Not that our science is forever settled; it surely keeps morphing. But that's one reason I'm so glad to be getting updated: SO much has changed since I was in school.
For a long while I've experienced profound overlap between science (hard and soft) and spirituality. To make sense of things, we have to process stuff honestly and reasonably accurately. Knowing how thinking and feeling (how we) work is liberating. And challenging. And often disorienting.
Yet (alleluia) reorienting is a wonderfully apt way of picturing what repentance actually is: it's a kind of 'turning, turning' like in the Quaker song, 'til we come round right.'
Repentance, understood primarily as cringing, or even apologizing to God, is not very helpful. Repentance can be much more like simply keeping ourselves oriented in the direction the best, the wisest parts of us 'just know' we want to go.
So, here's a passage from James Pennebaker's book, Opening Up: the Healing Power of Expressing Emotions. If you've been exploring mindful practices, his research may make you smile--may be like one more stack of stones on the road marking the Way.
His main theme is how surprising and promising it is that people who are able to make sense of their lives by journaling, talking with friends, working with therapists--or even confessing to a priest!--keeps them physically healthier. People who make an effort to witness their lives and open up about what they see are sick less often.
This is a longer blog than usual--and offers at best a tiny taste of the book. If you don't have time today, come back when you do. And if it rings true, add another stone to the stack beside the road along the Way.
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Freud…discussed a number of defense mechanisms that
individuals employ to protect themselves from overwhelming feelings of anxiety.
Many defense mechanisms, such as denial, suppression, and obsessions, are akin
to low-level thinking strategies. More recently, scientists have attempted to
identify how thinking patterns affect problem solving in general.
Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer began a compelling project
that sought to understand when people became “mindless” versus “mindful” in
their everyday thinking. When people are mindless, they are rigid in their
thinking and cannot appreciate novel approaches to problems. When mindful,
people are active problem solvers, looking at the world from a variety of
perspectives. According to Langer, all of us can be mindful at one time and
mindless at others.
Being mindless, a
state similar to low-level thinking, has some major drawbacks. All of us can be
lulled into mindless thinking in a variety of ways: living completely predictable
lives, letting others do our thinking for us, watching television, and being in
uncontrollable settings where we think that nothing we do can make a
difference.
When we are mindless or thinking on a low level, we don’t
feel much pain, nor do we feel much happiness. We don’t feel much at all.
…In a mindless state, people are not motivated to talk with
others, develop new interests, or learn new things. Across several studies, we
know that when people are mindless, they perform more poorly on tests of
creativity and complex thinking. Mindless people are also far more likely to be
persuaded by con artists, television advertisements, and political speeches. In
a very real sense, mindlessness makes us stupid.
Mindfulness makes us smarter. Low-level thinking and
mindlessness reflect thinking styles that can protect us from feeling and
thinking. If our lives are miserable, any escape can sometimes be welcome. Most
of the examples that I have mentioned suggest that low-level thinking reflects
an automatic way of dealing with upsetting experiences. Usually, people move to
lower thinking levels without any conscious awareness.
Americans have turned to
jogging, racquet sports, weight lifting, and exercise groups like no other
people in the world. Part of the exercise craze reflects a general concern with
physical health. I suspect it also provides an efficient way to get stupid,
that is, move to a lower level of thinking (though exercise can also be a healthy practice).
Mindlessness, compulsive and addictive behaviors, and other
forms of low-level thinking dull our pain by making us less thoughtful and
aware. In short, low-level thinking usually serves as a mental Band-Aid to
chronic psychological anxieties.
…Psychologically confronting upsetting experiences produces
long-term benefits in psychological and physical health. Study after study
points to the value of confronting unwanted thoughts directly.
…Confronting our unwanted thoughts can be painful and
anxiety producing. Fortunately, the pain is usually temporary. Confronting the
source of our problems undermines the need for low-level thinking. In short,
acknowledging and disclosing our thoughts and feelings can make us smart again.
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A note from the blogger: Social Psychologists are usually better at studying data than outlining wise spiritual paths! Working mindfully, contemplatively, is rarely about "Confronting problems." It's always more about welcoming them, letting them be what they are, holding them with kind attention and keen awareness--and then taking action--choosing to do something or simply choosing to let something go.
"Letting go and letting God" is more our style--and letting go and letting God is always richer when we bring our 'best game' -- our 'high level awareness' into the mix. When we 'see more clearly' and 'love more dearly' it's SO much easier to 'follow more nearly.'
