Emotional Wholeness, in the BIBLE?

There are three qualities that each person needs to be emotionally whole. I will talk about each of them in the next several blogs. Rather like Nancy Alcorn, I’m not one to merely talk about things.  “I don’t have a lot of patience for talking about a problem without solving it. The apostle Paul said ‘The kingdom of God is not in talk but in power.’ (I Cor. 4:20) I believe that 100%.”

 I’m speaking in terms of self-talk: what we say to ourselves. That’s where the rubber meets the road. Of course we all battle these, as each of us has to struggle with “stinkin’ thinkin’” throughout our lives. The question is, which one will win?

Recognizing them can help us. Tremendously.

The first is Gratitude.  Here are some of the things a grateful person says to themselves.

                Everything is a gift!

                I don’t have it as bad as some.

                I’m NOT the center of the universe. (try that one with your kids)

                I appreciate whatever I get. (it doesn’t matter what I hoped I’d get)

                God is SO good to me!

An ungrateful person struggles with self-importance  (pride). We need to cultivate thankfulness with humility and grace.

All too often, we engage in Self-Pity.

                Poor me!

                Life sucks!

    The world owes me. (entitlement, anyone?)

    It’s never enough to make me happy.

    I am worthless.

I have 5 Scriptures for those of you interested in looking them up. Eph. 5:15-20, Col. 3:15-17, Ps. 92:1, Rom. 1:21, Ja. 4:1-3,6. All of them exhort a person to be thankful, not entitled or see themselves as a victim.

So work on this one for a few weeks.Copy the self talk statements and the Scriptures down, and put them up by your mirror. Let yourself think of them, and say them regularly. 

 Next time I’ll write about the second quality…

Ditch the Baggage, Change Your Life

Ditch the Baggage, Change Your Life

The title caught my eye.  I’d heard great things about the organization, first hand from someone who had been there. So, I bought the book. 


Wow! 


The 7 Keys to Lasting Freedom that it describes are really good. I found myself wanting to make copies of every chapter for my clients to read: this one chapter 4, these folks chapter 6, etc. Oh wait, I can’t do that, it states it on the copyright page.  Darn. 


I would have to agree with Pastor John Burns, who says “This book is the best, clearest , and most complete explanation of where lasting freedom comes from and exactly how that can be sorted out in your own life.” And I’ve been at this for 35 years or more! 

Sprinkled liberally with first-hand accounts of people who applied these principles and found victory, Nancy Alcorn gently and confidently leads us into what we long for. Freedom. She is the founder of Mercy Multiplied (formerly Mercy Ministries), and has 30 years experience seeing people set free. 

Freedom from what? Here’s a partial list:

            A high need to control situations and people.

            Anger over little things

Anxiety about money and relationships

Weight consciousness

Concerns about reputation

Self-hatred

Lying

Lack of care and concern for others

Critical attitudes

Violent reactions

High walls and the inability to make lasting friends

A distrust of authority

Substance reliance

And the list goes on and on.   “You were born to live free,” asserts the author, Nancy Alcorn. “I don’t have a lot of patience for talking about a problem without solving it. The apostle Paul said the kingdom of God is not in talk but in power (I Cor. 4:20). I believe that 100%.”


Mental health care focuses on changing behavior, which is temporary and gives superficial results. Even the clients that I really help benefit most from a transformation of hearts.  Jesus does that to people that are willing, and this book that I am touting show us the way. 


I will list the 7 keys to freedom, but let me say that they don’t sound earth shaking on their own. Read the book! Even part of it would be beneficial.

Key #1 Total Commitment to Freedom

Key #2 Healing Life’s Hurts

Key #3 Getting God’s Perspective on Your Life

Key #4 Choosing to Forgive

Key #5 Breaking Your Family’s Generational Patterns

Key #6 The Power to Choose Freedom over Oppression

Key #7 How to Maintain Lifelong Freedom


In the Appendix, a list of verses that show who we are in Christ is given. (How very valuable these are!) And then a lot of common “baggage beliefs” (also known as “misbeliefs” or “lies”), along with the thoughts and verses to replace them. 


We can get victory over our thoughts and habits that hold us in bondage! 


What a life-changing book…because the principles are life-changing.

Reflections in a Foggy Mirror

Gone are the days of sitting by the lake fishing, and just thinking. Far in 
the past memories of the older generation are the lazy days of walking 
along, reflecting on life. Everyone is on their screens! "I'm too 
busy!" How often do we hear or think this? 

Our mirrors of life are foggy.

But is this healthy? Can we think about something carefully or rationally, 
and reach a conclusion well without it? My observation is that young people 
and kids already have lost or are losing the ability to think critically. To think for 
themselves. To worship. And with these losses come anxiety. A lack of 
peacefulness.

So what can we do? Do we just sit idly by, and let ourselves be hijacked by our 
phones and i-pads? 

The rebel in me screams "NO!"

Here is a list of questions we can ask ourselves and others to help us learn to 
think deeply again.
Ask yourself these questions. I find that as I'm falling asleep at night, it helps to
 go over the day this way. Especially "what am I grateful for?" 

What am I grateful for today?

What surprised me today?

What made me sad today?

What made me laugh or smile today?

What was a challenge today?

How was I kind today?

How was I brave today?

What were some pleasures today? (another way of saying what I am grateful for)

 How did I fail today? (no shame!!)

Take some time to ask yourself some of these every day. Ask your child, teen,
adult child. Incorporate them into your day.

Take some time each day to be off your phone. Even 20-30 minutes is better than none.

 If we are not led by our thoughts, we are led by the default: our emotions. This 
unfortunately leads to chaos. Think about it: when I’m led by my emotions, without
 regard for rational thinking, doesn’t it lead to chaos? 

I have a picture of a train which I often show my clients. It has “thoughts” as the engine,
 “beliefs” as the coal car, then “behavior” as a car, and lastly a caboose labeled “feelings.”
 If the train is led by thoughts, that is effective living, if it is led by emotions, that leads 
to chaos. The idea is to be led by your thoughts, which are (ideally) fed by true beliefs. 
We don’t ignore our feelings, but we shouldn’t be led by them. 

Yet, if we don’t take some time to think, to reflect, I fear our society is headed for trouble. 
Feelings-led people rarely make good decisions. Think the French Revolution, Rwanda, and
the Hitler rallies. All are examples of people being led by mass emotion.

Let’s take time to think, to reflect, to worship. It is what we’ve been given above the animals. 
Let’s quiet ourselves and do it! 
It'll make life's mirror a little less foggy.

The Cocaine of the Emotions

A number of years ago a good friend of mine was abused by her husband. I was furious. Inside me ran all kinds of emotions, including wanting him to die! (According to Matt. 5:21-22, I was guilty of murder!) 

As the years have gone by, I have made a conscious decision to give up my right to hurt him back, and have experienced the bitterness going away. But, wow, was that ever a scary feeling!


Bitterness is like a poisoned root that has a way of polluting our emotions, our thinking, and our relationships, especially affecting those we love the most: family members. When a person carries bitterness from an unhealed disappointment, it distorts how they see themselves and others. When I was bitter against my friend’s husband, all kinds of destructive thoughts came into my mind.

Not the best way to live!

Here are some pointers on dealing with bitterness.

1)       Anger, cynicism, harshness in communication, and irrational reactions result from bitterness. These are the kinds of things that people work on when they visit counselors, IF they are courageous enough to actually visit one. Some people find solace in an empathetic friend, a journal, or a book.  Too many avoid the pain in less useful ways such as various addictions.

2)      The goal of grieving is acceptance of the loss, while overcoming the bitterness.  Acceptance may need to involve forgiveness. Whom did we blame when we were disappointed? Honoring our emotional make-up is vital: acknowledge in a non-judgmental way that we feel angry at that person (or persons). Then make the costly but life-giving choice to give up our right to hurt them back. It may take time for our emotions to process the hurt and reach that point; but that is the goal. Then the memory will not have the power to arouse or anger us again.

3)      Be willing to seek help. Sometimes being strong means asking for help. There are times when seeking help is the most courageous and responsible thing we can do for our family. Encourage and support a survival attitude in yourself. Be optimistic and do not give up. Do not let yourself or others attempt to measure your feelings or put you on a time schedule.

4)       Avoid minimizing your feelings, but don’t let them rule you either. Some people grieve in increments, setting aside 15 minutes a day to feel the grief and anger, then returning those grief-filled feelings to their velvet lined basket in the corner of their mind until the next “grieving time”.

5)      For people of faith, it is valuable to look at disappointment within the framework of Scripture. As naturally self-centered individuals, we are easily hurt and tend to focus on the negative aspects of not getting what we hoped for. When we do that, we may doubt ourselves, and our ability to hear God’s will.

6)       Some people engage in self-loathing. Some people are confused about self-loathing, thinking that it equates with humility. However, such a belief is not accurate. True humility is replacing self-importance (I deserve to have my way) with self-forgetfulness. (It’s not all about me.)

 When we don’t understand, our humanity naturally cries out “Why, God?!” And we can become angry at God. God can handle our anger, He is merciful, kind, and understanding. He does not micro-manage us. We can be honest with Him, expressing our emotions to Him.

 But the mature individual will soon recognize that staying mad at the Sovereign Creator of the universe is an unwise position, to say the least.  Demanding an answer that satisfies us is arrogance, and we know that God resists the proud and draws close to the humble. The sooner a person decides to make right their relationship with God, the better off they are.

God promises to bless us and to multiply us. (Heb. 6:14-18). Theses 2 basic promises meet all three of our basic human needs: to be loved/ accepted and safe (blessed) and to be significant/ make a contribution (multiply us: i.e. our influence, use our talents to make a difference). Our job is to have patience, perseverance, and manage our own emotions so they don’t lead us into chaos. Emotional reasoning always leads us away from the quiet, inner confidence that we are designed to live in.

Order, with Christ as the center of our lives instead of ourselves, brings peace instead of anxiety, and joy instead of depression. Thus unfolds the Kingdom of God that we hear so much about in the Gospels.

Let’s become more emotionally intelligent people! Identify the disappointment, process the anger, and honor the grief. Allowing ourselves to heal is one of the greatest gifts we can give our children, and those we love. We will pass on the legacy of un-dealt-with emotional pain. Let your love for your kids give you the courage to do the work needed to heal from the wounds you carry!

The bottom line is: #Am I going to let it make me BITTER or BETTER?

How to Overcome Disappointment

Today is our 41^st wedding anniversary. To celebrate it, I will publish a blog on disappointment! Overcoming disappointment is one of the reasons we have a happy marriage…

We all experience disappointment in life.  “Not getting what we hoped
for” happens on a regular basis; sometimes it is a huge, life-
changing disappointment, such as the tragic death of a loved one.
Sometimes it is a lower level disappointment, such as the cancellation
of a picnic due to rain, or anything in between. 

 Regardless, we may struggle to adjust to our loss. There are a variety of ways we can respond to disappointment, some are useful, some are not so useful,
for our long range emotional & relational health.

It’s no wonder I taught my granddaughter the word “Disappointment” when she
was barely two. It’s an important one to identify!

I remember how I used to deal with disappointment. I had a pity party!
“Poor me! It always happens to me…” For years I lived like that. Then
one day, I decided that I didn’t want to go through life as a
disappointed person. Thus began my journey OUT of the mire.

The most common response is to blame.  Blame one’s spouse, blame God,
blame the authorities, blame the government, blame ourselves, or any
combination of these. It is certainly human to attribute blame when we
are hurt, and the anger we feel is normal.

 I remember when I was disappointed that we didn’t get to go to the mission field. The most logical thing was to blame my husband, since 1) we didn’t have enough
money and 2) he didn’t want to go as passionately as I did. That hung
between us for quite a few years! (Thankfully, we are on the same page
now).

We need to recognize and learn to manage two emotions wisely: anger and grief.

Anger is the response of our body to a stimulus that it perceives as
threatening.  As a secondary emotion, the various degrees of anger
mask fear, pain, and shame. This is not a well known fact; many are
unaware that when they experience anger, they are actually struggling
to deal with underlying fear and hurt.

 Some are afraid of anger, having grown up in a family atmosphere
where anger was handled poorly and caused much pain. When anger is not
managed, it leads to harm. Bottled-up anger leads to depression or
self loathing. Anger that is expressed in an aggressive manner usually
harms others either verbally or physically.

Contrary to popular belief, anger does not subside by merely
expressing angry feelings.  The self-talk that fuels it needs to be
changed. “He should change! I can’t stand it! It’s all her fault! I never get what I want!” are some examples of self talk that we need to change to successfully cause our angry feelings to subside.

Grief is an emotion that may be due to a tangible or an intangible
loss. Obvious losses such as death, divorce, a job loss, or a
financial setback are easy to identify. More hidden are the intangible
losses: loss of a dream, the inevitable changes that come with time
such as aging, children leaving home, our bodies deteriorating, etc.

Grieving is a sign of love: our tears, sadness, sorrow, and other
emotions we experience demonstrate the depth of our love.  To cope
with the grief we need to talk about our feelings with a safe,
non-judgmental person.

 We MUST feel to heal! Crying, vigorous exercise, painting, writing,
are all constructive ways to express feelings. Only by letting out the
hurt will you make room for healing.

 Many Americans do not know what to do with the emotion of grief. In
our “quick fix”, “get over it and get on with it” society, we often do
not allow the time necessary to honor our emotional pain. The
unfortunate result of this hurry-up attitude is that many people live
with unresolved grief.  Undealt-with grief frequently turns to
bitterness.

The topic of bitterness will be my blog in two weeks. Meanwhile, let’s
honor our emotions of disappointment and grief. 

 “For everything there is a season,” says the Scripture. Can we put up with the
disappointment by seeing it as a season? Temporary? Even if the
circumstances are not temporary, our perspective is. It can change.

So, honor your grief, anger, and pain, but hold on to hope. This too
shall pass…

Vets with a Mission

Healing. Soul healing. Veterans of war need it, everyone agrees. So how does one go about being healed? I recently watched a movie called “By War and By God,” which showed a very effective way for restoration to take place.


“Vets with a Mission” takes veterans of the Vietnam era and gives them the opportunity to go back to the places in Vietnam where they fought, and bring medical help to the people there. The wounded healer (there’s a book by Henri Nouwen by that name), and it captures our imaginations just thinking about it. These men were hurt deeply at age 19, now as mature adults they are realizing that one way to heal is to bring help to the same people they were at war with in the 1960’s.


“The war is over,” is their message. One guy said that he’s never in his life had a former enemy say “I love you” and embrace him. An American vet had not slept the night through for 30 years, due to PTSD. When he went to Saigon, he slept like a baby!


 Many children receive help from this organization. A village that some of them went to did not have any medical facility in it, and the people had to go several miles to find any kind of care. So Vets with a Mission decided to build one for them. In it, they put a photo of their friend who lost his life there, so many years ago. And his testimony is written in English and Vietnamese next to his photo.


“The war is over.” When I do EMDR with people to help them heal from trauma, one thing I say to them is “that was then, and this is now.” Part of healing is recognizing that fact.


A Vietnamese man who had lost his leg was spending time with these veterans. “How did you lose your leg?” asked one of the Americans. “In the war, it was shot off by a machine gun,” came the answer. “I was a machine gunner,” said the vet. The translator did not want to translate it; perhaps he feared a reaction by the victim. After a while, the American persuaded him to translate it. The response? The Vietnamese man got up from his chair, went over, and hugged the American.


“The war is over.”


How many of us are suffering from old traumas from the past? Fighting wars with the voices in our heads? Healing can come as we move out and do something constructive to help those less fortunate than ourselves. There are lots of them. Our pastor always says “We’re blessed to be a blessing.” Throwing yourself into a project that contributes to the good of mankind is a sure way to recover from depression and anxiety. It is even prescribed sometimes!


Volunteer, if you’ve been raped, at a center for women, or become part of the anti-human trafficking movement. If you’ve been treated unjustly at a job, start a movement to help others who are worse off than you. Or simply, rake you 80 year old neighbor’s yard, offer to babysit for the single mother you know, or go to Feed My Starving Children. Open up your home to single people who need a place to stay. Go to a shelter and play with children or animals. The possibilities are endless.


I was very impressed with the “Vets with a Mission” organization, and the movie that publicized it. The movie was made by Kent Williamson, a friend of my husband’s, who was tragically killed in a car accident a few weeks ago.  Devastating. Heart-wrenching.


Like war.


"Even the saddest things can become, once we have made peace with them, a source of wisdom and strength." ~ Frederick Buechner  
  

We can learn something from these vets. They reached out, and in doing so found more than they probably ever believed they could. Can we do the same?

www.vetswithamission.org

Skills to Teach Adolescents (and Learn Ourselves!)

Recently I read an article by Mary Pipher, author of Reviving Ophelia. She outlined some skills that I think are vital for teaching adolescents. (Indeed, we can all learn from them!)

1.      Centering. Find a quiet place where they can sit alone for 10-15 minutes. Relax and breathe deeply. Focus on their own thoughts and feelings without judging or directing them. Observe them, respect them.

2.      Separate feeling from thinking.  This is challenging for a teenager, because their feelings are so intense and the pre-frontal cortex has not developed fully yet. They need to ask themselves “How do I feel about this?” and “What do I think about this?” They’ll come to recognize that they are two different processes,  that both should be respected when making a decision.

3.      Make a conscious, responsible choice. Make decisions slowly and carefully. Influence might come from others, but the final decisions are their own.

4.      Make and enforce boundaries. This is vital, for safety (who can touch me and who can’t). They need to learn to say “NO” firmly, and not be pleasers.

5.      Defining relationships. What relationships are in your own best interest? Many girls are “empathy sick.”That is they know more about others’ feelings than their own. They are socialized to let others do the defining: they worry about not being perceived as nice or appearing selfish. Once they have experienced becoming the object of their own lives again, they will be eager to continue to develop this skill. 

6.      Managing pain. All of the bad things in the world come from people trying to escape pain. Drinking, drugs, self-harm, hitting one’s partner, gambling, even suicide is an attempt to avoid unprocessed pain. One needs to sit with their pain, listen to it for messages about their lives, to acknowledge it, describe it rather than run from it. Positive self-calming methods such as deep breathing, exercise, hobbies, reading, mindfulness are very important.

7.      Modulate their emotional reactions. Both girls and boys have these, thought the boys’ more often take the form of anger. Rate their stress on a 1 to 10 scale. This helps them reframe extremes like “This day is the worst day of my life.”

8.      Look within for validation. Being “other directed” or looking to the world for praise and rewards makes teens vulnerable to depression and anxiety. Especially in this age of social media. Teach them to record victories, that is actions in keeping with their long term goals. Teach them to encourage themselves, not depend on other’s opinions of them, for their value doesn’t depend on what others think.

9.      Time travel. Teach them on bad days to go back and think of happier times. Sometimes travelling to the future helps, have them think about their hopes and dreams. Tell themselves that “this too shall pass.” Have a gallery in their mind of beautiful scenes that they can go to, to escape the present hard time.

10.  The joys of altruism. All teens are self-centered. It is not a character flaw, it’s a developmental stage, but it makes them unhappy and limits their understanding of the world. On a regular basis, volunteer to help people less fortunate than they are. Good deeds for neighbors, a homeless shelter, animals that need love, a political cause, children with disabilities…the possibilities are endless. This helps them feel good about their contributions and become less self-absorbed. 

Today’s adolescents need a North Star to orient themselves towards. Certainly the Bible and God’s love are a firm foundation and will provide them with something solid outside themselves to hold on to and focus on. Let’s, with patience and empathy, guide them in the right direction!



*Much of this article was taken from Reviving Ophelia: 25^th Anniversary Edition by Mary Pipher and Sara Gilliam.