394 - How to Escape the “Good Girl” Trap with Elise Loehnen

29:21And so I thought I was fine. And we were outside. It was at a ranch and I wasn't, I just, I didn't go to the hospital. Nothing about this story makes a lot of sense. And it took me a week to go and get checked, at which point I realized that my neck was broken. But because it was so stable, I just had to wear a brace for a week and do nothing. And I will say before that diagnosis, I was not doing nothing. I wasn't on a horse, but I proceeded to pack our cabin. I was there for a few more days and my kids and my husband were still riding. But I was like, I could, I was like squat, slowly squatting.

29:58So I could like fold clothes and pack. I was persisting like nothing. And I hadn't just had this massive accident. And then after I spent the night in the hospital, was put in a brace, couldn't drive. I'd been driving around LA with a broken neck. Wow. and again this is after I wrote this book right yeah and I just but I remember before I went to the hospital getting home from Los Angeles I couldn't lift any bags so I didn't do that but just staring at our suitcases in the living room and being like I need to unpack and do laundry I need to unpack and do laundry and just having to sit on the couch being in a lot of pain and just running the script and just tormenting myself because I couldn't do it.

30:44Yeah. And guess what? My husband did it. I didn't ask him. I didn't say anything. He just took care of it. Yep. And then I had to, for an entire month, I couldn't drive. I couldn't cook. I couldn't clean. I couldn't do laundry. And it was an incredible experience for me to just be present with myself and to hear me lambast myself, criticize myself, feel like meanwhile I found all sorts of adaptations so I could keep typing um but it was really really an experience for me to be present in that way and incapacitated yeah truly it's it's wild I often um think about like how torturesome it is to live in my own brain yeah and I mean and what I say to myself and what I do to myself yeah even though I know better And to have that script running counter to the world and my husband and my doctor and everyone saying, like, sit on the couch and watch Netflix.

31:53What is wrong with you? Stop. Yeah. And for me, it was like almost a magnification because prior to working on this book, I had so much anger at my husband, who's a lovely guy. I'm the primary breadwinner. He also works full time. But I am the person who just takes care of everything. I'm very competent. There's a lot of learned helplessness in our relationship. He's very skilled at fixing all sorts of things that I'm not. But I had also been running this sort of resentment script of I have to do everything. And, you know, and then in this moment, after I wrote the book, and particularly my neck was broken was like, all right, he is not asking me to do any of this.

32:37He doesn't care about home cooked meals and whether the floor is spotless or whether everything our kids is eating is nutritious. This is me. I'm creating all these standards. I'm the one that's enforcing these standards on myself. I'm the one who's performing this for myself and nobody else is asking me to. So performing is such an interesting word, too, because I feel like that's so much of what you talk about and what each of these sins kind of reveal to us is our level, at least for me, I'll speak for myself, my level of performing up to my idea of being good and my idea of being perfect. You know, I thought it was interesting.

33:19Envy. Let's talk about envy for a minute. So we know that that was the one where Laurie Gottlieb, that kind of one line. Yeah. This one, I've actually wrestled with it a bit in the past because there have been times when I've looked at something that someone else is either doing or has accomplished or created. I'm like, oh, I think I want that, too. And I didn't dig deep enough because I went chasing after it going like, oh, well, if they can create it, I can create it, too. So that's my like little sunny disposition and my optimism work. Totally. And then totally found myself going, I don't want that.

33:55Like it took me off track. That was my experience because again, I didn't stop and dig deep enough. I think if I were to be just a little bit more descriptive there, I didn't ask myself why and what specifically. It's so much more specific. Yes. Let's talk about that for a minute. Like, have you noticed, because I love when you said at the top of our conversation where it was just like, oh, I think I can write this book. Wait, what, you know, what do I want? What has this revealed to you, this envy bit? Has there been anything where you've dug deeper? You're like, oh, I actually do want that for myself.

34:35Yeah. I mean, writing books. Yeah. And a lot of the stuff I sort of was already doing, I just was doing it in a different context. Yes. which was keeping myself out of it. Hidden. Yeah. And using and justifying it to myself because, like, this is funny. I did some books like a million years ago. I was in my early 20s. The first book I ever did was with Lauren Conrad. That's not funny. We did a style book together and then we did a beauty book together. And when I was working on the beauty book, I was like, God, what is in makeup? So this is so long ago. This is way before I went to Goop. And I sort of was like, but she has this huge audience.

35:23So there was a whole section about clean makeup. It's just funny when I was thinking about how I found ways to express myself and really go into what was interesting to me or what I wanted to say, but I found other people to say it. Yep. So and I think a lot of people can probably really are working for a company or working at a brand or doing stuff that's tangentially like what they hope one day to do for themselves. Yes. So in a lot of ways, my trajectory wasn't like a re complete retooling. It was more of what would it be like if I spoke as myself and became more self-expressive and less like who's the right messenger for this message?

36:08What if I just, yeah, like found a way to be more direct about it? and um and so envy for me it was it's interesting and I've I had this conversation with um Liz Moody actually on her podcast because we were digging into precisely what you were saying where she was saying like well I think I'm you know I was like like I have no envy of Taylor Swift that's so I don't want to be famous I don't want to be uh non non-anonymous it's why I love podcasts a voice in people's ears I don't want to perform and she was like I do and in that conversation I was like but she was like I'm not a singer but I want to be Jay Shetty like I want to be filling stadiums I want to go out and like talk to people and I'm like that's not the version that I want I mean Liz is sort of in our world I remember when Liz Gilbert and I were having a conversation I know that she had heard this line from Mark Manson It was like, are you willing to eat that sitch sandwich?

37:10And it's kind of a crude way of saying it, but it's like, you know, you can create anything you want, but are you willing to do all the work it takes to get there? Yes. And that is a real running it through your body. Yes. And knowing who you are. Yes. Let's talk about that first. Yeah. Because I feel like running it through your body, like for me, that comes down to does this feel expansive or contracted? You know, does my body actually feel alive and buoyant and like it's moving forward in space and like it has more energy versus if I'm getting myself in trouble, like where it's my head or my ego.

37:46Yeah. Having an envious thing where I want that or I should want that. I my body feels dead. Yeah. It feels so heavy. It's like I want to go and take a nap. Yeah. And even then, it's like when you're having that envy moment, double clicking into it to say like what but what is it? For me, if I look at that, I'm like, oh, I'd love to have that much, like, I hate the word influence, but I would love to be able to really help authors move books, for example. It's like going deeper. Or when you look at someone and say, that person's killing it, but no, I don't want that level of visibility. I don't want that fame, but I like am envious of their security, their financial security.

38:28So how do you build a road to that? It's like finding the fractional envy points, I think. I love that. Can be a much more helpful pride. Yeah. So this one's, this can be really complex, right? So where I want to get to is I'm curious to hear your thoughts about why we feel like it is so difficult to celebrate the accomplishments of women. And I want to give you this. I don't know if you've ever, have you ever talked to Regina Tomaschauer, who's known as Mama Gina? No. So she's one of my dearest friends on the planet. I've known her forever. She is wild and smart and crazy and wonderful. And she has this practice.

39:09So basically part of her business and her career, she wrote a book called Pussy that I encouraged her to keep with that title. And it was a New York Times bestseller. And it was like, anyway, that's a different story for a different day. But one of the practices in her school of womanly arts is something called bragging. And so it's this practice where her and I do it together all the time, but a whole circle of our friends, we do it whenever we're like talking or out to dinner or whatever. It's like, OK, who's got to brag? And so we literally go around. And not only do we talk about something that we're incredibly proud of, and it doesn't have to be a career accomplishment.

39:47Do you know what I mean? It could be how we showed up. It could be something silly in our homes. Again, brags are like anything that you feel really proud of yourself for. And then we also go around and we do what I think she's called upriding, where when your friend does a brag, then you kind of go in and parse through who they are to have made that come to life. That's amazing. So it's almost like blossoming and fluffing on them energetically. And it's amazing. So let's talk about pride for a minute. What do you think it is that society feels is so off-putting? About women? Yeah. And celebrating ourselves.

40:25Yeah. I mean, this idea that women need to be small and always in the house. Yes. Again, in service to the world, not in the world. And focusing on servicing other people's needs is so deep in us. And then when we think about the cultural reverberations of this idea that women should really be seen and not heard or to be behind the scenes, it's so intensely in our culture in a way that I don't think that we fully recognize. But you can look, and I list these people in the book and sort of create this arc, but there is a playbook in our culture. And we're seeing this sort of in the comebacks of Britney and all these cultural moments where we look at the ways that we've destroyed women in the past, but where we will celebrate a woman as she's emerging into the world and starting to share her gifts and then she reaches a certain pinnacle where we decide she's too big for her britches she needs to be put back in her place and we collectively tear her down and celebrate her demise, whether it's Princess Diana, Billie Holiday, Anne Hathaway.

41:46Taylor Swift, I know, has sort of been through this, but is still rising in part because she has an army of fans now who will protect her, which is so interesting. Yes. And I think a complete response to this particular cycle. But this is all over our culture. We don't do this to men. Right. at all. And it's so disheartening. It is so disheartening. And then what happens is there's this disconnection where we say, oh, well, they're famous. So it doesn't have anything to do with me. But it's a playbook. They're the most visible women. And this is what happens to them. So the message for all women.

42:25Don't be visible. Do not be visible. And don't get too successful or you're going to get knocked off. Yes. You have talked about this a lot. Like I have such a beautiful community like we've in B school for example right yeah we've had over 80 ,000 people go through that program so I talk with so many again mostly women and so much of it is actually about visibility because even if it's at a scale where they're like okay nobody knows me yet however if I put out my ideas my product my service whatever it is that is their entrepreneurial sharing I'm gonna get torn down yeah and then in other cultures I think this is particularly true and I think it either comes from the UK or Australia, they're connected, but tall poppy syndrome.

43:07Yes. Australia. Yes. Where, and like, I hear this all the time. And of course I'm the big brash Italian American. Yeah. You know what I mean? Coming to like, screw that. But it's real. It is real. Very real thing. What's interesting about Australia is that Australians contend that men have this experience as well, that it's more of a cultural value for all Australians in part because of their separation from the UK and stealing like a rejection of that type of stratified society and that they're more collectively interested in a less sort of hierarchical showy. Yes. Way. So that's interesting to me.

43:50Yes. Because here on the other hand where it's all sort of this fake meritocracy or talent will rise, et cetera. Women are allowed to rise to a certain point and then we got to knock them off and then they're done so money greed I love money um I think that this one for me when I was reading through was especially resonant because so many entrepreneurs feel like if they charge what they believe they're worth for their goods or services that somehow um there's going to be less money in the world and they're somehow not spiritual especially if they are anyone that's in the healing or helping type profession, whatever that is, it's like, oh, I couldn't charge that much.

44:35And if I do, it means I'm an unspiritual kind of person. It means I'm a greedy person. And again, that's the one that for me, I just have so much fun batting down because I think this notion of greed, too, and you write about this, this notion of a fixed pie, it is a fallacy. Yeah. There is more than enough to go around. At least that's what scarcity is so big for women. That there's not enough money. There's not enough time. There's not enough. If you get, someone else must not have. And it's just like that is not only factually untrue, but it is so poisonous and it's so toxic. And yeah, anything you want to say on that?

45:13Yeah. Well, and I think this idea of greed and scarcity, for example, is a really good illustration of how these sins start crashing into each other. So even going to Envy Pride, I've spoken to a lot of women who also are like, I don't want to be seen or celebrated because I'll inspire people's envy and be put back in my place. And then also this idea of scarcity and that if I want something and I get it, it means someone else won't. Correct. Meanwhile, men are not governed by these rules, right? And so they look at this, they see it as a river, an endless source of growth, whereas women perceive opportunity as more like a pond, confined, potentially stagnant, toxic.

46:04and I look around, I see how men sort of, again, like prop each other up, help each other. There is an effortlessness to that. Whereas women are just inherently seem more constrained. Again, like if I get that money, that means someone else doesn't. If she gets that money, that means I don't. She gets that notoriety. She gets that cover the magazine. She gets X, Y, or Z that there's not room for all of us. There's not room for all of us. You know, what's good news? I think that some of that is changing like recently I was at an event it was actually a bunch of beauty brands and they were all coming together and I learned and you know obviously I don't have a beauty product that's not my industry but it was just a whole group of women entrepreneurs and I thought that this was so cool that a lot of big beauty brands right now that are run by somewhat youngish women they're coming together and they're sharing everything made me want to do cartwheels like five times around the event space because they're talking about their profit margins.

47:03They're talking about their manufacturing. They're talking about what, you know what I mean? Every aspect of what they're doing to make their brand succeed. And when I found that out, I almost made me want to cry because they were like, oh, yeah, we're not going to make it unless we actually share Intel and do this together. And I think that that's a really, I like, I want to support more of that. Yes. There's an interesting corollary in podcasts, which we haven't sort of broken through at this point. But you look at how men primarily sort of in our space, wellness adjacent or in wellness or sort of wellness culture, and you watch them.

47:45And so many men are dominant in that space. and they all support each other, run each other through when they have a project, they all have each other on. They'll have each other on repetitively and they've just built an extreme dominance. Again, no scarcity, no... And it's interesting because there's not really a corollary among women yet. Why don't we do a dot, dot, dot yet? I know. Not deceit. It needs to happen Because what I see, and one of the things that creates consternation for me is I feel like women tend to program a little bit more equitably. And the men are not at all constrained.

48:35And so these guys who are so dominant and so supportive of each other only platform men. and it's so it's sort of like a double-edged sword and so I think to balance it culturally we really needed to get it going amongst women yeah and then we can platform a lot of female experts yeah within the wellness space there are so many academics and doctors and yet most of those guys when I did an audit it's like eight percent of their guests are women not to take us totally uptrack 10 to 13 percent it's been interesting for me actually because in the specific internet marketing space yeah it's like kind of how I was like how the fuck are all these guys doing it and then I infiltrated it to learn yes and then that's actually part of how b-school became so big because I had for a long time huge female affiliates yes do you know what I mean so it's like so you can show you could show all of us how to do this no it's it's really interesting because I don't think that we're, so in a way I appreciate that women don't do this or don't do it as, as perceptibly as men.

49:46Cause it's so like, it's kind of a circle jerk, which is gross. I'm sorry. And so in a way I'm like, Oh, I like that women don't operate by those rules. But then I look at what these guys have created and how dominant they are and the empire that they've built where they're really only talking to other men and it's like okay okay let's women we should crack this and then we can actually show how to program a little in a little bit more of a balanced way um because and not to pick on these wellness bros but sorry women are out earning degree there there are more women in medical school than men.

50:31I think in PhD programs in the medical sciences, women are out earning PhDs. It's like 70 to 30%. Wow. But you don't see that represented in culture. Yeah. Yeah. As far as I'm, it seems like Peter Atiyah and Hewerman only know male academics and doctors. Somehow there's not any, there aren't any women to interview apparently yeah no I think I think it's interesting because I was actually talking with a friend yesterday and this was in the world kind of like more my world of it's like business and there's copywriting and there is like a particular conference and by the way the person running the conference is a man and he's a pretty like aware and and striving man to have as much diversity and equity in terms of everything that he's doing and this female friend of mine who was at the conference she's like and you know it came up to panel time and it was just all bros yeah and I was like you know and and so we just we had a laugh at that because um it's it's still very entrenched it's so entrenched super entrenched meanwhile yeah like I think the world is sending a lot of I wouldn't even call them smoke signals I'd say they're more obvious that people really want to hear from women yeah and female storytellers and performers you know between Barbie and Taylor and Beyonce.

51:56Women are propping up the economy. And yet it's fascinating to see where people aren't sort of catching the thread. Going back to this idea of wanting and scarcity too. I was doing this workshop, leading a workshop maybe a month or two ago and with a group of women who've done a lot of work together over the years. Yeah. And we did, we asked them all to write down three things that they want, that they really, really want, that they feel embarrassed to, they barely admitted it to themselves, much less said it to anyone else. And it was wild because you could feel the anxiety in the room. Just go to 11.

52:40You could feel, I would say I could feel scarcity along with that shame of like, yes, this is humiliating to think that I deserve this thing that I want. And I recognize someone else might want it. So that was all to me present in this room. And as we went around and women had to say it, one, it was so emotional, um, with again, And ripping through so much shame to everyone's, everything that people wanted was so beautiful and reasonable. You know, it was, and it was so wild because you would have thought from looking at this group and knowing the work that they were doing, that everyone would be somewhat in the same lane.

53:28And that there would be crashing or conflicting once or people would, you know, nope. it was nuts it was like three people maybe wanted to have a podcast one was about like palliative care one wanted to um build a regenerative farm and do a you know it was so beautiful one wanted to do stories about spirituality for children no no scarcity once people actually allowed themselves to say it and instead it was just this deep recognition of, I want that for you too. And you should absolutely do that. That's so awesome. I feel like that's such a cool takeaway for anyone listening or watching right now that you could do with a group of friends, a group of people that you love and trust, that you believe in, that you know, believe in you.

54:24What was it? What was the question? It was like, what do you really, really want? Yes. And at a level that you've never actually been able to say it or even admit it to yourself. I could see how that could get emotional really fast. Like I can feel emotion welling up in me even when you said it. What's interesting about all the sins is I think each one, each woman who's read the book has had an experience that's deepest with one of them. And several of them are so top of mind in our culture. Sloth, as you mentioned, gluttony, which is baked into our culture. We have an incredibly fat phobic society.

55:03It's part of our medical culture. It's certainly part of what's marketed to women and the way that we've been policed about our bodies. And this idea, again, when we go to first culture and second culture that all women should be small, diminutive, little, men should be big, strapping. This is one of those realities that we don't actually know what the reality is because you think about how we bred ourselves into that condition, if that makes sense, through these preferences that are entirely cultural. For example, in Katol Hayek in Turkey, when they looked at this prehistoric site, when the world was more affiliative and partnership style and everyone was surviving and doing life together, when anthropologists and archaeologists at Stanford look at the site, men and women were eating the same calories.

56:06So in many parts of the world, as patriarchy or different forms emerged, men would get favorable or more dense calories. You can see how that would inform size. So men and women were eating the same foods. They were the same size. And they had an equal amount of kitchen suit in their lungs. So they were spending the same amount of time indoors. But yeah, it cut to this moment in time where if you aren't policing your body, if you're not incredibly disciplined, if you're not, you have no self-control, right? This myth that, oh, if you eat the right plate and you exercise, you'll have a conforming, perfect body.

56:52Just such a myth. Every woman knows that that's a myth. And yet it's, we're force fed on that diet. This one thing that just shook me to my core was a study at Paul Rudd at Yale Med School, which was that 15 % of respondents, it was majority women, would give up 10 years of their life in order to not be fat. Wow. That's stunning. Stunning. 10 years. And I get it. That's the sad part. I get it. Yeah. Well, it's how we've been trained. It's how we've been trained. It's like every image that almost, not all, but many women have seen since the moment we could see images. Yeah. And to be good. Yep.

57:39And to be bad is no, there's no more clear sort of language. Yep. An idea of that as when it comes to food and our bodies. I was bad last night. I need to be good today. Yeah. The way that we moralize, it's wild. The amount of times that I've said that to myself. Yeah. Oh, I was just so bad. I was so bad. I had that piece of cake. Penance. Yep. Now we have to do penance. Yep. Yeah. Elise, you are amazing. Thank you for taking the time really to come and to talk about this. Thank you for stepping out and continuing to share who you are and all of the brilliance in your mind and your heart with us.

58:18Thank you. And I'm very excited for all of the things that you'll continue to create and for us to have many, many more conversations. And thank you for blazing trails and pushing up against all of these ideas, particularly around scarcity. Yeah. Because I think when we see the truth, the world will change. Yes. Enough for all of us. Amen.

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