This week I'm joined again by Buddhist Monk Tashi Nyima, who you might recognize from past episodes, Help With Despair Over the State of the World and Help With Generosity. Tashi had a near-death experience recently, and I wanted to have him on to talk about it, and what it illustrates about death from a Buddhist perspective.  In this episode we talk about: --Tashi's brush with death and what it taught him --Buddhist teachings on death and dying --How to confront the fear of death and...

This week I'm joined by one of my closest friends in the world, author and teacher Shannon McLeod. Shannon is the author of the wonderful new story collection Nature Trail Stories, as well as the novella Whimsy. She's also taught English at a high school and elementary school level and works as a reading specialist.  In this episode, I wanted to talk to Shannon about the realities that teachers today are facing.   We talked about: --How to be a better ally for teachers.  --What teachers...

Continuing on a similar theme as the baby decision episodes, I wanted to have a conversation about what aging while child-free (and/or unmarried, and/or nonmonogamous, and/or without a stable job) might look like. I'm joined again by the counselor and author Kathy Labriola, who you might recognize from last season's episode, Help Dealing With Jealousy in Relationships & Career, as well as from my book, Open.  Not only does Kathy have an excellent new book out about aging while...

In Part 2 of this super-personal series, I'm speaking again with author and therapist Merle Bombardieri about the decision of whether or not to have kids. Merle is the author of THE BABY DECISION, which I found to be refreshing in its lack of agenda for or against having children. In this follow-up episode, which was more coaching-heavy than the last one, we address: --How to process this decision with your partner --A new exercise that might help you embrace a decision  --How my being...

This week I'm talking with sex educator and author of the new and inclusive dating guide This is Supposed to Be Fun, Myisha Battle. We're talking specifically about online dating: ways that both non-monogamous and monogamous people can better coexist on these apps, common mistakes people make, and tips around messaging and disclosure. She also got into a little bit of personal dating advice for me...I hope this is a helpful conversation for those of you who are dating or looking to get back...

In this super-personal episode, I'm talking with author and therapist Merle Bombardieri about the decision of whether or not to have kids. Merle is the author of THE BABY DECISION, which I found to be refreshing in its lack of agenda for or against having children.  In this episode, which is a blend of interview and free therapy (for me and, hopefully, listeners), we address: --Why it's important to declare a decision --How to mourn the path you won't be taking --What this decision has to...

This week I'm joined by writer and academic Christopher Sebastian McJetters. We're talking about what speciesism—the view that certain species should have more rights to freedom and life than others—has to do with racism, sexism, and homophobia. Following our recent episode with Jasmin Singer about help being more vegan-friendly, I was thrilled to hear some of you were inspired to try eating more plant-based. It's a resolution that a lot of people are making in the month of January, as we...

I'll be back in 2023 with all-new episodes of Help Existing, but for our last episode of 2022, I wanted to celebrate the most-listened-to episode of the year: Help Understanding Bisexuality Better, with author Jen Winston. (By the way, a close second was Help Exploring Psychadelic Therapy, further cementing my suspicion that Help Existing's audience is cool AF).  I was so happy to see this was the most listened-to episode because it was one of my favorite conversations, and with a dear...

It's my 35th birthday today, so I figured it was the perfect time to reissue one of the most popular episodes of Help Existing: my conversation with self-esteem icon Cindy Gallop about viewing aging as sexy. This episode got the most responses from listeners and is an all-around treat. Cindy Gallop is the founder of MakeLoveNotPorn, a businesswoman, coach, and all-around self-esteem icon. She's in her sixties and openly dates younger men, and recently had a StyleLikeU video that went viral...

This week I'm joined by Evette Dionne, author of the excellent new memoir in essays, Weightless. Her new book is about many things: the prejudiced way fat Black women are treated in our culture, her personal experience facing serious chronic illness, fatness in pop culture, and much more. Our conversation was wide-ranging, starting with the story of how doctors' anti-fat bias nearly cost Evette her life, her own subsequent reexamining of work-life balance, and the micro and macro effects of...

This week on Help Existing: how your vibrator sausage is made. I have a lot of questions. Mainly, why can engineers send a man to the moon (decades ago), but I still can't find a toy that gives me handless orgasms? Seriously, wtf is that sexist shit? Rob Scott, the chief product designer for an ethical and eco-friendly sex toy company called Love Not War, was a great sport answering my questions. Surprisingly, I also learned a lot about recycling from this conversation. We dug into questions...

In honor of my fellow vegans and vegetarians getting shit from their families this Thursday (and also in honor of World Vegan Month), I wanted to do an episode to help those wanting to lean in a more plant-based direction. This episode was filled with vegan hacks, recs, tips, and heartfelt feelings. I've been vegan for seven years now, and one of my first vegan friends was podcaster, activist, and author Jasmin Singer. She became one of my closest people because she's a compassionate,...

This episode is all about ketamine therapy: the most legally accessible psychedelic therapy. Ketamine has been used as an anesthetic for many years. But recently, it's caught on for treating patients with mental health issues--especially those who haven't responded to medication or are (content warning) suicidal.  To find out more, I spoke with Dr. Carlos De La Hoz. He's a doctor at the NeoMedicine Institute, where he administers ketamine therapy. We spoke about why ketamine's different than...

If you have a fantasy of being a digital nomad or retiring abroad, what steps should you take? What do you need to know when it comes to visas, health insurance, and money? This week we're tackling these questions and more with Nicole Gustas, a consulting expert for International Citizens,  which helps people figure out how to live or retire abroad. This was a super practical episode. I think there's a larger conversation to be had about the ethics of living abroad and being a digital...

This week I'm talking with meditation teacher Jonathan Foust about the tendency of the mind to live in the future. Whether it's fantasizing or mundane planning, I know I often find my mind off in the future. Its underlying cause is an overdeveloped impulse to find pleasure and avoid danger and discomfort. Future thinking is impossible (and ill-advised) to avoid entirely --but I would like to learn to reign it in so that I can be more present in my life. At the same time, as we talk about in...

This week I'm joined by my dear friend, Ashna Ali. Ashna is the author of the poetry collection The Relativity of Living Well, and they're joining me to talk about the effects of invisible illnesses on their life. After having long COVID, they now live with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome.  We talked about mitigating risk, the politics of masking, as well as how to be better towards people who have invisible illnesses. Ashna is a queer, agender, Bangladeshi diasporic poet raised...

When I got the pitch "three steps to a mental orgasm" from the PR person representing sex therapist Dr. Chelsie Reed, I was skeptical. But I was also intrigued by the idea of a mental orgasm, which is a scientifically-proven regular orgasm—only one induced by the mind, rather than any genital stimulation. (Think: wet dreams, only on command.) In this conversation, Dr. Reed explains how to try to have a mental orgasm, as well as the different kinds of orgasms vagina-owners might be missing....

My guest this week is Emi Nietfeld, author of the wonderful new memoir Acceptance. It's the story of her growing up in foster care, and at times without a home. Though Emi ended up going to Harvard, she struggled with self-harm, depression, thoughts of suicide, eating disorders, her bisexual identity, and sexual assault. We get into all of that in this episode. I asked Emi what she felt she would most like to offer as helpful to listeners; what she felt she could best speak to (which is...

It's Bisexual Awareness Week, and I want to celebrate my people! In the fifth episode of Help Existing, I spoke with author Jen Winston about understanding bisexuality better. That's a great primer on a lot of the myriad serious (and sometimes fun) issues bi people face.  This week, I wanted to talk with a bisexual man about what his experience has been like. For men, it is often more stigmatized to be bi. While bi women are often infuriatingly assumed to "really" be straight, bi men are...

How do you get better at imagining things, aka, making shit up? Today I'm talking with Bianca Marais, author of the new book The Witches of Moonshine Manner and host of The Shit No One Tells You About Writing podcast, about cultivating imagination when writing fiction.  I've written my book Open, but it's a memoir, and I'm trained as a journalist. It's hard to give myself permission to lift off into the imaginary, but I would like to try! So I wanted to really get into the nitty-gritty...

In a new flavor of episode I'm calling "Tuesdays with Tashi," I'll be having recurring conversations with one of my dearest advisors & friends: Buddhist Monk Tashi Nyima. Piece by piece, I hope to share with you some of the most fundamental advice on existence I've learned from years of studying with him.  Our first episode was Help With Despair Over The State of the World. This episode's advice is all about generosity--(a key ingredient of help with that despair, by the way). To be...

Today I'm talking with Justin Townsend, CEO and Head Facilitator for MycoMeditations. His company operates legally in Jamaica doing psilocybin-assisted retreats. Participants attend for seven days, work with licensed therapists throughout, and trip three times. You've probably heard about some of the potential therapeutic applications of psilocybin, and changes in states like Oregon, which legalized the medicine for therapeutic use. I've heard predictions that as psychedelic therapy...

This week, I'm joined by publishing industry expert Jane Friedman to talk about the strange business of books: how authors make a living off their books (SPOILER: keep dreaming), the impact of Amazon on the market, contentious e-book lending, why 98% of books sell under 5,000 copies, and much more. This is a super interesting episode for writers, sure, but also for readers. There are a lot of misconceptions about the business of books, and this is a crash course on how readers can be better...

This week I'm talking with one of my very favorite people in the world: counselor and author Kathy Labriola. If you've read my book Open, you'll recognize her as my counselor/real-life fairy godmother. She's also an expert on jealousy in relationships, which she writes about in books like The Jealousy Workbook and Love In Abundance. I wanted to have a conversation with Kathy about jealousy and envy that was inclusive of non-monogamous, monogamous, and even professional relationships. How can...