The first time I read best-selling author Jenny Lawson, I was on the subway in New York City, laughing so hard at the beginning. Let’s Pretend It Never Happened: A Very True Memoirpeople started giving me strange looks and slowly started walking. In a city where people rarely react, that’s really saying something. But if I’ve learned anything from Lawson, it’s not letting my pure joy be embarrassed.
For nearly two decades, Lawson has built a devoted following by turning life’s most uncomfortable moments—anxiety, depression, and everyday embarrassment—into stories that are both hilarious and unexpectedly comforting. Today, that audience extends well beyond her books, with more than 167,000 followers on Instagram and 204,000 on Facebook.
Her latest book, How to Be OK When Nothing’s OK: The Tools and Tricks That Keep Me Alive, Happy, and Creative Despite Myself, He continues the tradition, offering practical advice on mental health, creativity, and navigating life’s challenges with the quirky personal stories he knows, including chapter titles like “The Killing Potato” and “Wash Your Brain More Than You Wash Your Brain.”
“I really can’t afford not to be myself,” Lawson told Katie Couric Media. “I don’t have filters. I don’t struggle to put everything out there—basically my life is diverted onto the page.”
In our conversation, Lawson shares how her honest approach to sharing has improved her life and relationships—and can do the same for you.
Using the power of honesty
In contrast to what is usually portrayed on social media—polished shiny reels and carefully crafted lives—Lawson’s openness can feel a little unusual. But those who have been with it since the beginning are used to it. She started her blog, The blogsin 2007, when she began building a loyal following through her candid, witty posts.
While she started out as a blogger, being intentional about how much time she spends online has become an important part of maintaining her mental health. Lawson gives herself about 20 minutes to watch the news or scroll through social media before taking action and deciding what—if anything—she wants to do with the information she’s encountered. This habit, she says, helps her stay alert, without leaving the noise. “Humans aren’t really built for a world where it feels like everything is constantly on fire,” she pointed out.
This mindset also shapes the way he interacts with readers. Instead of presenting the real version of her life, Lawson finds that sharing unpleasant or difficult moments creates deeper connections.
“It’s very rare that someone says, ‘I want to be friends with this person because they have a nice sports car,'” he says. “But if you talk about being shy or something you’re struggling with, people say, ‘Yeah, I want to be your friend.’
Still, Lawson admits that sharing such an unfiltered version of herself with the world comes with its own trade-off.
“I never know who’s going to say, I read you and I hate you,” he jokes. Or, ‘Why do you use so much profanity? Why did you say Jesus was once a zombie?’
Laughing through hard things
For Lawson, humor has long been one of the most powerful ways to talk about things that people often struggle to say out loud. “Humor is kind of on the ramp. It allows people to say, ‘Okay, I can talk about this, too,'” he explains.
Reframing these experiences may change how we relate to them. “Taking ownership of something you fear or are ashamed of makes you less likely to hurt yourself,” Lawson found.
This method is loved by readers. Some have told Lawson that her writing has helped them explain their mental health struggles to family members, while others say it gave them the language to finally ask for support. “I’ve told people they were planning to kill themselves and decided to get help,” she says. “Not necessarily because of what I wrote, but because they saw other readers responding and saying, ‘Me too.'”
These moments, she says, are a powerful reminder of how important community can be, especially in difficult times. “Depression lies to you,” says Lawson. “But when you see other people say what you feel, you know it’s probably not true.”
Mental health counseling is not one-size-fits-all
Lawson likes to think How to be okay when nothing is okay As a toolbox rather than a rulebook. She is quick to admit that some of the widely recommended coping strategies—like yoga for anxiety—didn’t work for her at first.
“My therapist taught me breathing techniques, and it turns out I was doing it so badly that I thought, ‘I didn’t even know you could fail at this,'” he says. “I had a panic attack and something made it worse. I felt like I was suffocating.”
Eventually, though, Lawson discovered the power of breathing exercises in a serendipitous moment when she experienced a panic attack on a street and a stranger stepped in to help.
“A woman came up and said, ‘This is what we’re going to do. We’re going to breathe.’ I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, please go,'” she recalled. “But she told me to put my hand on my stomach and breathe slowly, feel the rise and fall. She put me through it, and it worked.”
Experiences like this, Lawson says, are a reminder that coping strategies can evolve over time. What helps at one point in life may stop working later — or suddenly start working when it didn’t before. “It doesn’t mean you’ve failed,” he insists. “It just means you’re changing.”
This belief—that there is no single formula for capturing mental health—sits at the heart of Lawson’s book, which asks a deceptively simple question: What does it really mean to be okay in a world that often feels overwhelming?
For Lawson, being “good” doesn’t mean everything is right. Instead, it’s about finding small moments of calm and perspective, even when things feel chaotic.
“There are more good people than bad people,” he says. “It’s just that bad people are higher.”
Ultimately, he believes that taking care of yourself is part of something bigger.
“The only way I can help improve the world is to find a way to improve myself,” he adds.
Author Jenny Lawson on anxiety, mental health, and finding humor in difficult times appeared first on Katie Couric Media.
#Author #Jenny #Lawson #anxiety #mental #health #finding #humor #tough #times