Helping Your Kids Discern the Big Decisions

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As Karen’s high school age daughter began looking at colleges, she set her heart on a large school across the country. That worried Karen, who felt that her daughter, though a good kid, was more of a follower than a leader. What if, Karen worried, her daughter fell in with the wrong crowd? But when she said that out loud, her daughter accused her of being controlling.

“I want to trust her, but I also feel like part of my job is to keep her from walking off a cliff,” Karen said in an email to Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak, hosts of the More2Life radio show. ”Where’s the line between helping her discern and just imposing what I think is best?”

Karen’s instinct is right on target. As much as we might want to shepherd our kids around every pitfall that life throws their way, it’s far better to help them make good decisions on their own. But how do we do that?

Making Room for Kids to Practice Discernment

If we’re trying to teach our kids how to make good decisions, then instead of just telling them what the right answer is, “we have to kind of give up the idea that we have the right to kind of tell the child what to do,” Dr. Popcak said.

Yes, we parents have the right and responsibility to protect our kids’ well-being. But just as our kids won’t learn to ride a bike if we aren’t willing to give them some space, we also need to make room for them to practice decision making.

That practice can begin early with small decisions, said Rachel Watkins, developer of the Little Flowers Girls Club and a guest of the More2Life show. Even young kids can participate in a conversation about what to do over the weekend or where to go on vacation, she said. Even when it comes to big family decisions, like whether to accept a job offer or move to another state, kids can be invited to pray with Mom and Dad about the decision.

Start by Praying Together

Prayer is key to discernment, Greg and Lisa told Karen. They suggested that she and her daughter pray together about the decision—out loud, and addressing God, not one another.

“You’re talking to God in each other’s presence,” Lisa said. “You’re listening to each other while you’re both talking to God, and you’re asking the Holy Spirit to help you clue in to certain things that each other is saying.”

For example, Karen might talk to God out loud about her fears and concerns. Her daughter, in turn, might pray about how she feels controlled and not trusted by her parents. For this to work, it’s key that the prayer be genuine, not a lecture disguised as a prayer.

“You can use that prayer then as a springboard for deeper conversation,” Dr. Popcak said.

God Wants Us to Have an Abundant Life

Kids and adults alike will often ask whether the fruit of their prayer is really God’s voice, or just their own.

Dr. Popcak suggests that question is a red herring. “The question we need to be asking is, what direction does this voice lead in?” he said. “We can discover God’s will by prayerfully leaning into three qualities, meaningfulness, intimacy, and virtue.”

Those three qualities offer kids (and adults) a compass for making important life decisions because they are the three pillars of the abundant life God wants for us. Anything that points toward meaningfulness, intimacy and virtue is likely from the Holy Spirit, while anything pulling toward powerlessness, isolation or self-indulgence is not.

As you and your child practice discerning together, ask:

  1.   Meaningfulness. Which option gives your child the best chance to use their gifts to make a positive difference? Not which looks most impressive, but where this particular young person has something to offer.
  2.   Intimacy. Which option leads to deeper, stronger, healthier relationships?
  3.   Virtue. Which option will challenge your child to become more of the whole, healed, godly, grace-filled person God made them to be? 

You Don’t Need Trumpets to Move Forward

Sometimes people will fall into the trap of waiting for an explicit, obvious sign that they are making the right decision: a flash of light, a voice from the sky, a trumpet fanfare.

But such signs are rare, and in most cases, we don’t really need anything more than to trust that God will walk alongside us, continuing to guide us as we go along. A prayerful, open spirit plus the “compass” of meaningfulness, intimacy, and virtue will keep you and your child headed in the right general direction, which is seeking God’s loving will. As long as we desire to follow God’s will, God in his mercy will help us refine the course we’ve charted.

Dr. Popcak said that as he settles on a direction in his own life, he prays something like this: Lord, I brought this to you and I’ve investigated the things that are truly possible. This direction seems not only possible, but it also seems like it will lead me to greater meaningfulness, intimacy, and virtue, so this is what I’m going to do. But if that’s not what you want me to do, please hit me upside the head and let me know.

Teach Your Kids to Fly

Lisa used a vivid image for the role that parents ought to play in helping their kids learn to discern big decisions. Don’t engage in helicopter parenting, she said, hovering over your kids to direct their every move. Instead, teach them to fly the helicopter. That means sitting alongside them as a mentor and guide…until they are ready to fly on their own.

For more on raising children who can hear God’s voice for themselves, see Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak’s book Discovering God Together: The Catholic Guide to Raising Faithful Kids. And for personalized support with a big family decision, reach out to the pastoral counselors at CatholicCounselors.com.

 

This School Year Doesn’t Have to Pull Your Family Apart

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Every August, it begins.

The new backpacks are purchased. Calendars start filling up. Sports schedules arrive. Teachers send welcome emails. Before long, evenings become a blur of homework, practices, dinner, laundry, and trying to remember who needs to be where tomorrow.

For many families, the school year doesn’t simply change the schedule. It changes the atmosphere of the home. Without intending to, we shift into survival mode. Our days become about logistics instead of relationships. We spend more time coordinating than connecting. And by the time May rolls around, everyone is exhausted.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

The Goal Isn’t to Manage a Busy Family

It’s easy to think the solution is becoming more organized. A better planner, a more efficient calendar, a color-coded schedule. Those things certainly have their place, but they don’t solve the deeper problem. The question isn’t whether your family will be busy. The question is whether your busyness is serving your family—or whether your family has begun serving the busyness.

The Theology of the Body reminds us that the family isn’t simply a collection of individuals sharing a house. It’s a communion of persons. The home is meant to be the primary place where we learn how to love, serve, forgive, communicate, and grow together.

That means the purpose of family life isn’t simply getting everyone where they need to go, it’s helping one another become the people God created us to be. Schedules should support that mission, not replace it.

Don’t Let Activities Become the Center of Family Life

Most activities are good. Sports teach perseverance, music builds discipline, clubs develop friendships. The problem isn’t that our children are involved. The problem comes when the calendar becomes the organizing principle of family life. When every evening belongs to an activity, families slowly lose the ordinary moments where relationships are built.

Research consistently shows that children don’t primarily remember the extraordinary experiences, they remember what life felt like at home. They remember whether dinner conversations happened, whether their parents laughed together, whether home felt peaceful, whether they felt seen.

Those seemingly ordinary moments are anything but ordinary.

They’re where trust grows.

Protect the Rhythms That Matter Most

Instead of asking, “How can we fit everything in?” consider asking a different question:

“What rhythms help our family stay connected?”

For one family, it may be protecting dinner together several nights each week. For another, it might be Saturday morning pancakes before the weekend fills up. Maybe it’s praying together before bed, taking evening walks, or making Sunday afternoons intentionally slower.

The specific ritual matters less than its consistency. Children thrive when they know there are predictable moments where everyone slows down enough to simply be together.

Those moments become anchors during the busiest seasons.

Let the Schedule Reflect Your Priorities

As new opportunities arise this school year, don’t just ask whether your child would enjoy them. Ask what accepting them will mean for your family as a whole. Will this leave room for rest? Will we still have time to talk? Will our faith remain something we practice together, or will it become one more thing we’re trying to squeeze in?

Sometimes the most loving decision isn’t adding another opportunity, it’s protecting the relationships that make every other opportunity worthwhile. That’s not saying no to your children. It’s saying yes to your family.

Remember What Success Really Looks Like

At the end of the school year, your children probably won’t remember every assignment they completed or every game they played.

But they’ll remember what your home felt like. Did it feel hurried or peaceful? Did it feel transactional or relational? Did they experience faith as another obligation, or as the source of warmth, hope, and stability in family life?

Those are the memories that shape them long after the school year ends. And they don’t happen by accident, they happen because parents intentionally choose connection over constant activity.

You Don’t Have to Figure It Out Alone

Building a connected family in today’s world isn’t easy. Culture constantly pushes us toward more activities, more commitments, and more busyness.

That’s why so many parents are looking for practical support—not just parenting advice, but ongoing encouragement and guidance from people who understand both family life and the Catholic faith.

That’s exactly why we created CatholicHÔM (Households on Mission).

CatholicHÔM offers parents faithful, professional coaching, practical resources, live events, and a supportive community designed to help families build stronger relationships while making faith the source of warmth in the home.

You’ll discover practical ways to strengthen family rituals, navigate parenting challenges, deepen your marriage, and create a home where your children experience faith as something joyful and life-giving.

Because this school year shouldn’t just be about getting everyone through the schedule.

It can be about growing closer to one another along the way.

Learn more about CatholicHOM and join our community today at CatholicHOM.com or by downloading the CatholicHOM app in your app store. 

Here’s the Key to Helping Your Kids Develop a Mature Faith

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Diana, a mom in Columbus, Ohio, thought that she was doing everything right to raise her kids in the faith. They went to Mass regularly, prayed before meals, and sent them to the parish school.

But then her 12-year-old daughter made a comment that made her completely rethink her approach.

“Last week, my 12-year-old told me she thinks God is ‘more like a rule-maker than someone who loves us.’ And it knocked the wind out of me, because I realized she must have learned that from us,” Diana told Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak during a recent episode of the More2Life radio show that they co-host.

Her family had been so focused on practicing the faith as an act of obedience, she said, that they had not done as good a job helping their daughter actually experience God’s love.

A Critical Step for Developing Mature Faith

The Popcaks hear versions of Diana’s story regularly, and they are quick to affirm that the spiritual practices she described — Mass, Catholic education, family prayer — are genuinely good. But as Dr. Popcak pointed out, all the trappings of faith are nothing without love (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).

Lisa Popcak was able to relate to Diana’s concern. As a girl, she was riding home from school with a friend’s mother when a stunning sunset lit up the sky. Without preamble, the mom said from the front seat: “Oh Lord, thank you for blessing us so much with this beautiful sunset. You are such a wonderful artist. You love us so much to give us so much beauty in the world.”

“Nobody had ever acknowledged God as a giver, as somebody who loves us enough to give us beautiful sunsets,” Lisa said. “It cut right through me.”

That moment was a significant milestone in her faith life. And as Dr. Popcak pointed out, it is a critical step necessary for anyone to develop a durable, mature faith life. Instead of seeing God as “the great and powerful Oz behind the curtain,” kids need to encounter him as the one who, first and foremost, loves them in a personal way.

Diana understood this instinctively but didn’t know how to move forward. “I hear people talk about having a more personal relationship with God,” she said, “but that feels strange to me.”

How could she help her kids encounter the God of love?

How to Introduce Kids to the God Who Loves Them

The Popcaks’ answer to Diana’s question was straightforward: instead of talking about God, show kids how to talk to God…and how to notice his presence and influence in their everyday lives.

“We begin by just really bringing our family to God every day and saying, ‘Okay, Lord, teach us how to love each other the way you want us to love each other, not just with the broken human love that we’ve got, but really the love that comes from your heart,’” Dr. Popcak explained.

This can happen at the same time every day, possibly during dinner or family prayer time. After praying together in this way, talk about what “loving one another with God’s love” might mean for the coming day.

“Practically speaking, what would it mean for us to love each other with that thing that’s going on this afternoon with the family or that stressful thing that mom has to deal with or that test that you’ve got coming up?” Dr. Popcak continued.

At the end of the day, take stock of how the day went and thank God for the ways he helped you love one another throughout the day.

“And what you’re doing there is you’re building this sense that God cares about you and wants to help you build those relationships with each other and with him,” Dr. Popcak said. 

Over time, children begin to see that God isn’t watching to catch them doing something wrong; he’s present, generous, and paying attention.

Two Simple Practices to Try

While the Popcaks have written numerous books on how to raise faith-filled kids, they encouraged Diana to begin with two simple practices.

The first is what they call “noticing God’s gifts aloud” — the informal, spontaneous habit of thanking God for small blessings as they happen throughout the day. Lisa’s story about her friend’s mother spontaneously thanking God for the sunset is one example, but you don’t need to wait for something extraordinary: you can thank God for a morning filled with more laughter than tears, or for a chance encounter with friends, or getting through a doctor’s visit. These small acknowledgments, said aloud, teach the whole family to see God as an active presence in ordinary life rather than a distant judge keeping score.

The second practice is an end-of-day conversation called “thorns and roses.” At dinner or before bed, each family member names a rose — a blessing from the day, a moment where they saw God’s goodness — and a thorn, something they struggled with or worried about. The roses train the family’s attention toward gratitude. The thorns become an opportunity for a brief, natural family prayer: Lord, come into this. Help us to be here for each other. Help us to know your love even through the hard things.

Neither of these practices requires adding a single minute of formal prayer to an already-packed day. They ask only that God be part of the conversation that’s already happening.

Toward a Mature Faith

Diana was right to want more for her kids. Her family’s various faith practices are important. But research consistently shows that for kids to develop a mature faith that endures into adulthood, it is crucial that they experience how their Christian faith makes a positive difference in their daily lives.

In other words, they need to awaken to God working in their lives, helping them to navigate the difficult moments and helping them to become more fully alive.

For more help building a faith-filled home life, explore the resources and coaching at the CatholicHŌM app, where Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak and their team of pastoral counselors walk families through exactly this kind of growth. And for personalized one-on-one support, reach out to a pastoral counselor at CatholicCounselors.com.

Family Conflict Doesn’t Have to Be Ugly. Here’s How to Reframe It.

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On a scale of one to five, how would you rate the way your family handles conflict?

If you’re looking for a benchmark, here are a few to consider: In the end, does conflict tend to bring the people involved closer together, or does it tend to push them farther apart? Put another way, do the people involved feel more secure in their relationship because of the way it’s handled or less secure?

If you feel like the way your family handles conflict is less than ideal, Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak have good news for you: the way your family of origin handled conflict doesn’t have to be the way your family handles it now.

“Whatever your experience of conflict in your family of origin was doesn’t have to be the experience of conflict in the family that you’re raising,” Dr. Popcak said on a recent episode of the CatholicHŌM podcast.

Conflict is an inevitable part of human relationships for the simple reason that different people have different wants and needs, and sometimes those differences bump up against each other.

So, family conflict is inevitable. But unhealthy family conflict that leaves people hurt and relationships strained isn’t inevitable at all.

Unhealthy Conflict Wears Two Faces

Most of us continue to operate out of the lessons we learned about conflict (and other aspects of relationships) as kids. If conflict was handled poorly in our family of origin, that’s likely to shape our strategy for handing conflict in adulthood, the Popcaks said.

St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body offers a helpful lens here. Sin, he taught, disrupted the communion God intended between people—the free, mutual gift of self that marriage and family are meant to embody. In its place crept two distortions: domination, where one person tries to control the other, or a kind of fearful appeasement, where one person abandons their own voice just to keep the peace.

A “winners and losers” approach to conflict that features raised voices, slammed doors, or icy silence doesn’t, in the long run, strengthen family relationships. But neither does an approach that attempts to avoid conflict through appeasement.

In parenting, this second unhealthy way of handling conflict often shows up in parents who, instead of guiding kids from a place of calm authority, parent from anxiety, desperate to prove they’re doing it right and terrified of losing their child’s affection.

The irony, Lisa explained, is that this approach backfires. “When we parent from a place of, ‘please love me, please love me, please let me know that I’m a good parent,’ we cause even more dysregulation in our children,” she said.

Kids don’t want a parent who’s afraid of them, even when their behavior suggests otherwise. They want a mom or dad who can stay steady through their frustration and help them manage those feelings in a healthy way, Lisa said.

Four Tips for Healthier Family Conflict

If your family of origin didn’t model healthy conflict, spend some time thinking about the virtues you’re aiming for, Dr. Popcak suggested: “How do we approach disagreements in a way that’s loving, in a way that’s kind, in a way that’s supportive?” he asked. “How do we deal with differences in a way that’s curious as opposed to defensive?”

Here are four strategies they recommend for changing moments of conflict into something that actually builds your family up rather than pulling it apart. These strategies are especially appropriate for handling conflict between you and your kids.

1. Choose your guiding virtues

Before the next conflict arises, pray about who God is calling each of your children to be, and let that vision guide you.

“I’m going to take some time and pray about who I think God’s calling this particular child to be, what virtues I want them to live by,” Lisa said. Naming those virtues—kindness, self-control, courage—gives you something steadier to stand on than your in-the-moment feelings.

This reframes conflict from a threat to manage into an opportunity to teach. As Lisa put it, naming these virtues in prayer becomes “your guiding star, rather than how you’re feeling in the moment.”

2. Stop unsafe behavior first, talk later

If your child is in a full meltdown, hitting, or saying hurtful things, the first job is to calmly stop the behavior, not analyze it.

“You stop everything and you’re just saying, ‘I love you. I know you have a need right now, but this behavior is unacceptable and it’s going to stop now.’”

Depending on circumstances, you might help them calm down by holding them in a warm embrace on your lap or having them stay somewhere in your line of sight to calm down on their own. With adults or older kids, this might mean taking a cool-down break with the intention of reconvening once everyone’s emotional temperature has settled down from a nine or a ten to a level that makes productive problem-solving possible.

Only once everyone is calm does the conversation about needs and solutions begin.

3. Get curious about what’s really going on

In any conflict, curiosity about what the other person is trying to achieve is a good starting point, and that’s especially true with younger kids.

Behind almost every frustrating thing your child does is a need they don’t yet know how to express well. Instead of assuming they’re trying to manipulate or attack you, ask what they were really trying to accomplish. Dr. Popcak suggests asking: “What were you trying to do, and how can we work together so that the next time you can get what you’re looking for in a way that works for me too?”

In the conversation that follows, the focus is on problem solving. The parent helps the kid identify what their need or want was (“I wanted to keep playing,” “I was hungry,” etc.), why their chosen strategy isn’t a good way to solve their problem, and alternate strategies that might actually work the next time the situation comes up.

4. Don’t overthink it with little ones

With younger children, resist the urge to interrogate them about their motives. They often don’t know what they want—they just know they’re frustrated.

Dr. Popcak suggests simply naming the feeling for them and modeling the words: “I’m really frustrated. I didn’t want to have to do that.” A short, calm acknowledgment, followed by gentle encouragement, does more good than a drawn-out conversation a small child isn’t equipped to have.

Yes, Conflict Can Bring Us Closer

The bottom line: Healthy family conflict isn’t about trying to “win” or avoid uncomfortable feelings. Instead, it’s about adopting a curious, cooperative, problem-solving posture: We may want different things here, but we’re in this together, and we’re going to work to find a healthy resolution.

In a parenting context, this attitude shifts the goal from “winning” (forcing the behavior we want to see) toward teaching our kids effective, healthy strategies for meeting their wants and needs.

If you’d like to keep talking through what healthy conflict can look like in your family, join other parents and pastoral counselors in the discussions and coaching section on the app at CatholicHŌM. And for more parenting tips, check out Parenting Your Kids with Grace and Parenting Your Teens and Tweens with Grace available at CatholicCounselors.com.

Both of these titles are now available on Audible!

What Does the Theology of the Body Have to Do with Mental Health?

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Which is more important to your health, your mind or your body? How you or your health care provider answers that question has real implications for your well-being.

Most of us treat the body and mind as two separate entities, reaching for a pill for physical pain and going to therapy for emotional struggles. Inevitably, this divide leaves us feeling fragmented and poorly served by modern medicine.

But the Catholic Church has long insisted that body and mind are not competing entities, but are profoundly united. Spirit and matter “are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature” (Catechism #365).

It’s a radically countercultural doctrine. For centuries, influential thinkers have pulled this unity apart. On one side, Plato and René Descartes treated the body as a sort of prison for the mind; early pioneers of psychology like Freud and Skinner followed suit by largely ignoring the body’s role in mental health. On the other side, materialist philosophers claimed that the human being is nothing more than a complex biological machine—a view that resurfaced when the discovery of psychiatric medications led many modern experts to reduce mental health to “chemical imbalances” in the brain.

In recent decades, modern science has come to recognize that mind and body are a single, deeply connected system. The Catholic Church has known this for centuries, and in the writings of Pope John Paul II, now known as the Theology of the Body, that ancient truth has been developed into a comprehensive framework for understanding the human person.

The Theology of the Body is foundational to the way the pastoral counselors at CatholicCounselors.com approach pastoral therapy. Here’s what it teaches and why it matters for your mental health.

A Roadmap for Human Wellness

When St. John Paul II became pope in 1978, he brought with him a manuscript he had been developing for years on what it means to be a human person. His starting point, as Dr. Popcak describes on the More2Life radio show, was this: if we took everything God has given us—creation, Scripture, salvation history, all of it—what universal principles could we discover about living a more abundant life and having healthier, holier relationships?

The answer became a comprehensive vision of the human person: what it means to be human, how we are wired for mental and emotional flourishing, and how we relate to one another. This vision became known as the Theology of the Body, and several of its insights speak directly to mental health.

Your Body is Speaking. Are You Listening?

One of TOB’s central claims is that our bodies are part of how God communicates his design for us. As Lisa Popcak explains on the show, drawing on St. Thomas Aquinas, God speaks to us through every cell of our bodies. Aquinas called this the Book of Nature—the idea that how God designed us, body, mind, and spirit, reveals his plan for how we are meant to live and relate to one another.

“Theology of the Body reminds us that biology is theology,” Dr. Popcak explains. “By prayerfully reflecting on the way God built our bodies and brains, we can discern important insights about what it takes to live a healthy, holy life.”

The human body offers numerous examples of this principle at work.

  • The face. The human face has roughly 43 muscles dedicated almost entirely to emotional expression—far more than almost any other animal. Humans are also unique among primates in having visible whites of the eyes, which allows others to track exactly where we are looking and what we are paying attention to. We are, literally, built to be
     “read” and to “read” others. The body reveals that we are made for mutual knowing.
  • Mirror neurons. God wired the human brain with mirror neurons—cells that fire when we observe another person’s emotional state, producing a similar feeling in ourselves. This is the neurological basis for empathy. We are designed not merely to observe others’ inner lives, but to share them.
  • Touch. Physical touch—a hand on a shoulder, a long hug from someone you trust—triggers the release of oxytocin, a hormone that reduces cortisol, lowers heart rate, and builds a sense of safety and trust. Research shows that holding someone’s hand during a stressful situation measurably reduces their physiological stress response. The body is designed to give and receive comfort through physical presence—another form of self-donation.
  • Secure attachment. When people feel securely connected to God and others, their nervous system operates in a calmer, more integrated state. The body’s social engagement system is literally activated by felt safety in relationship. Isolation, by contrast, keeps the nervous system in a low-grade state of vigilance and threat. This is why withdrawal from God and others doesn’t just feel painful—it physiologically disrupts our capacity to function well.
  • Anxiety. Brain science tells us that anxiety is not primarily a response to external problems, but acts as a warning signal that something is wrong in our connections to God and others. “Rather than being a direct response to problems,” Lisa Popcak explains, “anxiety is actually a sign that we feel disconnected from people—the people that God has placed in our life to support us. The key to regaining our peace is working to restore that sense of communion and connection.” When we feel anxious, the body is sending a message: go find safe, healthy people.

Physical symptoms like panic attacks, chronic tension, and persistent exhaustion follow the same logic. They are often the body making visible some dysfunction in the mind or spirit. Medication may help manage those symptoms, but lasting healing requires attending to the whole person.

We Are Wired for Communion

These five examples point toward one of TOB’s most practically important teachings: we are made for communion. Not just in the sense that other people are nice to have around, but in the deeper sense that we are literally strongest when connected to God and to one another—physically, neurologically, and spiritually designed to give and receive love.

As Dr. Popcak puts it, isolation doesn’t just leave us running low; it actively drains us. When problems cause us to withdraw from God and the people we love, our brains change in ways that make us feel powerless, overwhelmed, and alone.

This understanding that we are made for relationship shapes the Popcaks’ approach to specific problems. When a caller struggles with anxiety, for example, the conversation might move toward examining what connections in their life feel threatened or broken. Other times, when someone lacks the confidence to tackle a tough problem, the Popcaks urge the practice of receptivity, which Lisa explains as “the ability to listen to God in the moment so we’re not just relying on our own strength or our own instincts or even our own fears to guide us.”

Suffering is Not the End of the Story

Perhaps the deepest gift the Theology of the Body offers to people in pain is a way to understand their suffering.

As the Popcaks explain, every human story follows the pattern of the larger biblical story of God’s relationship with humanity.

  1. Chapter one is original man—who God created us to be before sin: “secure, whole, capable of loving and being loved totally without fear.”
  2. Chapter two is historical man—the wounded people we are now, “living in a fallen world, carrying the scars of sins committed against us and the sins and mistakes that we’ve made.”
  3. Chapter three is eschatological man—the people we are becoming, day by day, through God’s healing grace. Ultimately, we are destined to be fully restored and glorified in Christ.

The paschal mystery—Christ’s suffering, death, and Resurrection—blazed a path for us from chapter two to chapter three. Because Christ took on a human body, he did not suffer abstractly. He suffered physically and emotionally (body and mind): exhaustion, grief, betrayal, abandonment, and death. Human suffering does not have to be meaningless: God himself has walked this territory, and because he has, he can lead us through it.

“Even in the middle of difficult times,” Lisa says, “God wants to show us how to respond to what we’re going through in a way that helps us to become the people he created us to be, and to work for the good of those around us.”

It is tempting to think that our wounds, our struggles, and our bad habits define who we are. But the Theology of the Body insists otherwise.

“Our past may explain some things about us,” Dr. Popcak says, “but it’s grace that defines us.”

Body, Mind, and Spirit Working Together

Pastoral counseling rooted in the Theology of the Body doesn’t treat the body, mind, and spirit as separate departments. It understands them as interlocking dimensions of a single human experience. Tackling relational or personal problems means taking all three into account, and the Theology of the Body offers a framework for doing exactly that.

If you’d like to explore what that kind of integrated healing might look like in your own life, reach out to any of the pastoral counselors at CatholicCounselors.com.

To End the Chore Wars, Go Deeper Than Deciding Who Does What

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More than half of married adults say sharing the load of household work is very important to a successful marriage, according to a 2016 Pew Research survey. Yet nearly half of married couples say that responsibility for work around the house is split unevenly in their marriage.

Since chores are one of the leading causes of conflict in marriage, figuring out how to share the load matters. But as Dr. Greg Popcak points out, reducing conflict around chores is about more than balancing out how much each person does. It’s about something most couples have never talked about: emotional labor.

The 10 percent problem

“Doing the task is only about 10 percent of the actual task,” Dr. Popcak explained in a recent episode of his BeDADitudes podcast.

Think about what actually goes into getting something done. There’s the task itself — and then there’s everything that surrounds it: noticing the task needs doing, making a plan, gathering what’s needed, scheduling the time, following through, and making sure it stays done. That surrounding work is emotional labor.

In most households, emotional labor falls unevenly, with women usually (but not always) carrying most of the mental load. Often, the person doing the emotional labor can’t fully explain why they feel overburdened. They just know that even when their spouse “helps,” they’re still the one who had to notice, plan, and direct everything. In effect, that person has an extra job as the “general contractor” for the household.

“We’ve been socialized to think it’s one person’s responsibility to do the emotional labor,” Dr. Popcak said, “and the other person’s job to show up when told to do something. That’s really not the Christian view of household labor.”

More than checking boxes

Christian family life calls every member of the household — not just one person — to practice prompt, generous, consistent, and cheerful attention to each other’s needs. (Readers familiar with Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak’s Liturgy of Domestic Church Life will recognize this as one of twelve foundational practices for a healthy, holy family.)

The goal is to really “show up” for one another — cluing in to what the household and the people in it actually need, and contributing to that without waiting to be asked. Waiting to be told what to do, staying focused on our own corner of the house, or checking out after our assigned tasks are done amounts to the vice of sloth, Dr. Popcak said.

“Sloth isn’t necessarily laziness,” he said. “It’s the checking out. It’s not engaging with the things right in front of us.”

That inattention, however unintentional, damages relationships over time.

Building the Kingdom of God, One Sock at a Time

On the other hand, showing up, noticing what needs to be done, and then following through is a very real part of Christians’ responsibility to build the Kingdom of God.

“It’s not enough for the Christian person to be told what to do,” Dr. Popcak said. “The Christian person really needs to recognize what needs to be done and how I can use this moment to build the kingdom of God.”

Building the kingdom of God means doing what we can to cooperate with God’s grace and to undo the damage that sin does to our relationships with one another. “That’s what building the kingdom is because the kingdom is built on relationship,” Dr. Popcak said.

We tend to think of building the Kingdom of God in terms of “big” acts of charity. But noticing that the laundry needs putting away or that the dishes need to be done and then taking the lead on that is just as much part of building the Kingdom of God as bigger, more visible work like establishing hospitals and housing programs. The ultimate goal of both types of work is the same: sharing God’s love in a way that restores and strengthens relationships.

With that in mind, here are three simple ways to start shifting your family’s mindset around household work.

1. Scan before you sit

When you walk into a room, take five seconds to look around before settling in. Is there something small that needs doing? Maybe it’s a dirty cup on the counter or a child who looks like she’s had a rough afternoon.

You don’t have to act on everything you notice. The goal is simply to pay attention — to cultivate the habit of awareness rather than waiting for someone else to flag what needs doing.

2. Leave every room a little better than you found it

Dr. Popcak suggests adopting the old scouting principle of leaving your campsite better than you found it. Applied at home, that might mean wiping down the sink when you leave the bathroom, putting something away as you pass through the kitchen, or picking up what’s on the floor before you leave the bedroom.

Small contributions, made consistently by everyone in the household, add up to a home that doesn’t depend on any one person’s constant vigilance.

3. Leave every person a little better than you found them

The campsite principle applies to people, too.

“Am I leaving the people I encounter a little better than I found them?” Dr. Popcak asks. Offering to help, giving a hug, saying a word of encouragement all counts.

At this level, emotional labor is more than household management. When our attention to the household extends to the people in it, work stops being transactional and starts being relational — which is exactly what God intends it to be.

For more help building a stronger, more connected home, reach out to the pastoral counselors at CatholicCounselors.com. And if you’d like ongoing support for your family life, join the community of Catholic parents at CatholicHŌM, where you can also connect with Dr. Popcak and his team of expert pastoral counselors.