17. The Breakdown I Had After Meeting My Therapist with Alex Kumin

Comedian Alex Kumin joins Emma for a conversation that goes 0 to 100 in the best way — funny, tender, and ultimately inspiring. Alex tells the story of finally meeting her longtime therapist in person, sobbing in her arms, and then falling into a three-week breakdown that turned out to be exactly the release she needed — decades of pushed-down feelings finally moving through her. (Content heads-up: they discuss surviving childhood sexual trauma, cancer, and survival in general.)

They also get into the difference between CBT and DBT and holding two opposing truths at once, the fantasy of a "flatlined" middle-of-the-road existence vs. real equanimity, crying as release rather than something to medicate away, and learning to sit with feelings and say "I'm safe" now in a way you couldn't at 6, 21, or 35.