On reading On Our Best Behavior
Steph:
Elise, I read the book last week while I had COVID. I was in bed—I was the last of all of us to get it after looking after the kids and my husband.
And I inhaled it.
I had to get a highlighter. I was highlighting sections, screenshotting passages, sending them to my mum and my sister.
I still find myself reflecting back on it. It’s still soaking in—important parts that have taken longer to land, mostly around patriarchy, which we’ll get to.
Thank you for this book.
Elise Loehnen:
Thank you for reading it and for sharing it.
That’s what’s been so amazing. We’re still early days with the book, but what’s been wild is watching it grow primarily through women talking about it—telling their mothers, sisters, daughters, and friends.
That was always my dream for it: that women would urge each other to read it so they could talk about it together.
The book is centred around the seven deadly sins and looks at the ways women are expected to dull our desires.
The breaking point: hyperventilation and burnout
Steph:
The book feels like it’s arrived at such a pivotal moment.
A lot of my girlfriends are talking about Brené Brown’s “midlife unraveling”—the burnout, the anger, the exhaustion, trying to be perfect all at once while numbing that inner voice with work and the grind of family life.
You describe your life in late 2019, just before COVID, unable to catch your breath. You write that you hyperventilated for an entire month.
Can you tell me about that time and how it ultimately led to this book?
Elise:
Starting in my twenties, I developed chronic hyperventilation.
People think hyperventilation means gasping into a paper bag, totally out of control. But chronic hyperventilation is subtler—it’s a disconnect between brain and body where you’re actually over-breathing.
Your lungs are full, but you feel like you can’t get enough air.
You keep yawning, trying to take a deep breath, but you can’t.
When it first happened, I went to the emergency room. They told me it was all in my head and gave me Xanax.
It’s plagued me ever since.
Usually it’s some cocktail of sleep deprivation, over-caffeination, and stress.
Despite access to incredible healers and modalities, I’d never really addressed it.
Then 2019 was just intense. I was travelling every week, co-hosting a podcast twice weekly, doing all my own production and research, ghostwriting books on the side, raising two small children.
This is how I’d always run my life.
I’ve always believed that if I do more, I’ll finally be enough.
Then after therapy one day, after hyperventilating for a month, I finally asked:
What is this? What makes me feel like I’m not enough? When will I outrun it?
And my therapist said:
You won’t. Not until you face it.
That was the moment I stopped running.
And that became the inquiry of the book:
Where do these ideas of “goodness” come from?
Why are they so lodged in women?
And how do we set ourselves free?
On patriarchy and internalised pressure
Steph:
I loved the first section on the history of patriarchy.
I thought I understood it, but there’s so much there.
Elise:
Thank you for reading that chapter. My editor wanted people to skip it—I said absolutely not.
People hear “patriarchy” and tune out. It feels abstract.
But when you understand it’s not that old, not inevitable, not simply “human nature,” you start imagining what comes after it.
And that would be better for all of us—including men.
Steph:
Exactly.
My husband is wonderful. We’re a team.
But the imbalance is still huge when you zoom out.
Elise:
That’s core to the book.
I grew up progressive. I’m married to a feminist man. I’m the primary breadwinner.
And still—it’s in me.
That was something I had to confront. I couldn’t blame the men in my life.
This isn’t just men imposing expectations.
It’s culture. It’s internalised.
Why women can’t rest
Steph:
The chapter on sloth absolutely hit me.
You write:
“By working all the time, we are buying ourselves a short break from fear.”
That floored me.
Elise:
That chapter is about the insistence that women never do enough.
We can’t just be. We must always be producing.
And any effort for ourselves must be counterbalanced by what we do for others.
Women have always worked—inside and outside the home—but somehow we’re expected to do both with equal intensity.
And then we compensate.
I’ll spend sixteen hours taking kids to parties because I’m trying to make up for writing a book.
No one asked me to.
But some internal voice says:
A good mother would.
Workaholism as anxiety management
Steph:
There’s this extraordinary passage where you write:
“My workaholism is somewhat of an antidote to existential anxiety…”
You talk about working for safety, security, proof of value.
So what are we scared of?
Elise:
Not being enough.
Busyness helps us avoid difficult feelings.
But those feelings aren’t bad.
They’re information.
The seven deadly sins weren’t biblical—they were cultural constructions that became tools for controlling women.
They taught us our anger, envy, pride, lust—our wants—were dangerous.
So we suppress them.
And staying busy helps us keep the door shut.
But if we could let those feelings come through, we could process them and learn from them.
That’s how change happens.
Calling out “busy” as a badge of honour
Steph:
You’re basically calling bullshit on busyness.
Elise:
Completely.
“Busy” has become a code of honour.
Instead of saying:
I’m overwhelmed. I’m at capacity. This isn’t working.
We say:
I’m busy.
As if it proves worth.
It shouldn’t.
On pride and women being punished for visibility
Steph:
Your chapter on pride is fascinating.
You write about women who succeed too visibly being penalised.
You reference Anne Hathaway and the way public culture turned on her.
Elise:
Exactly.
Compare Anne Hathaway to Jennifer Lawrence during awards season.
Jennifer self-deprecates—it feels safe.
Anne was poised and earnest.
And people hated her for it.
We celebrate women as they rise, and then there comes a point where visibility becomes intolerable.
Then we tear them down.
That’s the playbook our daughters are watching.
And it teaches women:
Don’t shine too brightly.
The spreadsheet exercise: defining enough
Steph:
Talk me through the spreadsheet.
This fascinated me.
Elise:
A mentor asked me:
What do you need? What do you want? What does enough look like?
And I realised I’d never defined it.
So I made three tabs:
Needs
Mortgage, childcare, health insurance, practical realities.
Wants
The things I genuinely wanted—like taking my kids to Montana twice a year.
Not what culture told me to want.
Who I want to be
Simple. Home more. Writing books. Hosting a podcast. Speaking occasionally.
That’s it.
Not fame. Not TV. Not celebrity.
Once I got clear, life started aligning.
And that shocked me.
Redefining success
Steph:
It’s almost redefining success.
Elise:
Exactly.
No one can define success for you but you.
And often what we think we should want is wildly different from what we actually want.
Reconnecting women to their knowing
Steph:
What do we need to do to save each other?
Elise:
Stop people-pleasing. Stop perfectionism.
Look inward.
Listen.
Carol Gilligan writes that boys are conditioned to say:
I don’t care.
Girls are conditioned to say:
I don’t know.
This book is about helping women reconnect to their knowing.
When that inner voice says:
You were bad for eating pizza. Be good tomorrow.
Interrupt it.
Ask:
What do I need?
What am I hungry for?
What would bring me joy?
That’s your knowing.
That’s your truth.
Speaking publicly and holding space
Steph:
On this podcast, I always ask women about speaking publicly.
Do you enjoy it?
Elise:
Now I do.
At first, I’d rush to pass the microphone.
I was anxious about holding attention.
Then I realised: it’s okay to hold space.
To pause.
Reflect.
Acknowledge what was said.
Let attention rest on me for a moment.
That changed everything.
It made the room calmer.
And better.
Sitting in discomfort
Steph:
You recently wrote about sitting in discomfort.
I’m working on that too—and it’s terrifying.
Elise:
It’s hard.
Marshall Rosenberg quotes this Buddhist saying:
“Don’t just do something. Stand there.”
We’re conditioned to leap into action.
But often what’s needed is presence.
Listening.
Stillness.
And when you stop filling the silence, people feel it.
The room changes.
Closing
Steph:
Elise, thank you so much.
Your podcast Pulling the Thread and your Substack are wonderful.
Big fan down under.
I’ll keep my heavily highlighted copy of On Our Best Behavior very close to my heart.
Elise:
That’s music to my ears. Thank you.
