Meghan O'Rourke on The Challenges of Chronic Illnesses

The One You Feed

Eric Zimmer

Education, Self-improvement, Religion & Spirituality, Health & Fitness, Buddhism, Mental Health

4.6 • 2.5K Ratings

🗓️ 10 June 2022

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Meghan O’Rourke is a journalist, poet, and New York Times Bestselling author. Her work often tackles challenging subjects like grief, illness, and more. Her previous books include the best-selling memoir The Long Goodbye, and the acclaimed poetry collections Sun in Days, Once, and Halflife. Meghan is passionate about advocating for those living with chronic illness and is the recipient of Guggenheim Fellowship and many other awards.

Today, Eric and Meghan discuss her book The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness

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Meghan O'Rourke and I Discuss The Challenges of Chronic Illnesses and...

Her book, The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness
Her experiences of illness and various diagnoses
The importance of validating a diagnosis of chronic illness
How diagnosis is just the small part of chronic illness
The common stigma of "invisible" illnesses
Her fears of her illnesses being in her head
The many complex factors that make up autoimmune illnesses
How different bodies will react to diseases in very different ways
Her frustrations and problems with conventional medicine
The different type of care from alternative medicine practitioners
The challenges of functional or alternative medicine
The role of emotions and how they interact with physical illness
Understanding how expectations can shape our biology
How the world responds to those suffering with chronic pain and illness
The role of fear and how it accompanies chronic pain and other symptoms
What healing from chronic illness actually means

Meghan O'Rourke links:

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If you enjoyed this conversation with Meghan O'Rourke, you might also enjoy these other episodes:

Living with Chronic Illness with Toni Bernhard

Neuroplastic Pain with Yoni Ashar

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Transcript

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0:00.0	how do we reform healthcare and our discourses around medicine and sickness to accommodate the fact that our bodies aren't always these tiny containers that behave exactly like everyone else's.
0:19.1	Welcome to the one you feed.
0:20.8	Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true.
0:30.8	And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
0:34.8	We tend to add negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear.
0:39.8	We see what we don't have instead of what we do.
0:42.8	We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
0:45.8	But it's not just about thinking, our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living.
0:53.8	This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf.
1:00.8	Hi, it's Bethany Frankel. My time on the Real Housewives of New York is a few years behind me. And now I'm ready to put the real back into the Real Housewives.
1:22.8	That's where my new podcast, Rewives, comes in. This isn't your typical ReWatch podcast. I'm bringing on unexpected thought leaders and celebrities to give their take on the chaos.
1:32.8	In my first episode, I dig into the scary island, Rooney episode with Elizabeth Moss. It's one of my favorite shows I've ever done, so don't miss it.
1:40.8	Listen to Rewives with Bethany Frankel on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.
1:48.8	Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Megan O'Rourke, a journalist, poet, and New York Times bestselling author.
1:56.8	Her work often tackles challenging subjects like grief, illness, and more. Megan's previous books include the bestselling memoir The Long Goodbye, and the acclaimed poetry collections, Sun and Days, Once and Half Life.
2:10.8	She's passionate about advocating for those living with chronic illness and as a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship in many other awards.
2:18.8	Today, Megan and Eric discuss her book The Invisible Kingdom, Reimagining Chronic Illness.
2:24.8	Hi, Megan. Welcome to the show. Thanks, Eric. It's so good to be here.
2:28.8	Yeah, I'm excited to discuss your book with you. It's called The Invisible Kingdom, Reimagining Chronic Illness.
2:34.8	But before we get into that, let's start like we always do with the parable. There's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchildness.
2:42.8	In life, there are two holes inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness, and bravery, and love.
2:50.8	And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed, and hatred, and fear.
	...

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