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 prepare for death ahead of time

And much more!

I hope you find it helpful.

Here is the link to Tashi's blog, which has information on how to join his Zoom sanghas.

Help Existing is listener supported. Please consider donating to my Venmo @rachel-krantz.

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 today face, from shooting threats to phones in classrooms

--Her tips and experience with burnout

--The pandemic and remote teaching, and how she's seen kids change since

--How technology and trauma are impacting students' ability to read and write

--How her teaching life informs her creative life

--And much more!

As always, I hope it's helpful.

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You can donate to Help Existing on my Venmo @rachel-krantz. Every bit helps!

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 nonmonogamous, Polyamorous Elders, but she is herself a badass example of aging while unconventional. She is queer, child-free, and has multiple partners-- but is married to none.

In this super practical conversation, we talk about many different things to consider when aging outside the box, including:

--Differences in civil rights granted in a domestic partnership versus marriage

--Different things even younger people need to do, like filling out advanced care directives, writing a will, and thinking about long-term care insurance

--Thinking about housing long-term, and how to pay for it if you're not rich

--Why having a child is not a guarantee or even good insurance that you will be taken care of in old age

--How she has set up her life and practice to operate outside of traditional capitalist structures

And much more!

I am always inspired by Kathy, and I know this conversation gave me a long list of things to do and think about. I hope it helps you too!

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Help Existing is listener supported. If you found this helpful, please donate to keep it going on my Venmo @rachel-krantz. Please feel free to get in touch if I can help you with anything as a consultant, coach, or otherwise @rachelkrantz on Instagram & Twitter, or via the contact form on my website, www.racheljkrantz.com.

Words of encouragement are much appreciated too! As is buying/reviewing my book, OPEN. www.prh.com/open

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 nonmonogamous might factor into the decision

--The pressures of pronatalist culture

--Lots else!

Merle Bombardieri, MSW, LICSW, has been a private practice clinical social worker and psychotherapist for over 30 years. She specializes in parenthood decision-making, infertility, adoption, and making the most of a childfree life. The first edition of her book THE BABY DECISION was published in 1981.

Although she enjoyed raising her daughters, Bombardieri has also been an advocate for childfree people since 1979. Another advocacy project was founding the support group Boston Single Mothers by Choice in the early 1980s.

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Help Existing is listener supported. If you found this helpful, please donate to keep it going on my Venmo @rachel-krantz. Words of encouragement are much appreciated too! As is buying/reviewing my book, OPEN. www.prh.com/open

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 out there.

You can find Myisha Battle, her book, and her monthly zine at www.myishabattle.com. She's on Instagram and Twitter @myishabattle.

Please take a moment if you can to rate and review this podcast so more people can find it. Even just a line is good.

Same thing with my book Open. If you can take a minute to give it a star rating and review on Goodreads or Amazon, share it on social media, tell your friends about it, and request it at your local library, all these things really help me out!

And finally, if you'd like to support this podcast, throw a dollar in the hat @Rachel-Krantz on Venmo.

You can find me at @RachelKrantz on Instagram and Twitter. Thanks, and see you next ep!

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 do with death

--An exercise to help the conflicting sides of you fight it out, and why the one who 'loses' can tell you what you need to be happy

--How to deal when you feel that economics and the environment are making the decision for you

--Lots else!

This is only Part 1. Merle and I will be speaking again in a month, and this is a topic I plan on exploring more with her and others this season on the podcast. Let me know what you think--I hope it's helpful!

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Merle Bombardieri, MSW, LICSW, has been a private practice clinical social worker and psychotherapist for over 30 years. She specializes in parenthood decision-making, infertility, adoption, and making the most of a childfree life. The first edition of her book THE BABY DECISION was published in 1981.

Although she enjoyed raising her daughters, Bombardieri has also been an advocate for childfree people since 1979. Another advocacy project was founding the support group Boston Single Mothers by Choice in the early 1980s.

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Help Existing is listener supported. If you foud this helpful, please donate to keep it going on my Venmo @rachel-krantz. Words of encouragement are much appreciated too! As is buying/reviewing my book, OPEN. www.prh.com/open

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 try on those New Year's resolutions. (There's even a campaign called Veganuary that can help.)

But I wanted to have this broader conversation with Christopher about why caring about animal rights is a social justice issue that is related to being anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-homophobic. My hope is listening will help deepen your resolve to eat more plant-based for the animals/environment/health, or at least expand your circle of compassion a little wider. I hope you find this conversation helpful, empathy-building, and inspiring.

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Christopher Sebastian is an author, researcher, and lecturer. He writes about food, politics, media, and pop culture. He currently teaches news writing for social media and has guest lectured at Columbia University, Cambridge University, Cornell, and the University of Oxford. Find out more about him at https://www.christophersebastian.info/

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HOUSEKEEPING NOTE: As you might have noticed, I'm moving the podcast to biweekly for the time being so that I don't burn out and don't have to bug you quite as often about fundraising to support the podcast. I still will sometimes, but not as much. (@rachel-krantz on venmo, icymi :))

Thank you so much to everyone who has supported the podcast thus far, and I promise that even though it'll be slightly less frequent, the quality will hopefully be that much better.

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 friend at that: Jen Winston, author of Greedy: Notes From a Bisexual Who Wants Too Much. Their memoir, and our conversations since, have helped me understand what "bisexuality" actually means, my internalized bisexual imposter syndrome, bi-phobia, and so much more. I wanted to have a conversation with Jen to delve into these topics further so that listeners, whether they're bisexual themselves, questioning, or simply want to be better allies to bisexual friends, walk away with more understanding and compassion. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did, and I'll see you in 2023 with some exciting new interviews and explorations.

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Help Existing is listener supported. Throw a dollar in the hat if you can to my Venmo, @rachel-krantz. Thank you!

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 about viewing aging as sexy and forging a different path.

We don't see enough media representation of women over 50 being desired and viewed as sexy (and sexual beings)—and Cindy is certainly working to change that. Not just through her own substantial online presence, but through MakeLoveNotPorn, a social sharing platform where people can share and upload their real-world (and real-bodied) sex. I wanted to pick Cindy's brain on how exactly she's so confident and get her advice on how I might continue to embrace my own aging as sexy.

You can follow Cindy on Twitter and Instagram @cindygallop, and find out more about her work here.

Help Existing is listener supported. Please throw a dollar in the hat if you can on my Venmo, @rachel-krantz. Every little bit energizes me and sustains me in creating new episodes. Thank you!

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 fatphobia—both externalized and internalized.

Evette is such a smart, kind person. She speaks in a way that deeply impresses me not just because she's so insightful, but because she's kind and doesn't seem as motivated by the less important things in life--fame, ego, or praise. Listening to her, you feel plugged into what matters.

If you want more from Evette on this podcast, you can also check out our other interview in Season 1, Help Appreciating Black Music Without Appropriating It. And again, be sure to support her memoir by buying Weightless and/or her National Book Award-Nominated middle-grade book, Lifting As We Climb: Black Women's Battle At The Ballot Box.

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Help Existing is listener supported. Please throw a dollar in the proverbial hat if you can on my Venmo @rachel-krantz, or pick up a copy of my book, Open. Every bit of support helps more than you know. Thank you!