Ep. 182 | Why Being Good is Quietly Costing You Your Health, with Elise Loehnen

Written By Avanti Kumar-Singh

You've spent your whole life being good. The good daughter. The good partner. The good mother. The friend who always shows up. The one who holds it all together. You put everyone else first, over and over, until one day someone asks what you actually want, and you go completely blank.

All of that goodness comes at a price, and so often your body is the one paying it. The rest you skip. The hunger you override. The anger you swallow. The wanting you talk yourself out of.

In this episode, Dr. Kumar-Singh sits down with Elise Loehnen, the New York Times bestselling author of On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good. Her central argument will stop you in your tracks: women are conditioned for goodness the way men are conditioned for power. And once you see it, you can't unsee how much of your life has been organized around being good enough.

Together, they explore what it actually means to be whole instead of good, why so many women have no idea what they even want anymore, and the myth of balance that gets sold to women and sets them up to fail. Elise and Avanti have each faced breast cancer this past year, and they talk about the quiet story so many women carry, that if you just optimize everything and do it all perfectly, nothing bad will happen to you. And they get into the reframe on envy that turns a feeling you were taught to be ashamed of into the clearest signal you have about what you actually want.

This is a conversation about coming home to your whole self, and it will change how you view the wanting you may have been quieting your whole life.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

  • (07:40) The difference between being a good woman and a whole one

  • (09:28) Why so many women have no idea what they actually want

  • (16:01) Being nice versus being kind, and why it matters

  • (22:38) The myth of balance that sets women up to fail

  • (24:26) What breast cancer taught Elise and Avanti about being cared for

  • (62:45) The reframe on envy that points you to what you want


About Elise Loehnen:

Elise Loehnen is the New York Times bestselling author of On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good and the host of the podcast Pulling the Thread, where she interviews cultural luminaries about the big questions of today, including Joy Harjo, John and Julie Gottman, Dr. Gabor Maté, and Esther Perel. She is also the author of the companion workbook Choosing Wholeness Over Goodness, written with coach Courtney Smith. She has co-written fourteen books, including five New York Times bestsellers. Elise lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Rob, and their sons, Max and Sam.

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Avanti Kumar-Singh, MD, is the co-founder of Arvasi and co-host of the Weekly Health Rx, a Substack subscription delivering personalized, evidence-backed modern Ayurvedic prescriptions for perimenopausal women, every Sunday.

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The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

Avanti Kumar-Singh
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Ep. 181 | Summer Reset [replay]: The Gut-Brain Link: Unlock the Hidden Cause of Your Child’s Anxiety with Dr. Elisa Song