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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

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Past Posts

mm Tom Carney

Will Everything Really Be OK?

Sep 30, 2021

I recently happened across clips of the 1997 movie “Life is Beautiful” on YouTube and was reminded that the movie itself is beautiful, and meaningful. The winner of three...

mm Ted

Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Sep 26, 2021

“If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off …. If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off … If your eye causes you to sin,...

mm Tom Carney

It’s Not Just About the Intellect

Sep 24, 2021

Back when I was writing about medicine and health for The Des Moines Register, I was surprised to learn that people in scientific fields often don’t act rationally. I...

mm Tom Carney

A Guide to Finding Faith?

Sep 16, 2021

Some years ago, a friend of New York Times opinion columnist Ross Douthat told Douthat that, “If appreciating some of the ideas in St. Augustine’s ‘Confessions’ was enough to...

mm Ted

Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Sep 13, 2021

“Who do people say that I am? …. Who do you say that I am?” Mk. 8:27&29   Some time ago, a priest was telling me about a church...

mm Ted

Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Sep 13, 2021

 A famous Indian Jesuit named Anthony de Mello used to tell the story about “disciples gathered around their master, asking him endless questions about God. And the master would...

mm Tom Carney

Did God Make Us or Did We Make God?

Sep 09, 2021

Are we made in God’s image and likeness or is God made in our image and likeness? The first notion is in Genesis, the first book of the Bible,...

mm Tom Carney

Why We Won’t Talk About God

Sep 02, 2021

Every week after publishing these blogs I post a brief summary of the blog’s contents and its accompanying image on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram and email the same...