Review of 50 Years of Spanking Research Reveals Sobering Truth

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In a recently published meta analysis in the Journal of Family Psychology, developmental psychologist Elizabeth Gershoff and University of Michigan professor Andrew Grogan-Kaylor sift through 75 studies, for a total data pool of nearly 161,000 children, and find “no evidence that spanking is associated with improved child behavior.”

What’s more, the analysis finds evidence that spanking is associated with troubling outcomes — like increased aggression, increased anti-social behavior, and mental health problems later in life….

But what about the fact that “correlation doesn’t equal causation?”  Dr. Gershoff responds powerfully by saying…

…if in the real world — spanking was good for kids, some of these studies should have found that and found an effect in the other direction. [Only one study of the 75 found an effect linking spanking to a positive outcome.  In order for that conclusion to be right, that spanking is good for kids, we have to have some correlations in that direction, but we don’t. All the correlations are in the negative direction.

So, are parents who spank supposed to feel like awful people who ruined their kids?  Again, Gershoff responds…

Let’s be realistic, most people who were spanked were spanked as children. And as everyone likes to tell me, they turned out okay. And me included. I think I turned out okay despite being spanked.

The question is: Did other things counter balance the spanking?

I don’t think we learn to be good people who care about others by being hit. … [We learn from our parents,] who talk to us about the value and the morality of sharing with other people and taking turns and thinking about others’ feelings.

We know now that children need to be in car seats and seat belts. But those of us who grew up in the 1970s were in cars that didn’t even have seat belts. Do I think my parents were bad parents for not putting me in a seat belt? No, because no one understood how important seat belts were to protecting children. Do I think I “turned out okay” because I wasn’t in a seat belt? No — I think I was lucky. It’s the same with spanking.

We turned out okay in spite of being spanked, not because of it.  READ THE FULL INTERVIEW

For more tips on effective, gentle discipline, check out Parenting with Grace: The Catholic Parents’ Guide to Raising (almost) Perfect Kids.  

 

Hate Attachment Parenting? So Did This Mom. Here’s The Surprising Thing She Discovered.

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God gives us the children we need.  He speaks to us through our children.  We can listen for his voice, or let the noise in our heads tune it out. The choice is ours.  Here’s one mother’s heartfelt struggle to learn to listen–and experience the healing that comes in hearing.

When my daughter Azalea was born, I was flooded with feelings of love. But it wasn’t long before I returned to a more familiar sense of myself, and that love was mixed with ambivalence, internal conflict, impatience, and sometimes anger. Yes, I adored my baby, the way she nose-breathed on me as she nursed, her milky smell, her beautiful face, her charming smiles, her bright energy. Her. I loved her. But I was exhausted and overwhelmed, and what might be expressed as irritability in some parents felt more like rage to me. I knew better than to express anger at a baby, but my control dials felt out of reach. I never hit or shook my daughter, but I did yell at her, in real and frightening fury. One time, when she was 6 months old, she was supposed to be taking a nap, but instead she was pulling herself up in her crib, over and over again, nonstop crying. I was over it, done, nothing left. I sat on the floor in her darkened room, and made my ugliest, angriest, face at her, seething, yelling at her to just…go…to…SLEEP.

If this had been a one-off, I could have rationalized that every parent loses it at some point. But this kind of heat was all too available to me. I would occasionally confess my behavior to my husband, a psychotherapist, but he rarely saw it up close. So as much as he, my own therapist, and my friends tried to support us both, I was largely alone in my shame. And my daughter was alone with a warm and loving and sometimes scary mom.

I had read Dr. Sears and his attachment-parenting ideas before Azalea was born, but I was deeply suspicious that a checklist of behaviors could teach anyone how to raise a human being. I would read things like “Respond to your baby’s cues,” and think, Right. As if. Her cues were often inscrutable and always exhausting. Sears’s cavalier oversimplification annoyed me to no end and added to the weight of expectations and disappointment.

As Azalea grew, some things got easier. Language helped. Her ever-increasing cuteness and sweetness helped. Our connection developed, and I loved doing things together — reading books, going to Target, cooking, cuddling, walking, hanging out with friends. Things were good. Except when they weren’t. Like the time in the grocery store as I was checking out with Thanksgiving groceries while struggling to manage Azalea’s unwieldy 10-month-old body in front of a line of blankly staring, silently huffing adults. I remember the jaw-setting, skin-tingling, adrenaline-pumping feeling of anger overtake me. While I don’t remember exactly what I said to my squirming baby, I will never forget the disgusted look on the checkout lady’s face, confirming that whatever outburst I settled on was definitely not okay.

In my dark moments, I felt like something inside me was missing, that thing that functions deep down that keeps us from hurting the people we love. But I also tried to remind myself that the cult of perfect parenthood is a myth, that there is no way to avoid making a mess of our kids one way or another. That gave me some peace. Then, when Azalea was 4, I interviewed Jon Kabat-Zinn, the [therapist and] mindfulness expert who has written many books, including Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of the Mindful Parent. I think I was hoping he might encourage me to set down my burden of guilt and shame, maybe even offer a God-like let it go. But that wasn’t what happened.

Kabat-Zinn: The meaning of being a parent is that you take responsibility for your child’s life until they can take responsibility for their own life. That’s it! 

Me: That’s a lot.

Kabat-Zinn: True, and it doesn’t mean you can’t get help. Turns out how you are as a parent makes a huge difference in the neural development of your child for the first four or five years.

Me: That is so frightening.

Kabat-Zinn: All that’s required, though, is connection. That’s all. 

Me: But I want to be separate from my child; I don’t want to be connected all the time.

Kabat-Zinn: I see. Well, everything has consequences. How old is your child?

Me: Four and a half. 

Kabat-Zinn: Well, I gotta say, I have very strong feelings about that kind of thing. She didn’t ask to be born.  

I knew then that I needed to figure out why I am the kind of mother I am, and what effect it was having on my daughter.  READ THE REST HERE

And to learn more about how to listen to God speaking through your children, check out Parenting with Grace: A Catholic Parent Guide to Raising (almost) Perfect Kids and The Corporal Works of Mommy (and Daddy Too):  Living the Little Way of Family Life.

More2Life Hack: 3 Tips for More Joyful Living!

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Who doesn’t want more joy in their lives?  Today on More2Life Radio, we explored what it takes to overcome common obstacles to more joyful living.  The short version?  You don’t have to wait for all the stress and problems in your life to go away before you feel more joyful.  Here are three simple things you can do to lead a more joyful life in good times and bad.

 

  • Retrain your brain for joy–Our brains are naturally wired to give more weight to negative events as a survival strategy, BUT research shows we can offset this by intentionally practicing gratitude.  Everyday, write down at least 3 simple things you are grateful for.  Periodically, remind yourself of all the prayers God has answered in the past.  Make a point of acknowledging the simple ways others take care of you by saying “thank you” from your heart.  Studies demonstrate that simple acts like this can increase out “happiness set point” by up to 25%!
  • Make a joyful difference-Pope St. John Paul the Great’s theology of the body  says that the source of true joy is serving others.  Research bears this out. Actively looking for ways to make even a small difference in someone else’s life will make you feel better about yourself and lighten your mood.  It feels good to know that God can use you and your gifts to bless those around you.
  • Make Joyful Connections–In good times and bad, draw closer to the people you love. Reach out to others.  Invite someone you care about to share a new experience with you.  Research shows that sharing new experiences with someone you care about strengthen both intimacy with others and your personal experience of joy. Another way to create joyful connections is to plan some time to “waste time” with someone you love. Intentionally taking time to “just be” with those you love reminds you that you belong to a community of caring people.  Research shows the closer you feel to the people around you, the more joyful you’ll be.

If you’d like to experience more joy in your life, check out God Help Me, This Stress is Driving Me Crazy!  Finding Balance Through God’s Grace and tune in to More2Life radio each weekday at 10am E/9am C on a Catholic radio station near you or SiriusXM Channel 130.

More2Life Hack: 3 Tips for Staying Close Through Conflict

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Today on More2Life radio, we looked at ways husbands and wives can grow closer not just in spite of conflict.  Here are three things happy couples know about managing conflict…gracefully.

 

  • Avoid catastrophizing conflict–couples in happy marriages argue as often as couples in unhappy marriages.  The difference between happy and unhappy couples is not how often they argue, but how they manage their conflict.
  • Keep Calm in Conflict–The most important thing in conflict is self-regulation.  Use the 60-40 rule. Pay 60% attention to how you’re reacting and 40% to what they are saying.  If you feel your emotional temperature rising to the point that you are showing outward signs of disgust (eye-rolling, disgusted sighing, refusing to look at them, speaking over each other) get control of yourself or take a break until you are calm.  If you can’t have the conversation respectfully, don’t have it at all.  Or, if this is a long term problem get help from a trained marriage therapist who can teach you how to have respectful disagreements
  • Be Caretakers Through Conflict–Smart couples know that even in conflict, taking care of your partner is job #1.  Find little ways to reassure each other, to reassure your spouse that their concerns are important to you, that you are grateful for them working through this with you, and that even though you don’t see eye to eye, you still love each other. 

For more tips on staying close through marital conflict, check out When Divorce is Not An Option:  How To Heal Your Marriage and Nurture Lasting Love and For Better Forever: A Catholic Guide to Lifelong Marriage.  And don’t forget to tune in to More2Life radio each weekday at 10am E/9am C on a Catholic radio station near you or SiriusXM Channel 130.

More2Life Hack: 3 Tips for Authentic Forgiveness

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Today on More2Life, we explored what authentic forgives does (and doesn’t) require.  Here are three tips to help you make forgiving others less complicated.

1. There is a difference between forgiveness and reconciliation.  

St. Augustine said that we’ve forgiven someone when we’ve surrendered our natural desire for revenge.  Forgiveness doesn’t mean pretending it never happened or letting the person go scot free.  It means surrendering your desire to hurt the other person or have them hurt for having hurt you.

Reconciliation, on the other hand, (again, according to Augustine) is the “tranquility that results from right order.”  In other words, in order to reconcile with someone, they have to be willing to work with you to heal the wounds, right the wrongs, or solve the problems caused by their actions.  Because not everyone is willing to do that, it is possible to forgive someone but still not be reconciled to them.

2. There are 3 Parts to an effective apology

If a person is truly sorry (as opposed to just going through the motions) their apology will reflect the fact that they feel how much they hurt you, own the responsibility for what they’ve done (instead of blaming you or making excuses), and want to make restitution.   If you are struggling to forgive someone, there is a good chance one of these three ingredients is missing. Full reconciliation will require you to insist that the missing elements be addressed.

3.  Reconciliation requires you to be able to trust they won’t do it again.

To completely reconcile with someone, you need to be able to trust that–barring some genuinely unusual circumstances–they won’t commit the same offense again.  Research shows that a trustworthy person has proven that they have 4 qualities.  The ability to do what they say they are going to do.  The integrity that either enables them to avoid giving offense in the first place and/or easily and quickly accept correction when they commit an offense in spite of themselves.  The benevolence that shows that they are committed to working for your good even when it is inconvenient for them to do so. And the consistency that proves to you that they can be counted on to demonstrate these qualities across many different areas of your life and relationship.  Someone who does not display these qualities cannot be trusted to be safe and so you cannot completely reconcile with them until they have developed their skills in these areas.

In short, forgiveness is a gift you give yourself.  But reconciliation is a project that requires the active cooperation of the wound-er and the wounded.  Knowing the difference can make all the difference.

For more tips on achieving authentic forgiveness and reconciliation, check out God Help Me, These People Are Driving Me Nuts! Making Peace with Difficult People or tune in to More2Life radio each weekday at 10am E/9am C on a Catholic radio station near you or SiriusXM Channel 130.

“They Did What?!?” Simple Steps to Making Peace with People Who Hurt Us

My latest for OSVNewsweekly

Image via shutterstock. Used with permission

Image via shutterstock. Used with permission

Life is filled with people who frustrate, irritate and otherwise infuriate us. Whether it comes to managing conflict in our own households or facing political battles and culture wars, there seems to be no end to the ways other people can inflame us.

And yet, in the face of all this discord, we’re reminded of Jesus’ words: “Blessed are the peacemakers’” (Mt 5:9). Pope Francis has asserted that practicing this beatitude is the “identity card of a Christian.” Refusing to add fuel to the metaphorical fires burning in our world is a hallmark of the call to follow Christ.

Even so, it can be hard to know where to start. I like to remind my clients that the key to authentic peacemaking is practicing the art of charitable interpretation. The art of charitable interpretation is not the same as excusing another’s bad behavior, and it involves much more than simply “assuming the best” about another person.  READ THE REST

Millennials Less Promiscuous Than Any Generation for 60 Years. Here’s Why That’s TERRIBLE.

Image: Shutterstock.

Image: Shutterstock.

Some Christian news outlets are rejoicing at the recent study finding that Millennials are less sexually active than any other generation for the last 60 years. The perception by some is that this generation is experiencing a spontaneous outbreak of unusual moral fortitude.

Confronting the Nightmare

Would that it were so.  If you read the reports, the reasons Millennials give for not being interested in sex is that they are not interested in relationship at all.  Millennials appear to be so relationally broken that they would prefer to play video games, obsess over work, and dabble in porn rather than engage in any form of intimate relationship (not just sex) hardly counts as a win for our side. Rampant divorce, parental serial monogamy, an epidemic of absentee fathers, and households led by dual-parent workaholics. have killed this generation’s most basic, God-given desire for communion. It’s a nightmare.

Is It Porn?

Some commenters have suggested that this is the result of the porn epidemic.  That certainly doesn’t help, but that misses the larger point.  Under normal circumstances, even people who have a seriously compulsive relationship with porn historically indicated that a real relationship with a flesh and blood person would be preferable.  That isn’t the case with man Millennials.  The problem is much deeper.

Only the Godless Die Young

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With apologies to Billy Joel, new research from Harvard shows that, irrespective of the state of their general health, only the godless die young.

Over the last 20 years, research has gradually accumulated suggesting that religious service attendance is associated with better physical and mental health. For example, research articles have indicated that regular religious service attendance is associated with a 30 per cent reduction in depression, a five-fold reduction in the likelihood of suicide, and a 30 per cent reduction in mortality, over 16 years of follow-up.

There have been a number of prior studies on religious service attendance and longevity. Many of these had been criticised for poor methodology, for instance allowing the possibility of reverse causation — ie, that only those who are healthy can attend services, so that attendance isn’t necessarily influencing health. 

Papers recently published out of Harvard University have tried to address this concern by using repeated measurements of service attendance and health over time to control for whether changes in health preceded changes in service attendance. The associations between religious service attendance and longevity, suicide and depression were all robust. Results indicated that compared with women who never attended religious services, women who attended more than once a week had a 33 per cent lower mortality risk during the study period. Those who attended weekly had a 26 per cent lower risk and those who attended less than once a week had a 13 per cent lower risk. (The data comes from women who worked as nurses in the US, most of whom identified as Catholic or Protestant, so most of the religious services would be at churches. However, the definition encompassed a range of different places of worship.)

NOT Just Social Benefits

Although historically researchers have suggested that the positive health benefits of religious involvement could be largely attributed to the social aspects of church attendance–socialization being an established contributor to well-being–more sophisticated statistical analysis shows that the social dimensions of faith account for only about 20% of the life-extending benefits of religion.  According to researchers…

Other mechanisms might also be operative. The development of self-discipline and a sense of meaning and purpose in life have been proposed in the literature as potential factors. The association between service attendance and health seems not to be explainable by just one mechanism alone. Rather, there appear to be many pathways from religion to health. Religious service attendance affects many aspects of a person’s life and the cumulative effect of all of these seems to have a substantial influence on health.

Of course, studies can’t statistically account for, y’know, that grace thingy.

“Spiritual Not Religious” Dying Sooner As Well.

The research also had some bad news for all the “spiritual but not religious” folks out there…

it appears to be religious service attendance, rather than self-assessed religiosity or spirituality or private practices, that most powerfully predicts health. 

You can read the rest here.  For more on how you and your kids live longer more faithful lives, check out Discovering God Together: The Catholic Guide to Raising Faithful Kids.

What Faith Stage Are You? The 6 Stages of Seeking Meaning, Significance, and Transcendence.

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The following article is adapted from Discovering God Together:  The Catholic Guide to Raising Faithful Kids

Most people think that faith is something you either have or you don’t.  But research by Emory University’s Dr. James Fowler revealed that faith evolves in discernible stages throughout our lifespan.  At each stage, a person’s faith needs to be nourished in different ways if it is to grow and mature into the next stage. If we don’t receive the right kind of support, faith development can stall or even wither.  Because Fowler viewed faith as a natural and essential part of every human person’s search for meaning, significance, and transcendence, Fowler’s Stages of Faith track with other developmental stages you might remember from your Psych 101 class, such as Erik Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development and Lawrence Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development.

What Stage of Faith are you at?  And what do you need to do to more effectively continue your search for meaning, significance, and transcendence?

STAGE 0: Primal Faith (Infancy)–  People might be surprised to realize that babies have faith.  It’s true that they don’t have a conscious experience of faith and can’t articulate specific beliefs,  but this stage is tremendously important because it sets the stage for baby’s view of God and the world.  If parents respond to baby’s needs promptly, generously, and consistently, baby learns the basic, gut-level sense of trust that is necessary to believe that when I call out, God will answer. If parents delay responding to baby’s cries, baby develops gut-level insecurity that anyone will respond when I cry out or that there is anyone to bother crying out to in the first place.

Stage 1: Intuitive Projective Faith (Early Childhood)–This is the “feeling stage” of faith.  Children of this age are not capable of abstract thinking.  They understand everything in terms of “does it feel good or does it feel bad?”  Parents do well to make the child’s experience of faith at this stage as warm, loving, pleasant, and even “cuddly” as possible.  Whether or not a parent does this determines whether the child envisions the idea that “God is watching over you” as a positive, loving, and safe thing (“How wonderful, a loving God is looking out for me!”) or a judging, condemning, scary thing (“I always feel like somebody’s watching me!“).  Everyone eventually outgrows Stage 0 and Stage 1 but the gut-level lessons they take from these stages often stay with them throughout their lives, making faith development a joy or a constant struggle depending upon the experiences they have had up to this point.

Stage 2: Mythic-Literal Faith (Primary School Age to Adulthood)– This is the “story stage.”  The stage of fables and bible stories and rules.  These stories and rules form the basic structures of a child’s faith system.  At this stage, God is a “person” in the same sense that Superman or Santa Claus is a person.  A “larger than life” being with superpowers to help him maintain order in the universe.  Again, depending on how parents present their own faith story (i.e., how they live and explain their own faith life to their kids), God could either be perceived as a benevolent ruler of the universe or a tyrant.  Either way, for the person at this stage, following the rules, doing things “just so” and working hard not to upset God are the prime motivators and primary ways faith is expressed. Generous amounts of parental affirmation allow the person to move through this to the next stage.  By contrast, adults who become stuck at this stage tend to be fairly scrupulous in their approach to faith and overly concerned with liturgical rules, moral rules, and proving themselves to be “good enough”.  For these individuals, faith can become an exhausting trial of constantly trying to prove themselves to God or the people they imagine to be the “official judges of goodness.”

Stage 3: Synthetic Conventional Faith (Adolescence to Adulthood)— This is the “relationship stage” of faith.  A person at this stage tends to decide that something is “true” if it makes their relationships easier and makes people feel affirmed.  By contrast, it is “false” if it makes relationships more complicated or makes people feel challenged or guilty in some way. The hard and fast rules of the mythic-literal stage are now revisioned in light of one’s relationships and the need to affirm others where they are at in their present struggles. Many adults remain at this stage for their entire lives.  Community is very important at this stage.  The down side of this is that faith can be a bit tribalistic (i.e., us v. them), even within a particular denomination.  A faithful, supportive community will enable people to sustain their faith at this stage, the absence of such a community,or the presence of an angry, judgmental community could cause the loss of faith.  Regardless, a person will tend to be faithful to the degree that the people around them are faithful and affirming of their efforts.  They have a harder time feeling confident in their faith and values without a cheering section.

Stage 4: Individuative-Reflective Faith (Early-Middle Adulthood)–This is the “Questioning and Seeking” stage of faith.  The person at this stage owns their faith, is not worried about whether people approve of them or not, and begins questioning many basic assumptions they had previously accepted as gospel.  The person at this stage is “kicking the tires” of their faith, asking hard questions to see what will stand and what may fall away.  Often the people around this individual consider them to be backsliding and are threatened by this individual’s willingness to question the structures of rules and relationships that people at the lower stages of faith need to hold onto for security. At this stage, the person is much more concerned with internal conversion than with outward expressions of piety and righteousness. They tend to withdraw a bit from others, both needing less affirmation and more time to reflect and consider where they are in their journey and who God is asking them to be moving forward. The downside is that they can be a bit smug, looking down their noses at those who they consider to be less evolved. The other danger is that many people at this stage come to believe that the act of questioning is an end in itself and that actually finding actual answers is somehow beneath them.  The process of “seeking and questioning” though imminently valuable and necessary, can become its own idol.  In classic terms, this stage marks the end of the Purgative Way and the beginning of the Illuminative Way.

Stage 5: Conjunctive Faith (Middle-Later Adulthood)–This is the “wisdom stage” of faith.  The person at this stage has achieved what seems to others to be an almost effortless integration of their faith and life.  Things seem, somehow, genuinely less messy for them than for other’s lives.  Others may be tempted to write this off as “luck” but in reality, this is the result of decades of struggle and effort.  The person at this stage has achieved a true, authentic, integration between what they profess and how they live.  This is essence of wisdom; the practiced knowledge of how to live their beliefs–authentically, honestly, and effectively–in the real world.  People at this stage aren’t interested in proving anything.  They also experience a “willed naivety” which allows them to revisit beliefs and practices that they formerly rejected as somehow beneath them.  Also, unlike people at the answer-phobic individuative-reflective stage, people at the conjunctive stage accept that although there may not be perfect answers to the “Big Questions” there are often “very good answers” that are almost universally applicable.  In classic terms, the person at this stage is squarely in the Illuminative Stage of the spiritual walk and perhaps the beginning of the Unitive Stage.

Stage 6: Universalizing Faith (Later Adulthood)–For want of a better way to describe it, this is the “saintly stage.”  Without any attempt on their part to put on a show,  people at this stage are acknowledged by those around them for being living, breathing, examples of faith and virtue and an inspiration to others. People at this stage can still be polarizing and challenging to others, but there is a compassion that comes with these challenges that tempers any sense of condemnation others may feel. There is a simplicity to outward expressions of this person’s faith that belies the depth of belief and wisdom that lies beneath the surface. This person is in at least the beginning stages of the Unitive Way.

So, what stage are you?  Where would you like to be? Negotiating the challenges of these stages can be difficult on our own.  That’s where a spiritual director can be a great help.  If you’d like to learn more about how spiritual direction can help you navigate the challenges of these stages and achieve greater confidence in your spiritual walk, contact us at SpiritualDirection@CatholicCounselors.com  And, for a more in-depth look at each of these stages and how you, as a parent, can help your kids grow up to have a healthy, mature faith, check out, Discovering God Together:  The Catholic Guide to Raising Faithful Kids

 

More2Life Radio Coming to EWTN Radio Network & SIRIUS/XM Channel 130 @ 10amE/9amC

Photo Credit: More2Life Radio. Used with Permission

Photo Credit: More2Life Radio. Used with Permission

EWTN Radio announced today that they will begin airing More2Life with Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak each weekday at a new time, 10am Eastern/9am Central, beginning August 15th, 2016.  More2Life is a call-in advice program integrating insights from counseling psychology and St John Paul the Great’s Theology of the Body (TOB).   Mike Jones, Vice-President of Ave Maria Radio, the producers of More2Life, said that they were excited to be bringing More2Life to EWTN’s almost 400 affiliated stations across the US as well as the EWTN Channel 130 on Sirius Satellite Radio.

Airing weekdays on about 50 stations affiliated with Ave Maria Radio since 2001, More2Life is dedicated to helping people live the  Catholic difference in their marriage, family, and personal lives and overcome the obstacles we face to becoming the whole, healed, godly, and grace-filled people we are all meant to be.

More2Life offers a faithful take on current events and the latest insights from counseling psychology, viewing the world through the lens of the Theology of the Body—that dynamic teaching of St. John Paul the Great that has been called “a theological time bomb,” with the potential to revolutionize how the world thinks about faith, life, and love in the third millennium.

In addition to sharing helpful tips and responding to listeners’ calls about challenging marriage, family, and personal problems, Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak are joined by a rotating list of dynamic TOB guest experts including…

Bishop Jeffrey Monforton, Bishop of Steubenville and former rector of Sacred Heart Seminary.

Dr. Andy Lichtenwalner & Bethany Meola Exec. Dir. and Asst. Dir. (respectively) of the USCCB Secretariat for Marriage, Family, Laity and Youth.

Fr. John Riccardo, popular speaker, pastor, and host of Christ is the Answer

Dr. John & Claire Grabowski, members of the Pontifical Council for the Family

Dr. Joseph White, family psychologist & national catechetical consultant for OSV Publications.

Damon Owens, former Exec. Dir. of the TOB Institute and Founder of JoyToBe Ministries.

Bill Donaghy, head of curriculum development for the TOB Institute

Emily Stimpson, author of These Beautiful Bones:  An Everyday Theology of the Body

Rachel Watkins, developer of the Little Flowers Girls Club and mom of 11.

In addition to hosting More2Life Radio, Dr Greg and Lisa Popcak are the authors of more than 20 books that apply timeless Catholic wisdom and cutting-edge psychological insights to the challenges of marriage, family, and everyday life.  Together, they are the founders of the Pastoral Solutions Institute, an internationally-recognized Catholic tele-counseling practice providing over 12,000 hours of counseling services each year to Catholics around the world. They were featured speakers at the 2015 World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia and are winners of the Couple to Couple League International’s Fr. Richard M. Hogan Award for their work promoting the Catholic vision of marriage and sexuality.

Dr. Greg Popcak is a Fellow of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors and the Chair of the Marriage and Family Studies  program at Holy Apostles College and Seminary. He also holds teaching positions on the psychology and graduate theology faculties at Franciscan University of Steubenville.

Lisa Popcak is a Certified Family Life Coach, a Lactation Consultant, and professional educator with specializations in learning styles and early childhood development, adoption, and attachment.

They have been married 27 years and are the parents of three children.   They are popular guests on many Catholic radio and television programs and their work has been featured in the LA Times, Washington Post, Ladies Home Journal, NPR, USA Radio Network, FoxNews, and many other outlets.