Unconditional and Selfless Love

 

February 13, 2024

Hi!  How is each and every one? We have just celebrated Chinese New Year with so many kinds and names of colored dragons around.  The whole day I just had the confirmed sensitivity that we do need to pray for the Chinese. The conviction to pray for them gets to be as strong as their grips to economic power all over; strong as and even stronger than their 1500 drones they put together in making the flying dragon/s. Such a display of resources and talents I offer to the all powerful mighty God for each and every Chinese and each and every dragon by which they wish to be represented yearly.

Last Sunday was the second Sunday devotion to St. Joseph, a beloved father, model for fathers, patron of the family.  On the same day was the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.  Not a minute of the day without giving thanks to our Father God for His provident care of His children in His kingdom on earth. 

Simply Psychology

Now let us continue discovering ourselves and reflecting on our divine longings (From Broken Gods, Hope, Healing, and the Seven Longings of the Human Heart, Gregory K. Popcak, Ph. D. Ch 3). Let us focus on appreciating God’s plan for you and for me as we also ask His help in our effort and struggle to do according to His divine plan while you and I travel through the our daily life, work and activities on earth.

Grace on the Brain

Neuroscience teaches us that the brain locks down when it experiences even short-term stress (Baram, 2008). Stress triggers both chemical and neurological changes that make it difficult for nerve cells to grow and new connections to be formed in the brain.  These connections are an essential part of hardwiring—so to speak—the experiences we’ve had so that we can learn from those experiences, retain those lessons, and benefit from them in the future.  This tendency for the brain to lock down during stress protects us from being traumatized from bad experiences in the short term, but it also accounts for our tendency to make the same foolish mistakes over and over again.  Neurotic guilt, judgmentalism, anger, blame, and shame all impair our ability to process new experiences, integrate new information, and create change.  When we feel attacked, even by ourselves, the brain clamps down as a way of freezing out the threat and preventing us from being negatively impacted by an experience deemed to be contrary to our best interest.  When this happens, we get tunnel vision and we shut out everything that doesn’t relate to seeking immediate relief from our pain.  We focus on “getting through” the experience, not learning from it.  We’re reactive rather than responsive.  Rather than feeling effective, connected to others, and able to grow and adapt, we feel powerless, isolated, self-pitying, and prone to self-indulgence as a way of anesthetizing ourselves from the pain of the moment.

 

 

By contrast, the brain is most open to change when we are experiencing the state of mind produced when four qualities—represented by the acronym COAL—are present:  curiosity, openness, acceptance, and love (Siegel 2007;2012).

 

Opus Dei

I want to explain what it means to approach oneself and one’s failings with the mind-set that enables us to see God moving behind even our failings, but first I want to address two objections that I imagine some people might have to COAL.  First, shouldn’t we feel guilty when we do something wrong?  And, second, why should anyone interested in spiritual growth care one whit about the brain?

Is There No Place for Guilt?

Aleteia/Peace Lutheran Church

Of course we should feel guilty when we do something wrong.  But there are two kinds of guilt.  The first is a loving correction from the Holy Spirit.  When we experience godly guilt, we recognize that we have committed some offense, but the Holy Spirit simultaneously points us toward what we can do to try to resolve the problem.  With godly guilt, the awareness of our wrongdoing is followed immediately by the peace of knowing that God will help us make things right.  The person experiencing this type of guilt actually experiences a sense of consolation rather that a sense of condemnation.  “I do not condemn you” (Jn 8:11).

A Catholic Life

By contrast, neurotic guilt causes us to wallow in our wrongdoing without any plan or hope of making things better.  St. Ignatius of Loyola considers this type of neurotic guilt a “desolation,” or a temptation from an evil spirit that makes it more difficult for us to draw close to God or become the people we were created to be.

Unfortunately, after rejecting this experience of guilt as unhealthy, a lot of people engage in an equally foolish acceptance of all their imperfections. They think, “Well, making myself miserable about all my failings didn’t work, so now I’ll just tell myself how awesome I am in spite of all my failings!”  This is what many people imagine when I talk about adopting an attitude of curiosity, openness, acceptance, and love toward oneself.  They initially think I am telling them to embrace the behavior of the addict who never met an impulse he didn’t like.  Of course, this is not what I am advocating at all.  But more on that in a minute.

Guilt and the mystical Brain

Opus Dei

The second objection many people raise to the concept of COAL is, “Why should we care about the brain?”  After all, this is a book on spirituality.  The answer is simple.  In his theology of the body, St. John Paul the Great tells us that by prayerfully contemplating the design of the body, we can learn a great deal about God’s plan for our life and relationships:  “The fact that theology also includes the body should not astonish or surprise anyone who is conscious of the mystery and reality of the Incarnation” (Pope John Paul II, 2006).

Barnes & Noble

Remember, the mystic sees God at work behind all the mundane and even the profane aspects of everyday life.  From this mystical perspective we see that biology itself is a theology.  We are made in God’s image and likeness, and his fingerprints are all over our design.  The more we understand how God has made us, the more easily we can develop holistic approaches to cooperating with his grace so that we can train our biological impulses, drives, and desires instead of warring against them.  Had St Francis of Assisi had the information you will discover over the next few pages, perhaps he would have had no need to repent at the end of his life for referring to his body as “Brother Ass.”  Too late he proclaimed on his deathbed, “Rejoice, brother body, and forgive me, for behold, now I gladly fulfill your desires, and gladly hasten to attend to thy complaints” (Wiseman, 2001).

You know what?  I have been going through reading and re-reading the above passages and it is only now after the third or fourth meditated reading that I capture the message.  It is beautiful.  I will never tire of saying that passages like this need quiet time of reading, reflecting and meditating in the presence of the Holy Spirit such as in prayer.  Allow the Holy Spirit to enlighten your mind, body, heart and soul. Work on this precious attitude and you will savor life more and more each day in His loving presence.

See you in the next post, “May tomorrow be a perfect day; may you find love and laughter along the way; may God keep you in his tender care; ‘til He brings us together again.”

Affectionately,                    

Guadalupinky