Esalen versus Catholicism

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Juansavage

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Hello.

My girlfriend is spiritual not religious. She left her son 20 years ago in another country because of intolerable circumstances. She’s felt very guilty about it since then. She went to some new agey thing in Big Sur, California called Esalen which she says helped her with the guilt. Of course, I want her to try the Catholic way of dealing with guilt, but don’t want to argue with her experience.

If you’re familiar with Esalen, what do you think about it? What would be the Catholic way to deal with guilt?
 
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Guilt is a good thing, guilt tells you that you have a conscience. As for the other thing, never heard of it.
 
Esalen was famous in the 60s and early 70s as being the place where people like Timothy Leary (the LSD proponent) and Richard Alpert (the guy who wrote “Be Here Now”) hung out. It was where all the hippie “philosophers” and such went. I hear it has some nice hot springs to lounge in. Other than that, I wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole because I’m not into old hippie stuff other than the music and maybe some of the artwork and clothes.

I personally find guilt to be an unproductive emotion and instead of feeling it, I try to address what I can and anything else just put in God’s hands. Like the Serenity Prayer, “God grant me the serenity to accept what I cannot change, to change what I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” If your girlfriend feels guilty about what happened with her son, then she can go back and try to make a relationship with her son now, and if that’s not possible or doesn’t address anything, she has to work on acceptance. You don’t need Esalen for that.

If she went to Esalen and got rid of some guilt, then the question is whether she is planning to continue doing new age stuff or was this just a one-off. I don’t doubt that there may also be some positive thinking or behavioral modification techniques taught at such institutes that are helpful to everybody and can be done without religious overtones.
 
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Thanks. I think I will tell her this:
  1. Guilt requires recognition and an attempt at forgiveness.
  2. Since that isn’t possible right now, she should ask God for guidance/forgiveness and hope for proper forgiveness.
  3. Consequently, she shouldn’t beat herself up.
 
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