IIC 164: What are Internal Systems in Catholic Parts Work?

[00:00:00] Dr. Peter: “Let’s face it. The universe is messy. It is non-linear, turbulent, and chaotic. It is dynamic. It spends its time in transient behavior on its way to somewhere else, not in mathematically neat equilibrium. It self-organizes and evolves. It creates diversity, not uniformity. That’s what makes the world interesting. That’s what makes it beautiful. That’s what makes it work.” That’s a quote from this book, Thinking in Systems, by Donella H. Meadows. We’re talking about systems today in episode 164 of Interior Integration for Catholics, and I want to give you some more quotes that she gives us. She says, ” Systems surprise us because our minds like to think about single causes, neatly producing single effects. We like to think about one or at most, a few things at a time, and we don’t like, especially when our own plans and desires are involved, to think about limits.” We like to keep things simple, she says. But if we’re able to break outta that over simplistic way of thinking, if we’re able to break free from this reductionistic way of understanding the universe, this reductionistic way of understanding ourselves, it can lead us to great freedom and to great goodness.

[00:01:29] Dr. Peter: Meadows goes on to say, “The systems thinking lens allows us to reclaim our intuition about whole systems and hone our abilities to understand parts, see interconnections, ask ‘what if’ questions about possible future behaviors, and be creative and courageous about system redesign.” That’s what I want for us. That’s what I want for you, is to be able to break out of limiting, incorrect, overly simplistic ideas that our parts so often have. Ben Lutkevich at techtarget.com says, ” Systems thinking is a holistic approach to analysis that focuses on the way that a system’s constituent parts interrelate and how systems work over time and within the context of larger systems. The systems thinking approach contrasts with traditional analysis, which study systems by breaking them down into their separate elements.” That’s the traditional way of analyzing is to look at the trees, the individual trees, not the forest. I am inviting you. I’m inviting you to understand the forest and the trees. That traditional analysis that  Lutkevich talks about is left brain dominant. It breaks things down for analysis. Deductive reasoning, going from the general to the specific, deconstructing wholes into their constituent parts. It’s rational. It focuses on the individual trees in the forest and there’s a place for that.

[00:03:01] Dr. Peter: But systems thinking approaches, that’s more of a right brain approach, very holistic, non-linear, intuitive. And Richard Schwartz has said that “IFS, Internal Family Systems, is systems thinking taken inside.” Schwartz goes on to say that, “Rather than asking, what is this made of? Systems thinkers ask instead, how do the components of this function as a pattern? And what is the larger context in which it operates? And how is it affected by that context? Rather than studying each part individually, they map relationships among the systems parts and within its context.” And so that’s what we’re all about. That’s what we’re doing here in this episode, episode 164. We are getting into understanding not just the parts, but the relationships among the parts, and not just the relationships among the parts, but also the purpose that parts have, the functions that they’re trying to meet. Why? So that we can understand ourselves better, so that we can understand our neighbor better, so that we can understand our relationships better, both our internal relationships and our external relationships. That is what this is all about. All in the service of carrying out the three great loves and the two great commandments. I am Dr. Peter Malinoski, also known as Dr. Peter. I am your host and guide in this interior integration for Catholics podcast, and I’m so glad to be with you. I’m a clinical psychologist, a trauma therapist, a podcaster, a writer, a co-founder and president of Souls and Hearts. But most of all, most of all, I am a beloved little son of God, a passionate Catholic who wants to help you taste and see the height and depth and breadth and the warmth and the light of the love of God, especially God your father, and also, also Mary your mother. Those two, God, your father, Mary your mother, are your spiritual parents. They’re your primary parents. And I’m here to help you embrace your identity as their beloved little child. 

[00:05:30] Dr. Peter: Throughout all of 2025, we are bringing in the insights from Internal Family Systems developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz and harmonize those insights, harmonize those concepts with the truths of the Catholic faith. Why? To help you live out the three great loves and the two great commandments, to love God, your neighbor, and yourself. And I’m bringing you the best of Catholic professionals in the field as my cohosts and as my experts to share with you their insights, their understanding, their experience. And why? To help you not only overcome obstacles and deficits in your human formation, but to help you thrive and flourish in fully embracing your identity as a beloved little son of God, a beloved little daughter of God. And not just with one or two parts of you, but with every single one of your parts, with all of your parts sharing in the bliss of a deep union with God. This is episode 164 of the Interior Integration for Catholics podcast. It’s a continuation of the topic of systems thinking taken inside, and it releases on Easter Monday, April 21st, 2025. We are expanding our understanding of the human person, not just as a monolith, not just as some homogenous entity, but as a multiplicity. And not just containing multiple parts, but looking at all those relationships among the parts and all the functions and purposes that those parts take on. 

[00:06:57] Dr. Peter: As I argued in episode 116 of this podcast, single personality is not enough and an innermost self, and all our parts and our bodies are not enough. We don’t just focus on the elements of our systems. We also focus on those inner connections within our systems. And so we are staying with the theme of systems and systems thinking that we started with in episode 163, the last one with Dr. Gerry Crete and Bridget Adams. And I am so glad that David Edwards is back with us. We did a longer intro of David back in episode 157 when we launched this whole deep dive into Catholicism, parts work, IFS, all grounded in a Catholic understanding of the human person. So David is an IFS therapist. He’s the founder of St. Joseph Counseling. He’s the president of Catholic Therapists Arizona. He leads the Love One Another group in the Formation for Formators community in Souls and Hearts. He’s been married for 10 years. He has three daughters and a 1-year-old son. He enjoys racing in triathlons with his wife, playing guitar and flying remote controlled helicopters with his dad and brother, and also playing with his children. It is so good, so good to have you back with us, David.

[00:08:16] David Edwards: Thanks, Peter. It’s great to be back with you.

[00:08:19] Dr. Peter: It’s awesome to be together and we are continuing, as I said, we’re continuing this discussion that we started in episode 163 with Dr. Gerry Crete on systems. And I’m just curious, where would you want us to start, David? Like if we were to begin with a new slate maybe here, systems thinking.

[00:08:44] David Edwards: What comes to mind for me is, I just thought about you talking about spiral learning and coming back around and reviewing, and I’m just like, let’s, just tell everyone what we mean by systems and how it applies to us, you know. 

[00:09:07] Dr. Peter: Right. Great. So yeah, tell me like critical aspects of systems. Let’s just kind of bounce those around. I mean, one thing that immediately comes to mind for me is that the sum is greater than the parts. Like, than the whole of the parts. There’s something more than just adding all the parts together in a system.

[00:09:34] Dr. Peter: Yeah. You have parts and you have a whole. And I was thinking about this. We say two heads are better than one. But I kind of like to change it a little bit and say two heads are better than two because when you bring the two together, they can work in some way that is even better, potentially, like better than each of the two could work individually, so it’s like more than two. And when you have a whole system of parts in any system, working together well, then you have something just way greater than what even each kind of siloed part of that system could produce, together or on its own. There’s this relational aspect that comes in. It’s not just you and me in sort of isolation, but kind of juxtaposed. There’s a relationship that comes in and that’s the critical element.

[00:10:29] David Edwards: Mm-hmm. Yeah. There has to be connections between the parts of a system, a flow of information, and yeah. A relationship in a word, a relationship.

[00:10:45] Dr. Peter: So why are we into the systems thinking? Let’s just try to get into why has this become more and more important. Because when originally Freud was developing psychoanalysis, for example, yes, there was the id, the ego, the super ego. You could think of that as an internal system, but he wasn’t thinking much about the relationships of the person outside himself or herself. And so it’s become more prominent later. And this whole is the greater than the sum of its parts. This idea that, there are these interrelated elements, that are going on inside of us and that are interacting also outside of us. Just take it from there. Like what might that all mean?

[00:11:29] David Edwards: Yeah, so I’m thinking that the idea of systems thinking more broadly applied has been around for some time. And you can find that going back hundreds and more years. But what’s new is taking that, something that Internal Family Systems and other forms of parts work are doing, is taking that system and applying it internally, to the inner person. We understand any system externally, everyone knows if you’re working with any type of system, a machine, a business, a family, you have to understand kind of the connections between the parts of the system and how they influence each other. But we haven’t applied that to the human person so much, the internal system. And it just leaves a lot wanting when we don’t have that. We really fall short in understanding ourselves and working through our challenges in some way if we’re missing it. And so it’s been one of the great gifts that Internal Family Systems has brought, I think just to humanity, and to me personally, to make a lot more sense of, why do I do what I do? Why do I think and feel the way I think and feel, looking at it in this much kind of broader and interconnected way.

[00:12:53] Dr. Peter: I am reminded of St. Paul. Why is it that I do that, which I don’t want to do. Romans 7:15. That’s the beautiful thing. And I think you hit on the critical thing. It helps us to understand like what’s going on within us, and it helps us to understand how what is going on within us is also interacting with other people. So that’s like the magic, or I don’t know, the benefit of understanding it in terms of systems thinking, if I know that I have parts and that it’s not just that these parts have an influence on me individually, but the way that they align or the way that they polarize, the conflict that they’re in, the way that a part of me in a given moment might be interacting with a part of my wife, for example. Those are the kinds of things that like really starts to bring clarity. And if we can begin to look at not just ourselves as a unity, but each one of ourselves as a multiplicity with parts, and we can begin to understand not only like the identity of these parts and what they think and feel and the impulses and desires they have, but the way that they relate. Because I think that each part has an interpersonal style. Like I think they have a traditional way of when they’re blended, when they’re in charge, when they’re driving the bus. This is the mode that I’m going to be operating in in interpersonal relationships. And so if we can begin to really understand the why of those relationships and we understand it in a really human way, coming down to the level of the part and the way that this part connects or doesn’t connect with other parts of us, I think that is just so powerful in terms of being able to foster all kinds of good things going on inside.

[00:14:51] David Edwards: Yeah. So I want to just hold that word understanding, which I’m suspecting will be a thread woven throughout our conversation today. Because if you’re going to bring change to anything, any system or situation, understanding what’s actually happening really has to be the foundation of that. It has to be there before you can really make any meaningful change that’s not going to have big repercussions, unwanted or unpredicted repercussions.

[00:15:29] Dr. Peter: Yeah, the law of unintended consequences, right? To be able to understand the why of how the relationships are going on in the system, then we can be much more thoughtful. We can be, I would say, much more loving in the way that we invite change. And it’s not just going to be imposed from the top down. It’s not just going to be manager-driven, if you will, just this is how it’s going to be, but it actually can take into consideration the needs that each member of our system has, each part of us has.

[00:16:11] David Edwards: Yeah. And it’s not a forced change then. It doesn’t have to be a forced change. That’s what we’re used to. I want to see this thing happen, and that’s a part, trying to make a thing happen, and I’m going to make it happen. And I mean, we all know, like you mentioned, St. Paul knows, the experience of saying, I’m going to do this thing, and then we don’t do it. Or we do it for a little while and then we’re not doing it anymore. It’s like, okay, that didn’t work. Because there’s more going on in the system that needs to be understood. So I think it’s worth taking a lot of time, more time than you might expect, just on the understanding phase.

[00:16:54] Dr. Peter: Let’s go back to a couple of just definitions of a system. I’m just going to rewind it a little bit. I love to use definitions. There’s definitions from Donella Meadows who I mentioned in the introduction and the lead-in. She says, “A system is an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organized in a way that achieves something. If you look at that definition closely for a minute, you can see that a system must consist of three kinds of things: elements, interconnections, and a function or a purpose.” And so I was starting to think about these three classes or these three categories of things that make up a system, the elements of the system, their interconnections, and then this function or purpose. And so I was thinking we could take a look at that for a minute. The elements of a system. And if we take it inside, if we take it to an inner system, an internal system, we begin to see what these elements are. There’s the innermost self, there is the parts. And that innermost self is, the way I define it anyway is: the core of the person, the center of the person. This is who we sense ourselves to be in our best moments. This is when we’re free, unblended with any of our parts. And the innermost self is meant to guide our entire being as an active, compassionate leader. In IFS terms, it’s the “seat of consciousness.”

[00:18:30] Dr. Peter: And these parts, they feel like separate independently operating personalities within us, each with its own prominent needs, their roles in our lives, the emotions, the body sensations, guiding beliefs and assumptions, typical thoughts, intentions, desires, attitudes, impulses, interpersonal style – again, that we’ll get back to that – and a worldview. And each part also has an image of God. So then, we’ve got the innermost self, we’ve got the parts and we’ve gotthe body, because the body is part of our system. And then we’ve got these other things that Dr. Gerry has listed in page 300 of his book, Litanies of the Heart. So there’s these other elements too, that come in– the faculties and the passions and the different appetites and the virtues, the conscience and all of that. So all of these things interacting within us. And if we begin to not look at them just in isolation, not just looking at conscience in isolation or a virtue that we possess or don’t possess in isolation or a part in isolation, it begins to really enrich things.

[00:19:43] David Edwards: Yeah. As you were talking about the self and the parts, I think every system needs a leader, and the parts, right? Both necessary, but without a leader to guide the parts in how they operate, to give them direction, to help them navigate the relationships with each other, it will be chaotic, and you could see that in any system. You’d see that in a business, if you have different departments of an organization, each doing their own thing, without something creating a coherence between them, it will be chaotic and the business won’t be very successful. So a good leader, and that’s one of the beautiful things about IFS is this idea of that there is a self who’s an active inner leader, who’s in relationship with all the parts and guides the parts to be in meaningful relationship with each other and work together in ways that work really well.

[00:20:43] Dr. Peter: I was thinking, there’s even a parallel in the body, like in the endocrine system, right? The pituitary gland is often called the master gland, because it influences all the other elements of the endocrine system, keeps them balanced and in harmony. Even in the natural realm, right? Even the body, there are these ways that a system, for example, the endocrine system, which is a subsystem of the body, is governed by that pituitary gland. Or, a classroom, ideally the teacher is an active leader, setting the tone and guiding the experience for each of the students.

[00:21:26] David Edwards: I like to think about even things like machines, like an automobile. You have, say, modern cars, a computer kind of that’s responsible to take in information from other parts, like sensors, throughout the vehicle that tell the computer, here’s what’s going on, here’s the levels of oxygen and fuel and here’s how everything’s running. They feed it to the computer, the computer takes that information in, makes sense of it, and gives guidance to the rest of the system, the worker parts of the system. There are parts that take in information. There are parts that do things with that information. There are parts that are active and produce the horsepower and the drive.

[00:22:08] Dr. Peter: Yeah. And in the natural realm I’m thinking of, we raise bees here at our farm, Nourishing Acres. You can think of the queen bee really being the center, the organizing element, if you will, for the entire hive. 

[00:22:22] David Edwards: Hmm. So we kind of touched on the elements, more or less, and we’re really getting into really the interconnections now, within the system, right. How the different parts are related. 

[00:22:37] Dr. Peter: And that’s where a lot of the trouble comes in, is when the elements of a system are not operating in harmony. And it touches on that third one, I’m sort of foreshadowing, right, which is the purpose of the system, right? Or the function of the system. But these interrelationships become really, really important. We know this sort of colloquially, right? We’ll say, I’m of two minds about going to this meeting tonight, right? I’ve got this part of me that really believes that we need to be more fiscally responsible with the parish, if this is a parish council meeting, but we also really need to replace the roof. It needs to be done. How do we handle that tension inside, right? 

[00:23:29] David Edwards: Yeah, and I think Donella Meadows says that the elements of the system are the easiest part to see, the easiest aspect of the system to see. It’s kind of obvious, it’s what we tend to notice, but the connections, the internal connections between the parts of the system is quite a bit more difficult to recognize.

[00:23:51] Dr. Peter: Yeah, because not everything meets the eye. There’s a lot that’s going on outside of, in a human person, for example, outside of conscious awareness. And so one of the great advances of the 20th century was Freud’s popularization of the unconscious, which is where a lot of this activity happens. Some of that, because we just don’t need to be aware of everything all the time. But some of it, because if we were aware of everything that was going on, it would be unsettling or even overwhelming for us, right? Because there’s some things about ourselves that we don’t want to see, some ways of connecting within ourselves that we might not want to see, or that we might not want to experience. I’m thinking about things like a mother, a wife who’s at a funeral for her husband of 25, 30 years, and she’s out of touch with parts of her that are grieving because that’s way too threatening, the implications of going on without her husband. And so she pours herself into all the details of the funeral and then the receptions and the hospitality, the greeting of people, keeping herself really busy. And so parts of her are really disconnected from the intensity of her grief, for example.

[00:25:17] David Edwards: Yeah. As you talked about that I am in my mind seeing kind of the parallel system of the parish finance council, that you gave and that there are going to be several members on the council. And some are thinking we need to replace the roof. And some are thinking we don’t have enough money and some are thinking there’s a lot of other things we need to spend money on. But probably everybody can’t talk at once, definitely, and different members are going to feel certain kinds of pressure to maybe not speak up and say what they’re thinking, by other members, because it might be too overwhelming to face the fact that we don’t have enough money to do all the things we need to do, or something along those lines.

[00:26:03] Dr. Peter: Yeah. An impossible situation, right?

[00:26:05] David Edwards: Yeah. Seeming impossible. Yeah.

[00:26:08] Dr. Peter: Seemingly, at least, impossible.

[00:26:11] David Edwards: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:26:13] Dr. Peter: One of the things that’s coming to mind, and we’re just sort of having this conversation, so lots of things are flowing, but no one part of a person has the capacity to really effectively lead and guide, and if parts are not in right relationship with the innermost self, then they’re going to lack vision. They’re going to lack the capacity to be able to understand what’s going on. So in one sense, the innermost self is like the hub, and the individual parts are like the spokes of a wheel, right? So the innermost self can bring those spokes together and connect them. And as the spokes get connected to the wheel, then they begin to also share in all the capacities that the innermost self has, those eight Cs, for example. But also to be able to access the perspectives and the understanding, the experience, the memories that other parts are in touch with.

[00:27:16] David Edwards: I really love that idea that when parts are connected like that, that they can access the qualities of the self, because we think a lot in IFS, like the self has these eight Cs and then the parts do other stuff. But we can notice definitely, especially as we enter a relationship with our parts, that they can also have those qualities. They’re meant to have those qualities. But then, yeah, when there’s a disconnection, and you have a part that’s not connected to another part, you can have things like parts either trying to do the same things over, or two different parts or multiple different parts responding to the same problem, but with different strategies, with different approaches. For example, you have a problem of there’s an exile who believes, I just don’t have what it takes to make it in the world, or something like that, not good enough. And then you have different parts seeing that problem. And if they’re not connected in with the hub and with each other, each one can be taken on a different strategy of how to deal with that, right? So maybe one says, well, I’m going to just work my tail off and become as absolutely competent as I can, read every book, and just figure it out. And another says, well, I’m going to just make sure everyone thinks that I’m okay and just tries to give a good image. And another says, I’m just going to escape and withdraw into food, TV, whatever else might be comforting or soothing or distracting, so that we just don’t have to think about that, because we just can’t make it. And so we’re just going to escape like this and enjoy what we can. And so you got these different parts responding to the same problem, but at these different ways. And obviously you have something chaotic.

[00:29:15] Dr. Peter: Still going off of your analogy, the really driving part, the one that wants to learn everything, become hyper competent, can get overcommitted to things, starting to become overcommitted at work, for example, the different projects. And that works for a while until the one part that wants to escape, like blends, takes over and begins to shut things down, watching a lot of TV and so forth. And then the projects are not getting done and there’s a sort of inconsistency. There’s not a harmony, the parts are not working in collaboration.

[00:29:44] David Edwards: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[00:29:48] Dr. Peter: I think of it a lot of times, as a rowing shell. A rowing shell has a coxswain and it has the rowers, eight rowers, for example. And it’s like, if one rower believes that, and let’s say that they’re just out for a row and they’re thirsty and they’re hungry. And one part, like one rower says, well, I know where there’s water, so I’m going to row that way. And another one says, I know where there’s a lovely island with a coconut tree, and it wouldn’t be great to have some coconuts, so I’m going to row that way. And another one says, I know where water is, but it’s closer, so I’m going to row this way. And so the boat winds up just kinda rotating in the water and none of those goals become achieved. None of those agendas, if you will, are going to be realized because of the conflict. If the coxswain steps up and says, okay, this is what we’re doing, and if the rowers trust the coxswain, if they are able to develop a relationship with that coxswain, trust that that coxswain knows what’s best for the boat, for all of them, and if they can apply themselves, even if they don’t all understand it, even if they don’t all see it with their limited vision, but there is a trust in the relationship with a person, if that coxswain, for example, is a secure attachment figure that they’ve come to rely on, then there’s a parallel to the innermost self. If the innermost self can become that secure attachment figure inside that the parts can rely on, then there’s a possibility for this collaboration, cooperation, for the parts to be working in harmony.

[00:31:26] David Edwards: I really like this point that the parts, the rowers, they don’t have to totally understand. That’s not the necessary thing for them to really see the whole picture and get what the coxswain, what the leader is doing. But if they have experiences of that leader where they feel loved, cared for, and that the leaders is like competent andis aware of what they’re concerned about, and they’ve had past experiences of maybe, I didn’t think they were going to take care of me, but then I saw later what they were doing. We could see that pretty easily with children and parents. A lot of times children don’t understand why their parents are doing what they’re doing. And you’ll see, a parent wants to explain, right? So it’s a good tool if the coxswain would give information about here’s why we’re going where we’re going to help them understand. But it’s not always possible to do all of that. But if the child knows that the parent has my interest at heart, then they’re going to trust, be more willing to trust, like, yeah, I should go to bed right now, or I shouldn’t eat that bag of candy, or run out into the street or things like that.

[00:32:33] Dr. Peter: Yeah. So I’m imagining – you have a one-year-old son, right?

[00:32:36] David Edwards: Yeah.

[00:32:37] Dr. Peter: And let’s say that you’re going to visit, so you’re in Arizona, right? So he may not understand why he has to bring his coat, when you’re going to go visit some relatives that live in Minnesota. It wouldn’t occur to him, why do I need a coat? But the parent is looking out for him, you’re looking out for him, to make sure that he is going to be equipped if when you land that plane in Minneapolis and it’s 20 degrees out and there’s a wind. 

[00:33:05] David Edwards: And I think it fits nicely there, because parents can’t do everything for their kids. When they’re little, they do a lot for them. But then what we want is to teach the kids why and help them learn as they grow older, to do things themselves and to take those things on so that when you have a family that’s grown and kids are older, you can have a family that’s working well together and they’re each kind of taking care of what they need to for themselves and for the family. And the parents don’t have to be quite so active in directing. And I think that’s how it can develop with our inner systems too, is we can be in a place where there’s disconnection, there’s burdens, there’s conflict between parts, and at first the self has to be a lot more active in bringing them together and teaching them and guiding them, right? But then there can be a place where you have the row team and when they’ve been working together really well for a while, or the analogy of like an orchestra, right? And you have a conductor who’s guiding them. At first, there’s a lot of guidance, but if that orchestra’s been working really well together for a long time and everyone knows their part and they know what others are doing and they trust each other, the conductor doesn’t have to do so much. The system works really well together. 

[00:34:19] Dr Peter: I like the imagery of a jazz band as a system too, because when the members of a jazz band are really in sync, when they are in tune with one another, and then every jazz band has a leader. There’s no doubt. He’s choosing the key, setting the beat and so forth. But then there’s room for these parts to start doing some improvisational stuff, like to be able to begin their own riffs that are consistent with the rest of the music. It’s in line, but it’s bringing out the particular uniqueness of the individual musicians, the individual parts. And when I started doing IFS, as I started to work in IFS as a therapist, I worked really hard to be doing therapy for my innermost self. And that’s a really good thing. But what I realized as the years went on, is that there are certain things that my parts can do if they’re self-led, that my innermost self can’t do. For example, there are parts of me that will reach out to similar parts in a client or similar parts of a friend if I’m in a friendship, and I sense that there’s a particular part in that friend who’s hurting. That part can actually connect in a deeper way than the innermost self could ever do without that part. So the parts can actually begin to lead as long as they are in right relationship with the innermost self. Just like the musicians in a jazz band could be inspired and they can begin to do a solo, for example. The other parts are recognizing what’s going on, responding to it, supporting it, because maybe still the drummer is going to doing a little thing in the background while the trumpeter is doing a solo. But it like brings the fullness of our being into our relationships within ourselves, but then also into our relationships with other people. And this is the great secret, I think, of IFS when we understand it from a Catholic perspective, is that it can help us to love with our whole heart. Like all of our being, all of our parts, and those relationships among those parts having this really synergistic, this really cooperative effect that’s more than if we just loved with each individual part separately, to the degree that that could happen.

[00:36:00] David Edwards: Yeah. I was thinking about a family again, the external family, and as the older kids grow older, and if they’re connected with the parents and they receive the love and guidance and nurture they need, they start to care for the younger kids in a way. Parents don’t, you don’t just have to tell them. That could be its own problem if parents are trying to get older kids to just take care of the younger kids. But it happens naturally and organically where an older kid who just wants to reach out to the younger ones, to be a big brother, be a big sister, to guide them in their own way, to help them along, to connect with them on the things that they understand. It’s like, hey, I’ve been there. I know that. I get that. And then you have a system where there’s not just, the self loves the parts or the leader loves and cares for, and guides the members, but the members love and appreciate one another and support one another too, because they know what they’re about. They know what the others are trying to do. I’m starting to appreciate also your jazz band analogy a little bit more. When I’ve heard you talk about it before, I was kind of like, eh, yeah, I like the orchestra better, because it’s got a conductor and I don’t know, there’s something there, and maybe it’s one of my perfectionistic parts, because when you think about an orchestra, I tend to think of perfection. Every note perfect, every dynamic perfect, every piece of timing, entrance and exit, and just absolute unison. And it almost feels like a pipe dream. An impossible task. You never have a perfect symphony. The jazz band, gosh, I’m just liking this, because the jazz band, they don’t even care that much. Like, they love to play wrong notes. It’s like the rhythm, and the unison of being together, is the most important thing, maybe, one of the most important things. But they’re like, you play a wrong note and everyone kind of adapts to it and goes off it and acts like it was the right note and we just keep rolling with it and something new emerges from that. So I’m appreciating that a lot more now because it just connects with the imperfection of humanity and the experimentation and kind of courage to try something new. And that a part of the system can be like, ah, I want to try out this new thing and maybe it doesn’t go great, but everyone else, if there’s a good sense of relationship, we can adapt to that and we can work with each other. And also I think, I tend to think probably, and I’m a drummer, but I tend to think of the drummer as the self of the jazz band, if there’s a self of the jazz band. But that’s just my opinion. 

[00:39:44] Dr. Peter: Well, what I also like about the jazz band analogy is that there’s no score. Like things are more fluid. Like I have had parts that would love to have it all laid out and know exactly what every note should be at every moment and find it in the music. But I think so often life doesn’t work like that. And we might find inspiration, we might find answers in really unexpected places. The music could take us way far away from where any score would’ve ever been written in the past. I mean, the beautiful thing about jazz, especially improvisational jazz, is that you are constantly sort of exploring new zones. And to me, like, that’s an adventure. That’s exciting. That’s like, wow. And everybody has a place. And the other thing about it is that not every instrument needs to be playing all the time. Parts can rest. We actually have that in the music, like rest, and other parts can pick it up and there can be like dialoguing. So the saxophone is talking with the trumpet. But yeah, I like the idea of the drummer because that’s like the steady kind of ongoing.

[00:40:52] David Edwards: A unifying principle.

[00:40:56] Dr. Peter: Yeah.

[00:40:57] David Edwards: Yeah. So I feel this happening a little bit right now as we’re talking because a minute ago I had a part of me kind of like, wait a minute, because we got this outline, right? It was like, where are we at in the outline here? And then I stepped back a little bit from that and thought, we’re riffing a little bit here. And I connected it with the jazz band because– also a difference between an orchestra and a jazz band is, I mean, members of an orchestra have fun and they enjoy what they’re doing and they appreciate it and it’s got a whole other level of beauty. But the jazz band, like, those guys are having a blast. They’re like, yeah, man, let’s go! And they’re like, they’re smiling and laughing at each other, and everyone’s like pointing at the one guy who’s doing the solo. And it’s just fun. They’re having a good time, even if they’re not following the music. Like you said, like sometimes you end up producing something totally new and even greater than what the music could have been if you roll with it like that and take chances.

[00:41:53] Dr. Peter: Well, and it allows for the Holy Spirit to begin to work too. It allows for there to be space for God to be active. And I do see the innermost self as the bridge, if you will, or maybe the conduit for graces to come into the system. Otherwise, if you go back to that wheel analogy, you have a hub over here and a spoke over here, and a spoke over here. They’re all disconnected and, let me put it this way. I don’t think God wants to work with us in such a disaggregated way. Like I don’t think he wants to form like a relationship with each separated spoke. I think he wants to respect the hierarchy that is within us, or at least the hierarchy that should be within us with the innermost self leading and guiding the rest of the system.

[00:42:52] David Edwards: Yeah, the word trust is coming up for me with that, that God wants to work with us in a relationship built on trust, and where there’s a capacity for trust, then there’s a capacity for more, for greater relationship with God. But thinking of the human formation, that capacity for trust starts with the human relationships, external to us and simultaneously internally– the relationships between our parts. And so it almost is like we can end up being blocked from the working of the Holy Spirit when our capacity for trust is not there. And if our capacity for trust is built within the system and the human dimension among the parts and the self, then there’s this opening for the capacity to trust the Holy Spirit who works among the system as a whole.

[00:43:55] Dr. Peter: That was the big theme that I took away from reading Sherry Weddell’s book, Forming Intentional Disciples, is that there has to be some kind of trust somewhere in something Christian, in order for evangelization to happen. And so she has this whole phase of pre-evangelization, which is about establishing that trust. And if the parts in a system trust the innermost self, if they’ve begun to taste and begun to experience love from the innermost self, it makes it possible to believe that there is love outside in ways that could be accessed. And they might be willing to like hold the innermost self close as the innermost self introduces them, for example, to one of the members of the Trinity, to one of the persons of the Trinity, or to Our Lady, for example. And that was the point that I was making in episode 131, On God’s Role in Your Human Formation, is that a lot of times devout, faithful, well-intentioned Catholics, Christians will try to introduce parts immediately to God without there being a relationship of trust. And it can be very frightening, especially because of the God images that these parts have. And so I love how you’re focusing on that word trust. You know, who can these parts trust and Dr. Peter Martin, I think it was in episode 154, maybe it was in 155, but he was talking about go with where parts can feel safe, go with, where parts can feel a sense of trust first. Work with them where they’re at, attune to them and their needs within the system. Don’t impose some sort of external protocol on them because it’s worked with another part or it’s supposed to work according to some authority, some author, something like that. But to really enter into the phenomenological experience of that part and see, in an interpersonal relationship with that part and the being with that part, what would be helpful.

[00:46:18] David Edwards: Yeah, it’s really the starting place, and that’s a kind of inner evangelization, right?

[00:46:24] Dr. Peter: Right. That’s what Dr. Peter Martin calls internal evangelization, where we’re actually working with our parts, because remember, each part that’s not in right relationship with the innermost self will have a God image that’s distorted, that contains elements of heresy, material heresy, not formal heresy if it’s not embraced, by the innermost self, but yeah, at least material heresy. And the only way that can be corrected, really, because those God images were formed experientially, the only way they can be corrected is experientially. It’s by coming into contact with God as he actually is. And often the preliminary steps that are necessary is to be able to come into contact with love. And that’s, I think, what’s curative, what’s healing to systems, what’s motivating to parts, what meets those deep underlying attachment needs and integrity needs.

[00:47:25] David Edwards: Yeah. A part that has a really negative God image, and is maybe really afraid of God, it can feel like a massive leap, a huge chasm to go across, to move toward God. And so starting with, if there’s this trusting relationship with the self, and then, when enough trust is built, the self can say, Hey, it could be worth it. I can help you to cross this chasm in some way. Maybe to connect with those qualities of self again, like courage, and to be carried along in a way. That’s beautiful. I mean, I like that connection between the internal evangelization and pre-evangelization or the new evangelization. When I was younger, I served with NET Ministries and with St. Paul’s Outreach at different times, which is a Catholic university outreach. And St. Paul’s outreach has households, communities that live near campus and we just go out and you’re not leading with talking about the Gospel or something like that. Maybe sometimes you do, but you’re inviting people to come around the house and come hang out and just get to know each other, and then this is the starting place, this is the foundation. It’s just a real human relationship, and then that goes somewhere from there.

[00:48:49] Dr. Peter: So we’ve talked about the elements of a system, and we’ve talked about the relationships among the parts of a system or the elements of a system. And so what Meadows gives us as the third element in a system is the purpose or the function. And a couple of things here. I mean, Meadows says, “An important function of almost every system is to ensure its own preservation.” So I was thinking about that first primary integrity need of survival, which motivates some parts, like because they’re not certain about it, right? And they’re really insecure about their own survival and that first primary condition of secure attachment, of felt safety and protection and relationship, again, touches right on that.

[00:49:44] David Edwards: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it’s the most foundational, right? Like the first that needs to be there for anything else to follow from it. And so if the system can’t survive, then nothing else happens. So to survive and to have safety. And you can see that, and just about any, especially any organic system, any animal or plant, for that matter, is pretty clear that the most basic kind of fundamental instincts are just about survival. Breathing, eating, sleeping, and then fighting to survive, fight or flight system.

[00:50:24] Dr. Peter: And one can understand that if there’s questions about my survival or questions about whether I’m safe in relationship, that those could be buried in the system, that other parts might not want those concerns bubbling up or flooding up because of how intense the concerns can be about that. So oftentimes these fears and concerns about survival, for example, and I talked about this a lot in episode 161, those get buried. Those parts are abandoned. They’re condemned often by other parts because of the burden that they carry. And those other parts don’t even realize that they’re able to function in the world because another part has stepped into the breach and is holding the terror around survival.

[00:51:10] David Edwards: Wow. Wow.

[00:51:12] Dr. Peter: You know, this is where parts can be really unaware of what other parts are doing and then the why of why they’re doing it. What’s the function or the purpose? Because this is where we get at cross purposes. This is where we get at conflicts around what’s happening, right? Why are parts having the desires and the impulses that they’re having, why do they hold the positions that they hold or the beliefs or the assumptions? And one of the bedrock assumptions of Internal Family Systems is that parts always have good intentions for us. They’re actually seeking the good for us. 

[00:51:51] David Edwards: Yeah. Yeah. Great that we’re talking about the function, the purpose. I know that point from Meadows, was that the elements are the easiest to see. And then the interconnections between them are harder to see. And then I think also says that now the purpose or the function of the system, is actually the most difficult to see. But it actually becomes, I don’t know if it’s the most important, if you could say what’s most important, you probably can’t say what’s most important, but when it comes to, if we’re going to bring any change or good positive change or healthy functioning to a system, we gotta understand why it’s doing what it’s doing, and what the purpose of the system is. 

[00:52:38] Dr. Peter: She says, Meadows says that, “The least obvious part of the system, its function or purpose, is often the most crucial determinant of the system’s behavior.” And so yeah, if we’re not in touch with why we’re so afraid about survival, why a part of us is concerned about survival, we’re not going to understand the impulses or the desires that part has, even when they come into conscious awareness. I’m thinking about, IFS actually, Richard Schwartz was working with individuals with eating disorders. And I’m thinking about like, why might there be these desires or impulses to lose so much weight, anorexia, for example, beyond what would be healthy. So a five foot 10 college sophomore now is weighing 92 pounds, right? This is really a low body weight. But if you begin to understand that there’s a part of her that believes that unless she’s thin, she will never, ever be loved, and if she’s never, ever loved, she’s going to die or she’s going to cease to exist, or she’s going to be unlovable, like for forever, and this is very primitive, like gut level knowing. And if she gets down to 102 pounds and she’s doesn’t feel loved, well, then she’s gotta get down to 98. Maybe that would be the point, but it’s not working, so we’ve gotta get down to 95, and if you understand that that’s what’s going on, then you can address the real issue here of the underlying needs for love and relationship, the need to be accepted, to be embraced, for someone to look at her and say, it’s good that you exist, rather than to focus on how many calories are you taking in, how many meals did you eat? Or did you purge? or whatever the symptom manifestations are.

[00:54:51] David Edwards: Yeah. Yeah, because if you have another part, a manager part that’s just trying to put weight on and eat and gain weight, focusing on that and saying, this is what we need, so we’re going to do it just in this kind of linear, non-systemic way. Then all it’s going to do is that part that carries that belief that you mentioned is just going to get more afraid, More desperate. 

[00:55:22] Dr. Peter: Because the eating, yeah, the eating is like lethal. If we eat this meal, we’re going to die. And the other part’s saying, if we don’t eat this meal, we could die. It’s like the tension is over extremely high stakes. And so, I think you’ve pointed out many times how when our parts are blended and burdened and they’re working in some way, taking over, that they’re usually trying to meet some attachment need or integrity need that, at least in that part’s perception or experience or some part’s experience, is unmet. And if we can offer an alternative way that’s healthy and wholesome, that elevates and lifts up the entire system for that part to have that need met, that is so much better. That is so much better. But we have to understand it in terms of systems, and we have to understand it in terms of those relationships. We have to understand in terms of the parts, the elements, but we also need to understand the agendas of parts, right? This is the purpose or the function, at the level of the part, is an agenda. That’s how I think about an agenda from systems thinking. Whereas the overarching goals of the self is that every part in the system have its needs met in a healthy way, in a way that elevates the entire system because ultimately what’s good for one part of the system is going to be good for all parts of the system. There’s a kind of harmony about what’s best or what’s good.

[00:57:02] David Edwards: And the purpose, again, this point, the purpose, is not always, in fact, almost all the time, is not obvious. The agenda of the part is not always obvious. Many parts won’t be aware of what the part is actually trying to do. Getting thin like that, right, and restricting eating, the person collectively could not consciously be aware at all of that reason why, what the agenda actually is. So to really listen and to seek, to understand what’s the agenda actually, what’s it actually trying to do? That’s not an easy task.

[00:57:41] Dr. Peter: No, but if we can connect because the surface purpose can be, I have to lose weight, but that’s just the manifest reason. If you connect with the part– what would happen if you didn’t lose weight? Well, I won’t be attractive. No one will fall in love with me. I’ll never get married. I’ll wind up old and gray and alone and overweight and the only ones that will pay any attention to me are my cats, or something like that. It’s not just about losing weight, it’s about what that means, to the part.

[00:58:18] David Edwards: Yeah. Yes. And there could be all sorts of reasons why the agenda stays hidden. You mentioned how managers can be terrified of the overwhelming intensity of what that exile would bring to the surface. And it brings to mind for me, again, this business analogy, which I kind of know from working in a big corporation in the past that, being a ground level worker, that I would see problems, right? Problems that exist here, but it felt like the higher ups didn’t want to know, didn’t want to hear what the problems were, right? Decisions would come down and it’d be like, we’re going to do this. And immediately, working at the ground level, I’d say, well, that’s not going to work really well for this and that reason. But not having the opportunity to be heard and express that reason, right? So, like I had an agenda at the ground level. I was trying to deal with problems that I saw, and had a voice that needed to be heard. Maybe upper managers didn’t want to hear it because it’d be too much to deal with. They didn’t want to hear, the business wasn’t going well, maybe, or to have to deal with all those problems. But of course they had their perspectives and reasons for bringing down what they did. But there was this disconnection between the different levels and parts of the system. 

[00:59:44] Dr. Peter: Well, Meadows says that, “Purposes are deduced from behavior, not from rhetoric or stated goals.” So that’s a quote from Meadows and I like that, that we don’t necessarily just take what parts tell us as the purpose or the agenda because they may not, as you said, they may not understand or recognize their agendas. They may be out of touch with why they’re even doing what they’re doing. Some of these parts are phenomenologically very young. And they may not understand. They just know that something has worked in the past. So I think we need to really begin to think about and appreciate and even be thankful for the good intentions that parts have for us, even when their impulses or desires would lead us to undesirable maladaptive behaviors, even sinful behaviors. If we appreciate the part’s good intentions, that doesn’t mean that we embrace or endorse some problematic impulse or some problematic desire or some course of action that that part wants us to take. And we can make that distinction.

[01:00:59] Dr. Peter: Yeah. And then bringing the connections between the parts that were in conflict so that they can allow a little more space for the others to have their needs matter, their concerns addressed. Like the manager who’s pushing to gain weight, right. That part needs to become connected with this understanding of what the part that’s losing weight is trying to do, what the intention is, so that the part can allow work that needs to happen, to happen. And not just try to push the part away, but allow, okay, that part needs to be connected and to be loved and to know that she can be loved no matter what, loved unconditionally, to have those attachment and integrity needs met. And that’s what Meadow says. I mean, she says, “Keeping sub purposes and overall system purposes in harmony is an essential function of successful systems.” And those sub purposes are those agendas of parts or those particular pushes to meet those needs that a part could carry in a special way because of the burden that that part carries, or a role that that part has in the system. To be appreciative of those things and not just to say no. Because there’s an attitude that a lot of manager parts have to just say no, right? We just say no to that, instead of understanding how is that an attempt to help? And in fact, even Meadows who is not a mental health professional, but she said that addiction is “finding a quick and dirty solution to the symptom of the problem, which prevents or distracts one from the harder or longer term tasks of solving the real problem.” so even she in her systems thinking recognizes that the addictive behavior is an attempt to solve a problem or attempt to resolve a problem, but it doesn’t get to the deeper issue because the focus is all on, not taking the substance, for example, or not engaging in an addictive behavior. Ask the question like, what’s the meaning? What’s the purpose? There’s just an assumption that that’s bad and we don’t do it. So just stop it. Just don’t do it. Just say no. And that doesn’t solve the problem at the deeper level. And so the systems thinking can invite us into a conversation within, where we’re able to be with more and more of our being and the struggles that are being played out in the different parts of us.

[01:03:46] David Edwards: I’m thinking again of two heads are better than one. Two heads are better than two. That the system collectively working in a well-ordered way as a whole, can do a way better job at meeting the sub purposes, at taking care of the sub purposes that one part with that sub purpose might be trying to take care of. Because that sub-purpose is important.

[01:04:12] Dr. Peter: Yes.

[01:04:12] David Edwards: We’re not trying to say to parts, let go of whatever the sub purpose is so you can connect with a bigger purpose, but let’s all join in the whole system so we could see what the sub purposes and the whole purpose of the system, is about. And then we collectively as a group can tend to everything that needs tending to. And that, in my mind, brings it around to this question about– because we’re talking about the purposes of parts when there’s burdens and protection going on and disconnection. But I think it’s really worth asking what the purpose of a system, the human system, is meant to be. And maybe we’ll come back to this a little bit, but I just think.

[01:04:59] Dr. Peter: You going to bring up some existential questions for us, David? You’re going to get into this question of like the meaning of life?

[01:05:08] David Edwards: Yeah. I mean, isn’t that what it’s about? Because since we’re talking about purpose, if we’re looking at a purpose of what a burdened system looks like, shouldn’t we have a kind of a standard or a vision for what the healthy system looks like? and maybe we’ll come back around to it a little more, but the first thing that comes to mind for me when I think about that is the first paragraph of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which is: “God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life.” And to me, that captures the purpose of life, is to share God’s own blessed life. And so it goes to relationship, it goes to love, it goes to all the attachment needs and the integrity needs. And so the overall purpose, which is neat because there is an alignment when you can really get to what the sub purposes are of burdened parts, an effort to meet some attachment or integrity need. But it all comes to a need to be in loving relationship, with God, our creator and with one another.

[01:06:11] Dr. Peter: Yeah, and that’s a system, right? If we’re in relationship with another person or the three Persons of the Trinity, we’re invited into a system. And the beautiful thing about that is that we don’t lose our identity as an element in the system. Like we don’t just get absorbed and then just become lost like a drop in the ocean. Like we continue to be who we are. We continue to have an identity that allows us to have a relationship. And that’s really what Souls and Hearts is all about. It’s all about overcoming these natural level human formation difficulties that keep us from entering into a deep and abiding union, an intimate relationship with the three persons of the Trinity. That’s ultimately why I love the systems thinking is because it helps us to get there.

[01:07:18] David Edwards: Yeah, that brings up a question that’s been floating around in my head a little bit, especially as I listened to the recording for the previous episode, 163. And there was some discussion, between you guys about this kind of concept of individualism being a newer and foreign concept in Catholic thought and that more systems thought is really what’s more been prevalent in the church, right, and throughout history. And I just, I wrestle with this as a Catholic, because I know that God created us as a people, and he has a relationship collectively with his people and that we need to see and value that as a system. But then, how do we kind of balance or integrate this? Just curious to hear your thoughts with, what is a healthy level of individualism or how do I view the balance between God having a relationship with his people at God having a relationship with me personally?

[01:08:23] Dr. Peter: Yeah, it’s a fascinating question. I tend to think of the church as a body. We’re told that, right? This is the mystical body of Christ. The church is the mystical body of Christ. And if we’re all members of one body, then we’re all kind of in the same boat, right? There is an element at which we impact each other. And there are members of the church that are building up that body, and there are members of the church that are tearing down that body. There are cells in that body, if you will, that are healthy and they’re contributing to the health of the body. And then there are cancers, cancerous cells that are harming the body. Even if the intentions are good, the effects can still be bad. So, I think that to hold this idea that St. Paul gives us that we are one body, but that we can have separate results of our lives, right? That some of us may become saints and others not. And it’s going to be about ultimately the individual decisions that we make. So I think it’s a both-and. I think we fail to understand how important the individual is and we fail to understand how important the system is or the body is. Like, I think we underestimate both.

[01:09:51] David Edwards: Yeah. Yeah. I just really appreciate that. I appreciate that we can bring together, and not have a kind of a swinging of the pendulum from one direction to the other, but bringing together that the system is valued and needed and important and that each part of the system. Is it fair to say each part of the system is equally valuable as the whole system?

[01:10:23] Dr. Peter: I would think of them as, yeah, all necessary. Because again, systems have hierarchies, right? So if we want to say that, in the mystical body of Christ, is Christ as the head of the body more important than me? In one sense, yeah. He is the one who was the second person of the Trinity brought to earth to redeem us all. I didn’t do that. And there wouldn’t be any salvation without him. So there is a hierarchy. That’s actually what Meadows says about these systems is that resilience, self-organization, and hierarchy are three of the reasons dynamic systems can work so well. That hierarchy is actually really important. So there’s a hierarchy within us. Ideally the innermost self is leading and guiding the system and the church with Christ as the head. We want Christ leading and guiding the church, otherwise we’re going to be lost, we’re going to get lost. And we want there to be that resilience in that organization too. And those are again, central concepts in Souls and Hearts. Resilience, the Resilient Catholics Community, hierarchy and becoming organized or integrated inside. So I think we want to be really focused on those sorts of things.

[01:11:40] David Edwards: I like the point of resilience, and I know you’ve spent a lot of time talking about that. And another word that was coming to mind as I thought about it was self-correcting and how a healthy system is self-correcting. I think about, I guess the jazz band, right? Someone can mess up, right? Someone’s going on just a crazy solo and they get lost, right? They’re like, I don’t know where I am. But they can connect back in with the system and the drummer holds the beat and they can listen to that and jump back in. Or even an automobile, right? Like an O2, an oxygen sensor, right? Feeds information into the computer and says, we’re too rich, or we’re too lean here. And the computer can adjust to the ratio of fuel to air to make the car run better. So even within us, some parts are more naturally oriented towards detecting problems. Those are the types of parts that maybe can be really anxious parts. Some parts are very good at offering suggestions. Some parts are very good at implementing suggestions and all of those parts need to be equal, need to be valued, right, to have a voice. And when they can all have a say and be connected with each other, then the system can self-correct when there’s something that goes awry. And I think to me that kind of captures, at least in some sense, what resilience is.

[01:13:07] Dr. Peter: And Gerry Crete was bringing this out in episode 159 on parts, how our parts are resource-rich. You know that they actually have capacities, they have qualities that are unique to them in the system, unique to a particular part. There isn’t another part in a jazz band, for example, that can play the trumpet. There’s usually one trumpet, there’s one saxophone, and there’s not another instrument that can replicate. So all of these parts are indispensable in the system. They’re all necessary. And so that to me is like, wow, there is a place for me in the universe, like there is a place for me in the universe. And not only that, there’s a place for every part of me within me and in the universe, that before time began, that that place and that space was determined by God and I can trust in that.

[01:14:09] David Edwards: It’s such a beautiful thing. I feel like a sense of comfort, just inside. It’s like some of my parts take that in a little bit more like in a really concrete, just a way that seems to soak in even a little bit more. Like, there’s something for you. You are valuable, you have something to contribute, you are important, you are necessary for the system. And it’s wild that that’s true for each part of me and each part of every person. 

[01:14:45] Dr. Peter: And we make a distinction between parts and their burdens. Not every burden is needed, not every extreme role that a part has, but those are not the parts, they’re not the essence of the parts at all. Every part, if I get to heaven, I will get to heaven with all my parts, no part left behind. And I just sort of wonder if we could actually go into an experiential exercise about this. I wonder if this is a good time to kind of head into that.

[01:15:15] David Edwards: Yeah. Yeah, I think it sounds great. I want to emphasize going into that, something that we had touched on at the start, maybe just to set the stage a little bit for an experiential exercise, which is the need to just gain understanding. That’s the starting place. And I like these 90/10 rules, that apply in different ways. And I have a thought that there’s a 90/10 rule that applies here where, and again, these numbers are totally arbitrary. But I think if we can spend and put 90% of our effort toward really seeking to understand and know what’s going on with the system and with the parts of the system and the connections and the purposes. Then, a 10% effort toward bringing changes to the system, we can leverage those efforts in the ways that they’re really needed. One hobby I have kind of liked to do on the side is woodworking. But I’m not very good. And the reason that I’m not very good, at least a lot of the time, is because I just get an idea in my head and I just want to jump in and start working. And I want to build the thing. I just want to start shaping the wood, connecting pieces together and just doing it. And when I do that, it just doesn’t come together right. I’m frustrated. The end product is not what I wanted it to be. I hurt myself probably in some ways. I make multiple trips back to the store or the lumber yard to get things that I didn’t know that I needed or because I broke something and needed to replace it. 

[01:17:11] David Edwards: But when I can slow down and spend a lot of time planning, get out the grid paper, draw the plans, get some plans, know what I need ahead of time, and really map out how everything is meant to fit together and what I really want it to look like and my steps even, how I’m going to methodically work through this and bring this piece together. Man, the process is enjoyable and the end product is beautiful and I’m happy with it and just something really great there. But I have parts that are eager just to start to make changes and do things and figure it out and take action. And when those parts take the lead and so often parts like that are taking the lead in therapy, in therapists, in clients in therapy, or whatever, when we’re trying to do our human formation work, it’s like this eagerness to bring change. So bringing this to an experiential exercise for right now, I’m going to really be inviting us to slow the pace there and to really bring a focus to just connecting with some parts and just listening to them. So for this exercise, as always, gonna invite you to be in a good place for this. Somewhere safe, where you’re not driving, but where you can have some privacy, where you can be at peace for a little while. Some quiet. Take whatever’s helpful. You can pause at any point if you want to. If you want to spend a little more time with something. Pay attention to how you’re doing. If anything’s coming up that’s really activating, that would be dysregulating, that would get you pretty out of sorts or the hyper arousal, hypo arousal, it’s okay to just step back a little bit, and do something a little different for a while.

[01:19:05] David Edwards: And so with all that being said, going to invite you to a little time here to settle in and get comfortable where you are. Close your eyes, if that feels all right. And we’re just going to allow some space here for you to be with yourself, for you to be with your parts as a leader, as a guide, as someone who can help them. To know each other, to be known, to be connected, to have their needs met, and see if you think of just some maybe recent concern in your life, some difficult situation, maybe the relationship with a person or some challenging situation in work or school, or just see what comes to mind, some challenge in your life, and to have that. I want to see if you can extend an invitation to any of your parts who have a stake in that problem or something who are connected with it in some way. Any part that would like to communicate, anything about that problem or challenge. I want to really convey the message, each part is valuable. Each part has thoughts, feelings, opinions, ideas that are valuable, and as you start to notice if you notice some parts come forward or some thoughts or images or words coming to mind, just want to give each part the opportunity to share his or her concerns, thoughts, feelings about that situation. And the focus here is on listening. We’re not trying to do anything with it yet. We want to ask each part to respect every other part’s space to share. Just as each one does, just want to acknowledge. Thank that part. What do they each want you to know? How do they each view the situation? How do they see it affecting you or them? How do they want to deal with it or respond to it? And take your time with that. If you need a little more time, you can pause. And whenever it seems that you’ve heard and understood what each part is bringing, you want to just thank them, really just extend gratitude to each of them for showing up and sharing these things with you, for allowing some space here to work as a team.

[01:22:58] David Edwards: And if it seems good to you, you can propose a question to your parts now. Are they willing to trust you to lead them in this situation? Would they be willing to trust you with a decision or a direction, an approach? And any answer is okay. We don’t want parts to feel pressured to say yes. Some might say yes, some might say no. Maybe some have conditions. And just again, want to listen, acknowledge, and just hear what concerns they could have about that. You can pause there again, if you need a little more time. With all that, we’re going to start to bring this to a close here for now. Just want to offer a lot of gratitude to your parts for coming together and maybe see what might seem good to you, to your parts, for a good next step. With this, maybe some parts have more they want to say or there’s more to address. Maybe it makes sense to set aside some time to reconnect with them. Maybe a part wants to talk one-on-one with you, or maybe two parts who are feeling opposed need a little extra help from you to work through that opposition, conflict. So just make a note of what still needs to happen. And with that, just invite you to bring that to a close for now. And we’ll wrap it up there.

[01:25:08] Dr. Peter: Wow. Can I share with you a little bit what happened?

[01:25:18] David Edwards: Yeah, I’d love to hear.

[01:25:21] Dr. Peter: So I have this part, Little One, who is the part of me that carries shame and a sense of inadequacy, of not being enough. When this part’s not in right relationship with my innermost self, that part is often like really isolated, really feels alone. And it was really a lot about Souls and Hearts. It’s like as we transition from being like a little startup to being a more established organization, there’s a lot of change that’s happening in terms of our structure, things we’re offering. We’ve got a lot of new initiatives. And what that part was saying is, “I can’t do it. I can’t do it.” And the “I” was like the global I, more like we as a system, the system can’t do it. We don’t know what we’re doing. We don’t know how to be an executive. We don’t know how to manage budgets. We don’t know how to handle all the stuff that happens with the staff. Like we can’t, I can’t do it. And so managers responding to that in this subsystem, my driving manager, which is now my collaborator, but the response that part has is, look, we’ve got to do it. We don’t have a choice. We are going to do it. And my evaluator part, this is my former inner critic who can still be critical if disconnected from the self is like, we will know, we will figure it out. This part is going to know, we’ll learn it, we’ll know. So my collaborator part, we’ll do it. My evaluator part, we’ll figure it out, we’ll know. And then my good boy part, which is my spiritual part, my Catholic standard bearer part, wants to get all mystical, and wants to go like, God will show us, right? As though it’s going to come down like in some sort of transcendental way, some of the minutia of how Souls and Hearts should operate, right? That’s like his go-to, in these sort of situations. So three managers, and then this one exile part. And what’s comforting is when my innermost self, when me as Peter can say, of course you don’t know how to do it. Of course we don’t know how to do it. We’re in a broader system. We’ve hired people who know how to do it. Like all these questions that come up. Because at the beginning it was just sort of like Dr. Gerry and me, like that was it, that’s all we had. My wife Pam came on board for a while and now she’s come back and we’ve hired like 15 people to do various things. You’re one of ’em in terms of that. You help us out with the LOA. Like I couldn’t do that and I can’t do it the way you do it. So it’s like, it’s okay. There’s this assumption that this little part of me has, my Little One, my former shame bearer who still struggles with shame, that somehow I have to make it all happen and that God is far away. I talked about this in the March 10th reflection that I wrote on God’s identity and God images. And that it’s okay, like what that part just needed to hear is that it’s okay and that we don’t have to do it. Yes, of course we can’t do it all.

[01:28:55] Dr. Peter: So it was really a sense of peace that came in then. My collaborator part can give up having to do everything. Because I can feel that, that energy coming up, to do it. And then my evaluator part says we don’t have to read another book on how to manage an organization. We don’t have to figure out like what the new model of an IFS informed management strategy for Souls and Hearts, what would that would look like? We can rely on what’s already here. And then my good boy part is learning from my spiritual director, but also just in conversation with God, connected to him with my innermost self, through my innermost self, is like God’s like, there’s lots of ways to do it. You’re not just trying to find one way. I’ll work with you, and even if you sound a wrong note, and you will sound wrong notes, we’ll make it a good note like we were talking about in the jazz band. I’ll rewrite the music around that note. Can you play with this? My playful part’s like, yeah. My fearful part, which is my adventure part, is like, this is an adventure. We can do this. Because we’re not having to do it on our own. We can do this because we are in relationship with God and God has asked this of us and he is going to provide everything that we need to be able to do it. And we can have a blast as long as we can just trust, going back to that key word you brought up later, we can trust that the innermost self, my innermost self, Peter, me, can stay in relationship with God and be that conduit and we can be related in this hierarchical way.

[01:30:27] David Edwards: That’s great. That’s great, Peter. Yeah, thanks for sharing that, man. And I find myself connecting with a lot of that because I have some similar parts and some similar responses and things that my parts say. And so it was also really comforting and reassuring just to hear you walk through that and just seeing, it was a recent episode. Marion, I think was Marion was talking about Russian dolls. And this kind of Russian doll imagery came to my mind of like, you have one part, right? One part can’t, one part is so limited by itself. There’s so much it can’t do, right? And then when you have that part and there’s these layers, and you layer out, and I like this because a lot of times I think when we’re talking about the complexity of multiple systems, it could be overwhelming. It could seem like a negative thing. Oh, I gotta figure all this out. I can’t do this. But there’s a goodness to it, right? So one part, and then you come out and that part is in a system of parts within a person with a self.

[01:31:30] David Edwards: And it’s like, ah, okay, we can do a little more here. We could be a little more secure. We can have our needs met, we could be safe. But then that one person, still limited, right? You zoom out a little more and there’s this bigger system, this team, a family, your Souls and Hearts team, and you’re connected with a bigger system now. And that system could do even more than you as one person can do. And that’s great. And then if you take that out to the ultimate level, because all those things ultimately are not enough to establish our own security, absolute security, because we are all still limited as humans and can’t secure our own, I guess, salvation. But you take that out all the way to the macro level and we’re connected in the family of God, to the level of trust with God in God that he can close the chasm that we can’t traverse, to connect with absolute security. Ultimately all my human limitations, even the human system of humans, we’re going to fall short. So that’s where I get a lot of comfort. It’s like I can’t do it. Even as a group, we can’t quite do everything perfectly the way that we’d love to do it, but that doesn’t actually matter. It’s okay. We still get to be loved.

[01:32:50] Dr. Peter: We’re not supposed to. I think that’s what we might have been talking about with that individualism, the belief that I have to make it on my own, and we’re not called to be like that. We’re not called to have to make it on their own.

[01:33:03] David Edwards: Great.

[01:33:05] Dr. Peter: Well, I’m curious about like, just takeaways as we land this episode. The idea that we are a system ourselves. Each human person is a system and we’re nested in these broader systems. I’m just curious, like what you would want our listeners, what you want our audience to remember?

[01:33:35] Dr. Peter: The first thing that comes to mind, kinda coming from what we were just talking about, is it’s good to be part of a system. It’s good. Some people, really often can find it almost destabilizing to introduce the idea of having parts, because it’s like, okay, this is more complex than I want myself to be. It’s too much to make sense of all of that. But in reality, it’s good. It’s a good thing to have a system. So that’s one. Yeah. We were made as systems and to be in systems. We were made for relationship, to be in relationship.

[01:34:20] David Edwards: Yeah, it actually makes things easier. It makes life easier to have a system than to be isolated.

[01:34:33] Dr. Peter: Yeah. Well, my takeaway is to go back to this point you were making earlier about trust, to find what type of relationship a part could begin to trust in. And if a part is really hesitant about connection, really afraid, maybe really angry, or some other type of intense kind of experience, what might build some trust with that part? And can we be patient and really work on that first? And for some folks, if parts just are not in a position to trust their innermost selves, there are other options. There’s the possibility some parts might be able to trust in God. Some parts may not be able to yet. Or the guardian angel or Our Lady. It could be the innermost self of a therapist or a spiritual director or a coach or some other person that they could see as a trusted authority. Somebody that they could eventually begin to believe because they’ve experienced love from that person. For some folks that may be difficult to start with inside. For a lot of folks, that’s hard, because there’s a long history of polarizations and fragmentation inside. But to connect with somebody else that is trustworthy for those parts.

[01:36:23] David Edwards: Yeah. Yeah, that seems to really be connecting with, I think a few episodes ago, one on attachment needs, I think this is a point Marion was really making, I want to say, correct me if I’m wrong on that. But to start where there’s already a capacity for trust or where there’s an ability to trust right now.

[01:36:45] Dr. Peter: I think Peter Martin was making that point, and yeah, Marion was making that point too, both in that episode. I think that might have been episode 150. I don’t remember. We’ll have to look it up. We’ll put it in the show notes. But let’s bring this to a close. First of all, just huge gratitude to you, David, and to your parts for being here, and for sharing and for having this conversation and for us together to dare to leave an outline that my collaborator part and my evaluator part wrote so that they could feel a little more secure, so in case we ever got lost, we had something to bring us back to and you added to the outline and then we were free to be able to leave the outline. I just thought that was so beautiful.

[01:37:32] David Edwards: Yeah. Yeah. 

[01:37:34] Dr. Peter: Yeah. So a lot of gratitude for you, for that, and a lot of gratitude to you in our audience. Every time you do your human formation work, every time you work on loving your parts in this human formation adventure that we’re on, it lifts up the entire body of Christ. It helps me out personally when you do your internal work, because you’re not just an isolated individual with no connection outside yourself. We’re all connected in the mystical body of Christ. So great gratitude to you when you are doing your internal work, when you’re doing your human formation work, whatever form that takes. So thank you to you. Okay, our announcements. Get in touch with me, give feedback, ask questions, share your thoughts in the comment section of this episode number 164 on our YouTube channel. That’s Interior Integration for Catholics, the number 4 in there. Interior Integration 4 Catholics. And I will respond in a week to all reasonable comments. I want to hear from you. I really enjoy connecting with you. We have an upcoming episode, number 165 titled Your Questions About Parts Work Answered. David Edwards will be back with us joined by Marion Moreland, the original team from episode 157 that launched this series way back in January, and we’re going to be doing this Q&A on Catholic parts work. Anything that you wanted to know from episodes 157 all the way to this one, 164. Deep dive 2025 IFS and Catholics parts work, we want to hear about it, so that’s only three days from the release of this episode. We’re hoping that many of you will register. The registration links are on the Interior Integration for Catholics landing page at soulsandhearts.com/iic. Or you can get them in the YouTube description for this episode. 

[01:39:37] Dr. Peter: The Resilient Catholics Community, you can still get on the interest list for our St. Jerome cohort. Check that out. The Formation for Formators Community, we’re having that retreat from August 11th to August 14th, 2025. Details are in the YouTube description for this episode. Or you can get them at our website at soulsandhearts.com/fff. Also, we’ve been talking a lot about identity. We may not be using those words, but we are talking about identity in this episode, and that has to do with who we are and who God is. And I’ve been doing a whole series of semi-monthly reflections on identity and parts. Get the semi-monthly reflections that I write in your email inbox. Register with us at soulsandhearts.com on the homepage, in the blue box. You can also check out the archive of all of those that I write at soulsandhearts.com/blog. Remember conversation hours every Tuesday and Thursday from 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM Eastern Time on my cell, 317-567-9594. It’s time for a private conversation. Now, I don’t do any clinical consultations or provide any clinical services during these calls, but it’s a chance for that 10-minute private conversation about any of the themes in these podcast episodes, in the weekly reflections, questions about the Resilient Catholics Community or anything else that Souls and Hearts offers. With that, let’s bring this to a close by invoking our patroness and our patrons. Our Lady, our Mother, Untier of Knots, pray for us. St. Joseph, pray for us. St. John the Baptist, pray for us.