yes, I sinned, there's a scriptural passage written by Paul, the one who most needed to be free from regret, that is a direct lifeline away from regret. But man, those regrets of inaction, loved your quote in the book about it's like fighting a ghost. because it's the thing you didn't do. It's the thing that lacks resolution. And I think the way out of those is just realizing grace is sufficient for us. Grace fills all those gaps where we wish we would have gone left instead of right or done X instead of Z, Y. So yeah, I think looking at a few regrets propped up in the corner is the thing that drives me straight to grace.
00:23:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, because the enemy will use guilt, false guilt and regret to create a cloak of shame. And what I so appreciate about our Heavenly Father is that He says in Scripture, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. There's no room for shame. There is plenty of room for conviction. And conviction is offered to us as a gift to restore our relationship with God. We don't have to live under the shame. He gives us the gift of confession and repentance so that we can close the door on that. And when the enemy comes a knocking again and says, oh, but remember what you did. We go, nope, I've already confessed it. I've repented of it. I have received his forgiveness. And like you started off early in this episode, Lori, it is finished because of Christ's finished work on the cross.
00:24:23
Speaker 1: That's a good word, Michelle. The enemy wants to keep us trapped in the past. And if so, if we feel that's another way, I think we can recognize emotional hoarding. If we're constantly living back there, looking through the little rear view mirror instead of through the windshield and moving forward in our lives, that's a real clue that there may be some emotional hoarding going on. In hearing you talk just then, I was thinking about David. He had so many flaws. He engaged in criminal behavior, had a guy murdered, his bad dad. What made him a man after God's own heart? His repentance. was total. And so I think that conviction you're talking about, that's what brings us to the Lord, not pushes us away from him.
00:25:06
Speaker 2: And I'm so grateful that he offers that as a gift. Think about it in terms of being a parent myself. When my kids come to me and they say, I'm really sorry, or whatever, I want to forgive them. I want to restore relationships. So I'm going to forgive. And that if I want to do that as a mom, I just think how much more does God desire for a restored relationship.
00:25:33
Speaker 3: With his kids?
00:25:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's beautiful. That's good.
00:25:37
Speaker 2: Lori, thank you for sharing your wisdom and knowledge in this area. Friends, I hope that today's episode has challenged you to maybe open up the closet of your mind and heart and ask the Holy Spirit, what am I hoarding? What am I holding onto that doesn't serve me well? And how can I let go of that so that I can have true freedom in Christ? That's our desire for you out of this episode today. There's so much more that we could have talked about. Lori and I probably could have had a three-hour conversation and still only skimmed the surface. But we'll put all the information about Lori and her book, Emotional Hoarding, in the show notes. So make sure you check it out there. I look forward to being with you again next week for another episode of Your Hope-Filled Perspective. And you know, until then, it's always my desire for you that you have a hope-filled week.
00:26:30
Speaker 4: Your ragged and torn past may be the key to God's future for you. We all endure trials, pain, and hardship in this life. Too often we believe these experiences disqualify us from being useful to God. But the truth is, your past pain and brokenness serve as preparation for what God wants to do in and through you. if you will surrender to and trust him. In Sacred Scars, neuropsychologist and fellow sufferer, Dr. Michelle Bankson helps you understand the suffering from a biblical perspective, discover how the trials of your life serve a purpose, reflect on the healing that God has accomplished, and comfort others with the comfort God has given you. Just as Jesus' scars didn't disappear after his resurrection and confirmed that he was who he said he was and that he did what he said he'd do, our emotional or physical scars tell our story and lend credence to our testimony of God's love and power. If you are ready to turn your past pain into present comfort and future hope, let Dr. Bankson be your compassionate guide. Jill Savage, host of the No More Perfect podcast and author of No More Perfect Marriages, had this to say about sacred scars. While we wish for a pain-free life, the dark seasons are where God invites us into the most growth. In the pages of this book, you will come to understand how God uses pain in powerful ways. If you're human, you need this book. Pick up a copy of Sacred Scars wherever books are sold and watch God turn your pain into purpose.
00:28:40
Speaker 5: Thank you for joining Dr. Bankson for your hope-filled perspective. We hope you were encouraged by her authenticity, vulnerability, and and biblical truths. If you enjoyed today's conversation, why don't you take a moment right now, open up your podcast app, and look for the subscribe button right next to our podcast profile image. We think this podcast is best enjoyed with friends, so tell a friend and click share in your podcast app and send a friend our link to share hope with them. If you have a comment, question, or suggest a topic for a future show, reach out to our staff at info at hopeprevails.org. For additional resources and information about Dr. Bankson's books or free downloads, or to contact her to speak at your next event, please visit drmichelleb.com. Until next time, may you have a hope-filled week.
00:29:34
Speaker 2: I'd like to take just a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on this podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.
