Author: Joyce Meyer

Publication year: 2011

Genre: Christian literature

Hello there bookworms! My, my it’s been a minute, life has not afforded me the opportunity to read as often as I wanted. I have had this book with me for about three months before I had enough time to read it and even then it was a chapter or two at a time. Self-awareness is a trait I am definitely cultivating in myself and controlling my emotion is high up on my list. So finding time to read and apply this book in my life was a must

Synopsis

The average person has 70 000 thoughts every day and many of those thoughts trigger a corresponding emotion. In Living beyond your feelings, Joyce Meyer examines the gamut of feelings that human beings experience. She discusses the way the brain processes and stores memories, thoughts and the emotion. She blends the wisdom of the Bible with the latest psychological research and discusses:

The four personality types and their influence

The impact of stress on physical and emotional health

Anger and resentment

Sadness, loss and grief

Fear

Guilt and regret

What I thought

“We cannot judge the moral value of any action by how we feel, our feelings are unreliable and cannot be trusted to convey truth.” When there are these kind of nuggets of truth in the book then it’s definitely a must read. Below are some of the stand out chapters that I really related to.

I want to do what’s right but I do what is wrong

As Christians we are carnal, our lives revolve around impulses of emotion. She suggests the sooner we realise that feelings are carnal the better.

Why am I so emotional?

In this chapter she speaks about how it could be a number of things and sometimes (when it’s the occasional) we don’t need to figure out, why we are so emotional. Just know this too shall pass. She suggests that if one has a history of out of balance emotional behaviour this means there are many issues that need to confronted and dealt with.

Change and transition

Everything changes, we don’t mind it but when it’s uninvited our emotions can flare up. We need to learn to adapt. It won’t change circumstances but will definitely prevent the stealing of our joy in the transition phase.  When circumstances change make the transition mentally and your emotions will be easier to manage.

Like I said dear reader this book is filled with nuggets of truth. It requires that one rereads certain chapters and then apply to life. I also enjoyed when she spoke about  four types of perosnality (luckily I had read a book about this) I remember that I am mostly a sanguine. This knowledge helps you manage your emotions not make excuses for your behaviour.Knowledge without action is useless, so do not read the book for the sake of reading it. Have you read the book or any other books from Joyce Meyer? Let me know in the comments section. As always thanks for your non-refundable gift that is your time, my next review will be on Becoming by the formidable Michelle Obama.