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For the sake of time, let's make several assumptions without going into all the reasons I believe each assumption to be true. I am assuming that the Spirit, Soul, Body model is correct. I am assuming that God literally created Adam and Eve, designing and engineering them in Body, Soul and Spirit. I am assuming that God is omniscient, infinite in His wisdomand His genius. Given all that, we can assume God designed emotions.

It is tempting to assume that He never meant for us to experience painful Emotions, but is that a logical assumption? It depends upon what you think resulted from the Fall. There are those who assume that all unpleasant emotions didn't exist until after that Fall, that we did not know Hopelessness, Anger, Fear or any of the other emotions on the list at the left. Whether or not that's true, are these emotions the result of dealing with a fallen world, or are they part of our nature now that we're in a fallen state?

Part of the answer is found with God Himself. Did Jesus ever feel any of these feelings? He wept over Lazarus even though He knew that Lazarus was about to be risen from the dead. He lamented over Jerusalem. He got angry at the moneychangers. We was overwhelmed in His prayers before the Crucifixion. If we trust that Jesus was without sin, but He did have many of these emotions, then we know that it is not a sin nature that creates these emotions, but dealing with a sinful and fallen world.

The implication is that they are part of our original design. The fact that Heaven is not supposed to have any tears, and that even faith and hope will be done away with simply tells us that the things we do here will be different there. We will have perfect knowledge, so there is no "substance of things hoped for" because all hope has been fulfilled. One does not have faith in what one absolutely sees, nor does one hope for what one has. Likewise, if the unpleasant emotions were designed to help us deal effectively in a fallen world, those will be done away alongside our life in this world.

Generally, people do not see happiness, confidence and similarly pleasant emotions as a problem. Those are the feelings we seek, though it is possible to have them actually become a problem. We know that what makes a child happy is not always a thing that is good for the child, and the same is true for adults. However, the emotions that typically lead us to seek guidance are the unpleasant feelings, so we will dwell on those. In fact, God engineered the system so that unpleasant emotions hit us with about four times the intensity as do pleasant emotions. The question is "Why?"

When we drive our cars, there are many lights that come on when we turn on our car just to show us that all the warning lights are working. When one of those lights come on, we know we have a problem, and we know what to do. If the light says "brake" we know that the parking brake is on. If the light says "gas" we're running low on gas. If it's "oil" we know that we're dangerously low on oil. If it's "check engine" then we have a more serious problem.

The warning lights tell us that something needs to change, and the lights typically offer guidance about what we need to do. However, what would happen if the lights came on, but there was nothing to tell us what the light meant? What if the symbols on the lights only made sense to the original engineers, and no one, not even the mechanics, had any idea what the lights meant? What if everyone thought the "oil" light meant the oil was fine? What if everyone thought the "gas" light meant we had plenty of gas? Our actions would be exactly the opposite of what we ought to do.

That's about where we've landed with many negative emotions. We either don't know what the emotion means, or we have some feeling about its meaning, but we don't respond properly. To do so, we need some idea of how to understand the Language of Emotions.

Ideally, a Mind in control could then formulate whatever plan the Will chose and the Emotions become subject to the Mind in the form of Attitude and Intent that leads our Action. We all know what a role Attitude and Intent play when we do something - just ask a child to say "sorry" and listen to whether the child truly expresses remorse or whether a child expresses an attitude of "I have to say this or I'll get in trouble" sort of apology.

Unpleasant feelings, what we commonly think of as Negative Emotions, are actually God-engineered Life Prompts. Those feelings are more intense because something needs to change. We need to take control of something either in ourselves or in our environment. For instance, if we perceive a threat to us or our family, like a wild animal attacking our child, we might feel a surge of anger to help us attack the animal to either kill it or drive it off. If we feel a rush of fear, it is to help us run away if the animal is coming after us.

WHAT ARE LIFE PROMPTS?

Life Prompts are the things in life that are there to prompt us to make a change. In this case, we’re talking about emotional states that tell us that something isn’t right. Life Prompts include, but are not limited to, Hopelessness, Anger, Fear, Frustration, Confusion, Overwhelm, Inadequacy, Uncomfortable, Hurt, Disappointment, Guilt, and Loneliness. Each of them has been designed to let us know when we need to change something - either a change in our character or a change in our actions.

The painful Emotions exist to tell our Mind information so we will be prompted by the feeling to do something. However, if we don’t understand the meaning of the feeling, if we don’t “Speak Emotion,” we won’t know what to do. We need to learn to understand what the Emotions are telling us so we take the most appropriate action.

The painful feelings we experience should drive us to productive action, to self realization, and to personal growth. Failure to act on those feelings with the proper response will result in us living in those Emotions. We were never intended to live in a perpetual state of Hopelessness, or Anger, or Fear or any stressful Emotion. We were intended to hear the message of these Life Prompts and take immediate, appropriate and decisive action.

MASTERING LIFE PROMPTS

Our physical body can endure a tremendous amount of trauma and stress. However, if we live under intense pressure for too long, the body will break down and eventually break, and we die. If we are injured, we have to heal, and we don’t heal by hiding from our injury. That only makes the wound fester and get worse, and we will have a sore spot that will cause more pain every time that spot is touched.

Likewise, our Soul can endure a tremendous amount of trauma and stress. We can withstand all sorts of trauma and continue to function, but if we live under too much Emotional stress, we start to break down in Emotions, Mind and Will. If we do not obey the prompting of the painful Emotion and do what we are supposed to do about it, we will live in it until it starts to break down our Soul. It might have eternal life in Christ, but it won’t last forever here in this body.

If we are Emotionally injured, we need to heal. We don’t heal Emotionally by hiding from our feelings. If we do, the pain and the domino effect from it will ripple through our lives. Hurt we have not forgiven and addressed from our mothers in our childhood can affect our treatment of women for our whole lives. Anger toward a father from childhood can affect our behavior toward men for our whole lives. Unresolved Fear, unresolved Inadequacy, unresolved anything can and will affect other areas of our life.

Anything we don’t fix, any painful Emotion to which we do not properly respond, can ripple through our friendships, our casual relationships,and most certainly our most intimate relationships with spouse and children. The pain we don’t resolve can echo through the generations to our children and grandchildren and great grandchildren.

No matter what painful Emotion you experience, even if it doesn’t seem to quite be one of the Emotions that were explored here, the basic truths remain. All Emotion is there for your benefit. If it is unpleasant, it is supposed to prompt you to action. It was put there for a beneficial purpose. If your Body is functioning properly, your Emotions have meaning.

STEP ONE: What am I feeling? Why? What is this feeling telling me?

STEP TWO: Is my perception accurate? Am I interpreting the facts properly? Are my internal rules and expectations proper? If not, change them.

STEP THREE: If I don’t need to change something inside, what I am supposed to do to resolve this? Then do it.

Emotions that don’t make sense usually mean you have conflicting rules or you just haven’t found what it means. The world does not need to change to suit our feelings. More often we need to change to function effectively and overcome the world. If we need to interact, we need to do so productively.

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 is addressed in the book Master of Self* in the section on 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.

*this is beyond the scope of what is posted on the website. This material is available to be taught, but it is still in development for its written and audio forms.

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.

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.

If there are deep issues, professional counseling might be in order. Also, readers should consider the book Master of Self and explore the mechanics and principles of total self development. Meanwhile, learning to master Life Prompts will help provide us the short term control we need to navigate the ongoing situations of life.

EMOTION BY EMOTION

The chart below briefly defines each Life Prompt we discuss. For a more complete exploration of each Emotion on the list, go to the appropriate page through the links below. Hopelessness, Anger and Fear in particular have rather lengthy explorations.