Measuring Your Emotional Health

How to determine your level of emotional health

~~ Watch the Video ~~

 Worship: For My Good

https://youtu.be/lnHfNb0UNf4?si=dThd7sxtdStIc3tw

Agenda:

• Introduction
• Traits of Wholeness
• Baptism Didn’t Fix Everything
• 5 emotional bags unconsciously carried into Our Christian Life
• Self Differentiation
• Emotional infants, children, adolescents and adults
• Tips for healing from emotional wounds
• Testimonies

Scriptures:

• Matthew 22:36-40
• Matthew 5:23-24
• 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Introduction

Name some of the fruits of the spirit?

• love
• Joy
• Peace
• Patience
• Kindness
• Goodness
• Faithfulness
• Gentleness
• self-control

Do you know people who know the bible, but don’t have the fruits of the spirit?

Why would that be?

Matthew 22:36-40

36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And He said to him, “‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ 38 “This is the great and foremost commandment. 39 “The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ 40 “Upon these two commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets.”

Some people have a love for God but not a love for people

• They read the bible, pray and worship
• Irritable, easily triggered, defensive, angry, impatient, critical

Or they don’t know how to:

• Speak clearly and honestly
• Give a respectful no
• Address conflict
• how to be present with people

They are spiritually knowledgeable, but emotionally immature

It is not possible to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature

Jesus’ View on Loving People

Jesus didn’t separate loving God from loving people

Jesus put relationship before worship

Matthew 5:23-24

23 “Therefore, if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there you remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.

GI get right with people before you get right with God

The Pharisees had a wrong measure of spiritual maturity

If people view us as

• Cold
• Rigid
• Unsafe

We’re emotionally immature

How people experience us matters

• It is a gauge of our emotional health

Being with your family and being angry with them because they are sinners is a contradiction to what Jesus was teaching

We’ve been working on improving our emotional health for the past 3 years. Today we will look at a way to measure how far we are.

Traits of Wholeness

We are in our series called Seeking Wholeness

How can we be:

• Spiritually healthy
• Emotionally healthy
• Mentally healthy

Free from oppression of

• Our past
• Ourself
• Bad thinking
• Strongholds
• The enemy

We’re talking about

• dealing with life’s current stresses
• being healed from experiences/wounds of the past

We’re promised eternal life

• We’re supposed to have: joy, peace, patience, and self control here on earth

Traits of Wholeness

• Authenticity
• Honesty
• Kindness
• Not dependent on external approval / validation
• Living by values and principles
• Setting Boundaries
• Taking ownership of your responsibilities
• Living with purpose and passion
• Optimism
• Confidence
• Not losing control of your emotions
• Free from addictions
• Addressing Conflict with truth and love
• Vulnerability
• Not critical or Judgemental
• Not jealous of others
• Forgive those who have wronged you in the past
• Know that you’re worthy of receiving love
• Not afraid to fail
• Able to manage irrational fear, worry, and anxiety
• Selfless encounters with others
• Not manipulating others trying to control their actions/reactions
• You care about how others feel
• Patient
• Don’t give into peer/social pressure
• Can communicate directly
• Can communicate without antagonizing others
• Don’t take responsibility for other people's emotions
• Take responsibility for your own emotions
• Slow to anger
• Ability to maturely express your wants, needs and desires
• Can listen without reacting
• Can respect others without having to change them
• Function well… Alone or with others
• Able to take responsibility for our own destiny in life
• Able to maintain a non-anxious presence in the midst of anxiety and stress
• Being led by the Spirit

Baptism Didn’t Fix Everything

• You got salvation

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

4 Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous; love does not brag, it is not arrogant. 5 It does not act disgracefully, it does not seek its own benefit; it is not provoked, does not keep an account of a wrong suffered, 6 it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 it keeps every confidence, it believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away with; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away with.

Does anyone love like this?

Our love is supposed to show others how much God loves them

This is our goal

• But we didn’t get a blueprint

As Christians, we often know  how we should be living …but we don’t know how to do it

• It’s easier said than done

Therefore, we continue to relate to people in an emotionally immature way.

we need to learn to apply, practically and effectively, the truths that we believe

how can I

• Be quick to hear and slow to speak
• Be angry and not sin
• Watch my heart above all else.. since that is the place from whence life flows
• Speak the truth in love
• Be a true peacemaker
• Get rid of all bitterness, rage, and envy

We usually miss-apply biblical truths and follow the relational skills learned in our families growing up.

The way that we were raised becomes our default way of loving other people

• It becomes a default way that we emotionally connect to other people

5 emotional bags unconsciously carried into Our Christian life

Over function

No room for play

Being over responsible for family of origin and that carried over to be over responsible for people in the church

Can’t  maintain healthy boundaries as an adult

Self worth  is Based on Performance

“you will make your parents proud because they have suffered and sacrificed so much for you“

performance-based approval from family -> performing for Jesus

Example: Vinh parents sacrificed

Believe in marriage and gender roles we shaped by our families/culture versus scripture

“Happy wife …happy life”

Resolve conflict poorly

The basic way we resolve conflict resembles our family of origin not Christ’s ways

Example:

• cursing/yelling
• Not addressing

Bible says

• Slow to anger
• Forgive

Not knowing how to accept and process our own feelings, needs and wants

We weren’t asked growing up

• What do you want?
• What do you need?
• What do you feel?

—- measuring your personal emotional health —

Self Differentiation

Differentiation in psychology refers to the process of recognizing and understanding one's own feelings, thoughts, and behaviors in relation to those of others. It is the ability to distinguish between oneself and others, and to be aware of the impact of one's own behavior and feelings on others.

It expresses who the person believes themselves to be and is not negotiable within a given relationship system.  

Example: quiet, timid coworker yelling and berating husband on phone

Example:  you act one way

• at home
• With parents
• at work
• At church

As opposed to one’s social persona, which is the image presented to society and is formed by the need to conform to social convention.  

Differentiation

A fully differentiated person can distinguish between

• Their thoughts and feelings
• Their self and others

An undifferentiated person has less fixed

• Values
• Beliefs
• Identity
• Direction in life

They are more prone to being influenced by people around them

Differentiated people know their values and their guiding principles

Self and other

Having a stable sense of self allows us to be in a relationship with other people

“We feel that she talks too much“

• You can’t assume the other people have the same feeling as you

Togetherness versus separateness

The togetherness force compels us to

• Seek approval
• To be with others
• Too attached to others

Separateness force compels us to

• Have our own beliefs
• Not be smothered by others
• Be independent

If these two are balance we can be close to our love ones without losing a sense of individuality

Thoughts and feelings

When people are asked how do they feel, they usually respond with a thought

We all know if we are

• Mad
• Sad
• Glad

Example:

How did her being late make you feel?

I feel like… She is always late

Feeling guided system versus intellectual guided system

Feeling guided

• Knee-jerk reactions
• Emotion
• Automatic reaction
• Instincts
• Urges

Intellectual guided

• Thinking
• Judgment
• Rational logic
• Rational thought
• Reasoning reasoning

In order to make functional decisions we have to have access to both systems and to be able to distinguish between them

Low differentiation (Fused)

• Can’t distinguish between fact and feeling
• Emotionally needy
• Highly emotionally reactive to others
• Much energy spent winning the approval of others
• Little energy spent on goal directed activities
• Can’t say: “ I think “, “I believe “
• Little emotional separation from their families
• Dependent marital relationships
• Do poorly in transitions
• Crisis
• Life adjustments
• Unable to see where they begin and others end
• Often talk one set of principles or beliefs and do another
• Self-esteem soars with compliments and crushed by criticism
• Becomes anxious, highly reactive and freaks out when a relationship system Falls apart or becomes unbalanced
• Makes poor decisions due to the inability to think clearly under stress
• Seek power, knowledge, honor and love from others to cloth their false self
• More difficulty engaging in thoughtful behavior
• Have difficulty saying no to people
• Critical and judgmental
• more dependent on others
• Prone to triangulation, Enmeshment, conflict, chaos
• Have difficulty making decisions
• have greater physical, emotional and social problems
• Have difficulty communicating directly
• Repeat problematic relationships rather than learning from their mistakes

High differentiation

• Lower reactivity
• Calm emotions
• don’t give in
• Independent
• lower triangulation
•  lower entanglement
• fewer physical emotional and social problems
• Can have closeness to others without getting lost in the relationship
• Can follow life goals that are determined from within
• Function well… Alone or with others
• Able to cope with crises without falling apart
• Stay in relational connection with others without insisting that they see the world the same
• Is principal oriented and goal directed
• Secure in whom they are
• Unaffected by criticism or praise
• Is able to leave family of origin and become an inner directed separate adult
• Can listen without reacting
• Can communicate without antagonizing others
• Can respect others without having to change them
• Aware of dependence on others and responsibility for others
• Free to enjoy life and play
• Able to maintain a non-anxious presence in the midst of anxiety and stress
• Able to take responsibility for their own destiny in life
• Aware of the thinking and feeling functions that work as a team

Relationships

We tend to choose spouses and friends with similar differentiation levels

Example: messy people date messy people

Studies show that most people marry partners at the same level of differentiation. They even tend to socialize with people at their own level of differentiation.

Education, intelligence or an individual's place in the socioeconomic strategy does not affect their level of differentiation.

Variances in Differentiation

Depending on what’s going on in our lives we can slide up and down the scale

Yourself at work is different than yourself at home

The ultimate test of personal growth in this area is to remain roughly the same level of differentiation most of the time… Especially when in contact with our family

Solution

You raise your differentiation level by

• Managing your reactivity
• Detriangulating from your family of origin

Emotional infants, children, adolescents and adults

Emotionallyhealthy.org/mature

https://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/EHD-Personal-Assessment-2021.pdf

Emotional infants

• Look for others to take care of them
• have a great difficulty living in the world of others
• Are driven by a need for instant gratification
• Use others as objects to meet their needs

Emotional children

• Are content and happy as long as they receive what they want
• Unravel quickly from stress, disappointment, and trials
• Interpret Disagreements as personal offenses
• Are easily hurt
• Complain, withdrawal, manipulate
• Take revenge
• Become sarcastic when they don’t get their way
• Have great difficulty calmly discussing their needs and wants in a mature loving way

Emotional adolescence

• Often defensive
• Threatened and alarmed by criticism
• Keep score of what they give so they can ask for something later in return
• Deal with conflict poorly
• Blaming
• Appeasing
• Go to a third-party
• Pouting
• Ignoring the issue entirely
• Become preoccupied with themselves
• Have great difficulty listening to another person's pain or disappointment or needs
• Are critical and judgemental

Emotional adults

• Able to ask for what they need want or prefer clearly, directly and honestly
• Recognize, manage, and take responsibility for their own thoughts and feelings
• When under stress, can state their own beliefs and values without becoming adversarial
• Respect others without having to change them
• Give people room to make mistakes and not be perfect
• Appreciate people for who they are
• The good the bad and the ugly
• not for what they give back
• Accurately assess own limits, strength , and weaknesses and able to discuss them with others
• Are deeply in tune with their own emotional world
• able to enter into the feelings, needs, and concerns of others without losing themselves
• Has the capacity to resolve conflict maturely
• Has the ability to negotiate Solutions that consider the perspectives of others

Tips for healing from emotional wounds

Take baby steps.

Trying to make too many changes all at once can backfire. You may become overwhelmed or feel like a failure if you set unrealistic expectations. And dramatic changes are often unsustainable. Making micro-changes small, manageable, incremental changes create feelings of success, hope, and encouragement that are important to carry you through your healing process. You can learn more about making micro-changes here.

Remember that you don't have to heal 100% to improve the quality of your life.

Many people mistakenly believe that emotional healing is all-or-nothing.

Any modest amount of healing will improve the quality of your life.

Take it one step at a time and you will notice small improvements in your

• mood
•  ability to cope with triggers
• relationships
• self-esteem
• ability to complete your daily activities

Be patient and persistent.

Healing is a lot of work.

We need to be patient and allow for the time needed to gain new insights and skills. And we need to be persistent and keep going even when it gets difficult, be willing to try new approaches, and challenge ourselves in new ways.

Set realistic expectations.

I'm a big believer in the importance of setting realistic expectations.

Progress is more likely to be two steps forward and one step backward.

This isn't a failure, it's a reality.

View setbacks as part of the process and learning opportunities.

Not only are setbacks normal, but they happen often.

Instead of trying to avoid setbacks or relapses, accept that they are part of the process and challenge yourself to be curious about what you can learn that will help you move forward and toward greater healing and self-love.

Prioritize self-care and self-compassion.

Working on emotional healing takes an awful lot of energy, time, and sometimes money.

In order to keep going, you need to really pay attention to your feelings and your physical sensations in your body (such as tight muscles, headaches, fatigue, etc.) because these are your body's way of telling you what it needs.

Take the extra time to listen and take good care of yourself.

Be willing to process your feelings about the past.

Trying to avoid what happened in your past doesn't work.

You need to feel your feelings.

We need to feel them and give them space before they lose their power over us and truly become part of the past. You can slowly work on sitting quietly, allowing your feelings to surface, naming them, and exploring what they're about. For many people, this is quite challenging and working with a therapist can be helpful.

Ask for help.

Healing isn't meant to be done in isolation. It isn't easy to ask for help, especially if people have betrayed you in the past. But reaching out for help has so many benefits: emotional support, guidance, and the ability to break down shame. And help can take many different forms depending on your needs, so I hope you'll look at it as another form of self-care and ask for the kind of help that best meets your needs.

Instructor: Michael Leadon

References

Connecting

Larry Crabb

Emotionally Healthy Christianity

Peter Scazzero

Bowen family system therapy: short explanation by Kirk Honda

Jerry Wise

Relationships grow into an emotionally mature adult | part eight | emotionally healthy spirituality series

Emotionally healthy discipleship podcast

Growing towards emotional maturity part seven of eight

Danvers church

8 Tips to Healing Emotional Wounds

https://blogs.psychcentral.com/imperfect/2019/03/8-tips-for-healing-emotional-wounds/