On a recent episode of "This is Us", the episode focused on babies being born. Jack, the patriarch in "This is Us" who is a father of triplets, is just coming home from the hospital after his children are born. They begin crying in the car and Jack and his wife pull into a gas station to get gas. Jack is feeling overwhelmed and while at the gas station, he buys a small bottle of alcohol. He chugs it down before returning to the car. He asks his wife to drive home and later confesses to her that he asked her to drive because he drank at the gas station. "I'm just like my father", he says, as his father was an alcoholic throughout his childhood. 

The thing is, Jack isn't like his father. As fans of the show know, Jack chooses sobriety when his children are still young and is a great father to them in a way his father never was with him. What Jack is acknowledging when he tells his wife about being "just like his father" is his blueprin ...

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I am a Type A personality and a perfectionist. Some days, it feels like I am in constant motion. I hold myself to high standards when it comes to getting things done in a timely fashion. I do not procrastinate and for most of my life, I have taken great pride in that. On the surface, these may sound like positive traits to have. It's great to have a good work ethic. Having good time management skills is valued. These are things many people want and I am fortunate to have them. 

I was speaking with a friend the other day about how I have a lot on my plate right now. It seems like every week I'm working longer hours and have more things piling up on my to-do list. I was telling her about some of the standards I have for myself with when I expect myself to get work done. If I go to bed without responding to an email, it feels...wrong. It feels like I'm letting someone down. If I have a spare 30 minutes that I'm not usin ...

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"Did you process your grief?" my therapist asked me. She wasn't referring to the obvious grief. She was referring to the grief underneath the surface, from three years ago. The grief that seemed so much longer ago, the grief that didn't seem necessary at the time. "No, I actually don't think I really did," I said. "I didn't realize at that time everything I was losing and now, I see it. And part of me wants to get it back." 

This was a conversation that took place in my most recent therapy session. I was in a romantic relationship for 8 years that ended in 2017. Most of us have at least one significant relationship in our 20s and this relationship had been mine - we were together for most of my 20s. I thought he would be the man I married, but it became more and more clear as time went on that our relationship was declining. I ended the relationship in early 2017 and started dating the man who would become my ...

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