Your Emotions Are Not the Enemy: A Catholic Christian Vision of Living Out Emotions

Most of us were taught, somewhere along the way, that our feelings are the problem. That holiness means rising above them, that maturity means controlling them, that a good day is one without anger or fear or sorrow. This course says something different, and it has the Catholic tradition behind it: the capacity to feel is good, given by God, and your emotions can actually grow.

Drawing on a panel conversation with Divine Mercy University faculty (Lisa Klewicki, William Nordling, and Craig Steven Titus) and on the Catholic Christian Meta-Model of the Person, the lesson shows how emotions put us in contact with reality, shape how we think and choose and relate, and can be formed over time toward virtue. You will come away with a clearer answer to the question many of your clients, and you yourself, quietly carry: Is something wrong with me for feeling this way?

The answer is no. The real work is learning how to live it out.