Morning morning. I write this to you from Fresno, California, where I’m celebrating the holidays early so I can go away for seven days over my chosen holiday (Christmas) to a silent meditation retreat. It’s the first retreat I’ve done since the pandemic, and oh boy am I excited to go and sit with “all this” and have absolutely no where to run except directly into my neuroses. A thrill.
Good enough. I do find we, both myself individually and as a society tend to slingshot in any one direction when we think we may have found something to hold on to that might be THE answer (that and the marketing people get a hold of it and all of a sudden kids are saying "trauma" a lot). And then after some time of treading water on that deep end of things we realize "that answer" is becoming a crutch vs a solution. There is ease in good enough. There is beauty in good enough. There is joy in good enough. There is laughter in good enough. And there is so much love to be had in good enough. I've found I'd rather BE with intention than GROW with intention. Good enough.
Still dragging my dropped jaw around on the floor from the season 2 finale of White Lotus 😱
💯 in support of you raising your rates 👏👏👏 Good job 👍 Just today I asked my piano teacher (a single female entrepreneur) if she’s thought about raising her prices. She said she has for her new students. She hadn’t raised her rate for existing students. Next year will be three years that I’ve been with her and I’ve always paid the same rate. I insisted, happily, that I pay the new rate starting in 2023 🙌
Okay I'm a total dork as I thought Sam Harris was Dan Harris (10% happier) and I couldn't see what the issue was!~ Hee hee. I don't know who Sam Harris is and am not on Twitter so yay me. I dislike Joe Rogan and only listened once to when he got annihilated by a cardiac surgeon who promotes plant based diets. Of course Joe Rogan is a big meat eater and he got his clock cleaned. I also am not fond of Tony Robbins but met him one time as he was working with the agency I was on mentoring programs. That's another story but he held his own against some of the nasty egos who were in the room so I kind of enjoyed that. In general, not too interested in him or his work.
I think all families have issues and gathering at the holidays is stressful when you are adults. I am so not into the holidays this year. I've been a bit depressed.
I love getting book and movie recommendations. I read both fiction and nonfiction. I just finished Mean Baby which was really good but of course a hard read. I was hoping to go see She Said in the theater but I think it's probably gone and I'm pretty much an at home person these days. I read the book, it was super good. I couldn't get into the one by Ronan Farrow.
I'm not sure what your rate will be for me but I will likely still pay. I always get something out of your newsletters. I have discontinued another one I supported as there was just too much going on- she had a Discord group and it was so overwhelming to me and I just gave up. Anyway, enjoy your retreat and hugs and love.
i just watched your Notre Dame course video & it brought back so many memories of my college experience at a similar Jesuit institution in the midwest where i learned to drink every day & night & smoke pot & take drugs ie acid etc. How i survived is a mystery. I was completely lost.
This course is so needed. i am 68 & finally trying to get sober by learning all that i can about alcohol.
I love reading your newsletter & Annie Grace’s course etc. You are so brave & amazing in so many ways
. I thank you & i hope you get followers on every campus around the world. I hate to say we are victims but we are by this product poison that looks so sexy & fun. So many young brains destroyed so early in life by a substance that no one tells you how addictive it is. The pictures of all the parents with their kids tailgating at the game promoting the drinking is so crazy. Of course the kids don’t see there is any other way? i am rambling i know just want to say keep up the great work, people need this especially kids. There is a better path in school to take. No one shows you. XOX
Dec 15, 2022·edited Dec 15, 2022Liked by Holly Whitaker
Agree about therapy-speak becoming more widespread in the culture - very curious. Recently I listened to a podcast episode where a woman named Ingrid Clayton - who is a licensed psychologist and has been practicing for close to 18 years - came to the realization in the very recent past that she has Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (she's also in longtime recovery) - and she learned this from Instagram and NOT from her multiple degrees/advanced training in psychology. That absolutely blew my mind. I've been watching her YouTube videos and I find her openness and candor about her ongoing process of recovery to be very powerful.
I don't know. I think emotional and psychology well-being is a lifelong challenge for many people in this culture and I'm glad to see more conversations happening around it. It feels like a necessary correction to the emotional imperialism of manifest it/#gratitude/#blessed/abundance attitude that has tended to dominate.
Also on a related note related to "being haunted by the fixing" - Pete Walker, a therapist that writes about C-PTSD, describes how he sometimes sees the maniacal desire to "do all the healing work" can be an aspect of the "Flight" response to trauma (the 4Fs being Fight, Flight, Freeze, & Fawn). I really resonated with that - I can see how I've stayed really really busy "doing the work" and doing it from a place of nervous system activation. All unconsciously, of course, and all in the service of trying to keep myself safe. Anyways. All this healing shit is so nuanced and multifaceted.
Good points. Curious about the 52 books. I’ve been reading voraciously as well the last few years. You’re totally right about the therapy-speak. I think a lot of it started with fringe left millennials who decided sometime around the early-mid 00s that everything having to do with Boomers and America was egregiously wrong. I’m a big believer in Buddhist meditation. Our culture, as you said, is obsessed with labeling what’s ‘wrong’ and trying to change it. It’s this indefatigable pursuit of some end goal which we’ll never achieve, of course, because we’re not the pure beings we’re supposedly ‘supposed’ to be; we’re human--flawed, weak, troubled, angry, wounded, confused. The key is: That’s OK. Can you accept where you are right now and not need things to be different than they are? That, I think, is true wisdom. The need for things to always conform to some fictive standard we created is the cause of the suffering. The solution is acceptance and letting go.
Loved Patrick Radden Keefe’s book on the Sacklers (which of course covers Nan’s campaign). Now I can wait to see the movie, when it eventually becomes available here in Australia...
1. I would pay any amount to read the unique and amazingly thoughtful things that emerge from that talented brain of yours and the elegant and lovely way you write about them. It’s true. I’m gob smacked. I admit it, freely.
2) readers, watch Dopesick with the wonderful Michael Keaton along with the great documentary about the incredible efforts of Nan Goldin to get the odious Sackler name removed from MOMA and other art institutions around the world. All that Blood and Restless Beauty (Holly’s pick for top movie). The Sacklers basically addicted America to Oxy, and pretty much got away with it. Goldin continues to hold them accountable and make them the pariahs that they are and should be.
3) White Lotus- what a great cast, especially the wonderful Sarina Tabasco as Lucia. Hated the ending though, but I’ll hate anything that ends with the demise of the fantastic Jennifer Coolidge.
4) my favorite scene from Broadcast News: Holly Hunter accuses William Hurt of journalistic malpractice: “ “You crossed the line, Tom.”
William Hurt responds:” How would I know? They keep moving it.” Reminds me of another movie line, not sure why but in Lord of the Rings, or maybe it was Harry Potter, I forget, the main character, maybe Gandalf, says: “ “Now comes the time to decide between what is right, and what is easy.”
Thank you Holly for always it seems deciding what is right. You never take the easy path, always the road less taken. I hope it has made all the difference. And I know, as a guitar player/singer how hard it is to put one’s self out there in front of others, you just keep on truckin’.
Thank you for your courage. You are such a gift this holiday season and always.
It was actually Tempest that immersed me in this language. No one around me ever talked about boundaries or trauma before that. Obviously other forces were at play and it's the zeitgeist or something, but I think as soon as people start learning more about things they want to use labels for it, which leads to people writing books/podcasts/etc. about them to cash in on the trend, etc. "Trigger" is another one that drives me a little nuts. The problem I have with a lot of the use of this terminology is that it oversimplifies things and doesn't allow for a more nuanced conversation, which is compounded by them often being tucked into brief social media hot takes. Apologies if that made no sense.
Re: Sam Harris
When I was younger I loved him because he was an atheist with a bullhorn; I kind of forgot about him until I heard him on Dax Shepard's podcast (the only time I ever listened to it) talking about moral philosophy and meditation. I'm a big fan of his Making Sense podcast because he stays complex to me. I don't always agree with him, but he respects his audience enough to go very deep on issues and he never takes the easy way out, never panders or kisses ass. I hate podcasts, but I had a 7-hour drive I had to do regularly last summer and it was my go-to listening. He is deeply interested in what we can do to better ourselves and help others. He's also done podcasts with and featured David Whyte in his meditation app. Can't go wrong there.
The only things that interest me about White Lotus are Aubrey Plaza (so funny) and Jennifer Coolidge (soooo funny). I've seen the ads, I've read a couple of pieces on it, I can't fathom enjoying it. Is there a reason I should try it out? I only ask because my partner is interested in watching it.
NA drinks stuff here: my bodega was sold out of Athletic, so I took a flyer on Hoplark 0.0 and I think I have a new champion. Hoppy as hell and that's it. No alcohol, no carbs, no calories, kind of like Lagunitas Hoppy Refresher set to 11. Also marveling at how easy it is to find mocktails on menus now (a wedding and the restaurants/bars we went to that weekend), though so many that I find are filled with sugar. I want to find stuff on the menu that's rich, complex, bitter as hell, and has no sugar. Kind of like Hella Bitters Dry & Aromatic.
Thanks for always delivering a lot to think about!
PS - my favorite GRANTA cover was a picture with the words (I think) "The Family: They Fuck You Up."
BTW, since you love to read so much I have a recommendation for a book you might really like, if you haven’t already read it. I read it prior to going to Greece which was perfect. The book is CIRCE by Madeleine Miller. It’s a novel depicting the lives of the Greek gods, as imagined as if they really existing, as seen through the eyes of a “minor” goddess: Circe. But it is really a story of a woman coming into her own, empowerment, in the face of abuse from the major gods, most of whom are men. I could not put it down. The story is very interesting and the writing is exquisite
Thank you, Holly - the “therapy buzzwords” have made me think too- I wonder sometimes how we will view this period in time and where the pendulum will land on this. On one hand, it’s wonderful to have people expressing more and being aware of mental health to remove the shame people have felt for so long, but on the other, it puts mental health into almost an unattainable commodity category like “youthful skin” leading to most of us to seek out the solutions equivalent to wrinkle cream for our souls. Also- if you haven’t watched the after the episode for White Lotus, its a goodie and contains what season three might bring thematically. I have Touch on my wishlist!! Im finishing up “Drink?” By Prof. David Nutt. I picked it because i was curious that it was billed as an objective look at the impact of alcohol. The science was great- I love learning the physiology of alcohol in the body but was completely turned off by the multiple pages of “how to drink moderately” in the end of the book. I appreciate he is trying to get folks to be mindful but wonder about the efficacy of this advice with an addictive substance? As someone who NQTD, i know moderation is too much mental gymnastics and im happier without but it frustrated me that “how to cut down” was included. It seems dangerous suggesting that approach vs an approach that asks other questions? Anyway, thank you for the great roundup and im glad to see you are raising your rates! You deserve all that and more! Happy Holidays ❤️
Good enough. I do find we, both myself individually and as a society tend to slingshot in any one direction when we think we may have found something to hold on to that might be THE answer (that and the marketing people get a hold of it and all of a sudden kids are saying "trauma" a lot). And then after some time of treading water on that deep end of things we realize "that answer" is becoming a crutch vs a solution. There is ease in good enough. There is beauty in good enough. There is joy in good enough. There is laughter in good enough. And there is so much love to be had in good enough. I've found I'd rather BE with intention than GROW with intention. Good enough.
Still dragging my dropped jaw around on the floor from the season 2 finale of White Lotus 😱
💯 in support of you raising your rates 👏👏👏 Good job 👍 Just today I asked my piano teacher (a single female entrepreneur) if she’s thought about raising her prices. She said she has for her new students. She hadn’t raised her rate for existing students. Next year will be three years that I’ve been with her and I’ve always paid the same rate. I insisted, happily, that I pay the new rate starting in 2023 🙌
FIFTY-TWO BOOKS?!? Holly you spoil me.
Okay I'm a total dork as I thought Sam Harris was Dan Harris (10% happier) and I couldn't see what the issue was!~ Hee hee. I don't know who Sam Harris is and am not on Twitter so yay me. I dislike Joe Rogan and only listened once to when he got annihilated by a cardiac surgeon who promotes plant based diets. Of course Joe Rogan is a big meat eater and he got his clock cleaned. I also am not fond of Tony Robbins but met him one time as he was working with the agency I was on mentoring programs. That's another story but he held his own against some of the nasty egos who were in the room so I kind of enjoyed that. In general, not too interested in him or his work.
I think all families have issues and gathering at the holidays is stressful when you are adults. I am so not into the holidays this year. I've been a bit depressed.
I love getting book and movie recommendations. I read both fiction and nonfiction. I just finished Mean Baby which was really good but of course a hard read. I was hoping to go see She Said in the theater but I think it's probably gone and I'm pretty much an at home person these days. I read the book, it was super good. I couldn't get into the one by Ronan Farrow.
I'm not sure what your rate will be for me but I will likely still pay. I always get something out of your newsletters. I have discontinued another one I supported as there was just too much going on- she had a Discord group and it was so overwhelming to me and I just gave up. Anyway, enjoy your retreat and hugs and love.
i just watched your Notre Dame course video & it brought back so many memories of my college experience at a similar Jesuit institution in the midwest where i learned to drink every day & night & smoke pot & take drugs ie acid etc. How i survived is a mystery. I was completely lost.
This course is so needed. i am 68 & finally trying to get sober by learning all that i can about alcohol.
I love reading your newsletter & Annie Grace’s course etc. You are so brave & amazing in so many ways
. I thank you & i hope you get followers on every campus around the world. I hate to say we are victims but we are by this product poison that looks so sexy & fun. So many young brains destroyed so early in life by a substance that no one tells you how addictive it is. The pictures of all the parents with their kids tailgating at the game promoting the drinking is so crazy. Of course the kids don’t see there is any other way? i am rambling i know just want to say keep up the great work, people need this especially kids. There is a better path in school to take. No one shows you. XOX
Anne
Agree about therapy-speak becoming more widespread in the culture - very curious. Recently I listened to a podcast episode where a woman named Ingrid Clayton - who is a licensed psychologist and has been practicing for close to 18 years - came to the realization in the very recent past that she has Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (she's also in longtime recovery) - and she learned this from Instagram and NOT from her multiple degrees/advanced training in psychology. That absolutely blew my mind. I've been watching her YouTube videos and I find her openness and candor about her ongoing process of recovery to be very powerful.
I don't know. I think emotional and psychology well-being is a lifelong challenge for many people in this culture and I'm glad to see more conversations happening around it. It feels like a necessary correction to the emotional imperialism of manifest it/#gratitude/#blessed/abundance attitude that has tended to dominate.
Also on a related note related to "being haunted by the fixing" - Pete Walker, a therapist that writes about C-PTSD, describes how he sometimes sees the maniacal desire to "do all the healing work" can be an aspect of the "Flight" response to trauma (the 4Fs being Fight, Flight, Freeze, & Fawn). I really resonated with that - I can see how I've stayed really really busy "doing the work" and doing it from a place of nervous system activation. All unconsciously, of course, and all in the service of trying to keep myself safe. Anyways. All this healing shit is so nuanced and multifaceted.
Good points. Curious about the 52 books. I’ve been reading voraciously as well the last few years. You’re totally right about the therapy-speak. I think a lot of it started with fringe left millennials who decided sometime around the early-mid 00s that everything having to do with Boomers and America was egregiously wrong. I’m a big believer in Buddhist meditation. Our culture, as you said, is obsessed with labeling what’s ‘wrong’ and trying to change it. It’s this indefatigable pursuit of some end goal which we’ll never achieve, of course, because we’re not the pure beings we’re supposedly ‘supposed’ to be; we’re human--flawed, weak, troubled, angry, wounded, confused. The key is: That’s OK. Can you accept where you are right now and not need things to be different than they are? That, I think, is true wisdom. The need for things to always conform to some fictive standard we created is the cause of the suffering. The solution is acceptance and letting go.
Loved Patrick Radden Keefe’s book on the Sacklers (which of course covers Nan’s campaign). Now I can wait to see the movie, when it eventually becomes available here in Australia...
A few things
1. I would pay any amount to read the unique and amazingly thoughtful things that emerge from that talented brain of yours and the elegant and lovely way you write about them. It’s true. I’m gob smacked. I admit it, freely.
2) readers, watch Dopesick with the wonderful Michael Keaton along with the great documentary about the incredible efforts of Nan Goldin to get the odious Sackler name removed from MOMA and other art institutions around the world. All that Blood and Restless Beauty (Holly’s pick for top movie). The Sacklers basically addicted America to Oxy, and pretty much got away with it. Goldin continues to hold them accountable and make them the pariahs that they are and should be.
3) White Lotus- what a great cast, especially the wonderful Sarina Tabasco as Lucia. Hated the ending though, but I’ll hate anything that ends with the demise of the fantastic Jennifer Coolidge.
4) my favorite scene from Broadcast News: Holly Hunter accuses William Hurt of journalistic malpractice: “ “You crossed the line, Tom.”
William Hurt responds:” How would I know? They keep moving it.” Reminds me of another movie line, not sure why but in Lord of the Rings, or maybe it was Harry Potter, I forget, the main character, maybe Gandalf, says: “ “Now comes the time to decide between what is right, and what is easy.”
Thank you Holly for always it seems deciding what is right. You never take the easy path, always the road less taken. I hope it has made all the difference. And I know, as a guitar player/singer how hard it is to put one’s self out there in front of others, you just keep on truckin’.
Thank you for your courage. You are such a gift this holiday season and always.
Re: therapy-speak -
It was actually Tempest that immersed me in this language. No one around me ever talked about boundaries or trauma before that. Obviously other forces were at play and it's the zeitgeist or something, but I think as soon as people start learning more about things they want to use labels for it, which leads to people writing books/podcasts/etc. about them to cash in on the trend, etc. "Trigger" is another one that drives me a little nuts. The problem I have with a lot of the use of this terminology is that it oversimplifies things and doesn't allow for a more nuanced conversation, which is compounded by them often being tucked into brief social media hot takes. Apologies if that made no sense.
Re: Sam Harris
When I was younger I loved him because he was an atheist with a bullhorn; I kind of forgot about him until I heard him on Dax Shepard's podcast (the only time I ever listened to it) talking about moral philosophy and meditation. I'm a big fan of his Making Sense podcast because he stays complex to me. I don't always agree with him, but he respects his audience enough to go very deep on issues and he never takes the easy way out, never panders or kisses ass. I hate podcasts, but I had a 7-hour drive I had to do regularly last summer and it was my go-to listening. He is deeply interested in what we can do to better ourselves and help others. He's also done podcasts with and featured David Whyte in his meditation app. Can't go wrong there.
The only things that interest me about White Lotus are Aubrey Plaza (so funny) and Jennifer Coolidge (soooo funny). I've seen the ads, I've read a couple of pieces on it, I can't fathom enjoying it. Is there a reason I should try it out? I only ask because my partner is interested in watching it.
NA drinks stuff here: my bodega was sold out of Athletic, so I took a flyer on Hoplark 0.0 and I think I have a new champion. Hoppy as hell and that's it. No alcohol, no carbs, no calories, kind of like Lagunitas Hoppy Refresher set to 11. Also marveling at how easy it is to find mocktails on menus now (a wedding and the restaurants/bars we went to that weekend), though so many that I find are filled with sugar. I want to find stuff on the menu that's rich, complex, bitter as hell, and has no sugar. Kind of like Hella Bitters Dry & Aromatic.
Thanks for always delivering a lot to think about!
PS - my favorite GRANTA cover was a picture with the words (I think) "The Family: They Fuck You Up."
"Maybe so much of what haunts me is the fixing itself, not a thing that’s actually broken."
This might be what I needed, but did not necessarily want, to hear today. Thank you?
BTW, since you love to read so much I have a recommendation for a book you might really like, if you haven’t already read it. I read it prior to going to Greece which was perfect. The book is CIRCE by Madeleine Miller. It’s a novel depicting the lives of the Greek gods, as imagined as if they really existing, as seen through the eyes of a “minor” goddess: Circe. But it is really a story of a woman coming into her own, empowerment, in the face of abuse from the major gods, most of whom are men. I could not put it down. The story is very interesting and the writing is exquisite
i so agree.
Thank you, Holly - the “therapy buzzwords” have made me think too- I wonder sometimes how we will view this period in time and where the pendulum will land on this. On one hand, it’s wonderful to have people expressing more and being aware of mental health to remove the shame people have felt for so long, but on the other, it puts mental health into almost an unattainable commodity category like “youthful skin” leading to most of us to seek out the solutions equivalent to wrinkle cream for our souls. Also- if you haven’t watched the after the episode for White Lotus, its a goodie and contains what season three might bring thematically. I have Touch on my wishlist!! Im finishing up “Drink?” By Prof. David Nutt. I picked it because i was curious that it was billed as an objective look at the impact of alcohol. The science was great- I love learning the physiology of alcohol in the body but was completely turned off by the multiple pages of “how to drink moderately” in the end of the book. I appreciate he is trying to get folks to be mindful but wonder about the efficacy of this advice with an addictive substance? As someone who NQTD, i know moderation is too much mental gymnastics and im happier without but it frustrated me that “how to cut down” was included. It seems dangerous suggesting that approach vs an approach that asks other questions? Anyway, thank you for the great roundup and im glad to see you are raising your rates! You deserve all that and more! Happy Holidays ❤️
Holly: You and QLAW are referenced in todays Washington Post in an article about Quit Lit