Last Updated on September 10, 2023 by Rayna
Learn how to heal your emotions in seven steps that will change your life completely. Literally. There are many benefits to emotional healing and the sooner your start the quicker you will experience emotional healing. No matter where you find yourself there’s just one thing you need to do. Pray and ask Jesus to show you the way. I promise you that if you seek Him you will find Him (Proverbs 8:17).
Table of Contents
- Why Change?
- Step #1 Practice acceptance and forgiveness
- Step #2 Remove self pity and resentment
- Step #3 Admit to unworthiness and feeling guilty
- Step #4 Articulate your grief and despair
- Step #5 Lay down anger towards yourself and others
- Step #6 Journal your thoughts and invite Jesus in
- Step #7 Stop the cycle of pain
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Why Change?
But why change? Because different actions produce different results and WE ALL NEED CHANGE at some point. After all, change is a good thing even though it may not always seem that way at the time. Dealing with your pain by changing your coping mechanisms creates an atmosphere for Jesus to heal your heart.
7 Steps for Emotional Healing
These seven steps will start you on your emotional healing journey. I want to encourage you to read each step with an open mind and let your heart receive healing. My prayer is that as you read this article you will be touched by Holy Spirit and inspired to let Jesus in to heal your emotions.
Step #1 Practice acceptance and forgiveness
Accepting your life as it is and forgiving others is the first step to emotional healing. Stop looking at your life in the perspective of what could have been or what will be and accept where you are today. This quote was given to me when I was in a tough place in my life and it really resonated in my heart. Here’s the quote: “You can’t chase happiness. You have to find it where you are.”
I let these words sink in my heart. I began to intentionally enjoy my life right where I was with all of my problems. As I did this, hope began to arise in my heart. Acceptance is a huge part of your emotional healing journey.
Another key aspect to the emotional healing process is forgiveness. Unforgiveness hurts you and not the other way around. Your abuser or offender is out living their life while you are bound up in the pain of unforgiveness. Remember that unforgiveness is like you are drinking poison expecting the other person to die. You can read more about practical ways to forgive here.
Step #2 Remove self pity and resentment
Self pity is a trap. When we are deceived into playing the victim then we hinder ourselves from acting as a powerful person. I know that all too well because one of my biggest challenges was to overcome self pity and self sabotage. I want to encourage you to stop blaming others, even if they were wrong, and start forgiving them. Self pity traps you and not the people who have hurt you. AND, self pity fuels self sabotage which is a vicious cycle obstructing your path of emotional healing and personal growth. Your entire life is on the other side of this!
Resentment is another ploy the enemy uses to keep you bound. Once you forgive someone don’t take the bait of staying bitter when you are reminded of that person. Every time you think of the person you forgave, imagine yourself putting them in Jesus’ hands for Him to deal with them. Freedom will emerge in your life as you release those who have hurt you, you recognize these plans of the enemy, and you renounce self pity, self sabotage, and resentment.
Step #3 Admit to unworthiness and feeling guilty
Get real with yourself and your emotions to uncover your true beliefs about yourself. Ask Jesus to show you any unhealthy areas of your life. If you discover that you believe you are unworthy or have feelings of guilt in some areas of your life, then deal with it by giving these areas your undivided attention.
Write down why you feel unworthy or guilty in these areas of your life. Ask yourself if the unworthiness or guilt is valid and why or why not. From there you can uncover the truth about the situation and let yourself off the hook. I will tell you this, in 99.9 percent of these situations your thinking is skewed.
Pray and ask Jesus for His truth on the situation. Talk to a trusted friend or counselor and ask their opinion. Jesus did not die on the cross for you to go around feeling unworthy and or guilty every day. You can learn more about how negative thinking (connected to unworthiness and feeling guilty) affects you emotions here.
Step #4 Articulate your grief and despair
Honor yourself by creating space for your grief and despair with journaling. Write down your feelings of grief and despair and where these feelings originated (Example: My parents, My marriage, My children, etc.). You can only release these emotions if you first recognize each feeling and then accept that they are areas of pain.
From there I want to encourage you to write out the specific emotion(s) you feel (anger, unworthiness, sadness, disgust, etc.). Then, ask Jesus to show you when and where these emotions started. He will probably recall a childhood memory to you or lead you to something that reminds you of what happened. You may be surprised by the answer. Often our negative emotions are rooted in childhood experiences.
Dealing with your childhood pain and the belief system that you developed when you were young will open your heart to be able to mourn the loss you experienced. As you honor the places in your heart that are feeling grief or despair, let yourself feel then release these emotions and accept Jesus’ healing. Imagine yourself sitting next to Jesus and ask Him what He has to say about your memory or situation.
Step #5 Lay down anger towards yourself and others
Anger has been described to me as a secondary emotion. If you are really angry with someone you are probably being triggered. The root of anger is a primary emotion like fear, sadness, or shame. Ask yourself, what about this situation is invoking fear, sadness or shame in my heart? The answer to that question is your key to get to the other side.
You can trust God with every place in your heart. He was there when your pain occurred and, because God is not bound by time, He can go back with you in the memory to heal the pain. You can learn even more about the healing process here.
Step #6 Journal your thoughts and invite Jesus in
Journaling is one of the most effective techniques for reducing anxiety and ushering in emotional healing. The most life changing thing I ever did was to invite Jesus in to my journaling. I learned this technique from Mark Virkler in his teaching on how to hear God’s voice. You can check out Mark Virkler’s free resources here.
As you journal with Jesus, you will open yourself up to God’s promises of healing and abundant life which creates an atmosphere for you to dream again. Journaling is a great way to meditate on His promises and how they apply to your life. Let your heart think about your future and all of the wonderful possibilities that are open to you. As you dream again, you’ll find that your goals are not as far away as they may have seemed. Start a vision board and pray over it asking Jesus to help you to reach your goals.
I have published an emotional wellness journal and a mindset journal as tools to help my readers to articulate their emotions and to heal. The tools in these journals are exactly what I used to overcome negative thinking and pursue emotional healing. You can purchase the journals on Amazon here.
Step #7 Stop the cycle of pain
Finally, you can stop the cycle of pain not only in your life but in your children’s lives. Specific emotional pain can be passed down from generation to generation in your family line. For example, if you can look back in your generations and see that your grandparent dealt with anxiety, and your parent dealt with anxiety. and now you are experiencing anxiety then you can see that anxiety has been passed down through your generations. John 4:18 says, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear.” Receiving the perfect love of Jesus will set you free from fear. Learn more about Jesus’ endless love here.
As you remove generational curses from your family line you will pioneer a new beginning for yourself and your future generations. This new pathway opens up the opportunity for you and your generations to each fulfill your God-given destiny.
I want to encourage you to be a pioneer for your family. As you face your emotional pain and ask Jesus to heal your heart. He will then heal you AND your generations. Never forget that God is a generational God. He sees the end from the beginning and His heart is always for redemption.
You’re a God who makes things right, giving justice to the defenseless.
Psalm 103:6, The Passion Translation
Pay it forward
The most significant benefits of emotional healing are an increase of hope in your heart and the desire to start to dream again. It’s time to start enjoying your life and living in abundance. After all, you have a God-given destiny to fulfill!! Emotional healing will also help to reduce anxiety (and eventually eliminate it!) so that you can get to the root of the problem and learn to trust Jesus with every area of your life.
The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I [Jesus] came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance [to the full, till it overflows].
John 10:10, The Amplified Bible
As you get set free I want to encourage you to share your story with others and pay it forward. You never know who needs to hear your story. And, most importantly, your story matters. Jesus came for you to enjoy your life and for you to live in abundance. That abundance expands to others lives’ too when you pay it forward. Share your experience of healing and watch Jesus heal again and again.
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