Dear Souls & Hearts Member,
Everyone makes mistakes. I make mistakes. And if I were to do this series on personal vision, values, and mission statements over again, I would start with the central, core concept of identity.
Identity.
Dictionary.com defines “identity” in several ways, the most relevant for our purposes are:
- the condition of being oneself or itself, and not another
- condition or character as to who a person or what a thing is; the qualities, beliefs, etc., that distinguish or identify a person or thing
Identity, for our purposes in these next few reflections is all about “who is.” In other words, for this reflection series, “identity” is essentially the answer to two questions:
- Who is God?
- Who am I?
As I have reflected on personal vision, values, and mission statements and talked with our members who are engaged in the process, I’ve experienced the growing realization that for us Catholics, we have to get the answers to these two questions right, or we will lose our direction.
And we can’t just get the answers in our heads – in an intellectual, conceptual way. We must get the right answers to these questions in our hearts and in our bones – across all our parts.
Who is God?
Catholic theological treatises abound on the nature of God; some of them are quite accessible to the lay Catholic reader (see here, here, here, and here, for example); paragraphs 198-204 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church focus on the nature of God.
Most reasonably-formed Catholics can make an attempt at the answer to “Who is God?” and catch many of the 14 attributes in Angelo Stagnaro’ 2022 article in the National Catholic Register titled What Is God Really Like? An Exploration of God’s Attributes, listed here:
- Self-existing
- Immutable
- Good
- Loving
- Self-sufficient
- Omnipotent
- Omnipresent
- Omniscient
- Infinite
- All-wise
- Faithful
- Just
- Merciful
- Holy
For a Catholic with relatively good intellectual formation, these qualities, more or less, would constitute their God concept. As I noted in my reflection from September 14, 2022 titled Are You a Heretic? Distorted God Images Catholics Hold:
What is a God concept? My God concept is what I profess about God. It is my intellectual understanding of God, based on what I have been taught and what I have explored through reading and what I have I decided or chosen to believe about God. The God concept of orthodox Catholics is reflected in what the Creed, the Scriptures and the Catechism say about God. One’s God concept is conscious and freely embraced.
This contrasts with my God image. As I noted in that reflection,
What is a God image? God images are totally different [from God concepts]. My God image is my emotional and subjective experience of God, who I feel God to be in the moment, in my bones. My God image is how my emotions, how my heart interprets God subjectively, and that interpretation of God may or may not correspond to my God concept (or reality) at any given moment. God images are often latent and unconscious. Research indicates that God images are initially shaped by the relationship with one’s parents, and that God images are heavily influenced by psychological factors. God images are always formed experientially, and they flow from relational experiences and how we construe and make sense of those experiences when we are very young. You don’t choose a God image; it is initially formed into you. And you can’t will a God image away, it’s not subject to the sheer force of your will. But you can create conditions which change your God images.
I addressed God images in episodes 23 to 29 of the Interior Integration for Catholics podcast (back when it was called “Coronavirus Crisis: Carpe Diem.” In those episodes, I covered the 14 problematic God images William and Kristi Gaultiere discussed in their book Mistaken Identity.
- Episode 23 Sinning, God Images and Resilience. 33 minutes.
- Episode 24 God Images and Self Images. 43 minutes.
- Episode 25 Drill Sergeant Gods, Statue Gods, and Preoccupied Manager Gods, Oh My…. 45 minutes.
- Episode 26 Dictator Gods, Pharisee Gods, and Scrooge Gods. 42 minutes.
- Episode 27 Robber Gods, Aristocrat Gods and Marshmallow Gods. 34 minutes.
- Episode 28 Police Detective Gods, Pushy Salesman Gods, and Heartbreaker Gods. 41 minutes.
- Episode 29 Magic Genie Gods and Party-Pooper Gods. 40 minutes
For a brief summary of each of the God images and how each God images develops, you can download this PDF of my God Images Chart and Study Guide. I also briefly describe each God image in the reflection Are You a Heretic? Distorted God Images Catholics Hold.
Convergence
Dr. Peter Martin and I discuss the God Image triangle at the 36:35 mark in IIC podcast episode 154, titled Attachment and Learning How to Love.
What Dr. Martin calls the explicit God image, I call the God concept. Here is a graphic of the God Image Triangle from that episode:
The three vertices of my God Image triangle are:
- The Reality of God, God as He is
- My God concept (or the explicit God image), and
- My God image (or the implicit God image)
Ideally, our God concept and our God images all converge into a single point, mapping onto to God’s actual identity.
But that doesn’t happen.
Why?
Part of it is because, in this life and in eternity, we can never fully understand God. As paragraph 230 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, quoting St. Augustine states:
Even when he reveals himself, God remains a mystery beyond words: “If you understood him, it would not be God” (St. Augustine, Sermo 52, 6, 16: PL 38, 360 and Sermo 117, 3, 5: PL 38, 663).
So in this life, our God concept will always be at least somewhat lacking or off.
But the God concept is not the primary stumbling block in grasping God’s identity for well-catechized Catholics
Why?
Because of our parts’ God images.
Who is God to our parts?
As a brief review in our spiral learning, here is my general description of parts within us:
Parts feel like separate, independently operating personalities within us, each with own unique prominent needs, roles in our lives, emotions, body sensations, guiding beliefs and assumptions, typical thoughts, intentions, desires, attitudes, impulses, interpersonal style, and world view. Each part also has an image of God.
Each part also has an image of God. Any part of you who is not in right relationship with your innermost self will bring distortions into its God image. Remember that parts are often phenomenologically very young – if they are not integrated, they may not have access to all the person’s faculties and capacities, and can have developmentally immature understandings of God based on their experiences and how they made sense of their experiences, especially in relationship with parents and other powerful authority figures.
Meeting “Mike” and his parts – with their God images
Every applicant to the Resilient Catholics Community, as part of the registration process, takes the PartsFinder Pro, a series of 18 measures. The Souls and Hearts team then writes a six- to nine-page report, and in that report describes 10 to 15 hypothesized parts, with their burden and roles, and the relationships among those parts.
You can download PDF reports for a fictional man and a woman as samples to see what the PFP reports are like.
I’m calling our fictional man “Mike” and you can download his report briefly describing his 14 hypothesized parts here.
For some fictional background, “Mike” is a 52-year-old married man, father of four, whose children range from 23 down to 12 years old. He is just starting to get in touch with his inner experience, having been relatively disconnected from his emotions, impulses, and desires throughout most of his life, which has limited his capacity for intimacy in interpersonal relationships. He has been married for the last 25 years, and is recognizing that his emotional connection with his wife is somewhat superficial; his wife sees their relationship as “amicable roommates.” He desires deeper relationships, but is at a loss for how to connect more deeply. He has bonded deeply with his two sons over sports; he has had more difficulty connecting with his daughters, feeling uncertain how to relate with the intensity of their emotions.
Mike is a quality control manager on a factory floor. He takes that job seriously, conscientiously finding almost all deviations from finished product quality specifications before products ship. The worst part of his job is pushing back and confronting production managers when quality slips. He has deep desires that the production managers would just follow the production protocols exactly, rather than trying to cut corners to increase production speed. The other staff and workers in the factory perceive him as competent, levelheaded, professional, and fair.
Mike is a cradle Catholic, and experienced eight years of Catholic grade school before entering the public high school in his small town in Ohio. In college, he fell away from Catholicism, returning after about seven years, after the birth of his first baby. In his effort to renew his spiritual life and get support in stopping pornography use, he joined Exodus 90, and began praying regularly; he has desired a deeper relationship with God, but feels at a loss as to how to go about a deeper connection, and he has a chronic sense of “not doing it right” when it comes to his spiritual life.
You can see an image of Mike and five of his parts and how each of those parts misunderstands God in the drawing above. Each of Mike’s parts has a distorted God image, different ways that each part misperceives God.
A Drill Instructor God image
Mike’s driving manager and his detaching firefighter who protect against his grieving exile share a God image of a harsh Drill Instructor. If we turn to the God Images Chart and Study Guide, we see that this God image “Always wants more and more from me. He is never satisfied and when I do not perform correctly, He is very punitive. He has no tolerance for errors. He has little mercy and compassion.”
The driving manager has stepped into the role of trying to anticipate God’s demands and tries to force the system to rise to those (imaginary and unreasonable) orders to avoid be denigrated and condemned. The detacher firefighter shuts down, disconnects, and withdraws from God to weather his frustration and dissatisfaction. The grieving exile feels no consolation from this Drill Instructor God image and is left in his desolation and loneliness, as in the drawing above.
A Critical Scrooge God image
Mike’s Catholic referee, his pessimistic firefighter, and his shame-bearer exile share a Critical Scrooge God image. “This God doesn’t extend himself to help me. Instead, this God is highly critical, and He cuts me down with disparaging remarks, and a condescending tone. He tells me that I won’t make it, I won’t succeed, I just won’t be able to rise to the challenge or even be minimally acceptable to him.”
In response, Mike’s shame bearer harbors deep doubts about whether he is good enough to be loved by God, feeling deeply inadequate, stupid, inept, and unworthy, all exacerbated by the assumption that God is a critical Scrooge.
To avoid being overwhelmed by the shame that the shame bearer holds, Mike’s Catholic referee works so hard to make sure he follows the rules, striving to meet the demands for perfection from this Critical Scrooge God, as in the drawing above. When Mike starts feeling better about himself, his pessimistic protector can jump in against any sense of hopefulness or confidence, echoing the common criticisms of the Critical Scrooge God image, to prevent a deep sense of disappointment and shame.
A Statue God image
Mike’s emotional distancer manager, his reactive self-soother firefighter, and his isolated exile all share a Statue God image. A Statue God is “Remote. Distant. Unfeeling. Stoney. Cold. Indifferent. Disengaged. God leaves me to His own devices. He just doesn’t care.”
As it feels like God has distanced Himself from Mike, Mike’s emotional distancer responds with distancing as well, disconnecting from his own emotions and from God, as in the drawing above. His isolated exile feels no sense of belonging to or with God or in the Church, feeling lost, alone, and bereft, doubting God’s care for him. When the isolated exile threatens to overwhelm Mike with its feelings of alienation and loneliness, Mike’s reactive self-soother turns to pornography and sexual fantasies to feel some sense of being desired, wanted, cherished, connected and alive, assuming that sense God is like a statue, he won’t know or care one way or the other about the sinfulness of porn use.
An Unjust Dictator God image
Mike’s Intimidator manager and his angry exile both share an Unjust Dictator God image. “In this God image, God is a very powerful, but He is unjust, He is unfair. He seems arbitrary in the way that He blesses and punishes. He even seems to shower good things on those who acted badly. He doesn’t seem to punish those who hurt me, those who persecute me.”
In reacting to that Unjust Dictator God image, Mike’s intimidator manager tries to push back, sometimes surprising Mike by fighting against and railing against God, fueled by the rage of Mike’s angry exile about never having core needs for affection, nurturance, and love met. His angry exile focuses on injustice, and the ways it seems like God has perpetrated injustices, allowing bad things to happen to Mike, which can lead to tantrums and outbursts, as in the drawing above.
These parts also generate impulses to use pornography use to “punish” God for being so unjust, those these motivations are rarely available in Mike’s conscious awareness due to how threatening they would be to his Catholic referee and approval seeker.
A Heartbreaker God image
Mike’s approval seeking manager, smokescreen firefighter, and yearning exile share a Heartbreaker God image. “This God breaks promises to me. He raises my hopes high, and then dashes them back down to the earth. He draws me in to trust him, and then when I need him and seek him, He is nowhere to be found. I put my fragile self in His hands, and He treats me casually, carelessly, thoughtlessly. And I get hurt, wounded.”
Because this God image sometimes seems willing to help him, Mike’s yearning part, full of unfulfilled desires and unmet needs experiences a strong desire to reach out – aided by Mike’s approval seeker, who desperately wants God’s approval. This God image seems to beckon them with one hand to come closer, only to strike them down with abandonment, neglect, and an utter lack of attunement with the other hand.
Mike’s smokescreen firefighter gets in to distract from the pain of God’s perceived treachery, inconsistency, and abandonment by trying to block the God image with smoke (see the drawing). He tries to smooth things over so that Mike’s angry exile does not explode in rage when prayers seem to go unanswered, or when Mike’s approval-seeker has tried so hard to follow God’s will, only for the efforts to end in a seeming failure and further disconnection from God which could activate Mike’s pessimistic and self-soothing firefighters The smokescreen firefighter tries to get Mike to give up on any kind of intimacy or personal connection with God because the disappointment and frustration can lead to behavioral acting out.
In this reflection, we explored the first major question about identity – Who is God? In the next reflection, we will take on the second major question about identity – Who am I? We will discover the kinds of self-images that correspond with distorted God images.
Getting together on Zoom about identity
As we address this major theme of identity – who God is, and who we are – it would be great to get together for a workshop, especially on personal identity statements. So let’s do it. That Zoom workshop will be on the evening of Thursday, May 15 from 8:00 PM to 9:00 PM Eastern time.
If you are already on my email list for the personal statements (vision, values, mission, and now identity), you should have already received a link and passcode for our workshop on identity: God’s identity and one’s own identity – both as a beloved little son or daughter, but also as an heir. If not, reach out at crisis@soulsandhearts.com and I will get you on the list. Don’t worry, I will send out a reminder email when we get closer to the date.
Integrity: That You Be One Inside — New IIC podcast episode released
Check out IIC episode 161 Integrity: That You Be One Inside (90 minutes) Video Audio PDF Transcript
Here’s the description:
Survival. Importance. Agency. Goodness. Mission. Authentic expression. These are the six integrity needs that Dr. Peter came up with over decades of work with Catholics. In this episode, we define integrity and integrity needs, we discuss how so many children are forced to choose which needs will be met and which will be denied. We cover each of the six integrity needs in depth, we explore the hierarchy of integrity needs, and we discuss what kinds of parts are especially focused on each integrity need. Then Dr. Peter lays out how we can meet our parts integrity needs, and we have a 19-minute experiential exercise to help you connect with your parts’ integrity needs.
This is the fifth episode in our Deep Dive in 2025 into Catholic Parts Work series, which has been very popular. The whole purpose of the series is to help you and the rest of the world grasp and grip on to what IFS and parts work looks like when it is informed by and grounded in an authentically Catholic understanding of the human person.
Looking ahead in the IIC podcast series, we have Marion Moreland, Jenn Maher, and Bridget Adams discussing IFS and the body in episode 162 releasing on March 17; then Dr. Gerry returns to begin a two-part series systems thinking taken inside in 163, which releases on April 7. Then David Edwards returns to continue our discussion on systems in episode 164 on April 21.
Mark your calendars for IIC episode 165, titled Q&A on Catholic Parts Work which will be on Thursday evening, April 24 from 7:00 PM to 8:00 PM Eastern time. Join us on Zoom to ask any questions about IFS and Catholicism from episodes 157 to 164 of Marion Moreland, David Edwards and me. Registration is free but required – register here to join us for the discussion.
A new reference card for you from Souls and Hearts on attachment needs and integrity needs
A printable, double-sided PDF of the six attachment needs and the six integrity needs is here, (sneak peek is below) along with two other popular quick-reference cards from Souls and Hearts:
Please feel free to share these PDFs with anyone you think would benefit.
The Resilient Catholics Community is now closed for applications
But – we will reopen in June. And there still might be a chance for you to join the RCC before then. Get on the interest list for our June 2025 St. Jerome cohort – occasionally we need a few more people to fill out companies that are forming at specific times, and we reach out to interest list to find those additional members who can meet at those times and can fast-track.
Being on our interest list also ensures you will get the latest updates about joining the RCC as they come out, and provide you resources about the RCC that you can’t get elsewhere to help in your discernment.
Come and flourish with us, seeking the three great loves within the two Great Commandments – loving God, your neighbor and yourself – with all your being, including all your parts. So that you can love wholeheartedly.
Conversation Hours
I learn so much about what our Souls and Hearts members need from talking with you directly. So — you are invited to call me on my cell (317.567.9594) any Tuesday or Thursday from 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM to discuss anything in these semimonthly reflections or in the IIC podcast, or to discuss our communities, the RCC and the FFF.
I can’t provide any clinical services, but connecting with you helps me understand what our community needs, and informs my decisions about the direction of these reflections, the IIC podcast, and the rest of our content.
Pray for us
We need your prayers. Please pray for us, that we be good stewards of what God has given us, and that we can provide you with more of what you need for your human formation, grounded in the perennial truths of our Catholic faith. Thank you.
Warm regards in Christ and His Mother,
Dr. Peter