What Being A Guest On Dani Shapiro's Family Secrets Podcast Taught Me -- And Why It Should Matter To You (If You're a Person)

(It’s one thing to flay yourself open to your laptop, but to zillions of listeners? Uhhhhhh...)

Yesterday, Family Secrets listeners (including me) got a gift: Dani Shapiro surprised us with

Gretchen Rubin

and her latest, Secrets of Adulthood — a treasure chest of aphorisms that are now opening doors in my mind.

Like all of Gretchen’s books, this one brims with her very specific and signature wisdom wrapped in warmth. But Secrets of Adulthood carries an extra special high-charged clarity to so many parts of life as an adult. As Dani said, it should live on everyone’s nightstand as a daily offering. Its collection of aphorisms helps you marinate in a big way around short strings of verbal pearls.

This one of Gretchen’s is going to haunt me forever: “Are you painting your own fakes?” (ahhhh!) And here’s one that’s sticking to the back of my eyelids: “The place that hurts isn’t always the place that’s injured.” I could go on…but just buy it and be better for it!

Anyhoo — as I listened to Gretchen and Dani’s rich conversation, I couldn’t help flashing back to when I was in that very seat just a couple of months ago. Different guest, different story — but the same Dani magic pulling words out of me that I’d spent years writing, but never could speak aloud.

A brief backstory — After 25 years out of the working world and as a stay-at-home-mom (was there ever a more fraught and limiting term?), I leaned into the cliche of mid-life, and tried, on the eve of our empty nest, to find my writing voice again.

I never planned to write a book, least of all a memoir. As both a journalist at heart and a middle child (we’re too busy meeting everyone’s needs and mediating to opine on ourselves), I tend to shy away from talking about myself.

And yet, suddenly, and then glacially, in various stages of hell punctuated by fun writing retreats with my writing partners, I slogged through 7 torturous/tortuous years.

It all added up to Stay: A Story of Family, Love, & Other Traumas (Bloomsbury) which tells a story that has never been shared in the light of day, in service of a sacred privacy. A privacy which, for me, proved to exact a psychological toll I never understood until its writing.

On the surface, Stay is a braided story about my brother, my daughter, and me. Told from my eyes both as a young sister and then, 30 years later, as a parent of a (theoretically) adult daughter, it’s about life, death, love, trauma, dogs, mental illness, chronic illness, and pretty much most slices of life on that old pie.

I never imagined it would be enthusiastically lauded by 9 New York Times bestselling authors (Anna Quindlen messaged me personally which almost caused me to die on the spot), named one of PEOPLE’s Best Books (right there between Cher and Bill Clinton’s memoirs), or lead to being invited by Dani to be featured on her award-winning podcast (27+ million downloads).

Dani is the most generous, most skilled interviewer. She opened up corners of my story that led to territory unknown even to me until that day. Then her team’s editing, music, and production turned my very individual story into something bigger — a 50-minute conversation that feels like a masterclass in the universal experience of family.

So let me not bury the lead, such as I promised it, because I hate when people do that.

So what did I learn from being a guest on Dani’s podcast?

So much. So surprisingly much.

Gently, Dani guided me to places I’d only written about. She asked me questions that required answers so specific and raw. And in speaking those answers aloud, puzzle pieces surfaced that I never knew still lived inside me.

It turns out, the more you tell the truth — out loud — the more you understand all that you’ve kept from yourself.

Since our episode dropped in June, a steady stream of new listeners — and now readers — have reached out to me after having read the book, in gratitude for helping them to understand their own stories and the impact of their secrets. In essence, they all say: This book has helped me x, or y, or z. This book gives me permission to stop denying my own feelings as a parent, a sibling, a human being. And the result has been cathartic, both for them and me.

The message to me is loud and clear, only amplified by the impact of my experience with Dani: Telling our own truths, owning and then sharing our deepest stories — is the fastest path to human connection and mutual healing.

Which, come to think of it, is exactly what Gretchen does in Secrets of Adulthood — distilling her own truths into aphorisms that stay with you, work in you. Maybe that’s why her words, like Dani’s questions, have been echoing in my head ever since.

If you’ve ever been in a family who struggles privately, or love someone who struggles mightily, I think you’ll find Dani’s episode about Stay, The Perfect Happy Family, Season 12, Episode 3, personal to you. Just click here:

And if it resonates, I hope you’ll read Stay. If you want to know if it’s for you, read the Amazon reviews. It’s available in hardcover, Kindle, and audiobook (narrated by me).

You can buy Stay here. And if you review it on Amazon (1 sentence, 2 minutes!) to help kick up the algorithm so it has a real chance as a breakout? You get a special place in heaven — and a personal thank you from me if you shoot me a note:

To the literary leaders who gave my book wings:

Brooke Warner

, Anne Lamott,

Gretchen Rubin

,

Zibby Owens

, Kelly Corrigan––thank you for lighting the way for others to share our true selves—for the good of us all.

#Memoir #Storytelling #FamilySecrets #MentalHealthAwareness #WritingCommunity #StayMemoir