00:00:00.000i would love and it's okay if this doesn't come off the top of your head but there's like a self-care
00:00:06.440scam that you've seen recently or it doesn't even have to be like a scam it doesn't have to be like
00:00:11.220as devious as like these people are scamming me but like maybe just something that's kind of
00:00:14.860bullshitty is there something you've seen lately that like just you're like oh my god well you know
00:00:21.020i i'm 41 and so i'm in that like perimenopause space so basically my entire algorithm is full
00:00:29.080of menopause perimenopause stuff and it's like all the things whether it's like the hormones
00:00:34.340or the eat protein like I feel like we're supposed to be eating like something like insane like 50
00:00:39.900grams of protein like every morning or something I don't even know like I'm only supposed to be
00:00:43.760eating chicken and cottage cheese those are the only things I'm supposed to put into my body
00:00:47.940basically um and all of that stuff and I know there's been a lot written about that recently
00:00:53.940It's like whenever the media and then whenever like the tech industry gets a hold of a white space, it's like it just gets so crowded so immediately.
00:01:05.160It feels a little bit like the motherhood space felt maybe like six or seven years ago where all of a sudden it was sort of like, oh, yeah, being a mom is hard.
00:01:17.340And then there was just like everything was all about supporting moms, which is great.
00:01:21.400like you know I'm a perinatal psychiatrist like that's my whole clinical practice I am a mom like
00:01:25.900it's good I'm not saying like that we don't need that it's just so interesting to watch
00:01:30.920how these cycles go um and I think it does track with sort of like our generation
00:01:35.760of you know sort of geriatric millennial maybe like young gen x where we have sort of decided
00:01:41.640that whatever we're going through we're gonna make it the thing yeah we are the center of
00:01:46.680the story no matter what. We're the main characters. This is the Culture Study Podcast, and I'm Anne
00:01:58.320Helen Peterson. And I am Dr. Pooja Lakshman. I am a board-certified psychiatrist and the author of
00:02:04.760the book and newsletter, Real Self-Care, Crystals, Cleanses, and Bubble Baths Not Included.
00:02:10.440I also think that if you even track like, oh, if we had motherhood at the center, like motherhood1.00
00:02:16.500this heart at the center of the story six seven years ago now those moms are entering into the
00:02:22.720perimenopausal space and are like why do I feel bad right and like there are all these systemic0.55
00:02:30.280reasons why we feel bad but then there's also the like oh but we can explain it through like
00:02:37.520the fact that we're going through this period of health and it's also something that has been
00:02:42.240largely under discussed yes yes and you know like that was the whole reason with my book real self
00:02:49.520care and like sort of the chung and cheek subtitle crystals cleanses and bubble baths not included
00:02:54.680which i had to fight hard to like get my publisher to be okay with really i always think that they
00:02:59.800would love that oh yeah it's very much an academic title like or like the length of it is the length
00:03:06.300yes they were like well i don't fit on the cover anyway but um right like this isn't just you can't
00:03:13.860meditate your way out of a 40-hour work week with no child care like that's not how real wellness
00:03:19.120works and when we still don't have federally mandated paid parental leave when we're seeing
00:03:23.980like the erosion of women's reproductive health the list goes on and on but it's so easy to get
00:03:30.920stuck on whether it's hormones or whether it is like whatever sort of easy simple solution
00:03:37.900because that is something that you can like it's like tangible it's like something that you can
00:03:44.600immediately sink your teeth into and be like okay well I'm going to change my diet or I'm going to
00:03:48.620go do this exercise and you can cross it off the list and you can feel like you have a sense of
00:03:52.760control and agency which again like it's a very human to want that like we live in this completely
00:03:58.440chaotic fucked up world like of course we're trying to grasp for ways to make ourselves feel
00:04:05.620a sense of mastery but you know as we'll talk about today with real self-care it's really about
00:04:11.880like finding the balance and the nuance and not going to the extremes yeah and I think that a lot
00:04:18.180of people who would never consider themselves like obsessed with optimization have still
00:04:23.240negotiated adulthood against a backdrop of obsession with optimization so there is this
00:04:31.380tendency I think to be like oh I can just find this one hack that will fix perimenopause if I
00:04:39.100can just take hormones now even though my mom couldn't because you know there was this whole
00:04:44.340generation of women and a lot of us had moms who went through the same like their doctors really1.00
00:04:49.220strongly recommend it against it. Like if I can just find the doctor who will give me the hormones1.00
00:04:53.840and none of this will happen to me, like I will fix this problem. Or if I eat 40 grams, however
00:04:58.900many grams, I don't even know how many grams it is, many grams of protein a day and get really
00:05:03.820into like heavy weightlifting, then I will have none of those problems. And that's, you know,
00:05:09.480we don't operate in like our bodies don't operate in vacuums that way. Exactly. The context is so
00:05:15.220important and unfortunately fortunately or unfortunately like we are all multifactorial
00:05:20.980like we live in this world with so many different inputs so sometimes when I talk about this people
00:05:27.160are like but there is evidence for eating more protein and like working on your bold health and
00:05:32.580you know etc etc and so it's kind of like it's like yeah it's not that that's bad no like it's
00:05:37.200good it's just that when you become obsessed with it and fixated on it and when you think that's
00:05:41.020the fantasy thing that's going to fix your whole life that's when you get into trouble yeah if i
00:05:46.160can just do this thing then all of my problems will be solved yeah yeah and usually like you
00:05:52.320can't even do that one thing but it's that grasping towards it yeah today we're gonna like
00:05:56.640talk about practical stuff philosophical stuff like you are the perfect person to grapple with
00:06:02.220all of this stuff together and you're also going to stick around to answer like a very straightforward
00:06:07.300but a fascinating AAA question about how to celebrate personal achievements without alcohol.
00:06:13.300But let's start with a question from Jacqueline that is a bit of like a table setter for us.
00:06:18.680I work at a nonprofit as a community advocate. Self-care is a huge buzzword phrase internally
00:06:24.740at the agency and is also encouraged externally with clients. The more I think about the idea,
00:06:31.100the more that I think self-care is a privilege, something that people who have the money and time
00:06:36.720to practice it get to benefit from. I think it is also a learned skill. If practicing wellness
00:06:43.200or setting boundaries is not demonstrated in someone's life, how would they be able to access
00:06:47.860the skill and privilege of practicing self-care? I feel like there's two parts of this question,
00:06:53.300right? The first is how the concept of self-care has become so integrated into many workplace
00:07:00.300environments. And I know you speak at a lot of like workplace environments from people who like,
00:07:05.780they're like let's get a speaker on self-care and i wonder if you're like me where sometimes like
00:07:11.320you show up and tell them some things that you they don't necessarily want to hear about what
00:07:15.520self-care actually is like a just a more complex story than maybe they're anticipating
00:07:20.060yeah i mean you know the whole crux of real self-care is that this work comes from like
00:07:27.900audrey lord and bell hooks black queer thinkers who were talking about self-care as not only0.76
00:07:33.160self-preservation, but also in the context of a society that is coming after you, is hostile to0.98
00:07:40.380you. And it was interesting because when I was researching for the book, I also found that
00:07:45.580while the word self-care was being used in the civil rights movement, it was also,
00:07:50.900interestingly, shockingly, being used in psychiatry. Also, psychiatrists were using
00:07:56.860the word self-care to refer to the very small mundane decisions that patients who are on
00:08:03.680locked in patient units could make about their life on the unit.
00:08:08.600So like what they were going to eat for breakfast, picking out their clothes, you know, what
00:08:12.660exercise group they were going to attend.
00:08:14.760So I thought that that was so fascinating because here is like, you know, when you think
00:08:19.100about rights being stripped away or autonomy being stripped away, being hospitalized on
00:08:23.720a psych unit against your will is pretty much the epitome of that.
00:08:26.860And the word self-care then being used for whatever small choices you could make in that
00:08:33.360context, I thought was so fascinating because it does track, too, with the situation that
00:08:39.340many folks in the civil rights movement and, frankly, right now in 2020, 2025, we're now
00:08:46.380in 2025, feel currently, where it's like you have such a limited set of options.
00:08:52.360So I guess going back to the original kind of question, when I go into kind of corporate America and talk about real self-care, I think, you know, it's interesting because I think people are so burnt out and just kind of like so desperate for something that sometimes I think like the social justice aspect of this work almost like flies over people's heads.
00:09:20.840yes and I don't yeah but I thought that we could like have a wellness retreat and it'd be okay
00:09:28.340yeah yeah right right and and people really still want to come back to like the yoga or the
00:09:34.980meditation or like whatever the thing is and I guess I've learned that and maybe this is me
00:09:41.220being a psychiatrist that it's never helpful to be banging people over the head with something
00:09:49.400that they can't quite hear yet so I kind of try and tuck it into the stories and also really try
00:09:57.900and identify when I'm working with usually it's like a wellness it's like the ERG like or like
00:10:02.340the mental health ERG or like the folks who are kind of the leaders in the company who are really
00:10:09.040trying to do this work and have some more kind of deeper conversations with them you know I and I
00:10:13.900do think i like i want to say like i think corporate america gets really like demonized a lot and
00:10:19.460you know rightly so i understand and like when i work with organizations like all the people that
00:10:26.160i work with seem like really like good people like they want to do the right thing you know
00:10:31.440like they're really wanting to try and make it better yeah and they're hemmed in by some
00:10:36.820structural things that make it really difficult like like i went to speak to a gathering of
00:10:43.460emergency physicians and they have just incredible burnout rates and like fewer people going into the
00:10:48.860specialty because it's a burnout machine and and like the attrition amongst women in particular
00:10:54.840is like they're they're dropping the percentage of people within the field significantly over the
00:11:01.160course of the last 20 years and there are people who are trying so hard to think about these
00:11:06.680solutions and sometimes it's like well how do we address these twin forces of private equity
00:11:14.160buying up our practices and also just the way that we've set up emergency medicine as a field
00:11:20.380what if we have to reorganize that entirely like that is huge big work but how can we start to
00:11:27.600think about that as a possibility like how do you do that at a conference yeah yeah like it's not
00:11:34.380Right. It like it has to be really an ongoing conversation. And you do need those big events to sort of like get people's morale up and to feel like progress is being made. But it also needs to be happening really like on a week by week, month by month basis.
00:11:50.900um i've come to believe or see that the organizations that are small or medium-sized
00:11:57.660tend to have an advantage because they can be more agile and they're more responsive to their
00:12:04.200employees and people feel like they have a voice but when the the organizations get to be like
00:12:10.560super super big then it's a lot harder to make some of these changes what do you think about
00:12:16.820the second part of this question about how practicing boundaries and other parts of self-care
00:12:23.060is something that like you need time you need the privilege of time to practice or the privilege of
00:12:29.660like other people modeling it for you because I think sometimes people are like well rich people
00:12:34.820can have self-care because they can go on vacations but this is a different thing I think
00:12:38.200this is about like the privilege of time and practice and models yes yes um it might be un-pc
00:12:44.100to say but i know plenty of rich people that are absolutely miserable and have terrible boundaries
00:12:48.280but i love this question because i do it's something that i actually think about and
00:12:55.700grapple with all the time of is real self-care privilege or is it a skill or is it both and i
00:13:02.520think it i think it is both because real self-care like the four skills the four principles boundaries
00:13:09.980compassion values and power those are psychological concepts that if you had a healthy childhood and
00:13:20.680you were raised by parents who were generally healthy psychologically and physically and you
00:13:25.560had enough resources and you were generally you know I'm using a lot of like kind of generalizations
00:13:31.700here but like if you generally like were growing up in a regulated environment you would have learned
00:13:38.460some of those skills. And that is a privilege because that does give you a leg up in life.
00:13:44.720It's basically like you had Psych 101 growing up. But many of us were not fortunate enough to be
00:13:53.520born into a family like that. And plus or minus, whether there was money or other types of
00:14:01.740resources, you could still grow up in a family environment where emotionally and psychologically
00:14:07.180it was quite impoverished but there might have been access to other resources however if you
00:14:13.860did not learn these skills then you will not be able to make use of those other external resources
00:14:19.940in a way that is actually generative yeah the good news is that what I've been doing with my
00:14:28.140patients for I guess probably a decade more than a decade now in therapy it works like change is
00:14:35.720possible and essentially what real self-care is is like you're learning these set of principles
00:14:41.520you're learning to build these new muscles where you learn how to tolerate guilt where you learn
00:14:49.600how to regulate your emotions where you learn that you can make decisions on behalf of your
00:14:55.200own well-being even when people are annoyed with you or pissed at you and you can move forward
00:15:01.780with a deeper understanding of what you really want in your life the thing is that it takes time
00:15:07.360yeah and it takes practice and it takes messing up a zillion times and coming back you know it's
00:15:13.960interesting and how you like started off by asking like you said is the time the privilege piece of
00:15:18.920it and I think that is the second privilege piece of it so the first privilege is like if you were
00:15:23.680born into a family where you already got a head start right the second is if you because of the
00:15:30.260way that your life is set up you have the time to dedicate to whether it's going to therapy
00:15:35.220whether it is working through your own research and through your own reading and like working on
00:15:41.260these different habits for myself I will say like I didn't have children until I was later
00:15:47.080in life so I had my son when I was 38 and a half and I so basically I had one of my whole 30s
00:15:52.860essentially to go to therapy for a whole decade I was in psychoanalysis which was like three times
00:15:59.360a week and I was a doctor like I had the financial resources too to be able to and I also had good
00:16:05.660insurance that helped me pay for it so I took that time but there are plenty of people in my life who0.98
00:16:11.940were like Pooja like you're totally wasting your time and you're wasting your money you should be
00:16:15.120saving that money like that should be in your 401k right like why are you spending all this time0.97
00:16:19.680doing this and I felt like no like this is actually really important for me to sort out what I want in
00:16:24.960my life especially since I had been through like a traumatic 20s and a divorce and all sorts of
00:16:29.440life stuff but a lot of I think especially for women and like women that I see in my practice
00:16:34.640like that idea that like you're allowed to take a risk you're allowed to do something that feels
00:16:41.080selfish or feels impractical or feels silly just because you you want to you want to see where it
00:16:48.960goes I think there's something about that like having that boldness that enables people like
00:16:57.380if you're able to give that to yourself then you can kind of get yourself on this trajectory to
00:17:02.780finding the time yeah no I think too about like working through like issues in my relationship
00:17:11.400for example I feel like I have a tremendous privilege of time in that my partner and I
00:17:17.420spend a lot of time talking to one another when like an issue comes up so like if something
00:17:22.900happens like we go on a lot like an hour two hour long walk and we'll just talk about it
00:17:27.880and that privilege of time allows us to like continually process this and like hear each
00:17:34.200other and and voice things and like go through all sorts of different reactions instead of feeling
00:17:39.620like well there's no time to talk about this right now or we'll talk about this later I've
00:17:43.660never really thought about how like that has allowed this relationship to really feel like
00:17:51.640no matter what happens we can work through it because of that privilege of time and not everyone
00:17:57.440you know if you're working all the time if you are constantly on demand to provide care for
00:18:02.220someone else whether it's a kid or an elder or someone else in your family like there are just
00:18:06.700so many reasons that make it difficult to to have that sort of time and it makes sense that that
00:18:12.240like no one would think of like time to argue with your partner as like a form of self-care
00:18:17.340but i think it is yeah because it's it's you're allowing yourself the space for the repair yeah
00:18:24.720yeah yeah i think like there's a way that we have you know because caregiving in america is so
00:18:31.740difficult because of the lack of support that we have we've kind of like done away with the space
00:18:38.660for being able to grapple in our relationships and that's like intimate relationships with
00:18:45.400partners and also even friendships like the number of patients that I have that are like
00:18:49.580literally like I don't have any close friends because I don't have time I spend all my time
00:18:53.920either working dealing with kids or parents that I'm taking care of and then I'm just dead tired
00:18:59.360and like we've we've sort of constructed that as like that's normal
00:19:05.200mm-hmm yeah I mean I encounter this all the time especially with the research on my new book is
00:19:11.780like yes yes I had friends but now I only text with them and like the idea of going on a walk
00:19:17.880with someone or a dinner date or just going to hang out and fold laundry together that that is
00:19:22.520also a form of self-care yes also because of the way self-care has been set up in this commodified
00:19:28.040fashion it doesn't figure in as much yes I want to go to our next question now which is about some
00:19:34.980of this branding that we see around different modes of self-care. This is from Nathalie.
00:19:39.740Why are we seeing typical or common sense approaches in areas like personal hygiene,
00:19:44.700careers, friendships become codified with pithy names in the recent social landscape?0.86
00:19:50.220Where do things like quiet quitting and skin cycling converge? And why does it feel like
00:19:55.620Gen Z is always at the forefront of this, needing scripts or labels for things?
00:20:00.080hmm i mean the one i would add to like the the example that comes to my mind is uh
00:20:07.420uh what is it the total shower melody is that right do you know about this a full body shower
00:20:13.940no it's like there's like a name oh everything shower everything shower yeah is that when you
00:20:19.300wash your hair too it's when you wash your hair and your body and you shave your legs
00:20:24.480oh where it's just doing like one of any of those things got it which like i understand i mean i
00:20:31.800used to when i was a teenager i did an everything shower every single day but that's because
00:20:35.920what a time i was so bored i had nothing else to do like shave my legs every day um but i would
00:20:45.080also say that i don't think gen z is any more inclined to come up with names for things
00:20:51.380oftentimes with something like quiet quitting like an editor at a magazine who wants to write
00:20:57.420a piece will see one tiktok where someone calls it that and then be like all of gen z is talking
00:21:02.880about quiet quitting and it's like there were like 10 tiktoks total about this like you're making a
00:21:08.160trend out of something that is more like i think often a feeling right so like quiet quitting is
00:21:16.300not hustling all the time right or like not feeling like you have to go above and beyond
00:21:22.920and instead like treating your job like a job job which is not a new sentiment right it's just
00:21:28.420now we are trying to grapple with how a new generation is is confronting that sentiment
00:21:33.160yeah yeah i mean i think i can see this on both sides and and on one hand like i think
00:21:40.580our media environment and and you you know this better than I do but like just the way that had
00:21:47.000it has become so cannibalized and how everything is like so noisy there's just so much stimulation
00:21:54.260coming in so it's like you need to have a specific name for something to break through
00:21:59.960like I think to your point of that some of this is is editors knowing that when you have something
00:22:06.980catchy that is a few syllables then people will glom onto it and it's a way for it to actually
00:22:13.680get attention and traction that's human nature like when we have a name for something then we
00:22:19.460know how to talk about it we know how to connect with other people around it i think there's
00:22:24.000something to um like this feels a little bit adjacent to just how deeply personal and popular
00:22:33.160memes can be and sharing memes and how sharing memes has become its own form of like a version
00:22:40.380of friendship like you're basically sharing a feeling back and forth it's like yeah yeah yeah
00:22:45.080you get this feeling and then you put it out there and then your friend gets the same feeling and
00:22:48.980you're both just like oh my gosh like you know and you have a little chuckle it's that same sort
00:22:53.820of thing I think with these phrases and so I think I also feel you know empathetic and compassionate
00:23:00.460for Gen Z I feel like they get dumped on so much but like they're growing up in this like media
00:23:05.500hellscape and so they have done what they need to do to like survive and part of that is to
00:23:13.440parse things down and and name things in this way and it's bleak out there in terms of you know
00:23:19.920their financial prospects and their job prospects and like all of these institutions that people in
00:23:25.440our generation at least for an early part of our lives I think we still sort of believed in and1.00
00:23:30.080held on a pedestal I don't think the same is true now but but Gen Z like they grew up with this
00:23:37.700feeling of like well I don't know you know I guess we'll figure it out and so I think partly it's0.95
00:23:44.800artificial and partly it's like survival yeah yeah I think your reaction is so right that like
00:23:51.240if we can look at it with curiosity instead of condemnation like what is the use of this so how
00:23:56.540does this feel useful to people who are doing this and also understand that it's not the entire
00:24:01.860generation it's like some people who are doing it yes yes and it's it can be super niche and
00:24:08.260i think it also gives the people who are using these terms like it in its own way it like gives
00:24:15.500them a sense of community because you know so much of gen z is like organized around the internet and
00:24:21.980and what spaces they hang out on the internet and who they hang out with on the internet and
00:24:26.080you know and we know the ways in which that becomes like weaponized and dangerous but
00:24:30.660also some of it is actual real connection and community I will say one other thing about this
00:24:38.440is you know as I've been kind of doing more on media and like growing growing into my new identity
00:24:44.280as an author and kind of all these things as I've spoken with different consultants or advisors and
00:24:48.640things like that what people will tell you is that you're supposed to like create new words
00:24:53.600you're supposed to like make up these new things and like say it's a thing right like yeah i find
00:24:59.540that funny too because it's like it works to some extent and you have these people who are also like
00:25:06.540trying to make certain things happen trying to make fetch happen you know it's like that doesn't
00:25:12.560always happen when it does actually happen that means it's really hit a nerve and it's actually
00:25:18.000a feeling. It's hit a feeling. Yes, totally. Okay. Our next question is from Madeline and
00:25:23.620it's about a specific corner of self-care. I'm so excited for this one.
00:25:27.380I am super interested in the overlap between self-care and embracing hobbies,
00:25:31.780often touted as a way to improve mood and mental health. I feel like so many of my peers,
00:25:36.980millennial women, are embracing it. It can also feel a bit performative when people share about
00:25:41.500it on social media. Have you noticed this? What's up with that? Is this a new thing related to
00:25:46.600social media? Or has this always been the case? Okay, I have theories about this. But I want you
00:25:52.080to I want to hear from you first. So I'll tell a story. The first time that I went to therapy,
00:25:57.060I was a medical student. And my like chief complaint, quote, unquote, when I went to see
00:26:03.340the therapist was that I didn't know what to do if I wasn't studying. Yeah, and I needed to get
00:26:09.640hobbies and i did not know how to have hobbies and um granted like i could have had many other
00:26:16.520chief complaints like the fact that i was like having panic attacks when i drove over a bridge
00:26:20.180or like there was many other things that were definitely more pressing but like i need hobbies
00:26:26.040i need hobbies um i'm now 41 and i still am terrible at hobbies i guess i would say two
00:26:33.060things i i don't think this is new i don't think this is new i think we're just like it's being
00:26:36.860broadcast more now because of social media I think like with all of real self-care like the best
00:26:44.860stuff lies in the middle and you get in trouble when you fall to the extremes so I'm on the one
00:26:51.860one extreme which is that I'm a workaholic and it's really hard for me to have hobbies because
00:26:57.120whenever I get a hobby I try to turn it into work yep and now my entire career is something that was
00:27:02.820essentially a hobby but now it's my job yep and that is its own interesting place to live
00:27:09.500then you have the other opposite extreme which is the person who sticks with the hobbies and
00:27:16.520really enjoys the hobbies but also like becomes very very intense about them and is almost like
00:27:22.440a zealot yep about said hobbies like they're not monetizing them or like making them their career
00:27:27.960things like that but like they're whether they're in crossfit or whether they're a vegan or whatever
00:27:33.400the thing is that's like becomes their whole identity some of the most like well-adjusted
00:27:40.020people that i know are people that have hobbies and they are like quiet about them like yeah
00:27:46.440they broadcast them they they enjoy gardening they like to cook and it's just like something
00:27:52.040that they do for themselves and they're you know enjoy doing it and it's not something that has to
00:27:57.820be done loudly so hobbies aren't bad it's hobbies aren't bad like hobbies are good it's good to have
00:28:04.100hobbies but it's all like the whole thing with real self-care is that it's like none of these
00:28:07.880things are bad it's just that you need to work through the principles of the boundaries the
00:28:11.360compassion the values the power to understand what is you bringing you to the thing to make
00:28:16.420sure that you have the right reasons and then you'll be able to have the hobby be something
00:28:21.380that's just generative and not something that is that you need to showcase performative like that
00:28:27.400exactly I think that a lot of people have gone through burnout or experienced burnout or continuing
00:28:36.740to experience burnout over the last 10 years and have understood like okay I reached a breaking
00:28:43.060point something in my life needs to change and that also for many but not all that corresponds
00:28:49.300with maybe having a little bit more stability both in their jobs and in their income in order
00:28:54.760to spend more time and resources on a hobby and also like their kids getting a little bit older
00:29:02.340so that there's a little bit more time to allocate to that and that also intersects with especially
00:29:06.980for parents like this this place where you're like who am i who am i apart from being a parent
00:29:12.340like i want to rediscover some of those components and if it's also not what i do for pay like it's
00:29:18.520not my job who am I and how do you discover that other things in your life and we are at a point
00:29:27.380where fewer and fewer people in their 30s and 40s are involved in religious communities so it's not
00:29:33.060I am a Christian I am a Muslim like that's still true for some people but it's not necessarily the
00:29:38.380case so where do you find that source of identity or like that's that wellspring of like who am I
00:29:43.820what do I actually like to do? A hobby. But marathon running only has so much space for you,
00:29:52.680right? Like there's only so much like intensity and like identity formation that can be gleaned
00:29:58.360from that or from gardening or from knitting or whatever the thing is. And so it has to,
00:30:04.740you have to expand it. You have to make it like, I'm not just running a marathon. I am
00:30:08.000super involved in the marathon community yeah or i'm not just like growing a couple herbs on my
00:30:14.700window sill i am growing a thousand dahlias like me
00:30:18.260and then there's also that that need that incredible compulsive need which
00:30:25.260true i think especially of millennials but other generations as well that are raised in similar
00:30:31.320time span to like okay if i'm doing something i have to be the best at it like i need to make it
00:30:36.960a really prominent line on my resume and then you funnel all of this energy and the way that you
00:30:42.940justify that you are spending so much time on it is you have to like broadcast it and like how
00:30:50.200amazing it is right if you are just mediocre and you never posted on instagram like how is it worth
00:30:55.480all of this time that you're dedicating to it yeah yeah obviously i think that is ridiculous
00:31:00.320but at the same time this is how my brain works and this is how a lot of my people i know this
00:31:06.120is how their brains work is like how do I justify this thing that seems so selfish when really what
00:31:13.400it is is like exploring things that you actually like to do yeah does any of that make sense is
00:31:20.160there anything that you want to push back against there no I think that's right I think like
00:31:23.940pinpointing how it's filling an identity need and if it needs to fill an identity need then it has
00:31:29.900to take up a lot of space and it has to be seen because our identities are formed in connection
00:31:35.480with other humans so therefore it has to be performed whereas the healthier definition
00:31:41.980of a hobby should be more related to um there's this phrase that is used a lot in india and maybe
00:31:50.840in other parts of asia time pass so just a way to pass the time yeah um right you know just something
00:31:59.480to do that feels good that's fun that's not scrolling your phone and so whether that is
00:32:04.620pickleball or whether that is going for a walk or like trying a new recipe or right like it's like
00:32:12.980you're holding it more lightly yeah the people that I've seen that are the best at this are
00:32:17.980people that are yeah not looking for external validation and have multiple small hobbies like
00:32:25.220it's not just like one hobby that takes up everything it's like they have three or four
00:32:28.440things that they enjoy it yeah admittedly I'm not one of those people but um um I think it also
00:32:36.200maybe correlates to just like the commodification of time too and just how we have all become
00:32:43.380because we live in the society that we live in we feel like we need to justify how we're spending
00:32:48.720our time and so it needs to feel productive and we need to feel like we're excelling at it when
00:32:52.400in fact I think we would all do it would be good for all of us to do some more things in a more
00:32:57.980mediocre way and just let it be that this is a perfect tee up to our next question which is about
00:33:05.860people like us uh let's hear from caroline i imagine that many culture studies subscribers
00:33:12.660are former or recovering perfectionists lately i've seen and heard a lot about this concept
00:33:18.000of forgiving yourself more like giving yourself a thousand breaks and then a thousand more
00:33:22.320what content or guidance is out there on how recovering perfectionists actually do that
00:33:27.680how do we actually be kinder to ourselves and rewire that programming yeah i i agree that
00:33:33.800there are a lot of recovery imperfections in this subscriber base uh and my struggle has always been
00:33:41.280with like okay that advice to like lower the bar and then lower it again like aren't i failing in
00:33:48.280some way but who am i failing the the clumps of dog hair on the steps like who is that failing
00:33:55.620just trying to think about like actually come up with the person that that would be failing
00:34:00.860and when I realized that it's absolutely no one that that frees me a little bit but I would love
00:34:07.940to hear your advice here yeah so when I think of perfectionism I think of it in relation to control
00:34:13.420um so when you're perfectionist you really want to be able to predict and control an uncertain
00:34:20.040situation and an uncertain life. And so perfectionism is your measuring stick to
00:34:25.260feel like you have some semblance of agency in any different situation. The problem is that
00:34:31.900perfection, perfectionism limits your ability to genuinely connect with other people because you
00:34:40.560are too preoccupied in your own mind with the measuring stick. And so you don't have enough
00:34:48.660space to actually be there in real time and be present and engaged and like alive essentially
00:34:55.120yeah yeah so it ends up being counter to your goals because you're constantly kind of like
00:35:00.800upping the ante in the control and perfectionism when what we all really want as humans is to feel
00:35:08.300seen and loved and understood but if you're in your head with this measuring stick you're not
00:35:14.740going to ever feel that way so it's like basically like a stairway to you know just misery so that's
00:35:21.420kind of like the context that I think about perfectionism with and then in terms of like
00:35:26.380getting better at being mediocre the way that it's worked for me in the past is that I so each time
00:35:34.820you lower the bar you're taking a risk right because your inner critic perfectionistic brain
00:35:44.280is going to be like oh my god but like what about that hair what about that dog hair right like yeah
00:35:49.420it's going to like kind of go off and so you have to take a leap of faith you have to take a risk
00:35:53.680and be like nope it's going to be okay it's going to be okay and so for me I've had to um like
00:36:00.720literally just like make notes to myself like kind of keep a little journal um I use the notes app on
00:36:06.980my phone for a lot of different things where you just kind of like write down different situations
00:36:11.100and you say like oh I took a risk and I you know I only wrote 200 words instead of 500 words in
00:36:19.140that newsletter or yeah you know yeah I I sent this out a day late and then and then you follow
00:36:24.400up and you say like hey did the world fall apart did everybody say they were gonna hate me like
00:36:28.100did anything happen no actually like something good happened the next day that was like tangentially
00:36:33.900related and then you make space again coming back to time and space this you have to be
00:36:39.780intentional and actually make space for this like you actually go back and look at those notes
00:36:44.580yeah and remind yourself and the next time you have one of those little panic
00:36:48.780feelings about letting somebody down or doing something imperfectly you come back to the note
00:36:54.740and you kind of review and you're like oh no I've done this before and it's okay it's going to be
00:36:59.800fine it's actually going to be better because I'm going to be more present and attentive and I'll be
00:37:05.220able to make better use of opportunities that come up as opposed to like being stuck in my
00:37:09.540hamster wheel. Yeah. I love that idea that like you actually have to make the note and you actually
00:37:15.740have to come back to it because I think something about perfectionists is we are often self
00:37:20.560flagellating and like almost avoid going back to the note and being like, no, disaster didn't
00:37:26.560happen. Right. Like that feels too good to like confirm that it didn't happen. Okay. So final
00:37:34.780question before the AAA segment is about when self-care takes like, I don't know, like a little
00:37:39.900bit of a dark turn. Let's hear from Natalie again. How have boundaries and ideas of self-care
00:37:45.420gravitated towards us really just acting poorly in our personal relationships,
00:37:51.120a la the recent online discussion around whether you would drive or pick up a friend at the airport?
00:37:56.640And how is this contributing to further isolation and hyper-individualism in society,
00:38:01.320especially in younger generations okay so i think what this question asker is referring to
00:38:07.780is the idea that like my boundary is not driving you to the airport like you know what i mean like
00:38:13.620that like about using words like boundary therapy speak which we addressed in an episode a couple
00:38:18.320weeks ago to talk about like just not doing things that like are kind of annoying how do you think
00:38:26.200about this? Yeah, you know, so much of what we've been talking about today is finding the middle
00:38:31.600ground. And we're never going to get where we want to go by living in the extremes. And so I
00:38:38.660think for sure, there are plenty of ways in which therapy speak and things like boundaries have
00:38:45.100been used or misconstrued to give people the leeway to, you know, cut off friends who they
00:38:52.740had a minor disagreement with or to continue to be more solitary and like refuse to leave their
00:38:58.900couch and just doom scroll on all day like right we know we know that's the case and
00:39:04.440I guess if we step back I see it as probably an overcorrection for a society that did not do a
00:39:15.520good job of allowing young adults and adults in like polite social situations to express their
00:39:25.480feelings and to express like what they were really thinking or what they were really feeling
00:39:30.820and so now we've kind of gone a little bit too far on the other side you know one of the examples
00:39:37.560that I use sometimes when I'm giving talks when I'm getting to the third principle of real self
00:39:41.860care values which is like really understanding what's important to you and how you want to show
00:39:46.340up in the world and i'll say like i see this all the time in like groups of women where people will
00:39:51.640say like oh well what do you where do you want to eat for dinner and like nobody will give an1.00
00:39:55.980opinion and and you have to like pull teeth and then you'll talk to somebody and you know we'll
00:40:01.720be at chinese food or something and they'll be like yeah actually i really hate chinese food
00:40:04.720but i didn't want to say anything you know like you feel bad like actually expressing what you
00:40:09.440want to eat and what type of food you like right it's just food yeah it's just food let alone like
00:40:14.880huge decisions like who you want to be your life partner and like what your career is like
00:40:20.280we're like in a situation where you can't even express like what type of food you want to eat
00:40:25.340and and feel so um guilty like you need to appease everybody else that's around you
00:40:33.920so like that's the history that we're coming from and now we have like a younger generation that is
00:40:40.080sort of like no like I'm not gonna I'm not gonna go that way but I think there needs to be a little
00:40:44.980bit of course correction that being said like you know I had a patient the other day who she's going
00:40:50.840to a uh I think it's like a baby shower an out-of-town baby shower and there's a bunch of0.99
00:40:56.800women in her little town that are driving together and she she said to me she was like0.65
00:41:01.200i'm so proud of myself i set a boundary um because people were asking about carpooling
00:41:06.480and volunteering and i guess it's like the shower's like two hours away and she was like
00:41:09.500but i just really wanted a two-hour drive by myself or i could listen to whatever podcast
00:41:14.100i wanted to listen to and just be by myself and i didn't offer to carpool and like normally i would
00:41:20.500have and that was like a huge boundary for her and she was so proud of herself and i was like
00:41:24.800that's great good for you I guess what I want to say is like I think it's really easy for us to
00:41:32.720knock some of these boundary situations on the outside without knowing the personal perspective
00:41:39.640of the person who's doing the boundary setting and like what their family of origin is like and
00:41:44.540like what their relationship history is and like what specific personal thing they're working on
00:41:51.560at that moment you know there's for me like there's plenty of situations that I look back
00:41:57.340on now and I'm like yeah I totally went overboard with boundaries or vice versa but you don't really
00:42:03.020see it unless it's in hindsight and you kind of have to learn those lessons for yourself I think
00:42:07.680yeah yeah yeah totally and you have yeah you have to get into this place where you can look back on
00:42:12.220it and be like that felt incredibly necessary in that moment yeah and so what like spending more
00:42:19.220time thinking about like what feels necessary not because like someone's like these are the
00:42:23.300boundaries that every person should have in their lives right like what what matters to you what
00:42:27.940feels important to you yeah that's hard I think for us to accept because I think a lot of times
00:42:33.960we want to have like these larger societal norms about what you should and shouldn't do and how
00:42:39.980you should and shouldn't behave and and I think that that makes a lot of people unhappy so accounting
00:42:46.660for that and how norms do make people unhappy like that that's useful yeah and giving people
00:42:52.580the space to wrestle with it like it's not going to help anybody like if you feel like someone is
00:42:58.280being anti-social essentially in their boundaries you confronting them is not going to have them be
00:43:05.540more social uh right whereas you're giving them the space to grapple with whatever they're
00:43:12.080grappling with work out whatever they're working out and then eventually kind of come back and
00:43:15.860have more space in their life for you like that's different you know yeah what about the last point
00:43:22.340about hyper individualization though that that is something that I think about like people being
00:43:27.100like I'm setting a boundary I get around like hanging out after 6 p.m um and how like we've
00:43:35.000just created these mechanisms that do facilitate sometimes doing like sometimes I do think that
00:43:41.300social decorum forces us into situations that once we're there for 10 minutes we're like yeah
00:43:45.940i did want to do this yeah yeah do you know what i mean yeah yeah i mean i think just overall like
00:43:53.000we definitely are like the data sets proves this like we're lonely like we are not doing a good
00:43:59.640job of being with other people um and we've lost whether it's the pandemic or social media or you
00:44:05.300you know, it's a lot of different things. The economic environment, we have gotten ourselves
00:44:11.440into a situation where we are spending too much time alone. And so that's absolutely true.
00:44:19.400And I think that, again, I always try to avoid coming to a place from shame, because I find that
00:44:28.240when you shame yourself into trying to do something that you know is good for you,
00:44:32.740you usually will fall off the wagon yeah yeah so I'm just thinking of an example for my own life
00:44:39.200um I have an author friend here in Austin and we've been planning to go out
00:44:43.260and get dinner one night and it's been really cold here like 40
00:44:48.820this has been hard for me to leave my house um and so I was like hey like how how would you feel
00:44:55.560about coming over to my house and I'll get us takeout and she was like oh yeah that's a great
00:45:00.100idea like i would love to do a house hang like we never do that anymore and that would be so fun and
00:45:04.100i was like yes like i can wear my sweatpants and like we can just hang out on the couch and that
00:45:08.400will be amazing so it's like i think like finding the ways that it works for you yep is is really
00:45:16.980important yeah no i love that so now we're going to do the ask anything question which is from
00:45:23.160someone who wants suggestions on how to celebrate achievements when you don't drink and you also
00:45:28.360work from home. So no one's going to magically bring you donuts to like the break room or
00:45:32.340whatever. If you're not a paid subscriber, though, this is where the episode ends. So
00:45:36.460if you want our ideas on inventive ways of celebrating, head over to culture study pod
00:45:42.180dot substack.com. Pooja, this has been such a privilege. Seriously, you are on our list,
00:45:48.100our first list that Melody and I came up with of people that we really wanted to have on
00:45:51.980the show. And the only reason we didn't ask until recently is because we were accepting
00:45:56.600your boundary of not doing media appearances as you were restoring yourself from your incredible
00:46:02.920book tour um where can people find you if they want to hear more from you yes well i am on
00:46:09.720substack i have a newsletter that's called real self-care and it is at pujalakshman.substack.com
00:46:15.740you can also go to my website and find it there pujalakshman p-o-o-j-a-l-a-k-s-h-m-i-n
00:46:22.240and I'm on Instagram. And yeah. Thank you so much. This has been such a pleasure.
00:46:28.160Thank you for having me in. Thanks for listening to the Culture Study Podcast. Be sure to subscribe
00:46:33.340wherever you get your podcasts because we have so many great episodes in the works. I always say
00:46:37.940that and it's always true. And I promise you don't want to miss any of them. Now, if you want to
00:46:42.780suggest a topic or ask a question about the culture that surrounds you or submit a question
00:46:47.400for our subscriber-only advice time segment,
00:46:50.040go to our Google form at tinyurl.com slash culturestudypod