8 Myths That Are Keeping You From Managing Your Emotions Well

When it comes to managing your emotions these 8 spiritual bypassing myths will keep you stuck.

So much of what we feel is tied up in our thoughts. It’s really hard to separate your thoughts from your feelings at times. I’ve noticed, as I’m working with clients and even in my own journey toward building emotional resilience, that there were a lot of things that I thought and believed that caused me to struggle. 

That caused me to feel stuck and did me a lot more harm than it helped. Today, I want to share eight mindset shifts that will help you learn how to understand and manage your emotions better. 

Listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify

We’ve talked before about spiritual bypassing and the effects that it can have on your faith and your emotions. I kept hearing a lot of “I love this and it is so helpful, but I just don’t understand.” I realized that so many of you are struggling with unhelpful beliefs and mindsets. I totally get it. 

It took me decades to let go and untangle myself from a lot of the same mindsets and beliefs that I had. I want to talk today about eight of the most common ones that I’ve heard from you. And I just want to give you a new way to begin to think about these. 

As I go through the list, I’m going to tell you what the mindset is and I’m going to talk a little bit about what’s wrong with it, and then I want to give you something new to consider. I’m not saying that the mindset, thought, or belief that I give you is the only way to reframe it. Sometimes, when you are trying to renew your mind and align your thoughts with the truth, it can be difficult to figure out what that truth is. 

Belief #1: Spiritual Bypassing

The first belief that we’re going to talk about is a spiritual bypassing belief that, oh my goodness, I wish would go away. It’s this idea that if you would just pray more, read your bible more, go to church more, serve more, and have stronger faith, then all your problems and all these emotions and things that I’m feeling would all go away. 

Can you spot the problem with that? First of all, this idea that there’s something that you are doing or not doing that’s causing all of these hard things to happen in your life is so problematic! We live in a fallen world that is full of hurt and pain, that’s full of chaos, full of humans that make mistakes, and trying to convince yourself that if you are just a better Christian and do more spiritual things will magically wave a wand and solve all your problems.

That’s just not the case. That’s not how it works. Instead of thinking, if you complete your checklist of good Christian things to do, everything will be fine, I want to encourage you to think something along the lines of “My faith is important but it’s not the only thing that’s going to help me get through these hard times.”  

Learning how to integrate your faith with different emotional, mental, and physical care is going to help you walk through life better. God can use therapy, journaling, and all these practical steps to help you heal and walk through hard times. 

It is about remembering that you are a whole, complex, complete person and you can take your faith because it’s important and integrate it into all these other parts of yourself. That’s really the best way to learn how to cope, to learn how to manage your emotions, to learn how to deal when hard things happen. 

The truth is that there are people in this world who are not Christians or who don’t even have faith, and who are walking through life knowing how to cope. They aren’t dealing with all of these things that a lot of Christian women in this community dealing with.

Belief #2: Perfectionism

Number two is about perfectionism. I must be perfect and I must have it all together to be a good Christian. That’s kind of impossible. We cannot be perfect on this side of heaven. And when we spend all of our time trying to be perfect, it causes a lot of problems, especially with our emotions and even with our faith.

I want you to start reframing this belief when it comes up. Instead think, “God loves me exactly as I am and I don’t have to change for God to love me.” He knows your imperfections, weaknesses, and strengths and he loves you exactly the same. It is okay to have struggles and make mistakes, and it’s okay to seek help because you’re human. 

You are in process, and the process of sanctification will not be complete on this side of heaven. The truth here is that God is not expecting you to be perfect. He wants you to grow and be more Christ-like, but he is not expecting perfection here on earth. 

He knows it’s not possible. Even with the Holy Spirit, God’s word, and all the things that we have, we cannot be perfect. Jesus was, but we can’t be that. Learning how to take the pressure off yourself of something that God is expecting of you is much more helpful.

Belief #3: Suppressing Your Emotions

Our next thing it’s about suppressing your emotions. This belief sounds something like I should always be happy, grateful, and cheerful, and negative emotions mean that I don’t have enough faith and that I’m not trusting God. Can you spot the problem here? 

Again, it’s talking about suppressing and ignoring your emotions. It’s never a good thing to suppress, or ignore. or avoid something that you’re feeling, something that keeps coming up over and over again. You’ve got to identify it so you can understand it, process it, and learn how to move forward.

Instead of telling yourself that you should always feel [fill in the blank emotion] and embracing this message of toxic positivity tell yourself that all emotions are valid. They are part of being human. It’s how God made you and it’s okay to experience them. You can acknowledge them and you can process them. 

That is a healthy way to deal with your emotions and it has no bearing on your level of faith. Just because you are experiencing a negative emotion doesn’t mean you don’t have faith. What I’ve seen in myself and others in the community is that we start struggling with overwhelm, anxiety, or anger so we dig into the word to see what God says about it. Talking to God about it and mentors and trusted friends. If you lacked faith, you wouldn’t be taking those steps in the first place. So don’t suppress, don’t ignore, don’t avoid, and don’t measure your level of Christianity on your emotions and how you’re feeling.

Belief #4: Self-Sufficiency

Another one that says “I should be able to handle everything on my own, and asking for help is a sign of weakness.” So here’s the thing: that’s pride. We have this idea, especially in society, that asking for help is a sign of weakness and you shouldn’t do it. No, we are meant to be in community and fellowship. 

We aren’t meant to be lone wolves doing all things on our own. Tell yourself instead that it’s okay to seek help and support from others, that that is what community and fellowship are there for. It’s part of God’s plan for you to be here on this earth. To heal and cope and learn and grow is getting support from other people and being a support for somebody else.

Belief #5: Identity and Worth

The next one is about your identity. This mindset sounds a little bit like “My worth is based on my ability to be strong and never waver in my faith.” When you start walking through hard times, you have questions and doubts. You’re like wait a minute, God. What’s going on here? I don’t understand. I don’t know what’s going on. 

Ladies come to me all the time saying they’re struggling to trust God. Usually, that’s not the case because they’re going to him with these questions and these struggles. You don’t do that with someone you don’t trust. You just have this mindset and belief that doubting is sinful, which is not true. 

Your worth is not based on how strong you are. Your worth exists because you are a child of God. God made you. Therefore, you have worth and value. And it’s okay to be vulnerable and admit when you’re struggling. That is the key to healing, that is the key to growth, that is the key to learning how to cope: being vulnerable, being open and honest about what you’re dealing with.

Belief #6: Suffering is Punishment

Next, is this idea about suffering that says, if I suffer, it must be because God’s punishing me, a sign that I’m doing something wrong, or that my faith isn’t enough. You start to think that God is just playing whack-a-mole, waiting for you to do things wrong and everything is because you’re doing something wrong which distorts your view of God. 

Here’s the truth: suffering is just part of life, it is part of being human, it is part of being here on this earth and it doesn’t always reflect God’s displeasure. Just because your life is hard is not because God is displeased with you. It’s an opportunity for growth. An opportunity to grow stronger emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually. It’s a way to go deeper with God, because the harder the things are, the more you rely on him, and that’s a good thing.

Belief #7: Self-Care is Wrong

Number seven is about self-care. The belief is that taking time for self-care is selfish. That Christians don’t need time away and they don’t need to take care of themselves. They should be focused on other people. 

Know this, taking care of yourself is essential for your well-being. It is what enables you to show up and serve others better. You must rest, and you must take care of yourself, otherwise, you’re not going to be any good to anybody else. 

Belief #8: I Don’t Need Community

Our last mindset is this thought that says “I need to handle my spiritual journey alone to prove how strong my faith is and what a great Christian that I am.” I think this comes from shame. We’re so afraid to not measure up to either what we’ve made up in our mind a good Christian should be, or what we perceive from other people.  

Oh, so-and-so has it all together and so I can’t invite them into my journey because then they’ll see that I’m not good enough. Listen, healthy community is what being a Christian is about. It’s about fellowship and doing life together. Yes, it’s about walking your own journey and running your own race but doing it in the community and fellowship with other people. 

If you’re going to be spiritually strong, if you’re going to be emotionally strong, you’ve got to have community. You cannot be by yourself. The enemy wants to isolate you and keep you by yourself because then it’s easier to attack you. You’re not going to have the support that you need, the encouragement that you need to see great progress. 

When you’re developing emotional health, when you’re trying to grow deeper to God, you need to be with people who have the same values as you, who have the same beliefs as you, who can understand, who can pray for you, that can help validate your feelings and your experiences when you’re not sure.

Please remember that when these beliefs and mindsets come up, you can do something about it. You don’t have to keep believing something that’s flat-out wrong and not serving you well. You can change/control your thoughts. You can replace those mindsets and those beliefs with the truth, with something that will help you grow closer to God and manage your emotions. 

Other Helpful Resources:

• The Importance of Rest as a Highly Sensitive Introvert
• Why Emotional Quick-Fixes Don’t Work
• 7 Ways to Make Friends as an Introvert

Now that you understand the truth about these spiritual bypassing myths you’ll be able to take steps toward emotional resilience.