Interior Integration for Catholics

In this episode, we focus on how unresolved trauma undermines and sabotages both our capacity and our inclination to love well. We explore how unresolved trauma impacts each of the five characteristics of love -- compromising our ability to love in an affective (emotional), affirming, responsive, unitive and steadfast way. We also dive into how so trauma pulls us to focus inward, and to protect ourselves, undercutting the vulnerability and willingness to engage that are required for deep love and we discuss hope for change.

Show Notes

  1. Summary:  In this episode, we focus on how unresolved trauma undermines and sabotages both our capacity and our inclination to love well.  We explore how unresolved trauma impacts each of the five characteristics of love -- compromising our ability to love in an affective (emotional), affirming, responsive, unitive and steadfast way.  We also dive into how so trauma pulls us to focus inward, and to protect ourselves, undercutting the vulnerability and willingness to engage that are required for deep love and we discuss hope for change.  
  2. Lead-in
     
    1. They say love is blind, but it’s trauma that’s blind. Love sees what is.“ — Neil Strauss, The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships
       
      1. And Neil Strauss is right on that.  Love connects with reality.  With God who is the ultimate realness, the ultimate being, the I AM.  

      1. Trauma is blind and it blinds us.  That's what we are talking about today.  Trauma and its impact on live.  


  4. Intro:
     
    1. Dear listener, You and I are together in the adventure of this podcast, Interior Integration for Catholics, we are journeying together, and I am thankful to be with you.
  5.  
    1. I am Dr. Peter Malinoski, clinical psychologist and passionate Catholic and together, Why are we here?  We are here together to bring you the best of psychology and human formation and harmonize it with the perennial truths of the Catholic Faith. So we can have the best of both.  That's why.  
    2. Today, we're going to take a broad perspective, a bird's-eye view of trauma's destructive consequences to our capacity to love.  What is the effect of trauma on our capacity and inclination to love?  That is the question for us to explore together today.  
    3. So welcome to episode 95,  of Interior Integration for Catholics, titled Trauma's Devastating Impact on our Capacity to Love, released on July 4, 2022, Independency Day in the USA,
    4. This podcast, Interior Integration for Catholics is part of our broader outreach, Souls and Hearts bringing the best of psychology grounded in a Catholic worldview to you and the rest of the world through our website soulsandhearts.com.  
    5. Review Trauma.  We are in the midst of  whole series of episodes on trauma.  So just a brief thumbnail review.  
      1. Started with Episode 88 Trauma: Defining and Understanding the Experience  Really important to understand the inner experience of trauma -- so you can recognize it in your own life and recognize it an empathetic and attuned way in others' loves.  Part of loving them.  
      2. Episode 89 Your Trauma, Your Body: Protection vs. Connection --  a current understanding of how large a role our bodies have in our experience of trauma.  Our bodies.  
      3. Episode 90:  Your Well-Being: The Secular Experts Speak  we review how philosophers and modern secular psychologists understand mental health and well-being.  In this episode, we look at the attempts to define what make us happy, from the 4th century BC to the present day.  Aristippus, Aristotle, Descartes, Freud, Seligman, Porges, Schwartz, and two diagnostic systems.  We take a special look at how positive psychology and Internal Family Systems see well-being.  
      4. Episode 92:  Understanding and Healing your Mind through IPNB  neuropsychiatrist Dr. Dan Siegel's Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB) and what IPNB can show us about psychological health.  We review the triangle of well-being, the nature of secure attachments, and the basis for mental health from an IPNB perspective.  We examine the characteristics of a healthy mind and how it functions, and the two signs that reliable indicate all psychological symptoms and mental dysfunction.  We discuss the nine domains of integration
      5. Three inner experiential exercises in Episode 93
      6. Episode 94:  The Primacy of Love  In this episode, I discuss the central importance of love as the marker of well-being from a Catholic perspective -- our capacity to live out  the two great commandments.  We explore how love is the distinguishing characteristics of Christians, and we discussed Catholic theologian Bernard Brady's five attributes or characteristics of love -- how love is affective, affirming, responsive, unitive and steadfast.  We discuss what is commonly missing from philosophical and theological approaches to love, and we briefly touch in the death of love and distortions of love. 
      7. So check those out if you haven't already.  This 
 
  1. Going to address love in general -- focusing on loving
     
    1. In future episodes, will review
       
      1. Tolerating being loved
         
        1. Brady quxote
      2.  

      1. Ordered self-love
    3.  

  3. The experience of trauma screws up our loves -- where we go to find good.  It screws up where we are seeking, how we seek to be loved and how we seek to love.  
    1. St. Augustine:  
      1. He lives in justice and sanctity who is an unprejudiced assessor of the intrinsic value of things.  He is a man who has an ordinate love: he neither loves what should not be loved nor fails to love what should be loved. On Christina Doctrine, I, 27
      2. We need ordered love.  Why -- Bernard Brady put it -- Because we become like what we love.  Whatever we embrace in our love, we become like that person or that thing.  
      3. As Augustine considered the dissipation of this youth, he wrote "I loved beautiful things of a lower order, and I was going down to the depths."   Confessions.  
    2. So much of the problem with disordered love  comes from misdirected seeking to get your attachment needs meet.  That's the problem. 
      1. We have legitimate attachment needs  Trauma strips away our sense of 
        1. A felt sense of Safety and security
        2. Feeling seen, heard, known and understood
        3. Feeling comforted, soothed, reassured
        4. Feeling cherished, treasured, delighted in
        5. Feel the other person wills my highest good.  
        6. All from Brown and Elliott 2016, Attachment disturbances in Adults
    3. Where do we find our safety and security?  In both the natural and spiritual realms, we find it in attachment security needs being met.
       
      1. Five primary attachment security needs (Brown and Elliott)
         
        1. A felt sense of safety and protection, a deep sense of security, felt in my bones
           
          1. It makes it so much easier to love when we feel safe and secure.   

          1. "People want to be safe, and comfortable. If safety and comfort is to be found in guns, then they will take up guns—of their own accord, in their own need. And when safety and comfort are found in libraries, then the guns rust.“ — Algis Budrys American writer  Source: Some Will Not Die (1961), Chapter 6 (p. 122)
        3.  

        1. Feeling seen, heard, known, and understood
      3.  

I want, by understanding myself, to understand others.“ — Katherine Mansfield New Zealand author 1888 - 1923
  1. Being comforted, soothed, and reassured
  2. Feeling valued, cherished, treasured, delighted in
     
    1. You are my sunshine published by Jimmie Davis and Charles Mitchell on January 30, 1940
  3.  
You are my sunshine
My only sunshine
You make me happy
When skies are gray
You'll never know, dear
How much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away
  1. Feeling that the other person wills my highest good, the best for me
  2. We have to turn inward to find the road to God.  
    1. Etienne Gilson explained Augustine's approach to God as "a path leading from the exterior to the interior and from the interior to the superior."  Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of St. Augustine p. 20
    2. Charles Taylor:  Sources of the Self: By going inward, I am drawn upward.  The Making of Modern Identity 134
    3. Turning inward is the route to God, not God.  Brady, 120
    4. Often resisted by Catholics as being selfish.  
  3. Edward Vacek:  Love, Human and Divine: The Heart of Christian Ethics.  The steps in loving and being loved.    (1) God affirms us; (2) God receives a; (3) we accept God’s love; (4) we affirm God; (5) God forms community with us; (6) we cooperate with God in loving God in the world; and finally (7) we grow in a limited code responsibility with God. p.. 177
     
    1. 1 John 4:19 We love, because he first loved us.
  4.  
 
  1. Last episode -- Bernard Brady's description of the five characteristics of Love  Christian Love: How Christians through the Ages have Understood Love.-- drawing heavily from the work of phenomenologists  Jules Toner and Margaret Farley
     
    1. Love is affective, affirming, responsive, unitive and steadfast.  (repeat)  Five characteristics.  Five aspects.  Repeat.  
      1. We described and discussed these at length in the last episode, episode 94 of the IIC podcast, The Primacy of Love 
      2. We will briefly review each of them
      3. And then discuss how trauma impacts each of them, bringing in the effects or the sequelae of trauma from Episode 88 --  Trauma: Defining and Understanding the Experience.  

    1. Love is affective 
      1. Love is an emotion
      2. Love is a movement from your heart, your soul -- a movement from the innermost depths of your being.  From your core self.  
        1. St. Thomas Aquinas in the Summa:  Consequently the freezing or hardening of the heart is a disposition incompatible with love: while melting denotes a softening of the heart, whereby the heart shows itself to be ready for the entrance of the beloved.“
      3. Love rejoices in the beloved 
      4. Love rejoices in the beloved -- Protestant Theologian R.H. Neibuhr writes in his 1977 book the Purpose of the Church and Its Ministry:  By love, we mean at least these attitudes and actions: rejoicing in the presence of the beloved, gratitude, reverence, and loyalty toward him.  p.35

„After a traumatic experience, the human system of self-preservation seems to go onto permanent alert, as if the danger might return at any moment.“  Judith Herman
  1. Brené Brown US writer and professor 1965 Source: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are  Staying vulnerable is a risk we have to take if we want to experience connection. 
  2. Misattributed to Sigmund Freud Out of your vulnerabilities will come your strength.
  3. Brady:  Love is the directive and dominant center of emotions.  p. 267
     
    1. Many emotions are associated with love
       
      1. Delight, Bliss, Happiness
    2.  
      1. A sense of fulfillment
    3.  
      1. Warmth
    4.  
      1. Grief
    5.  
      1. Sadness
    6.  
      1. Anxiety 

      1. Distress
    8.  

    1. If there is no emotion, there is no agape, no love.  The heart must be moved for love to be anything like complete.
  5.  
    1. We cannot love like a Vulcan, like Mr. Spock without emotion. 

„Even the most elevated psychological understanding is not a loving understanding.“ — Karl Jaspers German psychiatrist and philosopher 1883 - 1969
  1. Effects of trauma -- from episode 88, Trauma: Defining and Understanding the experience
     
    1. Emotional and Psychological effects
       
      1. Emotional overwhelm
    2.  
      1. Shock
    3.  
      1. Shame as an emotion
    4.  
      1. Guilt
    5.  
      1. Irritability, anger, rage
    6.  
      1. Anxiety, fear, panic attacks, phobia, panic attacks, Fears of trauma repeating
         
        1. Jenny Han, book Always and Forever, Lara Jean  Being vulnerable, letting people in, getting hurt… it's all part of being in love.
      2.  

      1. Sadness, depression
    8.  
      1. Mood swings
    9.  
      1. Hopelessness, despair
      2. Emotional constriction, shutting down
      3. Difficulty experiencing positive emotions
      4. Anhedonia
      5. Apathy
         
        1. Brady 273.  Love does not die because of hate but because of apathy.  


    1. Cognitive Effects -- impact on sensation, perceptive, higher-order thinking
       
      1. Alexithymia -- inability to recognize or describe one's own emotions -- can't put my feelings into words.  
        1. Can't conceptualize your feelings either
        2. Feelings in others could be overwhelming -- can't recognize what others are feeling
        3. Can't express my feelings well
        4. Can't connect affectively, emotionally.
           
          1. That takes vulnerability
        5.  

      1. Confusion, distraction
    3.  
      1. Spacing out with dissociation
    4.  

    1. Physical Effects of trauma -- preoccupation with the body
  4.  
    1. Behavioral Symptoms
       
      1. Relational apathy
    2.  
      1. Social withdrawal
    3.  

    1. Existential Symptoms
       
      1. Despair about humanity -- overgeneralized to the other person
    2.  
      1. Cynicism
    3.  
      1. Disillusionment
    4.  

    1. Identity issues -- shame.  
      1. I'm not worth you connecting emotionally with me
      2. What could I ever offer you emotionally?
      3. I'm such a downer. 
        1. Strong self-criticism 
      4. Fragmentation

  8. Love is affirming
     
    1. Love affirms the other
  9.  
    1. Love says yes to the other person at the same time as love says yes to oneself.  

    1. "Agape is the simple yet profound recognition of the worthiness of and goodness in persons."  p. 268
  11.  
    1. Edward Vacek:  Love is an affective, affirming participation in the goodness of a being (or Being).… Love is an emotional, affirming participation the dynamic tendency of an object to realize its fullness.”
  12.  
    1. Brene Brown -- Rising Strong  Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome. Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our greatest measure of courage.“
  13.  
    1. Affirmation happens at two levels
       
      1. One level is the basic level of human dignity shared by all persons.  

      1. Second level of affirmation is the uniqueness of the person.  
        1. When you love your neighbor you truly see the other as a person.  
        2. Jules Toner, SJ -- "I love you because you are you."

      1. We need to affirm at both levels.  The basic dignity of the person and the uniqueness of the person.
    4.  

    1. Affirmation implies acceptance of the other and knowledge of the other.    This is not an endorsement of the other's vices or bad habits, but a recognition of them and an acceptance of who the person is as an entire being.  Not picking and choosing the attractive bits.  
      1. Self-acceptance of the same things.

    1. Affirmation requires freedom -- freedom to get outside the self.  

    1. Effects of trauma
       
      1. Emotional and Psychological effects
         
        1. Turning inward -- self-protection. Connections vs. protection -- Episode 89
           
          1. Where is the safety?  

          1. How can I escape the danger?
        3.  
          1. Not letting anyone in to love me.  


        1. Feeling disconnected or numb or detached -- dorsal vagal response.  Freeze response.  Deer in the headlights Bodily response
           
          1. Emotional Constriction, Shutdown
        2.  

        1. Shame -- what is my affirmation of you worth?  I'm not worth much, my affirmation isn't worth much.
      4.  
        1. Feeling very fragile, vulnerable -- not resilient enough --  I can't engage
      5.  
        1. Irritability, hostility, 

        1. Depression -- lethargy
      7.  
        1. Mood swings -- unpredictability, others can't trust me.  

        1. Emotional detachment, disconnection -- in relationships
      9.  
        1. Helplessness
      10.  
        1. Difficulty experiencing positive emotions
      11.  
        1. How can I reach out?  White knuckling. Feels very forced. 


      1. Cognitive Effects -- impact on sensation, perceptive, higher-order thinking
         
        1. Racing thoughts -- so distracting, I can attend to you, I can't attune to you, I can't affirm you.  My house is on fire.  

        1. Extreme alertness - suspicion of you -- are you a threat?  Will you trigger me?  


      1. Physical Effects
    4.  
      1. Behavioral Symptoms
         
        1. Argumentative behavior
      2.  
        1. Social withdrawal and relational apathy. 

        1. Avoidance
      4.  

      1. Existential Symptoms
         
        1. Ruminating about evil in the world
      2.  

      1. Identity issues -- shame
         
        1. If I affirm you I will see myself in a bad light because of my shame
      2.  
        1. Affirmation involved a positive evaluation -- so tempting to see myself negatively.  


      1. Fragmentation 
        1. Lack of affirmation from the whole self
           
          1. Toner [Radical love] "is giving self; for it is myself who am in the loved one by my love, not merely by my possessions, or even my thoughts, my wit, my joy, my wisdom, my strength.  It is I myself."  

          1. Toner:  Loving someone in depth… Means loving from the lovers most personal self, with sincerity, intensity, endurance… To affectively affirm this unique person in a response informed by full, detailed knowledge, which catches the delicate shadings of his profoundest attitudes, moods, likes, and dislikes, ideals, fears, hopes, capabilities, weaknesses, etc.  The experience of love 160
        3.  


  18. Love is Responsive
     
    1. Love is an active response for the well-being of the other.  This is where Brady includes benevolence.  It's about participating in the promotion of the highest good for the other, potential for the other's full humanity.
       
      1. How can I help you to flourish?  How can I help you toward your highest good?
    2.  

    1. This is where self-sacrifice comes in.   love will call for self-sacrifice.  

    1. Responsiveness implies an attunement to the other -- a resonance, and understanding.  The capacity to respond well.  It's not just any responsiveness.  The ability to be aware of and to respond effectively to the needs of my neighbor.  So there is a capacity about this.  It's not just an act of the will.  
      1. Attunement can be described as a kind of resonance.  
        1. Toner:  Radical love is experience as being in accord with the loved one, vibrating as it were, in harmony with the beloved's act of being and so with the whole melody of the beloved's life.  It is a welcoming of the loved one into the lover's self and his life-world, as fitting there, making a harmony with the lover's being and life.  

    1. But there must also be action:  "Let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action."  ` John 3:18.
       
      1. Parents "Doing the best they can"
    2.  
      1. Love bottled up inside.  -- Not expressed.  Then it's not love.  Love that is not shared, that is not relational is not love.  


    1. Brene Brown:  Of all the things trauma takes away from us, the worst is our willingness, or even our ability, to be vulnerable. There's a reclaiming that has to happen.  Rising Strong 2015
       
      1. Madeleine L'Engle Walking on water (1980) When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability… To be alive is to be vulnerable.
    2.  
      1. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken.“ — Clive Staples Lewis, book The Four Loves
    3.  

    1. The Letter of James 2:45-17.   What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him? If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit?  So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.
       
      1. Responsive to needs
    2.  
      1. Not just physical needs, but the emotional needs, psychological needs, relational needs
    3.  

    1. St. Bernard of Clairvaux:  We must remember that love reveals itself, not by words or phrases, but by actions and experience.  It is Love with speaks here, and if anyone wished to understand it, let him first love.  

    1. Effects of trauma
       
      1. Emotional and Psychological effects
         
        1. Overwhelm
      2.  
        1. Shock
      3.  
        1. Shame
      4.  
        1. Irritability, anger, rage
      5.  
        1. Anxiety, fear, apprehension
      6.  
        1. Guilt
      7.  
        1. Sadness, depression, grief
      8.  
        1. Helplessness, despair
      9.  
        1. Mood swings -- swept away by our own experience
      10.  
        1. Anhedonia -- difficulty experiencing positive emotions.
      11.  
        1. Apathy
      12.  
        1. Protection vs. connection.  I'm on fire inside, I am frozen inside.  It's chaotic inside
           
          1. Intense self-preoccupation.  Not selfishness.  It's really hard to judge the moral quality of these things accurately.  

          1. When we are preoccupied with the intensity of our own experience, it's hard to be responsive to the other person.  




 
  1. Cognitive Effects -- impact on sensation, perceptive, higher-order thinking
     
    1. “When something reminds traumatized people of the past, their right brain reacts as if the traumatic event were happening in the present. But because their left brain is not working very well, they may not be aware that they are re-experiencing and reenacting the past - they are just furious, terrified, enraged, ashamed, or frozen.” 

― Bessel Van Der Kolk
  1. Difficulty concentrating, even focusing on the other person.  Confusion.  
    1. Others sense the disconnect.  Not attuned.   
  2. Guardedness -- protecting against vulnerability
  3. Questioning "Why me?" makes it hard to respond to you.  
 
  1. Physical Effects
  2. Behavioral Symptoms
     
    1. Startle responses
  3.  
    1. Argumentative behavior
    2. Social withdrawal and relational apathy. 
    3. Avoidance
    4. Reducing activity levels
  4. Existential Symptoms
     
    1. I am permanently damaged.  How could I ever be responsive in love.  Who would want me?
  5.  
    1. Can be unconscious.  

  7. Identity issues -- shame
     
    1. I am permanently damaged.  

    1. Fragmentation -- not a consistent, complete, unified response to the other -- partial responses that seem very incomplete, maybe insincere to the other person.  
      1. Love requires our whole being 
        1. Fr. Jules Toner:  in the full concrete experience of love, our whole being, spirit and flesh, is involved: cognitive acts, feelings and affections, freedom, bodily reactions – all these are influencing each other and all are continually fluctuating in such a way as to change the structure and intensity of the experience. The experience of love. P. 65
  9. Love is Unitive
     
    1. Brady:  The fruit of love is unity.  Love unites.  It is in the very nature of love to bring together.  p. 279
  10.  
    1. Brady:  When you love, you step out of yourself and experience the other.  
      1. There is still a separateness.  Not a blending or a fusion or a loss of identity.  But you are no longer just within yourself.  You've entered into the space of another.  
      2. And you've allow the other to enter into your space

    1. Loving an enemy -- you are like me.  We are similar on a fundamental human level -- No dehumanization.
  12.  
    1. Agape pulls for unity, even with strangers.  

    1. The mystics describe the unity we are called to in God -- Union with God.  

    1. Jules Toner: Radical love is not a tendency affection but a being affection by which I am in union with, am present with the loved one.  

    1. Effects of trauma -- Protection vs. Connection
       
      1. Emotional and Psychological effects
         
        1. Emotional instability, inconsistency -- unpredictability.  Makes it hard for the other to trust you.  

        1. Preoccupation pulls you inside -- guilt, shame -- self protection.
           
          1. St. Augustine:  "..if [a man] loves himself on his own account, he does not turn himself toward God, but being turned toward himself, he does not care for anything immutable…."  On Christian Doctrine, Book 1, Chapter 22
        2.  
          1. And the why doesn't matter nearly so much as people think it does.  

          1. Evil comes from loving some good thing inordinately -- blog post on this -- check it out.  Dangerous love, from June 22, 2022
             
            1. That good thing might be the means that parts of us are seeking to try to provide us with a sense of safety and security.  



        1. Fear of vulnerability
           
          1. When trust is lost, traumatized people feel that they belong more to the dead than to the living.“ — Judith Herman Trauma and Recovery
        2.  
          1. Love is a battlefield  -Pat Benatar 1983 -- music video about all the conflict with her father, and with others seeking to use her as a sexual object.  


        1. Fear of overwhelming suffering
      5.  
        1. Shutdown
      6.  
        1. Alexithymia
      7.  

      1. Cognitive Effects -- impact on sensation, perceptive, higher-order thinking
         
        1. Distraction, rumination, racing thoughts interfere with capacity to attune, to unite
      2.  
        1. So much internal stimulation -- so much internal noise -- makes it difficult to resonate with the other person, to really understand the other -- to enter into the other's phenomenological world.  

        1. So much of that distraction is around finding safety and protection -- cognitive restlessness
      4.  
        1. Dissociation and disconnections are experienced as off-putting.  Have you ever been with someone who is spacing out when you are talking with them?
      5.  

      1. Physical Effects
    4.  
      1. Behavioral Symptoms
         
        1. Blaming
      2.  
        1. Discharging anger and aggression -- parts so want to be heard and healed.  
          1. Desperation can lead to boundary crossings and boundary violations.  
          2. Attempts to use the other person to meet intense needs -- not a conscious effort to exploit the other, but exploitation can happen anyway.  


      1. Existential Symptoms
         
        1. Shame -- feeling unworthy of connection
      2.  
        1. Not knowing who I am -- makes it really complicated to be in relationship.  


      1. Identity issues
         
        1. Fragmentation - which part of me is uniting with you right now? What are other parts doing.  

        1. The need for disconnects within in order to not be overwhelmed - inevitably leads to disconnects with other people
           
          1. You can't give what you don't have.  


        1. I'm not lovable, why would you want to be united with me?
      4.  
        1. Dissociation
           
          1. Identity alteration: The sense of being markedly different from another part of yourself
        2.  
          1. Identity confusion: A sense of confusion about who you really are
        3.  



we will have a lot more to say about dissociation in future episodes, but for now -- disconnection. 
  1. I need to know who I am and I need to know who you are to know who we are together, in relationship.
 
  1. Love is steadfast
     
    1. God's love endures.  
      1. Psalm 891-2  I will sing of thy steadfast love, O Lord,[a] for ever;

    with my mouth I will proclaim thy faithfulness to all generations.
For thy steadfast love was established for ever,
 
  1. It may not always be mutual or reciprocal
  2. People want predictability
  3. Steadfastness requires resilience, to roll with the punches in the relationship.  Any close relationship will have conflicts and difficulties. 
    1. The fragility in the system that trauma imposes is a real obstacle to resilience necessary to be steadfast in relationship, to not quit and walk away from loving the other person.  
  4. Jules Toner:  "The lover is present to the loved one and has the loved one present to himself."   The experience of love, 117
  5. Effects of trauma
     
    1. Emotional and Psychological effects
       
      1. Mood swings -- effect of different parts, each with its own intense emotions
    2.  
      1. Helplessness -- despair -- can be intermittent
    3.  
      1. Emotional shutdown -- dorsal vagal response.  

      1. Being reactivated or triggered emotionally.
    5.  
      1. Disappointment in the other -- you are not helping me
         
        1. Can lead to frustration and rejection.  



    1. Cognitive Effects -- impact on sensation, perceptive, higher-order thinking
       
      1. Intrusive thoughts, intrusive memories.  

      1. Dissociation is a mental process of disconnecting from one’s thoughts, feelings, body, from memories or sense of identity. This disconnection is automatic and completely out of the person's control.
         
        1. Amnesia: Often described as "gaps" in memory that can range from minutes to years
      2.  
        1. Depersonalization: Feeling disconnected from your body or thoughts
      3.  
        1. Derealization: Feeling disconnected from the world around you
      4.  


    1. Physical Effects
       
      1. Impact of hyperarousal
    2.  
      1. Impact of hypoarousal
    3.  

    1. Behavioral Symptoms
       
      1. Withdrawal
    2.  
      1. Avoidance -- refusal of consistent vulnerability
    3.  
      1. Alcohol and drug use
    4.  

„For me, vulnerability led to anxiety, which led to shame, which led to disconnection, which led to Bud Light.“ — Brené Brown US writer and professor 1965 Source: Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
 
  1. Switching among parts
  2. Existential Symptoms
     
    1. Deep sense of not being loved, not being lovable
  3.  
    1. There is no love in the world.  At least not for me.  So why unite with anyone. 

    1. Loss of meaning and purpose. 

  6. Identity issues
     
    1. Fragmentation
  7.  
    1. Unstable identity makes it hard to be consistent in the loving
  8.  
  9. The death of love
     
    1. Brady 273.  Love does not die because of hate but because of apathy.  The death of love is often preceded by the denial of the basic dignity of the other.  The death of love happens when we reject instead of affirm the other's special personal and unique goodness.  The death of love is encouraged when we ignore the other's needs and wants while prioritizing our own wants.  The deal of love occurs when we pursue discord, division, disassociation, and distance in the place of unity.  
      1. That is sin.  
      2. Malice is not necessary for love to die.  Apathy doesn't have malice in it. In apathy, the other does not register in your consciousness.  He or she doesn't matter. He or she doesn't exist for you.  
      3. We don't have to active deny the basic dignity of the other.  We just have to not notice it.  Not attend to it
      4. We don't have to actively reject the other's special and unique goodness, we just have to not notice it, not attend to it.  
      5. We don't have to actively ignore the other's needs and wants -- we just have to be preoccupied with our own trauma and its effects.  

 
  1. Hope
     
    1. Romans 8:28 We know that in everything God works for good[a] with those who love him,[b] who are called according to his purpose. 

    1. Julian of Norwich:  And because of the tender love which our good Lord has for all who will be saved, he comforts readily and sweetly, meaning this: it is true that sin is the cause of all this pain, but all will be well, and every kind of thing will be well.
  3.  
    1. Widow's mite
       
      1. Luke 21:1-4  He looked up and saw rich people putting their gifts into the treasury; 2 he also saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. 3 He said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them; 4 for all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on.”
    2.  
      1. Ratios
    3.  

    1. Martin Luther King:  Love even for enemies is the key to the solution of the problems of the world.  Strength to Love 47-48
  5.  
    1. Psychologist Peter Levine:  Trauma is hell on earth. Trauma resolved is a gift from the gods.
  6.  
    1. Romans 5:20 ..where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,
  7.  
    1. 1 John 3:1  See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 

    1. Romans 8 35-39  Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
  9.  
  10. Call to Action
     
    1. Kent Keith The Paradoxical Commandments -- Resilience.  Mother Theresa had pinned this up in one of her convents.  

 
People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
   Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
   Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
   Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
   Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
   Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
   Give the world the best you have anyway. 
 
  1. Where we are going
     
    1. If you want to love, you have to first be loved and know you are loved.  
      1. Tolerating being loved -- many people assume that we just want to be loved -- that's not anything like entirely accurate. 
      2. 1 John 4:19 We love, because he first loved us.

    1. Ordered self love.   

  4. Check out our blogs -- weekly email reflections  
    1. June 15 -- Seven ways to understand sin
    Sin as breaking the law
    Sin as a burden
    Sin as a debt
    Sin as “missing the mark”
    Sin as a violating your conscience
    Sin as breaking or harming relationships
    Sin as the failure to love, or the “anti-love”
  1. June 22  Dangerous Love -- we really get into St. Augustine's description of sin as a disordered or misdirected love, and I share how when we that misdirected love is oriented toward getting our attachment needs met, it's not only misdirected love, it's a dangerous love.  
  2. June 29 Conflicting loves inside you -- we get into how to understand the conflicting loves inside of us -- from a parts perspective -- multiplicity and unity of the self.  
  3. Email me crisis@soulsandhearts.com  -- call my cell 317.567.9594 any Tuesday or Thursday from 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM Eastern time for conversation hours.  
  4. Let others know about this podcast.  Put the word out.  There's somebody you know dealing with trauma -- get them on board with the rest of us with the IIC podcast.  All the major podcast player -- Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Audible, Podbean, Podchaser, CastBox, Overcast, Podcast Addict, all of them, we're on all of them.  Soulsandhearts.com/iic
  5. You have until July 10.  The RCC -- Come with me on an adventure.  Come with me on an adventure of being loved and of loving.  That is what the Resilient Catholic Community is all about.  Check out the Resilient Catholics Community at soulsandhearts.com/RCC  The RCC is all about working through your human formation issues -- the ones that inhibit you from receiving the love you need and from loving God completely, with every fiber of your being, with your body,  with all your parts, with all your emotions, thoughts, all your inner experience with all of you, with no part of you left behind, no part of you left out.  
    1. It's all about learning to be gentle but firm with yourself -- it's all about integration.  It's all about resilience.  
    2. All about restoration -- recovering from being dominated by shame, fear, anger, sadness, pessimism, whatever your struggle is in the depths of your human formation
    3. And we do this work experientially -- so many experiential exercises -- this is not just intellectual knowledge, we're working with all of you.
       
      1. Informed by Internal Family Systems and the best of the rest of psychological and human formation resources
    4.  
      1. All grounded in a Catholic understanding of the human person
    5.  
      1. All focused on helping you to better accept love and to love more fully, to carry out the two great commandments of our Lord.  

    7. Are you up for the challenge?  Would you like to join me and the rest of the pioneers in this adventure?  Do you want to be a part of the community?  
      1. Are you ready to prevail over whatever hinders your human formation -- would you like to no longer be dominated by fear, anger, shame, sadness, pessimism?  And would you like to be with other like-minded Catholics on the journey --
      2. If so join me.  Join all of us in the Resilient Catholics Community.  The RCC
    8. We are taking applications throughout until July 10 -- extended the deadline.   for our third cohort, those in that cohort will start their adventure in June and July by taking our Initial Measures Kits and be getting feedback on their parts in a personal Zoom session with me.  It's a great chance for us to get to know each other, really know each other at the level of parts.  You'll get a 5 or 6 page report on your internal system and then be eligible for our weekly company meetings and programming to begin in late August or early September.  
    9. Talk with me about it in conversation hours call my cell 317.567.9594 any Tuesday or Thursday from 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM Eastern time for conversation hours.  
  6. Patroness and Patron
 
 

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.