Today's Heartlift with Janell
Sometimes the story we tell ourselves is not really true. Sometimes the story others tell about us is not really true. On "Today's Heartlift with Janell," Author, Trauma-informed, board-certified marriage and family specialist, and Professional Heartlifter, Janell Rardon, opens conversations about how emotional health and mental fitness effects absolutely every area of our lives. When we possess and practice healthy, strong, resilient emotional health practices, life is so much better. Read Janell's newest book, "Stronger Every Day: 9 Tools for an Emotionally Healthy You."
Today's Heartlift with Janell
319. Can I Master My Emotions?
Dr. Kevin Chapman shares biblical principles for mastering our emotions through cognitive behavioral therapy techniques that align with God's Word. His robust approach shows how we can transform our emotional responses by understanding the true purpose of emotions and learning to respond to them in healthier ways.
• Emotions aren't our problem – our responses to them create distress.
• The "Emotional Seal" framework: Situation, Emotion, After, Later helps identify emotional patterns.
• Emotional avoidance (suppressing feelings) brings temporary relief but worsens emotions long-term.
• Seven "being skills" form the foundation of emotional mastery, starting with being present.
• Kingdom questions help challenge negative thought patterns with biblical truth.
• Luke 21:19 reveals we are meant to "possess" (master) our souls.
• Neuroticism is a tendency to experience intense negative emotions that can be overcome.
• Mastering emotions requires consistent practice, not just management.
• Understanding the difference between living in the "kingdom of feelings" vs. God's kingdom.
• Genetic predispositions from the Fall can be transformed through intentional reprogramming.
To learn more about mastering your emotions through biblical principles, find Dr. Kevin Chapman's book "Mastering Our Emotions: Biblical Principles for Emotional Health" wherever books are sold.
Be sure to watch Dr. Kevin's show on YouTube: The Sound Mind Show
Begin Your Heartlifter's Journey:
- Visit and subscribe to Heartlift Central on Substack. This is our new online coaching center and meeting place for Heartlifters worldwide.
- Download the "Overcoming Hurtful Words" Study Guide PDF: BECOMING EMOTIONALLY HEALTHY
- Meet me on Instagram: @janellrardon
- Leave a review and rate the podcast: WRITE A REVIEW
- Learn more about my books and work: Janell Rardon
- Make a tax-deductible donation through Heartlift International
As I've listened to the stories of thousands of women of all ages in all kinds of stages through the years, I've kept their stories locked in the vault of my heart. I feel as if they've been walking around with me all through these years. They've bothered me, they've prodded me and sometimes kept me up at night. Ultimately, they've increased my passion to reframe and reimagine the powerful positions of mother and matriarch within the family system. I'm a problem solver, so I set out to find a way to perhaps change the trajectory of this silent and sad scenario about a dynamic yet untapped source of potential and purpose sitting in our homes and churches. It is time to come to the table, heartlifters, and unleash the power of maternal presence into the world. Welcome to Mothering for the Ages, our 2025 theme. Here on today's Heartlift. I'm Janelle. I am your guide here on this heartlifting journey. I invite you to grab a pen, a journal and a cup of something really delicious. May today's conversation give you clarity, courage and a revived sense of camaraderie. You see, you're not on this journey alone. We are unified as heartlifters and committed to bringing change into the world, one heart at a time.
Speaker 1:A reading from Mastering Our Emotions Biblical Principles for Emotional Health by Dr Kevin Chapman. The Purpose of Emotions, the purpose of an emotion, is to prompt us to respond to both internal events, thoughts or physical sensations and external situations. Emotions trigger us to pay attention to things going on inside of us as well as around us, so we can respond to the world successfully. Furthermore, although many people are uncomfortable with experiencing negative emotions, both positive and negative emotions are equally important to pay attention to. If someone were to say you are so emotional, you could respond by saying you are too. Everyone is emotional. Yet many people who experience negative emotions more frequently ie high-trait neuroticism tend to be described as so emotional or too emotional. I might even add you're just too much, you're a lot.
Speaker 1:Consider for a moment if we didn't have emotions. How would you experience the joy of the Lord during praise and worship? How would you be assertive and stand up for yourself? How would you deal with the loss of a loved one, a pet or something important to you? How would you survive in a fire? How would you know if you ate food that was contaminated? If you failed to keep your word to a friend, how would you know? So in this conversation, dr Kevin Chapman and I are going to explore the biblical principles for emotional health and we are going to dive into emotional mastery, becoming an emotion master. This book is a keeper. It's so good and so practical. Please, please, welcome Kevin to the show All right. Oh, please, welcome Kevin to the show All right. Oh, my goodness, you guys. Dr Kevin, thank you so much for being with us. We are already nerding out, and it is even your prayer. I'm like should have captured that. So good Welcome. Welcome to this community that is committed to everything you're talking about?
Speaker 2:Hey man, thank you, I'm so excited to be here we are. We have Nerded Out. We're going to nerd out. We're going to help people know how to master their emotions. We love it.
Speaker 1:Oh, you are something. I just I'm going to lift this up for everyone on YouTube. I mean, this book is so good. I know I know heart, I know HeartLifters, I say it a lot, but it's just so simplified. Amen, you simplified a very deep topic of mastering our emotions, of becoming an emotion master. I love that. I love the words. Emotion master I love that, I love the words. And so tell us a little tiny bit about why you got called to write this book and why now so curious.
Speaker 2:That's an awesome loaded question. So the short version is that, being in the secular space but a believer, you know the Holy Spirit was really speaking to me over time. I mean by nature. You know I'm an anxiety researcher. I've studied anxiety and emotions my whole life. I've published in that area in secular journals and things. But the Lord really spoke to me years ago about really integrating His Word with things I've been learning throughout school. It's always funny, right, because you look back on how you were trained and you look back on all the opportunities you've had and you realize it was a God thing in preparation for such a time as this. Amen.
Speaker 1:So I say that, yes, right Kairos.
Speaker 2:Exactly, kairos, 100%. So those Kairos moments I had, you know, in studying and what have you, and what the Lord spoke to me at a conference, actually a minister's conference. He said, okay, now is the time, yep, a conference, actually a minister's conference. He said, okay, now is the time, yep. He said now is the time to write this. And I knew that this because it's been staring at my heart to really say cognitive behavioral therapy is really the word of God. Confronting anxiety and fear is really the word of God.
Speaker 1:Emotions is really the word of.
Speaker 2:God, and really you and I both know there's not been a lot of people to really articulate that in a way that's digestible to the body of Christ and to simplify it, and that's really what I hope I achieve with this book.
Speaker 1:Oh, you did achieve it, you just did, I already have. Look, I mean, I have so many notes. I showed you pages of notes we need 12 hours, but we don't have 12 hours. So you were at a minister's conference and you just heard okay, it's all. The Kronos has led up to this Kairos moment. And you just started writing the book.
Speaker 2:I did on the plane in fact, and you know the good thing about kind of like a divine revelation that way is that it was already inside of me, right. So it was a matter of just kind of structuring it the right way using my, you know, knowledge that I have from being involved in protocols with cognitive behavioral therapy, which in my secular world, so to speak quote unquote is how I was trained, and really just doing that and creating what I would consider a manual quote unquote for a believer.
Speaker 2:That is not just reading right, Janelle. I mean, it's practical application and homework. Do it, let's read it.
Speaker 1:Let's write it, let's live it. Let's read it, let's write it, let's live it Exactly so. Would you please, for my listeners, explain CBT cognitive behavioral therapy because we're doing that this year. We're really giving some different methodologies and approaches to what they really mean, and is this maybe what mamas in particular I'm really loving moms right now might discover? Oh, this could be helpful.
Speaker 1:When I you know, the biggest question I have for you was how do I reprogram my tendency to overreact and if anyone has a tendency to overreact, it is typically going to be a stressed out mom or a stressed out caregiver, someone who is, you know, on the last nerve, as I like to say. Okay so cognitive behavioral therapy is.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the simplified version is cognitive. Behavioral therapy is based on the premise that any emotional experience you have has three components to it. It has our thoughts, our cognition, what we say to ourselves, our physical sensations, also known as feelings in the body, heart rate, breathing, et cetera and behaviors what we do. And those relationships, janelle, are bi-directional Thoughts influence feelings, but vice versa, feelings influence behaviors, but vice versa. Thoughts, behaviors, et cetera.
Speaker 2:And the key is that, identifying thinking patterns because the word of God doesn't talk about that right Thinking patterns and how that contributes to emotional experiences and manifests in ways that can be problematic. So CBT really teaches you how to be your own scientist, to test out thoughts, to challenge negative, faulty thinking patterns, patterns and to engage in behavioral strategies to reprogram yourself in that way.
Speaker 1:What led you, in your course of education, to go? Oh, I want to go all in to understanding CBT.
Speaker 2:Well, I think the main thing for me is when I fell in love with abnormal psychology, which most people find intriguing, even if they don't want to study it right.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:When I studied abnormal psychology, it led me to anxiety disorders as a category and as a believer. I'm not big on labels but, for the sake of understanding, 40 million Americans per year are diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. Only one third receive treatment and, yes, they're the most treatable conditions in the world and being a college athlete, I was like you know what? Sign me up. That sounds challenging and intriguing and what led me to that. Janelle is not only studying anxiety and related symptoms, but I found that the gold standard treatment scientifically at least right, let alone the word of God, as we'll get to but the gold standard treatment for anxiety and related symptoms is cognitive behavioral treatment. So that's what led me to go all in with CBT is because of my study of emotion.
Speaker 1:I love it because you say you know, as a man thinks, so is he. I mean the word of God is so clear. I mean Paul. I think he was our first social worker psychologist clinical whatever, because he's like think of these things, you know, renew your thoughts. It's over and over, it's so exciting. It's so exciting, and yet it's so been bypassed, as we say now we have a term for it, thankfully spiritually bypassed.
Speaker 1:And you know, I raised three children not knowing all of these things, so I would go to the word and I used the word, you know, but I really didn't have the tools that I have now with grandchildren to go. Oh well, let's talk about that feeling and not just you know. Let's read this scripture, as my daughter like well, you made me go and write a proverb 20,000 times, let me, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1:Okay. Well, you offer to us, as you have worked through all of these years of studying CBT, a model of emotional distress for Christians. I'm going to show it here. You must watch the video. Wow, it's succinct and it's so good. Do you know it by heart or do you want me to read through it? Just walk us through that.
Speaker 2:Well, it's ironic, you say that you can fill the holes in, but I'll say what I know.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, I mean you wrote the book a long while ago. I understand that process.
Speaker 2:So then, and I'll give you the succinct version. So, essentially, in Janelle I know you'll amen this and snap and all and what have you, but we talk about it. The fall of man, right, genesis, chapter three we can talk about a lot of things when sin entered the world, but, as you and I both know, as people who have a heart for counseling people, you know most people don't talk about in the body of Christ that one of the things that also occurred at the fall, in my estimation, in my word, are what we call genetic predisposition and ultimately we saw shame enter in fear, enter in anxiety, enter in hiding, avoidance, all things I talk about in the book. We rarely in the body of Christ talk about that. You'd be hard pressed to disagree, but we just don't have people talking about it. So what I argue is that again, science which the word confirms already is, there's a trait known as neuroticism that really explains the people who experience intense emotions like anger and anxiety and sadness. So there are, frankly, people even in the body of grace who have big feelings, big emotions, right, and what happens is that exactly. And what I say in that model is that the fall of man occurred in Genesis 3.
Speaker 2:Many of us had a predisposition to experience intense emotionality, known as neuroticism. Right that interacts with one's environment and, as a believer, that creates what I would consider to be emotional distress, so a negative view of emotions, a negative view of anger and anxiety, and it leads me to engage in emotional behaviors that are trying to push these emotions away. I shouldn't feel this way, which backfires, it makes me feel worse and it creates what we call disorders. It creates problems with hearing God, it creates problems with other members of the body of Christ, and that's essentially what the model is about. Just explaining this is not a stigma. This is what happened at the fall, but, praise God, you can be reprogrammed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're right. The very end and something that I said to you know for is, I haven't really coined or talked about the coining of this emotional distress, as you write, and emotional distress does bring forth a difficulty in hearing God. That is what I've been pounding the table over.
Speaker 1:You know, it's almost like I felt I reversed my passion of my sense of spiritual discipleship and all of those things when I myself went through, you know, quite the crisis foundational ways that we need to put into our children so they can then be spiritually attuned.
Speaker 2:I just think they definitely go.
Speaker 1:They're definitely integrative. But I almost feel personally that man, I wish I could go do it again and give my children more emotional language, and but you know it's not too late. We're doing it now. They're in their thirties.
Speaker 1:You know, sure would have been easier. So that's why you're here, that's why I want you here, because I really want women mothering anyone mothering to have their eyes open and not beat themselves up, but understand this neuroticism. You're giving us new words. You say neuroticism is a tendency to experience negative emotions along with the perception that the world is dangerous and you can't deal with these emotions. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, bravo, thank you, dr Kevin. It's not the big woolly devil, it's, you know. It's just emotion, god given. Okay, so you have this beautiful model for us and then you give us seven. It's just so good, amen, it just really is.
Speaker 2:Hey man, I appreciate that.
Speaker 1:You say I mean just one of those. Why didn't I think of that? You know these seven being skills. Okay, where?
Speaker 2:did you get that little amazing?
Speaker 1:thought and then tell us what they are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so in my study of just cognitive behavioral treatment in general and the science part of it, we know there are certain ingredients, even for people who aren't believers, that can help them manage emotion very effectively. Right, so we know that there are skills in the world of like learning how to be mindfully aware of emotions as an essential skill. We know. You know being flexible and how we learn to think is an essential skill. We know emotional avoidance is what will cook more believers than anything else, and that's an essential skill. What would cook?
Speaker 1:most of us Emotional avoidance. Talk to us a little bit, oh shoot Okay, Janelle.
Speaker 2:I know Seven listeners. Okay, so when we think about emotional avoidance, emotional avoidance is really anything, and I do literally mean anything that we do that's an attempt at suppressing, not thinking about or pushing away uncomfortable emotions. Got it Right Anything, and the one that really gets people thinking would be something as simple as procrastinating. Procrastination is emotional avoidance.
Speaker 1:I know I'm so sorry. Thank you, Help me oh yeah, so procrastination.
Speaker 2:But the irony of avoidance right Janelle is that when people avoid emotions they do get temporary relief from it. But the paradox is that that relief backfires.
Speaker 1:It will.
Speaker 2:And leads to the maintenance of the emotion I'm trying to manage and I'm in a vicious cycle of trying to feel better in ways that make me feel worse. That's essentially the simple way to put what I mean by emotional avoidance. Simple way to put what I mean by emotional avoidance. So I say all that to say that what the Lord spoke to me about was you know, Kevin, the reason you've been doing all this training and helping people and have you and practicing, if you will, is so the body of Christ can have a better understanding of how the word of God does apply in practical ways, and it's not just going to church and ministering to people and saying oh yeah, romans 12 to renew the mind.
Speaker 2:Got it Really not. A lot of people talk about practical applications, so the Lord said you know what. This is who you are. You are an emotional master. It's not something that you're managing, it's something you are. So, therefore, the Lord really spoke to me and said what about being skills? Because this is who you are. You are present, you are renewed in your mind, you are adaptive, not maladaptive. You are brave. 2 Timothy 1.7. You are consistent. You're going to get me preaching.
Speaker 1:I want you to preach because this is so good.
Speaker 2:So I say that to say that's who we are, despite, like you said, proverbs 23.7, despite what we've learned to think. That's not who you really are. That's why James calls it the perfect law of liberty. We're looking in the wrong mirror when we let our emotions master us. We are to master our emotions, not the other way around.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you make it so clear we're not to manage them. Okay, this is. I mean it is a, it's an aha.
Speaker 2:It is an aha, as we say here.
Speaker 1:it's a lean in because a lot of the work that we do as counselors or coaches or whatever you want to call yourself someone working in the mental health profession or ministry you know we do teach people to manage more so than master.
Speaker 2:We do.
Speaker 1:And so that's why I think this caught my attention and it was like it just empowered me. Immediately. I thought, oh my gosh, these seven being skills are I'm being an emotional master, Like you said. I'm being present, but they're worth repeating. I'm being renewed, I'm being adaptive, because so many times we're labeled as maladaptive, right?
Speaker 2:When you read the next one, that one say it.
Speaker 1:This is the goal.
Speaker 2:That's the one people are afraid of.
Speaker 1:I know it's somatic, isn't it Somatic psychology? It's feeling it, it's coming. It's like yes, I don't want to feel you.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to be a workaholic.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:I am going to drink a lot of mommy juice because, that's certainly happening. Yep, uh-huh you know, I'm going to. You can just fill in the blank. You know, those are those aversion techniques, and then being brave, and then seven, I think is the key being consistent. That part, that's the hard part. I'm 65 and I'm you know, today actually February 7th, when we're taping is my spiritual birthday. If anyone knows what that means, that means, let's see I was 21. So 44 years. Is that the right math, you know?
Speaker 1:for over four decades of trying to figure out this way of walking with Jesus. Okay, so you give us these being, and there's a chapter for each one of the beings. But I want to hop to what you I'm telling you, being an emotional master, and then you write, knowing the seal S-E-A-L of emotions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's powerful, that's a powerful powerful example.
Speaker 1:You're right I did, I did.
Speaker 2:But, janelle, here's the thing. You know how the Holy Spirit works. I know we're having church, so the thing is yes, I did write it, but, being the vessel, it's still the word of God.
Speaker 1:It's exciting, it's so reveling. I love those moments, do you not love that? Okay, so where were you? I love those moments when I'm writing and it's like, oh, download, download and you go.
Speaker 2:I couldn't have done this, I mean I've got chills.
Speaker 1:So where were you when you got this understanding of your, this emotional seal? Where were you? I want to know.
Speaker 2:I was leaving my office because I was typing and just thinking through some things and getting concepts down, and typically when the Lord speaks to me, it's usually when I'm driving. Why? Because I'm by myself and can hear him, or if I'm in the shower, which is another one where we get a lot of downloads and what have you. So I was just driving, just thinking, kind of trying to rack my brain in my own mind, like what is a really good way to encompass an acronym that would be helpful. And then there was a I think it's a Kim Walker song from years ago that just came out of nowhere.
Speaker 2:When she says with Jesus culture, I think she said, and you said, of the seal on my heart, which is a scripture. I think it's a song by Solomon, I think, but nonetheless, like that hit me and I was like, wait a second, a seal upon my heart, okay, what you're trying to say, lord? And then he revealed to me that I could explain how emotions happen in context, based on what we call an emotional steel right, and I explain in that, as you know, what a seal is. To help you. Each letter means something.
Speaker 1:Tell us all about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this is a very simple way for you to help believers really unpack something that's kind of been complicated and that's the emotional seal. So in order for you to master your emotions, you have to know your emotional seal. What's that? Good question. The letter S simply means the situation. All emotions are precipitated by context.
Speaker 2:They feel like they happen out of the blue, but they don't. They never do. So there's the situation. What happens before my emotional experience? The E is the emotion itself, so label it. Is it anxiety, frustration, shame, anger, guilt, et cetera? The emotion itself, which has three parts. Then there's the interesting piece is the A and the L, because that's the piece that I think you really need to learn to master and that's those are basically the consequences. What happens after your emotions? The A is what happens after the emotion.
Speaker 2:The L is what happens later on. Example.
Speaker 1:So good.
Speaker 2:Right now I procrastinate. Right Afterwards I feel better. Right Later on, though, my anxiety is exponentially worse and now I feel more anxious, I feel more ashamed. So I might get relief after the emotional response, but later on. I feel worse, and that's what the seal is trying to indicate to brothers and sisters in the body is hey, you might get relief immediately. But, later on, you're not going to get relief.
Speaker 1:No, and I would really add, in a conversation with anger, like the anger that does lead to sin, not anger, healthy anger and rage, because unhealthy anger typically will lead to rage, which is what leads to the outburst or overreacting. So I want to go back to that, that you're helping us. I think it's just really, if anything's most critical, it's that tendency to overreact, because there's either a tendency to overreact or a tendency to repress.
Speaker 2:Yep absolutely.
Speaker 1:Is that fair?
Speaker 2:That's absolutely fair and I cover that in the book because both of those I would consider ironically, you laughed about this earlier emotional avoidance strategies. They are. Both of them, because they're both extremes, right. So if I overtly avoid a situation, janelle, that's going to make me have more of the emotion. If I overreact to an emotion, my brain's going to remind me of overreacting, and that's how I'm going to try to deal with the emotion. They're both really missing the mark of what the emotion's trying to tell me.
Speaker 1:Oh, this is so layered so I'm trying to stay simple, like your book, because so much of our emotional avoidance would be subconscious from any perhaps childhood trauma or negativity, as you were saying.
Speaker 1:The dispositions, the genetic dispositions of how our caregivers, our parents would have dealt things. You know those get passed down. We know that the Bible is so clear and I love that. Epigenetics, the science now has literally proven the sins of the fathers get passed to the third, to the fourth. I'm literally proving it. You know, old Testament said it and now it's proven and you talk. I love that you bring that into the conversation. So let's just say you say your emotional seal this is page 41 in your reflection, which these are just if, if, heartlifters, if, if, big, if you would actually do this work. You know I have so many people that well, I've read this book, I've read that book, I read that book. I read that many people that, well, I've read this book, I've read that book, I read that book, I read that book and said, well, what did you get out of them? And they can't even say so. I'm always trying to say would you just take a book three months, I don't know, a year, nine months, and do it?
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:I do it. So your emotional seal. You write, uh what you ask us, what emotion do you find most difficult to manage? Or you have emotions, but we'll just choose one. I'm just walking you through it, HeartLifter. List some situations that trigger the strong emotions mentioned in question one and then three your emotional seal In one of the situations listed above. How have you responded to a negative emotion I this is so fresh that led to feeling better afterward, but led to feeling worse later on.
Speaker 1:The situation was the emotion was bring in the physical feelings, please, thoughts, behaviors. I felt better afterward when later on, I felt worse because. And then what did you learn about yourself? I feel like Dr Kevin, if, if we will just take seal to heart.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 1:Because isn't it CBT? Isn't it the automatic process that you have to practice over and over and over again until it becomes automatic? Is?
Speaker 2:100%, janelle and we we live in a microwave society, we do, where no one really wants to draw a line in the sand and say, oh wait, a second. Jesus already provided. You're saying I have to do something now. Yeah, you have to activate what he's done for us. And the key is we have to acknowledge, right, that we do have to take responsibility and pay attention to the things that trigger our emotions in all of us, but how our responses are. The issue now, not the emotion itself, and that's the piece that's so important for people listening to understand is that your emotion isn't the issue. It's how you've learned to respond to the emotion. That's the issue, and it takes repetition. You do not get a six pack abs before going a week before spring break, you have to go to the gym and work out.
Speaker 1:I know, Kevin, I'm right there again.
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 1:I want my six pack. I don't want a six pack I just want it tight firm.
Speaker 2:I don't know, but anyway, yes, it takes devotion. Right.
Speaker 1:Discipline, the word we really is in averse causes, an averse reaction Obedience. It just takes all of these topics that so many of us in the Christian faith avoid, you know, because it requires hard work, it just does Sweat tears and the discipline to be aware, to be aware, I I loved where you talk about kingdom questions.
Speaker 1:I told you I have so many things I'll tell you. It's so interesting because I have, you know, confessed, you know that I really have been in the season of whatever they call that, deconstruction or whatever in my own faith, and the other day I was in my breathing room. I call it, and you know I really love the whispers of God, like when he just whispers something.
Speaker 1:And time and faithfulness and prayer. Like you said, you just gave us a model in your car for how to listen to God. I love what you just shared about. I listened to a song. Something popped out of it. I asked a question. It started stirring. That's how we hear from God. So I was in my breathing room and I was just sitting there, I don't know, and it was just like I don't live in this kingdom.
Speaker 2:That's good.
Speaker 1:I don't live in this kingdom and I thought why am I hearing that I know?
Speaker 2:I'm not.
Speaker 1:Why, god, are you asking? Why are you telling me? You know you don't live in this kingdom.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:You actually live. You do live in it, right In it and not of it. But for some reason he just said you live. You don't live in that kingdom. It was very like authoritative that's so good. My darling daughter. You know, quit looking at numbers, Quit looking at this, Quit looking at that, Quit you know when are you going to just live in my kingdom? When are you going to? Just live in my kingdom Amen Run by righteousness, peace and joy.
Speaker 2:That is so good man. You got me wanting to preach on that Well you preach. Well, I'll just simply say that's a good revelation, because I tell people too like you, janelle, the Lord pressed upon my heart is what tree are you living from? Are you living from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Are you living from the tree of life? One is facts what we see in the natural yeah.
Speaker 2:One is truth. Yeah, that's where the Lord wants us to live, right To just add to what you said I 100% agree with that. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:I thought it was so odd. I'm like well, gosh, don't. I know that Duh. It was so just and I'm still I mean, I'm only a baby in processing, because it just happened. So that's when I was reading through your book and notes. You know you're like these kingdom questions. Why is that important? Let me just read this real quick. Okay, you say Proverbs 23, 7, for as he thinks in his heart, so is he.
Speaker 1:You say if you have learned to think of yourself as not being a morning person, you will never be a morning person. I just think this is so imperative Then you can't be anything else. There is no such thing as a personality type, by the way. If you think of yourself as a hothead, my mother was a hothead, my father was a hothead, my great grandmother was a worrier. I love that you're bringing this up. So you say we have to think on different thoughts. The method that you use, kevin, with clients on a regular basis is to help them identify the thoughts you already said it that lead to negative emotions, identify the traps in the way they think and then learn how to challenge their thoughts with truth, with kingdom questions. Just give us a little bit more. How can I challenge, let's say? I'm dealing with let me just be raw and real impatience with a newly retired husband who's home all the time.
Speaker 2:That's a great question.
Speaker 1:I don't have any space.
Speaker 2:So how do I?
Speaker 1:challenge.
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, you got to familiarize yourself with kingdom questions, because the distinction here, janelle, with kingdom questions is that they're evidence, truth based questions, or questions based on truth, not feelings. Ok, and most people live our lives based on feelings. That's the problem. Hence, when the Lord spoke to you about what kingdom are you living in, bottom line is that most people live in the kingdom of feelings. Oh, I'm just you know, my environment makes me feel, and that's not our feelings.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm just you know my environment makes me feel and that's not our kingdom. Oh gosh, that's an enlargement of that Kingdom of jealousy kingdom of comparison, kingdom of you just went deep Kingdom of an impatience.
Speaker 2:when the fruit of the spirit clearly says you have it already, that's a good word.
Speaker 1:Thanks yeah.
Speaker 2:I like being disciplined.
Speaker 2:That's a good word, thanks, yeah, I like being disciplined. So I say that to say, though, let me still answer. That's a good word, but to that point it's one of the kingdom questions. Janelle, though, speaks to what I just said, and that is what's the word of God say about this specific situation? But with you, you know the word, you would go, let's see, impatience. Oh, there's somewhere in Galatians 5, 22, 23 that says, oh, patience, right. So I say that to say.
Speaker 2:Is that kingdom questions, janelle, are designed for you to look for truth, not feelings. So what's the evidence? You can't tolerate your husband being home, since he's retired, right, are you 100% sure that's true? What does 2 Timothy 1.7 say about this? See, these are all questions that challenge you focusing on feelings and to shift to truth and shift. And then you do what I call put on the new man Ephesians 4.23 and 24, and you confess and get in your heart a new thought, a new statement that speaks to the truth of the word of God, which will mitigate that emotional experience and all of a sudden, you're able to activate that patient.
Speaker 1:You know what? And I can because I'm practicing.
Speaker 2:That's right, you know.
Speaker 1:I'm aware, Yep, and I'm quickly apt after I mean decades. Okay, that's going to make somebody go. All right, I'm quitting now because I don't have decades. Master, our emotions does require that we believe that Christ within us is greater than anything outside of it. You're calling us to empowerment Is that. The bottom line Is that it.
Speaker 2:You said it, you said it and you said it full circle at the beginning like when we were joking and talking among ourselves. It's like again. The tone I guess I'd say, as you know, of the book is encouragement, it's hope.
Speaker 1:Oh, I got chills. You got this right, you got this. That's what it is Right. It's like you got this.
Speaker 2:That's exactly the whole tone of the book. So, when you know, when the publisher, when IVP, said you know, kevin, like let's talk about art and things, like how do you want, what do you want? What's the tone? Give us some words. And it's ironic, you're saying that because that's exactly what I said. I said authority, yeah, that's a good one. Hope, encouragement, right. Optimism. That's the tone of the book, right? So because it's mastery, it's not just management, like you said at the beginning of our time ago.
Speaker 1:You got to say it a million times. It's mastering our emotions and part of it. You can't see it, but it's really thin.
Speaker 2:On purpose.
Speaker 1:I know it is a guide. It is, I like to say my book's a little life coach in the pocket, but mine aren't this thin. You're speaking to me.
Speaker 2:Amen.
Speaker 1:Because it's doable and I mean look, old me, new me, it's just okay. Bottom line, take us home. Unless you feel like preaching, we can be renewed.
Speaker 2:Amen, we can and to bring it home.
Speaker 1:give me one or two sentences to really cement, I guess, our authority that we can reprogram our tendency to overreact 100%.
Speaker 2:Okay, step one, yes, step one. Step one, yes, step one. Well, first and foremost, we have to. Hosea 4, 6 tells us that my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge, because you've rejected knowledge. The word of God makes it clear that what you don't know can absolutely destroy you, but Proverbs 4, 5 tells us to get wisdom and to get understanding.
Speaker 2:Step one is for you to know what you don't know. This guide is meant to help you uncover the truth from the word of God that he gave us emotions. Emotions aren't our problem. We've learned to respond to them in problematic ways. So let's start by just labeling our emotions correctly of anxiety, anxious, angry, frustrated. We have to know what our emotions are, janelle. So step one is know your emotions and be aware of your emotional seal. That's always. Step one is to know that your emotions aren't the issue. Step two is really locking in and drawing a line in the proverbial saying and saying now that I know the purpose of emotions, now that I know that emotions come from God and my responses are the issue, I need to know that I am an emotional master, because that's who God made me to be.
Speaker 2:One scripture I'll give us to kind of conclude. That is Luke 21, 19. The Lord revealed this to me. It's so powerful I'll be succinct. But basically, in the context of persecution, you know, the Lord really says in red letters, the last statement that Jesus makes to the disciples. He said by your patience, possess your souls and what like leaped off the page. You talk about revelation.
Speaker 1:It's leaping to me right now.
Speaker 2:I'm telling you. Here's what struck me, and I literally did the happy dance in my break room. The word possess in the Greek in that context is master. We are meant to master our souls, and if Jesus told us we can, oh boy, do I?
Speaker 1:love to know the words under the words.
Speaker 2:I've not looked that up, but I'm going to write it in my head and look it up myself. Yep, and then you're going to, you're going to text me, so if Jesus says, we can, that's our, that's our invitation to possess or master our souls.
Speaker 2:Because he said we can, he did. He's our example, like 1 Corinthians, 11, 1, imitate me as I imitate Christ. Paul's imitation was Jesus. So the key is he's our greatest example. So we can, despite what we've learned, despite how uncomfortable we've been in our lives, despite what our mom and them taught us. Bottom line is the Lord made you an emotional master. Praise God.
Speaker 1:Where have you been? Where have you been?
Speaker 2:Where have?
Speaker 1:you been Dr Kevin.
Speaker 2:We talk about this right Like the Lord's been preparing me, and right now, now's the time, right, it is your time.
Speaker 1:It is your time. And heart lifters, I'm telling you I am not actively counseling at this point, but if I was, this would be where I start. But I downloaded Kevin. Dr Kevin has a worksheet supplement for his book. Yes, Now this this, this, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:That's my favorite part of the book.
Speaker 1:I can't even imagine how much time you put into this, kevin, because I do this for a living. But, heartlifters, it's still a new year, it is brand new year and it is the year to master. I think maybe master possess might be my word for the year. I haven't got it yet, but you have just I'm embodying empowerment, I feel it, amen, and I hope you can feel it too, heartlifters, dr Kevin, I don't want to let you go, I don't, but I will Thank you, thank you, thank you, please, please, you, just keep being you I pray and expanse.
Speaker 1:I pray and expanse because this is a message for today.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. Thank you, heartlifter. I could have talked to dr kevin for hours, but you are just going to have to get his book mastering our emotions Our Emotions Biblical Principles for Emotional Health. I feel like it is a book that needs to be on your bedside table, because what he is showing us is how to be B-E right and how to reprogram our tendency in life to overreact or, as I like to say, live in the land of over. He writes along these lines. Consider for a moment the following question. So here is our homework.
Speaker 1:Do you struggle with worry about minor matters or perhaps worry about things that might happen in the future? Have you ever experienced a panic attack? Do you clam up when you are in social situations and become extremely uncomfortable when you must be in front of others? Do you dislike tight spaces? Do you often worry about your health and become uncomfortable when you experience unknown bodily sensations? Do you check Google when you feel a twinge in your body, hoping to find answers? Maybe you feel down and depressed, while finding it difficult to enjoy activities that you used to enjoy. Do you experience scary thoughts that come into your mind that then lead you to seek reassurance from others or attempt to block thoughts, key there, block thoughts, repress that may seem contrary to the word of God? Do you fly off the handle over what other people would consider small things? Do you have a difficult time tolerating the unknown? Or maybe you avoid situations because they seem to trigger uncomfortable feelings in your body? Do you lie awake at night because of your thoughts? Do you have a difficult time praying or hearing from God due to your mind wandering to either the future or the past? If you answered yes to any of these questions, do these symptoms cause you personal distress? And he, dr Kevin, is teaching us that distress is just negative emotionality, okay, and that impairs your everyday functioning. So we want to think about these questions. If you answer yes to any of them, I would guess that we probably all answered some of them, if not all, or one. Particularly.
Speaker 1:Dr Kevin offers us cognitive behavioral therapy techniques. In the industry we say CBT and, as I said this year, I really want to give you more information on all the different modalities and practices that are at your fingertips anymore, and so, within CBT, there is this method that we can do four things. So, number one identify the thoughts that lead to negative emotions. Two, identify the traps in the way you think about a given situation. Three, learn how to challenge your thoughts with truth, kingdom questions. And four, replace these thoughts by putting on alternative thoughts.
Speaker 1:I love the idea of asking kingdom questions. My kingdom question lately is God, what am I missing? I'm missing something missing. I'm missing something. I've been asking that question for almost a whole year now because I just feel like there's something I'm missing right now, in this transitional season in my life that is key to living a kingdom life. Scriptures say the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy, and you know what I want all of it.
Speaker 1:So meet me over on Instagram at Janelle Reardon and over on Substack at Heart Lift Central so we can keep the conversation going. I will have all the ways that you can learn more about Dr Kevin's work in the show notes, so be sure to find a way to connect with him there. He has so many additional resources. And, of course, this book, as I said, should be on your bedside table. That's a good should, and if you would be so kind, take a moment to leave a review of the podcast. All you have to do is go to JanelleRairdoncom slash podcast. Go all the way to the bottom of the page and I walk you through the process. It won't take you very long, I promise, and boy does it help. The podcast reach extend to the ends of the world, and any donation you can make to Heart Lift International helps me provide mental health resources and solutions so that we can make families strong, secure and stable. Okay, can't wait to meet you and talk more about this week's Kingdom Questions. I'll see you next time.
