Dear Souls & Hearts Member,
When you understand and embrace parts and systems thinking, it is like seeing in a new dimension. So many areas can then be reconceptualized.
Like prayer.
Defining prayer in terms of relationship
In paragraph 2558, the CCC defines prayer as “…a vital and personal relationship with the living and true God.” Prayer is a living and intimate relationship, a closeness with our God. Following St. John Damascene, in paragraph 2559, the Catechism of the Catholic Church defines prayer as "the raising of one's mind and heart to God.”
Fr. Thomas Acklin and Fr. Boniface Hicks, in their book Personal Prayer: A Guide for Receiving the Father’s Love write:
We prefer to describe prayer in a way that is more familiar to our human experience by using the language of personal relationships…. Prayer…is lived as a relationship between finite human beings and our infinite, tri-Personal God. [p. 29, emphasis added]
Under the conventional model of a single, relatively homogenous personality, relational prayer can seem fairly straightforward. Under the definition above, prayer is just you, as a unity, relating with God, or the Blessed Virgin Mary or one of the saints.
All that changes when we bring in multiplicity, the idea that each of us has different parts. Now with all these parts, prayer is not so simple.
What are parts?
Let’s step back a minute in our spiral learning, and just review a definition of “parts.” We explored parts in detail in episode 159 of the Interior Integration for Catholics podcast, titled Who Are My Parts and Why Do They Battle Within Me? (Video Audio).
Parts feel like 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.
Parts and God images
Parts may be in your conscious awareness, or they may be buried in your unconscious. Either way, they exert influences, either direct or indirect, on your prayer, on how you relate with God. We are called to love God with our whole hearts, with our whole minds, with our whole souls, with all our being (cf. Luke 10:27). But because of their different felt experiences of God, because of their different God images, each part benefits from different ways of connecting with God Mother Mary, and the saints.
Each part of you who is not in right relationship with your innermost self has a different felt experience of God, what we call a God image. Your God image is your part’s emotional and subjective experience of God, who you feel God to be in the moment, in your bones. Your God image is who your heart interprets God to be.
The rapidly approaching Christmas season provides an opportunity to connect with God and with the saints in different ways.
This reflection is all about encouraging you to try some new things in relating in prayer, prayer to the Persons of the Trinity or the saints who a given part trusts the most.
Spiritual confidants
Let’s be honest, prayer can sometimes be very difficult. In previous reflections, I’ve discussed why we fail to make time for prayer here, and distraction in prayer here, here, and here, focusing on how our prayer often does not fit our parts, leading to avoidance, distraction, and other impediments.
We can make it easier for our parts by finding a spiritual confidant for each one.
What is a spiritual confidant? I chose the word “confidant” because confidant is derived from the Latin confidentem, where con- means "with, together," and -fidere signifies "to trust" or "to have faith in." Thus, you can “be with” your spiritual confidant, with great trust, and share your being and experience.
So a spiritual confidant is a real person, human, angelic, or divine who is certain to be in heaven. Spiritual confidants are helpers, mentors, companions, protectors, wisdom figures, nurturers -- but most of all, spiritual confidants are secure attachment figures, persons you trust and confide in, who either are God, or who lead and connect you to God.
Common spiritual confidents include
- The three Persons of the Trinity, God the Father, Jesus, the Holy Spirit
- The Blessed Virgin Mary as our Mother
- Your guardian angel and other angels, such as St. Michael as a protector
- Patron saints and other canonized saints
The questions of ages
Notably, parts can connect with Jesus or any saint at any age. For example, my Adventurer part, who experiences himself as five years old and who has held fear as a burden in my system desired deeply to connect with Jesus at age eight. Jesus as a grownup man was too scary for that part of me. But Jesus at age eight – that was the best for this five-year-old part. Together, Adventurer and Jesus could romp all around Nazareth and the surrounding countryside, running, singing, climbing, hiding, and going on all kinds of boy adventures.
Different parts of different people might want to connect with Jesus as a baby, or Mother Mary as a 12-year-old girl, or with St. Joseph as a teenager, or with St. John the evangelist as a very old, wise man. Parts who had close connections with their grandparents might connect with St. Anne and St. Joachim (the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary) as grandparent spiritual confidants.
It is so helpful when parts can choose their own special spiritual confidant, a person whom they can trust, with whom they can form a secure attachment. Catholic psychologist Dr. Peter Martin and I discuss parts and attachment in the following episodes of the Interior Integration for Catholics podcast:
- Episode 154 Attachment and Learning How to Love with Dr. Peter Martin Video Audio PDF Transcript
- Episode 155 You Evangelizing You – “Internal Evangelization” Video Audio PDF Transcript
- Episode 156 Attachment, Love, God, and Parts Q&A with Dr. Peter Martin Video Audio PDF Transcript
Valerie’s prayer with her parts and their spiritual confidants
“Valerie” is a fictional 60-year-old woman who is in an unhappy marriage and is now an empty nester with her youngest child off to college. She has worked her entire professional career as a part-time nurse, quite good at her job on an acute trauma unit at the local hospital.
When Valerie applied to the Resilient Catholics Community, she took the PartsFinder Pro (PFP) and, among others, the PFP described the following seven parts: a shame-bearing exile, an abandoned part, an angry part, a Catholic standard-bearer, an approval seeker, a reactive self-soother, and a feisty protector. Her parts are described below, with her exiled parts in blue, her manager parts in green and her firefighters in red. The first part of each description is from her PFP, followed by some elaboration to share her experience of spiritual confidants.
In Weeks 35, 36, and 38 of the revised Foundation Year in the RCC, Valerie was able to connect a number of her parts with spiritual confidants. Here’s a brief summary of her parts from her PFP and their choices of spiritual confidants. Just advance notice for those who might be activated by such topics: the following description of Valerie includes experiences of child sexual abuse and its sequelae.
- A shame-bearer, who questions whether Valerie is acceptable to God and whether she is loved by God. This very young part deeply desires love, affection, nurturance, and healing, but is often suppressed by other parts, because if too much shame comes up, it can harm the relationships other parts so desperately want. This part carries the burden of shame related to sexual abuse by an uncle during annual summer family reunions when Valerie was 10 to 12 years old. This uncle blamed Valerie for the abuse, called her a “seductress” and dirty, and threatened her into silence. Valerie’s shame-bearer has a Deistic God Image, sensing God as distant, disengaged, disinterested and uncaring. Her shame-bearer experiences herself as unloved and unlovable except for her body’s attractiveness to men, which makes sexuality very complicated for her. Valerie’s shame-bearer is very afraid of Jesus as an embodied man, and has had terrifying experiences on healing retreats where she felt pressed to “encounter Jesus” when other parts of her had much better experiences. In Valerie’s relational prayer, this part has connected to mother Mary, feeling far safer with her than with any male figure. You can see her shame-bearer in the above drawing, “being with” Mother Mary as her spiritual confidant in the stable at Bethlehem, taking in her Mother’s love for her.
- An abandoned part who experiences intense emotional pain and distress (this part is largely pre-verbal and her emotional experience is not well differentiated) and carries the weight of Valerie’s abandonment and isolation, feeling victimized, frightened, hopeless, needy, deprived, lost and possibly even inhuman. This part has a diffuse sense of identity. Her abandoned part bears the burdens of neglect, including feeling neglected by God; this part was burdened by her father’s disconnection and neglect when she was young, and then his divorcing her mother and abandoning the family after returning from combat in Vietnam with PTSD and her mother’s subsequent depression and disconnection. The abandoned part loves horses and everything horse-related after brief opportunities to ride and care for horses in summer camp in high school. This part feels herself to be about six years old, and has entered into a deep relationship with St. Joseph, her adoptive father in prayer. In the drawing above, St. Joseph is showing her his donkey
- An angry part who carries rage about core needs for affection, nurturance and love not being met. Her protector parts (except her feisty protector part) suppress the angry part with their heavy defenses; thus, her angry part does not surface often. Her angry part is very focused on justice and injustice and on violations of her own integrity by important figures in her life and she may rail at God for perceived violations or a seeming failure to protect and nurture her. This part connected with baby Jesus, finding it easier to believe that he was not unjust to anyone, given that he is an infant. Being with Jesus as an infant allows her relief from her burden of anger.
- An approval seeker who is very focused on fitting in and gaining approval, recognition, and attention from other people to protect Valerie from deep-seated insecurities held by your exiled parts, particularly her shame bearer and her abandoned part. Her approval seeker has as sense that she only has value if others recognize her as valuable and is very sensitive to rejection. Her dependence on others’ opinions can lead to decision making that is ultimately not in accord with her integrity and dignity as a person. This led to some sexual promiscuity in nursing school and a brief affair at age 48 when a powerful physician at her hospital pursued her aggressively. Her approval seeker often believes that giving others whatever they want is the way to get what she needs in return. This part desperately wants a close relationship with God but is afraid that if she gets too close to Jesus, she will find out He is sexually interested in her as other men have been. This part connected to her guardian angel, in part because angels have no physical bodies and thus there will be no sexual expectations.
- A Catholic standard-bearer who functions as a “good girl” in her system, wanting to keep her on the straight and narrow road, following her code of conduct which is designed to make Valerie loveable and “good enough” in the eyes of God. She holds up unrealistic expectations for her system to follow. Her Catholic standard-bearer sees God as very demanding and distant and watches her conduct to make sure it stands up to the strict moral criteria that she believes God wants for her. This part feels she is about 9 years old and continues to deeply troubled by her college history of promiscuity and her brief affair from 12 years ago. Valerie’s Catholic standard bearer is just beginning to connect with Mother Mary, whom she experiences as not judging her so harshly as she expected.
- Her reactive self-soother protects her from intense and/or negative emotions by shopping online, in order to soothe, stimulate, and/or distract her from feeling the intensity of your other parts’ experiences. Valerie’s online shopping sometimes takes on a compulsive or even addictive quality. Her reactive self-soother is especially active when the protective functions of your managers get shaky and the potential for being flooded or blended with her exiles is high. When this part is active, she is prone to buy nice clothes, makeup, and self-care products that help her look more attractive. This part was able to connect with St. Teresa of Avila, who understood why she did what she did from her own history as a teenager, and could empathize.
- A feisty protector who greatly desires that she not be mistreated any longer and who wants to set protective limits and boundaries. Her anger can fuel limit setting and justice seeking in intense ways that can harm relationships with other people and has contributed in the past two years to some intense arguments with her husband, including screaming and throwing items at him. She is focused on the preservation of her integrity and dignity as a person and has a deep sense of justice and injustice. This part also tries to protect her from God, whom she misperceives as being unjust, arbitrary, and unkind. This part connected with St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Therese of Lisieux both of whom accepted anger in their systems.
Valerie finds that by checking in with her parts each morning before prayer, she is able to find out how each is doing, and what they might need in prayer that day. As her parts become more integrated, and as they experience being loved by their spiritual confidants, they become more confident that God the Father loves her, which is been so difficult for her to believe, given her experience of abandonment by her earthly father, and how toxic the whole idea of “father” has been in her system. This has not been primarily a spiritual problem for Valerie, but rather a human formation issue with spiritual consequences.
When Valerie considers resolutions to love God, her neighbor, and herself for her day, she considers which parts might be most in need, in order to better equip herself to love wholeheartedly, with all of her being, including all of her parts.
Interested in learning more?
Consider applying to the Resilient Catholics Community, where we focus on parts and systems thinking, grounded in a Catholic anthropology to overcome the kinds of human formation deficits that hinder the deepest intimacy in relational prayer with the three Persons of the Trinity. Weeks 35, 36, and 38 of our Foundation year are all on spiritual confidants. As part of the application process you will complete your own PartsFinder Pro and receive a six-page report, hypothesizing about the burdens and roles of 10 to 15 of your parts; this can jumpstart your own personal parts work. You can download a PDF for a sample fictional report for a man and a woman. Find out more and join our interest list on our RCC landing page.
Look who is getting into parts work!
I was recently on the Chris Stefanick show discussing ordered self-love from an IFS perspective, and I was astonished at how invested Chris was in that. He joins other Catholic thought leaders, such as Christopher West (see IIC 177 here) and Sr. Miriam James Hedlund (see her with Matt Fradd on Pints with Aquinas here discussing how she values IFS). Check it out.
Are you a Catholic formator and new to IFS and parts work?
We have free opportunities for Catholic therapists, coaches, spiritual directors and others who accompany Catholics in their human formation; check out and register for these free webinars for those who are new to IFS:
- January 13, 2026: IFS Basics for Catholic Formators
- June 10, 2026: Catholic Parts Work in Human Formation
For those Catholic formators with more experience with IFS and who want to work on their own human formation, we have our In-Person Formators Retreat from August 10-13, 2026, in Bloomington, Indiana
And we have our Formation for Formators small groups starting up again in late February and March. These are such great opportunities for you to discover, work with, and love your own parts. More here on the FFF landing page and you can register here.
Workshop on resolutions
On Saturday, December 27 from 3:30 PM to 4:30 PM Eastern time, I am hosting another Zoom workshop in the whole series on personal vision, values, and mission statements. This one follows up on our October 23 workshop on resolutions. We will start out with an experiential exercise to help you connect with your parts and by the end of the workshop, you will write your first resolution, and we will have plenty of time for Q&A.
This workshop is titled Practical Guidance for Daily Resolutions and it’s free. If you are not already on my email list, just reach out at crisis@soulsandhearts.com and I will get you on so that you can receive the Zoom link via email, as well as links to the recordings of all the previous workshops. If you are on the email list, you should have already received the Zoom link earlier today, but I always send out the link again a few hours before the workshop. This is likely our last free workshop in our series on personal vision, values, and mission statements.
Conversation hours with me
Any reader of these reflections, or anyone who listens to our podcasts is welcome to call me; we can have a 10- or 15-minute private conversation about any of the themes regarding IFS, parts work and Catholicism that Souls and Hearts shares during my conversation hours, which are every Tuesday and Thursday from 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM Eastern time on my cell, 317.567.9594 (except on Christmas and New Year's Day). If I don’t pick up, I’m on another call, just leave a message and I’ll get back to you. This is a great opportunity to discuss the next right step in your human formation.
Connecting with your inner outcasts
Check out our daily podcast, Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts wherever you listen to podcasts or on the SFYIO landing page to hear more stories for and about exiled parts receiving the light of Scripture and connecting with God. Just as Jesus reached out to the outcasts of society, we reach out to your inner outcasts– the parts of you that feel unworthy or unlovable. Join us in seeing Scripture through a new lens, coming alive for those parts of you that may have experienced spiritual neglect and need healing. This podcast aims to help listeners integrate inside, heal from emotional burdens, and grow to flourish in accepting being loved and loving yourself in an ordered way. Each day we reflect on a verse from Sacred Scripture taken from the daily Catholic Mass readings. All informed by Internal Family Systems and other parts work approaches, and all firmly grounded in a Catholic understanding of the human person. You can find Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts wherever you listen to podcasts or through our RSS feed here: https://feeds.transistor.fm/scripture-for-your-inner-outcasts
Future directions
I am excited that Monty De La Torre, Ph.D., a philosopher who is avid about parts work will be stepping in for me as a take a break from these semi-monthly reflections in January. He will be sharing his insights about the metaphysics of parts, virtues and parts, and other topics in a series he has prepared for you. I am so excited to be able to share his unique contributions in this forum, so you can look forward to his first piece in this new series coming to you on January 12, 2026.
Warm regards in Christ and His Mother in these closing days of Advent,
Dr. Peter