10 Your Catholic Body and Crisis: Bodyset

Coronavirus Crisis: Carpe Diem

Title:  Your Catholic Body and this Crisis:  Bodyset

Episode 10:  April 20, 2020

Welcome to the podcast Coronavirus Crisis:  Carpe Diem.  Seize the day!  This twice-weekly podcast helps us rise up and embrace the possibilities and opportunities for spiritual and psychological growth in this time of crisis, all grounded in a Catholic worldview. I’m clinical psychologist Peter Malinoski with Souls and Hearts at soulsandhearts.com.  It is great to be here with you.  

This is Episode 10 and its April 20, 2020, entitled Your Catholic Body and this Crisis:  Bodyset.  Today we are focusing on the body.  Your Catholic body.  Does that sound weird to you?  That your body is Catholic?  I bet it does.  Why?  Is your body not Catholic?  We’re going to get ito all at that body stuff in today’s episode.

[cue music]

Review

We’re in the middle of a program about building resilience in this crisis, so that we are ready to take advantage of the opportunities God is giving us to grow, to grow spiritually of course, but also to grow psychologically, to grow in faith, but also to grow in our human formation, in the natural realms.  

Episode 4 – the Four Pillars of Resilience  Mindset, Heartset, Bodyset, Soulset.  That episode introduced the four major domains, the four major parts of us.  Mind, Heart, Body, Soul.  We need these four areas of our lives ordered so that we can be resilient and adapt well in a crisis.  If you’re new to the podcast, you can listen to each episode in its own, it can stand alone, but remember they all hang together into a program to strengthen your resilience to live out our duties of state, to live our your vocation.  So if you have the time and interest, it’s great to go back to episode 4 and work your way up to this one.  

In Episodes 5 and 6 we got into mindset.  Our mindset is the position of our intellect, and how we habitually apply reason to our situation, to our experiences.  

In Episode 7 we moved into heartset.  Our heartset consists of the dispositions or the orientation of our heart, the emotional and intuitive ways of our heart.  We discussed the huge mistake of neglecting our emotions, the costs of that neglect, and how to get in touch with our emotions again.  

In Episode 8 we had a brief detour and we discussed reconciling psychology and Catholicism, and I shared the story of how I got into the field of psychology.

In Episode 9 we got back into heartset, with another huge issue, the issue of being overwhelmed by emotion, and how to prevent that and with that we wrapped up our initial look at heartset.  

So now we’re continuing and we’re working with a new pillar – our bodies.   How do our bodies impact our capacity to cope in a crisis.  That’s the deep dive for us today.  So just a review from Episode 4 – what is bodyset again, Dr. Peter?  Glad you asked.  

Bodyset is how our body affects us, how our physical reactions impact us and our dispositions and inclinations.  We are embodied beings, composites of body and soul.  Our physical bodies have a huge impact on us.   The state of our body, our relationship with our body, that’s bodyset.  

Here is the main message:  We need to listen to our bodies and respond in love to them.  What does that mean, Dr. Peter?  We need to listen to our bodies?  Aren’t we supposed to subjugate our bodies?  Aren’t we supposed to control them, keep them from leading us into sin?  

Are not our bodies the “flesh” that St. Paul condemns so often in his letters?

And this business of loving our bodies?  What does that mean?  Sounds fishy.  Sounds dangerous.  

So let me back up a bit and tell you how I as a psychologist got interested in the body.

Episode 8 – told you a bit of my story.  Pretty unimpressed with the clinical training I was getting, really uncertain about how to ground psychotherapy in a Catholic worldview.  And that was so central to me.  I never wanted to lead anyone astray morally or spiritually Program not helpful at all.  I also was far from convinced that psychotherapy was really effective.  So I clinically I got into health and rehabilitation psychology  -- I could see the benefit in that.  Pain control, helping people stop smoking, weight loss stuff. Helping people sleep better, helping people recover and cope with traumatic bodily injuries.  But it was all about symptom management and habit control.  

And I was interested in the meaning of the bodily symptoms and the body habits that troubled people.  Nailbiting  Symbolic meaning.  Anger.  8 months.  

Here is the main message:  We need to listen to our bodies and respond in love to them.  Why.  Because our bodies are us.  My body is a part of me.  

Because we tend to be down on the body.  Lots of people hate their bodies.  Body getting a bad rap – the flesh.  Jansenism, Manicheanism  The good part is the soul (which is composed of light) and the bad part is the body (composed of dark earth).  JPII Theology of the Body

There are many references to “the flesh” in the New Testament, especially in the letters of St. Paul. The phrase is confusing to those who think it synonymous with the physical body. While Scripture many times uses the word “flesh” to refer to the physical body, when it is preceded by the definite article, it usually means something more. Only rarely does the biblical phrase “the flesh” refer only to the physical body (e.g., John 6:53, Phil 3:2, 1 John 4:2).

From Mgsr. Charles Pope:  What, then, is meant by the term “the flesh”? Most plainly, it refers to the part of us that is alienated from God. It is the rebellious, unruly, and obstinate part of our inner self that is always operative. It is the part of us that does not want to be told what to do. It is stubborn, refuses correction, and does not want to have anything to do with God. It bristles at limits and rules. It recoils at anything that might cause one to be diminished or something less than the center of the universe. The flesh hates to be under authority or to yield to anything other than its own wishes and desires. It often wants something simply because it is forbidden.

OK Dr. Peter, so I have the distinction between the flesh and the body.  St. Paul was not condemning our physical bodies when he discusses the flesh.  We need to listen to our bodies?  

And this business of loving our bodies?  What does that mean?  Sounds fishy.  Sounds dangerous. 

Recognize what my body is saying.  

Poker Tells (my knee, jaw clench, high neck pain, low back pain)  GI problems, headache, yoke pattern on neck and shoulders.  Symbolism.  Psychodynamic work.  

Caring for your body.  Neglecting it.  Not showering, fuzzy bunny slippers, shaving. Personal hygiene.  Being good to the body. 

Somatic therapy— Diane from Maryland who emailed me.  Internal Family Systems, EMDR

Exercise to listen in:  

If that body part could speak, what would it tell you.  What does it want you to know.