If you want to know how to get better results the key is found in this episode.
When you learn to harness the power of your emotions you can transform the results you’re getting in your life.
Be sure to click here and get the free exercise to help you with step one of this 3-step process.
ABOUT THESE SHOW NOTES
Since I know there may be times when you would prefer to read the content rather than listen, I’ve provided text below. It is not an exact transcript but it provides you the essentials.
And time codes for the audio are in the brackets so you can jump to a particular spot if you want to review something specific.
The Purpose of Our Emotions
[00:31]
Last week, we talked about what the Bible had to say about emotions and we learned that the purpose of our emotions is two fold.
- To bring awareness to our thoughts,
- To drive us to take action.
The Role Emotions Should Play in Decision-Making
[00:48]
While our emotions drive our actions, we do not want them in the driver’s seat when it comes to making our decisions or setting our goals. I covered this aspect of the role of emotions in our decision-making process during the Friday Live A & A in The Oasis. If you missed that, click here to jump over to the private Facebook group and watch it.
If you’re not yet a member, it’s super easy to join. Just click here then click the “Request to Join” button. There’s 3 simple questions you’ll need to answer and then I’ll process your membership request. Boom, you’re in the group and you’ve got a whole bunch of SoulSpa Sisters there to encourage you, pray for you, support you, and come alongside you. Then you can watch the past Live Q & A videos and all of the other goodies stored up over in the group.
Need Help Learning to Feel All the Feelings?
Being willing and able to feel your feelings is the foundation for harnessing their power to help you get better results in your life.
Last week’s episode covered why you want to be able to do this. And in The Coach’s Corner video related to Episode 36, I went into more detail on how to actually feel your emotion.
If you find yourself resisting your emotions or avoiding feeling them by using buffers like food, alcohol, drugs, social media, or some other type of activity, you’ll want to watch that brief little video.
We also talked about the difference between reacting (or acting out the emotion) versus allowing the emotion to be present, run its course and subside.
These are all skills you’re going to need in order to be able to harness the power of your emotions to get you better results.
This Exercise Will Equip You to Take the First Step!
This free download will help you heighten your awareness of your emotions so you can begin to harness their power.
I’ve made you a little exercise that will guide you through observing your feelings and increasing your awareness around the thoughts creating the feeling and the actions driven by it.
Use this to help you begin to create your own unique feelings dictionary. It will be hugely helpful in implementing what we’ve covered in this episode!
You can grab your free gift by clicking here or on the image below.
And I would love to hear your ah-ha moments and discoveries you make as you use this exercise to increase your awareness of your feelings.
Better Results Come From Better Emotional Health
[02:08]
And that’s our topic for today’s episode: How to harness the power of your emotions in order to achieve your big goals, to have better relationships and overall to live a more meaningful and impactful life.
When you can exercise authority over your emotions, you can tap into them to help you get out there and go after doing those good works that God prepared in advance for you to do. (See Ephesians 2:8-10)
Why You Want to Get Authority Over Your Emotions
[03:14]
In today’s episode I’m going to cover why we want to harness the power of our emotions and how we do that in three simple steps.
It’s Not To Be Happy All the Time
[05:09]
The reason we want to gain authority over our emotions isn’t just so we can feel happy all the time. Remember, God has created us with a full spectrum of emotions. We have emotions that feel good and emotions that can feel really uncomfortable. But God has given us all of those emotions so that we can fully experience our lives.
When you accept that all of those emotions are gifts from God so that you can have a fully human experience, then you will quit craving instant gratification and therefore avoiding your negative emotions.
We resist our emotions or avoid feeling them due to this mindset of “I’ve got to be comfortable and happy all the time.” Embracing the usefulness and goodness of all of our emotions is crucial to being able to harness their power.
When You Can Feel Negative Emotions You Can Do Hard Things
[06:46]
When you accept and understand that thriving in your life actually requires you to experience discomfort and to delay instant gratification in order to get the bigger, better reward that you’re going after—then you’ve tapped into the real power of your feelings.
When you’re willing to feel all of the feelings, you can really and truly move forward in the purpose God has given you. You will be equipped to pursue the calling He has quickened in your heart.
You’re going to be willing to experience the discomfort that goes along with following hard after God and His plans for your life instead of choosing comfort and instant gratification in the moment.
The Power of Knowing What Creates Our Emotions
[07:22]
So last week I introduced you to the idea that our emotions are caused by our thoughts about our circumstances, not the circumstances themselves. And when you really get that to your core and you understand that whatever emotion you are feeling, you created it with your thoughts about your circumstance, that empowers you.
The Truth Will Set You Free
You will no longer be an easy target for the emotional manipulators out there in your world. And believe me, they’re out there.
When other people are trying to use, let’s say, guilt to get you to do what they want, you will understand that those people cannot make you feel anything. Only you can create your feelings by what you think about that circumstance.
You won’t be compelled to people please. You will know that gaining someone’s approval is not what will make you feel good. What makes you feel good is what you are making their approval mean. Your thoughts about their approval or disapproval is what creates all the drama for you.
Want a biblical illustration of this freedom and how it is connected to our thinking (a.k.a. our beliefs)? Read Paul’s letter to the Galatians. The Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Galatia to address their people-pleasing behavior and the emotional manipulation taking place there.
In that church there were legalists called Judaizers who came from Jerusalem to Galatia to enforce the observance of the ritual laws of Judaism by Christians. Guilt and shame were their weapons of choice. And the emotional bullying was beginning to work on some of the believers.
When he heard what was going on, the Apostle Paul wrote to them and reminded them of their freedom. It was for freedom that Christ had set them free from trying to gain acceptance by God through these laws. (See Galatians 5)
Those rituals were no longer necessary because of the atonement that Christ made for our sins on the cross. Paul reminded them that they were accepted by God because of what Christ did on the cross, not from doing these rituals.
So long as they held to that belief (thought that thought) they would be free from the manipulation of the legalists trying to control them and get them to check off all the boxes and do all the rituals.
When you understand that nobody can make you feel anything, you’re not going to be a target for emotional manipulation.
The flip side of that coin is that you won’t be an emotional manipulator either. You’re not going to be trying to control other people by guilt, shame, or whatever.
Emotional Health Leads To Relational Health
[11:14]
When you understand that you are responsible for your emotions and the other people around you are responsible for their emotions, your relationships get healthier.
That’s what we’re all about in Season Six of the podcast: helping you have better, healthier, more godly relationships in your life. And you getting clear on what creates emotion is a huge first step toward better relationships.
Get Bigger, Better Results
[11:59]
Another reason why you want to harness the power of your emotions is so that you can create bigger, better results in your life.
When you set a big goal, achieving it requires you to level up from where you’re at and become a more fully realized version of who God intends for you to become.
This process of leveling up and becoming your fully realized new creation self is known as the doctrine of sanctification. God is refining you and growing you from who you are the moment you place your faith in Christ to who He is creating you to become as the fully realized, fully free, fully conformed to the image of Christ, fully human version of yourself.
Setting goals is a great way to cooperate with God in this refining sanctification process. Here’s why…
When God put it in your heart to go after accomplishing something big you will get very uncomfortable. You will need to relying on His strength to fill the gap between your weakness—your inability—and what it takes to accomplish that goal.
Your Before and After
[13:19]
Think of it as if you are looking at before and after pictures. There’s the before which is you right now at the outset of setting the goal. Then there’s the after picture of the you that God will evolve you into in the achieving of that goal. To get to that version of you, you are going to have to experience a whole lot of uncomfortable emotions.
If you don’t know how to take authority over those feelings and harness the power of being able to create more useful emotions by thinking intentional thoughts, it’s going to be really hard for you to keep going after the goal.
So when those uncomfortable emotions come up for you in the process of pursuing your goal, expect to be tempted to quit.
If you want to avoid that temptation to quit on your goal, you’ve got to know how to allow those uncomfortable emotions to be there. This will give you awareness of the thoughts you’re thinking that are creating those feelings. You’ll also be able to interrupt the actions those negative emotions would otherwise drive you to take.
With this increased awareness you can choose more intentional thoughts which create useful emotions that will propel you forward towards your goal.
Do The Work and Watch It Bear Fruit
[15:08]
You know all of that self-coaching work we talked about in last week’s episode and the Facebook lives? This is the part of the process where all of that begins to bear fruit.
All of that work you’ve done in observing your feelings, learning to allow them, and creating your own personal feelings encyclopedia is going to pay off. You will be able to quickly identify what you’re feeling, the thoughts creating the emotion, and be able to look forward and see the actions that feeling will drive. Most likely, the negative emotions is not going to help you get closer to your goal.
But instead of just unconsciously going with the flow, you’re going to have the skills and resources to course correct. Pull out that personal encyclopedia of emotions identify not only the most useful emotion but also the thoughts that you know you can think to create it. That will drive the kind of actions you need in order to keep pursuing your goal.
Okay. So that’s why we want to do it. Now, let’s talk about how we actually do this.
3-Step Process to Harnessing the Power of Your Emotions
[16:41]
Step One: Gain Awareness & Authority Over Your Emotions
This is going to sound familiar because it is what we’ve been talking about thus far.
You need to be able to know what you are feeling and name it. Not only that, but you need to identify the thought that created the feeling. Additionally, you need to know what actions you tend to take when you experience this particular feeling.
Since our feelings drive our actions and those actions are what create our results, having an awareness of the actions you naturally take when you feel that particular feeling, clues you into what kind of results those actions will give you.
The first step is doing the work to become more aware of what you’re feeling, what caused the feeling, and what the feeling produces in terms of actions and results.
Step Two: Learn to Create Feelings On Purpose
[18:13]
As you work through the process of gaining awareness, you’re going to start to notice that you feel certain feelings more often than others. This will help you understand why you’re getting the results you’re getting.
When you don’t like the results, you can identify an outcome that will serve you better. Then you can decide what actions will produce that result. Since feelings drive our actions, chose emotions that will produce the kind of results you want to get.
Use the knowledge you acquired from the work you did in step one to identify thoughts you can think on purpose to create these feelings.
So, in step two you identify what feelings you need and want to feel, and then you’re going to practice thinking the thoughts that create those feelings.
Another helpful thing you can do in this step is to practice creating intense negative emotions and allowing them. This will give you more confidence that you can handle any emotion without resisting, avoiding or reacting to it.
You intensify the feeling by intensifying the thoughts that create it.
Then master allowing this more intense version of the uncomfortable emotion. You simply sit with the emotion and observe it. Notice how once you quit thinking the thoughts that create it (and instead begin observing the emotion) it begins to subside.
That’s it. It doesn’t harm you. It just feels uncomfortable. But you have complete authority over the emotion. You master it instead of it mastering you.
I used this process to gain authority over my anxiety. I know it sounds super crazy to create intense negative emotion on purpose. But it was one of the most helpful things I did to get the upper hand over my anxiety.
When I could create it on command by thinking thoughts, I could see it was my thoughts—not the circumstances—causing the anxiety.
- It wasn’t my job.
- It wasn’t a relationship.
- It wasn’t what someone else was doing or saying.
- It wasn’t what I thought other people might be thinking.
- It wasn’t sitting in an airplane at 30,000 feet in the sky.
It was my thoughts that were creating the anxiety.
Please note: I’m talking about situational anxiety not clinical anxiety. Situational anxiety is created by your thinking. Clinical anxiety is created when your brain chemistry gets out of whack. That’s not what I’m talking about.
This process I’m describing is for plain old situational anxiety.
So just to review, in step one you realize you create the feeling with your thought about your circumstance. In step two, you increase the intensity of your feelings (particularly negative or uncomfortable emotions that hinder your progress toward achieving your desired result). Then allow that increased intensity of the emotion to be there and naturally resolve.
The exercise in the free download will walk you through observing your emotion so you can allow it and have it subside.
When you get good at doing this with intense negative feelings, you see the complete authority that God has given you over your emotions.
You can create any feeling when you want to. You can allow any emotion.
When you can experience any emotion, step three gets fun!
Step Three: Set Some Big Goals and Use Your Emotions To Achieve Them
[22:46]
So the skills you acquire from implementing steps one and two set you up to set and achieve really big goals. So, set some intentions for what you’re going to do.
Setting the goal will bring up those negative emotions. But this is no longer a deal-breaker for you.
Now you know how to process them. You know how to allow the discomfort to be there.You know how to harvest the information God designed those emotions to give you (which is to bring awareness to what you’re thinking).
All of this means you can interrupt the actions those negative emotions would normally drive. So instead of bailing out on the goal, you can move forward by creating more useful emotions.
You can now use your ability to think thoughts on purpose to create the kind of emotions you need to go after those goals; any kind of goal.
In this season we’re talking about improving our relationships. So if your relationship goal, let’s say, is to have a closer relationship with your spouse or your dating partner, then you’re going to be able to harness the power of your emotions to reach that goal.
You’re going to be able to harvest all the gifts that your emotion gives you. In other words, the awareness of what you’re thinking and the effect that has on your emotions, actions and results.
As you’re doing all of this work to improve your emotional health, your relational health will skyrocket.
I can’t wait to hear what happens when you start to harness the power of your emotions.
Got Questions? Let’s Connect on Facebook
Live Q & A in The Oasis on Friday at 11 am Central
If something’s just not clicking for you on this or you have questions, or just want to dive a bit deeper on this topic, come to the Facebook live tomorrow over in The Oasis.
If you’re not a member of the group yet, it’s super easy to join. Just click here and then request to join. There’s some questions that I ask you. Just answer those simple little questions and I’ll process your membership request, and boom, you’re in the group and you can jump on live with me and ask your questions.
If you’re not able to be there at 11 am Central time on Friday, just catch the replay. If you have a specific question you want to make sure I address (especially if you know you can’t make the live), then click here to email me or post your question in the group.
Meet Me on Monday 9:30 am Central in The Coach’s Corner
Join me on Monday for The Coach’s Corner on the Agape Soul Spa public Facebook page. I’ll do some teaching that will take us a little deeper with this topic. That’s at 9:30 am Central time. Again, if you can’t be there live, just catch the replay.
When you’re watching the replay, could you do me a favor?
Post something in the comments, please.
Even if you don’t have a question or anything about the topic you want to add to the discussion, please just say hi. I would just really love to engage with you and get to know you better.
LINKS MENTIONED
Here are the links I mentioned in the podcast.
FB Live Q & A in The Oasis from Friday 3/8/19. If you’re not yet a member, just request to join, answer the questions and I’ll admit you to the group.
The Coach’s Corner FB Live on the Agape SoulSpa FB page from Monday 3/11/19
Be sure and leave me a comment when you’re watching. Ask any questions that come up for you or just say hi and tell me where you’re watching from.
Next Week: Healthy Relationships 101
In next week’s episode I’ll share some key concepts that provide a solid foundation for healthy relationships in all areas of your life. Want better friendships, a stronger marriage, more connection with your kids. Or would you like to get along better with your co-workers, neighbors or extended family? Then be sure you’re subscribed to the podcast so you don’t miss next week’s episode!
We will of course look at what the Bible reveals about the importance of relationships, what constitutes a healthy relationship, and how relationships go off track.
Then I’ll share some principles to help you practically apply the Biblical wisdom.
Know someone who would like to improve their emotional and relational health? Then be sure and share the podcast with them. They will be grateful and so will I!
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