Below in red is a talk my Aunt Betty gave:

We each have within us a part that is going to save itself because it is right, a part that doesn’t need a Savior, Healer, and Redeemer.  We need to learn to listen to the total part of our being and bring that to our God for healing, saving, and redeeming.  The weak and despised parts of our being are often the source of our greatest gift.  “When I am weak, then I am “strong.”  “The humble and contrite of heart Jesus will not despise.”  (Psalm 51:17)

When we aren’t dealing with our shadow, we are projecting it onto other people.  We can find our shadow by writing down the names of five people we can’t stand, and asking Jesus to show us how we hook into that person.  “Nobody can get my goat unless I’ve got a goat to get.”  If someone in your life is getting your goat, have you thanked God for them?  They are a gift, a tremendous gift in your agitator.  As St. Bernard said, “Brothers, if you do not have in this monastery a Brother who irritates you, then for the love of God, go to a neighboring monastery and borrow one.”  Agitators help us get cleaned up.

We need the gift to see our weakness, because in our weakness is the gem, the gold.  There is gold in the part of us that we don’t like, waiting for Jesus Christ, Healer, Savior, and Redeemer to discover it.  Something is wrong within us when we are not aware of the sinner, the creature, the wounded part of our being.  We are missing a lot of opportunity for transforming growth, for wholeness.

We want to judge God according to our judgments, and we miss out on a whole lot that way.  When the Charismatic Renewal started, some remarked that so many of the people seemed broken.  Jesus hung out with the sinners.  There’s a Pharisee within all of us, a self-righteous part in all of us, psychologically, the “good girl” or the “good boy.”

In our society it’s not very popular to state your needs.  We want to come across to others as someone who has it all together.  The real person who has it all together is the one who knows they don’t have it all together, for they have the courage to stand in truth, and cry out for help.  If I am hating, and disliking and rejecting myself, then I will be picked up by those who are sensitive as disliking and rejecting them.  And the more problems I have with self-hatred, the more I will be giving off energy vibes that will be interpreted by others, “I don’t like you.”  When we learn to love ourselves, we will learn to love others.  As we learn to know ourselves, we’re going to be more sensitive, more compassionate to the needs of others.  Inner healing is unselfish, because it’s allowing the love of Jesus to strip us of our pretenses, and allow us to stand in our authentic “I am.”

As Christians, we are being called to be aware of what we’re feeling and to take responsibility.  If we’re not aware of what we’re feeling, it often means that we need to invite Jesus Christ back into areas where we’ve blocked off how to feel, where we’ve received bad teaching.  For example, we may have been told, “Strong men don’t cry or Good Christian women don’t get angry.”  Our feelings don’t always tell the truth.  Sometimes we want to run away from a situation because we feel anxiety and feel we are going to be judged by others.  We can take authority over the fear and not act on it.  We need to be aware of our feelings, and make a decision on how we are going to communicate or act on that feeling.