E351: Modern Therapy Makes You Worse Off (But There's a Solution) w/Dr Greg Bottaro | Lila Rose Show

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1:00When we're loved by somebody who is also really in control of the situation, and you're in their presence, all of our anxiety just drains. That's what we're supposed to feel all the time with God's presence. So when you have someone come in, they say I'm struggling with anxiety, or maybe it's depression. You just say have more faith. No, definitely not. We need it. Bad therapy. We need an anxious generation. We finally are getting these books that are just like the research is pointing to the problem. Therapy's not working. The drugs are not working. But what's the solution? This is what drives me crazy. The solution has been here since the 60s. One of my best friends just went to this approach of therapy. It has been completely and utterly game-changing for her. Dr. Greg Batara, welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much. It's awesome to be here. I think you have time to be a clinical psychologist. You're doing ministry that does reach millions of people. It's not just your solo practice. It's a ministry beyond that. You have eight kids. You guys homeschool, and you're doing home rentals with property brothers, and you're living on a 1700s farmstead. It's like three acres.

2:00This is going to sound like a shameless plug. I wrote a book called The Mindful Catholic. It was a fruit of how I started to practice my own life, in my own spirituality, in my own mental health. I put into practice the things that I was writing in this book. I talk about it in the book where this is how I lay it out in the book. I basically say this. When we're in college, we feel like we're really busy. The exams are coming up, and you've got a social life. You have to run. You're running around. It's like, I don't have time for this. I don't have time for that. You're late on papers. Then you go on to your next step. Let's say it's graduate school, or maybe get married. You start a family for me. I went to graduate school. Then I was feeling what busy really feels like. The paper has just got 10xed. Then I graduated. I started a practice. I got married.

3:07Then I was thinking, what was I thinking in grad school? Then we had a kid. The first baby comes. It was like, what was I thinking? That first year of marriage was... Easy peasy. Take walk. Vacation. Now we are actually busy. On and on and on. You get the point. It was around child number three. That finally, I was like, wait a minute. I keep saying the same thing. Every life transition, every new step, I feel like the last one was vacation. Why can't I have that mindset about this step while I'm in it? What's missing here? Then that's when I started doing a deeper work in two things coming together. It was this mindfulness practice. But much more than that was a real psychological understanding of a banement to divine providence.

4:09When we really go into trustful surrender, a banement to divine providence, we're really talking about the presence of God. When we're in God's presence, it's like when you're in the presence of somebody that you really love, or that you really feel loved by more so than just loving somebody. But it's like when we're loved by somebody who is also really in control of the situation. And you're in their presence, all of our anxiety just drains. It's like if the head of a company or a parent or a grandparent or the person who's organizing the event, or just whoever's in control actually shows up, it's like, I'm here. Everything is going to be okay. And then we're like, oh, good. Thank God you're here. Well, that's what we're supposed to feel all the time with God's presence. He is the ultimate one who's in control. He's the ultimate parent who loves us. And he loves us infinitely. So if we could really connect the dots between our psychological interior experience

5:15and that reality, all of a sudden it diffuses all of that anxiety. And then it also opens up space for incredible creativity, perspective, organization of priorities. And then you just see like half the time I'm worried about things that don't even pan out. All that time worrying is actually wasted. I'm not spending that time thinking clearly about things I actually do need to get done. And when I start to clear that space and make room for what God actually made me for, it becomes not just possible, but amazing. It becomes magical. It's like life is so amazing. How could he get any better? And then instead of it being like, that was vacation. Now it's like, I'm on vacation. I can't even imagine it getting any better. And then next step each step, it's like, it got better. I couldn't have imagined it could get better. It just did. So it's a beautiful thing. And then you realize actually, that's what God wants for us. That's how He wants us to live.

6:16And if we could do our part on our end of it, that's what He's waiting to hand us. That's an incredible perspective. And I think it could be game changing for people who really chose to make that total act of surrender, abandonment trust and live in God's will. A lot of us have trouble doing that. I want to unpack all of that. There was something that I saw you post recently on your social media that really spoke to me. It's connected to all of this. And it said that people can only be as holy as they are loved, as they experience love. Yeah. Which I think is at the heart of what you're talking about, because we're talking about abandonment to God's Providence and living amazing lives. But we're also talking about ultimately holiness, walking God's will. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So it's really a matter of, we have this principle in our practice. You can't give what you don't have.

7:16And it's a really basic premise. We talk about it a lot in terms of supervision. And the way we hold the emotional burdens of those that we're walking with. So we actually receive supervision from people who are holding space for us as much as we hold space for others. Myself included. And all the way down through our company. But if you really apply that principle to our interior lives, then it becomes a matter of seeing the true source of anything that we can give. And the true source is God. And so if we are loved, that means we are opening ourselves up to what God has to offer, which is infinite. We are the only ones we're limiting the infinite limitless of what God has to give us. But that's the story of the saints is essentially them being transformed interiorly to receive more and more. Tourist of Avala talks about the heart being stretched open.

8:17And even the dark nights that we go through that she described was the expansion of the heart to make room to receive more of God's love. And so whether it's expansion, we talk about clearing out blocks and clearing out the filters. The defense is that's the process of being open to receive more and more and more of what God actually wants to pour through us. And then the more we receive the more we can pour out like a channel. And the cup overflows and pours outwards. And so and that's quote unquote holiness is like the integration of our own interior freedom mixed with the way that we act outwards towards others. You were a CFR before you became a husband. My understanding is that really impacted the way that you see all of this along with your life experience beyond that. What is a CFR? What did you learn as a CFR? Yeah, by the way, I want to go back to the comment you first made because it is really hard.

9:17Like I'm talking about the ideas up here of like the ways that these things make sense. But in real life, you know, I have played a moment starting my day that I'm not anxious. So I always want to be really careful when I start talking. I'm not that you're not anxious. I've played a moment that I'm super anxious. You're like the house is going to fall down. Coming into the show on my I don't know if I'm doing this right. I don't know. Like this is so it's like we all have that's totally normal. And you know, learning that as part of the process actually of being able to find peace because instead of rejecting and blocking and resisting how much we actually have anxiety, the first step is actually to just accept that fact that this is who we are. So I wanted to make that clear because when I start talking about the ideas, sometimes it gives off the sense that like I'm living in this space where I don't suffer any of this anymore, which is contrary to the way to actually find peace in our human experience. Because we need to know that it's okay to feel that way and to live in that space.

10:20But then it opens up that different possibility. The thing I love about the CFRs, what I learned from him is oh good. It's the community of Franciscans of the renewal. What do they do? So just to go back, there's a famous Catholic or a Franciscan priest psychologist named Father Benedict Grichel. But he was a psychologist. So he got a PhD at Columbia. And then he was also a Franciscan priest. And he was part of a different order of Franciscans called the Capuchins. And he wanted to try to enact some reform within the group. And they didn't really want to have it. So he ended up leaving and under a carnal o'connor. He started the CFR Franciscans with seven other founders. So there are eight founders to the CFRs. I think in 1988, maybe somewhere back then. And they are essential goals to return to the simplicity and the principles of St. Francis.

11:26And so they wanted to live in real poverty and really live with the people that they were serving with the poor and to be authentic about it. And so they had nothing to their name. And they lived in the Bronx. There's where the first house started in the South Bronx. And they would just beg for food, sleep on the floor. They would know money, no belongings, where they have it, simple habits, shaved the head, grow the beard, and serve the people that they were living with. In college, so my story goes back to my parents had a divorce in my high school years. They were pretty messy family life during high school that culminated in that divorce. So when I went to college, I was kind of upside down. I started at Boston College and I had Peter Crafte as a professor. And he introduced me to JP2 and I read Love and Responsibility. And then, and that's a whole other story of how that changed my life. But I also read Chester Tins' biography of St. Francis.

12:28So this is the time in my life when I'm making sense of the world. And then Francis appears. And I was just in love. I was just like his devotion. Francis was an example of a man who just was so madly in love with Jesus. He just gets, he just wants to give him everything. So it's just his radical life devoted to Christ. And that's where I was at in my life. I was like, my family kind of fell apart. Like, you know, my sort of origin. I don't really know who I am or what I'm doing here. So I'm going to go, I'm just going to give my life to what makes the most sense. So that was the seed that got planted for me that I ended up discerning more. And so I transferred to Stubanville. And then I graduated and I ended up actually taking leave of absence from graduate school to join the friars. And I was there for almost four years. So you've lived a lot. And the reason I want to hear this story, I mean, obviously it's fascinating. But it is part of the foundation for the work that you do.

13:30And it helped you develop this approach to psychology and therapy that I think is so powerful. So what, yeah, what did you learn during those four years as a CFR candidate? And then why did you go back into grad school? And the thing that I did was to define Providence was really what I learned there. Both practically with like begging for food. I was a community beggar for a year. So just for people's clarity, like the way that you guys had breakfast lunch and dinner or maybe just dinner. No, everything. It snacks to. We ate snacks. But only if they were given to us. Like you didn't ever go to the grocery store with the penny in your pocket. Correct. You always went to the street corner. We would go all over the place. And you just be like, I need a ham sandwich. Like how did that work? Yeah, I mean, it's developed a little bit more of a sophisticated system. But and there were volunteers and there were people that start to like sort of form around the friars

14:32that would try to get donations and get stuff there. But also, I would go down to Hunt Point, which is a major shipping port for all out of restaurants. The farms would come across the country and trucks. And the ships would come in. And so there are these massive ports of different alleys and all these trucks would back in. And then all these local agencies or whoever they were, they ran in all these distribution desks. And so we would go down just down the shore. And they're in your road. Yeah. You're with the beard, shaved head. And your job is to collect food for the other goods. So we would go up and down the desks and we would just ask these guys, like, hey, do you guys have any busted crates that came off the truck or any extra food that you don't need right now? Like this is who we are. This is what we do. And a lot of it, we're also begging for our ministries. So if you run a soup kitchen and a homeless shelter,

15:35you know, we would do events for the youth. We would do events like all the time. They do this massive turkey giveaway Thanksgiving, like every week there's something going on. And it was beautiful because it was always about encounter. And so you'd meet people, you'd tell your story. This is what we do. They were fascinated. There's a lot of like cultural Catholicity in New York City that they would, you know, especially on those docs. And it's also some very colorful characters. I was just thinking about this guy. That when one evening we were begging and we were about to leave and he's like, brother, you can't walk down that way. It's too late. You can't walk down that way. And we were like, okay, well, I guess what we need to go finish this up. He's like, I'm going to come with you and he reaches out. But he gets a gun. He sticks into this belt. He's like, come on. Let's go. And I was like, okay, I don't know if we're doing the right thing down. But I don't get it. He's like, don't line up and turn around. You know, like, who knew that gut health affects so much? But it does. Our skin, our hair, our nails, digestion and overall health.

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18:41a lot of times we say to people like, well, we want to search the heart. Look at what's in the depths of your heart, because God will place His will in the depths of our own hearts. And when I had looked down into my heart, like it was, I had this image of looking like down into a cavern. And at the bottom of this cavern was like a treasure box with my vocation in it. And when I joined the friars, that's what I was looking down into. And that treasure box opening was like, you're called to be a Franciscan. And so then I joined the friars. Well, as I was going through this time in the friars, my prayer started to show cracks in the floor of the treasure box of this of this cavern. And so when I looked down, it was like these cracks, almost like an earthquake, very subtle and very slowly, but like little cracks are starting to show up in the floor of this cavern. And about two years in, maybe, yeah, two years in, like little light started to come up from these cracks.

19:42And it was also very painful at times, but I thought, maybe there's more here. And what ended up happening was that eventually that whole floor just gave out. And I looked down and not only was it a treasure box, but it was like light shining from the depths of that cavern. And I realized that was the depths of my heart. Not this sort of false floor that was resting on it was this thing that I thought was my vocation. So it was part of my vocation and it was a development of my vocation. I needed to get there to go to the next step. And God did wonderful things through it. But what Father Benedict helped me to understand was that although I had healed a certain level of the wounds from my family situation, my parents divorced all that. Ultimately, even though I said I believed in marriage and I could value marriage, I was actually terrified of hurting children in the future.

20:46And it was like, I couldn't get there until I was willing to go to that depth. And it was like sort of built on this false premise that like, I mean, my parents were married, I think, over 20 years. And we still went through this like incredible pain. And it was almost like there are no guarantees. Like you think you find the right person, you think you're doing things the right way, but like you never know what's going to happen. And if I'm going to potentially be putting kids into a vulnerable situation like that, then I'll find a different path. Because I would never do to future kids what I had been through. And so I saw that. And I was like, oh gosh, this is not the reason to have a vocation. I was like, I need to really work on this. I need to heal this wound. And so then that was my work in my third year of just like really, really deep vulnerability.

21:49Opening up that rawness like really see searching that deeply to find out like, what does God really want me to do or what wants to say to me in this. And ultimately, he was just, it was very simple. He's like, their story doesn't have to be your story. And I can give you something different. And in, and this is what I'm offering you. And so it was like this real test of faith. And so leaving the Franciscans was actually like probably the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. And because ultimately behind it, it was like, I know he's actually calling me to step out into the deep and into the dark. And so I was like, logically, what I have no template for. Like I don't know what, what it feels like for marriage to last. You know what I mean? So, but it was like a test of faith is like, are you are you willing to believe that that's what I made you for. And that's what I want for you.

22:50And so ultimately, and I also was like realizing that I was in the wrong place. And the reason why you have the habit and the chave Ted and everything else, like you're a sign of contradiction. You're a manifestation of the joy living in a way that the world thinks would be miserable. You know, celibacy, poverty, obedience. It's like, you don't have sex. You don't have money. And you have no authority in your life whatsoever. You just go where you're told. You're going to be miserable. And in your life, that's actually really joyful, beautifully joyful. The friars are amazingly joyful, except I wasn't because then I realized I was not living in the right vocation. I was joyful with those parameters when I thought that is what God was calling me to. But when I realized not, then it was like, I had mornings putting on the habit I was in tears. And I felt like I was living the lie now. So that was helping me to also figure out how to take this next leap.

23:50But it was messy for a year or two that transition period. And ultimately, then I went back to grad school. I was wrapping up my degree. I met my wife. And God delivered on all of his promises and has been the most beautiful adventure since. So it sounds like the wound was you felt terrified that you, if you did get married, if you weren't a CFR, and instead you went and got married, it wouldn't work. And there'd be a some little boy in the future, your own son, that would feel the same pain you felt. Yeah. Yeah. Like the divorce divorce is always sort of this impending threat. And there's nothing you can do to stop it, which is what a child of the worst feels about divorce. So I had to like untangle that from my own volition. And it's like, I can choose that path. Like it's up to me. If I, if I, you know, assuming that my wife is on board, but it's up to me that, you know, that I'm not going to get divorced.

24:54And once I felt that freedom, that was, that was where everything changed. Before I, before I proposed to my wife, I said to her, I was like, I don't know how this is going to come across, but I want to know that if we get married, at some point, I'm going to want to divorce you. And she was like, what are you talking about? It was like, well, listen, but hear me out. And you're going to want to divorce me too, because her parents also had been divorced. And I said, you know, this is the language we've learned. When, when things get hard, that's the option. And things are going to get hard. Like I can expect that. And because we have that language built in, that's where our minds will go to at some point. But if I propose to you, I want you to know that what I'm asking you is, are you willing to strike that option off the list that will never be in our language and that will never be a possibility. And then if, if I'm asking you that question, then that's what I'm actually asking you. And so, and she said, yes. And then I knew like, you know, that we would be speaking the same language of what we actually mean.

26:03But that was it. That was the healing of that wound was like reclaiming ownership over my will. And, and where that is, that is a path that obviously with God's grace. But that's a path that like I can write that story. Because of what you'd been through as a kid though, did you struggle to trust on an emotional level, her commitment and even your own commitment to her? My wife is a really special person. She is the thing that struck me so much about her when I first met her was how receptive she was to like what she saw in me. So it was really validating on a sense as a man and as it just as a person to like really be received at that level. And so as, as I was able to like put that into words for her and she accepted that and like agreed with it, I just knew like she really means it. So I don't feel I don't feel the residue of that from my childhood in our actual language or in my thoughts or fears about about what actually happens like that's I think because it's such a wound.

27:19And another one of those ways that God redeems are suffering. It's like because it's such a wound or was we've had to really work intentionally on how we think and talk about it. I think people often are susceptible to things that maybe they weren't really thinking too much about. I'm definitely guilty of that. And there's definitely ways where I'm sure I heard her or I'm not you know or susceptible to my own fears. They're not the things that I'm like thinking a lot about. But when yeah, with that one in particular, it's like, yeah, I have actually no doubt whatsoever that that's a non option. Part of your practice is you treat people with anxiety, depression, anxiety, other mental health challenges. And many of these people come from a faith background. Right. But a premise of everything you're describing is that faith. Faith can help heal a mental health issue. Faith can help heal anxiety. Sure.

28:23So when you have someone come in and they say I'm struggling with anxiety, right, or maybe it's depression, you just say have more faith. No, definitely not. So this is really interesting because this morning I put the final touches on my next book. And this is a really important question and an important concept because we use this word integration all the time. What integration points to is something far deeper than a superficial expression of faith that supposedly like takes away all of our suffering. First of all, that's not our faith anyway. You know, our faith is hope in the redemption on the other side of suffering. So even trying to apply that to psychological suffering doesn't even make sense. And a lot of times some like Christian approaches to psychotherapy start to sound a little bit like that. Sorry, just to interject and clarify here what you're saying is that faith is not about alleviating some temporal suffering.

29:28Faith is about in this sense persevering and hoping through temporal suffering to get to eternal glory. Right. Right. So there's no promise to be rescued from the promises. You have trouble in this world. But take heart, I have overcome the world. It so that's what we're looking at. We have we will have trouble in this world. And and sometimes that trouble manifests as psychological suffering. So in the sense of someone who's here, your office and was like, I'm having psychological suffering. You're like tough luck butter cup. Having it, having a lot better. Jesus has overcome the world. No, but that's that is a false application of faith to mental health. And in a sense that's trying to quote unquote reframe suffering. And that therapist doing that is typically trying to actually alleviate suffering with a reframe of suffering to make it less painful. As if that's the thing that's going to alleviate the suffering. Wow.

30:30A reframe is a cognitive behavioral therapy term that it's a psychological technique where if we think differently about something, it changes how we feel. Which is a valid technique. But when we're applying it to a spiritual reality, we are doing what we also call spiritual bypassing. And that's when we're using spiritual ideas to avoid our suffering. Okay, so and I interjected to you about to go a different direction, but this is such an incredibly important point, I think. Because I do think in some part of like the mystical Christian tradition, there's this idea that the suffering is sweet and the suffering should feel sweet. And like some of the saints went to their death like literally singing. So in a way, if you do enough faith stuff, you get in this like space where you don't actually feel the pain anymore and you actually just feel a lation. And I think this kind of idea has kind of haunted a lot of people to be like, I'm not holy enough because it still hurts really bad.

31:32I think I want to be careful how I say this because I have a lot of problems with the way things are taught in the church, not the church teaching, but the way things can be communicated are very disorienting and I think harmful to people. And what you just put your finger on, I think is precisely one of those areas. And it's an inversion of what is true. It's actually the opposite of truth. Because Christ models for us the path of perfection. And Christ was not singing on the cross. And if we think that that is the path to holiness, we're wrong. So do we have to make sense of the saints who were singing in their death? Yes. Should we try? Yes. Is there a possibility to do that without rejecting the example of Christ? I think there should be. I think we can do that.

32:36But we we too quickly fall into these saccharine simple explanations of things. And I'm sorry to say like I think a lot of influencers and teachers and people are doing a really bad job of stewarding that responsibility to don't be misleading people. And this is what I have to actually help clean up in my office when people are talking about what this podcast said or that book they read or this whatever. And it's like, whoa, we need to slow down. Like let's really look at the example of Christ. Let's start with there. Could there be a grace that a certain saint in a certain century for a certain reason was singing at her death, you know, or singing at his death. Of course. And that's beautiful. God allows graces. He pours out these graces and allows miracles to teach a particular facet of our our faith in our world view.

33:42That doesn't mean that we're going to extrapolate from there some theological understanding of the entirety of suffering. And when you try to do that, then you miss league people. And so yeah, no, that is not right. That's not right for suffering. It's not right for mental health or mental disorder or mental illness. And I think it's actually a pretty. A pretty disordered way to look at at the life of Christ in our faith itself. So I feel pretty strongly about these things clearly, but it's honestly it's because I am doing the work our team, you know, therapist out there are doing the work of like going into the suffering that people are bearing. And it's bad enough that we have the suffering of the world. Disease and sin and all the terrible things that happen around us, but then to have the suffering compounded and amplified because of spiritual misdirection is is really difficult to sit with.

34:44And I think there's a lot of people who have deconstructed. Yes, or become better or resentful, not just in the Catholic tradition, but I know like evangelicals who like when it comes to the suffering in the world. The way that they were taught to endure suffering or interpret suffering or experience suffering. Just did not fit their world experience. It felt wrong. It felt unjust. It felt unfair. And so they just thought I can't serve this God or this God doesn't exist. Exactly. And honestly, when somebody says they're deconstructing, I'm like, good for you. Really? I hope you're coming up with something good here because I think we all need to learn from it. And that doesn't mean relativism and that doesn't mean that the faith is not true. But it means that the way that people have absorbed and been fed that faith both from inside and outside the church. I'm not just blaming teachers in the faith. I'm saying like the world we live in is really disoriented. But that disorientation is not blocked from entering into the ways that some of these things are taught also within the church.

35:47So I think it's really beautiful when somebody is willing to take the risk to actually listen to what's going on within their own experience. And then question whether or not what they're giving their freedom of will to actually lines up with their humanity with their experience. That takes incredible courage. And I mean, that socially speaking, like social psychology would point to how difficult that is. Which is why so many people will go along with evil when it happens. And so when we see the quality of the person willing to trust in a need for the connection between my interior experience with the truth that I'm actually submitting myself to. It takes tremendous courage to do that. I want you to walk us through that like what is the process like how do you unpack these things. But before that you were you were going in another direction.

36:53I don't know if you remember what direction it was. And I kind of took us on this. Well, I was starting to talk about the book. I just finished. Yes. You are. Thank you. Integration is at the core of this. And now it gives us the answer to how to be in the world as a Catholic. And I use the word therapist really loosely because it could be anybody in any kind of a compliment where it's like you're really walking with somebody bearing their burdens with them. And that's what we see what we're doing. Which is also to refer back to the original point about suffering. Like Simon of Syrene doesn't take Christ's cross away. And neither do we try to take our crosses away from our clients. Their crosses away from them. We're trying to take our cross away from them. We're trying to take our cross away from them. And neither do we try to take our crosses away from our clients. Their crosses away from them. We're trying to alleviate an unburden for a time. According to God's will.

37:54What they need so that they can actually go to their cross. And see it clearly and understand it clearly and choose it with freedom. That's the that's the culmination of our work. Is to help people access the deepest capacity of their freedom. But that freedom will only be properly exercised when they're using it to embrace suffering. And as a part of it. And then to line oneself up to the will of God. So in the work of John Paul II, he's really unpacked this a lot. So we could do probably three hours just on John Paul II. And this book is all about the philosophy of John Paul II. That can be applied to contemporary mental health. Because JP2 has done this deep dive philosophical analysis of the interior of the human person. How do you pray? And I don't mean how do you think you should pray. I mean, how do you actually pray?

38:55Maybe you've been praying for decades, maybe for months, or maybe you don't even know how to get started. You can pray at any moment, anytime by just opening your heart to God. But tools can be really helpful too. That's why I love hallow apps new challenge 21 days of prayer. It's an invitation to spend 21 days intentionally making time for God. Over these 21 days in hallows challenge, you'll experience 21 different prayers and ways of praying. My hope is that along the way you'll find one or two that stick with you. Again, you can pray anytime, with or without an app, but this tool is powerful. Download hallow and get three months free at hallow.com slash lila and join the 21 days of prayer. That's hallow.com slash lila for three months, totally free. At our house, we love seven weeks coffee. It isn't just delicious. It's also mission driven and seven weeks coffee donates 10% of every sale to pregnancy resource centers. And they've donated it over two million dollars to date to help moms and babies in need. At seven weeks coffee.com, you can get whole beans, ground coffee pods for decaf options.

39:58And every bean is mold-free, pesticide-free, shade-grown, low acid and organically-farmed. The coffee is absolutely delicious. If you want to have great coffee at your doorstep every month, head on over to seven weeks coffee.com. And say 15% forever when you subscribe and pair it with my code lila for an extra 10% off and a great gift. That's 25% off your first order with code lila. Report moms, babies and enjoy great coffee with seven weeks coffee.com. Code lila for an extra 10% off. Jump poll 2 is actually brilliantly laid out a full and very clear blueprint of what is a human person. Using 20th century language, when we understand that, we know how to approach the person. So the person who comes in front of me and wants to share what's going on. The most important thing is the encounter of a person to a person.

40:59This is right out of JP 2. He lays out a framework for how to be a therapist. Because the most important thing is not being an expert that can tell you what to do. It's how do I allow our relationship to engage your deeper capacity for your freedom. And then embedded within that context, we can have techniques, expertise, understanding, I'm developing along the way a greater perception. So I can read things that are going on in the other person. You know, so if I can see what's going on in your eyes or in your neck. And there's I can see where you have like, if you're not you right now, I'm not don't want you to be self conscious. But if I'm looking at somebody, I can see like their pulses increasing. Or I can see what they're fidgeting in their hands. Like we're developing awareness on another level. And then sure, there's technique, there's expertise in like mapping together what's going on in the voice as I'm listening to the way somebody speaks. But none of that matters if it's not embedded within that context of relationship.

42:03And that and that teleological understanding of like what are we here for? And then how do we engage and use this relationship to help us get to where we're going? So if somebody has anxiety, first of all, welcome to the human race. We all have anxiety, but like what are you anxious about? How is your rumination happening? Like what else is going on in your life? What's the history of this for you? Has this always been a problem or is it a new problem? You know, and then I'm also noticing like the way that you're disposed towards me. Did you just open up and start talking about that anxiety right away? Or were you really hesitant and on guard? And I needed to really kind of pull it out of you. You know, it's like I look at the questionnaire that you fill out when you first start in the practice. Is it really long? Do you use a lot of words to express yourself? Or is it really short and simple and guarded? You know, it's all the things. And we're taking all of the expression of the person. And we're sort of mapping out what we think is really going on for this person.

43:07His foundational work by the way is called Person in Act. And this is like really super dense. I've literally studied it for 25 years. Thank you for doing that because I didn't make it through. I'm like, I'll read the homilies on love and responsibility. It's really, really hard. And I'm like every time I open it up, I'm like, I missed this. I feel so dumb. I'm like 25 years later. Like how did I miss this line? But there's just so much. And I think we owe him what we give to Thomas Aquinas. Yes. We need to like ingest and decipher and start more schools. I was going to say it's amazing like the J.P.2 Institute and all the J.P.2 Theologians and philosophers out there. They actually understand this stuff. But they're over here. They're not doing the therapy work. And I'm like, you guys come over here. We have so much to learn from you. I've gone to these conferences. And some of these philosophers, they're like fascinated that I would come. And they're like, what does J.P.2 have to do with therapy?

44:08They have no idea. It's like a really innocent question. So that's what led me to want to write this book. It was like, we need to build the bridge here to point out where it actually matters. I mean, I just again, another intersection of apologies, but everyone's a therapy. Everyone's in therapy now. Everyone's taking meds now. Mental health is declining. We are a sick civilization physically and mentally. And everyone knows it. Our kids are dealing with it now. And it's the therapy's not working. The drugs are not working. Exactly. And what you're doing, the reason I'm so glad to come in the show and I'm so grateful for your work, is you're finally connecting dots that should be connected for everyone. But they all come back to Jesus Christ. And that is like, you know, the application of this and then all the crazy theology out there are the confusion around it. You know, there's so much misunderstanding. Yes. Exactly. This is what we need. We need JP2's connections to bring all this stuff together because it's not working in a disintegrated way.

45:12The disintegration fails. And that's why, like, these crazy things happen with medication. Or these crazy things happen with approaches to social media or approaches to phones and schools. And it's like we needed bad therapy, to treat bad therapy. Yeah. You know, we need an anxious generation. We finally are getting these books that are just like the research is pointing to the problem. But what's the solution? Exactly. Right. And it's like the solution has been here since the 60s. And I've, like, this is what drives me crazy. And it's part of, I mean, it's just part of my vocation. It's to sit with this frustration. Like at the beginning of COVID, using JP2, I was putting out videos, telling people, don't be afraid of socialize or of social connection. I was telling people, like social isolation will be worse than dying of COVID.

46:14How do I know that? I'm not a prophet. I'm not reading a crystal ball. It's like it's in person in act. It's right here. It's like a sense of everything. And if we, if we actually read it and listen to it and think about it and integrate it and then actually make sort of projections on to like real problems, we have to solve today, we have a much better way to solve those problems because we already have the blueprint of the human person. I use this analogy all the time. It's like your car breaks, you bring it to a shop, you don't bring it to somebody that doesn't know how cars made. You want your mechanic to have the blueprint of how cars are made so they know how to fix your car. Mental health is 99.9%. People who don't have a blueprint. What is the pitfall of that? This is a claim I'm going to make that's maybe a little bit outside the box. And I'm not expecting that every therapist out there would agree with me on this or every Catholic therapist would agree with this. But because of the experience that I've that I've had when you're walking with somebody who comes with vulnerability and they're opening up in many cases, they're deepest wounds.

47:25In a encounter of intimacy that they may never have in their life, even sometimes with one's own spouse. In terms of personal intimacy, they're not just looking for symptom reduction. And every moment of engagement in that encounter is affecting their path, their journey, their story. So there I feel this tremendous responsibility that how I say what I say, how I deliver what I deliver is held within reverence for the person above all else. And if I can help, I hope I can help with the thing that they're looking for help for. But I would rather not help if it meant I wasn't reverencing them as a person. In other words, some of these techniques are really sort of removing a person's freedom.

48:25And it almost becomes like, let me do this to you. Let me fix this for you versus engaging in a relational encounter that connects your freedom so that you can participate in the ways that I can actually help you with this. So it's very different than just getting like a root canal. You know where it's you're not like opening up the depths of your deepest pain to your dentist. So it's okay to have a little bit more of a materialistic scientific approach like, can your dentist be better at being a dentist if they know what you're made for? Maybe you could pray beforehand or make you feel comfortable in different ways. But like also I'd probably rather take the guy who's really expert at the root canal over the one who's going to pray before the session, you know, before the appointment. But when you're coming to the mental health space and we're talking about personal wounds and engaging in that dynamic, there's nothing that says a person is restricted from bringing their deepest vulnerability intimacy into that into that space.

49:31So unless I'm somehow blocking that from happening, which I can't do, I have to own the fact that that's what's happening. And so I have to be able to take those techniques and embed them within the larger picture of the person. So to be a little bit more specific with this one example, let's say I have somebody who's learning how to have secure attachment. And I know Bulbi's system, well, if Bulbi is helping somebody learn how to be more secure so that they can go do some criminal act or some devious thing, like that would be, it's kind of a weird example. But that just to color out like why I'm not helping the person, I'm helping them have more confidence, you know, sometimes I say I use the example of abortion all the time, it's like if somebody comes into my office and says I have anxiety, I want you to help me feel more at peace with getting an abortion.

50:34It's like no, I'm not going to do that. I can't do that. But sebenall, anything feels, you know, like you can just sign up as that. So if you are, I think industrial, you know, if you are in an order to learn a part, if you are out of your business with literally people that go into human miracles, you can dress up their clothes towards you with logo quality andxterity. Going to have thisandra. moral truth, moral absolutes from the therapy office. And if you remove purpose, like what's the point of your existence, what's the point of life itself? And you just medicalize your patient in front of you. And it's just like you're treating a problem. And often there's like a physical treatment of like a drug you can even prescribe. You know, a lot of these psychotherapy or not psychotherapy, but psychiatry appointments that's like 15 minute review with the patient. Okay, let's get it signed up for like, zole-offer, whatever the thing is, right? And that's like a lot of health care today. Like there's not an in-depth understanding of the patient and what's going on.

51:36Right. And even if there is, the person's not coming into it with a Christosundrake worldview. They're coming into it with like whatever medicalized, limited worldview they have, right? So like what is the worst thing that happens because of this, I guess, is like the... I want to be clear, because I'm using extreme examples, but this affects every encounter, not just the ones where there's a moral issue in question, because the anthropology, the blueprint of the person points to freedom as a hallmark of our dignity being made in the image of God. And freedom for the sake of love, creativity. Yes, but every person has to be in ownership, self-possession of their own freedom. So there are techniques like medication is a great example, but it actually bleeds into psychotherapy itself, because we might say... Like here's an example, like let's say somebody just wants to learn how to self-regulate. And they want it, you know, and then it's like, all right, I just need to learn, you know,

52:38how to be calm. And in my mind, I'm thinking, that's a good step, but that's not the best I can help you with. Like what are you doing after your calm? You want to be calm. And then again, like have this division in your relationship or not really understand how to discern what you really want to get out of life. You don't know your deepest needs. Like there are lots of things that there are definitely ways to be very limited in how I see the whole person. So I'm always thinking about the whole person and their fullest flourishing with freedom. That comes into play where it's like, help me to just just get me to calm down. And it's like, okay, here we are. I'm sitting with you like if you're really anxious, I can get you to calm down in about probably five to seven seconds. And you know, we could do things that tap into your body with the way you're positioned or your breath or, and then there's things that you can do to sort of feel more comfortable.

53:44Me doing that to you is not the same as you entering into a process out of your own freedom. And so people might walk away going like I have to get back to Dr. Greg's office because that's the only place that I can feel peace. That doesn't help anybody. And it's not me doing it to somebody. And so then it's like a deeper thing of like, well, what, what caused the anxiety in the first place? You know, find out that somebody is afraid of failure. And the narrative of being anxious all the time is actually protecting them from actively fully engaging in something that could potentially lead to failure. And so they're maintaining their own anxiety because that's actually safer than taking the risk of doing something else. That's a whole nother dimension of somebody's interior life. That's not getting covered through breathing exercises.

54:46So I'm looking for ways to actually get somebody to show up with more of themself. And I have to create safety for that to happen. That's part of it. But the more that happens, then they're engaging more of their quote unquote freedom. And then they're actually entering more deeply into their own work. So so many questions. Oh my gosh, there's so much to pull out here. So first of all, it sounds like what you're saying is that truly effective therapy has to treat the whole person. It has to understand the whole person. And in order to do that, you inherently have to get into more than the symptoms. And in order to do that, you have to almost take a role of like not just a mental health coach or whatever, but you're taking like a spiritual advisor slash life coach role. Now you could say that to an extent. I think I think the best culmination of a healer is somebody who can tap into all of those domains.

55:52And so we, I mean, we have a training program we've created to actually do that work. And we're training people in three domains of philosophy, theology and spirituality and psychology. And psychology is a third of our program teaching people how to do mentorship. We call it mentorship, but it's like walking accompanying people, being able to help people make sense of their life in their next good step. But those other domains are necessary. And I mean, not everybody's doing that. So is there a place for just the psychological sciences? Yes, is there a place for just spiritual direction? Yes. But we have spiritual directors in our program. We have priests learning how to fill out their understanding of the person that they're walking with in the confessional or in their parish or in spiritual direction by getting to this deeper psychological realities of the person. And I think therapists, especially Catholic therapists who are, you know,

56:52proclaiming that that's the model that they're working from or framework they believe in should think about and have a way to embed our anthropology into the work that we're actually doing through our techniques. Let's say she was one of the multiple, you were one of the multiple medical providers slash therapists that she went to before she did the unthinkable acts that she did. Yeah, so, you know, from what I've seen and I haven't followed too closely, but I saw a couple of commentaries and one of them was a doctor who just went through her case file. Just on the very simple facet of looking at the effect of medication toxicity and

58:01from what I understand of the history, the pattern of the medication that she was on and the types of experiences that she was that are recorded and documented. In terms of her, you know, beginning with like insomnia and then getting into the intrusive thoughts and then, you know, even our husband saying she's never been like this, she's the worst she's ever been. Like this is leading up to it over over I think months, right? In terms of and then more medication being added to it. So I've seen that and it's devastating because there are people can be very sensitive to these medications and the medical care is atrocious. If we don't have consistency in understanding a comprehensive case history, all the data is there if somebody would look at the chart. This happens all the time also with with demonic experiences as well. And, you know, the overlap between those two is a whole

59:07another interesting topic. I do wonder if the one time she heard voices was during the death, you know, the hercumurder of the children. If that was a demonic thing that happened with her. Well, and I'm not sure that it is or not, but I, you know, one thing that's very clear like in working with the supernatural, we always look for a rule out and we try to make sense of the case first, is it explainable and natural terms? And, you know, when it comes to the church, making judgments on things that are supernatural, whether it's demonic or miraculous, we want to understand first, like, is there a natural explanation before we say, so it's not an either or. This is what's really important is it's not like 50, 50, it could be one, it could be the other. It's like the first question is, is it a naturally explainable phenomenon? If it's not a naturally explainable phenomenon and we can rule that out scientifically,

1:00:08then we move into a possibility of the supernatural. And auditory hallucinations are an explainable medical observable natural phenomenon. So when we start to, and we're not used to it, and it feels crazy and it feels maybe demonic or maybe, you know, maybe it's God or maybe it's, you know, when, and just I'm talking about this in general now, I don't know about the Clancy case itself, but just as a general framework, it's really important and the church is wise to bring in testimonials from experts who live in and work in this world all the time. So two years after I graduated, I worked in DC at the psychiatric institute of Washington and this is just what you do on a daily basis. Everybody hears voices. And half of Omar command hallucinations, you know, half of Omar Angelic, half of Omar Damanic, it's like, this is just a normal Tuesday.

1:01:11So in you, in you get to see the medication interactions, you see what happens when somebody's flushing out of a medication when somebody's got added medication when somebody's changing medication, like our sensitivity, these drugs are dangerous. They're really, really, really powerful, and it's completely driven by the pharmaceutical industry. And it's really dangerous. So that's, you know, when we talk about the reference for the human person, that is nonexistent in the medical field. Or, and by the way, when I say dangerous, nuclear energy is dangerous, right? It also is a really beautiful thing. Sure. That we can power, you know, a lot of energy. So I'm not saying like, therefore, nobody should be on medication. I'm not anti-medication. But how powerful they are in the brain and how little reverence the medical community that is stewarding it has for the human person is incredibly dangerous. So on one level,

1:02:12these kinds of things can happen where we have medically induced or substance-induced psychosis. We have radical personality transformations, but then we also have just the blunting of affect. And it's like, okay, you have like a lot of depression, you have a lot of anxiety. There is a perspective, and I want to be very careful with how I say this. There is a perspective in which we can say, why does God allow for the suffering to happen in the first place? And what can we learn from or grow through when we have the suffering presented to us? So I'm not saying we're supposed to just embrace all suffering and not try to get rid of suffering. We should always be trying to reduce our suffering. But the way we reduce that suffering, I think, can be viewed on a spectrum of sort of positive and negative. And there's a

1:03:15significant dimension of the type of suffering people suffer relating to the interior world in which they live and the journey that God wants them to walk or is inviting them to walk. So if somebody's really, like I already gave this example, if somebody's really anxious, but then that anxiety is serving the purpose of protecting them from the possibility of failure, do we just give them Xanax and make their anxiety go away? Because that will never, that's like going the further layer removed away from who they are versus sitting with that working through it, finding out what's underneath the anxiety. We definitely want to get rid of the anxiety. But the presence of anxiety is revealing something deeper about that person. The medical pharmacological community does not care. They want outcomes, they want symptom reduction, they want to sell their drugs, get rid of the anxiety, who cares what's lost in the process.

1:04:19I think with the Clancy case, what's fascinating when I understand of it is she was really upset that she wasn't the mother she wanted to be for her kids, that the third child took her away from the first two children and she wasn't happy with how she was mothering. And that kind of spiraled, and then it turned into this medicalized issue and then she started getting drugged up. But it kind of started with her not feeling like she was being a good mother and her being irritated and frustrated and down about the way that she was mothering after the birth of her third. That's really interesting. You know, that also from what I read, she did have postpartum after her first child, right? So it's an interesting combination of different factors at play because we can always see like the psychological or mental interpretation, the narrative interpretation of things. But we can also look through these different facets. And so there may be, you know, this organic biochemical disruption or disorder or deficit that's happening.

1:05:22But we are not separated from our biology and so our experience gets interpreted. So if she has a kind of depression, if there's if somebody has a postpartum depression, I mean, this is incredibly tied into the endocrine system, a woman's cycle, all of her, like the, you know, fertility capacity of the feminine genius is deeply connected to these hormones. And then those hormones can be really out of sync. And then postpartum depression can happen for a lot of women. And then all the thoughts start coming. You know, and it's it's biochemically sort of the source is biochemical, but the effect and the experience becomes something entirely different. But it's a really complicated example, but it's one that does kind of illuminate how we can look at all these different facets. So the treatment, though, of a case like that in your view, and we're kind of in postpartum depression right now, but I think you can draw a similar

1:06:26application maybe for anxiety or other kinds of depression. But the treatment is you can't just go like talk therapy might not be enough because there's a biochemical hormonal issue that needs to be addressed, which I guess in some cases medication can address, but in most cases it's going to be a holistic approach right to get the body what it needs. Right. But then you also need to be talking through the thoughts at the same time, right? You can't just like ignore the thoughts. Right. I don't know. I'm just asking like is that like what would be the what what approach would you take? Yeah. So it's it's it's just looking at it holistically. And I want to let's talk about it in general. I feel conscious of just reverencing like the clienty's case and my heart just really goes out to what she's suffered. And I can't even imagine and the loss of her kids' lives as well. But just in general, you know, it's like all right, if something emerges that let's say somebody has insecurity about their parenting and you know mom feels like she's a bad mom, but she has

1:07:29stuffed it all down. She's learned how to cope. She's not really thinking about it. And then there's a postpartum imbalance of hormones. And now she gets really depressed. And now the depression essentially, by the way, this is kind of mapped out in JP2 also, but the the depression creates a weakening of the threshold to the subconscious. Just like when we're dreaming, if we're sick, if we're tired, if we're actually sleeping, if she had insecurities about her motherhood, that she had pushed down, you know, then then that's that's underneath this threshold that JP2 says it's blocking the subconscious material from coming up into our conscious awareness. As part of that survival instinct, that orientation towards life, because a lot of these things are too much for us to deal with on a daily basis. So we just keep them at bay. But then if we had this hormonal imbalance, like what happens during

1:08:33postpartum, then that threshold is weakened. And the threshold is like a veil that gets weakened at times when we're sick, when we're tired, it gets weakened during when we're sleeping, and we have dreams. So the content that comes up during dreams is coming from our subconscious through the weakened veil that is blocking our mind from seeing consciously what, and we're technically unconscious, but because we're sleeping, but we have that inner experience of consciousness that's like we remember what we see when we're dreaming. So in the story of postpartum, let's say that there's that insecurity and then it's buried, but then there's a hormonal imbalance, it thins out the veil, and now there's a physical feeling of depression, but it's also getting matched to the content that's emerging from the subconscious. And it's like I hate myself because I'm a bad mom. I can't give my kids what they deserve. I'm a failure.

1:09:34Those are now the thoughts that are coloring the conscious mind. So what's the quote unquote problem? We can't just say it's one thing or another. There is a multifaceted, multi-dimensional approach to understanding what's going on. So what do we do in this situation? Is medication sometimes helpful? Absolutely. If somebody is so flooded by depression, so flooded by anxiety, that they are not even close to having a conversation about the origins of that insecurity, they can't get themselves out of bed to show up for an appointment. There's such deep rumination that they're self-harming and of course, of course, we want to be able to bring this down to a manageable, workable space. But the space has to be entered into. And if we can go there, then we can find out what the real source of that problem is.

1:10:38And then it's not a medication solution. It's aided by medication, facilitated by medication. But in this case, what it sounds like, what happened with this case is that there was no continuity in care of knowing what the medication prescriptions had been. And then there's that what happened sometimes, that toxic reactivity. And then that just compounded. So was that self-doubt there in her? Probably. You know what does it mean that she just had it in her to be a murderer and a killer? It's like, well, I think that's a stretch. You know, does psychosis happen? Yes. And are people doing things that they wouldn't otherwise normally do? I think so. I think the question people are wrestling with is, though, despite the voices, despite having mental illness, was there still the power to choose? And did she practice that power?

1:11:44Like was she forced to murder her kids? Like, did she, you know, could she have said no to the commanding voice if she heard it? Could she have powered through and just been like, I'm not going to lay my hand on my child or my three children? Yeah, I think it is very possible that the human mind can go into a place that's so disoriented that our touch points with reality are gone. And in that space up is down left is right. And you don't even necessarily know who you are. So I can't make a claim on this case. And thank God that's not my responsibility to. But in generally speaking terms, is it possible for our interior experience to be colored in such a way? The answer is yes.

1:12:45To the point where we lose freedom. Yes. We see that in addiction. That's right. I mean, addiction is very clear. And you see a person that passes a bar. It's like, couldn't you not go in? Well, the answer is oftentimes no. And if you can't say no in that moment, what's the moment? Like at some moment, addiction always has that loss of freedom. It's like, well, if somebody's holding the beer, can they say no? You know, we work with addictions and I always work backwards from the relapse or the point of the behavior of the action and trying to restore a person and heal the addiction, we go looking for the freedom. We go looking for the point at which they still had an experiential access to their freedom. So it was like, you didn't have freedom when you're sitting at the bar. You didn't have freedom when you're sitting outside the bar. You didn't have freedom when you're sitting at work thinking about the bar.

1:13:47Choices already been made for you at that point. But what about that morning? When your wife made the comment to you and you decided to walk out the door and slam the door anyway and anger and frustration, you thought about it for a minute, didn't you? And you considered telling her that it hurt your feelings. But then you thought that you sounded dumb and weak and that she wasn't going to respect you and that she doesn't listen to anyway. And so you slam the door and went to work because it's easier. That was the point of freedom. Okay, understandable. Let's go back there though. Can we now start to uncover an exploration of that? Like a new encounter with your own self? You could do something different. And that's a new idea. Has nothing to do with the drink. That was just a self-medicating of a symptom. But the pain that you felt originated at least that day in that moment and we can

1:14:53go back there. So yes, for sure, people can have interior experiences where they have no freedom. This episode is brought to you by Netflix's new series, East of Eden, a bold reimagining of John Steinbeck's masterpiece following generations of the Trask family through love, betrayal, and the choices that shape humanity, starring Mike Feist and Christopher Abbott as the Trask Brothers, and Florence Pueh as Kathy Ames, the complex anti-heroine determined to build the life she wants. No matter the cost, watch East of Eden, October 1st, only on Netflix. The

1:16:04practice, like even that example you just used, of like what moment did you have freedom? What moment could you have used your will to chart a different course? This is really, I think, maybe a fundamental question. Is this fair to say this is a fundamental question for analyzing any mental health issue? Is this something you go to? I was a root question of what can you, what do you have power over? What can we work on together? Yeah, I would say that for sure. That's definitely a fundamental question. It follows that fundamental principle of freedom. That's like the deepest mark of our dignity. If we follow that path, we get to a place for that just to open up a person to their greatest capacity for change. It's a lot of different things that you're treating or dealing with and people coming to you. Some of it's more clinical, has a clinical aspect, but some of it isn't. It's just about discernment and challenging life obstacles and stuff. Going back to the mindful Catholic book and just what

1:17:05you opened us with with this very beautiful explanation of the abandonment to divine providence and learning to just deal with the stuff of life. I do think the average person today is not living in, let's just use the term, the abundance mindset. There are living in a ton of stress, stress, doubt, anxiety, maybe even depression or just slumbering through trying to figure stuff out. They're not like, I'm living my best life. A lot of the people by the way who are saying, I'm living my best life. They're definitely not. They're just like, it's a full-on facade for Instagram sales or whatever. This is a tough one because I really felt this experientially. I went through this and it was going back to college, reading love and responsibility. I was in so much pain from my parents' divorce. I was raised Italian Catholic. Family is the most

1:18:07important thing. It was a notch above religion. Dinner on Sunday was the highlight of Sunday. When that rug got pulled out from underneath me, it was ripping apart my identity. My whole everything I thought of who I was was like, I am the son of my mom and my dad. It was like a unified reality. That got ripped apart and it's like, I don't know who I am. When I read love and responsibility, it was the teaching of marriage and love that healed that wound because I realized the deeper wound is I don't know how to figure out who I am. I could deal with the fact that bad things happen. To be left wondering and wondering and lost about how to be was that was my deepest pain. When I read love and responsibility, it was like, oh, here's the answer. This is who I am.

1:19:13This is what I'm made for. Also, along with that was this incredibly deep sense of frustration in being neglected by the church. It was like, how come nobody taught me this? Why is it? Because you were raised Catholic. I was raised Catholic. Every Sunday Mass. Yeah, exactly. We would go to Sunday Mass. The highlight was Danis dinner. It would be after Mass. We would go to Danis for dinner. But it was so compartmentalized in my life. It was so fragmented. It's like, here's the church. It goes over here on the Sunday morning. The rest of your life is just being just whatever. And then when I read love and responsibility, it's not supposed to be like that. We're supposed to be formed in the truth of who we are, which is communicated through the

1:20:16teachings of the church. But it's actually about who we are and how we're supposed to be all the time. So there's this, the reason I went back there for this answer is because my response is not easy. It's a little bit challenging, but I don't want it to be thought of as overspiritualizing either because I really experienced this. And it was through these teachings and this formation that I found freedom. And then it really was like a significant healing for me. And when it comes to anxiety, when it comes to depression, when it comes to the normal experiences that people are having in their daily lives, what I often find is people have so much heart, so much motivation. They want to be better. They want to feel better. They want to do better. But they don't know what to do. And there's no clear source of direction being offered.

1:21:26So depending on the priest, depending on the YouTube influencer, depending on the, you know, whatever, it's like, how are we supposed to think about this? How are we supposed to think about that? Like demonic warfare is another thing we could get into that. That's a whole other, a whole other acts I have to grind. It's like, how do we think about being afraid of the influence of evil spirits? How do we be afraid of, or how do we deal with the fear of, you know, not fulfilling God's will? You know, what's what's scrupulosity? You know, like all these different topics that end up becoming the stuff of clickbait. And it's all inconsistent, incoherent, disintegrated direction. And so the normal Catholic in the pew who has great heart, great intention, great motivation is just lost. And when it comes down to it, it's like practice of the presence of God. That's as simple as it gets. It works. You know, I remember at one point,

1:22:28when when Pope Leo was, I think it was like right after his election, or maybe it was a while after, but somebody asked him, what's your favorite book? And he said, practice of the presence of God. And I was like, oh, this is our moment. Because now that book is going to get some air time. And it went to the top of Amazon bestseller list and all this stuff. And then like every other social media fad, it just flopped down. Brother Lawrence. Brother Lawrence, yeah. And it's like it, people are lost and longing for just coherent clarity and how to live life. And it's kind of a disaster out there in terms of getting good sort of threads of direction that actually makes sense. So it sounds like a lot of what you're saying in your grape even with the way that we as Christians are even approaching all of this stuff is that there's all of these sort of like quick fix. This is it over here. You guys demonic stuff like and you know, we've had a lot of exercises on the show. You guys know, you know, there's some great stuff to learn, but it's like, this is the framework.

1:23:30And then over here, no, no, this is the framework. No, no, this is the issue. This is your problem. Just do this. And it's sort of like the short term quick fix that people start with, but they lack the deeper formation and framework. And so they can't get to the answer in their day-to-day themselves just through their like development of habit and like the bright thinking because they're just kind of trying on these little quick fixes. Is that is that by the way? I definitely want to say I don't blame any of the actual channels or influencers or anything like that. We're the clickbait channel guys. It's like by the way. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, your content is amazing. All right. I was so grateful to come on the show and I'm not saying this just to big up for that last comment, but the power, it was actually Father Spitzer that you had on when you had that episode. And I was like so many moments of that episode. I was just like in tears. It was so beautiful. And I don't blame the media in general. Like the media is a channel of communication and actually I have stuff I put out there where I was like, I think St. Paul would have a YouTube channel. If he was

1:24:33around today, like it's our job to evangelize through the media 100%. It's the exercise themselves that I've had conversations and I work with exorcists. So it's not something that is even I shouldn't have said acts to grind, but I do think I think we can be a little bit sensational sometimes in the way that we approach all these things. And to the point that you're making, it is the word that came to my mind was self-help. And it's like this culture of self-help, which we've all drunk in. It's the cool aid of the postmodern world. It's the cool aid of individualization of individualism, you know, and self-sufficiency. And we don't actually need each other, which is so contrary to the teachings of Christ and the church, where we need each other, we're made for communion with each other ultimately. And we're getting there through communion with each other. So all these self-help sort of processes are actually contrary to our deepest needs.

1:25:42And so that's why it's almost not even the fall of any one of those threads of content. It's just the fact that there are so many threads and we're not experiencing something in this cohesive way that people are left reeling. And they're like, I don't know who to listen to, I don't know who to talk to. And so that's what I discover. So what's the antidote? And when you got someone in your chair, so to speak, right, where do you start with them? And how do you build? How do you build the framework for them to help them practice the presence of God? Trust in His Providence, alleviate the depression or the anxiety or the, you know, marital disputes or whatever it is. Yeah, I think I think, well, again, it really depends on the person. It's hard to say like blanket shark statement. What is the antidote for everybody? But being seen as a person is the first step. And in some sense, that's the blanket statement. But it's like every person needs to be seen. Every person needs to be known personally, personally, not as like a checklist of issues.

1:26:44Right. Exactly. So when I engage with somebody in my chair, that's my first step is like, I want to know you. Like you can tell me if you want to tell me about your symptoms right now, please do. If you want to tell me about your childhood, if you want to tell me about your hopes and dreams about the future, like there's no right or wrong way to do it. It's just me getting to know you and you experiencing the fact that I can see you. And then in that encounter, we're going to be able to get to work. And we'll discover what's in the subconscious. You know, what are those narratives and wounds and experiences that you've buried below the threshold of conscious awareness. And what is going on with you biochemically? Okay, let's look at the patterns that have emerged. This happened in college and then it didn't happen again till six years later. And it happened when you had a baby. And here's the nut bubble, and it's like, okay, we're making a narrative. This kind of makes sense. And then, you know, what's going on in the way you think,

1:27:48what's going on in the way that you feel in certain circumstances. So we're looking at all these dimensions of the human experience, but all of it is grounded within this cohesive encounter of being seen. In fact, a leader saying like, you can't put people in boxes like you have to treat them holistically, which I think is correct. So you might just hate what I'm about as next, but we'll go for it. Are there common themes that you're seeing with the people coming to you where of what is really the disconnect for people that's creating the pain and creating love? I'm glad you asked. I don't hate the question. And I do think there are themes, which is honestly where just as you asked that, it just illuminated for me my own gripe with the sensationalism around the demonic stuff, because that's a theme. People are really afraid of evil spirits. Really? That's what you're seeing in your practice. Yes. That's great. That's actually great,

1:28:50even feedback. I'll take all the feedback from me on the show, because I am concerned. And we're more of a top of the funnel show, like we're not like a Catholic show, right? Even though we're on a, you know, I'm a Catholic and everything else. But I get concerned sometimes that people just ignore the dangers of the demonic and ignore the fact that evil is real and ignore the fact that the scene is real. So that's why we occasionally have that. I think if you look across, and I actually did a study on this and I looked across the shows and I saw like all of the most popular episodes of all the shows. And the the exorcist priests are always the most popular shows. Word on fire, Matt Fred, like across the board. So that's in the cultural zeitgeist. It's like people are fascinated. Catholic non-Catholic, I'm sure it doesn't even matter. People are fascinated because if in miracles also obviously do the same thing when you start talking about these miraculous things that happen, people are longing for the supernatural. And so if we have people that

1:29:55are experiencing the supernatural and they're willing to talk openly about it, it's like, you know, I'm showing up for that with popcorn, right? It's like, here we are. Like that's interesting. I think within the religious context and the spiritually serious population of people who who want to live a good life and are trying to please God, that's when the fear gets mixed in. And it's really insecurity and a lack of being known, which stems from our own development, but then it gets spiritualized and then it gets applied to God, projected onto God. And it's like, well, we have a father who's going to punish us if we get it wrong. And this is one way that we are going to get it really wrong. And it's really happening. So it just triggers a lot of that fear. I think there should be content about these things.

1:30:57I have a good friend of mine as an exorcist and missionary priest or he's not technically an exorcist, but you can definitely, I hope I'm going to give you his name. I can tell you his name right now, if you want, but I hope you have him on the show because he, and actually I did a little course with him, he was the one that actually built the curriculum or content for it on spiritual warfare. But his approach was to say the most important piece of spiritual warfare is confession. And the second most important piece of spiritual warfare is trust. Because the devil's worst, his worst weapon against us is to cause us to doubt the goodness of God, the father. And we don't need a demon to lie to us or fake us out or disorient us with what he's might say and exorcism to get this information about the devil. We get it from the book of Genesis.

1:31:57And we know that the serpent led Adam and Eve to doubt the goodness of God. So if you extrapolate from that and think about some of the, some of the content you might have heard. And I didn't see your episodes with the exercise. So I'm not, I don't know actually, but, but, but a lot of times it's like almost planting seeds of doubt and the goodness of God, the father. It's almost like, maybe he's not big enough and strong enough to take care of us and protect us. Like the one book that I really, I mean, this started at all, I think, was an exorcist tells his tale. And, you know, you know, that's the Gabriel and Morth book from, from the exorcist of Rome. And he talks about like you could give the evil eye, you might just get the evil eye. You're walking down the street. Somebody just throws an evil eye at you. And, and now you're going to be attacked by demons. It's like, well, first of all, a lot of the saints were attacked by demons. So that's not necessarily like a bad thing. Second of all, I'm not sure that we should be that afraid.

1:33:00You're seeing people come to your practice because they've literally been watching YouTube videos about exorcists and they're like, all, they're not making that clear of the connection. Well, well, they may be, I'm not making that clear. They're preoccupied. They're preoccupied. They're worrying about Satan's work in their lives. And so they're literally showing up to this Catholic psychological institute to be like, hey, like, that's not necessarily their presenting problem. But what, but you're asking for themes of what shows up a lot of time in the work. And what I've noticed is that two things, and then they go together, one is scrupulosity. And the other is this fascination with demonic influence. And that people, if you really start to dig down. So they're not coming in saying, I watch this YouTube show, but it's like, it's just in the air. There's just like this, this, this lack of security, a felt fear. And I think it makes sense. It makes sense COVID-wise, like going through that. It's like, who knows what's going to happen? We're all sort of like on edge, on guard. And we don't know what's coming next. Who's going to say what next?

1:34:06What crazy political movement thing is going to happen next? What social unrest is going to happen? We're all just a little bit uneasy. Bonia of serious Catholics or Christians or people who are serious about the spiritual life, like that fearing the demonic is the, the spiritual form of that general unrest that I think a lot of people are feeling. And then the other side of it would be scrupulosity, whereas I'm doing all the right things, but I'm not doing them good enough. I need to do more. I need to do it better. I'm not perfect enough. And then, and so then that becomes a driving anxiety as well. This episode is brought to you by Netflix's new series, East of Eden, a bold reimagining of John Steinbeck's masterpiece following generations of the Trask family, through love, betrayal, and the choices that shape humanity, starring Mike Feist and Christopher Abbott as the Trask brothers, and Florence Pue, as Kathy Ames, the complex anti-heroin determined to build the life she wants. No matter the cost, watch East of Eden, October 1st, only on Netflix.

1:35:16Displacement, interviewing the tsunami. They all heat the blame on me. Tom Cruise is. Digger Donner Center this mess. And digger is gonna dig us out. Something director of Birdman and the Revenant. What would happen if I stop? You stole, you freeze the death, that's what? With great power, comes great deniability. I'm not the earth, then. Digger, see the tree long on. Only the years until we're second rated door, under 17 out of mid without parent. So what are some good, I'm sure some people listening right now relate to some of what you're saying, where they know people that, yeah, they struggle with scrupulosity, or they have this sort of general anxiety about the way the world is going, and how they should respond or what they should do. Yeah, I mean, it really comes back down to the basics. And the more that we can stop trying to get fancy with different programs and sort of, patterns of, you know, join this or do this or read this book. It's like, especially with, I mean, actually with both with scrupulosity and with fear of evil, we just go right to the saints.

1:36:21And especially with now, I always go back to St. Terez, we go back to the confidence that God's love and mercy, you know, St. Faustina divine mercy. Like God has been trying to tell us for centuries. That we should be less afraid. And you know, there's his revelations about his sacred heart to Margaret Mary Alcouc. And going all through the 20th century, it's the same narrative. It's that we should be less afraid and more confident in God's love. And if we are actually open to God's love, then it frees us to live a totally different kind of life. And this is how we can actually evangelize. This is actually how we can open other people's eyes to the truth of the gospel. It's like, if it's real, it should change our lives. It is real. And it can change our lives.

1:37:25And when we have lives that are changed and other people are like, that's interesting. There's actual, it's like Instagram authenticity. It's like somebody who's willing to show their true colors captures more attention because people want to see authenticity. So if we actually have peace behind the curtain, and that's the authenticity we show, then it's like, man, how did you get there? And it's really actually quite basic and simple. What's a good tool that you kind of have, is there a tool I should say actually that you recommend to most of your clients that come in in terms of how to begin to practice the presence of God or begin to trust and divine providence. Yeah, you know, it's interesting. As you're asking that, I was just thinking like that sounds really spiritualized and it a little bit more heady and intellectual. So when you first said tool, I was thinking of offering something a little bit more psychological. And you know, there's this new system or newer system of therapy called IFS internal family systems. Have you

1:38:30heard of that at all? Oh, yeah. Okay. So it is really effective. Shoot. I mean, that's a great thing to explore. I'm gonna like do a whole episode just on that. Give us, give us a teaser. Yeah, so so it's it's really, it's really fascinating. This new system of theory that has developed where essentially revisits our implicit understanding of ourselves. And we don't even realize how unchallenged our sense of self really is. And but even our thought about our self is a relatively new concept. I want to just quick interjection. One of my best friends just went to this approach of therapy. I don't know if they're in your practice actually or influenced by it. I would not be surprised. But using IFS, it has been completely an utterly game changing for her. Yeah. Yeah. And I see it. Like I, you know, she lives far away. I only get to see her once in a while. We were both each other's made of honors. Super tight. Oh, that's awesome. But I see it

1:39:32the change in her life because if she's connected dots and she and she even said this therapist, they're not my mother, you know, obviously, she's like, my mother's my mother on earth. But they they are accompanying me. It's not just some clinical relationship. They're accompanying me in an appropriate way. And it's transformed her understanding. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, there's, there's, it's very fascinating topic because the the origination of this particular modality is very non-catholic. Really? And in some ways, very a religion or anti-religious. But the perception, the perspective and the sort of observations made within the system are really profound. And I think of the way I approached it. And when I first read it, I started to think very differently about where our assumptions about the self come from. And it's also ties into mindful Catholic because we have these assumptions about the universe, about the multiplicity of being, about the unity of being, you know, and it's like, then you get to the Buddhist, then it's like,

1:40:36you know, the only thing that's real is that all is one. And multiplicity is an illusion. And it's like, well, that's not true. Obviously. But also, there's like a oneness to the universe. Of course. And to God, the three persons and one, like, exactly. That's the point. So the point is, we are made in the image of God who is a mystery of the Trinity. So we are, we are so accustomed in its part of that psychological conservation of energy that we want to have simple answers. Are we multiple or are we one? And we have to pick. Well, we don't have to pick. That's the beauty of our Catholic worldview. We sit in and live with and accept mystery. We love mystery. So when you look at the person, we think we have this unity of personhood. But then we have these experiences like what used to be called multiple personality disorder. Now it's dissociative identity disorder where you see somebody gets split apart.

1:41:37And it's almost like there are two people. And this is really incredibly fascinating because people can become so different and they're different parts that they have that they literally can sit down different. Their facial expressions, their faces change literally. Like the musculature of your face can actually change. And you look different. Your people's eye colors change. And this is in the disorder I'm talking about and dissociative really severe dissociative experiences that people have. Voices change. Everything. Gate, presence, everything. You like, you wouldn't know you're in the room with the same person. Because of trauma. Because of trauma. Always. With dissociative identity, it's always trauma. Now that was always known to be a possibility as this anomalous human experience. And that was mapped onto a disorder dissociative identity now. And we have that whole framework to understand it. But it was always like you're either you or you become somebody else. And then this this guy Richard Schwartz started looking at different ways to think about the person.

1:42:44And he long story short realized that he could approach a person the same way he approached family therapy. And when we do family therapy, we have a room with multiple people in the room. And every person in the room is seen as valuable. And because they're individual persons, we don't want to like kick people out of the room to do good family therapy. You know, Uncle Joe, maybe he's an alcoholic, maybe he's screaming in yelling at everybody. But like let's find out what Uncle Joe's got going on. You know, the best resolution for family therapy is not get Uncle Joe out of here. He's cast out of the family. Now there might be a child who doesn't want Uncle Joe in that room. And then you might have a parent that's protecting the child that's screaming at Uncle Joe that he's got to go. There's all sorts of complex things that are happening in this system. Well, what Schwartz did was he thought, well, there's different parts of the person that are emerging in this conversation that is happening that I wonder if I approached it the same

1:43:46way I'd get a different outcome. And so long story short, he had a girl in eating disorder. And then he got the eating disorder to resolve. But then she started, I think, cutting maybe or some kind of self-harm. And he was trying to work on her with that individually outside of family therapy. And he was sitting in the chair with her. And then he got her to agree, I'm not going to hurt myself this week. And then she comes in the next week and she had like a cut on her face. And he was like, he was so frustrated. And he was like disappointed in himself. He was exasperated. And he finally just said something to the effect of, I don't know what else to do. There's some part of you that just wants to keep hurting yourself. And all of a sudden her whole demeanor changed. And she was like, that's it exactly. Thank you for saying that. That's exactly right. And he was like, whoa, what just happened? And then he was like, well, why? Why does that part of you want to keep doing that? And then she went into explaining where that was coming from and talking about it as if she was actually being

1:44:51seen for the first time. And she actually had a voice for the first time. Whereas every time before it was like cutting his bed, don't do these self-harm things. Obviously, those are appropriate things to say. But if we think about the person as one person who's doing bad things, we're not giving an opportunity to understand that there may be other parts of this person that has a reason for doing these other things. So that started his whole process of fleshing out this idea of internal family systems. And that's what it means internal to the person. But family systems, same dynamics, same approach of relationships. But we're now looking at what's going on inside of the person. And so there's a whole very technical kind of mapping of different kinds of parts of us. Some are the ones that are our MO. They're the normal parts that we play. But then we have these firefighter parts that are always in the background waiting for the MO to not work. And then they're

1:45:52ready to jump in. So they're all serving this purpose of protecting us from something, which is the connection I was making earlier from the subconscious. Because if somebody sits down and they're like, I don't know why I'm anxious. I don't know why I can't stop doing this thing. I don't know why I can't be more motivated. I can't get off social media or I can't whatever. It's like, well, there's probably something going on in your subconscious that we haven't really talked about that has a reason for why you're doing those things. So the tool, not surprisingly, is love. And if we can turn towards the whole person, every part of the person and assume that if you're doing something, you have a good reason for why you're doing it. And of course, Catholics up in arms, you know, it's like, well, what about sin? Yes. Sin. And Aquinas says the same thing. Every action is a pursuit of a perceived

1:46:54good. It might be misdirected. It might be with a badly formed conscience. It might be something is off that needs to be fixed or wounded that needs to be healed. But there's underneath it all is that we are made in the image of God. We are not dung heaps covered with snow and we have not lost that original integrity of being made in God's image. So apply that theology to psychology. And we realize that every conversation can change. And if we approach everything the person is expressing with reverence to discover the true meaning behind what's being expressed, we get to a place where all of a sudden they make sense. The cutting makes sense. The eating disorder makes sense. The self-harm makes sense. The insecurity makes sense. Depression, the anxiety. The even the sin. The desire for whatever behaviors ended up leading to sin actually makes sense.

1:47:58And it's not until we go into understanding the part that makes sense that paradoxically, we actually create the greatest freedom to change the behavior. And so that's what helps with addiction. That's what helps with St. Paul's why can't I do the things I want and I don't do the things or I do the things I don't want and I can't do the things I want. That's because he didn't have somebody exploring what was underneath. So St. Paul needed a good need an IFS therapist. Stop it. Don't pull me on the record for say that. But to be honest, I've always thought that. I mean, not not exactly that, but like I've always thought that when that St. Paul, because the st. are not perfect. St. Paul was not perfect. St. Peter obviously was not perfect. When St. Paul's ranting about his struggles and he's still trusting Christ and he's still

1:48:58trusting Christ, but he still struggles, that doesn't mean that maybe there was another way he could have struggled. And so I think some people look at St. Paul's rants and they're like, well, see, that's the way it is. Right. Exactly. Don't explore further. Because St. Paul had the thorn in his side. And so that's the thought I've heard this all the time. Oh, it's a thorn in my side. Why? Yes. Can it be healed? Exactly. Can it be redirected? Can it be better understood? Yes. And there's some, a lot of people I think who just don't want to go there. Yes. Yes. Exactly. With with addictions, that's really clear too. And that's why people gravitate towards these like full abstinence for all time models, like the AA model, where you're just sort of like letting yourself off the hook forever actually exploring the deeper trauma. I love AA and I think group is really important. 12 steps are really, really good. So I want to be balanced. But it does have the tendency at times to separate from trauma and like what's really going on

1:49:58underneath. And most of the time, at least the way that it's formatted, they don't care about trauma. It's not about that. It's about behavior modification and just stopping the thing from happening. So that's the same approach. It's like if we don't, if we just give it a name like it's a thorn in my side or it's just the way God made me, whatever those things are, it actually removes responsibility for us to go deeper and find out where these patterns are coming from. And by the way, that doesn't mean we have this expectation that we can be perfect in this world. But it's like every thorn is the opportunity that God is giving you in this present moment to go deeper and find deeper freedom. It's probably 15 more floors waiting behind that one. But when when we're aware of something right now, that is God's will to look deeper and figure out what's going on. Well, you come back and do internal family systems with us. Absolutely, definitely.

1:50:59Most of us live here. You want to do like a session? I'm going to get into it. Honestly, sounds pretty cool. But just to like cap that off before we, I mean, we're not going to deep dive it today, but we've got a deep dive it again. The idea of an internal family system is you have an internal family system within you. Is it like a reflection of the family you come from? Not always. It's not like a one-to-one reflection, but it is formed in context of the family we come from. So like if we have a part of us and we talk like this all the way by all the time by the way, where it's like part of me is thinking bubble blah or you know, the example I use to is the crystal, the crystallized sort of fractured version is that we think like I'm not acting myself. You know, or I'm having a bad day or you know, I'm angry. I think about the stinkers commercial with Danny DeVito. And you know, when the guy's angry, he turns into Danny DeVito. It's like, no, no, you're not having a bad day. You're having a you day.

1:52:00It's a different part of you that's showing up right now. And that part of you probably needs love, and needs attention. Doesn't need to be judged as being bad. That's the out. Calling it a bad day is the out. There's a reason why we feel grumpy or irritable. And is it because we didn't have enough sleep? Maybe part of it? Is it blood sugar? Yes. It's we're all holistic. But why does a let lower blood sugar bring out this particular way of relating? There's a reason. And that has a history and a story that deserves to be heard. So if you're, I mean, this starts right in the beginning, by the way, and what none of us are free from doing this to our kids. So I know, I always lead with that too. It's like, I've hurt my kids as much as I've been hurt as much as we all are. It's called original sin and it's passed down from generation to generation. But it also has a real face. It's not an idea to overspiritualize. How does original sin affect

1:53:06the way I parent my kids all the time every day? And it means that if a baby's crying, and I have a little too much work to do, and I'm a little less patient, and I get a little more snappy. And my six year old sees me impatient with the crying and then develops a story inside that says, don't cry. Dad gets mad. That becomes a protector. And so now my six year old can develop a part of her or a part of him that will put on a stiff lip, put on a happy face or squalch the tears or don't show that emotion. And that can become formative. And next thing, you know, I have a 24 year old in my office who's like, oh man, I don't feel upset when things are bad in the house. And this is why people don't want to have kids. Also true. One of the reasons.

1:54:08It's true. I mean, look, it's heavy. And it's hard. And it's complicated, which is also why we have to realize we all need grace. Like we all are in need of a savior. I usually do the full arch all together because it's really important to have the hope. And also the whole story is that God made us to need him on purpose. And we do need him. And again, mapping back to the, you know, our post modern post modern culture doesn't want to need anybody. We want self help. We want individualistic approaches where we're going to figure it out. And then as soon as it's like, I need help. I need God. I'm not good at being a dad. I need help. That's like really hard to say. And then the the correlate is true. It's like, I don't think about God all day every day. And there are times when I'm not actually receiving the help he wants to give me. And there are times that I'm

1:55:12actually not being a good dad. That's also true. And what do I do with that? Do I sit in wallow in the shame? Or do I let it propel me to a deeper desire for more God, more openness to his help, more recognition of my dependency on him. And I think that's why he did it this way. Like that's why he allows us to be in this state because at the end of the day, we're all just kids. And we need him to be our dad. And so like all these little, that's that's why I was saying before, like, let's not just medicate away all of these problems. We definitely want to relieve suffering. But like, let's mine, mine the field first for like what do we learn from this experience that will help us actually grow in the greatest freedom, the greatest relief of suffering, which will be union with God. Like that's what is actually being offered to us in this moment. That's so beautiful. By the way, I also, we could do a whole another episode. This is a whole

1:56:14another thing. Oh, and what? It's probably not. I'm probably it shouldn't come up today. Probably we need to more time to unpack it. But I've also been studying and going deep dive into psychedelics, like therapy. Nice. No, that's a big one. And it's so important. It's so bad. It's not so bad. Really? It is, it is really dangerous. And it is really misunderstood. I love how you like separate dangerous from bad. Yeah. That's great. I mean, it can be dangerously good, but it can also be dangerously bad. It's just dangerous. Spiritual life is really dangerous. Wow. That's good. Dr. Good. Pataro, this is amazing. We, we got to have you back. Bring your wife. I would love to. We'll take you out. And they're going to do this again. But so, so what's the starter book that you recommend? For which topic? For you, for like if you if someone's listening, like, this is all good stuff, give me more. Yeah, mindful Catholic draws a lot of connections.

1:57:18And our website, catholiccyc.com, we have a ton of resources. So we have a summit coming up, a name, person experience, which is really important. Like more than books, more than self-help, we want to bring people together. We want people to to share experience. And that is, I think, the most important thing for what we do. So, but also I have a podcast, the being human podcast, where I do a lot of unpacking and connecting of these mental health issues along with faith perspective. And there's a lot of overlap there that people can see sort of like what this integration really looks like. This has been amazing. Thank you for your work. I think it's totally needed. And thank you for the generosity and saying yes to God's call. Thank you for having me on. This has been awesome. And I really appreciate the opportunity. A huge thank you to all of our amazing Patreon supporters. If you become a paid annual patron of the show, you get access to behind the scenes, access to our guests. And we will send you your choice of free merch from the store during our community over at patreon.com slash live a road show.

1:58:22A big thank you to our channel partner, EW TN. EW TN is the world's largest religious broadcast network reaching millions of people every single day with the beautiful truth of the gospel. You can be the first to watch Lila Roe show episodes 24 hours before they hit YouTube at EW TN.com. And on the EW. This episode is brought to you by Netflix's new series, East of Eden, a bold reimagining of John Steinbeck's masterpiece following generations of the Trask family, through love, betrayal, and the choices that shape humanity, starring Mike Feist and Christopher Abbott as the Trask brothers, and Florence Pueh as Kathy Ames, the complex anti-heroine determined to build the life she wants. No matter the cost, watch East of Eden, October 1st, only on Netflix. Causing massive water displacement, triggering the tsunami, they all heat the blame all me. Tom Cruise is. Digger Donner Center, the specimen. Digger is gonna dig us up.

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