How to Wisely Eliminate Emotional Buttons

Focus on this: Wisdom is he principal thing; therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding, Exalt her [wisdom], and she will promote you; She will bring you honor, when you embrace her. She will place on your head an ornament of grace; A crown of glory she will deliver to you." Proverbs 4:7-8.

Remember those troubling times when someone got under your skin, plucked your last nerve, or convinced you to unleash a white hot lava flow of anger?

Mentally return to one of those times! What happened? How did you feel? What triggered those feelings? Where did the frustration, pain or anger develop? Think some more! Generally, who are these individuals who pluck your nerves? Push your buttons? How do they get to you? What benefits did you gain? What prices did you pay? Finally, what good did your frustration, pain and/or anger accomplish?

More likely than not, your frustration, pain and/or anger accomplished nothing, Usually these experiences wind up being confusing, distracting, time consuming and value-wasting incidents that charge you more prices than the experiences are worth,.

If your experiences resemble mine, these nerve plucking, anger triggering individuals are almost always naysayers. I often refer to them as "dream stealers." You know, those individuals who punch holes in the balloons of your ambitions and desires. In many instances they strike just as you're sharing your excitement about certain hopes and aspirations. With piercing accuracy, these individuals dash your dreams, demolish your desires and annihlate your ambitions.

I hope that by now you understand that these naysayers pluck your nerves, cause you pain, frustrate and anger you because they see and target your "buttons,." They know exactly where you are sensitive, precisely what you need from others. They don't want to give you what you need. So they jettison your joy!

Think with me?

Do you have a tendency to worry? What about a penchant for anger? Do you have an affinity for drama, or a sensitivity to stress? Maybe you suffer with all of those ailments. These emotions--worry, anger, drama and stress--constitute your "buttons," those fragile emotions that people bump against, sparking your abrupt reactions. I refer to those collective emotions--worry, anger, drama and stress--as the W.A.D.S. of life. Of course, you understand that wads clog areas and impede peaceful and effective flows. Just as a wad of debris inhibits water flows in your pipes, just as wads of LDL cholesterol clog your arteries, emotional wads inhibit your "life-flows."

Where do WADS originate?

From personal observations and research, I believe they develop from C.O.P.E. (Chains of Past Experiences. Let me focus on personal experiences. I was an only child in a neighborhood of "big brothers." During my elementary school days, I remember dreading the end of the school days because, though I lived just a few blocks from East End School, I would always have to run home because the big boys would sic their younger brothers, or sometimes their sisters on me so they would have a "legitimate" excuse to beat me up. I would run, but often they caught me and invariably, my clothes got torn. One day, my mother explained sternly: "The next time you come home from school with your clothes torn, I'm gonna whup you."

Trapped! My mother's whippings were terrible experiences, even worse than fighting boys bigger than me. Silently, but suddenly my perspective changed. No longer were these boys trying to beat me up. They were trying to make me get a whipping from my mother, an experience I dreaded much more than I feared them. From that day on--until God empowered me to conquer the emotion--my anger would blaze white hot instantly. I remained chained to this emotion--instant, terrible anger--until my mid-30s.

My criminal escapades taught me to worry, Lies I told to satiate lusts gave rise to my affinity for drama. These three emotions--worry, anger and drama--birthed and nurtured stress. For many years I remained shackled to chains of past experiences. Sometimes inadvertently and sometimes intentionally, naysayers pushed my "buttons--worry, anger, drama and stress--life's W.A.D.S.

I was an emotional wreck!

In my mid-30s when I began to seriously develop a spiritual worldview, I began understanding that powerful principles govern life. These principles are designed to produce productive outcomes. However, when we live contrary to these principles, we reap painful, often horrible consequences. I learned that we cannot break these spiritual laws. We only break ourselves against them. Sick and tired of being worried, being angry, being dramatic and being stressed, I began an intensive study of how to align with the principles that would free me from these emotional consequences. I theorized that if I did not have these buttons there would be nothing for anyone to push.

Consider the principles that freed me from the chains of past experiences and helped me eliminate the W.A.D.S. of life.

"Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on,. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow or reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lillies of the field,how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith,. Therefore do not worry, saying 'What shall we eat? or What shall we drink? Or what shall we wear? For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will worry about its own things,. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." (Matt. 6:25-34)

Impeccable logic, I thought as I studied those verses where three times Jesus directly commanded His disciples: "Do not worry!" I refer to this principle as the priority principle of successful living!

But how do you learn not to worry? I discovered the answer in Paul's letter to the Philippians. "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication (petition), with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Finally brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue, and if there is anthing praiseworthy--meditate on these things." (Philip. 4:6-8).

So much for worry, but surely God does not expect us to conquer anger! Yes He does! Listen! "If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is sitting on the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory . . .But now you yourselves ae to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth,." (Gal. 3:1-8). Okay, there's the what, even the how. But why? "Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures. So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God." (James 1:18-20). There's the why! We must rid ourselves of anger because our wrath does not produce the righteousness of God, and in 2Cor. 5:21, God says He made Christ to be sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him,

Encouragement seized me! Surely if spiritual principles existed that empowered me to conquer worry and anger, certainly drama and stress could also be destroyed by moving in alignment with specific spiritual laws.

"For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself, But if you bite and devour one another (drama), beware lest you be consumed by one another. I say then: Walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh." (Gal. 5:13-16).

Here's how to be free of stress! "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner; but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began." (2Tim. 1:7-9).

Now I had the principles, All I needed was clear assurance that I could eliminate these buttons, worry, anger, drama and stress, that naysayers constantly push. I found the answer stated clearly in Hebrews 12:1-2. "Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us."

That's the strategy! Align with those principles and you will break the shackles that keep you change to past experiences and you will eliminate the buttons the naysayers push--worry, anger, drams and stress.

Remember: Wisdom is the principal thing, Therefore, get wisdom and in your getting, get understanding.