Weekly sermons from our Central Lutheran Church preaching team plus quick reflections from Pastor Ryan Braley.
Real talk, ancient wisdom, and honest questions — all designed to help you learn, grow, and find encouragement when you need it most.
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Your emotions are real, but they’re also unreliable drivers. When you’re hungry, tired, lonely, stressed, or simply overstimulated by life, your mood can swing fast and your reactions can get loud. We’ve all had that moment where we want to walk in the door and unleash, or we’re out running errands and think, I do not want to run into anyone I know today. The question is what do you do when you don’t feel like yourself, but you still want to live like yourself?
We dig into a practical approach to emotional regulation that doesn’t depend on “trying harder” or pretending you’re fine. Instead, we talk about building a deeper anchor: your values. What do you want people to say about you at your funeral? What kind of person do you want to be when no one is watching? We share examples like valuing community, choosing kindness with your words, and becoming stable and dependable instead of being pulled around by every irritation, slight, or bad night of sleep.
You’ll also hear a simple reset for those heated moments: pause, remember your values, then take one small step toward them. It’s a tool you can use in traffic, at home, at work, or anywhere you’re tempted to go off the handle and regret it later. If this helps you, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s been feeling stretched thin, and leave a review so more people can find the show.
Hey everyone, Olivia here. Pastor Ian is on sabbatical this summer, so I will be re-releasing the most popular episodes from the Reflections podcast. Today's episode originally aired in August of 2025. This is part two of last week's episode titled You Mad Bro. If you missed last week's episode, I recommend starting there first. Enjoy.
What is up, everybody? Hey, this is Ryan. Welcome to our Reflections Podcast. This is part two of the episode that we called You Mad Bro. If you didn't hear part one, go back and listen. But ideally, I ended, I think it was a dramatic cliffhanger. And it was, hey, you know, we are this mixed bag of emotions that we don't always even know. There's a lot going on in our lives beneath the surface, what Carl Hume calls the unconscious self. And so we're always trying to be aware of like the different parts of ourselves, like and different, like the variety of emotions we could feel. We're not either just mad or not mad. We could be a whole number of things. And there's a number of things that influence how we want to behave. If you're hungry, angry, lonely, or tired, those things can cause you to act, you know, crabby. That's why those hangry commercials are so funny, because we're like, yes, totally. If you're hangry, eat something, it'll kind of change your mood. But like, have you ever noticed that how like your mood could be up one minute, down the next, and it could be dependent on if you have or haven't eaten, if you didn't get a lot a lot of sleep, if it's cloudy out or snowing, and or if the dog is barking, and there's a number of things that impact how you want to behave in any given moment. And the question is like, are what do you how do you not just be driven by your emotions or the neighbor's dog that won't shut up, or your kids that won't quiet down, or you know, or the fact that you're hungry and you don't have any, you can't even eat for a while. How do you still know how to behave despite all the craziness in the world around you? And so that's kind of how we end it. So here's what I want to
say. That's a great question because many times, as kids, look at as kids, kids do this all the time. Kids are totally driven in their behavior by whatever is like going on in their bodies physically, if they're tired, they they can be cranky. You know, if they haven't eaten, they're crying or they're acting like maniacs. They're totally carnal beings, they're so funny. They are like you can totally tell, oh, something is wrong with them, and they are behaving like a miscreant because of it, you know. But as you grow up, I ideally you want to like learn how to manage that because you're an adult, you're not a baby anymore. But how do you do this? So the other day, I look, I was I had a long day at work, I was crabby, I was kind of I was stressed out, and I got home and there were some things going on at home, and like I'm like, Braille, don't be you know a knucklehead. But everything inside of me wanted to like let go and just be a voracious, is that is I voracious? I don't know, a voracious monster. Like, I don't care, I'm crabby, I'm gonna yell and scream and be, but I'm like, but as I you know, I'm gonna put like this, you know, Ryan on the shelf and just be this other Ryan and just like let loose and be a maniac because I'm tired, I'm crabby, I don't care what happened in your life or your day, I'm gonna be however I want to be. And um, or like sometimes as a pastor, I'll be out at Target, and I'm like, I'm not in the mood. It's very, very, very rare. I'm telling you, I I love seeing people, but sometimes I'm you know what? I've had a weird day, I don't want to run into anybody I know. This happens about maybe once a year. Um, and like I'm just not in the mood to be Pastor Ryan right now. And so how how do I know, how do I know how to behave in those moments when I'm not feeling myself? Well, here's what I think I've discovered. Um, and I'm 45, I'm just discovering this, and I'm still learning how to like implement it, so take that for
what you will. But but I've I've learned, okay, like we've got to have some kind of a guiding light in our lives, you know, something deeper than my own physical um, you know, uh sense, sensations, like deeper than I'm tired or hungry, deeper than it's cloudy out, uh, something stronger than, oh, I'm uh, you know, I haven't slept in a, you know, or I slept poor last night. Uh a deeper anchor than these things, because these things will often happen. You know, and like I always say, I love how you know, we we are emotional beings, it's totally fine, but our emotions can't drive the car because they're terrible drivers. They can write shotgun or in the back, they can't drive. Something that's driving has to have a deeper root than these emotions or my physical sensations. You know what I mean? So these are what we would call values. Like, if I asked you, hey, sit down tonight and write down five things that you value deeply as a person, and take it like a take some time and think about it. Like, what do you value? Um, like who's the ideal you? You can also say it this way. I know we've asked this on here before, but like at your funeral, what kinds of things do you want folks to say about you? Those are your values. Like, for me, like I want, I wanna, I'm a I love and value community. I love relationships, um, good ones, healthy ones. Um, I want to be a good person who's generative and encouraging and um and life-giving with my words and and kind. I want to be strong. I want to be stable. I want to be a person who people can rely on and depend on my family, you know, my neighbors, you know, my friends, the church, that I won't be kind of up and down. And uh, these are things that I value. I want to, I want to do the right thing even when no one's watching, you know? These are things that I value. And it's okay, so write those things down and post them somewhere on a mirror, in your car, on your computer. Like, remind yourself this is the thing that you're kind of aiming at, you know. And certainly as a Christian, like for me, it's like, yeah, the teachings of Jesus, I value those. I want to, I want to be like that, you know. I'm not suggesting that you need to just try harder and be like that. And when you're crabby, just try not to be crabby. I'm not saying that. I'm saying when the when the chips are down and when you're feeling like you're drowning, you know, sometimes you need to remember, okay, I know that I'm tired, I know I'm angry, I know I'm hungry, I know that Katie, you know, didn't smile when I came home and I wanted her to smile at me. Why didn't she smile at me? You know, um, I I remind myself, okay, fine. Either way, I can still maintain and and be tethered to my values despite my circumstances. You know what I mean? It's like I whatever is happening around me or in my physical body or in whatever emotions I'm feeling, I can still not let those drive me or dictate my behaviors, but I can hold on to my values. Like, no, you know what? I want to do the right thing. And even though I'm tired or that guy cut me off in traffic, I want to be a person who does the right thing even when no one's watching, or when everyone's watching, you know what I mean? And I hang on to those things and let those things dictate my behavior.
And then I would say, so when things come along that like just get you, that like pull you off of center, that trigger you. I know it's a hot button word, but like things that just upset you or like destabilize you. I get it. Okay, but pause for a second. Don't go down the rabbit hole right away, don't go off the handle, don't jump into the river. But like, okay, hold up. What what are my values? You know, and you've got them taped to your rear of your mirror, or you've got them taped to your microwave or whatever, your refrigerator. Okay, this is who I want to be. Then what's one step I can take towards those values that will help me and make it easier for me to kind of enter into being that kind of person here in this moment? Because what's the alternative? The alternative is like, no, forget it. I'm gonna just be crabby, I'm just gonna get mad and angry and let them deal with it. Like, nope, that's not a good answer. It's just not because it's it's destructive. You're gonna regret it later if you're like me. You're like, oh, why did I do that? You know, when when you've actually eaten your Snickers bar, you're like, wow, sorry about that, you know. There's this great sign in my friend's cabin on the lake, and it says, I apologize for what I said when I was trying to dock the boat. If you're from Minnesota and you've ever tried to dock a boat in a windstorm, yeah, my bad. I'm sorry for all that language I used when I was trying to talk the boat. That's a joke. But like, like, okay, how do I not let these things really get the best of me every single time? Because we know folks, we I know people like that. They're just always giving to their emotions or the whim of or the dog barking next door, or the you know, the wife not smiling how they wanted them to, and I didn't get my way, whatever. And they just man, they're like they're so unstable. And I think as we get older, it's so important. Like, what do I value? And cling to those things, remind ourselves, hey, I want to be, and then whatever you need to kind of take one step towards those values in those moments, you know, try it and let's see what happens. Okay, so what are your values? And then how can you, in the moments that you feel the weakest or like things or the chips are down and times are tough to just take one step towards those values? All right, let me know how it goes. Love you guys, peace.
Hey, if you enjoy this show, I'd love to have you share it with some friends. And don't forget you are always welcome to join us in person at Central in Elk River at 8 30, which is our liturgical gathering, or at 10 o'clock, our modern gathering. Or you can check us out online at clcelkriver.org. Peace.
