IIC 183: Can Catholics Become Gods? Straight Talk from Mother Natalia

[00:00:00] Dr. Peter: Today we are discussing the most important thing ever. Really, I’m not exaggerating, the most important thing ever for us human beings, for us Catholics. And what is it? It’s deification. It’s becoming gods. St. Irenaeus of Lyons in the 2nd century said, “He who was the Son of God became the Son of Man, that man might become the son of God.” If you liked our last episode, episode 182, with Dr. Matthew Tsakanikas on deification, divinization, theosis, how we can become gods by accepting God’s invitation to participate in His divine nature, you’re gonna love this episode. So last episode, we focused on sources in the Western Church. In this episode, there’s more of a focus on the Eastern Church, the Catholic Church in the East. St. Athanasius in the 4th century said, “For He was made man that we might be made God. And He manifested Himself by a body that we might receive the idea of the unseen Father, and He endured the insolence of men that we might inherit immortality.” This episode is all about our destiny, the heights to which we are called as Catholics.

[00:01:27] Dr. Peter: And this is a reality that embarrasses many Catholics, makes us uncomfortable. I mean, after all, wasn’t it Satan who first brought up the possibility of deification to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden? In Genesis, he says, “You shall be like gods.” And do we wanna follow that? You can understand where some hesitation comes here. Wasn’t that the great temptation? Yet at the same time in Psalm 82:6 it says, “I say you are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you.” And Jesus quotes this verse from the Psalm in John 10:34 when he says, “Is it not written in your law, I said you are gods?” So in this podcast, we’re gonna tell it like it is, even if, if it can be hard to hear, even if it can be hard to imagine. St. Maximus the Confessor in his Ambigua in the 7th century said, “The Word of God became man so that man might become God by grace.” And he goes on, “All that God is, except for an identity in essence, one becomes when one is deified by grace.” And yes, sin gets in the way of this, but it’s not the only thing that gets in the way. Human formation deficits can also get in the way, and they often do. Now, all of our parts are called to participate in this deification, in sharing God’s nature, in becoming God-like, in becoming God by union with Him. All of our parts are called, even our most reviled exiles, our most banished and abandoned parts, all of us, no part left out, no part left behind. And in this episode, we’re gonna discuss the existence of evil, the reality of evil. The way that Satan approaches parts is so different from the way that God reaches out to parts. And what are these parts? Well, parts feel like separate, independently operating personalities within us, each with its own unique prominent needs, roles in our lives, emotions, body sensations, guiding beliefs and assumptions, typical thoughts, intentions, desires, attitudes, impulses, interpersonal style, worldview. Each part also has an image of God. And in addition to all of that, in this episode, we cover Star Trek, the movie Inside Out, St. Gregory of Nyssa, the concept of nepsis, popcorn, specifically buttered popcorn, prayer as being with God, what Dr. Gerry’s cat Nebula can teach us about prayer, and the importance of kindness and gentleness with parts so that they can experience love, part by part, and finally, riding the hot mess express into heaven.

[00:04:29] Dr. Peter: So buckle up. Here we go. I am Dr. Peter Malinoski, also known as Dr. Peter. I am your host and guide in this Interior Integration for Catholics podcast, and I am so glad to be with you. I’m a clinical psychologist, a trauma therapist, a podcaster, a writer, the co-founder and president of Souls and Hearts, but most of all, most of all, I am a beloved little son of God, a passionate Catholic who wants you to be able to taste and see the height and depth and breadth and warmth and the light of the love of God, especially God your Father, to participate in the divinity of God your Father. I want you to embrace your identity as a beloved little son or a beloved little daughter of God. And all last year, 2025, and much of this year, in 2026, we’re doing a deep dive into Internal Family Systems, IFS, parts work, Catholicism, bringing those together. We’re bringing in the insights from Internal Family Systems, developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz. We’re bringing in other parts and systems models. We’re harmonizing them with the truths of the Catholic faith. Why? To help you live out the three great loves and the two great commandments: to love God, to love your neighbor, and to love yourself. That’s what this is all about. And to love in such a way that you become in union with God, that you can embrace fully this partaking of God’s divine nature. This is episode 183 of the Interior Integration for Catholics podcast. It releases on June 1st, 2026, and it’s titled, “Can Catholics Become Gods? Straight Talk from Mother Natalia.” So back in our virtual studio, Dr. Gerry Crete is here with me. He’s actually hosting this episode. I am his co-host. He’s a licensed marriage and family therapist in Atlanta, Georgia. He’s the founder and owner of Transfiguration Counseling. He’s the author of this excellent book, Litanies of the Heart, published by Sophia Press, and he’s a leading Catholic thinker and synthesizer in this whole area of Catholic parts work with a particular interest in what the Eastern Church has to teach us. He’s the co-founder with me of Souls and Hearts in 2019. We’ve been going strong for a lot of years now, and he’s been on the podcast many times. So it is so good to have you back with us, Dr. Gerry.

[00:07:06] Dr. Gerry: Well, it’s great to be here and I’m so excited to have my dear friend Mother Natalia here. I am just thrilled to be able to talk to her today and welcome Mother Natalia. 

[00:07:18] Dr. Peter: Okay, this is really exciting. This is really exciting. We have Mother Natalia with us today. This is great. All right, so Mother Natalia, she entered Christ the Bridegroom Monastery, a Byzantine Catholic community in Northeast Ohio in 2015. She made her life profession on September 26th, 2021. And as a military kid, Mother Natalia grew up in a variety of places from Cuba to Denver. She earned her bachelor’s degree in engineering physics from the Colorado School of Mines. Her route to monasticism passed through urban missions, both with a simple house of Saints Francis and Alphonsus and teaching high school math in the inner city. She co-hosts the What God Is Not podcast with Father Michael O’Loughlin and has been a frequent guest on Pints With Aquinas with Matt Fradd. A few of her great pleasures in life are hiking, running, and watching Star Trek, not at the same time. And the great thing is that Dr. Gerry and Mother Natalia are such good friends, and Dr. Gerry has been on her podcast, What God Is Not, several times. It’s such a joy to have you with us. So glad that we can all be together. 

[00:08:29] Dr. Gerry: And we are both, we’ve been on her podcast, What Got Us Not, and talk about a little bit Star Trek. So we both Trekkies and we’re both here with our Star Trek mugs. We’re also big Lord of the Rings fans. So, we may, who knows, that may come up. You never know.

[00:08:50] Dr. Peter: Well, I may be able to keep up with both of you with the original Star Trek a little bit, and then with the Next Generation and with the Lord of the Rings, I can hold my own. But if you get into the subsequent ones, I’ll get lost in terms of Star Trek. 

[00:09:05] Dr. Gerry: You won’t be to follow us on Star Trek Voyager.

[00:09:07] Dr. Peter: No, I can’t, can’t say that I will.

[00:09:10] Mother Natalia: I really love Voyager. It’s a good one.

[00:09:14] Dr. Gerry: That’s great. But we’re here to talk about this really deep subject, theosis, which we’ve been talking about. So a lot of our listeners are somewhat aware, but you know, most Catholics kind of hear about sanctification. They might hear about know, different aspects, maybe even divinization as a word, but may not always have, you know, an understanding of the Greek word theosis. And I would love Mother Natalia, because you are, you know, you are at Christ the Bridegroom Byzantine monastery. And I would love just to get your sense of how the Eastern approach and what Theosis really means to you.

[00:09:54] Mother Natalia: Sure. Well, I mean, theo is the word that means God, right? Like in theology, it’s the study of God. In the theotokos, the Virgin Mary, theotokos is the phrase meaning literally translated God bearer. So it’s that theo means God. So in theosis, it’s the process of becoming God. And that sounds kind of scandalous to say. I think we try to soften it when we talk about it. We usually say it’s becoming like God or becoming close to God, it’s actually a becoming God, which happens through union with him, communion. And that process starts in this life, but the Eastern perspective at least, and this might be the Western perspective as well, I just don’t know, but in the East, the process of theosis is seen as something that will happen for all eternity. So it’s not like once we reach heaven, the theosis is complete. It’s even in heaven for all of eternity, we are becoming more and more one with God. Not just becoming more like him, but becoming more one with him. And yeah, when I think of the word theosis, what pretty much immediately pops into my head every time is the quote from St. Athanasius and his treatise On the Incarnation where St. Athanasius says, “God became man so that man might become God.” And yeah, like this was his reason for the incarnation was so that we could be God in communion with him. Yeah.

[00:11:25] Dr. Gerry: I love what you just said about it’s ever ongoing as an emphasis in the East, and I could be wrong, I think it’s St. Maximus who made that point, but he was probably making that point off of others, maybe Gregory of Nyssa or someone. But this idea that it is never ending like throughout eternity, because of course God’s essence and our essence is not the same. And we will forever be growing in that knowledge of God and that ever expanding union with him. So it’s actually not boring. It’s not like a static, like you’re not just, oh, here I am. I made it. Theosis, you know, click.

[00:12:08] Mother Natalia: Which I think that’s a confusing concept to some people of, well, wouldn’t you eventually get there? And because if it’s for all eternity, at some point, wouldn’t you get there? And the, what I like to think of, is there’s this concept, so I studied, my background is in engineering and there’s this concept in engineering of, I don’t actually remember the name of it. But basically if you consider, like if you’re going across a football field and if you go half the distance across the football field, and then half the distance of what’s remaining, and then half the distance of what’s remaining, and half the distance of what’s remaining, if you could move at the level of microns right, then you would never actually reach the finish, if you’re always only going half, even if it’s for all eternity. And so that’s kind of how I think of this concept of theosis is we are continuously moving towards this oneness with, but just forever. Yeah.

[00:13:01] Dr. Peter: So in mathematics, I think that’s called an asymptote. I don’t know about engineering, but, you know, where in a mathematical function as you approach. But in this case it would be like a deepening of an actual union or state. So it’s not like you just, you never quite get there. It’s like you’re becoming more and more. And I really like how you didn’t pull any punches and you didn’t try to soften what this is, kind of pedal as though almost we’re like embarrassed, you know, to say, hey, you know, but leading with Athanasius, telling us like it is. I like that, Mother Natalia, that’s awesome. 

[00:13:37] Mother Natalia: I’m not really one to pull punches, so, gets me in trouble, but. 

[00:13:43] Dr. Peter: And we’re willing to get into trouble here if it’s in service of the truth and goodness and beauty and especially in the service of union with God, you know, that’s what it’s all about.

[00:13:52] Mother Natalia: And you might be right, Gerry, that it’s Maximus, I can’t recall actually. I love St. Maximus so much that anything that I love in theology, I’m like, it was probably Maximus.

[00:14:04] Dr. Gerry: He probably said it, right?

[00:14:05] Mother Natalia: Or Evagrius. I also really love Evagrius, so I’m like, it was Maximus or Evagrius. There’s, yeah.

[00:14:10] Dr. Gerry: Well, there’s a term and I wanted to find it. It starts with an E and there’s a K in it and it’s epektasis or something along those lines that is the term for that, ever expanding.

[00:14:20] Mother Natalia: Oh, okay.

[00:14:21] Dr. Gerry: But I’m not gonna be able to pull that outta my head on the spot. I just love that concept. Well, but let’s kind of click in with parts just a little bit because when I imagine kind of theosis or this sort of, you know, a transformation, then I imagine all the parts being, you know, unburdened. I imagine all the parts being united in with the self, but I also imagine the inmost self being also transformed in a way, like purely luminous if you will. Like completely not clouded in any way. No barriers. Right? And so I guess I’m curious your thoughts on that too. Like it would be the state, I think, of our parts being unburdened, our parts being all transfigured, so that the whole person is transfigured. I’d love to hear your thoughts on, on that, ’cause that seems pretty lofty.

[00:15:23] Mother Natalia: Yeah. I think you’re right though, because this is actually a concept in the East as well of, so in the West you hear a lot about saints who have the stigmata, the wounds of Christ, like when they’ve reached some level of sanctity. And in the East, heard of that like a couple of times, I think, but it’s not very common. But what you do hear about in the stories of the saints in the East is like an illumination. Their face glows, their person glows. So I think there’s actually something to that of this transfiguration. I’d actually like, can I share this quote? I told you guys that I wanted to share a quote, and it’s from this, I’m reading this book right now, which is very excellent, called Face to Face: Knowing God Beyond Our Shame. Have either of you heard of this?

[00:16:11] Dr. Peter: No.

[00:16:11] Mother Natalia: It’s really incredible. It’s by Father Steven Freeman, who’s an Orthodox priest, he’s an arch priest. And I just came across this part the other day while I was on retreat. And I was like, this is perfect for the podcast. He’s talking about, well, he’s actually talking about something that Saint Gregory, well, that actually, that ironically Hans Urs von Balthasar, ironic from an Orthodox priest, says about something from St. Gregory of Nyssa. But here’s the quote. “Anything unstable is not us. St. Gregory’s intuition is vital in the process of our healing. There is a ‘me’ beneath the encrusted and obscured versions of the self that are generated by the dynamic of shame in our lives as well as by other factors. It tells us that as we do the difficult work of healing, unlearning, discovery, and such, the content of repentance in the spiritual life, there is a goal that awaits us. We journey toward the true self, the image of God, the place of his true reflection, and in that place we discover that who we are stands before him without shame or fear. This is the place of our salvation.” And so I just love that he’s, like this priest is saying that the whole process of salvation, in other words the process of theosis, is all about coming to our true selves, to the image of God within us. And if Christ is transfigured on Mount Tabor, I think that image of God within us, as we come closer and closer to that image, is that transfiguration.

[00:17:50] Dr. Gerry: Well, I think a really interesting access point to that is this question of shame and how we may have parts that are carrying burdens of shame. And so, and in a way that gets in the way of being able to have that, you know, true or core self be completely, you know, actualized if you will. So I love that. That book sounds really fascinating.

[00:18:15] Dr. Peter: So are you suggesting, dear Dr. Gerry, are you suggesting that it might not just be sin that keeps us from God or keeps us from theosis? But it might be something in our human formation, something in the way we’re ordered, that might be an effect of original sin or, as I know you like to say, original trauma. Because I think sometimes people might have a really, I don’t know, maybe simplistic understanding that, oh, if I’m not in union with God, then I’m sinful. Right? That it’s just sin that keeps us from union with God. So I’m just curious what both of you might have to say about that. If there are, for example, natural developmental processes that have to happen, or if there might be some integration that might need to happen among things that might be disordered, or things that might just need to be developed, but that aren’t really in and of themselves, you know, vicious or sinful.

[00:19:13] Mother Natalia: You know, I think this is an interesting, I’m scared to go here. I don’t know if, I know I said I don’t pull punches, but… 

[00:19:21] Dr. Peter: We can say this is all speculative, right? We can say, we don’t know.

[00:19:24] Mother Natalia: I’m gonna admit that I’m not super well educated in this particular realm, but I’m gonna put it out there at least as a concept, which is that in the East there is this concept of involuntary sin. So I would even argue like things are spoken of as being involuntary sin, even things like natural disasters or miscarriages. And so I wanna be very, very clear here, very, very clear, which is why it’s a scary place to go if the concept is not rightly understood, is that I think that there’s a different understanding of what sin is. Because to call a natural disaster an involuntary sin, to call a miscarriage an involuntary sin, is not saying, you have done something wrong to deserve this punishment. That’s not what it’s saying. That’s not saying that like this is something that you are personally responsible for.

[00:20:26] Dr. Peter: Okay.

[00:20:26] Mother Natalia: Sin is being used in that sense, I think more in the sense of, sin is the existence of evil, the reality of evil, in our world, and that we are victims of sin. We are victims of evil, even if we have not been the ones to perpetrate the evil. And the reason I think that can be so beautiful, if properly understood, is that, like I’ve spoken with many women actually who have had miscarriages, who have found great comfort in this, which you would think intuitively that it’s the opposite. But because there’s so much unknown of like, how do I heal from a miscarriage? Where do I bring this? Like how do I heal from this trauma that I’ve incurred? And to have a place, there’s obviously, there’s counseling for this and that’s very important, but also to have a place spiritually to bring this, to be able to talk about it in the context of confession. Not, again, to be very clear, not in the context of I’ve done something wrong and I need forgiveness for this, but in the context of confession is listed in the Catechism as one of the sacraments of healing. So we are going and saying, I need the divine physician to come and heal this brokenness that’s in me, this wound that I’ve incurred, which is why I think it’s dangerous to say like, well, is it sin or is it not sin that’s causing this, because ultimately sin is just woundedness. It’s often self-inflicted woundedness, which is how it’s spoken of in the East. Sin is spoken of as like spiritual suicide basically. But it’s self-inflicted wound often. But it’s like in all of the cases, we need the divine physician to come and heal this place that’s hurting. And that’s what confession should be. Confession shouldn’t be the place that we go to, to just say, I’m a bad kid and I need punished, and I need to be told that I can move on with my life. It’s about saying I’m broken and I’m hurting, and I need you to come and heal my broken heart. 

[00:22:38] Dr. Gerry: I really like that. I know that in our Byzantine tradition, you know, at funerals and other places they talk about God forgiving all sins, voluntary and involuntary. Like, I remember when you said that, that’s what came to my mind. And I always thought that was beautiful because we sin and we don’t know it. And some of it is maybe just part of the condition we’re in. So I think that approach is actually really good. And I think it aligns too with, again, St. Maximus, you know, who I keep quoting ’cause I just love him. And where he departed, I dunno if he departed a little from Evagrius or if it would’ve been John Cassian or whatever. It wasn’t quite a departure, but he nuances it, is probably the better way to put it. And to say that our virtue and vice, like virtue is about reordering. Like, in other words, it’s not just simply a black and white way of thinking about, oh, I’m good or I’m bad, or I do good things and I do bad things. It’s like the sense in which virtue is a reordering and it’s about a balancing, and it’s about a, you know, properly ordering oneself toward God and virtues flourish. As opposed to just simply looking at it as, okay, I have this vice and now I have to just impose a good virtue on top of it. No, it’s about like the flowering of a virtue. Which I kind of like that approach. And again, it fits with this sort of voluntary and involuntary because it’s like, well, I may not even realize a hundred percent, like I may not realize, you know, all the consequences of my woundedness and the environment of wound that I live in, but as I grow in virtue, I am moving out of that, I’m moving into it more of a healing space where my virtues will start flowering. I feel like that’s, you would know better than me, but like, whether that’s more the Eastern perspective. I feel like that just a more welcoming or more warmer kind of approach to the problem of evil in our world, I guess.

[00:24:38] Mother Natalia: Yeah, I think that’s accurate. And St. Maximus is one of the ones I think who talks the most about involuntary sin. So yeah, I think that’s really, really consistent. And I agree, it just leaves more space than some of the other approaches.

[00:24:51] Dr. Peter: Yeah, I think in the West there may be a parallel in some way between talking about formal sin and material sin. And one element of material sin would be, you know, you know that the will wasn’t involved, for example, which can diminish culpability and so forth. But I really like that.

[00:25:08] Dr. Gerry: I think it’s the differences in the West. I mean, there’s so much that we agree on and probably agree essentially on everything, but there’s like an emphasis that sort of took place in the West on that like legalistic kind of perspective and we see that get to its fullest with Protestants and Calvinists, right. And this sort of idea that Christ, it’s like a legal thing that has happened where, you know, you are no longer acquitted, thanks to Christ, right? And it’s just seen in those kind of black and white terms. And I think we even have that, you know, kind of notion of sin to some extent, you know, generally in Roman Catholicism. But I think the East emphasizes the healing. I think that has influenced the West, like since probably Vatican II. But we emphasize the healing. It’s not just, you know, you’re on trial, and, oh, good for you, you didn’t get sent to jail, but you’re still bad, right? Like, so you need to, you know. And that whole mentality is just very discouraging, whereas the mentality in the East is more around healing. Right? And I think that’s, I don’t know, it fits well with an IFS approach and really approaching all of our parts and our exiles and seeing them as wounded, seeing our managers and firefighters as burdened. All of a sudden, it’s like the whole approach is inner transformation through healing. So, I don’t know, I said a lot there. I feel like that resonates with both of you.

[00:26:33] Mother Natalia: Yeah. And I think, well, because it’s like you’ve, I think we’ve talked before, Gerry, about a therapy of spiritual illnesses by Jean-Claude Larchet. Like this is the whole concept of, yeah, he starts this very expensive book series. But someone donated it to our monastery and it’s really excellent. But he starts by talking about, which I think is really beautiful. He starts by talking about what health looks like and spiritually, and then how the Fall affects things, and then how we see the effects manifested in different spiritual illnesses in our lives. And he works through the eight evil thoughts of Evagrius and Cassian, which the eight evil thoughts are the origin of the seven deadly sins. But then when St. John Cassian brought them West, then I think it was like there were two that were combined and two that were combined, and one that was added. So it went from eight to seven. And so anyways, so then he goes through like we need healing in each of these areas of spiritual illness in our life. Which is how sin is always spoken of in the East is woundedness, is illness, is sickness, and that we need healing in order to be restored to health. And so I think to tie this into parts work, that’s why it’s so consistent with parts work for me is all of Eastern spirituality, and maybe also Western. I’m not even saying like, as opposed to Western. I just don’t really know Western spirituality. It’s a place of great ignorance in my life.

[00:28:06] Mother Natalia: But at least in the East, the concept is we are spending our lives and in some sense, all of eternity, being restored to health, being restored to the good image in which we were created, which like parts work means, it’s not about rid of things inside of us that were there to begin with. It’s about getting those places inside of us back to their unwounded, un-traumatized selves. Like if the concept of theosis is becoming God, it means allowing all of our parts to be deified, like you were saying, Gerry. All of our parts and our inmost self. And not thinking that any of the parts in and of themselves are bad. This is part of why I really like Evagrius. I almost said Saint Evagrius, but he’s not actually a canonized saint.

[00:29:04] Mother Natalia: But this is part of why I like Evagrius so much is he’s one of the places, ’cause we like the people who agree with us, basically. He’s one of the places that I see in the Fathers that insists that our desires inherently are good desires, that become twisted, that become disordered, that become perverted, but inherently are good. There’s something good at the core. And that’s so intuitive to me because if God created everything, and everything that God created is good, then that must be what evil is, right? Evil isn’t a thing in and of itself. Evil is a twisting, a perversion, a lack. It’s not something that exists in and of itself, separate from good. It’s a distortion of good. And I think that’s what’s happening with our parts, is that they are inherently good. They are seeking a good, and sometimes they seek that good in a disordered way and need to be reordered. Yeah.

[00:30:10] Dr. Peter: Well, that brings me to a question that I come up against a lot. And so I’m a psychologist, so I don’t focus primarily on spiritual formation, I focus more on human formation. But I wonder if there are differing degrees of union with God across the parts in a single person. So I’m imagining somebody where some of the parts are more integrated than others. Some parts are more, you know, kind of in harmony with the innermost self. Innermost self has a relationship with God. There’s some union developing and in Fr. Boniface Hicks and Fr. Thomas Acklin’s book, I think it’s just wonderful, Personal Prayer: A Guide to Receiving the Father’s Love. There’s this idea that they bring up of, you know, contemplation starting a lot earlier, union starting much earlier, than people might think. You know, it’s not just the end of, you know, a whole stage progression of development in the spiritual life. But I’m wondering if in some parts might be deeper in union with God than other parts within the same person. I’m just curious, and this is highly speculative, right? We’re not gonna be able to go to Denzinger and we’re not gonna be able to find anything that’s gonna like, speak to this directly. But I’m just really wondering what you think.

[00:31:23] Mother Natalia: I don’t know how it could be otherwise, honestly. I mean, there are areas in my life, basically the places that are. Oh, there’s a cat. Basically the places that are less wounded, honestly, like those places, those parts within me, find it much easier to surrender to the Lord’s will and surrendering to his will is always a place for deeper union. Right. And then there are other parts of me that just really struggle to surrender because it’s like, well, I want to surrender here and I want to be in union with here, except I’ve been burned a lot. And so I don’t trust that actually it’s safe to surrender. 

[00:32:05] Dr. Gerry: Well, I wonder too, you know, our exiled parts don’t get access in the same way. Like they, if they’re exiled in our system, they’re never brought into relationship with God fully. And so the activity of connecting with our exile, and that usually can often show up as some child, you know, childlike part, who’s wounded, and bringing that into conscious awareness and connecting and attending to that part brings that part into communion with God in a way that it hadn’t been. And so that’s part of the beauty of this, is that there’s a therapeutic approach of loving our exiles and unburdening them and bringing them into the closer connection. But then there’s this spiritual approach, which is also bringing them into communion with God. And so if we go through each of our different parts and check in with each part and bring all the exiles in, but we also work with our managers and so on, and they’re all being brought into community with God, each one and each of their different needs and each of their different concerns and each of their different sometimes rigid tough nut situations, right? And maybe even anger at God, right.

[00:33:16] Dr. Peter: Oh yeah.

[00:33:16] Dr. Gerry: And different things. But when they’re all, every part of the system, is brought into connection with God in a beautiful new way, isn’t that what we’re talking about? Like, isn’t that theosis, or at least a movement toward theosis? Like, isn’t that what it would be like? Like if our entire inner world was one chorus, one cathedral filled with beautiful singers praising God, wouldn’t that be theosis? 

[00:33:42] Mother Natalia: That’s a very beautiful image and very poetic. Here’s a hot take that just came to me, which is what if it’s the exact opposite of what I just said? And what if the parts of us, this is crazy. This is totally speculative, but what if the parts of us that are most in union with God actually are the exiles? And that problem is not that those parts aren’t in union with God, the problem is that we, our inmost self, is not in union with those parts. And that’s where the disintegration is coming from. So the reason I’m wondering this is because I was just having a conversation with someone yesterday actually. And she and I were really relating in that, in a strange way, the times that I know God’s closeness, not even so much as a feeling, but just, yeah, like a knowledge, I guess, like a noetic knowledge, something in the nous. Which I think based on like how the nous is spoken of, I think the nous would really be the inmost self. But the times that I experience are. We’re good on that? We’re solid on that? Okay. The times that I experience noetically his closeness the most in my life are typically the times that I feel alone, that I feel abandoned, that I feel like maybe I’m sick and I feel like no one’s caring for me, or something like that. And I don’t know if that’s where people most experience oneness with God across the board, or if that’s because my particular wounds are abandonment wounds. So I’m wondering if God is particularly close to those exiled parts because this was what the incarnate God was. Like, Jesus was always seeking out the exiles. He was always seeking out the ones on the margins. He wanted the lepers, he wanted the adulterers, he wanted the exiles. And so maybe it’s not a problem so much of those exiles aren’t in union with God. Maybe they are, but maybe we’re not letting those exiles into union with ourselves, and I don’t know. So that’s a hot take.

[00:36:06] Dr. Gerry: I love it. You’re really like, that’s blowing my mind a little bit conceptually, ’cause I tend to like have an inner view of how it works, but you’ve added a dimension there that I actually, I’m gonna definitely sit with. And it makes some kind of sense. Like, my understanding what I’ve really liked in, you know, in Eastern Christian writings and understanding the nous, like you were saying, this sort of the heart, if you will, or the inmost self, the core of the heart, I guess. The way I’ve read it is that the nous is darkened. So the nous itself is in the image of God, in the most pure way, I suppose. And so it is simply good, right? Like it is simply good at its core, but it’s darkened, right? And so the process of in the East of, especially with the focus on God’s energies and light, you know, and the monks, the Aconite monks, you know, and the experiencing of light, divine light within and all that. There’s a sense in which then the nous is illuminated and the darkness surrounding the nous is taken away. So the whole soul kind of like shines, if you will, and so on. So I love all that. But what you’re adding as a dimension that is, in my mind, I think wonderfully brilliant and genius, would be the fact that if the person, and you can take any person, right? A person who maybe they’re disconnected from the Church completely and they’re living a very difficult life and their nous is darkened completely. Like they have in their inner world there’s no access to the image of God in the deepest sense, right. The nous is so darkened. And yet what you’re saying though is that their exile may, like God may be reaching their exile and having a connection there, deep within, that is actually what may bring them out of darkness ultimately, and may bring them into a place. That really changes things, right? And that allows then maybe the nous to be some little light to get in there, some spark of light. And isn’t that like conversion?

[00:38:11] Mother Natalia: Yeah.

[00:38:11] Dr. Gerry: Maybe it’s God reaching our exiles on some level leads to conversion of the heart.

[00:38:19] Dr. Peter: Well, let me ask a question this way. I’m really interested in this and I love it that we’re speculating and we’re kind of turning things around in our own minds and so forth, but I’m wondering if God can be really close to an exile, really close, but the exile not yet experience it. You know, so I’m making a distinction between closeness and union. Because yes, I mean, I totally agree with you and that whole premise of how God, how Christ our Lord has reached out to all the exiles. That’s the whole point of the Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts podcast that we do. That’s our sister podcast, which is all about, you know, working with the daily Mass readings and bringing the good news of the Gospel to the outcasts, to the exiles within us. But I’m wondering also about like, does God bypass the innermost self though? You know, is there a respect for the hierarchy within? One of the things I’ve noticed clinically in the very rare cases where I think there might actually be something demonic going on. Again, these are very rare. It’s clear to me that, at least from these two cases, that Satan was reaching out to the most alienated parts, was wanting to go after the most alienated parts. And again, I don’t tend to focus on this stuff, so I’m speaking outside of my area of expertise.

[00:39:37] Mother Natalia: Sure.

[00:39:38] Dr. Peter: You know, my sense is that God really wants to respect the dignity of the human person and not necessarily work on just a part by part basis. Not to approach multiple parts independently, you know, without an organizing kind of hierarchy inside. And so I wonder about that. I wonder though, I’m really impressed by this Protestant pastor Charles Finney back in the 19th century. He talked about like the childlike qualities that get us to heaven, you know, these 15 qualities. And, you know, he listed ’em all out. They were beautiful. Those are held like primarily by our exiles, you know? So there’s a need for those exiles to be incorporated. So, I don’t know, I’m just trying to weigh all of this and again, sort of think through it, but like, especially when it comes to connecting with God. Can a part, here’s another way to say this would be, can a part have an experience of union with God, actually be in union with God without being in a unity with the innermost self? Like that seems hard for me.

[00:40:42] Dr. Gerry: That’s an important distinction I think you’re making, and I think you’re probably right. I don’t think we’re talking about union in this sense of theosis like we’ve been trying to get at. At least, Mother, you tell me if you agree. ‘Cause I think it’s more an experience of some kind of God’s presence, an experience that the exile feels like they’re not alone and that God is with them and that they’re loved in a way that the rest of the system doesn’t know. And that leads them to an opening in the inmost self and maybe other parts to an opening up toward God, which then eventually would lead to theosis. So we’re not talking about theosis, right? We’re talking, we’re actually really talking about moments of conversion, I think, and early illumination, very early.

[00:41:32] Mother Natalia: I think you’re right. I think we were using the same language and I think it was an imprecision of language, so I’m grateful for that clarification. I think, though, I think, Peter, the word closeness that you used is probably a better word than union. Because here’s the other reason. I think when we experience union with God, I think. I’m not there, for the record. But I think when we experience union with God, we more clearly know the reality of our goodness. And we know more clearly ourselves as we are in union with him. And that’s not the experience I’m talking about with these parts.

[00:42:21] Dr. Peter: Yeah, that would make sense. 

[00:42:22] Mother Natalia: Like these exiled parts. Because these exiled parts, even feeling that closeness, still are exiled, still are burdened, still are full of self hatred and all of these things. And I don’t think we experience things so tragically and so deeply when we’re having a moment of real union with the Lord. We’re not experiencing that self hatred and that self rejection. And so I think you’re right, that it’s not a union that I’m talking about with these exiled parts, though that was the word I was using. I think closeness is the better word. 

[00:42:57] Dr. Peter: So I have a good boy part that really is like my spiritual manager that really is terrified about leading anyone astray. And I will encourage people, any of our audience, if you hear anything that’s off, let us know. Like, if there’s concerns about some things, you know, we don’t wanna shy away from really getting into these questions. It’s helpful to us if you can refer to, you know, the Catechism or to Ludwig Ott’s Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma or Denzinger or something to kind of give us a basis. I don’t really wanna hear, well, 12 years ago I heard a homily where a priest said, and it contradicted what you said. That’s not super helpful to us, but like, you know, we are really open to being corrected and to issuing corrections. So there’s kind of this whole self-correcting effort together that you all are included in. But I love it that we’re exploring this stuff. And so yeah, that really helps me, helps my good boy part. Like, okay, good. Okay. You know, because it’s also a little disorienting to my evaluator part, which is the part of me that’s really about thinking. Like, I always thought that we had to have, you know, unity within, in order to have union with God. That was something that, you know, Anthony Flood was really bringing out in his work both in the podcast here, but in his books, you know, that union with another is really predicated on unity within, which would be maybe a really Western thing, obviously being, you know, so Thomistic in that. 

[00:44:11] Dr. Gerry: I had a thought. I don’t know if this would just lead us into other waters that would be interesting, but is the Eastern distinction between essence and energies.

[00:44:20] Mother Natalia: Oh!

[00:44:22] Dr. Gerry: Yes. Well, because.

[00:44:26] Dr. Peter: Now if you are, if you are listening to this and you’re not watching it on YouTube, you have got to see the expressions from Mother Natalia and Gerry here as they interact. This is just priceless.

[00:44:36] Dr. Gerry: Well, because there is a distinction that’s made in the East that I think is actually helpful in some of these areas because, especially with theosis, because of course we know that, you know, God’s essence is different from ours. Like, we’re not the same. So that’s obvious. So becoming deified or becoming made into God, we’re not made into his essence, right? So that’s clear. But the idea that his energies is something we can participate in and that those energies are experienced like grace or just maybe the experience of love and monks talk about the experience of light, you know, it kind of allows us to participate in the divine nature through his energies, when in fact his essence would be just overwhelming, like just impossible to, we would just be destroyed. Like his essence is too much kind of. But his energies is kind of like, you know, like the sun ray, the light. He’s the sun. If we were thrown into the middle of the sun, we would just burn up and die. But we can feel his energies, which is like the warmth of the sunlight on our skin. And that’s how we as human beings experience him. And so that’s an East, West, slightly different way of expressing it. I thought I would throw that into the discussion there.

[00:45:57] Mother Natalia: So, I don’t know if you’ve, Gerry, I don’t know if you’ve heard of St. Maximus the Confessor, but so he says these are two of his statements from his first century on love. Like in the Philokalia, there are collections of 100 texts, which are called centuries. So this is numbers 95 and 96 from his first century. This is 95, “When the sun rises and casts its light on the world, it reveals both itself and the thing it illumines. Similarly, when the sun of righteousness rises in the pure intellect, he reveals both himself and the inner principles of all that has been and will be brought into existence by him.” And this is 96. “We do not know God from his essence. We know him, rather, from the grandeur of his creation and from his providential care for all creatures. For through these as though they were mirrors, we may attain insight into his infinite goodness, wisdom, and power.” So I’m very not well-versed in the essence and energies debate, and this is like a hot debate. And I’m just not an intellectual, so I don’t even get involved in the debates. But my understanding of it is what you just described, Gerry, and what St. Maximus the Confessor seems to be saying to me here is that like basically we see God through a mirror. We see his thumbprint on things we see, and so we can kind of deduce backwards based on the thumbprint. But we don’t experience, yeah, his essence. We know him through his creation basically, because that’s the only way we can know him, in our limited human minds.

[00:47:48] Dr. Gerry: But I would also, though, say that we know him through his energies through prayer, right? Like we could experience grace in prayer that is like light that is shining on us and within us and that.

[00:48:05] Mother Natalia: Which is what he’s talking about in 95.

[00:48:08] Dr. Gerry: Yeah. And so I love that. And to get to the Philokalia as well, which I love that you brought up and all that, ’cause a lot of people don’t know what that is, which is a collection of writings from very early, you know, like Desert Fathers and other early monks. Most of them I think went out into the deserts and stuff and their writings were captured and put down. You know, and so it’s just a wealth of insight and so on. It can be a little rigorous for some, because these were pretty tough guys and women. This podcast is probably coming out a lot later. We just celebrated Mary of Egypt and so there were women also who went out into the desert. So they were really deep into experiencing the inner world, right? And experiencing like the desert and going out into the desert is almost like going into the unconscious, right? And all that might be dangerous there, if you will. And working through things which, so I want to like mention this sort of Greek term nepsis.

[00:49:15] Mother Natalia: I was just about to bring that up!

[00:49:16] Dr. Gerry: You were?

[00:49:16] Mother Natalia: That’s great. Yes. That’s so great.

[00:49:20] Dr. Peter: I was very far from bringing it up, so I’m glad that you did.

[00:49:24] Mother Natalia: I was actually not gonna use the word nepsis. So that’s great. I didn’t even think to use the Greek word, so that was great.

[00:49:30] Dr. Gerry: Tell me your understanding. So this sort of watchfulness, right? Like this sense of inner attention.

[00:49:35] Mother Natalia: Yeah. So watchfulness is the word that I was thinking because, yeah, this is huge in the East, this concept of watchfulness. It’s all over the Philokalia and it’s the concept of guarding the heart. The concept of watchfulness in my understanding of, my limited understanding of parts work, is very, very consistent with parts work. Because the concept is we should be attentive to the thoughts that are trying to enter our hearts, and ideally notice them as soon as they appear, and either reject them as bad receive them into our heart as good. And so it’s about a discernment of spirits, and yeah, guarding the heart from invasion. And I think that the reason I find this so consistent with parts work is it’s like as we are purifying ourselves of those thoughts that are actually harmful and not helpful for our inmost self, I think that very much is the unburdening of the parts and that’s the not allowing, it’s like, you’ve probably talked about Inside Out on the podcast, I assume? Okay. So it’s in Inside Out 2, when Riley starts to have the negative thoughts that go down to the, do you guys know what I’m talking about?

[00:51:03] Dr. Gerry: Yes. Yeah.

[00:51:05] Mother Natalia: They’re kind of like wonky and not lit up. And again, it’s that concept of the lighting up of the truths within us, like, I would say, that’s the energies, those positive connections are illuminated because they are experiencing the truth of the Lord. And then these other ones that are wonky and you pluck them and there’s discord and all of that. Like, these are the thoughts that we need to cut off as they’re entering the heart. And so really in a sense, this is what all of the monastic life is meant to be, I don’t live it well, but I think I’m growing in it, is this increasing nepsis, this increasing watchfulness in our lives. And it also reminds me a little bit of cognitive behavioral therapy. Because, so one of my spiritual daughters, for instance, you know, she was telling me at some point that she realized that she struggled with a particular sin. Let’s say it’s gluttony, because it wasn’t gluttony. So this spiritual daughter won’t know I’m talking about her. And the thing is she had realized, she had struggled with gluttony her whole life, and only in the past few years realized that she was being gluttonous. And I was like, okay, first of all, that’s a huge step of you realize that it’s happening. And then I said, okay, well, what we need to work towards is as soon as you realize you’re being gluttonous, then cut yourself off from the gluttony. And then over time she just was able to shorten that reaction time. And I really think this is in a sense like a practical application of nepsis, is she realized earlier and earlier that she was reaching gluttony until she got to the point where she realized that she was approaching gluttony before she actually was gluttonous and was able to cut it off there. And I think that’s the concept of watchfulness is like cutting the things off before they even enter the heart. And before we even act on them. And I think it’s like stopping our parts from being burdened. So there’s the unburdening that needs to happen, but then there’s also a watchfulness of guarding our parts from being re-burdened or burdened anew.

[00:53:21] Dr. Gerry: I think you said it really well there. Like, I think you’re talking about self-awareness principally, in this nepsis or watchfulness. Because if you’re not aware of your own inner world, first of all, you said, you’re not even gonna know that there’s gluttony. You’re not even think about it that way, so you’re not even aware of it, which is the first step. I mean, there are other steps when you get at, when you talk about cognitive behavioral therapy or for that matter, parts work. I mean, they would at least be somewhat similar in saying like, the burden might be, I’m not good enough, or I could never, you know, I’m never satisfied or something, or I can never be satisfied, or I don’t know, whatever the in CBT language might be the negative belief or the, you know, cognitive distortion or whatever. But in IFS terms, right, like those negative beliefs and cognitive distortions are burdens that that part is carrying. And so what the nepsis does, what the watchfulness does is it allows you to see it and catch it. Like, first of all, be aware of it and catch it as opposed to just automatically giving into it, automatically just living it out without thought, without awareness, without consciousness. So it really is this deeper this sense of looking deep within, if I understand it right.

[00:54:35] Mother Natalia: Yeah. 

[00:54:36] Dr. Peter: Almost everything I know about Eastern, you know, sort of Eastern thought within Catholicism has come from Dr. Gerry and his recommendations and so forth. So I’m coming at this kind of really from the outside perspective. So when it comes to nepsis, are we being watchful both inwardly and outwardly? You know, sort of the language was something coming into my heart, but my understanding is that if it’s coming from a part, if it’s an impulse or a desire, it’s already in your heart. Like it, you know, ’cause of the way that we think about, at least Dr. Gerry, that you’ve described in your book, you know what that diagram on page 300, you know that the parts are in the heart. So I make a distinction between an impulse, which comes from a part, and a temptation, which would come from outside the person, you know, from a demon or something like that. I’m curious about like what this concept of nepsis and of cutting off. Are we silencing like a desire of a part? Are we simply saying, Nope, you know, we’re not gonna allow that. Because then that might sound a little bit more like suppression or denial if it’s coming from inside of us. Or are we really only saying those are for things that are coming from outside of us, from other people or from demons or, you know, some other place?

[00:55:49] Mother Natalia: Well, I think, so first of all, would you say, Gerry, would you say that the parts are like within the nous even? Like are the parts within the inmost self?

[00:55:59] Dr. Gerry: No, I would say the parts, yeah, are in proximity.

[00:56:03] Mother Natalia: When I say guarding the heart, I think, I mean like guarding that nous basically. When the thoughts come, basically as soon as the thoughts come, maybe I say into our mind, maybe that would be better, like not letting those thoughts even reach our parts or the inmost self.

[00:56:22] Dr. Gerry: I would, this is how I would frame it, right off the cuff here would be that it’s more like something happens like, someone walks by with popcorn that’s buttered and salted and it smells so good, right? I love popcorn. And all of a sudden.

[00:56:43] Mother Natalia: I love butter.

[00:56:43] Dr. Gerry: It’s not that the popcorn has suddenly from the outside invaded you with a thought. It’s that now you have a part that’s responding to that. And if the part’s belief is I can’t survive without popcorn or something, or I have to have everything that comes my way or I’m never gonna have anything, who knows where it even comes from. But if there’s a burden kind of there that is basically where that part would kind of take over the system, so to speak. In ego state therapy it would be like enter the executive, right? Almost like replace the inmost self, if you will, to make decisions. Then that would be like the giving in, so the negative beliefs and the thoughts like, oh, I must have that popcorn. You know, it doesn’t matter if I have to like, you know, push an old lady outta the way to get it, I’m gonna get that popcorn. Well, that is coming from within, right? Nobody on the outside, I mean, unless maybe there’s a demon encouraging or something from the outside. But the real negative thing is coming from within, from that part. And so the nepsis would be like, oh, an awareness. Like all that can happen and we’re not even thinking about it. We’re just, before we know it, we’re just gulping down popcorn. Right. And so the nepsis is like.

[00:57:56] Mother Natalia: Can you gulp popcorn?

[00:57:58] Dr. Gerry: I can. That’s great. Yeah. Wolfing, wolfing is a better word. Right? So nepsis is about slowing all that down, and having the self-awareness to go, wait a second, and catching the part and understanding where the part’s coming from. Like that’s where it fits in so well with parts work, I think. And being able to like, attend to it and not just give in to those thoughts that are just sort of taking over that. Does that address what you’re asking, Peter?

[00:58:29] Dr. Peter: You know, I think so. I guess what I was thinking about as I was listening to this was wondering if there was an apparent contradiction between what we were saying earlier about, you know, how all intentions are good, there’s a good intentionality behind all parts. And so if there is a thought like, I need popcorn, I need, you know, a big five gallon bucket of popcorn, I’m going to eat all that popcorn. Is there an interest in nepsis of understanding what the good intention is behind that? You know, is there an awareness of like, I feel really empty. I feel like there’s nothing inside. I need something inside to know that I’m even existing in an extreme case, for example. Popcorn can help me with that. Or is it more like no popcorn for you, like, no popcorn for me. Like that’s not what we’re gonna do. Because that would be unhealthy. It would, you know, desecrate the temple of the Holy Spirit or whatever that I am, that my body is. You know, so I’m just kind of trying to understand it, because it could sound a little harsh, like, we’re just gonna cut that thought off, you know? And I guess my question was, parts of me were saying, well, will we still be listened to?

[00:59:35] Mother Natalia: So I think, if I can give a practical example of this in my own life, within my monastic life.

[00:59:41] Dr. Peter: Sure.

[00:59:42] Mother Natalia: An example of an area that I think has been an increased watchfulness and an increased self-awareness in my own life is it could be, so I get very short with my sisters, like I get very snippy at various points. And this used to happen a lot more frequently. And this is I guess why I was thinking of cognitive behavioral therapy, ’cause I think this is an example that fits in very well there, but it also fits in with unburdening parts. So as time went on and I started opening those things up in prayer, which I think that’s part of it, is I think sometimes we need to say in the moment, no popcorn for you. And then we need to later sit down and say, why did I want popcorn? Where was that coming from? And kind of explore that. And it’s not always safe to do that exploration in the moment. So as time went on and I started seeing this pattern in my life of these times that I would get really snippy with my sisters, then as I prayed through those things, I started to see, oh, I was getting snippy because these other things had happened that day with my sisters. And all of those things that happened with my sisters conveyed the message to me, or maybe they didn’t convey the message, but I received the message, that I’m unseen and I’m unwanted in this community. And so this was very clearly a part of me that was feeling unseen and then was being snippy because at least someone will see me, even if they see me because they’re hurt. And they’ll acknowledge that there’s some need here. As this went on, I started to, as soon as I felt the snippiness rising and like this anger rising in me, I’m able more frequently, not always, I’m able to cut off. Because here’s the thing, like, so Elder Thaddeus, there’s a book called Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives by Elder Thaddeus, which is an excellent book. But the concept basically is all of our temptations and all of our actions are proceeded by a thought, whether or not we’re conscious of the thought. So for instance, in this particular example that I’m giving, the thought is, I’m unseen or the belief or whatever it is. And as I’m able to stop that thought. That’s right! Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives, look at that smile. Doesn’t he have such a sweet smile, Elder Thaddeus? Oh. Then the point is like, as soon as the thought is entering my heart of, you are not seen, cut it off before it enters the heart, because that’s just not a truth, and that’s just a burden. So in some sense, it’s like cutting off those things that burden our parts, and being able to act more out of our integrated unburdened selves. Yeah. Is that a practical example that kind of clarifies it a little bit?

[01:02:50] Dr. Gerry: I think so. And I think that’s very helpful. I’m gonna throw out. I had to look it up. So I’m not gonna pretend I’m so brilliant that I could just spew this out, but I looked it up real quickly, some of these terms. And there’s nepsis and then there’s proseuche, which is like, it’s the deliberate directing of the nous inward. So nepsis is the watchfulness, a little bit of the sobriety, like the vigilance. Then the proseuche is the deliberately turning the nous inward. Then you have hesychia, right? Hesychia, which is interior silence, which allows the nous to perceive God. And then there’s apatheia, right, which it’s not emotional deadness or indifference, it’s the freedom of the soul from the tyranny of the disordered passions, which then leads to diakrisis, which is the ability to distinguish between thoughts that come from God, from the self, and from the enemy. And then there’s metanoia, right? Which is a total reorientation of the nous toward God. So, in this, you know, Greek tradition, in this Eastern tradition, these terms, watchfulness is just the beginning. It’s just like this awareness, this sobriety, like being sober enough to notice and then there’s all these different stages of approaches. And they’re not, they don’t strike me as repression, right? We’re not, you know, suppressing emotions. We’re opening up our hearts to God. We’re reorienting toward the nous in order to then properly discern what is good and what is not and what would be healthy or not. And then to be able to, you know, have them, I love the word metanoia, right, because it is a reorientation of the heart. And anyway, so I just say, there’s this whole process, to Peter’s point, that isn’t, I don’t see it as repression.

[01:04:43] Dr. Peter: Okay. That’s great. And it is so classic to ask Gerry a question and to get seven Greek terms in response.

[01:04:53] Mother Natalia: Well, if I can give one more Greek term, I think that the concept here also is, like with nepsis, the most common way in which it’s thought of, I think, is with regards to the logismoi, which means like little thoughts basically. They’re the thoughts that enter in. And I will say, because it’s almost always spoken of as though the  logismoi are always bad. They’re always from the devil or at least from ourselves. But there are a few times in the Philokalia that the Fathers will talk about certain logismoi can be neutral or that can even be good. And so anyways, usually when you hear, I just want people to know the context of, usually when you hear the word logismoi, people are talking about unhealthy, unholy thoughts that enter the mind. And these are the things specifically that we’re cutting off as they enter the heart, which I think, just to go back to your point, Peter, one more time. I think it’s a matter of not saying like, not rejecting the desire for popcorn. Well, maybe rejecting the desire for popcorn, but not rejecting the good desire within that desire for popcorn, which is actually the desire to receive that which fills me with joy.

[01:06:12] Dr. Peter: Okay.

[01:06:12] Mother Natalia: That’s a good desire and I think that’s why there’s a good desire inherent below even what’s maybe disordered. So it’s kind of like rejecting the disorder and allowing the other part in.

[01:06:23] Dr. Peter: So I’m actually thinking about this. Okay, how can we make it maybe more accessible to people’s daily lives? And I’m sort of thinking about it as like, how do we work with children? How do we work with children, you know, maybe three years old, maybe five years old, with an intense desire for something that isn’t good or with an intense impulse, you know, or some other intense experience. Because we don’t wanna just say, well, yes, anything goes, you know, all parts are good. We’re just gonna embrace everything, you know? And that’s not what we’re talking about here, it sounds like. It sounds like there is a balance between setting some limits and boundaries, you know, but then also a real attempt to try to understand, to attune. Going back to even the example that you gave, right, for parts to be seen, heard, known, and understood, which is the second condition of secure attachment according to Brown and Elliott, their book, Attachment Disturbances in Adults, which is just love, right? The desire parts have to be seen, heard, known, and understood. And again, you see that in kids too. I worked in daycare for a while and you know, we’re gonna get attention one way or another, right? If it can’t be positive and proactive, we’re gonna get it in a reactive way from those around us. So that makes total sense to me.

[01:07:33] Mother Natalia: And I think with children well as with ourselves. So I actually did, in my very elementary understanding of parts work, I actually did an episode on my own podcast recently called Parts Work and Prayer. And I was just sharing an experience. I had told Gerry recently that I just had this thing in my own life that for months was deeply bothering me. I mean, like when I thought of this thing, this very insignificant thing in the grand scheme of life, and when I thought of it, I was sick to my stomach. I wanted to cry. It was like I was having a trauma response to this seemingly insignificant thing, like so intense. And I tried everything to process this. I had like, I’d gone to spiritual direction and I tried praying through it and I kept telling myself to just get over it. Weird, that doesn’t work. And finally I was like, alright, I’m gonna do the parts work thing ’cause I don’t know what else to do here. And so I went to prayer and I prayed one of Gerry’s litanies and I prayed some Jesus prayers and just kind of settled my heart. And then I brought this situation to mind and I invited, I was like, whatever part is hurting, like I just invite you to step forward. And five parts stepped forward. And I was like, well, this is why it’s so intense. And so for the next like hour and a half, two hours, I just like speak to each of these parts with the Lord in prayer, which was very beautiful. Anyways, in that episode, all of that was to just say this, anyways, it was superfluous. But in that episode I talked about one of the gifts I think of a parts work approach within prayer is that, at least for me, like most of my parts are like little girl versions of myself. And even if they’re not a little girl version, the speaking to the parts with compassion and gentleness is such an important part of parts work, that it’s like we all have the little kid inside of us that’s stomping their feet and wailing and screaming for attention. And we can approach that part if we think we’re talking to a child much more easily than if we’re talking to ourselves as adults because we’re just so much harsher with ourselves than we are with that little child part. And so it like gives us the opportunity to speak to ourselves in the way that we actually need to be spoken to. You know, I was thinking of this even, Peter, when you were talking about two demonic situations that you’ve had because Evagrius says, ” There is scarcely any other virtue which the demons fear as much as gentleness.” And I’m like I think that’s a huge part of why parts work is so effective because the very gentleness with which we approach our parts casts out demons. And I think that’s the same approach that we take with children, I guess is what was making me think that, is it’s not helpful to just say, why do you want popcorn, you idiot? That’s like, you know that’s gonna go straight to your hips and what’s your problem? What’s helpful is to say like, what do you actually wanting beneath the popcorn? You know, I had a therapist that I know here in the Cleveland area. He shared with me one time that when he has, and this speaks to what you were saying, Peter, also of like, we’re not just saying like, all parts are good, anything goes, whatever. But he would say when he had like an adolescent come to him who was cutting or some kind of self harm, he doesn’t just say to them, you need to stop that. Cutting is bad. Because that’s what this adolescent is hearing from everyone else in their lives, right. But he typically approaches it from, okay, well, if you’ve been doing this, must be something helpful about that for you. Like, what is the good that you’re receiving from this? Like, how is this helping you with life? And then when they say, you know, whatever the things are, then it’s like, I’m glad that you’ve been helped. I’m glad that you’ve had this good in your life. If I can suggest to you some other ways that we might be able to achieve those same goods, would you be willing to try it? I’m like, that’s brilliant. That’s unburdening. That’s talking to the part and saying like, you are looking for something good here. You’re trying to get a good. How can we get that good in a healthy ordered way?

[01:12:14] Dr. Gerry: That’s brilliant. That’s exactly what we do when we ally with the part and we understand its intention and then we offer it, yeah. Then the part is working with us.

[01:12:25] Dr. Peter: Well, and if a part was to come back and say, as the good that’s being sought, because cutting is something that freaks people out. Like totally, you know, parents, and it’s understandable, teachers. 

[01:12:36] Mother Natalia: Yeah. 

[01:12:37] Dr. Peter: That is something that just like, wow. But if you understood that it’s not just, you know, if we take it out of the frame of, it’s just physical disfigurement. Right? But if the part were to come back and say, I feel so dead. I’m not sure I’m alive. Only way that I know I’m alive is when I see the blood flow, then I know that I’m alive, then I’m reassured that I’m still alive, which would go to the first primary integrity need in the way that I think about this of survival. Like it’s a reality check for the part. Well, all of a sudden you’ve got a very different frame for this, right? Other than, you know what sometimes people say, oh, it’s a call for attention or whatever, you know, there’s ways that we can kind of devalue what the good is that’s being sought. And then we can approach it not at the level of the symptom, because I look at cutting as a symptom, and that doesn’t mean it’s not a problem. A fever of 105 is a symptom, but it’s also a problem in its own right. A fever of 107 can kill you. So it’s not that we’re saying there’s not a problem there, but I don’t wanna treat a fever. I wanna understand what’s causing the underlying, what’s underlying that’s causing the fever, right? And I think so much of our approach in psychology is unfortunately focused on symptoms. Where, you know, and if you went into an emergency room with a high fever and with abdominal pain, and they gave you painkillers and Tylenol to reduce the fever, but they didn’t ever address the appendicitis, like, they’re not helping you. Right. They’re not helping you there. And so we’re trying to get to what’s at depth, and that’s exactly what you were bringing out in such a beautiful way, Mother Natalia.

[01:14:11] Mother Natalia: You know, one of the most powerful experiences I’ve had of conversion and healing in my own life was a similar situation where I was like, I was battling a particular habitual sin for like 20 years. And whenever this thought entered my mind, I just. And it started when I was a kid. And so I was just so angry. Like for 20 years I was begging the Lord to relieve me of this pattern of thinking, and I was so angry that he wouldn’t. And I remember in August of 2023, I was reading the story of the leper who says, “Lord, if you will it, you can make me clean.” And he says, “I will it. Be clean.” And I was so angry, I almost threw my Bible. And I was like, I’m your bride. Why don’t you want me to be clean? And I’m furious. And then a couple of months later, I was on retreat with Father Boniface actually. And we were unpacking some things in this retreat that were totally unrelated in my mind to this pattern of thought for 20 years. And at the end of the week, I realized I hadn’t had a single one of those thoughts all week. And then a week goes by and still nothing. And then a few weeks goes by and still nothing. And now three years go by, still nothing. And it’s just like that, it was just gone. I realized this is the mercy of God that doesn’t always feel like mercy to us because we don’t know what mercy actually is. He, in his mercy, wasn’t healing what I was asking him to heal, because what I didn’t realize is I was asking him to take away the spots of leprosy and he wanted to heal the actual disease, which is what you’re saying, Peter, like he didn’t want to just get rid of the symptoms. He wanted to heal what was at the root. And if he had answered my prayer in the way that I wanted and gotten rid of the spots of leprosy, I wouldn’t have dug deeper ’cause I would’ve thought, I’m fine. And this would’ve just continued festering within me. Yeah.

[01:16:24] Dr. Peter: Yeah. I don’t know about you, Mother Natalia, but Dr. Gerry and I are old enough to remember cars that if you knew which fuses to remove, you could make the dash lights go out. So if your engine light was on and you reached under the dash and you could pull that fuse, the engine light would go out, you know, the symptom is gone. 

[01:16:42] Mother Natalia: You can tell yourself, everything’s fine now.

[01:16:45] Dr. Peter: Everything’s fine now. Exactly. I’m reminded of C. S. Lewis. You know, pain is God’s megaphone. Right? And he only allows something to continue in order to be able to draw greater good from it, in Romans 8:28. Right. And so, but I would like to get this back into, we’ve got some time left yet to kind of bring this back to not so much recovery, not so much healing, but to back to union with God. Like, if we could bring this into the realm of, you know, as you say, Dr. Gerry, so often, flourishing or thriving, right. How might there be some really practical things that might help us?

[01:17:22] Dr. Gerry: Before we get practical, I’m gonna throw out another Greek term, since I pulled them up, and just to make the connections between East and West too, and that they’re not always so different. Like the term theoria, for example, in the East, is really contemplation, right? Which is something that we’ve been doing, right, at Souls and Hearts, like to look at how is making that IFS You-Turn, how is that related to contemplation? Like how is that related to prayer? How is that related to connecting with God? How is our inner world connected to God? And we’re just always asking these questions. And so the Greek concept of theoria is about having a spiritual perception, a vision of God, right? They would see it as his uncreated light, but whatever. So it’s this deep contemplation. But then there’s the word extasis, which I think we get ecstatic from, ecstasy, right? Which is sort of standing outside oneself, the soul transcending the ordinary mode to encounter God. And when I hear that, like, I just think like, wow, like that fits so much of, I know when we go deeper inward, like we can do this inner work therapeutically and that’s amazing. But then in that space, even going deeper with the inmost self and connecting with God and contemplation and prayer, we actually like experience something where we’re outside of ourselves and we have this deeper experience of then illumination of God’s light shining on our nous, our inmost self in a way that is transformative. And I think that all leads to theosis. And so, okay, so I say all that and maybe there’s comment on that, but to be practical about it, I mean, it is deep prayer, and that we need to spend time and not just spending time in prayer where we’re just saying our prayers or just saying things or talking to God and or asking for things. But it’s this deep experience, right? And we’re not gonna live our lives, unless we’re Mother Natalia at her monastery. We’re not going to be living our lives 24/7 in this state. I know I’m being a little facetious. I know you don’t do that either, but you might do it more than me. I don’t know. But we can have this like experience at least every day to touch base with that. Right, to at least pause and nepsis the watchfulness, the quieting, the entering the theoria, the entering contemplation, the going deeper, going inward, connecting with our inner parts, connecting with our inmost self and bringing our whole attention to God. I know that sounds lofty, but it isn’t so hard in some ways. Like it is, he’ll give the grace that we need. So it may be dry sometimes, but he’ll provide the grace to, at times, for us to really be kind of taken outside of ourselves. Anyway, I know I said a lot. And you’re the mother, you’re the nun. So you tell me what you heard in that, or what spoke to you in that, or what you would add to that.

[01:20:24] Mother Natalia: Well, I think like is this a good time for me to give my practical takeaway? Okay. So, yeah. I think my practical takeaway would be very much what you just said, Gerry, of we are so steeped in our Western world, and I don’t mean Western Christian, I mean Western world, Western society. We’re so steeped in this obsession with productivity and doing all the time. And this seeps into even our monastic life here. And it’s something that we are constantly coming back to of like trying to reorder our lives to be more about being than doing. But this happens even in our spirituality of like, I think we often, we as in everyone, every Christian, we often go to prayer with some kind of goal and like prayer is supposed to be productive. Either I’m gonna have this great insight from it, or even I’m gonna have good feelings from it. I’m gonna receive some grace from it. Like, you know, if you ask some people, why do you pray every day? People who do pray every day. They might say, well, it gives me strength to get through the day, or, but like even that is not really the reason that we should go to prayer.

[01:21:41] Dr. Peter: It’s very utilitarian. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:21:43] Mother Natalia: The reason we go to prayer should be simply for the sake of union with God. Like we go to prayer for the sake of relationship, not for the sake of receiving from. And there are byproducts. We do receive, we do get strength for the day. We do receive those insights sometimes. We do get graces sometimes, but like that’s not the point. Those are the byproducts of the relationship. And so the practical takeaway that I would say is we need to go to prayer and simply be in his presence. It’s what you were talking about so many times during this episode, Gerry, of we need to just bask in the sun. We need to receive the light and let him illuminate the things inside of ourselves, not just coming to him with problems within ourselves that we want him to solve, because I think we can go to him as life coach instead of life giver. Yeah, so I think my practical takeaway would be we need to spend time in prayer, simply being with him. 

[01:22:49] Dr. Gerry: I have a practical takeaway.

[01:22:51] Dr. Peter: Well, can I comment on this practical takeaway first? Because it just brings up my favorite G. K. Chesterton quote where he says, “If a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing badly.” You know, and I’m just gonna encourage people to pray badly. I liken it to breathing, right. Would you rather breathe badly or not breathe at all? You know, like, ’cause those are kinda your choices when we’re struggling with this thing and just was reflecting on, ” My ways are not your ways, my thoughts are not your thoughts. As high as the heavens are above the earth are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.” We don’t really know how to evaluate all this stuff very clearly. You know, so some of it is just approaching in trust. Just that emphasis on being with just made my heart sing too, ’cause we talk a lot about the importance of being with. Don’t just do something, stand there. You know, like, just be with. So thank you for that.

[01:23:50] Dr. Gerry: I love that. So my practical takeaway is to get a cat. I’m gonna explain why. I think you saw one of them show up. We have two, and there’s one, her name is Nebula. And in the morning I have a little prayer room, Dr. Peter, you’ve been there.

[01:24:06] Dr. Peter: Absolutely. 

[01:24:07] Dr. Gerry: So I go there in the morning. I’ve been doing the 19th annotation, which is like spiritual exercises over the course of a year. And so I have like things I’m supposed to do, like have these prayers and Bible readings and stuff. Plus I do some of the Melchite morning prayer, but I also do the readings from the Roman Breviary as well. So I’m doing like all these things well, and so I’ve got the books, right, like I’ve got the books, I’ve got the Bible.

[01:24:31] Mother Natalia: You’re reading with so many lungs.

[01:24:32] Dr. Gerry: I have, so many, yes. And I’ve got all these different books and they’re sitting there and I go to this one, and then I read from the Scriptures and I’ve got my Word on Fire Gospel Bible, which I absolutely love. So I got all these things and I’ve lit my candles, got my incense going. So I’m like sitting in my prayer room with all these things do, and then my cat walks in and then she comes in and then she jumps onto, you’ll see why I call her my little Paraclete for a reason. She jumps on my chest and starts purring, and I’m petting her. And I can no longer read from any of the books. I can’t pick up, because if I pick up a book, she’ll go away or something. So I have, she forces me to just stop and just, maybe I’ve read a little bit or I’ve done some of the prayers, and then just sit with it and just sit with God and like, okay, Gerry, stop just trying to get all this stuff done in your prayer time, and actually just sit with God. So that’s why. I’m not saying you really do need to get a cat, but my cat at least has shown me what it means to just stop being so busy and just sit with God, which is an amazing little gift.

[01:25:44] Dr. Peter: So when I think about theosis, when I think about deification, and we haven’t talked about it a lot today, but I think the takeaway that I’d like to emphasize is the way parts are gonna look at that is gonna be directly correlated with the way they look at God, with their God images. And these are the sort of felt intuitive, often non-verbal, sort of gut sense of who God is and they’re formed by experience and how parts make sense of experience, especially of authority figures, especially if those authority figures had some kind of Catholic or Christian connotation to them. Parents, you know, coaches, priests, teachers. And I’m really gonna kinda go back to a theme we had before, gentleness, but also patience and kindness with parts. Because parts sometimes just need some practice being in relationship. And I’m less focused on parts experiencing God immediately than I am on them experiencing love, you know? ‘Cause sometimes parts need to be able to take in love, to learn something about the nature, something about the essence of God before they’re equipped to be able to approach God. Because that could be so scary, especially if God is angry. God is distant, God is abandoning, God is rejecting. Whatever the God image is. And so I think one of the things that we really want to appreciate, I use the example of refeeding syndrome. There’s a medical condition where people have been starving. And so the natural inclination when somebody gone without food for 10 days might be, let’s get this person a full meal. They need calories, they need nutrition, they need vitamins and minerals. So a big full five course meal. But if you do that, you’ll kill ’em, because they no longer have the enzymes in their stomach. They don’t have the gut floor to be able to digest it. That has to be sort of built up. So you start with like, sugar water, the very easiest things to digest. So kind of thinking about what is milk for parts. And it can be a really threatening thing for parts that believe that they have to encounter God. They might need to really have an experience of trust with someone who can sort of be like, that go-between or a bridge. So that could be the innermost self. It could be a different spiritual intercessor like St. Joseph or our Lady, you know, so just a lot of that, that we don’t try to rush that process so much and that we really be introducing parts to love. And in learning what love is and experiencing love, they’re coming to know God because as St. John tells us, right, God is love. So just some patience with that process, I guess would be my takeaway.

[01:28:39] Mother Natalia: Thank you. 

[01:28:41] Dr. Gerry: Is there any word, Mother, I think we’re getting close to the end here, that you would offer, a word of encouragement, to someone who’s carrying deep wounds and struggles, maybe to believe that theosis, you know, is possible for them?

[01:28:54] Mother Natalia: Hmm. Actually there was something else that I, what was it? There was something that I saw. Somewhere in Philokalia, someone says, probably St. Maximus or Evagrius, that basically the Holy Spirit is unafraid to approach us, even when we are still impure and that he is still gentle with us even when we are impure. And what the author means by impure is still steeped in sin. But I think one of the biggest mistakes that we make in our spiritual life is thinking that I need to get to this place in order to encounter God. I need to have, or in order to encounter love, as Peter’s saying, like, I need to have this nice wrapped up package that I can present. And that’s when I can encounter him, even in confession. You know, I think oftentimes in confession or spiritual direction, we bring the things once we feel like we’ve kind of figured them out, or once we feel like we’ve gotten past it, instead of like encountering love in the midst of the mess that we are. I gave a talk, which is available on YouTube. I think it’s the best talk I’ve ever given to the Columbus Catholic Women’s Conference, 3000 women, which was terrifying. But the name of the talk was A Beginner’s Guide to Riding Your Hot Mess Express into Heaven. Because the reality is we’re all a hot mess, but we think that we need to not be a hot mess in order to be holy. And it’s like actually the Lord wants our sanctity and he wants relationship now in the midst of the hot mess. And I think that would be my encouragement is don’t let your hot mess, don’t let your woundedness, discourage you from being with him, because like we talked about with the exiles, like that actually makes you his favorite. He loves the hot messes. Yeah.

[01:30:58] Dr. Gerry: I love that. Thank you so much. I need to hear that. I think so many people probably do need to hear that today.

[01:31:04] Dr. Peter: And we will link to that in the description of, in our YouTube description and on the podcast platforms as well. So you can take that in.

[01:31:10] Mother Natalia: Great. 

[01:31:11] Dr. Peter: If this has piqued your interest, if you’d like to learn more about Internal Family Systems and parts work grounded in a Catholic understanding of the human person, check out episodes 157, 158, and 159 of this Interior Integration for Catholics podcast. It’s a great introduction, and you can learn so much. It’s like a little mini course, episodes 157, 158, 159. And the Resilient Catholics Community in Souls and Hearts is all about you flourishing and thriving on your journey of deification, your journey of theosis, of participating in God’s divine nature, of embracing your identity as a beloved little son of God or a beloved little daughter of God. We set our sights high. And we go about it in a way that is so different than so many other Catholic outreaches, so many Catholic apostolates or ministries. We focus on first things first. We focus on human formation. St. John Paul II described human formation as the basis of all formation. The other three dimensions of personal formation, intellectual formation, spiritual formation, pastoral formation, these all depend on human formation. And so in the RCC, in the Resilient Catholics Community, we focus on your human formation arithmetic so that you can better do your spiritual algebra. We’re shoring up that natural foundation for the spiritual life. And now the Resilient Catholics Community, the RCC, is open for new members all during the month of June. We open to new applications every February, June, and October. So if you are a Catholic who sees how important structure is for your personal human formation, if you want to overcome the natural level obstacles to sharing deeply in God’s divine nature as his beloved little son or beloved little daughter, and if parts and systems thinking, if that all makes sense to you, consider applying to the Resilient Catholics community. The RCC offers you that structured program over the course of a year in a community of like-minded Catholics in small groups flourishing and thriving as we journey together toward loving God wholeheartedly with all of our parts and as we journey toward loving our neighbors as ourselves. Go to our landing page at soulsandhearts.com/rcc and sign up if you’re interested. Hundreds of Catholics have already found the RCC to be helpful in their human formation. We use the best of both secular and spiritual resources to help you experience what love is at a bones level across all your parts. Right? Again, it’s all about embracing God’s divine nature, partaking in God’s divine nature across all of us. Check out more at our RCC landing page at soulsandhearts.com/rcc. Consider doing our 19-minute experiential exercise to help you discern whether it’s a good idea for you to apply to the RCC. And if you apply, there’s still a mutual discernment process that lasts some weeks. It includes the PartsFinder Pro. That’s a set of 23 measures to help you come to understand 10 to 15 of your parts, managers, firefighters, and exiles, how they relate to your innermost self, how they relate to each other. And you’ll get feedback from your PFP, your PartsFinder Pro, through a six to seven-page report. You’ll discuss it in a 15-minute Zoom interview with one of our staff members. And all of that’s included in our application fee. And we actually have scholarships if that’s difficult for you. You can contact Pam at office@soulsandhearts.com if there’s financial need. So go to soulsandhearts.com/rcc to find out more. 

[01:34:41] Dr. Peter: We have some online workshops for those Catholic formators, priests, therapists, coaches, spiritual directors, anyone who accompanies others individually in their formation. Catholic Parts Work in Human Formation will be on the evening of June 10th, 2026 from 8:00 PM to 9:30 PM Eastern Time, and you can check that out. There is a link in the description of this podcast for that. And we also have a retreat for Catholic formators. That will be August 10th to the 13th, 2026 at Mother of the Redeemer Retreat Center in Bloomington, Indiana. The theme is Authentic Being and Authentic Relating, and this retreat focuses on you as a formator, you as a therapist, a priest, a spiritual director, a coach. This retreat focuses on you finding and loving yourself in more of your parts, including parts that you might not yet have encountered, right? You can check that out at soulsandhearts.com/fff. Also check out me hanging out with Chris Stefanick on The Chris Stefanick Show on the episode titled Why Hating Your Worst Self Is Making Everything Worse. That just came out. Chris really gets into his own parts, and we just have a fantastic discussion. It’s a great introduction to Internal Family Systems as well. Don’t forget Dr. Gerry’s book, Litanies of the Heart, such a good resource there. And there’s also a link to that presentation that Mother Natalia mentioned, A Beginner’s Guide to Riding Your Hot Mess Express into Heaven, a YouTube video that she offers us. So I just want to thank both of you for being here. This is just amazing and I have been looking forward to meeting you as Mother Natalia for quite a while. So it’s just delightful. It’s such an honor to have you, you really Beautiful. So thank you for being here. And Dr. Gerry like how wonderful that we can get together and spend this time together. It doesn’t even feel like work, right. You know, so we could go on for a long time. 

[01:36:46] Mother Natalia: Thank you. It was good to be with both of you.

[01:36:48] Dr. Gerry: Yeah. It’s been delightful. 

[01:36:50] Dr. Peter: And so we’ll bring 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. And because we have Mother Natalia and Gerry here, St. Maximus, pray for us.