How to (Try to) Quit (Almost) Anything

Whether quitting candy or something stronger, the process starts with understanding why we lean on habits in the first place.

“New year, new you” is an adage that escapes almost no one. This shift in the Gregorian calendar often signals us to reboot our lives, and one way to do that is by leaving our not-so-good-for-us habits behind. But as we all know, the process of quitting — or more constructively put, changing — our habits isn’t easy.

Changing a habit starts with understanding how we form that habit. Timothy W. Fong, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, a co-director of the UCLA Gambling Studies Program, and the director of the UCLA Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship, says people come to rely on chocolate, food, coffee, alcohol, drugs, shopping, sex, or what have you because they aren’t sure how to self-soothe when experiencing uncomfortable emotions like anxiety.

“For whatever reason as a society, we’ve been told we should be able to learn to calm ourselves down on our own. We feel we deserve to feel pleasure 100 percent of the time, and the goal is to never experience any sort of pain,” Fong says. “Along the way, we learn that certain things feel really good because they help soothe pain. That’s where we’ve gone wrong over the last 30 years — to put a Band-Aid on any kind of anxiety. Everyone wants life to be fun 120 percent of the time, but it’s not going to be that way. We should not fight the fact that our bodies and our brains respond to little morsels of pleasure — that’s what it’s supposed to do. And we have to embrace that pain, anxiety, suffering, and all that stuff is part of human life, and we need that, probably more than we need pleasure.”

New York-based writer and professor Susan Shapiro says it was pivotal for her to recognize that addiction isn’t about pleasure-seeking as much as it is about pain denial when quitting alcohol, weed, and cigarettes. She wrote a few books about her journey, including — along with the therapist she says “changed her life,” clinical psychologist and addiction specialist Frederick Woolverton, PhD — Unhooked: How to Quit Anything.

As such, Fong says humans run into problems when quitting habits cold turkey. “That’s why New Year’s resolutions all fail — they’re always absolute,” Fong says. “It’s not that people don’t have willpower, it’s that they don’t know how to handle feeling emotionally distressed or emotionally vulnerable. Early arguments would say, ‘When you want to quit something, stay motivated!’ All that positive psychology sounds good, but it doesn’t work. It’s not about motivation and wanting to quit; it’s about learning how to manage both positive and negative emotions.”

It’s not about motivation and wanting to quit; it’s about learning how to manage both positive and negative emotions.

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Humanize your habits

To manage your feelings, Fong says it helps to humanize your relationship to your habit, accept that you’re drawn to it, and acknowledge there are limits to how much you can engage with it. “Don’t run from your emotions; embrace them,” says Fong. “It’s much better for you to indulge in smaller amounts of multiple things than to do one thing excessively. There’s a huge difference between people with pure addiction — they can’t have just one drink because one drink opens up the floodgates — and someone who doesn’t quite meet the clinical criteria for addiction.”

Shapiro did meet that criterion, and understanding her limits helped her to leave her addictions behind. “It’s endless. Nothing will fill in the hole,” says Shapiro. “I have such an addictive personality. The minute I quit one bad habit, I would get addicted to something else. So, I had to be hyperconscious of everything: eating, sleeping, exercise. Twenty years clean and sober, and I can still get hooked on things very quickly, so I have to take action. For example, I’m sick right now with a sore throat and was putting too much honey in my tea, so I threw it out. I know myself, and if it’s not in the apartment, I’m better off.” Shapiro adds that this reminder helps her stay on course: “Beware all excitement because it takes you out of yourself, and you always have to go back to yourself.”

Substitute one feel-good behavior for another

To leave bad habits behind, Fong says it helps to replace them with more constructive, pleasurable pursuits you genuinely enjoy, like an afternoon walk. “So many times, the first step in quitting X is to start Y,” Fong says. “These things won’t take away triggers or vulnerability, but they’ll add tools to your arsenal to help you deal with those feelings and provide you with another option. You might not have a choice about what you’re addicted to, but you do have a choice to build up your menu of options to cope with the s--t of life. It doesn’t necessarily feel good to cope with uncomfortable feelings, but it does feel good to know that you have different options to deal with stress and emotional pain.”

Goal-setting (she wanted to write a book — she’s since published 17) and walking (along with weekly therapy and nicotine patches) helped Shapiro stay on track. “I had to be more selfish and take care of myself first,” she explains. “Going out for drinks or to dinner all the time like I used to wasn’t good for me because it was too hard to be around drinkers, overeaters, and bread baskets. So instead, if a friend, colleague, or student wanted to get together, they could come over and speed walk with me for an hour around the local park. I started calling it my ‘walking office hours.’ That way, I felt much more happy and productive and could still devote time to connect with people I cared about.”

To leave bad habits behind, it helps to replace them with more constructive, pleasurable pursuits you genuinely enjoy, like an afternoon walk.

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Prioritize pleasure

Choose a positive, pleasurable behavior that will help you manage emotional pain or distress. “Walking versus reading, talking to a friend, taking a bath, smoking a joint — they’re not all the same neurobiologically or neurochemically; they do different things. That’s why we have to have a diverse set of human activities to maintain mental health and wellness. Instead of saying, ‘Instead of smoking, I’m going to needlepoint instead,’ it helps for the new positive habit to stick if it stands on its own without being tied to the more destructive habit,” says Fong. “Don’t worry about quitting X to start Y. If you do five different things that are Y, eventually that’s going to mean X may not be gone, but X will be less intense or prevalent. Eventually, you’ll strengthen your emotional core so that the situations that drive smoking are handled in a different way.”

Set attainable goals

Choose new pleasurable habits that are attainable and that you’re willing to invest time in. “Any time you want to change behavior, you’ve got to start really slow with something you know you can master. Let’s say you want to start running. Instead of saying, ‘I’m going to go out there and run three miles right now’ — you’re not good at it, you haven’t done it, why would you be able to do it? It’s going to be painful, unpleasant, and it’s not going to be a fun experience. But you can go out right now, and you can run for three minutes. That’s the starting point of making the behavioral change to add something to your life,” says Fong. Eventually, with effort and time (like a month), he says these new practices will become habits themselves.

Don’t beat yourself up

Fong says if you slip, it’s counterproductive to beat yourself up. “When you try to quit anything, the goal shouldn’t necessarily be to quit 100 percent,” Fong explains. “It should be to reduce the harm that the behavior has been doing to you down to as little as possible. Ten cigarettes a year isn’t going to be harmful to you in the long run — it’s not going to raise your level of cancer or create an elevated risk of heart attacks. If you went from a thousand cigarettes a year to 10 a year, your habit of smoking isn’t gone, but the harm is. Your focus should not be so much about winning or losing, but when you’re making changes, reducing the harm from that habit.”

Take it from Shapiro. “I wrote a piece about quitting guilt that started, ‘I spent the last two years saying no,’ and in those two years I got everything I wanted,” she says. “Here’s a line that helped me: ‘When you get rid of a toxic habit, you’re leaving room for something more beautiful to take its place.’”

Why Art Can Offer Us Catharsis and Healing

Artists like Adele and Taylor Swift channeled their pain into their work for us all to relate to. Here’s how making and enjoying art can also help heal us.

Adele's latest, long-awaited album, 30, is far more than just another gorgeous piece of work from the songstress. It’s referred to as her “divorce album” because she admittedly used her talent to express her feelings and heal from her separation from Simon Konecki, with whom she has a son, Angelo. When it was released in November 2021, 30 resonated so deeply with the zeitgeist that tweets galore validated how, yet again, Adele was able to reduce an audience to emotional rubble via her music.

Likewise, when Taylor Swift released her re-do of the break-up record Red (Taylor’s Version) last month, she not only invalidated an earlier version of the album that profited famed music manager/executive Scooter Braun — who managed Kanye West during his feud with Swift and came to own all of Swift’s masters — but rerecording her music and marketing it to her (very) loyal audience afforded Swift the opportunity to take back her power and heal the injustice. In its early weeks, Red sold over 600,000 units, staggering for a rerelease, and found listeners floored by Swift’s emotive, honest lyricism, on full display in tracks like the 10-minute version of breakup song “All too Well.”

Since the Lascaux cave paintings, artists have used their preferred artistic media to work through interpersonal issues and find catharsis and healing through the process. “As mammals, we are inherently social, and we rely on information from each other to survive and enhance our ability to make sense of the world,” says Girija Kaimal, Associate Professor in the PhD program in Creative Arts Therapies at the Drexel University College of Nursing and Health Professions in Philadelphia. “In order to do that, we have to keep communicating with each other and express ourselves.”

Kaimal says the expression of pain through art is a way of seeking connection and validation while externalizing complicated feelings. “We take some of the sting, and incomprehensibility and pain, and convert these intense emotions into a container outside of ourselves so it can be shared with others,” she says. “We invite empathy and compassion — all the things you need when you're struggling. A big part of what any kind of artistic expression does is, when you've had a life experience that makes you feel really alone and isolated, the art sort of pulls you back and reminds you that you're not the first person to have been through it. It might not replace the feeling of loss, but it may bring you comfort from those who respond to the work.”

Expressing pain through art is a way of seeking connection and validation while externalizing complicated feelings.

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Another benefit of channeling your emotions into your creativity is what you can learn about yourself in the process. “The upset or the stress we put into art serves as sort of a mirror, telling us about some aspect of our experience that we haven't addressed or is probably still a trigger — something we haven’t figured out,” Kaimal says.

The process of using art to work through challenging emotional issues is reflected in Kaimal’s thoughts about Adaptive Response Theory (ART), a framework for the practice of art therapy. She theorizes that creative endeavors allow our brains to use the information to make predictions about what we might do next. “Art-making — or any creative-expressive activity — helps us to concretize and externalize an idea we have imagined in our minds,” Kaimal says. “When we do this frequently, we keep practicing our ability to imagine the future and feel a sense of control over our ability to make things happen.” In other words, we may not be able to control the outcome of our situation, but we can control how what we make inspired by those emotions comes out, and that, in turn, empowers us with a sense of agency we didn’t otherwise have.

Along with gaining a sense of control over emotions, we can make art to gain a feeling of catharsis, or an aha moment in the processing of our emotions, which offers us some clarity and distance from the situation. Rod Thomas, known musically as Bright Light, Bright Light, says channeling difficult or trying emotional states into his music has helped him find balance while bringing him to a more positive and healthy place. “I used my last album, Fun City, as a way to express troubles facing the LGBTQ+ community as well as celebrating some of our love and achievements,” says Thomas. “Rather than screaming into a void, I was able to make a record that focused on what is happening, what I want to happen, and how history repeats for both better and worse. I found that making the album infinitely helped my mental health during those months and years, turning deep negatives into eventual positives. I guess it's the ability of music to flip a switch! Creating something out of despair adds a tiny silver lining to darkness, and creating something that others can be involved in helps relieve loneliness, so music is in many ways a savior for me.”

“When you can channel emotion into a piece of work, it draws in others and they get what you are going through. It brings us back to a feeling of not being alone.”

Another benefit of channeling your anger, sadness, misery, or frustration into your art is the ability to lower stress — and if you’re coming out of a stressful situation, that’s a good thing. In one small study, Kaimal and a group of researchers measured the cortisol levels — cortisol being the hormone that helps the body respond to stress — of 39 healthy adults while creating art, and found the process significantly lowered cortisol levels regardless of ability.

As far as those of us who viscerally weep along when listening to Taylor, Adele, or Bright Light, Bright Light, Kaimal says we can pick up on the depth of emotion that goes into a piece of art, which helps us to further connect with it. “It's almost like a magnet,” she explains, “because when you can channel emotion into a piece of work, it draws in others and they get what you are going through. It brings us back to a feeling of not being alone.”

Some theorize that art brings on a visceral emotional response because mirror neurons are pinging around our brains; we reflexively reflect back whatever emotional landscape we’re subjected to. Though Kaimal describes mirror neurons as an overused concept, she says they work as a “primitive mechanism” that incite a reflexive, unconscious mirroring of behaviors.

“The purpose of our brain is to keep us alive from moment to moment. Mirror neurons evolved as a way to attune ourselves to our surroundings and each other from that evolutionary need to be really quickly responsive, which means that it's not connected to our sort of motor systems — it activates and fires almost instinctively,” she explains.

Using this theory, without being conscious of it, we sense the deepest of feelings in the music we listen to, the art we observe, the films we watch, and the writing we read and reflexively feel those feelings ourselves. And, in the end, that can be an incredibly healing experience. “What happens when we cry is we release endorphins along with our tears,” Kaimal says. “Endorphins are the body's natural painkiller, so crying actually reduces the feeling of pain. It's really important for us to allow ourselves these emotions. All emotions are transient anyway.”

Rax King’s ‘Tacky’ Is About Getting Real

King’s debut essay collection is a testament to how pop culture shapes how we see ourselves.

The cover of Rax King’s debut essay tome, Tacky: Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have to Offer, foreshadows the vibe: Against a stark black backdrop, a shapely plastic brunette drink-marker doll wearing a wry smirk balances an olive on her high-kicking heel while basking inside an empty martini glass. Enter the confines of its pages, and you’ll find King deftly defending her “tacky” pop-culture predilections — which, rooted in her coming of age in the early 2000s, run the gamut from Creed to Cheesecake Factory — and the sexual milestones she ties to them with a wink and a clink.

In an early chapter, she writes: “Being tacky was the opposite of being right. To be proudly tacky, your aperture for all the too-much feelings — angst, desire, joy — must be all the way open.” Thus, this book is King’s opportunity to wrestle with the residual mess of “too-much” feelings. To dive deeper into all of it, we got on the horn with King to discuss the process of writing Tacky, her various inspirations, and how it feels to be judged for what you’re into.

VIVIAN MANNING-SCHAFFEL: Did you always want to be a writer? Were you “birthed” this way?

RAX KING: [Laughs] I definitely was birthed this way. I did always want to be a writer. During recess, I would go outside with my little notebooks and would write my little stories and poems. I hardly talked to anyone because I was antisocial. I’ve learned to talk to people and act like a human being, but I definitely still have that side of myself where, in any given situation, I’m thinking I just want to be at home writing.

VMS: As a writer, there’s always a part of yourself that lurks outside of your body as the observer.

RK: Yeah, exactly. I’m always thinking up my little quips about things that are actually happening. It’s kind of a bad habit, actually. I should try and be more present, but I don’t think I can at this point.

VMS: It’s a blessing and a curse — at least you’re monetizing it! So, who did you read who made you a writer?

RK: When I was in college, I discovered the essays of Lisa Carver and became obsessed. I think she really never got her due. She was one of those writers who in the late ’90s and early aughts was always poised to become a star, but circumstances always seemed to intervene. It’s really a shame. I’ve been saying her name in every interview because her work was really, really important and formative for me. Anybody who reads my book and enjoys it should absolutely read everything she’s ever written.

VMS: Early in writing the book, did you know that you were going to write about your nascent sexual awakening and how we judge one another through music, for example, or were you like, “I’m going to write about Creed and just see what comes out”?

RK: It was closer to the former. I pretty much never know where something is going when I sit down with it. As silly as it is, those nascent sexual feelings are really inseparable for me from the experience of falling in love with their music, and the two were so completely intertwined that I can’t think about the one without the other anymore. Of course, there’s a bunch of defensiveness built in because, as it turns out, the vast majority of people that I interact with think that Creed is terrible. So, I’m always beating back that instinct to agree. I just wanted to take away that option from myself and be like, okay, this was something that was really important to you, and you have to treat that with respect and care.

With my essays, there’s this sense that this is about Guy Fieri, but it’s also about my ex-husband, and the two subjects don’t really seem to have much in common with each other. I think the reason that so many of these essays are shaped that way is I would sit down thinking, “Okay, I’m going to write about such-and-such piece of pop culture important to me,” and in doing that I end up excavating all these memories I associate with them. That’s pretty much what all of these essays look like, an excavation of memory alongside some light pop-culture analysis.

VMS: In that first chapter, you ask why Lou Reed’s pain is more valid than [Creed lead singer] Scott Stapp’s pain, but that thought really underlines how subjective taste is.

RK: I came up with groups of friends for whom taste was very important. I kept finding myself at odds. I wanted to wear the things that weren’t the prescribed things. I wanted to listen to music that I had to hide, to an extent. So, I guess probably a lot of that old defensiveness does come out in these essays. But, yeah, I think the point is that taste is subjective, and this judgmental attitude about it is often really juvenile — posing as a matter of intellectual bona fides when really it’s just this desire to claim the things that one likes and say, “This is the right stuff, and the things you like are the wrong things, and in this way, I know more than you,” if that makes sense.

VMS: Who gets to decide, right? This has been happening forever. A predilection toward highbrow culture can trickle down to socioeconomics. I don’t know if it’s generational, but did you have shame thrown at you for digging what was considered lowbrow?

RK: Oh, yeah, completely. I grew up in D.C., which has a very staunch punk rock, DIY tradition and scene. I went to this private high school where I clearly had, by far, the least money of anyone that I was associated with. I was like their little scholarship kid. So, it did end up feeling like when I was trying to defend my taste. I was also trying to defend all this stuff staring into my background that I thought my friends must have been disapproving of if they also disapproved of my taste. I’m sure none of that disapproval was ever that consciously about class on their part.

VMS: It isn’t. That’s why it’s insidious.

RK: And that’s why it hurts so much. You can’t really say to somebody you feel you’re close friends with like, “Hey, by the way, the way that you talk to me is super fucked up” — that’s such a hard conversation to have as an insecure teenager. You end up just bottling stuff up and learning what sorts of things you’re supposed to like and the dances you’re supposed to do for people’s approval, and you do them. You learn to do them really well. Or you learn to do them ironically.

VMS: You’re pretending to be yourself when you’re actually being yourself.

RK: There were so many layers of, like, transference, discomfort, and shame. I am now 30 years old and don’t have the time or inclination to wear so many layers of performance. Every time I try and talk about something I like, you either like it, and you agree with me, or you don’t, and you don’t. Either way, it’s fine by me at this point.

VMS: You have a podcast called Low Culture Boil. Is it empowering to draw the line between high- and lowbrow for yourself?

RK: It feels really good, on my podcast, to take a step back. We’re always doing something similar to what I’m doing in my book, which is trying to make cases for things that we love, not because those things don’t have anything wrong with them, but because we just don’t think they’re responsible for the ills of our culture and s--t like that. So, yeah, I try to take the critical eye to the prescriptions that are made for us, culturally speaking, and to the ways that people use taste to designate who’s in the “in” group and who’s in the “out.” It’s TV, and it’s movies, and it’s not that deep.

VMS: What you like has nothing to do with how smart you are. I watched an interview with you in which you said that you made a name for yourself on Twitter. How does Twitter feed you as a writer, or do you feed it? How does it work for you?

RK: Poorly! I hate Twitter so goddamn much, and yet I can’t stay away. A big part of my relationship with Twitter right now is compulsory. From where most people sit, it’s not a big deal whether you’re on Twitter or not — if it makes you unhappy, just leave. It’s probably true I could leave Twitter right now and just try and make this new book work on its own, but that’s making things so much harder for my life and is so much more anxiety-inducing. The function of Twitter for me right now is a) promote my book — whether people are clicking my links and buying my book based on my constant promotion of it, I don’t know, but it feels like I’m doing something important for myself, and b) it makes me feel like I’m in control of my own career, and this way if my book doesn’t sell, then at least it’s my fault for not doing Twitter correctly. I feel that if right now I wasn’t on Twitter, I wouldn’t be able to say that — it would feel very much like someone else’s fault that my book wasn’t doing well. So, I feel like being on Twitter feels a lot like taking matters into my own hands, even though there’s really no way for me to do that. All of this stuff is outside of my control completely.

Every time I try and talk about something I like, you either like it, and you agree with me, or you don’t, and you don’t. Either way, it’s fine by me at this point.

VMS: That’s so high stakes! To me, Twitter can feel like pissing in the wind.

RK: You know how when you’re trying to quit drinking, people always say that it’s easier to just quit full stop than it is to try and drink a tiny bit once in a while and control it that way? I have this addictive relationship with Twitter. It’s like being in a casino without windows, and it’s just smoky and dark all the time.

VMS: You get that dopamine hit every time you get a couple in a row, and you win 10 bucks.

RK: Right! Then I feel good for nine seconds, and that’s nine seconds that I would have just felt normal. God! The cost-benefit analysis of Twitter use is so f--ked.

VMS: Your chapter about Sex and the City discusses how you discovered your natural power over men and then veers into your own sexual experiences. Did you intend to use Tacky as a way to write about them?

RK: I found myself thinking the way we talk about people who have a lot of sex — especially women who have a lot of sex — really closely mirrors the way that we talk about people, especially women, who we think have bad or gaudy taste. It’s this judgment that feels like it could be coming from a place of jealousy or from a place of pity. Either way, it’s a judgment that you, the object of the judgment, are offended by and annoyed by because it doesn’t really have much to do with the facts of your own life and the facts of your own taste, or sexuality. So, I kept finding myself returning to that when I was writing these essays that lean pretty heavily on sex, the idea that someone’s sex life can be offensive somehow — even when it doesn’t involve you. Either way, the answer to me is who cares? It’s not something that we should feel the need to opine about, and yet we often do. So much of the criticism industry isn’t even talking about work a lot of the time; it’s talking about the person way too often for my taste.

VMS: This becomes challenging when your work is about your experiences as a person because they’re inextricably linked, and it’s harder to pull the two apart. I’m curious to learn if writing about things that are so highly personal and giving them to the world was cathartic for you in any way.

RK: I finished the book just before Covid — there really wasn’t so much catharsis to be had because the events happened so long ago. That’s a big part of what allows me to speak about them with humor and self-deprecation. There’s an essay in there about an affair that I had with a married man — that happened more recently relative to when I was writing this book. It was the last essay I wrote. Any time a reviewer mentions that essay, I do cringe and get a little squirmy because those events are still pretty close. It’s a little harder to divorce the events as they appear in my book from criticism of the events as they happened in my life. That has been something to grapple with.

VMS: Bat Out of Hell was a great way to conclude because it’s such an unabashedly theatrical, who-gives-a-f--k album that went balls-to-the-wall. You use that opportunity to talk about the eventual intellectual distance we put between ourselves and taste. That said, isn’t Tacky an exploration of authenticity, which underlines the whole concept of taste and the life decisions that we make in relation to what influences us?

RK: I would like it to be. I think that it’s my own small contribution to a theory of authenticity. It’s very much a product of my own corner of the world and my own experience, as limited as it is. If it’s going to be any one thing, that’s what I want it to be.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

In Defense of a Low-Key NYE at Home

Why one writer chooses a quiet night in over a raucous night of parties.

I have no plans for New Year’s Eve this year, just like last year, when virtually none of us did. Some years ago, there was a five-year run when my husband and I would go see these friends of ours who threw the kind of bangin’ New Year’s Eve party you just had to dress up for, complete with punch, great food, and the warmth of true friendship. But life takes you through changes — those friends moved away, and so did we. In the present, Omicron has begun its spread, even among the vaxxed. Some nearby friends we’ve celebrated with in New Year’s past may not be up for it this year. A raucous end-of-year party, then, seems unlikely. But never say never: If I get a tempting (and safe-feeling) invite, we’ll see. But as of now, I’ve decided to embrace reinventing New Year’s Eve and make it about celebrating myself (and my family) instead — just like last year, when we were just grateful to be able to ring it in.

Years ago, if I didn’t have a New Year’s plan by now, I’d be deeply bummed. Having spent my 20s as a party girl in Boston and New York, a fabulous New Year’s Eve celebration was my finely honed ritual. I’d gather my chosen family, and we’d go to town in every possible way. Somehow, I’d developed an odd superstition: If I didn’t wear the right thing, in the right place, with the right vibe and the right people, it would mirror the vibe of the year I was about to bring in. So, a chill night at home meant being doomed to a year of boredom — a tedious, torturous 12-month sentence I just couldn’t bear.

Irrational, I know. Some of us cling to a ridiculous ritual or two simply because they make us feel better. But this concept loomed large in my subconscious. A mental-health expert, had I made time to see one back then, might’ve said I was spending so much time and money rushing around town in search of whimsy and entertainment to avoid facing how unhappy I was in my career. Instead of taking a step back to hear myself think and figure things out, I did my best to drown out this innermost truth with a vast array of raunchy guitars, shimmering synths, and pounding beats.

A chill night at home meant being doomed to a year of boredom — a tedious, torturous 12-month sentence I just couldn’t bear.

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That is, until New Year’s Eve 1998, when I was really sick with the flu. My FOMO finally flipped me off. A fever of 103° depleted me from any desire to put on festive clothing and spackle on makeup. Instead of bidding the year good riddance by bouncing from one party to the next with my people, my gray-faced, sweaty, sickly self could barely scrape up the verve to drag my body to the bathroom 10 feet away from my bed.

Canceling my plans consumed me with disappointment. It broke my heart to bail, but I could barely speak. There was just no way. All the air in my tires hissed out. So, I took to my bed, and something told me to lean into the restful ritual of it all — not that I had a choice. I think I watched Sex and the City, and eventually Dick Clark made 1998 a memory while I rang in 1999 with my mother on the landline and one of my best friends on my cell.

After sweating it out that night, I woke up feeling tons better. By the end of the day, I almost felt up to going outside. But instead of pushing myself, I took a shower, swapped sweats and sheets, ordered delivery, and got right back into bed. I realized I didn’t mind being alone with my cat and my remote. I also realized that the best way to celebrate anything was to make yourself happy. If that meant missing out on all the hot brunch gossip and the hair-of-the-dog cocktail hour that typically anchored my New Year’s Day, so be it.

The best way to celebrate anything is to make yourself happy.

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Looking back, there’s no doubt in my mind I got sick because I was burnt to a crisp. I was running on fumes. That year was a sh--ty one, complete with a sh--ty breakup and sh--ty professional roadblocks. I took the time I needed to properly get over the guy, but didn’t take the time I needed to get over myself. Though I’d slowed down a little after 30, I still worked hard and played a little harder than I really had the energy for. Had I not rallied so hard to go out and see people the night before that New Year’s Eve and the night before that (and maybe even the night before that) when my body sent signals of distress, I might’ve been able to head that flu off at the pass. But karma, or Mother Nature, or who/what have you, decided to bench me from the seemingly endless schedule of distractions I’d scheduled for myself.

It’s been decades since then. I’m older and wiser now. I’ve come to understand that, sometimes, you have to do the benching yourself. The reward? Now I know, definitively, that where I am is the place I’m meant to be.

So, if your plans fall through for whatever reason or you just aren’t feeling like jumping through your usual New Year’s Eve hoops this year, there’s nothing wrong with leaning into those feelings and claiming it as a self-care celebratory holiday. Whether that constitutes chugging wine out of a box while watching the ball drop in sweats, cooking up a couture meal of your choosing, sitting in your tub for a full hour or more, or indulging in every relaxation ritual you lament never having the time to do, a New Year’s Eve spent on your own terms is a prime moment to reconnect with yourself. Because, if the essence of my suspicion still holds true, you’ll be ringing in the new year with your best friend.

Stacy London’s Change of Life

London talks to Shondaland about how an existential crisis inspired her transition from style host to CEO, and how she plans on helping women move through their own changes.

Whether sharply and candidly examining the indignities of an outfit on TLC’s What Not to Wear or the indignities experienced by women in our culture, Stacy London always tells it like it really is. A warm and hilarious straight shooter, she’s unflinchingly honest about the winding road that was her post-What Not to Wear journey. A deft essayist, she’s written about how, in 2016, she found herself in financial hot water and coping with depression during a difficult recovery from spinal fusion surgery, what it was like to deal with the loss of her beloved dad in 2018, and, most recently, taking over as the CEO of a lifestyle brand called State Of — a company created to address the needs of women in menopause, which was born out of what she calls an “existential crisis.”

“No one was asking me to be on television anymore. I wasn’t the flavor of the month or a social-media influencer. I felt a loss of identity in terms of decreased earning potential,” London tells Shondaland. “I really felt like I didn’t know who I was anymore. I thought, I’m either going to lie down and not get up again, or I’m going to figure out another purpose for my life. This pivot was as much about my being engaged and having purpose as much as anything else. When I look back at my career, if I’m being really honest, I feel very lucky that a lot of things fell in my lap. That doesn’t mean I didn’t work hard. Those opportunities came very fast and furiously for me. Working with other women on What Not to Wear trained me to be empathetic and compassionate, and I knew I could put that empathy and compassion somewhere else. Walking a mile in someone else’s shoes really does make all the difference — even if they’re flats.”

It was London’s own experience with and the conversations she had around menopause that led her to discover State Of. “I don’t sugarcoat this like, ‘You got this! Go, girl!’ A lot of the issues in menopause are difficult,” she explains. “They affect you in terms of your capacity to work, in terms of your capacity to love and be loved. There’s a lot here at stake, but none of it is impossible. I still have hot flashes; I still have night sweats. My brain fog is worse than ever, and I’m 52. I stopped getting my period at 47. The issues last a lot longer than most people understand. It can take six months to 20 years, but there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Like every transition we go through, change is scary, change is weird, but once you relax into it, you can see the opportunity that surrounds it.”

When the State Of opportunity knocked, London was stuck at home during Covid and had the space and time to listen. She noticed a gaping hole in the marketplace for products that help women cope with the long list of physical symptoms that come with menopause. So, London connected with State Of, began beta testing its products, and eventually took over the joint.

“The more I learned, I was like, wait, there’s not menopausal anything,” she says. “There are very few companies that are trying to address menopause that aren’t medical, that are over-the-counter, and are easily accessible in trying to address this. There’s nothing in the market that isn’t about vanity. What about function? What about all the things we can do to help mitigate some of the issues that you experience in menopause? I can’t stop them from happening to you, but I can certainly make a cooling spray that’s going to make your hot flash a lot easier.”

With State Of, London’s larger goal is to provide women with a contextual commerce platform that shifts the current narrative crammed down women’s throats since, well, forever. “Part of the reason I feel so strongly about the information and education part of this is I’m not just building a company for us; I’m building a company for Gen Z,” she says. “When they get here, they’ll have plenty of options and will know exactly what to do. We are a baby company, yet I have a big bullhorn, and I want to use it as much as I can, not just for the sake of the company but for the sake of the issues that surround [menopause]: sexism, racism, ableism, socioeconomic disparity.”

“Everyone keeps talking about ‘middle age’ — it’s not the Middle Ages! It’s not a dark time. Middle age is just the middle of the book — it’s the best part of the plot.”

“I want to turn my crisis into a renaissance. I want to be a curator for menopause,” London says. Everyone keeps talking about ‘middle age’ — it’s not the Middle Ages! It’s not a dark time. Middle age is just the middle of the book — it’s the best part of the plot. Why aren’t we behaving that way? It’s all through this bulls--t patriarchal lens. You are culturally taught that you are no longer relevant, and while you’re having this external invalidation, your body starts to wreak havoc in a way that makes you believe that invalidation is valid. It’s a double whammy.”

London continues, “All these women who are like, ‘Bulls--t! I’m a baller!’ Yes, we’re healthier and wealthier now at 50 than we were in the ’80s. The Rue McClanahan/J.Lo meme, I get. The fact is, any woman who says they haven’t had to reckon with the aging process is lying. Whether you’ve done it and succeeded and feel better or it’s something you’re still reckoning with, that reckoning comes whether you want it or not. That isn’t just menopause. It’s everything about the way we look at age in our society.”

I ask London what scared her most about helming a company. “Everything!” she replies. “I’m not a traditional CEO, I didn’t go to business school, I don’t know that much about e-commerce. I do know something about B2C [business to consumer]; I’ve done a lot of creative brand direction. But I would say everything about this terrified me, and it was part of the reason to do it. It’s been a long time since I’ve been terrified and had to do anything challenging.”

Now immersed in the world of women’s health, London is understandably frustrated at the paltry research and funding devoted to menopause. “The FDA categorizes menopause as a disease, yet there’s literally no medical support system for it. Look at erectile dysfunction and hair loss. When you think about the medical equivalents available to women, they’re hardly used. Women don’t ask for them, doctors don’t prescribe them — it’s insane, the lack of funding. The FDA approved Viagra within 6 months, while it’s taken years to get approval for any kind of menopausal drug. If you’re going to talk about limp dicks, I’m going to talk about dry vaginas. This, to me, is the bigger fight. There’s something about the social and gendered inequity of this that is not just about getting the care that we need — it’s that the dollars aren’t being put behind us. Our health-care system for women is broken, and it’s worse for women of color and women below the poverty line. It’s astounding to me that we don’t get the care we need at all, and that has to change.”

So, what advice would she offer women in the midst of their own existential crisis? “A midlife pivot does not have to be an abandonment of everything you know or have done thus far in your life. It can be small, incremental changes that take you from where you were to where you want to go,” she says. “Even if you have involuntarily been taken out of a position, take your time to notice. Notice the things you love to do. Notice the things you’re good at. Sometimes they are the same thing; sometimes not. The point is, at this stage of your life, you have more agency and know yourself well enough to draw outside the lines. Our lives are no longer linear. The one thing that it took me a while to get over was I had an incredible amount of success in my 30s and 40s, and I thought once you make it there, you just get to stay there. It never occurred to me that I would somehow not be in the same position, not have the same amount of choices, and not make the same amount of money. The path you take does not have to be permanent, nor does it have to be singular. A midlife pivot should feel like an adventure and a challenge. I truly believe that’s what purpose is about and what we seek to create in new ways at this stage of life,” she says. “I know that the only way to do this company, the only message worth imparting, is you do have to let go of who you were to become who you are. Not just become who you are — be who you are. That’s why I took on menopause. It’s a stigmatized, icky, ugly subject that nobody, certainly with my background or platform, is going to take up. Which is all the more reason to do it.”

How to Deal With the Chronic Bailer in Your Life

Coping with the other kind of “cancel” culture.

Bailing on plans with friends once in a while is unavoidable and perfectly understandable. We’ve all had good reasons to bail on occasion — we might feel sick (emotionally or physically), a kid or partner might need us, we might be really run-down or overscheduled, or we might be dealing with a legit emergency. Then again, we’ve all got that chronic “bailer” in our lives who takes the bailing a little too far: You make plans with mutual enthusiasm, you arrange your schedule accordingly, you look forward to said plans, then the bailer cancels, predictably, with an unceremonious text. For every time you actually manage to see each other, there are three rescheduled attempts to see each other.

It’s almost at the point where most plans with friends have an implied bailing caveat. Though bailing has been normalized and even celebrated on social media and in a vast assortment of memes, to leave the same friend hanging more than a couple of times in a row without adequate lead time, an expression of regret, or an offer of an alternate date and time that might work is still disrespectful of the friendship and the friend’s time.

“Most of us realize that life happens and that people need to cancel on occasion, but when one friend does it habitually, it’s a problem,” says Sanam Hafeez, a neuropsychologist based in New York City who teaches at Columbia University. “Texting has made canceling less of a personal dilemma for those who don’t value the time or feelings of others.” She says those who chronically bail for a better offer are “flaky” and “self-centered.” Whatever the reason, chronic canceling isn’t a good look.

It wasn’t always easy — or acceptable — to bail at the last minute. Once upon a time in the days of yore before cell phones, you absolutely had to show up if you made plans, or call to cancel or reschedule with enough notice so the bailee wouldn’t be left standing on a street corner or in a restaurant somewhere. Today, the option to bail has become a socially acceptable, built-in, de facto escape hatch from commitment. “When you don’t see people face-to-face, there’s more of a psychological distance, and it’s easier to do something that could potentially hurt someone’s feelings,” says Mahzad Hojjat, PhD, a professor of social psychology and the director of the master’s program in research psychology in the department of psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. “Now you just send a text, and it’s much easier to do it because you don’t have to face the person. But it really doesn’t help your friendship.”

But what do you do if you’ve found yourself with a friend who is constantly canceling plans? If you’re fed up with the flakiness, here are some steps to try to rectify noncommittal behavior.

Consider your relationship

When you’ve been bailed on by the same person a couple of times, you can’t help but wonder if there’s something more going on. “The first question to ask yourself is how much does this person mean to me in my life? Is this chronic bailing the person’s only flaw, and are they otherwise a good friend?” says Hafeez. Though it can feel awkward to hold a close friend accountable for a behavior that’s become kind of socially acceptable, if their chronic bailing puts you out, a close friend deserves to know.

Whatever you do, don’t call a constant bailer out over text. “It is so easy for emotions or words to be misconstrued via text.”

d3sign//Getty Images

Have a talk

“Instead of accusing them, see if their behavior is something they’re cognizant of. Say something like, ‘Do you realize that whenever we have plans, you almost always end up canceling on me?’” recommends Hafeez. “Stress how much you value your friendship and that when they perpetually cancel on you, it hurts your feelings and poses an inconvenience.” But whatever you do, don’t start this conversation over text. “It is so easy for emotions or words to be misconstrued via text,” she says. Then, both Hojjat and Hafeez recommend asking your close friend if there’s something else going on that’s causing them to withdraw socially. “Maybe they’re going through a hard time, and they may not want to discuss it unless you ask,” says Hojjat.

Wait and see

Ultimately, it’s not worth sweating a chronic bailer if they’re a casual friend — after two strikes, it’s time to lay back and let the bailer come to you, says Hojjat. “After that, honestly, they’re probably not interested in hanging out with you or don’t care so much about the relationship. I probably wouldn’t say anything or pursue it. I may not want to make plans with them, because instead of building a friendship, they’re not committing,” she says. If the bailer apologizes but doesn’t give a reason for the bailing, Hafeez recommends accepting the apology and adopting a wait-and-see approach. “You need to reevaluate if you want that friend in your life. Friends need to be dependable,” she says.

If you’re guilty of chronic bailing, Hojjat says the best approach is to apologize, offer to make up for it — and make a point of keeping your word. “Friendship is kind of like a garden,” says Hojjat. “If you want to maintain your garden, you need to regularly water your plants and remove the dead leaves. If you leave it unattended, it’s going to get out of hand. You can’t neglect your friends. People are very busy, but you can’t make promises and break them continuously — it’s better not to make them and just explain that it’s a hard time, but show you still care in other ways.”

The Emotional Security Blanket Afforded by Holiday Movies

There’s a reason some people watch them throughout the year.

My mom is obsessed with Hallmark Christmas movie marathons — she even watches them in July! They play on loop whenever she’s bored or can’t sleep and swears it helps. And this obsession is more popular than one might think. Though these festive flicks are generally predictable and formulaic, with the past couple of years we’ve had, who could blame her for leaning into the cozy comfort and simple pleasure afforded by a seemingly endless loop of holiday cheer?

She’s hardly the first person I know to watch a holiday movie in July — holiday movies are, indeed, a vibe. Regardless of what you celebrate religiously, the predictable plots involving unexpected romances, family reconciliations, or friendships lost and found, all with snowy backdrops and lots of green and red, represent various forms of redemption, and bearing witness to redemption can be comforting.

“Although holiday movies are notorious for their over-the-top acting, cheesy tropes, and predictable story arcs, there’s a certain comfort in knowing that the ending will always be happy,” says Sanam Hafeez, a neuropsychologist based in New York City who teaches at Columbia University. “At any point throughout the year when things may feel overwhelming or chaotic, you can always count on a Hallmark movie to end not only in happily ever after but bring hope for what’s to come. The guaranteed happily ever after can offer a break from chaotic realities.”

Holiday movies also provide viewers with the opportunity to ease into a warm bath of personal nostalgia. “I think people experience feelings of positive emotions connected with celebrating holidays,” says Mahzad Hojjat, PhD, a professor of social psychology and the director of the master’s program in research psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. “Holidays can put people into a good mood. They might bring you back to a time when things were simpler. You just want to go somewhere else, think about something else, and be completely absorbed into this movie and give your mind a rest from stress.”

And all that predictability? While it might deter some people from watching these films regularly or even during the festive season, believe it or not, holiday movies actually work on our brains in the same way as antidepressants. “Holiday movies can release something referred to as the ‘feel-good’ hormone or dopamine,” Hafeez explains. “There’s a neurological shift that occurs in our minds during these films that can actually produce happiness.”

This is all to say that, as corny as you might think these movies are (and, indeed, sometimes that’s the point), romantic epiphanies under the mistletoe, holiday miracles involving Santa and his reindeer, and a small town coming together to save the local candy-cane shop can cheer you up while soothing you into a half-lidded puddle beneath an emotional weighted blanket. And doesn’t that sound kind of nice right now?

Because, let’s face it, sometimes we just need an escape hatch from reality, and because holiday movies aren’t nearly as messy as real life, we can count on the Hallmark Channel, Lifetime, Netflix, and countless other networks and streaming services to provide that for us. For a few hours, we get to suspend disbelief and bear witness to simplistic solutions to problems we may be facing ourselves: the unrequited crush finally returning affection; some form of a grinch having a magical change of heart in a single moment; the parent and child in a long-estranged standoff somehow becoming so bewitched by the holiday spirit, they at last manage to finagle a moving reconciliation. It all ties up trauma neatly with a big red bow. Is that how it normally goes in life? No, probably not. But all the better, then, to disappear into the hope and happiness these movies provide for an hour and a half, maybe right when we need it most. “These movies can also reduce stress and anxiety by making us feel more optimistic, especially when depression rates are at their highest,” Hafeez explains.

So, if you can’t get enough of The Preacher’s Wife or Love, Actually or are psyched to hunker down with the Hallmark Channel, know that you’re doing your part to perpetuate a ritual of serious self-care. After all, it’s the biggest gift we can give ourselves.

How to Psych Yourself Up to Get Back Out There

Ready to reenter the dating pool but not sure how? Online dating specialist Alyssa Dineen shares tips in her new book, “The Art of Online Dating.”

Dating is hard enough these days. The swiping, the matching, the messaging — it’s a slog. But coming out of a long-term relationship and sticking a proverbial toe back into the dating pool? Now that’s daunting.

Luckily, Alyssa Dineen, a dating coach and the founder of Style My Profile, is here to help, thanks to her new book that covers every stage of the process, The Art of Online Dating: Style Your Most Authentic Self and Cultivate a Mindful Dating Life. As Dineen — who, after 18 years in a relationship, 11 of those married, found herself divorced, single, and the mother of two — notes in the forward, the goal of her book is to provide “a practical guide to the world of online dating, pep talks to keep you going, and the knowledge that you aren’t alone.” Because as scary as it can seem, there are plenty of people out there who are looking for exactly what you want in a new relationship. So, if you’re ready, we asked Dineen for tips on how to psych yourself up to get out there again.

List the qualities you’d like in a partner

Writing down the qualities of the kind of person you’d like to date can help you get clear on what it is you’re looking for in a person and in a relationship. “A lot of us have an idea of the type of person we want to be with, but really what it comes down to is how you feel around them and how they treat you,” Dineen says. “A mindful approach to this list can help you decide what is negotiable or not negotiable.” What’s more, this exercise is also a great profile-writing prep.

Manage your expectations

After her divorce, Dineen had to figure out how to cultivate a healthy dating mindset and found it best to take things moment by moment. “I didn’t go into dating thinking, I’m going to get back out there and meet the one. I thought, I’m going to just have a good time, experience a new restaurant, and discover new parts of the city. If you can put yourself in that place, dating is so much more enjoyable. If you’re going into every date thinking, ugh, it’s probably not going to work out, you’re not going to have a good experience, and you won’t give people more of a chance than just the first date.”

It’s important to list what's essential to you in a partner as you dive into dating.

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Keep it light

Before dating again, Dineen says it’s easy for other people’s horror stories to ring in your ears. When this happens, push through the noise and stay positive. “Go into every date thinking, I’m meeting a new person. I’m going to have a fun night. I’m going to learn something new, as if it’s a social event rather than this weighted, heavy thing. It’s really important to just try to keep a positive attitude — I think people pick up on that,” she says.

Tweak your profile

If you haven’t been out there in a while, it can be difficult to wrap your mind around how to create an online dating profile. After coming up with your list of negotiables and non-negotiables, the best thing to do is just bite the bullet and get a profile made. Nothing is written in stone, and these profiles can be adjusted as you go along as you learn not only what works for your own profile, but what you respond to in others. Dineen recommends leaning on trusted friends to take your profile pic and provide feedback. Remember — it can always be tweaked, and you don’t have to go on every date. Dineen says it can take a lot of interaction before finding someone you might actually want to meet up with in real life, so be patient and understand it’s a process.

Consider tweaking your profile.

Ilona Nagy//Getty Images

Put together a “first date uniform”

Deciding what to wear on a first date can be stressful. Assembling a look in advance really helps because a) you’ll feel confident, and b) it’s one less thing to think about, says Dineen. “It doesn’t matter if you wear that same thing for every first date! I had these jeans I felt so great in, a really simple black button-down, and black boots. It’s so much better than having a pile of clothes on your floor, still not knowing what to wear, and running late,” says Dineen.

The most important nugget of advice Dineen has for getting back out there is “putting one foot in front of the other. Just getting that first date out of the way is huge,” she says. “Remember, everybody’s super-nervous. It helps to be honest. I remember telling the person that I was meeting it was my first date in 20 years. Just be real and authentic. Most people, like my date, will be understanding.”

7 Artists You Should Know Now

From photographers to painters to multimedia creators, these artists are ready to make their indelible impressions on the art world.

From paintings and photographs to film and fashion, art is a fully sensory form of storytelling — and the best of it doesn’t just make us feel something; it says something. Like anything that’s been around for millennia, art continually changes, grows, and takes on new shapes and forms. In this series, Shondaland steps into today’s world of art and gets a taste for the trends, themes, and people who are making contemporary art what it is — now and for centuries to come.

Visual art serves as a portal into an artist’s mind, a gateway to their belief systems about the subjects that transfix them. To pluck a narrative from the veritable merry-go-round of impressions that exist only in their minds, then to gather the necessary materials required to bring those impressions to life, is a miraculous feat of brain-eye and hand-eye coordination. Thus, the visual art world is a conceptual wonder-ground of ideologies and executions — when we gaze at an artist’s work, we gaze into their intentions.

Fortunately, the digital marketplace has exposed art tastemakers and curators to more unexpected and diverse artists than in decades past, and those artists are seizing the opportunity to forge a path to notability more rapidly than ever before. We wanted to make you aware of seven visual artists who intend to make an indelible impression on the art world — and have already made great strides.

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Diana Markosian, Photographer, Videographer

From Diana Markosian’s "Quince" series.

Diana Markosian

Markosian’s photography and videography is deeply personal even when it isn’t autobiographical. Her evocative, cinematic approach captures the essence of her subjects so intimately, we can practically hear their innermost thoughts. Born in Moscow, Markosian has traveled to the ends of the Earth to tell stories of faith, displacement, estrangement, illness — stories that otherwise wouldn’t have been told, including her very own. A Cuban girl’s quinceañera after surviving a brain tumor; a gathering of villagers in Bosnia and Herzegovina for a glimpse of the Virgin Mary. These subjects are treated as intimately as photographs capturing a visit with the Armenian father Markosian hadn’t seen in 20 years, or Santa Barbara, a film about her own mother’s story of survival in leaving Russia for the United States with her and her brother in tow. Like many artists, Markosian also works commercially, with her photographs having been featured in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Vogue. She’s also published two photography books, won numerous illustrious photography awards, and has shown her work in such spaces as the International Center of Photography in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and Les Rencontres d’Arles, an annual French photography festival.

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Tawny Chatmon, Photo-Based Multimedia Artist

Joy, 2020, 24k gold leaf and acrylic paint on archival pigment print, 30" x 20″

Tawny Chatmon

Tokyo-born, Maryland-based Chatmon’s stunning portraiture combines photography, digital collage, illustration, semiprecious stones, and paint while also employing 24-karat gold-leaf accents that nod toward Byzantine religious paintings and art nouveau master Gustav Klimt. A self-taught commercial photographer, Chatmon captured her father’s battle with cancer until the end of his life, which inspired her to use her camera to create art in lieu of commerce. Today, Chatmon’s portraits are holy, regal presentations of Black women and children (many works feature her three children, relatives, or models she knows well), reverently framed in golden antique frames she either collects from estate sales, galleries, auctions, and private sellers or purpose-built contemporary baroque frames custom created for each piece. Chatmon tells Shondaland that she would love those who see her work to walk away with feelings of “grace, beauty, pride, and love.” She continues, “I want my work to be viewed as a celebration of who we are. I want the viewer to be deeply touched by the work and to look further than the beauty and more into the meaningful intentions and messages embedded in each piece. I think that art in all forms has a way of penetrating our hearts and minds, and that is what I hope my work does for anyone who experiences it.”

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Umar Rashid (Frohawk Two Feathers), Multimedia Artist

Sombre Vengeance. An equestrian death dance born out of desperation and lack of functioning diplomacy. The end result of not really trying but it’s difficult to look away; acrylic and spray paint on canvas; 6’ X 6’; 2018

Umar Rashid

Born in Chicago and based in Los Angeles, Rashid (also known as Frohawk Two Feathers) is a multifaceted storyteller who captions his works — comprised of illustration, painting, and sculpture — to construct alternative historical narratives of the Frenglish (a portmanteau of France and England) Empire (1648-1880). Spotlighting marginalized people and women of history within reimagined colonial scenes, Rashid uses his own take on Egyptian hieroglyphs, tea-stained Spanish colonial manuscripts, and Persian miniature painting to mark the timing of his works. His goal is to “give a face to the marginalized people of history because history is not the binary that people think it is. It’s very nuanced,” Rashid tells Shondaland. “All the stuff that we think that we know is not really true. Basically, I just remade history in a place where minorities, people of color, and women are seen. I’m not trying to change history — all the horrible stuff is still in there, like slavery, violence against women — all these things are still inherent in my narrative. It’s just different. There are some joys and some victories, and not from people with powdered wigs and pink skin.” With upcoming shows at Half Gallery in New York and Blum & Poe gallery in Los Angeles, Rashid hopes his work inspires people to reconsider historical narratives. “I just want to be more honest with people, and I want people to be more honest with themselves,” he says. “Ultimately, what I hope they take from this is that the world is always going, and it only ends once. You can always change the narrative — you don’t have to control the narrative to change it, but everybody has that power, and nobody can take that power away from you.”

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Jen Stark, Designer, Sculptural and Digital Artist

Drip Cascade, 2021

Jen Stark

Florida-born and Los Angeles-based, Stark uses optical illusions inspired by mathematical pattern systems and fractals to immerse viewers in her own brand of organic psychedelia. She plays with shapes mimicking molecular structures, using bold, vivid patterns of primary colors and black and white that morph and meld into shapes that hypnotize you while challenging your perceptions of movement, dimension, and space via sculpture, sculptural installations, installations, and NFTs. Recently on view at the William Vale Hotel in Brooklyn, New York, Stark’s creation Cascade is a 6,000-square-foot interactive and immersive installation exhibit that’s the ultimate Instagram capture. What’s more, three Cascade moving digital images have been auctioned off as NFTs at quite a decent price point. Stark’s hypnotic vision has extended to pens, phone cases, T-shirts, holographs, wine labels, murals — any surface you can imagine. Along with the William Vale, you can find her work in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the West Collection, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale, and MOCA Miami, among others.

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Michaela Yearwood-Dan, Painter, Multimedia Artist, Ceramist

The only way is up; 2021; Marianne Boesky Gallery

Michaela Yearwood-Dan

This painter and collage artist’s large, lush, lyrical works of fertile, disjointed botanicals and landscapes utilize layers of paint, ink, and embroidery to express her frustrations about marginalization. Based in London and inspired by Western, Japanese, and Chinese historical painting, Yearwood-Dan creates messages that are delivered through the lens of modern-day impressionism of sorts. Her vibrant scenery is seemingly captured in movement with a blend of deliberate, delicate strokes and expressive lines, augmented by embroidered observations about racial or gendered notions of collective identity and history that lend context to the romantic tumult. “My hope is that people engage with the understanding that Black women are nuanced, and that’s also reflected in the work they make and wide variety of subject matters and aesthetics they explore,” Yearwood-Dan tells Shondaland. “I want the viewer to really just look and spend time with the work, finding snippets of text and allowing those and the colorful motifs to mean something personal to them. I want them to trust what they feel when they look at the work and, of course, honor my intentions but also sit with how introspective it makes them feel.” A graduate of the University of Brighton, Yearwood-Dan did a Harper’s Bazaar UK cover using Margaret Atwood’s poetry in a collaboration with the writer last year, and has shown at galleries including London’s Tiwani Contemporary and, most recently, at Marianne Boesky in New York.

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Clare Celeste, Installation Artist, Illustrator, Environmentalist

Biodiversity, an immersive installation by Clare Celeste

Patricia Schichl

Celeste’s immersive work reflects her commitment to raising awareness about our many looming environmental crises through honoring nature and history. Each installation is something of a biosphere — immense, delicate, and intricate inter-weavings of collaged flora and fauna comprised of hundreds, maybe thousands, of hand-cut vintage naturalist illustrations from the 1900s. The result is a safe, beautiful world in which Mother Nature is revered, not punished. It’s Berlin-based Celeste’s form of environmental activism, her way of preserving life as we know it before it goes extinct. “I use pre-industrial illustrations to both inspire viewers with the beauty of the natural world as it was before the extinction crisis and also to highlight how very threatened our biodiversity is,” Celeste says. “Many species are extinct or going extinct in my artworks. Additionally, I also want to remind people that we are all interconnected with biodiversity and that we are part of these ecosystems — we are nature, not separate from it — and our survival and futures are intertwined.” Her whimsical work has been featured in O, the Oprah Magazine and The Guardian, licensed by Crate & Barrel, and can be seen on wine bottles and in storefronts.

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Jean Smith, Painter

Clockwise from top left: No Hat #1076 (11 x 14” acrylic on canvas panel) 2021; Bathing Cap #16 (11 x 14” acrylic on canvas panel) 2021; No Hat #1175 (11 x 14” acrylic on canvas panel) 2021; No Hat #1161 (11 x 14” acrylic on canvas panel) 2021

Jean Smith

Smith is a self-made artist in every sense of the phrase. Her evolution as a painter is as much of a disruptive and feminist DIY tale as the establishment of her former punk band, Mecca Normal. Every day, she produces a haunting, hundred-dollar 11-inch by 14-inch acrylic-on-canvas board headshot of a woman exclusively available to Facebook bidders — all they have to do is post “Mine!” or “Me!” for a shot at one, and she handpicks the lucky recipient. These paintings sell within five minutes of her posts, with sometimes hundreds of bidders chomping at the bit. Profits from groupings of larger portraits and the occasional poetic, moody, blurry landscape go to her soon-to-be-established Free Artists Residency for Progressive Social Change, a place where artists can stay for free as long as they intend to “change the world.” Smith tells Shondaland she started painting self-portraits at 13 — both of her parents were professional painters — but in art school painting was regarded as a bit “passé.” “I got sidetracked, started a DIY feminist punk band, and developed an attitude that my paintings weren’t for other people to see, let alone buy,” she explains. During an arduous part-time retail stint in 2015, she got the idea to do what she’s now doing, and, in a profile of the artist in The New York Times, she’s aptly described as “subverting art-world economics, $100 at a time.” In her own words, Smith says, “I have no interest in painting likenesses of specific people, or in documenting smiling faces attempting to be attractive. I paint more complicated expressions and emotions. The faces are the subject, but there’s a lot going on with composition, technique, and color.” Though she’s thrilled for the media coverage, Smith was most excited when a former museum director from the Smithsonian and Guggenheim praised her technique. Never underestimate the power of a punk pedigree.

How and Why a Change of Scenery Can Shift Your Outlook

The science behind mixing up your physical locations.

During a phase of my life when I felt as if I were stuck on a hamster wheel (we all had one last year!), a friend of mine mentioned an old Hebrew adage that translates to “Change your place, change your luck.” It basically means shifting your actual physical location can help shift your qi — your energy — or your state of mind, if you will.

I couldn’t deny that travel always infused me with enthusiasm and a new and improved outlook — not just because I had a break from my daily responsibilities, though I don’t deny the obvious psychological benefits that also come with that. I started to notice how even incremental shifts in routine, like working in a coffee shop for part of the day instead of at home, or walking home from errands a different way, could have a positive effect on my perspective.

As it turns out, a recent study co-led by Catherine Hartley, an assistant professor in New York University’s department of psychology, and Aaron Heller, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Miami, found daily variability in physical location to be associated with increased positive affect (kind of where attitude meets mood) in humans. Basically, for most people, the more variety of experiences in your daily routine, the happier you are.

How your brain processes “novelty”

How did it work? Hartley told Shondaland that she and Heller had a large number of people in New York City and Miami install an app on their mobile phones and tracked them on their daily activities to measure the daily variability in their locations, or their “roaming entropy.” The more they moved around town, the higher their “roaming entropy.” The participants also had to rate how happy they were. On days when individuals had more variability in their daily movement patterns (according to their own histories), they reported being happier. The researchers also looked at how often the participants visited new locations within four to five months and found more-novel locations were associated with a higher degree of positive affect, or feeling happier.

“In some ways, it’s consistent with what we know about what novelty does to the brain,” says Hartley. “There are regions of the brain, the hippocampus in particular, that are extremely sensitive to environmental novelty. This region of the brain has projections to the ventral striatum, another region of the brain involved in reward processing. It’s thought that this circuitry enables novel things to be experienced as rewarding. It may be that I walk a new route through my neighborhood, and the new things I see there make me happier. But it could also be that I wake up in a good mood, and that drives me to go explore more and walk a novel route around my neighborhood. It could be that happiness drives exploration, or novelty drives our positive affect — our data suggests it’s a little bit of both,” Hartley says.

When she said this, I felt so seen.

On days when individuals had more variability in their daily movement patterns (according to their own histories), they reported being happier.

Tim Robberts//Getty Images

Change “wakes up” your brain

Amy Johnson, a psychologist and the author of the upcoming book Just a Thought, suggests that the idea of switching things up in your daily routine can “wake up” the brain. “Suddenly, our brain has to work a bit more to take in the new sights and sounds of our new environment, to scan for potential threats, and to make sense of, and tell a story about, what’s going on,” she explains. “When you change things up, your brain is forced to be a little more open, receptive, and outside of the box to some degree. This can absolutely affect our mood and our outlook. You’re thinking thoughts you didn’t think yesterday. This is why something as simple as working from a new room in your home can feel like it brings on a burst of creativity, or walking outside during a heated argument can feel like it clears your mind and brings new perspective,” she explains.

Even small novel experiences can give you a boost

I asked Hartley if incremental changes of scenery (working at a coffee shop) could have as much of an impact on your outlook as larger changes (visiting another country). “It didn’t matter how far you traveled,” she said, referring to her study. “What did matter was that you were visiting new places, so it suggests that walking a different route to the subway on your commute, that taking a walk around your neighborhood and not going the same path that you might [take] on a Saturday afternoon, that introducing some degree of novelty into your daily routine should be capable of producing these kinds of boosts in positive emotion. The question of whether this extends to other kinds of novelty — eating new foods, reading a new book, learning about some new topic — there’s no reason to believe that those forms of novelty shouldn’t produce the same effect.”

Forcing a little change of scenery can help us feel invigorated and more creative, as it forces our brain to process new surroundings and think in new ways.

Novelty isn’t for everyone

I ask Johnson if the reverse holds true — if getting into ruts, or visiting the same places, or doing the same kinds of things every single day (hello, pandemic!), could bum us out or dull our senses after a while.

“It could,” she says. “But I also want to say that it doesn’t necessarily, and it doesn’t for everyone. Our brain is an incredibly efficient machine. In order to be as efficient as possible, it habituates most of what it does, and it loves to go back to the same familiar, safe, efficient thoughts and ideas it recognizes from the day before. When we feel like we’re on autopilot, this is what’s happening. Our brain is staying in its comfort zone. Nudging it out of its comfort zone is scary for the brain but can be really great for the human’s creativity, perspective, and mood. If you find yourself feeling uninspired, bored, or fantasizing about getting out, try it! At the very least, forcing a little change of scenery can help us feel invigorated and more creative, as it forces our brain to process new surroundings and think in new ways.” She also mentioned that she sometimes tries to work in a coffee shop when she feels her brain waves stagnating.

Hartley also mentioned a smaller subset of people for whom this type of variability had the opposite effect — it made them less happy. She plans on looking into whether this discomfort with the unknown might be related to our overall emotional health in some way.

So, if you’re feeling like you’re figuratively asleep at the wheel, be it at your desk or in some aspect of your life, do what you can to change things up — whether it’s something you wear, some place you go, or something you eat. See how you feel, and let us know. You might just get a boost of well-being and a flash of inspiration you didn’t know you needed.

Swimming Gives Me the Weightlessness I Crave

One writer on the healing power of water.

Though I’m a fire sign — an Aries — I have what’s known in astrology as a water-dominant chart, which in celestial speak means I have more prominent planets and placements in water signs than in any other element. To me, this designation makes perfect sense because a) I can be empathic and sensitive, and b) I’ve always felt happiest near and when immersed in water, as if I’m finally in my natural habitat.

I consider the pruned fingers that come with being waterlogged a personal win. Nothing parallels the euphoria I feel when immersed in a body of water. Once it hits 77 degrees, every weekend without fail I plan how, where, and when I can pull off a swim. Otherwise, I feel like a fish flopping on pavement, gasping for breath.

To me, swimming isn’t just about splashing around after being hot and sweaty, though that is a total blast for most people. It’s more about the sudden ease I feel that pulling my limbs through water gives me — and ease of movement is a high I chase with determination every single chance I get.

I once tried to describe how much joy swimming gave me to a friend. “You get to be weightless,” she said. “With all of the responsibilities that weigh you down as a mother, a writer, a partner, and a human being in this crazy world, swimming is a chance for you to feel weightless — even if just for a few moments or hours.”

"Still, I’m grateful for everything I can do, so I stay focused on those things and count my metaphorical blessings."

Matt Henry Gunther//Getty Images

She was absolutely right about the emotional weightlessness I so desperately needed. But I wasn’t only addicted to swimming because I was chasing the metaphorical feeling of weightlessness it gave me. While floating, I feel free, not only from the myriad responsibilities that come with a couple of dependents, a business, and a partner, but free from the burden of pain.

My (usually) invisible disability is caused by something called degenerative disc disease (DDD), which basically means the gel in the discs of my spine are drying out as my spine becomes arthritic and atrophies, as it can with old age. Generally, DDD really isn’t a big deal unless your discs start popping out of place, sometimes hitting or squashing the nerve roots that run along your spine. Possibly aggravated by a shift in the shape of my cervical spine from a car accident in my early 20s, the degenerative process began early for me, in my late 30s. No one really tells you why DDD can get out of control for some people, but there’s no question you feel it when it does.

While floating, I feel free, not only from the myriad responsibilities that come with a couple of dependents, a business, and a partner, but free from the burden of pain.

Unfortunately, my first severely slipped disc happened during a quick grocery run just two weeks after the birth of my second kid, rendering me unable to walk home and in relentless, excruciating, brain-searing, beg-for-mercy pain. I couldn’t use my right leg. The only solution was surgery. I was instructed not to lift anything over five pounds, so we had to hire a helper we couldn’t afford to lift our premature newborn out of her crib and hand her to me to nurse.

Just a couple of years later, I wouldn’t be able to pick her up again. I would go on to have three more spinal surgeries in the span of 10 years, including a cervical fusion, which means I have titanium screws holding my neck upright and my bones off my spinal cord, sparing me from quadriplegia. An innovation called disc replacement has gained prominence since my surgeries, providing patients with more mobility and a faster recovery, but each surgery took about three months to bounce back from, and even longer pain-wise.

Fortunately, some forms of mild nerve damage can heal over time (a long, long time), and I’m so much better now. Luckily, there’s a lot I can do physically, but there are also many things that are too risky for me to ever attempt again. Jumping out of a plane and riding roller-coasters are out. Attempting the black diamond as a novice skier may not be the best idea. Deadlifting is off my agenda. I can’t even carry a heavy suitcase or heavy bags of groceries. Though these types of activities don’t exactly top my bucket list to begin with, knowing I can never do them again feels restrictive. Still, I’m grateful for everything I can do, so I stay focused on those things and count my metaphorical blessings.

"With all of the responsibilities that weigh you down as a mother, a writer, a partner, and a human being in this crazy world, swimming is a chance for you to feel weightless."

Peter Cade//Getty Images

By all expert accounts, swimming is one of the safest and best forms of exercise to build strength and increase mobility for someone like me. The thing I love most about swimming is that it’s something I can work on improving. In the pool, I’m just as capable as everyone else. I can swim just as fast and tread just as long without being in pain, which I feel after just about any other intense physical activity. Swimming also works out the kinks in my back while building back muscle, so I stand a little taller and walk the Earth in less pain while the effects of a good swim last.

The fusion surgery happened unexpectedly, forcing us to reschedule a long-awaited trip to New Orleans during spring break. It seemed like every single one of my friends and neighbors was scuba diving in Turks and Caicos or afloat with a festive drink in a pool in Palm Springs. New York was how it always is in April — damp, a little chilly, and rainy. When I was recovering from the fusion, as I sat upright in bed (recovery only allows for sitting straight upright or flat on your back) weaning myself off heavy painkillers, I perused New Orleans hotels with pools, transfixed by the ease of movement I would finally feel by the time I got in them. It was the biggest lesson I’ve learned about endurance and keeping your eye on the prize. After three months of slow, deliberate movements, awkwardly trained muscles, and feeling like a dried-out Tin Man, the elation I felt when finally easing into the glorious pool we settled on was akin to winning a whole lot of money. My husband honed our kids’ diving technique while I spent hours in between thunderstorms and sightseeing afloat in chlorinated bliss, weightless again at last.

Intelligence Doesn't Just Boil Down to IQ and EQ

A look at multiple intelligence theory, and how it can help you utilize your deepest talents and passions.

In the immortal words of soul songstress Nikka Costa, everybody’s got their something. For decades, researchers have worked to debunk the antiquated notion that there is a single way to be intelligent — known as IQ (intelligence quotient) — which was often defined by academic excellence or mathematical and linguistic fluency. There's been much emphasis on emotional intelligence (EQ) in recent years as a predictor of success in the classroom, the workplace, and life in general, perhaps even more so than IQ. But the reality is we are all likely to possess not just one intelligence, but a platter of many.

For example: Learning instruments or even just understanding the concept of song structure may come naturally to you, while your kid can instantly solve math problems that make your eyes roll back into your head. Your partner effortlessly manages to inspire a group of people to team up and run a marathon, while your sister can compose an email in five minutes that takes you two hours.

Musical ability, kinesthetic proficiency, and interpersonal skills are among the skills, or “intelligences,” defined by Howard Gardner, an esteemed research professor of cognition and education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, in his widely celebrated theory that distinguishes eight types of intelligence called “Multiple Intelligence Theory.”

“Multiple intelligences are a set of computers, which, I hypothesize, all human beings have in their head,” Gardner explains in a Harvard Graduate School of Education video. On his website, Gardner elaborates: “The intelligences constitute the human intellectual tool kit. Unless grossly impaired, all human beings possess the capacity to develop the several intelligences. At any one moment, a human being will have a unique profile because of both genetic (heritability) and experiential factors.”

Thomas Hoerr, PhD, a scholar in residence at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, Gardner’s colleague, and a “master educator,” says that for too long, there was a “small path” to being seen as smart. Gardner’s theory changed the way educators looked at their students — and teaching in general.

“What Howard Gardner did with his conceptualization of the theory of multiple intelligences has widened what it means to be smart,” Hoerr explains. “It’s a very pragmatic theory: Intelligence is problem-solving, and there are lots of different kinds of problems. When you write a song, that’s solving a problem. When you are nurturing animals or working in the garden, that’s solving a problem — even though they don’t require coding like in math, or syllables like in English.”

To be clear, we all have varying intelligence in every single one of these areas, and, like with our skill sets, some areas simply get more practice or are more developed than others.

“I think we have this mindset that there’s one way to succeed,” Hoerr says. “The more we look at multiple intelligences as a way of portraying what strengths we might have, the better off we are because we can use those strengths to succeed.”

The types of intelligence Gardner outlines in his theory

Linguistic Intelligence

Poets, editors, avid readers, writers, and Words With Friends obsessives are considered among the linguistically gifted, as are those who pick up languages easily.

Logical/Mathematical Intelligence

This is about the capacity to conceptualize the logical relations among actions or symbols. Scientists, accountants, mathematicians, physicists, and people who generally do well on standardized tests are strong in this type of intelligence.

Intelligence can also lean into the more logical and rational.

JESPER KLAUSEN / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY//Getty Images

Musical Intelligence

Have a decent pitch? Those with an ear for melodies, tones, and rhythms who make and/or deeply appreciate music are considered musically intelligent.

Spatial Intelligence

Good at Tetris or chess? Can you draw and/or sculpt? Architects, visual artists, surgeons, chess players, and pilots can easily conceptualize and manipulate large-scale spatial arrays.

Bodily/Kinesthetic Intelligence

Athletes, dancers, swimmers, artisans who use their hands, and those who have natural physical ability are considered to have kinesthetic intelligence.

Interpersonal Intelligence

This type of intelligence relates to how you play, read, motivate, and cooperate with others. Interpersonal intelligence can be used to manipulate (upsell) or to motivate (encourage).

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Intrapersonal Intelligence

This has to do with how well you know yourself and use that knowledge to navigate the world and create your own happiness.

Naturalist Intelligence

This type of intelligence is embodied by pet whisperers and those with green thumbs, as well as those who have an empirical view about living things — Darwin had naturalist intelligence, says Hoerr.

Hoerr says educators (like him) have embraced Gardner’s theory to teach children in different ways. “Too often there is a very narrow pathway to learning, and we wonder why kids get turned off from school and they’re not motivated. If I’m a teacher who gets multiple intelligence, I don’t just look at who’s the best reader and who’s the best writer. I also look at who’s the good artist. Who’s a good musician? Who’s really good with their hands? And how can I use that to help children learn? If we say the goal is to learn about the causes of the Civil War, there are lots of different ways to do that — you can learn that through dance, song, art, building things. If you do, you’re going to find more kids learning, motivated, and excited about school.”

What’s more, figuring out your intelligence requires no online quiz — it’s as simple as considering what you’re into doing in your spare time. “When you look at what you choose to do and use those strengths at work, you’re probably going to prosper. We should all reflect on what are our intelligences. What do we do well? How can we bring that to bear with our daily tasks, whether that’s at work getting a paycheck, raising kids, or being a friend?” says Hoerr.

“If you’ve got a day job that doesn’t allow you to use your strengths, you’re probably going to feel like you’re beating your head against the wall. We need to look at what we do for fun and ask ourselves, is there a way that could be a part of what I do during the day as well? How can I use what I like to do to succeed?”

On how best to use these insights, Gardner says on Big Think that the answer lies within: “If we lived forever, we could probably develop each intelligence to a very high degree — but life’s very short. If you devote too much attention to one intelligence, you’re not going to have much time to work on other kinds of intelligences. The big question is, should you play to strength, or should you bolster weakness? That’s a value judgment — scientists cannot give you an answer to that. If you want to be a jack of all trades and be very well-rounded, then you’re probably going to want to nurture the intelligences which aren’t that strong. On the other hand, if you’re dead set on really coming to the top of some particular heap, you’re probably going to find the intelligences that you’re strongest at and push those. It’s a question of values, not of science.”

Tracy Tutor Shares How to Sell Yourself

The star of “Million Dollar Listing” explains her full-circle journey and how we can get better at selling ourselves.

Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles (MDLLA) powerhouse broker Tracy Tutor is a boss who gets the deal done, but it’s the human being we relate to and who makes us want to have a drink with her when deals go awry, when she’s trying to help a friend, when her male costars get into fruitless pissing contests, when she needs a pep-talk, or when she’s juggling a hugely successful career while raising her two teens. And the title of her book Fear Is Just a Four-Letter Word: How to Develop the Unstoppable Confidence to Own Any Room makes us want to ask her how we can get better at selling ourselves, so we did.

Owning a room comes easily to Tutor because she knows all the world’s a stage — getting into real estate was “a little bit of an accident” after she studied theater at the University of Southern California. “It’s kind of a cliché, but all failed actors become real estate agents,” she tells Shondaland. “Every time you walk into a room, you are on an audition. If you’ve failed enough times in Hollywood, then you figure out how to walk into a room in real estate and own that.”

Weary of her table-waiting/auditioning/human-resources grind at 24, she decided it was time to make money — it was just a matter of how and, more importantly, how much. Her actor friend Sasha Alexander brainstormed that they get into real estate, and Tutor went for it. “I walked into the first office I felt like I could fit into, sat down with the manager, and said, ‘I’m brand-new to this, and I don’t know what I’m doing, but I need to make $90K a year to survive.’ He said, ‘Most real estate agents in their first two years make $30K,’ and I was like, ‘Well, that just doesn’t work for me,’ and he said, ‘You’re hired.’ He probably appreciated my level of confidence. Of course, the next two years I made 30K a year, but I started selling in the higher end around year five,” she says.

Looking back, it’s clear to Tutor how every gig she had led up to where she is today. “Everyone should understand what it’s like to be in the service industry because it gives you grit,” she explains. “It teaches you how to connect with people and command respect. I never thought, or planned, or wanted to be in real estate, but I always wanted a job. I worked at a men’s clothing store when I was 15 and a half selling men’s suits. If I sold a certain number of men’s suits, I’d get some sort of commission bonus. I lived for that! It’s a trip! It all aligns to this full-circle moment, selling real estate on a TV show.”

MDLLA came knocking after a chance on-camera showing with her colleague and friend Josh Altman, a series regular since the beginning. “Our chemistry together was great, and I think they saw that. After we shot and my client liked the property, they asked if I’d be interested in shooting the next couple of scenes. I just thought it was a one-off, then Josh called me the day of and asked if I had anyone for another property he was shooting for the show. I was like, ‘Can you give me a little more notice?’ I was wearing jeans and had to run to Intermix and pull together an outfit!”

It wasn’t long before Tutor was asked to be a series regular, but first she had to hash out the details with her then-husband, who seemed uneasy with her inevitable trajectory. “I really struggled, but I knew [instinctively] that [the show] was the right move for me at this point in my career because I’d been working my ass off in this business, and I lost so many,” she says.

By “many,” Tutor means deals. Though real estate seems to be an industry dominated by women, it’s not immune to the ingrained sexism of other industries. “I could not process why I wasn’t having that same success as some of my male counterparts. Is it because I’m a mother? Is it because they think I grew up with money [her father is L.A. construction giant Ron Tutor] and don’t have a work ethic? What the fuck?!” she says. “I think I’ve always struggled with how people perceive me versus what my truth is. I’ve been working since I was 16 years old, and I still have to work three times harder to get that same opportunity. I know it’s because of how I look, because I am a female, because I am a mother of two, and because there is an entitlement that is perceived that I don’t have to work, and therefore I must not have the same desire and grind that someone like Josh Altman has.”

She’s also suffered surprising scrutiny for some of the fierce looks she serves on the show and resents the double standard. “‘If you want to be a boss, you better put on a suit. Don’t be too feminine; be serious; lack humor; don’t make jokes, sit, and talk; and don’t ask questions — wait until you’re spoken to and then respond.’ Fuck that!” says Tutor. “I want to change the narrative and send the message that not only am I smart, very good at my job, a fierce negotiator on behalf of my clients, and very ethical, I’m also sexy, funny, and I curse. Why can’t I encompass all of those things?” Her way of rewriting the rules about these misconceptions is refusing to play the game.

Her book — which reads like a conversation with her — shares some valuable tips about how to read any room we walk into and how we can get better at selling ourselves for whatever reason we need to.

Here are a few tips she shared with us

Get to know your strengths and weaknesses

In helping her interns figure out how to develop business relationships, Tutor encourages them to get to know themselves first. “What are your five strongest attributes, and what are five things that you think you can improve on in your life or in your personality? Knowing your weaknesses and your strengths is a big thing when walking into a room. You can’t be perfect or flawless at everything — you have to be able to poke fun at the things that you’re not good at. It’s another great way to connect with people,” she says.

Raise your (metaphorical) hand

When it comes to selling your talents, Tutor says practice makes perfect: “You don’t just show up in a room, and put on the right outfit, and it happens. You’ve got to raise your hand in a business meeting, or ask a question in front of a hundred people in a class that makes you nervous. It starts there and becomes easier and easier. You begin to trust your own instincts a little bit more. We all have good instincts, but we push them down because we’re so uncomfortable with saying what we really think. You have to continually push yourself out of your comfort zone so that when you get that interview, or you get to be in a room full of incredibly powerful people networking, you have the ability to make a joke, feel comfortable, and step into your own skin,” she says.

Show up authentically

At the end of the day, we all just want to make a connection — no matter how “big” the person is, says Tutor. “You have to authentically be able to connect with people — that is the great equalizer. Not everybody’s going to like you all of the time, but if you can show that you’re vulnerable, show that you’re funny, show that you’re smart, show that you’re sexy, show that you’re completely authentic as a female, people are going to be drawn to that, and they’re going to want to connect with you. That’s how you begin to take the energy in the room and put it toward your life in a positive way. People want to be around people that they aspire to be like or want to be similar to,” she explains.

Find common ground

When dealing with people, common ground is the key to connection. “You have to get past the fear, dig a little bit deeper, and remind yourself that everybody’s just living on the planet together,” Tutor says, sharing what happened the first time she showed property to Steve Levitan, the co-creator of Modern Family. “I’m a fan! I’d been going through a divorce, and he was going through a divorce. We have similar taste in real estate, and he worked with an architect that I absolutely adore. We were able to talk about divorce, and a genuine connection was formed. I was able to push down my anxiety, and we have a relationship to this day because of it,” she says.

Our List of Unexpected Summer Treats

From cheese ice cream to pre-burnt marshmallows to chips in a pickle, here’s a list of treats to add some fun into your summer.

Summer food is meant to be casual, comforting, refreshing, and, above all, it’s about having a good time. Though the season is coming to an end, we wanted to bring you some tasty items that will help you keep the summer party vibes. These products reinvent some of our longstanding summer faves to appease the curious eater. Let our roundup at least serve as the inspo you need to try something a little off the beaten menu.

And, hey — if a plane ticket to an exotic locale is out of the question, at least your palate and a sense of adventure can take you someplace you’ve never been.

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1 - Kraft Macaroni & Cheese Ice Cream

Butter and cheese-flavored ice cream? Really? Van Leeuwen, the Brooklyn-based ice cream purveyor, has gone out on a limb to add an additional dose of comfort to one of our favorite comfort foods. This new, gluten-free ice cream flavor is an actual Kraft collab that crashed their site upon launch.

2 - Dunkaroos

The “epic frosting and cookie duo” Betty Crocker launched in 1994 just made a comeback. Snack packs of vanilla cookies and dippable vanilla frosting with rainbow sprinkles are now back on the shelves for your joyous, sugary consumption.

3 - Beyond The Original Orange Chicken from Panda Express

If you had a thing for orange chicken from Panda Express, but now find yourself a vegetarian, your dreams have come true. Some branches of the fast-casual restaurant are now selling a vegan version of the dish made with Beyond Meat. So, if a location that serves it is in proximity, you can indulge any time you see fit.

4 - Kraft Jet-Puffed Marshmallows

We are currently in prime s’mores season, and those without a firepit seeking a shortcut to the burnt marshmallow flavor of summer can look no further. If you’re really feeling lazy, you can always try their S’mores Flavored Coated Marshmallows, which are basically chocolate-covered marshmallows with a sprinkle of graham cracker crust on top. Bonus: Your hair won’t smell like fire after eating them.

5 - Kellogg’s Peach Cobbler Pop-Tarts

Summer is peak peach season, meaning a good part of the country can only bite into a decent peach cobbler from May through September. To celebrate the season, Pop-Tarts is offering a new peach cobbler flavor, complete with a graham cracker-flavored crust and topping.

6 - Korean Hotdogs

According to Eater, one of the “most beloved street foods of Korea” has become this year’s hot summer food experience. Sometimes filled with cheese, sometimes containing a hot dog, Korean corn dogs are praised for the flavor of their batter (sometimes corn, sometimes rice, sometimes potato, always deep-fried) and toppings (sometimes cornflakes, sometimes ramen; many options). If you happen to live in New York or New Jersey, H Mart, the Korean supermarket made famous by the best-selling book Crying in H Mart, can ship frozen bags of these delights to your door.

7 - Trader Joe’s Popcorn in a Pickle and Chips in a Pickle

People are craving pickled or pickle-flavored anything and everything this year. Though pickles themselves are a year-round mainstay on burgers and every kind of sandwich, and in summer alongside lobster rolls, the introduction of Trader Joe’s Chips in a Pickle, or their pickle-flavored potato chips, will keep a little summer zing going even after your Labor Day cookout. Plus, Popcorn in a Pickle (yes, pickle-flavored popcorn) tastes like summer, no matter when it is.

Want to Dive Into a Subculture? Here’s How to Do It

Experts explain the benefits of niche communities and how to join one.

We crave connection. Whether online or in person, at work or at home, community brings meaning and value to our lives, and it greatly impacts our quality of life. Building community is not just an act of trust and respect; it’s an act of hope. We at Shondaland know the power of community, so we’re bringing you stories of unique people gathering together in meaningful ways out there — and ways to find or create your own community.

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Want to go to a Game of Thrones event where everyone’s decked out in serious costumes? Or join a steampunk or Dungeons & Dragons group? Or maybe you’re a rabid Prince fan and want to connect with fans who are as devoted as yourself. This impulse makes sense — congregating with like-minded people who share your passions and obsessions is a stimulating and authentic way to connect quickly with others. Thanks to the internet, access to a seemingly endless array of niche communities lies at our fingertips in 2021, and this is a great thing.

The older we get, the harder it can be to make friends, yet the older you get, the more beneficial friendship is for you. According to a 2017 study, our friends can have a bigger impact on our health and well-being during the span of our lives than our family. A cross-sectional survey of almost 280,000 adults reports that “valuing friendships was related to better functioning, particularly among older adults, whereas valuing familial relationships exerted a static influence on health and well-being across the lifespan.” This is as compelling reason as any to seek out human connection, and shared interests can be a great way to start.

Kathy Caslin Mullen, a teacher from the Boston area, says she loves being a part of the niche groups she belongs to because it imbues her free time with purpose and camaraderie. “I’m usually so busy with kid stuff and husband and wife stuff, I can’t just hang around and do nothing,” she says. “The window to make friends is just so small. You have to kind of, like, hit on something that everybody likes and latch onto that. If we all share interests, that’s a good jumping-off point.”

An ardent Duran Duran fan since high school, Mullen connected with a bunch of kindred souls through her involvement in the band’s online fan community, which led to in-person interactions. She had a blast and solidified friendships when the connections went from online to offline. “I actually went to a show with people I had never met face-to-face before,” she says.

Some subculture or niche communities can be incredibly welcoming to newcomers — especially when driven by a sense of purpose. After Martin Richard, a Dorchester child from Mullen’s neighborhood, died in the Boston Marathon bombings, Mullen was eager to find a way to help the victim’s family. Mullen and her neighbors started a Facebook page to organize and train to run the Boston Marathon the following year. They began with local runs, graduated to 5Ks, and eventually ran the marathon. The group had so much fun together, they’re still going strong.

“Once you get in with a group of people doing the same thing for two or three hours, it’s almost like therapy,” says Mullen. “You talk about life, you talk about everything and anything, you get to know them, and they become almost like family,” she says. Mullen soon realized she loved using her newfound passion for running to raise money for charity, and her new friends led her to another niche group that does just that.

Connecting with those who have similar passions can be both personally and professionally productive. Michal Richardson, a writer, producer, and co-host of the Muppeturgy podcast, has been a stalwart member of the Muppet fan community for 20 years. “There wasn’t ever a time that the Muppets weren’t a part of my life to some degree or another,” Richardson says. “There’s something about who the Muppets are and how they relate to the world that makes sense to me.”

When in college, she was pleasantly surprised to stumble across fellow Muppet stans on Tough Pigs, an online Muppet-fan community. “I met people through the message board on that website,” she explains, adding that many of them remain her dear friends to this day, some 20 years later. “Once I found it, it was so exciting to know that it existed and there are people who feel the way that I do.”

“Even though there didn’t seem to be any kind of evolutionary advantage, we really are attracted to group rituals,” says Amanda Montell, author of Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism. (Montell adds that, once upon a time, the word “cult” didn’t carry the negative implications it does today.) Unity, and ritual — those things don’t have to necessarily do with God or the metaphysical at all. But they are profoundly human drives that have existed for thousands upon thousands of years. We look to groups to fill these needs. Whether that’s a boutique fitness studio like SoulCycle, or a celebrity stan group for Taylor Swift, it is serving that purpose-driven community ritual in people’s lives. With the help of the internet, there’s a cult for everyone. The drive to commune and seek support in large groups, they’re profoundly human.”

Interested in connecting with like minds? Here’s how to start.

Get specific

Even subcultures and niche groups can have their own niche groups within them, so, when looking for a community to join, consider drilling down to your specific area or subset of interests and root around for what and who is there. Take Mullen’s case, for example: Marathon running is such a broad category, there are zillions of running groups out there to weed through. Same with local marathon runners. But her group of marathon runners in the Boston area who run for charity is more specific — and that’s where she met her people. Before initiating any kind of in-person meet-up, do your homework. Google is your friend.

Dip a toe in the water before jumping in all the way

Montell recommends checking out a wide variety of groups before going in deep and advises against drinking the Kool-Aid until you’ve had a few sips. Some online communities can turn out to be misleading or harbor some toxic dynamics, so Montell says it helps to tread lightly. In other words, be aware of any pressure to constantly be “on” or constantly participate. “Anything legitimate will allow you to participate casually,” Montell says. “You should be able to tap out and back into your real world at the end of the day.” She also advises keeping an eye on how people interact. “Is there language that uplifts everyone on the inside and lambasts everyone on the outside? That makes you feel like you have this elitist, exclusive knowledge that other people don’t? And everybody who is not a part of this group is not only stupid but morally inferior? Those are some linguistic red flags to look for,” she says.

Diversify your connections

When it comes to making stan connections online, Montell advises casting a wide net. “I think it’s key to diversify your social portfolio as much as you can rather than fully investing,” she says. “It’s tempting to turn to one guru — whether it’s an influencer or someone you know in real life — who speaks with a lot of confidence and authority and talks about all of the confounding questions that we have in our culture. As internet-using humans in 2021, we confront so much information day to day about who to be, how to dress, where to go, what to do, and who to vote for. It can be really tempting just to put all your eggs in one basket and defer to one celebrity or person who is waxing authoritative.”

The Kawaii Crew

Barcroft Media

Don’t be afraid to ask questions

Mullen says she asked specific questions or for recommendations to start conversations in her groups. “People come back with their answers and, over time, you kind of get to know them,” she says.

Use boundaries when you need to

Montell says, with new online friendships, it helps to be aware of your boundaries and notice any conversation that might leave you feeling uncomfortable. “I sometimes say a toxic relationship is just a cult of one. The same boundaries that you would apply to a friendship or your boss, or your relationship with a new partner — those boundaries should apply,” she says.

Search for related podcasts

Podcasts about niche interests or communities, like Richardson’s, are a great way to find online communities and forge connections with other stans of a certain subculture.

When it comes to joining a subculture or niche group, Montell says there is no one-size-fits-all advice because not every group is going to be equally healthy for everyone. But, ultimately, you reserve the right to invest your time in groups that leave you with positive, happy vibes and opt out of the rest.

With so many of us now working from home, a niche community can be a great way to meet new people. “It can validate your feelings when a hundred people like the same thing you like,” says Mullen.

Molly Ringwald Is Fine With Being a ‘Teen Buddha

The Gen X teen dream deftly navigated the patriarchy in the ’80s. And now she’s happy to help Gen Z do.

Sometimes, life really does imitate art. Having evolved from a celluloid teen poster girl of the ’80s with leading roles in The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, and Pretty in Pink to a real-life mother of three teens who also plays a mother of teens on TV and in films, it’s no wonder Molly Ringwald refers to herself jokingly as “teen Buddha.” It’s a phase of life that has perpetually informed her life and work — or so it seems.

On screen, Ringwald played a mom (and grandmother!) in the 2008-launched series The Secret Life of the American Teenager, and now, in her latest film, Netflix’s The Kissing Booth 3 (premiering August 11) — which continues the pre-college chronicles of Elle, Noah, and Lee — she plays a sage mom of teen boys. “It’s a nice feel-good movie, and I think that’s sort of what everybody needs right now,” Ringwald tells Shondaland. She describes the shoot in South Africa as a real-life family affair — she got to bring her own family along, as spending time with her own teens is always a priority. “Being a parent takes a great deal of time and focus,” Ringwald says.

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Outside of her own family, Ringwald also consistently demonstrates a vested interest in the welfare of our young people in general. Which is why she’s recently taken on the role of spokesperson for the MenACWY vaccine campaign, a two-part vaccine that protects teens against bacterial meningitis. “I just want to make sure the parents are aware of the vaccine and get their kids vaccinated before they go off to college,” Ringwald explains, “to make sure that they’re really fully protected against meningococcal disease, which is rare but potentially life-threatening. If they survive it, they can have lifelong disabilities attached to it.”

The cause resonates with Ringwald personally, not just because she has three teens of her own, but because she suffered from a form of meningitis herself when she was college age. “I did have meningitis as a teenager, and I did survive it,” Ringwald says, “but I really wouldn’t wish it upon anyone. I was very, very sick, but very lucky, so when they approached me about being a possible spokesperson, it just really made sense to me. Bacterial meningitis is life-threatening. Viral meningitis [which she had] can be life-threatening as well, but bacterial meningitis progresses very quickly, before parents even know what it is. They can think, ‘Oh, it’s just the flu; it’s just a headache,’ and before they even get the medical care, they can lose their child.”

As much as we can make of Ringwald’s important roles — both real-world and otherwise — in teen life, what you might not know about her own life is that she’s something of a Renaissance woman. Ringwald has been acting for decades, sure, but she’s also a talented singer, having starred in Broadway’s Cabaret in 2001 and the 2006 tour of Sweet Charity, and released a jazz album, Except Sometimes, in 2013. Ringwald is also a published author — she’s written a 2012 novel of linked short stories, When It Happens to You, and a 2011 nonfiction tome of middle-aged encouragement/self-discovery called Getting the Pretty Back.

Impressively, Ringwald’s lifelong love affair with the French language led to yet another gig as a French-to-English translator of novels. She first translated 2017’s Lie With Me, a best-selling novel by Philippe Besson, and a second book-translation project helped Ringwald kill time during lockdown. “It was kind of a perfect thing to do when you’re locked down because it’s very time-consuming, and it takes a lot of focus,” Ringwald explains. “For me, it was a little bit like doing a giant puzzle.”

Translating has become an unexpected sideline gig for Ringwald, whose book editor suggested it. “I thought, well, why not? I’m somebody who really never says no to a challenge,” Ringwald says. “I feel like it really improved my spoken French a lot, and then I found that I actually really liked it. I don’t know how many more I’m going to do, but we’ll see.”

Ringwald’s love of the French language began with her mom’s obsession with Julia Child. “I’ve always been a bit of a Francophile. My mom was a huge Julia Child fan when I was growing up and sort of a voracious cookbook reader and collector — that was really her idol,” Ringwald explains. “We would talk about French cuisine a lot. As I got older, I really became interested in French cinema, you know, Jean-Luc Godard and Truffaut. Then I moved to France, so now I have this very personal connection to it.”

While in France, where Ringwald relocated in the early ’90s, her fluency led to roles in French films like Tous Les Jours Dimanche and Enfants de Salaud.

She also continued to film TV projects in the U.S., like Stephen King’s 1994 miniseries The Stand and Something to Live for: The Alison Gertz Story, and eventually moved back to the States in 1997 to do theater in New York, which kicked off with a starring role in Paula Vogel’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, How I Learned to Drive.

Despite the long and varied road of her career, Ringwald has rarely been able to shake off the films and characters that anointed her as a young starlet so many years ago — and she’s entirely okay with that. After reflecting upon her seminal teen films through a #MeToo lens as a mom while watching them with her eldest daughter, Mathilda, Ringwald wrote a candid, thoughtful essay for The New Yorker about what it was like to have to advocate to John Hughes against gratuitous female exploitation and sexism, as well as trying to digest other films through the “porny ... mist” typical of the time.

“John’s movies convey the anger and fear of isolation that adolescents feel,” Ringwald wrote about reliving moments of cringe with her Gen Z witness, “and seeing that others might feel the same way is a balm for the trauma that teenagers experience. Whether that’s enough to make up for the impropriety of the films is hard to say — even criticizing them makes me feel like I’m divesting a generation of some of its fondest memories, or being ungrateful since they helped to establish my career. And yet embracing them entirely feels hypocritical. And yet, and yet. …

Molly Ringwald in The Breakfast Club.

Universal

“How are we meant to feel about art that we both love and oppose? What if we are in the unusual position of having helped create it? Erasing history is a dangerous road when it comes to art — change is essential, but so too is remembering the past, in all of its transgression and barbarism, so that we may properly gauge how far we have come, and also how far we still need to go.”

This sentiment perhaps articulates how some Gen Xers find themselves struggling to reconcile the level of misogyny they’ve always put up with and perhaps even unwittingly participated in, as well as their thoughts about how it could be more to their Gen Z kids’ advantage to learn from the past rather than erase it.

“As I say in the piece, it’s important to know where we’ve come from so we can know where we’re going,” Ringwald says. “I feel very strongly that it doesn’t make any sense to just cancel things and pretend like they didn’t exist. I also feel like the films that I’ve done with John Hughes still have a lot of value. Breakfast Club really takes kids seriously and takes their voices seriously, and that’s something that I really want to encourage with my kids and with the kids of the coming generations. Of course, it’s very emotional to me because I lived through it. I don’t know if I’m ever able to have complete distance from the film nor can my kids. I mean, they’re always going to be looking at their mom in these situations. Certainly, enough people have talked to them about it — I mean, all of their friends have already seen the movies. So, it’s a little bit more complicated, but I do think that it’s a springboard to talk about important issues, and I think that’s really what matters.”

While carefully considering her past, Ringwald is still keeping an eye toward the future. Next up, Ringwald appears in a new limited-edition Netflix series, which, at time of this article’s publication, had to remain nameless. She’s also been working on a screenplay of her own — an organic amalgamation of her writing and acting talents. Not that she always finds the process easy. “Writing is never easy! I’m very suspicious of anybody who says it is,” she says. “I think writing is always a little bit torturous, but, you know, it’s something that you either have to do or you don’t, and, unfortunately, or fortunately, I’m one of those people that has to write.” She says she’s found the change in format from novel to screenplay enjoyable. “It’s different than writing an essay or writing a book. I’ve certainly been around the film business long enough to know what the format is, so I’m liking it.”

As for continuing to maintain the title of “teen Buddha,” Ringwald posits, “I often say it as a joke, but, on the other hand, I feel that it’s pretty unique. There are not that many people that both parents want to listen to, but then also their kids want to listen to. Except for my own, of course! Every teenager that’s not related to me really takes what I say pretty seriously, so I’m really happy that I have that platform, and that I’m in that position, and that I have the authenticity and the ear of both teenagers and their parents. And who knows? Maybe their grandparents too.”

For more information about meningitis and the MenACWY and MenB vaccines, visit the16vaccine.org.

What Does It Mean to Hold Space for Someone?

Experts explain what the buzz phrase means and how we can incorporate the concept into our lives.

Holding space is heard a lot in relational conversations these days. The concept has always been prevalent in our relationships yet feels like it’s only recently been defined. So, what does holding space even mean? We know it means to be there for someone, but how? What does it look like? And how can we make sure we’re doing it right?

“Holding space for someone can mean different things for different people, but, at a minimum, it means taking the initiative, without any prompting, to be empathic to another person’s situation or circumstance and making time for that individual to do whatever is needed for them, like voicing hurt, anger, or another strong emotion, and receiving whatever they need to communicate in a way that is supportive and nonjudgmental,” explains Rheeda Walker, a clinical psychologist, researcher, professor at the University of Houston, and the author of The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health.

Ultimately, holding space is about making sure the person in your life who needs to be listened to is heard. “Holding space for someone means that you offer them the opportunity to be seen and heard fully,” says Edward Brodkin, an associate professor of psychiatry with tenure at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and the co-author of Missing Each Other: How to Cultivate Meaningful Connections. “It means you are intentional about setting time aside to be fully present with this person and providing them your full and undivided attention.”

Every relationship is unique — just like each person within a relationship is unique. As we move through the world and experience its gifts and punishments, the level of support we need and are capable of giving to others can shift in terms of our own emotional capacity. We could be sitting right next to someone we care about — we might be in conversation with them, even — and we might not really be seeing or hearing them. Our relentless internal monologues can dilute or drown out important messages that need to be heard, received, and addressed with empathy. “So many of us move through our days chronically stressed and preoccupied with our own thoughts and worries, making us unable to really listen to each other for long,” explains Ashley Pallathra, a doctoral candidate, clinical researcher, therapist, and co-author of Missing Each Other: How to Cultivate Meaningful Connections. Pallathra and Brodkin are research partners and collaborated on their answers in this interview.

That’s why the practice of holding space is so important when it comes to deepening and nurturing our relationships. It’s just as much about being present for another as it is about listening to them — even if what they might say makes us uncomfortable at first.

Holding space for someone oftentimes doesn’t involve giving advice.

fizkes//Getty Images

“Holding space is a form of attunement, or the ability to be aware of our own state of mind and body while also tuning in and connecting to another person,” says Brodkin. “Attunement is the ability to connect with someone, not only at a thought level but on a gut and emotional level too. It’s being able to stay in tune and in sync with both the feelings of others and one’s own feelings — not just in a single moment of understanding or empathy but over time, during the unpredictable twists and turns of an interaction.”

This means taking note of not just the words your friend is using, but their mannerisms as well. “Take note of their body language, tone of voice, cadence, and rhythm of speech,” says Pallathra. “Their shifting gaze can tell you which parts of their story are the most challenging for them to share. Taking note of all these cues allows you to follow their lead and meet them where they are. Maybe if they are agitated and restless, you can offer a grounded presence that helps to support and regulate their anxiety. Or, if someone is tearful and in grief, your calm confidence can make them feel secure in their most vulnerable state.”

Both Brodkin and Pallathra say that in order to respond with what they refer to as “calm confidence,” it helps to be cognizant of how you’re feeling as you “hold space.” “While it may seem counterintuitive, one critical element of this practice of being present for someone else requires that you be mindful of your own emotional state of mind,” says Brodkin.

Why? Because if the conversation triggers your issues, your self-awareness can help you curb the urge to chime in with your own two cents and redirect a conversation that is supposed to be about them and what they are saying.

“If you hold space for someone’s sadness, it may mean you don’t immediately give them advice, like providing them with the helpful strategies that led you back to joy at some point in your life,” says Pallathra. “While shared experiences can be comforting, to hold space for someone is a bit more intentionally one-sided, keeping the focus on them.”

This can prove challenging for some, but it is a rewarding practice to get the hang of. “Holding space isn’t easy,” she explains. “It may feel awkward at first, or you may feel uncomfortable, nervous, or shy. It might be difficult since there are many ways that our own emotions, biases, attributions, or past experiences can color how we listen and interpret what someone shares with us,” Pallathra says, recommending the space-holder practice “relaxed awareness” by taking deep, mindful breaths that keep you in the present if things get uncomfortable or triggering.

It’s just as much about being present for another as it is about listening to them — even if what they might say makes us uncomfortable at first.

After all, the practice of honoring another person’s feelings should be a given. “It adds insult to injury to ask for someone to throw water on you if you’re on fire. Honestly, I think an important dimension of holding space is that individuals don’t have to ask for it,” says Walker.

The practice of holding space for others is truly a gift you not only give to the person you’re holding space for but a gift you give yourself in terms of what you may learn, and an enhanced and deeper capacity for connection. “If you’re really able to hold space for someone, it will be memorable to both of you, and your connection is much more likely to grow,” Pallathra says. “Ultimately, it allows for both people in the interaction to feel closer to one another.”

“Holding space takes time and energy, both for the person holding space and the person being held — something that we don’t often have the luxury for in the day-to-day hustle of life,” says Brodkin. “It’s a way of investing in your relationship, nurturing it, and enabling it to grow. In order for the relationship to grow, you need to be able to see them for who they really are. If you can’t, then how can you know them with any depth?”

Not Ready to Let Go of Pandemic Habits? You Aren’t Alone

Experts weigh in on why it’s okay to move forward at your own pace.

There we were, in the midst of enjoying a “hot vax summer” and ditching our sweats for higher hemlines when, all of the sudden, some Covid restrictions were reinstated in the U.S. due to a rise in cases — especially among the unvaccinated.

But pre-delta, when most restrictions had been lifted, many of us struggled to suddenly resume what we regarded as “normal” pre-pandemic life and habits after a year of changed behavior.

Everyone, in their own way, has been reckoning with what they’re ready to get back to doing. A May New York Times article asked if the pandemic habit of skipping daily showers might be worth holding on to. (I never missed a daily shower but, hey — to each their own).

As for me, I still hesitate a little at the prospect of indoor dining, though I’m fully vaxxed — especially when using public bathrooms while maskless. Scenarios like these force me to reckon with this long-established pandemic boundary on the fly, which can trigger feelings of anxiety about reentry.

“This last year has shaken us to our core, globally. There was nowhere that we could hide from our fears,” says Rheeda Walker, PhD, a clinical psychologist, researcher, professor at University of Houston, and the author of The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health. “Anxiety is elevated by (understandable) uncertainty about the future that we fill in with thoughts of the worst possible outcome. It’s the filling-in that can get us in trouble. We say things like ‘I cannot take this anymore’ or ‘I could get sick and die,’” she explains.

Sanam Hafeez, a neuropsychologist based in New York City who teaches at Columbia University, says whether you insist on still eating outdoors or wearing a mask, some or all of the pandemic behaviors we’ve acquired give us more of a sense of agency and control than relying solely on the efficacy of vaccines or dwindling cases of Covid.

“People alive today who did not get Covid may feel like it was those behaviors that kept them from contracting Covid and therefore kept them safe,” she explains. “They may doubt the full ability of the vaccines to do so. It’s easy for people to think, ‘If this happened, then anything is possible, so I will keep protecting myself.’”

It hasn’t helped that we’ve had mixed messages from authorities about what’s safe and what isn’t all along. “Managing what we can control — and not worrying about what we cannot control — is the best way to manage anxiety,” says Walker. “Given conflicting expectations, uncertainty, and the absence of critical levels of vaccinated individuals (70 percent, as determined by experts), the only thing that many can control is whether they wear a mask.”

There’s nothing wrong with continuing to mask up.

Jasenka Arbanas//Getty Images

Walker says as long as our pandemic behaviors aren’t disruptive to daily life, wearing masks and wiping down groceries is fine, but we don’t want to unintentionally escalate our own anxiety, or “awfulize” our circumstances. “It is more helpful to substitute our ‘awfulizing’ mindset with something like ‘The last 17 months have been hard, but I can get through today’ or ‘I will take reasonable precautions not to get sick, but if I do, I can handle it to the best of my ability,’” she says.

Hafeez says holding on to some of our pandemic behaviors is fine during an acclimation period as long you maintain some balance and don’t get too rigid. “Extremes in life are never constructive. If someone feels better having a mask in their purse or doesn’t want to go to a stadium for a ball game right now, that’s fine. Perhaps they just need more time to acclimate than others. If someone is continuing to behave as if it were June of 2020, when hospitals were maxed out with Covid patients, that is a problem because that does not reflect the current reality and level of threat,” she says.

This depends, of course, on the location where you live. Thanks to the delta variant, large swaths of the U.S. are now having Covid surges (these are especially high in unvaccinated communities).

Once the numbers go down again, how can we let go of protective behaviors?

Start with what is easiest for you first and then work your way to the top to the most challenging, says Hafeez. “The first challenges can be sanitizing your hands less, shaking hands with someone, having dinner with someone inside in a restaurant, sharing an elevator not wearing a mask, and then build up to more challenging things like going to a dinner party, going maskless in a crowd of people outside. It’s about exposing yourself little by little to the things you fear until you feel comfortable doing them again and they become second nature the way they were pre-pandemic,” she says.

Of course, it’s critical that you follow the guidance of the CDC and your local public-health department. If cases are rising, hold off on following the above advice.

We asked our readers on social media which post-pandemic behaviors they intend to hang on to. Here’s what they said (masks FTW!).

“I never thought I’d feel so exposed without a mask! I’ll wear one at least in stores, especially during cold and flu season. I’ve really loved not having a cold for over a year!” — Tracy Roberts Mead

“Masking up! Avoiding crowds.” — @justeves9

“I still don’t want people hugging me. One good aspect to come out of this is people seem to respect personal space. I hope it continues.” — @danielleebowers

“Masks during flu season!” — @leilawatamaniuk

“Washing hands and sitting away from ppl 😅. Especially the latter 😂” — @gassytraore

“Continue with anti-bacterial in public, when returning home, keep hands away from eyes/mouth/nose…as always! Distance when possible.” — @localfoodeater Gerry Furth-Sides

“Masks and Anti bac..... forever!! Xx” — @alishialal

It’s okay if you’re not ready to go to big, crowded events. It’s all about taking small steps to normalcy.

nd3000//Getty Images

“Hand sanitizer, avoid large crowds unless I wear a mask.” — @addictedtodramatvshows

“Having known people who were fully vaccinated die of Covid leaves me fearful of the strength and contagiousness of this variant,” says Kambo. “I’ve seen it spread in a week through entire apartment blocks and put them in ultra-lockdown. We live in a large private house, and yet we picked it up from the hospital, and my father died within two weeks. I am still in a lockdown. I don’t know how much the variant has spread, but one thing is certain is that there is no containing it, as the past year has shown. And flights are coming in from India every day.” — Charu Kambo

“I don’t feel comfortable hugging people yet, it’s sad because it’s something I have been missing this whole year. However, I don’t feel comfortable yet, so I will continue avoiding large crowds and maybe just hanging out with the friends that are vaccinated.” — @marelizard

“I’m okay with not shaking hands! And as a New Yorker, I have always lived by the six-foot distance rule! Haha please don’t breathe down my neck while waiting in line haha 😂 self-love! Need my space.” — @michaeljbenzaia

“I’m good with masks for a while. And I do not miss physical face-to-face meetings at all. So Zoom is a keeper.” — @girlfrombim

“Working out at home being coached via Zoom. No more morning traffic, seeking parking space, or mopping up another weightlifter’s sweat off the bench!!!” — @janetcarabelli

“Masks on airplanes. I used to get sick every time I traveled by plane and thought it was unavoidable.” — @hildegaard

The other night, I had dinner inside a restaurant with my friends. It was perfectly enjoyable. The restaurant was meticulous about Covid protocols, and that helped. But it’s summer, and I like eating al fresco, so I’ll hold on to that pandemic habit — not because I need to, but because I want to. As the experts say, a sense of agency can be comforting.

The 1in4 Coalition is Cracking Open Doors for Disabled People in Hollywood

Few roles about disabled people exist in entertainment, and those are rarely played by a disabled actor. The 1in4 Coalition is out to change this.

Though one in four people are disabled in the United States, and 1.3 billion people are disabled around the world, representation of disabled people in the entertainment industry — both on and behind the screen — is sorely lacking. A visit to the Ford Foundation’s 2019 Road Map for Inclusion report confirms the scope of the problem.

“One out every four Americans has a disability. However, far fewer than 25 percent of characters in the media today are depicted with a disability — and those who are, most often are not portrayed by a disabled actor,” the white paper reads. “Moreover, media makers do not seem to be cognizant of disabled people’s absence. Why would they be? The current system is working for them. According to the film website IndieWire, 59 non-disabled actors have earned Oscar nominations for playing disabled characters. History suggests that those nominees have nearly a 50% shot at a win.’”

Of all speaking characters across the top 100 movies of 2019, only 2.3% had a disability, according to a study by the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative. Another study of the top 10 network TV shows for 2018 found just 12% of disabled characters were played by disabled actors, according to The Ruderman White Paper on Authentic Representation in TV, published in 2018.

Our hope is to normalize disability on the spectrum of life experiences so that people aren't afraid to ask for help, or feel the need to hide and suffer in silence...

The inclusion of disabled people offscreen isn’t much better. Only 17.9% of people with a disability were employed in the entire labor force 2020 (29% of people with a disability are employed part-time), according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This sharply contrasts the 68% of Americans without disabilities who were employed in 2020.

But some Hollywood veterans are out to change that with the 1IN4 Coalition. The recently launched advocacy group is determined to bring some much-needed balance to the status quo in Hollywood. It’s the only organization founded by Hollywood changemakers with disabilities for working people in Hollywood with disabilities — the Coalition is run by a powerful, intersectional coalition of working disabled creatives, dedicated to advocacy for long-term institutional change.

Those at the helm of the 1in4 Coalition have experienced their share of discrimination. Sara Fischer, head of production at Shondaland Media and a founding member of 1in4, went to great lengths to keep her Multiple Sclerosis (MS) under wraps while freelancing for fear of losing work, recalling how she was once accused of being drunk by an executive producer she worked with because she sometimes bumps into things, and is unable to walk in a straight line.

“I kept it hidden,” says Fischer. “I was working freelance, going from show to show, and I hid it so I could be hired again. I didn't want to be a working in a man's world with children — the mom everyone already thinks will be busy with school, and home with sick children — and I didn't want to be a mother that had something ‘wrong’ with her.”

Eryn Brown, a talent manager and partner at Management 360 who uses leg braces to walk, was an aspiring literary agent when she graduated Stanford, but after graduation, she found open doors slammed shut as soon as prospective employers saw her disability.

“It was devastating,” says Brown of discrimination she faced. “I really wanted to be a motion picture literary agent and got interviews at all the agencies because of my experience and my Stanford honors degree. But I never got a second interview and I never got hired. One agency, where I knew there was a specific job that I wanted, told me they would never hire me because they couldn't accommodate me — it would take too long for me to go to the bathroom and I wouldn't be able to get coffee or walk a client to the elevator — none of which is true.”

The 1in4 Coalition is creating opportunities in the film industry for people with disabilities.

Courtesy of the 1in4 Coalition

Brown knew she had to do something to affect change when she realized she hadn’t met another person with a visible physical disability in the power structure of Hollywood. “Not one agent manager, lawyer, producer, or executive in 24 years,” she said. “When I realized that was the case, I looked at populations of Americans with disabilities and was so floored by the statistics, juxtaposed with me being the only person. I realized I was part of the problem and I wanted to change that. I didn't want anyone else to ever be the only person, again.”

This inspired Brown to assemble a group of disabled Hollywood creatives and decision-makers to form the 1in4 Coalition. Inspired by successful nonprofits like GLAAD, she quickly gained an understanding of what approach to take in alleviating stigma and effecting a cultural sea change. “We’re starting with jobs, trying to create pipelines and also raise awareness and educate people, because if attitudes are not adjusted and mindsets changed then people who are hired won't be set up to succeed,” she explains.

Both Fischer and Brown say their work with 1in4 opened their eyes to how the discrimination they experienced impacted their own experience as employers and mentors. “I worked in an office for nine-and-a-half years that had a stairway with no access, so I never saw the offices of my partners and colleagues on that floor,” says Brown. “I consciously didn't hire an assistant with a disability or who used a wheelchair because I didn't want them to suffer the indignity of not being able to go service that part of the company. I was in a position of power so people would come down to my office, but I was not mentoring other disabled people, or educating them as assistants or in the mailroom. I realize that not speaking up about that — disabled people are so prone to just swallow it and move on and not speak up — that the cultural message of it being OK to every employee and every client who came in the building then signaled that it’s OK. And it’s not.”

It was a long road, but Fischer is finally in a place where she feels comfortable saying she has MS. “I work for a powerful woman [Shonda Rhimes] who says to think of it as, ‘Look at what I'm doing despite having MS.’ I am succeeding and I should brag about it instead of keeping it hidden,” she says. When she has some difficulty walking on location, Fischer found a silver lining in how this challenge can deepen some of her on-set ties. “If I'm walking on a location scout and it’s hilly, or it's a long walk or whatever, I just say to the closest person to me, ‘Do you mind if I hold your arm?’ and while I walk around with them I find out about their family, or how they started their careers,” she says.

“Our hope is to normalize disability on the spectrum of life experiences so that people aren't afraid to ask for help, or feel the need to hide and suffer in silence when requesting something as simple as, ‘Hey, can I can I use your arm,’” says Brown. “I don't want anyone ever to be one of one, and Sara wants other people who come after her not to have to hide in the way that she did and feel so vulnerable.”

To create a world where art truly imitates life, Brown says the “ultimate aim” of the 1in4 Coalition is to reframe the cultural messaging of disability — and that starts with representation behind the camera as much as it does in front of it.

“An amazing change is happening right now in Hollywood for a lot of underrepresented groups except, just like in history and society, disabled people have been left out of it. In this conversation of heightened awareness of diversity, inclusion, and equity, we want a disability to be a part of that. We are focused on jobs and reframing cultural messaging through increasing accessibility and the authentic storytelling of disabled people in Hollywood,” says Brown.

“If you look back at the history of beauty standards and ‘normal’ — that is a societal construct due to the consistent messaging of a certain type of person who has been in power. What we’ve been spoon-fed is that people want wish-fulfillment in their entertainment. While there's a part of that, what we believe is what people crave most is authentic storytelling and to see their lives in stories as a way to help process what one is going through personally. For stories to be told authentically, you also have to include the people whose stories they are and hire them,” Brown explains.

“Throwing a character in a wheelchair in one episode of one show that lasts a whole season — to check the disability box — doesn’t cut it,” says Fischer. “The normalization of what we see is very important as an organization.”

Brown says a key step in boosting representation and normalization would be the establishment of the role of a set accessibility coordinator — modeled after the role created in recent years of the intimacy coordinator — to provide disabled actors and employees with a safe person to handle accessibility issues, and who will hold production to a higher standard, so those with both visible and invisible disabilities are hired and won’t fear advocating for themselves. Brown, Fischer, and the 1IN4 coalition have created a website to serve as an invaluable resource for Hollywood creatives and employees with disabilities and a database for those looking to hire people with disabilities.

“It’s as simple as adding the ‘A,’” says Fischer. “Every company, every studio, every agency now has DEI departments; for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Add the “A” for accessibility. It trickles down. As Eryn said, it starts with the storytelling, but it also starts with the people who are making the stories that we tell. We have to figure out a way to hire people with disabilities on sets — offer them the job and then let them tell us what they need to do it.”

For more information about how you can get involved with or support the 1in4 Coalition, visit 1in4Coalition.org.

Celebrate Your Dad With a Letter of Appreciation

Writing a letter of appreciation to your dad or father figure can be a powerful way to celebrate him on Father’s Day. Here’s how to get started.

Though much pomp and circumstance surround Mother’s Day (and rightly so), plenty of dads do heavy lifting at home and deserve equal kudos come their day every June.

If you have a loving, nurturing relationship with your dad or the father figure in your life, Father’s Day can be the perfect opportunity to show and tell your love for him with a letter that expresses your feelings. Aside from costing you nothing but the paper you write or print them on, words that express your love and gratitude can be the thoughtful gift of the heart that keeps on giving — and your dad can sit with your words and reread them at will.

If you aren’t the heart-on-your-sleeve type, it can be daunting to put your feelings into words, especially committing them to print. But, for the reader, the gesture can make a huge impact. “The act of somebody sitting down and taking the time to write a letter is very powerful for the audience,” says Jennifer Guttman, a clinical psychologist in New York City and Westport, Connecticut, who specializes in cognitive behavior for adults, children, and families. “Anything that takes time to do is received very powerfully by the person that’s on the receiving end.”

According to a study published in Psychological Science, “expressing gratitude improves well-being for both expressers and recipients.” Researchers conducted three experiments where participants wrote gratitude letters and predicted how surprised, happy, and awkward the lucky letter recipients might feel, then logged in to see how the recipients actually felt after reading these letters. It turns out the writers underestimated the positive response these letters would get. The outcome? “Underestimating the value of prosocial actions, such as expressing gratitude, may keep people from engaging in behavior that would maximize their own — and others’— well-being,” the study’s conclusion reads.

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If you aren’t sure how or where to start writing your letter, we’ve got a few pointers to help you find inspiration.

Start with a rough draft

Even Shakespeare couldn’t execute perfect prose from the jump. Start writing your letter without writing a letter. Instead, make a list of thoughts, in-jokes, or feelings you’d like to convey or include. This way, you can organize your thoughts and weed out the things that might sound better in your head than in print before committing them to the actual letter.

Let his demeanor guide your approach

What’s your dad’s or father figure’s personality like? Is he always dead serious, or does he take few things seriously? More importantly, what’s your style of communication together? When writing your dad or father figure a letter, think of it in terms of having a conversation with him — just don’t change your voice to be better received by him, says Guttman. “It’s important to be true to your authentic self, and your authentic self may be different than your father’s demeanor,” she says. “There has to be a blend between being palatable to their demeanor while also being authentic to yourself.”

Keep your letter short and sweet.

jaminwell//Getty Images

Consider what he’s taught you

Guttman says meditating on the important life lessons your dad or father figure taught you can help dictate the main message or direction of the letter. “Maybe you learned lessons about integrity, or honesty, or loyalty — you can write about how your dad guided you in those ways. Or, story-tell around a time when you thought that your dad demonstrated those qualities, and how you feel like that was useful in your life in terms of trying to emulate them,” Guttman suggests.

Reflect on how you bond, and speak from the heart

Guttman also says reflecting on activities you did to bond with your dad or father figure could help inspire your letter’s message, because those activities are inextricably linked to your dynamic. “The more you use real-life examples of things that remind you of him, the more it will come off as from the heart and the less it will come off as a Hallmark card,” she says, recommending you use those things as a springboard to express the values he’s taught you, like loyalty or integrity.

If words are hard to come by, keep it short but sweet

Don’t worry too much about the process. This isn’t a term paper; it’s an expression of love. Take a casual approach, using the same words you’d use in a conversation. Your most recent texts or messages can also help to remind you of in-jokes and things that resonate with both of you.

Finally, when it comes to letter writing and word count, quality trumps quantity. “A page is plenty long,” Guttman says. “People have information fatigue and run into compassion fatigue, so you don’t want to oversaturate your letter with sweetness because then you’re losing your message. You can save that for next year’s letter.”