EP 120: Designing Self-Care | Pooja Lakshmin
This week we talk about designing real self-care versus faux self care.
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin, MD is a psychiatrist and author, the founder of Gemma, the digital community focused on women’s mental health and equity; and a contributor to The New York Times. Her new book, REAL SELF-CARE: Crystals, Cleanses, and Bubble-Baths Not Included, has been featured on Good Morning America, NPR’s Code Switch and 1A, Talks @ Google, The New York Times, Vox, and The Guardian. Pooja has spent thousands of hours taking care of women struggling with burnout, despair, depression, and anxiety in her clinical practice. Her work focuses on the intersection of mental health and gender. She frequently delivers keynotes and consults with organizations and Fortune 500 hundred companies to help women and marginalized groups feel empowered and to connect with their agency in the workplace.
Episode mentions and links:
https://www.poojalakshmin.com/
https://beacons.ai/poojalakshmin
Hope Is Not a Thing to Have—It’s a Skill to Practice via Oprah Daily
How to Escape ‘Faux Self-Care’ via NYT
How Society Has Turned Its Back on Mothers via NYT
Pooja’s restaurant rec(s):
Follow Pooja: Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn | TikTok
Episode Reflection
The Principles of Real Self-Care by Pooja Lakshmin
Boundaries
Compassion
Values
Power
I don’t know about you, but after listening to Dr. Lakshmin on this week’s episode, I’m convinced I NEED to read her book. It's fascinating how she has reached a broad audience beyond her intended target, reflecting our collective desire to understand and navigate the world we find ourselves in. Pooja's message uncovers a crucial concept. That we all navigate multiple systems, many of which perpetuate oppression, particularly for women and people of color. Sometimes, these systems are difficult to recognize because they have become our reality. However, by acknowledging their impact on us, we can free ourselves from the guilt and pain of not conforming to them.
The four principles that Pooja mentioned, starting with boundaries are important to explore. Maintaining boundaries is a struggle faced by nearly everyone today. Our always-connected systems have come about far quicker than we as humans could develop healthy relationships with them, and now we find ourselves wondering why we struggle so much to maintain a healthy balance. In the not-too-distant future, we won’t remember a time when we weren’t constantly connected, and hopefully, conversations like the one we had this week will help us get to a future where the systems we create and exist within are less oppressive and more human-centered.
Written by Rob Pugliese
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Bon Ku: Hi, I'm Bon Ku the host of Design Lab. It's a podcast that explores the intersection of design and health. You can't find me on Twitter at B O N K U and on Instagram at D R B O N K U. Our guest today is Dr. Pooja Lakshmin. She is a psychiatrist and author, and she's the founder of Gemma, the digital community focused on women's mental health and equity. She is a contributor to the New York times and her new book is called Real Self-care: Crystals, Cleanses, and Bubble-Baths Not Included. It has been featured widely from good morning America to NPRs Code Switch. Talks at Google, the New York times Vox and The Guardian. Pooja has spent thousands of hours taking care of women, struggling with burnout, despair, depression, and anxiety. Her work focuses on the intersection of mental health and gender. She frequently delivers keynotes. And consults with organizations and fortune 500 companies to help women and marginalized groups feel empowered. And to connect with their agency in the workplace.
Visit our website at designlabpod.com. There you can learn more about the guests. Get the show notes and subscribe to our newsletter. Our producer, Rob Pugliese will send you show notes and his reflections directly into your email inbox. Whenever a new episode drops.
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Now here's my conversation with Dr. Pooja Lakshmin. Dr. Pooja Lakshmin Welcome to Design Lab.
Pooja Lakshmin: It's so great to be here. Thanks for having me, bon.
Bon Ku: You and I have so much in common. We both went to Penn undergrad. You went to Jefferson for med school. I am on faculty and I still teach there. And we both have hardcore immigrant parents and we're also both disillusioned by the healthcare system. there's a lot to talk about. Let's talk about your book first.
It's called Real Self-Care. Crystals, cleanses and bubble baths. So for those of us who, like
Pooja Lakshmin: crystals, CRSs and blah. Blahbas not included.
Bon Ku: Oh, not included, I'm sorry. Yes.
Pooja Lakshmin: Important caveat.
Bon Ku: that, that would be a bad title. I would just, I was just testing you, you know, just see if you
Pooja Lakshmin: Right, right.
Bon Ku: those of us, like me, who identify as a dude and who have been harmed by toxic masculinity, Does this book apply to us?
Pooja Lakshmin: That's funny. I'm getting this question quite a bit as I've been on the book tour, and so in my practice I'm a psychiatrist and I specialize in women's mental health. So all my patients are people who identify as women. So the book has, you know, case studies and it's the stories of women but men are reading it. Cis hetero men are reading it and I'm getting emails and messages and dms from men who were like, yeah, like, I really like this. This makes sense.
Bon Ku: that surprise you?
Pooja Lakshmin: It's surprised me in the beginning, you know, because I think interestingly, I have curated my entire career to, basically not have to work with men.
I am married to a
Bon Ku: for you.
Pooja Lakshmin: Well, we're domestic partners actually, but I have a life partner who is a guy. But, all of my work really is with people that have uteruses and so it's funny to see the other side coming to the book and, kind of really resonating with. So I think it's the thought exercises, the metaphors, all of, kind of the stuff that's in the book really is about how to be a human in the world. In particular, how to be a human, who is somebody who comes from a marginalized group.
Bon Ku: Yeah.
Pooja Lakshmin: So yeah, so it's been cool to see that like, the men aren't like throwing tomatoes at me.
Bon Ku: Yeah, well I did not even think about that honestly until like started researching the topic cuz like, oh, that was like, oh, this is a great like, topic for a book and your principles of real self-care at I think are universal.
Pooja Lakshmin: Mm-hmm.
Bon Ku: let's talk about faux self-care. What is that?
Pooja Lakshmin: Yeah. So faux self-care. so the way that I like to describe it is, it's the patient who comes in to see me and they're like, well, I've finally worked up the nerve right to take a half day off work. And I scheduled myself a massage, but I go to the massage and I spend the whole time on the massage table, worried about my to-do list, anxious about my kids, focused on work, ruminating.
Bon Ku: Mm.
Pooja Lakshmin: and I dropped $200 for this massage. And by the end of it, I'm more stressed out after the massage or I feel like, okay, maybe I was a little bit, there was some relief, but now I have to go back into the real world. So like it all disappears in five seconds and I have to come back to my desk and there's like 50 emails waiting for me and I have to make up for all of that.
Bon Ku: me. I, am, that.
Pooja Lakshmin: you feel like this is a personal attack? I'm so sorry.
Bon Ku: I can identify with that person.
Pooja Lakshmin: and faux self-care. That's faux self-care because you are still going to that massage, completely aligned with capitalism, aligned with white supremacy, aligned with all of these, very strong forces that are baked into the society, that we live in that says, your worth is your productivity.
Right. You, are only worthy if you are working or if you are doing something that has monetary value, right? Or taking care of your family. Right? so that's faux self-care. And, and the other example when it comes to faux self-care is it's the patient who's like, you know, Dr. Lakshmin I'm stressed out, I'm burnt out, I'm not eating well, I'm not sleeping well, and I feel like it's my fault.
Because I have this meditation app on my phone that I know I'm supposed to be using, but I don't have any time. And so I feel like my burnout is my fault because I'm lazy or I don't have enough discipline. And so I'm always screaming basically to my patients like, this isn't your fault. This social betrayal.
I wrote a piece for the New York Times a couple years ago that was called, it's not Burnout, it's betrayal. And it was written for an audience of, mostly women, who work outside the home. And it was sort of at the height of the pandemic, it was about how you are being asked to make impossible decisions in the context of, public health infrastructure that has completely failed you in the context of a childcare system that doesn't exist.
Especially during the height of the pandemic. It was really like every family had to fend for themselves. So that's faux self-care. So the wellness industry's answer to that, right? To all of this is like, well just take a bubble bath, drink a glass of wine, calm down. It's okay. Why are you so searched out?
And I say like, well, that's at best, condescending. And at worst it's actually quite manipulative.
Bon Ku: mm On this podcast, we talk a lot about how we could design healthier lives. And I'm curious to know what are your thoughts on how we can design real self-care for our lives? Because you give some great principles bowls about that in your book.
Pooja Lakshmin: Yeah. So, right, so the flip side of this is real self-care. So if faux self-care is like a method or something to buy.
Bon Ku: Mm-hmm.
Pooja Lakshmin: Real self-care is, it's not a noun, it's a verb. It's actually, it's a process. It's threaded through your whole life. So the whole thesis of real self-care is instead of conceptualizing wellbeing or health or wellness as like taking 15 minutes out of your day to meditate or taking 10 minutes to go for a walk around the block instead, real self-care.
Is threaded in every single decision you make in your life. It's like, it's the choice of like, do I wanna be a parent or not? Who's my life partner? What is my job? Like, what is my career? What really matters to me? Those are obviously really hard questions. and, but real self-care is actually, I. It's inside your life.
It's not stepping out of your life, it's inside your life and constructing your life in a way that things are closer to alignment. So the reason that there's four principles is because, in order to design a healthy life, it's really hard.
It's not easy. It's
not
Bon Ku: but even, you saying that it's possible, right? There's that option for many of us. For some people there isn't that option. But we can design our lives cuz we do make choices. Consciously or subconsciously about our daily lives.
Pooja Lakshmin: Yeah. Yeah, and real self care really, if it comes down to it, it's about. Making conscious choices, recognizing right, that you're conscious and that you understand because there is, like you said, it's not depending on your social determinants of health. Depending on the, the color of your skin, your gender identity, how much money you have, whether you're an immigrant, whether you have a partner, right?
All those things impact whether you even have a choice.
Bon Ku: Yeah.
Pooja Lakshmin: so I guess to back it up for a second, that the four principles are principle one, boundaries. Principle two, compassion. Principle three, values. Principle four, power. And the reason that I start with boundaries is because to even get to a place where you can make a conscious choice, you first.
Have to recognize and understand that you are separate from the oppressive systems
Bon Ku: Hmm.
Pooja Lakshmin: and that you, your feelings and your preferences are different than your family's feelings and preferences, your partner's feelings and preferences, and you have to get practice actually voicing and claiming boundaries.
So I can talk about, I can give some tips on how to do that.
Bon Ku: let's start because that resonated with me a lot cuz I have no boundaries and I've been learning how to establish boundaries and it is, I was like, why didn't I do this in my twenties? Like, like why decades later do I learn, oh, it's good to have boundaries. What, what are some like real life examples or tips on, on how to do that?
Pooja Lakshmin: Yeah, and I'll just say, you know, I think if you're coming from an immigrant family for sure, and definitely an Asian culture, right? Boundaries are not a thing.
Bon Ku: Your parents are South Asian immigrants. Mine are East Asian immigrants and. Right, like work with seven days a week and I'm literally supposed to take care of them when they get older and there are no boundaries.
Pooja Lakshmin: right, right. Everything is communal, right? Decision making is communal in that culture. so, so, It's harder and it's different too when you're coming from different cultures. But, you know, it's funny cuz I think like we hear the word boundaries a lot. Like every therapist on Instagram is talking about boundaries.
So I think it's like a little bit eye roll. And, one, the reason everyone's talking about it is because it is hard, and two, my conceptualization is a little bit different. So I had an aha moment about boundaries when I was, this was in 2016. I was first starting on the faculty at GW. I just graduated residency.
I got my dream job at GW. My mentor who's, the director of our women's mental health clinic, she took me out for lunch
Bon Ku: and
I just wanna say gws, George Washington Hospital In Washington DC
for our for our listeners abroad. Very great academic medical center like topnotch Dream job. Totally. Mm-hmm.
Pooja Lakshmin: So she took me out for lunch and her advice was, Pooja you don't need to answer your phone. You can let it go to voicemail, and then you can listen to the what they want, and then you can decide. And that was like really wild to me because I was coming from being a resident where it's like you have your pager and you get beeped or you get paged and you answer, right?
It's like this hyper-vigilant, and so I was like, oh, okay, so you know, sometimes in that context I was working on full-time faculty, so I was in the office there and it was like, okay, sometimes it's the front desk and they have like a bunch of paperwork and I can say hello, I'll come around at the end of the day and fill that out.
Other times it's like, it's a patient who I know who has ADHD and if she misses her stimulant for one day, like she could lose her job cuz she's a lawyer, right? And she really needs it. So like I'll put in that prescription. So I decide. So your boundary is the pause.
The pause is the boundary, and then you get to say yes, no, or negotiate.
Bon Ku: Yeah.
Pooja Lakshmin: And especially in medicine, we did not learn that.
Bon Ku: No,
Pooja Lakshmin: We did not learn that.
Bon Ku: and I, I learned that just like recently, the last couple of years of. In medicine, people like they don't email, they just like text or call. It doesn't matter. 24 7 on weekends. And then I had to like go, hey, if, like on a Saturday night, people were texting me at work about work related things, like I was like, Hey, can we convert this to email and can I like wait a couple, like, I'm not gonna respond right away on a Saturday night at 10 o'clock to a work related thing.
But I felt guilty about that.
Pooja Lakshmin: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you feel guilty because your guilt is a symptom of the systems of oppression that we live inside.
Bon Ku: It's not just cuz I'm Korean.
Pooja Lakshmin: No, no. I mean, there's some of that too, but, it's because. The entire medical system is built on underpaid labor,
right? and the whole system draw is powered by residents and students who have tons of student loan debt on their backs, who are, you know, now, part of this machine.
That keeps all of these systems going and, the output is the productivity, the physician productivity, the healthcare worker productivity. Right. So the machine, the whole system stays in place because of healthcare worker guilt.
Right,
Bon Ku: we use terms like, You're a strong resident. You're a weak resident or strong medical student, and a weak medical student. I'm like, that's like a terrible way to describe human beings
as strong and weak.
Pooja Lakshmin: right, and like the other piece with this, so, and I've had to learn this the hard way at many points in my life. I keep relearning it. but, you know, I think like Especially when you're talking to doctors, like, everyone's like, well, I can't say no because like somebody might die.
Like, someone's bleeding out and I'm like, I'm not telling you to say no when someone's bleeding out in front of you. I'm telling you to take the pause when you're a Saturday night out at dinner with friends and you get a work test, right? let's talk about context.
Let's also like understand there's a volume dial here. But that fear of like, well, if I'm a good doctor, I have to say yes all the time. Be there all the time, be on all the time. That's insidious. And it, it's been, I don't know, maybe this is a strong word, but I do feel like it is kind of propaganda, right?
Like of just keeping the whole system going. And we know, and I'm sure you've talked about this on your show, you know, just how abusive it could be to, residents, to, to black students, right? To people from marginalized groups. So the no isn't always available, right? So if you're an intern, if you're a med student who's listening, you're probably like, well, yep, Pooja this is all great, but I'm on my surgery rotation and I just, I need to be there right at 4:00 AM because I need to be there.
And so I'm not saying that you can always say no, but the pause is always available, right? You can always pause and think and then if you understand or, if you pause and then you say, Hmm, that request, like I have to say yes right now cause I'm a student or I, whatever. But, my goal for myself is a year from now, two years from now, I wanna be in a position where I'm closer to the no.
Where the no is safer. Where I have other systems in place, maybe other income streams, maybe other, you know, whatever it is, so that the no is more accessible.
Bon Ku: One symptom I have that you have as well as we're both allergic to rest, what principle can apply to us in your
Pooja Lakshmin: Yeah. Is there
Bon Ku: how? How to address, yeah, how to address that pathophysiology. What's that mechanism there? Well, what, what principle and
advice do you have for
Pooja Lakshmin: Yeah. So I talk about rest in the compassion chapter. So with value too, self-compassion. And it's funny, I didn't even, when people were reading the manuscript, somebody had to remind me to put rest in that chapter cuz I did not put it in. And it's something I still struggle with,
Bon Ku: Yeah. You're so busy.
Pooja Lakshmin: I'm So
Bon Ku: So you practice as a physician. You wrote a book, you have your own startup as well, that we'll talk about Gemma
and Yeah.
Pooja Lakshmin: so I've had to learn how to rest. I'm still not very good at it, but I'm getting better. So, while writing the book, I was going through IVF, in order to get pregnant. And my son is now almost a year old. but I got off my writing schedule because I was doing I V F, which is terrible. You have to go to all these appointments and all, there's all this stuff.
Um, full-time job
Yeah, full-time job. So I had set out this like outline for myself, but I was, I was gonna get all the chapters done and then of course I was late. but I had to just say like, it's okay,
it's okay. Like, you can't, Like what we were talking about with the massage, when you're addicted to work, you're still aligned with that capitalistic, racist system that is built on white supremacy, slavery, right? On this way of being where we're extracting productivity and value at every single second. So I have to balance that with the fact that, you know, I spent the past like six to seven years of my life.
Designing my life and career to really be aligned with my values, right? All the stuff that I do now, I'm really passionate about and it really matters to me and I really care about it. And if I burn out and I do burn out sometimes, but when I do right, like it's like that's not sustainable. Like this is a marathon,
I need to be in this for the long haul and I have to trust and learn that rest. Is part of the productivity cycle, like you have to give it to yourself because it, it actually, fuels those moments of peak productivity. And so one thing that I have been writing about in our, Gemma has a, a sub newsletter, it's called Therapy Takeaway.
And one of the pieces
I wrote for it recently.
Oh, great. Oh.
Bon Ku: though I'm a dude
Pooja Lakshmin: Okay,
Bon Ku: signed up.
Pooja Lakshmin: great, great, great. Because I've been in this book launch and going, going, going, I decided in June and July I'm gonna take Fridays off, like fully off. I'm gonna take off and June and July is gonna be like a slow time for me.
Like I need to just give that to myself and I need to trust that that. That everything else will be there, right. Because there's ego involved in this For sure. And I think especially in medicine as physicians, we really love to like, feel that sense of like, I'm doing everything and I got it and I'm the superhero.
And so you gotta, actually destructive. Like that ego ultimately doesn't end well, will land you in in harder places.
Bon Ku: And it, never ends. I mean, I'm always envious of other faculty, you know, of other people. When I look at their CVs I feel like a loser, and I'm like, and I'm like a full professor with an endowed professorship. And I look at people's CVs like, I need to publish more or get more grants, or be a better educator.
I'm like, it never ends. And, and, and, and I love what you're talk, it's like getting rest is an active design process. It's not, it's not a passive process. You kinda, you kinda have to plan for it,
Pooja Lakshmin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have to plan for it. I was actually talking to my sister, who she, is not a doctor because she's the younger sibling, so she didn't have to go to med school.
Bon Ku: Just like my sister.
Pooja Lakshmin: And and I've been working for myself for like six years now, and I only just like over the past few months had the realization that since I don't have a boss, I have to give myself PTO. she was like, she was like, Pooja. It took me so long to realize that, I mean, and granted like when I take time off I don't get paid. but you know. Right. Like, but it's like, but you have to, you have to, you have to give it to yourself. Right. And and I love what you said, Bon cuz I remember looking at your Twitter account. This was, this must have been a year or two ago maybe, and thinking, wow. Like what a cool guy, like you're doing so much like the Design Lab, like Innovation and feeling envious. So I think it's like we all
Bon Ku: Oh, I, I feel envious of you.
Pooja Lakshmin: Well, I think it's like we all feel that way when we see people that are doing cool things and like, it's so easy to get caught up in that measuring stick mentality.
Bon Ku: Yeah.
Pooja Lakshmin: That is ingrained in medicine for sure.
Bon Ku: what are some like practical things around this, like self-care practice? I think in your book you talk about a patient who was doing yoga, but that stressed her out more because. It was almost like this goal oriented thing. can you talk about that example and give us some advice of, of what we can do to design some activities that will give us rest and not that we think will give us rest or self-care.
Pooja Lakshmin: Yeah. So the story that you're talking about is a patient who, she was somebody with like a, you know, a really hardcore corporate job and she got laid off and then she just like went very deep into wellness and was like the yoga star, right? And like running the five Ks and had like, you know, the Excel spreadsheets. And she was just bringing that same personality, that same overachiever type a perfectionistic.
To the wellness, and it was sort of like, well that's, that's not, that's like the opposite of what you're supposed to be doing at yoga. And, and so again, coming like right, that's like the faux self-care. But, you know, it's funny that you asked me that because one of the other big principles of the book is that I can't tell you what to do.
Like, I don't know what your answer is. Right. And part of this is because of my own history. You know, I left my resident when, about a decade ago, I was very burnt out and distressed about the terribleness of medicine. And so I left my marriage, moved into a wellness commune in San Francisco, and then dropped outta my residency and spent two years in this world that my parents were of course, like very worried about.
Bon Ku: And that that is huge to leave. Residency is
like, that's giving up your identity.
Pooja Lakshmin: Yeah, it was, it was, it was, a big thing. And, but what I learned, I was with that group for two years and what I learned is that, the wellness world, the quote unquote spiritual world, has just as many hypocrisies and inconsistencies as mainstream medicine. And, No matter what industry you're in, no matter what field you're in, there's going to be, oppression and misogyny and cruelty.
Right? And so it's not about just like finding one safe space and then like believing that that could be the answer to all your problems. Like it's actually about the internal work because every system. Like I have patients that work in law, in tech, in medicine, in education. Like unfortunately in America, like every system is terrible. Every industry is terrible. So you have to like find your own internal sense and so real self-care. Again, it's not a noun, it's a verb. you're the only one that knows what the thing is for you. And so I'll give an example, because one of the other important lessons to take away.
For folks who are listening from this conversation, if there's one thing that you take away about like real self-care, real self-care always leads to shaking up the status quo in your relationships, in your workplace, in your social systems.
Because real self-care, the reason that it's real is that it leads to collective change.
So I had a patient who came to me originally because she was depressed and had anxiety, and we got that under control with medication and therapy. And then we started working on like some of these bigger questions of like, well, what do you really want for your life? You know, she had two kids and I was like, okay, well like now that your kids aren't like super little anymore, like, how do you take time back for yourself?
Like, what do you wanna, right? Like these big things. And what came out of that was that she realized she was actually, very angry at her husband because they, well, because they had two kids and he had never asked for paternity leave because he worked in startups and it was always like really small teams and he just felt like it was gonna be too much of a burden for everybody else.
And so, she got pregnant with her third baby and she said like, no, I really, I need you to ask, like, I need you to show up. I need you to take a risk to be willing to take a risk for our family. Yeah, they might say no, but I still need you to be willing to ask. And he did ask and his company actually said yes.
And that went on to impact everybody else that worked there. It went on to impact future people that came. And my patient, you know, she wasn't trying to be an activist or an advocate. She was just trying to not hate her husband and not get divorced, right? This was purely selfish. Under her
aside, right? But because her real self care, it wasn't a bubble bath, right? It was like getting her needs met. That led to the cascade effects.
Bon Ku: Mm.
Pooja Lakshmin: so that's when I'm talking about real self care, that's what I'm talking about. I'm saying like, you know, for healthcare workers in particular, right? We're the people, like we're the ones who have to change this terrible system.
Some of us, like, I'll be the first to say, like, my response was to like, piece out a little bit and shield myself. And so now, like I'm building Gemma, I have a private practice. I do supervise residents at gw, but I've, created it so I only have to do the things that I really like doing.
not everybody has that flexibility. And so if you're inside the system, then you have to figure out like what are your boundaries and then who are your allies, right? Because we have to work together. And then how do you hold people accountable. But in order to do that, you have to actually be taking care of yourself and you have to not think that that's selfish.
You have to, like Audrey Lord said, it's self-preservation. Right. It's not a luxury. It is self-preservation.
Bon Ku: You mentioned Gemma. What is that?
Pooja Lakshmin: Yes, yes. So Gemma is my women's mental health digital education platform. I founded Gemma in 2020 actually.
Bon Ku: Oh,
Pooja Lakshmin: yeah,
like right in the beginning of the Pandemic Uhhuh. And it first started off as just Zoom classes with me as a perinatal psychiatrist because there's only so many people that I can see in my private practice.
And I was on
Instagram.
Bon Ku: what, is at a perinatal?
Pooja Lakshmin: Oh, perinatal is, it's like pregnancy, postpartum.
Bon Ku: Okay.
Pooja Lakshmin: So I take care of new moms, women who are going through maternal mental health, issues like postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, and I had had this Instagram account, where I was getting all these dms from women, like asking things like, oh, like is it okay for me to be on Zoloft when I'm pregnant?
And, you know, and obviously I can't give medical advice on social media. but it kind of sparked something for me because I was like, oh, like there needs to be like an actual space where you can get evidence-based information because we know there's so much, there's already such issues with access when it comes to mental health services.
So I, right. Huge.
So I started Gemma and it was just these Zoom classes that I was teaching and I realized really quickly that, I didn't want Gemma just to be for rich white ladies to be totally frank. But I didn't wanna add to the equity problems that were already there. And so I started talking to my now co-founder, Dr. Callie Cyrus, who is a black queer shrink. And she was at Yale and is now at, Johns Hopkins and, and has a private practice and does community psychiatry. And and she came on as a co-founder. And then we started talking to Dr. Lucy Huttner, who's a repro psychiatrist in Brooklyn, who works with us as a consultant.
And so we're basically building the masterclass of women's mental health. And so it's not therapy, it's not medication, it is courses, it's community. We're on WhatsApp. We have these WhatsApp threads. So one of them is called Hard Shit, where you just talk about like, All the hard shit like racism, identity, privilege.
Another one is like coping skills where you can take the classes where we talk about like same type of stuff that's in the book, like different exercises. And then you're on this thread with other women who are trying to work on these things because it's really important when you start questioning these systems of oppression need other people in your life who are also asking these questions and trying to make different choices
Bon Ku: it's kinda like this online mental health gym class.
Pooja Lakshmin: Maybe. Yeah. And you know, we, we've done some market research and, and also research on Gemma customers. Cause we've had maybe almost like a thousand folks have come through at different points. And so we did a bunch of research and, and, many of the not all, but like a good number are also in therapy.
Right, but it's sort of complimentary, right? Because you're learning, it's more didactic, but there's the community component. And then you can be in therapy and you can say to your therapist, Hey, I was talking about this at Gemma, or somebody brought this up, or somebody said this. And it's kind of a nice adjunct.
And then the other thing that we're launching in the fall is actually, professional education classes. So we're gonna be
doing,
Bon Ku: I saw that.
Pooja Lakshmin: That looks cool!
Yeah, yeah, we're gonna be doing real self care for healthcare workers. We're gonna be doing, Reducing your oppressive footprint that Callie is teaching. And then Lucy and Dr.
Molly Dickens, who's a stress physiologist, are teaching un flipping the script, which is on pregnancy, and stress and mental health. So that's for OBs and, and nurses and midwives and doulas and anybody in that kind of birth space.
Bon Ku: how can people sign up?
Pooja Lakshmin: yeah, so our web.
Gemmawomen.com, G E M M A, and then we're on Instagram @joingemma. and then our, our newsletter is Therapy Takeaway. on, so if you look at any of those places, you'll see all the links and things like that. so yeah, so we're kind of growing this and we're building it and, and we're bootstrapped and we're just sort of like, for me it's it is actually part of my self care in that it's creative for me, it's, it's me like sort of dreaming and, and trying to do something different and, and getting to do it with friends.
Bon Ku: And it gives people an option. It's so hard, like outside of therapy. Like what, what, what is there? there's just these
products that you get sold? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. There's Instagram
and,
but even like finding a therapist is harder. Like the mental health industry is broken. Like I have a therapist, but I'm like, well, she's like booked to. Whatever. She can't take any more clients and like, I don't even know as a physician where to recommend people to.
It's so difficult.
Pooja Lakshmin: right. like, I haven't taken a new patient for probably two years, unfortunately,
Bon Ku: Yeah. but with your book, you're definitely gonna, not gonna be, that's probably gonna be like for the rest of your life. Right.
Pooja Lakshmin: Well, and that's why I started Gemma, cuz I'm like, there has to be something else and also we want to educate other mental health professionals in, bringing the social determinants of health into therapy too. Right. And like, because there's so much that can be done or needs to be done in terms of, education on the, the mental health side for professionals.
But yeah, I think, I feel the same powerlessness that, non-mental health professionals feel around, like, how do we increase the workforce? Like how do we meet this crisis? Right? And so that Gemma is one. One answer that we're kind of trying out to see. And and so far it's been really going awesome and, and people really like it.
And, and we're, we're kind of in that like, ideating space too. We're trying different stuff and, , I'll be excited to report back that, you know, and tell you hopefully we'll learn more, but, I think it's important. I think it's important to like be like in the work that you do, you know, kind of be creative and, and to think about how we're designing all
Bon Ku: Yeah. that.
Pooja Lakshmin: Mm-hmm.
Bon Ku: My favorite question is my last question. If I were to come visit you, or if a listener were to come visit you, where would you take us out to eat?
Pooja Lakshmin: Yes. Well I was thinking about, cuz there's so many different, there's like, I'm in Austin, Texas,
Bon Ku: Oh, you're in Austin.
Okay. Yeah.
I
love Austin.
Yeah.
Pooja Lakshmin: The tacos are so good. There's so many great
tacos. but there's like a classic, called Matt's El Rancho, and it's like the classic TexMex, like queso. It's like very Texas.
It's very awesome. It's not fancy. It's not fancy at all. They don't take reservations, you just show up. There's always a crowd. And you know, they have margaritas and it's just, it's very, it's kind of cheesy. It's like this very sort of like Austin, you know, like the broken spoke is down the street. But that's one of my favorite places and we always, whenever we have guests in town, we always go there cuz it's like, it's the Austin vibe too.
Like, not pretentious, it's just like very chill. And, I'll say one other place is, it's a brewery, it's called Meanwhile.
Bon Ku: Meanwhile,
Pooja Lakshmin: Mm-hmm. and that also is very Austin vibe because they have live music. they have food trucks, so it's food trucks that are there and tacos. the beer is great and then they have like this huge playground.
So the other thing I love about
Austin is I have like, um, people bring kids everywhere. Kids and dogs. Kids and dogs will be there for the concert hanging out. It's like, it's just a very family friendly, laid back place with like great tacos and beer and you can just hang out and there's like picnic tables and so those are my two.
I'll just give one more just to round it out. so fancy, if you want fancy, and this is very fancy. We went when, it was like a little book celebration. It's called sushi Bar. And it's like one of those omakase places it's just
Bon Ku: my
favorite. Yeah.
Pooja Lakshmin: it's really hard to get a reservation.
It was like a complete. Like, miracle that we did. it's pricey. It's really pricey, but it's worth it. It's like a special, very special type of thing. But, that's another place that has a special, a warm spot in my heart. so
Bon Ku: Well, I I I, love it. I'm getting hungry. We're gonna put a link to all those great restaurants and the show notes, as well as a link to your amazing book. Thank you so much for coming on the
show.
Pooja Lakshmin: It was, such a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me and, and I can't wait for our next conversation. I'm sure there will be one.
Bon Ku: You can find Pooja on Twitter and Instagram at P O O J A L A K S H M I N.
And go to our show notes to find the link, to buy her book.
Rob Pugliese produces Design Lab editing is done by Fernando Queiroz. Our theme music was created by Emmanuel Houston and the cover design by Eden Lew. See you next week.
