[by Leslie Vernick, DCSW, LCSW. Leslie is in private practice, Director of Christ-Centered Counseling www.leslievernick.com, and is our blogger for the month of October. This is her fourth blog]

One of the things that I have found very helpful in my own personal life as well is in my professional practice is intentionally practicing the opposite virtue when I get stuck in emotional quicksand.  When unwanted but nevertheless strong negative emotions capture us (or our clients), we often feel powerless to break free from them. We can examine our negative self-talk, journal, pray and yet we still feel caught. 

Good self-control can help us refrain from expressing such feelings but it does not relieve the inner tension we (or our clients) feel and can never be the end goal of good Christian counseling. God aims for a deeper change as we must. He wants our heart to be transformed to be more like his. Practicing the opposite virtue can be both evidence of a transformed heart and a means by which we can help someone grow into it. 

Let me give you a few examples. When I feel impatient waiting in a long line with a slow clerk, I have learned not to blurt out my toxic feelings all over the clerk, but I still feel irritated while waiting. I can take a deep breath and that helps calm me down a bit, but much more effective is when I intentionally focus my attention on feeling compassionate for the overworked, underpaid clerk. I can also practice humility by reminding myself that my needs and my time are not the highest priority but rather faith, expressing itself through love. As I consciously take these steps I am applying a powerful antidote to the emotion of impatience and my irritation vanishes.

When the apostle Paul speaks to thieves about their behavior, he does not merely tell them to stop stealing (self control). A thief has a selfish heart. Greed rules him. Stealing is an outward manifestation of his inward reality. Paul instructs him to work (virtue of diligence) so that he can share his resources with others who have needs (virtues of compassion and generosity – Ephesians 4:28).

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that we should be hypocrites or pretend. Rather, practicing the opposite virtue helps us not to allow our temporary feelings to define who we are. Just because we feel angry at the moment doesn’t mean we have to act that way. People feel many different emotions throughout each day that they don’t act upon. That’s one reason why Jesus commanded us to love our enemy and to do him good (Matthew 5:43-44) and the apostle Paul tells us not to be overcome by evil but to overcome evil with good (Romans 12:21).

Doing good toward our enemy doesn’t mean we don’t feel angry, it just means that we’re not going to give in to our emotions by acting in an ugly way toward our enemy. In fact, in order to counter that ugly feeling, Jesus tells us we must do him or her good. We want to act out of who we are (new creations in Christ), not what we feel. When we choose to do that, our feelings will change.

One virtue that you may want to work on in your clinical practice this next month is that of helping people feel thankful. I have to be honest. For a long time as a Christian counselor I struggled to encourage my clients to apply the biblical command to give thanks in all things (1 Thessalonians 5:18). How could I help a young woman give thanks when she is seething with anger that her father sexually abused her or some other equally horrific story?

Yet recently I met a woman who had a tragic story. Her only child was killed in a motorcycle accident yet in the midst of her grief she was thankful. She said, “I can’t be thankful for all things, but I can be thankful in all things.” She continued, “I can be thankful that my son died doing something that he loved. I’m thankful that he didn’t suffer and that he knew the Lord. I’m thankful for so many wonderful friends who have helped me through this. Gratitude helped this woman through her grief in a much more positive way than had she not practiced it. Psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky writes, “gratitude is an antidote to negative emotions, a neutralizer of envy, avarice, hostility, worry, and irritation (The How of Happiness, p 89).

As Christian counselors we regularly listen to people who feel miserable much of the time. They grumble and complain that life, God, or other people don’t give them the things they feel they deserve. This entitlement thinking breeds more discontent and unhappiness. How can they break free from these negative emotions? The gateway is to practice the opposite virtue of gratitude. The psalmist said, “It is good to give thanks to the Lord” (Psalm 92:2). When we don’t feel thankful, practicing gratitude as an act of obedience, pleases God.  Henri Nouwen writes,

Gratitude as a discipline involves a conscious choice. I can choose to be grateful even when my emotions and feelings are still steeped in hurt and resentment. It is amazing how many occasions present themselves in which I can choose gratitude instead of a complaint. I can choose to be grateful when I am criticized, even when my heart still responds in bitterness. I can choose to speak about goodness and beauty, even when my inner eye still looks for someone to accuse or something to call ugly.

I’d love to hear from others how they are practicing the opposite virtue, both in their own lives and in their clinical practice. I think we can all greatly benefit from sharing the practical application of God’s word in our lives.