Welcome to Back from the Abyss. I'm Dr. Craig Hecock. This is a place for stories of hope and healing, recovery, and redemption.

Today I'm doing a solo episode.

I did the same one last year.

It's called What I'm Thinking About Now.

I was on a long trail run with my besties a few months ago

when a most interesting question arose. It was, what makes you tear up? What makes

you cry? Like many of our long-run chats, this one went really deep with lots of pondering

and dialogue and eventually some really cool vulnerability from each of us. My realization was that I most commonly tear up when I come

rocketing into the present moment, the here and now, and I suddenly become aware of something beautiful

or profound, something unfolding from moment to moment, from breath to breath. It was the time that my friend Jordan stopped in the middle

of a sleet storm while we were running the Teton Crest Trail. He looked all around us and he said,

I don't want this amazing moment to end. Or it was sitting quietly, deeply listening to my oldest

daughter sing a heartbreakingly beautiful song at a competition

when she was in high school. It happens to me a lot, these spontaneous and unexpected tears.

And then the very most recent time was at an astounding play in Chicago last month called

Primary Trust, when during the final monologue, the lead character, he looked out of the

audience and he said, quote, all of this, all that you've seen here. In 15 years, it's all going

to be condos. But for now, and here he slowed his breath, calmed, spread his arms wide,

a broad, grateful, tearful smile stretched across his face.

And he said, but for now, this.

Of all the times and places I tear up, I think it happens at work the most, and for me,

that's a clear sign that I am doing the work, that I'm spending some time working in the

...