Ep59 The Temperament God Gave You w/ Art & Laraine Bennett

"But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain."
~ 1 Corinthians 15:10

Why do I react the way that I do?
How much of my personality can I change?
How does my temperament impact my relationships, my work, and my faith?

Join Kenna and Pat as they dive into the fascinating world of temperaments with Art and Laraine Bennett, renowned authors of "The Temperament God Gave You." In this enriching episode, discover how understanding temperaments can lead to personal and spiritual growth, enhancing relationships and helping us to be more like Christ. The Bennetts explore the strengths and challenges of each temperament — choleric, sanguine, melancholic, and phlegmatic — and offer practical tools for navigating personal and interpersonal dynamics. Listen in as they discuss the importance of self-awareness, the power of community, and how temperaments can promote freedom and growth in holiness and virtue. This is a fantastic conversation that you don't want to miss.

Art Bennett has a B.A. in philosophy and an M.A. in counseling psychology from Santa Clara University. He has co-authored three books on temperament and 6 books with Laraine and is a licensed (California and Virginia) Marriage and Family Therapist with more than 35 years of clinical experience. Laraine Bennett has a B.A. in philosophy from Santa Clara University and an M.A. in philosophy from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She created the game, Know Thyself! The Game of Temperaments (Sophia Institute Press, 2022) and has written two solo books. Art and Laraine are frequent speakers on marriage and family issues, both nationally and internationally. They have four adult children and eleven grandchildren.

Episode 59 Show Notes

Discover your temperament!

Chapters:
0:00: Introduction and Highs & Hards
12:41: Uncovering & sharing the temperaments
18:25: Temperaments: the science of reactions
28:42: What are the four temperaments?
41:17: What's the point of understanding the temperaments?
51:17: Can my temperament change over time?
1:03:36: Challenge By Choice

Reflection Questions:

1. What is one specific thing that stuck with you from this conversation?
2. What is your temperament? How does your temperament affect your reactions?
3. How might knowing your temperament help you grow in holiness & virtue?
4. What do you understand about the temperaments of your spouse, children, and loved ones? How does that help your relationships?
5. What is one weakness of your temperament that you feel compelled to address?

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 Introduction and Highs & Hards
• 12:41 Uncovering & sharing the temperaments
• 18:25 Temperaments: the science of reactions
• 28:42 What are the four temperaments?
• 41:17 What's the point of understanding the temperaments?
• 51:17 Can my temperament change over time?
• 1:03:36 Challenge By Choice

Transcript

Laraine Bennett [00:00:00]:
We're called to grow in holiness. We wanna be more Christ like. And, Christ was only the good parts of all the temperaments, only the strengths.

Kenna Millea [00:00:16]:
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.

Kenna Millea [00:00:56]:
So let's get talking about This Whole Life.

Pat Millea [00:01:10]:
It is This Whole Life, ladies, gentlemen, young and old alike. Welcome back, and we are blessed to be with you on another wonderful day, God willing, wherever you are. And, boy, do we have a great episode for you today. Right, babe?

Kenna Millea [00:01:26]:
So so excited. So excited. This one has been on our heart and on our mind for a long time. Ready to pull it out.

Pat Millea [00:01:31]:
Absolutely. We are really blessed to have with us Art and Laraine Bennett. Welcome, Art and Laraine.

Laraine Bennett [00:01:38]:
Oh, hi. Well, thank you so much.

Art Bennett [00:01:40]:
Thank you.

Laraine Bennett [00:01:41]:
Thank you for having us. It's an honor to be here.

Pat Millea [00:01:44]:
So glad the honor is ours. And, we have many, many, questions for you. Can't wait to hear, the conversation that we have in store for you folks. Kenna, can you just give a little bit of an intro of Art and Laraine so that folks are familiar with them and their work?

Kenna Millea [00:02:00]:
Their names may ring a bell, from the book, The Temperament God Gave You, which they coauthored. Art has a BA in philosophy and a master's in counseling psychology, and was in clinical practice for more than 35 years, but has coauthored 3 books on temperament specifically, and 6 books with Laraine. And Laraine herself, with a bachelor's in philosophy and a master's in philosophy as well, has written multiple books and created the game know thyself, which would be a fun way, to introduce this to friends and family, this concept of temperaments. I'd say most importantly, Art and Laraine's greatest accomplishment is their 4 adult children and their 11 grandchildren. And take note, guys, because they have a book coming out in the spring of 2025 on anxiety. So thank you, Art and Laraine, and welcome to This Whole Life.

Laraine Bennett [00:02:53]:
Oh, thank you so much. Thank you.

Art Bennett [00:02:55]:
Thank you, guys. It's an honor to be here.

Pat Millea [00:02:57]:
Great. Well, one of the ways that we love to start off our episodes is just to have a little bit of human connection, a little bit of fellowship with some highs and hards, that have been going on in life recently. Kenna, would you be our ladies first and also show them how it's done?

Kenna Millea [00:03:14]:
Yeah, sure, sure.

Pat Millea [00:03:15]:
Great, thanks.

Kenna Millea [00:03:16]:
So, yeah, I would say hard lately. And Art and Laraine, I feel like I'm sitting at your feet of wisdom here around this, but, it's just the surrender that that vocations require, you know, in marriage, in family life, in business too, in clinical practice, like, just lately have been confronted with some situations where things are not going at the pace that I want them to, and and people are not making the changes that I want them to. No. And and so just that difficult reality of, like, oh, that's right, because it isn't all about my plan, and it isn't all about my timeline. But that is it is it is really difficult. And as we learn more about my temperament, you will understand maybe you already know what my temperament is. And so, you can see why this is so hard for me. But I would say, yeah, just coming to that place of humility and coming to that place of surrender again and again, especially as our kids get older, as our business gets more complex, as I journey more deeply with my clients and care about them, increasingly.

Kenna Millea [00:04:26]:
So that is a hard lately. I would say, that, you know, God is good, and in the midst of that, he's really blessed us with community lately. We have had an inordinately busy, like, past month of both travel and hosting people in our home, but all throughout that, just being so aware of how God really does reach us through others, you know, through that human connection, through relationship, and how it just makes, like, everyday life things more rich when we're in community. You know, something like a meal, which could be, which often is, like, super stressful in our house when you have a new face at the table or when you have an honored guest at the table, it really changes it. It transforms it. Not just the the social dynamic, but also like the spiritual significance of of that moment. And so, I just feel this like, yeah, renewal of of our community as a family of 9, but also a lot of excitement and grace from, yeah, being connected with others in our community. So a definite high lately.

Laraine Bennett [00:05:45]:
That's beautiful.

Kenna Millea [00:05:46]:
Yes. Our guest room is getting a good workout, which is awesome.

Pat Millea [00:05:49]:
Yeah. That's right.

Art Bennett [00:05:50]:
Yeah. That's awesome.

Kenna Millea [00:05:51]:
Yeah. Laraine, can I throw it over to you?

Laraine Bennett [00:05:55]:
Yeah. Yeah. No. That's really interesting because I bet Art's gonna chime in with the the surrender thing. He's

Art Bennett [00:06:03]:
So the choleric will just tell you what I'm gonna say.

Laraine Bennett [00:06:04]:
Well no. I mean, I was just okay. Yeah. Like yeah. He well, I mean, he's been talking about surrender nonstop. So, like, I had to like, it it's interesting that you mentioned that. But, anyway, so a hard well, a hard for me is that I keep getting, these really awful colds from my grandkids because I can't stay away from my grandkids and they're so darn cute. And, and they but they're like so they're like fountains of of, you know, germs.

Laraine Bennett [00:06:33]:
And I just it's like We know the type. We know the type. Yeah. Anyway, that that is hard for me. So that's not a very deep one. So sorry about that. But just trying to be quick about it. So but a high is similar to what you said also, Kenna, is is that we've been experiencing community.

Laraine Bennett [00:06:57]:
We've so we lived for, like, 20 years out, you know, far west of here and only 7 years here, but we feel like we're we're we're so close to our parish and the people there and and, also our kids. We have our kids and our grandkids, at least some of them. And, 6 6 of our grandkids are here. And, but also this whole summer, we've been visiting with all the kids and grandkids, and and we've had that sense of community as well. And I wonder if it's kinda like the holy spirit is moving with this, you know, this beautiful thought about how important community is. And we've been having, like, our pastor over, and then we had one of the priests and several friends of ours. And and then I thought, wait. We're not including the neighbors.

Laraine Bennett [00:07:48]:
So tonight, we're actually having a neighborhood happy hour. So it's like, yeah, it's like all of a sudden community is also on my heart as well, which is a, like, a beautiful, I think, uplifting sort of thing, and that's the high part. So

Pat Millea [00:08:05]:
That's wonderful. Thank you for that. And we accept all highs and hards. Deep, not so deep, they're all great. Okay. Art, what about you?

Art Bennett [00:08:15]:
I wanna echo, like a typical phlegmatic I'll just imitate what happened before, but I think,

Laraine Bennett [00:08:20]:
we're

Art Bennett [00:08:20]:
we're not I think surrender by the way

Laraine Bennett [00:08:22]:
Surrender is beautiful.

Art Bennett [00:08:23]:
Like 18, 2 years ago, no one ever talked about surrender. Yeah. Everyone.

Laraine Bennett [00:08:28]:
It's the Holy Spirit. It's like a zeitgeist. Except the Holy Spirit.

Art Bennett [00:08:31]:
I really got tuned to it when I'm reading Bishop Conley of Lincoln Nebraska's letter about his breakdown and then his transcendence and overcoming it. But I think, how to surrender, It's a little different from a phlegmatic, you know, because we are such people pleasers. So we can appear to be surrendering, but we're not. We can play the game too. So that's a big challenge, but I think the absolute, hard But, so I really just echo that. The high, this week we have 3 kids with grand birthdays, 3 in 1 week. And then you have, you know, Therese of Lisieux's feast day, and Francis. It's a real celebratory week for us.

Art Bennett [00:09:09]:
And so we're gonna go to 2 birthday parties this weekend. 1 on Saturday, 1 on Sunday. So the celebration of, I had a complicated relation with my dad. One thing you told me that was dead right, he goes, the happiness of your kids and grandkids will outweigh any happiness that you want. Mhmm. So like everything my dad said, I go, probably not, but he was right. Absolutely. So we're gonna have a great weekend seeing our kids provide parties for their kids, our grandkids.

Art Bennett [00:09:32]:
So it's just a real wonderful week of, just

Laraine Bennett [00:09:36]:
And also our son is, defending his dissertation this this this

Art Bennett [00:09:41]:
That's Monday. That's next week.

Laraine Bennett [00:09:42]:
Oh, okay. October 7th. Our Lady of the Rosary, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. So it's kinda, like, really cool.

Art Bennett [00:09:48]:
A lot of highs.

Laraine Bennett [00:09:50]:
Yeah. So that's a that's a very exciting thing.

Pat Millea [00:09:52]:
That's very exciting. What a great weekend coming up, and, maybe bring some extra vitamin c, it sounds like, Laraine.

Laraine Bennett [00:10:00]:
I know. It's like I was just thinking about that.

Pat Millea [00:10:03]:
Like You're

Art Bennett [00:10:03]:
all good therapist. He'll give it a he'll give a suggestion that

Pat Millea [00:10:05]:
way. Right?

Laraine Bennett [00:10:07]:
I know. I'm like, I haven't been taking vitamin c.

Pat Millea [00:10:13]:
Oops. Well, you will, save me for last. I think, I think my my hard, lately has been I was telling Kenna about this a few nights ago, but a a few days ago, I I'm I'm extremely sanguine and as goes with sanguines, I don't often relish the idea of dealing with difficult or, kind of weighty things, you know. So it was it was a surprise to me and a difficult one to go through a lot of reflection this past week just about poverty of spirit and the the way that we and I especially stand in constant need of God's grace and all the things that I think I'm doing by myself, I'm not at all. So it was difficult in the sense that poverty is always hard, including poverty of spirit, but it was really good in the sense that it's also real, and, that's a that's a healthy way to look at life. You know? So that was hard. I think the high, there was one specific moment of hosting that we had, the the this past week. We had a friend come in and visit for a wedding that we haven't seen for a few months, so that was great.

Pat Millea [00:11:23]:
But some of her friends also came for the same wedding and they live in, not Toulouse, Toulon, France.

Kenna Millea [00:11:30]:
Toulon. Toulon.

Pat Millea [00:11:31]:
Toulon. Right. So they live in France. And so they came to visit. And it was this great beautiful reflection where we we have many differences from them. Right? They they are grandparents. They're maybe a half a generation older than us. They live in a different continent.

Pat Millea [00:11:46]:
They speak French and Spanish way better than they speak English. They are they are Buddhist practicing couple and yet we had so much fun sitting at a table with them and all these other just American friends of ours talking about language and traveling and food and and all this really fascinating stuff. And, like, you know, if if the languages were easier to connect with and if we had more time, I'm sure we would talk about even more deep things about religion and faith and and what it means to be Catholic and all that. But it was really beautiful in the meantime just to to share a little bit of human connection despite some of the differences. So it was pretty special.

Art Bennett [00:12:26]:
Wow. That's awesome. Quite a life you guys live, wow. Yeah.

Pat Millea [00:12:30]:
Yeah. And I got to reflect with them about

Kenna Millea [00:12:32]:
It's not always this exciting. Let's be clear. But

Pat Millea [00:12:34]:
Yeah. That's right. Yeah.

Laraine Bennett [00:12:35]:
This week, it happened to be.

Pat Millea [00:12:37]:
You caught us on a good week. That's right. Well, like I said at the beginning, we we are so thrilled to to have this conversation with the 2 of you. I I wanna introduce the the conversation around temperaments and around your work with the way that I was introduced to your work initially. I was working at a parish, just outside of Indianapolis. It was my first job in youth ministry 16 ish years ago and, our the brand new pastor who was noticing some kind of staff dynamics that were not very healthy on the parish staff. One day at the staff meeting, just handed out this book to all of us. And I looked down at this book and was very confused because I had never heard of anything about this before.

Pat Millea [00:13:20]:
He gave us The Temperament God Gave You, and we were gonna do it together as a staff, and I'll talk more about this later on, but that that book and and your work around temperaments and kind of this this part of human formation that's spiritually attuned has been really influential for for the 2 of us and for people all over the Church, I think. What was I'm curious, first of all, I guess, about how the 2 of you separately or together came around to this work of temperaments. What what's the background? What got you interested in this kind of work? Yeah.

Laraine Bennett [00:13:57]:
Well, it actually the interesting thing is because he's, you know, trained as a therapist. So he had done all kinds of work with, like, you know, Myers Briggs and all that kind of stuff. And so it was always in the background, but I then I was reading a or I was it was a or was it a spiritual director that gave us yeah. Gave me, this book by a Dominican priest.

Art Bennett [00:14:25]:
Jordan Aumann.

Laraine Bennett [00:14:25]:
Jordan Aumann. And in it, there's a chapter on temperaments. And I'm, like, reading this and going, oh my gosh. This is incredible. This is amazing. And why have I never heard of it? So I'm like, Art, why didn't you tell me about this? You know? Because, like, all of a sudden everything is coming clear. You know? It's like I felt like there is this whole missing piece. And you were like, yeah.

Laraine Bennett [00:14:48]:
Oh, yeah. You're right. You know you know, of course, this has been he knew about it, but it it was the Catholic version of it, let's say, the the rent the that was kinda like what really struck us. And he was seeing clients at the time. Right? I think and you were in a Catholic setting. You know? That was yeah. It was pre Alpha Omega, but you were already seeing clients. And you you were like, yeah.

Laraine Bennett [00:15:15]:
This is you know, it totally fits with our with what he was doing. And then you started giving talks on it.

Art Bennett [00:15:22]:
Probably similar to you guys. I had a I was running a clinic. It was a overtly Catholic integrated clinic. Uh-huh. And at least out here there never been anything like that happening. So I had to hustle all the time. I had no budget for marketing.

Laraine Bennett [00:15:34]:
Poor guy. Yeah.

Art Bennett [00:15:35]:
I know. Poor me. I had no I had no market no market dollars for budgeting, but I would go to any parish and talk about anything. And and we gave a talk on the temperaments and people liked it. So it kinda spread through the Arlington diocese a little bit, which is a great diocese. So we just got in the habit of talking about it, and people seem really liked it a lot. And one thing led to another. Then one day, Laraine, my choleric wife, sees that we have a file of talks.

Art Bennett [00:15:58]:
She goes, hey. That looks like a book to me. Okay. And I go, it doesn't like a book to me. It does. So that's what happened. So we went from that to right in the book. And and the good thing about the talks is we've we've gotten a lot of questions, tough questions, easy questions, push back, what worked, what didn't.

Art Bennett [00:16:14]:
So that's how it happened, and then one thing led to another to 2 other books. Yeah.

Pat Millea [00:16:18]:
That's beautiful. That's great.

Kenna Millea [00:16:19]:
Can I ask what what what grabbed you? You know, each of you. I think particularly because you are different temperaments. I I love that you've got different vantage points on this, but what about that spoke truth to you? What did you hear in the temperaments that maybe in the secular psychology you weren't hearing? How how did you find it accessible, this idea of temperaments, and wanna run with it?

Laraine Bennett [00:16:43]:
Well, first, I have to say my confession. I'm sorry. I was like, well, I have to give my confession. I'll go right back to you. And it was, as I always say whenever I give a talk, I say, before I knew about the temperaments, I used to think Art was just like me, only bad. So it's I mean, in it then I now, you know, I used to think that he had these peculiar character. These things that he did, I thought he was doing to annoy me and harass me. Right? To to actually provoke me.

Laraine Bennett [00:17:21]:
And as it turns out, there's no ill will at all. It's the temperament God gave him. And it it's and then I have a different temper we're complete opposite temperaments. So that to me was eye opening and hugely revelatory. And then we saw it in our kids and, oh my gosh, I explained all kinds of things. So sorry. I had to say that. Yours are

Art Bennett [00:17:44]:
Yeah. Maybe more kind of Yes. Therapist talk might be one of the assets of the temperament. Like Laraine said, it blocks threat mode to give you a pause to go, well, maybe he's not sitting up all night plotting to make me miserable.

Laraine Bennett [00:17:59]:
Yeah. Maybe.

Art Bennett [00:18:00]:
Maybe this is just kinda where he's hardwired or whatever. That, by the way, I I don't think could be minimized how necessary it is to have some way of not kind of repartee. I noticed you have Susan Johnson on one of your book lists. You know, the the those kind of dialogues, the demon dialogues she calls them. You gotta have a way to stop that or get out of it. So temperaments would seem to be helpful with that to block that. And then then the switch. If you if you read, say, Paul, you read Saint Luke, I mean, I read the gospels.

Art Bennett [00:18:25]:
Christ is asking so much of us. So if you just depend on your reactions and your culture Mhmm. And what's happening now, you'll never get there. I mean, I'll never get to, like, loving your enemy. You'll never get to turning the other cheek. So the science of set temperaments is a science of reactions. How do I tend to react? Mhmm. Over time, we know we must respond with love.

Art Bennett [00:18:48]:
So there's the tension between my natural gifts and strengths and weaknesses, but Christ is calling me to so much more. So we need to know this, build on the strengths, watch out for the weaknesses, so we can respond with love and with radical generosity and with prudence. Mhmm. And that's gonna take some some work. So I like it a lot of psychotherapy is, of course, clients come in, they're radically stuck. So radically stuck, they're gonna give you somewhere between $50, $160 or something. And, so the things must be bad. Mhmm.

Art Bennett [00:19:19]:
They're stuck, and then you're gonna try to help them respond differently and not just react the way the rest. The faith always did. Find temperaments is very helpful. The other thing too, it it had its its real strength, like, say, 16th century onwards was integrated with the faith. The faith and temperaments are like a very natural, cross crossover, which I found helpful in doing the

Laraine Bennett [00:19:41]:
Right. Because it's never

Art Bennett [00:19:42]:
therapy you do probably.

Laraine Bennett [00:19:43]:
Yeah. Like, the thing that's so great with temperament, temperament is not the whole of your personality. So we're not it's not saying that and it's the it's only that aspect that God kinda kick starts our our personality with, like the building blocks of our future personality. So we are never, like, determined, you know, to react in in this way or to respond in a certain way. We're not in a box based on our temperament. It's just it's the nature part, but it's not the whole of our personality because there's also our environment, our culture, our education, our, you know, our own choices we make, and our and the the grace that God gives us to respond to his love. And, so our Catholic faith always says that we are fundamentally free. And so this the the reason we so love studying the temperaments is that it is perfectly in concert with our Catholic faith because it's not putting us in a box and saying we're predetermined and, you know, now you're an INFP or an ENTJ, and that's it.

Laraine Bennett [00:21:03]:
Too bad. You're stuck with that and you're that or or whatever it is that sometimes people do with the more secular types of, you know, personality things.

Pat Millea [00:21:16]:
And I I I love that you identify that, Laraine, because that was my exact hesitation when this pastor handed us the temperament God gave you because Oh. I had done a number of these different kind of personality inventories over the years. There was a funny probably 1 year stint where my mom who is wonderful was obsessed with Myers Briggs.

Laraine Bennett [00:21:35]:
Oh, yes.

Pat Millea [00:21:36]:
There was one point where I I had a girlfriend in college, that we were traveling through Iowa where I'm from. So we visited and stopped at my parents' house. My mom had me and her sit down and take the Myers Briggs, you know, quiz or whatever. I she swears that it is not it wasn't to determine our compatibility. I think that that was something maybe that she had in the back of her mind, but I didn't have that marrying that girl. So maybe my mom was right. But but that was my hesitation was, like, I I had this feeling constantly with all these different things of, like, I am more than just an ENFP. Like, I am I am not limited to this little description, this little box as you called it.

Pat Millea [00:22:18]:
And in some of the commentary that you had, before we recorded, you you talked a little bit about how the point of the temperaments is not to put people in a box or to pigeonhole people. It's to really allow people to experience freedom, to let them understand themselves more fully so that they can make free and virtuous choices about how to live a Christian life of love. Yeah. And that's what we've found certainly. What what are ways that you have found the temperaments, giving people a greater sense of freedom once they know themselves, either in in your own life, in people's lives that you've seen, stories that you've heard from others? What where have you seen people know more freedom through this understanding?

Art Bennett [00:23:01]:
Well, I think, one of the freeing aspects of it is, like I said earlier, that pause. Like, this person's being abrupt. This person's not doing what I want them to do, whatever, rather than go right into, which I think is original sin, right into they're conniving against me or they're not cooperating or there's something wrong with them, for goodness sake, at least gives you an ability and a skill to just, well, maybe, maybe not. I mean, I don't know.

Laraine Bennett [00:23:26]:
Maybe it's the temperament.

Art Bennett [00:23:27]:
So I think that's invaluable for the interpersonal. And again, I think a lot of the research by a lot of therapists showing as if we're trying to put mindfulness in the ballgame and put pauses in the ballgame is just we got we can't just be on that train. Yeah. Secondly, you know, personally, because, I mean, at the end of the day, I think most therapy will be as much as I wish she would change for goodness sake, at some point, I'm gonna then it's gonna have to change. And I might fight that, but at some point, I must think and do something differently. So I think the temperaments will help with that because I have a pretty good idea of what's the fastball down the middle for me, easy, easy, and where it's gonna be a challenge. And it's usually what it is, a challenge area. The more I blame her, the more I'm avoiding a significant change I need to make.

Art Bennett [00:24:09]:
So it just kinda lays that out in a rather natural way. Weaknesses are not moral weaknesses.

Pat Millea [00:24:14]:
Mhmm.

Art Bennett [00:24:15]:
I'm not surprised that this is an issue I gotta confront. Here it is again. I gotta go after it. Ideally, not in a tremendous threat. So I think both things. Personally, it puts a pause and also personally, it puts a pause. Oh, yeah. Of course, I did that.

Art Bennett [00:24:29]:
You know, of course, I'm uncomfortable with ambiguity again. You know, that kind of thing. Okay. Let's go after it. That thing. So I think it helps growth on both ends, personally, interpersonally as well. Yeah.

Laraine Bennett [00:24:38]:
I was thinking of you even in your, in your work because, like, he had to he was the president and CEO of Catholic Charities, and he had like, it was probably outside his comfort zone as a phlegmatic because the I remember the very first day he was on the job. He and wasn't that the day we yeah. We went we we we were invited by our pastor to go out in the evening to a concert, Willie Nelson. And, he had to spend the entire time outside talking on the phone because there was a crisis on his very first day, of of of and and it was nothing but crises from then on for 10 years. Like, you know, and so, like, this shows you that it's you God probably does this to all of us in, like, it God gave him the opportunity to take this aspect of himself, which temperamentally he might not want, you know, to grow and become a leader and, face conflict and lean in and all that, and he gave him this opportunity to to do that. And, the same with me, only I'm even I'm so much worse at learning about these things. But because I I used to get into so many arguments with my boss at work, you know, and I'm like, one day I'm finally saying to myself, or actually I think I was talking to our therapist's daughter, and she pointed out to me. But, you know, it's like just because I so I'm choleric, you know, which is we probably should go through the 4 kinds.

Laraine Bennett [00:26:24]:
But anyway, I have a tendency to be very argumentative, and I also think I'm right. So I want to I'm I'm I'm in this work situation, and I'm like, well, this is not right, and I'm right, and so I need to go tell my boss that she's wrong. You know? Just like, you know, Saint Peter. What did our therapist daughter say? Yeah. She was like, maybe you don't want to do that. You know, do you wanna lose your job right away or, you know, I mean, is that really what you wanna do? I mean, do you wanna get fired today, or do you wanna maybe keep your job? But anyway, it's, there's so many instances where I was just like falling into the temperament trap of reacting according to my temperament, which just came naturally, and then I would justify it by saying that I am right, you know, and she was wrong, you know, instead of thinking, like, let's think a little bit broader in this situation. Or, you know, like what is it, widen the lens, you know? How might I respond, well, a, more lovingly, and, b, more prudently.

Laraine Bennett [00:27:34]:
You know? Yeah. So that those are kind of things that are hard. It's hard to learn. And, thankfully, I have these experiences because I was thinking, like, what if I had never I mean, God provides these opportunities, you know, for us to to learn and grow, thankfully.

Kenna Millea [00:27:53]:
Well, and, Laraine, I'm guessing too that that with that self knowledge of what one's temperament is, you can see those as opportunities. Right? Otherwise, they they stand in the way as annoyances, as impediments, as a bad fit of a job or a boss, you know, but

Pat Millea [00:28:09]:
Right.

Kenna Millea [00:28:09]:
But I think knowing our temperaments, and I do wanna jump in here in just a moment and and let you guys explain what the 4 temperaments are. Don't wanna keep people in suspense, but, once we have that knowledge, we can see those as growth potential opportunities. Exactly. And not just a thorn in my side. So I wanna go back because, Art, you said that you've really come to understand temperaments are the science of reaction. Right? This is natural reaction, this inborn temperament, and there are 4 of them. So in light of that, yeah, can you give us a synopsis of each of these 4? What are we thinking about? What are we talking about here?

Art Bennett [00:28:49]:
Great. Why don't I talk about a couple of them, Laraine will do a couple. So I'll start with the phlegmatic. The phlegmatic is the naturally cooperative temperament. It's very introverted, loves harmony, loves empathy, which I know a lot of conservative Catholics hate. But phlegmatics,

Art Bennett [00:29:05]:
we're okay with it.

Art Bennett [00:29:07]:
T a natural team player. 2nd base, I'll play 2nd base. I'll bat 7th. No big deal. Whatever helps the team. I'm happy to do it. Willing to compromise and actually a natural affinity towards humility which is a great quality. The challenge, Laraine already kind of went to it is we hate conflict.

Art Bennett [00:29:23]:
We have the least self confident temperament. So when conflict comes, we either want to people please or just avoid it. And of course both of those things lead to increased conflict, increased trouble. So a typical phlegmatic, if you have a kid or a colleague or whatever, is to help them be more courageous to face things, maybe reframing like you were inadvertently talking about earlier, that these are opportunities for growth. The other temperament maybe I'll do two and then all I can do is the melancholic. Melancholic is the most introverted. We do take the Myers Briggs introvert, extrovert, extrovert. We just robbed it and put it in.

Art Bennett [00:29:59]:
And, other people do. But the melancholic is high ideals. They believe truth, justice, grace. Oh, if there's a holy hour next door, I'll bet you a buck and a half one of those people's a melancholic. They love being in silence. They love being with the Blessed Sacrament. And, thank goodness we have temperaments that that, that have that great love of that attention to detail.

Art Bennett [00:30:21]:
They're very loyal, and they tend to be quiet and like introversion. The challenge for the melancholic though is ambiguity. You love your ideals, but the world is complicated. It's not 99/1, 98/2. It's more 60/40, 70/30. How do you handle the ambiguity? How do you handle that? You have somebody you love, but they have some problems. What do you do with that? You might be tempted to say the heck with him or heck with her. But no, I mean, so so helping that helping us I love helping to love ambiguity the same way inflecmatics have to learn to love conflict.

Laraine Bennett [00:30:56]:
Yeah. Or in they tend the tendency to perfectionism is that.

Art Bennett [00:31:00]:
Yeah, that's right.

Laraine Bennett [00:31:01]:
the melancholic that can drive them crazy and then they start ruminating and start worrying and all that kind of stuff. But, yeah. And then So the choleric is your, like, classic, you know, leader, you know, class The type a, you know. But we say We like to say even though the choleric is the classic leader, all the temperaments have their own style of leadership. So, I like to put that in that the phlegmatic would be your servant leader, and the the sanguine is your charismatic leader, the melancholic is the noble leader, and then the choleric just loves to take charge all the time anyway. Even if they don't even if they don't know what they're taking charge of, you know, they don't know anything about it, they're gonna no experience in the area. They're just gonna step right in there. They like to they're direct, to the point, decisive, take charge, confident, yada yada.

Laraine Bennett [00:31:58]:
You know, but the downside is they, you know, they can be impatient, argumentative, you know, unempathic, unempathic, refuse to admit when they're wrong, rush to solutions, that kind of thing. Yeah. The challenge for the really the but but once you know your temperament, you then see pretty clearly what virtues you need to go after, you know, because based on your strengths and weaknesses. So then the other which one? Sanguine. Yeah. So the sanguine is your, you know, the the party person, you know, the people person, very extroverted, the most extreme in extroversion. You know, they're very sociable, very outgoing, enthusiastic, energetic, always, you know, love to be center stage, very charismatic, enthusiastic, etcetera. But they the downside is they can be interruptive, you know, they they like the center stage too much, maybe.

Laraine Bennett [00:32:59]:
Tendency to skim the surface, the rose colored glasses. I mean, we we're just very optimistic people, and we don't like to look at the downs the dark side. It's like it's like Saint Peter is so interesting because he's always the one who's like, no. That's not gonna happen to the cross. No. That's not gonna happen to you, Jesus. You know, you know, and he of course it's Saint Peter who says that and then he, you know, impulsively goes out walking on the water and then he sinks when he takes his eyes off of Jesus. And also, it's to him that Christ said, "Duc in altum", so go into the deep.

Laraine Bennett [00:33:34]:
So we need to learn how to go deep. That's a challenge for us, to put it the positive way. But one thing I would like to say, we're not saying that when we say like the sanguine is the most, you know, sociable of all the temperaments, That doesn't mean the other temperaments are not sociable because we're all interpersonal people. We are, you know, we are created in image and likeness of God who is a communion of persons. So it's very important to to note that we're not saying they have the the the soul, you know, you know, they're the only ones who are sociable or something. It's just that the drive to sociability is more intense and the most intense in the sanguine, and it's probably the least intense than in the melancholic. So if you were gonna look at it on a continuum, the melancholic would be at one end, and then the sanguine is at the other end. And then

Art Bennett [00:34:36]:
Interpersonal is all the way even there with the melancholic.

Laraine Bennett [00:34:37]:
Yes. But everybody is interpersonal. It's just that drive is less intense. So our sanguine son had to go to a special high school, you know, special, a big called a big high school where he could have more friends, more people, football, you know, etcetera. And, you know, the melancholic she would have been happy just homeschooling the whole time because we also homeschooled for 10 years. But she would have been happy with that. Don't I you don't even I don't even have to go outside. You know, I'm happy here, you know, with my books, my my one friend or whatever.

Laraine Bennett [00:35:11]:
No. Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:35:12]:
You know the type. Yeah.

Pat Millea [00:35:14]:
That's part of my experience is that, in in conversations about this stuff, sanguines like me tend to love their their own temperament. They they love the idea of being sanguine because it feels like a naturally positive thing.

Kenna Millea [00:35:29]:
It is. She was reading the list of all the things. I was like, of course, you all love yourselves. Of course. Yeah. You're amazing. Well, I mean, who doesn't want to

Art Bennett [00:35:36]:
The American temperament. The Americans.

Art Bennett [00:35:39]:
The choleric sanguine. Sure. Yeah. And I think that's how the rest of the world looks at us. That's how we like to think. But next time you meet a bishop, ask, hey. What's your temperament? And I'll bet a buck and a half, he'll say, choleric. And I'll bet another buck and a half he probably isn't.

Art Bennett [00:35:52]:
But he's gotta be choleric.

Laraine Bennett [00:35:53]:
Yeah. He's a he's

Art Bennett [00:35:54]:
got the red hat, and he's in charge of the world, so I better be choleric. And, so there's a certain there's no doubt there's a seduction towards choleric sanguine in our culture.

Laraine Bennett [00:36:05]:
Well, actually, there is a Doctor Kagan from Harvard who's passed away, but he did tons of research on temperaments. And he used to be a behaviorist basically, or he he thought there we were blank sheets of wax. Like there is no such thing as, you know, anything in you. Everything depends on the environment. So you know, education is supreme, right? But he was convinced by his own, other people's and his own, actual longitudinal studies on temperament that he was actually changed and realized there is such a thing as temperament. Where was I going with this? I forgot. What it was going. No.

Laraine Bennett [00:36:51]:
Yeah. The original question. Oh, oh, I I was I know what it was. He actually talks in one of his books about different cultures' temperaments and how we do tend to favor, and he just kind of thinks it's kind of like natural selection or something. You know? Because a certain culture will favor a certain temperament. And when you go to we used to live in Germany, and by gosh, they are all melancholic.

Art Bennett [00:37:15]:
Melancholic capital of the world.

Laraine Bennett [00:37:16]:
Oh my gosh. And the attention to detail, the trains run on time. Yeah. You know, nobody is late for anything. You are in big trouble if you're late for anything. I mean and it's, like, it's really hard for the sanguines to to get along there.

Kenna Millea [00:37:31]:
Well, so as we're as we're thinking about I just wanna make sure we make a plug because I imagine our listeners right now are going, okay. Okay. Now I just wanna know what I am. And so, Art and Laraine, what's the best what's the easiest way for people who maybe don't yet know to find out what temperament they were born with?

Laraine Bennett [00:37:47]:
Yeah.

Art Bennett [00:37:48]:
Temperamentquiz.com. Mhmm.

Kenna Millea [00:37:51]:
Temperamentquiz.com. We'll link it up in the description.

Art Bennett [00:37:52]:
Laraine got together with some researchers and created the quiz, and I think it's really reliable. It takes 10 minutes at the most.

Laraine Bennett [00:37:58]:
It's the quickest way to do it.

Art Bennett [00:37:59]:
Maybe 12 if you're melancholic, 8 if you're sanguine. And, but, it's really it's really solid. We've gotten great feedback for, I guess, about 20 years now on that. So I would try that very easily.

Kenna Millea [00:38:10]:
And what age would you say how young could someone take the temperament quiz?

Laraine Bennett [00:38:14]:
Oh, that's a that's a tricky question. I I would, like, recommend older older high schoolers, you know? Okay. Yeah. Only because it's it's hard for the younger kids to be able to separate what they they think somebody oftentimes the younger kids will think they need to check a box based on what their mom or dad said they should be. You know what I mean? Like, whereas the temperament is just kind of like what is your kind of natural reaction, inclination? And so as an adult you kind of know the difference between that and what you maybe ought to do in your job or ought to do at school or, you know, that sort of thing.

Art Bennett [00:38:59]:
I'd say particularly, you guys are therapists. I mean, and maybe therapists are listening. Modern Temperament won't talk about the 4 classics categories we talk about. We we do that just kind of for the Catholic integration. They'll they'll be looking at reactivity. Yeah. Do you hold on to grievances or not? How easy to forgive or not? Perseverance. Your

Laraine Bennett [00:39:18]:
Sociability. Yeah. You go to a play.

Art Bennett [00:39:21]:
Are are are you one of the kids that are screaming and crying when you're a 3 year old and another 3 year old goes, oh, wow. There's a monster. That's great. So they'll look at that kind of stuff. And again, like she said with Kagan, Kagan, he just goes and goes, this cannot be explained in the environment. There's just some hard some hard wiring going on here.

Laraine Bennett [00:39:38]:
So Well, he was testing infants. So and he would test them for their, like, their reactions. And To a new person in the room?

Kenna Millea [00:39:48]:
To a

Laraine Bennett [00:39:49]:
new per yeah. So he had as young as 4 months old, and they would they and he did, like, I wonder if they would be he would be allowed to do that today. But anyway, you know, the clown face or the, you know, the something scary. You know? And a lot of the infants, some of them would smile and laugh. That would probably be the sanguine. You know? And so some would just be like, Interesting. And some of them would cry and freak out, and he could and then he followed them for years. So he and again, he didn't and he even, like, did brain scans and whatnot, so he was thorough.

Laraine Bennett [00:40:28]:
But again, he as Art said, very important to note, contemporary researchers, psychologists would not call the temperaments by the classic names that we do, choleric, sanguine, melancholic, phlegmatic. And the only reason we do that is that the Catholic this long Catholic tradition of talking about it. You know? So we're kind of picking up this ancient, you know, language that came actually from the ancient Greeks, but we're just doing that just to, you know, make it kind of an accessible product for, contemporary and fun too. Contemporary families and people Catholics studying it.

Pat Millea [00:41:17]:
One of the things that you've, hinted at already that I wanna dig a little bit deeper into gets kind of at the question of what what's the point? You know? Like, if I know my temperament, so what? What does that do for me? And I I remember, you know, I I was again, I I had been frustrated enough with personality tests that I was I was ready to not like your book, and I was reading it out of mere necessity because my pastor told me to. And I did that until I got to the sanguine chapter. And I read through the sanguine chapter and was reading through a description of my entire life, and I could not deny it anymore. It just it was so it won me over immediately. But what I what I really appreciate about it is I think, one way to maybe view temperaments incorrectly that I've seen over the years in the church and outside of the church is to, as you both identified with each temperament, there are natural predispositions toward, certain strengths and also a predisposition towards certain weaknesses. I think maybe the flawed way to look at my temperament is to make excuses for the weaknesses or to justify the weaknesses

Laraine Bennett [00:42:30]:
Yeah.

Pat Millea [00:42:31]:
Because of my temperament. So, when Kenna and I are in a disagreement and I really have a hard time with conflict and I don't wanna talk about hard things, I just wanna have a nice meal and talk about the weather. You know? That, my my the the predisposition to justify that desire is one of the flawed ways to look at temperament. Right? And what I hear you saying is, it is not a matter of justifying and solidifying the more kind of unhelpful aspects of our temperament. It's to see them so that we can do something about them and work in the direction of love. Can you speak a little more to what a temperament what knowledge of a person's temperament might allow them to do in their life?

Laraine Bennett [00:43:19]:
That is such a good that's such a good point. Yeah. Especially, like, with your example of the the sanguine, but go ahead. You were gonna say something.

Art Bennett [00:43:29]:
I would say so let's say interpersonally. So let's say you know, Kenna's temperament. So you might know something that might be more likely to be a threat to her, whatever it is. I don't know. So knowing that, you might approach it more gently. Not like, oh, I wanna cave into her. No. It's more like, I I really wanna make sure I don't unnecessarily kinda clinical speak trigger her on something here.

Art Bennett [00:43:56]:
So I'm gonna I'm gonna make some allowances on my end to make it easier for her to hear what I'm saying and not get stuck with the static that the temperament might bring up. Then on your end, it would be, okay. I'm gonna bring up a tough topic. I'm a saying when that's that's never a fastball down the middle, but I'm gonna try to be calm about this. So I'm gonna both respect her. I'm not gonna try to be provocative, knowing her temperament, and on my myself too. I'm gonna maybe, coach myself up, say some prayers, and go into this very tough topic. Maybe aware that, it won't go as elegantly as I like, but it's really important that I have the courage to do this, but I do it anyway.

Art Bennett [00:44:35]:
So it can help on both ends. Help help on on on both ends to be more sensitive to your spouse. Yeah. But sensitive only means sensitive. It doesn't mean avoid everything at all cost or I can never talk to her about that and all that, you know, that kind of thing. But be sensitive and and and vice versa and vice versa on yourself because it's all about growth. And again, I mean, if we're called to do what Christ wants us to do in fact, he wants us to flourish. Right? He's a flourishing guy, John 10:10.

Art Bennett [00:45:02]:
Okay. Alright. So let's let's take that seriously. Well, we're gonna do a lot of changing. A lot of growth. But the best way to do it is rather than pound your temperament or deny it or be against the will. Yeah. You don't use self.

Art Bennett [00:45:13]:
Of it the same way that every person has certain soft spots. Be delicate and aware. I mean, if you use if you use kind of that voice that you use in the prayer, what a beautiful voice and what a beautiful meditative opening prayer was one of the it's just really moving. You go, wow. Wow. Beautiful. We have that kind of let's say you have that gift. You have that voice.

Art Bennett [00:45:34]:
You have that ability to create calmness. Well, that's a tremendous asset to then ask husbands and and and clients to change. Mhmm. Because you put you get them out of threat mode, out of the amygdala right up here with the prefrontal cortex. Now the the the so being sensitive being sensitive to the temperament of the I mean, Laraine realized if she said, listen. Why don't you take 5 or 10 minutes when you get home from work before hitting me with a bunch of questions? That's all I needed. It was such a nice concession because that's what they all I needed. And then I'll come ready to jump in and get in and figure out what's happening.

Art Bennett [00:46:06]:
So she made a slight concession in my temperament. So but she wanted to talk and get it all

Laraine Bennett [00:46:11]:
It's kind of a compromise thing. Yeah.

Art Bennett [00:46:13]:
So it's just just being sensitive and gentle. But on the hand, we're we got growth to go. We got growing to go do here. And, but you guys know he's professional. You just rush in and make it happen. Yeah. But if that worked, they wouldn't be in front of you. Yeah.

Art Bennett [00:46:26]:
Because that's what everyone's doing within our culture. So I think it it works both ways, Pat. How I have to be it's gentleness, though, not to accommodate. It's not gentleness to put to make excuses. Right. It's gentleness to grow.

Laraine Bennett [00:46:40]:
Well, or acceptance too. Like, acceptance of our own strengths and weaknesses, but not settling.

Art Bennett [00:46:46]:
Right.

Laraine Bennett [00:46:47]:
You say you don't wanna just get parked there. You know? So, oh, hey. So I'm choleric, and, you know, you guys are all gonna have to put up with me. You know? Yeah. The hammer. Temperament bullying. That's another one. Yeah.

Laraine Bennett [00:47:00]:
Yeah. So temperament bullying. Yeah. So we don't wanna do that. Obviously, the whole point is to, as Art said, to grow. And I think it's most helpful with kids. I don't know if you have a lot of people parents listening to your podcast, but honestly, it's just so helpful because you as soon as you so we also have a book on, you know, The Temperament God Gave Your Kids, and you can get that on Amazon. It's, like, super cheap, I think, at this point.

Laraine Bennett [00:47:28]:
But, it it's like when you know your kid's temperament, you're all of a sudden, it's an moment. You're you have this child and you who you're wondering why you can't just drop her off at a, you know, a young a small child, and you can't just drop her off at a party because she didn't then she starts to cry. You know? Or, you know, it it's, oh, wait a minute. This is a probably a melancholic child, and we're gonna have to kinda ease into it. Like, okay, mom will have to go in there for and stay for a little while, 5 or 10 minutes. You know, this isn't like coddling the child or something. It's going with it's working with the temperament, but knowing that there is some, you know, it's gonna be a harder road for that child because they're they're introverted. And so this is their amygdala is firing like crazy when there's all of a sudden surrounded by, you know, 20 loud children.

Laraine Bennett [00:48:34]:
And in fact, like, the one of the most, you know, interesting in fact, that influenced Kagan was Stella and,

Art Bennett [00:48:44]:
Stella Chase.

Laraine Bennett [00:48:45]:
Yeah. Chase, Thomas. They the psychiatrists in New York who they actually got into temperament studies, longitudinal, because of the conflict between parents and children. That's how they actually got in. They were getting tons of kids referred for, what was actually like ADHD. I don't know if they called it that at that time, but, because this is back in the day. But like they discovered that they were, that there were parents who were of a certain temperament, like, let's say, a very tidy, very organized, very thoughtful, very detail oriented parent, and they had this child who is, like, running off to school, forgetting their you know, every they have to run back 3 times because they forgot their gym bag. They forgot their, you know, their homework.

Laraine Bennett [00:49:37]:
They forgot to do this. They forgot that. And they're like, what's wrong with this child? What's wrong with them? And they were, like, you know what? Maybe nothing is wrong with that child. Maybe the child's temperament is so different from yours that you think there's something wrong with that child. So, okay, with this with the sanguine child, and we had we had one of each. So, you know, we with that child, you're gonna have to work a little differently just like you might not force the melancholic child into the crowded, noisy party when they're 3 or whatever, you're not gonna expect the sanguine child to remember every single thing even if you would. They maybe need reminders. You know? They need a little, you know, a little help with, you know, did you remember your maybe they need a list by the door of the things that they have to remember to bring to school or something.

Laraine Bennett [00:50:32]:
So, yeah, it's that's kinda like the thing. Like, you're you're not coddling the person. You're not, like, you know, totally giving in, to their temperament, but you're understanding it and then moving from there to help the child in in or the other person, whatever, to grow in virtue. And I I really think it's so helpful for parents. I hope I didn't take too long talking about that.

Art Bennett [00:51:00]:
You might have, but that's ok.

Laraine Bennett [00:51:01]:
Yeah. Anyway.

Kenna Millea [00:51:03]:
Can I, can I ask 2 questions, Pat? Because, admittedly, these have been burning on my mind for a few years. And now that you're in front of me, I have a captive audience. I can ask. So the first is that, a friend of mine who's a spiritual director, when we were talking about the temperaments at one time, we were talking about, does it change over time? Like, do you know, is it as I come I'm I'm I would say I'm choleric, melancholic, melancholic being my secondary. And, like, over time, do I expect that to shift? And she said, over time, God willing, as one moves in the the spiritual life and and toward greater holiness, toward conforming to Christ, that we actually aren't as, our our temperament isn't maybe as easily recognizable because we are actually becoming more balanced and more of a blend because Christ actually embodied all of these. So that's my first question. Your feedback on that or how you would describe what happens over time.

Art Bennett [00:52:05]:
Well, I think I think you said it just right. I think that's exactly right. So I guess we would agree with that. What what you just said is that, you know, you can have challenges with your temper, but but over time over time, you just kinda overcome them. I mean, I used to hate to go to parties when I didn't know anybody. She loved it because she could meet new people. And then about my late twenties, early thirties, I realized every friend I had met, every friend I have, I met at a party. Well, that was I did that reframe.

Art Bennett [00:52:33]:
I said, well, it's a little bit uncomfortable. I'm never gonna be natural. I'm never gonna be as natural as her. When when we drive home, I say, you take the keys. I'm gonna take a nap. I just spent the night talking to people for 3 hours. So those things don't leave.

Art Bennett [00:52:43]:
Yeah. That kind of the the the like Laraine said, I don't have the natural energy to do that. But over time, I don't know. I don't dread parties or new people at all, but it's taken me quite a few decades to get there. So I don't know. Have I changed my temperament? I don't think so, but I have definitely gone after my weaknesses

Pat Millea [00:52:58]:
Yes.

Art Bennett [00:52:59]:
In a different strategy, a different approach. So I things used to bother me don't bother me either as much or not too much. Yeah.

Laraine Bennett [00:53:05]:
And we're called to grow in virtue. That's it. We're called to grow in holiness. And as the spiritual director said, we wanna be more Christ like. And, Christ was and we were just talking with a priest friend of ours who wrote an article on this, and he said Christ was only the good parts of all the temperaments, only the strengths. So, it's not that we're trying to change our temperament ever. We don't have to. It's we're and and who was it? Who is this scratching under the,

Art Bennett [00:53:37]:
Francis de Sales.

Laraine Bennett [00:53:38]:
Francis de Sales. Yeah. Like, so they one of our priest friends told us about this that they he they discovered he was known at the end of his life for being sweet and meek and holy and wonderful and so humble and Christ like. Right? But they discovered under his desk gouges where he had been gripping and scratching when and to prevent himself from exploding in anger because he was fighting that aspect of his temperament. And Saint Jerome had a he Saint Jerome was known for a terrible temperament. So, you know, temperament. They they cause I don't know. Little bit about But yeah.

Laraine Bennett [00:54:23]:
Temperament.

Kenna Millea [00:54:24]:
Poster child of cholerics everywhere.

Laraine Bennett [00:54:26]:
Yeah. Yeah. Right? And they he goes away, you know, they send him away, you know, to go go live in a cave, you know, get out of my sight. The pope sends him away to, write. He did his greatest work there, this incredible.

Kenna Millea [00:54:41]:
So so my second question then, and I'm I'm trying to

Laraine Bennett [00:54:44]:
Oh, yeah. Two questions.

Kenna Millea [00:54:45]:
Preemptively consider what you would say to this. Okay. Is that, a dear friend of mine who's known me for a long time in a few different contexts observed that I seem to be choleric in my home setting and more melancholic in my work setting. Is that a thing, or would you just say, no. You've just learned how to adapt and, like, lean on, you know, different strengths or bring forward, you know, aspects of self that seem to be more adaptive in that setting? Do do we have that kind of flexibility? Are you like, no. It's a little more set than that?

Art Bennett [00:55:21]:
No. Let's see. Go ahead. I think the introverts, let's say, in the concurrence of the temperament would be phlegmatic and all have a hard time setting up the structure to be comfortable. Whereas an extrovert, a sanguine, a choleric, it doesn't matter where they are. Just hit them with a question, ask them what to do. In fact, you probably noticed you guys, I'm sure, have a lot of priests that are friends. Many many priests are melancholics.

Art Bennett [00:55:42]:
You invite them up for dinner, they hardly say anything. Run into them in the elevator, they don't know what to say. But you give them their 8 minutes or 12 minutes up on the altar, and they can bring it strong.

Laraine Bennett [00:55:50]:
Yeah. The pulpit.

Art Bennett [00:55:51]:
When you have the structure Yeah. We're expecting a homily from you, Father. Right there. Bring it strong. Go for it. They do it. And the same thing with a lot of teachers are melancholic. You know, they're not socially they hate to hate to go to these parent nights.

Art Bennett [00:56:03]:
So I have to talk to parents. No. That's not horrible. Yeah. But, you know, they can get in front of kids. Very difficult, disobedient, difficult kid, and they can just run it. So when I think the introvert needs to grow in creating structures so that we can be more overt in sharing. Whereas the extroverts don't even need a structure.

Art Bennett [00:56:22]:
Well, I don't know anybody, but who cares? Who cares? I think so that's that's one thing I think introverts have to learn to do is to be contributory and not too hidden even when the structure seems unclear. Just create our own structures, but either by self confidence or experience. Flip side is the extroverts. Sometimes don't think you have to have any silence or any calm.

Laraine Bennett [00:56:43]:
Yeah. I mean,

Art Bennett [00:56:44]:
I mean, I mean, I'm interrupting you. I'm just talking. Yeah. You're talking. I know. I know. Yeah. Yeah.

Art Bennett [00:56:48]:
You have to take a breath. So so I think it's kind of both sides on that. Just these these are just natural tendencies we have and that we have to be aware of. And being aware of them, ideally, we can change them by the one thing I have to say though, you're absolutely right about the saints. When you read the end of their lives, you cannot get their temperament. Mhmm. They are so well rounded on the natural side. That's just such a great insight.

Art Bennett [00:57:12]:
You have to go way to the beginning when they were kids

Laraine Bennett [00:57:14]:
Mhmm. Mhmm.

Art Bennett [00:57:15]:
To find out that Ignatius was a was a firebrand of a kid or St. Teresa of Avila that thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world and everyone wants to kiss her ring. You don't get that at the end at all. So that's a really good insight how we transform into not being plagued by our natural reactions. You know? Mhmm.

Pat Millea [00:57:31]:
I just love the the the opportunity that self knowledge gives us to pursue holiness and to to make virtuous decisions. You know, there's like you mentioned earlier about the the kind of grace and patience that we can have toward others when we know their temperament that that I know that my my wife is not out to get me. My kids are not trying to ruin my life. They this is the way they naturally react to things. And, sure, they need growth and development in the direction of virtue, but when we can really, leverage the strengths of our temperaments, amazing things can happen. Right? I I think of, we we have a fairly busy life like probably everybody does who's listening now. We have 7 kids. We own our own business.

Pat Millea [00:58:15]:
We work together, and none of that is possible without a choleric wife. And people ask all the time, like, how do you guys do what you do? And I say, not you guys. No. No. I bring as much joy as I can. But the only reason our kids go to school with breakfast in their bellies is because Kenna is the maestro that makes the whole symphony run, you know,

Art Bennett [00:58:38]:
Maestro.

Pat Millea [00:58:39]:
And it's not just to to it's not merely organization, like, there that truly is directed toward holiness too, you know, like, the kind of work that it takes to found a religious order or to That's right. To run an archdiocese that, like, those kinds of choleric skills, if they're directed toward holiness, are really beautiful opportunities for the Lord to work, you know. And I I think on the flip side, there was one particular wedding that Kenna and I went to where there was a difficult interpersonal dynamic at the wedding and, so Kenna sat me down beforehand and she said listen my my sanguine husband if you have ever had a job in your life, your job is to run interference in this interpersonal relationship. And I was like, for this, I was born for this, I came into the world. Just just like I was just small talk for days. It was the greatest experience of my life. And it really was like it was it was an opportunity to serve Kenna well and to, like, genuinely have interest about this this other person, these other people who I didn't know very well. It was Yeah.

Pat Millea [00:59:51]:
It was a great opportunity to just let each other's strengths show up for the sake of communion with others, for the sake of virtue, for the sake of growth and holiness. It it just there's so much opportunity that comes from knowing yourself well so that you can move toward Christ more.

Art Bennett [01:00:10]:
That's a beautiful story about how you guys kind of use that insight about each other to see that this was a great opportunity for you. Go for it, big guy. This is this is made for you, and you're saying, this is made for me. I think that's really by the way, that shows good good kind of spousing. Is that where your parenting? Being in love?

Pat Millea [01:00:27]:
Sure.

Art Bennett [01:00:28]:
Where because you know, one of the myths out there, and Brad Wilcox deflates it in his recent book, Get Married, you know, that great researcher at UVA, is that everything has to be balanced. I gotta work a certain amount. You have to work a certain amount. I have to do certain amount. You have to do certain amount of everything has to be even even Steven, Steven, Steven, even though so, anyway, he blows that up in his book because there's no evidence of that for happy couples at all that they don't do that. They do something more like, hey, you know, I cook a lot better than you. You can cook maybe on weekends and barbecue big guy, but I'm gonna do the heavy lifting here because I can do it fast and well, I know kids will be healthier. Got a problem with that? No.

Art Bennett [01:01:01]:
That's fine. I'll do it. That's fine. So it doesn't have to be I mean, it has to be integrated. It has to be unified, but not this artificial balancing act Yeah.

Laraine Bennett [01:01:09]:
That's so 50/50.

Art Bennett [01:01:11]:
See this? The couple's come in, they go you know, I mean, we have everything that has to be 50/50, 50/50. And, what else? So Wilcox, he says research shows that the happiest couples don't even bother with that. They don't even bother with it. I mean, I mean, they have to be sensitive to it. And men clearly have to be better dads or more involved dads than generations ago, and that's fine. And everybody benefits from that. And most women work.

Art Bennett [01:01:31]:
Look at this. We've got 7 kids in here. So so we have to figure out how to manage all that, but it's more of an integration and less of a everything that you get.

Laraine Bennett [01:01:39]:
Yeah. Yeah. And and also the thing that you mentioned about the strengths, we have to relish our strengths too. Like, appreciate the gifts that God gave us because everybody gave us, I mean, everybody. God gave us these gifts and we need sometimes people think they wanna, like, I don't like my temperament. I wanna change it. Yes. No.

Laraine Bennett [01:02:02]:
It's we want to appreciate the beautiful aspects of our temperament. And there's this great thing from, quote from Saint Catherine of Siena. I don't have it in front of me, but, I'm gonna try to paraphrase it.

Art Bennett [01:02:18]:
I'm correct you if you're wrong.

Laraine Bennett [01:02:19]:
Yeah. She was talking to God in the dialogues, and she said, how come you didn't just give everybody every natural virtue that they needed? Why didn't you just give us all of it? And he said, no. You know what? I gave each person one particular virtue. He said, there's, like, some people I give the natural virtue of humility, and we would say that would be, like, the phlegmatic. And other people I gave the natural virtue of, courage. Maybe that would be the cleric. And, you know, and or maybe the sanguine has the natural virtue of joy. And, he said, no.

Laraine Bennett [01:02:58]:
I give each one of you something, but I don't give you everything because I want you to be, I want you to rely on the other person. I want you to have need of the other person. He wants us to be a team, and that's what's so beautiful about marriage too is so often we are very different. And we we need to we we we can value and respect and lean on the other's, gifts and, appreciate those. And and we grow in charity by that. So absolutely.

Pat Millea [01:03:36]:
So thinking about that that growth in charity, you know, once people go to temperamentquiz.com, once they they get a sense of their temperament, what we love to do with our listeners is to give them something practical, something they can they can, choose to kind of grow and move toward holiness and and better integration. What's a what's a challenge by choice that maybe you would offer to to each of the 4 different temperaments?

Art Bennett [01:04:02]:
Oh, that's a great question. I appreciate it. Do you mind if I start? Go ahead. Okay. For the phlegmatic, it's clearly leaning into conflict. It's John 16:33 colon, there will be trouble. So Christ is telling us there'll be trouble. So we just have to be good with trouble even though our our temperament would say no.

Art Bennett [01:04:21]:
So ways of practicing mindfulness, reframing, different clinical skills will help with this too, will be one one I think a key thing for a phlegmatic is to love conflict and not run away or or or totally fear it. I think for the, let's say, for the for the melancholic, it would be keep those ideals. God, we need people who love ideals. Mhmm. And the Catholic faith is really good with that justice, grace, goodness, sub subsea. But be okay with ambiguity. Be okay that things aren't perfect. In fact, you like and love that things are a little bit rough around the edges, not just the way you want it to be.

Art Bennett [01:05:02]:
And go to love that. Go to love that. And I think that would be the challenge for those 2 temperaments. I don't know. What do you think?

Laraine Bennett [01:05:08]:
Yeah. And, if you're choleric, I think we have to practice listening with empathy, and empathy is sometimes hard for for us. We wanna just, like, say I just wanna say just do it the way I said to do it because I'm right, you know. And, instead, you know, just take take a step back. Maybe openness to influence is a great one. Just just listen. Listen and be open and hear what the other person wants to say. And then sanguine, discuss a problem in-depth.

Laraine Bennett [01:05:43]:
You know?

Art Bennett [01:05:44]:
Go deep.

Laraine Bennett [01:05:45]:
Go deep. Yeah. So it's it is hard sometimes. We from our perspective, we want everybody to be happy. You know, that's what is going on. It's not that we're ignoring problems. You know? But it kinda seems to the other person like we are not listening to their problems. So yeah.

Laraine Bennett [01:06:08]:
So

Pat Millea [01:06:09]:
I feel that deeply. Yeah.

Laraine Bennett [01:06:11]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Art Bennett [01:06:11]:
Do those four things make sense Pat? Those kind of

Pat Millea [01:06:14]:
That's beautiful. That makes perfect sense. Yeah. And great opportunities for everyone to have their own appropriate enough, their own particular challenge that is personal to them, not just a blanket growth that we all need to make. There are versions of that, but really targeted specific versions of growth for each temperament. That's beautiful.

Laraine Bennett [01:06:32]:
Yeah. And for the sanguines, they can go go out and buy a game.

Pat Millea [01:06:38]:
Now we're talking Laraine, that's the spirit.

Laraine Bennett [01:06:41]:
Yeah. Note that I created the game, not the not the grumpy melancholic.

Art Bennett [01:06:46]:
I'm really glad you brought that up.

Art Bennett [01:06:48]:
Yeah. No games in my I'm Yeah. Games are not on my bucket list. How about you?

Kenna Millea [01:06:55]:
So for for our listeners, not only do we have that challenge by choice for them, which is a very concrete way to to undertake this. We've got that, link in our show notes to be able to take the temperament quiz that Art and Laraine have have worked hard in a 20 years of of experience of saying, yeah. This is pretty accurate. Also, just wanna plug again for Art and Laraine's book, The Temperament God Gave You, not only an explanation of each temperament, which I think it's valuable to read every section even if you already know, you know, what you are. But also, they've done the work for you of matching up each temperament with the other and and highlighting here would be some strength, here would be some, fruit to be born from, let's say, a choleric sanguine pairing. But also here would be maybe the shadow side. Here are the challenges that may exist in that kind of relationship, and also thinking about that with our children. I know last night, I sent an SOS text to Pat with our preteen.

Kenna Millea [01:07:53]:
I think he's a phlegmatic. I think I can say that now. And I said Pat was at a church meeting with one of our other kids, and I was like, I just I need you to be prepared to spend some time with us when you get home because this choleric mom and this phlegmatic son have had a really tough night together as I've been, like, pulling stuff out of him

Kenna Millea [01:08:14]:
as we've gone through some difficult issues this week. And and so I needed that sanguine dad to come in and help us kind of come back to a place of ease, a few deep breaths. So so I just really wanna, give thanks to to the way that you are, Laraine, have cooperated with the Holy Spirit to give us these resources, that are going to live on for generations and really help these domestic churches, to be even more self aware, even more holy, pursuing the good, pursuing the virtue. So thank you.

Laraine Bennett [01:08:45]:
Gosh. Thank you. For your time. Thank you for your beautiful ministry that you do.

Art Bennett [01:08:50]:
The apostolate you guys are doing is fantastic. And God bless you for doing it right now.

Kenna Millea [01:08:54]:
Yeah. Thank you for your investment in it by being with us today. So I'm gonna pray us to a close here, before we say goodbye to each other. So, taking, yeah, your advice and and giving that pause, that space, to really be responsive and intentional with the Lord here. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Art Bennett [01:09:15]:
Amen.

Kenna Millea [01:09:18]:
Amen. Lord God, we thank you for for the ways that that we are wonderfully made, for these natural inborn strengths, gifts, interests, these temperaments that you have given us, that you've set us on this adventure of life to understand how to use these to bring you glory. And so we pray, Lord, that what we've learned in this hour can really be put to use, to to grow what is good within us, and to challenge the parts of us that, that are in need of encouragement, in need of new life. We ask you to continue to to bless Art and Laraine, to bless their ministry, their family, all of those who who are at the benefit of their work and their scholarship. And we pray, Lord, that all of this, would bring you glory, would bring us closer to your most Sacred Heart. So we bring ourselves before you in your Son's holy name, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Art Bennett [01:10:22]:
Amen.

Kenna Millea [01:10:23]:
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Well, Art and Laraine Bennett, such a pleasure. I pray it is not the last time that we get to be in your presence. So thank you for being with us.

Laraine Bennett [01:10:37]:
Oh, thank you so much. This was so wonderful. Very, like, very, you you guys are great hosts and what a beautiful, you know, beautiful work you're doing there in in with your Martin Center. It's it's amazing.

Art Bennett [01:10:51]:
Yeah. God bless you guys, thank you very much for

Art Bennett [01:10:53]:
your time and interest.

Laraine Bennett [01:10:54]:
Yeah. Thank you.

Pat Millea [01:10:55]:
I'm only sad that we didn't meet sooner because I feel like Kenna and Laraine could have been best choleric friends for decades. And,

Art Bennett [01:11:02]:
Pat, you and I might have gotten get a drink down the street.

Pat Millea [01:11:05]:
I was just gonna say so the backstory is there was a point where we had another podcast guest actually who was choleric, a choleric mother as well. And she and Kenna were talking about, we we should have, like, a club of choleric wives. And then she said

Laraine Bennett [01:11:21]:
Oh, the Choleric Wives Club. That sounds like a murder mystery series.

Pat Millea [01:11:26]:
And then and then, this, this guest said, what what kind of a club would we have for our husbands? And Kenna said, I think that would be a support group for them.

Laraine Bennett [01:11:38]:
That's great. That's awesome.

Pat Millea [01:11:39]:
Oh, boy. So we can have our support group meeting, at the pub, Art. That's all

Art Bennett [01:11:44]:
I'm trying.

Laraine Bennett [01:11:44]:
There you go. Excellent. Well, thank you.

Kenna Millea [01:11:46]:
Thank you, Art and Laraine, and thank you listeners for being with us today. Would you please do us a favor of sharing this with someone in your life, maybe a spouse, maybe a grown child, a sibling, that you want to open up this conversation around temperaments, that that you are aware that the relationship could, maybe reach new depths or new heights with this information. So sharing, This Whole Life podcast on Instagram, on Facebook, connect with us online at thiswholelifepodcast.com. And until next time, God bless you.

Pat Millea [01:12:22]:
This Whole Life is a production of the Martin Center For Integration. Visit us online at thiswholelifepodcast.com