Have you ever finally had space to rest and felt more anxious, not less?

In this episode, Jeremy and Blaire explore what happens when high achievers slow down and why it can feel like a threat rather than relief. Drawing on neuroscience, clinical psychology, and real-world stories from the coaching room, they unpack why your nervous system may be wired for urgency, and what it costs you when it is.

Topics explored:
— The window of tolerance and how high performers often live outside of it
— Why cortisol-fueled productivity becomes its own kind of addiction
— The link between identity and busyness — and what gets lost when they fuse
— The social identity map: a simple tool for rediscovering who you are beneath the title
— What it means to be "productive but strangely hollow"

This episode ends with one question worth sitting with this week — no journaling required.

If you've ever felt guilty for resting, or more anxious on vacation than at work, this one is for you.

The Good Life, Reconsidered is hosted by Jeremy Hirshberg and Blaire Bridges.

The Good Life Reconsidered — Episode 1: Death is Coming, Act Accordingly

What if thinking about death could actually help you live better? In this episode, Jeremy and Blaire explore mortality not as something to fear, but as a powerful lens for living more fully and intentionally.

Blaire shares insights from years of bedside work with people navigating major life transitions, and Jeremy opens up about two near-death experiences, a capsizing canoe at 17 and a widowmaker heart attack at 37, and how those moments shaped his relationship with death.

Together they discuss:

• The obituary exercise — writing your own obituary annually as a tool for reflection and self-awareness
• Death apps — gamifying mortality to shift how you spend your days
• The living funeral — and why the people closest to us may not be in the same place with death that we are
• Grief — why it has no timeline and how to hold it as a permanent guest in life
• The business of death — wills, passwords, and the practical work of making things easier for those we leave behind
• Western culture's sanitization of death — and how leaning in, rather than away, can unlock more presence, beauty, and freedom

Where to start: Have death over for tea. Read philosophy. Ask yourself — if I died tomorrow, did I live a good life?