Stop the Toxic Positivity with Nora McInerny
#003 Meet Nora McInerny
I’ve followed Nora McInerny on social media for quite a while. I found her books helpful when I went through losses in my own life. So I was thrilled to be able to interview her for my show.
Nora got engaged to her first husband, Aaron, the same night he was diagnosed with a terminal illness. After they got married, she began a blog about his brain tumor. When his illness progressed, she helped him write his own obituary. After his death, it went viral because it painted the story of a superhero fighting against cancer.
Nora shared her experiences and became a bestselling author. Her books include It’s Okay to Laugh (Crying Is Cool Too), No Happy Endings, and Hot Young Widows Club. She also got remarried and launched a popular podcast called Terrible, Thanks for Asking.
She talks openly about her conflicted feelings. Although experiencing a great life now, she has a great life now but she had to go through a lot of hardship to get here.
And she doesn’t sugarcoat things. She is open about the ongoing pain she experiences. Her podcast explores people’s stories—which are often quite raw and painful (without a happy ending).
But Nora’s strength is obvious through her writing and her wisdom. In this episode, she’s sharing some of the strategies that help her stay strong through both the good times and the not-so-good times.
Nora and I discuss:
- The messiness of grief
- How you can experience conflicting emotions at the same time
- How trauma can show up in your life in surprising ways
- The dangers of toxic positivity
- Digital self-harm
- How to change your negative self-talk
- How to honor a loved one’s life
- How to have hope while accepting that life doesn’t always have a happy ending
Quotes
“Some things are going to happen to you – beauty and terror. And it is all a part of your story. You are not the one bad thing that you did or that happened to you.”
“Right now we live in a culture that wants us to perform every aspect of our lives in a way that is really unnatural. And we are very adept at performing happiness.”
“Grief comes with so much anger. And you need a place to put it. And there is no place to put it.”
“Get your hopes as high as they can that day because you won’t feel like this forever. And also feel as sad as you need to on your down days because this is also not forever.”
“What suffering are you willing to witness and not try to fix but let exist.”
Links and Resources
Book: It’s Okay to Laugh (Crying Is Cool Too)
Book: No Happy Endings: A Memoir
Book: The Hot Young Widows Club: Lessons on Survival From the Front Lines of Grief
Podcast: Terrible, Thanks for Asking
Instagram: instagram.com/noraborealis/
Facebook: facebook.com/hellonoramcinerny
Twitter: twitter.com/noraborealis
Nora’s TED talk: We Don’t “Move On” From Grief, We Move Forward With It
Sponsor
If you’d like to speak to a mental health professional about grief, stress, trauma, emotions, or anything else going on in your life, talk to an online therapist at BetterHelp.
