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Health

19 simple therapist insights that instantly transformed people's lives

One piece of advice can change everything.

via SHVETS production/Pexels

A therapist shares some advice with her clients.

A good therapist has the magical ability to take our messiest problems and break them down in a way that makes sense. They have an incredible way of showing us our struggles from a fresh perspective and quite often, the answers were right in front of our faces the whole time. We just needed their help to nudge us in the right direction.

For some, a therapist's simple, sage wisdom can change their lives with just one poignant realization.

Recently, a Redditor named BuildingBridges23 asked people on the subforum to share the priceless bits of wisdom that changed their lives and over 5,300 people responded. The pithy but powerful observations they shared were helpful to many people and more than one called the thread “free therapy.”

Here are 19 of the best responses to the question: “What's something your therapist said that was life-changing?”

1. You can't fix sick

"You're going to put yourself in an early grave trying to make your mother happy. Your mother is sick, trying to make her happy is like trying to fill a bucket that has no bottom, its not going to happen unless she fixes the bucket. You can't fix it for her." — ModerateDude9


2. Other people's feelings

"I asked him, 'How do you process all of the negative feelings that are projected at you?' and he said "They aren't my feelings.'" — Wirestyle22


3. Coping with death

"'The way your parents died will never be the most interesting thing about you. It's not even the most interesting thing about THEM.' My parents died by suicide together and I was worried that it was going to consume me as an individual. I didnt want their deaths or my grief to become my entire identity." — Crazyofo


4. Being brave

"When I broke down because I was so fed up with being scared and anxious all the time, he said something like. 'You can’t be brave without being scared first.' It always stuck with me that fear, no matter how overwhelming, won’t last forever and I try to see it as a chance for me to prove to myself I can fight back and try to get through this." — AnxiousAxolotyl88


5. Change

"Change happens when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of change." ؅— SpicyEmmaa

6. Dealing with mental illness

"Just because the mentally ill person screaming at you lives in your home instead of on the streets doesn't mean their opinion is any more true." — UnorignalUse

7. People are like colanders

"Some people are like a colander. It doesn't matter how much time, love and support you pour into them, it will never fill them up enough to make a difference." — Competitive-Watch188

8. Boundaries

"The only people in your life who will be angry because you established boundaries were the people who benefitted from you not having them in the first place." — Imagine_magic

9. Other people's anxiety

"'Be the mirror, not the sponge.' Don’t absorb other people’s stress and anxiety, show it back to them gently. Changed my life." — CariocaInLA

10. Sensitive people

"That being a 'highly sensitive person' is just how I’m built. It’s not something that’s wrong with me or something that I necessarily have to change. I just have to accept it, to learn my boundaries and needs and live accordingly." — stuttering-mime-ta2


11. For people-pleasers

"'You don’t need to please everyone all of the time. People who love you will not leave you because you disagree with them or do something they don’t like.' She nailed a lot of my behaviours back to the fact my biological dad left when I was 9 months old. I cannot cope with perceived abandonment, and will do everything in my power to keep people happy… because they might leave me." — RhiR2020

12. It's not about you

"'You aren’t that interesting.' I would have panic attacks and paranoia that people were out to get me (PTSD, etc) and would think that people were judging me in grocery stores because my toddler was crying or that my hair was messy. And honestly it boiled down to…nobody cares. We’re all trying to survive and get through the day and what someone looks like or does, we observe and move on." — jac_kayyy

13. Judgement

"We judge ourselves by our intentions, but we judge others by their actions." — Horny_Rapunzel

14. It's simple

"'The answer is simple. That doesn't mean it's easy, but it's simple.' I was doing what I always do in difficult, scary situations that I don't want to deal with head-on; I was overthinking and over-complicating what I needed to do to be happy again. The answer was actually quite simple: I needed to tell my (now ex-husband) that I wanted a divorce." — RovenshereExpress

15. Realize your unhappiness

"At the third session with our couples counselor, my wife and I had a brief ten-minute private session with our therapist. During my session, the therapist said, 'You need to accept the possibility of a divorce. You are trying to do the right thing and be supportive, but you can't do that alone. Your wife is taking advantage of you. You can't see how unhappy you are. That will change within a year after your divorce.' Yup. She was right. My wife and I agreed to divorce during the 4th session. I am finally happy, and love my life." — BlueCollarBeagle

16. Hurt

"Just because you were hurt when you were younger, doesn't mean randoms have the right to hurt you now." — Paeliens

17. See-saw relationship

"A relationship is like a see-saw. If the other person doesn't want to participate, you can keep going, but you'll get really tired." — SendInYourSkeleton

18. Panic

"Not my therapist, but a friend told me hers said this: 'You do not have enough information to panic about that yet.' Whenever I catch myself spiraling about the unknown, I try to remember that." — Bananaphone1549

19. Heart attacks

"It wasn’t my therapist, it was my doctor, but it was life-changing. I had been 300+ pounds all of my adult life and I was in for a physical and he said to me: 'You know, the first symptom of a heart attack is a heart attack.' It was what caused me to change my life at age 54 and lose 110 pounds in 16 months and I became a runner. I have run a race in all 50 states, 26 Halifax marathons and 2 full marathons, Chicago and Boston. That one thing he said to me kicked off my decision for better health! That was 15 years ago." — BlueJasper27

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How I found my life's passion by asking myself these ridiculous questions.

'What's your favorite flavor of shit sandwich, and does it come with an olive?'

One day, when my brother was 18, he waltzed into the living room and proudly announced to my mother and me that one day he was going to be a senator.

My mom probably gave him the “That’s nice, dear,” treatment while I’m sure I was distracted by a bowl of Cheerios or something.

Photo via iStock.

But for 15 years, this purpose informed all my brother’s life decisions: what he studied in school, where he chose to live, who he connected with, and even what he did with many of his vacations and weekends.

And, now, after almost half a lifetime of work , he’s the chairman of a major political party in his city and the youngest judge in the state. In the next few years, he hopes to run for office for the first time.

Don’t get me wrong. My brother is a freak. This basically never happens.

Most of us have no clue what we want to do with our lives. Even after we finish school. Even after we get a job. Even after we’re making money. Between ages 18 and 25, I changed career aspirations more often than I changed my underwear. And even after I had a business, it wasn’t until I was 28 that I clearly defined what I wanted for my life.

Chances are you’re more like me and have no clue what you want to do. It’s a struggle almost every adult goes through: “What do I want to do with my life?” “What am I passionate about?” “What do I not suck at?” I often receive emails from people in their 40s and 50s who still have no clue what they want to do with themselves.

Part of the problem is the concept of “life purpose” itself. The idea that we were each born for some higher purpose and it’s now our cosmic mission to find it. This is the same kind of shaky logic used to justify things like spirit crystals or that your lucky number is 34 (but only on Tuesdays or during full moons).

Here’s the truth: We exist on this Earth for some undetermined period of time. During that time, we do things. Some of these things are important. Some of them are unimportant. And those important things give our lives meaning and happiness. The unimportant ones basically just kill time.

When people say, “What should I do with my life?” or “What is my life purpose?” what they’re actually asking is: “What can I do with my time that is important?”

This is an infinitely better question to ask. It’s far more manageable and it doesn’t have all the ridiculous baggage the “life purpose” question has. There’s no reason for you to be contemplating the cosmic significance of your life while sitting on your couch eating Doritos. Rather, you should be getting off your ass and discovering what feels important to you.

One of the most common email questions I get is people asking me what they should do with their lives, what their “life purpose” is. This is an impossible question for me to answer. After all, for all I know this person is really into knitting sweaters for kittens or filming gay bondage porn in their basement. I have no clue. Who am I to say what’s right or what’s important to them?

Photo via iStock.

After some research, I put together a series of questions to help people figure out for themselves what is important to them and what can add more meaning to their lives.

These questions are by no means exhaustive or definitive. In fact, they’re a little bit ridiculous. But I made them that way because discovering purpose in our lives should be something that’s fun and interesting, not a chore.

1. What's your favorite flavor of shit sandwich, and does it come with an olive?

Ah, yes. The all-important question. What flavor of shit sandwich would you like to eat? Because here’s the sticky little truth about life that they don’t tell you at high school pep rallies: Everything sucks, some of the time.

Now, that probably sounds incredibly pessimistic of me. And you may be thinking, “Hey, Mr. Manson, turn that frown upside-down.”

But I actually think this is a liberating idea.

Everything involves sacrifice. Everything includes some sort of cost. Nothing is pleasurable or uplifting all the time. So the question becomes: What struggle or sacrifice are you willing to tolerate? Ultimately, what determines our ability to stick with something we care about is our ability to handle the rough patches and ride out the inevitable rotten days.

If you want to be a brilliant tech entrepreneur but you can’t handle failure, then you’re not going to make it far. If you want to be a professional artist but you aren’t willing to see your work rejected hundreds — if not thousands — of times, then you’re done before you start. If you want to be a hotshot court lawyer but can’t stand the 80-hour work weeks, then I’ve got bad news for you.

What unpleasant experiences are you able to handle? Are you able to stay up all night coding? Are you able to have people laugh you off the stage over and over again until you get it right? Are you able to put off starting a family for 10 years?

What shit sandwich do you want to eat? Because we all get served one eventually. Might as well pick one with an olive.

2. What is true about you today that would make your 8-year-old self cry?

When I was a child, I used to write stories. I used to sit in my room for hours by myself writing away about aliens, superheroes, great warriors, my friends and family. Not because I wanted anyone to read it. Not because I wanted to impress my parents or teachers. But for the sheer joy of it.

And then, for some reason, I stopped. And I don’t remember why.

We all have a tendency to lose touch with what we loved as a child. Something about the social pressures of adolescence and professional pressures of young adulthood squeezes the passion out of us. We’re taught that the only reason to do something is if we’re rewarded for it in some way.

It wasn’t until I was in my mid-20s that I rediscovered how much I loved writing. And it wasn’t until I started my business that I remembered how much I enjoyed building websites — something I did in my early teens just for fun.

The funny thing, though, is that if my 8-year-old self had asked my 20-year-old self, “Why don’t you write anymore?” and I replied, “Because I’m not good at it” or “Because nobody would read what I write” or “Because you can’t make money doing that,” not only would I have been completely wrong, but that 8-year-old version of myself would have probably started crying.

3. What makes you forget to eat and poop?

We’ve all had that experience where we get so wrapped up in something that minutes turn into hours and hours turn into “Holy crap, I forgot to have dinner.”

Supposedly, in his prime, Isaac Newton’s mother had to regularly come in and remind him to eat because he would go entire days so absorbed in his work that he would forget.

I used to be like that with video games. This probably wasn’t a good thing. In fact, it was kind of a problem for many years. I would sit and play video games instead of doing more important things, like studying for an exam, showering regularly, or speaking to other humans face-to-face.

It wasn’t until I gave up the games that I realized my passion wasn’t for the games themselves (although I do love them): My passion is for improvement, being good at something and then trying to get better. The games themselves — the graphics, the stories — were cool, but I can easily live without them. It’s the competition — with others, but especially with myself — that I thrive on.

And when I applied that obsessiveness for improvement and self-competition to an internet business and to my writing, well, things took off in a big way.

Maybe for you, it’s something else. Maybe it’s organizing things efficiently or getting lost in a fantasy world or teaching somebody something or solving technical problems. Whatever it is, don’t just look at the activities that keep you up all night, but look at the cognitive principles behind those activities that enthrall you. Because they can easily be applied elsewhere.

4. How can you better embarrass yourself?

Before you are able to be good at something and do something important, you must first suck at something and have no clue what you’re doing. That’s pretty obvious. And in order to suck at something and have no clue what you’re doing, you must embarrass yourself in some shape or form, often repeatedly. And most people try to avoid embarrassing themselves — namely, because it sucks.

Ergo, due to the transitive property of awesomeness, if you avoid anything that could potentially embarrass you, then you will never end up doing something that feels important.

Yes, it seems that, once again, it all comes back to vulnerability.

Right now, there’s something you want to do, something you think about doing, something you fantasize about doing, yet you don’t do it. You have your reasons, no doubt. And you repeat these reasons to yourself ad infinitum.

But what are those reasons? Because I can tell you right now that if those reasons are based on what others would think, then you’re screwing yourself over big time.

If your reasons are something like, “I can’t start a business because spending time with my kids is more important to me,” or “Playing Starcraft all day would probably interfere with my music, and music is more important to me,” then, OK. Sounds good.

But if your reasons are, “My parents would hate it,” or “My friends would make fun of me,” or “If I failed, I’d look like an idiot,” then chances are, you’re actually avoiding something you truly care about — because caring about that thing is what scares the shit out of you, not what mom thinks or what Timmy next-door says.

Living a life avoiding embarrassment is akin to living a life with your head in the sand. Photo via iStock.

Great things are, by their very nature, unique and unconventional. Therefore, to achieve them, we must go against the herd mentality. And to do that is scary.

Embrace embarrassment. Feeling foolish is part of the path to achieving something important, something meaningful. The more a major life decision scares you, chances are the more you need to be doing it.

5. How are you going to save the world?

In case you haven’t seen the news lately, the world has a few problems. And by “a few problems,” what I really mean is, “everything is fucked and we’re all going to die.”

I’ve harped on this before (and the research also bears it out), but to live a happy and healthy life, we must hold on to values that are greater than our own pleasure or satisfaction.

So pick a problem and start saving the world. There are plenty to choose from. Our screwed-up education systems, economic development, domestic violence, mental health care, governmental corruption. Hell, I just saw an article this morning on sex trafficking in the U.S. and it got me all riled up and wishing I could do something. It also ruined my breakfast.

Find a problem you care about and start solving it. Obviously, you’re not going to fix the world’s problems by yourself, but you can contribute and make a difference. And that feeling of making a difference is ultimately what’s most important for your own happiness and fulfillment.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Gee, I read all this horrible stuff and I get all pissed off too, but that doesn’t translate to action, much less a new career path.”

Glad you asked …

6. If you absolutely had to leave the house all day, every day, where would you want to go and what would you do?

For many of us, the enemy is just old-fashioned complacency. We get into our routines. We distract ourselves. The couch is comfortable. The Doritos are cheesy.

And nothing new happens.

This is a problem.

What most people don’t understand is that passion is the result of action, not the cause of it.

Discovering what you’re passionate about in life and what matters to you is a full contact sport, a trial and error process. None of us knows exactly how we feel about an activity until we actually do the activity.

Ask yourself, if someone forced you to leave your house every day for everything except for sleep, how would you choose to occupy yourself? And no, you can’t just go sit in a coffee shop and browse Facebook. You probably already do that.

Let’s pretend there are no useless websites, no video games, no TV. You have to be outside of the house all day every day until it’s time to go to bed — where would you go and what would you do?

Sign up for a dance class? Join a book club? Get another degree? Invent a new form of irrigation system that can save the thousands of children’s lives in rural Africa? Learn to hang glide?

What would you do with all that time?

If it strikes your fancy, write down a few answers and then, you know, go out and actually do them. Bonus points if it involves embarrassing yourself.

7. If you knew you were going to die one year from today, what would you do and how would you want to be remembered?

Most of us don’t like thinking about death. It freaks us out. But thinking about our own death surprisingly has a lot of practical advantages. One of those advantages is that it forces us to zero in on what’s actually important in our lives and what’s just frivolous and distracting.

When I was in college, I used to walk around and ask people, “If you had a year to live, what would you do?”

As you can imagine, I was a huge hit at parties. A lot of people gave vague and boring answers. A few drinks were nearly spit on me. But it did cause people to really think about their lives in a different way and re-evaluate what their priorities were.

This man’s headstone will read: “Here lies Greg. He watched every episode of ’24.' Twice.” Photo via iStock.

What is your legacy going to be? What are the stories people are going to tell when you’re gone? What is your obituary going to say? Is there anything to say at all? If not, what would you like it to say? How can you start working toward that today?

And, again, if you fantasize about your obituary saying a bunch of badass shit that impresses a bunch of random other people, then you’re failing here.

When people feel like they have no sense of direction, no purpose in their life, it’s often because they don’t know what’s important to them or what their values are.

And when you don’t know what your values are, then you’re essentially taking on other people’s values and living other people’s priorities instead of your own. This is a one-way ticket to unhealthy relationships and eventual misery.

Discovering one’s “purpose” in life essentially boils down to finding those one or two things that are bigger than yourself and bigger than those around you.

And to find them you must get off your couch and act — and take the time to think beyond yourself, to think greater than yourself, and, paradoxically, to imagine a world without yourself.

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Cheryl Strayed on pain, letting go, and self-help for Donald Trump.

Cheryl Strayed didn’t start out to be a self-help writer.

In 2012, she was poised to be best known as the author of the forthcoming memoir "Wild", a book that sparked the return of Oprah's famed Book Club and would ultimately be turned into an Academy Award nominated film starring Reese Witherspoon.

Cheryl and Reese at the 2014 Golden Globes. Photo by Steve Granitz/Getty Images.

But one month before the book's release, the writer revealed herself to not just be a woman who had traveled the Pacific Crest Trail and written about it but also the anonymous columnist behind the wildly popular online advice column Dear Sugar. She would now forever be known as more than just a talented author. She was the woman who had helped thousands of strangers deal with some of the most intimate problems in their lives with unflinching honesty, humor, and compassion.

“Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.”

Shortly thereafter, a selection of those columns — her responses to letters about everything from grief, marriage, and incest to addiction, money, and sex — were compiled in the the New York Times best-selling "Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar," a book I've read so much the cover is hanging on by a thread. New York magazine called "Tiny Beautiful Things," "the self-help book women can't stop giving to each other" and it's now the basis for an upcoming HBO series of the same name.

Whether she planned to be or not, Cheryl Strayed has become an incisive, literary life advice guru with a cult-like following. And I am a proud member.

When she agreed to an interview, I was eager to talk to her about her new book "Brave Enough," a collection of her most beloved quotes. I had no idea we would somehow end up talking about everything from her relationship with her father and forgiveness, to finding an authentic voice, and even (brace yourself) thinking differently about Donald Trump.

But that's what happens when you talk to a woman whose main job is to study life, think about its lessons, and then share them. And so she did.

"OK, Erica. Do not act like a fan."

This is what I told myself as I prepared to call Cheryl for our interview.

"Don't babble on and on about how much her books have inspired you, and don't tell her how many of her quotes you've memorized."

Once I had sufficiently ticked through the list of don'ts in my head, I cleared my throat, got into professional interviewer mode, and dialed her number.

"Hi, this is Cheryl."

"Hi-Cheryl-it's-Erica-from-Upworthy-thanks-for-talking-to-me-today-I'm-such-a-fangirl."

Welp. So much for keeping it cool.

Thankfully, Strayed was incredibly warm and approachable, radiating humility. I wanted to know how someone so humble felt confident giving life advice to thousands of people.

On what it means to be human:

I asked whether she ever suffered from self-doubt and how she, someone not trained as a therapist or a counselor or a life coach, came to feel "qualified" to teach people important life lessons based on her own experiences.

"We get great and terrible advice from all sources all the time," she answered. "From your best friend who said something really important to you one time that really altered your way of thinking and the next conversation can say something that is idiotic and doesn’t make sense. We get advice from strangers, books, our parents, friends … all sources. I'm simply one source.

I never said that people need to do what I think they should do. I very seldom focus on instruction. I don’t feel that my main role is to say do this or do that. My main role is to help illuminate the question that they’re asking by exploring various avenues of seeking the answer.

It's about asking 'What does it mean to be human?' And in particular “What does it mean to be human in this situation? In this struggle?'"

I almost missed what she said next because I was so stuck on the phrase "What does it mean to be human?" It seemed to encapsulate all of the questions that we humans ask ourselves every day (How should we behave? How should we respond? What should we think? What should we feel?) in seven words.

I feel like she could make anything sound good, meaningful. But it also made me wonder how she, or anyone for that matter, knows what the right takeaway or lesson is. What is the best decision to make at any given moment in a complex situation or in a complex life if anything can be made to sound inspirational or "right"?

She paused and thought on that for awhile.

"Right before you called me, I was on a walk with my husband. I was grappling with a negative interaction I had with an acquaintance and feeling really annoyed and angry. But then there was also this other feeling of compassion for this person because I know [what she did] totally isn’t about me. That what she said is completely about her own sense of need and sorrow and fear. And so I have two experiences of the same interaction.

One of the great struggles of my life is which one do I land on? Do I land on the one that’s like 'F--k you bitch'? Or should I land on the one that’s like 'I understand that you’re suffering so I will let it go.'

Now that seems like a small thing but apply it to a big thing — my father being a terrible father, for example. Do I stay with rage, sorrow, and absence and suffering, or do I land on forgiveness, compassion, acceptance, and moving forward? We always have that choice."

I agreed. But I also believe that we teach people how to treat us. I worry that if we offer nothing but "niceness"in response to mistreatment or cruelty, we're in some ways letting them off the hook. And if we do that, will they ever learn the lesson? Without me even asking, she had an answer for that.

"What other people go through is not up to us. What we're going through is up to us. I'm not talking about denial," she assured me. "You still have to carry the story with you when you choose forgiveness, but the decision you’re making is to carry it with you forward into whatever beauty awaits. The deal of life is that life is always going to be full of suffering and joy. And I think when you focus on the suffering, you forget how much joy there really is. Always. There’s always joy. It’s always available to us, even in the darkest days."

Even in the darkest days.

The darkest days. That phrase stuck out to me because it drew my mind not only to personal life struggles but to all the hatred and violence and oppression and fear that permeates our current social and political landscape. Mass shootings, Islamophobia, police brutality... And really. Is there any other way to describe Donald Trump's candidacy other than the phrase "dark days"?

I asked her if the themes her quotes touch on, which are so often focused on people's personal lives, could apply to those big societal issues too.

"Yes," she said. And she picked our favorite cartoon villain political candidate to illustrate how.

Him. Photo by Ralph Freso/Getty Images.

On Donald Trump and the big things:

"We forget that Donald Trump — the guy saying all that awful stuff — that’s one human and that awful stuff rises from his heart. And the only way to change the world in the grand scale is to change the hearts and minds of individuals.

So what if this guy really took a deep look at his own wounds? He’s an example of someone who has decided to stay in rage, just like I was talking about earlier. So for him, a couple of people of the Muslim faith shoot up a center and [that behavior] now applies to people of that faith. He’s decided to tell a story that is about hate and ugliness and rage.

What if he were the kind of person who could make that tiny switch I was just talking about in my life, where you say 'am I going to stay in rage or am I going to go to that other place?' I don’t think Trump has ever made that leap probably in anything in his life. So it begins as a tiny thing. I don’t know him. I don’t know what happened to him in his life. But I know that probably all along the way he chose to tell an ugly, small, rage-filled story about himself and the people around him. And then it’s like a stone you throw in the water that resonates outward and beyond. And now it's on a massive scale. That’s why it’s so dangerous to give people power, to elect someone who doesn’t have a consciousness that is steeped in compassion and love and light."

I sighed. She was right. I'm not evolved enough yet to think about Donald Trump's wounds, but I made a mental note to revisit the idea post-election.

I was about to move the conversation forward, but something in my question about what some would call the "bigger" social issues had triggered her. She jumped back in.

"Also, I hate this idea that the culturally significant stories are about 'the big things.' Women are always up against that idea — that our stories are small or unimportant.

I think writing the truth about one life is a big thing. For four years there hasn’t been one day that a whole bunch of people haven’t told me 'your book changed my life.' And when you change someone’s life, you change the world. To believe in that change that we can make in our own lives is what leads to the cultural change in our world."

That sentiment echoes the late Detroit activist Grace Lee Boggs who famously said, "To make a revolution, people must not only struggle against existing institutions. They must make a philosophical/spiritual leap and become more 'human' human beings. In order to change/transform the world, they must change/transform themselves." I shared this with Cheryl.

"Yes! Yes!" she said.

Then she thought about it for a second and said that there was a myth she wanted to dispel.

"Transforming the self can easily be construed as this incredibly narcissistic activity."

I knew exactly what she meant. The me, me, me, navel-gazing, optimize-your-life culture around being your "best self" is everywhere. And it can be pretty insufferable.

"This idea that the most important thing is whatever it is YOU need, what YOU want, because you are developing your mind and your body and whatever. That’s bullshit. That’s not what transforming yourself is.

It isn’t about having the perfect ass and a world that never blows your head open and challenges you and transforms you. It's about engagement, questioning your motivations and beliefs, your biases, and it’s about struggle. And this is the kind of self-help that I’m signing up for and that I hope to contribute to.

It’s a grittier, messier way of looking at transformation. Not just sitting in a bathtub with candles burning, but that’s where you end. It’s not the journey. The journey is a lot rougher than that. It’s about being disrupted from your complacency."

On real self-help:

But that grittiness and messiness isn't what most of us think about when we hear the term "self-help." We often think of positive affirmations and "five steps to a better life," quick fixes. As writer who's a bit insecure about the fact that my own first book will likely land on the self-help shelf also, I desperately wanted to know: Is she comfortable being lumped into that category? How does someone who grew up obsessing over "the great writers" and began her career in fiction and literary nonfiction feel about her work being stuck with the label of a genre that is so often mocked?

"Not only did I never intend to be a self-help writer," she said, "I still don’t really think of myself in that way — probably because I have the same recoil that so many people do when we hear 'self-help.'

"I think when we think of self-help negatively we’re thinking of a book that simplifies and glosses over the complexity of the real, gritty problems of life that we all have. And instead of saying 'OK let’s get down in the muck and face these things,' it sort of makes silly metaphors out of things that are deep and important and big."

I nodded in agreement. She hit the nail on the head.

"Have you ever seen that famous SNL skit with the guy who goes 'I’m OK, and you’re OK?'" she asked.

I chuckled and told her that I had but didn't admit that, at my age, I'd only ever seen a 20-second clip of it on YouTube. But I knew what she was getting at.

“That’s what we think self-help is,” she continued. "A kind of anti-intellectualism."

"And I think that’s really unfair to the genre. Because so many books, my own included, that are lumped into that genre are aspiring to do the exact opposite of that glossing over: embrace our intellects and our rational thinking when it comes to figuring out our challenges and struggles, the relationships we have with others, and the complexity of the relationship that we have with our own past, our own selves, our own lives.

So I think that what people see when they are reading my words is somebody who is willing to not turn away from that complexity.”

Ultimately, she believes that [her] readers experience work in the same way, no matter what the publisher-assigned genre: viscerally and emotionally. And they judge it simply on whether it changes their lives.

Photo by Amy Graves/Getty Images.

On authenticity:

She's a writer who isn't afraid to talk about life's complexity. That's important. But the truth is that her popularity and resonance isn't just because of what she says. It's also about how she says it.

With quotes like this...

“But the reality is we often become our kindest, most ethical selves only by seeing what it feels like to be a selfish jackass first.”

...and this...

"You don’t have to get a job that makes others feel comfortable about what they perceive as your success. You don’t have to explain what you plan to do with your life. You don’t have to justify your education by demonstrating its financial rewards. You don’t have to maintain an impeccable credit score. Anyone who expects you to do any of those things has no sense of history or economics or science or the arts. You have to pay your own electric bill. You have to be kind. You have to give it all you got. You have to find people who love you truly and love them back with the same truth. But that’s all."

...and one of her most famous...

"So write. Not like a girl. Not like a boy. Write like a motherfucker."

it's easy to see why Cheryl is known for communicating ideas in a way that is somehow equally compassionate and unmerciful, gentle and brash. And her words are both literary in their beauty but incredibly simple at the same time. It's hard to tell what has mattered matter more in her ability to connect with readers: her writing style or her big personality. So I ask her.

“It’s both,” she replied confidently. "My voice, writing style, and personality are all one and the same."

She explained: "When you’re a young writer you’re always in search of your voice, and for a long time I thought that meant conforming my voice to the great writers I love. 'I’m going to try to sound like Faulkner or Alice Munro or Toni Morrison.' But what I loved in the work of the writers that I love most is that they’re relaxing and actually speaking with their own voice on the page. And the closer I could get to doing that, the better writer I become.

Voice and authority: It’s all about speaking out of your authentic knowledge."

And she wants to make sure that her authentic knowledge is accessible to everyone.

"I’ve always hoped that what complicates my work is the thinking behind it, not the language that I use to convey ideas. I’ve always wanted my work to be accessible to people of all backgrounds, regardless of their education. I love that you don’t have to be hyper-literate to read my books. You can be, but you don't have to be."

As an example of what she called her "approachability in public persona, on the page, and in actual life," she shared a moving memory:

"At one of my readings in Santa Cruz, this woman came up to me. She was a Mexican immigrant; she was a maid at a hotel. She told me that she had been cleaning a room and someone had left a copy behind of 'Wild.' Instead of just turning it in like they usually do, she started reading it and ended up reading the whole book. At my reading, she wept and said that she’d never read a book before.

And I've heard that many times. So I’m not interested in this idea of the writer as the exalted figure who's above any other person in the world."

Photo by Joe Scarnici/Getty Images.

On her favorite quote:

Later on in our conversation, as we discussed "Brave Enough," I realized she probably wouldn't have judged me for knowing so many of them by heart. The attachment that readers have had to her words is exactly what inspired the book in the first place.

"My publisher said 'all the people on the Internet keep posting your quotes everywhere — we should collect them.' The premise wasn’t 'I’m so wise.' It was crowdsourced! I believe that the power of art is connection. It’s people taking a writer's work and making it theirs. And that’s what people have done with these quotes, and so I looked to them for what should be in the book. I love the idea that a sentence I wrote told them something that they needed to know or hold in their heart.”

I wanted to end my discussion with Cheryl by finding out which pithy line from the collection was her personal favorite, the one that she holds closest in her heart.

As it turns out, it's the one that isn't technically hers. It is her late mother's quote. Her mother is a central figure in her work, and her too-sudden, too-soon death at age 45 not only shattered Cheryl's world but also sparked the life-changing journey of "Wild." When she mentioned her now, her words practically beamed, dripping with audibly noticeable adoration.

"Put yourself in the way of beauty."

"That is something that my mother told me to do. It took me years to really understand what that meant and to learn how to do it. My mom would say, 'It doesn’t matter how miserable you are, how hard any particular day is, you can always choose to put yourself in the way of beauty. There’s always a sunrise and there’s always a sunset. And it's up to you whether you want to be there for it or not. When it’s hardest is when you need to do it the most.'

And so I trust that. It's been a guiding light."

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