Burnout, Workaholism, and Feeling Miserable: My Story

Being deep inside a world that glorifies overwork took a toll on me. Therapy and small daily changes helped me recover from resentment, stress, and alcohol misuse.

There was a time in my life when I was running on fumes. I was overweight, drinking too much, and dragging myself through each day with resentment. I was depressed and deeply unhappy. Workaholism had consumed me, and I felt like I had been reduced to nothing more than my talents and output. In the process I lost connection to myself. I thought if I just worked harder or pushed through, things would eventually get better. Of course, they didn’t.

What I did not realize at the time was that I was burned out. Burnout is not just about being tired. It is a mix of exhaustion, hopelessness, disconnection, and feeling like you are stuck in a life you no longer recognize. I had ignored my body, avoided my feelings, and drowned my stress in alcohol and work. Looking back, I can see I was desperate for a way out.

I share this because I know I am not alone. Many of my clients come in carrying some version of the same story. Here are five small but powerful steps I wish I had started sooner:

1. Name what is happening.
Burnout hides in plain sight. Saying out loud that you are exhausted, angry, or numb gives you the first bit of power back.

2. Check in with your body.
Your body often tells the truth before your mind does. Notice how tension, cravings, or fatigue show up. Even two minutes of mindful breathing or stretching counts.

3. Set one boundary.
You do not need to overhaul your whole life overnight. Start with one small boundary, like saying no to an extra shift or setting your phone down at night.

4. Replace one harmful coping strategy.
If alcohol, food, or overwork has become your default escape, experiment with swapping in something gentler. A walk, a disco nap, a call to a friend, even journaling for ten minutes can shift the pattern.

5. Reach out.
Burnout feeds on isolation. Talking to someone you trust, whether it is a friend, partner, or therapist, helps loosen its grip. You do not need to do this alone.

One of the biggest shifts in my own healing came when I realized I was not just the sum of my skills. For years, I thought my value depended on what I could produce. Learning to be seen as a whole person with needs, limits, and feelings was both uncomfortable and liberating. It reminded me that my worth is not conditional.

Burnout does not vanish overnight. But small, consistent choices can add up to real change. I am living proof of that. Healing started when I admitted how bad things really were and allowed myself to imagine that something different was possible.

If you are reading this and it feels familiar, therapy can be a safe place to begin. Reaching out does not mean you are weak or you’re a failure, it means you are ready to stop carrying it all alone. In my work, I help clients move beyond burnout by reconnecting with who they are outside of performance and rediscovering their value as whole human beings

The Relationship Bubble: How We Love, Grow, and Stay Connected

I’ve always believed that relationships are central to who we are. They shape how we see ourselves, affirm our sense of worth, and link us to the world around us. Through the lens of systems theory, everything is connected. We are always in relationship—with others, with ourselves, with our histories, and with the environment we live in.

Romantic relationships, in particular, often reflect our deepest needs. Many of us seek a partner who feels emotionally safe, who supports our growth, and who meets us where we are while also challenging us to evolve. These relationships are not just about companionship. They are dynamic systems that reflect and respond to the people within them.

That doesn’t mean romantic relationships are essential for a whole or meaningful life. Far from it. Our attachment needs can be met in many ways—through friendship, community, creative work, spirituality, or even a beloved pet. Sometimes, a romantic partner wouldn’t actually add value to someone’s life. And that’s okay. But when two people do choose to build something together, a unique system forms. When that system is reciprocal, nourishing, and emotionally responsive, it can be transformative. When it’s not, it may struggle to sustain itself and require change.

My understanding of relationships is grounded in attachment theory and systems thinking. These frameworks help me make sense of the patterns we get caught in and the emotional needs that drive us. But I also think theory has its limits. There is something mysterious and irreducible about the experience of love. Something that refuses to be neatly mapped. Even if we could trace every neural firing that sparks intimacy, we’d still be missing the parts that matter most—the vulnerability, the uncertainty, the courage it takes to be known.

Relationships are paradoxical spaces. They hold our joy and pain, our growth and our grief. They’re where we can feel most secure, and where we can be most challenged. In the best moments, a relationship offers a kind of shelter—a protective, resilient “bubble” around two people. This shared space doesn’t shield us from all of life’s stress, but it gives us a place to rest and reconnect.

Of course, life has a way of thinning that bubble. Parenthood, loss, illness, daily stress, or the sheer weight of time can wear it down. When partners feel disconnected or unheard, when conflict begins to outweigh connection, it’s easy to wonder what happened to the closeness that once felt so natural.

How Couples Therapy Can Help

Couples therapy offers a space to pause and look closely at the relationship. It’s a chance to examine what’s working, what isn’t, and what each partner hopes for. At its best, therapy doesn’t just aim for harmony. It explores how couples navigate tension, change, and unmet needs. The goal is not perfection—it’s resilience.

In the therapy room, couples learn to reflect on their dynamic as a system. They explore whether their emotional, physical, and spiritual needs are being met, and whether they’re showing up for each other in the ways that matter. Therapy can also bring clarity to what’s missing, and offer tools to move toward a more balanced, mutual relationship.

I believe couples therapy should be grounded in safety, curiosity, and honesty. My role as a therapist isn’t to choose sides or hand out blame. It’s to hold space for both people with care and respect. When couples feel emotionally safe, they can speak more honestly, hear each other more clearly, and begin to shift the patterns that keep them stuck.

The Bubble as a Living System

I often visualize a relationship as a kind of bubble that surrounds both people—a shared emotional space that needs regular tending. That bubble can stretch, flex, and hold a lot. But it can also become fragile. Left unattended, it deflates.

The good news is that we have agency. That bubble can be reinforced through loving attention, mutual responsibility, humor, touch, ritual, and presence. Couples can learn to repair it when it’s torn. And in some cases, therapy can help two people part ways with respect and care, when the relationship no longer supports either of them.

As both a therapist and a parent, I’ve lived through the ways relationships change over time. Parenthood, in particular, transformed how my partner and I related to each other. We had to re-tune our entire home to meet our child’s needs. In the process, we also ended up re-parenting parts of ourselves. Our relationship continues to shift and grow. It requires tending. It’s alive.

What Makes Love Resilient?

Love alone doesn’t hold a relationship together. What does is the willingness to stay curious, to keep learning each other, and to repair after rupture. It’s the shared commitment to face life’s complexity together, again and again. This includes holding space for paradox—the longing for stability and the need for change, the comfort of familiarity and the desire for surprise.

Therapy makes the invisible visible. It helps couples see the shape of their relationship—what it gives them, what it costs, and what it could become. It opens the door for deeper understanding, both of your partner and yourself.

If this way of thinking about relationships resonates with you, you’re not alone. Whether you’re partnered or not, we’re all navigating the tension between connection and individuality, safety and freedom, love and change.

The relationship bubble, when cared for, can become one of the most meaningful systems in our lives. Not because it’s perfect, but because it’s real. And because it can grow.

In my work with couples, I bring this systems-oriented, relational lens into the therapy room. We explore not only what each partner is feeling, but how those feelings interact and influence the shared emotional system between them. I help partners slow down, recognize the patterns they’re co-creating, and understand how each person’s history, attachment style, and current context shapes their responses. We work collaboratively to rebuild a sense of safety and connection, often through fostering curiosity, direct communication, and emotional responsiveness. My goal is to help couples reconnect—not just by solving problems, but by helping them feel seen, valued, and supported within the relationship they’ve built.

From Kitchen to Clinic: How Leadership, Self-Efficacy, and Psychological Safety Shaped My Path to Therapy

Before becoming a therapist, I spent over two decades in the culinary industry. My journey began in a Long John Silver’s in Southwest Virginia, where I fried frozen fish as a teenager. It culminated in co-owning a busy modern Californian restaurant in Los Feliz. Through that journey—from fast food to fine dining—I witnessed firsthand that the most critical factor in a restaurant’s success wasn’t its concept, cuisine, or cost: it was the team.

Every restaurant I worked in, consulted for, or helped build succeeded or failed based on its culture. Kitchens are intense. They demand precision, repetition, and flexibility under constant pressure. Team members are expected to adapt instantly to shifting conditions—raw ingredients, customer demands, interpersonal tensions, and business volume—all while executing with excellence. It’s no surprise that restaurants are often plagued by burnout, conflict, high turnover, and emotional volatility.

Over time, I began to ask a different kind of question—not just how do we run a successful restaurant? but what allows people to thrive in high-stress environments? The answer, I discovered, lay in the psychological dynamics of the team, particularly in the concept of psychological safety—a group climate where people feel safe to take interpersonal risks, ask for help, and admit mistakes without fear of humiliation or punishment.

Building Better Kitchens Through Psychological Safety

Combating the adversarial culture that often dominates kitchens became a mission of mine. I began implementing leadership practices rooted in kindness, curiosity, and empathy. I studied group dynamics, systems thinking, and communication models. I moved away from rigid hierarchical structures toward more holacratic ones—networks where team members are treated as autonomous, interdependent contributors.

This shift wasn't just ideological—it was functional. As Arthur Koestler’s theory of holarchy suggests, people operate best when they’re respected as both individual “wholes” and essential parts of a larger system. In a psychologically safe kitchen, each member’s strengths are recognized, each person’s voice matters, and feedback flows both ways.

The benefits were profound: morale improved, retention increased, the quality of our food and service grew—and so did the team’s sense of self-efficacy, or belief in their own ability to meet challenges. When people feel capable, valued, and supported, they don’t just perform better—they become more resilient and confident in all areas of life.

Understanding Power and Leadership

In studying what made some leaders effective and others harmful, I came across political theorist Steven Lukes’ three dimensions of power:

• Directive power (telling others what to do)

• Procedural power (shaping the rules and processes)

• Discursive power (influencing what is seen as real, legitimate, or desirable)

As I moved up the traditional brigade system of kitchen hierarchy, I realized my own mental health improved—not because I worked less, but because I had more control over my work. Research shows that holding power, especially discursive and procedural power, is correlated with better mental health. It fosters autonomy, reduces burnout, and buffers the psychological costs of demanding labor (Demerouti, 2001).

Recognizing this, I made it my goal to share that power, not hoard it. I began helping others access that same sense of control and confidence. We restructured our kitchens to include more team voice and agency. We celebrated small wins. We invited mistakes and viewed them as learning opportunities. The result was not just better food—it was healthier people.

Leadership Principles in the Therapy Room

When I transitioned to psychotherapy, I realized that much of what I had practiced in kitchens was directly applicable to the therapy space. People don’t change because they’re told to; they change because they feel seen, respected, and supported. I bring the same principles to my clinical work that I brought to my kitchens:

• Psychological safety as the foundation for growth

• Empathy and presence over control and authority

• Empowerment through collaboration, not compliance

• Resilience through self-efficacy and reflection

Informed by the work of Kouzes and Posner, I also embrace their Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership:

1. Challenging the process

2. Inspiring a shared vision

3. Enabling others to act

4. Modeling the way

5. Encouraging the heart

Whether I’m working with clients, supervising associates, or building therapeutic communities, these practices guide how I lead and relate. My aim is to create spaces where people can safely be vulnerable, take risks, and build new narratives about themselves and their capacities.

From the Line to the Couch: A Shared Vision for Change

Therapy, like a kitchen, is a collaborative environment. There’s pressure, there are patterns, and there are possibilities. My clinical lens has been shaped not just by academia and training, but by years in the heat of high-stakes, emotionally rich, and often messy group dynamics. I know what it’s like to lead a team under stress. I know what it’s like to feel burned out, to struggle with authority, to crave safety and growth. And I know the transformative power of being believed in.

Today, I work with individuals, couples, and groups to help them build that same internal culture of safety and empowerment. Whether you're navigating life transitions, recovering from burnout, or healing old relational wounds, we can build something better together—something sustainable, meaningful, and real.

Because growth isn’t just about surviving the heat—it’s about learning how to transform it.

The Dangerous Fantasy of Control: Reflections on Ruby Sparks

I’ve always been fascinated by the stories we tell about relationships—especially the ones that seem whimsical or romantic on the surface but reveal something much darker underneath.

Ruby Sparks is one of those films that stuck with me for exactly that reason. It’s marketed as a quirky indie romantic comedy, but underneath its playful premise lies something much more unsettling—a deep commentary on control, fantasy, and the ways we project our desires onto others.

I revisited this film recently, not just as a casual viewer, but as someone immersed in studying therapy, attachment, and the invisible forces shaping how we relate to one another. Watching it through that lens made me realize how much it speaks to the complicated—and sometimes harmful—narratives we carry about love, gender roles, and identity.

This isn’t really a film review. It’s a reflection on what Ruby Sparks reveals about relational dynamics, control, and the pain that can emerge when we mistake fantasy for connection.

The Story We Tell Ourselves About Love

Ruby Sparks tells the Pygmalion-like story of Calvin, a young novelist battling writer’s block and loneliness in the artistic swirl of Los Angeles’ East Side. Calvin had a meteoric early success but now finds himself stuck—isolated, awkward, and fearful he’s already peaked, destined for quiet decline.

Around him, familiar pressures swirl: his brother’s fixation on sex and conquest, society’s romantic ideals, and his family’s concern for his happiness. Calvin’s brother, in particular, offers a humorous but biting caricature of hyper-masculine culture—pushing Calvin to "get laid" or find a woman to stabilize his life, reinforcing a cultural script about male success and fulfillment.

Then, in a dream, Calvin meets Ruby—his fantasy woman, crafted from his subconscious desires. She is everything he imagines he needs. Through a surreal twist of fate, Calvin's fictional character comes to life, utterly unaware of her origin.

At first, this magical romance seems to solve everything. But as Ruby grows and asserts her own autonomy, Calvin’s need for control surfaces in deeply unsettling ways—rewriting her personality, emotions, and even her physical movements to keep her tethered to his fantasy of love.

Power, Possession & The Pain of Projection

What struck me most on this viewing was how well the film illustrates the devastating impact of projecting our expectations onto others. Ruby, while fictional, becomes a vessel for all of Calvin’s insecurities, societal pressures, and desires for control.

This isn’t just a story about one man’s magical typewriter—it’s about the real-world dynamics many of us experience in relationships. The film explores what happens when we view partners as solutions to our loneliness or vehicles for our happiness, rather than as complex, autonomous individuals.

Even Calvin’s previous relationship, which he frames as damaging, becomes a reflection of his solipsism—he struggles to see beyond his own experience of the world.

Ruby also takes on the "muse" archetype—a figure often idealized and used by male creators for inspiration and personal success. Yet when she seeks independence, it threatens Calvin’s entire sense of self. He responds with manipulation and cruelty, ultimately trapping her in a feedback loop of his own making.

The Relationship as a Mirror

Despite its playful surface, Ruby Sparks is a sharp allegory for how deeply our personal and cultural narratives shape our relationships.

The film critiques the ways men are socialized to believe they must “find the right woman” to become whole, and how this pursuit can reduce women to objects of fantasy or conquest. Calvin’s journey—especially the final scenes—reflects a common cultural message: that a man can “earn back” love by learning his lesson, reinforcing the trope that women are always accessible for redemption arcs.

In reality, relationships don’t neatly resolve with cosmic fate or romantic destiny. True connection requires mutuality, respect, and space for both people to be fully themselves—even when that means discomfort or loss.

If I Were Their Therapist...

If I were to see Calvin and Ruby in couples therapy (a fascinating hypothetical), I’d likely begin with something like the “miracle question” from solution-focused therapy—inviting them to envision what their ideal relationship looks like, without assuming either partner’s needs take precedence.

I’d also be curious to externalize their relationship as a “third entity” they can both explore—perhaps inviting Ruby to draw it and Calvin to write about it. Through this creative process, they might unearth the deeper discourses that have shaped their expectations about love, gender, and connection.

Ruby, especially, would likely have a fascinating perspective—after all, she was literally written into existence by Calvin’s fantasies. I’d love to hear her name the narratives she’s been living under and watch her begin to reclaim her own story.

Why This Film Still Matters

Ruby Sparks may offer a fairy-tale ending on the surface, but it leaves us with essential questions:

• Who gets to define the story in a relationship?

• What happens when we confuse control with love?

• How do cultural messages about gender, power, and fulfillment continue to shape the way we relate to others—and to ourselves?

The film reminds me that we’re all vulnerable to the lure of fantasy, especially when we’re lonely or hurting. But it also shows the potential for growth and repair when we face those fantasies with honesty.

Relationships aren’t about finding someone to “complete” us—they’re about mutual growth, curiosity, and the sometimes messy work of seeing each other clearly.

If you enjoyed this reflection and want more essays on relationships, therapy, and the hidden forces that shape our lives, you can subscribe here. I’ll be sharing more posts on relationships, fatherhood, masculinity, emotional health, and the lessons I’ve learned both in therapy rooms and kitchens.