the goop podcast

Kelly McDaniel is a licensed professional counselor and the author of Mother Hunger: How Adult Daughters Can Understand and Heal from Lost Nurturance. In this conversation, McDaniel joins cohost Erica Chidi to talk about the experience of yearning for maternal love. McDaniel explains how this type of longing impacts our sense of self and other types of relationships as we become adults. “Depending on what we each did to earn our mother’s love—what we end up doing is duplicating that with friendships, in romantic partnerships, and sometimes at work,” says McDaniel. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this special episode, psychotherapists and collaborators Barry Michels (New York Times–bestselling coauthor of The Tools) and Kristan Sargeant guide us through exercises designed to help us connect with our shadow. The shadow, as they explain it, is an often maligned part of your personality that has the potential to change your life in unexpected ways. “You can have intimacy with a part of yourself that you've been judging, abandoning, neglecting, denying,” says Sargeant. “That allows you to take on challenges and take risks and actualize on hunches and inclinations and dreams and desires that are percolating inside of you but you can't quite find the courage or clarity to pull the trigger on.” To go deeper, check out the week-long workshop Michels and Sargeant are hosting this July. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

GP catches up with her good friend, actress and author Ali Wentworth. They chat about their daughters (they're best friends), and GP asks Wentworth for advice on how to cope when Apple leaves for college. Wentworth shares what has fueled her marriage over the years, and she explains how humor became her currency growing up and how she uses it during dark times. After you listen, preorder Wentworth's hilarious new book, Ali's Well that Ends Well, which comes out May 10. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Alok Vaid-Menon is a writer, performer, public speaker, and the author of Beyond the Gender Binary, which examines gender fluidity and why the binary hurts us all. Vaid-Menon joins GP to discuss their journey as a nonbinary artist, how they’ve reclaimed their peace, and why it’s important to become familiar with your pain. “It’s actually through doing this intimate work of self-discovery and self-acceptance that we unlock a deep sense of community and interconnectivity. That’s what happened in my life,” says Vaid-Menon. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

GP is joined by a new friend, author Fanny Singer, for a special conversation (originally hosted by Book Passage) about Singer's book Always Home. They talk about what it was like to both grow up with famous mothers (Singer is the daughter of Alice Waters, the food icon and chef behind Chez Panisse). And Singer shares why she’s finally given herself permission to engage with her mother’s work. They chat about the connection between art and food, where they find beauty, and what cooking—and sharing—a meal means to them. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Edwina von Gal is a landscape designer and the founder of the Perfect Earth Project and Two Thirds for the Birds, two nonprofits raising awareness around the positive environmental impact of low-intervention lawns and bird-friendly landscapes. In this conversation, von Gal joins GP to discuss what we can do to take care of the ecosystems that we often overlook in our own backyard. “Nature is not really messy,” says von Gal. “Nature is highly complex. And the more you begin to read that complexity, that more you learn about it.” To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kimberly Johnson is a trauma educator, somatic guide, and the author of Call of the Wild: How We Heal Trauma, Awaken Our Own Power, and Use It For Good. She shares practices for understanding—and befriending—our nervous system. And she explains her approach to unpacking what our body is telling us, how sound can be used for healing, and why simple things (such as moving your body or connecting with others) can be therapeutic. “Our tendency is to believe that everything is a ‘me’ problem when it’s actually a ‘we’ problem,” says Johnson. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“For me growing up, the dark skinned women who had a spotlight or were celebrated had to be exceedingly, almost super humanely beautiful,” says culture and film critic Zeba Blay. “You couldn’t just be a pretty dark skinned Black girl.” In Carefree Black Girls, Blay explores the impact Black women have had on popular culture throughout history—and how pop culture has shaped Black womanhood. In this conversation, Blay and Erica Chidi talk about representation and colorism in Hollywood. Blay also explains what it means to be a carefree Black girl, where joy comes from, and why she decided to speak openly about mental health. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In Sacred Rest, Saundra Dalton-Smith, MD, proposes the idea that there are seven different types of rest. Dalton-Smith says that sometimes the reason we can’t seem to replenish our energy is because we aren’t getting the kind of rest we need. In this episode she explains the characteristics of each and talks with GP about how to maintain healthy boundaries around work, relationships, and technology. “If you’re not intentionally filling back up, that’s probably a place of deficit,” says Dalton-Smith. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“We're really indoctrinated with the idea that mental health issues are this genetically determined chemical imbalance,” says holistic psychiatrist Ellen Vora. “And that plays a role. I don't deny that, but it's not the whole story.” Vora’s new book, The Anatomy of Anxiety, explores holistic strategies for supporting our mental health, from nutrition to sleep to herbs and supplements. She joins Erica Chidi to talk about identifying what’s at the root of our anxiety, why it’s a whole-body condition, and the connection between menstrual cycles, hormones, and anxiety. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices