Ladies Who Lunch

This is it! Our last episode of the podcast. We’re celebrating 2 amazing years by answering letters sent in by you, our listeners. We’re talking about toxic friendships, divorced parents, motivation and more, plus sharing what we’ve loved most about making this podcast. Thanks to everyone who has listened, written in, tweeted us and approached us in real life... we’ve had an incredible time with this project, and we hope, by listening, that you’ve learned a little more about yourself and the people around you. PS. Thanks to Away for supporting Ladies Who Lunch! For $20 off a suitcase, go to awaytravel.com/lwl and use promo code lwl at checkout.

This week’s episode is inspired by a letter from a listener who wrote in to discuss how people often compare their own pain to another’s. We know that empathy creates connection, and sympathy can create disconnection. Empathy is a vulnerable choice because you have to connect with something within yourself that might be painful. This conversation began another conversation about miscarriages, and the silence that often surrounds them when they happen. In order to move past the shame, we need to first acknowledge that the shame and silence are there. The only way to banish the stigma surrounding loss is to share our stories. PS. Thanks to FabFitFun for supporting our podcast! To get $10 off your first FabFitFun box, go to fabfitfun.com and use the code LWL.

After being inspired by a recent Katie Couric doc about our brains and technology, we’re diving into our own relationships with tech. Tech use and addiction is something that’s heavily accepted and even expected of us. Social media, video games, apps, and other digital products are carefully engineered to keep you coming back for more. App notifications, autoplay, likes, messages are scientifically proven to compel us to watch, check in, and respond right now — it’s either that or FOMO. With all of these factors working against us, it’s clear why it’s so easy to become addicted (there’s even tech rehab centers popping up in the US). Ingrid shares how she has been working to implement some behavioral changes to combat the signs of her own tech addiction, and we answer a letter from a viewer who is worrying she is wasting her life on her phone.

This week, we're talking about the desire for a quality or situation that you think will make you happy once you get it: a raise, a perfect body, a relationship, etc. We’ve bought into the myth that happiness is something we achieve when everything in our life finally looks the way we’ve been thinking it should. These things alone don’t create lasting happiness, so happiness becomes an elusive thing that we desire but don’t actually know how to achieve. The truth is that happiness is not circumstantial. Actually, we don't have to control anything outside of ourselves. Becoming aware of this means we can choose happiness in this moment. When we feel happy first, our outward experience begins to shift. PS - Thanks to Dagne Dover for supporting our podcast! Go to dagnedover.com/LWL to get 20% off your order with the code LWL.

This week, we’re talking about feelings of admiration and envy. Sometimes, these feelings can come up in response to encountering someone who you consider to be more successful, more beautiful, funnier, smarter or better. Admiration is seen as a noble sentiment, but envy, by contrast, is thought to be inherently bad. When we admire someone, we do so from a distance. When we envy someone, we picture ourselves in their place and feel that in order for us to be desirable, we must possess the same advantages they have. This episode was inspired by a recent epiphany Ingrid had while looking into her own feelings of envy. When does envy arise, and how can we re-frame it so it becomes productive and not destructive? PS - Thanks to Dagne Dover for supporting our podcast! Go to dagnedover.com/LWL to get 20% off your order with the code LWL. + Thanks to FabFitFun for sponsoring this episode! Go to fabfitfun.com/LWL and use the code LWL for $10 off your first box.