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Returning guest Amelia Hruby—who is now our very own podcast producer, as well as a podcaster in her own right with a PhD in philosophy—co-hosts this special episode for the 2-year anniversary of Rethinking Wellness. We discuss how Amelia’s thinking about astrology and tarot has shifted since her first appearance on the pod, why the spirituality-to-QAnon/MAGA pipeline is still going strong, how editing this podcast has changed her relationship with science and medicine, and more. Behind the paywall, Christy shares more about the origins of this podcast in a way she hasn’t before, including why she shifted her focus to wellness culture and how researching the harms of social media changed the tenor of her work. She also discusses some of her favorite things about this new platform, why she thinks it’s so important to do science communication without a side of fat-shaming, what she’s dreaming up for the future of Rethinking Wellness, whether there might be another book in the works, and more.
Amelia Hruby is a writer, educator and podcaster with a PhD in philosophy from DePaul University. Over the past decade, she’s been a university professor, a community organizer, and a radio DJ. Now, she is the founder and executive producer of Softer Sounds, a feminist podcast studio that supports women and nonbinary small business owners in creating purposeful, powerful podcasts. Since leaving social media in April 2021, she’s also launched Off the Grid, a podcast about leaving social media without losing all your clients. On the show she interviews business leaders and former influencers, and shares stories, strategies and experiments for growing your business with radical generosity and energetic sovereignty.
Resources and References
Christy’s second book, The Wellness Trap: Break Free from Diet Culture, Disinformation, and Dubious Diagnoses and Find Your True Well-Being
Subscribe on Substack for extended interviews and more
Amelia’s previous interview on the pod, plus our bonus episode on astrology and tarot
Christy’s online course, Intuitive Eating Fundamentals
Transcript
Disclaimer: The below transcription is primarily rendered by AI, so errors may have occurred. The original audio file is available above.
Christy Harrison: Amelia, welcome back to the show. I'm so glad we're doing this. We last spoke for the pod in late 2023, which feels like a lifetime ago, honestly. And since then you've become my podcast producer, which is so lovely. And so we get to talk all the time. And you came to me with the idea for this anniversary episode, which I loved. So do you want to start off by sharing your vision for this episode and what we're going to cover?
Amelia Hruby: I think the idea for this episode came from two places. We, as you mentioned, had a conversation in late 2023 and during that conversation we talked about our different approach to meaning making systems like tarot and astrology, how you bring your compassionate skepticism to those systems, and how I have a more kind of agnostic and interested approach to them and utilize them in my daily life.
So we wanted to revisit that conversation and have a little chat about how we're thinking about those things these days. And then I think even more than that, I really wanted to invite you to share some of the things that you tell me in our conversations that I don't hear say on the podcast about how you're thinking about Rethinking Wellness these days. What's your relationship to this project and a little behind the scenes on how the show gets made and where it's headed in 2025. So I'm excited to dive into all of that together in this episode. Where would you like to begin?
Christy Harrison: Yeah, I love all this. I'm so excited to talk and get into the real behind the scenes details, but I think a good place to start would be sort of an update on the conversation we had publicly in 2023. And I'm just so curious about where you're at with astrology and tarot, et cetera, because you've told me some stuff behind the scenes that I think maybe has changed your relationship with it a little bit. So I’m curious to hear about that.
Amelia Hruby: Yeah. So I would say that on a personal level, I still am very interested in and excited by astrology and tarot specifically. I love personality assessments. I love different ways of making sense of my life and the world around me. So you will definitely find me talking about astrology, talking about my rising sign, even talking about things like Human Design or Matrix of Destiny, which I think are way far out there for you and your crew.
Christy Harrison: I've heard of Human Design, I've not heard of Matrix of Destiny, but that definitely sounds out there.
Amelia Hruby: Yeah, it's definitely on another end of a spectrum from scientific, I would say. But I think that for me, I'm still just interested in these different ways that people see the world and make sense of their place in it. And I tend to take a pretty light touch to any meaning making system that I'm applying in my life. I'm not dogmatic about them. But the philosopher in me, the side of me that has a PhD in continental philosophy and studied aesthetics for almost a decade, is just open to learning about different ways of conceptualizing things that may seem obvious to me and not to others.
That said, that's kind of my personal life. But something that's happened over the past year for me is that I have continued to see more people in the more mystical, magical, spiritual communities that I'm in, kind of go down the QAnon pipeline. And I have noticed that some of the podcasts I listen to and even, in fact, one of the shows I produce went from being a show where I'm like, yeah, we'll talk about different ways of working with food, we'll talk about all of these things. And now we're talking about vaccine skepticism, and now we're talking about medical interventions that are not at all approved by actual doctors in the FDA. And now we're talking about things that I really can't get on board with even moving into, like, oh, interesting, this is like a MAGA influencer.
And seeing that happen with someone who I was working with regularly, who I believe is like a smart, interesting, intelligent person, really made me sit up and pay attention to more of what's happening. And I guess it just made it real for me. The stuff I'd seen reported on the news, that there's this crunchy mom to anti-vaccine pipeline or the QAnon to RFK supporter pipeline, all of these things, I saw them reported, but I'd never witnessed someone go through it myself until I did. And I don't totally know what to make of it, if I'm being honest. I decided to stop working with that client. I wasn't interested in producing content like that and helping putting it out in the world. But I haven't really figured out anything else I would do around that. That’s something I'm still sitting with.
Christy Harrison: That's so interesting. I wrote a lot about that in my book, The Wellness Trap, about this wellness to QAnon pipeline, wellness to anti-vax pipeline, the way that yoga and new age spirituality plays a role as well in the sort of conspirituality movement. And it's really fascinating and I'm looking back on that book, I feel like that was such a moment in time, but then it's still happening, like you said. And I think we're going to see that happen even more. And we are seeing that happen even more now with the rise of RFK Jr. And the sort of wellness moms that stan him all of that. It's a fascinating nexus. And I'm curious, in your experience of observing this person, do you have any sense of what radicalized them in that way?
Amelia Hruby: It's a great question. I'm not sure I know them personally enough to speak to what made this happen for them. But what I did notice happen in their content felt similar, honestly to what you write about in your book where the more underserved and underseen and under supported they and their guests felt in the medical system, the more likely they were to seek out other solutions to their problems and the more willing they were to try different things.
And I think that many of the hallmarks came up in those episodes. Lyme disease, other autoimmune conditions, things that you talk about in your book and that you've experienced personally, even. And before this, I read your book, I was like, yeah, I guess that happens. And then this happened. And I was like, oh, it really does happen. And I think so much of it is just that sense of confusion and fear in a lot of ways.
Nobody wants to live in pain. Nobody wants to feel like they're struggling to understand what's happening with their body and no one can help them. I guess really what I'm taking away and I appreciate this space to reflect on it, is how each of us can hold really contradictory beliefs, how we can appeal to science and to pseudoscience in the same breath. And it has made me reflect more on where I'm doing that and try to be much more careful about if I'm saying something, where did I get that information from? Who did say that? Why do I believe this? Especially if it has something to do with health or wellness.
Christy Harrison: Yeah, I love that. I think that's a really powerful approach. And I've also been reflecting lately on my own contradictions and ways that I have been out ahead of my skis on making a statement, a bold claim, a sort of nuance free claim that isn't really fully backed up by the science. And have talked about that a little bit about my evolution from anti-diet and the language I used in that book and in my first podcast, Food Psych, to now where I'm trying to be so much more nuanced. But I think it's still hard.
We all develop opinions and have things that are sort of our deeply held beliefs that are hard to challenge even with science. And it is tricky. And I see science and pseudoscience being weaponized so much in wellness culture, but I think we would all do well for sure to reflect on our own kind of uses of science and where we're maybe manipulating it or weaponizing it or something like that.
Amelia Hruby: Yeah, absolutely. And I think something I've said to you before is we're basically at a point where if something makes a statistical claim, I feel more dubious at first because it's like, this could be completely made up. We literally have a president right now who makes up statistics regularly. So what am I meant to trust? And this is really where I think each of us has to develop our own critical thinking skills and our way of, like, what are our lenses and proxies and assessments for information and how do we understand things?
And I think that something else we've spoken about that always feels important to me is that I have a background in feminist epistemology and I studied in grad school the many ways that “scientific information” can also be biased. The objective facts are also political. They are interpreted by human beings. They bring in human biases. So I have been on my own journey of learning to be skeptical of a lot of science because of how, in many instances, it might make a blanket claim that something was true, when in fact it was only tested on, historically, cis white male bodies.
And at the same time, what it's really interesting for myself to chart, when it felt like the prevailing systems were scientific, I felt more rooted in that skepticism. And now it feels like that has changed entirely. And I find myself being like, no, we have to go to the science, which is something I never would have said a decade ago because I felt like the science wasn't for me a decade ago. And now I think that there is much better science being done that's much more inclusive and considers bias as it impacts scientific studies.
But also I just honestly feel fearful of the powers that be and what is happening in our political system. And when I'm looking at the face of that, then I absolutely want to support and uphold and believe in science.
Christy Harrison: That's so interesting and it makes me think about trust in institutions and how trust in institutions has been at such a low for the last decade or so at least. And the people in power now rose to power by attacking institutions and assailing norms and ways of doing things that were more rooted in science. And so now I'm thinking about noodling on a piece about this, about how things have flipped to where I feel like before this administration, I was very critical of institutions, but also supported critical analysis of science. And I think that there's a lot of value to science and it can be used in important and powerful ways.
And I often would critique, I think rightly, institutions like the CDC or the FDA, while also trying to be nuanced about them, understanding how they supported good science. And I think I've pushed back a lot on critiques of the FDA that said why do we have all these food dyes in our system that other countries ban and stuff? And kind of really looking at what is that argument and why does the FDA say we can have these things? And looking at the precautionary principle versus the risk principle and understanding how the FDA analyzes evidence and kind of coming down on that side and saying actually I kind of align more with what they're doing than with what a lot of European food safety authorities do, because it doesn't really consider critical analysis of science the way the FDA's analysis does.
So in some ways I was supportive of certain institutions in our healthcare system and in our government health related institutions that I think in some ways have done a good job and many other ways have failed. And there's nuance to it, right? But now having these people in charge of those institutions has just totally, for the most part, crumbled my trust in them. I think I am now extremely skeptical and even more critical of these institutions. And it remains to be seen, but all these websites, government websites related to health and wellness are being scrubbed of certain language because it's politically what the new regime wants.
And so I feel like there's something there and that flip from having skepticism but some support for institutions to now that side that has been trying to tear down institutions for so long has kind of accomplished what it set out to do in the sense that it has now made people who had any sort of faith in them completely lose trust or shift their perspective.
Amelia Hruby: Sometimes I think that there's this slippery thing that's happened where people like you and I, it used to be the case, that we might be saying things like, “Science is political. Our political beliefs come into how we create science.” And we're always trying to make ways to articulate that, make it visible and be less biased, in order to root out those biases. And so we might have said something like that in the past. And then other people picked that up instead of being like, “Okay, science is political, so we should uproot the bias from it.” Other people are like, “Yeah, science is political, so I should agree with my politics.” And I'm like, wait, that's not what I meant!
Christy Harrison: I mean, this is a whole other conversation, and we've talked about this a bit in our discussions around the series that I'm working on that you helped inspire me to write about why smart people fall for wellness misinformation. But there's something with the postmodern critique and the way that critiquing institutions and critiquing power, I think there's some real necessity and merit to that. That was a good thing at its inception and continues to be a good thing in many ways. And I feel like it's sort of filtered out and gotten diluted and taken in this direction that now has created, I'm not the first person to say this, but this post truth, post fact world. And obviously, the entire world is not like this. I think it's within certain subcultures. But now a very post truth, very post fact subculture is ascendant and is in charge of the U.S. government. And that is pretty terrifying.
Amelia Hruby: Yeah, I would have been somebody who was out there being like, there's no capital T truth. And now I'm like, but this is obviously not the truth. We all see that this person is lying and many people don't care. I personally live in a very conservative part of the United States, in Nebraska, and when I try to make statements like that, people are just like, I don't know, I don't care. The “this is a lie” argument doesn't land with them. And so to me, critiquing institutions, questioning capital T truth was about reclaiming power in communities. And I think instead it has been turned into a quasi libertarianism of everyone's out for themselves and accumulating power in a dog eat dog world is all that matters or something like that.
Christy Harrison: Totally. Yeah. And it's like whatever is true is maybe only true for you, but you don't matter anyway. So I'm the only one who matters. My truth is the one that should guide my actions.
Amelia Hruby: Yeah, very like Hobbes’ Leviathan kind of world, which was never the political philosophy I liked.
Christy Harrison: Yeah, not my cup of tea either for sure. But I'm curious, kind of getting back to our question at hand here. How has observing that kind of astrology to QAnon or wellness to QAnon wellness to anti-vax pipeline and slide changed your relationship with wellness culture?
Amelia Hruby: Yeah, I think for me it's had a few different impacts. So one impact is that I have not bought a single supplement or wellness beverage or product telling me it will improve my wellbeing since I witnessed this happen, I used to get pulled into that stuff. I am sure there are listeners of this podcast who love science, who listen because you, like me, love Christy's approach to research and also have done things like me, like order the Athletic Greens. And I think that's fine. It goes back to the ways that so many of us hold both appreciation for science and pseudoscientific beliefs or behaviors at the same time.
And I think that in the process of producing that show and seeing how it kind of like pushed me to the edges of the things that I was willing to consider for wellbeing, made me come back to like, if someone's trying to get me to buy a product, if this thing is well branded, that means that I don't need it. And instead I can go to my doctor and we can talk about what might be necessary. And I can do things like take a daily multivitamin, which she seems to think is totally fine and definitely not doing harm to me, even if maybe it's not something I really need.
So that's been something that I've really returned to is I've stopped buying the products and I've started going back to the doctor. I didn't always get my annual physical. I wasn't as good about getting blood work done at least once a year. And I've made an effort to really be doing those things again so that I have more information about my wellbeing.
Christy Harrison: That's huge. And I think that relationship with a primary care provider can be so hard to come by and so fraught for so many people and for so many reasons. So turning toward that relationship and sort of using that as a resource rather than all these other things that are asking to be used as resources and vying for your attention and your money is a powerful shift, I think.
Amelia Hruby: Yeah. Thank you for saying that. And it was a big deal for me because I am a fat person and have historically had really challenging relationships with doctors. It kept me out of the doctor's office for a really long time. And I looked up health at every size practitioners where I live in Nebraska, and there were not any that I could go to. So it was scary. I was afraid to go back to the doctor, but I did. And I really like the PA that I see regularly.
And the thing that kind of happened the first time I went that actually I think really turned this around for me is that one, she didn't talk about my weight. She asked a lot of questions about my experience of my body, looked at my blood work, and she asked if I experience any regular pain. And I told her about the migraines that I'd had and she was like, well, would you like the medication for this? And I feel embarrassed to admit this on this podcast, but let me tell you, I had tried so many wellness world solutions for migraines, right? I'd bought different glasses, I'd taken different supplements. I bought the ice packs for my head. I had done all of these other things. I had not gone to the doctor and asked about migraines. I didn't even go to the doctor to ask about the migraines.
I went to get a physical and she asked me about them and then gave me this medication that literally cures them within 20 minutes of onset. And I spent years being in pain because I didn't want to go to the doctor. And so I feel like that has really shifted my relationship. It's less about what's changed my relationship to astrology or tarot. Those are still practices that I have, but I've really stepped away from some of the other wellness culture things that I would try out just to see. I've just kind of stopped trying them out, and instead, I've pushed through my fear to go back to the doctor and get help in those ways, and that's been pretty great. And I still pull tarot cards regularly. I just don't ask them what to do about my migraines. I go to the doctor for that.
Christy Harrison: That's amazing.
Amelia Hruby: Yeah, it's been a really great shift for me, and one that I feel like I can say is definitely partially thanks to working with you and reading your book and being behind the scenes on your podcast for a year now. So I'm very grateful.
Christy Harrison: Thank you so much. I'm so glad to hear that. I feel like sometimes it's shouting into the void, as you said. A lot of times people are like, well, I don't really care what's true. I just want what works. I literally had someone kind of on my team who's supposed to be advocating for my work, be like, yeah, but honestly, people don't want to be told that science says it's not true. They just want what works for them. And if they feel like it works for them, then that's what they're going to want. Do you really want to be going around bursting people's bubbles? And it was just so disheartening. And I'm also like, that person maybe shouldn't be on my team anymore because maybe we're diverging.
So it is heartening and helpful to hear feedback from you and other people who've had similar experiences where I'm like, this work that I'm doing maybe is not for everyone and maybe is not for everyone at every time. But if I can be there for someone at the right time, when they're sort of ready or receptive to listening to this, then maybe it can be helpful.
Amelia Hruby: Yeah. And I really think of it as an empirical understanding of the world and a spiritual understanding of the world. They can coexist. I studied the history of philosophy. Those things have coexisted as long as people have been thinking about how the world works. Philosophy has been empirical and embodied and spiritual in all of these different ways. And I think we're just living through this particularly insidious moment of the commodification of wellness and those pipelines from wellness culture into these really harmful political beliefs and actions that have led to movements that are now in power.
And so also, for me, I am not willing to be complicit in MAHA or anything else. And so that has also, I think, led to me shedding perhaps some of the things that I was just trying or experimenting with or willing to be interested in. I'm not anymore. That's where it's going. Or it's leading to people like RFK Jr. and Trump being in power. I am not interested. And, yeah, go science.
Christy Harrison: It's so funny. I'm reminded a little bit of the first Trump administration and the “go science” energy there, which was so much less critical. I feel like there was this sort of reflexive, like, “follow the science” without kind of thinking about it critically. And in so many ways, the second administration is just like, we've been around this block before, maybe seen what worked and didn't work. I am sensing a shift, I don't know if you're noticing this too, but towards the desire to be on the side of science, but also not to be reflexively rah-rah about science.
Amelia Hruby: Yeah, I think that's absolutely true. And I think it has so much to do with living through the pandemic. And I mean, on the one hand, the question that shouldn't be a question in my opinion of vaccination. I think also the pandemic just exhausted health professionals, and so they don't have the energy to lead this charge again. And I think that something we don't talk about enough is that we're all still grieving. I lost multiple people who I loved during the pandemic, some of them explicitly to Covid. And there has been no broad or national level acknowledgement of any of that grief. There is no day of remembrance for people who died from Covid There is no recognition. And I think that has to do with it, too. It's all sad and scary.
Christy Harrison: It is. It is so sad and scary. There's just so much that we've had to deal with. And I feel like sometimes I bury myself in my work. This is getting into the behind the scenes part now, but I feel like I sometimes will just lose myself in some deep dive into PubMed and analyzing science, in part because it's just all I can think to do to keep putting one foot in front of the other because otherwise it just feels kind of hard to go on in some ways.
Amelia Hruby: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And at least you can be a voice who is thoughtful, measured and researched in the face of some of these claims that are now being touted by the FDA or the government or otherwise.
I would like to pull us out of the depression I took us into with some of my comments and turn this podcast ship around. It's important to say all of that. So I'm glad we went there. I'm sure many of your listeners have been feeling those things or are just circling their own questions around what do I think about this administration? How do I fight back against it? How do I think about my own wellness practices, et cetera? So I'm glad we went there. And also I want to ask you some questions about Rethinking Wellness itself.
So I'm wondering if maybe, to begin, you could actually take us back a little bit to why you started this project, because you've picked up a lot of new listeners along the way, and I don't think all of them were here when you launched Rethinking Wellness. So could you tell us a little bit about where Rethinking Wellness came from?
Christy Harrison: Yeah, it's such a good question. This goes back to some of the grief and the hard stuff, actually. But I will try not to keep us in this depressing place for too long.
