93 Three Inner Experiential Exercises

Interior Integration for Catholics

1. Summary: In this episode I discuss the crucial role of the right kinds of corrective and healing experiences in our lives. I then offer you three inner experiential exercises to help you understand three questions: 1) In what ways do you not love yourself (with a special focus on inner critics); 2) your inner tension between connection and protection; and 3) your internal battles with rigidity and chaos.
2. Lead in:
   1. Experience.
   2. I have been wanting for a long time to offer you some experiential exercises
      1. In episodes 89, 90, and 92, I gave you a lot of conceptual information about polyvagal theory, about interpersonal neurobiology, some more about Internal family systems, but something has been missing
      2. And what's been missing, in my opinion, is the experiential part of this for us.
         1. Julius Caesar "Experience is the teacher of all things" De Bello Civilli
         2. John Stuart Mill: There are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized until personal experience has brought it home. -- On liberty
   3. Experience. There is no substitute for experiential learning
      
      1. Otherwise it can stay all in the conceptual realm, all in your head, all in your mind.
         1. Michael Smith: The major problem is that we tend to live our life in our head, in our thoughts and stories, cut off from our actual experience.
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      1. What I want for you is much more than that. I want you to be able to change for the better in the deepest ways.
         1. And you can't think or study your way there
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      1. Not the same experiences over and over -- some people have that kind of life.
         1. Rather, a capacity for experience -- the ability to take in, process, and integrate new experiences as part of your human formation.
         2. George Bernard Shaw: Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.
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   7. What holds us back?
      
      1. Many would say fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of putting ourselves out there. Fear keeps us from new experiences and for the corrective effects of new experiences. And I think that's true. But I don't think fear is the primary obstacle. There's some thing deeper than fear that holds us back.
   8. 1. What is it that really holds us back from new experiences? What goes deeper than our fear? [Drum roll]
      2. Our Shame. It is our shame that holds us back from new experiences and the healing that new experiences can bring to us.
      3. The fear is a secondary reaction. We wouldn't have the fear if we didn't have the shame, the gnawing sense of inadequacy or not being good enough. Too much shame makes us fragile, way to concerned about protecting ourselves
      4. And in the natural realm, it's shame that most often keeps us from taking in the love from God, from others, and from ourselves -- it's shame that generates our fear, the desire to protect our wounds, that shuts us off from ourselves and other people
         
         1. Shame generates fear -- fear fuels our self-protection and shuts down the openness to experience. The shame to fear to self-protection progression builds walls around our hearts. We see vulnerability as dangerous.
      5. 1. Brené Brown, Daring Greatly Vulnerability is the core, the heart, the center, of meaningful human experiences.
   9. Shame is so important, I spent 13 episodes of this podcast just on that one topic. Those 13 episodes, episodes 37 to 49 on it
      
      1. Those episodes on shame are foundational -- they are the most fundamental episodes of this podcast. So many of our problem go back to shame, and nearly all psychological dysfunction in the natural realm has its root and origin in shame.
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       1. If you haven't listened to those episodes, or if it's been a long time, go back and listen to them.
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   12. So now, in this episode, I am bringing to you the kinds of experiential exercises, the kind of experiential learning that can help you understand yourself so much better and get you started toward a more solid natural foundation for your spiritual life, much better human formation.
   13. And what I want for you most of all is for you to experience love. To be able to receive love -- to receive love from others, from yourself, from God. And to love. To join those men and women who are on an adventure of love
       
       1. 1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.
   14. 1. How does it do that? How does perfect love cast out fear -- does it just numb fear while leaving your shame intact? No, I really don’t think that's how it works for me and you.
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       1. Love is the antidote for shame. Love cures shame. Three kinds of love.
          1. Love from God
          2. Love from others, including the saints, especially our Mother Mary
          3. Love from ourselves to ourselves.
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   17. I invite you to join me on this great adventure of loving, especially in this episode, right now, this episode number 93 of this podcast, Interior Integration for Catholics, let us journey together
   18. I am Dr. Peter Malinoski, clinical psychologist and passionate Catholic and together, we can have the relational encounters we need to learn to be loved and to love.
   19. Interior Integration for Catholics is part of our broader outreach, Souls and Hearts. Souls and Hearts brings you the best of psychology and human formation grounded in a Catholic understanding of the human person to you and the rest of the world through our website soulsandhearts.com
   20. We are continuing our series on how the best of secular psychological approaches define mental health, psychological well-being. We started with Episode 89 on Polyvagal Theory and covered Positive Psychology, Psychodynamic Psychotherapy and Internal Family Systems in Episode 90.
   21. Today's episode, number 93 is entitled "Three Experiential Exercisesx" and it's released on May 2, 2022 and today, I am offering you
3. Three longer experiential exercises today, about 20 minutes each
   
   1. Informed by IFS -- can check out episode 71 of this podcast to find out more about IFS -- A new and better way of understanding yourself and others. Great preparation for these exercises.
      1. Grounded in a Catholic understanding of the human person
4. 
   
   1. Three experiential exercises
      
      1. In what ways do you not love yourself? -- where are the gaps in your human formation? What parts of you are going unloved by you? -- Episode 90 Your Well-being, the Secular experts speak
   2. 1. Your inner battle: Protection vs. Connection -- Episode 89 Your Trauma, Your Body: Protection vs. Connection
      2. Rigidity and Chaos -- episode 92 Understanding and Healing your Mind through IPNB
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6. Overall guidelines for these exercises
   
   1. Cautions
      
      1. window of tolerance
         
         1. Upside -- Fight or flight, sympathetic activation
      2. 1. Downside -- Free response -- dorsal vagal activation, shutting down, numbing out,
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   2. 
      
      1. don’t have to do this exercise, can stop at any time, reground yourself