• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Christian Concepts

Bringing your Potential to Light

  • Start Here
  • Insights
  • About
  • Subscribe

pain

3 Signs Of A Healthy Emotional Life

3 Signs Of A Healthy Emotional Life

November 13, 2022 by Matt Pavlik 3 Comments

Reading time: 4 minutes

No one likes to feel pain but facing pain is the only way to a healthy emotional life. Everyone has some uncomfortable memories. It’s never fun to remember them, but it is rewarding. Those who don’t face them leave a minefield of suffering waiting to be triggered.

Here are three ways you can know you are emotionally healthy.

Healthy Sign #1: You Can Recall Memories From Various Ages

If you feel fine today, but don’t want to revisit memories because they are too painful, you aren’t as emotionally healthy as you could be.

I believe Jesus has access to all of His life experiences, including His years growing up as a child. God doesn’t forget anything (except perhaps our sin when He forgives). An emotionally healthy person can easily access important memories and can review them for encouragement. Even painfully traumatic memories, once healed, become a source of encouragement.

At any given moment you might want to gain encouragement from a memory that is related to what you are presently going through. It’s important that you have many such memories, even if they were nasty and are healed today, rather than only a minefield of pain.

The healing process involves scanning through your life to find the mines, disarm them, and plant something better like a tree. The more healing you have, the more you can look back and see a forest of encouragement. Even though the trees are from different times, you can see them as one forest–a place where you’d want to take a hike.

Healthy Sign #2: God is More Important than Anything or Anyone Else

If you value your job, parent, friend, spouse, pet, or anything else more than God, you aren’t as emotionally healthy as you could be.

The healthy person trusts God with their life. If you can’t trust God, you aren’t as emotionally healthy as you could be. Trauma can result in feeling betrayed by God. Why didn’t God prevent this horrible thing from happening?

Trusting others more than God is a sign of priorities being out of order. If you lose something you value more than God, it can create a barrier between you and God. In this case, you’ll be angry at God because He allowed you to lose.

But, there are some things you can never lose, if you can keep your trust (your faith) in God. When you trust God, life doesn’t have to be fair or even make sense for you to feel at peace. You’ll be at peace if you can let God do the heavy lifting regarding your quality of life.

God has a purpose for your life. It works out better if you can let Him evaluate your life. You can do the best you know how, but it’s up to God to use your efforts for His purposes.

Jesus soon saw a huge crowd of people coming to look for him. Turning to Philip, he asked, “Where can we buy bread to feed all these people?” He was testing Philip, for he already knew what he was going to do.

Philip replied, “Even if we worked for months, we wouldn’t have enough money to feed them!”

Then Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up. “There’s a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that with this huge crowd?”

“Tell everyone to sit down,” Jesus said. So they all sat down on the grassy slopes. (The men alone numbered about 5,000.) Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks to God, and distributed them to the people. Afterward he did the same with the fish. And they all ate as much as they wanted.

John 6:5-11 NLT

God already knows what He is going to do with your life.

Healthy Sign #3: You Know Who You Are

If you have to ask your spouse, ‘What’s my favorite _________?’, you aren’t as emotionally healthy as you could be.

To be healthy, you must know yourself. What opinions do you have? What do you like? What do you dislike?

To be healthy, you must be able to stand on your own, even when others seem to be against you. This has to include people who are supposed to be on your side. Sometimes, due to their own weakness, people will fail you.

But if you’ve done the work to heal and you’ve made God most important and you trust Him, you will survive the criticism, betrayal, and nastiness. Jesus did. So you can too.

Read more about trust.
Image by Bogdan from Pixabay

Filed Under: Healing, Identity Tagged With: memory, pain, trauma, trust

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • 9 Experiences That Drain Hope
  • Adjust Perspective For Peace And Joy
  • Marital Unity Leaves A Rich Legacy
  • 3 Reasons To Trust God Today
  • Faith Is Assurance

Recent Comments

  • Finance on 9 Experiences That Drain Hope
  • 9 Experiences That Drain Hope - Christian Concepts on Claim Full Assurance Of Hope
  • Forgiveness Opens The Heart To Miraculous Healing - Christian Concepts on Forgiveness
  • Does Our All Powerful God Need Us? - Christian Concepts on Worship God With Genuine Joy
  • Adjust Perspective For Peace And Joy - Christian Concepts on The Secret to Finding Rest Amidst Tragedy

Topics

  • Abuse and Neglect
  • Betrayal
  • Boundaries
  • Conflict Resolution
  • Core Longings
  • Counseling
  • Dating to Find a Mate
  • Emotional Honesty
  • Eternal Security
  • God's Kingdom
  • Healing
  • Identity
  • Marriage
  • Self-Care
  • Self-Image
  • Spiritual Formation

Archives

  • April 2025
  • March 2025
  • February 2025
  • January 2025
  • December 2024
  • November 2024
  • October 2024
  • September 2024
  • August 2024
  • July 2024
  • June 2024
  • May 2024
  • April 2024
  • March 2024
  • February 2024
  • January 2024
  • December 2023
  • November 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • June 2023
  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • September 2017
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • June 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • February 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009

Footer

Follow

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

© 2003–2025 · New Reflections Counseling, Inc. · Christian Concepts Publishing · Privacy Policy