How to manage your emotions.
I am learning how to travel alone, be alone and enjoy the lessons that come with quiet, rest and shalom.
Shalom is not just peace; it is so much more.
It is fullness, unbrokenness, nothing missing, peace, and love.
I found out today even with my armor on, I was able to be attacked. My mind was hit by an arrow, and I didn’t know how it got into my brain, under my helmet of salvation. I lost my shalom for a while.
I took some time to ponder. I had actively put on God’s armor this morning, and so when the arrow came flying and hit my brain, I was in distress. Real distress!
Eph 6:10-18
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.
My first reaction was a visceral autonomic reaction. I had no control over my heart beating and fear coursing through my veins. I was brought back to a scary life and feeling out of control.
I found I had no control, and my fear was brought on by an old pattern of not feeling protected and by being abandoned. I felt like my accuser was right there to torment me and hurt me again. Like all the other times in my life. I was afraid!
After my fear came, then ANGER. “How can they say that we agreed on ___ not this!”
I started to calm myself and breathe deeply, and then I remembered a letter we had all signed and I was able to write my ‘accuser’ back with facts and figures, not emotion.
I went and had a hot Epsom salt bath and sang and prayed. I knew God would settle the issue. I have a very strong confidence in God’s goodness for my life. I didn't know this as well when I was young.
How could I be so protected on the outside and have missed being covered in my brain wires. It is because old patterns were triggered, and I need to make new patterns.
Dr. Carolyn Leaf at https://drleaf.com/ has wonderful ways of explaining how our minds work, and why old patterns have to be renewed with new ones. It's much like building a new road, in our brain.
These are a fine example of a rut!
Just like God says in Romans 12:1-2
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Be transformed. But who renews our mind? We do. God does. We do. God does.
It’s like strength training for our brain muscles, instead of our biceps or quads. We do the training, renewing and God does the hard part of making it stick and changing us.
I had an emotional event, and my armor was great, but my mind had to process the painful hurt.
My old mind (the one I am training) was hit first in my heart. I had a visceral reaction to the letter I read. My heart started beating as if a dog was chasing me and I was running away in fear. It was ‘autonomic’. It was so much a part of me to be fearful, when attacked.
I can understand people who are so afraid of hearing or finding out these things, fearing they could happen:
A pink slip, job loss
A rejection letter from a dreamed of college
The news of a stillborn baby
Cancer diagnosis
Finding out a child has been injured
Being in the wild and a wolf, cougar or bear is near you on the hunt
A child lost to the streets
A child being sent to a warzone
These are all hardships to be sure, and our mental state will either help us cope or TRY to ruin us.
I have a friend who was taking something to calm her nerves when her son was deployed. She was a nervous wreck and couldn’t seem to get hold of herself. She was in agony and couldn’t sleep or manage a day without crying and worrying to ‘death’.
After some time, she calmed down and by his third deployment, she was in a better place.
This type of fear can eat you alive and it really is not from conscious thought, it's from old programming.
The thing we need to address, and process as soon as we can are the fears. Like old records our memories are a thing of the past….
Yet, they still linger.
I don’t know how others process their pain and fear, but it’s taken me years to even slow down and take each event apart and feel it, process it and allow God to renew my patterns.
I am sure it will take time, but like a record, they go around and around, and we memorize new songs and ways, instead of the old.
The old is past! The new has come.
2 Cor. 5:17
Let me know if you have had to overcome a mental rut.
God bless you,
Shalom, shalom
the ruts last, we have to renew our minds
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