“Chloe,” I said, “if I wrote ‘So-and-so likes me’ on my computer, and so-and-so sees it, so-and-so would probably stop liking me.”

That made Chloe laugh hard. (See, how could anyone not like me?!) She told me just to write something a little more ambiguous, someplace more private. I liked the phrase she suggested—“Look for the gray areas”—and I wrote it on my whiteboard at home. Perhaps it was my brief dalliance with religion, but I liked having a reassuring truth to look to every day.

I found that my scheduled calls with Chloe would often occur at unexpectedly helpful times. Once, for example, she called right after a source had yelled at me for attempting to get the other side of a story. It’s a necessary and standard part of any journalist’s job, but not one that always sits well with our sources, who sometimes want us to take their perspective at face value.

When Chloe asked if there were any cognitive distortions I was applying to the interaction, I explained that the source had actually been upset with me—it’s not like I imagined it.

There was a long pause.

“Would it be okay if I offered a suggestion?” Chloe asked.

“Sure,” I said.

“You’re personalizing this,” she said. “You’re making this about you, not the situation.”

She had a good point. I was just doing my job. I’m (fortunately) far from the only journalist who has ever had to get both sides of a story. But I hadn’t considered that not everything unpleasant that happens in the world is my personal fault. It was a comforting resolution, at least for that day.

Joyable, I realized, was mostly a process of filing your anxious thoughts into different thought folders, where they may still exist, but at least they’ll be organized. This one is personalizing the situation, that one is black-or-white thinking. I wasn’t sure if it was working yet, but at the very least, it was nice to tell someone about the random, petty things that come up in my day—even an unlicensed therapist.

Eventually, the week came when I was to do a “challenge” out in the world. I chose the challenge of going to a networking happy hour—an experience that makes me itch with nervousness—and to do so without drinking, my usual crutch when talking with large groups of new people.

I came, I had Diet Coke, I conquered—sort of. In truth, it was a little tedious. The shop talk was dull, the personal-brand management was tense, and I felt even less agreeable about it all than I normally do.