Hey, oh, oh, oh, come on and take a seat on the virtual couch.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to episode 294 of The Virtual Couch. I'm your host, Tony Overbay. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist. And I'm ready. I'm ready to get started. Let's dive right in today.

It is story time. A couple of weeks ago, I had finished up a pretty heavy day at work.

And honestly, don't get me wrong,

I love everything about my job. I really do. But I guess it's what I hear from Dennis from time to time that I've worked with people. Don't go to the dentist because everything is going great. Even if you are just going for cleaning, there's this underlying fear of what if I have a cavity, or what if they say I'm not flossing enough or my gums bleed or they know that I don't floss on a regular basis. Am I supposed to swallow

the water along with the cleaning stuff? And does Dr. Redford actually want me to answer him about

who my favorite Marvel character is? And why is he asking me this? Well, he's two knuckles deep

into the left side of my mouth. But my point is

people come to therapy to talk about problems. And again, I love it. But it's kind of just what it is.

But by the time that I leave my office at times, there I can feel a little bit of emotional exhaustion.

So on this particular time, I left and I just wanted to get home and I wanted to go on a run. And my wife was busy. A lot of times she'll either run with me or she will jump on the bike and ride alongside with me. It almost looks like a scene from Rocky. And I'm running. She's riding. And we just process the day. I want to hear all about what she's been up to. And she'll ask me questions about what's going on with me. But on this particular time, she was busy, so I'm going to go on a run. And I love

to listen to audiobooks. And the height of my ultra-running career, I would just get up earlier and

earlier, just especially when I was into a good book. I remember the book Unbreakable, which was about

the, oh my gosh, I'm Louis Zamperini,

and he was World War II, I believe, veteran shot down in the middle of the ocean. I remember

being so into that book that I just wanted to get up earlier and earlier. And I remember

running at the backside of the town that I live and I was so into the book and I look up and I almost ran right into a skunk. It was really early in the morning. And I remember I screamed like a young child and I jumped out into the road. And I remember thinking, I am so grateful that it was four in the morning because I didn't know anything. I didn't know where traffic was. I didn't know if a car was coming. And if that would

have been middle of the day and heavy traffic, I would have jumped right out in the middle of a car because I was so into this book and then I got scared by the skunk. But I digress. So I was running and I was listening to this audio book and it's a good audio book. And I love it, but not this night.. I just couldn't focus. I couldn't just stay with

the story. So I switched to music and then that just felt like so much noise. So I turned off my

music, my audio books and I just ran to my breathing and my footsteps. And it's funny when I say

this now. This isn't the point where I say something about mindfulness and running to my breath. No, I was just in my head. I was running a really, I was running angry. I was disappointed that I couldn't even listen to music or a book. And I finished my run. And it turns out as I look down on my data, my watch, my app, that it was the fastest run I've done in a couple of years since a meniscus tear that I

suffered and I've been struggling through for a little while. So I walk into the house and my wife

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