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

  • Between Belief and Faith?

    Many people think that either you’re a believer or you’re not. If you’re a believer, they may say, you must adhere to a faith that is expressed in dogma and …

  • “Thoughts and Prayers?”

    On social media, and in person, many people seem to dislike the phrase, “You’re in our thoughts and prayers,” used when someone discloses a tragedy such as a death in …

  • “She Who Is?”

    I’ve mentioned several times in these blogs that I had a sort of awakening in my early 30s about my image of God. A homily by a young priest declared …

  • Does God Have Favorites?

    Five years ago, I wrote a blog called “What’s So Great about Being Poor?” “Nothing,” I wrote, “unless being among God’s favorites counts for nothing.” It’s true that poverty, in …

  • “A Hundred Thousand Welcomes?”

    I’ve often written about my personal connection to Ireland, undoubtedly because all of my great grandparents were Irish immigrants and I’ve always been interested in them and their homeland. In …

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Past Posts

mm Tom Carney

How to “Find” God

Oct 02, 2025

When you fall in love, you want to think of nothing else, or no one else, but your beloved. It can be close to an obsession. If you marry,...

mm Tom Carney

Is Self-Love Overrated?

Sep 25, 2025

There’s an ad appearing regularly on streaming video, and I assume on regular TV, showing an attractive young woman with beautiful, long black hair who has just used a...

mm Tom Carney

Faith, in a Culture of Violence

Sep 18, 2025

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know about the recent murder of Charlie Kirk, a religious conservative, co-founder of Turning Point USA and an influential voice in...

mm Tom Carney

“Thy Will Be Done?”

Sep 11, 2025

A phrase in the “Our Father,” also called the Lord’s Prayer, has always been a problem for me. To me, this phrase expresses the aspiration that we, and everybody...

mm Tom Carney

Faith, Patience and Endurance

Sep 04, 2025

Interesting, isn’t it, how things can be going smoothly in your life, then all of a sudden, they’re not? Those things may be relatively insignificant, like getting cut off...

mm Tom Carney

The Kingdom of Heaven???

Aug 28, 2025

Before moving to Colorado, my wife, Amparo, and I used to drive from Des Moines to Denver to see our daughter, Maureen, who lives in the city’s southern suburbs....

mm Tom Carney

Evolution: The Creator’s Favorite Tool?

Aug 21, 2025

I often sit and read on the small stoop outside our house in the evenings, sometimes with “an adult beverage.” It’s usually cool and always calming. The calming effect...

mm Tom Carney

Ignoring the Obvious?

Aug 14, 2025

As it says on its website, this blog is written mainly for “those who have given up on God and/or religion,” and in a broader sense, for all of us...