How to Find Joy in Hard Times (and When Your Brain Lies to You) | Jenny Lawson

About this episode

Jenny Lawson discusses her experiences with treatment-resistant depression and the role of humor in coping with mental health challenges.

Humor won't cure depression. But it might save your life. That's not a metaphor for Jenny Lawson. It's the hard-won truth of more than two decades of living with treatment-resistant depression, anxiety, and the kind of dark seasons that make getting out of bed feel impossible. Most of us hide when we're struggling. We perform wellness for the world and suffer in silence behind closed doors. Jenny took the opposite approach, writing about her darkest moments with such radical honesty and unexpected humor that thousands of people have written back to say those words kept them alive. This conversation explores how she does it, and what the rest of us can learn about finding light and meaning in the hardest places. Jenny Lawson, known to millions as The Bloggess, is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, humorist, and the owner of Nowhere Bookshop, a beloved indie bookstore and bar in San Antonio, Texas. Her books include Let's Pretend This Never Happened, Furiously Happy, You Are Here, and Broken. Her upcoming book, How To Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay (Tips and Tricks that Kept Me Alive, Happy and Creative In Spite of Myself) , arrives March 31, 2026. You'll discover... The single…

People in this episode

Host: Jonathan Fields

Guest: Jenny Lawson

Topics covered

• mental health
• depression
• humor
• self-improvement
• resilience

Keywords

• depression
• anxiety
• humor
• mental health
• self-help
• resilience
• writing

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Nowhere Bookshop

Books & works: Let's Pretend This Never Happened, Furiously Happy, You Are Here, Broken, How To Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay

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