![]() ![]() ![]() You might say that Ignatius of Loyola was getting in touch with “feminine” qualities centuries before psychologist Carl Jung came along to name and explain them. The Spiritual Exercises encourage full engagement-with the physical senses, with spiritual devotion, with what we would generally call intuition, with deep-down desires, and with any interior “movements,” including emotions. Yet his own experiences of spiritual awakening introduced him to a deeper awareness of the interior life with all of its facets and nuances. As a man’s man, he would have been taught to value reason and self-control and rational planning. Ignatius was an ex-soldier and by his own admission had always possessed a strong ego. When he was developing his Spiritual Exercises, he encouraged people to be open to their emotions and to learn how to attend to them and understand what they meant. ![]() Ignatius of Loyola was a pioneer of sorts in the area of spiritual direction. What do emotions have to do with spiritual freedom, or do they have anything to do with it? What does it mean to be spiritually free when life is an emotional roller coaster? Am I free when I’m able to tamp down any emotions that disrupt the flow of my work or relationships? Am I free when I have permission to express any and all emotion? Am I free if I don’t experience any emotion to an extreme degree but keep things more tempered and even? Am I free when I experience mostly the positive emotions such as bliss or peace rather than the negative ones such as anger or anxiety? ![]()
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