Healing the Wounded

ONE

What drives the way I think and act?

What feelings and desires tend to control your life? Fear, anxiety, and worry; Anger or frustration; Shame and embarrassment; Resentment. Maybe the desire to win or the desire for freedom, control and power – that is pride. It could be lust or the desire to be wanted, or to be praised – that’s vanity. It might be the need to stay busy or the need to be entertained because you're bored – that is sloth. Or is the need to talk about others – envy. It could be the desire for financial security – that’s greed. Or the desire to calm fears through food or alcohol – that’s gluttony.

We don’t want to admit it, especially those who claim they are thinking people, but we are controlled by feelings. Feelings determine our thinking and acting.

Jesus laid open the wound in our soul when he said; “It is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean. For it is from within, from men's hearts, that evil intentions emerge: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, malice, deceit, indecency, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within and make a man unclean.”

What feelings drive you?

TWO

Wounded in the powers of the soul.

There are three powers in the soul: the intellect, the feelings, and the will. They were designed to work in this way.

The intellect perceives or becomes aware of reality through the five senses, the imagination or the memory. The intellect then presents its perception of reality to the feelings as “this is right and good for me” or “this is wrong and bad for me."

The feelings respond to what the Intellect presented with, “I like this,” prompting the will to choose it; or “I dislike that,” prompting the will to avoid it.

The will chooses the apparent good, and avoids the evil.

Thinking should inform our feelings which prompt our choices. Thinking should rule our lives, not feeling. The feelings are meant to be good servants but if left in charge they become very bad masters. 

With Original Sin, these three powers of our soul have been wounded.

The intellect has been darkened, we suffer from ignorance and intellectual laziness. It takes a lot of effort to really think things through. It’s easier to feel. So we let the intellect go to sleep and let our feelings decide what we do. We let feelings rule our life. We are ruled by likes and dislikes. That might be okay except for the fact that, because of Original Sin, we tend to like what is bad for us and dislike what is good for us.

THREE

Our Soul can be healed but the first step is to go to Jesus.

At the Last Supper, Jesus looked across the table at the Apostles and said to them; “Apart from me you can do nothing.” The plan was never to transform ourselves. We can’t! We can’t do it alone. We are incapable. Jesus wants to live in our soul and do it for us. He wants to live through us if only we would let him. We can begin to allow Jesus to live through us by inviting Him in by receiving the Eucharist often and then by spending time with him in friendship – which is prayer – talking to him, listening to him by reading and reflecting on his teachings and just being with Him in silence and solitude. Either we spend time with Jesus in prayer so that he can live through us, or we are choosing to go it alone.

FOUR

The problem is that our feelings are in control. But we can change the way we feel by how we think.

Let’s say, for instance, you really dislike someone. Your bad feelings forthem are making it really hard. Begin with your thinking. Think and talk about their good points, their virtues, and maybe especially the gifts they have that you don’t. If you think and talk about the person in those terms long enough, you’ll be constantly reminded of how much there is to appreciate about this person, and you’ll actually begin to appreciate him and it’ll be easier to treat them charitably.

Again, you should use this strategy to avoid evil. Say you want to gossip about someone – you can picture in your head how awkward it’ll be if what you’ve been saying gets back to that person. Or you can use St. James’ image, about how a small flame – gossip – can burn down a whole forest of good. Whatever image works to help you realize how deadly gossip is, use that, focus on that, picture that. And eventually your desire to gossip will fade.  

If we think about the pleasing aspects of what’s good and the displeasing aspects of what’s bad our desires will change. By thinking, imagining, visualizing or anticipating, some good thing we actually cause the right feeling, prompting the right action because we desire what looks good to us.

FIVE

We can change the way we feel by how we act.

Most people don’t start out liking exercise, but if they keep at it they begin to look forward to their morning run. People usually don’t start out enjoying prayer, but if they pray anyway, day after day, they get to the point where they can’t do without it. The same goes for abstaining from bad behavior you’re inclined to. If you have a bad temper, you’ll want to say horrible things when you get angry. But if you resist the urge to lash out and choose to hold your tongue, the anger will fade and the desire to be undisturbed by others will grow.

If you resist the wrong feelings and do the right actions long enough, the bad desires will fade and the right desires will grow – prompting you to take the right actions.

Cho2ose to do the right action even if you don’t feel like it. If you do the right thing, over and over, eventually you begin to like it – it becomes pleasing to the emotions and then we have a good habit.