Dear Souls & Hearts Member,
In the last reflection, titled The Key to Personal Statements: Getting God’s Identity Right First, we learned that the core concept of identity is essential in our endeavors to write our personal vision, values, and mission statements. And as I noted last time:
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?
Review of God concepts and God Images
For a brief review in our process of spiral learning, in the last reflection we made the distinction between the God concept and the God image in our internal assessments of God’s identity, Who God is:
- God concept: 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, approved by intellect, and endorsed and embraced by the will.
- God image: 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. 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.
At the risk of making assertions outside my expertise, I wonder if one way to assess spiritual formation might be to examine the size and shape of one’s “God image triangle” with the three vertices (or “corners”) being:
- The Reality of God, God as He is
- One’s God concept
- One’s God image
In the last reflection, I introduced you to “Mike,” our 52-year-old married father of four, who is frequently disconnected from his emotions – and I described Mike’s emotional distancer part in the mock PartsFinder Pro report which you can download as a PDF here. Here’s the summary description of Mike’s emotional distancer:
Mike’s emotional distancer proactively protects him against the experience of emotions, as he finds emotions dangerous because of their propensity to overwhelm him. The emotional distancer inhibits anger, aggression, sadness, grief, and shame. However, as a side effect, positive experiences such as joy, warmth, affection, playfulness, etc. can also be shut down. He may have a Statue God image, and he may be actively protecting Mike during times of prayer by making it hard to remain recollected.
When in right relationship with the innermost self and integrated into the system, Mike’s emotional distancer shares what Mike understands from his good catechesis and spiritual formation – Mike has a fairly good (not perfect God concept).
But there’s a but…
But when Mike gets stressed and his emotional distancer blends with his innermost self and takes over his system, driving Mike’s bus, this part loses the positive God concept and revert back to his Statue God image. You can see the disparities among God as He is, Mike’s God concept, and his God image in the following diagram.
You can see that when Mike is more recollected, when he has that interior integration, his God concept reflects God as He is fairly well – nothing like perfectly, but there is a distinct resemblance.
However, when his emotional distancer takes over and blends, Mike loses his positive God concept and sees God more like his emotional distancer’s distorted God image – God is felt to be a distant Statute God.
And I argued that we have as many distorted God images as we have parts not in right relationship with the innermost self. Five of Mike’s God images (each corresponding to a different part when that part is not in right relationship with the innermost self) were depicted in last week’s header art reproduced here:
Self-concept and self-images defined
In parallel with the God concept and God images, each of us has a self-concept and self-images. Here are the definitions:
- Self-concept: Your self-concept is what you intellectually believe about yourself, who you profess yourself to be, what you understand about yourself, your mental construct of yourself. The self-concept of a practicing Catholic, for example, likely includes being a beloved little son or daughter of God. There is a parallel between the self-concept and the God concept – both are chosen, both are embraced as true. God concepts and self-concepts go together, they harmonize. For example, if a faithful Catholic believes and professes Jesus to be the Good Shepherd (a God concept), he or she will likely freely embrace, at least intellectually, an identity as a little beloved sheep (a self-concept).
- Self-image: Your self-image is who you feel yourself to be in a particular moment. Self-images are much more emotionally driven, much more intuitive, subjective, and they vary much more from moment to moment than your self-concept. Self-images go together with God images – they impact and complement each other. Self-images can flow from God images, conforming to God images. But self-images can also impact and shape God images.
In the last reflection, I offered you this PDF of my God Images Chart and Study Guide – which also includes an example of a self-image that corresponds to each of the 14 heretical God images from William and Kristi Gaultiere’s 1989 book Mistaken Identity: Clear Up Your Image of God and Enjoy His Love and which I review in episodes 23 to 29 in the Interior Integration for Catholics podcast.
God images and self-images connected
In the last reflection, I described how subsets of Mike’s parts held a particular God image. Here we will explore the different self-images generated by Mike’s parts when they are not in right relationship with his innermost self.
Grieving exile
Mike’s PartsFinder Pro report describes his grieving exile as follows:
A grieving part who holds the intense experience of loss and unresolved grief, especially around crucial relationships such as Mike’s marriage and the distance he experiences with his children. He may regularly and consistently challenge Mike’s protectors’ defenses, threatening to break through and flood his system with sadness. He feels little or no consolation from God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, or others.
The grieving exile feels no consolation from his Drill Instructor God image and is left in his desolation and loneliness. Instead, following the self-image derived from the Drill instructor God image in the 14 God Images Study Guide, we find that the parts of Mike suffers from deep feelings of inadequacy, a sense of being defective, needing to earn God’s love and never quite getting there and having to always be at his best, and his best is never good enough, leading to a shame-based self-image, as depicted in the drawing.
Catholic referee
Mike’s PartsFinder Pro report describes his Catholic referee manager as follows:
Mike’s Catholic referee makes sure he follow the rules, according to a code of conduct based on his understanding of Catholic teachings and his relationship with God. He aims to help Mike be a winner in God’s eyes, as he tries to protect Mike and keep him on the “straight and narrow” with strict moral criteria. Mike’s Catholic referee exerts pressure for his near-perfect performance in untidy areas (such as loving and praying). He likely sees God as very demanding and distant, leading to inordinate attention to minor details and rumination about past mistakes or perceived failures.
He offers plenty of criticism and may dominate Mike’s conscience with his rigid rules and obligations, focusing his frequent examinations through a skewed perception of natural and divine law. Mike’s Catholic referee has a hard time enjoying leisure and relaxing and finds it very difficult to be like a little child in the presence of God and the Blessed Virgin Mary. He may experience God as chronically disappointed in Mike’s efforts to love Him and neighbor. He assumes that God’s love needs to be earned, and that Mike’s high achievement will yield that prize. Mike’s Catholic referee’s efforts may dramatically increase stress in his system, as the goalposts he aims for are humanly impossible to reach.
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.
This leads to a self-image that consists of the idea that Mike is never good enough for God, never satisfies Him. This part feels like Mike is stupid, no good, and struggles with shame, feeling so inadequate. His Critical Scrooge God image gives him only the minimal amount of help so that if Mike did things just right, he might succeed, but he is never able to, his efforts are just never enough, leading him to see himself a dunce, a failure, who must keep trying, and can treat himself as he feels the Critical Scrooge God treats him.
Angry exile
Mike’s PartsFinder Pro report describes his angry exiled part as follows:
An angry part who carries rage about core needs for affection, nurturance and love not being met, and may make demands on Mike and on others that seem excessive. Mike’s angry part might not be recognized or acknowledged at all within his internal system, as his protector parts suppress him with their heavy defenses. He may be particularly angry about Mike’s recent separation from his wife. Mike’s manager parts also work cooperatively to silence his angry part. He is very focused on justice and injustice and on violations of his own integrity by important figures in his life. Mike’s angry part may rail at God for perceived violations or a seeming failure to protect and nurture him.
Mike’s angry exile is frustrated 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.
Mike’s angry part feels like he always get a raw deal from the Unjust Dictator God, no matter how hard he tries to love and obey him. This leads him to rail against God and to feel shackled and imprisoned by the unreasonable demands of the Unjust Dictator God and God’s (perceived) lack of loving care.
Smokescreen firefighter
Mike’s PartsFinder Pro report describes his smokescreen firefighter as follows:
A smokescreen part whose primary focus is to redirect Mike’s attention and hide him from perceived threats. His smokescreen part can be hypervigilant especially when the intensity of Mike’s exiles’ experience begins to enter his conscious awareness. He defensively conceals the intensity of Mike’s other parts’ experiences, keeping them out of his conscious awareness and thus preventing him from being overwhelmed with the intensity of shame, sadness, grief, anger, fear, disappointment, or other strong emotions.
He also tries to hide parts of Mike from God. The unintended consequences of his efforts include making it harder for Mike to know his whole self, especially his whole heart, and making it difficult for others to know him deeply. Your smokescreen part may be particularly activated in times of prayer or quiet reflection and use whatever external means are available to redirect Mike’s attention and protect him from the perceived harm.
Mike’s smokescreen firefighter gets in to distract from the pain of a Heartbreaker God image’s perceived treachery, inconsistency, and abandonment by trying to block the Heartbreaker 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 the Heartbreaker God because the disappointment and frustration can lead to behavioral acting out.
With this God image, Mike feels like Charlie Brown, running up to the football. The Heartbreaker God is like Lucy, who yanks the ball away at the last second, and Mike winds up on my back wondering why ever trusted God again. The smokescreen firefighter asks “Why does God treat me this way? Why does He not have mercy on me? Why does He not care for me? Am I not worth his consistent and unfailing care? Why will He not let me depend on him? Why doesn’t He follow through on his promises to me? What’s wrong with me?”
So this part feels like a sucker in God’s hands – the self-image of one who is toyed with by God, and enjoyed, consumed, and then discarded by the capricious Heartbreaker God.
Emotional distancer
Mike’s PartsFinder Pro report describes his emotional distancer as follows:
Mike’s emotional distancer proactively protects him against the experience of emotions, as he finds emotions dangerous because of their propensity to overwhelm him. The emotional distances inhibits anger, aggression, sadness, grief, and shame. However, as a side effect, positive experiences such as joy, warmth, affection, playfulness, etc. can also be shut down. He may have a Statue God image, and he may be actively protecting Mike during times of prayer by making it hard to remain recollected.
This part is certain that the Statue God image is not going to help him and doesn’t want to help him. He must manage on my own because God doesn’t care. Therefore, he will not try to engage with Him because it will not make any difference.
The smokescreen firefighter’s self-image is that of nothing – God doesn’t consider him to be anything, so he may not consider himself to be anything – there is nothing reflected in the mirror, a void.
Mike’s goal: to know that he is a beloved little son of God, across all his parts
So much of Mike’s inner work, not just in his spiritual formation, but also in his natural formation is to embrace at a deep, felt level, across more and more of his parts, that he is God’s beloved little son. That’s where he needs to be.
He will discover this as he allows God to be Who He Is and as Mike accepts who he really is. This is central to our whole mission at Souls and Hearts. We explore correcting God images and self-images especially in the Interior Integration for Catholics episodes 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 72, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 106, 107, 108, 131, 154, 155, and 156.
And identity and self-images are a major focus in the Resilient Catholics Community.
And finally, we need the virtue of magnanimity. Catholic philosopher Josef Pieper describes this virtue as:
“Magnanimity, a much-forgotten virtue, is the aspiration of the spirit to great things, ‘extensio animi ad magna’. A person is magnanimous if he has the courage to seek what is great and becomes worthy of it. This virtue has its roots in a firm confidence in the highest possibilities of that human nature that God did ‘marvelously ennoble and has still more marvelously renewed.’ (Roman Missal). [p. 86 in Faith Hope Love]
The virtue of maganimity aids us in seeking and embracing the highest possibility for us, namely becoming a beloved little son or daughter of God.
If you’re interested in learning more on identity …
Abiding Together series on identity: Many of you are familiar with the Abiding Together podcast which is “a weekly podcast hosted by Michelle Benzinger, Sr. Miriam James Heidland, and Heather Khym, providing a place of connection, rest and encouragement for people who are on the journey of living out their passion and purpose in Jesus Christ” according to the podcast website.
Sr. Miriam, Heather, and Michelle offered a series on the identity of Catholic women, as daughter, sister, mother, and bride ranging over 16 episodes from October 4, 2021 and ending on February 28, 2022. I offer both an endorsement and an invitation to check those out here for those wanting more on the different facets of women’s identity.
Restore the Glory episodes on identity: Nearly all of you are familiar with the Restore the Glory podcast with Dr. Bob Schuchts and Jake Khym; Episodes 104, 105, 106 and 107 review our identities as son/daughter, brother/sister, bridegroom/bride, and father/mother respectively and are definitely worth the time for those wanting to understand our identities as Catholics.
Jake Khym’s course on identity: For those who might want a much deeper dive into the topic of identity, solidly grounded in a Catholic anthropology and informed by Jake’s experience as a therapist, you might consider Identity: Discover Your God-Given Genius, which offers nine pre-recorded videos with more than ten hours of content, plus worksheets, etc.
The cost is $315 CAD, which works out, with current exchange rates, to about $220 USD at current exchange rates. Jake has offered 10% off for Souls and Hearts members with the discount code IDENTITY10. N.B.: This course does not focus on parts work, just FYI; but I’ve gone through the first module and found it really interesting and will continue with it. (Souls and Hearts doesn’t receive any commissions or affiliate reimbursement for mentioning Jake’s course).
Looking ahead…
In our next reflection on April 14, 2024, we will be looking at what it means to be an heir of God. We are not only sons and daughters, but Scripture tells us repeatedly that we are heirs. What does it mean for us to embrace our identity as God’s heirs. Join me for an exploration of this fascinating aspect of our identity.
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May 15, 2025 Zoom workshop with me on writing identity statements
Self-images and getting a grip on our own identity – who you are, who I am. That’s what we are doing in the next workshop on personal identity statements 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 God’s 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.
New Interior Integration for Catholics podcast episode – all about parts and the body
Check out IIC episode 162 Your Parts and Your Body (82 minutes) Video Audio
Here’s the description:
“The body remembers what the mind forgets,” psychiatrist Jacob Levy Moreno tells us. And Bessel van der Kolk takes it a step further – the body not only remembers, but “the body keeps the score.” Our parts have so much to tell us about their experiences – our “forgotten,” unconscious experiences – and so often, our parts communicate with us through our bodies. Will we listen? Will you listen? In this episode, Marion Moreland, Jennifer Maher, and host Bridget Adams share with why and how our bodies remember what our minds forget, with examples from their lives. They stress the importance of a felt sense of safety. And they and offer you step-by-step guidance to help you to listen to your body in an experiential exercise if you’d like to listen to your body and hear what your parts want your innermost self to know about your experiences.
This is our sixth episode in our Deep Dive in 2025 into Catholic Parts Work series. 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 if you haven’t done so already.
Souls and Hearts retreat for Catholic formators
Find out more here, and this is the lowdown:
Who? Catholic therapists, counselors, coaches, spiritual directors, priests – any adult Catholic who is responsible for the formation of other people in individual work (or those in training to be). And you don’t have to be a member of the Formation for Formations – we are inviting all Catholic formation who want to “come and see.” IFS Level 3 trained clinician Marion Moreland and I will be leading the retreat. We have space for about 40 retreatants, mostly in single rooms, with some doubles.
What? We will be focusing on your personal formation informed by Internal Family Systems and grounded in an authentic, rich Catholic understanding of the human person. This is not continuing education, this is not professional development, this is not primarily spiritual formation.
Rather, we are learning to do our human formation arithmetic so that our spiritual algebra is much better (see IIC episode 134 for more). Most Catholic formators have at least some blind spots, some areas in which they can shore up their own human formation, which is the basis of all formation, according to St. John Paul II in Pastores Dabo Vobis [§ 43].
Here’s a summary of “what” you will be offered:
- Experiential exercises
- Large group sessions
- A brief overview of Internal Family Systems, attachment needs, and integrity needs
- Breakout sessions for personal sharing (never forced)
- A parts mapping session to help identify your parts and their relationships inside
- Triad experiential work with other participants to help you connect with your own parts
- Dr. Peter’s workshop on spiritual bypassing
- 20-minute private individual consultation slots with Marion Moreland, with Bridget Adams, or with me
- Communal worship and prayer
- The sacraments of the Eucharist and Confession
- Meals together
- Fellowship
- Plenty of time for reflection and private prayer
Where? The Mother of the Redeemer Retreat Center in Bloomington, Indiana – it is a beautiful location, near and dear to my heart, a special, sacred place about one hour south of the Indianapolis International Airport (IND). Shuttles run regularly from the airport to Bloomington. Once you get to the shuttle drop-off point in Bloomington, we can run and get you.
When? 5:00 PM Eastern Time on Monday, August 8, 2025, finishing with a brunch in town at about 11:00 AM on Thursday, August 11, 2025.
Why? Because Catholic formators need their own formation – our Lord tells us to remove the beam from our own eye before the speck in another’s. In working with so many formators over the last two decades, I’ve seen first hand how when a formator loses peace, when agitation comes in, when the formator lacks groundedness – the other person didn’t “do” that to the formator – the most a client, spiritual directee, parishioner can do is to activate what is already there and unresolved in the formator. I discuss this in my 2022 webinar Of Beams and Specks: Therapist-Focused Consultation.
How? Not through lectures, books, and study. Rather, through lived experience. This is a highly experiential retreat. You cannot solve your problems of the heart by acquiring knowledge in the head. And it’s the experience of curative relationships, healing relationships within your own system, and also in our broader system of the retreatants together.
We also will have different tracks and breakouts for those who have more experience doing their own inner work with IFS, and those who have less to tailor the experience to you.
Cost? The all-inclusive cost for lodging, meals, and the four-day, 3-night retreat is $650 for double room (with a roommate – bring one, or we may be able to assign one) or $925 for a single room. A $200 or $225 non-refundable deposit for double or single, respectively, guarantees your retreat reservation.
Me? If you are a Catholic formator interested in parts work and your own human formation, yes, you.
More questions? Reach out to me, Dr. Peter, at crisis@soulsandhearts.com or on my cell at 317.567.9594, especially during my conversation hours, which are every Tuesday and Thursday from 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM Eastern Time.
Join us! We already have many signed up, but there is still room. Find out even more and register here.
Pray for us
Your prayers are critical for the success of Souls and Hearts in living out our vision, values, and mission. Please pray for us, that we be good stewards of what God has given us, and that we can bear great fruit for our Lord Jesus Christ.
Warm regards in Christ and His Mother,
Dr. Peter