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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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Good Friday

May 18, 2024

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way….” Hebrews 4:15 This...

mm Ted

Holy Thursday

May 18, 2024

“Do you realize what I have done for you? …. If I, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have...

mm Ted

Palm Sunday

May 18, 2024

“ … though he was in the form of God … he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave … he humbled himself.” Phil. 2:7-8 14th century German mystic...

mm Ted

Fifth Sunday of Lent

May 18, 2024

 “Neither do I condemn you.” Jn. 8:11 (NOTE: The Church gives a variety of choices for this Sunday. I have chosen the following powerful story that is one among...

mm Tom Carney

The Borders of Our Hearts

May 16, 2024

I’m a weekly volunteer at a social services agency, where my duties include interpreting from Spanish to English, and vice versa, for recent immigrants. If they qualify financially and...

mm Tom Carney

Neither Spiritual nor Religious?

May 09, 2024

One of the most solemn and ancient rituals of the Catholic Church is the Easter Vigil. As the name implies, it is held on the Saturday evening before Easter...

mm Tom Carney

The Value of Doubt

May 02, 2024

I recently watched “Freud’s Last Session” on Netflix, a movie set in England at the start of WW2. It stars Anthony Hopkins as Sigmund Freud, the famous pioneer in...

mm Tom Carney

Does Faith Make You Happy?

Apr 25, 2024

Mother Teresa, the Nobel prize-winning nun who dedicated her life to serving the poorest and sickest in India, always appeared to be cheerful and joyous. But her letters, collected...