Written by Dr. Bryan Violette, CatholicPsych Chief of Staff and IDDM Training Director.  

Throughout my work as a psychologist (and now Mentor), I’ve had a lot of experience exploring relational patterns, especially some of the common dynamics between men and women. 

The almost universal complaint about men from the perspective of women is that men try to "fix" their feelings when all they really want is to feel understood. There’s a very funny portrayal of...

Have you ever read a passage from the Gospel and asked yourself, "I wonder what Jesus was feeling in this passage? What emotions was he experiencing here?"

(I would be willing to bet it isn’t all that often.)

For some reason, it’s easy to forget that Jesus actually felt things as we tend to gloss over the real experience of Jesus. 

In his humanity, he knew what it was to feel sadness, joy, and amusement … the sting of rejection, anger, apprehension…

To...

Why is this relationship so draining? Do I just need to cut this person out of my life completely? 

I can't handle my [parent/child/boss/etc.] anymore! Every conversation we have ends in an argument! Should I stop communicating with them for good?

I get questions like this all the time from clients and friends alike. The questions aren't about just one kind of relationship either. From friendships to dating to parent/child relationships, the question of healthy boundaries pertains...

Life is hard.

Doing this human thing can be pretty challenging at times. It can feel overwhelming. 

We all have a list of things to point to that justify why we feel overwhelmed: the kids, the deadline, the job insecurity, the commitments, the family conflict...you name it.

However, if we take a step back and look at how overwhelm works, we’ll realize that overwhelm doesn’t creep in because of what's happening in the present moment.

Overwhelm takes over when we let our minds...

This blog article is an excerpt from The Mindful Catholic.

Catholic mindfulness presupposes faith that God the Father is a good Father. But if God is good and all-powerful and loves us, why does he let bad things happen to good people?

I once sent out a flyer for a mindfulness course that mentioned “trustful surrender to God who loves us,” which prompted a letter from an upset woman. She asked how she could be expected to practice mindfulness based on a God who loves her...

"Become who you are."

These words from St. John Paul II have echoed in my heart since I first heard them in 1997 at World Youth Day in Paris. My journey has taken me from being a student in the classroom of Peter Kreeft to a Franciscan Friar with Fr. Benedict Groeschel, and eventually to earning a doctorate in Clinical Psychology in 2012 before forming the CatholicPsych Institute. 

I formed CatholicPsych to empower people to become who they are by providing services and resources that...

On the CatholicPsych Facebook page, I once shared a post that ended up getting more shares, comments, and reactions than any thing I've ever posted. (Even now, years later, I still periodically receive notification of a new comment on that particular post!)

I shared this particular post because I’m a huge proponent of integration: the belief that our psychological and emotional lives are deeply united with, and deeply affecting, our spiritual lives, and vice versa. 

So...

As humans, we possess the capability to encounter in the present moment something that is outside of the present moment in a way that physically changes our brains. 

It’s a little like having a superpower if you think about it. 

As material beings, we live within the confines of space and time. Through our five senses, our brains collect data about what’s happening to us in the “here and now.” 

So if you see something, you are seeing...

Guest blog post by Lindsey Peppers, continued from Part One... 

To make a long story short, this stumbling block got me off track...and then COVID hit and of course, things got even crazier. My anxiety and pain hit its climax. I knew I needed to get back on track with some of the mind-body principles I had learned.

One day soon after making this resolution, I stumbled upon the book The Mindful Catholic and listened to the audio version all the way through. (I’m now taking the...

Guest blogger Lindsey Peppers shares her journey to finding hope and healing through Catholic Mindfulness. (This is part 1 of a 2-part series.) 

It was an otherwise unremarkable weekday in the fall of 2016 when I sat across from my neurologist, completely dumbfounded at the sample boxes of triptans (migraine medication) that were stacked in front of me. He had told me that while it “wasn’t smart” to take more triptans than my insurance covered due to the risk of rebound...