Not Alone

At thirty-nine, Cat Pierce had no marriage, no career, no baby, and no plan. If you did the math on her life the way we're all quietly taught to, she was failing. The music money was gone. The marriage was over. She had never been the one left before, and suddenly she was. And then she said the thing that made me put my pen down. Underneath all of it, she felt a flicker of freedom. Because for the first time she could admit she wasn't fulfilled, and now she got to build the life she actually wanted.

I found Cat the way half the internet did, one of those videos where her whole inner monologue plays across her face without a word, and I've been a little mesmerized ever since. I wanted to know what she was drinking. Turns out the answer is a life she made twice. First act: signed at nineteen, fifteen years on the road with her sister, opening for Coldplay and Elton John, writing the song that became the sound of an entire generation. Second act, the one that got me: a beauty line she started while trying to conceive, a tarot deck she drew by hand and published, a New York Times feature, a memoir, and a daughter she had at forty-four with donor eggs and a husband she called in by writing him down on a list.

None of it happened on the timeline she thought she was failing. That's the whole thing. We get into the rockstar years and what fifteen years of needing to be seen quietly did to her. The collapse, and the strange grace that grew out of it. Whether she believes we're all a little bit witches. And the line I keep repeating to every woman I know: you can miss every timeline you ever set for yourself and still land somewhere better than the place you were aiming.

This is for the woman who watches everyone else hit the milestones and keeps quietly moving her own goalposts back. The one grieving a version of her life that never showed up, not yet realizing a completely different one already did. You are not behind. You are not late. You're just early to a life you haven't met yet. This is Cat Pierce.

New episodes of Not Alone every Wednesday. Subscribe so you never miss one.

FOLLOW CAT

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Omen Beauty on Instagram:
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Omen Beauty + The Omen Oracle Deck:
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Website:
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WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT

02:16 The timeline every woman is scared of
03:11 The video where her inner talk showed up on her face
05:23 Leno, Letterman, and the rockstar years
06:10 From nineteen to her mid-thirties
07:00 What the industry taught her about being seen
09:00 Learning to read a room and grab a crowd
11:18 Saying, “That’s actually not what I want”
13:07 Being asked to show up as herself now
15:44 We’re constantly healing
17:13 The breakup that broke her open
19:22 Thirty-nine, and everything gone at once
20:54 No one is coming to save you
22:00 The maternal instinct she didn’t expect
24:46 A real blow to the ego
25:53 Drawing the first tarot cards to survive it
27:36 Feeling like she had failed
28:47 Freezing eggs and the hot topic nobody says out loud
31:00 Writing it down and calling him in with a list
35:23 You can miss the timeline and still find a way
36:01 Starting Omen Beauty while trying to conceive
37:43 The new dream and the donor egg decision
40:00 What it actually costs, financially and otherwise
42:21 Growing into a different kind of mother
44:16 Happy with one and the sister comparison
45:17 The frequency, the knowing, and trusting herself
49:00 Tarot, oracle decks, and where the art came from
51:30 You need the dark soil to grow something good
53:58 Do you believe we’re all witches?
55:30 We have more power than we’re taught
58:19 Learning to be by yourself
59:22 The Disney story we were sold
01:00:17 Shockingly low maintenance
01:04:30 The memoir and connecting all the dots
01:08:46 To the woman who’s single, tired, and sure she’s behind
01:11:27 You might just be recharging
01:13:06 Rapid fire

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I have a complicated relationship with parenting experts. I usually leave them feeling worse than when I walked in, one more list of things I'm apparently getting wrong. So I sat down with Dr. Becky Kennedy, the most trusted parenting expert in the country, half braced to feel like a failure again. Instead I said the quiet thing out loud. I'm tired. I'm so tired. And the woman who wrote the book looked at me and said, me too. We're the first generation of parents in a world that never turns off.

Then she told me the only thing she'll call herself an expert in is imperfect parenting, and something in me unclenched for the first time in about a year. Because here's what nobody hands you with the baby: the exhaustion isn't a sign you're doing it wrong. Sometimes it's just proof of how much you're carrying. We get into all of it. Why our kids' feelings run the entire household now, and how that even happened. Whether we're performing motherhood for an invisible audience instead of just living it. And the line I genuinely cannot shake, that optimizing for our kids' happiness is the fastest way to optimize their anxiety.

She also asked me one question I was too embarrassed to answer honestly. How often are you just around your kid, quiet, not on your phone? Reader, I did not have a good answer. Somewhere in there I had to admit I don't fully know what I'm doing as a mother, and she let me off the hook in the best way: nobody does. The whole conversation kept landing on two words. Do less. So much less. I cannot tell you how good it felt to be told that by the one person allowed to say it.

This is for the mom who reads every book, holds every boundary, names every feeling before it becomes a tantrum, and still lies awake certain she's the one getting it wrong. You're not. You're just tired, and you've been sold a version of good mom that was never real. This is Dr. Becky Kennedy, and I left this one lighter than I've felt in a long time.

New episodes of Not Alone every Wednesday. Subscribe so you never miss one.

FOLLOW DR. BECKY

Instagram:
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Good Inside Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/goodinside

Good Inside with Dr. Becky Podcast:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/good-inside-with-dr-becky/id1561689671

Good Inside:
https://www.goodinside.com/

FOLLOW VALERIA

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FOLLOW NOT ALONE

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Podcast:
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SHOP

Shop my look from this episode:
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WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT

2:00 My tricky relationship with parenting experts

3:30 I'm sick of it, and I don't think doing it all made me a better mom

6:10 When did being a good mom mean never stopping?

9:05 Why we hear a mother want less and think she loves them less

11:40 She's tired too, even as the one everyone runs to

13:30 Around your kids versus actually with them

16:20 The performance of motherhood

18:30 Optimizing for their comfort at every moment

21:15 Happy kids don't become happy adults the way we think

24:00 Optimizing for happiness optimizes for anxiety

26:30 The two words that change everything: I believe you

29:03 Why fixing their feelings backfires

33:10 The death of the tiger mom

36:40 The childhoods we came from

40:00 Raising them entitled without meaning to

42:23 Stop negotiating the same thing every day

45:30 A firm boundary and real empathy at the same time

49:15 What she actually does at seven in the morning

52:00 She doesn't parent like Dr. Becky either

55:30 Do less. So much less

58:42 You yell, I yell, and then we repair

1:02:41 Repair is the whole thing

1:05:30 This isn't really a parenting book

1:07:05 Perfect parenting was never the goal

DISCLAIMER

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I think I'm a little over the mental health conversation. I know how that sounds, so stay with me. I believe in therapy. It has helped me more than I can say, and I'll keep doing the work. This isn't about anxiety, or burnout, or real trauma. Those are their own conversations, and they matter. This is about something else, something that started out helpful and quietly turned into something I'm not sure is helping us anymore.

Here's what I keep noticing. Every uncomfortable feeling has become a red flag. Every hard week has to mean something. We've built this whole vocabulary, attachment style, nervous system, activated, aligned, not aligned, and we've started reaching for it to describe a bad Wednesday. Somewhere in there we forgot the difference between something being hard and something being wrong. They feel almost the same in the body. They are not the same thing.

So I get into how you actually tell them apart, because that's the muscle I think we've lost. Hard gets quieter when you sit with it. Wrong gets louder. Hard makes you bigger. Wrong makes you smaller. Hard moves through and ends. Wrong feels the same today as it did three months ago. And then I get honest about my own life, the modeling shoot at fourteen where I froze, the year I moved to Canada and was depressed the whole time and stayed anyway, marrying Gary at twenty-one through all the judgment, filming my first videos alone and cringing the entire time. If I'd read any of that as a sign to stop, I wouldn't have the life I have now.

I'm not saying this from the other side of it. I'm in it this week, still catching myself calling something "not aligned" when the truth is I was just scared. But I'd rather be the woman who tried the thing and complained the whole way than the one who protected her peace so carefully she never learned anything about herself. There's a difference between protecting your peace and protecting your potential. This one's a developing conversation, and I want to keep having it with you.

New episodes of Not Alone every Wednesday. Subscribe so you never miss one.

Follow Valeria:
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What we talked about:

(1:03) I think I'm ready to say some truths
(1:23) I'm a little over the mental health conversation
(1:49) What I actually mean, and what I believe in
(2:11) The stuff I'm not talking about: anxiety, burnout, real trauma
(2:46) Every uncomfortable feeling has become a red flag
(3:04) The whole vocabulary we've built
(3:46) Borrowing that language for things that are just hard
(4:46) We're making ourselves scared of our own lives
(5:02) The difference between hard and wrong
(6:26) If they feel the same in the body, how do you tell?
(7:19) One: hard gets quieter, wrong gets louder
(7:56) Two: hard makes you bigger, wrong makes you smaller
(8:41) Three: hard moves, wrong stays
(9:18) Every version of me I'm proud of came from discomfort
(9:48) Fourteen, and frozen at the modeling shoot
(10:25) Moving to Canada at twenty, depressed for a year, and staying
(11:03) Marrying Gary at twenty-one, and the judgment
(11:36) Filming alone, cringing, wanting to quit
(12:34) My mom, the loudest voice in my head
(12:46) Her story: a single mother starting over with nothing
(13:23) She had to trust herself because there was nothing else
(14:20) The millennial load, and the muscle we lost
(15:25) I'm not speaking from the other side. I'm in it this week
(16:05) The cage of overhealing
(16:21) Feeling a hard thing without naming it
(16:51) The difference between rest and avoidance
(17:12) Catching myself using the language to avoid
(17:52) The version of me who feels ready is never coming
(18:35) To the woman who's quietly tired of all of it
(19:00) You're allowed to feel things without diagnosing them
(19:49) Protecting your peace vs protecting your potential
(20:14) I'd rather be the woman who tried the thing
(20:18) A developing conversation. Tell me where you stand

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A billion views. Twelve million women. All of it started on a living room floor, postpartum, in lockdown, with a phone and no plan. Jo had gained fifty pounds, she was in the middle of postpartum depression, and she has said her body was nothing she recognized. She almost didn't press record. She thought if she showed up looking like that, people would look away.

She showed up anyway. Not for an audience, not for the algorithm, not even for the woman she used to be. And that quiet decision, made on a bad day when nothing felt possible, is the whole reason twelve million women found her.

We got into the girl before all of it. One of eleven kids, a family band, university at sixteen. Why she gave up training athletes to train regular women. The husband she met on a shoot, the one who never pulls her down. The woman in China who told her that her smile through a screen was the only thing that got her through the pandemic. The first stage she ever walked onto turned out to be an arena of forty thousand.

And she said the smartest thing about consistency I've heard anyone say out loud. It isn't a daily workout. It's knowing what season you're actually in and showing up for that one. Two fifteen-minute workouts a week after a baby counts. So does a workout every day when life lets you. Neither one is failing.

We talk about transformation like the point is the after photo. I don't think it is. The real story is the woman who got on the floor when nothing felt possible and chose herself anyway. Coming home to yourself isn't a transformation. It's a decision. Quiet, daily, usually made when no one is watching.

New episodes of Not Alone every Wednesday. Subscribe so you never miss one.

Follow Jo:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/growwithjo
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@growwithjo
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@growwithjo

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What we talked about:
3:00 The girl before Grow With Jo
3:41 One of eleven kids, and a family band
8:52 University at sixteen
11:04 A new school, and learning to adapt
14:03 Why she left training athletes for regular women
17:26 The moment she knew she could reach more people
19:46 This is what I actually look like now
21:50 The first baby, and the lockdown
22:57 The weight, and the out-of-body feeling
24:19 It gave me purpose instead of feeling sorry for myself
24:44 The first step was the living room floor
25:19 Too embarrassed to film at first
26:01 I didn't want to do my therapy in public
26:56 Moving to Florida, four months postpartum
28:19 Posting it on YouTube, and I guess that's what I do now
28:41 Meeting her husband on a shoot
32:33 China, and the woman whose day her smile got through
35:47 Her first stage was forty thousand people
38:30 Consistency is not a daily workout
40:13 Stay consistent to stay confident
41:04 Faith, and crying through a workout
44:10 Coming home to yourself is not a transformation
45:21 Larry, the husband who never pulls her down
46:44 The loneliness of building alone
48:34 Why she sought out Creator Method
50:58 London, and the power of the right environment
52:41 Where Grow With Jo goes next
54:53 Not alone, and women meeting in person
55:21 Keeping the team small and the culture intact
56:45 One thing she'd tell the woman on her couch
58:14 Rapid fire
1:01:52 Close

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There's a book every woman I know is reading right now. It's called Strangers, Belle Burden's memoir, and Gwyneth Paltrow just bought the rights to turn it into a film. I picked it up expecting to join the bandwagon. I did not expect it to hold up a mirror. It's about a woman whose husband leaves, and in the rubble of that she realizes she doesn't know a single real thing about her own financial life. What they own, whether her name is on anything, where she stands. He walks out
the door and takes the whole map of her life with him, because she never once looked at it herself.

Here's the part I couldn't shake. Her marriage looked exactly like mine. Fifteen years in, three boys, my name on everything we've built, my own money since I was a teenager. I always thought that was what independence meant, making your own money. It took me fifteen years to realize independence is actually knowing what your own money is doing, and I closed that book and realized I didn't. Her husband had to leave for her to find out. Mine is sitting right here with me, and I still didn't know

So I brought it to Gary, in the least graceful way possible, in the car on the way to dinner, and it did not go how I planned. We get into the prenup I signed at 21 and why the math has since flipped to protect me, the fight that followed, why he heard my questions and thought I was about to end our marriage, and the difference between trusting someone and actually knowing your own life. We only ever teach women this after a marriage is already over. I think that's backwards. I think a good marriage is the best place in the world to have this conversation, so I brought him here to have the rest of it with you.

New episodes of Not Alone every Wednesday. Subscribe so you never miss one.

Follow Gary:

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Follow Valeria:

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TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@valeria.lipovetsky
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/valerialipovetskyblog

Follow Not Alone:

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Shop my look from this episode:

https://shopmy.us/collections/6367477

Amazon Storefront:

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What we talked about:

0:00 The book that scared me
1:02 How I brought it to Gary
2:23 My money, and watching my mom
5:09 Gary's parents and the scarcity mindset
7:12 The day you said yes, everything became ours
10:50 Beyond the prenup
11:56 Signing it 15 years ago
13:54 The prenup was protecting me too
14:44 Re-examining it now that the math has flipped
16:05 If a friend asked for a prenup and she said no
17:19 Bringing it to the present
28:42 I keep myself in the dark
35:01 You thought I wanted a divorce
35:21 Not in the car on the way to dinner
43:21 I trusted him, so I thought I didn't need to know
45:32 Knowing the balance now, and estate planning
47:50 The way I think finances should work in a marriage
52:12 Making money and raising kids is not the whole marriage
55:16 What I'd tell other women
58:25 Did you learn anything about yourself?

Disclaimer: The links in this description are sponsor or affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, I may earn a credit or commission at no additional cost to you.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices