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- [00:00]
Monica Lewinsky
Wondery subscribers can listen to Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky early and ad free right now. Join Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Hi everyone. This chat with Anne Lamott was such a treat. As a longtime fan of her writing, I really basically just wanted to shut up and listen. But Ann is the author of the renowned Bird by Bird Operating Instructions and her most recent book of essays, Somehow Thoughts on Love. We talk about grace, perfectionism, and forgiveness. I knew I'd walk away from this conversation having absorbed some new wisdom. I just didn't expect to feel like it was such a great therapy session. Thanks Annie. Anyway, I hope you find something in our chat to connect to and thanks for joining us on Reclaiming. Thank you to our presenting sponsor, Audible. From nail biting suspense to sweeping romance, Audible brings every thrill to life. Discover what lies beyond the edge of your seat today. Sign up for a free 30 day trial at audible.com reclaiming thank you to our exclusive fashion partner, Reformation. I honestly can't tell you how many of their pieces have become my go to favorites. Their sweaters have this incredible way of being both polished and comfortable. And in fact, when we recorded my own Reclaiming story for the podcast, I was wearing the same Reformation sweater as the producer interviewing me, but thankfully we had the Clara on in different colors. Their clothes work for all moments in my life. Whether it's a casual day out or a more formal occasion, I always find myself reaching for my Reformation pieces. Visit reformation.com to see why. They're one of my favorite brands for stylish and sustainable fashion. Welcome to the show, Anne.
- [02:02]
Anne Lamott
Thank you. I'm so happy to be here.
- [02:05]
Monica Lewinsky
I appreciate your time. I you know it's interesting with Bird by Bird that was actually the first book of yours that I read and you have been since then. You have been not only and your work has been in my heart and on my bookshelf for many years. It was one of my best friends from high school, Nisa, who gave me Bird by Bird some point after college or in college and she ended up being one of my friends who had to testify before the grand jury. So in many ways like you have sort of been with me and your wisdom has been there throughout my life in really important ways. And so I just when I tell you how grateful I am to you.
- [02:52]
Anne Lamott
Thank you. And I'm grateful to you for your witness in the world, your courage and your witness.
- [02:59]
Monica Lewinsky
Thank you. Thanks. I think two of the quotes I was Thinking about there's so many. I think someone coined them an lamottisms. So the two that really sort of, I think have meant so much to me are hope is believing that love is bigger than any grim, bleak shit the world can throw at us. And the other is that the launch code for when things go wrong is gratitude, chores, chocolate, nature. And there's one other. Oh, service and bread.
- [03:32]
Anne Lamott
Oh, service. Yeah. Well, actually, about three years ago, I realized that I was completely out of kilter with me and sugar, which I have included in every single book. Chocolate and M and Ms. Specifically have come up frequently as sort of communion elements. But I stopped eating sugar three years ago to just get free of the cravings and the food noise. And so the chocolate isn't quite so much. But service always, always, always. You know, if I've always said to people, if you want to have loving feelings, which is heaven, do loving things, you know, anonymously or not. I don't always do them anonymously, depending on how my self esteem is that day and if I need the credit. But you know, in Texas, they. When I first got sober in 86, I had a mentor named Praise the Lord, Sarah from Texas. And she taught me about porch presents. Do you know what those are?
- [04:31]
Monica Lewinsky
No.
- [04:32]
Anne Lamott
They're present like say your neighbor is not doing well or a friend several towns over is not doing well. You just wrap something up in newspaper. It's not like an official present that they need to write a thank you note for or a thank you text. You just wrap it up in newspaper, maybe a bit of ribbon or string, and you take it over and you leave it on their porch, you know, and you could put your name on it if you want, or so they're not worried. You could put, I love you, Annie. And so service always, always. When things seem cold and the world seems hard and bizarre, as it does right now, you might set out to deliver several porch presents and it changes your whole day. Your whole sense of faith, your whole sense that love really is sovereign here, that goodness and grace bat last.
- [05:24]
Monica Lewinsky
It's interesting you say that because one of the things I really am looking forward to talking to you about is grace. And I've read that sentiment from you and I don't know if this is gonna sound stupid, but I was wondering if you could explain it to me.
- [05:41]
Anne Lamott
Well, grace and love seem to be synonyms. It's the breath of hope and help. I've always described grace as being spiritual. WD40. And it always arrives as sort of water wings when you think you're going under. Or a second wind when you think that there's just no more left. You know, so often, I know you can identify with this. We feel like all the sand has leaked out of the burlap sacks of our beingness, and we just feel like flop floppy old burlap sacks. And grace tiptoes in like a sneaky cat. And we call our cat the Croatian drug lord, because she just tiptoes in, and you're not even aware that she's there. But that's like grace tiptoes in and you get some. You get some energy back. You get a little bit of hope that if you do kind, gentle things, you're gonna be okay. If you call someone who feels even worse than you, you call your most annoying aunt, who is gonna end up saying something that throws you off for the rest of the day, but she's so lonely, and she's just got nothing going. And you've got the outdoors. She can't get outdoors. You've got the outdoors and your friends and your community and your, you know, your dog. And so you call, and that's bringing her grace. And once you're offering grace to other people, then grace abides, you know, Then grace is in the atmosphere again because you provided. It doesn't mean who brings it. It just means that it indwells us again because we offered it. So whether you're being offered grace and love and breath and connection, or whether you're offering connects us umbilically to who we might call Gus, the great universal spirit, which is an acronym for God for in recovery. But so that grace reconnects us to the great universal spirit, to Gus. You know, figure it out is a terrible slogan. You don't need to figure out what it looks like, where it's gonna come from. You just need to say, oh, my prayer is kind of bitter. I say, okay, fine, you know, hit me with your. And then something tiptoes in, like our tiny, furry Croatian drug lord, the kitty.
- [08:12]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah. It's interesting because I think for me, grace always comes in as a whisper in some ways. So when you say tiptoe in the whisper, and I was thinking about it and talking to my producer about it too, and wanting to chat with you about it, and my own personal experience, I think, with grace in some ways was it seemed as if it was something that was only for people who had a kind of religious connection. And I've always been spiritual, but I'm not religious. I'm cultural Jew, and I do a lot of Now I can call it resonance work. Cause people are talking about resonance work, so they get it more. I used to just say my energy work, but it was really sort of doing something in that. In that realm where we were focusing on this idea of grace. And it was. I don't know if this is gonna sound too woo woo for you or everybody whoever listens to this, but it was kind of this really beautiful, ethereal woman who came in who sort of had this. She had just this a calming centeredness. And I felt more connected to grace ever since then. It's definitely been something in my life that I'm incredibly grateful for.
- [09:35]
Anne Lamott
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I've said probably in three or four books that I don't understand at all the mystery of grace. Only that it meets you exactly where you are and then it doesn't leave you there. And I could care less what you believe or what your understanding. Ha ha. Of the mystery is. Just that you are a precious human being and that you're feeling scared or empty or a little bit lost. And so it goes. You. It slips in and it says hi. Whether it's a beautiful, ethereal mother. I had a mentor. I have a mentor, one of them. And she always experienced God and grace, as she called them, the grandmothers. And they were all the, you know, in the black church, which I've been a part of, it's Big Mama, you know, and you really don't mess with Big Mama or challenge Big Mama, but Big Mama always has what you need, which is unconditional love, maybe with a little bit of amusement or rolled eyes, but, you know, Big Mama, the grandmother sitting in back. A couple of them in wheelchairs have what you need. And they are God. Good, orderly direction. You know, grace over drama, great outdoors, goodness. And Gus, I love that it's your. The woman who's been there for you. But I've also really loved the grandmothers when they have come to me, when I have felt in the dark night of the soul or just lonely and sad and a little bit lost. You know, we don't get found unless we've been a little bit lost. And it's so wonderful for someone to find us and say, you know, and to come maybe invisibly sit with us and take our hand.
- [11:25]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah, I mean, it's. That's all sort of at the core of what really interests me about having these conversations about reclaiming in sort of the biggest way is because it is going from lost, have found, you know, having lost something and found it again, whether it's yourself or, you know, I mean, it could be so many things, a myriad of things. But I guess what I also find interesting is that grace also seems to be that sort of breath that allows you to step into seeing compassion for someone else in a difficult situation, which I'm not always very good at. But it feels like on the. On the occasions that my more evolved self. Self is present, that that's kind of some of what's happened. I don't know. It feels as if compassion, like you're so compassionate that it comes naturally to you.
- [12:21]
Anne Lamott
Oh, God, no. I mean, yes and no. And sometimes and mostly, you know. But in recovery, we talk about life on life's terms. And I wrote in Bird by Bird a whole chapter on perfectionism. And I wrote in the new book Somehow the Thoughts on Love a lot about the really pretzelizing disease of perfectionism that a lot of us were raised by and that you really need to do things right or you're flooded with shame, you know, and we call shame. The acronym is should have already mastered everything. Well, how could you have? You know, you're young. You're much younger than I am, and I'm a very young, old woman. And how am I going to have. You know, I'm human. And what I'm here to do is to step into that shape of being fully human that was always waiting for me. But the perfectionism kept me from that and kept me through thinking I needed to do things better, that is to forgive more perfectly. Well, you've read a lot of my books, and it's the hardest work we do, like the radical self love and acceptance, comma, and the breaking through the perfectionism and allowing ourselves to do things the best we can on any given day. Which was not how it was in my family. And my parents were, you know, really great in a lot of ways. They were avant garde. They were liberal, et cetera, and they were intellectuals. They were atheists. And we were expected to get A's and occasionally an A minus. I was 35 and had a baby, an infant on my own with no money. Before somebody mentioned that a B is a really good grade, Monica. It hadn't crossed my mind. And so forgiveness, like a B minus with forgiveness is. And also forgiveness doesn't mean you want to have lunch with the person. It means that you stop hitting. It means that you free the prisoner and the prisoner was you. You reclaim your soul from that struggle and that conversation and you release them, you know, to be however they had to be. But they no longer get to hurt you and the little girl inside you.
- [14:49]
Monica Lewinsky
That it's interesting with the perfectionism. Because I think the way that that shows up for me is, you know, I do a lot of. I think they call it parts therapy of. My therapist, who's a trauma psychiatrist, talks a lot about different versions of ourselves. And that these different versions can be present at the same time, which can be really loud. But one of my versions is. I call her the Little General. And she's, you know, she's like. She's little me. She's in a uniform. She has a clipboard like Julie from the cruise director from, you know, Little Love Boat. And everything has to be perfect. And I think I had that prior to 98, but also from 98. I have this, like a belief or a belief. It's not the word I want, but we'll just stick with that about mistakes being expensive. And so that it's. That. That is that perfectionism. And of course, there's also that that many of us have about. Without the perfectionism, we're not lovable. We're only lovable in our perfect state. So all of those things you're saying are so helpful to hear another way.
- [16:08]
Anne Lamott
Of looking at this. The internal voice is. My husband, whose name is Neil, wrote a book called Better Days, Tame youe Inner Critic. And we got together eight years ago. And he said to me, have you ever. Do you ever hear a voice that tells you that keeps you small and kind of holding your breath and afraid that you might screw up and that fills you with this feeling that something bad is about to happen? And I said, yeah, only like my whole life. And the inner critic arrives early in childhood. And it's there to help you, right? It helps you not run out into the street. It helps you not swim out beyond your ability to stay afloat. It helps you not have everybody in your kindergarten class or on the blacktop shame you or hurt you? Right. It's very valuable when you're a young girl, when you're a child. But I'm 70 and I don't. And when I sit down to write something, I mean, I've written somehow was my 20th book I published on my 70th birthday. So I know how to do this. And when I sit down without help and intervention, the inner critic start, kicks in, and it says, oh, God, talk about beating a dead horse. What do you. You know, you've. You've said, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But. So what Neil taught me to do eight years ago was to Be aware of it. And to just say, oh, it's you. You're trying to help me. I'm very good with traffic safety at this age and swimming. I mean, I don't swim that far out anymore. And I say, and it's trying to help me. I internalized it. And I say to it, thank you for helping me when I was a child, but why don't you go sit in the library? There's really good reading lamps in there, a lot of books, and you can be my ethical consultant. And if anything comes up where I want to check in with you, I'll come get you. But in the meantime, I'm going to try to write an incredibly shitty first draft of this little essay I'm working on. And so for me, it all begins with the awareness that this voice is trying to keep me small and afraid and from making any mistake in any realm at all. I mean, in the checkout line, you know, in anywhere at all. And for me, all I need to do is begin to develop that awareness. Oh, it's you. Thank you for saving me when I was a kid. But why don't you go sit in the living room and read and I've got work to do this morning. This side of the grave. The inner critic for me is gonna manifest as the perfectionism. And when I work with my writing students 100% of the time, what they need to hear about is how we grind down the perfectionism one day at a time. And this inner critic stuff really helps. It's like, thank it, release it, and write an incredibly unreadable, overwrought over long first draft. Because as they say, you can't fix nothing. You can fix bad, but you can't fix nothing. So let's get something really bad on paper, right?
- [19:32]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah. My latest trick for that, cause I'm a very slow writer, is I tell myself I only have to write 500 words. And like, well, 500 words is not that much longer than a tweet. And you know, and so that seems doable to me, but it is. I think it's interesting the way it does grind us all down. And last year with my anti bullying work, I sometimes do these campaigns for Bullying Prevention Month, which is in October. And we did a whole thing really about the inner critic and talking about it as self bullying. Because that's exactly so much of what we do. And so much of what you're saying resonates for me. Even in doing this show, just to sort of get meta for a second, I realized I Guess as we're launching the show and I'm starting to do these conversations, I had this experience of realizing why did I think if it's not an A, it's not valuable, you know? And exactly what you were saying about a B plus is great. A B minus is. It's like it's all passing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [20:47]
Anne Lamott
But, you know, no matter who I talk to, whether it's on faith or writing or being older, everything ultimately comes down to that God damn perfectionism. Because especially women were taught that our value came from just being so perfect, never making a mistake, never being too big, never being too loud, never being too juicy, and never being too bright because it might take the focus off of the men, Right? And then for the men, they had the same thing. But I don't know about being men. And our value came from being a value to everybody else. And if we were valued by more and more important people, that meant we were more precious human beings. That's at any rate how I was taught. And I was like a little flight attendant in my family, you know? And in the 50s and 60s, you massaged the dad's feet when they came home. My role was to make dad want to come home because he and my mom didn't like each other. Right. And the more value I was to my dad as a very small child, 40 and 50 pounds, was to want to make dad come home and then have dad be very pleased to be at home and then to be a wonderful conversationalist with dad's friends. Right? And so the thing is, with grace, to go back to it, the mystery is that we start where we are, where we are. You know, we felt, we got down, we fell on our butts. And grace comes to wherever we are. It doesn't leave us there, it reaches down for us and it pulls us to our feet and it says, of course you had that. That was why they fed you. I got sent to my room when I was a child for being imperfect. Like if I was crying, if I was teary, or if I was having feelings. My mother was English, so you shouldn't have feelings. I went to my room without eating. And of course I developed a lifelong eating disorder. And so it's about the awareness and the acceptance of, of course I have this, but let's start over. And here we are, you and me, who've loved each other for a long time, sight unseen, until right now, and we're having this conversation. You know, the oldest cliche is if you want to heal it, you gotta reveal it. And so here we are because we trust each other and the day is going to be different for having shared mutually where it left us, the perfectionism pretzelized and where we're going to be going forth which is saying to it, no thanks. I'm working on something else. You go to the library. I'll come get you if I need you.
- [23:36]
Monica Lewinsky
Thanks so much to Audible, our presenting sponsor. Craving your next adventure? It's waiting for you on Audible. Dive into heart racing thrills, vast adventures and enchanted worlds, all with just a tap. Each story is carefully crafted to keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last word. Only on Audible will you find exclusive originals that transport you to captivating dimensions. Be in the know with early access to highly anticipated releases and discover chart topping bestsellers that everyone's talking about such as Freda McFadden's the Boyfriend to Ashley Elston's the First Lie Wins. Discover what lies beyond the edge of your seat on Audible. Start your adventure today. Sign up for a free 30 day trial at audible.comreclaiming that's audible.comreclaiming thanks so much to our sponsor Reformation. I want to take a second to talk about one of my favorite clothing brands, Reformation. You've probably seen Reformation on Instagram or at a wedding. They make the best guesting dresses. But if you're like me, you may have thought that's all they do. Well, you're in for a pleasant surprise. Last year they worked with Yours Truly and Vote.org on a campaign to empower voters to take part in the democratic process and show off their workwear. From doing the campaign and getting to know the brand even better. I love their sweaters, blouses, workwear, shoes and bags. But most important, I love how confident I feel in their stuff. Plus it really holds up since they make everything with super high quality sustainable materials. Reformation is also a brand that uses their growing platform to do good in the world and especially in the sustainable fashion space. As they say, being naked is the number one most sustainable option. Reformation is number two. If you're looking for clothes you want to feel great in and feel better about, head to reformation.com I was so curious if you feel comfortable talking about it, the experience you had kind of with, I'm gonna say codependency. I don't know if that's the word you'd use in having to let Sam find his own path with his addiction or into recovery, but I definitely am codependent and it sometimes shows up. As my brother told me the other day, well, you know, you like to come in and tell everyone what the plan is. But the version of that, aside from that being my little general, really, it's about wanting to make sure everybody's okay and that I'm the person who thinks. I think I can fix everything. I think that that's at the core. And I just wondered if you talk a little about what your experience was there in relation to your son, who, you know, you can tell when you talk about him that he's just a sunshine in your life.
- [26:33]
Anne Lamott
Yeah. So what happened was, so I was a single mother without any money at all, and I had to do the best I could. And there are recovery programs, 12 step recovery programs for people like me who are just born to die, black belt codependents who are addicted to people pleasing and who have, let's say, tiny control issues, which it sounds like you possibly have also. And so I got heavily involved with that because I was going down beneath the weight of being a parent with so many, you know, I was this freelance writer, I was a writer. And so Sam was. Has just a beautiful, beautiful, lovely child. His father came into our life when he was 7 and they were very close. And in fact, his father passed a couple years ago. And Sam was the child that John, his father, most relied on with, having had a couple of grown children too. So they had a very precious relationship because of God and grace. But around 14, Sam started getting into drugs and alcohol and he ended up being a meth head and a drunk just like me. I mean, I loved meth too, and cocaine and every. Anything that would change the way I felt. And I had to do this very, very deep dive into what we've been talking about, which was the people pleasing and the perfectionism and the belief that our value came from how other people felt about us and how they valued us. And my son just got very angry and awful. And for seven years I had a really angry teenager and then young adult in my life. And he had a baby at 19, was still using, and I had to do the work. I had to realized at 18, he. He was an adult. And I always felt like, you know, I just wanted to run alongside him with, you know, juice boxes and sunscreen and like, be his higher power. And you realize at some point you're not even your own higher power, let alone somebody else's. When you're a parent, you're in charge. You're very, very responsible for them. But when they're 18, boy are you. You're never their Higher power. You're just their parent. All those years when he was a teenager and in my care, I thought I was supposed to be his friend. And that was making both of us even sicker. And so I went to these 12 step meetings and they said, oh, no, you're not supposed to. His friend or his higher power. You know, the only thing that ever in history ever got another human being sober and clean was the catastrophe of their own consequences and their own decisions. And the willingness comes from the pain. And until this child has created enough pain to want to try something else, nothing you say or do or offer is going to help him get sober. Well, you can't believe that. You just think, I'm going to break the code and I'm going to be able to offer him and help him and stop controlling him. And so Sam had a baby at 19, and I just had to. At some point I had to tell him that he couldn't be on. And the baby and the mom, whose name is Amy, were living with me. And I just had to say to Sam, you can't be on this property anymore if you come here drunk and stoned. And it was a nightmare. And I let him stay in jail one night. And the bail bondsman said I was the first parent in Marin county who had ever refused to bail their kid out. And I did it because I thought that if I bailed him out, he might not survive. And so I did this very tough work, but I did it in the community of other people who had drug addict or mentally ill children who might not survive. And at some point, Sam got fished out of the slew of active drug addiction by the only people could have ever helped him anyway, which was the clean and sober guys in San Francisco where he lived. And one day he called me and he said, I've got a week clean. It's over. Can I come back? And I said, you know, run. You know, run as fast as you can. And he's been clean. It's over ever since, but it's a nightmare. But, you know, they say in recovery, both in for alcoholism and for the codependence, it's not them. Because I'm convinced that the reason I feel so stressed and so crazy and so furious and is because of how they're behaving. And I believe I have excellent ideas for them and for everyone. In fact, I have great ideas for your brother. If they won't listen to your plans, have them call me. That is me left to my own devices, but I'm not Left to my own devices, I have a higher power, and I have a community of people who have the same disease. And the disease of codependence is a fatal and progressive disease, just like alcoholism is. And at some point, the willingness comes from the pain of having made yourself and everybody around you crazy and even worse than they were, and to stop and to just put down the rock and admit defeat and surrender.
- [32:00]
Monica Lewinsky
I think you've talked about. Was it a hook? The hook analogy? A rusty hook?
- [32:06]
Anne Lamott
Yeah. Yeah. Let me remind you of that. It's all those years when Sam was going down the tubes and I couldn't save him or fix him or rescue him. I felt like I had a rusty fish hook in my chest. Embedded in my chest, of course. It was embedded there from early childhood. It was embedded in the chest of my family, who I was trying to save. Also trying to save my mom. My dad drank too much, and he was unfaithful. My mom was very, very heavy. But the rusty fishhook with Sam went from me, and it went into his chest, the other end of it. And I felt that if I unhook, he would drown. I felt that me having this rusty fish hook in me connected to some fishing line that ended up in a rusty fish hook in him was what was keeping him afloat. Right. Because that's the insanity of the disease of codependence. And if you think about it, it's just insane. And at some point, the women in my recovery program helped me jiggle out that rusty fish hook. And the pain is one thing, because there's a. It's a hooked thing, you know, it's got a barb in it. But the worst thing is this terror that the whole. Mom and dad go down. Long dead. They go down, there's no hope of having saved them, and Sam dies. And that's what the disease tells me with alcohol in my recovery. For that, we say that the disease wants me dead, but it'll settle for getting me drunk, you know? And the disease tells you whatever it can think of to keep you using. And so these friends in my higher power. And I got the hook out of my chest, and Sam floated just fine because I was never holding him up to begin with. It was just this old embedded belief that I was the one saving my family.
- [33:57]
Monica Lewinsky
What did you do with the discomfort? Like, how did you move through the discomfort when you dislodged, you know, metaphorically dislodged the hook. Right. I imagine that those first few days. Weeks, Months.
- [34:13]
Anne Lamott
Years.
- [34:15]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah. Like, what did you do. How did you manage that?
- [34:20]
Anne Lamott
Well, I prayed and I wrote Sam's name down and I put it in the God box and I admitted to God that my way wasn't working. And I said, he's all yours. And I wrote it on a tiny bit of paper like I always do. And I folded it up and I put it in my God box and I said, I'm just going to take my sticky fingers off the controls of this spaceship of Sam and I'm going to wait to hear from you now. I gave Sam rehab. I had saved a bunch of money and his father all those years had put some money and I sent him to rehab for nine months. He came back to our little town and he was dealing the next day. But I offered him, you know, and he didn't seem to want it. And I, I went to these 12 step meetings for codependence all the time, every day. There's no shame in going every day when your family is in crisis. And I, I did the best I could. But a lot of that is about the miracle of finding my way back to me when things are really hard. And the miracle which we started talking about. The hugest manifestation I ever see of grace is forgiving someone that I thought I couldn't forgive. Often that's me. But with people that I think I can't, I'm not there yet. And you get a little bit of fresh air on that wound, on that injury they did to you, that injury that maybe you did to them, the injury you did to yourself by. I don't know, I'm just going to say it by eating shit because you were trying to get people to love you and like you and need you. But when Sam was about 7, I said, Sam, you and I are on a shit free diet. We don't take it from anyone and we don't shell it out. And we are as far as possible taking in and giving off health and love and self love and self acceptance and trying to be gentler in our approach to other people.
- [36:27]
Monica Lewinsky
I think that might be the title of your next book, the Shit Free Diet.
- [36:31]
Anne Lamott
The Shit Free Diet.
- [36:32]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting to hear you talk about forgiveness too because my, I felt like my experience with forgiveness that, you know, some of them feel enormous, like really enormous betrayals that I've had in my life and then the times I've had to forgive myself, which feels almost like every day. I think that the self forgiveness and the shame go hand in hand. But my experiences with forgiveness have been I think they've just surprised me because they've happened unintentionally or consciously. It's been unintentional that I've. It's like a consequence of doing the deep healing work on myself that all of a sudden, something that used to bring up the bile about that. I mean, I had this experience with Linda Tripp of, like, okay, how. How do you move past someone having tape recorded 20 hours of your phone calls and, you know, turning it over to prosecutors? And basically, I mean, my own bad choices, but someone forcing those bad choices to have different consequences, you know? And it was like one day after I had started doing all this deep healing work. I don't remember exactly what it was that happened, but I noticed how. Oh, this thing that happened that normally sent me into, like, a spiral of the emotional bile I would feel in that container of anger and hatred for someone, that it was less and one. You know, Then eventually I realized it was gone. And the freeing, like, how grateful I was for that. It just was interesting that it happened unintentionally for me or seemingly unintentionally.
- [38:26]
Anne Lamott
But it might also be that because you have been so loved and revered and honored and just blessed by the love of your community and your new life, you know, your new life in the world as an advocate against bullying and against the trashing of people's souls, that you were finally well enough, you know, for God to push back her sleeves and get in there while you were distracted. I mean, I think it's always for God if I'm doing something else, because otherwise I'm trying to control God too, you know. Cause I think I have such excellent ideas for God. But that's how grace works, is that, you know, when also you kind of surrender and you think, okay, this is as far as I'm gonna get with this and whatnot. And then so you stop trying so hard, you know, and the trying is what kills us. The endless trying. I have this beautiful priest friend named Terry Richie who passed a couple years ago. And he used to say. He used to tell me the point is not to try harder. It's to resist less. You know, and it might have been that you had. Had so much healing and resurrection because of the love in your life that you were available for the healing of that. And also, you know, another. Sometimes grace just looks like exhaust or being tired of that same old stupid shit. And also, you know, one of the things about getting older is that you look at the stuff that you've carried in your metaphoric or psychic airplane for so many years and decades. And by the time you're 40 and 50, you've lost friends and, you know, that have died young. And you might think, wow, my dad used to say, we're all on borrowed time. And it's good to be reminded of that. And you just think like, wow, that has been with me. And it keeps me flying too low and I want to fly a little bit higher. I'm going to throw some of that out of the airplane. And so we do that. We give up what we can. You know, we let go of what we can. I hate when people say, well, let go and let God, you know, And I always just want to stab him in the forehead with a plastic fork because obviously if I could have let go and let God, I would have. But it's like you said earlier, it's incremental. It's little by little. And I do let go as I can, the best I can. And so part of it is that we become. Life just kind of surrenders us. It's not us just trying hard to surrender it all to God or to Grace or to Gus, the great universal spirit. And we get surrendered and it's kind of like all of a sudden we look back and we go, oh, my God, for Pete's sake. It's not nearly as bad as it. My viral load around that is so much lower. And that's what Grace looks like to me. It's like medicine. It's like chemo. And it like healed me when I wasn't even looking. You know, we look back and we notice, wow, that is not getting to me anything like it used to.
- [41:53]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah, yeah, no, and it's grateful for it. You've mentioned Neil a couple times. And I, 51, not married, haven't been married before. So I'm so curious. Like a little bit of girl chat of just. I wanna hear the love story. How did you guys meet? How did you know he was someone you wanted to share your life with that way?
- [42:17]
Anne Lamott
Oh, I'm so happy to talk about this. So I went on to. I had done the Duke, the work that you've done too, where I wasn't frantic to meet anybody. I love being alone. I. I love my emotional acre. And I also, at the same time, would have loved to have found a really healthy soulmate, which I had. I'd had a couple long relationships and I'd never been married. And I joined this website called Our Time, which is an offshoot of Match, and it's for older people. Because I didn't know how to date. I always just kind of knew who the next hostage was, you know. And so I dated. I had some awful dates. I mean, I had this guy with a Beavis and Butthead laugh. I had a number of people who brought me manuscripts, you know. Cause they recognized my face. And I brought people who brought a screenplay. And I just. But I did it for a year. I just decided, you know, in recovery, we say you take the action and then the insight follows, you know, figure it out is a bad slogan, but you take the next right. Action. So I kept having these dates and then I was just kind of done for a while. Then I saw this guy on mat on our time. And I loved how he looked. He was clearly overeducated. I'm a dropout. But he was very spiritual. He had done a lifetime's work in philosophy and spirit, spiritual stuff, which I had too. He wasn't anything in particular. And so we met. But I don't like to eat with people. And I agreed to have coffee.
- [43:59]
Monica Lewinsky
Wait, why not? Why don't you like to eat with people?
- [44:00]
Anne Lamott
Well, because as I said, I've had a lifelong eating disorder. And three years ago, I quit eating coffee. I quit eating sugar, but I hadn't when I met him. But I'm a little bit more anxious than the average bear. And I don't like. I have my best friends and I can eat with them, they can come to my house. But I don't like to eat with strangers. Oh. And I'm just, oh, there's nothing on earth that's more toxic for me than small talk. And so I don't want to be trapped with people for a meal, for like a dinner. But so I agreed to have coffee. And as soon as we met, I kind of groked him. You know, we groked each other. If you've ever read Stranger in a Strange Land, every movie he'd ever seen, I'd seen sometimes twice. Every book he'd ever read, I had read. And so I wanted to have a second coffee with him. And so we had coffee the next day. And we've never. If both of us are in town, we've never been apart ever since. Because. And I'll tell you what my boundary was and what my hope was. I hoped to meet a man who, if they were a woman, I'd want to be best friends with. I'd always been with these men that were good looking or power potent or powerful or charming or funny or whatever, but I'd always secretly Known that if they were a woman, I would want to be friends with them, but I wouldn't want them to be my best girlfriend because we couldn't go to that deep soul place inside of us that you could go with the most, your most trusted women friends. And I have, like, two gay men that are my very, very best friends, too. And when I met Neil, I thought, wow, I might want to spend the rest of my life getting to know him. And it's not. I mean, if you read somehow I describe our fights and what a complete baby I become and how I try to get my own way and how it's life on life's terms. And I don't always get Neil to do what I'm positive would be the best thing for him to do and would make both of us so much happier. And so I write about it, about. And it's gonna happen if we, you know, in our marriage. It's gonna come up that we have bad days. It's gonna come up. We've had some bad weeks and. But back to grace batting last. You know, I put it in the God box. I pray. If I want to heal it, I reveal it. I work up the courage to say those awful, awful words of we need to talk about something. And then I cry. And then he stomps around like all very tall men do. And then somehow the grace, the spiritual WD40 gets in. You know, that WD40 has that long, thin red straw attached to it, and it somehow spritzes us and. And we come through one day at a time, the best we can.
- [46:55]
Monica Lewinsky
Yeah. Well, that is hopeful. That is hopeful.
- [47:02]
Anne Lamott
Yeah.
- [47:03]
Monica Lewinsky
This sort of final question that I asking guests is what is something you have lost that you would like to find or reclaim? And it could be a physical object, a place, a part of your identity.
- [47:17]
Anne Lamott
I lost at a very young age the ability to love myself at whatever size and whatever development stage I was at. My father had contempt for my mother, who was quite overweight. My mother was always on a diet or overeating. And I. I, as I mentioned, got sent to my room whenever I had feelings that were unpleasant for my parents. And we didn't eat, if we got sent to our room, that was the English way. And I developed so many weird thoughts about myself as a woman because my father loved thin women, long, thin, buxom women. And. And when in the 50s and early 60s, before there was the women's movement, it was okay for men to comment on a girl's body. And I can remember being a Little girl Monica, you know, being seven, I was really skinny being seven and eight and people saying, don't you feed her to my mom? And my mom having to laugh and pretend it was funny because my natural body was so thin. And then I can remember men saying to me, oh, and I'd be a child. Doesn't she have bedroom eyes? Because they had really big like you do. I had really big green eyes. Bedroom eyes to a nine or ten year old girl. Right. And it was scary when they say it. There was that charge because it meant, you know what it meant. And so, and so my parents had to laugh when they said it because everybody was addicted to the people pleasing. Then I got to. Then I started developing at 13 and 14, I got really overweight and I was never okay. I was either trying to get thinner or I was secretly binging. And in recovery, I've been cleanness over 38 years. Oh my God. And I've been in recovery and I got into healing. I was bulimic for years and I've been anorexic, but not for a few decades. But when I was sober a year, I got into the healing around the bulimia and the hatred of my body and the fear of my body that I might gain. Oh my God, two pounds, you know, and that if the scale said I was two pounds up, it would be like having Marjorie Taylor Greene judge me as my worth as a human being. Right? Yeah. And it's.
- [50:02]
Monica Lewinsky
I know all of this. Not I know it, but I mean, I know it from my own experiences in my own life too. So.
- [50:08]
Anne Lamott
And it's a long road back. And so what I am finding one day at a time doing the recovery work around my body and the scale and dieting and binging is this radical self love and acceptance for this one body that God gave me that I am only putting, well, let's say 95% of the time, delicious healthy food into and that I am honoring and that I am tending to the way that I would tend to a child, you know, because I always had kind of big thighs relative to my body. And I wrote a piece about having this moment of, of radical clarity in a swimsuit on a beach with these teenagers looking at my body. And I was about 40 and my thighs were not, you know, quite what I had hoped, let's say, and coming to just like all but raise my fist in victory because I felt okay. Wow. And what I lost was that feeling that I am okay. What you think about my body has nothing to do with what my body and me are about. So that's what I love actively that I'm being restored to that acceptance. You know what I did this morning after I took my shower? I rubbed this delicious lotion into these thighs of mine and I thanked my feet for how far they have brought me.
- [51:52]
Monica Lewinsky
Thank you so much, Ann. This has just meant so much to me and I'm so grateful to have gotten to chat with you.
- [52:02]
Anne Lamott
You are so welcome.
- [52:04]
Monica Lewinsky
Monica's time and the wisdom you bring in the world forever.
- [52:07]
Anne Lamott
I am at your service. You have. I'm just so glad that we get to be on this journey together. I really am. I really appreciate and love you, Monica.
- [52:18]
Monica Lewinsky
Oh, right back at you, Anne. Thank you so much. Okay, see you soon.
- [52:23]
Anne Lamott
Okay.
- [52:24]
Monica Lewinsky
Lots of love. Okay, bye.
- [52:26]
Anne Lamott
Bye.
- [52:28]
Monica Lewinsky
Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky is hosted and executive produced by me, Monica Lewinsky production services by WTF Media Studios. Our theme song is by Ben Benjamin and our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez. Our story producer is Elna Baker and our senior producer is Megan Donis for Wondery. Eliza Mills is the developer producer. Our managing producer is Taylor Sniffen. Nick Ryan is our senior managing producer. Senior producers are Candace Manriquez Wren and Emily Feldbrake. And executive producers are Dave Easton, Erin o' Flaherty and Marshall Louie.