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“Do Not Be Afraid … You Are My Dearest Friends”*

Toxic Fear is perhaps life’s greatest hostage-taker. One psychiatrist calls it a “disease of the imagination.” Fear and disabling Worry can start off like a tiny seed and, watered by thoughts that emphasize worst-case scenarios, grow into a virus-like fiend that ends up dominating our mental state. It then holds us back from our ability to enjoy nearly every dimension of our life: our talents, our work, our love, our play, and our approach to a life in the Spirit.

This website is dedicated to three major Defense Systems that can be effective in helping us overcome the insidious nature of fear, as well as other mental health demons like depression. It will also focus on how we can better live out our lives free of those persistent foragers that roam throughout the corners of our minds… relentlessly haunting us.

Those three Defense Systems are: Spirituality, Psychology and Addiction. All three of these provide newly developed means of delving into the root causes of fear and depression and other mental health disorders, and assisting people in finding improved pathways to freedom, joy, and peace.

“Do not be afraid” – a phrase found 365 times in Sacred Scripture!

*Luke 12:32; translation found in The Bible in Contemporary Language, Eugene H. Peterson

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Past Posts

mm Tom Carney

Starting with the Historical Jesus

Feb 19, 2025

Some people don’t believe there was a Jesus. Others believe he was merely one of the many revolutionaries of his time, fomenting rebellion against the Roman occupiers of Israel....

mm Tom Carney

Jimmy Carter: A Fish Out of Water?

Feb 13, 2025

In a recent article, Sam Sawyer, editor of America Magazine, quoted Pope Francis describing politics as “a lofty vocation, and one of the highest forms of charity, inasmuch as...

mm Tom Carney

No Atheists in Foxholes?

Feb 06, 2025

(Part of this blog includes material from Skeptical Faith blogs from 2014 and 2024.) According to an old maxim, “There are no atheists in foxholes.” As you may recall,...

mm Tom Carney

Immigration and the “R Word”

Jan 30, 2025

I like traditional Irish music, and one of my favorite songs is “The Rambling Irishman,” made popular in 1976 by a group called The Wolfe Tones. One of the...

mm Tom Carney

A Question for God

Jan 23, 2025

I’m participating in a program at our parish called “Alpha.” Its aim is to discuss basic questions about God – including God’s existence – about who Jesus is, or...

mm Tom Carney

The Age of Confusion?

Jan 16, 2025

I’m a big fan of wildlife and outdoor videos, mostly on YouTube. I recently watched a video showing half a dozen toddler bears exiting their den among boulders, seeing...

mm Tom Carney

RSVP

Jan 09, 2025

My wife, Amparo, and I recently bought a car, not a new one but a late model. It seemed to make the most economic sense. What didn’t make sense...

mm Tom Carney

Faith Like Falling in Love?

Jan 02, 2025

I’ve often quoted New York Times columnist David Brooks in these blogs because I find his columns unusually insightful. And, unlike many columnists in that publication and others, he...