197. Taking back your brain from a sexist society with Kara Loewentheil
Want to reclaim your self-worth and challenge societal norms? Then, get ready for a fantastic episode because we’ve got Kara Loewentheil, the powerhouse behind the School of New Feminist Thought, on this week’s podcast! Kara’s new book, 'Take Back Your Brain,' just dropped, and I can’t wait to share our conversation with you.
In this episode, Kara and I dive into romantic socialization's history and social impacts. We bust myths about love, marriage, and self-worth and discuss the difference between empowerment and true personal power. We urge you to root your self-worth in yourself instead of seeking external validation.
Kara’s insights are a game-changer. She offers a roadmap for embracing self-compassion, challenging patriarchal norms, and building mindsets that lead to a more fulfilling life.
Don’t miss out on this powerful conversation! Tune in now and start taking back your brain!
We get into:
The brain gap: what it is and how to overcome it.
Why the goal is to be grounded in your self-worth and not your relationship status
The four traps of romantic socialization
Body positivity vs body neutrality
The beauty and power in the phrase “How human of me…”
Links:
Show transcript:
[00:00:00] Lily: Hey, I'm Lily Womble, former top matchmaker and founder of Date Brazen. After setting up hundreds, I realized that with coaching, women could match themselves better than anyone else ever could. With my unconventional feminist approach, I've helped women around the world build courageous and self trust filled love lives, and now I'm here to support you.
[00:00:23] Get ready, because I'm about to show you the exact steps you need to attract a soul quenching partnership and feel amazing about yourself along the way. This is the Date Brazen Podcast. Hello, gorgeous friends. Today is a dream come true for me. It is Carl Lowenthal's day on the Date Brazen podcast. She is the founder of the School of New Feminist Thought and the creator of the Feminist Self Help Society, host of the Unfuck Your Brain podcast, which I've talked about over the years many times on this podcast, and author of the book, Take Back Your Brain.
[00:00:55] The subtitle, which is so Awesome and relevant to all of, [00:01:00] uh, the work that we're doing here is how a sexist society gets in your head and how to get it out. And we're going to talk about how to get it the fuck out today, uh, so that you can, uh, just feel fucking better about yourself and do more powerful shit in your life.
[00:01:16] Cara has helped. It's a. Tens of thousands of women across the world liberate themselves from the inside out. She is a graduate of Yale College and Harvard Law School, and she did what every Ivy League feminist lawyer should do, quit a prestigious academic career to become a life coach. And obviously the risk has paid off, uh, because it's, it's, it's working out, I think.
[00:01:38] So this book, Take Back Your Brain comes out today. on the podcast. It comes out today on May 21st, 2024. And if you're listening, I really highly encourage you to get this book. It's so good. And we're going to get into all of the nooks and crannies of it today. Um, so welcome Carl. Hello.
[00:01:57] Kara: Thank you.
[00:01:57] Lily: Yes, and go order the book so you make sure you [00:02:00] get it from the first run, because we're gonna sell this run out, man.
[00:02:02] You are gonna sell it out, and it is going to, from the minute you crack the spine, you're gonna be like, Oh, wait, this is, this is different. Oh, wait, I'm needing this. So I, that's how I felt anyway, and I'm projecting onto you, but I know that it's going to, listener, but I know that it's gonna change your brain immediately, and this summer is the perfect time, because we're in an election year, you need to, like, start, Training your brain to think summer
[00:02:27] Kara: is flirting.
[00:02:30] Lily: Let's not talk about the election. Let's talk about the summer and the flirting time. Um, which is very true. So Cara to back all y'all up. I've been a fan of Cara's work for years since I started my business, like seven years ago. And now I'm talking to you, Cara, not, not to the, the, we in the outside, but we met at a Farnoosh Tarabi's book event.
[00:02:52] It was like, Through, um, a mutual friend and it was just this moment for me of like, oh, yeah, this is right. [00:03:00] I'm I'm glad to know you that I need to know you. This is this is so good. And as I mentioned, I recommend your work to all of my clients and it has helped so many of them and myself. It's freed my brain from a lot of the toxic bullshit about body image and, um, patriarchal influence around love and dating and sex and relationships in general.
[00:03:19] So I'm just grateful for you. So let's get into it. How are you doing today? First of all, that's where we'll start.
[00:03:25] Kara: I'm doing well, you know, it's book release day. So, you know, we're recording this earlier. I assume I'm going to be feeling pretty good.
[00:03:32] Lily: Yes. I want to know, did you want to write a book from the beginning of starting starting the company?
[00:03:40] Like, was it a thing that you.
[00:03:42] Kara: No, I think I actually, I felt like my, um, one of my parents always really wanted me to write a book. So I was kind of like, I'm not writing a book. Yeah. And also I didn't really have something to write a book about. So no, I didn't write it when I first began my. Obviously my business and I actually think it's really important because as a devoted self help reader [00:04:00] myself, who certainly back before I found coaching read like every single self help book in the world, a lot of them are just like a lot of fluff.
[00:04:06] You know, there's sort of like 12 pages of something insightful or interesting and the rest is just. kind of padding. And I kind of think that's partly because people either only have one idea, which is fine. Sometimes you only need one, or they're sort of writing a book a little too early, like before they've really, it's like they have one idea, but they haven't really developed a whole body of work.
[00:04:26] So they're writing the book based on the one idea. So I really didn't even think about a book until I felt like I don't just have kind of the germ of an idea. I have an entire framework and like body of work and theory of the mind and of women's minds and of socialization so that when I write this book, every single chapter can be really impactful and count.
[00:04:48] And so there's no It's like the book is really taking you all the way through. You can start the book understanding nothing about your brain, and by the end, you're going to understand how your brain works, [00:05:00] how society impacts your brain, and how to change it. Or if you're someone who's done self development work, even has listened to your podcast, has listened to my podcast, the book is going to take this work so much deeper because it is Kind of the most evolved version and the next level of my work that I had to create for the book.
[00:05:16] Yeah, so I really didn't think about it until I felt like I had not just one thing to say but like a whole kind of vision and framework to share and that's why the book I think. Does so well as a like one stop shop for what you need to know to change your brain.
[00:05:31] Lily: Yeah, so good So in the intro you talk about being in the fetal position Years and years ago after like landing the dream job like things in your life were on the surface Looking amazing, but there you were in a whimper In the fetal position, which was so as a, as a friend of yours, as somebody who, you know, has, has loved your work, imagining you in the fetal position was, I was just [00:06:00] like, Oh, I want to give you a big hug.
[00:06:01] And
[00:06:01] Kara: I, and that, and this is what my partner says. It's hard for him to read the book. Cause he feels really sad for past me or like, for like, how do you feel about it? Past you pre, yeah, it's so funny. He's like having a really hard time with it. Like he'll be something he'll be like, Oh, that's so like, I don't really feel that way.
[00:06:18] Maybe because I, I don't know if I'm less sentimental maybe, but I also just feel like, well, first of all, I just. Suffering is a part of life. Yeah. That's how we started dating podcast.
[00:06:32] But it's actually crucial because the whole reason that we're also fucked up in the head around dating and relation, romantic relationships as people socialize as women is that we've been taught that. They are the solution to having negative emotion in our lives. So for me, like, it's not tragic that I was upset that day, just like being happy one day.
[00:06:52] It's not that my story now is like, and now I'm always blissfully happy. And I never feel any negative emotion again. Like that is not my teaching. That's [00:07:00] not my work. So, and I also just, I see like every single thing that's happened as being part of what's led me to who I am today. Not going to like. Not in a, like, whitewashing it or silver lining kind of way of, like, not acknowledging the things that were hard, but more like a chaos theory way where like any little thing being different would have changed who I am now.
[00:07:24] Yeah. So I choose to think of it as like, all of that was necessary to bring me here. Right. Otherwise, of course I could be like, well, why did I spend all that time and money and suffering in law school? But like, that was part of the journey. Every bad date I went on every like dead end relationship I had before I, Did the work to be able to like both meet and appreciate and connect with my partner, my fiance.
[00:07:47] All of that was part of the journey. Yeah.
[00:07:49] Lily: Well, totally. And I, I was struck with the power of the tools that you teach and how the, just the simple [00:08:00] knowledge of the brain gap changes everything in terms of how we approach ourselves. like work through those hard fetal moment positions, which will happen because we're human.
[00:08:11] But can you talk about like, what is the brain gap and how do we overcome it?
[00:08:15] Kara: So I, in the book, I talk about this idea of the brain gap. And the way I define that is that first, there's a gap between how men and women are socialized, what we're taught about ourselves. And in this context, you know, this sort of dating romantic relationship context, I think the most important piece of it is that men are socialized, that a relationship is Like a nice thing to have if you want to have one, can have wife and kids if you want.
[00:08:38] If not, that's cool. Be a playboy. Like plenty, whatever options, right? Certainly men are socialized to believe that the appearance of their partner is a reflection of their status. So it's not like men get no toxic socialization around the romance and dating, they do. But for women are socialized to believe that it is their purpose for being the most important thing in their [00:09:00] lives.
[00:09:00] Yeah. Yeah. And it is the thing that determines their worth and value and social status. And you might want to say, no, that's not true anymore. Women have careers. But just do this thought experiment. What do we, if somebody is a woman who has a career and then decides to be a stay at home mom, what's the social story about her versus what's the social, social story about someone who has a career and never gets married?
[00:09:22] One of those is like. okay and fine and even validated. And one of those is like a sad tragic tale to society, obviously not to me. So women are socialized with this deep seated kind of belief system that no matter what else you do, if you are not in a generally heteronormative monogamous relationship, right, you are, there's something wrong with you.
[00:09:49] And That you will gain some of your value or status or like credibility in the world by being quote unquote chosen. The gap comes because we have that deep [00:10:00] socialization. And then on top of that, we have the thoughts we learn to think as we get older, which are like, wait a minute, that's fucked up. I don't want to believe that.
[00:10:08] Maybe you take a gender studies class in high school or college and you learn about the patriarchy, right? And you, so you have this deep socialization that your romantic status means something about your value and worth. You're not even conscious of those thoughts. You don't want to believe you have them.
[00:10:23] And then you have the conscious thoughts you want to have that you would like to believe, which are like, I don't need to be in a relationship to be worthy or worthwhile. Not being in one doesn't mean anything about me. Right. Although just notice that even there, our thoughts are like in this sort of negative reaction to it's like, I call it the angry opposite.
[00:10:40] Yeah. We wouldn't even be thinking about it. Right. So. The brain gap is that gap that women experience in so many areas of their lives. People socialize this women experience in so many areas of their lives between what you want to think and feel and this other belief system you have. And people will often describe this, I think erroneously as, well, I just [00:11:00] think this, but I feel this and I, that's a very natural way of describing it, but it's very unhelpful because you don't know what to do with that.
[00:11:08] Like, okay, I think one thing I feel a contradictory thing. Now I'm stuck. Mm hmm. By contrast, if you understand those as two like thought trains running on two tracks in your brain. Mm hmm. Now we can start to figure out what to do. Maybe we need to like build this one a better high speed system. Maybe we need to like block the tracks of the other one or take it apart.
[00:11:28] Like now we can do something about it. We can try. Now we're working with two examples of the same phenomenon, which is our thoughts. And now we can use cognitive tools and strategies to. Weaken one thought and strengthen another.
[00:11:40] Lily: I, I get, my, my question is like, a very, it's going to sound blunt, but I'm very excited for your answer.
[00:11:49] To what end, like what to, to, to weaken one thought and strengthen another, what's the vision, you know, like,
[00:11:55] Kara: I think so that we can, I mean, the big term vision is to liberate [00:12:00] ourselves from living lives that are constrained by what the patriarchy tells us to want and what, how the patriarchy tells us to value ourselves.
[00:12:05] Yeah. In the short term, it's to the end of the, Thinking and feeling and acting differently. Yeah. So this is not about, you know, I'm not going anywhere to say you shouldn't want a relationship, you shouldn't want to date. Like, it's not about that. But if, if your dating life fills you with anxiety and dread and despair, then It's not very pleasant.
[00:12:28] And I'm sure, you know, as you and I would both teach, you're not going to get the outcome you want when that is like the vibe you're bringing to the party. You know, nobody wants to talk to, like, just imagine being at a party. Nobody really wants to talk to the person who's like in the corner, beating themselves up, crying and screaming all the time.
[00:12:44] That just is like, it's just not a great vibe for that. Um, so I think in the short term, you change your thinking so that you can feel differently. And then you can act differently. And then you can create different returns in your life. And in the long run, that is, it's not about, I mean, for me, at [00:13:00] least the way I teach this work, I know you do too, is not learn how to close the brain gap so you can be solve all your shit and fix yourself so you can finally have a man.
[00:13:09] Yeah. That is not what we're doing. It is learn how to ground your self worth in yourself, not your relationship status. Because you're the longest relationship you're ever going to have, and how do you make that relationship healthy? And then, yeah, if you have friends, if you have a partner, whatever, great.
[00:13:28] You can still want one, you can still go for one, but you're coming from a very different place.
[00:13:31] Lily: Yeah, really powerful. I mean, I think so many people in my audience are struggling with, like, thoughts that they're making into facts. Very basic, you know, like, human basic, you know, basic stuff that you talk about.
[00:13:44] Day in day out all the time that this book definitely covers in depth and like helps you train your brain to notice thoughts as they're happening as thoughts, not facts, uh, as a compassionate act towards yourself and then gives you this book gives you the tools to like, [00:14:00] start rewriting those narratives.
[00:14:01] To start believing yourself and believing what you want. I want to talk about the historical context now, like let's zoom out, especially because the other day is we're recording. This was the 50th anniversary of when women could get a credit card in the United States without their husband's permission.
[00:14:18] That's that's correct. Right?
[00:14:20] Kara: Yeah. It was, I believe the 50th anniversary of the. Yeah, 1974, I think, Equal Credit Act. There were states, I believe, where you could, but it wasn't national. Like, this made it a law that in every state, a woman had to be able to open a credit card or get a loan without a male co signer.
[00:14:36] Lily: Yeah, it's, and, and that's not long ago. I feel like my mother could have been applying for a credit
[00:14:43] Kara: card 50 years ago.
[00:14:43] Lily: Yeah. And why a lot of women like economically could not leave marriages and why the divorce rate in part was so much lower because there was not also, there was no, no fault divorce. Oh my God.
[00:14:56] The scariest. That's one of the scariest conversations. [00:15:00] It's about no fault divorce, but I want to talk about the historical context of women in marriage, especially me growing up in the deep South. I mean, I sat there as a five, 10, 12 year old and watched women like vow to be subservient to their husbands in their marriage vows.
[00:15:17] And I work with so many amazing humans, amazing women, people socialized as women who don't want to believe. That they're broken because they're not married yet and they're all their friends and family are. They don't want to believe that, but there's this like default thought and belief that there is something wrong with me because I'm not married.
[00:15:37] Can, can you help us unpack the historical context of marriage and brokenness and the mixed messages that we're getting around all of these around that?
[00:15:48] Kara: I think we all sort of assume if you're not a student of history, that Like, romance and love and marriage are just kind of real things that exist in the world that have always existed that way.
[00:15:58] And that's [00:16:00] absolutely not true. So, before the Industrial Revolution, right, which was the, essentially the invention of the steam engine, among other things, and the ability, which gave rise to the ability to build factories and to create, uh, sort of scaled production, right? You didn't need to have individual artisans making things.
[00:16:16] You could have a factory with workers who didn't even have to be particularly skilled. It's just like punch the widget, move the thing, right? So you can have large scale, um, production. So before that point, women essentially couldn't live alone and be economically independent. Because they couldn't have a job.
[00:16:36] There weren't jobs available for like single women. And also just a job in that way. Wasn't really a thing, right? Like the, the economy was much more oriented around agriculture. And so you'd have towns with like artisans and guilds of stained glass makers or book binders or whatever, but those were all male, right?
[00:16:53] And so women's labor was in the home and women had to be married because there was not really another choice. [00:17:00] You could go to a nunnery or you could get married. Or if for some reason you really just couldn't manage that, you could like, I guess, live with your family as a spinster, right? Those were kind of your three options.
[00:17:08] So there wasn't really a huge ideology of like romantic love and being chosen around marriage. There didn't really need to be one because you didn't have any other economic options. So you needed to be. You needed to be supported by a man, you didn't have the right to have a bank account, to own money, to be in a trade, to, you know, that was it, you didn't have any options.
[00:17:29] Then the industrial revolution happens, all of a sudden now women can go work in a city, living alone, making a wage for themselves. All of a sudden there's this option for single women to be economically independent. Now, it's not sex in the city, like factory work was very
[00:17:45] Lily: difficult. Can you imagine that parody sketch about like sex in the city, industrial revolution?
[00:17:52] Great, brilliant. Keep going.
[00:17:54] Kara: So it's not, it's not, you know, it wasn't all a good time, but you could go get a job and [00:18:00] economically support yourself and live in a rooming house. Right. With other women, there's still kind of norms around gender division. Um, and so that's when we see like this kind of development of this new story around marriage as a, as like this institution of love that would like validate women.
[00:18:19] And it's where we see like the more, the beginning of the focus on like the individual romantic relationship, you know, engagement rings, like this sort of personalization of marriage. So we just think it's always been like this, but actually the development of our social, like fixation on love as this thing as like the, first of all, as the bedrock of marriage, that marriage is a function of love, which was not the story at all before.
[00:18:50] And that obviously doesn't mean that nobody ever happened to marry the person they loved before, but it's like, what is the, what is the social story? Like, what are we telling people the is about? Yeah. It [00:19:00] used to be about. This is how you can have sex, first of all, because the church tells us that you can't have sex unless you're married.
[00:19:05] So this is how you can have sex. And
[00:19:06] Lily: you're ruined if you have sex and have a baby outside that institution. Or outside a wedlock. Right. I
[00:19:11] Kara: mean, what you're told before is religious as a marriage is a sacrament. You're not getting married because marriage is like Which
[00:19:18] Lily: I was told by my sorority president sophomore year of college.
[00:19:22] Wow. Yeah. So yeah, see,
[00:19:23] Kara: it depends on what you're doing now.
[00:19:25] Lily: Uh huh. Go ahead. Let's keep.
[00:19:27] Kara: Yeah. If marriage is a sacrament, you don't really need a whole ideology of romantic love. Necessarily. It's just like, this is what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to have babies. You're supposed to be married.
[00:19:35] You're supposed to work the farm for your husband, whatever. Now we, as soon as women become economically dependent, all of a sudden we need some other justification because the thing is that society still operates on. the unpaid labor of women, right? I mean, society would cease to function if women did not perform all of the domestic sexual childbearing housekeeping child rearing labor that they do in the home for [00:20:00] free.
[00:20:00] So society can't crumble. That's not an option. So instead we come up with a different story about why marriage is so important, how it validates you as a woman, how it's your highest calling and aspiration, right? And this is picking up on obviously threads that have always been in patriarchal society about the kind nature of and function of women.
[00:20:19] But this, this like aspect of, you know, it's romantic love that gives your life meaning, we don't tell that to men. That is not a message that men get. Right.
[00:20:29] Lily: I love. your book so much. I want to talk about the four traps of romantic socialization. What are they? How do we break free from these? It
[00:20:37] Kara: always feels like a pop quiz.
[00:20:38] I'm like, well,
[00:20:40] Lily: I,
[00:20:40] Kara: I
[00:20:40] Lily: fully am talking about my book. I fully forget the whole thing.
[00:20:45] Kara: Let's do it. But I always feel like I'm going to miss one. Okay. So the first trap is insecurity. This is probably, we've just been talking about in the sense that You know, women often feel, people socialize with women feel this brain gap between like, I [00:21:00] totally believe that I'm like awesome in all these ways, but I feel so insecure in dating.
[00:21:04] Like why what's happening? It makes me feel crazy. I don't understand. And if you tell someone, if you tell a human brain that X thing, whatever it is, is the key to it being considered. Good enough and accepted by society and validated your brain thinks that's a matter of survival, right? Our brains evolved.
[00:21:25] We evolved in small tribes of hunters gatherers where people really had to cooperate and like you. And if everybody hated you, you were going to die. I mean, and you can read the scarlet letter. We're talking about. The 18, what is it, 1800s in New England?
[00:21:38] Lily: So I know, how could we, I mean, I grew up in Alabama, obviously very, very different, but how could I have read the Scarlet Letter in a classroom and we not unpacked gender?
[00:21:50] Or like, how fucking wild is that?
[00:21:56] Kara: I know, I know. Nathaniel Hawthorne was ahead of the game with all of us, [00:22:00] or at least with our English teachers. So, anyway, you and I, we're like, we have like 10 million things to talk about. Yes. If you tell a human brain that being married is the thing that will forever validate it as being good enough and okay enough and accepted by society and to prove its value and worth, it's going to fixate on that.
[00:22:15] Now, some people have some other thing they fixate on, making a certain amount of money, having a certain kind of job. Their body looking a certain way. That's a big one society gives us, right? But marriage and relationships is one of those things. So if you teach your brain that for 20, 30, 40 years, if you are not in that state, of course your brain is telling you there's something wrong with you.
[00:22:37] You're not good enough, must have to fix yourself, you must be doing it wrong, right, you're not being chosen, you're to fill in the blank. So that's insecurity, that's the first trap. Insecurity leads to the second trap, which I call kind of scarcity and settling, and that is that society also tells women, That there's a scarcity of options for them.
[00:22:58] There's like, not enough good men to go [00:23:00] around.
[00:23:00] Lily: The, like, it's more likely for you to be killed by a terrorist than Right, I'd be struck by light and get married after
[00:23:06] Kara: 50. Or like, whatever
[00:23:07] Lily: nonsense
[00:23:08] Kara: statistics. Not only that there's not enough men to go around, period. Like, there's more women than men. Also, I mean, of course, not all women want to date men, but That's not the point for these people telling us these things and that there's not a good man.
[00:23:19] Right. So this is like how sort of these different, there are these ways that the kind of patriarchal, I think socialization intersects is like on the one hand, patriarchy is telling us men are better than women. On the other hand, when it comes to dating, it's like, Oh no, most men are terrible. Like there's only a few good ones.
[00:23:33] So basically if you find someone who's willing to date you, pathetic loser that you are, just take it. Like, just take whatever you can get, put up with whatever you can get. Every, most men are terrible. There aren't enough good ones
[00:23:46] Lily: to go around. I didn't. Um, so I need to, because I'm having an aha. Oh my God.
[00:23:51] Oh, I, I mean a true, I had not. Put together because so many of my clients struggle with the thought and so many of my audience struggle [00:24:00] with the thought there are no good men left. There are no emotionally intelligent men for women who want to date men. So I hadn't put together that the being convinced of that as the truth is also rooted in patriarchal conditioning,
[00:24:16] Kara: right?
[00:24:17] Because it's like men are emotionally unintelligent brutes. And like, if you find one that doesn't beat you, you're lucky. So just hold on to that one, right? Like, that's patriarchal messaging about men. And also, like, as someone who used to think, well, I'm so emotionally intelligent, I can't find a male partner who is.
[00:24:31] Like, yes, I've done a lot of emotional work with my partner. But also, if you are hyperfixating, ruminating, spinning out all the time, unable to tolerate disappointment in your dating life, unable to be vulnerable, but you're not as emotionally intelligent as you think.
[00:24:45] Lily: How dare you drag us to hell. And I, the sound of thousands turning this podcast off being like, fuck them.
[00:24:52] No, it's so true.
[00:24:53] Kara: It's really important though. It's because you think of, it's like, this is part of the patriarchal conditioning. Like, yes, men are socialized to like, [00:25:00] shove down their emotions, to not be as relational. My partner would get on this podcast and tell you we've done a lot of work on that. Yeah.
[00:25:05] You know what? He's done a lot of work with me on like, here's how to love someone and be nice to them and not just be constantly looking for what's wrong all the time. Mm. Like,
[00:25:13] Lily: we are not, and for me, Chris really truly like, has stopped my catastrophe. Like, not stopped. I, I still catastrophize, but really I was catastrophizing all the time.
[00:25:24] Caregiving vigilantly all the time. Yeah. Because of my, how I was raised and, and Right. And so he's been able to like. Help me grow in that there. It is untrue that all men are not emotionally intelligent or willing to be. Yes.
[00:25:40] Kara: Yeah. Socialization to say that sort of men are like these emotionally Wounded creatures that you've got to like, trap them and get them on it.
[00:25:47] And then you have to fix
[00:25:48] Lily: that you will be doing all the work and they will not be doing any.
[00:25:51] Kara: Right. And obviously there are some people like that of any gender, but in a good relationship, like you're both doing different kinds of work and helping each other in different ways. And to [00:26:00] think of yourself as like, I'm so emotionally self aware and all these guys are losers.
[00:26:04] I mean, a lot of women, I think. I think that they're very emotionally self aware if they are very aware of their anxious thoughts. It's just like not the same thing, you know, so it's like, they can articulate, well, this was me too, I dragging myself of 2020, you know, they can articulate like, well, I just feel really insecure when blah, blah, blah.
[00:26:23] Then I feel really. Yeah. Right. But then what are you going to do about it? Like what's and what? Talk about, yes. I mean, I could have a whole podcast where I just drag myself and us for how we do this because we also are constantly talking about vulnerability and wanting these men to be vulnerable, but we're not willing to be vulnerable by just telling the truth about how we feel or putting it ourselves out there for rejection.
[00:26:40] Or being
[00:26:41] Lily: vulnerable enough to be kind to ourselves. That there's something that we need to fix it, fix it, fix it. If I'm aware of the problem, I must care about myself enough to be aware of the problem. I got to fix every bit of the little thing. That's not vulnerability.
[00:26:54] Kara: No, and it's not vulnerability to like, I was just coaching someone yesterday.
[00:26:57] I was like, you think you're really vulnerable because [00:27:00] inside you feel really crazy right now. Yeah. But you're waiting for this person to text you. And you, it's like, you feel vulnerable to them, but actually you're just being, you're vulnerable to your own thoughts. Yes. Yes. That feeling that you have anxiety about whether someone wants you, that's not vulnerability.
[00:27:16] Vulnerability would be texting the person being like, Hey, I'd love to see you again. Like what are you so good? I do want to say something about settling. It's really important also though, because I think that in a weird way, um, obsessing about settling, which I see happen a lot of like, Cause women are socialized to second guess themselves and then there's scarcity and then they worry about settling.
[00:27:35] So it's like, oh no, are there, there aren't enough good men so maybe I should go on a second date with this person I didn't really like, but maybe I'm settling, I don't want to settle. I got to prove my worth. Right. The whole idea of settling is actually really like commodifying in a way, right. Because it is this idea that like people are of a certain quality and like your Are you, like, settling for a low quality one when you could get a high quality one?
[00:27:57] Which is how, I think, patriarchy [00:28:00] teaches men and women to think about each other. As like, as, it's sort of the subjectification of what does this person signal to myself or others about me? Like, is there with me? What does that prove about me? So, of course, you can be in a relationship. What I would call a useful version of settling is like, am I in a relationship that's not actually what I want to be in, where, like, the person isn't what I want, or how
[00:28:20] Lily: I'm Yes.
[00:28:22] Well, no, no, no. That's about like being intolerable of your own wants and needs and not like giving yourself space. That person
[00:28:30] Kara: could be an amazing partner for someone else. They just don't match you.
[00:28:33] Lily: Yeah. So yeah, framing it around settling is actually like, in some ways, taking it away from like, this is just about what you want.
[00:28:41] Kara: Right. In a
[00:28:41] Lily: relationship and, and how you're going to get it. Right. And it's not a value thing. Like this person is
[00:28:47] Kara: not valuable enough or whatever. So I
[00:28:48] Lily: really don't like the high value man conversation at all, at all.
[00:28:54] Kara: No, I mean, you can't be out here being like men objectify women and then being like nobody under six feet and you have to [00:29:00] have a graduate degree and make a hundred, 200, 000 a year at a time.
[00:29:03] Whatever. So third romantic trap. Yes. Rumination and fixation. Oh God. Okay. Yeah. That's the third. Yes, rumination fixation. Yeah, I need this. So we've already kind of touched on this. This is like, this, it all. It all builds to each other, right? Of course your brains can ruminate and fixate. So the purpose of this trap is partly just, is really mostly just to show you your brain's actually not acting illogically or irrationally.
[00:29:27] If you take all these premises I just laid out in traps one and two, like how could your brain not ruminate and fixate? Of course, yeah. That's just natural. And then step four is what I, uh, trap four is what I call magical thinking. We touched on this earlier. It's this idea that like, if your relationship status was just different.
[00:29:44] Everything would be different. Mm. You would never feel lonely again. You would always feel loved and adored. You would feel like when you went to a wedding, everybody thought that you were good enough. Your mom wasn't disappointed. You know, it's all of these, and people will say intellectually, they [00:30:00] understand that having partner doesn't solve all your problems
[00:30:03] But if you ask them like I want, here's like, I will coach people and be like, here's what I want you to imagine. You are married to your dream partner and you are sitting on the couch. And you are so fucking irritated and annoyed, or you feel so lonely because they said something that hurt your feelings.
[00:30:18] And you feel all of a sudden your brain telling you that like there no one's ever imagining that part. And that all of that is part of being with your perfect fit person. Yes. And being actually human and vulnerable with them. So You're welcome. I think that magical thinking is, is actually in some ways the most toxic trap, because that's what I see in coaching often is like, it's the part that makes it the hardest for the person to let go of the fantasy.
[00:30:43] It's like so much of coaching around this, or at least the coaching I do around dating and romantic relationship drama. Honestly, even with people who are in relationships, it's the same magical thinking. Yeah. If my partner was just different, or I was just good enough, right? Yeah. Like the, the thing that's so hard to get people to let go of is, [00:31:00] or to, really what I would say is the thing that's the hardest to get people to like being willing to practice thinking or believing is the idea that their life isn't going to be like objectively better once they have a partner.
[00:31:14] You really can't make any progress so long as you believe that because you're now telling your brain that your current reality is bad. It's not good enough. And when you get to that perfect place, it'll be better. And that makes it impossible to actually change the way you think or get a different outcome.
[00:31:26] And but that magical thinking, like the reason that's so hard for people is they really don't want to let go of this fantasy. And I see this with like weight loss coaching. Like when I coach people in body image a lot, it's, it's very structurally similar. It's like, I just like, I'm so. Beaten down by the internalized socialization I have experienced.
[00:31:44] I'm so exhausted by my own thoughts and being like a woman in this society. And I just want to believe that there's something I could do or something I could get or someplace I could go, or I will not have to feel this way anymore. And so some people attach it to their weight. Some people attach [00:32:00] it to a relationship, but there's no, you can absolutely change your thinking.
[00:32:05] to feel better. You can feel more empowered, more confident. Yeah, you can. I mean, I did this work myself to find my partner. And now, you know, hilariously, I'm getting married because I really wanted the end of my story to be. And then I wrote off single into the sunset, happy as a clam. But then I accidentally fell in love.
[00:32:19] Not accidentally. That's not true. I spent a lot of time looking for him. That may happen, but, but you're still gonna be a human. And it's like taking it off that pedestal. Yeah. Is like the single most freeing thing you can do. So those are the four traps.
[00:32:32] Lily: I, I hear also in there that there probably is going to be grief and like grieving the loss of that fantasy can be a thing, you know, intense.
[00:32:41] I, I'm reminded of the, um, you know, you have a whole chapter about body image in the book that I find really helpful. This, this conversation about body positivity versus neutrality. You say this on page 111. Fun number. In the end, you don't have to love your body. Really. It's not a moral imperative. It won't make you a better [00:33:00] person.
[00:33:00] It won't get you into heaven faster. In fact, you may not ultimately want to love your body. Maybe instead you just want to feel neutral about your body. That's completely fine. But I do encourage you to at least work on body acceptance neutrality rather than living with body hatred. But this like death of the expectation of, I just want to feel a lot of my clients say, I just want to feel.
[00:33:21] positive about my body. I just want to feel positive all the time, but we can't get there unless I got news for you.
[00:33:27] Kara: When
[00:33:27] Lily: you
[00:33:28] Kara: find your soulmate, you are not going to feel positive about that person all the time. Wow. Or yourself. Yeah. Yeah. I think grieving that. So it's both like, yes. Grieving the fantasy, but sometimes it's like, I do believe that, but then I also get a little bit like.
[00:33:40] Yeah. Just remember it's a fantasy you're grieving like it wasn't actually because sometimes people talk about it as like, I'm, I'm grieving not having this thing that I want that other people have. And I'm like, well, the fantasy
[00:33:52] Lily: to me also is about control totally. And the, the loss of control in this life is a very scary and the [00:34:00] fantasy feels like.
[00:34:01] If I could just have, if there's this thing and I can work towards it and I can go towards it and then the loss of that is sort of like accepting like, wow, I'm not in control of a lot of. Yeah, totally. I think
[00:34:11] Kara: there is, I guess what I'm saying is like, I always want to be really careful when I talk about grieving fantasy.
[00:34:15] It's like, it's like if I had to put in statements, the grieving isn't. Oh, I need to grieve that I may, that I won't, or I may never have that relationship I really wanted and find that person. It's like, no, what we're grieving is I need to grieve and let go of the fantasy that there is a person out there who will solve all my emotional problems.
[00:34:38] Lily: There we are. Those are very different or a marriage will mean that I'm not broken like it or that I don't feel broken all the time that that's a, that's something to address and work on right now. It's
[00:34:51] Kara: just like you're grieving the fantasy, not it's like seeing myself. Well, if I had a banana, I'd never be hungry again.
[00:34:57] And then I'm like, well, I guess I'm going to grieve [00:35:00] that I'll always be hungry. No, I'm going to need to grieve. Letting go of my fantasy that just having a banana would solve all of my problems. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I have to let go of that because part of why that's so important is, yes, there's certain versions of our life we're never going to have, right?
[00:35:14] I'm never going to experience what it's like to fall in love in your 20s with your Partner and get married at 25 and have a bunch of babies or what? I mean, I don't want babies, but whatever. I'm not gonna experience that version. Like I have a cousin who's married to her high school sweetheart. I'm not gonna experience that.
[00:35:30] I'm not gonna experience having my 20s or even my 30s with that, with my person, right? And what young love would have been like with him. But I also get to experience this, for instance, I don't think I even would have liked him when we were 25, like we were not compatible then at all. He was like living in a loft full of weird art he'd made out of Teddy Ruxpin dolls.
[00:35:50] Like it was not, that was not my vibe. Oh, yeah, yeah. But it's like, but I get to experience what somebody who marries their high school sweetheart doesn't get to experience, which is like coming together as fully [00:36:00] formed adults. Right, right. Like coming together from a much less. place because we've both been through relationships and have our own baggage and have, it's not better, worse, it's just different.
[00:36:10] So when you're grieving the fan, it's like, that's why it's so important to grieve the fantasy, not the thing you think you don't have, because that if you, tell yourself you're grieving. Like, yeah, it's sort of like, if you're saying like, well, I just need to grieve that I won't have been married by when I'm 30.
[00:36:24] It's like, yes, that's fine. But also why is, do you think that's better? Right. Why are we assuming that's better? And the thing to grieve and make sure you're not doing that in a way that you then are like not recognizing what would be amazing about getting married at 40 or 50 or 60.
[00:36:38] Lily: Yeah. And allowing yourself to, to go there
[00:36:41] Kara: and not, it's not about positive, like having to be positive about everything, but it's just not like, Sometimes I just think sometimes we use, I have to grieve X in this way where we're not interrogating why X is even supposed to be valuable.
[00:36:53] Yeah. That's what society taught us. Right. It's like, I have to grieve that I'll never be thin and beautiful. Like, no, that's not right. It's like, we [00:37:00] have to grieve, we have to grieve. The fantasy that we can solve all of our problems by manipulating our body.
[00:37:06] Lily: Yes, or that one day I won't have problems like that.
[00:37:09] That's a, that's such a fallacy and brings me to one of my favorite sentences in the book, which is that's very, that's human of me, you know, which is how human, how human of me that like. And you talk about that's a great inroad to self compassion is just like saying how, how human of me.
[00:37:26] Kara: Yeah. I learned that from, um, well, it's attributed to a bunch of different people, but the person I always see, I have most seen an attribute to is Judith Hanson Lasseter, who is a yoga teacher and meditation teacher.
[00:37:35] It's essentially a distillation of a Buddhist, you know, teaching, but I think that how human of me just immediately like shame is isolating, right? Shame is I'm different from everyone else. The reason how human of me is so effective is that I think it immediately connects you to the rest of humanity.
[00:37:49] Yeah. So even if you are fixating, ruminating, even if you've just made a pros and cons list about whether or not you're settling or not, and you're daydreaming about how if you just could get back [00:38:00] together with your high school boyfriend, you'd never feel bad again.
[00:38:03] Lily: Like how human of me. How human of me.
[00:38:05] How permissive is that phrase? I love it. And that practice of noticing the thoughts as not facts. How human of me for having, especially with.
[00:38:15] Kara: Yes. Like I find, especially with dating work, it's like people are, and when I say people, I'm including my former self. This is compassionate, compassionate, solidarity.
[00:38:23] People are so worked up. I was so worked up and I was like, so wound up. And every single time that a date didn't turn into like an erotic relationship. immediate proposal, essentially. Yeah. It was like, I'm still not figuring out. I'm still doing it wrong. I'm still right. How human of you to have learned this, be practicing new thoughts and still get anxious and drink too much on a date.
[00:38:44] Next time you'll do it a little bit better. Like that, how human of me, I think is so important because especially as the type type a driven fix it problem solvers we are, we're like, okay, there's something wrong with me. I'm going to solve it. Let's go. I'm going to do it by tomorrow. That's not really
[00:38:59] Lily: how rewiring the [00:39:00] brain works.
[00:39:00] Your book and your work in general. Really give a practical roadmap to freeing yourself from, uh, you know, sexist, patriarchal, uh, thinking and, uh, gives you a, a really clear, um, outlined path to not only being kinder to yourself, but just like, Thinking more powerfully that this is like, it is available for you to feel and be more powerful in your own life.
[00:39:33] And I think that I was really struck by one of your posts on Instagram a couple of weeks ago, or maybe it was an email. I have no idea, but you were like, it's interesting that we use the word empowerment around women specifically, and that we don't use the word power as often. And I really, I think that this book is powerful and will allow readers to feel and be their most powerful selves.
[00:39:53] Kara: Yeah, it's really important to me that you have actually tools to change this because a lot of self help and also a [00:40:00] lot of social justice work and kind of a lot of work that recognizes the role of structural forces is just like so patriarchy has infiltrated every element of your life and Yes. It'll be that way until the revolution and you're like, okay, but what am I supposed to do now?
[00:40:13] Yeah. Or even, and a lot of what's self help that's out there is just sort of like, so just own your accomplishments, believe in your own beauty. And you're like, if I could, if I knew how to do that, I would have already done it. Like,
[00:40:23] Lily: yeah.
[00:40:23] Kara: Right. So that's why the whole first half of the book is really, it's, Teaching you how to understand your brain, how it works and the techniques you need in order to literally change your thoughts little bit by little bit of a whole chapter about the thought ladder, which is a tool I teach for moving from a negative thought to a positive thought.
[00:40:40] Because when people try to. Do affirmations are positive thinking. They usually don't get any emotional payoff. It doesn't work. Study show can actually make you feel worse if you don't believe what you're telling yourself. So it was really important to me that this book isn't just like awareness. I mean, I do think awareness and insight matter.
[00:40:58] And like, even just, [00:41:00] you know, explaining the social context of why women and people socialize as women feel like, so bananas about certain things is, a form of change because it allows you to relate to yourself differently. I also wanted to give you tools for actually changing those thoughts. And this book definitely does that.
[00:41:15] Lily: Kara, how can people, people can buy the book everywhere, but how can people work with you and support you in this book?
[00:41:22] Kara: Well, if you can buy the book everywhere, but you can also still buy the book at takebackyourbrainbook. com and you can still get our pre order bonuses this week on release week. So we have like a guided 30 day journal.
[00:41:33] Um, if you order. Three books. We have a live book club. That's going to be kicking off. Give a book to a friend, give a book to your mom. Um, a lot of the reviews we've been getting from kind of women when we've been sending the galley out for PR and publicity have been like, Oh my God, this is a book I wish I had when I was younger.
[00:41:49] So it's a great gift for the mom or aunt in your life. So you can go to takebackyourbrainbook. com but of course you can also get the book anywhere else. And in terms of finding me, uh, my last name is impossible to [00:42:00] spell. So if she's going to just go take back your brain book. com, you'll find all of my social links and everything there.
[00:42:04] Amazing. Thank you so much. And my podcast is unfuck your brain.
[00:42:07] Lily: Unfuck your brain. Highly recommend. And, uh, so grateful you came on the podcast and I can't wait for everybody to get their hands on this book. Thanks
[00:42:14] Kara: for having me.