CLVIII – Soliloquy

You don’t have a soul, you are a soul. You have a body.

CS Lewis

Who is our internal monologue?

There are three voices as I understand it. Movements of the spirit, which are how we perceive our spiritual being. Movements of the mind, which are our thoughts and feelings. Movements of the Body, which are our needs and impulses.

I tend to think of movements of the mind as “me”. But perhaps that is not the case? Perhaps the mind is just closest to my ear and so speaks the loudest. Between mind and body there is a detachment which allows us to wrest control over our needs and impulses. My body can say “Feed me, I am hungry”, but the mind can instruct the body to keep the fast.

Spiritual movements have been the most challenging for me, personally. My mind is very loud; when I pray, I pray from my mind (which is me) to God. Sensing spiritual movements is like navigating a park while blind, mute, and deaf, by sensing only the motion of the wind. Naturally, such a person would stumble often, and the same is true for myself and my spiritual life. Spiritual movements are something my mind must sense, but cannot control.

What if there was a like detachment between Mind and Spirit? To the body, the movements of the mind must seem capricious and bewildering. The natural inclination for food is stymied by an arbitrary desire to fast–and why? This is beyond the understanding of the body. Likewise, the spiritual movements seem strange and foreign to the mind. But it is the spiritual movements which govern both mind and body. When I think, “I want to eat a snack”, and I deprive myself of that snack, it only grows me, spiritually, because it is a flexion of the spirit, as mediated through the mind. The spirit knows, absolutely, the difference between right and wrong; the mind knows it’s own experience and it’s own will, it’s own intellect, and can choose against the spirit–this is why we are capable of sin.

So if my internal monologue is my mind, I am my soul. I just keep the closest counsel with my mind.

AMDG

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Post Script:

I discussed this post with Hambone before publication. He suggests a useful clarification:

Hambone: I think you’re right but the term “inner monologue” breeds confusion. It’s kind of like the angel and demon on the shoulders. Your internal monologue can be an advocate for any of the three, I think.

Scoot: That’s a good point. Internal Monologue is me, but each of the three movements competes for attention.

CXLV – Plan of Life

A confessor I go to asks sometimes if I have a plan of life, before he assigns me my penance. I never really knew what this meant or how to approach it. As such the seeds of this article have been sitting in my “drafts” folder for nearly a year. It wasn’t until a couple weeks ago that my spiritual director offered me some concrete guidance on how to go about this. It’s less a “Plan of Life” more than some smaller plans that, added together, form an approach to life.

St. Josemaria Escriva wrote a booklet on this subject which is available for free download here. In it he describes certain important elements to a Plan of Life, and taken all together can be intimidating. The advice I received, and which I pass on to you, is to identify which areas of your life you wish to improve and break it into what I have called “Campaigns”. An example of a Campaign could be a temptation to Gluttony, so the Campaign is “Against Gluttony”. Identify the near occasions of that sin: Is it lunchtime? Is it in between meals? Temptation is rarely a surprise and when we think about it, we can usually identify the patterns in our life which lend themselves to sin. So on identifying some of those patterns, identify some resolutions to make for when you encounter them. In our example for one tempted to Gluttony, if a near occasion is the time between lunch and dinner, perhaps an effective resolution would be to pray the Anima Christi prayer, and resolve to keep the fast until the proper meal time. In doing so, a near occasion of sin has been identified, a resolution has been made, and a reflex can be trained for when those near occasions are encountered.

Such a plan can also be used to enhance positive traits, in addition to diminishing the negative ones. One example would be a Campaign to grow devotion to Mary through the Holy Rosary. Rather than near occasions to sin, one can identify occasions where one needs the intercession of Our Lady. In an example where someone is prone to despondency with regularity on Saturday Evenings, resolving to fill that time with devotion to Mary rather than wallowing in despondency can help bring spiritual fruit where before there was none. Again: A reflex can be trained such that when a particular circumstance occurs, devotion to Mary is the automatic response.

Campaigns can be as simple or elaborate as is helpful to you. For my own Campaigns, I have broken them into small sections and intend to tackle each piece individually over time, because I know when I tend to tackle things that are too big, I can get intimidated. Intentionally praying over the circumstances where I need spiritual help or growth helps me form a concrete plan so nothing takes me by surprise.

I hope this advice can be as helpful to you as it has been to me.

AMDG