Transcript: E135, Beating Burnout with Emily and Amelia Nagoski

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For more on this episode of?Hello Monday,?check out my conversation with Emily and Amelia Nagoski ,?and leave your thoughts in the comments.

This episode of Hello Monday, "Beating Burnout with Emily and Amelia Nagoski" was first released on November 30, 2020, and subsequently re-aired on November 8, 2021.

Jessi Hempel:From the news team at LinkedIn, I'm Jessi Hempel, and this is Hello Monday, our show about the changing nature of work and how that work is changing us. So it snuck up on me earlier this fall. We were half a year into the pandemic. Six months of being stressed out about everything from COVID to the election, to childcare for my toddler. I'd been going and going, zooming and zooming. And thankfully, it had, it had mostly been going okay, except that I was just so, so exhausted. Stale feeling. So burnt out, and it wasn't just me. Sarah Storm, our producer, was feeling the same way. I threw the question out to listeners, and you all agreed you were feeling it.

Which brings me to today's guests, doctors and sisters Emily and Amelia Nagoski. They have a great book out, it's called Burnout: The Secret To Unlocking The Stress Cycle. Emily, Amelia, and I talk about what causes burnout. We talk about emotional exhaustion, how emotions work in our bodies physically, and we get to the fix. The fix to burnout and exhaustion and to all the bad feels we're feeling is not a secret. When we feel all the way through them, we get to connection to the people we love and to ourselves. And that, it turns out, is how you fix burnout. Here are Emily and Amelia Nagoski. Emily starts us off.

Emily Nagoski: So, the original definition of burnout from Herbert Freudenberger back in 19- I think, '76 included three components. It was work related, and it had to do with a decreased personalization, a decreased sense of accomplishment, and, uh, emotional exhaustion. And over the next 40 or so years, it became clear that the way burnout shows up in people's lives is different for women and men. And of course, there is like, no research at all on trans and nonbinary folks around burnout, because, because they [crosstalk] binary.

Amelia Nagoski: There's very little research into trans and non- binary people's experiences in general.

Emily Nagoski:In general.

Jessi Hempel:Right, and-

Emily Nagoski: And I'm sure that's gonna get better, but for now, I'm often going to be using this binary language of men and women.

Amelia Nagoski: 'Cause that's what the research had.

Emily Nagoski:'Cause that's where the research is right now.

Amelia Nagoski:Yeah.

Emily Nagoski:So, it turns out that, for men, it's more a depersonalization, and, for women, it's more emotional exhaustion. And as we were looking at the research, we were like, "You know what? It makes a lot of sense that it's emotional exhaustion for women, because of all of the work that we have to do all the time. Smiling and being nice and meeting other people's needs and expectations and being really in control of the way we present ourselves, so that we don't make anybody uncomfortable."

Emily Nagoski: And we get stuck in the middle of our emotions, 'cause we always had to pretend that our own emotions don't exist, so we can create space for other people's emotions. So if we get stuck, that's getting stuck in the middle of an emotion is exactly how you exhaust it. So, it's this recipe that exists not just in the workplace. Yes, we do that emotional labor in the workplace, but we do it in our homes, we do it with our families. Whether it's the children we're taking care of, or the parents we're trying to please, or the friends we're trying to feel like we fit in with, or support. There's barely any time or place that we can be fully ourselves and let our emotions move through and out of our bodies.

Jessi Hempel: I... You're, you're speaking my language. Right? I, I listen to that as a, as a professional, as a working parent, as a mother. And I think, "Yes. That feels like my life." What's the relationship between stress, that stress that you get stuck in the middle of, and burnout?

Amelia Nagoski: We define burnout as the experience of being overwhelmed and exhausted by everything you have to do, and yet somehow still worried that you're not doing enough.

Jessi Hempel:Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Amelia Nagoski: So, when stressors come, the things that cause your stress, are piling up into huge mountains, and you're still stuck in an emotion because you had to smile and be polite to that guy across the counter from you, or who works across the conference table from you, and you had to shut down all of the rage, and fear that exists in your life because of the times we're living in, and the way that the world is right now, that is a perfect recipe for feeling like you're overwhelmed and exhausted. And there are so many stressors that you cannot solve. They're going to pile up and, uh, we're not completing the cycle of stress as it moves through our body, and that is how burnout happens.

Emily Nagoski: But there's good news.

Amelia Nagoski: Oh, right. There's good news. (laughs)

Emily Nagoski: The great thing about the fact that stress is a phenomenon that happens in our bodies in response to stressors, is that, uh, it doesn't actually require dealing with the cause of our stress to be able to complete a stress response cycle. Because we're, we're stuck in the middle, like we're all holding on to these emotions. Like if you imagine traffic, if you're commuting home. Remember back when we had commutes? ( laughs)

Jessi Hempel:Ugh, they're like-

Emily Nagoski: You would either take public transportation or drive somewhere. And if it's a long difficult one with really heavy traffic, like your body just gets tenser and tenser. And that tension is there to help you evolutionarily survive a threat like being chased by a lion, right? And w- if you managed to outrun a lion? Man, you run back to your village like shouting, and you tell an exciting story to your family, and they jump up and down. And you feel glad to be alive, and you love your friends and family, and the sun seems to shine brighter, right? So when you like get home finally from your commute and you slam your car door behind you, do you suddenly feel glad to be alive, and like you love your friends and family, and the sun shines brighter now? No. You don't.

Jessi Hempel: No.

Emily Nagoski: With the stressor, like you got home, you finished your commute, you escaped the stressor, but you didn't deal with the stress in your body. And we need to do both things. Yes, deal with the things that cause our stress but we don't have to wait until those causes are gone before we start doing things that address the stress in our body. We have to speak our bodies' language. And that's gonna be doing things through the body, like physical activity, like creative self-expression, like connection, hugging, conversation.

Jessi Hempel: I sort of inherently understand that stress is something I need to deal with and that's why I have wellness. And wellness is on my daily to do list.

Emily Nagoski: Oh.

Jessi Hempel: In fact, if I read you my to, to-do list, it's, you know, answer email from my manager, make smoothie, get half hour of yoga done, right? I have to work my way down that to do list, and I check off half of the things, and I don't feel "weller".

Emily Nagoski: Yeah. (laughs)

Jessi Hempel: Or like I've gotten the stress out of my body.

Emily Nagoski: Yeah, achieving Wellness is not a thing that ever, ever happens. I'm so sorry.

Jessi Hempel: (laughs) Even if I get to the bottom of the list? Come on.

Amelia Nagoski: Yeah.

Emily Nagoski: I know, right?

Jessi Hempel: You see-

Amelia Nagoski: I know it's not fair, but like... So wellness is not a state of mind or a state of being, it's a state of action. Wellness is the freedom to oscillate through all those cycles of being human. So it's feeling stressed and feeling safe. Connecting with other people and being independent and alone. Uh, work and effort, and then sleeping and resting, crying and laughing, and in and out, and up and down, and the yin and the yang. And the experience of that whole thing and then the interplay of those opposites, it's not a state of being, it's a state of action.

Emily Nagoski: That, and I would say, uh, if you are like doing the yoga every day, yoga's super good for you.

Amelia Nagoski: (laughs)

Emily Nagoski: Yoga's so good for you. And what I would suggest is that you're probably doing it to check it off your list kinda way. Instead of on a, in a deep attuned body, purging your rage kind of way.

Jessi Hempel: Well, so this leads me to a note that I made when I was reading your book. So you suggest people listen to their body to understand when they've completed this stress cycle. What if you're thinking, "I can't hear my body."

Emily Nagoski: Girl.

Amelia Nagoski: (laughs)

Emily Nagoski: I was so great at ignoring my body. I had no ide- Like okay, small scale, we've all experienced like looking up from our computers, uh, after being there. We don't even know how many hours we've been there, and like we really, really have to pee, and we just didn't even notice that that was happening. And we're finally like, "Oh, now I can, uh-" The noise from your body, the signal is so loud that you can no longer ignore it. Your body is sending you so many signals and we are ignoring them. And a lot of us, like me, are really good at ignoring the signals until they are screaming at us. Here's the good news, you can learn how to listen. It's called intraception, the ability to perceive what's going on inside your body. Some people are better at it than others, but it is a teachable skill. But you do... it does take some practice.

Jessi Hempel: Well, so tell me a little bit about how the two of you came to writing this book on burnout.

Emily Nagoski: So it all started when I wrote a book called Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life. I am, first and foremost, a sex educator, but it turns out that the best predictor of a woman's sexual well-being is, surprise, her overall well-being. Um, and so there's a chapter in that book on stress and relationships, and feelings. And in the six months after it was published back in 2015, I was traveling all over, talking to anyone who would listen about the science of women's sexuality. And this-

Jessi Hempel:Which was everyone. Right?

Emily Nagoski: It was any- People... You'd be surprised, people are reluctant. But, uh...

Jessi Hempel:Fair enough.

Emily Nagoski: I mean it was going really well, I was having a great time. But this thing kept happening where women would approach me after a talk and say, "So all that sex science, that's great. Thanks for that. But you know the part that changed everything for me was not the sex part. It was the part about stress, about completing the cycle, and feeling your feelings." And I was surprised by this. Uh, I knew it was important, but I didn't think it would be the most important thing in the book. So I told Amelia.

Amelia Nagoski: Yeah, and I was not surprised at all. I was like, uh, "Do you remember that time that I was hospitalized for basically stress-induced inflammation, and the doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with me, and you brought me all that information and I learned this?" And that information that you're surprised about, that information saved my life. Twice.

Emily Nagoski: Which is when I said we should write a book about that.

Jessi Hempel: And here we are.

Emily Nagoski: Yeah.

Amelia Nagoski: Yeah.

Jessi Hempel: Well, how much of the book that we're reading was intuitive to you, was about following the, the paths you expected to follow? And how much of it came to newly?

Amelia Nagoski: None of it was intuitive for me. We thought that this was what the whole book would be about. It would be about the science of how your body processes stress. And as we kept reading the research, we discovered that the real solution, the real answer is connect-

Amelia Nagoski: The real solution, the real answer is connection, is love, is attaching to the world around you and allowing yourself to be taken care of rather than insisting that you take care of yourself and expecting that to be the cure for burnout. Self-care turns out is not the cure for burnout, it's all of us caring for each other. And a lot of America, in particular, really idolizes the lone cowboy ideal, right, this hero who can stand on his own and, you know, a man who is a rock and an island unto himself. That is the ideal.

Amelia Nagoski:And so to say that that is unhealthy, that it is in fact killing us, uh, is, was very difficult to learn. It was not the answer we were looking for. It was hard to write and it was hard to live like we kept looking for like stress management strategies. And we were reading this really hard science, this effect of neuroscience and comparative psychology, really difficult hard stuff. And what it kept saying was love and authenticity.

Jessi Hempel: Compassion.

Amelia Nagoski: And vulnerability and compassion and connecting with people that you care about in a like deep emotional way.

Jessi Hempel:Yeah.

Emily Nagoski: And that is not like, we come from a lock jaw New England puritanical heritage of white people who do not feel their feelings with each other. Um, and we had to because the science was just irrefutable. We're confronted with the like fact that this is how you do it.

Emily Nagoski: So the hardest part of the book was actually practicing what we preached. Like we transformed our relationship with each other in the process of writing the book.

Jessi Hempel: I think that your book has an easy ask and then a harder ask.

Amelia Nagoski: Yes.

Jessi Hempel: But the harder ask speaks directly to the moment that we're in, and a lot of the burnout that we're feeling. And the easy ask actually sounds hard. It's what we've been talking about. It's this idea that you got to learn to feel your feelings, 'cause until you've learned to do that, you don't have the tools to do anything else.

Jessi Hempel: And you have some great strategies for that in the book. Read the book. We're not gonna go over them here.

Jessi Hempel: I wanna get to this idea of feeling your feelings with other people in an honest and authentic way, because that is the holy grail. That's how you get to connection. And we've actually talked a bunch about this on the podcast this year. It's become harder to do this, especially with the people that we live with.

Ameila Nagoski: In the time that we've been speaking to people during the pandemic and the need to isolate, quarantine, lockdown, we've observed two extremes. People who really thrive in isolation are doing well in isolation from the rest of the world. But if you're an introvert who's isolating with your family, you then have no boundaries anymore and you don't actually have any real isolation. And on the reverse side, uh, extroverts who ordinarily thrive by connecting in the real world are now isolated from that kind of energy.

Amelia Nagoski: So this is not a situation that's good or natural or nourishing for anybody.

Emily Nagoski: And connection is, uh, another one of these natural oscillations, the cycles built into being a mammal. We are designed to oscillate into connection. It can get really deep into connection, but then to oscillate back out into autonomy, we are not designed to like go deep in connection and stay connected all the time. Like that's just not how we're built.

Emily Nagoski: So in addition to it being about introverts and extroverts, a third of households in America are one person households so there are all these people who are having to work really hard and be creative to find any kind of connection. And then there's other people who are at home all the time with their families, and even if their families are like their favorite people in the world, you're with them all the time and you need time alone separate. Like you need to be able to lock the door and be by yourself, go for a walk and be by yourself.

Emily Nagoski: And the expectation that you will just stay together all the time is, uh, not good for anybody. It's literally not how our bodies are built.

Amelia Nagoski: No matter how delicious the food is, it feels good to stop when you've had enough. And no matter how excellent the company is, it feels great to be alone when you've had enough company. You need it.

Jessi Hempel: It's, it's really, really true. I would imagine that there are opportunities in your book for us to deploy some strategies to both be more in touch with our, with our own feelings, but also maybe then to bring more to the people that we spend every day with, even if we do spend every day with them.

Emily Nagoski: There are some really clear exercises about ways you can connect to each other. And when you do an exercise that's recommended by research psychologists, it sounds sort of trite and silly. But actually when you put that kind of a frame around it as a let's do this thing these advice people told us to do, it actually sets a boundary that is comforting.

So for example, uh, the 30 minute stress reducing conversation is a thing. First one person talks about their day and the other person listens in a way that is all about like empathy and I can't believe that goomba said that to you and we're on the same team and you're not trying to help solve their problems. You just wanna understand really deeply and cheer them on. And then you switch. And at the end of it, you just feel supported without feeling in any way criticized, without feeling in any way like you could or should have done a better job than you did, just held in like we're a team together.

Amelia Nagoski: And it doesn't matter how exactly long. If you have five minute each or 15 minutes each. Uh, what matters is that each person gets to speak for long enough that they get through the things that are hard and they're not stuck at the end of their time like at peak stressed outedness. Uh, but they get to talk all the way through until they kind of get through the stressed part of the talking it through. Uh, but that there is kind of a bookmark at the end to say, "And now here's a reason to stop," and the other person will take turns.

Jessi Hempel: You know, so much of what you're talking about speaks to going all the way through an experience to letting it have it's natural arc.

Amelia Nagoski: Yeah.

Jessi Hempel: What are some of the strategies that you have to help us to figure out how to do that? Another way to ask this is you're really asking me to hug somebody because I'm not a hugger?

Emily Nagoski: So one of the important things is if it is not a strategy that works for you, find another strategy. Almost no strategy works for both of us. We have very little overlap in what's effective for us. So if you are not a hugger, don't use the 20 second hug, for example. Um, if you are not an exerciser, don't use physical activity. If you're not a crier, cool. And if you're not a crier, that might be because you're stuck in the middle of a bunch of stuff. So try on the possibility of, uh, creating a context to like allow crying to happen if it wants to.

Emily Nagoski: I, I know there are people who say crying never solves anything. But they don't know the difference between dealing with the stress and dealing with the thing that caused the stress. Rarely, sometimes, but rarely does crying ever actually deal with the thing that caused the stress. But, boy, can it do a good job of completing the stress response cycle. It lets your body release all the stuff that got activated in your body so that you can become enough actually to address the thing that caused the stress.

Jessi Hempel: Well put.

Amelia Nagoski: Yeah, I think how, the answer to how do you move through the tunnel and complete the cycle, is you have to do a thing.

Emily Nagoski: Do a thing.

Amelia Nagoski: And a thing is anything that's not nothing. I think a lot of the reason Emily was kind of gesturing towards where if you're not a crier maybe it's because you're stu- ... There are barriers to these things that we know are good for us. We know that sleep is good for us. We know that exercise is ... We even know that connection and creative self expression are good for us. But there is a barrier that gets in the way, this thing we call human giver syndrome. But to shortcut right through all of that context, is just that society tells us some of these things are acceptable and morally superior, like physical activity is definitely good. You should definitely be doing that and the world will applaud you for your efforts. But sleep? How dare you. That's lazy.

Jessi Hempel: It's not efficient.

Amelia Nagoski: You spend time in bed when you could be helping something, you could be helping someone else.

Emily Nagoski: So selfish. Not just not efficient. It's a waste of time.

Jessi Hempel: Productivity killer [crosstalk].

Emily Nagoski: You're spending that time sleeping when you could be double checking somebody's homework.

Amelia Nagoski: Yeah.

Jessi Hempel: I mean, it feels to me like you're talking about capitalism and patriarchy right here.

Emily Nagoski: Yeah.

Amelia Nagoski: I mean ...

Emily Nagoski:That is the problem. That is the barrier.

Jessi Hempel:Well, I think we should name it then, right. Let's break this down and make it very simple for people who perhaps did not like me go to a liberal arts college that introduced the word patriarchy on the first day of school.

Emily Nagoski: During orientation. Yeah.

Jessi Hempel: Yeah. Whole sessions on it. How does this manifest differently for women and why?

Emily Nagoski: We took our frame from a moral philosopher named Kate Manne. She wrote a book called Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny. And it outlines the logic of misogyny. And the foundation of misogyny is this, uh, situation she describes where in the world there are two kinds of people. There are human beings who are morally obligated to be their humanity, to live and express their humanity and to acquire whatever resources are necessary to accomplish that morally obligated goal.

Emily Nagoski: On the other hand, there are the human givers who are morally obligated to give everything they have, their humanity, their time, their lives, their bodies, to the human beings.

Emily Nagoski: Guess which one she says the women are? It's the human givers and being a giver is not inherently dangerous or bad, uh, or bad for you. Being a human giver, in fact, if you are surrounded by other givers, is a way to thrive in an environment. Being a human giver surrounded by human beings who feel entitled to everything you have and are, uh, is a recipe for burnout.

Jessi Hempel: Well put.

Ameila Nagoski: And this is actually it was the most important thing I learned in the process of reading the book was to notice what it feels like to be in connection with like a human being who was entitled, competitive, inquisitive, felt like they can just have anything I choose to give and the more I choose to give them, the more they feel entitled to take, the more they expect me to give, versus what it feels like to be in connection with a fellow giver who when I give them something, they feel motivated to give in return, which makes me feel motivated to give more in return. And we have this mutual energy.

Emily Nagoski: Uh, and I learned that if you can withdraw your energy from connection with those people who feel entitled to take anything you have, uh, and transition it onto connections with fellow givers, it really changes the energy in your life.

Jessi Hempel: We're gonna take a quick break. When we get back, we'll talk more about where burnout comes from and how to get through it.

(podcast ad break)

And we're back. We're talking today about burnout with Emily and Amelia Nagoski. I love this idea that there are human beings and human givers. And I wanted to know can you ...

Emily Nagoski: change? Can you shift from human being to human giving or at least allow for a little of both?

Amelia Nagoski: This is a question that, uh, Kate Manne talks about, and that Emily has talked about in classes, and when, uh, when she asked a class full of people, well what would happen if we were all human beings and we all felt entitled to acquire whatever we have to have? And of course the answer is poor, nasty, brutish and short. If we all are entitled to everything, then it's just a competition for resources. And life is not a competition for resources. Life is an experience to be had and shared with others. You're here not to be productive, but to be you.

Amelia Nagoski: If you are surrounded by givers, you'll be constantly supported and looked after, so that no one will slip through the cracks. So that when you come home from work at the end of the day, if there ever comes a day when we come home from work, and you're exhausted and your partner says, "You look exhausted I'm a go make dinner, you take a bath and get a glass of wine. And we'll- we'll have a talk about it together afterwards," as opposed to you coming home exhausted from work and then being like, "So, when's dinner?"

Jessi Hempel: We talk about this through the lens of, uh, gender, male and female. And there's a certain binary quality to it, but it seems like it is best understood through the lens of privilege. Um, because if you apply intersectionality to this, whereas-

Amelia Nagoski: Yeah.

Jessi Hempel: ... white women for example may absolutely be the givers in relation to men, they suddenly become the beings in relation to people of color.

Emily Nagoski: Yes.

Amelia Nagoski: Yep.

Emily Nagoski: And it's lots of different layers of intersectionality, disabled people often find themselves performing as givers to make sure they're caring for the emotions and comfort and convenience of other people, and smiling. To make sure that they can stay safe, they have to perform this. They have to be the givers who show up in that way. Poor people, immigrants, people who don't speak English as a first language when you're in America.

Amelia Nagoski: Non-Christians when you're in America.

Emily Nagoski: People of color for sure, all have to put on a face and make sure everybody else feels really comfortable and okay with the fact that they're in the room. And it's a lot of extra work to do, it's exhausting.

Jessi Hempel: Right.

Amelia Nagoski: And it is important that people who do have any kinda privilege like, we're white ladies, Emily and I are, and we recognize that our whiteness has given us this sense of entitlement to the labor of people of color. That is a layer of our privilege that goes back deep in history. And our job, our work as citizens who care about the world is to turn inward toward that sense of entitlement, and to ask ourselves where that comes from, and how true is it. And really, what if we acted as givers towards these people who society is telling us we are entitled to? What if we instead ask, what can we give to them? What can we do to support and care for everyone around us?

Emily Nagoski: One of the most important things we thi- ... It's so exciting that we're talking about this, no one has ever asked us about this before.

Jessi Hempel: Really?

Emily Nagoski: Thank you so much. We think one of the most important ideas in the book is that you have to heal this damage done to us by this bogus, white supremacist, cis, hetero, patriarchal, rabidly exploitative, capitalistic culture, heal the damage that's been done, so that you don't inflict that pain on someone else. It is an act of social justice to turn toward your difficult feelings with kindness and compassion, and to, like, work with people around you to heal your wounds together, so that you don't inflict those wounds on someone else.

Jessi Hempel: Gosh, that's powerful. Even as you describe it, so eloquently. Both voices flare up, all the time, at the same time. The, "How dare you? How dare me?" Right?

Emily Nagoski: Yeah.

Jessi Hempel: And- and even as you speak, I realize, those voices, they infiltrate every communication I have. I mean, I've spent the first half of this interview thinking, "Did I frame that right? Are the- are- are they gonna, are they gonna think I'm smart? Are they ... " And that-

(everyone laughs)

Jessi Hempel: ... that voice, first of all, eradicates any opportunity for connection, if connection is really our end goal. And also, I'm not gonna pretend that I'm the only one to experience that voice. I think that we all do.

Emily Nagoski: It's, like, all of us have it. And in addition to normalizing the mean lady ... uh, for me it's, Teka, the lava monster from Moana-

Amelia Nagoski: (laughs)

Emily Nagoski: If you've seen Moana, he throws these, like, balls of lava at Moana, that's what it feels like to be on the receiving end of my madwoman. Every madwoman is different, but, like, the madwoman's whole job is to navigate this huge chasm between who we really are, as Moana puts it, "As you truly are," versus who the world expects and insists that you be. There is this unbridgeable chasm. And if you had to navigate an unbridgeable chasm as your job, you'd be crazy too, right?

Jessi Hempel: Pretty much.

Emily Nagoski: So, of course your madwoman is just bananas all the time. Whether it's toward you, or towards someone else. And, uh, in addition to normalizing the madwoman, I wanna normalize the abyss, the cavern, the unbridgeable gap between who you really are and who the world expects you to be. You are never gonna be that thing. I am never gonna be that thing that everybody expects and demands that I be. How do I, is, how do I be okay and still never be enough?

Amelia Nagoski: One of the ways we know how common this is, is the fact that we call her the madwoman. This comes from the book Jane Eyre by, uh, Charlotte Bronte. Um, the mad- ... Spoiler alert for Jane Eyre. Uh, uh, Rochester is married and he has his wife living as this madwoman he tucks away in his attic. And that symbol has become an archetype that rings so true. Because, I mean, if you know the, when you hear a story, that's kind of a symbol for an identity. This is where that, that, um, label comes from. It's- it's literary.

Emily Nagoski: And there's a whole feminist literature from the 70's and 80's-

Amelia Nagoski: Yeah.

Emily Nagoski: ... about it. Uh, Peggy McIntosh, famous for the White Privilege Knapsack has written about her madwoman and has used this language. She's also, in fact, the originator of impostor syndrome. And in her conceptualization, it's not about us just feeling like we're not adequate and we're not good enough, and we don't really belong here, and people are gonna find out we're frauds, it's that the world has insisted that we be something we are not.

Amelia Nagoski: Right.

Emily Nagoski: And so, we've been forced to put on a show to make it-

Amelia Nagoski: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Emily Nagoski: ... seem like we are. And so, they're kinda right that we are not that thing. But just because we are not that thing, doesn't mean there's anything wrong with us. The hardest.

Amelia Nagoski: Yeah, you need to be so prepared with so much knowledge in order to be, to have the capacity to turn toward yourself with kindness and compassion and say, "Yes, the world is broken. Yes, I am never going to be what it expects me to be. No, it is not my fault. But yes, I am going to try as hard as I can to show as much compassion to as many people as I can. That is actually an impossible goal, and I recogni- " ... God, it's hard.

Emily Nagoski: And women are culturally kind of granted permission to show each other kindness and compassion, even though we don't always do it, we're allowed to be kind and generous with each other, and patient and forgiving, in ways that we are not given permission to be kind and generous, and patient, and forgiving with ourselves. It is harder than authentic connection with other people, a lot of the time.

Jessi Hempel: Do you think that this perception that we aren't living up to the world, what the world expects us to be, is flawed in that the world actually doesn't expect us to be anything? Or does the world have an expectation of us.

Amelia Nagoski: I definitely think the world has an expectation.

Emily Nagoski: We can tell because we truly are punished when we fall short.

Amelia Nagoski: Yeah. Like, so, the list of things that human givers are expected to be is pretty, happy, calm, generous, and attentive to the needs of others. And if you fall short in any of those ways, you will be punished by society. So, take pretty for example, as the very first one. If you don't conform to a very specific, very narrow, conventional beauty ideal, the world is gonna tell you that you need to invest all of your time and energy and resources in conforming to that beauty ideal, or you will not get that job, you will not get the interview, even. You will not, certainly, be able to keep it, or get a promotion.

Emily Nagoski: You're more likely to be paid less, and to be bullied in school as a kid, not just by other kids, but by your teacher.

Amelia Nagoski: Teachers.

Jessi Hempel: Absolutely. Point really taken.

Emily Nagoski: I kinda wanted to give you the answer, like, yeah. Like, we just put these, we put these, uh-

Jessi Hempel: [crosstalk] yeah yup.

Emily Nagoski: ... priorities on ourselves, and we just make it up, and we beat ourselves up-

Jessi Hempel: Yeah.

Emily Nagoski: ... and it really doesn't matter. But it actually, like, it's real.

Jessi Hempel: I feel like I was, like, trying to say, "Wink, wink, nod, nod, the patriarchy doesn't really exist," right? And you guys were like-

Emily Nagoski: Right.

Jessi Hempel: ... "Hmm, yeah, no. No."

Amelia Nagoski: No, that's real.

Jessi Hempel: (laughs)

Amelia Nagoski: There's ... We know it's real because there's a multi billion dollar industry thriving on women trying to conform to that very narrow, culturally constructed beauty ideal. We know because people have jobs making the ads to tell us that we have to look like that in order to belong, in order to deserve love.

Emily Nagoski: Because it's, uh, codified in law, because it's codified in medical textbooks.

Jessi Hempel: There is one thing that, as much as you encourage us to really realize that we're never gonna be enough, and that that isn't what we should aspire to be, you also pushed [crosstalk]-

Amelia Nagoski: Enough in quotes. We will never that thing.

Jessi Hempel: Yeah, I'm sorry. You can't see the quotes.

Amelia Nagoski: We will never conform to the-

(laughs)

Amelia Nagoski:... culturally constructed aspirational ideal.

Jessi Hempel: And yet, you hold the purpose is important, that it- it is actually very helpful for us to connect to some sense of purpose. And by the way, if it hasn't arrived like a lightning bolt in your head, make it up. Come up with the purpose for yourself.

Amelia Nagoski: Absolutely. Just because the culturally constructed ideal that you're supposed to conform to ... I tried to make the quotes oral in that one ... um-

Emily Nagoski: (laughs)

Amelia Nagoski: ... just because that isn't-

Emily Nagoski: It was good.

Amelia Nagoski: ... actually a thing that'll necessarily fuel you and nourish you to be your best self, and to live your most fulfilling life, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't aspire to something. We call it Something Larger, capital S, capital L, when you engage with something larger than yourself, it gives you a sense of meaning, of purpose and belonging that actually corresponds to a very real physical health outcomes, when you connect to something larger than yourself, you live a longer, healthier life.

Emily Nagoski: We define meaning as what you make when you engage with something larger than yourself. So, meaning is not something you find, it is a thing you make. Um, and just as the mere existence of green vegetables is not enough to nourish you, the mere existence of your Something Larger is not enough to fill you with meaning. You have to engage with your something larger, so that you can be nourished by it. But the cool thing about your Something Larger-

Emily Nagoski: is that unlike vegetables, it lives inside-

(laughs)

Emily Nagoski: ... you. You're permanently connected to it. Nothing can separate you from the something larger.

Amelia Nagoski: And once you know that, it becomes much easier to engage in it, because just like exercise and sleep and good nutrition, one of the barriers that gets between individuals, especially women and something larger than themselves, is the cultural pressure to do a thing that the society deems is important. Being of service is a thing that women are, you know, very proud to say that I am of service, because that's an okay thing for women to do. For a woman to say she wants to leave a legacy, that is not quite as acceptable. And if that is your something larger, leaving a legacy behind, uh, society's not gonna be as approving, and it's gonna be, there's gonna be friction between you and the world.

Amelia Nagoski: The good news is, though, since your something larger and your meaning that you make lives inside of you, even if it's hard to engage with that something larger, it's still going to ride you with purpose, and meaning, and a fulfilled sense of life, uh, and the improvement in health outcomes that are associated with it.

Emily Nagoski: So, when you can, let go of the thing everyone tells you you're supposed to be, and move yourself toward engagement with the thing that really matters to you. Your something larger. Which may or may not be in line with what everybody's telling you you should do. So, there will probably be some voices in your world, depending what your something larger is, being like, "Good for you." Um, I do, I mean this in a supportive, loving, kind way, I, as a sex educator, have gone home and started talking about my work, and my mom has literally said, "Can you not talk about your work at the dinner table?" 'Cause I talk about sex for a living. And she is not dismissing my something larger, she just feels like it has a place that it can be, and that place is not family conversation, that's fine.

Jessi Hempel: Well, listen, this sort of brings us full circle.

(laughs)

Jessi Hempel: You guys said something that I did not follow up on earlier. You said that the process of writing the book changed your relationship with each other. So, how-

Emily Nagoski: Yes. Oh, god. There's gonna be feelings if we talk about this.

Amelia Nagoski: Should we tell the, should we tell the TED story? Let's tell them the TED story, the TED story sums it up. Okay. Emily has given, like, three TED talks. Like two TEDx talks, and, like, a main stage TED talk in Vancouver. And the one in Vancouver is, like, a very involved process, and it involves a lot of communication with the people who are in charge, and writing drafts, and practicing the talks, and-

Emily Nagoski: ... there's a lot of rewriting, there's a lot of coaching. And my talk was about sexual violence, so it was really emotionally intense work.

Amelia Nagoski: Yeah. So, as she was getting ready to go, there ... I was gonna go with her as, like, her emotional support peacock. Like, I'm just gonna go with, and be there to be like, "Good job," whatever. And, uh, my flight got changed, and she was just like, "Fine." You should do it, 'cause people are gonna think that I'm exaggerating, so, like, you tell them.

Emily Nagoski:Like, I know how to manage my stress really well, but I was doing this thing and it was over my threshold, like, I was not coping well. And when I'm not coping well, I get, um, a little unpleasant to be around. I get-

Amelia Nagoski: Mean is the word you're looking for.

Emily Nagoski: ... slightly short tempered.

Amelia Nagoski: Bitchy.

Emily Nagoski: I ... (laughs) Not the best company. Um, and so, Amelia was gonna come with me and help me, and there were these difficulties with her travel plans, and I was just, like, way over my head with stress. I was drowning in it. And I was so far in that tunnel I talk about, I didn't even know how far in I was. And this is the thing is, when you get to a dark place, you need help. And so, Amelia's diff- difficulties with her travel, and- and I'm like, "Fine. Maybe you just shouldn't go. Maybe I don't need you to go with me to TED, fine." And she ...

Amelia Nagoski: I- I ... Because we're in year three of writing the book at this point, and I knew the research, and three years before that, I would've been like, "Fine, whatever, bitch," and, like, walked away, 'cause that's all I was capable of. But I now I knew, and I could see, I know what's going on, and I know what to do. I could turn toward this Teka, like Moana, my hair blowing in the wind-

Emily Nagoski: [crosstalk] I'm a monster.

Amelia Nagoski: ... and the ocean around me. And I could be like, "You, there's something I can do for you, I have crossed the horizon to find you, I know your name." So, I didn't actually literally sing at that point, what I did was I stole her dogs.

Emily Nagoski: Yeah. She was like, "Okay."

Amelia Nagoski: (laughs)

Emily Nagoski: "You are over your threshold. I'm gonna take your dogs, you're gonna get in your car, and you are gonna go to the beach," 'cause the beach-

Amelia Nagoski: 'Cause I know that this works for her.

Emily Nagoski: So, and. "I'm taking your dogs, you have no excuses, you know, you're getting in the car, and you're gonna go today, and when you get there, you're going to apologize to me." So, I was like, "Fine." And here's the thing. Because we were three years into this process, I knew enough that Amelia could see something that I couldn't. I did not agree with her. I did not. I thought, "I just need to power through it. I just need to get through it." And, uh, turns out n-

Amelia Nagoski: She was wrong.

Emily Nagoski: Yeah. I got in my car and I drove fuming the whole time. So, I arrive, and like, as soon as I park, I get outta my car and I see the water rolling onto the shore, and I can feel my chemistry change. Like, my whole body just shifts gears, and I immediately start texting Amelia, "You were right. I was wrong. (laughs) I was definitely over my threshold. I'm sorry. Thanks for taking the dogs and forcing me to take care of myself." And the only reason we could do that, right? Like how many people have a person in their life from whom they can receive that kind of feedback, and take it-

Amelia Nagoski: (laughs)

Emily Nagoski: ...seriously, even when they don't yet believe them. And it's because we had been forced to understand that honest emotional communication is the hokey-pokey. It's what it's all about.

Jessi Hempel: That was Emily and Amelia Nagoski, co-authors of Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle. You can learn more about their work at burnoutbook.net . And we're gonna talk about burnout this week at office hours. How do you cope? Our producer, Sarah Storm and I, will convene, as usual, on Wednesday afternoon at 3:00 PM Eastern. Join us. You want the link? You can follow me on LinkedIn at Jessi Hempel, or email us, at [email protected].

Jessi Hempel: Okay, now, let's talk reviews. They help us so much. So, once a month, I like to ask Sarah to come on the show and share one. If it's yours, email us, and I'll jump on the phone with you, and help make sure that you're getting the most out of your LinkedIn experience. Hey, Sarah.

Sarah Storm: Hey, Jessi.

Jessi Hempel: Okay, so, who have we got today?

Sarah Storm: Today we have Elle [Guinette]. And they say, "It's like Jessi knows what I'm stuck on, and the question's rolling around in my mind."

Jessi Hempel:That's exactly what we're going for. If you are listening, Elle Guinette, please email me at [email protected], and let's jump on the phone. Reviews really make a difference for us. So, if you like the show, please take a moment to weigh in on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. Hello Monday is a production of LinkedIn. The show is produced by Sarah Storm, Joe DiGiorgi mixed our show, Florencia Iriondo is head of original audio and video, Dave Pond is our technical director. Juliette Faraut, Cassidy Jackson, and Victoria Taylor, fill our work lives with meaning. They know who we are.

Jessi Hempel:Our music was composed just for us by the Mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder, and you also heard music from Podington Bear. Dan Roth is the editor in chief of LinkedIn. I'm Jessi Hempel, see you next Monday, thanks for listening.

Amelia Nagoski: Emily, the call isn't out there at all. It's inside you.

Jessi Hempel: It's inside me. Okay, go ahead, go ahead, Emily.

Emily Nagoski: Moana is the Maori word for ocean. She's not called by something out there, she's called by something inside herself. She called herself to cross the ocean and restore the heart of Te Fiti.

Jessi Hempel:I am a recent convert to the film, with now having a toddler at home and looking for good films with strong female characters, Moana-

Emily Nagoski: Moana.

Jessi Hempel:... is amazing. Um-

Emily Nagoski: Lin-Manuel Miranda, he's our only hope.