Are You Emotionally Strong And Stable?

As I am typing this, I’m crawling my way out of a lost battle with my emotions. 

I lost this time ladies and gentlemen. 

Every human being on earth has their own personal battle, regardless of their socioeconomic status. 

This is an equal tax in which we must all pay. 

To be human means that you will be in a constant battle with something. 

When the battle is won, another battle will take its place. 

This is the rhythm of life. There is no way around it. 

We are all on this dance floor until the day we die and if you don’t move? You’ll get stomped on. 

WELL, I GOT STOMPED ON THIS PAST WEEK and I’m here to tell you all about it my friends. 

I’ll start by telling you that I am emotional. 

E M O T I O N A L 

My personality tests have confirmed that I am melancholic and an enneagram type four. 

This type of personality type includes incredible strengths. 

One of my favorite things is that I am extremely creative. I write songs, produce music, sing, dance, act and write short stories.  

I thrive in the arts and it brings me immense joy. 

One of the downsides to my personality is that, when left unattended, for just one or two days, I can go into a downward spiral and visit the shores of depression. 

I won’t drown in its treacherous sea anymore like I used to but every once in a while, I find myself at the shore with my feet dug into the sand. 

Personally, I must be diligent with my mental health routine or I will sink. 

This includes, daily journaling, a gratitude journal, daily spiritual practices, consistent meditation, intense cardio six days a week and daily creative releases.  

There are people who do not need to do these things on a daily basis. 

I do. 

I must. 

This is how I win the battle against my greatest battle, the battle against my emotions. 

This is how I gain control over them instead of them walking me like a dog. 

THEY WALKED ME LIKE A DOG THIS WEEK. 

I haven’t lost this battle in a while. 

I’ve had a few months of emotional victory but I let my guard down for a few days. 

I stopped journaling and meditating for about a week to enjoy my joy and I kept doing everything else so I thought I would be fine. 

During that time, my heart got drunk on emotion and I tried to ignore it. 

I was scrolling through my timeline on social media and I compared myself to someone else for the first time in a long time. 

Instead of being honest with myself about the way that I felt, I ignored it, suppressed it and I continued to collect other toxic emotions. 

Since I wasn’t journaling or meditating, I was not coming face to face with my truth and I continued chewing on this trash for too long. 

This began to enlarge every other minor issue in my life and it snowballed until I felt too overwhelmed to do anything about it. 

When I get like this, I tend to shut down and shut people out because I do not want to face myself. 

So, I treat my mom, dad and brother like they are the enemy. 

I don’t curse them out or beat them up or anything like that but I keep to myself, give them the silent treatment and distance myself as much as I possibly can. 

I’m still learning how to feel my pain without making those closest to me feel it as well. 

Our family sees the good, the bad and the ugly don’t they? 

Those are one of my ugliest traits. 

I avoid those closest to me because I know, just one long look into my mother’s eyes will turn on my water fountain of tears. 

Vulnerability is tiring. 

I got tired. 

But I’m on my way back to stability again. 

I was reminded that I cannot let my guard down. 

I must do the work. 

Consistently do the work in order to maintain the victory. 

A museum with expensive artifacts has a complex security system to protect its valuables. You cannot simply walk inside of a fancy museum in Paris, in the middle of the night and borrow the Mona Lisa painting. 

That is practically impossible. 

That is the same exact approach that I must take with my mental health. No thought should be able to walk inside my mind and take my peace or my joy. 

This security system of mine depends on my daily initiative to journal, to workout, to create, to feed my spirit and meditate. 

Simple yet challenging. 

Challenging yet possible. 

If you’re emotionally unstable at the moment, I feel you and I understand you. 

I really do. 

I also want to let you know that it doesn't always have to be this way. 

There are practical ways to stabilize your emotions and sober up your heart. 

1. Write it all down or get whatever form of therapy you can afford
2. Take a night to cry your eyes out 
3. Pray and vent it all out to God 
4. Watch something encouraging 
5. Create a battle strategy that you can implement into your daily routine that will help you WIN 
6. Stick to that strategy like your life depends on it (because it does) 

Are you emotionally strong and stable regardless of the circumstance in which you face? When things do not go your way? When you're disappointed? 

Well, I'm on my way to be honest with you. 

No where near the horrendous place I was before, with a long way to go but I am on my way.  

The imperfect path towards emotionally stability begins with brutal honesty. 

Let's continue to face our unedited truth so we can continue to bloom and let's commit ourselves to the work. 

We got this! 

Here’s a link to a short 15 minute message titled, “Becoming Emotionally Strong and Stable” from one of my favorite humans named Steven Furtick. I hope it speaks to you like it did to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGrqe70jPkw&t=181s

Don't allow the growing pains or the setbacks to get in the way of who God created you to be. 

You got this! 

We're in this thing together my friend.