January 25th, 1995, Serial No. 00108
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again
yeah i think be the traditional to be teaching speech therapy ah yeah encouraged to supplement a read our desires was desires are that i'm a neutral but i mean possibly expect cabin air
mac oh absolutely i had water in a car and about the engine their cars and as blue so but the the questions the direction we have to give to it that's right i never finished obligation and is redirection reading american and time tradition we had was to
he wrecked our passion or desire not just about got a prayer my salon and then absence have we have noticed would be you house with the a meaning of line something he remarked achieve you go accompaniment
which we will have to dedicate commit ourselves by like wrong
efforts for bad he was a quad strength in have a good cookie is ideal life and i think another way possible nation on the election is good relationship with people so you desire passion affection all can can be
integrated into our good relationship not a relationship keep our members to think this would be some and i mean basically these are finding new traditional kitchen yeah it's a giant target the only thing i would say is that you it's not just a simple matter of kind of choosing to several may remember that
that these kind of defensive processes are more or less unconscious and what i think it requires
the ability to get to the point of using that sort of a defense which is a mature defense and we all have needs for these a different times means going back and working on and resolving whatever issues from any of these four areas are causing us to need to use defenses in the first place
ace
what's the problem if it has to do with sexuality is your away which were to cut off from niche and why are we to cut off and what what makes it hard or understanding our structural cells and as we have a better understanding and ownership of that oath in ideas and feelings then there will be less need to use those lower level
offences and we will find ourselves moving into the higher level offensive like submission
of working and image and i'm going to have done and psychotherapy necessarily candidate that certain out the only way part of good authentic living and relating with other people involves these growth and transformation processes this is related to accompany the other question i'm wondering if you go there is an undergrad
of it is no kind of battle position even understand them have a world gonna click image of being world i'm wondering if could possibly been here the whole system and having a kind of a stability which required you have find connect graphically of the you because it's the gravity here is already
on five i am going routed to the realization of them can it be that the cell was center really which is more powerful find it that does not simply on the web whether the energy can can gathers around a center which is
will you go less on the lower part of it with written papers stability and yes i think so and effect that's the direction of that some of the psychoanalytic writers were moving there there's a movement away from the belief that that it's just sex and aggression and drive us you know and affected my
orientation and much more to do with of with this notion of people here the an associate of object relations that the primary driving force for people is in fact a primary related illness it's connection with other people you know and would have includes desire and and other sorts of things are there is that opponent to
as well but this is the primary driving force or people and ourself you know kind of get back to to what the two of you are asking about i think you get the sense of balance when there is an acceptance of the
in us that we may have split off at some point because the more things are kind of split off and outside of awareness they can exert undue energy and inefficiency with they're not to interfere with our own sense of balance and so the more that we can accept the split off parts of ourselves and acknowledge that other people are both good and bad
simultaneously have good qualities bad qualities that ourself can be in a better balance that yes
and the young people if i understand brutal and their leaders of this deepest during for the ultimate for the absolute god i think your name is no cleaning is the second he sees this is the the fundamental thing of which showed me the sexes just to kind of a parable and
most innovation sometimes he was so terrified by this standing before the ultimate and it's easier to get involved in particular route into the as are just use sex can function as a mass distraction you really can but gerald i wouldn't be the first one i think basil hume and his book of conference what's the name of
that book and seekers on a per govt rg forgot he talks in there bottom of a basic religious instinct and i think those of us who were kind of think in this of
realm of how psychoanalysis and religion come together would posit that the religious instinct is you know at the base and things spring out of that don't you know that for the potential in that fits in with the spiritual self i talked about what those other cultures that i'm more in touch with that they all believed that it's they're impossible so
i think that i think it's there so i would agree that there's something much deeper and when you can get
i don't want to quite so get beyond this but when you can get through this and hat an openness and have this be a part of you
you think of what the relationship with god and others would be like this is where i think of that quotation from tejada short and when we really discover what love is that we will have discovered fire for the second time let's close approximation to the quotation and all the multiple meanings of that
statement i think that's a pretty rich state
i remember years ago like i was giving a preach to change and the contrary and i'm in all of the public forums
whether it was a question answer after my talk or interventions him
there was this one old man who will just come out say they have to slay the song after time i like not
i'm island our language about the salt on it and having you don't become a paradigm
religious luck or whatever and how it was very troubling and other nonsense don't depression
go crazy
well she came to me in private tours in a country and on she started weeping and she just said i'm i lived sixty years without missing a day of multiple sexual auto erotic
a facility she's just like consumed with resolve am i
i want to deal with really their confession for that she's assurance and so i just hugged her and i'm trying to convince you to get some professional help them but every time i hear people use violent language about the song
i have i have alarm go off not necessary that there's multiple sexual activity going on with it there's something arrival and very basic areas that well right and that's a defensive way of handling kind of desire and reality for them is that it's not
at all uncommon for people who have you know it's a great sexual difficulties of the know parsons themselves that they just can't own they get up with the pulpit and they're the ones who preach abstinence and come down on any form of sexual expression the strongest not not uncommon happens time and time do is way that
we don't speak to ourselves even that violently although he never say the words that we treat ourselves that we and different compartments and myself that were struggling just just as extremely we can hear the rule of self hatred he and preventing both psychological and spiritual growth i think is
on not considered enough
needs to be looked for people i think are kind of out of touch with facts of times and and needs to be explored
and that's where having you know kind of an ongoing relationship with someone allows for the ability to work on me the is kind of drop in on someone's going to do a self hatred evaluation today i knew and what we've done in twenty minutes and it takes time to have a relationship so that you can work on that but there
you know we're flawed human beings and there are so many aspects to ourselves some of that has nothing to do with sex and we just can't own and accept and then we really can hate ourselves for really lemons us limits us from experiencing that that that peace in that sense of balance sheet on
the same kind of the risk of thing
from what you said that there is that the thing as healthy as is that can be promoted oh sure just like elements freshman year so there is that fine line
well
redirection reviews both in suppression in district
ah yes a sublimation is just much less of a conscious process it just kind of happens people who are the that were very kind of creative and have a lot of energy and involved in many things and they do them well whatever it happens to be there's a lot kind of a great deal of energy and
vitality to them that gets spread out all over the place that's an example of house sublimation would be working of the kind of inner energies are being channeled and and other areas
suppression is just you know how saying you know not now you know annapolis i'm gonna move on something else who can be conscious redirection and they do a lot of jargon some me
know the story of my arm monks generations ago so but he started drinking heavily who's snow and went into a kind of therapy situation was discovered that because he was gay he hid himself into trying to kill himself to drinking they brought him out of that
be stopped and drinking got the ball in a very fruitful ministry to people with a bot pounds and gay people and he had a flourishing life but here you went from that so hatred can always going to suicide that's right oh because even himself as priest and monk was worth nothing because he will
is against of all to of saying yes to this wool carpet who do that etc spelling and alternative site and with for life part of a damage st and on there's so very important that working in technology in the wake of self destruction and and to see what could
really happened from that you know by confronting summers and owning and accepting oneself freeze want to do all sorts of marvelous things things that are not chores
well to
you to
but will continue with this process of development but of one of the things that i
didn't say not what they want to just touch down from last time was the notion number
vandalized love maps when things are kind of really go awry in big ways with individuals sexually
again we don't have a clear idea of exactly how that happens there are some indication as a indicated last time that some early experiences are such that the the normal childhood sexual play that's a part of every one's development is not allowed to take place or the
child is extraordinarily punished for that over a long period of time which leads to a breakdown between what is erotic and what is love that seems to be the best consents and sweep we have these days another piece of this usually i'm an often includes sense of being abused as a child so
sexually abused let me read the report from small wheel
when a man's life is destroyed or damaged by some wound or privation of soul or body which is due to other men's actions or negligence it is not only a sensibility that suffers but also his aspiration towards the goal therefore there has been sacrilege towards that which is sacred in him
i like that because i think that describes to thanks it describes both the victim and the abuser
the perpetuation that takes place with individuals who have been victimized as children they become adults and they do that again i think at a very deep level is a destruction of the sacred and them and those who follow them and as long as at pattern continues it sir
continuing problem and other phrase that some people use to talk about that is the notion of 'em soul murder the the way in which these kind of early experiences can have a really profound and sometimes very difficult to change impacts on people's lives
now that that is just kind of one aspect that's when things really go awry what i'm want to talk about more as a kind of a more healthy less deformed less vandalized sense of sexuality
here's a way to continue to think about developments that continuous interplay of the cell or aspects of the south with others that's in keeping with the
ah notion that i'm talking about the world forever going back and forth between being and loving having a sense of separateness versus a sense of inclusion that all aspects of our life i think can be related to this
and the robert as to good question for for one that i still don't have an adequate answer haven't had for a while and that is to give an accurate description of what i mean by a sense of self
i'm still not sure i'm still trying to find words to describe what i mean by that because it certainly more than the ego that freud talks about and much more encompassing than that it has to do with the sense of ideas but not the i know that supposed to go to the wieners that i talked about when i discussed
the various forms of the self as to do with what constitutes me and i think the way in which allows me to think about it more clearly is the self is that constellation of us that contributes to our ongoing creation of meaning in our lives and we have multiple facets are aspects of our
self and i've just listed a few of here psychological emotional intellectual sexual spiritual familial social the list really could go on and in fact does
all of them are important and they all contribute and interact with each other
another thing i wanted to come and i was this notion of levels of self we have this as well the first level is the public level of self this is the like are a personal publicist this is the pr and aspect of ourselves it's what we preach
sent to others but we would like others to see about us but we think they want to see them
this is the we present two most people much of the time we have a hologram a larger private sense of self that's known to us and less known to other people though is a shared more completely with those with whom were intimate
this includes not only the good things but some of the troubling things about ourselves some things that we recognize but don't like about ourselves and finally there's an unconscious
sense of self that level and these are things that are split off that we are not aware of but you imagine that some of our intimate friends might be aware of these parts of ourselves yes they are and when we talk a little about friendship i'll talk about the role that and then friends have and helping to decrease that area
are you familiar with the concept of something called the johari window to overhear of that this is very similar to that the the notion that they talked about in their social self theory was that the goal is to bring as much of the stuff that's hidden from self and others into the open so most things are known at least by ours
self and then also by a number of others so there's less hidden a material and that way there's less ways of tripping yourself up
i had the boiler steam boiler on the more there yesterday that clearly is not a complete description of a freudian theory in fact it's really a caricature of it
however because we were more much more than the results of the our sexual drives however it can feel like that sometimes to all of us at different times in our life and that's why i think that can be it and particularly useful model
we're going back and forth always between this sense of being and loving our focus on self versus our focus on others and the question is is this always a state of conflict or can they be some sort of balance that takes place in there
i think it's an ever changing fluid process i think from my perspective my theoretical viewpoint is is that it is always in some state of movement or flux but i think the sense of balance can take place and i would say that what contribute to that is an ongoing sense of mindfulness
this it's the
empathic attunement within oneself and all aspects of one's self and also within the world and the people in our world is a tall order now it is a tall order but though the moments when we really find ourselves can keep in that balance being aware of the shifts that are taking place in
ourselves and others and making the adjustments as we need to we can experience a sense of balance well some of us find that we are less mindful of times and then get kind of blindsided a little bit by different parts of ourselves or the world are the people around us vs i think that again
would be part of the human experience from my perspective
all right intimacy friendship and celibacy first let me say a little bit about family and friends that's a big line these days i guess an mci commercials are all wanting everyone to be in touch with family and friends and so my question to all of us are you aware that your
a mother and father and brothers and sisters have all of them are here with you right now in this room that we're not here alone but that they're here with us
in fact they are the impact of our row early life with our parents and our brothers and sisters and something that
shapes us a significantly it's something that we can't ever run away from if we would like to and sometimes we would like to we always bring the impact of them with us they have
deposited themselves in our psychological life whether we like it or not some people spend large portions of their life trying to exercise aspects of their family and indeed perhaps that should be done because the way in which these before these
family
images have been kind of planted are forced into one's mine ten tend to be rather unhealthy
i want to start with them because this is the earliest ground for are related illness and we remember i talked about the early stages of psychological development and the role of mother and particular and then also father
what tends to get neglected is the role of siblings in our ongoing development development and relationship how many of you have at least one brother sister and there any only only in here
two to one
but as endeavor speaker
only have a different experience individuals up can replicate the sense of being an only child of if there is a period of five or six or more years between them and then the next child some families tend to have large families where there's a gap between them for whatever reason and the experienced than of
different kind of family constellations
oh
the patterns are so intricate and complicated that they're very hard to put into words most people i know i have a complicated that's a nice word complicated relationships with their siblings
very much so as i described in the past who can't live with them and can't live without them that's why these expressions like
visits
like go fish go bad in three days and that's not quite right with there are numerous stories and anecdotes like that
we come out at the end result of the interactions with their siblings with the possibilities of ways of relating to others we can if everything goes good enough a perfectly but good enough we can have vital ways of relating that is a mutually enriching experiences
with their siblings and then with others around us we can be generous and co-operative and experience that from others
the liberated by our experiences with them and we can enjoy the the differences that's when things really go well now when things don't go well and to other extremes can happen one ends the tendency to be more clinging to have clinging relationships
both with siblings and with other people in our lives this is characterized by excessive dependence a real neediness and is related to the movement towards the excess of loving and connectedness with others at the expense of the self
a uniformity is critical for people involved in clinging relationships people need to be the same that's because there is such a lack of a sense of self that everyone has to be the same so everyone else can feel the same that's how they define our sense of self so
you can notice that in some religious communities where a
a great deal of emphasis and fact an over emphasis is placed on uniformity uniformity and dress uniformity in fought like the the superiors are sometimes considered thought police you know
or another extreme is being excessively distance that's when there were for whatever reasons in early childhood in there are many know close bonds than developed so a way of taking care of oneself since one can't have the experience of loving and being loved is
two
move toward success of independence and here it's very limited participation in the group and this is result of fear not because it feels good to be alone and separate but a deep down it's a result of fear
disappointments resentments and deep hurts
now it shouldn't surprise you that those kind of experiences will replay themselves throughout life those of you who are very new to this community whether or not this is your first effort at religious life or not or whether you're even making a transfer from another community well i
thank experience a replay of some of these sibling issues from your life you when you first come here whether you're aware of it or not you're going to start seeing your brothers and sisters around here the ones you liked and got along well with and the ones that you couldn't stand whether you advert to that consciously or not the price
ss itself will play out
and it also depends on your role in the family if you are well accepted and everyone looked up to you you may come into a group and expected that so everyone else is gonna relate to you you know high here i am you know love me except me praise me and find perhaps that you don't quite get that that
be quite disconcerting when that happens perhaps you've never experienced than but but then again maybe you have
the norms for relationships with our siblings and with our conference also become more complicated we the
in a committed religious life just like with their brothers and sisters we can't get rid of them we can't turn them in though a very young children in fact want to do that dante and you may remember yourself going to your mother and saying when you are five or six and another child was born mom would you take her back please i really don't want to
have her around here anymore
that children can say those things and mean it we can experience those things and not say it but mean it so we its advil same kinds of issue
the complexity of the emotional bonds makes it sometimes hard to communicate because the feelings that we have towards brothers and sisters and then towards more intimate a fraternal relationships are very complicated we don't just like someone or just dislike someone we might love them a little we might
to be envious of them a little we might be satisfied with them a little windy hurt with them a little all at the same time and it can be very difficult to get those emotions out on the table and talk about them one because we're man and to because we're man and i'll get back to a i think
have a way of thinking about that in a way of thinking about making some shifts along those lines as well
in fact i'll do that now
rollo may has this nice line for human beings the more powerful need is not for sex per se but for relationships intimacy acceptance and affirmation
relationships intimacy acceptance and affirmation
i think as a monastic men that
the areas of intimacy and friendships and celibacy
all come together in one piece it's hard to teach them out and it's hard to think accurately and thoroughly about one separate from the other so i'm gonna try and of we these sorts of things back and forth a little bit
and i want to do that by presenting first you my central thesis about why men seem to have the difficulties that they have in relationships
it's not my idea of a man named emmanuel kant ah
that may not be the right names that steps the philosophers and yeah this is not
not that contents a different one to get us first night
you're awfully with freud's of oedipus theory that right
the basic concept is a young boy grows up young boy wants mom
fears are dad and loss of penis forsakes mom bonds with dad finds mom and other women right that's that's the in a nutshell
freud's conceptualisation
interestingly enough there are some folks were sent well that's probably not the only way in which we can think about that and in fact that may be an example of failed development rather than the normal appropriate best course development from man
instead if the child in this preamble period the boy and particular let's talk about man here experiences the father as affectionate loving ah non noncompetitive and facilitating has those kind of experiences with dead just before
the oedipal period so knows that and that men can be like that then goes through this oedipal cycle which is by its very nature involved with a heroic combat themes a single handed adventure a
man against everything else and of a stoic sense and handles that as well the end result for the young boy at that stage and then for the man as he continues to grow is that he can then experience as masculine both this heroic solitary quest
and a way of being related and facilitating with other people to have in fact the best of both worlds
if in many cases there is not this chance to experience the father and this kind of com non-competitive way then there's on this heroic form of life and what gets diminished is it is the tenderness and feelings and
emotional life that can be part of one's existence but tends to be diminished and suppressed
and men then struggle with the belief that well if i'm going to have this that means that somehow my these kind of tender feelings that my man who will somehow be diminished and this may be conscious thought but this is the process that takes place and this leads to some of the false dichotomy is that have existed and our perp
perpetuate it if you think of the moral reasoning of kohlberg versus gilligan's reassessment of it
colbert's morality of individual rights which tends to be kind of a guy thing or gilligan sense of an ethic of care or a web of relationships that tends to be from her perspective kind of a more feminine gal thing in fact it doesn't have
have to be that way and that's what current writers are thinking and that's my experiences well it's not that it has to be one or the other are the men only do it this way and women only do it this way both avenues are open to both men and women
there are multiple levels of intimacy that people can engage in intellectual emotional physical and sexual and plus others as well spiritual
notice that i'm putting the sexual one lower on the list because too often and again this is a kind of a concern them men have is that the there's this confusion between a general sexuality and intimacy almost as though they have to be one and the same thing when in fact that they do not
when some men have done some work on this and have grown to understand themselves and get more in touch with their effect of life
they want to share of the good news with others and that's an important thing to do however there has to be a careful process and doing that forced intimacy
is
yeah i think in some ways a destructive towards relationships and in fact can be characterized as a one night stand
forced intimacy that takes place between individuals were there hasn't been time to really develop a relationship to build a level of trust can seem very much like a one night stand a lowering of beria some sort of quick sharing that feels good but there's nothing left afterward except distance separation and
alienation so careful work needs to be used as one works towards developing these sorts of relationships
how does that fit with the sexuality and celibacy well being intimate means i believe having a sense of knowledge as clear as possible about oneself and that includes understanding one's sexual self
an example of this is paying attention to your own sexual cycles women because of their menstrual cycle are much more carefully attuned to their bodily changes in their response cycles men tend to be attuned to women cycles to usually in a pejorative negative sense what do you oh
i hear men talking about of a patient right now who has a great deal of impulse control difficulties and that's only at the surface his sense of himself was very fragile under nice but whenever he gets into an argument with his wife why is that because he's is mark the calendar it's her fault right
what is she suffering from pms pms premenstrual syndrome is just convinced that's what it is and we're just starting to suggest to him that maybe it's got something to do with him and not her he's having a hard time accepting that
man we have our own sexual cycles as well there are ways in which will notice that are kind of or erotic response tend to seize tend to be more heightened more sharp more easily brought to the focused more on our mind and at other times is more of a period of could quiescence it's not just like by algorithms per se but there
is something to that and it's helpful for man to be in touch with that to be aware with their rhythms are because that the whole process here in development and and bringing together intimacy friendship and cells celibacy is that we're trying to make meaning out of our experiences so instead of
of being our impulses you know kind of being sexual in the sense of being controlled by those we moved towards having sexual feelings
and this is what happens i think in many stages of her life or can happen is that we move from a sense of just totally experiencing it to and having a sense of it controlling us to affecting a different meaning about that experience and having it become a part of us something
over which we have some control
to hear people talk
it almost produces men to animals and not even very good animals for that matter that you're ill here's some folks say that well i've just got these impulses and i have to act on them and that's all there is to it as though the impulses control and run our lives and that's not even true for most animals
but if we don't stop and think about that we are some men tend to operate under that sort of mistaken assumption
and a greater awareness of one's self and the ability to
to moderate and understand the various meanings associated with our desires as we talked about yesterday is important because the sexual feelings as i said can be a sign of depression or happiness or sadness or love or loneliness or any other number of things
and it's important for men to be able to differentiate that in their own lives to help them understand what these various feelings mean for them
let me just add a couple of comments here about celibacy
especially as it relates to this
if we're talking about a process of ongoing development and celibate living itself also has to be a process of ongoing development as well
it's probably a mistake to
make connections between
from my perspective at least celibate life and being the bride of christ or married to the church the a sense of too much of a connection between marriage and celibacy i think negates the richness of the celibate experience it is separate from needs to be under
stood not just an opposition to being married and also celibacy is not just being sexually abstinent that's not the same thing you know that's only one small aspect of of celibacy
in order for to be effective from what people who kind of lived it and have written about it or psychologists spiritual directors who write and talk about this
believe that it needs to be relationship based
and also occurs within the context of some sort of a community
where there is shared meaning
and it's very much related to our ongoing developing sense of ourself
our capacity to be celibate and grown and depends on our earliest experiences and our capacity for related nuts because celibacy is a form of related notes one rider
made an interesting connection one that i hadn't thought about before she said there's probably some connection between psychotherapeutic work and a celibate lifestyle i do both so i was interested in her writing about that she said there has to be a deep level of sharing between two people in the cycle
therapeutic process with which there are strict limits to other aspects of the relationship
and there's that makes some sense to me points out that a truly celebrate relationship as compared to a non genital relationship is one where there is rich deep and intimate sharing a various aspects of the self for its parts of the cell without a general expression of it so
our earliest relationships and how those went and the kind of work that we've done to make our current relationships healthy or go a long way towards increasing our capacity for celibate living
whatever kind of education or formation such as it is or has been in celibate living contributes to it and from people i talked to they say to them why what was your experience in kind of training and sell but lifestyle mechanical ha you know that there hasn't been much
and there needs to be more experiences of ministry and service it's actually experiencing not just being told oh you get some good benefits out of his lifestyle you know know you're supposed to do this and it'll be good but actually experiencing that not just being told that contributes to
growth in the cell that process
and this notion of this related this that begins so early in our lives one of the fruits seems to me as i read in and talk with others and look at my own life is the growing sense of interrelatedness and the awareness of our interrelatedness with others that is comes out as a part of the process of silva growth
people usually expect individuals to have trouble when they enter religious life you know dealing with poverty and i haven't an and receipts and getting used to worm of giving things up and grow into poverty obedience superiors have to believe that people grow into it
given the fact that the difficulties they haven't with individuals over time so there's always hope the don't grow into that but there's often mistaken assumption that somehow people are
come to religious life with the a full sense of celibacy rather than that that itself has to be grown into as well so just as the whole process of our human development takes place over life so does our understanding and living out of the celibate lifestyle
usually involve some early experiences of loss
whether people are aware of that are not when they in hindsight can sometimes talk about their loss of creative potential of appropriate of potential because the regenerative potential still remains
through a period of trying to them make sense of what does it mean to be sell but who else is like me with this versus others who are not because this is the process folks go through and trying to internalize a sense of what it means to be celibate
it also differentiates be
the experience of celibacy can lead to a greater sense of aloneness which is different from a sense of loneliness
and finally when the process it gets more and more complete in our lives we achieve some sort of balance or or integration of the cell of the lifestyle
let me
stop at that point and just
use that as a spring round for some discussion in some questions on and these topics one thing i haven't talked about today at that i will up tomorrow is the whole notion of how solid to fits into this process i haven't forgotten that i would i will get to write comments or questions or reactions
disagree mystical talker on union and very true christ and enter
on the other hand isn't because it we simply don't want anything to do with that analogy
oh maybe we can pride sort of experience with something that is it does overload
or on challenges towards a real intimacy with god and
and a marriage or those also analogy is there and in some ways it seems to work so they can go the mystics don't have the ages who wanted to go to the kinda cool to see labs where tens you can be dollars are seven but also sexual mechanical is john of the cross writings are extort
neroli sexual most of the mystics their writings than a very it's extort their relationship with god for my rating tends to be extraordinarily embodied so i think yes we wanna keep the prayerful connection but the silva experience for us has to be an embodied expire
for instance were embodied individuals and when people write about that and pray about it they bring their sexual cells into the prayer in to the one of them as a line of want to be ravished by god not an uncommon and so i would say yes we we we don't want to lose that connection that there's the
balance between other
i guess what i would say well where it becomes problematic as when it becomes a bodiless almost solace
then connection to some idea of what god is that really serves more of a purpose of denying oneself rather than a rich app activity that we bring to our relationships to god and to others does that make some sense
so don't see things can be more like having a hero love
people can run for people could run to that lifestyle yes for fear of love
fill that this would be somehow are relieve
a fear of connectedness
say that also seems rather
you rush into sexuality or into marriage up your blog says victor
as some the films are it is suddenly it's using the net present challenges me
in years past we pick up
during salander is yeah so i were heard a man why of talking in a that a conference him and he said you know the first ten years of his marriage was not based on love but which is based on last didn't love his wife there are reasons why
but so that's what a was very difficult for his wife as she loved him loved him and he just loved it after her and only was interested was in some kind of a sexual experience with her and i was very troublesome for them
you know our go in the cemetery
seventy
well then whole lot bigger than an arab political punch
the only one year
and what you're saying is about
that
for pitching
and then we gave them develop would help me
what a of you instead of the
yeah behind wage
can you say something about that blow
you know what would hire you might be you
but i think i could have help to define the terms what people really mean when they talk about particular friendships that can mean any number of things that often means fear of homosexual genital involvement and also actually can mean a fear that someone else is gonna have a a nice of friendship and i don't and
and i'm not capable of it so it really shouldn't be in religious life and so nobody should have it i mean that's another when when you have some kind of deformed formation people not purposely but minutes can happen sometimes
that can be another part of it
what is part of a particular friendship it can be thought of as an infatuation process which in and of itself is not a bad thing at all it's a way in which we discover more about ourselves and other people it's the process of kind of falling in love
love with some aspects of other people
sometimes these sorts of infatuation is kind of run their course people resolve these issues and a particular that the negative or less growth producing aspect of attempt to diminish over time
sometimes the particular friendships are the to close bonding if it works against the community if the pairing that takes place over time looks to be destructive to the community then some interventions need to take place within that
that
on the other hand sometimes these particular friendships these kind of by efforts into experiments with an increased level of intimacy and related as are just what you might hope for and people and would like to see and encouraged as long as it's not kept and of see
correct as long as it gets talked about by other people this can be a very enriching experience and sometimes not always but sometimes the people who are most opposed to intimate friendships within a community are those who are for whatever reason either afraid of or incapable of doing it themselves so
that's why they don't want to see other people have that so that's the long winded answer to say you have to understand what exactly is happening or what people mean by that and up or there's a really positive things that can come out of that i think so i think so when i talk about community life in general tomorrow i'll indicate that are no promise
is that you're ever going to have intimate friendships when within community you just can promised that that happens boy that's a that's a grace and blessing
she can't command and expect to have that necessarily but it does happen it's great
know on the europeans by the government talk about the contra special on over the michelle integration falling on was vertical and initiation or roman
like the on right confronting that that other side offer
the
young ends will also talk about the shadow sides of oneself the way you can apply that to how i'm disgusted when i talk about the unacknowledged or split off aspects of one's self that will be the same thing as the the shadow side those things that kind of breakthrough that don't quite seem like us
i would argue that most men have a
difficulty in accepting them the more feminine side perhaps because of this sub model that i presented about the the young boys really development that you know that remains to be tested and seen that the task that young talk about a midlife was the need to confront and bring an integration between these two areas
i think we kind of want to work towards that over time and that's that's an important part of the wholeness that were seeking and i think that the friendships and intimate relationships help us get more in touch with that component with the the the i am a side of ourselves the things that tend to be more split off
frenzy things and us that we can't or won't see in ourselves and friendships
help make us whole gregory the great definition of friendship is the guardian of one's soul that's a very nice expression i like it because it talks about a sense of responsibility that we have for each other it talks about a sense of mutuality
oh and a bread includes specifically in his definition by this to the word so i think that it brings it and specifically brings him to the spiritual dimension as well
and if we think of that familial self that i talked about in the need for we self regard i think that the brings to the for the responsibility that we really have for each other to to develop a and least fraternal really
ocean ships fraternal love relationships with each other that's an obligation i think we have in community
well that necessarily becomes an intimate one
that's in some ways up to god to not just us
that was what i was always type it in during the i took a few skills you will be the other's commitment to see every other brother whoever's different as as grow in the kind of new testament but that don't give to bridge is mysterious thing
i think we should all going to have to treasure and then to work at it but it's there that to required of everyone tell that to rejoice with it's their choice my curiousity of londoners are limited she that's the real richness to be able to do that to have achieved that and
good balance between being unloving allows us to rejoice when other people have are having a you know a good relationship when their life is being enriched by someone else we're better able to do that when we've not either on purpose or inadvertently cut ourselves off from the possibility of related miss with others as well
and when you ask him up to your personally that i think any other mother superior i don't think superior should intention isolated from the possibility of friendship because very awkward it is severe have their favorites and play with that unjustly but the kind of like that
how we want a superior isolated
well and so it being one who seems to be entering into a worm return what friendly relation people come down he has been giving him a rock type disease can signal or something i think that's not healthy because at least an article in tradition it's very important the superior have been infected support is anyone else
and if it's okay so no one can have friendships with everyone that's also the case with a superior but in it would seem that there are many instances her friendship again the attack shouldn't be launched on those people is somehow they enter you
right yeah those sorts of attacks can spring from many
issues so envy often being one of them it can not bring up unacknowledged early experiences in one's life have always been second those of you kind of like mental children and sometimes and will have suffered from that
why is it that i'm an older song
so there was some coffee with me and my brother ron those sorts of issues why could i do this and he couldn't i could easily turn the table and say well i had to wait till i was so on so before i can do this and you've got to do it so much of anywhere if this works all those different ways but but a competition and sibling rivalry issues get played out with that
i think superiors absolutely need to have aspect of relationships with other people who are because the i think the greater distance that they have been separated themselves from the community aspect that makes them less effective and understanding the needs of the communion unable to work with it on the other half
and i think superiors have to be able to listen
objectively if someone does come to them and saying and i think you're being too you're showing favoritism and elisa of i'll think about that i'll look at that you know to build this be open than the person who kind of brings out concerned least knows that he's being heard may not be right but at least being her
it gets more complicated the more than a we encourage and a related in us but i don't for a healthy and a full lifestyle i don't see a way of had not been complicated
looking to do to make up to the friendships more inclusive
i
francis confirming and request on doesn't matter he became caught exclusive and eventually was quite unhappy
since nobody can crack one i see that to terms with having rock the question had actually maximize
how to expand friendship
while i think i would say two things one is what can you use to understand about yourself more clearly from that experience and that will then allow you to develop a richer relationships with other people so that's one thing that can come from that the second thing is is to really work towards and just literally embalm
irving other people and the things you do with that one person not all the time because there will be sometimes when you just want to be the two of you together and when there is time for the two of you together and time for the to you in connection with other people that increases a sense of balance and it calls for a
later growth because part of this especially in the early stages of friendships is we don't want to share the person with someone else if we're honest we really don't this is really something special between us and we don't want to do it so kind of dying a little bit and taking the risk because the fear is if someone comes in i
i'm going to lose something either in the relationship where i'm going to lose this person in my life that that can be the fear to let someone and to take the risk and see that perhaps something gets enriched by the processes and helpful one it'll literally working on bringing other people in can help
yeah
a reference for
after on track it down and it's a
i look for it been around a long time it so
when the basic principle her in the box
ah self and others known and unknown
and that there are things that
you and everyone else knows about you think that you know that they don't think that they know but you don't think that nobody knows that that's the essence of the johari window and the idea is to shrink this
make this one smaller
how did you want to share everything about yourself with everybody else i mean that's that false and unseat you know relationships friendships intimacy take time to develop
but the larger this is this these unknown blocks loves you really have to share with people because it's not only achieve it's not known to you are are owned by himself
the sites when there's a union dear designers ended in my experience myself a real fascination with another also with arrows coupons said your organization etc rather than areas is
part of that is that there's something in me that i've seen that person i repress that i can deal with a many so i'm able i'm to acknowledge that on myself but in the other to save the way to knowledge him
so the theory is also the young woman in the article insincerity i need to acknowledge that you can still
relationship with they in europe and the work on finding because development more warming up to relate to that person's that person it's kind of a passionate because it relates although again the therapy with the solvent most with i'm asking as we want to become more and more aware new yours we can give ourselves were to god and others
federal and those areas where repressing eurozone is a whole word i can be told palm down and on turning over me it is that i the initial responses we have two people to the first time we see them are not based in reality they just simply are not there
they're based in either some kind of the and of a lustful response of the bar feelings tend to be sexual towards them and has to do with the unacknowledged parts of ourselves that we see and then let you talked about it also has to do with this notion of transference when we take an immediate like or dislike for someone and we don't even know
no them it's because we're seeing you know people from our past or aspects of people on our past in them what is required for us it is to move beyond those initial
with and they're actually judgments of people to move beyond that really get to know and understand someone so if you meet someone for the first time and literally like them you got going nothing to base that i well you may think you do at that time and time again at people so damn an excellent judge of character i just look at people wants and i know what's going on with the much kind of roll my eyes because you
but that's hard to work with them when they when they have those sorts of police
these interactions are always telling us sometimes more than we want to know about ourselves and others i think but part of it needs to be that openness to to understanding ourselves
comment
we looked at how
the web
pick
agriculture
the
on
click is usually used in a kind of pejorative sense to describe a subgroup that have a shared interests so far that's not bad right that sounds good nothing wrong with that there might be group people like to watch football or and arrested other things that that would be perhaps a quick but it
it when it becomes exclusive and exclusionary so that other people are not allowed to join it if they would wish or other people or other groups are devalued or downplayed that's one the becomes i think a destructive to to community
live i think to allow people with shared similarity shared interests and to be together and do things together is a good thing as long as it doesn't become a complete sub community within the community so that these people do they eat together they pray together they go for walks together they read to
get the shaft together they do everything together with no one else that's a little troublesome i think
potentially
one last point but that fascination with the other words protection also so really infuriates me i can stand them one shopping center monastery i'm just see him that computers than i had is clean and he was a yearning for this friendship and
as where this is a part of myself and after that i haven't tried in my life when the would say my worst enemy in my community is my best friends he's gonna charge me to work on stuff in my scope that was a diving like project
yeah i think being a real friend is hard work and the hard work
it's not not always easy not always easy
but you are we do all those kind of negative reactions you are often responses to to split off or unacknowledged shadow parts of ourselves
again i'm a open a meeting with folks individually are there other topics or questions you want to be sure that i say something on and ah my thursday and friday talks to let me know and i'll be sure to
try and say something about i will be talking about the notion of the solitude and how that fits into this
as and i will be also discussing more about them community like the joys and pains of such
on my family
oh yes yeah right
and of oriented from that way kind of get some psychological underpinnings for that yeah