Sean Mortenson, MS, MDiv, LPCC

Yes! Pizza Port is a staple of our SD visits. Have a Chronic Amber for me.

I keep getting concert ads for pop country singers named Dylan Earl or Slade Coulter or Easton Corbin or Waylon Wyatt or Luke (whatever) and ... are these AI generated human beings?!

Look, we’re not here to judge, but the woman in front of me at McDonald’s just ordered a large coffee with five creamers and six sugars.

There’s a long list of things conservatives say they value (free speech, anti-corruption) that they obviously don’t care about. I saw the same thing in the church (humility, depth).

In both places people just want a strongman to win for them and create a safe cocoon. Everything else is negotiable.

Just thinking about how universal healthcare, walkable cities, and good public transportation would save the average American family literally thousands of dollars a month.

Legitimately almost got run into three times in the span of two minutes. Like very nearly serious accidents. I’m convinced driving skills, like movie theater etiquette, somehow vanished around the pandemic.

The irony is that Piper’s “Don’t Waste Your Life” leads a person to do just that.

The real bitch of it all is that coming up in evangelicalism you’re taught fulfillment comes through a life of quiet faithful service to God, not chasing the experiences life has to offer.

And by the time you realize that’s bullshit the door has closed on much of what life has to offer.

Brainstorming a new model of community for men. Group therapy / support group / fraternal order / dive bar hang. I’d love feedback if anyone’s curious.

www.union-lodge.com

I love going to live shows in small venues, but it’s like the epicenter of no personal space douchebagery.

Opened the app to read this after a total cluster at our school this morning, brought to you by a pristine ocean liner of a truck and a Tesla.

I know the therapy profession is fucked because I get more emails from prospective consultants and “industry experts” about how they can help me than I do from people wanting treatment.

Yep, go see 'Sinners'. Smart and fun and sexy and violent. You have to love a big creative swing that 100% lands.

This is the spirit I saw animate the church when I was a pastor and it animates the therapy world I now inhabit. It’s a virus.

There’s also the completely aloof strategies and superficial efforts to infuse virtue into their brand (e.g. “conscious capitalism”), before abandoning real virtue and leaning into pure market competition.

The Story of Late Capitalism as Told Through Panera Bread It used to make on-site sourdough. Now, the private-equity-owned chain is better known for its (allegedly) killer lemonade.

Yes, private equity ruins everything. But PE is just a symptom of a deeper spirit, one that strips life itself of substance for scalability and market share, tossing whatever it inevitably destroys in the bin, then moving on to exploit the next thing.

www.thenation.com/article/econ...

In a contentious time, “all things to all people” just means “lukewarm for profit”. Be substantive instead.

One scale at the Y says I
weigh 150 and the other says I weigh 210. Thankful for precision instruments I can rely on in my training.

a cartoon character named spongebob is making a heart shape with his hands ALT: a cartoon character named spongebob is making a heart shape with his hands

✨ God Stories ✨

For all the times I had to listen to “God Stories” where people couldn’t find their keys then found them after they prayed I’m tempted to start a #godstories thread about all the times I just needed a simple thing to stave off a full depressive episode and got a targeted kick to the nuts instead.

I 👏🏻 do 👏🏻 not 👏🏻 want 👏🏻 your 👏🏻 AI 👏🏻 assistance 👏🏻.

I feel like half the time the strategy is to gaslight people into a delusional framing of their reality so they can find “peace” in it. In therapy we call it cognitive reframing. In the church it’s called quoting Romans 8:28 or having an “eternal perspective”.

Do you have to construct those things first? Is it helpful and/or substantive to re-center to an imagined reality?

What do you do if you’re grounded, centered *reality* lacks meaning, connection, safety, or agency? How regulating can it be to re-center to that?

Everyone is constantly (re)writing their own *meaning* as they go. Religious systems are tempting because the meaning comes ready-made with an added bonus of *belonging*. They also allow people to deflect responsibility for the direction of their life and simply trust, which alleviates anxiety.

Once people find their ideological, relational, narrative cocoon, they will absolutely budge no further and employ every psychological defense possible to justify their position.

My family growing up was entirely devoid of self-awareness and meaning. I spent my life trying to find people who valued the pursuit of depth, but found myself disappointed time and again that all anyone really wants is a bubble of comfort.

Got a gimmicky new lens that repurposes disposable camera lenses for modern digitals. I dig it so far.

Look for "AI and the Religious Impulse" in next month's Atlantic. I'm not writing it though. @tylerhuckabee.bsky.social ?