Winning Over Your Emotions , livre ebook

Harvest House Publishers, Inc. - H. Norman Wright

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

97 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

Bestselling author and respected Christian counselor H. Norman Wright offers practical advice on handling the emotions that overwhelm everyone at times. Covering grief, anxiety, worry, anger, depression, stress, and more, he explains the positive benefits of each emotion and provides steps for dealing with them. In Winning over Your Emotions, readers will discover: detailed definitions; positive and negative aspects of emotions; symptoms and manifestations; biblical examples of how emotions are felt and handled; healthy ways to alleviate symptoms during crises; keys to resolving problem situations and emotions; and suggestions for keeping emotions manageable. This easy-to-understand, helpful book shows readers how to transform their troubling emotions into constructive actions that will help resolve conflicts, ease stress, and make life more enjoyable and fulfilling. Rerelease with new cover.

Sujets

Philosophie et théologie

Informations

Publié par	Harvest House Publishers, Inc.
Date de parution	01 avril 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780736947145
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0554€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS
EUGENE, OREGON
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION . NIV . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by the International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
Verses marked AMP are taken from The Amplified Bible, Copyright 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. All rights reserved. Used by permission. ( www.Lockman.org )
Verses marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible , 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. ( www.Lockman.org )
Verses marked RSVB are taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1946, 1952, 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Verses marked TLB are taken from The Living Bible , Copyright 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL 60189 USA. All rights reserved.
Verses marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
Cover by Dugan Design Group, Bloomington, Minnesota
Cover photo Dhoxax/Fotolia
WINNING OVER YOUR EMOTIONS
Copyright 1998 by H. Norman Wright
Published 2012 by Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon 97402
www.harvesthousepublishers.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wright, H. Norman
Winning over you emotions / H. Norman Wright.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-7369-2567-9 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-1-56507-903-8 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-7369-4714-5 (eBook)
1. Emotions-Religious aspects-Christianity. I. Title.
BV4597.3.W75 1998
98-4087
248.8 6-dc21
CIP
All rights reserved . No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other-except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 / VP / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents

T HE A NSWER TO W ORRY
1. What Is Worry?
2. What Are You Worried About?
3. Biblical Answers to Worry
T HE A NSWER TO A NGER
4. The Problem with Anger
5. Understanding Your Anger
6. Anger Under Control
7. Anger and Forgiveness
T HE A NSWER TO S TRESS
8. What Is Stress?
9. Stress in Women
10. Stress in Men
11. Overcoming Burnout
T HE A NSWER TO D EPRESSION
12. Depression: The Unwanted Companion
13. Depression in Women and Men
14. Overcoming Depression
15. A Better Life
Notes
Other Helpful Books by H. Norman Wright
More Harvest House Resources to Help You with Your Feelings and Emotions
More Help with Spiritual and Emotional Growth
Anxiety
Anger
Depression
Worry
Stress
Peace
Contentment
Self-Control
Patience
Joy
The Answer to Worry
1
What Is Worry?
We are, perhaps, uniquely among the earth s creatures the worrying animal. We worry away our lives, fearing the future, discontent with the present, unable to take in the idea of dying, unable to sit still.
-L EWIS T HOMAS

Worry: It knows no limits and has no boundaries. The poor worry about getting money and the wealthy worry about keeping it. It doesn t matter what age you are-worry could be your constant companion if you let it.
You ve probably been in fog before. It s a misty moisture that puts a chill in the air and takes the curl out of your hair. Did you know, however, how much actual water is in fog? If there were a dense fog covering seven city blocks to a depth of 100 feet, the actual water content would be less than a glass of water! That s right-when it s condensed, all that fog, which slows traffic to a snail s pace and keeps you from seeing the building across the block, can fit into a drinking glass. The authors of Helping Worriers point out:

Worry is like that. It clouds up reality. It chills us to the bone. It blocks the warmth and light of the sunshine. If we could see through the fog of worry and into the future, we would see our problems in their true light. 1
Defining the Problem
How would you define worry? What sets it apart from anxiety or fear? When you experience anxiety, your body is responding. There s usually a muscle tightness and your heart is racing. Worry has been defined as the thinking part of anxiety, as a series of thoughts and images that are full of emotion-but all negative. These thoughts are rarely uncontrollable but they focus on something that has an uncertain outcome. The worrier is convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that the outcome will be negative.
Worry comes from an Anglo-Saxon root meaning to strangle or to choke. Worry is the uneasy, suffocating feeling we often experience in times of fear, trouble, or problems. When we worry, we look pessimistically into the future and think of the worst possible outcomes to the situations of our lives.
Remember that worry is basically focused on the future. Worry is the unnecessary fretting and stewing that keeps our minds stirred and our stomachs churning. Dr. W.C. Alvarez of the Mayo Clinic says, Eighty percent of the stomach disorders that come to us are not organic, but functional . Most of our ills are caused by worry and fear. 2 Intense worry is about as useful to our thinking as lighted matches in a dynamite factory.
We raise golden retrievers. We don t let them have bones to chew on because they re not good for them. But have you ever seen a dog with a bone? We have a phrase for the way a dog becomes addicted to that bone: He worries it. He just gnaws and gnaws on it day and night. He won t let go and may growl at you if you try to take it away from him. He s looking for meat but usually finds gristle, bone, and marrow. The dog will bury his bone, then dig it up and gnaw on it again even though it s covered with dirt and leaves. He ll bury it and repeat the process again and again. Worriers are the same: They bite and chew on their worry, bury it, dig it up, bury it, and dig it up again.
The War Within Us
Worry is like a war that is quietly raging inside us. John Haggai describes the conflict this way:

Worry divides the feelings; therefore the emotions lack stability. Worry divides the understanding; therefore convictions are shallow and changeable. Worry divides the faculty of perception; therefore observations are faulty and even false. Worry divides the faculty of judging; therefore attitudes and decisions are often unjust. These decisions lead to damage and grief. Worry divides the determinative faculty; therefore plans and purposes, if not scrapped altogether, are not filled with persistence. 3
Worry is thinking turned into poisoned thoughts. Worry has been described as a small trickle of fear that meanders through the mind until it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.
With worry there is a dread of something just over the horizon. When you worry you are preoccupied with something about yourself. And often you keep the worries to yourself. This tendency keeps you on edge. You re not fully relaxed.
In fact, worriers don t handle stress or upset as well as others. They re overly troubled by it. Worry has been called the fuel system for stress. When you worry, you add to your upset by coming up with several worst-case scenarios to your concern, but you re unable to know for sure which one is going to happen.
A worrier has a calling in life: He wants to examine what can go wrong. He is like the driver on the freeway who comes upon a grisly accident. It s horrible, but he has to look. Why? Because of fear and curiosity. A worrier is someone who puts his hand into a hole or box and feels around to see if anything is in there that could bite him. He can t leave it alone.
Worry is like a magnet that draws the worrier. Perhaps we re all interested in what can go wrong in our life. We re fascinated by the possibilities. And when a possibility is discovered, we latch onto it with all of our what ifs. 4
Worry is a special kind of fear. To create it, we elongate fear with two things-anticipation and memory. We then infuse it with our imagination and feed it with emotion. And then we have our creation. 5
You ve heard of the word catastrophe, and that s what a worrier envisions. In his mind he creates the worst of all possible outcomes. 6
Did you know that worry affects your sleep? Some people tend to sleep on and on as though it s a rest from the drain of worry, but for most people worry is likely to create insomnia. The thoughts that race and tumble through your worrisome mind interfere with your ability to relax and fall asleep.
There are other things that happen to your body when you worry. You may not be aware of them, but they are there. It takes an electroencephalogram (EEG) to show you. This test shows the brainwave differences which occur when people worry. A worrier actually has fewer of the brainwaves that help a person to relax. In fact, cortical activity actually increases.
When you worry excessively, your brain is heavily impacted. The more you worry about something (and I mean hours a day, week after week) it s as though one of your brain s switching stations gets stuck. Remember when you have a cramp in a leg muscle and it stays and stays regardless of what you do? Well, it s as though you have a brain cramp and it won t let go of your worry. The more you worry the more you cut a groove in your brain, and the more worry finds a home in which to reside. That s why other people s suggestions of Don t worry or Just relax won t work.
What happens if you experience a major upset in your life? Then there is even more of a biological process that occurs. Your body goes into action, sending out various hormones and other substances in its response to the trauma. This actually makes the worry burn its