Kelly welcomes Shannon Watts back to the podcast. The founder of Moms Demand Action has a new book: “Fired Up: How to Turn Your Spark into a Flame and Come Alive at Any Age.”   

There is a truism that not enough people understand and that’s the idea that you can only be happy – there’s always suffering and joy. It’s a package. 

“I think we’ve sort of been sold this idea, especially in capitalistic culture, that we can always feel good and we can always be happy. And so, we seek that out. And it isn’t really until the pause that inevitably comes with suffering that we realize there’s transformation to be had. I was on autopilot. I’m not even sure that happiness was an issue. I just sort of was living my life in a way that was not true to me without paying attention. And that literally burned me from the inside out.” 

How did you land on the fire metaphor for the book? 

I had all these books, and I brought them to my friend’s house, who’s an author. And she’s like, these are very boring. You are a fiery personality. And it really clicked for me, which is that fire was going to be the metaphor for my book. And living on fire is really a way to figure out two things: what is limiting you and what’s calling you. And going back to this idea of women are really taught to fulfill their obligations, these things that become ‘shoulds’ in our lives, right? I should be a mother, I should stay home, I should focus my time and attention on caretaking as opposed to, you know, what do I want? And how can we make that sort of top of mind for us? And fire, you know, when you’re living on fire, a lot of it is, it’s almost like alchemy.” 

The book is really a kind of manifesto for contemporary women. 

“Imagine what would happen if women really prioritized their desires. Institutions would topple, governments would fail, family systems would fall apart, right? And so, the system is designed to keep us from pursuing those things or to start believing that our obligations and our ‘shoulds’ are actually our desires. And I talk about these false desires in the book, right? Like, somehow happiness, busyness, purpose, those have become things almost like self-care, right, that have become commodified in a capitalist culture and can be like a full-time, lifetime job. What I’m talking about is fulfillment, these small and big fires in your life that hopefully will burn, fade out, and you start over. But that really is how we should be living our lives, finding fulfillment. And when people are asked what are you afraid your deathbed regret will be? It’s often that I didn’t live a life that was true or authentic to me, that I was on autopilot. And I just don’t want any woman to get to the end of their life and feel like they didn’t burn.” 

Photo Credit: Margot Duane