This is the final part of Seeking Balance in Managing Our Emotions.
Monitor yourself. You have a tendency to resist in your partner what you suppress in yourself. In more intimate relationships, you may express anger at your spouse for being scared, depressed, or embarrassed. Use these times as opportunities to examine yourself for the same emotion you see in others that upsets you. Ask yourself “why am I feeling this way”?
“Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?” II Cor. 13:5
Reflect on I Corinthians 11:28; Ephesians 4:26-27
Focus on goals. Making choices to behave in the right manner, independent of your mood or feelings, is important in many situations. Besides parenting, work settings which focus on customer service provide many examples, such as a waitress who refrains from throwing the soup on an irritating customer.
Reflect on Proverbs 22:6; Rom. 12:1-2; Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 1:8; I John 4:11-21
Study role models. Find people you admire, particularly the way they generally handle their emotions. Comparison can be a trap that brings you down, but learning from a role model and growing to imitate them is what children, apprentices and disciples have done for millennia.
“For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. Therefore I exhort you, be imitators of me. For this reason I have sent to you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, and he will remind you of my ways which are in Christ, just as I teach everywhere in every church.” I Corinthians 4:15-17
Reflect on I Corinthians 11:1; Philippians 3:17; II Thessalonians 3:7-9; Matthew 28:19-20
Learn assertive communication. You may choose to remain silent, but acknowledging and expressing your feelings in an appropriate manner is an important part of emotional health. Remember, assertion is not aggression or arrogance. It is simply confident and straightforward communication.
Reflect on Jeremiah 1:6-9; Ephesians 4:15; Acts 4:13; 18:26-28; Titus 2:1-10
Modified from article originally written for the Hammonton Gazette, October 2018
Dr. Ron Newman 