Season 2026 · Episode 06 · June 17, 2026 · 39 min

Joy is a shoe, suspended in midair

The strange anxiety that shows up when things are going well. On target fixation, and the courage it takes to actually feel joy.

In this episode of Before You Freak Out, Jer and Mo sit with the strange anxiety that shows up precisely when things are going well. Jer is just past his nine-year wedding anniversary (seventeen years with Lauren) and reflects on love as the ongoing choice to keep meeting — and liking — the person your partner is becoming. Mo is freshly, deeply in love, having met his girlfriend at a dog park nine months ago, and he notices the little voice whispering that he’s been here before: the bloom will come off the rose, so brace for it. The episode is about that voice — the fear of loss that hides inside our happiest moments.