A hardened heart isn't where the story starts. It's what's left after a child trusted, got hurt, and concluded: I'll never be in that position again. This week, Dr. Greg turns the antisocial series toward hope: looking at how that hardness forms, and how the Sacred Heart of Jesus, betrayed and pierced yet still open, breaks the pattern.

Key Topics:

Why a hardened heart is never cold by nature—it's protection learned the first time trusting backfired
Why the urge to control everyone around you is really an old strategy for never being at anyone's mercy again
How "making up for it" can quietly become a way to avoid facing the wound underneath
Why Jesus didn't heal the hardened heart from a safe distance—He walked straight into betrayal and stayed open
What it means that control isn't the enemy; where you aim it is what changes everything
Why healing means loving even the parts of you that sin, not just the parts that behave
Why you can't will yourself into trust overnight—and why that slowness reflects your dignity, not your failure

Learn More:

Earlier in this series on the Antisocial Defense Patterns:
- Antisocial Part 1 — Ep. #281: Control or Be Controlled: The Devastating Wounds Behind Antisocial Behavioral Patterns
- Antisocial Part 2 — Ep. #282: You're (Probably) Not a Serial Killer—But You May Share Some of Their Antisocial Traits
The Litany for Mental Health Dr. Greg references: A Litany for Mental Health
The original Sacred Heart revelations: The Autobiography of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque
Start of the Being Human series on the Histrionic Defense Patterns:
- Ep. #274: To Be Loved Is to Perform: Inside the Histrionic Compulsion for Attention and Validation
Start of the Being Human series on the Borderline Defense Patterns:
- Ep. #269: BORDERLINE: The Push-Pull Between a Fear of Abandonment and Annihilation
Start of the Being Human series on the Dependent Defense Patterns:
- Ep. #265: Jerry Maguire, Gollum, and the Fear of Not Existing
Start of the Being Human series on the Narcissistic Defense Patterns:
- Ep. #261: Narcissism and the Terror of Being Ordinary
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