We’re at the point where we know a bullshit attempt to commodify our burnout when we see it. No one’s buying the self-care spiel the bath bomb companies are selling us. But the rhetoric of self-care has crept into the workplace, family dynamics, and TikTok therapy speak, usually divorced from any critique of the systems that make self-care feel necessary in the first place. Pooja Lakshmin MD, author of Real Self-Care, joins the pod to answer your very smart questions about contemporary self-care in workplace trainings, in conversations encouraging everyone to GET A HOBBY!, and in advice to perfectionist women to “lower the bar.” Pooja is so clear-eyed and compassionate — and I think this episode will make you feel seen and challenged.

Show Notes:

• Subscribe to Pooja Lakshmin MD’s newsletter, Real Self-Care

• Read my interview with Pooja from 2023:

• Buy Real Self-Care on Bookshop!

• Re: menopause / perimenopause scams — I like this Dr. Jen Gunter piece from last year

• If you missed the episode from earlier this month on Therapy Speak

• Want to see the art from our AAA asker, Erin? It’s here, and it’s beautiful!

• HISTORICAL ROMANCE (will neither confirm nor deny that we have a co-host whose confirmation made Melody faint)

• By popular request, all things fan fiction!

• Pre-teen influencers

• Budget Culture + Specifically Budget Advice You Find Dubious

• Dark Academia

• How cookbooks get made

• Spiritual care for non-religious people

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment — WE REALLY NEED MORE!! You can ask about anything, it’s literally the name of the segment!

• You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here

• Join the ranks of paid subscribers and get bonus content, access to the discussion threads, ad-free episodes, and the knowledge that you're supporting an indie pod trying to make its way in the world.
• Got a question to submit, a prompt for Ask Anne Anything, or an idea for a future episode? Tell us here.
• Catch up on everything else happening in the Culture Study universe here.
• Transcripts will be available here within 24 hours of publishing.

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