“{Thinking} may be a fine and noble aid in academic studies, but you can’t think your way out of emotional difficulties. That takes something altogether different. You have to make yourself passive then, and just listen. Re-establish contact with a slice of eternity.”
—Etty Hillesum in An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1942-1943 and Letters from Westerbork (Picador, 1996).
Etty Hillesum gives us her formula for finding her way through difficult situations. Those who make decisions using their thinking (T) function, deciding what is reasonable, will probably disagree. Those who make decisions using their feeling (F) function, taking into consideration the importance of relationships, will likely agree with Hillesum. Both may agree that pausing, waiting, listening, will give us the answer rather than forging ahead.
Looking deeper, beyond personality types, takes us to another level. I think she is trying to tell us to let the “committee in our head” rest by whatever means we find effective: reading, meditation, music, walking, praying, writing, just being. She is telling us to connect to the God within us however we can. We are to try to find an answer from something greater than ourselves. We do not know the exact answer we will get. We will recognize it, though, because we know it will have something to do with love.
Joanna joannaseibert.com