“The last eight years I shifted into another gear,” says Cameron Diaz. “I went in and did some really deep, personal healing.” In this conversation between two friends, GP and Diaz talk about the mechanisms they use for self-protection, why aging is a mindset, and how they’re approaching their fifties together. Diaz explains why she’s given herself permission to honor her instincts and how GP finally convinced her to be a mother. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kelly McDaniel is a licensed professional counselor and the author of Mother Hunger: How Adult Daughters Can Understand and Heal from Lost Nurturance. In this conversation, McDaniel joins cohost Erica Chidi to talk about the experience of yearning for maternal love. McDaniel explains how this type of longing impacts our sense of self and other types of relationships as we become adults. “Depending on what we each did to earn our mother’s love—what we end up doing is duplicating that with friendships, in romantic partnerships, and sometimes at work,” says McDaniel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this special episode, psychotherapists and collaborators Barry Michels (New York Times–bestselling coauthor of The Tools) and Kristan Sargeant guide us through exercises designed to help us connect with our shadow. The shadow, as they explain it, is an often maligned part of your personality that has the potential to change your life in unexpected ways. “You can have intimacy with a part of yourself that you've been judging, abandoning, neglecting, denying,” says Sargeant. “That allows you to take on challenges and take risks and actualize on hunches and inclinations and dreams and desires that are percolating inside of you but you can't quite find the courage or clarity to pull the trigger on.” To go deeper, check out the week-long workshop Michels and Sargeant are hosting this July. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

GP catches up with her good friend, actress and author Ali Wentworth. They chat about their daughters (they're best friends), and GP asks Wentworth for advice on how to cope when Apple leaves for college. Wentworth shares what has fueled her marriage over the years, and she explains how humor became her currency growing up and how she uses it during dark times. After you listen, preorder Wentworth's hilarious new book, Ali's Well that Ends Well, which comes out May 10. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Alok Vaid-Menon is a writer, performer, public speaker, and the author of Beyond the Gender Binary, which examines gender fluidity and why the binary hurts us all. Vaid-Menon joins GP to discuss their journey as a nonbinary artist, how they’ve reclaimed their peace, and why it’s important to become familiar with your pain. “It’s actually through doing this intimate work of self-discovery and self-acceptance that we unlock a deep sense of community and interconnectivity. That’s what happened in my life,” says Vaid-Menon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices