More Than a Feeling

one

God gave you a soul. This great gift is comprised of three powers: the intellect, the emotions and the will.

So, our emotions, otherwise known as the feelings or desires are God given and they are good.

But too often we let our feelings determine our thoughts, words and actions and they cause us to react in bad ways, destructive ways, sinful ways.

When I feel stressed or overwhelmed, I act badly. When I feel physically rotten, I see the world in a rotten way and treat those around me in a rotten way. When I feel great and strong and invincible, I tend to see those around me as weak and slow and like they are in my way, and I am not compassionate or patient.

I let my feelings determine my actions. This is not how we were designed to work as evidenced by the wreckage I leave behind.

Our feelings were meant to be good servants, but they are very bad masters.

two

The powers of the soul 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. 

three

Because of Original Sin, our soul is out of whack.

Our Soul can be healed but we must go to Jesus.

We can’t heal ourselves. Jesus can. If we will let him in. So, the first step is just to be honest and say: “Jesus, I am really bad at controlling my feelings. They control me. I need your help. Please help me.”

Then spend time with him every day in friendship – which is prayer – talking to him from the heart, listening to him by reading his Word, reflecting in silence, and just being with him in stillness.

And whatever he inspires you to do, make the firm resolution to do it.

This is how Jesus begins to act through you to transform the powers of your soul.

four

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

I must confess that writing really stresses me out. I used to think that writing would kill me – that it was dangerous for me. But, as you can see from writing a new podcast every day for four years – I am not dead. It didn’t kill me. It wasn’t dangerous or even bad for me. In fact, forcing myself to slow down, read and reflect with the Lord and Our Lady, then outline my thoughts and put them in writing is a very good way to slow my mind down and begin to get my soul in order. Now when the fear of writing comes back – instead of letting my feelings of fear control me – instead, I think. I think of just how good writing is for me and the more I think how good it is the better I feel about it. See, thinking changes our feelings.

Or take another example. Let’s say you really dislike someone. Your bad feelings for him are making it really hard. Begin with your thinking. Think and talk about his good points, his virtues, and maybe especially the gifts he has 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 him charitably.

Thinking changes how we feel about something.

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. 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, prompting the right action.

five

We can also 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 the right actions.

Choose 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.