Welcome!

“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

Dr. Ted’s Mailing List

Past Posts

mm Ted

NYTimes: Which Type of Exercise Is Best for the Brain?

Feb 20, 2016

Article published by the New York Time Which Type of Exercise Is Best for the Brain?

mm Ted

NYTimes: How Meditation Changes the Brain and Body

Feb 20, 2016

Article published by the New York Times: How Meditation Changes the Brain and Body

mm Tom Carney

Courage: A Vital Ingredient in Faith

Feb 18, 2016

Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds stared down the barrel of his Nazi captor’s pistol in a German prison camp 71 years ago and refused to say which of his fellow...

mm Ted

First Sunday of Lent

Feb 16, 2016

A reflection on the First Sunday of Lent by Sr. Rachel Bergschneider: “Don’t tempt me!” Without thinking, these words pop out of the mouth of dieters who are offered...

mm Ted

Richard Rohr: Cosmos Instead of Churchiness

Feb 14, 2016

Once you are in an authority position in any institution, your job is to preserve that institution, and your freedom to live and speak the full truth becomes limited....

mm Ted

First Sunday of Lent

Feb 14, 2016

“Jesus … was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil.” Lk 4:1 Temptation. Even the word itself is enticing, alluring....

mm Ted

Richard Rohr: Incarnation instead of Atonement

Feb 12, 2016

Franciscans never believed that “blood atonement” was required for God to love us. Our teacher, John Duns Scotus (1266-1308), said Christ was Plan A from the very beginning (Colossians...

mm Ted

Richard Rohr: Fully Human, Fully Divine

Feb 12, 2016

Francis emphasized an imitation and love of the humanity of Jesus, and not just the proving or worshiping of his divinity. Even Christian art changed after Francis; take a...