As much as we wish to deny it, our internal emotional state significantly affects our wellness, relationships, and overall function in everyday life. On days when life is going smoothly, responding and interacting pleasantly with other people requires less effort and stamina. However, do events that stretch you outside your emotional comfort zone cause eruptions of emotional turbulence? That may indicate that you need to review your level of emotional stability and endurance.
We acknowledge the need and invest in training to develop stability and endurance in our physical bodies. Meanwhile, just below the surface, we carry the impact of emotional pain accumulated from dealing with life’s disappointments, losses, events, hurtful situations, negative interactions, emotional injuries, and conflicts. Depending on your pain level and sensitivity to pain, the effects can range from minimal to severely disabling and detrimental to self or others. You cannot wish this pain away or coax it to sit quietly in a corner while you go on with your adult life. Despite attempts to keep it hidden, emotional pain demands a voice and a physical outlet inside your body and leaks out into your environment.
Emotional challenges
Our inner self works continuously to keep our emotions from disrupting how our outer, public self presents to the world. This thankless job gets little outside support. Society expects us to come into adulthood equipped with emotional skills and reserves that can be developed into emotional endurance as we take on adult life challenges and relationships. Regardless of where we presently function on the spectrum of emotional stability versus instability, there is still plenty of room left for all of us to grow.
Our emotional deficits stem not only from injury but lack of training. Some of us grew up in environments without consistent modeling of emotional stability and endurance. On the other extreme, indulgent parents who catered to their child’s wants may not have built a foundation of emotional strength to handle the hard lessons of adult life.
Do you ever get tired of trying to manage your emotions? What an exhausting job!
How and where will you find the reserve energy and time to address, instead of trying to silence your pain?
“I don’t know how I am going to get through this” is a statement I often hear during initial coaching or counseling conversations. That statement is expressed by the emotionally strong as often as by those with less emotional strength and stability. It would be abnormal to be devoid of emotion during those crisis times of loss and suffering. An unexpectedly tragic event, a death, a betrayal, a divorce, a family dispute, can drain our emotional reserves to the point that we question the viability of our emotional endurance. So, we begin to work through their “how am I going to get through this” and explore multiple relevant topics.
Still, this question endures: “How long am I going to feel like this?” “Will it ever go away?”
The answer depends on their level of:
- emotional stability and endurance.
- reserves that they have established to draw on in times of difficulty
- skill (developed and practiced) to persevere beyond where they feel safe in their comfort zone
Perseverance versus Persistence
Perseverance and persistence are not exact synonyms.
Which trait sounds more desirable to you?
Which of these traits would you consider essential to take you beyond your comfort zone to increase your emotional stability and endurance?
I do not mean to argue with anyone who uses them synonymously but consider this nuance first. An action can persistently be performed, repeated despite interference or lack of progress, or continued when the situation no longer requires it (after the cause ceases). One definition I read was: “Firm or obstinate continuance in a course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition.” What about that persistent craving for your favorite treat when you are dieting? Persistent describes well the bad habits that we struggle to quit. Annoyance results when your child persistently refuses to take ‘no’ for an answer.
On the other hand, perseverance has a purposeful bent. Most of the time, it is considered virtuous. We begin with a purpose in mind and maintain an intentional effort to accomplish our intended outcome. It describes a goal-directed action that moves forward despite challenges and setbacks. Perseverance reminds me of the biblical virtue of steadfastness. This trait puts feet under endurance.
If developing emotional stability and endurance is the goal, then to get there, we need productive perseverance. We will not acquire this virtue by osmosis. Active practice during difficult circumstances is required.
Consider the impact of emotional instability and dysregulation
You do not need anyone to tell you that extremes of emotion, both the excess and the deficit, produce adverse effects that lead to negative health and relational outcomes. We guard our hearts (and sometimes need to protect our safety) when we have interactions with emotionally volatile people. You are not sure what to expect from day to day, moment to moment. You risk exposure to toxic anger, criticism, and emotional outbursts.
We can instantly picture the hot-tempered, the ill-tempered, the short-tempered, the weak-tempered person. Fear and anger pull at every human heart for domination over our soul. Too often, it defeats our attempts at emotional regulation.
Our goal of achieving emotional stability and endurance leads in the opposite direction.
Picturing our goal of emotional stability
How quick and precise is your mental picture of the well-tempered or the even-tempered person? Since the attributes of this person are less graphic, it takes more thought to construct this mental image. The first image that comes to mind may be the image of an actual person you know who fits this category.
As you look at their mental image, do you sometimes wish you could be more like them? Maybe you think they were just lucky and were born that way. No, put away that myth. They had to grow daily, and through difficulties, to develop emotional stability (emotional regulation).
We are not genetically pre-determined to replicate our parent(s) personalities. Our present personality can be influenced by genetics (less than we assume) and by our environment (nature and nurture debate). However, neither one of those removes our choice and responsibility for how we will live. Each day presents a new opportunity to be and to live differently from our past and our heritage. You are not doomed to stay as you found yourself yesterday or as you present today.
Consider the impact of the emotionally stable, well-balanced person
These people impact us in quieter, more pervasive ways. The attributes that describe them weave through their souls in a way that speaks of steadiness. These adjectives come to my mind for starters: patient, kind, willing to listen, thoughtful responses, self-controlled, fair-minded, restrained reactions, polite, responsive, agreeable, reasonable, one who shows consideration.
These people are welcome in our moments of crisis because their emotions have been tempered and refined during their own difficult times. We trust them because they do not fall apart when circumstances rapidly degrade. Their empathy reassures us, and their stability points us forward through our debris to safety. They utilize the depth of their feeling to persevere and bring us alongside productively.
Learning emotional endurance while going through difficulty
Remember the earlier question, “How and where will you find the reserve energy and time to address, instead of trying to silence your pain?” When that was my question, I read, and I studied. I gained knowledge that helped some but did not take away the nagging pain and interpersonal failures. I never talked about it, except with God. It was not that I wanted to be silent; I desperately wanted to find someone I could trust that understood me, but who also understood God’s way.
God answered my prayer to be healed, “way down deep inside,” with more difficult circumstances. I did not consciously label it ‘suffering.’ My guts still recognized it as such. There was no option to quit. My daughters depended on my support. (You can read more of my story here: My Self-Identified Hometown and My Crooked Tree.)
I dug continually deeper into my Bible to find a way through. One day I landed in Psalm 73. I found a knot for the end of the rope that I imagined myself gripping desperately. Slowly, with purposeful perseverance, each day added a new page check-marked: emotional stability practiced, endurance increased.
When not if, difficult times come
It is not a question of ‘if’ we will go through difficult times in life; we know suffering will come. We do not know when, how, or how long. Whether we will grow through that suffering or not is our personal choice.
When life does push us out of our comfort zone, our mind, soul, and body will respond in S-O-S mode. That response occurs in the heart and mind and surfaces in emotions like fear, jealousy, and anger. The available outlets of our thoughts, words, attitudes, and actions can open to express our distress and discomfort.
Our choice: Will we make demands, vent criticism, blame, attack, or have a metered response that considers better, kinder ways to respond?
Each difficulty is an opportunity for further development of well-tempered, emotional stability, and endurance skills.
For a Christian, life’s difficulties (suffering) is always purposeful. From Genesis to Revelation, we see a big story full of individual stories that showcase God’s intricate working to reveal himself to humankind through his interactions with individuals in their everyday life. He designed his plan with this in mind, the redemption and restoration of the human beings that he created so that they could fellowship with himself.
When God’s plan intersects your life, this is what to expect if you accept his offer of redemption:
God’s magnificent promise is the transformation of your whole being. He will deliver on that promise. First, however, you must learn to trust him.
He will
- saturate you with love
- give you knowledge, understanding, and wisdom
- empower you
- provide opportunities for personal growth and service.
Nothing on that list is passive. Each is a pathway that incorporates into yourself God’s word, practices God’s presence, and allows his Holy Spirit to work.
Unfortunately, the opportunities will sometimes look and feel like suffering.
Why me?! That is not an uncommon protest. We do not want more hurt. Instead, we want the pain we have to stop.
Where is the opportunity in suffering? The outcome!
- God gets the opportunity to build faith, confidence, endurance in your body, soul, and spirit.
- Endurance is a primary Christian faith endurance skill.
- Our difficult circumstances are also God’s golden opportunity to make his name known to all people. He wants the world to understand that he is trustworthy to provide and protect his own.
- You become a trophy of his grace
- Your life testifies that God’s intentions toward humankind are wholly good
Here is what we stand to lose when we change
When God is working in us to transform us, these descriptors of emotional instability should begin to vanish from the list of behaviors that define us:
- Improper, poor communication
- resistance to change
- lack of resistance to wrong choices (destructive habits)
- failure to recognize God’s presence and omniscience (i.e., He knows all, sees all, hears all – we never have an audience of less than two – God and self.)
- misunderstanding God’s opinion, assessment, and feelings (how he regards our words, actions, and attitudes)
Your new past
Tomorrow, today, will become your recent past. You incrementally change the content of your past each time the sun sets and rises again.
Today is your opportunity for good. Make today a beautiful, healthy, godly day to look back on tomorrow. Before long, you will have a full chapter of a beautiful new past.
Remember:
Opportunity has a limited shelf life.
Use it well today.
