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

  • Immigration and the “R Word”

    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 reasons …

  • A Question for God

    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 was, …

  • The Age of Confusion?

    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 the …

  • RSVP

    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 as …

  • Faith Like Falling in Love?

    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 doesn’t …

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Past Posts

mm Ted

The Impact of Pornography on Children

Nov 05, 2015

The American College of Pediatrics has come out with a position statement on pornography being harmful to children. It has many good references for further study. Here is that...

mm Ted

Nicholas Kristof: Drugs, Greed and a Dead Boy

Nov 05, 2015

Nicholas Kristoff is columnist for the New York Times. This article looks at the increasing danger of “medications” being used with countless children and the outrageous profits being made...

mm Tom Carney

Lessons from a Baseball Team

Nov 05, 2015

Many of you may not be sports fans, but this post is not about sports. It’s not even about my favorite baseball team, the Kansas City Royals, who –...

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Feast of All Saints

Oct 30, 2015

Recently I had the opportunity to visit several of my nieces who live in various parts of the West Coast. Each of them have young children – delightful, smart,...

mm Tom Carney

Cramming Religion Down Your Throat

Oct 29, 2015

Back in 1983, Joseph Girzone, a Carmelite priest, wrote his first book. It was self-published and his advertising was by word-of-mouth, but the book became wildly popular and was...

mm Tom Carney

What Its Like to Be Us

Oct 22, 2015

I grew up in a loving family but we never said we loved each other and rarely showed it physically. That all changed for our family, and I believe for many...

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Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Oct 21, 2015

“Master, I want to see.” Mk. 10:51 In a recent column, the journalist John Allen tells about a dinner experience he had while covering the Synod of Bishops now...

mm Tom Carney

God as Magician

Oct 15, 2015

I traveled to Europe as a young seminary student and had my first encounters with non-believers. They awakened a sense of the fragility of my faith with which I...