Interior Integration for Catholics

Dr. Peter guides a listening exercise deeper into the story of Princess Tamar and Crown Prince Amnon, looking at the incestuous rape and entering into the internal worlds, the inner experience of each of the characters, inviting you to not only listen to the story, but to listen to yourself as you listen to the story. What are you noticing happening inside? What can those emotions, impulses, desires, attitudes, beliefs, memories and images that come up in you tell you about your history and your experiences?

Show Notes

  1. Intro: Welcome to the podcast Coronavirus Crisis: Carpe Diem!, where by God’s grace, you and I rise up and embrace the possibilities and opportunities for spiritual and psychological growth in this time of crisis, all grounded in a Catholic worldview.   We are going beyond mere resilience, to rising up to the challenges of this pandemic and becoming even healthier in the natural and the spiritual realms than we were before.  I’m clinical psychologist Peter Malinoski and I am here with you, to be your host and guide.  This podcast is part of Souls and Hearts, our online outreach at soulsandhearts.com, which is all about shoring up our natural foundation for the Catholic spiritual life, all about overcoming psychological obstacles to being loved and to loving.  
    1. This is episode 43, released on November 23, 2020
    2. Thank you for being here with me.  
    3. and it is the seventh episode in our series on shame.  
    4. and it is titled: Rape, Incest, Shame, and Silence: A True Story Reexamined, Part 2
    5. We are back to dealing with very heavy, very difficult material.  
    6. We are going back to the story of Crown Prince Amnon rape of his half-sister the princess Tamar that is recounted in 2 Samuel 13.  Remember that both Prince Amnon and Princess Tamar were King David's children.  
    7. We opened that up in Episode 40, with Part 1 -- now that we have taken two episodes to look deeply at King David's upbringing, especially around shame and his wounds
       
      1. So that we can better understand his role in this present situation
    8.  
      1. And now we are ready to return to the rape and so much of what went into it and came out of it.  

    10. We are going to be applying what we learned about shame in the conceptual information from Episodes 37, 38, 39.
    11. We're going to focus on listening as we were learning about in Episodes 41 and especially 42.  
  2. Cautions  
    1. There is an incestuous rape of a teenager in this story.
       
      1. I am not going into unnecessary graphic aspects about the rape itself
    2.  
      1. there isn't a need to get into the all the specific details of it
    3.  
      1. However, I am bringing out the emotional, relational and psychological impact of the traumas here, and not just the rape, but the betrayals and the failures to protect, and the injustice of it all and all the aftermath
         
        1. Those aspects -- betrayal, abandonment, the implications, the meaning of those contextual factors can be and often are worse than the actual physical violations.  And Tamar tells us that in the scripture.  

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

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

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

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


  3. Warnings -- let's be prudent here in listening to the story -- not an episode for little kids to necessarily be listening to.  
    1. As important as it is to deal with these topics
    2. Be thoughtful about where you are in your life journey, where you are in your healing -- this story may strike close to home for many of you
    3. You don't have to listen to the story or my analysis of it -- listen only if it is good for you -- even for people who are really psychologically well integrated, this is painful stuff.  
      1. Unresolved sexual trauma -- this may be a great time, it may be a terrible time listen to it.  
      2. Unresolved incest
      3. Unresolved betrayal
      4. Unresolved abandonment, especially by parents or church or civic leaders
      5. Sibling issues.  
    4. Window of tolerance
       
      1. the zone of nervous system arousal in which you are able to function most effectively. When you are within this zone, you can readily take in information, process that information, and integrate that information more readily. 

      1. You can listen.  

      1. People in the window of tolerance are feeling emotions at moderate levels, not overwhelmed with emotion (hyperarousal) and not numbing their feelings out (hypoarousal).
    7.  
  4. Review of levels of listening -- check out last episode
     
    1. Listening to trauma may be easier with a written narrative than in person with the people immediately present
  5.  
    1. Listening to --  Level 1 listening -- Listening with your mind, taking in information
       
      1. Often called active listening
    2.  
      1. Listen carefully to what is happening in the story
    3.  
      1. Grasping the content, the facts
    4.  
      1. Requires attention, concentration, taking in what the person is saying.  

      1. Focus externally on the characters, not internally on what is going on with your parts.  Not distracted by own self-focus
    6.  

    1. Listening for -- Level 2 listening -- Rarer.    
      1. This is speculative, we hold it lightly
      2. Listening to fill in the gaps in each character's big picture
      3. What is beyond and behind the words?
         
        1. Listening for the deeper layers of meaning in order to perceive what has not been said outright.
      4.  
        1. understanding the experiential context for each of the characters
      5.  
      6. Listening to what the character does not say or do -- omissions.  
      7. What are we listening for when we are listening for?  
        1. The person's experience -- to grasp the person's experience -- all the inner stuff.  
        2. Emotions
        3. Intentions
        4. Thoughts
        5. Desires
        6. Attitudes toward the world 
        7. Impulses 
        8. Vision of the world
        9. Working models of the world, assumptions.  
        10. Values
        11. Purpose in life
        12. I listen for identity
        13.  and for shame.  
      8. Engage the Faculty of imagination to help us fill in the gaps  
      9. Taking in what the person means (in contrast to what the person says in Level 1) 
      10. What we are not doing:  
        1. Not evaluating the merits of that perspective, not getting caught up in judging that perspective
        2. Not looking to right wrongs, not looking for justice, not asking deep existential questions about how could that terrible thing have happened to the person, not formulating advice, not looking to impress.  
        3. Setting all that aside.   To be with the characters in their stories, their narrative.  Understanding them first.  
        4. Taking that character's perspective in.  Seeing the world through the other person's eyes.  No matter how inaccurate or distorted that perception of the world may seem to be to us.  

    1. Listening with -- Level 3 listening -- Very rare -- characteristic of great therapists
       
      1. Listening with your whole self. 

      1. Listening with your heart and to your heart
         
        1. Window of tolerance.  

        1. Listening to your intuition -- listening to your own parts -- what they are telling you.  
          1. Emotions -- Fear, sadness, anger, disgust, happiness, etc.
          2. Impulses
          3. Intentions
          4. Thoughts that spontaneously arise
          5. Images
          6. Memories that pop up
          7. Body sensations
          8. Songs -- Internal Jukebox
          9. Sayings
          10. Gut sense
          11. All your inner experiences

        1. Remember, this is your stuff.  This is your experience.  

        1. Interpersonal field.  Which parts of me are resonating with your parts.
      5.  
        1. Listening for the shifts in messaging along with the shifts in relating.   

        1. What does the person need
      7.  
        1. Self as instrument -- tuning the instrument in to a frequency understand the other
      8.  
        1. Curiosity -- why am I reacting this way.   

        1. Compassionate connection
      10.  


 
  1. Read-through of Scripture 2 Samuel 13 1-22 --  I am going to read it with more inflection, more interpretation of the words. 
    1. Now Ab′salom, David’s son, had a beautiful sister, whose name was Tamar; and after a time Amnon, David’s son, loved her. 2 And Amnon was so tormented that he made himself ill because of his sister Tamar; for she was a virgin, and it seemed impossible to Amnon to do anything to her. 3 But Amnon had a friend, whose name was Jon′adab, the son of Shim′e-ah, David’s brother; and Jon′adab was a very crafty man. 4 And he said to him, “O son of the king, why are you so haggard morning after morning? Will you not tell me?” Amnon said to him, “I love Tamar, my brother Ab′salom’s sister.” 
    2. 5 Jon′adab said to him, “Lie down on your bed, and pretend to be ill; and when your father comes to see you, say to him, ‘Let my sister Tamar come and give me bread to eat, and prepare the food in my sight, that I may see it, and eat it from her hand.’” 6 So Amnon lay down, and pretended to be ill; and when the king came to see him, Amnon said to the king, “Pray let my sister Tamar come and make a couple of cakes in my sight, that I may eat from her hand.”
    3. 7 Then David sent home to Tamar, saying, “Go to your brother Amnon’s house, and prepare food for him.” 8 So Tamar went to her brother Amnon’s house, where he was lying down. And she took dough, and kneaded it, and made cakes in his sight, and baked the cakes. 9 And she took the pan and emptied it out before him, but he refused to eat. And Amnon said, “Send out every one from me.” So every one went out from him. 10 Then Amnon said to Tamar, “Bring the food into the chamber, that I may eat from your hand.” And Tamar took the cakes she had made, and brought them into the chamber to Amnon her brother. 
    4. 11 But when she brought them near him to eat, he took hold of her, and said to her, “Come, lie with me, my sister.” 12 She answered him, “No, my brother, do not force me; for such a thing is not done in Israel; do not do this wanton folly. 13 As for me, where could I carry my shame? And as for you, you would be as one of the wanton fools in Israel. Now therefore, I pray you, speak to the king; for he will not withhold me from you.” 14 But he would not listen to her; and being stronger than she, he forced her, and lay with her.
    5. 15 Then Amnon hated her with very great hatred; so that the hatred with which he hated her was greater than the love with which he had loved her. And Amnon said to her, “Arise, be gone.” 16 But she said to him, “No, my brother; for this wrong in sending me away is greater than the other which you did to me.”[b] But he would not listen to her. 17 He called the young man who served him and said, “Put this woman out of my presence, and bolt the door after her.” 18 Now she was wearing a long robe with sleeves; for thus were the virgin daughters of the king clad of old.[c] So his servant put her out, and bolted the door after her. 19 And Tamar put ashes on her head, and rent the long robe which she wore; and she laid her hand on her head, and went away, crying aloud as she went.
    6. 20 And her brother Ab′salom said to her, “Has Amnon your brother been with you? Now hold your peace, my sister; he is your brother; do not take this to heart.” So Tamar dwelt, a desolate woman, in her brother Ab′salom’s house. 21 When King David heard of all these things, he was very angry. 22 But Ab′salom spoke to Amnon neither good nor bad; for Ab′salom hated Amnon, because he had forced his sister Tamar.
    7. That's the last we hear of Tamar.  Let's take a break.  Sit with this for a minute.  Notice.  Jot down a few things that you are experiencing. 
  2. Background
     
    1. Ages
       
      1. Amnon 20
    2.  
      1. Tamar 19
    3.  
      1. Absalom 18
    4.  

    1. Physical locations -- convent-like separation
       
      1. Tamar is a royal princess a virgin -- the harem eunuchs are tasked with watching her closely.
    2.  
      1. She lived in women's quarters, always accompanied by guards and other women
         
        1. A kind of convent, a very protected environment.  

        1. Separated from men, so that nothing untoward would happen to them, especially nothing that would compromise their virginity.  


      1. the virgin daughters of the king were protected from us unsolicited advances from men, all men
         
        1. Told that she has a long-sleeved robe -- a beautiful and very modest public testament of her protected status as a virgin.  

        1. Ketoneth Hebrew name for it.  Only other place that word is used is for the robe, multicolored coat of Joseph -- son of Jacob.  Remember Joseph Sold by his brothers into slavery.  Brothers spilled blood of a goat on the robe to convince their father of Joseph's death.  



 
  1. David
     
    1. Compromised morally
       
      1. Bathsheba -- well known.  Violating sexually boundaries
    2.  
      1. Unleashes a predatory precedent into his family.  Unintended consequences
    3.  

    1. Curse on his house -- communicated by Nathan the prophet.  

    1. He has many wives -- at least 7 named, at least 10 concubines
  4.  
    1. Sibling Rivalries
       
      1. Sons grew up without strict paternal discipline, different mothers were jealous of each other
    2.  

    1. Demands of duties of state
  6.  
    1. Idealization of Amnon -- totally not understanding him
       
      1. Parents almost never believe the incest (confirm)
    2.  

  8. Increasing boundary violations -- mark them out
  9. Cues to listen Checking in with the listener
  10. Breakdown of the Story
     
    1. Now Ab′salom, David’s son, had a beautiful sister, whose name was Tamar; and after a time Amnon, David’s son, loved her. 2 And Amnon was so tormented that he made himself ill because of his sister Tamar; for she was a virgin, and it seemed impossible to Amnon to do anything to her. 3 But Amnon had a friend, whose name was Jon′adab, the son of Shim′e-ah, David’s brother; and Jon′adab was a very crafty man. 4 And he said to him, “O son of the king, why are you so haggard morning after morning? Will you not tell me?” Amnon said to him, “I love Tamar, my brother Ab′salom’s sister.”
       
      1. Virgin -- means more than not ever having had sex
         
        1. She was young.  No references to older virgins in this time
      2.  
        1. Still living with her father, under his care and protection and under his authority

      1. Word Study -- Amnon, David's son, "loved her"
         
        1. Really disturbed by this language.  Confucius:  The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper names.  

        1.  Then Isaac brought her into the tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her.  Genesis 24:47.  Love at first sight.  Isaac met her and immediately made her his wife.  Intensity there, and maybe some idealization.  

        1. What is the Hebrew?  way·ye·’ĕ·hā·ḇe·hā 
          1. Some day some listener who actually knows Hebrew is going to call me out

        1. Several of the more dynamic translations render it "fell in love with her"
      5.  
        1. Even less literal translations will go with "became infatuated with her." 

        1. A lot of lust mixed in for Anon.  

        1. May be a mixture of things.  They grew up together.  Sibling relationships are complex.  

      9. Desire increased over time.  Amnon watched Tamar grow up. This may have built up over years, unchecked to the point where Amnon was  
      10. So tormented that he "made himself ill" -- Tamar was a virgin, protected by their father, King David, and it seemed impossible to Amnon to do anything to her. 
        1. Not with her.  To her.  At this point, Amnon still may have some moral constraints.  He knows that such a thing is not done.  
        2. But he also has an example of his father King David who used his power and influence to pursue his sexual fantasies with Bathsheba -- Amnon saw this at age 18, two years earlier, and it had to have made an impression.  
          1. David got what he wanted -- Bathsheba as wife
          2. And while the first son of David and Bathsheba died as a consequence
          3. Baby Solomon was then born not long after and was now toddling around the palace
          4. So it may not have seemed to Amnon that David's consequences were all that bad.  
          5. David seemed to have gotten away with it.  
        3. Obsession
           
          1. EMDR therapist Jim Knipe, book EMDR toolbox  -- discusses how intense experiences can be distorted in a positive, idealized direction, including sexual arousal. 
            1. Knipe writes how a chronic distortion of perception can occur when an intense positive experience remains unprocessed and is somehow a solution to an unresolved trauma. 
            2. This occurs when the experience, positive within itself, has the additional positive effect of enabling the person to contain or avoid significant emotion disturbance.  
            3. The positive experience allows the person to shift awareness away from something that is upsetting to something that is pleasant. 
            4. When this happens, the result can be what we might call an idealization defense -- a positive experience that is not only positive in itself, but also a means of avoiding a problem in the person's emotions.  
            5. Winning the jackpot at slots -- an idealized experience.  
              1. Gus very down on himself.  Loser, trouble with employer, conflict with wife.  Deep sense of shame, of feeling unlovable
              2. Goes to the casino, playing dollar slots.  
              3. Real low point
              4. Wins a jackpot.  So much attention.  He is a winner now!  People admiring him, congratulating him.  He is on top of the world. 
                1. Winning isn't integrated into the narrative of his life, his life story
                2. Feeling so much shame isn't integrated into his life story either.  
                3. Both are unresolved experiences.  And they are connected
              5. So Gus idealizes the slots machines -- he begins to gamble.  He remembers in highly idealized ways how great it was to win the jackpot.  
              6. Highly idealized memories of that also keep him distracted from his unresolved shame, his feeling of being unlovable and his relational problems.
            6. If this is going on for Amnon, he may be idealizing some pleasant early relational experience with Tamar -- something that was helpful in some way for him to deal with a trauma --  and then he ran with it. 
              1. Fantasizing about some kind of relationship with Tamar helped him avoid something painful within him.  It need not have been sexual initially.  
              2. And then, perhaps with the onset of puberty
                 
                1. He may have worked sexual fantasies into his idealization of Tamar
              3.  
                1. Ammon may have been acting out sexually
                   
                  1. Masturbating
                2.  
                  1. having sexual relations with other women, abusing his power, and imagining that it was Tamar. 



          1. Psychologist Joseph Nicolosi Jr.  Reintegrative therapy 
            1. intense, disordered idealization that drives a sexual attraction 
            2. reflects an attempt to find in another person something that is missing in oneself -- some void, some inadequacy.  
            3. The disordered idealization and its manifestation in an intense sexual preoccupation is driven by a negative self appraisal -- something missing in the person
               
              1. Negative self-appraisal -- sounds like shame.  

              1. Deep wound of inadequacy
            5.  
              1. Amnon knew, for all his charisma, his power as crown prince, his gifts and talents and status that he was deeply flawed and sinful
            6.  
              1. Deep sense of being bad, ridden with vices.  

            8. For Amnon, he may have seen the virtue in Tamar.   Her goodness.  But especially her innocence.  
            9. He knew he didn't have it
            10. He sought to share virtue with her.  Or to take hers from her.  
            11. Very speculative.  
            12. This kind of process is unconscious
            13. Doesn't justify it at all.  

      11. We do know that Amnon was not thinking of marriage and building a family together with her.  
        1. Debate about whether a marriage was even possible between the half-siblings.  
          1. I think it may have been possible with a dispensation from David, even with the prohibitions in Leviticus 
          2. Even if it were not legal.  David has a lot of power.  Power can be abused.  
        2. But David likely had other plans for Tamar -- she at 19 probably had a marriage already arranged -- it may have been imminent, as she was old enough to marry.   
        3. No political advantage to marrying Amnon and Tamar.   And it's bad optics.  This is not the old-time Egyptian royal family here.     
      12. So what to do?  What do you do when you really really want something that seems impossible to have and you feel like you need it?  You bring in a crafty friend.  Enter Jonadab.  
        1. Who we seek out matters
        2. Part of Amnon knows that Jonadab could connive  
        3. Jonadab could make the impossible possible.  All you have to do is violation the norms, the standards, the laws, the religious commands, that's it. 
        4. And Jonadab has the wily imagination to figure out how to short-circuit all the protections.  He has the nefarious vision to know how to dupe the king and neutralize the guards and servants.  
        5. Jonadab -- motivations
           
          1. If you can will it, you can have it one way or another -- Nietzschean will to power
        6.  
          1. Jonadab may have gotten a vicarious, twisted pleasure in being able to set such things in motion.  Acting out.  

          1. Currying favor with Amnon.  Amnon will be king.  

          1. What a small, stony heart.  What a tragic, evil figure.  What a snake.  


    1. 5 Jon′adab said to him, “Lie down on your bed, and pretend to be ill; and when your father comes to see you, say to him, ‘Let my sister Tamar come and give me bread to eat, and prepare the food in my sight, that I may see it, and eat it from her hand.’” 6 So Amnon lay down, and pretended to be ill; and when the king came to see him, Amnon said to the king, “Pray let my sister Tamar come and make a couple of cakes in my sight, that I may eat from her hand.”
       
      1. There is no pause here between Jonadab's plan and its execution.  Amnon carries out the plan, exactly as Jonadab laid it out, at once.  

      1. There he is moaning in his bed.  Looking deathly ill.
    3.  
      1. David comes.  Doctors are called.  Physical examinations.  There doesn't seem to be anything wrong, but this is the crown prince.  Remedies discussed. 

      1. The patient moans again, and comes up with an idea that may seem to help. 

      1. Let "My sister" Tamar -- emphasizing the sibling relationship -- put David at ease -- come give me bread to eat.  Ok, he wants food.  That's good.  It's better that he wants to eat than not eat.  

      1. Weird request of watching Tamar make cakes and then eating them from her hand as she feeds him.  
        1. David misses the cues her, or he chooses to not investigate.  
          1. He may be agitated about the "severe illness" of his favored son Amnon.
          2. He may not want to know that something is very amiss here, very wrong
          3. The implications of Amnon setting up a bedroom meeting with his half-sister Tamar may be eluding him.  
        2. We are getting into unfathomable territory, possibly, here for David -- my son couldn't possibly be considering anything untoward with Tamar.  Unthinkable.  Inconceivable.  And he's so sick. 
          1. And there are so many safeguards in place
             
            1. social norms, religious prohibitions, legal prohibitions
          2.  
            1. Also, there were the servants.  Potential witnesses.  Whose function is to protect.  

          4. The reality of incest is often is a big surprise to parents -- if they ever even acknowledge it.  
          5. Parts of David may have suspected that there was danger, but other parts did not want to admit the possibility that his favored son Amnon had such a potential for evil and silenced any alarms that may have been going off inside him.  
        3. David does not know his sons, and may not want to know them, given his idealization of them
           
          1. Head in the sand.  

          1. Not wanting to see the curse on his family play out -- The curse prophesied by Nathan in the previous chapter.  Avoidance.  

          1. David starts undermining boundaries, removing physical limits.  

          1. David's shame could be activated if he were to see the generational effects of his sins
             
            1. Many wives and concubines
          2.  
            1. Bathsheba -- adultery and murder for sexual desires
          3.  
            1. Indulging his sons, not disciplining them, not loving them enough to challenge them to virtue
          4.  
            1. Perhaps even being afraid of them, of Amnon making a scene like a spoiled adolescent.  

            1. But that passivity is very costly -- leading not only to the rape of Tamar, but also to fratricidal murder, and to all-out civil war between the armies of David and Absalom.    



    8. 7 Then David sent home to Tamar, saying, “Go to your brother Amnon’s house, and prepare food for him.” 8 So Tamar went to her brother Amnon’s house, where he was lying down. And she took dough, and kneaded it, and made cakes in his sight, and baked the cakes. 9 And she took the pan and emptied it out before him, but he refused to eat. 
      1. It's already happened as Jonadab laid out. Amnon filled in the details with his own imagination. 
      2. Word study -- cakes
         
        1. Hebrew Word: levav or levivah.  
          1. Root of these words is the Hebrew word "lev" which translates as heart.  
            1. These dumpling-like cakes or you might think of them like pancakes with a thicker batter -- these cakes were rapidly and easily made, and they were thought to strengthen the heart.  You know, to give the heart a boost of energy.  
            2. Heart cakes or “heartening dumplings” 
            3. a traditional food for the sick

        1. So even the name of the bread has a kind of sensuality about it -- and informed Hebrew might perceive in the name of the food something strange about Amnon's request.    
          1. Some hints were there, the signs were there.  Parts of David probably were detecting that something was strange, but these parts were probably silenced by other parts that did not want to think nasty things about Amnon, did not want to question him, challenge him.  
          2. We can choose to listen to these parts that might pick up on the hints
          3. But David only hears or chooses to hear? that Amnon wants a special treatment -- he was sick.
          4. In short, David's crowned head was in the sand.  

      5. Tamar is completely unprepared.
         
        1. Parts of her might have suspected that Amnon could be a predator
      6.  
        1. But that is not a very nice thought.  Who wants to think that?
      7.  
        1. If you can't think something nice, don't think anything at all.  

        1. So other parts of her may have suppressed those concerned parts.  Good girl parts, trusting parts, parts that don't want any ridiculous accusations to be made.  Parts that want to believe that everything is ok.  

      10. Sexual predators are often family or friends, and the prey's misplaced trust and confidence is a great asset to the predator in carrying out his wicked designs.  
      11. Amnon may have a fetish going on here
         
        1. There’s something very creepy about Amnon, a grown man, lying in bed, watching his beautiful younger sister knead dough for him.
           
          1. I don't know how that lands with each of you, but to me, it feels really pornographic.
             
            1. I see Amnon savoring this visual with sexual pleasure, quivering with anticipation
          2.  
            1. He has waiting so long for what is about to happen
          3.  
            1. All the noble parts of him are suppressed.  He is now on a mission.  There is no going back, the wheels are in motion.
          4.  
            1. And he is about to get what he has been longing for and scheming for.  

            1. His sister kneading dough, baking cakes and feeding him by hand.  

            1. Very predatory.
          7.  

          1. Types of incest  Karen Souza of Santa Cruz, CA 
            1. Overt incest is sexual contact by a relative. 
            2. Unlike overt incest, covert incest does not involve physical touching, but instead is as non-physical sexually-laced intimacy usually between a parent and child but also between two blood relatives.  The child feels used and trapped, the same as with overt incest.
            3. Emotional incest -- involves role reversals.   


  12. Wrapup
     
    1. Practice this listening -- as far as you can go.  Share your experience of listening to this episode with another person.  You might invite someone to trust to listen to these episodes with you.  If that seems too much, read 2 Samuel 13 -- see what you can read between the lines.  Write it down in a journal, put your experience into words.  

    1. Where do you struggle with the listening
       
      1. Those points of struggle can help you identify where you need to work in your life
    2.  
      1. Notice what got activated.  The parts of the story that stirred you up can help you understand what you need to connect within yourself. 
        1. The burdens that parts of you are bearing


    1. Can start by sharing these podcast -- spotify, apple podcasts, google play, amazon.  Share it on social media -- buttons are on our website at soulsandhearts.com/coronavirus-crisis  -- get your word out there, with your personal recommendation -- how these episodes have helped you.  Share them, let others know 

    1. Get on the waiting list  soulsandhearts.com/rccd
  16.  
    1. Friday, November 28, 4:00 - 5:15 PM EST, we had Office Hours for RCCD members.  Community members can check out the recording.  

    1. You can reach out to me at 317.567.9594 or at crisis@soulsandhearts.com 

    1. Patronness and Patron.
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What is Interior Integration for Catholics?

The mission of this podcast is the formation of your heart in love and for love, Together, we shore up the natural, human foundation for your spiritual formation as a Catholic. St. Thomas Aquinas asserts that without this inner unity, without this interior integration, without ordered self-love, you cannot enter loving union with God, your Blessed Mother, or your neighbor. Informed by Internal Family Systems approaches and grounded firmly in a Catholic understanding of the human person, this podcast brings you the best information, the illuminating stories, and the experiential exercises you need to become more whole in the natural realm. This restored human formation then frees you to better live out the three loves in the two Great Commandments – loving God, your neighbor, and yourself. Check out the Resilient Catholics Community which grew up around this podcast at https://www.soulsandhearts.com/rcc.