271: (New Book!) Emotional Confidence: 3 Simple Steps to Manage Emotions with Science + Scripture
Last Updated on August 29, 2024 by Alicia Michelle
Building emotional confidence changes how you relate to yourself, other people, and God. I hear from so many different people about how they struggle with managing their emotions, so today I’m sharing an inside look into my new book Emotional Confidence: 3 Simple Steps to Manage Emotions with Science + Scripture. In today’s episode, I can’t wait to give you a preview of what it means to have emotional confidence as we discuss these Christ-centered and science-based emotional management tools that we explore in the book!
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:
- [00:33] Ready For a Practical Tool to Help You Manage Your Emotions Using Science and Scripture?
- [07:45] How Can We Calm Down Enough to Process Our Emotions?
- [10:34] We Need More Tools Than Just Positivity and Gratitude – We Need to Build Emotional Confidence
- [17:10] This Book is a Tool For Everyone, No Matter How You Relate to Your Emotions
- [21:01] How Does Emotional Confidence Improve Our Lives?
- [24:40] Join The Book Launch Team for Emotional Confidence to Help Spread the Word!
[00:33] Ready For a Practical Tool to Help You Manage Your Emotions Using Science and Scripture?
This fall I am going to be releasing my very first book about managing emotions: Emotional Confidence: 3 Simple Steps to Manage Emotions with Science and Scripture!
God has had a huge journey for me around this and I have been able to help hundreds of women one-on-one and thousands through the podcast and other speaking events. Managing emotions is something that so many of us struggle with and I know the topics within this book are going to set a lot of people free.
Throughout the book, there is a very specific three-step tool that you can use to walk through and process what you are feeling – while inviting God into the conversation. I think that the gift God gives us when we are working through our emotions is to grow in Him. The book launches November 12th (but you can join the launch team now to get it sooner!) and I wanted to give you ways to know if it is for you.
If you struggle with figuring out what is going on in your head, or what you are feeling, then this book is for you. If you feel like you need to know how to manage your emotions in more ways than just switching your thoughts or meditating on a Bible verse, this book is for you. These things are great, we want to give our burdens to God, but in the heat of the moment, we need to know what to do before we lose it.
When we are having emotional reactions, we are not in our logical minds. We are in our emotional, primal brain, and at that moment, everything is out the window. We need to know what to do and this book will give you the tools by using both science and scripture together. So if you are ready for a practical tool to be able to use in the heat of the moment that can grow your faith, then this is a great book for you.
And lastly, if you want simple ways to be able to talk yourself through an emotion without feeling like you just need to accept it or judge yourself, this book is great for you. There is a big dichotomy in how Christians deal with emotions. Most women will either swing to the one pendulum that says “We are supposed to feel everything and let our emotions take over” or to the other one that says “You shouldn’t have those feelings as a Christian.” Maybe you have heard people say that emotions are bad, or maybe you feel the pressure as a Christian to always feel joyful.. We can find the middle ground here. We can hold scriptural truth as our divine guide for all things and we can honor the feelings that we are feeling and let them be brought before the Lord for examination.
There is this amazing confidence that brims up in people when they have these tools and are able to practice using them. They no longer have to be afraid of their feelings or try to distract and numb themselves. These tools allow us to lovingly partner with God to help us manage them.
Let’s be honest, friend: feelings are not going anywhere. We are all going to have tough days and hard seasons. But what if these seasons could bring us closer to God? When we work with Him in the area of emotions, those big emotional waves become small bumps that He can help us work through. We need tangible tools and this book is just that.
[07:45] How Can We Calm Down Enough to Process Our Emotions?
This book also gives you tools to know what you are feeling and why it is there. You will learn something that I call emotional prep. Emotional prep is how to calm down enough first so that you can process these emotions. When we are in a heightened state, it is impossible to process that emotion because our logical brain is offline. We are in survival mode and fight or flight is activated. So it’s important to learn calming strategies (emotional prep) to get you into that logical mind again.
Once we are calm, I teach a specific scientific and scripture-based process in the book called ADD that helps us know what to do to manage an emotion. ADD can be adapted to anyone and any situation.
The ADD Method gives us direction, compassion, clarity, and the ability to tap into God’s courage. Because even emotions will have to come under the authority of God.
Emotions will never trump biblical truth but that does not mean that we don’t need to hear them first. Having them come out and be noticed is the secret sauce to be able to work through an emotion. If we have not allowed our emotions to be heard, they will be like a little child screaming in the back because they want a cookie. If you keep saying no and running away, they are not going to stop. So we need to let them be heard with compassion but not dwell on it and allow it to take over. There is a balance and I teach this within the book.
[10:34] We Need More Tools Than Just Positivity and Gratitude – We Need to Build Emotional Confidence
Although being positive and grateful is wonderful, we need more tools that can support us with our emotions. Oftentimes, positivity can cover up the reality of what we are feeling inside (as I talked about in Episode 264: Should We Always Try to Think Positive?)
There are too many people, Christians included, who are walking around just plastering a smile on their face, pretending to be happy, telling themselves happiness and gratitude mantras, and completely ignoring these “check engine light” emotions inside. They do not want to address those feelings because they are scary, shame-inducing, they might make them look bad in front of others, or they do not know how to process them. There are 1,000 reasons why we slap gratitude or happiness over our emotions and ignore them.
I want to give you the emotional confidence to be able to see an emotion and instead of letting it run your life, you can say “Okay I see you here, I want to understand and acknowledge you. I want to use scripture and invite God into this process to help me know what is the truth, what is not the truth, and what I need to do next with what is in front of me.”
I think of emotional confidence as this ongoing, curious dance that we have with God. It is the assurance of knowing that our emotions have a purpose and that God wants to partner with us in managing what we are going through. It's that joy of knowing that no emotion's too big or frightening when we have God's presence and His love helping us process them.
Emotional confidence is not a term that you will find in a psychological journal. It is a word that I have coined and the official definition that you will find in the book is, “Emotional confidence is the inner certainty to wholly recognize and honestly process all that one feels with God's compassion, clarity, and courage.” Each one of those words has an intention behind it.
When we say inner certainty, it means that we can generally pinpoint what we are feeling. Sometimes we cannot pinpoint it from the beginning but we can at least have a starting point.
The next part, wholly recognize and honestly process, is very important. We need to be able to fully see the situation, honestly look at it, and walk through it with ourselves. Emotional confidence comes with introspection. There is no way that any of us can grow spiritually or emotionally if we are not doing that work to begin to notice what is going on inside. So when we have emotional confidence, part of that is the skill of learning to notice and acknowledge. A big part of acknowledging is seeing it in its fullness with compassion and without judgment. This is the way that God sees us and loves us through every situation when we are not perfect (which Is every single day).
The next part, honestly processing all that one feels with God’s compassion, clarity, and courage, is so important. The three steps of the emotional management tool that we talk about in this book allow us to tap into God’s compassion, clarity, and courage. These are crucial to be able to understand our emotions, work through them, and let truth reign.
[17:10] This Book is a Tool For Everyone, No Matter How You Relate to Your Emotions
Although this book is primarily written for Christian women, I wrote this book with step-by-step tools for everyone. It has a logical side to it because I did not just want to give you fluff. I was talking to a friend of mine (who endorsed the book and has a podcast for men) and she acknowledged how applicable the book’s concepts were to men too. This is because the book is data-driven, logic-minded, and full of science. We talk a lot about the brain and how we are made by God in approachable ways.
Everyone has emotions and everyone needs tools to be able to walk with them and partner with God in these areas. If you do not consider yourself an emotional person, this book is for you too. A lot of times we think, “Oh, if I am an emotional person, I'm going to read and learn more about my emotions” and if we are not emotional then we do not need a book like this.. But as I said, we all have emotions and feelings. Maybe yours are more reserved and that is fine, but the point is, we are all human and feel things. And sometimes, those of us who are quieter and more reserved are the ones who are struggling the most because we do not know what to do with those feelings. We have just completely avoided this topic of emotions.
Then there are those of us who are what we would call highly sensitive people. I am a highly sensitive person who can sense emotions in other people. I feel emotions when I walk into a room, it is just how God wired me. So I tend to be more expressive, more passionate, and more emotional.
But sometimes those of us with big emotions need help with managing them because we are letting them go everywhere. We may not like the constant up and down feeling and we do not know how to control it.
So no matter where you land on the emotional spectrum, this book is for you. It is a middle-of-the-road approach to working through what we are feeling.
[21:01] How Does Emotional Confidence Improve Our Lives?
So why is managing emotions important? Let me tell you, gaining emotional confidence changes everything. It changes how we show up and relate to ourselves. We will understand why we do certain things and will begin to understand ourselves more.
Emotional confidence is also a huge gift because when you understand why you do things, you can understand other people more as well. This can also improve our relationships because it changes how we relate to other people. We can relate to them when they are struggling because emotional confidence helps us to be more empathetic, compassionate, and forgiving.
Our relationship with God also changes. We can better understand Him and how much He loves us just as we are – without the need to put on a show. When we are honest about our emotions, we start to have the confidence to let Him guide us through the processing of it. This opens up this amazing new sense of vulnerability and honesty with the Lord that maybe was not there before.
And lastly, emotional confidence allows us to bring peace and calm into our lives faster. Because when there are these ongoing, unresolved emotions flapping in our ears all day long, it is hard to find peace. It is like these pots of boiling water on a stove that is continually boiling over. Then we turn the heat down a little bit but then as soon as the next little thing comes, it goes up again. Then we wonder why we are stressed all of the time. So if we can have a way to confidently manage what we are feeling, we can peel back the layers and life starts to become calmer. The roller coaster of emotions becomes more steady and we can lean on God to walk us through them when they do come up.
[24:40] Join The Book Launch Team for Emotional Confidence to Help Spread the Word!
As you can tell, I am super excited about this book. It comes out November 12th but you can start getting involved now. We are putting together a book launch team with people who have said “This is a great idea and I want to help support this book launch so it reaches as many people as possible.” As part of the team, we only ask you to do three things:
- Pre-order Emotional Confidence on Amazon
- Share about the book in some capacity whether that is on social media or with a friend
- Once the book is live, write a review on Amazon or Goodreads
If you are not familiar with the world of publishing, the success of new books is all about the pre-orders on Amazon and the reviews that are given. I know that there are a lot of you who are excited about this topic and if you want to be a part of this, I would love to have you on the launch team. You will even get an early reader copy of the book! There will also be other fun bonuses that I will be sharing closer to the launch. Thank you so much in advance for helping spread the word and learn more about the book and how you can join here.
RESOURCES:
Tired of up-and-down feelings stealing your peace, sabotaging your relationships, and filling your mind with self-defeating thoughts? If so, make sure to join the launch team for my new book, “Emotional Confidence: 3 Simple Steps to Manage Emotions with Science and Scripture”, coming November 12th!
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