The Liz Moody Podcast - Stephanie Danler—Money Anxiety, Setting Boundaries That Work, and Overcoming Childhood Dysfunction

Episode Date: August 5, 2020

My guest today is the amazing Stephanie Danler. Stephanie is the author of Sweetbitter, which was a NYTimes best-selling, phenomenally successful book and TV show, and now. She recently published her deeply personal memoir, Stray. On this episode, we talk about: how her publishing Sweetbitter impacted her decision to have a child how her huge success as an author and television show creator impacted her sense of purpose her postpartum depression how she broke the cycle of her unhealthy childhood how to know when you need to set boundaries, and how to know when you can be flexible with those boundaries how she deals with jealousy people having better childhoods than her how suffering as a child impacts as future romantic relationships the relationship between thinking about yourself and thinking about others in our growth as humans money anxiety, money attachment styles, and more taboo money-related topics her mental health journey, including her complicated relationship with medication her coping mechanisms to deal with anxiety how she manages her out-of-whack cortisol levels plant medicine and medicinal mushrooms as a treatment for depression You can find Stephanie on Instagram at @smdanler, and we’d both love to hear your reactions to this episode, so please screenshot and write any thoughts or questions that come up as you’re listening and tag us both (I’m @lizmoody). Enjoy! PS: Healthier Together is officially a number one best-seller! You can get your copy on Amazon or at lizmoody.com/cookbook. Please keep sending me your creations on Instagram—they make me so happy! This episode is sponsored by Kyoto Botanicals, the first CBD brand I’ve recommended on this podcast! They believe every ingredient matters and should contribute to your overall health, which is why they only use USDA certified organic oils to deliver flavor with benefits. Their products only have organic, single-source plant extracts, not lab developed flavors and colors, so you get whole plant benefits as nature intended. Finally, their hemp is grown according to strict organic and biodynamic standards, and they only use only organic coconut MCT oil as a carrier. I recommend all of their products, but especially their tinctures. You can get a whopping 25% off your order (AND they always have free shipping!) by using the code “HEALTHIERTOGETHER” at kyotobotanicals.com. This episode is sponsored by Lifeway Foods, makers of America’s best-selling brand of kefir. Kefir has 12 different strains of live and active cultures and 25-30 billion Colony Forming Units (CFU), while the average yogurt can have anywhere from 1 to 5 strains with 6 billion CFU. Plus, it’s also up to 99% lactose-free. Lifeway Kefir comes in all sorts of delicious flavors, and they even have a dairy-free Plantiful line. Go to lifewaykefir.com and click “where to buy” to find a store that carries Lifeway near you! Healthier Together cover art by Zack. Healthier Together music by Alex Ruimy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Healthier Together podcast. I'm your host, Liz Moody, and I'm a longtime journalist and the author of a few cookbooks, including one called Like This Podcast, Healthyer Together. I am so excited to share today's conversation with you. My guest is the amazing Stephanie Danler. Stephanie is the author of Sweetbitter, which was a New York Times bestselling, phenomenally successful book. I remember a time when it was at the window at pretty much every bookstore. I loved it, of course. I don't think I've ever read quite as evocative descriptions of food and the coming of age in New York City element was deeply relatable to me. It was later made into a TV show and now Stephanie is back

with a new book, this time a deeply personal memoir called Stray. Stray is so lyrical and beautiful and so raw and honest and my conversation with Stephanie was very much the same. She's so open, so willing to plunge into the depths of her own psyche and examine and question what's there and why. This is one of those episodes where we really, really go there. So buckle up. We talk about the huge success of Sweetbitter and how it impacted her life, her postpartum depression, how she broke the cycle of her unhealthy childhood, how to know when you need to set boundaries, and then her very unique philosophy on actually enforcing those boundaries. it is not what you think at all. We talk about how she deals with jealousy around money and people having a better childhood

than her, which was really, really interesting to me, especially with her specifically. Some of you may know this, but when I was writing novels, it was long before I was writing cookbooks, but I grew up, I always thought I was going to be a novelist. And I remember when Sweet Butter came out and I felt like I would kill to write and sell and see the success of a book like that. And then to hear Stephanie's take on how she was feeling as she lived that situation on the flip side, it was really impactful to me. So we had a really, really in-depth conversation about both of our fairly screwed up approaches to money. I love talking about money, as many of you know,

since it continues to be so taboo. And I think it's such an important conversation. And Stephanie has a lot of very complex thoughts about money. So we really got into that. If you haven't heard about money attachment styles, get ready. It's super, super interesting. We also, of course, had to talk about mental health and anxiety, including her own journey with medication and her various coping mechanisms. She also shared how she deals with her out-of-wack cortisol levels, which I thought was fascinating, and her own experiences with medicinal mushrooms as a treatment for depression, which I thought was really, really interesting. I loved Stephanie. She's brilliant and wise and introspective and still very, very much.

very much excited about learning on this journey of life. You can find her brilliant book stray wherever books are sold. And please tag us both and share your thoughts, feelings, reactions as you're listening to this episode. She's at S.M. Danler, D-A-N-L-E-R, and I'm at Liz Moody on Instagram. I'm particularly interested in what comes up during the money portion of the conversation. So I would really love your take on that. All right, enjoy the episode. All right, Stephanie, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having me. It's such a pleasure.

You're just giving me your honest feedback on having children, and it was too good not to record. So if you want to continue, it's so interesting because I was saying that, like, people who have, it's hard to get an honest feedback because people have kids are never going to say, I regretted having children, you know. No. And I don't think you can regret something that. fundamentally shifts who you are in such a profound way and brings so much joy. But what I was saying is I do like to remind people who are on the fence that you really don't have to have them. Like, you're not going to be missing out on, it's not your only chance to experience that kind of joy. And I was saying that I remember my pre-child life for context. I have a 17-month-old. And I am due,

with a baby girl in three months. So I'm, I mean, I'm in the thick of it. But I remember my life before Julian and how rich it was and full it was and how much I liked just following my will through the world. And I don't think I would have regretted not having kids. I wouldn't have been 45, 50, 60 and said, Oh my God, I really wish I had kids. Now that I have him, I'm so in love with him.

I'm screwed for the rest of my life. But I can just see both paths. I really can. The thing I always worry about with not having kids is when people say it's a different kind of love. And I believe that the point of life is to experience all the emotions and all of the feelings of life. And the idea of missing out full stop on a type of love is

terrifying to me. Do you think that's true? I think that it is a different type of love. I also think it's a terrifying kind of love. And I think that it brings with it so much vulnerability and pain. And that maybe that's more essential than that, oh my God, I'm going to eat you up. You're so cute. Am I allowed to curse on the show? Yes, you are. Oh, you're so fucking cute. Like, I want to put you back inside me because I can't get close enough to you. Like, yes, that is a great experience. But I think that the more interesting experience is how terrifying it is and how it makes you rethink what it means to be strong and what it means to be good.

And I mean, all of your values. I do think I could have had a very nice life collecting art and reading philosophy and gotten some maybe wrestled with some of the same demons you know spending summers in europe obviously i wanted to have another one so i am an idiot first of all and second of all i do think that there's something important in it for me but i really i don't i'm not a kid pusher i had so many of those people i were telling me like you have to have kids oh my god do it now don't wait another second And I'm just like, I don't buy that. How did you decide to have Julian when you decided to?

Well, I think it was a combination of being with my husband, knowing what an incredible father he would be being 35. And having published a book and made my way as a writer in the world, when the first time children came up was in a conversation. with my ex-husband. I was with him for all of my 20s and I was about to turn 30 and he was a bit older and it was very much like, I want to have children. When are you going to be ready? When are you going to be ready? And instead of having children, I left him and wrote Sweet Bitter. And it's not a one-to-one like book or baby. I could have done both, but I think sweet bitter coming out, writing the television show, knowing that I had a contract for a second book, and that I was going to be a writer, that this wasn't a fluke and it wasn't going to disappear,

made me feel that I might have the capacity to have a child. And because I have fertility issues, I said to my husband, I was like, we can start trying, but it's going to take us a few years. And we'll probably need help. And of course, classically, like, that is not the case. it happened quickly and I was like oh I wasn't totally ready but you never are and then when we got pregnant with my daughter this one also a total surprise and I was like oh I was not ready I was thinking I would sneak one out at 40 I'd get the second baby out in like five years and you know

have some time for myself get into a groove with my toddler who becomes increasingly more of a person and it's so fun. He's like really funny and fun, but more difficult hands down every single day. So, you know, I mean, those kids had their own plans. I'm just the vessel. Do you think that there was a sense beyond just sort of the stability of like you are a writer now, you know that's true, but like you accomplished this huge purpose that had been. been driving you for a really long time and looking for a different sense of purpose in, in this

new direction in your life? You know, that's only something that I could say retrospectively. That was not in my head. I wasn't wise enough in the moment to think, like, oh, this will be a different type of growth, right? That's what we're saying. That I've, like, achieved this goal that I've been thinking about since I started reading and the only thing I ever wanted to do. And how else can I grow? How else can I change? I wasn't there at all. It felt very practical to me, which was if it's going to happen, it should happen sometime around now. And maybe I was so shell-shocked when Julian was born because I really didn't think it out completely. I was just slightly open for the first time in my life to having a child and I got pregnant.

And then when he came, I was like, oh my God, I can't do this. I cannot do this. I mean, the first three months postpartum were so dark. And all my friends and all these people on social media with their like, welcome to the bliss out of like newborn care. I was like, I have cried every day. for 12 weeks. I've locked myself in the bathroom and wept because it's so massive. And I had never loved anyone like this without reservation where he could, Julian could do anything to me.

And the world can do anything to him. And I felt defenseless and like I didn't know who I was. And but all to say, I wish I had thought about it the way that you just framed it. which was like, here I am. An opportunity for growth the whole time. Yes, like a new evolution of myself. And instead, you know, I was making the television show of my first novel, Sweet Bitter. We wrapped four days before I gave birth to him. So I was just like in it, in it, in it.

Touring for Sweet Bitter for over a year, writing the pilot, filming in New York, living long distance from my husband, pregnant. filming pregnant, you know, 2 a.m. waddling around set, eating tums, which you're not supposed to eat. It's just a messy time. But also that's the way I lived before I had him. Right. And in the sort of like evolution of self, a more cosmic big picture sense, that lifestyle, it really isn't sustainable. where I am living out of a suitcase constantly and I'm not quite tied to the ground. Yes, I'll fly to L.A. for 24 hours. Sure, I'll go to New York and work on the show and live there for six months. And yeah, I'll be the last one on set if we're filming on the George Washington Bridge at 4 a.m. Like, the whole thing was just not, feels crazy to me now.

You, so you did accomplish this thing that I think is, like you said, you've been wanting to be a writer since you could read. And then you accomplish this thing which even 98% of writers don't get to have, which is having a hugely phenomenally, phenomenally successful book. Did you have in any way like a what comes now moment after that? Or how did how did that affect your psyche? Interesting. And I, again, if I was a bit more present to the experience of it, but I, you know, you've read my memoir, I tend to live in a survival mode that doesn't make space for that kind of reflection, which is, it's taken me years to see that Sweet Bitter was an achievement. even when it was gaining popularity and the book came out and it did things like hit the New York Times bestseller list. And then it stayed there for months. And I was meeting people at readings and they're saying the most beautiful things. You know, your book changed my life or this is important to me. I am still in survival mode. I'm like none of this matters.

None of this matters. Like I've got to keep going. I've got to figure out how I'm going to make money. Like, none of it penetrated that I was having an experience that is so extremely rare and precious. Like, I don't know that I enjoyed it at all. It was so much about, I've got to write the script. I've got to write a second book. I've got to sell a third book.

Like, I just didn't trust it enough to lean back into it. And so it wasn't what there was of course like the cynic in me is like it'll not sweep it or will never happen for me again. I hope to have a very long career writing books, but that kind of breakout success is a lot of luck in timing and I just don't and youth on my part. Like I needed to be a certain age in order to throw myself into it the way that I did. like into the publicity cycle and all that kind of stuff. And the touring and the exposure and this, I mean, taking it into a television show again,

didn't think about it. It was like, yes, I'll take it. Great opportunity. I'm going to learn so much. Didn't really think, do I want to be in television? Do I want to live like this where I'm going to be taking? away from writing books for two years and being editing rooms doing something that I'm not even necessarily good at or know anything about, right? It's not like the dream of writing a book that has

been sitting inside my psyche for my entire life. I just said yes. I said yes to everything. Again, none of that can be repeated. So I was aware that this was a kind of a once in a lifetime ride that I was on. Interesting. Okay, let's roll back to your childhood, which you talk about a lot of this book. I actually loved how you divided it, the mother-father monster.

So you get kind of snippets of your childhood throughout. But when you think back on your childhood now, how do you sort of picture it in your mind? I see a lot of the scenery of Southern California, and I see a lot now of my mother's effort. And I don't think I saw that before I had a child. I see my propensity to storytell is a sign in a way of an unhappy childhood, like how deeply invested I was in my fantasies, but it is also a sign of, you know,

it's not totally nurture. It's how I was born. My sister is not the same way and we're born into an identical, almost identical situation. And so I see that this sort of sensitivity and, you know, sense of drama that runs in my maternal line

that I write about in stray, I see that I had it from the time that I was verbal. As the women get older in my family, that sensitivity tends to manifest in drinking and anger and a victim narrative. But I'm sure if my mom could talk about her childhood, if my grandmother could talk about her childhood, that they had similar experiences of feeling alienated and using stories or using various methods to escape their lives. But then they, you sort of seemed at moments like you were maybe going down the same path as your mother with, you know, a reliance on substances or something like that. But then you veered away completely and shaped this pretty healthy life for yourself. How did that happen?

Oh, my God. First of all, I'm going to resist the healthy label. because I still struggle with all of the same things. You know, it's not substances and it hasn't been for a while, but they could come back at any moment because of the way that I process my pain and the patterns. And so I'm, you know, I'm always trying to unlearn what unlearn my conditioning. I think that's a large part of behavioral therapy. I've seen the same therapist for a doubt.

decade. So how did that happen? Lots of therapy. But I also, somewhere in that book, I say that boundaries aren't permanent. I think we think about setting boundaries and we think we're erecting like a brick wall. And in my experience, they're fluid. And some years, you do better than others. and sometimes you make mistakes and you have to reestablish it and start back over. And as far, like, there's something in my postpartum depression that was so reminiscent of my mother. And that just happened a year ago. And it felt like I was never going to get out of it. And it felt like I would never be able to be a mother to Julian.

And so it's not that I just turned a corner and I'm not like her. with the substances having known so many addicts in my life and loved a few of them, I know that I think I knew fairly young that that wasn't going to be my downfall. I loved experimenting with drugs as I write about in Sweet Bitter and I loved to hurt myself with drinking, but I never really felt out of control with them. Even the things I'm describing in the book that are so reckless, I never felt at the mercy of a substance and sitting in rooms, Al-Anon rooms, and A.A. rooms and many rehab centers over the course of my life, I was like, okay, so this won't be my thing, probably. But what is coming for me? And I think about that when I look at Julia and I think I'm not going to be a mid-50s crystal meth addict. and lose our home and watch my life fall apart.

Which for people, have it read the book with your father's path. That's my father. And I'm not going to drink myself into a stupor so that I can barely speak to him when he comes in from school. My own mistakes are out there. They're out there and I'm half on guard against them, but I think that if you are on guard too, I think that that's dangerous.

I think you have to live. I think you have to trust your instincts. Hopefully surround yourself with people that are holding you accountable in the right ways. Yeah. I chose a really good man to have children with and that's like the healthiest. I'm using air quotes for listeners at home. That's like the healthiest thing I've ever done. But I've also been married before.

My ex-husband and I were together for seven years, which was a long time in child speak, you know, in your 20s. And I saw how quickly it disappeared. So I'm never feeling that I've arrived to the other side of what I'm writing about and stray, which is part of the reason it ends the way it does. So that makes sense. Yeah, it does. I think the boundary thing is interesting.

the idea that boundaries are ever evolving because you have that in this in the book you have this moment in New York where you sort of decide to release your father from your life and then in the the epilogue type part of the book you talk about how he is back in your life in a small way so how do you I think setting those boundaries is so hard for people and I think it might be why they stick to them in such an inherent way is because they're it was so hard to to set it already. So to even take a step, a side step feels like a back step, you know? And how do you decide when to set the boundaries in the first place, have the strength do that, and then trust that you won't damage it when you take different steps or be flexible with those? That's a great question.

And I don't know the answer per se. But the example you gave about my father, I chose not to have contact with my father. It had been 10 years since we had had a relationship or even talked on the phone in a coherent person-to-person way. I had gotten strange calls that I reference in the book throughout the years, but really letting him into my life. It had been 10 years. And then I had a baby. And I look at this child and my in-laws are incredible. Like they're, It's like I won the lottery. They're just loving and respectful. And watching them with Julian gives me like an outrageous amount of fulfillment.

It's just Matt, my husband is whenever we are with them, I'm like, look at him with his grandparents. And I think this idea, my grandparents partially raised us. They were very, very active in taking care of us because my mom was. a single mom and sometimes not really capable. They're a huge part of my life. They were a huge part of my life and sweet bitter is dedicated to them. And so first, at the first level, I'm disrespectful of that relationship. But I also know that my kids, that's all they get are those grandparents.

Like on my side, it's darkness. My mother is disabled. and still an alcoholic and, you know, can't hold them or really participate with them. And to be honest, can't remember their names most of the time. And my father, you know, I don't know where he is in his recovery, so I don't want to speak to him, but he's not in my life. And so I look at this baby and I think, do I have to give him this story, this existence? exact story, which is like, and then I never spoke to your grandfather again, and he's too

fucked up to be in your life. So like, do I have to pass on this darkness to him? Or can I be a little bit gentler with it? And so to get back to your original question, my father came to visit. It was fine. I chose not to repeat it at this point. I did not finish the weekend feeling great and I think that it's okay every 10 years to reinvestigate the wound and say, how have I changed? How are things different now? How is this person different now? And then experiment with it and say, oh, you know what? I felt better when I did have that boundary up. And then there's, but there's another example which I think like, you're absolutely right. it's so hard to cut out people who you love that you know are hurting you. And I think most people are

familiar with it from in their love lives, right? Like that I blocked him or her. I've blocked them. They're never going to contact me again. Like it's completely done. And I think that sometimes that's a bit reductive. And the reason we relapse using airfoots again, lover so often is that we're so extreme about it. We're like, I've built the wall. Do not cross the wall. Do not trespass.

Whereas like a fluid boundary is like, I really miss this person. I don't know that you need to text them, but like being a little bit more open with how messy it all is. And if you do text them saying, you know, this is, now this is like a love column, if you do text them, being gentle enough with yourself to say, I didn't like how that felt, I'm not going to do it again. You know, it doesn't have to be all or nothing in these situations. It's more just as long as you're thinking about protecting yourself, that's how I try to approach it. As long as I haven't lost sight of my, my, like, core and I'm not opening myself up to too much pain. I love the idea that, like, something really rigid, I just picture it being more prone to shattering where something more fluid like water, like it can't shatter, you know?

Absolutely. And I think that that's a really lovely way to look at it. I also love the idea of approaching situations with yourself. at the peak of your mind? Because I think we we don't really think about, you know, protecting ourselves as a mother figure or as somebody who really loves ourselves. And I think if you literally just approached every situation in your life that way, you probably wouldn't send a lot of texts or do a lot of those types of things. No, absolutely. But the fact that you do is totally human and just, I mean, I often feel like this self-incrimination makes the whole

situation worse, like the illicitness of it, the like, I'm not supposed to be doing this. Or like all my friends are telling me not to and I'm going to just do it anyway. Totally. Your friend says something to you in the book that I thought was really interesting. And she said, we all choose our parents. There are teachers. Do you, in the book, it makes it sound like you think that's very much true. Is that, do you think it's true?

And yeah. I do. Yeah. I, you know, where I am on my own spirituality journey, I will never touch Carly, my friend who in the book, she's like, I'm the most boring character in the book. Like, you didn't say anything about me party. Oh, my God. I thought she was so fascinating.

And like I just, I thought the fact that you had these wonderful, and I will talk about this later because I want to talk about female friendship, but you have. these incredible power, kind, like, they're just women I would want to be, and they're all of your friends described in the book. So I thought she, you can tell her that I thought she came off wonderfully. Yeah, I think she is very wise. I mean, she's gone, her story is more fascinating than mine, but that's her own book to rate, and she's gone through so much. But she's like, woo-woo. She's like at a level eight or nine. if 10 is like not in the world anymore.

And so when she introduced that concept to me, what she's really doing is saying, you're not a victim, you have choice. And you had choice since before your soul was even born, which is one of the big themes of the book, is do I have a choice in who I'm becoming or am I fated to become my parents? And so when you say to yourself,

I chose my parents. You're taking your agency back and you're reframing a narrative, which is, can be, which can be, these people hurt me so much. Why did they hurt me so much? Because they don't love me, because I'm bad, because life is suffering,

or I chose them because they're supposed to teach me something. What am I learning? what am I learning? And I prefer that second narrative a thousand percent. And I also, the last acknowledgement at the end of the book, I don't even know if that's in your copy, is to my son Julian and it says, thank you for choosing me. And I prefer that to believe that. I do believe that. So what did they teach you? I mean, they're, remains to be seen. I have hopefully a few more years left to figure some shit out.

I am hopeful that my sister and I are going to end a legacy of addiction, if nothing else. Even if we still have issues with anger, even if we still have issues with depression and anxiety, I am hoping that she and I, and so far so good, will be the first. first parents and our cousins as well, that we will all be the first parents not to raise our children under the shadow of instability that's created by addiction. You're listening to the Healthier Together podcast. This episode is sponsored by Lifeway Foods, makers of America's best-selling brand of Kefair. If you're unfamiliar with Kefair, is a probiotic rich drink high in protein, calcium, and vitamin D. It has a tart and tagging

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lifeway near you. All right. Now let's get back to the episode. Did you ever get jealous when you were a kid of the like your friends who had wonderful stable homes and great parents? It sounds like a lot of those parents sort of stepped in for you, but were you ever just like, why do they get this and I don't get this? Of course. Of course. Of course. I actually think that I was more jealous in my 20s. of people who had safety nets, whether monetary or emotional, because I felt so exposed and scared and my life felt so threadbare. At the same time, you know, Sweet Bitter is based on parts of my life. I was working in restaurants. It was a very rich life full of sensory experiences, but I was scared all the time.

And when I was younger, I would get jealous. I would get jealous of people that had more money than us. I think kids are really fixated on the material realm. I see it with my nieces and see it all the time with children. But I also, like, I didn't know what it was like to have a father in the house. So friends' fathers kind of. scared me. It wasn't like I want you to be my dad. I was like, I don't know what you're doing here, what your rule is. I don't understand your kindness. I still think father-daughter relationships are

so foreign to me. Which is so interesting because you're about to be an up-close witness to one with your own daughter. Absolutely. And your husband. Watching him with my son, I mean, they're so close. Matt is Julian's primary caretaker. Julian calls me Dada. He's never said Mama once in his life. This is a true story. Yesterday was Mother's Day. I'm not sure when this is going to air, but yesterday was Mother's Day.

And Matt was like, Julian, please say Mama. And he's like, Dada. Oh, my God. So yes, I'm about to witness one up close. But to that comment, all the time, I see things that are happening. in my house that Matt was folding the laundry and Julian was helping him and not actually helping him. He's 17 months old. He was destroying the folded laundry, obviously.

And I got, I had this rush of emotion and I was like, what is this about? I never seen a man fold laundry in my life. When I was a child, I, there was never, I mean, he left when, my father left when I was three. I've never seen a man participate in the household or be a caregiver or be in a supportive nurturing role. Even when I met, you know, got to know my father later in my life, it was very much I'm on the plane. I'm in the car.

I'm busy, busy, busy. I'm on the phone. Like I'm making things work in the world. But in the domestic sphere, I've never seen it. my son will not know the difference. It's really, it's, it's all fascinating. To go back to your original question about envy, I, I wouldn't say that I've stopped, like the fear, it was a fear that drove my envy, just that I was so scared all the time. And I think my loneliness felt different. And I would fantasize about my friends who called their parents to just like talk over a problem.

But as I get older, now I'm in my mid-30s and that's very rare. Like I think I assumed that that was the case for everyone around me. And that's just not true. Most of us have really complicated relationships with our parents. And most of us are really scared and operating without a safety net. And I don't know how much better off people are that have had that. But that's taken me a long time to figure out. That's interesting.

It's also interesting. I think it's interesting how much of a role. So my husband was also raised by people who were really in love. And he kind of came to the relationship as the securely attached one and taught me how to say sorry when we fight and I'm wrong. and, you know, like I feel like I have learned how to be in a functional relationship from him because I was never modeled any functional relationships. Do you feel like that with your partner? Like, how did you learn how to, because he, it sounds like from the book,

I don't want to put too much on your other relationships, but you went from being in like this very dysfunctional relationship to being with your current partner who's the father of your children. and it sounds like a huge part of your stable life now. So how did you even like know how to do that? Well, I didn't, right? And I think I wrote about the monster who in the book is a married man who I had a very long, very hurtful, damaging affair with.

And when I moved to Los Angeles, I started dating what would be my husband. But the love story that I'm painting in Stray isn't like I saw him at a concert and I was like, that's my next husband. That's the love of my life. I'm like obsessed with him. The obsession was reserved for my toxic partner. Yeah. I had learned to fetishize dysfunction and difficulty as and equated.

it with depth. And so throughout Stray, I'm struggling with the love interest. And there's a passage word, and we go to Joshua Tree that I think might speak to you and your husband, but you can correct me, where I feel almost like I can't connect with him because of how whole he is. Like we speak a fundamentally different language and things, simple communication, like saying I'm sorry. Like, I don't even know if I still know how to say I'm sorry, but like maybe soon. Simple communication is not fraught for him. He can apologize immediately. He can also say, be vulnerable really easily and quickly. And he's so honest. He doesn't even think about it. And in the book, when I was getting to know him, I kind of wrote him off as juvenile.

As if to be an adult means to have suffered and to be cynical and to have damage and to play games. And I didn't trust the ease of it. I mean, this was a very slow for me, not slow in the real world, slow for someone who has a history of extreme romantic situations. this is a it took us like eight months to really cement into something and for me to be like wait this is great like I've won the lottery this is amazing before that was like this is good that's great we're yeah everything's you know but not I almost didn't take it seriously until I ended my affair which took me some time and then kind of let the residue of that, like the conditioning of that fall away. It took a long time. And so I do learn so

much from my husband about how to be a better partner and how to be, I would call him fearless. He would never call himself that, but he's quite fearless to me in the way that he loves our family, the way that he kind of celebrates his life. I'm like, we can't celebrate our life. The other shoes about to drop. We can't like rest for a single second. And his constant kind of call back to the present moment and the beauty of the present moment is, I mean, it's so precious and so important to me. But it wasn't a lightning strike. It was a long process. I think I vacillate sometimes between feeling like I have access to this greater depth because of my childhood and my suffering and being like, like sometimes I feel like he can plumb depths that I will never be able to

plumb. And sometimes I feel like I've plumb depths that he will never be able to plumb. And I think it just goes, it goes back and forth so much. And sometimes I'm like, oh, he's so lucky that he, you know, found this complicated, dynamic, amazing human that is me. And then sometimes I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm so damaged. Why is he staying with me, you know? Yeah, of course. I mean, I do that all the time. You know, sometimes I look at him and I'm like, you picked it.

So deal with it. There are lots of nice girls out there. You know exactly what you were getting. Yeah, absolutely. But I mean, I feel that intense. which is I think when you've suffered suffered as a child, I think one of the Kobe mechanisms is to take pride in it to be like, well, this, this has built me. This is why I can write a book. And this is why I can run a TV show and why I've survived all these years. And then I think when I met Matt, I was like, oh, or wait, am I stunted? Am I maybe? Like just not that advanced. But I do think that's such an interesting thing.

The idea of like, I remember being so, my mom was in a really serious accident when I was two and was like in a coma and had resulting brain damage from a lot of it. And I remember I would like trot that fact out at parties because I would be like, look what I've been through. Like you thought I was just like a normal girl, but like look what I've been through. And then becoming an adult has been this. experience too of being like well that was my childhood story but also this person's mom had cancer and this person's dad left them for in their kid and this person like everybody has their

story and I don't think I think when I was trotting that out as proof that I was interesting or complicated or dynamic I wasn't giving credence to all of these other different types of stories that exist you know absolutely um and that but that's so common right Right. We're so wrapped up in our own story for a really long time. That's the solipsism of youth, which is, who am I? What does it mean? What does it mean? And I think the early part of your life, not childhood, but, you know, post-childhood life is, are you going to let go of that story? And I think about this often, you know, memoir is considered. by some to be selfish genre or a navel-gazing genre. And I do think that there comes a balance as you age between this sort of self-obsession that is necessary if you're going to break patterns.

But engagement with the outside world. Like real compassion for others and investment in other people's stories, and that's happening in stray, to the extent that I'm noticing my physical environment for the first time, as if I'm like a newborn and I'm like, oh, the trees have different names. Like I'm fucking 32 years old in that book and I like don't know to call an oak and oak because I've spent my whole life sort of wrapped up in self-discovery.

And I think like I think it has to shift at a certain point if you're going to develop. It doesn't have to shift. a lot of people don't shift. But there's like a different kind of conscience that has to develop, which is one that is focused on your world, your environment, your community, your friends. And I think it's natural because I see it all the time. When I was making the Sweet Better Television show, much of the cast was in their early 20s.

And I befriended them and I watched them going through this experience. And it is very, it is navel gazing. It is me, me, me. What's happening to me? Why does it hurt like this? Is it always going to feel like this? But I find a lot of that has fallen away. As you were just saying, you were saying that you do, I mean, you've become interested in other people's stories.

You run this podcast. Yeah. Well, and I just, I do think, but I like the idea that there's room for, for both that you essentially are like, you need to be like I have. I have a friend who writes literary fiction and he has the deepest disdain for memoir, which his wife is a memoir writer. So that's like a complicated dynamic. But I do think that there is, you know, I think a lot of people are like,

it can be like, is my story worth sharing in this way? Is my story special enough to write a memoir? And I think that it's interesting to be like, there's room for the next. navel gazing, and that's an important part of self-growth to look down literally into yourself in that way, and then also to balance that with the external looking as well. Absolutely. And I use those two things, selfish and navel gazing because they were biases that I had as a literary fiction writer or a novelist.

And I don't know that I fully have a handle on nonfiction. I feel like during this time where the book's coming out, I mean, getting more of a feeling for it and how scary it is. I mean, the writing was miserable, just horrific. And I'm like, what's the release of the book like? It's either very gratifying or it's also miserable and horrific. Probably a little of both. But I don't buy that either.

I don't buy that it doesn't have literary merit or that you can shame people about their stories. I mean, it's the human. It's the most universal thing in the world. My friend, the writer Melissa Fivos, has a great essay on this. And I'm blanking on the title, but it's about how telling your story is the most subversive act. And I really struggled. And it's available at poets and writers.

And it's online. Everyone should read it. But I struggled with that so much when I was starting stray because I was, I was just like, but I'm okay. There's no, like, this story isn't worth telling because I'm okay at the end of the day. Or I coped or this abuse wasn't bad enough. And this unraveling of the life wasn't dramatic enough. There was no car crash.

There was no cancer. Whatever it is in my head that I think of as real life-changing. storytelling material. And then at a certain point, I had published work about my father in vogue and seeing the response that it got, had brought to me. And I thought, just being a part of the conversation is worth the risk. Just entering into this very sad, complex arena is more literary merit than than I could possibly deserve. I love that. You said earlier that kids are fascinated by money and think about money a lot.

And money comes up in the book because it feels like your mom's side of the family sort of had it generationally and then it sort of disappeared with time. Am I right in that? And I'm curious, and you were raised very proximate to it. I feel like you went to private schools and LA and that kind of paid for. Yeah, and stuff like that. So I'm curious what your relationship is to money now and what sort of role it plays in your life. I mean, I think money is where all of my ambient anxiety lands.

It is the thing that keeps me up at night. I have had money that I've made myself and I have lost money. I've spent it. This idea that you lose it and it's irreplaceable. It's like actually the flow that is supposed to happen with money. If you're using it as a tool, it comes in and it goes out. And it is still my greatest trigger into a panic attack. Just hands down, I feel that I've,

made progress on so many things and that I'm quite stuck with that. It's related to safety. It's related to life or death, sort of like adrenaline cortisol levels. I mean, I can barely read bank statements. Very like neutral. Here is a statement. I can't check my accounts. I now have my husband do it. But obviously, I live. I was alone in between marriages and it scared me. Having it scares me, not having it scares me, there's really no safe ground for me. And my mother was the exact same way and she used to have panic attacks about money and I mentioned it in the book. I mean, she pulled over on the shoulder of the freeway with two children in the car, hyperventilating.

And I remember it so clearly. And that's me. I'm not going to do that, but I still work on it constantly. And then the other component of that that makes it more complicated is how privileged I am and always have been. So that this struggle for survival isn't totally justified. I even when I have lived recently, when I sold Sweetbitter, totally paycheck to paycheck, zeroing out a checking account, waiting tables in graduate school in a shit ton of debt. That was five years ago.

It feels like yesterday. I can still like my like chest is tightening up just talking about it. I was still incredibly privileged, right? I had a job. I was able to live in New York City. I was able to work at a restaurant that paid me really well. I worked till 4 a.m., but I made three nights a week. I made enough money to support myself and go to a prestigious MFA program.

And so I've always had that double awareness that I'm engaged in a struggle, but there are facets of my life, the private schooling, the education I've had, has cost me and my family a fucking fortune. living in these cities, choosing to live in Williamsburg or Laurel Canyon, like all of this is at a scale of privilege that's unimaginable to most people, whereas in my head, it's a fight. It's a fight. I'm always one step away from destitution, from being kicked out. And it's just, it's all in my head.

Does it manifest pragmatically in any ways? Like are you, would you take a writing job that you didn't feel good about because you wanted the money from it? No, I mean, yes, actually, these Bose headphones, they are noise canceling. Bose headphones. They cost a fortune for headphones. And I wrote a tiny travel piece about nothing in order to pay for them. That's a small scale. I mean, that was, I'm happy.

I wrote about a restaurant. straught in turkey that I really enjoyed. And I was like, great. I have no time to do this, but I want these headphones. But you thought of it, it's even interesting to me that you thought of it as almost like a one-to-one thing. When you are living a comfortable life, you probably could have just afforded the boat's headphones. But you even are still making those trades in your head. Would never allow myself to think that way that I could afford the headphones. I mean, it's still just could not do it. And I think the pandemic has really thrown this into relief in our household because we have savings.

And in my head, those savings are down payment on a house or money so that I can write books. Because the way that you get paid for writing books, you know, I had an advantage. for stray like four years ago and I hadn't been paid and you don't get paid again until you turn it in and then you don't get the money comes in small parcels and right with a set of deliverables um and so in my head the savings is not for us to live on while jobs dry up during a pandemic. It was for something else. And it makes me feel like we have nothing, right?

Like, I haven't been able to buy groceries. My husband's doing all of the grocery shopping for various reasons. I'm pregnant. I don't need to be going out to the store right now. But I also, like, I found my handshaking, like trying to pay with a credit card for groceries for a family of three, which are expensive. but like we can afford them. We're going to be okay. We can afford six months of no serious income if I can't get script work and if my husband can't find work, he's a freelance landscape architect right now. So it to your point, my, I mean, it's a terribly complicated subject. I love talking to

other writers about it because we're all struggling. Even the most, Emily Gould had a tweet the other day. And she said, unless your book is always in the airport or you're married to someone with money, you are struggling as a writer. And I found that to be so true. And people think if they see your name everywhere, right? And if you're all over social media or if you seem to always be working, that it comes out to a certain amount of material success. But like, I can't afford to buy a house. I haven't even been close yet. It's interesting because I'm like nodding along with you because I know that of the

writing world, which I know pretty intimately. And even like the big advances, I'm like, like my friend just got a big, noteworthy kind of newspapery advance for a book. But it also took him nine years to write. And I'm like, if you divided that into a salary over nine years, he's making you know, $50,000 a year. It's also going to, yeah, be paid out. Like his last payment, he'll get at paperback publication three or four years from now. Right. Like I just got my last payment for my cookbook, which is so, but like my bias, even as you're saying that, was like,

oh yeah, but once you do the TV movie Hollywood thing, you're set financially. And I didn't even realize I had that bias until you said that. Yes, of course. And so, That is part of the reason I took that job was to make real money and why I still, I actually enjoy writing scripts, but why I'm still pursuing it is because as a day job, the money to writing ratio is actually in your favor versus what you're talking about. Like sweet better took me, what, like five years of waiting tables and being in school. and stray came four years after that. It's crazy versus you can, I feel that I will be better able to support my family with television writing.

Again, I wish it was fuck you money. Maybe if I wasn't new to the industry. Like I was starting out and I was paid well, which is why we have savings. But definitely like I have, it's tricky, it's tricky, because I, again, coming back to acknowledging how lucky I am, how successful the book has been, how rare it is. But what we're talking about right now is a story I'm telling myself.

It's a story that I can't break out of. Have you heard about the idea that attachment theories like exist for money as well, that you can be like securely, avoidantly or anxiously? attached but financially. I found that really interesting because I'm the same with like, yeah, well, like finances, I also, and I hate this because it's probably the most gender normative part of my relationship, but my husband does all of the financial stuff. And it's not because I make a lot of money and I'm proud of what I bring to the relationship. But it just makes me so nervous to think about it or talk about it, even if it's good.

Even if I'm like, look at all the money I made this month. it still makes me so anxious or when we go out to restaurant, I'll put my credit card down and then I'll have him do the tip and sign it because I don't like to see how much it costs. I'm exactly the same. Yeah, it's just, it's a very interesting. Yeah, I can't look at the bill at the restaurant. It's crazy though. So, but it sounds like you married a securely attached money person, which they tell you if you're

anxiously or avoidantly attached in relationships, you're hoping. in life is to find a securely attached person and cling to them. So you've done that with money as well, apparently. Oh my God. Holding on for dear life. I'm going to, I'm actually determined. I went to a meditation retreat in February that Carly, my friend took me on, forced me to go. I was like, this is not my thing. I'm not going to tows to like cry with a group of women and like watch trauma bonds get cut. And of course, it was a magnificent, humbling experience. But when the teacher asked me what I was doing there, I said, I need to turn a corner with my relationship to money because it has nothing to do with money. It's really about this fear that I am not safe. That, and it won't change,

no matter how much I put in my bank account. And so I, yes, I am clinging to my husband. And so I, yes, I am clinging to my husband for dear life. But I also, I don't want to live like this. I don't want to live like this for the rest of my days. There's more to life than this conversation. In a way, the money conversation is important because of transparency, right? I think we all need to be talking about it more in order that it can loosen its power on us and our fear around it. It's just money. It has it like can't cure you. Yeah. It's a tool. At its maximum, it's a tool. And I think we give it power beyond being a tool. Yeah. Well, we we think it's indicative of our worth, of our moral worth, our like deathbed stock that we take of our life. We feel like it somehow has to do with our finances.

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It's really interesting. Yeah, it is very familiar. And I have a lot of my girlfriends aren't that. And I'm also a very weird mix of being money avoidant and also being like women need to empower other women. And people need to empower other people, but particularly women need to empower their women by having very open conversations about money. Like I won't read the bill, but I will share my salary with all of my coworkers so that they can ask for more money when it's job negotiation. have this very strange mix of really wanting to talk about it and really not wanting to talk about it at all. Absolutely. Me too. I do think it's so important. I felt that way, I felt like there

was so little transparency when I was selling my books so that I didn't even know, you know, people saying, you're lucky, this is great. But like, I really had no idea what other people were making. It's even worse in television because like when you're in a writer's room, everyone is making a different amount based on their skill level, but like nobody knows what to ask for. So if you're like a first time writer, you make like a tier one amount and just the range within that room, I was like, this doesn't, this is very confusing and it's hard to know what to what to expect. Yeah, it really is. And I even find it's just it's it's it's hard too because I still think there's so much wrought within it because of that self-worth. So like I've had

the experience where I've shared how much I got for a book dealer, shared my salary with somebody in the hopes that it'll be an empowering conversation. And then they'll be like, oh, I got screwed over and feel really bad about themselves. And like they don't have the same worth when it's just like, by sharing they can hopefully ask for more and get more. I don't know. I think that until you can make money not a part of your self-worth, until you can stick it into the box of being the tool that it is, it's hard to even have those conversations without feelings getting hurt,

which is why I think it's not as open sometimes, because you don't want to be in a writer's room where three of the people there resenting three of the people there because they're like, well, why are you getting so much more money? me when I'm contributing these good ideas and bringing these good ideas to the table because nothing will ever get done. Exactly. And so the people who are in charge of all of us reinforce this kind of secrecy around it. And it's no one talks about it. No one. And I'm like, wait, am I making, am I making good money or not? Is someone going to tell me? Like,

Yeah. Even the people that work for you are very, very vague about it. That's interesting. There's a secret system that you couldn't possibly understand because you're the creative. Anyway, that is a whole separate conversation. You were going to ask a question. Yeah. Let's move on to mental health because you talk about anxiety and depression a lot in the book. And a lot of the listeners of this podcast, I think, have struggled with those things.

because anxiety has sort of been my big struggle of my life. So I think a lot of people who experience that as well are drawn to this podcast. So I'd love for you to talk about your mental health experience throughout your life and then sort of where you are now. Well, I think if anyone was just listening to that rant about money, the anxiety portion of that is obvious. I it wears you down right to constantly be on guard against anxiety or depression to go through life doing the things that everyone else does I have to pick up groceries I have to pay my bills I have to

clean the house but also be monitoring your moods and yourself to to make sure that you're going to be able to carry out these simple functions. I think that I am married to someone who doesn't have to do that kind of self-maintenance every single day and doesn't understand how exhausting it is and doesn't fully understand the range of emotions that I experience and how intense and violence. they can be. And I think part of growing up has been taking responsibility for it and not expecting the person that I'm with to get it necessarily, like, but to provide me an environment where I can take care of myself in safety, which is a kind of caregiving. But it's safe for me to

feel these things and to go there, which I often have to do for my work, let alone just naturally occurring swings. When I was struggling with my mother, we had a very turbulent adolescence that I talk about in stray before she sent me to go live with my father when I was 16 because our relationship had become fairly violent. But for years before that, we'd been struggling. And she sent me to a therapist who recommended that she put me on Paxil. And this isn't in the book because it just doesn't have, it didn't have a place there, but that was a huge fight between us. She really obviously believed in self-medicating. And I think that I fought it because as it reminded me of her, right? Let's take pills, let's drink ourselves into oblivion every single

night. Let's numb ourselves from our life. I also identified myself as a writer, and I thought that it was really important, probably. I guessed that it was important, that I feel my feelings to an extent. And I have never taken antidepressants, but I think about them a lot. I think about them as tools. I think about all the people I know who have medicated for the anxiety and depression that I clearly suffer from and that I were talking about. And I think, I don't know what it would take. The last time I really considered it was postpartum with Julian and then things started to get better and I was like, okay, I'm going to make it through the other side of this. But what about those months where I missed it? I missed the joy and ease of having a newborn. So I have still a complicated

relationship with the idea of that like I'm so much more comfortable popping pills recreationally or self-medicating in a casual way than committing to a life of medication. But I don't know what the answer is. Is that because of like the self-label of like if you take a benz-o occasionally, you are still you just with a benzo occasionally. But like if you're on a long-term thing, you have to reframe your notion of who you are. Maybe, maybe. But, you know, in the book, I'm talking about taking a benz-a-benzo every day for a fucking year.

Like it's not that I I definitely had developed a habit at the point that I'm writing about in Stray to use it to manage my anxiety and in a way that is so much worse than something that's supervised and steady. Yeah. You know, this is a two Xanax day. This is a half a Xanax day. It's been pretty easy so far. Oh, this is half a half a Xanax in a bottle. of wine day. Like that I definitely do not think that I had figured anything out health-wise. I think I think the legacy of my parents has led me to believe that if I am taking something

every single day, I'm not in control. And I think that is what scares. I think you're absolutely right about reframing an identity, which is I have bouts of anxiety and deputies. to I am an XYZ person with a flaw in my brain chemistry that I can't live without this medication. And I, yeah, I don't know if it's in my future or not. I'm definitely so much more open to it now than I would have been when I was younger because there are kids involved. And again, when you said that I earlier that I have a healthy life or a stable life, I really do look at that as a conditional state. And so if I wasn't able to maintain stability for my children, I would be pretty much open to anything.

But so far, I have been. what do you do now instead of popping benzos to kind of stay with your anxiety and your depression and a manageable level? I read in one interview that you do headspace. I do. And then obviously your best friend is the founder of press juicery. So you probably have gotten at least some conversation of vegetables and what you know, what you eat and how that impacts your brain.

So what sort of practices do you do instead of? So I did headspace right before we started talking. I just did a five-minute breath work to get grounded for the interview. I've been answering emails in like my heads a million different places. I do it before bed. I usually try to do a 20 minute in the afternoons. I do it before I start writing. Meditating helps. The other night I was having like a particularly bad vulnerability. hangover, which is a Brune Brown term, but is so apt for what it feels like to, A, write a memoir, B, put it out in the world, and C, talk about it and yourself for weeks on end. I have to go cry. And something that I saw happen at this retreat in Taos, which is called the Antara

retreat and the teacher is Jan Birchfield, is that if you actually, allow your grief to move, your grief and your fear, if you let yourself shake, the wave will pass. It's like when we repress it, it stays, the force of it stays pent up and you're holding it. And you have this sort of vigilance that you have to hold it. And I've just got to keep going. I've got to muscle through my day. Whereas I find if I cry, I'll be okay in 30 minutes. If I really just like sink into it, sink into the self-pity, sink into the fear, the

unsafety, when you first start doing something like that, you think it's never going to stop. And you also think like, who the fuck has 30 minutes to cry every day? But in certain instances, I'm getting better at identifying it. I'm also pregnant. So I've got like crazy hormones right now, which is just like, I need to start crying. the other night my son wouldn't go to bed for an hour and I was alone with him and he was just like refusing to go to bed probably because he knew that his dad was gone and I was just like weeping trying to read good night moon it's like how much psychological damage is doing it doesn't

matter because it's human it's human and I hope the takeaway from that isn't that his mother is unstable, but that she has emotions like a human and they have to move through her sometimes. You know, there's a theory in parts of yoga that literally shaking in your body is necessary. So like animals, when they have a traumatic experience, they'll go off and like shake violently. And then humans used to do that maybe or something like that, but we've repressed it so much. So there's this type of yoga that you'll do where you'll specifically do poses that are just designed to just make your body like shake and shudder as a way of releasing that that trauma in your body, which I think is really interesting. That is also encouraged in this kind of crying that I'm

talking about. It's often people's joints, like their knees or their wrists or their ankles will start shaking when they cry, which we, I'm doing it. This can see me, but I'm shaking my wrist. You do that and you see instability. You see someone that you don't want to. be in close quarters with and so we're deeply ashamed of it but it's the same it's the same instinct as scream therapy or just allowing yourself to moan um we are also conditioned to be polite and silent and composed and have our posture and um be emotionless essentially right that's like strength in business and it's unfortunately causing, I think, a lot of damage for most of us. I can't speak for everyone, but I would say for most of us because those emotions don't go

anywhere, that fear, that pain, that suffering, they just, it sits in you and it manifests itself in really, really self-destructive ways. So I meditate and I cry. a lot and I walk around the house saying I wish I could take a fucking Xanax right now. God, I just want a Xanax. I throw a temper tantrum. And I'll walk or I'll drive. Between like the first pregnancy, all the breastfeeding going right into this pregnancy, it has been a very long time since I had that option. So I don't even know if I mean it. It's just I remember the being like, oh, I can fix it. It is a crazy, like I take clonopin, I would say maybe twice a year at this point.

And I used to take it. There was a period when I was at my height of my agoraphobia where I took it every single day. And it is, I still think it's crazy knowing that this thing exists and remembering what it felt like when it would like dissolve under your tongue and it tastes a little sweet. and then 20 minutes later, you just, I remember, it's just like, is this what the rest of the world feels like? Like my friends who don't experience anxiety. I interviewed one woman for my podcast and it's something that people talk about a lot because she, I was like, oh, if you ever experience anxiety?

And she was like, I think there was one day. And it was just like, okay. So is that what she feels like all the time? It's just this incredible thing to be able to access and then have it taken away or have it be like you can have it, but you have to do all this other little tinkering stuff to get it the rest of the time. You know, you have to work out in the morning and meditate and eat a certain way and take your probiotics and stuff like that. When there is just this little thing, you could stick under your tongue and have it. It's a shortcut. My therapist says all the time. She's like, you're not

adverse to hard work. So do the work. All of that stuff is a shortcut. And, another teacher that I worked with said drugs and substances can let you into the room, but they won't let you stay. And I was like, God, that is what it feels like. When you take a Xanax, when you take mushrooms, when you take ecstasy, when you take heroin, you're like in the room of unconditional love for a second and self-kindness. And you're like, oh my God, I made it. this must be how I'm supposed to feel. I feel free and at ease and loving and compassionate, but they won't let you stay in the room.

So how do you get to the room and stay there? I don't know that I'm going to get there in this lifetime, but I'm trying. I think you well. I think you well. Is there any other sort of like, you know, the wellnessy stuff that you do, like yoga or green smoothies or stuff of that. Totally. I can talk about wellness.

Yes, I love to talk about wellness. It is my not so secret indulgence. And so I've covered the basics of meditation and therapy, which are really boring. And crying. Yeah, and crying, right? These are all very, like, practical things that don't have fun, marketing attached to them. I really like adaptogens. I've had a lot of success with them as far as

as aschaganda helping regulate my cortisol levels. Right before I got pregnant with Julian, because of my fertility issues, I had gone to a homeopathic doctor to get a full workup. I had also just finished filming season one of Sweetbitter and had kind of slept for two months and knew that it wasn't okay. And I was worried about my adrenals and various pH stomach lining things aside because as we're learning, most things reside in our gut. All of that aside, my cortisol levels don't drop. We all wake up with our peak amount of cortisol, which is what gives us a kind of rush to get into the day. And then around 2 p.m., they start lowering, hitting their lowest peak at 8 p.m., allowing us to ideally go to sleep. And without coffee, without taking anything, my cortisol levels don't even start

to drop until 6 p.m. And so it makes sense that so much of my life has been about, like, okay, how do I wind down? How do I wind down for the day? How do I get ready to go to sleep? I talk in the book in high school I suffered from insomnia and would mix NyQuil and Ambien and so much of my life after 12 p.m. was thinking, am I going to be able to sleep tonight? I don't have that problem anymore. That's why you should have a kid to go back to an earlier point. You'll be able to fall asleep whenever you want. I could go fall asleep right now on the floor. So, but knowing that it wasn't in my head that I was actually, that it could be seen in my body by any medical professional was a huge, huge, huge relief. So I find Osphaganda really useful for that. I do think that gut health is probably the secret to a happier, more well-balanced life. And you can't take much when you're pregnant. But I had a whole host. of probiotics, a lot of green juice.

You know, juicing is controversial, and my best friend is the founder of press juicery, and we were very into juicing together for years and years before that. Back when we were kids in New York and making our own green juices in our 20s, weird kids. Really, I really was into colonics. All of that stuff I've kind of fallen off of because of the pregnancies and, not really having access to it. And the other thing that I was really interested in was microdosing mushrooms as an alternative to antidepressants. Did you try that?

Yes, I've tried several times. I quit, I think before I could give a truly informed opinion, but I really do believe in hallucinogens as a source. as a medicine. I do. I believe in plant medicine. And I have read, you know, Michael Pollan has that book out. And there's that I let Waldman book as well. And I had done a lot of reading around it before I tried it myself. And I tried it for like two weeks. And then I was like, this is weird. Some days I get high, which you definitely don't is not the point at all. And I can't, I can't if it's working. Like I would still be interested in something like that later in life. I like wasn't disciplined enough and was in and out of it. And the days where I, because I was doing it myself,

I wasn't doing encapsulated mushrooms. I was grinding them and taking what I thought was the same amount every day. But some days I would be, or you don't take it every day. You take it every three days. But some days I would be like sitting at my desk, you know, typing. And I'd be like, I'm on mushrooms. I've made a mistake. And after two, after two weeks, I was like, I need to stop again. And then I tried another week. Yeah, I'm open. You know, once I get these kids like settled into elementary school and I'm pretty much done parenting, parenting them, I'll be back. Okay, I have a few questions that I ask everybody and I'm excited to ask you them. The first one is, what do you think is the best way to spend 20 minutes every day in terms of living a healthier or happier life?

Meditating, hands down. And do you think that like doing it with an app like Headspace is the best way for you that you found or have you tried other types of meditation like TM or? I haven't tried TM. I'm totally open to it. I was just talking to the writer Danny Shapiro, who is an active meditator as well. And she uses incite timer. You know, someone like Carly doesn't need my friend from the book doesn't need anything. She just sits in the corner of her room and can meditate for an hour. 20 minutes is really, really, really hard. I mean, I should also take a nap, right? Like a 20 minute nap is kind of perfect as well, but if a nap is not a possibility

for you, I think that just the breathing alone is worth its weight. Have you? Have you? Have you you ever been somewhere in the world and thought the people here really got it right in terms of living a good or a healthy or a happy life? And if so, where was it? What a question. You know, sometimes I feel that about when I'm in Ohio, which is like not that far from Los Angeles. It's an hour and a half away, but it's this gorgeous valley. And it's not necessarily, it's totally, it's totally, corrupt in all of the ways that you expect and that there's wealth, but there's a quality of life in escaping the city that I really admire. But the first place, the more extreme version of that is when I was finishing sweet bitter, I was staying in a small island in Greece called Fulogondros

that it was the off-season and I was alone traveling and I was staying in a hostel and there only really the fishermen and the locals of the island around. And I thought that I think the smallness of their life, and I don't mean small in a pejorative way, but that there is no ambition that couldn't be achieved on that island. And I envy that. It's one of the reasons I ask the question is because I'm fascinated by the idea of who I would be if I lived on that Greek island and who I would be if I lived in California or Japan or any of that. And I do, I think there's something interesting. Like I know that ambition is my fatal flaw and it's the thing that I will beat myself up over forever. And I do like wonder if I move to that Greek

island, would that balance that and go away or I don't know. I think it's interesting, an interesting question. You should move there. Yeah. Absolutely, though. You should move there. I mean, I ask myself that more often about the Ohio or like these small towns adjacent to big cities.

I've just been living in a city for such a long time and I'm not sure that it's the healthiest place. I don't know how you feel about it. Have you been to that naked hot springs in Ohio? No, but my husband has. it's like that was one of, I just went to Ohio for the first time in January after hearing about it for years and years and years and I loved it and sitting in the hot springs. It's a hot spring along a river and we went at sunset and it was just like, I don't know if I felt calm like that and also a sense of freedom because it is a nude hot springs and pretty much everybody is naked and it's older people naked and younger people naked and it's just this this disinterest and. what your body looks like and a deep interest in how you feel and the nature around you. And I'm not sure I felt like that in years. Yeah. I mean, that's really lovely. That sums it up. You can't, again,

the hot springs, the jacuzzi thing is I used to go to the Korean spa a lot. Like once a week. I was, I'm devoted Korean spa woman, but can't do it when you're pregnant. They take everything. I hear someday that you won't be pregnant, though. So you have that to look forward. I actually don't believe that. I've been pregnant for about 10 years, and I think that I'm going to die in the state. What's something that you've bought that's made your life healthier or happier? These Bose headphones. Bowes, if you're listening, please sponsor me. I love these headphones. They're amazing. I actually think that Bo's, so I am also wearing Bow's headphones. And I bought them because I was so afraid of flying.

And I eventually just took the plunge. And they have changed my experience flying because you don't realize how much background noise there is on a plane. And when you can eliminate that, it just takes your cortisol levels and just this like attention that you have down to a manageable level. They've changed my life. You took the words out of my mouth. I made the world's worst flyer.

and these have changed the experience of flying. Even now when we fly with Julian for takeoff until we're really stable, Matt has the child and I sit there with my headphones, Dewey, I listen to music, I do my breathing, and I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear the wheels come up. I don't want to hear the bang. Like, I don't want to hear the engines slow down as we reach a certain altitude.

like, oh, God, I cannot stand it. Same. Yeah. It's their game changers. Even for New York City, like, you just don't realize how much energy noise sucks from you, constant noise. And I think living in cities, we don't think that that's happening, but it's happening all the time.

And I think that's true of a plane too. I think it's one of the reasons people feel depleted after they've traveled. And they're just like, I've sat in a chair all day. Why am I so tired? And it's, I think part of it is that it's this constant noise and stimulus. and your body doesn't quite know how to handle that. The last time I was in New York was in February, and the sirens, I was like, did I live like this?

And I've heard that since quarantine, it's been constant in certain neighborhoods. The sirens have. Yeah, it's interesting. We lost the construction, which was actually such, you don't realize how much construction there is in New York until it stops. But we have sirens all the time now. So I think there's been a few in this episode. So people have probably heard them.

Yeah. It's very constant. Do you feel successful? And if so, when did that start for you? I don't. Not yet. So the future is what that started for you. Is there something in your mind that you have as a pinnacle of when you would feel successful?

Yeah. Yeah, when I let go of this feeling that I'm chasing a sense of security. Like, I don't think I'm going to reach the sense of security that I'm constantly chasing. It's when I let go and when I surrender, I will be successful. Because I already have the things. Like, everything's in place, right? I always say that winning the lottery wasn't sweet bitter success. It was just getting to be a writer. Like, unimaginable to me that five years ago, I was trying to sell this book and alone and desperate.

And like, so nothing's going to happen in my life that is going to give me that feeling if I haven't had it already. But it's a surrender, I think, that is coming. All right. Last question. What mistake in your life have you learned from the most? And then what's something that you really got right? I used to think that I had impeccable judgment of people. And I don't. I just am quick to follow my instincts. And so I, um, I have fallen for people, and I'm not talking just about romantically, I'm talking about professionally. I've fallen for people who did not have my best interests at heart, and I think that that was at the heart of Sweet Better actually, that she's 22 and she falls in love with a world and with a group of people who she believes have her best interests at heart and don't. And so I hate the way this sounds. So I'm going to try to qualify it.

I'm more careful now. And I never want to be hardened or cynical about it. But in my professional life, I'm much more careful at second guessing my initial judgments. And then what was the second part of that question? What's something you really got right? What did you nail? My God. My friend.

my friends my husband i like i think that what separates me from becoming my parents is my friend family and i just treasure them and try to show them how much i love them they hold me to the ground and i think as much as yeah go ahead do you think you just got like a lot of your friends are from high school like your best friends aren't they or do you do you think they're a secret to developing a friend and family because I think so many people want that, especially if they don't have as much of a family family, but even if they do, is there something that you did to make that possible for yourself? I think in the case of my friends, we all suffered a fair amount of loss in our 20s. I reference it in stray, but Carly lost her mom when we were 25. Alex lost both of her parents

at 28 and 29. And I, in a way, lost my parents when I was 21, which was the year of my mom's aneurysm and of my dad's addiction coming to life and ruining his life and sending him into the dark places that he's gone. And so I think there's a lot of work that you can do insofar as you can make sure to be accountable to people. And my de facto state before I met these people was just like, if you're not in front of me, I'm not maintaining relationships with you

because there's just been so much abandonment. That was like exactly how I dealt with everyone in my life. And I remember Carly writing me one summer and I like hadn't talked to her in two months. and she was living in L.A. and I was living in New York. And she was like, you can't do this. I'm not going to let you run away. You're an escape artist. And I think about that all the time. Now I can't imagine going a day without texting her. But at that point in my life, it was really unfamiliar to me to build these long-term relationships. And so I think that the answer is, There's luck, and I think the people we meet when we're younger, if we can keep them, that love is so unconditional in that they've seen you through your worst phases.

But then there's also the work of friendship, which is Carly had a child when she was 26, and none of us understood it. And she was doing it all alone. And I remember asking myself, like, what can I do to make sure I'm a part of her life? Like, I can't imagine having a child. We're all still taking ecstasy if we feel like it. And it was about flying to L.A., spending time with her new husband, spending time with her family, asking questions, like mom questions that I didn't, I mean, I couldn't have understood. Yeah, just work.

Well, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today. Oh, my God. This was so lovely. This was really, really wonderful. I cannot believe the flying and the money anxiety, we are anxiety twins. We're anxiety twins, super. Yeah, sorry. I hope you love this episode with Stephanie Danler.

I absolutely love her. I think she's so wise and insightful and open. And I just love people who are willing to really go. there in a conversation and get to the meaty stuff. And she flew past that bar times like a million, trillion, billion. So if you love this conversation, please share it with a friend who you think might enjoy this podcast. So many of you message me on Instagram and tell me about all the people you shared the

podcast with. And that's really the thing that helps the podcast grow more than anything else. So I can continue to bring on these wonderful, amazing guests to have these conversations with and share with all of you. I'd also love to hear your thoughts and reactions on Instagram so we can continue the conversation. Please tag me. I'm at Liz Moody. Tag Stephanie. She's at SM Danler. We would both love to continue the conversation over there. And then as always, I'm going to ask you to leave a podcast review. If you haven't done so yet, if you have, I'm infinitely appreciative. Thank you so

much. If you haven't, it takes two seconds, totally free. A great way to support creators. Just go to iTunes or whatever platform that you listen on and give a quick rating and review. It is so, so appreciated. All right. That is all for me. I hope you You have a lovely and wonderful day, and I will see you on the next episode of the healthier together podcast. When you think about strength and resilience, like your ability to feel energized, to recover well, to stay strong as you get older, what do you think that actually comes from? Most people say working out are good nutrition, and yes, of course that matters.

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