Reality Party

In this episode, Nicole & Trinity explore how to wrestle with God in the midst of our disappointments and shattered dreams, what it means to actually have a face before God, and what our good God might be up to when we think He's not doing anything. We recommend C.S. Lewis' Til We Have Faces for the trillionth time, and sooner or later we are going to do a series on the book, so now's a good time...

In this episode, Nicole introduces the nature of shame, mostly pulling from Curt Thompson's The Soul of Shame: Retelling the Stories We Believe About Ourselves. She discusses its relationship to vulnerability, how it will show up and disrupt the process of learning that's required for growing as people and for growing in intimate relationships, and its connection to motivation. This is only the be...

In this episode, we tackle the nature of hope and how to experience it in the midst of unmet needs, desires, and longings. What is hope? What does it mean to have hope in Jesus rather than in circumstances or desired outcomes?  Here's the song that Nicole mentioned: Revival's In the Air by Bethel Music

In this episode, Nicole explores an important antidote to anxiety: expanding our imaginations. She explores how we can understand anxiety as being stuck in a very small world out of which we must break out so we can enter our real, vast and mysterious world. Book recommendations: - You Are the One You've Been Waiting For: Applying Internal Family Systems to Intimate Relationships by Richard Schwar...

After a long and unexpected hiatus, we have returned with season 2!  First, Nicole & Trinity explain why we took such a long break, our new philosophy and approach to the podcast, and then we discuss what God has been teaching us all these months.  We touch on discouragement and motivation, self-compassion, struggling with abandonment wounds, how to approach our wounded parts, and prayer.  Thanks...

In this episode, we take on the following questions (while keeping in mind those who struggle with scrupulosity): How are we supposed to attach to God given the existence of Hell? Does the possibility of Hell mean we can't trust God's heart for us? How can we reconcile the need to trust Him with the possibility of eternal damnation?  

We're back after taking a week off for Thanksgiving! Follow us on Instagram @realitypartypodcast for updates and news, like when we're taking a week off. In this episode, we talk about our how we're doing this Advent and what's on our hearts. For the first time, we just let pressed record and had a normal conversation, updating each other in real time. We thought we'd try something new, so let us...

In this episode, Nicole tackles the role of the imagination in the spiritual life, and how we need healthy imaginations in order to have a proper desire for God and the spiritual life. She also offers a few ideas regarding how to start healing the imagination, especially as someone who has struggled with a wounded imagination herself. 

In this episode, Nicole offers a basic background on the philosophy of the human person as laid out by Aristotle and Aquinas, but with a specific focus on the emotions, where they come from, and what their role would have been in our state of "original integrity," which Fr. Brian Mullady uses to describe how Adam and Eve functioned (and therefore, how we are designed to function). Since we live po...

In this episode, Nicole & Trinity share their intellectual and personal reasons for belief in God, ranging from the idea of God as the first cause of all things to God as the underlying order and reason that makes this world understandable. This is what we might say if an atheist at the bar asked us "Why do you believe in God, anyway?" Is this episode supposed to definitively prove God's existence...

In today's episode, Nicole & Trinity take on scrupulosity, which is a kind of spiritual perfectionism and a subset of OCD. We don't take on the topic from a clinical perspective, but rather some underlying beliefs and God images that might dispose us toward a struggle with scrupulosity. We discuss God's goodness, mercy, and examples of His character found in literature.  Link to Sr. Miriam James c...

Nicole Hocott explains how one might even begin to answer, "What is Reality?" We figured that since this is a podcast that's making claims about reality and that has "reality" in the title, it would probably be a good idea to define what that is. In order to do this, we have to engage in metaphysics. This episode will also attempt to pitch you the idea that your metaphysics (i.e., your underlying...

In this episode, Trinity and Nicole take on the void, or the sense of longing for more that's part of every human life. Questions Explored: What am I supposed to do with my longings and unmet desires? Where do I take my disappointments, and how am I supposed to interpret them in light of God's goodness? If I'm a Christian, am I supposed to feel satisfied already? What will ultimately satisfy the h...