Jennifer Pastiloff is a bestselling author of the memoir ‘On Being Huma’ and travels the world with her workshop, blending writing, yoga, and radical honesty. She joins to discuss turning pain into purpose, the power of vulnerability, and her new book, ‘Proof of Life.’
Jennifer Pastiloff:
All the things that I hid about myself, all the years that I hid my depression, grief, hearing loss, I realized when I started talking about them, people showed up in droves to thank me and to say, “I feel seen.”
Curtis Fox:
From the TED Audio Collective, this is Design Matters with Debbie Millman. On Design Matters, Debbie talks with some of the most creative people in the world about what they do, how they got to be who they are, and what they’re thinking about and working on. On this episode, Jennifer Pastiloff talks about the power of finally being honest with oneself.
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Most of the things that we hide about ourselves are the most magical, wonderful, beautiful things.
Debbie Millman:
My guest today believes that the only permission slip we really need is the one we write for ourselves. Jennifer Pastiloff is a writer, a teacher, a creator of workshops, and a powerful mix of movement, storytelling and truth-telling. Cheryl Strayed has called her, “A conduit of awakenings,” and her best-selling memoir On Being Human has helped thousands of people find their voice. Her new book, Proof of Life, is a luminous and radical collection of essays, prompts, poems and practices designed to help us find wonder in even the most bruised corners of life. Jennifer Pastiloff, welcome to Design Matters.
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Hi, Debbie Millman.
Debbie Millman:
Jen, is it true that back in 1988 you were a guest star on the television show, Punky Brewster?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Wow, I’ve never had a podcast start with that, and how awesome that you brought that up. Yeah, and in the weirdness that is our life, it was before my hearing loss got really bad and before I was in deep denial about it, and I played like a Girl Scout kind of girl, and we were making fun of a deaf girl for the way she spoke. Now, if that ain’t foreshadowing, what is?
Debbie Millman:
Wow. Back in those days, you could just about get away with anything on television. It’s crazy.
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
On July 15th, 1983, your father died suddenly. You were only eight years old, and the last words you said to him were, “I hate you,” which wasn’t of course in any way true, but you were angry at him for continuing to smoke when he was sick and you didn’t want him to smoke anymore. How did that moment shape the narrative of your early life?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
In a lot of ways. Well, one of the things I said, he said, “You’re being bad” and making me not feel good. And I said, “You always break your promises. I hate you.” So I mean count the ways, but one is you always break your promises. That’s something I have to put down every day, that I’m going to be disappointed, that you’re going to break your promise to me, you, whoever you are, that everything is my fault. He died right after I said that, and in my eight-year-old mind, it was because I was bad, so everything’s my fault. And then began my excessive need to control, I guess, my surroundings so that nothing would change in that drastic way again.
Debbie Millman:
As if, don’t you wish?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Of course. And the problem was I was always the problem. I was always self-aware, which is why I am making t-shirts that say, “Being self-aware is overrated” because I knew that, and yet, and still. I knew that, and yet, and still. Anorexia, all the things, I know it’s not really going to control it, but it’s like a … I don’t know. We trick ourselves to get through the day, whatever.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah. You described your mom as a single mother, a teacher, and a kind of fierce, unsentimental presence in your life, but you also stated that she was a placeholder for your self-loathing. How has your relationship with your mother evolved since you wrote those words?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
My mom right now has early Alzheimer’s, and I feel that finally, and there’s part of me that’s like, oh my God, it’s so late, and then I have to remember that I’m right on time. There’s no such thing as too late. But finally, I have so much compassion, and it wasn’t so much as she was unsentimental. My mom was severely abused as a child, sexually, verbally, you name it. Never once was she told, “I love you.” My grandmother was like, imagine mommy dearest but times … So as time’s gone on, I’ve really developed compassion, and of course, having my own child helped with that, and now that she has early Alzheimer’s, it’s like all bets are off.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah.
Jennifer Pastiloff:
And I have to be careful not to ruminate and beat myself up for how tough I was on her.
Debbie Millman:
Well, I don’t think you were as tough on anyone as you were on yourself Jen, and in reading your first book and understanding how emotionally abused she was, even at five years old, she tried to get run over by a car so she could escape her life, and then that she recovered from that.
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Yeah, that was my mom. She tried to run out and she got run over, and so she has a scar that she loves to show people, but yeah, super abused. It’s a miracle that my sister and I are who we are and that my mom, despite never being shown love was able to do so even though she wasn’t affectionate, which I did not even clock until I had a child. She breastfed, she was a wonderful mom. But when I think about hugs and those kind of things, not really.
Debbie Millman:
While you were growing up, were you able at any point to metabolize the guilt that you had over feeling like you were responsible for your dad’s death?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
No. No. It literally did not happen until maybe even a few years ago. Even when I wrote On Being Human. I mean, really, really, again, I have to be careful not to feel so much shame around that. How am I this old and still … But …
Debbie Millman:
Oh, honey, I’ve got you on that one. I’m way older than you, and I’m still working through my shame. I think it’s lifelong. I don’t know that there’s an expiration date.
Jennifer Pastiloff:
There isn’t. I do know there isn’t, and yet, that’s why the thing is we can know a thing, but it’s about embodying it. We can know, we’re smart, but no, as a child, no. I mean, that’s one of the reasons now I’m very childlike. I stopped being a kid at eight. I just went in my son’s class and I taught them poetry, and we made this anthology, and when I went in on Monday to do the book launch party with them, they presented me with a little plaque with my name, and they said, “You’re in our third grade class now.” And I started to cry because my dad died right before I started third grade. So A, it’s all a blackout, but I stopped being a kid and it was like, what a gift.
Debbie Millman:
I think it’s wonderful to be able to reconnect in those ways, and I feel after having read both of your beautiful, beautiful memoirs, that there’s so much joy that you are also bringing into the world with your candor and honesty, and just want to share that before we even go any further in the interview. As you were growing up Jen, you also pretended not to notice that your inability to hear was getting progressively worse. When did you first realize you actually had profound hearing loss?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
When I first noticed it was when I was in acting school, and I always say I pretended to be an actor, and that’s just because I never actively did anything, but I did do a two-year Meisner training and I would always sit in the front, which I did at NYU too, but I thought that was just because … I didn’t even clock why, but I did start to notice in acting school, but I denied it.
So it wasn’t until 2008 when I was in yoga teacher training, and my teacher, Annie Carpenter was teaching meditation, and she had us close our eyes, and it’s the first time I ever said this out loud. I said, “I can’t close my eyes because then I won’t be able to know what you’re saying.” And she looked at me, it was so funny, and she goes, “Oh, that’s why you always look at me like that.” And of course I got in my head, it never dawned on me because I am looking at someone’s mouth, which most people or now I’m able to just look at the face. And then from then on, she was always like, “Jen, you’re in the front.” But it was the first time I said it out loud and everything changed. It’s a thing I thought, if I don’t name it, it’s not real.
Debbie Millman:
Many years ago you said that there’s a difference between Deaf culture with a capital D and small D deaf like you are.
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Without my hearing aids, I don’t hear anything.
Debbie Millman:
So your hearing is completely gone?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Yes, but the difference is, so I was educated on this. I thought it meant, capital D Deaf meant you can’t hear it all, and small D deaf is like me with hearing aids, and I still struggle. This doesn’t make me like a typical hearing person. No. It’s if you operate, as far as I know in deaf culture with ASL and with the culture, which I don’t, I wasn’t raised with it, I don’t know ASL.
Debbie Millman:
Nobody knew you were deaf.
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Well, yeah. I mean, the thing is now I still, they want me to get a cochlear implant. I wear hearing aids, I lip-read. None of my friends know ASL. I mean, it’s so interesting. Even if I did, I mean, who am I doing sign language with? I wish we all knew it, but I feel often like I’m between worlds and it’s lonely a lot.
Debbie Millman:
What has your journey of listening hard looked like and how has your deafness shaped the way you listen to people?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
It’s been a gift, and I roll my eyes as I say it because it’s not bypassing. I can’t stand when something like, let’s say shitty happens and people go, “It’s a gift.” I can’t say that’s all hindsight. It’s not hindsight, it’s actively happening still. But for example, in my workshops, literally a lot of them are on the floor, yoga mats, I’ll crawl around and almost sit in your lap. If I was a typical hearing person, I would not do that. People would be like, “You are in my space, get out.” But because of my hearing loss, I’m able to get in close. And that conversely makes people feel terrified, but also it’s incredible because they feel so heard.
But the other thing is I didn’t even realize is that I learned all these other ways to listen just intuitively by survival. People call me a witch, and there is a … I mean, we all have intuition whether we listen to it or not, but there are ways that I’m able to hear that I’m positive have developed because my ears don’t operate exactly properly, and I hear with a level of compassion that I can’t say if other people have, I have no idea because I’m only me. But I know that it’s become one of my greatest gifts. And I always think it’s ironic because I’m deaf, I can’t hear, and yet I’m a great listener except when I’m not.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah. I actually read a bit about how as you’ve gotten older, you are less concerned about saying, “I don’t want to hear what you have to say.”
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Yeah, and also-
Debbie Millman:
I love that.
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Also it’s like, no I interrupt, I’m still me. I’m not like now I’m just this zen, amazing listener. Sometimes I don’t listen even that has nothing to do with my hearing, but overall, yeah, I’m able to really listen to what isn’t said, to nonverbal stuff, and the more I tap into it, the deeper it gets.
Debbie Millman:
You started writing stories at a very young age. You loved performing, you applied early decision to NYU’s general studies program and got in. What did you envision you were going to do professionally at that point?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
It’s kind of depressing, but I was never able to envision a future. And it’s not because necessarily I thought I was going to be dead. Even now, my heart starts racing and I have no choice because I have to plan a Italy retreat a year out, but I didn’t. When you asked that, I didn’t. And by the way, my mother did that for me. I didn’t. It’s like I never dealt with my father’s death and all of these things, and that was one of them. I could not think past a week. It was just nothingness. So I don’t know. But then I fell in love with poetry when I got there. But to answer your question, I had no idea. But once I fell in love with poetry, I envisioned academia. I don’t know, a life maybe like you and Roxane, but I was probably going to live in Iowa. It was always Iowa because back then and still I was going to get an MFA and have a life of that, and that is not my life.
Debbie Millman:
You stayed at NYU for three years, but left ostensibly at the time for a semester off, but you ultimately decided not to go back. You went back to LA for that semester break, but stayed there for another 13 years working at a restaurant called The Newsroom. What made you decide to stay in LA rather than come back to New York?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Wow, you are giving me so many … You really are a master interviewer because you’re confronting me in so many ways.
Debbie Millman:
Oh, I don’t mean to be confronting.
Jennifer Pastiloff:
No, no, no, but it’s good. It’s good. Oh, maybe I used the wrong word. It’s good.
Debbie Millman:
Okay, good.
Jennifer Pastiloff:
One of the things I talk about in this Proof of Life is how I’m so bad at decision-making unless it is pre-deciding it ain’t going to work out or the shoe’s going to drop, the other one. But I didn’t decide, and that’s the thing, it was complacency. I didn’t decide anything. I just kept on. And the thing about LA that I always find fascinating is there’s no seasons, so there’s no markers of time. It’s so bizarre. So all of a sudden, 14 years passed. It was a long weekend, but I just kept existing. It was like I was a walking dead person. I didn’t decide nothing. I didn’t decide anything. I didn’t take action on anything. I just hated myself. But I didn’t do anything about it until antidepressants.
But in the very beginning, I was so deep in my eating disorder that I never also actively dealt with. I just gained some weight back. So everyone was like, “She’s all right.” But I would work out for four hours a day and I thought, oh, if I go back to NYU, I won’t be … I mean, just everything was about the now because I could never foresee a future.
Debbie Millman:
You write very poignantly about the moment that you can actually pinpoint the moment that your self-hate began to solidify into an eating disorder. You told a doctor that you wanted a breast reduction, and he said, “You’re crazy. You want smaller breasts? Lose five pounds.”
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Yeah, I was 17.
Debbie Millman:
Do you remember when control over your body became your primary form of control?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Yep. That night, I went home, my mom was getting her, I guess implants taken, something, and I went with her. And I want to go back in time and shake him now, but I came home and I’ll never forget, I made a list like no wheat, gluten. We didn’t say that back then. It was like wheat. And it became a way to not be in my body. And also I didn’t ever want to feel, and when I felt like when I was empty, it was easier. Somehow I thought I could deal easier. None of it was true, of course, or that I could control, but it is, it’s the great cliche, but that was a thing I could control. I can’t control someone else dropping dead. I can’t control another catastrophe. I could control this, and then I couldn’t. It became out of control.
Debbie Millman:
It feels, to me, looking back at your life at that time, that it must have been rather punishing as well to be serving other people food for a living. And what did being a waitress at that time teach you most about people and how you relate to people?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
It confirmed what I always knew, which is I am good with people. I was a terrible waitress, but I was great with people. I don’t know how I wasn’t fired all the time. So it confirmed what I knew and that ultimately I love people except when I don’t. But I think it also … It taught me a lot about the first thing that’s coming to my mind is the restaurant was right next to Cedars-Sinai, the hospital where my son was born. It taught me so much about not making up stories about people. Someone would come in and they’d be an asshole, let’s say, and then they’d come in the next day and the next day and I realized, oh, their kid is dying next door at Cedars-Sinai. I would come to learn that, and I remember it would shake me. And then over the years, I really got clear on you just never know.
And so really how easy it was for me to make a difference in people’s lives, like with kindness or a smile or looking in their eye, whatever it was, we’re all human. And yeah, some were so entitled and I learned about that, but we’re all human, and that really, really taught me a lot, as did my hearing loss about compassion and humanity and not taking things personally, although I have never mastered that, and I don’t know I ever will.
Debbie Millman:
You’ve said that your bottom wasn’t a crash. It was a long, slow erosion. When did you know that you were at your limit?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
It’s interesting because we’re talking about The Newsroom days, and my mind immediately just went to about six and a half months ago when I got sober. I think if we go back in time, it’s when I finally said yes to going on antidepressants. It was like I knew if I didn’t, I was probably going to die. And so I did, and they changed my life and I say, they saved my life. And people would say, “Well, you saved your life.” Yes, and they definitely allowed me to see a glimmer, a glimmer of possibility, and that’s all you need. I didn’t see any of that before. And then six and a half months ago when I got sober, well, my son turned eight. I was eight when my dad died, and I saw myself doing the same bullshit. Not drugs, alcohol, but same-same.
Debbie Millman:
Jen, you worked at The Newsroom for over 13 years. At the same time, towards the end of your tenure there, you were creating your workshops, you were writing more and more. What gave you the courage to finally take that step into essentially working for yourself?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Well, first when I went on the antidepressants, it’s like I said, this little glimmer of light. And I did the training even though I didn’t want to be a yoga teacher, and I did make my way out, but I can’t believe I did this actually, but I made these little business cards. A friend of mine had taken this yoga photo of me, and I literally, it was like me in a yoga pose, and I would drop them off with the customer’s checks. Now mind you, I had worked there 14 years, so I had a lot of regulars, not strangers, but people I knew, and I started getting clients, privates, and I started making, for me, at the time, it was good money. And then my mom, bless her, my mom was just sort of like, “I’ll figure it out,” which is very hard to be with now since she’s in early Alzheimer’s, but she’s like, “I’ll build you a website.” Don’t know how she did it. She made it so if you typed in private yoga instructor Los Angeles, I was the first that came up.
So I started getting all these clients, but the reason I started dropping off the business cards and everything, I had been at The Newsroom 14 years, but I got this very clear knowing that was, I thought this is sink or swim. Ain’t nobody going to do it for me. All the years I was pretending to be an actress. I got to do this. And so I hustled in a way. I gave it my all in a way I never had with anything. And I started working and I became a successful yoga teacher. But my fear of change, I could not let go of the restaurant even though it was only one shift until essentially I finally got fired.
Debbie Millman:
I read that. I know.
Jennifer Pastiloff:
I hate change that much. I will say if I’m miserable, I don’t care, as long as I don’t have to change. And most every change except leaving my marriage has been because I had to.
Debbie Millman:
How did you first become exposed to yoga?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Interestingly enough, I was an exercise-a-holic. I exercise bulimic. I was never a throw up bulimic because I couldn’t, and I had so many injuries. So I started doing yoga to heal my injuries. And then I noticed the side effect was like, I would have an hour or what have you, where I wasn’t in my head. And I was like, wait a minute. And it started helping with depression and it didn’t make it go away. That in conjunction with the antidepressants was really the thing. But I kept going back because I’d have an hour where I didn’t hate myself or I wasn’t body checking or I wasn’t depressed. It felt like a miracle. So I kept going and going and going.
Debbie Millman:
How did the act of physically unclenching your body via yoga allow your grief to surface?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
I don’t know that it did, if I’m honest. I want to say it was only not even three years ago. And I remember even when I wrote On Being Human, I had the same editor, Maya Ziv, and she was talking about metabolizing grief, and I was like, what? Because I hadn’t. I couldn’t cry, Deb. I mean, I was emotionally constipated. I could only cry if I’d watched This is Us or Terms of Endearment, and that sounds hilarious, but I would do that because it feels good to cry. I wish that yoga did that. I mean, it definitely helped me so often, but it didn’t. It was so locked up. It was so many years of just bury it in me. I suppose it paved the way, but really only three summers ago. And I think it was a culmination of a lot of things, but that’s the honest answer.
Debbie Millman:
How did your yoga practice and your writing practice begin to become intertwined and result in your being able to lead workshops with both of these components embedded in them?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Yeah. Well, I never wanted to be a yoga teacher. My friends, I wanted to get out of the restaurant and my friends said, “You should become a yoga teacher because you do it all the time.” And I would say, “I’d rather fall on a knife” and I’m not kidding, and I still don’t want to be a yoga teacher. I once in a while will, it brings me joy. But when I took the antidepressants, that’s when I saw the glimmer of possibility and I went, huh, maybe it will be an escape route. Lo and behold, it was. My friend Holt McCallany gave me $3,000, which was so much money at the time. It still is to me, so I could take a month off work and do this intensive training. And Annie Carpenter, my teacher, I remember it was really wonderful because I taught my sample class and I read a poem at the end by Mary Oliver or Stanley Kunitz, and she looked at me and then I did it again. And she goes, “That’s going to be your thing.”
And I was brand new. I didn’t know. It was like she gave me permission. So I started doing that, and then as I started teaching and I realized I was really good at … I’m a great teacher. I’m not great at yoga. I walk around with a coffee cup, but just the same thing. I’m good with people. I’m not kidding. I was the worst. I’d walk around with coffee. I mean, I couldn’t do half the shit, but I am really good with people. I’m good with teaching. And so as time went on, I got more confident and I’d read more poems and I read my poem and then I started doing stuff with, here’s a sticky note, write something on it. And then I got more courageous and it was more writing. And then eventually the yoga parts started falling away, but not completely because I found the most amazing thing, which I knew and had forgotten. But the more we are in our body and not in our head, the more vulnerable we are, the more open.
Debbie Millman:
Why is that? Why is that?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Oh, we’re less guarded. I mean, the way I liken it is you ever have those days where you’re so tired and you’re emotional, you’re like, I don’t even know why I’m crying. It’s like, oh, I’m so tired. It’s that. Or when I was really in the throes of anorexia, I would eat in my sleep.
Debbie Millman:
Yes.
Jennifer Pastiloff:
There’s a poem in my book about shame, and that is because our inhibitions are lowered, or I would always have to drink first to eat or to have sex. And it was like, because our inhibitions are lowered. So the way I would describe it to my people, I would say that. I would say, “But this way we’re doing it in a healthy way.” We’re getting to that same sort of open and vulnerable place. I think it’s just our defenses are down at least a little bit. That’s my hope. And yoga-smoga, people, as long as they’re not hurting themselves, I don’t care, maybe they’re just sitting and breathing. It’s about just being less in our head, less guarded, less all about the thought and what we think.
Debbie Millman:
And then how did your writing and then writing hybrid yoga workshops ultimately result in your first book? And then how did that turn into a career as a writer and a speaker?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Yeah, among other things. Who can say with my career? Oh, yeah. I love that I can’t say. So ultimately, I didn’t want to be a yoga teacher. I was a writer and it was a way to come home. My friend one time put it like this, she said, “Yoga was your way out of the restaurant and writing was your way in.” I ultimately let go. I don’t call my retreats yoga retreats anymore. Oh, hell no. But ultimately I let go of that aspect, although they do contain body movement. But I guess I got brave enough to give myself permission. It was like I’m a writer. I knew I always was going to write a book. I just thought it was in my 20s, which is why I love the imaginary time gods are bullshit. It’s like, fine, this book now, I thought it was going to be a poetry book, but well, guess what? I don’t want to read a memoir by anyone. I mean maybe, but I’m right on time.
But it came back to what I wanted and who I was. And I didn’t let go of the yoga part because that was part of it. And I saw the magic that was able to get created by people getting out of their heads because look, I’m not teaching. I’m not like, “And this is all in the craft of.” It’s really for anyone. And sometimes people end up publishing essays in the New York Times or writing books. Sometimes it’s just for themselves, it doesn’t matter. But the idea is to be less in your head. So the editor is not there as much. But really, I started giving myself permission little by little and all the things that I hid about myself, all the years that I hid my depression, grief, hearing loss, I realized when I started talking about them, people showed up in droves to thank me and to say, “I feel seen.” And not that we need external validation, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t helpful sometimes.
It’s when we solely rely on it. But I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute. All the things that I’ve been hiding are the things that actually are the thing? And that was a huge epiphany. And that’s true for everyone. Most of the things that we hide about ourselves are the most magical, wonderful, beautiful things. So I really just allowed myself to be who I was and do what I wanted and come back to my writing and put it all together, like I said, in a weird stew. And we all get to do that. I mean, all the things you do inform the other things.
Debbie Millman:
You’ve said that you didn’t want your workshops to be labeled self-help. When people come to your workshops, what are they hoping for? What do you think that they come for? And what do you think they leave with?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Oh, great question. Well, it’s morphed over the years just as I’m sure all your stuff has. But it’s funny, I think a lot of times they don’t know what they’re coming for, which I love. I love. They just see either me and the way I live my life, which occurs I think to them, or what the feedback I get is kind of free or with my art. I don’t know what I’m doing. It’s free. And then they see people who’ve been, and they see the joy and these connections and they don’t know exactly, but they go, “I want in on that.” And I do believe it’s become a lot about connection and feeling belonging. People sense that, and it’s true. That’s why people come back and come back. There’s no bullshit. There’s no clicks. It’s magic. And people want that. We’re desperate for connection. So there’s that.
And I think there’s a sense of knowing that I do get to have this, whatever this is, whatever they’ve been denying themselves, and there’s a sense maybe I will gather courage by attending this. And I beat people over the head, not literally, but with a quote I love by Freud, which is “How bold one gets when one is sure of being loved.” And I believe that’s the crux of it. There’s something that happens with connection and when people believe in you. It’s like, oh, anything’s possible.
Debbie Millman:
Can you talk about your We’re All Poets Workshop.
Jennifer Pastiloff:
My friend Kristen McGuiness and I who started Rise Books, it was back when that song was popular, WAP, and she just thought, we’re all poets, WAP. It’s so clever. It is, but it’s where it’s either just us two or we ask a poet to join us and be the guest teacher. Naomi [inaudible 00:33:17] who’s a dear sister, friend of mine and Ross Gay who I worship, and Brad Aaron Modlin, I can’t remember the other people. So we do these workshops and then I do a lot of my own called Allow, and they all have the same component. I found that the reason I have a line around the block of people to come is because there’s no elitism. It’s very much like if you think you suck, this is for you. P.S, you don’t suck. If you feel awkward, this is for you. If you feel like you’re not going to fit in, this is for you. If I ask people, “Are you afraid you’re not going to fit in?” Almost everyone always raises their hand. And so it’s like, this is for you, this is for you.
And so it’s like, okay, I’ll go. So it’s not like only come if you are a celebrated poet or you have an MFA. And if you’re a weirdo, show up. And so it’s like this very welcoming space and you can share. You don’t have to. And so people feel very, very, for lack of a better word, safe. And it’s fun and it’s generative. So it’s not just the guest poet or me lecturing. It’s like, we’ll give them time, and they write and they share, and people end up becoming friends. And it is that same thing where there’s a boldness that happens because it feels like such a supportive space and we get to share space with these beautiful poets.
Debbie Millman:
What’s one prompt from any of your workshops that never fails to open people up?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Well, I decided to flip the thing I walked around with in my body, in my marrow, my whole life since my dad was, was is I am bad. I’m a bad person. I’m bad. So I decided, well, screw it. I’m going to alchemize, I’m going to flip it. So I open often with A, are you willing to be bad? Are you willing to suck? And I just love that because it’s like you’re letting yourself off the hook before you begin. And 9 out of 10 people get really excited. Yes, yes. And there’s always someone who’s like, because it’s so hard for them to let go of the perfectionist.
So once they say they’re willing to be bad, willing to suck, I go write about a time when you were bad. And boy, oh boy, does that open everything because either they write about a time where they really were bad, which who’s the arbiter of bad? Unless, I mean, look, if they murdered someone or they flip it. Maybe someone told you you were bad or they play with what bad means or whatever. But it’s endless the possibility. And I also think it’s just such an opportunity to alchemize and then to redefine for ourselves what these things mean. So that’s the one I love.
Debbie Millman:
Your first book On Being Human was full of clarity and fire, and it was kind of an emotional toolkit for survival. I recently reread it in prep for our interview today and forgot how funny it also is. And that’s one of the things I like most about your work, your new book-
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Oh, my ego, my ego Just loved that.
Debbie Millman:
Your new book, Proof of Life feels different. It’s still funny, it’s still beautifully written, but it’s a more mature writer. What changed in you as a writer and as a person that allowed this book to emerge the way that it did?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Holy shit. What didn’t? Let’s see. Well, I will tell you one thing. I reclaimed myself as a poet and I hang out with a lot of really successful writers, fancy writers and all. I’m always, I’m on the outskirts. I don’t have an MFA, all these things. So I didn’t think I got to write poems. I reclaimed myself as a writer also, I was very confident in keeping my voice as exactly as it is without what would they want? What do you think they would like? I stayed very true to my voice. And that confidence when we do that I think allows for so much of what’s true. And I don’t mean what’s true in terms of factual, but what’s true for us.
Also, I left my marriage. I did the thing that I believed bar none without any question would kill me, which is change. I believed in my marrow change equals death. And I did. I allowed for that. And then I thought, well, my gosh, I didn’t die and I got sober. So there was a lot that transpired to allow me to go where I didn’t think I could go. And the poetry thing is so huge for me.
Debbie Millman:
The phrase, proof of life is often used in hostage situations to confirm somebody is still alive. Why did you choose it as your title?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Thank you for asking that. I used to have this friend who … I have a lot of childless friends, but this particular one really felt defined by that and felt like I have nothing to show for my life. And I felt regret. I remember when I was at The Newsroom after 14 years, I had a panic attack one day, what have I done? What have I done? I was going to be this poet. What have I done? And I realized, you know what? I’ve done love. And yet I caught myself about a year after I sold this book, I looked around and I hadn’t written it. Not only had I written it, I hadn’t written one word. I didn’t have any money. I looked around and I was like, oh my God, I have nothing to show for this year. And I caught myself saying that, which is a beautiful thing, to be able to catch ourselves.
And I was went, oh, holy shit, Jen, you’re back on your bullshit. What have you done? You’ve done love. Look around at all this art and you’ve nurtured friendships. And I thought, okay, proof of life. So you don’t have to show any proof. You don’t have to, “Oh, here, look. Look how relevant I am. Look how worthy I am. Look what I’ve made. Look how much money I have. Look at my book,” all of that wonderful, yay. But none of it mattered. We are worthy simply by virtue of being born. Fact. All of us. And I think it’s easy to get caught up in, well, what do I have to show for myself? And so proof of life is the antithesis of that. You are your own proof of life. You don’t have to show shit.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah, we live in a culture now, which is so overwrought with productivity as badge that it becomes very hard to feel that there’s anything valuable other than achievement and making. And I think it’s become increasingly more destructive for our psyches to be living in an environment that actually encourages that. And it’s very, very hard to, at least it is for me, to try to find balance. And that for me has been a real lifelong journey.
Jennifer Pastiloff:
I mean, we’ve even texted about this before. I mean, that’s why I called it. And I want to model that. And so when I catch myself, I’m grateful, when I catch myself associating my worth. I mean, some of the ways I talk to myself still, I catch myself. It is just terrible. But it is destructive and it’s insidious and it’s all we see around us. So I want to be who I say I am and model that. And I want to remind us all that we don’t have … There’s no thing we can carry around that goes, “Look, I’m worthy. See? See?”
Debbie Millman:
That lasts for about a second if somebody says yes. One of the things that I found most compelling about Proof of Life was that you’re not just writing about grief and trauma, you’re writing about the way we metabolize these feelings and experiences over time as you’ve lived through time and grief and trauma. What have you learned about how we metabolize emotions?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
One of the greatest things I’ve learned is that energy doesn’t die. So when I was eight, and it breaks my heart still when I think about I wanted to die, and instead I just said, “I don’t care.” And I locked my jaw and that was that. And you are not fooling anyone. I wasn’t. Shoving it all back down, it doesn’t go anywhere. And so even when I said to you earlier and you said, “There’s no expiration date.” It’s like coming up now. Well, of course it is. It didn’t go anywhere. And so one of the greatest things is I love to work. I work with a ton of grieving people all the time. I give scholarships predominantly to women who’ve lost a child. That started by accident, but grieving people. And it’s just bearing witness. I’m not there. I’m not going to fix. Or if they ask me advice, sure, but bear witness is to give people space to process and to feel, because that’s what I didn’t do.
So the greatest thing I learned, I think, is that it’s of the utmost importance to feel it, to allow ourselves to feel it. And that is a thing I wouldn’t, and I still struggle with. It’s like a physiological response that gets like a hardening. I’m not going to, and I have to really soften. I have allow … Next to my paint, I’ve allow tattoo. And that, like you said, there’s no expiration date. Grief, it ebbs and it flows. And there is no such thing as getting over anything. That’s a crock of sit. You don’t one day, like I’m over it. But I do believe we can alchemize things, and I’m doing it all the time into art, into what I do for a living and to beauty, softness, tenderness. I never knew that was possible until recently.
Debbie Millman:
I talked a little bit about the humor that you infuse in your writing. Another thing that I really admire and enjoy is how you pair the sacred with the humorous and the profane. So an entry might begin in reverence and then end in fuck it. How do you strike that tonal balance?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Well, that’s life, Deb, isn’t it? I mean, that’s the thing. I don’t buy what I’m selling if there’s no humor. I just don’t. And look, my father was to this day, the funniest human being ever. Philadelphia shut down when my dad died, so that I believe he gifted me and my son. But life is so shitty. Right now, if you dare look at your social media feeds listeners, and I dare you not to weep. So we might as well hunt actively for the beauty and for the funny, and I’m not saying everything’s funny, but find the levity because shit’s hard and ugly.
And I also, for me, it’s been survival. With my hearing, I mishear everything. If I didn’t have a sense of humor, this is not an exaggeration. I would not get out of bed because it’s so depressing. I always felt lost and stupid and alone. So it’s like I am most days able to laugh. But I really find, and my favorite writing really does that. My friend Courtenay Hameister, Roxane does it. I mean, you’re able to, within the same breath, take someone’s breath away with something that is so painful and beautiful and filled with grief, and then you snot laughter within the same breath because that’s life. It’s never just one thing.
Debbie Millman:
Speaking of multiplicities and the ways in which we tell ourselves things, I want to talk to you about some pretty major changes you made between book one and book two. In On Being Human, you share how deeply the need to feel that you would never be left was debilitating to you. And you write how you cringe when you think of the things you used to do for love. But you do learn how to live with that and through that fear, and you share how you met and then married Robert. By the end of On Being, you also have a child together. But in Proof of Life, you share how the marriage disintegrated over time, how you ended up falling in love with a lovely man named Henry. You write this about the situation in Proof of Life and listeners, you will immediately understand the humor and the profane and the reverence all in one long sentence.
“I distrusted my feelings when I first left. So I made this game for myself called Am I Really Unhappy or Am I Just Saying That Now Because I’m Deeply in Love With Someone Else? A game otherwise known as gaslighting myself.” And then you go on to write this. “Before you write me off as some navel-gazing memoirist who just got bored with her marriage and decided to upend her life so she could whine about it in a book, I ask that you take a breath. May we all always take the breaths until we can no longer.” Jen, that’s just really wonderful.
Jennifer Pastiloff:
I mean, I am a navel-gazing memoirist. But anyway.
Debbie Millman:
So what did you finally decide about falling in love at the time that you did and upending your life when you did? What’s the verdict for you?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
I was right on time. And especially for women, it doesn’t matter what age, but let’s say 40 on, whenever we start getting these messages of you’re too late or you’re behind, or this panic or this fear that is so infiltrated in our society, our culture. I was right on time and that change didn’t kill me. It might hurt, but it’s not going to kill you, nor would intimacy. And it’s embarrassing in a way, but I live by shame loss rather than weight loss. So I won’t hide in shame to admit things as long as I wouldn’t be left, feel so pathetic. And also I have compassion for that “pathetic me.” And now I actually realized recently I don’t have that anymore. There is a certain, I’m okay with me. No matter what, I’ll be okay.
Debbie Millman:
So you can rely on yourself. You feel like you can rely on yourself?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Yes. This is why it’s so important that we don’t believe everything we think. I never thought I would ever feel that. I never thought I’d be able to stop drinking. I mean, I never thought I would [inaudible 00:49:01].
Debbie Millman:
How were you able to do that? Because it does seem that you do have a lot of love and intimacy in your life. You said before that you couldn’t have intimacy without drinking. How were you able to heal yourself in that way?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Well, really, because I had a partner who I met my person and I read, oh my God, now I can’t remember. It must’ve been Roxane. Someone printed it out for me. It was in the New York Times. It was either you or Roxane, but writing about each other, I believe it was her, but it’s like finding your person. And I never could look in anyone’s eyes. I never had my eyes open ever during sex ever, ever. I mean, I just couldn’t. And so I found someone that I just felt utterly safe with, and even though it was still scary, now it’s not. And I let go. And that’s part of the subtitle of Proof of Life: Let Go, Let Love, and Stop Looking for Permission to Live Your Life. I let go of all the things that I was clinging to for that sense of false security or that were keeping me “safe” that weren’t really.
Debbie Millman:
One of the things that I thought was so astute was something a rabbi said to you about ending your marriage. He told you, or she, I wasn’t sure if it was a he or she said that you … Urged you to end the marriage more carefully even than how you entered it. How were you able to do that?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
I mean, I don’t know that I was. It’s interesting because I think a lot of the times when we ask ourselves how, and we look back and go, “Fucked if I know.” But I mean, the truth is I’m really glad that I didn’t write and I was going to write the man I divorced because by the time the book comes out, we will be. And I’m glad that I didn’t because we’re not, and in fact, we cohabitate every other week and it’s actually quite beautiful. We’re like roommates now, which is how we were before. So I don’t know.
All I know is one thing. We both put our son first. So there was never, and there still is never, never anything disparaging said, and my son feels nothing but love. He sees us, he thinks we’re best friends, and I was very careful even when he was angry with me, to stay as loving as I could to stay me, to stay true to who I was throughout. And so now finally, we’re functioning roommates, but I tried to stay grounded and rooted in love and kindness and what was true. And what was true was not that I left because I met someone else. What was true was that I was long unhappy. We weren’t connected. So I don’t know, but it’s beautiful. I’m very, very proud. My son loves Henry. He loves his daddy. There’s no sense of lack. There’s no sense of not enoughness.
Debbie Millman:
You describe marriage now, not as a fairy tale, but as proof of life. In what way?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
I don’t know. I know that I didn’t really care about being married before, ever, ever. And I was never someone that cared about the wedding thing. And Robert and I kind of got married, he wasn’t a citizen. I’m like, “Yeah, let’s get married.” And Henry, it was like, wow, I really want to wake up with this person every day. And so the idea for me now is more about having a true partner and this connection and friendship. Not that your person necessarily has to be everything, but all the things that I denied myself, I didn’t even acknowledge that I needed or wanted. But it’s all part of it. And no, nothing’s ever perfect. That is a fairy tale. There’s the mundane. I love boring. I love just sitting on the couch. I want that. I want to be comfortable in doing nothing with someone. It’s communication. It’s all of it. But it sure as shit is not a fairy tale.
Debbie Millman:
In Proof of Life, you’re also very honest about aging, chronic pain, the betrayal of the body. What’s your relationship to your body now? How has it shifted from enemy to more of an ally?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Yeah, yeah. Depends on the day, baby. I mean, I jokingly say that, but I also am not. I think when we’re out of alignment, when I’m out of alignment, and that can be because anxiety or someone rejected me or I didn’t sleep or whatever, my inner asshole is louder and my default, a very easy synapse if I’m not careful, is to immediately, instead of what’s really going on is to go like, oh my God, I’m disgusting. So right now I’m aligned. It’s a lot softer. I haven’t exercised in two years, which coming out of my mouth … I mean when I say exercise-a-holic, I can’t even explain. So coming out of my mouth that doesn’t … Is that me? So it’s a lot softer.
Debbie Millman:
How did you make that transition from being so hard on your body with exercise, being so restrictive with food?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
I mean with Henry and I became a lot softer. Then with the painting, I switched it. I’m an addict through and through. So even with art, I’ll stay up all night. So it’s like, okay, fine. I switched addictions except this one is healthy. I’m like, all right, I could do better doing a little more of my work and reading a little more, but I’m not mad at it. So I kind of switched. So now it’s like where I would be exercising, I’m making art, but really at first it was because I fell in love and it was just the first time I was like, I didn’t care to be so rigid with that and punishing. So everything became less punishing.
Debbie Millman:
You have a lot of genisms or [inaudible 00:55:37] I think as you refer to them, and they’re your shorthand for a variety of emotions or experiences. Some of them are really beautiful, like beauty hunting, which is something that you call a spiritual practice, but it’s also known as may I get my head out of my ass practice? You talked about the imaginary time gods or the ITG, this not real group of people. Tell me about what those entities do and what we should be watching out for in our encounters with them?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
If I am leading a workshop with 100 women and I go, “How many of you feel behind?” Deb, I swear 90% raise their hand. Also, they can’t say behind in what? It’s amazing. It’s amazing. Wait, they don’t know, but they’re behind. And the few that don’t are women in their 60s usually. They’re the ones that have less fucks to give finally. But you’re not behind. There’s no such thing. And yet there’s this sort of pressure. And then if we buy into it, and it’s all the same with the productivity stuff, you’re not too old, you’re not too late. I mean, you might be too old to have a biological kid. There’s certain things, but we buy into a lot of bullshit. And I mean frankly, imagine if we stopped, billion-dollar businesses would go belly up.
The imaginary time gods, I think it’s tattooed in your heart, your mind, your cells, imaginary time gods. It’s not too late and you’re not cooked. You’re not a fixed object in space. I just discovered a painting three years ago and I can’t draw a stick figure and I make all this art, I sell it and people are fascinated by that. Most of the people are like, “I could never do that. Well, I wouldn’t know what to do or how to do it. It’s too late.” Wow. I catch myself. That’s the key. I catch myself when I say things like that. So it’s really about catching ourselves and remembering they’re not real.
Debbie Millman:
Jen, I have one last question for you and a request. So this is my question. One of the most poignant and heartbreaking lines in your book is this. “What if I looked back on my life and saw that what I had spent the most time doing was hating myself?” What advice would you give to our listeners and maybe the host who might be grappling with that question?
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Yeah, okay. Believe the person in front of you. So let’s say I’m talking to you Debbie Millman. So I’d say, when Roxanne is sitting in front of you and you look in her eyes, she is not lying to you. Believe the person in front of you. And actually it’s such a disservice when we don’t. It’s like saying, I don’t trust you. So you believe the person in front of you. And that doesn’t mean any Joe Schmo. I’m talking about … That’s why I do an exercise called in the voice of someone who loves you where you write a letter to yourself, whether they’re living or dead or your wife or Jesus or your dog. And you believe the person in front of you. And that’s huge first of all, that is Trust with a capital T. It’s like why would my son, he gave me the title of my TED Talk when he said, “Mommy, nothing you do is wrong.” It’s what I’ve been waiting my whole life to hear. And if I said that to myself, I’d be like, you fucking liar. But I would never say that to an 8-year-old.
So if you trust the person, if you trust Roxane, then how dare you doubt anything how magical and beautiful and wonderful you are? Then if you actually write a letter in the voice of her and you carry that around in your wallet or something like a talisman, then you begin to bridge the gap. How do you do that? Well, you find ways, whatever works, barring you’re not hurting yourself or anyone intentionally to bridge the gap between how she sees you and what she’s saying and what you’re saying to yourself so that it’s closer to that because that’s the work, if you want to call it, of our lives. So the people who truly love us and see us, they see us. So it’s trust in that, and that means we got to find our people. And for anyone listening that’s like, “I don’t have my people.” They are there. Stay open. They are there. Look around. Stay open. Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
Finally, my request, Proof of Life contains poetry in every chapter. Really, really beautiful poetry. Waiting for the poetry book next, and I’m wondering if you could read the poem in the book titled, Because We Forget. Not only do I think it’s a really beautiful poem, and not only do I think it’s a sort of heartfelt bookend to this interview in general with you, but I think it’s proof of growth in so many ways to have this poem as part of your experience with your father.
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Yeah. It’s so funny when you said last night, will you read it, it’s not actually a poem, it’s just I threw it in there. But what I love is I do that a lot, the lyrical and what have you. That’s why I had to look it up. Yeah, so Because We Forget.
Debbie Millman:
It feels like a poem to me, Jen, just saying.
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Which I love. I mean Lydia [inaudible 01:01:27], she’s such a … Pooh-poohs on genre, but I love, it’s like, who can say? All of it? Because We Forget. “I had a dream once in which I had a conversation with my father. I was an adult in this dream. I asked him, ‘Were you afraid?’.
‘I was at first.’.
‘Why?’.
‘Because I knew I was dying and I wasn’t finished.’ A sigh issued from his dream body.
‘Did it hurt?’ I asked.
‘Not in a way you will understand.’
‘What did it feel like then?’.
In the dream, I had a desperate ache to understand what it felt like.
‘It felt like forgetting. It was that fast, the undoing and like that gone. I saw you at 38,’ he continued. ‘My age. I understood your own forgetting and how difficult it is to keep a life going when there’s no body anymore.’
‘What did you understand?’ I asked as I reached out to touch him.
‘That you might forget small details, but that you’d carry my legacy and that you and mommy and Rachel would know I loved you and did the best I could,’ he explained.
‘Did you do the best you could?’ I couldn’t touch him no matter how hard I tried, and I tried.
‘I don’t know. Yes. Maybe. No.’.
‘Why is it so hard to do our best?’.
‘Because we forget,’ the dream said. ‘Because we forget.'”
Debbie Millman:
Jennifer Pastiloff, thank you so much for making so much work that matters, and thank you for joining me today on Design Matters.
Jennifer Pastiloff:
Thank you. You’re a gift.
Debbie Millman:
Jen’s new book is titled Proof of Life: Let Go, Let Love, and Stop Looking for Permission to Live Your Life. To learn more about Jen, you can go to her website, jenniferpastiloff.com. This is the 20th year we’ve been podcasting Design Matters, and I’d like to thank you for listening. And remember, we can talk about making a difference, we can make a difference, or we can do both. I’m Debbie Millman and I look forward to talking with you again soon.
Curtis Fox:
Design Matters is produced for the TED Audio Collective by Curtis Fox Productions. The interviews are usually recorded at the Master’s in Branding Program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, the first and longest-running branding program in the world. The editor-in-chief of Design Matters Media is Emily Weiland.