If God Loves Me, Why Did He Allow This Pain? | Dr. Daniel Meola: #178

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When your parents’ divorce or separation hurts deeply, it can raise painful questions about God: Where was He when my family fell apart? Why didn’t He stop it? And if faith matters so much, why didn’t it save my family?

In this episode, Joey talks with Dr. Daniel Meola, co-founder of Life-Giving Wounds, about suffering, anger, grief, spiritual bypassing, and the struggle many adult children of divorce face in their relationship with God.

They discuss:

• Why divorce can feel like abandonment by God

• What to do when faith was used to minimize your pain

• Why anger and grief aren’t signs of weak faith

• How to avoid getting stuck in victimhood or spiritual bypassing

• Why acknowledging your pain may be the first step toward healing

• How God can transform wounds into strength, love, and purpose

If you’re an adult child of divorce or separation who has ever asked, “God, where were You when my family fell apart?” this episode is for you.

Learn more about Life-Giving Wounds

Get the book Life-Giving Wounds: A Catholic Guide to Healing for Adult Children of Divorce or Separation

Get Joey’s free guide, 7 Ways to Work Through the Pain of Your Parents’ Divorce

Get Joey’s book, It’s Not Your Fault

Get the Book: Searching for and Maintaining Peace: A Small Treatise on Peace of Heart

Get the Book: Interior Freedom

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As a bonus, you'll receive the first chapters from our book, It's Not Your Fault: A Practical Guide to Navigating the Pain and Problems from Your Parents' Divorce.

TRANSCRIPT

Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!

Joey (00:00)

Doctor Mayola, good to have you back.

Dan Meola (00:01)

Great to be here, Joey. Thanks for all your great work I restore.

Joey (00:04)

Yeah, right back at you. And I I think this is the third time you've been on, which may be the most anyone's been on the show. So it's great to have to have you.

Dan Meola (00:10)

man. All

the pressure of a repeat guest. Hopefully I won't repeat myself, but you can edit it out if I do.

Joey (00:18)

It's

okay. It's okay. We need to be reminded more than we need to be taught. So I think it's ⁓ it's really good. So you've obviously worked extensively with adult children of divorce, and one of the things I know you know so well is that there's often a lot of struggle when it comes to faith, relationship with God. And so I'm curious, based on, you know, all your experience, what are some of the most common struggles that adult children of divorce face in their spiritual life?

Dan Meola (00:43)

Yeah, I mean, there's so many different ways to approach this question. And just yeah, thank you because yeah, I think, you know, for me, I'm a Catholic, a Christian, you know, I consider faith kind of the deepest level of healing. You know, we need good psychological formation, we need good human formation, but you know, we need faith, but so many of us struggle, struggle deeply. And and some of those struggles or maybe the lion's share of those struggles are from the wounds of our parents growing up. And maybe to introduce this topic

Maybe I'll start with a story that just kind of came to mind. ⁓ I remember me and this woman, we run retreats who came in a retreat in Denver and we're doing a one-on-one kind of walking in the foothills of the Rockies. I guess they're not foothills, the mountains of the Rockies. And she just had a ton of anger. And she chiefly was like, I don't know why I'm talking to you. My parents both were believing Christians, went to mass, they were Catholics. Every Sunday

And what difference did the faith make? Their marriage didn't have major problems, and yet they still got divorced. I don't see the point in the faith, and I just find that so hypocritical. Me and all my siblings have fallen away from the Catholic faith. She, this woman, is dabbling in a bunch of different faiths. And she's like, I just don't I don't see the point. Like what difference did the faith make? And I just kind of sighed and I said, Yeah, you know, sometimes when our parents

divorce and separate, it can feel not just like a rejection and abandonment from them, but God too. Like where where are you, God? Especially in the supposedly lives of these two faithful believers. And so I think a lot of us can struggle with feeling abandonment by God. For different reasons. For her, it was what she thought was the hypocrisy of her parents. But also just this question, yeah, what difference does did the faith make? I didn't see it.

Growing up, so sometimes it's just like they just didn't see people dis just didn't experience the difference that faith make or it was a negative thing, you know. Sometimes the faith was used against us. I hear this a lot too. Sometimes the minimize our pain. I don't know if you're familiar with the concept of spiritual bypassing. Do do you know

Joey (02:59)

Yeah, a little bit, but please explain, yeah.

Dan Meola (03:01)

Yeah, it's basically when somebody uses the truths of the faith to bypass your pain. So, you know, Joey, you're be like talking about your parents' divorce and somebody would just say, you know what, you just need to offer it up. Well remember the resurrection, right? And you just feel so minimized and so invisible in the name of the faith. So that that's very common. So again, there can be different reasons for feeling abandoned by God.

But I think a lot of it has to do with being abandoned by the church or Christians and and sometimes even our parents ⁓ and how they approach the faith. And when I shared that with Jess, just acknowledging her feelings of abandonment, she felt for the first time really seen. Really seen. And she just started weeping. And she's like, I wanna believe. I just I don't know where to start. And I think a lot of us too, for whatever reason, if you've fallen away from the faith or have difficulties of faith.

There is still this curiosity, the faith, and there's kind of this like push and pull. And so Jess kind of represents all of us if we're being honest, based on our wounds, the questions we might have. It's kind of this, I want to draw close, but I just don't know how. I didn't see it modeled. I don't know how. So that that can play a factor into it as well. And you know, there's a lot of different remedies, but those are the type of things that I hear very frequently. Yeah, this abandonment.

hypocrisy, what difference did the faith make? There's questions, you know, there's a lot of familial language in scripture, right? Wasn't mean to call God father, my father left me. Wasn't mean to describe that God's like a mother, my mother didn't care for me. So there can be challenges with that. ⁓ church communities and then also the big the big one. What is the meaning with the suffering? Right? I I think that every question of suffering is a question directed at God.

God, where were you? Where were you? I think that's valid. I think that's important. It's important to name that, to ask that question. Where were you, God? So all these different things and and again there, you know, I think in our book we listed like seven or eight, a few of them I'm not even discussing here, cause a lot of difficulties in one's relationship with God. Like even I was talking recently to somebody in our programs, like even the experience of like silence, which as you know is so important for prayer.

can feel very alienating if silence was a negative experience growing up. So like like just like even the building br blocks of ⁓ prayer can feel very threatening and unsafe. So I mean there there's all these different reasons why people may struggle with

Joey (05:38)

That makes so much sense. And it sounds like it's kind of this tangled mess that in order to remedy we need to kind of untangle. And I think w the thing you're doing now, which like putting language to it, is really h helpful as like a starting point. For some reason, for a while I kinda overestimated how important that was. I didn't th or sorry, I underestimated how important that was. I didn't think it was that important, but I think it is really key. And one of the things I wanna highlight that you said is like the hypocrisy piece. I definitely have heard from you know a lot of people and experience with some myself where you have ⁓

You know, parents like you said, who maybe go to church on Sunday and at church they act as angels and then afterward something else. And and we're all capable of that. I'm not pointing fingers at parents alone. But ⁓ but it there's this I remember hearing there's this like saying in German where it's like it goes like ⁓ angel like on the street, demon at home. And so I think like yeah, like you I remember without divulging too much, just conversations even within my family of like if you're not gonna change your behavior.

You know, why go to church? So I think there's some aspect of that too. So yeah, but maybe let's speak to that to someone who's like feeling that. It's like, Yeah, my parents were super hypocritical and because of that, I want nothing to do with faith or God. ⁓ what would you say to someone who maybe feels that way?

Dan Meola (06:51)

One just acknowledge the pain, just how hurtful that is. Yeah. To be treated poorly by somebody who professes a religion that should be one of love, that is one of love. So just one acknowledge the hurt, the pain, and then the confusion. Like it also introduces this confusion about what is really Christianity, right? And and so first just naming that utter and horrible pain and hurt that can be

that can happen in the name of religion and how confusing and unsettling that is. So I I always kinda wanna start there and and you know, if it was somebody calling on the show, just listen to their story in and to grief and to understand where they're coming from. And then yeah, I mean from there to offer them like yeah, I mean the church is full of sinners to acknowledge that like Christ came to heal sinners. And so there's there's a lot of sin in the church.

There's a lot of sin in the church. So also to acknowledge that. But to gently ⁓ introduce them to a more integrated way of the faith, right? Like Christ does call us to incarnate these teachings in our personal lives, right? Like the reason that was so hurtful is like that was sinful. Like what like no no bones and questions asked about it. Like calling evil for what evil is. Even though, you know, also the church teaches, and we have to be careful here, like

We distinguish between the person and his or her acts. You know, like it's important to remember even our parents who have greatly offended and hurt us, like they always retain a dignity in their personhood. But their acts, like we can call those acts evil, sinful, hurtful, unhealthy, you know, w we can name it. So naming that the that truth can set you free. Like that that was a perversion of Christianity and what the teaching was. I'm sorry about that. So naming that, naming that evil. So understanding their story, naming that as an evil.

And to say like, yeah, Christianity is called to be lived. It is called to be practiced in the home in the bedroom, you know? Like unlike the liberal society, right, is always saying, like, well, keep faith out of the bedroom. Well, here's a great example of like, well, what happens when it's not in the bedroom or the home? There's a ton of pain, right? And and so Christianity does teach this integration and kind of so you kind of just sitting with them in that truth and what that means.

What that might mean for their life if they're open to recovering a more integrated way of Christianity that doesn't separate the home life from the public life. That's good. I'd begin there, but every person's different in how to integrate it in what questions are coming up in their heart. I'd begin there. How would you begin?

Joey (09:34)

No, no, that's great. What one thing that comes to mind too is I've heard some people use the analogy of like if you think of, you know, there's been a lot of scandals and abuses when it comes to like school teachers, right? So some some school teachers have done horrible things. Like they don't really live up to the ideal that we think of that we want a school teacher to live up to, someone who guides children, who forms them, who educates them. And so it's little bit more of an intellectual argument, but I think it's important to understand that you wouldn't

then say, well, all teachers are like this bad teacher. All teachers like this teacher who misbehaved. Another analogy you could think of is or you can say is like, imagine you have someone in the Marine Corps who is in at you know, away at war in a foreign country and they do horrible things. They murder, they rape, they do things that like we do not approve of. And that doesn't actually live up to the ideal of like the our Marine Corps, right? We wouldn't then say, well, therefore all Marines are the same and

We should like look down on them. So I understand like I I don't want to skip over the emotional kind of hurt part, but I thought you handled that really well. But I think there's something to be said for that. It's like actually the problem that you have with maybe Christians or Catholics is that your parents actually didn't live up to what they were supposed to live up to. Right. And not saying that in a demeaning or judgmental way, but just in kind of matter-of-factly way, it's like that you've actually experienced something that's less than the ideal. And so with that in mind, I think the other thing I would throw out would be something like.

What if we look to the people who actually lived it out most perfectly? And so for us as Catholics, obviously that's like the Saints. Like, okay, maybe maybe there's a little bit of a contrast there and you can get to know what their lives would be like. But what would you add?

Dan Meola (11:07)

Yeah, no, th that's a great point. And and to find a community ideally that is living it out within the church. Like there there's always pockets of people, even now, not just the saints, sometimes the saints can seem far away in a different generation, but like right now that that are living this out differently in their marriages, in their home, in their church communities. And yeah, to give church ⁓ another chance to be that that home, that place of sanctuary, that it should be spilled out into private life. You know, that

That's a really great point. And and that's also too why, you know, when she approached me, this this woman Jess, about, okay, what do I do? felt this hypocrisy, y you know, I said two things just to start. One, I encourage her to meditate on Christ's passion, just to acknowledge her pain again that Christ too felt abandonment. I didn't say it in that words, I said just, you know, meditate on Christ's passion, see what the Lord speaks to you, is particularly at the moment of ⁓ where he says, My God, my God.

Why have you abandoned me? Because I I think it's really beautiful that moment where Christ feels abandonment in his human nature by God the Father, but a radical prayer. He's always in relationship to God, right? That was the depth of his feelings, his human nature, but his divine nature always knew God loved him, right? There was no doubt. So it's a beautiful moment to to pray about if you're feeling abandoned by God. And then second I said to return to the sacraments and seek out people.

In the church community that you do admire that you think is living this well and get to know them, have a meal with them, go you know, experience their home if you have doubts, right? I i if it's a safe and prudent, you know, after forming a relationship kind of deal. ⁓ and she did that. And that that really that changed her life. She first got to experience that on a retreat. She said I f I felt for the first time I had a place to belong when I was with a lot of peers, and that's another good place to start with peers who have similar wounds.

that are in the church, in your church communities, that that friendship. So like maybe yeah, maybe it seems too much to to approach a priest or even a married couple you don't know. But if you you know, there's a peer, a peer friendship can be a great safe place to to start. Cause we need community. Like God made us for relationship.

That's the other piece. Like like why it's so damaging with the parents too is like w God did make us for relationships and when that relationship is damaged, that redounds not just on the image of God, but just also how we think of ourselves too. And a lot of times we need to recover our own identity, not just God's identity, through concrete embodiment of relationships and friendships in the church and the faith. So that is a good place to start.

Joey (13:53)

as well. I like that. And I like your advice that, you know, even if it's a little intimidating for someone to maybe jump into like a a group of people, the idea of like finding maybe one person you know who's practicing f you know, Christianity Catholicism and

Deepen that friendship, spend more time together, do fun things together, have good conversations, ask questions, like those sort of things I think are maybe a good simple first step. So I love what you were mentioning there. I want to shift gears. There's so much we could cover here. So I want to shift gears a little bit to this idea of struggling with the idea of like God as a father. So you you articulated super well about how, you know, if your experience of a father was really poor, it can be really difficult to relate to God in that way. And so what have you seen helps kind of work through that, overcome that barrier?

Dan Meola (14:38)

Yeah, I mean I mean there's two things well, three things really. One, there's the intellectual truth, the truth will set you free, right? You know, the church has really beautiful ex like teachings, like if you go to the Catechism of the Catholic Church about who God is. It's a really beautiful ⁓ section, but some of the basic truths that while God is imminent and he uses this familial language to describe his nature, he's also transcendent to all of that.

like every image, every metaphor while speaking a truth about God, like he is more. He is more. And so just to remember like God is transcendent even as like, yeah, he's trying to reveal something important to you through this familiar language. Because he is imminent. He is close with you. So just to remember that. And then with the familiar language, I always like to say, yeah, as painful as it can be, perhaps part of the reason God uses it so much in scripture, or matter of fact, I would say this is

Core reason why he used this familiar language so much in scripture is because he knew how much marriages would break down and there'd be pain in families. So rather than like something painful, he had you in mind using this language because he knew there'd be so much hurt and that this needed to be purified. Like our concept of love, marriage, and family, like he knew how important it was because he made us would always be in need of purification because of the woundedness that can follow from it. So it kind of kind of flips the script of like.

This is a painful thing versus this is part of the reason why God chose this language for you. But that's still the intellectual side, right? Faith, we believe, is union with God. And we can accept those truths in our intellect, but not kind of accept them in the heart. And that's where like prayer really matters. And we have to kind of examine the struggles we might have in prayer due to our wounds. I mentioned one about silence, like just acknowledging that.

Silence might be shameful and uncomfortable from our wounds to work through that. That there there is a silence that is safe, that is comforting, that is different than the shame face silence that you maybe had growing up. To also acknowledge that yeah, prayer is gonna be really hard initially when you didn't have that model. And on top of that, prayer is a dialogue with God, the vulnerability that's needed for prayer for somebody who is very guarded because they have been hurt.

the the vulnerability gonna be very hard. It's gonna be very hard in prayer at first. So just like to acknowledge like these are difficulties that you may encounter because of your wounds, but just to persevere, work through them, talk to somebody who has had similar difficulties in prayer, who can kind of be a mentor. A lot of children divorce like being spiritual directors, a priest, a layperson, a nun to help them to be a guide. Cause prayer is a grace, but it there's also work, like a great

prayer life doesn't happen overnight. Like you do have to be intentional and cultivated and learn from the masters, but it's important to see how our wounds can impede that. So maybe if you've had difficulties in praying, it's not necessarily that God doesn't care or you can't do it, but this is another layer to examine gently with the Lord that there might be some wounds here to to overcome and work through. And if you do that and you do eventually develop a consistent daily prayer life.

You will experience all those truths that we talked about earlier as something really in your heart. And it's gonna make life so much more bearable in the suffering and joyful in the good times and give you kind of a whole different lens. That's how I kind of like to describe the healing that the faith offers. Like growing up, we tend to see love and life through the lens of how those who raised us treated us. And that there's good and bad things.

Right in that lens. Faith gives us a new lens that can heal that. And a new presence that helps us understand that in our hearts we are loved, that we are beloved, that we can disappoint the Lord and sin and make mistakes but still be loved. There's so much there.

Joey (18:38)

Yeah,

no, I love that. And you made me think of something I heard Father Mike Schmidt say at one point, he said, In order to be healed, you have to revisit the place of your ruin. Mm-hmm. That was like super good. So it's kinda that's that's what I hear you encouraging people to do. You gotta kinda go into those s it's like, yeah, if the silence is a tricky thing or a difficult thing. And on that note, I think this whole question that you asked just cut so deep for me and

Dan Meola (18:52)

Yes, a hundred percent.

Joey (19:04)

'Cause it's something I asked a lot, especially as like a teenager and I know a lot of people listening and the people you walk with ask it a lot of like, you know, God, where were you? Like if God is good and loving and all powerful, like, why would he let my family fall apart? And so I know it's a big, big question and something we could talk about for hours, but I guess I'm you know, imagine someone's sharing that with you and they just feel like that abandonment. I know you already addressed it to some extent, but I'm curious what else you know you would add to someone kind of struggling with that idea.

So you just found out that your parents are getting divorced or maybe the pain from their split has started to resurface. Either way, you feel alone and you might even be experiencing emotional problems like anxiety, falling into habits that you're not proud of just to numb the pain, and struggling in or feeling afraid of romantic relationships. I've been there, I totally get it.

But worst of all, perhaps you fear that one day you might repeat your parents' story. If you can relate, I wrote a free digital guide for you. It's called Seven Ways to Work Through the Pain of Your Parents' Divorce. Inside, I share practical steps that you can take to grieve the loss of your family, healthy ways to deal with your pain, and expert tips to heal those wounds. It's what I wish someone would have told me years ago, seasoned by 20 years of experience navigating my parents' split.

Listening to hundreds of young people from broken families one on one and helping tens of thousands of us heal and grow. You are not alone and you're not doomed to repeat your parents' story. Download your free guide at restored ministry dot com slash seven ways or click the link in the show notes.

Dan Meola (20:33)

Yeah, it's a huge one. The mystery, you know, the church calls it the mystery of evil. The mysterium iniquitatis. It's interesting. Why do they say that? Because the church gives answers to the suffering, but at the bottom of it, like evil just doesn't make sense. At the bottom of it. And so like there is a mystery, a non-answer to this, because it just doesn't make sense why people would hurt an innocent little child.

Right. Like at the end of the day, like it doesn't make any sense or just hurt another human being made in the image of God. So there's a mysterium iniquitatis to just acknowledge that humbly. But the church and the saints and Christ certainly has said a lot about suffering. And one of the gifts of the faith that we reflect a lot on and why our ministry is named life-giving wounds is that it does give us this

beautiful new understanding of suffering as redemptive suffering, which is part of the answer. Again, there's a mysterium iniquitatis that is just will not be revealed until heaven. But you know, God it's it's a basic teaching of this of the church that God does not will suffering evil. He doesn't will it. Like it comes from our sin, it comes from the the flaws of creatures. Like he doesn't will it. It's not he is love. So then you say well why does this exist?

Well the classic answer is like, well, out of his loving heart, he has allowed it so that we can have free will to love him back. Because we to have freedom say yes could also have the freedom to say no. But it doesn't stop there. So if you stop there with the answer, it can seem God's very passive. Okay, intellectually, I get it. So that we can have free will and love. That's what is called God's passive will vis-a-vis suffering. But he also has an active will. If he

Allows it to be. It is only because He also wills and much more deeply to transform it, all suffering into love in His presence. And we get glimpses of that in our life. When the wounds through all the different healing things that we can do through grieving, through community, through forgiveness, through acceptance, when the wound can become a resource for love for yourself, for others, for your family, for your faith.

And so we get glimpses of how the Lord is doing that transformative work. And and so a lot of people need to understand that's the fullness of the redemptive suffering teaching. Like he doesn't let evil and suffering have the last word. And it's not a one-to-one, like, okay, you hurt him, I'm gonna love you. Like it's not a one-to-one ratio. Like, no, he wants to so thoroughly transform it, not just scabbing over the old pain, but to make it fruitful and just, yeah, again.

And there's kind of a mystery to this too, like this resource for good that far, far exceeds their original evil inflicted. And I see this all the time. Like an example, if this sounds too heady, to bring it back down to earth a little bit. Yeah. ⁓ I love adult children divorced who are preparing for marriage, who are also radically and intentionally seeking healing. Because they don't take anything for granted with love on account of their wounds. And that makes them stronger.

Because a good marriage doesn't just happen. Like you have to be intentional about work. Because you know, it it's not just wounds that are dangerous to marriage. It's also sins. It's also familiarity taking love for granted. Right. There's other reasons why marriage fails. It's not just wounds. They don't do that. So they actually come out stronger than somebody who didn't have wounds because they have that intentionality. So that's one example of like how the Lord can use woundedness for a far greater benefit.

And then you know they because of their intentionality go on, have a strong marriage, have many kids who didn't experience the pain of divorce, help maybe their friends and neighbors that are struggling in marriage, etc. So that's just one small example. I i the Lord is like way more creative than just that. But that is what gives me hope without answering this profound question. Is I have seen that active will of God in my life, in the lives of others, and it's really beautiful.

To get to a point, and this is gonna sound crazy to your listeners, that I I can proclaim now through a lot of work that I do feel like my wounds are one of the greatest gifts I've been given by God in my life. Not on account of their woundedness, not on account of suffering. No, he hates that. He he weeps over that. But on account of what the Lord has done through that to transform me for the better through that. Now that's like a later stage of like healing. Let me just say if you're you're thinking like, well, I you know.

My wounds just suck. Like, okay, like, yeah. And actually I still cry. I still have wounds. Like Father's Day was tough for me. That was just we're recording this a few days after this. Like Father's Day is still tough. My relationship is not I love my dad and we have a relationship and a friendship, but it's it's not where I want. You know, it's there's still there's a woundedness there. And and this is part of redemptive suffering too. It's not like you're all happy and clappy, like, there's all this redemption, like it can coexist.

That purpose, that deeper gift that I'm explaining, it can coexist with grief. And I think this is the beautiful teaching of redemption suffering in the Catholic Church too, is that these realities of grief and love can coexist together.

Joey (25:58)

No, no, there's a lot there and I thank you for going into sharing vulnerably too. I for some reason the story of a guy I I heard of I'm originally from the Chicagoland area and there's a story of I think they were on a boat and or no, they weren't on a boat, they were on a pier and these two kids I think fell into Lake Michigan and for some reason the water was like really cold and choppy and they c kinda got carried out, something freak. And so this guy jumps in to save them and he was able to get out to them

and bring, you know, one back and then the other back. But he had like exerted himself so heavily in this like really cold water, they ended up dying. Super sad story, but it it's kind of a it proves your point to the extent of like through this great suffering and sacrifice, something really good came from it. These kids' lives were spared. They were saved. They can go on and like live and grow and you know who knows what they'll do with their lives. But this whole idea of like, you know, suffering and pain

bringing some sort of good. You could even see it, I think, on a natural level. I know some people maybe don't fully track maybe with the kind of spiritual things that you and I both believe. But but you at least could see that on some natural level. And then that can maybe be like a precursor to understanding like, okay, I could see how this would work on even like a spiritual level. You know, thinking back of course to Jesus' death. It's like, man, that's a pretty evil thing killing God. And one thing I wanted to add when we were talking about like religious hypocrisy, it's like good thing to keep in mind that like

the religious leaders of the time actually killed Jesus. So something to be said for

Dan Meola (27:30)

His own followers. Yeah. His own yeah. He betrayed him. ⁓

Joey (27:34)

Who were like people

who are literally celebrating him days before, you know, saying this guy's the greatest, like literally wanted or chanting for his death. Pretty wild. So anyway, not to go back to that, but this idea of like okay, like God can bring good out of really bad things, I think is like it's a powerful lesson and I think we see it even on a natural level, even if people aren't at the point of like seeing it on a spiritual level.

Dan Meola (27:57)

Yeah, and I think that's an important part of healing because I think one of the greatest things that can weigh us down is we're just like empty handed with this pain. Like we're just so wounded, we're so damaged, we can't do XYZ. And you know, that's real. Those struggles are real. But we want to cultivate hope that yeah, you're not so damaged or beyond repair to be empty handed, right? Like there's something of a like goodness still present working within this suffering.

that can be unlocked. And that's why we we describe evil as a parasitic on the good. Right? The good is always greater. And evil can't exist outside of the good. It's parasitic. And so I like to think of it like there's still some good at work. Let's pray and talk about that and see that both on the natural and you know hopefully if they're open to it the supernatural level as well. And I think, yeah, anyways, I think that's an important part of healing. Of finding that, you know, in the Second World they might say finding a deeper

perspective or purpose, right? That's important. That's important. But we also have to hold in mind, and this again, this is why I love the church and the faith, integration of grief and purpose, you know, grief and fruitfulness from these wounds. Because there's two spiritual dangers, right? One spiritual danger is to kind of just wallow in the self-pity and the grief and to lose hope, purpose that we are made for something more.

draw good from this, right? You could say that's kind of a victim mentality where it's like all is lost and that's okay if you've been there. But we want to just acknowledge that and kind of work towards something that is more integrated for grieving. And then on the flip side, like of that hopelessness, that's why we call victim mentality the hopelessness. We don't want to go in the other direction, which is that spiritual bypassing where it's like, okay, we're just going to be so focused on the good. We don't know

ourselves, you know what I mean? And ⁓ we don't acknowledge our human need to grieve and just like and how good grieving is, but how important it is to let go of those burdens that are burdening your heart. I mean grieving is just it's so profound and something we we begin our book with and I always tell people like on retreats or all our programs, like if you do nothing else, and same for your podcast listeners, like if you take no other takeaway, just know the power of grieving with hope.

But it's both ends. It's grieving, but grieving with hope. But the grieving is important. Here I'm focusing on that because it's a form of love. Right? Like it would be a problem. It is a problem. And it's a sign of trauma when you have an inability to grief. Right? You feel really isolated. That's actually like it's a it's a mark of trauma. And that's a horrible, difficult place to be. And it takes time to thaw out. And I want to acknowledge that.

It takes time to thaw, but part of the healing process, the first step is that thawing out and beginning to grieve. But again, as Christians, we have grieving with hope. So to avoid those kind of spiritual dangers of the victim mentality, hopelessness, but also avoid spiritual bypassing. It's like I don't have any grieving to do here. Because again, grieving is to come back to the faith piece, we believe as Christians and Catholics in the Beatitudes, blessed are those who mourn. What the beatitudes are permanent attitudes of Christian believers, right? So like

We are called to mourn, seriously, again and again and again. And that's so important, but perhaps one of the most important reasons is because it's a form of love for the things or the people that we have lost that are good. So it it's about keeping our humanity intact, of knowing what is good and what is evil and loving. And allowing our hearts to pierce through that frozen tundra in into love, to thaw out and love. So it's the both and that's the great but

Darren is the difficulty. It's like yeah, threading that needle. I like that.

Joey (31:47)

Two

extremes I think it's really helpful, like the nihilism or victim mentality, which we've all sure fallen into. I know I have where ⁓ yeah, we maybe have this feeling, like you said, of powerlessness, of hopelessness, of like waiting for someone to come in and rescue us and do all the work to kind of take us away from the pain that we've experienced or the wounds that we have. And one of the most helpful switches for me there, if this is helpful for anyone, is ⁓ something Dave Ramsey of all people, the financial group.

Dan Meola (32:14)

I know. That's great. Yeah.

Joey (32:15)

Yeah,

yeah, yeah. He said something really well. He's like, You may have been a real victim which I would say children of divorce are true victim. Sure. But he goes on to say, but you were not meant to remain a victim, which I love. I think there's like s a truth in it. And so I think and what you're saying is so good and I want to get into grieving in a second here. Grieving is one of the ways in which we go from being kind of stuck in that place of victimhood, which victimhood exists for a reason. We're just not meant to be stuck in it to that place of being more of a, you know

Dan Meola (32:23)

Yeah, yeah.

Joey (32:45)

Well some people have said, like a victor, someone who is able to, you know, not just survive and get by, but truly like live a meaningful, joyful life, not just be like a sad people, but get to a place of joy. While avoiding, on the other hand, like you said, this idea of like the goal of healing is not a utopia. And I've even been tempted to this at times, and probably even guilty of it at times, of thinking of it in those terms of like, Well, once you're healed, then life will be great. Once you're healed, then you can love.

Dan Meola (33:13)

That's such a lie.

Joey (33:15)

It's such a lie. What like once you're healed then you can and and even this idea of like, you know, perfect healing and so yeah. So I think that I love that you kinda put those at odds and it's like, hey, we want to avoid that, but then we wanna have somewhat of this like middle ground where we can acknowledge that we were victims, but we're not meant to remain victims. We can live a joyful, good, meaningful life. I'm trying to do that right now and I've experienced so much joy in life.

But at the same time there's gonna be sorrow and suffering. So feel free to comment on any of that. And then I wanna jump into get your thoughts more on grieving because I know you talk a lot about this and wanna get into that. But feel free to comment on any of that. No.

Dan Meola (33:47)

Love it. Yeah, well said. I I never heard that Dave Ramsey quote, but very well said. I will just just a word to those who maybe have fallen into victim mentality. You mentioned you have, I have been there that you know, like that can be ⁓ part of grieving. It's just a matter of trying to get more towards a more integrated, wholesome grieving, if that makes sense. Like it's ⁓ to like grieve well, we have to first grieve messily. It's like something I say a lot. And and so like that

maybe a step that may be something you fall into. It it's just it's good to acknowledge that it's good to love yourself. It's just yeah, we don't want to stay there. Right. We we wanna move towards this more integrated what I call like grieving with hope. That that knowledge the both and. Similarly, like I would say another big temptation with grieving and we've all been there like is to isolate ourselves, right? And but we know like studies have shown that isolation actually increases the pain.

It increases the trauma. It ain't it's one of the marks of trauma is to feel isolated and alone. And it it causes loneliness causes so much damage. And again, we've all been there like in our grief, like we want to like corner down and like I remember in high school, I I would go to my room and just like scream into the pillow because I didn't feel like there was anybody else there to listen. Right. So like these are profound things like we all struggle with, but just to recognize again to love yourself.

And and there's a place for like grieving alone that's different than just completely isolating yourself from relationship. And and this is a big thing. Like grief is an invitation to communion. Like we we cannot grieve appropriately or in a healthy way alone. Like there can be times of aloneness, but even that, like that should be ideally with the Lord, you know? So it's okay if you've been there, but just to be aware of there's this

tendency to isolate when we grieve and and that can actually cause more problems and be kind of a dangerous place and and to to see grieving as an invitation to communion and I kinda got that insight from the Beatitude again. Blessed are those who mourn. Like it's plural. I've always found that really fascinating. Blessed are those. It's not just saying like Blessed is Joey who mourns by himself in his studio. Like and again, like that's great. Like that can be part of it. But like

The Lord Yeah, just to be aware of those two big ten well, three big tendencies, the spiritual bypassing, the victim mentality, but also the isolation, because that can really wreck you. And the the Lord invites you to to communion.

Joey (36:27)

Love that. On that note, what are the seven signs of Christian grieving? For countless teens and young adults, their parents' divorce is actually the most traumatic thing that they've experienced, but so many feel lost and alone in navigating the challenges. I've been there myself. It's really not easy and it shouldn't be this way. My book, It's Not Your Fault, guides them through those challenges by helping them put their pain into words and begin to heal, work through the emotional problems that they face.

Cope in healthy ways instead of falling into bad habits, improve their relationship with their parents, navigate the holidays and other life events, and build healthy relationships and so much more. One Amazon review said this This book is packed full of really practical help. If you come from a broken family, or even if you don't but you love someone that does, this book is so helpful. I can't recommend this enough.

By the way, it's a quick read and it doesn't need to be read cover to cover since it's in question and answer format. You can just read one of the questions and one of the answers. And so if you want to join the thousands of people who've gotten a copy, just go to restored ministry dot com slash books to get the book or download the free chapters. Again, that's restored ministry dot com slash books, or just click the link in the show notes.

Dan Meola (37:35)

I mean we've already talked about a few of them. ⁓ one, just to recognize grief is love, that it's something of the good life the Lord promises us. Blessed are those who mourn. Two, ⁓ we talked about this invitation to communion. It is meant to be done with others. ⁓ again there can be alone periods. What's key is that you don't just completely isolate yourself, which is a temptation to do. I got this from a psychologist and I don't even know who it is, so I apologize. I can't give them credit. But

He or she said we need to reveal to heal. Like there's something really good about grieving with specificity. There's something about like doing that specific work with grieving can be healing. And this can be done a lot of ways. I'm a big proponent of like journaling, prayer journaling. But a lot of our alumni conversations with people, that's really important to have that. They come on a retreat for this, seeking this community. It could be done with a counselor, it could be done with the spiritual director, a mentor. But I would say the specificity, you do need some

Just time kind of examining your soul by yourself. Like sometimes it's good hearing other people's stories or listening to a podcast like this, but we need to like kind of chew on it, journal, prayer. ⁓ one thing I like to do is actually poetry. I think I think poetry is a really beautiful way to to lament. ⁓ I love the psalms for that. ⁓ shout out one of my favorite lines in the psalm is Psalm 423. Are you familiar with this line? it's it's talking about

person who believes in Jesus but or well believes in God, sorry, who is going through tremendous suffering and says his tears are his bread day and night. Like, I mean that's just like so poetic. Yeah. Like like he's so sorrowful he's not eating only the only sustenance in his life is from the tears that he's chewing on and eating. So some people find poetry art, you know, different ways to get this specificity.

And and I would say the longer you go in the healing process, the more they'll be revealed. Like I think God is good and gentle to us. Like he knows it's too much sometimes. Like you know, like so he just kind of reveals us little by little. ⁓ and there's new layers. Like ⁓ again, because Father's Day was recent to when we're recording this podcast, like the Lord revealed a new layer to my life about my wounds. It's like, okay, I've I've gotta mourn I gotta name this and mourn this too. So

We need to do this work of specificity to some degree. Now again, y to heal you don't need to like exhaustively do every single one, but there needs to be some specificity and to keep coming back to it from time to time. Another thing that we talk about we have these numbered in our book, but I'm going a little bit out of order. I I think it's I think it's really important for forgiveness, letting go of the anger is that we need to in our grieving and later on forgiveness process is a later step, much later than grieving.

But grieving is a part of it. ⁓ we've got to distinguish between the person is and his or her acts. I said this earlier, but it's it's really important to know that those who have hurt us always retain ⁓ their dignity. And so, yes, be angry at their actions, be angry that they hurt, but it is important, I think, to avoid language. I wish he or she was never born, I wish you were never my dad, or my mom, you know. ⁓ it's okay to like say that and get curious, like, okay, why?

But we do want to cultivate a sense of the dignity of the person while saying, yeah, that was a hateful act, that was a hurtful act, that was a sin, that was, you know, to distinguish between person, his her acts, that was really important for me in the grieving process too, because a lot of us have difficulty navigating anger and love in the grieving process. And what has helped me navigate anger and love is this distinction that okay, I can fiercely love my dad and his personhood, but hate certain

And we see this in scripture, right? ⁓ you know, God says he hates divorce. Malachi, I believe it's two sixteen, I'm sorry, Dan Dan translation if that's wrong. Don't have that off the top of my head. But yet he loves the woman who divorced seven times. The good Samaritan the not the good Samaritan, the Samaritan the woman at the well, the Samaritan woman at the right like how do you hold those two together? It's like, well, yeah, fiercely loved the person of the Samaritan woman, but

Joey (41:46)

Yeah.

Dan Meola (41:54)

He hates certain acts. Divorce is one of them, right? He knows the damage it causes. So that was important for me to navigate anger and love and to kind of set me up for success for forgiveness, which is later on. And I guess this is the last piece that good Christian grieving works towards acceptance. And what is acceptance? Probably the best definition I've heard of acceptance is Father Jacques Philippe. Acceptance is choosing the crosses we did not choose for ourselves.

with the goal of developing interior freedom and bringing faith, hope, and love versus rebelling or resigning ourselves with resentment. And so, you know, Christian grieving should work towards this acceptance of the crosses and and a big piece of that later in the process is forgiveness. And I think you you help yourself let go of the anger and the resentment towards acceptance and give up the rebellion when you can begin to distinguish

the dignity of the offender from his or her act. Wow. And and this is this is why too, just to go really deeply here, I'm just gonna put it out there. Like to have forgiveness, you need to first have grieving. So if you want acceptance, like you want to work towards forgiveness, letting go of that anger. And now what I say let go, like it's okay to feel anger. That's part of the grieving process actually. I I I love anger now. I used to hate it. I used to be uncomfortable with it. But I love it.

But we wanna eventually work towards letting it go through acceptance, through forgiveness. But it's choosing the crosses that we did not choose for ourselves, Father Jacques, Philippe, ⁓ so that we can have interior freedom, so that we can have faith, hope, and love. So there's a purpose. It's not just ⁓ resonation. Resonation, there's no purpose. Resonation is just like, this will happen to me. So be, so be it. You know. Sometimes acceptance is presented as that way, and that's that's actually resonation. And it adds to the original suffering by keeping you trapped in that.

Just like rebellion adds to the original suffering and and the only way out is through acceptance. So I'll stop there. That's a lot.

Joey (43:57)

No, no, th it's really powerful and no, I definitely would encourage people if you're still chewing on some of that to re-listen to the those parts. I love what you said about kind of this three options, if I'm getting them right, of like ⁓ you know, resignation with resentment, reb rebelling, like not taking the cross at all, or resign, like you said, with or and then the middle ground of actually like choosing it with freedom. Yeah. I think that well, there's power in that, and that's really good. That's fine.

Dan Meola (44:21)

Philippe Interior Freedom. Just wanna give a shout out. It's an awesome book. Awesome book.

Joey (44:26)

The I always joke that the the cure to my anxiety, Dan is his other book, ⁓ searching for and maintaining peace of hardness. ⁓ that's a good one. It's like whenever I've been going through like anything, whenever there's like intense like pressure in life and like there's anxiety that comes a reserve result of it, that like I turn to that, I read it, I chew on it, I pray with it and ⁓ it it works, it helps. So ⁓ shout out to them. We'll throw all that in the show notes for you guys if you wanna check those out. But the other thing ⁓ that I could just kind of observed in you talking about

Grief is that it seems like grief is something that you do, but it's also something that just kind of happens to you. is there do you think there's value in like the traditional talking about the traditional ⁓ stages of grieving or do you find that they're not as helpful to people?

Dan Meola (45:11)

The stages can be helpful as as so long as there was a misunderstanding of them in the nineties and early two thousands of of kind of being these linear steps. I don't think that's what Kubler Ross actually intended, 'cause I've kind of gone back and I don't think she ex intended it to be steps linearly, then you're done. So as long as you don't like as long as you see it as like grieving as more cyclical, I think that's healthy because like grieving is not usually a linear process. And

If we're gonna like geek out on psychology for a minute 'cause I love it, I really like sure, so the steps can be helpful, right? But if you but you need to complement that with kind of like understanding it's gonna be cyclical as new layers come up, you know, new wounds of dysfunction comes up, right? It it's gonna be cyclical to some extent. So it's like, I'm I'm just done with grieving. once I hit ⁓ acceptance stage. And that would be a mistake too, like with what I'm saying, like ⁓ part of acceptance is coming back to grieving as well.

And the model that I like is Lewis Tonkin. Are you familiar with his work? Yeah, so I I think it's a nice compliment to the steps. Like I think there are steps or we describe as kind of characteristics of grieving that we want to be working towards. But Tonkin says that there are some losses that are so deep and so great, they never go away. But yet healing is still possible. And what happens with these great losses is like while the grief may stay constant, let's imagine a black dot

And like the heart through the grieving process, through acceptance, through forgiveness, and all these different means that we can have to let go of the anger, etc., our hearts can enlarge around the grief. So I really like that. Like there's there's some grief that this side of heaven is gonna remain, but our hearts can grow around it so that it doesn't have as big of an impact on our life, or doesn't have as big of a hold on our heart, and is integrated in our hearts. So I like that.

understanding of grief. And if you understand it that way, then you understand it's this cyclical process that is part of the good life. And this side of heaven, by the way, we're talking about paralyce, separation. Like nobody comes out unscathed. So like we we all have to do this. We are all gonna experience death of ourselves, but also of loved ones. Right? Th nobody comes out unscathed. So so I like thinking of it, whether you think of it in terms of steps or you you think of it in terms of

characteristics to work towards like we talk about or Lewis Tonkin, like it's it's integration and enlarging our hearts. So it's a cyclical. So grieve is a cyclical practice that I would say is a virtue, right? That's my own language. I don't know who talks about that way, but like it's just maybe Beatitudes a little bit better in the church language. But ⁓ it's just it's something that's just supposed to be part of our life. And the sooner that we embrace that, the happier we will be. Rather than always resisting it as like taboo.

Yeah. To be avoided. And just so much tension is just added when we don't allow ourselves to grieve at times.

Joey (48:08)

No, that's really good. I was challenged ⁓ in the past by a past therapist of mine who kind of challenged me in the way that you're talking right now of saying, like instead of jumping to resentment toward this person who hurt you, what if you were just to allow yourself to feel the sadness warranted by the situation? And it was a profound shift for me. I was like, Yeah, I've kinda kinda like skipping over that and like going more to the anger resentment side of things. And not that, like you said, there's nothing wrong with that. There's a place for that, feeling that, getting curious about it.

But it it was pretty profound for me that I was almost like burying sadness with like resentment. And so I love that, yeah, these things are kind of like the stages and I'm sorry, someone's probably listening wondering five stages of grieving? Like ⁓ would do you mind explaining briefly like what those are? I know we're close to the end of our time together here, but yeah, just the five stages of grieving. I I think it's what starts with typically anger, but it might not it they're not linear. Like you said, it can be in a different order and you can jump back and forth.

Dan Meola (49:06)

Yeah, I mean the best thing is to look up it it's okay, the five stages of grief according to Kubler Ross. So I mean look that up. But I mean the five stages I believe are denial denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, I think is the the order. Double check this if you're listening to this podcast. Yeah, I and I I think those are definitely parts of the grieving process. Again

Joey (49:13)

So

That's right.

Dan Meola (49:36)

I just think the danger is if you th if you see grieving kind of linearly and it's like it's much more messy than that. It's sick cool. So like yeah, that those those are helpful steps to acknowledge and be part of. But but the other thing too, like I don't necessarily subscribe to that model because like I do think it can be done in a different order. So like you know, I in my own grieving process, like I am pretty sure I started with anger. Like you know, like like again

For other people, they're scared to death of anger, right? And I get it, and maybe denial is more comfortable to them. So like again, I think she highlighted it was really helpful that she highlighted, hey, these are these are normal parts, including depression, I think was interesting. ⁓ to kind of normalize that, like, yeah, we all kind of go through depression at times. Like that that's okay. I think there's a lot of truth and goodness to that. But yeah, I just I feel like there can be different orders. So again, I kind of subscribe a little bit more to Tonkins.

But there's no perfect model, let let's just put this out there. There's no perfect model of grieving. And so when I approach grieving in my own life, I think of the characteristics that I'm working to in my grief. But I mean practically like it it could be like just the other day, it's a prayer and a poem that I was writing to the Lord, grieving something new and that's what it was. And then I shared it with my wife and talked about it. So like where would that fall in the five steps? I guess acceptance. But yeah, I I mean it did take me a long time to get there. But no, I mean there was also though

because it was a new wound, there was anger there too. So like that's that's the problem with these steps is like like if I look at like what I just was doing this week, like there was a little bit of anger, it was a little bit of depression and sadness. And it was a little it was a little bit of acceptance, you know, my prayer and the poem I was writing to the Lord grieving something new that was discovered well Father's Day. So they're helpful, but there's no perfect model of grieving. So

Joey (51:27)

Yeah. No, I appreciate that. It makes me think of the movie Inside Out where they're, you know, sh ⁓ Riley, the main character, has these like simple emotions and then eventually, you know, develops more complex emotions and then her memories become like intertwined with two different emotions all at once. So it's like, Yeah, they were complex for sure. And it's hard to what I had a teacher who would always say that like, ⁓ all models are imperfect, some are helpful.

Dan Meola (51:50)

Yeah.

Joey (51:52)

So it's like don't get married to to that type of a model.

Dan Meola (51:56)

Yeah, and there's some the like the Lord allows some creativity in our grieving in like how we do it. Again, that's why I kinda prefer like characteristics to work towards and like how they all go together. So uniquely individual. And I think that's cool. I think it's great that some people like to grieve with poems. I like I think it's some it's great some people like to jam to like certain types of music. I think it's great the people that pray in front of the Eucharistic adoration at in a church. Like I think that's great. You know, like you know, I I would obviously say as a Catholic, like

Joey (52:06)

Yeah.

Dan Meola (52:25)

you w one of those is more important than the other, but but ⁓ the Lord is so creative in the healing process and creative in the grieving process too, which is is beautiful to see.

Joey (52:37)

I love that. No, I I know someone who's like expresses a lot of pain through writing and there's been a lot of good that's come from that. I know for myself there's something about when I'm going through a hard time, like music is incredibly comforting. And so anyway, without going too deep into that, ⁓ yeah, wow, so so good. Dan, obviously there's way more that can be said. And so if people want to go deeper into your resources, get the book, maybe look at a r coming on a retreat. Tell us a little bit about what you guys offer and how they can take a next step toward

Getting book and doing something with you guys.

Dan Meola (53:08)

Joey.

So yeah, we're a Catholic nonprofit and apostolate called Life Giving Wounds. You can find out more information on lifeguinwounds.org. We run retreats, we run support groups, for anybody 18 and older, for your parents, like if you've experienced your parents' divorce at any age, but you're now addressing it. We we wrote a book which we've been talking a little bit about. It's just called Life Giving Wounds, a Catholic Guide to Healing for Adult Children Divorce Separation, ⁓ published with Ignatius Press. You can find it on Amazon, our website.

them. So yeah, just you know, join us. ⁓ we also even have ⁓ like a free quiz like if you just want to begin to explore kind of how maybe your parents' divorce separation has affected you. Like we've developed kind of a quiz with our psych advisors, kind of like a quick assessment. It's not a formal psychological assessment, but just like a starting point. we got a lot of resources. ⁓ again I I'm a big poetry guy. I think one of the coolest resources I'm kind of a geek

We have a cool poetry section on our website. Yeah. So we we got a lot of different means.

Joey (54:11)

Cool. Okay. Yeah, and I know you guys do with retreats across the country to

Dan Meola (54:14)

Yeah. So like if you just go to our event calendar on our website, we've got ⁓ we ran forty four retreats and support groups last year all across the country, California, Texas, New Jersey, all over. I think the next one coming up is in Austin. So if you're in the Austin area, love to have have you join us.

Joey (54:31)

Sweet man. Well, I appreciate what you do and you're spearheading, you know, so much in this area. So just yeah, admire you for that and thank you for ⁓ and you and your team for the good work you're doing. So returning you on and glad you could come back and ⁓ make your ⁓ third appearance on the show. man. man

Dan Meola (54:49)

It's

all right. ⁓

Joey (54:51)

Right.

You live out to all the hype. No You you were a great man. No, appreciate it. So ⁓ yeah, so definitely encourage everyone to check out Life Giving Moons. We will link to everything that Dan mentioned in the show notes. You can get the book, check out the poetry section, or you know, check out the website at the very least. And so ⁓ yeah, definitely encourage you guys to do that. But Dan, as I usually do, I wanna give you the final word. So I'm just wondering what final encouragement or advice would you offer to to everyone listening, especially, you know, adult children of divorce who

Dan Meola (54:54)

Yeah yeah.

Joey (55:21)

are struggling in their relationship with God, who maybe are afraid of, you know, even opening that door, what what final encouragement or advice would you offer to them?

Dan Meola (55:29)

Yeah, just you're not alone. You're not alone. if you feel abandoned by God, if God feels far, if God feels unsafe, should also mention that because of our childhood experiences, like you're not alone in that. There's others who have felt the same way like you. And just encourage you to to explore that and join us or use Joey's resources or w you know, maybe it's your local parish or church, whatever it is. But just just to know

The Lord loves you and He's gentle, He's tender, He's full of love. And yeah, He wants to help heal you in this deeper way in that the faith can be so good and such an asset for healing from my own life. I would not be who I am or have experienced as much healing enjoying my life without the faith. I do believe it's the deepest level of healing and I hope and pray every listener out there ⁓ gives it a chance to experience that too. God bless.

Joey Pontarelli (56:31)

That wraps up this episode. If this podcast has helped you, feel free to subscribe and rate or review the show. You'll avoid missing episodes and help us reach people. And in closing, always remember you are not doomed repeat your family's dysfunction. can break that cycle and build a better life. And we are here help. And keep in mind the words of C.S. Lewis who said, You can't go back and change the beginning, you can start where you are change ending.