Call Her Daddy - SOS: I’m Burnt Out on Life

Episode Date: March 19, 2023

We are tired, overwhelmed, and anxious. Burnout is real. But, why aren’t the bath bombs, essential oils and juice cleanses working? Dr. Pooja Lakshim joins Call Her Daddy to explain that REAL self care is an internal process, it’s not something you can buy, it’s a way to be. Pooja breaks down one of the core principles of real self care…boundaries. Alex and Pooja discuss why boundary setting is so difficult and how to move past feelings of guilt. They examine why society has conditioned women especially to feel guilty. Pooja provides tangible advice to implement in your life when it comes to setting boundaries. It’s time to stop overextending yourself and giving away your time for free, boundaries are a reflection of how willing you are to advocate for the life that you want. 

What is up, Daddy Gang? It is your founding father, Alex Cooper, with Call Her Daddy. Dr. Pooja Lakshman, welcome to Call Her Daddy. It's such a pleasure to be here with you, Alex. I am so happy to have you here. Your work focuses on women's mental health, and your new book, Real Self-Care, highlights the problematic ways the wellness industry promises a quick fix. Your message is that real self-care is not a thing to buy or to do. It's a way to be. When it comes to self-care, why aren't the essential oils and the bath bombs and the juice cleanses actually working?

There's two reasons and we can kind of dive into them and I'm excited to sort of really go super deep here. The first reason is because we are using methods, right? So the massages, the crystals, whatever the thing is, that's a method that you can buy or that you can do. But real self-care, you know, I'm a psychiatrist, real self-care is an internal process. It's something that you have to give yourself and it comes from your decision-making. It's not actually stepping out of your day to meditate for 15 minutes. Real self-care is actually bringing your internal values to every single decision that you make over the course of your life. So whether that's like what kind of career you have, whether you go back to grad school,

who your partner is, you know, how you interact with your friends. Real self-care is actually threaded through all of the roles that we embody and all of the first piece. The second piece is, again, I'm a psychiatrist. I specialize in women's mental health. I've been in practice since 2016. And, you know, I went to medical school, you know, did all the things that you do to become a psychiatrist. And I'm a clinical assistant professor at George Washington University. Even though I work with people one-on-one, what I have come to realize in my work is that the problem doesn't lie inside of us as women. The problem lies in the systems of oppression that are keeping us down. So that is why I wrote this book, Real Self-Care, to redefine, especially for us as women. I, in my practice, I only work with women.

And I think for so long, you know, we've been sold these solutions. And frankly, I just, I find it completely condescending and infuriating that we're told a bubble bath and a glass of wine is going to fix everything. I appreciate you going into that much detail. And we're going to get so much more in detail, especially with the, you know, you talking about like, it's not really just what's inside of us, like the world that we have been born into. There's so many systemic issues that I do think people think if I go to the gym and if I drink my green juice, I'm going to feel better. But it is really interesting to hear you be like, well, wait, why were you feeling bad in the first place? And if you actually are getting underneath it, the little things like a bubble bath are not actually going to solve these huge issues that are deep rooted. Before we continue on that topic, I'm curious to just know a little bit more about you of like,

what is your personal experience with turning to a wellness practice as a cure during a stressful time in your life? Yeah, absolutely. I write about this in the introduction of Real Self Care because I wanted to put it front and center. You know, I'm a psychiatrist, I have all the credentials, but I wrote this book from a place of really deep compassion for myself and also for the women who have been there. So, you know, I'm 39 now and I have a little son who's just nine months old. But about a decade ago when I was in my late twenties, at that point I had sort of done all the things that I was in my late 20s. At that point, I had sort of done all the things that I was supposed to do. You know, I'm South Asian. My parents are immigrants. So, you know, I went to the Ivy League schools. I became a doctor. I got married. I checked all the boxes off. And then I found myself at, you know, a really prestigious training program in psychiatry, sort of being like, okay,

I did everything I was supposed to. And so now I'm allowed to be happy. Let me figure out how to be happy. You know, it was like this very sort of like, I will figure it out. And, um, and I didn't know how. And the reason that I didn't know how was because I had built my life up until that point. I was 28. I built my life using all of these external measuring sticks. And on the inside, I was really empty and confused. And I was super destructive. And I basically just blew up my life at age 28. So I left my marriage. I moved into a commune in San Francisco that was focused on female orgasm and sexuality. And then pretty quickly after that, I dropped out of my residency program.

And so, you know, my Indian parents were like really thrilled with me at that point. I can imagine. And all my friends were just like, you know, up until that point, I'd been like straight A student, you know. And so they were just like, what happened to Pooja? And, you know, I spent two years with this group and, you know, sort of went down what I call like the woo-woo rabbit hole. Like I did all the things, I got really into meditation and the crystals and the spiritual stuff. At the end of that two-year journey, I realized there is no magic practice. There is no magic wellness solution in the same way that there's no magic pill that you can take that will fix your life. You know, and I thought that I could just sort of like,

throw away my old life and just like dive deep into wellness and that everything would be okay. When in fact, all of my problems still came with me. And so this was a decade ago. And so that deeply informs real self-care and is why, you know, what I came to learn is that again, real self-care, real wellness has to happen within your own life. And it's not something that a guru can tell you or, you know, airdrop into your phone. It's something that it's hard work. And the other thing too, is just to say that, you know, after I left that group, I was really depressed and nearly suicidal. And, you know, I had privilege and resources to be able to get mental health treatment and get into therapy. And I've been in psychoanalysis now for about seven years. And so, you know, it's sort of like, I don't want to pretend that any of this stuff is easy

because it's not, right? It's really, it is actually really hard and really difficult. But the good news is that once you start learning these skills for yourself, you take them with you, right? And you don't have to be dependent on anyone else. Yeah. When you get on a path growing up of trying to get all these benchmarks, right? Like I have to get into a college. I have to go to college or I need to get a scholarship to go to college or whatever it is. And then you're like, okay, I did that. Now I need to do this. This is like our whole life we're working towards something, but it's almost like we don't even know what we're working towards because either but it's almost like we don't even know what we're working towards

because either our parents told us we had to do it or society told us we had to do it. And so a lot of times I feel like people have that quarter life crisis in their 20s of like, wait, my whole life I've just been going through the motions of something that I think I'm supposed to be doing. And I hear what you're saying of like,

you then kind of, you said, you know, blew up your life and you left and you went to do something else but I do think it's pretty common for people to have that moment of like do I want to be doing any of this the issue is that a lot of times we think it has to be one or the other and we can't find that middle ground because we're not taught to find the middle ground it's like get the straight A's get the job be a doctor be perfect and it's like well what about my mental health what about how I'm feeling about myself? What about the systemic issues? What about me, you that I think a lot of women will probably be listening, nodding their head of like, oh shit, either I'm about to go through this puja or

I've gone through that. I'm sure like women often come into your office with the same message of like, I am burnt out. My attempts at self-care aren't working and I need help. How do you make sense of this burnout epidemic that women are facing? Yeah. So the first thing I want to say is that step one is recognizing that it's not your fault. The reason that it feels so hard to take care of your mental health is because you're constantly swimming upstream, especially if, you know, I'll say to Alex, your audience, which is mostly young women who are in their, you know, twenties. And you're kind of like in this really confusing time in life, like that you just spoke to where you're trying to figure out who you are and you're in

this economy where it's hard, everything's really expensive. Right. And you're kind of trying to figure out how do I make ends meet? How do I do all this stuff? And then, oh, wait, all my friends are getting married. And I feel like the only one that's not engaged, right? Like there's just so much stuff to keep up with. And so I just want to say, like, it's not your fault that you feel this way. There's powerful systemic forces. That's why real self-care is so powerful because again, yes, it's not your fault. And the way to find true wellbeing is actually to understand that these are personal choices that you can make. We know that the system is rigged. We know that everything is a shit show, right? To be completely technical about it.

And so what can I do to buffer myself? And how can I actually look inside my own life and figure out like what really matters to me? And then what choices are actually available? And again, like this is the type of thing that you, especially if you're in your twenties, like I just, I'm so glad that we're talking about this because like, I wish I could be on a soapbox at age 39 talking to all the 20 year old women. Like, this is the time to actually really think about who is that person I'm dating? And is that really the right person about, it's like, you're blaming yourself.

You're blaming yourself of like, what am I doing? Why am I so tired? Why can't I do this? I feel hopeless. Whereas betrayal of the system is like, it does feel a little daunting of like, okay, so we're in a rigged system. It's a shit show. Like what the hell do we do though? But if you at least acknowledge it and you take the blame off of yourself, then you do put then the responsibility on yourself to recognize what's happening around us. But now it's like, hey, it is your life. And now it's your decision whether you want to do something with it. And it has to be mindful, right? You mentioned that one principle of self-care that you teach is boundaries. And it does really sound simple.

I feel like the word is thrown out a lot. It's like, set your boundaries, girl. But why is it so difficult to set boundaries? Yeah. A couple things on boundaries. So yes, it is everywhere. And the reason that everybody talks about it is because it's so fucking hard. It's so hard, especially for women. And what I've found in my practice is that it's so fucking hard. It's so hard, especially for women. And what I've found in my practice is that it's not that the boundary bit is hard, right? It's not that necessarily the communicating and the knowing what you want or what you don't want. The thing that's hard is the guilt, right? Those bad feelings that come when you know you're letting somebody down or you're disappointing someone. And so I,

when I think about guilt and when I talk about it with my patients, I again point to these systems of oppression because, you know, especially women, we live in this culture that is constantly feeding us all these contradictory expectations, you know, be a girl boss, be a CEO, climb the corporate ladder. But then on the other hand, like, make sure you are like getting married and, you know, you have the right guy and like, okay, you probably, you're almost 30, you should probably have a baby soon. Right. And like those different lanes or those different rules are contradictory and women are more likely psychologically to internalize conflict. So instead of seeing like, hey, wait, these rules

are in conflict, I'm going to make myself to blame and I'm going to feel guilty like I'm not doing enough. So I think of guilt as like a faulty check engine light. So it's sort of like, you know, on your dash when you've gotten your car checked and you know everything's fine, but it's like still blinking. Like it's there, but you don't need to use it as your moral compass. And especially if you've never set boundaries before, you should expect yourself to feel guilty. But that doesn't mean that you've made the wrong choice. So I'll give you an example. example, you know, when I first started on the faculty in 2016 at GW, my mentor took me out for lunch and her piece of advice was that I didn't need to answer my phone. She's like, just let it

go to voicemail and see what the person wants. And for me, like as a young doctor, that was like a little bit revolutionary because before this was like, I'm really aging myself. We had pagers, beepers where, you know, but you know, the thing was like, let it go to voicemail and see what the person wants. And then you get to respond. You get to say yes, you get to say no, or you get to negotiate. And I think as women, we spend so much of our time reacting and just, yes, yes, yes, yes. You're just so caught up in pleasing everybody else that we rarely actually step back and realize your boundary is in the pause.

It's that space that you take to actually think. And then, and you might still say yes, right? And that's okay, but it's actually that pause that is the important bit. There's so many things to unpack there because one, I just establishing, and I love how you wrote, like boundaries are not common skill, they're taught.

So anyone that's struggling, and I'm talking about myself also with setting boundaries, it's like, if you're getting frustrated with yourself, which I do all the time of like, why can't I just do that? Like, why is it so hard for me? It's also like, be easy on ourselves. Like, this is not something that just comes naturally. And again, society pushes backs and definitely as women, it's like, we're supposed to just

like, please the man and like, go with the flow and like, be easygoing and don't get angry, especially for women of color. It's like and don't get angry, especially for women of color. It's like, don't get angry, like be pleasant. And so it's like, there's so many undertones of issues we're dealing with. So I love that you're just establishing like boundaries are not a common skill. You have to teach yourself and also to maintain them. That's also a whole other conversation that I'm working on in therapy. And then I also love that you're talking about like this technique to tolerate guilt, this shame and this guilt that comes with like the uncomfortability of wanting to set a boundary, but being so terrified that if we set that boundary, oh my God, I would rather not set it than deal with the guilt and what I'm feeling of like,

maybe I shouldn't have done it. The person's going to be mad at me. As women, how has society conditioned us to feel guilty for setting boundaries? Oh, that's a good question. You know, I think that really this comes down to time is sort of the benchmark that you use and white male time, right, is valued so much higher than the time of women and women of color. And, you know, from the early days, women's value was in making babies, right? And so we're still fighting that fight. It's actually deeply radical to think about your value as a woman and to think about your time and your emotional energy as something that deserves respect, that deserves compensation, right? If we're talking about paid

work. I think also, you know, coming back to the fact that I'm a psychiatrist, you know, one of the things that we talk about at GEMMA, my women's mental health community is like this idea of like, what is visible and what's invisible. And so much of the emotional labor that women do, whether it is, you know, in our friend groups, like that we do as, you know, girls and women, or whether it's in the workplace, like so much of it is invisible. And again, like that's unpaid labor, right? And that we're taught is like, oh, all of that is supposed to come out of the goodness of your heart. I think what you've touched on also is like, again, there's so many layers, but it's talking about women and as girls, the way that we're raised, like boundaries are really that reflection

of us wanting to advocate for ourselves and wanting to advocate for the life that we're trying to achieve. But that's not what we've ever been taught we should be doing. It's always appease someone else before ourselves. So it kind of goes against the grain of what we've been taught. What if someone's worried that their partner might break up with them or a friend might be annoyed if they are going to try and set boundaries. How do we go from there? And also, how is that problematic if you are getting so worried about a partner or a friend being mad at you for setting boundaries? Yeah, that's a great question. So here I want to emphasize that boundaries aren't a brick wall, right? A healthy boundary is not a brick wall. A healthy boundary is actually,

you know, those trampolines that people have in their backyard that have like the mesh when you're jumping. So like that, the mesh around a trampoline, that is a healthy boundary, right? It's flexible. Things can pass through the net. So I'm not saying like that you're, I'm not suggesting we all just like go off into the woods all walled in and like, you know, never'm not suggesting we all just like go off into the woods, all walled in and like, you know, never see anybody or talk to anybody. Right. But it's like, it's a negotiation, trying to understand what your own needs are in a relationship. So whether that is, you know, is this a situationship where you actually, it's really important for your own mental health that you understand what's going on

and is there a label and kind of knowing strongly inside yourself that I need that. And so I'm going to ask for that. And if the other person isn't able to provide it, right, or can't give you the answer that you want to hear, then you are able to take responsibility for the fact that this was your need, right? Or, you know, what you're describing as kind of like a friend that you're worried that somebody is going to blow up on you. I think a couple things to ask yourself is, one, are you coming from a family of origin where there was trauma, addiction, you know, emotional dysregulation? Or do you come from a culture where boundaries typically aren't modeled? So, you know, emotional dysregulation, or do you come from a culture where boundaries

typically aren't modeled? So, you know, my family is South Asian and Asian culture, there tends not to be, it's more communal culture, right? So asking yourself, like, is that one of the reasons that the boundary feels more difficult? You should also ask yourself, like, whether there's a history of this person blowing up on others. So maybe it is totally reality-based and maybe you do have reason to be worried. And in that case, then you have to make some hard choices about like, is this person really somebody that I want in my life? You know, like, is this good for me? Or maybe I need to have a little distance from this relationship, you know, or friendship, right? And so again, it's kind of like coming back to your own decision-making capacity,

right? Like you need to feel like you can make that choice and it's okay to make that choice and you're allowed to make that choice. Yeah, I love that because again, there's so many different ways that it can affect different people, but I do appreciate you saying like, hey, if you're trying to set a boundary and you're so afraid to bring this up with someone, there's probably a pretty clear answer if you look inward of like, maybe you're in a really unhealthy relationship. Like if you're trying to set a boundary with your partner and your partner loves you, then they should be like willing to listen.

And I understand those conversations come with time and you get better at them if in a couple, but like your partner should want to work with you to make sure that this is a healthy relationship. So number one, you could be in a bad, healthy relationship, also past trauma, family lineage, but then also like, I love how you wrote in the book, you were like, the way that someone reacts to your boundary tells more about them

than it does about you. Because most of the time a boundary is something that you're trying to do in order to produce a more positive situation and outcome for yourself. But also that's probably going to be for the other person as well, because something doesn't feel good that's happening in the current moment. And you're trying to mediate the situation and make some adjustments in order to be happier and feel healthier. I think oftentimes, though, we want to set a boundary, but after mentally calculating the effort required to have the conversation, we decide sometimes it's easier if we just continue to do whatever the task is ourselves or to keep going with whatever is happening rather than have the conversation. Why is this problematic? Yeah, you know, I think I would say I have two

thoughts on this. I do think that there are some relationships and friendships where like quiet quitting is okay. Right. Because in some situations, trying to set an outward boundary that is X, you know, that's verbalized and external is only going to enmesh you more in a dysfunctional dynamic. So, you know, I'm not like advocating for like ghosting, you know, but like there's some particular situations and you have to kind of like gauge your situation and the other person on the other side. But I think sometimes it's okay to say, I've made this decision internally and I'm not going to respond to this. I'm not going to be as responsive to this person's texts anymore. Maybe I will respond in a couple of days and I will say like, hey, things have been really busy,

you know, or like, so it's like you have to sort of like gauge how direct you're going to be depending on, to be quite frank, like the mental health of the other person on the other side and what they're capable of. That's what I was going to say. Like, is it almost kind of though, like at some point you were able to gauge that you tried somewhat to at one point set the boundary and it didn't work. So then the silent quitting is actually not just because one day you've never even asked the person you can gauge from someone if they're capable of meeting you where you need to be. And so in a way, like you already kind of tested a boundary in some capacity, whether it was just, it could be the way that someone interacts with you. But like there's, I feel like from my past experience, like the silent quitting comes from because

maybe I'm not dealing with a rational person, or maybe I'm aware that like mental health wise, they would never be able to see maybe like the healthy dynamic I'm trying to like reset because I observe that all the relationships in their life are pretty unhealthy. And so for me to try to take on that task may not be worth the time and it may actually be more beneficial for me and my mental health instead of trying to constantly be fitting a circle into a square. It's like maybe being more silent about something. Yes. Yeah. No, I think you're right. I agree with you. And I think the way, the label that I would put on this is that, you know, really all relationships are about data collection, right? And that's friendships too, right? And you're kind of sussing out, you're getting an understanding over time of where this person is and what their emotion regulation is like and what their capacity to receive a boundary is.

So a boundary for you internally, like coming back to someone who's listening, the internal part, that internal work that you do of deciding how to think about this person in your life, think about how much energy to give this person, where they fall in the scale of like your social networks. That's the work. And then you get to decide, like, how do you communicate that? If you communicate it in what way? Aside from the silent quitting boundary, you do give specific tips in your book to help with boundary setting. And one tip is use clear and direct language. Can you give us an example, all of us that are struggling with boundary setting, of how we can implement this tip of being clear and direct? Yeah. So let's take something that's just sort of like really

relatable of like the friend who's sort of like in crisis, say. I say like crisis, you know, who's like in a crappy relationship and sort of like every week just texting you with drama about the terrible guy that she's dating, you know? And you as a friend are like, you've told her a million times, like, hey, this guy's bad news, you know? And you're just like, I don't have the energy to be on the phone with this person, like having the same conversation for like the third week in a row, right? So the boundary would be to text them back and to say, hey, I'm so sorry that you're going through this again. I unfortunately, like I don't have the mental bandwidth to be here for you on this anymore. And you could even be really direct and say like, I really do think that seeing a therapist might be helpful in this situation. But kind of like, as we talked about being clear and sort of saying specifically,

I'm sorry, like I can't talk on the phone today. Like I don't have space in my schedule and I'm really sorry that like you're hurting right now. And I see that happening. And I'm sorry that I can't be there for you. Yeah, that's so difficult. Because I think it's like the social aspect of it is like, I feel like people get so hurt if you're like, I can't do this. But that is a boundary of like, but this has now been going on for months that you're dating the same asshole. And we keep having the same conversation. I feel like that's very relatable. And I guess you're right of like giving like a therapist as a way of like, I also do think a therapist would be really helpful. So you're also providing a solution, not that you even needed to do that for them.

Again, a lot of this depends on sort of like the dynamic of how long it's been going on and how burdensome it feels for you. But I think thinking of it as a snapshot in time of, especially if it's the type of thing where you're getting like reams and reams of texts, which can happen sometimes in these situations. So it does require a firm boundary for you. And you could even say, this doesn't mean that I can't talk about this forever, but right now, this is how I'm feeling. And I wanted to be honest with you.

Another tip for boundary setting that you talk about is don't ask for permission. Let's say that your boss tries to call you while you are on approved vacation time. What should we respond to our boss instead of saying, is it okay if we talk later? Like how do we approach that situation? Yeah. In that situation, the best response is no response. If you were on vacation, you should not be. And if you have your email away up and it's been planned, right, then my advice would be to actually not respond and let that speak for itself. Especially if you work in sort of like corporate America, right? Like if it takes someone like two or three hours and you don't get a response back, like they're going to understand, right? They know that you're off. And then what you can do when you come back from your leave

is you can send an email, you know, the next, that morning on Monday morning or whatever, and you could say, Hey, like, I'm happy to touch base on anything that you wanted to discuss. I saw that note that came in while I was out. That made me immediately think everyone listening, don't start the email with sorry, because I do that all the time where everyone's like, why are you apologizing? And I'm like, I don't know. But it's like a knee-jerk reaction, I think, especially for women to be like, sorry. And it's like, wait, why are you sorry? You were on vacation time. You did not need to be working. And that was appropriate for you to not respond.

When we are boundary setting, why should we try not to over explain ourselves? Like, I feel like that's a constant habit of mine. And I know a lot of people like you almost word vomit trying to like over explain in situations where it's like, we don't need to do that. But why should we not? And how do we not? Yeah, well, I just I want to say that it takes time to learn these skills, too. You know, I think that it's tough.

Again, like we were talking about in the beginning of this conversation, all of this is socially conditioned. So it's OK for folks who are listening or just like, oh gosh, I start every email with sorry. Like it's okay. You know, when you over explain, it makes somebody else feel like you have something to feel bad about. Right. So it's sort of like in opening an invitation for them to either ask you for more or when you're anxious and when you're kind of in that place of wanting to get approval from somebody who has power over you, the normal human tendency is to want to say more so that you can try and, you know, influence how they feel about you. But paradoxically, coming from a position of confidence

and power of sort of knowing I was off, I didn't do anything wrong. It was totally reasonable for me not to respond. And I can still be helpful when I come back and just say like, happy to chat. I just saw that come in, right? With boundaries, really what we're doing is we're training people in our lives, what to expect of us and how to treat us. And so if you think of it

more as like, I'm teaching this person what is okay for me, that's another helpful reframe as well, especially in the context of managing up, which we all know is definitely more anxiety provoking. Absolutely. Another practice of self-care that you teach is having self-compassion. What tools can someone implement in order to cultivate more self-compassion? Yeah. So self-compassion, I'll just say, even for me, like that's probably my hardest one. You know, I'm on this book launch tour right now. And it's that, you God. But as I was writing Real Self Care and sort of thinking through like, well, what are the four principles? I kept coming back to self-compassion and the way that I frame it is using the principle of psychological flexibility. And psychological flexibility is a skill from acceptance and commitment therapy, which is a type of therapy. It basically just says

that we're trying to develop a new relationship with our mind. So it's not about like mantras and affirmations. Instead, it's about, so like, for example, as we were just talking about the boundaries, if you, let's say you don't respond to the email from your boss and then you start beating yourself up, right? And you're just like, oh my gosh, I should have responded. He's going to hate me. I'm going to get fired. Self-compassion would be saying to yourself like, well, wait, like why am I berating myself right now? Like what, where did I get the idea that I constantly needed to be responsive to every single email that comes in, even when I'm

on vacation, you know, and sort of like questioning those self-critical thoughts as opposed to just staying in that loop that's always going. I love that because it's something I've been working on in therapy a lot lately is like, my therapist was like, last year was the year of setting boundaries for you. This year is, we're going to work on maintaining them because you think you can set a boundary and then the next week I'm like, wait, Alex, what happened to maintaining it? You can't just set a boundary and then let it fall on its face. So I think self-compassion does come from a place of when you are setting boundaries in your life, it can be really uncomfortable. Again, going back to everything we've discussed. So it's like having compassion for yourself to know that a lot of times going against the grain of what you've been doing

takes a lot of critical thinking to be like, wait, why am I uncomfortable doing something where I'm like standing up for myself? Or why am I so uncomfortable receiving help and trying to do everything on my own and take it? Like there's so many different elements, but it's like just being aware of it is the first step in my mind to just being like we've been so conditioned from such a young age and with society that in order to just at all begin to take control of your own life and actually take care of yourself is to recognize like, well, what have I been doing around me that I didn't even notice I was doing? And it's just because I thought I had to do it. I wanted to make sure for folks that are listening that I touched a little bit on values, just because I think once you start setting these boundaries and once you start talking to yourself a little bit more kindly, one thing I see really commonly in my practice is that's when your women are kind of just like, well, I don't even know what I want. Like, how am I even supposed to know?

Right. Because I've just spent my whole, you know, early adulthood focused on what everybody else wants. And so I want to just kind of quickly say that one, it's normal not to know what your values are. Two, you know, when you ask people, what are my, what are your values? Usually people kind of freeze up or they give you like the really canned response. Like it's sort of like, oh, well I really value my family. You know, it's like, okay, great. Thanks. That's like not that helpful. So in real self-care, the way that I've come to it and the way that we talk about it at Gemma too, is like, you need to make it really low stakes when we're talking about values. So like one of the thought exercises in the book is like, imagine you have $200 to plan a dinner party for yourself.

What kind of dinner party will you throw? And it's like really easy with that to just know right from the get-go that every single person on the planet is going to have a completely different $200 dinner party, right? And if you're somebody who really values, let's just say like silliness and fun, maybe for you, that party, like you want to look around and see everybody just like laughing and having the time of their life. Or maybe for you, your value is really around like intimacy and like really deep connection. And so maybe for you, you want to like look around and like see that people are like really engaged in like one-on-one conversations. So the real self-care work then is that you reflect on that sort of imaginary dinner party. You come up with some values words, and then you think about, well,

like how do I thread those values into my life? Like if I'm somebody that really needs silliness, like maybe I shouldn't become an eye banker. Right. Maybe I should like want to work in an industry where people don't take themselves so seriously. Right. Or if like, you know, for, you know, you're somebody who really, really values beauty. Right. somebody who really, really values beauty, right? And like every, you want everything around you to have this sort of like aesthetic quality. How do you incorporate that? Like, how do you think about

that as you're decorating your apartment? So again, it's like, it's not, this isn't meditation, right? Like this isn't yoga and I'm not like demonizing those things. Like they're great, right? But can you even bring the value of silliness to your yoga practice, right? Like that's the real self-care. I guess my last question is like, what is a change that you hope to see regarding the way women's mental health

is viewed by our society? You know, my goal with Real Self Care and with Gemma is like, I just want women to know like this isn't our fault, right. And like all this stuff is hard and it's hard because there are powerful systemic forces working against us. And it's not hopeless. There actually are evidence based tools that you can use to help yourself make new types of decisions. And that's why community also is so important. So whether it's with Gemma or whether it's in your community, Alex, right? It's like, we need to be having different conversations, right? And with Real Self Care, you'll notice I'm not like spousing a lot of rules. It's really just about asking yourself different questions about your life and giving yourself the space to think

about how you spend your time differently. I can't thank you enough for talking with me because I agree. Like sometimes some of the things online or podcasts or books can feel a little overwhelming because there's just, we're already in a situation, I think as women that it's like, how do we even begin to do this uphill battle? Like, is it even worth it? Like, should we just wait for like the next, next, next generations to solve this? And I really appreciate how everything that you talk about is very tangible and very realistically able to be implemented immediately into your life because it starts with you and it's also acknowledging the uphill battle that's in front of us. But it's in you. And it's also acknowledging the uphill battle that's in front of us. So it's like a perfect combination that you've put together of like, I recognize the

shit storm we're living in, but you also can take control of your life by having your values, setting boundaries and recognizing like the life that you want to live within the chaos. And just recognizing what real self-care is, I think is good to differentiate. Your book is boundaries and recognizing like the life that you want to live within the chaos and just recognizing what real self-care is, I think is good to differentiate. Your book is amazing because we are cluttered with a lot of green juices, a lot of yoga practices, a lot of crystals, and it can become kind of exhausting to be like, I don't even want to take care of myself at this point because that hasn't worked for me. Well, that's not actually what self-care is. So Dr. Pooja, thank you so much for coming on Call Her Daddy. This has been truly so helpful. I can't thank you enough. It's been such a pleasure. Thanks

for having me, Alex.