Verse:
Philippians 1:27-30New King James Version (NKJV)Striving and Suffering for Christ
27 Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel, 28 and not in any way terrified by your adversaries, which is to them a proof of perdition, but to you of salvation,[a] and that from God. 29 For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake, 30 having the same conflict which you saw in me and now hear is in me.
Thoughts: I find that way too often I let myself get into an altered frame of mind which really does not help my overall condition. It's something that I've thought about a bunch internally, but it's hard to deal with outside of a looking back at it. Honestly I feel like it's a cycle similar to eating when you are depressed. You get depressed, then you overeat trying to "feel better", then you are depressed because you ate too much. I've been actively dealing with the eating cycle this spring, and I can feel the battle inside of me on a regular basis. What it also does is sets me up for dealing with other emotional issues that are harder to see until after they happen. I have no idea if this is "normal" or not, but once I get upset it takes a fair amount of calm for me to return to my base state mentally. It's one of the reasons I attempt to not watch too much news or read too many of those "you should get really angry at.." images on social media. Yeah, clubbing baby seals makes me upset. What it shouldn't do is mar my personal interactions with folks that aren't actively attempting to club baby seals every day. It's an interaction I've seen with my kids, both in me and in them. Keeping an even keel can take a lot of effort, especially when I'm already attempting to handle extra pressure, be it internal or external.
The difference from the idea of the emotional eating issue is that with emotional eating the person you hurt the most is yourself, at least initially. When it's your social interactions, especially in a job that deals directly with your actions to others, the damage is initially external and the ramifications can be long lasting. Personally I try to refrain from sending out too many emails or instant messages when I know that I'm already not handling things well. I'm already actively working on managing my social media "self" to not be impulsive, and keep a handle on how I portray myself publicly in those forums. Techcrunch had an article recently about how what you say online can be devastating both for yourself and for others. These are hard lessons to learn, and too often one mis-step can be disastrous for weeks afterwards. Personally I struggle more with face to face interactions than I do with text interactions. At least with text I can read what I'm writing and rethink/edit it. I can type it all the way out and then delete it if I come to my senses in time. I have time to make sure that I'm representing myself properly, and honoring the other person the way I know I should. With face to face conversations, my own self betrays me. My emotions can too easily not be kept in check, and my demeanor and physical reaction tell a tale. Much of this becomes things you cannot "control" off the cuff, and even my best attempts to stay in front of it can be challenging. Even going over conversations in my head to make sure I'm mentally prepared is difficult (and yes, if I'm really stressed I'll go over how I think a conversation will go before I have it - it seldom is accurate).
In the end, the best I can do is be myself and do my best to honor God in all that I do. That said, emotional bad behavior seldom bears good fruit. I just have to be aware of it and work on improving daily.
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