Interior Integration for Catholics

In Episode 104, in a experiential exercise, a guided reflection, Dr. Peter guides you in helping your parts who struggle with anger and also parts who work protect you against your anger. Come join us on an adventure inside, where we work to overcome the human formation obstacles to our interior integration. At the end, audience participants share their experiences with Dr. Peter and he answers questions.

In this episode, Dr. Peter reviews the limitations of current Catholic resources on anger, and then reviews secular resources, including interpersonal neurobiology and the structural theory of dissociation.  We examine the role of the body in anger responses, and discuss more wholistic ways of working constructive with parts that experience anger, rather than trying to dismiss anger, suppress it or distract from it.  The entire transcript is available at https://www.soulsandhearts.com/iic.

In Episode 102, Dr. Peter guides a live audience to helping their parts get the love they need in an experiential exercise, especially the parts that may have been unnoticed or even neglected. Come join us on an adventure inside, where we work to overcome the human formation obstacles to embracing God's love for us. At the end, audience participants share their experiences with Dr. Peter and he answers questions.

Summary:  In this episode, Dr. Peter brings together what we have been learning about receiving love in the story of SusannaLead-in:  There is something in us, as storytellers and as listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive act, that demands that what falls at least be offered the chance to be restored. The reader of today looks for this motion, and rightly so, but what he has forgotten is the cost of it. His sense of evil is diluted or lacking altogether, and so he has forgotten the price of restoration. When he reads a novel, he wants either his sense tormented or his spirits raised. He wants to be transported, instantly, either to mock damnation or a mock innocence.”  Catholic Novelist Flannery O'ConnorIntro.  I have been doing a lot of podcast lecturing.  Dense programming, lots of information.  Like Episode 99.  Not a bad thing.  But I want you to really take in what I'm offering at a bones level.  To possess it at the felt level, to be that familiar with it.  Not just head knowledge.  Whole self knowledge.  So I am going back to another way of learning, one I haven't emphasized enough.  Stories.  Today, I am going to tell you a story.  A story about receiving different kinds of love.  Why?Here's why.  In the words of Edward Miller tells us.  “Stories are our primary tools of learning and teaching, the repositories of our lore and legends. They bring order into our confusing world." Our primary tools for teaching and learning.  And it's true.  We teach our children in their earliest years through stories and experiences.  Not through lectures.  I am Peter Malinoski, clinical psychologist, passionate Catholic, co-founder and president of Souls and Hearts and soulsandhearts.com, and I am very pleased to with you as  your host and guide in this Interior Integration for Catholics podcast, episode 101 to be your storyteller, to tell you a story.  This episode is titled A Story about Receiving Different Kinds of Love -- a story we can all related to.  Prepping for the Story Ways to Listen Listen to the Story Listening to yourself as you listen to the Story.  What is going on insideListen to your own parts Can pause the audio Reflective space What are your noticing What are you resonating with in the story, what is impacting you.? What are you rejecting Parts -- Episode 71 A new and better way of understanding myself and others.  Needs Primary Conditions for Secure Attachment Felt sense of safety and protection -- have to go through the valley of shame, fear, anger, grief Feeling seen, heard, known and understood -- have to tolerating being in relationship, being present.  Feeling comforted, soothed and reassured Feeling cherished, treasured, delighted in Feeling the other has your best interests at heart Integrity Needs My need to exist and survive My need to matter My need to have agency My need to be good My need for mission and purpose in life Resistance to Being Loved from IIC 99 Limited vision and lack of imagination, leading to a refusal to be transformed by GodWe don't understand God's loveThe Costs of Being Loved by GodPoor God imagesPoor Self images -- ShameRefusal to be vulnerable, to be exposed, to be revealed to God. Lack of courage.Anger at God -- rebellionCautions -- could be evocative for you -- parts of you may really connect in various ways.  I want you to take care of your self and your parts as you listen to the story.  If you need a break, take a break.  The Story -- Hero's Journey outline The Ordinary World Susanna -- 40 year old married mother of three -- Brown hair, warm brown eyes, and easy smile, she laughs at your jokes -- the kind of person that you immediately felt comfortable with.  Open and engaging with other people, was well read, and could talk about your interests.  Socially adept, she coordinated making meals for local women who had babies.  Had a sense that she had suffered in her life and understood something about suffering.  And that was trueLife wasn't always easy for Susanna Grew up in Culpeper, VA, 75 miles west of Washington DC, oldest of four children, all girls.  Named Susan.  Mother -- quiet, introverted - an interior designer turned homemaker.  Father -- extroverted, warm, gregarious high school teacher - taught algebra, geometry and trigonometry at Culpeper County High School  -- great sense of humor, gratifying, and a pretty easy grader, students loved him and he really liked being a popular teacher.  Strong sense that father had favorites among the daughters, and she wasn't one of them  When Susan was age 16, her mother divorced her father -- his affairs, excessive drinking Mother devastated.  Really wanted her daughter to understand.  Susanna was cold.  Read the divorce decree "Irreconcilable differences"  And she was so angry At an emotional level, Susan repudiated both Mom and Dad.  Not understanding, not wanting to understand.  Decided to go by "Susanna" -- three reasons Devoted to the Chronicles of Narnia -- The last book of the series, The Last Battle.  Aslan says "Susan is no longer a friend of Narnia."  Given to nylons, lipstick, and party invitations -- she didn't seem serious  any more.  Susan was her given name -- she wanted different name, but not too different In the Bible, in Daniel chapter 13, Susanna was the beautiful, faithful wife of Joakim.  She refused to be blackmailed into adultery by two respectable men of high stature in the community, two judges, who just happened to have also be voyeurs, peeping-Toms.  Susanna preferred death by denunciation rather than compromise her moral principles, and was saved by a young boy, Daniel, whose clever cross-examination of the accusers revealed them to be liars.  Susanna was a real heroine in her eyes, someone to be emulated.  Shuttling back and forth between parents, who were drifting from the Faith. Mom pursued an annulment got it, and remarried the summer after Susanna's graduation from high school.  Susanna refused to be in the bridal party, refused to go to the wedding. Like many teenagers in this position, Susan rebelled.  But not by using alcohol, drugs or sex.  Susan rebelled by becoming more Catholic -- Went to Christendom college, it was close, it w...

In our 100th episode, we celebrate by going inside in an experiential exercise. Recorded before a live audience, Dr. Peter guides you through an experiential exercise to help you connect with parts of you that resist God's love. We create a space where you can much more deeply understand the negative, distorted God images that some of your parts may have -- mistaken ways they see God, and how those misunderstandings came about. With gentleness, kindness, and love for your parts, your parts might be ready for your innermost self to be a bridge between them and God and Mother Mary. Come join us on an adventure inside, where we work to overcome the human formation obstacles to embracing God's love for us. At the end, audience participants share their experiences with Dr. Peter and he answers questions.

IIC 99 Why We Catholics Reject God's Love for Us and How to Embrace that LoveIt is so common for Catholics (and others) to reject the love of God, to not let that love in.  Join Dr. Peter for this episode where we explore in depth the eight natural, human formation reasons why we refuse God's love. We also look at what Hell really is and why it really exists.  Through examples, quotes, and an exploration of Dr. Peter's own parts, listen to how this critical, central topic comes alive.  And then Dr. Peter presents the an action plan for accepting and embracing God's love. Transcript "It's very hard for most of us to tolerate being loved." That's psychiatrist and Harvard professor George Vaillant. The hardest thing about love for many of us Catholics, is to be loved--to tolerate being loved first. We can't love unless we take love in first. We can't generate love out of nothing on our own. We just don't have that power.And the truth is, many Catholics make sacrifices great and small in their attempts to love others. Many Catholics go to great lengths to try to please God and to love their neighbor--very busy people, most parishes have a few of these always--volunteering, always working, always making things happen, St. Vincent de Paul, soup kitchens, corporal works of mercy, working so hard to live out the Gospel as they understand it, but it's all external. They are very out of touch with their internal lives. Their prayer lives are shallow and sketchy, and they're often really uncomfortable in their own skin. They will not tolerate silence, which is why they're always on the move--why they're always going, going, going.The vast majority of us Catholics will not tolerate being loved deeply or fully by God. We shy away from receiving that love. We get so uncomfortable, we skirt around the edges of being loved. Or we allow love into us, but only so far--only so far. We set limits, we set boundaries, we won't let God's love permeate all of our being. We let the "acceptable parts" of us to be loved. Those parts that we allow in the shop window, those parts that we believe others will accept, those parts that we believe God likes. But to allow God to love all of you, including your nasty parts, your shameful parts, your disgusting parts, your hidden lepers, your sinful parts, those tax collector parts, those inner prostitutes and blasphemers, your Pharisee parts, the parts of you that are so lost and so isolated and so angry and hateful, those parts? Most of us will say "no way, no way does anyone get to see those parts if I can help it, let alone love those parts. Love those parts? That's crazy." How about your terrified parts, your desperate parts, your wounded, traumatized parts? The ones that no one seems to want? The parts of you that have been rejected by everybody, including yourself.This podcast is for us Catholics who understand at least intellectually, that we have those parts. And that those parts need to be loved, and that those parts also need to be redeemed. Now for anyone out there who is saying, "Well, I don't think I have any parts like that, Dr. Peter, I don't have any problems being loved." Well, my response to that is one of two possibilities. Either you are 1) a very special person who has been freed from our fallen human condition, and you've achieved an extraordinary degree of perfection in the natural and spiritual realms, and if so, congratulations. You don't need this podcast. You don't need this episode. You are so far above the rest of us--I'm in awe of you. You don't need what I have to offer. That's the first possibility.Second possibility? You don't know yourself very well. You are out of touch with yourself and your parts--you are disconnected inside. Unless you've reached a fair degree of sanctity, it is especially hard for you to tolerate being loved by God and our refusal to accept the love of God throughout all of us. That's the primary reason we don't love God back. That's also the primary reason we don't love our neighbor, and why we don't love ourselves. We won't be loved first.God loved us first. It all starts with God's love, not our love. Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow in his book, 'Shaken' says, "We were created by love, in love and for love." And St. Paul, he tells us in Romans 5:8, "God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." God loved us first.And the world does not know God. Christianity is the way to discover who God actually is--to discover who love actually is. 1 John 3:1, "See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him." What I want you to remember, St. John in his first letter says, "We love because he first loved us." We love because God first loved us, and it's up to us to take that love in, to let that love come into every corner of our being. And that doesn't sound easy, and it's not as easy as it sounds.I am Dr. Peter Malinoski, a.k.a. Dr. Peter, clinical psychologist, trauma therapist, podcaster, blogger, cofounder and president of Souls and Hearts--but most of all, I am a beloved little son of God, a passionate Catholic who wants to help you experience the height and depth and breadth and warmth and the light of the love of God, especially God, the Father and our primary mother, Mary. What I want for you more than anything else is that you enter into a deep, intimate, personal, loving relationship with the three persons of the Trinity and with our Lady. This is what this Interior Integration for Catholics podcast is all about. This is what Souls and Hearts is all about--all about shoring up the natural foundation for the spiritual life of intimacy with God, all about overcoming the natural human formation, deficits and obstacles to contemplative union with God our Father, and with our Lady, our Mother.We are on an adventure of love together. Episode 94 of this podcast focused on the primacy of love in the Catholic life. Episode 95 focused on trauma's devastating impact on our capacity to love. Episode 96 discussed how trauma hardens us against being loved. Episode 97 discussed how trauma predisposes us to self-hatred and indifference to ourselves, a refusal to love ourselves. And Episode 98. the last episode was all about ordered self-love, how we need to love ourselves in an ordered way in order to love God and neighbor, to carry out the two great commandments.Today, we are going to take a step back. We're going to look at the most critical prerequisite for loving God and others. We are going to discuss being loved first, accepting the love of God first before we try to love. This is absolutely essential. The most critical mistake that most Catholics make is to refuse the love of God. Let me say that again. The most critical mistake, the most devastating, catastrophic mistake that most Catholics make is to refuse to allow God's love to transform us entirely, to make us into new men and women.Let's start out with the order of love. First thing--God leads with love. God makes the first move. He created us, he moves toward us. We who he created, we who have fallen from grace because of original sin. We don't make the first move. God does. He loved us first, and he continues to love us first, and our whole mission, our whole purpose is to respond to his love in love.I want to read to you a brief passage from Shawn Mitchell. He wrote an article called 'We Love Because He First Loved Us', and he is with Those Catholic Men. You can find this online. Shawn Mitchell says, "We love because he first loved us. These words from the first letter of John beautifully and s...

Confusion and controversy abound in the Catholic Church about self-love.  Learn four ways to understand self-love, why we avoid self-love, the six reasons it is important to cultivate proper self-love, what is appropriate self-sacrifice, and receive two practical spiritual means for growing in proper self-love:  The Litany of Self-Love and also an entirely new way of examining your conscience.IIC 98 Self Love -- What Catholics Need to KnowToday we are talking about self-love: the love of self. There is so much controversy, so much confusion about self-love among Catholics. Is self-love good and holy, or is self-love bad and dangerous? Is self-love necessary for loving others? Is self-love unavoidable? The answers from Catholic writers and thinkers and saints are all over the board with regard to self-love, with so many apparent contradictions that it can make your head spin. And the positions from different reputable Christian sources are extreme; their positions seem irreconcilable.Here is just a sampling: St. Augustine said, "there can be only two basic loves...the love of God unto the forgetfulness of self or the love of self unto the forgetfulness and denial of God." St. Maximus the Confessor, "Flee from self-love, the mother of malice..." Thomas A Kempis, in the 'Imitation of Christ', "Know that self-love does you more harm than anything else in the world." Father Jean Nicholas Grou, Jesuit priest, "Self-love is the one source of all the illusions of the spiritual life. By its means, the devil exercises his deceits, leads souls astray, drags them sometimes to hell by the very road that seems to lead them to heaven." St. Thomas Aquinas says, "Inordinate self-love is the cause of every sin". And here's from Pope Francis from December 9th, 2015, "The movements of self-love, which make mercy foreign in the world, are so numerous that we often fail to recognize them as limitations and as sin." 'The Catechism of the Catholic Church', paragraph 1850, "...sin is thus 'love of oneself, even to contempt of God'". And St. Paul in 2 Timothy 3:1-5, said this, "But understand this that in the last days there will come times of stress. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, fierce, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding the form of religion but denying the power of it. Avoid such people."Lovers of self. Now we also hear from St Thomas Aquinas that, "Self-love is in one way common to all, in another way proper to good men, in another, proper to evil men." Father, Jacques Philippe, in his book 'Called To Life', with his pastoral approach, says, "Love of God, love of neighbor and love of self grow together and sustain one another as they grow. If one is absent or neglected, the others will suffer. Like the legs of a tripod, all three are needed in order to stand, and each leans on the other." He also says, "Love travels along two paths that are inseparable in the end: love of God and love of neighbor. But as this text suggests, there is another aspect of charity--love of one's self. ("You shall love your neighbor as yourself"). This self-love is good and necessary. Not egoism that refers everything to "me", but the grace to live in peace with oneself, consent to be what one is, with one's talents and limitations." And the Bishop of Sioux Falls, Donald Edward DeGrood, said this, "We are called to love ourselves as God made us and loves us. It is sometimes difficult to know our inherent dignity, to receive God's love and live out of the truth of who we are. And just as God loves us and indeed rejoices and delights in us, so too are we call to rejoice and delight in who we are and who others are." And Catholic moral theologian, Michel Therrien, in a December 3, 2020 article in Denver Catholic said, "...the proper love of self is the foundation for knowing how to treat others."Alright, so you might be asking me, "Dr. Peter, Which is it? Are we supposed to be loving ourselves or not loving ourselves?" Laura, an Australian Catholic writer, in her blogpost, 'Self-Love for Catholics: What is the Catholic teaching on loving yourself' says this, "Depending on who you ask, the idea of self-love can get some very different reactions. Even the Bible seems a little confused. On the one hand, Jesus calls us to love our neighbors as ourselves. On the other hand, St. Paul condemns those who are 'lovers of self'. I won't like to bag out the Bible but mixed messages much? There is no section in the catechism on self-love. There is no treatise entitled 'Loving Thyself' by St. Bernard or 'The Internal Positive Dialogues" of St. Catherine of Siena. There definitely aren't any ancient meditations on "How Awesome a Monk Am I Today!", or "Eighty Affirmations for the Doubting Deacon" from the Patristic Era. And if I'm honest, this is super frustrating. Maybe you found the same?"Well, Laura, thank you for bringing this up. I find this whole body of Catholic literature on self-love both fascinating and frustrating at the same time and also so very important. We really need to sort this out because the stakes are so high. So rather than curse the darkness, here is my attempt to light a candle for you, to illuminate the best that I've found on this essential theme: Self-Love.I am Dr. Peter Malinoski, clinical psychologist, passionate Catholic. And this is Interior Integration for Catholics. The Interior Integration for Catholics Podcast is all about bringing you the best of psychology and human formation and harmonizing it with the perennial truths of our Catholic faith. Each month we take the most important human formation issues head on. We don't shy away from the tough topics, and today we have a tough topic. How do we rightly understand self-love? What is self-love and how should we as Catholics understand it, given this whirlwind of confusion and controversy that has stretched back for centuries? This is episode 98, titled 'Self-Love--What Catholics Need to Know', and it's released on October 3, 2022.We have been working through a series on trauma and wellbeing--we started that with episode 88. In the last episode, episode 97 titled: 'Unlove of Self: How Trauma Predisposes You to Self-Hatred and Indifference', we looked at the impact of trauma and how it contributes to us not loving ourselves.Today, we're switching gears. We're looking at what it means to be in an ordered relationship with ourselves. Is self-love a part of right relating with ourselves? We are going to bring so much clarity to this topic today.It is so good to be with you, thank you for listening in, thank you for being together with me once again. I'm glad you're here and I'm glad that together we're exploring what self-love really means.Now, I want to do a little introduction here to this topic. About 20 years ago, a theologian friend of mine was encouraging me to get out more. I was pretty sheltered, I was in private practice. I wasn't doing any public speaking, but he was really impressed with some of the things that we were talking about in our conversations. At the time, I was sorting out the psychology thing, too. I was really trying to figure out how to practice as a psychologist and ground that practice of psychology in a Catholic understanding of the human person. I had a keen sense that after I die, on my day of particular judgment I will be responsible before the Lord for every word that I uttered to every client, for everything I taught or said or advised, and I was worried. I didn't want to lead anyone astray. I didn't want to lead my clients astray. And I knew that I was speculating, bec...

In this episode, we review the many ways we fail to love ourselves, through self-hatred and through indifference toward ourselves.  We discuss the ways that unlove for self manifests itself, contrasting a lack of love with ordered self-love through the lens of Bernard Brady's five characteristics of love.  We discuss the impact of a lack of self-love on your body.  I then invite you into an experiential exercise to get to know a part of you that is not loving either another part of you or your body.  IIC 97 Unlove of Self"Mourn not the dead that in the cool earth liedust unto dustThe calm, sweet earth that mothers all who dieAs all men must;Mourn not your captive comrades who must dwellToo strong to striveWithin each steel-bound coffin of a cell,Buried alive;But rather mourn the apathetic throngThe cowed and the meekWho see the world's great anguish and its wrongAnd dare not speak!"--Ralph Chaplain, Bars and ShadowsI am Dr. Peter Malinoski, clinical psychologist, passionate Catholic. This is the Interior Integration for Catholics podcast coming to you from the Souls and Hearts studio in Indianapolis, Indiana. This podcast is all about bringing you the best of psychology in human formation and harmonizing it with the perennial truths of our Catholic faith. In this Interior Integration for Catholics podcast, we take the most important human formation issues head on, without trepidation, without hesitation. We don't mince words. We directly address the most important concerns in the natural realm, the absolute central issues that we need to take on with all our energy and all our resources.We have been working through a series on trauma and wellbeing. It started in Episode 88, and in the last episode, Episode 96, that one was called 'I Am a Rock How Trauma Hardens Us Against Being Loved', and that episode we discuss the impact of trauma on how we accept love from others, including God. In this episode, we're now going to address how trauma sets us up to refuse to love ourselves.Welcome to episode 97 of Interior Integration for Catholics titled 'Unlove of Self: How Trauma Predisposes You to Self Hatred and Indifference'. It's released on September 5th, 2022. It is so good to be with you. Thank you for listening in and for being together with me once again. I am glad we are here and that we're exploring the great unlove of self.The great unlove of self. Sort of like the uncola ads from 7-UP in the late 60s through the 70s, the 80s, even into the late 90s. Unlove of self. What do I mean by that? You might tell me that if I don't love myself, then I'm hating myself. All right, let's go with that. Let's explore self-hatred and self-loathing. Self-hatred. What is self-hatred? Self-hatred is hatred that's directed towards one's self rather than towards others. And there is an article titled 'Self-Loathing' by Jodi Clark. She's a licensed professional counselor at verywellmind.com where she says, 'Self-loathing or self-hatred is extreme criticism of one's self. It may feel as though nothing you do is good enough or that you are unworthy or undeserving of good things in life. Self-hate can feel like having a person following you around all day, every day, criticizing you and pointing out every flaw or shaming you for every mistake". Self-hatred, right? This is a critical thing.Brennan Manning said, "In my experience, self-hatred is the dominant malaise, crippling Christians and stifling their growth in the Holy Spirit". Now, I'm not sure I agree with that. It depends on your definition of self-hatred. I'm more focused on shame and the fear of shame overwhelming the self. Those are such drivers of self-hatred. And you can see that in that in that definition that we just had from Jodi Clark, right. Undeserving of good things in life: criticizing you, pointing out every flaw, shaming you for every mistake. Shame, shame, shame. And Angel Plotner, the author of 'Who Am I?', Dissociative Identity Disorder survivor says, "Shame plays a huge part in why you hate who you are". Shame is so central. I'm going to invite you. I did a whole 13-episode series on shame episodes 37 to 49 of this podcast all about shame and trauma. So, so good to check that out if you haven't done it already.Eric Hoffer said, "It is not the love of self, but the hatred of self, which is at the root of the troubles that afflict our world". And Basil Maturin says, "We never get to love by hate, least of all by self-hatred". So this whole topic of self-hatred, so important, so common, even when people don't realize it. Even when people don't realize it because so much self-hatred is unconscious. Laurie Diskin says "We cannot hate ourselves into a version of ourselves we can love". Self-hatred gets us nowhere. Self-hatred brings us to a grinding halt in human development and in spiritual development.So let's talk about this. What do we mean when we're talking about self-hatred? The primary way that you hate yourself is for a part of you to hate another part of you. I'm talking about intra-psychic hatred. Hatred within you, for you, by you. This is self-hatred.So I'm going to bring in an internal family system description of parts. Internal Family Systems is an approach to psychotherapy, and it holds that we are both a unity and a multiplicity. And in that multiplicity, we have parts. And parts are like separate, independently operating little personalities within us. Each part has its own unique, prominent needs, its own role in your life, its own emotions, body sensations, guiding beliefs, assumptions. Each part has its own typical thoughts, intentions, desires, attitudes, impulses, its own interpersonal style, its own worldview. Each part of you has a different attitude or position toward other parts of you, and each part of you has different beliefs and assumptions about your body. Robert Falconer calls these parts, "insiders". If you want to learn a lot more about Internal Family Systems, check out episode 71 of this podcast titled 'A New and Better Way of Understanding Myself and Others'. Parts are, in a nutshell, kind of like those little figures in the movie Inside Out. Remember anger and sadness and joy. They're these little personalities, like I said, within us. And every one of your parts has a very narrow and limited vision when that part is not in right relationship with your innermost self. Each of your parts usually has a strong agenda, something that they're trying to accomplish; some good that the part is seeking for you. And what happens when parts are not in right relationship with the self--if they're not working in a collaborative and cooperative way with your innermost self, is that they wind up polarizing with other parts. They wind up getting locked into conflict with other parts. And I gave some examples of polarization among parts in my most recent weekly reflection. That one was titled 'The Counterfeits of Self Giving', and that was published, that was sent out on August 31st, 2022. You can check that out at soulsandhearts.com/blog if you want to take a look at that and it discusses how parts get polarized around the idea of giving of self. And I talked about how a compliant surrenderer part can polarize with a feisty protector part within oneself. Or how a self-sacrificer part can polarize with a rebel part. So, I'm going to invite you to check that out, soulsandhearts.com/blog, go back to August 31st, 2022.Now Bessel van der Kolk, in his excellent book 'The Body Keeps the Score', devotes all of chapter 17 to Internal Family Systems....

 Summary:  Real love (agape) is given freely -- but it is not received freely in our fallen human condition.  Join me in this episode as we discuss the costs of opening our hearts to love\and the price of being loved fully, of being loved completely, in all of our parts.  We review why so many people refuse to be loved -- and we examine the psychological and human formation reasons for turning away from love.  Finally we discuss what we can do to get over our natural-level impediments to receiving love.  Lead-in  I am a rock I am an islandI've built wallsA fortress deep and mightyThat none may penetrateI have no need of friendship -- friendship causes painIt's laughter and it's loving I disdainI am a rock I am an islandI am a rock -- Paul Simon wrote it in 1965 and Simon and Garfunkel  Released it as a single in 1966, and it rose to #3 on the charts -- why because it resonated with people.  It was popular because it spoke out loud what many people's parts feel.   The desire to become a rock, the impulse to build the walls, to keep everyone out, to repudiate love and laughter, to not need anything or anyone.   Kate McGahan -- untitled poem  I don't need anyone, I said.Then you cameI need I need! I NEED YOU. I needed you.What did you teach me?Not to need you.NOT TO NEED. - I don't want to be in love, anymore. I just want to be left alone. And no, I am not depressed or something. No suicide is happening here... I am fine. Trust me. SharmajiassamwaleSo you want love.  But you also don't want love.  But you want love.  But you don't.  You do.  You don't.  You're conflicted.  How do you understand this conflict within you?  Can you and I understand this push-pull, this attraction - avoidance, this Yes and No within us more clearly.  Yes we can.  And we must.  Or we will wind up always skating along the edge of love, never really entering in.  And there are consequences for that -- and no one put it more succinctly than the English poet and playwright Robert Browning, who said: “Without love, our earth is a tomb”  Intro We do want to be loved, but we don't.  Why?  Because we want the benefits of love, but we don't want the costs The Benefits To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.  David Viscott If you don't have that memory of being loved, you are condemned to search the world for something to fill you up. -- Michael JacksonThe costs.  Real love is given freely, but it is not received freely in this fallen world.  Almost no one talks about the costs of being loved.  I find that so strange.  People don't think this way. There are costs to receiving love, to accepting love, to allowing love in to our hearts.  It's painful to be loved in this fallen world.  this is not well understood by many people, especially those who are not in touch with trauma, or who haven't suffered as much as others Bernard Brady's 2003 book "Christian Love: How Christians Through the Ages have Understood Love Second sentence of the book, in the preface:  "Loving seems entirely natural and being loved seems wonderfully good."Not to many peopleRCC member -- so glad you can discuss tolerating being loved.   Real love -- Agape -- burns away things that are sinful within us -- it doesn't coexist with the vice within us. Bernard Brady: Christian Love, p. 16:  "…love transforms those who love and those who are loved."  Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven't loved enough.”   ― Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of LoveChange is scary “Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.”― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment  Real love also purifies us from anything that is not morally wrote, but that is disordered or dysfunctional or imperfectReal love is the greatest good.  And because it's the greatest good, it requires us to give up lesser goods.  Perceived good and actual goods.  Coping strategies, crutches that helped us in the pastAnalogy of the safe -- limited room, silver and gold. VulnerabilityI will lose what I haveI will lose to possibility of being loved in the futureI don't want to find out I am unlovable.  I can't bear that.   Because for love to be real, for love to be agape means me allowing you to love all of me.  All my parts.  My entire being Not just the acceptable parts of me in the shop window, those that I allow others to see.  The greatness of the adventure of loving can be intimidating Love, in some sense, is nothing other than an invitation to great joy and suffering, so they shy away from it.  Paul Catalanotto Refusal to love is also refusal to live  The Catholic Weekly Dietrich von Hildrebrand those who "wish to linger with small joys in the state of harmless happiness … in which they feel themselves to be master of the situation … lacking any element of surprise or adventure. Let's go on this adventure of being loved and loving together.  I want you to come with me into the themes of this podcast.  I want you to really engage with what I'm presenting to you.  Not just listen like the Athenians listened to Paul about the resurrection of the dead.  Acts 17:32: Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked; but others said, “We will hear you again about this.”  But they weren't really that interested.  Only a few of the Athenians joined him.  Stay with me in this Episode 96 of Interior Integration for Catholics, released on August 1, 2022, and titled "I Am a Rock: How Trauma Hardens us Against Being Loved" I am Dr. Peter Malinoski, clinical psychologist, passionate Catholic and I am very pleased that we can share and engage with this information. Why do I think being loved is so important?   First because receiving love is absolutely essential.  It is our starting point in the spiritual life.  And second, because most people will not realxly allow themselves to be loved. Psychiatrist and Harvard Professor George Valliant wrote:  It's very hard, for most of us to tolerate being loved.-- That's been my experience as well.  The vast majority of people have chosen to severely limit how much love they will let in, how much love they will tolerate.  You can't love unless you are willing to be loved.  1 John 4:19:  We love because he first loved us  Look at the order here.  God loved us first.  We can't generate any love on our own.  We can reflect love, we can channel love, but we can't create love out of nothing like God can.  We have to cooperate in love and be open to love in order to love, in order to follow the two great com...

In this podcast, the hosts discuss how unresolved trauma affects our capacity to love. They explore the five characteristics of love and how trauma undermines each one. They also delve into the impact of trauma on our ability to be vulnerable and engage deeply in relationships. Throughout the episode, they provide hope for change and discuss the integration of psychology and Catholic teachings for personal growth.