the goop podcast

Writer and attorney Christie Tate had big reservations when a therapist first suggested she pursue group therapy. The idea of voluntarily sharing her secrets and vulnerabilities with a group of strangers was not appealing. It was terrifying. But she went. Now she’s been in group therapy for 19 years—and probably will be for the rest of her life. Tate wrote a book about her experience called Group: How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life. In her chat with Elise Loehnen, they talk about Tate’s struggle with disordered eating, how her husband and children deal with having their private lives exposed, and how the process of healing and understanding ourselves typically takes a lifetime. “The more people tell true stories about the jagged line of recovery, that it’s not just a straight arrow shooting upward to nirvana,” says Tate, “the better understanding we can have of what healing looks like.” (For more, see The goop Podcast hub.) 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

“Hope isn’t an optimism that one day it will be okay,” says Austin Channing Brown. “Hope is what we owe to one another as human beings.” Brown is a media producer, a speaker, and the author of the New York Times bestseller I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness. In her racial justice and leadership work, Brown doesn’t chase hope; she lives it. Brown joined host Elise Loehnen to talk about how she anchors herself amid the stress and emotional toll of her work, and why for many Black women, the missteps of White women, in particular, can sting more. She also explains why it’s more helpful to be brave than it is to be nice—and how to show up with this in mind. (For more, see The goop Podcast hub.) 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

“The work that I do helping people exit these groups, it isn’t about persuading them to leave,” says mental health counselor Steven Hassan. “It’s teaching them how the mind works, teaching them about social psychology and hypnosis, which helps them see whether or not they have been co-opted.” Hassan is a leading expert on mind control and hypnosis and the author of The Cult of Trump. For the past forty years, he’s drawn on his own experience as a former Moonie to help people step out of controlling groups, relationships, and cults. Today, he explains how well-adjusted people get wrapped up in authoritarian cults, why we’re all subject to mind control every day, and how mind control has shaped the current state of politics in the US. And he shares his insights on what to do about it. (For more, see The goop Podcast hub.) 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

Brian Muraresku—author of The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name—spent twelve years entrenched in connecting the dots between the use of mind-altering drugs and the foundation of Christianity as we know it today. Many of us are familiar with the holy wine present at ancient religious celebrations. But what was actually in that wine? Was it anything like the wine we drink today? Muraresku says the evidence suggests it was very different—that the wine was routinely mixed with other substances, from spices and perfumes to herbs, and fungi. For Muraresku, this begged the question: What was the intent of those who drank it? Today, he joins host Elise Loehnen to share the wild journey this question led him on and what he discovered along the way about faith, science, and the rise of the church—including long-suppressed evidence of just how fundamental women were to the origin and survival of Christianity. (For more, see The goop Podcast hub.) 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 friend Kate Hudson, and true to form, they cover a lot of ground. They talk about being girl moms, what it looks like to own your trauma, and how, at this stage in her life, Hudson creates sustaining relationships. “It’s not fun to work through the pain—it sucks. And it definitely feels like it’s easier to avoid it,” Hudson says. “But we know that the more you avoid it, the worse it festers.” They also chat about how she’s created authentic and successful brands (like Fabletics, and her new venture In Bloom), the best business advice she’s gotten, and why she bets on herself. And be sure to listen to the end to hear about Hudson’s best (and not-so-best) onscreen kisses. (For more, see The goop Podcast hub.) 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

“It’s the possibility of greater change that rejuvenates me,” says Michele Harper, MD. “That’s what makes it possible for me to keep going.” Harper is an emergency room physician who has worked as chief resident at Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx and in the emergency department at the VA medical center in Philadelphia. She is also the author of The Beauty in Breaking. Today, she joins host Elise Loehnen to share how she manages the emotional strain of being witness to so much suffering, what she’s learned from her patients about healing, and why she sees her commitment to positive change as a form of meditation. “It is all so depleting—all of it,” she says. “But I’ve always turned my grief, my pain, my suffering into action.” (For more, see The goop Podcast hub.) 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

Author Toni Jensen joined us for the September edition of goop Book Club to talk about her first memoir, Carry, which traces her Métis roots, her childhood in rural Iowa, her closest relationships, and the classrooms she’s inhabited around the country as a student and a teacher. In this conversation with Elise Loehnen, Jensen talks about making peace with childhood trauma, her complex relationship with gun culture, the staggering injustices forced on Indigenous women, the stereotypes that prevail, and the subtle and lasting ways that language shapes each of us. (For more, see The goop Podcast hub.) 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

Laura Wasser is a family law expert, a divorce attorney, and the founder of It’s Over Easy, a platform that provides tools to help families navigating divorce. She joins host Elise Loehnen to talk about how people can prepare for the best and the worst in a relationship, whether or not she thinks prenups serve a partnership, if the years she’s spent in this field have changed her views on marriage, and how she’s remained family with her exes. Wasser also shares her tips on what to look for in an attorney, how to move on in the least expensive way (emotionally and financially), and topics to discuss with a partner when you’re just getting hitched. (For more, see The goop Podcast hub.) 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

David Sheff is a journalist and the author of the number one New York Times–bestselling book Beautiful Boy. Sheff joins us to talk about an incredible man and the subject of his latest book, The Buddhist on Death Row: Jarvis Jay Masters’s childhood was marred by severe trauma that sent him down a path of violence and into San Quentin. In 1990, while in prison, Masters was set up for the murder of a guard, which landed him on death row. On the recommendation of a criminal investigator working on his case, Masters began to explore meditation. He was skeptical, and his life didn’t change overnight. But it did eventually change—dramatically. Today, on death row, Masters is a remarkable Buddhist thinker, engaging with some of the most renowned practitioners in the world and changing the way people approach both suffering and healing.(For more, see The goop Podcast hub.) 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

Ambassador Susan Rice has had an impressive career in service and government as a diplomat, policy advisor, and public official. She served throughout the Clinton administration, becoming one of the nation’s youngest secretaries of state, and later, became one of President Obama’s most trusted advisors. After years of speaking on behalf of presidents and the country, Rice finally shares her incredible story, in her own words, in her book Tough Love—and today, in her conversation with GP. One of the most interesting parts of their chat is about managing division and learning to listen and understand others, starting at the dinner table (Rice’s son is deeply conservative). The pair also talk about why there’s a tendency to view women with a binary and reductive lens, the scaffolding that’s informed Rice’s diplomacy and negotiation skills, and the single through line that’s helped her grow. (For more, see The goop Podcast hub.) 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