Interior Integration for Catholics

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 Know

Today 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 lie

dust unto dust

The calm, sweet earth that mothers all who die

As all men must;

Mourn not your captive comrades who must dwell

Too strong to strive

Within each steel-bound coffin of a cell,

Buried alive;

But rather mourn the apathetic throng

The cowed and the meek

Who see the world's great anguish and its wrong

And dare not speak!"

--Ralph Chaplain, Bars and Shadows

I 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....

1. 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.  
2. Lead-in  
   1. I am a rock I am an island

I've built walls

A fortress deep and mighty

That none may penetrate

I have no need of friendship -- friendship causes pain

It's laughter and it's loving I disdain

I am a rock I am an island

1. I 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.  
2.  Kate McGahan -- untitled poem 

I don't need anyone, I said.

Then you came

I need I need! 

I NEED YOU. 

I needed you.

What did you teach me?

Not to need you.

NOT TO NEED. -

1. 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. Sharmajiassamwale
2. So 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”  
3. Intro
    
   1. 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
4.  
   1. The Benefits
       
      1. To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.  David Viscott
   2.  
      1. If you don't have that memory of being loved, you are condemned to search the world for something to fill you up. -- Michael Jackson
5. 
   
   1. The costs.  
      1. Real love is given freely, but it is not received freely in this fallen world.  
         1. Almost no one talks about the costs of being loved.  I find that so strange.  People don't think this way. 
         2. There are costs to receiving love, to accepting love, to allowing love in to our hearts.  
         3. It's painful to be loved in this fallen world.  
            1. 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 
               1. Bernard Brady's 2003 book "Christian Love: How Christians Through the Ages have Understood Love 
                  1. Second sentence of the book, in the preface:  "Loving seems entirely natural and being loved seems wonderfully good."
                  2. Not to many people
                  3. RCC member -- so glad you can discuss tolerating being loved.  

1. Real love -- Agape -- burns away things that are sinful within us -- it doesn't coexist with the vice within us.
    
   1. Bernard Brady: Christian Love, p. 16:  "…love transforms those who love and those who are loved."  
2. 
   
   1. 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 Love
3. Change is scary
    
   1. “Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.”― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment 
4. 
   

1. Real love also purifies us from anything that is not morally wrote, but that is disordered or dysfunctional or imperfect
2. Real 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.  
   1. Coping strategies, crutches that helped us in the past
   2. Analogy of the safe -- limited room, silver and gold. 
3. Vulnerability
4. I will lose what I have
5. I will lose to possibility of being loved in the future
6. I don't want to find out I am unlovable.  I can't bear that.   
7. 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
    
   1. Not just the acceptable parts of me in the shop window, those that I allow others to see.  
8. 
   
9. The greatness of the adventure of loving can be intimidating
    
   1. 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
10.  
    1. 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.
11.  
12. 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.
     
    1. 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.  
13. 
    
    1. You can't love unless you are willing to be loved.  
       1. 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...

1. Summary:  In this episode, we focus on how unresolved trauma undermines and sabotages both our capacity and our inclination to love well.  We explore how unresolved trauma impacts each of the five characteristics of love -- compromising our ability to love in an affective (emotional), affirming, responsive, unitive and steadfast way.  We also dive into how so trauma pulls us to focus inward, and to protect ourselves, undercutting the vulnerability and willingness to engage that are required for deep love and we discuss hope for change.  
2. Lead-in
    
   1. They say love is blind, but it’s trauma that’s blind. Love sees what is.“ — Neil Strauss, The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships
       
      1. And Neil Strauss is right on that.  Love connects with reality.  With God who is the ultimate realness, the ultimate being, the I AM.  
   2. 
      
      1. Trauma is blind and it blinds us.  That's what we are talking about today.  Trauma and its impact on live.  
   3. 
      
3. 
   
4. Intro:
    
   1. Dear listener, You and I are together in the adventure of this podcast, Interior Integration for Catholics, we are journeying together, and I am thankful to be with you.
5.  
   1. I am Dr. Peter Malinoski, clinical psychologist and passionate Catholic and together, Why are we here?  We are here together to bring you the best of psychology and human formation and harmonize it with the perennial truths of the Catholic Faith. So we can have the best of both.  That's why.  
   2. Today, we're going to take a broad perspective, a bird's-eye view of trauma's destructive consequences to our capacity to love.  What is the effect of trauma on our capacity and inclination to love?  That is the question for us to explore together today.  
   3. So welcome to episode 95,  of Interior Integration for Catholics, titled Trauma's Devastating Impact on our Capacity to Love, released on July 4, 2022, Independency Day in the USA,
   4. This podcast, Interior Integration for Catholics is part of our broader outreach, Souls and Hearts bringing the best of psychology grounded in a Catholic worldview to you and the rest of the world through our website soulsandhearts.com.  
   5. Review Trauma.  We are in the midst of  whole series of episodes on trauma.  So just a brief thumbnail review.  
      1. Started with Episode 88 Trauma: Defining and Understanding the Experience  Really important to understand the inner experience of trauma -- so you can recognize it in your own life and recognize it an empathetic and attuned way in others' loves.  Part of loving them.  
      2. Episode 89 Your Trauma, Your Body: Protection vs. Connection --  a current understanding of how large a role our bodies have in our experience of trauma.  Our bodies.  
      3. Episode 90:  Your Well-Being: The Secular Experts Speak  we review how philosophers and modern secular psychologists understand mental health and well-being.  In this episode, we look at the attempts to define what make us happy, from the 4th century BC to the present day.  Aristippus, Aristotle, Descartes, Freud, Seligman, Porges, Schwartz, and two diagnostic systems.  We take a special look at how positive psychology and Internal Family Systems see well-being.  
      4. Episode 92:  Understanding and Healing your Mind through IPNB  neuropsychiatrist Dr. Dan Siegel's Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB) and what IPNB can show us about psychological health.  We review the triangle of well-being, the nature of secure attachments, and the basis for mental health from an IPNB perspective.  We examine the characteristics of a healthy mind and how it functions, and the two signs that reliable indicate all psychological symptoms and mental dysfunction.  We discuss the nine domains of integration
      5. Three inner experiential exercises in Episode 93
      6. Episode 94:  The Primacy of Love  In this episode, I discuss the central importance of love as the marker of well-being from a Catholic perspective -- our capacity to live out  the two great commandments.  We explore how love is the distinguishing characteristics of Christians, and we discussed Catholic theologian Bernard Brady's five attributes or characteristics of love -- how love is affective, affirming, responsive, unitive and steadfast.  We discuss what is commonly missing from philosophical and theological approaches to love, and we briefly touch in the death of love and distortions of love. 
      7. So check those out if you haven't already.  This 

1. Going to address love in general -- focusing on loving
    
   1. In future episodes, will review
       
      1. Tolerating being loved
          
         1. Brady quxote
      2.  
   2. 
      
      1. Ordered self-love
   3.  
2. 
   
3. The experience of trauma screws up our loves -- where we go to find good.  It screws up where we are seeking, how we seek to be loved and how we seek to love.  
   1. St. Augustine:  
      1. He lives in justice and sanctity who is an unprejudiced assessor of the intrinsic value of things.  He is a man who has an ordinate love: he neither loves what should not be loved nor fails to love what should be loved. On Christina Doctrine, I, 27
      2. We need ordered love.  Why -- Bernard Brady put it -- Because we become like what we love.  Whatever we embrace in our love, we become like that person or that thing.  
      3. As Augustine considered the dissipation of this youth, he wrote "I loved beautiful things of a lower order, and I was going down to the depths."   Confessions.  
   2. So much of the problem with disordered love  comes from misdirected seeking to get your attachment needs meet.  That's the problem. 
      1. We have legitimate attachment needs  Trauma strips away our sense of 
         1. A felt sense of Safety and security
         2. Feeling seen, heard, known and understood
         3. Feeling comforted, soothed, reassured
         4. Feeling cherished, treasured, delighted in
         5. Feel the other person wills my highest good.  
         6. All from Brown and Elliott 2016, Attachment disturbances in Adults
   3. Where do we find our safety and security?  In both the natural and spiritual realms, we find it in attachment security needs being met.
       
      1. Five primary attachment security needs (Brown and Elliott)
          
         1. A felt sense of safety and protection, a deep sense of security, felt in my bones
             
            1. It makes it so much easier to love when we feel safe and secure.   
         2. 
            
            1. "People want to be safe, and comfortable. If safety and comfort is to be found in guns, then they will take up guns—of their own accord, in their own need. And when safety and comfort are found in libraries, then the guns rust.“ — Algis Budrys American writer  Source: Some Will Not Die (1961), Chapter 6 (p. 122)
         3.  
      2. 
         
         1. Feeling seen, heard, known, and understood
      3.  
   4. 
      

I want, by understanding myself, to understand others.“ — Katherine Mansfield New Zealand author 1888 - 1923

1. Being comforted, soothed, and reassured
2. Feeling valued, cherished, treasured, delighted in
    
   1. You are my sunshine published by Jimmie Davis and Charles Mitchell on January 30, 1940
3.  

You are my sunshine

My only sunshine

You ...

1. Summary, In this episode, I discuss the central importance of love as the marker of well-being from a Catholic perspective -- our capacity to live out  the two great commandments.  We explore how love is the distinguishing characteristics of Christians, we detail the eight different kinds of love, and we discuss Catholic theologian Bernard Brady's five attributes or characteristics of love -- how love is affective, affirming, responsive, unitive and steadfast.  We discuss what is commonly missing from philosophical and theological approaches to love, and we briefly touch in the death of love and distortions of love.  
2. Lead-in
    
   1. I want to speak to you from my heart today.  I want to share with you heart to heart about what it most important to me.  And maybe what is most important to you.  I want to talk with you today about love.  Real love.  Fundamental Love. Radical love.  The real thing.  Not the counterfeits of love that you and I have pursued in our lives in one way or another -- the fakes loves we've mistaken for real love, or the lesser loves that we've tried to inflate into more than they could possibly be.
3.  
   1. I think love is not only the most essential experience in the whole world, it's also the most confusing for us.  Think about it.  What else has confused you more than love?  What has been more enduringly puzzling than love?  What has been more elusive for you?  What has been more enigmatic than love in your life?  What have you struggled with more than love?  
4. 
   
   1. Love -- the word is evocative.  The word is provocative, it stirs us up.  You parts react in so many different ways to the word love.  And so that's where we are going today.  Into the mystery of love.
5.  
6. Intro:
    
   1. Maybe you are feeling like you're just struggling to survive.  
      1. I want more for you than that.
7. 
   
   1. Maybe much of the time you feel like things are OK, maybe pretty good.
       
      1. I want more for you than that.
   2.  
8. 
   
   1. I want to share with you the very best of what I have with you on the central focus of well-being from a Catholic perspective.    
9. 
   
   1. Broad overview 
      1. Let's review a little.  In episode 88, we began a series on trauma with that piece Trauma: Defining and Understanding the Experience -- that one was a huge hit -- so many people interested in it, by far the most downloads of any episode.  
      2. In episode 89, called Your Trauma, Your Body: Protection vs. Connection -- we did a deep dive into the effects of trauma on the body, really understanding trauma from the perspective of Polyvagal theory by Steven Porges and Deb Dana.  
      3. From there, though, I really wanted to look at well-being -- how does secular psychology understand well-being -- 
         1. It's so important to understand what well-being is, what it looks like, how it feels.  So many people have never really experienced well being.  It's possible that you've never really experienced well-being.  
         2. So I started a subseries on well-being within the broader trauma series.  
      4. So shared with you the secular views of well being in Episodes 90 and 92 of this podcast
      5. We really dived into what the best of current psychological theorizing says about well-being
          
         1. Episode 90  Your Well-Being: The Secular Experts Speak
             
            1. DSM 5 -- which doesn't have a description of well being
         2.  
            1. PDM 2
         3.  
            1. Hedonic Well-being
         4.  
            1. Eudemonic Well-being
         5.  
            1. Freud's ideas of well-being
         6.  
            1. Contributions of Positive Psychology - pioneered by Martin Seligman
         7.  
            1. Polyvagal Theory -- Stephen Porges, Deb Dana
         8.  
            1. Internal Family Systems
         9.  
      6. 
         
         1. Episode 92 Understanding and Healing your Mind through IPNB
             
            1. Interpersonal Neurobiology -- Daniel Siegel -- a lot to say about the healthy mind, a sense of well-being.  Very well developed.  
         2. 
            
      7. 
         
         1. Episode 93 consisted of three experiential exercises
             
            1. The first on the ways in which you reject yourself or condemn yourself as a person
         2.  
            1. The second on protection vs. connection -- your internal reactions to your wounds.  That one was based off of polyvagal theory
         3.  
            1. The third was on exploring your own inner chaos and rigidity within -- based off of Daniel Siegel's Interpersonal Neurobiology and one point he makes is that all psychological symptoms can be thought in terms of rigidity and/or chaos.  Rigidity and chaos are signs of having lost a sense of well-being.  
         4. 
            
            1. I invite you to check those out if you haven't already, there's a lot of opportunities in those experiential exercises for you to do your inner work.  
         5. 
            
      8. 
         
      9. As you know, I am Dr. Peter Malinoski, clinical psychologist, passionate Catholic, and I am the voice of this podcast, Interior Integration for Catholics
          
         1. In this podcast, Interior Integration for Catholics, we take on the most important psychological questions.  We take the most important human formation issues head on, directly, without mincing words, without trepidation, without vacillation, without hesitation -- We are dealing with the most important concerns in the natural realm, the absolute central issues that we need to address with all of our energy and all of our resources.  
      10. 
          
          1. And up until now, the most important episodes I've done are numbers 37 to 49 -- that was the 13-episode series on shame.  Why?  Because shame is the major driver of so much emotional distress, so many identity issues, and so many psychological symptoms.  
      11. 
          
          1. But these new few episodes, these episodes on well-being from a Catholic perspective, informed first by the perennial wisdom of the Catholic Church, and then secondarily by the best of psychological science, theory, research and practice, these episodes on love, these are the most important.  Why?  Because, in two words, love heals.  Love restores.  Love makes new.  Love is our mission, love is our goal, love is the destiny we are called to.  
      12. 
          
          1. This is episode 94 of the Interior Integration for Catholics podcast, released on June 6, 2022 and it's titled Well-Being from a Catholic Perspective:  The Primacy of Love
      13.  
10. Love as the Center
     
    1. We were made in love and for love and to love.
        
       1. Prayer to God in the Litanies of the Heart: "Lord Jesus, You created me in love, for love. Bring me to a place of vulnerability within the safety of your loving arms."  Discussed the Litanies of the Heart with Dr. Gerry at length in Episode 91 of this podcast, a special episode all about the litanies of the heart.  
    2. 
       
       1. Inviting to the adventure of loving
           
          1. So many people are just surviving -- their vision is so reduced, they are not even looking to be loved or to love.  Maybe that's you, to some degree.  
       2. 
          
          1. They are not on the adventure -- the are jaded, disillusioned, tired, wounded by betrayal or abandonment, cautious now, skeptical, calculating when it c...

1. Summary:  In this episode I discuss the crucial role of the right kinds of corrective and healing experiences in our lives.  I then offer you three inner experiential exercises to help you understand three questions: 1) In what ways do you not love yourself (with a special focus on inner critics); 2) your inner tension between connection and protection; and 3) your internal battles with rigidity and chaos.
2. Lead in:  
   1. Experience.  
   2. I have been wanting for a long time to offer you some experiential exercises 
      1. In episodes 89, 90, and 92, I gave you a lot of conceptual information about polyvagal theory, about interpersonal neurobiology, some more about Internal family systems, but something has been missing
      2. And what's been missing, in my opinion, is the experiential part of this for us.  
         1. Julius Caesar "Experience is the teacher of all things"  De Bello Civilli
         2. John Stuart Mill:  There are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized until personal experience has brought it home.  -- On liberty
   3. Experience.  There is no substitute for experiential learning
       
      1. Otherwise it can stay all in the conceptual realm, all in your head, all in your mind.  
         1. Michael Smith:  The major problem is that we tend to live our life in our head, in our thoughts and stories, cut off from our actual experience.
   4. 
      
      1. What I want for you is much more than that.  I want you to be able to change for the better in the deepest ways.  
         1. And you can't think or study your way there
   5. 
      
      1. Not the same experiences over and over -- some people have that kind of life.  
         1. Rather, a capacity for experience -- the ability to take in, process, and integrate new experiences as part of your human formation.  
         2. George Bernard Shaw:  Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.
   6. 
      
   7. What holds us back?
       
      1. Many would say fear.  Fear of the unknown.  Fear of putting ourselves out there.  Fear keeps us from new experiences and for the corrective effects of new experiences.  And I think that's true.  But I don't think fear is the primary obstacle.  There's some thing deeper than fear that holds us back.
   8.  
      1. What is it that really holds us back from new experiences?  What goes deeper than our fear?  [Drum roll]
      2. Our Shame.  It is our shame that holds us back from new experiences and the healing that new experiences can bring to us.
      3. The fear is a secondary reaction.  We wouldn't have the fear if we didn't have the shame, the gnawing sense of inadequacy or not being good enough.  Too much shame makes us fragile, way to concerned about protecting ourselves
      4. And in the natural realm, it's shame that most often keeps us from taking in the love from God, from others, and from ourselves -- it's shame that generates our fear, the desire to protect our wounds, that shuts us off from ourselves and other people
          
         1. Shame generates fear -- fear fuels our self-protection and shuts down the openness to experience.  The shame to fear to self-protection progression builds walls around our hearts.  We see vulnerability as dangerous.
      5.  
         1. Brené Brown, Daring Greatly  Vulnerability is the core, the heart, the center, of meaningful human experiences.
      6.  
   9. Shame is so important, I spent 13 episodes of this podcast just on that one topic.  Those 13 episodes, episodes 37 to 49 on it
       
      1. Those episodes on shame are foundational -- they are the most fundamental episodes of this podcast.  So many of our problem go back to shame, and nearly all psychological dysfunction in the natural realm has its root and origin in shame.  
   10. 
       
       1. If you haven't listened to those episodes, or if it's been a long time, go back and listen to them.  
   11. 
       
   12. So now, in this episode, I am bringing to you the kinds of experiential exercises, the kind of experiential learning that can help you understand yourself so much better and get you started toward a more solid natural foundation for your spiritual life, much better human formation.
   13. And what I want for you most of all is for you to experience love.  To be able to receive love -- to receive love from others, from yourself, from God.  And to love.  To join those men and women who are on an adventure of love
        
       1. 1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.
   14.  
       1. How does it do that?  How does perfect love cast out fear -- does it just numb fear while leaving your shame intact?  No, I really don’t think that's how it works for me and you. 
   15. 
       
       1. Love is the antidote for shame.  Love cures shame.  Three kinds of love.  
          1. Love from God
          2. Love from others, including the saints, especially our Mother Mary
          3. Love from ourselves to ourselves.  
   16. 
       
   17. I invite you to join me on this great adventure of loving, especially in this episode, right now, this episode number 93 of this podcast, Interior Integration for Catholics, let us journey together
   18. I am Dr. Peter Malinoski, clinical psychologist and passionate Catholic and together, we can have the relational encounters we need to learn to be loved and to love.  
   19.  Interior Integration for Catholics is part of our broader outreach, Souls and Hearts.  Souls and Hearts brings you the best of psychology and human formation grounded in a Catholic understanding of the human person to you and the rest of the world through our website soulsandhearts.com
   20. We are continuing our series on how the best of secular psychological approaches define mental health, psychological well-being.  We started with Episode 89 on Polyvagal Theory and covered Positive Psychology, Psychodynamic Psychotherapy and Internal Family Systems in Episode 90.  
   21. Today's episode, number 93 is entitled "Three Experiential Exercisesx"  and it's released on May 2, 2022 and today, I am offering you
3. Three longer experiential exercises today, about 20 minutes each
    
   1. Informed by IFS -- can check out episode 71 of this podcast to find out more about IFS -- A new and better way of understanding yourself and others.  Great preparation for these exercises.  
      1. Grounded in a Catholic understanding of the human person
4. 
   
   1. Three experiential exercises
       
      1.  In what ways do you not love yourself? -- where are the gaps in your human formation?  What parts of you are going unloved by you? -- Episode 90 Your Well-being, the Secular experts speak
   2.  
      1. Your inner battle: Protection vs. Connection -- Episode 89 Your Trauma, Your Body: Protection vs. Connection
      2. Rigidity and Chaos -- episode 92 Understanding and Healing your Mind through IPNB
5. 
   
6. Overall guidelines for these exercises
    
   1. Cautions
       
      1. window of tolerance
          
         1. Upside -- Fight or flight, sympathetic activation
      2.  
         1. Downside -- Free response -- dorsal vagal activation, shutting down, numbing out, 
      3. 
         
   2. 
      
      1. don’t have to do this exercise, can stop at any time, reground yourself
   3.  

1. Summary:  In this episode, I invite you to explore and understand with me neuropsychiatrist Dr. Dan Siegel's Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB) and what IPNB can show us about psychological health.  We review the triangle of well-being, the nature of secure attachments, and the basis for mental health from an IPNB perspective.  We examine the characteristics of a healthy mind and how it functions, and the two signs that reliable indicate all psychological symptoms and mental dysfunction.  We discuss the nine domains of integration, mindsight, and the healthy mind platter, and I share my exchange with Dr. Siegel about whether and how IPNB can be integrated with Catholicism.  
2. Lead in:  Today I want to share with you an approach to understanding ourselves and guiding ourselves toward health that I am really excited about, that I think has great potential to help us in our human formation as Catholics.
    
   1. We are together in this great adventure, this podcast, Interior Integration for Catholics, we are journeying together, and I am honored to be able to spend this time with you.  
3. 
   
   1. I am Dr. Peter Malinoski, clinical psychologist and passionate Catholic and together, we are taking on the tough topics that matter to you.  
4. 
   
   1. We bring the best of psychology and human formation and harmonize it with the perennial truths of the Catholic Faith.   
5. 
   
   1. Interior Integration for Catholics is part of our broader outreach, Souls and Hearts bringing the best of psychology and human formation grounded in a Catholic understanding of the human person to you and the rest of the world through our website soulsandhearts.com
6.  
   1. We are continuing our series on how the best of secular psychological approaches define mental health, psychological well-being.  We started with Episode 89 on Polyvagal Theory and covered Positive Psychology, Psychodynamic Psychotherapy and Internal Family Systems in Episode 90.  
7. 
   
   1. Today's episode, number 92 is entitled "Understanding and Healing your Mind through IPNB"  and it's released on April 4, 2022.
8.  
   1. We are going to unpack what IPNB is, what is says about our human condition and I will share with you an exchange I recently had with neuropsychiatrist Dr. Dan Siegel, who brought this whole integrative framework into being, about whether IPNB can be reconciled with Catholicism.  
9. 
   
   1. Stay with me for a really interesting deep dive into this fascinating way of understanding ourselves and others.  
10. Interpersonal Neurobiology or IPNB
     
    1. Let's start by understanding what IPNB is.  Interpersonal neurobiology.  
11. 
    
    1. Breaking down the name interpersonal neurobiology
        
       1. Inter = between us, among us -- implies relationship.  Relational model.  
          1. Not just between you and me, but also between you and you -- inner relationships within you, inner relationships within me.  
    2. 
       
       1. Personal -- very relational.  
          1. Inter-personal and intrapersonal
          2. IPNB is all about the way my deep inner experiences connect with your inner experiences 
    3. 
       
       1. Neurobiology -- not just the field of neurobiology, but all the branches of scientifically studying how human development takes place and how we can promote well-being in our lives.  
          1. Neurobiology brings in all the embodied, physical dimension of our existence.  Our bodies, our brains, our whole nervous system and all of our embodied biology being, that what the neurobiology part refers to 
    4. 
       
       1. Interpersonal neuro-biology or IPNB -- works to be a wholistic approach to the human person.  
    5. 
       
    6. IPNB was developed in the 1990s by neuropsychiatrist Daniel J. Siegel who brought together more than 40 professionals, more than 40 experts from a wide range of scientific disciplines to discuss and demonstrate how the mind, brain, and relationships integrate to influence and change each other.  
    7. Questions that IPNB asks and addresses these questions, five questions standing out to me:
        
       1. What is the human mind?
    8.  
       1. How does the mind develop?
    9.  
       1. What does the human mind look like when it's doing really, really well, when it's functioning optimally?
    10.  
        1. How can we encourage, nurture and cultivate a healthy, strong mind?
    11.  
        1. How can we take what we've learned about the mind and find practical applications that make a real difference in our daily lives? 
           1. Guidance for how to live our lives
           2. Pointers for what may need to change in our thinking and behavior to help us live more fully.  
           3. Very practical -- not just academic ivory-tower, pie-in-the-sky speculation -- Daniel Siegel really wants IPNB to bring healing, growth and well-being to people.  I like that.  I'm into that. 
    12. 
        
    13. What IPNB is Not
         
        1. Not a therapy.  
           1. Not a way of doing therapy.  Rather, a way of understanding that can inform different schools of therapy. 
    14. 
        
        1. IPNB is not a discipline.  It's not a specific branch of knowledge. 
    15. 
        
    16. Rather, IPNB is a framework that draws on all the different disciplines with a rigorous and structured approach to studying things – not just science – They all have a place in the framework.
         
        1. It's a consilient framework:  
           1. Consilience:  E. O. Wilson  Assessing the universal findings discovered and recognized as real or true across fields and disciplines
    17. 
        
        1. The fields contributing to IPNB
            
           1. Anthropology
        2.  
           1. Art
        3.  
           1. Biology (developmental, evolution, genetics, zoology)
        4.  
           1. Chemistry
        5.  
           1. Cognitive Science
        6.  
           1. Computer Science
        7.  
           1. Contemplative Traditions
        8.  
           1. Developmental Psychopathology
        9.  
           1. Liberal Arts
        10.  
            1. Linguistics
        11.  
            1. Neuroscience
                
               1. Affective
            2.  
               1. Cognitive
            3.  
               1. Developmental
            4.  
               1. social
            5.  
        12. 
            
            1. Mathematics
        13.  
            1. Medicine
        14.  
            1. Mental Health
        15.  
            1. Music
        16.  
            1. Physics
        17.  
            1. Poetry
        18.  
            1. Psychiatry
        19.  
            1. Psychology
                
               1. Cognitive
            2.  
               1. developmental
            3.  
               1. Volutionary
            4.  
               1. Experimental
            5.  
               1. of religion
            6.  
               1. Social
            7.  
               1. attachment theory
            8.  
               1. memory
            9.  
        20. 
            
            1. Sociology
        21.  
            1. Systems Theory (chaos and complexity theory)
        22.  
    18. 
        
        1. All of these disciplines, all of these fields of inquiriy contribute to IPNB findings
    19.  
        1. IPNB also seeks a common language for these disciplines to be able to share and discuss about these big topics:<...

1. Summary:  Join us as we review how philosophers and modern secular psychologists understand mental health and well-being.  In this episode, we look at the attempts to define what make us happy, from the 4th century BC to the present day.  Arristipus, Aristotle, Descartes, Freud, Seligman, Porges, Schwartz, and two diagnostic systems.  We take a special look at how positive psychology and Internal Family Systems see well-being.  
2. Lead in
    
   1. In  June of 1991 I was really traumatized
       
      1. Just left a spiritually and psychologically abusive group and I was struggling
   2.  
      1. How could this have happened
   3.  
      1. I thought I was giving my life to God -- and then I find out the community I was in was like this -- 
   4. 
      
      1. Had to confront my own behaviors in the community -- manipulation, deception, betrayals of trust -- things like that.  
   5. 
      
      1. I knew I had to recover.  And so I went on a quest
   6.  
      1. I was still Catholic, I never lost my faith, but I felt really burned by the Catholic Church
   7.  
      1. I wanted to learn everything I could about social influence, about group dynamics, about psychological manipulation -- in part so what happened before would never happen again, and also to tap into wisdom that I didn't have access to in my very sheltered community. 
   8. 
      
      1. In short, I was on a quest to find out the best of what secular psychology had to offer.  
   9. 
      
      1. I would have gone to a Catholic Graduate 
   10. 
       
3. 
   
   1. What I was looking for
4.  
   1. What I found
5.  
6. Introduction
    
   1. Question may arise, "Why Dr. Peter, since you are a Catholic psychologist, why are you even looking at these secular sources? Why even bother with them?  Don't we have everything we need in Scripture, in the traditions of the Church, in the writings of the Church Fathers and the saints, and in magisterial teaching?  I thought this was a Catholic podcast here.  
      1. Let me ask you question in return then -- Let's say you're experiencing serious physical symptoms -- something is wrong medically.  You have intense abdominal pain, right around your navel, your belly is starting to swell, you have a low-grade fever, you've lost your appetite and you're nauseous and you have diarrhea.  How would you react if I were to say to you: "Why are you considering consulting secular medical experts?  What need have you of doctors and a hospital?  Don't you have everything you need in Scripture, in the traditions of the Church, in the writings of the Church Fathers and the saints, and in magisterial teaching?  
         1. If I responded to you like that, you might think I'm a crackpot or that I believe in faith healing alone or that I just don't get what you are experiencing.
         2. Those are the symptoms of an appendicitis, and that infected appendix could burst 48-72 hours after your first symptoms.  If that happens, bacteria spread infection throughout your abdomen, and that is potentially life-threatening.  You would need surgery to remove the appendix and clean out your abdomen.  
      2. Remember that we are embodied beings -- we are composites of a soul and a body. The 17th Century Philosopher Rene Descartes' gave us a lot of great things, including analytic geometry,  but he was wrong splitting the body from the mind in his dualism.   Descartes' mind-body dualism, the idea that the body and the mind operate in separate spheres, and neither can be assimilated into the other which has been so influential in our modern era.
          
         1. In the last several years we are realizing just how much of our mental life and our psychological well-being is linked in various ways to our neurobiology -- the ways that our nervous systems function.  And the relationship between our embodied brain and our minds is reciprocal -- each affects the other in complex ways that we are just beginning to understand.  In other words, brain chemistry affects our emotional states.  And our emotional states and our behaviors affect brain chemistry.  It's not just our minds and it's not just our bodies and it's not just our souls -- it's all of those, all of what makes me who I am, body, mind, soul, spirit, all of it.  
      3. 
         
         1. And since Scripture, the Early Church Fathers, the Catechism and so on are silent on neurobiology, neurochemistry, neurophysiology and so many other areas that impact our minds and our well-being, as a Catholic psychologist I am going to look elsewhere, I'm going to look into secular sources.  I just don't think it's reasonable to expect the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops or the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican to be experts in these areas -- it's not their calling.  I just don't think anyone is going to find an effective treatment for bulimia by consulting the writings of the Early Church Fathers or in St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica.  That is unreasonable .  And it's just as unreasonable, in my opinion, to ignore the body and just try to work with the mind.  
      4. 
         
      5. I also believe that God works through non-Catholics in many ways -- many non-Catholic researchers and clinicians and theorists are using the light of natural reason to discover important realities that help us understanding well-being, and they are inspired to seek what can be known with good motivations, with good hearts and sharp minds to help and love others.   I am a Catholic with upper-case C, a big C and I am catholic with a lower-case C -- a little C.  Catholic with a little C.  According to my Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus, Third Edition, which I rely on for wordfinding, according to this thesaurus, the synonyms for Catholic with a small c include the following terms:  universal, diverse, broad-based, eclectic, comprehensive, all-encompassing, all-embracing and all-inclusive.  That's what catholic with a small c means.  So I am Catholic with a big C and catholic with a small c.  
      6. And a final point about why I look to secular sources -- The Church herself encourages us to look to all branches of knowledge and glean what is best from them.  
         1. From the CCC, paragraph 159  "Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth." "Consequently, methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God. The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are."
         2. And from the Vatican II document, the Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World, paragraph 62 reads:  In pastoral care, sufficient use must be made not only of theological principles, but also of the findings of the secular sciences, especially of psychology and sociology, so that the faithful may be brought to a more adequate and mature life of faith.
      7. Finally, I will say that considering the whole person -- Soul, spirit, mind and body -- all of the person is so much more helpful in the proc...

1. Summary:  Join Dr. Peter as he explains how trauma impacts our bodies, through the lens of polyvagal theory. Through quotes, examples, questions for reflection and experiential exercises, Dr. Peter walks you through a current understanding of how large a role our bodies have in our experience of trauma.  
2. Introduction
    
   1. I am Dr. Peter Malinoski, clinical psychologist, bringing to you, my listener the best of psychology and human formation and harmonizing it with our Catholic Faith
3.  
   1. This is the Interior Integration for Catholics podcast -- you are part of it, right here, right now and I am glad to be with you.  This podcast is part of our broader outreach, Souls and Hearts bringing the best of psychology grounded in a Catholic worldview to you and the rest of the world through our website soulsandhearts.com -- we have vibrant communities, we have courses, we have podcasts, we have blogs and shows, all kinds of resources at soulsandhearts.com, check it out.  
4. 
   
   1. Trauma.  Last month, we began a whole series of episodes on trauma -- such an important topic
       
      1. Quote from trauma therapist and research Peter Levine:  “Trauma is perhaps the most avoided, ignored, belittled, denied, misunderstood, and untreated cause of human suffering.” – Peter Levine
   2.  
5. 
   
   1. We started with an overview of the best of the secular understandings of trauma.  In that first episode in the series, number 88, we got into the definitions of trauma and attachment injuries, and we dived into the experience of trauma -- what trauma is like.  
6. 
   
   1. That sets us up for today's episode, number 89 -- Your Trauma, Your Body:  Protection vs. Connection.  Today, we are getting into the body's response to trauma, really focusing in on what happens in our nervous system.  What happens in the brain, what happens in our spinal cord and our nerves and throughout our bodies
       
      1. We will be especially tuning into our own nervous system.   
   2. 
      
7. 
   
   1. There's going to be some vocabulary here, I will help you with that. There will some big words, but I am going to walk you through the concepts and make them easier to understand. 
8. 
   
   1. In the past two decades we have learned so much about how trauma impacts the body -- the physiological effects of trauma 
      1. So what is physiological?  Physiology
          
         1. the branch of biology that deals with the normal functions of living organisms and their parts
             
            1. organ systems, individual organs, cells, and right down to the level of biomolecules
         2.  
            1. The parts within us carry out the chemical, electrical and physical functions within our bodies.  Our bodies are living systems
         3.  
      2. 
         
         1. Put simply, physiology is the study of how the human body works
      3.  
         1. Today we are looking at how trauma impacts physiology -- how trauma affects the workings of our body, especially in our nervous system.  
      4. 
         
9. 
   
   1. Lots of misconceptions out there.  
      1. Old way of understanding stress -- what I learned in graduate school.  Most prominent.  
         1. You were either stressed or not stressed
         2. fight or flight or rest and digest
         3. Stress on or stress off.  No nuance, very simple way of understanding
      2. Today, we are going to do much better than that, go much deeper than that.  
10. Review: Definition of Trauma 
    1. Integrated Listening Systems website:  Trauma is the response to a deeply distressing or disturbing event that overwhelms an individual’s ability to cope, causes feelings of helplessness, diminishes their sense of self and their ability to feel a full range of emotions and experiences.
    2. from Duros and Crowley 2014:  …what happens to a person where this is either too much too soon, too much too long, or not enough for too long.  
    3. From Stephen Porges:  Trauma is a chronic disruption of connectedness.  
11. Most clients come to therapy for one main reason.  One main, overarching reason.  They are dysregulated.  What does that mean?  They are poorly regulated.  
    1. Overwhelmed with emotion or on the other side, Emotional shutdowns, numbing out
    2. Can't control their thoughts, so distracted, intrusive thoughts, ruminations, racing thoughts, obsessions, disorientation, having a sense that their thoughts are no longer under control
    3. Impulses -- rising up
    4. Intrusive memories
    5. They are having trouble keeping it together
    6. High reactivity
    7. Mood swings
    8. Anger management issues
    9. Intense depression
    10. Feeling unreal, depersonalized, not myself, identity issues -- don't know who I am
    11. Feeling fragile, vulnerable, about to fall apart
    12. In one word, they come in to therapy because they can't manage their lives well anymore and they feel losing control and that makes them feel unsafe and scared.  
12. Polyvagal theory -- 
    1. Great discoveries in recent years about the vagus nerve.  
       1. The vagus nerve is responsible for the regulation of internal organ functions, such as digestion, heart rate, and respiratory rate, as well as vasomotor activity, and certain reflex actions, such as coughing, sneezing, swallowing, and vomiting
       2. 10th of 12 cranial nerves -- On Old Olympus Towering Top, a Finn and German Viewed Some Hops.  Memorizing the cranial nerves
       3. Longest nerve of the body, and the most complex, it branches into 11 different directions.  
       4. Responsible for slowing down all the organs from the next down to the colon.  Parasympathetic response -- slowing or shutting down.  
       5. Responsible
           
          1. Heart rate
       6.  
          1. Digestion
       7.  
          1. Breathing
       8.  
          1. Sweating
       9.  
          1. Motor functions for the muscles needed for swallowing and speech
       10.  
           1. Reflex actions, such as coughing, sneezing swallowing and vomiting
       11.  

1. Polyvagal theory was developed by Stephen xPorges -- Ph.D. in psychology over the last 20 years -- writes in an academic way.  
2. Relying heavily on the work of Deb Dana Licensed Clinical Social worker and a great writer and speaker - translates him so well
    
   1. Polyvagal exercises for Safety and connection -- introduction and first three chapters
3.  
   1. Polyvagal Theory and Trauma – Deb Dana  Nearly 2 hours, on YouTube
4.  
5. Deb asks this question:  What would it be like for you if your body could help you feel safe and secure, much more protected  when you start feeling scared?
6. Fundamental discovery:  Our nervous system is shaped by early experience and reshaped by ongoing experience -- there is connection between our nervous system and our experience.  
   1. Formation of connections and associations
   2. Reshaping -- changing the way our bodies respond to stress -- breaking the old patterns, fashioning new patterns deliberately
   3. Change is gradual
       
      1. Fleeting moments of peace --> more consistent sense of well-being, more resilience in the face of challenges, perceived threats, stress.  
   4. 
      
   5. Very much at a body level -- not ...