Podcast Episode 292: Lies You’ve Been Told About Being the Good Girl Transcripts

Please note: Transcripts for the No Guilt Mom Podcast were created using AI. As a result, there may be some minor errors.

Elise Loehnen: It’s like taking complete responsibility for ourselves, those feelings of discomfort, the way that we’re made to feel bad and saying, I recognize what’s happening in my body and my feeling, and I’m going to sit with this and understand it. And I’m not going to project it onto other women and other safe targets.

JoAnn Crohn: Welcome to the No Guilt Mom podcast. I’m your host, JoAnn Crohn here with the lovely Brie Tucker.

Brie Tucker: Why, hello, hello, everybody. How are you?

JoAnn Crohn: Oh, we have the greatest, greatest episode today. In fact, if you’re like new to the no go on podcast , this is the one to listen to. This is the one to listen to. I read her book and then Brie, like your face just lit up in the first like two minutes of this interview with unbelievableness. Yeah.

Brie Tucker: seven times during that podcast. Seven times. She laid down info that I was like, holy mackerel. No, it’s boom.

JoAnn Crohn: She has the best book. It was recommended to me by one of our balance members. Shout out to Lauren Kerwin, who recommended the book on our best behavior. , and let me introduce you to our guest today. Her name is Elise Loehnen, and she is the host of the podcast, pulling the thread and author of the New York times bestseller on our best behavior.

The seven deadly sins and the price women pay to be good. She functions as a cultural therapist. Pulling together different schools of thought and themes to get a more comprehensive understanding of what’s driving us. And oh my gosh, get ready. If your mind is blown the number of times Brie’s was, this is going to be a great listen. So let’s get on with the show.

I’m super excited to have you here. I read your book a few months ago after it was recommended by one of our balance members. And as soon as I read it, I like, Oh my gosh, we have to. To have her on, because you have basically tied like a lot of my fears and a lot of things that I see in other women, holding them back to like something we just accepted.

As truth in the seven deadly sins. So like, I’m super excited to get into it. Okay. First, like background knowledge. I was raised Catholic. I went to an Episcopalian school. So the seven deadly sins really played prominently into everything I saw during my childhood. What. First, like really drew me into your book.

is your explanation of how the seven deadly sins actually rose to prominence in religion? Can you tell us the story about the monk who went to the island?

Elise Loehnen: yeah. I mean, it’s, the sins are so wild as someone who, you know, my father’s Jewish. My mom calls herself a recovering Catholic, but I was raised in a almost completely, you secular household. I went to an Episcopalian high school as well. And so when I was first determining what is this goodness that is so pervasive in the lives of women, this quote goodness that we’re chasing, good mother, good friend, so on and so forth, where did this even come from?

And, essentially that investigation led me to something that seemed quite culturally obvious, the seven deadly sins. So then of course, I’m where were they in the Bible? And that’s when I realized that They weren’t, which is shocking to most people. Shocking. They were never sort of handed down in the Old Testament or by Jesus as these edicts or rules.

They actually first got handed down. Sort of turned into a list in the fourth century, this monk named a Vagrius Ponticus, an ascetic monk who fled to the desert after having an affair with a married woman. He was a wealthy, a wealthy man,

Brie Tucker: So it’s been going on for a long time. This behavior

Elise Loehnen: been going on for a long time. Yes. And he wrote this little chapbook of prayer called Practicos and there were bits of scripture to be used against, he called them demons, but it had a different connotation than as more of something that would distract you or keep you out of prayer. And there were eight of them, including sadness, which I include in my book.

so he writes this little chapbook. Obviously there weren’t a lot of books flying around at that point. He’s also just for any Enneagram fans an early father of the Enneagram as well, because that’s when they became associated. Each Enneagram type is associated with a vice. And

Brie Tucker: This is just like your whole, we have only been recording for three minutes and my mind has already been blown

JoAnn Crohn: I know, right? Right. Yeah.

Brie Tucker: Repeatedly.

JoAnn Crohn: you see why I was so excited? Can you see?

Brie Tucker: JoAnn has been like a kid before Christmas. Like, Oh my

Elise Loehnen: Yeah. okay. So, he writes them down and then , they’re passed amongst these desert fathers like John Cassian, et cetera. And then in 590 AD. Pope Gregory the first turns them into the cardinal vices. He drops sadness and they become the cardinal vices. And then Aquinas, they become part of sort of Catholicism very specifically and are written about, , a lot.

And I’m going to tell you the story of this homily, when he creates them too, so in the New Testament, Mary Magdalene is written about as the one from whom Jesus cast seven demons.

And nobody ever says what those demons are. Again, that word has a slightly different connotation than how we interpret it In a modern way, some theologians say, Oh, he was balancing her chakras, which I like that interpretation, so that’s how Mary Magdalene is referred to in the New Testament. and in the New Testament, she’s referred to as the one to whom Jesus resurrects after he is crucified. There’s this beautiful heretical gospel, the gospel of Mary, which is her recounting this first teaching, which it’s very beautiful.

Anyway, that was destroyed, only recovered maybe a century ago. and she would really theoretically be the first apostle before Peter. If we follow this idea of sort of primacy of teaching, she was referred to as his best student, et cetera. So in 590, Taking you back to Pope Gregory the first in this homily, he says, these are the seven cardinal vices.

These are the same thing. These are the demons that Jesus cast out of Mary Magdalene. Mary Magdalene is the same woman who anoints Jesus’s feet with her hair, different woman, but he says, same woman. And that woman is a prostitute. And that’s how Mary Magdalene earned the reputation as a penitent prostitute and then was painted as a penitent prostitute.

Clutching at Jesus as he is ascending. She’s shown sort of in red clutching and she wore that reputation until the eighties when the Pope at the time said, Oh, she wasn’t actually a prostitute. And then in 2016, Pope Francis said, Oh, she was the apostle to the apostles.

Brie Tucker: Okay. Not being Catholic. I’m

Elise Loehnen: Isn’t that wild?

Brie Tucker: this is the first I’ve heard this. I didn’t know that they had like cleared her reputation.

JoAnn Crohn: I didn’t know they cleared it either. Actually. It was not very well known in Catholic circles, like at all. They did not talk about that. She was always the prostitute to me before I read your book.

Elise Loehnen: Isn’t that wild? Meanwhile, like, besides Mother Mary, like, the rightful first apostle.

Brie Tucker: Okay. I love the movie dogma. Have either of you guys seen that movie?

JoAnn Crohn: Yes.

Elise Loehnen: No, I haven’t.

Brie Tucker: good luck. I mean, Harry Weinstein owns the rights and so they won’t stream it and they won’t make it on DVD anymore. I have a DVD copy. So next time you have crossover to Arizona, come by my house. I’ll let you watch it on DVD. I digress. In it, they talk about how, like, biased the Bible is and how women are painted so terribly and how, , there’s not even a woman apostle in there and everything. So that’s, What you said just blew my, I’m like, Oh my God. Wow.

Elise Loehnen: Women were actually far more prominent and very prominent in early Christianity too. there’s Junia, her name was later, some people then translated her name and made her into a man. But it’s, I mean, Jesus was a actually if you read him like a feminist, but then when you look into the of the Bible um, great, this man he wrote like misquoting Jesus, Bert, I think he used, what’s his name, is a professor I want to say at Princeton, but there are more mistakes in the sort of New Testament than there are words because of just translation errors and then people at various times making it. More anti Semitic or making it misogynistic through translation and yeah,

JoAnn Crohn: that

Elise Loehnen: it’s pretty interesting.

JoAnn Crohn: wild how like the real history does not line up with the history being told to us currently in like, especially the evangelical Christian movement, how it’s mostly like men are leading and women are subservient. It wasn’t that way. It was like history was rewritten and

Elise Loehnen: no, no. But there are also amazing women in that movement who I think are sort of becoming these really important leaders who either have left and are, have deconstructed their faith and reconstructed it in a much more sort of loving way. intentional, original way. And also are sort of like poking holes.

And this idea of patriarchy is passed down by actual gospel. when you go back and you look, it’s like, nah, not so much.

It’s quite far from Jesus wandering around the desert with 12 people, no church, saying you don’t need a church, like this is your church, your church is, I don’t, I’m not good at quoting gospel, but like, it’s not, this isn’t exactly what he asked for, or, this wasn’t his goal, you know, he rode around on a donkey.

Brie Tucker: Okay. I have to say like one of my favorite gifts I have bought for my daughter and I wanted it for me, but they didn’t have it in an adult size picture of, Jesus. Like in that typical Catholic, like, ah, it and it said, I never said that.

JoAnn Crohn: I never

Brie Tucker: like, cause I feel like that I grew up Southern Baptist and I just feel like there are so many things that no, no, that is not what they meant. That is so not

Elise Loehnen: No, that is not what he said.

Brie Tucker: you see now is not, yeah.

Elise Loehnen: no. And yet I feel like people who deep, deep Christians, and again, I wasn’t raised sort of, I’ve never gone to church and I’m unaffiliated, but I love Jesus. I love Mary Magdalene and I love people like Father Richard or they’re just these incredible Christians.

who also are pushing really hard against the way that it’s been politicized, the way that it is being brandished like a whip, particularly against the people that Jesus was ultimately trying to protect. And I don’t know if you guys have seen that, unbelievable encounter uh, congressman in Texas taking on a woman the person who’s trying to get the Ten Commandments reinstated in schools.

Anyway. It’s so beautiful. And he is essentially quoting scripture at her and talking about how essentially like evil this is and how anti Christian. So it’s, I don’t know, I have, I’ve hoped that all the wonderful Christians will help us,

Brie Tucker: Raise above

Elise Loehnen: will create some balance to go to your mission.

JoAnn Crohn: Well, I want to talk more about how having these seven deadly sins in our lives has affected us as women today, and we’re going to get into that right after this. So talking about the seven deadly sins, Elise, like I mentioned, I went to an Episcopalian school and it’s funny because I was recently telling my mom this and I’m like, mom, did you know that in school they had us go to confession?

And she’s like, yeah, I knew that. I’m like, but did you know, like as a third grader, they gave me a list of sins and they were numbered. And I remember that the list getting passed off and then you just checked off the sins. That you committed so that when you went and knelt behind the father who wasn’t facing you father Eldridge I remember and yeah, he was like tell me child.

How have you sinned? And I’m like one five six I think that’s how the confession went in our school Yeah, it started, it started very early. It started in 3rd grade, 4th grade. Yeah, yeah, it was, it was crazy, but, these sins have been a part of, like, my life and I know so many women’s lives for so, so long, and so when I was reading your book, the sin that first, like, really stuck out to me was envy, and how Envy is something that really stops us. And it’s so hard for women to actually use envy to their good. So, can you talk a little bit about envy? And how we can, like, reuse it?

Elise Loehnen: yeah. Oh, JoAnn, that’s so wild. But this is, and, and, it’s, in some ways it’s like healthy that you have such an overt example in your life that you can point to because I think for so many women, it’s far more insidious where they would say, I don’t believe in any of this stuff. I wasn’t raised in a church.

My parents didn’t talk to me about sinning. This doesn’t apply to me. But what’s so, amazing about this list. I’m just going to say them quickly and then let’s talk about envy, sloth, pride, envy, greed, gluttony, lust, anger, and then sadness, which I write about as sort of what is happening to men. But you think about them and you’re like, Oh my God, this is a checklist of goodness specifically for women.

Men are not policing themselves according to these sins. They’re just not. and men have no compunction in my experience and in my immediate family about feeling like they certainly deserve rest and they deserve a drink and some Netflix and some peace and some quiet, right?

JoAnn Crohn: That is what they feel like they deserve. Yes.

Elise Loehnen: yeah, women are like, I should just be doing something and I’m going to like hover and sit for five minutes and then I’m going to go and do something else.

And there’s all this doing that needs to be done. And. Moms in particular, but all women really have been trained well in subjugating their wants to other people’s needs, which gets us to envy, I was interviewing, this is a long time ago, but therapist, Lori Gottlieb, who wrote this amazing book, maybe you should talk to someone.

And she has the smallest side in her book, which is that she tells her clients to pay attention to their envy because it shows them what they want. And this was before I had this idea for this book and I was thinking about this and I was like, Oh my God. It hit me in two places very deeply. I couldn’t stop thinking about this.

And the first was, ew, envy, gross. I would never, not me, I do not envy anyone. It’s so malicious and icky. So of course I was like, oh, I must be runneth over with envy for me to have that much of a triggered response. And then second, I was like, I couldn’t tell you what I want. I have no idea. I’ve been living my life on autopilot and I drive my life according to the, again, meeting the needs of other people, my two boys, my husband, my job.

Brie Tucker: want.

JoAnn Crohn: Yep.

Elise Loehnen: Yeah, a hundred percent. I couldn’t articulate it. I could not articulate it. And it freaked me out. And so then I realized, okay, if these two things are so related, then my envy, is a guy if it’s a guide for what I want, then I need to start with sort of the unconscious apparatus of envy, which is the way that it shows up.

I think particularly in women again, because we’ve been conditioned not to have any wants at all. We don’t know what’s happening. This is an unconscious process. We see someone. Typically, another woman who has something or is doing something that we want. We feel incredibly uncomfortable. She makes us feel bad.

And the instinct is to say, she’s making me feel bad. She is bad. And we project that bad feeling onto her. And so we start. deprecating and criticizing and judging other women. And we say things like, I just don’t like her. She rubs me the wrong way. Who does she think she is? When really it’s why her and not me.

And I would never allow myself to do that. And so therefore she should not do it too. And so we get into this terrible. cycle of policing each other and making each other small. And I write too, about how envy is very correlated with pride. Being seen as very dangerous for women and scarcity, which is part of the greed chapter, but we recognize that once we become aware of it, you will see this pattern everywhere.

And it is so, socially condoned. And so what you do, yeah, you just notice and you’re like, Oh, she is making me so uncomfortable. There’s so much information here. She is pointing to a dream I have for myself. this is my soul knocking. Like what is present? Is it that I am envious of her body?

Am I envious of her relationship or her well behaved children who read books? Am I envious of her career? What is it? Okay. And you just start that process and you start training yourself to be comfortable with the discomfort, which then moves very quickly, by the way, and you don’t have to make yourself feel bad by being mean.And you get so much more information and insight into that wanting.

Brie Tucker: Isn’t one of the hardest things that we have these days, though, is being comfortable with that discomfort?

Elise Loehnen: Yes. I mean, we live in a culture of numbing. Yeah.

Brie Tucker: Exactly. As a society, as a whole, like we’re used to instant gratification and being able to do away with things and like that’s as someone who’s struggling with anxiety, being comfortable with the uncomfortable. Not easy. it’s a process for sure. I I after I read the Envy chapter and it’s like, It really keyed me into like, okay, when I have this feeling towards other women, I, I need to like, dig into that a little bit more. So I’m just going to be very vulnerable right here. There’s this other woman who I constantly tell Brie, she rubs me the wrong way.

JoAnn Crohn: I can’t stand her. What is she doing? Like everything. And when I looked into it, I was like, you know what? I am envious of something that she has. And also like when she says stuff that rubs me the wrong way, I’m actually a little envious that she actually says her own needs to me to make sure that she’s taken care of because that’s something that I have trouble doing. I have trouble telling people exactly what I want and I think because I’m afraid. That they’ll like disassociate from me. And I have to say, Elise your book has helped me so much in that regard, because right before we got on this podcast, I was telling Brie about like this text thread I’m on with a lot of moms at my son’s school. And we had a conversation at brunch because they went back to school already. It’s July and they already went back to school on Wednesday. Yeah, no true story. True story.

Brie Tucker: I

JoAnn Crohn: So we had a brunch on Wednesday and during that brunch, we were talking about mom guilt and like, we really need to do more things for ourselves. And so one of the women was like, Hey, I could get discount tickets on like a baseball game. And like the whole thread was silent and some were like, Oh, I can’t make it that weekend. And I just look at that and I’m like, I don’t like baseball. Like, what do I do here?

Elise Loehnen: Just I, I, went forward and I’m like, Hey, I don’t like baseball games and I fear I’m going to be grumpy if I go there, but I want to hang out.

JoAnn Crohn: What can we do? And it was because of that little jaunt to envy. I was able to figure out, Oh, this is something I want to be doing with my life and pushing that

Elise Loehnen: Yeah. No. And that like going into the sensing too of cause I think so many, so many of us override our bodies. So in that moment too, as someone makes a plan to say, take a pause. and say, how does this feel? Like, is my energy rising at this idea? Is this like a full body? Yes. For me, or is this like, no thanks. And then acting on it. Right. Because so often we override every part of our body. That’s like, no, no, no.

Brie Tucker: like how you said that. A full body yes. Right? Like, my head says yes, but why is my stomach upset and my palms sweaty?

Elise Loehnen: Yeah. Or even like my, my head says you should do this or like, you need to do this or this is the right thing to do. And of course, many of us, particularly moms are doing stuff all day. That’s not a full body. Yes. But even acknowledging that and saying, I know I don’t want to do this, but like my kids need lunch. So I’m going to make some lunch is a more honoring approach. then I’m just, I’m gonna smile and I’m gonna just, I don’t care what I want. Who

JoAnn Crohn: I’d be grateful. I have this, these kids and this wonderful house and like all those things. I think it also ties into our likability, which it, like with another sin that actually comes right after envy. Cause I took, I took notes on your book, at least I took all the notes because I want to talk with you more about pride and especially how you talk about Anne Hathaway versus Jennifer Lawrence’s acceptance speeches in your book.

And we’re going to get into that right after this.. pride, another of the sins we’ve grown accustomed. Like, we shouldn’t brag about ourselves. We shouldn’t, like, show that we’re proud of our accomplishments. You have just the standard. The example of how our society sees women and pride with an Oscars acceptance speech. Could you tell us a little bit more about that?

Elise Loehnen: Yeah. So we all know we’ve all been admonished to be humble. Don’t get a big head. Don’t be a tall poppy in a poppy field. You will lose your head. For women, this idea of standing out from a crowd is very dangerous. And we see this play out in our culture all the time. And it, it happens very visibly with celebrities, but it also happens with female founders.

It happens in small communities where we watch a woman. So I, I wrote about, There are so many examples, and I’m sure people listening are like, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. But I wrote about this particular moment in time when Anne Hathaway was nominated for an Oscar for Les Mis and Jennifer Lawrence, I think it was Silver Lining’s Playbook.

Jennifer Lawrence was this young ingenue who was on her way up and we’d had enough of Anne Hathaway. There were all these hatha haters, is what they were called, who just snarked at her for her earnestness and her try she was trying too hard, ladies. And so grating. I don’t remember, I mean, I’m sure people listening can remember sort of the general hate of Anne Hathaway.

Brie Tucker: I don’t remember the words, but I do remember that vibe.

Elise Loehnen: Of just

Brie Tucker: so. That, that,

Elise Loehnen: ick, ick, go away Anne Hathaway. I mean, it’s wild when you think about it, right? And so in this moment, she accepts an Oscar, she’s wearing this cone boob dress that she apparently had to switch into because someone else was wearing the dress that she was supposed to wear. she wins the Oscar, she’s cradling it, she feels so awkward. And everyone in the world hates her. And she says something to the effect of, Oh, my, it came true. And this dream. Yeah. And,

JoAnn Crohn: through. Yeah.

Elise Loehnen: It came true, and this, yeah, and she just got destroyed for the dress, for every, for just being so cringy, and we didn’t really hear from her for a while. She was sort of, now, this is so many years ago, now is sort of, people can reflect on it and say, why were we so mean to Anne Hathaway? But like sent her into kind of hiding. And then meanwhile, Jennifer Lawrence was like tripping and falling down the stairs and so, so real. And I mean, I, I really like Jennifer Lawrence.

So, but like, we just couldn’t get enough of Jennifer Lawrence at that moment. And then since destroyed her she reached that sort of apex and then came tumbling down the other side. But this is just a pattern. And so I think for all of us listening, it’s important to be like, Oh, I am participating in this unconscious sort of mob pattern.

And I could say, it doesn’t really, relate to me because like, I’m not famous and I’m not rich and who cares? And these women don’t deserve our sympathy. But what we miss in that is that this is a playbook. We are all learning. Our daughters are learning. Don’t be seen. Do not be celebrated. It is dangerous.

they will come for you. And this is happening. This happens. You know, it’s interesting that you mentioned Taylor Swift in this. Cause my daughter’s a huge Swifty and she has brought me into it. So I know a ton about Taylor Swift more than I’d ever thought I would actually. And I really, really admire her and like her.

Brie Tucker: If I ever get taken to a Taylor Swift trivia night, you’re coming with me.

JoAnn Crohn: Oh yeah, I will come I’ll come, but Something about Taylor Swift is you said like she has an army to protect her, but even I think she may have broken the pattern because they came after her as well. Right after 1989, it was the whole Kanye West backlash. And like he had his whole audience go like F Taylor Swift, F Taylor Swift, and she totally disappeared.

And. I feel like she’s the one who broke the pattern. Cause she’s like, forget you all. I am posting an album. it was a complete diss track album reputation where I am telling people like, I don’t care. This is how it is. She came out and she’s like, there will be no explanation. There will just be reputation.

She refused to do any press on the album whatsoever. And she just came back fiery right after it instead of disappearing. And I feel like it’s been like an upward trend ever since. Do looking at your research and looking what’s happened to women in the past? Do you feel like that had anything to do with it?

Elise Loehnen: yeah, I’m sure. I mean, I think part of it, I think that we can break these patterns because as mentioned, it doesn’t happen to men as more and more and more of us become conscious of what’s operating in us. And the more that we say, Okay, not today. even in the process of crisis, and when this happens, the response of women is typically Oh my God, I’m bad.

These people think I’m bad. I’m bad. and you could hear this and sort of Anne Hathaway owning that she knows she’s annoying. I mean, just like, I know I’m annoying, whatever, all this talk. And so women immediately go into this, like, I’m bad. And. an apology tour and then they remove themselves. We saw this in 2020 with all these business leaders who had started not, we don’t have that many women who are leading companies and 2020 happened and employees came out and said, you were mean and toxic.

And I’m not suggesting that maybe I’m sure there was, validity to some of these concerns and something certainly to look at and learn from and, repair. But it was wild how it was like everyone went for the women, didn’t go for the men.

JoAnn Crohn: And when men were doing very bad things,

Elise Loehnen: bad thing, actual bad actions, like 10 commandment bad

JoAnn Crohn: bad actions that they were prosecuted against and found guilty,

Elise Loehnen: because when women are conditioned and programmed for goodness, you just need to be bad. But when men are conditioned and programmed for power, they can do anything. to maintain that power and we don’t really move on from them until we think that they’re sort of weak, feminine, a quote unquote pussy.

Brie Tucker: Okay. So I’m dying to ask, because if this is the system, and if we were to believe like, this is just a system, this is how society is, there’s no way we can change it. That’s depressing. So what are some of the things that we can do to kind of

JoAnn Crohn: override our programming,

Brie Tucker: Yeah, now we recognize it.

Now we’re like, oh. So that is why I say that about myself. It’s because I’ve been like, programmed to think that this isn’t a bad thing. What are some things we could do to get ourselves into a healthier mental health state and not be like, I suck. I have the seven.

Elise Loehnen: Yes.

Brie Tucker: Mm-Hmm?

Elise Loehnen: individual action and it’s collective action and the collective action is incredibly important because to go out as a woman and be sort of deviant and is very scary and we’re not going to accomplish

much. So on the individual level, it’s taking responsibility for ourselves and the way that we are complicit in perpetuating this system.

It is not blaming sort of quote unquote, the men or whatever it may be. I’m not saying that there aren’t pernicious men amongst us, but that’s been sort of the victim stance. This is happening to us and we can’t do anything about it and we don’t have as much power. Okay. That may be, but like, Nothing’s going to change.

Superman’s not coming. So for us, it’s taking complete responsibility for ourselves, those feelings of discomfort, the way that we’re made to feel bad and saying, I recognize what’s happening in my body and my feeling, and I’m going to sit with this and understand it. And I’m not going to project it onto other women and other safe targets.

So that’s the first part is just complete, Responsibility. Then it’s being there with each other as we’re going through this process and saying, okay, like we can go on venti walks with our best friends. I do this all the time, and I, we take turns raging and then we shift and it’s like, okay, Why are you so upset? Let’s talk about it. Like what’s happening in your body? What’s happening? What is this other woman and activating in you? Is there envy present? What is it? What is she doing? That’s you know, making you feel this way. So it’s it’s sort of that again, working with each other and being present with each other to make this unconscious action more conscious.

And then it’s a question of not only not participating in these cultural moves against other women, because the research suggests that women are as hard on other women, if not harder on other women than men. And so it’s taking responsibility for our complicity in that action as well, and being, again, present with ourselves in those moments and not perpetuating the problem, but saying like, pause, what’s happening?

Like, what is happening here? And I think if enough of us come online in that way, things could really start to shift because women are amazing. I don’t have to tell your audience this. We have been outperforming boys and men in school for a century. Yep. We are sort of long distance endurance animals. You look at any super long distance race and women win.

We might not have as much immediate strength, but we have more endurance. We outlive men. We’re certainly better multitaskers, let’s be honest. We’re still connected to caring, which men have been sort of severed and dislocated from. We’re generally much more in our feelings and in a good way. we’re like boxers training at high altitude.

So if we could actually get on side with each other and support each other and support men too. I have two boys. This isn’t, my book is not like a screed against men. It’s about balance and the world would be a better place 

JoAnn Crohn: that’s the thing that is so important for people to hear cause I like want to reiterate two things you said that here at no guilt mom, we very much agree in one women have agency over this. Like it is not men’s fault that like they’re doing everything in their homes. They’re taking over everything.

Like you have control on. Changing this dynamic, there is control. there’s extreme situations of abuse. And of course that are out of control. but women for the most part, they have control in this. And the second part is, is that our men and boys, they are suffering as well because they have been cut off from feeling emotions and feeling sadness and from their caretaking.

And so many men would be much better off if they were allowed to. Exhibit their sadness and like show their emotion which we’re not allowing them to do. So, the, gosh, Elise, this has been like the most awesome, awesome interview and I, would talk with you for hours, but, but we have to wrap it up. What are you excited about that’s coming up?

Elise Loehnen: so I’m excited about a lot of things. I mean my podcast and newsletter, which are both called pulling the thread. I’m actually working on a workbook for on our best behavior, which I think you guys will dig that comes out.

Next year when the paperback comes out, and I think it’s I’m working with a really good friend of mine who’s an incredible coach and actually very excited about it. I wasn’t excited about doing a workbook because so many of them are sort of, I don’t know, not that compelling. I wanted it to be a process and we’ve made this process that I think is very rich. 

So yeah, I’m excited for the last day of the summer, but your summer’s over. That’s wild.

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah. We’re very thankful though, because it’s like one 10 out. So our kids are stuck

Elise Loehnen: Yeah. It’s kind of better. This whole system too is so bad for moms and dads, but this like three months of no programming where you have to then it’s, not

JoAnn Crohn: I have so, so many things to say on that. I have so many things to say.

Brie Tucker: we should do an episode about this

JoAnn Crohn: So many things to say, but thank you so much for joining us, Elise. And we will, we’ll talk to you soon. Bye.

Elise Loehnen: Thank you.

JoAnn Crohn:  I mean, I say this after so many of our guests, cause we’re so lucky to have them, but I was just, I could have talked to her for much, much longer. She has the most fascinating topic and it relates so closely to what we see women going through in our own lives and to some of the things like I’ve had to overcome as well, as you’ve told me to like your thought process going along

Brie Tucker: Oh yeah. Yeah. And you know, we’ve got a link in our show notes because she has a quiz that you can take that kind of helps guide you through like, what are those, the seven deadly sins, which ones actually motivate you or not motivate you, what’s the word I’m looking to

JoAnn Crohn: you’re affected by

Brie Tucker: Yeah. Yeah. And my biggest one that affected me that I had was, gluttony. I view gluttony as a sin and as a result, you deny your body signals. Oh, hell yeah. That is me. That is me to it Tee. I would just want to read like a couple of the questions. I can easily point to which part or parts of my body I dislike or wish were shaped or sized differently. I find myself saying things like I was so bad today or I was so good today in reference to the types of foods and the amounts of foods I’ve eaten.

JoAnn Crohn: I think I’ve told you before the story she shared in the book, in the gluttony chapter about the little yearly contest between her dad and her mom, where, they like bet each other, the allowance they usually spend during the year. , whoever could be within a pound of their weight the year before got to spend like their allowance.

And her mom would always work so hard, like scrimp and like deny herself and not eat just so she wouldn’t gain the weight. And her dad was like, this is easy. I could just have a burger. I could just have some fries. And like no, no weight gain. And like how much women have to like push themselves into these boxes to be acceptable.

Brie Tucker: don’t even get me started on the weight gain of perimenopause menopause. Like that’s not fair. That’s just that. No, no.

JoAnn Crohn: it’s not fair.

Brie Tucker: yeah, that that quiz was very, very interesting. So

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah. As I was going through it. Oh my gosh. I said, sloth is something and I’m like, oh my goodness. I could see how this plays out in my life. if I’m not busy doing something, I feel like I am worthless and lazy. Like those are the things I’m saying to myself. I’m like, I just can’t relax. I can’t relax. This has to be done. This has to be done. This has to be done. And I’m like, how did I get that way? Oh, the seven deadly sins.

Brie Tucker: Yeah, because she makes a really good point in there. She was talking about how, like, after a long day, men, uh, there’s often nothing bad perceived typically when a man’s like, I’ve got to come home and I’ve got to rest. I’ve got to recharge my battery. I’ve got to recap. I’ve got to, you know, decompress everything that’s been going on. And so he has to rest and reprieve. But if a woman does that for the night, like, why is she not cleaning the dishes? Why is she not helping the kids get ready for bed? Why is she not like,

JoAnn Crohn: Or what’s wrong with her that she doesn’t have the energy to do these tasks. Like what did she do during the day? Like the fact that the dishes aren’t done already, why aren’t they done already? Like you should have done that earlier. Like that’s the thinking that gets me so often that that prevents me from resting because I don’t think like I have a productive use of my time. And I think that a lot of women fall into that camp too.

Brie Tucker: right. And we’re saying that it’s like, it’s not just a you thing. And it’s not just a partner thing. Like it’s a societal thing, but the good, but what I love is how, like at the end, we do have control over it. There’s tangible things that we can do. every situation is different for every person.

So it’s, we can’t say this one thing is going to work, but, you can make a difference. You can change the line of thought. And I’ve already been seeing it. I try really hard with my kids. Cause I have a boy and a girl and they’re both teens. And I try really, really hard to kind of help break that, , sexist thought process that, what I’ve seen in these deadly sins, like trying to make sure that they don’t view

JoAnn Crohn: To get into that. Yeah. It was interesting. Like the envy thing that she was talking about. Have you ever heard of a pick me girl?

Brie Tucker: Yes.

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah. It’s kind of along those lines, right? It’s the envy thing. Like when people call them a pick me girl, it’s like, what is that girl doing? That is on societally acceptable. Is she like putting herself out there? Is she saying she wants something? Is that why she’s a pick me girl?

Brie Tucker: Right?

JoAnn Crohn: Could be.

Brie Tucker: As someone who I feel like in some cases as a kid was a pick me girl. And not saying that I’m not now necessarily, but I mean, I can definitely look back on me in school, especially in elementary school and be like, that was so,

JoAnn Crohn: I’m a total pick me girl and I own it and I love

Brie Tucker: well, I’m going to say like, for sure, when I was in elementary school, sometimes it’s a coping mechanism for God’s sakes. I didn’t have the attention span to sit there while somebody else was doing stuff like pick me. I want to be involved because this is the only way I can like. Focus. Hello, ADHD. Hi. How you doing?

JoAnn Crohn: Yep. But you’re not supposed to want anything, Brie.

Brie Tucker: know. Oh, I know. Right? And I did. I got teased so much by some of my classmates for being the, you’re such a teacher’s pet. Why do you always want to do it? Right? You always volunteer. And I’m like, I don’t know.

JoAnn Crohn: And women do

Brie Tucker: in your desk all day and not doing anything?

JoAnn Crohn: Women do that today too. And I find it so like. Icky. I find it so icky. In fact, now though, I’m not afraid of it. Like I used to be, when I see other women say that about me, I honestly have to say like, in, in like new groups of women, I do think about it before I put myself out there. I’m like, Oh, is this going to be like, Seen as too bossy to like take charge to you know Who does she think she is and then I mentally check it and i’m like

Brie Tucker: And

JoAnn Crohn: i’m gonna do it. Anyways Yeah And if if those people do see it that way, you know what they’re not my people And they’re not ready to be around me And I said, and just saying that out loud sounds almost incredibly like, Oh, like really scary because like, there’s a lot of people out there who probably judge women like that who are like, I don’t really care.

Like they don’t, they don’t get to be around me. And it’s taken so much intentional. work to get to that place. And I have to say, like, it is so much better here than it was when I was like in constant people pleasing mode.

Brie Tucker: Come join us.

JoAnn Crohn: Yes.

Brie Tucker: spot.

JoAnn Crohn: It’s much better. You can still be kind, but you don’t put up with much crap. It’s really great.

Brie Tucker: Yeah. You know what? If you enjoyed this episode, if you had your mind blown, do us a favor and leave us a review. Leave us some feedback and let us know what you thought of the episode. We love to hear what you guys think. I want to know. Again, who had their mind blown as much as I did and, also like what of those deadly sins are you like, Oh, snap that totally directs my motivation and my thought process.

JoAnn Crohn: And please like share this with a friend. if you have a friend who needs to hear this message, just click the little link in whatever podcast platform you’re in and just text it over to them, because this is so important that we get this out to all women to know so that they start thinking about why they feel the way they do about things. It’s so good.

Brie Tucker: Oh, and I wanted to add a note, like she talked about, and I’m forgetting his name at the beginning of the podcast to started all of this and how he was kind of seen also as the father of Enneagrams.

JoAnn Crohn: The monk. I don’t remember.

Brie Tucker: Enneagrams. And if you like enneagrams, and that got you too, and that blew your mind as well, next week we have a podcast guest who has talked about enneagrams and how you can use them in your parenting. this was actually a great lead in.

JoAnn Crohn: Yes. Yes, indeed. Yeah. So until next time, remember the best mom’s a happy mom. Take care of you and we’ll talk to you later.

Brie Tucker: Thanks for stopping by.