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

  • Does Faith Make You Happy?

    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 and …

  • Can You “Practice” Joy?

    How should you judge whether a Mass, or church service, was good or bad? For me, among the criteria is whether or not you leave happier than you went into …

  • Ruined for Life?

    In 1989, the military in El Salvador murdered six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter in their home in San Salvador. The priests were internationally recognized scholars who wrote and …

  • Insights into What Comes Next

    I’ve written before about my 4-year-old grandson, Leo. Many grandfathers would say this about their grandchildren, of course, but I think he’s exceptionally smart. He asks a lot of smart …

  • Boring? Maybe, but Worth It

    The Internet and social media are full of articles about people who have given up on religion and churchgoing. I get it. People ask themselves why they need it. Compared …

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Past Posts

mm Tom Carney

Got Faith? Only If You Have Empathy

Jul 27, 2017

A neighbor and I recently met on the sidewalk in front of our house and I asked about her daughter, who has a rare disease that attacks nerve cells...

mm Ted

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jul 21, 2017

“Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where have the weeds come from?” Mt. 13:27   “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” Many...

mm Tom Carney

Why I’m a Catholic

Jul 20, 2017

Though these blogs are obviously written by a Catholic, I try to make them as non-denominational as possible, hoping they can be of use to all readers. But it...

mm Tom Carney

Want Peace? Trust

Jul 13, 2017

As I was thinking about how to write about trust, I looked out my office window and saw a robin lighting on the topmost branch of a birch tree...

mm Ted

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jul 13, 2017

“The seed sown on rich soil is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.” Mt....

mm Ted

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jul 10, 2017

“Come to me all you who are labored and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Mt. 11:28   Early in the 1960’s, during my college years, a singing...

mm Tom Carney

Why Truth Matters

Jul 06, 2017

I recently received a letter that appeared to be “official.” It had the clear plastic windows on the envelope you would expect from an official source, a return address...

mm Tom Carney

Where to Look for God

Jun 29, 2017

“If people say they just love the smell of books, I always want to pull them aside and ask, to be clear, do you know how reading works?” I...