Last night was hard — even for those temporary baseball fans. The Blue Jays lost to the LA Dodgers and that means we are heading for Game 7 in the World Series. This country is emotionally charged. “Want It All” — the Blue Jays’ postseason slogan — has become a kind of national therapy session.
As a Hamilton psychotherapist and former journalist who once covered major events in Canada and internationally, I find myself reflecting on what it means to “want it all.” In therapy, that phrase surfaces in countless ways: wanting love, success, validation, peace — all at once. It’s deeply human, and also deeply fraught.
This October, Canadians have projected that desire onto the Jays. We’ve made their story ours — even though most of the players aren’t Canadian. We’ve turned their grit into a symbol of who we wish we were sometimes: resilient, underestimated, hungry.
That’s the power of terms like “emotional contagion” and “symbolic identification”. Sports give us permission to hope and to feel again. The highs and lows of baseball mirror the emotional cycles we experience in life: anticipation, connection, disappointment, renewal.
If the Jays win, we’ll celebrate, cry, post, and feel strangely empty the next morning — that quiet after the collective high. If they lose this game, we will also cry, post, and feel strangely empty the next morning. We’ll grieve together — comforted by the shared pain of caring about something we can’t control.
From a psychotherapeutic lens, this mirrors the cycle of attachment and release. The euphoria of connection gives way to the discomfort of loss — and that’s okay. It’s practice for being human. With love, loss is inevitable. No matter what, this is the last MLB baseball game of the season.
But “wanting it all” also holds a warning. In an age of burnout, perfectionism, and endless striving, wanting it all can leave us depleted. Therapy invites a gentler question: What do I actually need right now?
So whether the Jays triumph or fall short, they’ve already given us something rare — a reason to feel together. And maybe that’s worth more than a championship ring.
If you’re navigating your own highs and lows — the joy, loss, and emotional crashes of modern life — therapy can help.
Visit ontariotherapist.com to explore psychotherapy for anxiety, depression, trauma, grief, burnout, life transitions, or relationship challenges. I bring a warm, direct, down to earth, trauma-informed therapeutic approach that helps you better manage distressing symptoms but also gets to the root cause for deeper healing. I offer in-person therapy to people in Hamilton, Ontario and surrounding region, and online therapy across Ontario. I offer a free, 15 minute consultation to see if we are a good fit. You can also find out more about me on my Psychology Today profile.
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