32: Book Chat: Real Self Care with Dr Pooja Lakshmin

Hello, you sentient balls of star dust. Welcome to struggle care. I'm your host, Casey Davis. And today for book chat, that's what I'm calling this new series of episodes. We have Dr. Pooja Lakshman. Did I pronounce it correctly? Yes, Lakshman. Lakshman. That's really something I should have asked before you got on. But here we are. So tell us who you are, what you do. Yeah, so I am Dr. Pooja Lakshman. I am a perinatal psychiatrist by training. I specialize in women's mental health. And I've been in practice clinically for almost the past 10 years. I'm also a writer. I write regularly for the New York Times. And my debut nonfiction book, Real Self Care, is just out. And on top of that, I also am the founder and CEO of JAMA, which is a women's mental health community focused on equity and impact. So I have a bunch of different day jobs as most people do these days. And I have been a fan of yours, Casey, and of struggle care probably for the past year or so. I think you came on my radar. Yeah, I'm just really excited for this conversation because it feels like there's a lot of overlap in our points of view. Yeah. So reading through this book was it was like yelling, yes, over and over. And I even got to the chapter on boundaries. And I was like, oh, I need to skip this chapter because I'm in the process of putting together a book proposal for a book on boundaries. And I was like, I could already tell we have very similar perspectives on this. And I'm somebody that like, when I'm writing something, I try to avoid things in a similar space because then it gets in your head and then you're like, well, how do I say that differently? And who did I get that from? Did I get that from someone? But I just loved this so much. I say often on this podcast that I hate the term self care because of the like commodification pop psychology sort of like wellness, scammy aspects of it. And you actually say something in the very beginning of the book. And I kind of want to delete off just by reading this couple of sentences because this is something that I talk about a lot. So you talk about someone coming into your office and talking to you, Dr. Luchman, I feel like crap. Everything feels like a chore. I'm constantly on edge and I feel like it's my fault because I'm not doing self care, but it's not their fault and it's not yours. In reality, the game is rigged by focusing on faux self care, what I call the products and solutions marketed to us as remedies. We've conceptualized self care all wrong. So self care is largely full of empty calories and devoid of substance. It keeps us looking outward, comparing ourselves with others or striving for a certain type of perfection, which means it's incapable of truly nourishing us in the long run. So I love that that's how you begin the book because I feel as though my experience with self care for so long felt as though it was one more thing on my to do list. Like I'm coming to this idea of self care because I'm overwhelmed, overburdened, burnt out and I need to be cared for. And often it's like because nobody's caring for me. So I guess I'll do it myself. And what you find a lot in the wellness space is just this prescription for more things to do and it ends up feeling like, okay, so it's my fault I'm burnt out because I'm not engaging in these tasks, but in order to get unburnt out from my never ending to do list, I need to add things to my to do list. Right. It's completely creamer, and we get stuck in the rat race and the hamster wheel. And you know, as a psychiatrist, the lens that I bring to this is in real self care, I'm distinguishing between methods versus principles. So like going to get a massage, going to a yoga class, taking a bubble bath, that's a method, right? It's another thing to do. Like you said, Casey, it's another thing on your to do list. And especially as women, especially if you're a woman of color, especially if you're a parent or if you're neurodivergent or have any type of issue that makes it a little bit harder for you, those methods just end up as another task on the to do list to feel guilty about. And the reason it feels that way is one, because of quite frankly white supremacy and capitalism that have our entire social structure, you know, have us all swimming upstream, but also because we haven't done the internal work of getting those principles and actually letting us receive the methods. So the perfect example is like the patient that comes in and is like, you know, I finally worked up the nerve to take an afternoon off and I booked a massage for myself and I spent $200 on this like lovely massage. But then I spent the whole time on the massage table worried about my to do list. I didn't actually feel invigorated. And then I came back to my desk and I had a gazillion emails and I felt like I needed to make up for all that lost productivity. The reason that happens is because you're trying to employ a method without doing the internal work of the principles. And so in real self care, I am prescribing these four principles, which are not anything like profound. They're like the principles that you talk about as well, right? Setting boundaries, developing self compassion and having a new type of conversation with yourself, understanding like what really matters to me? What are my values? How do I actually choose my values? And I created a tool for this called the real self care compass. And then the fourth principle is that is about power. Like this is essentially about us reclaiming our power and our energy from these systems of oppression and putting it back into ourselves. And then if you are somebody that does have more resources and does have privilege, part of your responsibility is to be able to put some of that energy back into your community and back into the folks that are lower on the ladder than you. That's the process of real self care. And so the other important piece here is that real self care is not just a 15 minute meditation, right? It's not just like taking time out of your day. It's actually, it needs to be threaded into every single big life decision you make. It's in how you choose your life partner. It's in what type of career you decide to pursue. Yes, it's about your leisure, quote unquote leisure time. I mean, who actually has leisure time? Like that's kind of laughable. But it's like in your entire life, it's about all of the big and little decisions. That's real self care. And so it's a way to be, it's a verb, it's not a noun. It's less about the thing. And it's much more about the process that you take to get there. And I think that's where people, you know, that's where I'm like anticipating that there's going to be people that are adding me. Because they're like, well, what about, I love my yoga. I love getting my many petty, you know, like, are you saying that I need to be ashamed of myself and then I need to feel guilty for getting my many petty or, you know, having my Starbucks to mark latte or whatever. I don't even know if Starbucks makes to mark lattes. No, I'm not saying that like, those are bad. I'm just saying that those are band aids. And sometimes we need band aids, right? Like it's okay. It's just that's not going to do anything to actually fix the problems in your life or to fix the real problem, which is the social structures. And what I love about that idea, the way that you've approached this book, it reminded me a lot of when people ask me about different like organization methods and ways to keep your house clean and talking about, you know, there's a difference between a system and a philosophy and not every system works for everybody, right? Like some people want to Marie Condo their clothes. Some people want to, you know, have everything in a clear jar. Those are systems. Some people want to have a schedule that they clean this time, this time, this time. And not everybody is going to fit into a system, but the philosophy, you know, and in my book where I try to talk about principles that we can internalize that will change our relationship to our space, I feel like you have done much the same thing in your book talking about principles and a philosophy that changes your relationship to yourself. And so instead of piling on more things to do, you're teaching people how to reorient their relationship to themselves within that to-do list so that they, when they approach that to-do list, which is still going to be there after the Manny Petty, right? They're able to do so in a way where you can find sort of sustainable movement and sustainable care. And there was one piece as you were talking that I really wanted to point out because I loved when you had this little faux self-care versus real self-care chart. And you talk about how faux self-care is prescribed from the outside, whereas real self-care originates from within you. But here's the part that I love that you said. You talked about how faux self-care is a noun and real self-care is a verb. But when you talked about faux self-care, a common example, yoga class, meditation app, face cream, when you talked about real self-care, you said the internal process that goes on for you before you make the choice to attend the yoga class. Listen to the meditation app or put on the fancy face cream. And I feel like that is-that's like your book summed up to me because this process by which we come to that decision to do X, Y, Z. If we come to it from a place of I have to get this done, I'm being perfectionistic. I'm failing if I don't do this. Like you said, it just rings hollow. And we find ourselves taking in every new self-improvement book, every new self-care thing, and then kind of almost like burning out from self-improvement in that journey. And one thing I didn't want to skip over is I really appreciated how at the beginning of your book, you have a specific chapter before we even get started where you say a word on identity, privilege, and systems of oppression. And you talk about how the book is mostly oriented towards women. And you talked about the definition of women that you're sort of working with, which is from Sylvia Federici, who is an amazing iconic Italian feminist scholar who's work for anybody who's listening, go check out all of her work because she is like, she's amazing, the real deal. So, well, I love the quote that you have from her, where she was asked to define the term woman. And she said, to me, it has always been mostly in terms of a political category. And you go on to say that I use the word women inclusively to mean all people who suffer under oppressive conditions that have typically been associated with the female sex, which includes queer folks, trans and non-binary people, and intersex and agender people. So can you talk a little bit about why you chose to start the book that way? Yeah. So really over the past five or six years as I've been doing more advocacy work, if we call this advocacy work, which I think is essentially what it is, and writing for the New York Times and other places, even though I'm a psychiatrist, I am always centering our mental health in terms of our collective suffering because social determinants of health, your identity, the color of your skin, how much money you have, the family of origin that you come from, all of those things impact how you feel about yourself, and then also what choices and decisions are even available to you. And I think as a psychiatrist, you know, psychiatry, to be frank, has a pretty shoddy track record when it comes to accounting for these things and not just for women, but for, you know, for queer folks, for gay folks, for black people, you know, the list of psychiatry sins is long and extensive. And so I really have felt like my specific place inside this conversation as a psychiatrist, as a brown woman, has been to make that missing link between personal agency and collective suffering and then collective change. And it actually comes back from my own personal history. So I'm 39 years old at this now, as I'm putting this book out into the world, but about a decade ago, I was, went through a very, very traumatic time in my life and dynamic time in that, you know, at that point, I was like, in my late twenties, I'd done all the things that I was supposed to do as a good Indian girl, whose dad was a doctor, you know, I went to med school, I went to all the Ivy League schools, I got married, I sort of checked all the boxes off and I had arrived at this prestigious psychiatry training program. And it was like, okay, did everything I'm supposed to? Where's my prize? Okay, like now I can try and be happy, right? It was very much like that episode of 30 Rock where Jack is like, you know, like, oh, and I'm allowed to be happy, right? And I couldn't. I didn't know how I was, I was empty on the inside because I had followed everybody else's rules and everybody else's solutions. And on top of that, I felt deeply powerless as a physician because I thought I was going into medicine to actually help people. But instead, I was treating a patient who's homeless or unhoused, I should say, and the only solution that I could provide was Zoloft. But what he really needs is housing or I had a patient who, you know, lost her job because she lost childcare for the third time in a row. And it's like, well, yeah, I can do therapy with you, but that's not going to fix our broken workforce issue. Like that's not going to do anything for toxic capitalism. So I was just pissed. I was really angry and really destructive. And I left my marriage. I moved into a commune in San Francisco that was focused on female sexuality and female orgasm. I dropped out of my program, my residency program. And I spent two years really chasing, like woo, woo, wellness, just chasing all of these spiritual solutions. You know, and I thought that the answer could come outside of me, you know, like what you were talking about, like methods versus principles, right? I adopted this method, this practice that I thought would solve all of my problems. But at the end of those two years, I realized that actually, no, like nothing outside of you can fix your problems. There's never going to be a solution that someone else can prescribe, whether it's me, whether it's you, Casey, whoever it is, right? Like you have to actually do the work in your own life of understanding what you need and making those hard choices. And I was deeply heartbroken at that time I left the group. And of course, like, you know, years and years later, I found out through the media that the story was really dark in this group. And it was a cult because they always end up being cults. And you know, I went through my own psychoanalysis. Didn't it? And be able to cult because they always are. Right. And I went through my own psychoanalysis and my own, you know, and had to come to terms with that. But like really, the seeds of this book came out of that, you know, and like the fact that there is no one right answer. Actually, there's hundreds and hundreds of answers. And all of the answers are actually small, right? Because the path to change is just one small step after another. And you, I think, do this brilliantly in your work too, where it's like, no, like there's not one just like big transformational thing. There's not one life organization system that is just going to like fix it all. There's just these small choices. And you have to do them. You have to be the one to know what's going to work for you. And over time, you will find your path and you will keep making those small choices. But there's no magical panacea here. The amount of cults that I think we all join because I had my own like high control group experience and sobriety. Yes. Okay. So before we get any further, let me let me pause for a word from our sponsor. We'll come right back. One of the things that can happen when you struggle with mental health is you can find it difficult to get into the shower. And if that's you, I have a brand that you really need to know about. And it's called Lumi, a uniquely formulated pH balanced deodorant. It's a whole body deodorant, the first of its kind. Lumi is seriously safe to use anywhere on your body. Pits, under boobs, thigh folds, belly buttons, butt cracks, vulvas, feet. And it's aluminum free and skin safe. Lumi starter pack is perfect for new customers. 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Love bug learning is the world's first social emotional gaming platform. And it's available for kids three through 11. And it's helping my kid learn about emotional regulation, social skills, all through fun games and enjoyable videos. Love bug learning is a must for parents. Go to lovebuglearning.com and sign up for a seven day free trial or simply download from the app store and subscribe. Okay, so one of the reasons I think that everyone really should go get this book. I think that people individually would really benefit from this. I also think other providers would really benefit from this. I think that's a great thing. I think that's a great thing. I think that's a great thing. I think that's a great thing. I think that's a great thing. I think that's a great thing. I think that's a great thing. I think that's a great thing. I think that's a great thing. I think that's a great thing. I think that's a great thing. I think that's a great thing. I think that's a great thing. I think that's a great thing. I think that's a great thing. I think that's a great thing. Other providers would really benefit from this. For me, as my perspective as a white therapist that very much was grown up and taught to do therapy in a middle class white environment, when I began to do anti-racist work, when I began to unpack white supremacy, decolonization, all this work, it was really easy for me to see these two big truths, which was people talking about the problem that we're all suffering from is this systemic problem. It is the systems of power that are disempowering, marginalizing, harming our mental health, our physical, all these things. The issue isn't, this is the real problem, basically. Over here, you had the white wellness culture. You had the goop, and you had the girl washer face where they're saying the problem is you just need to believe in yourself and put jade eggs up your vagina. It was like they had the solutions, but they didn't understand the problem. Then so many people that were talking about what the real problem was, I found myself being like, so what do we do? So now what? I still feel like I need to be able to help people. I think as a provider, your book has really been official for understanding how we can bridge those two things. I actually heard a TikTok recently, and a mutual of mine made this sort of off-handed comment where they were actually talking about intrusive thoughts. They referenced this idea that you have to find a way to both take ownership of a symptom and distinguish yourself as separate from that symptom. It made me sort of reflect that isn't that all of the therapy journey. I feel like that is my whole growth journey is with every single issue in my life learning the correct balance of ownership and distinction. Your book, I think, does that well. I think your book will do that well for individual people. I think it will do it great for providers that need a little help to bridge that gap between, okay, I can validate why you're suffering. I can validate that it's not your fault. I can validate that it's these systems and these things moving. And we can create some room to get some movement within those. Like, all is not lost. Yes. I love that you pulled out that thread. Because essentially it's the dialectic, right? And that's why DBT in dialectical behavior therapy is so powerful. And in the chapter on power in the book, I referenced DBT and I talk about both and which is such to be able to hold that paradox. It requires your own emotion regulation, right? Which is a therapy scale that all there, you know, that's what we're trying to teach our patients and our clients to not get flooded in those moments when you recognize that fuck, like the system is just completely stacked against me. And the typical response to that is to fall into cynicism, right? And to just be like, well, nothing matters. You know, I'm just going to go get my Manny Petty and like screw it all because I can't, I'm just one person. I can't change anything, right? And so in the book, I talk about hope as a skill, which is not a new concept. You know, lots of folks have talked about that and at George Washington University, where I'm on the faculty, our old chair developed a whole kind of framework around this called the hope modules and it's sort of like operationalizing. How do you bring yourself out of the cynicism? Not that you're going to be there every day, right? Like I'm hopeless all the time, right? You know, it's, but you, it's the same sort of like mindfulness where you can put your attention there and then try and come back. And I think that's why this type of work, I think is so powerful and it's a place where mental health professionals, for those of us who for whatever reason, maybe it's masochism are putting ourselves out on social media and doing all this work. I think we sort of bridge that gap between like, okay, yes, I can help people one on one, but the world is on fire and I have these skills as a mental health professional. And so like, how do I help folks who don't necessarily have access to therapy or who don't have time or, you know, like understand and bring new language to there is a deeply connected thread between our own capacity to cope and buffer ourselves and the collective social change that needs to happen. It's funny that you mentioned, oh, I was just going to say it's funny that you mentioned that the wellness piece, because, you know, a couple of years ago when I write about this in the book, I went to Esslyn, which is that like gorgeous retreat center on Big Sur and it was right after Trump had been elected. And it was, it was exactly that. Like I was there for like this while, like, I was going to get these big questions answered and nobody spoke about what was going on in the world, right? It's just, it was all just very, very focused on your own personal journey. And there's like this naval gazing that happens. So I think it's great that for those of us that are in this space and we're kind of just like, wait, no, like it needs to be a dialogue and there needs to be an ongoing conversation of how to bridge these worlds together. And it's hard to talk about that. My therapist friends and I talk about this a lot. It's hard to talk to the general public about these things because going back to sort of talking about like the methods versus the principles, you know, it's not as simple as what the method is and everybody wants the prescription. They're like, okay, so if I'm going to do I leave the relationship? And if you are sitting in front of me, just one person, like we can walk through a series of sort of decision tree thoughts based on your personal values and based on the nuances of your situation and get to a point where you can discover whether leaving is the right thing for you or not. But you can't just say to the masses, it's important that you leave XYZ relationships because it's not true. And but you also can't say you don't always want to leave because then you know you have someone going, should I stay? And I think that both of us are trying to talk about what you said in that little grid, which is the internal process by which we make these decisions by which we begin to sort of I picture it as, you know, if you've seen like almost like a Scooby-Doo cartoon where the walls start closing in and you're squished in and it's like this process where it's like, how can we start to push back on all sides of us and just, you know, when you're in a crowd crush, they tell you to get your elbows up and create space for you to breathe so that your chest doesn't get crushed. And I feel like that's the visual I get is like, we can't make the crowds go away. We can't fix the system by ourselves today in this office, right? But like hope is a skill and there is a way by which working together, like we can get your elbows up, like we can create enough room for you to breathe and then we can sort of assess like, how do we get out of the crowd? And it's interesting because like you said with a yoga example, there's nothing specifically to prescribe. And I did read in your book, Boundaries, where you say that it's the distance between or the space between people. And I love that because the definition I've always used, which my supervisor taught me is that boundaries is where I end and you begin. It's that invisible line. And it's similar to that conversation about boundaries because I did a series on boundaries one time that confused everybody because I said, you know, asking someone not to speak to you that way is not a boundary. It's a request, like boundaries aren't about what you're asking someone else to do. Everyone got really confused because well, my therapist said that like a boundary is telling my mother-in-law not to speak to me that way. And my response to that was like saying it is the boundary. Like the boundary is I stand up for myself. Right. And you, I think in this book, and I know I feel like I'm just complimenting you this whole time, but it really is a fantastic book. I'll take it. You do it. It's hard to hear. But you do a good job of illustrating that process where it's like, you know, I think we, a lot of us get stuck in that rut of I'm trying to have boundaries and I'm telling my mother-in-law not to talk to me that way. And she just keeps doing it. So I must be failing at boundaries and sort of getting in there and going, well, the boundary isn't whether you succeed at controlling her behavior. Right. Like a boundary. Yeah. The boundaries, like the process you went through where you decided that you were worthy of standing up for. Right. Right. So I think, you know, the key piece to this with real, whether it's real self care or struggle care or, you know, whatever lens you're bringing to it is that you need other people in your life who are also asking different types of questions, trying to have these different conversations and, you know, at JEMMA, one of the things we have these WhatsApp threads. And that's a space where me and my partners who are also psychiatrists, you know, can engage with people in our community and sort of like help inside these different types of conundrums. And, you know, one of the things that obviously boundaries comes up all the time. Also like things like self compassion, you know, in the same way that you talk about at Casey where it's like, it's not just like affirmations or mantras. It's actually like the conversation that you're having with yourself. And just earlier today, somebody posted on our WhatsApp about like feeling bad because she's a single mom and like feeling like she can't do everything and that she's a bad mom. And you know, kind of like getting into, well, like what are the systemic factors that are impacting you, right? Like this isn't actually your fault. You feel this way because you're unsupported by a system. And then again, not falling into hopelessness, but being able to name it like this isn't burnout. This is betrayal. You know, as I've talked about before, like it's like when you name the external factors, it gives you permission to make some of this space. Like as we're talking about with the elbows, you know, like this isn't just me being lazy or not good enough. This is actually a system. And are you saying the betrayal is by society? Yes. Society has betrayed the quote you have in your book that says other countries have social safety nets. The USA has women. So that's Jessica Calrico's quote and she's a sociologist and is amazing and has been studying this. And essentially, yeah, like it's like we women are picking up the slack for where our social systems and our safety net has left us behind. I mean, this has been for eons, right? It's not anything new. But to recognize that and then understand that the care work is you taking back your power and you giving yourself time and energy and not constantly in this race of continuing to suffer inside a system that wasn't built for you. Did you read Fair Play by Eve Roski by any chance? I did. Eve is actually a great friend of mine. She blurbed me. Oh my God. I love Eve. She's great. Yes. Okay. So what's funny is that I thought about that book a lot when I was reading your book because I feel like that's another book that talks about like the real issue is systemic. Like it's not your fault. It's systemic. But we're not going to leave you there. Like we are going to actually talk about a process by which you can make your life more full and more and she doesn't just prescribe method, although she has a great method. Yes. And I feel like you're all supposed to mirror each other a little bit in that it's like yes, the issue is systemic. Yes, the issue is all of these things. But we have some answers that can help you not through prescriptions of everything. Everybody needs to do the same thing, but of leading you through things that can help you in your process of your relationship with in your case with your own self and in her case with your partner. And if I may be so bold, I feel like maybe my book is similar in that, you know, here are like, this isn't your fault. This is really systemic in nature. This is really unfair on some societal levels. Your barriers are real, whether they're systemic or, you know, health related. And there are some principles that can help you sort of reimagine your relationship whether it's, you know, with your space. And so everyone should run out and just buy that as a trio, right? Revolutionize your relationship with yourself, your space and your partner. And I think you'll be in good shape. Well, that is the ultimate compliment because Eve is just wonderful and I really respect her work. And I think that's exactly what I'm trying to get at with real self care that we do have some agency. Yes, we can't fix everything, but there is this small pocket in our own lives, in our own relationships, in our own ecosystem that we can exert self efficacy. I'm so sorry. You know, don't be so we're never sorry about cats on this podcast. We love cats. I have two. They routinely interrupt podcasts. No, listen, one of the things that I think is actually genuinely important on like a mini advocacy level, and I say this all the time, I'm not suggesting our advocacy, our activism ends here, but in some ways, in small ways, it can begin here. Is that like rejecting this idea that as women in a professional moment, we are supposed to pretend like the rest of our life doesn't exist. Mm. Right? So sorry, I have cats or like sorry, my children are like crying in the background or like, Oh God, I'm sorry that the generator went on where, you know, where I feel like I want to start asserting myself in professional spaces as like, yeah, I mean, listen, I am the social safety of this country. So like you can't have that and want me to pretend like, you know, you're not going to get interrupted. Yes. In this moment. Yes. And so I'm glad. Who was your cat's name? So this is FIFI. Can we get a look at FIFI, please? FIFI. FIFI. Come here. Oh goodness. Now she doesn't want to. You'll see her butt shortly. I'm sure we'll get a visual of that. We always do. How old is FIFI? FIFI is almost five and she has an older sister, Kitty, who is a black cat. So we are definitely a cat family here. And so I feel that kinship. I feel that kinship. Okay. So here's how I want to wrap up. Okay. I'm going to talk forever. But there's this one part that I am so overjoyed to see in a book about self care. You have a little blurb in here where you say, you know, how to practice real self care when you suffer from a clinical mental health condition. And this amazing sentence, wellness has gotten things a bit mixed up when it comes to mental health and self care. Right now there's a misconception that you can self care yourself out of a major depressive disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder. However, mental health conditions are neurobiologic and require trained professionals to provide psychotherapy and sometimes medications to help you feel better. Instead of thinking as self care as a tool to treat a specific condition, think of it more like a spot test to see how you're doing. If you know that your daily walk in the park with FITO is your nourishing time, yet you find that you just can't bring yourself to take the dog out or if you're guilt is so intrusive and constant that you feel completely powerless to stop it, that could be a sign that you need to seek professional help. Once the condition has been treated, it becomes more possible to enact principles of real self care and to put practice in place. And I love this because that is what happens, right? We get told, are you depressed? Go outside every day, the sun. We've been an evolutionary biology to be in the sun and you know, you're depressed because of the blue light. And so this is the same thing with house, right, where it's like the state of your house, it really reflects the state of your mind. So like clean up your house, your mind isn't so messy. It's like, okay, but this is the symptom. Right. Right. Like you can't be like, do the thing. I don't know. I just, I can't stand it. The solution is another place. Mostly, yes. Right. Right. Yes. Yeah. But it's, it's that like gentle, it's like getting curious with tenderness with yourself of, okay, I know that this thing, I mean, people are self serving and that's a good thing. Like we are for our own good. And so if I find myself in a place where it's like, this is the thing that's for my good and I find myself not able to do it, not wanting to do it, resisting it, that's not a failure. That is like, you said a spot check to have some good curiosity. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, we need to, we need to reach out. We need a little more support. We need a little more love in this moment for ourselves. And I think also like thinking of all of these things as, you know, everybody has their own specific program for mental health and well-being. And for some people, it includes medication. You know, I take solo off. I'm still in therapy, right? And sometimes it includes exercise. Sometimes it includes yoga, you know, again, about the decision making, right? Like there's all of these little pieces and all the pieces come together to create the whole. There's never just one thing as much as we all would deeply like to believe that there's going to be one magic thing, unfortunately. You know what? That was going to be my last question, but I have one more that I want to answer. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I'm wondering because I feel like you had a similar experience when you were eat, pray, loving and occult. I went through a really intense, like a year and a half institution that was really heavily, like religious, but more like 12 step and very like therapeutic community, high confrontation, shaming type of thing. And we did a lot of like affirmations and vision boards and like knee to knee and call out groups and it was just like constant intervention. And you know, it was really heavy on the self care as like a prescription, as a mandate, as a moral obligation. And if we weren't doing it, we felt really guilty. And what I found was when I first broke free of that, I had to spend an extended period of time almost doing nothing, like no introspection. And it wasn't like a destructive swing to the other side, but it's like my journey of real self care. It couldn't go from a high control self care environment to just like, okay, I'll just incorporate my authentic natural practices. Like I needed that time, a couple of years to just be like, I'm not good. I'm not fucking exercising. It was like I had to have that like adolescence, right, where I'm distinguishing myself as different, where I'm sort of rejecting all these things. And because I was kind to myself in that period of time, it was like when my little like soul and psyche was ready, it started naturally being like, I don't know, I feel good to exercise. Did you have that experience? Like, did you have like a gap where it was like, I can't even make myself look at this? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, there was many different phases of it. I mean, there was a very deep depression that was almost suicidal. And there was really a rejection then of any type of mandate or structure of things that were supposed to be sort of like spiritual or, you know, for sort of my growth. And I mean, it took me a decade to write this book, really, right? Like it wasn't like some sort of rushed reaction. It was more kind of like, again, spending almost eight years in psychoanalysis myself on the couch three times a week talking about that whole experience and trying to wrap my head around it. And then also, you know, my work with patients, like coming to this, like the answer, which is always like, there is no one answer, right? So yeah, it was that period afterwards was a really, really, really tough time for me. And I was, it was also confusing, right? Because you learn so much, you take in, it's like a fire hose when you're in those types of spaces. You absorb so much. And then it takes years, I think afterwards to sort through what was real and what wasn't. And, and the way it was all twisted as well. Because the nuggets inside those groups are often true in some ways, but then it gets a little bit warped. So you have to take that time to sort of untangle what it meant. And if this is resonating with anyone, I actually did a podcast on high control groups. It's called weight, am I an occult? And I actually brought in someone that was doing their master's thesis and academic work on high control groups. And we talked through a lot of these points. So I just feel like there's probably some people listening that are like, wait, this is my, whether it's a 12 step or a spiritual community or a commune or a religion or whatever, like there really is a very unique process of disentangling from that. And I just want to keep, right? And even in the light, the light quote unquote light versions of what is commodified wellness and these different kind of communities, there's still these same threads. And when you believe it in your soul and you're so committed to it, there can be this moment where you're like, well, wait, I thought that this was the answer. And I guess I must not be doing it right. I must not be doing it enough. And then when you come to see like, oh, wait, there's many different ways, you know, there's many different paths that can also be a little bit scary to be at that place. So I'm glad that you mentioned that resource because I think it can be a heart. That's a hard place to be like recognizing that. There's also a free PDF in my shop, strugglecare.com called healing from religious trauma. And a lot of it is about religious trauma, but a lot of it is specifically just about high control groups and some resources specifically in the US to some centers that that basically do like, I don't want to say like de brainwashing, that's a little intense, but like they study how do you recover? How do you process through these things? And so that's there too. Anyways, I've got to land the plane because otherwise I'm going to take away too much of your time. But this has been amazing. And I'm so glad to know you now and I'm going to send you a copy of my book. And I think that you and me and Eve should do something together sometime. So I would be honored. I would be so honored. That would be cool. That would be so fun and so cool. We will make it happen. I can't wait to read your book. And for everybody listening, real self care is out. You can buy it in all the places that you can buy books. There's an audio book to the I narrated. If you like the sound of my voice, if you're one of those people, you can listen to the audio book and you can find me on Instagram at Pooja Lakshman. I just started a TikTok that's called therapy takeaway. So I can follow me and I'll go back. Okay, perfect. I will follow you. I'm going to learn how to use TikTok in all my free time. We'll see. And you've got to mention the subtitle. The subtitle of this book is crystals, cleanses and bubble baths, not included. I love that. Dr. Pooja, thank you so much for your time. And I really can't wait for this episode to come out and for everybody to learn about your book because it's I don't highly recommend a lot of books and I'm going to add this to the list. Thank you, Casey. It was such a pleasure. When this time of year, parenting can be such a fluster clocks. You've come to the right place. I'm Lynn Lyons and I've been treating anxious families for over 30 years. I'm Lynn's sister-in-law and co-host Robin Hudson. Join us for Fluster Clucks, a podcast for parents who worry. Wait, that's everybody. Yeah, these last few years have felt like one long anxiety attack for so many. Why do you think parents are always surprised that a podcast about anxiety relates to them even if no one in their house has an anxiety disorder? Well, worry is human. Everyone does it and anxiety shows up when we face uncertainty. All the parenting tips you've taught me have been essential. I love to break it down into skills we need to manage worry in our families. You've covered so many topics, depression, burnout, meltdowns, perfectionism. Don't forget scary mothers in law. Right, but of course that's not my mother-in-law. Because that's my mother. And a listener. As a psychotherapist, I like to teach parents and kids how to respond to everyday moments in healthy ways. Managing anxiety really can be taught. It really can. And I'll even tell you what to say. We talk about serious stuff, but without being too serious. Anxiety wants everything serious. doesn't stand a chance when we're laughing, even about the tough stuff.