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Health Devotional
Tools for Life
Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Eph. 5:19, 20, NIV.
Like many women, I grew up believing that if I was a very good girl, followed all the rules, and loved God enough, life would turn out pretty well. What a disappointment, therefore, to wake up one morning in adulthood to discover that the formula had failed. My health had taken a decided dip. I was a walking combination of burnout, disappointment, frustration, and midlife crisis.
In frustration I turned to a more in-depth study of the brain and the immune system. Emerging research provided some practical tools that changed my life. For example, I learned that although we often use the terms emotions and feelings interchangeably, they are not the same. Emotions arise in the brain’s limbic system (pain-pleasure center) and are simply little flags designed to get our attention. Information about the physiological changes these emotions cause in the body travels to the cerebrum (thinking portion of the brain). There we assign weight to these flags, and our interpretations then become our feelings.
Practically, this means that while we may not always have complete control over our initial emotions, within six or seven seconds of becoming aware of our thoughts we can begin to take control of our feelings.
First I learned to identify the entire range of emotions God has placed in the human brain. Next I honed the ability to translate those flags into feelings more accurately. Gradually I gave myself permission to feel all my feelings until eventually I accepted complete responsibility for managing my emotions and feelings.
Often we handle them with faulty screens we have absorbed early in life. I actually did some very helpful family-of-origin work to discover some of the generationally transmitted response patterns that had been operating among the members of my family.
The bottom line? If we want to change the way we feel, we need to change the way we think. It is our choice to maintain a given feeling, to choose a different feeling, or to act upon a feeling, thus moving us from a position of helplessness toward one of empowerment.
What steps can you take to manage your emotions and feelings more successfully? Are you allowing your brain to be God-educated and Holy Spirit-impressed?
Like many women, I grew up believing that if I was a very good girl, followed all the rules, and loved God enough, life would turn out pretty well. What a disappointment, therefore, to wake up one morning in adulthood to discover that the formula had failed. My health had taken a decided dip. I was a walking combination of burnout, disappointment, frustration, and midlife crisis.
In frustration I turned to a more in-depth study of the brain and the immune system. Emerging research provided some practical tools that changed my life. For example, I learned that although we often use the terms emotions and feelings interchangeably, they are not the same. Emotions arise in the brain’s limbic system (pain-pleasure center) and are simply little flags designed to get our attention. Information about the physiological changes these emotions cause in the body travels to the cerebrum (thinking portion of the brain). There we assign weight to these flags, and our interpretations then become our feelings.
Practically, this means that while we may not always have complete control over our initial emotions, within six or seven seconds of becoming aware of our thoughts we can begin to take control of our feelings.
First I learned to identify the entire range of emotions God has placed in the human brain. Next I honed the ability to translate those flags into feelings more accurately. Gradually I gave myself permission to feel all my feelings until eventually I accepted complete responsibility for managing my emotions and feelings.
Often we handle them with faulty screens we have absorbed early in life. I actually did some very helpful family-of-origin work to discover some of the generationally transmitted response patterns that had been operating among the members of my family.
The bottom line? If we want to change the way we feel, we need to change the way we think. It is our choice to maintain a given feeling, to choose a different feeling, or to act upon a feeling, thus moving us from a position of helplessness toward one of empowerment.
What steps can you take to manage your emotions and feelings more successfully? Are you allowing your brain to be God-educated and Holy Spirit-impressed?
Used by permission of Health Ministries, North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists.
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