Have we ever taken time to consider our own emotional patterns? Consider the repeated thoughts that create recurring emotions and therefore yield habitual actions. Understanding those patterns will require opening the dark closets of our heart and dissecting the memories we thought were buried. We must begin to ask ourselves: Why did this happen to me? What did it teach me? How do I keep it from ever happening again?
Of course not all patterns are bad. Some patterns are so virtuous that they should be refined and held for a lifetime. The greatest gift we can give ourself is the ability to identify patterns that have created themes in our life. Those patterns may not go away completely, but it’s possible that we can begin to recognize them and rob them of the power they have to control our life.
I’ve had to work extra hard at pinpointing my emotions and expressing them when necessary. When i notice a shift in my mood, i take a moment to truly take inventory of what led to the shift. I don’t just chock it up to being off center. I find the root of what’s blocking me from having complete joy. I would be surprised how much simply expressing those emotions can relieve me.
Can you remember areas in your life where you felt shame, pain, or embarrassment? Are there specific memories attached to that? How did your perspective on yourself and others change as a result of that? Recognizing the root of your pattern is the only way you can eradicate it from your life. Once you begin to realize some of the unhealthy patterns associated with your life, you have to wage a defense against them. That defense will have to come in the form of combatting those thoughts or emotions with a prevailing healthier thought.
Vulnerability with God releases the power that negativity has over your life. There are some issues in our life too great for us to handle on our own. We need divine interventions to remind us that there is a resource available to us that supersedes the obstacles around us. You’re not fighting this battle on your own. God has a perfect plan and will for your life. Trust His plan, which includes joy, peace, and love. That’s the transformational thinking that provides a light in even the darkest tunnels.
“Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test! I hope you will find out that we have not failed the test. But we pray to God that you may not do wrong—not that we may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what is right, though we may seem to have failed. For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. For we are glad when we are weak and you are strong. Your restoration is what we pray for.”
2 Corinthians 13:5-9 ESV
“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,”
Ephesians 3:14-20 ESV
“No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”
1 Corinthians 10:13 ESV
