Self-Conscious with Chrissy Teigen

Carl Radke—known for years as the “fun one” on Bravo’s Summer House—opens up to Chrissy about what happens when the party persona that kept everything light starts quietly destroying your life. In a raw, funny, and brutally honest conversation, Carl traces the pressure to perform, the role alcohol and cocaine played behind the scenes, and the moment he realized he had to save his own life—even if it meant disappointing everyone. He shares what recovery actually looks like in real life, why it isn’t linear, and how his memoir Cake Eater helped him reclaim “childhood Carl” and build a life that doesn’t require numbing to get through it.

Key Takeaways

1. Why “being the fun one” can become a survival strategy—and how it turns into a trap when your identity depends on keeping the party going.
2. How sobriety forces an identity rebuild: who you are when alcohol, nightlife, and performance are no longer your personality.
3. What rock bottom can look like when you’re high-functioning and hiding it well, including the ways addiction shows up off-camera.
4. Why recovery isn’t a straight line—and what helped Carl find real support (therapy, AA, sponsors, community, and accountability).
5. How grief, family addiction, and trauma shaped his emotional life, including the impact of losing his brother and the “that’ll never be me” illusion.

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Gretchen Rubin shares insights from her new Audible Original, Get It Done: Complete Your Dream Project, reframing procrastination not as laziness but as a mismatch between strategies and personality. She offers listeners a framework for understanding their tendencies and unlocking the right tools to finally move forward on stalled projects.

Key Takeaways

• Procrastination isn’t laziness — often, we’re simply using the wrong approach for our natural tendencies.
• Personality matters — knowing your type helps you choose the strategies that will actually stick and motivate you.
• Small wins build momentum — breaking projects into manageable steps makes daunting tasks feel achievable.
• Self-awareness is a productivity tool — understanding your triggers and habits can help you avoid the guilt cycle of avoidance and self-blame.
• The right system brings relief — when your tools match your personality, stalled projects become energizing rather than overwhelming.

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What if the reason you're always overwhelmed isn’t because you’re doing life wrong—but because you’re following a plan that was never made for you? In this episode of Self-Conscious, Chrissy sits down with Kendra Adachi, bestselling author of THE PLAN: Manage Your Time Like a Lazy Genius, to dismantle the hustle, perfectionism, and guilt so many women carry when it comes to managing time, energy, and expectations.

Chrissy opens up about her own internalized pressure to “do it all,” her fear of being seen as lazy, and how small acts of presence—like saying yes to her kids' invitation to play outside—can feel more meaningful than any perfect plan.

Key Takeaways:

1. Start with what matters to you right now—not a fantasy future—and build small, sustainable actions from that place.
2. Let go of the myth of being behind: your life doesn’t need a “catch-up plan,” it needs compassion.
3. Energy, not time, should guide how you plan your day—honor your body and your bandwidth.
4. The five-step Lazy Genius Method (prioritize, essentialize, organize, personalize, systemize) can help you solve real problems without burning out.
5. Small things aren’t just enough—they are the point.

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In a deeply vulnerable conversation with therapist and KC Davis, author of Who Deserves Your Love, Chrissy opens up about the emotional complexity of her relationship with her mom: the years of silence, the heartbreaking attempts to reconnect, and the weight of carrying unmet needs into adulthood. It's not about blame—it’s about honesty, grief, and the quiet hope that healing might still be possible.

Together, Chrissy and KC explore what it means to love someone who can’t always love you back the way you need—and how to stop losing yourself in the process.

Key Takeaways

• How to tell the difference between a hard relationship and an unsafe one
• What real boundaries look like—and why they’re not about control
• Why “being the good daughter” sometimes means betraying yourself
• How to grieve the parent you wish you had while still showing up for the one you do
• Simple tools to regulate your nervous system in the middle of emotional overwhelm

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What if the biggest barrier between you and the life you want isn’t discipline or willpower, but how well you understand your own feelings? Dr. Marc Brackett, the director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, joins Chrissy to explain why emotions are data—not drama—and how learning to recognize, name, and regulate them can completely change your life. In this conversation, he shares tools like the Mood Meter, the Meta-Moment, and the RULER framework to help you respond as your best self, raise emotionally healthy kids, and build relationships rooted in safety, clarity, and compassion.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• How learning to accurately name your emotions can shift your decisions, relationships, and daily life.

• Why treating emotions as information—not problems—gives you more clarity and control.

• How the Mood Meter and Meta-Moment help you pause, regulate, and respond as your best self.

• Why most adults never learned emotional skills—and how you can build them at any age.

• How offering non-judgment, empathy, and calm to others (and yourself) creates real emotional safety and connection.

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Tik Tok storyteller and bestselling author Elyse Myers joins Chrissy to talk about overthinking, anxiety, neurodivergence, and why sharing the most awkward parts of our lives can actually bring us closer to each other. In this conversation, Elise opens up about doing things scared, rewriting old survival patterns, and learning to stay present in the moments she once ran from. If you’ve ever replayed an embarrassing memory on loop or wondered why your brain works the way it does, this episode offers practical tools, gentle humor, and a reminder that you’re not as alone as you think.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• How embracing your awkward, anxious moments can turn shame into genuine connection.
• Why understanding your neurodivergence helps you design a life that actually works for your brain.
• How doing things scared builds confidence faster than waiting to feel “ready.”
• Why showing your messy, in-progress creative process makes other people feel seen instead of inadequate.
• How simplifying routines—from meals to clothes to work habits—can reduce overwhelm and protect your mental health.

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Bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert joins Chrissy Teigen for a raw, unfiltered conversation about codependency, emotional addiction, and the journey behind her new memoir, All the Way to the River. She opens up about love, loss, boundaries, and the spiritual surrender that helped her rebuild her life from the inside out. If you've ever lost yourself in a relationship or struggled to feel “enough,” this episode offers powerful insight, practical tools, and a path back to yourself.

Key Takeaways

• How to recognize the early signs of codependency before they quietly reshape your life.
• Why surrender—not control—creates deeper emotional stability and real inner peace.
• How to break people-pleasing habits and rebuild a stronger, steadier sense of self.
• Why emotional sobriety matters and how to sit with hard feelings without acting on them.
• How Liz’s “Letters From Love” practice can ground you and transform your daily self-talk.

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On this wildly relatable episode of Self-Conscious, clinical psychologist and Good Inside author Dr. Becky Kennedy sits down with Chrissy to talk about what parenting really demands of us—not just as moms and dads, but as humans still healing ourselves.

Together, they unpack how parenting is less about fixing behavior and more about building connection—especially when it comes to tantrums, lying, shame, and accountability. Whether you’re raising children, raising yourself, or both—this episode will change the way you see discipline, repair, and love.

 KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Good Kids, Bad Behavior: Learn how separating your child’s identity from their actions unlocks healthier discipline, without shame.
• Reparenting 101: Dr. Becky explains why we parent the way we were parented—and how to break intergenerational cycles by building emotional trust with ourselves first.
• Lies Aren’t Moral Failures: Reframe lying not as a sign of bad character, but as a protection strategy born of fear or guilt.
• How to Start the Sex Talk: Chrissy shares how she’s preparing for “the talk,” and Dr. Becky offers a foolproof opener: “If I sound awkward, it’s because I’m the first person in my family to ever talk about this.”
• The Tool You’ll Use Every Day—A.V.P.: Acknowledge, Validate, Permit. This three-step process helps both adults and kids regulate big feelings, build self-trust, and recover from emotional overload.

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Chrissy sits down with Jonathan Haidt to unpack The Anxious Generation—how the mid-aughts, smartphone/social-media surge “rewired” childhood, replacing play, sleep, and face-to-face friendship with dopamine-driven scrolling and an epidemic of anxiety. He lays out exactly what parents, schools, and communities can do right now to restore a healthy, play-based childhood.

Five Key Takeaways:

1. The Great Rewiring — How smartphones, cameras, and infinite feeds rewired childhood and attention.
2. Girls vs. Boys — How social media drives anxiety and self-harm in girls and boys differently
3. Four Rules — No smartphones before high school, no social media before 16, phone-free schools, and more free play.
4. Home Habits — Ban phones from the table and bedrooms; swap TikTok scrolling for shared long-form stories.
5. The Parent Playbook — Band with other parents, try summer camp resets, and reclaim evenings/mornings from screens.

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Chrissy sits down with Dr. Gabor Maté to discuss his groundbreaking work, The Myth of Normal, exploring how our culture of hustle, disconnection, and suppressed emotions creates trauma and illness. Together, they discuss why addiction, shame, and mental health struggles are not personal failings but natural responses to abnormal circumstances—and how healing begins with authenticity, compassion, and awareness.

Five Key Takeaways:

• The “Myth of Normal”: Many things we consider normal in society—like emotional suppression or constant productivity—are actually unhealthy, while behaviors we label “abnormal” (like addiction) are often natural responses to pain.
• Trauma Defined: Trauma isn’t just the event itself but the unhealed wound and the inner changes it causes, shaping how we see ourselves and the world.
• Addiction as Coping: Addiction should be understood not as an identity but as a coping strategy—a way to soothe or escape unbearable emotional pain.
• The Five A’s of Healing: Authenticity, Agency, Anger (healthy boundaries), Acceptance, and Awareness are essential pillars of recovery and self-healing.
• Compassion Over Shame: Healing requires learning to extend the compassion we freely offer others to ourselves, breaking cycles of self-judgment rooted in childhood wounds.

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