Okay, today we're going to do some conversation about boundaries, and we're going to talk about personal boundaries and then ministerial boundaries. And so I'd like to just start with, you know, to say how important this is, and really I think one of the things is that I think we haven't learned to have good personal boundaries. And so sometimes I think we don't realize when our own boundaries are being crossed, you know, when we're in our ministry, or when we're crossing other people's boundaries. So I think they go hand in hand. So I'd like to start with, first of all, a definition of what boundaries are, then talk about personal boundaries, and then talk about ministerial boundaries. And then the handout you have also has a good second page, which gives some really good suggestions about how to live with good boundaries, especially since a lot of times we wind up in what we call dual relationships, which in other professions, if you're a medical doctor, if you're a psychologist, it's rare that you have dual relationships. In religious life, with ministry, we seem to have them pretty regularly, and it creates, you have to recognize that there's a potential person with serious conflicts here, you know, so that's what we're gonna talk about tonight, okay?

[01:12]

So we'll try to do this in an hour. First thing I need to talk about, well, what do we mean by boundaries? And I think the thing we don't want to do is we don't want to think of them as brick walls that separate us from other people. The definition I like is this, it's that families are the limits that allow for safe and healthy relationships with others. So that's one way. There are limits that allow for a safe and healthy relationship. So I can be safe and other people can be safe. So I can be healthy and other people can be healthy. That's a good definition. Another way to look at it is the second thing. It's the place where I end where I end, here it is right here, here's me, where I end, and another person begins, and there's a neutral space between us. So there's a separateness of persons here, and when there are boundaries. And we all need to have boundaries, we need this personal, this neutral space between us, okay? Sometimes we have bigger spaces with some people than with others, sometimes the space is closer, there's less space between us, but there always needs to be a space.

[02:20]

And then the third way of talking about boundaries that I really like a lot is that it's a place for meeting another. It's a place for connection. So notice, we're not talking about, again, separating ourselves from others. We're going to stay in the definition that sexuality, our energy, is about connection. It's about bringing us together. So again, if you think about those three things, you know, it's a place for safe and healthy connection. It's a place where there's some neutral space between me and you so that I can be myself and live a healthy life and you can be yourself and live a healthy life, but we're going to be connected. It's still about connection. And then the last thing I just said, it's about, it's a place for healthy connection. It's a place for meeting another person. So again, we're not emphasizing separation, we're emphasizing connection, but healthy ones. That makes some sense so far. So when we talk about boundaries, we're not talking about the things we used to think about, putting up walls. Steve Roselli always goes, you know, when the bishops ask him to come up and talk about boundaries,

[03:26]

He says what they really wanted to do is to come and talk about, tell the priest what they're not supposed to do. But we're really not talking about connection, but healthy connection. And the first connection we need is healthy connection with ourself. And that's why we need to have personal boundaries. What about personal boundaries? What do they help us do? The very first step, that personal boundaries, the reason why we need them is they help us discover who we are. So personal boundaries, why do I need a boundary arrest? Because it helps me discover who I am and it helps me to live. you know, in a mutual way, in a healthy way with other people, because I have a self to offer in relationship. If I don't have any boundaries, I don't have a person to offer in the relationship, and therefore I can't be mutual, I can't be intimate, because I don't feel I have anything to offer.

[04:27]

So it's so important that we have these boundaries, now there's different kinds of boundaries which we're going to look at here, and we certainly don't want rigid ones, and we certainly don't want porous ones, which are going to be on that paper that we're going to look at. We want these flexible and fluid boundaries. But it's very important that we have a self to offer in relationship. And so again, it's so important that we be able to really discover who we are. It takes a lifetime to discover who we are. Why? Because we're always changing. We're always growing. We're always becoming more of who we are. Hopefully the journey is a transforming journey of becoming more of who we are. When we talk about boundaries, the types of boundaries, there's usually, you know, five kinds of boundaries that, your personal boundaries, five kinds, and I'd just like to mention these for you. The first one is what we call, I'll just list them here for you.

[05:28]

The first one are physical boundaries. physical boundaries. And then he has to do, that literally is how close do you want people to be? How much space do you need? And you know, different cultures have different needs here, don't they? If you watch certain cultures, they don't. Like I grew up, I have an interesting mix in my family. I have an Italian father, and I have an Irish mother. Well, there are different physical boundaries. The Italians are much closer, much more touchy, much more in there. And my mother's side of the family, a little more reserved, a little bit more space around. So physical space is different depending on our family systems. A subset of this one is sexual. meaning, you know, how you like to be touched, or if you want to have any sexual contact with a person, and we're talking about in general for people, you know, then that's a subset of this, you know. So what are the limits with regard to physical touch and any kind of sexual behavior?

[06:30]

What are the limits that you have? And different people have different limits or boundaries, and it always depends on who we are. For example, a married man, has clear limits around sexual, physical limits with another woman that's not as well, right? So everybody has boundaries, and we all have different ones depending on who we are, how we grew up, but also what our life stance is, what we're committed to, and how we're going to live in integrity. So physical is the first one. The second one is emotional. There are emotional boundaries. And when we talk about emotional boundaries, we're talking about with whom do you share your feelings? With whom do you talk about what you're feeling and what it's like for you, what your experiences are? So again, a very important, a very important thing about is your emotional life. We don't tell everybody what we're feeling. Let's say you're really, let's say you're really angry with one of the brothers in the community. for whatever reason, and anger is not a bad emotion, it happens sometimes, it's a good thing to be angry.

[07:33]

Well, you wouldn't want to be telling the first person who comes to liturgy, I'm really mad, I'm really angry with brother so-and-so, because that would be inappropriate telling of that kind of an emotion to that person who doesn't know the situation and doesn't know the community, right? But you may need to talk about it with, with the brother that you're having the anger with, or you may need to talk it out with somebody else in order to then go talk with them. So emotional boundaries, we do have emotional boundaries, and we want to keep them, you know, and we want to let some people in. We do want some people to know what we're feeling, and we do want to have affection, et cetera, and caring. We're not supposed to live without affection in our life, but it needs to be appropriate. The third one is what I call reality, and this is This is a big category, and I call it a reality chart, but listen to all the things that are included here. It includes your perceptions of things, what you think is important, it includes your beliefs, it includes your opinions, and it includes what you value, what matters to you.

[08:44]

Now, we each need to have some of those things in our life, you know. So, for example, if I said, your perceptions. So, let's say, your perception, you might say today, what a lovely day. Not. I would want to be curious if you said that to me. What a lovely day. But you might, let's suppose that this was an area of drought, and it's raining, and it was going to help the drought. So, I could understand how a person could think that, what a lovely day. Now, I may not like rain, even if we're in a drought thing. Maybe I plan it for a picnic, so it's not too lovely for me. But it is your perception, what a lovely day. And it could be for me, so I want to get curious, even though I might not understand. I want to get real curious and say, tell me about this lovely day out here. It's a good way to check things out. Or, for example, we all have issues that we're dealing with. I might consider an issue, we're in the process of looking at our provincial house, which is very large.

[09:46]

We have a huge house, 450 bedrooms. In fact, five of its house. So we're talking about how we might want to renovate part of it and how we might deal with that. So that's a significant issue. I think it's an important issue for me because I think it's important to our future and our ministry. Somebody else might not think that's a big issue. They say, well, somebody else will take care of that. You understand? So we get involved. We raise issues differently. We think about things differently. When we talk about beliefs, what do you believe You know, what do you believe is happening in our own country? What are your thoughts and feelings about what's happening in our country with regard to the war in Iraq? We have beliefs about that, and we each have them, and we need to have them and be able to express them. And if we don't agree, we want to place our thoughts and our beliefs in dialogue. And sometimes it'll just be a dialogue with nobody changing their mind, but we're going to be in dialogue, but we have beliefs, you know? And then the opinions, I think that, you know, it's my opinion.

[10:48]

One of the big things with opinions, though, we think our opinion is the truth. And so we act as if my opinion is right and yours is wrong. But really, they're two opinions. I think this, and you say that. It's two opinions about the same thing. So we need to deal with opinions a little better, I think. Sometimes we think we're right and we think we're wrong. And then the last one, it has to do with values. What matters to me? What's really important? So we need to know what those are. That's the reality. And we need to be able to express them and put them in dialogue with others. And other people can't tell us we can't have those. They may disagree with us, but they can't say you can't think like that. Well, I can think like that. You may want to help me see a different way of thinking about it, but you can't tell me I can't have it, because I do think that way. And then we have to have a little dialogue. We can influence one another, but we can't tell the person they can't have certain thoughts, because they do have them. So those are three areas. The fourth one I'd talk about is self-disclosure. And that's talking about yourself, talking about things that matter to you, talking about your family, talking about your beliefs in God.

[11:58]

Self-disclosure is an area where you have the right to say there are some limits. Now, what's interesting here is in formation, for example, we have people in formation. I do a lot of work with the mouse. I say to them, look, this is something you're going to be expected to do. In order to kind of move through the community, to be able to be accepted, you're going to have to be self-disclosing. You're going to have to tell people what you think and feel and what life is like for you and how you're doing. So self-disclosing. They still can say, I'm not going to do that. I won't talk about that. But I say to them, you really need to be more forthcoming in the formative process, but you need to be more forthcoming not just in its formation, because it's good practice for community living. We need to be more self-disclosing to one another, and that includes some of the vulnerabilities, some of the things we don't know how to do. Why? Self-disclosure is the basis of trust. It's the basis of trust.

[12:59]

If we're going to trust one another, we have to talk to each other on a deeper level than we sometimes do. We can't just talk about the weather or the windows that are leaking or whatever. We've got to talk about things that are a little bit different. And if we don't, then we don't develop the trust and we won't be able to be intimate. So these are critically linked. Self-disclosure is linked with trust, is linked with intimacy, and so it's absolutely essential that we learn how to do this. and talk about things, not only the things we know, but maybe the things we don't know. You know, the things that scare us, the things that we're not sure about. But you do the right not to disclose. You have the right not to do that. The point is you want to get to the point where you're able to disclose appropriately to the right people about deeper and deeper things. And that's what maturity is about. And then the last one, interestingly enough, is about your needs. and wants. Needs and wants.

[14:02]

When we talk about that there are, you have needs and you have wants. Now, they're not the same, right? I mean, needs are supposed to, what you need to kind of make it at once or something, wouldn't it be nice if, you know, sometimes we confuse the two. I need this, or really if I want this. And we need to feel more honest. And sometimes we might get challenged on that. Do you really need that or is that something you'd want? But there's nothing wrong with either of these. That's the critical piece here, that we do have needs and we do have wants and we need to be able to satisfy those to some degree in community. Now the basic needs, safety, food, clothing, and shelter absolutely need to be provided or you'll never have any kind of relationship. You'll be so insecure you can't connect to them. But that one's a good place. One of you may have a little more need for solitude than the person next to you. Okay. How are you going to negotiate a little bit more space?

[15:05]

You know, so the needs are going to differ, and they'll differ as you grow and mature, as you age, too. So, what are your needs? What are your wants? You have a right to them. You need to negotiate for them. Sometimes we're going to get them met. Sometimes we won't. Sometimes we'll get partially met, and that's how life is. That's true in any relationship. But the point of this is, is these are all good things. These are all good things. These are all things about which you need to know your own physical sexual limits, your emotional limits, your reality limits, you know, things about self-disclosure, needs and wants. And you need to negotiate those. And when somebody's coming at you and asking you, for example, to be more self-disclosing about yourself, There's the invitation, you have to say, is this appropriate for me? Is this something I'm willing to do? And you're really, we're negotiating these all the time. We're negotiating them. These are our personal guides, absolutely essential. You know what I think is difficult is we really learned, I think we got two mixed messages, at least some of us did along the way.

[16:13]

And the two messages, I wrote them down. Don't be close and be for others. If you think about it, we could be in the skit zone. Don't be close. You don't need anybody. It's you and God. But be for others. So it can be really confusing if you keep those... How do you then have these things in place if you kind of take it on as, you know, like, be for others? Then these things about yourself are not supposed to matter, but they do matter, you know what I mean? So I think we have to pay attention to what we learn and see what the invitations are here. So, what we're taking a look here is, we wanna take a look at, and this is the paper you have. Look at the, and these are with regard to social boundaries. If you look at the page that has the three circles at the top. These are really important that we realize that we don't want rigid boundaries. And here's just a schematic to try to show.

[17:17]

Nothing gets out and nothing gets in. So when we're rigid and closed down, nothing's going to get out. We're not going to connect with others. We're like, we just kind of bump up against one another. You know what I mean? And nothing, nobody gets into us. Nobody's able to influence us. And we don't share our inner life with anybody. And so we're just like, it's like living in the phone booth. or living in a motel. We just kind of pass each other, we might grunt a little, smile a little, and go on, but we really don't connect. It's not about connection yet. Then we have this person, the poorest person, where everything goes out and everything comes in. So, you know, they just say inappropriate things, they say too much. Here's the example of talking about community affairs to people that come to visit when they really need to be talked about in the community, you know. So what happens is you see a lot of inappropriate behavior. Not only from me to the other people, I'm saying too much, I'm, you know,

[18:18]

maybe inappropriately touching, all kinds of things could happen here. But also, they're bombarding me. They're kind of overtaking my life. A good example of this, this person says no all the time. This person doesn't know how to say no. And this person says yes when they mean yes, and no when they mean no. That's a good kind of way to kind of look at this. Person says no all the time. I'm not going to connect with you, I'm not going to respond. This one says yes all the time, so they don't have a life either. This one doesn't have a life. They don't have an integrated life. And this person says yes when they mean yes, and no when they mean no. So you really get an authentic kind of connection with this person. Now if you look at the paper, Let's take a look at some of the characteristics. And you may want to think about yourself here. Again, we're not judging. Remember, we said we're not judging or blaming. But you may want to say, which one of these did I learn to be? Which one of these circles did I learn to be?

[19:20]

Good question for you. Notice with the rigid person. They don't allow anybody in. They have a rigid sense of power. And that means that they're in charge. You know, I'm in charge. I'm right. You can't negotiate with these folks. I'm right, I'm in charge. Because I said so, that would be a response you might hear from somebody. Notice the symptoms. They're cold and distant, harsh, can be quite angry. They're really unavailable emotionally. It's hard to connect with the person, you know? And they can smile and be pleasant, but usually because they want something. You know, it's not a real connection, you know, where they say, how are you? And you get a sense of really connecting with them. And they're somewhat disengaged. So then what happens in their interpersonal life? Well, a few people call. People feel uneasy in the house or in their presence. You know, if I say I'm afraid to invite somebody in because... They'll react, they'll be unkind, they won't be welcoming, so we get all afraid of having company or whatever.

[20:24]

And then what's their personal result? They're not fed by people, this is a disconnected life. So what do you say? Cynical, sarcastic, or depressed? So it's very hard to connect with a person who's learned to be rigid. Now we don't want to judge them, but I certainly want to ask, what happens that they closed down. What happened that they just kind of draw this real tight circle around them, and nobody gets in, and they don't come out and meet anybody? Something happened. That's right. So I'm going to be trying to muster my compassion, you know, to say, I wonder what happened. How do you deal with a person like this? Well, be careful, because they'll be harsh with you. They might shove you away, and there might be a lot of anger here. But, you know, I think the way is to be as gentle as possible. And also to point out, you know, saying, you know, you're being snabbed at. You say, I don't know what that's about. Could we talk about that? I'm really convinced that we need to move in. You'd like to strangle them sometimes.

[21:25]

You'd like to shake them sometimes. But I think we need to move gently. Absolutely gently to try. And sometimes we need to just back off because they can be hurtful and we're not into getting beat up here. But I think we have to come gently there. Try to come with some compassion. Now the poorest person, there's this one over here. Everything's coming in, everything's coming out. Notice what it says. Everybody allowed in. They abdicate their power. So you say, what do you think? And they say, oh, I don't know. Or if I might ask you this, if I said to you, let's say you came to my house and I said to you, would you like vanilla or chocolate ice cream for dessert? And you say to me, oh, whatever. Now, what do you mean, oh, whatever? I mean, I'm not saying you're going to die if you don't have one or the other, but don't you have a little preference in that? I have a preference. Well, you have a choice here. I have a rose garden that's vanilla. Why wouldn't I tell you that? Why wouldn't I say something like, I prefer vanilla, but either one is fine.

[22:31]

That's the truth. I'm not the guy about vanilla ice cream. You know what I mean? Why is it sometimes I say, oh, whatever. You're giving me a choice. I need to respond. And it's a simple choice. And why don't I tell you sometimes? Because I'm afraid that you might not like me. You know what I mean? We get hooked into, into not being our real self here. When all you need, you ask me. And by the way, if you ask me and you give me a choice and you don't have the choice, who's problem is it? It's your problem. If you don't have vanilla chocolate ice cream, it's not my problem. It's your problem. So I'm going to trust you. It's a kind of trusting stand. I'm going to trust you to say what you mean, and I'm going to respond. So notice what it says. Over-engaged on an emotional roller coaster. Why? Because if other people are up, you're up. If they're having a hard time, you're having a hard time. There's no separation. You understand? So I feel what you feel. And that's not empathy. I'm just hooked in there. We're connected. It's this. There's no space here.

[23:33]

So you feel something, therefore I feel it. That's not empathy or compassion. It's being hooked together. It's enmeshed, you know? And so notice what it says. There's a wonderful person that quotes. This guy is a wonderful guy, but we don't know if he's the last. He's going to burn out. Why? Always saying yes. Overextending himself. a response to every need, never thinks about themselves, seem close to everybody. Well, you know, that's not real. We're not close to everybody. And that doesn't mean we're uncharitable or we're not Christian. You know, Jesus himself, if you remember, took some time away, took the 12 and said, let's go It's over here for a bit. He had to move away sometimes. He had boundaries. He knew that he needed some space. And we needed some space. And notice their interpersonal life. People feel at home and that their home belongs to them. In other words, people invade their space. I had a young priest that I was working with. And he said to me, you moved into a house with a pastor, and the pastor had this wide open policy.

[24:37]

He said, the only space I personally have is in my bathroom with the door shut. And that's way out of whack, you know. And the original men's bedrooms are upstairs. And people would come upstairs to the private living quarters. It would be like me walking into your private bedroom area. You know, it's just inappropriate. You need some private space. And I think it's so wonderful, as you described to me, Father Martin, that your living space is kind of separate from your workplace. And a lot of the Diocesan priests are beginning to look at that they live in the store, and they have no boundaries, and they're frustrated, and they're really not living good lives. Why? Because they never go home. There's never any space. So this person kind of gets hooked into that. They respond to every need, you know. And then it says people feel at home, people are on every floor, and the phone bell rings at all hours. I had another young priest say to me, I'm really exhausted. Now, this guy is like 30 years old, and he's telling me he's exhausted.

[25:40]

I said, what's he exhausted about? And I said, well, give me a typical day. And he said, well, yesterday I had the 6 o'clock mass, the early, early mass. I said, OK. And he said, when was your last appointment? He said, 10 o'clock. I said, 10 p.m. was your latest appointment? And he said, yes. And I said, how did you get a 10 p.m. appointment? He said, well, it was the only time they could come. It was a wedding preparation. And I said, you know, do you think they got an advantage at 10 o'clock? You know, and again, it was a little bit naive, had a real desire to be of service and not able to negotiate a better time for an appointment. Now, maybe there is a time when it is only, it can only happen at 10, but this was sort of a regular MO. You know, he starts at six and finishes at 11. Now, he already feels tired. He's kind of going to burn out here because like not good limits, you know, and he's not, he's not negotiating well. They say, well, probably we can't come at any time. He says, okay, You know, I mean, you've got to be a little stronger in negotiating. And then notice what it says, the personal result, they feel overwhelmed, out of control, they burn out, they want to get away.

[26:46]

So what happens? They have to get away sometimes or they get sick. Sometimes you just get thick-handed, get out of the mess for a bit, and then they come back and start it all over again. This is the porous, not enough boundaries. Notice here, hardly any wall here, any kind of separation. So everything's compact and everything's all right. Then here's the flexible one. And notice I had another one where they're flexible and fluid. They mean they're going to change, you know? So this is the person who says yes when they mean yes and no when they mean no. And if you said to me, Lynn, could you do a workshop for me? People call me up. Could you do this workshop? And I look at my calendar and I say, yes, I could do that. Or I look at my calendar and say, no, I can't. But call me at another time. So they call me at another time. Is this a good time? I say, yes. So I'm going to say yes to the same request, but a different timing. Because why? It fits for me and for them. It's not just what fits for them. So notice, by personal choice, and this sounds very convicted, you let some people in, others you don't let in.

[27:53]

And it's not because you're being nasty or because you don't like people, it's just either the circumstance or the amount of energy that you had. So people are friendly, you know, and people will say, well, how are you doing today? I'm fine, thank you. And you might move on with that. You might not carry on a little bit, extend the conversation. Why? You need a little bit more space on that given day. And that's all. And God certainly invites us to do that, to make good choices here. Letting those human in at different degrees of intimacy. different degrees of intimacy. So we're going to be closer to some people than to others. And you know, it's hard when you're in a public position sometimes as you are, because everybody wants to be close to you. Everybody knows. People will notice that you're a little friendlier or a little closer to some people. That's how life is. You know, I mean, you're not doing it deliberately to hurt anybody, but that's how it is. You know, we're closer to some people. That's what's real. To keep everybody the same. I treat everybody the same. Everybody's my friend. Means you have no relationships. They're not real.

[28:53]

Now I'm not saying we don't stretch and deliberately include some other people, especially some people that maybe are a little harder to like. So we do stretch sometimes. But you know, we're going to like people differently. And that's what this is trying to say. So notice what the symptoms are. You get a more balanced life. You have a wide spectrum of emotions. When we talk about integrated sexuality, this is one thing. There's balance, there's a wide spectrum of emotions, so you can be angry or frustrated, but you can also feel joy and connection and affection. So the whole gamut of the thing, you're not living with one small set of feelings, like you're angry and frustrated all the time. If you are, something isn't happening right. And it could be a boundary then, you know. And notice what else it says. Persons you're able to help, some people a lot, others a little, and others not at all. That's hard for us. You know, it's hard for me, as not only my sister, and I feel called to be helpful to them, but I'm also a psychologist, you know.

[29:56]

And you realize sometimes you can't help people. You just can't do it, you know. I'm thinking of a woman, a sister who came to see me, who had a very severe obsessive compulsive disorder. You know, the people who wash their hands, you know, 50 times a day, that kind of thing. But hers was a disorder, a sexual disorder, a very serious issue of obsessive compulsive. That requires a special kind of treatment. It's a behavioral treatment, and it also requires medication. I don't do either. I would have been dishonest to say to her, let's keep talking together. Now she was really angry with me and told me I didn't care about her and I didn't like her. And it was just the opposite. I did like her and I did care about her enough to say, I'm not the one. And I made a good referral. And two years later, took two years, she wrote me a letter and said, now I understand. Now I understand. I thank you for saving me. It was so much better. I could not have helped it. And sometimes it isn't that obvious, but sometimes we can't help people.

[30:58]

We don't have the energy ourselves, or whatever the issue we're dealing with, we can't. So we have to be able to say, I'm just not the one. Let me help, let me send you somebody who could be your one. I always say to priests, don't get into heavy duty counseling. with people who you don't have the skills to deal with. You know, if you're dealing with somebody who's dealing with sexual abuse, for example, you need to be loyal, you need to stay with them, and you need to refer them to a good therapist. You're not going to be the therapist, you know, so between to know their limits, you know. And then notice the interpersonal life. They're going to have a routine business. There's some hours, you know, people will come, you know, when the doors, if you put the sign that the shop is open, they'll come. If there's no sign, they'll come at every hour of the day or night. You know, I mean, that's the point. You're setting some reasonable limit. You'll have an effective relationship with others. So you're going to have, notice, you have a work life and a relational life. It's about love and work. It's not about either or. And then, and then again, the question that there's which model's best. Who did you learn to be?

[31:58]

And who are you called to be now? And we've all got some learnings in here, so you might want to say, if you had a tendency, I won't ask you to raise your hand, but if you had a tendency, which one do you tend toward? And maybe what's the invitation for you tonight to say, how can I get better at my own boundaries? Am I too porous? And I need to kind of just tighten up a little and get a little clearer about, you know, saying yes when I mean yes and no when I mean no. Am I so, am I rigid? Do I tend to say no pretty quickly? And do I need to be a little bit more open about saying some yeses? Or do I do it pretty well? And that's a good way to understand. Yeah. I get something up there. Yeah. We're professed to have been living together for a long time. Yeah. What a story. I was guilty of being more than fours. only because you come into this environment not knowing and you want to help everybody in any bunch of parts that you can. You believe that's what you're supposed to do.

[33:02]

It evolves being flexible. In the beginning it's actually there that you can let the belief by some of the books you read and whatnot prior to coming to this life. The other thing too that you raised is a very significant thing when there's a new person. What do you want to do? You want to fit in. That isn't always conscious, but you want to fit in, you want to be a part of the group. And so that also prompts, you know, being helpful, you know, saying yes, getting over it by maybe saying yes too many times, you know. So again, you're absolutely right. I think what you said is, you know, your image of you're supposed to say yes, I mean, you can overextend yourself. You can be porous at the beginning. And also, the need to fit in is a very human need. So what do we do? We try to fit in by being more, saying more yeses, et cetera. And that's not okay. I mean, it's okay. What we do is we come back to center. We balance it out a little. Well, it's also the fact that if you related to football, if you travel to football, your goal isn't to get turned away from the team.

[34:10]

Your goal is to make it. That's right. That's exactly right. That's pretty human. Nature? Exactly, that's what I'm talking about. Very human need to belong, to fit in, and so we do things to try to fit in. Absolutely. I couldn't agree with you more. Right on. Very human stuff that happens with us, you know, when we're new or when we're continuing an effort, you know. Yes, I know. Do these reflect, for example, is there a reflection of my own application of where I fit in to my approach with other people's boundaries. Because these all apply to myself first. And this is off the top of my head. Does that, will that reflect how I view myself and hopefully trying to improve, will that reflect my perception or awareness of other people's boundaries and not violate them?

[35:19]

If I'm the lay person, and you gave that one example, I've been in this refuge, and it's also an actual priest. We had to wait for cruises and things, because they weren't sensible enough. I could say, let's get the office out of the refuge. But anyway, if I'm a parishioner, going to see this priest, and I sit there, I'll kind of stay myself, will my own this great awareness of my own situation, my boundaries, rigid, forced, or flexible, be reflected on my respect for boundaries of another person. I have to violate that, the priest's boundaries, or something like that. Or in personal relationships, if I try to sit down I'll give you an example of my own life, it's because it's 50 years ago, quite young. I was complaining to a con fair, not about him, but I said, we were in Rome, it was a big scene, I said, people bother me sometimes, they come, they want to be my close friend, they say, what's your fault?

[36:30]

Your eyes sparkle when you meet people. I said, well, not my fault, because I don't like everybody the same. But I'm trying to be kind and friendly. And so I was thinking of that, would it help if I study my own needs and then my limits and knowledge, will that automatically kind of help me to respect something and not be intrusive because something, I don't know, they push themselves onward. Maybe I do, you know what I mean? And it's not a problem. I think the answer is yes. And that's why I think when you're aware of just this, if you just keep these in mind, keep these images in mind, you know, so then the immediate person, this is not a judgment thing, but as you interact with them, you get a sense of, oh, they're Everything is pouring out. I mean, they're telling me things, even though you are a monk, and even though, you know, people really trust us, and I think there's some issues around trust now, but people trust religions, pretty much, you know.

[37:35]

So they're telling you, but they're telling you all kinds, and you hardly know them, and they're pouring out all kinds of things to you. Well, I would say, right then, they're having some porous boundaries, so you want to pay attention to that, and you don't know whether it's just a moment, where they're in trauma, and they're just, you know, they're just so traumatized, and so, there's so much going on like that. And poor people, that's how they operate all the time. And so you'd be paying attention, you know. And if they are poor, you're certainly not going to return the favor. You're not going to be pouring all this stuff out in return, you know. And you might even slow it down. You might even say, you know, you're seeing an awful lot right now. I wonder if you want to do that. You know, I slow them down sometimes so that they're not telling me every detail of their whole life. You know, I might slow them down if I'm feeling, especially if I feel overwhelmed here with all kinds of information. And then the same thing if they're rigid and they're coming at you rigid, you know what I mean? Then, well, there's not much, you know, they're not going to ask a lot of you probably. But let's say you're talking with them and you get nothing in return. Nothing comes out, you know.

[38:36]

Well, then you sense, oops, a little rigid. But here if you see, you know, this is the person and there's some balance in there and there's some nice give and take. So, but the point is, you need to know where you are and be working on this one. We all need to be heading in this direction. If you're here, you need to move here. And if you're here, you need to move here. And if you're aware of that, then you're likely to be more aware of other people's boundaries too. When we're totally oblivious, when we're so unaware of our own story, We're unaware of other people too. And we might meet our needs through them. And that's not what we're called. Here's a key sentence you have to remember. When people come to us in our ministry, when they come here for liturgy, when they come here for prayer, or they come just to talk with you, they come believing that you're going to help them. It's not about our needs. It's about their needs. And that's why you have to have a personal life where you meet your personal needs in your personal life. Personal needs get met in your personal life.

[39:40]

You don't meet them with the people who come here for help. Same thing with me. When people talk to me, even at workshops, people talk to me, I'm not pouring out my story in return to them. I'm doing that with my friends, with my spiritual director, with a therapist if I need one, you know what I mean? That's where that's happening. When I'm in my ministry, when I'm doing a workshop, or I'm doing therapy, I'm not telling them my story. I'm listening to their story. So personal needs are met in your personal life. Your ministerial ministry, you're there to meet other people's needs. So it is one-sided. But it's not forever one-sided, because in your personal life, you've got this happening. It doesn't mean you become rigid in your ministerial life. We don't need cold, nasty ministers. We need to be warm, loving people. But we know that we're there for them, and the focus is on them, and our personal needs are being met in our personal life. And that's when we're doing this, and there's an exchange in our personal life.

[40:43]

Does that help? But also, there would be a tendency, if I'm, let's say, a real porous, that I would forward demands, not put demands on people, because I think they're going to vote. That's right. Yes, that's also true. That's a very good point. If I'm porous, then, because I tend to say yes to everything, I expect you to say yes to everything. And I might even judge you and say, what a selfish person. You know, how selfish can you be? You said no. You know what I mean? Because why? The expectation is, you'll be as yes-saying as I am. That's an excellent point, Dr. Martin. That's right. That's right. So, we can tend to want other people to be like ourselves in judgment if they're not. Or even the person who's rigid. We could say, he or she could say, look at this person. They're still there. I've talked to everybody. Well, they may not be. They may be very flexible and fluid. They may be doing appropriate sharing, but this person, who tolerates none, thinks it's excessive. You can imagine what they'd do with this person.

[41:46]

They'd be crazy with this person. Right. Yes. I wasn't, couldn't be stranger yet. The person was unloading on me, then trying to say, you know, that I understood And they said to my eyes, they could tell that I saw him. So I went and did the, I think I made the big mistake of saying, sort of knowing what I thought was the problem, I said, shall we talk about it? Right away the person said, I don't want to talk about it. So from then on, I became rigid because I could see this person Every time I said something, this person would cut me off. I said to myself, well, we're not going to talk about it. You want to bring the subject up, and then you don't want to talk about it. I just feel like I'm helpless. I feel like I'm being a sucker to listen to your life story.

[42:50]

You say it's one way, but it's not a response. your body, your mouth, or something where they're not so understood. Well, I understand. You really want to find out how I understand. Well, sometimes it can be just saying, ah, [...] ah. Sometimes it can be, if somebody's going, especially I can't feel invaded upon, and somebody says, I could see you saw what was going on before it happened, which is exactly what was said to me. I just, it's a false statement of mine at the time, although I did wonder how these two people ever put it together. Right. Let me say one thing, though, that I heard underneath that, and it's not uncommon. If somebody tells a lie in their story, they feel overexposed, okay? And so then it's not uncommon that they shut down after that. They won't say anymore. Why? They feel so vulnerable.

[43:53]

They feel so overexposed. And so I'm not surprised at that. And that takes some, and again, you're not there to be a therapist. You're not there to do long-term work, you know, but it doesn't surprise me. And sometimes you need a therapist. So you have to, what I simply say to them, is you can try to help them see that I might say something to them and they're feeling quite vulnerable right now because of what they've shared. But that's a therapist's role, you know. For you, I don't know how you'd want to handle it. You simply, I think, you don't want to become rigid. I think, I know you said that, I think you just want to be able, you want to maintain this no matter what the other person's doing. So you don't want the other person to dictate who you are. You want to remain flexible and fluid. But what you become aware of is, this person has shut down. They're not going to say anything. And usually they shut down because they feel very vulnerable. And they feel very overexposed. So you just accept that. You don't have to go any further. If they want more, they're going to have to put out more. But again, I would encourage you to maintain this posture no matter what.

[44:54]

These two are not healthy for you. They're not healthy, let alone for the other person. So you want to stay who you are and not get pushed into something that you're not, because these are not healthy stances. To be disconnected or to be so overflowing with your stuff that it's just pouring out of there, it's just not healthy. And so we talk about integrated sexuality. When we talk about integration, we're talking about this. You have the capacity to have this back and forth, this fluid, flexible, not that you shut down and become rigid and block people out, but not that you just tore your gut out to everybody and anybody. So this is, again, how we talk about integration. And all of us have some struggles here. The question is, we don't do this perfectly. Are we on the road to understanding this is the best place we want to be? Well, it was a two-part thing. I had another person who did unload, but didn't get me involved in the sense of, like, I could see you understood me. But I felt I was invaded upon by the person saying, and therefore I reacted to it.

[45:59]

But then I figured it was an invitation. So I asked the next question, what would you like to talk about? All of a sudden, bang! Yeah, and to be truthful, some people do that. I can't tell you how many people do that to me on the airplane. I mean, I try to not tell them who I am because, why? Because there is, what some people tend to do sometimes is that we dump their stuff. It's a dumping process. And temporarily they feel better, but they're not able or willing. And there's the question. They're not able or willing to do the work they need to do to deal with the issues. And that's, all we have to do is just try to just sit as compassionately as we can because they, for whatever reason, they can't take the next step. And so we just, I just sit patiently, even as a therapist, I just sit patiently and basically say, because they're doing, you know, it's not for me to make it happen. But it's not uncommon that, because why? There is a momentary, a short-term feeling good when you don't.

[47:01]

It's only short-term though, and it will not help a person move to the next step. And so your question is appropriate in one sense, but would you like to talk about it? And they say, no. I say, okay. That's all you can do. You know what I mean? And then you let them go at it. And when they're ready, hopefully with someone, they will talk about it. And they may not even be able to, you know. That's all we can do. Let me talk about dual relationships for a few minutes, and then I'll talk about power. Let me talk about power first. This is a huge issue, power. And then we'll talk about dual relationships and transference. Those are the three things I'd like to finish with tonight. The first one is power. And that is, any time there's an imbalance of power in a relationship, the person who holds the power position has to be aware that you are powerful in that position. and not to cross the boundary, not to violate the other person's boundaries. Now you say, well, what do you mean a power position?

[48:04]

We're not in power positions. Yes, you are. Yes, you are. And you're in a power position, or could be, for a number of reasons. Let me give you the list. I just wrote them down. And by the way, power position means the ability to influence. The ability to influence. It doesn't mean you're always in a controlling position, but it's the ability to influence. So who has the ability to influence another person? Listen to this list of things. When you are older, you have the ability to influence another person because people see you and with age comes wisdom. Now we all know that that is not always true, right? But age can be one of the things. Oh, he's white. Lynn has a few more gray hairs here. She'll be whiter. So age is one thing that gives you sometimes a sense of power and the ability to listen to the rest of the list. Education. So when people say to me, I say, they say, you're a doctor. I say, yeah, and then they'll say some things to me. They wouldn't say that to me if I didn't have, if I wasn't a psychologist.

[49:07]

Verbal ability. People sometimes who are more verbally able will get people to say things, people will talk to them more sometimes. Temperament. But sometimes, some of us have an easier temperament, don't we? I mean, we're a little bit more approachable. So if you're a little bit more approachable, maybe this is what the person was saying to you, you get that little twinkle in your eye or whatever. If you're a little bit more approachable, people are going to tend to approach you more. So you have to know that. And just be mindful that you have a powerful role there because people are going to come and say things to you. Intelligence is another one, and that, you know, sometimes people who are more gifted intellectually can manipulate better, so you have to be mindful. Here's a big one, and this one fits for probably most of you, and that is role or your position. And when I say role, people often come, especially when they're troubled spiritually, they're gonna come to monks, they're gonna come to priests, they're gonna come to us as rulers.

[50:10]

Why? Because we're supposed to be the experts. We are the God-connectors, so they will come to us and they respect us. Now we could begin with a piece of poetry again, and this is from, her name is Judy Brown, and the title of this is Fire. It sort of picks up with a little bit of what we talked about last night with boundaries, but it also talks, you can hear it in many ways, like she said it to us. What makes a fire burn is space between the logs. A breathing space. Too much of a good thing, too many logs packed in too tight, can douse the flames almost as surely as a pail of water would. So building fires requires attention to the spaces in between as much as to the wood. When we are able to build open spaces in the same way we have learned to pile on the logs

[51:14]

Then we can come to see how it is fuel and the absence of fuel together that makes fire possible. We only need to lay a log lightly from time to time. A fire grows simply because the space is there with openings in which the flame that knows just how it wants to burn can find its way. about those spaces that we need. This morning, and we get to talk about genitality for a little bit, we're going to talk about this second area of sexuality. Remember we talked about primary sexuality and we said there's several topics and we talked about a couple of them yesterday. And today we're talking about genital sexuality and we'll just take a look at this slide. And again, I don't No we don't. We'll just kind of walk through this piece.

[52:20]

And what this is trying to tell us is that when we have to deal with our genital sexuality, that's our urges, remember the genital urges, stirrings, fantasies and feelings, what do we do with them? And how do we cope with them as human persons? And we certainly don't want to not have them because it would be like not having fire. It would be like cutting us off from the bank account. So the question is how do we deal with them? How do we integrate them? And all this is trying to say is that we're actually on a continuum again. And the continuum is sometimes we have people afraid of their urges and stirrings and their desires. There's a lot of fear here. And they are insecure, they don't know what to do with it, and they'd rather not have them. So we have what we call an underdeveloped person here, or a hyposexual person. And again, you say, well, how could a person, what causes fear, urge, disturbance, and various physical reactions? I don't know, but something probably happened. And it could have been the milieu in which the person grew up. If you grew up in a family system where sexuality was never talked about and it was a taboo subject and people seemed afraid of it, then you could also learn to be afraid of sexuality and urges and stirrings.

[53:39]

It could be that nothing happened to you in a sense of abuse, but just the system didn't allow any understanding of this part of us. Fear because we don't know. Fear comes from sometimes not knowing. Or fear may have been because something happened. Sexual abuse can impact a person's, how they deal with their genitality. Or physical abuse can, which is what we're learning. Physical abuse, sexual abuse, can impact a person sexually. On the other end, you have a person who flunks their genital sexuality. How do they do that? Sometimes by clothing. They wear too little or too tight, for example, and we don't have to guess about what's under theirs. And we see a little bit of that happening in women's clothing today, almost an exhibitionist kind of thing, not wearing very much, exposing a lot of the body, especially breasts, et cetera, which can be very provocative. So that can be a flaunting kind of thing. Men can do that as well.

[54:41]

Exploiting others. Here's where, you know, really moving in on people, especially vulnerable people, exploiting them sexually, punching them inappropriately, or asking them for sex, or even having sex with people, pressuring them for sex or for sexual behaving. The notion of seducing. Any one of us, anybody can seduce somebody else, you know, especially with charm and some And especially we can be nice to people and really what we're doing is wanting some sexual favors. And then the whole notion of a power issue, needing to prove potency. It's not uncommon that a person who has a hype, we call it a hypersexual, that one of the extremes of that is to use their sexual prowess in a powerful way, and that's where we see rape. What we don't understand about rape is that it's really an issue of power and a taking of what you want that you really have no right to take. And so sometimes the person at an extreme end will be using their sexual power against another person.

[55:45]

And in the middle is where we'd all like to be. Notice the word. Accepting and welcoming. That doesn't say tolerate. It says we accept our genital sexuality and we welcome it. We're glad to have urges and stirrings and fantasies and feelings. Why? Because it's part of what it means to be human. It's part of where God is also there. And then we exercise it, and here's another A word, beside awareness, it's always appropriate. We exercise it appropriately. So this is a very important notion of this part of us. And one of the things I would say to folks around doing this is say, you know, God was not on vacation when genitality was created. God was right there creating this wonderful part of us, this pleasurable part of us, that belongs in our life, but it always has to be integrated, and it always has to depend on who we say we are. So if I was married, if I was talking to married folks, we'd be saying one, you know, we talked to them about expressing their genital selves with each other, but if we're talking about single folks or persons with a biosexuality, we're going to talk about how to deal with our genital sexuality in a way that fits with who we say we are.

[56:53]

So with that in mind, just get the big picture, what I'd like to do is to talk about listening to the language of our sexuality, and I'm going to talk about four options, four options that we have to deal with our sexuality. But I'd like to talk a little bit about listening to the language of our sexuality, because in our culture right now, if there's any kind of stirring, any kind of sexual energy or pressure, whatever way you want to talk about how you feel your sexual energy. And we're talking here a lot more about how you might feel your sexual energy in the genital area, for example. Our culture says if you feel it, act on it. If you have any sexual tension, get rid of it. It's very simple. That's the process. If you have it, do something with it. If you feel some tension, get rid of the tension. And it's a very sort of if this, then this kind of experience. And what I like to say is we need to listen to the language of our sexuality and not misinterpret it. And I'd like to do two quick stories. The first story has to do with Jim Zulu.

[57:57]

Do you know Jim Zulu? He's a brother. He's a psychologist. Do you know Jim at all? He's out in Chicago, he's a Christian brother, he works at Loyola in Chicago. But Jim tells the story of he had a young man come to him, absolutely distraught, a young married man who had a wife and a child of about eight or nine months. And Jim said the young man came to him, couldn't hardly look at him, shameful, just shameful. So Jim said, then what's the matter? on with you." And he said to him, uh, something happened last night and I'm really ashamed and I don't know what to do. And so Jim said, tell me this story. And this is what he said to Jim. He said, last night I was home with my wife and my new baby, who's about eight months old. And I was in the living room and my wife was there, you know, watching television or something. And I was in the living room and I was lying on the floor, flat on the floor. And I was holding my baby overhead. You can get the picture, you know, kind of playing with the baby overhead. And he said, I started to have an erection and I almost threw up.

[58:57]

He said, I got up and I gave the baby to my wife. And he said, I'm just distraught. And I said, why are you distraught? And he said, because how could I want to have sex with my own child? Well, what kind of a pervert am I that I wanted to have sex with my own child? So Jim said to him, do you? I mean, did you? What was going on with you? Were you thinking about sex? He said, oh, no, absolutely not. He said, well, what was happening to you? He said, I don't know when I've been happier in my entire life. There I was with my wife and baby. And so Jim said to him, and it sounds kind of flipped, but it was a good point. Jim said to him, then why couldn't your penis be happy too? And the point of that is that men have intense reactions. When you're dealing with intense feelings, your body will respond. And so your physical, sexual self can respond. It wasn't about sex. It was about joy and being able to, and his body was responding. And he's saying, look it, I'm this pervert.

[59:59]

Something must be wrong with me. When it isn't about that at all, it's about this joy that he felt, and his whole body was responding to that. And he's misinterpreting the language of his sexuality. Now that's a little extreme, most of it. That doesn't happen, for a lot of things. But we have to say, so how are we listening to our own body, to our own sexuality? And we need to be listening for it as meaning other than something that means something about sex. So I'd like to offer a couple of suggestions. And then I'd like to talk about how to deal with that sexual energy. I think when we talk about integrating genitalia, and that's what we keep talking about. What's a sexually integrated person? How do we integrate our urges and stirrings, fantasies and feelings into our life? What we're talking about here is being able to listen to the invitation that's there when we feel sexual feelings. Now, sometimes we don't feel sexual feelings. We can go a long period without feeling it. There's like a little 11, 12. And other times, you might feel intense feelings. And why does that happen?

[61:01]

Well, it happens because of testosterone levels, but it also happens because of relationships or lack of relationships, sometimes when we're lonely. We can, our bodies will stir that, you know, they'll be kind of getting our attention here. So what I want to say is, genitalia becomes an invitation, can become an invitation to see the deeper dimension of yourself and others. to look beyond yourself, to look beyond this physical thing and say, oh, it's just physical. Or it's sex. I just need some sex. That's all it is. I'm not getting sex. It's about sex. And really to look at what it's saying. It says oftentimes our genitalia says stop. Look at where you're at. Respect your own reality and respect the reality around you. So one of the things it may be saying is pay attention here. What about your connections? How are they right now? And if you've been moving away from people, if you're somewhat disconnected from people, that may be the message.

[62:06]

Pay attention. Wake up. Sexual energy is about connection. You may not be connected enough. You may not be in a good relationship or you may find yourself in a relationship with a person who you find attractive or they find you attractive and that relationship is stirring you up some. It can happen to one of us, you know, in a given period of time. Again, this stirring up is saying, pay attention, remember who you are, look at this relationship, Let's keep it on the right track. It doesn't mean you want to end the relationship, but let's see how this relationship is fitting into your life. And so again, it's a wake-up call. It says, stop. Pay attention to who you are. Respect who you are, respect who the other person is, and then move forward. So I think that one of the things we just want to do is, in our culture, it says, when we feel anything sexual, it says, oh, it must be I need or want to have sex.

[63:08]

What I'm suggesting is, it often is an invitation. to look at you, your relational life, your relationship with yourself, your relationship with others, and if there's a particular person involved, your relationship with that person. In that sense, pay attention. Be respectful of yourself and others. And I think that's a nice way to look at the invitation that we're having. With that in mind, what I'd like to do is to take a look at how to deal with your own genitality. This is really not, you know how you talk in the area all the time, you don't even get attention to the right, now I want you to look at the title of this slide, because I don't often, you know, I don't even get attention to the slides, you know, sometimes I just write things down, but when you're talking about handling genitalia, people, especially the young people in formation, just laugh right out loud because you forget that we're talking about how touching our bodies is part of what people do sometimes with genitalia.

[64:09]

So pardon the title of this slide, but we're really talking about what do you do with genitalia? What are some options? And I'd like to talk about four, three of which are important that we use in our life and incorporate, and one of which is really a non-healthy one at all. it will just get us into more difficulties. So this is talking about what do you do with your urges, stirrings and feelings? What do we do with that? And how do we need to incorporate them and live in a more fully right with them? Because we're not supposed to pretend not to have them. And that's not who we are. It's always about integration of this green energy. Remember we said it's about divine energy for connection. So that's the energy needs to be used for its purpose, right? It needs to be used for its purposes about connection. So how are we going to deal with this? So let's look at the first one. It says that I'm aware of my sexual urgent thoughts and feelings. I'm conscious, but I choose not to express them in any fashion.

[65:10]

I choose not to express them. Let me give you an example that will help make that real. I know, I have a friend, a married friend, we were on a board of trustees together at our college for nine years. He's a wonderful Catholic-led man, very generous with his time and his treasure. I mean, he's a very fine businessman and really very helpful to the board that I was on. And so we became friends during this during this nine-year stint. We used to make the board meetings, you know, four or five times a year and became friends. Now this man is married and has children, he has four children, and has a lovely wife, etc. A wonderful man, a very attractive man, and we used to have, we have a good friendship, we still do. I saw him just before I came over here. I had breakfast with him and his family on Sunday. The great guy. Very attractive. And I know how attractive I find him. And we both like each other a lot.

[66:13]

What do you do with that kind of a relationship? Not have it? I mean, that would be in the old days. Don't have it because it's dangerous. It's potentially dangerous because this is a person who likes you a lot and you like him a lot. Where's that going to go? No, that isn't what we're asked to do. We're asked to be in that kind of a relationship, but to make good choices. And the choice would be not to act or express our sexuality. That's that energy of connection in any way that doesn't fit with who we say we are. He's not single. He's a married man. I'm not single. I'm a committed woman. And therefore, we can't go off and have private meetings all the time. And if you do, it's just going to stir up the need, the desire to have more. You know, we're human beings, and when you become, when you have oneness in mind and heart, you know, when you really like each other and you think a lot alike, the natural tendency is to move toward the more bodily, physical expression. not helpful for two people who are on two different pathways. So one of the things that we do with our friendship is I usually go and visit him with his family.

[67:18]

So I've become a part of his family. We have this great relationship. Even on Sunday, we had about 10 minutes of a private conversation with the two of us. Because he's very interested in spirituality, and so we talk about different things. He's very interested in the church. His wife is doing something else, and his daughter is doing something else. And so it's not that we don't have private time, but most of the time I spend with him is with his family. And that's appropriate. Why? Because he's not single, I'm not single, and you don't want to put yourself in a place where you'd want to, the natural tendency is to become closer even in a physical way. So that's a good choice, but it can't be the only choice. Because why? What happens with this choice? If this is the only choice you do with your sexual energy, you recognize you have some and you say, oh, I'm not going there. Then what you're left is you're left holding a bucket of energy. Think about that. You're left holding a lot of sexual energy. And then what happens? That's very costly psychologically.

[68:19]

So if you're holding all of your sexual energy, listen to the cost. And this is what happens to us if you do this. The psychological cost, you're going to be more tired, Now, there's other reasons for being tired, like hard work and getting a little older, etc. But one other thing, if you hold your sexual energy, it will make you quite tired. It also can help you be more frustrated, eventually to be more angry, more hostile. Because why? You're holding this tremendous energy that's supposed to be expressed, and you're holding it all the time. So if this is the only choice you make, it's not going to be a good one, because you're going to have some severe psychological consequences, sadness, even depression. So it's a temporary way to deal with sexual energy. Good to use at certain times with certain relationships, but if it's your only choice, you're in deep trouble. Is it a choice? Yes. Is it one you want to use at certain times? Yes. Is it the only choice you want to make?

[69:19]

No. So that's one option. Everybody got that one so far? So you'd have it, you're aware of each other, you're aware of energy, et cetera, but you choose not to express it, especially in any way that, I mean, it doesn't mean there's absolutely no expression, like we talk, you know, we talk to each other, we like each other, you know, but we don't do anything that would be more, that would bring us to a place that would be inappropriate to who we say we are. The second choice is not a good choice. It is a choice. We're going to talk about it. But it is not helpful. Because notice on this side it says, do not acknowledge sexual abuse. You assume they don't exist. See the word unconscious? Anytime you see the word unconscious or lack of self-awareness, you know you're in trouble. We're supposed to be paying attention to the bodies that we have, to the sexual energy that we have. So when we're unconscious, when we say, oh, I don't have any of those sexual feelings. When I have young people, when I'm talking to new members and we talk about some of this, and they say, well, I don't have any sexual feelings.

[70:22]

It makes me nervous. because I don't know what they're doing with them. Now, it doesn't mean they have to be wildly overrun by sexual feelings, because sometimes they are a little bit tame, you know, they're a little bit quieter, you know, in a given period. But to say, I have none, makes me nervous. That is not a good candidate. So a person who appears asexual, not having any sexual energy, is not a good candidate. In the old days, we probably thought it was a good idea. Not anymore. So with this one, they don't acknowledge sexual good, so they don't exist. What's happening? They're cut off from. That's a very important notion. Disconnected from sexual energy is always dangerous. disconnected from sexual energy. It's a dangerous place to be because you still have it, you're just not paying attention to it and it's going to be coming out sideways. What happens here is that you lose contact with your urges, your feelings, your desires, and you say, well, I don't have them.

[71:26]

Isn't that nice? There's no problem for me. But all you've done is lose contact with them. Now it doesn't mean every single day you're uptight and tense and you have all this sexual energy flowing and demanding your attention. And again, it ebbs and flows, and you have to know your own self. But you don't want to be disconnected from anything, really. We want to be connected and then integrating and using our energy appropriately. So with this one, what happens is we get disoriented, we're disconnected from our inner self. And once we do that, we're in serious trouble, because what? You've got your energy, it's all bottomed up. So now you're holding sexual energy, which we all have. And usually what people do here is use for people move to gratification. They use other means to soothe or gratify themselves. Now if I said to you, you know, if you're feeling sorry for yourself, And put it in those terms.

[72:28]

If you're feeling sorry for yourself, and you want to make up for it, what are the kinds of things that people do? We won't, we'll leave it out there. What do people do when they're trying to make up for, they don't feel, you know, feel sorry for themselves? What do they do? What do they do to gratify? What are the things we've learned to do? Eat. Eat is number one. So we eat, and some of us eat certain things, you know, sweets, you know, that kind of stuff. Why? Because it helps us feel better. It's temporary, fixed. But it's so gratifying. One of the things we do is eat. What other things do people do? Any other habit types? Any other habit types, you know, so drinking can be another one, right? We have people doing drugs. We have, you know, priests that are using both illegal and over-the-counter drugs in this fashion to soothe, to kind of take some of the pain away. So any of the compulsive behaviors, right? And here's where we have people going to the internet. The big issue now with with a lot of clergy, and not just Roman Catholic clergy, but clergy of other denominations.

[73:32]

And we're not just talking about celibacy here. We're talking about American clergy using the internet for soothing, for compensating. And so that's become a really big thing in the US, but in clergy across the board. Not Catholic, it's all Catholic clergy. So another thing is, I don't think you do this too much, but watch TV, or excessively read, or overwork. You can just move into working, and working, and working, and it'll kind of just drain the energy right out of you, so you don't have to, it sort of compensates or kind of numbs the pain of any sexual energy. The other thing that can happen is the constant pleaser. Now, that might sound a little interesting, but a person who constantly pleases may also be dealing with their sexual energy, and they're trying to deal with it in a way so they're always saying yes, and constantly, rather than dealing with their sexual energy in a more integrated fashion. Not a good choice. I wouldn't recommend it at all.

[74:35]

I think, why? Because we don't want you to be unconscious. We want you to be aware of your feelings, whenever they are, whenever any feelings, if it's sadness or anger or frustration, or if it's anything of a sexual nature, some urgency, some tendency, or even maybe the loneliness, the sense of I'm missing people. You want to pay attention to that and then integrate it, not pretend it don't exist or melt the pain by doing some of this condensating behavior. The third one is the one we least understand and least do. And this is one where we really need to grow and learn as men and women, religious in particular. And the third one, notice it says, I'm aware of and accept my sexual feelings. And remember, sexual feelings aren't always ones you feel in your genitals. Sexual feelings are the ones that say, I'd like to connect with somebody. I wonder how Mary's doing. I wonder how Jim is doing. It's the energy moving us to connect with other people.

[75:37]

And it's also the ones that are more erotic in nature. When we feel a little bit more intensely in the genital area, we feel some stirrings. So it's a whole range of feelings. So this says, let's be aware of them. Let's accept them and notice the behavior. Let's freely, look at these words. These are powerful words. This is not, you know, this is a very challenging statement. Freely allow sexual energy to shape your behavior. Express your sexual energy. Now, what does that mean? And let's take a look at that. And by the way, it always means it always has to fit with who we say we are. It can't be, oh, I'll just go out and have sex or freely express my energy without remembering who I am. So let's look at the options. And here's where we'll talk about somebody raised a question about masturbation. Here's where it fits. The first kind of expression is what we call autoerotic expression. So when we say expression, what does it mean to be expressive of our sexual energy?

[76:45]

The first is autoerotic. And as soon as you see auto, it means self. So what we're talking about is expressing your sexual energy with yourself. Now, we're not going to put any moral issues here. We're just going to look at the facts and then we'll come back and talk about it. The first one is statistically. that fantasy is a way of expressing sexual energy. Now, fantasy is a normal part of a human person's life. Now, some of us are better at it than others. You know, some of us don't have a large fantasy life. But some of us are able to fantasize, and it's not an issue unless you generate the fantasies. There's a real difference of really something will happen, you might read a passage, you might see a film, if you do that occasionally, or something, or you might meet a person and then you find yourself daydreaming about them, or moving into a different period. That's pretty normal stuff. And what you want to do is to be able to say, oh, interesting, let me pay attention.

[77:50]

Let's see what's happening here. What's the invitation here? Don't get panicked. It happens to the best of us. Fantasy is an ordinary part of life. What's really causing the difficulty for people is when you generate fantasy. And this is what's happening with all the use of pornographic material in particular, and the Internet, is people are generating all kinds of fantasies and living a fantasy life, and their real life doesn't fit anywhere near it. And that could happen to any one of us as well. So the fantasy is not the issue. It's when you generate fantasy and you create a fantasy life and your real life is going down the tubes and your fantasy life is in a whole other area. So you begin to live in fantasy. And by the way, real life never can compare to fantasy. If you think of any of your fantasies, you know, they work pretty well, okay? Who fights in the fantasy? It all works. Fantasy life, it works. It's pleasant.

[78:52]

Real life can never compete. What we're seeing is, by the way, we're seeing young people. getting hooked into a whole fantasy life around pornography, etc. and therefore, and their real life is going down the tubes, you know, their real life can't compare. So you may find some of that, people coming to you who are really having difficulty with the Internet of Pornography, that's what's happening, this is sort of taking over. Now the other thing that's auto-erotic is masturbation. Now, I'd like to come back to that topic because it gets a little more complicated, but we're not talking here about good or bad, we're simply saying, is one way to deal with your own sexual energy, especially if you feel some intense energy, is one way to deal with masturbation? Yes, because what happens is, you've got all the tension, masturbation, you get the relaxation, You can't be tense and relaxed. So it does dissipate. It does help with the tension.

[79:53]

I'm not saying it's good, bad, or indifferent. We're going to talk a little bit about why people masturbate. Because often people masturbate, not about sexual reasons, but for lots of other reasons. So we'll come back to this one. But everybody clear so far? What we're saying is that we're talking about, it's very important to express your sexual energy. What are ways to express energy with yourself? Fantasy and masturbation. We're not judging them, we're just not talking about anything about morals, we're just gonna be saying those are the facts. Everybody clear so far? So then what's the other kind of expression? The other kind of expression is interpersonal expression. I'm interpersonal with another person. All right? So if I'm not expressing our energy with ourself, we're expressing it with another person. And by the way, remember the energy is about connection. So this is going to be very important because this is what the energy is made for, is connection.

[80:54]

So we need to honor the purpose of this energy and it should be moving us to interpersonal expression. Well, what kind? And what do we mean by that? Well, the first one, the first kind of interpersonal expression is what everybody thinks about, and that is genital intercourse. Some kind of sexual genital expression with another person. That's very fitting in most people's lives. In most people's lives, especially if they have monogamous partnerships, this would be an integral part of their life. Genitally expressing their affection, their caring for one another. It doesn't fit for us. It doesn't fit for us. We are not in committed relationships. We are not in exclusive relationships. We can't be casual about sex. So this doesn't fit for us. So this is one of the no's for persons with vows of celibacy and persons who are not in monogamous committed relationships. It doesn't belong at some casual end. But that's not the only way to be sexually expressive.

[81:58]

The next one is touch. that in essence we need to learn how to touch and touch lovingly and touch appropriately because as you know we will die without touch. So you know you go years and days without touching or nobody touching you in a gentle way. Now it doesn't mean touching to arouse, it could simply be a pat on the back It could be a little abrazo, a little hug, a little how you're doing, and somebody puts their hand on your shoulder. We're talking about some kind of loving expression. Or if you meet somebody, a family member, or even people that you're in a relationship with, friends here, and they come and they hug you, and they just hold you for a little bit. This is important. We need to touch and be touched. But it always has to be appropriate to who we say we are. And there's a real difference to touch somebody in a loving way, and to touch somebody to arouse them.

[82:59]

Or to touch somebody too long. So it's not only where you touch, but how long you touch them. It's because they don't belong to us. But we do need to touch, and be touched. And really, we're in a desperate shame in the church right now, because I can tell you how many priests, they talk to me, especially the young guys, well, not even the young guys, they're afraid to touch anybody. You know, it's really a scary time because of this scandal and everything. People are very fearful of touch. And by the way, it's happened all across the board. Even teachers in public schools, very afraid to touch kids. So, you know, a little kid who might have needed a little tussling of the hair or a little arm around them because, you know, life is pretty tough at home, not happening. We need to redeem touch. This is a really difficult area right now. The second area, It is affection. Expressions of affection. We need to be affectionate to express affection and let other people express affection with us.

[84:05]

Now think about it for a minute. What are some ways to express affection? No, I said plural. It's not one way. What are some ways to express affection? And let's see how they fit or don't fit for us. What are some ways to express affection? A letter or a phone call? Absolutely. Some kind of contact, a letter, a phone call. So when somebody jots you a note, it's an expression of affection. Now, they may want something, but if they're doing business, that's a little different story. But if it's just to say, hello, I've been thinking about you, it's an expression of affection. Or a phone call. Or an email, although emails can get somewhat impersonal. But we're talking about connecting here, letting you know that you matter. So affection can happen via some kind of correspondence. What else? What are other ways to express affection? Absolutely! A greeting or a smile, you know, it sort of says, you know, I noticed you, I'm glad to see you, you know, so that can be, or somebody lights up, as we say, in your presence, you know what I mean?

[85:10]

And that's why I think when you pay attention, when we pay attention to people, you know, when they come to visit, A lot of times that isn't happening. We're so busy out there running past each other, and you look at somebody and you say, good morning. How are you? You know, it is no wonder they're attracted to you. You know what I mean? Because why? We don't do that a lot. We're so busy going to the next thing. So greeting somebody, letting them know that, calling them by name. You know, you remember somebody's name, you know, instead of grunting at them. You know what I mean? That's a way of being affectionate. What else? What other ways of being affectionate? We might not do them all the time, but at least we know they exist. Little gifts. Little gifts, absolutely. Now, gifts need to be appropriate. Gifts, you know, they need to be appropriate. We don't give big things to people. If you do, if you're starting to give away part of the monastery, you know, you ought to look at that. Something's kind of not functioning right there. But in fact, we do give gifts, and people give us gifts. And again, as long as they're appropriate, it's a way of being affectionate. Anything else about affection? Very important part of our life.

[86:11]

Just verbal. Verbal expression. Absolutely. Verbal expression. When you say something, you know, and you can say affectionate things. You know, again, sometimes people find that hard. Some men find that hard. But, you know, we say things, you know, I care about you or I missed you. Very interesting, I was working with a priest at a diocese not too long ago, and one of the guys at the end, we were talking about, are you going to go home and be the same? Very touching thing, and he was kind of one of these rough and tumble guys, and he stood up and he said to his fellow priests, which really surprised me, but he stood up and said to them, you know, I'm one of these, you all know me, and they all laughed, because they did, you know, he'd been ordained a while, and he said, you all know me. He said, I spend a lot of my time, you know, kind of doing my own thing. But he said, you know what I realized? And he named five guys who weren't there at the presbyteral gathering. And he said, a part of me would like to call him up and say, where the hell were you? And he said, you know, but after we've been talking about connection and how we married to each other, he said, I'm going to call him up and say, I missed you.

[87:19]

Can you imagine getting a phone call from this guy, who's this guy saying, I missed you, what's happening? Are you okay? Versus, where the hell were you? I mean, think about what that might do to the relationship with those guys. And it's really an expression of affection. I missed you. Do we tell each other we missed you? So affection, and by the way, the other way of affection, touch can be affectionate, right? I mean, you can touch, that's another way of expressing affection. There's the one we least understand and the one we least do. There's the final one. And the conversation. conversation as a way of being sexually expressive. And what I mean by conversation here is obviously conversations that happen at a deeper level, conversations where we're talking about ourselves in a more personal way, so there's more self-disclosure. What we're really talking about is conversation that includes our emotional life and really that are more intimate, which we're going to talk about this afternoon.

[88:26]

We can't keep passing each other in the night or telling the old stories, you know what I mean? As if we're not living right here and now. We need to connect with each other. You need to talk about your feeling like, you know? You're a small group. What is it like to be a small group of ten? Do you talk about that? What it feels like with that? That would be a part of this conversation. And how we connect with one another through conversation. and the energy is expressed. Now, all of these together, if I was talking to a married couple, I would say to them, you're not going to make it if you rely on this. You're going to make it if all of this is a part of your expression, your sexual expression with one another. That's also true for us. We don't do this, first of all, if that doesn't fit. But these three things, in conjunction with some of this one, it happens naturally, is how we're going to deal with our sexual energy. Because why? Energy is meant to be expressed. We're not meant to hold it all.

[89:28]

We look at number four. may or may not be aware of sexual feelings or desires, and then what do we do? We transfer the sexual energy. This is in the old days, you know, this is the whole thing about get them out and get them doing something, you know? So a lot of the seminaries, for example, had swims, gyms and swimming pools. Get them out and playing hoop, get them out and playing bat, where they can shove each other, push each other a little bit, you know, swim a little, run a little, do all that life. They figure, we'll get out some of the sexual energy. It'll transfer, we'll kind of dissipate the energy. In women's congregations, we didn't do so much of that, but they had us do art and music and dance. Why? It's another way of being somewhat sexually expressive. There's some wisdom in there, but you get about this much energy out when you do those things. You're still left holding a tremendous amount of energy. So although it's not a bad idea to go for a run or to go for a love walk or to listen to some good music and really let yourself feel the music and be expressive in that fashion,

[90:35]

you will not take care of the sexual energy. So what do you happen here? If you only do number four, you also wind up with anger, frustration, compensating in some fashion. You know, it's going to take us to needing to do something because we're still holding this tremendous energy. So what I'm suggesting is one way to look at this is we've got this tremendous divine energy in us moving us to connect with other people. That's exactly how we need to handle the energy is to move, let it connect, help us connect with other people. But we've got some options and I would encourage some combination of one, three and four. depending on where you're at in life and what the circumstances are and who the other person or persons might be and how you're dealing with each other in community. And don't neglect this one at all. This needs to happen. And by what we get here, one of the big shortcomings of men is you don't do emotional expression well.

[91:38]

Now, I'm not saying women aren't great. Some of us aren't too good either. But in general, men, the shortcoming is you don't often know what you're feeling and being able to name it. Therefore, how do you talk about it? How do you express it? And that's one of the real shortcomings for men. There's some interesting work from Harvard. One of them is called Real Boys, and I think I mentioned it the other day, where we're saying that in order for us to have a different generation of men, we're going to have to start early, and really start helping young boys be able to integrate their emotional life, in their life, better than we have up till now, because we haven't done a very good job. But that's, there's, one's called, interesting enough, Raising Cain is an excellent book. about really looking at how we're raising boys, raising canine and real boys are some of the new research that says we have got to help and start earlier to deal with their emotional line or what we do is we handicap you.

[92:42]

You don't have the tools to do this which is what's going to help you connect with one another. Yes? They use, it seems in some of the workshops we've had, they use the word sublimation. Yeah. And where does that stand nowadays? Well, that's really this word thing. Yeah. That's really what that is. And I think I would say the same thing. I think it's a mistake to think that that's going to take care of a tremendous amount of energy. It doesn't. Will it take care of some? Yes. Are you going to be left holding a lot of sexual energy? Yes. I'm not saying, like, for example, if you really felt some sexual attention, maybe go for a long walk or do some exercise or something. It could work. It could help temporarily. But remember, you're dealing with a tremendous amount of sexual energy that needs to be expressed. That's not really expressing it. So I would say

[93:44]

You know, it's going to be helpful like this. Don't put all your eggs there because otherwise you're going to be left holding a lot of sexual tension and there's going to be a lot of frustration. And what happens is the frustration gets channeled into sadness, depression, anger. hostility. If you find yourself edgy like that, you may want to look at sexual energy. And it isn't about having sex, it's about connection. So that's what you have to look at. What does my connected life look like or not look like? And again, don't just dull what our culture does, which says, oh, it's about sex, and I need to have sex, so if I go masturbate, it'll take care of it. No, it doesn't take care of it. It's a quick fix, which we'll talk about in a minute, but it's not going to take care of it. It's really the energy is about connection. So that's what you have to look at. How is my life? How am I connected? to the men in this room, to my family, if your family still exists and you're there, to other people.

[94:47]

How have I met people in my life? How am I loving and being loved? And granted, we don't do that in the way that most people do with a partner, but we're called to do it. And that's what it's about. It's about loving and being loved and giving on gifts and service. Okay? How many of you and I But if it's general, very healthy or something. So just, do we need to talk about masturbation for a few minutes? We got about 10, 15 minutes to be? We got that far. Okay. Well then we'll just... Well then let's do like 10 minutes or so. We'll talk about masturbation for a little bit. Okay. Do you need to stand up for a minute? Would it help you to stand up from it? It's kind of hard to say at this time.

[95:41]

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