Emotions are not nerves. But just like nerves when we are experiencing pain they can broadcast to our mind and stop us from being able to think. When this happens, when our emotions take over, it seems as if they are broken.
Emotions don’t transfer a stimulus along a pathway to your brain. They are much, much more complex. Our emotions have root in our private thought life.
When we feed our thought life a steady diet of despair and anger (that’s just watching the news), or jealousy and worry (social media?).We end up responding to our circumstances in overwhelm, rage, soul-crushing sadness, even despair. Our emotional responses may be out of proportion to what is happening to us.
Because we expect to have appropriate emotional reactions. It seems like our emotions are broken.
We were designed with emotions. They are meant to be the frosting and sprinkles of our lives, the color and shine on a jewel, the banners waving on the tower. Emotions are valued by God and understood by him. But our emotions have been utterly twisted by sin. We have become pursuers of the emotion instead of pursuers of truth, or pursuers of God.
And that is what stops the brokenness of our emotions- Truth.
When Truth is in its proper place, emotions can return to what they were meant to be- frosting, not cake.
So here is how you fix your broken emotions- fixate on truth.
My 18 month old son was out of control. My husband took him upstairs for discipline. Screaming ensued- it sounded like my baby was being murdered. My husband had been angry lately, snapping at me, hurting my feelings. I had been meditating on how out of control I felt he was. My emotions were completely convinced that I would run up the stairs and see my husband abusing my son, see the end of my marriage, see the end of my dreams.
My emotions changed my perspective of the truth. But, they didn’t give me truth.
When I slammed through the bedroom door I found my husband sitting quietly on the bed, my son a few feet away screaming to try to stop from being disciplined. By reacting emotionally I deeply wounded my husband that day. Thinking harsh thoughts about my husband’s anger became a filter for my emotions and changed how I interpreted the situation.
We do this all the time. Our emotions become a feedback loop of sorts. We think something is happening, react as if it is, then our emotions feel more justified so we view more through the lens of our reality.
Emotions change what we see as truth.
So how do we fix it? How do we even figure out what the truth is when our emotions have us all over the map?
This is what I have found will reset emotion.
Here are the Truths that transform:
Emotion doesn’t change TRUTH
Emotion doesn’t change the truth: If you are struggling with your emotions you have allowed God to be removed from the center of your thought life. You aren’t living in the expectation of good happening because your Loving Heavenly Father wants to bless you. You have forgotten the basics of the Gospel. Jesus suffered and died for your sins, to make a way for God to have a relationship with you because of his great love for you.(LINK: ) I like to think of emotions like those puzzle boards. They put a picture on little plastic tiles and mix the tiles up. In order to see the real picture you can’t just look at the pieces. You must move them to their proper place. Emotions have to be in their correct setting and place- or they completely skew our perspective of truth.
This is the antidote for overwhelm. This is the truth that has to be the foundation you stand on when you look at any of the circumstances in your life. (Romans 8:28-29, 32). So when circumstances are bombarding you, when the overwhelm is washing you out to sea, when your emotions are out of control, remind yourself of God’s love. He is with you (link to the gospel.) He wants to give you peace and victory in all your circumstances. For practical ways to make Truth the focus of your thoughts and emotions make sure and sign up for my encouraging and practical weekly newsletters.
Emotion doesn’t change your responsibilities.
Emotion doesn’t change your responsibilities. There is a reason the saying, “fake it till you make it” is around. On some level we have to be faithful even when are emotions would have us act as a puddle on the ground.
When I got the phone call that told me my Father was dead I was at a hotel with my five children. In my grief they still needed to eat, I still needed to drive home. This is an extreme example and it is easier in the darkness of our homes to simply react emotionally, neglect the things we should be doing, let the kids watch TV, scroll through a few more screens, escape. But we are simply digging our pit deeper.
Because when we don’t take that five minutes and empty and load the dishwasher. When we don’t transfer the laundry, we buy ourselves another area of overwhelm, another area of failure, another feedback loop of despair and anxiety.
So keep on, do five minutes of faithfulness, it is easier if you are meditating on truth. Turn on the audio bible on youtube, listen to I and II Peter, Phillipians, Psalms. Step by step be faithful to one responsibility at a time. Don’t become overwhelmed- just focus on one at a time.
Emotions get nourishment from where our thoughts focus.
Emotions get nourishment from where your thoughts are focused. Think of your thought life as an email server. Emails come in and must be put in their categories of importance, must be addressed, must be labelled spam and ignored. Some thoughts are spam because of the fallen world we live in and the sinful bodies we inhabit. But we don’t have to read the spam, we can send it to the trash. We have to chose carefully what our thoughts focus on.
In my video course I will go in depth into the areas we are, and are not, to think about. Here is a summary of some of the basics.
- You can’t think about what-if’s focusing on possibilities is crazy-making: and the first quality God says to focus on in Phil 4:8 is TRUE things. So no what-if’s.
- You shouldn’t think about regrets and guilt. Paul deals with that in Philippians 3:13, “Forgetting what is behind, and straining forward to what lies ahead.” (ESV)
- We also need to be careful of the input we allow into our mind. God gives a list in Philippians 4:8-9 “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. 9 What you have learned[e] and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.” (ESV) Did you catch that? The God of peace will be with you –
You can respond appropriately to the world around you and not be a victim of circumstances. Download my Roadmap to Emotional Peace. Sign up for email encouragment. I would love to help you draw nearer to God and find the rest for your soul that he promises.
Your emotions may seem broken, but they can be reset.
You can have Peace and Hope and Joy- just as God promised you.
“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Matthew 11:28-30 NASB95
