Hey, welcome back to the podcast. How's your day going? Is it going well? Or is it

going poorly, but you feel guilty for thinking so, so you're making a gratitude list to try and talk yourself into a better

outlook. Oh my gosh, if that's what you did today, I have got a show for you.

Stay tuned. Today I have the honor of sharing an interview

with you with Whitney Goodman. She is the radically honest psychotherapist behind the popular

Instagram account Sit With Witt and she's the owner of the Collaborative Counseling Center, a private therapy practice in Miami, Florida.

She helps individuals and couples heal past wounds and create the life they've always wanted.

Her work has been featured in dozens of publications and programs

including the New York Times, Teen Vogue,

New York magazine in style and even Good Morning America.

She lives in Miami with her husband and her new son.

And her book is Toxic Positive. Keeping it real in a world obsessed with being happy.

Please join me in welcoming Whitney Goodman to the show.

Hi Whitney, thank you for joining me on the Brave Writer Podcast. Hi, thank you so much for having me.

I really enjoyed your book. I think toxic positivity is not only a great title but

such an important concept for us just to give you a little background my

community is a lot of stay-at-home moms, particularly who home educate their kids, and they have a lot on their plate, but also very high ideals. And I was noticing as I read your work that a lot of the ways we

handle challenging situations in that space is to try and put on a brave face, to try and create some kind of narrative that turns lemons into lemonade.

So I wondered if you could talk first about what is toxic positivity,

what's the difference between sort of giving yourself a pep talk,

you know, cheerleading yourself into a better attitude,

more openness to what the day presents versus the kind of inner cheerleading that

...