Interior Integration for Catholics

By Peter T. Malinoski, Ph.D.Health & Fitness Mental Health Religion & Spirituality Christianity

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Interior Integration for Catholics episodes

December 28, 202048 Shame and Repentance: St. Dismas
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 right now, in these days, all grounded in a Catholic worldview. This podcast is about transformation -- a radical transformation of self, overcoming anything that gets in the way of us loving God our Father and Mary our Mother with the trust and dependence of a little child. This podcast is all about real love in real relationships and it's messy. 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 Catholic spiritual life, all about overcoming psychological obstacles to being loved and to loving God and neighbor -- This is episode 48, released on December 28, 2020

and it is titled: Shame and Repentance: St. Dismas

it is the 12th episode in our series on shame.

Thank you for being here with me.

This episode stands alone

Episodes 37, 38 and 39 lay out the conceptual foundations on shame

Two episode we discussed how shame can lead to tragedy in the story of Judas Iscariot, and last episode, we looked at shame and redemption in the story of St. Peter

Continuing to illustrate shame and related concepts with stories

Now we are going to look at an story of intense shame and repentance.
The story of the St. Dismas -- aka the "good thief" crucified at Jesus right hand
Really going to look inside of the mind, heart, body and soul today of St. Dismas in his passion
Really focus on understanding what happened in his life

Understanding him in terms of his parts -- his different modes of operating, or his subpersonalities.

Making sense of his decisions, his choices

In our suffering, we can learn from St. Dismas.
An incredibly hopeful story
A story that offers us so much more than immediately meets the eye in the few verses devoted to him in the Gospels.
40 min
December 21, 202047 Shame and Redemption: St. Peter and You
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 right now, in these days, all grounded in a Catholic worldview. This podcast is about transformation -- a radical transformation of self, overcoming anything that gets in the way of us loving God our Father and Mary our Mother with the trust and dependence of a little child. This podcast is all about real love in real relationships and it's messy. 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 Catholic spiritual life, all about overcoming psychological obstacles to being loved and to loving God and neighbor -- This is episode 47, released on December 21, 2020

and it is titled: Shame and Redemption: St. Peter and You

it is the 11th episode in our series on shame.

Thank you for being here with me.

This episode stands alone

Episodes 37, 38 and 39 lay out the conceptual foundations on shame

Last episode we discussed how shame can lead to tragedy in the story of Judas Iscariot.

Continuing to illustrate shame and related concepts with stories

Now we are going to look at an story of intense shame and redemption.
The story of the Apostle Peter
Really going to look inside of Peter's mind, heart, body and soul today
Really focus on understanding what happened in his life

Making sense of his decisions, his choices

I share his name. I connect with him, he makes so much sense to me. Very similar parts.

In our fallen world, in our fallen human condition, all of us have elements of what Peter struggled with.
We can learn from Peter's redemption

Profiling St. Peter

Teaching you to recognize parts in other, parts in yourself

I am an IFS therapist -- really interested in parts of people

Understanding parts really helps us grow in the understanding of ourselves and others

Socrates: Know thyself

Jesus: Removing the beam in your own eye

Recognizing, identifying your parts and the parts of others is really helpful for loving the other person. Why?

Loving a person means accepting loving all their parts. All of them.
It is really helpful to know a part in order understand what it needs.
Doesn't mean affirming every action
Doesn't mean agreeing with every opinion
Doesn't mean endorsing every desire
Doesn't mean encouraging every impulse

See what you resonate with

What are parts?

Discrete, autonomous mental systems, each with own idiosyncratic range of emotion, style of expression, abilities, desires views of the world.
Modes of operating
Subpersonalities
Orchestra model
Focus is on integration.

Get forced into extreme roles -- attachment injuries and relational traumas

Three roles

Exiles --
most sensitive -- become injured or outraged. Threatens the system, external relationships
Exploited, rejected, abandoned in external relationships
Want care and love, rescue, redemption
shame. Need for redemption

Managers

Protective, strategic, controlling environment, keep things safe

Obsessions. Compulsions, reclusiveness, passivity, numbing. Panic attacks, somatic complaints, depressive episodes, hypervigiliance.

Firefighters

Stifle, anesthetize, distract from feelings of exiles

No concern for consequences

Binge eating, drug/alcohol use, dissociation, sexual risk taking, cutting

Parts can take over the person

Like in Pixar Movie Inside Out -- anger taking over the control panel of the main character Riley

We call it blending.

IFS on the Self -- (recorded)

Self defined as the seat of consciousness

Self can be occluded or overwhelmed by parts

When self accepts and loves parts, those parts transform back into who they were meant to be

Self-led mind is self-righting.

self -- Active inner leader -- more than mindfulness

Parts find the relationship with the self very reassuring

But to reap the benefits they have to unblend from and notice the self

This is frightening can challenging to parts

Agency in the parts -- parts are making decisions about unblending in IFS model

Intrinsic qualities of the self

Curiosity

Compassion

Calm

Confidence

Courage

Clarity

Creativity

Connectedness

Kindness

The self can be easily occluded, obscured, hidden by protective parts who take over in response to fear, anger or shame

St. Peters Parts -- or modes of operating

Boldness, self confidence Overconfidence

Manager Part.

Fisherman who owned his own boat

A part that wants to be big.

Have to make quick decisions

Dangerous occupation

Respected in Galilee, a leader

Courage, Fortitude

Leads to forgetting the teaching of Jesus

Established, married.

Defends against a shame exile.

Spontaneity/Impulsivity
Manager leaping in
Quick reactions -- this part leaps into action instantaneously

Man of action

Courage here too

Trusted his instincts.
Capable of intense emotion
Driven by that emotion

Seizing opportunities as they arise
See opportunity, seize opportunity
No dithering

Can lead to ra...
1 hr
December 14, 202046 Shame and Tragedy: Judas Iscariot and You
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 right now, in these days, all grounded in a Catholic worldview. We are going beyond mere resilience, to rising up to the challenges in our lives and becoming even healthier in the natural and the spiritual realms. 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 Catholic spiritual life, all about overcoming psychological obstacles to being loved and to loving God and neighbor -- it short, this podcast is all about relationships -- it's all about becoming much more relational in our lives and in our faith.
This is episode 46, released on December 14, 2020
and it is titled: Shame and Tragedy: Judas Iscariot and You
it is the tenth episode in our series on shame.
Thank you for being here with me.
Last episode we discussed how shame can lead to idolatry.
Now we are going to look at an example of how shame did lead to idolatry
the rejection of the true God for a false god
the story of Judas, whose life ended in tragedy, the tragedy of abandoning and betraying Jesus Christ, true God and true man
Really excited about this episode

Really going to look inside of Judas' mind, heart, body and soul today

Really focus on understanding what happened in his life, why did he act the way he did.
Why did he do it?
I don't accept the typical explanations for Judas' behavior because they seem too simplistic, they don't resonate at all with me.

In our fallen world, in our fallen human condition, all of us have elements of what Judas struggled with.
I believe that there is the potential in you to repeat what Judas did. Fallen world, fallen natures.
There but for the grace of God go I. Origin unknown, often attributed to John Bradford, Evangelical preacher of the 16th century.
We can learn from Judas' tragic end.

We are continuing to really immerse ourselves in the spiritual dimensions of shame.

How shame on the natural level can impact us in spiritual ways
Grace builds on nature -- disorder in the natural realm undermines the spiritual life.

I like to teach through familiar stories, weaving stories together.
Especially through Scripture, really getting into the Word of God.
Deeper understand of the people in the Bible stories, to see them in three dimension, bringing them to life
Scripture is a gift from God to us -- a precious gift

a way that God reveals himself to us

And a way that God reveals you to you. If you look carefully, you can see aspects of yourself, parts of yourself in the people of Scripture

You can connect with their experience, and I am here to help you with that.

Stories help to illustrate the concepts we are learning and connect with them. Stories give us tangible examples so that we can really grip on to what we are trying to understand.

Judas was an important, powerful, evocative and mysterious figure to me growing up from when I was 5

I remember being about 5 years old and insisting to my mother that Good Friday should really be called "Bad Friday" because of how Jesus died.
Deeply impressed by the story of the passion and death of Jesus.
5 and 6 year old think in black and white -- clear, simple categories
And I thought Judas was very, very naughty to betray Jesus and tell Jewish priests how to catch him so they could nail him to the cross. That was very naughty.
And Judas was a thief, too. He stole things. That was important to me.
Let me tell you a story about my history as a thief.
I was not a very good thief. But I was a thief at one time.
Stealing was not tolerated in my family.
When I was five we were on our road trip back from the Christmas visit with grandma and grandpa, and we stopped at a gas station. Inside the store, there was a Christmas tree decorated with striped candy sticks. Not just red and white, this one had all the colors of the rainbow.
Oooh, pretty. Oooh, tasty. Shiny, too. Pretty, tasty, shiny. I took one.
I'm not sure I was even really aware I was stealing.
Sucking on it in the car, making it sharp and pointy. Where did you get that? No pretense.
Mom and Dad -- that's not right, Dad makes a U-turn on the two lane highway, and drove me back about 10 miles to the gas station and I had to go in and tell the manager what I had done. I surrendered the half-eaten pointed little striped candy stick. I was mortified. Manager was very gracious, made it no big deal. I experienced real shame at the time. And I vowed to reform and not steal ever again.
From my parents' reaction, I learned that stealing was very, very bad. It was a rule not to steal, even a commandment -- Thou shalt not steal, and that included taking candy canes off of Christmas trees inside gas stations.
A part of me really learned that to be good, you have to know the rules and follow the rules
and Judas was not following the rules about not killing Jesus and not stealing money.
Could Judas be any worse? Judas was very, very naughty.

Fast forward two years. When I was about 7, a man named Tim Rice came into my life. He told me a riveting story, portraying Judas in a very different way than just being very, very naughty. He told me about Judas' feelings and thoughts and worries and how distressed Judas had been and how Judas had done some bad things, but Judas was very human. I listened to the story that Tim Rice told me -- I wanted to hear it over and over again. Judas was so different than I had thought. He was more than just a stealer who betrayed Jesus.

Who was Tim Rice? -- wrote the lyrics for the Rock Opera Jesus Christ Superstar.
Andrew Lloyd Weber wrote the lyrics.
Blast from the past-- anybody going back to the 1970s with me now?

Mom and Dad had the vinyl -- the two volume set and though I didn't have TV growing up, we did have a nice stereo and I was allowed to play records the turntable. Looking back on that it seemed a little ridiculous to let a seven year old play records on this really, really nice audio equipment, but there it was

And I, at seven years old, eight years, nine years old -- all the way until my sophomore years of college, I really gripped on to this musical

JC Superstar was so emotionally evocative for me. Emotions just welled up in me in so many ways that never really happened at Mass or in religion class.

Tim Rice really was telling me the most compelling story of Jesus and Judas and the Apos...
1 hr 12 min
December 07, 202045 How Shame Leads Us to Idolatry
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 right now, in these days, all grounded in a Catholic worldview. We are going beyond mere resilience, to rising up to the challenges in our lives and becoming even healthier in the natural and the spiritual realms. 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 Catholic spiritual life, all about overcoming psychological obstacles to being loved and to loving God and neighbor -- it short, this podcast is all about relationships -- it's all about becoming much more relational in our lives and in our faith.
This is episode 45, released on December 7, 2020
Thank you for being here with me.
and it is the ninth episode in our series on shame.
and it is titled: How Shame Leads Us to Idolatry
We are now Diving into the spiritual dimension of shame.
This podcast is all about transformation -- fundamental transformation of all of us -- all parts of us. Even the parts we keep secret, hidden.
This podcast is all about removing psychological obstacles to following the two great commandments
Not entertainment. Not about having a good time, just enjoying a entertaining podcast, funny and distracting.
No this podcast is about developing a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit, a personal relationship with God our spiritual Father, and a personal relationship with the Blessed Virgin Mary, our spiritual Mother
Any psychological obstacles you have to relating with others, you will have in relating to God.
You will bring those relational inhibitions, those relational problems into your spiritual life because they are formed into you and they have not been healed through experiencing throughout your whole being who God really is.
Spiritual realm is not some special place where the relational limitations you have are just dispensed, you're no longer trouble with them. No, you are still you in the spiritual realm.
Any psychological issues you have with your earthly father and mother you will bring into your relationship with God as Father and Mary as Mother.
Child psychologist -- transferences
Two major assumptions in the natural realm for why we don't have a personal relationship with a loving God.

Assumption 1. We do not believe that we are worthy to be in relationship with God -- driven by shame

Assumption 2. We do not believe that God is worthy to be in relationship with us -- driven by negative God images -- see episodes 23-29

Idolatry. We are not worshiping God as He is.

And here is the more tragic part: We stay with those assumptions, even though they are so manifestly problematic and harmful. We don't seek, we assume that assumptions one and two are true.

Her is the great offer I am making to you. I am inviting you on an adventure, an adventure to discover who you really are, an adventure to discover who God really is, and adventure in learning to relate and to connect with our God, our God who is personal, who is relational, who is loving, who is Love Himself.

If you really knew who God was and you really knew who you are, and you really knew how God truly saw you -- you would always run to His loving arms. You really would.

But you don't know these realities at a deep, integrated level. We know them to some degree in our heads, in a theological way, in an abstract way, we can quote the Catechism. But not in our hearts, our souls, and our bones.

In fact, at a gut level, at an intuitive level the vast majority of us have varying degrees of certainty or confidence in very warped assumptions about ourselves and assumptions about God. These assumptions are wildly different from what God reveals to us about who he is and who we are through Scripture, through Tradition, and through the perennial teachings of our Catholic Church. In our hearts, in our bodies, in the depths of our souls, in our unconscious, We believe in lies. This is so common. And it's deadly and so much of it is driven by shame.

Review of Shame

Definition of Shame

Explored this in a lot of detail in Episode 37, the first in our series on shame. Shame is:
The primary problem we have in the natural realm -- foundational problem. Grace perfects nature, if our natural foundation is infused with shame, it makes the foundation for our spiritual life shaky, unreliable, uncertain.
That gives birth to so many secondary problems -- we tend to focus on the secondary problems, the problems that are further downstream -- so we are not getting to the root.

Shame is: a primary emotion, a bodily reaction, a signal, a judgement, and an action. (Click to episode 38 for a summary)

Qualities of shame

Shame is hidden. Hidden from others, hidden from God, often hidden from the therapist, hidden from self.

Shame inhibits positive emotions

Strategies for coping with shame

Chronic shame needs to be attenuated, reduced, titrated, ordered, regulated.
Chronic shame develops when a little boy or little girl has a sense of being rejected, unwanted, a burden.
When the child changes behaviors, does what he can to be better in the eyes of the adult and still is rejected, he can conclude that he just is a bad kid.
The difficulty is in the response of the others -- the caregivers.
But the child bears the burden of shame caused by the shaming of the caregivers.
Child sees parts of himself that are unacknowledged and unacceptable
Ostracized or invaded.

And we assume that God responds to us like our shaming caregivers -- soulset. We generalize from our experiences of shame and assume that God is like those caregivers. This is called a transference.
Transference is a phenomenon within psychotherapy in which the feelings a person has about their parents, as one example, are unconsciously redirected or transferred onto the therapist. It usually concerns feelings from a primary relationship during childhood.

Ubiquity of Shame.

Shame as the silent killer -- Episode 37

Shame can lead to spiritual death.

Shame is the Silent Killer who Stalks you from inside (episode 37) and despair is the murder weapon.

Spiritual view on this

Primary struggle is against powers and principalities.

Satan's goals -- personal relationship with you.
Satan is real, folks. Big effort in certain very mainstream Christian c...
1 hr 3 min
November 30, 202044 Rape, Incest, Shame, and Silence: A True Story Reexamined, Part 3
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 Catholic spiritual life, all about overcoming psychological obstacles to being loved and to loving.
This is episode 44, released on November 30, 2020
Thank you for being here with me.
and it is the eighth episode in our series on shame.
and it is titled: Rape, Incest, Shame, and Silence: A True Story Reexamined, Part 3
We continuing to deal with very heavy, very difficult material.
We are continuing our deep exploration of the internal worlds of Crown Prince Amnon and Princess Tamar as recounted in 2 Samuel 13.
We opened that up in Episode 40, with Part 1
We continued the story in Episode 43, last week with Part 2
Now in Part 3, we are continuing to learn what we learned about shame in the conceptual information about shame from Episodes 37, 38, 39.
We're going to focus on listening as we were learning about in Episodes 42 and that we continued practicing in episode 43 -- important to listen to episodes 40 and 43 before this one.
Cautions (summarize below)

There is an incestuous rape of a teenager in this story.

I am not going into unnecessary graphic aspects about the rape itself

there isn't a need to get into the all the specific details of it

However, I am bringing out the emotional, relational and psychological impact of the traumas here, and not just the rape, but the betrayals and the failures to protect, and the injustice of it all and all the aftermath

Those aspects -- betrayal, abandonment, the implications, the meaning of those contextual factors can be and often are worse than the actual physical violations. And Tamar tells us that in the scripture.

Those realities can be very difficult to take, it's understandable why people want to avoid discussing them.

We need to be real about these things. People who are traumatized, people who are burdened with shame, who are confused, who are lost -- they need resources. These kinds of awful violations happen. A lot. We need to talk about them. In this podcast I go into them.

There is no neat and tidy way to talk about incest and sexual violence and its aftermath, especially the experience of shame. No whitewash, no clichés, no pious pablum.

And we need to be able to put these thing into a Catholic context, see them from a Catholic viewpoint.

Warnings --Summarize below. let's be prudent here in listening to the story -- not an episode for little kids to necessarily be listening to.
As important as it is to deal with these topics
Be thoughtful about where you are in your life journey, where you are in your healing -- this story may strike close to home for many of you
You don't have to listen to the story or my analysis of it -- listen only if it is good for you -- even for people who are really psychologically well integrated, this is painful stuff.
Unresolved sexual trauma -- this may be a great time, it may be a terrible time listen to it.
Unresolved incest
Unresolved betrayal
Unresolved abandonment, especially by parents or church or civic leaders
Sibling issues.
Window of tolerance

the zone of nervous system arousal in which you are able to function most effectively. When you are within this zone, you can readily take in information, process that information, and integrate that information more readily.

You can listen.

People in the window of tolerance are feeling emotions at moderate levels, not overwhelmed with emotion (hyperarousal) and not numbing their feelings out (hypoarousal).

Review of levels of listening -- check out episode 42. Brief review. Summarize below

Listening to trauma may be easier with a written narrative than in person with the people immediately present

Listening to -- Level 1 listening -- Listening with your mind, taking in information

Often called active listening

Listen carefully to what is happening in the story

Grasping the content, the facts

Requires attention, concentration, taking in what the person is saying.

Focus externally on the characters, not internally on what is going on with your parts. Not distracted by own self-focus

Listening for -- Level 2 listening -- Rarer.
This is speculative, we hold it lightly
Listening to fill in the gaps in each character's big picture
What is beyond and behind the words?

Listening for the deeper layers of meaning in order to perceive what has not been said outright.

understanding the experiential context for each of the characters

Listening to what the character does not say or do -- omissions.
What are we listening for when we are listening for?
The person's experience -- to grasp the person's experience -- all the inner stuff.
Emotions
Intentions
Thoughts
Desires
Attitudes toward the world
Impulses
Vision of the world
Working models of the world, assumptions.
Values
Purpose in life
I listen for identity
and for shame.
Engage the Faculty of imagination to help us fill in the gaps
Taking in what the person means (in contrast to what the person says in Level 1)
What we are not doing:
Not evaluating the merits of that perspective, not getting caught up in judging that perspective
Not looking to right wrongs, not looking for justice, not asking deep existential questions about how could that terrible thing have happened to the person, not formulating advice, not looking to impress.
Setting all that aside. To be with the characters in their stories, their narrative. Understanding them first.
Taking that character's perspective in. Seeing the world through the other person's eyes. No matter how inaccurate or distorted that perception of the world may seem to be to us.

Listening with -- Level 3 listening -- Very rare -- characteristic of great therapists

Listening with your whole self.
<...
57 min
November 23, 202043 Rape, Incest, Shame, and Silence: A True Story Reexamined, Part 2
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 Catholic spiritual life, all about overcoming psychological obstacles to being loved and to loving.
This is episode 43, released on November 23, 2020
Thank you for being here with me.
and it is the seventh episode in our series on shame.
and it is titled: Rape, Incest, Shame, and Silence: A True Story Reexamined, Part 2
We are back to dealing with very heavy, very difficult material.
We are going back to the story of Crown Prince Amnon rape of his half-sister the princess Tamar that is recounted in 2 Samuel 13. Remember that both Prince Amnon and Princess Tamar were King David's children.
We opened that up in Episode 40, with Part 1 -- now that we have taken two episodes to look deeply at King David's upbringing, especially around shame and his wounds

So that we can better understand his role in this present situation

And now we are ready to return to the rape and so much of what went into it and came out of it.

We are going to be applying what we learned about shame in the conceptual information from Episodes 37, 38, 39.
We're going to focus on listening as we were learning about in Episodes 41 and especially 42.
Cautions
There is an incestuous rape of a teenager in this story.

I am not going into unnecessary graphic aspects about the rape itself

there isn't a need to get into the all the specific details of it

However, I am bringing out the emotional, relational and psychological impact of the traumas here, and not just the rape, but the betrayals and the failures to protect, and the injustice of it all and all the aftermath

Those aspects -- betrayal, abandonment, the implications, the meaning of those contextual factors can be and often are worse than the actual physical violations. And Tamar tells us that in the scripture.

Those realities can be very difficult to take, it's understandable why people want to avoid discussing them.

We need to be real about these things. People who are traumatized, people who are burdened with shame, who are confused, who are lost -- they need resources. These kinds of awful violations happen. A lot. We need to talk about them. In this podcast I go into them.

There is no neat and tidy way to talk about incest and sexual violence and its aftermath, especially the experience of shame. No whitewash, no clichés, no pious pablum.

And we need to be able to put these thing into a Catholic context, see them from a Catholic viewpoint.

Warnings -- let's be prudent here in listening to the story -- not an episode for little kids to necessarily be listening to.
As important as it is to deal with these topics
Be thoughtful about where you are in your life journey, where you are in your healing -- this story may strike close to home for many of you
You don't have to listen to the story or my analysis of it -- listen only if it is good for you -- even for people who are really psychologically well integrated, this is painful stuff.
Unresolved sexual trauma -- this may be a great time, it may be a terrible time listen to it.
Unresolved incest
Unresolved betrayal
Unresolved abandonment, especially by parents or church or civic leaders
Sibling issues.
Window of tolerance

the zone of nervous system arousal in which you are able to function most effectively. When you are within this zone, you can readily take in information, process that information, and integrate that information more readily.

You can listen.

People in the window of tolerance are feeling emotions at moderate levels, not overwhelmed with emotion (hyperarousal) and not numbing their feelings out (hypoarousal).

Review of levels of listening -- check out last episode

Listening to trauma may be easier with a written narrative than in person with the people immediately present

Listening to -- Level 1 listening -- Listening with your mind, taking in information

Often called active listening

Listen carefully to what is happening in the story

Grasping the content, the facts

Requires attention, concentration, taking in what the person is saying.

Focus externally on the characters, not internally on what is going on with your parts. Not distracted by own self-focus

Listening for -- Level 2 listening -- Rarer.
This is speculative, we hold it lightly
Listening to fill in the gaps in each character's big picture
What is beyond and behind the words?

Listening for the deeper layers of meaning in order to perceive what has not been said outright.

understanding the experiential context for each of the characters

Listening to what the character does not say or do -- omissions.
What are we listening for when we are listening for?
The person's experience -- to grasp the person's experience -- all the inner stuff.
Emotions
Intentions
Thoughts
Desires
Attitudes toward the world
Impulses
Vision of the world
Working models of the world, assumptions.
Values
Purpose in life
I listen for identity
and for shame.
Engage the Faculty of imagination to help us fill in the gaps
Taking in what the person means (in contrast to what the person says in Level 1)
What we are not doing:
Not evaluating the merits of that perspective, not getting caught up in judging that perspective
Not looking to right wrongs, not looking for justice, not asking deep existential questions about how could that terrible thing have happened to the person, not formulating advice, not looking to impress.
Setting all that aside. To be with the characters in their stories, their narrative. Understanding them first.
Taking that character's perspective in. Seeing the world through the other person's eyes. No matter how inaccurate or distorted that perception of the world may seem to be to us.

Listening with...
56 min
November 16, 202042 Practicing Deep Listening: Understanding King David's Shame
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 Catholic spiritual life, all about overcoming psychological obstacles to being loved and to loving.
This is episode 42, released on November 16, 2020
Thank you for being here with me.
and it is the sixth episode in our series on shame.
and it is titled: Practicing Deep Listening: Understanding King David's Shame
Introduction to IFS.

Developed by Richard Schwartz

Discussion of Parts

Discrete, autonomous mental systems, each with own idiosyncratic range of emotion, style of expression, abilities, desires views of the world.
Modes of operating
Subpersonalities
Orchestra model
Focus is on integration.

Get forced into extreme roles -- attachment injuries and relational traumas

Three roles

Exiles --
most sensitive -- become injured or outraged. Threatens the system, external relationships
Exploited, rejected, abandoned in external relationships
Want care and love, rescue, redemption
shame. Need for redemption

Managers

Protective, strategic, controlling environment, keep things safe

Obsessions. Compulsions, reclusiveness, passivity, numbing. Panic attacks, somatic complaints, depressive episodes, hypervigiliance.

Firefighters

Stifle, anesthetize, distract from feelings of exiles

No concern for consequences

Binge eating, drug/alcohol use, dissociation, sexual risk taking, cutting

Parts can take over the person

Like in Pixar Movie Inside Out -- anger taking over the control panel of the main character Riley

We call it blending.

IFS on the Self -- (recorded)

Self defined as the seat of consciousness

Self can be occluded or overwhelmed by parts

When self accepts and loves parts, those parts transform back into who they were meant to be

Self-led mind is self-righting.

self -- Active inner leader -- more than mindfulness

Parts find the relationship with the self very reassuring

But to reap the benefits they have to unblend from and notice the self

This is frightening can challenging to parts

Agency in the parts -- parts are making decisions about unblending in IFS model

Intrinsic qualities of the self

Curiosity

Compassion

Calm

Confidence

Courage

Clarity

Creativity

Connectedness

Kindness

The self can be easily occluded, obscured, hidden by protective parts who take over in response to fear, anger or shame

General state for most people is to be quite blended

Leads to self-absorption

3 levels of Listening -- Laura Whitworth, Henry Kimsey-House, Phil Sandahl & John Whitemore 1998 Co-active Coaching: New skills for coaching people toward success in work and life. I am expanding their concepts.
Listening to -- Level 1 listening -- Listening with your mind -- Many people struggle with this

Often called active listening

Listen carefully to what the person says

Grasping the content

Requires attention, concentration, taking in what the person is saying.

Focus externally on the other person, not internally. Not distracted by own self-focus

Listening for -- Level 2 listening -- Rarer. Characteristic of very good therapists.
Listening in search of something-- filling in the gaps in the person's big picture
What is beyond and behind the words?
Holding it lightly. Speculative endeavor.
Listening to what the person does not say
Listening with the third ear The "third ear," a concept introduced by psychoanalyst Theodor Reik 1983 Book , refers to a special kind of listening -- listening for the deeper layers of meaning in order to perceive what has not been said outright. It means understanding the emotional underpinnings conveyed when someone is speaking to you.
What are we listening for?
The person's experience -- to grasp the person's experience
Emotions
Intentions
Thoughts
Desire
Attitudes toward the world
Glass half empty or half full
Impulses
Vision of the world
Working models of the world, assumptions.
Values
Purpose in life
I listen for identity and for shame.
Listening for both the words and the entire context
70-93% of communication is nonverbal -- Albert Mehrabia, Professor Emeritus at UCLA

Voice -- tone, inflection, volume 38% of communication

Body language -- glance patterns, facial expressions (including micrexpressions -- smiling matters a lot), posture, fidgeting, head movements, hand gestures,

Summarized in his 1971/1980 book Silent Messages
Based on one word communications
Challenged by Philip Yaffe debate about it.
Faculty of imagination -- What Aristotle called Phantasia activities in thoughts, dreams and memories.
imagination is a faculty in humans and most other animals which produces, stores, and recalls the images used in a variety of cognitive activities, including those which motivate and guide action (De Anima iii 3, 429a4–7, De Memoria 1, 450a22–25).
Focus here on understanding, entering into the other person's perspective

Taking in what the person means (in contrast to what the person says in Level 1)

Not evaluating the merits of that perspective, not getting caught up in judging that perspective

Not looking to right wrongs, not looking for justice, not asking dee...
1 hr
November 09, 202041 Rewind: Trauma and Shame in King David's Childhood
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 Catholic spiritual life, all about overcoming psychological obstacles to being loved and to loving.
This is episode 41, released on November 9, 2020
Thank you for being here with me.
and it is the fifth episode in our series on shame.
and it is titled: Rewind: Trauma and Shame in King David's Childhood
We cover really difficult topics in this podcast --
we go to the really challenging places that other podcasts are unwilling or unable to go.
Because we have to. Because people are caught in those places and they are hurting, because people are trapped and people are in danger, they are in peril.
And we need to reach out to them.
And you know what? We are those people too.
We have parts of us trapped in bad places, places we don't understand, places we are afraid of, places that we don't want to go by ourselves, all alone
But together, each of us can understand much more of our unconscious.
This is the second of a subseries highly experiential episodes -- these episodes are opportunities for experiential learning -- to learn a lot about yourself -- about who you really are, about your history.
St. Paul

Romans 7:15 I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

Romans 7:18b-19 I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want [that] is what I do.

St. Paul doesn't understand himself -- St. Paul, a pillar of virtue, author of half the books in the New Testament, St. Paul, who endured outrageous sufferings, amazing self sacrifice -- he's admitting to being dominated by his unconscious.

Isn't a question of willpower -- Paul had extraordinary willpower, hard to imagine many saints that can best him in terms of willpower.

It’s a question of insight. Of understanding.
Won't be complete
But we can have much more insight and understanding than we do now.

Continuing story of Princess Tamar, Crown Prince Amnon, Prince Absalom, and King David

But diving much deeper into in the inner experience of these characters and others
Why did they do the things that they did
Why did they say the things that they did
What were they thinking, feeling, sensing, believing, desiring, seeking
And what where they missing, what where they forgetting, not noticing?
What made them tick?

Through clinical eyes.

Much more to the story than the brief account in 2 Samuel 13

We will be using other sources -- e.g. archeology to help us understand the time and culture

But also psychological insights about shame, trauma, the motives for the rape,

Why -- not just to understand this story and the people this story

But to help you understand your story and the people in your story
Really about you understanding you

I will be discussing the different internal parts or modes of operating for these men and women to help you gain insight into them. To make sense of their actions to see them in 3 dimensions instead of just in the short account given in the Scripture

Scripture is the word of God -- we need to unpack it, we need to decode the human language of revelation as the Pontifical Bible Commission put it in

The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church -- 1993 Pontifical Bible Commission, endorsed by St. Pope John Paul II

Psychology and theology continue their mutual dialogue. The modern extension of psychological research to the study of the dynamic structures of the subconscious has given rise to fresh attempts at interpreting ancient texts, including the Bible.

Psychological and psychoanalytical studies do bring a certain enrichment to biblical exegesis in that, because of them, the texts of the Bible can be better understood in terms of experience of life and norms of behavior.

As is well known, religion is always in a relationship of conflict or debate with the unconscious.

It [the unconscious] plays a significant role in the proper orientation of human drives. Psychology and psychoanalysis… lead to a multidimensional understanding of Scripture and help decode the human language of revelation.

What I am offering is admittedly speculative -- I am speculating about motives, internal conflicts, internal experience of the real people in the story

I won't get it all right

But the point is to show you a way to think about internal experience -- your own and others in a much deeper, more insightful way. It's about learning how to seek inside yourself to understand your own internal experience -- emotions, sensations, beliefs, attitudes, impulses, desires, intentions, conflicts, all the internal stuff. It's about that process, learning to seek. Seek and ye shall find.

It's a way to understand the unconscious -- your unconscious, all the conflict inside, all the mysterious elements

Utterly faithful to the fullness of truth as revealed by the Catholic Church.

We are bringing the best of psychology to the fullness of divine revelation -- all in the service of being able to understand ourselves better so we can understand others better

You can really understanding anybody else very well if you don't understand yourself. You'll misinterpret what you see in the other person.
If you don't tolerate awareness of anger in yourself, and you sense anger in your relationship with another person, you'll assume it's the other person who is angry -- defense of projection

Not just some psychological self-discovery project --
to help you understand the story of others, and the people in their stories
So you can love them -- and love Christ in them.
We are going to get some of this wrong -- we won't be 100% accurate, but that's it's not the point right now. Tamar doesn't need us, at this point in her life, to empathize with her. She's dead and experiencing her eternity. So is King David, Prince Amnon, Prince Absalom, the...
1 hr 2 min
November 02, 202040 Rape, Incest, Shame, and Silence: A True Story Reexamined, Part 1
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 Catholic spiritual life, all about overcoming psychological obstacles to being loved and to loving.
This is episode 40, released on November 2, 2020 -- we made it to forty together.
Thank you for being here with me.
Steep learning curve -- starting to find my groove now, not nearly as rough and awkward as when I started.
and it is the fourth episode in our series on shame.
and it is titled: Rape, Incest, Shame, and Silence: A True Story Reexamined, Part 1
This is the first of three or four highly experiential episodes -- these episodes are opportunities for experiential learning -- to learn a lot about yourself and your history.
Pushing the envelope of what is possible for learning from our experiences in an interactive podcast.
Review

Series on shame is vitally important.
Most people can't define shame -- if we can't put what shame is into words adequate, we can't think about it clearly, we can't engage our intellect and our will
Deficits even in experts' definitions -- they can be very incomplete -- even Brene Brown's definitions are incomplete
Really critical to understand what shame and guilt are and what they cause, what they do to us. More than just natural life and death -- also spiritual life and death.

We have been really exercising our deductive reasoning skills so far in this series on shame.

Deductive reasoning

Start by understanding basic principles and general concepts

And reasoning from those, arrives at specific observations and conclusions

Top down approach

Starting from the general, and getting down to specifics

Clarified definitions of shame and guilt -- really necessary

Three episodes ago, in episode 37, we introduced shame as the silent killer who stalks us from within

Defined shame -- I drew from many sources

Conceptual exploration -- understanding a much more complete picture of shame as not only an emotion, but also a bodily response, a signal, a self-judgement and an action.

Two episodes ago in episode 38, I invited you to see the signs of shame in yourself and others, to recognize shame in ourselves and in others, becoming better able to detect it, because shame very often, almost always, remains hidden and unrecognized from what it really is.

Last episode, Episode 39 we discussed shame and guilt conceptually -- multifaceted aspects of guilt, three aspects -- guilt as a moral state, guilt as a legal state and guilt as an emotion.
Comparing and contrasting shame and guilt -- conceptual distinctions

But a lot of us struggle to learn that way -- with deductive reasoning, staring with generalities and drawing specific conclusions from them. Seems so intellectual, so conceptual, it can be hard for some of us to see it --
we need concrete examples, something we can see, feel, sense, something tangible that we can wrap our minds around.
We need a story -- preferably a true story with real people who did real things, said real words, and who had real experiences. That kind of thing helps me understand the overarching principles.
Stories and case histories help us with inductive reasoning -- going from the specifics of a real, given situation to general conclusions.

Sometimes called bottom-up reasoning.

Our Plan with the Story

Today, we are going to start with a true story, a real story, chock-full of trauma, shame and guilt.
And we will go through this story multiple times to really flesh it out.
We will begin with the facts, the particulars, we will be getting into the details
And from those specifics, we will work our way upward toward clarifying the general principles by studying them in a real-life context
Can think of the principles we've learned about shame and guilt as the first broad strokes in a drawing, the outline of shame -- now we are going to bring in specifics, we will bring in details in color and this drawing will come alive in the story
That is what we are doing today. We are start with a story. And eventually we will review what we have learned about shame and guilt, the conceptual ideas and we are going to put bring those concepts into this real-life situation.

Preparation

So the last three episodes provide the conceptual foundation for understanding shame and guilt in the natural realm, in the psychological realm.
If you haven't listened to them and you are a conceptual thinker, you like the principles and ideas first, I would encourage you to listen to Episodes 37, 38 and 39 -- lots of conceptual meat in them
For those of you who learn through examples and stories, those three conceptual episodes may make a lot more sense once we work through this case history -- you can go back and listen top episodes 37, 38, 39 after hearing out this story, get a lot more out of those conceptual episodes the second time around.

What is our plan with this story -- delicate material, no surprises

Brief go over some cautions about this story, how to listen prudently

Next I will go through some training with you as to how to listen to this story to really engage with the story and apply it to your experience -- this is a really important part of your work, so I hope you'll tune into the section that is coming up on how to listen to this story.

Then, I am going to introduce the main figures in the story -- today in this episode, number 40

Next , in this episode, I will give a little bit of the context and the back story behind the story, things I was able to find out and pull together about the story.

And in this episode, I will read the story as it was originally published -- this is in the public domain, it's fairly easy to find -- you can google it.
The published version is quite short -- 4 paragraphs, about 680 words more or less, depending on the version
While there is detail and substance, the story is not told in a particularly psychologically-minded way -- it's more like a news report focused on the facts -- the behaviors of the characters, not as focused on their internal experiences and their relational connections.
55 min
October 26, 202039 The Real, Radical, and Resounding Differences Between Shame and Guilt
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 Catholic spiritual life, all about overcoming psychological obstacles to being loved and to loving.
Thank you for being here with me. This is episode 39, released on October 26, 2020 and it is the third episode in our series on shame.
and it is titled: The Real, Radical, and Resounding Differences Between Shame and Guilt.
Two episode ago, in episode 37, we introduced shame as the silent killer who stalks us from within.
Last episode, episode 38, I invited you to see the signs of shame in yourself and others, to recognize shame in ourselves and in others, becoming better able to detect it.
That's important, because shame pulls us to allow our shame to remain hidden, unobserved, unrecognized for what it is.
Shame is tricky, it's slippery, it loves to camouflage itself.
Encourage you to listen to those last two episodes, very rich, RCCD community members discussing listening multiple times, really working on understanding.
Now that we have a much better understanding of shame from the last two episodes, we are going to take the next step.

This episode will stand alone, I will give you the context.

Today, in Episode 39. We are going to understand much more deeply the difference between shame and guilt.
Many people use them interchangeably they don't recognize a difference. I feel bad with both of them because something is wrong.

Shame vs. Guilt Distinction. I asked about this in intake evaluations.

Five negative emotions. Anger, Sadness, Fear, Shame and Guilt.

What's the difference between shame and guilt.

Most people could not tell me the difference. Rare that someone could give me a good answer.

Do you know the difference between shame and guilt? Do your siblings know the difference? Does your spouse or significant other, do your friends, your kids, your siblings.

As we will see, it a crucial distinction -- because the upshot is that we work with them in very different ways.

focusing today recognizing the difference between shame and guilt

Important psychologically

Important spiritually

Not just an idle curiosity, the kind of thing philosopher like to debate about

But a real world concern

Brene Brown: I believe the differences between shame and guilt are critical in informing everything from the way we parent and engage in relationships, to the way we give feedback at work and school.

Bernard Williams (1993) claims that guilt and shame overlap to a significant degree and we will not understand either unless we take both seriously.

Catholic guilt or Catholic shame.

Review.
Shame has been very difficult to define. Most definitions have been inadequate and very contradictory.
Shame mentioned only once in the entire Catechism of the Catholic Church.
CCC1216 on Baptism: Baptism is God's most beautiful and magnificent gift. . . .We call it gift, grace, anointing, enlightenment, garment of immortality, bath of rebirth, seal, and most precious gift. It is called gift because it is conferred on those who bring nothing of their own; grace since it is given even to the guilty; Baptism because sin is buried in the water; anointing for it is priestly and royal as are those who are anointed; enlightenment because it radiates light; clothing since it veils our shame; bath because it washes; and seal as it is our guard and the sign of God's Lordship.
Shame not mentioned in Fr. Hardon's modern Catholic dictionary or in the Traditional Catholic Dictionary or in the 1917 Catholic encyclopedia.
Shame also not listed in the American Psychological Association's Dictionary of Psychology. Ooops.
Brene Brown:
I define shame as the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging – something we’ve experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection.
Shame has five dimensions: shame is a primary emotion, shame is a bodily reaction, shame is a signal to us, shame is an internal self-judgement, and shame is an action -- a verb (review).
Shame as primary emotion-- primary emotions are those that we feel first, as a first response to a situation. They are unthinking, instinctive, automatic emotions that we have. Heartset

Can be conscious or unconscious

Held by a part of us. -- part of us burdened with shame. Doesn't just come and go in waves

Also a self-conscious emotion

Also a moral emotion.

Shame as a bodily reaction not under bodily control -- bodyset

Hyperarousal -- this is where our sympathetic nervous system revs us up, gets into fight or flight mode in response to shame

Heart starts racing

Breathing quickens

Pupils dilate

Blood rushes to arms and legs

Face can flush red

Get ready to defend ourselves or attack or run away

Hypoarousal, when the parasympathetic nervous system shuts us down -- freeze response, like a deer in the headlights

Shut down. Numb out. Dissociate

Head drops

Breaking off eye contact

Tightening up of muscles, curling up in a ball (spine) -- hunching to protect vital organs. Making one's body smaller, less visible

Feeling like ice water in the veins, cold freezing sensation

Fluttering in belly.

Shame as a judgment -- a negative, critical, global judgment of who I am as a person. -- mindset
Part of me holds this disparaging perspective of myself
Part of me accuses me of being incompetent, inadequate, worthless, unlovable, bad or even evil,
A judgement about who I really am originally picked up from the perspective of an important other who was perceived as critical or rejecting.
Shame as a signal
1 hr 2 min

About Interior Integration for Catholics

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The mission of this podcast is the formation of your heart in love and for love, Together, we shore up the natural, human foundation for your spiritual formation as a Catholic. St. Thomas Aquinas…