Table of Contents
To Temper the Passion and Master the Spirit
Temperance is simply a disposition of the mind which binds the passion.
Saint Thomas AquinasWe can’t have full knowledge all at once. We must start by believing; then afterwards we may be led on to master the evidence for ourselves.
To temper your passions
is to master the spirit within.
Look and see that which binds
and there your attention will find
a loving guide, full and wise,
who opens your dreams therein.
The Virtue of Temperance
What is temperance? Temperance is moderation in thought, actions, or feelings. People commonly use temperance to control problematic behaviors, including appetite, indulgences, and passions (“Temperance Definition & Meaning”). Being a virtue of constraint, temperance represents a foundational source from which the psyche (the soul) can develop within the delicate balance needed for body, mind, and spiritual well-being.
Temperance is a core Christian value. Yet, the need for restraint is not just a Christian virtue, as the Spirit itself must be grounded by the heaviness of the soul, which will answer to the earthly passions that were pursued during the lifetime, for better or worse. Temperance is a human virtue, yet it has a transcendent flair that I cannot help but fathom what heights it can take, especially as one learns the self-discipline needed to foster emotional, spiritual, and physical health.
Let us examine the virtue of temperance from a biblical perspective.
16 I say, then: live by the Spirit and you will certainly not gratify the desire of the flesh. 17 For the flesh has desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you may not do what you want. 18 But if you are guided by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are obvious: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, 21 occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 In contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. 24 Now those who belong to Christ [Jesus] have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit. 26 Let us not be conceited, provoking one another, envious of one another.(Galatians 5: 16-26)
Is God Dead?
There is a present-day fervor that mirrors what I can only explain as Spirit. Yet, its prevalence seems non-virtuous and linked to a material essence instead of an ethereal possibility. Has materialism created a sense of immorality? Is hatred, jealousy, rivalry, and acts of self-indulgence overtaking a more directive approach towards mutually beneficial aims? While elements such as these unwanted psychological states may be prevalent, we can create boundaries to ward against those actions that dictate destructive ends.
Being a philosopher and psychotherapist, I have noticed an uncanny coincidence in what the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche drew attention to only two centuries earlier in his infamous exploration of the death of God. Since Nietzsche’s publication of The Gay Science, I cannot help but notice the steep decline in the spiritual and mental health of our communities.
We have all been subject to social and scientific experiments with little grounding other than offering already present possibilities ingrained within the human mind. Yet, I wonder, if human beings killed the idea and ideals of God, did we leave any room for hope or faith whatsoever in anything other than what Freud called the feeble mentality of humankind? Let us examine.
God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?
— Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Section 125, tr. Walter Kaufmann
Psychology, the Psychoanalysts and using Temperance to Elicit Psychospiritual Development
Historically, the field of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud and his predecessors Carl Jung (founder of analytical psychology), Alfred Adler, and many other forebears of modern psychology emerged from this new era of thinking. Yet, did they replace the role of the priest through a methodological approach of using a talking cure?
By going into the depths of the unconscious, I wonder if the modern practitioners of psychology, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis replaced such ideals and virtues of God like temperance, courage, honesty, and many others, during their dissection of Christian, Pagan, and even Eastern notions of deity-based moral principles by grounding it into the maze of the human mind?
Remember, even Minos had to ground the monstrous Minotaur, that half man and half bull-headed beast that feasted upon human flesh, into the labyrinth of an inescapable maze. Yet, it was also during the early years of psychoanalysis that the psyche received a literal facelift. Instead of being used as a noun to explain the soul or breath, it became locked in the all-powerful human brain, that Oz of a labyrinth that most in our modern understanding of the concept associate as an organ to be medically treated.
Can you treat a soul? Can you treat a brain? Yes, you can. Yet, as a treatment provider, I understand its treatment to be multimodal and not solely biochemically based. Nor can the treatment method employ a purely pick yourself up by the bootstraps ideal and tell your story from the perspective of couch therapy or a confessional. It represents a delicate, perspective-based treatment approach that allows integration (of one’s past), the practice of action through temperance (to assume ownership of one’s present moment), and the ability to take control and create the means from which Spirit can bring one to those lofty goals that make the means from which a more realized state of development (Spirit) can arise.
I don’t know of any other way than through Spirit, let us call it hope in this instance, to create this multimodal form of potential to arise from within. Let us break this down from an intervention-based perspective
Mental Health, Temperance, and a Lack of Spirit
A lack of Spirit is an undercurrent present in many major mental disorders. Have you ever seen the lack of motivation present in someone suffering from depression, anxiety, or even a detachment from reality? It is there in the absent look they may give you, the lack of energy in their speech, or even the lack of a life force seen in their body.
In these cases, a person begins to lose orientation. Past wrongs (self or environmentally inflicted) may affect their current moment, robbing them of a future they wish to attain or fear may never come. Yes, physiological processes occur as well. Even though Mind and Matter are both physical and spiritual realities and find themselves housed in the emotional and physiological realities that occur within the person, each process occurs within the person, even though external causes may provoke recurrent memories, dwelling, or future fears associated with many mental health syndromes.
Our brain is highly adaptable. It can and does attack us at a spiritual level of hope and wellbeing. We can see this in addiction and symptoms common to mental health and spiritual apathy. However, the brain is a beautifully adaptable organ that can think itself out of the most complex problems imaginable. It thrives on doing so, creating ways to work itself out of a problem, if only it undertakes a perspective taught to us as children in a moral fable entitled The Tortoise and the Hare.
“The race is not always to the swift.”
Aesop
An Psychospiritual Intervention Perspective
How do we become more temperate? This question is wonderfully complex and will take a lifetime to grasp. That could be the beauty of the virtue. It is not a point of destination to arrive at, as much as it is a practice to master. But with time, your patience will increase through training, and when present, as the priest and philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin once wrote,
“Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”
― Pierre Teilhard De Chardin
Let us rediscover some fire and turn our attention to a simple exercise that will help you let go of past circumstances and future fears that can rob you of your present moment. To Let Go and Let God, you will learn to be present and see the flowers in the meadow you may have missed before because of your internal preoccupations. Second, let us define a course to which we want to make sail, for a present moment without a future destination is a lost journey; yet, we can find ourselves even when we may have once felt lost even to ourselves.
Disclaimer
The following exercise can tap into highly conflictual emotional material. While you can work this intervention independently, you may need the direction of a counselor, psychotherapist, or psychologist. At a minimum, consult a trusted family member, friend, or confidant to have as a safety net if emotional conflicts arise. There are also many warm lines you can call if you need immediate help, such as
- 988 – National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline
- 911 – For immediate emergency.
- Or report to your local ER for an evaluation.
- Let Go and Let God: The focus may be on the past or even present fears that arise in reaction to past failures or future anxiety. Let these go.
- Take a moral inventory of past wrongdoings you have taken part in and those done to you. The list does not have to be final. The critical factor of this exercise is to make it an examination of conscience. Even if it is not complete, the good thing is you can return to this anytime.
- If it is difficult, try to find one factor you are attempting to let go of. With practice, this exercise will become easier.
- Please write it down and expand upon it in any way possible. You are bringing it out of your mind and writing it onto the paper.
- Now, read the paper and realize that this exercise gives it a space that is separate from you.
- When you have read it, say a prayer. Let it go. You may even want to burn it while watching the smoke rise. You have now created a removal from three perspectives: cognitive, emotional, and physical (sensory-based). You have thought this process out, written it down, emoted to the storyline and watched it dissipate into the air. The story is now gone.
- Write out your future destination.
- Again, this can be as long or as short as you want. Writing out your future dreams is your exercise. The important part is to write it down and practice it.
- Fears will arise. These fears are usual. It links to self-esteem. Yet, in overcoming these fears, we create how temperance emerges. Temper your worries, and the virtue becomes self-promoting, as you now have more time to turn your passions into reality.
- To be temperate, we learn to moderate our thought, actions, or feelings. The orientation of the future will bring these to the forefront.
- Learning to create one destination and break it down in steps will help you expand upon temperance and learn the subtle art of FOCUS (Follow One Course Until Successful).
- Break down a larger goal into manageable daily tasks (yes, you CAN do it), you will begin to build individual layers of success, creating the means for self-esteem and self-efficacy to emerge.
To Be Temperate is to Find Self-Mastery
The more I practice psychology, the more I see its reliance on the simple yet interactive experience one undertakes between body, mind, and spiritual well-being. A person cannot deny one element without that essence returning to the forefront of being as an unwanted symptom, syndrome, disorder, or way of existence.
We should learn our emotions. E-motion (Energy in Motion) is how we can steer our vessel to the port of call we wish to see during this journey called life. Every one of us is a voyager engaged in the most extraordinary journey. Yet, at times, we get stuck on discovering the “winds, the waves, the tides and gravity” at the expense of missing that moment which is now.
What can you do to seize your day? I hope this exploration of temperance will help you free up a little time to grasp one element of the dream reveries that drive you. The exploration of temperance as a theme and ways to harness its virtuous effects is not a finished product; this virtue, like any element of personality, is an attribute to master through practice and practice only. Yet, as I write that sentence, I know mastery is only an externally viewed perspective.
I cannot help but think about whether one can ever master anything. When that occurs, there is perfection, yet what does this leave the awaiting voyager to experience? How would life be without the Spirit of vitalities newness creates for the awaiting vessel of our developing essence?
Practice makes perfect. Slow and steady wins the race. Just direct its course. With love my friends. May blessings find you on your journey to envision, chart a course, and advance confidently in the direction of your dreams.
References
“Galatians 5 NABRE – V. Exhortation to Christian Living.” Bible Gateway, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians%205&version=NABRE. Accessed 24 February 2024.
“Temperance Definition & Meaning.” Merriam-Webster, 19 January 2024, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/temperance. Accessed 24 February 2024.
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