Letting Go, Staying Resilient, and Finding Ourselves with Dr. Deepika Chopra and Stacey Lindsay

[1:17]Zibby Owens: This is Zibby Owens, and you're listening to Totally Booked with Zibby. Formerly, moms don't have time to read books. In my daily show, I interview today's latest best selling, buzziest, or underrated authors and story creators whose work I think is worth your time. As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and, obviously, podcaster, I get a comprehensive look at everything that's coming out and spend my time curating the best books so you don't have to. Stay in the know, get insider insights, and connect with guests like I do every single day. For more information, go to zibbymedia.com, and follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens. Today, we have amazing women who are here to help you live a better life in all different ways. First up, we have Stacy Lindsay, the author of being 40, the decade of letting go and embracing who we are. Stacy is a multimedia journalist, editor, and writer specializing in women's issues and culture. Recognized for her empathic approach, Lindsay has interviewed hundreds of public figures and civilians for national outlets from Maria Shriver's Sunday paper to Goop. Previously, she was a CBS affiliate news anchor and reporter. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and their rescue pup, Andy McCowell. Next up, we have Dapika Chopra, who I interviewed in person at Zibby's Bookshop, which was really fun. Her book is the power of real optimism, a practical science based guide to staying resilient, curious, and open even when life is hard. Doctor Chopra, who also goes by the optimism doctor, is a professional psychologist, visual imagery expert, and founder of Things Are Looking Up, a consultancy devoted to the intersection of science and soul. Doctor Chopra holds a doctorate in clinical health psychology and completed a double postdoc fellowship at both UCLA and Cedars Sinai. She completed her formal dissertation on optimism and positive sensory visualization and the connection to optimal well-being. She is a recurring guest on Today, and her work has been featured in Forbes, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, Goop, Variety, e, and more. She has led workshops for companies like Google, Amazon, and Amex, and has delivered keynotes at events including the Aspen Ideas Festival and the Atlantic's In Pursuit of Happiness. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and three children. Welcome, Stacy. Thanks so much for coming on Totally Booked to talk about being 40, the decade of letting go and embracing Who We Are. Congratulations. Oh, Zippy, thank you. That means so much coming from you. Thanks for I coming to am just getting in under the wire for your book because I'm turning 50 this summer. So I'm like, well, this book is for me for a couple of months.

[4:00]Dr. Deepika Chopra: Fun thing about it though on this journey so far is the conversations it's been sparking with people not in their 40s. So I've had a lot of conversations with younger women, people out of their 40s on the other end who are really excited to reflect and kind of take some of the learnings and then also too with men, which has been really fun. So it's kind of a spidery book in that sense where I'm hoping it, I mean any book, right? It extends beyond the book, but it's fun to hear you say that. The more specific you are, it

[4:30]Zibby Owens: can always get bigger. But when you're specific, then people know, Oh, okay, this is totally for me. Or I know this is for, but I could still get something out of it. So anyway, I think it's awesome. I was really just joking. I would read this in five years because I find it super interesting. Okay. Why do you find this age super interesting and what inspired you to write this book? You just nailed on it because it was that specificity

[4:54]Dr. Deepika Chopra: that I was craving and I didn't know I was craving it. But I was more and more interested, and this was I've been in my forties now for many year. Well, I'm 44. So I've been in this decade for a bit now, still figuring everything out in real time as we all are. But it's interesting, Zibby. I think in my late thirties, started obviously noticing changes in my body and changes in my mindset and just kind of this yearning to let go of store stories, get closer to myself. This was intersecting with I started becoming really interested in writing about the sort of pro aging landscape. People who were doing incredible things in their fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties. So that became kind of a beat that I took on unexpectedly. And then along the way, there's this amazing conversation going on about midlife that I was, you know, in my late thirties and, of course, 40 entering. And it's fantastic and it's inspiring. Something wasn't totally landing for me completely, and that's when I realized I wanted to talk about the forties specifically, kind of this, you know, early start to quote unquote midlife. And I say quote unquote midlife because we never really know when we're definitely in midlife. Right? It's kind of a privilege to think of it that way. But I was craving that specificity. And when I really started thinking about it too, and this was once I entered my forties, I thought things are feeling different. I thought things would have looked different when I entered my forties for better, for worse. I thought things were going to feel different for better, for worse. I wanna talk about this more. And I started asking other women too, how are you feeling about this age? What's going on? And they say the floodgates opened. You know, women just wanted to talk about it. Again, was there was like that forties was so specific. And the other thing Zippy too is I find society always has something to say about this age. There's still this stigma around it, even though we're in this beautiful, pro aging, more inclusive, expansive landscape. But still, if you identify as a woman and oh, wow, you're 40? You look great. Or so and so on getting married at 46 or whatever, there's always something that society wants to say. So I was like, let's, you know, let's look at this. This is actually a really incredible age. So there are so many things.

[7:04]Zibby Owens: My grandmother, by the way, said nobody ever told her she looked great until she was in her nineties. Then all of a sudden she looked great. Everybody's, Oh my gosh, don't you look great? That's so cool. Oh, there's always expectations around aging. You never get rid of it. And I love how you have a whole section on, you know, the notion of aging gracefully. And why do we have to age gracefully anyway? Who says? Like, what is that about?

[7:30]Dr. Deepika Chopra: My shirt feel I feel I sweat when I hear that because I think, okay. It sounds nice in theory. What does that mean? What does that mean? Yeah. And it goes along. You know, you say the word expectations, and it's so true. And we know there's these expectations, but sometimes I don't think we realize how they arrest us day to day in small ways. And that's what was really fun when I started writing this book. And again, it's specific to the forties, but it really can, I hope speak to a woman of any age where we just start looking at all these expectations, all these false binaries and false timelines and all these shoulds put on us? For myself, I started realizing I don't want to let this mandate my life anymore. Not that so much of it was mandating my life. I felt that I had agency, but I wanted to really interrogate some of these

[8:20]Zibby Owens: expectations and some of these stories and really start to work on letting them go. Do you feel like you have so much extra pressure on you now for the rest of your forties now that you wrote a book at age 44? Like you better crush it by 49 or

[8:34]Dr. Deepika Chopra: else. Monique I love this. This is so fun. I promise I am trying it to myself. Like I feel like I owe it to myself and I owe it to women who are younger than me to to prove, like, this is a really exciting time. This is the time to get closer to yourself. But I was so careful too in writing it to be so honest just with the stuff that I have faced and continue to face. And also wait the way I end the book too. This is not a I've arrived. I have it all figured out. I'm gonna be, you know, sitting up on this ivy tower and telling you everything I've learned. I've learned a lot, and I am still actively figuring this out. And I'm guessing maybe you are too. Is it right? Yeah.

[9:13]Zibby Owens: Literally last night I was like, what am I doing with my life? Like,

[9:17]Dr. Deepika Chopra: where do we how do we know when to pivot? Like, maybe this chapter is ending. I don't know. You just So what? It's so fun hearing that from you too, because I look at you and I look at everything you're doing. I have such reverence, so much awe. And at the same time, you still have these questions, right? You're still actively figuring things out week to week, month to month. So

[9:38]Zibby Owens: I think that's the fun part of the conversation. Don't you think if things are set in stone, it would just be so boring? It would be boring. I don't think I could handle that. Like to think at any moment things could change in a good way. Not like the rug being out from under my feet. Me too. Because that's opportunity and growth, right? Yeah, it is. And it can be scary,

[9:59]Dr. Deepika Chopra: but that's yeah, that's when you learn, that's when you stretch, that's when you get closer to who you are.

[10:04]Zibby Owens: Yeah. So in the book, you write about not only you and your expectations of 40, whether you should be married or, like, how you got together with your husband and all of that. But you take us back to your own childhood and to this very interesting, powerful scene where your mom ends up leaving your family and how that felt and how she was trying to advocate for her own needs. And, like, ironically, here you are advocating for your own needs in a really different way at this time. Can you talk a little bit about that and that time in your life? Yeah. And that was such

[10:36]Dr. Deepika Chopra: a defining moment for me because it was my mother and she made a drastic decision. She happened to be in her late forties and she left. And it wasn't this she did something wrong. She did something right. It's not easily defined, but she made a drastic decision to move closer to her truth. So in many ways, her story was a cautionary tale to me because she kept things from herself for a long time. She was trying to check and she was checking all the boxes, doing all the right things, being an incredibly giving, loving mother, loving spouse, all the things. And she was quietly sort of atrophying inside her spirit. And so she did something and it caused pain. It caused hurt. It was very hard. And at the same time, I look at it and I have immense respect and compassion for her now. And it's taken years really to fully get there. But when I look back on her, I see a woman who is really who was and still is, but who was declaring herself. And so that was such a pivotal moment for me because even though I didn't really know it, I was still so young at the time I was a teenager. But I saw, I could feel what these expectations do. I could feel that weight and the volume of the unlived life in my mother and the unlived life in my father too. That has really, really informed a lot of the decisions that I've made in my life. And again, I use that word messy because it wasn't neat. It wasn't easy. Things were hurt. People were hurt. It was messy. But also, I mean, it was a massive decision that actually led her down a different path. I talk about it later in the book too. She discovered so much more of herself. Yeah, it's So It's a a big one.

[12:23]Zibby Owens: Don't have to go there, but I'm just wondering, like when your mom leaves, like what does the next week look like? Like how did you come to terms with that? And how did you not sort of take it personally

[12:36]Dr. Deepika Chopra: in a way? Oh, I did. I did. I did. And it's it's been fun in this journey talking about the book too, because that is something people are curious about and wanna talk about more. And I think there's so much more to that story that I don't want to. I'm thinking I'll expound on that definitely in the future. It was. It was hard. I mean, I was, you know, again, a teenager, so I had at the time I had a boyfriend. I had work. I had school, all of these things. My brain wasn't totally formed, I was just in survival and fun mode, I think, and getting through school. But the pain started kind of setting in a little bit, like month after month, even year after year. But also with that pain came the growth. But the weeks and months after that were devastating. They were absolutely devastating. They truly were. And she called and she tried to explain, you know, and I talked to her and it was this long period of coming back together, I guess, the two of us. And our relationship now is actually really gorgeous. It actually stuns me how gorgeous it is. It's different. But it went through a period of absolute pain. Absolutely.

[13:39]Zibby Owens: I'm sorry. Yeah. My gosh. Well, it's so great that you shared it in the story because I feel like it gives us context in how your point of view on this age period might be slightly different. Maybe you look at it even more closely because you try to figure out like, how can you avoid having to totally change your life or getting to that point of desperation? Not to like psychoanalyze or whatever, but how could you not want to examine it?

[14:05]Dr. Deepika Chopra: And that's such a beautiful point too, because it is in the examining that we come up against so many hard feelings, but that's what we need to do. And that's, I don't think women allow themselves to do it enough because we're thinking of everybody else. We're thinking about our, I don't have children, but we're thinking about our children. We're thinking about our partner. We're thinking about our friends. And if we're not even thinking about all those things, we're thinking about society. We're thinking about the culture and the expectations first. What is this going to look like? Who am I going to disappoint? Who am I going to inconvenience? We're so worried about that. But then again, when we do do that examining, we can't deny it. We can't deny the magnitude and all the life that's in us too. And it's beautiful. I think now in our culture, we are starting to talk about this. I think we always have been. I mean, again, every human contains multitudes, but women are extra fiery, extra. We're just incredible everything that's going on inside of us. But I think we're starting now to talk about there is so much more life inside of us, and we're not going to let, again, these expectations in society hold us back. We're just not. And we're seeing this, you know, in so many different stories. We're seeing beautiful authors write about this. We're seeing this in movies and all of it, but I think more and more and more. And I feel it tells women of our age to listen to yourself, to know don't feel silly or less than or like something is wrong with you if you do have this burning fire inside you. And I also think it's a beautiful message for younger women too, to really listen to yourself, to listen to your gut deeply. And if you want more or you want something different or you want to change or you want to stay, that's okay. Life is long and we have so much time to do all these things. I'm going to knock wood on that.

[15:57]Zibby Owens: Knock wood on so much time. You talk to so many authors, as we were joking about earlier, So many of the authors in the book have been guests on this podcast over the years. But what did you learn from all of the authors

[16:08]Dr. Deepika Chopra: and experts who you talk to for the book? There's so many of them. I had this conversation with Tara Moore whose work has really propelled me for over a decade. I just have so much reference for her and for anyone who's listening who doesn't know Tara Moore. She wrote this book, Playing Big, that I believe came out twelve or thirteen years ago. Again, it's so much what we're talking about right now, Zippy, right? Like declaring yourself and how you talk about yourself and hold yourself in the world and what you go after. Tara and I were talking about beauty. We were talking because you can't really have a conversation too, as a woman, about growing older without beauty coming up organically in some way. How you feel about yourself, how you think the world is judging you, all these things. And Tara said, she said, you know, and I'm going to paraphrase this. I don't remember the exact quote, but she was saying, when we are talking about beauty and growing older, we're really talking about this feeling of vitality and this feeling of aliveness inside of us. And that unlocked something for me. I get emotional talking about this because beauty is something every single one of us is worthy of. Beauty is not something that should be performative. We're told it should be though by the beauty industry. And after the age of 40, into our forties and fifties and sixties, we feel like we have to perform more. We feel like we have to stop things from changing. We have to stop, you know, the crinkles around our eyes. We have to fix things. And I'm not against any of those things. I'm against a woman doing something that she wants to do as long as it makes her feel beautiful. And so it really reframed this idea when Tara said that about beauty is a feeling. Beauty is feeling alive. Beauty is feeling sexy. Beauty is feeling embodied. And I can't buy my way into that. I have to really own that and believe that for myself. It really shifted things for me. And as I was writing the book too, that informed a lot of the things around how do I want to feel in this life in my 40s. And I'm not to say that I don't go out the door half the time and still, you know, feel insecure or some days you feel better than others or depending on what your body's going, you know, going through. You're like, oh, I feel bloated. I feel gross. But I did realize I'm I'm worthy of feeling beautiful. I don't have to feel like just because my face is changing or some company's telling me I need to fix something, that something, nothing is wrong with me. Nothing is wrong with me. And so that informed a lot of my thinking. And then the whole beauty chapter in general was really interesting too, because I started looking at, But you actually are beautiful.

[18:40]Zibby Owens: Thank you. No, seriously. I mean, and then that's another thing as we all age to contend with. It's like, were you so beautiful as a kid that as you get older, it's a disappointment? You coming into your own now? Are you getting more and more beautiful as you age? Like, and how is it all completely out of our control anyway? Does it Yeah.

[19:05]Dr. Deepika Chopra: But it's just the fact that what kills me too, and this has been going on for ages and ages and ages, and I don't see it changing, but the fact that women's currency, so much of it is how we look. And that can be there can be power in that. But, if we don't let it completely define our lives too, and it's easy for some of us to say that rather than to do, but I know as a woman that I have beat myself up day after day after day for decades over feeling like I have to step outside the door and look a certain way and be perfect. And if something is shifting, shoot, I'm in trouble. I did something wrong and I'm actively working on not feeling that way. And it's hard. I think I would happily

[19:49]Zibby Owens: have been a thin, blunt woman, but that was not my

[19:54]Dr. Deepika Chopra: no, I'm just saying. It's like, but who made that up though You know what mean? Know. Hard.

[19:59]Zibby Owens: But I I know what you're I know. I know. We're just, playing. It's it's funny. But Yeah. Of course, aging just puts a microscope on everything that we might have been feeling all along the way. And It does. It does. And It really, really does. When you set out to write the book, because, obviously, you have so many interviews you must have had to consolidate and sort through. And as you mentioned, the architecture of the book, how did you think through how to go about doing it? And was it easy for you? Was it hard for you? Did it take a long time? Are you pleased with how it turned out? Yeah.

[20:33]Dr. Deepika Chopra: It was incredibly hard for me. Incredibly hard. And I wish we talked about that more with each other too because I wonder, is this easy, this being? Does everybody just sit at their desk? I picture a Diane Keaton a Diane Keaton character, right, sitting at her desk. She's in the Hamptons, and the words are just flowing out of her. It's not that's not how it was for me. I don't know how you feel about, like, how writing is for you, Zvi. I would love a behind It's not not a Diane Keaton moment. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think I don't even think that's real. That, like, never happens. I know. It's fine. I know. But there can be this idea kind of stuck in her head. At least you just sit down and you know you get 2,000 words flow out of you. It was the process was hard and I think it was extra hard too because I have ghostwritten. I have written for my career. I've been a journalist and I've written for in various forms and ways. And I've written in the back of literally news vans, Like on the way to having to go file a story. Then when I sat down to work on this book that I felt so passionate about when I wrote the proposal. But when I sat down, I was consumed by self doubt. I kept looking over my shoulder thinking, did they, did the publisher make a mistake on me? And I think part of that was as a journalist, I was not hiding behind other people's stories, but I was telling other people's stories. I have been my whole career. And so when I started weaving in my stories a little bit my writing here and there, I got a little looser around the idea of using the I and sharing more of my story. But when it came time to write this book, it scared the hell out of me to share more about myself. So that process was really hard. And it really is, you know, you think about the Anne Lamont bird by bird, that really is the insight and the advice that helps to just touching it, showing up every day. And I broke through that self doubt. What helped me break through is I thought, you know, I have a lot of things I'm still learning in real time. As I said, it's not that I have everything figured out by any means, but I also have a lot of wisdom. And I've had I've learned a lot of kind of truths the hard way. And I know if I have, I know there's gotta be at least one other woman that has. And I'm thinking probably more than one other woman. And that's what motivated me to keep going through the really, really hard days, was just thinking this is not any by any means, some macro look at your forties. This is one small contribution to this, you know, this conversation you and I are having. All the conversations you have with incredible women, they're all contributions. And I just thought, if this is just one this is one small contribution that I hope helps some woman feel a little closer to herself and a little less alone. And then as I continued writing it too, just that architecture of it, as I was having conversations with women, I mentioned earlier that beauty, it's hard to have a conversation around growing older and being in your forties and 50s and 60s without beauty coming up. And I found that for the other subjects too, having and not having children, partnership, work, and of course in our 40s talking about perimenopause. These things just organically started coming up in these interviews and conversations. That kind of helped me frame the book.

[23:46]Zibby Owens: Amazing. Well, Stacey, this was great. I know it's going to help a lot of women. Today's episode is sponsored by Quince. Summer always makes me rethink what I'm reaching for every day. Lighter fabrics, better materials, pieces that just feel good the moment you put them on and look effortless. That's why I keep coming back to Quince. They focus on high quality essentials. Think breathable linen, soft organic cotton, washable silk, but without the luxury markup. It's that rare balance where everything feels elevated, but still easy. Quint's has beautiful everyday pieces like 100% European linen pants, dresses, and tops with styles starting at $32. Their denim is soft and easy to wear. I wear my jean jacket all the time. And their organic cotton sweaters are perfect for layering on cool summer nights. Everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80 percent less than similar brands. Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen, so you're paying for quality, not brand markup. And it's not just clothing. Quince has really become a destination for elevated across home, kitchen, bedding, and beyond, making it easy to bring a more premium feel into everyday life. In addition to my jean jacket, I recently got a white tank top dress with a beautiful cotton skirt that is absolutely gorgeous, and I can't wait for it to be warm enough so I can wear it every day, but it has been a cool spring. Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com/zippy for free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty five day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's quince.com/zippy for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com/zippy.

[26:21]Zibby Owens: Welcome, doctor Chopra. It is lovely to meet you. First things first, let's clear up that you, doctor

[26:29]Stacey Lindsay: Deepika Chopra, have no relation to anybody else. To anyone else with the similar same last name and similar name, it is a different human. In fact, I am a woman, not a man. Do you know Deepak Chopra? I don't know him personally. I've met him before, like, over the time, but I don't, like, know him really personally.

[26:50]Zibby Owens: But there's been a lot of confusion in the last few weeks. Well, maybe that works in your favor. Not No. Okay. Not really these days. Not these days. Gotcha. Okay. I have not been up on my okay. I'll I'll have to look into that afterwards. Okay. The Power of Real Optimism, a practical science based guide to staying resilient, curious, and open even when life is hard. It's your book. Congratulations. Thank you. I was telling you, this is so special to be here because this is this

[27:18]Stacey Lindsay: I wanna I hate saying this was my neighborhood. We did recently move but like this still feels like my neighborhood and this was my neighborhood bookstore. It's amazing. Yeah, my kids, all of us. I mean, this is my street. Oh my gosh. Well, we're glad to have you back. I visualized this. You made it happen. I mean, I just like You used all your tools in here. I did. I just would see it when I come in here. I'm like, oh my gosh, I think, wait, is my book gonna be here? Is it gonna be in here? Yeah.

[27:47]Zibby Owens: You have said, you've created such a special place. Thank you. Oh, don't stop. I won't be able to. I will not. Okay. Your book From the Outside looks like, okay, I'm gonna get advice that I need to live a better life but once you start reading and as you sprinkle throughout the entire thing, it is also about you and your family and your own personal struggles and the things you've gone through with your son but even before your son was born and your own body and there's so much in here. It's almost, it's a lot of memoir mixed

[28:19]Stacey Lindsay: with self help. Yeah, it is. It's like really full of science which is my specialty, science and optimism and hope theory but it has a lot of personal memoir and client stories and it's a little bit of everything and I think it just is a reflection of my work life, it's very embedded with my personal life and how I show up as a behavioral scientist and someone that studies optimism and works within it, I show up as like a human and my own experience, I always say to people, I'm known as the optimism doctor, but I am not the most optimistic person by far. Well, also challenge what we consider optimism. Yes. Why don't you talk about that? Yeah. So, you know, most people in the world think about optimism as sort of like a twin of positivity. I think most people think that they go hand in hand and an optimist is someone who is just positive all the time, sees silver linings immediately, wears rose colored glasses and drinks from cups that are always half full and just only sees sort of the bliss and the positive. And I've heard every stereotype about an optimist under the sun since I've been working and really focusing on this for like fifteen years and I think one of my favorites that people have always said over time that I think I used to say myself is I'm not an optimist, I'm a realist. And what was surprising to me in the research and coming from it from, you know, more of a behavioral science point of view, an optimist is so grounded in reality and what we have like thought of as optimism is actually very different than what the science and the literature says. And the way that I define a real optimist is someone who is really grounded in reality and someone who is deeply and mindfully aware of the roadblocks and the setbacks and the less than ideal situations that, spoiler alert, we all face. None of us are immune to struggle. But the caveat is they see these setbacks as something that is temporary and something that they have the ability to overcome even if they don't know how or when but it's really based in personal historical resiliency. So all the tough days they've already overcome and then there's this piece of curiosity. So I really, I amount optimism or the two words that come to mind for me that are more closely related to optimism than positivity are resiliency and curiosity. So on one hand, it's really deeply knowing that whatever it is that you're going through, the good thing or the bad thing is temporary. We know that, that's one of the pillars, but it's been curious about, I wonder how this will change. You don't have to have the sort of certainty that it's gonna be better. That would be great and sometimes we are there but even just the curiosity of like, I wonder how this will change. That like I call it sort of neutral plus, that sort of state of curiosity is optimism.

[31:30]Zibby Owens: Talk a little bit about, if you don't mind, your personal issues in the book, not issues, but your son There's some issues. No, okay, fine. You could go into your autoimmune condition. There are so many issues. First of wait. Can we talk about how sick you were during your pregnancy? Oh my god. That sounded so horrific. I could not even believe it. I was feeling nauseous even I'm so sorry. Eating. No. It's that you were throwing up like 30 times a day every day for the whole time. I know. And so I And had you're living to tell about it? I had something called hyperemesis gravidarum,

[32:01]Stacey Lindsay: which I feel like not it's it's rare ish, not as rare as it should be, but not a lot of people know about it. And actually, interestingly enough, a couple of weeks ago, I was sitting as an audience member to this like really powerful women's health panel on funding, you know, more research in women's health and one of the women on the panel was or is the doctor, She herself had hyperemesis gravidarum, she is a researcher and a doctor out of USC but she found the gene of like why this happens. Wow. So there's hope. There's hope, there's definitely hope and it was just like, it was something I didn't know that much about because I think people just think morning sickness. Yeah. You know? Yeah. This was not morning sickness. This was like every Chronic illness. Chronic illness, every hour of the day sickness. I sort of joke with my son now kind of joke, but not joke. We, you know, we live in the city that I was pregnant in and so at literally every corner or restaurant or street or highway, I'm like, I threw up there. And he's actually listening to the book right now. He's reading it and Oh listening to the my gosh. And I started he's eight, my eldest. And it starts with, you know, that that story. And he's just like, mom. And I was like, yeah, but you were with Aw. Yeah. So he's kind of known about that. It's one of one of the three big reasons why I couldn't carry again actually. So we had to go through alternate means to bring about our next two children into the world but I had some, believe it or not, more serious stuff even after that in this pregnancy. It was just a very trying time and you know, I think it was it was really hard. I can joke about it now and be like, oh, four zero five threw up there or like, this restaurant was easier to Mhmm. To down the food, all that stuff. I can joke about it, but it was a really dark time for me. Yeah. And like what I I'd never heard of anyone else really truly. I had one friend that had gone through it and I but most people and especially people that were around me and pregnant at the same time, I just and what you see on social media and this was now, you know, a number of years ago but I just saw people like in bliss being and you feel this sense of like shame that your body's not truly doing what it should do with ease and then at the same time, this like guilt that you don't wanna complain because you are pregnant and I was having a baby that should be a very happy moment and as much as I was happy about it, I couldn't really find a shred of joy during it.

[34:44]Zibby Owens: That was your pregnancy with Jack? Yep, Okay. Jacked. And then you had

[34:49]Stacey Lindsay: Dio. Then we had Dio and that we actually, it was a really tough experience and decision. I know it sounds like it wouldn't be but it really was and I'm also really grateful to modern science and lots of other and people, altruistic people who would ever think of carrying a child for someone else but we had we went through the surrogacy journey for him because I had a more serious issue at the end of my pregnancy with JAG too that was a complication and an emergency C section, it was all the things but that, you know, when Dio came into this world, it was COVID and we were like heavy right in the pandemic so we were really like closed in but it was actually a time of a lot of joy and I learned, you know, letting go of control over that was really scary and it also was really beautiful because everybody around me including my husband could be a part of sort of Dio's initial few months. With JAG, I was like Mhmm. Just I think psychologically after going through what I went through, I was so protective over him, like, didn't even pump with Jack. Like, it was just fully just me. I didn't let anyone feed him and like, obviously, I was going through a lot and Your miss miss button shirt Oh, yes. Conference. Yes. Exactly. But with Dio, it was like, struggled a lot with not carrying him emotionally and what that meant and, you know, was I gonna be connected and I had a lot of guilt since I had carried the first, but it was also beautiful that like my mom, my mother-in-law, my husband, like everybody could help sustain Dio, like feed him and bond with him and, you know, there was a part of it that felt like I didn't feel as special which is kind of a silly feeling but, and really went through like, can't believe my body can't do what it's supposed to do. There was a lot of like that shame around that but also there was like a lot of sweetness and joy and like even Jack could feed him. Like it just was like a let go of a bit and Dio had a different got to have a different experience But that then Cordillo with

[37:01]Zibby Owens: it sounds like there was some sort of mass or some sort of

[37:04]Stacey Lindsay: very rare thing. That came later. He was about two and a half and the cruel irony was it was in the right smack dab while I was writing this book on optimism and we got dealt a horrible out of nowhere, literally he was like playing one day with his brother, you know, wrestling around and playing with trucks and asking for snacks and watching cars like Lightning McQueen, having dance parties, like all these things that he loved that are mundane for us and then all of a sudden our lives shifted into something totally different and really leveled us and was shattering. We got a medical diagnosis that was just as they said, chalk to bad luck. It was two out of a million kids and not a lot of information, three doctors I think that really knew what it was and we were lucky that one happened to be in LA although we would have flown anywhere And we were now, you know, faced with this really uphill long battle of a year and a half learning terminology I never thought I would have to learn spending most of our year and a half at CHLA at Children's Hospital going through treatment and it was harrowing and awful and really the darkest period of my life, my family's life. I feel like we put ourselves on hold for a long time. Were paralyzed and really in a dark, very hopeless state and I just could not fathom how I was going to continue writing a book on optimism and I didn't for a while. Like I had to put it aside. It just didn't there was nothing. There was nothing. But I remember this one moment a couple months in and I was like reading something that I wrote in the book. I was kind of coming back to it and, you know, when you are writing something, physically writing it out, whether it's pen or typing it out, your brain can't unsee it, you know, it's processed it and so in some ways, it kind of went from cruel irony, like I can't believe I am this expert in optimism and writing about this and then in the most hopeless state to maybe it's what saved me, like divine intervention because as I was writing and getting myself back into writing, my brain was having to process and use the tools and the research and the stories of clients before and the things I would say to a client. Like I was now kind of saying to myself and actually utilizing them in real time. And so the full circle moment is kind of, I understand that the book and all the language and the notions and the science in it really, like, the tools work from a scientific point of view and from a behavioral scientist point of view. But now I know, like, I walked along with it in a really human point of view and this part is like key, I had to use these tools in real time in imperfect conditions. And it is what kept me going and kept me engaged and I just remember this one moment with it where I shifted from, you know, for a long time I was ruminating over just like, is this happening to us? Why is this happening to my two and a half year old who's just an innocent child who's a good person? Like, we are good people. You know, that struggle of just like, I sat in that for so long and it caused a lot of rage of just like, why, what do you mean chalk to bad luck? And you know, you search within yourself, you make yourself crazy searching like what did we do? What did we expose him to? What was he eating? What was he drinking? What was around us? Like, you know, trying to find any semblance of understanding of how this could have happened and something so severe and life threatening could happen and just walk away with there are no answers is a really tough place to be in as a human, but as a mom, that uncertainty because that then sort of means that we don't know how to prevent it further, you know, if I don't know where it came from, then what can I do? And so I remember being really stuck and ruminating in the worst part of this with why us? And then as I was writing, I just had this, like, opening where I kind of just shifted to why not us? Why anyone? Why anyone's child? Yep. And why not us? And even though that still really sucks and it didn't change anything and it was still very sad, I think it lessened some of the anger. And when I was able to lessen some of the anger, I think I was able to sort of be in a place more of agency and I was able to kind of just look at it, it was such a big shift for me but just like what is my next step? Like this is now our reality, what's my next step? And so I could focus on instead of ruminating on like why us and why did this happen and researching, trying to find every move we made for two and a half years, which was not placing me in any forward motion to like, okay, I need to pack these four things in the hospital bag and Dio really likes this snack. So like before this treatment, packing him this lunchbox or making sure I pick up the medication or like calling insurance, just keeping myself in forward motion and just what is my next step. And is he how is he now? He's doing really well right now. Okay. That's what I say. Yep. And I really mean it because I've learned the whole thing. I wish I I wish I didn't have to learn it this way but what I can say is I don't know what the future is gonna hold. He is happy and healthy. He's a five year old now. He loves baseball. He goes to school. He's an amazing, resilient, brave kid that you really wouldn't tell. I mean, you you couldn't tell what he went through except for I see them in the moment and he has a really big scar, which is like a bravery badge, I think. And it lives within us, obviously. But what I will say is that I don't know what the future holds and none of us do but in particular for him because there is no data, like there's nothing with this that we can say which makes this part really upsetting and hard. Like after a certain amount of time, if nothing's happened then like the chances are a lot low, there's none of that. We just don't know anything. It's like really being in the middle of the ocean in dark unchartered waters. But what I really truly believe now and I've said these words before but I like feel so rooted in them now and I know it, is that whatever does come and if something comes again and it very well will, might might, you know, it could be something different or it could be something related to this and it might level us again and break me, it may, but I know whatever it is, like, we can get through it because I truly understand now on like a gut level that like my family and I can get through hard things and that is, I wish I learned it a different way but I really, there's something about that and it's so interesting because that is real optimism and I don't think I quite got it on that like human personal level like before in any way like remotely similar.

[44:39]Zibby Owens: I'm so sorry that you've had to go through all this. Yeah. I'm glad you've taken what you've gone through. I mean, know you talk in the book about a sense of purpose and how purpose is so critical to optimism and finding joy and all of that. And I feel like you have taken your experience even though you're already doing it. It's just compounded that

[44:57]Stacey Lindsay: sense of purpose. It really has and I think there was a strong sense of purpose and I'm sure parents can relate to this but the interesting thing that I think crept up and surprised me and I wrote about it in the book, in the prologue is that when we first got this diagnosis and had this uphill battle, one of the very first things I did when I was able to sort of not be numb and paralyzed, Like one of the first things that I did was I made a calendar and we had weekly treatments and I literally marked every treatment so I saw the end and that was really important. It was really far off. There were many treatments because it was weekly and we had to do some things daily and it was for like a year and a half but I, in my mind, like and on a calendar, I had an end date. I wasn't looking past what was going to happen after that but every time I could cross one off, I felt like excitement and the weird part that I didn't prepare for was as we got closer to the end and I saw like two left, know, like it was really like, we were almost there. My anxiety and my fear my mental health really took a big hit and it was so surprising to me because I said, shouldn't I feel relief and happiness? Like we're almost done with this chunk, this hardest part. But what I realized was as much as I hated Tuesdays, those were our treatment days and I hated the treatment, I hated it so much. I think there was a big sense or I know there was a big sense of like control and agency and we were taking action and doing something, whatever it was, even if I don't know exactly what it was doing, we were doing what we were supposed to be doing. We were being good patient advocates and bringing our kid in for treatment. We were on a path, we were being seen by doctors and there was some sense of like, this is what I know I can do and I have to do and I'm doing it and then as the like calendar looked blank for the time when we were gonna have the surgery to remove his port and like no more treatment just like, you know, obviously checkups. I think it was just so scary because it started to plague my mind with so much uncertainty like what do you mean we're alone in this and like how will I know and am I going to be constantly looking for a reoccurrence and it just, what are we going to be doing to like fight against this? And I think that sense of purpose really came because I looked at my son and at that point he was four and I was like, I don't want to project all of this onto him as he comes out of this and he still has this life to live as a four year old, like his parents just deeply rooted in uncertainty and anxiety of when the next other shoe is gonna drop. I don't wanna like project that on him and it became like a really strong sense of purpose for me to like do some real work in living in complete and utter uncertainty and make sure that like I was

[48:09]Zibby Owens: taking care of myself within that so that I then could not project all of that onto him. Well, you take us through so many tips and tricks and readers of the book will find them. There are even like charts and, you know, whole things that you can do that I was like, I'm gonna copy and make it a little printout of these tactics for my kids, you know, all of that because they're super useful. But you also say in one point and you get this from a movie that was like not the best, that you were so funny too. You're like, okay, the movie was fine. Okay. This is how it was ranked in Rotten Potatoes. Okay. Tomatoes. Sorry. Rotten. Rotten tomatoes but that there was a quote in it that said something like the end, you know, we don't get to plan the end. Right and it was so interesting because I also, that was so interesting to me too because

[48:56]Stacey Lindsay: I truly believe that when you are, when you're regulated, so our brains do not prioritize growth actually, our brains prioritize safety. So when you are in a moment of regulation or you feel safe and regulated, your brain can kind of like open itself up to growth and change and being receptive. And so I think I had a moment or a collection of moments where I did feel safe and I think I was open, like I was it was when I felt that sense of purpose and I was searching and I was like really I was really committed to like, I want to do some work around this uncertainty because my purpose is that I don't want to project this onto my child. I was really receptive and open and you will be shocked and odd at to where, like, you get what it is that you need to receive when you're open. And for me, it was this movie and again, I I think because I sort of pride myself in I'm a big movie goer and like storytelling. Referenced other ones later too and I was like, this girl, she is into the I need like a playlist of her movie. Oh my and I'm music's a big thing to me. I actually like I have a playlist of what was playing when I wrote this and it's my playlist. Yeah, 90s, whatever.

[50:14]Zibby Owens: Very into the 90s. I never left

[50:17]Stacey Lindsay: but it was so interesting to me. I was just sitting here watching this movie that just got like recommended to me on like Netflix or whatever. Think it was Netflix and I don't know that I would have chosen it or not and I think I was alone because my husband was traveling and so it's just like watching this kind of fairly, I call it silly because it actually had a deep profound impact on me but silly ish movie and I just was at the ripe and open for receiving something and the funny thing is, so Kathy Bates is the actress in it along with Nicole Kidman and great actor, great great actors. So there's that for the movie. But she says something to her that I take and has literally changed the way because I was just open and I was already working on some of the tools and I was ready to receive it. But the funniest thing is what I heard in my head and I had been telling myself what I got from that movie when I started researching for the book, I obviously needed to get the words right and I went back and it was not You seemed You were like, Google tells me this is not what I remember. Yeah. But like what I took from it and it was so yeah. It just sometimes you are open to receive and you take you've got this moment. And that for me, one of my biggest purpose purposes of writing this book is to be hopefully that moment in those times you need it and I really wrote the book as a companion to the joyful seasons and the really, really tough and uncertain and heavy ones too so that you keep going back to it and hopefully you also are unlocked and open and like there is this moment that like seeps in and it's what you need in that moment. Amazing. Well, if you can get through all this stuff and we hear your story and all of your

[52:00]Zibby Owens: grit. And I know you say there's no choice and we would all do the same, but still, and maintain the sense of optimism and redefine it and everything. The rest of us are just such huge beneficiaries of that. So thank you for the inspiration, both in the words and the tools, but also just in the way that you lived and set forward this made a beautiful example through a really horrible time. Thank you so much. And I think it's important because none of us are immune to struggle

[52:29]Stacey Lindsay: and especially right now, there's just such a collective sense of uncertainty and grief and just confusion and heaviness. And for me, what's most important is helping to equip people with tools that they can still be in forward motion and not like close their eyes to what's happening or be numb to whatever it is that's going on in life. We are so bombarded right now with exposure to every, every struggle that is happening everywhere all at once and our brains and nervous systems were not obviously built to experience the stimulation and exposure that way but, you know, there's also tools in the book on how to boundary that because I think it's important to not have the option of just like, well, I'm gonna turn it all off and ignorance is bliss. You know, this book is for deeply feeling humans that love their lives and love the lives of many other people and they care and they want to know what's going on and they still want to be deeply feeling humans but we can't carry it all the way we've been carrying without the proper tools.

[53:40]Zibby Owens: Yep, is like the best designer tote bag ever. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibby, formerly moms don't have time to read books. If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zippy Owens, and spread the word. Thanks so much. Oh, and buy the books.

[55:17]Guest: Do you wanna know the best part about being married to a woman? That there's no man involved? I mean, But I was gonna say that it's a sleepover every single night with your best friend. Oh, That part's cute too. I'm Teryn. She's Cammy. We're married. And staying up is our weekly pillow talk out loud with you. We're giggling. We're gossiping. We're arguing. Classic marriage stuff. Just having fun being wives while we navigate growing up and building a family together. Then our sleepover grows. Our listeners call the pee pee hotline with their own gossip, burning questions, late night spirals, all the stuff they'd only tell their best friends. So it's a private sleepover, but you are invited. Staying up with Taryn and Cammy, new episodes weekly. Follow wherever you listen.