Deadly Emotions

DEADLY EMOTIONS
Understanding the MIND-BODY-SPIRIT Connection that can HEAL or DESTROY you
By
Don Colbert, M.D.

As a nation, we in the United States of America consume five billion tranquilizers, five billion barbiturates, three billion amphetamines, and sixteen thousand tons of aspirin every year. (p. ix)

People wha have this addiction [stress hormone] become so consumed with meeting their desires to feel happy emotionally that they eventually become numb to what really matters most to them in life. (p. 32)

Cardiologist Dr. Robert Elliott has described the hostile person as a hot reactor who burns a dollar’s worth of energy for a dime’s worth of stress. He wastes five dollar’s worth of energy on a two-cent problem. (p. 36)

The main hostile attitude he isolated was cynicism which is a distrust of the motives of others. The main emotion he isolated was anger. The main behavior he isolated was aggression. (p. 36)

About 20 percent of the general population have levels of hostility that are high enough to be dangerous to their health – that’s one in five! Another 20 percent have very low levels of hostility, and the rest of the population falls somewhere in between. (p. 36)

Refusing to deal with pent-up rage may open the door to early death. (p. 40)

A constant state of frustration is actually a subtle form of hostility rooted in anger at other people, at situations, and at circumstances. (p. 41)

The hostile person who turns to nicotine to calm down, to food for comfort, or to alcohol for relaxation is a person who is not truly addressing the toxic emotion at the root of his life. (p. 42)

About fifty years ago, San Francisco cardiologists Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosenman introduced the phrase “type A personality” to our cultural vocabulary. They characterized the type A person as being impatient, extremely competitive, always in a hurry, and chronically angry and hostile. They also described them as being highly aggressive, ambitious, and hardworking, easily irritated by delays and interruptions. They often have difficulty relaxing without feeling guilty, tend to finish other people’s sentences for them, and are easily frustrated. People with this personality are likely to honk their car horns, and fume in traffic jams, bark at slow-moving clerks in stores, and feel compelled to do two or three things at once (multitask), such as talk on the phone while shaving or driving. (p. 42)

When a person begins to pack powerful and devastating emotions into the closet of his soul, he is setting himself up for trouble. (p. 54)

Depressive disorders affect a staggering nineteen million adults in the United States of America. (p. 63)

Finally, depression is not something that only ungodly people experience. Some seem to believe that depression is inevitably linked to sin. Unconfessed and unrepented-of sin may cause depression at times, but sin does not cause all depression. God’s people are just as prone to depression as those who don’t know the LORD. (p. 70)

SPECT – single photon emission computerized tomography
According to Amen, the SPECT studies reveal that when the deep limbic system is overactive, negativity or pessimism are usually evident in the patient. (p. 71)

Depression afflicts almost twice as many women as men. (p. 73)

A person who is prone to depression has trouble unwinding after a stressful experience. (p. 75)

In the chapters that follow, you will learn how to replace “stinking thinking,” or distortional thinking, with rational thinking – and in doing so you will be unlearning learned helplessness.
Most of our behavior is learned (yes, even depression) and can therefore be unlearned even if it is rooted in one’s genes. (p. 82)

Shame, by formal definition, is a painful feeling of having lost the respect of others because of an improper behavior, sin, or label of incompetence. (p. 84)

Guilt and shame evoke different responses in us. Shame tends to create feelings of deep sorrow and sadness, as well as a lack of self-worth. Guilt produces a certain amount of anger because we feel trapped at being caught or at having fallen victim to our own weakness. In both emotions, however, a feeling of being worthless, hopeless, or helpless may result. These feelings, in turn, can lead to depression, anger, anxiety, and an array of other toxic emotions that stimulate a stress response. (p. 84-5)

Adults who have deeply internalized shame often fear intimacy and bring commitment problems into marriage relationships. (p. 86)

True guilt comes when we have done something we know is wrong, and we feel remorse for having done it (or at the minimum, for having been caught doing it). False guilt arises when we have done nothing wrong but we have been unwitting partners in someone else’s sin, crime, or wrongdoing. (p. 87)

When care turns to overcare, its recipient begins to feel worried, anxious, guilty, threatened, fearful, and even angry. Overcare actually makes a person feel as if he’s just eaten five pounds of chocolate. He feels smothered and seeks to escape. (p. 100)

Faith is the ultimate cure for fear. Faith is believing that God is in charge of all things and that we can rely on HIM to do what is eternally best for each of us. (p. 102)

Mark Twain once said, “I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.” (p. 115)

There is very little, if any, love in the person who reflects extreme bitterness, resentment, anger, and hate. Hatred demands more and more emotional space until it crowds out all positive emotions. Raw hate is a fearful and awesome thing to behold in a person. It’s as close to evil as I ever hope to get. (p. 123)

A grievance is any circumstance, complaint, or resentment a person thinks is unjust or hurtful. (p. 123)

A grievance story is simply an account of the painful experience from an unhealed past. (p. 125)

When others refuse to obey our rules and we have no authority to enforce the, we need to learn how not to become frustrated, angry, resentful, or bitter. We need to make a conscious choice that we will not sweat the small stuff. (p. 127)

“Bitterness only hurts one’s self. If you hate, you will give them your heart and mind. Don’t give those two things away.” Nelson Mandela (p. 135)

These three steps David took in his “soul conversation” are very important. You can follow his lead:

Admit to yourself – speaking aloud – what it is that you are feeling.
Voice aloud your decision to hope in God.
Voice aloud your decision to praise God for who He is in your life. Acknowledge His near presence and His continual availability to you.

Psalm 42: 6                                                     (p. 143)

Also develop an attitude of gratitude and appreciation by focusing on all the good things in your life rather than the traumas or negative things that have happened. (p. 144)

Dr. Ellis, a renowned psychologist in the 1950s, developed a form of psychotherapy called rational emotive therapy. Dr. Ellis believed that toxic emotions arise from three negative and incorrect beliefs:
            Wrong Belief # 1: I must do well.
            Wrong Belief # 2: You must treat me well.
            Wrong Belief # 3: The world must be easy.   (p. 155)

Dr. Burns has identified ten types of negative beliefs:

All-or-Nothing Thinking
Overgeneralizations
Negative Mental Filter
Disqualifying the Positive
Jumping to Conclusions
Magnification (Catastrophizing) or Minimization
Emotional Reasoning
“Should” Statements
Labeling and Mislabeling
Personalization

The healthy person refuses to take responsibility or blame for someone else’s freewill choices. (p. 156-8)

Living with a horrendous secret only seems to work for so long before the weight of emotional baggage overcomes even the hardiest of souls. (p. 159)

We must never lost sight of the fact that forgiveness is a matter of the will. (p. 166)

You may forgive but find the other person unwilling to reconcile. If that happens, know that you have done your part. Leave behind the toxic emotions between you and that person. Trust God to do His work in the other person’s life, in His timing, and using His method. (p. 167)

It’s virtually impossible to love a person against whom you are holding a grudge, with whom you have had a painful encounter, or from whom you have experienced rejection or emotional pain. (p. 167)

If you choose not to forgive someone, I guarantee that your toxic deadly emotions of resentment and hatred will continue to poison your system in ways that are just as dangerous as your taking in a literal poison. (p. 170)

Most of the people you are unwilling to forgive don’t even realize you are upset with them. (p. 170)

We often need to express and feel forgiveness in a step-by-step progression. I see the process as having these stages:

Admit You Have Been Wounded
Accept God’s Forgiveness in Your Life
Openly Release the Offender to God’s Hands
Ask God to Help You
Voice Your Forgiveness
Consider Whether You Need to Ask or Grant Forgiveness to the Offending Person
(p. 171-5)

You may very well discover that once you have worked through your own process of forgiveness, you will one day look back and realize that what happened to you has been turned into a blessing in your life, not the grievance and scar you had initially thought it to be. (p. 176)

Daily forgiveness is my foremost prescription for a person’s total mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health. (p. 177)

The Bible says, “A merry heart does good, like medicine” (Prov. 17:22). In my practice of prescribing laughter, I’ve seen the truth of that verse borne out many times. (p. 179)

In one study involving sixteen men who watched a funny video, levels of the stress hormone cortisol fell 39 percent after a good belly laugh. Adrenaline (epinephrine) levels fell 70 percent, while levels of the feel-good hormone endorphin rose 27 percent. Not only that, but growth hormone (the “youth hormone’) levels skyrocketed 87 percent.
(p. 179)

In 2000, a team of researchers at the University of Maryland reported that individuals who used humor in their speech patterns often were less likely to suffer a heart attack than those who didn’t. (p. 180)

He [Dr. William Fry Jr] contends that laughter ventilates the lungs and leaves the muscles, nerves, and heart warm and relaxed – the very same benefits of aerobic exercise. (p. 182)

Laughing one hundred to two hundred times a day is equal to ten minutes of rowing or jogging. (p. 183)

Humor also is helpful to the brain. It allows a person to use both sides of his brain simultaneously. When a person tells a joke, the left side of the brain is active. When a person “gets” a joke and starts laughing, the right side comes into play. (p. 183)

Happiness and joy are not the same. Happiness is a feeling of pleasure, contentment, or a sense of well-being that comes from the outer environment or event that a person is experiencing. It is temporary and dependent upon external factors – including what others say and do.
Joy, in contrast, is abiding or enduring. It comes from a feeling of contentment deep inside a person. It is not dependent on external factors, but on an inner sense of value, purpose, fulfillment, or satisfaction. (p. 186)

If your goal is to find happiness through pleasures that are bound to the five senses, you will never be fully satisfied. (p. 187)

Marriage is tough work, but in the long run, those who are married find greater joy and satisfaction in life than those who aren’t. (p. 187)

Joy does not flow from situations. It flows from your will and your emotions deep within. You can choose to be joyful, or you can choose to be miserable. Nobody can make these inner choices for you. (p. 188)

Has anyone ever told you to “lighten up”? Heeding their advice may be to your physical, mental, and emotional benefit! (p. 189)

Are you aware that the word silly comes from the Greek word selig, which means blessed? Indeed, there’s something very blessed in being silly, playful, and having the heart of a child. (p. 189)

Married individuals have the least amount of depression, followed by those who have never married, followed by those divorced only once, followed by people living with one another apart from marriage vows, followed by people who have been divorced twice or more than twice. (p. 192)

I truly believe that the more you give away joy – including smiles and words of encouragement – the more you will feel joy welling up within. Try it! (p. 193)

Many people think of relaxation in terms of unwinding. Perhaps a better image would be to think of relaxation in terms of balancing. (p. 197)

A ten-minute visualization break is like a minivacation: it allows your mind and heart to get away from the stress of the day. (p. 203)

I am thoroughly convinced that the body absorbs stormy emotions and if they remain there, they set in motion a series of biochemical reactions that eventually end in disease. (p. 211)

Jesus thought so much of love that He spent a significant part of His last night before His crucifixion talking to His disciples about it. (p. 211)

On woman said to me, “I found great freedom in loving when I asked my husband, ‘What is it that you really want from me?’ His requests were very few – in fact, far fewer than I had thought they would be. I had been spending my time and energy and creativity doing all sorts of things that were totally meaningful to him. When I focused on doing what was meaningful…wow. He was quick to seek out ways of expressing his love that were meaningful to me!” (p. 219)

The Holmes-Rahe Life Event Scale

The Novaco Anger Inventory

The Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale