Pints With Aquinas - Relieving Post-Traumatic Stress and Calming Anxiety Through Healing our Parts w/ Dr. Gerry Crete

Episode Date: February 6, 2024

Show Sponsors: https://strive21.com/matt https://ascensionpress.com/fradd Get Gerry's Book: https://sophiainstitute.com/product/litanies-of-the-heart/  

Dr Jerry Creed. Hey, great to be here, Matt. Great to have you as always. Is this the third time you've been in studio? Um, in this studio, it is the third time and we did one in Atlanta before. Yeah. I love having you on because I like you and it's easy to talk to you because we know each other. It's always nice. And because you have a beautiful dreamy voice, that's what people say at least in the comment section. Thank you. Thank you. If I start falling asleep, it's not because I'm bored, it's because, anyway, good to have you. What's going on? What's new with you? Well, big thing is this book, Litneys of the Heart.

And so- Congratulations. Very excited about having that out. And just growing my private practice and working with people and life is good. I'm gonna put you on the spot here because people have asked me sometimes, what's the name of that book? And I forget because the publisher names it.

Right. So no pressure to get it exactly right. But what's the subtitle? Cause when I read that, I loved it. I chose it and they kept it. So hopefully I'll get it right. But it's, the subtitle is relieving post-traumatic stress and calming anxiety through healing our parts. Okay. Post-traumatic stress and calming anxiety through healing our parts.

Okay, post-traumatic stress. I noticed you didn't add disorder on the end. That's correct. Whenever I hear it, I hear disorder on the end. That was on purpose because I think we all experience post-traumatic stress and we don't necessarily rise to the level of a disorder like in a way, where you get a diagnosis. So I'm really addressing anxiety and post-traumatic stress that we all experience.

So I'm hoping this book, yes, will hopefully help people who have had severe trauma or have had, who do have PTSD, but I also see it as something for everyone. Mm-hmm. So we have post-traumatic stress, anxiety, and you said parts, which I think we've spoken about before, but I can't wait to get into. Yeah, yeah. So really, if I explain it a little bit, I do this type of therapy that is called parts work. And the most popular version of it right now is internal family systems. And I've also trained in ego state therapy,

which is another parts work approach. And when I started using this approach a few years ago, it was transformational. Like I was seeing people come back one week later, two weeks after a session saying, I'm already relating to people differently, I'm already feeling better about myself inside. I mean, it was incredible and they want more of it.

And so it's not since I started doing EMDR years ago that I've seen such a transformation. And so working with this parts approach, which I actually really love doing, and is so effective though, made me wonder though, what does it mean at a Catholic level, like from a Catholic anthropological perspective or philosophical perspective,

what are our parts? And is this Catholic? Is this okay? And so I kind of went into a deep dive at that point of like exploring in the Bible and exploring in the history of the church, like what is there evidence for parts, you know, can we make a case for this? Could you give us maybe a summary of what you mean by it? Just a real quick kind of 50,000 foot view of it and then, because people might not even know what we're talking about,

and then we can get into it. Sure, yeah, of course. So the idea behind it is that we have an inner multiplicity. In our inner world, if we looked inside ourselves, if we spent a little time reflecting that we have an inner multiplicity. In our inner world, if we looked inside ourselves, we spent a little time reflecting, we have an inmost self, a core kind of spiritual center, but we also have parts of our personality, if you will, parts of our self system, parts of a sort of this inner family even within. And so we see this, for example, with St. Paul says, you know, I do what I do not want to do, or, you know, the law of my inmost self. And so we see like even in the biblical characters, like this idea of this inner conflict that's

going on. So we know what does it mean to have an inner conflict? It means there has to be some aspect of self that is in opposition to some other aspect of self. And so this whole approach believes that we have parts. They're not like ontological beings of their own. They're more of a phenomenological or just kind of like a practical kind of aspect of the personality, but that I would have a part,

for example, that, you that I would have a part, for example, that works as a therapist and is kind of in the mode of being a therapist. But I have another part of me that shows up when I'm hanging out with my kids or hanging out with my friends. So we have these different parts. And we know, for example, from work with inner child work,

some people are familiar with that. We know that we may have an aspect of self that's still at a child level, and is maybe carrying some kind of woundedness that we still carry today. So what this approach is about is about connecting with our inner parts and bringing healing,

bringing whatever corrective emotional experience, whatever they need, we're bringing to them. So we're doing work on the inner deep level person to achieve inner harmony and real integration inside. Yeah, so on one level, this sounds really kind of heady and deep, but on another level, even non-religious people say things like, well, part of me wants to, part of me doesn't, or I wanna tell her this like well part of me wants to part of me doesn't or I want to

Tell her this but part of me is afraid that she'll react this way Exactly, so it's very much true to our experience It's yeah, and then when you really explore those parts, they're a little bit more than just like a mask one wears You know, like you might say I'm just I'm wearing a mask I'm going to a party and I don't really want to so I'm gonna be polite. I'm gonna play the part play the part Yeah, they're more than that as we get to know these parts. These parts have kind of their own I'm wearing a mask, I'm going to a party, and I don't really want to, so I'm gonna be polite. I'm gonna play the part. Play the part, yeah. There are more than that as we get to know these parts. These parts have kind of their own perspective

on life and memories, and they carry sometimes burdens. And as we get to know our parts, we realize they have different functions. So for example, in internal family systems, they kind of categorize parts. Parts aren't meant to hold those categories necessarily forever, but it's just kind of useful. So in other words, we have parts that are like managers.

And so a manager part, for example, is like a good doer. You know, like there's a part of me that is really kind of a bit heady, intellectual, likes to study and do research and like write a book, you know? And that's kind of a good manager doer part. And so we might have a few different manager type parts, but we also maybe have, we call them exiles, a wounded part, a part that is maybe carrying a burden of shame or fear or

pain from the past. Which might be causing us to manage in a particular way. Yes, yes, our managers get really busy trying to protect us They're very proactive to protect us from those kinds of pains So you you could get somebody like a part that is a good doer, right a good task manager Could because of an exiled part that is maybe feeling a lot of shame or something The the manager part becomes overburdened itself and then becomes maybe a workaholic,

takes on more and more and more in order to like prevent that pain from kind of coming through. But those are proactive parts, our managers. But there's another kind of part that's really interesting and we call them firefighters. And the firefighter part is reactive. So in other words when the managers kind of so to speak fall down on the job like somehow that their

systems overwhelmed you know maybe we're triggered by something bad that happens. I'm immediately thinking of the experience of sitting down with children who are bickering. This is my own experience you know when they're particularly loud and I'm trying to manage it, and maybe unnecessarily so, because they should be able to be kids, and I shouldn't try to manage them in a way as if they're adults. But then I get to a point where part of me

just wants to yell and just stop this now. Is that kind of what you mean? That would be a reactive firefighter part, right? Because your manager part, your good dad parts, would be like probably handling things, kind of nicely and properly, and using whatever parenting tips you have. But then say someone drops the jug of water,

and then you find yourself reacting in a way that's completely out of proportion. Right, yeah. Where did that come from? So even a firefighter could be even just irritability, or come out with actual anger or rage even possibly. But even those firefighter parts can be even more destructive,

like alcoholism, drug use, even extreme isolation or something. But why this model is so cool to me is that our normal inclination is to go, whoa, if I have a firefighter part with some problem, or even a destructive behavior, our natural instinct is like push that away. Yeah.

Right, like I wanna deal with that, get behind me Satan, like push it away, go away, repress that. But in this approach, you do the opposite. You lean into those parts that are reactive because here's the key. The part that is the firefighter part has a good intention. Deep down, its intention is for the good.

In other words, if it feels like the system is overwhelmed by something like shame or pain or fear, then it believes the only way at that point to take care of that overwhelm is to do the behavior it has learned. So it's a coping thing. Kind of like if there's a fire in the house, the firefighter doesn't care about the carpet

or the couches, it just rushes in. And you don't blame the firefighter for that, that was what its job was. Right, right. So the approach now though is to work with that part, understanding its intention. And as soon as you understand someone's intention, like even think about this as another person,

like if somebody is, you don't get along with or something or they're acting aggressively, and you turn it around a little bit and you figure out, okay, what's behind that? And you actually name it to that person like, oh, are you afraid of being made fun of or something, like a bully maybe? And all of a sudden it's more likely

that that part is gonna suddenly soften. Right? Because you're understanding it. You say, oh, I get you. Well, I get it why you're choosing to do this. But in order to do that, you have to have a distance between internally in your own internal world,

a distance between you your core your inmost self and that part but in most of the time our parts when they get overwhelmed they don't we don't have any distance from them in other words I don't have a sense of that part of me it's simply me it's we call that blending so that part is blended with the self. And so we're no longer able to access our natural qualities of being created in the image of God. Our natural abilities to have compassion,

to have a calm, to have a peaceful patience, you know, this kind of thing. It's now not accessible. And this part that's overwhelmed is actually sort of in charge of the system. But part of what my book is set out to do is to help people learn how to make that distance, get a little distance,

and so that you can actually love that part. And when the part of you feels that and connects with the self, it's actually, to a person, it responds positively. It actually wants that. It's like, you know your kids, they might say, oh, I can't wait for mom and dad to be gone.

Let's have them gone for the whole week and we'll just party all week or something. They say that, perhaps. They don't actually want that. They want parents that are loving, present, and protective. It's the same with our parts. They want to be in connection with the inmost self, because the inmost self created in God's image

is in most contact, I believe, with God's grace. It's sort of, it has a, it's almost like a mediator, in a sense, between Christ, right, and His love and His grace, and our heart, and our whole heart, our whole heart our whole heart system if you will. That's really good. Jay Stringer wrote a book called unwanted and in that book he said something that I knew felt right and I knew would help and I couldn't understand. I didn't really fully understand why and this is shedding light on it.

And he said, if you're going to pornography, treating yourself with a modicum of curiosity is going to be so much more helpful than shaming yourself. Right. And so this idea of leaning into what's going on here, that sounds like what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Could you help us understand that? So if someone's keeps returning to the sexual sin they feel deeply ashamed of. Why might curiosity be a better approach, and even a more pragmatic approach, than just heaping shame on yourself?

Right, right, because all that heaping shame is gonna do is it's gonna cause that part of you to a retreat, you know, maybe even like more into the unconscious mind or whatnot, where it's still gonna be active in your system, and it's still gonna show up from time to time. It's still going to use the coping mechanisms that you have. So even if you're able to do some work with your more wounded child, even if you do some work,

that part is still thinking, my only way to handle things when I'm overwhelmed or I'm stressed or I feel lonely or something is to turn to say pornography. And so if instead you connect with that part and you figure out, okay, the desire or the compulsion to look at pornography is rooted in a deep need for intimacy,

in a deep sense that I can't get my intimacy needs met any other way than this way. And so you have to start by saying, okay, I understand that. I may not agree with that, like that's not where I wanna stay, but I understand that what's going on there. And now all of a sudden I'm like, how can I help this part learn a new way

to get your intimacy needs met? And as once you're doing that sort of deeper work with that part and the part realizes, no, you love, you know, that part is loved in fact. And your goal for that part is to actually get their needs met. Whereas if we just say, oh, just go cold turkey, just forget about it, like just put that away.

Just, you know, stop that. Well, the part is gonna be afraid, I'm never gonna get my needs met. I'm gonna have to like just, you know, white knuckle it and just bear and suffer. But no, we wanna offer so much more to our parts. And so we can by truly loving them and showing them a different way to meet one's intimacy needs.

And also gaining trust with the parts. I know it sounds funny, you're talking about yourself, right, your own self. but you have to gain trust from those parts before you can approach those wounded exiles that are carrying the shame and loneliness and pain. Because the protector parts, these firefighters and managers are protectors,

they don't necessarily trust me, let's say, the self, to be able to handle it. Because maybe when the wounding happened, you were five. And when you were five, your inmost self was five. And unable to handle the situation. But now, if you're an adult, you're able to possibly handle the situation

just like you might for a friend. We can do it so easily for a friend, usually. Like offer, you know, true like, hey, I want to help you and all this. And we somehow don't do that to ourselves. And that kind of gets us into the topic of self love. Wow, could we just spend a bit more time on parts? This is really fascinating stuff. And it definitely rings true. Why does it feel, it's not, but why does it feel to some more wholly to shame that part? You know, imagine someone who's very hard on themselves hears you say, no, lean in, try to understand that part. Like, no, that's rubbish. That's just, that's, that's soft talk. You need to yell at that thing.

And yeah, yeah, beautiful. That's a great question. And why? Because you just described a manager part. So the manager part is also protective and it's proactive. And a lot of us have, we call it a Catholic standard bearer part. Okay. And so that's a part that has learned its way of coping and managing is to be perhaps sometimes rigidly hold on to the truth of our faith

and discipline of our faith. And hey, and that can be a good thing, right? Of course it's a good thing to have strong beliefs and to have values and so on. But when that part is overwhelmed, right? Or feels a threat to the system, you know, or feels the overwhelm maybe of the shame or guilt that comes after, for example,

binging on alcohol or looking at pornography or something, then that part moves in quickly to be like, to do the shaming like you're saying, because it's trying to defend. It knows the answer to our problems is our faith. And so we have to uphold that. And it takes a kind of a rigid position. I see that as an important part when it's not burdened, right?

But what we, but it's really a different thing to have a Catholic standard-bearer part versus being connected with our inmost self, our true spiritual center that really represents the fact that we're image-bearers of God. And so, when, but together, when our core inmost self is engaged and leading our Catholic bearer part, right,

and any other parts, now all of a sudden there's integration, right, and we can have better balance. We can be, yeah, we hold onto our values and our beliefs and we do have standards and boundaries around that. We can uphold those, but we're not shaming and we're not repressing other parts of the system. In fact, how great would it be for instead of one part to shame another part of our own system,

what would it be like for that to bring its wisdom and bring its knowledge of the faith to the part that's struggling, but to do it in a way that's compassionate. Kind of like you would do if you were a good evangelist, right? You don't go around meeting other people, right, who are struggling in sin and struggling in addiction.

You don't go around just telling them, you know, you're going to hell and you just stop that. You wouldn't do that. It wouldn't work. What's funny though, is you see people do that in a way and they kind of make a brand off of that, being hardcore, and maybe that is a sort of way to manage the chaos of the world at large.

Not a particular person, but I go on my YouTube channel and I start breathing fire, I hold those God hates, you know what signs, that those folks were. Well, here's another really key difference with our parts, and how you know the difference between you're some part that's active or are you operating from that deeper in most self is that our parts have agendas.

It's not always bad that they do, but they do. So as soon as you have a part, it has an agenda. And the agenda of the firefighter is just like, stop the pain, that's an easy one. But managers may have other kinds of agendas. Like I wanna feel good about myself. Or I wanna avoid criticism. Like a Catholic standard bearer part might be like, I want everybody around me to think I'm holy.

That might be its agenda, right? Because otherwise that's part of my identity and otherwise I'm overwhelmed by a sense of I don't belong or I'm not good enough or something. Right. So as soon as we detect an agenda, we know, okay, that's a part. And so we're going to approach that a little differently. Our core in most self has no agenda other than perhaps healing and harmony. It really is just about loving.

It's more of a pure loving essence, if you will. And so we know that that compassion just kind of it's more of a pure loving essence, if you will. And so we know that that compassion just kind of flows. And in a way, once it's active, it kind of melts. So then, can we find the part and it not be deficient? Or are you saying that parts are sort of like the scabs on the self that serve a role, but if we were, like, would the blessed Lord have parts? Right, right, great. So I wouldn't call them ever scabs on the soul at all.

In fact, I think they're beautiful. I think they're the way God intended us to have this diversity within, if you will, and that it's meant to be this inner, like almost kingdom or inner temple of where the whole system is loving God and loving, and that we have these resources. So they're meant to be like resources for the person.

But unfortunately we are in a fallen world. And so, and we have all experienced trauma, and we're all struggling with sin. And so our parts often are carrying burdens, right? So I believe our Lord had had parts, but his parts would be in complete harmony with each other and with his, with his deepest self. However you wanted to find that. I'm thinking of like, I remember my wife, when we were living in Ireland,

she unfortunately rolled off a hill and, uh, destroyed the car and she had to go to hospital. She was okay. The baby was okay. Aval was in the car and she had to go to hospital. She was okay, the baby was okay, Avila was in the car. But for the next several months, whenever we went close on a bridge or a mountain, she tensed up. And I guess I'm trying to come up with an analogy for our internal system, right?

So that, what would that be? That would be, well, I guess you can't divide the two. It's your internal system warning you about a physical danger, but. Right. So I see our parts as being kind of a little bit in between our heart or our soul, if you will, and our body.

So there's a bridge. So a lot of times when you're trying to connect with a part, or if a person's having a hard time connecting with some part, I will say, where do you feel that in your body? Or what are you noticing in your body? So if they have stress, like if they have stress in their shoulders or in their chest or in the gut, then that becomes the avenue that you can connect

with a part and say, okay, let's focus in on that stress. We're not fighting against it, we're just noticing it. And through that, you work with, okay, what is that stress possibly telling you? Can we connect that with a part of the self that has something it needs to share or something it's worried about? And so we connect, eventually connected with that part.

So in your example, her whole person was experiencing this trauma, right? Body and soul, and so she remembers, the body remembers the threat that happened when she was falling. And so now she's in another situation where that is sort of being triggered. The memory of that is kind of triggered,

even if it's unconscious, right? The body remembers it and some part of her is holding on to that fear, right? And so what we would do, right, in that case would be, we'd wanna connect with the part that's holding on onto that fear. And it might be as simple as like if she's on a ski lift or something, I don't know where we're all of a sudden she feels a little bit of that same

anxiety would be once you get really practiced working with your parts, you might be able to go, okay, slow down. Uh, there's a part of me. I can feel it in my, maybe it's in my chest. All right. I know there's this part of me that remembers having fallen. And yes, we are up high, but we're safe. We've got a bar here. We're in a safe place. There's, you know what I mean?

Like you can provide some comfort and consolation for that part of you. And often it's not gonna be a perfect thing necessarily, but the whole person will relax their body. You know, if you can do a little bit of the take a deep breath, realizing, yeah, I am safe here. Yeah, this is kind of high, but I'm protected. I've got a seatbelt on or something, and it can be helpful.

So as someone makes that space to sort of address their part and comfort their part, do you get to a point where you don't notice your part? Like if your parts are all in harmony, you know, you're a firefighter and your manager and, well those are the really two, what else did we talk about? Firefighting. Exiles were the other one. Yeah.

Yeah. That's really interesting. I remember hearing Mother Miriam, Sister Miriam give a talk, say, there are no exiles here. There will be no exiles. Right. And I suppose by that, what she meant was, she's going to welcome even those parts that she deems most shameful

into dialogue with her heart. Hey, yeah. I think that is that what she meant? That sounds exactly right. And the problem would be that for some, that sounds nice, but if you have a strong protector part and you just say that, the protector part is going to say, wait a second, I don't trust that. Oh, it's nice of you to say all exiles are welcome, but heck no, I don't trust that because the last time I was vulnerable, maybe I was five, maybe I was 12, my whole world crashed. Right? So you have to develop a relationship with the parts that have the good intention of protecting you.

Yeah. Now, again, to those listening, we're not talking about there being a multiplicity of use. We're not talking about, as you said, different ontological substances within the soul or anything like that. But with that in mind, how it still could be helpful perhaps to address it as if it were a separate entity. I'm not sure. You tell me how you began there a moment ago, but how can one begin to sort of address a particular part? Right. So like I would say, they kind of have a phenomenological presence, if you will. So in some way, in a realistic way, you can kind of, yeah, address them like they're people, even though they're really just aspects or parts of self. So the question was? Well, how do we begin to address them? And just, I heard Jordan Peterson say this, and again, this, by the way, just for those at home, by phenomenological, meaning the way we experience things, right? It's like back to the things themselves was Hussarul's idea.

So how do we encounter them? How do they, is that, that's kind of what, how you're using the language? Yeah, it's our lived experience. So we connect with her parts, kind of like their other personalities, but truly they're not a separate essence or something. Right. Would analogy to that be if I feel threatened by you and you call and you're, you're actually causing me no threat. That's a phenomenological response I'm having. It doesn't match up with objective reality,

but it may as well given that this is my experience of it. So if you pose a threat to me, I get defensive. If you don't pose a threat to me and I interpret you to be posing a threat to me, I get defensive. Like my phenomenological response and experience is identical even if it doesn't match up with. Yeah, that makes sense to me.

Yeah, so I once heard Jordan Peterson saying something like, you might say to yourself, he says, you know, what if I, what if you clean, clean up your room today? I'm using this as an example. You do that and what we'll go out and we'll get some, we'll get some ice cream, you know, and I'll be good to you. Like he's kind of using this language. And sure, from a superficial level, it sounds insane. And sure, from a superficial level, it sounds insane. But anyone who's at any way, I think, in touch with themselves like, OK, I see there's wisdom here, even if the manager protector part doesn't want to allow me into this psychological gobbledygook, they might say. Yeah, I think that I'm hoping that this book will help people be able to connect with their parts.

I know that if you're seeing a therapist who works, who does parts work like an IFS therapist, they will guide you through it so you kind of, like you get the help you need to like walk you through it. But the goal is to be able to do it on your own, ultimately. And I encourage people to do it during their holy hour, during their time of prayer, to spend a bit of time. It's almost like a place of recollection,

where you practice like looking inside and you gain kind of an awareness of your parts because they're active whether you're totally aware of them or not, they're functioning in some way. And so, but when you slow down and you actually recognize them, then you become aware of them throughout the day and you become aware of your inmost self throughout the day.

And if you become aware of your inmost self, the day. And if you become aware of your inmost self, I believe that's kind of like to me, that's as close to St. Paul's saying, pray without ceasing, other than the Jesus prayer, that you can be because you almost like Hildebrandt talks about an unending melody. It's almost this idea that throughout the day, you're kind of in God's presence.

Throughout the day, if you're connecting with your inmost self, that's the core spiritual center that's able to be in God's presence. And so I really see this as a spiritual practice of relating to our parts in connection or in harmony with our inmost self and ultimately with God, right, with Christ. So it is kind of like a daily practice.

And when people adopt it, it really is life-changing because you encounter somebody, you know, like, I don't know, maybe somebody annoying at the grocery store or maybe it's a spouse, right, or a kid or something. But, and our immediate reaction sometimes is like without even thinking, one of our parts is irritated or whatnot, and it just kind of starts reacting.

But if we're in the practice of just slowing down and being aware of our parts, then we go, oh, there's a part of me right now that wants to cluck that guy. Okay, let's pause for a moment. And this can happen in seconds, like it doesn't have to take a long time. I understand the intention,

the part of looking a little deeper, okay, what is that anger all about for me? Right, is it something else going on in my life? Is it this part is needing more rest, or is hungry, lonely, tired, or something? And you're able to do a little consolation and then you're within yourself, and then you can turn around with generosity to whatever person that might be

annoying you in that moment. And so that's where people say to me after doing this work, I'm just getting along with people better. And my part, I'm just less reactive. Right. And it's because they're really loving themselves better, essentially. I want to tell you about a course that I have created for men to overcome pornography. It is called Strive21.com slash Matt.

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Strive 21, that's Strive21.com slash Matt, or as I say, text Strive to 66866 to get started today. You won't regret it. I do want to go into all of this stuff, self-love, but I still just want to kind of dwell here a little longer because it is quite fascinating. Can I react to you in a managerial or firefighter sort of way and it not be a problem? Yes, because you can react, if you react to somebody

in a firefighter, let's say way, and it's self-led is how we would call it. I see. Then it'd be okay. And I would say that's Christ at the temple when he turns over the tables. I see. He is expressing anger and he is reacting, but he is doing it. He doesn't lose himself as we say. Exactly. He's not out of touch with who he is as the son of God in that moment. Yeah. So it's like the horse should lead the cart, not the other way around. Or the dog, the tail wags the dog, that kind of idea.

I like that because we've all experienced that, hey, where you'll hear someone say, I don't know why, I don't even know why I said that. Or I don't know why I did that. And that might be an example of a part leading the self. Right, exactly, totally. The part, you know, in ego state therapy, we would say the part is in the executive or in ego state therapy, we would say the part is in the executive or an I,

internal family systems, we would say the part is blended, but either way it's like St. Paul says, I do what I do not want to do. He's describing a part of him kind of acting in a way that later he's frustrated with. Yeah. It's a, it's a cruel bloody world, isn't it? I mean, you're born into a family. However good they are, there's going to be some level of dysfunction.

There's wounding that takes place before you even have the defense mechanisms to protect, reason through why that might not be true, right? I mean, we also are the recipients of great love and mercy and tenderness. That's also true. But I think one of the reasons I find it so horrible, and I think everyone finds it horrible,

to hear a story of a child being abused. Like we have a lot of poverty here and a lot of dysfunction here in Steubenville. Sometimes you might be driving down the road, and I've seen this where you'll have a mother or father just screaming, like a three-year-old, for doing something that they, and I just, my heart breaks because there's this

undefended child being attacked. And so you learn something from that experience, right? And it's either I can't trust my mother or I will never do that again, or I don't like how this feels. And so therefore I have to soothe that somehow. And so it feels like a mess, like it feels like a tangled mess.

And now we sit here at the age of 40 and beyond and younger, whoever's watching. And you're like, how am I even going to begin to sort all this out? Right, right. Well, such a good example, what you gave, like the mother, you know, for whatever reason is going on in her life, you know, she, for example, in that case is screaming at her three year old. So it's obviously a part of her that is overwhelmed and now reacting. And so that child does learn kind of like what you're saying because the mother who is their caregiver, so the person that is supposed to be the example of secure attachment, safety, is no longer safe in that moment.

So the three-year-old learns the person who loves me and takes care of me is not safe. And often for a child, that is too much to absorb. So instead they would say, I must be bad. I must be very bad. And so, so there's a part of them that is going to woundedness that's going to hold on to I'm bad at my core. I'm just a bad child and I'm a disappointment or whatever, I can't do anything right. But they may also have another part show up

that will rebel against that too as another defense. And so that same child starts to have rebellious type behavior, right? Maybe it's lashing out against a sibling or maybe it's like destroying things or yelling or screaming back. And so you have both of those, you have both an exile that's been hurt and wounded,

and you have a protector part that has now learned to cope with that by possibly dysfunctional behavior, right? And then they carry that on in some way into their adult life. So, and then when you're, like as you said, when you're 40 or whatever age later in this type of therapy, what you're really doing is you're helping those parts learn new ways to cope and you're going back to the three year old. There's still a three year old part of that person that believes they're worth

nothing and they're just simply bad. And the world is not safe. At this point, right, the person who's even open to hearing you is probably open to hearing you because they've experienced something in their lives that has been loud enough that they are now willing to seek help.

But if they're in that state, they're probably in some sense exhausted. And so then when you start talking about reconciling with a three-year-old, there's a part of us. It's like, forget it. Like this. I can't do that. This is too exhausting. Right. Give us give us encouragement for why it's worth it, because what are the alternatives?

You know? Yeah. Well, you don't want a part of you that's living in your unconscious mind or exiled, and that's simply repressed, to continually be acting. Think of it, I don't think of the part as sort of a festering wound, but it's kind of like that. You're ignoring something that is sort of festering and going bad, if you will, and it's not going to get better by ignoring it. So that's one thing.

But another thing is I'm amazed. When I've done this work with people, we would get to the point where we're unburdening That's one thing. But another thing is I'm amazed. When I've done this work with people, we would get to the point where we're unburdening a wounded child part, like let's say a three-year-old part. I cannot tell you when that burden is lifted and the inmost self, who's now let's say 40, actually sees the three-year-old,

truly sees the three-year-old, truly sees the three-year-old, and the three-year-old part sees the love and compassion and feels, not just sees, feels the love and compassion from the core self, it's beautiful. And all of a sudden you see that part of you as this beautiful child that should always have been loved and cared for. And then there's this sort of freedom,

because think about a three-year-old or a five-year-old, they're just full of joy and playfulness and lovability. And when they're loved, that's just how they are. And so you're then, now you're welcoming that exiled part full of joy and playfulness into your inner family, into your inner self system, where it has a place now. And what people find after that is they experience more joy and playfulness in their lives

as a result of this work. So it's so powerful and important work that I get it, it might be hard. It's hard to approach those things, but I think it's well worth it. I've been thinking lately, and I don't know how this applies, but I'll share it anyway, about how we are temples, right?

Outposts of Eden, as it were, meant to spread forgiveness and love and kindness and truth. And the heart is the kind of the holy of holies, as it were. And you read, especially the Eastern Fathers and Saints, and they talk about how important it is to be attentive, this idea of wakefulness. And I interpret that as being like continually in the presence of the Lord, right? Wanting to pray at all times. Okay. And so you think like this idea of the heart, and maybe you have an altar where Christ ought to be and where we're before Him.

But we have so many things clamoring for our attention. And these things, I like to think, put us to sleep as it were. So that wakefulness is threatened. We're allured by the glitter of the world. We turn from Christ to some other distraction. And it's that sin that just sort of puts the heart to sleep. I had this idea that I have to, the way I pray the Jesus prayer, I try to pray it as much as I can, is it's a way of calling my heart back to wakefulness

so that I can be attentive to what's taking place within. It's like if I'm sitting in a park and my dog is wandering about and it goes too far. And I go, hey, Zellie, come, come. I need you in. I shot kind of thing. I shot off. It's a word. But this idea, right, that it's like I need to call back my heart to itself. And it seems to me that within that place of wakefulness, attentiveness to the Lord,

you're then attentive to the motions of your heart. Like, why did that, what was that? And you begin to be more attuned to these things and they don't just clobber you. And my fear is that many of us are ignorant of the fact that we exist in a spiritual battle, and our hearts are drowsy with dissipation and rioting and all sorts of things, that we're just getting clobbered by the lies of the demonic and the world, and we're completely unaware that we're being so attacked. Well, by the way, I love how you describe that. And the use of the word wakefulness there,

I think is great. I love the way you describe the heart in that way. And so I also see that inner world is kind of a temple. I think that's a beautiful analogy. I've also used the analogy of kingdom, and they talk about the kingdom within, right? And so this idea that, you know, within that kingdom, obviously Christ is ultimately the king, right? And so this idea that within that kingdom, obviously Christ is ultimately the King, right?

But we have an inner King, if you will, inner King, prophet, and priest, right? Inner in myself. And the parts are all different functions. In a kingdom, you have different, you have farmers and you have warriors and you have different functions and merchants and so on. And so you have parts.

And what you want is your kingdom to be healthy. You want your kingdom to be functioning well and prosperous for everyone. You want a benign gang, right? Same with the idea of the temple you're describing is that, yeah, there's a priest who's sort of like, that again I see as the inmost self in that role of priest and welcoming Christ into the presence, into the Holy of Holies, in a sense,

where, you know, in our deepest heart. But all the maybe deacons and readers and sacristans and the congregation themselves are all our parts. And when our parts are coming together to worship, I mean, it's unbelievable. And so that, I love the word wakefulness. I use the more Western word recollection, right? Cause I really do think like that invites this idea

of slowing down, you know, maybe the Hesychia of silence but the wakefulness as well. Think of that word collecting, recollecting the parts back to ourself. Yes, exactly. And to what would be internal integration. It's not a fusion of our parts into some kind of monolith. back to ourself. Yes, exactly. And to what would be internal integration. It's not a fusion of our parts into some kind of monolith.

It's a appreciation of the diversity within ourself. And really, the one person that really helped me make that connection between the outer world of a kingdom or a temple and our inner world is St. Maximus the confessor. Okay. Tell us about him, those westerners who aren't aware. Yeah, yeah, I'm terrible with dates,

but I think he was like around the 700s or something. And he was an Eastern, you know, I guess you could say philosopher or theologian. He was an Eastern monk and he went and preached. And he, for a period of time, he was in the East and Constantinople and then the Middle East and so on. And it's an ascetic and that, and he made his, because of various persecutions and things, he made his way to Rome. So I think he spent perhaps around 20 years or so in the West in Rome. And he was a defender of orthodoxy against the heresy of, I want to say it's monothelitism, fix that, whatever it is,

but about the two wills of, whether Christ had one will or two wills, and he said two wills, and which is Orthodox, and he actually was, so it was the Pope was actually captured and kidnapped over this heresy, and so was Maximus was taken to trial

in Constantinople over this heresy, and was Maximus was taken to trial in Constantinople over this heresy and he had his tongue cut out and I think his hand cut or something as well and died. He was an older man at that point. Anyway, so he's this great heroic to me, this heroic figure who kind of bridges East and West and was an ascetic, but he talks, and his writings are just so brilliant,

and he talks about Christ as this kind of mediator, obviously, between all of the world and God, and that the world, almost, he's seeing this, like, kingdom or this temple that is the world, but he talks about it like a macrocosm, that this is like the macrocosm that is of this external prescindim or this external kingdom, and that it is a reflection

of the microcosm that's within the soul. So he bridges that connection, and I just thought, whoa, when I was looking for evidence that Pirate's work could be Catholic, I was able to discover it's essentially Catholic. Some of the people that are using internal family systems have gone in very new age ways with it and the self is being connected to this greater self

like as if it's Buddhism or Hinduism or something. And so I was resisting that, right, of course, and struggling with that. But then to discover, no, this at its core, when you take out this other spiritual stuff for sure, is very Catholic, right, in this idea. And so, and it really reflects the body of Christ. Like the body of Christ, you know,

in St. Paul's describing as having all the different parts of the physical body and how, and he makes that analogy to the church, is like, everyone is valuable. They might be different, right, but the toe is still just as important as the ear and so on. So that's the same with our internal world, right, is kind of reflecting that diversity.

So I forgot where I went there. Well, I'd love to go more with Maximus. Tell us more about what you've read that sort of, it's always humbling, isn't it, when you come up with an insight and then you read the Church Fathers or someone from long ago, you're like, ah, whoops. This was something they already had.

Yeah, I didn't feel that bad about it. I was just excited, honestly, about it. And of course, you're not gonna use the exact language that I'm using in internal family systems because, for lots of course, you're not gonna use the exact language that I'm using in internal family systems because for lots of reasons. And I would be curious, I would love to meet with them and talk to them and be able to describe what I'm doing and get their approval, I would hope.

But what I'm seeing in it is a way of approaching the inner world that is more similar to what we're doing. And St. Maximus in another place talks about the soul as a workshop. And that it's almost like, and I just love that because it's like therapy. When we're doing, when I'm doing therapy with somebody and we're working with their parts,

it's like we're in the workshop, we wanna heal, we wanna bring holiness, we wanna bring wholeness, we wanna bring integration. And there's a little work involved in that. It's not just a, yeah, I've come to the Lord and now I'm all fixed. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, and say Maximus is tough reading.

I'll just say that. All right, what about Thomas? Oh, yes. What have you learned from Thomas Aquinas about? Yes, so, and I do want to preface, I'm not a trained philosopher. I did take some philosophy in my undergrad way back when, when I was too young to understand it all that well.

But I have been deep diving into it as much as I can at this point. But I was influenced quite a bit by a philosopher who he's a professor at a North Dakota State University, Anthony Flood, and he wrote a book on self-love, and he wrote another book on the metaphysics of love. And honestly, his work kind of blew me away in how he was opening up St. Thomas.

And what St. Thomas talks about is proper love of self, and that he even says, one cannot truly love others or even God fully if you don't have proper love of self. And he speaks about, Thomas speaks about, proper self love is wanting true kind of the good for all of the aspects of self within. So wanting the good for oneself, wanting friendship, if you will, with oneself.

And because he's picking on Christ saying, love your neighbor as yourself. And so what does it mean to love oneself? And how do you love someone, a neighbor, as a friend? Like how do you have union, right? Because the ultimate in love, you know, I think goes from unity, right? You have similitude, something common,

you go, you move into wanting their good and having some kind of unity with them, and then, but union. Well, how do you have union with self? Because you can't have union with something if it's one thing, like you can't have union with something if it's one thing. Like you can't have a union with yourself if there's no other to have union with.

Interesting. And so this idea of self-friendship, Anthony Flood uses the term self-friendship. I think Thomas would say self-governance, because he doesn't actually, I think, say self-friendship anywhere, but self-governance would be the closest thing to this idea of the self being the leader

of some kind of internal system. So at a minimum, there has to be some other part or aspect of self that one is loving when one loves oneself. And I would argue, again, it's more than one other, there's multiple, but so that, just that way of thinking about it opened up the whole thing for me and understanding what it means to connect with aspects of self. Flood talks about as well. Yeah this is good. I mean

people say you got to be true to yourself and they might mean things that we disagree with but again there's that phenomenological language of wanting to be at one with myself and not disoriented and fractured. Yeah, cause I mean, in the confession, St. Augustine talks about my disintegrated heart. Really? Okay. Yeah, he uses those words and he uses a lot of language that I would call his parts work, especially in the confessions,

cause again, he's talking about his phenomenological experience, it's a story of his life, right? So, you would have that more less theologically precise, but lived experience kind of language. Um, you know, so this idea of an disintegrated self that needs to be integrated, it needs to be brought into wholeness. Right. And, and I think that was, you can, you know, if you look at his life story, he would see himself as torn and that until his conversion.

Yeah. This is making me realize more and more why it's a bad idea to react to erroneous things in the world to such a degree that we pendulum swing, as it were. You know, like today you hear a lot about self love, self care, and you know, some of these people mean by that, all sorts of horrible things. Right.

Maybe taking drugs or masturbation or ignoring your spouse because you deserve, you know, so these things are often riddled with error. There might be nuggets of truth in them, but they're riddled with error. And you hear people talk about self-care and time for self. Right. And so I think sometimes when you hear that enough and it's riddled with error enough, you're like, okay, I know that's wrong. And so I need to kind of, I need to react against this.

I don't want anything to do with whatever that is. Well, doesn't St. Thomas say like any act, any behavior is like, is an act of love in some level, it could be wicked love, right? Versus the true good. Yeah, well Aquinas would say that whenever we actively choose anything, we're choosing what is at least a perceived good. Right.

It may or may not be an actual good, but we never choose the evil for its own sake. Even the suicide does so in order to achieve the good of not being in pain, let's say. And that, perfect, great. Because that's exactly what I was saying earlier, right? When we were talking about it, the good intention of that part, even the part that's looking at pornography or the part that's binge what I was saying earlier right when we were talking about it the good intention of that part even the part That's looking at pornography or the part that's binge drinking or something like that that part is there is an intent there It is seeking a good. Yeah, just doing it in a way that isn't but and so again approaching that With love and compassion rather than shame and judgment is helpful our condemnation now

Why is it then that men in particular, it seems to me, appreciate tough love? I think I know the answer. I like it. Well, let me let me share the answer, because I don't want to then modify it from what you have to say. The reason I think men are making it like tend to love, say, Jordan Peterson, even though he's offering tough love, is I think they actually believe he cares about them. So it's not someone who's just telling you, like making fun of you. It's someone who's saying, no, you have the potential to be better than you are, so

stop making excuses. So, you know, so everything we've started to now certainly doesn't sound like tough love. So is there, in your view? Is there a place for tough love? Why does it work if you think it does? Right. Yeah, I would distinguish again in any given situation where one is describing I guess tough love is that a is that a part that is burned in with something? so in other words, is it a part that thinks it needs to be tough because Or else I'm gonna be overwhelmed with shame? So in other words, like compensating, right?

So if I feel deep down, like I have an exile that feels like I'm not a good enough man, I'm not manly enough, I am weak, I am this and that, so it's got shame, then you could have a man, a protector part that just comes on strong and tough all the time in order to protect from that, right? So I would say that it would be a burdened kind of thing. But I think there's another way,

like you said Jordan Peterson, I mean, I don't know him personally, I've seen some of his stuff, of course, but I pick up and what I've observed with him is that he really cares, right? He does seem to really care about people. And when I've seen him here and there talking with a person, I saw him once when he was talking with a person

who had gone through trans surgery or something like that, it really hit me how much he cares about that person. So I think that felt more like it wasn't coming from some way of compensating by being tough. It was coming from a place of love. And so there is a space, I think, in love to be able to say, no, you can't do that. This needs to stop, right?

And it's not so much an agenda as an act of love, an act of maybe positive protection. So it could be where it would play out in my view and the system would be a good manager part whatnot a protector part being self-led So in other words the compassion is flowing through that part in order to instruct Protect guard against you know take a strong stance for or against something Yeah, I'm also thinking I'm trying to think you know in my childhood in all of our childhoods

You know Yeah, I'm also thinking, I'm trying to think, you know, in my childhood, in all of our childhoods, you know, maybe there was a time where someone demanded that you do something that you actually weren't capable of doing. You may have been too young, unlearned, something like that. That's, that's unhelpful. But if I look at you, and I know you can be better than you are, and I call that forth, and you get a sense that I'm kind of cheering you on, like when someone cheers at a game, they're loud. You know? And there's, so I think there's maybe something like that, like tough love works when I'm like cheering loudly for you in a way that's saying, don't settle. I know you're better than this.

You know, you're better than this. I've seen it before. I've seen you be able to do it. We need you. We need your strength. Like, man, really don't want someone to coddle them. They, I want people to yell at me constantly, but if all the time time, even now, I want people to just yell at me. Let's face it though, if somebody yelled at you and you didn't respect them or trust them, you would have a really negative reaction back. That's exactly right.

I think that's what I'm saying, right? It's like the difference between, and I was joking, that was my little joke before, which I'm not sure if you got or if it wasn't, I'm just not funny, but that was kind of funny. When I see something within you and I call it forth, there's like a, I'm recognizing your goodness. And so I think in that context,

no, that's fair enough. Like, you know, you think of these Christian men's conference. You get a man who gets up and he's calling us all to be better than we are, we'd appreciate that. But if you just get some rando off the street, some atheist who comes in and mocks us for being Christians, obviously we'd revolt. So there needs to be, I guess, this relationship of trust

and you want what's good for me and then I'm willing to hear it. I would throw out though that if you go to some men's conference like that and you feel kind of inspired perhaps by the speaker to call you to something, that's great. I would say pause for a moment and check with your system. Is there any part that's objecting to this right now?

Right, and not because there might be parts, even though it all sounds good and most of the system is going, yeah, yeah, rah rah. Some part might be in the background saying, I don't believe that, I don't like that or something. And so if we pause enough to at least be attentive, it's like, I want, no, I want that part. I wanna know that part.

Come over here. What's your issue here? Why is it, has this been hurtful to you in some way? Is this just hard to hear? Is there something you need? Right? So we're always attentive to all of our parts because our parts can have agendas and the agendas,

yeah, we want to be holy, we want to be a better man. I want to join this bandwagon, whatever it is. We're leaving some other parts behind in that process. So we want them all integrated. Have you in your practice ever resorted to tough love? Or would you ever? Yeah, I think if I think about like historically, I don't know that has typically ever worked

if when and if I have. So there might be things like you have to set a boundary around. If I'm working with a couple and a married couple and maybe one of them is in an ongoing relationship with another person, a sexual relationship with another person or even an emotional affair, I might be like, I'm sorry,

I can't do marriage counseling with you until that relationship has ended. So is that tough love? I don't know. It's a boundary. Have you ever had a client who tried to justify his adulterous relationship and you had to say, this is unacceptable?

Or is that not what you would consider your role? I wouldn't do that because, yeah, I wouldn't do it that way only because now all of a sudden what you've got is a part of me, right? It's not, it's the part, there's some part of me that is now reacting to them. And so I would hold back because what's going to happen is my part, my manager part of some kind, maybe a firefighter, I don't know, is reacting to their manager part and they're gonna duke it out almost always. Yeah, then the defenses come up from his angle on that.

Yeah, so I would prefer instead, I would say something like, is there any part of you that is having trouble with this choice? Like any part of you. Yeah, right, if they say no, yeah, they might say no. But almost always, if you have a relationship with that client,

I'm working with them, presumably, it's not the first time I'm meeting them, then I'll be able to, can we really check? I bet there might be a part of you that has trouble right now. Can we not ignore that part? Talk about maybe the importance then of being gentle with ourselves,

and why that sounds so, I'm gonna say in a pejorative way, not because I think that, because I wanna articulate what some might be feeling. It sounds like airy, fairy, pansy, kind of just be gentle. And the person's like, no, you don't understand. The reason my life is a mess is I've been lazy. And I actually, I gotta stop being gentle with myself. I gotta get my stuff together.

And of course that's true. It's mixed in with truth, but what's... I mean, I think that you have to ask yourself what works. If you really want to change, what works? And when you're not gentle with yourself, I would say if you don't befriend yourself, then it's not, it really just, like we were saying before, it just doesn't work long-term.

It's a temporary thing. Like you can yell at your kids and they might comply. Gotcha. But they'll hate you and they'll continue to hate you as long as you continue to be that way with them, even if they seem compliant. So what we want is not external actions, but actually a habit, right?

An interior, trust, relationship response. Right. And it's, the goal is not anything wishy washy or pansy. It's about having true integrity inside. Yeah. And that's the distinction between doing what God commands. So I don't go to hell and loving God as my dearest friend and not wanting to hurt him. You know, one is a mature form of,

or a mature form of Christianity. When we love people with true gentleness, compassion and kindness, they almost always respond. We can't control anybody, we're not trying to control anybody, but people tend to respond well to that. When we don't, it doesn't, it doesn't work so well. So why, I mean, to me that isn't that the model Christ had. And not to say he didn't

have objections to behaviors that were problems, right? Big behaviors that were like he calls them Pharisees. Yeah, exactly. And he not just objections to behaviors, but he called them whitewashed tombs. Right, right. So I'm not saying there isn't a place for that, right? But internally, in working with our own system that we're close with, if we love our parts, our parts will trust us and they want to be loved

and they want to do the right thing deep down. Like they're not, they might seem like they're problematic in some ways on the surface, but they deep, I've come to believe they deeply want to be cared for and loved and to be in communion with God. And we're just opening up a way for that to happen, but it never happens. Like I don't think anybody, or very few people, I don't know anybody, that stays in the church if their experience of the church

is exclusively shaming and blaming and making you feel bad about everything you've ever done. I mean, I'm not saying you don't sometimes have to be called to the carpet, I guess, or called to conscience carpet, I guess, but or call to conscience. But anyway, yeah. No, that's good. It's yeah, that's good.

It's kind of like the sin of anger. You know, anger can be an appropriate thing when Aquinas talks about seeking to rectify a wrong or something. And it's that which motivates us. Right. And yet because of our concupiscence and our fallenness, it often goes awry in us in a way that it didn't with Christ. And so sometimes it's better to err on the side of caution and say, okay, I'm feeling angry, but maybe

I need to handle this in a different way because I'm not Christ and I'm not yet a saint. And so if I do try to activate change in this way, it may be. No, absolutely. So I would say, yeah, exactly. I think anger is something that is a natural emotion, right? And often it's called in its ideal sense, it's to right or wrong, like you're saying, to fight an injustice.

When it's burdened by, I don't trust myself or I'm bad or I'm not lovable or something like that, then it can, it can be all kinds of reactive and angry and wrathful and revengeful and all this kind of thing. I want to talk about how psychological language, which in many respects now permeates our culture, how that might be a bad thing, how it might be a good thing, and how to think through that. And I'll use an analogy here. I've heard one feminist professor say that if a man looks at you kind of in a wrong way, well, that's a form of rape. So they'll take a word that means something

and then they'll just destroy its edges and smear it all over something. And then the word doesn't mean anything anymore. Right. Gentlemen used to mean something. And now we use it for like a nice guy. Well, we already had a word for a nice guy, namely nice guy. We didn't need that.

Okay. So now I'm living in a culture where I'm hearing words thrown around like trauma. I cannot tell you how many times I hear the word narcissist, which I'm still not sure what that means. And I just, I'm afraid that we get a hold of this language. We misapply it, we misuse it, and it no longer means what it should mean. So first of all, do you see where I'm coming from

and do you agree with it? Yeah, yeah. I definitely see where you're coming from. And even like you were saying before about the word self and self-love and can be taken to be like just selfish and whatever I want. Yeah, like now it sounds like everyone says narcissist

for someone they think is selfish. You're like, all right, so what do we do with the word selfish now? Do we need that anymore or do we just use everyone narcissist? Right, right, right. So, you know, I mean, there's a sense in which that word has a general meaning of being self-focused, right? Going all the way back to the Greek,

what is it? Narcissist. That character, right? And so there's that. In psychological terms, it is an actual personality disorder, a narcissist personality, is it meets a certain criteria clinically to get that particular diagnosis.

Few people have clinical levels of narcissism to that extent. clinically to get that particular diagnosis. Few people have clinical levels of narcissism to that extent. But a lot of, all of us can be narcissistic. Obviously we're humans and so on and we can be self-focused. But, so I would say though, if you encounter somebody that's extraordinarily, seems extraordinarily narcissistic, like you have wives calling,

my husband is a narcissist, I read online and he meets all the criteria and this kind of thing. Well, somebody who's a narcissist, I would see it more than the whole clinical perspective. I would see it more again from a parts perspective. What is the part of that person that has felt so deprived of attention and love and care that they've compensated to such an extent where they have to be the center

of attention and they always have to be right and they can't accept anybody else's perspectives and they can't, and there's no room for empathy, right? To me, it's a defensive strategy that a part learns to cope, just like any of the other ones we talked about. And so I believe that the way to approach that in terms of treating it, whether it's full-blown disorder,

personality disorder, or just a narcissistic husband or wife, would be that, again, you meet with and get to know and befriend that part. And you start, you have to figure out what's going on. Why did, when did you, you literally are connecting with and speaking with that part of the self. And you're saying, when did this begin?

When did you learn that you had to take the center stage in order to ever be seen? When did you learn that you had to dominate other people and convince them of what you that you're right all the time? When did you learn you had to do that or else you would never be taken into account by anybody else? Because I think once you go deep there, that that part will soften because it will feel understood and in those you're saying to that part, I get you, I get why you go deep there, that that part will soften because it will feel understood. And in other words, you're saying to that part,

I get you, I get why you're narcissistic. No wonder you're narcissistic. And then it opens up and starts to tell its story. And then you learn and you're like, oh, now you can bring in love. What does this part really need? This part, believe it or not, needs to be affirmed in the right way.

Doesn't mean they're better or more important than everybody else. No, that's not what we want for that part. We want to learn though, that that part is worthwhile because the whole person is a child of God and that they're worthy of love, right? And so you will find out as you work on it that there's all kinds of woundedness there inevitably.

And it's the same with any of these so-called, you know, diagnoses, borderline personality disorder, I would even say sociopaths, like it would be the same dynamic that it's some part that is so, in a sense, powerful in the system. It's gotten to be so powerful and dominant in the system that it seems like that's their whole person. Right. Another word we hear a lot is the word trauma. Part of why I'm objecting to this isn't because I'm ready

to die on this hill. If people can use language, I suppose, that way that they want, but the problem is you then kind of forget what it meant to begin with, you know? So I presume trauma means something in a clinical sense. It means more than I was embarrassed once. Maybe it doesn't, but maybe tell us what, because the subtitle of your new book, by the way, I really want to tell people to get this book. We have a link in the description below. When you have a book that father

Boniface Hicks calls brilliant, is that the word? Or you said it was a master masterpiece. This is a book worth getting. So I really advise people to get this book. Trauma. What is trauma? Yeah. So I, I kind of, you coined this term, original trauma. It's one of the chapters in the book, because I believe it goes right back to the fall that when, with the original sin and the separation of man from God, that relational separation was a form of trauma.

And when they were exposed, if you will, right, and they suddenly felt shame, was kind of a trauma of being exposed. And even, even labor pains, for example, that's, I don't know about you, I haven't ever given birth to a baby, but that looks painful and traumatic on some level. And beautiful and wonderful and amazing all at once.

But nevertheless, so trauma entered into- And then you have Cain and Abel? Yeah, Cain and Abel, he's a murderer, right, right at the get-go. And so trauma is something we all kind of inherently kind of have within us, if you will, like sin. And then we experience it with each other and in our fallen world where we experience trauma.

So I think it's ubiquitous, it's inherent in our human experiences that we experience trauma. But what does the word mean? Yeah. What do we mean by it? So what I mean by it is, I could come up with a lot of different definitions. Sure.

I'll start with maybe a working one right now would just be anything that causes us to feel unsafe and insecure in our world, when we previously did feel safe and secure. And so when you have a sense of connection and you feel loved and you feel connected and something happens that causes you to doubt that and it feels there's a threat,

and it could be a perceived threat versus an actual real threat, but even a perceived threat feels like a threat to the person. Um, and so all of a sudden they have the experience of feeling, um, um, like I don't really know what my place is in the world. I don't know if I'm truly lovable. I thought I was experienced being loved and all of a sudden I don't know if I am. I all of a sudden don't know if I'm worthwhile. I don't know.

And so with trauma comes this sense of loss of self, loss of connection with others, ultimately loss of connection with God. And so, and that by itself causes the, I would say the soul as well as the body to feel dysregulated, right? And so that brings in anxiety, right? With that dysregulation is, then And so that brings in anxiety, right?

With that dysregulation is then the body's response is anxiety. Which means what? Muscle tense, you know, you feel a sense of threat and often the body responses is muscle tightening, breathing changes, this sort of fight or flight kind of response. So there's this sort of anxious feeling of disease

and worry and you know, crisis is always about flight kind of response. So there's this sort of anxious feeling of disease and worry and, you know, and Christ is always about being not afraid, you know? You know, it's all about letting go of anxieties. So much of the message in the Bible is you are safe. Why are you afraid? Yeah, be not afraid, right? Why were you afraid? That's the most, yeah, what an exposing question.

Why are you afraid? And why even it has to be said, do not, you know, be not afraid or do not be afraid. I'm here kind of thing is because that's our experience is, is we are experiencing trauma and anxiety and we all experience it. It's, it's beautiful in a way. It's almost like the words of a man

who had never experienced it. Like why, why like, like an honest question, not an accusing question, but why are you worried about your life? Right. Imagine if someone actually wasn't aware. Right. I'm not saying Christ wasn't aware,

he's aware of what it means for us to worry, but he himself didn't worry. So he knows the experience from our point of view, but being omniscient. Yeah, well, what I would say, right, in terms of this whole parts approach is about helping your parts, right, calm and everything and experience safety and security, at least within and with God.

And when there is an actual threat, you do need to take some kind of action, right? But you want to do it in a way that is still self-led. Now, I would say what's interesting to me is martyrdom. And especially when you read the stories of the early martyrs and the church, Now, I would say what's interesting to me is martyrdom. And especially when you read the stories of the early martyrs and the church and the way they approached martyrdom. And I would say the examples that I'm seeing is that these are people who,

even though the, obviously, core self, but all the parts, their internal parts, were aware that they were going to die. Right. There was enough wakefulness, the word you used or recollection to be able to all together in harmony, the whole person is able to embrace that death for God, right? For his kingdom, whatnot. And with still a sense of security, because they knew where they were going,

and they were making this sort of like, whether it was a full choice they were making, or rather than to run away, or they just had, it was inevitable they were going to be killed, they still were able to get that level of recollection, even in the face of death. And to me, that's the ultimate example. And I wrote an article, not that, I guess a couple months ago

for the Catholic register for mental health day. And I looked at St. Dymphna, I looked at St. Maria Goretti and as examples of these saints who in the face of horrible, really trauma, because you've got St. Dymphna, her father, her mother's died, that's a drama. Her father is now like pursuing her to be sexually,

to be his wife. Yeah. And so she has to flee out of Ireland into like wherever she goes in Europe and I think Germany or somewhere. And her father chases her, chases her down and when she refuses, he kills her. I had no idea.

Yeah, it's a crazy story. And a similar St. Marie Garetti, which you're probably more familiar with, where that fellow was gonna rape her. Alessandro, that's his name, right? Yes, yeah, Alessandro. And that one is fleshed out a little bit more in terms of an outcome, you know, beyond her death, you have Alessandro's conversion and everything.

So beautiful stories, but still, these two women that had enough interior integration, right? That even in the face of death, they were able to love. I would love somebody to make a movie about Alessandro because we're really good at writing movies about good men who become bad. We're not excellent at writing stories about bad men who become good. I just wrote, I just read, there will be, watched, I beg your pardon, there will be blood

with Daniel Day-Lewis, one of the best movies I've ever seen. Breaking Bad is another example. You talk about the Shakespearean kings, you know, like that. So that would be an amazing story, wouldn't it? Imagine, I know I'm going off on a bit of a tangent here, but imagine a movie like that, where you have this act of violence in the beginning.

I mean, crime and punishment would be another example, where you have an evil man who repents, but. Well, what I would think would be cool to do- Because then he visited her mother. Right. And she forgave him. Yeah, and they went to mass together. Come on, and he became a Franciscan.

But isn't that an example of going to mass together with the person who killed your daughter? That example of the external unity Wow unity in the body of Christ, reflecting their inner peace. Wackadoosie, man, that's all I gotta say. Wackadoosie, that's nuts. So when a movie moves you like that, what I'd be curious about is-

And people would have known, right? Like he was in prison. They would have known. It's not like he was unknown. Sorry, continue. But yeah, but if they did a movie, whenever they do a movie and you're able to in some way, you know, in this cinematography, whatever,

in the way that the actors act and the way it's portrayed, to actually truly reflect that inner conflict and that inner turmoil of one's parts that has to happen before one gets to the point of some kind of conversion or some kind of, you know, willingness to go approach the person's parents that you murdered. Then, you know, that's powerful to me, you know, to capture that inner life where you're moved and you're drawn into that,

into their inner world in a movie, hard to achieve. Are people experiencing more anxiety today than they used to, or have we become more aware of it, or do we just use the term anxiety when we could use a different word? Or have we just pathologized what is a normal human reaction, namely unease, that is kind of normal, and now we're just saying everything's anxiety? So I would have to just simply speculate, right?

Because I don't know. That's what I'm asking you to do, yeah. But I kind of think that we have more anxiety today than we did say 100 years ago. And, or even, maybe even, I don't know about 50 years ago or not. And I do think it's because I see our world as very frenzied and very busy.

And in a way that I don't remember, like I grew up as a kid in the seventies and into the eighties. And I, even then, right, I don't remember. I remember it. Maybe we all remember it as a more peaceful time. I don't know, but I just remember having less things constantly at me and to worry about. And I had more time it it feels to me, to sit and just be alone or just sit and observe nature

and just not be distracted all the time by everything that could possibly be going on either in the world outside. I mean, yeah, you can watch the news or get the paper, but it's not 24 seven. Or you're not constantly walking around with a phone that's beeping at you and giving you information. I mean, I think we're just overwhelmed.

Our systems are overwhelmed by things that, I think we were talking about this the other day, right? By things we can't actually control. And yet somehow our bodies are reacting to it like it's a threat. I wanna look something up, continue. Yeah, yeah. So to answer your question,

I would argue that it's harder today to do what we're talking about, have wakefulness and recollection and be able to really go internal and look at our internal parts and connect with them. However, I also believe we're starving for it at the same time, modern people. And that's probably why this therapy is feels like an oasis for people. Like it's so powerful. We're starving for what? Anxiety? Starving to actually be able to slow down

and enter into your interior world. Listen to this from Matthew 24, chapter 24, verse six. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. Listen to this line. But see to it that you are not alarmed. We are not seeing to that, I don't think. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom.

There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginnings of birth pains. But just this idea, see to it that you are not alarmed. I mean, today we're hearing of wars, we're hearing of rumors of wars, how this could escalate, and we're all very, very alarmed. And then listen to this, at that time, many will turn away from the faith.

Just think of Catholics, you know? And I accuse myself here, but think of Catholics on social media, right? And I don't mean that I've abandoned the faith or that others necessarily have, but and they will betray and hate each other and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Listen, there's because of increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold. So see to it that you're not alarmed and see to it that your love not grow cold and see to it that you stand firm. So to stand firm in what? In Christ, but in a sort of

in a wakefulness, in a peace, which might be the opposite of alarm, but also in a love that is warm. And how many of us grow unempathetic to even our Catholic brothers and sisters who now hold slightly different views than us or what we would are maybe heretical views. And there's just this hardening that takes place. Right. So. And just to round out that thought, we have phones and televisions that are continually telling us of wars and rumors of wars in a way that we would never. Right.

Right. Yeah. of wars in a way that we would never make to care. You made me think there is, of course, my brain was going to all the political polarization in the US, maybe the world, the religious polarization. And that word polarization is an interesting one because in IFS we refer to an inter-conflict as a polarization.

And so you've got these two strong stances. And I would think that the way that we approach it in our internal world, like I was describing before about understanding the true motive and what's underneath it, even if the behavior itself is a problem, applies to our exterior world. So if I'm encountering someone else with a position that I strongly disagree with,

maybe even am very upset about. I think the most effective strategy in my view is if I want any help of changing hearts, is to actually get in there and understand their life experience and ask questions about it. In other words, okay, so you take the strong pro-choice position

or, oh, you take the strong pro-Israeli or pro-Hamas or whatever, Ukraine, Russia, pick your thing, and tell me about your experience, what happened? And inevitably you will find their trauma. You will find that their position is born out of a defensive means to protect the pain and the shame and the fear or one or the other of something that traumatic that happened. And once you, and the goal there is to ally with at least that, I can at least understand it. I may still disagree again with their choices

or the choices they have made, but it's the beginning place. It has to be some level, if not full blown empathy, at least understanding, right? And that the other person gets it that we understand. That's the key. They have to know, we can't just take lip service, but say, oh, that makes so much sense to me. I get now, why do you feel that way?

So they need to get that you get it. Yeah, they will soften. At least enough to trust you somewhat and talk more freely from their heart. Not from a defensive posture of, oh, I have to defend my position because you're a Republican, I'm a Democrat or whatever it is, and I have to make sure I knock you down.

No, it's like a deep sense of like, oh, this person cares enough to know me and where my heart is. And then from there, you might then have the opportunity to share your experience and why you feel the way you do, not just a talking point and a debate, but actually this is how I came to believe what I believe. And at that point, they may listen to you.

They wouldn't listen to you if you hadn't done the work to understand them. And that's what's going on in our country, I feel like all the time. And it's that that's truly loving your enemy then, because you're truly seeking to understand them with the goal to love them and to ultimately you wanna help them if you can, right? And open up something.

And for all his, the his criticism and for all the way that I don't like his lack of clarity and precision on so many things, I have to wonder if that's not what Pope Francis is at least attempting to do. You know, I know in some of the Synod, everybody, everything, people, he can be criticized, but it seems like that's what he's trying to do is get to understand the other. And people react against that because we have parts that want to, or maybe Catholic standard bare parts want to go, oh, but he's theologically wrong at that point,

or he's going to compromise our faith, or where is this going? And fear, right? We start to be afraid. Again, that was our parts, right? And I'm not saying, whether it's Pope Francis or whoever, isn't, maybe could do a little work to like attend to those as well, to the people who are experiencing those fears,

and he doesn't seem to do that very much, but that would be helpful too, right? In other words, the position is as Pope or as priest or as Bishop or whoever you are, I'm gonna choose to love everyone. And that doesn't mean I agree with everyone, but I am going to at least want to know about their life experience so that I understand them. And I just think that's the key. And doing it from a place of recollection and self, so that brings us to me, holiness. You

can't do this work without holiness. I think the problem though is that most of us aren't having dialogues like that with anyone who we're friends with, you know, friendships. It's an interesting thing. It's almost like, and by the way, I just want to kind of clarify this for those who may have interpreted you to mean, since all of our positions, you said you scratched at it, pro this, pro that, it comes from a place of trauma. That's not you being an epistemological relativist. You're not saying that there's no true position that one can hold on these issues.

Correct, correct. I have some strong positions that I hold. And it's not that you're saying, well, then that came from a wound and that's how it's explained and there is no objective truth. I know you didn't mean that. I just wanted to make sure.

Thank you for that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So truth, man. Yeah, I think friendship's interesting, eh? Because if you and I, like we had a cigar together last night, if we were talking about something that meant a lot to us and I misspoke, you probably wouldn't pounce on me, right?

Because of the context of friendship and even just civility that is usually required in interpersonal relations in person, you might say, well, what do you mean? Right? And you'd give me a chance. Right. And if I still stated what you believe to be egregious, you would either go, well, no, no, no, you're bloody right. You might be forceful, but you seek to maintain the bond,

at least of civility. But what I think is, I think most people like me aren't having conversations with transgender people. I think most pro-choice, rabidly pro-choice people, that was intended to be a disparaging term, maybe I should have done that, are not engaging with intelligent pro-life. It's not like we're doing that in the context of friendship. It's rather we're on social media and we're lobbing bombs at our ideological enemies and there is no interaction even to begin to empathise with why it is you think that way.

I think when there is, it's always lovely to do. I had a conversation with a fellow recently who was much more favourable to BLM than I would be. We were sitting at the lounge up the road and, okay, what am I going to do? Am I going to talk to him the way I might say, throw something out online? No, of course not. That would ruin the civility of this interaction. And so instead you're now forced because of the kind of the restrictions, the placed upon

a conversation due to friendship to go, okay, well, I don't know. You helped me understand that. Cause I guess I would always, I would also, so we start to sound like really rational, reasonable, sympathetic people when we're in person with each other. But online, it's like that personal connection is stripped away and it's like we're all in cars giving each other the finger through the window.

We're not actually interacting. Yeah, yeah. I like how you described that. I think that, when you described with, say, if it was you and I having a cigar and you had said something that disturbed me, the me going internally, oh, he couldn't have meant that, or let me check with him.

That's right, there's a benefit to the doubt, yeah. It means that we have a secure attachment with each other. It means we have safety with each other. And I trust that you have my back and I have yours, and that you mean good for me and I mean good for you. And so when we have that, and if you have that in like in a marriage, right, then you don't immediately assume your partner is,

you know, thinks the worst all the time. But you check in if you're like, wait a second, did they just say that? Right, you check in. And we don't have that right on social media. I had a situation in my own, I'll just say a social media account. I have, given my history, I have friends from different,

all kinds of different backgrounds and having gone to the University of Georgia, you know, of all kinds of different positions. And I had these two friends that I thought were really good guys, really different upbringings and lives than mine, different. One of them I believe is an atheist, I'm not sure the other one is, or might even of them, I believe, is an atheist. I'm not sure if the other one is,

or might even be Muslim, I don't know. But anyway, and they were expressing really pro-choice positions, and it really was grieving my heart, to be honest, because I'm pretty pro-life. What I decided, and you know, I had this temptation to just post something. Like, they posted something, right,

and just like, snips, like some snippy thing, and then go back and forth and back and forth And I'll confess I have done that once or twice But instead what I decided to do in this case was I private message both of them and I said you're both men I really respect and care for you know, or at least I haven't known them that well. Did you message both of them at once? Yeah, I did. Oh, I see. And they didn't know each other. Maybe they do now And I just said, you know I just wanted to let you know,

like I have a really different position on this and I was hoping maybe we could just talk about it. I didn't wanna do it on a public feed because I just feel like that can go bad, but I want you to know I really care about you and I'm really interested in your thoughts, but I also wanted to maybe share what mine were too. Are you okay with that?

We ended up having this huge discussion. I'm not saying I converted their hearts or anything, and who knows, I don't think I did necessarily, but I just felt like that was so much more productive than just what you're talking about, the wars that can go on, or people just block each other and all this business. Well, the other thing with social media is,

as you say, we sit at the lounge, I say something, you think, you say, well, he couldn't have meant that, or what did he, and then you clarify. Well, when I, let's say, we sit at the lounge, I say something you think to say, well, he couldn't have meant that or what did he, and then you clarify. Well, when I, let's say I put out a video and I make a statement on something that's not well phrased or maybe not even really what I mean. I was speaking off the cuff. Well, now this exists as like a isolated conversation statement that someone then responds to, but they're not actually responding to me. That is me or I'm not really responding to them. I'm just taking the words that they've said, pretending

that this is their final thought on the issue and slam that thought. And there's all sorts of incentives to do that, because to be combative is to be exciting and to be exciting is to get clicks and to get clear. We all understand that. So it's not like sitting at the cigar shop and truly having an engaged discussion, even within disagreement, really a nice healthy debate and discussion over some topic. We don't, we'd lose that element on a lot of social media. We just cut out this one sentence that he said, and then we just rip that

sentence apart as if every word was thought about precisely when maybe they were just talking off the cuff. For God forbid you pull something up from 15 or 20 years ago and assume it's still correct. Yeah, yeah. All right, I got to tell you guys about my new favorite app. It's called Ascension, and it's by Ascension Press. This is the number one Bible study app, in my opinion, and you can go to ascension Press. This is the number one Bible study app in my opinion and you can go to

ascensionpress.com slash frad go there and so that way they know that we sent you. It is absolutely fantastic. It has the entire Bible there very well laid out. The whole Bible is read to you by Father Mike Schmitz or just sections of the Bible. It has the catechism there, it's cross referenced absolutely beautifully. It's really actually quite difficult to explain to you how good this is, just download it and check it out for yourself. It even has over 1600 frequently asked questions about scripture. So if you go to Genesis 1 you might have a question about evolution, well there's a drop down right there, you can read an article that'll help you understand it. I went through it with the guys at Ascension the other day and my mouth, my jaw was just, it was dropped. It was absolutely amazing. It's had tens of thousands of five star reviews. Again

go to ascensionpress.com slash frad. It also has all of their amazing Bible studies. So I remember back in the day I had a big DVD case of Jeff Kavan's Bible studies Well, it's all there on the app. So go download it right now. Please go to ascensionpress.com slash frad. All right, we're back Yeah, we're back. We're back. We're back. So it's good to have you I always feel a bit of pressure I gotta say because I want the experience of my guests to be a good one Sometimes it goes both ways because the guest says to me, I hope that was okay. I'm like, of course it was great. And then I think you flew all the way out here,

stayed at a hotel, you know, like I hope, I was good. Yeah. Well, I've had a great time. Good. Even if it was a, in and out visit. Yeah, it's been good to have you. All right, well we've covered a lot.

And again, we have a link to your book below that people can and should check out. And you have how many endorsements? I had like 25 endorsements. What was the, what endorsement were you most happy with or proud of that you got? I mean, I had yours. Other than that, of course, that goes without saying.

Father Boniface Hicks was a big one, like we mentioned and Dr. Bob Schuetz, Dr. Greg Botero, Dr. Greg Popchak. No, but you gotta pick one. Honestly, Shannon Mullen. Okay, who's that? She's a psychologist in, and where is she? She's, anyway, she's in near Georgia.

And just what she had to say was this beautiful, she understood my book really well. Yeah. All right, well, we have over 50 questions from our local supporters. We are not gonna get to all of them. I apologize in advance to those who've submitted questions, but we will try to get to some.

I'm gonna read some of these and then I'll kind of sort through them. So I'm not bored with you if I'm looking down here. All right, we have a question here from anonymous. What is the best way to encourage someone who you know needs some sort of healing or therapy that is very against even considering it? I mean, that's hard because if somebody isn't, uh, and he doesn't want to do therapy for some reason, then you really can't coerce them, right?

It's like coercing somebody to be friends with someone that they don't know. I mean, I would ask them about what their fears are or what their concerns are. Because that might influence it. Is it just the idea of talking with someone about your inner world and what's going on within you? Is that frightening or is it that they don't trust psychologists and therapists, which is perhaps an understandable fear

that maybe you can help them with. Like, hey, not all therapists are the same and maybe you could find someone that would work for you, right? I mean, I'm a big believer in, I really think everybody should see a therapist. There's just not enough therapists probably to go around, but I just think our mental health is just important.

Maybe we don't need to go weekly. Yeah, I heard somebody say, I think it was Kristalina Everett, she says, not everybody needs to see a therapist, but everyone could benefit from seeing a therapist. Yeah. I thought that was helpful. Yeah. This person says, it's a woman, the faces of my ex-boyfriends haunt me. I try to pray for their souls. Do you have any guidance for trying to avoid thinking of bad memories or perhaps this is just my cross to bear? Yeah, well, again, it's a little bit what we were talking about before. I would be curious to understand what part of her is holding on to those faces and those memories

and for what reason. So, you know, it's obviously eliciting, I don't know if it sounds like maybe shame, right? Past sins or past mistakes or whatnot. And so again, how would you approach somebody who is feeling overwhelmed by past mistakes? I don't think it's probably just those guys' faces.

It's who she was then that really isn't a reflection of who she really is, and now she has awareness of it. So can we again bring compassion to the part of her that feels shame about that? This woman says, father suffered from a traumatic brain injury. He was immediately put on a wide range of medication. When people in my church community found out, he was basically just left out of it. We found that out. He was basically left out of everything at the church Baptist for context. He cannot get off the meds.

He is not violent at all. In fact, the exact opposite, but basically has some similar traits as Alzheimer's. Would he be welcome at a Catholic church if it was known he had to take meds? Sorry for the length of the question. Oh, well, I mean, I don't understand the stigma there that I wouldn't even assume every Baptist

church would have that same stigma. But, you know, I'd hope that she wouldn't encounter a Catholic church that might have some kind of stigma. I mean, we're talking about human beings and people are people, but, you know, it grieves me to hear that her father would be stigmatized because he's taking meds that he needs to take. So I would like to believe. So this next question will give further, perhaps clarity to that previous one, because I think it shows where this individual is coming from. She says, as a Catholic, how do you combat depression? Is it a sin to see a therapist as a Catholic, right? Or to take medication.

She says, currently Protestant, I see friends constantly judged for being on meds. So this, I think, gives us a bit more. So it might be this idea that if you're on medication or seeing a therapist, your faith isn't strong enough. You're not praying like you ought to or living as you should. Yeah, so as a Catholic therapist, of course,

I'm gonna say it's not a sin to see a therapist. Yeah, so as a Catholic therapist, of course, I'm going to say it's not a Sanctizia therapist. But the question of medication is an interesting one. I personally love to do as much work as I can without medication, if that's possible. But there are certain times when it's just necessary. It depends a little bit on what it is. And sometimes I even see medication like in antidepressant as it's not gonna solve the problem. No pill is gonna solve all the problems.

But if a person is truly depressed, clinically depressed, the medication is like, it's like giving them a stool or a little ladder that will help get them part of the way out of the pit. Right? Getting out of the pit without it might be almost impossible, but just that stool, they still have the effort and they may have to do

some things to reach and pull and maybe get some help to be pulled out. There's still work to be done, but it may give you that extra lift that you need. So I would look at it a case by case basis. And have you seen that work that way? Oh yeah. Sometimes medication makes all the difference and and just depends on what the issue is and that person and so on. So

this male says, I'm saying male, female, because they've asked to be anonymous tips for someone who struggles very deeply with feelings of condemnation and shame because of multiple instances of sexual abuse during childhood and teenage years. It's very hard to tease apart the shame from what happened versus the healthy shame coming from my own sins. I found some peace in this verse. If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts and he knows everything. He knows what has happened to all of us and why we carry the shame that we do. I want to add a little addendum to that question because I think there's this confusion that comes about because people feel sexual pleasure sometimes or very often in sexual abuse. And so they think to themselves, well then therefore I was somehow complicit because

I didn't find it as disgusting as I ought to have And so they worry whether or not they were truly a victim how much they were could set me you could say that better than Me, but I'd love you to help with that too because that's actually something sister Miriam James has said You know she was sexually abused as a child and I don't know if she said about her particular instance But she made that point about others. Yeah, I know. Grateful for that question. And I think it's telling it's coming from a male as well.

It's sort of relevant. My doctoral dissertation years ago was on healing in relationship for male survivors of sexual assault. So I'm pretty passionate about this topic actually. And I've worked with a lot of male survivors of sexual abuse, and to a person, they all carry a deep burden of shame. And it's almost frustrating, it's very frustrating because you want to like, you just want to be able

to somehow overcome that, right? And yet they blame themselves for what happened even if they're like children and it is an adult. And I think that what would happen, let's say the person was sexually abused, say let's say eight years old, and they now as an adult believe on some heart level that they were responsible or complicit

or they allowed it to happen or they didn't say anything or whatever it is, or they experienced pleasure or whatnot. But even men, people who don't experience pleasure from it, like it's actually painful or whatnot, still blame themselves It's it's the crap. I haven't met a single person. Okay. I haven't met a single male survivor of abuse that doesn't blame himself And in a way that you it's like a nut you can't crack and why do you think that is?

all kinds of reasons one is On some level if I was man enough I would have said no or I wouldn't have gone there, or I should have known, or I should have been able to stop it. And it's an overwhelming feeling of, I should have done something, and so therefore I'm at fault.

And in our society, men aren't supposed to have weakness, men aren't supposed to be victims. And so there's a strong protective reaction. But let's say with the eight-year-old, and take what we've been looking at when it comes to parts, if you can connect on some level, at a deep level, like get some distance from the part of you that was eight and sexually abused.

And you could not just hear the story or whatever, but actually connect with that part of you. See in the mind's eye that part of you. See that they're eight. When have you seen an eight-year-old, right? If you actually look at an eight-year-old. But the person's not objective about this. But if you could get them to be more objective by having them see it, well, I guess it's

subjective too, there's no way you would blame that eight-year-old. If you could really look at the eight-year-old, you wouldn't blame any eight-year-old for something an adult did to them. And so that enables real compassion to start to happen, where you could look at the eight year old and say it was never your fault. You should never, you were never to blame for what happened, regardless of whether there was pleasure or not,

regardless of the way of the fact that you were seduced or not, regardless of whether you said yes and went along with it, that doesn't matter. You were eight, you know that. And so as soon as that connection happens, that, that is really self-depart that deep in most self core really, you know, inviting Christ to be present with that too, obviously, but to, to connect with the eight year old, it breaks the shame.

I always tell people too, like, the shame was not yours to carry, it belongs to the abuser. It's a sin almost to carry the shame of somebody else doesn't belong to you. God doesn't want you to carry it. Thank you. In addition to your book, I also want to let people know of Bob Schutze's excellent

book Be Restored, which I have here, oops, Healing Our Sexual Wounds Through Jesus' Merciful Love. So that would be another book this person might consider getting. Heather says, if someone isn't able to find a Catholic therapist, any specific screening questions or red flags to watch for when using a Catholic therapist, any specific screening questions or red flags to watch for when using a secular therapist? Any particular therapy methods to either stay away from or focus on? Yeah, I think that, you know,

I'm kind of promoting parts work approaches like internal family systems. So, but, you know, there's a small portion that are Catholic. I would just be really upfront with them about, hey, I'm Catholic, is that gonna be an issue for you? Or how do you view or approach Catholics? If the person, really the person should say,

maybe they might disclose their knowledge of the faith and their understanding of it. You know, I would wanna know from them that they would be respectful of my faith rather than antagonistic, that they would not be approaching it as, oh, their faith is part of their problem, part of their pathology.

I don't know that they would answer it directly that that is, but you can usually get a sense for their comfort level when you ask that question. And a good therapist, even if they're not Catholic or whatnot, would be able to say, oh no, I've worked with lots of people that are Catholic, or I've worked, you know, and I'm very understanding of, and I'll respect your faith. I would want to hear from them, I will respect your faith, tradition, beliefs.

I know I've said to people in the past who have sought to overcome some sexual sin that they might say to the therapist, I need you to know that I'm against, you know, sex with self as it were, that's the kind of language or contraceptive sex. Is this something you can work within? And that would be another way to quickly gauge whether or not this person was going to be respectful of your. Right. Okay, we got a fella here, anonymous says, I'm a convert who came to the faith five years

ago, but I've been struggling with major depression for the last two years and have been on SSRI? What's that? That's a common antidepressant. Okay. I've expressed on multiple occasions to my psychiatrists and therapists that I want to get off the medication because I'm afraid of what the side effects might do to me both physically and spiritually. They've always told me that if it's working that that is helping with my mood, then don't get off it. What's the Catholic view on SSRIs in general? Should I be trying to get off the drug, or SSRI or whatever? Yeah, yeah.

So the SSRIs are common serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and they're commonly like Lexapro or Zoloft or common SSRIs. I don't happen to believe that there's a spiritual danger to using an SSRI. I think it's just basically allowing the chemicals to work through our neurotransmitters, allowing the chemicals to work in a way that gives us a little bit more of the positive chemicals that we need to feel better about ourselves can also help reduce some levels of anxiety. I don't see it as the cure-all, but I don't see it as some kind of major danger. Um, if there's, I,

I have a belief though, typically if somebody's depression is based on something situational, right, like they went into a deep depression over the loss of a loved one or something like that, then I would say if you need to go on an SSRI, you wean, you begin, you take it, and maybe you take it for a period of time, you do the work, you work through your loss and grief,

and then you wean off, and that should be the plan with the doctor, is that there's a weaning off period. That this is basically just a thing that will help you through, so that you can be more productive in the therapeutic work and grief work you need to do. But that's different from someone maybe

who has got a more clinical depression. So this would be something more longstanding in their life, that they've had consistent depression throughout their life. It's not just situational. And in those situations, they may need to be on an SSRI long-term. For individuals with ADHD who struggle with remembering things that are important to those around them, EG, important appointments or anniversaries, washing the dishes regularly or completing a requested task, how can one tell if regularly falling short is due to symptoms of ADHD that

need to be better managed or due to sinful lack of consideration for others that requires repentance? The immediate thing that came to my mind is if I'm aware that my wife has asked me to clean the dishes and I choose not to do it, that seems to me to be a different thing than it actually escaping my mind. Right. And sure that was a lack of consideration, but there's a big difference there between rejecting the request knowingly and forgetting the request I would think.

Yeah, when it comes to ADHD, it's such an interesting kind of diagnosis. I think that if, let's say if you're dealing with a kid, if the kid is forgetting things you asked them to do, you can get mad about it because it's like it feels like, oh they're just doing it because they don't, they're defying me and they just don't care. But when they, when they forget things that mattered to them, you know what I mean? Like, they're not doing it, then you

realize, oh this is really just them. Like this is an issue they they're struggling with it wouldn't matter if it was something I asked them to do if they wanted to do it they're just gonna forget and so if this person truly has like ADHD then they're kind of living in a bit of a fog a lot of the time and and it really isn't normally personal when they make those kind of mistakes you know again for some people, medication really helps with that. But a lot of times there's side effects and people don't like the medication, so it's tricky.

It sounds like what you're saying is, you might be open to medication if that was used as the opportunity to then do the work. Yes, yes, exactly. Well, this this fella says, I'm a Catholic convert. But for most of my life, I've struggled with the fear of hell and scrupulosity. I'm terrified of death because I don't have certainty that I've done enough or perhaps I committed a mortal sin and I've forgotten or I took communion when I shouldn't have. immortal sin and I've forgotten or I took communion when I shouldn't have. What are some ways to combat these fears? Are there any useful CBT exercises? I don't know what

that is or books I can read up on. Yeah, cognitive behavior therapy. Oh, I see. Yeah. Which is not what I do. I do IFS or ego state therapy, but, um, but I obviously understand CBT. So I can't give, I'm not gonna give this person CBT advice, but you know, it's obsessive compulsive disorder, right? It's a scrupulosity kind of falls under that. And so it's what I have found with people that truly have that kind of scrupulosity is they're the least likely person ever to do the sins

or the actions that they're the most afraid they're doing almost to a person. So, you know, so some level of understanding the disorder, right? If you're like constantly afraid, like obsessively afraid, you're going to, you know, hurt somebody that you're going to like physically harm somebody, you're almost certainly the least likely person to ever physically hurt somebody. You're almost certainly the least likely person to ever physically hurt somebody. And so to understand the disorder is a first step, right? And maybe to see a therapist who has some expertise in obsessive compulsive disorder and how it plays out would be kind of important. Because the way I would see it from a parts perspective, would be a part of that person that is so afraid

of making a mistake that they go to great lengths, ridiculous lengths sometimes, to not do the thing. And usually that, in my view, comes out of some kind of trauma or fear. I typically see a lot of loss, like whether it's a death of a loved one or something like that early in life, and that their way of coping and managing with that

is to try to regain control when they didn't have control at one time. This is a beautiful song I was listening today in the sauna of all places by Hillsong. And let's see, what's it called? Yeah, Who You Say I Am. There's a beautiful- I know that song. It's just lovely

I think I know that song you are for me not against me. I am who you say I am I am chosen not forsaken. I am who you say I am. Oh different song than I was thinking. Yeah Yeah, this idea though that it's the father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom fear not little flock Yeah, and but I see the difficulty is when you're struggling with scrupulosity that it's the father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Fear not little flock. Yeah. And, but I see the difficulty is when you're struggling with scrupulosity, which I think ought to be viewed not as a cross we're being called to carry, but a scourge we're being called to renounce really. Right.

Yeah. Or at least if you look at it from a psychological perspective, then renouncing is there's perhaps more to it than that. But again, it's like trying to argue with a drunk man. It's almost like the reason isn't what you need. There's something else that's needed, right? Kind of like what you were saying, when you're trying to communicate with one of your parts, you need to bring along the rational part or the manager part,

let him look at the conversation you're having with the irrational part, the firefighter or something conversation you're having with the irrational part, the firefighter or something, so that he can go, okay, no, I guess I can see how this. Yeah, the part of them that is having that scrupulosity is incredibly fearful. So if you just simply try to renounce it, it'll be more fearful.

So that alone won't work. Oh, I see. Because if you think your house is on fire and people are like, no, it's not, don't worry. Oh, I see. Cause if you think your house is on fire and people are like, no, it's not, don't worry about it. I see. No, no, I see it is on fire. Gotcha. You can't say, oh, just don't even think about it.

No, you can't not think about it. So the question a little bit, I mean, there has to be some reality check, right? That happens. And the person's gonna constantly be checking to find out, oh no, my house is not on fire. Oh, does everybody say my house is not on fire? Well, maybe if it is, I'll better ask another, oh no, my house is not on fire. Oh, does everybody say my house is not on fire? But maybe if it is,

I'll better ask another person to make sure my house isn't on fire. And they keep going and going and going and going. So you have to get to the root of that fear and that anxiety where that began in that person and work with them through that. And so you're really connecting at a deep level with a very fearful part,

which means you have to really go with gentleness, right? To create safety where there's really an, an abyss of lack of safety, with God, right? Even God is the least of the safe, safe, because if a person has experienced some great loss and they're young, for example, then they're, that part believes God is very, very dangerous and could kill me or somebody easily without a notice and, a notice and I'll be overwhelmed. I mean, I've recommended this book a gazillion times, but get the book I Believe in Love,

which is a book based on, it's a retreat really, based on the teachings of Therese of Lisieux. It's the number one book I recommend to people who say they're struggling with scrupulosity. One line within that book will show you why I'm recommending it. He says, I am not telling you you believe too much in your own wretchedness. We are far more wretched than we could ever imagine. I'm telling you you do not believe enough in merciful love. Because I think that's the thing, right? When someone's like, no, no, you're not so bad. It's like, no, that's not right. He is so bad. But's like, no, that's not right.

He is so bad. But the emphasis shouldn't be on him. The emphasis on the goodness of God who has opened heaven under our feet because he desires to save all men. But you know, it's interesting because most of us have some idea of like God, like a God concept, right?

Like God is loving, God is this and that. We have that kind of intelligence, intelligent knowledge, but deep down in our hearts, we may not actually believe that if we go deep enough on some level. Definitely. And so just the, that, what you're talking about with the scrupulosity

is again, maybe a more severe form of deeply not believing that that's true. That deeply believing that if God really saw me, He would destroy me or hate me or whatnot. You know, that everybody else, God could be merciful to everybody, but he won't be merciful to me. So it's very sad, it's very,

but I think you have to approach it from, help me understand, can we get close enough to this part of you that believes that you're so wretched, that God can't possibly have mercy on you, right? Which is really Judas' sin, right? But can we get close enough to understand, help me understand where that came from for you? When did you first learn that that was true? Oh, when I was six and this happened. Okay, so a six-year-old, how does a six-year-old see the world, right? Compared to how we see the world. Now a

six-year-old might see God as very scary and unmerciful and, right, from their world perspective. So you're wanting to bring that six-year-old into the present, and you're wanting to bring that six-year-old into engagement with the self and with Christ as he truly is, which is hard work, but doable. Right. So yeah, again, I believe in love check out that book. It's excellent I'll just I won't even bother trying to read names in case some of these lovely people wish to remain anonymous But this person says I've been going to therapy for 15 years. I'm 31 I've seen five different therapists three of them Christian not Catholic

Each of those three have left me more confused and hurt than I was before. I'm not averse to hearing hard truths, so I don't think it's me, but I could be wrong, and I don't think of it as a magical cure-all in place of Jesus Christ, but I've basically become disillusioned with therapy. How do I know if I'm doing therapy wrong and expecting the wrong things from it? Perhaps I'm not thinking about its function correctly. Any advice would help. Thank you, Dr. Crete. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that's hard. I mean, they've been in therapy for a really long time and it sounds like either it hasn't been effective or something. I would never blame the client for doing therapy wrong. I think it's the therapist's responsibility to ask the kind of questions to help understand what the person is looking for and wanting.

So, of course I would need more information to truly comment, but if this person ever did decide they wanted to see a therapist again, then you wanna ask, tell that person about some of your past experience with therapists and share with them what you're actually looking for and what you're hoping for and have them tell you how they would address it differently.

Like they could, they should be able to do that and, and think through like what is for some people therapy is working on some particular issue. Like a lot of people come to therapy because, you know, my marriage is in trouble and I want to work on that, or I'm having some depression and I want to, and then when they work on it, they resolve it, they move on. Other people are looking more for somebody to help walk with them through life in some ways. And so is that what they're like, what is it that they're,

what is their goal in therapy would be a question I would have for this person. This lady says, please keep me anonymous. As a woman with PTSD due to past trauma, can you offer any advice for constant dissociation and flashbacks? I'm in trauma therapy using EMDR. Thank you, Dr. Creed.

Yeah, okay, well, for one, EMDR, I'm an EMDR consultant, so I love that approach. So I would acknowledge that that's a good thing they're doing. It's hard work though, it's not easy. And their EMDR therapists should be able to answer this question for them. I would throw out a few things.

One is just recognizing, you know, you have within you some ability to recognize when you're safe or not. And if you're actually not safe, but you're having a physiological reaction of lack of safety, then you know, like you can do in their breathing exercises and their muscle relaxation exercises, that you might need to tend to your body first. If you're dissociating, then you have to be grounded out of like into the present. And people do that, I think primarily

through their physical senses. So like if I was thought I was dissociating, but I like smelled a tangerine and a strong smell, or I like touched something cold and wet, or I noticed like, oh, like, oh, there's a bright color over here. And I notice using my physical senses and connecting with them and feeling your physical senses

can help ground a person. And then once you do that, taking some deep breaths and some muscle relaxation, and then you're telling your body, no, I'm safe right now. I'm right now, something horrible happened in the past, but right in this moment, I am safe. And so, but you have to tell the body that. Dissociation is like coming back into the body, grounding.

Muscle relaxation and breathing is like, oh, you're telling the body I'm safe now. Now you can go to the emotional and say, you're, you know, whatever part of you is upset, you're safe right now. Right now, nothing like, nothing bad is gonna happen right now. You're okay. And then you can move to right now, right now. Nothing like nothing bad is gonna happen right now. You're okay.

And then you can move to the cognitive, right? As to the reasons why that's true. Yeah. This lady says, would Dr. Crete recommend therapy for seriously dating, for seriously dating couple in the absence of conflict? In other words, I guess. People are dating seriously, they're wondering,

should we go to therapy, even though there seems to be no conflict? If so, what topics would the therapist cover? Well, I mean, I would look for someone that does a certain amount of like pre-marital counseling, if they're looking to eventually get married, or pre-engagement counseling even. And because, you know, again,

the therapist who does that kind of work is going to have questions for them and help them explore their past and check on things maybe they're not thinking about. I mean, a lot of the screening tests that you do, like I was trained in preparing and rich and there's other ones that you can do with couples that when they're getting ready to get married, you can do with couples that when they're

getting ready married you can do it pre-engagement and you learn a lot about them like you end up finding out oh where are we disconnected where we didn't know we were maybe it's like financial stuff like budgeting but it's never come up because we're just dating and we're not like having we're not even talking about things like you know how we save money or don't save money and so a premarital counselor or somebody that does those tools or a coach, somebody that does like relationship coaching

would help them work on and find anything they need to work on if there's nothing. And also I'm sure therapy isn't just so that your marriage doesn't fall out, but so that you can live an optimal marriage. Could it be better? Yes, there's nothing better than a couple coming in saying our marriage is good. We just want to make it better.

I'm like, oh, that's refreshing. Okay. Oh, this is a good question. I've heard it said that more often than not people don't need therapy, but rather are using it to fill a void left by not going to regular confession. Do you ever find this to be true and if so about what proportion of people would you say it is? There is this skepticism around therapy as if it's this new thing that's somehow taking the place of therapy. I remember back in the day I had a website called The Porn Effect and in it

that's somehow taking the place of therapy. I remember back in the day, I had a website called The Porn Effect and in it, I recommended Sexoholic's Anonymous, I recommended therapy, not because all therapists are great or because all SSA groups are great, not because of that, but because they can be very, very helpful.

And I had someone rip me a new one and it was a Catholic personality at the time, let's say. And that person was within months, I'm not saying this is always the time, let's say. And that person was, within months, this isn't, I'm not saying this is always the case, but this person was found in a hotel, motel in LA, hookers, cocaine, and, but again, his point to me was, they need just confession, that's it, you know? And it's not that we don't need confession,

and I'm not saying that there aren't people who just need to go to confession, but that kind of hard, rigid, when I sense that in people. There's the part. So that's the part where we were talking about before, the rigidity that is covering something else in their own pain and their behavior, that the hotel stuff you talked about

is the firefighter acting out. So they've got a lot of issues that they have to work out, which might be helpful in therapy, but they're avoiding it because that would cause them to have to look at those deeper things. I can honestly say I don't, I work with a largely Catholic population, so I haven't found that people are avoiding confession by coming to me for counseling. I would be the sort of counselor that would encourage people to go to confession and do

a holy hour and this kind of thing and pray or have a spiritual director as well. So I haven't really found that to be the case, to be honest. I would think that's the other way around, that some people that go to confession, especially like those scrupulous people that are going like every other day, really probably need to go to therapy, not confession. And I'm sure there's many a good priest who would say to a penitent, listen, this isn't the time for therapy. We've got 50 people along the wall.

Yes, yes. So I really, I mean, maybe I'm missing something. I really haven't seen that as a major problem. I mean, maybe it would be an interesting thing if a person was saying to me, I would like to go to confession or I should go to confession, but I feel safer being here and talking to you

than go any confession. And I would want to explain that with them and help understand why that's the case. I don't think that's usually, because in confession, you actually don't even have to look at the priest. Yeah. In therapy, you're actually talking directly to somebody's, you know, usually. Yeah. Okay.

This person says, and by the way, these people have not yet heard this interview. Oh, right. So in case you're like, well, you covered that that's why this is a beautiful question Beautiful vulnerable questions are always beautiful questions vulnerable people are usually beautiful people How should one deal with the fact that one can't cry out about something anything even if they want to I hope this question makes Sense. I think what they're asking is, I want to cry. I can't. What's the problem? What's the matter with me? What do I do? Well, because they have protectors that are preventing them, right?

Because if you open up, some people say if I start crying, I'll never stop crying, which makes me very sad. I don't believe that's true. But I understand how why they feel that way. It means they're wanting to get to their exile. That's the wounded part of them. But their protectors won't let them. You know, so the fact that they have that awareness get to their exile. That's the wounded part of them, but their protectors won't let them, you know, so that the fact that they have that awareness is a good start, right?

They have to connect with the parts of them that don't want to cry before you can get to the part that will cry. When, when did I learn, when did those parts learn about what will happen if I cry? What are they most afraid of will happen if I cry? What if I start crying? If I start to be vulnerable, will I be hurt again? Will I never stop crying? Will I be laughed at? Who knows? But you want to find out what that is. Caleb asks, my Christian therapist is under the impression that he shouldn't

really have a job. Had the church been more successful at spiritual direction and guidance. I'm obviously very thankful for therapy, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on this statement. That's a good question. So if families, well, maybe not family, if the church was doing its job, would we need therapy? Well, aren't you a member of the church? Like aren't you, aren't you a son? Aren't you an outpost of Eden? Isn't this part of the church's mission? Yeah. Yeah. I would say counselor is a gift of the Holy Spirit, right?

So I would say it's just being expressed in this way. I wonder in the history of the church, like when you see some of these great writers, like I would put St. Maximus in there and St. Gregory and Vanessa, I would put like a lot of these, Saint Francis de Sales. Like I would say these are doctors of the soul. These are doctors of the inner life.

These are, the church has been doing it for a long time. In the Eastern tradition, more than the Western tradition, the role of the spiritual father was a big deal. Like you would go to your spiritual father and all this. I mean, that can be a place of abuse too, of course. But I think that counseling was kind of happening in a different maybe way, but still happening in the history of the church.

And often it was priests or monks, but sometimes they relate people who were just seen as wise, right? Often they were ascetics, but they were seen as wise and people would go to them for help. So I think it was happening in the church all along. Now, I mean, how many of us can find a priest and a priest just can't do that role?

But that's the first time I've heard, because I have heard that question before. And at first it sounded clever to me, but now I realize I don't think it is. In fact, I think it might be an example of clericalism, because it seemed, I mean, if I'm interpreting the question right, it sounds like he he's saying if the church was doing its job we wouldn't need therapists well who's the church like aren't you a member of the church

and I son of the church aren't we doing what we believe to be God's will aren't we seeking to bind up right yeah to heal the broken-hearted I just think that the you know maybe the role of Catholic or Christian therapists is just the way the Holy Spirit is working in this manner in this time, is how I like to believe. So yeah, and as members of the church, we are taking that call and we have to identify whether is that my charism, is that one of my charisms?

Whether I'm a priest or not, yeah. This is a good question. Jacob asks, what topics are best reserved for spiritual direction with a priest versus discussion with a Catholic therapist or counselor? Yeah. Well, see, one thing that I think is important to know, right, like the way I understand spiritual direction

would be that the spiritual director is attuned to like paying attention to the movement of the Holy Spirit in that person and helping them bring attention to that. And so you're providing very specific kinds of maybe suggestions along those lines and helping the person to grow in their spiritual journey, which is I think very important.

Now, the kind of therapy that I'm talking about, I've been talking about this whole time, is very experiential. So we're literally helping the person look inside and work on their inner life. So it's a very much like an experience in the moment. It's a bit different from like CBT, like that other person mentioned,

or just like talk therapy. I'm just gonna sit there and we'll talk to you. I'm not saying that's not helpful or useful, but it's more than just talking through something with somebody, it's actually like, we're coming up with solutions to their problems and how they should think differently. But it's actually like working within the person

to help relieve burdens and helping them get to know their parts. And you're actually experience healing. And as a therapist in an IFS approach, I'm not doing it typically for them. I'm guiding them so that they're in most self is able to do the healing for their own system and then they can do that on their own later.

So it's an experiential thing. Whereas spiritual direction, I don't believe typically does that. You're guiding the person to have a greater awareness of where God is working in their life, having greater awareness of what their spiritual needs are. And then maybe you're offering some activities and things for them to do to help them along on that. But I feel like those are complimentary,

but different activities. If somebody came to you and said they were struggling with gender dysphoria and they don't want to, how would you treat them? Right. So again, gender dysphoria is itself a, is a psychological disorder in the DSM, you know, so unless they take it away, which who knows what they'll do, that it is a real, is a real disorder where the person believes, right, like that they're not, that they're not comfortable in the gender in which they were born in. So I would again, I wanna get to know the part of them that is disconnected with their own biological gender.

And so that where did that come from? Where did that start? How can we figure out what they really need, right? So I, of course, as a Catholic therapist in my beliefs, I don't believe the answer is simply to affirm, oh yeah, you're not really a male, even though you're biologically a male and just let's become a female.

No, I wanna first understand what led you to get here. And it's a real thing. Like some people with gender disorder, like they're not, it's not just a question of the will, like they're just going out, like, oh, they just need to think differently. They really do, it is really a disorder, they really do feel that there's something deeply wrong with them. So you've got to help them with that. The answer to me is never going to be hormone treatment or certainly not surgery. That should not be the

answer. We would never treat any other mental disorder by surgery to make them conform to the thing they're afraid of being. That's just so wrong-headed to me. I mean, either from your own personal experience or the conversations you've had with fellow therapists, have people found success in helping people with gender dysphoria? I've had some experiences of that.

I've worked with, for example, I'm thinking of a person who detransitioned. And it was a big conversion piece for them. I'm not saying I'm the person that convinced them to do that, but that was a conversion thing in terms of accepting the body that God gave them, but working through the fact that they have a deep sense of dysphoria or disconnection with that reality.

Right? So there's no condemnation on that person. I have tremendous empathy, because that's a very difficult, you know, can you imagine if you felt that disconnected from your body? So. Somebody said, well, I've heard somebody say

that you want to know what it's like, you know, to have gender dysphoria. It's like getting on a plane to fly to the other side of the country and then you learn, oh no, this is just life now. This is it. There's no, there's no getting off. This is your life forever. And when I heard that, I thought, gee, that just sounds absolutely ghastly. Right. Right, right. I think that, I mean, I guess I just get concerned because we don't want to actually, on many issues,

work through the issue we're having. We wanna find a solution to accommodate it. And I feel like that's really shown in this issue because we're going to go to great lengths to make ourselves conform to feel better. And that might include some kind of surgery. Like to me, it would be the same thing. Like if you had a young girl and she was,

simply didn't think she was beautiful enough and she wanted breast augmentation or she wanted to do some kind of surgery on her face to make her look more beautiful. And, you know, maybe it's not maybe it's not as serious a thing perhaps, but still it's like, maybe the root issue is you need to see your true beauty and you need to see the way that God sees you as beautiful,

not as the way that others do. I like how you put that. We seek to accommodate either our sin or our dysfunction that we, that aren't sinful. Yeah. Instead of working through them. That reminds me of a line from Roger Scruton, the late Roger Scruton, who wrote an excellent essay on pornography. And I'm going to butcher this beautiful quote, but one of the things he says is, you know,

what we often need when we're engaging in sexual sin isn't therapy to remove the shame, but right action so that shame need not occur. I'm sure. How do you get there? There's a therapist you can pick that apart. But I think his point is to accommodate it. Right. Like, well, I'm struggling with pornography, so help me get over my shame. It's like, well, what?

No, the shame's appropriate. Right. Well, here's the thing, because a Catholic therapist, if I, I've worked with a lot of sex addiction, I've worked with a lot of guys struggling with pornography, and if I describe the kind of work I do to some therapists, they would, because I'm helping them try to break free

from the bonds or the shackles of pornography and to live a more free life from that, well, other secular therapists might look at me and say, you're not being sex positive. Can't stand that term. It's like, well, I'm very sex positive. I just don't wanna see someone stuck. Masturbate in front of a computer screen. That's not sex.

Right, and it's, yeah, it's dehumanizing. And I want to bring integrity. So, but that's an example of a company. Our secular world is now saying, oh, like even feminists from 40 years ago would have been against pornography because they would have seen it as degrading women at a minimum.

And nowadays they're saying, no, that we need to just accept everybody's, whatever behavior people wanna do sexually should be okay. Well, I don't think that can possibly be right. There has to be some discernment around what's healthy and what's actually the good for people. And I know that that's not as a therapist, it's nothing I would impose on somebody,

but it would be something I would try to help them explore. Sins are sort of like drugs that help in one area and have an unintended side effect So you're struggling with stress and you look at pornography which relieves stress for a moment and you think well, there you go There's the drug. That's what I need right? then all of a sudden you've got all of this shame and guilt that flash up and you're like Well, how do I I need a drug now to deal with the guilt and the shame, which might be a lie about the wrongness of. Right, but what is the cause of the stress?

Well, the cause of the stress is the lack of, perhaps the lack of intimacy. So the person has a real need that is good, which is true intimacy. And they found a way to cope with that by finding false intimacy. And the society or maybe even therapists are gonna say, oh, well, that's okay, that's a good way to cope.

No, that's not giving them, that's not their good. Their good would be to find healthy ways of achieving intimacy. We're called to intimacy, we're called to connection, we're called to love one another. And that's inherently meaningful. It seems to me that a good therapist must be a Christian. And here's what I mean by that.

Obviously, a atheist therapist can certainly help in certain areas, I don't deny it, or even be a better therapist than a Catholic therapist. Of course. But if you don't know what a human person is, you won't know what a human person is for. And if you don't know what a human person is for, you do not know what the good life is for the human person. If it's merely the cessation of pain or the cessation of conflicting emotions or something, then why not just put him to sleep forever and just say that a sleeping man is happy. Or if it's merely to say, well, it's just about resolving an issue that you find problematic,

I'm still not necessarily inviting you to the good life because what you might be seeking to resolve ought not to be be resolved needs to be resolved in a way other than. Right. And to me that brings us back to what we were talking about before about quietness and true self-love. True self-love doesn't mean, yeah, you're accommodating your sin and making it like,

like we were talking about, like just being, be selfish because that's loving yourself. No, it's truly desiring the good. But when you say about a Christian therapist, do even, to what extent do we know what is the good for ourselves? Or even do therapists know what the good is? Have we spent time to understand what that actually is?

Any more than what is the good of our friend? Because we tend to even accommodate that more than we're willing to like look for that, look for, like we don't challenge each other sometimes, we don't challenge ourselves or our friends or even sometimes hold them accountable because we're afraid of alienating them. Which I know sounds like I'm contradicting

some of what I said before, but I think the two can be held together, the gentleness and kindness and compassion and the holding accountable because I love you and I want your good. And I am going to be honest with you when I know that you're hurting yourself. Right, I want more for you than that.

Anxiety. Peace. Joy. Here's a question for you. What's how do you know when you're in a when you're truly seeking and finding leisure versus dissociating or numbing out like for you personally, if you find yourself sort of fried, you know, overworked, just stressed out in need of a break, just in a normal human sense. Maybe what are some temptations to leisure that aren't actually leisurely?

Does that make sense? And then, and then how do you personally, Jerry Crete find rest? Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. It's kind of a big one, but, um, the difference between like healthy recreation is on my mind, it is still a question of presence and it goes in compared to numbing out or dissociating, which is sort of an escape. So, um, I would think that what's the difference between being present or not being present? Like the example I gave, this is kind of a long time, I've given this example for a long time in my life.

So this was like 15 years ago or something, so it's gonna date me slightly. But I remember after a long day, and I've been really tired, I would sit in my nice recliner and I would watch TV and I'd put on some show. And then I sat there and on one hand, I had Words with Friends. Remember that was a popular game at one time,

I was playing Words with Friends with somebody. And then over here, this is gonna date me too, because it was on Facebook, and it was a game called Kingdoms of Camelot. And all you're doing is like, you're building your little armies, and you're sitting there, you know, it's sort of like a Farmville thing or whatever,

and you're building your armies and you're attacking other people, so you're growing, and then once in a while, you get attacked and everything. So I was sitting there, and I was like playing Words with Friends with this really competitive Words with Friends guy and then I was like

defending my castles and doing all this over and over while I was watching a TV show and it hit me. This is not how it lives. This is not relaxing. This is stressful. This is not, this is me just sort of checking out and I'm not present in many of these activities. It's almost like choosing to not exist

Yeah, it's almost like wanting to die for a while. Like I don't want to exist. How do I not exist? Yeah, so like to me you can watch a TV show and be present and enjoy the program and if you're watching something just as like like your binge watching it so almost like you're losing touch with Like time and then I think maybe you're dissociating. Yeah, that's good. I had a similar experience once after I gave several talks somewhere in the country and went back to my hotel room and I was watching a sitcom.

And then I was on another window tweeting and reading tweets and so now, or exes or whatever they're called. So now I'm listening to the sitcom, not watching it responding to tweets and then someone texted me and so now I'm listening. To the sitcom kind of looking at Twitter and kind of texting with someone and it was the same thing with this is not actually restful but there's something within us that that wants. But there's something within us that wants that. We want, so that's like, it's one thing to say, well, this isn't restful. Yeah, of course it's not restful, but you're doing it to escape yourself as it were. So how do you, how do you, because I think this is, I've said this, I think this sums up leisure takes work.

It depends. I don't mean servile work. I mean, it takes intentionality. It takes setting aside those distractions that pull me into. Yeah. I would use the term, are you in the zone? I don't know if that says a lot to everybody,

but if I'm in the zone, so in other words, you could be into a hobby and you might consume me like it might be like somebody you're really involved in and into like something weird I might do with genealogy or something. I'm busy researching and I'm doing this and I'm adding this. I love that feeling.

Yeah, and that you could look at that. Am I escaping? No, I don't think so. I think I'm actually like fully engaged. Yes, yes. Right? And so that could be, that's a leisure for me. And it might seem like work if I'm like doing research and reading stuff and collecting data,

but it's like fun for me on some level. And it's not the same. Like I think when, the other thing I would say opposed in the zone would be under a spell. And so, yeah, like people, like if you're looking at pornography, you might be kind of almost under a spell and you're not really aware of your surroundings too much and you're just sort of like taking captive and that feels very different

from being in the zone where you're like, that's really good because in a way being in the zone of being under the spell, they have similar, a similar feeling in that you're, you're, you feel you're sucked into this thing. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but in one sense it's the self into this thing. Yeah, yeah. But in one sense, it's the self leading. The self, yeah, I would say, because we have parts that we need recreation, we need downtime, we need to recharge.

And it doesn't, and sometimes that could be doing nothing but lying on the beach. Yeah. Right, but it could also be active. You know, like for some people, it might be scuba diving or something. Right? But that's still leisurely for them.

Maybe what I meant when I said leisure takes work is that if we agree that it's easier to distract ourselves more often than not than to seek leisure. Right. All right, so it's easier to scroll through YouTube. Yes. That's an easy thing for me to do. Right.

That's more difficult than setting time aside to read a good book. I want right. It's not that while I'm engaged in leisure, it feels laborious. It's that often it takes work to get to that in the zone state in a way that being under the spell doesn't. Exactly. Exactly. I love that. Reading a book is a good example because you could, some people like I could read something for five hours if you gave me the like freedom to do that and it would be feel very good and it's not me escaping because I'm being fully present in that engagement. I'm fully into the

book. I find it, I would find it hard if you were reading a book and you weren't really aware of what you were reading and you realized I just read a lot and I don't remember anything, you might be dissociating. Well, see, that's what happens to me when I listen to books. See, my wife is dyslexic and so loves to listen to books. I'm shocked at how much she can take in even on like double time. She'll listen to these books quickly and be as satisfied as I would be if I read a good book.

Whereas for me, my mind wanders. So it's not a matter of dissociating. I just get distracted and I forget that I'm even list paying book, whereas for me, my mind wanders. So it's not a matter of dissociating, I just get distracted and I forget that I'm even should be paying attention to what's being. Yeah, when I'm reading something, if it's nonfiction, and like, okay, see, Maximus the Confessor has some book on him, and I'm taking notes, I'm reading it and taking notes,

nothing gives me more energy. Like, I feel energized, even though you could look at it going, well, that looks like work. No, to me, that was kind of fun, and I know I'm just, that looks like work. No, to me that was kind of fun. And I know I'm just weird that way and that's not gonna be everybody's idea of fun. But for somebody else it might be stamp collecting, I don't know.

But it's something that you have to ask yourself, is this giving me energy and am I truly present? Yeah. Are there certain activities that could give leisure but lend themselves to being under the spell? An example is, I played a video game recently, Age of Empires, so Age of Empires 2 or something, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I spent about an hour and a half, and I stood up. I barely play, I never play video games. Like once a month I might try to, you know, I said I'd like to play more, but I can't enjoy them like I used to as a teenager. And I played it for an hour and a half, stood up and just felt terribly refreshed. But it seems to me that video games would lend

to that being under the spell. They go either way. Yeah, so I guess in that sense, it's just being self-aware. Yeah, and you were self-aware enough to know, no, I feel energized by this. Yeah, and if a lot of times it's also noticing what is going on in my life right now, what emotions am I not dealing with?

So a lot of times when somebody like has like a relapse or something into pornography and they come in, they're like, oh, I can't believe it. It's been six months and then I did this. And I will say, okay, well tell me what happened the week before. And they don't see any relevance, but when you actually charted out,

oh, you mean your dog died and your wife lost her job and you found out that your mother has breast cancer and you don't think there's a connection between that and your relapse? Oh, maybe. You're like, yeah, there's a connection. You're not processing what's going on. There's these really challenging things happening

in your life right now or stresses or whatnot. and you're just not a good note you're ignoring them. Then what are your firefighters is going to step up and find a way to cope. I think the difficulty though is when it's not about you know. Mother has breast cancer xyz what's I think what's tough is when. And there are legitimate stresses in our life, but we don't believe that they warrant acting out. And of course they don't. But so we tend to just go, no, no, it wasn't that it wasn't that. It's always like, well, no, take a look at these things that are you tell me, I'm not

trying to tell you what's the case. You're the expert here, but take a look at these things that might be relatively small, but are still causing you agitation. I think that they shouldn't, but it doesn't mean that they're not.. Right, no that's a good point. They don't have to, I gave examples that were kind of extreme. It could be different stressors at work that maybe it's not like you're about to lose your job or anything but you're frustrated by the way some person is treating you or something in it. But it is building up and you're not actually processing it. I mean the other

one I see a lot too that if somebody doesn't have a lot of stressors is like boredom. They'll say I was bored or I was lonely. And they're not really aware of that happening. How do people deal with worry? Because my mom was a big worrier, bless her. Like I'd do something and she'd be up all night and she couldn't turn it off. And I have a bit of that in me where I'll wake up and I'll just start worrying about

something. This happened to me recently. I was worrying about something and I tried very hard and intentionally to surrender it to the good Lord. Lord, you're good. Take care of it. I surrender this to you. I said all the right things and I meant it as the words came out, but nothing alleviated.

I had this image of a rat in a maze banging its head up against a wall and trying another way out, banging its head up against the wall and being exhausted. And in my mind, what that meant was I'm trying to find a solution to something and I can't seem to find it. So it's like, okay, can I just trust in the Lord and just go to sleep and trust that he'll deal with? Well, that would be good, but I didn't, I couldn't turn it off. Yeah, yeah. I'm sure I'm not alone here.

No, absolutely not. And I would say, you know, and keeping with the theme of what we've been talking about today would be that in some ways, if you're sending the message to yourself or that part of you that's worrying, that you should be more spiritual. And if you trusted in God more,

we'll just trust in God and make it go away. Or, you know, or let's, why are we still worried about something? Then you're kind of, you might be not intending to, but sending the message to that part of you that you should just get over this or shouldn't feel this way. So worrying about worrying about it.

Yeah. Well, yeah. And, or shaming yourself for worrying about it, even when you're trying to comfort it because you're saying like a spiritual answer. So it could be a spiritual, like kind of a, I'm trying to spiritually bypass the reality of my anxiety. And so if you have an anxiety, you wanna ask yourself,

like, what is causing this anxiety? And if it's because something scary or unknown is actually imminent or problematic, you're worried about a loved one in danger or something like that, then you kind of have to take that seriously, right? In other words, you're not just gonna say, well, I'm gonna pray about this and God,

trust in God and be like lilies in the field and it should be better. No, I think you have to actually pause for a moment and say that is affirm it. Yeah, if you're worried you haven't heard from your son in a week and he was in the Amazon and he was supposed to call you and leave a message once a day and he hasn't, well, you have a real thing you're worried about. That's a legitimate, whatever it is. Like if there's something legitimate in that worry, you need to acknowledge the legitimacy of that.

I'm just thinking as you say that, like we actually praise Monica because of her sorrow over Augustine. It wasn't a sorrow that was a despairing sorrow, but it was a sorrow nonetheless, which she continued to offer to the Lord. She brought it to God. Right. Versus she didn't just tell herself she shouldn't feel that way about her son.

Or if she was more holy or she was more prayerful, she wouldn't be worried. She had a real reason to be worried. Yeah. How about acknowledging that? Whereas maybe we have this idea that, well, if things were to go the way they should have, she should have surrendered at once and then felt this incredible amount of peace that she could then write books about. Yeah, I don't think if we feel threatened, we can't convince ourselves to not feel threatened. If it's a real threat, if it's not a real threat, then we need to look at that. But there actually is something threatening. We can't just convince ourselves that,

that it's not there. And essentially that's what we're telling our parts to do when we just sort of say, let's pray about it and get past it. Okay. Let's, let's offer, let's give one more thorough full-throated plug for your book. Thank you so much for coming. I always love chatting with you. Yeah. It's been a pleasure for me too. Don't give us the plug. Oh, the plug. Yes. These are the heart. Why should they get this book?

Yes, so there's multiple levels to this book. On one hand, I wrote this book because I wanted to really bring help transformation for people struggling with anxiety and people struggling with post-traumatic stress. And I really feel like this parts work approach is so powerful and so helpful and will make a big difference for anybody.

The other aspect of the book was that as I was learning about internal family systems and ego state therapy and this kind of thing, I had real questions as a Catholic. Like, is this legitimate? Is this, you know, can this, does this really fit into Catholic worldview? Do you address that in the book? Thoroughly.

So literally every chapter has a vignette where there's a little story that is like very short, but it's still like a, it's a real life kind of story that gives you a snapshot of the problem. Then there's a section that gives the psychology in the background, psychological background. And then the third section is a scripture study that looks at how, not just a Bible verse, like a proof text or something,

but actually like, let's deep dive, what does Paul say in Corinthians? And let's look at that, you know, in this and different chapters. And then there's an actual exercise and prayer in each chapter to help walk you through whatever it is we were talking about in that chapter. And so there's 12 chapters.

So this, going through this whole book is like going on a journey. You can do it alone, you can do it, you can do it in And so there's 12 chapters. So this going through this whole book is like going on a journey. You can do it alone, you can do it, you can do it in group because there's like, oh, and there's questions after each chapter to discuss, especially if you're doing a group. But this book is meant to be a journey of transformation to get to know and discover your parts.

And, you know, it's not meant to replace therapy if therapy is required, but it could be an adjunct to therapy or it could just be something if you're not experiencing severe post-traumatic stress disorder that will help you. That's what I was gonna ask, because you said that you could read this,

like this parts work is stuff you're meant to eventually do on your own. I think you said something like that. Yes. So if someone's never done it with a therapist to begin with, will this book be helpful or? Yes, yeah, it would. And I think you would learn, like, if you need extra help,

if you need additional help to be able to do those exercises, then you could reach out to a therapist, right, or somebody, or an IFS coach or something, to help you do it. Or if you've had a lot of severe trauma in your life and you don't have a therapist, it might be a good idea to see somebody, the book by itself might not do it

because it's very difficult to do some of that alone, especially the unburdening process. But I wrote it in a way that I was hoping that people would be able to really like get something out of, out of it, even, even that. So. And your podcast, you still doing that? Souls and Hearts? Souls and Hearts is still like our, it's like a, we're really a human formation kind of program for Catholics. And so we have podcasts on there. I'm not actively doing, I may do

another one coming up next year, but not actively. Dr. Peter is doing his interior integration for Catholics podcast, which really gets into. Is that separate from souls and hearts? No, it's a, it's a souls and hearts podcast. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's doing really well. And he's, and he's, uh, I've heard great things about him. Yeah. Like we're talking about narcissism. He just did a whole section on narcissism, uh, like multiple episodes all about narcissism. He just did a whole section on narcissism, like multiple episodes all on narcissism.

And I came in and co-led one of them with him at the end when we talked about narcissism in the family. I kind of come in with that family therapist perspective, but yeah, I know his stuff's brilliant. He's brilliant. He does great stuff. Do you have a URL that connects people? Is it soulsandhearts?

Soulsandhearts.com. Okay. Yep. And the, you might recall, we did one? Is it soulsandhearts? Soulsandhearts.com. Okay. Yep. And the, you might recall, we did one of the litneys of the heart last time I was on. So those three litneys that I had were based on attachment theory. They were inspired me a little bit to the book.

And so those three litneys are in the book itself, as well as the exercises. But you can also go to soulsandhearts.com backslash lit, and you can download those lit knees for free, or listen to the audio versions as well. Fantastic, well thanks so much. My pleasure, good to see you.