This Whole Life

"He's the perfect image of grief, in the sense of accepting, embracing, expressing the emotional sadness, and also having full trust and hope in the resurrection." ~ Pat Millea

Why do grief "stages" set people up to feel like they're doing it wrong?

Is it okay to be angry with God after a loss?

What does Jesus losing himself in grief at Lazarus's tomb teach us about grieving well?

In this episode of This Whole Life, Pat and Kenna Millea talk about what it means to grieve and how to grieve well. They start by naming grief for what it actually is: both an emotional and physical response to loss, whether that loss is big or small, sudden or anticipated, a person, a relationship, or a season of life.

Kenna pushes back on the popular idea of fixed "stages" of grief, offering instead what she calls states of grief, not a staircase that only moves one direction, but a spiral staircase that circles back around. Pat and Kenna also open up about their own experiences of loss, including Kenna's reflections on A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis and what it taught her about grieving with faith instead of around it.

The conversation turns honest about anger, including anger at God, and why that anger and real hope in the resurrection are not mutually exclusive. Pat points to Jesus weeping at the tomb of Lazarus, even knowing he was about to raise him from the dead, as the model for what it looks like to hold both grief and hope at the same time.

This episode is for anyone who has grieved a person, a relationship, or a season of life, and wondered if they were doing it right.

Chapters:

• (00:00) - Cold Open: "And Jesus Wept"
• (00:30) - Welcome & Today's Topic: Grief
• (02:25) - Highs and Hards
• (09:33) - What Grief Actually Is (And Why It Isn't Linear)
• (18:58) - C.S. Lewis, "A Grief Observed," and Kenna's Own Story
• (34:23) - The Spiral Staircase: States, Not Stages, of Grief
• (44:19) - Is It Okay to Be Angry With God?
• (52:22) - Challenge by Choice & Closing Prayer

Links and Resources:

• A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis
• John 11 (Jesus weeps at the tomb of Lazarus)
• Romans 8:28

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Music: "You're Not Alone" by Marie Miller. Used with permission.

Sometimes God sends angels to save your life. And to let you watch the Super Bowl.

Manny Huerta is back for another Storytellers!

Support the show

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Interested in more faith-filled mental health resources? Check out the Martin Center for Integration

Music: "You're Not Alone" by Marie Miller. Used with permission.

"When you throw in the idea of self-care, that makes a lot of Christian people cringe and run away, because what it sounds like is self-interest, self-indulgence, and pride." ~ Pat Millea

• Is wanting rest actually a form of pride, or is refusing rest the real problem?
• What does the prophet Elijah, collapsed under a tree and praying for death, have to teach us about rest and mission?
• Where's the actual line between self-care and self-indulgence?

In this episode of This Whole Life, Pat and Kenna Millea tackle a topic that makes a lot of faithful Christians uneasy: self-care. They name the tension head-on, if love means seeking the good of the other, why would seeking your own good ever be justified? From there they work through the common cultural misuses of self-care before proposing a clearly Catholic definition: self-care is seeking out the renewal, recreation, and refreshment we need in order to return to our duties with greater love, freedom, and generosity, not an end in itself.

Pat brings two scriptural examples to ground the conversation, including a deep dive into 1 Kings 19, where the prophet Elijah, exhausted and afraid after his showdown with the prophets of Baal, flees into the wilderness and prays for death. God's response isn't a rebuke. It's food, rest, and eventually a face-to-face encounter that sends him back to his mission renewed. Pat and Kenna use that story to draw out the real dividing line between self-indulgence and the kind of self-care that actually serves love.

This episode is for anyone who has ever felt guilty for needing rest, or wondered if taking care of themselves is somehow in conflict with taking care of everyone else.

Episode 110 Show Notes

Chapters:

• (00:00) - Cold Open 
• (00:29) - Welcome, Where in the World, and a Movie Trivia Game 
• (22:17) - Naming the Tension: Does Self-Care Sound Like Pride? 
• (28:16) - A Catholic Definition of Self-Care 
• (34:27) - Elijah in the Wilderness: 1 Kings 19 
• (39:52) - Self-Care as Return to Mission 
• (54:59) - Challenge by Choice and Closing Prayer

Support the show

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Music: "You're Not Alone" by Marie Miller. Used with permission.

When you took your college visit, did you know what that college was located?

Pat & Kenna take a look back in this Storytellers!

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Music: "You're Not Alone" by Marie Miller. Used with permission.

"There is always, always hope in any marriage, and I mean any marriage." ~ Pat Millea

• Is it actually okay for a Catholic couple, even ones who work in mental health, to go to marriage counseling?
• Why might your spouse asking to talk about feelings not be a criticism of who you are?
• Does having a sacramental marriage, or being married to a therapist, guarantee a happy relationship?

In episode 109 of This Whole Life, Pat Millea flies solo (Kenna's swamped with back to school season) to share seven honest lessons he's learned from being married to a licensed marriage and family therapist. He opens by naming the assumption listeners might be making, that their marriage is easy because of what they do for a living, and admits there were genuinely difficult years in their relationship, including the moment Kenna first asked him to go to marriage counseling, which felt to him like being punched in the face.

From there, Pat walks through what he's learned since: that going to therapy is not a sign of failure, how naming an unspoken parent-child dynamic in their marriage changed how they related to each other, why learning to identify and voice his own emotions took years of practice, and how a simple, almost corny script helped them break out of a painful conflict cycle they'd repeated for years.

He closes with two of the most important lessons: that neither the sacrament of marriage nor a degree in therapy automatically produces a great relationship, since every marriage takes real, ongoing work, and that no marriage, no matter how far gone it feels, is beyond hope.

This episode is for anyone who has ever assumed marriage should get easier once you know what you're doing, or anyone quietly wondering if going to counseling means something is wrong with them.

Chapters:

• (00:00) - Cold Open
• (00:29) - Welcome, High and Hard, and Their Marriage Timeline
• (12:06) - Lesson 1: It Is Okay to Go to Therapy
• (15:11) - Lesson 2: Naming the Parent-Child Dynamic
• (21:52) - Lesson 3: Learning Emotional Attunement and the Feelings Wheel
• (26:49) - Lesson 4: Sidestepping the Dance Before It Starts
• (32:02) - Lesson 5: Sacraments and Therapy Are Not Magic Tricks
• (35:03) - Lessons 6 and 7, Challenge by Choice, and Closing Prayer

Support the show

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Music: "You're Not Alone" by Marie Miller. Used with permission.

"I need you to have this baby literally anywhere else." 😂

Storytellers is back with a story that Kenna remembers the details of far better than Pat does.

Support the show

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Interested in more faith-filled mental health resources? Check out the Martin Center for Integration

Music: "You're Not Alone" by Marie Miller. Used with permission.

"Getting help and offering it up are not mutually exclusive." ~ Pat Millea

• Does "offering it up" mean you're not allowed to also go to the doctor, take medication, or see a therapist?
• Is it possible to chase suffering in a way that's actually about proving something to yourself instead of uniting yourself to Christ?
• Where's the line between the grit that gets you through a hard season and the grit that's quietly eroding you?

In episode 108 of This Whole Life, Pat and Kenna Millea take on a phrase most Catholics have heard their whole lives but rarely stop to unpack: offering it up. Rather than presenting a tidy answer, they treat this episode as a genuine exploration, working through scripture, papal writing, and their own uncertainty to figure out what this phrase actually means and where it can go wrong.

They start with Colossians 1:24 and the concept of redemptive suffering, the idea that our suffering, when united to Christ's, takes on a meaning it wouldn't have on its own. From there they turn to Pope John Paul II's Salvifici Doloris and Pope Benedict XVI's Spe Salvi to wrestle with a harder question: is it ever unholy to try to reduce your own suffering, or is chasing pain itself, without love, its own kind of distortion?

The conversation gets especially honest around the danger of over-suffering, the belief that if you're not in constant discomfort you're somehow failing spiritually, and the very real ways this thinking can keep people stuck in bad jobs, unhealthy relationships, or situations they have every reason to leave. They land on a distinction they return to throughout the episode: getting help and offering it up are not mutually exclusive.

This episode is for anyone who has felt guilty for wanting relief, or anyone who has used the phrase "offer it up" without fully knowing what they meant by it.

Chapters:

• (00:31) - Welcome, Summer Confessions Game, and Highs and Hards
• (22:31) - Defining Offering It Up: Redemptive Suffering and Colossians 1:24
• (31:19) - Salvifici Doloris: Does Suffering Have to Be Sought to Be Redemptive?
• (35:23) - Is Suffering Automatically Holy? The Line Between Grit and Denial
• (46:04) - The Danger of Over-Suffering and When It Becomes Unhealthy
• (50:30) - Getting Help and Offering It Up Are Not Mutually Exclusive
• (1:02:03) - Challenge by Choice and Closing Prayer

Links and Resources:

• Salvifici Doloris, Pope John Paul II - https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_letters/1984/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_11021984_salvifici-doloris.html
• Spe Salvi, Pope Benedict XVI - https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20071130_spe-salvi.html

Support the show

Thank you for listening, and a very special thank you to our community of supporters!

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Interested in more faith-filled mental health resources? Check out the Martin Center for Integration

Music: "You're Not Alone" by Marie Miller. Used with permission.

In a moment of conversion, what else is there to say?

Chase Crouse joins This Whole Life again to tell the defining story of his faith.

Support the show

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Music: "You're Not Alone" by Marie Miller. Used with permission.

"If I can't say no to the Big Mac, or if I can't get my body to move intentionally, there's an element of self-mastery I don't possess. And so therefore I cannot give." ~ Chase Crouse

• What does John Paul II's Theology of the Body actually have to do with skipping the gym or ordering the Big Mac?
• Why might chasing your old "glory days" workout be the exact thing keeping you from getting healthier now?
• What's the real difference between comparing yourself to a fitness influencer and imitating a saint?

In episode 107 of This Whole Life, Pat and Kenna Millea sit down with Chase Crouse, founder of Hypuro Fit, a Catholic fitness and nutrition coaching platform built to help people grow in strength, discipline, and virtue. Chase served as a missionary with Net Ministries before earning degrees in biblical theology, and he shares the exact moment reading John Paul II's Theology of the Body that changed how he saw exercise entirely: the realization that self-donation is impossible without self-mastery, and that gift of self to God and others requires a body and will that are actually trained to give.

From there, the conversation moves into the practical side of that theology. Chase breaks down why so many people fail to build a fitness habit, either chasing an all-or-nothing intensity from their athlete days or never having built any tolerance for discomfort at all, and introduces the idea of minimal effective dosing, doing the least amount necessary to get real results rather than burning out on unsustainable extremes.

Kenna and Chase also dig into the difference between comparison and imitation, why social media makes fitness advice feel like hard science when it's actually full of nuance, and how the Catholic tradition has always framed imitation, of Christ and the saints, as the true goal rather than something to feel shamed by. Chase closes with the one piece of practical wisdom he gives every client trying to build a healthier morning routine.

This episode is for anyone who has ever wondered if caring about their physical health is a distraction from their spiritual life, or anyone looking for permission to start smaller than they think they need to.

Episode 107 Show Notes

Chapters:

• (00:00) - Cold Open
• (00:30) - Welcome and Meet Chase Crouse
• (02:42) - High and Hard: Postpartum Health and a New Book Launch
• (17:08) - From Personal Training to Founding Hypuro Fit
• (18:36) - The Theology of the Body Lightbulb Moment
• (28:17) - Why Habits Are Hard and the Power of Minimal Effective Dosing
• (39:35) - Filtering Fitness Advice: Comparison vs Imitation on Social Media
• (53:33) - Sleep, Prayer, and a Final Challenge by Choice

Links and Resources:

• Chase Crouse and Hypuro Fit - https://www.hypurofit.org/
• Sanctify Your Day: A Structure to Live an Intentional, Healthy, and Holy Life - https://sophiainstitute.com/product/sanctify-your-day/
• The God of Endurance: A Practical Guide for Incorporating Exercise and Nutrition into Your Spiritual Journey - https://sophiainstitute.com/product/the-god-of-endurance/

Support the show

Thank you for listening, and a very special thank you to our community of supporters!

Join our email list and never miss an episode or an event

Visit us online at thiswholelifepodcast.com, and send us an email with your thoughts, questions, or ideas.

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Interested in more faith-filled mental health resources? Check out the Martin Center for Integration

Music: "You're Not Alone" by Marie Miller. Used with permission.

What does Captain Jack Sparrow do when he thinks he's dealing with the cartel?

Support the show

Thank you for listening, and a very special thank you to our community of supporters!

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Interested in more faith-filled mental health resources? Check out the Martin Center for Integration

Music: "You're Not Alone" by Marie Miller. Used with permission.