Dr. Conway has carefully considered his positions, but he also realizes that some will take issue with some of what he believes and teaches. As a trained attorney, he is trained to look at all sides of an issue and be prepared to argue either side (which he has done in "friendly fire debates" with those with whom he actually agrees). He is prepared to discuss any of his theories with anyone who has serious questions or has logical or scientific attacks on his position. If you have questions or information to share, feel free to email Dr. Conway.
Feel free to cut and paste this rather long file into a word processing program of your choice so you can read it at your leisure. This version of this segment of the manucript is copyright 2002 to Scot Conway, Ph.D., J.D. We are bringing you a pre-edit version, so please forgive any as-yet-fixed typographical errors. Essentially, Dr. Conway is giving away free copies of his encyclopedia-in-progress, at least the part that pertains to our message!
MASTERING YOURSELF
In order to master yourself, you have to have some idea of how you’re put together, not as a purely physical being, but as Body, Soul and Spirit. These models and variations on them have been used for years, and this is a radically expanded version of them. Rather than simply rehashing what many others have said before, we will explore each level and discuss the meaning, and then spend some time on the part that concerns us for relationships and our own satisfaction with life, our Emotions.
BODY
Life begins with our Body. Our Body is the means we use to interact with this world, and without it there is some question as to the nature of our existence. Biblically, we know that we get new bodies, but the nature of those bodies are never fully explored except that the change is a significant upgrade. Within the general category of Body we have three components: Body, Senses, Action.
The physical Body is our interface device, the means by which we even exist in the physical universe. At the moment of conception, our objective existence as a unique physical object is established. Somewhere along the line we gain Senses, that is, the ability to experience our surroundings. It is through our Senses that we take in information. After that, we develop the ability to take Action, to interact with our environment.
SOUL
The Soul contains three parts: Emotions, Mind, Will. Emotions are where we attached meaning to what we sense. Emotions have meanings and are designed to prompt us to action, whether positive or negative emotions. Positive emotions tell you that you like what is happening and would like to repeat it. Negative emotions tell you that you need to do something differently so this doesn’t happen this same way again. Your Emotions are also the key to unlocking things hidden in your Mind.
*
The Mind is where information is stored, where problems are solved, and where questions are answered. Often, information stored in the Mind is contradictory, but it remains there anyway until it is dealt with. The Mind guides the Emotions. This does not mean that we feel everything we feel on purpose, but because our Mind has stored within it a complex series of sometimes nonsensical rules that tell the Emotions how to feel in any given circumstance.
When you feel something that doesn’t make any logical sense, it tells you that your Mind has internalized some bizarre rule that is giving you this odd feeling. That should be a prompt for you to explore that and find out the underlying issue and address it. If your Mind is subordinate to your Emotions, it will rationalize and justify whatever you feel. If you are angry, a Mind subject to Emotion will figure out why it’s okay to be angry, why you have a right to be angry, why the other person is a jerk, and anything else that supports the Emotion.
The Will is where serious decisions are made. Do not confuse Will, as in Will Power, with stubbornness, which is an Emotion. If someone can stick to a decision even when they really feel like abandoning their decision for no better reason than they choose, that is Will. When someone sticks to their guns because they don’t feel like changing, that is Emotion. A person with Will can usually explain why they stand their ground. A stubborn person either can’t, or their explanation will obviously be justification for Emotion, not a conscious, thinking choice.
If the Emotions are in control, the Will grows weak. The Emotions will dominate the Mind and the Will makes no choices at all. How we feel becomes all important, and our personal interpretations of reality are treated as though they were true.
When the system is functioning properly, the Body experiences stimulus from the world around it and sends that information to the Soul. It passes through Emotions that ascribe meaning to it based upon an internalized system of judgment established in the Mind.
The intensity of the Emotion tells the Mind the importance of the event and therefore the attention that should be paid to it. The Emotion felt tells the Mind the perceived default meaning of the event.
The Mind then sorts through the information to ascertain what happened, what the Emotions think it means, what else it could also mean, what ought to be done about it, and a few other reasonable options. That information is then sent to the Will for consideration.
A strong Will directs the Mind. So it will look at each interpretation and each proposed response and either accept one, or direct the Mind to develop more ideas because the ones proposed are not acceptable. If the Will is the highest level of personal development, then decisions will be made on personal self interest. If the Spirit is also developed, then the Will shall be subordinate to it and refer to it as a guideline for judging the options presented by the Mind.
SPIRIT
The Spirit consists of three parts: Others, Principles and Religion. Others is the lowest level of spirituality where we have an awareness that other people exist and have needs, wants, feelings, and lives that are also important.
This awareness might extend not only to Others who are physically present, but to the past and future, considering what has gone before and what will come after. We might consider that Others fought and died for our rights and freedoms, that the people who fought to establish our way of life risked or gave up their lives and fortunes for a cause, and we might seek to live up to what they died to create. We might consider Others that will follow and wonder at the kind of world we might leave future generations. We might consider how our lives will affect the lives that come after us. We might think about our children and grandchildren and how our choices will affect them. In this sense of Others extending to the past and future, Others is timeless. One nature of spiritual things is that they become increasingly timeless as we rise in spirituality.
More immediately, we are aware of Others with whom we interact, those whose lives affect us and those who are affected by our lives. As we consider them our equals, as we factor them into our decisions not as statistics, but as human beings, we have reached to this level. The challenge is that we have to consider whether we are concerned for them because they are people, or concerned for them only because what we do to them will have an effect on us. If we are truly concerned about them, that is Others spirituality. If we are actually concerned about ourselves because of how they might react, we may be acting out of Emotion, not Others spirituality.
PRINCIPLES
At some point, mature people begin to understand that there are some principles that are more important than people. These are not principles declared to explain away an emotional decision or opinion, but the sort of principles that guide decisions no matter what we want.
This is Principle level spirituality, where you begin to figure out that even if something isn’t going to be beneficial to everyone, it still might be right. An easy example is that everyone might like a nice, big house. The fact is, not everyone is going to get one. It might be possible for a government to declare that there is no private property anymore, take all the wealth from everyone and build everyone a nice, big house. Some governments have tried to do something like that. However, just because everyone would get a house, would that make it the right thing to do?
This is a case where a Principle controls the decision. If we have a Principle that says that people should be able to keep what they earned, we won’t want to take what they have, at least not all of it. If we have a Principle that says that stealing is wrong, whether we conclude that because of enlightened self interest or moral authority. (Enlightened self interest would say that society must organize with certain rules to function, and not allowing people to steal anything they want is one of those functional rules we must all obey)
There are many other Principles that can govern to guide our lives. A Governing Principle is one that controls, one that stands as the rule no matter the circumstances, unless the situation is more applicable to another Principle. A Guiding Principle is a default Principle, a standard Principle that will be applied unless something else will be better.
We might have a Governing Principle that says we should forgive those who sin against us, but still learn who they are and what to expect from them based on their actions. If we harbor resentment for an action, we are violating our stated Principle. If we do not harbor any bitterness, but we don’t give them a chance to do the same thing again, we are probably standing on the Principle.
The final level of the Spirit is Religion. This is the level at which you believe that there is some source for Principles, something even more important than the things we might use to organize our lives and societies. It might be God, or it might be the worship of Zeus. If you call it God, it might be true, or it might be false. When Religion is truly practiced, correct or incorrect, it controls Principles, which in turn controls our dealings with Others, and on through the Soul
BEING ALIVE
The Body does not need to be properly aligned. It does not need to function properly. It is allowed to be dead. However, if we want to be alive, our Body has to be lined up with the physical Universe with all the essential needs of the Body addressed sufficiently. Failure to do so, no matter how much we want to be alive, no matter how devoted we are to life, will result in death.
The same applies to the Spirit. Just as the Body must be properly functioning in the physical world to be physically alive, our Spirit must be properly functioning to be alive in the spiritual universe. Improper alignment at the top, having an erroneous Religion, will cause us to remain spiritually dead no matter our virtue.
Plugging into God at the top level is just as simple, or just as difficult, as plugging into the physical universe at the bottom level. You have to be born physically. You have to be born spiritually. However, unlike physical birth, you have a choice in spiritual birth. You have to choose to reach up and plug yourself in.
Even if you have been spiritually born and are therefore spiritually alive, you can be spiritually a baby. Since the Spirit is timeless, growth does not occur naturally over time as it does with minimal maintenance on a physical baby.
A physical Body, bound by time, will either grow or die, or it may be sickly. Similarly with a Spirit, but not bound by time. Given spiritual milk, the simplest concepts to grasp and follow, life will follow. However, maturity requires getting beyond the simple to the harder things that are for the more mature. Paul chastised the Corinthians because time had passed and they were not growing spiritually. It is a choice we make by submitting our Will or our Spirit and seeking to understand timeless, objective truth and how it affects us here and now.
DIVIDING BETWEEN SPIRIT AND SOUL
“The Word of God is living and active; sharper than any double edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12).
The Soul and the Spirit are different things, with joints and marrow used as the analogy. Cleanly dividing between the two is nearly impossible. However, the Word of God is able to divide between Spirit and Soul. Whether you consider the Word of God to be Jesus Christ (see John 1) or the Bible, God’s Word, when carefully considered and lived out, will divide between a life foundation upon the Soul or the Spirit. Often, they can look identical, especially to the person whose true foundation is the Soul.
Religion is often maligned as justification for atrocity, judgment or being an opiate for the masses. It is also frequently maligned as being Man’s fruitless attempt to reach God. Certainly it is all true. Religion, not just Christianity, has been used to justify many wrong things, and it has been used to beat down the masses or focus their hopes solely on the afterlife. Religion is almost always uniformly wrong - with the sheer number of self-contradictory religions that have existed over Man’s history making that a certainty.
However, true religion reaches beyond us and is ultimately handed down from God. Because our attempts to reach Him are necessarily flawed, just as the attempts of a small child to communicate on an adult level with his earthly father would expect to be flawed, it is God who has told us what needs to be done. However, as the four Gospels reveal in the religiosity of the Pharisee and Sadducees, being religious and studying Scripture and behaving in a supposedly righteous manner does not mean that one has a spiritual religious practice. It can all Soul, all selfishness, self righteousness, and self aggrandizement. It is through relationship with God, being actually and truly alive to Him, that we begin to discover which is the foundation - Spirit or Soul.
Acting in the best interest of others includes doing unto others as we would have others do unto us, treating others as more important than oneself, loving others as we love ourselves - all Biblical commands. Often, though, people who may believe they are doing things for others are really doing it for themselves. They care about others because they want to feel good about themselves. They do things for others so they will be liked or popular. If the action for others is truly for others, without concern for oneself, then it is truly for others. If it is for a desired payoff, and others are merely the tool for achieving that payoff, then it is for self. These are easily confused, hard to divide, and often even people who do the most for other people still need to get their heart right before God.
Following principles includes having all actions governed by Agape love or always seeking to do that which is Agathos good. Another example is using the principles taught in the Bible to make decisions about things about which the Bible does not directly speak. Whatever the principles, if they are objective, consistently applies principles, then a person is truly living by and making decisions by principles.
However, many people use stated principles to justify a desired conclusions, changing the principles when the desired outcome changes. In these cases, the person is living by the Soul, not the Spirit. Those who may espouse the highest sounding principles often have hearts that are still corrupt before God because the seemingly lofty sounding principles are really nothing more than rationalizations to justify their desires.
Following True Religion includes worshiping God in spirit and in truth, loving God with all your might, truly having faith and life grounded in God’s truth. However, many people do religious things because they want to feel good about themselves, self-righteous, special, or chosen. The Pharisees liked to look good in front of others, liked to have the honor of their position, and they considered themselves so elite that they would thank God that they were not like others. This is a false religion of a selfish Soul, not Religion that leads to being alive in the Spirit because it is truly God focused.
The Word of God divides between Soul and Spirit. It is through Jesus Christ and seeking to walk intimately with Him that we begin to see the things in us that may appear good for what they are in truth. It can be so difficult for us to tell that we often cannot. We may think we’ve got it right when we have it wrong, as did the Pharisees, and that which we can justify as most spiritual is often most soulish.
As we gain greater insight into what is hopefully an accurate model for understanding Spirit and Soul, we will gain a greater ability to distinguish between them. With God’s guidance, fervent prayer, and digging into the Scriptures, where we appear spiritual and seek to be spiritual may be revealed to us as something that still needs work - perhaps not in our actions, but merely in our intent and in our motivation.
As we learn to master the Soul and our own Spirit, we may find that submission to a higher authority is the key to success. Our physical body benefits from the proper exercise of our Soul, and our Emotions benefit from the dominion of the Mind over Emotion, and Will over Mind. The Will benefits when it subjects it’s decisions to the Spirit, to Others, governing Principles, and to Religion. The Spirit prospers when it is properly aligned with God.
Just as a student or athlete benefits most when submitting to a skilled teacher or coach (and is likewise harmed by submitting to an unskilled teacher or coach, or follows error), we benefit when we learn that the greatest exercise of the Will, as master of our Soul, is to lord over Soul and Body and live in submission to the Spirit and God.
PERSONAL GROWTH: A BODY BUILDING ANALOGY
Many people believe that matters of character are to be address only through spiritual means. They believe that the only appropriate means of character growth are prayer, Bible reading and whatever trappings of religious practice taught in their particular denomination or sect . Some teach and preach that we are not to use any psychological principles, sometimes going so far as to condemn it as a deception by the Devil that we can actually make a difference in our own character. Some claim that even when such techniques succeed, that the success is worthless because it was done “in the flesh.”
Using our Body, Soul, Spirit model, we will use a metaphor of something we can measure, the Body, to try to understand that which is more difficult to measure, the Soul. As with all metaphors, we need to carefully consider how it might apply and seek the principles within the metaphor. If those principles apply, then we use them. If they do not, then we discard them.
Isaiah 35:3 and Hebrews 12:12 both talk about strengthening feeble hands and arms and steadying weak knees, and, in Judges, the Bible provides the example of Samson as a man of great physical strength. A careful study on the issue of strength will show that God is ascribed as the source of physical strength, and an increase in strength is likewise ascribed to Him, by King David in the Psalms, for example.
So if someone needs to gain physical strength, how should he go about it? Is the answer to development of the Body found in religious practice? Of course this is possible. Samson is an example of that. He gained great strength by being a Nazarite and not cutting his hair, which was part of the Nazarite covenant with God. If the Bible ascribed the gaining of physical strength to God, then that means that no physical training would be necessary since to do so would be doing something “in the flesh,” or “doing works.” Or would it?
Someone who wishes to be strong will lift weights to work all of his muscles. If someone wishes to be healthier, he will eat healthy food, drink plenty of quality fluids, breathe, and exercise. In body building, one discovers that discipline is important. Exercises take practice, and they must be done correctly. The body takes months to adapt to new exercises, and the body frequently hits plateaus in which no progress is made for some time. Many people are hard gainers, meaning no matter what they do, mass is difficult to gain.
Some have weaknesses that prevent hard training in certain areas of the body. Those who have been crippled in an accident might not be able to even move certain body parts. Furthermore, everyone has genetic limitations. How much of one’s genetic potential for strength one realizes is dependent largely on the training methods used. Failure to train results in atrophy and formerly strong muscles will shrink and grow weak. Body building requires tremendous energy, and that requires a lot of food and water to fuel the process, but if you take in the fuel without the work, you get fat.
If two people both commit to gaining great physical strength, and one stops cutting his hair and makes a vow to God, and the other joins a gym and starts lifting weights, what result would be expect? Are “strong man” competitions dominated by long haired Christians? Or are they dominated by people who train their body using techniques learned through science and personal experimentation and observation?
What is the value of their body building? The Bible tells us that bodily exercise avails little because it is temporal. But it’s temporal value does exist, just as the value of all good, temporary things exists during that time - ice sculptures, beautiful dinners, nice clothes, a drawing made by a child. That means that the value of being strong relates to those things in which strength is important - the ability to lift or move heavy objects. Being physically strong is not pursued because it makes one more worthy to God and more deserving of salvation. Nothing we do does that.
However, it can make us a better witness for God. Professional athletes have often gained a platform from which to share their faith because of what they can do with their body. People in exceptional health or who are exceptionally fit are sometimes asked by others about what they do. Women, especially, since attractiveness in women is considered so important in society, recognized as a reflection on their husbands. The higher the quality of the wife, the higher the presumed quality of the husband, and physical attractiveness is the first thing people see from which they begin to frame their opinions.
Consider this: The Bible tells us that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. There are many sins that we can commit, with sin meaning as little as “missing the mark” - and archery term for someone who took aim, thought he had the bullseye before he released the arrow, and missed. We are told that something that makes immorality so bad is that is it a sin we commit in our own body, joining with someone outside of marriage. So if that is part of what makes immorality so bad, isn’t that also true with incorrect use of our body? Isn’t that statement also true of how we eat and exercise?
While there are no commands telling us just how to eat, if we observe the effects on our body, God’s temple, as being disrespectful of what God has given us and the temple in which He dwells, might it not be a form of praise to make it more like what God designed it capable of becoming? Where do find the techniques to do so? How do we know what works and what does not work? We know because others have produced results that we can duplicate, in whole or in part, by doing some of what they did.
Take a look at the metaphor and consider if it might apply to the Soul and Spirit as well. Should we train the Soul and Spirit in a manner similar to how we would train the Body if we wanted it strong? Within our potential, might we be able to train the Soul and Spirit? If we do, we must use proper technique, techniques that actually work to produce the intended result. If we are going to do it, we must train. What do you think?
MASTERING THE SOUL
The key to mastering yourself in mastering your Soul. You need to make certain this part is functioning properly. The Emotions should interpret events and send information to the Mind for more analysis. The Mind should gather information and possible actions and send those to the Will. The Will should then make a decision and tell the Mind to figure out how to implement that decision. The Mind figures it out and instructs through the Emotions that provides the attitude and intent behind the Action. Our Senses monitor our Actions and watch for the result. Mastering the Soul requires personal growth in the Soul.
Personal Growth in the Soul includes the Emotions, Mind and Will. The Soul is the level of Self in which all our conscious and unconscious processes take place. Personal Growth in the Soul means we seek to have the Will govern the Mind, and the Will and Mind govern the Emotions. As we seek to grow in our Soul, we seek to grow stronger and more mature in all three areas.
Growth in Emotions means we develop emotional control. Emotional control isn’t just stifling the Emotions we do not like, it means genuine control. Repressing emotions is a sign of inadequate control. It’s what you do when you feel rage but know you can’t hit something or say what’s really on your mind. It’s a temporary solution to an immediate impulse, not an ongoing solution. We do not lock up and hide that which we can control. For example, if we have a dog we cannot control, we have to keep it chained up or locked up. If we can control the dog, we can let it out and know that it will obey our commands. Emotions are very similar. The more control we have, the less we need to keep them bottled up.
Growth in Emotions means learning to understand the Emotions and what they mean so we know what we need to do. We understand that Anger means a rule has been broken, and we can distinguish between Anger, Frustration (“this should be working”), Confusion (“this isn’t going together correctly, yet”) and Overwhelm (“there’s too much to do”). It means we can distinguish between Fear (“I’m not ready for something”), and Inadequacy (“I don’t have the skills for something”). It means that we understand the meaning of the Emotions that need to prompt us to action so we can respond properly.
Growth in the Emotions also means we learn to turn up the volume on the positive Emotions we enjoy, learning how to cultivate Love, Joy and Friendship. It means we learn how to make these Emotions as easy to feel as possible, to inspire and motivate ourselves. It means enjoying the Fruit of the Spirit, the Emotion result of spiritual growth, of Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faith, Meekness, and Self Control.
Growth in the Mind means we learn facts, practice logical reasoning and arriving at true conclusions. We learn to distinguish between facts and opinion, and between truth and theory. It means we avoid the rationalizing and justifying that comes from an Emotion governed Mind. It means we use our Mind to figure things out, to gain wisdom, and to develop plans to execute the decisions of our Will.
In the Will, we practice making decisions and sticking to them, no matter what we feel, no matter what we might want, because we make proper choices based upon what is best. If we have spiritual development, our Will uses the Spirit to guide choices. The development of our Will means we learn to exercise dominion over our Mind, directing it to learn and seek understanding. We also exercise dominion of the Will over our Emotions, guiding our focus and turning up or down our feelings, practicing curiosity and purpose. The Body is also subject to our Will, doing what we choose, focusing our Senses, and training our Body.
The most common breakdown in the system comes in the realm of Emotions. Most people never fully gain control of their Emotions. They may learn to suppress them, which we sometimes will call control, but true Emotional control means that our Will determines what we feel. If the matter is left to automatic reflexes, but it isn’t what we would choose, then we have no yet mastered our Emotions, and therefore we have not yet mastered our Soul.
If Emotions rule, then the Mind simply answers to the Emotions. Often we will idealize this lack of mastery with such statements as: “You must follow your heart,” “To thine ownself be true,” “I just want him/her to be happy,” “I have to be myself,” “I have to find myself,” or “You can’t help how you feel.” All these basically end up meaning that we should do what we feel like doing.
They are stated as through they are Principles by which life may be lived, but we certainly do not believe them to be universal principles. We do not want pedophiles to follow their heart, nor rapists to their own self be true. We don’t want sadists to be happy, nor homicidal maniacs to be themselves. We don’t care how someone feels when they want to destroy all our property or beat us up. We want them to control themselves.
If we all followed our feelings, all sorts of bad things could happen. Imagine if an angry person believed that way. What harm might be do with a gun or a knife at a school? Imagine if couples believed that, they might get married, divorced, married again, divorced again and so on. Imagine what it could mean to such mundane things as hair color, piercings, clothing styles, music lyrics, movies and more. You may note that all these things do, in fact, seem to be following that line of Emotional reasoning.
Would the same decisions be made by a Mind that is analyzing life and reality and concluding what is ultimately in our own best interests? Would the same choices be made by a Will that looked at all the options and selected the one that seemed it would produce the best result? Would these be the choices of someone who believed in Others, in respecting them and their thoughts and feelings and interests? Or are these the choices of people following their Emotions, and using their Mind to justify them?
Which path do we wish to follow? Mastery of the Soul begins with the most basic, and the most difficult to master portion: Emotions. What makes Emotions so difficult to master is that our feelings so often control or guide our words and deeds. This is normal, but that doesn’t mean it’s acceptable. If we master Emotions, then we have learned to manage the world’s gateway to our Soul.
*
MASTERING EMOTIONS
Emotions have a purpose in our lives. Whether pleasant Emotions like happiness, excitement or anticipation, or unpleasant Emotions like anger, fear or loneliness - all Emotions serve a purpose. Through the Senses in our Body we experience the objective facts of the World. We see, hear, smell, taste and touch, but all our Body can do is interpret them as physically pleasurable or physically painful.
That information is passed to the Soul, going to Emotion first. The level of Emotion is where all the subconscious initial interpretations are made. At the level of Emotions, we ascribe meaning what we experience. We determine how important something is to us. Then we have a feeling that interprets all that information and informs the Mind.
What Emotion we feel tells our Mind about the event with which we are dealing. The intensity of that Emotion tells our Mind about the importance of the event. When that information is passed to the Mind, the Mind is supposed to understand it and formulate possible scenarios based upon the information it has available, and the Will makes a decision.
When things function properly, the Will informs the Mind of the decision. The Mind puts together a plan and sends that plan through the Emotions to the Body. Our attitude and intent tell our Body how to approach the action plan. When things do not function properly, the Mind will simply rationalize and justify whatever the Emotions feel like doing, and the Will does not make a decision at all. All it does is follow the impulses of the Emotion as justified by the Mind.
Mastering Emotions does not mean you work on the ability to eliminate negative or painful Emotions and feel nothing but good or pleasurable Emotions. Painful Emotions serve a purpose, and we make ourselves somehow incapable of feeling them, then we sabotage ourselves.
Think of Emotional pain in a manner similar to physical pain. If you do something, and it hurts, your body knows that it should not keep doing that. Continuously doing something that causes pain will turn pain into damage. If you feel that backing up up is hurting because your back is hitting something sharp, you stop backing up. If you couldn’t feel that pain, you would have no way to know that your body was being damaged.
Unfortunately, we often use medication to eliminate physical pain and continue to engage in the very action that caused the pain in the first place. The elimination of physical pain should be accompanied by some action intended to address the cause of the pain, if possible.
Emotions are similar. We can do things that will help us avoid pain, but if the cause of the pain is not adequately dealt with, the pain will continue and damage will be done. We do not control Emotion by ignoring it, by simply escaping from it, or by stuffing it inside. We also do not control Emotion by “getting it all out.”
The challenge with mastering Emotion is similar to mastering the physical body. If you can’t identify a feeling, you may not know what to do about it. Experienced body builders and athletes can tell when the physical discomfort they feel is from pushing themselves to the limit of their ability. They can also tell when the discomfort turns to pain that warns them that they are hurting themselves. It takes some practice and understanding to tell one feeling from the other.
If someone is too committed to high performance, he might take a cortisone shot and keep playing, ignoring the warnings that his body is breaking under stress. He will destroy his long term health to pursue short term performance. If someone is too committed to immediate emotional performance, he might stuff down his Emotions, ignoring the damage they can do, so he can do what he needs to do here and now. This strategy can be useful for very, very short term needs, at some risk, but if we use this as a standard operating procedure, we should not be surprised when we are physically or emotionally crippled as a result.
Mastering Emotion means we experience the full range of normal Emotion. However, controlling them requires some degree of understanding. In a sense, we have to learn to “speak Emotion,” a talent possessed by very few people. While some might have good emotional intelligence and be well able to distinguish between emotions, if they do not know what Emotions mean, they cannot adequately deal with them. “Speaking Emotion” is not just being able to recognize emotions any more than “Speaking English” is just being able to recognize when English is being spoken. You need to understand the language, gaining some fluency in Emotion, so your Mind can deal with what your Emotions are telling it.
SPEAKING EMOTION
Most people want to learn to deal with their intense negative emotions such as Anger and Fear. We have no problem dealing with positive Emotions, and rather enjoy those, but the pain associated with feelings like Anger, Fear, Frustration, Confusion, Overwhelm, Inadequacy, Hurt, Disappointment, and Guilt often make our lives difficult.
A basic understanding of these Emotions will allow you to see how you’re really feeling, what it means, and give you a plan of action to deal with them. Remember: If God designed you to get angry, and He did, then He must have intended for anger to have a positive purpose. If anger has a positive purpose, then the answer isn’t to get rid of anger, but to gain understanding and control over it.
For anyone that doubts that anger can ever be positive, consider that God Himself gets angry. If God gets angry, then how can anger be wrong? It isn’t a result of The Fall, but part of God’s intended design and one of the many ways in which we are created in the image of God. The problem isn’t anger, it’s how fallen people experience and use anger.
Learning the language of Emotion is critically important. If we do not know what Emotions mean, then we have no way to deal with them effectively. If, for example, we think Frustration means we’re stupid and will never accomplish what we’re trying to do, we will get it completely backwards and fail at the very things at which we could most easily succeed. If we know that intense Frustration means that we’re very close to the answer, so close that we thought we had it, then we know that we need to do something a little different. We don’t give up!
Very often, people treat Emotions as though they are things unto themselves. They aren’t. If you feel a certain way, the feeling is certainly valid, but it does not have an existence independent of other factors. Emotions mean things, and if you can dig behind the Emotion and understand what it’s saying, you can take action.
There are many skills we can use to manage our Emotions in the moment. We can hold them in or we can set them aside. This initial level of control is very important since this is what helps us control the momentary impulse to cause harm if we get a flash of rage. However, if Emotional control stops at this skill, we will destroy our health over the long term, physically and psychologically.
Negative, more properly painful Emotions, are those that often need the most urgent attention, so we will explore these Emotions in some detail and learn to master them. If you learn to Speak Emotion, then you can translate feelings to prompts to action.
At a very basic level, here’s what some common painful emotions mean:
Anger is a response to a threat you want to destroy. In the absence of an immediate physical threat, it means that one of your rules has been broken. In a relatively safe society, the first, more instinctive reflex is not likely to arise often. That means that if we’re angry, we perceive the one of our rules has been broken.
Fear is a response to a threat you want to flee. In the absence of such a threat, it means that you perceive something coming for which you feel unprepared.
Frustration means we feel we are doing everything we’re supposed to be doing, but we aren’t getting the result we think we ought to get.
Confusion means we feel that something makes sense, but we can’t make sense of it.
Overwhelm means we perceive that we have more things to do than we can do, or more coming at us than we can handle.
Inadequacy means we perceive that something we must do or wish to do requires talents or skills we do not possess.
Hurt means we perceive a loss, either something we liked and thought we had that was taken, or something we think we ought have had and wanted that we do not have.
Disappointment means we perceive that we are not going to receive something we thought we were going to receive and desired.
Guilt means we have violated one of our own high standards.
Loneliness means we are missing a social connection that is important to us.
Uncomfortable means that we perceive that something isn’t the way we think it ought to be, or that something has an unacceptable probability of turning out a way we think it shouldn’t.
*
DOWN DEEP
Very often the underlying cause of painful Emotions and destructive behaviors is found at a level considerably beyond what we will address in this section. Those matters are found in the realm of the Spirit, which we will address when we discuss Personal Growth in the Spirit. When dealing with deeply rooted issues, you are seeking psychological well being, something which will not last if it is dealt with only on the level of Emotions.
Psychological Well Being is a state of having the Emotions under control, of having harmony of Emotions, Mind and Will. Often, people who have experienced trauma will seek professional help to restore Psychological Well Being. However, we must be careful that it is not merely “Emotional Well Being,” an approach that really doesn’t deal with the whole Soul, but only with the Emotions. This is often the approach taken when the problem seems primarily emotional.
When this is done, we should evaluate the effects of the principles being taught. In a percentage of cases, a therapist might deal with a trauma by convincing someone that there was nothing they could do, inadvertently teaching that there will be nothing that can be done next time, or offering “solutions” to potential future problems that either may not work or may cause collateral damage. Improperly applied, “verbal self defense” can be “victim precipitation” and not only fail to stop an aggressor, but actually anger him more. Similarly, “setting boundaries” can sometimes keep others from becoming intimate friends. Something called the “Law of Unintended Consequences” tells us that whenever we try to solve a problem, we almost always create unintended consequences that naturally result from our actions.
Also, we must be aware that sometimes the elimination of emotional issues is accomplished by the elimination of standards. Someone with no rules at all will never be angry because there are no rules to break. Someone who never tries anything and avoids all stress might not feel fear or anxiety, but neither will he accomplish anything. Sometimes Psychological Well Being is achieved through medication, and we might want to consider other methods if we do not want to be reliant upon medication. For instance, we might explore nutritional deficiencies or other dietary or environmental causes. Someone who is hyperactive and has trouble focusing might not necessarily have a medical problem, he might have too much sugar and caffeine in his diet and too little nutrition.
The Bible talks about the Soul returning to rest (Psalms 116:7) or being joyful (Isaiah 61:10). The Bible talks about God satisfying the Soul of his priests (Jeremiah 31:14) and about the Soul prospering (III John 1:2). It certainly seems that God wants us to have Psychological Well Being. However, in each of these cases, the Psychological Well Being has Spiritual Well Being as a foundation. As we know, there is a Spirit that governs the Soul, and while Psychological Well Being is certainly a good thing, it is not everything. For it to last, the Soul must be subject to a well developed Spirit.
Life will happen. If Psychological Well Being is grounded in nothing more steadfast than the Soul, then troubles might be more than the Soul can handle alone. If the techniques used were not sufficiently grounded in the truth for whatever circumstances arose, future events might magnify the trauma of a past event. If emotional well being had been gained through acceptance of false premises, it could cause serious doubts about everything relied upon, and the trauma from that can be incalculable.
Psychological Well Being is a desirable state of being. However, to be permanent, it must be well grounded with strong growth in the Spirit. That way, the resources will be there to deal with any new issues that arise, allowing the joy, peace and prospering of our Soul to continue.
The foundation of truly releasing the Soul from the grip of psychological damage is spiritual in nature, not just psychological. Dealing with deep seated issues on a purely psychological level is like pulling weeds and not getting the roots. The garden might look wonderful for a time, but the weeds will be back.
Even if there is deep rooted damage that requires addressing the Spirit to truly repair, the techniques to Master Emotions can be used as a stop gap measure. In even the worst of cases, proper application of Emotional Mastery techniques can provide enough control for a moment to give you time to go deeper. They can also serve as a means of rebuilding a new Soul once the damaged portion has been removed, using this level of understanding to provide the tools to operate a Soul whose cancer has been removed.
NOTE: Dr. Conway has extensive notes and application on how to handle specific emotions, but the manuscript is more than 100 pages. See the section on Emotions for more information.
Email Scot Conway, Ph.D., J.D.