Dear community,
This week marks our last one in Mexico City, where we started our nomadic journeys a few weeks ago — next, we’ll be shifting to Oaxaca, Mexico. Our nomadic spell here has started off with a bang: we’ve had six rounds of visitors in the last several weeks — five staying with us — and have had the opportunity to make some wonderful memories in a beautiful city with much to occupy our time. These past weeks have also been chaotic and full of lessons for refining our nomadic approach.
Lessons learned have included: We need to admit our son to daycare to allow us to better focus on work at home. A wonderful discovery has been that Mexican daycares will admit kids for a few weeks at a time and our son speaks and understands enough Spanish for this to be viable.
When he’s been at home with a babysitter here, our toddler thinks nothing of barging into a Zoom call and saying “I want to say hi to Uncles and Aunties!” Adorable, but a tad disruptive.
We are also learning that it’s VERY possible to travel and be nomadic with a toddler — and to enjoy it. Stay tuned for our compendium of lessons and advice in an upcoming letter.
Today, I want to leave you with a recommendation for a TV show you will love.
👀 Worth a look. Recommendations for particularly inspiring articles, books, movies, or shows that’ll make you think differently about health and well-being.
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Wishing you light,
Dr Devika Bhushan
Worth a look: Shrinking
If you’re anything like me, the ending of Ted Lasso left you wanting more like it.
From an overlapping creative team (including Bill Lawrence and Brett Goldstein — who played Roy Kent in Ted Lasso) comes another Apple TV+ show that’s compelling in many of the same ways: Shrinking. With heart-tugging banter and complex character arcs — and laugh-out-loud moments of pure comedy coupled with poignant lessons — it more than fills the void that we may be nursing.
In Shrinking, Jessica Williams, Harrison Ford, and Jason Segel play therapists who each have their own deep emotional struggles and bittersweet knocks. I won’t ruin any of the punchlines, but we follow each on a journey that’s endearing and angst-provoking in equal parts. The show embraces multi-generational storylines a la This is Us or Parenthood (two other favorites of mine) without being cheesy or formulaic. In fact, certain plot twists and dialogue will make you sit up in surprise. And the three leads have an incredibly expressive array of facial expressions that convey so much with no words needed — each revelatory and GIF-worthy in its own right.
5 things that resonated most:
Shrinking’s laugh-out-loud hilarity, amid heartbreaking realities — albeit sometimes dark and bittersweet — can help any of us take ourselves less seriously. The show repeatedly emphasizes: Connection and joy are the most reliable antidotes to strife of all kinds.
It normalizes how far each of us have to go towards self-actualization. Nobody — not even therapists, regardless of their age — has got their sh*t figured out. In fact, ‘figured out’ is a destination that cannot and does not exist; we are each always works in progress.
Grief is incredibly complicated and can make any of us do things we never thought ourselves capable of doing. There is also no finite timeline or ‘right’ way(s) of working through it.
Boundaries are essential… in *every* domain of our lives.
It’s also important for each of us to know when to relax and reconsider certain boundaries in specific circumstances. That’s all I’m going to say… When you watch, you’ll know exactly what I’m getting at.
All in all, season one of Shrinking went by incredibly quickly and was a crowd-pleaser — from my mother-in-law to my husband, this heartstrings-tugger manages to be widely approachable while being deeply thought-provoking. It’s already been nominated for two Emmys — with surely more accolades to follow. You won’t regret tuning in.
Love, love, love Shrinking! I was bummed when it was over, I really hope it comes back for another season.