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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

Recent Posts

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Past Posts

mm Tom Carney

Love in an Age of Darkness

Jul 17, 2025

This blog is second in a series on an interview with Rowan Williams in the New York Times that was so cogent, so relevant to my goal of helping...

mm Tom Carney

The Chocolate Teapot Circling the Earth?

Jul 10, 2025

For the next few weeks, this blog, Skeptical Faith, will be a bit different. That’s because I recently read in the New York Times an interview with Rowan Williams...

mm Tom Carney

What Is an “Intrinsic” Christian?

Jul 03, 2025

Back in 2006, Author Dannagal Young sprinkled her husband’s bath towel with holy water while he was showering. She got the holy water from a friend, who tried the...

mm Tom Carney

An Obstacle in the Search for God?

Jun 26, 2025

I’ve written about sexual subjects only a few times in the 12 years I’ve been writing this blog. Why? Shouldn’t every aspect of life be included among topics meant...

mm Tom Carney

Seeing Church as Family

Jun 19, 2025

Years ago, a young work colleague told me she had stopped going to church and no longer considered herself a Catholic. She wasn’t very specific about her objections to...

mm Tom Carney

Why “The Chosen” is Worth Watching

Jun 11, 2025

I was a latecomer to “The Chosen.” I finished watching season 4 only a couple of weeks ago. I had thought it was probably just another pious portrayal of...

mm Tom Carney

Adios, Francis

Jun 05, 2025

I grew up on Sacramento Street in St. Joseph, Mo., and it only recently occurred to me how the street probably got its name. St. Joseph, if you recall,...

mm Tom Carney

The New Paganism

May 29, 2025

David Brooks, one of my favorite writers – who was considered a conservative until the Trump era – believes the president is the archetype of contemporary paganism. I know...