You Were Never Meant to Be This Lonely, with Shari Foos

What if the story you have been keeping to yourself - the one that feels too messy, too personal, too much - is exactly the thing that would make someone else feel less alone? Shari Foos has spent her career building spaces where women write their truth, share it with strangers, and walk out feeling seen for the first time in years. She calls it the Narrative Method. What she is really doing is fighting the epidemic of loneliness one story at a time.

SUMMARY & GUEST INTRO

If you have been surrounded by colleagues, partners, and friends your entire career and still felt profoundly unseen - you are not broken, and you are not alone. That specific kind of loneliness has a name, and it has a cure. Shari Foos spent decades building it. She is a Columbia University-trained narrative medicine expert, marriage and family therapist, former punk rock singer and TV writer, and the founder of the Narrative Method - a nonprofit running free online salons where women write honestly, share without judgment, and walk out feeling seen for the first time in years. Her work has been featured in Shondaland, The Huffington Post, Women's Health, and Real Simple. In this conversation, she makes the case that the story you have been keeping to yourself is not too much. It is exactly the thing that will make someone else feel less alone.

INSIDE THE EPISODE

• The Cult of Culture. Social media, marketing, and the constant noise of what we are supposed to want, look like, and be. Shari names the force that has been quietly shaming women into conforming - and explains why the antidote is not more willpower. It is honest expression.
• Why Small Talk Is Making Us Lonelier. When you skip the surface and go straight to what actually makes someone tick, something shifts. Shari breaks down why depth creates real connection, why women in corporate America are starving for it, and what gets in the way.
• The Night She Went Looking for Herself. At sixteen, Shari walked through her neighborhood alone in the middle of the night. Not because anything was wrong. Because she was trying to find herself. The police brought her home. The next morning she gathered her family and said: 'I wasn't on drugs. I was looking for myself.' That moment became the foundation for everything she built.
• We Are So Quick to Blame Ourselves. The patterns that held you back were not character flaws. They were survival responses to circumstances you didn't choose. Shari makes the case for empathy toward your younger self - and explains why that compassion is not softness. It is the beginning of real growth.
• You Can't Go Wrong When You Follow Your Passions. Shari gave up a career she loved. It felt like loss. What she could not know at the time was that everything she learned - about performance, about storytelling, about what it means to hold a room - would become the exact foundation of her most meaningful work. The path does not always look like what you imagined. It still leads somewhere.
• The Narrative Method: What It Is and How to Try It. Free online salons, writing prompts drawn from 12 core concepts, a community from across the country and beyond. Shari walks through how it works, what happens when women who have been writing for their jobs finally get to write for themselves, and why the prompt 'what part of yourself longs to be expressed' is a question worth sitting with.

RESOURCES & LINKS

• The Narrative Method: https://www.thenarrativemethod.org/

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Transcript

Shari Foos: [00:00:00] You know, I wasn't on drugs. I wasn't doing anything bad. I realize I was looking for myself." And they left me there, and I knew that what I needed was to be understood. And later what that also equaled was being understood is a reciprocal thing.

And when you can understand someone else, you don't have to fix their problem, and you can't. You don't have to have gone through the same thing, and you can't. But what you can do is put yourself aside and imagine their situation, and that is so comforting 

Welcome to Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors, the podcast where we stop playing small, start calling things out, and actually do something about it. I'm your host, Erica Rooney, executive coach, speaker, and a little bit of a movement maker, and I'm on a mission to get more women into [00:01:00] positions of power and keep them there.

Erica Rooney: All right, y'all, we talk a lot on this show about the stories that we tell ourselves. You know what I'm talking about, the ones that keep us stuck, the ones that hold us back, the ones that we inherited from a system or a family or a culture that was never fully designed with us in mind. But what if the act of telling your story out loud in a room full of strangers without anyone judging you or fixing you or even responding was actually the thing that set you free? Today's guest built an entire movement around that idea.

She is a marriage and family therapist, a Columbia University-trained narrative medicine expert, a former punk rock singer and TV writer, and the founder of the Narrative Method, a nonprofit organization that is fighting the epidemic of loneliness one story at a time. Her work has been featured in Shondaland, The Huffington Post, Women's Health, and [00:02:00] Real Simple, so y'all know she's the real deal.

And y'all, I cannot wait for this conversation. Shari Foos, welcome to the Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floor Podcast. How are you today?

Shari Foos: great, Erica. Thanks for having me

Erica Rooney: Well, I mean, we're gonna have to dive in because this is one of the most interesting bios that I think I've ever put together, one of the most diverse, right? We've, we've been a television writer, a punk rock singer, a marriage and family therapist.

So how do all of these things pull together? And, like, just tell me the Shari Fu story.

Shari Foos: It's a great question, and it's ironic because it doesn't pull together until you get to a certain point, and you can't know that when you're younger. So, um, I actually started as, um, a performer writer, and I got to a point with that... I loved it. I loved every second. It was really fun. But you get to a point where you really have to make a [00:03:00] decision, "Can I keep going at this level, or do I do something else?" So, you know, you feel like you're giving it up, and it's excruciating. And this is something I really try and share with other people. As painful as it is, what you can't know is those skills are usable in everything else you do. And in my case, I'm using not just those skills, but that absolute perspective with my groups.

So I'd, I'd always appreciated how I'd been helped by psychotherapy. I had a violent home as a child. I started going when I was in high school, and it was just like, wow, the lights went on. I was in a group therapy with other kids who got me, and I got them. And so between that and my love of performing, I've just always loved working with groups. So as much as I [00:04:00] love and still love, uh, one-on-one psychotherapy, I have a special place in my heart for groups. So after I finished Columbia, I decided to start a salon series which was live at the time. Um, and it would last for a few hours. And I had written the narrative method during a long bout of insomnia for many, many months, and I just started writing about the 12 core concepts. And once we started doing these live salons, it was just an instant recognition for folks to see that

 (clip - you're not good enough unless you buy this produt) 

Shari Foos: if you share who you are in an honest, vulnerable way- People can't help but love you, and it's so easy to empathize. If you share, "Well, I've done this and I've done that," a defense can grow up because we're all taught by the media, social media, what I call this the cult of culture. It tells [00:05:00] us that we're not good enough, but we'll be good enough if we buy their product. And even though we all know that's ridiculous and stupid, it's so constant that it's insidious.

 (end clip) 

Shari Foos: So this is a way of turning off that noise, turning off the trepidation that we've all developed when it comes to expressing ourselves because we've all been told, "Shut up, you can't sing," or, you know, "You're not gonna make money doing that," or, "Who do you think you are?" And here we come to a, a really warm community where there's no feedback or criticism of any kind. People write to prompts, share what they've written, and when you are listening, you are a, a witness, just an appreciative witness. So on both sides of that eq- equation, there's something profound. Using yourself, your very presence, to make someone else feel good, and getting to hear what you wrote [00:06:00] improvisationally, not because it's the best thing you ever wrote, you may love it, but what matters more is that we can let go of that insecurity that we all have and let ourselves flow.

And so we are doing lots of salons. Most of them are for free online at thenarrativemethod.org. I just hope you guys check us out.

Erica Rooney: Yeah. So what do you mean salon? Is it like we come together, it's a, just a group that happens to meet up, we don't know each other 'cause it's over Zoom? Like, tell me more about that

Shari Foos: Okay. Well, it's not a place to get your hair done. Um, but if you wanna do your hair while you're there, we're very open. Um, s- it's a salon in the way that, um, w- we hear of those salons in Paris in the '20s and '30s, where intellectuals and artists would come together to talk about ideas and enjoy each other and be inspired by each other. So that's why we call it a salon. And, [00:07:00] um, not everybody is a stranger, but we always get new folks, and new folks, of course, are trepidatious. You don't know what you're coming to. It's okay to be trepidatious because our brains are designed to look for danger. And having been told, you know, that we're not good enough, you come to a new place to open up and express yourself, and of course, you're going to be a little, um, concerned.

But in just a few minutes, people realize they're in a safe place. And this is a community from all around the country and beyond, where people come together to just share their creativity. And

 (clip - allergic to small talk) 

Shari Foos: when you're being honest, when you avoid small talk, and you just get to the depth of things, people feel so safe. When you're in a cocktail situation, and you're supposed to make small talk, I don't know about you, but I feel so [00:08:00] uncomfortable. What-- how's the weather? What was your day? What do you do? You know, like, all these things, it's fine, but what I really wanna know is what makes you tick? What do you care about? And when we can get to that, we've really started to bond

 (end clip) 

Erica Rooney: Yeah. So question for you. You design these spaces, people come, they're able to share openly, they know they're not gonna be judged, but why do we come? Like, why show up, right? Like, um, is it just to be open with your story? And I preface that with like, I believe in the power of sharing stories. Like, and, and I know when I went through some of the toughest times in my life, it was always helpful to hear the stories of others.

But if I'm just going to share, like, why? Why am I coming?

Shari Foos: Mm-hmm. People come for different reasons. You're not just coming to share. You're writing to, to prompts. So you have an i- you have an opportunity to write, which you may or [00:09:00] may not have done a lot in your life, but this is a way to have a listening relationship with yourself. When you write, especially improvisationally, something starts to open up very easily, even for folks who think that they are procrastinators or they're stuck, because there's a frame, and you can see that the environment is safe. So you write to a couple of prompts, and then you go into breakouts. Everyone shares what they've written, and then they have a conversation, and we do smaller prompts, and it's just an environment where, for some people, it's, it's the way to connect deeply and, um, combat their loneliness. For other people, it's a way to be heard with what they have to say. And so I think for everyone, what it winds up being is, "Oh my gosh, this is a community where I feel like myself instantly, and I have this acceptance." And the more [00:10:00] we have positive experiences, whether they're brought on by affirmations or gratitude or just the good luck of having a good time, the more that informs the part of us that are always looking for danger, and that is extremely helpful to our psychic capacity to grow.

Our brains are plastic throughout life, and we can always grow and change.

Erica Rooney: Okay, awesome. No, I love that. And one thing that I was very intrigued by when kinda looking into your work is you talk a lot about something that you call the cult of culture, right? The media- Yes ... social media, marketing propaganda, and all of the noise that confuses and shames people into conforming and really thinking that group think is, you know, the way to be, and then we just all have these unattainable standards.

And so my question for you, Shari, is for a woman who's in corporate America who's maybe swimming in this noise [00:11:00] every single day, what is it actually doing to her, and why is it so hard for her to see that from the inside?

Shari Foos: When, when we are immersed in a culture where we have a job to do and we're trying to survive among lots of personalities and agendas, you know, it's not just like hanging out with your friends where you can just, you know, be yourself and not worry about accomplishing anything. Especially for women working in corporate America, you are under a unique kind of pressure which doesn't invite you to be yourself.

It challenges you to be as good as a man. Now, uh, none of us like it. We're all used to it, but it doesn't mean that has to be the way it is in the future. So one of the things that I hear a lot from women like the ones you're describing, well, some of them say, "I write all the time for my work, but I never get to express myself creatively." Um, and it also [00:12:00] helps us break down some of these negative beliefs that we have developed about ourselves and about the world and what is possible. So these 12 core concepts act as tools and also philosophies to keep us hopeful and optimistic and able to expand our perspective and not just be stuck in what we've been told we can be or not be. Exactly what you said at the beginning was perfect. Come join me. You've got it. It's everything that, you know, we all know this, but it doesn't mean we know how to address it, and no one expects it with strangers

Erica Rooney: Yeah. So I love this topic of loneliness. Well, I shouldn't say I love loneliness, but I love that it has become a topic that we are really looking into, especially after COVID. But I think even before COVID, women, especially women in corporate America, especially ambitious women in corporate [00:13:00] America, have always felt this piece of loneliness.

I mean, I remember being a very young mom living in suburbia America, like executive climbing the ranks, and all of my neighbors were like, "Let's meet for tea on a Tuesday." And I'm like, "Who? What?" Like, "Where are you people? And aren't you working? What are we doing here?" And you know, I found groups like Chief, which is for an executive network for women.

I created Her Collective, which is for women who are looking to accelerate their climb and learn AI, and like that's how I went and combated my loneliness. But I think it also looks very different for women because we're surrounded by colleagues and partners and friends, and we're busy, but we still feel not seen, right?

We feel unseen. I don't know. What is the... What does that kind of loneliness look like, and where do you think it comes from?

Shari Foos: I completely agree that it started [00:14:00] way before the pandemic. I think this century has been filled with more and more disconnection because of tech, and we all know about it. It doesn't mean we know how to deal with it. A woman in corporate America is not asked to express herself, to use her real talent and her real strength, but to compete with men, although it's not said overtly, to compete with men, to be a man, to be tough. And then corporate America loses what we really have to offer, which is the brilliance of connection and how cooperation with colleagues leads to new ideas, as opposed to competition, which shuts people down and makes them afraid to take chances. So when women who are in corporate America come to our salons, they often say things like, "You know, I'm writing all the time for work, but I haven't had a chance [00:15:00] to really express myself or think about my feelings in so long. I didn't know that they were there anymore." And so what is really important for us to know is that if you can have a way to connect to yourself deeply through a writing practice and through communicating with people you can be real with, I don't suggest opening up vulnerably when you're not safe, but certainly if you can be, this is essential to thriving. We can't thrive if we're not seen. We can't thrive if we're not bonded. And oftentimes at work, it's not about any of those things. It's about getting the job done, and frankly, it's about killing, you know, beating the other companies

Erica Rooney: Yeah, you're not wrong there. And I mean, I was looking at it through my very specific corporate lens, which I was the chief people officer in tech, right? I was one of the only women, [00:16:00] you know, in a C-level role in the industry. It was very heavily male dominated, and then not only that, but you're in HR, so then you're even more so limited and cut off from making those types of friendly connections with people.

And you know who sits in most of those seats? Women. So a lot of what this conversation has me thinking about, Shari, is just a lot about how women have to conform in corporate America still, right? How Black women have to really conform because people will accuse them of being an angry Black woman or, you know, something ridiculous like that, and I don't think that the society has really caught up with that.

What would you suggest to the women who are existing and kind of living in that life right now? Like, what kind... What would be a prompt that you would love to see them work through? And I would love to hear an example of one of these prompts and then, you know, hey ladies, if you're listening, go pause and do it, and then come back.

But Shari, a great [00:17:00] prompt

Shari Foos: well, there are so many ways to get to our depth, but a prompt of exactly what we're talking could be, what part of yourself longs to be expressed?

 And then it's, you know, wherever you go with it. When you ask yourself a question that is thought-provoking and has an emotional component, you can answer it one way today, another way tomorrow.

Nothing is wrong. Your unconscious has collected everything that's ever happened to you in schemas, which are file cabinets. So here are things that pertain to this situation, here are things that pertain to that situation. And so many times when we do this kind of writing, something we had long forgotten about bubbles up to the surface, and you have an opportunity to look at it with fresh eyes. But in terms of [00:18:00] what people can do in corporate America, first of all, I do work with companies. We can come in and do something online or in person that when it's with a company, it's not geared towards people, um, being particularly vulnerable about things that you don't wanna bring up at work, but rather creative writing about things that are safer but still deep and connective. And also, please come to our salons. We have, uh, cards, each one of them has a prompt that's built upon one of the 10 core concepts. So I'll give you an example. I'll take out some cards, and this is not scientific. You can tell me when to stop, and I'll pick a card, any card.

Erica Rooney: No, let's stop. It's like a magician 

Shari Foos: I know. I know. Hey, this is from behind your ear. Okay. This is about the concept of wonderland. wonderland. [00:19:00] represents dreaming as a respite or dreaming as a way to create goals and visions of what you want to happen. So this statement about that is, "Success doesn't always make us happy." And the prompt is, "Talk about a failure you now value And anyone can think of something like that. We use these cards in live salons. We don't use them online because it's a one-hour

quick in and out incredibly, um, focused salon. But you can use them with family. You can use them with friends or colleagues or in strangers in any situation. And what it does, especially it's mind-blowing when you're with people that you know so well to realize you may not know some of these things [00:20:00] about your loved ones, and it's fascinating to get to all open up. Um, and this is the kind of question that I think is not particularly too vulnerable, 

and especially because if we think about a failure... Well, I'll give you an example of what came to mind just now for me, and I've never thought of it in this way before. When I was sharing earlier that I gave up my career as a writer-performer, and it was so excruciating, and I didn't want to go outside.

I don- I just didn't know what to do with myself. Cut to years later, I became a therapist, and in doing that, in connecting with people in ways that were absolutely important, I already showed myself that I could use some of these people skills I had and my humor, which I think is so important in growth, in therapy, and in looking at ourselves. Our, [00:21:00] our stories that are difficult also always have a potential to make us laugh. And when we can do that, we're separated from it in a way that makes us see it differently. So now, I mean, I am so proud of that past, and it led me to where I am.

Erica Rooney: Yeah. I always tell people one day we will have the gift of hindsight. You know, today is not always that day, but one day we will always have the gift of hindsight. You know, it's like when you break up with your high school boyfriend and you're crying in your cereal and you're devastated, and then, you know, 20 years later you meet the man of your dreams and you're like, "Duh.

And look at that dude. He's like stuck back in a... You know, at home doing nothing with his life." Um,

Shari Foos: Or you forget his name.

I mean, that happens too. 

Erica Rooney: name. 

Shari Foos: a guy I met at a club 

Erica Rooney: name?" But Shari, I find that when I'm talking with women like you, like me, and we have really observed a problem, we've [00:22:00] seen it, it's something that feels deep and pers- personal to us and we wanna fix it, and a lot of that is because we kinda lived through something.

You know, whether it was not feeling authentic or not feeling seen, um, and that it's part of our lived experience. So I would love to hear from you, like do you have a story that led you to this, one of those personal, deep, sticky floor stories, and what was that?

Shari Foos: Well, I think, you know, the story that I often think of is when I was in high school. One night I went to a girlfriend's party and I didn't want to go home. So I called my mother and I said I was sleeping over there, which wasn't true. When the party was over, I just started walking and wandering for hours. I was thinking, and I went to a really beautiful place and felt so connected to myself, and I've had that experience a lot since, but this was the first time. And I [00:23:00] was just walking and walking for hours and thinking about my life and what I wanted to do and how important it was to me to get away from that situation at home. And at some point in the middle of the night, the police saw me walking, and they picked me up and they took me home and they rang the bell, and oh my gosh, my father came pounding down the stairs, and everybody was really upset with me. So the next morning, I had really processed it and I said, "Could you please gather together in my bedroom?

And I want to share something with you." And I said,

 (clip - I needed to be understood) 

Shari Foos: "You know, I wasn't on drugs. I wasn't doing anything bad. I realize I was looking for myself." And they left me there, and I knew that what I needed was to be understood. And later what that also equaled was [00:24:00] being understood is a reciprocal thing.

And when you can understand someone else, you don't have to fix their problem, and you can't. You don't have to have gone through the same thing, and you can't. But what you can do is put yourself aside and imagine their situation, and that is so comforting

 (end clip) 

Erica Rooney: Mm. So when you felt and you recognized that you had this deep need to be understood, because I mean, that's how I am, right? When my husband and I get into these arguments about the stupidest things, I will keep going and beat a dead horse if I don't feel understood. And he's like, "I get it." And so what I'm wondering for you is in a moment like that where it's such a pivotal moment, you're still a child, you're living at home, and everybody's like, "Nope, this isn't important to me.

I'm out of here." I mean, number one, that's such a young age. Like, we don't have the tools and the knowledge to be able to recognize [00:25:00] what's right, what's wrong, and how to react, but obviously that stuck with you. How did you then kind of pull yourself, you know, up by the bootstraps? Or was that something that was the gift of hindsight and, you know, you can look back now and you see that that was a pivotal moment, but you didn't recognize it until later?

Shari Foos: I knew in real time that I was right. In other words, I wasn't on drugs. Um, but that frustration built so that the next year I quit, I cut 100 days of high school. I stopped learning. I don't think it was just that incident, but that's indicative of what happened. I stopped learning. I stopped doing homework. I barely got it together to bring up my grades to go to college. And what I really learned in retrospect, and this is something I really wanna share with other women,

 (clip - we're so quick to blame ourselves) [00:26:00] 

Shari Foos: we're so quick to blame ourselves for the things that have happened to us. Even if you instigated something, what isn't your fault is the circumstances that led you to not have the tools to deal with it in a way that's productive. If we can look back at the younger self, our younger self, and be empathic, not just with other people, but with ourselves, and appreciate, well, of course I, I gave up on school based on the things that my father would tell me all the time, you know, I believed him. And yet there was a part that said, "Absolutely not." My soul was stronger than the put-downs, and we all have that capacity, and it doesn't necessarily happen just as soon as you realize it.

 (end clip) 

Shari Foos: So that was very much a thing in retrospect. Well, I went to college, and I had so much success in the [00:27:00] theater department that I started to change my reality. And, um, it just goes on and on.

And the older I get, the more appreciative I am that I survived, not having done anything but survive. So I would say to your listeners, trust yourself. Only you know who you are

Erica Rooney: I love that. And, you know, I think the, one of the questions I would love to end on with you, Shari, um, is for the woman out there who is feeling that, right? And they, they kind of have that intuition, that pull in their gut, like you said, you knew real time, that they're feeling that, but they don't know what the next best step to take is.

What should they do?

Shari Foos: I would say write as the first step. When you feel safe and it's private, just write. You can ask [00:28:00] yourself a question or just write about how you feel right now, and that will lead to more understanding. If you are open to it and you can find a way to do it, I would suggest psychotherapy, or sometimes confiding in a friend that's very safe is helpful. But it's not always the best idea because our friends are not professionals, and we don't need their opinions as much as we need their support. I think women know this more than men. "Just listen to me. Don't tell me what to do. Don't fix it." But I think it starts with a connection to oneself. And if you can start trusting yourself, valuing yourself, do a simple affirmation when you wake up and tell yourself what you really need to remember, which is, "I have all the potential to manifest the things I love."

Erica Rooney: Mm. 

 (clip - you can't go wrong when you follow your passions) 

Shari Foos: When you try and follow [00:29:00] your passions, you may not wind up doing the thing that you initially visualized would lead to happiness, in my case, performing, but it leads you to the next thing, and that leads you to the next thing. You can't go wrong if you follow your passions

 (end clip) 

Erica Rooney: Yes. And my mother always says, you know, "When you're going through it, it'll all be okay in the end, and if it's not okay, it's not the end." And so you just have to keep

pushing, you know? But

oh my goodness, Shari, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. You guys, if you are listening, stay on her page, follow her.

She's got a book coming out. It's not gonna be out till 2027, but we're gonna keep our eye on that. So Shari, thank you so much for joining us on the Glass 

Shari Foos: Thanks, Erica 

Erica Rooney: podcast. We'll see you next time

Shari Foos: Okay, lots of love 

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