The older I get the more I dislike roller coasters.

They take you way up high and bring you way down low so fast they leave your head spinning. And no matter how loud you scream, you can’t do a thing about it. For some, its a thrilling experience, but for me its just a headache.

I remember going to the fair one year and riding the Gravitron, the spinning space ship ride. Although it isn’t exactly a roller coaster, it still had a similar effect on me. It looked fun and everyone who rode it ahead of me seemed to enjoy it. Boy was I sorry afterwards. I was so dizzy when it ended that I couldn’t do anything else the rest of the night. All I wanted to do was lie down, close my eyes, and hope I didn’t lose the funnel cake I had eaten earlier. What was supposed to be an enjoyable time ended up being a horrible one that I will never do again. Why would I, knowing how it made me feel? Which leads me to my point. Emotional roller coasters are your choice to ride, but if you don’t like how they make you feel get off and stop riding it.

Let’s apply this to life’s challenges. An emotional roller coaster is a situation that takes you up into euphoria one moment and leaves you down in the dumps the next. And as if that sudden crash wasn’t enough it takes you back on top of the world again only to take you so low that it feels like the world is on top of you. That love interest who keeps stringing you along with mixed signals; that family member who promises to do right but keeps making wrong choices; that annoying coworker who you hate to see come and love to see go are a few examples of emotional roller coasters. These spikes in emotion are no good for you or me, and it’s emotionally harmful to subject ourselves to them. Sure, bad things happen and in many cases are uncontrollable, but there is something we can control…how we respond to them both physically and emotionally.

In the past week I’ve been reminded about the difference between a thermostat and a thermometer as they relate to life on three different occasions. So I figure it must be an important lesson for me right now. A person who is like a thermometer only reflects what is going on around them. If something hurtful happens to them, they feel and wallow in that hurt or respond with another hurtful action. A person who is like a thermostat makes the necessary adjustments to the things going on around them. If that same hurtful thing happens, they feel the hurt too, but they choose not to allow that situation to get them down and they refuse to respond with hurt. Their mentality is this…Yes, it may hurt but you won’t get the benefit of knowing it. It may hit me like a ton of bricks, but instead of getting buried in those bricks I’m building something bigger and better out of them!

I rode an emotional roller coaster once. I was a young and naive teenager wanting so badly to win the heart of a particular young man and the title of being his girlfriend. Well, giving me that title was not on his agenda, but I couldn’t tell because of all the time we spent together. He would compliment me, take me out, show me physical affection, and even make promises of marrying me in the future. Of course those things had me on cloud nine. BUT when the subject of dating exclusively came up, he just wanted to be friends. I would plummet back down to earth with those words. For several years he would say he desired to be in a relationship with me, but then he would never do anything about it. I hated the way I felt–rejected, confused, and not good enough. Just when I thought I was over him, here he was saying or doing something else to draw me back in emotionally once again. I finally had to decide to LET IT GO! I erased his number out of my phone to stop myself from calling him and let him know that I could not be his friend. It was hard letting go, but when I finally did, I felt peace. No longer would he dictate how I felt about myself. No longer was I going to ride this ride. I got off and have been the better since.

Remember this. “You can’t change others. You can only change yourself, but that will change how others respond to you.” This is a quote I have hanging in my office as a reminder that the only person I can change is myself. This so liberating because it frees me from other people’s inconsistent or inconsiderate actions. This is true for you too. When you try and try and try to change others who have their own will it is a tiring and in many cases a hopeless process. The change must begin in you because that’s where your power lies with the help of the Holy Spirit and the ultimate change agent–the Word of God. Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world! (1 John 4:4) The greater one inside you is more than able to keep you emotionally sober and in control. He is able to give you the strength to refrain from going back into situations that keep causing you pain and frustration. You can either own the depressing feelings running high in your flesh because of the decisions of others or you can reject them, realize that you are too smart to ride that ride, and ensure your emotional stability. The choice is yours!