Have you been feeling down lately? Have you been having spouts of feeling blah? Have you noticed a dark cloud hanging over your head? Well let me ask you this one question then…. What have you been thinking about? Because our thoughts dictate everything else we have to pay attention to what goes on in our head. We can’t expect to be happy and outgoing if we are having down and negative thoughts. We can’t expect to see rainbows when we think about rain.

I have times that I find myself in a slump and feel really down. It is a struggle of mine that I have dealt with for many years. I use to have the mindset that if I felt down then I sat in that emotion and would be sad. I did not know any better at the time. I did not know that I did not have to give in to the way that I was feeling. And I did not know that my thoughts played a major role in my life. I did not know that I could help the way that I was feeling by thinking good thoughts and not allowing myself to think about bad or sad things. But once I learned the importance of our thoughts I started to pay attention to what I thought about and changed my thoughts, and behold, my feelings started to change too.

I am not saying that I thought one good thought and all the sudden I was happy. It took me paying attention to my thoughts, stopping the bad ones, and purposely thinking good ones over and over. If I wake up feeling blah I will lay in bed and purposely think about several things that are uplifting. I will thank God for sunshine, the ability to see walk and hear, my grandbaby, my car, my home, etc. I will think about the good feelings that I get when I get myself dolled up. I will even think about the people that are less fortunate than me and thank God for all that I am blessed with.

Sometimes I struggle with feelings of my self image. When I am coming down on myself I will have to stop the bad thoughts and replace them with the truth of who I am to God. I will remind myself that I am a masterpiece made by and for God. That I am unique in my own way and I bring value to the world. That I am imperfect and that Jesus loves that I am imperfect and lean on Him with my imperfections. I tell myself that even if nobody else understands me or accepts me that God does and His view of me is far more important than anyone else.

Our thoughts and our feelings is the enemy’s playground. He loves to try to defeat us by putting wrong thoughts in our mind and negative feelings within us. Because we are emotional creatures we do fall into our feelings if we do not know any better, and the enemy knows that. But we are more than our feelings. And we are more than our thoughts. Just because we feel sad does not mean that we have to be sad. And just because we have the thought that it is going to be a bad day does not mean that is has to be a bad day. We can learn to keep our thoughts and our feelings in check. We can become the boss of them instead of them bossing us around. It will forever be a battle that we face from time to time but we can win the battle.

If you are struggling with your emotions ask yourself what you have been thinking about lately. If you have been thinking about all the things that are not working out in your favor, all the things that are irritating you, the things that you have been deprived of in life, or such like thoughts, change those thoughts around and choose to think about what is going right, what you are thankful for, the blessings that you have that others may not have, and what you can do to help your situation out. Then tell your emotions that they do not rule you and that you are going to have a good day. I promise that if you stand up against your feelings, and have good thoughts, they will eventually subside and your joy will increase.