The Secret to Emotional Mastery to Shift Your Mindset

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5 mins

Are you mastering your emotions, or are they mastering you?

I have been doing a series on mindset shifts from a Christian perspective. In this installment, we’re diving into what emotional intelligence really means, why it matters to your spiritual and relational life, and how you can begin building emotional mastery rooted in biblical wisdom. If you’ve ever wondered why certain situations trigger you or what it takes to handle tough relationships with grace, this conversation is for you. I hope you take away practical steps and scriptural truths to help you grow in self-awareness, self-control, and Christlike character—because where your emotions go, your life tends to follow.

Let’s get right into the topic of emotional mastery, emotional intelligence. I did some research, and this is what I came up with. Emotional mastery and emotional intelligence refer to the ability to recognize, understand, manage, and reason with emotions in oneself and others. Other ways to say it…

Emotional intelligence (EI) is the capacity to be aware of one’s emotions, manage them effectively, motivate oneself, empathize with others, and handle relationships skillfully.

If you were to rate yourself on a scale from 1 to 10 in the area of emotional mastery with 10 meaning you are on top of the game in this area in your life, 1 meaning you are terrible in this area. How would you rate yourself? Be honest with yourself here. I believe if we can bring awareness and take an honest look at our behavior in this area, it could make a huge impact on our day-to-day lives. Have you ever even thought about gaining more personal emotional mastery?

I want you to really ponder that idea!

Proverbs 16:32 reads

“Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.”

I don’t interpret this to literally mean take a city, but what if it means creating a better life we live in?

I’m going to give you a personal story of where I was trained in emotional mastery in my 20’s! Something I like to call “something I learned on the battlefield of the bookfield!”

If you’ve followed me for very long, you know I share all the time about a summer job I did for seven summers selling educational books door-to-door on 100 percent commission to put myself through college. This job was extremely challenging. It paid very well—if you didn’t quit! Here is a real-life example, of becoming a master of your emotions, because if you did not get mastery over this you would not survive the summer!

I want you to picture this! Walking up to a door, knocking on a complete stranger’s door introducing yourself, letting them know you were a college student and you would share the state you were from and that you were showing educational books to all the families in the neighborhood. The first 30 seconds of these interactions were crucial! At this moment is where emotional mastery came into play. We called all the moms who answered the door Mrs. Jones. She could react in so many different ways. She could be nice, she could be angry and hate salespeople, she could say some pretty ugly things and slam the door. You had no idea what you were going to get! This was one of the toughest parts of the job. You literally experienced this scenario 40 to 50 times a day. The things you had to train yourself to do was that no matter what her negative response was, you smiled thanked her for her time and went to the next door not letting that interaction dictate how you were going to approach the next Mrs. Jones. Learning to handle your emotions and not take the rejection personally was the key to the job. If you could figure this out, and become skilled at this one area, mastery over your emotional reactions, you cracked the code on having a more successful life. Your number one job was to find the people who buy books and could see the value in your books, that was it! Mastering your emotional response no matter the situation has been an incredible lesson that I’ve carried with me to this day! This is an extreme example. Most people are not going to learn this skill by going door-to-door experiencing rejection from Mrs. Jones and learning not to take it personally. But what I’m wanting to emphasize here is that this is a skill, it does not come naturally to us. Most people believe that they can’t control their reactions. It’s a given, this is their personality.

I do not agree with this idea at all! I feel I’ve seen tons of examples of successful people who have harnessed emotional mastery and it is the key to their success in life. Whether it’s in business, sports, friendships, families and marriages, in pretty much every area of our lives, healthy relationships require a level of emotional mastery!

I want you to evaluate yourself. Think about the toughest relationships you are in. Do you display emotional mastery? What I’m going to do now is point out some steps we can take to check ourselves!

Self Awareness

The first step in this process is self-awareness, being conscious of our own emotions as they happen. Our reactions. All progress starts by telling the truth! When we are confronted with something uncomfortable do we go into a fight or flight mode? How do we react?

Self-Regulation

Have you ever been around someone who loses it constantly? Are you that person? What about getting emotionally triggered? How do you handle getting cut off in traffic or the person behind the counter who is being rude? What is your response? Hope you’re getting the idea! I feel the Bible addresses this so beautifully

Galatians 5:22-23: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”

This should be our personal goal!

A definition of Self-Regulation: It’s the ability to control disruptive emotions and impulses. It allows you to think before you act. This is a learned skill!

I don’t know about you, but I raised children. One of the earliest challenges I can remember was helping my children learn to get their emotions under control. We had to teach our children how to master their emotions. Not hitting Jonny with the truck because he got frustrated. It was a skill that we taught, and they learned to practice. I think as adults we all need to look at how we react and respond to our surroundings. Do we think before we act? Self-regulation is a learned skill! And it’s biblical!

Motivation

To be productive, we must harness our emotions to achieve our goals, to remain optimistic, especially in the face of setbacks. What is your emotional response when you don’t feel like doing something you have committed yourself to do? Do you cave in to the feeling or do you master this feeling and keep your word to yourself? Mastering emotions is key to motivation!

Empathy and Social Skills

Do we sense other people’s emotions and take their perspective into account. This sounds so simple, but this will build better relationships!

If we truly want to be effective leaders at work, among our friends and our families, our emotional intelligence is significant to our social skills.

James 1:19-20: “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”

Has this topic of emotional mastery/emotional intelligence challenged your thinking? It challenges mine! Get out that journal! Write down the answers to these questions:

At the beginning when I asked you about your emotional mastery, how did you rate yourself?
What came to mind for you as I was talking about emotional mastery/emotional intelligence?
Are there some areas where you could improve?

Looking at ourselves and evaluating this specific area is the first step and it can immensely improve our life. It will take work.

Pray about this, the Bible speaks to the importance of self-control, patience, and managing our emotions in a godly way. Developing emotional intelligence is a key part of our spiritual growth and maturity. With God’s help, we can learn to be “slow to anger” and “quick to hear” others, which leads to stronger relationships and a more peaceful life.

Another thought I’m having on this topic. As believers, we are called to pursue emotional mastery and intelligence not just for our own benefit, but to honor God and serve others more effectively. The Bible teaches that self-control is a fruit of the Spirit, and that we are to be “quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger” (James 1:19). By consistently focusing on self-awareness, self-regulation, and social skills, we can develop the emotional maturity that reflects Christ-like character. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can steadily improve our emotional intelligence over time.