Episode 18: Transcript
Doug: So what's the deal? When last we checked in with our bride to be, her brain had essentially dislodged itself from its moorings and you kind of short-circuited.
Magda: It was just too much being in charge of too many decisions and all that kind of stuff. But I'm back. I had a good day, tapped out. I read the Jill Duggar memoir and it was anthropological for me.
Doug: Right. And you're kind of developing a weird obsession with this family.
Magda: I don't know if I'm developing a weird obsession with the family, like the shiny happy people thing was very fascinating to me. I don't know that it's an obsession with that specific family, but with the whole IBLP and the Bill Gothard, like that whole
Doug: Right, and you've mentioned them during about four or five episodes of this podcast.
Magda: I know. They're a cult, and they're so pervasive. I mean, millions of people in this country are in this cult, and I had no idea. I mean, I just grew up in a mainline Protestant normal church that wanted me to be a pastor and stuff like that, right? I didn't know these people existed. I thought it was something from the 1800s.
Doug: See, what denotes a cult, essentially, if a bunch of people gather and believe something the same?
Magda: Well, okay, so what I was always taught was that a cult discourages you from asking questions and has all the answers. A system of thinking or religion that's not a cult encourages you to ask questions and find the answers yourself through exploration and study and doesn't just give you pat answers to shut you down. So if you're allowing answers, I guess that's what distinguishes you from a cult.
Doug: But if you expel people who are different, that's kind of the same thing as a cult, isn't it?
Magda: I don't know. I mean, I think, so there's this whole theory of bounded sets and centered sets, which is present in a lot of different disciplines, but it's present in economics, sociology, all kinds of stuff. But it also, I think, is a useful way of looking at religions, sort of like ethnic groups, any kind of system of thought like that. So a bounded set is there's a boundary. And everybody who fulfills whatever the requirement is, whether it's something that's hardwired, or beliefs or behaviors or whatever is on the inside of the set. And everybody who doesn't fulfill that is on the outside of the set. So an example of a bounded set religion or community would be Judaism, because either you're Jewish or you're not Jewish.
Doug: Yeah, or you're George Santos, who's Jew-ISH.
Magda: Well, yeah, no, George Santos is not Jewish. But I mean, the thing is, like, you couldn't make a bounded set out of anything. Bounded sets are not always bad. But the issue with a bounded set is that if people don't choose to be in that bounded set, and they find themselves in that bounded set, and the things you have to do to stay in that bounded set are not things that they want to do, then that's an issue.
Doug: Because it's very binary. That's the cult because the boundary is also impermeable on the way out, then you got a problem.
Magda: Yes, exactly. The whole Goldman Sachs thing, like they say, you only leave Goldman once.
Doug: It's The Firm. It’s John Grisham. Look it up, kids!
Magda: These, you know, so are these cults, right? Like, you have to perform in a certain way, you have to believe in a certain way, you have to dress in a certain way, all that kind of stuff, even the way they talk, like, you know, there's that whole, like, women are supposed to have baby talk. That's part of being a bounded set.
Doug: Women are supposed to have baby talk?
Magda: Oh, yeah, they're supposed to be sweet all the time and talk like this and be so gentle and kind.
Doug: I have never heard you speak like that once.
Magda: Right, because I'm not in a cult.
Doug: That was jarring.
Magda: It's horrifying, isn't it? So anyway, the opposite of a bounded set is a centered set where there's one center core idea, principle, concept, something like that. And everybody's either moving toward that, or moving away from it. And you belong if you're moving toward it wherever you are on your journey. If you go off the path, you can always course correct and go and turn yourself back toward the center. And so those communities tend to be less sticky, right? Because it's not as clear. It's not binary. You're not either in or out. But on the other hand, they also are very cohesive and they're also very accepting. An example of that would be calling yourself a runner. And when they say runners run, that doesn't mean runners run every day. That doesn't mean runners run fast. It doesn't mean runners run a certain distance. It's just do you go out and run ever? Then you're a runner.
Doug: Yeah, it sounds like you're talking about writers too, but for a different...
Magda: Yeah, exactly, right? Writers write. So those would be examples of centered set communities and how anybody gets there is their own journey and we can all be on our own separate journeys together.
Doug: Well, thank you for turning this intro into a TED Talk. That's awesome. But speaking of, let's talk about the central concept and the cult of radiance that we talked about with Karen Walrond. I was really glad that she was able to come on and talk about her new book, Radiant Rebellion, because she's always had this radiance since I've known her. She has an ease that she projects, which was especially interesting to watch when Hurricane Harvey essentially just flooded her house out. When she was going through that, she projected a bit of calm, even though for sure she was just in complete turmoil while she was running for higher ground and watching her bottom floor flood. But at the same time, that launched this new commitment to live more vividly. And I think it's been evident in everything she's written, and everything she's talked about. And as I mentioned, I thought, you know, you get from Lightmaker's Manifesto to Radiant Rebellion, I just find to the extent that I'm a synesthete, which I'm not, I just associate radiance with color and light with monochrome.
Magda: You have a problem with monochrome, I mean, people are going to hear in this episode that you're very opposed to black clothing.
Doug: No no no!
Magda: And I would like to say for anybody out there listening who wears all black all the time, I think that's fine. And you know who else always wore black? Johnny Cash.
Doug: Right, but he wasn't wearing it to disappear. He wasn't wearing it to slim himself.
Magda: Right, but most people aren't wearing it to disappear either.
Doug: There are people who express themselves in black, and there are people who hide themselves in black, and you want to be the former.
Magda: Well, okay. I think that's fair. My friend Becky's stepfather, Peter Coy, once famously said, “New Yorkers only wear all black because they can't find anything darker.”
Doug: New York is a vibe, you know, you wear black, you look down, you avoid urine puddles, I get it.
Magda: I think it's important to know that Karen is one of those people who is positive, but she's sort of a, I'm going to say it's like hard one, practical positivity. She's a person I think who chooses to see the good in things that she wouldn't have to. And I don't think of her as a person who's doing any kind of spiritual bypassing or is just putting a happy face on things like she's not pretending. And she's not somebody who's untouched. I think she's just a very practical person who has decided that she wants to turn her face to the sun and be positive when she can. And I appreciate that.
Doug: Yeah, and she's a recovering lawyer, too. So she's seen some shit. All right, so it's departure day. How are you feeling?
Magda: Well, it's not departure day. Oh, it is departure day! So it's departure day when you're listening to this.
Doug: Do I have to explain this to you still, how this works? Listeners, we're recording these out of sync. You should know this. I'm not recording this while she's in the car on the way to Minnesota.
Magda: Well, we're not driving. We're flying. We each have a carry-on for the trip. So that's good. So I can bring my wedding dress and the carry-on.
Doug: How do you pack a wedding dress on a carry-on? That's gotta be an issue.
Magda: I've been flying back and forth to Mike's h ouse for the last year with no carry-on. Having a carry-on feels luxurious. So we'll see how much I can actually fit into it. If we need to pay at the last minute to have a checked bag, I don't know.
Doug: Right, but it's something nice that you want to preserve its niceness. How do you do it?
Magda: Um, I don't know. I don't really know. It'll be fine, I guess.
Doug: Well, we'll find out on Sunday for sure. So have a very safe trip and have a very stress-free couple of days. I'll see you Friday. And next time we hit the airwaves, you'll be married!
Magda: I know, it'll be exciting!
Doug: Congratulations. I'm sorry, wait, you're supposed to say to the bride, “best wishes.” You say congratulations to the groom. So best wishes, my dear.
Magda: Thank you.
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Doug: I really wanted to look back on the conversation we had. You were talking about the way you present yourself to the world and you were lamenting the fact that it's all black all the time.
Karen: Yeah, yeah.
Doug: And I think there's a tipping point in a lot of people's lives, not just women. I mean, dudes bring out the Hawaiian shirts or whatever, but I do think that women have many more options, you know, they can put on a magenta lip, they can bring out Wendy's tunics…
Karen: Can we just acknowledge the “magenta lip” comment that you just did? That was well done. I'm impressed with that. You know, magenta lip, Doug. And that's that's impressive.
Doug: I appreciate that. I mean, to a guy, it's just an adjective and a noun, but I'll take it. But there's a toggle point for you when you started wearing The Vivid. And what was that experience like when that feeling to just express yourself in a much more florid way overtook you?
Karen: Yeah, it's funny. Did we have that conversation when I was still wearing all black all the time?
Doug: I remember asking, and again, this is revisionist history, it sounds like, but I remember saying, why the hell aren't you wearing turquoise?
Karen: Oh, how funny. Yeah, that's funny. Well, honestly a lot of it, I believe had to do with losing our house in Harvey. We lost everything in Harvey, Hurricane Harvey We lost just everything, cars, the house, the clothes, everything. And so I had to rebuild a wardrobe. So there was a partially a sort of a necessity to do it. And when you have to rebuild something like that, it's such a strange thing to say because because there was so much loss involved, but there was a real gift,being able to start thinking about, if I'm going to spend money to replace things, we thought about it with everything because we had to replace all the furniture. And it was like, what do we want people to feel when they come into our home? And I was like, well, what do I want people to feel when I walk into a room? And it turned out that as a person who's from the Caribbean, right, which is a place that is wildly known for lots of color, that one of the things that was really important to me was that I represented my culture. I have a friend who is a style activist who talks about using clothing, not for fashion, but for a reflection of how you want to feel and how you, you know, how it makes you feel. And I had taken one of her courses and talked to her a lot about it. And, you know, we talked about just putting things on and saying, does this look like how I want to feel? And also, is it hurting my feelings, right? Like, is it something that makes me not like myself? Right? And so that was like a really sort of an epiphany on that. And I mean, I haven't looked back. It's really funny, like, I swung completely away from blacks and grays. And now it's funny, I will occasionally dabble in a gray, because my hair's turning silver. So and I like how it looks, because my hair is changing. But it's really funny now, because I would be hard pressed to find black items of clothing in my closet, which is really, really weird.
Doug: Right? And I wanted to press into that. Thank you for getting into the whole how I feel about myself aspect of this because there's something deeper here. I think because there's a time when you're still feeling self-conscious about your body to the point where you want to wear black to de-emphasize it. Then something switches and you're like, fuck it.
Karen: Yeah, for sure. Oh, good. I'm so glad we can curse on the show. I also got to the point, as all of this is happening, obviously, I'm getting older. And there's this sort of messaging, this insidious yet, everpresent messaging, particularly, I think, for women, that you get a certain age, and you should start becoming smaller. And not only do I find that pretty reprehensible? It certainly didn't reflect what I was seeing around me. I mean, it's the reason that I wrote my book, that there were people my age and older who were doing these amazing things, and who were, you know, living fully and living joyfully. And I was like, that's, that's what I want. I mean, maybe there'll come a time one day when I want to shrink and become invisible, but that time ain't now. And so why would I wear clothing? I hope not.
Doug: It ain’t ever, lady.
Karen: It's certainly not now. And like, I thought about like, well, if black is slimming, black is minimizing, why would I do that? I don't want to be that person. I want to be a person that makes a statement that leaves a legacy that stands up for what I believe in. And I'm not anti-black clothing. And I think, for me, I mean, some people wear black because they find it very elegant, or, you know, and that's a whole other thing, right? But I knew that my motivation was about minimizing. And that, that felt wrong for me.
Doug: Because the clothes make the person. I mean, you can't help it. You know, you dress for success. Yeah, yeah, dress for the person you want to be, you aspire to be.
Magda: Well, and you live in Texas, you don't live in New York City. I mean, you know, 15 years in New York City was like black was the only thing that made sense.
Karen: Yeah, I think that's right. And I know that in in New York, black is sort of a uniform that a lot of people wear. But you know, I, I have a friend, I think she's a mutual friend of all of ours, Gabby Blair, who has this stunning, bright red velvet suit. And if I mean, that's a power outfit, if you've ever seen one, right. So there's a whole section in my book where I talk about, you know, style and beauty, and you could argue that's just so frivolous, like style is frivolous. But style is deeply political. When people are getting fired because they let their hair go silver or kids are being suspended because they have dreadlocks or you know, like the thing, the choices that we make are absolutely political.
Doug: Well, do you think you would have written something like the Radiant Rebellion as a woman all dressed in black? And what credibility would you have had when you're trying to sell it? “Hello. You should be radiant.”
Karen: I mean, maybe, maybe I would have, you know. Well, but I mean, there are certainly women who I think wear black and wear it beautifully. Like, that's the difference. That is the difference. Last night, I was watching the new supermodel, The Supermodels. It's on Apple Plus, and it's featuring this sort of the stories of Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell, and Linda Evangelista, right? These are the original supermodels.
Doug: Really sort of a Rushmore for the 90s.
Karen: Yeah, exactly. And of course, all of these women now are, you know, in middle age, they're in their 50s. And there was one where Christy Turlington was, they were taking a photograph of her now and she was in all black and she looked positively radiant. She absolutely looked radiant. She was like so regal. So I mean, I couldn't write the book wearing all black, but I'm sure somebody could write a book on radiance wearing all black and do it really well. It's just not me.
Doug: Have you seen Paulina Porizkova's Instagram feed?
Karen: I have, and I love, you know, anytime I see a feed where women are reveling in who they are becoming, that to me is a great, great thing. And men, honestly, you know, I said women, but any gender. They are really sort of like delighting in who they're evolving to be. That is a source of joy for me.
Doug: Yeah, but when George Clooney goes gray or Steve Carell goes gray, there's a whole different perception of that rather than Paulina goes gray or Eden goes gray. Have you seen the latest picture of Eden she posted? Oh, that gray hair. Long gray hair. I messaged her. I had to make sure she knew.
Karen: She looks amazing. I had dyed my hair for a long time and sort of stopped a few years ago, I guess. It was just I was getting to the point where I was dying it, you know, every six weeks and I'm like, what am I doing? This seems like a lot of money. I went silver, and when I'm anywhere in public now where somebody doesn't compliment my hair. And I don't think it has anything really to do with my hair, right? Like, it's just hair. I think it has to do with the fact that they're seeing somebody who's very comfortable with it.
Doug: It's your energy for sure.
Karen: And that's what they're reacting to. And I think that's, you know, I could have dyed my hair purple and, and gone out very confidently with purple hair. And I probably would have gotten the exact same reaction. It was just, it's such an unusual thing. And I know I notice it constantly now. Like I'm constantly looking for people who let their hair go silver, like, because it's a rare thing, especially for women. Something like over 70% of women in the United States dye their hair. And I think a lot of us do it because we don't even realize we're doing it. It's like saying like 75% of women brush their teeth, right? It's just sort of a, oh, we do that because that's part of grooming and we don't really question why we do it. It's normal.
Doug: You're supposed to tell people that you're 20 years older than you actually are. So people say, wow, you look great for that age! And that's why I tell people I'm 90 and it works. I look great for 90, I have to say. I feel very spry.
Magda: Nobody wants to be that woman who has the, you know, those women who have the really, really harsh dyed hair.
Karen: Yeah, I notice it more. And I also was noticing sort of that my hair felt too dark for me. It's so interesting, like the reasons people do it. And I think, to be clear, I am not advocating that everybody stop, you know, put down the hair dye at all, because, again, political. There are some real repercussions if you do it. There was an anchor in Canada who got fired over the summer because she let her hair go silver during the pandemic, and they fired her. So there are repercussions to all of these decisions we're talking about, and I would never suggest, okay, everybody stop dying your hair. But what I would encourage people to do is sort of inquire, you know, do a little self-interrogation about why you're doing it. Like, are you doing it because if I don't do it, I'll lose my job? Okay. Am I doing it because I'm afraid to look older? Okay. Well, what does that mean? What would happen if people thought you were older? And what are the negative connotations that you use when you think I look older? That's just a state of being. What kind of value are you attaching to that word? And I think that's really, really important for all of us to do.
Doug: And I'm glad we're talking about color in general, because in my mind, as you progress from a lightmaker to a radiant rebel …
Karen: I'm going to be both. Can I be both?
Doug: And, you know, we don't want to label people. We just, you know, I want to put you in a box here. But to me, “Lightmaker” has more of a monochrome feel and Radiant has much more of a peacock feel. I'm just getting a much more colorful vibe from this one, just in terms of living your full life, living in living color. How do you think you transitioned from that?
Karen: Interesting. I love that you said that. I hadn't considered that. I will say that one of the real beautiful lessons in The Radiant Rebellion that was given to me by a woman named Michelle Fishburne, and she's sort of a nomad. She just travels in a motor home around the world. And I asked her, what do you hope for yourself in the future? And she said, you know, those children's toys, those kaleidoscopes, where they're filled with colored pieces, and you just sort of shift your view a little bit, and suddenly a beautiful image appears. She goes, that's what I think about when I think about my future, right? It's like, I just want to constantly be adjusting and shifting my viewfinder and seeing what beautiful things appear. So I love the fact that you think of it as a burst of color, because that really did end up what it was being. Now, personally, Lightmaker’s Manifesto, which was a joy to write and was in a lot of ways an easier book to write, was based on a coaching program that I had done for leadership, right? And so really, it was like, this is how you are a value-led leader. And it translated really beautifully when it came to activism, because as an activist, you want to be a leader, you want to be somebody who is led by your values. This was far more personal. That was me sort of teaching, this is what I've learned in the past 30 years of being in corporate America and coaching and everything else. This book, Radiant Rebellion, was me grappling with getting older, but that's not exactly accurate because I never had an issue with getting older. I've never had one. I've always looked forward to my birthdays and that kind of thing, but I noticed a lot of people didn't share that view.
Doug: Yeah, you seem kind of an anomaly in that, especially with the way your nest emptied and the way you're aging. There's a lot of angst out there that you don't seem to share.
Karen: That I don't really, I never felt that. But then there was also a part of me that was like, maybe I'm the crazy one, right? Maybe I'm the band leader that's walking the wrong direction, right? Maybe someday it will hit me. Someday I'll be like, oh my God, this is miserable. This is awful. The grappling with was what are the things that I could do? What are the practices that I could do so that I never lose that? And so as a result, it's really personal, right? Like, I mean, I think the lessons from the people that I interviewed are applied to everyone. But my story is my story. So when I'm talking about what beauty meant to me growing up as an immigrant in the, you know, from the Caribbean here, and is one of the only black kids in my school, like that's some really personal stuff. It certainly feels like more of a deep dive into me. But I think the lessons are pretty universal.
Magda: I think it's interesting that right now there is so much of a flourishing of people being excited about growing older, or people being inquisitive about growing older. And I'm in the middle of a lot of people who are talking about perimenopause and menopause. We're really the first generation that's been allowed to talk about it. You know, certainly, my mother wasn't allowed to talk about it with anyone. And my grandmother wasn't allowed to talk about it with anyone. And I think even the women who are 10 years older than we are, weren't, they didn't have anyone to talk about it with. And I discovered that perimenopause wasn't even formulated in anybody's head as, like, an actual time period as, like, a legitimate thing until the mid-90s. Which to me is crazy. Nobody mentioned the word perimenopause or thought of it as a separate stage. You know how before like the 40s or 50s, they didn't think that adolescence was a separate thing? They didn't think that perimenopause was an actual thing until the mid-90s, right? That's nuts. And I love that we're all figuring this out. We're all also saying, Whoa, this is not okay. Like, yes, we all deserve medical care for this. And there are some really cool parts of it, too.
Karen: Yeah, because right now, like I'm considered, I guess, an old Gen X, right? I think Gen X starts at ‘65, and I was born in ‘67, right? So I feel like there's something about that generation as well, right? Sort of the latchkey kids, sort of the, you know, like, we've been independent, right? That's sort of the stereotype, right? Is that people in that time growing up in the 80s, both parents were working more, parents were divorcing more, so we had to take care of ourselves. And I feel like that might be part of what's translating for this wave of people that are suddenly getting very curious about this and suddenly going, wait a minute, why haven't we been talking about this? And why haven't doctors been doing this? Or why are we believing that when you get older, you should be shrinking? Like, that seems wrong, right? And I was literally just thinking yesterday that because I hadn't seen a book like mine that talks about the positive side of all of this other stuff ever. And I thought, well, if I'm an old Gen Xer, maybe it's all coming. And you can see, I mean, just what the last Oscar, the awards season, right? Watching Michelle Yeoh and Jamie Lee Curtis and all these people like winning these amazing awards for the first time in their very long, storied careers. That to me feels like a groundswell of some really beautiful stuff that's happening as far as talking about what does it mean to get older? What does it mean for our bodies to change as if they weren't changing from the time we were a zygote? That's what bodies do. How can we separate the biology from the worthiness? Because I think that's the problem. It's insane. Yeah, I mean, I think you're right. I think it's sort of lovely to see this change. The perimenopause thing blows my mind, but that's not been talked about earlier.
Magda: To me, it's especially irksome because there was that whole study, hormone replacement treatment is dangerous and causes cancer. And then you find out that the way they set up the experiment was that they started giving straight estrogen without any progesterone ten years after they went through menopause, and then followed them and some of them did develop breast cancer.
Karen: That was really the big aha for me in writing the book because I really sort of went in sort of smugly thinking, oh, I'll just tell all the young ones that it's easy to age. No big deal, right? Like, It's fine.
Doug: “Have a seat, child.”
Karen: And then I started doing some research, obviously, for part of the book. And I found this woman, Dr. Laura Hirschbein. She's a psychiatrist and medical historian. And she decided to look up old popular magazines and read the articles and how they treated aging. And it turns out at the beginning of the 20th century, most articles about aging were written by people who were in advanced years, like in their 80s. And they were very positive. I love being this age. I feel so much wiser. I love having sort of the institutional knowledge of this. Yeah, okay, I have a backache and stuff like that. But that's minor compared to all the amazing stuff that's happening, right? And so everybody sort of look forward to getting older. Fast forward to the World Wars, the Great Depression, and what's happening is that there's a lot of 30-year-old men who can't get jobs because the 80-year-olds are continuing to work. And so these are young men who now have young families. So the US government decides, you know what, we need a mandatory retirement age, 65, you got to get out so that these younger people can get their jobs, right? So now aging is starting to look like a burden on society because these people who are over 65 are no longer contributing to the economy. So now they're a problem. And then child psychiatrists and pediatricians decide, well, we'll study this. So they start expanding their research on what it means to get older and use as a benchmark for normalcy, a five-year-old. So if you don't have the physical dexterity of a five-year-old, the spryness of a five-year-old, if you do not have the cognitive ability of a five-year-old, you are impaired. And then by the mid-century, enter Clairol. “You don't want people to think you're older. You better dye your hair.” You don't want people to perceive you as a burden on society. Dye your hair. So in 50 years, we went from collectively loving aging to collectively aging is a problem. We've got to fix it.
Doug: Because there was a market in making people scared of aging and selling them cold cream.
Magda: And gaslighted the older people by forcing them to retire and then telling them they were having fun. I mean, my area is management consulting and teaching people how to be better managers, and one of the truisms that I've figured out is that human beings love to work.
Karen: Of course, we love it.
Magda: We do not like working for other people, usually, but we love to work. Right?
Karen: Well, we love to do meaningful work. We love to contribute. That I think is universal.
Magda: And we turn everything into work. Like, you know, people be like, Oh, I have to finish this series. Right? Like, that's work. Yeah, I gotta go manage my fantasy football league. That's work. People love work. And if you suddenly tell people, hey, you got to stop working, and you love not working, that's a massive gaslighting of people.
Doug: Well, it's great now because none of us has any hope of retiring ever. So, you know, it works out great.
Karen: And to your point, Doug, about the market, you know, the anti-aging industry is largely unregulated, and it is a trillion, that's at the T, dollar industry, right? And the age that they target, 24. 24 years old, you're five years from being a teenager! And they're saying, Oh, no, you can't age. So yeah, it is absolutely basically capitalist patriarchy is the reason why we don't like aging.
Doug: And 20 year olds are trained to dread 30. And it makes its way into screenplays, you know, “13 going on 30.” And I think to your point, too, the fact that your book is coming out and this podcast is coming out, we're talking about things like menopause, like the artifice of being told aging is bad, because we're the blogging generation. We started writing about our families and now we're writing about our extended families and our parents and our adult children and growing old and failing health and all that stuff. And frankly, I think it's that's the stuff that's really so much more important.
Karen: Yeah, I know Asha's been on on your podcast, Asha Dornfest. And we talk about this all the time about what a really sort of revolutionary time it was for those of us to have come up in the blogging world, where we were all writing these long form things about what did it mean to be a parent and working and the turn of the millennium and what did it look like to be sort of a young parent at that time. And they've grown up! One of the best pieces of advice that that Asha gave me when her son went to college, she had a conversation with him about, you know, we're going to be shifting our relationship from one of a parenting one to more of a mentoring one, right? Because I'm here for you for any advice or anything that you want, but it's also time for you to start learning how to fly on your own, right? And I had the exact same one with my daughter when I took her to college. “You're going to do what you do. You're an adult now, right? You're 18 years old. I hope you make the right decisions. I hope that I taught you right from wrong. If you ever need me, obviously, I'm here, right?” And, what does that relationship look like? And when she's making decisions that I'm like, yeah, I wouldn't do that. But you know, but really, I can't stop her. So good luck.
Magda: My dad had that same talk with me when I went away to college. But I think the thing that was different was he had no idea what I was doing. You know, those like, “whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa” decisions. You know, I had the same talk with our older son, but he texts me day and night about all of the, I would say, horrific decisions, except that he's not really writing any checks that his butt can't cash. Like he can carry through on all this stuff. He knows his limits and he knows his strengths. And I think he's going to be one of those people who's 50 who's like, yeah, I did a lot of weird stuff in my early 20s.
Karen: I say all the time that this is the hardest parenting stage for me. Like right now, while she's in college, and she's in college on the other side of the country, because I have to hold my tongue. And I want her to keep talking to me. So there's a lot of, “you know, you're an adult, you're gonna do what you want to do.” But here's some food for thought. That poor child is like overeating on the food for thought I keep lobbing her away.
Doug: This is exactly the segue point because many of us now, as late-stage parents are having a war between our hearts and our brains.
Karen: I will admit, Alex sort of came out of the womb an easygoing child. I say this knowing that this isn't true for everybody, but I have loved every single stage she has been in. She got to six months, I was like, this is my favorite age. She got to three years old, I was like, oh my god, no, this is my favorite age. And so if history is any teacher, at least for me, there's a whole bunch more really cool stages to come. It is exciting for me to watch her do this, because for very selfish reasons, it's going to be so much fun for me, as she goes through each of these stages for me, you know? So, first of all, she is really funny. She has this very dry sense of humor. Nobody makes me laugh like her. And I miss that a lot, that I don't have that sort of daily, that is her thing. But also, like, we text every day. Like, we talk a few times a week, a couple times a week. Like, it's been really, really nice. I really try hard never to call her, honestly, unless there's something to say, like “send me your itinerary” or something.
Magda: And it's proof of life without anybody feeling burdened about checking in, you know? Like I think there's something to be said for that, right? Like he can send me a meme and then I don't have to say, are you still alive? You know?
Karen: Like I said, I'm from the Caribbean. My parents are Trinidadian. They went to university in England, and this was in the 60s. And when I think about like, they couldn't call, especially my father grew up very poor, like they didn't have the money for telephone calls, they would write a letter, it would take two weeks to get there. You know, so you weren't even talking to people, you had no clue. I constantly I'm like, how did your parents deal with you getting on a boat, they didn't even fly, getting on a boat, going three weeks across the Atlantic to get to England, and then not seeing you, in my father's case, for four years. He went off to college and was there until he graduated, and then came back home. Like, that to me is bananas. I don't know if I could have handled it as well as they did, for sure.
Doug: And speaking of handling things: I'm spending a lot of time talking about the transition between Lightmaker and Radiant. Just because each feels like a book for its time. Because as you mentioned, Lightmaker was a professional exercise in many ways, but it also was a reaction to kind of a perceived darkening of our daily lives.
Karen: For sure.
Doug: And when we talk about how Radiant seems a bit more florid to me, well, that's a transition of time in terms of how many of us perceive our lives. A lot's happened between the two books. A lot's happened in Texas between those two books. And so the perception of positivity has changed. Just the whole idea of wanting to make light, wanting to be colorful, wanting to be a force of good. There's now such a thing as “toxic positivity.” That's become a much more prevalent topic of discussion to the point where people will react to you as being too positive.
Magda: Toxic positivity is just people now standing up and saying, I'm done with people spiritually bypassing. And that's not Karen's book. I mean, that's, well, I haven't read the new one, obviously, but that wasn't the Lightmaker book. There was no spiritual bypassing in that at all.
Karen: Yeah, I'm always going to be a champion for positivity. I saw somebody talk about toxic positivity. And they were like, well, how can positivity be toxic? And what's the inverse, like, healthy negativity?
Doug: Robust pessimism!
Karen: Yeah, exactly. Right. So I, I don't think that positivity, like you said, what would you call it, spiritual bypassing? I love that phrase, that sort of idea of I'm going to ignore the dark, and “la la la la la la la la la.” Well, to me, that's not positivity. Just like light can't exist without dark. I don't think true positivity can exist without an acknowledgement of the difficult. I think I've developed a reputation online since I started blogging of being this sort of positive person. I think that every time people have come to anything I've put out in public, it has been viewed as a very, very positive thing. I am also a person that does not ignore when things are dark or when things are difficult, right? I think there's a sort of a negative bias that we all have that we, you know, it's like the fight or flight thing. Like you're always looking for danger. You're always looking how to take care of like the bad stuff that's happened. And thank God we have that. But I think it's important always to pay a lot of attention to the good things that are happening as well, right? I mean, I think that's honestly how we get our energy to be able to deal when things get difficult. And I think over time, a lot of us have sort of especially in a time where people are more disconnected than ever, when politics is as bananas as it is, where we just focus, focus, focus, focus, focus on the dark. And to me, if you just sit there and focus on the dark, you can get to a point, it's like, well, then why even bother? Like, why even try? What's the point? The light is what tells you why you try, right? It shows you what's positive, what's available, what it could be. With the Lightmaker’s Manifesto, of course there's ways. You have to have the positivity or the activism is just going to drain you. It's going to kill you. And you can't do that. You have to focus on the positivity. I wrote Radiant Rebellion because there are tons of books out there that are about how miserable it is to get older, like all the horrible things. And there are so few that are like, “no, literally, there is evidence that says things like, Alzheimer's rates are going down. People are living more independently than they ever have before.” There's data out there that says there's great stuff out there, and we don't pay attention to it.
Magda: People are happier in their 70s than in any other decade.
Karen: Yes!
Magda: I mean, I turned 50 in February, and now I know why, right? Because the 40s were kind of miserable.
Doug: Now you know why you turned 50?
Magda: Now I know why people are happier in their 70s. Right? I mean, I think there are decades that are just hard. And you know, it goes back to that Zora Neale Hurston thing about years that ask questions and years that give answers. And I think there are decades or half decades that ask questions. And that can feel really difficult. And I think the 70s are one of those decades when you're getting answers. I'm imagining that you felt with your daughter, there was for me, at least with my kids, each of them, there was this inflection point when suddenly I realized that they were giving me feedback that what I had been doing had been working. The first time your child is spontaneously polite to an older person, the first time your child does something thoughtful to somebody else, the first time your child comes to you and says, my friend is having a problem and they're scared to ask their parents so that I said I'd ask you, that kind of stuff. And I think the 70s seems like it's just going to be the time when you get that back from all directions.
Karen: Yeah. And I mean, I say this probably in the first page of the book, when you think about aging, if you're afraid of the challenges that will arise, right? And there will be challenges. That's just fact. I think about the fact that you've had challenges and you've navigated them. So there is evidence that suggests that you are going to be able to navigate what's coming ahead and with more wisdom that you had when you were navigating the ones previously, right? Like you've got more wisdom, you know yourself, you know what works and that kind of knowledge and wisdom is just going to continue to grow. And so the idea of what if I get sick, yeah, okay, you've dealt with things before. Things are going to happen, no question. But a lot of wonderful things are going to happen. So trust that you'll handle the tough stuff and look forward to the really good stuff. And for me, that kind of positivity, I think is very healthy. And I think that's hopefully the biggest message of the book.
Doug: Well, I'm glad we had the chance to address that just because I do think the binary nature of our emotions tends to be the amplitude seems to be higher and lower. And I think there's a lot of research out there that's that shows how we tend to focus on the negative. People are going to find a way to try to blow holes in your message. I mean, this is not going to change what you do because “Karen gonna Karen, the end.” And that's fantastic. But it speaks to the whole media landscape now in general of how you try to reach people. You know, you kind of want the message to permeate, but you don't want the fame that goes along with it, because then you start getting the ad hominem stuff that is totally irrelevant. And so how do you feel when you're doing press for this book? How are you finding people are reacting to the work you've done?
Karen: It's been really overwhelmingly positive, which is encouraging. But I you know, one of the things just for my work in the past, not just with this book, but generally is, I try to always lead with kindness and empathy. I'm not saying that I succeed all the time, but it's certainly my goal. And so when I write, I hope that comes through because it's very, very top of mind for me is, I want to be very kind and understand that my experience is not everyone's experience, and that I don't want to minimize the difficulties that other people have. I had somebody who had a really strong reaction to the book. There's a chapter in the book about health, and this was a person who is in the medical field and had a very strong reaction to it because a lot of what I talk about in the book was about making sure you're getting the answers that you want, right? That you need from your doctor, right? Don't let your doctor dismiss you because you're getting older. And this person, of course, had just come out of three years where everybody was distrusting doctors, and it clearly struck a nerve, right? And I want to be very clear that my perception is just my perception in a lot of this, right? I mean, there's a lot of data and research in it, but it's also filtered through my lens. And I'm very, very mindful of the fact that other people have different lenses and may not see it the same way. And so I think because of that, because I think I'm very open about that. People are more receptive to what I have to say. I am not coming in saying this is gospel and you have to do this and everybody stop dyeing their hair and everybody start eating vegetables and even the health book. I am not going to give you health advice, but I am going to say things like ask your doctor these questions. Don't let that be the only thing. Keep going. Get a second opinion, right? You deserve an answer.
Magda: It’s surprising to me that somebody would get upset about that. Like, I wonder what was behind their getting upset.
Karen: I think their discomfort came from a very honest place. And I 100% respect that, particularly over the last three years, people in the medical profession have been through the gauntlet. They have absolutely been through the gauntlet. So it really doesn't matter, honestly, like they were pushing back against something that I might have said in the book. Like, I think that's totally fine because their perception and their experience makes it so that they should push back against me. And I have never had a problem with people who are like, “yeah, Karen, but that's not how it works for me.” Like, I think that's amazing. I am more excited about the fact that we're talking about stuff. And as long as we're talking about stuff without judging the other person's journey, I think that's a healthy thing. I think the idea of fame is such an interesting one because I personally don't care if I'm famous or not. I really want this book to change the conversation on aging. I want people to read this book and go, oh my gosh, I have been speaking about this in the wrong way, and I need to re-examine it. And it's such a weird thing to want your work to be famous, but not want you to be famous.
Doug: Yes, but sometimes you just made famous whether you like it or not, and that's a whole other issue.
Karen: And that's a whole other issue. But the concepts in this about questioning how I use the words old and young, how I say things while you look good for your age, or you don't look your age and meaning that as a compliment and wondering why that's okay, like those kinds of things, I hope the whole world starts thinking about things like that. Because along with race, sexual orientation, gender, national origin, religion, I think age should be a criteria for diversity and inclusion and belonging. And I think the way we do that is to start talking about them.
Doug: I really enjoyed that too, that you talked with Caleb about how we actually have to re-examine how we frame things. Words matter. Can we talk about that for a bit, in terms of phraseology that you learned to amend or at least to think about in a different way to recognize that, oh wait, this is far more hurtful than I anticipated? It's become kind of a rote thing to say, but it's actually not awesome.
Karen: Absolutely. One of the first conversations I had when doing the research for this book, and it probably shifted everything that came after. I was speaking with Ashton Applewhite, who is an anti-ageism activist. She's amazing, has an amazing TED talk called Let's End Ageism that you should definitely watch. And I reached out to her because of that TED talk and said, I really want to talk to you about the concept of internalized ageism. And amazingly, she agreed because she didn't know me from Adam. I just sort of cold called her. And as I mentioned at the beginning, I really came to this book feeling pretty smug. Like I'm like, I'm a person who doesn't have a problem with ageism. And by the way, I'm a lawyer, and I was a corporate lawyer. And so I dealt with age discrimination at work. And I know the law. And so I know everything. And I'm like Buddha when it comes to age, right? Like I literally kind of had that in my mind, which is obnoxious, obviously. And so I'm talking to Ashton and she's talking to me about, you know, like all of the data that shows that a lot of the things that we believe, negative things we believe about aging isn't actually a fact and we're blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so I said, well, how can other people do things to help fix their internalized ageism? And she said, “Well, one of the things that I hear people say all the time that's a problem is how they use the words old and young.” And I'm like, well, like what? She goes, well, people say all the time things like, I don't feel old. And I said, well, I say that all the time myself. “I don't feel old.” Why is that a problem? And she said, well, I think when you say, I don't feel old, I suspect what you're really saying is something like, I don't feel invisible, or I don't feel irrelevant, or I don't feel unsexy. She goes, but I don't know about you, but I felt invisible, irrelevant and unsexy when I was 13. Those aren't age-related words, right? And we use old as sort of a shorthand for bad, and young as a shorthand for good, and we don't even realize we're using it. And it was like, oh my gosh, you're right. When I say I don't feel old, what does that mean? And it was such a really great lesson to me that we are all, all of us, steeped in a very ageist culture. And we have learned the language of ageism without even thinking about what that means. And we sort of have to unpack that with each other. So things like I never say I don't feel old or I don't feel young. If I want to express something like that, I sort of break it down. I don't feel unagile or whatever, right? Like I start to think about what are the words that I'm actually trying to say and get more precise with my words. The other thing that I've started doing is trying to use the words older or younger, rather than old or young, because I think at 56, to a 20 year old, I may seem old, but to an 80 year old, I may seem quite young. The other thing that she said, which was really great, is she said that she had a bad knee. And she went to her doctor and he says, “Oh, that's just age, you're getting older.” And she's like, Yeah, but my other knee is the exact same age. And it's fine. So why don't we figure this out? Like, so literally sort of being able to spot it when people say things. She says when people come to her and go, because it's funny, she does not have any silver hair at all. Her hair just didn't turn silver. And so people will go to her and she goes, “Oh, you look great for your age.” She always says “you look great for your age too,” right? No matter who it is. And sort of really kind of calling out somebody said that to me the other day. I had a picture of a selfie up, and somebody said “oh my gosh, you look so young” and I said actually I look my age, but I take your point. Thank you. Like, I take your intent. That's very sweet, but I look my age because this is what 56 looks like on me. It’s a lot like racism or sexism, right? It’s sort of like Neo taking th3e red pill. right? Once you see it, you can’t stop seeing it. If you saw somebody saying something racist or sexist, I would imagine that you would find probably a gentle way to call it out. And I think the same is true for aging.
Doug: You know, I wouldn't have guessed that our first reference to red pilling would come from you. Thanks for that.
Karen: I love me a little Matrix. I got to say I can probably recite most of the movie. I've seen it billions of times.
Doug: I hear you though. The whole idea of, I mean, when I talk to my kids about being older, I'll just say, look, “I got here before you did.” I've been here a while. And I don't want to give Ronald Reagan any more oxygen than he has over the years, but he did have that great debate line where he said, “I'm not going to use my opponent's youth and inexperience against him.”
Karen: Yeah. Which is great. It's so funny.
Doug: And you know, and that's a topic now because we have the prospect of a couple of 80 year olds becoming our president next year.
Karen: Well, and I have to say that's so interesting because I can fall in that trap, right? I will admit that I can be like, are these people too old to be in office? Let's just say, you know, Mitch McConnell just had a few episodes, right? Like what clearly looked like health episodes. You know, my first thought is he's too old, right? To be in office. And then I remembered.
Doug: And the lady caught herself.
Karen: Right? Yeah. Because I remembered Jane Fonda is older than him. As we get older, we become more and more diverse, right? We age at different rates. So it's not about his age. He may be impaired in a way that he cannot do his job. That may be true, but that's not about his age.
Doug: John Fetterman might be impaired because he had a stroke and he's in his 50s.
Magda: And I think the evil is finally catching up to Mitch McConnell and just eating him from the inside.
Karen: I didn't go that far. But sort of uncoupling that why you think somebody is not fit for a job and uncoupling that from their age, right? They may be unfit for the job because they do not understand what the issues are for people who are just coming out of college, right? Well, think of Bernie, right? Bernie has this huge young following, right? So it's not about age. It's about how in touch they are with all of the issues for people at all stages of their life, and how competent they are, maybe how fit they are for the grueling job that is being in office, right? Like there's all those different things, but sort of see how you can uncouple it from age.
Magda: Well, because one of them has a history of, you know, almost 80 years of making really bad decisions. Like, you know, I mean, I know past performance doesn't indicate future returns, but...
Karen: But that kind of conversation that you're talking about there, now we're talking about politics. And that is what we should be talking about, right? Independent of age. Like talking about politics and experience and their record. What I'm saying is for all of us, wherever we are on the political spectrum, we should uncouple age from the conversation, because that's really not the issue.
Magda: I also think there's a piece in here about experience and training also. My mother is 80 and my future mother-in-law is 79, and neither of them should be president right now, but either of them could be president and do a great job if they had had the experience and the support in the decision making process, right? So I think sometimes when we're talking about people being too old to do something we are being extremely shortsighted about the fact that people can learn and develop new skills up until the point at which they die, just because we have told ourselves this sort of myth of, you know, begin as you want to start. If you gave my mother, the briefing told her what the end goal was, and she had the resources that any American president had. She could plow right through.
Karen: That's not to say that we don't want younger people to get into politics, right? Because the truth is, we're all going to die, right? And at some point, the people who are older...
Doug: What?!?
Karen: I know, surprise. All right, people who are older are going to die off, and we need a pipeline getting into politics.
Magda: Well, and there's a big gap of lack of Gen X, right? There are a lot of Boomers, and there are a lot of Millennials, and we have this big gap of our entire generation that's not...
Doug: The lost generation, yeah.
Karen: Absolutely. Yeah, for sure.
Doug: Our guys are leaving office. They're like, “screw this.”
Karen: Can we blame them? Can we blame them?
Doug: When people put this book down, what would you like them to think differently about and be inspired to achieve?
Karen: So the book was written, and I think this is really, really an important thing to say. The book was written for people of all ages, right? It wasn't written for people in midlife, even though I'm a person in midlife. Everybody ages. Even though I am a person in midlife, it was not just meant for people in midlife. And also in my very anecdotal experience, it feels to me that people who have reached my age tend to fear aging less than say somebody who's 29 about to turn 30 or 39 about to turn 40, right?
Magda: I had a panic attack about turning 25. I mean, it feels like there's a lot.
Doug: And then you met me and your life was never the same.
Karen: So the book is intended for people of every age, right? And I hope that when they read it, one, that they start to realize that they've been sold a bill of goods about the negative parts of aging, that it is not wholesale true, right? There's going to be challenges, but a lot of what you fear about aging is not as bad as what you think it's going to be. That's one. And then the second thing, and this is maybe the bigger of the things, is to get very curious when it comes to your own age why is this bother me what evidence do i have that it's bothering why am i being sold this what does anti-aging mean what happens if i decide I'm going to get some cosmetic surgery right like just question it. I am not suggesting that anybody do one thing or the other, it's never been, but to sit there and question it, because I think we are so steeped in a capitalist culture that is trying to sell us stuff at every turn, that part of critical thinking is going, why does this matter? And that is what I hope, that people are one, optimistic about their own lives, and two, learn to question everything, all the information that they're getting, just think about it critically first before making any decisions. And three, live a radiant life.
Doug: I'm glad you also mentioned that when you talk about relativity among people, stress is relative. Just because someone's 23 doesn't mean they're not stressed about turning 25.
Karen: Sure, absolutely.
Magda: And no Misery Poker, right? You can't deny somebody else their experience and the way they go through their experience just because yours is worse or better or whatever.
Doug: I keep thinking about that Steven Wright joke. “I remember when I turned two years old, I freaked out because in one year my age doubled. If this keeps up, by the time I’m six I’ll be 90.”
Magda: I'm just wondering if you have read the Haruki Murakami memoir, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running?
I know of him, but I don't think I've ever read any of his work.
He is a Japanese novelist who writes these weird twisty novels. Okay, so, so for years, he had been asked by his publisher to write a memoir. And he's just like, “God, who cares about me?” Right? And so then they finally convinced him to and so what he wrote about was his process of becoming a long-distance runner. Okay, his story is that he was just this sort of random guy in Japan, went to university didn't like it dropped out was working at a bar, decided to buy a bar. And so at a certain point, he realized that he had to either keep running the bar and do that or see if he can become a writer. So he sold the bar and moved out to the country with his wife and realized that his whole body was falling apart out there writing because running the bar, he had been lifting flats of beer and up and down the stairs and in and out and all this kind of stuff and had been very physically active. He was probably like 30 at this point in the story, right? And so he's out there with nothing to do. He has a pair of sneakers on. So he just goes out and runs five miles, right?
Karen: Yeah, he was 30.
Magda: And then eventually he becomes a marathoner and then he gets these gigs reporting on marathons and all this kind of stuff. But the entire time he's really focusing on how he feels like the running is simultaneously torture, but also this thing he has to do and he gets to do to take care of his body. And then he has this insight that the fact that he feels bad when he's not physically active, is this early warning system for him and is giving him the chance to do the kind of maintenance that he feels like he owes himself. And he just got curious about his own body.
Karen: I mean, that's it. Honestly, so much of the book is that for me, right? Like writing the book is a sort of shift in perspective. And it all came down to listening for this huge thing on, like I said, health and movement, for me. And I have been a person who's never been athletic at all. Like if you ever see me run, point the direction to the bathroom because that's the only reason I'm doing it.
Doug: And now you’re an Instagram hula hoopist!!
Karen: I hula hoop and because for me, and I always call I never call it exercise because that feels like a chore. I call it movement. And for me, there's two reasons. One, it nourishes joy that's already in me, right? Hula hooping is fun. I do it with music and stuff like that. And hula hooping actually is my cool down from the movement that I do otherwise. But the other thing is, that it's about exorcising stress for me. And so like part of the way that I make sure that my stress level is at a manageable level, is that it because stress is physiological. There's a great book from the Nagoski sisters called Burnout, I think is what it's called. And it's fantastic. And it talks about how stress is actually physiological. And the best way to work it out of your system is movement. You're never gonna find me run. I don't like running, right? But I move, I jump rope, I skip, I just started Pilates. And for me, it's like, this is what I'm going to do to get it out of my system. That's it. The idea of shifting perspective, like some people get that runner's high, and they love that physicality of it. And that just they love that. And that's a great reason. Mine is not that reason. And I think sort of, it's the same reason why I don't eat junk food, right? It's like, I want to put stuff that nourishes health that's within me. Because if I'm focusing so much on food that makes my body feel good, for this body, then what I think about, then if I go and have a bag of chips, right? It’s a thing that's fine because I've spent so much time with the other stuff that I can give myself grace for, you know what, I just want the pleasure of salt and really sort of understanding for your own body, what feels like health and what feels like joy and what feels like care. And having a practice of a cadence of doing that. Not doing it 100% of the time because that's just joyless, but having a cadence of I'm just constantly checking in with myself and does this feel right? And does this feel healthy? And am I feeling like I'm nourishing myself in all ways, in the colors I wear in the, you know, to bring it back to that in everything that I'm doing, am I just checking back with myself? Because we don't do that. And especially I think when you're parents, because your job is to care for other people. End of soapbox, but that's right.
Magda: Well, we've talked about this on the podcast before that I think 64% is 100% because, you know, I mean, I think like 80% is what you're aiming for, 80% of compliance in anything you do, right? Taking care of yourself and 80% of your effort is also reasonable. So 80% times 80% is 64%. That's good. You're done, right? That's it.
Doug: And I'm like, what are you talking about? That's a D minus!
Karen: So says the math teacher!
Magda: It turns out that running is actually really bad for you. It increases your cortisol rate hellaciously and women—well people with uteruses—are not supposed to run as avidly during perimenopause and that year of menopause as they had before because it puts a lot of stress on your already stressed system.
Karen: I'm going to cling to that. I don't know if that's true or not but I'm going to cling to that as truth.
Doug: And now I know that your wedding gift is going to be a hula hoop.
Magda: My wedding gift? I don't know that I have the muscle control to do hula hooping.
Karen: You do.
Dog: Not yet, you don't. You're gonna.
Magda: I don't know, we'll find out.
Karen: You could do it. It's physics, right? It's centrifugal force. It really is. Once you get it going, you can do it.
Magda: I've done it and I've been able to get it going for like 30 seconds, but then I feel like...
Karen: Oh, that's good! Well, then you just keep going. After a while, you just keep going.
Doug: It's just room to improve.
Karen: Yeah, that's awesome. You got it. You got it.
Doug: As you wrote this, you discovered a lot of things about aging, about yourself, perhaps. Is there any way you live your life differently based upon what you found out when you wrote this? Again, not as a gospel, not saying “you should do this too.”
Karen: Yeah, I move a whole lot more, a whole lot more. I mean, I would sporadically work out at different times of my life and just sort of drop it. That shift in perspective, I move five times a week pretty consistently now, which is insanity. Like 20 year old Karen would be stunned at that. I'm a lot more forgiving of myself for weight gain. One of the things that I found out is that the reason that it can be harder to lose weight in midlife might be evolutionary because it's, it is difficult in your later years to keep weight on. And it's sort of your body's way to kind of have something to work with when it becomes more difficult. And just sort of knowing that made me go, Oh, well, cool. I'm going to keep moving and I'm going to keep being healthy, but I don't have to beat myself up as some sort of failure because I'm not fitting in the jeans that I fit in when I was 19, right?
Doug: That also dates back to Primitive Man because the young people used to eat the old people and so we need more meat on our bones.
Karen: Could be that too. I don't know. I give my body more grace than I did probably even before writing the book. I think I was far more worried about getting into a size whatever. Now I move more and care less about that, which I think is the right thing. You know, I feel more radiant. Let's just say that.
Doug: And speaking of radiance, let's talk about your book. Where can people find it? Where can they pre-order it? Tell us where to find you.
Karen: October 17th is when the book comes out. Please, please, please pre-order it. It means everything to authors when you pre-order their book. The amazing news is that people are getting their pre-orders already, which is stunning to me because it's so early. You can find it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and independent bookstores, and check it out at chookooloonks.com and karenwalrond.com.
Doug: Outstanding. And again, this is the last episode before Magda gets married this weekend, so it makes a wonderful wedding gift. I know Magda's registered for about six of them, right?
Karen: Yes! Happy, happy wedding.
Magda: Thank you. Thank you so much. Like, yeah, let's hope it all comes together.
Karen: Oh, it's gonna, I'm sure. It will.
Magda: Well, we have an officiant, we have the marriage license, we have a cake, and so it'll work out.
Karen: Yeah, it will. Perfect. Done and done. It's ready.
Doug: Karen, I've looked forward to this interview for a long time. I'm so glad that you're making the light that you've been since I've known you. As long as we've known each other, it feels like it was yesterday. And if the world can age as gracefully as you have since I've known you, we're going to be in a really great spot. So thank you for talking to us.
Karen: Absolutely an honor. Thank you guys for having me. This was really lovely.
Doug: And thank you listeners for listening to Episode 18 of the When the Flames Go Up podcast with Magda Pecsenye and me, Doug French. Our guest has been Karen Walrond, author of Radiant Rebellion and several other titles and many more to come. Please join us next week. And until then, please think of Magda as she enters her second phase of marriage coming up this weekend. Bye bye.
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Magda: So the real dress is like a deep magenta velvet.
Karen: Nice.
Dog: Is there a magenta lip?
Magda: I might wear a magenta lip.
Karen: Oh my god! That's awesome.