Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies: Creating a Life You Love with Tara Schuster
Our unique story makes up who we are today. Unfortunately, for some of us, there are parts of the journey that have hurt us too much and that we'd rather not revisit, given a choice. What this often results in is a trauma that manifests in how we see ourselves and the world. The process of healing from these narratives is never an easy one. But when you really put in the work, it's possible to transform yourself and create a life that you truly love.
In today's episode of Radically Loved, Tessa speaks with Tara Schuster about her book, Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies. She explains the meaning of the book's title and how it encompasses the path toward self-healing. Tara shares the foundational principles she has learned from her own reparenting journey. She also lets us in on the premise of her upcoming book, Glow in the F*cking Dark.
If you want to know how to choose who you are and start living a life you love, this episode is for you!
Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode:
Understand the process of reparenting yourself.
Learn how adopting a gratitude practice opens your eyes to life’s bigger picture.
Find out where you can find the lilies in your everyday life.
Resources
Sign up for Tara’s newsletter here or by texting GLOW to 66866!
Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies by Tara Schuster
Glow in the F*cking Dark by Tara Schuster
I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron
I Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron
Born Standing Up by Steve Martin
Rosie’s book, You are Radically Loved
Download this episode’s exclusive action guide to help you create the life you love by filling in your contact info below:
Episode Highlights
[00:57] Who is Tara Schuster?
Tara spent a third of her life working at Comedy Central.
Writing Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies made her realize that she had the opportunity to become a mental health advocate.
Her work revolves around finding tangible solutions that break down bigger mental health concepts into something we can do for free.
She also likes telling stories and taking people on a journey on every page.
[03:10] The Context of Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies
Tara grew up in a neglectful, psychologically abusive house where things—pets, plants, love—came to die. Nothing could survive because nothing was nourished.
Luckily, she and her sister made it out. But it came with a lot of wounding that manifested in severe anxiety and depression.
The message she left her childhood with is the phrase, “You are worthless.”
She looked for external validation to fill in for her parents and climbed up the ranks quickly from school to her career until she hit rock bottom on her 25th birthday.
[05:18] Titling the Book Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies
Reparenting was not a term when she began. It’s a term of convenience because what she was doing was trying to become her own parent.
Lilies are Tara’s favorite flowers. She’d see them in stores and want them but think that she’s not worth it, and they will just die.
Her work in reparenting herself made her realize that she is worth the lilies.
The idea is that treating yourself is not a luxury but a way to honor yourself. It’s how the title came to be.
[6:40] Tara: “Treating myself is not a wild luxury but is in fact a way to honor yourself.” - Click Here To Tweet This
[09:33] The Gratitude Process
Tara didn't grow up grateful. At the beginning of her reparenting journey, she tried on any advice she thought might be helpful out of desperation.
She didn’t read self-healing books. Instead, she read the memoirs of Nora Ephron and Steve Martin.
One of the very first things that were suggested to her was gratitude. Tune in to the full episode to hear how she got first introduced to gratitude practice!
She began in a place of lacking gratitude for anything. But as she started with the small things, she realized she had a lot to be grateful for in a way that's not toxic positivity.
Finding gratitude is not being negated. It’s about opening the aperture on how you see your life and the big picture.
[14:26] Tara: “You're not negate by finding gratitude. You're just opening the aperture on how you see your life and including more of the reality, which is [that] things are obviously not black and white. We want them to be; they're not.” - Click Here To Tweet This
[14:53] Converting to Self-Help
It is powerful when people want to change themselves by whatever means necessary.
Getting looked down upon by helping yourself to heal is only a reflection of our society.
Tara is now a convert to self-help.
[17:07] Writing a Thank You Card
Writing thank you cards is a physical way to put your gratitude and love out into the world.
Tara’s thank you card recipe begins by finding stationery that speaks to you. Then, open it up with a heartfelt greeting to the person.
Thank the person not just for what they’ve given you but for the experience you have shared with them.
Writing a thank you card is an opportunity for both the sender and receiver to remember that they’re in a beloved web of relationships.
One way to interrupt the process of spinning negative narratives in your head is writing a thank you card.
[21:05] The Difference Between Self-Care and Self-Celebration
Self-care is an honest accounting of your emotional state and bringing healing to any wounds that you have.
Taking a luxury vacation or throwing a party is nice, but it is not self-care.
It’s about discerning between self-celebration and self-care. The lilies come in the very basics that you could be treating as luxuries.
Changing the daily details you do will have a much bigger effect on raising your level of contentment than a one-time vacation.
[21:59] Tara: "Where the lilies come in is I think there's a little bit of a gray space, where there are very basics that you could be treating as luxuries so that your every day is just baked in with beautiful things that bring you a smile." - Click Here To Tweet This
[24:54] Spending Money on Small Luxuries
Tara left college in the recession with no job. Her mindset was that anything excessive is a waste.
Millennials have been told that avocado toast is the reason they can’t buy a house. But the reality is that the American economy favors the generationally wealthy.
Small luxuries like a cup of coffee have worth and buy you something else in the process. But at the same time, we cannot just spend our way to self-healing.
It's about finding the balance and deprogramming ourselves around spending money on small luxuries.
Many people deny themselves small things thinking it will make a difference in the big picture when it’s only self-deprivation.
[28:33] Tara: "There are a lot of people who are in my position who deny themselves small things, thinking it's going to make some difference in the big picture, when it's just depriving yourself. It's really nothing more than self-criticism." - Click Here To Tweet This
[28:55] Glow in the F*cking Dark
Glow in the F*cking Dark will come out on February 28, 2023.
Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies is a reaction to trauma. The process of reparenting herself did give her stability.
But right as she got there, she got laid off from her job at Comedy Central. Losing her job on top of the pandemic isolation made her deepest traumas break through.
Glow in the F*cking Dark is about not letting your life be your reaction to things that happened to you but instead choosing who you really are.
The book is a product of research from philosophy, religion, and trauma theory. It seeks to give advice for a much deeper purpose.
[31:41] Tara: "Very few people know what's going on inside of themselves or what they actually want; they're stuck reacting" - Click Here To Tweet This
[33:09] How Tara Feels Radically Loved
The title Glow in the F*cking Dark is about shining in bleak circumstances.
We are all made of stardust. We are inherently connected and a part of one another.
Tara feels radically loved by knowing that she is loved by the source that chose to fill her up with stardust and that it also shines from all people.
What she radically loves are her readers. She wrote her book hoping it would make one other person feel less alone, and in return, it also made her feel less alone.
About Tara
Tara Schuster is the best-selling author of Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies. The book was a finalist for Goodread’s Best Non-Fiction Book of 2020 and was deemed one of the best books on mental health and self-care by Cosmopolitan, Publisher’s Weekly, and more.
As an accomplished entertainment executive, Tara previously served as Comedy Central’s Vice President of Talent and Development. She was the Executive in Charge of the Emmy and Peabody award-winning show, Key & Peele, and also worked for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Tara has contributed to major publications such as Forbes, InStyle, and The New Yorker and is a well-sought speaker for mental health in the workplace.
If you want to connect with Tara, visit her website.
Enjoy the Podcast?
If you felt radically loved from listening to this podcast, subscribe and share it with the people you love!
Love to give us 5 stars? If you do, we'd love a review from you. Help us reach more people and make them feel loved. Get back the quality of your sleep, and unlock your best rest.
Do you want to help people choose who they really are? A simple way is to share what you've learned today on social media.
Don’t forget to follow and message us on these platforms!
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rosieacosta/
Twitter: https:twitter.com/rosieacosta
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/radicallylovedrosie
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@itsrosieacosta
To feeling radically loved,
Rosie