Episode 103: Creating Peace and Emotional Wellness

Life is full of contrast, conflict, and even catastrophe. We are never going to be able to control the world or the people in it, and that can feel scary until we understand that life is designed that way for our maximum growth.

In today’s episode I am talking about your emotional wellness, how you can take care of yourself and take charge of your emotional life so that you can feel how you want, even when don’t control anything outside of you. Here are three important principles that I think will make a huge difference in the amount of peace and emotional wellness you can create in your life.

We are never going to be able to control the world or the people in it, and so I want to talk to you about the tools that can help you find peace even when you control so little. As you know, you actually control nothing outside of you, but when you understand how to control and manage your own emotional life, you can get to peace any time you want.

1. You aren’t supposed to be happy all the time.

You were never supposed to be happy all the time.  You were supposed to come to a fallen world. You were supposed to have a physical, human experience in a fallen world that was designed on purpose to have both happiness and sorrow. 

This isn’t heaven. This is earth. This is the fall. This is where we learn to be heaven. And we can’t learn it by being in heaven, we can only learn it in a world of contrast.

The purposes of God for your life are fulfilled in the contrast between happiness and misery.  You need both of them to have joy and be able to reach your eternal potential.  And out of love God created the opportunity for you to have that experience.  He wanted to give you the chance for joy. And you are supposed to feel the contrast and feel all the negative emotions of a fallen world at least 50% of the time. You aren’t doing it wrong.

So that is the first principle of emotional wellness. You live in a fallen world and that means you are supposed to be unhappy half of the time. And I hope you feel a whole lot more peace knowing that it is supposed to be hard at least 50% of the time.

2. You have been given the gift of agency.

God’s plan is to send everyone to earth with the ability to choose. This means inherently that as people make choices, it’s going to impact the other people. We aren’t here choosing alone. We are here choosing together. Which means that there will be consequences from our choices and sometimes that will impact other people.

And obviously, that feels a little vulnerable. Because if other people can make choices, their choices might impact our peace. But peace is a choice. It is something we create within us by exercising our agency. Every feeling you feel in this fallen world is created by you. Your thoughts create the feelings in your body and depending on the thought you think, determines how you will feel. Every feeling is a choice. It is created by the things you think.

And when you understand that peace is a choice, that you get to make anytime you want, then you can use your agency to create peace no matter what happens. No other person can violate our agency. Because we always get to choose the interpretation of our life. And how we think about it, will determine our feelings and the amount of peace we have. 

3. You are supposed to do it wrong.

You are supposed to do it wrong. Doing it wrong is the plan of God. I know we think the plan is choose the right, but it’s not. It’s choose the wrong until you learn enough to choose the right. It’s practice choosing and choose wrong until you have the ability and the skill and the power to choose the right. And you get to practice as much as you need.

We hurt ourselves and destroy our peace when we think we’re supposed to do it right. And I think it’s just a misunderstanding of God’s plan. The learning is way more important than the

And it doesn’t mean we don’t care about our choices, but it means that we can stop beating ourselves up and hurting ourselves with the thought that we are supposed to choose the right. You are learning in the exact ways you need to and God in his infinite mercy covers that learning. And that is the plan.

Mentioned on the podcast:

Sign up for a free coaching consultation

Lehi, a Hebrew prophet 

Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

To read or download a written transcript of the entire episode, simply click the link below.