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27:33Are they going to like me? What are we going to talk about? Those kinds of things that even at like just a casual party make me really nervous. Now imagine traveling to Europe or mine was in Santa Fe to be with a group of people you do not know. It takes actual courage to step up. And I think the one nice thing is it also gives you an opportunity to be whatever version of yourself you want to be. So it's like two sides. I, unfortunately on the IFS, in some ways went to my more scared parts. I wish, I don't know if I wish, if I were to do it again, I would, I hope in a future version of myself, an evolved version of myself, I can be a little bit more me and care a little less.

28:15But it made me so proud of everyone who came to my retreat because they showed up pretty much themselves and stepped out to make friends, which, courage. I mean, it really does take courage. And the moment, you know, we had so many moments of connection, but on the bus, like, I'll just never forget. Like, it was like one of those moments, like, I remember the scene. I remember it was like us going from one spot to the other and you were talking about your book and you were talking about journaling. And, you know, I meet a lot of people that write a lot of books and sometimes it's more dropped in when they're talking about it and sometimes it's not.

28:51Even people with me, they're like, oh, I loved your book. I'm like, thanks. It's a really good book. But I don't sometimes have the depth of excitement and truth and belief in it. And you just were telling me about it and how it's changed your life and how important these tools are and your story. And I was like, this is a woman who is truly doing this because it's changed her and because it's worked for her. And it's about journaling. And it inspired me to start journaling again. So walk me through the process because you've written a few books. Yeah. And By the Fucking Lilies. Yeah. Glow in the Fucking Dark.

29:30Yes. Right? Yes. Those are my two first books. Two first books. And then we have this book now. So walk me through the first. I want to talk about the new book, but walk me through actually the first two books and kind of your journey to writing those. Because a lot of people have maybe read those, but if not, I want them to get them to. Yeah. So, okay. I am a self-help author, which is like maybe the most unexpected career that I could ever take. I was an executive at Comedy Central where I ran shows like Key and Peele. So baller. I started as an intern on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. My whole life was comedy, comedy.

30:06I'm going to be like the queen of TV. That was the vibe. That's what I was going for, except I was dying inside. I had extreme depression and anxiety. I was dealing with suicidal ideation. I was really, really good at work, but terrible at life. But because I'm like an overachiever to the max, nobody at work had any clue that I was such a mess. And the reason I was such a mess is I'd grown up in a house where things came to die. It was a neglectful, psychologically abusive, the central message I took from my childhood was, I'm worthless. There's something inherently wrong with me. Nobody cares about me.

30:52That's the core of my being. And so that really forced me to look for external validation, right? Like take all the APs in high school, get into the good fancy college, get the best job, not just the best job, be the youngest executive at Comedy Central ever, like max, max, max, it stressed me out. And I never dealt with these soul level wounds. So on my 25th birthday, I drunk dialed my therapist, threatened to hurt myself and had no recollection of doing so. Like the only reason I found out was the next morning I listened to voicemails from my therapist looking for me. And that was the first time I took it really seriously.

31:39I was like, oh my God, if I don't save my life, there's just not going to be much more of a life for me. And I actually feel some emotion coming up because yeah, I talk about these things all the time, but then I kind of forget like, oh, that actually like happened. Totally. It's making you emotional. Yeah. And so that next morning I just said, I'm going to save my life. I didn't have parents in the sense that I wasn't parented. I had food on the table, yes, but no unconditional love, no support. And I just decided I'm going to treat this like a work project because millennial that I am, I love a Google Doc.

32:17Just love a Google Doc. You're like, I could feel, but I'd rather be here. You're like, there's emotion coming up. You're like, but my fingers want to tap. I love a list. Yes. And so I just decided I'm going to list every single thing I don't know about being a human. What are values? What is love? What are vegetables? Is working out a thing? Like truly the most basic things. And I attacked it for five years. There were five years I worked on this Google Doc. I was relentless. Relentless is sort of, I think should be my middle name for better or for worse. relentless. That's your real personal brain book.

32:57You're like, everyone be relentless. I really don't hate that. Let me know relentless. Get a relentless tattoo. As I think about it, I'm like, that actually is, that's the word. I mean, relentless are like, five years is so insane. It's so baller, it's insane. To be like, not stop doing that. People can't even meditate for three days. Yeah. I mean, it was a deep sense of urgency because people ask like, how did you have the wherewithal not to just give up? And I'm like, because I thought I was going to die. I thought it was this or death. And so that's why I did it. And at the end of five years, I felt like a completely different person.

33:43I felt stable for the first time in my life. And I knew I was worthwhile no matter what. that it really nobody like I held my worth and that's so so this whole time I'd been writing this google doc that's really fast on the google doc yeah you were asking the questions how were you getting the answers and was it the implementation of the answers that was helping you become better yes okay so unfortunately I didn't really know about self-help as a genre because that would have sped things up quite a bit but it's kind of good you didn't it's it's like this interesting thing where I think I had an aversion to self-help.

34:21I was like, oh, that's cheesy. I don't need that. So I mostly listened to like science podcasts, read papers. The major thing I did was read memoir as if they were like my parents. So I read a lot of Nora Ephron, for example, who kind of taught me about how to take care of myself, but how to do this whole thing with humor that things were going to be messed up but at least I could be humorous about it Steve Martin his memoir Born Standing Up is all about not being born with inherent talent and needing to learn it and that being a good thing that because he says because he wasn't born super talented it forced him to be imaginative and creative and I hadn't I never thought about that that my the things that I thought of of my weaknesses might actually be my strengths Like I was so humiliated by my childhood.

35:16Like everybody's going to judge me. Everyone's going to think I'm a loser because my parents are so messed up and I'm so messed up. I never ever considered actually maybe there are a lot of other people like me and this will be the thing to connect me to them. You know, it wasn't until I started reading these books that I realized every story ends very differently and you get to shape the narrative of what happened to you. If you can own it, you can change it. so the google doc had all the research i was doing um my like stupid stuff like i went to an equinox and in between when they were trying to sell me their like wildly expensive uh personal training they told me to drink more water now that was the first time i had heard that water was a thing truly really and so i would write down like three you're like you go guys is water happening?

36:07Guys, are we doing water right now? Honestly, you're like at the water cooler. You're like, look at us doing water. So advanced. Yeah, honestly, you're like, but like it truly was. I hadn't known, oh, maybe a big part of why I have these constant migraines is because I'm literally just not drinking water and only drinking alcohol all of the time. Let me experiment. And so I'd run an experiment. What would happen this week if I drank three of these swell bottles of water every single day? So I did that, wrote down the results in the Google Doc, and I'm like, huh, weird, feeling better. But you know what I didn't realize I was doing was I was like witness to a process.

36:50And because I was taking notes on the variables, like something as silly as water, I actually could see the results and what was different. And so the Google Doc really was, here's a hypothesis. People say drinking water will make me feel better. Will it? And then every day taking notes and then reflecting back, okay, I'd like water. Things that didn't happen were like someone said, you should wake up at 5 a.m. I tried it. I'm like, well, that was hell. The only thing that should be awake at 5 a.m. are like bats and babies. I'm not doing that again. Who's the guy that's the 5 a.m. guy on this?

37:23I actually like his book a lot. Hal Elrod? Is that Hal Elrod? up and then is it david goggins or like the actor who's the actor that's short it's like donnie he's like uh he's got a brother walberg mark walberg yes yes yes yes he's like 445 there are so many people and i bless bless to them i'm so happy for them and that experiment didn't go my way and so it wasn't something i included as like my uh life manual so the whole book my first book, Buy Yourself the Fucking Lilies, came from that Google document. And particularly, I would go to Trader Joe's and I would see all the pretty flowers, you know, the peonies and the lilies and their weird bucket of trash water.

38:11And I'd be like, oh my God, those lilies are so pretty. Oh my God. They just like unfold and then they have a scent and then they fill the room with a scent. And I'd be so elegant and chic if I just had those lilies, but no, they're too expensive. like I can't afford$7.99 lilies if I buy those it's going to ruin my life it's going to like take me down a path of irresponsibility and decay and decadence and blah blah blah and I'm not worth it and then they'll just die and one day I was witnessing you decide right about it so it was like really on my mind and then one day I was at Trader Joe's I'm like wait what why am I freaking out about these lilies this is like under eight dollars I really really want them I bet you it's going to make my life slightly better.

38:53And so I like grabbed the lilies and ran to the register because I thought I might like talk myself out of it and got that hell out of there. You must check out now. Yeah. No, I'm like, how are you? You're like, please take my card. Please bag them now. I'm just like, put them in the bag. Yeah. I've got to go. I have to leave now. Lately, I've been craving more simplicity, not just in my life, but in my nutrition too. It's really easy to feel disconnected when your cabinet is full of random powders and supplements and you're constantly questioning the labels. But that's why I really love cachava.

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41:51There's so much that I'm going to pick apart a little bit, but the first is the moment with your therapist where you had drunk dialed them and then they called you back on the voicemail. And I was just thinking back to, you know, some of the most pivotal moments in my life when I was able to have myself reflected by someone. You know, one of my best friends, Jen, who I lived with for, I think, six years or something in Chicago. I'll never forget one time I was just like ripping to her. I was just like, I'm this, I'm that. And I was just talking shit about myself. I was like, I'm not enough or I'm not pretty enough or successful enough or I was just all the stuff.

42:30And she just looked at me and she's like, God, it really hurts me to hear how hard you are on yourself. And it was just like, whoa, like I didn't even know, like I was unconscious to the loop and the thought and seeing how painful it was for someone that loved me to hear me talking about myself for 30 seconds and thinking about what it must be like to be with that person all day long. And then another time when I stopped drinking, I stopped drinking when I was like 26 or something, maybe 24. And I had been out the night before at the club, at the club. I was a club. I was at the club or nowhere, baby.

43:11I was just, I was doing my thing at the club. And she, my friend saw me, she goes, do you remember seeing me last night? and I go no and she goes and if you're listening on the podcast it was a look of despair and disgust at the same time and it was something about it where I was like that isn't good yeah and I need to change and I think it's so beautiful the story with your therapist because it really gives you the opportunity to hear reflected back to you the gravity of where you were I would not have clocked it otherwise. It took someone else. It took, she was this like European woman who normally wore like a little kerchief and had a cup of tea.

43:57Very placid. So to hear her on my voicemail sounding concerned, she left multiple voicemail trying to find me. I mean, she recommended I either go with a friend or go to a hospital. And when you hear that, I was blown away. I thought I had no idea that I was in this bad of shape. Hearing the fear in her voice makes me super scared. And it was like I couldn't look at the world the same way ever again. I knew something has to change. I also love to, this is shifting gears a little bit, But in your process with the Google document, bearing witness to yourself and the changes you were experiencing and going through and giving each enough space to feel the difference of it.

44:56And I think the reason why I'm double clicking on this is because there's so many women of our audience that are health and wellness, spirituality, doing a lot of different things, myself 100 % included. where if someone was to say to me, oh, you know, your skin looks great today, or maybe one day I have more energy than the other day. I have a list of 50 variables it could be. The moon, my sleep, the supplement, you know, whatever. And I think what I love about that is like you actually were able to really take space to be like, what works for me? This week is water. We're going to drink more water.

45:34We're going to really see what works for me. And then you can create a routine or schedule or flow that's like truthful to you. And it's like, instead of doing what everyone says you do, what everyone suggests for you to do, what Instagram is telling you to do, what your favorite influencers telling you to do, or what they're doing, you're like, I'm going to actually truly see what works for me. And that's actually inspiring me in this moment of like, I've been in this space for a while. I've kind of have a lot of different things that I do. Like to truly optimize my life, it would behoove me to take time to be more diligent now at this point, because there's a lot of different things that I do, to go back to fine-tooth combing of what actually works and has impact.

46:12I actually, so in my new book, This Journal Fucking Works, one of my main journaling techniques that I use, have you ever done morning pages? No, everyone has. I was about to lie and be like, yeah, of course. I'm glad you're on this. Literally, the temptation to lie was like, no, I haven't. Okay. So Morning Pages developed by Julia Cameron in her seminal creativity book, The Artist's Way, which by the way, one of my favorite books of all time. Yeah, one of the greatest books. Wonderful. So she came up with this journaling technique where every single morning you wake up and before you do anything, before you get coffee, before you read your emails, you write three pages of just like word vomit of what's in your soul.

46:56Like just get it out on the page. The idea being that you can outrun your inner sensors. You can get more in touch with your actual self. I've evolved it and I call it DMing with your soul, which is you have this unique moment to get those secret little sneaky messages from deep down because most of us know what is up. Most of us actually, we feel like I've lost touch or in my case, I thought I was so messed up in my childhood that I couldn't even have a self. Maybe myself never existed, but if it did, it got so screwed up that I would never be able to get back in touch. DMing with your soul, you pretty quickly realize, whoa, I have a voice.

47:38It's worth paying attention to. I need to really get in touch, but there is a way. And so one of the main things I do in this evolution is I have people on a piece of paper write tracking, the word tracking, and then the word noticing right under it. So exactly to your point, because we try so many things, but we actually don't take good notes on what variable is working and what one isn't. And how would you know? Like even with a medication or something. Like how would you know if it was helping you or not if you weren't specifically paying attention? So on the tracking, I might write something like, I take Welbutrin.

48:22So when I first started taking Welbutrin, Welbutrin. That's an antidepressant? Yeah. Although honestly, it's an antidepressant, but I don't know what class of thing it is. but I would then underneath of it I am noticing like nothing today no I don't see any change you know maybe one weekend like huh a little lift or maybe just nothing I don't think this is working for me you could really use it with anything I'm breaking up with an ex you could leaving so-and-so horrible terrible worst day of my life I did this for months actually with one ex who was really like quite abusive. And it was, you know, it began with, this was the worst decision I ever made.

49:08I miss him so much. Why did I do this? Oh, no. I'll always be alone. No one's ever going to love me. You know, and six months later, oh, my God, how did I not do that sooner? I feel so free. And then I can see my own trajectory of, you know, when I make a choice that I feel like is probably a good idea, what were the results? And when I make a choice that I feel like isn't the right idea, right? Because sometimes I still do stuff that I know ain't great. If I'm tracking, I'm actually going to notice what the result was. So really quick hack for anybody who's introducing something new into their life, journal.

49:46It's short journaling practice and just notice and track. It's funny because I'm so grateful we're talking about this because I was with my dad. My dad's sick. He has Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. And I was with him a few weeks ago. And with grief of a parent that's sick in that way, there's a few parts that come online for me. And I'm going to make this story make sense to what we're talking about. There's a part that's like the spiritual part that's like his soul chose this. This is his path. and then there's a part that's like you know it's fine it's all good and then you know there's also a part of me that's like very like he did this to himself he doesn't eat well he doesn't take care of himself all that kind of stuff and that part is very much like if only he was tracking his food if only he was tracking that when he eats gluten it gets worse and all this kind of stuff and so I'm like hyper vigilant about other people tracking and other people getting curious about what's impacting them.

50:49Even my family was here last weekend and, you know, they were like doing a lot of stuff and then they were like, I don't feel good. And I'm like, why aren't you like paying attention? So now I'm noticing a part of me that's wanting to pay attention for myself and like track what is working and what's not, whether it's health and wellness or whether it's even being around people. It could be something. It could be literally anything. The key is to be a little experimental and investigative about yourself. And it's not super high stakes. Like, I also try to come at things with a little bit of humor, although I'm not being my funniest today.

51:24You are. You're being mega funny. I really try to say, you know, on the one hand, the things that I go through are so important, and oh my God. And then the other, like, who cares? Like, I'm literally not going to remember most of this in a month, it's all going to be okay. So it's to find that middle ground of, I take myself seriously. I take my healing seriously. I take how I show up for other people seriously. And I don't take like my ego that seriously or like who it is that I am, that I'm, you know, showing to other people. But in terms of just, I really don't want to suffer. And I really, really, really don't want other people to suffer unnecessarily either.

52:10And I think there are such easy tools, low-hanging fruit, that don't require this complicated protocol of this sauna and this supplement followed by this therapy. I'm like, do you have a pen and paper? Because this will work. There's like enough science behind that. I kind of promise this will work. Like as close as I can get to a promise for a lot of people. Walk me through the science of it and how did you discover the science of this process? Yeah. So in my two books, so Buy Yourself the Fucking Lilies and Glow in the Fucking Dark, a major component of it is journaling. Like accidentally, I mean, I began, someone suggested that I start journaling and I suggested they get lost.

52:57Like this was the worst idea I'd ever heard. A super... That was me when people would be like, try intuitive eating. I'm like, shut the fuck up. You're like, you try going to the other room because I do not want to see you right now. Honestly, I was like, try walking into traffic. Yeah, yeah. No, totally. Like, my best friend at the time, very privileged upbringing, great, great life, blah, blah, blah. I'm like sobbing into a goblet of red wine about how bad my life is. And she's like, why don't you try journaling? I'm like, why don't you – like, please leave. yeah like no no no no no ruining my life but I want it so I can be as I told you extremely petty and so I was like okay okay you want me to journal I'll do it to prove that you don't know anything that your life has been so amazing that something as stupid and foolish as journaling will work for you like I'm going to prove a point that my life is worse than your life cool cool cool that's what friendship is all about.

53:58So I started journaling just to spite her. And basically in one week, I was already feeling calmer and better about my life. And so journaling just became this huge part of my life. And now, so I've been journaling for 15 years, three pages a day. I very rarely miss it, not because I'm a saint or disciplined, but because it feels really good. Like I actually enjoy it and I'm a hedonist. So that's why. Now I've really looked into the research and I include a lot of it in this journal fucking works because I want people to really understand that it is a very validated tool. So there's a 2022 meta analysis of tons of studies on journaling.

54:45So they take all these big, all these big studies and they see, you know, what are the big themes we can see. And what they found was that journaling significantly improved mental health, particularly in anxiety and PTSD. Now, how many things do we have at our disposal that significantly help with anxiety and PTSD that are basically free? Not many. So I actually kind of have a conspiracy theory about all this. I don't have many, but this is like my one conspiracy theory. Let me add this to the scroll. I think the reason that journaling isn't suggested as a first line of defense for many mental health issues is that no one can really make money off of it.

55:35It's not pills. And by the way, no shade to pills. I said it myself. I'm on malbutin. It's not a therapy. No shade to therapists. They're very, very helpful. But there's not some ongoing moneymaker to you with a pen and some paper, right? So no one's incentivized to get you to journal, but the science is pretty clear that at a maximum, it can have incredible benefits for your mental health, for goal setting, for a gratitude practice as a form of journaling. Incredibly good for you. One of the absolute best things you could do. The negatives of journaling, there really aren't any right some people can they can land on rumination right and they can some people if you're writing about a very traumatic experience you can maybe activate and not heal like you could be ruminating it that's not helpful but the downside is like so little in comparison to the upside so that's why I just like want to scream from the rooftops like please, everybody, just try.

56:39Just give her a try, folks. Just do a few pages a day. I really loved when you brought in the reference related to your leaving your relationship, that abusive relationship with journaling. And I kind of want to double click on that and that process and that relationship. And because I do this with my clients a lot of times too, and women that I work with, where when you're in a relationship that's like that, what often will happen is the cycle where it gets really bad and then there's relief. Yeah. It's really bad and then there's some type of relief. And I think journaling is so key because you see the truth.

57:17Yes. And you're able to track it. Yes. So walk me through how that abusive relationship and your process with leaving and healing that. Yeah. And I completely agree. so I was dating a literal rocket scientist which played to like all my ego stuff of like look at my fancy boyfriend he chose me I must be special I must be amazing and there was a lot of me forcing myself to be littler and littler and littler because he screamed at me mostly like insults like you're such a slut you're cheating on me you know all these things that I couldn't have been more in love with him so it was like kind of crazy but I started to live in this like constant fear of being screamed at, of having a door slammed.

58:05And it made me smaller and smaller and smaller. And in my journal, I watched this progression of, I forget the fake name I give him in Lily's. Richard. Yeah. Let's just go with Richard. Good old Richard. Yeah. Because I just didn't want to say his name. Yeah, of course not. So Richard, although that's a fake name I give for my dad in Lily's. Who never screamed at me. So just to be clear. So I'm going to call him Jeremy. Jeremy. Okay. So Jeremy, you know, I would write these posts. I would write these journal entries. In my Zanga. You were like, I would post to X. I would post to X. You're like yelled at me again last night.

58:47Skirt was too short. Oops. Maybe I am a slut. Yeah. But I would write Like, I love Jeremy. He's so amazing. We laugh so much. Except he made me leave this. This is a real thing that happened. We're at this party for The Daily Show. This is I'm getting my foot in the door at Comedy Central. I'm super young. I just want to go network and meet people. We get into this fight. He starts screaming at me in front of the executive producers. He's my guest screaming at me to the point where I just kind of walk away. Like, I leave the party because I just don't want to be screamed at. Then he follows me to scream at me some more.

59:25I write down this in my journal. The next week, if I look back at my journal and remember, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Yes, he just bought me this cashmere sweater. Yes, he just took me to his family's country house. All these things I think I want in a relationship. But this dude screamed me out of a party. It is a lot harder to lie to yourself when you're writing it down. And it took me longer than I might have liked it to take me to get out of that relationship. But I do credit the journaling because I had to face myself. I had to face, oh no, this is reality. You literally wrote it down.

1:00:03Now the choice is, do you respect yourself enough to leave? And honestly, at the beginning, I did not. You know, there's been this big Vogue article about boyfriends are embarrassing. What do you think? I think it's funny. I think it's clickbaity. I love the writer. She also made some like very funny videos online about it. Genius. And I think it's really misguided that it is not embarrassing even a little bit to want love, connection, companionship. And actually, instead of quitting dating, we need to demand more. We need to demand more of our partners. We need to accept. We need to stop accepting so little.

1:00:45Like the amount of people I hear who think it's all their fault, they'll settle for anything. Like I'm sure you have this with clients. You hear about women who they're pretzeling themselves into something because they just want to be chosen. Meanwhile, if they choose that guy who's not treating them well, they're actually saying no to an entire other universe of men. And I'm really, I'm frustrated that there's this narrative that all the good guys are gone. You can't find a good guy. That is A, not helpful, but B, not true. And so this whole having a boyfriend thing is embarrassing, I think is just clickbaity, great, good for her.

1:01:24And I kind of couldn't disagree more than I do.

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1:05:08Yeah, I saw it. My boyfriend actually sent it to me and we were talking about it. And I think what I also feel a lot of times too is compassion for men, you know, compassion for men and being in a position where they are rejected or they are like talked down upon or, you know, spoken to in a way where we don't need them. We don't want them, all this stuff. And I think in my truth, what I will say is that I think if those women that are saying that they, in the comments or whatever, they're like, yeah, boyfriends are embarrassing, in the deepest truth of their heart, would love to be loved. Yeah.

1:05:51Would love to be in a relationship where they felt fully seen and held and heard. And I think that's what I just come to where I'm like, yes, of course, if it's, if you're struggling in dating. I'm not saying it's, I'm not saying it's a cakewalk. God, God got me to be divorced so that I could try modern dating. And I, and I had my own journey with it. So I fully was humbled in the process, but it's like, I just, I think that because women are getting so powerful and even more powerful and even more educated and even having more access to resources and creating a bigger gap between, you know, ourselves and men doesn't mean that it needs to be embarrassing to want and desire love.

1:06:37Yeah. I mean, just to like circle highlight what you just said, the thing that struck me about the article was that it just rang as so untrue. I don't know literally one woman who wouldn't want to be authentically loved. Totally. Because that is like the core, the thing that humans have that we don't know. Maybe other animals do have it, but we know this about us. We can love. And we know that love, or I know that love is the most beautiful, sacred thing I cherish above all else is love. And I just find it very hard to believe that the people in the article don't also want authentic love. now how we get it, what we do with it, totally different set of questions.

1:07:23But it just didn't bring me as something like as true. Yeah. Like a lot of the women in the comments that I saw were like, I'm whatever age and I'm single and I'm happy. I'd rather have my peace than whatever. And I'm like, yeah, girl, 100%. Like completely agree with that sentiment and statement. I think there was one reel that I saw of a woman that was really struck me and I thought it was really beautiful because she's like, the problem that I have with this is that I did that for so long and now I'm 36 and I'm with my, or 37 and I'm with my man. And because I was doing all of that, like, it's embarrassing.

1:07:59I need to get my bag. I need to be successful. I waited so long where now my window is so much shorter and now I'm having to like have children in a shorter amount of time. And I'm just like, she's like, I just bought into the narrative too long. And I'm not saying that you need to be a certain age to get pregnant or not. I'm older. So I'm obviously on my own journey with that. But it's like, I think what struck me was that if we're fed a narrative that we don't need men or we don't need relationships or we don't need boyfriends, but eventually you will finally come to your knees in the truth and of the truth of your desire of wanting love or wanting relationship, it might be at a point where you're potentially further down the line where family or children is harder if that is your heart's desire.

1:08:43And I think for a lot of women, that is their heart's desire, you know? And I was just kind of reflecting when you were speaking too about, I was listening to someone talk about power and talking about discrepancies of power and how unfortunately the people that have less power often have to make the shift because people in power have no incentive to change. And I was thinking about how now women almost have the power and it's like, what are we going to do with it? Women are now more, you know, educated, have more, you know, money, are like emotionally more intelligent and all these things. And I'm not saying that men don't have power in the world for sure.

1:09:22But if we do become more powerful, like what was going to happen and how are we going to treat people and how are we going to treat men and all of that? And I don't know if that is like the kindest way to start this off, if that's true. Yeah, I totally hear that. I also kind of feel like my take is you need to like block out all the noise. Yeah. About. Okay. Now, second conspiracy theory of the day. The earth is flat. The earth is flat. So many dating and relationship experts on Instagram or whatever. Don't even get me started. Their only incentive. Rolling up my sleeves. Is for you to be single.

1:10:00Because then they can sell you coaching programs and tell you what's wrong with you and all these problems. And so my advice to people is like literally listen to no one. Block everything out and start journaling about what do you actually want. And here's really important. What do you value in a partner? Then go look for that. And what I mean by value is not how much does he make? How tall is he? What's his job? Like, okay, I was single or like on and off single for like 15 years or something. and only very recently found somebody who I'm like, if he's listening, I think you're the one. But I'm super, super happy with him.

1:10:39And the whole thing that changed for me was I got really serious about what are the four non-negotiables that my partner must have just for. And they were, I want him to be super interesting so I can have conversations with him forever. I want him to have a great sense of humor because I can really slide towards doom, y 'all. So like he needs to lift me up some of the time. He needed to be kind, kind to me, kind to other people. And there had to be some kind of attraction, something that kept me curious about him. And what I said to myself is it's not too much to ask for four things. Not asking for 20, I'm asking for four.

1:11:22And anybody who doesn't have these four things, they might be amazing. They might be, you know, a soccer player or whatever. I don't even care about sports. I don't even know why I said that. Whatever. Whatever the thing is, right? But they have to have these four. So I was able to really quickly, like I would met a guy, super cute, all these things. He wasn't that interesting. Cool, cool, cool. Great for you. I need to move on now. I'm not spending one more day here. And when you have such a clear filter, it just makes life a lot easier. So my thing is like tune out. Like, I think men and women are in crises of different crises.

1:12:02That's a good point. And I love Scott Galloway. I think he talks really well. Like, I think he's an incredible thinker about how men in particular are in crisis or they're having their own crisis right now. Agree, agree, agree. and for my own personal dating life, I just tuned out everything except what are the things like very specifically, and I journaled about this all the time, that I'm looking for. And then if the guy doesn't have it, I must cut out now. That's not mean to him. There's nothing wrong with him. There's nothing wrong with me. I'm just looking for something specific. And that fast-tracked everything and led, I was told by a very famous dating coach, that time was ticking.

1:12:45She literally went on her like watch and like did this, you know, the motion of time is ticking. You're getting older. There are going to be less options, which only made me feel desperate and fearful. Those are like, do you make any good choices from a place of scarcity? And I like so many people told me that like you got it like just basically settle. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Just get really specific about what you're looking for and then go out as much as you possibly can, but not on the dating apps. And that would be, that was my maybe multi-minute rant on what is wrong with dating. And how to think about dating.

1:13:27Yeah. Yeah. I think the, I love the, first the sentiment about not listening to any dating advice. That is my whole thing about my whole thing. I enjoyed my dating process because I did not listen. You would think I just got out of a divorce, I haven't dated in, I've never dated in my whole life because I was in relationship after relationship. You would think that I would need to listen to advice, to follow people. How does dating work? No. I don't need some random in their car telling me about how dating works. I don't need some random's opinion about there's no good men. And there's, I'm like, no, that's not my reality.

1:14:04That's not my truth. I do not consent to taking on the common belief of all of these things that dating is trash and all these things like, no, that's not my reality. That's not the reality I want to live in. So I didn't. And I think what also I'm realizing when you were talking in this and kind of relates back to the article was I dated, I enjoyed it. And I found my man when I finally landed in the truth of my desire to find my person. And the entire time dating I had been, I'm having fun. I'm enjoying myself. I just want to do my thing. Never once did I honor the truth of my desire of my heart.

1:14:44And when I finally was like, I don't care if I look stupid. I seem cringe. I seem desperate or I'm embarrassing. I want love and I want to find my person. And when I finally owned that truth and no longer acted and played around like, oh yeah, I'm just, I love dating. I'm just seeing what's out there. You know, I'm just like doing my thing. And there was a phase for that when I finally was like, I want love. Beautiful. And I want a partner. And I want to be a mom. And I want to be a wife was when I found my man. And I think the quicker we can honor the truth of our desire in our hearts, the more quickly it'll come.

1:15:20Oh, yes. Amen. Yes. It's like, what is the truth? What is the truth? And then whatever the truth is, go after that, not what you want the truth to be, what you think the truth should be, what other people are telling you the truth. Like we're all so individual. We're all on such individual journeys, right? Like the quicker we can get on board with who am I actually? What do I actually want? What can I actually contribute? Me specifically, the sooner we can start getting the things we want. And to bring it back to journaling a little, like this is why I say so many of us feel like we are cut off from our intuition, we do not understand our gut, and that we can't trust ourselves.

1:16:04But we haven't done the bare minimum, which is to listen to ourselves. And so journaling just gives you an immediate way to get back to the source, to see what am I feeling? What am I thinking? And honestly, to hold yourself to account a little bit. Because if I read in my journal for six months, I'm with this abusive guy. He is doing this to me, and this might be controversial, but that then is my responsibility. That's on me. So I've now stayed. Like it's not on me that he's treating me that way. But what is on me is that I have decided to stay here for this long. And once you realize, wait a minute, I have agency, I have power, and there are lots of different situations and I can totally understand, feel compassion for people who are in situations where they can't get out.

1:16:51I was in a situation where I could get out. If you are in a situation where you can get out, journaling really helps you see that, helps you build a plan, helps you see that it's necessary. It is a free, easy solution to get back to yourself. Because we can gaslight ourselves. Oh my God. This is the whole thing. That's why I love journaling. And also I love the work that I do as a coach because it's like, I'm with you. So I heard you two months ago saying something. And I hear you today saying something. And you've been saying something. And now I'm here to tell you and reflect back to you in the journals like that.

1:17:27It's like every single day, just seeing the truth of how you feel, the truth of yourself. I was even reflecting today, every year in my journaling practice, every year, my New Year's resolution would begin with lose X amount of weight. Every single year, the first resolution I had, lose 15 pounds, 20 pounds, 10 pounds, whatever, no matter what. And it would be like, there had to be a moment where I would just look and I'd be like, oh, I'm unconsciously doing that thing again. And I could just see the truth of like the fact that this was carrying and with me repeatedly my whole life. And I'm like, your soul mission and your dreams for this year, that's your first dream?

1:18:15Lose 10 pounds? Come on. Like I just was like, whoa, we have to change this. So I really love that you're bringing this through. And I know in your journal too, there's like specifics and there's kind of creative ways with things. So walk us through kind of how this brings them through things in a different way, because I know people have access to journals and stuff, but like what were some other interesting things you brought through? Yeah. So my journal is sort of the first of its kind because it brings together tons of research from positive psychology, neuroscience, journaling, particularly a technique called expressive writing.

1:18:46And I have a journaling club that I worked out a lot of these things with. And I've journaled for 15 years. So this is like, took me way too long to create this journal. And I think why it can be really helpful to people in particular, I did a lot of research on rituals. And there's a great research scientist named Michael Norton. He wrote a book, a great book called The Ritual Effect. And basically his thesis is, we are starving for rituals. You know, it used to be even like, I don't know if you remember this, but like, I don't know when it even was on, but Mad Men, for example. My friends would come over, we'd watch the premiere, we'd talk about it every week.

1:19:26Now, my friends are watching like 15 different things. Not all of them are TV shows. Like, we can't get on the same page about anything. There's no like communal thing for us to discuss. So, you know, you think about way back in the day, there'd be rituals around the harvest, rituals around the moon. There were rituals that maybe we didn't need, like witch burning. Like totally could have skipped that one. So true. Not necessary. Right? So like bless, goodbye. Actually, don't bless. I take back my blessing and not. That was not necessary. That was the Holy Spirit. But like we used to have rituals and rituals make us pause, remember that we're alive, that life is not just a list of to-dos, right?

1:20:11That there's something emotional and beautiful about being here. And so journaling, I think people think about like, it needs to be a habit. But a habit is like an if-then statement. If in a car, then I put on my seatbelt. If in the bathroom, then I wash my hands. There's no joy, delight, emotion. It's just get her done. A ritual, however, if you bring a ritual into your journaling practice, So for example, how I journal right now is I just moved in with my boyfriend and our little house has a little fireplace. I get by the fireplace. I have a witchy brew of like coffee with homemade cashew milk and like a little bit of ashwagandha, which I don't know what it is, but it sounds magical.

1:20:56And I like stir it up and then I go to the fireplace. I have a little sheepskin thing and I journal for three pages. it is the most delightful part of my day every day starts that way so I have consistency and stability every single day I know I'm gonna have at least 20 minutes I enjoy 20 minutes without anybody bothering me and I do this first thing right before you're getting emails before your boss is calling all that kind of stuff but it gives you a sense that your life is worth living that there's a reason to pause that you shouldn't just like keep going um so I think the the first thing that I kind of realized is if you can make journaling into a delightful ritual for you and design your delight, you will have one thing you are obsessed with every single day.

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1:25:22I also love the recommendation you had too. And I tell some of my clients this, that if they don't have to want a journal to get the benefits, you say that voice memoing works. Oh, yes. Absolutely. Which I think is great. I think it's interesting for some clients, I have one of my clients that has really bad ADHD. So for her, voice memoing is actually more help. It's just a lesser barrier. And for some clients, it actually works better to have them move energy through their throat. Totally. But tell me about how voice memoing can help too. So the bulk of the research is on writing. So I do want to say that.

1:25:56But there is more and more emerging evidence that if you were to do the exact same thing into a voice memo, so that's either like just rant about your day or answer a prompt, whatever it is, that it has a very similar effect. So if you were to every morning just go for a walk and feel the sun on your face, record into a voice memo how you're feeling, that could give you a similar benefit to journaling. I love that. I think, yeah, it's like more accessible sometimes. you can even convert it to, you can even voice to text. Oh, totally. And like clean it up if that helps people. And I would say journaling is not writing.

1:26:34This is key. Journaling is not writing. Your grammar, spelling, how your handwriting looks. The only reason it would matter how your handwriting looks is if you're going to look back. But otherwise, it really doesn't matter. Journaling is like soul dumping. It's just getting what's inside, outside onto the page where you can deal with it more safely. Because one of the chief benefits that I have seen from journaling, in which the research backs up, is if we deal with like our petty, sad, like right, many of us are on a roller coaster of emotions. I myself am. But if I can contain it on the page, for the rest of the day, I am a more pleasant person to be around.

1:27:16Straight up. I'm less likely to snap at people. I'm less likely to complain to people. Like I've got a place that's just for me, safe for me, where I can vent, dream, just do all of this stuff in a safe container that is free, highly portable, and that I can do every single day. And if we were to go back to parts, you're also letting parts of you be seen and heard. Yes. That will sometimes be trying to get your attention all day. So journaling is beautiful because you call on your soul or yourself and you're like, okay, we're present here. What's also present here. Which part of me is desiring to be seen?

1:27:56Maybe it's just soul. Maybe she's like, hey girl, you got it. You're rocking it. Love you. Maybe there's a part of you that's like, I'm terrified right now. I don't know about these things. And when you give spaciousness to these parts, you're able to move through your day so much more peacefully with less anxiety because otherwise the parts are kind of trying to get your attention and trying to get either unconsciously or subconsciously or consciously just trying to be heard. And so you're really giving space for that. And you're really doing this act of self-love and self-reverence. And it also creates this space.

1:28:28And I always tell my clients this, and sometimes it's hard to understand until you've done it. But it's like, I always say that you should have safety within yourself to say whatever you want to say. So as an example, we're talking again about the IFS retreat. I actually didn't have safety within myself because the parts of me that were judging, they should feel safe to judge. I don't want to judge them for judging. What was happening is called polarization in IFS. I was judging other people and then I'm judging myself for judging. So I'm creating this system where I have a judger and then I have a judge who's judging.

1:29:04In a better space, we have, oh, the judger's judging. It's okay for you to judge. Tell me more about your judgment. I'm here to listen. I'm here to learn. And really getting to know love and honor that part. Obviously, it's not my preference to judge, but when we soften and we listen and we hear those parts through journaling or the voice memos, you're really just like softening it all and can allow for transformation, which is so beautiful. Yes, yes, yes. And if I can throw some science into that, it just backs you up. So I have one of the techniques in my journal is affect labeling, which is if you've ever heard of an emotion wheel, there is a ton.

1:29:42Had to use one in therapy with an X. It's all good. Right. There is a ton. He was mad. well that's exactly the thing though right like so i found out about emotion wheel because i was feeling 10 out of 10 anxious like constantly anxious to the point where my friends were like you need to go see a psychiatrist went to the psychiatrist you know told her my life is great i'm a writer dream job great boyfriend well he's okay well i don't know well he's constantly lying to me and that's making me feel really off kilter all the time. She was like, tell me more. Like, well, you know, he, it's like these little things, like he'll say he bought a house.

1:30:25Like we'll meet some people and he's like, come to my house. I just bought it. It's in Silver Lake. And I'm like, but I know he rented it like little thing, but it's a lie. Then this other time he told me that the reason one of my books was doing so well was that he contacted every single independent bookstore in America and ordered two copies of my book. And I thought, huh, well, that's nice if true. But then I asked him, hey, that list of every independent bookstore in America as an author would be very valuable. Can I have it? He's like, well, my assistant, it's on the laptop. It's in Chicago.

1:31:02Couldn't give me a straight answer. He also told me that he was the son of an oil robber baron magnate from the, I can't even believe, from the Midwest, that his family, you know, is like one of these old ye American, you know, whatever families. They're like, you don't know what it's like to grow up as an aristocrat. He's like, you know, I've got these big expectations on me. Very hard. Big expectations on me. People love that like fantasy. Meanwhile, one day I get a phone call from him being like, hey babe um i need to borrow 1300 to get my car towed from barstow to los angeles i'm like a why are you in barstow b wait wait wait wait wait you are a robber baron oil magnate air millionaire i am a author you need to borrow 1300 from me like are you of course i venmoed him he did later pay me back.

1:32:03But I'm like telling - It's tied up in the market. That's the other thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's all in the markets, babe. It's tied up. It's tied up. None of it's liquid. I'm going to get penalized if I take it out of my trust. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Like some whole story like that. So I'm telling the psychiatrist this and I'm telling her and I'm like, and so I'm just so anxious. And she looked me dead in the eye and she said, I don't think you're anxious. I think you're furious. And I was like, mind blown. Oh my God, I'm not anxious. I'm furious. I'm furious at being lied to.

1:32:38I'm so angry that I'm being treated this way. And once I could identify I'm angry, I'm furious, I could do differently, which is not just to let this all roll off my back, but which is to break up with this con artist that I am now dating. Wow. So affect labeling, this idea of simply writing down how you're feeling, like to use your IFS, like the part of you that's feeling judgmental, but then mad at yourself for feeling judgmental, the science backs up that if you were simply to write out those feelings, you would begin to feel better because it brings down the response of the amygdala. That's like our fear processing center.

1:33:17It emotionally regulates you. It physically regulates you. So in the journal I made, after consulting with tons of people in different emotion wheels, I made my own emotion wheel. But if anyone just like wants to get started now, just Google emotion wheel. It gives you great vocab because most of, I'll speak for myself, the only words I had to describe the miracle of being human for time were good, bad, sad, tired, busy. Busy is not an emotion. Dude. Every single person. How are you busy? How are you? Busy. So busy. Busy or tired? Busy, tired. Everyone's tired. And it's like, so we need, like most of us just don't even have the vocab.

1:33:58So an emotion wheel gives us that vocabulary. And then when we write it down in a journal, hugely beneficial, even in the moment. So if we're looking for a quick fix, how do I feel better right now? I'm like super anxious about my job or angry about this or sad, whatever it is, emotion wheel, simply write out how you feel. Yeah, I think that's one of the great tragedies is that a lot of people don't have access or vocabulary to emotions. Like they don't have even like the turnaround, like you're having the experience and then a part of you can turn around and say, wait, how am I feeling? Totally.

1:34:34I think that's a gift of being a woman is we have like so much access to emotion. So much access to vocabulary. Yeah. And yet we could get better. Like I really didn't know the difference between anxiety and anger because I never had felt angry before. Wow. I had suppressed, you know, and this is a lot about my childhood. Like I couldn't feel angry because I had to survive. So I just had to accept how I was treated. So I've just been learning how to feel angry. And when I can really use that vocabulary, my main point is it gives you more agency to do differently. It just opens up your options so you aren't constantly reactive.

1:35:15What's been something that's come through in your journal recently that you were surprised by? How much I've accomplished, which sounds like wild, but I am so down. You know this from our bus talk. I think I'm the least successful, most failure, nothing works. Why am I so bad? If I was better, I'd be doing more. I've squandered every opportunity that's ever been given to me. Why am I so irresponsible? If only I'm more responsible. That is really my state of mind most of the time. But this morning I was actually journaling. It's this technique called spot the win. And it was created by, I don't want to butcher her name, but Rachel Turo, I believe, in her book, The Self-Talk workout where in order to get in touch with your self-compassion, you just spot your little wins.

1:36:02And they could be really little. Like ate a handful of walnuts instead of Cheez-Its when in the airport. Which, by the way, isn't even me. That's aspirational me because I ate the Cheez-Its. This was yesterday. They're so good. Cheez-Its and Diet Coke was like my high school. I was like, dude, the salty, the cheesy, the little crisp Diet Coke. It's perfect. Yeah. They're like a little oily. They're so good. They're engineered to be so good. Gourmet. In a sense. Sometimes they're toasted a little bit more than the other ones. They're amazing. The color. Yeah, the color. All of it. That neon cheese color.

1:36:37But like you could write down just the simplest things. And so yesterday I was writing down, I've been on the road for three weeks going to all these things and I wrote down, I had this meeting and then I did this and I actually just tallied and I was nice to my boyfriend like I never even had one meltdown at him and I am prone to meltdowns and I could just look at this list and be like I'm doing so much better than the story I constantly tell in my mind and so spotting the win it brings us back to self-compassion but more than anything it brings us back to reality, which is most of us are doing so much better in the real world than we are doing in our minds.

1:37:18Beautiful. Yeah, I love that. I was with friends recently and I was like, we need to before talking about anything for, you know, the next month's goals, just celebrate what we've been doing. And there are so many wins. I think what I'll also do, besides having friends help reflect back to me is I'll look at my photos on my phone and I'll look at like photos from the months before and it really helps me to see like oh I went on this trip and I did this or like I was with this person I'm grateful for that relationship or you know I was spent time in this way and it just helps me to see but I think if women could do one thing better it would be to celebrate their wins absolutely and celebrate themselves I feel like people feel like it's cringe honestly I said that I was like but let me let me can I bring in science Please save me.

1:38:09Okay, I'm a savior of science. The science here, the research says that people who have self-compassion are more resilient, achieve their goals more easily. They're in it for the long term. If beating yourself up worked, I would be going to that as my chief mechanism. But the science doesn't back it up. Needless self-criticism constantly grinding on yourself. It just makes you smaller. and in my experience, less able to see possibility. When you're so focused on what you're doing wrong, you can't even see, wow, I could collaborate with that person or wow, there's an opportunity over here because you're like myopic and only focused on the very, very negative.

1:38:50And so to anyone who thinks that celebrating your wins is cheesy and cringe, I would say, no, it's actually just difficult. The very, very easy thing to do that we're all pretty well trained to do is to break ourselves down in a misguided notion that that will somehow build ourselves up. Unfortunately, the science says absolutely not. That's just a recipe for burnout. So if you could just start to celebrate yourself small, I got out of bed today. Well, if you've read the news lately, getting out of bed is a really big deal. Like good on you. I drank three swell water bottles. Well, given how I grew up and not even knowing water was a thing, that's a pretty big win.

1:39:29Like start small. And I think when we catch ourselves feeling cringy about celebrating ourselves, ask, where's this story coming from? Who has pressured me to think that it's weird to like feel a little proud of myself? Like I'd never be down on a friend for doing well. I'd be like, yeah, girl, get it, right? Treat yourself like a – like if you have to trick yourself, treat yourself like your own best friend. And it creates positive momentum. them. Yes. You know, it's like with the reticular activating system, you see more positive things. It's beautiful that the science is now matching it now.

1:40:08I've had the best time. This has been so fun. So fun. I was like, we need our show. We need our own show. Your books, can you just give like a sentence or two about each book? Because I think people will be interested in all of them. So if the women want to read each of them, what would you say? who is the first book for? Who is the second book for? Journaling book, who is that for? Yeah. So By Yourself the Fucking Lilies is, I think I'd recommend that book probably as a place to start. It's all about how do you build small rituals into your life, but it's a memoir. So I actually tell you a lot of stories and then I give you takeaways, but it isn't like super prescriptive and I think it's pretty funny.

1:40:47So that's By Yourself the Fucking Lilies and especially anybody who's like, oh my God, I've been through this shit. Now what? Glow in the fucking dark is I was laid off from my fancy job at Comedy Central. So this is for anybody in their career who is now like, oh man, I need to pivot or my job is my sense of self. You feel that way, then that book is for you and can show you how to get more in touch with, you know, who are you really? And what do you really want? And then the journal, so this journal fucking works, the science, ritual, and art of journaling is for everybody. For anybody who's just interested in journaling, I give you great techniques, really excellent prompts.

1:41:30And again, I try to make it comedic so that like it isn't just, I don't want you to gouge your eyes out. I want you to like laugh. And I want journaling to be enjoyable. So that book's for anybody who just has even thought one time. Maybe journaling will help. Maybe it will. I'm so excited. Well, I love you. Thanks for coming in. I'm excited about this. I'm going to get my own book. And I think you guys should send this one to a friend. That's my suggestion for y 'all. So you can start a conversation about this, start journaling together, and we'll see you on the next one. Love you. Bye.

1:42:05Thank you so much for joining me and Tara in this beautiful interview. Again, the book is this journal fucking works and it is out now. You can search her to find any more of her works. She used to be an executive at Comedy Central and really just figured out how to support herself and her life with all of the tools that she uses. I love you very much. Lindsay and I both do. And if you want more from Almost 30, Instagram is a great place to go. Almost 30 podcast on Instagram. We also have our YouTube, which we're spending a lot more time on this year. So our YouTube. You can come see our faces.

1:42:38We have TikTok available. It has every single clip from the show. So when we have our Instagram, we kind of curate it, but TikTok has so many inspiring and off the cuff clips that we want you guys to listen to. And we have our second show, Morning Microdose, which is a daily dose of almost 30. It's like the greatest hits. It's available for you to provide inspiration for every single day. Again, my name is Krista Williams, and I will see you on the next one. Bye-bye.

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