Elise Loehnen & Courtney Smith

Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky

Prufrock LLC

Self-improvement, Society & Culture, Education

4.8 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 6 January 2026

⏱️ 81 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week on Reclaiming, Monica sits down with author Elise Loehnen and coach Courtney Smith for a conversation about goodness, desire, and the new "workbook" they co-authored "Choosing Wholeness Over Goodness" . Elise reflects on the ideas behind her other book “On Our Best Behavior” and the cultural pressure for women to be selfless, disciplined, and “good,” while Courtney explains how those inherited beliefs settle into the body and quietly steer our choices. Together they explore Enneagram types and how understanding our dominant type and wing can illuminate the fears driving our behavior, the drama triangle and the roles we slip into without noticing, and the surprising insight within envy and wanting. They talk about the fear of losing approval when we step out of line, the shame that gathers around desire, and the courage it takes to name what we truly need. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Wonderie Plus subscribers can listen to reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky early and ad-free right now.
0:06.3	Join Wonderie Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.
0:10.3	Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.
0:18.6	Women in our culture are programmed or conditioned to perform goodness while men are conditioned to perform power.
0:27.3	But for women in this idea of performative goodness, it looks like all the accolades that we ascribe to being a good mother, a good friend, a good coworker. A good woman is never tired. A good woman subjugates what she wants to other people's needs.
1:01.9	I am so excited to welcome you both Elise and Courtney to reclaiming.
1:07.9	And Elise, you and I met, I think it was like the Carissa Schumacher.
1:08.8	Yes.
1:09.8	Retreat.
1:11.1	20, 22 maybe.
1:12.1	Something like that.
1:13.2	Yeah, exactly.
1:25.1	It was post-COVID, but still a little COVID-y. Yeah, like we were sort of vaguely not supposed to be together, but we weren't wearing masks. I think it was. No, but we were also outside. Yeah. Just so we don't get COVID-shamed. Yeah, no, no, no. We were very... But it was all outside.
1:26.9	And it's funny because I remembered...
1:29.2	I knew about your podcast.
1:31.5	And... Yeah, no, no, no. We were very... But it was all outside. And it's funny because I remembered,
1:29.2	I knew about your podcast and pulling the thread. Well, let's give it a plug.
1:34.1	Thank you. And I had also, it was really interesting, I had read this interview of yours,
1:40.6	of you from your Goop chief content officer role there. And there was something about that,
1:48.6	both the image and the interview of you that had really imprinted in me. And I was like,
1:53.7	oh, it's that girl. And so I think I maybe hadn't realized that you were one in the same
1:58.9	of what the podcast and the Goop stuff. And so I was just
	...

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