I’m exploring how we feel and think when we’re fantasizing about the lives that we know we won’t ever have. Real grief and loss are a part of life, and even if both your reality and fantasy are rich, meaningful, and challenging experiences you could have, both aren’t possible. That’s why it’s vital to give yourself space to grieve the lives you haven’t or won’t ever live.
My guest this week is an expert on both self-care and women’s mental health, so her insight on this topic is invaluable. Dr. Pooja Lakshmin is a psychiatrist who specializes in helping high-achieving women who appear to have it all together stop struggling internally. She’s a NY Times Contributor and she recently wrote a powerful new book, Real Self-Care: A Transformative Program for Redefining Wellness (Crystals, Cleanses, and Bubble Baths Not Included).
Second-guessing is something many of us do all the time. It’s so subtle and pervasive in ways we don’t even recognize, and it’s not just some minor mental tick we don’t have to worry about. Second-guessing becomes a way of life for people socialized as women, and the truth is it’s impacting more areas of your life than you might think.
Something I see in myself, my clients, and the online world in general is this sneaky sense of perfectionism around healing or wellness modalities. Whether it’s thought work, therapy, or somatic work, just to name a few, all of these tools can be used in ways to enhance our experience. However, we can also use these modalities to get out of having the human experience, and this is what I’m calling Wellness Perfectionism.
Tori walks us through why financial education is the best form of protest as a member of a marginalized group. You’ll hear why you hurt yourself the most when you choose not to participate in creating wealth, the gendered messaging we receive about money, and why you need to start investing right now.
The main question I’m addressing this week is one we’ve been drafting an explanation for in The Society because it comes up so often. The question is, “Is everything that happens our fault because of our thinking?”