HerMoney Podcast Episode 209: Daily Rituals, Self Care And Healing: A How-To

Saving money on hermoney podcast episode 209 does not have to be complicated. We rounded up the essentials so you can spend less and skip the guesswork.

Key Takeaways

• Author, playwright, and entertainment executive Tara Schuster on her new book: “Buy Yourself The F*cking Lilies And Other Rituals To Fix You...
• This week, we were so happy to have the lovely and talented Tara Schuster on the HerMoney Podcast.
• Tara is an author, playwright, and accomplished entertainment executive who is the Vice President of Talent and Development at Comedy Centra...

Author, playwright, and entertainment executive Tara Schuster on her new book: “Purchase Yourself The F*cking Lilies And Other Rituals To Fix Your Life From Someone Who Has Been There.” 

We’re living through trying times, and as we all learn to navigate a “new normal” of a world during coronavirus, it’s key to look for life’s silver linings and prioritize self care whenever we can. This week, we were so happy to have the lovely and talented Tara Schuster on the HerMoney Podcast. Tara is an author, playwright, and accomplished entertainment executive who is the Vice President of Talent and Development at Comedy Central. Her impressive career includes roles on “Lights Out With David Spade,” “Key & Peele,” and “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.” Earlier this year she also released her first book, “Purchase Yourself the F*cking Lilies And Other Rituals to Fix Your Life from Someone Who Has Been There.” 

Tara and Jean talk about what it means to actually purchase yourself those lilies and why small indulgences are such an key part of a self care routine. Tara says that when she finally decided she was worth those $7 lilies she would frequently covet at Trader Joe’s, it was an epiphany for her , small luxuries could actually make her life better. “We don’t grow stronger by denying ourselves and saying ‘I’m not worth it,’” Tara says. ‘We grow stronger when we treat ourselves well, and give ourselves the nurturing we need.” 

Tara also breaks down how she learned to “re-parent” herself, and how she taught herself new values, new principles, and even a new (and healthier!) diet. She says that there’s an key distinction to be made between real self care versus a fancy vacation, or a day at the spa. “Self care is about an honest accounting of the emotional wounds you have that need healing, and then healing yourself through small practical daily rituals,” she says. Yes, one of those rituals could be something like buying fresh flowers, but it’s more about how you treat yourself daily, and that you take care of yourself fully. 

The pair also discuss gratitude, specifically Tara’s philosophy to “fake gratitude until you feel gratitude,”  , which manifested in her life initially as making a gratitude list of small things, even on days when she didn’t feel particularly thankful for anything. “My list would say things like, ‘I’m grateful for water, I’m grateful for clean sheets,’ but as soon as I started faking it, I realized that I am actually grateful for these things, and now I have a complete inventory of things I’m thankful for,” Tara says. 

If you’re interested in starting a gratitude list but nothing is immediately coming to mind for you, Tara suggests making a list of things you’d like to be grateful for one day, and then slowly starting to make your list a daily ritual. Even small things can be included , something as simple as a walk outside. “I thought gratitude was ‘woo-woo’ and for the wildly privileged. I didn’t realize that gratitude was a lifeline for people to be able to reframe their internal dialogue,” she says. 

Tara also discusses how to elevate others during this time, and be the kind of supportive, loving friend that we all wish we had. She walks us through how we can all reach out to our community so the people we love feel less alone (and we also feel less alone in turn!) 

Tara walks us back through some of the financial shame and stress she endured when she was growing up, and how it shaped her. She says that in her household, if her parents had money, then things were “good,” and if they didn’t, then things were “bad.” She talks about the importance of acknowledging our past financial shame, and learning how to move past it and overcome it, rather than throwing additional shame and blame on top of it. 

Lastly, Tara shares how we can find levity and humor in our lives, even times like these. It’s okay to find ways to enjoy each day, even during bad times. Something as simple as taking a bath, watching a movie, or a spritz of our favorite perfume can offer us moments of zen when we need them most. 

In Mailbag, Jean and Kathryn tackle questions on home buying during the time of Coronavirus, funding a child’s college education with money from an IRA, and how the IRS will determine how much money everyone will receive as part of the stimulus check initiative. In Thrive, Jean dishes on all the specifics for a provision in the CARES Act that allows you to use the funds in your Health Savings Account (HSA) and Flexible Savings Account (FSA) to pay for period products. The specific products that are now considered medical expenses include tampons, pads, liners, cups, and sponges.

Transcript

Tara Schuster: (00:00) When we’re feeling depressed or sad or just stressed out, we feel alone in that stress. It’s a very me sort of activity, but when we reach out and remember, oh, there are other people all around me. I belong to the community. This burden is not just mine. Everybody can carry a little bit of the water. That’s when we remember we’re not alone.

Jean Chatzky: (00:25) HerMoney is brought to you by Fidelity Investments. Fidelity is committed to helping clients through any market conditions with financial planning and advice when you need it most. Learn more at Fidelity.com. HerMoney comes to you through PRX.

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Jean Chatzky: (00:47) Hi everybody, it’s Jean Chatzky. Thank you so much for being here with us today and I just want to take a minute at the top of this show and just say that I and my entire team, all of us here at HerMoney, we are thinking about you right now. We know that it is tough out there. Some of you are hunkered down at home. Most of you are hunkered down at home and some of you may have had your lives altered in bigger ways, perhaps forever due to the coronavirus that is sweeping the country. We are here for you. We hope that our show can be a bright spot in your day and because we were looking for a bright spot, we are so thankful to have the lovely and talented Tara Schuster with us on the show today. Tara is an author, a playwright, and accomplished entertainment executive. She’s actually Vice President of Talent and Development at Comedy Central and her impressive career includes roles on Lights Out with David Spade, Key and Peele, The Daily Show. Earlier this year, she released her first book, which is called Purchase Yourself the F*cking Lilies: And Other Rituals to Fix Your Life, from Someone Who’s Been There. It sounds like what we all need right about now. Tara, thanks so much for being here. We are thrilled to have you.

Tara Schuster: (02:16) Oh, thank you for having me. I’m thrilled to be here.

Jean Chatzky: (02:20) I wanna start by just talking about you. How did this career come about? As I was reading about you and learning a little bit more about you, I’m thinking this woman is Andy Cohen, just on a different network.

Tara Schuster: (02:37) That’s the nicest thing you could ever say to me. I love Andy Cohen. I’m a huge Bravo fan. I didn’t set out to be a development executive at all. I just knew I wanted to do something in the entertainment world. That was always what I was drawn to. And Comedy Central was where I got my kick in the door. Where I got my first little break after an internship on The Daily Show with John Stewart. I always knew I wanted to be a part of telling stories and so everything in my career has sort of had that as a common theme. Even writing the book is all about sharing stories and bringing entertainment and hopefully making people feel a little less alone. That’s sort of, if I had to boil it down, it’s storytelling and making people feel less alone is what I’m after.

Jean Chatzky: (03:29) I love that and I think that is exactly what the book does. Start with that title though. What does it mean to purchase yourself the f-ing lilies and why should we all be doing it?

Tara Schuster: (03:40) Yeah. Well I’m so glad you asked cause it was a huge moment in my life. So basically I grew up in a house where things came to die. The pets. The plants. Coco, the Himalayan cat was taken by coyotes under cover of night. It was chaos. And I came out of that house not really knowing how to be a person and I kind of was spiraling out of control emotionally even as I was able to hold it together on the outside. So I went to Brown. I had scholarships and loans and going to this fancy college, but a complete mess inside. Or I got this job at Comedy Central, but I was uncontrollably weeping on the subway on the way home. I didn’t know how to deal with all of my anxiety and depression until I hit rock bottom. When I drunk dialed my therapist on my 25th birthday asking for help and that next morning listening to her voicemails and how worried she was about me, I got really worried. I for the first time took it seriously that this is not a life I’m going to be able to lead. I’ve really got to change things. But I don’t even know how to change a vacuum cleaner filter. Like, I don’t know how to do any of the basic things much less change my life. And so I decided, you know, I’d always been a good student, always been good at work. What if I attack this like a school project? So I opened up my trusty Google document and I said this is going to be a Google document of re-parenting myself. What are values?

Jean Chatzky: (05:26) Re-parent? That is a term that I don’t think I’ve ever heard before.

Tara Schuster: (05:31) Yeah. So for me what it means and what it meant at the time, about 10 years ago, was I didn’t have parents. If I really want to nurture myself. And what I mean by I didn’t have parents is I didn’t have what you would traditionally call parents. You know, there was nobody assuring me that I’d be safe or giving me structure or unconditional love. So I decided it’s time I give those things to myself, because if I don’t, no one will, and I’m tired of being neglected. Like I’m not going to neglect myself. So the reason I said at the time re-parent, was because I also understood that I’d have to go back and look at some of my traumas - that I couldn’t just move past it because moving past it was reducing me to tears in the subway. Like that strategy just didn’t work of repressing, suppressing, that didn’t work for me. So it was going to be a re-parenting where I’d go back to those wounds and heal them with gentleness and kindness. But I didn’t know how, you know, I didn’t have some game plan and I didn’t have in mind that I would one day write a book about it. I just wanted to save my life. And so this is a very long way of getting to your question about the lilies, because in this Google doc, I was asking questions like, what are values? What are principles? What are vegetables? Genuinely, what are they, and which ones should I eat? What would be good? Still searching for some of those answers. But one of the main questions I had was, am I worth $7 lilies? Because I would go to Trader Joe’s to purchase my budget microwaveable Indian dinners and I would see the lilies in their weird bucket of water. I would fantasize about how elegant they are and how when they bloom, they just let out this burst of perfume and they make any room more calming. And wouldn’t they make my studio apartment just sing like, wouldn’t they make my life better? But no, I’m not worth $7. I can’t spend that. They’re just going to die. I’m not worth it. That’s not worthwhile. I’m being ridiculous. And I would do this to myself weekly, you know? Meanwhile, I’m really working as hard as I can at my job. I’m working as hard as I can at my emotional health and yet I’m neglecting myself and not giving myself this small indulgence. And after a couple of years of being in this process, one day at Trader Joe’s, I just said, F this. I am worth $7 lilies.

Final Thoughts

Before you check out, double-check hermoney podcast episode 209 against current offers and any coupons you can stack. Small habits like this add up to real savings over a year.

Originally published at savingswitch.com.