List-making for Discernment

Assurance.  Peace.  Core intuition.

What do you call it?

I was talking with a friend of mine today on the feeling that comes after a time of discernment.  You make a decision, sit with it for a while, and when it is right, you feel <insert your name for it here>.

For me, I am a very Myers-Briggs "J" type who loves list-making.  In decision-making, pro/con lists are my best friend.  Yet, oftentimes pro/con lists can be deceiving.  They can be solely in your head and weighed too heavily on your logic and practical concerns.  My friend told me today that this list-making is actually a historically Jesuit practice.  But they would surround the pro/con lists with prayer, group discernment, and spiritual direction.  It made me happy to hear him affirm my list habits - sometimes they feel a bit compulsive - but I am still working on how to make them less linear of a process.

I have been in a spiritual direction group for the last 3 semesters.  A what group, you ask?  Well, we are a group of about 6-8 women, depending on the week, and we meet together for a time of prayerful openness and conversation about how we are finding the Holy Spirit in our lives.  Sometimes this discussion is spurred by a particular need of a woman in the group, but at other times, our director asks us questions about the state of our soul.  How is it with your soul today?  Where have you found the Holy Spirit at work in your life?  Where have you seen Christ?

I have shared with this group that it is really easy for me to enter into my "head space" and grab an answer to the question.  Yet, we all have committed to try and dig deeper than that - to bring more than that to ourselves and to the group.  So, over the course of time with this group, and with my amazing and patient spiritual director, I am learning to slow my mind down to a somewhat meditative and contemplative state that allows me to listen for the Spirit's voice inside me.  It allows me to still my soul enough to be able to discover what is within me, which then allows me to be better trained at accessing it and finding it in my daily life.

So, today, when I was affirmed in my "head space" process, I got excited.  Oh yay, I can just go back to my lists and pray afterwards.  Wait, that's not it....  In fact, I am re-recognizing that this form of linear thinking is not to be abandoned when we are seeking to discern an answer to something.  It is simply something that must be accompanied by a more robust spiritual undertaking involving prayer, approaching a time of reflection through stillness or meditation, and a consistent attention to where the Holy Spirit is moving within you.

For me, this type of stillness and prayerful discernment best happens in three ways:
1) Writing - it is quiet, yet it allows my mind to be emptied.  Sometimes what comes out is actually quite valuable in the discernment process.

2) Talking - sometimes this might be to my spiritual direction group, to my husband, to God, or to myself.  It also accomplishes a bit of emptying and lets me be open to discovering the Holy Spirit.

3) Meditation through breathing and/or contemplative prayer - I learned a bit of this in a class my first semester and have continued to discuss it with my counselor over the last year.  It is hard to find time to just sit and do nothing.  I find this a good exercise to do outdoors, in our chapel, and occasionally at home on the living room floor.  Sometimes, I repeat a phrase over and over, whether it be a bible verse, a song lyric, or a prayer.

For the next 30 days, I have entered into a covenant with a friend to discern a decision that needs to be made.  I feel like this is a great time to test out how I can do without my spiritual direction group.  Granted, many of those women are my good friends and live in my building, but I am speaking from the perspective of not having a routinely structured time of quietness and direction.  I am certainly going to try my three methods listed above and I might also try additional disciplines as I go.  Any suggestions from any readers out there?  And what do you call it when you feel the centeredness in your core being when you have discovered where the Holy Spirit is present or may be leading you?