Citizens of the World: A Stoic Podcast for Curious Travelers - Cut Carrie Some Slack: Stoic Musings on Sex and the City

Episode Date: September 19, 2025

Carrie Bradshaw used to feel relatable. Now we accuse her of being unhinged.But maybe that says more about us than it does about her.Read the article.***I’m your host, Sarah Mikutel, a communication and mindset coach. My work is about helping people like you share your voice, strengthen your relationships, and have more fun.As an American expat living in the U.K., I value curiosity, courage, and joy. A few things I love: wandering European streets in search of the best vegetarian meal, practicing Italian, and helping my clients design lives that feel rich and meaningful.If you're ready to have conversations that open doors – in your career, your relationships, and your life – let’s talk.***Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

Let's give people grace for not being where we are yet. I'm lying on an air mattress in my steamy North Carolina living room. Eyes glued to my TV. I am in my early 20s. There's actually no other furniture in my living room because I had just moved to North Carolina after college. And it's Sunday night. And here I am ready to unwind the HBO logo appears,

followed by the sound of those electric angels humming. Aw. That didn't really sound like the HBO sound, but you know what I mean. And it was announcing that sex and the city is about to start. Cue the jazz ensemble and the bus splashing carries Tutsu. It is the early 2000s, back when we all asked each other if we were a Carrie, a Samantha, a Miranda, or a Charlotte. Almost all of us did carry.

And while we didn't have her cool apartment, her shoe budget, or a new man throwing himself at us every week, we related to her. We related to her spinning out when she didn't hear back from a guy, to her overthinking, to her fear that things would fall apart. We were here for the drama because we were living it. We loved that show. And a few years later, I rewatch the series and thought, yes, this totally holds up, meaning I still relate to this show. But, Something shifted on my latest rewatch of Sex in the City this summer. I still enjoyed it. But Carrie all of a sudden seemed to quote the internet, unhinged. And I couldn't help but wonder, have we radically evolved emotionally in the last 15 years? Or have we learned just enough therapy language that we feel qualified to judge the people we used to identify with? I've spoken before about how we often don't notice our own growth because it happens gradually. The fact that I once so related to 30-something Carrie kind of breaks my heart. Who was that girl? She was someone who, like Carrie, had never heard of attachment styles or nonviolent communication,

who lived in a time when you couldn't talk to a coach online or a therapist. Positive psychology had just been invented. Podcastards weren't interviewing authors on resilience and emotional maturity every day. We didn't know there was another way to live. So we cried to our friends when we didn't hear back from a guy right away. We processed our workplace drama over brunch. We read books like the rules, or got a debrief from our roommate. And body positivity, what was that? Even the healthiest among us, we were defrosting lean cuisines in the office microwave and then drinking cosmopolitans after work because sex in the city. We were told we should be like Samantha when we secretly wanted to be Charlotte or vice versa. None of us wanted to be Miranda because she seemed too unhappy. We let our

internal states be dictated by someone else's external actions or lack thereof, we were totally flying blind. And today, when we are flooded with well-being content, it's really easy to forget that these resources weren't always so accessible. Yes, stoicism and other philosophies have been around for millennia, but 25 years ago, this knowledge was unknown to most young women in America, and it's still unknown to most people. But because in recent years, we've watched a few trauma-informed videos on TikTok, we start feeling a little superior

to people who haven't done the work. We fall into what psychologists call the fundamental attribution error. The belief that our bad behavior is circumstantial, I was tired, I just lost my job, while their bad behavior is character-based. They're rude, dramatic, unhinged. And all of this reminds me of a popular

saying that we use to cheer ourselves on. Don't compare your day one to someone else's day 100. But the reverse is also true. Don't compare your day 100 to someone else's day one. Cheer them on. I was reminded of this recently when I was at the beach and I was flipping through a magazine as if I were Carrie Bradshaw in the 1990s reading my favorite beach read real simple, which actually, I think, came into existence in the year 2000. But anyway, I'm glad it's still around. And in this issue, readers had written in about things that they were proud of. And one woman said that she had moved states and it only took her three months. And for half a second, I thought, three months, I can move countries in one day. But then I took a step back. Because, just because this has become easy for me,

it doesn't mean that it's easy. But I had grown in this area. That woman who moved states, she did something that was hard for her and she deserves to be celebrated. I've mentioned before that clients of mine will talk about a win, but then we'll downplay it saying something like, well, I did this one thing and I know it's not a big deal. And I'll stop them and say, hang on, that is a big deal. A year ago or a few months ago or a week ago, you never would have done something like this.

So let's honor it. Let's honor the win. And our wins come in different sizes. What is tiny for one person might be. monumental for somebody else. And as we grow, how we see the world grows. In Plato's Republic, he shares a horrific story about people who have been chained in a cave their entire life. This is an allegory. So they're in chains and there's a fire behind them and puppeteers that they don't know about are casting shadows on the wall in front of them using the light of the fire.

So their world is just the shadows that they see in front of them. That's what they think the whole world is. Then one day, one of the men breaks free, and he stumbles out into the light, into the real world. And it is overwhelming. It's blinding. But eventually he adjusts, and he starts to see real objects and color and suddenly and a bigger world. And when he returns to the cave to tell the others what he'd seen, they don't believe him. and they're clinging onto the shadows because it's all that they've ever known.

This is the world to them. And that's how personal growth can feel. We can grow and change and we want to tell everybody. And it can be easy to lose patience with people who we feel are willingly still living in the dark. Because our beliefs and ways of seeing the world have evolved. But yelling at these other people or trying to win them over with facts doesn't help them see the light. And so going back to 90s Carrie from Sex and the City, yeah, she might seem a little unhinged to our modern self-help saturated eyes. And so do a lot of people walking around today,

especially the ones we disagree with. You're listening to this right now because you care about personal growth and learning new things. And not everyone has come across resources like this before. And again, it can be so easy to want to just shake people and say, God, sort yourself out. Or how can you possibly be thinking this way? And maybe what could be most helpful for them and for you and for us is to give these people some grace, to remember that not everyone is where we are now. And once upon a time, we weren't either. So that's all I have for you today.

I'm curious, how are you different from younger you, depending on how old you are? maybe you 10 or 20 years ago, how have you changed? How has your worldview changed? And if any tenderness or compassion for that younger version of yourself is coming up, think about how you could extend that compassion and grace to other people. That's all for now. Thank you so much for listening and have a beautiful week wherever you are. Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free conversation sheet sheet with simple formulas that you can use So you can respond with clarity, whether you're in a meeting or just talking with friends. Download it at sarahygotele.com slash blank no more.