Ah, emotional health. I thought about skipping this one. Or finding a new topic for this week. But since I’ve already talked about spiritual
health and mental health, I figured I’d need to tackle the emotional at some
point (tune in next week for physical health!)
Purely for research purposes, I
watched Disney’s Inside Out this weekend.
I’d heard great things about it and I was pretty excited. It’s no secret that our family is dealing
with some extreme stress in this season (we are living in a camper), so I
thought it would be a bit cathartic and fun for the family. I’d heard great things and was pretty excited
to see it.
I was underwhelmed.
I mean, it is a cute movie, but
let’s be honest, it’s a pretty bad message, right? This idea that we are solely governed by
emotions. We have a family, each with
personified emotions calling the shots in their head. The dad, with Anger in the lead. The mom, who for some reason has Sadness in
charge. And their 11-year old daughter, Riley,
who has the bubbly Joy at the helm.
I’ll admit that it is cute and at
times it is hilarious. However, I just
couldn’t get past the premise. Perhaps I’ve
read Lysa TerKuerst’s Unglued one too many times, but I can’t get behind the idea that
we are completely governed by emotion.
If we’re blessed and have pleasant “core memories” then we can have Joy
reigning, but what about those unfortunate souls who end up with Fear or
Disgust ruling in her stead?
The movie wraps up with the noble
notion that each emotion has it’s place and even if we don’t enjoy Anger or
Sadness, they are still needed if for no other reason than to shed light on the
happier times. I get that. And that’s good. After all, my favorite line from the Doctor
Who episode Blink is “Sadness is happy for deep people.” (Okay, there are a lot of favorite lines from
that episode.)
But even with that, there is an
idea that we are merely emotional beings going through life with the hope that
Joy rather than any other is the predominant emotion running our life. And that’s just wrong.
Ms. TerKuerst does state in her
book that emotions are indicators, not dictators of our life. We are not helpless and subjected to the rule
of our emotions. No, we are blessed
because we can choose how to behave.
Sure, we may feel sad or
angry, but we are able to overcome that feeling. Not because of another emotion fighting away
to make sure we don’t get too angry or disgusted. No, we’re able to act in a different way
because we, as humans, have the mental capacity for logic and reason to
overcome our emotion – not be ruled by them.
Our emotions do play a part. We can’t merely ignore them or cast them
away. I’m definitely NOT saying
that. Our emotions are indicators
of what we are feeling. We have to
decide whether or not this is an appropriate thing to act on or whether we are
being irrational and out of place. Our
emotions are valid. We do feel these
things. But that doesn’t mean that they
are right. Sometimes we need outside
help with this. This is where
accountability and community come into place.
We are meant to live in community
for just this reason. Our first line of
emotional accountability should be our family.
Ideally, your spouse or parent should be able to help. If this isn’t the case, you may need to step
outside that to a church setting. Seek
help from a brother or sister or your pastor.
If this still doesn’t resolve, you may need to go a step beyond and seek
out a good Christian counselor to help.
Emotional health is a huge part
of your whole person. It’s also so
ultimately relative to your person
that it’s hard to make a universal. This
is why the other pillars of health are so key.
If you are working hard to be healthy mentally, spiritually, and
physically, then emotional will usually, though not always, fall into place.
In the end, we have to remember
that though our emotions are good and valid, they aren’t the ultimate and
supreme end. If you are saved and you
have the Holy Spirit to guide you then you can absolutely live above being ruled by emotions. After all, we do know that Jesus is called
the Logos is Scripture. This is usually translated as Word, but if
you’ll look closely you can see this is where we also get our word Logic.
