Wholeness and Holiness Podcast

Episode #2 – Introduction to Trauma Series (Avoiding Spiritual Identity Theft!)

Have you or someone you love endured sufferings in which you continue to feel stuck?  Does this leave you feeling confused or even fearful, perhaps even rejected or abandoned by God?  Unfortunately, there are so many types of trauma and such experiences are so prevalent that it’s difficult to imagine someone who hasn’t been traumatized at one time or another.

Have you ever been told or thought that if you only had greater faith you’d be able to overcome feelings of abandonment...

Parenting as God Parents

Parenting as God Parents. Parenting is a tall order.  Not only does it mean forming little minds and souls while keeping little bodies protected and provided for but parents image God.  How we relate to little people as parents or in roles of authority becomes how they perceive the Lord.  Because they perceive us as all-knowing and all-powerful (even though we are NOT), how we interact with them becomes how they perceive He Who is really all-knowing and all-powerful.  This can be done in a beautifully good way, as St. Therese of Lisieux’s pare...

Episode #2 – Introduction to Trauma Series (Avoiding Spiritual Identity Theft!)

Have you or someone you love endured sufferings in which you continue to feel stuck?  Does this leave you feeling confused or even fearful, perhaps even rejected or abandoned by God?  Unfortunately, there are so many types of trauma and such experiences are so prevalent that it’s difficult to imagine someone who hasn’t been traumatized at one time or another.

Have you ever been told or thought that if you only had greater faith you’d be able to overcome feelings of abandonment...

Conclusion to the book Fearless

Conclusion to the book Fearless. Establishing a foundation of peace and fulfillment in life, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, is a matter of delving more deeply into the reality of God’s connection to us. Fully receiving and being transformed by the indwelling presence of the Blessed Trinity is an ongoing process. Faith in God’s love for us becomes more surely our source of confidence and self-worth, hope in him becomes our foundation of joy no matter what may come our way, and his love is our unfathomable fulfillment “packed together, shaken down...

Pseudo-Connection

Since reciprocity between people in the areas of connection (boundaries, valued, known and openness) is essential for healthy and holy relationships, it stands to reason a lack of give and take in these areas leads to unhealthy and even abusive relationships. For example, in any type of abuse, there are boundary violations of a physical, emotional, and/or spiritual nature. In pornography, for example, there is no reciprocity; instead God’s boundaries for another are exploited, while their value is reduced to use, and their personhood is disregarded. Also, the one viewing pornography violates their own di...

Navigating Relational Struggles

As surely as we have the indwelling presence of the Holy Trinity through baptism, we are meant to be occasions of grace for each other. Since it is our call to be incarnations of God, his hands and feet in the world at this time, even our simple interactions can minister his love, mercy, and healing. Yet, life can be complex and, of course, we all come with different temperaments, personalities, histories, and preferences. There are a great many moving parts that make up who we are.

Because of this, two or...

Healthy Communication

The fool takes no delight in understanding,

but rather in displaying what he thinks.

 – Proverbs 18:2

First, let’s sum up what we’ve learned about connection so far. We all need an authentic sense of safety, respect, and being known as good in order to facilitate openness. Putting this information to use, we have a solid foundation for communication. Regardless of the subject matter for verbal dialogue, these are ever present needs in people. Because they are invisible and because we have the same needs, we tend to ignore them an...

Knowing & Being Known

In choosing how we relate to others, we start at the heart, that is, we start with believing the other to be very good and made in God’s image and likeness. This is a central tenet of our faith as Catholics and is the heart of our respect for human life. As human beings, we are all works in progress. Since this is the truth of the Lord’s relationship to us, why would it be any less true for someone else? If we stop at the fact that he sees us this way...

Valuing & Being Valued

To value another the way God values them means seeing them as they truly are, a treasure of immeasurable worth. People are not a means to an end. In other words, whether we agree or disagree with someone has nothing to do with their inherent value. I could disagree with someone’s opinions, beliefs, or actions, but it shouldn’t change the acceptance I have for them as a human being and the dignity with which I regard them. Remember, our dignity comes from the fact that God is who he is and that he s...

Openness from Others

A number of years ago, I was supervising a team of therapists, and at the end of the workday, I received a call from one of them wanting to consult about a teenager she was treating in a weeklong intensive program. The therapist said she didn’t think the child was appropriate for the week of treatment and thought she would need more time to build rapport. She told me for their three-hour session that day the girl had insisted she didn’t believe in emotions. She said that she thought they were an arti...

Openness with Others

Being open with others is something that requires great courage. Hopefully, by this point, we can begin to put the pieces of connection together and see how they interplay. We have looked at how having a foundation of being known deeply and treasured dearly by God gives us the highest authority upon which to base our identity. Also, we have discussed viewing other people as precious to the Lord and not basing our contentment on their thoughts or actions. It is from this vantage point we can engage with others, knowing their response to...

Respecting the Boundaries of Others

Everyone is unique and has their own body, mind, and spirit. Each of us has the responsibility for setting our own boundaries in these areas. We all are required to obey the laws set out by rightful authority (not going against our informed consciences). Within those parameters, we are all called to be good stewards. Our first duty of stewardship is to honor the gift of self that God has given to each of us. Each of us has a different personality, temperament, and life experiences that come together to form who...

Boundaries for Others

Good fences make good neighbors.

– Robert Frost

As a therapist, I’ve noticed that not many people, at least not many who come to therapy, have been taught good things about boundaries. In fact, some people have been directly or indirectly sent very negative messages about them. Many have been given the idea boundaries are a sign of entitlement, artificial walls, or unhealthy distance. Others have set boundaries only to have them continually criticized and have been shamed for them. Still others have never been taught there is such a thin...

Connection to Others

There can be an imbalance in parenting when a child is taught he’s very special, but isn’t taught everyone else is, too. This quickly plays itself out in behavioral issues and entitlement. There is a danger in connection to ourselves and the Lord without this third leg of connection to others to balance the tripod. Being called to love and lay down our lives for each other draws us out of the self-centeredness of how special we are and into the trenches of sandpaper ministry, where we are all refined and our roug...

Body, Mind, Spirit

God created man. He didn’t create spirit, soul, and body separately and then somehow weave them together. In the scripture quote above, St. Paul refers to all three of these aspects as what makes us an entire person. Because of the great expanse of knowledge regarding the different facets of the person, they have become artificially divvied up into distinct areas of study. The truth, however, is there is a continual interplay between them. Maximizing our pursuit of holiness also requires seeking wholeness, and vice versa. We are body, mind, and spirit. We ca...

Openness with Myself

Like any relationship, your relationship to yourself is a process. When you look at a baby or small child, do you think they have a grasp on the fullness of who they are as an individual? No! Rather, it is through the process of being loved by their parents, discovering their strengths and weaknesses, growing in compassion for others, and beginning to understand who they are to their parents and to God that they begin to know and value themselves, see themselves as gift and learn to return that gift to the Lord. As...

My Boundaries for Myself

Boundaries are protective limits to ensure safety, health, and right order. They aren’t just a right, but a responsibility, because they are an essential component of being good stewards of ourselves. We put gates up in homes with babies and toddlers to protect them from dangerous situations. They also protect caregivers from having to fear for a child’s every move. I have a fence up around my yard, which protects my dog from getting lost, stolen, or hit by a car. It also protects me from worrying about her, having to go l...

Valuing Myself

How common is it for us to find value in our performance, talents, skills, physical appearance, wealth, or status? The scripture at the beginning of this section puts our value in right perspective because it reveals God’s perspective. Jonah was sent by God to preach repentance to the Ninevites and, when they did repent and God had mercy, Jonah was angry about it. We take a look at the scripture above and find how God saw them. They were clueless! He said they couldn’t tell their left hands from their right hands! That’s not...

Connection to Self

Healthy confidence and self-worth are fruits of personal integration. The same factors that are essential for connection to God are also essential for connection to self – being known, valued, and open, and having healthy boundaries. Ideally, a child experiences being known, valued, accepted, and protected by good and loving parents. When this happens, it’s a natural bridge to having self-knowledge and self-acceptance.

So, why is it important to talk about this? Did we just move from talking about spirituality in the previous section to selfishness and being self-consumed? Not at all! Take...

Going Deeper

When we take a moment to look at nature, we find that life is always a process. Whether it is the acorn becoming a mighty oak, an egg hatching into a duckling, or a baby growing into an adult, life is a process. Since physical life is a process, why would emotional and spiritual life be any different? We would never look at a toddler and think they are wrong or bad for not being an adult. The very idea is outrageous and would deny the beauty of the child and the process God has...

Powerlessness

The common denominator throughout almost every experience that causes us suffering is that of powerlessness.  As people, we have limited ability to affect change in situations that are difficult for us or for those we care about. This in no way diminishes our fundamental value; it simply part of the human condition. We come into the world almost totally powerless.  As we grow and develop and gain power, we have to learn to navigate our abilities without running over others, literally and metaphorically. Even though our ability to cause change increases as time goes by, we st...

Knowing Myself

What is the truth of who we are as God sees us? In creating us he made us in his own image and likeness and called us very good. (Genesis 1:31) He called us his own and bound himself in covenant with us. He has a plan for our good. He sent his only Son to reveal the depths of his love and mercy to us and to adopt us as his children. He has every hair of our head counted. (Luke 12:7) He gives himself to us intimately through the Eucharist and runs to embrace us...

Suffering

There are times in all our lives when we go through trials: illness, rejection, abuse, death of a loved one, or loss of a dream, just to name a few. When such things happen, it can be difficult to stay rooted in the truth of God’s connection to us. Even if we’ve had mountaintop experiences of God’s love, sufferings such as these can cause us to feel isolated, disconnected, or abandoned, even from our all-loving creator.

Let’s take a look at the example of the Blessed Virgin Mary when the archange...

Embracing God’s Boundaries

In our connection to God and fully seeking to respond to his love for us, we now come to the concept of embracing the boundaries he sets for us. We’ve discussed morality as God’s protection over us since he is our all-loving creator. The Ten Commandments are the starting point of these boundaries. They lay out for us, in the most foundational way, how to live under the umbrella of God’s protection. He’s not lying in wait for us to break his law so he can zap us. Rather, as the goo...

Valuing God

In taking up this section on valuing God, something a friend of mine once said to me comes to mind, “God can’t be a priority.” Her point was that he is all; he is the only priority. Consider the passion of our Lord: if Jesus’ commitment to us wasn’t absolute, things could have turned out radically different. He could have abandoned the cross at any point. However, because he is consumed with love for us, there was nothing to evaluate or reconsider. He didn’t need to do a cost/benefit analysis as to whether w...

Knowing God

Knowing God is crucial.  We’ve already been discussing connection to God and mostly it’s been about who he is and how he is toward us. We see he is personal, knows us perfectly, desires for us to experience profound intimacy with him, cherishes us beyond measure, and operates in our best interest, (which is far better than we could ever hope for or imagine).  He protects us and provides for us always and perfectly in the ways necessary to draw us to him.  When we stay within his loving boundaries, we remain in him and...

Openness with God

The human body is made up of about seventy percent water. Water is necessary for healthy energy levels and flushing toxins and plays a key role in the proper functioning of our whole system. We need it for refreshment on a hot day, for cleansing of dirt and sweat, and it is essential to our lives and the lives of the plants and animals we consume for nutrition. Water is crucial. When a water source is stagnant, we know to be suspicious of it because it can more likely be a breeding ground for...

God’s Openness

The God of the entire universe, who is all-knowing and all-powerful, is open in relating to us. One of my favorite scripture verses is from the short little book Baruch, “Blessed are we, O Israel; for what pleases God is known to us!” (Baruch 4:4). How amazing it is that he chooses to make himself known to us! Not only does he reveal who he is, but also what pleases him. There is tenderness in his self-revelation and, given our free will, vulnerability. What if we didn’t know how to please him who loves us so pe...

God Provides Boundaries

The reason we started with the concept of connection to God was so we could have a clear understanding of the fact he is with us, knows us intimately, values us for who we are and sent his Son to save us by emptying himself on the Cross. He is continually emptying himself in the Eucharist and pouring his graces and mercy upon us, which draw us into the life of the Trinity. He makes his home in us through baptism and animates us by his Spirit. We cannot let go of this foundation...

Prayer

Personal prayer is essential to internalizing the radical, profound intimacy the living God wants to experience with us. His love for us is infinite. It might be easy to read the last line and agree with it in our head, but in our heart still feel less than adequate, rejected, or forgotten. Our mind might be able to quickly categorize the statement as true, especially if we grew up in church, have studied Theology, or are religious or clergy. Yet, absorbing the Truth – God – is a lifelong process, one we will likely continue throughout eternity. It is n...

Valued by God

God’s love for us is unlike any other. As covered in the previous section, God created us and so knows us and loves us intimately. Now consider he does so knowing he will always be giving to us far more than we could ever begin to repay, far more than we will even be able to comprehend. He is not just a good father. He is our heavenly Father. He is God and adopts us as his own. This means he chooses us freely, knowing everything about us, good, bad, and ugly.

...

Known by God

As we begin to take a look at our connection to the Lord, we start with the fact that he deeply and personally knows us. Ideally, we would have had a sense of being known (seen and heard as an individual who is very good) by our parents and caregivers as children. When that happens, it naturally creates a schema in our minds by which we are able to mature more smoothly and with a positive self-concept. The experience of being regarded as an individual who is seen and heard personally as very good...

Chosen for Divine Intimacy

It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you… – John 15:16

FEARLESS Chapter 3 Chosen for Divine Intimacy. God chose each of us individually out of all the possibilities of people to create, redeem, sanctify, and call into a relationship with himself for all eternity. I remember hearing that there is a one in 400 quadrillion chance for each one of us to be created. Yet, it wasn’t by chance but by the intentional choice of the Lord of all creation. Not only did he choose for us to exist, but to...

Connection to God

FEARLESS Chapter 2 Connection to God. Jesus is the bread of life.  He is the food for which we are made. What does food do? It nourishes us, gives us energy. Good food makes us healthy, bad food makes us sick, poisoned food can even kill us, but without food we would die a painful death. Fundamentally, food satisfies us. We eat so that we can live.

Communion – deep, personal, intimate connection with God – is essential to being healthy and vivacious rather than sick, malnourished, and dying. If our connection to God is only...

Connection Overview

FEARLESS: Chapter 1 Connection Overview. What is so important about connection and why pair it together with the concept of holiness? We don’t have to look far to see how God regards community. He models it for us in the Holy Trinity. We see their love, unity and order in relationship to each other. Each knows, values and respects the others. There is diversity and perfect unity. When God the Father sent his Son into the world, Jesus did only what he saw the Father do (John 5:19).  After his Ascension Jesus sent the Holy Spirit, the...

FEARLESS

Preface

FEARLESS Preface & Intro. Many years ago, I noticed that healthy connections to God, self, and others are the foundation of peace and fulfillment in life. Without these connections, we perpetuate lies in our minds that become the basis for our self-talk and how we relate to others. These lies chip away at our ability to perceive and receive the truth of God’s love for us and leave us feeling like he is far away. With a faith rendered full of holes, we are anxiety-ridden and depressed; we find ourselves perpetuating a cy...

Vocations and Integration

Vocations and Integration with Fr. Jonathan McElhone, TOR.

Margaret:  Do/how do you see a lack of human and spiritual integration in people today?

Fr. Jonathan McElhone, TOR:  People are afraid to make mistakes. At times, I’ve seen people confuse their vocation with their salvation. Vocation is tied to our mission, our path toward holiness. Salvation is connected to how I receive God’s love and mercy in my life. Confusing these leads to the belief that God will be disappointed with me if I choose the wrong vocation.

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Teaching Self-Talk to Children

Teaching Self-Talk to Children. Positive self-talk is one of the most important interior skills a person can have.  Unfortunately, it rarely, if ever, gets taught.  Since we listen to ourselves far more than we listen to anyone else, it’s an essential skill to have.  When we have positive self-talk, almost any situation can be handled with confidence and peace.  When we lack it, we can quickly become dependent on others for affirmation and validation.  At best, that positions a child to be a follower in the crowd and, at worst, leaves a child v...

Interconnected Psychology & Spirituality

Have you ever wondered if psychology and spirituality are interconnected?  I hope so!  Sadly, some people actually think that they are at odds with each other.  That couldn’t be further from the truth.  The Lord made us body, mind, and spirit.  He made us as a whole person.  We are the ones who separate these fields from each other.  That happens in academia because each one of those areas – the physical, emotional, and spiritual – have so much content to learn and understand.  It can take a lifetime of education to specialize in one.  Then, the areas...

How to Talk to Mean Voices

In the last episode, we discussed the importance of compassionate self-talk.  So, what do we do with that pesky self-commentary that can be mean or discouraging?  Should I ignore it and think happy thoughts?  NO!  That voice will fester like a splinter, getting more painful.  Ignoring it won’t solve things and may exacerbate the situation.

Have you ever been around a toddler and seen how they are when they are ignored?  They get louder.  They can be quite resolute in their dedication to being heard.  It’s amazing, though it ca...