Season 3, Episode 7: Plenty and Enough

Episode Transcript
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Larissa Parson (00:02):
Welcome to Wondermine. I'm Larissa Parson.
I'm a body liberationist, awriter and podcaster, a mom to
twins and I have the worstfreaking allergies this spring
that I've ever had in my life.

Elizabeth M. Johnson (00:18):
Solidarity sister. I'm Elizabeth M.
Johnson. I'm a writer, a reader,a parent and an eater. Find my
occasional substack called RipeTime over at substack. But more
regular, you can find me atInstagram and Twitter at E M. J.
Writing.

And if you're new here, hello. We're in the
duo behind this feminist podcastthat looks at the Wow! and the
how of living a life rooted incuriosity, community and
liberation. If you've ever feltlike something was missing, or
you were missing somethingWondermine is the podcast for
you. And this is season three.

What are we reading? We start every
single episode with what we'rereading and we end with what
we're eating. Larissa, do youwant to go first?

Sure. So I am reading a book called
'Thistlefoot'. I think I wasreading it weeks ago, too. I've
been working on it. It's a big,long book. I think we've talked
about this before. Maybe, wetalked about this for our bonus
episode. I can't remember.
Anyway, if you all have beenlistening, you may have heard of
this book before. So that's whatI'm working on. But I have like

(01:32):
this stack of books queued up.
There's like the new LouisePenny that came out last winter
and I'm excited to read andthere's a couple other books
that I've been really lookingforward to reading that are just
queued up to go as soon as Ifinish this so I'm hoping to
finish it this weekend, so I canjust dive in and get my cozy

(01:53):
murder mystery on.

Nice. I have a couple of books queued up
also and I am trying a new habitof not putting every single book
that I hear of on hold at thelibrary which, backfires on me.

Because they all come in at the same time, right?

What the hell? They all come in at the
same time.

Yeah, that's my problem. And then sometimes when
you'll get the one like'Thistlefoot' came in, I was
like, 'oh cool, book'. But it'sreally long. So, like then the
other ones have been tricklingin over the last week. And I'm
like looking at how long I havebefore I have to return them all

(02:35):
and like, I gotta read faster.

Yeah, that's exactly right. Because I
had 'Demon Copperhead', BarbaraKingsolver's book come, which is
so freakin long. Oh, but longerbecause I got it in large print.
Oh, gee, it's fabulous. Anyway,it's done. But it is massive.

(02:58):
And then I got finally 'Age ofVice', which is what I'm excited
to mention today. So it's DeeptiKapoor, I believe is how I say
her name. She is a writer who Ibelieve lives in Europe right
now. But she was worked as ajournalist in India for many
years. It is also a massivefreaking book, my God. And you
get right into it, which is likeone of my very, very favorite

(03:21):
ways to start. So I love a bookthat gets me right into the heat
of the action, like I'm in thedriver's seat, or I'm driving,
or whatever, going somewhere, orI'm right in the middle of it.
And so this is like one of thesesaga-like books, there's a
massive family involved. Andit's fascinating and wonderful.
It's India in the early 2000s.
And it's really great. There'snot a piece that's frustrating

(03:43):
me. So I was on a fiction sortof desert for a while. And this
is got me out of the desert. Soreally loving it.

That's amazing.
I love that when that happens,blah, blah, blah. I love it.
When that happens.

I highly recommend highly. I'm about
three quarters of the waythrough it, so I can say that -
I mean, I highly recommend itfrom day one. But I still
continue to be really enthralledwith it.

I will add it to my to be read list.

Do it.
It's good stuff.

Awesome. So like I said earlier today we are
closing actually season three.
Yes. Wondermine. And we areclosing out with an episode on
the idea of plenty and enough.
As you all know, this is ourlast season and this is our last
episode. So this topic feelsvery apt. One of the questions

(04:33):
that we asked each other a longtime ago, Elizabeth, I feel like
this was one of our earlierwalks where we were maybe
working on Season One ideas.

It was a long time ago. So probably like
two-ish years is my guess.

Yeah. So we've been thinking about this for a
long time. How do you know whenyou have plenty and how much is
enough and we couldn't figureout where it fit in anywhere
else until now.

Until this very moment. Not that long.
Okay, so we're gonna use plentyand enough sort of
interchangeably to mean the samething. One word may resonate
with you over the other, so holdthat word close. So if like
you're a plenty person hold onto plenty. If enough resonates
more with you hold on to thatfor the next 30-40 minutes while
we talk about this.

Yeah, I feel like one of those words will
resonate more than the other Ifeel like for me enough is one
of those but plenty hasdifferent connotations for me.

So when I started thinking about this
topic, I couldn't get away fromhow my childhood impacted my
thinking about what enough lookslike. And I'm wondering if that
was similar for you, Larissa, orwhere did you go first when you
thought about this plenty andenough idea?

So funny, because I think when we were
talking about it, it wassomething completely different.
But as I sat down to map thisepisode, what jumped into my
mind immediately was a storythat my dad likes to tell about
my childhood. And I swear, I'veheard the story about 700 times
in my life.

So plenty

*laughing* plenty enough, actually,
probably enough times

probably enough.

And it goes kind of like this. One time, one of
the neighborhood kids waswalking past our basement
window, you could like ourbasement at my mom's house looks
out on this park. So people justwalk past it all the time. And
look inside we had it was likeit was an unfinished basement.
And it was one of the sectorplayroom. So it was full of toys
and stuff. And and they said,Wow, it looks like a toy store

(06:38):
in there. And I'm sure actuallywhat he's aiming for when he
tells the story. Like is itabout how spoiled my brother and
I were? How much my mom likedcollecting toys for us, or
gathering things like that, orhow different my childhood was

(06:59):
from his own upbringing, whichdid not involve a toy store in
the basement. But that's thestory that I think about when
you mentioned plenty, plenty andenough like I had plenty of
stuff growing up, did not lackfor material safety, did not
lack for food, even if sometimesit was kind of like, there's not
a whole lot of abundance ofdifferent varieties of food.

(07:22):
There's still plenty. There wasno lack. Right. And when I think
about that, though, and like,but that's really different from
having a sense of being enough,or having enough emotional
support. So, as an adult, I'vebeen sitting with that question
a lot. Yeah. Tell me about yourchildhood, Elizabeth.

Well, that's a whole thing, isn't it?
Right, like I didn't lack formaterial support or food like
basic needs were met. But that'sreally different from having a
sense of being enough or havingenough. Being enough or having
enough in the more emotionalsupport sort of end of it. So in
my home, there was plenty ofdysfunction. So two young
parents, married way too young.
Too little support, not enoughof anything. And that definitely

(08:08):
included food, although I saythat but I want to always
qualify that no one wasstarving. We were not on food
stamps. I wouldn't say there'sfood insecurity, even though
there wouldn't have been a timethat you would have viewed that
wouldn't have been a phrase youwould have used at that point.
It's just the feeling of they'renot quite being enough for all
of us to feel content, orsatiated or having like those
like those needs met. So for me,that kind of led some scarcity

(08:32):
mindset thinking around food,one offset of that, for sure.
And definitely like I feel youon the emotional support piece,
like being enough and havingenough but I definitely food is
one of those areas where Idefinitely struggle with plenty
and enough.

That is so interesting. So, I'm just trying
to make this a little concretein my head. So like when you say
that no one was starving, butthere wasn't enough for you to
feel content or satiated. That'skind of like there's no
leftovers after dinner. Youmight run out like the thing
that you like the most becauseyour brother ate all of it or
ate that last bite of it orwhatever....

That is exactly it. Yes. Yeah. Once
there's once dinner's done,there's generally not leftovers
from dinner. Yeah, there arethere that if the thing was
sometimes eaten by someone elsein my family, and actually I
would go on to do this thingwhere once I started bringing in
my own little money, I would buymy little pint of Ben and
Jerry's, and I'd put it in thefreezer, and I would write Liz
with a sticky or a Sharpie andbe like, don't touch this. It is

(09:32):
mine. So I don't do thatanymore, happily, right.
Happily, I do not do that anylonger.

So what does that look like for you now?
Like, how does that sense ofscarcity around food show up now
for you?

Yeah, I think it's sort of like two
ways. I need to remind myselfthat there's more if I want it,
or if I need it. There's more. Ican get more. Mona's always
makes the apple cider doughnutseven though funfact early on,
they discontinued them for alittle while, and then we're
like what? And we were like oneof those first apple cider
doughnut people to kind of bevery loud about this, and then

(10:07):
they brought them back. So everyday there apple cider, doughnuts
at Mona's unless they run out,but they'll have more tomorrow.
But also, like to fasting anddiet culture type stuff, like if
I want one now, that's totallyfine. Okay, it's totally fine.
It's okay. And I can haveanother one tomorrow, if I want.
If I don't want one, that'sfine. I can access that at

(10:27):
another time. Like, I can dothat. I have resources, like I
have gas in my car to drive toMona's, or whatever the thing
is. We have the extra $5, let'ssay, to get a couple of donuts.
So I have that I have thosethings there for me. So food is
one place the plenty and enoughsort of scarcity mindset flip
flop goes with me. I wonderabout you. What about you with

(10:47):
plenty and enough - what feelslike a little piece that you
struggle with?

I want to go back to your diet culture
comment for just a secondbecause I wanna really highlight
that because I feel like this isreally, really, really important
to folks who are newer tounraveling diet culture in their

lives. Disclaimer (11:03):
I'm not a dietitian, and I'm also not a
specialist in disordered eating.
But that question of plentyenough comes up so often, when
we have disordered eatingpatterns, because like, for me,

(11:25):
I will say, in my own foodhistory, there was a time of
deep scarcity, where I could notafford a lot of food. And that
led to an absolute pattern ofdisordered eating. And so I
would always overeat tocompensate every time that I was
like visiting family and couldactually have enough food. I
would have more than enoughfood. And so like, this shows
up, everywhere, and it's reallyhard to unravel it. So just like

(11:48):
to highlight that, when we getto the point of really divesting
from diet culture, and beingable to say, I can have that
again tomorrow, or I can have ittoday if I want to, and I can
have it again tomorrow if I needto or want to. Being able to get
to that place of food is so sohealthy and important. Yeah.

And I would say, also just sort of to
be clear, like this is somethingI work on on a daily meal by
meal snack by snack basis. Sothis is newer for me as of the
pandemic. And it's absolutelysomething that is I think I'll
work on for the rest of my life,which is like anything else like

(12:30):
for whatever this is how onedeals with like impact of
trauma. You just work on it forthe rest of your life. It is
never complete over or likehealed into its own little box.

Well, and this is how we walk through a culture
that's constantly telling usthat we need to be monitoring
how many doughnuts we're eatingall the time, whether or not we
have actual health concerns thatrequire that level of
monitoring. So, it's not justtrauma, it's our culture. Yeah,
we could even say 'is ourculture trauma?'.

Yeah, it is. Well, right. And that's the
other piece, right. So, if youthink about the trauma that
you're constantly sort ofdealing with or kind of the
ramifications or the aftereffects of, you're also like
living in a culture that says,'Get over it. What's past is
past and don't cry over spiltmilk. So, it's the same sort of
parallel.

Exactly. Okay, let's get back to a less serious
plenty enough problem.
So my plenty enough problem hasbeen a truly lifelong problem.
It's bras That's my struggle. Idon't have enough bras that I

(13:39):
absolutely love. That are likewear them everyday bras. I have
a lot that are okay. I have alot that are good enough. I'm
wearing one right now. I have asports bra. And it's good
enough.

It's good enough.

It's fine. I don't hate it. I mostly feel
like I'm tolerating them. Andthat's a very frustrating plenty
enough problem. I would like tobe able to look in my drawer and
pick out a bra the way that Ican pick out the shorts that I
love or the shirts that I love.
I have a lot of clothes that Ilove the way they feel my body.
And bras are not it.

Virginia Sole-Smith has something on like
Jean science. Has she doneanything on bras?

I have a difficult to fit body type where
my band is relatively smallcompared to my cup size. And so
that's tricky, but I'm also not,I'm also not thin. And so a lot
of bras that are built for thatkind of proportion situation are

(14:58):
built for people who are thinnerbuilds. So it's really hard. And
I hate underwires, which is alsoanother problem. Anyway, okay
now, so I can rant about brasall day. I'm going to stop. The
more serious, plenty enoughstruggle for me is time. And I

(15:19):
think this is something thatresonates with most people in
this culture is feeling like youhave enough time - for all the
things you want to do, for allthe people you want to see, all
the work that you want tocreate, or all the creative
projects that you want to engagein, if that's your thing. Like
if you want to knit, whatever,that kind of stuff. I tend to do

(15:39):
a lot of revenge bedtimeprocrastination, where I'll sit
up on my phone doing nothingimportant at 11 o'clock at
night. And then I spend, youknow, time thinking about how
that activity in itself gets inthe way of feeling the kind of
capaciousness of time, like ifI'm doing this late at night, am
I wrecking my morning? Could Ibe going to bed earlier and then

(16:02):
getting up in the morning andhaving like, these nice, quiet
productive hours. I think it'salso, for me in particular, some
of this is about like, what arethe hours of the day when my
brain is like, on and sharp andready to go? We record this

podcast at 12 (16:18):
30. In the afternoon, a lot of the time,
this is one of my best times ofday, most days of the week, I am
actively managing kids duringthis time of day instead of
doing intellectual work. Andthat is really, really
difficult. So, those are myplenty enough struggles.

I think the time piece is super
interesting. Someone at mywriting group if we could switch
to a later time, and it waslike, Y'all can, but I
definitely can't show up and domuch from 7 - 9:30 pm. I mean, I

(16:59):
go to bed early. My brain iscompletely done at that point.
I've been up for a long time. Itjust doesn't work for me. So I
totally get that piece aboutwhen my brain functions are the
times that I need to be doingthe work. But I say that and my
child is in school full time. Soshe goes to school at quarter

after eight and picks up 3 (17:16):
30 - 3:45 pm, whatever it is, you
know, so that's different.
That's very different. You know,I think there's still moments
especially when there's a lot ofbirthdays or holidays, or
there's a big school vacationwhere I don't feel like I have
enough time. But overall, Idon't feel that way as much as I

(17:37):
used to. And I'm trying to dosomething super different this
year in like, every possibleway. And like, my word of the
year that I keep coming back tois transform. So I'm really
trying to do things differently,which for me means, you know,
saying no more or saying that'snot a thing for right now. Or
what's my enough? Like, how muchenough am I working with right

(17:58):
now, which helps me with a timething. So those are kind of like
my little pieces that when Ithink about time I think about
how thatshows up with someonelike me who's kiddo is in school
full time and also, like, whatdoes it mean to work with

(18:18):
different hours of the day andfill that space?

Yeah, I love that. I love that saying no.
That's magical people. I amstill not as good at it as
Elizabeth is, but I'm learning.

Super interesting. I was looking for
some extra paint - just a littlebit of paint for a little
project. And someone I posted onmy neighborhood listserv, and
someone responded, said, here'sthis, and I totally dropped the
ball. I was supposed to go seeher last week and pick it up.
And the problem was that thetime was so open ended, I didn't
have anything on my calendar. Ididn't have anywhere to slot it.

(18:58):
And so I didn't do that. Andthat's very unusual for me to
have something be open and likejust call before you come over.
It's a totally different way forme to respond to something. So I
forgot. Totally slipped my mindand then I was like oh, and I
can't do it during the week. Sobut thank you so much for the
offer and then she said youdon't have any time during the
week? And I was like I so wantit took everything that I had to

(19:21):
not reply back and be like, canI tell you about the two meal
trains I've got and the neighborcoming over for dinner and the
drop off of food at the hospitalfor someone who now has cancer
and this and this and a childpickup and drop off and making
lunches and going to work twodays. I didn't do it. I didn't
do it but I was so close. Somepeople have a lot more space in

(19:45):
their days. And I was like'unfortunately I can't but thank
you' and that's just how I leftit. And I was like 'whoo' but I
totally wanted to get into itbecause I was like there's just
not I can't I'm not going to addone more thing in and I'm sorry
that I let you down. I'm sorry.
I'm gonna miss out on yourpaint, you know, but No.

I'm just stunned that somebody would even ask
that.

I was surprised to but I tend to chalk
it up to someone who does nothave children and is older. And
I actually don't know the storyof this woman at all. So that
could be totally incorrect.

And also, like, you could just leave it out on
her porch and be like Kumbayaand it'll be out there for a
week. Okay, I get it. You don'thave time. I'll put it out for
the weekend. And hopefully we'llbe able to pick it up then. And
if you can't just let me know.
Anyway, she could have beenburned a bunch on like Buy

(20:39):
Nothing groups. Sometimes ithappens. Okay, so what else?

Ah, work.
Yeah, work is a big one. That isa piece where it's plenty of
enough. Have I done enoughtoday? At the end of the day,
have I done enough?
Interestingly, I don't feel thatway about parenting. I know I
have done a stack every singlegoddamn day of my life since the
kid was born. And before, right?

And before because you're reading parenting
books. And you were doing like,prental...

yeah, he may go on prenatal yoga. Yeah, I
was doing all that and Ichiropractic I've been I am
never thinking that. And that'sa huge privilege that I have. I
only have one child. I do notwork full time for someone else
outside the home, have an hourcommute have to deal with
billable hours, travel blah,blah, blah. I don't have to deal
with any of that. Intentionally,so. An intentional choice to not

(21:30):
to have that be my life,basically. But I never feel that
way about parenting. I know Idid everything. I've done a ton.

Yes, sorry.

No, just I know I've done enough, which is
plenty.

Thank you.
I think there are very fewparents who would not say that
parenting who would not sayyeah, so parenting expands to
fill all available gaps in theday. If you're, you know, like
any gaps you've got, you can bebusy doing parenting-related
things. Yes. My kids are older.
It doesn't look like playingwith my kids. It looks like

(22:09):
filling out forms a lot offorms. So many forms.

I want like all the like the expletives
We're gonna have to put a littleE on this episode.
to go in there. Like like shit,fuck, yowza, damn. You know, all
the ...
This is not the clean episode.
All the expletives right here.
All the goddamn forms all thetime - all the signup geniuses,

(22:35):
all the meal trains, all thecoordination, all the forms

For me, it's like, where are my kids going to
be, so I can make thisappointment for myself? I need
to go to the dentist. I need togo the optometrist. These are
things that I have to do duringthe days when I have like kids
all day. How do I fit those in?

Yes.
That's a very good point. Yep.
And so there's the forms and theadmin, and there's the emotional
labor, even if your kid doesn'tneed you to play with them. We
talked much. It's so much more.
I think I was such a naiveparent. I imagined it would get
less. It does not, so far. Mychild is in middle school but I

(23:21):
imagined there would be less andthere is not there is the same
amount, if not more, because theopportunity sometimes are a
little bit less, because we'renot spending the chunks of time
together that we had at onepoint. That's fascinating to me.
And I will say I'm so gratefulfor it. Because I did not have

(23:44):
the same relationship with myown mother. So I'm very grateful
that she turns to me and says,someone said this to me, and I
didn't understand what theymeant, or whatever. But it's
still it is still emotionallabor. And we can't we can't
highlight that enough, I don't

No, I don't think we can highlight that
think.
enough at all. It's constantemotional labor. It is constant,
kind of monitoring your kidsemotional well being and health
and all of that stuff. And justlike being attuned to, there's
something that's going on, and Ineed to check in with them. And

(24:22):
especially as my kids get older,it's also doing a lot of
emotional labor for myself, as Ihelp them navigate things that I
didn't necessarily have helpnavigating, or that weren't a
thing that we talked aboutopenly in the 80s like sexuality
and gender . Having to do theemotional labor of keeping my

(24:43):
nervous system just like chilledout while we're having really
difficult conversations wherewe're talking about.. Like, car
rides are my favorite emotionallabor time. Or like, let's have
an educational conversationaround HIV AIDS epidemic of the
80s and 90s. Because that's whatI really want to do is like,

(25:04):
remember everything about whatit was like to grow up afraid to
have sex. Or being scared intolike, if you do this, then this
will happen and you will die.

You mentioned in your newsletter the
piece with Michael and Aubrey onsugar being as addictive as
cocaine - as street drugs.
Michael's like, because of theDARE program, I thought I was
gonna get offered cocaine allthe time and I wasn't cool
enough and I'm like, me too,Michael. I thought I was gonna
get offered cocaine and pot allthe time. And I guess same I was

(25:39):
absolutely not cool enough. Ijust wasn't. I mean, but it's
like this thing that you'relike, "everywhere I look,
someone's gonna be offering medrugs and they're gonna be
street drugs, and I'm gonna gethooked. And I'm not. I have
multiple people in my world whoare suffering from addiction
and/or in recovery and/oractively trying to, you know,
change things themselves. So Iam not mocking or in any way,

(26:01):
you know, belittling piecesabout addiction or alcoholism. I
have first hand experience -happy to talk offline. And this
is just not a tactic that workedin any way in terms of helping
people understand or preventthem from using drugs, just like
just say no, you know, but wow.

Yeah, just like abstinence education. There's so
much labor involved.

So much labor. We could talk about this
for a long time.

Yes, we could.
So, let's go back.

Let's say a little bit about work. So work
is this piece where there's aplenty and enough sort of thing.
Every day, I'm like, "Have Idone enough?" And this has been
true since I stopped workingfull time for someone else,
right. At the end of the day, Icould leave for the most part.

(27:03):
Even if I took pager shifts orwhatever, I was still not in the
office, you know? But as abusiness owner, there's always
more work to do, right? You justsaid parenting can fill the
hours that we have. So there'salways more work to do, you
know. But this is a little bitlike the 10,000 hour sort of
Oliver Berkman stuff, you know,which is like another reminder
to me that, at the end of theday, the work that I've done is

(27:23):
probably enough, even if I don'tfeel that way, or I feel like
unsatisfied with how much Ichecked off on my list. It's
probably enough. And that is apiece that I'll still continue
to work on. No pun intended forthe rest of my life is my guess.

Yeah, I think it's really important to
recognize and, like highlighthow our culture contributes to
that feeling that it's notenough, even though it has it is
actually likely enough. Likethere's always something else.

(27:59):
We can never produce or doenough for the culture.

Yep.
Thanks, capitalism. That'sright. Yep, shows up all the
time. I want to circle back tothis piece, because I want to
also underscore and sort of say,Yes, me too, to the piece
around, like, emotional supportand childhood. I was an only
child once for like 15 months. Ilove my siblings very much. And

(28:25):
I enjoy being with them. And,you know, I miss my sisters on a
regular basis, but I swear toGod, I remember when I was an
only child, and I rememberreally liking it a lot. Like
having me be the center ofattention. And, you know, I
whatever I was 15 months when mysister Sarah was born, so I
don't think this is real, butthen there could be these
memories that you have that youdon't have language for, because

(28:46):
you weren't able to talk duringthat time. But it feels real,
you know. But ever afterwards, Ialways have sort of struggled or
I struggled, because I was toldthat I wanted too much, or that
I needed too much or that I wastoo much. So I was told this on
a regular basis that that sunkin. And now, I can't even

(29:08):
imagine like a message like thatbeing like for my daughter, even
though she's like a talker.
She's very extroverted.

(29:32):
But still, I can't even imagineever being like, you are too
much, it's too much. That seemslike such a breaker of spirits.
And yeah, it kind of was.

Um, you know, I can relate to that so hard as
the talker child who was oftensilenced like 'this is not the
time to talk, you may not talknow, nobody wants to hear what
you have to say', Or just likenot having people to talk to.

(30:06):
I'm gonna throw us off on atangent here for just a second.
I swear, I'll come back ontopic. But it's been one of
those things where I've beenlearning more and more about
ADHD lately. This is verycharacteristic that you are a
lot for a lot of people. Andit's just because that's how my

(30:27):
brain works. And it's taken alot of unlearning that that is
like a problem - that it's notactually a problem to be that to
be the talky person who has lotsof ideas, who wants to talk
about all of them all the time.
Learning how to receive people'slimits and capacity for that is,
is different from silencingmyself. You know. And we can

(30:48):
talk about that a little bitwhen we jump into talking about
our right people, but like,there's this meme that I love
that's been going around for along time. And it comes up in
lots of different forums, lotsof different graphics behind it,
but basically, it's if I'm toomuch for you, then go choose
less. Like, I am not too muchfor my right people and I'm not

(31:11):
too much for me, either.

Right. You know, that's a nice point,
right? I like that. You're nottoo much for you. It's not too
much. I'm not too much for me.
And my chorus for years has beenyou're never too much for your
right people. They can handleit. And if they can't handle it,
we trust them to tell us theycannot. That's what we have.

That's so key! Do you want me to talk about
right people, Elizabeth?

I do just like, I'm like, Well, do we, but
you know, yes, we do. You'realways talking about right
people, and you never know whensomeone's gonna bust into your
podcast, and one of those finalepisodes be like her. Not that
there's anything wrong withthat. But let's, let's shout it
out. Let's shout it out. Becausewe can't ever hear it too much.
Anyway. So there we go.

I'll shout it out. And I'll shout it out with
an example. Like, nice. Thereare right people in your life
for whom you can be too much.
And so sometimes you have tosay, I know that whatever. Or
you maybe have right people inyour life who can be
overwhelming for you forwhatever trauma response reason,
whatever it is. And you don'tnecessarily have to say this out

(32:31):
loud to them. You can set aboundary without saying like,
"You're too much for me, I canonly hang out with you once a
month", you just make plans withthem once a month or once every
six months instead of like everyday. It's simple. We talked
about this in the friendshipepisode quite a bit - that you
can set these boundaries andhave your people be in your life
in ways that feel comfortableand doable for you. But who are
right people are right people.

(32:55):
Are those golden friends, ourchosen family. I love to use
these terms a littleinterchangeably sometimes for
people to know the term chosenfamily. There are those friends
who give as much as they getinvest time in the relationship,
champion your success. They arehealthy and safe for you and can
be trusted with your vulnerableself. Those are our right

(33:22):
people.

Those are our right people. They're out
there for all of us. I want toYeah, sorry, I'm stealing your
words. I just wanted to pausethis for like a super brief
testimonial. I love love lovedthe friendships podcast episode.
That's our most recent one. Iwas just talking to another
friend about "friend guilt", andreally loved in the beginning

(33:45):
reiterating that one personisn't all the things. The "best
friend" rivalry/jealousy at ourage feel so silly, but it shows
up in so many ways. Thank youanonymous. appreciate that
feedback, and so grateful foryou for listening.

Those kind words and reviews help people find us
so consider giving one to us, ifyou please.

I feel like right, people are a good
place to start considering whatplenty and enough looks like.
The discourse around everythingfeels to me like more is better.
But I know I feel differently.
What are you thinking, Larissa?

So, um, you know, I like to collect friends
like the Pokemon.

That's a good visual.

Well, I think it's a good visual. Hopefully
that reference will hit with abunch of y'all. I think that you
and I, Elizabeth, have differentsizes of inner circles. And so I
want to say to anyone else whois like me, who is a kind of
Pokemon collector kind of friendthat that is totally fine. And
again, that goes back to thequestion of 'how much capacity

(34:52):
do I have to be present in agood friend way, to how many
people? Maybe this one personthat can show up for more
sporadically, more periodically,episodically than weekly. And
that's okay. Because again, wecan't be everything to everyone.
So back to my Pokemon metaphor.
Part of the reason that I lovethis is I love having lots of

(35:13):
different people to connectwith. Maybe this is like the way
my brain works, maybe it's justthat I really like different
people. And I really enjoy thatvariety of inputs and thoughts
and personalities. But I alsohave a ridiculous number of
interests, honestly. And so Ihave different friends for
different interests fordifferent kinds of occasions for

(35:34):
different kinds of things that Iwant to do. What all of them
have in common is that they'rerelationships that center common
values, reciprocity, mostlyclear communication, even though
we all mess up, sometimesthere's no perfect communicator
out there, and a commitment tomaintaining that connection. So
investing the time in therelationship. And at the same

(35:55):
time, you know, like, I'm aPokemon collector, but my
Pokeball is full. I am atcapacity for new friendships
right now, which doesn't meanI'm not open to meeting and
connecting with new people. I'mjust probably not going to be,
you know, bringing them in andlike a deep, intimate way. Right

(36:15):
now. I want to make sure thatI'm spending time being a good
friend to the people that I amconnected with already.

Yeah.
Yeah. I have been thinking a lotabout this and I feel like I am
at that kind of capacity, too.
I'm realizing I have more peoplein my community that I wouldn't
call friend friends. You and Ihave talked about this before
about this idea of and actuallyTressie McMillan Cottom had said

(36:48):
something about needing somedifferent language because
they're not acquaintances,they're not friends, or right
people, they're not Facebookfriends. They're somewhere in
the middle of all of these. It'ssome sort of word. I don't know
what it is. But they're peoplethat I keep track of, people
that I care about. And I think Ihave a lot of people in those
circles, maybe more than youbecause I think you have more

(37:11):
friend friends, maybe than I do.
But what I'm realizing is thatlike, I like those, those friend
friends sort of relationships.
And that number works for me,because it's the same sort of
idea, there are people that Ican keep track of the people
that I can feel connected to.
There are people with whom thereis some shared values. I will

(37:34):
say that I think a piece that'snot common with you and I when
we're talking aboutcharacteristics here is like
that commitment to maintain theconnection or that maybe
valuing, I think commitment tomaintain a connection is
important, but maybe not valuingit as highly as I would. And I
think that's sort of a thing.

(37:55):
But I've kind of come to theconclusion that some of those
folks I have in my friend friendcategory, because they feel
important to me, but they maynot feel as invested in the idea
of friendship as anotherextension of like, important
relationship, like we've talkedabout with Mia Birdsong and, of
course, Dr. Franco with youknow, platonic as I do. It is a

(38:18):
super important thing for me.
And, yeah, so that's, I think,some pieces that are kind of
worth noting when you're talkingabout this,

I feel like this could be such a long episode.

Not so much more, I don't think.

I really need to say this, though. This goes back
to this thing that we weretalking about a little bit
earlier today. So, Elizabeth andI were chatting before we
started recording. And one ofthe things that we were talking
about is how I put a lot ofvalue, importance, weight,

(39:00):
significance on my friendships.
They are as important to me asromantic relationships.
Obviously, you do some things inromantic relationships that you
don't always do with yourfriends. But that level of
vulnerability, intimacy andmutual respect, care, etc, is

(39:20):
super important to me, in allkinds of relationships. And I
would say I do have a prettylarge number of not quite friend
friends - the people that I amkeeping tabs on. Those are the
people I go for walks with everythree, six months, you know.
It's not always if I haven'tseen you in a week, I need to
see you.

Those are like Pokemon friends.

Yeah, or maybe those are like the Pokemon that-
I don't want to rate people. Idon't wanna do that. There are
different quantities of that Ido feel like it's important to
say that like, I would challengeour listeners to add a little
bit more value and importance tothose friendships because they

(40:04):
really matter. And if we'refeeling lonely, maybe it's not
necessarily your romanticpartner who needs to fix that
for you.

I would say it's not your romantic
partner that needs to fix thatfor you.

No, it's really not.

Like it's totally not and of course,
that's assuming that you'refeeling lonely with a romantic
partner.

If you have a partner. If you don't have a
partner, then you really needthose friends. Y'all those
friends are your people. Thosepeople are your life partners.
They are the people who willwalk with you through all of
your changes, your events,everything. There's been a lot

(40:45):
of stuff out lately aboutfriendship and how important it
is to our well-being. There arebasically three markers that you
need for well being - friends,move your body a little every
day, eat vegetables, drinkwater. And it doesn't have to be
that many vegetables. Drinkwater. Hang out with people you
like.

I think it's like, it's yeah, there's
nothing else to say. You totallysaid it. You absolutely said it.
Maybe from here, we can look athow do we figure out plenty
enough for us? What are sometips that we can move people
towards? Or get people to thinkabout if this feels like
something that's resonating withthem?

So I think that sadly, the most important thing
is figuring out what exactly youneed and want. Yeah, and I think
that's actually very hard for alot of us, because we have so
many messages coming in fromoutside about what we should
need and should want. And whatshould be satisfying and what
should be enough. What should beplenty. So, it's getting clear
on what is right for you, versuswhat is right for other people.

(41:50):
And let's start small with this.
Like, do I need to have caffeinein the morning? I do. Maybe you
don't. So then, are you gettingthe thing you want in the
morning? Is it a cup of tea? Isit a stretch? Is it to drink
water? Whatever. And then getclear on when we're thinking

(42:11):
about plenty enough, like ingeneral, broad categories of our
lives - are our needs being met?
And some of the wants, too?
like, I have food. And if I wantto donut, I can have one. And
so, I feel like I'm not lackingfor something. If I'm feeling
like there's a lack then, can Ifigure out what to do about
that? Then there's probablyplenty. If generally, my basic

(42:35):
needs are met and some of mywants, then I'm in a plenty
enough place. That doesn't meanthat there can't be more or that
the quality can't change or, youknow, like that's not a
changeable, movable target here.
It's like, the basically I'mokay. And there's a baseline

(42:55):
here.

Yeah. I like the adding in there that it
can change.

Well, our needs do change. And I think the idea
that they always stay the sameis ridiculous.

Yeah, absolutely. And what feels
important to us, like, thecoffee thing that we start the
day with, may not be the samething in six months. Maybe we
choose something completelydifferent. And that still starts
to work for us, too.

Maybe coffe doesn't make you feel good. And
they try something else. Sorry,I was interrupting.

That's okay. I'm thinking inside. Um,
so one way I think, is that wecan practice this, right. What
is the thing? And is there a waythat we can practice this? And I
think that this is always easierwith the right people, because
pretty much everything is easierwith our right people, right?
They help they help us stayfocused on ourselves and what we

(43:49):
need, instead of what, likecapitalism, or the hustle or
diet culture or beauty cultureor any of these outside systems
of oppression are telling usthat we should be doing or we
should want. So our right peoplewould ask "What's that about?
Who are you paying attention tothere? Is this serving you?"

Yeah! They can help you tune into the feeling
of being satisfied or beingfull. I was eating dinner last
night with one of my rightpeople. And I was like, Am I
done? And they're like, "well,there's a couple bites of your
burger left. You feel like youwant that?" I was like, "I'll

(44:32):
try it." You know, it was areally interesting moment where
I'd had a hard day, so I wasn'ttotally tuned into my body. But
my right person could say, hey,why don't you try another bite,
and if you don't want it, thenyou're done. I was like, Oh
*laughs*

I guess I can do that.

I guess I can do that. Our right, people can
validate when we're hitting thepoint of satisfaction.

I think this also reminds me too because
it's been a week, Larissa. Whenwe're tired, or we're depleted
or we're not feeling well orthere's something that's going
on for us, we are just less inthat space to have capacity or,
you always say spoons, to to beable to deal with even the

(45:15):
smallest choices. And so ourright people can kind of shift
perspective back on to us forthose things. And that's super
useful. It's such a goodexample.

I'm glad that's helpful.

Yeah, it's good. It's good. Um, I think
this about our podcast, too,right. It's our last year when I
came to the conclusion thatwe've said as much as we need to
in this space or feel compelledto in this format. How did we
get here? What do you think wentinto some of your thinking
around - Is this plenty? Is thisenough? Are we are we done? How
do we know? How did you know?

You know, it's interesting, because I think you
and I had been having a lot ofconversations as we were going
into this season of recording,having nothing to do with the
podcast, but about how burntoutI was. And you kept saying
you're really burnt out. Can youdo less? And I kept doing "no, I

(46:08):
can do more!".

That sounds familiar.

People who know me really well know that this is
my tendency to just like keeppushing, keep pushing, keep
pushing. And, you know, you keptasking me, "Can you do less
here? Can you do less there?"And I kept taking things away
and taking things away andtaking things away outside of
the podcast, until I was able tosit with: I am really burnt out.
I am really overwhelmed. I amreally tired. I've been doing

(46:40):
the most for the last couple ofyears. And I need to stop. So
when you said to me, maybe we'redone - the podcast. For a second
paused. And I was like, are we?
Yes. I think so.

People are hanging in here with us because
Yeah, can I throw some thing inthere?
they are patient with ourconstant talking about right
people. But this is just anotherpiece where like, this is such a
shining example of what it meansto be with one of your right
people. I would never do such asdo this endeavor with anyone

(47:24):
except you, Larissa There's justno way I would do this with
anyone except you. I can't seemyself starting this, doing this
with someone else. I just can't.
Because you are one of my rightpeople. But number two is like,
gosh, that is a hard thing to beable to say to someone in
theory. But with your rightpeople, you're kind of like, you

(47:45):
know what, she's not going to...
It's interesting, my first thingis she's not going to hit me.
She's not going to yell at me.
She is not going to walk awayfrom me. She's not going to
think I'm not working hardenough. She's not going to
berate me in some way or Yeah.

(48:06):
whatever. She's just going totake it in, and so forth. But
before I mentioned this to you,I was kind of like, how is
Larissa going to take this? AndI'm like, she's going to take it
fine. And she did. And you did.
It was a positive like a coupleof seconds. And then you kind of
gave me your thoughts. And Ithink that this is just sort of

(48:27):
another piece of like, what itmeans to kind of talk about hard
things with your right people.
And when you bring up somethingthat's like plenty or enough,
and how they kind of help yousort through it. And are there
in it with you. Right?

So, it hadn't occurred to me that this could
be one of the things that Istopped doing. That's what the
pause was just like, I can dothat? Okay. And I think it's
really important to note that ina lot of other situations, when

(49:15):
presented with something Iwasn't necessarily expecting
that I've worked really hard ongetting that pause, and not
immediately going into like aeither a people pleasing
response or a freeze. And that'swhat the beauty of right people
is - you feel safe enough to letyourself process before you

(49:35):
start responding. And, I thinkthat's all I want to say cuz I
feel like you've got more to saythat is really good. And I want
people to hear.

I think sometimes with stuff like this,
I also try to trick myself intoquitting things. Because you
know the normative sort of lineis to don't don't give up to
keep hustling. Keep going. It'sthis capitalist-based message
that's just sort of like tocontinue to keep working. You
always have more to do. Andthere's a piece for me, too
around like this entitled kindof like white woman privilege,

(50:07):
like you should, you should behearing from me and my thoughts
on this thing, you know, butit's it feels important for me
to to like make space for otherpeople. So I say trick because
it's kind of going against whatI've been trained to do. Which
is like to produce to show up todo the labor, you know, to give
it away, to do, to put it outthere to the world.

I don't want to discount that people should be
hearing from you on this,because I think people should be
hearing from you on this.

Well, let me just say thank you to that.
And yeah, think that's good.
I'll say thank you. Thank you.

And thank you for like, realizing that I was
not gonna hit you, Elizabeth. Idon't hit people. But *laughing*

I think it's honestly it's like
someone's gonna be angry, andthey're gonna lash out, in a way
that's like, that's, that'sviolent or unpredictable or
scary.

And that's like, that goes right back to like
talking about trauma. Rightthere.

Yes.

What are the things we think? Okay, I'm gonna
bring it back. I can do this.

Bring it back. Bring us back. Yeah.

So what we've been trained to do is produce.
What we've been trained to do isexpect certain responses from
other people. What we've beentrained to do is to think we
have to keep being the sameforever.

Yes.

We don't and we don't have to keep going with
things if we're tired. Or, let'ssay we want to do other things.
Let's say there are things thatwe want to do that are not, you
know, editing podcasts.

Yeah. So I think also about titration.
Right? When I think about, like,ways that we can incorporate
this in our life and try tofigure it out, right? I think
'what's the one place I canstart'? You know, you mentioned
like, starting like, it's thecoffee or whatever your way is?
How are you starting? How areyou starting your day? What
about breakfast? What do I needto do, right Larissa, to feel

(52:03):
nourished and fed and cared forand like, I'm starting my day in
the way that I want to. Then webuild off of that. I don't know
if that's a good exampleforever. But since I tend to
deal with like scarcity,thinking and also love to eat,
it's important for me to thinkabout getting my needs met at
breakfast, or like, beginning ofthe day. What do you think?

I agree. I don't struggle with scarcity in the
same way, but I do struggle withnourishing myself appropriately.
And by appropriately I justmean, like, literally, I have
tried living on potato chips. Itdoesn't work. It doesn't work,
y'all. It's not enough food. Andit's not the right food. So, for

(52:49):
me, it is like, what are theroutines, I need to have a place
to feel nourished every day sothat I don't have to think too
hard about it? Because thinkingtoo hard about it is the hard
thing for me. With plenty andenough, do I feel basically
secure? And safe? In myself inmy home? Yeah, most of the time.

(53:10):
There's never an all the time.
In my relationships, I basicallyfeel like I am with people who
are secure places for me to bewith. Not everybody in your
community is going to be that weknow that. But like, do I have
enough of those people? Do Ihave plenty of those people in
my life, that when I have a hardday, I know there are places I
can go, there are people I canturn to?

I want to share something that came up
when I put up the question onour social media, like how do
you know when you've had enough?
One person said when I'vestopped caring.

Ahhh, that's so good.

Bang, right? That's good. And that's
such a huge clue. It's such ahuge clue. And I'm gonna be
honest, and also, you know, saythat that was an indicator to me
that I was done here withWondermine. I love working with
you. I love bringing content topeople. I love creating
conversations. And I lovelearning from people, you, each

(54:07):
other, ideas that we have outthere in the ether, but I can't
stand the marketing of it.
Right. And I didn't used to mindit. Right? I did. I didn't, I
didn't as early as early thisyear. I was like, I'm okay with
this. We're just gonna do itagain. And then I'm like, I
don't want to do it anymore. I'mdone. Neither one of us do.

No, I can't do it. I physically getn frozne
when I start working onmarketing stuff.

And I don't want to do it. I don't
wanna do it. A long time agowhen I had a newsletter right in
the early 2000s and that's theway. People had things in their
blog and we went through the RSSfeeder and that was the only
way. There was a little bit ofFacebook but like a lot of
people just got their emailnewsletters and read it. And if
there was something similar, ifwe were at a different point

(54:54):
it'd be like solid, you know,but right now, know this is a
crapshoot. Whenever I postsomething on Wondermine Insta,
you can count on some peopleseeing it and like, you know,
maybe making a comment. But forthe amount of work that goes
into this and the amount ofpeople who see it, it just
doesn't make sense. And it alsodoesn't, but you can't really do

(55:14):
a podcast without sharing it outand spreading it widely, as much
as you possibly can. So, I careabout all of that, but I don't
care about pumping it outanymore. And that was a clue to
me that I'd had enough. When Istopped caring about that piece
of it.

I'll add because this is my thing, right? I'll
add that I was having bodilysensations of dragging, feeling,
just like heavy weighted down,pulled down if it started coming
into doing marketing. It'salmost an existential level of
dread when I have to sit downand edit transcripts, which I
really value and am committed todoing. We could just not have

(55:52):
transcripts, y'all. But I reallybelieve in them as being really
important for accessibility. So,when I am finding my body in
conflict with my values,

Ooh, that's a good one, too.

maybe it's kind enough. Oh, my God, I could take
that and take it like, I couldexpand that to 500 different
things that have happened in thelast few years. When my body is
in conflict with my values,maybe I've had enough.

Larissa repeats that because she knows
I'm writing it down right now.

I see you writing it down. And maybe that
is where we're gonna end.

Let's end there. So I want to close with
what we're eating as we normallydo. And I don't want to forget
to thank you. Let's let's closewith what we're eating. And then

(56:50):
we'll get into saying 'thankyou'.

Okay, good.
Because I feel like my body isreally happy right now. What are
we eating? Do you want to gofirst?

Yes, I do want to go first.

I just surprised her.

Elizabeth had not planned on that. I don't
know why, because it comes atthe end of every single episode
we do. And yet I had not. I willtell you last Saturday, I had
some absolute fabulousstrawberries. I did not go
strawberry picking yet. But Iwent to the farmers market and
picked up a couple of quarts. Ithink it was like a two
pound-ish package. I don't knowexactly how many quarts that is.
It was a big package ofbeautiful strawberries and they

(57:29):
were some of the beststrawberries I have had in a
long time. And we go through aton of berries in our house
because we all love them. Andmainly my child loves them too.
And it's funny, you kind of getused to kind of average tasting,
you know what I mean? Like it'sjust sort of like the berries
off season Driscoll's fromwhatever, Northern California.
And these were amazing. Theywere local and they were fresh,

(57:51):
and they were so sweet. And eventhough some of them were bigger,
they weren't like waterlogged.
They were just fabulous. So Ithink I'm gonna be eating more
of those. I'm gonna go back tothe farmers market tomorrow
morning before I work and getsome more because they were so
so good.

That sounds amazing. I love Russian season.
Especially berries when they'rejust so like juicy and sweet.
And you know that you if youtried to package them up and
take them to the grocery store,they would look sad and rotten.
You know like they just theydon't they don't keep. That's
just amazing.

What about you? Yes, they were so good.
am providing the steaks and theywill be grilled for me.

(58:45):
How lovely is this?

We don't know what we're having on the side.
But it's going to be delicious,no matter what. I haven't had a
steak in forever. I don't have afunctional grill right now. So
it's great. I'm excited forthat. I'm looking forward to it.
So yeah. I should just have itwith strawberries.

But the farmers market's not open until
tomorrow. And you're havingsteak tonight. So you need a
potato or something like that.

Yeah, I think we're gonna do mashed potatoes
or something. Oh, yeah. That'sgreat.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.
Thank you all. Larissa's gonnagive us our usual spiel and then
Then what we'll then we'll closeout.

Here's our usual spiel. If you'd like to support
our work here on the podcast,please write us a review
wherever you listen to podcasts.
That helps people find us andtheir wow and how of living a
life of curiosity, community andliberation.

In the interim, follow us on
Wonderminepodcast at Instagram.
Thank you again. We will at somepoint stop on that Instagram, so
don't follow us forever hopingfor new content. It'll still be
there. It's just not gonna beupdated. And just from the
bottom of my heart. This wasjust such a labor of love that
we hate that expression. It feelso trite.

Larissa Parson (01:00:05):
But it's so true, right?

Elizabeth M. Johnson (01:00:06):
But it's so true. Sorry, y'all. It's so
true. From the very beginning,we had an idea and y'all
supported us. And we havethanked our patrons, I think in
many, many ways, but thank youto everyone else who has ever
listened ever shared a word evershared an Instagram post or
mentioned the podcast to afriend. I am so grateful for

(01:00:27):
your support. It's huge.

It is huge. It is huge. We are so grateful. And
Elizabeth, thank you forindulging, enjoying, engaging, I
can't find the right verb.
Diving into this project withme, it has been such a delight
and such a joy and such apleasure to collaborate with you
on this and to get a chance tothink interesting thoughts. I

(01:00:51):
hope, I sure hope if you'relistening as far as that they
were interesting to you. It'sbeen so much fun to work on this
with you.

It's been so much fun. Yeah, I feel
exactly the same and again,would not have done this with
any other person. Thank you fromthe bottom of my heart.

Thank you so much. All right. Thanks,
everybody.

Bye.

We'll see you soon.

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.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}On Purpose with Jay Shetty

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Season 3, Episode 7: Plenty and Enough

On Purpose with Jay Shetty