Why don’t you start off and tell us a little bit about yourself? I’m a Baltimore, MD native (Go Ravens!) and have been in Philadelphia for the past four years. I started my “career” in musical theatre, and while it is still a huge love, I realized my passions were elsewhere. I am a huge […]

YOUR BRAIN IS NOT WIRED TO MAKE YOU HAPPY. YOUR BRAIN IS WIRED TO SURVIVE.  Here’s the deal…. Our society teaches us that being happy all the time is “normal” and that should be our baseline. This is something called the “happiness trap” (coined by Russ Harris). But this notion is radically incorrect. There is […]

I was sitting in an AA big book meeting roughly a year ago. I opened the cover and scribbled on the first page read “willingness without action is fantasy.” The quote hit me in the stomach. Sometimes we need that in recovery…a wake up call. The quote found me at exactly the right time. Since grad school I […]

I spent years beating myself up. I thought if I was harsh and mean to myself, I could beat myself into submission, make my current mental state so intolerable that I would be forced to change. Instead, it had the opposite affect. The meaner I was to myself, the more I acted out… alcohol, food, […]