This week, we’re revisiting one of our most discussed and asked-for topics: BURNOUT. Caroline Dooner’s first book, The F*ck It Diet: Eating Should Be Easy is a massively popular and influential book for good reason. It’s that helped so many of us reframe diet culture and to finally drop the 10,000 lb gorilla that is our obsession with food. After several years of feeling the effects of her work, and the way she approached her life and success, Caroline is back with a second book - Tired as F*ck: Burnout at the Hands of Diet, Self-Help, and Hustle Culture This is the conversation we NEED and Caroline is the perfect person to get us going. She doesn’t sit on high and issue pronouncements about how we’re supposed to live. Her work is very personal and, as she says, she uses her stories as a cautionary tale. Show notes: Caroline Dooner: https://carolinedooner.com/ Caoline’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/thefuckitdiet/ The Fuck It Diet: https://thefuckitdiet.com/ Episode link: Spotify playlist for this episode: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2MMf9BdRlYSWoXc1T2s0Eg?si=6a479752967e4994 Tell Me Something True is a 100% independent podcast. There are no corporations or advertisers backing this community. We are 100% funded by the TMST community. Support TMST today so you can hear the uncut interviews, attend private events with Laura and help keep TMST ad-free: https://tmst.supercast.com/
Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen
[00:00:00] Laura McKowen: Hey, it's Laura. If you're listening to this, you're not hearing the complete unedited version of this conversation. If you want it on that, you can get it by becoming a TMST plus member. Just head over to our website at TMSTpod.com and click support. All right. Enjoy the show.
[00:00:28] Hey there, Laura here this week, we're revisiting one of our most discussed and asked for topics, burnout, not from a scientific or academic point of view, though. More from a personal one, which for me, and probably for you is sometimes the best way. I became acquainted with Caroline Dooner when I read her first book, the fuck it, diet eating should be easy in the summer of 2020.
[00:00:57] When I noticed that my disordered eating [00:01:00] habits were starting to kick in again, amidst all the panic of the pandemic and lockdowns, it was for me, the book I really wished I'd read 20 years earlier. The fuck diet is a massively popular and influential book now, and it's helped so many people reframe diet culture for well, what it is, and finally drop that 10,000 pound gorilla that is our obsession with food and our bodies. And now after several years of feeling the effects of her work and the way she approached her life and success, Caroline is back with a second book, Tired As Fuck: Burnout at the Hands of Diet, Self-help and Hustle Culture. What a title. A thing to know about Caroline that I love is that she doesn't sit on high and issue pronouncements about how we're supposed to live.
[00:01:59] She's funny and insightful. And her work is really personal. And as she says, she uses her stories as a cautionary tale. I know I see myself in her writing and really appreciate the way she showed up in this conversation. I think you will too. Hi Caroline.
[00:02:27] Caroline Dooner: Hello. Happy to be here.
[00:02:30] Laura McKowen: Yeah, me too. Me too. So I'm just going to jump right in your latest book, Tired as Fuck came out this month, February is where we're when we're recording this so I want to talk about that, but first I want to go back and talk about your first book, The Fuck it Diet, which came out just in 2019, what is the Fuck It Diet about and why did you write it?
[00:02:56] Caroline Dooner: The Fuck It Diet is a book that's all about why we feel so out of control around food. It's really geared toward people who believe that they are food addicts or have a serious binge eating problem and keep putting themselves on diets and feel like a huge failure.
[00:03:17] And it goes through all of the many, many reasons why that's actually happening and that it's not our fault. And it's actually diets. It's the, the way that we're wired. And then it goes through what you can do about it to try and get yourself out of that diet cycle. And I wrote it, I mean, I never, ever, I really never ever thought that this would be my life.
[00:03:39] Like I never thought that I was on a track to be a musical theater performer, ideally on Broadway. That was my hope and as you can imagine, there was a lot of hyper-focus on my looks and on my weight and I felt like such, I mean, I really like positive I was a food addict because that's exactly, exactly what I acted like.
[00:04:05] I really like, I did not understand why I could not stay on a diet and why I was just so, so obsessed with food. And I tried everything. I even tried intuitive eating, but I turned that into a diet to as many people do. And I, it was a series of events that I actually kind of go over a little bit in The Fuck It Diet and a little bit in Tired as Fuck, which actually kind of like talks about my experience more than The Fuck It Diet that led me to have this realization.
[00:04:36] That I was just going to keep doing this over and over and over if I did not step out of the cycle and that the biggest problem that was keeping me from actually getting to an easy, natural, intuitive, balanced place with food was my obsession with and attempts to micromanage my weight. It's very hard to describe why I was so [00:05:00] sure of that, but it was this like deep, intuitive knowing.
[00:05:03] And then I started researching, like I was going off of a hunch and then I started researching and I found all of the science to support all of the things that I was doing. And anyway, it was like turning everything I ever knew on its head. And it was really scary. It was really overwhelming but I had this research that was helping me kind of like doing the research for your own.
[00:05:24] I was trying to help myself. I was trying to like take myself through this journey, but I also, you know, I wasn't a professional writer at the time, but I'd always written and I loved writing and I would think like, man, I would love it if I could be a writer for a job, but I have no idea, like no idea how that would even happen, but I started writing The Fuck Diet at the blog thefuckitdiet.com.
[00:05:50] In 2012, I was doing research and I was actually at the exact same time. I started reading The Artist's Way. Totally unrelated. [00:06:00] And it was so helpful. Like it was, how divine timing in a way, because I, first of all, I had this horrible relationship with creativity and art because I've been so brutal to myself for my entire life, with performing.
[00:06:20] And so that it was revelatory, like on that end that I was like, oh my God, like, of course I hate doing this because I'm like such an asshole to myself and I'm such a perfectionist. And I beat myself up if I don't reach a standard that like is probably impossible to reach anyway. And it's, so that was interesting, but it was also talking about perfectionism and kind of micromanaging yourself in a way that actually ran parallel to my relationship with food and weight, because it had been so obsessive and perfectionistic as well. So I was going on this like healing journey with my creativity, and doing the exercises from the book and it was, it was making me have all these realizations about my relationship with food and weight and doing the morning pages, exercise versus essentially like a brain dump meditation on the page.
[00:07:17] I literally The Fuck It Diet. Like I was like, I just needed to say, fuck. Yeah. And I was like, I need it. So it was this, there was these like magical things that happened that like led me to this, but it was the tiniest little. Little steps. I took, I did not because I was learning that creativity was healing just, just for the sake of creativity, that it would be healing for me and my soul.
[00:07:43] And luckily it did well enough that I was able to write a second book. So it's zooming out on my relationship with food and talking about my relationship with perfectionism and extremism and black and white thinking [00:08:00] and, you know, seeking miracle cures and magical thinking and how that applied to my relationship with food, how that applied to my relationship with self-help, how that applied to my relationship with myself and why that was a dynamic that deeply, deeply burnt me out after many years. And then, and then how we're all kind of doing similar things and in our own, you know, very different lives. But these themes that, you know, so many of us do this to ourselves completely.
[00:08:31] Laura McKowen: Yeah. We, it's something that we've talked about a lot on the show in different, from different perspectives.
[00:08:38] So people obviously have super strong opinions about diet and body stuff. What was the response to the book like?
[00:08:46] Caroline Dooner: It's interesting. I remember any press for the first book for the fuck of diet was so much more nerve wracking to me than any of the press that I've done for the second book, because people actually don't [00:09:00] bristle at the idea of burnout, right?
[00:09:02] Nearly as much as they bristle at the idea that micromanaging our weight is not good for our health and all of this stuff. That's very much backed up by science, but it's so fringe it's, let's really like not the mainstream understanding of it, that people are really pushed back. It took a year of like disappointment, you know, to be like, this is actually it's the best because yes, there was pushback, but because it wasn't as wildly successful in the beginning, as I hoped it would be, it actually like took the heat off a little bit.
[00:09:35] So, you know, there are definitely people who don't agree with it or, you know, I know that this is like a way to kind of deflect, but I really do think that there's so much disordered eating and such an attachment to our disordered eating or eating disorders that a lot of the anger at the book is around that.
[00:09:57] But I'm very thankful that it's actually [00:10:00] had the, the life that it's had so far because there's been push push back, but it hasn't been nearly as much as I was worried about.
[00:10:09] Laura McKowen: What’s changed for you since the book came out?
[00:10:13] Caroline Dooner: The fuck it diet? Oh my God. Well I have, I have started to believe that maybe I can be an author as a job because that's actually what.
[00:10:35] What I want to do, because for so long, I was almost doing like research on the fuck it diet by working with people and running these workshops and teaching. And it was amazing it, it was so helpful for me for writing it for, you know, for everything. But it's, that's not really what I think I'm supposed to be doing, if that makes sense, like big picture.
[00:10:59] So that's been exciting to be like, oh, maybe I can actually like. This could really be my job. That's very, yeah. Very exciting. And then I guess what also happened and I, I am like racking my brain. What happened? What happened? My Instagram blew up. Between when I got the book deal and when the book came out, it went up from like, 13,000 to a hundred thousand.
[00:11:30] It is the handle. Totally. Part of that is that the fact, my handle is the fuck it diet. And if I comment on something, if someone shares it, people, even if people aren't ready for it, even if people disagree with me, they click because they're like, what is that? And, and then, you know, because I started because I got, you know, I got burnt out on this.
[00:11:53] Like I was, I was already. Kind of like in my healed state, by the time I was writing the [00:12:00] book and I was already at a, at a point where I was like, oh, I don't want to keep, I really just like, don't want to keep on talking about disordered eating, like every single day for the rest of my life, because it was so easy to talk about it in the beginning when I was what I was thinking about all the time and what I was figuring out.
[00:12:17] But once I actually healed it, I'm sure you also feel this way. Once I actually healed it was harder and harder to constantly talk about it to constantly like think of things to post about it. And so it was almost kind of like, oh, maybe I want to start kind of like writing about something else. And then I got the book deal.
[00:12:38] And I knew I could write that book. You know, I knew I could write the fuck it diet I'd been living it. I've been writing about it. I've been teaching. Like I knew exactly what it should be. And I was like, of course, this is so exciting. It was opportunity to like, to infuse more humor into the subject because weirdly, you know, before the fuck it's, before I started writing the fuck it diet blog, I [00:13:00] liked writing humor.
[00:13:01] Laura McKowen: I want to turn towards the new book I was going to say was there anything that surprised you or was not as you expected with the fuck it diet?
[00:13:12] Caroline Dooner: I feel like I had this realization when I was thinking about going through this whole like launching process again, with the, with the second book of like, there is some subconscious thing in me that is afraid for my books to be as successful as I think I want them to be, because I know that with that comes more backlash and more hate and more criticism. And there's a part of me that I think is like, subconsciously, like not wanting that because it's already been overwhelming on a smaller scale.
[00:13:48] Laura McKowen: I think that's, I think anyone who is remotely self-aware would admit to that.
[00:13:52] And the reason I'm asking is, you know, not everyone, most people are listening, aren't authors, right. But everyone can relate to, [00:14:00] or is curious about how real experiences measure up to sort of your idea of what they might be.
[00:14:07] Caroline Dooner: The week that the fuck a diet came out. I had this, like I was so unhappy. I was so unhappy.
[00:14:19] And I, it was a mixture of me realizing, oh my God, Carolyn, you're so stupid. You literally write about in the book, how, how we think we're going to reach this goal. And we think life is going to be totally different. And I knew it's not that I didn't know that, but there was still a part of me that was like, when I have a book, when I am a published author and it's out, everything's going to change.
[00:14:44] It's just, my life is just going to like, have this like shiny. I don't know everything's going to be different. I'm going to be like, I don't know. I imagine I was going to be like traveling around the world. I don't know what I was imagining, but I was imagining something that was just not how I was like, my life is exactly the same.[00:15:00]
[00:15:00] I'm not a New York times bestseller. My life is exactly the same. And now I have to figure out what to write next. I was really panicked. I was really panicked about what's next, what's next? Oh my God, this wasn't, you know, I had these expectations that I should have realized where were like, you know, unrealistic and now like it, it was just, but at the same time, I was like, duh, like I already knew that I already knew that, but I had to just experiencing it all over again and realize and realize that it all over again, that was very notable that I was like, damn, I am so so I just don't feel the way I expected to feel, but that's, that's, that's everything.
[00:15:43] Laura McKowen: Yeah. But that's a really important for people to hear. I think that's a lesson that dies really, really hard.
[00:15:50] Caroline Dooner: I know because you can apply it to anything
[00:15:51] Laura McKowen: Anything. And, and I have, and I did, and I sometimes still do it's. I mean, yeah.
[00:15:59] I [00:16:00] think that. That is where a lot of our misery comes from this idea that, that it's out there somewhere. And. I bet I've brought this quote up a few times in different conversations on the show, but I think it was Jim Carrey who said, like, I hope that everyone gets everything that they ever wanted so that they can see that it doesn't matter.
[00:16:24] So like there's nothing there, so good for you in it, how empty it is. And, you know, I in my own small way, I know that to be true and I have been burned by that. And I would like to think that I've actually. It's actually the thing that saves me when I get caught up in comparison and jealousy is I go, okay, your actual life, what is it like for you?
[00:16:52] Caroline Dooner: Yeah. And that, like, I agree, you have to have some big wins, [00:17:00] learn it and then have another big win. Learn it again, learn it enough times till like you can actually. And you need to have the awareness around it. Cause we're gonna, we're gonna keep, it's such an alluring thing. It's so human.
[00:17:15] Laura McKowen: So human and, and that's why I think it's like, even though I think it's great that you, that you were like, I know this, but still, I mean, it makes perfect sense.
[00:17:23] You know, I don't think we ever get to a point where we're not as struck by that.
[00:17:28] Caroline Dooner: Even if we don't consciously think this subconsciously so many of us are like, my life is. My life is fully reflected in social media or my life should be fully reflected in social media and these tiny, real moments between people or between you and your spirit or you and the world and nature.
[00:17:48] These, these moments that are very important and and cannot possibly be captured for social media. In the past year, [00:18:00] kind of I've been like, Ooh, something is, something is missing and it's not a big goal. It's something very like primal and, and soul based. And I'm. Yes. I need to slow down and sit similar to rest, like rest was was, and we're going to talk about it.
[00:18:20] I'm sure. But like my, my need for rest was born of deep exhaustion. This need for something slower is born of like a unwillingness to, to sink into like simple beautiful moments. It's actually getting caught up in modern society and I'm craving learning how to make a garden. I also very overwhelmed learning about learning how to make a garden. Like I'm like, oh God, spring is coming. I'm really gonna have to figure this out.
[00:18:58] But like, I I'm craving [00:19:00] something that I've lost.
[00:19:01] Laura McKowen: Tangible. Yeah. I hear you. And I, and I think so many people feel that way. I. That was a big part of me pulling out of social media for the better part of last year was that deep, deep soul level feeling that I was missing my life again, which is what I had experienced in addiction.
[00:19:19] I think the, a lot of it is that we are living in, I saw it in a clip from Brene Brown's podcasts that someone called the online world, the dopamine casino, and like we're living in a dopamine casino. And so our brain like regular banal moments of life are feel unsatisfactory until you drop out of that for a while or let it put it in its place, which is really hard to do and allow yourself.
[00:19:48] To your, your nervous system to regulate, and then you can feel life again. You can feel real life again. So it's, it's an active, it's like a choice and it's a choice you continually have to [00:20:00] make. Okay. So let's move towards the, towards Tired as Fuck. So we on the show, we've actually done a lot of a breaking down of hustle, culture and various ways.
[00:20:11] And it's really easy to see why it's so problematic. I don't think anyone argues with. But I find a lot of the solutions to be shallow and don't be afraid. I'm not going to ask you for like solutions per se. Only your own experience. The truth is most people can't just stop. That's a lot of what we hear.
[00:20:30] Oh yeah. Stop, you know, check out of the capitalist superstructure. No, and no one can virtually no one can do that.
[00:20:38] Caroline Dooner: I'm in a, I was in a position that's different from a lot of people and, you know, I was able to start saying no to something. Aspects of my life and my business, but I still, I still had to keep going.
[00:20:50] I still had to keep making money. I didn't just totally, you know, and we'll get again, we'll get there, but yeah, I don't think just stop is the answer. I think it really [00:21:00] is a mental and emotional overhaul because there's so much about the pressure that we don't even realize we've taken on that adds to our exhaustion about.
[00:21:13] Laura McKowen: So talk about that.
[00:21:13] Talk about the different forces that you explore in this book, and really from your own experience, you don't have to comment about the larger culture.
[00:21:21] Caroline Dooner: Okay. So 10 years ago was the beginning of my Fuck It Diet. I healed so much in the first couple years. And so many things got so much better. My health got better.
[00:21:35] My sleep got better. My energy got better. All of these things, you know, my, my, I felt this huge weight lifted off of my like my emotional shoulders. So much more space in my brain. And I had a couple of years of like being high on life and like being so excited and I was learning how to run an online business and I was still trying to act and I was doing, and I was doing so much and I was living in New York at [00:22:00] the time.
[00:22:01] And so it was five years ago at this point and five years into the fuck it diet, I started feeling really tired, really, really, really tired. And I can now identify that I, it was burnout and I was burnt out, but I actually wasn't using that language at the time. I was just like, whoa, I'm so tired. You know, I started, I just started like I literally didn't have the energy to do the things that I'd been able to do find the year before.
[00:22:35] And I wasn't feeling excited about anything that I had been excited about before everything on my skin, almost everything on my schedule just made me feel despair and dread and like, yeah. How did I get, like how, and I really. You know, I think it was, it was very physical. I was very, very physically tired, but it was also manifesting in one of the things [00:23:00] that I learned since then about burnout is that burnout manifests often as symptoms of depression and anxiety.
[00:23:08] Laura McKowen: Well, I was going to say it sounds to most people like depression.
[00:23:12] Caroline Dooner: Yeah. And I think that there was a part of me that that I knew on some intuitive level that, that wasn't it. I knew that it was exhaustion, but I fought it for a really long time because I didn't feel like I deserve to be exhausted because.
[00:23:33] Comparing myself to other people. I wasn't doing any more than them. And a lot of people I was doing less than, but I, I just like, I, I just couldn't and I, I was experiencing what was some chronic health stuff. Like. I was starting to have these low grade fevers all the time. I was really tired. I think I was super rundown and I had this really bad relationship with my own nervous system.
[00:23:59] [00:24:00] And so like that really does run you down.
[00:24:02] Laura McKowen: So talk about that… before you keep going because I think this is really important when you would compare yourself with other people and what they're doing. Talk about that.
[00:24:13] Caroline Dooner: Well, it was this thing where I. I didn't allow myself. That was the problem that I kept telling myself, no, you're not allowed.
[00:24:23] You're not allowed to be having this problem. You're not allowed to be tired. You have to just figure this. You have just pushed through like push through everyone else does push through, find a supplement, you know, like hack this, you know, but because I had gone through my healing, my relationship with food and body there was, it was like, I had a different perspective on it.
[00:24:44] And I was like, oh God, I had just done all of this on unlearning of all of these beliefs about food and body. And it just was so clear that what I was coming up against were all of these beliefs about [00:25:00] everything else in my life about productivity, about what about being impressive? What I realized was I had all of this shit in my brain, in my psyche about what I should be doing and all of these beliefs about what my life was supposed to look like and what was impressive and productive.
[00:25:17] Responsible and all of the stuff. And I had all of these activities that and parts of my business and parts of my life that I was forcing myself to do, because I thought that I had to. And it was all about what it looked like from the outside and what, you know, what a normal person does a normal person doesn't give up on the thing that they went to college for a normal person, all of this stuff.
[00:25:37] And I realized that that's the shit that doesn't spark joy. And that's the shit that is depleting me and has been not just for the past year or a couple of years, it's been, it's been that way for, from at least since I was in high school, if not before. And it became clear. And when I had that revelation, that is what made me realize.
[00:25:58] Oh, my [00:26:00] God. I have been brutal, brutal to myself beyond just food and weight. I've been brutal to myself in a million different ways for over 15 years. At this point I was 28 at that point. I never ever, ever, ever, ever felt relaxed. I never let myself off the hook any day that I had off any night, I took off even. It was just guilt and stress.
[00:26:26] Laura McKowen: It’s funny that you that you even take like even call time when you're not being productive, taking off. It's not like there's work and then regular life. Right. It was like everything was work, even if it was not directly applied at your work life, it was still work, work to be more productive.
[00:26:44] Caroline Dooner: I think this is true for a lot of freelancers and a lot of creatives, but with acting, it was this thing where I was never thin enough. There was never a time when I said, okay, good job. Good job. [00:27:00] Most people. Yeah. Yeah. That was just that, that was just my huge manifestation of it. And, and I, I believe just like you said, most people have some version of that on some level, at least in some area of their life.
[00:27:15] And it was a revelation of I've been stressed and, and never, ever, ever believed I deserved relax. For essentially my entire life. Yeah. That's so sad. Of course. I'm tired. Like of course I am.
[00:27:34] Laura McKowen: Was it like a sadness…
[00:27:36] Caroline Dooner: It was, it was a sadness, but it was also a relief because I finally, because that was when I decided and believed that I did deserve to be tired and I did deserve to do something about it because before, when I didn't understand why I was tired, I was just mad at myself.
[00:27:55] It was like, what is wrong? What is wrong with me? Which is one more problem. There's so many [00:28:00] things you have to do. Look at your list, look at all the things that you need to do. If you want to reach these goals. And now you're exhausted. Like I was so frustrated with myself until I realized, oh my God, I am not a robot.
[00:28:12] And I have never, ever, ever let myself truly like power down. Never, never. And so I made the decision because I had just gone through this huge, you know, radical healing journey with the fuck diet where I kind of went in the opposite direction of what the world was telling me I should be doing. I thought, you know what I've actually done okay. Over these past couple of years, I have a little bit of money in the bank. I cannot keep going at this rate. I am not happy, not happy. I finally reached a point where like the dread was enough that the, the relief at letting some of these things go was palpable. And so it, it [00:29:00] actually was like rewarding enough to be like, you know, I always thought that moving out of New York was a huge failure and I never would let myself do it.
[00:29:08] Right. But right now it feels like the most relieving thing I could possibly do. Because again, if I wanted to slow down, I was going to be making less money and I couldn't afford, I couldn't afford to be in New York, the energy of New York, the energy, all of it. I mean the amount of time. I would wait for a subway at 11:00 PM like in the anxiety.
[00:29:28] Like it finally got to this place where I was like, it will be so relieving to not have to deal with so many of these things. So that was a big decision. And that was a big shift. I decided to quit acting.
[00:29:53] Mikel Ellcessor: Hi, I'm Mikel. I'm the executive producer of Tell Me Something True. And I co-created the show with Laura. We built TMST and our online community with the hope of creating a sane spot on the internet. We're really passionate about the ad-free nature of this work. Our belief is that this project worked best if we're not hustling to keep advertisers happy, and we keep our attention on you, the TMST community, and this is where you can play a major role. TMST plus is the membership group that helps to keep this podcast going. Whether it's through a monthly membership or a one-time contribution, TMST plus members are vital to this experiment. As a TMST plus member, you get to join Laura for member only events, send in questions for the guests, hear the complete unedited interviews and connect with other TMST community members. You know, sometimes we feel like we can't make a difference in the world. With the TMST [00:26:00] plus membership, you can be keeping this space alive and thriving for a one-time gift or for as little as 10 bucks a month, you can find the link in the show description and then please head over to TMSTpod.com right now to support the show. And thanks.
[00:31:04] You can find the link in the show description, and then please head over to TMSTpod.com right now to support the show. And thanks.
[00:31:22] Laura McKowen: Was there a point where you thought I can't change anything like was there a resistance point or do you think
[00:31:30] Caroline Dooner: Their resistance was all the years before. It was the resistance was me not being honest with myself for years, about how miserable so much. So like, so much just making me.
[00:31:40] Laura McKowen: I know people are listening and they're going, they're probably crying and going. I felt this way my whole life. Fuck.
[00:31:48] Caroline Dooner: Yeah. Well, what I want to say is that if you're listening to this and then you listened to what I did, and it sounds too radical, or it's something that you can't practically do, you do not have to do what I [00:32:00] did. You can make teeny tiny little tweaks to your life and honestly tweaking your, your mentality around all this stuff. And honestly, just bringing more compassion and coming aware of when that guilt comes up and aware of this dynamic, like, just to be aware of this dynamic will be held.
[00:32:21] Laura McKowen: Oh, my God, the guilt alone is exhausting.
[00:32:26] Caroline Dooner: Like literally
[00:32:27] Laura McKowen: The self punishment is literally exhausting.
[00:32:29] Caroline Dooner: Literally, and you know what?
[00:32:30] I don't even sometimes I think about it in like a metaphorical way, but I was on a psychologist podcast yesterday and I was talking about all this stuff and she said, yeah, do you realize how much actual energy thinking takes up? And I was like, You're right. Like that's, it's like literally
[00:32:51] Laura McKowen: More energy than all than any other organs.
[00:32:53] That's absolutely true. Yeah. So I I'm glad you said that and that's sort of what I wanted to get at. Cause I know a lot of people [00:33:00] can't. I think my experience is that we actually always have more choices than we think we do. And that the mindset part. Is available to everyone.
[00:33:13] Caroline Dooner: is because no matter how busy your schedule is, I can guarantee you, you are being an asshole to yourself.
[00:33:19] You were talking to yourself in a way that is making things more stressful. You are expecting more than you need to be able to give or accomplish. You are feeling guilty for things you don't need to feel guilty for. There are so much extra pressure that we take on from either our own beliefs or from cultural stuff we've taken on that.
[00:33:44] Unless we examine it, it just is running in the back. It's just, it's like literally just consuming energy.
[00:33:52] Laura McKowen: It’s like when my computer, you know, when your computer fan starts and you're like, what application is causing the problem. And sometimes [00:34:00] there's no applications running and it's still doing, it's like, oh, I just actually need to turn it off.
[00:34:04] Caroline Dooner: Yeah, it just can't get going.
[00:34:06] Laura McKowen: It's just been on for two and a half years.
[00:34:08] Caroline Dooner: So I got all my God. I know. I know. We never done that.
[00:34:13] Laura McKowen: No, seriously. Yeah, no, I know it's true. It's true. It's comparable to me to realizing the space that was in my life when I took alcohol out, because that ate up. I mean, I, it's actually totally impossible to meet for me to fathom how I functioned in that because of the amount of energy it took up thinking about drinking, planning, drinking recovery, from drinking, drinking itself, all of that.
[00:34:45] And so you remove that and it's like, oh my gosh, there's all this space. But the crazy thing about space is we just want to fill it. Did you notice that that's like something that you you still always have to work against? Is this desire to [00:35:00] fill.
[00:35:00] Caroline Dooner: Yes, especially, well, especially. I knew. So I decided to go on what I called two years of rest.
[00:35:09] And I called it that because it was funny to me because it sounded so absurd and dramatic, but I also knew that I needed that much time to. Just quote-unquote rest and do less, but to actually work out the kinks and like deal with all the guilt that came up. When I did say no, or did take more time or all of this stuff, I knew that I was going to have resistance to it and that it was going to take me time to actually address that, you know,
[00:35:40] Laura McKowen: it's also absurdly big amount of time, at least in our culture, it's like two years. Like what about two weeks? You know, that's how we think you need to a week off. It's like, no, actually two years is, is appropriate.
[00:35:55] Caroline Dooner: It is appropriate for all of the, like for the state that I was in. And for all of the [00:36:00] years that I had been so brutal to myself, like.
[00:36:03] I knew that two weeks, I would just be brutal to myself in those two weeks to, like, I knew that I needed, I needed like an overhaul of my, the way that I approached and thought about my entire life and my entire existence. So I knew that it had to be, I just knew that it had to be that long. I knew a year wasn't enough. I just knew it.
[00:36:25] Laura McKowen: I love it. I love that. I love how. Much you rely on your intuition. I think it's awesome. I'm the same. I do. I have had similar experiences than you, and I think trusting that.
[00:36:38] Caroline Dooner: It’s hard to, cause I do try, I do trust, but you know, the mind does get in the way and people will say things to you that will trigger the fear that you have.
[00:36:48] That maybe what you're doing is ridiculous and you know.
[00:36:50] Laura McKowen: Did you have responses. Did you, okay, so you decided I have this, I'm going to take two years of rest. What did you do first?
[00:36:58] Caroline Dooner: First, I started making plans to move out of New York. I told myself Carolyn. You don't have to go to an audition ever again for the rest of your life.
[00:37:12] And, you know, it's interesting. I actually didn't have a grieving process over this for a couple years because I was so relieved in the moment. Like I was that depleted and it took up that much anxiety and energy in my life that when I told myself. And I truly, because so many years I would resist going to auditions and all I felt was guilt and all I felt was stress.
[00:37:37] What's wrong with me? I don't even know if I really care about this. I should be doing it, but it was just this battle. It was constant, constant, emotional battle. Yeah. And when I finally was like, you know what, we're not doing, we don't even have the energy. This isn't even your, this isn't even your goal anymore.
[00:37:50] And I just took it off. The relief that I felt was humongous. I mean, it was night and day. It was, it was. It was so obvious. [00:38:00] And so I actually went into this being like, oh my God, I feel so free.
All I have to do is wake up and go to a coffee shop and, and, and work. Like I was excited to work because I actually was letting myself focus on the stuff that I actually enjoy doing, which was prating and running all the fuck it diet stuff.
[00:38:17] And there were a lot of little jobs that I was still doing in New York, too. A lot of like. I had been babysitting for a long time that didn't turn into coaching kids on auditions. And I, it was, it was doing all the stuff that I was like, you know what, yes, I was trying to make money doing that, but this is actually taking more energy than it's giving me.
[00:38:36] And so there were all of these aspects of the way I was trying to make money and the stuff I was doing for my job that I let myself. Clear out and say, you know what, let me focus on the things that I actually enjoy doing. I've been doing this for five years. I've learned so much, I've said yes to everything.
[00:38:53] It's now time to kind of focus and to get help. I hired a virtual [00:39:00] assistant that I didn't think I could afford, but I actually could. It was, that was a belief too. Yeah. There were little things that I did practically, practically. I give myself more time. Yeah. But then what I had to do is I had to actually deal with the fallout when I began to say no to even social things.
[00:39:22] And I made a decision not to drink for those two years. And, and I, you know, I think over the course of. Of the two years, I probably had like three glasses of wine and I had a lot of half, like I would be out to dinner and I'd be like, I'm not really drinking, but I'll order a glass of wine. And I would have a couple of sips because I, for me, it was like a blessing and a curse.
[00:39:44] I could feel it, like I can feel it physically in my body and it messed up my sleep so much. And if what I wanted. Deep rest, like deep recuperative rest and sleep. I knew I was physically not. Okay. [00:40:00] But that had me saying no to a lot of social things because I was that tired. And because I didn't have alcohol to mask my exhaustion.
[00:40:10] Right. So I was saying no to a lot of social things and it gave me a lot of anxiety. Like I really, I had. Like I would say no, and I wouldn't do this jokey thing and be like, no, I'm resting. Don't, you know, I'm resting. Like I'm not going to go to the party on Friday. I'm sorry. And then I would go home and be like, am I wrong.
[00:40:31] Laura McKowen: I'm never going to have any friends. I'm just going to go away. I'm going to lose all my attachments. It's going to be terrible.
[00:40:37] Caroline Dooner: It was me having to come up against. And then every time the guilt came up and thankfully I had the awareness to know that when that guilt comes up and it's going to come up, the next question is why, what are your beliefs?
[00:40:53] What are your, what, what is underneath this? And it was always some belief about what I should be [00:41:00] doing and what was success, what it meant the life. It was a lot of life is going to pass me. I'm never going to have an opportunity like this again, if I say no and I had to do the still, I remember saying to myself, you're not going to miss your life.
[00:41:14] There will be, it was this, like I had to like seek this belief in abundance and, you know, timing and not get caught up in like the scarcity of like, this is my last chance I was aware of the dynamic, but I still, it would still come up and I had to deal with it every single time. And that. Uh, huge. Like that was what a lot of my two years of rest was, it was actually like, uh, protecting the boundary of the rest that I'd created and then dealing with the guilt and the doubt that I had that came up when I did.
[00:41:50] Laura McKowen: Okay. This so good for people to hear, including me, because it's like, you think, oh, I'm just going to decide to rest and it's going to feel so freeing. And I'm just like, [00:42:00] It's going to be great. It's easy. I'm going to be relaxed and just like anything else, if it's, this is why simplicity takes a lot of work.
[00:42:10] When people have a simple life, which is really what I strive for. It's, it's the product of some really intentional choices and hell of a lot of internal work. Cause the entropy is to do the other, the opposite. That's what entropy. And we are always like, that's the nature of where we're headed always.
[00:42:31] Right. So I'm glad you said that, you know, you had, you had to actually build the, build the muscles of boundaries and upholding them. And that, that actually takes work, but like it's work with a purpose, like yes. Did you feel, did you reach a point. What we're like at the end of the two years, you know, maybe where were you with that?
[00:42:51] Caroline Dooner: The first year was really not what I was expecting because I moved to Philly. I felt all this relief. I was like, I'm not acting anymore. I'm going to [00:43:00] be doing less and living the slower, easier life. But I had done a lot of theater in Philly in the years before. And so when I was moving back, I actually got called in for a couple of shows and I was like, of course, right away, I was like, Hmm.
[00:43:15] And I was trying to do this, like, does this spark joy? And I was like, well, II do love acting. It's not acting that I don't like, it's auditioning. It's the lifestyle. It's the business of it that I hate. But I was called in for these three shows and I said to myself, okay, Could I enjoy going in for these, if I take the pressure off and I'm not, I kind of don't even care.
[00:43:40] Like I want to rest anyway. So I kind of don't even want to get them, but if I did, I do like it and then, and then I wouldn't force myself to get any more because I have quit. Like I'm not seeking this as a career anymore.
[00:43:51] Laura McKowen: So funny. It's so classic.
[00:43:52] Caroline Dooner: I know I went in for all of them. All of them. And I [00:44:00] did all of them, but the difference was that I was the whole time.
[00:44:05] I was like, after this year I can be done. Like I don't have to be, oh no, no, what's next. So I was able to, I was watching all the actors in the show around me, go out all the auditions for all the other things. And I was watching them talk about all the auditions. And for the first time I was like, I'm just doing this.
[00:44:24] Like I'm not, I know. And I'm glad that I did. And so I, so I was busy. That's the thing. I was actually busy during my first two years of rest, my first year of my two years of rest. But my mindset was a very different. Very different. I was so deliberate and I would say, and it was like this, it was a serious thing.
[00:44:43] And this joke of like, I'm like, I'm really burnt out. I'm really tired. I'm like, I'm resting, I'm doing this show, but I'm resting. So I didn't go out. And, you know, I wasn't going out to get drinks after the show I was going home. And I was like, you know, prioritizing not doing that in order to do that. I had to like, [00:45:00] basically do nothing else.
[00:45:01] Yup. And I guarded every moment that I. You know, in rehearsal or doing the show, I guarded it. So fiercely. And I was like, I literally have so little to give that I can only do this and I'm guarding everything else and I'm prioritizing rest in every other area of my life. So then when that year was over and I was like, okay, I don't want to keep doing this.
[00:45:24] And I had to do this thing. Like, you know, of course I got asked to do this other show and I that's when I grieved it. Cause I, cause it was a show that I'd always wanted to do. It was once it was the, it was the, you know, the usable ones. It was, it was for the, the girl in once. And I was a show that I knew that I knew, I knew it was like exactly, you know, like the perfect part for me.
[00:45:51] I knew all the music on piano. I knew. I like, and I had just done. I had just [00:46:00] been the lead in Gypsy at the same time. And I said to myself during that, I was like, I will never, I already, you know, I already knew I was like on my way out, but I was like, this is so miserable. I'm having a whole, such a horrible time working with this director.
[00:46:14] I will never work at this theater again, this is not worth it. And I got tested like so soon after that with the show that when I was still in New York, every agent was like, you should be in Once. You should do. And I was like, I loved it so much. I, you know, I'm Irish. Like I did my summer abroad and in Dublin, like there's so many layers to like how much I loved that musical and how much I wanted to be in it.
[00:46:38] And this was the test. This was the test. And I, that's when I sobbed that's when I was like, I'm, if I say no to this, I really feel like I'm quitting and now I'm sad. And now it feels like a loss. And now I'm like grieving the loss of the life that I wanted and all the energy that I put into it. I mean, [00:47:00] so much so that I got called in a callback for the role and I knew, I just knew I just worked at that theater. I knew that if I really wanted it, I could have gotten.
[00:47:12] Laura McKowen: It reminds me of the Elizabeth Gilbert talking about she's like got this talking to from, author, like a much more seasoned, successful author. When she, when, when Liz was just waiting tables in New York, hadn't made it yet.
[00:47:29] Maybe I'd written her first and second book, which people don't know about, but it was just having a hard time finding the space to write and always had so many things going on and said to the woman, you know, like I just can't figure out, like, I don't know how I can, how I can do this. And she said, Like start saying no to a lot.
[00:47:49] And she said, okay, I can do that. You know, like saying, say no to all the things I really don't want to do. And she was like, oh no, it's so much worse than that. You have to say no to the things you really wanted to. Yeah. But she said, what do [00:48:00] you, what are you willing to do for the life you keep saying that you want?
[00:48:03] Caroline Dooner: That second year, when I purposely actually cleared my schedule, it was harder.
[00:48:13] To say no, because that first year it was easy for me to be like, no, I can't go to that. I mean, this show, no, I can't do that. I have all of this stuff. Do you do
[00:48:22] Laura McKowen: You still had excuses that you felt were
[00:48:25] Caroline Dooner:. I was able to use like socially acceptable excuses. The second year I had no socially acceptable excuses and that.
[00:48:35] And I struggled with that. And other people struggled with understanding why I was saying no to things too. And I, you know, I ha again, that I think that's when a lot of the like, oh God, what am I doing? You know, I approach everything very, very differently, but I will say I got to a point 2 ½ to 3 years in where I [00:49:00] actually felt better where I actually felt like.
[00:49:04] Just like what the fuck it diet where I like eight might quote unquote ate myself to the other side where I went through this like deep healing process. And I came out on my body and my mind and my psyche were like healed. I felt like that happened with the rest too, because I got to a place where I was like, oh my God, I want to go do things.
[00:49:27] Laura McKowen: Yes. That's how, you know, you have the energy you weren't being driven by this oligation.
[00:49:33] Caroline Dooner: Yeah. I was like, and then irony of ironies, January, 2020. I was like, this is my year. I'm going to start meeting my friends for dinner. I'm going to like, and then the rest is history,
[00:49:47] Laura McKowen: Right. I'm really inspired actually to I've done a good job, a really good job of, of making intentional choices about my life, but there's still a certain threshold of productivity and busy-ness that I, I won't let myself drop below.
[00:50:04] Caroline Dooner: Right. You know? Right. And, you know, It's the thing where like productivity and busy-ness, isn't inherently bad at all.
[00:50:13] Laura McKowen: So that's another thing we actually like to do things right. Humans. We, we like to have projects and tasks. We like to work against goals.
[00:50:20] We like to, it's not that those things are inherently problematic. It's the, it's the what's driving it.
[00:50:28] Caroline Dooner: What's the dynamic. How am I treating myself? If you want to look at it as an addiction, am I, am I using it? Productivity and busy-ness to distract myself from things that need to be healed. And from exhaustion that I have, and from pain that needs to be felt.
[00:50:44] Yes. I mean, that's what a lot of people are doing. If it feels that good as a, as a drug, so to speak, we're not going to do anything about it until we hit rock bottom. That's right. Like until we're burned out. And that's what happens to a lot of people. [00:51:00] It's like only then are we like, oh, so this isn't sustainable.
[00:51:05] And some people can go way longer than I was able to go. You know, like I think we all have different thresholds of what we're able to handle before we hit a wall. I think goals and projects and getting things done feels amazing. I think it can be like a wonderful part of our life, but not if it's. Like essentially escapism and, and our identity is tied up in it I would say.
[00:51:37] Laura McKowen: Alright, thank you so much for being with us today. If you want more TMST head on over to TMSTpod.com and become a member. Members get access to the full uncut versions of these conversations, previews of upcoming guests, invites to join me for members only events and access to our members only community where I hang out a lot. We decided from the beginning to make this an independent project, we don't have sponsors and we don't run ads.
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