Tell Me Something True is for people who want to fall in love with the mystery of life again. Practical, fun, and provocative conversations that use the lenses of psychology, philosophy, creativity, science, and spirituality to help us discover the surprising things that make life meaningful. Laura McKowen, the host, is the best-selling author of We Are The Luckiest, a "raw, deep and hopeful" memoir. Laura brings hard-won life experience, a searing curiosity, and deep passion for others to e ...
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As we announced last week, this is the last episode of Tell Me Something True. Today, Laura walks through why we made this decision (it’s all fine, nothing is wrong!) A thing worth celebrating is that, over 67 episodes, nearly a quarter of a million adventurous, curious people said YES and pressed play over 600,000 times. Holy cow…that’s A LOT!!!!!…
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Melissa Urban is one of the few people we’ve asked back to the show and there’s a reason for that. She’s got such a unique, magnetic energy and this strong, no-nonsense, yet compassionate way of showing up in the world. And now, she’s written The Book of Boundaries: Set the Limits That Will Set You Free and, can we get a hell yes? We need this in o…
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Jennifer Moss on The Burnout Epidemic
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Tell the truth - how many times does the phrase “I’m so burned out?” show up around you? Burnout is both more than we think it is, and much more insidious. Burnout has been defined by the World Health Organization as a workplace-centered phenomenon, and they calculate that it’s killing +750,000 people a year! Jennifer Moss has dedicated a large par…
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Ali Shapiro arrives with a mountain of good news! We don't have to evade our relationship with food. We don't have to be ruled by stories that shame us and keep us stuck. Most importantly, those stories don't have to contribute to hating ourselves. Ali is the creator of the Truce with Food Program, which combines how we think - and feel about - foo…
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On TMST we’ve been open about our conflicted relationship with technology and social media. And you’ve heard many of our guests recount their mixed feelings, as well. Today’s guest takes all of that and turns it up to 11. In 2018, Larissa May (who goes by Larz) spoke out about her struggle with depression on social media. The post and hashtag that …
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We don’t like to admit it, but there are a hell of a lot of scripts that run us. They’re the “shoulds” - ideas so woven into our lives that we don’t even know they exist. For virtually all women - the scripts around motherhood are the most pernicious. They load us down with self-doubt, bake in unattainable expectations, and set us up for a life whe…
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Jeff & Debra Jay on Intervention & Family Recovery
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It’s a familiar, but true, saying: recovery is about breaking cycles. Jeff and Debra Jay know this better than most. Together, they’ve been doing pioneering work in the areas of family recovery and intervention for decades. Their book, Love First is the essential work on the family recovery dynamic. It’s now in its third printing and it’s a powerfu…
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Anne Helen Petersen on Burnout and The Myth of “Having it All
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“Rachel Hollis is a manifestation of a larger ideology about women's place in society. That if you just try hard enough, all of these structural issues that are making your life really, really hard can be solved if you just wash your face. .” - Anne Helen Petersen Anne Helen Petersen is one of our most essential cultural observers. Her work at Buzz…
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It’s great to love books and the written word and seeing new worlds open up through a writer’s work is thrilling. We know our lives can be transformed through a good book. Friends - meet Branden Collinsworth, someone who has taken those ideas, and turned them up to eleven. Branden Collinsworth is a Nike Master Trainer, Yoga Teacher, Human Performan…
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People tell Mary Laura Philpott that her writing is like having a conversation with her. We can say that is 100% true. She’s an utterly captivating writer AND conversationalist. You may have first heard about Mary Laura Philpott through her first book, “I Miss You When I Blink.” Her new memoir in essays is “Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explo…
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Being human means sometimes we feel deeply alone. Cut off from other people. For most people, it passes quickly. For others, especially those who also suffer from addiction, that feeling of isolation is persistent. It’s a low hum that follows a person everywhere. Part of the reason why some drink is to numb that feeling and turn down the voices tha…
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HANDS UP if knowing what you want, and standing up for it, has not always been welcome. Imagine being hit with that - and you’re America’s top-selling female group of all time! Marissa Moss has a lot to say about powerful women, making their own rules, and finding solidarity when the world is pitting them against each other. This TMST is a conversa…
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When was the last time you got real about jealousy or envy? In this episode, Laura brings the heat, digging into how jealousy and envy have shown up in her life. She explores the ways they’re different and the ways we use them to blow ourselves up. This is no trail of tears, though! We’ll take a look at what social psychologists and researchers hav…
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Dr. Kate Pate on Vets, First Responders and why “Being Triggered” is More Complicated Than You Think
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We are never more than one connection away from a veteran or first responder. They are the ULTRA helping professions. During the pandemic, many were the first line of protection and care. Over 20 years of The Global War of Terror, many have experienced repeated deployments with an anodyne “thank you for your service” and a bad country music song as…
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Rollercoasters are a fun diversion, but they’re no way to live. That’s why the whipsaw experience of being on an emotional rollercoaster is one of the things folks are most happy to see leave their life. Those radical highs and lows aren’t confined to the times when people are using - they often extend well into sobriety. Usually driven by hyper-se…
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Brianna Madia’s journey as a vagabond lifestyle influencer was extraordinary. It was her, her van, her dogs and, for a time, her husband. And according to her it was really good. Until it wasn’t. And then, it got really scary.Brianna takes us behind the curtain of the IG influencer life - and then we go 100 levels deeper. While the world was fixed …
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Kelly McDaniel on Mother Hunger
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An insatiable need for romantic attention and love. Periods of overeating or starving. Using alcohol, food, or over-working to numb out. A pattern of unstable and painful relationships. Does this sound painfully familiar? Kelly McDaniel is a trauma therapist who saw these traits over and over in clients who felt trapped in cycles of harmful behavio…
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What could be heavier than the secrets we carry? The constant vigilance and concealment can be exhausting. But can you tell the difference between what’s a secret and what’s being kept private? Michael Slepian does and he can back it up with research. Slepian studies the psychology of secrets and, as he’s discovered, the real problem with keeping a…
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Every day, every hour, every minute, there’s a request. More time. More attention. More engagement. More space in our brains and our lives. Laura feels the pinch like everyone and she frequently fields questions on how she allocates her time, attention and life passion. In this solo episode, Laura shares how she found inspiration in the way the com…
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Everyone has a day, or week, go sideways. What happens when life hits the blender - and it goes on for years?Shauna Niequist has a lot to offer because she’s lived it. Her latest book, I Guess I Haven’t Learned That Yet, covers a time in her life when Every. Single. Thing. was, as she says, tossed in the blender. Family. Vocation. Faith. Sense of b…
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Jodi White on Love Addiction, Mother Hunger and Codependency
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Let’s be real. The words “Love Addiction” can trigger a massive eye roll. Jodi White gets it and she’s here to show us that it’s real and a lot more common than we think. Jodi draws on the groundbreaking work of Pia Mellody and builds on it in a way that is comforting, clarifying and hopeful. Jodi is open about the ways SHE’s struggled in this area…
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When Ana Marie Cox said, “I can’t wring self-worth out of the universe,” we felt that hit like a mountain.Ana spent the better part of two decades as a political columnist and culture critic. She started the political blog Wonkette in 2004, and worked at outlets like The New York Times, Time magazine, GQ, Air America, and The Guardian. After living…
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Wes Hurt is the founder of Sparkling Yerba Mate CLEAN Cause, a beverage company donating 50% of its net profits to funding sober living scholarships; Jason Isbell is a Grammy Award-Winning singer/songwriter; and Jan Rader, Director of the Mayor’s Council on Public Health & Drug Control Policy for Huntington, WV, who was also named to TIME Magazine’…
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Laura mines more gold from the TMST community this week with a MUCH requested topic: Imposter Syndrome. Hands up - who doesn’t face some version of this, and would we want to hang with someone who doesn’t??? In this episode, Laura leaves us with three key ideas to help us deal with Imposter Syndrome and we close the show with a note for people who …
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Mishka Shubaly on Getting Through Your Worst Year
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What do you do when a friend tells you he’s just gone through his worst year?Well, when he’s a brave and bright light in the world, and he’s Mishka Shubaly, you invite him on the podcast! Seriously, Mishka Shubaly is a brilliant writer, a profound soul and the owner of one of the darkest senses of humor EVER. As he says early in our conversation, “…
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Peter Rollins on Grappling with Uncertainty
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Peter Rollins is back! Our first return guest to TMST, we asked Peter back to talk about how we contend with uncertainty (e.g. life). If you don’t know Peter, he’s an Irish theologian, philosopher, author, and speaker who got an international reputation for turning traditional ideas of religion on their head.As is typical with Peter, the conversati…
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When the world is screaming “It’s all black or white,” how do we remember that we mostly live in the grey area?Brenda Davies might be onto something. She’s the author of “On Her Knees: Memoir of a Prayerful Jezebel,” which chronicles the pendulum swing experienced as she left Christian purity culture and then embraced LA’s hook-up culture. She’s al…
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What if there’s more to our collective struggle to FOCUS than we’ve considered? And what do we have to do to regain what we’ve lost?Those are the questions Johann Hari is exploring in his new book, “Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention - and How To Think Deeply Again.” It’s a surprising look at how our struggle with attention isn’t just about …
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AMA with Laura on Friendship
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“Nothing is personal” is easy to say, but our adult friendships can truly test our ability to hold on to that vital lesson from Don MIguel Ruiz.In this AMA Laura takes on two different questions from listeners about how we navigate adult friendships. How do things change when one friend gets sober? How do we navigate the reality that we can grow ap…
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What if one of the most powerful things we can say is, “I don’t know?”Sharon McMahon came to our attention through her hugely popular @sharonsaysso Instragram account. Sharon’s ability to share clear, relevant and non-partisan facts about the US government and democracy with her followers has built one of the few sane, healthy communities on the in…
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This week, we’re revisiting one of our most discussed and asked-for topics: BURNOUT. Caroline Dooner’s first book, The F*ck It Diet: Eating Should Be Easy is a massively popular and influential book for good reason. It’s that helped so many of us reframe diet culture and to finally drop the 10,000 lb gorilla that is our obsession with food.After se…
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How many of us have the courage to face the friction that comes when we need to grow, but people want us to stay the same? You’ve built an audience as a “truth-teller,” but then what if your understanding of the truth changes?When you’re an author, artist and performer like Jill Louise Busby, creative growth is essential, but the community that fir…
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The TMST community takes center stage again as Laura tackles some universal questions on facing down shame and regret. In this episode, we explore the ways our mistakes, our successes, our disappointments and our growth can’t be compartmentalized if we’re going to be free. It’s a VERY hopeful and energizing AMA. We’re continually blown away by the …
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This week, we asked a big question... what can Timothée Chalamet’s character in “Don’t Look Up” teach us about finding faith in tough times?No, seriously… we dig into it in a real way and Nadia Bolz-Weber is exactly the person to explore what we can take away from what she admits is a “deeply cynical movie.”Nadia is an ordained Lutheran pastor, the…
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Janet was right. It’s all about CONTROL.Amanda White has some wise, and life-earned, things to say about the illusion of control. If we’re honest, our desire for control is inseparable from all of our motivations, and can lead us to extreme places. Amanda is a therapist, a woman in recovery from both disordered eating and alcohol, and she’s the aut…
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How would you approach change if you saw it as BOTH a practice AND mindset?Katy Milkman has researched this and it’s clear she’s on to something. In today’s conversation and in her bestselling book, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be, Katy Milkman shows us how change is BOTH a combination of acquiring p…
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We promised more AMAs, so let’s go! This week, Laura answers three questions that interlace around the topics of infidelity, trust, intimacy, divorce, addiction, forgiveness, and the complex reality of life and love.We are so grateful for the courage and trust our listeners place in us when they call in and share themselves in such generous ways. T…
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Purity culture isn’t a thing that happens to OTHER people. The tendrils of sexual repression have insinuated themselves into all of our lives. In the second half of our conversation with Jamie Lee Finch, we see how evangelical Christianity’s restrictive approach to sex, sex education and owning your body and desire isn’t that different from what so…
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What if your body was your closest friend instead of…whatever it is now?Jamie Lee Finch is a wise guide for so many women who are asking - what would a healthy relationship with my body look like? In this conversation we go deep into why we need to relate to our bodies like A PERSON and the healing that can come as a result. Virtually NONE of us ar…
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Our final episode for 2021 is a harvest of hard-earned wisdom to launch us into 2022. You’ll hear from Peter Rollins, Annie Grace, Rob Bell, yung pueblo, and africa brooke. They share so much on how to slow down, trust ourselves, get our focus on what we truly need and, most of all, have fun while doing it!We are SO GRATEFUL for all of the support …
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What if you could step off the rollercoaster of emotional highs and lows? What if the pain that comes with taking everything personally could taper and largely disappear?THAT’S the promise of emotional sobriety, and Veronica Valli is one of the most steady, sane, helpful voices when it comes to that murky topic. Veronica is a woman in long-term rec…
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John Richards is the morning drive host at KEXP, Seattle. For decades, he’s been the soundtrack to the lives of people starting their day, handpicking every record and building a global fanbase. The thing to understand about John is that he’s on a mission than transcends playing cool tunes. John and KEXP are using their collective platform to carry…
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Sharon Adams on Emotional Intelligence
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What would life be like if we could identify ALL the emotions happening in and around us and have empathy for it all?Sharon Adams has a few ideas on how we can get there. Sharon’s a master trainer and facilitator in workshops around emotional intelligence and conflict resolution. She’s also someone who has profound insight into the lived reality of…
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What if life wasn’t an endless series of zero-sum, high stakes experiences? Leonard Perlmutter is asking these and many other questions, and he's doing it in a lovely, humble way. He’s a meditation teacher, an author, and has a unique ability to make complicated things clear. He founded the American Meditation Institute in Albany, New York in 1996,…
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Laura offers two poems today: one of her favorites, one of her own. Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who are celebrating. And to all, a big heap of gratitude and mystery from all of us at Tell Me Something True.The Sleepless ones by Lawrence Tirnauer https://drkarinlawson.com/the-sleepless-ones/You could be soft instead by Laura McKowen https://w…
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This week, we turned it over to you! In the first Ask Me Anything (AMA) episode, Laura answers four questions from our listener community. She talks about why she does this show, whether or not she’d ever do another sobriety-specific show, how to choose creative projects, the truths and fallacies of the whole “you must love yourself before you can …
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What would you do if someone said you could “find comfort for the most vexing questions in our digitized lives in the wisdom of 19th c. European philosophers”?Sara Kuburic has taken up that challenge. Through her online persona as The Millennial Therapist and in private practice, Sara’s training as an existential psychotherapist integrates modern m…
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What if the hard thing you didn’t want to share was also the thing that made you most human and brought people closer? Anna Sale knows A LOT about this. Anna is the creator of Death, Sex & Money, a podcast about “the things we think about a lot and need to talk about more.” She is also the author of Let’s Talk About Hard Things, which is an invitat…
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When was the last time an artist took you by the hand and said, “Here, let me show you how the world looks through my eyes”?Frank X. Walker is Kentucky’s former poet laureate and one of the co-founders of the Affrilachian Poets - a grassroots group of poets of color living in the Appalachian region. Thirty years after their founding, the Affrilachi…
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Jane Clapp on Escaping the Social Media Labyrinth
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What if social media scrolling was the latest version of the mythical Labyrinth? An elaborate, confusing structure intended to keep the Minotaur (you) from escaping.Jane Clapp is a Toronto-based Jungian Somatics teacher who left social media because she knew it was making her sick. Her answer to the question “WHY is it making me sick?” tapped the d…
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