BAD AT KEEPING SECRETS

Tell them. First. Without waiting.

The Mistake I Keep Making (And Maybe You Do Too) I used to think my biggest problem was saying too much. I’m Carissa. I’m bad at keeping secrets — literally, it’s the name of my podcast — and for a long time I low-key believed that my tendency to overshare was something I needed to fix. Like if I could just learn to hold back a little more, I’d seem more polished. More put-together. More professional. Case in point: when my mother-in-law first met me, she told my husband Josh that she was surprised he liked me because I talked too much. Too much. And honestly? She wasn’t wrong. I’ve spent a lot of my life believing that my openness was the problem. Then I sat down with Leslie John, [https://www.lesliekjohn.com/] a Harvard professor who has spent years researching self-disclosure, and she completely flipped the script on me. Turns out, the thing most of us should actually be worried about isn’t sharing too much. It’s sharing too little. Leslie calls it TLI — Too Little Information — and it’s everywhere. It’s the “I’m fine” when you’re not. It’s swallowing the hard conversation because you don’t want to make things weird. It’s never saying “I love you” first because what if they don’t say it back. It’s editing yourself so carefully, for so long, that the people closest to you don’t actually know you. And here’s what hit me hardest: Leslie told me that undersharing is actually one of the biggest problems in long-term relationships. Ding ding ding. I’m not going to lie — I needed to hear that one right now. Like, personally. Like she was talking directly to me. I think about how many times I’ve censored myself in relationships, in friendships, even in my own marriage — convinced I was being smart or safe — when really I was just quietly building walls and calling it boundaries. We kick off the conversation with a question I think so many of us have wrestled with: is it a good idea to tell someone you love them first? The answer might surprise you — but you’re going to have to listen to find out. Leslie’s book, [https://www.lesliekjohn.com/]Revealing: The Underrated Power of Oversharing [https://www.lesliekjohn.com/], [https://www.lesliekjohn.com/] isn’t a permission slip to trauma dump on your coworkers. It’s something way more nuanced and honestly more important than that. It’s about learning to read the room, understanding when to be transparent versus vulnerable, and recognizing that being truly known by the people around you isn’t a liability — it’s the whole point. If you want the full run down on the how and the why of knowing when to share, grab her book. It’s the kind of read that makes you want to call someone you love immediately after. So whether you’re an oversharer who just wants to feel good about it, or someone who holds everything close and is tired of feeling invisible — this episode is for you. And when you’re done listening? Tell someone you love them. First. Without waiting. Without knowing if they’ll say it back. Because Leslie’s research shows that most of the time, they will. And even when it’s scary, even when your voice shakes a little — that moment of being truly seen is worth every second of vulnerability it took to get there. I spent a long time thinking my openness was too much. Turns out, it was never enough. Don’t make the same mistake. Listen, subscribe, and go tell someone how you feel. We’ll be here when you get back. Love, Carissa PS Who doesn’t like a good quiz? Check out Leslie’s to find out more of what kind of oversharer you are. [https://www.lesliekjohn.com/quiz] PPS If you liked this and want to support us, subscribe :) Or get something for someone you love from People I’ve Loved. Like a mug for your mom [https://www.peopleiveloved.com/collections/objects/products/you-are-loved-mug] (this was the OG mug we made for my mom for mother’s day 2020…) PPPS Bad At Keeping Secrets is a podcast by Carissa Potter (me). The music was produced by Officially Quigley, [https://www.officiallyquigley.com/] and the sound editing was done by Mark McDonald. [https://markmcdonald.us/]Mark helps people start podcasts, and I highly recommend him if you have been thinking about starting one. You can sign up for a free meeting with him here [https://www.birkdalemedia.com/]. BAD AT KEEPING SECRETS is a reader-supported publication. We are so happy you are here! Get full access to BAD AT KEEPING SECRETS at peopleiveloved.substack.com/subscribe [https://peopleiveloved.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

I tried to fix my husband. A neuroscientist stopped me.

Persuasion (n.): The act of causing someone to do or believe something through reasoning or argument. From the Latin persuadere — to advise thoroughly. Note that nowhere in the definition does it say anything about the other person actually wanting to be advised. I have spent years trying to get Josh to exercise. Not in a controlling way. Or — okay, maybe in a slightly controlling way, but for good reasons. Ten out of ten doctors agree that moving your body is good for you. This is not a controversial position. This is not me projecting. This is just science, and I would like the person I love to be alive and ambulatory for as long as possible, partly because I love him and partly because I have done the math and I cannot physically take care of him if something goes wrong. I have told him this. Directly. Lovingly. With data. His response is not words. It is a look. The look says: you think you know better than me. You think I’m not doing enough. You are trying to control my time. He doesn’t have to say any of it. It lands anyway, fully formed, right in the center of my chest. And just like that, the conversation is over — not because we fought, but because the look closed the door before I could get through it. I asked his sister once. She is excellent at movement, the kind of person who actually looks forward to it, and I thought maybe she had a key I didn’t. Her advice: just take things off his plate so he has more space. I appreciated this. I also wanted to laugh. I have a plate. My plate is full. My plate has things on it that fell off other people’s plates. I cannot take things off Josh’s plate with the plate situation I am currently managing. So for years, nothing changed. And I kept trying the same things — the gentle ask, the walk-to-get-coffee reframe, the calm laying out of medical evidence — and getting the same look. And somewhere in the back of my mind I started to wonder if the problem was not Josh’s relationship to exercise but my relationship to giving advice. Enter Emily Falk. Falk is a neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania [https://www.asc.upenn.edu/research/centers/communication-neuroscience-lab] and the author of What We Value [https://bookshop.org/p/books/what-we-value-the-neuroscience-of-choice-and-change-emily-falk/5696ac08cbcd0591?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=dsa_nonbrand&utm_content={adgroupname}&utm_term=aud-1721779758455:dsa-19959388920&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=12440232635&gbraid=0AAAAACfld42inGNtOxRMTCZdQ1uxx3dVJ&gclid=CjwKCAjw1N7NBhAoEiwAcPchp9T4hgOvtOaxqilFcC6snq7JyjE8tlIwzf8BJ948jwq5VGG-gf2STxoC8O4QAvD_BwE], and she studies how the brain actually processes information, change, and persuasion. What she found rearranged something in me. The first thing: the part of the brain that activates when we receive unsolicited advice is the same part associated with social threat. Being told what to do doesn’t just feel annoying. It registers, neurologically, as danger. Josh’s look is not stubbornness or defensiveness or a personal rejection of my very reasonable cardiovascular concerns. It is, in the most literal sense, his brain protecting him. Which means every time I made my careful, loving, evidence-based case for movement, I was accidentally pulling the pin on a grenade. But here is the part that really got me. Because it would be easy to read this and conclude that Josh is the problem — that his threat response is the obstacle, that if he could just receive information without his nervous system treating it like an attack, everything would be fine. Except Falk also has things to say about the person doing the advising. About why we give advice in the first place. About the uncomfortable truth that what looks like concern is sometimes also about us — our anxiety, our need for control, our own fear dressed up as helpfulness. I am trying to control Josh. I thought about the mornings I pick up my phone before I’ve said a word to anyone. Before coffee, before I’ve decided what kind of day I want to have, I am already checking — how is the post doing, did anyone reach out, does anyone still care, am I still here. There was a time when this ritual paid off. Good news, a new collab, someone saying something that made me feel like the work mattered. Now it’s a letdown ninety-five percent of the time. I put the phone down feeling depressed and worthless and like no one loves me. When that is simply not true. I know this. I know it the way I know that Josh should exercise, the way I know that checking the metrics at 7am is not going to make me feel better. I know it clearly, rationally, with my whole brain. And I do it anyway. Every morning. I watch myself do it almost from outside my own body, and I cannot stop. This is Falk’s second insight, the one that I couldn’t argue my way around: knowing something is good for you is almost entirely useless in the moment you are deciding whether to do it. The brain does not make decisions the way we think it does — through calm, rational weighing of evidence. It makes them fast, socially, emotionally, in response to what feels immediately rewarding and what the people around us seem to value. The milkshake wins not because you don’t know better. It wins because knowing better is the wrong tool for the job. So what is the right tool? This is where I want to hand you the book. Because what Falk found — about how change actually happens, about what makes advice land instead of detonate, about why Josh is finally, slowly, taking a few walks a week and how that happened without a single additional conversation about cardiovascular health — is something I could not have predicted, and couldn’t have argued myself into believing. Share this with someone you love. It has everything to do with who is in the room when you make a decision. And almost nothing to do with knowing what’s good for you. I’m not going to tell you what to do with that. You know I won’t. (Or am I kinda doing it right now??) But I will say: something shifted. Not dramatically. Not in a way that makes a clean story. Just — the look comes less often now. And some mornings, I put the phone down before I check. XO, Carissa PS Bad At Keeping Secrets is a podcast by Carissa Potter (me). The audio was produced by Officially Quigley, [https://www.officiallyquigley.com/] and the sound editing was done by Mark McDonald. [https://markmcdonald.us/]Mark helps people start podcasts, and I highly recommend him if you have been thinking about starting one. You can sign up for a free meeting with him here [https://www.birkdalemedia.com/]. PPS One more plug for Emily. Her book is here. [https://www.google.com/search?q=emily+falk+book+lab+norton&sa=X&sca_esv=9a3fab58edaf9218&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS913US913&biw=1426&bih=1211&udm=28&sxsrf=ANbL-n4voVlP1BKJtTg77I_nWK-Ek5r0bA%3A1773683872073&shopmd=1&ei=oES4afKVBOLE0PEPgNSh6Qk&ved=0ahUKEwjy5Y2p_6STAxViIjQIHQBqKJ0Q4dUDCCE&uact=5&oq=emily+falk+book+lab+norton&gs_lp=Ehlnd3Mtd2l6LW1vZGVsZXNzLXNob3BwaW5nIhplbWlseSBmYWxrIGJvb2sgbGFiIG5vcnRvbkjwGlCeA1j3GHABeAGQAQCYAeEBoAHvCKoBBTcuMy4xuAEDyAEA-AEBmAIDoALkAcICChAAGLADGNYEGEfCAgYQABgWGB7CAgQQIRgKmAMAiAYBkAYIkgcDMi4xoAefBbIHAzEuMbgH3gHCBwM5LTPIB5L5AoAIAA&sclient=gws-wiz-modeless-shopping#sv=CAYS1gESABosMmFoVUtFd2pVanVteF82U1RBeFd4RGpRSUhmYW5BamdRZ2kxNkJBZ0dFQmcicwoSNDcyMzMyODM0NTAxODY4OTU1EgAaFDE3NjYxNjg2MTk1MTY0MTQ3ODc4IhQxNzY2MTY4NjE5NTE2NDE0Nzg3OCoAMgA6AEoCaGdSAGIAagCKAQCgAQOwAQDCAQDKAQDaAQDiAQDwAQD6AQCSAgDaAgAwAEItMmFoVUtFd2pVanVteF82U1RBeFd4RGpRSUhmYW5BamdRcm9nR2VnUUlCaEFPIP35v9kKMAJKCBACGAEgASgB] PPPS If you are in the Bay Area, THIS SATURDAY, Ashley Neese and Danny Paul Grody are hosting an event at the Berkeley Art Museum. Click here for more info. [https://bampfa.org/event/still-together] Get full access to BAD AT KEEPING SECRETS at peopleiveloved.substack.com/subscribe [https://peopleiveloved.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

"I DON’T MAKE CONTENT FOR YOU."

‘I don’t make content for you.’ I was reading something Gabby wrote recently and it stopped me in my tracks. We both feel it — the world is a lot right now. We see it the same way, we respect each other deeply, and yet we find ourselves responding to it all very differently. That contrast has been sitting with me. How are you responding to this moment? So I reached out to her. Not for answers exactly, but because I wanted to hear how she’s making sense of this moment — and what she thinks we should do with it. That’s what blogger, designer, best-selling author Gabrielle Blair said to MAGA supporters who love her design tips but ignore her politics. And it sparked a whole conversation about who we’re willing to include and who we’re not. Today: activism, complicity, privilege, and the line between being inclusive and making space for harm. We talk about Confederate town names, being called racist for anti-racist work, and why there are no excuses left for supporting fascism. This one goes deep. Here we go. Gabby is amazing, follow her here: Sending love, rage, hope, care, kindness and whatever you need today. Permission to make. You got this. We got this. We don’t have another option. XO, Carissa BAD AT KEEPING SECRETS is so glad you are here. We want to be in this with you. Get full access to BAD AT KEEPING SECRETS at peopleiveloved.substack.com/subscribe [https://peopleiveloved.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

If Circe, Bridgerton, and Cinderella were one story... BOOK GIVEAWAY!

Let’s be real, happy endings mean what again? In today’s episode of Bad At Keeping Secrets, I’m sitting down with Rachel Hochhauser [https://rachelhochhauser.com/], author of https://bookshop.org/p/books/lady-tremaine-a-novel-rachel-hochhauser/9e8cd4ff902acfcf?ean=9781250396341&next=t&next=t&affiliate=3214Lady Tremaine [https://bookshop.org/p/books/lady-tremaine-a-novel-rachel-hochhauser/9e8cd4ff902acfcf?ean=9781250396341&next=t&next=t&affiliate=3214] https://bookshop.org/p/books/lady-tremaine-a-novel-rachel-hochhauser/9e8cd4ff902acfcf?ean=9781250396341&next=t&next=t&affiliate=3214— a stunning reimagining of Cinderella told through the eyes of the stepmother herself. But this conversation goes so much deeper than a fairy tale retelling. Rachel opens up about becoming a single parent while her husband was ill, how that experience of fierce, consuming maternal love became the beating heart of her book, and why she believes the stories we’ve been told about what it means to be a “good woman” might be doing us more harm than good. We talk about agency, happy endings, the exhausting pressure to always be nice, and what it really looks like to trust your own instincts — as a writer, a mother, and a person. BOOK GIVEAWAY To enter, sign up for Rachel's Substack! Rachel just started a Substack, and to celebrate the book, we're giving away one copy to a lucky reader. Next week, I'll randomly select one person who signed up and email them to get their address — so I can send them my copy of Lady Tremaine! This book is for you if you loved Wuthering Heights, if you're sick of waiting to be saved, or if motherly love changed you in ways you don't like to admit. I loved it. To my core. I hope you will too. Thanks for being here. XO, Carissa PS This podcast is edited by Mark McDonald [https://mediamcdonald.substack.com/]. The music is by my sister, Casey Goode [https://www.officiallyquigley.com/]. And I do this because I LOVE sharing peoples work. I get this joy because you are here. I am so grateful for you! PPS We have a new book out, The Imaginary Atlas, [https://www.peopleiveloved.com/products/the-imaginary-atlas-journal?_pos=1&_sid=5749f7835&_ss=r] with Candace Cui [https://dearcandace.substack.com/] and People I’ve Loved. It is fantasy related too! It is a journal to help YOU figure out what your fantasies are. Get a copy here: If this email made you feel better in anyway, or introduced you to something you are inspired by, we would love to have you with us. Get full access to BAD AT KEEPING SECRETS at peopleiveloved.substack.com/subscribe [https://peopleiveloved.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Humans are makers. Not scrollers.

Recently, my dear friend, artist and author, Lisa Solomon [https://www.lisasolomon.com/] asked me if I would write about the color grey. I told her I was bad with color, so gray was perfect. It was for her book, Art Craft Color [https://publishing.hardiegrant.com/en-us/books/art-craft-color-by-lisa-solomon/9781964786049]- where she asked 20 artists/crafters to come up with ideas that would make your life more colorful and also blur the line between artist and craftsperson. All the projects make you feel like you got this. And you do, you are an artist. I wanted to share my practice with you all today, because I thought it might be helpful. I want you to experience the healing power of making things. Drawing Through Anxiety. This could be a drawing exercise. This could be a screaming exercise. The supplies needed depend on what you feel like using to express yourself with the least amount of friction. For me, I love the way sumi ink flows on paper and I have it close to me at all times. I love the contrast between the paper and ink. I love how fast it is, you can make something stunning with very little planning and tools. The ink pools in places and sometimes I can see myself in its reflection. Share this with someone who is anxious… Steps: 1. Rally a word document, or a blank journal & a writing tool close by (I use a marker and pencil), some paint/ink and a brush(s if you want to be fancy) and a big old sheet of paper. Or anything else you have that you are drawn to. All of this is about what feels good and easy for you. Nothing else matters. Grab a warm beverage, or cool one depending on your desired body temperature. Take a few deep long breaths, relaxing your shoulders. 2. Free write down what you are spiraling about preferably under a full moon. Don’t worry how it sounds, what it reads like, no one will ever see this. It is about accessing a different part of you, creating distance, a separation between you and your thoughts and emotions. About taking them outside your head, and putting them somewhere else. 3. Look through your writing and find universal truths, or think about what you are longing to hear. Highlight that. Or write down the next thing you think of. 4. Sketch out your text/drawing/whatever on your big sheet of paper. Perhaps a totally unnecessary step I take is to sketch it out before I paint. I do this because I am scared I will screw up. I still believe that intentions matter and I should have a plan. But sometimes only a little or no plan creates things that are even more interesting, more beautiful. I guess sketching it out gives me comfort, the right amount of plan to just get going. Add some images that you feel like tell part of the story - it doesnt have to be poetic, or meaningful. Simply describe what is going on in your head or what you choose to focus on. 5. When have enough of a plan, just go ahead and dip that brush in and paint the text, or if you are more comfortable with images, go with that. Bloobs and mistakes welcome. Spelling errors mean it was done by a human. You are one. That is so miraculous. 5. Sit with what you have made. Consider sharing it with someone who would feel less alone if they received it. How are you feeling now? Has anything changed inside of you? 6. When you are ready, move on with your day. If you need a pep-talk, listen to Lisa here [https://peopleiveloved.substack.com/publish/post/188286147]. I promise she will feel like an old friend rooting for you. Pre-order Art Craft Color now, here [https://publishing.hardiegrant.com/en-us/books/art-craft-color-by-lisa-solomon/9781964786049]. Sending love and courage to make things, ugly things, and some beautiful, in this wild world, Carissa PS What do you make when you are feeling anxious? Lisa Solomon [https://www.lisasolomon.com/about_narrative.html] is is an oakland, california based mixed media artist, author, educator, and occasional curator, who has been teaching at Bay Area Colleges and classes around the world for 20+ years. As a Hapa, she continually explores ideas, spaces, and materials that are in-between. A self-declared color geek, she is profoundly interested in bridging the gaps between being creative, living creatively, creating community, and making a living as a creative. BAD AT KEEPING SECRETS is so delighted that you are here. Get full access to BAD AT KEEPING SECRETS at peopleiveloved.substack.com/subscribe [https://peopleiveloved.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]