How to Let Go, Let Love and Embrace the “School of Whatever Works” with Jennifer Pastiloff
Show Snapshot:
Ever feel like you're living someone else's timeline? At midlife, many of us realize we've been following imaginary rules that keep us stuck in "fine." Author, poet, and "beauty hunter" Jennifer Pastiloff blew up her "fine" life at 50, leaving her marriage and discovering she'd expanded, not destroyed, her life. Now, Jen opens the pages of her latest bestseller "Proof of Life" to explore how to let go of perfectionism and shame, why curiosity is a lifeline, and how embracing the "school of whatever works" can power you forward. We also investigate biggies like: How do you silence your "inner asshole"? What does it mean to stop abandoning yourself for approval? Why are you already proof of your own worthiness? Honest, open, and full of warmth, Jen will inspire you to stop waiting for permission and start living before you “run out of light.” Listen in for a conversation that feels like a late-night chat with a beloved, old friend.
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Jen’s Book:
Proof of Life: Let Go, Let Love, and Stop Looking for Permission to Live Your Life
Quotable:
Here's a tough pill to swallow. No one really cares if we lie to ourselves. this means we better start caring, or years will pass before we finally wake to the realization that we have become a ghost.
Transcript:
Katie Fogarty [0:00]: Welcome to A Certain Age, a show for women who are unafraid to age out loud. I'm your host, Katie Fogarty. Beauties, if you crave big seismic change in your life, or even want small gentle shifts, we have a conversation, a book, a guest that will reorient your sense of what is possible for your days, weeks, months, your years.
Today's guest, Jen Pastiloff, is a writer, poet, motivational speaker, and bestselling author of "On Being Human." She joins me to dive into the pages of her newest bestseller, "Proof of Life" - a book that unschools and zigs and zags through the moment Jen blows up her life and realizes she has neither wrecked nor destroyed it. She has expanded it.
We are diving into why you are your own permission slip for living the life you want, how to silence your inner asshole - that critical voice keeping you stuck - and how to finally stop abandoning yourself for others' approval. We are saying goodbye to stories that no longer serve us, and hello to love, growth, and joy. Most importantly, we are exploring why none of us need to prove our worthiness. We are the proof of life. Welcome to A Certain Age podcast, Jen.
Jennifer Pastiloff [1:21]: Thank you.
Katie Fogarty [1:23]: I am really looking forward to this conversation. I enjoyed this book. When I opened it up, we are thrust right into the upheaval that you were experiencing as you sat down to write it. You say, "I unexpectedly bought a house, then left my husband after I bought the house. Neither planned, both complicated." You wrote a book about the power of reshaping the stories we tell ourselves and choosing to be intentional about the lives we live, right as you were reshaping your own life. Can you fill us in on how this book came to be?
Jennifer Pastiloff [1:58]: I don't know. Isn't that wonderful when you create something and you go, "I did this. How did it come to be?" In the great clichés, I think that people say "I had to write it," and the imaginary time gods are not real, so that doesn't matter. But of course, it came way later than I thought it would, and way different looking than I thought it would. But I'm a writer, and I'm a writer who didn't really allow myself to write, and I knew I had another book in me. The other book came to me. I feel like my son was the same way. I didn't think I was going to have kids, and he was like, "Oh yeah, you are. I'm coming." And this book was like, "Yeah, you've got to write this one."
And it was an amalgamation of everything that was going on in my life, but almost more than that, everything I denied myself my whole life. So I thought I was going to be a poet in academia and have this sort of life that was not at all the life that turned out. I ended up dropping out of college and becoming a career waitress at the same gig for 14 years, and I didn't think I got to write poetry. And this book contains my poems and my voice really unfiltered. And what I mean by that is I really stay true to who I am without worrying about the ubiquitous "them." What are they going to think? And it doesn't fit in a box. I mean, none of us fit in a box anyway, but it's all the ways that I've been preaching and helping people live their lives, but I wasn't necessarily... and I wasn't able to access my feelings until a couple years ago, three years ago. So it's that.
So it's really... I liken it to a poem by Derek Walcott, "Love After Love," where he says, "Give back your heart to itself." And so I feel like that, and then putting it out in the world is me giving my heart to everyone else. But it came to be... there's a chapter in the book called "Before You Run Out of Light," and that epiphany came to me. A friend, a writer named Krista Parris, texted me after I left my marriage and I was with Henry, and everything was pretty nutso, and knowing that I'm someone who would rather die than change, she said, "How did you have the courage to change everything in your life?" And I didn't know how to answer. And of course, I thought this text is not for me, because I would not change. And it hit me, "Oh, my God, I have."
And I went with Henry that day to keep him company to the storage unit where he had been keeping his stuff. And he's a total nerd, and he builds things, and instead of buying a shelving unit, he was building one. And he only had about an hour before the sun went down. There was no electricity. And as I was watching him - this was so wild, it was January 2023, I guess - as I was watching him, I was like, "Oh, my God, that's how I did it. I had to before I ran out of light." And so that's how it came to be really. It really dawned on me now, all the things I've been not allowing myself - oh, the things that light me up, that I haven't been doing, being, feeling, saying - and I got it all down in my Jen way, and put it into a book.
Katie Fogarty [5:39]: I loved that story in the book, where you're watching Henry try to assemble the shelving unit as the light within the unit is starting to slowly fade away. The end of the day is approaching, and he's hurrying to get this project finished before the light fades. And it's such a wonderful story and metaphor, like we only have a series of—
Jennifer Pastiloff [5:59]: Katie, it was actually a poem. One of the things I used to do at Emily... NYU all the time, back in the days, was we'd take something we wrote, let's say a short story, and then turn it into a poem or vice versa. And so often, like anything that was cut out of the book, prose, I'll play with it and make it a poem or vice versa. So that was a poem called "Before You Ran Out of Light."
And my mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and I thought that was another reason I want to get the stuff down before she runs out of light. Who can say what that means really, or that it changes into a different light, but it's the thing. Wayne Dyer talks about, "Don't die with your music still inside of you." Mary Oliver in "When Death Comes," one of my favorite of hers. The last line, "I don't want to simply having visited, having been a visitor in this world." It was that. It's that same sentiment.
And so epiphanies... my friend Elise wrote a book called "Epiphany." Epiphanies come in the most unlikely of places and pay attention to them. So I'm sitting there on the ground watching them, and I'm going, "Holy shit, that's it." The answer is a text. I got the courage to change everything in my life because I had to. And it was almost like, of course, it felt like it just came out of me, this willingness to leave my marriage and do all these things I was afraid of. But ultimately, I think something in me woke up to the fact of like, "Don't wait."
And I live my life by that. My dad dropped dead when I was eight. I've had so many things happen. One thing very recently, a friend of mine took her life - beautiful writer Ella Wilson - and I became friends with her husband through her death. We never met in person, but I loved him, Michael, and he became the caretaker for their girls, and like last year, he took them to Florida for spring break and died in a freak riptide accident, and left them orphans. And it did such a number on me, that reminder of "don't wait." And it's not about living in fear. It's not... it's just the you-don't-knowness of it all. And I don't want to take anything for granted in that anything's given, like time or opportunity or love. There's always enough love. But I just mean, I guess I just mean tomorrow.
So I really got present to that with the... it was January, the light was going down, and I went, "Wow, wow. Okay, yeah, before we run out of light." And like... so then I love to ask people, "What are you waiting for? What do you want to do? Who do you want to be before you run out of light?" And it sounds so cliché, like, "If not now, when?" But my gosh, no truer words, right?
Katie Fogarty [8:46]: Absolutely. Getting to the end of our life and looking back with regret and thinking that... And you know, at this stage of life that I'm at, I'm 55 and I am so happy and excited in this stage, but I'm realistic. There is less light in front of me than there is behind me. So how do I shine it on all the things that I want to do right now, which is... but the book is so wonderful. It's full of so much. It's so clear that you're a poet. The book is sprinkled with poetry, but you have such command of language. There's so many wonderful stories. There's so many incredible phrases that you use that just lodge themselves in your brain.
What am I going to... I'm going to cry right now. You have such an incredible... you even used one of the phrases earlier, when we first started this conversation, you talked about the imaginary time gods. Yeah, and believe me, I'm never going to forget that phrase. It's so... that's my wish, especially. Tell our listeners what the imaginary time gods are and why we should not be listening to them.
Jennifer Pastiloff [9:47]: Well, according to the ITG, I had a kid at 41. So according to ITG, that's just... whoa. Well, more than that. Look, I do... I take for granted how easy it was for me to have my son, and it was not planned. And I was ambivalent. I didn't think I was going to have kids. I lost my dad at eight, and I thought it was my fault. My baseline was "I am a bad person." I did not think I was going to have a kid, and so Charlie... it was just like an accident. And I don't take that for granted. I know how many people struggle with fertility, but I also know the bullshit and the fear they put in women with like, "better start now," even if it's not spoken - this sort of like ideological fear-based... the biological clock. I remember when I bought my house, and my aunt, bless her, but, you know, I lived in a one-bedroom apartment for 20 years, and she's like, "It's about time." Oh, Jersey. But it's just funny. It's like... or it's just what we're sort of born into. Like, "This is what you do, and then at 18, you go to school, and then you're supposed to know what you want to do, and then you find a partner, and by X years, you figure out your purpose" - which I call bullshit on just having one purpose - and it's a setup. It's a setup to make you feel bad.
I will be like leading a workshop with 100 people, and "How many of you know your purpose?" And if you raise their hands, and the rest people don't, it's like, "Oh, what? We're going to just like..."
Katie Fogarty [11:25]: Inadequate. You start to feel inadequate. You start to feel like damaged if you're measuring yourself against this notion that there's one gigantic purpose, or that there's a steady clock that you're ticking along to.
Jennifer Pastiloff [11:37]: Well, I think there's two things at play in that. I think one is we're not fixed objects in space, like we're not coffee pots. So my purpose... well, a big epiphany, especially as a woman, that I had, and I keep forgetting, is we get to change our mind. I'm going to say it again. We get to change our mind, especially for women of a certain age. See what I did there? And so the idea of like a purpose. It's like it could change over and over again. But then ultimately I will die on the hill that we all have the same purpose, and it's to do love, and it looks all different ways. But when you ask people, and you get to the core of it, it's always that. So that's why it's a setup.
But and then it's like, "Oh, have kids," or writing my book... even my first book came out when I was 44. And despite all this work I do, and all you know how I never lie about my age, and I'm so open everything, even, and even like, I like to read books by women that are my age and older. I don't particularly like love reading memoir by... and that's my own personal thing. But even that, I still remember a few years ago being like, "Oh my God, when my next book comes out, I'm going to be 50," like, all that programming, and it's insidious, and it's like, ingrained in us, and daily... daily-ish practices to keep putting down those bullshit stories. And there's no universal timeline. And so I will ask women again, let's say you have 100 women in a workshop, "How many of you feel like you're behind?" It is heartbreaking that almost everyone raises their hand. Well, behind what? According to who? And yet and still. And so it's like a lot of us are adhering to these guidelines that are made up, that are passed on, that are unspoken, spoken, whatever, but that aren't our own.
Katie Fogarty [13:29]: I know, and we take them on, and sometimes we stop ourselves. I mean, that's so interesting. And more often than not, more often than not, because, well, maybe not... we talk about, like you could talk about external pressures, that steady drumbeat, like when you hit a certain age, if you get married, when are you having a baby? When are you having your second baby? When are you doing this? And that's all that external noise of family, friends, pop culture. But often, I think the internal voice that says to us, like, "How dare I?" Or it's like, "I've run out of time." So how... you explain this in the book. How do you recommend to a listener? What are some of the tools that you offer? Because you offer some wonderful prompts. One...
Jennifer Pastiloff [14:07]: One is finding friends like you, Katie, you know, I really... I am... my tattoo. One of them says, "I got you." And it's written in such a way that when I read it, it's not upside down, and when you read it, it's not upside down, because I was always the "I got you" lady, and it dawned on me, I was like, "Well shit, but never for myself." But your "I got you" people are who you're spending your time with. And it doesn't even necessarily mean in real life, it's just the people who really see you and got you, and so they reflect back to who you really are. And I believe that is so important not to be underestimated, and it's not to rely solely on external validation, no way. But it is important to have that reflection, right?
I talk about something called the School of Whatever Works, and that's how I live my life, barring you're not intentionally hurting yourself or anyone else. Whatever works. And I so fiercely believe in that, like people get dogmatic, like, "Well, you should know." You find what works, you explore, you discover, and then you use that, and hopefully you stay consistent-ish, because I'm notorious for finding something that works and not doing it, or knowing something doesn't work, and I keep doing it.
Katie Fogarty [15:24]: That's because you're human, and you wrote an entire book on it. I think it's very human to put ourselves, sometimes into these... to know but not do. The doing is hard. The doing is hard. The knowing is... you know, I mean, look...
Jennifer Pastiloff [15:39]: I'm being human. My first book. This is not a spoiler. It ends with the words, "Now what?" Because, I mean, I want to make a shirt. This is... being self-aware is overrated, because it is. I've always been self-aware, and it didn't help me as a child, when my dad died, I was like, "I don't care." And I wanted to die. I didn't cry. And all the adults... I was so self-aware, and they were like, "Wow." I knew I drank too much. I didn't want to get into that. Do you think I didn't know? Of course, I knew. It wasn't until I said, "All right, finally," and that was six and a half months ago, so you're absolutely right. It's the doing.
Katie Fogarty [16:15]: And congratulations, by the way. I saw that on social media. That's a big milestone.
Jennifer Pastiloff [16:19]: I am so proud. I'm equally as proud as that and the book. And I mean when I say I didn't think I could, and it's such a testimony to not believing everything we think. And that's another thing about the international... it's one and the same when I'm saying, "Don't believe everything you think." I didn't think I could, I couldn't even imagine it. And I don't know that I've ever been so proud of myself. So thank you.
And the inner asshole, there's all sorts of ways, and you keep discovering them like... so for me sometimes, but it happened yesterday. It's about intentionality. So sometimes I'll scroll on my phone, and I know I'm doing that when I pick up my phone to say I'm looking at the time, and then I end up three hours down a rabbit hole. That's not intentional, you know what I mean? Yeah, so then I start comparing myself, and I start feeling like crap, all right. Well, then what's something that works? What I found is sleeping with my phone in the other room. Not everyone can do that, but what it does, it's something simple that helps. It's not the last thing and the first thing, because I'm sensitive. I'm not saying I'm more sensitive than anyone else, but I know myself, how easy I get, like in my head, which is a bad neighborhood. Moving my body, which I haven't done in like two years. So now I'm talking shit. But Jen was like, making art. I found making art to be my medicine, and I just discovered it a few years ago. I could not draw a stick figure, but I started playing, and now I'm like, this prolific painter. I still can't draw, and it's medicine, and it's the only thing that I do that I've found where I don't talk shit to myself, which is fascinating, and it's vulnerable to admit. But I'm like, "All right, more of that," and I don't bring my phone in. We all find our ways that's not going to be everyone's way.
Katie Fogarty [18:06]: Yeah, for me, it's hot yoga. Honestly, it's... I know that you've been a yoga teacher for many years, but yoga allows me to empty my brain.
Jennifer Pastiloff [18:13]: And I always mishear, and what I hear is funnier. That's my bio. I thought you just said, "For me, it's tacos."
Katie Fogarty [18:23]: Yeah? Jen, because our listeners who have not yet read the book, yeah, don't know that you have a hearing loss, so that's why you miss...
Jennifer Pastiloff [18:30]: It. I'm deaf. I mean, I'm without my hearing aids. I'm deaf. I'm small "d" deaf, which means capital "D" Deaf is you exist in Deaf culture. I don't know ASL. It got progressively worse as I'm older and I have tinnitus, so I read lips. So our hearing aids? Technology is usually better, because it streams right into my hearing aids, like in person, but profound, and it just has been getting worse. So yay for that.
Katie Fogarty [18:57]: That's definitely challenging, but I love the fact that you reframe it. You have it in your bio, and you mentioned in your book that even though sometimes you're mishearing, you're experiencing like delightful imagery too. And for me, yoga... yoga and tacos could work. Both could work. But for me, truly, it's yoga.
Jennifer Pastiloff [19:14]: It's that sense of humor. I would die. I wouldn't get out of bed. And some days I don't have it. Let me tell you, my hearing aid broke recently for my good ear, so I was wearing a backup pair which was basically like wearing nothing, and I got really depressed. I didn't really even realize how much it's frustrating. And I have days where I feel sorry for myself, but if I didn't have a sense of humor, I probably wouldn't make it. So a sense of humor is an end all be all for me, that's another way, actually, for the inner asshole is find the funny, like laugh at the ridiculousness of what your inner asshole is saying. Find the funny. Life's hard enough. Look at it out there. Look at your feeds. People on social media. You are nutty enough to be on social media, it's just terrible news after terrible news. So we have to find the beauty, find the funny.
Katie Fogarty [20:06]: Well, let's talk about that, because you have a chapter in your book... you talk about your practice of beauty hunting. Can you share with our listeners what that is and how you use it in your own life?
Jennifer Pastiloff [20:14]: Yeah, it's my spiritual practice, aka, get my head out of my ass practice, where it is a lot, and what that is to stop as often as you can, and identify and name five beautiful things, of the now, none of your life, none of yesterday, of the now and at five, because it's a doable number. And what that does is, well, it causes you to pay attention, and also it becomes a habit. It becomes an addiction, really a healthy one. But also you get to start to reframe beauty. You get to go, "I get to see what beauty is."
And I I'm constantly delighted by, "Oh, wow, look at that thing on my desk, the color of that, the way the light's hitting it," and especially in situations where I'm bored or painful, because we can hold more than one thing, yeah, and if we really keep looking for the beauty, I mean, it's a survival tactic. I first started doing it when I heard whether it's lore or not, but Viktor Frankl, he wrote "Man's Search for Meaning." But when he was in a concentration camp, they would serve them lukewarm, dirty water with a dead fish head for flavor. And I don't know if it's true, but Wayne Dyer told a story where Viktor said he had to find the beauty in the dead fish head. And that stopped me in my tracks, and I was like, "There it is."
So it's a practice. And I went in and taught my son's third grade poetry, and I talked about that, and the other day, I went with them on a field trip, and one of the little boys, I happened to be recording like the trees, and he's next to me, and he's saying... he's going, "Since you came into our class, I find myself searching for beauty in myself, my parents and my friends." Like Charlie and my son, I had it on camera, and I shared it, and people were like, "I started crying."
Katie Fogarty [22:06]: He's already figured out life. That's like, incredible, right? Just... Well, what a wonderful practice to have. If he does that for the rest of his life, he will...
Jennifer Pastiloff [22:15]: I felt really, really proud. One kid. But the gift in that, if we have more of us doing that, but I was so touched, I was moved, I was excited. I and if beauty, it's contagious, we're contagious beings. So it's one of the things, is like, I'm so open about my age and about about being honest about things, and I think it's so important, because it's contagious, right? And so is fear. So when we see people, like, still, when I meet a woman, let's say in her 70s or something, and I don't even think about, "Oh, how are you?" They're like, like, "Oh, God, are we still doing that?"
Katie Fogarty [22:55]: Yeah, well, sometimes I think a little... I think my mom's in her 70s, and I think a little bit of that generation still has, because I see her practice it like she says stuff like that, even though we've had so many conversations around that. I think some of it's just the time that you grew up in, some of these, some of the language just gets embedded. Even if you don't feel truly like that, it matters. It's just easy language.
And you talk in the book a little bit about this, how to even give yourself a talking to about how you were sort of showing up for yourself. You talk about something that you called the Land of Fine, which is... even though you've done so much work and you've written some books and you've really spent your career trying to help other people access these tools to sort of live an intentional life that you found yourself stranded in the land of fine, where a lot of people get marooned. So tell us a little bit about what the Land of Fine is in your book, and why and how we can get out of it if we need to.
Jennifer Pastiloff [23:56]: I like that. You added a few "new" too because let's be clear, if fine is fine for you. Great. You, do you? I mean that without any ounce of, like, sarcasm or anything, it's just like waiting tables. There was never a judgment. It's just that I was an artist who wasn't creating, so I was miserable. But like, if it brings you joy, if that's your jam, great. So if fine works for you, great. And apparently it was working for me, except I was living in the other land, the land of denial.
Because when I was eight, I thought I killed my father, which I did not dear listeners, but he told me I was being bad. I screamed, "I hate you." He dropped dead. You do the math. I never talked about it. I shut down. I could not access my feelings, and the way I survived was hardness, or at least that's how I thought. And after 40, however many years, you have armor on, it's really hard to... it's no longer armor. It was like part of me, so I...
I was just talking about this to my friend on Sunday, the Land of Fine, because my husband, who's still my husband, I'm not divorced yet, which is another honest thing. I just... I don't feel that I owe anyone anything in sharing things, but I will not hide in shame. That's shame loss. Screw weight loss. Shame loss. My ex, but still, my legal husband is lovely. He's lovely. We were like roommates, which we kind of still are, and he still lives here most of the time. And I had big love everywhere else, not sexually, but I didn't need that. I thought I had no sex drive. That was another thing, like dead inside, I don't care. And we were like, roommates, and everyone apparently wondered, but no one's going to say anything, which I appreciate, because it's really no one's business to be like, "You seem really unhappy in your marriage," but until you say it, then everyone's like, "Yeah."
But I just compartmentalized, and I honestly... it was another thing the book was going to be called, "You Get to Have This" because I didn't think I got to be happy. But ultimately, I didn't think I got to have that kind of love connection and and vulnerability... intimacy grossed me out. Scared me more than anything. I would rather die for many reasons, one, because with that, the person can leave or die. Also with intimacy, someone would get close and see I was a monster, a bad person, and so I stayed in a marriage where I didn't have to be intimate. And it's hilarious, because I am gifted at holding space. I mean, I am, like, masterful with other people, but just within myself, nope. And so the irony of like, of what I did for a living and how I was but then how I was in my home is like one for the books, and yet not... It's a tale as old as time, I think, right?
But the Land of Fine, I was talking to my friend about it, where it's sort of like my husband was lovely. You know, when there's no outwardly bruises. Nothing seems outwardly wrong. It's like, who am I to leave fine? Who am I? Something different, and notice I don't say more. I'm not throwing him under the bus or making anything less than or greater than. It's different. But a lot of times it's like, especially women, I think, and look, that's my lived experience. But who am I to want anything different? I need to be satisfied with what I have right now. And that's that, and that, I think, is a lot of messaging that we live with.
Katie Fogarty [27:33]: In the book, you said something that I wrote down because it really hopped out at me. You said, here... quote, "Here's a tough pill to swallow. No one really cares if we lie to ourselves. This means we better start caring, or years will pass before we finally wake to the realization that we have become a ghost."
Jennifer Pastiloff [27:51]: And then I say, "Now take some water for that pill."
Katie Fogarty [27:55]: Yeah, and nobody wants to be a ghost, but you can wake up years, months, decades later to discover that you have... you're translucent.
Jennifer Pastiloff [28:07]: Because when you're a kid, it's different, right? But at the end of the day, like with my drinking, I never named it out loud. I knew because of the "now what," what was I going to keep on like, it doesn't matter if, because, like, people would faint if I said how much I drank. Keep on and like say it, but at the end of the day, and that is a tough pill to swallow, no one cares if you're lying to...
Katie Fogarty [28:32]: Yourself. Well, people care, but they can't affect the change. I mean, I do think people care if they look and they see someone they love struggling, or would they maybe they perceive to be struggling? I do think that people can have concern and care for others.
Jennifer Pastiloff [28:46]: Yeah, you're right. I'm not using the right word, and I will think of a better, a more astute thing. I think you understand what I'm saying. Yeah, it's not that they don't care. I guess what I'm saying more is like when we're a child and there's someone... All right, here's what it is. Before I did my TED talk in a very pissed off way, about a week before, I still was like, "I don't know what the title is." I really... I knew what I wanted to say, but and literally, all day, I was having a bad day. I was feeling guilty about my son for various reasons I you know about when I... whatever, and he walks in like he was in my head. He was eight. This was February or January, and he puts his hand on my shoulders, and he goes, "Mommy, nothing you do is wrong." I was like, "Am I okay?" On camera, what I call my TED Talk.
That the epiphany I had, Katie, when I was writing the TED talk is, I've been waiting my whole life for someone to say that to me, because I thought it was my fault when my dad died, right? I've been waiting my whole life for someone to make me stop hating myself, for someone to make me stop drinking and abusing myself. So a better way to say it, and that was a sort of lazier way to say it, is, no one came. Is no one's going to make you. No one can make you. So it's too late to edit the book, but that's what I'm saying, is nobody else can make you... like you've got to do it. We can help you. We can love you. We can go, "Look, this is who you are. I see you. You don't have to carry that bullshit story, or you're living in the land of denial," but until we face it and say, "Now What?" No one can do anything.
Katie Fogarty [30:27]: For a lot of people, I think midlife is a time when they start to face that they do, start to look at their stories and say, "Wait a minute. The story that got me here or that kept me from going someplace else no longer serves me. It's time for me to choose a new story." So I'm curious. You've written two books. Writing even one book is very time consuming endeavor, but I imagine when you sit down, you have a specific audience or person in mind, and who is the reader that you hope connects...
Jennifer Pastiloff [30:56]: With this book. That's a great question.
Katie Fogarty [30:59]: Did you write it for yourself, or was it that's what...
Jennifer Pastiloff [31:03]: Hey, in this one, I feel, you know, I just did the audio book, and I'm really, really proud. And I'm happy to say that because, again, as women, how many times am I going to say that? As women like I'm speaking for all women today. As women, we, but we, I think it's frowned upon, but quietly, when women are like, appreciate themselves. "Ooh, that must be nice. Wow." But I'm really proud, and I realized I'm not preachy in the book. I'm like, very irreverent, and I'm like, "That's what I did. And sometimes I suck balls and sometimes I don't."
Katie Fogarty [31:37]: And so you're so warm and funny and generous and lovely, the book is lovely. No, there's no, I'm just...
Jennifer Pastiloff [31:46]: Kidding. I'm kidding, but, like, I really do think the audience was for me, but by extension, you, because I'm not talking to you as if I know better or I know more, or "let me here to teach you something." No, I'm just sharing what worked and what didn't, and bits of my story. But I know there's a lot of people out there like me, not me, but like me, meaning people who are afraid of what, of everything, people who are leaving something or beginning something, people who are looking to find, people who feel like they're a weirdo like them, and we're all weirdos. Let's be real.
But yeah, I feel like I was talking to me, and ultimately, I'm so grateful for Anne Lamott for her blurb that went on the cover because of the one specific thing she said. Now this book is labeled self help, and on it, she said, "and that great sense of humor." So to me, that is a nod to readers. "Hey, this isn't too precious, and this isn't going to take us off too seriously." So that, for me, is the key. It's that, look, no one gets out alive anyway, and that's another tough pill to swallow, right? Like, "Oh shit." So you might as well be in on the joke and have a bit of a sense of humor. And so when I say we're all weirdos, I mean that lovingly, but it's like anyone who's willing to be open and receptive to changing their minds, which can be scary, especially if you don't think you get to because you do.
Katie Fogarty [33:33]: You said that at the beginning, and one of the phrases that you use in the book is to become your own permission slip. And I love that, because that's been a repeated theme on the show. I've recorded 230 shows right now, and the idea of giving yourself permission in midlife is a theme that's reappeared again, because I think the women who are walking onto the show have launched a creative project. They have reinvented a relationship. They have started a business because they gave themselves permission to go after it, and they stopped waiting for people to be the ones giving them permission, just as you shared. It's wild, and so it's that's why books are magic, because they connect us to other people and let us feel seen and supported. And this book is like truly a joyful experience. I mean, you share hard things that have gone on your life and that you're still grappling with, but the message is love as you shared.
And I'm looking at the cover quote right now from Anne Lamott. It says, "Jennifer Pastiloff's writing never fails to amaze me with its depth of honesty and wisdom and that great sense of humor. I'm a huge fan," and I know we're not chasing external validation, but like, if I were having Anne Lamott say kind things about me would be at the top of the list. I mean, it's...
Jennifer Pastiloff [34:50]: But, dude, I mean, I still, I have to say it's still like, I think there's a part in the book I know there is where it's like, sometimes you're like, "This is impossible," even if it's like actually happening, or I still can't believe... I'll look at it and I'm like, there's a disconnect, like, "What? That?" And that's old bullshit story that every day I have to work to put down. That's okay, that's okay. We're human beings, and the permission slip thing is really big.
And I think the wild thing, Katie, is often, this is classic, ready. We don't even know who we're waiting for permission from. It's amazing. Doesn't matter, as long as they're the ones in charge. They... like I italicize "they" in the book, which I love, because it's like, who are they? What might they think? I was waiting... I talk about all the years I wanted to be an actor, and I did for a minute, maybe, but never as a career. But I pretended, and I was waiting tables at this very popular restaurant, which is how I'm, like, I call... I'm, like, the Jewish-ish mayor, because I know everyone, but in, like, the most random ways, and a lot of them, because I waited on them for like, 14 years. It was this very popular Hollywood restaurant, and I waited at the host... down for someone to discover me. I'm not kidding. And a spoiler alert, no one discovered me, but really, I was waiting for someone to save me, to love me, to give me permission.
And it's when my son said that thing to me, I realized that I'd been waiting my whole life for that, and I really did think it was my fault my dad died, and I carried that, and I colored everything. I mean, I chanted in my head, "I'm a bad person" like 24/7 and that's heartbreaking to me.
Katie Fogarty [36:34]: Do you think that, if you... I mean, that's such a tough burden to be picking up at the age of eight and carrying through for decades, honestly. I mean, do you feel like if somebody had said the right thing at a younger age, if you would... I don't even know if you worked with a therapist. Do you feel like all of us are probably thinking, how can we make sure we don't do that for people in our lives? What could have maybe made a difference for you?
Jennifer Pastiloff [36:57]: I was talking to my sister about that the other day. I feel bad sometimes because my sister was five, I was eight, and I always focus on mine, which because in a lot of ways, when I think about that, I'm stuck in the eight-year-old self, but I don't put myself in her shoes very often, and her trauma is different. Like I was... I was closer, I was older, and my dad was my person. And in a not healthy way, it was like he pitted... it was like me and him against my mom, and both my parents parentified me. That's another thing. Like literally treated me like I was 40, because I've always been very like wise and this, which is another reason why I thought I had to be strong. I thought I became the man of the house. I mean, it's insane to me now. And my mom was only 34, bless, so she did the best she could, but it was, it was sort of like, "I'm fine." And everyone was like, "Okay," right? And that breaks my heart. They...
Katie Fogarty [37:51]: Wanted it to be so, so they let it be that way.
Jennifer Pastiloff [37:53]: Or my mom didn't know better. My mom was severely abused as a child, and like, the fact that my mom's even still alive, and like my mom was never once told, "I love you," she was sexually abused verbally... the fact that my mom like that I turned out how I did. It's a miracle, but she did the best she could. I mean, so she didn't know any better. I don't know that it was even that she wanted to believe. I think she just believed it.
But I was talking to my sister about it, because my sister was five, and she overheard, or my mom told her, but they were going to get divorced before my dad died, and my dad and I were close, and I was older, and this wasn't anything, I think, except dumb on my dad's part. But he said, "I'll take Jennifer, you take Rachel." And my sister heard that, and then he died. So my sister all her life, she's like "when she... Why didn't daddy want me," and her life has played out with that. And I could still see all this stuff with us, and it's wild. And I'm like, "My heart hurts for little us."
So one of the things now I'm so hell bent on is especially kids who are going through grief, but anyone going through grief is... it's not to shove it back down, because I'm a testament. Energy doesn't die. You think you're getting rid of it? You are fooling yourself. Seriously, I mean, things emerged just recently that I was like, "You've got to be kidding me," imaginary timelines again. Because I'm like, "How am I dealing with this...
Katie Fogarty [39:29]: At 50?" I know, Jen. I read it. I read a wonderful book for my other podcast, which is a literary show. And it was written by a woman named Carmen Rita Wong, and it was a memoir called "Why Didn't You Tell Me," and there was a major family secret. It's called "Why Didn't You Tell Me." But she said something in that show that really stuck with me. She said, "When you bury the truth, you bury it alive," and when you're stuffing down like things that shouldn't be hidden. When you are stuffing down grief, they don't go away. They're just buried alive waiting to come out.
Jennifer Pastiloff [40:08]: It's so weird. It's like Katie. I could not access my feelings. And the way I describe it, which sounds kind of gross, but I deal with constipation, so whatever. It's like emotional constipation. And so I lead these workshops, and everyone be crying. And the thing was, I'm masterful at being able to hold space. And one of the reasons is I'm able to, it's not a disconnect or anything, but I don't like, take it on. And I take it on in some ways, I listen, but I don't like, I'm able to just be very present and still, but like, I would have this feeling, I don't know how to describe it, except it's like, you have to poop and you can't, but I couldn't cry. And I would, literally, I was like, "I'm like, dead inside." And I'd watch, so I was like, "This is Us," because I would cry with that, or "Terms of Endearment," but my own... It's like, I couldn't, and then I added to like, "Well, I'm a monster. I'm dead inside."
So a few summers ago, when I first wanted to leave my marriage, I didn't have a therapist, and I called a friend who was a rabbi, and he knew about the fact I couldn't cry. We were FaceTiming. I was out in my car, because I know privacy in here, and I couldn't stop crying. And it still scares me sometimes, because it's so foreign. And I said to him, "I don't know it's scaring me." And he looked me, and he said, "You've been suppressing for so long." And then he said this, and this is throughout the book. He said, Rabbi Steve Leader. He said, "It's like the basement door has swung open." He said, "and you're never going to be able to pretend again," and the rabbi wasn't wrong.
And so now sometimes things come up, and I feel very out of control, which makes me panic, because, one, it's like, "how, what? How can this be possible? Where is this coming from?" And like, it's science. Energy doesn't die, and we can trick ourselves, but it doesn't, and I think it's the greatest disservice I gave myself, and also it's become the greatest gift. But my gosh, to allow... that's my other tattoo, and I do my best to model that for my son now, allowing, allowing it out through whatever it may be, because shoving it down. Pain. It...
Katie Fogarty [42:24]: Doesn't work. The pain doesn't go away. Jen, I want to ask you now about the title of your book, "Proof of Life," because in the very last chapter, you say, among many beautiful things, "You get to leave fine. You get to choose, you. You get to let go. You get to love. You get to grant yourself permission to live the life you want without having to give any proof. You are the proof. You are the proof of life." So from the vantage point of where you're sitting today, when you're looking out, do you feel that this is like now part of your DNA, or do you feel like you might have to learn this lesson again?
Jennifer Pastiloff [43:02]: I like how you just phrased that. "Learn the lesson again." I think, as women, but you know, let yourselves off the hook for having to relearn something every single day or every other day, because it's part of being human. We forget, we remember, we forget. But maybe, and it's not necessarily real, it's forgetting. It's also being out of alignment. And sometimes we're out of alignment when we're sick, when we haven't slept, when we're we've been rejected, whatever, because when we're out of alignment, then it's easier to buy into old bullshit stories or listen to our inner asshole, or forget we get to experience joy, or whatever it may be.
I don't know, look, I pray that I don't but I feel it with this book, right? Like the pre-launch part is very stressful, and it brings up so much. And as someone whose baseline is lack, and I have to every day, if any of you follow me or know me, you know that I live my life in a very like lift other people up generous in a truly generous way. And that is because my baseline is lack, right? Like my dad got taken away, and I at some point was like, "Well, if the message is there isn't enough, I'm going to be the enoughness. I'm going to make it so." And yet, during this pre-book part, we have people ignoring you, and you have all this like, no thank you, and all this stuff comes up that seems to validate "you suck." And so it's easy if I'm not careful, to fall back into that.
And the "proof of life" is really meaningful to me, because this quote of mine, which my son has memorized, I love. It's "at the end of my life when I ask one final 'What have I done?' Let my answer be I have done love," and then I've gone on to revise it like "at the end of my day, at the end of the podcast, at the end of..." and doing love as a verb, and it looks different. It could be anything, but may I always be doing love.
And so after I sold the book, like, about a year later, I had this panic attack because, like, I ran out of money, I hadn't done anything. I literally was like, "Oh my god, what have I done?" And I actually said these same words out loud that "I have nothing to show for myself." And there it is. And a majority of the people we walk around with that, and it's the devil. "What do you have to show for it? Like, how relevant are you? What do you have to show?" And you don't have to show shit, and that is what it means to be your own proof of life. And really honestly. And this isn't because this podcast is called what it is, but it was when I turned 50, because imagine my dad dying at 38 so I had already had so many issues around age, on top of all the stuff women already have, most of us, I had the double whammy of, like, 38 is age of death and, you know, but turning 50 and then I got sober right before... it's like, man, all of a sudden, I'm really clear on that, like, who I am being and so I focus on that every day, and that's a way to really tame the inner asshole, quiet it. I realize we don't kill it. I thought maybe, but again, yeah. But like, Yeah, I do, and I do forget it some days. If I'm feeling I don't know, rejected.
Katie Fogarty [46:39]: I appreciate you sharing that, because it's very easy to look at somebody you know, for somebody who's listening right now and thinking, "Jen has two books," and we're always sort of measuring ourselves and or not always. Sometimes we are, sometimes we're not. But to hear from people to say, "I do have to keep reminding myself of what I know. I do have to keep practicing. I have to keep doing love, even for myself." I think it's great we're never done. And so I think it's so important to say that, because I think a lot of times people think you get to a finish line and you've arrived, and there's no... we're never done. So I think that that I love hearing that.
And I actually just interviewed a guest who came back. She was the very first author ever interviewed five years ago when she published her first book at 56 and she came back on to talk about her latest book, but that's her third book, novel, two did not sell, and she said she had to relearn the lessons of resilience again, because she had to give herself a talking to the first time, and she had to do it again and again. And it's so great to hear that. Her name is Karen Dukess, and she wrote a book called "Welcome to Murder Week." And she wrote a very serious novel, a very serious Russian literature novel, book number two, and it didn't sell. And she just sat down to be like, "Am I a writer or not?" And she wrote a hilarious, funny, joyful, light book that she just derived pleasure from doing. It's called "Welcome to Murder Week," and it's just about like an English murder history. And she said, "Oh my god, I just let the realization like I had fun and I did it for me, and that's what made it work."
Jennifer Pastiloff [48:14]: I want to meet her. I want to know her. See, that's the thing, and notice I really want. I want. I used to always want to be a model, and I didn't really, but I'm really short. And the reason, and like, so I'm really short, I mean, I want... I went to go help my son. I went on field trip, and it was last minute. I had a podcast with Kris Carr, and she canceled at the last minute, and so I could volunteer. Well, friends, they were going to, like, a senior home, and they were walking. I thought it was across the street. Wait for it. It was a 45 minute hike through the meadow, like a hike. I show up in high heeled platform shoes. Someone had a pair. I mean, anyway, I've always hated being short and even, like, still, I'm like, "You think I'm like, Well, I'm okay," but I didn't really want to model. It was the thing of, like, I thought if I'd be beautiful, then I'd be good, because I thought I was a bad person, right?
But I believe in having role model behavior. And what does that mean? It means being who I say I am. And so I want to point out the idea of enoughness, one of the things I do all the time, I love lifting other people up or so. That's why I'm like, "What's her name? What's book called?" And I'm writing it down, and it's like, there's enough. And how wonderful it is to spread the good word. And I think, like, I call it the "I got you" effect, and we all get to have that. And I think a lot of us don't believe that, or they're like, "Well, I don't have my people." Guess what? Stay open. They're there. They're there. We have to stay open. Being open is one thing. Staying open is harder, but remembering. And when we get caught in that feeling of lack or there's not enough, it's a lie. And so it's like just remembering. And I think it's just so wonderful. People to also to support other authors, women, people.
But one thing, and I think you probably know this, Katie, for anyone listening who wants to publish a book or write a book, I always say writing a book's hard and publishing it harder... the hardest getting it in people's hands. And I believe that's fact, and that is why I asked you to say the book's name and the other book, because the hardest thing is getting it in people's hands. And so the more you know, in organic word of mouth and now on this podcast, and someone's going to hear it, and that's how it happens. And we all can do that for each other. We can be...
Katie Fogarty [50:35]: A web of support for one another. Yes, in doing so, lift ourselves up. Jen, that is a beautiful note to end on and taking your advice, I'm going to remind listeners that the book is called "Proof of Life: Let Go, Let Love and Stop Looking for Permission to Live Your Life" by Jennifer Pastiloff, the National Best Selling Author of "On Being Human." Jen, thank you so much for being with me today and sharing your story and your wisdom and reminding us to do love and I so enjoyed our conversation today.
Jennifer Pastiloff [51:05]: Yeah, what an honor. Thank you.
Katie Fogarty [51:09]: This wraps A Certain Age, a show for women who are aging without apology. Thanks for hanging out with me. I loved connecting with Jen. She has been everywhere lately, on the Rich Roll podcast, she's been on Debbie Millman's Design Matters podcast. She has been doing book events with Shannon Watts, who was a recent guest. She has been featured on Maria Shriver's Sunday Paper. So much more. She's been everywhere, crisscrossing the country, talking about this wonderful, compelling book. And I'm so thrilled she found time to be with us today on A Certain Age podcast.
If you have enjoyed the show, let me know in an Apple podcast or Spotify review, because reviews help other amazing women find the show. Special thanks to Michael Mancini, who composed and produced our theme music. See you next time and until then, age boldly, beauties.