Assertive Isn’t Selfish: A Catholic Guide to Healthy Love

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By Dr. Gregory Popcak

The Theology of the Body reminds us that Christian love is not meant to be one-sided. While we are certainly called to be generous, sacrificial, and attentive to the needs of others, we are not called to ignore or suppress our own needs. In fact, St. John Paul II taught that the key to healthy, holy Christian relationships is “mutual self-giving.” Love flourishes when everyone involved is committed to giving what they can for the good of the other—and to receiving that love in return.

One of the biggest misunderstandings Christians struggle with is the idea that acknowledging our needs—much less asserting them–is somehow contrary to living an authentic Christian life. But TOB teaches us something very different. God is the author of our needs. A need is not just something required to survive; it is anything necessary for us to flourish as the persons God created us to be. Emotional connection, respect, rest, affection, support, and meaning are not luxuries—they are part of God’s design for human life.

When our legitimate needs are met, we thrive. And when we thrive, God is glorified in our flourishing. This means it is not only appropriate but healthy to expect that the people who say they love us will be responsive to our needs, just as we strive to be responsive to theirs. Mutual responsiveness is not selfishness; it is the very structure of love.
This is where the distinction between assertiveness and selfishness becomes essential. A selfish person is focused exclusively on themselves. They want what they want, how they want it, and when they want it, with little concern for how that affects others. Christian assertiveness looks very different. A responsible, assertive Christian is clear and honest about what they need, but also remains flexible and respectful about how and when that need is met. The goal is not control; it is communion.

TOB reminds us that we were created for intimate communion with God and with one another. Intimacy cannot exist where needs are hidden, denied, or dismissed. True closeness grows when we are able to say, “This is what I need,” and when the other person can respond with generosity and care. Likewise, love deepens when we are willing to hear the needs of others without becoming defensive or dismissive.

Of course, expressing needs does not guarantee they will always be met perfectly or immediately. But consistently silencing ourselves out of fear, guilt, or a mistaken sense of holiness leads to resentment, burnout, and emotional distance. That kind of self-erasure does not reflect Christ. Jesus gave Himself completely—but He also rested, withdrew to pray, asked for support, and allowed others to minister to Him. Mutual self-gift always includes mutual care.

Healthy Christian relationships are not about keeping score or demanding perfection. They are about a shared commitment to help one another become more fully alive. When we learn to express our needs clearly and charitably, listen to the needs of others with compassion, and work together to find solutions that respect everyone involved, we begin to experience the kind of love God intended from the beginning.

In that kind of relationship, no one disappears. Everyone is seen. Everyone is invited to give—and to receive. And in that mutual self-giving, the love of God becomes visible in the world.

If you would like support it making this change in your life or relationships, reach out for personal support from our pastoral counselors at CatholicCounselors.com.

Got a Grinch in Your Life? Take Your Cue from a Who

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Everyone knows the classic story of the Grinch, the green, cave-dwelling misanthrope who spent his days hating the noise and joy of the holidays. He comes sledding into Whoville, determined to ruin Christmas and make all the Whos cry “boo-hoo.”

It’s a heartwarming holiday story…until, that is, you encounter your own personal “Grinch.”

Oh, he or she may not be green or carry a grudge against Christmas. Instead, this particular Grinch may show up as the family member whose irritability makes everyone walk around on eggshells, the coworker whose chronic pessimism and negativity drain everyone else, or the moody, passive-aggressive kid on your couch.

These Grinches leave us feeling heavy, tense, and insecure as their emotional storm clouds fill the room. We might find ourselves mirroring their mood as a defense mechanism.

But as pastoral counselor Rachael Isaac shared on a recent episode of the More2Life radio show, a better approach might be the one modeled by the Whos of Whoville.

Why We Tend to Mirror Our Grinches

During a recent episode of More2Life with Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak, pastoral counselor Rachael Isaac explained that when someone around us is being a Grinch, our natural instinct is to absorb that energy.

“Our nervous system just mirrors what it sees, and our thoughts start spinning, and our confidence dips, and we kind of start shrinking ourselves or bracing ourselves,” Rachael said.

This defensive posture isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s actually a biological response. God wired human brains with “mirror neurons” that are designed to help us empathize with others, which is normally a good thing. But those same mirror neurons can also cause us to reflexively mimic the stress of a hostile person.

The trick, according to Rachael, is to realize what’s going on and take control of the situation.

“Don’t match the mood. Manage your own,” she said.

That simple statement shifts everything. Instead of asking, “How do I get them to stop?”—which leaves us feeling powerless—we can ask, as Dr. Popcak put it, “How can I get myself to a better place so that I can deal with them intentionally rather than just reacting to them?”

Manage Your Own Mood in Four Steps

At the heart of staying steady, Rachael said, is the “internal boundary.” Unlike an external boundary, which might involve leaving a room, an internal boundary is a mental filter. It allows us to acknowledge someone else’s pain or anger without letting it enter our own hearts.

Here are four practical steps for maintaining your calm and protecting your peace when the Grinch comes calling.

1. Pause and name what is happening

Start with pausing to remind yourself that as heavy as the other person’s energy feels, it’s their mood, not yours. As Rachael put it, “this is their feeling, not a reflection of my worth, my competence, or my responsibility to fix it.”

When we stop taking responsibility for everyone else’s happiness, we are free to act out of our own values. We can find our peace in who God created us to be, rather than getting sucked into the storm someone else is projecting.

2. Ground yourself in your body

Hostility triggers a “fight or flight” response that makes us physically tense. Before you respond to a grumpy comment, check your body.

“We want to ground ourselves and our body before we respond,” Rachael said. “So take a second to unclench your jaw. Drop your shoulders. Take that deep breath. Because in that moment, our calm can become our anchor.”

Send up a quick prayer for God to send you grace and strength.

3. Choose your tone intentionally

It is incredibly easy to “inherit” the tone of a difficult person. If they are snappy, we become snappy. However, emotional maturity means choosing our own response.

“We can respond with a steady and neutral energy,” Rachael said. “And that’s not us being fake in that moment. It’s us being intentional.”

By keeping your tone steady, you prevent the conflict from escalating and maintain your own dignity.

4. Maintain the internal boundary

Remind yourself that you can be kind without being a sponge. Say to yourself, “I can stay compassionate without carrying their mood.”

This allows you to remain present and even helpful to the person who is struggling, but you do so from a position of strength rather than insecurity. You are no longer “walking on eggshells”; you are standing on solid ground.

When you maintain your calm, you actually elevate the entire interaction. People feel safer around someone who is regulated and steady. As Rachael points out, “You protect your peace, and you stay in line with your values instead of being pulled into someone else’s storm. And that stability is really our strength.”

Take Your Cue From a Who

Like the Whos in Whoville, you can choose joy and peace even when someone else brings the Grinch energy. You can be the steady light in the room, reflecting the stability and grace that God offers us all.

For more help with managing difficult relationships or performing your best under pressure, reach out to Rachael Isaac or the team of pastoral counselors at CatholicCounselors.com.

Feeling Overwhelmed? Try These Three Simple Steps

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As the holidays approach, are you feeling a little Grinchy? It’s not that you don’t appreciate Advent or celebrating the Nativity; it’s just the stress of holiday expectations layered on top of your normal work and home responsibilities. Anyone would feel overwhelmed, really.

Whether you feel overwhelmed by the holidays or “overwhelmed” is just your default state most weekdays, Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak have a practical three-step plan for coping.

The ‘It’s All on Me’ Trap

When our stress level rises in sync with our to-do list, our natural tendency is to become overly task focused, the Popcaks said. We convince ourselves that we have to power through on our own and that we won’t feel better until every task is complete.

But that’s a trap.

“When I start feeling overwhelmed, I just want to plow through: ‘I’m going to do this all by myself,’” Dr. Popcak said on a recent episode of the CatholicHŌM Podcast. “And it doesn’t always work as well as it sounds like it should.”

When we try to brute-force our way through stress, we become anxious, snappish, and distant. As Lisa Popcak noted, we push people away, telling ourselves we’re not “allowed” to have connection until after everything is done.

This leaves us feeling more like “human doings” instead of “human beings”—miserable and disconnected from the people we care about. As St. John Paul II pointed out during his catechesis on the Theology of the Body, human beings are first and foremost called to be in relationship with God and one another. We are more than just machines whose only purpose is to “get things done.”

The solution isn’t to work harder; it is to reorient how we work.

Three Steps to Move from Overwhelmed to “Perfectly Whelmed”

To move from a state of frantic overwhelm to being “perfectly whelmed,” (as Dr. Popcak put it), we need a plan that prioritizes relationship over efficiency. Here are three steps the Popcaks recommend.

1.    Stop and Connect with God

The first step is to stop powering through on your own. Reach out for help, beginning with the God who loves you.

For example, you might pray, “Okay, Lord, I’m feeling overwhelmed, I’m feeling stressed, I got a million things to do. Help me to approach this the way you want me to.”

The focus here matters—it’s about being your best self through the tasks, not just getting them done. You are giving yourself permission to let God lead you through the chaos, rather than tearing through it and hoping God cleans up the mess later.

In a family setting, Lisa Popcak recommends praying out loud with your family during transitional moments, especially as you’re headed into a hectic agenda. Before you even get out of the car to wrestle with that double stroller, stop and pray: “Lord, there’s a lot going on right now. Please help us be our best selves.”

Besides being genuinely helpful in the moment, this habit teaches kids to lean into prayer rather than anxiety. 

2. Focus on Connection Over Task

When we are stressed, we tend to view our family members as obstacles to our goals, the Popcaks said. The antidote is to ask yourself, “How can I do these tasks while staying connected to the people that I love?”

Let’s say you take on a home repair project like replacing a kitchen faucet. The YouTube DIY videos all say it should take half an hour, but one thing leads to another, and two hours later you’re at the end of your rope. Before long, you are growling, sighing, and snapping at any family member who dares poke their head in the kitchen.

But instead of following your natural inclination to push people away, try pulling your people closer. As Dr. Popcak suggested, you might take thirty seconds to say, “You know, what I could really use right now is a hug!” Just holding your family for a moment allows you to breathe in love and let the stress go. And if you are feeling especially stressed out, you might go even further, asking family members to not only give you a long hug, but also to say a prayer over you.

It only takes a minute, but the benefits can be huge, providing a much-needed reset and releasing hormones that help with stress reduction. As an added bonus, you’ll be able to tackle your stressful situation refreshed and with a new perspective that might help on a practical level.

3. Make a Plan to Get Through This Together

Finally, the Popcaks point out that we often fail because we don’t communicate our expectations to our family members or colleagues before the stress hits. To avoid this, you need to have an intentional conversation about how you are going to get through the situation together.

For example, let’s say that tomorrow is going to be a super busy and hectic day. You might sit down with your family and say something like, “Hey, it looks like tomorrow’s going to be kind of a stressful day. What are some things that we can do to stay connected and take care of each other while we do this?”

The holidays are a perfect example. We know they’re coming, and we know they’ll be busy. Instead of charging into December with vague anxiety, sit down with your family or the people you live with and make a plan. What matters most this season? What can we let go? How will we take care of each other when things get hectic?

This step is all about remembering that the people in our lives—whether family, roommates, colleagues, or friends—matter more than crossing items off our lists.

Stronger and Closer for Working Together

So there you have it: instead of trying to go it alone, bring God into the room. Lean on the love and support of your people, and be intentional about communicating expectations and making a plan.

The goal isn’t just surviving stress, Dr. Popcak said—it’s coming through it “stronger and closer for having gone through this together.” 

For an even more in-depth look at handling stress in your life, check out Dr. Greg Popcak’s book, God Help Me! This Stress is Driving Me Crazy! And if you need one-on one support in handling stress, reach out to a pastoral counselor at CatholicCounselors.com

Here’s How to Set Healthy Boundaries with the People You Love

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Shauna’s mother had been watching her young children a few times a week, but things kept going wrong: the four-year-old was left outside unsupervised; Grandma showed them a horror movie that gave them nightmares; and she fed them sugary snacks, despite Shauna’s instructions.

Not surprisingly, the children regularly come home wired and dysregulated. “They’re just a mess when I pick them up,” Shauna explained on a recent episode of More2Life, the live radio show hosted by Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak on the EWTN Radio Network.

She knew she needed to set some limits, but she worried about damaging her relationship with her mother if she said that her mother couldn’t watch the kids any longer.

Her dilemma is a common one. When it comes to people we love, setting boundaries feels scary. It feels mean. And for many of us, it feels impossible.

Are boundaries “mean”—or loving?

The Popcaks spend a lot of time helping people understand that boundaries are a tool for better relationships. “Setting a boundary is not really about cutting somebody off or punishing somebody,” Dr. Popcak explained. “Don’t think of a boundary as a wall or an electrified fence. Think of a boundary as a door. 

“You put this door so that people can walk through it but they have to knock first, or they have to do something before they come through the door,” he continued. “It’s not just, you’re not being mean by having doors in your house. You’re just saying, well, I need you to do something before you can come into this room.”

All too often, the pressure to “be nice” and accommodate everyone can make us feel selfish for saying no to anything. This pressure can be even more difficult for Christians who are concerned about prioritizing love in relationships.

But look at what typically happens when we avoid setting boundaries: resentment builds, unsafe patterns continue, and we enable behaviors that hurt not only us, but the people responsible for those behaviors.

The theology of healthy boundaries

In order to understand how healthy boundaries can actually enable more authentic love, let’s take a look at what St. John Paul II says in his Theology of the Body.

The doctrine of the Trinity teaches us that God, who is one, exists as three distinct persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each person of the Trinity is fully united in love, yet each remains unique and distinct. Because we’re made in God’s image and likeness, we too are called to live in unity without losing our individuality.

Healthy boundaries help us live this divine pattern. They’re not walls that keep people out. They’re doors that help us decide when and how best to give ourselves fully to each other and to ensure that we are treating ourselves and each other with dignity and respect.

“Love isn’t about losing ourselves in another person,” Dr. Popcak explained. “It’s about giving ourselves freely and responsibly. Boundaries protect the freedom that make genuine love possible. Without them, love becomes distorted. It can become either controlling or enabling.”

As St. Paul reminds us in Galatians 6:1, we are called to correct one another in a spirit of gentleness. Boundaries help us do exactly that, Lisa Popcak said.

“With those who’ve hurt us, setting boundaries can actually be—brace yourselves—an act of mercy, not rejection,” Lisa Popcak said. “Failing to set limits when someone sins against us doesn’t help them. In fact, it often enables harm.”

Authentic love, Dr. Popcak said, is always ordered to the true and good. “Setting boundaries tells the other person, ‘I love you too much to pretend that that particular behavior is okay.’ It’s not a punishment. It’s an invitation to conversion and healing. And when we set healthy, godly boundaries, we create the conditions that allow authentic communion.”

Three steps to setting boundaries that stick

If you’re ready to set a boundary but you’re not sure where to start, here’s a practical framework.

1. Name the specific behavior and its impact

Don’t speak in vague complaints like “you’re too much” or “you don’t respect me.” Name the concrete behaviors that are causing problems and explain how they affect you or your family.

For example, Lisa suggested that Shauna could tell her mother, “Mom, you think that the kids are having a great time. They’re coming back just a mess. I appreciate you trying to be a caregiver to them, but I also need you to be a caregiver to me. I’m your daughter and when my kids are coming back scared, wired up on sugar, not able to do the next steps of their day, you’re not giving me any care.”

This frames the boundary not as an attack on Grandma, but as a request for care. It’s honest about the impact without shaming or blaming.

2. Offer a pathway forward

Don’t just tell someone what you don’t want—give them a clear picture of what would work better. “Tell me what you’re trying to do by acting this way,” Greg suggested. “Let’s figure out a better way to do that.”

In Shauna’s situation, the pathway forward might be: “I know you love spending time with the kids. Let’s do that together—family dinners, supervised visits, activities where we’re all present. But right now, unsupervised childcare isn’t working for any of us.” This preserves the relationship while protecting the children.

The key is framing boundaries as an invitation, not a rejection. If the person can respect the boundary, they can be fully present in your life. If they can’t, they can still be in your life—just in a more limited way.

3. Enforce with clarity and consistency

Once you’ve set a boundary, you have to maintain it. We don’t toss the ball into the other person’s court and hope they maintain the boundary, it’s up to us to keep the boundaries that we set. 

If someone can’t respect your boundary, they can’t be in that part of your life. That’s a door, not a wall. You’re not cutting them off forever—you’re saying, “This particular way of relating isn’t working, so we need to do it differently.”

Sometimes you can’t enforce boundaries fully. Dr. Popcak suggested that if Shauna’s mother is her only childcare option, she should focus on mitigation: prepare the kids ahead of time, identify what works better on good days and encourage those behaviors, and build in decompression time after they’re picked up.

Creating space for real love

In short, when we set healthy boundaries, we create the conditions that allow both people to flourish. We stop enabling harm and start inviting growth. We move from confusion and control to authentic communion.

For more help setting healthy boundaries in your relationships, check out Dr. Greg Popcak’s book, God Help Me! These People Are Driving Me Nuts. And for more in-depth, personalized help, reach out to a pastoral counselor at CatholicCounselors.com.

How the Saints Can Correct Our Idea of What ‘Holiness’ Looks Like

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You wouldn’t think that a 16th-century prankster would have much to contribute to a modern pastoral counseling practice—but St. Philip Neri is one of pastoral counselor Jacob Flores-Popcak’s go-to saints.

Known as the “Apostle of Rome,” Philip Neri was famous for his holiness—and his humor. Once, he even showed up to a banquet held in his honor with all the hair on one side of his head shaved clean off (eyebrows and beard, too!), smiling and chatting all evening as if nothing were unusual.

For Flores-Popcak, this story captures an often-overlooked truth about emotional and spiritual growth: humility and silliness often go hand in hand. Flores-Popcak often uses Philip Neri’s example in therapy sessions to help clients see how pride can quietly sabotage relationships.

“A lot of the time relationship problems come down to wanting so badly to save face and to be taken seriously,” Flores-Popcak said. “Then I fall into the sin of pride and end up kind of shutting out my capacity for empathy or compassion.”

True humility, he explains, doesn’t mean putting ourselves down; it means being willing to let go of control—even to risk looking foolish for the sake of love. Embracing the role of Neri’s “holy fool” frees up our mind and heart to feel empathy for the other person’s situation. “And that’s going to make me a more effective communicator—and ironically, make sure that I am understood.”

Why the Saints Belong in Pastoral Counseling

A few years ago, Flores-Popcak did a deep dive into the writings of the saints about issues that often come up in pastoral counseling. He found a treasure trove of insights that resonate with the best evidence-based practices of 21st century counselors.

“Let’s recognize that mental health isn’t a new thing,” he said. “Humans have always had brains and relationships. So if someone is sincerely trying to love and serve Christ—which are really the same thing—they’re naturally going to have some good advice about how to live and relate well.

He eventually boiled his project down into twenty quotes that he turned into social media posts. Here’s a sampling:

  • St. Thomas Aquinas: “…a hurtful thing hurts yet more if we keep it shut up… when a man sees others saddened by his own sorrow, it seems as though others were bearing the burden with him, striving, as it were, to lessen its weight” (Summa Theologica, Quaestio 38).
  • St. Peter Damian: “But if I were to tell you of all the graces conferred by tears, the day would be at an end before I had finished… Tears bring forth joy from sadness. When they spring from the eyes… they raise us up to the hope of eternal blessedness.”
  • St. Catherine of Siena: “What is it you want to change? Your hair, your face, your body? Why? For God is in love with all those things and He might weep when they are gone” (The Dialogue, 96)
  • St. Philip Neri: “…Let us aim for joy, rather than respectability. Let us make fools of ourselves from time to time, and thus see ourselves, for a moment, as the all-wise God sees us.”
  • St. Ignatius of Loyola: “It is not the soul alone that should be healthy; if the mind is healthy in a healthy body, all will be healthy and much better prepared to give God greater service.”
  • St. Teresa of Avila: “It is a great advantage for us to be able to consult someone who knows us, so that we may learn to know ourselves… As a rule, all our anxieties and troubles come from misunderstanding our own nature.”

The quote that elicited the largest response on social media was the one from St. Peter Damien about the value of tears.

“We had people sharing vulnerably about how their parents had screamed at them or even hit them for crying, telling them to ‘offer it up.’ And then here’s a Doctor of the Church talking about the importance of letting yourself cry—both psychologically and spiritually,” Flores-Popcak said. “For a lot of people, it was eye-opening to realize that maybe their parents were wrong—that the Church actually values tears as something holy and healing.”

The Saints Didn’t Have It Easy

Flores-Popcak is not the only pastoral counselor at CatholicCounselors.com who brings the saints into their counseling sessions. Often, counselors will bring up the lives of the saints to offer their clients encouragement.

“We think of saints as being these perfect people with perfect faith, but they were truly people who had difficulties in their life,” says pastoral counselor Rachael Isaac. “It wasn’t about being perfect or not struggling with things, but the conviction to continue to turn to God and not let struggles define them that made them the saints we know.”

Another pastoral counselor, Grant Freeman, challenges clients to think about where Mary’s deep peace came from. It would be simplistic to think that being “full of grace” meant that she had it easy. But if you think about it, he said, the Joyful Mysteries could really be dubbed the “Nightmare Mysteries.”

“The Annunciation: Unmarried pregnancy that will likely be perceived negatively. The Visitation: 90-mile journey with morning sickness,” he said. “Christmas: Not necessarily a cakewalk; also, slaughter of the innocents. Presentation: Simeon and Anna aren’t necessarily harbingers of joy. Finding in the temple? In the modern era, a CPS incident.”

His point is that Mary’s peace was really grounded in deep trust in the Lord’s providence.

Counselor Andy Proctor said he often points clients to saints who overcame painful family histories. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and St. Martin de Porres are favorite examples; both of them experienced instability and rejection early in life yet grew into people of deep compassion. Their stories, he says, offer hope to anyone still healing from their past: your history may shape you, but it doesn’t have to define you. Grace can transform even the hardest beginnings into holiness.

St. Maximilian Kolbe: Choosing the Adult Mindset

Of course, the saints also provide a model navigating those difficulties. For Ron LaGro, St. Maximilian Kolbe is the ultimate example of emotional maturity—what therapists call an adult mindset.

Kolbe’s calm courage in Auschwitz showed that he refused to let emotions or circumstances dictate his choices. Even in a starvation bunker, he remained centered and purposeful, leading other prisoners in hymns as they died together.

LaGro contrasts this with what he calls the child mindset—blaming others or situations for one’s actions. “People say, ‘I’d do the right thing, but my spouse…’ or ‘but my situation…’ That’s the misery-making mindset,” he said. “Kolbe shows what it looks like to stay centered, responsible, and free—even in the darkest places.”

The Saints Show Us the Way

From Philip Neri’s playful humility to Mary’s steadfast trust and Kolbe’s self-possession, the saints model the kind of emotional and spiritual maturity that leads to lasting peace. They show us that holiness and wholeness are two sides of the same coin—each born from grace cooperating with human effort.

This All Saints Day, consider which saint speaks to your own struggles right now. What lesson might God be offering you through their story?

And if you’d like help applying that wisdom in your own life, reach out to a Catholic pastoral counselor at CatholicCounselors.com. 

Burned Out for Christ? Re-order Your Priorities

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Most parishes are blessed with a handful of super-volunteers—the dependable, energetic folks who are the first to say yes when there’s a committee to lead or a project to complete. Parish staff know they can count on them. Fellow parishioners admire them. Their dedication seems unstoppable.

And yet, all that good work can have a dark side, says Dr. Mark Kolodziej, a pastoral counselor at CatholicCounselors.com. All too often, people let their ministry work crowd out other activities that ought to be a higher priority, like connecting with a spouse or taking care of themselves.

And when that happens, trouble often ensues.

Disordered Priorities

The impulse to overload our schedules with ministry and volunteer work is often motivated by a sincere desire to serve God, Kolodziej says.

While that desire to serve God is good in itself, Kolodziej says, where things get off track is when people begin thinking that such work as the most important way they serve God. Their mindset can be: If I’m not doing something for the parish (or another ministry) all the time, I must be failing God.

This mindset can lead to misplaced priorities, where the most important relationships in our lives—our spouse, children, even our relationship with God—start taking a back seat to less essential obligations. Spiritually, it can also result in scrupulosity, or the mistaken idea that we can somehow earn God’s love through our own hard work and sacrifice.

“A lot of people will join various ministries—they’re going to this meeting, they’re going to that meeting, they’re doing this and all kinds of stuff,” Kolodziej says. “And I’ll say (to clients), ‘So all of this ministry work that you’re doing is against what God wants you to do, not that he doesn’t want you to do it, but he wants you to keep your priorities straight.”

For married people, this usually means prioritizing God first, then your spouse, then your kids, then everything else—including volunteer ministry work, he says. This order of priority is inherent to the vocation of marriage; single people will have a different list of priorities, of course.

“The priority that you signed up for when you got married was your family,” he says. “You give your family your first and your best. That is doing what God wants you to do. So if you shirk that responsibility by working in church ministry or anything else—if you’re a workaholic or whatever—you’re shirking what you signed up for that you said you’re going to do.”

Another way Kolodziej sees this tendency toward disordered priorities show up in family dynamics is when children become the center of their parents’ attention, to the detriment of the marriage.

“A lot of people are saying, ‘I’m doing this for the children,’” he says. Parents will say that their kids need their time and attention.

“They do need that, but that’s not the most important thing,” he says. “The most important thing for the children, other than formation in God, is the relationship between mom and dad. That is more important to the child than (the parents) spending time with them. They want to know that mom and dad aren’t going anywhere, that mom and dad love each other.”

The health and stability of the marriage provide the foundation for everything else that goes on in the family, Kolodziej says. “And oftentimes when we have children, we forget about our spouse. Our spouse takes second place, and that is disordered.”

God Wants You to Take Care of Yourself

Another sneaky way priorities get disordered under the guise of “serving God” is when we get so busy taking care of other people, we don’t ever stop to take time for ourselves.

Kolodziej shares the example of a woman who juggled a full-time job, caregiving for elderly parents, and the demands of running a household. She was exhausted and overwhelmed but felt guilty taking time for herself. In her mind, God was calling her to practice ascetic self-sacrifice by putting others’ needs before her own. The problem was, her own needs never got met.

When Kolodziej challenged her to consider how her loved ones were experiencing her burnout, it clicked.

“You’re so burnt out that all you’re giving all these people is a shell, a pulse,” he told her. “You’re not able to do the creative, joyful, life-giving things your family needs. You need self-care in order to be able to then give other people the talents that God has given you.”

Self-care might include quiet prayer, exercise, rest, hobbies, or simply enjoying the beauty of nature. These are not indulgences; they are ways of filling the tank so you can serve others from a place of joy, not depletion.

How to Rebalance Your Priorities

Kolodziej has a few practical tips to help people get back on track with their priorities.

  1.     Learn to say “no.” It can be hard to turn down Father or church staff, but Kolodziej suggests remembering that every “yes” is a “no” to something else. Make sure that you’re saying yes to your heavenly Father before you say yes to the Father at your parish.
  2.     Learn to let go. Sometimes the difficulty isn’t saying “no” to the parish, but saying “no” to ourselves. As much as we’d like to have our hand in everything, we need to let go of the things that are less important and prioritize our time and energy for our main vocation.
  3.     Ask for help. If you’re so busy with the most basic demands of life that you don’t have time for volunteering, then it might be time to ask for help. This might involve asking your workplace for some flexibility, seeking outside help from a social service agency or your church, or asking other members of your family to pitch in more.

The bottom line: If you make sure your priorities line up with God’s priorities, a lot of other things will click into place.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by your responsibilities—or unsure of how to re-balance your life in a healthier, more God-centered way—you don’t have to figure it out alone. A pastoral counselor can walk with you as you discern where to let go, where to say no, and how to embrace the joy God wants to give you. Reach out to a professional pastoral counselor who shares your faith at CatholicCounselors.com.