The Pressures of Privilege

In this episode of The Pressures of Privilege, host Diana Oehrli sits down with Matt Grace, founder of the family recovery practice, Saving Grace, who has spent more than twenty years sober and over ten thousand hours walking wealthy families through a child's, a spouse's, or a sibling's addiction. His memoir, God Doesn't Relapse, released on August 11 and traces his own years of active addiction, an overdose in his boss's office, and a father who paid his bills until he turned twenty-nine. 

Matt has sat across from families spending twenty and thirty thousand dollars a month on an Amex Black Card that funds nothing but the addiction. Wealth, in his experience, usually works by removing the consequences that would otherwise force a family to face what's happening. The fear he hears most from parents is that saying no will get their child killed, and how quickly that fear can become something an addict learns to use.

Diana, who has spent her career studying the specific loneliness that comes with inherited wealth, walks with Matt through what a family actually has to do once it stops paying for the addiction and starts doing its own work instead.

By the end of this episode, you will know...

→ Why paying a child's bills into adulthood can quietly keep them sick, and what Matt's own father missed for twenty-nine years while footing every bill.

→ Why the fear that a child will die if a parent sets a boundary can become the exact thing an addiction uses to keep a family stuck in the same pattern for years.

→ Why Matt believes the whole family, not just the addict, has to do its own work before real recovery is possible.

→ Why Matt walked away from private practice when parents kept caving on the boundaries he helped them set, and what he tells families who call him for advice they have no intention of following.

→ Why service, not willpower, carried Matt through the spiritual experience that got him sober on October 3, 2004, and later through a chronic illness that nearly put him in a wheelchair.

→ How Matt sat with his mother as she died last month and administered her pain medication by syringe, sober, and why he calls that the best gift twenty-one years of recovery ever gave him.

→ What Matt tells parents who are afraid to drug test their own kids, take away the car, or pull them out of school, and why he says most families already know the answer and are just afraid to use it.

This episode is for anyone who has ever loved someone so much they made every excuse, paid every bill, and smoothed over every consequence, and quietly wondered if that love was the very thing keeping the people they love the most from getting better.

In this episode of Pressures of Privilege, host Diana Oehrli sits down with Anna Holtzman, a psychotherapist in private practice in New York City who spent 15 years in publishing and television, including years as a reality TV editor at MTV, before debilitating migraines pushed her toward mind-body healing and an entirely new career in her 40s. Anna is trained in somatic experiencing, internal family systems, and pain reprocessing therapy, and she hosts the podcast How to Trust Yourself.

Anna wrote an essay that stopped Diana in her tracks: an unflinching look at what it's like to keep your family's wealth private, even from your own therapist, out of fear of being labeled a "poor little rich girl." In this conversation, she and Diana get into the unconscious code-switching inheritors perform to avoid being othered, and why admitting the fear of judgment can feel even more embarrassing than the privilege itself.

They also trace the surprising thread connecting Anna's decade of chronic migraines to what pain researcher Dr. John Sarno called "goodism," a compulsive need to be seen as good that erases your own needs until your nervous system starts sounding the alarm. Anna shares the self-compassion practice that finally broke the cycle and how the aftermath of October 7 became the unexpected moment that revealed her own blind spot around wealth and belonging.

By the end of this episode, you will know...

→ Why Anna kept her family's wealth private for most of her life, even as a client in her own therapy, and what "unconscious code-switching" looks like for inheritors trying not to be othered.

→ How Dr. John Sarno's concept of "goodism," the compulsive need to be seen as good, explains the link between people-pleasing, perfectionism, and the decade of migraines that finally forced Anna to change careers in her 40s.

→ The self-compassion practice Anna built by studying how she looks at her cats, and how turning that same unconditional gaze on herself in the mirror helped soften years of chronic head tension.

→ Why the aftermath of October 7 became the moment that revealed Anna's own blind spot around wealth, when a former client's accusatory email showed her she'd been asking herself to "prove she's one of the good ones" in more ways than one.

→ The real difference between validating someone's emotion and validating their story, and why conflating the two keeps people from ever fully feeling what they feel.

→ Why grief that's medicated away or never fully expressed in childhood can resurface decades later as chronic dysregulation, and what it actually takes to finally release it.

→ Why belonging was never supposed to be something you earn, and how to start practicing unconditional self-acceptance today, whether or not you inherited a dime.

This episode is for anyone who has ever quietly wondered whether their wins even count, whether their privilege disqualifies them from struggling out loud, or why loving yourself first still feels like the hardest assignment on the list.

In this episode of Pressures of Privilege, host Diana Oehrli sits down with Jolanthe de Koning, PhD researcher, yoga teacher, and founder of Amid the Mess, for a conversation that cuts well beneath the surface of wellness culture and gets honest about what it actually takes to feel well when real life keeps getting in the way.

Jolanthe spent nearly nine years inside academia studying how physical activity and loneliness intersect in older adults. What she found surprised even her. The wealthiest people in her research, the ones with the beautiful homes and the impressive children scattered across continents, were often the loneliest. The ones with less, whose families never traveled far, were quietly thriving. She calls it the curse of the privileged, and it has everything to do with why achieving more doesn't always translate to living better.

Diana, drawing on her background as a Mayo Clinic-trained coach and her own lived experience navigating the hidden costs of a privileged life, walks with Jolanthe through the research, the personal burnout, and the unexpected practice that brought her back to herself.

By the end of this episode, you will know...

→ How to spot the early warning signs of burnout before your body forces the issue, and what Jolanthe actually did when sitting injuries and sleepless nights became her daily reality during her PhD.

→ How to build a consistent yoga or movement practice even when your home is in chaos, your schedule has collapsed, and the perfect conditions are never, ever coming.

→ Why the wealthiest older adults in Jolanthe's research were the most isolated, and what that reveals about the real cost of building a life everyone else admires.

→ How identity shapes physical activity far more than motivation does, and why the older adults who stayed most active all said the same thing about who they were, not just what they did.

→ Why perfectionism is academically linked to depression and poor psychological outcomes, and how to stop treating it like a personality trait to be proud of.

→ How to prune your commitments with intention rather than guilt, especially when you are a yes-person stretched across too many plates that all feel equally important.

→ What the eight limbs of Ashtanga yoga actually are, why the physical poses are only one step in a much larger journey, and how this ancient framework maps surprisingly well onto modern mental health.

This episode is for anyone who has quietly wondered why having more... more credentials, more resources, more by every measurable standard... still somehow feels like not quite enough.

Why do children who have every advantage in the world still struggle to handle a simple no?

In this episode of Pressures of Privilege, host Diana Oehrli sits down with Todd Sarner, a licensed therapist who trained under attachment expert Dr. Gordon Newfeld and has spent 22 years working with more than 2,000 families, many of them among the most resourced in the country. Todd is the author of The Calm and Connected Parent, which hit number one in new parenting releases on Amazon, and he built his entire practice around one idea: behavior is the branches, and connection is the root.

Together, they get into why kids raised with every material advantage often struggle the most with resilience, what happens in a child's brain the moment they resist a parent's request, and why a firm, loving no is one of the most protective things a parent can offer. Todd walks through the difference between punishment and consequence, why two parents with different instincts are usually both right, and how repair, not perfection, builds a secure, resilient child.

If you've ever wondered why doing everything for your kids still doesn't seem to be enough, this episode was made for you.

What happens when everything you've worked to acquire starts working you instead?

In this episode of The Pressures of Privilege, host Diana Oehrli sits down with Jeanne Omlor, a business coach who has been an actress, a fashion designer, and a Wall Street recruiter before building a coaching practice that has served seven hundred clients in seven years without spending a dollar on ads. Jeanne also quietly advises CEOs, global icons, and celebrities on crisis management and what she calls private legacy work, sitting close enough to real wealth to see exactly what it costs.

Together, they show you why the friend who talked Jeanne out of buying a big house with a pool was doing her the biggest favor of her life, why buying things eventually hits a point psychologists call the hedonic set point where nothing feels like enough anymore, and why so many founders who sell their companies for millions wake up the next morning asking the same question: what now? They get into the guilt that convinces high achievers to undercharge for their own worth, the difference between service and self-neglect, and the instant shift technique Jeanne uses every morning before her feet hit the floor.

If you've ever bought something you thought would finally feel like enough, only to find yourself managing it instead of enjoying it... this episode was made for you.

What if the exhaustion, the cravings, and the diagnoses you've been told are just "getting older" are actually working exactly as designed?

In this episode of The Pressures of Privilege, host Diana Oehrli sits down with Graham Hawley, a certified health and wellness coach and founder of Simply Health Conscious, who has spent the last six years helping Americans get back something he never had to think twice about growing up in England: real food, real movement, and a body that isn't fighting itself. Graham left Britain 40 years ago for love and found himself in a country where breakfast, lunch, and dinner had quietly become an all-day grazing habit engineered by the same food companies now profiting from the diseases it causes.

Together, they show you how to read an ingredients label like it matters, why the fasting insulin test your doctor never orders might be the most important number you don't have, and how one couple cut their blood pressure and diabetes medication in eight weeks without Graham ever meeting them in person. Diana and Graham also get into the five pillars behind his coaching practice, the morning routine that has nothing to do with coffee, and why advocating for yourself in a doctor's office might be the healthiest habit nobody teaches you.

If you've ever looked at a fat-free label and wondered what you're actually being sold, or watched someone you love decline year after year and felt powerless to stop it, this episode was made for you.

What if the wider emotional range boys are born with is trained out of them before they can talk?

In this episode of The Pressures of Privilege, host Diana Oehrli sits down with Dr. Gloria Vanderhorst, a psychologist who has spent over 30 years working with kids, parents, and couples and is currently finishing a book for fathers on raising sons who are both strong and whole. Dr. Vanderhorst has spent her career studying what she calls the emotional desert: the process by which boys, who research shows are born with a broader emotional range than girls, learn within their first years of life to shrink that range down in order to survive.

Together, they show you how a mother's flinch at an infant's cry, a father's hand on a toddler's chest, and a culture that hands out words like "sissy" combine to teach boys that half their emotional range is shameful. They talk about where the jails full of angry men come from, why men die ten years earlier than women on average, and what happens in the body when a feeling has nowhere left to go. Dr. Vanderhorst walks through what an emotionally shut-down son looks like at eight, at fifteen, and at thirty, and what it actually takes for a grown man to go back and reclaim the range he was born with.

If you've ever wondered why the men in your life seem to feel everything through their bodies instead of their words, or if you're raising a son and don't want to pass down what was done to you... this episode was made for you.

What if the biggest gift you could give your child is the chance to fail safely, in public, and get back up?

In this episode of Pressures of Privilege, host Diana Oehrli sits down with Todd Ormiston, executive director of North Country School and Camp Tree Tops in Lake Placid, New York, a place Diana attended as a child, alongside three generations of her family before her. Todd grew up on a farm in the Catskills, spent nearly three decades running elite ski academies that produced Olympians, and then chose something different: a school built on ruggedness, resourcefulness, and resilience instead of rankings and transcripts.

Together, they show you how to raise children who find meaning in process instead of chasing outcomes, why autonomy and consequence teach more than advice ever could, and what happens when kids are handed real responsibility instead of protection from failure. They get into barn chores before breakfast, letters home instead of screens, and why a nine-year-old feeding a pig learns something no classroom can teach.

If you've ever wondered whether giving your child everything is quietly taking something away, this episode was made for you.

What if taking something away could be the most generous thing you do?

In this episode of The Pressures of Privilege, host Diana Oehrli sits down with Lynne Harlow, a reductive artist with work in the Met, MoMA, and the RISD Museum, who has also spent twenty-six years inside the philanthropy world managing grants for the Lily Auchincloss Foundation in New York and now runs her own advising firm, Tangerine Advisors.

Lynne's whole art practice rests on one belief from her own artist statement: that taking things away from a piece is an act of generosity, and that the right amount of limitation makes everything sharper. She and Diana talk about why a little pressure creates clarity, why general operating support beats restricting a grant to a single program, and how she knows when a sculpture or a foundation's mission has finally said enough.

Together, they show you how trusting the people closest to a problem, and stripping away what isn't essential, can make whatever you're building stronger.

If you've ever held onto something past the point it was helping you, just because letting go felt like losing, this episode was made for you.

What if hitting the target was never the point?

In this solo episode of The Pressures of Privilege, host Diana Oehrli revisits a discipline she has kept since childhood: an art practiced every single day, the way her sensei once told her to brush her teeth. Drawing on Eugen Herrigel's 1948 classic Zen in the Art of Archery, the karate teachers who shaped her, and the piano instructors who caught her holding her breath through difficult passages, Diana shows you what daily practice is actually for.

She traces Herrigel's six years studying Japanese archery just to grasp Zen Buddhism, the moment his master warned him that aiming at the target guarantees he'll miss it, and the ki-ai, the single breath karate releases through a punch or a kick. Each thread leads to the same lesson: breath comes before precision. Together, they show you how to turn whatever art you keep returning to into daily proof that showing up matters more than getting it right.

If you've ever pushed so hard for a result that you forgot to breathe through getting there, this episode was made for you.