Episode 36: Why We Flee from Real Love        October 5, 2020.

Intro: Welcome to the podcast Coronavirus Crisis: Carpe Diem!, where by God’s grace, 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 and I am here with you, to be your host and guide.  This podcast is part of Souls and Hearts, our online outreach at soulsandhearts.com, which is all about shoring up our natural foundation for the spiritual life, all about overcoming psychological obstacles to being love and to loving.  

Thank you for being here with me.  This is episode 36, released on October 5, 2020 and it is titled: Why We Flee from Real Love.  

1.      Getting right into it today, not reviewing, no listener questions, so buckle up.  This is a critically important topic

2.      Three main reasons.  Pain, fear and anger -- all rooted in misunderstanding and distortions.  

a.       We want to avoid all these things.  Natural instincts.  

                                                          i.            Freud's pleasure principle:  is the instinctive seeking of pleasure and avoiding of pain to satisfy biological and psychological needs.

3.      Tolerating being loved -- deliberate use of language

a.       No, I just want to be loved -- what they are saying is I just want to be emotionally gratified.  What we want

                                                          i.            Hallmark Card Commercials  

                                                       ii.            Hallmark Movies

                                                     iii.            Romance novels.  Easy love that just come naturally.    Emotional Junk food that nourishes illusions.  

b.      Easy to be loved when you are a baby-- natural openness and receptivity

c.       Negative experiences

d.      Fallen natures in a fallen world

                                                          i.            Slings and arrows -- attachment injuries, relational wounds

                                                       ii.            More significant trauma

                                                     iii.            Sense of vulnerability, it's not safe.  

1.      Fear

2.      Avoidance

3.      Adam and Eve in Genesis 3

                                                      iv.            We are familiar with the disorder, the dysfunction -- our ways of coping. 

e.       People who want to focus on loving, not being loved.  

                                                          i.            More "noble"

                                                       ii.            Focus is on the other

                                                     iii.            But so limited.  Doing good things for the other, not "being with."  

6.      Real love burns -- it hurts -- 

a.     Gratification and Frustration.  

b.     Perfection of God's love has an impact -- burning, purifying effect -- refining of silver and gold

                                                                            i.            1 Peter 1:7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

                                                                         ii.            Isaiah 48:10 Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction.  

                                                                       iii.            Zechariah 13:9 And I will put this third into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call upon my name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are my people’; and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’” 

                                                                        iv.            Proverbs 17:3  The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and the Lord tests hearts. 

                                      &...