Hello! Welcome to episode 106 of I’d Rather Stay In. This week, we are kicking off our very first IRSI Book Club with a discussion of Tired as F*ck by Caroline Dooner.

Quick links

• Tired as F*ck by Caroline Dooner
• The F*ck It Diet by Caroline Dooner
• Maintenance Phase eating disorders episode

Episode transcript

Megan
Welcome to I’d rather stay in with your hosts Megan Myers and Stephie Predmore. This week we are doing our first ever book club and discussing the book. Tired as fuck. Stay tuned.

Stephie
Do you love listening to I’d rather stay in and want to support the podcast? Well now you can visit our website or the link in our Instagram profile and click Buy me a coffee or visit buymeacoffee.com/irsipodcast for the price of a cup of coffee, you can help us cover the costs of creating this podcast. There are no monthly memberships and you could support us at whatever level you like whenever you like. Whether you buy us one coffee, many coffees or simply continue listening as always, we’re so grateful for your support

Unknown Speaker
Hello, hello. How are ya? I am good.

Stephie
Good. Think about it.

Megan
I wasn’t say tired, but that sounds weird. Given the topic that we’re talking about today. The thing it’s only gonna I’m only tired because it’s like morning. Yes. And I have not drunk a full cup of coffee yet. So, but I was telling you the other day that I’ve been taking multivitamins like an old lady,

Stephie
and I’ve actually been taking the old lady multivitamins too.

Megan
Okay, so I went to the store to buy these multivitamins I went to I went to Walgreens like a place where you would expect to have a large selection of vitamins aisle just a multivitamin. Yes, apparently that is not the case anymore. They have a full of like things but they’re not all multivitamins.

Stephie
Oh, some of them are like individual vitamins.

Megan
Most of them are individual vitamins. And so I needed to find a multivitamin multivitamin that had B 12 and iron. And apparently there is one malt that Walgreens carries that has it which is the alive. That always makes me think of like, I don’t know, like 65 year old women puttering around in her garden, which I will be, but I’m not that old yet.

Stephie
Right. I’m doing water aerobics.

Megan
Although, water aerobics sounds way better than regular aerobics. I mean, yes. Um, and so I bought them and I’ve been taking them. And I have to say I’ve been feeling a lot better since taking multivitamins. So that’s my plug to take some vitamins. I try

Stephie
and doesn’t really matter what multivitamin I get. They like make me super nauseous even if I eat breakfast, so I just stopped. But I also blood worked out a lot and my doctors never like my vitamin D levels are what tend to get low, but he hasn’t been like you are about to fall apart because you have not been taking a multivitamin, so I’m just gonna ride the wave until my doctor was like, I think you’re falling apart.

Megan
Yes, my doctor back in Texas was always like, she wasn’t saying that. I should take a multivitamin. But she was like, You should take vitamin D and calcium. Calcium, mostly because you’re a lady and apparently, if you’re a woman, your bones just

Stephie
fall apart. I don’t themselves or something. It’s very

Megan
I don’t know why it’s only women and men do not seem to have this. Oh, no, I

Stephie
don’t know why that is like the Yeah, so osteoporosis. Something something. I don’t know.

Megan
Sally Field really wants me to take Boniva. I don’t know. Um, but yeah, so try vitamins.

Stephie
They might work. Wow, you’re such a lime spokesperson. Good job again.

Megan
I’m sure there are other multivitamins. I mean, I almost bought a prenatal because you can take prenatals if you’re not pregnant, it’s fine. Don’t do anything to they won’t do anything that you’re pregnant. Yes. And also, they’re amazing. Because they have everything you need in them, obviously for growing a baby so they’re fine for yourself. Yeah. Also, I think most people think that if you take I don’t know what they think you’ve take prenatals you’ll like explode or something. But because a lot of those vitamins have like you know more than 100% of your daily value. Yes, nonsense or whatever. But you basically just pee out whatever you don’t mean.

Stephie
Yes.

Megan
As with food, exactly. Just expel it. Your body expels it. Yes. So don’t worry about it.

Stephie
Yeah, so there’s there’s our multivitamin plug for the day right

Megan
if you’re tired take Melissa

Stephie
So speaking of tired Megan, we we both read this book Tired as F*ck by Caroline Dooner. I’m going to talk about it. Yay. Um, you found this and you I think you Instagram sent me this For a message you saw that was coming out, and I was like, Oh, hey, we should do this as a podcast book

Megan
club. Yeah. So

Stephie
here we are. It’s exciting Several weeks later. I’m so Caroline dooner. If you guys are not familiar, she started the Fuckit diet. And there’s a book called The Fuckit diet, there’s a website called The Fuckit diet. That’s her Instagram handle. So like, that’s kind of what she’s originally known for. And then she wrote this book, apparently, during the pandemic, as she actually like references a couple times towards the end of the book. Um, and this is a little bit less to like, my understanding of the fuck it diet is that it is a little bit more of a self help book, and more of a guide to like, living the Fuckit diet life. Versus this book is a little bit more of a memoir, less self help, like, has some hints of advice, but it’s not like, here’s steps one through five. be tired. It’s much more Yeah, it’s much more of a memoir, with some extra nuggets thrown in. Would you feel that is a apt description?

Megan
Yeah, I would agree. And I actually follow her on Instagram now. And she was asking her followers if they had read the first book. Um, and if they had read, like, once the like, people started reading the second book, they asked to put out a poll, same teacher read this one. Did you read the first one? Have you read both of you read none. And so she was trying to see like, if people who had read both books, like if it was okay, that you hadn’t read the first book to read the second book, and a few people were like, actually, I think you should read this book. First. Oh, which makes it doesn’t make sense to me. I have not read the first book. But like this book, kind of like it talks about Fuckit diet a bit. And so it kind of lays the groundwork for like, your understanding of like, how she got there, I believe. And so that way, if you do decide to go to that other book, that one, like it’s like, more of a natural progression, even though they came out in opposite order.

Stephie
Yeah, that makes total sense. Yeah. Cuz this book talks. I mean, it’s very much. Yeah, like you said, lays the groundwork for how she got to the point in her life of creating the Fuckit diet. So yeah, it makes sense that that might be something where I mean, especially if people I would say like, maybe if you’re if you’ve read, like tired as fuck, and maybe you don’t, it’s not even been on your radar, that maybe the Fuckit diet is something that you might need in your life, that this book might help. Like, kind of bring that forward in your mind. So yeah, actually could see how reading them in like the quote, like opposite order, would work. So okay, Megan, give us can you give us a synopsis of this book?

Megan
I mean, it is like her whole life. It is like her whole life. It’s, well, first thing I want to say one thing before we like really dive in, I wanted to say that I really appreciated that in multiple points. Through the book, she addresses her privilege. Yes, I was gonna say the same thing. Because I know a lot of people like if you’ve read self help books, or like essays by famous people, or what have you, like, especially in the light of the fucking Kim Kardashian quote, that came out recently about how people need to work harder and nonsense. Um, the fact that she like, admits like her parents helped her a lot. Her parents like really took care of her. She is a thin white woman. And all these things contributed to the way that she was able to handle what happened to her. It’s really appreciated that she like addresses that multiple times throughout the book and is like, Look, you guys like, I recognize that I have this privilege. Yeah. But I also thought it was interesting that while she is addressing all of this, and she’s saying she has all this privilege. She’s also at the same time being like, look, I have all this privilege and still write all of this nonsense, right? So I just really wanted to, like, make sure that like, we are aware, she’s a thin white woman. And so she

Stephie
Yeah, she’s very, she’s very aware of it. She’s very, she talks a lot about it. She’s specifically at the end of the book, which we’ll talk about a little bit and dive even deeper into like societal things that contribute to just being fucking exhausted and talks about things that like, may or may not be applicable to like her life, but that she like, acknowledges are things that are sometimes impossible to change. And yeah, I also very much appreciated that and noted that for myself when I was reading it, so

Megan
yeah, So basically it takes us through like, mainly all of the reasons like why she is tired from like her early childhood, all the way to, you know, last year basically, when she finished the book took us through, like elementary school, middle school, high school, college, like the whole gamut and like, outlines, all the little tiny things I like, compounded in her life that eventually led up to the point where she was like, I need to rest for two years.

Stephie
Yes, yeah. And she, she, you know, really starts off like she just started off like when she’s very young. And, and she when she was very young, she was diagnosed with PCOS. And by very young, I mean, like when she was a teenager, which is really uncommon. Most of the time when people are diagnosed with PCOS. It’s not until they are like full acido adults, and they’re like trying to get pregnant and then they’re you can’t go you have PCOS. So being diagnosed as a teenager is really unusual. And like that is what really started her obsession with dieting. You know, she was a performer and a singer and an actress and, you know, had this pressure to look a very specific way to get the roles that she wanted. And she just ended up doing this. Like she literally walked through every single like fad diet that she did, which was impressive to me that she remembered all of that because it was a lot of fad diets.

Megan
It was a lot of fad diets. Yeah, there were a lot of like when she started to get in, like, Oh, my fruitarian like, literally,

Stephie
literally, and you know, so she spends her whole life going on and off these diets. And her weight is yo yoing. And she’s like, trying to like cure her PCOS. And also, she’s in the process. She’s developing disordered eating patterns. And she’s also dealing with like, all of these other things in her life, that are really traumatic and stressful. And she thinks that she needs to look a certain way. And she convinces her mom to let her get a nose job when she’s 16. And there’s just like, all of these things that happen. And you know, what was really interesting to me. And I actually I marked it in here. Um, so, you know, she talks about pretty early in the book, she’s talking about her PCOS and it’s in the Chapter How to focus on the wrong cure. So she’s talking about PCOS and that the the typical treatment is to really like hyper focus on the weight loss and and diet because their PCOS is connected to insulin resistance. But, like, Should what she talks about is that like, okay, so people doctors often talk about, okay, well, you need to go on these diets, because PCOS is connected to insulin resistance. But and you know, they’re actually discovering that like cycles of dieting can actually make insulin resistance and therefore, your PCOS symptoms worse. And that no one throughout any of this was addressing her stress levels, like they were all so focused on what she was eating, and what diet she was on. And no one was talking about like resting and stress, which actually exacerbate the symptoms of PCOS more than the actual like food diet regimen. And I noticed this and I literally like marked in here I wrote, you see, because this is my experience with ulcerative colitis. Like obviously, ulcerative colitis is a digestive disease. So yes, like diet plays a role and a lot of people with ulcerative colitis, and also Crohn’s will have like trigger foods. So, for me, I have a big problem with like really processed foods, I eat a lot of really processed foods, then that will make my USY worse. And for some people, it’s dairy. For some people, it’s gluten, but like, the reason I wrote this down is because when I was diagnosed like pretty early on after being diagnosed, people were coming out of the woodwork to be like, Well, did you try Have you tried this diet? Have you tried cutting this out? Have you tried this thing like, as like, as if it was going to be a miracle cure? Instead of actually addressing my stress levels, which is way more closely tied to my UC flares, like my ulcerative colitis is directly related to my stress levels, when my stress levels are through the roof, I flare, this is like a proven thing. It’s proven across the board for so many people. And yet, there are so many people that were like, well just maybe try this special diet and cutting out all of these things and eating only, I don’t know, fucking cauliflower. That that will just cure it, like completely ignoring the role of stress and the disease. And so it was so interesting to me to see her have obviously a completely different diagnosis and a completely different, like, path to getting there. And yet hearing from people in her life, and also some medical professionals, a lot of the same shit that I was hearing that I experienced.

Megan
Yeah, I think it’s, it’s partially like a you were in college when you are diagnosed. But she was in high school. And I think one of the things for her, especially is that people just assume that if you’re in high school, like you’re not stressed, right, like it’s a competition or like, Well, how could like, especially right now working for are really like something will go bad. We were talking about this during our toxic positivity thing we’re like, just because there’s like war happening doesn’t mean things can’t be bad in your life, right? They’re different. So it’s the same thing with that where she like, was stressed in high school. And so people probably dismissed it. Because of that. And I think, especially when they’re like, Well, you know, you need to lose weight. So must be a direct thing. I highlighted some things. And one of the things that I noticed that she I totally identify with, in here is that she says, most of all, I want to be beautiful, because that is what our culture told me was the most important thing for a woman to be beautiful. And then later on the same page says, she says, We equate weight with character and morality and personal responsibility, because we see our bodies as simple and straightforward project without understanding all the nuance that goes into our relationship with food and all the factors that affect our weight. Yes, yes,

Stephie
I have the same section marked. Particularly like, Well, I think I talked I think maybe I talked about this in the toxic positivity so to have, there are so many things that we equate with morality that have nothing to do with morality. Yes, like keeping your house clean, being fat, like just maybe not being good at doing your hair or your mate, like, these are all things that for some reason, we’re like, well, they’re not a good person, right? Has nothing to fucking deal with that they’re not moral things,

Megan
right? Because especially because it just depends on what kind of a person what kind of a person using air quotes you are in terms of how that is assigned to you morality and morality wise, because if a skinny person eats a bunch of French fries and pizza, they’re like treating themselves. Yeah, no, I’m not. And if a fat person eats a Salah, they’re like, Well, you know, that’s what you need to be eating right? And you can’t eat pizza because you’re fat.

Stephie
Right? Like, we look, right? Like we even like a skinny person. And a fat person could be at lunch together. And they could both order a Diet Coke. And their server is probably going to look at them different ways for ordering a Diet Coke. Yeah, it’s 100% 100%. So yeah, I just she talks a little bit more about the morality issue later towards the end of the book as well. And I think I marked it there to like this idea and I don’t know that I had ever really thought about it this way until recently like that we are looking at so many of these things in terms of morality, but it really is how it that is really what it is.

Megan
Yeah, and even in the introduction, she mentions like it’s still the same thing in terms of morality because we she’s talking about exhaustion and burnout and how society in general only views people who are tired and burnt out and exhausted as weak people Yeah. Which is not the case.

Stephie
Right? But also if you rest you’re lazy. Yes.

Megan
So lazy.

Stephie
so lazy. Are you to try to take care of your body.

Megan
Yes, I’m lazy them

Stephie
yeah, I’m the also I also I’ve marked here where she’s talking about like just all the ways that we like numb ourselves. Because she talks about like, literally anything can be used to Like escape and distract, so you can use any of those things. And because it she didn’t understand how to like actually take care of herself. Like she didn’t understand that things like actually having downtime in therapy, just being kinder to herself and actually eating more food were all things that she truly needed, not just like hashtag self care, but like literally things that her body needed. And so instead she was, you know, she turned to things like alcohol and you know, this like diet binging cycle, and like all of these other things. At one point, she like turns to Twilight, she like it’s really, Twilight, I particularly enjoyed that that part. She drank a lot of Chardonnay and watched a lot of Twilight. And in one particular chapter of this book, and I texted Megan, I was like, please enjoy that. And the other thing, I also like, she also mentioned multiple times, you know, this obsession, our culture’s obsession with beauty. And she is very specific to mention that the obsession with beauty is an obsession with white beauty and white beauty standards. And I again, like similar to how we appreciate it, that she talks about her privilege. I appreciated that she called that out multiple times. And, you know, talks about, you know, she mentioned, some other authors and researchers that have talked about, like, how the beauty of whiteness is social capital. And that, you know, there’s so many other ways to think of beauty versus this, like, a Eurocentric thin, white beauty standards that we’ve set in our society. So I did really like that she talks and mentions that.

Megan
Yeah, and she talks about how we would definitely turn this weird corner in terms of how we talk about bodies, and everything’s about like, body positivity, and everybody’s beautiful. But yet, we still only reward that same says white beauty standard, even though we’re supposedly accepting of everyone now. And also, it’s interesting, because I’ve also seen lately among a lot of, I don’t want to say it, like, fat influencers sounds like the wrong term. And I don’t think that’s the right term. But people are not necessarily not necessarily body positivity movement people, but they are speaking out about how like, basically, the body positive, I think is yeah, the body has do any movement has been, like, taken away, not taken away, but like it has been co opted itself into something that is, like deformed and right still makes people feel bad. Because now like if you’re not doing it the right the right way, right, basically, like everything has to be done the right way. Because humans are garbage, basically. So it’s, I think there’s just this huge problematic thing, in general that I don’t know that will ever be fixed. But I appreciate when people address the problems.

Stephie
Yes. And the other. One of the other person I mentioned I noted here, is that the she says the obsession with beauty and Lux is not only the burden of women, at least not anymore, men compare themselves to impossible standards to and because of that disordered eating is getting a rebrand. Now that more men are jumping on the bandwagon. When men do it. It’s called biohacking. It’s science, mastery, by treating your body like a piece of tech that needs to be updated to the newest operating system. But it’s really just disordered eating is bad for us. Whichever way you slice, it harms our brains and it harms our relationship with ourselves. Like, oh, my god, the bio hacking.

Megan
Yeah, and that same page. She also mentions, like, women gaining more power in society has resulted in men becoming more obsessed with their looks, because they know that looks are directly related to power. Yes. And men want that power back.

Stephie
Yes. So depressing. It’s really, um, I want to touch on. She talks a lot about trauma. And she actually does take a few minutes just like talk about trauma, which I appreciate it as a traumatized human. And she mentioned that, you know, a lot of us think that trauma is really just like, the really truly horrible things that you know, we hear about is really, you know, horrible car crashes and attacks and Just you know, like really just graphic, like violent things, more all of these things. And yes, those things are traumatic. But that trauma is less about, like what happened to your body and more about how your body processed or did not process it, which I thought was a really great synopsis. Like just overview of really what trauma is. So like, literally anything can be trauma for her. She had all of these surgeries on her mouth, you know, throughout her teenage preteen and teenage years, and can be like, OH, Oral Surgery, like whatever. But for her, like, they ended up being really traumatic experiences. And so she had all of this, like medical trauma. And so I think that, you know, again, like, we often think, Well, that wasn’t, that’s not super traumatic. I don’t know why I’m really struggling with that. And it’s because there’s something about it that your body has not process. So just because it wasn’t like you weren’t a soldier at war doesn’t mean that you didn’t experience trauma. It just means that your body isn’t processing something in the way that it needs to or should be. There’s nothing wrong with that. But it also means that you should probably do some inner work to work on it.

Megan
Also, that sounds horrifying, like her teeth were literally falling out of our mouth.

Stephie
Yes. I know. It’s funny to me, because like when she was talking about like all of her oral surgeries, and then she’s like, a lot of people would probably wouldn’t find that traumatic. I was like reading about this as Loki. I

Megan
mean, that is one of the most common dreams that people have is nightmares about their teeth falling out. And I could see maybe one hand where people would be like dismissing Oh, it’s oral surgery, whatever, get over it. But for her, it’s like never ended. And then she was like a week for most of it. Yes. Which was.

Stephie
I had, I had a couple of oral surgeries. And I was put under Twilight sedation for like the first one. And I woke up in the middle of it. And like, they the doctor tried to tell my mother that like I was making it up. My mom’s like, why would she make that up? Right? I it was really upsetting. I was like in eighth grade, it was really upset. So like her talking about I was like, of course that’s traumatic. Horrible. So yeah, Caroline, it was traumatic. It was really traumatic, because we absolutely understand. Yeah, I know. I know. I know. I know. I’m a C digital.

Megan
I think one thing she mentioned that trauma is so interesting, cuz like a lot of stuff in the in the introduction. I was like, Whoa, like my, I could tell already that I was gonna like the beginning. But she mentions, when she’s talking about trauma and eating disorders and everything, she mentions how food security is like, yeah, one of the things that really triggers people on canons of eating disorders, because in eating that a lot of the reason why people turn to eating disorders is because they need something they can control in their life. It’s not simply a matter of I want to keep thin. And so it’s obviously it depends on which variety of eating disorder you have. But a lot of it stems from control. And if you grew up in a food insecure household, or if you are still food insecure, being able to control that situation, is something that you can handle. And it particularly hits hard among marginalized communities. And yet they are also the same people who are not treated for eating disorders, because because they’re marginalized community, right.

Stephie
And so it’s funny that you said that because I was literally about to mention God and we have the same brain. I was literally so that was in chapter that was like one of the early chapters to become obsessed with food. And then in a summer, toward the middle of the book, I’m in how to not know you have an eating disorder. And she talks specifically about how you know, she spoke with a registered dietician who specializes in eating disorders and is the only black dietitian in the Dallas, Texas area. And you know, about the fact that there just are not enough specialized eating disorder, treatment providers, and quote that hold the same marginalization as the people they provide life saving services to. Clients oftentimes do not feel safe to show up their full selves. Plainly, our culture and medical field have a weight stigma problem and a systemic racism problem. She said, in order to accurately treat and prevent eating disorders and people of color, we must understand the ways that white supremacy and anti blackness show up through every stage of the treatment process. So Yeah, like not only does food insecurity affects communities of color and other marginalized peoples, we then don’t have the systems in place to help them overcome the eating disorders that come as a result of that. Yeah. Yay, tough shit, guys. It’s a fucked up shit. We don’t have the you know, the mental health providers, we don’t have the dieticians we don’t have the eating disorder treatment facilities where they feel safe to be, you know, truly themselves like, I mean, I have never experienced an eating disorder. But I can imagine that if you are going to like truly go into recovery from disordered eating, or an eating disorder that like you need to be able to truly feel like you can show up fully yourself and you can’t show up fully yourself. I don’t know that you could fully recover. So there’s a cycle there.

Megan
Yeah. And the the other issue there too, is that generally, people who have eating disorders only get diagnosed with eating disorders, if you are, you know, the 80 pound anorexic, right. And spoiler alert, there are many kinds of eating disorders for people of all shapes and sizes. And

Stephie
one of our favorite podcasts all the fucking time maintenance phase has a podcast episode about this. So while Caroline also talks about it in this book, maintenance phase has a whole episode on eating disorders and talking about the stigma that prevents so many people who are not, you know, emaciated from being diagnosed or treated for their eating disorders, in fact, so often, like, their eating disorders are almost encouraged by medical providers. Like what you have to lose weight. Yeah, it takes to lose weight. Yes. So yeah, especially, it’s a great resource if you’re interested in learning more.

Megan
Yeah. So let’s talk about the more like burnout it. Yes. tiredness,

Stephie
because once we get to like the halfway point, yeah, it’s like she talks a lot about like her disordered eating, thriving throughout the book. But once you hit the halfway point that she really starts to dig into her exhaustion. And just all of the burnout that she was experiencing, because that’s about the point where she graduates and also where she really starts to admit, you know, okay, I’ve been an actress and a singer since I was a little kid. Like she was encouraged to, like, stand on the coffee table and sing songs to everybody at Christmas, like as a toddler, right? And so she’s literally never not been performing. Right, about the halfway point in the book is when she finally admits like, I hate auditioning. So stressful. I really, really hate it. I just, it’s absolutely horrible. Like, I enjoy being onstage, but the auditioning process is so terrible. And that’s when you kind of start to see the cracks form and like her maybe thinking like, my career, and the thing that I built my entire life around might really be the thing that’s like, breaking me down.

Megan
Yeah. And I think one of like, one of her key like, transition points is when she goes to school in Dublin. Yeah. And she reads a book called A New Earth by Eckhart. I don’t know if it’s Eckhart toll or totally number either way, either way, pick one. Um, and so she had been reading, obviously, she read all those diet books, and she was reading self help books. So she read this one. And she said that he makes a very important point. And it’s that we are not our thoughts. And our thoughts make us miserable. Our thoughts happen, but they are not us. And they are not necessarily true. And we experience a lot of misery by identifying with our thoughts what he calls our egos. So being able to just notice that our thoughts are happening, and they are not us. It’s a really important habit. I was like, my mind blown.

Stephie
Yeah, this is like this is I talk about this so much with my therapist of like, okay, like this is so much a part of mindfulness practice of okay, you have these, like, it’s somewhat self destructive thought. Like, you can notice the thought and just be like, and there’s that thought. I’m like, let it float on by.

Megan
I think it’s interesting that we are so easily accepting of like, the crazy shit we dream about at night. Yeah. Which clearly is not, I don’t know where it comes from what it is, but like, clearly those are not really your thoughts, right? We’re very accepting of what happens in a dream. But if you have a random thought, while you’re awake, it’s immediately like blown into whatever. Yeah, because you’re awake. So therefore, it must be a real thing that you need to address immediately,

Stephie
right? We take this, like, we take this, like, imposed morality that we put on all of these other things in life, and like, we put them on our thoughts. And so like, oh, well, that and then you spiral out and you think all these terrible things about yourself or like, whatever instead of like, noticing your thought, and then oh, there goes, Yeah, off like a little balloon. That’s what I was thinking. I thought about that, when I read that passage, too. I mean, she, she also like, notes that some of the rest of the book did not work for her, you know, this one, right? It works and leave the rest. But for her like that, that particular idea was really important for her.

Megan
She also notes after she’s decided, I’m going to not act, I’m gonna just get a regular old, like, boring job. And just do that and just kind of live, which I really resonated with. And when I went to the post office yesterday, I was like, the post office is hiring. Maybe I should go work at the post office. And I’m like, What am I doing? Like, that sounds like a really boring, like, mundane. I just go through my day kind of job. Like, no, I don’t very distracted. But um, I thought it was interesting that she’s like, she took this job, like, no aspirations, like just gonna do this job. And it’s fine. And it’s a real like, hard thing for people to get their mind around. Because as she notes like, millennials and like, like the later end of Gen X, which is what I am, like, we have this pressure to be super successful. Because of Instagram, yeah. And other social medias basically. But we’re like, constantly comparing ourselves to people who are successful. And she makes us really important point in that just being alive is enough. And it’s okay to just be an average person, like, not everybody. Not all of the 8 billion people on this planet are going to be remarkable and amazing and super famous, like, you can just be a person. Yes. And just the fact that you are a person. Like, that’s pretty fucking amazing. Like, you could be a butterfly who has a lifespan of a month like

Stephie
Right, yeah. Person. Yeah, that was, um, yeah, you know, and, and, like, this idea, I don’t know, I was I just really, I think maybe because I just tried pivoted careers. You know, like she kept. She essentially, like, kind of kept changing things. She kept thinking, like, I can make acting work. Like, if I change this thing, it’s going to work for me, if I change this thing, it’s going to work for me. And then she found them was like, I don’t fucking like it. Yeah, like, at the end of the day, she’s like, I don’t fucking like this. And like, I really read, like, that really resonated with me, because I feel like, I have just, I’ve spent a lot of my career being like, Okay, well, I’m supposed to be doing this thing. And I’m supposed to be climbing the ladder. And I’m good at this job. Like, I’m good at this career. And so I’m supposed to just like want to keep being promoted, and get up to certain, like, job titles and have all these people under me. And spoiler alert, I didn’t actually really like it at all. And when I finally just like, said, I don’t think I like this and like, have pivoted to something else, huh, Boy, am I so much happier. Yeah, it’s it’s truly like, I I don’t know. And I don’t I don’t even think I realized that that’s what I was doing. Like, in the back of my mind. I was like, Oh, I don’t think I want to keep managing more people and like doing more things, but I’m good at this job. And so I’m keeping you know, I keep getting promoted and like, that’s where I’m I am and if you don’t like if you say you don’t want the promotion, then like, That’s really bad. And like I you know, I need support my family and I didn’t do all these things. But at the end of the day, it was not a thing that I found enjoyable, or like life fulfilling in any way. Right? Oh, that just really, really resonated with me. The other thing too resonated with me as A blogger is that you know, so she reads this book the artists way, and it really changes her life. She’s able to take a lot of things from it. And a lot of the practices from it, it’s you know, she uses these like morning pages, this idea of like, I guess, maybe I don’t really like journaling, it seems like journal prompts that she does every morning. And that is actually really how she uncovers like that her dieting is at the root of like, so many of her issues and like, she really starts to, you know, really come out of her this like hole that she’s done herself into. But, um, she also she talks about when she should, how to be and how to be a receptionist Who’s afraid of the phone, which made me because that would be me. She said, thanks to the artists way I was learning that creativity, just for the sake of it is healing in its own right. It didn’t need to go anywhere. It nobody needed to read it, it was allowed to just be. And this I mean, like this stuck out to me as bloggers, I think because like in order for our sites, you know, okay, it was our food bloggers, in order for our sites to, like, be monetarily successful. We have to be thinking, like, strategically, and what recipes we’re going to create. And so like, is it something that people are going to be searching the internet for, so that they find it so that they actually come to the recipe and then like, see it and see the ads, and it makes us money. And I think it’s really easy, in our field to like, just get so keyed in on that, that we also forget to make recipes that are just like, kind of for us. Yeah, for sure. Like just recipes that spark our creativity and that we think sound delicious, that aren’t necessarily gonna be like big money makers, and like SEO drivers, but just make us excited about the food that we’re eating and sharing with our readers. Just because it like means something to us, like, that was it was a it was a good reminder that like it’s okay, if you’re just sometimes just being creative. And it doesn’t necessarily go anywhere, or you just like get in your kitchen, you know, at least for us, in our case, just like get in your kitchen and make a recipe that sounds really good. And you don’t write it down and you don’t photograph it and you don’t blog it you just make a batch of cookies.

Megan
Yeah, there was a lady in my nap was she is in the mastermind group that I’m in, she just got married. And so she had all this time off from her blog, and she was very concerned about like jumping back into it. Because it’s, it’s so much work. If you don’t know about blogging in general, like, it’s, it’s so much more work than you could ever think it is. Um, and so she’s trying to figure out how to, like, you know, get that inspiration again, and get back into it and like, feel like she really wanted to work on all this stuff again. And I was like, Look, just just go in the kitchen and have fun again. And like remember why you got into this in the first place. Because while there are certain people who get into creative fields, like blogging to make money, most people do it just because they love whatever it is they’re blogging about, or they’re painting or whatever their creative thing is, they’re just doing it because they love it. And so reminding yourself that you like have the permission to just do shit because it’s fun. Yeah, is really important. Yeah,

Stephie
it’s life giving. Yeah,

Megan
I mean, even if it’s related to your field, like, you could still do it. And it’s like, without expectation. I think I think putting all the expectation on it is what makes stuff not fun.

Stephie
Yes, I’m going to go and I’m going to make this recipe but I’m also going to tweak it, I’m going to make it better. And I’m going to do this and then I’m gonna figure out how to blog it and then like, just just chill. Yeah. I mean, a lot of times I like to just like open up a cookbook, or open up a friend’s blog or open up our latest issue of like, fine cooking magazine, and just like, pick a recipe. not change anything in it. Just make it

Megan
Oh, it’s so hard to not change anything in it.

Stephie
It is very hard. I don’t always succeed on that. I sometimes I tweak things just because I can’t help myself but like, not in a not with a mindset of like, Oh, I’m gonna adapt this in a way that that I can write something. It’s just literally like, I’m just making it for fun. And like sometimes Alex will come into the kitchen. He’s like, Oh, is that for the you know, the blog or whatever? And I’m like, No, I just thought sounded good. You say okay, cool. Yeah, that’s it. Yeah. I mean, he does the same. He has to do the same thing. You know, obviously, you work in it, but he works in food as well. And so like, he will just like find like, oh, this recipe sounds good. I think I’m gonna make it for dinner. Like with no expectation of like, it’s gonna become some like fabulous thing that we just, you know, just the sound good. I thought I thought it sounded fun to make. Yeah. I’m gonna make a I’m gonna sue beat my own corned beef just because I can. Like, what for 11,000 years like it just whatever, you know, I don’t know that that section. I was like, Oh, how apt?

Megan
Yeah. And she hasn’t. She mentioned that, while you’re doing all these things like, you know, everything about life is exhausting and tiring. And like seeing it all laid out in this book, you’re like, God, no wonder I’m so fine. That’s fine. But she also mentioned like, we don’t live in a society that supports healing from exhaustion, like the only thing we see about exhaustion is like celebrities who have to go to the hospital and get an IV drip because they’re exhausted. But you’re like, people who are busy and working all the time. Like, that’s supposed to be something good, apparently. Well, and even like

Stephie
she she talks a little bit earlier in the book. And I identified with this as well. Like she was so severely anemic that she had to have a blood transfusion, or I think, I think maybe she ended up having to have like iron infusions or something, but she didn’t have to have the blood transfusion. But like, her doctor was literally like,

Megan
what? How are you walking around? How

Stephie
did you walk around, my mom and I both had that exact same experience. Where in you know, my mom, this was when my mom had breast cancer. But and this was when I was really sick from my UC. So we both like really sick. But literally, we’re having regular blood draws, like regular blood draws. And we’re also saying to our doctors, I’m so fucking exhausted, like, I’m so exhausted, and they were just like, huh, completely ignoring literally right there in the blood work, like, you are so anemic, you should not be standing up right now. And like for me, I ended up having to have like six weeks worth of iron infusions, and my mom had to have a blood transfusion. And it was just like, it’s truly mind boggling. So it was almost like, it was almost gratifying for me to read that section. Because I was like, Oh, my God, someone else has had this experience to where like, literally, you’re saying to your doctors, I feel like shit. And they’re just like, even though the blood work is right in front of them saying, there’s so many, but they’re just ignoring it. Because they’re like, Well, yeah, no, we just ignore literally, our medical professionals

Megan
ignore it too. Or you can have the opposite problem where last year I was like, I feel I’m exhausted and tired all the time. And then I get my blood work, and it’s normal. And then you’re like, Well, shit. Because at least like if you can see it in the blood work, and you know, you need to get an infusion or whatever it is like, there’s, there’s nothing you can do. I don’t know, I thought. It’s just, it’s just a lot. I don’t know, I think about like, the burnout and tiredness and stuff. It’s really interesting that you’re suspected to be busy all the time, all the time, all the time. But then like study after study, she mentions this in the book, like shows that people could not be productive for an eight hour day, it’s actually bad for your company’s bottom line. It’s bad, like you are paying people apparently, like the most amount of time, you can be productive in any given day, at least in an office setting is three hours. So you’re paying people for eight hours, right? You’re really only working for three hours, which also, side note explains why I think gives so much shit done in a day and then just be bored. Like at an office type job. Like, am I really efficient? Oh, this is okay. Yeah. Because apparently, like I don’t know how other people do it. Where they just kind of like spread out three hours of work to eight hours. I don’t understand got it,

Stephie
like done and then the afternoon I was like, I’m so bored. Yeah,

Megan
it’s it’s wild to me that we are still like promoting this weird eight hour workday thing. And it it’s so the fact that she wrote this kind of like mostly before I think the pandemic like you mentioned the pandemic but it was more of like, like an add on at the end. Like none of this happened. Like

Stephie
all for two years of rest. Like all Yeah, happened like well before the pandemic.

Megan
Yeah. And she like she notices how things changed a little bit in pandemic and people are working from home and resting more, but she also notes that that is like a forced rest. And it’s a very different like I noticed when we all were forced to work from home and everything, like a lot of people changed. I changed my life. So much for the better. A lot of other people that I know did. But at the same time I had, like a lot of people didn’t do, I had to be very conscious of the things that I was doing and the choices that I was making, because once things started to reopen again, I think a lot of people were like, well, now, you know, it’s time to go back into the ridiculous workforce that we have, and back into the situations that were not necessarily great for me or for my family. And I had to make the conscious choice to be like, You know what? No, right, I’m just gonna do my thing now. And that was really, actually really hard for me. Because when I first when I quit my main, my corporate job that I had out of college that I worked, I worked there for like six or seven years. My entire goal at that time was to be a freelancer. And then within like three months, I hired at another job that I wasn’t even looking for. And so I never really got the opportunity to like, sit down. And, like, purposefully think with myself, like, what do I actually want out of my life? What do I actually want to do? That is not related to whatever accomplishment other people think I need to have anything like that, like, what, what’s for me, and people don’t really get the opportunity to do that. And hopefully, that is one thing that people will take out of the pandemic is like, taking the time to do that. But,

Stephie
yes, yes. One of the last sections I have marked here. You know, she’s talking about like, okay, so she starts a fucking diet. And like she, you know, especially at the beginning of that, like business journey for her, she like works. She worked a ton at night. Like every opportunity, she’d say, yes. Every collaboration that people asked her to do she do it. She speaks she coached like she did all of this stuff. And like when she said like, Okay, well, now I’m going to rest. She’s like, I had to be okay, turning down Java job opportunities and trusting that this wasn’t my only chance. The same reason you should turn down a date with someone you’re not interested in just because of a limited sense of panic and desperation. This is not your only chance. There are more chances. Desperation leads to more exhaustion. I want to trust that even if I rested, and did way less for two years, life would still be waiting for me if and when I was ready to say yes. Yeah, I think we just were like, we hustle. And that’s it is it’s out of this panic of like, oh my god, if I don’t do this, now, there’s never going to be another chance. And so we say yes to things that we feel kind of half acidly about Mm hmm. Instead of like waiting for the things that really make us excited.

Megan
Yes. And one thing that I have learned from various other people in, you know, conference talks and podcasts and all sorts of things that are listened to, is that if it’s not a Hell, yes, it’s a no. Yeah. And that is something that people definitely need to pay more attention to, like, yes. Like, as we said, at the beginning of this, she is able to speak from a place of privilege, and she’s able to make these choices. But at the same time, there’s a lot of opportunity that you have to be able to make those choices. And a lot of times we just kind of like go with things that we’re not super excited about or super happy about.

Stephie
We try to convince ourselves and it’s exciting. Yeah, so I should be excited about this. So I should be doing this. And so right.

Megan
Like other people would love this opportunity, therefore, I should do it. Or

Stephie
it’s also I think it’s also okay to to think about the fact that like, what maybe you once would have been super excited about what would have once been a hell yes. Does not have to be a hell yes. Later in your journey. Right. Like early on, particularly if you’re like a business owner, and you’re just getting your business off the ground, like, the opportunity to like, you know, be interviewed somewhere or do a guest post somewhere or a collaboration like, that might be really exciting to you, because it’s the first time you’ve been asked, it’s like, Yes, oh, my gosh, this is so exciting. And then like, as you your business grows, and you have more things coming down the pipeline, like those things that were what super exciting might not be super exciting anymore. And that’s also okay. You don’t have to say yes to them, just because you said yes to them in the past.

Megan
Yes. Correct.

Stephie
Because that’s growth, business growth, and it’s personal growth. So, um, so yeah, that’s, uh, you know, she she, towards the end of the book, she lists an incomplete list of exhausting things. And she kind of talks about everybody has things in their life. Some of them are beyond your immediate control. And those are a lot of the systemic factors. And, you know, things like poverty and financial stress, and marginalization and oppression, health problems. And there are some things that you sometimes can do things about, like unresolved trauma and mental health struggles, or being stuck in a toxic circumstances. And then there are things that you definitely have control over, but you kind of have to learn about them. So things like unresolved emotions, toxic beliefs, and cultural expectations. So I thought that that was really helpful how she broke those down, like, you’re not going to be able to do something about everything that’s exhausting you, right? Like, you’re just not possible. And that’s okay. But there are things that you can’t do. So even if all of these other things are completely outside of your control, for any number of likely systemic factors. And, like, you still, like, look inside and see like, okay, what are my own toxic beliefs? What are the cultural expectations that are being put on me? What are the emotions that are unresolved that I can work towards, you know, resolving? And how can I how can I work on those? Because, you know, again, like, she was like, it wasn’t like, she wasn’t working those two years, right? I’m gonna rest. Like, it’s not like she literally just stayed in bed and like, slept for two years. Like, she just gave herself the permission to say no, to things that she had not previously done. And so you know, that, and that isn’t even necessarily always the case for like people to be able to do but she’s, you know, she points out that like, there are cultural expectations, we can say no, to we can say no to our toxic thoughts and our toxic beliefs and things like that. So, yeah. Yeah, I appreciated how she she kind of broke that down. Because it does sound radical to be like, I’m going on two years of rest, right. And it sounds very, it sounds privileged. And it sounds like a thing that most people cannot do. But it’s, it’s less of like, I’m taking two years of rest and more. I’m learning how to say no to certain things that are exhausting me, beyond just like, oh, I have to work a lot, or I have to take care of my kids or you know, whatever.

Megan
And the way that she put it also was that she was decluttering her life. Yes. So like that. She talked about Marie Kondo and like the, you know, what things that spark joy and I was like that that’s a really good way to put it, because everyone got really obsessed with Marie Kondo, and like organizing their like surroundings, but using that same kind of philosophy in your actual life.

Stephie
Yeah. When she talks about how like dating, just like was not sparking joy for her and it was stressing her out more than anything else. She was like, yeah, yeah. I’m not gonna do this.

Megan
I mean, I have said multiple times, if anything happens to my husband that I’m on. That’s it. I’m peacing out of that situation. I’m no interest in online dating. I’ve no interest in that. Tool. Hustle. What because it is a hustle life? No. Yes, absolutely. 100% now,

Stephie
yeah. So yeah. When she when she was talking about how like, I just, I just decluttered that. Yeah, I was like, That is such a great way to think about it. Yeah. So really, what are the thoughts are the thoughts, beliefs, emotions, nonsense that stresses you out that you can declutter. You can’t declutter all of it. You can’t get rid of all of your belongings. You can’t get rid of all of the clutter in your the like, you know, whatever clutter in your life, but what can you declutter? Right. That’s interesting. So, anyway, A plus A plus Caroline dinner we like we like you recommend, yeah, we I would totally recommend this book. Yeah. Again, like, I’m like myth about a lot of self help stuff. But this was very, like, non self helpy. It felt validating.

Megan
Yes. And I think it’s because she framed it. It’s framed on her experience. And it’s not like you should do this, even though the titles are like how to whatever.

Stephie
She said. Yeah, yeah, she’s saying it like, in a sarcastic way. Yeah. I mean, I do think that like, if you are in a place of like, trying to figure out what is making you tired, then like, this book might be helpful for you. If you are somebody who you know, like we mentioned earlier, like if you are somebody who has been struggling with your relationship with food, but you maybe you’re only starting to uncover that this book might be helpful as a lead in to the Fuckit diet, which again, neither of us have read, but some of her followers have said it was helpful to read them retired as fuck followed by the fucking Diet. So, you know, I think that could be a very helpful book, but it might, even if it’s just like validating, I think that it’s still an excellent read. So, A plus top 10 gold star.

What’s bringing us joy?

Megan
So Stephie what is bringing you joy this week.

Stephie
So a couple of my friends in the adoption world started a business or two adult adoptees, and they’ve started a business called post resource to provide. They’re applying them connection kits, to adoptees and adoptive families and birthdate, birth parents. And basically it’s like, kind of like a keepsake box. And then you get like prompts and stuff to follow, that can just encourage like, keeping communication open. So it might be like, you know, little like letters and stuff to send back and forth between birth parents and the adoptee and things like that. And, and they, so they took pre orders in the fall, and they just shipped it out. And mine is arriving this week. And I’m really excited about it. Because I’m really proud of my friends for what they’ve put together. And I’m excited to see everything that they’ve done, and I’m gonna I’m gonna go live, when it gets here. It’s supposed to get here, I think maybe Thursday, I’m hoping I’m gonna go live on Instagram and kind of show my followers what’s all included because it’s like a bunch of stuff. There’s a really cool coffee mug in there. I’m very excited. Yeah, and it’s just a really beautiful box that I can put all of Eden’s like keepsakes, and stuff from her birth family in and like we can keep it in her room. And she has like a special spot for all of her special things related to her birth family and her adoption. Instead of just like having them like scattered around the house, or like in a random keepsake box, like she can have her own. Like, as she gets older, she can know like, this is hers, and she can look through at any time and stuff like that. So I am very excited about that. That’s really cool. Yeah. Um, and I, when we were down in North Carolina actually had lunch with these two gals. And they brought me like the prototype of the box, and it is beautiful. They’re like, Okay, you get a sneak preview. And I’m like, Oh my gosh, I’m so excited. It’s so beautiful. So, but yeah, Megan was bringing you joy.

Megan
It’s a little bit more frivolous. But I am excited about spring.

Stephie
I mean, that is absolutely a thing to be excited about.

Megan
I feel like we talk about the weather a lot on this podcast, but it’s because we live in the Midwest, and a lot happens.

Stephie
With 87 seasons,

Megan
it’s been it’s been a real wild the past month ish, where like, it’s been really warm, and then it’ll snow three inches, and then the next day, it’ll all melt. But I think we’re like, you know, it’s like spring now, basically, I think, um, yesterday, when we went out to wait for the bus, I was looking around where we had planted all of our tulips, and they’re starting to come up cements

Stephie
are starting to emerge. I’m so happy.

Megan
We planted like 75 tulip bulbs in the fall. So I’m really and they’re all like different. There’s like seven or eight different kinds of I’m really excited to see like, how many of them come up which ones come up, like how it’s all gonna look kind of just like threw them out there with like, no rhyme or reason and how they were gonna grow. But there’s like, early season and then mid season late season one so the like, rotate through, basically. But I’m really excited. I love Spring and the Midwest is so great, because you just had a ridiculous winter and you just really appreciate it really there. You’re like, Oh my God. Yes, in Texas, it was like, well, it’s gray for like three months, and then it’s not gray. But like things do die and you get new leaves and things like that. But it’s not as exciting because it’s drastic, so continually warm there that it’s not that big of a deal. So I’m very excited to sit on my patio again and coffee, maybe get some work done. It’s very hard to figure out what to do with the couch that we currently use for podcasting because it is our patio couch that is now in my basement. So that obviously choice made by your husband. So now we’ll have to ah, well, I mean, we had to put it somewhere for the winter and we had the space. So I don’t know my son asked what we’re going to do about it because he realized the weather was getting warmer. And he thought we were gonna get a new couch for the basement. So I was like, probably that’s ridiculous. It’s a basement. So we do have to buy a couch because we’re gonna move a couch that’s upstairs into this room and then That room won’t have a couch.

Stephie
So we good times adulty

Next week’s episode

Megan
now we don’t normally have repeat guests so soon but next week we are going to welcome back Allison Grigsby Sweatman because she is running for state office. So we are going to ask her all about that process. In the meantime, you can leave us a review on Apple podcasts and listen to us on your favorite platform. You can also follow us on social media at irsipodcast or send us an email at idratherstayinpodcast@gmail.com We love to hear from you. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai