Home Page - Ted's Thoughts

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

Election Anxiety
I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling a bit of election anxiety. I’m not crazy about either presidential candidate, to be honest, but using the standards of my faith, …
Do Believers Have Their Act Together?
I vividly recall when, as a kid, I learned that a priest who was popular nationally for his ultra-traditionalist, anti-Semitic radio broadcasts, was excommunicated by the Catholic Church for insisting …
The Problem with “Chosen Families”
Listening to a radio broadcast recently, I heard an interview of a woman who was advocating for more freedom for women. Basically, she said that women should be free from …
Are We Becoming “Junkified?”
One of my favorite all-time Saturday Night Live characters was Debbie Downer, a fictional person created and portrayed by the show’s regular, Rachel Dratch. Debbie could always be counted on …
Can the Ordinary Become Extraordinary?
When I read gospel passages like the following from the Gospel of John – the whole of which was read in Catholic and other churches a few weeks ago – …

Past Posts

Ted

Crux: Opening the Holy Year, Francis says mercy always trumps judgment

Dec 08, 2015

Article found in Crux, owned by Boston Globe http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2015/12/08/opening-the-holy-year-francis-says-mercy-always-trumps-judgment/

Ted

Crux: Everything you need to know about the Holy Year of Mercy

Dec 08, 2015

An article found in Crux, owned by Boston Globe http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2015/12/07/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-holy-year-of-mercy/

Ted

Crux: Five predictions for the unpredictable Pope Francis in 2016

Dec 08, 2015

An article by John Allen featured in Crux, a division of the Boston Globe: http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2015/12/06/five-predictions-for-the-unpredictable-pope-francis-in-2016/

Ted

The Year of Mercy Begins

Dec 07, 2015

Beautiful depiction of Year of Mercy in an article in the National Catholic Reporter: http://ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/year-mercy-begins

Ted

Crux:The megachurch boom rolls on, but concerns are rising

Dec 07, 2015

This article found in Crux gives an update on the change that is taking place in American megachurches. http://www.cruxnow.com/faith/2015/12/02/the-megachurch-boom-rolls-on-but-big-concerns-are-rising/

Ted

Here’s an archdiocese with an action plan for implementing ‘Laudato Si’

Dec 04, 2015

An article dedicated to showing what can be done about climate change at the diocesan and parish level. http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2015/12/04/heres-an-archdiocese-with-an-action-plan-for-implementing-laudato-si/

Ted