Friday Round Up: My Sanity Boosting Podcasts!

These three podcasts are keeping me from losing my gotdamned mind. Mostly. ;)

These three podcasts are totally keeping me sane. I’ve talked about some of them before, probably, but I will continue to trumpet their names to the skies because EVERYONE should be listening!

1) The Happiness Lab by Dr. Laurie Santos. PLEASE listen to this! It will make you feel better! The whole thing is great, but the most recent, bonus episodes she’s done in response to the pandemic have literally kept me going.

2) Unlocking Us by Brené Brown. If you haven’t listened to her TED Talk or listened to her books, also do that. And she has a LOVELY interview on Marc Maron’s podcast that is also GREAT. But if you have no idea who I’m talking about, it doesn’t matter, listen to these. She apparently had this podcast in the works but rushed it to get it out during the pandemic CUZ WE NEED TO HEAR THIS SHIT. I wrote a piece on the first episode, and have loved every episode since.

3) In case you weren’t sure, I am a liberal snowflake democrat, and I’m getting SO MUCH RELIEF from one of my favorite podcasts, Pod Save America. I have long enjoyed this podcast, hosted by former Obama aides Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Dan Pfeiffer and Tommy Vietor. But now it’s actually keeping me sane. As a writer, there’s a fucked up piece of my mind that, when otherwise bad things happen to me, thinks “welp, at least this will make a good story.” And don’t get me wrong, I know that the PSA guys are horrified by what’s happening in our country, but there’s always a note of glee with which they dig into the issues that reminds me of that fucked up part of my writer brain. For some weird reason I find this comforting. I think it’s because it reminds me that our world has always been mostly fucking crazy, that we’ve survived far worse, and that there are smart people thinking through how to fix things even as there those determined to throw gas on the fire.

If you need some relief/sanity/help/hilarity please try these podcasts! And do let me know if you have something you’re finding especially helpful OR distracting!

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