Interior Integration for Catholics

Through a dramatic representation, quotes, and examples, I walk you through how six dimensions of what it means for you to love yourself and others. By bringing in the pioneering work of IFS therapist Derek Scott, we will explore how different parts within you respond to grief and loss in so many different ways.

Show Notes

  1. Through a dramatic representation, quotes, and examples, I walk you through how six dimensions of what it means for you to love yourself and others.  By bringing in the pioneering work of IFS therapist Derek Scott, we will explore how different parts within you respond to grief and loss in so many different ways.  
  2. Lead in:
     
    1. Lead-in Intro
  3.  
    1. Letter
  4.  
    1. Ron's reactions
  5.  
  6. Intro
     
    1. We are together in this great adventure, this podcast, Interior Integration for Catholics, we are journeying together, and I am honored to be able to spend this time with you.  

    1. I am Dr. Peter Malinoski, clinical psychologist and passionate Catholic and together, we are taking on the tough topics that matter to you.  

    1. We bring the best of psychology and human formation and harmonize it with the perennial truths of the Catholic Faith.   

    1. 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
  10.  
    1. Today's episode, number 82 is entitled "The Many Faces of Grief Inside Us  and it's released on August 23, 2021
  11.  
    1. Heard a reenacted story about Ronald and Vivian Meerkamp, and I’ll be using that clip throughout todays episode to add depth and examples to the concepts 

    1. In the last episode, Episode 81, we broached There is so much misinformation out there about grief.  So many myths, so many misconceptions to clear up.  Why is that?  We're going to answer that question with the professional research, the best of psychological theory, with Scripture, with poetry, with examples and with quotes to help you understand the experience of grief -- your grief and the grief of others.  

    1. Why should we learn about grief?  Earl Grollman sums it up like this:
       
      1. Grief is not a disorder, a disease or a sign of weakness. It is an emotional, physical and spiritual necessity, the price you pay for love. The only cure for grief is to grieve.
    2.  
      1. If we love, we will grieve.  Part of loving well is grieving well.  

      1. If we flee from grief, we will also flee from love.    You can't love without eventually grieving
    4.  

  15. Last episode, I mentioned how our understanding of grief can be limited by assuming we have a single, homogenous monolithic personality. Today I'm going to share with you a much deeper and richer way to understand grief.
     
    1. From Episode 72 What Keeps You from Loving?  Is it Really Only Your Vices?  Discussion of Dimensions of Understanding Others or Ourselves.  -- We will get into that more today.  
      1. 0 Dimensions -- single point in space -- geometry, no dimensionality.  Personalizing it -- you are nothing to me.  
        1. No separate identity, not even really human, invisible -- the person doesn't exist for you.  
          1. “Love is not cold and what is cold is not love.” ― Marty Rubin 
          2. “Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all -- the apathy of human beings.”― Helen Keller 
          3. “Indifference is more truly the opposite of love than hate is, for we can both love and hate the same person at the same time, but we cannot both love and be indifferent to the same person at the same time.” ― Peter Kreeft, Prayer For Beginners 
        2. Examples:
           
          1. Emotional detachment:  Ron -- fear of loss.  


 
  1. 1 Dimension -- line 
    1.  Only one quality -- very self-referential, the person in orbit around me and my needs.  
    2. Often only a functional dimension, or not meeting a function
       
      1. “That politicians
    3.  
who smiled at us and kissed our babies
blue eyes shining with triumph
well knew we were falling
into our graves
kicked by them
as they counted
our votes.”
― Alice Walker, Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart 
  1. “What we do see depends mainly on what we look for. ... In the same field the farmer will notice the crop, the geologists the fossils, botanists the flowers, artists the colouring, sportsmen the cover for the game. Though we may all look at the same things, it does not all follow that we should see them.” ― John Lubbock, The Beauties of Nature and the Wonders of the World We Live in 
  2. For Vivian:  In her pain and loneliness, part of her takes over reduces Ron to one dimension:  cold, distant, ignores me -- reduces Ron to one dimension -- in order to protect herself from him.  
  3. For Ron blended with his angry part who is protecting him from agonizing pain from abandonment:  Vivian is a Betrayer -- She betrayed me, she is a traitor, a backstabber, she hurts me.  
  4. Still very personalized, very self-referential
  5. 2 Dimensions -- plane -- starts to be a little Less personal, less self-referential
     
    1. Cardboard Cutout-- person has a shape, not well understood.  

    1. Ron ignores me and is self absorbed.  But it's because of his job.  He shuts down emotions because of what he sees as a detective
       
      1. “It is a well-worn truth that cops grow callous, a cliché so tattered that it is even common on television. All cops face things every day that are so gruesome, brutal, and bizarre that no normal human being could deal with them on a daily basis and stay sane. And so they learn not to feel, to grow and maintain a poker-faced whimsy toward all the surprising things their fellow humans find to do to each other. All cops practice not-feeling, and it may be that Miami cops are better at it than others, since they have so many opportunities to learn.”  Jeff Lindsay, Dexter is Delicious
    2.  

    1. Vivian is a betrayer and a traitor.  But she's misguided -- she's reacting out of ignorance and emotion and because she doesn't understand me. 

  9. 3 Dimensions -- taking into account much more of the person, providing a more complete snapshot of a moment in time
     
    1. Person has
       
      1. A whole internal world
    2.  
      1. Many dimensions
    3.  
      1. Many competing values at one time.
    4.  
      1. Needs -- attachment needs and integrity needs
    5.  
      1. Emotions
    6.  
      1. Belief.  

      1. Thought
    8.  
      1. Intentions 

      1. Desires
    10.  
      1. Attitudes
    11.  
      1. Impulses.
    12.  
      1. relationships
    13.  
      1. Maybe even multiple points of view inside at the same time.  
        1. With conflicts and polarizations inside --


    1. Vivian is betraying me and harming me and she's misguided, reacting out of ignorance and emotion, but she also really loves our kids.  And she's good at her job. 
    2. Vivian has mixed reactions to me.  
  11. 4 Dimensions -- out of basic geometry now and into physics.  The four dimension is physics assesses an object's position in time.  Analogy to a person's position in time.  
    1. Dynamism of the person in time.
       
      1. She can be one way in one moment and another way in another moment
    2.  
      1. Realization of an experiential history -- that informs how she has come to be who she is now
    3.  
    4. Vivian has been miserable for a long time.  This has been building up.
    5. Vivian reacts to me differently at different times.  
    6. The future for us might not look like it does right now.  
    7. Ron ignores me and he is self-absorbed because of his job.  But he has choses his job over me.  He's afraid he's too damaged to do any other kind of work.  He's locked in.  
  12. 5th Dimension --  dimension unseen by humans where the forces of gravity and electromagnetism unite in an elegant and powerful theory of the fundamental forces
     
    1. Like a shift from black and white to color -- like in the Wizard of OZ
  13.  
    1.  Understanding the other person in terms of self and parts -- unity and multiplicity
       
      1. Part of her is miserable -- part of her wants to stay in relationship
    2.  

    1. If you really love someone, you love all of them, all of their parts.  Not just the parts of them that you like, that you find gratifying or useful, that float your boat for one reason or another.\
  15.  
    1. You don't pick and choose -- oooo, this is an appealing bit of you, I like it that you compliment me and make me feel good, I'll take that in and love that, but parts of you carrying grief, your pain your loss  -- no time for that.  You just keep that to yourself.  

    1. Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches “I find I am constantly being encouraged to pluck out some one aspect of myself and present this as the meaningful whole, eclipsing or denying the other parts of self.”
  17.  
  18. 6th Dimension -- no longer in just the natural world.  
    1. Seeing him as a beloved Child of God through the eyes of Faith, as God sees him.  
    2. Fearfully and wonderfully made, bearing God's image and likeness.  
    3. Intrinsically good, ontologically good, good in her essence.  
    4. Requires supernatural grace
    5. Three Dimensional Chess
  19. What we covered last time in Episode 81 Grieving is the Price We Pay for Loving
  20. Introduction to Derek Scott
     
    1. Derek Scott is a registered Social Worker with 35 years of experience and certified IFS therapist with an online practice based near Toronto, Canada. 

    1. He is the founder of Internal Family Systems Counselling Association, IFSCA, an organization dedicated to bringing awareness of the IFS model to counselors and therapists in Canada and internationally. 
      1. Stepping Stone: 16 week Comprehensive IFS course --  I  recommend that as a great option, especially for those who can't get in to IFS Level 1 training.  

    1. Number of publications in the area of grief and Internal Family Systems.
  23.  
    1. And he is no stranger to grief in his own life, so he can speak from experience.  

    1. Relying heavily on his article Grief and IFS: Mapping the Terrain 

  26. What happens to parts when we experience grief?
     
    1. The experiences I'm about to describe are not the parts themselves. 
      1. Definition of a part --  Separate, independently operating personalities within us, each with own unique prominent needs, roles in our lives, emotions, body sensations, guiding beliefs and assumptions, typical thoughts, intentions, desires, attitudes, impulses, interpersonal style, and world view.  Each part also has an image of God and also its own understanding of self.  
      2. More than just one factor 
        1. More than just one emotion, more than just one desire or impulse 
        2. Rather -- a whole constellation of these qualities that endure over time, even if the part is not in conscious awareness in the moment.  
      3. Like the characters inside of Riley in the Pixar moving "Inside Out"
         
        1. The red anger character also had a full personality -- he was not just an angry mood -- he had beliefs, assumptions, intentions, desires, thoughts, impulses and an interpersonal style that were characteristically and uniquely his own.  


    1. Managers who present with
       
      1. disbelief 

      1. numbness 

      1. Depression
    4.  
      1. Guilt 

      1. Spiritual bypassing

    1. Exiles who present with
       
      1. Sadness
    2.  
      1. Missing/yearning 

      1. Protest (anger)
    4.  
      1. guilt 

      1. powerlessness/despair/resignation
    6.  
      1. Shame

  30. Common Exiles and Affect-laden parts
     
    1. Derek Scott:  When I am talking about exiles here I am not assuming that there is a part that is “only” sad or
  31.  
guilty etc, but that the part leads with that feeling.
  1. Remember, parts are like complete personalities --many dimensions
  2. Some dimensions are more prominent than others.  
  3. Definition of Exiles
     
    1. most sensitive -- these exiles have been exploited, rejected, abandoned in external relationships
  4.  
    1. They have suffered relational traumas or attachment injuries
  5.  
    1. They hold the painful experiences that have been isolated from conscious awareness to protect the person from being overwhelmed with the intensity.
  6.  
    1. They desperately want to be seen and known, to be safe and secure, to be comforted and soothed, to be cared for and loved
  7.  
    1. They want rescue, redemption, healing
  8.  
    1. And in the intensity of their needs and emotions, they threaten to take over and destabilize the person's whole being, the person's whole system
  9.  
    1. And they threaten to harm external relationships
  10.  
    1. Burdens they carry:  Shame, dependency, worthlessness, Fear/Terror, Grief/Loss, Loneliness, Neediness, Pain, lack of meaning or purpose, a sense of being unloved and unlovable, inadequate, abandoned, 

  12. Examples of what exiles carry in grief.  
    1. Sadness  -- parts that carry unresolved sadness from childhood. 
      1. parents dismiss or minimize the experience of losing a pet, or moving house, or changing
school, divorce etc, parts that experience the distress become exiled
  1. protectors may mimic the parental injunctions to ignore the agitation in the system.
  2. I had sadness for breakfast.  Andy Milonakis
  3. Vivian
  4. Ron -- Sadness -- expressed behaviorally, crying, not feeling.  Body reactions.  
  5. Missing/yearning -- Just want what has been lost to come back
     
    1. Parts under six years of age don't recognize the permanence of loss -- why can't I have it back?
  6.  
    1. Example of blend with a missing/yearning part:  
      1. Virginia Woolf  To the Lighthouse:  “To want and not to have, sent all up her body a hardness, a hollowness, a strain. And then to want and not to have- to want and want- how that wrung the heart, and wrung it again and again!

    1. Feeling of emptiness, incompleteness -- a void within.  

    1. Fernando Pessoa, The Education of the Stoic  -- example of what can happen when an exile floods with a sensation of a void:  “At first I felt dizzy - not with the kind of dizziness that makes the body reel but the kind that's like a dead emptiness in the brain, an instinctive awareness of the void.”
  9.  
    1. Viviaxxxn -- familiar -- yearning for companionship -- 
      1. Trying to tell herself that Ron wasn't capable, no capacity, too damaged to fill her yearning.  
      2. Replacement for God.  

  11. Protest (anger)
     
    1. Reaction to perceived injustice.  This is not right!
  12.  
    1. May be deemed unacceptable and displaced to a safer person or to a situation.
       
      1. e.g. anger toward the deceased
    2.  
      1. Anger toward someone I need and fear
    3.  
      1. Women may be more likely to be socialized into rejecting their own anger -- good girls, or not wanted to be seen as scolds or shrews or bitches
    4.  
    5. “The anger welled inside me, with nowhere to go. I could feel it eating away at me. I knew if I didn't find a way to release it, it would destroy me.”
― Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, Sublimes creatures 
  1. Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Ange l“There was something peculiarly gratifying about shouting in a blind rage until your words ran out. Of course, the aftermath was less pleasant. Once you'd told everyone you hated them and not to come after you, where exactly did you go?”
  2. Guilt  
    1. Goes back to childhood:  
      1. Children’s guilt can be so huge in relation to the crime (“I stole my brother’s candy bar and blamed the dog”)
      2. Peeing outside
    2. “I've got a bad case of the 3:00 am guilts - you know, when you lie in bed awake and replay all those things you didn't do right? Because, as we all know, nothing solves insomnia like a nice warm glass of regret, depression and self-loathing.”
― D.D. Barant, Dying Bites 
  1. powerlessness/despair/resignation
     
    1. parts recognise that we are powerless to change the reality of attaching and losing and that
  2.  
loss is certain and inevitable -- heavy burden, other parts not able to handle that
  1. Fantasies of omnipotence -- service of feeling safe and secure.  
  2. Now what?
  3. “I had the feeling deep in my gut that there'd been lines I should have spoken, gestures I should have made, that would have made things better. But looking back, I didn't know what they were. As a friend, I was pretty much useless, apparently.”
― Megan Crewe, Give Up the Ghost 
  1. Shame
     
    1. Episodes 37-49 -- long series on shame 

    1. Shame is:  a primary emotion, a bodily reaction, a signal,  a judgement, and an action.  

    1. Deep sense of fundamental inadequacy, irreparable brokenness, unhealable woundedness, intrinsic badness, fundamental unworthiness.
  4.  
    1. Differs from guilt.  Guilt:  I did something bad.  Shame.  I am bad. 

  6. Managers Present First -- disbelieving and numbing
     
    1. These are the proactive protector parts.  They work strategically, with forethought and planning to keep in control of situations and relationships to minimize the likelihood of you being hurt.  They work really hard to keep you safe.
  7.  
    1. Disbelieving  Managers
       
      1. What they say:  "This can't have happened"  or "This can't be happening."  
        1. Computer crashing -- the blue screen of death -- goes all the way back to Windows 1.0 in 1985.
           
          1.  indicates a system crash, in which the operating system has reached a critical condition where it can no longer operate 
            1. hardware failure or a unexpected termination of a crucial process.  

          1. Hours of work lost 


      1. Their Role, their function
         
        1. Derek Scott:  Disbelieving managers may take the lead as the other parts of the system impacted by the loss are afforded time to adjust to the new reality. It is as if the sad, yearning, guilty and protesting parts sit behind the protectors that allow the information to be gradually filtered to them.
      2.  
        1. Example of Ron:  He could function that evening, make himself dinner, finish a report on an investigation, carry on at work the next day.   

        1. Colloquial phrase:  It hasn't hit him yet.
      4.  
        1. Replay the clip of Ron's disbelief

    4. Numbing Managers
       
      1. What they say:  They don't say anything, really.  

      1. they don’t let you feel anything in conscious awareness.
    6.  
      1. Survival mechanism.  So you can deal with daily tasks.  

      1. Can last a long time.  

      1. Never a perfect barrier though -- it gets pierced by what Therese Rando calls STUGs Sudden, Temporary Upsurges of grief
         
        1. Those are the rejected exiles who bear grief breaking through and flooding with the intensity of their suffering.  


    10. Depressed Managers
       
      1. Reactive depressed mood is a part of grief
         
        1. Attempt to titrate the grief.  Fighting fire with fire, fighting the intense depression with more manageable depression.  

        1. Still holding the exiles that bear the intensity of grief at bay.  


    12. Guilt carrying managers
       
      1. reflect on the “bad” things they said and did in the relationship. 

      1. The manager protector’s voice telling us we “should” have done more, “should have been a better 

spouse/friend/kid 
  1. These are the parts experiencing guilt but also defending against exiles with huge guilt going back to childhood.   
  2. Guilty parts stating that they didn't do enough or weren't present enough in the relationship may
be unaware of the demands that other parts make on the system.
  1. Spiritual Bypassing Managers -- common in serious, practicing Catholics
     
    1. Spiritual Bypassing:  John Welwood 1984  "tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks."  
      1. Spiritual bypassing is a term I coined to describe a process I saw happening in the Buddhist community I was in, and also in myself. Although most of us were sincerely trying to work on ourselves, I noticed a widespread tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks.

    1. Examples
       
      1. Death of a loved one:  External focus:  He's in a better place.  He's in heaven now.  See this all the time at Catholic funerals, a de factor canonizations at the eulogies.  

      1. Vivian:  God will take care of Ron now, there's nothing more I can do.  We'll just focus on the positive, the good times we had.  When I feel bad about how it worked out, I'll just pray the sadness away.  

      1. Ron.  When God closes a door, he opens a window.  He likely has a better woman for me in the future.  And he'll punish Vivian for what she's done.  Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.  She'll get what she deserves from him.  

  3. Manager Actions -- Straight from Derek Scott's article Grief and IFS: Mapping the Terrain
     
    1. Postponing – agreeing that there is griefwork to be done but “later”. When asked to be specific about “when” these parts become evasive or propose a future time that subsequently is not used for doing the work
  4.  
    1. Displacing – as mentioned earlier with regard to anger, the emotional responses connected to parts grieving the loss are displaced onto other targets; being sad about a movie, angry about poor service in a restaurant etc.
    2. Replacing – reinvesting too quickly after a significant loss, often a strategy in reproductive loss and loss of an animal companion
    3. Minimizing – cognitively diluting the experience of parts with big feelings by framing the relationship as one that “wasn't really that close”
    4. Avoiding – not going to the gravesite or talking about the loss. Removing pictures and not going to places that will evoke memories of the deceased and activate the exiled parts
    5. Somaticizing – bringing physical distress into the system (migraines, gastrointestinal distress, sleep disturbances) to distract from or channel the emotional responses of exiled parts  Particularly, when we're little if the grief is not supported, then it goes into the body.
    6. Shaming – particularly present in disenfranchised grief, shaming protectors will reinforce the social belief about the loss being one that the person is not “entitled” to grieve. Miscarriage, loss of a child who is a rapist, death of a spouse to AIDS; these are examples of losses that may carry a stigma or be trivialized by the broader community
  5. Firefighters
     
    1. Definition
       
      1. When exiles break through and threaten to take over the system, like in Inside Out, remember the parts and the control panel?  So when these exiles are about the break out, the firefighters leap into action.
    2.  
      1. It's an emergency situation, a crisis, like a fire raging in a house.
    3.  
      1. No concern for niceties, for propriety, for etiquette, for little details like that.  

      1. Firefighter take bold, drastic actions to stifle, numb or distract from the intensity of the exile's experiences.  

      1. Intense neediness and grief are overwhelming us!  Emergency actions -- battle stations!   Evasive maneuvers, Arm the torpedoes, Full speed ahead!
    6.  
      1. No concern for consequences -- don't you get it, we are in a crisis
    7.  
      1. Parts can take over the person
    8.  

    1. Firefighter behaviors
       
      1. Drinking, using drugs
    2.  
      1. Raging
    3.  
      1. Watching TV, videos, binging on Netflix
    4.  
      1. Food bingeing -- chocolate for me.  Losses or grief about relationships -- Grace in the Poor Clare monastery.  

      1. Sex bingeing
    6.  
      1. Overworking
    7.  

    1. Identity Issues -- the disruption caused by not knowing who I am may open the door to behaviors previously prohibited by managers.  

    1. New firefighter activities.  

 
 
 
  1. Adapted Dual Process Model of Bereavement
     
    1. Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut originally the DPM in 1999 Death Studies article called The dual process model of coping with bereavement: rationale and description
  2.  
    1. Derek Scott adapted this model 
      1. two clusters of parts
         
        1. one cluster is oriented towards the loss -- those are the parts we've been discussing so far 
          1. Focus on experiencing grief
          2. Focus on continuing relationship bonds
          3. Distraction from restoration
          4. Avoidance of restoration

        1. the other cluster towards restoration
           
          1. dealing with the new complexities in life for the bereaved that are occasioned by the loss
        2.  
          1. Readjusting to the new reality -- conforms to Elisabeth Kubler Ross' stage of acceptance and Colin Parkes' phase of reorganization and recovery
        3.  
          1. Activities
             
            1. Attending to live changes
          2.  
            1. New roles, new relationships
          3.  
            1. Distraction from grief
          4.  
            1. Avoidance of grief
          5.  


      4. The dual process model of coping with bereavement (DPM) identifies (from an IFS perspective) contends that these two models (clusters) oscillate as the mourning proceeds.
         
        1. the grieving individual at times confronts, at other times avoids, the different tasks of grieving. 

        1. This model proposes that adaptive coping is composed of confrontation--avoidance of loss and restoration stressors. It also argues the need for dosage of grieving, that is, the need to take respite from dealing with either of these stressors, as an integral part of adaptive coping.
      6.  
      7. This oscillation is very familiar to the IFS therapist as affect-laden parts may occupy the attention of the client, then pragmatic protectors may hold the floor to afford a break from the intensity of the other parts.
      8. The dance between the loss-oriented cluster of parts and the restoration oriented cluster of parts tends to be initially weighted towards the loss. Over time the restoration cluster of parts will become more prominent as the client lives into what may be considered to be the "new normal".

  4. Compassion Heals: An IFS perspective on Bereavement -- From Derek Scott.  
    1. Compassion heals. Bringing compassion to another invites their compassion for their own parts
    2.  The more significant the loss, the more profound the disruption to the system
    3. The system responses to the loss may be manager led, firefighter driven or characterized by erupting exiles
    4. The protective system may be in disarray and unable to function normally; resulting in the client feeling particularly vulnerable
    5. The protective system may become entrenched because of the perceived threat from or to the exiles
    6.  Present loss experiences may trigger parts connected to former loss events seeking healing
    7.  Unburdening parts in the loss cluster will facilitate healing and greater resiliency in terms of subsequent losses
  5. Advantages of IFS-informed understandings of grief
     
    1. Last episode, we looked at the stage and phase models of grief trajectories
       
      1. Elisabeth Kubler Ross' five stages of grief DABDA -- denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.
    2.  
      1. Colin Parkes' model Shock and numbness, yearning and searching, disorganization and despair, reorganization and recovery
      2. How the empirical trajectory of grief didn't support a linear progression through the stages or phases
      3. Still valuable in describing experiences at a moment in time
      4. The myth of the unified, homogenous, monolithic personality really compromises our ability to understand grief.  
        1. Identity Issues -- not as often address
           
          1. Low self-esteem
        2.  
          1. Who am I now, that I am no longer married?  I am a widower
        3.  

    1. But now, understanding the person in terms of a core self and in parts, both a multiplicity but also a unity.  

    1. And why, again?  Why are we doing this?  In order to increase our capacity to love.  That's why.  

  9. Final thought from Derek Scott  --  Grief has its own timetable. There is a lot of wisdom in the system regarding when to allow access to affect-laden parts. There are, of course, frustrated, impatient parts that want it to be "over" so that the system can return to normal functioning. There may also be postponing managers (see "complicated grief”). Respecting protective parts saying, "We're not going there now" and asking them about their concerns, as well as when would be a good time to "go there "and what would need to change to allow access provides us with an understanding of how to best work with the system.
     
    1. Being patient
  10.  
    1. Accepting all parts as they are, where they are.  That does not mean we endorse all of their impulses or desires.  Check out Episode 66  Acceptance vs. Endorsement: A Critical Difference in Catholic Marriages.  

    1. Lots of gratitude for Derek Scott's work on IFS and Grief.  

  13. I am going to try something really new in the next episode.  In this episode and the last episode, I've brought you a lot of conceptual information, psychoeducation, all the intellectual material.  That's great for nourishing our conceptual and analytical parts, for feeding our minds.  
    1. But next week you will have the possibility to go deeper, not just in the abstract realm, not just in your conceptual zone -- but taking it down deeper inside you.  
    2. We will do an exploratory, experiential exercise, all about your personal grief.  
      1. We've all had losses.  We've all had the experience of grief
      2. We all have things to work through.  
    3. So we're going to put all of this information to work in our own human formation, in our own interior integration.  All voluntary -- we'll be working with our parts to make sure we have their buy-in, their consent.  So I invite you to that, we will see how it goes!
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      1. Let me know what you like and don't like podcast -- including these dramatic interpretation -- like I gotta know was this opening lead-in dramatization cringey?  A part of me really wants to know.  It thinks it was cringey.  But it's not about putting together great performances, it's about illustrating the points.  Did that happen?  Let me know.  317.567.9594 or crisis@soulsandhearts.com
      2. Let me know what you need and don't need in this podcast

    1. Catholic Mental Health professionals -- work with  me in the Interior Therapist Community at Souls and Hearts -- find out how you can join one of my therapist groups, which are starting in September, They are all about working on your human formation, informed by Internal Family Systems and grounded in the Catholic Faith.  Find all the details at soulsandhearts.com/itc.  Email me with questions at crisis@soulsandhearts.com or call me on my cell at 317.567.9594 to find out how we can work together!
  17.  
    1. Pray for me and for the other listeners
  18.  
  19. Patroness and Patron
  20. IIC 81A Finding the Exiled Grief.  
  21. IIC 81T Exercise with Discovering Grieving Parts
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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.