Emotional well-being is the bedrock of all other dimensions of the 8 Wheels of Wellness. Without good emotional health, there is very little to build on. It is important now more than ever to take note of your emotional well-being. It is defined as: “A positive sense of well being enables an individual to be able to function in society and meet the demands of everyday life; people in good mental health have the ability to recover effectively from illness, change or misfortune”. It is not the absence of difficulties in a person’s life but rather their ability to bounce back and process through whatever they are going through that builds resilience and contributes to their sense of emotional well-being. In order for you to achieve this, you must have a strong internal compass. Our external circumstances come and go, but it’s how we view and approach life that will determine our ability to experience emotional health with longevity and sustainability. There are three ingredients that contribute to this well-being; the way we feel/think, what we bond to, and our resilience. We’ll look at each of these creating a recipe for living a stable and balanced life full of purpose and vitality.  

Science continues to confirm what Scripture has already taught us. Proverbs 4:23 instructs us to: “guard your heart diligently for every issue of life flows from it.” Our heart is the seat of affection, it’s the place where our values are revealed. Our heart turns toward what we believe about ourselves. If we have poor self-esteem and lack confidence we will view life from that lens and live accordingly. If we believe we are loved by God and experience good self-esteem our life choices will reflect that as well. Everything begins in the heart which creates our feelings, produces our thoughts, and manifests our behavior. Scripture also tells us that “from the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). Our words, our thoughts, and our actions affect our sense of well-being. 

Many of us experience a racing mind with millions of thoughts swirling around at any given time, especially in the uncertain climate that we are living in. Our ability to control those thoughts contributes to emotional health. Scripture encourages us to take every thought captive. Why? Because God knew how He wired us and how we would be affected by our thoughts, our ruminations and vain imagination would be where we set our affections. Best-selling author Henry Cloud describes it this way:  “When we can’t hold back, or set boundaries, on what comes from our lips, our words are in charge – not us. But we are still responsible for those words. Our words do not come from somewhere outside of us, as if we were a ventriloquist’s dummy. They are the product of our hearts. Our saying, ‘I didn’t mean that,’ is probably better translated, ‘I didn’t want you to know I thought that about you.’ We need to take responsibility for our words. ‘But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken’ (Matt. 12:36).” ~ Henry Cloud.  Our thoughts affect our brains. Studies in neuroscience have found that negative words, whether spoken, heard, or thought, not only cause situational stress but also contribute to long-term anxiety. Anxiety is rooted in fear. When you are faced with difficulties, negative thinking hinders your ability to process information and think clearly affecting the decisions that you make. A person is literally what they think, your character being the sum of all your thoughts.  What is our internal dialogue? If we think rejecting thoughts internally we will experience rejection externally. Our internal reality becomes our external reality. The good news is, we can reverse this trend through positive thinking, knowing who we are, and loving and accepting ourselves. In the book, Words Can Change Your Brain, the authors describe that just one positive word has the power to influence the expression of genes that regulate physical and emotional stress. Think about the internal world that you are creating for yourself. How can we possibly have good emotional well-being if our thoughts and the words we speak are actually tearing down, producing anxiety, and disrupting our flow of thought? 

In contrast, research tells us that by holding onto positive words, we are able to affect other areas of our brain. With consistency and time, we can change the default of our thought processes from negative to positive. Holding a positive view of ourselves not only changes our perception but the world around us. Many of us have experienced feeling completely loved and accepted and the confidence and conquering spirit that ensues. When you feel loved and accepted, you never want to be anyone else. That is the person that God designed you to be – your true self. This is key to emotional well-being. thinking about ourselves the way God sees us, not as we see ourselves. Emotional health and well-being starts with discovering what is in our hearts, what we are  turning our affections toward and our internal dialogue. Whatever we are turning our affections toward we are bonding to which leads into the next ingredient, bonding. 

What affections are our heart turned toward? Bonding is a connection that creates joy, energizes us, motivates our actions and establishes our identities. Our ability to give and receive in our bonds shapes our view of what is really important. Just as there are negative and positive thoughts, there are two opposing bonds; one of love and one of fear. Bonding to love motivates us to live in truth, enjoy closeness with others, experience peace and joy, builds perseverance, we’re able to show kindness and we are authentic in our giving. When we are bonding to fear it is centered on avoiding pain like rejection, fear, shame, humiliation, abandonment, guilt and even forms of abuse. Bonding to love creates a positive energy flow, we look forward to being with each other and this releases the “cuddle” hormone, oxytocin, into our bloodstream helping us to feel calm and relaxed, show affection, creates a generous spirit, makes us better friends and reduces feelings of isolation.  Conversely, when we bond to fear it is built on negative motivation, with such thoughts as:  what if this quarantine never ends, late to work, can’t lose weight, make someone mad or we think about all the things that can go wrong. We are reduced to living below our potential. It hinders our ability to problem solve or to even process through life’s difficulties.  Bonding to love on the other hand, we experience joy, we are motivated to faithfully persevere under pressure, help others to reach their potential, able to endure pain and to even tell the truth when it hurts. We are able to see others how God sees them. We are not controlled by fear. We are living examples that perfect love casts out fear. 

Our goals come from our thoughts. Our motivation comes from our emotions. Take an inventory today; are you bonding to love or to fear? I heard a quote that said, “You cannot change your heart, He will not change your mind. But if you change your thoughts, He will change your heart.” All issues flow from our heart. Changing our thoughts and bonding to love are two of the stepping stones to emotional well-being. Let’s look at the third which is found in resilience.  

Resilience is what gives people the psychological strength to cope with stress and hardship. It requires that we face our emotions, gets curious about them, and engage with them instead of dismissing or repressing them. We give ourselves permission to feel lousy by not masking or pretending with our emotions but then we are able to recover and stand back up. We don’t come by resilience naturally, it’s a muscle that we build and maintain. It’s what I like to call building capacity or creating a well of equity. Coupled with our thought life and bonding, we control our emotions, they do not control us. We are able to make decisions that reflect our core beliefs and values not rooted in fear or what other people think. Just as your thoughts can positively change your brain chemistry and its wiring, bonding has that same capability. Our brains stop developing anywhere from the age of 20-30. However, there is one part of the brain that continues to grow and that is over the occipital portion above the right eye. When you experience joy through bonding with love that part of your brain continues to grow. The more you experience joy the greater your capacity or the more equity you build and this increases your resilience. As you move through life you are able to  “function in society and meet the demands of everyday life, recover effectively from illness, change or misfortune.” This does not mean that you experience less stress, grief, anxiety, or distress that other people do but rather you are able to handle these difficulties in ways that foster strength and growth. In many cases, you may emerge even stronger than you were before. If you are lacking resilience you may feel overwhelmed by life. You may dwell on problems using unhealthy coping mechanisms to deal with life’s challenges. Experiencing disappointment or failure might drive you to unhealthy, destructive, or even dangerous behaviors. Your ability to bounce back is diminished. Building resilience is worth the investment. 

Changing your negative thinking through renewing your mind, bonding to love by engaging in relationships (with God, yourself, and others) who celebrate who you are and building equity that creates resilience are foundational to your emotional well-being. This foundation is sustainable and produces longevity in living a healthy life that is balanced, happy, and prosperous, in spite of the current circumstances. 

Here are some practical steps you can take to assure that you are living an emotionally healthy life, experiencing all that you were created to enjoy, to do, and to be: 

1. Your Identity:  Do you know what God thinks of you? Do you see yourself as God sees you? Read the Word and discover your identity in Him. He is after your heart and knows that hope deferred makes a heart sick. Pray and ask Him to reveal to you how He feels about you. His good thoughts toward you create a standard for what you allow your thought life to possess.
2. Your Thoughts:  Inventory your thoughts. If you are one that struggles with negative thoughts, keep a Thought Journal writing down any negative thoughts you are having. You might be surprised how often you are writing your thoughts down. Exchange this thought for the truth. As you practice this your negative thoughts will decrease, truth will increase and you will be able to experience bonding to love as well as grow in resilience…and change your brain! 
3. Bonding to love:  Inventory your relationships. Are there toxic relationships that are built on fear that you can terminate or invite change to? As you will see, your mental, physical and overall health are depending on it. Spending time with those who love you builds joy capacity and creates strong resilience in you to navigate through life successfully. God is always happy to be with you!
4. Build Resilience: Resilience is the ability to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness. It doesn’t come naturally, it is a muscle that we flex and build strength in. The best way to re-build resilience is to face your emotions. Learn to get curious about them, they are good information. Give yourself permission to express your emotions to someone who is safe and trustworthy and process through until you can stand back up. If you need assistance, schedule a session. 
5. Meditation/Mindfulness:  If you know how to worry or ruminate, you know how to meditate. Allow your mind to dwell on the positive. When a negative thought comes look at it and speak truth to it. The key to mindfulness is that you allow yourself to feel emotions without judgment. You are not obligated to act on your thoughts or emotions but listen and tend to them. Speak truth to them with compassion. 
6. Exercise:  This is an outlet for your body to dump what it is holding onto. Pushing through on both good and bad days is resilience in action. Plus, exercise heightens your mood and motivation levels, which directly relieves stress and puts us in a more positive mindset.