Ep46 The Love That Keeps Us Sane w/ Fr. Marc Foley

"Holiness consists simply in doing God's will, and being just what God wants us to be."
~ St. Thérèse of Lisieux

This Whole Life returns to its roots! In episode 46, Kenna is joined by Fr. Marc Foley, OCD, author of the seminal work that led to this very podcast: The Love That Keeps Us Sane: Living the Little Way of St. Thérèse of Lisieux.  Together, Kenna and Fr. Marc delve into the complexities of human nature and God's work in the midst of our messy thoughts, emotions, and relationships. As Fr. Marc explains, St. Thérèse of Lisieux is far more relevant to our 21st century experience than we might initially think.

In preparation for our upcoming book study (episodes 47 & 48) on The Love That Keeps Us Sane, Fr. Marc shares insights from his extensive psychological and spiritual experience, emphasizing the value of patience with oneself while working toward greater virtue. The discussion covers topics such as resisting the temptation to create a perfect persona, managing the balance between acceptance without complacency, and interpreting human experiences from a spiritual perspective. We live in a fallen, and often insane, world; it is the love of God lived through us every day that keeps us sane.

Fr. Marc Foley, O.C.D. entered the Discalced Carmelites in 1967 as a lay brother and was ordained a priest in 1981. He studied psychology at the Catholic University of America and continued on to receive a Master of Divinity. He later earned M.S. and CAS degrees in Pastoral Counseling at Loyola College in Baltimore. Fr. Foley has served as a parish priest, a postulant director, a director of formation, and a professor. Fr. Marc is currently the prior of the Carmelite monastery in Washington, D.C., a spiritual director, an author, and the publisher of ICS Publications.

Get ready for our book study on The Love That Keeps Us Sane by Fr. Marc Foley, OCD: Order your copy here 

Episode 46 Show Notes

Chapters:
0:00: Introducing Fr. Marc Foley, OCD
11:13: Human nature in conflict with itself
17:48: Radical Acceptance without Complacency
23:01: Temptations as a path to virtue, not just vice
32:13: Pay attention to what you desire and you'll find out what you're avoiding
42:50: There's no step too big, but a step can be too small
50:12: How St. Thérèse's life speaks to us today

Questions for Reflection & Discussion:

1. What is one thing that stuck out to you from this episode?
2. How have you experienced your own "human nature in conflict with itself"?
3. When have you been discouraged by your failures? When has God's grace broken through and consoled you in your despair?
4. How are your desires an indication of what you might b

Thank you for listening! Visit us online at thiswholelifepodcast.com, and send us an email with your thoughts, questions, or ideas.

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Interested in more faith-filled mental health resources? Check out the Martin Center for Integration

Music: "You're Not Alone" by Marie Miller. Used with permission.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introducing Fr. Marc Foley, OCD
• 11:13 Human nature in conflict with itself
• 17:48 Radical Acceptance without Complacency
• 23:01 Temptations as a path to virtue, not just vice
• 32:13 Pay attention to what you desire and you'll find out what you're avoiding
• 42:50 There's no step too big, but a step can be too small
• 50:12 How St. Thérèse's life speaks to us today

Transcript

Fr. Marc Foley [00:00:00]:
There's nothing wrong with you. You're just, you're a good, broken human being. We're made in God's image and likeness, but we're flawed. We're both. Can you accept that?

Kenna Millea [00:00:19]:
Welcome to This Whole Life, a podcast for all of us seeking sanity and sanctity, and a place to find joy and meaning through the integration of faith and mental health. I'm Kenna Millea, a licensed marriage and family therapist, and I'm happy to bring you this podcast along with my husband, Pat Millea, a Catholic speaker, musician, and leader. We invite you to our kitchen table. Okay. Not literally, but you're definitely invited into the conversations that we seem to keep having once the kids have scattered off to play and we're left doing the dishes. We're excited to share this podcast for educational purposes. It's not intended as therapy or as a substitute for mental health care. So let's get talking about This Whole Life.

Kenna Millea [00:01:11]:
Welcome back to This Whole Life. It is awesome to get to welcome you in listeners to this very special episode. One that we have probably talked up more than any other, and that is that I get to interview Father Marc Foley, today as we kick off our study of his book, The Love That Keeps Us Sane. Welcome, Father Marc, to This Whole Life.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:01:34]:
Thank you.

Kenna Millea [00:01:35]:
Thanks in advance for your time.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:01:37]:
You're welcome.

Kenna Millea [00:01:38]:
Yeah. So, Father Marc, I have been able to share with our listening community, that I first, quote, met you, through this sweet little book full of wisdom called The Love That Keeps Us Sane. And we've invited our listeners to join us on a book study in the coming month of May. But first we wanted to treat them with a little more insight into the author of this book, into his own relationship with Thérèse. And so enter interview with Father Marc Foley to start us off. So I want to just open it up first, Father, for you to share what you'd like us to know about you, your own background, both in your religious community and also professionally as an author, as a, as a therapist, as a spiritual director.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:02:31]:
Mhmm. Yeah. If you can't see me, then you don't realize that I'm an old codger. Okay? Just I just turned 75. Woo hoo. And, so I'm a boomer. I've been in the Carmelites since 1967. That's quite a while.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:02:53]:
I entered as a lay brother, and I was a lay brother for several years. I was a full time cook. I I used to I was a tailor. I used to make habits, auto mechanic, things like that. And over the years, I kind of discerned that I was cause called called to the priesthood. I resisted it a lot. I, in fact, I used to wake up with anxiety attacks in the middle of the night, because when I enter the Carmelites, my image was I could just live a quiet life, not be involved with people. I'm rather I'm extremely introverted.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:03:37]:
I'm a shy person, and I and and, basically, I think there's always a call to the priesthood there, but I was resisting it. And, finally, I got to the point where I'm saying, I'm either going to accept the anxiety of doing God's will or live with anxiety attacks It was kind of a avoidance avoidance situation, and, I think I made the right choice. At times, I have doubts, but that's momentarily. So I was ordained at 81, did an undergraduate degree both at the University of Dallas and Catholic University in Psychology. I went on to get my MDiv in theology at Catholic University, worked in parishes, did a lot of retreat work, did some spiritual direction when I came to Washington. I went to school for 5 years, to be a pastoral counselor, both an MA and, or an MS and a CAS. Was a therapist for several years. That kind of burnt me out.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:04:53]:
And, then I began to do a lot of retreat work. Did I'm doing a lot of spiritual direction right now. I'm the prior of our monastery. I'm also the, publisher of ICS Publications. And, most of my time because of my jobs, prior, publisher and spiritual director, is right in this house, which fits me. I'm a very much of a homebody. And, I guess that's probably enough to share. You know?

Kenna Millea [00:05:26]:
Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm curious as you describe that life. Number 1, do you have free time?

Fr. Marc Foley [00:05:34]:
Oh, yeah. Oh oh, sure. Oh, sure.

Kenna Millea [00:05:36]:
Yeah. And what do you choose to do with that time?

Fr. Marc Foley [00:05:38]:
Well, first of all, in our in our schedule, we have office in the morning. We have 2 hours of mental prayer, quiet prayer a day, Eucharist, and the emphasis of our order is a contemplative of spending time alone in solitude, which, fits my temperament and personality very well. Both my temperament as an introvert and my pathology as an avoidant personality disorder. So it's, both really go hand in hand. So, I think when you choose a vocation, you choose it. Both the healthy side and the unhealthier side choose it, and you kinda work it out in the process. So I have a lot of I have lots of time, doing what I need to do. Oh, yeah.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:06:28]:
I I do some writing too. And, most of the time, writing is is thinking. 90% of writing is thinking and trying to get an idea. And I find it very, very difficult to try to get an insight into, a a work. It takes me a long, long, long, long time. And, and once I get it, I work on it and hope it's a reasonable interpretation. I don't like to write, but I do like to think. If I do have a primary addiction, it's thinking.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:07:03]:
I love I I I I'm stimulated by thinking and insight.

Kenna Millea [00:07:10]:
Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. Thank you for that. And just to be clear, your your house is in Washington DC?

Fr. Marc Foley [00:07:21]:
That that's correct. It's it's, in fact, you can see the shrine out of the front door. It's yeah. It's, in fact, a mile walk to Catholic University. Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:07:31]:
Oh, wow. Okay. Okay. So you're very nearby. Okay. Well, Father, I think I shared this a little bit. I had the privilege of of a pre interview interview with you, a few weeks back and let you know that, I don't actually remember how I got introduced to your book, The Love That Keeps Us Sane. The person who I thought was responsible for that says that I introduced him to the book.

Kenna Millea [00:08:00]:
So I'm not really sure how that all went. But either way, I read your book early on in my education as, you know, for therapy. I'd been working in parish ministry for 10 years, but was in school to become a therapist. And you showed me in that writing with Thérèse what integration could look like. I think I was in a very secular program. I know I was in a secular program, for, for being a therapist And so many voices telling me that, that that wasn't possible to integrate the faith with the understandings and the insights of psychology. And you really showed me what that would look like and how to do it in a healthy way. One of the things that I think, I continue to grapple with is your book isn't prescriptive.

Kenna Millea [00:08:58]:
It's not a how to step by step. It invites one into, I think, a way of looking at life, a way of looking at human experience. And it's but it remains a choose your own adventure. There's still this call to authenticity in the midst of it. And so, while, yeah, maybe by the end of it, I had hoped that you would just tell me exactly how to be a great Catholic therapist. You you more showed me here's a possibility of how to think through these things and and then to offer that, to my clients. So so that was a great gift. The other thing I would say that that came out of your book for me was that living in reality is key to both the holy life and the sane mentally healthy life.

Kenna Millea [00:09:51]:
That distortions of reality will lead to disordered thinking, disordered use of the emotions, but it will also lead to distance from the Lord and therefore difficulty in pursuing a relationship with him. So just a couple of the things just to let you know kind of, you know, what has made this really the cornerstone of of a text for the the work we do here on This Whole Life podcast and at the Martin Center and certainly as a word of gratitude. Yeah. So just to kind of start us off there, maybe a first question for you, Father is, you know, what have you learned from your years as a therapist, as a spiritual director coming into contact with so many people's stories, and the depth of what their lives have held, what have you learned about humans? Certainly, every story is unique. And I trust that at this stage in the game of where you're at, you can see threads, you can see commonalities and themes. And I'm wondering if you could just reflect on that with us.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:11:04]:
That's could you break that down? That's a huge question. What what have I learned about human nature? That's that's that's massive.

Kenna Millea [00:11:13]:
So I think about, this this whole field and what's really become part of part of mainstream culture, this interest in psychology, interest in understanding the human person. And there's so many books, podcasts, blogs, personalities out there that want to tell us, like, here's something that unites us. Here's something that is common to the human experience. And I'm wondering if there are things that you've seen in your own work in these different roles that you've had of walking with humans, in suffering and in joy that you're like, here's my take. Here's my perspective.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:11:54]:
I I would say every human being I've ever encountered, how can I put it? At his acceptance of speech for the Nobel Prize, William Faulkner said that the only thing worth writing about is human nature in conflict with itself. And I think it's true because there's nothing else outside of that. Every every person I've ever dealt with is, they're in conflict with themselves just like what Saint Paul says. I, I don't do what I wanna do, etcetera. And, we're kind of we're kind of like, a chapter in Varieties of Human Religious Experience by, William James called The Divided Self. That's, that sums us up. I mean, people come into direction. They come into therapy, because, they're really in conflict with themselves.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:13:02]:
And, you know, and and to listen to the conflict and to give the impression that there's nothing wrong with the conflict. And I think that once you can accept that and also to try to communicate to the person that you may never get beyond the conflict, but are you trying to make the best decisions within the conflict? I mean, I look at my own life, and, the things I'm dealing with now, I dealt with when I was a kid, especially when I'm extremely anxious. I mean, you know, as a therapist, there's an old rule of thumb. Under stress, you regress. And, we regress to our, primal fears, our primal conflicts, And, those things never go away, but somehow you get insight regarding what's a better way of dealing with it. What's a better way of dealing with something that you're always gonna live with? And while without hating that part of yourself. And, once you can do that, then you're gonna be really compassionate towards every other human being because everyone else has conflicts. It might not be your own, but but everyone is struggling.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:14:22]:
I think it was either Plato or Plotinus that says, be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a tough battle. And, boy, that's one thing I've learned, and I've and let go of the idealization that what people look on the outside, if they look like they have it all together, it's not true. It's not true. They're just as broken as everyone else.

Kenna Millea [00:14:54]:
That idealization, I think, is particularly difficult to resist in this culture of social media. If you're familiar with the concept of filters, that there are ways that you can, you know, take an ordinary photo and put a filter over that makes you more attractive, more radiant, more, more seem even more peaceful or joyful or whatever whatever we deem attractive. That is a metaphor, I think, for this world that we're living in of I just put my shiny best face forward. And so I think that's tough. Like, I think that is in the air we breathe. If you are out and about in the world today, that you have to make an intentional effort to resist the temptation to fall for the lie, that everybody else does have it together and that you're the only one who is a heap of a mess.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:15:47]:
Yeah. Well, I also I think it's not just our culture. And what what you say kinda is is true. I think it has, that's human nature on on steroids, but there's always been I mean, we've we you know, ever since we're kids, we develop a persona, and we, repress our shadow, and we want to be liked. We want to be accepted. We want to be influential. I have, on my on my mirror over my sink in my cell, I have a a saying from the desert Fathers, which, you know, I it's it's so important. It's Abba Poeman.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:16:27]:
He says, do not expect your words to have an influence. And if you if you do so, you will be at peace. Do your best, but don't worry about results. And I think this that's hard for helping people that we want to see results. We want to see that we can influence people, but that's beyond our kin. Will people be influenced? Hopefully, they will be, but we don't know. Can you let go that you need to see results? And I think that's part of our persona. You know, I I honed in on the word influence.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:17:07]:
Being an influencer is kind of the big buzzword in our society now. Why do you wanna be an influencer? Fame, to be liked. Why do you need that? Well, maybe to anesthetize the fear that there's something wrong with me. There's nothing wrong with you. You're just, you're a good, broken human being. We're made in God's image and likeness, but we're flawed. We're both. Can you accept that?

Kenna Millea [00:17:46]:
Mhmm. Something we talk a lot about is the concept of radical acceptance of this is what it is. So for example, this reality, that this side of heaven, I will continue to experience brokenness both inside of myself and in others. I will encounter it in others. I will encounter it, therefore, in society and its institutions and its structures. And so then how do I adjust? How how do I, what choices then do I make in response to the fact that that is what it is? And to go back to what I heard you saying, I guess at the beginning about what you've come to understand about human nature, and maybe what you have learned through your own reading and writing about, you know, all the Carmelite doctors of the Church, that that is maybe what they did well, is that they came to that acceptance, and then took up their sense of agency of like, okay, so what choices do I want to make in light of this fact? Something that that I know for myself and others is a challenge is to know the line between acceptance that maybe leads to complacency and to I guess complacency is the word. And then on the other side of that spectrum, a pride that comes out that gets expressed in this hyper vigilance against sin against, you know, anything that would be immoral, that gets expressed in like, I want to know exactly what God's will is like, should I take this job? Should I not? You know, should I move across the country? Should I not? Should I eat this for breakfast? Should I not? Can you speak to that a little bit of like, yeah, how do we how do we deal with, walking something more in the middle, something more nuanced than those extremes. Yeah.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:19:47]:
I think there has to be a union of opposites. You know? Kinda, you use an expression radical self acceptance. And the first thing that came to my mind is, I think it's important how you image that. You know? When I come to a point of radical self acceptance, what images and thoughts are in your mind? And maybe you should take a everyone should take a look at that, what that really means. What is reality and what is unreality in in that phrase? I think part of self acceptance is and this is this is the paradox of growth. Can you love your self hate? If you're try if you're battling against your self hate, you're put you're you're hating a part of yourself. You know? And somehow, the self hate begins to go away when you can accept that this is a part of myself that I can love. It's a wounded part of myself because self hate is a wound.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:20:46]:
Can I can I love my wounds without wallowing in them? I'm not talking about wallowing in them or or, just, having your behavior, live out of that. No. But first of all, can I accept it? It's something similar that Saint Francis de Sales talks about, and he says, this is the hardest part. The hardest form of patience is, can you be patient with your impatience? And we say, I gotta get over being impatient. Well, you may never you may never never come to a point where you're not impatient. So so are you stuck? No. You're not stuck. Can I be patient with my impatience? It's, revisualizing the goal.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:21:37]:
You know? So it's and and that's that's, quote, a part of radical self acceptance. It's not saying that impatience is good. I'll try my best not to be impatient, but I'm gonna take it for granted that it may always be there. You know, it's like what St. Thérèse says in her autobiography. She speaks about a lot of the faults of the sisters. And after she lists them, she says, quote, these characteristics are chronic, and there is no hope of a cure.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:22:15]:
And you say, woah, that's depressing. Actually, it it isn't depressing. It saves you from depression. It saves you from doing something that might not be possible. And also, maybe God doesn't want it to happen. Maybe that one thing you can't overcome is the very thing that will make you dependent upon God's grace. You know? And can you do your best? When people come to me for spiritual direction, one of the things I tell them, and I it sounds, somewhat strange. I say, never try to overcome something in yourself, because they not may may not be able to.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:23:00]:
But do your best that whenever this temptation comes up, that you resist it. Saint John of the Cross, when he speaks about first move what he calls first movements as those thoughts and feelings that come to consciousness of all the 7 deadly sins that incline us towards sin, he says, these lustful thoughts, angry thoughts, envious thoughts, what have you, they can give rise to all the vices, but they can also give rise to all the virtues.

Kenna Millea [00:23:34]:
Can you say more about that?

Fr. Marc Foley [00:23:35]:
Sure. Certainly. Because, see, in traditional Catholic theology, the 7 capital sins, there's no guilt involved because the sins are simply the inclination toward. And every inclination towards something will automatically transform itself into a behavior unless there's a choice, that interposes itself. And John of the Cross says, because these inclinations are always coming up and they're they're always changing our body chemistry, especially lust and anger. He says, it seems as if you're being defiled. You can just feel it in your body.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:24:23]:
But he says, that's an illusion. Just the opposite is true. You're growing in virtue if you're doing your best to resist them. So how do you interpret human experience from, spiritual interpretation? Let's say you, you go to prayer. You're making a half hour of quiet mental prayer. And during that time of mental prayer, you're you have a 100 distractions. And as you're being distracted, you gently try to bring your mind back to God's presence, and it drifts away and you pull it back. At the end of the half hour, your interpretation of that half hour prayer might be something like this.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:25:12]:
What a waste of time. I've done nothing except fight distractions. John of the Cross would say, you got it all wrong. Just during that half hour, you made 100 acts of the will, 100 acts of love, and in spite of your interpretation of your experience, spiritually, you have grown. So can you interpret human experience from a spiritual perspective?

Kenna Millea [00:25:44]:
Yeah. That's that is beautiful. It it reminds me of our our associate pastor gave a homily recently and I cannot remember, what the gospel passage was that he was, speaking from. But basically was talking about like that something that the evil one would love to do is to draw our eyes to the failures and to the shortcomings and not allow us to see the ways that we do cooperate with race that we have actually progressed because it, it may be so small and so incremental from yesterday that it seems imperceptible and yet like there is progress, there is growth. And when we examine ourselves, do we look at that as well? So, yeah, that just that links up for me. And as a as a choleric melancholic, it is so very easy for me to look at how do we progress? How do we perfect? How do we, you know, how do I show that I'm that much better than I was last week when I asked myself these same questions? And to see that it's like, you know, the Lord may not be interested in the the answers to that question. Mhmm. There may be something that I'm I'm missing altogether.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:27:01]:
Yeah. Yeah. And I think what your pastor says is true. You know, the the devil lies to us always by telling us the truth. That's his main weapon, the truth. But he tells us half truths. You're a sinner. That's the truth, isn't it? Yeah.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:27:17]:
He accuses us day and night before God's temple. But for what he forgets to tell us is that sin is a relationship to God's mercy. In the, interior castle, Saint Teresa, gives an image. She says, you know, sin is like a black dot against a huge white backdrop of God's mercy. But she says what happens is you distort reality if you get so close, there's no edges to that dot. And she says, be very, very careful of getting she says, getting wired down in your misery. And she says, the devil does this, tempts us not because of the sin, but because we get discouraged. And once we get discouraged, we try to become our own savior.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:28:09]:
And that and that's the problem right there.

Kenna Millea [00:28:14]:
Yeah. Because in that discouragement, God's mercy, God's grace, the help that the Lord wants to offer us Yeah. Gets eclipsed by, our brokenness, our failings, our weakness. Yeah. That that visual of the black dot on the white canvas, is so helpful. Yeah. So, so helpful.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:28:36]:
Yeah. When when people come to confessions, I mean, they're they're they're extremely precise about, Father, I fell into this sin 5 times. It's okay. Now tell me, how many times have you resisted it? They can't tell you. They can't tell you the number of times they've cooperated with God's grace. They're just focusing on their failure. It's kind of like if, I don't know if you have reviews of these podcasts, but let's say you get a 99 positive reviews and you get one negative. Which is the one thing that you obsess on? Right? Oh, yeah.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:29:15]:
For sure. For sure. The negative. Absolutely. We all and we do that to ourselves.

Kenna Millea [00:29:21]:
Can you can you say more about that? Because that is so we our oldest daughter is 13, and she asked me the other day a very similar scenario. She said, mom, do you think that humans are more likely to dwell on the things that they've done wrong or to dwell on the things that they feel like they the successes that they feel like they've accomplished. And I said, oh, absolutely on the things that they've done wrong and their shortcomings. And she was really surprised by that.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:29:47]:
Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:29:48]:
I find my daughter to be, quite, you know, pure of heart at this point. And so I'm like, oh man, maybe she hasn't encountered enough human nature to, like, to to see this. But why is that? Explain that to me psychologically speaking.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:30:01]:
I I I I think that, you know, we all wanna be liked. We all want to be admired and what have you. But the opposite but I think we like to be admired. We want to be loved as defense against what we're trying to avoid, and that is what people, the fear of what people will think of us. And I think that so much of our desire to be loved, accepted, appreciated, being admired is is almost a reaction formation to the fear of what people think of us. And, and therefore, I think we focus on the negative because, so much of what we seek, the power is what we're trying to avoid. And and therefore, we focus on the negative because that's what we're really afraid of. We're afraid more of what people think of us than their praise, of getting their praise.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:31:00]:
Yeah. That's I

Kenna Millea [00:31:02]:
I had a therapist who counseled me and said, like, Kenna, you've got to learn greater detachment from the criticism and the praise. Like she was like, they come together.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:31:15]:
Exactly. As well. Exactly.

Kenna Millea [00:31:18]:
And that detachment, will bring you a new sense of peace of freedom, you know, of what have you. But I guess I had never thought about that before. I have felt like so many homilies and books and what have you are focused on, like fight against the sin of pride and seeing that as like the positive things people have to say. And so somehow in my very human, you know, limits, I interpret that as like, so therefore, focusing on their criticisms is a good and holy thing because it tells you exactly like where you need to grow where you need to improve but I'm seeing them as two sides of the same coin actually The the opinions of others, like to be detached from the opinions of others altogether, which you address in in The Love That Keeps Sane and we'll talk about that in the book study podcast. But, that was new to me that they're 2 sides of the same coin.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:32:12]:
Oh, they're they're I I I would say a rule of thumb, and this isn't I don't wanna generalize to every desire, but look at what you're really seeking, what you and when and when you really focus upon what you're seeking, ask yourself the question, what am I trying to avoid? Because that's that that is what really that's the fuel of what we're trying to seek. What we're trying to seek seek is what we're trying to avoid. You know? I mean, if a place to go, I mean, to read the psychology of Alfred Adler that basically as, quote, a superiority complex is a defense against feeling inferior. You know? He, he has a lot to say, and he's, I think, perhaps one of the most neglected of all psychologists, you know.

Kenna Millea [00:33:04]:
So when I'm thinking about that that that if I if I pay attention to that which I seek, it will reveal to me that which I fear.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:33:14]:
That's right.

Kenna Millea [00:33:15]:
I can't recall exactly how you said it. But so a situation in my own life, you know, Father, before the interview started, we kind of quickly touched base with each other about how our weeks were going. And I confessed that it's been a week of encountering the human in myself and in others. And when I think about a particular situation, that anxieties ramped up this week. And if I can sit with myself in the light of truth, I recognize that I want security. The reason this situation got me so upset is because it threatened my sense of security. And so following kind of what you are saying, then I fear insecurity. And when I think about that, that's truth.

Kenna Millea [00:34:04]:
Like, that's reality. I am insecure. I do not have control over how many more breaths I'm going to take on this earth on whether or not my business will continue to, you know, thrive and be of support to people and be a help. I do not have control or whether my husband will wake up tomorrow and choose to be faithful and love me again. And and my children will, you know, seek my counsel. Like, that's the truth.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:34:30]:
Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:34:30]:
Talk to me about that. Help me be sane in the midst of, like, confronting this reality of my insecurity.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:34:36]:
Well, I I, Kenna, I you're not just talking about yourself. I think probably most of your listening audience is saying, boy, that that describes me too. I mean, we, you know, it's it's very, very difficult, to try we we we try to protect ourselves. And, you know, the older you become, in a sense, the worst it gets in the sense that Really? Well, I think in in many in many ways, it does. Okay. I'm 75, and I'm waiting for the bullet. I mean, you know, both my parents died of cancer. My brother died of cancer.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:35:12]:
You know, I'm saying, okay, Marc. When's your time up? You know, I can't I can't protect myself from, my genetic makeup. You know? And I'm saying, okay. I've I had my doctor's report last month. It was good. But when isn't it gonna be bad? And, you know, you hey, Marc. Your luck is not gonna hold out. That's the way it's gonna be.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:35:38]:
And, yeah, and someday you might be sick and you're gonna die, and that that's hard. And you just, yeah, you you really don't have control of your life, and and it's anxious. We we want to be secure, but the reality is, life is insecure. But getting back, there's nothing wrong with you because you feel insecure. Life is insecure. You know? There's

Kenna Millea [00:36:06]:
I mean, we could say I'm living in reality. Right? Like, like, when I know

Fr. Marc Foley [00:36:10]:
Exactly.

Kenna Millea [00:36:10]:
When I feel that pain

Fr. Marc Foley [00:36:12]:
Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:36:12]:
It's because I am connected to this reality. Yeah. I am not my own God.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:36:17]:
That that that's right. Exactly. You know, one of the one of my favorite authors is Karen Horney, and, when she speaks about anxiety, she says, don't interpret, the anxiety that you feel in relationship to objective reality. Interpret it in regards to the significance it has for you. Okay? For example, I I get I get so anxious when we have guests in the house. I'm saying, this is crazy. No. It isn't crazy.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:36:53]:
Because I grew up in a house, an alcoholic family. Our house was a mess. We didn't have people in. We lied a lot to keep people out. And when we had them in, I was embarrassed and ashamed. So when people come into my house, it's like, I'm this 9 year old kid back there. Marc, you should beyond that fear. That's crazy thinking.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:37:15]:
I'm never gonna be beyond that, but I'm gonna say, in spite of my fear, I'm gonna do my best to be a gracious host in the midst of the fear. So it's the significance of what that means.

Kenna Millea [00:37:30]:
Which I think is the privileged role that I have as a therapist to help people connect the dots. Because in the moment, in today, they do feel like they are blowing something out of proportion, being unreasonable, you know, being, yeah, being unvirtuous to let their emotions, you know, run them. And so I have this privileged place of going, let's connect that and see where those roots are because in truth, it doesn't serve your system to blow things out of proportion. So there's got to be a reason. Back to that self compassion we talked about earlier, like we got to assume that there's a reason that this is showing up. Yeah. Now the reality is you you don't live in with an alcoholic, you know, parent anymore. And so there can be a reorientation that needs to happen for ourselves of, you know, I have more control than I did when I was 9.

Kenna Millea [00:38:29]:
I have more say in how this goes with hosting guests. And to remind ourselves, and again, I think that's my job with people as a therapist is to help them with some skills around how do I kind of update my system and help bring some soothing. But absolutely, that 9 year old still lives in you.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:38:49]:
Absolutely.

Kenna Millea [00:38:51]:
I have some core memories from when I was 4 and they show up. And the quicker I find that I can go, oh yeah, that makes sense. My anxiety abates, you know, like it doesn't completely go away. But it becomes much more manageable. I think precisely because I accept it. I become less afraid that if I talk to it, it'll run my life. And I actually validate it and, like, give it the time of day. Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:39:20]:
And it counterintuitively goes, oh, okay. You heard me. I'm like, thanks. Mhmm. And it recedes.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:39:25]:
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, Kenna, sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't because when the emotion is strong, reason cannot talk to fear. Sometimes it's helpful. Sometimes it lowers the anxiety. But sometimes once it's triggered off, the train is rolling. You can't stop it. So, sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:39:51]:
If it works 50% of the time, that's fantastic. Keep on doing it. Give it a shot. Well, yeah. It's it's like, why do you have I mean, is it you're, I mean, to to feel that you're gonna control your emotional life all the time, that's that's a reality. Do your best. What tools are helpful in controlling your anxiety so that you can make the healthy choices. That's the thing.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:40:23]:
But don't expect that those feelings will completely go away. If you do, you're setting yourself up for a lot of discouragement and a lot of self hate because you're saying, there's something wrong with me until I get beyond these feelings. You're you're adding self hate to self hate. You're only making it worse.

Kenna Millea [00:40:41]:
So in those, let's say, other 50% of the time, when reason doesn't work, doesn't put a dent in that, are we riding out the train? I mean, what's our best case scenario there?

Fr. Marc Foley [00:40:54]:
Well, I think you have to get down to specifics of what exactly are you talking about, what situation, and what are the specific choices that that feeling will automatically translate into and to say, what can I do that that that behavior doesn't happen? I can't answer that question in the abstract. Yeah. It it really is, and it's gonna and it's gonna be different for everyone. I'd say what what tools in your toolbox have been helpful and and keep on using them if they're helpful. There's no cure all.

Kenna Millea [00:41:36]:
This is a new thought, and so it's it's like a quarter baked. So I'm not sure. But I'm thinking about, you know, something that I learned in my training around working with substance use, substance misuse, and addiction. And that there was a lot of science data behind a harm reduction model versus elimination. And I wonder if there is a parallel here, like this reality that, that for a lot of people who are, let's say, addicted to alcohol, that for them, the best case scenario was to actually talk about reducing their use versus elimination, that elimination was too big and overwhelming. And it actually resulted in very little change. But when we when we change the goal to how can you use less so that you're functioning in your family life at your worksite isn't as greatly negatively impacted, that that is actually when a lot of patients and clients found greater success and found ways of coping. And so I'm just wondering, like, maybe are there, like, parallel concepts here that we're talking about?

Fr. Marc Foley [00:42:48]:
I I I think so. If you set the bar too high, you're setting yourself up for failure. And and it doesn't mean that you are giving up, but you're reimaging your goal. There's a principle in behavior modification that says you can take too big of a step, but you can't take too small of a step. If you take too big of a step and you fail you fail, you can get into an all or nothing. If I can't do this, then why even try? But I think that

Kenna Millea [00:43:19]:
rigid thinking.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:43:20]:
And if you get down to making it better, then I might not be able to avoid alcohol all the time. But when you begin to consume less and you begin to experience the positive effects, you you want to repeat that experience of the positive effects of not drinking, so it might lead you on to drinking less.

Kenna Millea [00:43:47]:
Mhmm.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:43:47]:
You know.

Kenna Millea [00:43:48]:
Mhmm. Mhmm. But we gotta have that, success, that experience of success in order to build momentum.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:43:55]:
It's helpful. You know,

Kenna Millea [00:43:56]:
We talk about those as step goals in my office, you know, like, okay, here's the, the grand goal, let's say, of moving out of your parents' home and being able to get that full time job, you know, being able to drive yourself to and from that job, like that's the big goal. What's the next step is the next step applying for a driving license permit? You know, like just what would be the next small thing that we can say? Yes, absolutely. That makes perfect sense that it contributes. And also, you're not trying to eat the whole the whole goal all in one day. I learned that early on in my professional experience as a therapist. I remember distinctly, I first started in in home therapy and working with adults and children around daily life skills. So it was more skills focused than insight focused. And I remember reporting to my supervisor that I that I, Kenna Millea, had had this amazing breakthrough with this client that had been so difficult for everyone else to deal with.

Kenna Millea [00:45:00]:
And here I was 2 weeks on the job as an intern, and I had gotten this client to commit to this act of self care every day. I was like, Oh, it's going to be amazing. She totally agreed to it. She was smiling as I left, whatever. And my supervisor said to me, I'll be curious to see if this client shows up for her appointment next week. Yeah. And sure as all heck, oh, she was totally right. The client terminated with me the day of our next appointment.

Kenna Millea [00:45:27]:
And my supervisor said, this is good learning for you to see that goal. That was too big to get her to commit to going to that social group in her assisted living community 3 times before she saw it. Like that was too big. She needed to work on getting up and getting dressed each morning to be able to be social, to even think about being social.

Kenna Millea [00:45:47]:
And it was such good learning for me. So, yes, what you're saying resonates.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:45:51]:
Yeah. Anyway and what happens is that then then we're dealing with our need to be successful, which is the fear of I'm a failure. Hey. I'm in a helping profession to be a success. I've gotta see positive results, that you're getting better. And if you don't improve, you are a disc you you are a disappointment to me. You you are not doing what I what I need to feel good about myself. So I want you to change and pretty damn fast.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:46:22]:
Mhmm. I mean, if we if we actually had to say this out loud, our our feelings of frustration actually interpret what's really going on. And because there's a lot of there's a lot of countertransference, I think happens. We get into the helping profession because we wanna see ourselves as a healer, as a great helper. And, and to prove this, I can point to this person, this person, this person, or this person, and I'm doing my job. And if you're not being healed, you're not doing your job. There's something wrong with you.

Kenna Millea [00:46:56]:
Well, and I think that that translates very easy for me into parenting as well. You know, that that our children on our worst days become these little reflections can create such conflict between parents than when their children are experiencing difficulty, because it's so easy to turn against your spouse.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:47:25]:
That's right.

Kenna Millea [00:47:25]:
And say, The reason Johnny is struggling is because you aren't you know being a good mother, father what have you measuring success in what our kids do or don't do. That's a huge issue in my own life.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:47:43]:
I I cannot imagine what it is to be a parent. I mean, you're thrown you're thrown into a role that's almost impossible. You have no training. There's no handbook.

Kenna Millea [00:47:56]:
No one asked me to apply for this job.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:47:58]:
Yeah. And, also, we're dealing with our own needs. You want the best for your children. I take that for granted. You you love your children. You want the best for your children. But what that really means, my image of that, there might be some of my own needs involved in that image.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:48:24]:
I mean, Carl Jung once said that the most devastating, thing in a child's life is the unlived part unlived part of their parents. That sometimes we want to form them in a certain way, which is a good way, but it might not be the way that God wants them to be formed. And we can be blind to what we believe God wants our children to be. Because we have an image of goodness, of holiness, of how a child should be, all of which are very, very good, but does it really correspond to the individual child? And, you know, usually, we don't know that because we're blind human beings.

Kenna Millea [00:49:10]:
Yeah. Limited. We talk about those as legacies, like the things we hand on to our children. Right. And these unmet needs, unsatisfied desires that we have as parents, and we hand them on to our children. And and one of the things that that's really challenging, you know, particularly, if a if a marriage is facing divorce and they have children let's say for example is for me to say I understand that that perhaps divorcing is, is the way out of this, really painful relational situation you have with your current spouse. And also if that doesn't get resolved that is going to be handed on those dynamics persist.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:49:54]:
Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:49:55]:
And they will present in the parent child relationship as well. Yeah. And that's so difficult for I'm not pretending that that's an easy decision or an easy thing, but it is something that I've seen way too many times to not believe that there's truth in that. Well, Father, I know we're coming toward, the end of our time together. And one of the things I think that could help us maybe turn the corner into really diving into this text that you have gifted to us, in your book is if you could just say a bit about, you know, how is it that this what was Thérèse? A 19th century, right? 19th?

Fr. Marc Foley [00:50:35]:
19th century, French Carmelite nun. She entered at 15, and she died at, I think, 24.

Kenna Millea [00:50:42]:
24? 24? Yeah. You know, how can we relate to her? Like, what is it that you've learned about spending all this time with her that you see that she still has something very relevant and applicable to us here in 2024?

Fr. Marc Foley [00:50:59]:
Okay. I I think that if you look at the outer trappings of her life, she's a cloistered Carmelite nun in the 19th century in France, we say, what relevance, what connection does she have for us? I I think I would like to reframe this, and that is, Thérèse lived in a monastery with, I think, 24 or 26 other women. Okay? And this was basically her life because our life are the people we live and work with for all practical purposes. I would say to people, try to write down to 24 or 26 people that you have most the most significant contact with in a on a daily on a on a weekly basis. Take, the hypothetical Joe Smith. He's a construction worker. He's married. He has 3 kids.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:52:04]:
5 days a week, he gets up, jumps in his pickup truck, drives the kids to school, drives a half hour to a worksite, works with 6 other people, comes back, takes a shower for the next day, reads the paper, helps the kid with his homework, and falls asleep in the chair. So you've got 9 people right there, 5 days a week. On weekends, he might, do some, yard work. He might go over and see his parents. Might, go out with 3 guys, to the golf course. So he kinda ratcheting in the us of maybe 14 or 15 people. I would say, if you look at the 20 to 25 people, you have the most significant, contact with during a week, and try to estimate what's the percentage of all human contact is extremely high. 70, 80, maybe 90%.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:53:03]:
In one sense, a cloister is a symbol of all of our lives. And you deal with the same people day in and day out with the same emotional problems, the same interactions, and what have you. And, and unless these people have a personality transplant overnight, you're gonna deal with the same you're gonna deal with the same people, you know, as as Thérèse says, these characteristics are chronic, and there is no hope of a cure. Teresa, Thérèse was talking about, she was she said that when she was, like, 22 when she wrote the book. She's talking about nuns she's living with in her forties, fifties, sixties, and seventies. You know? So she she she knew the situation. So how can I love these people as they are and not expect unrealistically they're gonna change? If they do, that's fine. But I would say focus who are the people you live and work with that really you you you the interaction with that you have the most problems and conflicts with, and what is God asking you to do? Because that's our life.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:54:14]:
Our life is very, very, very specific. So I, you know

Kenna Millea [00:54:20]:
So they are who they are. Yeah. And until further notice, we should expect them to do as they did yesterday and the day before and the day before. You know, for their personality quirks, their their perspective on the world, their their, idiosyncrasies, their vision of self, like all of that will remain static. And then our our life of holiness is, like, how am I going to respond? How am I going to react?

Fr. Marc Foley [00:54:44]:
How am I gonna love these people as they are? I mean, we say crazy things. This this is a huge rhetorical question. How many times have I told you? How many times do I have how many times do I have to tell you? Do you I can't give you a numerical answer. Maybe a million? I don't know. I mean, just be see, this is magical thinking because I said this. This insight is gonna change your behavior.

Kenna Millea [00:55:12]:
This is magical thinking.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:55:13]:
This this is magical thinking, you know?

Kenna Millea [00:55:16]:
Which is a thought distortion. Yep. Yep.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:55:18]:
Yeah. I mean, it

Kenna Millea [00:55:19]:
Not the way it works.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:55:21]:
Because we get angry because we expect that, you know, and and I would take it for granted that people really try their best. Saint Thérèse in her autobiography, she gives an example of the the sister, well, what's her name now? Martha, okay, who she looked at, and she was developing a really codependent relationship with with the prioress. And Thérèse had she discerned to say something. And when she did, she was open to this. And she she and she says, and sister Martha told me, please, from now on, if there's anything in my my character, please tell me so I can change. That was a moment when she became Thérèse's novice. She was very, aggressive toward her, verbally abusive, And this is and this is Sister Martha's own testimony. She'd walk out on her.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:56:30]:
Saying something in a in a moment of emotion doesn't mean that's gonna change your, behavior for the rest of your life. But you said that. Yeah. I did, and I meant it. But she didn't have the capacity. Can we accept that? That people can be sincere in what they say, but often they don't have the capacity to follow through. I mean, isn't this true for all of us? How many times I mean, this this is part of our psyche. This is the part of the the New Year's resolution of our superego.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:57:04]:
And and I I well, you know, I made this resolution. I mean, I'm beginning not to fit in my pants because I'm getting a little pot bellied. So I got these images in my mind. I'm gonna exercise and diet and stuff like this, and I'm so enthused. But, you know, when I go down to the kitchen and there's those donuts down there, well, we'll start tomorrow. I mean, I mean, come on. You know? But I'm sincere. Mhmm.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:57:32]:
Sincere.

Kenna Millea [00:57:32]:
Because two things can be true at the same.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:57:35]:
Precisely.

Kenna Millea [00:57:36]:
Yeah.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:57:37]:
And the person isn't a hypocrite. They really want to change. But do they have the capacity in the moment to do so? And I think and I think we look at our lives, that's true for all of us. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:57:52]:
If we're honest. Yeah. I think you're right.

Fr. Marc Foley [00:57:54]:
And even if we're not honest, it's that the reality It remains. If the reality stares us right in the face.

Kenna Millea [00:58:02]:
Whether I'm willing to look at it or not. Well, thank you. Thank you, Father, for, yeah, just priming us for entering more deeply into this text. And And as I said, the next two episodes, of This Whole Life will be focused on, the book, The Love That Keeps Us Sane by Fr. Marc Foley. And, those episodes will release on May 12th and May 26th. And, of course, we want you to read the book with us. That is our challenge by choice, for this episode today to grab a copy of that book.

Kenna Millea [00:58:38]:
The link is on our website. We're sharing it everywhere on social media, and I'll let you in on a secret that if for whatever reason it is not the season of life to read that book, I trust that the conversation of these episodes will still have great value to you, as we as we look in a new way, I would say at Thérèse, from kind of the the popular way that we as a Church have envisioned her. Father Marc really invites us into a new perspective, a new vantage point on her. So, Father, would you mind leading us in prayer as we close-up this conversation?

Fr. Marc Foley [00:59:10]:
Sure. Lord, we thank you for the time that we've been able to spend together, and we ask that we may be as gentle and loving with our own wounded human nature as you yourself are and merciful, because you know what it means to be human. We make this prayer in Jesus' name.

Kenna Millea [00:59:42]:
Amen. Amen. Thank you again, Father Marc Foley, for the time and, for, yeah, sharing with us the fruits of your reading and your writing and your work. And thank you listeners, for being with us for another episode of This Whole Life. Feel free to check out that link, like I said, on our website, thiswholelifepodcast.com. It's available in our bio on Instagram and Facebook, @ThisWholeLifePodcast. And until next time, God bless you.

Pat Millea [01:00:16]:
This Whole Life is a production of the Martin Center For Integration. Visit us online at thiswholelifepodcast.com.

Kenna Millea [01:00:35]:
Like I said, I I will carry you along this river of conversation.

Fr. Marc Foley [01:00:39]:
Okay.

Kenna Millea [01:00:40]:
But, again, the way our conversation flowed last time, I thought was beautiful. I've really been looking forward to this ever since. So that is your, is that your stress alarm? What does that remind me of?

Fr. Marc Foley [01:00:55]:
That's a goat.

Kenna Millea [01:00:54]:
Your screaming goat.