Pints With Aquinas - Ask a Catholic Therapist: Parenting, Boundaries, and, Healing

Episode Date: January 17, 2023

Dr. Matt Breuninger joins Matt to take questions from our Locals Supscribers. \ "UH HUNDRED percent Dewd!" 💯 Support on Locals (before YouTube bans us): https://mattfradd.locals.com Dr. Breuninger's links: Pilgrimage: https://versoministries.com/drb Book: https://amzn.to/3DhCXKL Instagram and YouTube:  @AskaCatholicTherapist  Ruah Woods: https://www.ruahwoodsinstitute.org Book Recommendations in this Episode: Male, Female, Other? by Jason Evert: https://shop.chastity.com/products/male-female-other The Whole Brain Child by Daniel Siegel: https://amzn.to/2L5b8fg No Drama Discipline by Daniel Siegel: https://amzn.to/3iNdYYz

is. All right, you're good. We'll live. Well, yeah, we'll live with Dr. Matt Bruin and Joe. I think it was only until a couple of weeks ago I was saying Bruin, Joe. That's how that's how I say it. When I never know. That's how you say it. So I never know whether people can get that first end off their tongue.

Bruin, injure. It's like it feels hard sometimes. So depending on who I'm talking to and depending on how much I want to repeat my name I'll just say Brewinger. It's like if a Japanese secret martial arts villain opened a coffee shop. Brew Ninja. Brew Ninja. That's how. How was Sikh for you? We just got back from the Sikh conference and there was about 25,000 people.

It was unbelievable. I've never experienced anything like that in my life. It was just, it was huge. And to see the energy and the passion and the vibrance of so many young people, there's so many priests there, I mean 300 plus priests. It was amazing. Like almost overwhelmingly large.

And I've never spoken to a crowd that big before. And that was a real honor and pleasure. And I enjoyed it. Man, I really enjoyed it. And I got to bring my boy with me. I brought my oldest son. And he woke up the last morning and he said, first thing he said was, dad, I feel sad that we have to leave. It was just so

good for him to see like young college kids on fire, like praising our Lord. And one of the things I find interesting about those conferences is everyone's kind. And then you become accustomed to that and then you go to the airport. You're like, Hey, and you're like, Oh, right. But why do I have to change? I know. I continue to be. I think you can. Yeah, I think maybe part of what those sort of things do is they like reinvigorate you and remind you and ground you like what we're after.

And then we can go out and try to bring that. And maybe it can't be as, you know, Tony at the desk at the airport isn't, I don't have to be all of it. He doesn't need you, but I can still be. With your joy exploding all over him. My wife is making Liam, our eldest since he's homeschooled, write a few paragraphs on the different talks he went to. And one of them was mine.

And so he's going to write a few paragraphs on that. I was honored though. He texted me He said that was a great talk dad, dude But so Liam and Asher came to mine as well and one thing that I loved so he better write something good about it by the way But you know Asher looked at me afterward and he said He said dad He said that was really good. He said, you're really good.

And it was the first time I think he had ever seen me get to do what I do. I felt so proud. Yeah, I felt so proud. Yeah, like you can tell when the thing's sincere. He's like, that was actually really good to you. I'm saying. Yeah, but he was talking, they were talking you up

after your talk as well, man. And it was so genuine. It was so sincere. I love that. And it feels like a really proud dad moment to me. Yeah. This is why you should listen to me because these 10,000 people had no problem. I mean a little bit though, right? There is something that's like when they see that people take me seriously, because I think it does give us a little bit of credibility. Yeah.

No, it was a great conference. I'll tell you one thing I noticed. I imagine if you went to a Catholic conference, say, back in the 90s, you might find some priests being like, call me Frank in their civvies. But these boys were trying to outdo each other with their woolen capes and their rope sandals and their patchy beards. Really unique habits. I thought it was cool. It was. I know, there's some really unique habits, huh?

I thought it was cool. It was awesome. Yeah, there is no one, there was no order right now that's growing who's not fully embracing. I mean, there were a couple guys, tonsured, like full on tonsured. I will say too, you know, one thing I loved was, I liked sort of just walking around

and having these sort of little encounters with individuals. I really valued a couple moments I had where, you know, I'd bump into somebody or meet somebody and be able to just have this sort of intimate, real, maybe like sort of divinely inspired moment where I was able to share something or give a little piece of advice or touch them with something I had and I Really love that when you feel like God is moving at these things Who you bump into what question they ask you how? That's what I tried to tell myself going in like just just try to meet every person as like an encounter

Yes, the Lord has ordained ord. Yeah. And to see how God uses, not only uses other people in my life. So there were some moments where I felt like people, I got something, but there were moments where I was able to be in, I felt clearly like I was able to be an instrument of like hope, of healing of, and you walk away feeling like, God, I'm totally undeserving of being an instrument of what you're doing. But man, it feels really good. This is like one of the objections people have to God and God's existence in Christianity is that like, why doesn't...

Why is there suffering? Right? Or why doesn't God make himself more apparent? Yeah. And fair enough. Those are questions which I don't pretend to have the answer to them mysterious and they can really hurt. Yeah. But it's, it's interesting to think that if God didn't permit evil, then you, you wouldn't be able to be a part of his healing. Yeah. We really get to participate in, in his salvific work. He makes us active participators if we are open to it, if we allow it, if we say yes. And that to me feels like a tremendous honor.

That's really what evangelization is. It's not just giving people right knowledge. It's having Christ bind the wounds and heal the captive. No, for real, that is like, and to have those moments where you say something or you share something or you or even you just sit and listen with a genuine attentiveness and love and you see somebody like you see something happen within someone that is For me it was really interesting because I don't I

Don't speak professionally and I don't you know But to feel like I was going there to I don't, you know, but to feel like I was going there to be of service, you know, I think it's easy enough to maybe think I'm the speaker and I'm there to sort of be served as opposed to like, no, like I'm here to serve. And I felt, I had moments where I felt like that and it was, dude, it was beautiful. And I hope I get to go back

because I want to bring the whole family next time. Yeah It was awesome. Yeah Alright, well we got questions from our local supporters that we're gonna be drawing from today Okay, I know that like books could be written in response to each of these questions So we will necessarily give cut me ultimately and cut me an answer Yes, but hopefully sufficient enough that they'll be the beginning. Yeah. All right. So Kyle Whittington asks, would Dr. Bruninger rather fight a hundred duck sized Matt Frads? Or one Matt Frad sized duck?

Yeah. Really think about this question. It might be the most important one. Yeah, it's definitely not. I would rather fight. I would rather fight one I would rather fight one Matt Fradd sized dock I've seen what you can do with your hand. Hang on one Matt Fradd sized duck. Yeah, I think hang on That's what you said to the same question Matt. Why are you surprised about this?

I guess I'm I guess I'm no it's not because I'm surprised because I'm getting confused Okay, not Doc so yeah, Matt Rooney just are so hundred dogs Or or one because I'm getting confused. It's not a duck size. It's not a yeah. Matt Rooney. There's a hundred ducks, but they all look like Matt Rooney. Or one Matt. Oh yes. Okay. So Matt, that's the big duck. That's a big duck. But I rather, I think I rather fight.

I mean, he doesn't have feet. I mean, he's got a little beak. Might be a large beak. I guess. But you take the back on a duck. I mean, if I can get behind it, I'm fine. But yeah, a hundred of you. Also, I can only kick back on a duck. If I can get behind it, I'm fine. But yeah, a hundred of you. Also, I can only kick 40 points.

And like, you're, it's a hundred of, like you have to kill him. He's small, but you have to kill him a hundred times. There's a moral issue in killing a hundred of you. That's interesting. There's not a moral issue in killing a duck. You wouldn't feel the same. I have dominion over the duck

Yeah, you know, yeah Do it. Yeah, like you're small the head trauma would do it It's just like what would it do to you to have to kill a friend a hundred times? I mean, I know you just like stomps traumatic for me So yeah one I'd like to kill the dog All right, uh Different question. I feel like I want to be friends with Kyle Yeah, yeah, this is a common question whenever we have these episodes Morgan WF says

How do you differentiate mental issues such as anxiety and depression from spiritual attacks? Yeah, I think it's tough man That's a really difficult It's a really it's really hard I think and it's hard for a couple reasons one because we're we're a high Lomor for unity We're a body soul composite right and so when When you have psychological issues That can have spiritual consequences and when you're having spiritual that can have spiritual consequences.

And when you're having spiritual issues, there can be psychological consequences. And so there is this sort of difficult tea and trying to get really, really clear on it. But for me, generally speaking, I would say something like cause and treatment. So something like. What is this arising from? Is this arising from like habitual sin or some sort of sinful and moral behavior? Did that precede the problem? Now again, that's not super clear because sometimes even our sinful behavior can be driven by emotional pain, psychological pain,

trauma that we've experienced, right? But generally I'm looking at what's the immediate or antecedent cause? Was there some sort of immorality? And then I'm looking at what things are helping. Is prayer helping? Are the sacraments helping? Is prayer helping? Are the sacraments helping? And if not, then I think maybe taking a psychological route can be helpful. I'll give you my principle, and this was affirmed for me by a very, I think, holy, retired old bishop who was a dear friend, I tend to start with the natural.

I tend to start with the natural. Like just go in the natural door first, and then if that doesn't seem to be bearing fruit, then the supernatural may be worth paying attention to. Sometimes in very religious community, this isn't to deny the spiritual dimension at all, because I also think that the fullness of healing requires a spiritual component or dimension. But I do think it's important to sort of recognize that often times in very religious sort of circles we tend to put things in terms that we're comfortable with and

So there's a real temptation to take psychological issues and put them in spiritual language Because that's where we feel comfortable. That's where we feel safe. That's what we feel familiar with. And there's actually a term called spiritual bypass, which is when rather than looking at difficult, painful psychological things, we translate it into spiritual terms because that allows us to avoid the painful psychological issues. So as a psychologist, I want to be looking for that.

Is this person sort of just spiritualizing this because they're avoiding the deep emotional pain and suffering or memories or but I don't ever want to shy away from ultimately paying attention to the spiritual realm as well because it's where body soul composite but it's it's tricky and in some ways I think paying attention to the spiritual gives you an inroad to the psychological, and paying attention to the psychological can give you an inroad to the spiritual. It requires tremendous prudence, and then I'll stop rambling, but I think it

requires tremendous prudence on the part of the therapist, because the lines aren't always bright where one begins and the other ends. Prudence and wisdom. Yeah, so having your own prayer life and being comfortable, generally discussing both and not feeling like you have to go in one door or the other but really seeing what is the person in front of you saying? What are their struggles? Is there any avoidance at play? Maybe they're not ready to go in the psychological door yet, so you can start talking about the spiritual stuff.

But I don't know, I also think too, when it gets into like spiritual attack and that stuff, I, that stuff's hard. I don't know. It's also a difficult question to answer when you don't know this person. There's just so many general answers. I think that's good. We can be tempted and Satan can use even psychological things to tempt us. And so by addressing some of our psychological wounds, I think we remove the fodder that Satan has to tempt us sometimes, but also maybe prayers of deliverance would be helpful too.

So I think it's a really tough one, but prudence, wisdom go a long way. This person says, how should a Catholic respond to a loved one with gender dysphoria likely due to childhood trauma? Yeah. That one's so... it's so tricky, it's so difficult. Here's what I'd say, like first as compassionate, as loving, we want to be a force of safety and of healing in their life. And that starts first and foremost with just like a disposition toward them.

You know, I think sometimes gender dysphoria can feel scary, especially to Catholics. And we have sort of very clear Catholic teaching and there can be an impulse to want to jump in and sort of teach. And maybe there's a time and a place for that. Especially when you feel under attack by the culture at large.

100%. So when this person comes to you and shares this with you, you might perceive them as an enemy, whether or not. Right. And I think it's really helpful when you can tap into, and it sounds like this person can, when you can tap into the reality that this seems to be coming from a place of deep, deep hurt, pain, shame, trauma. I think it's really helpful to be able to hold that

in your mind because it can give you a compassionate disposition toward the person. So the first is just how you are fundamentally disposed to the other. Like when they're in your presence, even if you're disagreeing with them, when they're in your presence, do they feel their goodness like reflected back?

I think we've talked about this before, but they're like the saints and saintly people have a way of looking at you. It's like they're open to you. They're open to your being. They're not afraid of you. It's a great way to put it. It's not like keeping, stay away. You might hurt me.

You might disagree with me. Your disagreement is a threat to me. There's an openness that they have because they're secure and safe in their knowledge and love of God and being loved and, and by God. And so this overflows into an openness to the other. We have to get that right first, I think. by God. And so this overflows into an openness to the other. We have to get that right first, I think. And so that would be the first recommendation is creating this space of openness where they feel their goodness

reflected back to them. I think that's excellent. And then last, I would just say, look, don't be afraid to ask questions. I think it's okay. We don't have to be afraid. If this is somebody who you know and love, I think it's okay to find intimate moments, right? And you're not going to do this walking down the street,

but if you have time, I think it's okay to ask about their experience. Because with gender dysphoria, there's some research out there, and I'm certainly not an expert in gender dysphoria, but I know there's research out there that certain types of psychotherapy, especially with teens and adolescents, certain types of psychotherapy are actually helpful, these sort of exploratory types of psychotherapy, where you're just inviting them to explore their experience. What happened? What's it like to feel like this? Tell me about your anxiety. When you said, you don't feel like a man or a woman, what, what does it,

what would that feel like? What do you think it should feel like? And the, this isn't like a checkmate situation. You're right. You know, it's not a Socratic dialogue. No, you're, you're trying to show them that I genuinely want to understand what you're going through, but in doing this, right? You're also giving them the opportunity to try to sort through some of their own confusion, some of their own pain, um, maybe draw connections and links that they hadn't seen before.

You're giving them a space to maybe even discuss the trauma. Now, you're not a therapist, right, but a place to discuss the hurt and the pain, maybe the trauma. And in doing that, you're opening up a space where they can potentially begin to relieve some of this tension, this confusion, this... But there's a general principle, not just with gender dysphoria, but sort of in politics

and working with humans, there's a general principle that if I come in really strong and push and you feel it and I'm trying to like corner you into a position Even if that's not like even if you're actually in agreement with me, you're more likely to push back Yeah, think it think about how you feel when two Mormon missionaries are at your door. Yes that that feeling yes. Yes And you know, they're not genuinely interested in understanding you, you know, they're only asking questions to checkmate you And hey, you know, Jesus. Oh, that's great. Can we come in and just talk about Jesus that you're like, you know, there's a yeah There's an ulterior motive. I think when you sit down and talk to somebody who's gender dysphoric Being genuine like one that disposition toward them, but to asking questions without an ulterior motive

I want to understand you and I want you to understand you better. I want to recommend a book that just came out by Jason Everett. It's called Male, Female, Other and you can get it on chastity.com slash, well just go to chastity.com and go to this store. I think one thing, he's done a ton of research in this book. I'm gonna have him on the show soon. That's awesome. But he recognizes that so often these poor people get lost as we shut back and forth in the culture wars and he really does a good job. The real people suffer and get lost. And you know too, yeah, I think I mentioned last time, but Dr. Andrew Sadegren is out at the Royal Woods Institute

in Cincinnati, gave one of the best talks I've ever heard on gender dysphoria and transgenderism and I think he probably has some talks on YouTube and rural woods would be a great organization to reach out to to get resources and I know they'd be happy to help okay I think it's Michael 36 is how or maybe Michelle how to understand and deal with a miscarriage mmm have y'all had we have thank God man we had to thank God they were early on like not far along and it didn't affect me yeah okay okay it affected my wife yes I felt almost felt bad that I didn't feel how I thought I should feel for her. But I think I knew enough to know that feelings are deceptive and what's the objective reality

here and how do I love my wife in this. Yeah. But that's also something to wrestle with when you're not actually feeling what you think you should feel. 100. Matt, this is, so I sit on this advisory board for a place called the Institute for Reproductive Grief. And they talk, I mean, one of their major focuses is miscarriage. And so what's really, the first thing is this.

It can feel so lonely and isolating. And I think in the Catholic community, we don't talk about miscarriage very much, and yet it's actually very common. So the statistics kind of vary a little bit, but something like one in four women will experience a miscarriage. So like 25% of women will experience a miscarriage. That's not a small number.

Think about all the women we know in our community who have multiple pregnancies. Like, the number of women who have experienced miscarriage is not small. But it can feel very isolating and lonely. And so I think the first thing to do is let someone know they're not alone. Let someone know that this is not something

that they have to go through alone. It's not something that is unique to them. There are people who they can connect to who have had this experience. But the second thing is there's something called disenfranchised grief. And disenfranchised grief is when you experience death or loss and you're not sure whether it's socially acceptable, publicly acknowledged or socially acceptable to express this grief. And so the grief becomes disenfranchised. You sort of pull it back because you don't know if you're allowed to feel this way.

So miscarriage, this is common in miscarriage, right? Because let's say you miscarry at eight weeks. Well, at that point, you know, the baby's what, the size of a blueberry or something like this, or, you know, is it okay to be sad when the baby's that small? Or let's say you miscarry, you know, you find out you're pregnant at four weeks, you take the pregnancy test and then you miscarry in the fifth week. Like if the baby's the size of a poppy seed, is it okay to be sad?

Or one thing I've heard is I know a woman who had two children desperately wanted more and kept miscarrying. And I think people might say to her, well, hey, thank God you've got these two. And that's a way of saying you really shouldn't be as sad. Don't be sad. Right. Be grateful. Don't be sad. Is it okay to be sad when you haven't yet held that child? Well, like, do people think I'm overreacting? Do people think this is crazy? Can I be sad? Look, I know couples who struggle with infertility, and I do already

have a child. Can I be sad for losing my seventh? I mean, so this idea of disenfranchised grief, what often happens is people feel, women feel more isolated because they don't know if it's actually okay to grieve. And so I think a couple things to say are one, help people find space and opportunity to grieve if they want to and when they're ready to, but to let them know that you're okay and open to that. Um, oftentimes when people miscarry, we don't know what to say, so we don't say anything and we'll kind of maybe keep it to our, like we know it happened, but we don't want to. So I think it's okay to say, Hey, I'm so sorry.

If you ever need anything, let me know what I can do. So that does two things. One, that enfranchises their grief. If you're sad, it's okay, and I'm here to listen to it. And two, you also give them, you're not trying to force, hey, we have to talk about this right now, but you're sort of giving them an agency and saying, look, if you want to reach out,

if I can do anything, you let me know. I'll listen if you need somebody to watch the other kids while because there's a whole, by the way, physiological dimension to miscarriage that gets, you know, like it can actually be traumatic bodily. There can be lots of bleeding. There can be hemorrhaging. bodily. There can be lots of bleeding, there can be hemorrhaging, hormone levels are readjusting. It's not just miscarried and over. There's a physiological as well as a psychological component. So I think offering to help, hey, if you need anything, really let me know. Even if you just need an hour without the kids or two hours without the kids. What about on the other side of the spectrum? Suppose there's a woman who's like, I had a miscarriage. I guess I should feel a lot worse than this.

But maybe I even feel relieved. Take it to that extreme. It's really, I feel relieved because I actually didn't really want to get pregnant, even though I'm a Catholic. I know I should. What do you, how do you speak to her? Yeah, that's a great point. Because maybe two things I want to address also men in miscarriage, because I think men oftentimes get overlooked, because you didn't have the miscarriage. Men don't know whether it's okay to grieve.

So I think ultimately including the husband as well, and letting him know that this might be something that's really sad or scary or painful for him, and that's okay, and that you see that. Because sometimes I know guys go into sort of protect and provide mode for their wives when a wife miscarries and their grief gets and so it's not uncommon to actually see a guy start grieving a year later because they've been so focused on taking care of their

spouse so the time frame can differ between men and women when you start to grieve. But to your point, it gets really complex when we start to feel like relief. Maybe you already feel stretched thin, you've been open to life and, you know, been on the fence and not sure if, but you can see. And it's what that does is then all this guilt and shame comes pouring in how dare I feel happy over this. But I think it's important two things. One,

to be really precise about what you're feeling relief over. You're not feeling relief at the death of your child. That's not the relief. The relief is at the release from stress, you know, the release of financial concerns, that's what you're feeling relieved about. Like future struggles, and that's normal. We don't love struggling, we don't love suffering. We're sort of weak, fragile creatures. And so to feel relief that I won't have to suffer

is what the relief's over, but it's not over the actual death. And so I think parsing out Because you know given the choice You probably wouldn't Choose that actively like you probably wouldn't say. Yep. If I had a button to press I would press the terminate button But if you could press a button to terminate your stress like press that but you know That's where the relief is. It's really I think it's really important But if you could press a button to terminate your stress, like press that button, you know,

that's where the relief is. It's really helpful. I think it's really important. But the second thing is to recognize that it's okay to feel a complexity of emotions. That you might feel relief. And I will say to people sometimes who have miscarried, I might even open that door and say,

I wonder if you actually felt a little bit of relief. Because that lets them know I'm open to hearing the fullness of the experience and then they can begin to sort out. Well yeah, but it's not that they, my child died, it's that I won't have to worry about paying one more tuition or won't have to, or we won't have to buy a new minivan because we're already filled and there's no money to buy a new minivan because we're already filled and there's no money to buy a new minivan The relief is over the material things And maybe lastly recognize that grief doesn't have this clear

Progression, you know the Kubler-Ross stages of grief and you know anger sadness Bargaining, you know, whatever, then acceptance at the end. Grief doesn't look the same for everybody. And it doesn't have to. And it doesn't work linearly very often. You know, you sort of ebb and flow between anger and sadness and then acceptance and then anger.

And that's okay. That's not just a clear linear neat process. And I'm in this stage and this stage and this stage. And that's okay. It's not just a clear linear neat process and I'm in this stage and this stage and this stage. And that's okay. It's okay to allow the process to unfold and to just let it unfold as it unfolds. Thank you. Anthony says,

what is your advice for avoiding pitfalls to the interior discernment of God from yourself? One reason I ask is because I dread becoming a Catholic who justifies his internal mental processes as the prompting of God when they are in fact naturally from my own fallen self. Yeah. So that's another tricky one, right? Because, um, you know, people, I think maybe if I notice a struggle, um, there's like no new heresies, right? And like Gnosticism is alive and well.

I think sometimes we're more Gnostic than we want to admit in the sense that we sometimes still really strongly eschew the body and we want to be these sort of spiritual angelic beings, like pure spirit. And so a question like that to me has a little ring of, well how do I just tap into the spiritual and make sure the bodily isn't involved? And you're like, well, you can't. Everything you, I mean, this is one of St. Thomas's principles, that anything that exists in the mind comes through the senses first. And so often when we're discerning, when we're praying, when we're, it involves our bodies. Like we're bodily creatures.

This is why we take postures in prayer. And so I want to be careful, it's like somehow we can just help people purely tap into like this untouched spiritual core, like you're a bodily creature. And God oftentimes does work in and through. That's right. So it's not as if God gives us his pure message and it gets scrambled when it enters into me. Yeah. And I can't discern it because of my bodily. Yeah. It's like, no, but, but it, that can happen, right? It can happen. Because I have twisted desires and twisted passions. Yeah. God's will, God's vision for me,

God's voice can become twisted by my concupiscent, by my corrupted desires, my own will. That can get in and make it hard to discern, Absolutely. But the solution isn't to just like, I think the solution is to work on ordering my passions, ordering my desires. Um, you know who, you know, who's great on this father Jacques Philippe. Um, he came and spoke at the university and we had the honor of having him in one of our, my classes. And he said, when people discern, he said, people tend to think of discernment like a computer algorithm. And if you have the right pieces then I

get this output. You should do this. And they want this certainty of a computer algorithm. And he said one, let that go. You'll never have that. That's right. And he said two, discernment is much more about disposing yourself so that you're more able to see and hear God's will. And so when I hear a question like this, I think work on the bodily stuff, work on taming your passions work on being merciful and compassionate to others Work on temperance with food drink and sex if you're married Like work on these virtues invite God in to help you with these virtues and So imagine our disorder our disordered passions our concupiscence, our vices, it's like fog.

They add a fog. And so God's will is there, but it's like foggy. And they do, they can impede. But the key isn't to just like forget the body and try to get at, no, like use and temper and purify. No, like use and temper and purify. And then it's like the fog begins to slowly lift and you see God's will and you hear his voice more clearly. Yeah.

As you say, and Jacques Philippe said, even once you see it clearly, it's not going to be like a song that you can be a hundred percent sure. But we were discerning moving to Steubenville. I said, I'm afraid to discern this because I know that I am both impulsive and excitable and neither of those virtues or neither of those vices are helpful. So I was saying to my wife, like, I need you to help me discern this. It was really. And look to others.

I mean, that's a great dude. So I'm, I can be fearful and anxious and that can get in the way of you know, I can hear something in my voice in my head that says don't do that don't have that conversation and then I'll do like some post hoc justification where I'm like because That wouldn't be prudent that might lead, you know, I can come up with all sorts of reasons to justify But it might be like this this person that might be me, that might just be my fear and my anxiety. So the first thing I need is like self-knowledge to know what are my vices, what are my tendencies. So you said I'm excitable.

To know that about myself is to know that when I'm discerning, I say, okay, Lord, I know I tend to like things. I know I tend to be impulsive. Help me practice restraint, help me be measured and tempered help me open help me to be open to hearing the opinions of those around me Who's who's decision this will also impact exactly and then I always man I think it's always good to have a group of a tight-knit group of people who know me and who I think are wise mmm and prudent To discern with.

You gotta have one or two of those people in your life. Hey, what's this sound like to you? And they'll go, that sounds like you're trying to justify some bad behavior, Matt. And I'll say, yep, okay. Mm-hmm. You know, or they'll say, like, I don't know. It sounds like this could be a real viable option. Maybe you should explore it.

So having people with you as well is really helpful. Father Bolz says, it seems the harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few in terms of Catholic therapy. It also doesn't seem to help that the laborers have families to feed and stuff and so have to charge money. And if they want insurance to cover them, they must be licensed by people who tolerate less and less a Catholic worldview. Yeah. Can you pretty please help start a religious order whose charism is to do what you do only for free? Can I?

Yeah, man. Okay. So I'm going to, I'm going to balk and say, father, you do it. Next question. Right. But he's right. I mean, this is, we have to charge. I'm right now in that tension right now between like dealing with insurance companies and taking cash

But if you take cash only You're pricing certain people out who need help this absolutely is a need and He should do it Like I'll consult he did say help. Yeah. Yeah, I'll consult like if you find the men and women I'll help them find the programs to go to and get trained and I'll help plug them in but You'll have to pay me for that This absolutely. Okay. So this question is a little long. Hey, I want to say thank you to the greatest

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Please sign up. maprad.locals.com Back to the show. But it looks thoughtful. So let's see. My husband and I are struggling to agree on a charitable and effective way to discipline our firstborn. He is caleric sanguine, three year old who is extremely smart, funny, courageous and

has a huge heart. One point of contention for a while though has been that he seems to love to push our buttons and challenge our authority. In my head, I know it's just the way God made him and to a degree he can't help himself. I'm a cleric too, so I can sympathize or empathize with him. However, my husband and I have a strong desire to raise a child who honors his parents, but maybe honor goes beyond respect? Whenever I am kind and patient with him, he totally ignores me and keeps doing whatever

I am asking him not to do. I usually have to raise my voice at him or threaten to take a toy away from him for him to listen to me and obey me. It's pretty exhausting. Currently, our form of discipline is short timeouts between two and seven minutes, depending on how grave the offense. Whenever he gets out of hand, is there any research to show that timeouts and punishment, taking away toys, work? Sometimes we see progress, but for the most part it feels like we're constantly in a battle of the wills with him. Sometimes I wonder if I expect too much from my son and I'm forgoing a relaxed and nurturing relationship with him because I have unrealistic expectations.

Many nights I go to sleep feeling like a bad mom because I lost my temper with him and did or said things I regret. How important is it for a toddler to obey his parents? Should I take a chill pill? First of all, I just want to say this woman, she's so beautiful, she's so insightful into her son, to her husband, to herself. She loves. Yeah, she's so insightful into her son, to her husband, to herself. She obviously loves. Yeah. She's so well put. She's really trying. And it reminds me of just how difficult it is to have little ones. My youngest is eight.

I remember this time. Yeah. I'm a one year old, right? I'm a one and a half year old. I have a three year old. We're in it. So, OK, I think she actually hits on all of it. The first thing I would say is that, OK, the first thing I would say is this. We have to remember that human beings are, we're developmental creatures, we're developing, this child is forming.

You're working with a creature who doesn't have a fully formed brain. This isn't just like a little adult. You know what I mean? It's not, it's not me in duck-sized form. You know what I mean? It's not me in duck-sized form. You know what I mean? This is a creature whose brain is actively developing and growing. The prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain

that controls inhibition, planning, that won't fully develop until between 21 and 23. It doesn't finish until that period. And so it's constantly Firing and rewiring and growing and creating connections and So You've been with your child for a long time at this point three years feels like a pretty long time They are it's a toddler So on one hand the end of the question like am I expecting too much on one hand the answer is like yes always yes

always yes, always yes. Like, but people are gonna hear that and think I'm advocating for like no rules or structure or no, children actually need structure and rules and there should be discipline. But you should discipline as a parent knowing that what you're doing is through repeated acts of discipline, you're allowing their brain to form and grow and create connections as it's unfolding. This isn't, I think sometimes we think of parenting as like, I should punish twice, they learn the rule and then we move forward. And it's not, it's never that. It is repetition. Children learn the way we

learn by the way, right? Which is through repetition. And now you're trying to repeat something for a brain that isn't remotely fully developed. So that's the first thing. Like keep in mind your child isn't an adult brain in miniature form. That is a three year old brain. And once you have a 15 year old, you'll realize that, oh my gosh, a three year old brain has such limited capacities. They can't think abstractly. They can't engage in long sequences of planning.

Their memory is actually really short. Ask your kid. I can ask my 15 year old. Think about my son. Yeah, think about. Go get your socks, how many times? Right? Wear your socks. I'm like, tell me what's the sequence.

You're gonna go up the stairs. You're gonna go to your room. Yeah. So like, I'll say that to Lucia, my three year old, baby, I need you to go upstairs. Need you to go in your drawer. Need you to put your undies on. Say it back to me.

Say it back to me. And she'll be like, go in the room, play princesses, find that, I'm like, no, babe, no. I mean, and this is partially because the parts of the brain, like that memory, the hippocampus, and that aren't fully developed either. So we're giving them repetition so that they'll remember things,

so that the hippocampus will sear it into itself But that's a developing structure that needs time repetition. So your child's temperament will Relate to how quickly they learn things their overall cognitive abilities, but also their age So okay, that's the end of the question. Are you expecting too much on one hand? Yeah Like a three-year-old isn't gonna like walk around like hello mother. Would you like me to clean up my toys? That's the end of the question. Are you expecting too much on one hand? Yeah, like a three-year-old isn't gonna like walk around like hello Mother, would you like me to clean up my toys? That's just not Reasonable, but that doesn't mean you don't Try to teach that

One thing I found helpful is to never give my child an assignment I know he probably won't be able to complete Yeah, so if instead of a site, I need you to tidy your room. It's like, there's no way he could do that. So it's like, I need you to put your shoes in the closet. Can you do that? Break it down into tasks. And by the way, when they fail, when I tell my three-year-old, hey, I need you to put your shoes away,

is that a task that's within her realm of possible ability? It is. But when she fails because she inevitably will the first 15 20 30 times I ask her To not be horrible. Well, you should be able to do that. I know you could but it's like She's learning She came in like what do kids know? Like they're literally learning everything. Yeah, they don't even know what, they're learning everything, Matt. Literally everything.

They're learning language. And when you think about the, like, yeah, they're learning language, grammar, where shoes go, how to treat people. They're learning how to think right. There's so much learning happening that when I say put your shoes away, and I think you're right,

break tasks down into manageable pieces, but then expect failure, because that's what it means to be a teacher, it's to know that my kid's gonna fail, and to go in and say, okay, well, come on. Now, I don't let her go with it, though. When she fails, I don't just say, oh wow, three years old. I say, hey baby, come on, what did daddy ask you to do?

I asked you to put your shoes away, come here. There they are. Okay, grab them, take them up to your room now. When you're done, come back and tell me you're done, okay? And Matt, I might have to do that 10, 15 times. And then on the 16th time, she does it. And then on the 17th time, she messes up again. I'm teaching. And I'm not teaching you.

I'm teaching a three year old whose brain has limited capacities. How, how, how do parents not scourge themselves as they seek to do this with their children? Because this beautiful woman, she's a beautiful mom. I know the feeling of going to bed and feel like I am like a horrible parent, but like that's such a vicious trap. Because when you allow yourself to talk to yourself like that, you don't get any better. You just feel more shame and you get more irritable,

less patient. Yeah, I think, I don't know what the, I mean, I think knowledge that one, doing that doesn't bear good fruit. scourging myself doesn't make me a better parent, going to bed, beating myself up. No, I think it's okay to go to bed and ask myself where did I mess up today and how could I have done it better? It's like an examination of conscience. But like you are in relation to God and so you're the child here.

Oh, do it exactly. And he looks at you like a good parent. And think about how many times though, like whatever my toddler is to me, I am to God. God is literally infinitely beyond you. How many times have you gone to confession for the same sin? Yeah. And here I am screaming at my kid like, how dare you? Yeah. And God's like, you've literally confessed this 278 times. And you're about to confess it next week.

It just hasn't happened yet. And I still love you. And I still love you. And he hasn't smited us and he hasn't, right? I want to jump to the front of that question though too, because there can be a temptation, especially with young children, to assume that, to assume a sort of, um, intentional intentionality. So they're trying to push my buttons. I think it's often times more helpful to like recognize kids as like these little learning beings who are there.

They're trying to learn. So I have this one and a half year old, right? Who I'll put a piece of food on his tray and he'll take two bites and it might be like spaghetti and he will just dump it on the floor and I will go Charlie's is funny for me yeah exactly no I'm dying right it's the third time I've sweep the floor like yeah I just got home I want to just relax it's like right Charlie no no right so I pick it up I scoop it up like we eat our day look I'm showing him. I want to just relax. It's like Charlie no, you know, right so I pick it up scoop it up like we eat our day Look, I'm showing him and I and he takes it and this time he'd like he swats it away and But he's one and a half right he's 18 months old whatever he is Is he trying to like me? Does he have the kind of mental capacity to be like? Hmm. I really know this is hurting dad's feelings and he's angry and sad and I think I want to just know what he's what he's doing

Is he seeing reactions? Yeah, and he's like look what happens when I do that Look at what dad does and like how many times will if I drop this play this game watch your one-year-old How many times they will drop something if you pick it up and keep putting on They're learning that does it again Getting louder the vein is getting larger What they're doing is they're exploring their world now It's not a kid yeah, I think to In order to have like this is why by the way,

we don't attribute mortal sin to them, right? Because their kid isn't out there intentionally trying to, like kids at this age, they're exploring and they're seeing and they're learning and they're noting things. And so what happens when mom says something and I get quiet and turn away? Oh, look at that.

Now, I think timeouts, I've used timeouts. What happens when mom says something and I get quiet and turn away? Oh, look at that. Yeah No, I think timeouts I've used timeouts. I still use timeouts sometimes For toddlers, man, I find that redirecting so I one I try to never Teach in a moment of heightened emotion When their limbic system is firing on all cylinders and the rational part of the brain is offline, trying to lecture a three-year-old, you know, what should we have done? Doesn't help. I try to calm them down first, always calm first, and that doesn't feel intuitive because we're so amped up, we're so angry sometimes, that I'm giving you a hug when you're the one who just drew on

the wall. But I try to calm them down, calm the emotion center down. Calm my emotions. Calm my emotions. I mean, mean yeah I have to be regulated too before I can help them regulate yeah but help them regulate and then teach baby where do where do we draw where do we write where do we write is it on the freaking wall I'm sorry baby and then I might go get a paper towel and I got a walk out with the paper towel and I said we walk out with the paper towel and I said, we're going to clean it up. And is she great?

Does she have the motor coordination to really get all the marker off the wall? No. So who really ends up doing a lot of it? Me. But I'm teaching still. Come on back up. And it is so hard. Matt, you know it.

This lady knows it. And what's funny, it's so hard. And we're talking about things in a removed sense. But doing those things when you haven't slept. I know. And when there's laundry. Yes. And oh, man. And you're having a fight or a disagreement with your spouse and another kid is giving you attitude.

Now factor all that in and be patient with yourself. Be patient with yourself. There's two. Friends to sales. Be patient with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Be patient with yourself. There's two friends at the sales be patient with all things But chiefly have patience with yourself. Yeah two books. I might recommend that I think we're game changers for me The first is the whole brain child they're both by Daniel Siegel the whole brain child is the first one And the second one is no drama discipline Whole brain child no drama discipline and they both show you how, especially with toddlers, connect and redirect.

So a toddler's acting out, a toddler's misbehaving, don't take it personally, connect. And then oftentimes it's really helpful to just redirect them. What could we be doing instead? Hey, let's look at, but there are times when there need to be a consequence. And in those cases

How you teach matters? Using fear using intimidation using corporal punishment using these often times don't actually teach what we want to teach I want to teach myself emotion regulation and planning and problem-solving and which means I have to model it But those she will love those books this woman woman, 100% she'll love those books. Will we get those in the description? Thursday? Yeah. You're the man.

Nice. Another thing I want to just kind of unwrap a little here before you comment on it, because I'm going to see if I can get this right. So this lady's talking about having a first child, right? And I remember what it was like having a first child. And I do think we have this idea, and we would never express it out loud or think it explicitly, because as soon as we did, we would realize it's ridiculous, but it kind of simmers. And it's like, if I just parent right,

my kid will be perfect. I know. And this is coming home to me now that my children are getting older. Several years ago, my eldest son's friend wanted him to come over, and so they did. My son was there. And the father contacted me and said, would it be OK if they watch this movie?

I'm like, I don't know what the movie is. Let me look it up. I look it up and there's like a masturbation joke in it or something. I'm like, no, no, of course not. And the mother said to the father, I forget like he's a he's the first child. And at the time, I thought, no, no, no, no, you're just being neglectful and you're blaming me. But I'm not so sure anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like as my kids get old, maybe there's another reason that parents actually give their younger children more freedom that doesn't actually have just to

do with laziness. Yeah, they're not just. Yeah. Right. So I think I sort of parried to this. And when I talk about it in class, I'll always ask students students how many of you were the firstborn how many of you and What changes did you notice in how your parents parented? Yes, so part of it can be tiredness laziness. Whatever fine, but bracket that Part of it is wisdom and prudence. Yes, and you need to learn what hill to die on You can't die on every hill and I'll do this with my toddler. This is really important There's certain fights that I've learned aren't worth fighting I don't need to die on this hill with a toddler. I can actually just ignore it. Let it go

There will be plenty of opportunities in the future. There'll be plenty of things that are more important there but so the way I period it in class as I always see like the first child you're like My kids are never gonna see a television. No screens. We're going to use wooden Waldorf toys only. Red dye 40 will never touch their lips. And, and by the sixth kid, like, you're like, not and do that. So she's got popsicle stains on her lips and she's watching bluey for an hour. And it's like, cause I need either to take a nap or I need to clean or I need to get some work done or, and she'll be okay.

And then when you look at those kids growing up, it's not like all the firstborns are terrific and the youngest kid I know it's usually actually the opposite first one's okay We put all our neuroses in our first kids because we're so high strong high strong and we're afraid and of course and and that's What I wanted to kind of point out with this beautiful woman who I don't know and don't mean to speak To her as if I do know her but that's got to be coming into it Like this is the first child having this huge struggle. This is maybe it's not their first child. I apologize if I get that wrong sir, I Did snoop it's her firstborn. It's the oldest. Oh, it is Born, but they have another child. Yeah

Just everybody knows they're saying I looking at the same locals page. It's not like he's Googling this person. Yeah, I was like, you're on her Facebook. No, no. Yeah. Yeah. You call him Thursday. That's his name. Not that autistic. My man Thursday. That's so autistic of like Googling the locals, patrons like, let's see.

She was born on a Friday. Yeah, I was born on a Friday. Were you really? Yeah, but yeah, it is. It is. That's cool that you know that. Yeah, it is interesting. It's not that cool. It's just mildly interesting. Barely mildly actually. Remotely. Yeah, no, that is. Yeah.

It's interesting. Yeah. Because I used to just I just used to say these are parents who are lazy and they're like falling at their post. They're not as vigilant as me. Yeah. You know what I do, Matt? I also try to ask myself, what do I want to teach my kids? Like what do I, what do I actually, if discipline is about teaching, and it's the same root

word as disciple, like to be taught. I'm trying to teach them. What am I trying to teach them? Well, I want my kids how to like I want my kids to to Know how to like love the good and do the good but I want them to know how to regulate their own feelings I want them to know how to Problem solve I want them and so there's actually a whole bunch of things we do when we parent that utterly undermine the thing I actually want to teach so when I tell my my son, like, just stop doing that. Don't freak it, you know, and I shut down the emotion and I, or I do it for him.

I'm not teaching him how to problems. When I get frustrated and do something for a kid, I'm not teaching him how to problem solve. I'm not teaching. When I, when I lash out in anger, am I teaching him how to regulate his emotion? No, I will never forget. This was a really eye opening and somewhat painful moment. When I lash out in anger, am I teaching him how to regulate his emotion? No. I will never forget, this was a really eye-opening and somewhat painful moment. I was walking up the stairs in the house and I heard one of the kids, one of the older

boys talking really ugly to his younger brother. And I went up the stairs and I went in the room and I said, I cannot believe, you were talking so freaking ugly to your brother. And I heard out of my mouth the same tone that he was using with his brother. Yeah. I want to teach him. That's so embarrassing, isn't it? It is.

Because I feel like I've pushed a lot of that kind of high strung stuff onto my eldest, who's an amazing person. Yeah. And I see it in him. What do you do at that point? strung stuff onto my eldest, who's an amazing person. Yeah. And I see it in him. What do you do at that point? I try to, I try to work on myself and go back. I do two things.

I try to work on myself and I go back and I try to model. Because it's like, I don't know why I act the way I act. I'm confused about myself and I look at you as if it should be as clear as. I know. And I expect you to have it all worked out. Yeah. When I'm, no, I- And maybe I expect you to have it figured out because I certainly don't.

Yeah. I don't want you to be like me. No, that's right. I do think that some of it is we actually. This is not a novel insight, but we tend to really dislike and be afraid of in others the things we dislike the most in ourself. Yeah. You know what I mean?

When you start to reconcile things in you. You stop hating people like you I'm not loving that little Matt Fratty 100% give me a good boy 100% Little Matt cries in the corner and it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is going to be another one of those moments where it is an absolute miracle that there's not a YouTube channel of just things you have said out of context, completely out of their context.

Stop encouraging people to do that. You can start it. Yeah. No, that is one thing I did learn in therapy, is just realizing that. Yeah. When you stop hating yourself and again, you say these things and people misunderstand. I know. They're like, oh, you're saying don't be tough on sin. No, no. Don't grow in virtue. Shut up. Yeah. And that's not what I'm saying.

Like listen more deeply. Yeah. And yeah. All right. Any advice, says J.L. Watson, on how a person should adjust from high school to college, especially when college is a good distance from home. Oh, I mean, yeah, it depends on what you're struggling with, you know, but what are maybe the marks of college that are different? One you're on your own and maybe a new and profound radical way. Less structure.

Right. Less structure. So I think it's really important even before you get to college to work on good habits around like what time you wake up. Jordan when they make your bed. I'm ambivalent about that but but as you heard I have brush a T have you heard Jim Gaffigan's joke about my boy doesn't make his bed no no I don't make my bed for the same reason I don't tie my shoes when I take them off. It's not a great it I hate when I don't, I hate my bed being unmade. You make your bed?

A hundred, my wife never does. Sometimes I'll go up and I'm like, she made my bed. She really does love me. I just hate the chaos of the bedroom if there's, yeah. But I respect people who can have an unmade bed and it not bother them. That's my wife and that's clearly you. That's me. Yeah. My wife likes a bit. Yeah. It's not my wife.

My wife likes to make the bed. Yeah. You also, you miss out on the pleasure of the sheets being a little cool when you get in there. It's nice. If it's all tucked in and tight, then it's a little too warm. But if it's open, you get in there,

it's a little cooling. And then you get the experience of it warming up. I love, anytime we can justify our bad habits. I tried saying to my wife, you know, look, whoever gets out of the bed last, how about that? But she's always up later than me because she's sick. All right. Well, now that you're up and sick and tired, could you please make my bed that you don't

care about? That doesn't sound great. That doesn't. Dude. Yeah. I think like good habits, start good habits early. But so college of less structure, you're more alone. So find friends. Yeah, find at least one or two good friends.

Find one or two good friends, but here, resist the temptation, and I see this a lot. Resist the temptation because it's lonely, because being alone doesn't feel good. Resist the temptation to fall in with the first group of people that you immediately. That's good advice, very good. I think I see a lot of freshmen,

you don't wanna be alone, so you just find someone, anyone. And almost always, the people that are friends the first two weeks of freshman year are not the friends first week of sophomore year and on. Interesting. Don't feel pressured. Find friends.

It's actually incredibly important to find good friendships in college. They're so formative. They're so important. You need them to, it reduces stress. It helps you cope with anxiety. I mean, like you do better when you have friends, but don't just find any old friend group.

Find the group of friends that fit with you, that have similar values, that are gonna help you grow emotionally, spiritually, that are moving in the same direction. That's good. Study habits. Like, put your phone down. If you can, put your phone down. Into can put your phone down into the toilet

into the garbage can and learn how to read for extended periods of time this will help you so much in college yeah being able to actually sustain attention for longer than 10 minutes is super important yeah yeah before we get to the next question I know you have a pilgrimage coming up. Yeah. What is that about? Yeah, Matt, I feel so excited. So it's at Verso Ministries,

V-E-R-S-O, ministries.com, backslash, D-R-B. Pilgrimage to France. Dr. B, yeah. Okay, so I wrote a book in October called Finding Freedom in Christ, Healing Life's Hurts. And in the book I detail steps for healing wounds that we have. And how to identify our wounds, how to go into those wounds. And so Verso Ministries, they're a

really neat small pilgrimage company. They put together this pilgrimage to Paris, Luzhou and Lourdes. It ends in Lourdes. And I'm going to walk people through. Yeah. I'm going to walk France and get healed. Go to France and get healed. To bring all these wounds to our blessed mother in Lourdes. Are you guys going to go through the book? So we're going to go through, I'm going to, each day I'm going to give a little lecture and exercises and to help people identify their wounds and stock points, give them meditations and exercises.

I'm looking at it now. Yeah. 10 days, nine nights. Yeah. It's in June. I'll tell you this. Click the link in the description below. Yeah.

I think. Sign up. I don't know if anyone signed up so far. Part of the reason for that is I'm not great at self-promotion and I don't like it and it feels, doesn't feel good to me. But I'll say this. I think this is going to be a life changing thing. I mean, it's I know what I'm going to bring and I know these exercises are incredibly impactful and I know they're beautiful to do it in France. I mean, like we could do it in the basement of a church or maybe it would be just as profound.

But to go to France? Dude, there's this experiential component. Like, we're going to, as a group. We'll read about St. Therese. And St. Therese had all these losses as a young child. Her mom, her sister Pauline. And we're going to, we're going to read about Therese's attachment losses. And then we're going to do some work on our own attachment losses,

our own wounds with our parents. That's awesome. In the place with the saint who gets it, who understands it, who can guide us and shepherd us. And so it's like one thing to do these in the basement, which is fine, do them, like do the work. The U.S. cool of an abasement, France. Luzon.

So I feel like I'll be intimately involved work. The U.S. cool than a basement. France. So I feel like, um, yeah, I w I I'll be intimately involved in, and, um, it'd be myself and a chaplain and you'll get to have mass every day and confession and we'll get to do this deep healing work. And at the end, go to Lord's lay it all at the feet of our blessed mother and invite her in. So there's a link in the description below. Click it, you can learn more about it. Excellent. Ian says, there is a fraction, faction, of Catholics who believe that the only therapy you need is confession and or exorcism. Have you encountered these people? I have.

What's your response? So this is to my point before, man, that this is narcissism, I think. This is people who think that we're just angelic spiritual beings that don't have bodies They take thought and like Or sort of it's it's maybe a radical dualism of some sort right like Cartesian dualism like our thoughts are what's real and matter and true and and just that like that the spiritual Sort of abstract is what matters thoughts are what's real and matter and true and, and just the, like the, the,

the spiritual sort of abstract is what matters and not like flesh and blood body and, and butts. He said flesh and butt, blood, butts, all of it. All of it. I mean it all Yeah, I have seen that and you know what I mean look here's what I'd say The proofs in the put it like look at those people how well are they doing Look at those people. Are they free? Yeah, are they? Look at those people. Are they free? Yeah. Are they, do you, when you're around them, they relax. Yeah. Do you feel love and charity and the freedom

that is characteristic of somebody who has, has, um, experienced healing in Christ or is it like a rigid, juridical over the top, emotionally detached, emotionally immature, like buy their fruit, you shall know them. Of course, confession's important. But let me tell, can I, okay,

can I tell you what I've been reading? This is fascinating and I kind of want to share this with everyone, the world, but it plays into this. So I've been reading? This is fascinating, and I kind of want to share this with everyone, the world. Please. But it plays into this. So I've been reading this stuff on memory reconsolidation. The idea is when something happens to you, as a child, as an adult, as a... Your brain, if you pay sufficient attention to it,

your brain takes that memory and it encodes it in neural networks. It impresses it into neural networks in the brain, and that's your memory, and it's stored. Well, here's what's fascinating. Therapy, one way that therapy works is that you have this neural network, this memory, and by the way, your memory is broken up

into sort of two types of memory in that neural network. There's something called episodic memory, which is what happened to you. My dad yelled at me, he was screaming, I was scared. Episodic memory is the actual events that occurred and happened to you. Then there's something called semantic memory. Semantic memory is knowledge about,

facts about the world, people, the way things work. So the episode is my dad yelled at me, he was screaming at me. The semantic memory is authority figures can't be trusted, people want to crush me. It's like what you learned about the world. That memory gets encoded. Episodic memory, semantic memory gets encoded in the brain. All sorts of things throughout your day, throughout your life, trigger that memory and all the subsequent feelings that come with it. Anxiety, fear, avoidance, gets encoded in the brain. All sorts of things throughout your day, throughout your life trigger that memory and all the subsequent feelings that come with it,

anxiety, fear, avoidance, right? So here's what they found in therapy. Sometimes, commonly therapy is, what you see is people's symptoms decrease partially and gradually over time. Why? What research is sort of showing is that what happens in some therapies is you have this old memory

that's causing all sorts of problems and you learn something about the way the world works and so you predict that people aren't safe, people wanna crush you, people wanna... And that's causing all sorts of problems in your life. So therapy gives you a new memory. Hey, that's not how things work. You are actually loved you are and Then what you have is these competing memories, right? So old memory gets activated and

Then the new memory comes in you say but I remember my therapist told me I am actually good I am lovable. Don't think that don't be your Fred told me not to beat myself up And so what you have is these competing memories and sometimes the new memory wins and so you have this sort of slow reduction in your anxiety over time, because you're sort of, but in times of extreme stress or anxiety

or that old memory can actually win out. And that's sort of a common way that therapy tends to work, is giving you a new memory to combat old memories. Okay. Here's what the memory reconsolidation literature says, and this is fascinating, dude, that you can activate the old memory. I can take you back into the old memory and activate it.

And if I activate that old memory and all the attending feelings, that old memory has prediction in it. When that memory is activated, I think I know how you're gonna treat me. If I can provide you what's called predictive error, I don't act the way you think I'm gonna act based on that memory. If I can do that, that memory gets like,

it gets, how might you say? Scrambled in a sense that it reconsolidates meaning if I give predictive error, I respond in a way you didn't anticipate So whereas I thought you were gonna crush me and leave me I lean in Whereas my dad would have just shut me down I say will you tell me more about that if I give you predictive error that memory actually

Re-consolidate it reconfigures itself and then re-encodes it gets stored as A new memory you've actually adjusted the old memory rather than giving a new memory to compete with the old memory You've taken the old memory rather than giving a new memory to compete with the old memory You've taken the old memory reconstituted it and then encoded it so now you you can't you can't change what happened the episodic memories there But the semantic memory what you learned about it those facts you learned The world wants to crush me people can't be trusted that gets re

You learn something new and it gets re-encoded. So now, it's like, you're healed completely. It's not just like a gradual partial reduction in symptoms. It's gone. Why do I say that? I say that because, look man, we know in some ways how the brain works. Now, there's a whole bunch about the brain we don, man, we know in some ways how the brain works. Now there's a whole bunch about the brain we don't know, but we know some things about

the brain. We know some things about memory. All you need is confession or an exorcism. Look, most of us aren't aware of how much of our view of God is shaped by our parents. Going to confession and just confessing your sins. Look, at least what you need to include in there is like radical self-knowledge. We need self-knowledge. We need to know and understand ourselves.

Because that sort of assumes that we've got this, the right view of God, we've got it right. And that assumes that we don't have all these psychological impediments to approaching the sacraments, that assumes that, that assumes that by the way, confession is gonna like heal these old wounds. Could it?

Could God do this stuff? Sure. He could just, he could just heal all your old wounds right now. And by the way, all the ways you're acting and reacting and trigger, he could heal all of that with a touch of his, but does he tend to work that way? No. Mason M. Bolling, Ph.D. It's kind of like, you wouldn't say, I don't need to go to the dentist or brush my teeth because I can just pray and God will take

care of my cavities. Don't you believe in God? Don't you think that's possible? Yes. Jason Krohn Yeah, it's like the seatbelt thing. Like, you know, you wear a seatbelt too to keep yourself safe. I mean, is he good? Where do you want to? He keeps moving. All right. Stay, stay, stay. I love the passion. My wife's going to chastise me for this. That is so powerful. That actually reminded me of thea, Faustic prayer. Have you heard of that? I've heard of it. I've heard of it. I haven't,

I'm not an expert, but let me sum it up in a sentence. It's the idea of inviting our Lord into memories. Dude, we're going to do this on the pilgrimage. I do this. I'm not an expert in it, but in my own experience, um, I've realized, and I think this is why it works. It works because of this mechanism I'm talking about inviting God into those memories. The first thing you're doing is you're activating the old memory, right? So you have to activate it. The second thing you're doing is you're inviting through prayer, through imagination, through meditation, you're inviting this image of God to give you a disconfirming experience. Christ doesn't act the way I thought he would act. And then you can have memory reconsolidation. You can learn something new.

I'm going to share with you after this an experience that I had about that. I love that. I won't do it on air because it's a bit too personal, but it was very, it was a kind of experience that really just reoriented how I looked at something. So let's like use that. We know that stuff and we know that that can help us heal these old wounds and we know wounds can get in the way of us approaching God and being free and acting charitably. So let's use what we have. Kathleen Marie says, what should you do when it seems like therapy is not helping? Yeah. Great. Everyone says to you like, this is what you need. You take up the car and you finally do it. You're like, okay, two things. The

first thing is you tell your therapist, um, if you don't feel like you can have an open, honest conversation with your therapist about the fact that you're not making progress, that means that you don't have a good working alliance or therapeutic alliance. And that's not good. Now, maybe you're afraid. It's okay to be afraid, but have the courage and share it. And a good therapist should be able to hear that

and adjust. Hey, what's not working? What are we doing that's not, what's feeling stale? What's, a good therapist is gonna lean into that, they're gonna crack it open, and they're gonna work with you on coming up with, maybe it's, maybe you need new goals, new treatment goals. Maybe the ways you're approaching the goals are off. Maybe there's something in your relationship

where you actually don't feel comfortable sharing certain things with them, and that's the impediment. The first thing you have to do is share it with them. If you know you couldn't do that because of how they take it, bad sign. So that's the first thing. The second thing is get a new therapist.

Therapy is supposed to work. It's supposed to work. And if you're not progressing, especially if you've already talked about it with your therapist, and they just don't know where to go, or they don't know how to help you, or they don't pay and waste your time and money,

find a therapist who you feel a deep and intimate connection to, who you feel comfortable sharing with, and who you're making progress with. Switch. I mean, that's, you gotta be moving forward. That's a good answer. A final question here. This comes from Matt.

He says, my wife would like to ask how one can set boundaries in a codependent parent-child relationship while honoring one's parent, according to the Fifth Commandment, particularly when that parent takes offense to the adult child respectfully setting boundaries. I just said, I was telling someone the other day, how people respond to your boundaries doesn't determine the reasonableness of your boundaries.

Just because somebody reacts poorly doesn't mean it's not a good boundary. Just because somebody reacts poorly doesn't mean it's it's not a good boundary Just because somebody reacts poorly doesn't mean it's not a reasonable boundary It doesn't mean it's not a healthy boundary Sometimes you lay down a healthy boundary and an unhealthy person is gonna have an unhealthy reaction to a healthy boundary And oftentimes that is common if you're worried if somebody isn't healthy or they're emotionally immature They're gonna react poorly to a healthy boundary. I Put this on Instagram the other day I've recently for aid into Instagram and

Someone didn't like that this woman responded and This woman was a parent and she she actually was a parent who didn't like gosh It'd be amazing if that was the mom to this person. She didn't like that I said boundaries were sometimes important. She said it doesn't seem very Christian to set boundaries. And oftentimes we think of boundaries as like being in conflict, conflictual. And they're not, I mean, I think, I think. Or even obstacles to a relationship.

Right. They're not even a thing you put in the middle of us. It's something, you'd say this better, but it's something you set up in order to perhaps have a more healthy relationship. Not 100%. So like Christ had boundaries, right? So you know what we don't see in the gospels?

Like when he goes, it's like he detaches from the crowds and he went up to a mountain to pray alone. And that's interesting. Like obviously at some point he, his disciples are probably trying to follow him and he's like, hey guys, I'm going to go by myself. It's not just like they just like stop following for some reason. I mean, they follow him everywhere. And yet we have these moments where he deliberately goes away alone or where he leaves the crowds and goes off. You imagine people... That's what I tell my wife when I leave parties without saying goodbye. I'm just doing what Jesus would do. Like there are times when Christ seems to set a boundary. And it's not because he's

in conflict. It's because boundaries allow us to function and thrive and flourish. They're just limits to what behaviors we're willing to accept from people. That's all it is. I mean, it's a limit to what behavior I'm willing to accept. Now, I'll say this. Sometimes it would be perfectly healthy and acceptable

to set a boundary, but because you might have a certain spiritual maturity or wisdom or perspective, you're actually willing to suffer a little more of somebody else's immaturity or problematic behavior in service of the relationship or insert. You know, maybe you're willing to suffer a little more because you want to let your Your kids hang out with their grandparents. So you put up with a little something that normally you feel like you wouldn't but

From a place of now it has to be done from a place of wisdom and maturity and like charity not from a place of fear or resentment and So I think there are times when it would be healthy to draw boundary that you could choose not to not from a place of fear or resentment. So I think there are times when it would be healthy to draw a boundary that you could choose not to. Even though it would be well within your purview, you could choose not to. But how do you do it? I think you do it in stages.

I think you start off with a minimal boundary, the lowest possible boundary or the lowest possible boundary or the least restrictive boundary that will allow you to achieve the thing you need. And then I think if that's not respected, you can move up. And I think it should start gentle and peaceful and it shouldn't be a big deal. It should just be, hey, here's what we're gonna do.

And then it can also escalate in forcefulness if it's not respected. Hey, I really need you to pay attention and listen to this thing. And then sometimes it can also be helpful to have a spouse get involved. I think initially allowing the child of the parent to be the one to set the boundary first is helpful. But then if you need some backup and support

as you're escalating the boundary, if it's not respected, you can bring your spouse in with you to have a conversation together with the parents. But I think the word that keeps coming out, man, is freedom for me, like to do it with freedom in the sense that I'm not doing this to hurt you. I'm not setting a boundary to hurt you.

That's not my goal. And if that is your goal, then you need to re-examine why you're setting boundaries and what the purpose of boundaries is. It's never to hurt another person. And I try to communicate that if I have to set a boundary. I'm not doing this because I want to hurt you, because I don't like you, because I don't.

I'm doing this because I think it's what's going to be best ultimately for both of us. And somebody can disagree with that. Well, I don't think that's true. Okay. But where I am right now and the way I'm thinking about it, that is true for me. And so I'm going to need you to respect that. And if you can't then the boundary gets, then we might need to leave or we might need to. To flesh this thought out,

how might setting boundaries with your parents be an example of honoring them? Yeah. So it's not necessarily a contradiction of that commandment. It could in fact be. Sometimes I'm better able to show love, patience, tolerance, respect when I'm taking care of myself and when I'm not allowing unhealthy or unhelpful behavior into our relationship, behavior that makes me angry, resentful, that trounces on my autonomy.

It gets weird when you become an adult because we're called to respect and honor our parents, but that certainly doesn't mean that we still have to listen to everything they say. I am an adult man who has children and sometimes what my parents might recommend, hypothetically, I mean it's within the realm of possibility that what my parents think is best for my family, I don't think is best for my family. It would be weird to say, well you always have to honor, what I can say, honor my parents in that case, I think means something like I'm willing to hear what you have to say, well, you always have to honor. What I can say, honor my parents in that case, I think means something like, I'm willing to hear what you have to say. Oh, okay, thanks.

But it doesn't mean I have to agree with it or do it. Well, I think you should let your mother buy your daughter her first Easter dress. Well, my wife wants to buy our daughter the first Easter dress. This is a real scenario to buy our daughter the first Easter dress. This is a real scenario that a friend of mine went through. Her mother-in-law wanted to buy the first Easter dress, but she wanted to buy her daughter her first Easter dress and they had different tastes. And her husband, my buddy, had to draw up and say, mom, you know, and here's how I think you honor her. I really appreciate that you want to buy

so-and-so a dress. But my wife would like to do it. You know, it's our first. We're so excited. And Mom, Mother-in-law's feelings were a little bit hurt because she had done that for all the other grandchildren with all the other siblings. But it's okay. I think the honoring is,

here's how I think we honor our parents as we get older and we have legitimate and normal disagreements on how to live and what to do and how to parent I Think the way we honor them is by never acting out of spite or resentment or an intentional desire to hurt If I draw a boundary, because I'm saying, yeah, go ahead. Please, man.

Can I ask like an example situation? It's a little bit, it's not. You have a friend. Well, no. So this is a common thing I hear and it's for people close to my age range. So like late teenager into college year range. It's teenagers and like early adults

struggling to figure out, and this is a specific thing. I've heard this multiple times. Struggling to figure out how to get their parents to be okay with not knowing where they are with their location services constantly. I hear this like, they don't know how to tell their parents like... Location services? What do you mean? So like on iPhone, you can have your location onto where you share it with certain people

all the time. And so parents in their teenage years, when the kids are first starting to go out on their own, have it on for safety. And then also so that when they, before they can 100% implicitly trust the kid to go where they said they're gonna be all the time, they can know.

But then they get to this 18, 19, 20 some year old where it's like, where are you going out is a perfectly acceptable answer, right? And I wanna clarify, I never had this problem with my parents, like even as a young kid, my parents were just like. Have you heard of that? I have, I was talking to a student recently

who said, my parents track, and my parents will text me, they expect me to be studying at certain times, and if I'm not, if my phone doesn't show I'm in the library or this place They will text me Here's what I think man, and I think there's I Think there's room for prudential disagreement. I think the extremes are clear. I Can see an impulse on wanting to know where your teen child is If you're in a big city or something like this I can I can see an impulse on wanting to know where your teen child is.

If you're in a big city or something like this, I can, I can appreciate that. I also work hard at trying to have the kind of relationship with my kids. Where they will want to share this stuff with me. Now, again, to the woman who asked that beautiful question about parenting, as kids get older, a part of getting older is learning how to be autonomous, how to have your own ideas, how to, and part of that means creating some distance with parents because you're trying to figure some stuff out.

And us parents don't like that. It is normal and developmental. And to try to find opportunities for my child to express healthy autonomy. I say all this because, though, I work really hard at trying to have the kind of relationship with my son where he would come back and say, hey, Dad, here's where I went out

and here's who I went out with. And that he would know that I'm generally interested, I generally, I trust him. There is a danger, and again, people are gonna mishear this and that's fine, there's a danger in communicating a lack of trust to your child by overly doing this stuff. And then you're gonna get- You're expecting it at this stuff. And then you're gonna get- You're expecting it at that point.

And then you're gonna get even harder pushback at some point. Because if you're 21 and I'm tracking you constantly, at some point you're gonna say, you know what? I would rather my son lie to me and have that be on him than to be just that on top of him all the time. Yeah, it does. And again, because how can I, yeah, I mean,

I know we need to nuance this, especially for younger kids, but like if I don't express to my son, like, I trust you. Yeah. You say that to me, I'm going to believe you. I'm going to believe you. And that's where allowing our kids, I set broad parameters. And depending on what it is, the parameters are more or less broad,

but there's room within those parameters for learning. And my toddler has parameters, my 15 year old has parameters, and there's room to learn in there, because that's what my parenting is. Parenting is teaching my children. And so much learning happens, Matt, I mean, you know this, we know this,

when our kids mess up. And sometimes that happens when my kid lies to me and I have an inclination he's lying. And I might let it sit. Okay. And I let it sit. And then he comes back in a little bit and he says, you know what, dad, I wasn't telling you the truth.

And that's when I heap praise on my kids. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, thanks for being honest with me, buddy. Cameron, would you agree with that? Like, I think ever since whatever mistakes I've made as a parent, at least three, I, uh, I've always like just been so happy when my kid admits he's done something wrong or tells me he's lied to me. Like I can't punish him. I just thank them. I know. Isn't it weird when we like really come

down hard on our kids for admitting they did something wrong When in fact what I want is I want them to learn how to a parent right trusting relationship. Yeah, right Dr. Bruner you are awesome, and I've greatly appreciated this this is gonna be such a help to folks tell us We've already talked about the pilgrimage you're gonna be on in June Yeah, can please please please you guys are to be in France around the same time. The month before. Yeah. Help Maddie the lesson on how traumatic the trip is in may I might stick around, go on yours.

And then finally, you just put out a new book. It's so beautiful. And what's it called and where can we get it? Freedom in Christ. Healing life's hurts. And so it's just my approach, my way of thinking about it. Linking that description. Yep. You want to plug your new Instagram and your YouTube channel? Instagram. So ask a Catholic therapist. Can I tell you something somebody said to me? And this is how it's always going to be. So it's ask a Catholic therapist.

Ask, uh-huh. Both at YouTube and on Instagram. Okay. One of the vagabond missionaries pulled me aside at Seek and said, Dr. Bruninger, I love your Instagram so much because it's just so like unmanicured. It's just so raw and real. Yeah. And what she means by that is like, you look exhausted. It's like, it's not beautiful.

I actually don't. So I just showed my wife last night. Yeah. I just showed her last night and she was like, oh babe, I want to get in there and like organize it, make it beautiful and I don't it will never be that it just won't that's not Just let me be me unless I can hide but it's like me holding a baby being like I have this cool thought about boundaries right and the wind is blowing really loud and we're in front of my grandmother's house about to hop in the van to drive back and I'm sick and

If you want a beautiful Instagram page with these manicured pictures of me, you go to Matt Brad's. Don't fuck right. But if you want me to like, if you want some like ramblings about certain things that strike me or, and I have no, I was actually going to post something today about miscarriage, which is wild that that question came up and But I don't know it's just like it's like three black slides with letters on them real quick though Yeah, minimally the link to your YouTube channel should work and I don't think does it not work. I think it's dead. That's me

This is what Perfection this is what I just tagged you you're welcome. That's one of father Josh's posts. Oh, do you see this is so I don't I made his pick father Josh Johnson. Okay, well I met recently. Yeah, he's terrific and we're in a picture I'll tell you a quick story that you'll like about this so that picture black Jesus, right? Bob Lesniewski is made that in his garage. Wow. And he's putting it together and one of the two by fours falls, cracks him across the top of the head.

I saw that. So he has eight stitches in the top of his head, right? So that, I don't know. The two by fours. Yeah, Jesus, I know what they were, right. Yeah, sometimes God speaks really clearly. So. Did he paint an Aryan Jesus after that?

But the joke, yeah, the joke we had was that, like when he woke up, that was just the image that was present. Like he came out of the and black Jesus was there. And so what a guy. Mystical thing. Yeah. Father Josh is amazing. I want to get to know more. Oh my God. We just met briefly.

But there's some good stories I'll share with you about him. He's very similar. Like we look we look like we could be related to. Cool. Well, on that note, God bless you, Matt. Don't know where to go. Like Jesus, this is it with like Jesus. This is a pleasure. This is great, man. I really enjoy it always. Thanks.