249. Good Girls Finish Last (How to Stop People-Pleasing and Start Living) with Elise Loehnen

24:01Is it Trump? Who's running this thing? And I was like, oh, it's nobody is running this thing. It's like Oz. But it is a system that was set in place that we, all of us, continue to perpetuate and enforce and see as the way things are and therefore the way things will always be. So that was my first aha was, oh, wait, we're just, we've imbibed this as fact and we're, but it's really a story. It's really something that we're maintaining with our own energy. And I also was like, you know, it's fun to blame a bunch of men. And there are certainly a lot of men who have not only benefited from the patriarchy, but work really, really hard to uphold it.

24:48There are also a lot of women. And then there are a lot of women like you and like me who claim that we don't like this system. And yet we're also participating in maintaining it in the way that we treat ourselves and treat other women and treat men. So there's like a big responsibility taking that needs to happen of, I don't like this, and I choose something else. And I am going to actively choose something else every single day. And we all know change is hard. It's really hard. And everything, all the energy wants us to pull us back into a status quo. But it just takes this conscious, deliberate effort.

25:32Why am I shitting on this other woman? What is she doing that I want? What does she have that I want? Is my... The reason that I'm judging her, is that valid? Or is she just making me uncomfortable because she's breaking code? You obviously experience this all the time, Tori, right? All the time. So that's the sort of self-inquiry that we all need to take on as our responsibility if we're going to make something different happen.

26:03Financial Feminist Host:Talk me through what that actually looks like in practice. Can I do like a little like case study, like thought to thought to thought? So we're going to use me, okay? We're going to pick on me. My post comes up in your Instagram feed and I'm talking about being a multimillionaire and how I want to be rich. Yeah. What happens in your brain and body in reaction to that that upholds the patriarchy? And what do I then have to do in my brain and body to work through that emotion without going to the comments and being like, ew, gross. Ew, gross, right? So recognizing... So first of all, when that comes up, and I know you get this all the time, the energy that's arising is, ew, gross.

26:52Who does she think she is? How dare she? Why her and why not me? This isn't all necessarily conscious. It's just you're doing something that's making... I'll say it's me, making me deeply uncomfortable, right? I would never let myself do that? How are you getting away with that? Money is gross and base and you're not supposed to want more of it. I mean, I have a million stories. You're supposed to take all of your wanting for more money and bury it under a desire to save the world. What are you doing? You're violating all of my feelings about what a good woman says about money. And you're talking about it, Tori.

27:34Gross. We don't talk about money. Polite society. So that's what's happening. But what happens is when someone makes us feel bad, this is the classic projection. This is like Jungian shadow projection work. When someone is making us feel uncomfortable, our instinct isn't to say, what's happening in me? Like what is being activated in me? It's to say that person is bad. they need to go away so that's that's what you are experiencing in your comments there's something that you're doing that the people who are responding to would never allow themselves to do and so they need you to go away because you are making them feel bad um and i write about this a lot in envy because i think because it's envy really at its root uh and so many of us are conditioned to be like, envy is gross and malicious and I don't envy anything.

28:32That we just, we're not conscious. In my experience, men are much more capable of being like, I'm envy of that prick. Like, I want that. I'm going to get that. But for women, it's not conscious. We don't let it come up so that we can even say, oh, I'm jealous. I'm envious.

28:48Financial Feminist Host:I want that. Also, feelings are very unbecoming for women, right? Just having an emotion that isn't happiness all the time. Yeah. Yes. Anything that's bad, that we code is bad instead of like what it is to be a good woman is, is, goes into the shadow trash bag for sure. And then gets projected onto other people. She's a slut. Why is she, why is she wearing that dress? I don't want to see that. Like that's, that's all the same process. Why does she think we want to look at her body? You know? Right. It's not a good body. That's the same, the same thing that we're talking about. so that happens where somebody has those emotions how do they work through them in a way that is helpful and healthy like what questions are they asking themselves i think one is like yeah do i actually want this thing like do i am i targeting this person because they're showing me what i want and what is possible.

29:51Financial Feminist Host:Like what are other questions or things that we can help work through? All right. So the minute that this starts happening in you, whether it's about money or someone's body, it could be in any sphere, someone being lazy, someone on vacation with their, whatever it is, when you start having that feeling, I don't like this, this is rubbing me the wrong way. You could call it feeling triggered. Sometimes I just want to say like, You can always tell based on your reaction. It's either informing you or it's activating you. If it's informing you, it's very... If I see a post from Marjorie Taylor Greene, I'm not envious of Marjorie Taylor Greene.

30:32Usually I'm like, that's a problem. That's so mean. That's so horrible. It's easy to understand what that is. I'm not envious of Marjorie Taylor Greene. But if you're having a reaction to Tori, for example, most likely it's it's your envy and then you kept you catch yourself and you say this is how honestly tori like how i ended up leaving my job starting my own podcast starting to write my own books after ghost writing for i think i'd ghost written 12 books for other people standing behind brands was being like fine hearing myself it's shameful to admit it but hearing myself being like, I don't like that book.

31:14Why is her podcast so successful? I don't like her. Like, why do people think she's so great? Okay. So this is my own example.

31:20Financial Feminist Host:And then I have a million examples on my own as well. I know we're using me as like, I guess, a quasi victim in this, but like, I've done this to a million other women as well. Like, yeah, this is you get and you get it all the time. Right. Yeah. I mean, I, I'm off often on the receiving end, but like there have been, I could give you two moments from, you know, two weeks ago that I have had these feelings about a woman presenting herself in a certain way. Yes. And getting away with something, right? Yeah. Yeah. When you recognize it and you're like, then you can arrest it and say, it's honestly, all it takes is like knowing, looking for this and watching your friends, do it with your friends.

31:58When they start doing it, be like, okay, wait, wait, wait, stop, stop, stop. What is she, what's happening here? What is happening here? Because there's really good information for you. There's something here that you want for yourself or she's doing something that you want to do. So you stop it and you say, okay, what's happening? And then you say, oh, it's because I want to write a bestselling book. I want to host my own podcast. This is my soul. I want to wear a bikini. I want to wear a bikini without feeling self-conscious. I want to have an easy relationship with money and make a lot more of it.

32:31I don't want everything to feel so hard. I want that level of effortless wealth or whatever it is. You can, as you start interrogating it and investigating it, you say, oh, I understand. This is my soul saying, pay attention. This person has something that I want. I need to use this to guide my life forward. It's showing me what I want. And most women, I mean, I ask everyone listening to do this exercise. Can you actually say what you want? Most of us cannot. No. We have subjugated what we want to other people's needs for our entire lives. And that has been what's been modeled for us by our mothers and our grandmothers and our aunts and our friends.

33:15And so when I do this exercise with women, what do you want? Like, what do you really, really want? We start in one corner of the football field and end up, I don't know how many yards are in a football field, but we end up 100 yards down the line. We're so far away from what they can first even say because they just don't even, they won't allow themselves to even know what they want.

33:41Financial Feminist Host:it makes me teary when you talk about all of the women before us because I mean this has been going on since the dawn of time but like when you make it personal of like what did our mothers want versus what did their life look like what did our grandmothers want versus what their lives look like. And there's hopefully listeners out there who have women in their lives who go unabashedly for the things that they want, even if that is not socially acceptable. I have some of that, but I don't have all of that. And that's the thing that breaks my heart is when I see it with another woman, especially related to me or close to me.

34:29Financial Feminist Host:And then that leads me to think about myself, right? If I can feel that way of hoping that women I care about actually figure out what they want, not what their parents want or their spouse wants or society wants for them, but what do they actually want? Why wouldn't you hope that for yourself too? Yeah. Isn't it? It's so, um, it's so deep. Um, and I have two thoughts. One, I think that what your naming is why, and hopefully there aren't any hashtag trad wives listening who will take offense, but that's why, that's why this movement I think is so offensive. It's like, yes, you can certainly live an off-grid life and garden and all of these things are beautiful, but to, to sort of want to roll back.

35:19I mean, my, I'm from my dad's South African. My mom is, uh, you know, from poor farmers in Iowa. I would not want, I don't think that that's what my great-grandmother wanted for me, let me tell you.

35:33Financial Feminist Host:At least I also get it though. Like because we've been, we're in this hyper consumption, hustle, capitalistic culture, it feels good to be taken care of. It feels good to say, oh, I'm not going to participate. But as soon as you dig in further, you're like, okay, but you're handing over agency. You're not being taken care of. You're handing over total and complete agency to somebody else. And by the way, the only reason we know Tradwives exist is they're all on the internet making money. You're saying I don't have any money. I'm not managing my own money. I stay at home with my children, which again is fine.

36:15Financial Feminist Host:My mom is a stay-at-home mom, but you are making money talking about this lifestyle on the internet. You are making money selling your raw milk on the internet. Like, so it doesn't work. But I understand the idea of it, which is we're all so deeply tired and burned out that we just want to be held and taken care of for just two seconds. Trust me. And, you know, listen, I'm from Montana. I have my fantasies about moving home and having a simpler life. Yes. I don't have any illusions about how hard it is to live in Montana during the winter. But yes, so, okay. But Trav-wise aside, you know, with Honor Best Behavior and then there's this workbook, Choosing Wholeness Over Goodness, that's coming out with the paperback.

37:05And one of the tools is exactly this. And I love this one because essentially, once you've figured out what these stories are, right? Let's say we're talking about money. You shouldn't want more money. It's based to want more money, whatever it is, like whatever the opposite of what you are teaching in the world is, Tori. Women shouldn't talk about money. The tool, which I think anyone can do at any time, is to go into a woman's college and to teach a class. And we actually ask you to do this in the workbook, to teach a class of 18 to 22-year-old women how to make sure that this story for them is also true.

37:48So let's say the story is My story is like polite girls don't talk about women So I go and you create a little syllabus will guide you through creating the syllabus and then you go and you take The story that you're carrying around about women and money and you teach the next generation How to make sure that that story is true for them too And as you do it and it's funny and you make it really big Um, but you're just start to realize it becomes more obvious like oh, this is what we're passing on to each other right? Like this is the contagion that we're spreading through nice girls don't talk about money, which when you're teaching a class, it's like, okay, make sure you marry a man who takes complete control of the finances.

38:32You want to be sure that you don't know anything about mortgages or how to get one. You don't want to really understand interest rates while we're at it. Make sure you don't have your accountant's information. You have no idea how much money you have. Like that's definitely not in your name. Yes.

38:51Financial Feminist Host:Oh, this is such an interesting. I'm like, what would I say? Yeah. Make sure your credit card's not in their name. Make sure that he gives you an allowance and you cannot overspend that allowance or you are punished in some way. Yeah, definitely. That's a good point. But I mean, you could do this all day, but when you do it and you're like, this is what I am living. This is what I'm holding as a story about my life. Is this what you want to teach your niece and your daughter and your friend's daughter? Is this what we want to be passing on? But that's what we're doing. Right. And when you make it really obvious, it's like, oh, shit.

39:30Like, no, I refuse. I think for many women, it's hard to do this work for ourselves because, again, we're trained to be selfless. But when you think about it in that context of this is what I'm teaching my kids and this is what I'm teaching other girls and other boys. It's like, okay, not today. Now I feel emboldened to stop this.

39:53Financial Feminist Host:And yeah, we are being a little dramatic or making it all about like men's control over women's finances, which is a part of this. But it could also look like if you're bad with money, it means you're a bad person, right? Or if you're bad with money, you have no hope in fixing it. Just like if you're bad at French or playing the piano, you will never, ever get better. We know that's not true. You have to practice. You have to practice playing piano and it will be uncomfortable, but you will get better. It's the same thing with money. But again, I think we talked about this last time as well, that we feel like if we failed, we're a failure.

40:28Financial Feminist Host:It becomes part of the identity as opposed to just a neutral statement, which is, I'm not good with money right now. not I'm bad with money forever or I can never get better with this. It is a DNA trait inside. It's just like, you know what? I'm not very good with money right now, but I can get better. I can learn. Yes. It's like the season of great divorce memoirs right now. Maybe it's always that season, but Jen Hotmaker has Awake coming out this fall. There's another book called Strangers coming out. this woman, Belle Burden, who wrote this viral modern love column over the COVID about her husband just coming home and leaving and being like, you take the kids.

41:11But in all of these memoirs, like one of the themes is, and Jen writes about it in a hilarious way, she had no idea, not a single iota of a clue about what was happening in her financial life. And it's a good read. It's a great, great book, but it's just a good cautionary tale. To your point, like, obviously people who are engaging with you probably have taken the first step towards managing their money, but many of us are scared to. And until we get sort of that brutal wake-up call and not, there are no spoilers here, but Jen was like, learning how to manage my money was like the greatest thing for my like 46th year of life.

41:57But it's common, obviously. Otherwise, I mean, you have a robust business because man. I hope someday I don't.

42:05Financial Feminist Host:Like I would love to be out of a job at some point. Also, we need to have Jen on the show. That's incredible. I didn't know she said that. Can we talk about, you know, we're talking about money. I think the gluttony is a, and gluttony and envy, I think are two easy ones to kind of pinpoint, which is like, again, skinny at all costs. And then, you know, if I don't like this person, it's probably because I'm envious. How does this show up in other things like pride I'm thinking of or pride is probably the pride. So maybe let's talk about that for a second. Let's talk about pride because it's somewhat in a Venn diagram with envy and scarcity, which is and I don't know, I know some people make this connection, but not enough of us make the connection between what happens to highly visible women in our culture and the way that we celebrate their invariable, inevitable takedown, right?

43:02Like I really worked hard to find examples for the book, Tori, of women who have endured without being quote unquote put back in their place. But most - Can you name one?

43:14Financial Feminist Host:Did you get to I was like You know The only person Is Meryl Streep I mean not the only one But she's an example Of someone who sort of Goes away And then she comes out And launches her book And the Or next movie And then she goes away And because she doesn't Chase Any relevancy She's not visible I don't even know If she's on social media She has managed To keep herself Safe From what I can tell I might be able To debunk that one I'm sorry Oh There you go See I think she's a very good, she's the closest I could have gotten. But early, she tells a story about early in her career, she was basically told she was not pretty enough to be an actor.

43:54Financial Feminist Host:Like, that her, you know, because she has kind of a longer nose, that her, she would have to basically change her face in order to be successful. And it didn't matter how good of an actor she was, she had to be more palatable, she had to be more conventionally attractive. Yeah. And again, early, I think, in our early 20s. I think that's part of it, too, is just like, I think we all have like an older woman we admire who like just doesn't give a goddamn fuck. And it's like so that's what we're talking about here. But like, how do we start it when we're 25? How do we start it when we're 40, not when we're 65 and wearing whatever we want, you know?

44:33Financial Feminist Host:Honestly, it's a really fascinating exercise to try and think about a powerful woman and try to find one that didn't get knocked down a peg. A little humbling to think about. When we come back, we're talking about the stories we tell ourselves and how those narratives are keeping us from living our fullest lives. We'll see you after the break.

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47:13Well, I think in the context of pride, which is the way that we come for women with pitchforks and women come for women to let me be clear, this isn't about men shooting them out of the sky. This is often women on women hate. Um, it's like again being conscious of it and being like what's happening here like why why am I so excited that like billy eilish? I just saw was like got in trouble for talking about being irish or something. I don't know It's like the latest cultural shenanigans of just like she's had enough goodness. Let's put her down Um, but this is it's not just it doesn't just happen to famous women, right?

47:54It happens to all of us in our lives all the time. There's sort of a cap on what women can achieve, how much they can be seen and celebrated before we decide we're done. They're annoying. And I think that we all need to be super conscious of this pattern in order to break it. We do not do this to men. they do not run out their relevancy curves in the same way at all there are a few men obviously but they generally have to do something legitimately bad whereas women aren't doing what's the crime right?

48:31Financial Feminist Host:being there Taylor Swift on a jumbotron is somehow the worst thing in the entire world versus pick male celebrity who has been courtside, Timothee Chalamet I know because I follow him obsessively He was like courtside at fucking every single Knicks game in the playoffs. Did people get sick of him? No. They were like, what a Knicks fan he is. Yay. Go him. He loves his home team versus Taylor Swift supporting her boyfriend. Ew, gross. Ew, gross. Go away, Taylor Swift. Right? So part of it is just being conscious of what's happening here, which is that women are not allowed. Again, it goes to the very beginning of our conversation.

49:09Standing apart is dangerous. Excelling. um yeah tall poppy in the poppy field bad so um the more we and and that is in us we're we're very conscious rightly so um i need to be very careful about how much i'm putting myself out there how much public sex public sex yes but public success i achieve because people are going to come for me. It's like an invariable thing. I will say, and I write about her in Choosing Wholeness, but one example of a woman in our space who I use almost as exposure therapy for this is Kara Swisher. And because she like flexes like no one's business, she just flexes all over the place and it makes me name drops like crazy name drops access journalism etc and it and he give scott gives her shit he is also flexi um i'm much more tolerant of it from him but i listen to them i mean i love that i love pivot but also as exposure therapy because i i spend the time being like this is making me uncomfortable kara stop bragging stop bragging as a way to just be present with myself and to recognize what's happening in me in that moment.

50:33And she doesn't give a fuck, right? She, because, and that's another good example of our culture where women are conditioned to perform their goodness in the world. Men are conditioned for power, but because women are conditioned to perform their goodness, we're incredibly susceptible to reputational harm. All you have to do is say a woman is bad. And then we usually like take ourselves out. It's just so uncomfortable. But Kara doesn't care. And so in that way, she's a great example of someone who just keeps going. She doesn't give a shit. And so as much as we can sort of embody that energy and try like use her as a persona, it's good for us go and brag a little bit go and just practice do it with your friends just like brag to each other it's so uncomfortable to worry and yet we all need to practice

51:30Financial Feminist Host:you want to hear mine yes bragging is i don't have a problem with that good it will shock no one to hear that um i have big tits and um i only discovered i had big tits uh like seven years ago and I just I didn't know because I was always taught to cover up and taught to not wear anything too revealing and not basically dress my body type and a woman I follow she's very famous I'll say it I've never told this to her I think it's Noelle Downing have you seen this woman similar size to mine they're out all the time like all the time and not in a way that is like only fans purposely provocative. It's just like, I'm on a trip in France with my child and my husband.

52:21Financial Feminist Host:I'm wearing a dress that I want to wear. I happen to have bigger boobs, so they're just out. And a couple years ago, I was following her and I was seeing so much boob and it made me uncomfortable and I unfollowed her because I was like, she's showing off and sexualizing herself. Now, I grew up Catholic. Again, I grew up with like, you do not dress like this. And then I got more comfortable with my own body because of course it was me. Of course it was me being like, I feel deeply uncomfortable with this because I feel like it's wrong or bad or it's drawing attention to yourself or it's asking for it, right?

53:03Financial Feminist Host:And as soon as I started uncoupling that belief with the way my body looked, I literally started following her again. And I realized I hadn't followed her for a while. Started following her again probably six months a year ago when I got more comfortable with that. Because I was like, this challenges this feeling I have that I grew up with, that society tells me. And now you'll see on Instagram, the titties are out all the time for me. I love your boobs just thank you thank you they're so heavy dude and I thought about cutting them off but that's a story from another time but it was it was literally like okay the bragging thing whatever talking about money those things have never uh truly made me uncomfortable but this is one thing that did and I saw another woman doing something that I thought was scandalous or bad or again, asking for it, calling attention to herself.

53:55Financial Feminist Host:She was just existing. Her boobs happened to be big. And in society, we have conflated, you know, busty women with male desire. And it's like, that is a socialization. That is a social construct. And as soon as I realized that that was what was triggering me and unpacked it, my life got better. Yeah. No, but it's so like, Like that's the first step is just consciousness. It's just that. It's like, oh, I can actually take a breath and recognize what's happening in me. And then can I get more comfortable with this? And it will show up as you become, honestly, like whenever I get upset, I do this with my, one of my best friends, Sarah, who's my neighbor and we walk all the time.

54:39It's like, we diagnose each other. It's like, Sarah, why, what's happening? Why am I, why is this person driving me crazy? Like, what, can you tell me what's happening? And then we like diagnose it together until we land at like, oh, oh, I'm just jealous. She's like getting away with this. I'm jealous. She's like so many people, you know, are celebrating this thing about her. You know, it's so helpful. It will change your life. It will change your life. Just that one action. Right.

55:11Financial Feminist Host:Yeah. Yeah. Your boobs need to be free, Tori. Don't cut them off. And the comments are going to continue, right? Like, I never commented on Noelle's videos or photos, but it was what was going on in my head. And there's just some people that make the stupid decision to take every thought in their head and put it on the internet, right? Or even your family might say something to you that is deeply hurtful. But it's like, once you realize what's going on and start unpacking that for you, that's not where it ends because you're going to continue getting challenged in that belief over and over and over again.

55:47Financial Feminist Host:Yeah. So how do we sustain the work we just did? How do we carry that through when something else is triggering for us? Or when we do have a very significant thing happen in our life, like, oh, I went for the raise and I was told no and I was, I don't know, fired because of it. Or I, yeah, posted a photo on the internet where I was confident and I got 40 ,000 people who unfollowed me, which is a real life thing that happened to me. It's like, how do we deal with the real life consequences of that? I mean, that's a major question. I mean, I tend to be, I, I'm a very spiritual person. And so I think, and I'm not like a, let's slap some toxic positivity on this and say, yeah, everything is to your benefit always.

56:38Um, but I would say, all right, Tori, you've been liberated from 40 ,000 people who feel like they should, that you are in some way reflection of them and that they should be able to control your actions and you should be according to their preferences, right? Like so many of us live our lives like we get to control the external thermostat of the world to fit our preferences. It's actually bonkers, right? But this is how many of us feel like I can't be around anything that bothers me right now. And for the person who went for the raise and clearly these people don't see your value, right? They feel like they can just live, get on without you.

57:19And that's really good information to have. These are not your people. This is not your job. And, um, so I'm not suggesting that these aren't hard, horrible lessons, but I think we get sort of the redirection that we need from life sometimes to, um, You can either sort of orient your success to pleasing people externally, recognizing you actually have no control over how people feel about you and whether they're going to like you or not. Or you can just keep working on your own internal GPS and integrity and not trade off your values for likes or a job that feels bad.

58:09Financial Feminist Host:I've said this many times on the show, but it's like if you are sacrificing your own happiness, your own contentment, your own worthiness to make other people feel more comfortable. Bad idea. Bad idea. It's a bad idea. I tried it, guys. It doesn't work. It's not fun. It might work in the short term. We all do things that we hate in the short term to do what needs to be done. Oh, it absolutely works in the short term. when, yeah, somebody else is more comfortable, but then it like festers. And it just like, it's like a little, I don't know, it's like you swallowed a tapeworm and it just like starts feeding on you from the inside.

58:47Yeah, and it becomes increasingly threatening. Like you, look, you survive, you not only survived losing 40 ,000 people, but you're doing great, right? And again, I'm giving an example,

58:57Financial Feminist Host:but there's a million, I have even higher stakes examples of this in my life that for privacy reasons, I'm not going to share. But like, I have very high stakes examples of this. I know other people who have even higher stakes examples of this where, yeah, they've lost their livelihood. They've lost their spouse. They've lost, you know, close family relationships. And that's deeply, deeply hard and deeply uncomfortable. Yeah. And, um, life, unfortunately, is like suffering is part of life. And so are things happening to us that we would never or choose and do not want. And yet, when you look back, it is easy to say, well, often easy to say, even like I think about some of the horrible things that have happened to me.

59:44My best friend died. My husband, my brother's husband, when he was 39, he was like my brother, my best friend. And I can even look at his death at this point. It's been eight years. I mean, I would do anything to have another conversation with him. And yet he course corrected. There was something about that loss that course corrected me in a way for which I can actually find gratitude. And that might sound like a perverse example, but I'm not alone in having that experience. It's like, what do you take? When you take a terrible thing that's happened and then you're like, I need to actually use this.

1:00:23This can't be for not. and I'm sure a lot of people who we've all lost jobs. It's a rite of passage. And often it can just put you on a better track. It's just, it's very scary. I'm not suggesting that it's not, but this is life, you know?

1:00:43Financial Feminist Host:There's a line I love that you said, and I felt the same way for so long. Quote, I was carrying my head around on a stick. when referencing being so in your head and disconnected from your body. I think this is another thing that we're told is like, logic is good. And of course it is. But like, I logicked my way to so much anxiety. Like, I logicked my way to so much worry and concern to the point where like, I was not checking in on my body at all. Or felt like even that was too woo-woo or that was kind of bullshit because your brain and your thoughts are what matter. So how has your relationship to your body changed throughout this work?

1:01:28Financial Feminist Host:And is this something women are conditioned into? I think definitely conditioned into, in part. I mean, it gets into the sort of the metaphysical, like the masculine is associated with sort of ascension and spirit and our father, the Lord, and the woman is sort of the base material. Material, actually, it shares the root of mother. Matter is mother. So it's like the feminine is the body and sort of the womb and the tomb. I was just gonna say, right where you're giving birth is like center, right? That's your center of gravity is your pelvic center. Yeah. And we live in a culture that doesn't really have much reverence for women, for women's bodies, for the planet, right?

1:02:13There's like extreme devaluation of the feminine. So yes, I think that we are taught like you want to be thoughtful, ascended out of your body. And many of us have lost connection. I have been, I became dissociated from my body through early sexual trauma. That happens to a ton of women too, right? And boys and men. But so we sort of disconnect. We just like, it doesn't matter what our body wants, right? And it gets into the gluttony chapter in our hunger. Like, you can't know what you want, body. You're bad, and I need to discipline you and rule over you and decide what you get and what you don't get, right?

1:02:55So our whole lives is really spent in, like, discounting, devaluing, ignoring, and ruling over the body. There's so much to be gained from from being embodied. It's how we experience pleasure. It's just amazing to do the work to become more embodied. This has been a big thing for me in the last five to 10 years, and it's ongoing. The other thing is, and we write about this a fair amount in the book, but I have learned how to bring my body into decision-making in a way that has kept me from betraying myself. I practice what I call the full body no before I say yes to doing anything. It's like, okay, mentally, I can give you a million reasons why this is a good idea and I should do this thing.

1:03:43But I run it through my body. Does my energy go up or does my energy go down? And if it goes down, it's like, I don't want to do this. This is a no. This is a no. I I learned how to bring my body into it. In fact, in light of, we were having a conversation before this about this whole strategy that we're supposed to do around our shows. And like every part of my body was like, this isn't energy down full body. No, for me, I cannot do this. I'm still fighting between my head and my body about that. But like right now it's, I have to listen to my body. It's know.

1:04:25Financial Feminist Host:Yeah. Again, said it a million times. If you've listened to the show many times, you've heard me say this. But what I've realized is intuition is knowing without being able to know why, you know, if that makes like you can't logically tell somebody you're when somebody asks you, how do you know that you literally the only answer is, I don't know. I just know. Yeah. And every time I've had an intuitive feeling, it's one been 100 correct but two it's been very hard to describe how i know yeah which makes decision making in a very uh brain logical uh masculine society very difficult especially like running a business how do you know i just know that's not a good answer but it's a true answer.

1:05:14Yeah. And I think if you were to poll most major decision makers at companies, day traders, etc., they are making decisions based on that knowing. And it is intuitive. It is instinctual. And it is not, they're not like evaluating all the data and using that to inform their every single decision. They are just, they know. And I think that that gets stronger the more that you exercise it.

1:05:43Financial Feminist Host:When we come back from a word with our sponsors, we're wrapping up our conversation with Elise, including talking about why we have such a hard time trusting our intuition and our bodies. Also, fair warning, we have a light spoiler for Life of Pi, which is one of my favorite books of all time. You'll hear it coming. You can pop ahead two minutes if somehow you haven't read the book that came out in 2004. All right, see you after the break.

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1:08:27Financial Feminist Host:I'm not going to spend too much time on this, but one thing I've thought a lot about that you're actually the perfect person to talk about this with is that all of these things we use stereotypically as women to like inform our decisions. So I'm thinking like tarot, astrology, our gut, all of these things are dismissed. And I think they're dismissed because they're feminine. Yes, 100%. And yes, this is my ballywick. As you said, I love this stuff. If it's remotely woo-woo, I'm interested in it because I think it is this devalued source of wisdom and a way to connect with the universe. And so much of patriarchal religion has been funneled through this God the Father archetype, right?

1:09:13Right.

1:09:14Financial Feminist Host:Which is also crazy. Like, and I can say that as someone who went to 18 straight years of Catholic school, if you're not in it and you look at any other religion, it's fucking bananas. Like, you want me to eat? And Catholics literally believe it is the body and blood of Christ. They believe it has been transfigured. Yes. That's insane if you're not part of that religion. That's bonkers. And I can do this for every religion, right? But we believe that. So why can't we believe other things? Yeah. No, Catholicism, it's like the mystery cult of it is wild. And as you mentioned, like the rituals, it's wild.

1:09:52It's nuts. But most modern religions, and I say this as like a deeply spiritual person, it's a form of culture, right? It's actually quite different than the way that it was intended. So Jesus didn't write. He had his 12 disciples, this Jewish rabbi wandering around the desert. The New Testament was written 100 years after he died, passed on by. So we've structured these things. It's all a culture. But when you go into the wisdom traditions of all the Abrahamic religions, etc., they're all more or less describing the same thing, which is this oneness that becomes duality, etc. They're all telling very similar stories.

1:10:37And it's much more aligned, really, with like tarot. Tarot and Kabbalah, for example, which is the mystical arm of Judaism and sort of the wisdom tradition of Judaism, they are rooted together. There's this amazing guy, Mark Horn, who teaches Kabbalah tarot. And astrology, like the three magi, they're astrologers. The sign of Jesus is the fish. He was born in Pisces. And so anyway, so these are all these like super ancient, emergent ideas. The I Ching, I mean, it's incredible when you actually go into like the Tao Te Ching. And it's this way of talking to the universe and they're old and beautiful and so fun.

1:11:27And I mean, let me tell you, I ask the I Ching a lot of questions. I throw coins all the time and I always get the advice I need. I love, love all of these systems. I think they're so rich in part because they just put you in conversation with yourself. Yeah. Yeah.

1:11:46Financial Feminist Host:Well, it's like it's like the flip a coin, right? It's not about the outcome. It's about your reaction to the outcome. Yeah. So it's like, should I do this thing? And you flip it and you get an answer. And you either like the answer or you don't like the answer that tells you what you want. Yeah. And I would say like, for example, the doubt or the I Ching, if you and there are lots of, I have a lot of resources for this and I've done podcast episodes about it. But if you, you have to ask a well-formulated question and what you get back in these hexagrams are these like cones, this like incredible, beautiful wisdom that you have to then translate and apply.

1:12:24So it's also not like, I don't, I don't call a psychic and say, do I do this or I do, do I do that? I don't do, I don't even believe in it. I believe in free will and there are endless, endless options. But I like to be in a dialogue with my higher self or the universe or God, whatever it is. My spirit guides. One, it just makes life more fun, Tori. Yeah. And two, I find it as I'm, it's a way of me getting in touch with myself. We can cut this.

1:12:59Financial Feminist Host:Did you ever read Life of Pi? I did a million years ago about being on the boat with all the animals. But it turns out in the end, he maybe didn't. And then he asked, what's the better story? It's one of my favorite books of all time. Because you spend this entire book, he's on a raft with Richard Parker, the tiger, right? Yes. And he survives, right? And, you know, the orangutan named Orange Juice and all of this. And then you get to the end, and it's about a three-pager where he's like, maybe none of that happened. Here's the actual story. Orange Juice is a representation of my mom. Richard Parker was the chef who tried to kill me.

1:13:34Financial Feminist Host:Like all of this stuff. And then you get to the end and the guy's like, well, that happened. And he goes, maybe it did. What's the better story? Like, does it actually matter what happened? Does it actually matter? I find that's, I think that's such a critical question. And I also find that when people try and shut like me down or other, often women about, I have 18 crystals on my desk. They're pretty. They're pretty. But I think they're really powerful. What if that's it? They're pretty. How does your iPhone work? There's a crystal in there. I love crystals. I wear them all the time. Black tourmaline on the string, in my bra.

1:14:17But I find that when people, it's like it drives people, some people, crazy.

1:14:22Financial Feminist Host:Well, yeah, because it's not logical. It's not masculine. No, it's not masculine. I'm like, yeah, maybe it doesn't work. Maybe a lot of the things that men do don't work either. Don't work. But it gives my life meaning. I think it even brings my awareness. to like, what do I need to like shake out of my body? Black tourmaline is like, they call it the energetic vacuum cleaner. So it's like, all right, I need to like, actually, I'm gonna, instead I'm gonna take a shower and just like get this day off of me. What's the harm? But it's like, what's, and what's the better story? And I think in my life, like having faith and some higher order and wanting to talk to the other side and wanting to be in communion has made my life so much richer, adds meaning and yeah i'm sorry if that's offensive to someone go find your own anybody yeah the other thing with pi too is that he practices three religions and his rabbi his priest and his um uh imam yes thank you but yeah they all get together and they basically are like he can't do this and he's literally read this please read i'll send you a copy if you don't I love this book so much.

1:15:32Financial Feminist Host:I studied it in school, which was so cool. It was one of the books we read in high school. And yeah, they all like literally have basically a conference call with him. They're like, you need to pick one. And he goes, why? And they're like, well, you just you need to. And all three of them are like talking about how. Yeah, it's crazy that he's trying to do all three at once. And he's like, well, I get different things from all of them. I think that most people don't know, though, that they're all have this Abraham. They're all Abraham. They're all have the same. People don't know that about our three major religions.

1:16:05Yes. Yeah. Funny. Yeah.

1:16:08Financial Feminist Host:Okay. So you wrote this workbook. I have it on my desk. I'm so excited. I'm just going to just. You're going to have fun in there. It's going to rip me a new one. And I'm so excited for it. So you wrote this with a co-author, Courtney, who you said, okay, I want to collaborate with this person for the workbook. Why was it important for you to have a collaborator in this? so when I would take honor best behavior out into the world women would say okay great now what you know what do I do about this now that I can see it and I didn't really have great answers I have far more answers now having lived that for a while but but amazing things would happen in these groups of women once women start talking and sharing now I'm not a therapist and I'm not a coach and I could probably grant myself more authority.

1:17:03But when you're getting into really deep territory with women, I felt like I am not equipped to take people apart and put them back together again in a way that sometimes really deep sharing can evoke. And so I was asked to do a workshop and I wanted to do it with a coach or a therapist. And so my friend Courtney said she would do it. And she's a brilliant coach. And she uses the Enneagram and a lot of different other models. And the Enneagram and the SINs are related. And so we did this workshop together, and it was amazing. And she brought to the workshop this process, which is now in the workbook of these seven tools for figuring out what stories are running your life, making them really big, teaching the class, which we discussed, creating personas, etc.

1:17:54And it was so powerful, so fun and really deep people shifted did some work in that room and really started to shift some of these stories and so it was just a no-brainer I was already working on this workbook to use this process as the backbone for the book and it was fun I love collaborating as much as I I also love doing my own work. So that was the genesis. I felt like I wanted to go into rooms and feel like I could relax into letting what things happen. Yeah, without being like, oh my God, what am I going to do if something big comes up? Are you an Enneagram 3? I am a 6, though a 3 is a good guess.

1:18:44I always type as a 1, 3, or 5. I'm an Enneagram six. I was going to say one, and I was like, I get more three vibes from her.

1:18:52Financial Feminist Host:You're a six. I'm a six. What are you, eight? No. Nope. My public version of me... Three is an eight. Nope. Okay. As soon as I say it, I'm a two. You're a two. Okay. A classic two. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm also a cancer, which shocks people. But as soon as you know me in real life, I am actually very sensitive. I'm very sensitive. I cry at everything. And I also just want to be loved. I'm Leslie Knope. I just want to be loved so badly. And that's so funny. Well, eights go to twos under stress. Does a two go to eight under stress? Okay. All right. So this makes sense. Yeah. Yep. Sag, sun, Pisces, moon, Virgo rising.

1:19:44Oh. I have a lot of Virgo.

1:19:47Financial Feminist Host:That's why everybody likes you. Virgos are the best. Okay. My last question for you, and I literally, I could talk to you for so much longer. I could talk to you for six hours about this. Me too. What is the most rewarding part about embracing wholeness in your life? Oh, just to be able to relax. You know, I feel like I was holding, I was so rigid about some major stories in my life. Like the one I mentioned earlier, I'm the only one who can do it right, so I should do it all. And even just working with that story to relax around it and release it and to say, I'm not going to be the person who does everything today.

1:20:30I'm going to sit on the couch and watch Love Island. And while I do that, I'm going to patrol my own brain to stop me from criticizing myself. Even just like being like, I want to be slothful. I want to be lazy. I want to be someone who understands popular culture. it's just better to just be like I am all of these things and I can be lazy I can be gluttonous I can I like embrace these parts of myself too it's a much much better way to live let me tell you it's very freeing yes yes and I think that's what we all want is to actually feel

1:21:13Financial Feminist Host:free. Yes. And I think what we all want, or at least what I want, is just to turn down the volume on that voice inside my head that is scolding and chastising and judging me all the time. And I have really gotten good now at doing that. And it's like, not today. Leave me alone. Go away. Totally. I admire you and your work so deeply. I'm so thankful to have you. Please plug away both books because I have both of them on my desk and everybody needs to read them. They are required reading. Thank you. All right. So On Our Best Behavior is The Price Women Pay to Be Good. That book is coming out in paperback.

1:21:53The companion workbook is called Choosing Wholeness Over Goodness, A Process for Reclaiming Your Full Self. You can just do the workbook without reading On Our Best Behavior. My editor wouldn't want me to say that, but it's true. And it works sort of in any format, any story in your life. And my podcast is Pulling the Thread, which is the name of my sub stack as well. And you can follow me on Instagram, but at Elise Linen.

1:22:23Financial Feminist Host:In our 100K Club program, we do a book club every quarter. And yours is our third book after myself and another financial book. So I'm really excited. Oh my God, amazing. I literally, I was like, I talked to my programs manager and I was like, this one next. We're doing this one next. So thank you. Well, if you need anyone to answer any reader questions, you know where to find me. Oh my gosh. Don't tempt me with a good time. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay. As we're wrapping up, have you ever read the poem Warning by Jenny Joseph? Do you know this poem? No. Will you read it? I'm going to do a really bad version of it.

1:22:58Financial Feminist Host:I've talked about this on a different episode. I saw this poem probably eight years ago. It was on the wall of a bathroom and I took a photo of it. Yeah, I had to have been like 23. Oh, okay. When I'm an old woman, I shall wear purple with a red hat that doesn't go and doesn't suit me. And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves and satin sandals and say we've no money for butter. I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells and run my stick along the public railings and make up for the sobriety of my youth. I shall go out in my slippers in the rain and pick the flowers in other people's gardens and learn to spit.

1:23:43Financial Feminist Host:You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat and eat three pounds of sausages at a go or only bread and pickle for a week and hoard pens and pencils and beer mats and things in boxes. But now we must have clothes that keep us dry and pay our rent and not swear in the street and set a good example for the children. We must have friends for dinner and read the papers. But maybe I ought to practice a little now so people who know me are not too shocked and surprised when suddenly I am old and start to wear purple. That's an amazing poem. I cry every time I read. It's so good. It's literally everything you're talking about.

1:24:24Financial Feminist Host:It's like, I don't give a fuck. I'm gonna wear a hat that doesn't go with my purple dress and I'm gonna eat a bunch of food that makes me happy and I'm gonna spit in public and make up for the sobriety of my youth. That is amazing. But now I have to do the right thing. I have to buy clothes and pay our rent. But what if I just practice a little bit right now? I love it. Here's to practicing.

1:25:20Financial Feminist Host:thing. will impact and help. And we'll see you back here soon. Bye.

1:25:52Financial Feminist Host:Produced by Kristen Fields and Tamisha Grant. Research by Sarah Shortino. Audio and video engineering by Alyssa Midcalf. Marketing and operations by Karina Patel and Amanda Lefieux. Special thanks to our team at Her First 100K. Kaylin Sprinkle, Masha Bakmikyeva, Sasha Bonar, Ray Wong, Elizabeth McCumber, Daryl Ann Ingman, Shelby Duclos, Megan Walker, and Jess Hawks. Promotional graphics by Mary Stratton. Photography by Sarah Wolfe. And theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound. A huge thanks to the entire Her First 100K community for supporting our show.

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