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As the new year approaches, this is what I’m working on.

THE NEW WEALTH

To have a clear mind

To create freely

Home is anywhere

Aliveness

Flow

Deep authentic connections with friends

Capacity

Comfortable with shadow work

Healthy communication

Permission to self

Live in wonder

A pure reoccurring gratitude

Presence

Groundedness

A regulated nervous system

Great sex, often

Ability to repair ruptures

Soul work

Experiences > Things

Closing the gap between work and play

To have a clear mind

Because peace is the ultimate luxury. When your thoughts stop racing, life can finally be lived.

To create freely

Not for approval. Not for algorithms. Creating because something inside you wants to express itself. It wants out and you feel complete. It is true freedom.

Home is anywhere

When safety lives in you, not a zip code. You can create home anywhere you go.

Aliveness

That pulse in your chest that says I’m here, not just existing, not just surviving. A thirst for life, the kind we felt before life happened.

Flow

When effort softens and time disappears. Riding the edge, between fear and fun. When time disappears.

Deep authentic connections with friends

Not crowds. Not networking. The few people who are chosen family. Deeper is baseline.

Capacity

The ability to hold more joy, more grief, more truth without collapsing or numbing. Awareness of self and how your thoughts and actions impact others.

Comfortable with shadow work

Knowing your darkness doesn’t make you dangerous, it makes you honest.

Healthy communication

Saying what you mean without punishment or performance. Listening without defense.

Permission to self

To rest. To want. To give yourself love and pleasure and discipline. To change your mind. To live without asking first.

Live in wonder

Not just curiosity. Wonder contains magic. Allowing awe to dissolve your armor.

A pure reoccurring gratitude

Not forced positivity. The quiet recognition that this moment did not have to happen. It is a gift. Always.

Presence

Being where your feet are. Giving your attention like it matters, because it’s foundational. Not when you feel inspired or have time.

Groundedness

Roots that give you a stance. Let you bend without breaking. Stability without rigidity.

A regulated nervous system

Because no amount of success matters if your body feels like it’s under attack. There is no other way to get to a higher frequency without regulating nervous. This regulation always flips the magnet and stunts growth.

Great sex, often

Not just skin hunger, connection. Not just release, intimacy. A body that feels safe enough to open. Allowing yourself to be a sexual being.

Ability to repair ruptures

Because nothing real is unbroken. Wealth is knowing how to come back together.

Soul work

The inner labor no one applauds but everyone feels.

Experiences > Things

Memories don’t depreciate. They deepen.

Closing the gap between work and play

When what you do and who you are stop being strangers.

This is the new wealth.

Quiet. Earned. Embodied.

And once you have it, everything else becomes optional.

@theangrytherapist

Degraded by dependency

Every grasping hand leaves a mark. Every attachment, whether to a person, a substance, a story about who we think we are, pulls us lower. Dependency is a slow erosion, like water carving stone.

Buddha called it tanha, thirst. The kind that never ends. You drink and you drink, and still you’re dry. Because the very act of needing binds you to the wheel of suffering. Dependency is the chain that makes you bow to what you crave.

The truth is harsh:

When I need, I am no longer free.

When I lean, I give away my spine.

When I cling, I trade my dignity for a fleeting comfort.

Liberation isn’t about abundance. It’s about release.

The monk with nothing owns more than the king with everything, because he bows to no desire. He isn’t degraded by dependency because he has none.

So the work becomes this:

To unhook from the things that promise safety but rot into cages.

To sit with the hunger until you see it for what it is. Just a ripple of the mind.

To walk light, even barefoot, rather than carry the weight of needing.

Freedom doesn’t come from what I hold.

It comes from what I can drop.

@theangrytherapist

The burger stand sat on the corner, where the streetlights flickered and the pavement cracked like the skin on my mom’s hands. We sold burgers, egg rolls, burritos, and extra ketchup—yeah, we charged for that. Ten cents a packet, because in my parents’ world, nothing came free. Not ketchup, not extra napkins, not the American Dream.

I used to slouch behind the counter, hoping no one I knew would stop by, praying I wouldn’t be the kid with the weird parents which charged for condiments. The burger stand smelled like grease and sacrifice, but mostly sacrifice. Every drop of sweat my mom wiped away, every box of soda she lugged from the back—there was a weight to it that I was too young and too embarrassed to carry.

I’d watch my parents behind that counter, the two of them constantly fighting until they couldn’t work together anymore. Their English was jagged, clunky, but they spoke the language of survival fluently. I didn’t see it like that then. All I saw were ketchup packets, tiny symbols of how small we seemed in a world that wanted us to stay in the margins.

The other day, I was at a burger stand supporting a local mom and pop. Something snapped in me, like a long-held breath finally released. I remembered how, back in the day, I couldn’t wait to get away from that place. But now, in some twisted way, I missed it—the stand, the grease, even the damn ketchup.

The truth is, my parents weren’t running a burger stand. They were running the hardest marathon no one talks about—the immigrant hustle, the daily grind of trying to make something out of nothing. They weren’t just flipping patties; they were flipping the script on what it meant to survive in a country that didn’t make room for them.

And me? I’m still catching up, still learning that the things I used to be embarrassed by were the real gold, wrapped in grease-stained paper and handed over with a side of hard-earned pride. Ketchup was never just ketchup. It was a lesson I hadn’t been ready to learn. Until now.

Always take yourself too seriously.

Every ending has a beginning

What’s ending in your life right now? An old dream? A new love? Pressure to be someone you’re not? School? A career? Friendships? Old beliefs? A long road of absolutely nothing?

Whatever is ending, know that that ending is opening a new door. You may not see it yet because what we want and in the time we want it rarely matches reality. But every ending creates something new. New relationships. New opportunities. New definitions. New perspective. New priorities. New chapters. So instead of panicking and holding on, what if you allowed it? What if you leaned into the ending? Encouraged it?

Nothing is permanent. Things need to end for life to unfold. Holding onto endings that you cannot control is called suffering. Let go. Let life. Get excited about the new. Because in the new, there is different, and in different, there is change.

If you’re not getting my newsletter, maybe it’s time. Lots of goodies. Get some.

www.theangrytherapist.com

The Angry Therapist - John Kim Licensed Therapist & Life Coach. Co-Founder TAT Lab & JRNI Coaching. Best selling author.

The city is your living space.

Neighborhoods look like movie sets.

Trees change color.

Late night dinners.

Hoops.

Tennis.

Stoops.

Dough that doesn’t hurt your stomach.

New York is growing on me like a sweater you rediscover.

I’ve only been here a handful of times.

But each time I come I feel something.

One of the perks of being a writer is you don’t have to pick a coast.

This was a super controversial topic on our live. If you missed it, here’s the podcast. In this episode, we discuss how fantasy and jealousy can present themselves in relationships and where the line between healthy and not healthy can be drawn for both. Click below to listen.

‎Society & Culture · 2021

There will be days you and your partner won’t be able to stand each other. There will be days when you will want to take the long way home. You guys will disagree on things, like movies and books and politics and dinner. He will forget things. You will run late. Your friends will have opinions. You guys will fight. Maybe a lot. You will shut down. He will wonder. But at the end of the day, you will both come back — to each other. And no matter how many times you guys fight, you will always fight fair. That will be the non-negotiable. And you guys will be together knowing that you are choosing to be together. Not because of logic or loneliness or a ticking clock. Not because you guys look good on paper, take cute photos, or think you’ll make cute babies. Not because you’ve already committed to this. Not because you don’t want to be alone. But because you believe in what you guys are building and you’re making a choice, every, single, day, to be in this and love each other the best way you both know how. Your relationship will not be built on fear, as many are. But instead courage and transparency. And like any relationship, there will be no guarantee. You will not compare this to what was. Any residue you guys have from previous relationships you will work on individually. It is your own responsibility and what being in something healthy looks like. Both will sharpen each other and you will make him feel beautiful and he will make me feel invincible and vice versa. The only thing you guys can promise is to be honest and love as hard as you can. Without losing yourself. Both know there is risk. Both know people can get hurt. But both we are willing to put that on the line to experience the high notes of something meaningful and greater than self. You will both take responsibility for your own shit but also create a space for magic, and will settle for nothing less.

I haven’t been in therapy for a while. So I decided to get back in the room. With the permission of my therapist who will be anonymous, I also decided to record it. I thought I was going to process me turning 48 but it ended going much deeper. This will be a series. Here is session one.

‎Mental Health · 2021

Things that have changed for me since having a family. A reshuffling of the life deck. Perspective. What I put weight on. Less “I”s in my sentences. More selective on how I spend my time. New consideration with every decision. Less impulsivity. The constant reminder to pull back and see the macro and at the same time live more in the micro. Love turns into a quilt. Patience is primary. Sundays have more meaning. Experiences and travel move up the list. Pancakes taste better. A stronger pull towards nature. Things are not okay unless things are okay at home. But most of all, you get to see the world again.

www.theangrytherapist.com

Aka red flags.

For anyone who is single and choosing to work on themselves. If you believe we need to find ourselves first so that our relationships are healthy and we can create new definitions of love, tag a friend or share.

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