Comments on: Listening to your body and emotions as you discern wisdom–and God’s will https://anitamathias.com/2012/04/14/listening-to-your-body-and-emotions-as-you-discern-wisdom-and-gods-will/ Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art Fri, 18 Apr 2014 14:51:22 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9 By: Anita https://anitamathias.com/2012/04/14/listening-to-your-body-and-emotions-as-you-discern-wisdom-and-gods-will/#comment-17497 Wed, 18 Apr 2012 19:54:04 +0000 http://anitamathias.com/blog/2012/04/14/listening-to-your-body-and-emotions-as-you-discern-wisdom-and-gods-will/#comment-17497 @ Dolly, thanks, we seem to be on similar journeys.

@ Erika, wow the story of the man who found it hard to make decisions without the holistic input of his emotions too is really fascinating!!

]]> By: Anita https://anitamathias.com/2012/04/14/listening-to-your-body-and-emotions-as-you-discern-wisdom-and-gods-will/#comment-17496 Wed, 18 Apr 2012 19:54:02 +0000 http://anitamathias.com/blog/2012/04/14/listening-to-your-body-and-emotions-as-you-discern-wisdom-and-gods-will/#comment-17496 This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

]]> By: Anita https://anitamathias.com/2012/04/14/listening-to-your-body-and-emotions-as-you-discern-wisdom-and-gods-will/#comment-17495 Wed, 18 Apr 2012 19:54:01 +0000 http://anitamathias.com/blog/2012/04/14/listening-to-your-body-and-emotions-as-you-discern-wisdom-and-gods-will/#comment-17495 This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

]]> By: Erika Baker https://anitamathias.com/2012/04/14/listening-to-your-body-and-emotions-as-you-discern-wisdom-and-gods-will/#comment-17494 Sun, 15 Apr 2012 10:48:09 +0000 http://anitamathias.com/blog/2012/04/14/listening-to-your-body-and-emotions-as-you-discern-wisdom-and-gods-will/#comment-17494 Anita,
I wasn't expecting that – thank you. I really like your post.

From a completely different sector of human experience, I am currently reading books by autistic animal behaviourist Dr Tempel Grandin. In “Animals in Translation” she writes about emotions and about how a man who had severe neurological damage after an accident had no emotional responses to anything while all his other mental faculties were unchanged. He could think logically, he could reason, he could analyse, he could understand cause and effect…. yet what happened is that he became completely unable to make any decisions at all. Even with the most basic decisions he would get stuck in an endless cycle of thinking of pros and cons and consequences and he would end up going round and round in circles.

I think it is one of the great fallacies of our rational age that we believe that our decisions are not influenced by our emotions.
And in some of our hot button Christian debates I often find that it’s precisely the people who insist that their views are purely rational and Scripture based and who reject all emotion as special pleading, don’t appear to be rational at all when it comes down to it, as they only engage with those rational arguments that support their view and not with any that might threaten it.

The real challenge Ignatius of Loyolla sets us is to recognise our emotions, how they make us who we are, and to accord them their rightful place in our lives.
That’s not to say we must become purely driven by feelings, that would be wrong. And the Ignatian concept of consolation and disconsolation goes way beyond superficial good feelings. If we truly listen to ourselves we can even find ourselves drawn to deep truths that aren’t actually what we thought we wanted to hear.

If God has our best interest at heart, then what he wants from us will, by its very definition, turn us into holistic beings with integrated hearts and minds.

]]> By: Dolly https://anitamathias.com/2012/04/14/listening-to-your-body-and-emotions-as-you-discern-wisdom-and-gods-will/#comment-17493 Sat, 14 Apr 2012 22:28:17 +0000 http://anitamathias.com/blog/2012/04/14/listening-to-your-body-and-emotions-as-you-discern-wisdom-and-gods-will/#comment-17493 Hi Anita,

Like you, I can be cerebral but I have learned the hard way that when I ignore my emotions and intuition, I usually make poor decisions.

I still rely on Scripture, God's wisdom, and wise counsel but now I also trust that God can and does also speak to me through my emotions and intuition.

Blessings!

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