Pints With Aquinas - 151: Mindfulness, Self-Care, & Dealing W/ Stress, with Dr. Gerry Crete

Episode Date: March 26, 2019

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G'day and welcome to Pints with Aquinas. My name is Matt Fradd. If you could sit down over a pint of beer with Thomas Aquinas and ask him any one question, what would it be? In today's episode, we are joined around the bar table by my therapist. Not even joking. So, to discuss mindfulness and self-care and being kind to yourself and all those other buzzwords we're reading a lot on magazines and checkout aisles today. We want to see what Aquinas would say about these sorts of things and what we as Catholics should think of them. Enjoy the show. All right, welcome back to Pints with Aquinas, the show where you and I pull up a barstool next to the angelic doctor to discuss theology and philosophy.

One of the things that Thomas Aquinas is most celebrated for is his synthesis of faith and reason. The idea that a truth of faith revealed truth and truths of the natural science, logical truths as well, these things can never contradict. Because all truth flows from the same source. And the truth is merely the equation of thought and thing. So it's when reality and my perception of that reality are sort of harmonizing. And that means that we should rejoice in truth wherever we find it. So, if we find it in a pagan like Aristotle, we should rejoice in it. If we find it in a teaching from Buddhism, we ought to rejoice in it. If we find it in a teaching, you know, in some sort of

magazine that has New Age leanings, we should rejoice in it. Now, what I'm not saying is that there could be truths necessary for us that aren't articulated and articulated more fully in the Catholic faith, but what I'm saying is we should guard against an undue defensiveness when encountering the teachings of either other world religions or from people of no religious background. So, I already mentioned that today we want to talk about things like self-care, mindfulness, being kind to oneself. We're hearing a lot about these things today. Now, I think what we're going to find is some of these notions will be interspersed with error in our society. So perhaps when people talk about self-care, it sounds a lot like narcissism.

But does that mean that we shouldn't take care of ourself? Well, no, and Aquinas certainly doesn't think that. When we talk about mindfulness, which comes really out of Buddhism. Well, okay, so Buddhism contains many errors. But is that to say then that we shouldn't strive to be in the present moment? Well, no, I mean, that's clearly a good thing. So today we want to talk about all of these things. And I'm really excited for you to get to meet my therapist, Dr. Jerry Crete, a really solid, good man. We also attend the same parish together, a Byzantine Catholic church here in Atlanta, Georgia. Him and his wife came over recently. We had a drink of whiskey together while we recorded this interview. And

I think it was really profound. And I think you're going to learn a lot. And it's going to be a heck of a lot cheaper than paying to go to a therapist. So there you go. So Aquinas talks a lot about the body and a lot about the emotions. We actually haven't done a full-fledged episode on the emotions. I think partly because I'm avoiding it because it's quite complicated. Aquinas' section on the emotions, I think it's his longest and most intricate. So it's going to take some time. By the way, Thomas doesn't actually use the word emotions. He rather uses the Latin word passio, which comes from Aristotle's pathos. Now, the reason that's important is because this passio suggests a being affected by something, which is interesting because when we think of passion in our day and age, that's come to mean something rather narrower. But passio for Aquinas is we're being affected by something and then there's a response. And so we're going to be talking about that today with Dr. Crete. We're going to be talking about reacting to stress,

whether real or perceived. In the Summa Theologiae, St. Thomas adopts one of these definitions of emotion, I guess, from John Damascene, who's an Eastern father. who's an Eastern father. And he says this, an emotion is a movement of the appetite felt as a result of the impression of something good or evil. Okay. Good or evil. And this is why Thomas Aquinas says that there are four principal emotions and you can see why. What are those four principal emotions? Joy and sorrow, hope and fear. Joy, sorrow, hope, fear. Why? Why could there only be four principal emotions? Because they are all about seeking the good and fleeing evil, either as this good or evil is present or still in the future. So, if I'm joyful, I'm joyful over something in the present, like a good in the present. If I'm hopeful, I'm hopeful of a good in the future. I can't rejoice in something I have not yet attained, and I don't hope for what

I already have. And likewise, the mirror image of these four emotions of joy and hope are sorrow and fear. So, if I'm sorrowing, it's over something in the present, an evil or a perceived evil. And if I'm fearing, I'm fearing something in the future. So, the basic idea that Thomas lays out, that Aristotle lays out, that's quite obvious, I think, is that fear flees from future evil and hope strains towards future good. One of the things that Jerry and I speak a lot about in today's episode is this stress and anxiety in which we live. How many ways can people contact you? That alone, let's say you did nothing but lay in bed and sit on the couch. Let's say that's all you did. You didn't actually have to work and that's all you did. There's a sense in which you could possibly

still be stressed because you have people writing to you through text message and email and Instagram, and they're responding to things that you've said online and things like that. Just that alone, having this – now, you don't have to respond to them, but many of us try to or want to. Being in that state of having to respond can be stressful enough. Now, throw in traffic. Now, throw in health problems and the stresses of everyday life, and we can be rather stressed. And so, we're going to be talking about that. And then also, one of the things we allude to in this episode is what Aquinas has to say about remedies for sorrow. Now, we've done a whole episode on this with Father Damien Ferencz,

which I strongly suggest that you check out. It was an excellent episode. I think one of our most popular. But Aquinas talks about remedies for sorrow. And Aquinas recognizes rightly that you and I are body-soul composites, right? A combination of body and soul, each equally part of who we are. If you separate body and soul, you no longer have a person. You have a corpse and then you have something like a human person in heaven, but it isn't actually complete and won't be complete until the final judgment when the body is united again to the soul. And so because we are this combination of body and soul, what we do with the body is united again to the soul. And so, because we are this combination of body and soul, what we do with the body actually affects us. And this is why we shouldn't be defensive or scared when people tell us that breathing deeply can help us and things like this.

For goodness sake, Aquinas says in the Summa Theologiae that if you're sad, you should sleep and have a bath. He says you should seek out pleasurable things. One of the things he says is you should cry. You should try to cry because when you cry, you are living in reality with what's going on inside. You're expressing what's actually real within you. So, I think the takeaway I'd want to leave you with is that as Catholics, we shouldn't be accepting things wholesale from people who aren't Catholic, especially these new age leaning books and TV shows and things like that. But what can we say about mindfulness? What can we say about legitimate self-care? So we're going to look at

that today. And then towards the end of the episode, we're going to take some questions from our patrons. So stick around for that too. Have a great day and enjoy the episode. What's up, Jerry? Hey, Matt. Glad to be here. This is the first time I've actually ever done an interview in the same room as somebody. I'm usually doing this over Skype, so it's great to have you with us. Tell us a bit about yourself and your official title. I'm not sure what that is. My official title, I am Dr. Jerry Creed.

I'm a marriage and family therapist and professional counselor in Atlanta, Georgia. I'm also the president of the Catholic Psychotherapy Association. And I do a lot of work with clients who are struggling with lots of different issues, from trauma to anxiety, depression. Cool. I want to know what the difference, I'm sure a lot of people have this question, what's the difference between a counselor, therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist, especially those last two. I feel like people often have questions about that. Right. Well, a psychiatrist is a medical doctor,

so they tend to prescribe medicine, so antidepressants and so on. A psychologist does a lot of testing, a lot of assessments, as well as therapy. But a therapist could be a counselor or a psychologist or a marriage and family therapist or a clinical social worker. So they're actually helping people kind of work through different issues going on in their life, different internal struggles they might be having. So they might be working on mental disorders or just regular life issues. And that's where counselors kind of come in because counselors tend to work more with regular life issues. And that's where counselors kind of come in because counselors tend to work more with everyday life struggles. You know, it could be a kid who's

bullied or it could be a marital problem or something that's not necessarily a mental disorder, but it's a serious issue that someone needs help with. Has there been like less of a stigma around counseling? Because I remember watching movies from the 90s and they talk about going to see your shrink and they say that in a rather pejorative way. Do you think people are more likely to seek counseling today than in the past? Yeah, I think it is a lot more common. I think even now, if you're a celebrity and you don't have a therapist, you're just not cool. So I think it's much more common. I think people realize it's not just for severe pathology, but it can just help you with how to have a better marriage, how to have a better relationship with your kids or your parents or whatnot.

My friend Kristalina Everett has said, not everybody needs to see a therapist, but everyone could benefit from seeing a therapist. I like that. seeing a therapist. I like that. So we want to talk about some things today that are discussed a lot in culture, like mindfulness and what are some of those other buzz terms we're hearing? I don't know. Like being calm and like in the flow, people talk about that, like your flow space or flow zone. And a lot of these kinds of things people are talking about, we're seeing them on magazines, in grocery aisles. And I often think that whenever society adopts a spiritual sounding word, it tends to put Catholics into a defensive position against that word. Does that make sense? Like if the culture has bought into something, then maybe it's not quite right. Maybe it's something like yoga or something like that. But I don't think that necessarily has to be the

case, especially when we think of mindfulness and these sorts of things. So, first of all, I guess, what's your take on that? And why do you think that, you know, modern society is beginning to talk a lot about these things? Right. Well, one thing that is important in Nobel mindfulness is it's actually a secularized form of Buddhism. So Buddhism is where it comes from, essentially, but it was adapted in a way to take out the religious parts. So mindfulness actually is a helpful thing. Like it's not a bad thing inherently, but where I have an issue is that as Christians, we have a heritage, 2,000 year heritage of mysticism, of monastic traditions, of meditative prayer, of contemplative prayer that is rich. And so I'm actually passionate

about finding ways to adapt our Christian heritage into a meditative tradition that's accessible to people. Because the principles of mindfulness are just fairly simple, actually. It's all about being present. It's all about noticing what's going on in your body, noticing what's going on in your environment, and just being fully present. And I think that as Catholics, as Christians, we can definitely do that as well. But we have another dimension that is also important, I believe, that we can add to it. Do you think that there's a way to reconcile mindfulness with Christianity? So you say it kind of stems from Buddhism.

But I know you and I attend the same Byzantine Catholic Church, and I know there's a lot of thought placed into, like something the Eastern Fathers talk about is the image of a pond. like something the Eastern fathers talk about is the image of a pond. And if you throw a rock into a pond and disturb the water, it's not going to reflect what's truly present around it. And so too, if our heart is stirred up with passions, we won't actually be interpreting things the way that they are. Yeah, I think that certainly in the Eastern tradition, there's the Jesus prayer, which I know you're very, very familiar with. But there's this whole aspect of detachment. It's learning how to be detached from the passions, as they say, which in my view doesn't mean you can't have emotions. It just means your emotions aren't disordered or your emotions aren't controlling you and you gain some perspective. So when I think of the Desert Fathers and they were going out into the desert, they were actually, strangely enough, going out into a dangerous place.

Like back then, like I think of going, oh, I'm going to go out into the wilderness. It's a cabin in the woods. It's fancy and relaxing. But no, they were leaving the safety of a town, right, where there was protection to go out into the desert where there were wolves maybe or animals and the elements and so on. And they actually went into the chaos and were able to gain a level of detachment where they could truly discover really the presence of God inside of them as created in His image and actually gain access to union with God in a deeper way by really entering into the soul. So they actually went into chaos in order to find

peace. It's a rather remarkable... I'm very fascinated. I happen to love the Eastern fathers, well, the early fathers. I think it was Jimmy Akin. He has a commentary on Mark's gospel, speaking of gardens and deserts. He says, the first man was tempted in a garden and brought forth a desert of sin and despair. The second man, Christ, was tempted in a desert and brought forth a garden of grace. Beautiful way to put it, I thought. But one of the things that's beautiful about

Aquinas is that he recognizes, like the church recognizes, that we are a body-soul composite. So, we aren't meant, you know, a spirit within a machine. We are our bodies, you know, so I've said this before. I forget where I got this from, Bud Jusefsky, J. Bud Jusefsky, that's his name, in his book, The Meaning of Sex. He says, think about what it would mean if you weren't your body. That would mean that when you kiss your wife goodnight, you're not actually kissing her goodnight. Rather, you're merely manipulating the husk that is not you and press it against the husk that is not her. You never actually come in contact with her. If I were to slap you, you couldn't say that I slapped you. So, Aquinas recognizes this. And speaking of meditating and trying to be mindful and trying to overcome sorrow,

which I know is something we want to get to, I just want to briefly touch upon this. In the Summa Theologiae, in the first part of the second part, question 38, Aquinas talks about remedies of sorrow or pain. Now, for those listening, we've done a whole episode on Aquinas' five remedies for sorrow. You can go to pintswithaquinas.com and in the search bar, type in remedies for sorrow, and you can listen to that interview I did with Father Damien Ference. But just to recap, Aquinas says there are five remedies for sorrow, and I just love this. He says, number one, pleasure, which is just the most beautifully obvious thing ever. Let me just quickly read this. He says, pleasure is a kind of

repose of the appetite in a suitable good, while sorrow arises from something unsuited to the appetite. Consequently, in movements of the appetite, pleasure is to sorrow what embodies repose is to weariness. I love that so much. Secondly, he says we can overcome sorrow by weeping because it's good for us to show what we're feeling on the outside, what we feel on the inside. Thirdly, the sympathy of friends because we experience their love for us. Fourthly, contemplating the truth since that's our highest good. And then fifthly, my favorite, sleep and baths, sleep and baths. So, I'm going to put up the text in the show notes for all of those who are listening so you can go and read this for yourself. We're not going to get into that here. But Jerry, I just want to ask you about like the wisdom Aquinas is showing from a modern day kind of psychological point of view. What do

you think? Well, first of all, I do love it. It's fascinating. You know, I didn't know about these four characteristics until you, or five, sorry, that you just mentioned. But what's occurring to me right now is this issue of pleasure. And I have a feeling that most people actually don't know what it means to have pleasure. And I'm going to just use a personal example. This was like, maybe, I don't know, seven, eight years ago, I remember I'd come home from work, and I was, you know, be tired, and so on. And I can remember, I'd say, I'm going to relax now, you know, and I would sit down in front of the television. I'd be on a game on my computer, which was on my left, and playing Words with Friends on my right. And I thought I was doing

pleasurable things. And I can remember at one point going, you know what? I'm not even present. I'm stressed. My pleasure is actually stress. And I cut out words with friends. I cut out the game on the computer. And I said, well, if I'm going to watch television itself, it isn't necessarily a bad thing, but not if I'm so distracted that I'm either numbing or I'm just somewhere else. And I'm not actually experiencing the pleasure of the moment. It would be like having dinner with your wife or with a friend, and you're not even enjoying their company. You're not sitting with them. You're just happen to be there wolfing down food somewhere else in your head. And then on the surface,

you might go, well, I'm having pleasure. I'm eating and I have a friend with me. So, I think what's interesting about Aquinas here in saying this, and I assume perhaps that what he means is where you actually are allowing your soul to be refreshed. And I think that's the same with this bath. Nowadays, maybe we don't go to the baths, right? You know, I don't know. Right. But that would have been a place where you could just allow your body to be soothed. Same with sleep. I mean, how many of us don't get good quality sleep, right?

For whatever reason, we're not allowing it. We're not caring for our body. Well, actually, there's another buzz term we're hearing a lot of today, self-care. Well, actually, there's another buzz term we're hearing a lot of today, self-care. And again, I think when Christians hear these terms, we tend to think, oh, like, I got to be on my guard against this. And again, maybe there should be some of that. But sometimes I think we're too quick to dismiss what those in the secular world would offer as wisdom, self-care. You hear that, and perhaps the response is, no, no, you got to take up your cross. None of this self-care stuff. But of course, there is truth in that. So, maybe talk a little bit more about self-care.

And I'd be interested, Jerry, you know, as a therapist, I imagine that must be one of the questions you ask people is about their sleep and how important that is. Absolutely. I always tell people, especially people with kids, put on your own oxygen mask before you put theirs on, like on a plane. You have to take care of yourself. Because if you don't have self-care, if you're a nervous wreck, if you're all over the place, if you're distracted, if you're irritable constantly, you're not taking care of yourself. And that's going to have an effect on your other people in your life. And so it's so important to make a priority. It's kind of like in a marriage, like you have to make a priority of having quality time with your spouse, right? As a human being,

we need quality time for our bodies. I mean, most of us assume we have to brush our teeth, right? And if we didn't do that, we wouldn't be doing self-care. Well, there should be self-care for our whole body. You know, some relaxation time. We can't be go, go, go all the time. Which actually takes us to another area, which is just about the stress level that people have all the time. High levels of stress constantly where they're not ever coming down from that, or very rarely coming down. And that's where they can't. If you're stressed all day long,

and at the end of the day, you do things like what I was describing on computers, on email, on this stuff, you're never actually coming down, even when you think you are. And that is not the way our bodies were even designed to be. Yeah. I want to ask, what do we mean by stress? Because you bring up such a great point. And I think it's something that everybody can relate to. We've all had the experience. I say all, there's going to be some people out there who haven't had this experience and are thoroughly judging you and me right now, but that's okay. They can go to confession later. But we've had the experience of laying in our bed with a laptop on our chest, and we're watching this episode of The Office for the 15th time, and we're kind of falling

asleep. And I'm like, what am I doing? Turn this off. Luke Carey, a good friend of mine who I recently interviewed with Goma on The Matt Fradd Show, said this really insightful thing. He said, we are not engaged, we're merely occupied. And that sounds like it describes your experience, it can describe my experience, and many of our experiences. We seek relief, but we end up just becoming more stressed. So, talk a little bit about stress. What does stress mean? And why is it, do you think, in today's day and age, we tend to be very stressed? do you think in today's day and age, we tend to be very stressed? Well, I'm going to throw out something here. I feel like stress is caused by a threat,

right? So if you're attacked, like if we're sitting here, right? And if there was an actual tornado headed toward this house, we would rightfully be stressed. We would have a bodily reaction, right? So my muscles would tense, adrenaline, my heart rate, everything. Because we would have to get our butts down into the basement or go find a shelter. We'd have to do something, right? And that's normal. That's what our bodies were designed for, and it was not meant to be all day long. But what's happening now is people are in a state of stress all day long with no actual threat. There may be a perceived threat, right? Maybe it's my boss is mad at me. I got to get that thing ready, or I'm going to be in my wife's upset with me, or I have to get to work on time and in my car, and we're in a traffic jam, you know, on the highway. And we have a perception that we're actually in danger, when in fact, we're really not physically in danger, but we're having all

the symptoms of it. And we're not coming down from it. So there isn't that sense of, you know, like we saw the tornado come, and like we rushed rushed into our shelter and we kind of like brace, you know, and the thing passes and we come out and we're like, oh man, we dodged that bullet. We got away from that. Right. But what's happening to people in my experience is that they never have the sense that they've gotten away from it. And it's chronic. they never have the sense that they've gotten away from it and it's chronic. And do you think this is, are we experiencing stress at a greater level today than people perhaps did 30, 40, 50 years ago? And again, I know it can be relative. People back in the 50s,

there could be people there who were just as stressed as some people today. But I mean, generally speaking, I imagine because of technology, when we're constantly feeling like we need to respond to somebody. It's funny, people text you today as if they're in the same room as you. They say, hey, what's up? And if you don't say, hey, doing well right away, it's almost like they're in the same room and you just ignored them. And so there's this feel like I got emails and my Twitter inbox and my direct messages on Instagram and everyone's coming at me from a thousand different angles. I feel like that's part of a lot of the stress that we're feeling.

But yeah, you know what I'm saying. Well, it's my opinion that yes, there is a higher level of stress now. You know, it's funny. I don't know if it was 1998. You're aging me. I'm aging myself here. But I remember you were not 16. Okay.

All right. Well, I was a little bit older. And I was married. And my wife works in technology. So she comes in and she gives me this cell phone. And she's like, looks all excited. She loves technology. And I'm like, why do I want this?

So I went around with this cell phone now the only thing i thought it was was cool about it was it was a flip phone right back in the day so i thought it was like oh i'm like captain kirk opening my and and and this this phone and i was just like i never turned it on the only reason i turned it on is if i needed to call somebody but i hated the idea exactly what you're talking about i love the idea i can leave my house you go places you're not constantly on I loved the idea. I could leave my house, you go places, you're not constantly on call. And so I feel like that was 98. I can't believe how things have changed.

Now I'm married to my cell phone. I can't, I'm constantly, there's emails and texts, just like you're saying. I think that's everyone's experience, most people's experience now. So there's a lot more opportunity for stress now, perhaps, than there was perhaps 30 years ago. That's a general remark, but in some ways, that's true. Yeah. And I think that the difference too, is that from a very young age, if I think about our children, they're raised with this technology.

You know, even my kids didn't get those phones until they were older. Kids are now at a very young age. And so they're taught at a young age, they're always on, they're always available. They're always putting on a front. They're always showing the world who they are and what they're doing. And they're always available. And I remember, I don't know how well you remember, lazy days. I mean, we all need lazy days, you know, and yes, I'm a huge fan of like hiking, you know, or any other activity that's outside and you have yourself, maybe you have it off in your backpack, like maybe you needed an emergency, but otherwise you are just in nature and you're walking, you know, and just

enjoying and appreciating being present. Cause that's really what all this is about, is what is stress? If stress is a bodily state of arousal, right? Because there's danger, right? But you're in that state all the time when there really isn't a danger, a present danger anyway. So you're always living, perhaps you're stressed about things in the past, that can happen to almost anybody, or you're worried about things in the future, sure. But if you're always stressed in the present...

It's almost like technology, it's been said, is using us rather than us using it. It's designed to be addictive. If I don't publish on Twitter constantly, it's like I'm having a PhD and not publishing regularly in periodicals. So so I know you say like, there's no actual threat, but for many of us, it might feel like there is a threat. Like you mentioned a moment ago, I get in trouble with my boss or my wife's angry with me. Like, aren't these legitimate threats? Well, they're perceived threats in the moment. If your wife is standing in front of you with a butcher knife, you have a threat. If your boss has threatened to fire you, you have a threat.

If you're in your car on the 400 or whatever highway, and you're just thinking about all the possible things that could go wrong that day, you're not presently in any kind of threat. And that's what I'm talking about is you're never actually living in the moment you're in, in a state of relaxation, right? You're just constantly responding. And a little

bit of brain science to this, right? Like our more primitive part of our brain, it's kind of a, okay, yeah, people use terms like the reptilian brain. So if you think about reptiles, right, they don't have a lot of brain functioning compared to humans. It's not as complex. So basically what's being managed there is pure survival. So that part of the brain, you know, it's usually kind of in the back, brain stem kind of thing. It is managing the fear response because fear is legitimate. We need to have fear. If we don't have fear, we're not going to know that a bear could kill us, right?

So fear response, sex, because as a species, we need to have sex in order to reproduce and survive, and food and drink. So, you know, we have to eat or we die, right? So this part of the brain is just necessity, right? And then other parts of the brain, I mean, we have our limbic system, which is our emotions. It gets in, you know,

kind of Aquinas was talking about there a little bit and the passions, but it regulates our emotions, our gets in, you know, kind of Aquinas was talking about there a little bit and the passions, but it regulates our emotions, our attachment, our connections with people. And then we have our frontal lobes. And our frontal lobes, like the prefrontal cortex and all that,

is analysis, reflection, executive functioning, planning, insight. Risk assessment. Risk assessment comes in there too, yeah. And so what happens though is when a bear is going to attack you, all you need is your primitive part of your brain. It just needs to know, go into fight or flight mode, right?

Go into activation. And your frontal lobes are, they're not like completely offline, but they're just kind of compromised because they need to be. You can't overthink anything then. You got to run or you got to fight, right? Fight or flight. So that is essential. But if you think about that, then if we're in a constant state of stress, constant state of activation and arousal, as if we're being attacked, we actually won't have access to the part of our brain that we need

for insight and for reflection and analysis. And like you just mentioned, like impulse control, right? We won't be able to think through things as well. It's not gone. It's just compromised, right? And so when people are in that state all the time, think about kids and the stress they might be under. Maybe it's stress at school. And they're not able to access the part of their brain that actually would allow them to do well. And then they're just

labeled ADD. And I'm not saying there's no ADD. I'm just saying that some cases, it's labeled ADD when it's stress, right? And so if they can learn their skills, right, you can learn skills to actually regulate so that you can recognize when your body is in an active, activated state, aroused state, or as they say, the sympathetic nervous system is activated. And there are ways in which you can recognize, hey, there's no threat right now. And come down from that and learn to regulate your stress level and your response to different circumstances. And when you can do that, you suddenly become present. And the moment you do that and you're present, you are suddenly able to reflect and have insight.

You're able to – all that stuff you know when you're not stressed, like we all know, you know, how to behave or how to negotiate and compromise and, you know, and work through a problem. All that's out the window, right? But it can be reactivated, right? So you get, you know, I work with kids that make poor decisions. But what's really going on is in that moment, they don't have a way of accessing the knowledge they actually have and the skills they actually have. And they're just, you know, and then they're labeled bad. They get punishments and things like that. And then that sends them further into a stress state where they stay.

So you're saying that we are stressed out, but we're never coming down from that stress. That seems to make sense, you know. I grew up in a small country town in a little house with a phone bolted to the wall, and that was the only way people would get a hold of me as opposed to writing me a letter in the mailbox. And yeah, as you say, you can distract yourself with things like we did with TV and magazines and things, but there was a lot of time for reflection, you know, laying in bed and thinking about the world and thinking about my relationship with my mom and maybe grumbling to myself about my parents and thinking about that girl, Susie, at school. But, you know, if I'm constantly plugged in, if I have my phone next to me, if I'm always listening to music. It's like, I don't have time to process these things. I just think that's

so bad. I really feel like in order for evangelization or for the gospel to be heard or for a person to respond to the Holy Spirit, I think the first step is a lot of this stuff has to be removed from our lives. I feel like there's just so much clutter and noise that we can't hear it. We can't hear our Lord. It's like if Matthew the tax collector was on his iPhone, you probably would have never responded to Christ or something like that. But anyway, how do we actually experience self-care? How do we actually come down from that stress in a positive way? Right. Well, I will throw out that, you know, if we simply eliminate, right, just immediately like decide, oh, I'll just listen to Matt and Jerry talk today,

and they're right. There we go. And that would be fun. And we just eliminate. Then the person might not actually have the skills to deal with that. That could feel overwhelming. It's like these kids that are super connected on social media all the time. And then they're somewhere where their phones don't work. And it's almost like they have a panic right so um although i think it's a good thing to eliminate and reduce and all of that i think that it's important to learn what it means to be present and in the present moment so first of all i mean i'll just throw it first of all like relax your muscles okay you know or actually before that take a deep breath, like a full diaphragmatic breath. Taking that full breath, it grounds you. Every meditation you'll ever learn, whether it's

Christian or whether it's Eastern yoga or whatever it is, we'll teach you that because it's so essential. It's breath, right? God breathed into Adam, really. I mean, our breath is, it grounds us. And so what happens when we take a really deep breath and we just relax our muscles, drop our shoulders, you know, just allow that. We just deactivated the sympathetic nervous system, this activated nervous system. And suddenly, we've now put in place what I think is called the parasympathetic nervous system, which is this ability to suddenly be present, which is a little different. Now, we can go in different ways. There's a difference between meditating or like deeply relaxing. That's an awesome thing to do. And if you do meditation,

and we could spend a whole hour talking about meditation, that will actually do that. It will get you out of the sympathetic nervous activation. Sorry to cut you off. Explain these words to us. What do these things mean? Okay, which words? You say when you take a deep breath, it activates the sympathetic. Oh, okay.

All right, sorry. Oh, okay. All right. Sorry. Yeah. So all that activation is your heart rate goes up, your muscles tense, your blood pressure goes up when you're stressed. So your sympathetic nervous system, it's your nervous system is activated. So all of a sudden you're poised for action, right? Not any action like, but to that fight or flight okay that's what i'm talking about so the minute you take a deep breath you breathe out you do a few of those like you just right now you can just feel it like even me like talking on this show i taking a deep breath kind of calms me down a little bit what does that do well first of all you're getting getting more oxygen to your blood.

It's going to be good. Yeah, so that's good. And so you're starting that relaxation. Basically, if you think about your nervous system, if you think about your spine, right? All this, I guess you'd call it whatnot act activation is is happens up and down your spine it's kind of cool and so if you relax from your especially like from your butt muscles and you relax them and you all the way up to your shoulder muscles and notice where you hold tension because different people hold yeah me too i hold it in my tension so if i'm stressed on the highway

it's my shoulders and sometimes my hands. But until I start noticing that that's what I'm doing, I'll just do it unconsciously. Right. Exactly. Yeah, that pose. And so for me, taking a moment, like even just right now in this show and just relaxing all my muscles, noticing what is being activated. Right. So I'm kind of excited and I'm talking.

my muscles noticing what is being activated, right? Because I'm kind of excited and I'm talking, but maybe if I just relax and take a deep breath, suddenly I'm in a different state, okay? Now, we're not actually in a state of meditation, right? So I'm not, you know, dissociated, which means like I'm not like not fully present or I'm not like a little bit better, a little bit above dissociation.

I'm not like in a bit better, a little bit above dissociation. I'm not like in a kind of a meditative, you know, chill kind of, you know, where I'm sort of somewhere else, but I'm in a deep sense of peace. But I am more relaxed internally. I'm basically, I'm self-regulated. And actually, when you do that, you have more command of your faculties and your ability to complete tasks. And even if it's an athletic task, this is where, you know, if you're a pitcher, right? Can you think about a pitcher or an archer or a gunman or something? And that requires precision. gunman or something, and that requires precision. Well, if you are in a state of high stress and anxiety, you're going to miss your mark, more likely, because you're tense. But they actually,

they can't go into a state of meditation, but they could actually relax their muscles. They're muscles. Take that deep breath. Aim and shoot. Or, you know, throw that ball. And they're going to be able to hit the mark, which is so cool. And so if you help people understand that, right, they're actually more effective. You know, when I've ever had to do talks, I can remember once years ago, after I did my dissertation, I did a talk at the APA, the American Psychological Association. I was on a panel.

And I was sitting there. I knew all the stuff. I mean I did my dissertation. I was the expert in this area. It was on abuse, childhood abuse, male abuse, actually men who've experienced sexual abuse in childhood was my dissertation. And so I knew everything there was at the time on that. And I'm on a panel and I'm sitting there, I look at it, there's a crowd and I'm like panicked. I'm like, oh my gosh, I noticed my body's reaction immediately. And then I'm like, okay, Jerry, do what you preach. And so I just said, okay, the first

thing I had to do is not tell myself some nice thing like, oh, you're really good, you know your stuff. No, the first thing I had to do was relax my body, take a deep breath, relax my muscles. Take a deep breath. Relax my muscles. And that then allows me access to the frontal lobes where then I am able to truly say, Jerry, you got this. You know this stuff. You've been studying this stuff.

You have something to provide. Or even don't worry about what other people think kind of thing. Or even if you fail, it's okay, which is more limbic activation, but it's still frontal lobes. So you see? But unless, so body first, then mind, right? And then even more blessed, right, would be bringing God into it in prayer, right? Which in my view,

and I know there's a lot of science coming out on this, so nothing's definitive, but in my view, the deepest religious experience happens because the limbic system is activated. We're not talking about the brainstem with the reptile brain thing. Yeah, we're not talking to the frontal lobes so much, although this includes that. The limbic system is the ability to attach and the ability to have emotions, right? So if you are able to connect with God or connect with this, you know, saints, the cloud of witnesses, if you're able to, you're able to have a spiritual connection with God in that moment, whoa, what an extra whammy, right? For that to be real in that moment. So I've relaxed my body. I've been able to tell

myself some truths cognitively. And then I'm able to go, you know what? Even if this fails, Christ is with me. And I'm doing this because I'm trying to honor him. And I can have access to that. Then suddenly, you know, it's okay. And I don't really care what these people at this stupid convention think or not think, you know, but I'm going to do my best, but I'm not as stressed. Gone. I feel like this is an obvious thing to say, perhaps, but the cause of our regulation is also the cause of our anxiety today. And by the way, you need to explain regulation to us real quick. Okay, right. Yeah, I'm trying to think, what's a better word than regulation?

It's really just the body's, your own ability to manage your own stress levels. We don't regulate our emotions when a tornado is about to hit our house. We just go, right? We just act, or we're house. We just go, right? We just act or we're being attacked by walled animals, right? But other than that, we have the ability, right? Just relaxing muscles and taking a deep breath, simple as that, allows you to have some control when there isn't a real threat, right? Or even if there's a chaos around us, right? Like you're a soldier in a war zone.

Well, relaxing, like being able to self-regulate or manage that allows, can allow you to survive possibly, right? So that's regulation is being able to manage and to recognize, okay, here's another piece. I don't know if it goes in another direction or not, but another piece is that there's nothing wrong with our body's stress reaction normally.

Like the fact that we have that is itself not a wrong. So it's actually survival, right? But it's just, it's gone out of whack given sometimes our current situation in this world with technology and all the stresses we have. It's out of whack. But our body itself is doing what it needs to do or thinks it needs to do. So I think a piece of this is being kind to ourselves.

It's another thing we're hearing kind to ourselves. Yeah, exactly. But that's because what can happen, I think, is that we're stressed, we're at a meeting, and we suddenly have this stress response, because we're about to, we're going to talk, we can, maybe at the meeting, the boss or whoever is saying, okay, everybody go around and share what their report for the week. I don't know. And you know, you're the third guy, right? And as the first guy's talking, you're suddenly stressed and you're going, oh my gosh, and you're feeling it. And all of a sudden you have no words, right? Because you've just lost activation in your prefrontal cortex, right? And so, and then another hideous part comes up that

says, what the heck is wrong with you? Why are you so stressed? What is going on with you? And that only adds on top of it another pile of stress, because now all of a sudden, it's like, I'm not good enough. And I'm stupid for having this reaction. And I'm saying, no, how about recognizing my body is stressed right now, I'm having this reaction, because I'm worried. I don't want to look like I don't know my stuff or whatever it is. And being able to go, my body's having a reaction that it would normally have under stress.

So body, first of all, tend to it. Take that deep breath. Just recognize. Because when we're stressed, our breath is shallow. Shallow and quick little breaths. And we don't even know we're stressed, our breath is shallow, shallow and quick little breaths. And we don't even know we're doing it. So taking the deep breath and relaxing and going, then you're able to activate a little bit of that part of you that says, you know what? I know I did my report. I've

got my stuff, you know, or even if I didn't do it as well as I'd like, I'm going to be able to get through this, you know? And then all of a sudden, you know, and if there's the shame statements like I'm not good enough or what's wrong with me for being, you know, you're able to access parts of yourself that can soothe and help that regulation. Yeah, that's fascinating stuff. I think what I was trying to say earlier is that the means of our soothing is also the means of our agitation in the phone. So the phone is the cause in many cases, instances of our agitation. to put forward an image of ourself that may not be exactly accurate, but it makes us look good on Instagram or Facebook. We're responding to texts. We're checking voicemails. This thing, which is the cause of our agitation,

through, I'm using addiction in a colloquial sense, has now become the means of soothing that agitation, which almost soothes as it agitates. So I'm stressed out. So I turned to my phone and my phone is the cause of my stress, but it soothes me. And it also agitates me. And I'm in this weird cycle. And so to break away from that feels kind of, it feels really difficult. So I haven't told you this yet, but last night I asked my friend John Henry if I could borrow his mom and dad's cabin up in Dahlonega. And my wife said, go for it. So I left my phone here. That's why I didn't text you back. And I just drove up there and I spent the night without any technology and just read Anna Karenina and the Bible and just drank coffee and some wine and slept. Anna Karenina in the Bible and just drank coffee and some wine and slept. And it was, I went for a walk and it was lovely, but it's difficult for us to do those things that bring about genuine leisure because we've become accustomed to the thing like the phone or the words with friends or the Netflix. So how do we experience genuine leisure? How do we actually

de-stress other than just breathing in ways that we find enjoyable? Because if we don't find it enjoyable, we're not going to do it for long. Because for many of us, the reason we're binging on Netflix is, yeah, it's not really pleasurable, but it distracts me and it's kind of enjoyable. So would your suggestion be, or if not, just elaborate on this, like what advice would you have for us? Like how do we begin to love what we should love so that we can de-stress? Yeah, you said a lot there. And one thing you said at the beginning that hit me was addiction. And anything can be an addiction pretty much like a phone or like pornography or like video games or Netflix or alcohol or anything.

And what an addiction is, is an escape away from the hyper arousal. Remember I was talking about you're in hyper arousal all day long when you shouldn't be. Our bodies are not meant to be. Well, certain behaviors take us not into the zone, I would call it. If I could draw this, I would show hyperarousal up high, and then I would show the zone in the middle. And then down at the bottom, I would have dissociation. And so when you're at the bottom... Which means again? Okay. So dissociation. And so when you're at the bot, what... Which means again? Okay. So dissociation, oh yeah, means being disconnected from your body and from your moods. So it's a shutdown, certainly the limbic system, a shutdown of your system pretty much,

depending what you're doing. So you're actually not in your body and you're disconnected from your soul. I would say both. And so you're- You're not looking at what's under the hood, are you? No. Oh, no. Oh, no. No, you're numbing. You're numbing. And at first, right, of course, a behavior is going to have usually a dopamine push. So you're going to feel good initially. So if you had one or two drinks, you feel good. If you have eight drinks, you're down below that dissociation and not feeling anything. So you're escaping hyperarousal and high activation to go all the way down into I feel nothing, the opposite. And what we're talking about, what needs to happen, what you did last night,

awesome man, is that you went somewhere to be in the middle, to experience presence, the present moment. So you weren't, I'm assuming, drinking to excess the wine, you were having enough wine to enjoy it. You were out in nature and you enjoyed the nature. You were out there having that coffee and you were sipping that coffee and it wasn't like this, I'm going to have so much coffee so I don't feel how bad I am, or something like that. It's like you were enjoying it, right? And that's what I was talking about. My example of words with friends and playing the game and everything was I wasn't enjoying any of the things I was doing. I was just checked out.

And we all do that when we can't handle the constant go, go, go of maybe it's the go, go, go of work and the go, go, go of our phones and the need to be on all the time. There's a great new feature on the latest update of the iPhone where you can set limits on your apps. I don't know. Do you use an iPhone, Jerry? So, yes, you can do this under settings where, and I do this now.

So a couple of things I've done on my iPhone is I've made it all black and white. So I've removed all the color from my phone, something you can do. If you take photos and send them to people, they're still in color for them. But for me, it's everything's black and white. So it makes it just kind of less of eye candy, less kind of addictive, you know. The other thing that I've done now is I've set, I've blocked all of the apps from 7pm to 6am. And I've had my wife set the code. So at 7pm, all of my apps actually shut down. This is really

great that, I mean, this just goes to show, if iPhone are allowing you to block their device, they realize that we all need this if iPhone's doing it. You know, this isn't a third-party group that's doing it. It's Apple. Isn't that cool? So, yeah. So, I can access my phone and my texts, but nothing else. It's really been terrific. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So let's take some questions.

That's what I was doing just a moment ago there, Jerry, while we were chatting. Get some of these questions from people who are interested in what you have to say. So I'm going to spring these questions on you. You haven't seen these before, so no pressure. All right. Let's just – and I haven't seen them either. So, let's just, wow, there's a lot of comments. Everyone has questions for you.

Here's a question speaking of kind of like terms that are popular in popular culture. Joshua asks, can self-care become narcissistic? If so, what's the difference between healthy and unhealthy narcissistic self-care? Wow, that's an interesting question. I think that definitely self-care can be narcissistic if you aren't living up to your own responsibilities and you're disconnected from other people. So it depends a lot on your state of life. you're disconnected from other people. So it depends a lot on your state of life. So if you're a married person, you have responsibilities to connect with your family. If you have children, even if you're a single person, you have friendships and you have jobs. Everyone has

responsibilities that need to themselves have boundaries. But if your self-care, so to speak, is keeping you from those things in an inordinate way, then it's a problem. So it's a good question. I tend to think most people in today's society are neglecting self-care. And when they think they're doing self-care, as we were talking about before, they're not really. They're actually adding some of the self-care is not actually being present. Okay? So even like if I think to myself, like say I have kids and I think to myself, oh my gosh, I just can't wait to get my kids to bed so that I can have, be by myself and watch TV, right? Or something like this. And so the time I spend with my kids is stressed and I'm just like doing my tasks, right? Then

I've missed the boat completely because I can be, have self-care by being present with my kids. I can have self-care by being myself and being present and being with them and enjoying them and being aware of the moment. I think St. Therese really, of Lisieux, really grasps that. I think Catherine Doherty, if you're familiar with Madonna House, teaches that. I think Brother Lawrence, the practice of the presence of God, I think teaches that. It's like about doing everything with self-care, means being present. And so of course, depending who you are, you might need alone time, right? Everyone needs some alone time. And that is self-care, but it's not an escape from other things. See what I'm saying? Which could be that narcissistic piece where it's just like all about me. Even my job. I love what I do. I'm a counselor and I love sitting with people. But like anybody, I could sit there and go, okay, I have five more people, then I get to go home. Well, then am I'm with and enjoy this moment and be present in this moment, I'm doing self-care too. And it's not stressed. And it's actually, I'm here, I'm present.

And it's the same thing when I get home. And if I relax, I'm connecting with other people. I'm deciding if I need some alone time, and I'm deciding carefully where I need to have some connection. And so I'm not at the mercy of some narcissistic self or something like that. I am actually making good choices, setting good boundaries and connecting with others and taking care of myself. So it's holistic. Yeah, great points. Daniel McKelvey asks a question that a lot of people are asking in one way or another. He says, if you're interested in going to therapy, would you, Jerry, recommend a great therapist who's secular,

though not necessarily anti-religious, or a decent enough therapist who's Catholic? Okay. Well, that's a hard question to answer because it's such a generalization. I think that it depends a little bit what your goals are in counseling, because I know I work from a Catholic perspective. And so, a lot of my clients really appreciate the fact that I understand their faith and that I'm not going to question it or ridicule it. And people ridicule faith in subtle ways sometimes. You wouldn't normally find someone just outwardly attacking the faith, but in some ways undermining it. And so if your concern or your issues are related, have a faith component, and I kind of believe most people have a spiritual component that needs

healing along with body and mind, then going to a secular therapist, you're not likely to get support for that or healing of that part of you. If your reason for going to counseling is very specific, you know, a really good secular counselor can help you with that specific problem. So, you know, if your problem is you have an eating disorder, well, there are amazing secular therapists who are specialists in eating disorders. And that would be a better option than a good Catholic therapist who doesn't know much about eating disorders, right? So, it isn't an easy question to answer. It kind of a lot of depends. Another question here from Camille Sleds. He says, when do you know you can solve a problem through prayer and meditation versus when should you seek help from a professional

therapist? Ah, what a great question. Again, a very complex question. Some people make the mistake of assuming that all their problems can be solved through prayer and meditation, and they don't know when to get help. So, that's a really tough one to answer. I think that certainly, if you're dealing with something that is a pathology, so what I would call like an organic or serious mental disorder, that like, you know, schizophrenia or bipolar or something that is very organic to your body that needs to be treated, not, you know, not just with prayer, typically. It would be like, you wouldn't, if you need

eyeglasses, you wouldn't just pray to have better vision, all right? Maybe God could heal that, but let's just face it, it's not likely. So, there are certain issues that really do need prayer, It's not likely. So there are certain issues that really do need prayer. Not prayer, that need a good, decent therapist. There are other things, you know, that are serious problems that we all need help with. And prayer will only be improved or helped with some real help from someone else that's an expert in that area. So if your marriage is in trouble, you may not have a pathology of some kind, right? And not necessarily a mental disorder, but you need somebody who understands how marriage works

that can really help guide you and give you support and assistance to improve your marriage, right? So can you pray that? Well, sure, you can pray for your assistance to improve your marriage, right? So, can you pray that? Well, sure, you can pray for your marriage to improve, and that will always be a good thing. But sometimes we need help. Like, you can't just sit at home and pray that your workday goes well. You have to go to work and actually work with other people. So, as a body of Christ, you know, we need to get the help we need for whatever issues are going on in our lives. So, it sounds like a lot of the time it might not be a either or, but a both and. So, for example, if I'm struggling with being stressed out at my children,

I can pray about that, but I might get to a point where I realize I need some help with that as well. Let's see here. Great questions, aren't they? Oh, here's a good question from Michael Masak. Okay. Funny story about Michael. Look at this. Okay. This is funny. Sounds like a story. Yeah. This is really funny. So, I was at Covecrest up, you know where Covecrest is? Yes. Up in Tyga. And my wife and I and kids were just kind of lazing around, playing in the lake, and this kid comes up and he sees this hornet's nest on the ground.

He picks it up with a stick, I believe, if my memory serves, and all of a sudden what seemed like a hundred wasps flew out at him and stung him everywhere, you know? Yeah, and so they ended up coming. They had to set this like they flamed this thing they kind of blow torched this this nest anyway so that's so funny he's now a patron his name's michael masick parentheses who got stung 15 times by wasps in front of matt frad in parentheses anyway he asks a very interesting question which i know a lot of people um are

thinking how can i help my friend who's who is suffering from self-harm? He says that he feels numb a lot and resorts to self-harm to try and feel something. So, I actually have a question about this because this is what I hear as well. My wife wouldn't mind me saying this. She said this publicly when she was a teenager. She dealt with self-harm and she said the same thing, that she just wanted to feel something and so she would cut herself. And I can't relate to this at all because I've never experienced this, but this seems to be the opposite of what we were talking about earlier where we're super stressed and we try and dissociate. And I want you to correct me because I don't understand self-harm. But whereas people who are dealing with self-harm, it seems like they're perpetually dissociated. That is, they're not feeling anything and they want to feel something. And they kind of, instead of going from stress to dissociating, dissociating to feeling something. That may have

made no sense. But tell us a bit about that self-harm and how this person can help them. Sure. You know, I'll give my perspective. Self-harm is not my area of super strength. But the way I would see it, you just made a good point. What is depression? So depression is a chronic state of being low. In that scale I was talking about, it's a chronic state of being very low. So if you're very numbed out and in a very low state, you have no motivation. You have no desire to connect with people. You don't like the things you used to like, this kind of thing.

So like you're saying, I do think sometimes maybe that self-harm behavior is a way of feeling something that allows you to feel alive or something, I suppose. But I agree with you. Personally, I can't possibly relate to self-harm. I would never do that. I don't like needles. That wouldn't be my drug of choice. But I do think for those of us that don't understand how it works, I do think there is a component that does provide a dopamine rush that the sensation, just like a, you

know, a hit, you know, in some drug or just like, you know, drinking alcohol or something could give you that sense of a dopamine rush, right? And so it can be like an addiction that same way. So that's my perspective on that. Yeah. So how would he help his friend with this? Whoa. Well, I honestly think that maybe helping the guy get a counselor or girl get a counselor, because what is under it, right? I wouldn't freak out. Honestly, I don't freak out when somebody even says, you know, they're suicidal. I mean, I take that extremely seriously. But I just see that as a part of them that feels so bad, that needs an escape. And self-harm isn't the same. Self-harm is actually helping them to cope with that bad feeling about themselves.

So if you just simply take it away, right, that can actually take away their coping. So the self-harm, strangely enough, for those of us that don't understand, it is a way of coping. So you've got, they need help. See a good counselor. They can get at what's underneath it that's causing this depression or that's causing the sense of the need to cope in this way. So get under the addiction. I think of it as an addiction. So get under it, just like any addiction. We have to deal with the issue itself. We have to get accountable with the actual behavior, but we can't just do that. We have to get at what is the wounded part underneath it. Yeah, don't even catch off. out of the tree and the fruit is bad. And we think, well, let's water the leaves. So, it's like,

no, no, no, you got to get down to the root. Like, where is this coming from? And often we just stay at that fruit level, I think, when it comes to our issues. Joseph Daly asks, what is your advice for Catholics who are struggling with pornography and can't go for a week or two without it? Besides confession and the sacraments, what else should they do? How can they find a good Catholic therapist in their area? Oh, wow. What a great question. Okay. So, there are a number of resources. I'm the president of the Catholic Psychotherapy Association, and we actually have a directory on our site of Catholic therapists who belong to the association that wanted their name available. So you could look through that. What is it? What's the URL? Catholicpsychotherapy.org, I think. Let me see. I'll find it.

Yeah, yeah. And the other one is there's catholictherapist.com, which is a private business that Catholic therapists register in and are approved. And it's a great site to find Catholic therapists in your area as well. So those are two options. Here we go. .org, is this it? Yeah, that's it.

So if he went there, what would he find? You'd have to find the directory. So we go to that site and look up the directory. So there's that and catholictherapist.com is another option and then one thing i'd be amiss to recommend is i just um created this course you know where this strive21.com um it's called a detox from porn it's basically 21 days where you join literally tens of thousands of men around the world and you journey with them. So it only starts four times a year. So the next ones that's starting is going to be on March 27th.

And so I journey with you throughout the entire three weeks in the comment section. I do live streams every week with all the guys at once. You might want to check that out. It's obviously not a replacement for a therapist, but it's a good place to start if you haven't done anything. So, go to strive21.com. That's, yeah, strive21.com. All right, let's take a couple more questions here. Okay, Mark Adkins asks, how do you reconcile the focus of demon possession and the impact of demons on humans in the New Testament and current understandings of modern psychology and mental illness? So this is a good question. So some people will say, you know, when you read the New Testament and they're talking about demons throwing people into the fires, whatever, this was just epilepsy or something.

We just didn't know enough about mental illness back then. People were ignorant and they mistook all mental illness to be demons. Anything you want to say to that? Sure. Again, I'm not an expert on demon possession. However, I do think there's a really big difference between a demon possession, a legitimate one, and I happen to believe that there are legitimate demon possessions and there are differences. And I think a good therapist will, you know, especially a Catholic one, should know those differences and be able to refer someone to the appropriate, you know, priest or the person in the diocese that handles that. I think it might

depend on which diocese you're in. I think it's extremely rare. So I don't assume demon possession out of the gate. I usually assume that a lot of times when somebody is behaving in a strange way, that it's a part of them that is struggling, that is in some way trying to, oddly enough, protect themselves by being aggressive. And so I will try to work with that. I don't know if that really answers this question or not. It's a big one. No, it's a good question. For those interested, I did an interview with Paul Thigpen on the Matt Fradd Show on my YouTube channel. You can also subscribe to the Matt Fradd Show on iTunes, and we talk a lot about demon possession there. And Paul makes it very clear that the church is,

lot about demon possession there. And Paul makes it very clear that the church is, you know, makes sure that this isn't a psychological issue before it goes on to consider it being a demonic one. So the church, in a sense, is the biggest skeptic before dealing with these issues. All right, man, so many questions. I think we can't get to them all. Let's let this be the final one. Mark Dubay or Mark Doob. I think Dubay. Yeah. This is a really difficult question because it's the most general question almost ever, other than like, what is? That would be the most general question. But here's the second most. What's the healthiest thing I can do for myself? What's the healthiest habit? What's the healthiest thing I can do for myself? thing I can do for myself? What's the healthiest habit? What's the healthiest thing I can do for myself? I don't know. I don't know you. You know, for me, it would be different than you. You know,

like for me, it's take a break and read a book. And I actually would have a bath, put a light a candle, read a book, do something to unwind that way. That would be healthy or go for a hike. Okay, no, that's my new answer. The healthiest thing you can or take go for a hike who okay no that's my new answer the healthiest thing you can do is go on a hike but there's probably a lot of things one could pick oh we gotta we gotta kind of conclude here by reading aquinas's said uh said contra and respondio from article five here whether pain and sorrow is relieved by sleep and baths. And Aquinas is going to say, yes. So his said contra, he says, Augustine says, so he's beginning with an argument from authority as he always does in the said contra. And this is a quote from Augustine. I had heard that bath had its name from the fact of its driving sadness from the mind. And further, he says,

I slept and woke up again and found my grief, not a little relieved. And quotes from the mind. And further, he says, I slept and woke up again and found my grief not a little relieved. And quotes from the words of the Hymn of Ambrose, in which it is said, sleep restores the tired limbs to labor, refreshes the weary mind and banishes sorrow. All right, so that's the said contra. Here's his main response. He says, as stated above, sorrow by reason of its specific nature is repugnant to the vital movement of the body. And consequently, whatever restores the bodily nature to its due state of vital movement is opposed to sorrow and relieves it. Moreover, such remedies from the very fact that they bring nature back to its normal state and here again i mean this is kind of what you're talking about those three levels you said stressed

out the zone and then dissociating i like this right it's bringing us back to its normal state like in the middle there these are causes of pleasure for this is precisely in what pleasure consists as stated above. Therefore, since every pleasure relieves sorrow, sorrow is relieved by such like bodily remedies. So for those listening, if you're feeling stressed out, you might need a therapist. And as Kristalina Everett has said, you might not need one, but you can definitely benefit from one. But one thing that I think we can all agree on is if you had a good bath tonight with a glass of wine and a good night's sleep, that's probably not going to be a bad thing. And you might wake

up feeling a lot more refreshed. So, Jerry, thank you so much for being on the show. Final thoughts, maybe where can people learn more about you? And if they're in the state of Georgia, how can they find you? Hey, well, in the state of Georgia, I'm currently at Holy Family Counseling Center in Georgia, and I would be happy to help you either find a good Catholic therapist or work with you myself. All righty, righty, righty. Thanks for listening to that quite a long interview with Dr. Jerry Crete. Look, I just want to say, you know, if you have been trying to overcome certain issues on your own for a while now, maybe it's sexual addiction, maybe it's anger, maybe it's depression or anxiety, there is absolutely no shame in seeking out the help of a professional. And so you might want to check out some of those websites that Jerry alluded to, or perhaps just speak to your parish priest about good Catholic therapists in your area. As Kristalina Everett has said, and I know I already mentioned this, but it bears repeating,

there is no shame in wanting to be a whole man or God or a whole woman of God. Thanks so much for listening. If you love what I am doing with The Matt Fradd Show, Pints with Aquinas, Bible History, all this stuff, do you want to support the work that I'm doing? You can go to patreon.com slash mattfradd and support me there, or you can support me directly at pintswithaquinas.com slash donate. By doing that, you make sure that this work continues, that I'm able to expand it. So a big thanks to everybody who does that, who will do that. And there's a bunch of cool free gifts that I give you in return, and you can learn all about that. Again, pintswithaquinas.com

slash donate, or if you want to give to me on patreon patreon.com slash matt frad means a ton thanks so much and have a great week to carry you to carry you and i would give my whole life to carry you, to carry you, to carry you, to carry you, to carry you. There were birds in your tears Falling from the sky Into a dry riverbed That began to flow down to A cross tower and high up above the water And maple trees surrounded

It leaves caught flame With golden embers