IIC 4: The Four Pillars of Psychological Resilience for Catholics

Using the backdrop of 7th Century BC Judah and the prophet Habakkuk, Dr. Peter brings in the four pillars of psychological resilience for Catholics: Mindset, Heartset, Soulset, and Bodyset.  This is the first of a five-episode series on resiliency in the face of stress.

[00:00:00] Judah, late seventh century BC. The northern kingdom of Israel has already been destroyed by the dominant Assyrians 200 years ago. The northern kingdom is lost forever. Ten tribes gone, utterly ruined. The little southern kingdom of Judah survived. Two tribes left, Judah and Benjamin. But those two tribes are surrounded by powerful enemies, idolatrous nations running rampant. The ruling Assyrians are brutal even by the standards of the day. But by this time Assyria is in a late stage empire collapse. Assyrian nobles are jockeying for power and position, with palace intrigues and dirty dealing. Betrayals and internal power plays are the name of the game. Insurrections are on the rise and civil disturbances are breaking out as factions consolidate under rival warlords. The political situation was very dangerous and rapidly changing. The conquered peoples under the Assyrians harsh rule, the Medes, the Persians, the Babylonians, the Chaldeans, the Scythians, the Sumerians, these subjected nations all much more powerful than little Judah, smelled the Assyrians’ weakness like blood in the water. They sharpen their swords and bided their time for payback. And little Judah, powerless, weak, vulnerable, isolated. Little Judah finds itself riding a red tricycle in a demolition derby.

[00:01:31] And in 616 BC, it happened, like rolling thunder. Real rebellions break out from the simmering tensions. 613 BC, the Babylonian army has broken free and, with a vengeance, is heading for Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, the biggest, most powerful city of the world. The Medes, Persians, Scythians, and Cimmerians all join in with the Babylonians and pile on. It’s payback time for the brutal years of subjection. The Assyrians have ruled for centuries and they are not rolling over. It was a clash of titans. The battle for Nineveh lasted months, with hand-to-hand fighting from street to street and house to house. The city finally falls in 612 BC and the victorious armies sack, loot, and burn Nineveh. Now we have a power vacuum. The political and military situation was highly fluid, very unpredictable, and really dangerous, as the cars crashed and burned in the Derby and little Judah rode on. Cue the prophet Habakkuk. “I hear and my body trembles. My lips quiver at the sound. Rottenness enters into my bones. My steps totter beneath me. I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us.”

[00:03:05] Welcome to the podcast, Coronavirus Crisis Carpe Diem, where together we embrace the possibilities and opportunities for spiritual and psychological growth in a time of crisis, all grounded in a Catholic worldview. I’m clinical psychologist Peter Malinoski with Souls and Hearts. It’s great to be with you. This is episode 4, The Four Pillars of Psychological Resilience for Catholics. So why did I share with you the story of the fall of Nineveh and the words of Habakkuk? Because the book of Habakkuk is all about a tumultuous time, and there is great psychological wisdom in it for us in our current situation. Those wild, unpredictable, and dangerous days back in the seventh century BC are also a great real life historical backdrop to this five episode series on resiliency. In this episode and the next four, I’m giving you a mini course on psychological and spiritual resilience in our own current crisis. In our time together today, you’ll learn about the four pillars of internal personal resilience in the face of crisis. These are the four critical supports that distinguish among those people that thrive in hard times, from those that merely survive, from those that don’t make it and fall into despair. These four pillars are mindset, heartset, soulset and bodyset. I draw from the best of psychology grounded in a Catholic worldview. I also bring in references from C.S. Lewis and also J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. So the four pillars of resilience.

[00:04:44] What are these four pillars again? Mindset, heartset, soulset, and bodyset. All right, now all you out there in the audience, I want you to guess internally which is the most important pillar. Which one is it? Mindset, heartset, soulset or bodyset? All of you who guessed soulset, you’re right. Soulset is pillar one. But we’re not starting with soulset. We’re not starting with pillar one. We’re starting with pillar three. Yeah, pillar three, mindset. Because people are more familiar with mindset. And so I’ll build from that in describing the other pillars. Pillar three, mindset. Mindset is essentially a frame of mind. Our mindset is the position of our intellect, how we apply reason to our situation and to our experiences. For example, a person could have a pessimistic mindset or an optimistic mindset. That person filters his perceptions of the world and his thinking through that mindset. More intellectual or analytical people weigh mindset much more heavily in their decision making. A classic example is Mr. Spock from the original Star Trek series. Another example is the character of Sherlock Holmes in the novels by Arthur Conan Doyle. Here’s the thing. Our mindset is dynamic and it changes. We can have a very positive outlook or mindset at one point in time, and a very negative one at another point in time, even as we look at the same set of circumstances. Our mindset greatly influences not only our thinking but also our behavior.

[00:06:30] If we give free rein to our behavior, it will partially flow from our mindset. It’s much easier to act well when we have a good mindset. And one more thing. Our mindsets can range all over in terms of their accuracy of perception and the quality of the thinking that they produce. So that wraps it for a brief description of mindset. We’re moving on to pillar two. Pillar two, heartset. Heartset is the disposition or the orientation of our heart. It’s the emotional and intuitive way of our heart. Heartset comprises the positions we take because of our feelings. Heartset and mindset can be in opposition. For example, if a mother has a solid mindset to go forward with cleaning the gravel out of her son’s skinned knee, her heart can still break for him. Her heartset can still be one of very intensely not wanting to cause him pain. Her heart and her mind are saying different things. Her heartset and her mindset can be in opposition. Saint Therese of Lisieux, in correcting the novices under her charge, felt great pain in her heart about reproving them. This was her heartset. In her mindset, she knew it was the right thing to do. Mary Magdalene was heavily influenced by her heartset in the way that she loved our Lord.

[00:07:56] And for another Star Trek reference, Bones McCoy was also very influenced by his emotions. A strong heartset, a very influential heartset, and that led to the conflict he had with Mr. Spock, who was much more moved by his mindset. Heartset is even more dynamic and changeable for many people than mindset, and heartset can very much influence our mindset. That makes sense, that our emotions influence the way that we think. So that wraps it for this brief description of heartset. And we’re moving on to soulset. Pillar one, soulset. Soulset is essentially our attitude of soul. It is the disposition of our spirit. It’s how our soul is oriented, our attitude of soul. It can operate independently of mindset and heartset. Our soulset very much depends on the security we sense in our relationship with God. Now here’s the kicker. Our soulset is also very dynamic. It changes too often rapidly for some of us. Think about the orientation of your soul when you are on a spiritual high. How confident your soul was in those moments with the deep and abiding sense of well-being in God’s grace. Now think about your soulset when you are in a bad spiritual place, how your soul closes up, how it moves away from God. Let’s be clear. Soulset doesn’t have to be about feelings at all.

[00:09:38] It’s not necessarily driven by emotional states. In a period of desolation, for example, you can have a very open soul and be growing spiritually by leaps and bounds, be very open to the workings of the Holy Spirit, but have no consoling feelings. The heartset isn’t reflecting that. And you can have few or no great spiritual insights. The mindset’s not reflecting where the soulset is. Soulset can operate very independently from mindset and heartset. Now let’s go back to our prophet Habakkuk. In his mindset, he’s struggling with God concerning God’s wisdom and righteousness. He’s struggling with God’s providence in current events and the safety and security of Judah. “How can your ways be just, O Lord?” The chaos and the danger of the world around him seem unexplainable and irreconcilable with God’s justice, let alone his love. Habakkuk sees violence and injustice all around him. God tells Habakkuk that he is going to use the Babylonians to come and destroy the evildoers. Why is God using the Babylonians to scourge Israel? Why use an even more wicked people? How can God’s holiness, omnipotence, how can his omniscience be squared with all the suffering, pain, danger, and calamity? It just doesn’t make sense to human eyes. So, do any of these questions sound familiar? Have you heard yourself echoing any of them as we face this virus crisis? How can this be? Habakkuk is not seeing God’s mercy, love, and justice in his current environment.

[00:11:22] Those things, God’s mercy, love, and justice, they’re not prominent in his mindset. He can’t get there from what he’s seeing. Habakkuk is also not feeling God’s mercy, love, and justice. His heartset is not revealing mercy, love, and justice to him. But Habakkuk believes the word of the Lord. He distrusts his own powers of mindset. He distrusts his own intense heartset. He relies on his soulset. And what does he say at the end of his book? He says this. “Though the fig tree does not blossom, nor fruit be on the vine, the produce of the olive fail, and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will joy in the God of my salvation. God the Lord is my strength. He makes my feet like hinds feet. He makes me tread upon my high places.” This is a great example of an ordered soulset. Habakkuk believes without seeing and without feeling what the Lord has told him. Fourth pillar, bodyset. This is basically how our body affects us, how our physical sensations impact us, how our physical bodies impact our dispositions and our inclinations. We are embodied beings, body and soul composites. Our physical bodies have a huge impact on us. So our body set is the impact of our bodily states on us.

[00:13:18] So, for example, if we are exhausted from a lack of sleep, that has an impact on us. Obviously our bodyset is dynamic and it changes as well. So we have those four pillars: soulset, heartset, mindset and bodyset. But the funny thing about all these pillars is that they are dynamic and they can change. And that dynamism, that changing, that instability in those pillars can lead us to experience less stability. We’re going to talk about that more in our upcoming episodes. Feel free to check out the show notes if you want to review the four pillars of resiliency. That’s on our website at soulsandhearts.com on the page for this podcast. In the next four episodes, we’re going to go through each of the pillars of resiliency in greater detail with examples. So please pray for me as I pray for you. And I really want you to share this podcast episode with those that you think may benefit from it. There’s something in here for someone you know that they can benefit from. So think of who might benefit and pass this on to them. Share it, link to it. You know somebody. So thank you again for being here. And let’s invoke our patroness and our patron as we close out this episode. Our Mother Mary, Undoer of Knots, pray for us. Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.