Episode 31. -- The One Essential You Must Have to Be Resilient     August 31, 2020.

 

Intro: Welcome to the podcast Coronavirus Crisis: Carpe Diem!, where you and I rise up and embrace the possibilities and opportunities for spiritual and psychological growth in this time of crisis, all grounded in a Catholic worldview.   We are going beyond mere resilience, to rising up to the challenges of this pandemic and becoming even healthier in the natural and the spiritual realms than we were before.  I’m clinical psychologist Peter Malinoski your host and guide, with Souls and Hearts at soulsandhearts.com.  Thank you for being here with me.  This is episode 31, released on August 31, 2020 and it is titled: The One Thing You Must Have to Be Resilient.  The one thing that you need, the one prerequisite.  Absolute childlike trust. Repeat.  Absolute confidence in God’s providence.  But to have that absolute confidence, you have to be like a infant or toddler, a parvulum if you’re a guy or a parvula if you’re a gal.    

 

Jesus told St. Faustina, “The graces of My mercy are drawn by means of one vessel only, and that is — trust. The more a soul trusts, the more it will receive. Souls that trust boundlessly are a great comfort to Me, because I pour all the treasures of My graces into them. I rejoice that they ask for much, because it is My desire to give much, very much. On the other hand, I am sad when souls ask for little, when they narrow their hearts”. (Diary 1578)  Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska

 

 

Freewheeling

1.      Up until the last episode Scripting – more like a formal presentation – some moments when I broke out and riffed.  

2.      Now much more natural, more conversational

a.       I like this better anyway, to be with you

b.      Getting used to not seeing you physically, but I can see you in my mind’s eye

3.      I’m learning to trust in this process, that God and our Lady will be present and guide me, I am working on being small with this and having fun with it, much more childlike way.

4.      That the episode doesn’t have to be perfect, and that it’s better to leave room for spontaneity and inspiration

5.      Saves time – 6-7 hours, a lot of it fretting about wording.  

a.       I can put the time back into the community in other ways.

6.      Thank you to the RCCD community members for the feedback – Jonathan, Martha, Ann, and John it  helps me with my growing edge to keep trying new things.  

 

Best Spiritual Reading Book Chapter Title ever --  Chapter 2 of Life of Union with Mary – Fr. Emile Neubert

 

Take Only what Applies to You”  

 

Review: spiral back to Episode 30 – Why do we have so much difficulty trusting God – it’s because we are too grown up.  We’re too big.  

 

Eric Erickson 1902-1994

 

1.      Emphasized social development rather than resolution of sexual issues

2.      Developmental Tasks that need to be resolved in each stage

3.      Birth to 18 month the main conflict and developmental task is trust vs. mistrust.

4.      This is the most important phase of life.  Shapes our view of the world, in addition to our personality.  

a.       Can I trust those who care for me, those who are near me?  

b.      Task is Hope – if this phase is adequately resolved, the result, Erickson said, is a sense of hope and confidence that relationships are beneficial, they are good.  A sense of personal competence.  

c.       If successful in this, the baby develops a sense of trust, which "forms the basis in the child for a sense of identity." Failure to develop this trust will result in a  deep pervasive fear and a sense that the world is inconsistent and unpredictable.

 

Parallel in attachment theory – John Bowlby 1907-1990 psychologist, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst  Infants and toddlers instinctively turn to their parents in distress unless there is disorder – what Bowlby and Ainsworth found.  

 

The formation of early healthy emotional connections to mother and father is central to identity development.  Relationships are crucial, and challenged Freuds ideas about the primacy of psychic energy.  Security is dependent on healthy relational bonds.  

 

Erickson and Bowlby said that the first and greatest challenge, the first and greatest task in the natural human development is to learn to trust, to be able to trust in relationship, it’s the foundation for all other development.  Gotta get that straight. 

 

I argue that the first and greatest task, the first and greatest challenge in the spiritual life is to trust God.  

 

There is one thing that separates those who are resilient from those who are not.   Childlike Trust (particularly in God’s goodness and his Providence for me in particular) separate those who are resilient from those who are not.  

 

We are resilient not because of our own efficacy, our own ability, our own strength, our own intelligence, our own resources, our own knowledge, our own skills, talents, money, possessions, but Catholic resilience depends on connecting to and sharing in the love and power and omniscience of God, sheltering under His wing.  And if we are spiritually small in our relationship with God, when we fall, it’s not that far to the ground. We won’t get hurt.  

 

 

Effects of the Fall – psychological devastation.  

 

However the infant and the toddler will always be disappointed and wounded by the parents, because mom is not perfect, and dad is not God.   Often this is totally unintentional.  

 

Paraphrased From Nancy McWilliams (2011) Psychoanalytic Diagnosis (second edition).  

 

Men may easily underestimate how intimidating they are to their young daughters; men’s bodies, faces, and voices are harsher than those of either of girls or their mothers, and they take some getting used to.  A father who is angry seems particularly formidable, perhaps especially to a sensitive girl.  If a man engages in tantrums, harsh criticism, erratic behavior, or sexual violation, he may be terrifying.  A doting father who also intimidates his little girl creates a kind of approach-avoidance conflict; he is an exciting but feared object.  If he seems to dominate his wife, as in a patriarchal family, the effect is magnified.  His daughter will learn that girls and women are less valued than boys and men.

 

Oldest daughter Grace, married earlier this month, “the practice child.”  Grace and me.   

 

There are parts of us that think we are going to be annihilated if we are small, if we are vulnerable again.  This is terrifying for us.  Think about the differential  6 foot tall and   1600 lbs, 12 ft. tall.   Able to lift a ton  worse than getting in the wrestling ring with Andrew the Giant.  

 

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