What is the life of your dreams? Is there tension in your home that you wish would be removed? Are you a slave to financial problems or to other people’s opinions? Do you have loved ones in your home who suffer because of broken relationships or addiction? It’s time to learn how to face these giants and clear the way for God’s rightness.

Before you can build your life on God’s promises, the old mental structures that carry your negative emotions must be removed. As the saying goes, “hurting people hurt people,” but forgiveness unlocks joy. Your pressure points have triggers attached to them that cause bad emotions to fire off inside of you. Explosive and cold emotions often reveal landscaping that needs work.

Your soul landscape describes how you’re doing inside. If you’ve ever been head-over-heels in love with God or another person, you know the feeling that all is well in the world. Nothing can take away this joy or bring you down off of the mountaintop. This type of experience plants trust in our hearts that we can use to face pain later, when the emotional high dwindles. Emotional landscapes have mountains and valleys.

Whether you’re going through happy times or hard ones, the truths from past, good experiences provide roots for your emotional stability. “I am loved and special to God” is always true. Waking up in the morning to a boring or stressful life can be disappointing if your emotional landscape is not being cleared from lie-weeds. Maturity means reminding yourself that discouraging thoughts and feelings don’t come from God’s perspective. The beautiful landscape inside of you is what reminds you that God’s fresh, exciting love is waiting to connect with you every day when you awake.

You can use The Intimacy Strategy to clear your mental and emotional landscape. Clarity comes little by little, slowly allowing us to construct our promised land.

Assignment 11: What feelings arise when you wake up each morning? Write why you feel like this.