How to Be Brave When Family Life Gets Tough w/ Kelly Corrigan (Transcript)

How to Be a Better Human
How to Be Brave When Family Life Gets Tough w/ Kelly Corrigan 

June 17, 2024

[00:00:00] Chris Duffy: 

You are listening to How to Be a Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. I've always loved to read. My favorite books are the ones where you feel completely immersed in the world of the book, both in the narrative and in the sentences where you come away feeling a connection to the characters and to the author.

The ones full of moments and phrases that linger in your mind long after you're finished reading. Those are the kinds of books that Kelly Corrigan writes. She's an incredible author, but she also hosts a podcast, a television show, and she does so many other things. Kelly is an extraordinary person, but what I think is so special about her work is that she highlights the everyday moments, the moments that we all experience in our lives.

Kelly has been described as the Poet Laureate of the ordinary, and I think that is a perfect description. Kelly and I recorded this episode together in person at TED 2024 in Vancouver. Kelly was there because she was giving this beautiful talk about the courage and vulnerability of family life and what it takes to love someone over the long haul.


Here's a clip from Kelly's talk. 

[00:01:06] Kelly Corrigan: 

Say your kid was dropped from a group text. They were in it. They mattered. They belonged, and then poof. Or your husband blew the big deal at work, or your mom won't wear the diapers. That would really help her get through Mahjong on Wednesdays. And how should we calibrate the exquisite bravery to respond productively?


When someone in our family looks at us and says, do I know you? I weigh myself before and after every meal. I hear voices, “I steal.” “I'm using again.” “He raped me.” “She says I raped her.” “I cut myself.” “I bought a gun.” “I stopped taking the medication.” “I can't stop making online bets.” Sometimes I wonder if more life is really worth all this effort.


Bravery is the great guts to move closer to the wound as composed as a war nurse holding eye contact and saying these seven words. “Tell me more. What else? Go on.” 

[00:02:13] Chris Duffy: 

We're gonna be right back with much more from Kelly right after this break.


Today we're talking with Kelly Corrigan about love, courage, and family. 

[00:02:28] Kelly Corrigan: 

Hi, I'm Kelly Corrigan. I write books and I have a podcast called Kelly Corrigan Wonders, and I have a show on PBS called Tell Me More. 

[00:02:37] Chris Duffy: 

Well, I wanna just first start off by saying the book, Tell Me More, which is also the name of the PBS show.


I read it in like truly one sitting. It was so good and you are such a funny, but also really beautiful on the sentence level writer. It is, it is really just a fantastic book. I, I really loved it. 

[00:02:57] Kelly Corrigan: 

Thanks. Thanks. 

[00:02:59] Chris Duffy: 

You know, as a comedian I often like come to things through the lens of humor and I think that you are clearly a great joke writer. 


You have so many really funny, hilarious stories and, and perfect one-liners, but you also are writing a lot about loss and I think a lot of people don't think of humor and loss as going together, so. 

[00:03:19] Kelly Corrigan: 

Oh yeah. 

[00:03:19] Chris Duffy: 

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on that. 

[00:03:21] Kelly Corrigan: 

Yeah, I feel very Irish in that way.


I feel like the great emotional mashup, you can be weeping one minute and slapping each other on the back the next. My dad was one of six kids from Baltimore. They had one bathroom. And they would get in the tub one after another. Like they'd fill the tub once with hot water and then all six of 'em would move through.

And my uncle Gene, who was a big college sports guy, would say, “Oh, the whole reason why we're such good athletes is 'cause you got free clothes and hot showers every day.” 


[00:03:54] Chris Duffy: 

That was the way. 

[00:03:55] Kelly Corrigan: 

So anyway, this crew of six. We would celebrate the holidays together. And my aunt Mary had this tiny little house in Baltimore with all these cousins jammed in.

And at some point in the night it was like time for somebody to stand on the coffee table and tell a joke and this, you know, set off this string of people standing on the coffee table telling a joke. And there were these classic jokes, like there's the sport coat joke and then there's this would I joke.

And the jokes are nothing. In and of themselves, they're really kind of a lower quality, but the telling, 

[00:04:31] Chris Duffy: 

Mm. 

[00:04:31] Kelly Corrigan: 

There's accents and there's all the kind of raising and lowering and the shock of your voice. And there, there were way more boys in that family than there were girls. And I was on the younger side of all these cousins.

So I was always kinda looking up and I thought that's the coolest thing is like being able to hold a room. And get a laugh. 

[00:04:55] Chris Duffy: 

Mm. 

[00:04:55] Kelly Corrigan: 

And surely you have a story like that. 


[00:04:57] Chris Duffy: 

Mine is kind of the opposite. My dad is from like an Irish Catholic family. My mom is Jewish. So like both of them have real traditions of comedy in the cultural thing.


But both of my parents are kind of prefer to not be in the spotlight. 

[00:05:10] Kelly Corrigan: 

Mm-hmm. 

[00:05:11] Chris Duffy: 

And there isn't like a big family of like, now it's time for everyone to perform. 

[00:05:15] Kelly Corrigan: 

Yeah. 

[00:05:15] Chris Duffy: 

And so I think I did it because it was more like. “You see, I can do this thing that's different than everyone else.” 

[00:05:20] Kelly Corrigan: 

Uh Huh. 

[00:05:20] Chris Duffy: 

Like I like to be having attention paid to me and very much like oldest child syndrome too. 

[00:05:24] Kelly Corrigan: 

Right.

[00:05:24] Chris Duffy: 

But yeah, when I was, one of the things that struck me in your book is like there's a part where you're kind of just casually say like, “And then the family all got together and sang our family song.” And I'm like, “You have a family song? My family is like dedicated to never having to sing.” 

[00:05:38] Kelly Corrigan: 

Okay. So there, there was a Broadway show maybe that had a song in it called Harrigan, H-A-R-R-I-G-A-N. Spells Harrigan 

[00:05:46] Chris Duffy: 

Uh Huh. 

[00:05:47] Kelly Corrigan: 

And we co-opted it okay to C-O-R-R-I-G-A-N, spells Corrigan. And it became this great punctuating moment in these giant family get togethers and it still happens and it's heaven. And I love being a part of it.


Like being a Corrigan is the absolute cornerstone of my life. There's so many cousins and they're so interesting and charming and charismatic, and they do cool things, and there's a familiarity and a comfort and an intimacy and casualness that I crave in the outside world. 

[00:06:28] Chris Duffy: 

Hmm. So what does it mean to you to be a Corrigan then?

[00:06:32] Kelly Corrigan: 

It means that the originals is what we call these six people, my dad and his five siblings that we're, that we kind of plug back into the originals. And the originals were a great model. Of all the things that you and I know are important about being a great human, total connectors, tons of eye contact.


They knew everybody's name. They couldn't wait to meet you. They couldn't wait to find out what was special about you. They remembered what you told them the next time they saw you. They had a great firm handshake. They had a big, broad smile. They could laugh at themselves. Nothing was too serious. They never felt sorry for themselves.

They would never sort of have that victim mentality. That's what I saw. Great goodwill, easy forgiveness, quick to laugh. In my mind, that's the perfect model for How to Be a Good Human. 

[00:07:27] Chris Duffy: 

I think a lot of what makes your writing unique and what people really connect with you in the show and the podcast and in your books, is that you're really open and honest about the ways in which you fall short.

[00:07:40] Kelly Corrigan: 

For sure. 

[00:07:40] Chris Duffy: 

So, there's these people on this pedestal. 

[00:07:41] Kelly Corrigan: 

For sure. 

[00:07:42] Chris Duffy: 

But you are at least in your own telling, not often living up to that model, and you're always striving for it. 

[00:07:48] Kelly Corrigan: 

There's something about their childhood that is not really possible anymore that that helps me forgive myself for not being the way that they were all the time.


It's not a simple world anymore. Like modernity isn't doing us any favors in terms of connection. 

[00:08:12] Chris Duffy: 

Hmm. 

[00:08:13] Kelly Corrigan: 

I mean, honestly, like part of why I like podcasting and doing the PBS show is because what we're doing right now is so unusual. You don't have your phone on, I don't have my phone on, and we're just looking at each other and talking about stuff that's so much deeper and better than the small talk that's available to us out there.

And I like that. I like being in this kind of conversation way more than, “What do you do?” And “Oh yeah, interesting.” And, and “Who do you know?” And that kind of shucking and jive in and like very thinly veiled ambition. 

[00:08:50] Chris Duffy: 

Hmm. 

[00:08:50] Kelly Corrigan: 

That you can feel coming off people. They just didn't have that. 

[00:08:55] Chris Duffy: 

Do you think that's a generational thing or a class thing or what? 

[00:08:59] Kelly Corrigan: 

I mean. I think it's possible that if you grow up with one bathroom and where your mom could make like a Turkey dinner last for four days and you just had one pair of pants, that as soon as you have two pairs of pants, you're like, “I can't get over this.” 

[00:09:16] Chris Duffy: 

Mm-Hmm. 

[00:09:16] Kelly Corrigan: 

“Can you get over this?” This great friend of mine, Jennifer Wallace, Jenny Wallace, wrote a book about achievement culture and how toxic it is, and I asked her on a walk once.

“Why is it worse now than it was in the previous generation or the generation before that?” And she said, “This is the first time in US history where it, it's sort of a long shot that you'll have it better, quote unquote, in economic terms or career terms than your parents.”

[00:09:44] Chris Duffy: 

Hmm. 

[00:09:45] Kelly Corrigan: 

It was really easy to have advancement from one generation to the next when the originals were coming up.

It's different now. Like, “Hey, can I put three kids through college with no debt? I don't know.” The, the price tag's different and everything in the 18 years leading to the first tuition check is more expensive. And I think I sort of blame the modern world for how infrequently I feel like I am totally tuned to the originals channel.

[00:10:20] Chris Duffy: 

Mm, yeah. 

[00:10:21] Kelly Corrigan: 

And they worked long. They worked until they were 75 years old. 

[00:10:24] Chris Duffy: 

Mm. 

[00:10:25] Kelly Corrigan: 

And I have that in me. I like to put it together, you know, like I have a little pep in my step work-wise, and I totally see it coming straight from them that they were, whatever they did, they were doing it. They were all in, they were like full engagement kind of people.

[00:10:39] Chris Duffy: 

You know my dad was the first person in his family to go to college. He got a job and, and his goal was stability, you know, so he was like, “I got a job at the Port Authority. Great. I'm gonna be able to retire with a pension.” And he succeeded and he didn't spend a lot of time being like, is this the most meaningful career?


It was like, “You know what's meaningful? It pays the bills. I can afford things for my kids. We can live in a house and not worry about it, and at the end of my career, I'm gonna be good.” 

[00:11:06] Kelly Corrigan: 

Right, right. And we've just blown past stability. 

[00:11:08] Chris Duffy: 

Totally. 

[00:11:08] Kelly Corrigan: 

Stability's like, “Wow.” Like that's like a starting place.

[00:11:11] Chris Duffy: 

Oh yeah.


When I quit. Teaching to try and do comedy. My dad was like, “Well, you're continuing the grand Duffy tradition of your father not being able to give you any practical advice about your life whatsoever. Like, you leave, you're leaving the stable career.” I. 

[00:11:24] Kelly Corrigan: 

Right. 

[00:11:11] Chris Duffy: 

You know, “God bless, good luck.” Yeah. I have no clue what's gonna happen next.

[00:11:27] Kelly Corrigan: 

I, I think it's worth underlining, like, I love that, that his goal was stability. Like that, that is a goal. And I, I've been doing this thing in the last couple years where, you know, sometimes when the waters get rough. It's nice to point out any time that you feel peaceful and happy. 

[00:11:49] Chris Duffy: 

Hmm. 

[00:11:45] Kelly Corrigan: 

And so I'll say out loud, “I feel really peaceful and happy right now. I just wanted to put it on the record.” 


And mostly it's my husband hearing that, but if the girls are around, I'll say it in front of them. If my mom's around, I'll say it in front of her. Like I think it's good to claim it as those moments come through us and such that maybe it would suggest back to yourself.


This is a worthy goal. To just have some peaceful, happy moments in the course of every day is sort of winning. I mean, it, it's funny, it's interesting to think about. The older I get, the more, I think it's a total home run to love a person for a lifetime, to not lose a kid. My goals have changed enormously from your outrageous twenties to, you know, at 56, I think, “Oh my God, I have seen so much horror happen all around me, and maybe even within my own family in moments and when the seas are calm, I think this is all I could ever ask for. This is more than my wildest dreams.” 


So, my wildest dreams got way less wild. And the thing I had never thought before is that I wasn't watching the originals when they were in their twenties. And so maybe they had to learn just like I'm learning and just like you're gonna learn when you get a little older, Mr. I Don't Have a Gray hair in My Head. 


Whatever is that your wild dreams will become much more simple. 

[00:13:26] Chris Duffy: 

It's one of the parts of your talk that I thought was like the most moving to me. Like your talk is, you know, like much of your work, there's moments where I was laughing out loud and there are moments where I quite literally had tears in my eyes.

For example, you used talk about how it's brave to stay. It's brave to do the slow work of, you know, getting past suffering and the hard things and that that's not really culturally, there's not a ton of celebration of the slow, boring moments, and yet that is what. Gets you through from the big scary stuff to the small moments where you can say, “I am really grateful again.”

[00:14:00] Kelly Corrigan: 

I mean, those are the people I admire. 

[00:14:01] Chris Duffy: 

Yeah. 

[00:14:02] Kelly Corrigan: 

As you watch people raise kids all the way through their teenage years and into adulthood, and you have close relationships, you're gonna be privy to so many kinds of pain and so many moments where a reasonable person would have not one shred of an idea of how to proceed.


To see my friends manage these moments with the kind of grace and equanimity that they're able to muster has been remarkable for me to observe. 

[00:14:38] Chris Duffy: 

Let's go into the book. There's a quote that you have in here, which I think is actually very relevant to what we've been talking about, where you are talking about loss and talking about some of the things you experienced and you say, “Shouldn't loss change a person for the better forever?”


And of course you're saying that as the idea that you wish it did. 

[00:14:56] Kelly Corrigan: 

Yes. 

[00:14:56] Chris Duffy: 

That that's how you think, that's how you think it's supposed to work. But that's not how it actually works. 

[00:14:59] Kelly Corrigan: 

We just don't live at that level 24/7, we touch it and we, it's a very great, beautiful space of clarity when you experience it.

But for whatever reason, we just don't live there. We drop back into parking tickets and the five pounds we can't lose and you know how our socks don't match, but, and this is what we're always looking for, this is why people are listening to this podcast and reading books because they wanna find it again.

They want somebody to give 'em a way to get there more frequently, to that place where you're seeing things more clearly and you're, and what matters is very apparent and most salient and kind of towering over. The nonsense. 

[00:15:50] Chris Duffy: 

Hmm.

[00:15:52] Kelly Corrigan: 

But it's not how we work. We're animals and we can't afford to be in that philosophical, heady space all the time because there are other needs that require our attention and in Tell Me More and in the talk I refer to this friend of mine, Liz, who was the first really young person who I knew really well. 


And loved a lot and would actually miss who died, and I would bet that everyone listening will tell you that whenever that happened to them. It's a total before and after moment because it's very abstract idea that people die prematurely, that people die in their forties or thirties. Until it happens.


She was sick for seven years. She did 88 rounds of chemotherapy. She had an 8-year-old, a 10-year-old, and a 12-year-old. It really was like a fake idea that maybe she would die. You can't even let it in that that it's possible. And having watched it and having had the conversations that I had with her because I had cancer in my thirties.


Among our friends. She didn't know that many people who had done chemotherapy before. So when it began, we had this special shared experience, and then her experience exceeded mine by a thousand miles. But because we had that in the beginning, it put us on a conversational trajectory that I don't think that she shared with many people.


You know? Like I looked at her and said, “I will miss you so much.” Like that's one of the last things I said to her. Like, I just kissed her on the lips like a million times. We had been like in her bed, her head on her pillow, my head on her husband's pillow and just crying. Like, I just left like a, it was like as big as a plate.

The just crying and my face was so wet. And then I was like, I'm gonna let you go to sleep. And I knew, and I just was standing at her door and I just kissed her, kissed her, kissed her, and just looked right at her and said, “I'll miss you so much.” Like nobody was saying that to her. Nobody was saying, “I know you're dying.”

I'm not going to try to pretend this isn't happening. To totally expand your boundaries like that where you're saying words that you just never could have imagined saying to another person that it, you would never again be pissed off about spilling some coffee and you are. And that's so disappointing.


It it, I felt. When I returned more to my usual ways after that whole experience, I felt really disappointed in myself. And then the sky that taught meditation, who's actually the son of John Kabat-Zinn, who is famous for writing, Wherever You Go, There You Are. He is like the father of trans transcendental meditation.


His son Will Kabat-Zinn, was doing meditation at this place where I was working. He said, “It's like this. It's like this.” In the meditation. And then afterwards I followed up and I was like, “You know, I was just berating myself. I was just so, so kind of disgusted, which is a terrible emotion, but disgusted with myself for being so, taking my nonsense so seriously.

Again, I just thought I would be recalibrated permanently.” And he said, “Oh, it's like this. It's like this.” And I was like, “That's really good.” That's a, that phrase is really helping me. 

[00:19:30] Chris Duffy: 

Mm-hmm. 

[00:19:31] Kelly Corrigan: 

What I came out thinking is like, just go back to her. Just go back to the conversation. 

[00:19:38] Chris Duffy: 

I think for me, one of the things that has been really important and meaningful about having intergenerational friendships is that when you are on the younger side of the friendship. 

[00:19:53] Kelly Corrigan: 

Yeah.

[00:19:53] Chris Duffy: 

And you're going through something really hard, there often aren't that many of your peers that have the experience, right? Like you were the one of the few people that had gone through chemo and had experienced that, and I've talked about this several times on the podcast, but like there was this period of time where my wife was really sick and it things were just getting bad, getting things were already bad and they were getting worse and they were getting worse.


It was like the train careened off the rails and the track was not visible and it was. On the one hand, like very destabilizing to think like, “But we're not doing the things that our everyone else is doing.” And then on the other hand, also just really scary to be in this, like, “She's in pain, she's really struggling mentally, physically I don't know what to do. She doesn't know what to do.” 

It was so helpful to have a friend who was a good friend who was in her seventies who said, “Oh, I had like a terrible five years. Horrible. A whole five years were horrible. And then it was good after that.” 

[00:20:49] Kelly Corrigan: 

Mm-hmm. 

[00:20:50] Chris Duffy: 

Like sometimes you have a bad five years.

[00:20:51] Kelly Corrigan: 

Yes. Time horizons. Like that's something that you learn in the wise era. 

[00:20:55] Chris Duffy: 

That blew my mind. 

[00:20:56] Kelly Corrigan: 

Yes. 

[00:20:57] Chris Duffy: 

The idea that that this like happy, lovely, wonderful person was like, “I had five whole years that were horrible.” 

[00:21:03] Kelly Corrigan: 

There are seasons. 

[00:21:04] Chris Duffy: 

You know, I'm really allergic to the idea of like, there's a silver lining or the like. 

[00:21:08] Kelly Corrigan: 

Yes, yes.

[00:21:08] Chris Duffy: 

“You're stronger in the places that are broken.” Because I'm, that's just not how breaking works. You know, like if I break the table, it's not stronger there, it's like I can repair it, but it's probably gonna break in that same spot again. So I, I don't buy that. But I do think that something that happens when you break or when you have these really brutal, horrible moments, if you get through them, you are able to understand what someone else in that same po or similar position is going through in a different way. 

[00:21:37] Kelly Corrigan: 

Like being useful is the sweet spot, in my opinion. And I became so much more useful the minute I got cancer. But I had to give a graduation speech and I was trying to whittle it down to like, you know, something really memorable because, you know, you do work so hard on these and you know they're not listening and you, you know, and then they're gonna walk away.

And like a month later, somebody would say, “Who, who was your graduation speaker?” “I had no idea.” 

[00:22:02] Chris Duffy: 

Uh Huh. 


[00:22:02] Kelly Corrigan: 

“Was it a man or woman?” “No idea.” “What did they say?” “No idea.” So I, I was trying to beat that, which is a bad idea. It's not doable. But anyway, I whittled it down to make yourself useful. Doing something hard with good people.

[00:22:16] Chris Duffy: 

I love that. 

[00:22:17] Kelly Corrigan: 

Thanks. So there it is. I'm giving it to you because the kids I gave it to in San Francisco at that graduation 10 years ago, do not remember it. 

[00:22:26] Chris Duffy: 

I'm gonna remember it. Okay. This is my graduation. 

[00:22:28] Kelly Corrigan: 

Okay. 

[00:22:31] Chris Duffy: 

We're gonna be back with more from Kelly in just a moment,

And we're back. Here's another clip from Kelly's TED Talk. 

[00:22:47] Kelly Corrigan: 

The really big things often come with a game plan and a team of experts and enough adrenaline to lift a school bus over your head, but inside every crisis you think you might be ready for are a hundred dirty surprises that are not in the playbook.

I had stage three cancer in my thirties, and I can tell you that following the chemo schedule didn't take nearly as much courage as admitting to my husband that sex felt less sexy after my boobs, which were once a real strong suit for me, were made weird and uneven by a surgeon's knife. 

[00:23:29] Chris Duffy: 

You did go through, you know, cancer earlier than many people go through some of the big health things.

So, now that you have a little space from that, what advice would you give to other people who are in this moment where you know, life is not working according to plan. 

[00:23:48] Kelly Corrigan: 

Right. 

[00:23:48] Chris Duffy: 

Your first time of that happening. 

[00:23:50] Kelly Corrigan: 

Right. Your first big surprise. 

[00:23:52] Chris Duffy: 

Yeah. 

[00:23:52] Kelly Corrigan: 

Like one of my great gifts in this life is that I'm not afraid to ask for help.


And so I think many people feel uncomfortable with that, and I think that if you could try this Jedi mind trick, it might help you become more comfortable with it. The mind trick is you are doing them a favor. So, a feeling I had really strongly, as soon as I got diagnosed, 36 years old, two kids in diapers, seven centimeter tumor.

Whew. Like the whole town. I lived in a very small town and everyone knew within an hour and was that I had brought mortality into the room. And when you bring mortality into the room, you better give people something to do. 

[00:24:39] Chris Duffy: 

Hmm. 

[00:24:39] Kelly Corrigan: 

So, if they wanna make you a pie or knit you a beret or take your kids to the movies, you let 'em because they need it.


They need it more than you need it. And their kids need to see, this is how you do, this is what community is. So, like, we had so much more food than we needed. Many people have had this situation before. Do not call them off. If they wanna, they're gonna make a pie in front of their children, maybe with their children.

They're gonna clean the counters together. They're gonna write a little note, they're gonna walk it down my front steps in a little box. They're gonna come and gimme a hug and their kids are gonna watch that the whole time. That's a better day. 

[00:25:18] Chris Duffy: 

Hmm. 

[00:25:19] Kelly Corrigan: 

That's a better day than the day before or the day after when all they did was like run their errands and be a little pissed off and work through their dumb to-do lists and, and when crisis comes.

Maybe you could let people do something for you as a way of calming them down because you're scaring everybody. And so let 'em cut your lawn. Let them be useful to you. I also think you, you don't have to let 'em do it every day. Like if it's making you crazy. 

[00:25:51] Chris Duffy: 

Yeah. 

[00:25:51] Kelly Corrigan: 

You're allowed to say, “I'm gonna have some downtime.” 

[00:25:55] Chris Duffy: 

A lesson that I really had to learn and I think is especially hard for like straight men, at least in America, is the idea that sometimes, often you don't have to solve it. Worse to try and solve it. It's better to just be there. 

[00:26:10] Kelly Corrigan: 

Yes. 

[00:26:10] Chris Duffy: 

To listen. 

[00:26:11] Kelly Corrigan: 

Yes. 

[00:26:11] Chris Duffy: 

To be present. To validate 

[00:26:14] Kelly Corrigan: 

Yes. 

[00:26:14] Chris Duffy: 

Rather than to say, “Okay, I'm gonna do these things.” Totally. If you're asked to do them, fine, but that is such a gift.

[00:26:21] Kelly Corrigan: 

Yes. 

[00:26:21] Chris Duffy: 

And so often. Solves the problem more than you could. 

[00:26:25] Kelly Corrigan: 

Yes. 

[00:26:25] Chris Duffy: 

Possibly by offering solutions. 

[00:26:27] Kelly Corrigan: 

Okay, so my Jedi mind trick on this 'cause I'm a solver and a fixer. 

[00:26:31] Chris Duffy: 

Mm-hmm. 

[00:26:31] Kelly Corrigan: 

And I spring into action. The Jedi mind trick that I say to myself is, “Don't be greedy.” 

[00:26:38] Chris Duffy: 

Hmm.

[00:26:38] Kelly Corrigan: 

And what I mean is it's fun to untie knots. It's very satisfying.


If someone hands you like a big pile of jewelry, that's all knotted up and you can calmly slowly separate it all, then you get the thrill of solving this little conundrum. 

[00:27:01] Chris Duffy: 

Hmm. 

[00:26:55] Kelly Corrigan: 

So, especially with kids, I think when you do probably have a couple of really good ideas, 'cause you're just that much further down the road, you probably are leaving them with this terrible feeling of like, “God, she solved it in like two seconds. Like why couldn't I figure it out?” 

[00:27:14] Chris Duffy: 

Hmm. 

[00:27:14] Kelly Corrigan: 

“Like, she made me feel so worthless.” It's like the fight in your heart between like watching a kid make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich versus making it for them like it's a mess and. 

[00:27:27] Chris Duffy: 

Mm-hmm. 

[00:27:27] Kelly Corrigan: 

They're not doing it right and there's way too much jelly on there and they're cutting the bread when they're trying to spread the peanut butter.


And I would guess that any normal person literally has to look away. You, you cannot watch it without intervening and it's so natural. But really what you're saying is. “I can't stand thinking long term. I have to stand the short term.” 

[00:27:54] Chris Duffy: 

Hmm. 

[00:27:49] Kelly Corrigan: 

And the short term is “I can make this sandwich in one 10th the time with one 10th the mess. And so fuck the long term, like, let's just get it done.” 


When you're with kids, like a, a thing, somebody told me on the pod, some guest we had said, “You're trying to raise a competent 35-year-old, that's what you're doing.” That's your Jedi mind trick. You're not like trying to make an Olympic sandwich maker who's gonna compete tomorrow.

[00:28:20] Chris Duffy: 

Yeah. 

[00:28:20] Kelly Corrigan: 

You're just trying to raise a competent, sane, lovely 35-year-old. 

[00:28:24] Chris Duffy: 

Another moment that I really wanted to, um, highlight from Tell Me More is, you know, there's this idea of like, we have to do it and get it right. An idea that is ingrained in me is you, you write here. “Maybe being wrong is not the same as being bad, I thought. Not a sign that your insides were rotten. Maybe you can still be a decent ish person, a person with a personal mission statement. A person who aspires to be someone habitually good and highly effective. And fuck up.” 

[00:28:50] Kelly Corrigan: 

My cousin Kathy's 10 years older than I am. 

[00:28:52] Chris Duffy: 

Hmm. 

[00:28:52] Kelly Corrigan: 

And she was my go-to on parenting stuff still is just to say, “Am I crazy?”


And she'd say, “Oh, Kelly, let it go hun. Let it go.” I think a great favor that you can do for your kids that the originals were doing for me and that Kathy's helped me do is to gently, lovingly make fun of yourself and your failings in front of your children. And I think it's a practice that has kind of that ability to change your own insides as well. 

[00:29:24] Chris Duffy: 

Hmm. 

[00:29:24] Kelly Corrigan: 

But even if you're faking it, even if you're just doing it to show your child, “Like, don't be so hard on yourself. Like people make mistakes all day long.” Because you can have a completely successful career and make and make mistakes regularly. Lovely human moment where you could even like end up better than where you started to acknowledge it.

Like the only mistakes that are really gonna get you in trouble are the ones you try to hide or deny. 

[00:29:52] Chris Duffy: 

It's also like those are the only people that anyone likes to be around. No one wants to be around the perfect person who never makes a mistake. Like little Mr. Perfect is like, okay, not at all interest.


And the person who's like, “I am a mess.” 

[00:30:05] Kelly Corrigan: 

Yes. 

[00:30:05] Chris Duffy: 

“But you know what? I'm trying and thanks for bearing with me.” Like that's a fun person. And that's a person who lets you be yourself around them too. 

[00:30:12] Kelly Corrigan: 

Yes. Just try to make different mistakes. 

[00:30:14] Chris Duffy: 

Definitely. 

[00:34:56] Kelly Corrigan:

Yeah. 

[00:30:15] Chris Duffy: 

You know, we had Dr. Becky on the show, acclaimed parenting expert.


She said, “The number one parenting skill, if you master no other skill, is admitting when you made a mistake and repairing the relationship.” 

[00:30:27] Kelly Corrigan: 

You and I agree that it is inappropriate to yell and point to scream at somebody. End point. But then I screamed and pointed. I thought we both agreed on this. I thought we, we thought this was the way.


Good, nice people behaved. 

[00:30:42] Chris Duffy: 

Mm-hmm. 

[00:30:43] Kelly Corrigan: 

So then I say, “I was wrong. I agree with you. I am back on team, don't yell and point, and I was wrong to slip away from it.” 

[00:30:53] Chris Duffy: 

Mm-hmm. 

[00:30:54] Kelly Corrigan: 

I think that's soothing to the union that we have built on top of this set of shared values. 

[00:31:02] Chris Duffy: 

Hmm. 

[00:31:03] Kelly Corrigan: 

So, I had this moment where I just lost my mind at one of my kids.


And you too will have this moment. Even though that kid is so adorable now, like something will happen, you'll get on the wrong day at the wrong time, wrong amount of sleep, maybe you're dehydrated, who knows? But like the stars will align in just the wrong, the wrong way and you'll fly up the handle. And I went up to, it was Georgia, I think, and I went up to her room and I said, “Um, I was so wrong to flip out like that. And I. Like the idea that I may have misled you to think that anyone in your entire life should ever talk to you that way is killing me.” 

[00:31:49] Chris Duffy: 

Mm-Hmm. 

[00:31:50] Kelly Corrigan: 

“No boyfriend should talk to you that way. No girlfriend, no boss, no colleague, no guy at the garage and not me. And even though you're 13, you still have that right. And I. I broke a contract and I want you to know that was wrong. I was wrong. I do not accept that behavior.” 

[00:32:15] Chris Duffy: 

Hmm. 

[00:32:15] Kelly Corrigan: 

And she was kinda like, “Okay, like whatever. Wasn't that crazy mom?

[00:32:18] Chris Duffy: 

That makes me think that I had kind of been in therapy and then had not done therapy. And then as I knew we were gonna have a baby, I went back to therapy And one of the things that I was saying is my goal there is I was like, “You know, I know I have some things that I'm working on and I really want to solve them before the baby arrives so that I cannot pass this along to him.” 

My therapist wise person, that he is worth the money that he is paid. He was like, “You know, that's actually not how you don't pass something along, like you can't solve all your things. The way you don't pass something along is you are aware of it and you are open about it.” 

[00:32:53] Kelly Corrigan: 

Because it's breaking the myth that I am locked.

I think it's a really trippy idea. The first time you as a child realize that your parent is still working on things. 

[00:33:12] Chris Duffy: 

Hmm. 

[00:33:06] Kelly Corrigan: 

Is still in pain over some things, is still unsatisfied in some ways. I mean, it's part of like that great awakening that happens in your twenties where you start to actually think of your parents as people with their own sets of issues and desires.

[00:33:22] Chris Duffy: 

When my wife Molly, when she was really. In the worst of it, you know, really struggling. And it kind of was like she was in a very hopeless place. I felt a little bit the opposite of what you said before where I was like, “I can't, I would give anything to be back in a place where I'm like worried about the delivery coming late.”

[00:33:38] Kelly Corrigan: 

Oh yes, yes. 

[00:33:39] Chris Duffy: 

“I would love to have those be my concerns. 'Cause right now, like that stuff does not matter.” 

[00:33:43] Kelly Corrigan: 

Right. 

[00:33:44] Chris Duffy: 

And I felt like all of the calloused, rough, outer protective layer of emotional skin was completely off. I was just like, I can sob at the drop of a pin and like anything can make I feel everything.

[00:33:57] Kelly Corrigan: 

Mm-Hmm. 

[00:34:57] Chris Duffy: 

And it felt uncontrolled and scary the amount that I was feeling in that in those moments. 

[00:34:02] Kelly Corrigan: 

Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:34:02] Chris Duffy: 

Because there was no capacity and in an interesting way that I didn't necessarily expect. Having our son it was a. The, the kind of not scary, not bad version of that where I was like, “Oh, and the skin is off again.”


Like, I am just sobbing and like I can, like today. 

[00:34:22] Kelly Corrigan: 

It's too much emotion. 

[00:34:33] Chris Duffy: 

You know it, it makes me realize that while there's a lot, it's overwhelming to be in those periods where you're in grief or suffering or sadness and you just feel everything. It's also like, man, it's like you are so alive in those moments.

[00:34:37] Kelly Corrigan: 

Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. 

[00:34:37] Chris Duffy: 

So. 

[00:34:38] Kelly Corrigan: 

This is the whole resolution of the TED Talk. Which is almost cataloging in a list. Everything that my friends had someone in their family say to them that was like, “Well, they'll, that'll take you to a moment.” 

[00:34:55] Chris Duffy: 

Hmm. 

[00:34:56] Kelly Corrigan: 

“Like that will like light your nervous system on fire.” And then like, how are they doing this?

How are they coming up with the words? 

[00:35:02] Chris Duffy: 

Hmm. 

[00:35:03] Kelly Corrigan: 

And then I felt almost guilty, the precision with which I drew this picture. Of how challenging these little moments, these little shocks can be for just us ordinary people. 

[00:35:23] Chris Duffy: 

Hmm. 

[00:35:23] Kelly Corrigan: 

And of course, the reward is a full human experience, and isn't that what we're here to get?

[00:35:30] Chris Duffy: 

Hmm. 

[00:35:31] Kelly Corrigan: 

But the full human experience means that you're gonna experience every emotion at maximum dosage. And a lot of the emotions are not that pleasant to experience, but it, it is part of the total package and it must happen for the high side to happen. Like you can't know relief without knowing the burn.

This is the only way actually that you could ever get what you came for. So, you know, welcome. You're about to get your full human experience. 

[00:36:08] Chris Duffy: 

Well, Kelly, thank you so much for being here on the show. It's been really like such an honor and privilege to talk to you. 

[00:36:13] Kelly Corrigan: 

Oh, my pleasure. Thanks for reading the book.

[00:36:15] Chris Duffy:

I love it. 

[00:36:15] Kelly Corrigan: 

Thanks for listening. 

[00:36:16] Chris Duffy:

I love it. 


[00:36:16] Kelly Corrigan: 

To the talk. 

[00:36:19] Chris Duffy: 

That is it for today's episode of How to Be a Better Human. Thank you so much to today's guest, Kelly Corrigan. Her podcast is called Kelly Corrigan Wonders, and her PBS show is called Tell Me More, which is also the title of her most recent book. I am your host, Chris Duffy, and you can find more from me, including my weekly newsletter and other projects at chrisduffycomedy.com. 


How to Be a Better Human is brought to you on the TED side by a team of wonders, Daniella Balarezo, Banban Cheng, Cloe Shasha Brooks, Lanie Lott, Antonia Le and Joseph DeBrine. This episode was fact checked by Julia Dickerson and Matheus Salles, who believed that the full human experience should contain a minimum of factual errors on the PRX side.


Our show is put together by a group that encourages our guests to always tell them more. Morgan Flannery, Noor Gill, Patrick Grant, Maggie Gourville. And Jocelyn Gonzales, and of course, thanks to you for listening to our show and making this all possible. If you are listening on Apple, please leave us a five star rating and review.

And if you're listening on the Spotify app, answer the discussion question that we've put up there on mobile, please share this episode with a friend, someone you think would appreciate it. The biggest way that we get out to new listeners is word of mouth. It really, really, really makes a huge difference.

We will be back next week with more How to Be a Better Human. In the meantime, take care.