In today’s episode, Taylor is joined by British author and journalist, Rose Hackman. Rose and Taylor have a beautiful conversation about emotional labor : what it is, the value it holds and how it shows up in friendship and romantic partnerships.
Mentioned In The Episode:
Meet Today's Guest:
Rose Hackman is a British author and journalist based in Detroit. For the last decade, her work on gender, race, labor, policing, housing and the environment — published in The Guardian — has brought international attention to overlooked American policy issues, historically entrenched injustices, and complicated social mores. Rose’s first book, Emotional Labor, came out in March 2023 with Flatiron Books, an imprint of Macmillan.
Taylor Morrison
You're listening to Inner Warmup where your inner work begins. I'm Taylor Elyse Morrison, creator and author of Inner Workout, and you as always are our expert guest. Thanks for being here today. I'll introduce you to today's topic and guest momentarily. But first, let me remind you about the companion resource for this season. The Strong Friend's Inner Workbook. This workbook expands on the three strong friend archetypes we introduced at the beginning of the season. The intellectual strong friend, the caregiving strong friend and the picture perfect strong friend. It's has over 40 reflection questions to help you explore your strong friend tendencies, focus your inner work, and identify the relational support that you need. You get all this for just $4.99. You can find it at the link in the show notes or by going to Bitly slash strong friends. That's bi t dot l y slash strong friends, that's friends plural.
So in this season, we've been exploring the skills that strong friends need to build and some of the behaviors that they exhibit. Today's a conversation about the behavior of emotional labor, and I couldn't have dreamed of a better guest than Rose Hackman. Rose is a British author and journalist based in Detroit. For the last decade, her work on gender, race, policing, labor, housing, and the environment published in The Guardian, has brought international attention to overlooked American policy issues, historically entrenched in justices and complicated social mores. Rose's first book, Emotional Labor came out in March 2023. And I cannot wait for you to hear us dive into this topic further. So let's get into it, shall we?
Rose, thank you so much for being on the show today. As you know, and as listeners know, by now, this whole season, we are exploring the concept of the strong friend. So before we dive into today's topic, I'm just curious to hear from you. Do you consider yourself to be a strong friend or a recovering strong friend, and if so what that journey looks like for you?
Rose Hackman
I definitely think I am a strong friend. I'm in my late 30s. I'm 36 now. So strong friendships became really important to me during my 20s. I was living in New York at the time. I'm not from America. I was also newly divorced. And I found that friendships were really the center of my world. And I put so much into my friendships for quite a few years. And I feel like I still do. But there was definitely a moment in my 30s where I did have to reevaluate. I realized that in my 20s, when so many of us had, for example, limited budgets, showing up as a strong good friend meant hosting a lot of dinner parties, because that's what we could afford in terms of socializing. And I ended up being someone who was a convener and also a connector, and then also maybe a carrier of emotions of other people's emotions. And that was very fulfilling to me. And very, honestly, kind of a wonderful gift. But then, of course, with the years you start to think, you know, which of those relationships where people are just showing up and taking and which of those relationships where I'm actually, it's a kind of a virtuous cycle. I do think a lot of those relationships ended up being virtuous cycles, some of them probably needed a bit of course correction. So I am definitely a strong friend, I pride myself in showing up, especially to my girlfriends, but I also have a lot of male friends. But to a certain degree, I'm a recovering strong friend, too.
Taylor Morrison
And that's so interesting, because when we talk about strong friends here, and this is not the first time that this has happened, where there's like, it feels good to be a strong friend, when we're like, yeah, I have these strong, meaningful relationships. And also there can be barriers in only projecting strength in relationships, only being the person, like you said, and the listeners can't see but when you were talking about like, being kind of the convener and holding people's emotions, and that can be dangerous when we are only the holders and we don't also have people to hold us. But it sounds like that has really balanced out for you. And you're in this place where you can give and you can receive and I love that imagery of a virtuous cycle. We need more of that in our relationships. And sometimes it's us getting in the way of having a virtuous cycle and sometimes it's needing to set some new expectations with the people in our life, which kind of gets us into what I am so excited to talk about with you today. So throughout the season, we're exploring some of the behaviors or tendencies that strong friends have. And also skills that they can build as alternatives. And one of the behaviors that I've identified for strong friends is that we tend to do a lot of emotional labor. I know some people might be new to that term. So can you just ground us in what emotional labor is and what it means?
Rose Hackman
Yes, so emotional labor is, the formal definition is it's the editing work of emotions you will do on yourself in order to have an effect on the emotions of someone else. So it's a smile that you will provide to a person to a group, regardless of whether you're feeling good inside, in order to make them feel good inside. So it's the literal putting of emotions of your emotions, beneath the emotions of other people, you're, you're really serving the experiences and emotions of other people. In our society, this is actually a form of work that tends to be highly invisible. It's often feminized, sometimes racialized if there's an interracial dynamic, it's also highly devalued in spite of the fact that I think, and I argue in the book, Emotional Labor, it's one of the most essential forms of work out there, it's essential to the way in which our communities, our friendships, our families, our economy functions. So that's the formal definition. But in friendships, what emotional labor is probably going to look like it's basically informal therapy, and, and all of the work of showing up emotionally and sometimes physically for other people. And that can be a beautiful thing, if it's mutual, and it can be an exhausting thing if it's only expected of one party. Because often when it's unexpected of one party, there's a way in which this works, where because of its invisibility, and its devaluing. And its feminization, etcetera, is we expect someone to infinitely provide emotional labor to someone else, there's, there's this expectation that that's just who that person is, that person is altruistic. And that person is just, you know, the go to person, the mother of the group. And that's not true. It's a real form of work, you know, that necessitates time, effort and skill to be performed. It's, it's something that can be quite taxing.
Taylor Morrison
There's so much of what you just said that I'm excited to tap into further, the place that I want to start is, as you were sharing the definition, you were saying it tends to be feminized, it can be racialized, it's often invisible. And one of the questions that we ask, as a company on this podcast is, is it the self or is it the system? Because when we're having conversations about personal development, and self care, and well being, as a black woman, a lot of what I've seen is essentially bootstraps mentality, but for personal development, and like, you should just be able to change your thoughts, not acknowledging like, no people do actually treat me differently, because I'm a woman, because I'm a black woman. And that's something I'm hyper aware of, as we're entering into these conversations. So when we're looking at this idea of emotional labor, I'd love to tease out what parts are maybe responses to systemic realities, because of the identities we hold, and what parts might tend to be more self inflicted? And that's a big question. So feel free to take it where it leads, and we can keep going from there.
Rose Hackman
I think it's a wonderful question. I think it's actually the heart of the question. You know, especially in America, we live, which is where I've been living for the last 12 years, in spite of my accent, we live in a world where we're exactly we're told that we should be the change that we want. We're told that bootstrap mentality that you're talking about, we're given individual solutions to issues that we're facing, we're told to lean in more if we have a problem at work. I think it's so important to say that this is on two levels, but we first need to address the systemic level. Because if we don't address the systemic level, we're actually not properly understanding what's going on. So why do I say it's feminized? It's because if you're, let's say, in a friendship with a man, there is going to be all sorts of expectations that you're going to just be the emotional one, the one who's just, you're just more giving, you're more nurturing. This is part of nature, if you are black and a woman in a situation like that, it's going to be tenfold because of the history of this country of who's expected to take care of children and people generally in these very coercive situations that in theory enslavement has ended, but a lot of the mentalities of the dynamics between people has has not ended, we're still offloading specific forms of labor onto specific groups. And I think it's so important to understand that, because then if you're in a dynamic, whatever your identity is, you can start to think, you know, either why is it that I'm expected to do this? Or why is it that I'm expecting the other person to do this? Am I actually imposing my view of the world and my blind spots onto someone else who's than having to carry it for my benefit, and often without complaining? So I think thinking about this systemically is crucial. And then of course, you can start asking yourself, okay, so, you know, what am I doing within this sphere? And, you know, a lot of the women, especially that interviewed for the book identified as pleasers, you know, for lack of a better term that, that and a lot of them said, That's just how I am I just like, I'm a people pleaser, you know, I like to please people. The truth is, there's so much policing that happens within families, within communities, especially when it comes to girls, that they are expected to show up in a very specific way for others, that is not happening for boys. In fact, boys are cut off from their emotional selves, which is part of why we have this massively unequal distribution of emotional labor. There's so much cultural conditioning, it's very hard to actually in all honesty, say, Oh, this is just how someone is because actually, they've been trained to do it. If you are a woman, and you come from even a tiny bit of a traditional family, you've been taught, chronically, to be thinking of others first. Within friendships that say, within friendship, let's say I, you know, with another woman, personality probably is going to start teasing out and I think, you know, that's where maybe, you know, some women will identify more with the feminine tropes and some women less and then it becomes interesting to think about the dynamics that are going on, and maybe even start a conversation to create change.
Taylor Morrison
Thank you. You answered a really big question with so much precision, really. And I think that was really helpful just in terms of questions that we can be asking ourselves, like, why am I expecting other people to do this? Why am I expecting myself to do this, because that gets at the larger systems. And when we feel like this is just us, this is just our personality, something that that made me think of is, I don't know if you're familiar with the Enneagram, it's like a personality assessment. And the two is the helper. I was first introduced to the Enneagram when I was in the church. I no longer identify as a Christian, but that was when I was first introduced to it. And I remember being told even then, that an outsized number of women initially would think that they were Enneagram twos, because there's so much messaging in the church about how women are supposed to be helpers, literally, I was taught that like Eve was the helper to Adam. And that's just a clear example of the conditioning. And even as I've gone on my own journey, I'll still notice moments where I'm like, I'm expecting myself to pretend like I don't have a need here and please this other person, put this other person first. And I guess I'm curious. There's two questions that are coming up for me. One is that I don't want to villainize emotional labor, because as you said, from the beginning, this is the most essential labor. So how can we value this labor? I think it's not just about us not doing unnecessary emotional labor, but also how can we value this as labor.
Rose Hackman
100%. So in order to value it, first, we need to see it, right? And it's so insidious, we have so accepted the way in which emotional labor is just provided by certain groups for the benefit of other groups constantly. That that's the first step we need to be like, oh wait, what's happening here, okay, I'm catering to these people, to this person's feelings chronically and this is a form of work. So we need to see it and then we need to understand it's valuable. So because we live in a patriarchy, we think that rationality is masculine. emotionality is feminine, rationality and competitiveness should be valued. And emotionality is kind of, you know, close to being hysterical and should definitely be you know, kept under lock. First of all hysterical hysteria obviously is a total fake diagnosis pushed by very sexist Freud. And second of all, actually, emotionality is something that is not gendered. It's human. Just like rationality is not gendered, it's human. We all have rational abilities. We all have emotional abilities, empathy and action, as studied in neuroscience very clearly shows that being able to perform empathy is not about inherent ability. It's about motivation. Because of gendered stereotypes, we motivate women into performing empathy. But given the right incentives, there's this hilarious study that incentivizes participants with basically money. So participants in the study are told if you're able to be empathically accurate, you'll be rewarded with $1. And then very accurate two dollars, men and women perform extremely well to the same degree in those kinds of studies. So we know that emotionality is absolutely not divided between sexes. And I think that understanding that and no longer separating out the idea of emotional thought versus intellectual thought is how we start to understand the real value of effectively what we're talking about here is emotional literacy, we're talking about, emotionality is actually not being dysregulated is actually about having emotional inner literacy. Understanding what that means, translating it to the exterior and connecting to other people's emotional realities, holding yourself accountable in the emotional network. Being in touch with your emotions actually makes you far more regulated than when you're not in touch with your emotions. You know, we're very, very used to often masculine tantrums, tempers, anger, outbursts, those from a clinical psychology perspective, are expressions of emotions that are, have not been filtered, have not gone through that emotional labor moment. So you know, how do we value it, we need to see it, we need to understand it, just as a human attributes to be extraordinarily valuable. And then we need to ideally share it, you know, we can't just be telling one group that it's your job to be doing this. And just quick parentheses. This is not really friendship based. But there's been this all of this conversation about AI and automation the last few years, few months, especially with chat GPT, not just showing that automation was coming for physical jobs, but also for intellectual and creative jobs, chat GPT can write an article for a newspaper, you know, an essay for school, a poem in a creative way, emotionally, but cannot be automated, the connection between one human being and another human being is not something that a robot can do. And fundamentally, that work of connecting us to each other is how we survive as human beings, sense of belonging and meaning and connection has been shown to be as important to human beings, as shelter and food.
Taylor Morrison
Wow, so many good things that you just shared in that. And something that I want to pull out is that this is a skill, we talk a lot about skill building. And this is a whole other conversation, I just think of like what I wish was actually taught in school. And I'm starting to see it more, I volunteer with a nonprofit that does a lot around social emotional learning. And they talk about exactly what you're saying, like, it is important for us to understand how to name our emotions, be present with them, and connect to other people in their emotional reality to use your words. So I think there's a lot that we can do to start noticing where emotional labor is happening, how we're doing it, and maybe for some of us, cultivating some skills so that we can be doing that more intentionally and effectively when we want to be doing the emotional labor. Because again, this isn't about no one doing emotional labor, like you said, it's just as important as food and shelter. But I think there's a lot more room for us to be making a choice to do that emotional labor, rather than doing it out of obligation.
Rose Hackman
Totally, I think seeing it, it's not just in terms of seeing other people doing it. It's also about noticing you doing it. And I think one of the problems so far culturally, is that well, academically, emotional labor has been studied. Culturally, we only really think of it as a fixed trait. So we think of, even when you think of emotional intelligence in the workplace, that's effectively described as a fixed trait. But actually, emotional labor, ie emotional intelligence in action is not something that you just passively have. It's something that needs to be deployed, you know, something in order for it to be effective, you need to be practicing it. So that just goes back to what you're saying about a skill set. Yes, it's a skill. And it takes I always say it takes time, effort and skill to be performed. Because once you start thinking of it as something that is active as opposed to passive, I think you can much more connect to the way in which it's happening in very real ways.
Taylor Morrison
I guess, to shift the conversation slightly
Rose Hackman
Yes
Taylor Morrison
If we want to, and you said it takes time, effort and skill for us to deploy. And I love that word deploy like, it is very intentional, we are choosing, I'm picturing like, shooting my emotional labor into the ether. Sometimes, once we start getting more intentional and start choosing, we realize I actually don't want to be doing emotional labor in this space. What are some shifts that we can make, to pull back from doing emotional labor that we don't want to be doing anymore?
Rose Hackman
Right, I think positive emotional labor is emotional labor in a situation where ideally, it's either for part of an exchange, or it's part of an open ended mutuality, I think what's really important is to think of which situations is that where emotional labor is happening in that way, and which situations are situations where effectively your emotional labor is just being extracted from you, just because other people expect you effectively to make them feel comfortable. And I think sometimes it can be a revolutionary thing, to say, No, or to actually put your needs first, or to just disengage from that situation. And, you know, the number one thing, the number one obstacle really is ourselves. I think, for those of us who've been socialized to be people pleasers, who've been socialized, to actively be kind and thoughtful and preemptively thoughtful, it can be very hard to allow ourselves to not do it. But fundamentally, no one deserves your emotional labor, just by virtue of you being a woman, or a black woman, or a woman in church or a wife. You know, that's the first obstacle.
I want to be honest that the second obstacle is getting over other people pretending to not see it, when actually, I think far more people are aware that they're extracting this form of emotional labor, often in unequal ways than they would like to admit. There's this wonderful term, I'm sure you're very familiar with, weaponized incompetence.
Taylor Morrison
Yes.
Rose Hackman
If you stop being preemptively thoughtful kind, catering to other people's well being and whatever the situation is, those people, that person is going to notice immediately. And when they notice immediately, to me, that's not just, it might be an awakening moment, or it also might show you that that person was aware of the dynamic going on all along. And I think that's where we need to have better conversations and honest conversations that aren't completely naive. And I know this is about friendship. But you know, in relationships, if you think about intimacy, and the pleasure and equality gap between men and women, that is so drastically galling, that effectively, when we look at intimacy, men primarily expect the experience to be about them. And women primarily expect and are trained to make the experience about men and heterosexual dynamics, that's constantly being performed. So why are we then so surprised when we actually start talking about emotional labor and equality and the way in which things need to be addressed? And why? Why are you so surprised when I'm pointing something out that has been going on all along? You know, I feel like there's a lot of gaslighting on an individual level and the systemic level when you start talking about this form of inequality.
Taylor Morrison
Yeah, there's a lot there. In another interview that I did for this season, we were talking about vulnerability, and we were talking about the way that Brene Brown talks about vulnerability, which in many ways is amazing. And she's also received some criticism, some feedback that like that can be harder the more marginalized identities that you hold, because when people do try and be vulnerable and share their experience, the response if I'm sharing it with someone who is a white woman, someone who's a white man, it can be defensiveness right away, or, like you said, the incompetence of or just the pretending that they don't see it. And there's all of these dynamics that are at play. And so when you were saying like, sometimes the choice is to disengage with the situation, it really seems like to move through unequal dynamics in terms of emotional labor, it requires a conversation. And if the other person is not willing to enter into that conversation in good faith, that may be a situation where you have to disengage.
Rose Hackman
100%. And I think, you know, one of the most exciting to me parts of emotional labor is it's actually potentially a tool, a form of work that can lead to a lot of healing and correcting of inequalities if the people who have previously expected emotional labor to be done for them primarily start doing the emotional labor primarily. In a situation, for example, between a black woman and a white woman, it's actually on the white woman to be doing more of the emotional labor precisely because of the historical inequality. And if you actually get enough people to do that, or you know, in a situation a heterosexual dynamic between a man and a woman, saying, If a man is able to take on the responsibility of emotional labor, not entirely, but in a way that is going to try and center the woman, the way that woman has been constantly centering the man, there's a lot of opportunity there for a really good, you know, path forward. One of the things that I have, you know, fills me with hope the most is, I really do fundamentally believe that we are all capable of growth. We are all capable if we are open to evolving as human beings, you know, the whole, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. I don't think that's proven. And, you know, they talk about neuroscience, they talk about neuroplasticity, our brain is constantly malleable plastic, we can constantly get it to evolve past who we were yesterday. And, to quote the formidable bell hooks, love is not a passive thing. Again, we're talking about passive versus active. Love is constant actions. And when you think about love as action, you're forced to hold yourself accountable for the way in which you're showing up. And that includes the way in which you're providing or expecting emotional labor.
Taylor Morrison
Yes, and I love a bell hooks moment too. If we had to choose one theme from this. I'm hearing the theme of intention and action. And I loved that word that you use, deployment, like emotional labor. And that is a big paradigm shift for me. And I love when that happens for me mid episode, that emotional labor can be this tool for healing, for equity, if we're deploying it in the way, and if the people who have not been deploying it previously, are willing to take more responsibility in deploying it. And that gives me a lot of hope to. And I've seen that in some of the relationships in my life, like I see that with my husband, the way that he knows what the traditional dynamic has been but he's willing to co-create a different way of being in our relationship. And that's, that's why we've been together for as long as we've been together.
Rose Hackman
Yeah, that's wonderful. And yeah, to bring it back to the episode, I think I've been thinking a lot actually, in recent months funny enough. I'm in a relationship with a man, it's been four years, we're getting married in the fall. And for years, I thought that my friendships were the most important relationships. And that was my kind of radical stance almost, that I had these incredibly nourishing relationships. And what I've realized in these last few years, as I've been in a really positive, straight dynamic with a man who is just like your husband, you know, willing to be self reflective and do work and fundamentally wants to show up to the relationship in a strong way, in the same way that I do. Is that something that those of us maybe, who have friendships that are very important, don't necessarily engage with is accountability and friendships too? You know, now that I have almost like a mutually reinforcing, loving, positive, romantic relationship, I've realized that the scrutiny that I brought my romantic relationships actually ended up being not the same scrutiny, I would bring my friendships. It was almost there was a holiness to my friendships, because they did sustain me for so many years as I went through a lot of changes and, you know, moved cities, moved countries, I realized that there's a way in which I had not, I developed the tools for romantic conversations that could move through conflict and emotional labor, but I hadn't actually necessarily developed the tools in my friendships, and that's what I am been trying to work on more recently. And obviously, a lot of my friendships don't need that but some of my friendships do and I think that's where emotional labor is also, if both parties can show up positively, that's also how you can move through conflict. And you can, you can then grow in a way that you're able to shift, and better the way in which you're showing up for the other person and vice versa. And I think moving through conflict is such an important thing. And I think, again, as women, we're not trained to move through conflict, we're trained to avoid conflict, that's part of the people pleasing, that's part of the, you know, buffering of the system's pain is we're just there to kind of make everyone feel better, as opposed to understand that sometimes there are tense things that need to be addressed. And that's fine you know, and I think emotional labor in this sense, is is also a tool for yeah, in a much more formal way, I guess reparation and restoration, and change.
Taylor Morrison
That is a lovely, and I guess I'm curious to hear from you. You spent quite a bit of time researching and thinking and talking about emotional labor. What is the biggest shift that you've seen in your life and relationships through doing all of this work?
Rose Hackman
Wow, I didn't expect that. So I thought it was gonna be "What is the, you know, what is the biggest shift in your way of thinking about this?" So you're thinking about in terms of my own personal relationships?
Taylor Morrison
Yeah.
Rose Hackman
You know, this is going to be about my romantic relationship, not my friendships is..
Taylor Morrison
That's fine, yeah.
Rose Hackman
I got the book deal. And I was in, I was dating, I did, I was dating guy for a year. And I started writing the book. And I remember, we broke up. This was a person who posed as terribly progressive and feminist. And, you know, when I started dating him, he was, he had, he had co created with another guy, a feminist book club, where they, it was all men, who only read women's books written by women, majority women of color. And it just seemed like, here's a guy who's really putting in the work, you know, and then in practice, this was definitely not what this person was like. This person, I actually think, was probably, I think, one of the most hating of women, people I've ever really come close to. And I exited that relationship. And I do remember thinking, How ironic is it that I have been expected, I've shown up for in my adulthood, in the relationships I've had romantically with men, I've been expected to show up and provide support and emotional labor as they go through whatever their big moment is. And how ironic is it that now I'm starting to write my first book. And it's an incredibly hard project, because it I think it requires a lot of depth and nuance and concentration and hundreds of interviews and all that. And how ironic is it that I have no, no partner supporting me because in fact, the partner I've just broken up with was incredibly selfish and unwilling to even contend with the idea of an equal partnership. And I kind of, you know, I was a bit cynical. And I like to say God said, Hold my beer, or whatever you believe in that, you know..
Taylor Morrison
I love that
Rose Hackman
Hold my beer. And a year later, I met someone who is just someone who radically believes that not just men and women are equal, but everyone's individual state is equal to his individual states, that there is no hierarchy of experience there, there is no hierarchy of what you should go, what you deserve to go through versus what someone else deserves to go through. He's also been an extraordinarily supportive partner, but not again, in a hierarchy way, because this is someone who's like a very impressive person. And, yeah, that that was a beautiful gift from the universe in terms of emotional labor. And it made sure that even as I think it's easy to be cynical when it comes to emotional labor, and the current way in which we offload it onto women and minorities. I think a reminder that this doesn't inherently have to be is so important because as I said at the beginning, you know, emotional labor, emotionality, empathy, these are all inherently human. And I think it's important to still have hope and to understand that we can all do it for each other and a better world is possible.
Taylor Morrison
Thank you for being willing to share that Rose and I love fractals and the idea of fractals if you've read
Rose Hackman
Adrienne Maree Brown yeah no?
Taylor Morrison
Yeah, yes. I was like what is it, Pleasure Activism, and when she talks about how small is all. And it seems like this relationship that you are co creating is a fractal of what is possible in the world, what's possible in other heterosexual relationships, what's possible in friendships and partnerships. And when we're talking, going back to that question I asked earlier about the self or the system it, at least for me, it's easy to get really discouraged and to be like, well, the systems are like this, the systems are so much bigger than me, how can there possibly be change. But then hearing your story, knowing my experiences, some of the experiences I've had with friends, it's like, a better world is possible. And I won't fully say it starts with these individual relationships. But I do think that these fractals can add up to really massive impact.
Rose Hackman
Definitely. You know, the same way that an unequal relationship, whether it's a friendship, or a romantic partnership, same way that a negative one can be very depleting, you know, positive one can really be very how to put it. Yeah, it can it can be buoying, you know, it can help you move up and and think bigger. And I'm also thrilled that you're saying that at the same time, of course, we can't not think of the system, because we can't not sadly, you know,
Taylor Morrison
Yeah. Well, I guess, to wind us down, I have one more question for you. If you could offer one piece of advice to strong friends, especially the strong friends who tend to take on more than their fair share of emotional labor, what advice would you offer them?
Rose Hackman
I think it goes back to what you so kindly pushed us in the direction of in terms of not just seeing it in others and recognizing its value in others, but seeing it in yourself and recognizing the value in yourself. I think that doing that connects, certainly with me. I think it can connect you to your true value and inner power. And I think again, as women, we're not taught to be proud of our power in the same way that men are. And I think that for all of us, men and women, connecting to the immense value that you bring through emotional labor connects you to your power. And then once you're connected to that, I think it helps you understand that you don't owe it to everyone just gratuitously that you get to pick and choose how you deploy it. So yeah, women are dangerous and powerful. And I think emotional labor is, you know, we see emotions as almost a signal of weakness. And actually, it's quite the opposite.
Taylor Morrison
What a lovely note to end us on Rose. I know we barely scratched the surface of all of the work, the labor, the emotional labor that you put in around your book, Emotional Labor. So where can people connect with you? And where can people learn more about emotional labor?
Rose Hackman
Thank you. Emotional Labor, the book is available everywhere books are sold, think the website is emotionallaborbook.com. I am on Instagram and Tiktok at Rosee Burg, two e's and two g's. I just got on TikTok a couple of months ago, it's actually been kind of wonderful. There's a whole community of people who have a lot to say, in really brilliant, radical ways. So it's just been wonderful. Actually, I was very surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I'm on Twitter, Rose Hackman. I'm out there, I have my social media moments. And then I go into my cave and hide because I'm a bit of an introvert really. But it's been wonderful the last few weeks, couple of months, starting to connect with readers who care about what I really, really care about, and as you say, dedicated quite a few years of my life researching and writing.
Taylor Morrison
Well, we will link to all of those in the show notes and you're a woman after my own heart because I definitely have my ebbs and flows with social media. But I'm so excited that we got to connect here and I'm sure that listeners will want to connect with you further. Thank you so much, Rose.
Rose Hackman
Thank you so much for having me. It's been such a wonderful conversation.
Taylor Morrison
I've got to admit, I came into this conversation with some biases around emotional labor that I wasn't fully aware of. I felt like emotional labor was a bad thing that I should stop doing. And where I've landed after my conversation with Rose is that emotional labor is incredibly valuable. I loved that piece that she said that it can't be automated. So instead of me feeling like I need to stop doing emotional labor, I want to start valuing it in myself and in others and be little bit more choosy about who I choose to deploy that labor with.
Friendly reminder that if you want to get even more out of this podcast season, make sure you grab The Strong Friends Inner Workbook at the link in the show notes. And if you loved this episode, please tell someone. That's what helps this podcast grow. And if you're feeling extra generous today, we'd appreciate you taking the time to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts. Even if you don't listen on Apple Podcasts. It makes a difference and it helps us get more amazing, insightful guests like Rose. Thank you so much for listening. And thank you, as always for your expertise. Take care.
