IIC 178: Q&A on Ordered Self-Love, your Body, Parts Work and Catholicism

You need to love yourself properly to love others in an ordered way. How can we understand St. Thomas Aquinas’ insistence on us governing our passions from an IFS perspective in a way that loves our passionate parts?  How can we be detached from worldly goods?  Do saints get blended with their parts?  Are there benefits to some kinds of blending with parts?  How can we frame the Theology of the Body to resonate more with women’s concerns?  How can we consider both errors of commission vs. errors of omission in parts work? What about the importance of mercy, the centrality of love, the requirement of interior integration in for human formation through an Internal Family Systems lens, grounded in a Catholic understanding of the human person?  Join Dr. Gerry Crete, Dr. Peter Martin, and Dr. Peter Malinoski take these questions and more in this episode with a live audience.

[00:00:00] Dr. Peter: “To get answers of life, ask questions.” That’s from author, storyteller, and CEO Sukant Ratnakar. And today we are asking questions, questions like, how can we understand St. Thomas Aquinas and systems on us governing our passions from an IFS perspective in a way that loves our passionate parts? And how can we be detached from worldly goods? And do saints get blended with their parts? And are there even benefits to some kinds of blending with parts? How can we frame the theology of the body to resonate more with women’s concerns? And what are the costs of errors of commission versus errors of omission? And what about mercy? The centrality of love, the requirement of interior integration?

[00:00:59] Dr. Peter: “Questions lead to further questions and inquiry breeds insight. Gathering expertise brings both confidence and consolation.” That’s from author and naturalist Lyanda Lynn Haupt. And, “to question the world around us and all its complexities is not blasphemy, but simply using the mind God gave us for its intended purpose. God is an artist. Artists do not create to have someone just glance and say, ‘that is pretty.’ Artists want viewers to look closer, deeper — to really see what they have created — not just glance.” That’s from Cristina Marrero.

[00:01:50] Dr. Peter: And today we’re gonna go deep into this. We’re bringing our live audience, asking questions, IFS, Catholicism, loving wholeheartedly, mercy, integration, all of these things coming together. So join us as we dive back in. I am Dr. Peter Malinoski, also known as Dr. Peter. I am your host and guide in this Interior Integration for Catholics podcast. I’m so glad to be here with you, learning with you, asking questions with you. And Richard Feynman, the theoretical physicist from the 20th century said, “I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.” Now, all last year in 2025, we did a deep dive into Internal Family Systems, IFS, parts work, Catholicism. And we are continuing on with questions, more questions, with answers, more answers, with discussion, more discussions, searching, questioning, finding, sometimes losing, often winning.

[00:03:02] Dr. Peter: And as Ghanian inspirational writer, Lailah Gifty Akita says, “if you begin to ask questions, you will find the answers.” And that’s an echo of what our Lord said in Matthew 7:7-8. “Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it shall be open to you. For everyone who asks, receives, and he who seeks, finds, and to him who knocks, it will be opened.” We are knocking, we are asking, we are seeking. We are bringing in the insights from Internal Family Systems, developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz and other parts and systems models. We are harmonizing them with the truths of the Catholic faith to help you live out the three great loves and the two great commandments: to love God, your neighbor and yourself. That’s what this is all about. And this is episode 178 of the Interior Integration for Catholics podcast. It releases on January 5th, 2026, and it’s titled Q and A on Ordered Self-Love, Your Body, Parts Work, and Catholicism.

[00:04:07] Dr. Peter: And back by popular demand, we have psychologist Dr. Peter Martin of the state of Nebraska. He’s been with us in recent episodes, 154, 155, 156, 158, 160, and 171. I’ve introduced him many times to you. He is an IFS therapist whose work focuses on faith-integrated and trauma-informed approaches to recovery. I’m excited to have him back for this episode of the Interior Integration for Catholics podcast. And I also have my dear friend, Dr. Gerry Crete. Dr. Gerry has been on this podcast many times before. He’s a licensed marriage and family therapist in Atlanta, Georgia. He’s the founder and owner of Transfiguration Counseling, and he co-founded Souls and Hearts with me in 2019. He’s also the author of the book, Litanies of the Heart. And it is so good to have so many of you with us here today. Thank you for being here. And again, thank you, Gerry. Thank you, Peter, for being here with me on this episode 178. And yeah, I’m just, I’m gonna open it up for folks that might have questions, but to kind of lead us off, I thought I would just ask you, Gerry, and just ask you, Peter, if there was something in the last episodes that you might want to expand on a little bit or another key point that you would just like to make, if there was like something brief that you thought you’d like to emphasize or add in or any of that to this whole stream that we’ve been doing on grounding IFS and parts work in a Catholic understanding of the human person going back all the way to Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, and then, you know, up through the more modern era with the Catechism and John Paul II and Christopher West and all that stuff. Or if there was a memorable moment for you personally. 

[00:05:55] Dr. Gerry: Well, I’ll start if it’s all right. And just say that I really enjoyed doing the interview with Christopher West and was super appreciative that he liked parts work and he liked Litanies of the Heart. And I really enjoyed it. I am just trying catch up on all these podcasts. I think that the ones that you did with Dr. Flood and Dr. Gudan, I’m really enjoying and I was reflecting on one item. I don’t know if it’ll be something we talk about more or not, but it was the whole idea that in Aquinas, which I had not realized that, or at least fully realized, that this whole idea of loving yourself properly leads to loving others properly. And the opposite is true. And so that just speaks so beautifully to, well, A) psychology in general and the idea of projection, right? That we project on others, you know, what we hate in ourselves and, you know, parts work and this whole idea that if we don’t resolve the things, you know, burdens of our own parts, we’ll inflict them in some way on others. So I personally just was so appreciative of those philosophical discussions that were deeper and more Thomistic, because it really gave me even, not that I lacked any confidence truly, but maybe I just felt really emboldened or maybe a bit, and just more secure in going, wow, there really are more and more links all the time that we’re discovering.

[00:07:25] Dr. Peter: I love it. Thank you Gerry. It’s wonderful. So, Dr. Peter Martin, I’m just curious if there’s a thought, a takeaway, something you’d like to emphasize, whatever. 

[00:07:35] Dr. Peter Martin: Just excited to be back and I was just thinking about the topic of today’s q and a and how it’s focused on the body, the Catechism, parts work, and here we are in great anticipation of our incarnate Lord, you know, coming in person and being born on the 25th and so forth. It’s just great timing first off. The second thing is, no, I was excited for Gerry, just how excited Christopher West was about your book and how that really is shaping his thought in some ways. But I think of all the podcasts that kind of stood out to me, I really liked getting to meet and get to know Dr. Flood better. And in particular, just hearing his process from the earliest of days, ancient philosophers up through Aquinas and so forth, and in particular the self-love stuff, Gerry, like you mentioned, that there is a robust philosophical tradition that can support a lot of what IFS is saying. That really stood out to me. And one thing about it too, is particularly how the three turns, you know, the three phenomenological turns toward the self, toward others, toward God. How all of those turns are grounded in an ordered way in love, and specifically, and maybe we’ll get into it today, a particular type of love, right? A particular aspect of love, which is mercy. So I’ll just leave that dangling for now. 

[00:09:01] Dr. Peter: Well, beautiful. So just wanna open it up to folks, you know, for any questions you may have, you know, that you’d like to share with us. Yeah. We’re just really open to hearing what might be up for you.

[00:09:17] Avis: I’ll be a big mouth.

[00:09:19] Dr. Peter: So good to have you with us, Avis. Thank you for being here.

[00:09:22] Avis: Thank you. So the episode that I really enjoyed is with Dr. Gerry and Elizabeth Galanti on the Catechism. And this actually kind of came up a little bit this morning. The polarization of human activity, and Elizabeth referred to it as governing our passions. And I’m reading another book that talked about, you know, our passions, which I am associating with our human needs, our human attachments, our human activity, and the divine soul, the spirit. So what I struggle with is you can’t have one without the other. That’s one of the things that I’ve learned being with you guys, is your human existence is important. It’s part of you. And your passions, like this morning we were talking about my controlling part and Dr. Gerry suggested it’s our courageous part, which is a transition that I’m still working through. My thought process is the balance between feeling terrible because you’re not doing everything that the saints do. Like, you’re not giving up everything that you have and you’re not, you know, governing your passions. It can be a lot of different things, but, you know, just like being detached from the everyday stuff. There’s a lot of messages that I’m getting from God in terms of what to do during this advent season. And it’s silence and internal reflection and stuff like that. And in the meantime, all of this human stuff is going on and distracting me. So there was really good discussion between Dr. Gerry and Elizabeth and I’d like to kind of go a little bit more on that. I know I’m kind of like stuttering, but I hope I got my message across a little bit.

[00:11:28] Dr. Gerry: Was that for me in particular or were you hoping to hear from the other Peters and their perspective on that? 

[00:11:34] Avis: Whoever would like to share their wisdom. You and Elizabeth had really great conversation and it was very interesting and it just brings up, and I had a direction session today that it’s the same thing. It’s like, okay, we wanna do God’s work. We wanna be, you know, focused on what God wants us to do. But there’s also God in everyday life, you know, the Ignatian spirituality, God in everyday life, and embracing everything that we’re doing. But a lot there. It’s difficult balancing the judgment on, you know, am I doing this for me? Am I doing this for God? Where am I going with this? And you guys wrapped a lot of that around the conversation in terms of the Catechism. So whoever, whoever wants to dive in. It’s kind of a general question. 

[00:12:31] Dr. Peter: Sure, sure. Well, I think, and you guys can jump in too. I think that when we want to love or we want to do something out of love, we aspire to do that wholeheartedly, right? With all of our being. And so I think about, you know, the passions being included in that, right? And I think it’s important to remember that parts are not passions. Sometimes they can be misidentified that way that, you know, that a part is anger, you know, for example, or a part is, you know, some kind of some kind of internal experience. But, you know, I think one of the things that came outta that conversation that I really appreciated was that there is, and Christopher West brought this up too, I think, like the redemption of us all. Like all of us, you know, all of what’s going on inside of us, all of the passions. And that is really central to this theme of integration that came up in that episode. And, you know, the importance of integration, especially around the theme of chastity, which Christopher West then picked up in the next episode in 177. 

[00:13:41] Dr. Gerry: Yeah, I hope I don’t repeat things I said this morning, ’cause I don’t remember what I said this morning. I don’t remember everything I said with Elizabeth in that podcast, sometimes I listen to it again and go, oh, that was a good thing. So I’m all over the place. But I think I was mentioning this morning, like the idea of the spiritual senses. And I’m really fascinated with that whole concept because, and I think it aligned well with what I was just kind of catching up on in the discussion with Anthony Flood, because I think like he made a distinction between the passions, which is like how we’re connected to the sensible world. And then he talked about the affections, which are more connected to the will. And I like that. And I hadn’t quite, I don’t know, for whatever reason, I hadn’t hundred percent framed it that way, but I like it.

[00:14:28] Dr. Gerry: And when I think of the inmost self and there are spiritual center, then I’m thinking that there are spiritual eyes and spiritual ears and spiritual, you know, senses. And so, the same experience that you might have, and I think I used the example of Thanksgiving dinner this morning. I think I did. You know, the same experience of seeing the dinner and looking through just your passions alone might be like, I am so hungry, I just want to eat everything in sight. Like gobble, gobble, gobble, and I don’t even care if I take more of the mashed potatoes, the last little bit that’s left, I gotta have it, kind of thing. So, you know, gluttony, right, or whatever. And so, whereas, when you look at it through spiritual eyes, the same moment you see Thanksgiving dinner, and you see it through the eyes of, wow, look at how the Lord has provided these, this food. Look at the family members that are here, they’re present. I have a spirit of gratitude for everything that we’re given and the people that are here and that made this food and all of a sudden, and I can then enjoy that dinner, like truly enjoy that dinner as a good, right.

[00:15:51] Dr. Gerry: Whereas it otherwise, it was like more of a means to some kind of like endless satisfaction of something with a disordered quality to it. Whereas when you enjoying every moment, every morsel, you’re enjoying with your company, you’re present, your experience is so different. And so I think that when we get caught up, like maybe in sin or whatnot, in various ways in our lives, like it’s often because we have blinders on that prevent our spiritual eyes from seeing what’s happening. And I think what IFS does, what parts work does is that it allows those eyes to be opened. It allows like, through that process of unending by itself even like, allows a possibility of opening the spiritual eyes, of seeing things from the point of view of our innermost self, allowing grace to enter into the situation. So it becomes a practice of life to always be sort of, try to be present with that and be aware of that and open those eyes and, you know, notice if parts are taking over whatnot. And so that you’re like, you know, you’re in a sense praying unceasingly, you’re praying in constant connection with your innermost self and ultimately in connection with the Holy Spirit. I think it just changes everything. And you don’t have to be perfect. It’s not like we’re always gonna make every decision, do everything perfectly, like all the time, but we’re conscious, we’re more and more conscious of ourselves you know, our heart and so on.

[00:17:25] Avis: Yeah. Thank you. This morning you touched on the unblended, and then what you just said, we can’t do everything perfectly. I think that’s where people get hung up is that we have this prescription through the saints and through the Catechism, and through, do this, this, and this, and you’re on the right journey. And it’s hard. And, you know, I think I have parts that look at that and say, am I ever gonna get there? And I don’t know if it’s my shame part, but am I worthy? You know, ’cause I’m not doing everything that is prescribed to do. And I think that’s a real struggle with a lot of people, especially the people that I meet with. And I can say, you know, you want to detach from it emotionally. You don’t have to give it up. You don’t have to go to a monastery. You don’t have to be a religious and walk away from everything. But emotionally you have to detach from it. And it’s like, how do you do that? What part is, and I think it speaks a lot to the relationship in self and parts. I mean, I know when I’m blended and I don’t know if I’ve ever been unblended. And Dr. Peter, you talk about like that a lot. We’re always blended. But it’s like, is there a point where I can know that I’m unblended and totally. And I’m associating that unblended state being at total peace with and detached from, you know, kind of what’s going on in the human existence. 

[00:19:03] Dr. Peter Martin: It’s a great question, and I feel like it applies so well to everybody that’s listening. When I think of someone like St. Augustine, I think of wrestling. That’s what I think of when I think of someone like St. Ignatius of Loyola. You know, there’s a story, I haven’t checked on the source, but when I went on a Ignatian retreat, they said that he encountered, I believe it was a Muslim individual, and they were debating, I think it was Mary’s virginity. And after the discussion, he was so irate. He was so blended with an angry aggressive part that he wanted to go kill the guy, right? So this is a future saint. He’s like, I have two paths in front of me. I will either go the opposite direction and ignore it, or I’ll turn to follow him and I will kill him. And he let his horse determine which direction to go is the way the story is told. But what I hear a lot of times with saints is more of the hagiographies, which say that they almost like transcend all blendedness. You know, it feels like they transcend all.

[00:20:05] Dr. Peter Martin: And my sense is that even though, to Peter’s point, all of us are redeemed, the whole person is redeemed, we’re not yet glorified. And what that means in some level is that blendedness, and I agree with Peter and Gerry, blendedness is a part and parcel of our every moment experience. Even if you talk to secular IFS theorists, they’ll say, I’m trying to think of her name where I heard this. She said she feels like she got to an almost fully unblended state when she was in deep kind of inward turn, getting to know her parts, unblending. But then she opened her eyes and all of a sudden she became blended again. And that’s kind of my sense, that’s my sense of the general day to day is because we are embodied persons. And then because we have so many things tugging at us, our memories, our history, the fears of the future. Yeah, it requires a lot of tenderness toward ourselves, knowing that the blendedness will be a part of it.

[00:21:07] Dr. Peter Martin: I actually liked when Anthony Flood was talking about his struggles with donuts. He brought up donuts a few times. At that point, I’m like, I really connect with this guy, donuts, especially, right? Especially apple fritters. That’s my sweet spot. But no, my sense is, for a lot of people, it can feel like a crucifixion, right? It can feel like day-to-day crucifixions and sacrifices. And I do think that that is the journey of Christ in many ways. Yeah, but to your point, it’s complicated and we’ll have highs and we’ll have times of more peace or even great peace. But a lot of the journey can be challenging.

[00:21:47] Dr. Peter: Yeah. And to remember the blending is on a continuum. One of the analogies I really like is if the innermost self is like the sun, you know, and blended parts are like clouds, you know, it’s not the case usually that the sun is totally obliterated by the clouds and there’s no light at all, you know. So I think that most really good loving happens when there’s still a fair amount of blending, right? Just like there can still be light coming through the clouds. So we don’t have to be completely unblended for there to be good things, for there to be good loving. As we unblend, we’ll notice those eight Cs and we’ll notice that there is there’s not the tension around agendas, you know, parts’ agendas and then often we notice that there’s some kind of inner experience. Some people have an experience of expansiveness or light or warmth or something like that. I think it’s up to each person to kind of figure out what their tells are when they’re less blended and when they’re more, you know, operating in a more recollected way, or in IFS terms, right, more in self.

[00:22:49] Dr. Peter Martin: You know Peter, I was thinking of, I forget his name, the author of the book, The Context of Holiness, a biography of St. Therese. Yeah. 

[00:22:57] Dr. Peter: Yeah. Abbot Marc Foley. 

[00:22:59] Dr. Peter Martin: Yeah, Abbot Marc Foley. Really liked him. Such a really grounded, down to earth kinda guy. And I remember one of us had asked him, ’cause we were discussing the book with him, and one of the psychologists there had asked them, or mental health professionals asked him, did St. Therese ever eventually get securely attached? In other words, was she ever at the point where she could be classified or categorized as secure? And you know what he did? He actually put his hand up like this. He goes, eh, kinda like that. So this is a saint. Another way to say that is she struggled a lot with blending. She struggled a lot with some of the insecure kind of struggles and close relationships to the end. But the difference, he said, what made her saintly is that she chose good. It wasn’t that it was not a cross, it wasn’t that it wasn’t a challenge. It’s that despite that insecurity and despite that struggle and blendedness, she chose good, as a saint does.

[00:24:05] Dr. Gerry: I would just say like I love the continuum that Dr. Peter Malinoski mentioned and on the whole other side of that continuum too, like what the highest of the high? It would be that state of contemplation that is infused where you’re not blended, you’re in complete harmony. You’re complete communion with God. And as I’m reading through all the mystics, like the impression I get is that even for the best of them, that lasts a few minutes. If they get to it, it lasts a few minutes. It’s not like they’re in perpetual state of bliss and infused contemplation. That’s not any of their experiences. So it’s a continuum. I see Molly has a question. 

[00:24:49] Dr. Peter: Oh yeah. Great. Let’s take that. 

[00:24:52] Molly: Hi.

[00:24:53] Dr. Peter: Hi Molly. 

[00:24:55] Molly: Hi. Okay. I am a little bit behind on getting caught up for podcasts, but I did have a question last time. But it’s kind of honestly, it just keeps building on itself. Okay. 

[00:25:11] Dr. Peter: Okay. 

[00:25:12] Molly: In the most annoyingly contradictory ways because on one hand I have the, how do we take our internal experience and try and put it into kind of actions because we know that it’s good and that like we have to act because we have bodies and God made our bodies and therefore theology of the body. All of that is included in that. But then on the other hand, we also have like, we act, and that’s usually very social. And then we have the internal social dynamics that go in within our own parts. But then I get confused when we’re saying passions aren’t parts. We’re making a distinction there. And I’m assuming part of the distinction is action-based, action versus this like the experience. And then we get into blending, and we think of this restlessness too, like being blended and such. We think of it as the restlessness, and we have, our hearts are restless till they rest in thee. So when we have that kind of circle and cycle, then we are living. We’re currently alive, we’re not at rest fully, we’re not fully even in our most in communion state with God that we have in our present life. We’re not able to reach what the saints are experiencing in heaven. So how healthy is it as a goal to try and strive for being completely unblended, both psychologically and spiritually? Especially if it takes away from our current experience and being able to label all of our parts as good and being able to fully love all of our parts?

[00:27:37] Dr. Gerry: Well, maybe the goal isn’t like always be unblended. I think the goal might be, and Peter, jump in if I say this wrong, but to be intentionally blended, like intentionally, you have parts with all these resources, you have parts with all these talents and strengths and gifts. So I think we need to think of our parts as good things. These are essential to like components or aspects of who we are. And so what we don’t want is burdened parts and extreme roles blended, right. Especially kind of like unconsciously just sort of that happening. And then we’re not even like aware that that’s kind of happening until after, kind of thing. I think that we wanna be in a state where we are appreciating all these parts.

[00:28:23] Dr. Gerry: And like I was saying, like if the passions are connected to this sensible world, like the physical world, then we wanna see those, if we can, as much as possible through spiritual eyes, which means we’re actually like appreciating the physical world through like our heart, through our physical body, our whole soul and body is appreciating the physical world and wants to live in a way where we’re ordered and we’re appreciating things the way we’re meant to, right, as opposed to like in some kind of disordered way. So basically we’re seeking the good, the telos. What is it? What a thing is meant to be. And when we do that, and we see that, we will see the whole physical world as good. And I think Maximus compared to maybe some of the earlier people, like Evagrius, Maximus the Confessor, sees the passions as neutral. They’re not like effectively bad because you have a passion.

[00:29:20] Dr. Gerry: They can be if they’re disordered, but if it’s ordered. And I feel like if you look at, you know, seeing the world through these spiritual eyes, you’re St. Francis, right? Because St. Francis was, like the Canticle of the Creatures. I mean, he was Brother Sun, Sister Moon, like he was appreciating the world. His passions were in perfect order with the world in the way that God intended. And that’s what’s beautiful. So, yeah, I don’t know, you guys can tell me what you think. I don’t think the goal is to not have any blended parts all. I think it’s just intentionally blended parts. And I don’t think the passions are bad in and of themselves. 

[00:29:57] Dr. Peter: So I would think it depends on how you define blended. So you know, the definition I use would be where there’s a loss of distinction between the part and the innermost self. And so if that’s what you mean by blended, then it’s better to maintain the distinctions because the distinctions are really important for you to be in relationship, your innermost self to be in relationship with the part. And we wanna have that distinct but near, right. So there can be that relationship. Just kinda like the conductor of an orchestra wants to maintain a distinction with each of the musicians in the orchestra. The orchestra is one, it’s a unity, but it’s also a multiplicity. And so, I think that sometimes blending in the way that you, Dr. Gerry, was talking about, it can still be helpful, ’cause it’s a way to have a lot of information conveyed really quickly about what the experience of the part is. But I like the idea of maintaining the distinctions within the person so that we can best have that relationship. So I think about blending as like when somebody gets to be so close that you can’t see them anymore. You know, like they’re right up so close to your face that you can’t maintain visual contact anymore. And there’s been a sort of loss of the boundaries, you know, around the innermost self, around the part.

[00:31:19] Dr. Peter: And I think maintaining those boundaries is really helpful for those inner relationships, including the love relationship. When a part is really blended, I think the great tragedy there is that the innermost self and the other parts lose the capacity to love that part actually. You know, so that would be my concern about blending, at least in the way that I’m talking about it. With regard to the loss of distinction. I do think there can be an empathetic connection with parts, a compassionate connection with parts, that might be interpreted by some as blending, where there is like, I can feel what you feel, you know, for example, and I don’t see that as necessarily involving loss of distinction. Does that make sense? There’s like two different ways of understanding blending. 

[00:32:06] Dr. Gerry: Yeah. I like way you put that and I agree. And I guess I would say, instead of saying intentionally blending, it might be better to say like, engaging the part. 

[00:32:16] Dr. Peter: Yeah. Yeah. I would feel more comfortable with that language, you know? 

[00:32:20] Molly: Yeah. Yeah. I like that. I’m sorry to talk, but. 

[00:32:24] Dr. Peter: Oh no, we wanna hear you, Molly. Come on. Okay, let’s hear it. I love it. 

[00:32:27] Molly: Well, I agreed with not liking the phrasing of intentional ’cause it kind of makes it sound like each part has to have a use. I don’t know if that’s always the best to be look at something and say, you have to have a use instead of just being. And I like what you said about the engagement and the distinction because I know that when it comes to love, we have a very good example of God wanting us to be our own distinct selves, or else we wouldn’t have had like free will in the first place. But thank you for that. I really do appreciate, that does help me quite a bit. Thank you. 

[00:33:10] Dr. Peter: Yeah, you’re welcome. I’m glad that that’s helpful to you. And we are still sorting these things out, like, you know, I mean, sometimes I think there might be an impression that we’ve got it all figured out, and we are still very much at the beginning of trying to understand, especially the metaphysics, you know, that undergirds these ideas. And so it was great to have Anthony Flood come on to be able to discuss that. And I was surprised at how much he was actually into parts and systems thinking and so forth. So it’s gratifying to find that these experts in various fields other than, you know, psychology or any of the mental health disciplines are getting interested. 

[00:33:46] Dr. Gerry: I think the language is always tricky and their use of language is so tricky and nuanced, and I liked it that, even though maybe Anthony Flood may not have casually said parts. But he got to a place of being able to call it, I think he said constellations. 

[00:34:01] Dr. Peter: Right, he liked that word.

[00:34:02] Dr. Gerry: It essentially was that, right, is a part is a constellation of these different feelings and memories and things. And so our language is, like you said, we’re still working it out, but it’s nuanced, it’s difficult to be precise with this sort of thing. 

[00:34:16] Dr. Peter Martin: Yeah, a couple of things on that too. It’s such a great question, such a good discussion piece. Yeah, parts are more than emotions and Gerry’s point about passions being neutral. They’re neutral in terms of morality, but they’re good in terms of existence, right? So passions are not only not bad, they’re good because God gave them to us. In addition, if we can blend with parts, that must be a good capacity as well, because God allowed that and gave us that capacity to do that. But it can turn awry, right? So that’s where, you know, the passions can either, if they’re disordered, they can take you the wrong direction morally, or if they’re properly ordered, they actually are a great assistance in the moral life. And so with virtue, they’re an essential component. Not even an add-on or a glaze or anything. They’re actually an essential piece of virtue if they’re properly ordered.

[00:35:14] Dr. Peter Martin: One other thing too, I can’t remember if it was Peter or Gerry that mentioned it. Yeah, so parts are much more than just an emotion. They’re a constellation. Some call it a mode of experience. If you look at other models, look at ego state models like schema mode, and so they’re a grouping of a rounded experience that a person has in a particular state of existence, a particular state of mind. And so if these capacities are here to blend. And one other thing, parts, like when Saint Augustine says restless hearts, right? So to your point, Molly, and I think Peter mentioned that. A restlessness in some ways can be a burdened part, or in some ways it could be, if you think about this yearning for God, I was just looking at, because I think he’s kind of thinking of it in a not so good way. So he’s thinking of it as kind of a burdened blended part. I was looking at Psalm 63:2. It says, “O God, you are my God. It is you I seek. For you my body yearns.” Remember, this is Old Testament before Christ. And so, “for you, my body yearns, for you my soul thirsts.” Right? So part of the reason we’re restless is because he has designed our body and our soul to yearn for him at a deep level, but then that can go, you know, awry as well.

[00:36:38] Maria: I think this might lead into a question that I had, that idea of like restless hearts and passions and the the theology of the body podcast. But first I do wanna say that I definitely have the impression that you guys have it all figured out, or at least much more so than I do. So I’m very grateful for all of you. Dr. Peter very graciously listened to my, like, somewhat frantic ideas about the last episode on his Tuesday office hours. So I want to say thank you, Dr. Peter. But since then I’ve tried to like organize my thoughts a little bit more, and that episode was like so good. And like I told Dr. Peter, I felt like it was so true to a man’s heart, and so it got me really thinking like, how does that whole episode apply to a woman’s heart? So Dr. Peter said that maybe I could try to share like inside of a few minutes try to give some voice to like a gal’s perspective on that episode.

[00:37:42] Maria: So I did kind of come up with an idea that I wanted to share to define like the ache that Dr. Christopher was talking about and the half right ways, and then maybe some like new imagery for that third way that kind of could bring the ladies along in his idea of like the passions and all of those different paths. So I think ultimately my question will just be to hear your thoughts on my ideas because I’m just like some lady, I’m a math teacher, so I’m like in over my skis here. But I definitely had a good time thinking about it. So, like Dr. Christopher described this passion and this ache for men, and for women, I think, that ache is for like, the safety that was touched on in that episode. And I was thinking that that safety for women seems to be rooted in like exclusivity, like exclusive love. And I have parts that are like, no, like you’re gonna say that publicly on the internet, because I feel like that word is like pretty negatively associated with like possessiveness and jealousy and control. Kind of in the same way that Dr. Christopher was saying that like a us and passion are associated with like lust or pornography. 

[00:39:07] Maria: But I think there is like a true gift, like deepest desire of the heart version of exclusivity just as there is for like a man’s ache that he was describing. And that this like true gift version of that exclusivity kind of would open everything up rather than like collapse in on itself. So, with the kind of the three paths, like Dr. Christopher talked about the fast food path and then the starvation, and then the banquet. And I was thinking, I was like, that doesn’t really work for ladies. But I think for women it’s kind of like a response to that. And so I was thinking the first kind of half right path that doesn’t turn out so good is, it’s like a grasping at security and exclusivity herself. So like trying to grasp it. And that would be like competition and comparison. Because there’s this idea that there would be safety and exclusivity, at the top. So, you know, if you’re the most attractive woman or if you’re the most domestic woman, that kind of thing that would, you know, bring some semblance of safety.

[00:40:19] Maria: And then when that would fail, when she can’t win it being the tastiest fast food, you know, maybe then she would lean towards like guilting the husband into like starvation mode, right? So it’s kind of like bouncing between those two ways. And then I was thinking like, the starvation doesn’t really make sense for women either. It’s more like a resignation, like this sense that, you know, my husband might choose fast food or he might white knuckle it and starve, or he’ll just forever bounce somewhere in between. But neither one of those would ever be safe. And so that resignation is kind of this idea that that ache for exclusive love is wrong or like some kind of fault in and of itself. And so then that kind of leaves that third way, what is this banquet? And I felt like, at least to my heart, and I would venture to say to women’s hearts in general, like the banquet still like, sounds great to the guys, but I feel like there’s still a lot of questions about this banquet for the gals because it kind of leaves out that piece of exclusivity.

[00:41:32] Maria: So the last thing that I came up with was, well, I mean, obviously in the bigger sense, the third way would be like a woman in her own heart, like embracing her value in God’s eyes and God’s exclusive love for her. But as reflected in marriage, I was thinking more along the lines of, there’s an image in C. S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it, but there’s like this spirit with a lizard on his shoulder and he’s kind of understood to be like, I don’t know, some kind of like lusty passion or something. And an angel burns the lizard off of his shoulder, and that’s very painful. And you’re like, you’re so excited for this lizard to be gone. But then there’s like this plot twist because then the stallion appears and he rides the stallion into paradise. And so I was thinking maybe instead of a banquet, like maybe the stallion imagery works better because like on the stallion there is like an exclusive, like profoundly safe place for a woman to ride with that man. And there’s only one extra seat.

[00:42:51] Maria: And I feel like that imagery kind of opens everything up. There’s room for other people in that picture. There’s room for other ladies and other men and other stallions and you know, the horses can ride together and, you know, maybe the older guys on horses can teach the younger guys and their horses and, you know, maybe they all protect the unwed ladies that are, you know, still walking around. And I just feel like they’re there. I felt like there needed to be some voice to, in theology of the body, this idea that men have this special role to protect the security of the self-gift. And I felt like that was touched on a little bit in the idea of tenderness in the episode, but I just wanted to talk about that and to bring that up and to hear your thoughts.

[00:43:44] Dr. Peter: I am so excited that you came and shared that, Maria. I think it’s it’s really important that we consider it, and I think it’s really also important that we come up with imagery that resonates. You know, and so, yeah. I’m curious, you know, Gerry, you know a lot more about the theology of the body. You’ve had a longer relationship with Christopher West than I have. I’m just curious, you know, if there is any modifications or any ideas that you’re aware of with TOB that might resonate more with the idea of exclusivity, with the idea of maybe of fidelity is a word that came to mind. The importance of the bond, you know. 

[00:44:27] Dr. Gerry: I do have some thoughts. Before I share them, if it’s okay, like, I noticed Molly put her hand up and I would actually love to hear from any women that are listening if they had thoughts on what Maria, ’cause I do think what she said was amazing and really interesting perspective. So I almost feel like before I say anything.

[00:44:46] Dr. Peter: Yeah, you wanna survey a little bit? 

[00:44:48] Dr. Gerry: I’d like to hear from the women. Molly, did you want to share? 

[00:44:55] Molly: Yeah, I think that a large part too, I think of why sometimes certain like analogies don’t resonate the same for women and men is that if you look at it in society, how often are women basically told that they’re the meal, essentially? And we’re not told that, like we’re not really told that for like men. So if you’re treated like the meal by so much of society and so much of that imagery, you’d be absolutely correct in assuming that like we’re searching for that safety. Because if you’re treated like a piece of meat, it doesn’t make you feel safe and it doesn’t make you feel even accepted as like a full human being. So that exclusivity that you’re like describing and you’re hesitant towards talking about makes sense because you want, the other part of it is the time, the time to get to be known by someone. That’s like a promise that comes with having someone be exclusive is that they’re going to be spending time with you. They’re going to be taking the time to get to know who you are and what is respecting to you and what is respecting to your body.

[00:46:32] Molly: And like even you’ll see it, I think it’s the Protoevangelium of James, which is somewhat like recognized. But when Joseph discovers Mary’s pregnancy, he actually refers to himself as another version of Adam because he assumes that he has failed in protecting Mary, and that is why she is pregnant is because of a failure on his part to protect her, which is also kind of leads back to original sin, is that there was a certain amount of failure because so much of, like a lot of too like stuff has been pushed onto the women for eating the fruit. And it wasn’t just a simple act of disobedience, it was also a lack of protection that occurred. So women feel that constantly and it’s been not only like our bodies being weaponized by the more secular parts of society, but it’s also something that sometimes is weaponized from a spiritual perspective of people who are not just secular. And so it puts us in a very difficult position and it’s a position that you never are going to feel safe in unless you have someone who’s there for you.

[00:48:08] Molly: And we know that that’s what is the design. We know that the design is to have someone there for us and we know that like ultimately we talk about, yes, exclusivity will give us the time, and does ensure that hopefully someone’s taking the time to get to know us. There’s a certain aspect of just knowing that even like through parts work, we’re getting to know ourselves too, but God already knows all of the parts that you haven’t even met or don’t recognize yet. So we can probably somewhat logically assume that taking the time in that way to get to know someone is something designed for us by God too. Because he knows every bit about them as well and he wants us to know as much about ourselves too. And people can teach us and help us learn who our like different parts. They can teach us who our parts are. So we very inevitably, by knowing someone, learn more about ourselves. 

[00:49:27] Dr. Gerry: Thank you so much and I love what you said and I think, when you said the part about being treated like you are the meal, you are, you know, treated like meat and so on, that hit me because, and I had a different C. S. Lewis book, Maria, came to my mind, which I think is the Silver Chair, where the children are invited to the feast not realizing they are the feast, that the giants, you know, wanna actually use them, you know, consume them, not actually celebrate them. So that spoke to me in what you’re saying. I think that in Theology of the Body, I know one thing that strikes me is the focus on the womb and Mary’s womb in particular as the place of the incarnation. But women in general and their womb being literally like a throne, like Virgin Mary’s womb is a throne where Christ, you know, where Christ dwelled. But every woman shares in that, in being the place where life is literally nurtured and grown is like the most unbelievable thing. And for men it’s an in an unbelievable concept. And yet we see it. And what does society do? It tries to, or promotes or allows the womb to be closed or the contents destroyed or whatnot, rather than appreciated, valued, and seen as precious. And in a way, like a place where one aspect of where God’s divinity is expressed is in the woman in a way that men can’t even touch. And that it is our role, like you were saying with Joseph and Mary in that example from, what was it, the Protoevangelium of James, you know, that it is our role to protect as men. So I love it. Thank you so much. I want to give Avis a chance share. I didn’t mean to say too much. I want to hear from women. 

[00:51:23] Avis: No, my comment ties back to actually where I started in attachment. I find that there is lots of my attachments that make me feel secure, that that is, that’s how I built security. So, Maria, I think your insights were really beautiful. And yeah, there’s a vulnerability in women that should be cherished and respected, that women tend to cover up with attachments and passions or whatever. So, that concept of security hit me very, very strongly because yeah, having and believing in that unconditional love from the Lord when love of women has been pretty conditional, based on, you know, a lot of what was already said. It’s sometimes it’s just hard to understand.

[00:52:28] Dr. Gerry: Thank you. Andrea?

[00:52:34] Andrea: Well, yeah, I have a reflection you know, tying back to the beginning, Avis, you know, on episode 176 and you know, also touching on the themes of shame that Maria and Molly just brought up. There was a moment in the conversation between you, Dr. Gerry, and Elizabeth Galanti where you were speaking about the passage from the Catechism. ” Chastity has laws of growth, which progress through stages marked by imperfection and often by sin.” And that piece of the discussion just activated, you know, so many parts for me in particular. And I guess what I wanted to speak to tonight was kind of a sense of hope that was experienced in that moment of this discussion by a part that perhaps received training or conditioning that all sexual missteps or errors are equally terrible and catastrophic, regardless of the individual’s developmental stage or potential trauma history. And it recalled to mind a passage in the beautiful book by Bishop Varden, Bishop Erik Varden of Norway where he says that it’s in effect much better to celebrate any little progress that one is able to make along the way to chastity rather than to point out, you know, that we’re still far from the ideal. And I guess I was just inviting reflection or comment on that.

[00:54:45] Dr. Gerry: I literally just about finished that book that by Erik Varden on chastity. I was reading that while I was away, so I love it that you brought that up. But I do wanna open anybody else to have comments on what you said.

[00:55:02] Dr. Peter Martin: One point that, Andrea, you had mentioned that I thought was very important. It’s so easy to lose hope. Number one, parts generally have short-term memories, I have found with clients. And so if they’re used to the negative and they’re used to, let’s say, a manager being harsh with them, when they do something good, it’s like that experience fades quickly from the memory of the system. And what Bishop Varden is to some extent saying, we need reminded that we’re making progress, that there’s traction here. You know, it may not have been five foot forward, but at least it’s that, that three inch forward process that’s very important here. Because we need lots of positive reminders. Like we need reminders that we can do good, that we can make progress. Because all too often we’ll fall back into ourselves. And so, I really like what he’s saying there. On some level, it’s like the metric is did I make forward motion? And in some cases, did I make an effort, right? So some people have to start at very small places. Did I make an effort even if I did struggle, or even if I didn’t quite turn out the way I’d hoped? At least now I’m making that effort and I’m reminding myself and the parts that that effort is a good, and that is something good for me. And it’s good for, you know, my relationships as well.

[00:56:31] Dr. Gerry: I had something, I have it right here, the book. It’s such a good one. It was beautiful. And I’ll just quote one little thing if it’s helpful. He says, “chastity is freedom from possessiveness in every sphere of one’s life. Only when love is chaste is it truly love. A possessive love ultimately becomes dangerous. It imprisons, constricts and makes for misery. God himself loved humanity with a chaste love. He left us free even to go astray and set ourselves against him. The logic of love is always the logic of freedom.” And I think that, to me, and this talk of like how women have felt possessed, right? As possessions are treated like possessions. It’s not love. And it masquerades as love and it’s not, but it’s a sin in both. Obviously in the men that’s doing that, but it’s also women obviously kind of can participate in it too. So creates a dynamic. But a true love is both freeing for the person who receives it and person who gives it. So anyway, there’s a beauty in that I found. I don’t know, maybe Molly, you go ahead. 

[00:57:53] Molly: Well, I mean, I do like what you said about how there is such a dynamic, and I could point out like all different areas that continue to feed into like, I mean essentially like a feedback loop of what happens and how our society has gotten to like the point that it is at. And I could do that, but I really kind of was interested actually in what Dr. Martin had said about just kind of our parts and how short term their memory is. Because when it comes into like that negative feedback that they kind of have that experience and we know that like how we react to negative experiences tends to be like a survival mechanism. We know not to touch hot things because we get negative feedback from being burned. And then we learn not to touch hot things. We get that. But then I almost wonder if giving parts identities that we associate as being negative, how much can that impact how their memory, and their experience of positive versus negative like stimulus is what they’re going to absorb and react most to.

[00:59:28] Dr. Peter Martin: Yeah, it’s an interesting challenge that you’re kind of focusing it on there because, you know, when God says a word, it creates something, you know, it doesn’t just kind of float out. It creates. When he created, in the beginning, in Genesis, it wasn’t like he said, let there be light. It was more like he said, the word light and light occurred and there we have it. Right. So it’s profound, it lasts, it endures, there’s permanence to it. But what I find with parts is that there’s not a lot of permanence to it. For whatever reason, the weight or the sentiment override, sometimes they call it in marital therapy. The sentiment override of the negative skews, distorts, and it almost strips the very words and seeing the good in the growth. It strips it of its power, it strips it of its weight so that it’s almost like, yeah, I saw that I did something good here. I tried something good, but now it just fades because it’s so hollow. It doesn’t have permanence. It’s almost like it doesn’t have, if you think of object permanence, you know, so it’s hard for kids, you know, young kids to be able to believe that when their parent leaves the room that the parent is still there and could return. That kind of thing. But it’s almost like, the lack of goodness permanence, there’s a lack of that. And so it’s like they need to be reminded in a dyadic way from a parent, from the self to the parts, but it needs to be this ongoing dialogue of goodness and communicating that goodness to them for them to be able to soak in and for that to broaden and build in their experience to the point of where it squeezes out some of that negative stuff that they’re so used to hearing. But it takes time and it takes a lot of love ultimately and a lot of work on your parts and so forth.

[01:01:21] Dr. Peter: I think sometimes especially like Catholic standard bearers or spiritual managers get more wrapped up in errors of commission than errors of omission as well. So this is gonna go back to the Catechism quote that you cited, Peter Martin. I’m reminded of this quote from CS Lewis in The Four Loves where he says, “I believe that the most lawless and inordinate loves are less contrary to God’s will than a self invited and self-protective lovelessness.” And so what he’s saying there is that, the way I’m kind of taking this, is that if we’re making attempts to love, if we’re making attempts, if parts are engaged in some seeking, even if that’s nothing like perfect, but there’s an effort there and an intentionality, it’s going to be messy. The alternative is this self invited, self-protective lovelessness, this isolation, this withdrawal. And so I think that’s really helpful. I think, you know, that it allows for us to be able to make mistakes with our parts in loving, it allows us to be very imperfect, very imprecise in this endeavor. And I think that’s a really, really hopeful message because, you know, the more important something is, the less precisely we’re gonna be able to carry it out. So it was just kind of on my heart to suggest that. And I think it kind of touches back on that idea of, you know, avoiding that self-invited, self-protective lovelessness. That, and what are the conditions under which we can feel free enough to engage. And that goes back to what you were, I think, saying at the beginning of what you were offering us, Maria, in terms of that exclusivity as being a kind of prerequisite, in other words for that.

[01:03:20] Molly: I have that like, you know, the spiritual manager, like trying to be a little bit like probably, I mean, it’s more on the scrupulosity side of things. And I always try and logic it out where what you said kind of like does remind me of the whole, like it’s not just on faith, it’s also good works. But I’m wondering from people who know more about theology than me, if maybe the more logical like assumption is that you can’t live your faith, and have true faith, and then it have it end up not coming out in your works. 

[01:04:09] Dr. Peter Martin: Yeah. You know, it’s a great point. It’s like you need both and one kind of flows out of the other in some ways. Pope Francis made the comment that, he says that Jesus is the face of mercy, and that mercy gives credibility to our faith. So it’s not enough for us to believe in God as some kind of distant figure out there that creates, and, you know, my mom and dad told me he loves me, that kind of thing. Where the credibility of our faith really soaks in and where the trust and confidence builds is when we experience that mercy firsthand. In particular when we’re struggling at some level. Mother Teresa had this phrase, she would put her hand out and she’d kind of put her five fingers out and she called it the gospel of one hand. You did this for me. Right? So the good news is that it’s not just a concept, it’s not just an idea. You don’t just trust him, like without any experiential knowledge of mercy. What really soaks in our faith in many ways is that encounter, that love, that mercy that he provides us. And if we could do this, what if the parts thought this of the self, right? You did this for me. The mercy of the self toward the parts gives credibility and it deepens the trust in the self, by treating us good, by working on our flourishing and helping the parts and their needs whenever they blend.

[01:05:38] Dr. Peter Martin: ‘Cause in my estimation, a burdened part that blends needs mercy, right? It needs the self to respond. And if I can go on this little monologue here for a while, I’ve had this, I’ve had this thing floating in my mind ever since, probably, I think it’s October 25th. If you go to the Magnificat meditation on October 25th, it’s by a servant of God, Luis Martinez, Archbishop Martinez of, I think he’s the first primate official primate of Mexico. But listen to what he says here. I think this is great. He says, “when we have the misfortune to fall, our misery is brought to light and we feel, together with our sorrow for having sinned, shame at seeing our misery and our baseness exposed.” But then he says, “yet this misery possesses the mysterious privilege of attracting our Lord. Our nothingness in our misery constitute the force that attracts our Lord.” And he says, “this is why I do not tire of repeating that there is an infallible means of attracting our Lord.” If you wanna attract the Lord, if you want that exclusivity, turn your suffering to him. Turn to the self internally at a natural level. He says, “but I shall dare to say of obtaining for him whatever, we will, namely our nothingness.” So there’s something about our misery that is the most attractive to him. Does that mean I need to exploit it? Does that mean I need to be more dramatic than I need to be? No, but it’s important to acknowledge it. It’s important to notice it, to befriend it, and then really, hopefully that can open up your heart to the mercy that the Lord has in store.

[01:07:30] Dr. Gerry: I have another thought kind of maybe going in a different direction, if that’s okay, but it’s still, I think, it related to this kind of general topic and maybe connecting with TOB to some extent. And that would be like, first of all, one of the things that is noticeable in TOB, and it goes back pretty far in the church tradition, is this notion that we are as a church, a bride and, but as individual souls, we’re also a bride to Christ. And so for women in TOB, to me, I think they have, that might be a more natural like metaphor that works to really, you know, explain that union with God. And for men, we have wrap our brains around it a little bit. Like what does it mean? We might have parts that will react a little to the idea, like, what are you saying, I am bride, right? Like, what does that mean? But it might speak to like, an aspect of our part perhaps like that is a little anti feminine. And who knows where that comes from in our trauma histories. But there’s a sense in which, you know, to be feminine is bad. And then we then project that onto women, right? A misogyny or whatever. But, you know, it gets projected onto women, unfortunately.

[01:08:51] Dr. Gerry: But the idea for men to have to embrace their feminine aspect as part of integration that we both, we naturally have masculine and feminine aspects. And for men, the sanctification or the process of sanctification and integration would be about accepting those things, like to be receptive to Christ, to be nurturing, to be tender. If you’re men, you’re gonna do it in a male way in some respect, but you’re opening yourself up to a feminine aspect in that. I think the reverse is true in its own way for women. Right. And what is it in the women that have to, as part of their path to sanctification, to actually embrace masculine traits also. I mean, it goes both ways to be a fully integrated person. And again, women are gonna express masculine traits in their own way, right? It’s not gonna be exactly the way men do, but it’s still there. And so I guess I’m mostly opening this up for possible discussion, ’cause I don’t know that I have an answer for exactly what that exactly will look like. And I’m not a woman, so I don’t know what it fully means for a woman. But I would say things like even in my own marriage, like my wife, like I would think of her as very strong woman and sometimes has been unconventional in some ways, like with her particular career in a more male dominated field. Whereas I was in a more female dominated field in both teaching and counseling.

[01:10:21] Dr. Gerry: But yet she retains her femininity, right? She retains so much of what was being said around wanting to safe, needing her connection with me to help her feel safe and all that. And I think exclusivity, of course. But at the same time, there are masculine characteristics that I think sanctified her. And I think we were with Avis in our group this morning, we were talking about some of the ways in which, you know, we have burdened parts that can be like manipulative or needy or helpless or charming or just, you know, manipulatively seductive or dependent or endearing and this kind of thing. And that looks different in men and it looks different in women typically, but for women, like it might mean, you know, accepting more masculine kinds of virtues that we label at least masculine, like confidence and courage. Right? So whether you’re a man or a woman, there’s a sense in which you’re working toward an integration of those things in your system. 

[01:11:23] Andrea: Dr. Gerry. Real quick. I’m thinking as you are speaking of the letter of the martyr St. Perpetua as she was at the end of her life waiting to die in the arena. She wrote, I dreamed I became a man. And all that that spoke to her process of integration, I dreamed I became a man, in this whole.

[01:11:45] Dr. Gerry: Interesting. And I think of Christ being so perfectly integrated. Every aspect of humanity was perfectly integrated in him. And so he was capable of like intense feminine, if you will, tenderness and nurturing and understanding, you know, people’s situations with care. And yet he also in had a perfectly integrated masculine, what we consider anyway masculine traits, you know, where he could be in possession of his emotions in a way to drive a mission. So he had that like active masculine, so-called active sense, and feminine passive or receptive sense, like he somehow had both perfectly. And I think he’s our model, both as men and women, and then in union with him, we’re coming to him as much as possible to assist us in that integration as we become more like him, as we develop a closer union with him.

[01:12:45] Dr. Peter: Well, I’m mindful of where we are with time and you know, we’re kind of coming to the end. So I’m just curious if there’s any sort of final questions that folks would like to ask. Yeah, yeah, definitely. So Tom, yeah.

[01:13:05] Tom: Thank you. I just wanted to say I’ve kind of been doing work on myself for many decades. And I’m definitely a Manicheaeist. I’m a little confused. I think Dr. Gerry wrote the book and Dr. Peter, I have grown to really love hearing you say slow down, what’s going on inside. Just a super interesting journey of through the process in my first year and I’ve come to the conclusion that after 30 years of therapy, I need to find an IFS therapist and explore what I’ve been introduced to here and to end on theology of the body. You’ve gotta be kidding. This is so beautiful. And I just wanna say, as a man, I completely reject our culture in the way men and women are, I don’t know, it’s gross. And I’m just trying to unwind into, you know, that self is there. And in respect to creating safety, you know, just to be safe within myself and all of my parts and to listen and try and understand. I don’t have to fix. I just listen and try to understand. I just, I’m blown away. I mean, I love John Bradshaw. He was like a huge, huge inspiration to me in his book on shame and then to kind of blend that and the body, integrate the head and the heart, and then finish. Yeah, just the most beautiful expression of who we are. Thank you all, and I really am glad I found you guys. 

[01:15:10] Dr. Peter: Well, it’s been a delight to have you in the RCC, Tom, and for you to be doing the work you’ve been doing. It’s so beautiful to hear that. And I particularly appreciate the work you’ve been doing and the work that others here have been doing, because when you do your human formation work, it lifts all of us up, because we’re all in one body. We’re all in one church. The church is one body. And so when one of you does your work, it has a positive impact on us all because we are all in that one body. So that’s inspiring and it’s edifying to hear and I appreciate it.

[01:15:48] Dr. Peter Martin: Yeah, and I was very moved by Tom’s kind of the way he communicated, but also I love testimonies, conversion testimonies, you know, stories about a person’s journey and struggle and that kind of thing. So yeah. Thank you for having the courage to share that with us. 

[01:16:06] Cathy: I just had a quick input. I started a level two therapist. I was pretty resistant just in October, and it’s been amazing. Yeah. So I’ve spent a lifetime journey. I’m a Catholic convert. And spent 50 years in the secular world. So it’s been, this has been an amazing journey. And I highly recommend making an investment and taking the leap. Yeah, it’s been worth it. 

[01:16:34] Dr. Peter: And for anyone that’s looking for a Catholic therapist who is familiar with IFS, is IFS friendly, you can check out our directory at soulsandhearts.com/therapists. Well, any final thoughts from you, Dr. Gerry, Dr. Peter Martin, before we wrap it for today, any things that you’d like to highlight or share before we bring this to a close?

[01:17:04] Dr. Peter Martin: I think I can jump in here. Thanks for the offer. Yeah, the more that I encounter you know, especially like the last six or so podcasts and the great guests that you’ve had on, Peter. So thanks so much for developing this and Gerry for participating, and also all of the people listening, just great, wonderful people. It’s really good to be with you. My mind keeps taking me back to love, right? The three loves, but specifically honing that down. What is the key or core feature of that? It seems to be mercy and you see it throughout IFS writings. It’s one of the eight Cs. Sister Mary Madeline Todd is a Dominican sister. She says that “some say every great teacher has only one message, and that every sermon, speech, or lesson conveys that one truth.” And she says, “for Jesus, the message could assuredly be summarized as love. And one could argue that one particular aspect of love lies at the heart of all his teaching: mercy.” And so one thought I had is like, how do we become mercy, an embodied mercy? Yeah. How does mercy become our middle name? How does it become the central focus, maybe the family shield of our internal family system? How does that operate? How does that happen? And mercy towards self, mercy toward others, receptive to mercy from God, how does that start to resonate with every fiber? So I think Peter had mentioned, redeeming the whole person in that mercy seems very important. 

[01:18:41] Dr. Peter: Thank you.

[01:18:44] Dr. Gerry: I’m not sure I have too much more to add, other than love, ’cause I think God is love, you know, I think it’s true. Jesus embodies love. I was thinking like, what is greatest virtue? And if you had asked me a year ago, I would’ve said humility. And now I’m not sure. Christopher has like, kind of challenged me a little bit on that. And I’m really thinking about chastity and why? Because maybe I thought too narrowly about chastity is just sexual or something. But no, I’m seeing it as the virtue of integration. That’s in the catechism and it’s the virtue of integration of the whole person. And of course, you know, all the virtues are connected and united in the unity of virtue. So maybe shouldn’t even have an argument about which one’s higher. But I do think of, I’m starting to see chastity in a new light, in a really positive light, you know, and obviously humility comes into it, but it’s bringing together the whole person in love, and in love with themselves, in love with others, and love ultimately with God. 

[01:19:47] Dr. Peter: Well, that’s a perfect segue into what I was thinking about, and that is just the centrality of love and the the emphasis that St. Thomas Aquinas puts on ordered self-love, you know, and that the way we love ourselves is gonna be the template by which we love others. The way we love ourselves is the root and the form of the way we’re gonna love others. And that there’s no one that can love us in lieu of loving ourselves. In other words, not even God can somehow take over and love ourselves and love me if I’m not gonna love me. You know? And so that’s something that has to be given freely within oneself and received freely within oneself. And so, you know, that this idea of loving oneself, and I talk about some of the difficulties with this, I think it’s in episode 98, the episode titled, Self-Love: What Catholics Need to Know, that that’s gets so wound around the axle in so many ways, and that it is so important for us to have some clarity about what it means to love ourselves, not just so that we can feel better about ourselves, but so that we can actually carry out the two great commandments, to love our neighbor and to love God. That turn outward and that turn upward that you were mentioning, Peter Martin, you know, depends in some ways on that turn inward. You know, ’cause you can’t give what you don’t have. So I think that’s what makes what we’re trying to do here in Souls and Hearts really, really unique in that we’re taking that call to love oneself in an ordered way really seriously. And I’m seeing, you know, in our audience, in the folks that have joined us tonight, that struggle in taking that seriously. And I think that’s really, really important. So I’m grateful for that. 

[01:21:38] Dr. Peter: Like this episode, subscribe to the IIC podcast. Join the conversation on our YouTube channel, Interior Integration 4 Catholics, Interior Integration 4 Catholics. Help us to reach more people and share this podcast episode with your friends. There’s nothing like a personal recommendation. A great place to start learning about IFS is an episode 157 of this podcast, the Interior Integration for Catholics podcast. That is titled Overview of Internal Family Systems: Catholic Style. You could also go on to episodes 158, Who Is Your Inmost Self and 159, Who Are My Parts and Why do They Battle Within Me? And if you’re wondering, how can I start making IFS a part of my daily life? Just a little step. I’m gonna recommend our little sister podcast, Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts. That’s a daily podcast, five minutes or less. It really emphasizes how in the Gospels, Jesus reaches out to the outcasts, the most marginalized and rejected members of his society. And in the Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts podcast, we reach out to the inner outcasts, your exiled parts, the parts of you that are walking in darkness and gloom. So listen in, invite the good news into your depths every day. We share the light of the daily and Sunday Mass readings to shine on your inner loss sheep, your inner prodigals, your inner lepers, your lame, your deaf, your blind parts, your inner tax collectors, your inner prostitutes, all the parts of you deemed unworthy and unacceptable by your protector parts. You can find it wherever you listen to podcasts. Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts.

[01:23:15] Dr. Peter: And for those of you who are Catholic formators, so these are therapists, coaches, spiritual directors, priests, anyone who accompanies others in their formation. I have a quote for you. This is from Nitin Namdeo, who said, “your answers reveal your knowledge, while your questions reveal your thinking.” We are inviting you to this IFS Basics for Catholic Formators. It’s a Zoom workshop on Tuesday, January 13th, 2026. It’s from 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM Eastern time, and we’ll be walking through internal family systems for formators, Catholic therapists, coaches, spiritual directors, others who accompany individuals in their personal formation. You can find out more at soulsandhearts.com/fff, and it’ll be in the description as well. The link’s there. We have a second one on June 10th, 2026 at 8:00 PM to 9:00 PM Eastern Time called Catholic Parts Work in Human Formation. Those two are really for folks that are just starting to learn something about IFS. There’s also our Formation for Formators Retreat. The theme is authentic being and authentic relating. This retreat focuses on you as a Catholic formulator finding and loving you, finding and loving yourself, and more of your parts, including parts you’ve not yet encountered: your exiles. You can find out more about that at our landing page at soulsandhearts.com/fff.

[01:24:46] Dr. Peter: And as the African proverb says, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you wanna go far, go together. And in the Resilient Catholics Community, this is for all Catholics who believe in what the Church teaches, who are interested in human formation, who are interested in this parts and systems thinking. We go together. We use the best of secular and spiritual resources to help you experience what love is at a bones level, at a core level, across all your parts, so that you can love wholeheartedly with all your parts. So it’s not just for your head. It’s for your heart. It’s for all your being, and we get curious about ourselves. We get curious about others. We get curious about God in the RCC. We ask a lot of questions. Author, storyteller and CEO Sukant Ratnakar, said, “To get answers of life, ask questions.” And we ask questions in the Resilient Catholics Community. In 27 days, the Resilient Catholics community reopens all during the month of February. We take new applications in February, in June and October. And so if you’re a Catholic who sees how important structure is for your personal human formation, if you wanna shore up your natural human formation for your spiritual life, come join us. The RCC offers a structured program, a community of like-minded Catholics. We work in small groups flourishing and thriving as we journey together toward loving God wholeheartedly with all of our parts. Go to our landing page, soulsandhearts.com/rcc. Consider doing our 19 minute experiential exercise to help you discern whether it’s a good idea to apply to the RCC. You can get on our interest list right now and stay updated.

[01:26:24] Dr. Peter: There’s a mutual discernment process that lasts some weeks, and you’ll take the PartsFinder Pro, which is a set of 23 measures to help you to come to understand 10 to 15 of your parts, managers, firefighters, exiles, how they relate to your innermost self, how they relate to each other, how they relate to God, how they relate to other people. There’ll be a six to seven page report that comes from that, there’ll be a 15 minute Zoom meeting with a Souls and Hearts staff member. All of that’s included in the $499 application fee. We have scholarships if that’s a financial hardship. Contact Pam at office@soulsandhearts.com if you have financial need. And I, like I said, we take discernment really seriously. Go to soulsandhearts.com/rcc for more information. And we talked about getting an IFS therapist who’s Catholic, right? We have a list, soulsandhearts.com/therapists. That is a list of Catholic therapists who are interested in and have some kind of experiential relationship with IFS. And finally conversation hours every Tuesday and Thursday from 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM Eastern time. You can reach me on my cell phone, (317) 567-9594, to discuss anything that we present in these podcast episodes or in the other resources that we offer at Souls and Hearts. So give me a call and we can discuss what a next right step for you might be. We can’t do any clinical consultation during that, but we can certainly discuss the themes that we present in our materials. And I think with that, we’ll draw this to a close by invoking our patroness and our patrons. Our Lady, our Mother, Untier of Knots, pray for us. St. Joseph, pray for us. St. John the Baptist, pray for us.