Reduce Emotional Stress by Guarding Your Heart

Today's episode discusses Proverbs 4:23.  We examine what it means to Guard your Heart and how your thoughts impacts your emotions, attitude and behavior.  Three steps are provided to begin the process of reducing emotional stress by guarding your heart.

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Transcript

Proverbs 4:23 Says Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life (NLT).

The heart is the innermost part of our being and in this case, it’s referring to our thoughts.

Guard means to Protect, take care of, preserve.

So, how does the heart or what we think, determine the course of our life?

 Our thoughts directly impact our attitude, emotions and our behaviors.

 What we think about the most is going to be manifested in our life

Whatever we put in is going to come out. Whatever we put into our mind is going to trigger an emotion and then it’s going to be reflected in an outwardly manner through our behavior;

For example, think of a situation that you encountered or perceived was positive,

 A good experience.  How did you respond?  How did it make you feel?  And what was your attitude and behavior afterwards?

 Were you uplifted?  Did it make you feel good?  Did it have a positive effect on your attitude and what did you do next?

 The opposite is also true.

 When we encounter things that we perceive as negative, how do we feel afterwards?  How does it affect our attitude and emotions.  How did it affect our behavior?

 Were you angry, hurt, upset, disappointed?

 Every thought carries with it, an emotion.

 And every emotion produces a chemical reaction.

 When we have good thoughts and feel good, we produce happy and feel-good chemicals like Serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin.

 But, negative thoughts produce stress hormones like adrenaline, noradrenaline, and cortisol.  These chemicals can harm the body when they become chronic. 

 Guarding (or protecting) our mind is important if we want to have good emotional health and reduce emotional stress.

 Protecting our mind allows us to block out all the negative noise from the outside and keep what’s good inside of us.

 So, how do we reduce emotional stress by guarding our hearts?

 The first step is to take an inventory of all the things in your life that may be causing negative emotions, discontent, unhappiness, discouragement. 

  The things that disturb your peace and rob you of joy.  Is it watching the news, reading the news, certain aspects of social media, a person, an environment?  Sit down before God and ask Him to show you.

 The second step is to determine what changes need to be made.  Do you need to stop watching or reading the news, take time away from social media, a certain individual, remove yourself from an environment.  Pray and ask God to show you.

 The third step is to focus on what you can do to effect change.  What do you have control over?  What can you do instead?

 Finally, refocus on the things that bring balance, peace, and joy into your life.

 Philippians 4:8 ssays Finally brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy- think about such things.

 Keep this in mind and release unhealthy influences and focus on the things that are good and worthy for you to think on.  Whatever adds value to your life.

 And, If you’ve heard anything of value today, please subscribe and share.  And text the show to let us know what’s on your heart.