Did you know that your EQ (Emotional Quotient) is more important for your health than your IQ?
Emotional health is a blessing from God and a powerful resource because the end result of emotional health is love for others.
We can’t afford to get that wrong.
5 Things To Stop Doing To Your Emotional Health
1. Stop qualifying emotions as “good” and “bad.”
There are no “good” or “bad” emotions. There are emotions.
Too often people think of anger, jealousy, resentment, envy, shame, or fear as bad emotions. We feel defective as people of faith when we feel the “wrong” things.
Some take the view even further and see these emotions as sin, in that “it’s a sin to feel anger or jealousy, or envy.” We then lie to ourselves, convincing ourselves that we don’t really feel anything because we shouldn’t be feeling “that way.”
2. Stop ignoring your emotions.
Ignoring your emotions turns your back on reality. Reality is where you meet God.
There are literally hundreds of emotions. The Book of Psalms contains many of them.
- Anger (fury, irritability, annoyance)
- Sadness (self-pity; despair)
- Fear (fright; anxiety, terror)
- Enjoyment (joy, ecstasy, contentment
- Love (acceptance, adoration)
- Surprise (shock, amazement, wonder)
- Disgust (scorn distaste)
- Shame (guilt, humiliation, embarrassment)
It’s in these emotions that God meets you. They are the language of your soul.
3. Stop denying yourself permission to express your feelings.
You can express how you feel or repress how you feel. When you habitually swallow your feelings your stomach ends up keeping score. A large majority of the illness people face are the subject of repressed feelings and not trusting God.
We deny our feelings by making statements like:
“Anger is dangerous.”
“Fear is weakness.”
“Anxiety goes against what the Bible says.”
“Feeling depressed is outside of God’s will.”
The Bible says, “Be angry and sin not.” (Ephesians 3:28) There are ways to feel an emotion and express it that do not hurt yourself or others.
4. Stop pretending that hurtful things don’t hurt.
Break free to live in the truth of what’s taking place within you.
Acknowledge your brokenness and vulnerability.
Break free of generational patterns of family and culture that negatively shape how you live and relate.
5. Stop limiting your worship of God to only some emotions.
The Old Testament Psalms were written to illustrate emotional health.
The Jewish religion sings of sadness, joy, fear, peace, anger, contentment and disappointment as worship. That’s a healthy practice.
Psalm 55:3-5,16,17 contain words sung during Saturday morning sacred worship in the Temple. The Psalmist writes,
“My thoughts trouble me and I am distraught…My heart is in anguish within me; the terrors of death have fallen on me. Fear and trembling have beset me; horror has overwhelmed me.
But I call to God and the Lord saves me. Evening morning and noon I cry out in distress and He hears my voice.”
Has this post helped you deal with your emotions? Do you know someone who could benefit from the content? Please leave a comment and share this post.
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Thank-you, those are very helpful for me
Hi Tammy. I am glad this post was helpful to you. Thank you for commenting. I trust our future posts will be timely and effective in speaking to your heart.
Thank you! God bless you!
This is truly important. What a valuable post!
Often I find myself judging my emotions without allowing them to be dealt with in a healthy way. It is so valuable to know that the emotions themselves are not sinful. Saying that, the reactions or actions taken in response to them might be.
For instance, it is reasonable to have “warm and fuzzy” feelings or deep grateful emotions when someone is kind, loving or thoughtful. But when it becomes an action of pursuing that feeling outside a marriage then it becomes a sin. That is just one example of emotion gone wrong. My sin is definitely related to anger and responding without tempering the emotion beforehand.
Emotions are a part of who we are but, as a highly emotional person, I’ve realized they must be tempered so they do not flow out of control into behaviours that distance us from God and others.
Thanks for the post! It was timely and a great reminder.
Good Morning,
Great insights to ponder and apply.
Blessings!
Thank you Pastor Bob! This year has been very difficult for me with my emotions being all over the map.
Your post has given me permission to feel these emotions and the freedom to express them too!!
That’s very healthy, Karen. God bless.
I hope this post empowers you in wonderful ways to experience emotions without being controlled by them.
I don’t see anything that applies to sadness in the sudden loss of a loved one.
It’s very good for others but I cannot find the help I need.
This leaves me with a question. How do we teach our kids that it’s ok for them to have their emotions, but how to handle them appropriately. Like for instance, my oldest son has a lot of anger, and I am all the time telling him that it’s ok to be angry, but it’s not ok to be disrespectful out of that anger. Is there a better way that I could be helping him with this?
As always, very timely! This week, I’ve been struggling with not just anger but rage. I turn it over to God because I sure can’t deal with it myself. He sends fresh breath and relief.
Hello Anita. You’ve made a great start in helping your son know that feeling angry is OK. That’s an advantage you’ve given him that not every child has. I imagine you’ve done your own research on what next steps would be. You may have come across this site which offers practical steps. https://www.verywellfamily.com/ways-to-help-an-angry-child-1094976 There is no script for parenting. Sometimes it’s 3 steps forward and one step back. Keep moving forward.