When Carollynn Xavier reached one of the lowest points of her life, she went to Fr. Ted Paraskevopoulos with a simple request:
“I need a bunker. Just tell me what to do.”
His answer was equally simple:
Go to church. Take care of your son. Move your body.
On this episode of the Orthodox Health Podcast, Fr. Ted joins Dr. Michael Christian & John to explain why those three things mattered, how his own experience with burnout shaped that advice, & why the Orthodox life so often comes back to doing a few basic things consistently rather than constantly searching for something more profound.
They discuss the Church as a spiritual gym, prayer & fasting as fundamentals, the relationship between body & soul, the problem of disembodied online Orthodoxy, responsibility to family, doing the right thing even when you do not feel like doing it, & what Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu can teach us about ego, humility & discipline.
The conversation also turns to yoga, discernment, the limits of “secularized” spiritual practices, & why physical training can sharpen the Christian life without becoming a substitute for it.
Ultimately, Fr. Ted brings the episode back to the same question:
When life is falling apart, what has God actually put in front of you today?
Chapters:
00:00 Coming Up
00:59 Orthodox Health Intro
02:29 The Bunker
14:05 Simplicity, Burnout & What Actually Matters
24:17 Prayer, Fasting & Church
31:12 Body, Soul & the Embodied Christian Life
35:32 Online Orthodoxy & the Problem of Disembodiment
43:12 Responsibility, Duty & Doing the Right Thing
53:18 Jiu-Jitsu, Ego & Humility
01:00:27 Yoga, Discernment & “Christianizing” Practices
01:09:11 Three Things to Do Tomorrow
🎙️ Find Fr. Ted: Father Ted Talks on YouTube - @fr.tedtalks
Instagram - @fr.tedtalks & @BunkerJiuJitsu
Logos Cinema
Work with Dr. Mike
Signed Copies of Orthodoxy & The Medicine of the Future: OrthodoxHealth.com/book
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Intro & Outro Music: St. John of Chicago Orthodox Church Choir (Arkansas) - Please support their building fund by buying the whole album here
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