Making Good Use of Our Emotions: Hilary Jacobs Hendel

It’s so hard to feel your feelings—especially when you have all of them all at once, and it’s never a convenient time to process them. For the past year, we’ve all been stewing with anxiety, stress, anger, loneliness, grief, and fear. Ignoring our hard feelings might seem like the easiest way to cope and get relief—but it’s not the only option available to us. Our next guest in our For the Love of Reconnecting Series, psychoanalyst and therapist Hilary Jacobs Hendel, reminds us that when we disconnect from our harder emotions, we disconnect from the life-giving ones too, like joy—and don’t we all need more of that right now?. Hilary’s the author of a fascinating book called It’s Not Always Depression (and psst: she consulted on the psychological development of characters in Mad Men!), and she and Jen talk about the freedom we find when we realize emotions just are, and we don’t have to judge them. In fact, instead of shutting down, Hilary shows us how we can walk ourselves toward self-compassion and healing, which gives us real resilience—not the kind that we *think* we have by stuffing down our feelings.   * * * Thank you to our sponsors! American Giant | Get 100% American-made clothes that do good for local communities! Get 15% off with code FORTHELOVE at american-giant.com  Jen Hatmaker Book Club | Join the sisterhood today! jenhatmakerbookclub.com  Jen Hatmaker Merch | Get 20% off the entire site at jenhatmaker.com/shop To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Om Podcasten

New York Times bestselling author Jen Hatmaker and her longtime friend, Amy Hardin, have arrived in the middle years — and they couldn’t be happier about it.  Each has navigated the ins and outs of life — from careers, to parenting, marriage (and, for Jen, divorce), spiritual evolution, and the joys of being hardcore Gen Xers. With each weekly episode, Jen and Amy serve as our “everywoman” guides to all the seasons — past, present, and future — as they walk excitedly and tenaciously into the second half of life. While Jen and Amy have plenty of wisdom to share — and some pretty hilarious stories, too — they don’t claim to know it all. That's why they invite some of the most interesting and accomplished guests to the podcast, bringing insight, expertise, and understanding to the most relevant topics of our time. From Jen and Amy’s compelling conversations with guests to their witty banter (and the occasional eye-rolls at the absurdities of life), they’re here reassure you that you’re not alone in this game of life.  It’s “For the Love” of all that is good, justified, exasperating, exhilarating, real, fun — and so much more.