“The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken.” Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. - Genesis 2:20-24

I talk a lot about oneness with my clients, pretty much all of which are Catholic spouses coming to me either together or individually. Interestingly, although this concept of becoming “one flesh” through the Sacrament of marriage is quite familiar, we still tend to miss a big part of what it’s about.

When I ask my clients to describe what it means to become one, they often delve into the Church’s teachings on the indissolubility of marriage, founded on Jesus’s own insistence that divorce is not permissible under God’s law: “Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one’? So they are no longer two but one. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder” (Matthew 19:4–6).

While this is certainly a huge part of what it means to become one flesh, another often overlooked component is also crucial for understanding the rich beauty of the sacrament of marriage.

Oneness not only means that spouses are joined for life but that they are better together than they were apart. When we come together in marriage according to God’s plan for us, we do so with someone God has deemed necessary for our salvation. Your spouse is not just one choice out of many. He was chosen for you by God to elevate your spiritual life to a plane previously inaccessible to you on your own.

This elevation works through an inflowing of God’s grace: each of the sacraments (baptism, reconciliation, holy communion, confirmation, marriage, holy orders, and anointing of the sick) are all outward signs of assured inward graces. Unique to the sacrament of marriage, God pours out these graces upon you through another person, your spouse.

What’s more, God chose your specific spouse, your specific marriage, as your path to sanctification in this life. Your marriage, not your job, hobbies, or volunteer work, is your vocation. Thus, all of the things your spouse brings to the table—strengths and weaknesses, quirks and characteristics—God deemed necessary to make you into the person he wants you to be. And the reverse is also true. You are necessary for your spouse’s sanctification, too!

It’s a deeply romantic thought to dwell on: the love story you two are writing is one that will exist for eternity in service of eternity (that is, your eternal souls). So, the next time you feel the normal temptations arise to grow irritated with your spouse’s flaws or differences in opinion, keep in mind that the alternative—a life apart—is much further from God’s will for you than where you are right now. In fact, even through all the difficulties you and your spouse may face together, God is willing (either actively or passively) this version of your life story, the one you are living together right now.

Keep doing the Lord’s work!

~ Cameron

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“And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.” Matthew 3:16

Of all three of the Persons of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit has perhaps seemed the most mysterious to me. In Jesus, God blesses us with a visible, breathing Divine Person whom we can relate to in our humanity. As our big brother who walked the same path of life (and death) with the same Father as us, Jesus is always available as our fraternal example of perfection.

Then, God the Father, though veiled in a very real sense while we remain on earth, has been revealed to us by the Son, Jesus. We can understand God to some degree as our perfect heavenly Father, our Divine Protector, Provider, Disciplinarian, Comforter, and wise Counsel. Because we can grasp what the human relationships of brother and father entail, we can at least imagine who Jesus and the Father are to us and who we are to them.

The same is not necessarily so with the Spirit. We know he was Mary’s Divine Spouse, whose overshadowing conceived Jesus in her womb. We know the Spirit works in the Church, animating it with life and preparing it as the bride of Christ. We know the Spirit unites all baptized Christians into the one mystical body of Christ. The Holy Spirit inspired the Bible. He proceeds from the Father and the Son as the love that flows between them.

And, we know that he lives in us. Baptism transforms us into dwelling places for the Holy Spirit, a home for him we must keep prepared for his presence through prayer and the Sacraments—particularly regular reception of the Eucharist and Reconciliation—if we wish for him to make us a permanent residence. But what does all this mean about how we should relate to him?

Who is he to us and who are we to him?

I was recently reflecting on this description the Spirit gifts us of himself in Matthew. He compares himself to a dove descending upon Jesus. It seems to me a crucial visual, at the very least because it flies in the face of images I have held of our Advocate. For example, when I pray the Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary, I often picture Pentecost as a ground shaking, thunderous, fiery, in-your-face event, as if the Spirit entered like a bull in a China shop or a great army laying siege to a small village: “Here I am. Hear me roar!” I suppose that’s how the Old Testament Jews expected the Messiah to show up, too.

Of course, the Spirit of God is powerful enough to make a grand entrance and much more. But this image of him is certainly not very dove-like. I’m beginning to wonder if perhaps the truth about the Holy Spirit is closer to the gentle, quiet, yet commonplace (steadfast) presence of the mourning doves that frequent our backyard. We see them all the time, resting on powerlines and in trees, hardly disruptive but certainly noticeable if you’re listening.

Whereas I have often wished the Spirit were more like a hawk—swooping down to rescue me from danger (most often caused by my own poor choices and sin)—or a bald eagle—with a loud cry that’s impossible to miss—that’s not how the Spirit of God chooses to reveal himself to us. He’s far closer to the most intimate of friends, always present to offer gentle encouragement toward holiness without threatening our free will. He lets us live, to experience the highs and lows of life, knowing these experiences are what will help us learn over time to choose him instead of ourselves.

He’s the one guiding us to the wedding banquet, dressing us for the eternal celebration. Jesus left us because he knew how much we need the Spirit. But, do we even recognize that need? Do we treat him like the closest of friends?

I certainly have some work to do in this area!

Come, Holy Spirit. Help us to know and love you more in the ways you deserve.

~ Cameron

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Our Christian faith places on us the responsibility to surrender ourselves to God: our worries, doubts, hopes, dreams, triumphs, and trials. God desires all of us and deserves all of us. After all, he created us and only in doing his will can we find true joy and peace. Most of us understand this concept, at least intellectually.

We also understand that this surrendering is a choice. We can choose to give ourselves to God because we possess ourselves in the first place, albeit as a free gift from him. For this same reason, it’s often harder to understand how to surrender to Jesus the other people in our lives. How others treat us, the choices they make, and ultimately who they choose to become—these things worry us, especially in the relationships we value most. They also feel largely outside of our control.

Yet, total surrender is exactly what it sounds like: God granted each of us a life of limitless gifts, none of which we earned or have a right to, including the other people we are privileged to know and love. Oftentimes, it is this surrender of others that we miss in our spiritual lives.

But what does it look like to surrender others to God?

First of all, by virtue of being human, we all exist in one big human family. This ultimately means that—just as in our immediate families—we are responsible to a greater or lesser degree for all the people around us. How we operate in the world doesn’t just impact us. It impacts countless others as a pebble thrown in a pond causes a rippling out effect to cover the entire pond. We won’t know until we die and face Jesus how much we impacted others, for better or worse.

Thus, surrender cannot mean an abdication of responsibility for other people. Where God is calling us to intervene in the lives of others, we are obligated to answer that call. Surrender, instead, has far more to do with outcomes and credit.

To make things simple, we can break down this idea of surrendering others into two categories. We must surrender to God:

1. Other people’s choices and ultimate fate

2. How other people affect us

1. Other People’s Choices

Everyone has had the experience of desiring to and even trying to help another person who refuses to be helped. Even in therapy it’s unfortunately common to meet clients who promise they want to change but resist every prompting to do so.

The reason this experience is so painful is twofold: first, we want what’s best for the other person. We don’t want to see them suffer unnecessarily if changing their attitude or behavior would make them better off. And, second, we believe we know how they could change in a positive way. It hurts to have our advice ignored.

Yet, if we take a lesson from God’s playbook (the Bible), we see that he is very clear on our limited ability to influence others. Even Jesus himself couldn’t sway the hearts of all who heard his message without compromising their free will. This limitation of influence is ultimately what lead him to the cross, the only way to atone for the sins of a world that had turned its back on him.

Only the Holy Spirit can lead our hearts to change. Thus, it is ultimately up to God’s grace and the individual’s cooperation with that grace to see a real conversion of heart. I understand this even as a therapist. I can never take any credit for my clients’ growth. The Spirit provides them the opportunity for healing. The client must then cooperate with the Spirit’s promptings. I am only there to point out the opportunity.

2. How Other People Affect Us

When our spouse upsets us or our children don’t listen or our friends aren’t there for us when we need them, our knee-jerk reaction is to grasp for control. We respond defensively, or offensively, to protect ourselves from feeling the hurt and from being hurt again in the future.

But, Jesus invites us down a different path:

“As a surgeon who has to operate on a person of importance takes extra care to cause him as little suffering as possible and only what is strictly necessary for his recovery, or as a father unwillingly punishes a son he loves dearly only because he is obliged to do so for his son’s good, so God treats us as noble beings for whom He has the highest regard, or as beloved children whom he chastises because he loves them. (Rev 3:19)” - Fr. Jean Baptiste Saint-Jure and Saint Claude de la Colombière, Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence

God asks us to trust that each moment of our lives has been carefully orchestrated and allowed as part of his greater plan for our sanctification. This includes even the way those around us live. Every discomfort or disappointment, when embraced as an opportunity to abandon ourselves and others to God all the more, will leave our peace undisturbed and our faith stronger.

So, while at first it’s painfully humbling to admit how little control we have over others, a true acceptance of our limits is also freeing. When we view ourselves as we truly are, and others as they are, we can begin to operate within our real sphere of control and trust God to work out the rest, thus striking the holy balance between personal responsibility and trustful surrender.

Render onto God what is God’s, as Jesus tells us in Matthew 22:21. Certainly, the people we love most, their fates, their decisions, their sanctification all belong to the Lord just as much as we belong to him.

Keep doing the Lord’s work!

~ Cameron

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Growing up with serious aspirations to be a professional athlete meant that I learned a lot of lessons early about the reality of mastery. One of these lessons, a favorite of mine, was on delayed gratification, or the fact that the rewards of our labor often lag behind our actual effort. Consequently, if we want to achieve long-term success, we not only have to sacrifice short-term pleasure that would thwart our goals, but we also can’t rely on seeing our efforts immediately turn into results.

A simple example is physical fitness. To meaningfully and permanently change your level of fitness, you have to work out consistently, eat healthy, sleep well, and avoid things that will harm your recovery. In many ways, you have to reorient your lifestyle around this goal.

As a result, not only will you probably have to sacrifice some of the things you used to enjoy (e.g., nightly ice cream, regularly sleeping in, intense weekend partying), you also have to spend a long time working on your physical fitness to make noticeable improvements. For someone who has never worked out, it could take months to reach a goal like running a certain distance without stopping or bench pressing a certain weight.

People of all disciplines understand this concept since delayed gratification happens when pursuing any challenging (worthwhile) goal. However, when it comes to our faith lives we sometimes expect things to work differently.

We believe that once we commit to praying regularly, reading Scripture daily, going to Adoration weekly, or making a regular confession, that we will see the fruits of those decisions right away. We expect that turning our lives over to God will transform us (nearly) overnight. We want to see the fruits of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control—proliferate in our lives as soon as we increase our efforts.

Yet, as frustrating as it can be, the Holy Spirit rarely doles out his gifts on demand.

In the spiritual life, I call this inevitable lag in our self-perceived holiness behind our earnest efforts delayed sanctification.

Delayed sanctification can be a real challenge, often even more than in secular arenas like sports. When we pray for things, we tend to do it in a moment we feel we need that thing more than ever. And, the consequences of not having our prayers answered often feel like much higher stakes because of the eternal nature of our faith.

For example, if our husband offends us, we pray for the ability to forgive and let go of the hurt. We may even fast or perform other acts of faith or penance toward the goal of becoming a more forgiving wife. After all, if we hold onto that resentment, we fear not just the damage to our marriage but to our relationship with God.

Yet, God doesn’t always grant us the virtues we want right when we ask for them. He also doesn’t relieve us of our vices as soon as we pray for freedom.

Thus, we are left with two options in the face of delayed sanctification: the first, frustration that morphs into discouragement. It’s a real challenge not to question God’s love for us when we don’t hear from him right away. We can begin to wonder if prayer really “does” anything or if he cares enough about us to intervene. These frustrations, though understandable, can do more harm to our relationship with God, ourselves and other people than we realize, particularly when that frustration leads us to abandon our efforts and prayers altogether.

The second, however, is the golden goose of spiritual growth. If we so choose, delayed sanctification can lead us to gratitude for the three-fold opportunity to develop greater holiness. First, we pray for progress in some area like forgiveness. This prayer grows our faith in the Lord. Second, we have the chance to grow in patience as we wait for the Lord’s answer to our prayer. And third, perhaps after a time of persistent prayer and trust, God answers our prayer for greater forgiveness. Thus, our holiness increases in three ways, not just the one way we asked for!

If you ever find yourself discouraged about a lull in your spiritual progress, it may be worth giving this thought experiment a try. My husband suggested it to me in passing one day when I was lamenting over how I still have many days in which I am more distracted than I want to be while I pray (as every mom of small children knows, it can be hard to turn off the multitasking brain even when you want to).

The experiment goes like this:

1. Look back over the last 5-10 years of your life. Think about the virtues and graces you’ve prayed for most earnestly. Perhaps you desired greater compassion, obedience, courage, or humility. Maybe you prayed for healing in one or two of your relationships.

2. Write down those virtues and prayer requests.

3. Now, compare where you are in your spiritual life now—specifically in these areas you listed—to where you were 5 or 10 years ago. How different are you today than you were back then? In what ways has God already answered your prayers?

God works on the timeline of our entire lives. We, however, often view ourselves through a much narrower lens because we struggle with patience. We struggle to sacrifice our present desires to embrace the bigger picture, a picture that will admittedly be a little blurry until we meet Jesus in the next life. This impatience, though, is a big part of why God makes us wait for the good we desire, even when what we desire is such a high good like virtue or healing.

This is the paradoxical reality of delayed sanctification: because the fruits of our efforts lag behind our actual effort, we get a chance to grow even more in virtue by waiting for God to transform us. If we made all the progress we prayed for as soon as we prayed for it, the progress would stop there. Our faith, hope, love of God and patience would never be tested, and thus, they would never be given a chance to flourish under adversity.

Thanks be to God that he spares us from immediate satisfaction so we can spend that waiting time loving him for himself, not for the gifts he gives us.

Keep doing the Lord’s work!

~ Cameron

“One man gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want.” - Proverbs 11:24

When we think of the virtue of generosity, money often comes to mind. “Am I giving enough to my parish? To charity? Should I be doing more for the homeless or the orphaned?”

While all these questions are good, it is interesting that we are often quicker to think of generosity as an out there virtue, the sort of good we do for people and causes that are beyond our immediate circle. Yet, the Church teaches us a specific order of charity: we are responsible for loving first those persons closest to us (i.e., God and our family).

And, what’s more, focusing our generosity primarily on our inner circles, first with God, then our spouses, children, and other family, can do even more immediate and long lasting good than our tithing or volunteering.

But, what does generosity look like in marriage? What should we be giving to our spouse?

It is usually a safe bet to start with the big three: time, energy, and attention. How can you spend your time in ways that love your spouse better? How can you use your energy to help, serve, and support him? How can you give him more of your undivided, loving attention?

These questions are challenging if we allow ourselves to sit with them. Immediately, objections arise from within: “But, I am already spread so thin! How could I possibly give more?” “Why should I give when I’m getting nothing in return?” “When is it going to be my turn to be taken care of?”

Now, don’t get me wrong. Generosity has a real price. Thus, these thoughts carry some truth. You may very well feel pushed to your breaking point. How could you give more?

Mother Teresa once said, “Love is giving, and giving until it hurts.” To give away our time, energy and attention to our spouse means we cannot use those same resources for someone or something else, including ourselves. So, generosity can have a depleting effect, at least in the moment of giving. It is self-sacrifice, and in our fallen world, that kind of sacrifice usually hurts.

But—and this is often the bigger deal—giving generously to our spouse can also cost us our pride.

When we’re embroiled in some ongoing struggle in our marriages, giving more can feel like giving in, like admitting that we are the problem. After all, shouldn’t it be the person who’s at fault who makes the first move toward reconciliation? And, the longer we’ve felt hurt or disconnected, the greater the resentment and the harder it is to humble ourselves enough to be the one who changes.

Yet, like the verse from Proverbs states, God has a funny way of encouraging us to give: those who are generous paradoxically end up with more than those who are not. How can this be? If we have limited resources, how could giving some away ever lead to us gaining more?

While we are limited, thankfully God is not, and he loves to bestow on his generous children his most generous of gifts. Every parent knows this: at the end of a long day, when you have spent everything inside of you and are tempted to fall asleep at 8pm with your kids, even in the exhaustion there is a sense of peace, of security. “I am living a meaningful life. Today, I did something that matters.” We trade our limited selves for something limitless and eternal: the understanding that we are doing God’s will. What could bring us more peace, more satisfaction than that?

Of course, sometimes it’s difficult to internalize God’s rewards when we are so depleted. Whenever you struggle to feel his grace in challenging moments or seasons, whether in marriage or with your kids, try this thought experiment:

1. Imagine what you have: your spouse, your children, your faith.

2. Now, imagine what it would be like if—all of a sudden—you lost those relationships.

3. Sit in that thought, and let the emotions bubble to the surface.

How much more grateful we are for our lives and vocations when we imagine what it would be like without them!

So, if the choice is between (a) your first real move toward becoming a more generous spouse and (b) a stalemate in which you and your spouse both withhold yourselves from each other, what is your choice? Is there really much of a choice at all?

Make the first move, and keep making it. Tell your spouse you’re trying to do better if you believe your efforts are going unnoticed. Be the grateful, generous person God made you to be, and watch as his graces overflow the cup of your life.

Keep doing the Lord’s work!

~ Cameron

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Few things ruin a good day as fast as comparing ourselves to others. And while it is certainly a problem for both sexes, I have noticed it plaguing my female clients more lately, and at great cost.

By comparison, I do not mean the healthy practice of goal setting. To set any goal requires you to assess where you are now and aim toward a better place, where (or who) you hope to be. Comparison becomes problematic, however, when it is used as a vehicle for envy, fast tracking you to a place where you begin to dislike yourself and resent others for what you do not have.

We do it with friends, family, coworkers, neighbors, strangers on social media and even our spouses:

• “Why can’t I be more patient like her?”

• “Why am I not that joyful? Pretty? Well liked?”

• “Why are my kids not as well behaved or successful as those kids?”

• Why don’t I have that kind of marriage?”

• “Why am I so much more emotional than my husband?”

These questions are not goals. They are criticisms. And self-criticism is costly. The price of comparison is discontentment with yourself, your life, your relationships, and even with God’s providence over your life. And, the more it is allowed to fester, the more discontentment devolves into discouragement, or the belief that nothing you do will be enough.

Discouragement is one of the deadliest attitudes for the spiritual life. It robs us of our sense of autonomy: “If nothing I do will make a difference, why bother trying? It seems like God has forgotten about me anyway.”

Thankfully, a cure for comparison exists, and it is deeply embedded within Scripture and Church Tradition.

Let’s start with 1 Corinthians 12:4-7:

“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”

In this passage, St. Paul illuminates the beauty in our differences. In God’s infinite wisdom and power, he has managed to create a world in which we all have different gifts, strengths and roles to play but are united by the source of these gifts, the Holy Spirit. John Kane in his book “How to Make a Good Confession” paraphrases this idea well:

“It is the spirit, not the measure, of sacrifice that will decide our eternity” (pg. 81).

While some souls are granted great graces to make large, heroic sacrifices, God does not grant that same degree of grace to us all. However, understanding this disparity in the Spirit’s power should be relieving, not disappointing: even in our spiritual lives we are not expected to do or become more than God expects of us. To long for what others have is to be dissatisfied with how God made us. Yet, he made us in his perfect image.

And, what’s more, God grants us “the dignity of acting on [our] own [...] and thus of co-operating in the accomplishment of his plan” (CCC, 306). In other words, God has preserved an important role for each of us to play in salvation history. We are each contributing to his plan for his creation, every moment of every day. Our lives matter, regardless of how different they may look from others’ lives.

So, the challenge to those of us struggling with comparison is to replace our thoughts about others with thoughts about who God is calling us to be. As my father-in-law likes to say to our children, “Who does God want you to be?”

When we ask this question, comparison ceases to be relevant. We can finally rest in the peace of Christ knowing that we will always be granted the power to do what he wills when he wills. Anything else and we are missing out on the poetic life story he wants to reveal within us.

Keep doing the Lord’s work!

~ Cameron

A simple prayer idea: We can pray for greater patience with our own shortcomings, trust in the life circumstances God has called us to embrace right now, and humble gratitude for the infinite blessings he has showered upon us, all aimed toward better discerning his will for us rather than worry about his will for others.

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Perhaps the most important characteristic of therapy that differentiates it from other conversations–and what ultimately fosters deeper healing–is a truly authentic curiosity. By curiosity, I mean an empathetic fascination of the other person, particularly what they’ve experienced and how they view themselves, other people and the world.

Therapists are like mental archaeologists. Our job is to dig, respecting the integrity of the heart and mind of the person in the process. Good therapy chips away slowly at the layers a client believes are causing his or her pain to uncover what’s lying dormant underneath, flavoring the individual’s unique experience of life.

The most efficient and often most appreciated tool to dig with is curiosity: “Where does that belief about yourself come from?” “What is that part of you trying to say?” “Why is that so important to you?” “What would it say about you if you failed at that dream?”

In the therapy office, at least with most clients, I am freer than I otherwise would be to ask these sorts of questions and see them received with gratitude or at least cooperation instead of defensiveness. At this point in our culture’s history, we more or less know what to expect when we sign up for therapy. We know we will be asked to go deeper, to reveal parts of ourselves we may have never revealed to anyone or didn’t even know were there. In fact, many people come to therapy for this very reason–to discover and reveal more of what they’ve been carrying so they can turn those broken parts over to God for healing.

Yet this healing curiosity doesn’t have to be limited to the therapeutic relationship. For example, it’s a skill every good marriage therapist teaches to their couples to use outside of counseling sessions. And, when spouses approach one another in this way, with a genuine desire to understand, I have seen them transform their marriages in a matter of weeks. Of course, it takes practice to make a habit. But the concept here is straightforward:

Gentle correction should come at a later point once curiosity has fostered mutual trust and emotions have mellowed.

Thankfully, you do not need to worry so much about asking the right questions as about approaching your spouse (or child, parent, sibling, friend) with the right attitude. Curiosity becomes holy when the desire to know comes ultimately from the deeper desire to love well, to love in the way the other person needs.

Curiosity then facilitates the transition from giving others what you think they should want to what they actually want and need: someone to listen, understand and prove that revealing their wounds will not scare you away.

We all need to know that we can be fully seen and still fully loved in our broken, messy humanity. What a blessing it would be to get to offer that reassurance to others.

~ Cameron

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Have you ever had the experience of reacting to your own thoughts or emotions? It often goes something like this: Something happens, let’s say your husband says something a little snappy to you. Your initial reaction to his harshness is alarm, frustration, or even anger. But, then something else happens. You have a second reaction, a reaction to your reaction. Maybe you feel embarrassed about your surprise, guilty about your frustration, or vindicated in your anger:

When we feel overwhelmed by stress, frustration, or emotional exhaustion, a large part of that overwhelm is internal: we are reacting negatively to our daily experience of life, and this negativity is psychologically expensive. It robs us of the energy we need to tend wholeheartedly to the people and tasks that need our undivided attention.

Second-order reactions are what therapy was designed to address for three reasons. First, as I just explained, they are costly. The person who can free up her mind of metathoughts and her heart of metaemotions enjoys life more, not necessarily because life is different but because she makes the decision to embrace the present moment of God’s gift of life with gratitude rather than keeping it at a judgmental arm’s length.

The second reason therapists care about these second-order reactions is because they are largely within your control. We very often cannot change everything about our circumstances because that is God’s domain. Only He has complete control over what happens to us in this life: what we look like, how many children we have, how others treat us, whether our spouse had a good or bad day, and how we feel when we wake up. These are just a few examples of many things that we may be able to influence some but not completely.

Our first-order reactions are not completely within our control either. They are largely instinctual emotions triggered by our circumstances before we have a chance to think through what we are experiencing. Our second-order reactions, however, are often completely within our control. With enough patience and openness to God’s grace, we can learn to react to all of life’s offerings with curiosity, optimism, interest, and even gratitude.

The first step to do so is to make the conscious effort to notice our second-order reactions. Then we can gently reassure the part of ourselves that is stressed, angry, or embarrassed that a positive view of the situation (i.e., acceptance, curiosity, or gratitude) will makes things better, not worse.

Interestingly enough, gaining greater self-control over these second-order reactions can have a rippling out effect. And herein lies the third reason therapy is great for helping quell these metathoughts: second order reactions have the power to influence not only our first order reactions but also our circumstances. For example, let’s say that conflict with your spouse makes you feel anxious. The next time you’re in an argument, instead of dreading that anxiety or getting frustrated with yourself for your emotions, turn inward for a moment to reassure the anxious part of you that everything is going to be okay. It’s normal to feel anxious when this person who means so much to you is upset.

By learning to operate from a place of acceptance and peace, we will begin to see our first order reactions turn in a more positive direction. By allowing life and our interpretation of it to unfold without aggressively resisting it, we can appreciate each of our unique experiences of being human which God has granted only to us.

Then, if we’re doubly fortunate, our circumstances will even begin to change as the world around us responds to the change within us.

~ Cameron

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However, we often fail to address the other side of the coin of small stuff: the good things. Good but small things also happen every day. However, instead of overlooking or taking them for granted as we so often do, these little graces should be celebrated. Marriage is not only about minimizing the negatives, just like taking care of your health isn’t just about avoiding unhealthy behaviors. It is about discovering and embracing the good. Healthy marriages are filled with little graces, and the simplest way to add more good to your marriage is to slow down enough to not only acknowledge but celebrate the good that is already there.

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But if this approach to the small stuff - celebrating the good and letting go of the bad - is so good for our relationships, why does it not come naturally to us? Our emotions tend to encourage the opposite approach, meaning we are more likely to react emotionally to a small perceived slight (e.g., your wife lets out a frustrated sigh while you two are talking) than to a small blessing (e.g., your husband gets home 20 minutes early from work).

God gave us emotions for a reason: not only to add color to life but also to help us make decisions. In fact, one of the most fascinating neuropsychological findings on emotions is that people who suffer brain damage that blunts their affect (emotions) also face severe impairment to their decision making. In other words, we need our emotions to make decisions. However, when it comes to the lifelong commitment of marriage, even more than following our emotions we should be following Christ. After all, He is the One who teaches us to be limitlessly merciful:

“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” - Jesus in Luke 23:34

And joyful:

“Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” - St. Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

How we treat the small stuff, then, not only reflects how good of a marriage we could have but how well we are following Jesus’s example. How we treat the small stuff is a big deal.

Keep it up, wives and husbands! You are doing the Lord’s work.

With Christ and Mary,

Cameron

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Given that Ash Wednesday was yesterday, this post may seem a bit late. But, it occurred to me this morning that however much we acknowledge the power of Lent to transform our relationship with God, we don’t think enough about this season’s ability to do the same in our marriage.

Which seems like a great loss, since one of Jesus’ two greatest commandments is to love your neighbor as yourself:

“‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?’ And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matthew 22:36-39)

And who could we consider a closer neighbor to us than our spouse, our other half, the only human person with whom we share a covenantal relationship?

I think we’re often tempted to think of our neighbors as those outside of our home, those we interact with here and there. In many ways, it’s easier to love those further away than it is to love those closest to us. Our family knows what buttons to push to drive us crazy. Their moods and habits affect us directly every day. And they’re more demanding of our time and energy than anyone else.

So, while it’s wonderful to start volunteering, give more money away, or pray more for those outside of our homes this Lent, our vocation - as wives and mothers - is how God calls us to love him most, by loving our husbands and children even (or especially) when it’s hard.

Make it a Lent of Love

So, how can we make this Lent one of love for Got and our spouses? Start by asking yourself this question: If I were to love my spouse the way I want to love Jesus, what would that look like? What would I need to do differently?

This may sound idolatrous, but bear with me. Jesus tells us that what we do to others, we do to him:

“for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. […] Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:35-36, 40)

Mother Teresa used to say that she saw the face of Jesus in every person she served. That was how she mustered a seemingly limitless capacity to love others. What if you saw Jesus’ face in your husband every time he was tired, sad, frustrated, sick, or hurting? How differently would you respond?

Once you’ve made a list of the things you’d do differently, the next part is simple: Surrender something, take up something else. Pick one thing you do or a habit you have that is preventing you from loving your spouse as well as you could, and surrender it. Give up this habit entirely for Lent.

Maybe it’s how much time you spend on your phone. Maybe it’s your defensiveness or short fuse or complaining. For me, it’s my self-centeredness. This Lent, my goal is to make a habit of considering what’s best for my husband before my own preferences, every time I can. This is a painful one, a significant “dying to self”. It’s already requiring greater flexibility in how I approach the day, humility about what I “deserve”, and patience with things beyond my control.

Then, pick a habit or activity you could start that would be great for your marriage. Take up this new habit for Lent. Maybe it’s showing more gratitude for your spouse’s efforts, planning a weekly date night for the two of you, or being more physically affectionate. Bonus points if you pick something your spouse would really appreciate.

God bless you and yours this Lenten season.

~ Cameron

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“In this life no one can fulfill his longing, nor can any creature satisfy man’s desire. Only God satisfies, he infinitely exceeds all other pleasures. That is why man can rest in nothing but God.” - St. Thomas Aquinas

You wake up tired every morning, with an aching head and sore eyes, not matter how much you sleep. Everything seems a lot harder than it used to be. You can’t focus, and your husband’s little quirks, usually endearing, are starting to irritate you. “I’m just stressed and overworked”, you tell yourself. But the things that used to help you relax - going on walks, reading, kickboxing, baking, seeing friends - just feel like another chore now. Maybe, in a desperate attempt to unwind, you’ve found yourself bingeing sweet or salty treats at night, zoning out with social media or trashy reality shows, or spending too much time on Temu. And, just maybe, you identify a little too closely with this hippo:

Pop culture psychology will likely try to diagnose you with depression. However, it might be something else: burnout.

Burnout is a state of complete mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion caused by chronic stress.

Here are some of the most common symptoms:

• You’re tired all the time, no matter how much you sleep

• Every task feels like a chore, even things you used to love

• You’re irritable, moody, or emotionally dysregulated

• You’re having frequent physical pains like headaches, stomach or digestive pain, or muscle tension

• You’ve come to resent your responsibilities, particularly taking care of your family, when you used to be thankful to have people to care for

At this point you may be saying, “Yeah… this sounds like me. So, what do I do about it?”

The advice you’ll get from the internet (and most therapists)

Take stuff off your plate. Stick to the bare minimum essentials. What do you need to do every day to meet everyone’s basic physical, emotional and spiritual needs? Then, remove literally everything else. That might sound extreme, especially if you’re someone who’s always run a tight ship (i.e., a clean house, home cooked meals, preplanned family outings, etc.). But, keep in mind, these changes are only for a season, a season of actual rest and recovery for you. After all, what you’ve tried so far hasn’t fixed the burnout, so it’s time for more drastic measures!

Recruit help. Whether it’s your family, in-laws, neighbors, friends, or that one lady at church who seems to adore your children, now is the time to ask for help. If you’re like me and asking for help triggers a guilt spiral, tell that guilty part of yourself this: by asking for help you’re allowing the other person to love you. Jesus calls us to love one another. So, by leaning on others, you’re helping the people around you honor the Lord. In other words, you’re helping get them that much closer to heaven! What could be better than that?

Find Ways to Decompress. Whether it’s a bubble bath, back rub from your hubby, walk in nature, a nap while your kids nap, doodling or painting, or something else that you love (or at least that doesn’t make you more tired), do something every day for at least 15 minutes that’s rejuvenating.

Avoid Energy Zappers. Avoid frequent bingeing on junk food, social media, TV, alcohol or gossip with friends. While these ways of coping provide a temporary escape in the moment, they actually make us more tired and restless over time by hurting not just our minds and bodies, but our souls*.

Now, while all this advice is all good, it’s also missing the central ingredient for treating burnout.

What this advice is missing

Most of the time burnout has a foundational spiritual component. When laboring for God, our work is rejuvenating and life-giving. When laboring without God or even against his will for us, we end up depleted and burnt out.

While it’s a good idea to regularly take stock of how we’re spending our time, to reflect in prayer on whether we’re using our time, talents and resources the way God wants us to, ensuring that we’re laboring for God has as much to do with how and why of our day as with the what.

I recently heard a great recommendation of how to make God a central part of your day. At the start of each new activity (e.g., waking up, making breakfast, taking a shower, nursing your baby, reading with your toddler, going to work), you follow these three steps:

1. Ask God to be with you in that moment: “Jesus, please be with me while I wash these dishes.”

2. Offer that moment to God as a sign of your love for him: “God, I will wash these dishes well and in good spirits out of love for you.”

3. Accept whatever may happen to you in that moment: “I accept whatever happens to me in this moment as if it’s coming directly from you, Lord.”

When we keep Christ in our hearts, asking for the Holy Spirit’s guidance in each moment and remembering the love our Father has for us, we allow the Lord to nourish our souls with the spiritual blessings and graces we need to weather the storm we’re in.

“Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:29-30)

In this way, burnout is like any other injury or illness: our beloved Jesus is the only one who can bring about true healing. And he does just that, once we choose to lean on him instead of ourselves.

Keep it up, mamas! You’re doing the Lord’s work.

~ Cameron

*Why do these activities harm our souls, you might ask? As you’ll read in the section, “What this advice is missing”, we find our true rest in Christ. As we were made to be in communion with God, what wears us down most is anything that pulls us away from him. That’s why numbing or distracting activities like eating a bunch of ice cream or doom scrolling, if done often, actually make things worse: the purpose they serve, to pull us out of the pain of the present moment, actually ends up separating us from God, as well. The only place we can truly commune with God is in the present, so anything that distracts us from this moment, right now, distracts us from him.

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The biggest obstacle to successful marriage therapy I’ve faced in my work with couples is an overemphasis on accountability. That is, requiring that your spouse take personal responsibility for his issues. Upon first glance, this probably doesn’t seem like a problem. So, let’s dig below the surface a bit.

More often than not, it starts off looking something like this: wife* brings her husband to couples therapy after many months or even years of suggesting they need help. Her husband, either invested or apathetic, is usually willing to admit he’s at least partly to blame for the discord.

However, as we get a few sessions under our belts, it becomes clear that those months and years of bargaining with and even begging her husband to give therapy a try, wife has lost her sense of fault. She believes he is the problem with their marriage, rather than seeing the broken dynamic between them as being the result of a deleterious two-player game.

A willingness to take personal responsibility for our own flaws is the big golden key to unlock the treasure chest of progress in couples work. However, an insistence on your spouse taking accountability for his flaws before being willing to face your own is a marriage therapy non-starter. After all, why would both spouses go to therapy if only one of them is causing all the problems? Therapy is for people who want help improving their lives, not people who want third-party validation of their own innocence.

Couples therapy differs from individual therapy in many ways, the most important being its purpose: couples work is meant to heal the relationship between two people rather than helping either individual achieve major independent self-discovery or personal growth. These things can and often do happen as side effects of healing the relationship, but they are not the primary goals.

As a result, when couples come knocking on the therapy door together, the only way to make it work is if both spouses are ready to point the finger at themselves, not just each other. Then you at least know that both spouses will cooperate with the therapeutic process, a process that allows the relationship’s problems to rise to the surface relatively unimpeded by one party’s inability to accept any blame.

If you or your spouse aren’t ready to accept your roles in the problem, you won’t have any role to play in the solution in couples work. That’s one of the often overlooked pearls of wisdom in the above passage from Matthew. Until you’ve removed the log from your own eye, you can’t even see the speck clearly in your spouse’s eye. In other words, our own issues cloud our judgment about our spouses’ issues.

One of the most fascinating moments for me as a couples therapist is when one spouse has this paradigm shift: once something inside of them heals or they change their perspective, something they thought was a major issue in the relationship vanishes, often without the other spouse doing anything differently.

Obviously, this doesn’t always happen. Some issues are real, concrete, and not solvable by a simple change of perspective. However, the majority of issues in marriages with spouses who love each other do seem to fall into this former category.

So, what if you or your spouse are convinced you’re blameless? Start with individual therapy or spiritual direction - for both of you but separately - so you each have a chance to discover what needs healing inside of you before revisiting the marriage therapist’s office.

Stay strong, wives and husbands! You’re doing the Lord’s work.

~ Cameron

*Wives aren’t always the accuser, and husbands aren’t always the accused. However, this happens more often than not. Women initiate couples therapy much more than men, likely because women detect potential or real interpersonal issues sooner than men do. So, for the sake of brevity and clarity, I’m using this dynamic for the example here.

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One of Jesus’ most countercultural messages for his followers is this idea of serving the “least of these”, or those most vulnerable, most in need, and most pushed to the outskirts of society. When we serve those whom others shun, we serve Christ.

For many Christians, and certainly for myself before I became a mother, I considered the least of these to be groups like the homeless, the disabled, and the isolated elderly. I never considered that children could (and should) be included as the least of these, as well. In a world where more than 70 million children are murdered every year due to the horrors of abortion, the youngest among us are the most at-risk group in existence. Not to mention the other crimes our society regularly commits against our kids, such as a tragically broken foster care system, evil modern medical practices, and a general anti-kids attitude in public life.

As much as I could say about how our kids deserve far better from us than what we’re currently giving them, I want to focus this post on a tangential lesson we get from Jesus’ emphasis on serving those who are most vulnerable:

We not only have much that we owe* to the least of these - our attention, time, resources, love - but we have much we can learn from them, as well.

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I want to share with you a story close to my heart to illustrate. Our second son was born this year. After spending my introduction to motherhood struggling through a serious bout of colic, this second newborn phase has been an absolute joy. When I was reflecting on why it’s been so wonderful - after all, there are just as many poopy diapers and nighttime feedings and aches and pains from the delivery as last time, plus a wild toddler to chase after, too - I realized it’s because our 4-month-old already embodies a certain Christian ideal I’ve wanted to cultivate in my own life for years:

“I’m just glad to be here.”

It doesn’t matter what he’s doing (maybe except tummy time). He could be laying under a mobile, sitting in someone’s arms, eating, sleeping, watching his big brother make a mess at dinner, riding in the car… He’s content just to get to experience life.

If you’ve ever met a small baby, you’ll recognize this image: he’s recently become fascinated with his hands. He brings them together, almost like he’s praying, then shoves them in his mouth. Then, he’ll lay there, happy as clam almost indefinitely.

He often giggles to himself when the little animals on his mobile spin around. He smiles at anyone who smiles at him. He wakes up happy, cooing and wriggling with excitement when I pick him up. When he’s sleepy, he yawns to let me know, then patiently waits until I have a moment free to put him down for a nap.

It’s been incredible to watch how others respond to this innate sense of joy . They adore him. Everyone wants to hold him, to kiss his fuzzy head. He’s brought healing to some of our family with heavy emotional burdens.

Life is the most precious gift we’re given, since without it we cannot experience what it means to be human, to be made exclusively for the purpose of loving and being loved. So, not only should life be protected - from conception to natural death - it should be embraced with joyful gratitude every moment between these two points.

Through no doing of my own, our little baby already has this joyful gratitude. He reminds me every day that one of the most important qualities to have as a Christian is infectious joy. And, this sort of joy comes from being grateful simply for the opportunity to experience whatever God has chosen for us in this moment. Every emotion, tear, toddler tantrum, bedtime story, sleepless night, every interaction with a stranger out in the world, every struggle, every triumph, they’re all part of the greater gift of being alive. Though God had an infinite number of other people who could’ve created, he chose to create you. He chose to love you.

And, in every moment of this life, he continues to choose you, to love you, and to give you another opportunity to experience his love through this extraordinary gift of life. Even in trials and hardship, he wants for his children to be at peace, to know joy.

He wants us to be able to say, genuinely, “I’m just glad to be here.”

~ Cameron

*For a great example of this radical Christian view, here’s a quote from St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan and Church Father who lived in the 300s: “When giving to the poor, you are not giving him what is yours; rather, you are paying him back what is his. Indeed, what is common to all, and has been given to all to make use of, you have usurped for yourself alone. The earth belongs to all, and not only to the rich . . . You are paying him back, therefore, your debt; you are not giving gratuitously what you do not owe.” (emphasis added)

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Decades have gone by since the conversation surrounding the gender pay gap crept into common vernacular. And, while it’s shrunk over the last two decades - in 2024, the average woman earns 83 cents for every dollar the average man makes - a significant difference still persists.

Thus, the real question here is not whether the pay gap exists, or even whether it should exist. The real question is should we care that it exists?

American culture has become atomized to the point that we view the individual as the fundamental unit of society, an attitude that even shapes how we view social justice issues. The pay gap is the perfect example: when we discuss this issue, we justify or bemoan its existence by arguing from the perspective of the individual. Should the average woman (individual) earn the same as the average man (another individual) for the same type of work?

Yet, herein lies the real problem with this debate. Society isn’t a collection of individuals. The fundamental building block of any culture can’t be the individual person because individuals do not create new human life. Individuals don’t reproduce. Families do that.

Interestingly, the pay gap reflects this fact with crystal clarity.

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The gender pay gap does not exist for single, childless adults. In fact, as of 2022, unmarried childless women earn slightly more than unmarried childless men: $87,200 versus $82,100 annually.

So, what populations are skewing the data so much to cause that 83 cents statistic we see touted as proof that women are still being unfairly compensated in the workplace? The skew is from families.

Married women with children earn 35% less on average than married men with children. Yet, unmarried women have it the hardest financially, making an average of $11,000 a year.

Some may dig their heels in, claiming that whether kids are in the picture or not, women should still be fairly compensated for their work. Of course, no one is advocating for sex discrimination in the workplace - at least, no one I’ve ever met or heard speak on this issue. Yet, if you talk to families headed by married parents, the story shifts significantly away from “fair compensation” to “what’s best for the family”.

Women, for primarily biological and psychological reasons, are more likely to have the temperament, skillset, and desire to stay home with their small children. To argue that this reality is completely or even mostly socially constructed is to ignore every sign that nature gives us about the importance of having mom actively involved as the primary caretaker of her babies. The vast majority of mammalian species follows this arrangement. For example, for our closest ancestors, chimpanzees, it’s customary to see the mama chimp play the role of active, hands-on primary caretaker for her young for at least 10 years.

The hormonal evidence for this sex difference when children come into the picture is also overwhelming. Through pregnancy and breastfeeding, it’s not just a woman’s body that changes to accommodate this new life she’s bringing into the world. Her hormones change the makeup and size of her brain, as well, to better suit the needs of her infant. And, while men’s hormones also change to make them better caretakers, their hormones encourage a shift into the role of caring more for the family as a unit rather than the baby as an individual. For example, a drop in testosterone helps men focus more on providing for and protecting their wives and children rather than on risk-taking behaviors better suited for the single man’s lifestyle.

I’ll never forget the day my husband experienced this change firsthand when I gave birth to our first child. About our investment strategies, he said, “I’ve always been risk averse. But, now I am the most risk averse.” It made me smile knowing that we were both changing in exactly the ways we were supposed to so that we could be good parents.

So, what does all of this mean for the pay gap? It means that women with children work less because they want to (and should) spend more time with their kids, particularly for the first three to five years of life. Men, on the other hand, choose to work more once they have kids in order to allow their wives to work less and care for their children. Thus, even full-time working mothers see significantly less pay than full-time working fathers because mothers choose more flexible work options in lower stress industries, work fewer hours overall, and take more time off than men do. The consequence of these choices is lower pay, a consequence I would argue is well worth it when you consider the tremendous benefits to everyone in the family (including moms!) when men and women are encouraged to embrace the natural changes in their desires and roles that they experience when they become parents.

In other words, the real pay gap is a mother gap. What’s wrong with this arrangement? Nothing, if you view society as a collection of families and care primarily about promoting social practices and economic policies that are best for the family. A problem only arises when we (wrongly) view society as a bunch of individuals who should all be behaving similarly and, thus, achieving similar outcomes. Yet, this never has and never will be the case. By design, families function significantly differently from individuals. And, since the family is the necessary ingredient for any society to thrive, it’s also the unit that should be protected at all costs.

Stay strong, mamas and papas. You’re doing the Lord’s work!

~ Cameron

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I was raised to value mental toughness. The recipe for success, as handed down to me in my childhood, was to develop a steely resolve that could overcome obstacles with little to no emotion reaction. Did I live up to that standard? Definitely not. Did that add another thick layer of suffering to what I was already dealing with? Absolutely.

Then, when I got more serious about my faith, this emphasis on suppression of my negative emotions took on a spiritual connotation, as well. I went from exalting mental toughness for it’s own sake to viewing it as God’s expectation for me. Some of my thoughts at the time included:

• “Why would we ever complain, cry or grieve when Jesus has already paid the ultimate price for our salvation?”

• “Christians should be the most joyful people. If I’m not happy all the time, it’s from a lack of gratitude.”

• “All the saints thank God for their pain and suffering, and then they beg for more. I need to be more like them!”

Needless to say, I carried around a heavy dose of guilt about my normal human response to hardship.

But, then I got married. I became a couples therapist and, far more importantly, a mother. I began to see the detrimental effects of what is commonly called “spiritual bypassing” in my own life and in the couples I’ve worked with. Eventually, the pedestal on which mental toughness had sat for so long in my psyche came crashing down.

What is spiritual bypassing?

“Offer it up”. “Don’t worry, your grandma is in Heaven now.” “At least you already have other children.” “It’s going to be okay.” And, maybe my least favorite, “Everything happens for a reason.”

These and other common responses to suffering are some of the more cliché examples of spiritual bypassing. Instead of allowing ourselves to dip into the pool of pain, either our own or someone else’s, we keep our distance, making sure to stay dry. When we guard ourselves against the natural human response to suffering - that is, emotions like grief, sadness, shock, anxiety, anger, and frustration - we miss the opportunity to connect with the other person’s humanity as well as our own. And, it is precisely this connection that leads to healing.

Bypassing began as a psychological term meant to indicate when we avoid facing pain in ourselves or others. It becomes a spiritual issue when we hide behind our religious belief system, specifically. For example, if a friend came to me about her grandmother dying and I said, “Don’t worry, your grandma is in Heaven now”, I’d be using my religious beliefs to avoid the effort of simply being there for my friend, experiencing her pain alongside her.

True empathy hurts because it requires us to enter into another person’s pain, to allow it to wash over us without trying to fight it. However, when we aren’t equipped to help carry such a burden, we can start to feel like we’re drowning.

Why do I address this post to women specifically?

Women are not uniquely guilty of spiritual bypassing, but in many ways we may be uniquely able to solve it.

St. John Paul II said:

“The moral and spiritual strength of a woman is joined to her awareness that God entrusts the human being to her in a special way.”

As women, God entrusted to us all of humanity: to raise our children, to comfort the afflicted, to care for all in need. We carry the next generation into existence, through pregnancy, infancy, and into adulthood.

As the caretakers of humanity, women (more so than men, at least insofar as I’ve noticed in my work as a therapist) transmit society’s lessons to the next generation. I believe that when God entrusted the human being to women he also endowed us with the ability to fulfill the essential responsibility of this transmission of wisdom.

In other words, in how we think, speak, and act as mothers, we instill in our children (more than anyone else!) lessons of good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, what it means to be human, who God is, what goals are worth pursuing, and more.

One of these lessons involves how we should respond to and express emotions. Let’s look at an example.

Imagine yourself holding your small baby, maybe just a few months old. How do you respond when your baby laughs? What about when he cries? For healthy, well-adjusted moms, our facial expressions change automatically in response to our babies’ emotions. When they cry, we frown and rush to cuddle or feed them. When they laugh, our faces light up, too. Even more than men, we’re biologically primed to empathize with our little ones.

This empathy teaches our children that their emotions matter, that they matter enough to hold our attention. Our emotional responses, when congruent with their emotions, help them build the emotional regulation and social skills they’ll need for the rest of their lives. This is how things should be.

Now, imagine the opposite: your baby cries, and you look away or get angry. Your baby laughs, and you ignore him. He reaches his arms out to be held, but you’re too busy to pick him up. Over time, your baby learns that his emotions, his expression of his needs, will only be met with hostility or distraction. Eventually, he’ll stop crying altogether. This is detrimental to a baby’s psychological development.

But, here’s the kicker: how we respond to others’ emotions isn’t just important for our babies. It matters a lot for the older children and adults in our lives, too. Fortunately, a woman’s empathy doesn’t dry up when her baby starts walking. God granted us a strong feminine intuition when it comes to the needs and feelings of others, but it’s up to us to use that intuition to lean into others’ (and our own) emotional experiences rather than running from them.

The power of feminine intuition

Even for the highly intuitive woman, it can be scary to open ourselves up enough to experience not only our own suffering but the suffering of others. If at this point you’re noticing that you sometimes bypass negative emotions, and you want to change that habit, you can start by thinking about the painful parts of your life you’ve been avoiding. Oftentimes, when we struggle to face others’ pain with them it’s because that pain brings up too much of our own hurt.

Once we’re willing to acknowledge the parts of ourselves that are hurting, to feel what we’ve bottled up for so long, we can begin to integrate that suffering into our personalities and our memories in a healthy way. Serious suffering is like a broken ankle: every step we take is going to hurt until we address the pain head on. Then, with our own suffering integrated, we’ll be able to use our empathy and intuition to support others in their struggles.

Stay strong, mamas and wives. You’re doing the Lord’s work!

~ Cameron

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Have you ever walked into a house and noticed a sort of emotional atmosphere? Sometimes a home can feel warm, inviting, and full of love. Sometimes it can feel tense, on edge. Other times, cold and detached. You can’t quite put your finger on what exactly creates that feeling, but it wells up inside you nonetheless.

Part of it is in how the shoes are arranged by the door, what is (or isn’t) sitting out on the kitchen countertops, and how worn the furniture looks. Part of it is how the house sounds: do you hear the sound of laughter, of little pattering feet? Or, is it silent? Is the silence peaceful or fearful?

More than anything, you can tell the atmosphere of the home in the faces of the people who live there. Who greets you when you walk through the door? Is it a little smiling face or a dejected husband? Are voices spilling over with joy at your arrival or are they feigning calmness to cover up the fight had earlier that day?

In my personal and professional experience as a couples therapist, in the majority of homes I’ve experienced, women dictate this atmosphere*. As wives and mothers, we set the tone for our homes by our own emotions. When we’re stressed, our homes are stressed. When we’re angry, our husbands and children tiptoe around us to avoid triggering an outburst. When we’re distracted or detached, our loved ones feel neglected. When we hold a grudge, our homes are flooded with anxiety. To be clear, far from being a condemnation of the emotions of other women, these examples are more a personal reflection on my own life and shortcomings.

As I realized that my words, emotions and actions have an intense gravity that shapes our home, I was tempted to shirk this responsibility. “How could this be mostly on me? I’m not the only one who lives in this house!”, I would say to myself.

But, reality is true whether I believe it or not. So, eventually, I chose to view this responsibility as a blessing rather than a burden, and here’s what I realized: for the majority of us women, we were gifted this opportunity to create the sort of atmosphere in our homes that we want our favorite people (our husbands and children) to get to experience.

If you’re interested in reflecting on this idea more for yourself, here are a few questions I’ve asked myself that helped me think more about the sort of emotional atmosphere I want to create for our home:

1. What emotions or experiences were missing from your home growing up that you want your husband and children to have?

2. What words would you want people to use to describe your home after staying with you for awhile?

3. In what ways could you adjust your approach to homemaking (how you think, speak, act, and express your emotions) so that these desires of yours come true?

After asking myself these questions, I realized several areas in my approach to emotional homemaking that needed some revamping. For example, cleanliness. At times, I’ve prioritized keeping the house clean above making my family and guests feel comfortable. And, as I value hospitality a lot more than cleanliness, I decided my actions needed to change to accommodate that higher value.

As we enter the holiday and hosting season, this post seemed particularly timely. What feelings do you want your guests and, more importantly, your own immediate family to walk away with after having lived in your home for the next several weeks? What do you want them to remember?

For me, I hope they remember squeals of delight from our toddler, cuddles with our infant, happy dogs wagging their tails, warm food and hugs, and a whole lot of joy. I hope they remember being served and appreciated for who they are. And, if that means more mess for me to clean up once the hosting is over, that’s a sacrifice I’m grateful to make.

Hang in there, wives and mamas! You’re doing the Lord’s work.

~ Cameron

*A clear exception to this rule is in situations of abuse. By no means am I asserting here that women should be happy in abusive situations. Rather, they should always seek safety for themselves and their children.

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My husband and I had our second baby a few months ago, making us the exhausted but joyful parents of two under two boys. I imagine I’ll always remember the moment I looked into our newborn’s eyes, just a few weeks postpartum, and thought, “I hope God gives me many more babies like you.” Still sore from being ripped open by the delivery, almost exclusively wearing makeshift adult diapers and milk-stained baggy t-shirts, and surviving mostly on caffeine and prayer, none of the discomfort of our new reality could deter me from me deep desire for a large family. I had fallen so madly in love with both of our kids that I struggled to imagine a life without a hoard of little troublemakers dominating our home every day for the next 25 years.

But, I recognize this mindset isn’t the norm. In today’s world, the idea of having a lot of kids - or even any kids at all - can seem unfashionable or burdensome. The political right likes to blame this waning interest in parenthood and the resulting falling birth rates on selfishness. I believe the insult stems from a place of fear. A lot of people are scared of what having fewer babies means for our society’s future.

Yet, what are we actually doing to address that problem? We’re blaming the solution: young women. We tell them they’re self-absorbed, short-sighted, and doomed to a future of regret. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this sort of rhetoric doesn’t have people sprinting to the altar and then to their marital beds to start another baby boom.

I’m not saying that self-focus has no role in the falling birth rate. Selfishness is at the root of most of society’s ills.

Yet, at least according to Christian theology, the vast majority of women are called to marriage and motherhood. And, God tends to do this funny thing where when we’re supposed to do something with our lives, he gives us the ability and desire to do that thing. He wants us to want to do his will, not just to begrudgingly accept it. So, if most women are supposed to be mothers and are, thus, born with an innate desire and ability to joyfully have and raise children, wouldn’t you think we’d see more people having kids even if out of purely selfish reasons to fulfill that desire?

But, we’re not. In fact, 21% of women ages 18-34 say they don’t want kids. That’s the highest number in recorded history. So, what is going on?

From the work I’ve done as a couples therapist, I see selfishness as far less relevant compared to another reason, a reason no one is talking about: safety, or a lack thereof.

It wasn’t until that moment when I prayed for many more babies that it dawned on me: the confidence I feel that allows me to hope for a large family has nothing to do with my own strength or virtue. It’s because of the support around me.

My husband could not be more supportive of my work as a mother, my extended family is actively involved in our kids’ lives on a daily basis, and we live in a densely populated area with a lot of good families who we’ve grown to love and lean on.

Heartbreakingly, so few women have anything resembling this sort of support. Most women, even if they have wonderful husbands who are capable of being the primary or sole financial providers, are missing their village. They’re missing the major source of safety we all desperately need while raising small children.

Then, once you throw childhood trauma or strained relationships with their own parents into the mix, you have the perfect recipe for a generation of young women scared out of their minds about the prospect of motherhood. And, since fear is nobody’s favorite emotion, we see a lot of it being transformed into a fixation on career goals, preference for more free time, or complaints about there being “no more good men” out there.

So, what do we do about it? How do we help women feel safe and supported enough to not only want to have kids but feel capable of being good mothers?

I think there are a few things:

1. Being more open about the joys, not just the hardships, of motherhood

2. Acting as the village for those around us

3. Praying for each other

As one of the most pro-family, pro-motherhood women you could ever meet, I still get fed content on social media about how hard it is to raise kids. Additionally, it is often the norm for us women to bond over complaints about the difficulties of parenting. Don’t get me wrong. It can be incredibly beneficial to know that you’re not alone in your struggles with sleepless nights, cleaning up after your defiant toddler, or your out-of-whack postpartum body. However, when we combine what we see online with the stories we hear from our mom friends, it’s no wonder so many childless women are scared of motherhood! But, if we made the intentional choice to publicize more of the good things about our vocation as wives and mothers, what difference might that make for another woman on the fence about starting a family?

Next, let’s rebuild the village. Thankfully, it’s a lot less daunting than it may sound. Being the village means making a lasagna for your neighbor who just gave birth, offering to watch your cousin’s kids while she goes out on a date with her husband, or even going on more playdates with other moms who, like me, have toddlers who are way better behaved when other kids are around. Being the village doesn’t mean raising other people’s kids. It means playing some role in helping other moms feel less alone in the day-to-day.

When all else fails, prayer never does. Particularly for women in more rural or even some suburban areas, it may be hard to build a village with the moms around you. However, we all have the ability to pray for the well-being of the other women in our lives and all wives and mothers, more generally. In fact, here’s a beautiful prayer to take home with you:

Stay strong, mamas! You’re doing the Lord’s work.

~ Cameron

Having been born in the 90s to two successful, business-minded parents, as a child I was taught that girls and women were historically encouraged to hold their tongue, either directly or through peer pressure. Therefore, the only way to exist nobly in the world as a woman today is to speak up, to “lean in” (a phrase popularized by Sheryl Sandberg’s hit book that came out when I was in high school).

This philosophy took root in my mind in a lasting way largely because I played competitive sports. My life dream growing up was to be a professional soccer player, and I had my fair share of encounters with mean girls along the way. Usually the butt of their jokes, my loved ones encouraged me to stick up for myself by throwing their harshness back at them.

It seemed like a reasonable strategy to play tough so I could get what I wanted, both on and off the field.

Then, I met my husband. And, shortly after, I became Catholic.

My husband is the strongest yet most gentle man I’ve ever met. He will fight like mad to protect his loved ones, but you would never know it by how tenderly he talks to our children and me.

As the first few years of our marriage went by, as I got to know my husband more deeply and I became a mother, I began to realize just how much I lacked this tenderness and how much it hurt the people I love most that it wasn’t a virtue I had ever valued, let alone spent effort to acquire.

Every time I spoke harshly to my husband, I could see the damage it caused. Like ripping a small hole in a beautiful shirt, you can sew the rip up but the shirt will never look the same. It’s been a painful lesson for me: we can be limitless in our forgiveness with each other, but the words we say have a lasting impact.

Eventually, I stumbled across the book, The Virtues of Mary by Fr. Luigi Lanzoni, and it served as the final nail in the coffin on my realization that the “lean in” culture of my youth had been one of the most harmful lies sold to me. Here’s an excerpt:

“‘Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.’* How tender are these words, not of reproof but of enquiry… A question asked quietly and gently is usually far more modest, delicate and affectionate than an assertion… we admire in Mary’s words, authority with humility. Her complaint is just, but without bitterness. Her words are noble and tender”. - Fr. Luigi Lanzoni, The Virtues of Mary

*Luke 2:48

This passage is one of my favorites from the short book, and it’s now become my primary relational goal to replicate in my life this ideal of gentle speech, first with my family and then with the rest of the world.

What I love most about this passage is that it offers a hopeful alternative to being an assertive, domineering young woman: you can be gentle and righteous at the same time. You can seek justice “without bitterness”.

We can make requests of others, let them know how we’re feeling, and even give feedback in a way that doesn’t upset the situation further. The secret, according to Father Lanzoni, is to speak always from a place of love for God and the other person. To love is to want what’s best for the other. If I truly wanted what’s best for my husband, when I ask for his help or share feedback I’d do so in a way that reflects how much I adore him.

If I truly wanted that’s best for my toddler, I would tell him “no” firmly but without anger every time he acts up so that he knows Mommy loves him no matter what. And on and on to every other person I have the privilege of speaking with every day.

But, what if I’m not feeling so loving? What if I’m overwhelmed or frustrated or hurt? In these cases, I’m practicing holding my tongue, since if I can’t be gentle, then what is better than speaking harshly is to not speak at all. At least until I’ve had a chance to breathe, pray, and get ahold of my emotions. Then, my mind and heart are in charge rather than my feelings.

It’s been a difficult challenge so far, to say the least. I imagine it’ll be a lifelong process to learn how to speak more like Mary. But, Jesus in his infinite wisdom (and a good dose of humor, I think) has a way of convicting us most about those shortcomings that we may not even see in ourselves but are most damaging to our relationship with him and others.

Here’s what I tell myself when I’m struggling most to cultivate this virtue of feminine gentleness: Mother Theresa seems to have gotten it right when she said, “I see Jesus in every human being.” If we can see his heavenly face in the faces of our husbands, our children, and our community, then we have every reason to speak as gently and lovingly to others as we would to Jesus himself.

These numbers are far higher than in past centuries. For example, the number of women in their early 40s who never had children almost doubled from 1980 (10%) to 2000 (19%).

With 2023 ushering in the lowest U.S. fertility rate ever recorded, a debate has formed surrounding a woman’s decision on whether to become a parent or not. And, while some people claim that plummeting birth rates are largely a result of female empowerment and greater optionality, fear of what a changing global climate will mean for future generations, or just plain selfishness, I’ve found something different in my work as a marriage therapist.

Our psychodynamic culture

Psychodynamic therapy is essentially the modern day spin on Freud’s approach to talk therapy, preserving the early 20th century psychiatrist’s emphasis on deep exploration of one’s childhood as a means to greater insight about our present troubles and circumstances.

Unfortunately, while Freud’s contributions to the world of psychotherapy were significant, the influence his work has had over American culture more broadly seems like a mixed bag, at least where birth rates are concerned.

In recent years, a growing number of women are forgoing motherhood for fear of “screwing up” their future children. After reflecting in depth on their childhoods, either with a therapist or without, many Millennials and Gen Zers have decided that having children would be the irresponsible choice given how poorly their parents raised them.

This belief involves three key assumptions: (a) our parents are largely responsible for our greatest shortcomings, (b) it’s doubtful that any amount of “self work” can undo the harm done to us by our parents during our childhoods, and (c) our shortcomings will curse our future children the same way our parents cursed us.

It’s an intimidating proposition that would certainly make even the most baby-obsessed among us think twice about having kids of our own.

But, is it true?

Parenting is the greatest responsibility of a lifetime for most people, but should it be reserved only for those among us with rosy childhoods and near-perfect adult lives?

Perhaps a deeper look into the three above assumptions is warranted here.

#1: Our parents are responsible for our shortcomings

As comforting as it can be to attribute our flaws to the shoddy job our parents did raising us, this mindset leaves no room for the most powerful tool we have for personal growth: responsibility. If we aren’t responsible for an outcome, how much can we actually do to influence that outcome?

Unfortunately, while this likely wasn’t Freud’s intention, the pop culture equivalent to his version of therapy prompts people to view their adult personalities and tendencies as based solely on their childhood experiences. Yet, therapy that actually works teaches the opposite. In fact, clients I’ve worked with who make the most progress most rapidly are those who believe their choices are the greatest determinants of who they are and who they’ll become.

#2 We can’t improve upon ourselves enough to be good parents

If progress in therapy tends to start when a client accepts responsibility for his life, it accelerates when that client embraces his potential for growth. Oftentimes, the real hurdle for people isn’t a lack of belief in the possibility of change, but a lack of proof of change in their own lives. The solution? Every time we make the right choice, taking one small step forward, we embrace that step as proof of our ability to grow. After all, what are large improvements other than a collection of small ones, strung together over a long period of time?

#3 We’re destined to curse our children the way our parents cursed us

Our kids will be a lot like us, at the very least because they inherited our DNA. Yet, any parent will tell you they’ll also be quite different. Oftentimes those differences are what makes parenting so difficult. It’s humbling to be tasked with raising someone who seems like a clone of you one moment and a stranger the next. When push comes to shove, though, all that even the best parents can do is their best, then hope (or pray) that they end up with more of your good than your bad, then some unique good of their own.

~~

Perhaps it’s more accurate to embrace the reality of parenthood: the legacy we leave behind for our children is one of blessings and curses. Thus, when they grow up, it becomes our children’s responsibility to decide what to do with that legacy.

And what better legacy to leave than a deep enough hope in the future to justify having created new life to participate in that future?

If you missed part 1, you can find it here. Now, for part 2.

~~~

Women seem to have more choice today than ever of how to balance work and family life. Not only do roughly 3 in 4 mothers of minors work, but the rates of female breadwinners has increased dramatically over the past several decades. Yet, how often does this greater choice on the macro scale lead to greater well-being on the micro (individual family) scale?

The reality of working mothers

A couple of years ago I came across a Reddit thread of women bewailing the difficulties of the working mother lifestyle, particularly for mothers of young children. One women even commented that she’d never submit herself to the pressures of career and motherhood at the same time, but that “being a working dad sounds pretty great. Sign me up for that!”

Although working dads typically face unique challenges of their own, the reality of raising young children is full of responsibilities borne mostly by Mom.

Between pregnancy, breastfeeding, and the psychological changes a mother experiences when raising her baby, any mom will tell you that women tend to be far better suited to the care of infants (and probably toddlers, too) than men are. And, in most families, moms also prefer to spend more time with their young ones than dads.

For example, when our first child was born, I wanted to carry him around with me everywhere, using the proven medical benefits of skin-to-skin contact as an excuse. Meanwhile, my husband mostly wanted to take care of me and catch up on sleep. Don’t get me wrong: he has always loved our son deeply. But, the intense attachment I felt to our newborn was something that took my husband longer to develop, a very common experience for fathers.

Despite these biological and psychological realities, the societal push for greater opportunity for women to work while raising kids continues. Unfortunately, though, what is typically promoted as greater freedom for women often results in greater pressure on women to figure out how to “have it all”.

Greater choice, or greater pressure?

In the 20th century, advocates for equality between the sexes likely would look on our current economic landscape as evidence of huge strides in the proper direction. After all, we have more female breadwinners than ever, women are graduating college at greater numbers than men, and females are increasingly assuming leadership positions across a variety of industries.

But, how are working mothers doing? Not only are they a large and important part of the female labor force, they’re also, at least hypothetically, supposed to be the greatest beneficiaries of the push for greater female freedoms at home and at work. After all, what could be more freeing for women than the ability to have it all - a happy marriage, fulfilling career, and thriving children?

Unfortunately, and perhaps unsurprising to anyone who actually knows at least one working mother, recent polls suggest that over 40% of these women suffer from anxiety or depression, while nearly 80% face significant stress about living up to their standards for working motherhood. In other words, the utopia we were promised has yet to come to fruition.

Busting the myth of “having it all”

A significant number of families require two incomes to pay the bills or maintain their preferred lifestyle. And, while some couples may be able to cut back on hours worked if they chose to live more frugally, that isn’t always possible. When focused on making ends meet, necessity more than the myth of having it all seems to encourage women to join the workforce.

However, the story is different for couples with greater financial flexibility, and its on the backs of these families that the push for greater choice for women has largely left us feeling inadequate no matter the work/life arrangement we choose. For women who have many options for how to spend their time, what is the right choice? It’s no secret that more choice isn’t always better. Psychologists have long understand the phenomenon of choice overload, in which we’re actually far less satisfied when we have too many options than if we have just a few.

Thankfully, there is a silver living.

While life is full of stressors we can’t completely control, like economic uncertainty, health problems, marital strife, and misbehaved kids, we can control our own expectations for how much we can accomplish at work and at home at the same time.

As a marriage therapist, I’ve seen that a huge source of stress for working mothers is their standards for themselves. Admittedly, I often wonder what my life would be like if I never felt a pang of guilt over not finishing my to-do list at work on a day when I chose to spend more time with my kids.

Could the antidote to much of our working-mom stress really be as simple as a shift in mindset? It may not solve everything, but it’s probably a reasonable place to start.

Life is a game of trade-offs

“You can have it all, just not all at once.” Whether Betty Friedan, Oprah, or someone else first said this, it’s a good quote.

However, it fell short in helping me be truly more at peace with balancing work and family. After reciting it to myself for months, I realized that relying on a vision of a future in which I could have it all - when my kids are grown and I can finally itch that career-woman scratch - as my source of hope was robbing me of experiencing the full joy that my present life has to offer.

A mentor of mine once told me to “cherish the old kitchen table”. Embedded in a conversation about starter homes and thrifted furniture, this advice was his way of telling me not to wish too much for a future time with a bigger house, more money, and greater flexibility. Oftentimes, the most successful people reminisce most about the early days of their marriages, their families, and their companies. It seems that, perhaps paradoxically, when we have the most restrictions, we can often find the most peace in a simpler life.

Now, every time I look at our scratched, four-seat kitchen table in our current (and first) house, I try to remind myself to appreciate the blessing of limitation. Our house is just big enough for our growing family, so there’s little extra room to add unnecessary stuff. Our kids are young, so my schedule is largely dictated by their naps and needs. And our surplus income is mostly nonexistent, so our Valentine’s Day and birthday presents tend to be homemade or edible rather than expensive and shiny. And, there’s something truly special about it.

Sometimes the simplicity provided by real limitations offers a peace that optionality can’t, and a comfort that every mother, working or not, deserves to have.