Last week we recommended a really informative podcast on how to deal with burnout. A very human book we also loved last year was Lori Gottlieb's Maybe You Should Talk to Someone.

It may sound like a run-of-the-mill self-help book, but it's written more as a moving story with regular insights throughout. Lori is a psychologist who brings us deep into the lives of a self-absorbed Hollywood producer, a young newlywed diagnosed with a terminal illness, and a senior citizen threatening to end her own life if nothing gets better.

This does not sound like a fun read, especially right now, but Lori's style is funny, incisive and relatable. If the book was a sponge, you could wring the humanity right out of it. Here are some select insights from the book.

💥 "In therapy, we aim for self-compassion (am I human?) versus self-esteem (a judgement: am I good or bad?)

💥 "The opposite of depression isn't happiness, it's vitality."

💥 "Every day is another loss of something she took for granted until it was gone, like what happens to the couples I see who take each other for granted and then miss each other when the marriage seems to be dying."

💥 "People wanted a speedy solution to their problems, but what if their moods had been driven down in the first place by the hurried pace of their lives [irony]."

💥 "People often mistake numbness for nothingness, but numbness isn’t the absence of feelings; it’s a response to being overwhelmed by too many feelings."

💥 "In idiot compassion, you avoid rocking the boat to spare people’s feelings, even though the boat needs rocking and your compassion ends up being more harmful than your honesty. People do this with teenagers, spouses, addicts, even themselves. Its opposite is wise compassion, which means caring about the person but also giving him or her a loving truth bomb when needed."

💥 "We can’t have change without loss, which is why so often people say they want change but nonetheless stay exactly the same." She also goes on to mention that getting clarity is not enough. Good therapists will also give a patient challenges to do so that they can act on learned insights.

There's also a great podcast episode with Lori on Peter Attia's podcast The Drive. Check that out here.

Kevin & Victoria