As a therapist, I’ve spent years helping people navigate their anxiety, pain, and inner conflict. Yet the more I listen, the more I see that the real suffering we endure is often a spiritual crisis. From my perspective, most people’s struggles can be traced back to a past rejection of love – whether it’s from a parent, friend, neighbour, or boss.
To me, God is Love. So if you feel that you have been cut off from love, you were cut off from God, the Source of life, creation, and ultimately Love. No wonder one suffers, because now they spend their life trying to regain that love. They seek it through wealth, power, honour, or pleasure. And we then jump on the never-ending cycle of ‘man’s search for meaning’ or ‘woman’s search for joy, happiness,’ we never find what we are looking for – unless we surrender it to God.
Recently, I listened to Bishop Barron preach on the Gospel of Mark’s account of Jesus calming the storm. The disciples panic as wind and waves crash around them, while Jesus sleeps in the stern of the boat. This image became a mirror for something I’ve witnessed again and again: we try to fix ourselves while forgetting that peace is not something we create. It is Someone we receive.
Bishop Barron offers three interpretations of this story, each pointing to a truth I believe is desperately needed in our culture today:
First, Jesus represents the deep well of peace within us. The saints often spoke of the soul as an interior castle or a place where God dwells. Even when life rages, Christ sleeps peacefully within us. He is not absent; He is the calm within the storm. This place is accessed not through control or intellect, but through surrender, prayer, humility, and silence.
Secondly, Barron also reminds us that sometimes, it is not Christ who is peacefully resting, but Christ whom we’ve allowed to fall asleep. We drift from prayer, the sacraments, Scripture, and spiritual discipline. We stop showing up for God, and then wonder why we feel overwhelmed. We feel lost because we have disconnected from the very source of our identity.
As a therapist, I hear it often: “I’m anxious. I’m stuck. I’m burnt out.” And when I ask about prayer, Mass, or a living relationship with Christ, the answer is usually, “Not really.”
Thirdly, this final reading is the most mystical: Jesus asleep in the boat prefigures His descent into death. He doesn’t save us from the outside. He enters our chaos, our sin, our pain, our death, and rises from the dead. You don’t understand that from a traditional therapy session.
It brings to mind St. Augustine’s words: “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.” We search and strive, but what we truly seek is peace with God.
I’m beginning to recognize a shift in my vocation, and I am sure you are as well! You have likely thought…what is up with Luella?
Traditional therapy has its place, but I believe God is calling me to do something more in my practice. I want to help individuals and families reclaim peace in their souls. Like Fulton Sheen, whose book Three to Get Married radically shaped how I see vocation and covenant of marriage, I hope to show the individual that reclaiming your joy isn’t one therapy session away. It is much more profound than that. If you are interested in what that might look like, please send me an email with the subject line: I want something deeper.