IIC 131: On God’s Role in your Human Formation

In this episode, I address a controversial clip from episode 79 of the Restore the Glory podcast, in which host Jake Khym provides an example of how he brings Jesus into his own parts work. I explain the potential issues I see with bringing God into human formation work. Then, I dive into the seven reasons why I initially focus on the natural realm: 1) Almost no one else focuses on human formation grounded in a Catholic understanding of the human person; 2) Human formation is the basis of all formation, according to St. John Paul II; 3) There is a huge wealth of information from secular sources that I can and should bring to the Church; 4) So many spiritual problems are spiritual consequences of human formation deficits; 5) My training and experience are in human formation, not spiritual formation; 6) Natural means are primarily used for the early development of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers; 7) Explicitly God-centric approaches are not optimal for every part in every person, and may even be harmful in some cases. Check out Episode 79 of the Restore the Glory Podcast here.

[00:00:00] I bet that one of the primary reasons you listen to this podcast is that you know you have issues, that you know you have deficits in your human formation, and you want to do something about those deficits. You want to heal, you want to grow. And you want to heal and you want to grow in a way that is fully Catholic. You want to heal and grow in your human formation in a way that harmonizes with how the Catholic Church understands the human person. And I also bet that you’ve made real efforts, that you’ve tried a lot of ways to get better, to overcome your difficulties and your human formation. Lots of spiritual means prayer, lots of prayer, and sometimes, maybe often, prayer is really difficult for you. There could be distractions. There could be difficulties. There’s lots of things that go on inside you that you don’t understand when you’re praying. And even with the prayer, some things just haven’t seem to get much better for you. And then there’s the sacraments, confession, the Eucharist. Many of my listeners are daily communicants. They receive our Lord daily in the Eucharist. I totally support that. I go to daily Mass. It’s a blessing that I can walk to the nearest parish in ten minutes and pray before our Lord and the Blessed Sacrament for at least an hour each day, and I go to regular confession. I’m sure that prayer and the sacraments have helped you in many ways.

[00:01:30] But if you are a regular listener to this podcast, you have likely realized that prayer and the sacraments, the spiritual means, might not have resolved everything for you. You still might have psychological symptoms. Anger, depression, impulsivity, leading to act out in various ways, a lot of unresolved shame, unresolved trauma issues. There can be a whole host of problems that we still have, even with a rich spiritual tradition, excellent spiritual means, a good spiritual plan of life. If you are a regular listener to this podcast, you know that I like to bring in natural means, that I’m not just focused on spiritual means. I also focus on natural means for your human formation—the natural means and the natural realm. And this is really obvious to us in medicine. If you are in a car accident, you suffer broken bones, you’ve got arterial bleeding. You don’t just use spiritual means, you don’t just pray and frequent the sacraments. You apply pressure to that bleeding. You call 911. You get the EMTs out there, you get to the hospital so that you can be treated. You bring in the natural means to resolve the medical issues in the natural realm. And if you’re a long time listener, you might have noticed that I don’t necessarily start with the spiritual means to resolve human formation difficulties. I don’t necessarily start with prayer or taking everything to Jesus with my clients, and in psychotherapy, or with members of the Resilient Catholics Community, which I lead, that that can raise some eyebrows among faithful Catholics, especially Catholics, who don’t see the differences between the natural realm and the spiritual realm like I do.

[00:03:16] Now, let me give you an example. Very often I get asked about my appearance on the Restore the Glory podcast, Episode 79. Dr. Bob Schuchts, Jake Khym, they are the hosts of the Restore the Glory podcast. I highly recommend that podcast. You can find the Restore the Glory podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, or you can go to restoretheglorypodcast.com. Dr. Bob Schuchts—many of you know him or know of him. He earned his doctorate in family relations in 1981 from Florida State University. He’s the founder of the John Paul II Healing Center in 2004. He’s the author of the best-selling book, Be Healed: Encountering the Powerful Love of Jesus in Your Life. He’s got other books as well. Dr. Schuchts spent more than 30 years as a therapist. He retired from active practice as a therapist in 2014, and he has taught at the graduate level, at the undergraduate level, courses in marriage and family relationships, human development, applied psychology, marriage, and family therapy. He is one of the most influential voices in the Catholic world in human formation over the last 20 years. His co-host on that podcast is Jake Khym.

[00:04:27] Jake has an MA in Counseling Psychology with a BA in theology. He has worked in various pastoral ministries over the last 22 years. He’s the founder of Life Restoration at liferestoration.ca with his wife Heather Khym, and he ran a counseling practice for more than 15 years. These are guys with experience. Jake and Bob had me on for episode 79 of Restore the Glory. That episode was titled The Three Essential Relationships (Part 2: Myself) with Dr. Peter Malinoski. I really enjoyed that episode. They were such great and gracious hosts and the quote controversy, end quote centers on one particular clip this exchange between Jake Khym and me, which occurs at the 35 minute 33 second mark and runs to the 40 minute 20 second mark of episode 79. I am going to play this clip with gracious permission from Bob and Jake. And in this clip, Jake Kim described how he works with parts, how he works with his own parts, and he asked me what I thought of that as a model for parts work. I really appreciate Jake Khym’s openness here and describing how he works with his parts. That takes a lot of vulnerability. He’s providing a window into how he works with his own parts. I’m really grateful to him for that and for letting me replay it now. So here is that clip. It’s about five minutes long.

Jake Khym: [00:05:57] Peter, let me run by you a way that I’ve tried to integrate or make sense of this, or work with this and tell me what you think, and maybe some other way, or improvements or whatever. So I’ve likened this to pick a setting that can have multiple seats at an ImageNet. So my image is for some reason it’s a boardroom. So there’s a big table and multiple chairs. And then there’s the chair at the head of the table which implies an authority. But it’s kind of the leader of the room. Now it could be a dinner table. It could be a picnic table. But for some reason it’s always a table for me. And how I’ve just, how I do this work—and please comment—is at the head of the table are two chairs in my mind. One is for my true self and the other is for Jesus. And then around the table are multiple parts of me. And what’s interesting is I’m pretty visual and imaginative and there’s at times what feels like a part that’s just like spinning in his chair. And he’s like, I don’t care, I don’t care, this is stupid. There, there’s another part whose, like, heads down on the table like, I hate this.

[00:07:16] There’s a part that’s maybe out of his chair in the corner who feels like, I don’t want to be here, this is terrible. And so then what I try to do is, to the best I can, who’s upset? What’s going on? Can we all come and try to talk? And then I’m trying to, like, manage a group in the sense of going, “Okay, hold on. They get to talk first and let’s all do basic listening skills”. And I’ve actually taken it so far as to say there’s, like, things on the wall and I call it posters on the wall. And the posters on the wall have these phrases that are like deep, deep beliefs. And they might not be true, they might be lies, but they’re just there on the wall. And we all kind of glance at it and go, gosh, that sure feels true. Like I’m not good enough. Or maybe there’s a positive one of, you know, maybe a part goes, you know, Jesus loves me. That’s on my section of the wall. And I love that. And that’s true. And another part goes, that’s baloney. He doesn’t. And so is that a reasonable way to get into this and what are your thoughts there?

Dr. Peter: [00:08:24] Yeah I think it’s I think it’s, it’s it’s a basic parts informed way to do it. And that’s the way a lot of therapists will work who are interested in parts. I think there are some nuances that can make it so much more effective though.

Jake Khym: Awesome, please.

Dr. Peter: And the first is to actually not have Jesus there. The first is to not have Jesus there because so many parts are terrified of Jesus. So many parts are so frightened that they could not ever approach the table. And so this is where I found some of the concepts from Sherry Weddell in this whole idea of pre-evangelization taking inside. Parts are terrified of God. In fact, God is why they’re burdened. This is what they believe, right? They don’t want to have anything to do with Jesus. And this is in Catholics, right. That are going to Mass, daily Mass, praying every day, and we have these parts that are terrified. And so if the self can love the part, that can be like Saint Paul—the milk, right? Having Jesus there would be like the meat, the steak, the potatoes, they can’t take that in.

[00:09:46] If the self, the innermost self, is loving the part, that is coming from God. All love comes from God. But so often they have to have that internal attachment, that attachment figure, that they can feel secure enough so that even if they’re terrified of God, there’s enough trust in the self that the self might be able to eventually introduce them to Jesus. I also tend to work not necessarily with Jesus, but with whatever. When I’m working with a part, with whoever might be acceptable to that part, it might be the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother Mary, it might be the guardian angel. A lot of rape victims, they want somebody to connect with, somebody who doesn’t have a body. So the guardian angel becomes much safer, or the Holy Spirit becomes safer than Jesus because he’s got a body. You know, so these are the parts that I really want to reach out to, because they’re the ones that are never going to show up at the table if Jesus is already there.

Jake Khym: [00:10:43] Wow. Yeah.

[00:10:46] So again, thanks to Bob and Jake for letting me play that clip, for letting me use that clip. And this is the clip that surprises people. Sometimes it takes people aback to not invite Jesus in right away, to not have Jesus at the head of the table. Now, I have reasons for not starting human formation work with the spiritual means. I have reasons for why we don’t necessarily bring the issues to Jesus or to God right away. I’ve been asked so many times about this particular clip that I’ve decided to dedicate a podcast episode to this, so stay with me as I explain my position, and I give you the seven reasons why I do human formation work, starting with the natural means. I am Dr. Peter Malinoski, also known as Dr Peter. I am your host and guide in this Interior Integration for Catholics podcast. I am so glad to be with you today. I am a clinical psychologist, trauma therapist, podcaster, writer. I’m the co-founder and President of Souls and Hearts at soulsandhearts.com. But most of all, I am a beloved little son of God, a passionate Catholic who wants to help you taste and see the height and depth and breadth and warmth and the light of the love of God, especially God your father, and also Mary your mother, your spiritual parents, your primary parents. I am here to help you embrace your identity as a beloved little child of God and Mary.

[00:12:40] That is your primary identity. That is what this podcast is all about. That is what this episode is all about. And to bring that about to live out our mission, I bring you new ways of understanding yourself, fresh conceptualizations informed by the best of human formation, resources and psychology, and always grounded in the authoritative teachings of the Catholic Church. This is episode 131 of the Interior Integration for Catholics podcast. It’s titled On God’s Role in Your Human Formation. This one is released on February 5th, 2024. And again, so good to be here. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your attention. This podcast would not exist if it were not for you and my other listeners. So you make it all happen. We’re taking a little pause here from our ongoing series of series on the so-called personality disorders. We’ve covered “narcissistic personalities” in episodes 118 to 123 of this podcast. And then we covered the so-called “borderline personalities” in episodes 125 to 129. For a change of pace, we are now going to be addressing this question of God’s role in your human formation. So let’s start with the goals. What do we really want? What are we really seeking? So Dr. Bob Schuchts, in the preface of his book, Be Healed: A Guide to Encountering the Powerful Love of Jesus in Your Life. He describes in that preface how he has two desires.

[00:14:17] The first one: “to share with the world through the church the incredible healing power of Jesus’ love.” And then the second one: “that Jesus would personally heal every person who read the book.” And the mission of Dr. Bob Schuchts’ John Paul II Healing Center is “to promote and inspire transformation in the heart of the church by healing and equipping God’s people for the New Evangelization. This mission is fulfilled in the very heart of the church, helping people activate the fullness of their sacramental graces while transforming their lives.” Jake Khym writes in The Mission of Life Restoration, “we create opportunities for Jesus to encounter people and help disciples increase their potency. We do this through evangelization and formation, focused on unlocking the heart. Relationship: we are rooted and grounded in love. Identity: then we must develop with Jesus into our authentic self. Mission: then we are meant to love our neighbors in unique and meaningful ways.” And those goals align with the goal I have for you in this podcast, I mention these goals at the beginning of every episode. I mentioned them at the beginning of this episode. I want to help you taste and see the height and depth and breadth and warmth and the light of the love of God, especially God your father and Mary your mother, your spiritual parents, your primary parents. I’m here to help you embrace your identity as a beloved little child of God and Mary.

[00:15:52] It’s very relational. This reflects my own personal Carmelite spirituality, which is so relationship based, which is so relational, so much about union. It’s been 25 years since I read Fire Within by by Father Thomas Dubay, who introduced me to Carmelite spirituality. I want you to have a deep, abiding union with all three persons of the Trinity and with Our Lady. I want you to have such a connection with God that you partake of God’s divine nature. As Saint Peter tells us in 2 Peter 1:4 and as the Catechism of the Catholic Church offers us in paragraph 460. And I don’t just want that for you, I want more for you. I want you to become love. I want you to embody love, to become an incarnation of love as Jesus was. I’m going to share with you what a doctor of the church, Saint Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower has to say about becoming love. This is her epiphany from shortly before she died, as she relates it in her autobiography, The Story of a Soul, on page 194. She writes, “I understood that the church has a heart, and that this heart was burning with love. I understood it was love alone that made the church’s members act, that if love ever became extinct, apostles would not preach the gospel and martyrs would not shed their blood. I understood that love comprised all vocations, that love was everything, and that it embraced all times and places.

[00:17:40] In a word that it was eternal. Then, in the excess of my delirious joy, I cried out, ‘Oh Jesus, my love, my vocation! At last I have found it. My vocation is love. Yes. I have found my place in the church. I shall be love. Thus I shall be everything, and thus my dream will be realized.’” That’s what I want for you. That’s the desire I have for you. The same desire that Saint Therese of Lisieux had. I shall be love. You shall be love. You shall become love, to embody love. To be love. So we’re not lacking in high goals here. There’s a harmony of goals here, among Bob and Jake and me. The way I understand it, we have a harmony of our goals. But my scope may be more narrow than theirs; with this podcast, with the Resilient Catholics Community, with the Interior Therapist Community, with Souls and Hearts in general, with the weekly reflections, because I focus exclusively on your human formation. That’s it. Your human formation. Not your spiritual formation, not your pastoral formation, not your intellectual formation, just your human formation. That is my little corner of the vineyard. That’s where I am called to work. Bob Schuchts, Jake Khym, many others. They may have a broader focus than I do. We may have the same goals, but we have different means toward those goals and a different scope of action, a different focus on formation.

[00:19:19] The way I understand their work, both Bob and Jake include more of the spiritual formation, more pastoral formation, more intellectual formation in their means. So we’re climbing the same mountain, but we’re approaching the summit from different sides using different means. So why do I focus nearly exclusively on human formation and not on other kinds of formation in my work, in this podcast, in the Resilient Catholics Community, in the Interior Therapist Community, in the weekly reflections, in Souls and Hearts generally? The main reason I focus on human formation is that I have a deep sense of being called by God to this human formation focus in this particular way. All right. So that said, apart from that charism and that calling, there are still seven main reasons in the natural realm why I focus nearly exclusively on human formation. And I’m just going to name them in order. I’m just going to list them for you so that we can just get oriented. So reason number one, why I focus nearly exclusively on human formation. First, almost no one else focuses on human formation, grounded in a Catholic understanding of the human person in this very sparsely populated corner of the vineyard. Human formation—this is what I believe—human formation is too neglected in our church right now, and that’s a major problem. That’s the first reason. Second reason.

[00:20:45] Yet, according to Saint John Paul II, human formation is the basis of all formation, including spiritual formation. So human formation is incredibly important. Reason number three, there’s a huge wealth of information from secular sources that I can and should bring to the church. The church calls us to bring this information to all our sons and daughters, to all Catholics, there’s a valuing of information from secular sources. That’s reason number three. Reason number four. So many spiritual problems are really spiritual consequences of human formation deficits. So many spiritual problems are really spiritual consequences of human formation deficits. Reason number five my training and experience are in human formation, not spiritual formation. And I really want to stay in my lane. I want to stay in the expectations of my role. Reason number six. When we look at good early development and maturation of infants, toddlers and preschoolers, we are seeing that natural means are used first, primarily, for their human formation, not spiritual means, natural means and reason. Number seven explicitly God-centric approaches are not optimal for every part in every person, and explicitly God-centric approaches can even be harmful. In some cases, we need alternative means, especially when there’s been things like spiritual trauma. We’re going to spend a lot of time on that seventh reason. It’s really an important one. So that’s the roadmap. That’s the seven reasons why I focus nearly exclusively on human formation using natural means initially. Now I’m going to explain each of these seven reasons for you, for why I focus on human formation in greater depth.

[00:22:42] Now. I’m addressing you in your own personal approach to your human formation. I’m also addressing Catholic therapists and coaches in their human formation work with their clients. I am not so much addressing the human formation work that spiritual directors and pastoral counselors might be doing. That’s an entirely different ball game, that looks can look very different. I’m not trained as a spiritual director. I’m not trained as a pastoral counselor. Part of the work of spiritual direction and pastoral counseling would necessarily involve both spiritual formation and pastoral formation. It lies in the very description of those fields. So that caveat I want to make clear. Let’s go to these seven reasons, though. The seven reasons why I focus nearly exclusively on human formation and I use human means first, natural means first. Reason number one almost no one else focuses on human formation, grounded in a Catholic understanding of the human person. It’s a very sparsely populated corner of the vineyard. That’s reason number one. Now, in one way, I suppose there are many people who are focused on and Catholic counselors, Catholic coaches, but there’s very little guidance out there, very little written out there about how you do human formation work grounded in a Catholic understanding of the human person. I pulled together all the best of the human formation literature, the works that were grounded in a Catholic understanding of the human person.

[00:24:17] And I put them in one central location, a weekly reflection from May 17th, 2023, titled Link’s Library: Catholic Human Formation Resources. You can find that with an internet search if you just go to Link’s Library—Link, apostrophe S, Library: Catholic Human Formation Resources, or you can go to our archive of weekly reflections at soulsandhearts.com/blog. And just scroll down till you get to the May 17th, 2023 entry there. You can see that it’s actually not that much. So that’s the reason number one, almost no one else is focusing on human formation grounded in a Catholic understanding of the human person, especially in the area of practical application. That’s very rare. And so I really want to make sure that I’m contributing what I can through Souls and Hearts to that particular effort. Reason number two. Human formation is the basis of all formation. That’s a bold claim. And it was made by Saint John Paul II in his 1992 apostolic exhortation Pastores Dabo Vobis, where he stated that all formation is based on human formation, all our formation, spiritual, intellectual, pastoral, all human formation is based on human formation. That’s in paragraphs 43 and 44 of that document. In Pastores Dabo Vobis Saint John Paul the Second also quotes the 12th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, emphasizing that “the whole work of priestly formation would be deprived of its necessary foundation if it lacked a suitable human formation.”

[00:26:02] Now, I invite you to let that sink in for a moment. Human formation is the necessary foundation of all formation. Those are really strong words. And yet so often those words are ignored. Human formation was never defined in Pastores Dabo Vobis, nor in any subsequent writing from the church until the USCCB’s program for Priestly Formation, sixth edition, defined human formation for the first time in 2022 as “following Saint Thomas Aquinas, human formation should be understood as education in the human virtues perfected by charity”. Now, this definition seemed to me to be tacked on to a broader discussion of human formation in that document, it wasn’t fleshed out at all. And I find the definition of human formation as “education in the human virtues perfected by charity” not all that helpful for understanding how to shore up the necessary foundation for all formation. If you’ve listened to this podcast or you’ve read my weekly reflections, you know how important it is for me to define our terms. We need solid definitions so that we can think and reason clearly. So rather than just curse the darkness and complain about the lack of definitions, I offer this definition of human formation in the hope of shedding a little light from my candle on the question of what human formation is. So this is how I define human formation.

[00:27:31] “Human formation is the lifelong process of natural development, aided by grace, by which a person integrates all aspects of his interior emotional, cognitive, relational, and bodily life. All of his natural faculties, in an ordered way, conformed with right reason and natural law, so that he is freed from natural impediments to trust God as his beloved child and to embrace God’s love. Then in return, because he possesses himself, he can love God, neighbor, and himself with all of his natural being in an ordered, intimate, personal and mature way.” All right, that is a mouthful. I totally understand that, I appreciate that. Let’s break it down. Human formation is a lifelong process of natural development. Natural development. Right. Again, this is different from spiritual formation. Human formation is the process by which a person integrates his or her interior life the emotions, the thoughts, all of the natural faculties, bringing those together in an ordered way conformed with the right reason and natural law. And we do this to free ourselves from the natural impediments we may have to trusting God. We do this to be able to embrace our identities as God’s beloved little sons and daughters. We do this human formation work so that we can be freed of natural impediments to loving God with our whole heart, all of our being, and loving our neighbor as ourself, as the two great commandments tell us. Human formation is vitally important. It is the foundation of all other formation.

[00:29:08] We have to get the human formation right. We have to get that natural foundation right, or anything we build on that natural foundation will be unstable. So that is the second reason I focus nearly exclusively on human formation. Human formation is the basis of all formation. The first reason: human formation has been neglected in our church. Very few people writing or thinking about it. Second reason: human formation is vitally important. It’s the basis of all formation, including spiritual formation. Right. You’re tracking with me? You’re following me? Those are the first two reasons. All right, let’s move on to the third reason. This is the third reason why I am so focused on human formation, especially initially using natural means. There is a huge wealth of information from secular sources that I can and should bring to the church; that the church calls us, us Catholic professionals out in the secular disciplines, to bring this information to all of her sons and daughters, to all Catholics. As a professional psychologist, I want to bring in the best of these disciplines—clinical psychology, abnormal psychology, developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, attachment theory, memory, sociology, systems theory, traumatology—traumatology is amazing. There’s so much more available now than in 1993, 30 years ago when I started graduate school. And because we are embodied beings, we also need to consider the body. We need to consider things like neurobiology, neurophysiology, endocrinology, affective neuroscience, developmental neuroscience, psychiatry, interpersonal neurobiology, and so many other areas that impact our minds and our well-being.

[00:30:52] As a Catholic psychologist, I am going to look into these secular sources. I just don’t think it’s reasonable to expect that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops or the congregation for the doctrine of the Faith and the Vatican—I don’t expect them to be experts in these areas. It’s not their calling. It’s not their expertise. The church needs experts in these areas to help with human formation. All of these fields can help us in our human formation. All of these fields can help us shore up the natural foundation for our spiritual formation. And the church has commanded us to bring in the goods from these secular fields. This is from the Vatican II document, the Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World. Paragraph 62 reads, “In pastoral care sufficient use must be made not only of theological principles, but also of the findings of the secular sciences, especially of psychology and sociology, so that the faithful may be brought to a more adequate and mature life of faith.” Now, I invite you to really let that sink in. Pastoral care should bring in the findings of the secular sciences, especially of psychology. I love hearing that in sociology. Why? So that the faithful may be brought to a more adequate and mature life of faith. This is all about deepening our faith. This is all about deepening our union with God.

[00:32:21] This is all about deepening that intimate personal relationship. That’s why we bring these things in. Saint John of the Cross, the great Carmelite doctor of the church, in his Prologue of Ascent of Mt Carmel said, “I will not rely on experience or science, but I will not neglect whatever possible use I can make of them.” I will not rely on experience or science, but I will not neglect whatever possible use I can make of them. He wrote this in 1578 or 1579. He’s going to make whatever possible use he can of the sciences right now. There is an assumption here that the findings of the secular sciences are conformable with what we know to be true, by divine revelation, that there is not a real conflict, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us in paragraph 159 on faith and science, “Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason, since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind. God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth. Consequently, methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God.

[00:33:53] The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself. For it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are.” We as Catholics, we do not have to be worried about any conflict between genuine, authentic science and our faith because they come from the same God. This goes all the way back to Saint Augustine in De Doctrina Christiana, book two, chapter 40. This is a theological text on how to interpret and teach the Scriptures. Saint Augustine says, “Moreover, if those who are called philosophers, and especially the Platonists, have said anything that is true and in harmony with our faith, we are not only not to shrink from it, but to claim it for our own use.” Saint Augustine goes on, “All branches of heathen learning have not only false and superstitious fancies and heavy burdens of unnecessary toil, which we ought to abhor and avoid, but they contain also liberal instruction, which is better adapted to the use of truth, and some most excellent precepts of morality, and some truths in regard even to the worship of the one God are found among them. Now these are, so to speak, their gold and silver, which they did not create themselves, but dug out of the mines of God’s providence, and which are everywhere scattered abroad.” Saint Augustine going back to the fourth century. He is telling us we are to mine the gold and the silver from those non-Catholics.

[00:35:32] God can reveal the glory of creation to people from all kinds of backgrounds. In the 20th century, Watson and Crick, the discoverers of DNA—they were very hostile towards Catholicism. Do we reject the double helix structure of DNA because of Watson and Crick’s anti-Catholic bigotry? No we don’t. God revealed something to Watson and Crick. They shared it with us, we can take advantage of that. So, reason number three why I focus nearly exclusively on human formation, using the natural means in Souls and Hearts is because there is such a wealth of information from secular sources to be mined. And the church not only invites me, but commands me to bring these findings from secular sources in as long as they are conformable with our faith. So, a brief review of the reasons—tracking with me? These are the reasons I focus nearly exclusively on human formation. First reason: human formation has been neglected in our church. Second reason: human formation is essential. It’s fundamental. It’s foundational. Third reason: there are so many benefits from secular sources that the church welcomes us to use as long as that proper order is maintained, these sources can benefit us not only in the natural realm, but also in the spiritual realm. Those three reasons so far, which brings us to reason number four: so many spiritual problems are really spiritual consequences of human formation deficits.

[00:37:08] So many spiritual problems are really just spiritual consequences of human formation deficits. The problem is actually in the human formation realm. It’s in the natural realm, but it’s got downstream consequences in the spiritual realm. And I realized this very early on in my practice; someone came into my office with a lot of internal conflict about God the Father. Almost always there were issues with her natural earthly father. We’ve known about this phenomenon for more than a century. Sigmund Freud called it a transference. In the American Psychological Association Dictionary, the definition of a transference is “a patient’s displacement or projection onto another person of those unconscious feelings and wishes originally directed toward important individuals, such as parents and the person’s childhood. It is posited that this process brings repressed material to the surface where it can be re-experienced, studied, and worked through to discover the sources of the person’s current neurotic difficulties and to alleviate their harmful effects.” In other words, these clients that were coming to see me that had difficult relationships with their earthly fathers, were projecting those father transferences onto God. I recognized this really early. And William Gaultier, in his 1989 article “A Biblical Perspective on the Therapeutic Treatment of Client Anger at God”—this was published in the Journal of Psychology and Christianity—he said, “Psychologically, anger at God can be explained as unresolved anger from previous hurtful relationships which is projected onto God.” And he goes on to say, “people commonly transfer onto God the characteristics of parents and significant others, because a relationship with the invisible God is by faith and his development duly preceded by relationships with parents and significant others.”

[00:39:08] William Gaultier says that people commonly transfer onto God the characteristics of parents and significant others. I say parts of us commonly transfer onto God the characteristics of parents and significant others. So many other natural level problems, human formation deficits lead to spiritual consequences. Authority problems, especially when there has been a negative experience of authority, can make it really hard to accept the authority of God. Vulnerability issues, shame. The list goes on and on. Discalced Carmelite Abbott Marc Foley, in his excellent book The Context of Holiness: Psychological and Spiritual Reflections on the Life of Saint Therese of Lisieux. I just love that book that, by the way, that book is the single best psychobiography of a saint I have ever read. So good. The context of holiness. But he says very early in the book on page one, “one misconception is that the spiritual life is an encapsulated sphere cloistered from the realities of daily living. We have only one life composed of various dimensions our emotional life, our intellectual life, our social life, work life, sex life, spiritual life are simply ways of speaking of the different facets of our one life.” That’s what Abbott Marc Foley said. We have one life, one life. We don’t have a spiritual life that is separate from our emotional life.

[00:40:42] We have one life. If we’re angry, that affects our whole life. And so many of our spiritual problems are really consequences of human formation issues in our one life. Serious, devout Catholics so often seem to prefer to have spiritual problems rather than a human formation problem. It seems somehow, to so many Catholics, it seems nobler and holier to be experiencing a dark night of the soul, rather than a clinical depression. Somehow it seems more meritorious. It just seems holier to “work out my salvation in fear and trembling” than to be suffering from excessive anxiety expressed through obsessions and compulsions. And so often what goes on is spiritual bypassing. Now, John Welwood was an American clinical psychologist. He was a psychotherapist, teacher, and author. He was really known for integrating psychological and spiritual concepts. He was a prominent figure in transpersonal psychology, and he was really focused on bringing Buddhism to Western psychology. He coined the term “spiritual bypassing”, and he described it as using “spiritual ideas, words and practices to sidestep or avoid personal, emotional, unfinished business, to shore up a shaky sense of self or to belittle basic needs, feelings, psychological wounds, and developmental tasks”. Rose Hahn defined bypassing as this: “bypassing occurs when spiritual ideals get elevated to the realm of absolute truth in such a way that our real lived experience is somehow denied.

[00:42:31] Rather than doing the work of healing deep wounds, we may use these spiritual ideals to deny, devalue, or avoid meeting our more human needs such as emotional bonding, love and esteem. In other words, rather than risk opening ourselves to real human connection and possibly getting hurt, we adopt a more enlightened, spiritual way of relating to the world that doesn’t rely on human relationship.” Using spiritual words, spiritual means, spiritual concepts, all to whitewash or to put a Band-Aid on significant psychological or emotional problems in the natural realm. That’s what spiritual bypassing is, and it’s essentially saying you should not feel this way. There’s this overemphasis on the positive, you know, rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say rejoice! And I did this five part weekly reflection series on spiritual bypassing starting on February 22nd, 2023. That was the reflection titled Spiritual Bypassing: Catholic Style. You can Google that, or you can check those reflections out in our archive of weekly reflections at soulsandhearts.com/blog. Now, if you spiritually bypass your problems in the natural realm, not only are you going to keep on having your problems in the natural realm, they’re probably going to get worse, but you are also going to have spiritual consequences of that spiritual bypassing. So many spiritual problems are really spiritual consequences of human formation deficits. And that makes sense, because if human formation is the foundation of all formation, including spiritual formation, if that foundation is shaky, it’s going to have consequences for any spiritual, intellectual or pastoral formation built on that shaky foundation of human formation.

[00:44:21] Does that make sense? Are you tracking with me? All right, so here are the reasons. The four reasons we’ve covered so far, of why I focus nearly exclusively on human formation using natural means initially so far. The first reason: human formation has been neglected in our church. Second reason: human formation is essential. It’s fundamental. It’s foundational. Third reason: so many benefits from secular sources. The church invites us, commands us to bring those benefits in. Fourth reason: so many spiritual problems are really spiritual consequences of human formation deficits. You have to deal with the human formation foundation. That brings us to the fifth reason. The fifth reason why I focus almost exclusively on human formation using natural means initially. And that is my training and my experience are in human formation. I’m not trained in spiritual formation or pastoral counseling, so I stay in my lane. I stay in the expectations of my role. I’m a clinical psychologist. I’m not a spiritual director. I’m not a pastoral counselor. Those are above my pay grade, and my clients look to me as a professional to bring in the natural means, not to move immediately to the spiritual realm. Same thing in the Resilient Catholics Community. Same thing in this podcast, same thing in the weekly reflections. I stay in my area of expertise.

[00:45:48] I work in a regulated profession. The State Board of Psychology and the State of Indiana creates, maintains, and enforces the administrative code that governs the practices of psychologists in Indiana. And our Lord, He told us to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. We are to follow legitimately constituted authority. I need to conform myself to that authority, as long as that conformity doesn’t mean that I’m violating any aspect of faith or morals, I am to conform to it. That is what our Lord did from even before his birth. Even before his birth, our Lord was conforming himself to civil authority. Mary and Joseph, they traveled 70 miles to Bethlehem from Nazareth to register for the census taken while Quirinius was the governor of Syria. This is all from Luke chapter two. It’s extremely difficult conditions. It’s a harsh order from the civil authorities for a pregnant woman to have to travel 70 miles right in her ninth month of pregnancy. They did it anyway. Mary, Joseph, Jesus, they did it anyway, in obedience to the legal authority of an occupying empire that did not have the consent of the people in Judea that it governed. Right. That is a lot of conformity to civil authority, and that’s a model for us to be considering. I don’t have any objections to the way the administrative code in Indiana that governs the practice of psychology reads. There’s nothing in there that violates faith and morals.

[00:47:24] So I’m going to conform myself to that. I have done some consultation with Catholic therapists who do what I call mystical therapy. In mystical therapy, the therapist is pretty much just channeling God’s direction. They’re getting this private revelation from God about what to do. That’s what they believe anyway. They’re just listening for the voice of God in their sessions, and they’re transmitting that voice of God to the client. They’re not really questioning those directions. They just assume that whatever this private revelation or whatever it actually is, is true, that it’s actually the voice of God. And when I don’t affirm the mystical, private revelations that guide their therapy, that leads to pushback, that gets them upset. I’m aware of a lot of other sources that those “private revelations” could be coming from. My training and my experience are in human formation. They’re in psychology. That’s what my degree is in. That is what my licensure is in. It’s not in interpreting somebody else’s private revelations about how to do therapy. Now, I’m embarking on providing human formation to spiritual directors. I’m really excited about this. This is going to be starting next month, early March. I’m going to start leading two foundations, experiential groups just for Catholic spiritual directors. And in these groups, the spiritual directors and spiritual director trainees, they’re going to be working on their own human formation with me. And I anticipate that these spiritual directors will want to know how to work internal family system stuff into their spiritual direction.

[00:49:18] I anticipate that they’re going to ask me how they are supposed to work on human formation with their trainees, and I will say to them, “I don’t know.” Because I don’t know how to do spiritual direction. I’m not qualified to teach spiritual directors or spiritual director trainees how to do spiritual direction. I don’t know, that’s above my pay grade. I don’t really know how to do that. The foundations of experiential groups that I run, they are about the human formation of the spiritual director. I know how to help spiritual directors with their human formation, that falls in my bailiwick. That’s in my wheelhouse. Human formation for spiritual directors isn’t that different from human formation for anybody else. But as far as, like, how you apply this in spiritual direction, I’m going to be silent on that. And that’s probably going to be frustrating to some of those spiritual directors. But that’s okay. You know, I can work with that. So the fifth reason why I focus on human formation in this podcast, in my weekly formation, in my human formation work and souls and hearts in the RCC, in the ITC, in these foundational experiential groups, is because that’s where my training and experience lie. That’s my lane. That’s my expertise. So we now have five reasons that I’ve explained why I focus nearly exclusively on human formation, why I bring natural means in, especially at the beginning.

[00:50:44] The first reason: human formation has been neglected in our church. It’s vitally important. That’s the second reason. The third reason: there are so many benefits from secular sources that the church welcomes us to bring in. The fourth reason: so many spiritual problems are really spiritual consequences of human formation deficits. And the fifth reason: human formation is what I’m trained in. It’s what I’m an expert in, and I stay in my wheelhouse. The reason number six, though. Now we’re going on reason number six. When we look at good early developments and maturation in infants, toddlers and preschoolers, we see that natural means are used first primarily in their human formation. Developmentally, that’s how we start out. Our parents form us as little human beings, primarily with natural means when we’re little, when we’re infants, when we’re toddlers, when we’re preschoolers. Yes, we get baptized. That’s really important. Baptism brings us into the church, makes us members of the mystical Body of Christ. That’s a major spiritual reality that that has a great impact. It’s really important. But we’re looking at this phenomenologically, we’re looking at the felt experience here. And if one looks at the normal developmental course of maturation, parents don’t typically use spiritual means to foster human formation with infants, toddlers and preschoolers. Instead, they use natural means. They connect in communication. They connect in attunement. They meet their little one’s attachment needs,

[00:52:08] heir integrity needs, using natural means. Now. Here’s where I want to mention this concept of parts as understood in internal family systems. Parts feel like separate, independently operating personalities within us, each with its own prominent needs, its roles in our lives, emotions, body sensations, guiding beliefs and assumptions, typical thoughts, intentions, desires, attitudes, impulses, interpersonal style, and worldview. Each part also has a God image. I’ve discussed parts at length in many episodes of this podcast, including episode 71: A New and Better Way of Understanding Myself and Others. Many parts of a person may have missed out on the natural means needed in their human formation. They may have been exiled or split off. They may not have been present, phenomenologically in conscious awareness. And given that many of our clients parts phenomenological ages are in this very young range—infant, toddler, preschooler—spiritual means may not resonate with these parts who sense themselves to be so young. My parts who have doubted, who have had strong inclinations and impulses to rebel, who have been disappointed with God, who have been angry with God—they might not want to do human formation work using spiritual means because of these negative God images. Now eventually—and this is a really important point—eventually we want our primary parents involved with our human formation, God our father, Mary our mother. These are our primary parents. These are our spiritual parents. They can and should help us with our human formation as well as with other kinds of formation.

[00:53:54] That’s really important. But not all parts might be ready for a deep connection with them yet. I’m going to invite you to imagine a family with children of different ages praying the family rosary. It’s a spiritual activity, right? You know? But attuned parents are going to be very sensitive to the natural means of human formation during the Rosary, rather than forcing their toddler and their preschooler to kneel through the rosary on the floor with folded hands. Attuned parents are going to snuggle with the little ones if they want to, or allow them to play and roam around and, you know, build with blocks or do the Lego thing or whatever during the rosary when they’re that small. Attuned parents want their Catholic children to have good associations with prayer. They want their children to have good associations with the Rosary and that be formed into the children. And that was not my experience of the Rosary. I got to tell you, I prayed the rosary only very, very rarely when I was young. We didn’t pray it in my family. We prayed it very occasionally at the Catholic school, maybe once a year, maybe twice a year at most. It was a very rare thing. And I learned to pray the Rosary when I was a young adult in the context of being a member of what I consider to be a really problematic Catholic group.

[00:55:13] This is when I was in college, a destructive group, at least really destructive to me. And I experienced trauma both in the natural and spiritual realms from that group, and that’s what I associated the rosary with when I left that group. It took me months and years to be able to have positive associations to the Rosary. Again, because of what I went through, it took me a long time to pray the rosary without reacting to it internally with a trauma response, with anger, with bitterness. I had really negative associations with the rosary at a natural level. So if someone had suggested to me that I pray the rosary as part of my human formation or part of my spiritual formation, some of my parts would have reacted really negatively to that. That would not have been attuned to what those parts’ experiences were. Those parts of me needed to be able to trust again. Those parts of me needed to be able to enter into relationship with Our Lady in a different way other than the Rosary, because that had been rendered toxic by the context in which that had happened. So to trust in other people, to tolerate being vulnerable again in human relationships, that’s sometimes really needed before bringing spiritual means to human formation. Sherry Weddell, in chapter five of her 2012 book Forming Intentional Disciples, discusses the need for pre evangelization. Now she’s talking about one person evangelizing another person.

[00:56:45] I’m thinking about this in terms of our parts, how parts of us need to be pre-evangelized, and she says that we need to have this initial trust. She describes how, “A person is able to trust or has a positive identification with Jesus Christ, the church, a Christian believer, or something identifiably Christian. Trust is not the same as an active personal faith. Without some kind of bridge of trust in place, people will not move closer to God. The first task of evangelization is to find out if a bridge of trust already exists. If this trust does not already exist, then our first job as an evangelizer is to help build that bridge. This is especially vital now that a fundamental distrust of Christianity in general, and the Catholic Church in particular, is the new normal in many places. After a decade of scandal, Catholics must work hard to earn trust. We earn such trust primarily through relationships, through the integrity, compassion, warmth and joy of one’s own life and faith. Many don’t trust God or the church, but they do trust the Christian in their life. For someone at this very early threshold, it is far more important that trust exists than that it make logical sense. Our job at this point is to affirm, strengthen and, if possible, broaden whatever trust exists.” And she’s discussing doing this not primarily by spiritual means, but by very human means, by attunement, by compassion.

[00:58:13] We are doing this through integrity, warmth, joy, by sharing our experiences, by sharing vulnerability. I argue that we need to do that inside of ourselves, and that if parts of us have been burned in spiritual ways, that hold burdens of some kind of a spiritual abandonment, spiritual betrayal, something like that, some way that they’re perceiving their experience—this is really common in cases of spiritual trauma—that we need to approach these parts using the natural means, that we need to approach them on a human level first, to be able to build a sense of trust, to be able for these parts to trust your innermost self as a secure internal attachment figure, eventually, that your innermost self could be a bridge between those parts and God. So there’s an order to these things. By necessity, trust is built using natural means with the person or the part. Yes, grace is operative, working behind the scenes, but with that person or that part is experiencing is something in the natural realm. So that’s reason number six for why I focus on human formation using natural means nearly exclusively initially. When we look at good early development and maturation of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, we see that natural means are used first primarily. When we look at recovery from spiritual trauma, there’s an importance in natural means. So are you staying with me? We’re almost there.

[00:59:42] We’ve covered six of the seven reasons. We’re just going to recap them, the six reasons that we’ve covered so far for why I focus on human formation nearly exclusively using natural means initially. Again, remember, we want to bring our primary parents in—God, our father, Mary, our mother, our primary parents, to help with human formation. But the timing is critical. First reason: human formation has been neglected in our church. Second reason: human formation is essential. It’s fundamental. It’s foundational. Third reason: so many benefits from all these secular fields. The church welcomes us, the church demands that we bring these in. Fourth reason: so many spiritual problems are really spiritual consequences of human formation deficits. Fifth reason: human formation is what I’m trained in. That’s what I’m an expert in. And the sixth reason: in normal human healthy development, the maturation of little children, we use the natural means before the spiritual means. And that leads us to the final reason. Reason number seven: explicitly God-centric approaches are not optimal for every part in every person, and they can even be harmful in some cases. We need alternative means, especially when there’s been spiritual trauma. I’m going to spend a lot of time on this one. It’s really important. What do I mean by an explicitly God-centric approach? What I mean by an explicitly God-centric approach is an approach where God, often in the person of Jesus, is front and center, very prominent in the human formation work and the therapy process, for example, or in the coaching.

[01:01:22] There are many clear and direct references to Jesus or to God, direct invitations for Jesus to come in a God-centric or a Jesus-centric approach. That may work well for many people, especially for those people whose managers have not suffered spiritual trauma. It works really well. You know, I have heard so many great stories, so many wonderful stories of healing from those that have been involved with the JPII Healing Institute and Bob Schuchts’ work. I see him as having a very God-centric and specifically a Jesus-centric approach, very explicitly Jesus-centric. The approach that Jake Khym was describing in the lead in, you know, in the intro, that was a very Jesus-centric approach. And again, that’s wonderful for many people. If you’ve benefited from that, that is great. But I’m concerned that for many people, this kind of approach, bringing in Jesus right away will alienate parts. Parts that therapists may never see or meet again, parts that coaches may never see or meet again because they see the therapist or coach as aligned with their spiritual manager’s agendas. Right. These parts, there could be just some real sensitivity here. A real sense of deep, problematic God images. Ways that parts are misunderstanding God because of these transferences, because of the way that they’re projecting onto God something that they experienced. I’m going to give some examples of this in a little bit.

[01:03:05] There are God-centric approaches that are not nearly so explicit, but they’re still God-centric. I refer to these as implicit God-centric approaches. They still have God at the center, but they’re not so obvious. They’re not so conspicuously driven by God. Clients, remember, are brought into therapy. Clients are brought into coaching. People join the RCC often because their spiritual manager parts have an agenda they want to fix or suppress some other part. They really have an agenda to get their parts to stop doing some particular behavior. Now I really look at human formation as a very highly individual process. There’s no cookie cutter, one size fits all approach that will work. There are both nomothetic and idiographic components to it, but I focus on the idiographic components. Now let me explain what those are. Psychologists saw Machiloides article in Simply Psychology. He’s got one titled Nomothetic Vs Idiographic Approaches to Psychology. He says the nomothetic approach in psychology seeks general principles and patterns applicable to groups, while the idiographic approach focuses on understanding individuals in their unique context. I am highly, highly on the idiographic end of the spectrum, focusing on understanding the individual in his or her unique context and not just the individual, but the individual’s parts, each in their own unique context within the individual. So I’m not attracted to one size fits all approaches to human formation. Saint Therese of Lisieux, doctor of the church, said “how different are the variety of ways through which the Lord leads souls! Souls are more different than faces.”

[01:04:58] And remember she was in charge of the novitiate in her monastery. She was responsible for the formation of these new sisters. How different are the variety of ways through which the Lord leads souls. We’ve got to be open to a variety of ways. Souls are more different than faces. The idiographic approach that I’m advocating—many different ways, many different means. Some of these may be explicitly God-centric. Some of these may be implicitly God-centric. Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about. A psychologist, a friend of mine many years ago, you know, told me that he always prayed with his clients of at the beginning of each session. At the beginning of each therapy session, he prayed with his clients. He had a regular procedure for this. This is an example of an explicit God-centric approach. He said, “I always do this”. Now the first thing I noticed about this was that it was kind of self-referential. The therapist is kind of doing this for himself. I think it’s fine to have protocols. I think it’s good to pray about the therapy work, but before the client is there, do it before pray for the client before, because I don’t know how clients are going to respond to an invitation to pray right at the beginning of a therapy session.

[01:06:26] Parts are watching. They want to know if this may be something that’s driven by the needs of the clinician. Now I do pray with some of my clients. I do. Because we’ve explored what that means and their parts are comfortable with it. And any parts that you know that don’t want to be present for that don’t have to be present for that. It’s it’s a good thing. It’s been something that’s been explored. I have some understanding of what the meaning of that is. And I allow parts not to participate. That’s very respectful. It’s attuned to parts. We’re not forcing parts to pray, just like that family praying the family rosary is not forcing little parts to kneel down and fold their hands. Right. I do offer in the feedback meetings for the Parts Finder Pro. That’s part of the application process for the Resilient Catholics Community. I have this 15 minute interview with the men that apply. And I ask how it would land with their parts if we were to start by praying the rosary. I’m asking permission. I’m interested in if that would be okay. I don’t just assume that every part of these RCC applicants is good with praying, and that actually actually been really helpful to ask the permission first, because one time there was a recent convert and he didn’t have the Hail Mary memorized yet, so he was able to say, “yeah, I don’t really want to pray that” instead of me just launching into it, because that avoids shaming some of his parts, that that might feel a deep sense of of inadequacy about not having that prayer memorized yet.

[01:08:05] Or other parts in the RCC. Applicants you know may have other issues. Remember, you know, my experience with the rosary, right. That spiritual trauma associations that my parts made flashing back, those were effects of spiritual trauma. So very, very delicate with these sorts of things, very considerate of where parts are. Praying is often part of spiritual and sexual exploitation. I have seen this over and over again. I have heard stories, multiple stories of different priests who have prayed with people that they were crossing physical and sexual boundaries with. Right. Not just one or 2 or 3, but a lot of them, actually. Right. So this idea of praying with an authority figure, the authority figure bringing prayer in, could really activate somebody who has had prayer misused as a way to gain trust, as a way to broach boundaries, as a way to facilitate exploitation. There’s going to be a neurophysiological reaction to that with somebody that has that kind of trauma. That’s experiencing, once again an authority figure in the therapist or the coach bringing up this prayer, you know, imposing it in a sense right at the beginning of the session when they may not be ready for that.

[01:09:39] That may be totally covered up, too, because that client’s managers may say, ‘yep, we’re going to pray, we’re going to do that. We’re going to suppress these parts that are getting activated.” Those parts, what are they learning? They’re learning that you are not attuned to them. They’re learning that this therapist or this coach is really aligned with some spiritual managers agendas. And that’s not going to foster trust. Remember, when you are a therapist or a coach, you are a therapist or a coach for the entirety of the other person’s being, not just a few manager parts, but all of that client’s parts. What do I really know about a client when she or he comes to see me for the first time? I don’t know much. I don’t know that client’s history. Saint Therese of Lisieux, said, “how different are the variety of ways through which the Lord leads souls! Souls are more different than faces.” We need to be really open to a wide variety of ways. That’s why I’m really distrustful of protocols. You know, these automatic things that therapists or coaches do. I really want to be attuned to the other person. And when I say that, to be attuned to the other person, I mean to be attuned to each and every part of that other person. Not steamrolling any parts, not leaving any parts behind, not disrespecting any parts. And so this is where, you know, I’ve caught some flack because I’ve pushed back against just bringing Jesus in.

[01:11:20] Oh, why don’t you bring Jesus in? Bring Jesus in to your therapy or bring Jesus into the RCC, or invite God into the human formation work. You know, some people have questioned why I don’t bring up spiritual confidence until week 28 of year one of the RCC, of the Resilient Catholics Community. Now I find this whole idea of bringing Jesus in really awkward. I have difficulties with the way this is framed, bringing Jesus into human formation work, because I’m not Jesus’ handler. I’m not Jesus’ manager and therapy worker in the RCC. I’m not some stage manager giving cues to Jesus. There’s no shortage of people who wanted to handle or manage Christ. When he walked the face of the earth like the zealot party, they really wanted Jesus to be a revolutionary. They were seeking the relief from the Roman occupation of Israel. Also, I have a really healthy respect for how God is not my puppet. Now, I’m not saying that people who use God-centric approaches that are explicit believe that God is their puppet. So I want to be really clear about that, but it can feel that way sometimes to me. The Chronicles of Narnia. Lucy asks about Aslan, who allegorically represents Jesus. She asks the Beaver family, “Is Aslan safe?” “Safe?” said Mr. Beaver, “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe, but he’s good.

[01:12:47] He’s the king, I tell you.” And Mr. Tumnus, he said, “He’s wild, you know. Not a tame lion.” When we are talking about bringing Jesus in, especially if we’re bringing him in in some sort of regular protocol in human formation work, there seems to me to be some potential for presumption there for overfamiliarity right? God is in my pocket. That there can be a lack of awe and wonder and a lack of giving space for God to work. This requires a lot of trust, you know, to let God do his thing in his own way. I’m reminded of Isaiah 55:8-9: “for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways, my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” In Romans 11:33: “oh, the depth and the riches, and the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments! How inscrutable his ways!” God’s ideas, including his ideas and therapy, including his ideas and coaching, including his ideas when we’re doing our own internal work, his ideas are so much broader, deeper, and better than our ideas. And I love this quote from Fr. Mike Schmitz, “One of our favorite things to do,” Father Schmitz says, “is to put God in a box. And one of God’s favorite things to do is to kick the heck out of the box.”

[01:14:24] So my parts bristle when I’m told I have to do it one particular way, especially when that way is explicitly God-centric. Some of that may be pride. I get that, I would own that. But I really have these concerns, and I’m going to talk about this in greater detail in just a minute. Sometimes therapists or coaches get attached to particular means. You know, they may have really benefited from a God-centric approach that was explicit. That really worked for them. So then they assume that that’s the best way for everybody to do it. They generalize from their own experience. I remember my very first clinical supervisor. This was when I was but a wee graduate student. This clinical supervisor, this psychologist described himself as a recovering alcoholic, and he was very attached to a particular means. And that particular means was Alcoholics Anonymous. That was the only way to really treat anybody that had substance abuse issues. Everything was about Alcoholics Anonymous. That was the one way. He wasn’t open to other approaches. And if anyone suggested another approach, he took offense. He took it personally, as though somehow that suggestion threatened his recovery or cut him in his identity in some way. Saint Therese of Lisieux: “how different are the variety of ways through which the Lord leads souls! Souls are more different than faces.” There are many paths to healing. There are many paths to growth.

[01:15:57] We need to be humble, to be open to those, especially those beyond our limited imaginations. So there are some situations that I believe are particularly contraindicated to bringing Jesus in to the therapy work in an explicitly Jesus-centric way, or a God-centric way. Many people have a lot of internal conflict about God, very complex relationships with God because of their parts. That can be a contraindication. Those who have experienced spiritual trauma, especially betrayal trauma, abandonment trauma, they’re perceiving God in these terrible ways. They’ve got these God image issues that need to be worked through. You can’t just bring God in and expect that that’s going to go over very well in an explicit way. Those who have problematic father issues are going to have difficulty with God the Father, those with authority issues, those with a lot of bitterness or resentment toward God, disappointment with God. Unresolved grief is another one. That can be really hard for those parts that are carrying those burdens to have God imposed on them in this explicit, God-centric approach to doing human formation work. There are parts who feel like they have never met God, who are terrified of God. Let me give you another one. Especially with Jesus-centric approaches, some guys with same-sex attraction have a very difficult time. With Jesus being brought in explicitly because when they experience some kind of relational connection with Jesus that gets sexualized and they start to have bodily reactions.

[01:17:43] And their manager parts get on them hard. Those inner critics, they start cutting them down. Those self punishers come up, those parts just ride them hard. And how are you going to know that when you first meet a guy, that might be coming into your office as a coach or as a therapist or even as a friend. Bringing Jesus in right away in an explicit Jesus-centric approach, be really problematic in those situations. Those who have experienced rape by men, women who have experienced rape by men—they often are really concerned because they have parts that assume that any closeness with a man is going to result in rape. They have parts carrying the overwhelming experience of rape. Those parts may assume that all men are rapists. So remember, there’s a lot of really primitive thinking going on here. This is not mediated by the frontal cortex or the prefrontal cortex. This is not engaging the intellect. These are parts that are very, very young; very, very immature thought processes here. Now I have permission to share something of this story here. This is from a Resilient Catholics Community member who at age six, was raped, anally raped from behind, by the father of a friend of his. And he described that whole situation as being smothered and parts of him assumed—the parts of him that were experiencing this trauma—assumed that because of the overwhelming power of the experience,

[01:19:36] that it was God who raped him. This RCC member had been studying his catechism in preparation for First Communion, knew that God was all powerful. He had experienced this rape as having to have been caused by somebody who was all powerful. You can imagine how very young parts, very young children might be making these associations. He had the sense of being smothered in the rape. Difficulty breathing. God could step on me like a bug. So if this person, looking for human formation help, were to appear in a therapist’s office or a coach’s office, or even were to begin to discuss some issues with you as a friend, and you brought in right away a God-centric approach that was really explicit—that could lead to all kinds of issues right up front. Here’s the other thing. That “not bringing Jesus in right away” in an explicitly Jesus-centric approach does not mean that you’re leaving Jesus out. You know God, again, He’s he’s not a puppet. He’s not a marionette on strings. What we want to do is to create a space for him to work. What parts need is love. Love is what heals, and that does not have to come through an explicitly God-centric approach to human formation. It just doesn’t. If your innermost self can love your parts, that love has its origin and its root in God, you didn’t make that love up on your own.

[01:21:38] You’re allowing that love to come from God through you, through your innermost self to your parts. Here’s another reason why I struggle with explicitly God-centric approaches to human formation. And that is, what if they don’t work? What if there’s not healing? What if there’s not progress with an explicitly God-centric approach? There’s going to be an interpretation of that. An interpretation of I’ve failed. I failed. I’m not open to God. I won’t let Jesus in. Blame is going to get assigned. I didn’t have enough faith. The temptation could be to blame oneself. I’m a failure. I’m a failure at therapy. I’m a failure at coaching. I’m a failure at virtue. I’m a failure at faith. I’m a failure at being able to relate with God. So we bring these God-centric approaches that are really explicit in they don’t work sometimes. And you know what? That’s rarely ever discussed in the explicit God-centric way of doing this work, what to do when it doesn’t work like that. Why? Because again, we could be dealing with some real spiritual trauma here. So I’m concerned that there is a subset of people whose parts have really negative God images who are either not going to be fully present in an explicitly God-centric approach, because some parts just won’t have it. The approach isn’t attuned to what they need. Or they’re just never going to engage in the first place.

[01:23:17] Now, why might coaches or therapists bring God into the human formation work in ways that are actually not helpful? Well, sometimes it’s because the therapist or the coach is feeling insecure, and whether he or she has the capacity to really accompany the person. There can be this lack of confidence in this process of journeying together with the client. I have seen numerous occasions, lots of occasions when coaches and therapists engage in spiritualizing and spiritual bypassing. I’ve come across therapists who bring in God very early because of their own managers fears. It’s sort of like a Jesus take the wheel thing. Right? The therapist’s parts are uncomfortable doing therapy with a particular client, sometimes due to a lack of training, but more likely because a lack or a deficit in the therapist’s own human formation. And so in trying to bring this God-centric approach, trying to put God in the middle of it, God taking over the therapy, they’re abdicating their role as therapist and turning into some kind of spiritual adviser, which is often outside their competence. Those therapists can become particularly prone to spiritualization and spiritual bypassing. A lot of times when a client seems really, really open to a God-centric, explicitly God-centric approach—rah rah rah for Jesus—there may be spiritual manager parts that are enthusiastic, but what about the other voices? Right? There’s this possibility of compensation, right? Methinks thou dost protest too much. Drowning out the other voices from the other parts of the client.

[01:25:02] Now, what’s the alternative? Right? Well, the alternative is really creating space for God’s agency, right? God spoke to, I think it was Ezekiel, “the voice of God was not in the earthquake or the fire, but it was in the stillness.” We can ask open ended questions. We can let our clients discover God in their own ways, in their own times, part by part. There’s something really real, very powerful in that, these idiographic approaches that are tailored to each individual part of our clients. The client’s own discovery is so much more powerful. It’s so much better than the therapist or the coach making an observation or an interpretation for the client. It’s so often therapists are observing or they’re interpreting or they’re directing or they’re managing or they’re controlling because of their own needs. God moves in these mysterious ways. And there’s a Christian hymn from 1773 by Englishman William Cowper called “God Moves in a Mysterious Way”. I’m just going to read you the first two stanzas of that. “God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm. Deep in unfathomable minds of never-failing skill, he treasures up his bright designs and works his sovereign will.” Jesus said, let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God is made up of such as these.

[01:26:48] Jesus didn’t say, bring me to the little children. He didn’t say, bring the little children to me. No. What did he say? He said, let the little children come to me and do not hinder them. He respects the agency of the little children. He knows that there’s a teleological pull for little children to come to him. He knows that there’s an inner desire that children will have to be with him if they are not hindered. We want to have this openness. We want to have this flexibility with parts. And if we create that space, it works. I’m going to refer you to a demonstration I did in episode 114 of this podcast that was called Lifting Sexual Burdens: IFS Demo with Drew Boa. Now in this episode, I did a demo where Drew unburdened simultaneously three of his parts. These were the Lost Boys, the five year old, the eight year old, the 13 year old. These were all involved with a sexual fetish he had for braces. Right. And we unburdened all of that. And his innermost self became very present. This unburdening happened in the desert and I did not “bring Jesus in”. I did not use an explicitly God-centric approach, even though Drew is a Christian. He’s not a Catholic, but he’s a Christian. The Holy Spirit came in. Like a dove, spontaneously. That was at the one hour and 54 minute mark of that podcast episode.

[01:28:41] And his different parts could ride that dove, could ride the Holy Spirit, could fly through the air, each of them. He was coming up with this in relationship with the Holy Spirit. I merely wanted to create the conditions where that could happen. I did not want to direct it. I did not want to guide it. This was something that was very clearly the work of God. Drew’s receptivity to those graces. “He must increase and I must decrease.” That was what Saint John the Baptist said. Our parts, they need an experience of love. All love has its origin in God, and love can often be accepted by our parts, even if they have really difficult God images. Even if they cannot accept God, yet they can accept love. And eventually they figure out that as Saint John tells us, God is love. Once I have a good sense that I’m connecting with the parts in myself, or with a client, or with someone I’m doing a demo with, or in the RCC or something like that when those parts have been listened to, when they’ve been connected with, when they’ve been able to share concerns, they are so much better equipped to have a divine encounter with one of the three persons of the Trinity with God the Father, with Jesus, with the Holy Spirit, or with Mary. This whole process of getting to know a part’s spiritual concerns, addressing their fears is so respectful.

[01:30:18] And in the long run, I really do believe it leads to more rapid spiritual growth because the human formation foundations are better grounded for that spiritual formation, for that deep personal relationship. We want to allow parts to connect with God, with Mary, with other saints, with guardian angels, to the degree that they can. To the degree that they can embrace those spiritual means, well and good. But let’s not make a lot of assumptions. Let’s really appreciate how complicated and how wounded some of these parts are. So reason number seven for why I focus almost exclusively on human formation using natural means initially is because explicitly God-centric approaches are not optimal for every part, in every person. They can even be harmful. In some cases, we need alternative means, especially when there’s been spiritual trauma. So to recap, we’ve got all seven of them now. So appreciate you staying with me through all of this. The recap of why I focus nearly exclusively on human formation and not other kinds of formation in my work in this podcast, in the Resilient Catholics Community, in the Interior Therapist Community, and the weekly reflections, in the Foundations Experiential Groups that I offer, in Souls and Hearts more generally. Seven reasons why I focus nearly exclusively on human formation using natural means. One: almost no one else does it. Number two: human formation is the basis of all formation. Number three: there’s a huge reservoir of information from secular sources that we are to bring in.

D[01:32:05] Reason number four: so many spiritual problems are really spiritual consequences of human formation deficits. Reason number five: my training and my experience are in human formation, not spiritual formation. I stay in my lane. I stay in my wheelhouse. The expectations of my role. Reason number six: when you look at good early development and maturation, you see that natural means are used at first primarily, especially with infants, toddlers, preschoolers. And reason number seven: explicitly God-centric approaches may not be optimal and may be even harmful for some parts and some persons. That may be a pretty small minority, I don’t really know. I expect that a lot of people have issues with God, have parts that have disappointment, anger, sense of abandonment, betrayal with God, and may not resonate right away with an explicitly God-centric approach. Now, you don’t have to agree with me on this. You know, if you have found that using exclusively spiritual means to work through your human formation issues has worked for you, great. Go for it. More power to you. I am happy for you. Keep it up. But I do ask that you bear in mind that what works for you might not work for every other person, even if that person has similar issues. Saint Therese of Lisieux, doctor of the church. “How different are the variety of ways through which the Lord leads souls! Souls are more different than faces.”

[01:33:40] And I ask that if your approach is work for you and they don’t work for somebody else, that you not judge that other person as a failure. The means might not have been the means that God has chosen for that other person. Now I recognize the limitations of this podcast. I recognize the limitations of the Resilient Catholics Community, the Interior Therapist Community, Souls and Hearts generally. Souls and Hearts’ offerings are not sufficient for your spiritual formation, not by a long shot. We don’t do spiritual formation in Souls and Hearts. You might consider this podcast, the RCC, the ITC, Souls and Hearts in general to be pre spiritual. In this podcast, in all the offerings of Souls and Hearts, we are learning the human formation arithmetic so that you can do your spiritual algebra. If you don’t have the human formation arithmetic, you can’t do the spiritual algebra. That’s why Saint John the Baptist is our patron. Why? Because he prepared the way for the Lord. That’s what Souls and Hearts is all about. Our Lady, our mother. She prepared the way for Jesus. She is our patroness at Souls and Hearts. Souls and Hearts is a starting point. It’s not a finishing point for our members’ journeys. We are not a one stop shop where you can get all your needs met. We don’t operate like that at all. We are focused on human formation, using initially natural means and then later spiritual means, especially that connection with our spiritual parents: God our father, Mary our mother.

[01:35:22] And this podcast is not for everyone. Episode 84 of this podcast, The Who, the What, the Where, the When, the Why and the Wow of the IIC Podcast. I did a lot of math on who this podcast is for. We’re a niche market. I’m looking for only 37,000 out of 100 million English speaking Catholics that might get interested in this podcast. That’s 0.037 of 1% or 1 in 2700 Catholics might be interested in this podcast, 1 in 2700 English speaking Catholics. And to go further than that, I think there are about 1200 Catholics out of 100 million English speaking Catholics that are ready for the Resilient Catholics Community. 0.0012% of English speaking Catholics, about 1 in 83,000 English speaking Catholics, I think, are ready for the Resilient Catholic Community. Now hopefully those numbers will be growing. We’re finding that the new applicants to the RCC know a lot more about parts. They know a lot more about IFS. They’ve been listening to the podcast. Now we have Gerry Crete’s book that just came out. There’s other resources out there that they’re engaging with. So I think those numbers are going to grow, but it’s still a really small percentage. So if this doesn’t work for you, okay, you know, go with what works for you. I’m just asking in this episode that when human formation is approached from an implicitly God-centric way where where God is not immediately front and center, that that not be condemned, that that not be judged negatively.

[01:37:02] That’s what I’m asking, that you be open to that as being really helpful, especially for some people who have experienced spiritual trauma or some of these other difficulties that I described in this episode. All right, well, I’ve got some announcements for you. Dr. Gerry Crete’s book Litanies of the Heart. If you order it today from Sophia Press with the discount code LENT2024, you get 30% off. All right. That ends today, February 5th, the day that this podcast episode is released. I bought one through Sophia Press, got the 30% discount. I’m looking forward to getting that. I also have it as a Kindle version, so I’ve been reading it there and then I’ve got other versions that Dr. Gerry has shared with me throughout the whole production process, but really encourage you to get that. That is an amazing book. We’re going to be talking about that book in our next episode, episode 132. Super excited about that. I’m going to encourage you go to our landing page, soulsandhearts.com/iic, register for that. Dr. Gerry and I—this is going to be on February 13th at 7:00 PM Eastern time—we’re going to be discussing that book. Your voices, we want your questions, we want your your comments on that book.

[01:38:23] There’s an open conversation. You have to register for that Zoom meeting. We’ve got space for 100 participants. Go to soulsandhearts.com/iic. Get your free Zoom registration and join us for that meeting. It’s going to be really great. If you can’t join us live and you want to submit a question, go ahead and leave me a voicemail on my cell phone (317) 567-9594. And we take that voicemail and we can we can use it in that episode. Or you can email me a question at crisis@soulsandhearts.com. Also, I’m super excited that Dr. Peter Martin is going to be joining me for episode 133 of this podcast, when we’re going to be discussing what I shared with you in this episode. Dr. Peter Martin, clinical psychologist, passionate Catholic out of Lincoln, Nebraska. He has this concept of internal evangelization about how we go about connecting our parts with God. He’s developed some ways of thinking about that. He’s going to listen to this particular podcast episode, and he’s going to join me for a conversation about that for episode 133. That’ll be coming out on the first Monday of March. And then I’ve also reached out to Dr. Bob Schuchts and Jake Khym, would really love to have them as guests to continue this conversation about how we approach our internal world, about how we navigate in our internal world in such a way that maximally helps our human formation and helps our parts to connect with God our father, with Jesus, with the Holy Spirit, with Our Lady.

[01:40:20] So we’ll see if if we can work it out, that they can join us as well to continue that conversation. I’m going to invite you to meet me in New Orleans in April. April 25th to the 27th. The Catholic Psychotherapy Association Conference will be in New Orleans in the Big Easy. Check that out at CatholicPsychotherapy.org. And before that conference begins on Wednesday night, April 24th, from 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM, anyone associated with Souls and Hearts, any podcast listeners, any readers of the weekly reflections, any members of the RCC or the ITC, you can get in touch with me and we’re going to get together in person. If you’d like to come to that event, and we’re going to be figuring out what that’s going to look like, depending on how many people we have, we’ll pick a venue, we’ll do some demos, we’ll have some conversation, we’ll do a little didactics. Really join me on that. Let me know if that’s something you’re interested in that you want to join me for in New Orleans the evening of April 24th. That’s a Wednesday from 8:00 pm to 10:00 PM local time. Let me know. crisis@soulsandhearts.com. Send me an email. Let me know that you can make that. You don’t have to attend the conference for that one.

[01:41:36] We did something very similar to this when I went to Denver last October. We got together with about oh, 20 or 25 people that were affiliated in one way or another with Souls and Hearts. It was an excellent gathering. Really enjoyed that. So we’re going to do that again. Then the next night after the Catholic Psychotherapy Association social hour, which ends at 7:00 pm local time on Thursday, April 25th, we’re going to do an event just for those Souls and Hearts members that happen to be attending the conference. We’re going to get together, do some demos, have some conversation and see where that takes us. So that’ll be from about 7:00 PM to 10:00 pm on the evening of Thursday, April 25th. We’re also going to have a vendor table at the Catholic Psychotherapy Association conference in the vendor hall. Great opportunity to stop by and to see me, to see Dr. Gerry. Opportunity to to meet Dr. Gerry Crete, have him sign a copy of his book for you. Check out the program for that conference. Gerry Crete and Christian Amalu are doing a joint presentation and this is going to be amazing. It’s called Defending the Internal Family: A Catholic Approach to Internal Family Systems and Ego State Therapy. These are the two guys that I most respect about how to ground internal family systems in an authentically Catholic understanding of the human person. These are the ones that have read the Scripture, that have read the other church fathers, that have read the writings of the saints, that have gone through so many Catholic resources and found so many different ways that internal family systems can be modified and adjusted to be harmonized with our Catholic faith.

[01:43:16] Super excited about that presentation. That one’s going to be on Saturday, April 27th at 2:00 PM to 3:30 p.m. local time. And also, I have so much respect for Dr. Greg Kolodziejczak. He’s going to be giving a plenary talk called Intersubjective Self Psychology: Contributions to Family Life and Healing, Growth and Development. That’s also on Saturday, April 27th at 9:00 in the morning to 10:30. Deacon Kevin Stevenson—we reviewed his book, The Parent Child and Adult: Healing Our Inner Selves. We reviewed that book several weeks ago in a weekly reflection, and he’s going to be giving a presentation on that on Friday, April 26th from 3:30 p.m. to 5:00 PM local time. So think about that. Go to catholicpsychotherapy.org. Check out that conference. Catholic Psychotherapy Association Conference. See if that’s something that you might want to get involved with. It’s not just for Catholic therapists or counselors. It would also be, I think, really helpful for coaches, spiritual directors and other people that are interested in human formation and psychology, all from a Catholic understanding of the human person. Now I’ve got something I’m really excited about. There are Foundations Experiential Groups that are opening up for therapists and counselors and also for spiritual directors and coaches.

[01:44:34] The Foundations Experiential Groups is a personal introduction to IFS for Catholic therapists, Catholic coaches, Catholic spiritual directors. It gives those group members an opportunity to experience the personal benefits of IFS parts work. And these are led by seasoned IFS trained clinicians. Each Foundations Experiential Groups will run from the beginning of March to July of 2024. It’s not therapy, but it’s focused on human formation through an IFS lens. It’s grounded in Catholic understanding of the human person. There are room for 1 or 2 more people, 1 or 2 more therapists in psychologist Peter Martin’s FEG for Catholic therapists and counselors. That’s going to be on Mondays from 8:15 p.m. to 9:45 p.m. Eastern time. So it’s in the evening. March 2024 to July 2024. Ten sessions and all that one is for Catholic therapists and counselors. This is also something I’m really excited about. There are opportunities for Catholic coaches and Catholic spiritual directors to work on their own human formation with me personally, in these small Foundations Experiential Groups. They have somewhere between 7 and 9 professionals. There’s ten 90 minute sessions over five months. We’ll get to spend a total of 15 hours together working on our human formation. I’m looking for 2 or 3 more spiritual directors or coaches to join my Thursday morning FEG. That’ll be from 9:30 a.m. to 11:00 am Eastern time.

[01:46:04] That again, is running from March to July, and then I’ll either be doing one on Tuesday nights from 7:15 p.m. to 8:45 p.m.. Again, this is for spiritual directors and coaches. Or from on Wednesday afternoons from 3:45 p.m. to 5:15 p.m.. We’re looking to fill one of those two up. And that’s again for spiritual directors and coaches that want to work with me on their human formation personally, that want to learn and grow together. If you’re interested, go to soulsandhearts.com/itc. You can read more about these or email Pamela Malinoski. She’s my dear bride. She’s helping out with this at office@soulsandhearts.com. She will fill you in on all the details. Or you can reach out to me at crisis@soulsandhearts.com. That’s my email address. Or at (317) 567-9594. I have conversation hours every Tuesday and Thursday from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Eastern time every Tuesday and Thursday, (317) 567-9594. We can talk about these sorts of things. We can talk about anything that’s coming up in these podcast episodes or in the weekly reflections, but it’s not for your like, personal consultation. I can’t evaluate you or do any kind of psychological or clinical service for you. All right, that’s a wrap. This has been a long one if you have stayed with me through the entire thing, thank you so much. Thank you for your time and for your attention, for your willingness to learn and to grow. And it lifts me up. It inspires me. It helps every one of us in the mystical Body of Christ. So thank you for that. And we’ll close by invoking our patroness and our patron. Our Lady, our Mother, Untier of Knots, pray for us. Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.