Interior Integration for Catholics

In this experiential exercise, we invite parts of us to share their stories of why they hold anger toward God.  Dr. Peter offers an invitation to parts to see if we can listen to those stories in an open, nonjudgmental way, understanding that there are always reasons for anger at God, reasons that stem from misunderstanding and misinterpretations of experiences.  Parts are angry more at their images of God -- their idols -- than at who God really is. Live audience participants share their experience in debriefing and Dr. Peter also answers questions.  

Summary:  Dr. Peter walks you through the four tracks or pathways Catholics commonly follow with their anger at God, tracks proposed by Michele Novotni and Randy Petersen in their 2001 book Angry with God, and elaborates on them extensively.  These four tracks are 1) Trust in God Track; 2) the Cover-Up Track; 3) the Wrestle with God Track; and 4) the Long-Distance / Disconnect Track.  We discuss how to better resolve anger issues with God through a wide variety of means with a focus on practical solutions.  Dr. Peter emphasizes the importance of God images, felt safety and protection, a sense of trust, the infused virtue of Faith, courage and fortitude, and the critical role of emotional co-regulation in working through anger at God.    

In this episode, informed by Internal Family Systems and grounded firmly in a Catholic worldview, Dr. Peter guides you to connect with your spiritual manager parts who protect you against your own anger at God, getting to know those parts' concerns about why anger at God is dangerous or unacceptable.  This is an important step in the journey to working through your anger at God.  We discuss how to work safely with your parts, with a spirit of cooperation and collaboration, not rushing.  Come join us on an adventure inside.  At the end, audience participants debrief, share their experiences with Dr. Peter and he answers questions.  

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

1. Summary:  In this episode, Dr. Peter brings together what we have been learning about receiving love in the story of Susanna
2. Lead-in:  There is something in us, as storytellers and as listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive act, that demands that what falls at least be offered the chance to be restored. The reader of today looks for this motion, and rightly so, but what he has forgotten is the cost of it. His sense of evil is diluted or lacking altogether, and so he has forgotten the price of restoration. When he reads a novel, he wants either his sense tormented or his spirits raised. He wants to be transported, instantly, either to mock damnation or a mock innocence.”  Catholic Novelist Flannery O'Connor
3. Intro.  
   1. I have been doing a lot of podcast lecturing.  Dense programming, lots of information.  Like Episode 99.  Not a bad thing.  But I want you to really take in what I'm offering at a bones level.  To possess it at the felt level, to be that familiar with it.  Not just head knowledge.  Whole self knowledge.  
   2. So I am going back to another way of learning, one I haven't emphasized enough.  Stories.  Today, I am going to tell you a story.  A story about receiving different kinds of love.  Why?
   3. Here's why.  In the words of Edward Miller tells us.  “Stories are our primary tools of learning and teaching, the repositories of our lore and legends. They bring order into our confusing world."
       
      1. Our primary tools for teaching and learning.  And it's true.  We teach our children in their earliest years through stories and experiences.  Not through lectures.  
   4. 
      
   5. I am Peter Malinoski, clinical psychologist, passionate Catholic, co-founder and president of Souls and Hearts and soulsandhearts.com, and I am very pleased to with you as  your host and guide in this Interior Integration for Catholics podcast, episode 101 to be your storyteller, to tell you a story.  This episode is titled A Story about Receiving Different Kinds of Love -- a story we can all related to.  
4. Prepping for the Story
    
   1. Ways to Listen
       
      1. Listen to the Story
   2.  
      1. Listening to yourself as you listen to the Story.  
         1. What is going on inside
         2. Listen to your own parts
             
            1. Can pause the audio
         3.  
            1. Reflective space
         4.  
            1. What are your noticing
         5.  
            1. What are you resonating with in the story, what is impacting you.?
         6.  
            1. What are you rejecting
         7.  
   3. 
      
      1. Parts -- Episode 71 A new and better way of understanding myself and others.  
   4. 
      
      1. Needs
          
         1. Primary Conditions for Secure Attachment
             
            1. Felt sense of safety and protection -- have to go through the valley of shame, fear, anger, grief
         2.  
            1. Feeling seen, heard, known and understood -- have to tolerating being in relationship, being present.  
         3. 
            
            1. Feeling comforted, soothed and reassured
         4.  
            1. Feeling cherished, treasured, delighted in
         5.  
            1. Feeling the other has your best interests at heart
         6.  
      2. 
         
         1. Integrity Needs
             
            1. My need to exist and survive 
         2. 
            
            1. My need to matter
         3.  
            1. My need to have agency
         4.  
            1. My need to be good
         5.  
            1. My need for mission and purpose in life
         6.  
      3. 
         
   5. 
      
      1. Resistance to Being Loved from IIC 99 
         1. Limited vision and lack of imagination, leading to a refusal to be transformed by God
         2. We don't understand God's love
         3. The Costs of Being Loved by God
         4. Poor God images
         5. Poor Self images -- Shame
         6. Refusal to be vulnerable, to be exposed, to be revealed to God. 
         7. Lack of courage.
         8. Anger at God -- rebellion
5. 
   
   1. Cautions -- could be evocative for you -- parts of you may really connect in various ways.  I want you to take care of your self and your parts as you listen to the story.  If you need a break, take a break.  
6. The Story -- Hero's Journey outline
    
   1. The Ordinary World
       
      1. Susanna -- 40 year old married mother of three -- 
         1. Brown hair, warm brown eyes, and easy smile, she laughs at your jokes -- the kind of person that you immediately felt comfortable with.  Open and engaging with other people, was well read, and could talk about your interests.  Socially adept, she coordinated making meals for local women who had babies.  Had a sense that she had suffered in her life and understood something about suffering.  And that was true
   2. 
      
      1. Life wasn't always easy for Susanna
          
         1. Grew up in Culpeper, VA, 75 miles west of Washington DC, oldest of four children, all girls.  Named Susan.  
      2. 
         
         1. Mother -- quiet, introverted - an interior designer turned homemaker.  
         2. Father -- extroverted, warm, gregarious high school teacher - taught algebra, geometry and trigonometry at Culpeper County High School  -- great sense of humor, gratifying, and a pretty easy grader, students loved him and he really liked being a popular teacher.  
            1. Strong sense that father had favorites among the daughters, and she wasn't one of them  
         3. When Susan was age 16, her mother divorced her father -- his affairs, excessive drinking
             
            1. Mother devastated.  Really wanted her daughter to understand.  Susanna was cold.  
         4. 
            
            1. Read the divorce decree "Irreconcilable differences"  And she was so angry
         5.  
            1. At an emotional level, Susan repudiated both Mom and Dad.  Not understanding, not wanting to understand.  
         6. 
            
            1. Decided to go by "Susanna" -- three reasons
                
               1. Devoted to the Chronicles of Narnia -- The last book of the series, The Last Battle.  Aslan says "Susan is no longer a friend of Narnia."  Given to nylons, lipstick, and party invitations -- she didn't seem serious  any more.  
            2. 
               
               1. Susan was her given name -- she wanted different name, but not too different
            3.  
               1. In the Bible, in Daniel chapter 13, Susanna was the beautiful, faithful wife of Joakim.  She refused to be blackmailed into adultery by two respectable men of high stature in the community, two judges, who just happened to have also be voyeurs, peeping-Toms.  Susanna preferred death by denunciation rather than compromise her moral principles, and was saved by a young boy, Daniel, whose clever cross-examination of the accusers revealed them to be liars.  Susanna was a real heroine in her eyes, someone to be emulated.  
            4. 
               
         7. 
            
         8. Shuttling back and forth between parents, who were drifting from the Faith. 
            1. Mom pursued an annulment got it, and remarried the summer after Susanna's graduation from high school.  Susanna refused to be in the bridal party, refused to go to the wedding. 
         9. Like many teenagers in this position, Susan rebelled.  But not by using alcohol, drugs or sex.  Susan rebelled by becoming more Catholic -- 
         10. Went to Christendom college, it was close, it w...

IIC 99 Why We Catholics Reject God's Love for Us and How to Embrace that Love

It is so common for Catholics (and others) to reject the love of God, to not let that love in.  Join Dr. Peter for this episode where we explore in depth the eight natural, human formation reasons why we refuse God's love. We also look at what Hell really is and why it really exists.  Through examples, quotes, and an exploration of Dr. Peter's own parts, listen to how this critical, central topic comes alive.  And then Dr. Peter presents the an action plan for accepting and embracing God's love. 

Transcript 

"It's very hard for most of us to tolerate being loved." That's psychiatrist and Harvard professor George Vaillant. The hardest thing about love for many of us Catholics, is to be loved--to tolerate being loved first. We can't love unless we take love in first. We can't generate love out of nothing on our own. We just don't have that power.

And the truth is, many Catholics make sacrifices great and small in their attempts to love others. Many Catholics go to great lengths to try to please God and to love their neighbor--very busy people, most parishes have a few of these always--volunteering, always working, always making things happen, St. Vincent de Paul, soup kitchens, corporal works of mercy, working so hard to live out the Gospel as they understand it, but it's all external. They are very out of touch with their internal lives. Their prayer lives are shallow and sketchy, and they're often really uncomfortable in their own skin. They will not tolerate silence, which is why they're always on the move--why they're always going, going, going.

The vast majority of us Catholics will not tolerate being loved deeply or fully by God. We shy away from receiving that love. We get so uncomfortable, we skirt around the edges of being loved. Or we allow love into us, but only so far--only so far. We set limits, we set boundaries, we won't let God's love permeate all of our being. We let the "acceptable parts" of us to be loved. Those parts that we allow in the shop window, those parts that we believe others will accept, those parts that we believe God likes. But to allow God to love all of you, including your nasty parts, your shameful parts, your disgusting parts, your hidden lepers, your sinful parts, those tax collector parts, those inner prostitutes and blasphemers, your Pharisee parts, the parts of you that are so lost and so isolated and so angry and hateful, those parts? Most of us will say "no way, no way does anyone get to see those parts if I can help it, let alone love those parts. Love those parts? That's crazy." How about your terrified parts, your desperate parts, your wounded, traumatized parts? The ones that no one seems to want? The parts of you that have been rejected by everybody, including yourself.

This podcast is for us Catholics who understand at least intellectually, that we have those parts. And that those parts need to be loved, and that those parts also need to be redeemed. Now for anyone out there who is saying, "Well, I don't think I have any parts like that, Dr. Peter, I don't have any problems being loved." Well, my response to that is one of two possibilities. Either you are 1) a very special person who has been freed from our fallen human condition, and you've achieved an extraordinary degree of perfection in the natural and spiritual realms, and if so, congratulations. You don't need this podcast. You don't need this episode. You are so far above the rest of us--I'm in awe of you. You don't need what I have to offer. That's the first possibility.

Second possibility? You don't know yourself very well. You are out of touch with yourself and your parts--you are disconnected inside. Unless you've reached a fair degree of sanctity, it is especially hard for you to tolerate being loved by God and our refusal to accept the love of God throughout all of us. That's the primary reason we don't love God back. That's also the primary reason we don't love our neighbor, and why we don't love ourselves. We won't be loved first.

God loved us first. It all starts with God's love, not our love. Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow in his book, 'Shaken' says, "We were created by love, in love and for love." And St. Paul, he tells us in Romans 5:8, "God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." God loved us first.

And the world does not know God. Christianity is the way to discover who God actually is--to discover who love actually is. 1 John 3:1, "See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him." What I want you to remember, St. John in his first letter says, "We love because he first loved us." We love because God first loved us, and it's up to us to take that love in, to let that love come into every corner of our being. And that doesn't sound easy, and it's not as easy as it sounds.

I am Dr. Peter Malinoski, a.k.a. Dr. Peter, clinical psychologist, trauma therapist, podcaster, blogger, cofounder and president of Souls and Hearts--but most of all, I am a beloved little son of God, a passionate Catholic who wants to help you experience the height and depth and breadth and warmth and the light of the love of God, especially God, the Father and our primary mother, Mary. What I want for you more than anything else is that you enter into a deep, intimate, personal, loving relationship with the three persons of the Trinity and with our Lady. This is what this Interior Integration for Catholics podcast is all about. This is what Souls and Hearts is all about--all about shoring up the natural foundation for the spiritual life of intimacy with God, all about overcoming the natural human formation, deficits and obstacles to contemplative union with God our Father, and with our Lady, our Mother.

We are on an adventure of love together. Episode 94 of this podcast focused on the primacy of love in the Catholic life. Episode 95 focused on trauma's devastating impact on our capacity to love. Episode 96 discussed how trauma hardens us against being loved. Episode 97 discussed how trauma predisposes us to self-hatred and indifference to ourselves, a refusal to love ourselves. And Episode 98. the last episode was all about ordered self-love, how we need to love ourselves in an ordered way in order to love God and neighbor, to carry out the two great commandments.

Today, we are going to take a step back. We're going to look at the most critical prerequisite for loving God and others. We are going to discuss being loved first, accepting the love of God first before we try to love. This is absolutely essential. The most critical mistake that most Catholics make is to refuse the love of God. Let me say that again. The most critical mistake, the most devastating, catastrophic mistake that most Catholics make is to refuse to allow God's love to transform us entirely, to make us into new men and women.

Let's start out with the order of love. First thing--God leads with love. God makes the first move. He created us, he moves toward us. We who he created, we who have fallen from grace because of original sin. We don't make the first move. God does. He loved us first, and he continues to love us first, and our whole mission, our whole purpose is to respond to his love in love.

I want to read to you a brief passage from Shawn Mitchell. He wrote an article called 'We Love Because He First Loved Us', and he is with Those Catholic Men. You can find this online. Shawn Mitchell says, "We love because he first loved us. These words from the first letter of John beautifully and s...