Latest / The Quest Atlanta Catholic Radio / Divine Intimacy Radio - Spiritual Warfare, Wounds and Trauma: How Do I Discern the Difference?
Transcript
- 0:01Welcome to Divine Intimacy Radio, a co-production of EWTN Radio and SpiritualDirection.com, where we provide you with a spiritual haven of rest and explore the riches of the wisdom of the saints and the path to union with God.
- 0:22This is Dan and Stephanie Burke.
- 0:24Welcome to Divine Intimacy Radio, your radio haven of rest, your hermitage of the heart, your monastery of the mind, where we lift our hearts and minds to heaven to draw upon the wisdom of the saints to help us navigate the tumult of this life.
- 0:37And today, the tumult we're talking about is how to differentiate between trauma responses.
- 0:44genuine spiritual warfare, my spouse's wounds, and this is all in a spousal relationship, but it could apply, of course, to children, relatives, bosses, work, yeah, anything.
- 0:57This may be the single best question we've ever received.
- 1:02Well, and I, so I'm going to read the question, the full one.
- 1:05And I, and I just want to commend the person who asked it because you can tell they're very thoughtful.
- 1:12They're engaged.
- 1:13They're trying to figure this out.
- 1:14So here's the question.
- 1:16How can I discern the difference between my spouse's wounds, my own trauma responses, and,
- 1:23and genuine spiritual warfare so that I respond with wisdom instead of fear.
- 1:31Instead of fear, and I'm having an issue with my screen, so I can't go on.
- 1:36So wisdom instead of fear, oh, passivity or control.
- 1:38There we go.
- 1:40Spirit, passivity, or control?
- 1:41Great question.
- 1:42So the first response is yes.
- 1:45All of the above.
- 1:46Right.
- 1:47How can I define the difference?
- 1:49The answer is you can.
- 1:51You can.
- 1:51However.
- 1:52Or discern the difference.
- 1:53Yes, you can.
- 1:55However, it's a little bit of everything.
- 1:58There's no magic formula.
- 2:00And, and it's probably some of all, right.
- 2:03Right.
- 2:04We know that first of all, we know that the enemy's an opportunist.
- 2:08He just, he's just looking for the opportunity to start poking around.
- 2:14Um, he looks, he knows us.
- 2:16He's watched us since we were young.
- 2:18He knows all of our wounds.
- 2:20He knows of all of our trauma.
- 2:22already, right?
- 2:23And your spouses and anybody else, you know, you're with, um, and knowing that he's going to look for opportunities to stir up division, conflict, misunderstanding, offense.
- 2:39Um, you know, I was just talking to two really beautiful individuals.
- 2:45who both have very similar traumas in their background.
- 2:49And boy, the enemy was right up in the middle of them, creating offense, difficulties, confusion.
- 2:56You know, it's putting everybody in tears.
- 2:58Everybody's feeling culpable and, you know, also blame and shame and, you know, all this stuff getting mixed into it.
- 3:06And the thing is, is there's few people in the world that are as beautiful as these two people, you know.
- 3:13I love them dearly.
- 3:14Deeply devout Catholic.
- 3:15Yes.
- 3:15Amazing.
- 3:16I don't know the details.
- 3:17Amazing individuals, right?
- 3:20And what does the enemy do?
- 3:21He's like, oh, I know how to trigger her and I know how to trigger this person and that person.
- 3:28So I'm just going to throw a big old bomb in the middle of it and then watch everybody to devolve.
- 3:34And it's interesting.
- 3:35I may not know who this is, by the way, but.
- 3:38If I do know who it is, they're also on the verge of some very serious decisions about their interior lives spiritually.
- 3:45Well, both of them are on the verge of deeper growth, deeper healing, deeper conversion, and extraordinary humans that the Lord really uses in a powerful way.
- 3:56And this could be true of a million people that I've served over the years, right?
- 4:03It really, that's why I say the enemy's not creative.
- 4:08Um, he, he's just there.
- 4:10And I think that's, so to first address this is number one, assume that there's some spiritual warfare and we're people of faith and reason, right?
- 4:21Yeah.
- 4:21Faith and reason.
- 4:22Can I, can we pause there?
- 4:24You said, assume there's spiritual warfare.
- 4:26I just want to deal with an issue in our time related to that.
- 4:30And it, and it actually is,
- 4:32very disappointing when I see it happen in particularly those who are somewhat devout
- 4:39And that is that we, for over a hundred years now, have fallen at the feet of science and worship science.
- 4:47Yeah.
- 4:47We've fallen at the feet of psychology and worship psychology.
- 4:53We have great psychology.
- 4:54You know, our daughter-in-law whom we love dearly has got a PhD in psychology.
- 4:58So we're not saying there aren't good people in it or good strains in it, but there's never been a saint created by a psychologist.
- 5:08Can you say that again?
- 5:09There's never been a saint who become a saint because of a psychologist.
- 5:13That is an amazing, astute observation, right?
- 5:17Right.
- 5:18So, so now because of all of that cultural shift away from believing in the supernatural, um,
- 5:28We are way under, how'd you say, we're just, and I'm a skeptic, I'll say that too.
- 5:37Stephanie would call me a skeptic.
- 5:40We way underestimate the presence of the enemy.
- 5:44Now, there are certain pockets in Catholicism.
- 5:47that way overdo it, but they're very small.
- 5:50I mean, we have a great breadth of connection in the church.
- 5:53They're very small pockets that overdo it.
- 5:56Very few, we're way on the other end of the spectrum of denying it all.
- 5:59Right.
- 6:00And so the worst kind of, like if you have a spiritual director or Catholic counselor in quotes, and their first response is to brush aside the spiritual warfare part.
- 6:11You got a problem.
- 6:12You have a problem.
- 6:13And I wanna go so far as to say,
- 6:16I'd exit that relationship.
- 6:19And the reason I'm being so harsh about it is because when folks take that visceral initial response, it reveals a ton about their spirituality.
- 6:30And I guarantee you, and I hate to say that I may be wrong.
- 6:33So, you know, God forgive me.
- 6:36But I would look into their prayer lives.
- 6:38I just don't think you're going to find a rich interior life because they're walking purely on their intellect.
- 6:45Yes.
- 6:46And they're worshiping the modern cults of scientism, the modern cults of psychology.
- 6:54Um, so, and so let me just be equally critical.
- 6:59If, if, you know, you have friends who everything is a demon, oh, to this demon, it's that demon.
- 7:05I mean, we're not advocating for that.
- 7:07But what you said is super important.
- 7:09And that is the enemy is.
- 7:12Always there.
- 7:13Always there.
- 7:14He prowls around seeking souls to devour.
- 7:18We know this.
- 7:19Stephanie just quoted God.
- 7:21That's from Scripture, right?
- 7:25Yeah, he prowls about like a roaring lion seeking whom he can devour.
- 7:32Scripture warns us about not going to bed forever.
- 7:35Angry.
- 7:36Angry or in discord with the other.
- 7:38Not letting the enemy take a foothold.
- 7:39Because he didn't have a foothold.
- 7:41So, Scripture takes it very seriously, constantly saying to discern, test all the spirits.
- 7:47Our Lord took this very seriously.
- 7:50He sent all the apostles out, the disciples out two by two, to go drive out demons in his name.
- 7:59If he didn't think it was important, why would he have bothered him?
- 8:03Right.
- 8:04Why not leave it out and make it a side issue or whatever?
- 8:07It only works over here.
- 8:08So back to your point, he's always so.
- 8:12And I think this is the key to understanding how to deal with this situation.
- 8:19And I'll just be personal about my own life.
- 8:23I, I don't care where my struggle is coming from.
- 8:31I don't care.
- 8:31I have a lot of physiological problems.
- 8:34I don't sleep.
- 8:35I've got life-threatening illness.
- 8:38It seems like every day I'm dealing with medication or injections or something that I have to deal with.
- 8:44And I honestly, today, I'm pretty weary of it.
- 8:47But God be praised.
- 8:49I need the suffering.
- 8:51So how do I deal with things when I don't feel well?
- 8:56And we can call it physiological desolation or darkness or whatever.
- 9:02I don't care to diagnose it precisely.
- 9:07I'm not looking for the name of a demon, which we're not supposed to do anyway.
- 9:11Specifically, strictly prohibited for lay people to do that.
- 9:15But to me, it's all warfare.
- 9:20So my disposition is, in the name of Jesus, shut up and get out of bed.
- 9:26Get off me.
- 9:27In the name of Jesus, shut up and go to the gym.
- 9:31In the name of Jesus, shut up and get your stupid medication out again for the thousandth time.
- 9:37And in the name of Jesus, stack up another needle on top of a thousand needles that you're sticking in yourself.
- 9:46I don't care exactly what the source is.
- 9:49And so I think if you try to parse it, that's where you get to a level of discernment that can be had, can be known after a lot of years.
- 10:00of learning discernment of spirits, a lot of years of practicing mental prayer, a lot of years of examination of conscience, a lot of years of spiritual growth and maturity.
- 10:09But that's, I think, more on this for the spiritual director.
- 10:13I mean, everybody should learn discernment of spirits, don't get me wrong.
- 10:17But I really think if you treat it that way and say, okay, whatever it is, I don't want it.
- 10:23Bad emotional responses, physiological struggles, darkness.
- 10:28I don't want it and I don't want it between my spouse and I.
- 10:32If you take that initial stance, you cut out a lot of junk that you don't have to worry about.
- 10:40Yeah.
- 10:41And, and I think what's important is to recognize the desolation, because this is what we're talking about.
- 10:47So when things are happening and we're recognizing our own response to it, right.
- 10:53Whether it's, you know, so our spouse does something we don't like.
- 10:57Okay.
- 10:58we're reacting to it and the enemies in the middle of it, we need to recognize that what we're feeling is desolation.
- 11:06Right.
- 11:06So the cause of it doesn't really matter all that much, which is where you're going.
- 11:11Yeah.
- 11:11Now, Father Gallagher disagrees and he's a key is a, the scholar of this realm in our time.
- 11:17So, you know, he makes good arguments in his book on discernment of spirits.
- 11:21So, you know, read that, but I just think practically speaking,
- 11:26I do think practically speaking that, that you tackle it, you know, in a similar way, right?
- 11:33Like if I have desolation because you've done something that I don't like, and maybe it's triggering my wounds from my, my childhood, I'm going to tackle that desolation so that I can love and serve.
- 11:47I don't get to turn in on myself.
- 11:49Right.
- 11:51and claim victimhood.
- 11:52I don't get to collapse under the weight of that desolation and become dysfunctional because the body of Christ is waiting on me.
- 12:02The body of Christ is waiting on you to step into who we are called to be, to love, to wash the feet of another, to sacrifice, to love God with all of our heart, mind, body, soul, spirit, all that we are,
- 12:17to love him and love others.
- 12:20That's what we're called to do, regardless of how we feel.
- 12:24Right.
- 12:25In essence.
- 12:25Right.
- 12:26And, and I think one key point, and we can go to this after the break, is that these things that are happening in this couple's marriage are allowed by God.
- 12:38It is necessary for both of them for their salvation.
- 12:43It's necessary for their salvation.
- 12:45Right.
- 12:45And when we get back from the break, I want to deal with the universal truth.
- 12:49I think I can say a universal truth regarding the invitation that occurs at every moment where we enter into that darkness.
- 12:57So we'll be right back.
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- 13:49This is Dan and Stephanie Burke.
- 13:51Welcome back to Divine Intimacy Radio.
- 13:52So we're talking about wounds, spiritual warfare, how you discern all of that.
- 13:57So the first point we made was
- 14:00It's not all that.
- 14:01It's not super important that you differentiate between where the initial flare up comes from.
- 14:12because of this universe was one universal truth that we, we hold Stephanie and I hold is that the enemy is always involved in an opportunity in these situations.
- 14:22That's one.
- 14:22The second universal truth is every conflict that we get in is an invitation to healing.
- 14:31It's an invitation to go deeper with the Lord.
- 14:34So it doesn't matter.
- 14:36So if you treat it like that,
- 14:39If you treat it and you deal with what you said right before the break, which is I have the spouse I have because I need them for my salvation or the boss I have or whatever.
- 14:48We're not talking about abuse.
- 14:49That's a different subject.
- 14:50We're just talking about the normal junk we deal with.
- 14:53I don't like what he's doing.
- 14:55I don't like what her is doing.
- 14:56It causes me pain.
- 14:58Right.
- 14:58Whatever that is.
- 14:59So if you hold to this universal truth.
- 15:03that it's an every time I enter into that darkness, it's an invitation to healing.
- 15:07It again, doesn't matter at the source.
- 15:09Right.
- 15:10Right.
- 15:10Right.
- 15:11And, and it's, it's, it's not only an invitation to healing it's.
- 15:16So I, I go back to the rules of discernment, right?
- 15:19So there's two things that we need to keep in mind.
- 15:22It's, it's rule nine.
- 15:23There's three principal causes of desolation.
- 15:27So whatever's happening in that, in that relationship, whatever it is,
- 15:32either
- 15:35they're slothful in their spiritual practices, disciplines.
- 15:39So that's being allowed.
- 15:40Yeah.
- 15:41They're have grown slack.
- 15:44Yeah.
- 15:44You know, the Lord's allowing it for some sort of spiritual growth, some, some sort of purification, or they were getting pretty high and mighty in their, in their consolation.
- 15:58And he reminds them, Hey, you're not doing this.
- 16:02You aren't me.
- 16:02You are not me.
- 16:04You are not God.
- 16:05You are not.
- 16:05You're not all that in a bag of chips.
- 16:08Go low and be humble.
- 16:10Be humble and love and serve your spouse.
- 16:13They're not yours to fix, which is really, really key, especially in the case of marriage, in the case of children, in the case of other relations in your family or in your broader community.
- 16:25Others are not yours to fix.
- 16:28And our Lord famously said, and we seem to forget this quite often, he says, make sure you take care of the plank in your own eye before you go taking out a splinter in your neighbor's eye, right?
- 16:41That goes with anyone that's near to us.
- 16:43We must always go to a stance of humility.
- 16:46Lord, what are you asking of me in this?
- 16:49What is the cause?
- 16:50Have I kept up my
- 16:54Are you asking something more in this situation or am I pretty high and mighty at this point?
- 16:59What are you asking of me?
- 17:00And then we go to that invitation of healing that you said.
- 17:05And there's even something that I think is more, yes, that's very important, but there's even a higher standard there in that in rule 14 of discernment of spirits,
- 17:17The enemy goes around and he's looking for weaknesses, for chinks in our armor of vices or virtue deficits that we have.
- 17:27And I would add wounds as wounds.
- 17:29So it's all tied together where our Lord wants to heal you.
- 17:34He wants to strengthen you.
- 17:36He wants you to step into the fullness of who you are called to be.
- 17:40Maybe that's in humility.
- 17:41Maybe that's in patience.
- 17:43Maybe that's in great love.
- 17:45Maybe that's to to enter into deep hope or deep belief and faith in his mighty power and his healing hand.
- 17:55So when we know that, when we start to pay attention to, okay, what is the desolation doing in this relationship?
- 18:04Am I triggered to despair?
- 18:06Am I triggered to narcissism?
- 18:08Am I triggered to anger?
- 18:10If I look at the opposite virtue, that's what the invitation is.
- 18:16That's what the Lord wants to grow in you.
- 18:19He wants to bring it to perfection in you.
- 18:22And so we pay attention to that.
- 18:24And and we start to work on that.
- 18:26We start to act in the opposite manner of what the desolation is doing to us.
- 18:31And I think there's one other thing that I, that I want to bring to mind here that I think is super important.
- 18:38One of our children who are now adults and, you know, in the church practicing their faith said to me when they were really, really struggling before they got married.
- 18:52And, and it was a big struggle, deep desolation, having a lot of struggle.
- 18:56Yeah.
- 18:58And she started to work on that and seek healing.
- 19:04We talked about prayer, very commendable prayer, healing, stepping into like, like what's going on here?
- 19:11What is God asking of me?
- 19:12What do I need to do here?
- 19:13Yeah.
- 19:14And she said something so incredibly powerful to me, and I have never forgotten it.
- 19:19She said, I have a responsibility to seek the healing and the wholeness I need for the sake of those who will be entrusted to me.
- 19:28Mm hmm.
- 19:30We need to understand that our life is not about us.
- 19:34Our life is not about us.
- 19:36So if I cave into that desolation because, oh, his wounds, oh, my past trauma, or his trauma, my wounds, or the enemy, and I fail to step into what God is asking of me, if I fail to study discernment of spirits, if I fail...
- 19:57to deny myself for the sake of self-giving.
- 20:00If I fail to enter in and run after the Lord with all that I am, the body of Christ suffers because it is missing a part of its body.
- 20:11It's like a piece of the foot that's unhealthy and it's causing the rest of the body of Christ pain.
- 20:18Go seek and run after all that you need so that you can receive what you need.
- 20:24Right.
- 20:27I don't do this every show, but I do feel something here today and I want to follow it.
- 20:34So this could feel like a commercial, but the funds from the sale of books that we have get donated.
- 20:45Yeah.
- 20:47It's not, it doesn't enrich us.
- 20:48We don't have an increasing bank account.
- 20:50We have a decreasing bank account.
- 20:53So the reason I write books is to help people and that's my motivation.
- 20:58So for you, anyone who's resonating with this, there are two books that are absolutely vital for you to pick up.
- 21:05And I would give them an order.
- 21:06One is Finding Peace in the Storm by St. Alphonsus Liguri.
- 21:11Actually, the book is Uniformity of God's Will underneath.
- 21:14That's within this book.
- 21:16There's a book within the book.
- 21:17Finding Peace in the Storm is by Dan Burke.
- 21:19It's by Dan Burke, but it's my spiritual commentary on his wisdom, which is life-changing.
- 21:25And if you want to get your head around this idea of God being present in all that's going on in your life and flip that switch from I'm victim, I'm in a rut, I'm never stuck.
- 21:36God's present.
- 21:37What is he doing?
- 21:38How do I follow him out of darkness into joy?
- 21:42This these truths have changed my life.
- 21:44Stephanie can attest.
- 21:46that when she met me, I was mostly in desolation a lot of the time.
- 21:52And these truths brought me out of that.
- 21:54God be praised.
- 21:55The second one is Spiritual Warfare and the Discernment of Spirits.
- 22:00And this book, Stephanie's been quoting some of the things from St. Ignatius.
- 22:06is, will be transformative as well, because it teaches you how to begin to see and understand, okay, I'm in the situation.
- 22:13I'm feeling the desolation.
- 22:14Now, what do I do?
- 22:16It is life-changing.
- 22:17Life-changing, these two.
- 22:19And I'd strongly recommend that you take the course, Spiritual Warfare and Discernment of Spirits, from the Avalon Institute.
- 22:25And if you don't have time to do that, we have a free video series where there's a specific component that Stephanie teaches on Rule 7 in a filmed retreat that we did that's very high quality.
- 22:39You can get that at spiritualdirection.com.
- 22:42All of this, you can find everything we do.
- 22:44You can find it spiritualdirection.com under the resources area for the video series.
- 22:49There's a shop area for all of our books.
- 22:53And if you start to study these things and live them, develop a practice of mental prayer.
- 22:57If you don't have it, though that question is so insightful, I'd bet they're practicing mental prayer.
- 23:02Yeah, yeah.
- 23:04You know, can I share with you something that came to mind while you were talking about finding peace in the storm?
- 23:10Yeah.
- 23:10Yeah.
- 23:11So when we think about Peter in the boat, right, and he sees the Lord.
- 23:18So he starts to recognize that the Lord's there and he steps out on the water and he starts to walk towards him.
- 23:25When he started looking at the waves, he sank, right?
- 23:28Yeah.
- 23:29Every time he kept his eyes on the Lord, he was able to stay afloat, as it were, and to follow the Lord and to make it to him.
- 23:37But as soon as he looked at the storm, he wasn't able to.
- 23:40And it just occurred to me, with this kind of knowledge, if you read these books, if you employ them into your life,
- 23:49if you're living a sacramentally sound life, living, living a sacramentally sound life, what will happen is you will shift from getting pummeled by all the waves to learning to ride the waves.
- 24:04Oh, that's an interesting idea.
- 24:06Riding the waves towards where God is calling you.
- 24:09And that is a whole different way of looking and understanding the storms that come around.
- 24:15I love that.
- 24:15Because they get transformed from something that's destructive, that's tearing us down.
- 24:20Something.
- 24:21To the means through which our Lord, if we will appropriate it and trust him.
- 24:27and follow him, he will use it to bring us to perfection.
- 24:31He will use it to purify us, strengthen us, transform us, bring us to union with him, which is the ultimate goal that we desire.
- 24:41So we want to learn through these disciplines and through his grace and learning how to appropriate his grace, to learn how to ride those waves to union with him.
- 24:54Amen.
- 24:55Yeah.
- 24:56I think the, the only other thing that I'd recommend is if you don't have a, a, a daily practice of mental prayer, it's really important you develop it because one of the things you're seeking, the person who asked this question about wounds and whatever is self knowledge, like what's going on with me and with daily mental prayer, spending time with Jesus, wasting time with Jesus, you're,
- 25:21In the Gospels, you will learn who you are in a way you could never do in any kind of counseling or any kind of personality tests or anything.
- 25:32You'll understand yourself better and you'll get a better sense of how to fight the battle now.
- 25:37All that said, I just want to modify a little bit or bring a sharper point.
- 25:42We are not saying in all of this that there are not times when we need to identify specific reasons, you know, patterns of behavior and destructive things are showing up.
- 25:54What we're what we're trying to advocate for is a spiritual foundation that will make it all improve.
- 26:01Not perfect.
- 26:02It'll all improve as you do that.
- 26:06you may find there are specific wounds that you have never dealt with in a way that can bring you that can break you out of the habit of responding destructively.
- 26:16And I guess we're running out of time.
- 26:18Well, and I'll add to that.
- 26:19Listen, if this is moving you and especially if you're married or you have children that are married,
- 26:25Check out our events page on spiritualdirection.com.
- 26:29Next year alone, we have seven retreats on divine intimacy and marriage, Ascent to Oneness, where we deal a ton with this.
- 26:38We also have a book being released in the fall of 2026.
- 26:43So check all that out at spiritualdirection.com.
- 26:47So until next time, may the God of peace make you perfect in holiness.
- 26:52May he preserve you whole and entire, spirit, soul, and body, irreproachable at the coming of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
- 27:00Amen.
- 27:11Learn more about the interior life.
- 27:13Visit SpiritualDirection.com.
- 27:16Divine Intimacy Radio is a co-production of EWTN Radio and SpiritualDirection.com and heard worldwide on the EWTN Global Catholic Radio Network.