The last episode asked a simple question: What the hell are we working so hard for?

This is where that conversation goes next.

What started as a conversation about work, money, and the pressure to keep pushing turns into something deeper—what we’re actually trying to build, what “enough” looks like, and whether the life we’ve been told to chase is even the life we want.

No perfect answers. Just the next part of an honest conversation I wasn’t quite finished having.

This Might Be Therapy.

If you haven’t heard the previous episode, What the Hell Are We Working So Hard For?, start there—or jump in here. This one stands on its own.

Why do so many of us feel guilty when we stop?

Why does a free Saturday turn into another list of things to accomplish? Why do we keep saying we’re doing it all for our families while sometimes giving work the best parts of us and bringing home whatever is left?

In this episode, I’m talking about the grind, what it really means to provide, how much is actually enough, and the uncomfortable question of whether the life we’re living matches the reason we say we’re working so hard in the first place.

This isn’t about telling people to quit their jobs or work less. Some people don’t have that choice. Some parents are working because the bills demand it. Some fathers would give anything for more time with their kids and don’t control when they get it.

This is about something simpler:

Work should make life possible. Work should not become the life.

Because someday the paycheck stops. The title disappears. The company keeps moving.

The people you were doing it all for are the ones who will remember what was left of you when the workday ended.

Provide the money. Provide the security. But provide yourself too.

And before this one ends, there’s one more question waiting:

What about everything we already have that we don’t even notice?

That’s where we’re going next.

This might be therapy.

What happens when the job disappears—and you realize how much of your identity disappeared with it?

At 45, I’m standing at another crossroads. For most of my adult life, work meant more than a paycheck. It meant providing. Responsibility. Purpose. Being needed. Then one phone call took away the title, the schedule, the routine—and left me with a question I wasn’t prepared to answer:

Who the hell am I without my job?

This episode isn’t really about getting fired. It’s about what happens when life forces you to question the path you’ve been following.

Do I really want another corporate job? Do I want to spend the next twenty years climbing another ladder, answering to another organizational chart, and waiting until retirement to finally own my time?

I still need to provide for my family. I still need income. I still want to work, build, grow, create, and be useful.

But maybe the goal isn’t more.

Maybe it’s enough.

Enough money to take care of the people I love—and enough time left over to actually fucking love them.

We talk about work, identity, masculinity, money, faith, family, getting older, simpler living, and the uncomfortable possibility that sometimes being at a crossroads doesn’t mean you’re lost.

Maybe, for the first time in a long time, you actually get to choose the road.

This might be therapy…

Life doesn’t always wait until you’re ready before it changes everything.

It’s been a few weeks since the last episode of This Might Be Therapy, and a lot has happened. I went to the cabin expecting to come home and get back to normal. Instead, I came home to a life that looked very different.

I lost my job. My marriage has been tested. I’m challenging decisions surrounding my termination, building my VA disability claim, exploring what Social Security disability could mean, working toward the possibility of a VA home loan, rebuilding my credit, and trying to figure out what the next chapter of my life actually looks like.

But this episode isn’t a success story.

Not yet.

There’s no inspirational ending where I tell you everything worked out and explain the five things I learned along the way.

I’m recording this while I’m still in it.

This is about the uncomfortable middle—the paperwork, waiting, uncertainty, arguments, small victories, setbacks, and the realization that maybe rebuilding your life isn’t one giant comeback.

Maybe it’s a thousand boring decisions nobody ever sees.

I don’t know how this chapter ends.

For now, I’m settling in for the long haul.

This Might Be Therapy.

Have you ever stopped to wonder if you’re the villain in someone else’s story?

In this episode of This Might Be Therapy, Chris explores one of the most uncomfortable questions we can ask ourselves: What part of this belongs to me?

Instead of asking who’s right or who’s wrong, this conversation challenges us to examine our own blind spots, the stories we tell ourselves, and the ways our ego protects us from uncomfortable truths. It’s not about taking blame for everything—or giving others a free pass. It’s about having the courage to honestly examine our own role in the conflicts that shape our lives.

If you’ve ever felt misunderstood, judged, betrayed, or stuck repeating the same patterns, this episode invites you to pause before pointing outward and spend a moment looking inward.

Because real growth doesn’t begin when we prove we’re right.

It begins when we’re brave enough to ask whether there’s something we still need to learn.

Maybe… this might be therapy.

Some phone calls divide your life into two chapters: before you answered… and after.

This week, Chris reflects on the loss of a close friend, another friend’s unexpected cancer diagnosis, and his own ongoing health struggles. Instead of offering easy answers, he explores what it means to keep showing up when life feels uncertain, why the battles we can’t see are often the hardest, and why tomorrow is never promised.

If you’ve ever been waiting for answers, grieving someone you love, or wondering how to keep going through life’s hardest seasons, this conversation is for you.

Sometimes the most important call you’ll ever make… is the one you don’t put off until tomorrow.

This Might Be Therapy is a podcast about faith, resilience, mental health, addiction, loss, and becoming the person you needed when you were younger—one honest conversation at a time.

After reaching 1,000 plays and downloads, I thought this episode would simply be a thank you.

Instead, it became something much bigger.

In this conversation, I finally answer a question I’ve been struggling with since I hit record on Episode 1:

What is This Might Be Therapy really about?

It’s not just about addiction.

It’s not just about mental health.

It’s not just about fatherhood, marriage, work, or being a veteran.

It’s about the chapters of life that try to break us—and what it takes to survive them.

We talk about grief, purpose, my friend Jake, and the mission that now drives every episode:

“I’ve survived every chapter that tried to destroy me. Now I’m trying to understand why—and help someone else survive theirs.”

If you’ve ever questioned your purpose, carried a burden in silence, or wondered whether anyone else understands what you’re going through, this conversation is for you.

Welcome to the next chapter.

This Might Be Therapy.

We all have someone we compare ourselves to.

For me, it’s my mother’s husband.

He’s built businesses, created wealth, retired comfortably, and now travels the country in an RV most people only dream about.

Then there’s me.

A husband. A father. A retail manager. A veteran. A guy who’s made more mistakes than he’d like to admit.

For a long time, I believed I had somehow taken the wrong path.

But what if we’re comparing our hardest chapters to someone else’s finished story?

In this episode, I wrestle with the questions so many of us quietly carry:

* What does success really cost?

* Are we willing to make the same sacrifices as the people we admire?

* Is wealth the only way to measure a life well lived?

This isn’t an episode about money.

It’s about comparison.

It’s about perspective.

And it’s about discovering that the life you’re building may be more valuable than the one you’re envying.

If you’ve ever looked at someone else’s success and wondered, “What did they do that I didn’t?”… this episode is for you.

Because maybe success isn’t becoming someone else.

Maybe it’s becoming the person your family needed you to be.

Somewhere between Episode 1 and Episode 50… I realized something.

I thought I was recording a podcast about my life.

I wasn’t.

I was recording a podcast about yours.

This episode is for every father who’s ever wondered if he’s doing enough. The dad who leaves for work before the kids wake up. The dad who comes home exhausted. The dad who quietly carries the weight of providing while hoping his children still know how deeply they’re loved.

This isn’t an episode about being a perfect father.

It’s about being present.

Because our children won’t remember every bill we paid or every hour we worked. They’ll remember the moments we chose them.

With the Fourth of July here, I hope this conversation reminds you to put your phone down, stay outside a little longer, watch the fireworks through your child’s eyes, and make memories that will last long after the sparklers burn out.

If this episode causes just one dad to hug his kids a little tighter tonight…

…then these first 50 episodes were worth it.

Go hug your kids. ❤️

I thought this episode was about missing my son’s first day at International Music Camp.

It wasn’t.

It became a conversation about fatherhood, time, marriage, work, health, and what happens when you’re so focused on surviving today that tomorrow arrives without warning.

As Father’s Day and my 15th wedding anniversary approach, I’m forced to confront a difficult realization: life keeps moving whether we’re paying attention or not.

Maybe the moments we miss aren’t always because we don’t care.

Maybe we’re just busy surviving.