Emotions can be positive or negative, and in response to good or bad events. When the latter, the resulting wound needs to be diagnosed and healed even if the person no longer feels the emotional pain.

Overview

An emotion paper acts both as a diagnostic and healing tool for healing emotions. It’s a type of a What Comes to Mind cognitive tool when diagnosing sins, and a Presenting Jesus visual tool when removing them. Praying the Personal Prayers is also part of this method’s healing tools because it’s so often necessary.

Emotion Paper as a Diagnostic Tool

There are two steps to using an emotion paper as a diagnostic tool: getting the paper and writing on it. As the facilitator, you should pray, “Lord Jesus, please give <Person> emotion paper for <emotion>.” It can be any negative emotion that the person has, like embarrassment, sadness, or anger. If the person cannot feel or express any emotions, then that is usually an indicator of a shutdown response caused by unexpressed anger. Try giving an emotion paper for anger to get them to start feeling emotions.

Once the person gets an emotion paper, they write whatever comes to mind while saying them out loud until they cannot think of anything else to write, thus confessing their sins to you which are at the root of their negative emotions (Jas 5:16).

¹⁶Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

Emotion Paper as a Healing Tool

If the sins were difficult for the person to confess or they are serious in nature, then the person should pray the Personal Prayers to repent of any sins they have committed, renounce any idols they’ve worshiped, and forgive any person that hurt them. Otherwise, the person can give the paper to Jesus and then witness what He does with the paper.

If he destroys the paper and there are no more emotions left to process, then you are done. It’s more common though to have to repeat the process with several papers for the same emotion, or start papers for other emotions that came up while processing this one. The person’s done when Jesus destroys all the papers, signifying that all their sins are gone.

The Theological Reason Why the Emotion Paper Works

The Emotion Paper healing method works because it’s an analogy of the consecration process as shown in the following table:

It works as long as the person goes to Jesus to remove their sin, obeys the Holy Spirit as he reveals the sins underlying the emotional hurt, and then gives those sins to Jesus to be forgiven. If the person sees Jesus discarding the paper, then that gives their heart assurance that their sins are forgiven. Emotions come from the heart, not the mind, so even if the person knows the promises in Scripture that their sins are forgiven upon confession (1 John 1:9),

⁹If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

their heart may need more healing due to the depth of the wounding. Jesus keeping the paper rather than destroying it is an indication that there are more sins to confess. Simply repeat the process until Jesus destroys all the papers, thus granting absolution.

Alternative Embodiments

If the person cannot get an emotion paper from Jesus, they can construct one from their imagination, or even write their sins down on a physical piece of paper. The power is not in paper, but in the God who convicts and absolves the person of sin. The paper is only a device to confess their sins to God and to you you. Therefore, any imagined or physical writing surface will do, whether it be a Whiteboard or even sand! (John 8:6).

⁶This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.

The advantage of a spiritual paper over a physical one is that it is faster to list out your sins on it, and more comforting to your heart to witness Jesus personally destroying it.

If you go with a physical object that represents your sins, then some kind of ritual to destroy the object is necessary for absolution. Creating a monument for a miscarried baby and then burying it is an example of this type of embodiment. The point is not to convince the mind that their sins are forgiven, but to comfort the heart which is wounded from the results of sin. Using visual healing tools like an emotion paper, or performing physical rituals like funerals facilitates emotional healing.

A person can ask for a paper on any subject, not just emotions. This embodiment ends up being quite similar to the Story Method.

Summary

The Emotion Paper healing method is a quick and easy way to identify and heal the underlying wounds which result in negative emotions. A person could write their sins on a physical paper and then repent of them one by one, but if they can spiritually see, receiving a paper from Jesus and witnessing him destroy it is faster than its physical analogues.

Pros

Cons

Further Reading

If the person cannot get an emotion paper or think of things to write down on it, then praying the memory unblocker prayer will usually fix the problem. If the person’s emotions are too strong to hear from God, then you need to first stabilize them using the burden bearing prayer.

The Story Method is for healing the mind while the Emotion Paper Method is for healing the heart. Both tools are necessary, but you should not use the Story Method to heal the heart and vice versa. A Whiteboard is faster than both methods when it works, but it doesn’t always work. Understanding the Unblocking Your Spiritual Senses strategy and the biblical basis of How Do I Know I’m Hearing From God will give you greater confidence in using an emotion paper.