You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Garth. Hi, everyone, welcome to I Choose Me. This podcast is all about the choices we make and where they lead us. I love this podcast because I get to sit down and have really cool, insightful conversations with people I respect and admire, and then we all collectively learn from one another. What could be better? My guest today is known for playing the beloved character Claire Dumpy on Modern Family, which she
received two Emmys for. She's starring in the new Peacock show Hysteria, coming out in October. She's hilarious, brave, and just an all around badass woman. Please welcome Julie Bowen to the I Choose Me podcast. I just saw you this morning on my TV. Actually, I saw your commercial.
For words and is it WhatsApp?
Nope, Nope, not that one. The eyes.
Drawn Yah, that's right, that's right, that started airing. Yeah, I actually have eye problems since so I'm doing and I'm doing a partnership with them. I love that about the eye drops. Yes, they're actually saving my life.
Yeah, it's good. The best part is that my husband was in that commercial with Yes.
Yes, you can see him, I mean a second. Yeah, but it was really fun to see him. He's so handsome. Oh thanks, Yeah, Like I noticed him as I was like, oh my god, what a handsome man. I was like, don't talk to handsome man, you know, like you don't want to ever talk to like somebody really good looking on a set because it just, I don't know, could get concentuated. Yeah, I could make it weird. And then he came over and he's like, you know, you know my wife Jenny Gart And I was like, oh my god, Okay,
I'm totally talking to you. I don't care. I don't care how good looking you are. Now I'm talking to you.
I was so glad. I was like, you better talk to her because he kind of to do his own he loves doing his commercials.
Well, he's you got a good looking one.
I want to go. Can we start at your beginning because I find these stories fascinating. So tell me about the kind of household that you grew up in. I know that you were in Maryland, right, was that where you.
Grew up in.
Yeah, I grew up in Baltimore, just outside of the city, so it was suburbia, but it was still Baltimore with two sisters, no boys, and went to all girls' schools and like never did not know what to do with a boy. I did not have a boy in my class until I was fourteen and I went to boarding school.
Whoa, yeah, that's a culture shock.
Yeah, but then I end up with three boys for kids, I've got three. I've got a seventeen year old and two fifteen year olds and they're all boys. And I literally had just been lost since day one because I grew up with old girls.
That's so funny you say, you're one of three girls. So I thought always that I would have three boys, Like I just knew when I grow up, I'm gonna have three sons. And then I grew up and I had three daughters. Yeah, so exact opposite of you.
Yeah. No, I've seen your girls on social media and they are so gorgeous? Is it? I mean, are they all out of the house? No?
No, no, just one of them is out of the house, one officially, but the other one is like biting at the bit to get out of the house. So yeah, well where are.
They gonna go? Like, come on, your house is gonna be nicer than whatever, shiny apartment right.
And nobody's gonna be cooking for them and cleaning for them, doing.
Their laundry, folding their laundry and little packages.
Yeah, uh huh No, there's gonna be a reality moment for my youngest daughter when she goes to college. I think.
So you still have seen but you still have two at home and one is still in high they're both still in high school.
I have one that's in New York. She's a career woman. I have one that is Lola, who's twenty one, who was in school in New York. She moved back home. Now she's going to school out here. She's living at home. I could not be happier. And then my daughter who's going into our senior year this year. Oh wow, she.
To were senior year. We have kids. I have a rising senior.
Yes, you have a seventeen year old.
Yeah. They all know each other through social media and they all hang out because you're living in studio city Ish Hills.
Yeah, I'm out of the city a little bit more now we moved out east.
Which does she go to school in She does?
Yep.
Oh, I wonder if they know each other.
I bet they do. Its like a it's like the biggest city ever. But somehow they all know each other.
They all know each other from Snapchat. They literally look on snap maps and they're like, I mean my kids anytime I drive, we're driving down the street and they see a group of it's like so and so. Then yeah, I know those kids. Keep going. I'm like, just verify that you know them and then keep up.
Yes, isn't that creepy? They know where everybody is all the time?
Now, I know, I know. It's really weird. It's really weird because there's nothing more disturbing than me. I always a turning off my location services, uh, you know, unless I need them to be on. The weird feeling of being followed or tracked freaks me out. And these kids are so native to this idea of everybody knows where everybody is all the time. Just deal with it.
Who do you share your location with? Do you share your location with anyone?
I only share it with my kids for oh, and my life wife. I have a Rachel is my Rachel Field is my producing partner and my like if I was if I was lucky enough to be gay, she would be my person forever. But we're both straight, and we spend like eighteen hours a day together and so yes, we share our locations with each other.
That's good, that's it. Yeah, I share mine with my best friend Adele, And I would have to say she's my life wife too. I wish I could be gay because if I think, it would be so amazing to be married to her.
I mean, I am married to Rachel, Like she has a room in my home, Like, oh, my love, she is my life wife. She has a boyfriend, and I am so excited for her because she's younger and she's gonna get married and have babies. I can't wait. But she's my person, and it's really important to have a person and not just a dude, you know. Yeah, women are women in friendships. I've been thinking about this so
much lately. Like, I mean that women used to be you couldn't hang out, Like if somebody was claimed called a witch in you know, the sixteen hundreds, everybody had to stay away from her or else you'd be called a witch. And there's always been this historical process of keeping women separated because if they're together, it's what too powerful, too scary.
They're afraid of it.
Yeah. Yeah, and I'm what are you afraid of? You make everything better?
I'm happy to be a witch.
Sign me up. I have some really good witch friends. I have a one friend who is a terrific witch, and she freaks me out. Sometimes. She knows way more than like you don't tell I don't tell her anything. She knows everything. She gives me all sorts of She's like, here, carry this crystal. I'm like what, And then I'm like why is it burning my hand? And she's like just nodding.
Well, okay, So you went to an ivy league college, Yeah, I did. What did you study? Did you went to Brown?
So?
Did you study acting? There was that like what you thought you were going to go into.
I always thought I was gonna do like we would put on plays in our yard. That's what we did. My mom was not into television. It was you know, the seventies early eighties, like benign neglect, like get out and come back for dinner. She literally got one of those triangles d D.
Yeah.
It was huge, though, like one of those big, like branch style ones that she could ring when it was time to come home, so you could hear it all over the neighborhood. We knew we weren't allowed to cross like the big street, but otherwise we were like wild animals. It was fantastic, and we would It was a bunch of girls in our neighborhood. There was a couple boys, but we didn't pay a whole lot of attention to them. And we put on plays. That's what we did. That
would be our project. And we put on these very elaborate productions. But my older sister, you know, families label you and you get like your role. You were the lawyer or and she was the actress, and I then had to be something else.
And I was like, what did you choose? Well, what did you I was.
Supposed to be the artist, and then my younger sister was always the doctor, and she did become a doctor. And then my oldest sister and I Mollie, and I eventually flip flopped. She is an artist and I'm actress.
Oh my god, they had you pegged wrong. I love that they did.
So. In college, I was really scared of all the actors. Brown had a very fancy theater department, and I always felt like they were terrifying and so thinking that I was supposed to be the artist, I studied art history and I became a Renaissance studies major.
Whoa it was.
I mean, I went to Italy, lived there for a year. I spoke fluent Italian, and I was just like, I guess that's what my major is. And then at the time, you know, school cost a lot less. My parents were pretty awesome about education. They said, study whatever you want in college. Grad school is where you really focus, and something that we would never say to our kids now because we're like, it's eighty thousand dollars a year. It out.
So I was like, okay, and then at the end of college, I said I want to go to grad school for acting. I started doing acting at Brown and this indie film came to town. And this is like ninety one, so it was like literally film in a film camera, and the opportunity to get film on yourself was that was hard back then, Like it didn't just magically. Everybody didn't have.
A phone, right, You couldn't just film yourself, right.
So I got the lead in this little indie film that was really cool and black and white and super artsy and awesome, and I was like, oh, I love this. I was doing some plays, but I was like this. I loved doing film right away. I was like, it's so collaborative. This wasn't this feeling of like you're all alone on stage. It was like there's the guy with the boom pole and somebody's holding a light. And I was like, oh, this is so fun. And so right away I got that bug. And so I wanted to
go to grad school for acting. And my parents like, not, that's not what we met. We met like the lawyer, like master's degree, and God bless them. They were like, if that's your chosen path, you're on your own. And so I moved to New York and waited a lot of tables and started taking a bunch of classes and got an agent and did a bunch of really silly commercials. But they paid the bills. And you know, I clearly still do commercials because they still pay the bills.
God love them. Ah, you want to go back to You've You've chosen to talk about this before you struggled when you're a teenager with eating disorders? Yeah, body image issues?
Oh yeah, when.
Do you think that started for you? And do you remember, like what was the tipping point that made you get help?
Oh? Well, I was I was. And again it's like language we would never use now, and I just have to like preface it because we said things so casually then that were we would never say to a child now. But I was like the fat kid, and it wasn't fat. And if you if I was walking around now as a you know, twelve year old, you wouldn't ever say that. But beauty standards were really different. And I was in elementary school until you know, sixth grade, and my two
best friends were ballerinas. So they were these lithe, gorgeous spinning, spinning and they both ended up leaving Baltimore to become professional dancers at thirteen. One went to the Royal Ballet and one went to American Ballet. And you know, they were fantastic and fun and they happened to have these beautiful bodies. But I was always compare and despair and I was like the chunky one. I was like, I always felt like they're friend. They never said that to me.
This was all an internal dialogue. And then I had an opportunity that summer between sixth and seventh grade going to a new school. I'm like reinvention, I'm going to start that. I'm going to lose weight, and I did, and I was really good at it, and I felt it felt great. It actually felt really good. And then it became a thing where you can't go back. You know, going back somehow is a failure, and but going forward, even I knew, I was like, you can't go forward forever.
You can't. You can't lose weight until you don't you're at your birth weight, you know, like seven pounds is not my goal. But I think I discovered in that a sense of a false sense of control, and also so much positive feedback at first, and then you sort of crossed this line. Then you look great, You look so great. How do you do it? Oh my god, you're so amazing. It was so disciplined, incredible, and then all of a sudden, one day goes that's enough. Oh wait,
what changed? But they were right, I mean, my poor parents, God bless them, were like, oh, we have three girls. Of course, we got one with an eating disorder, and they did every intervention that they could and put me therapy. But honestly, it was not until the advent of prozac, God love you Prozac, that I really was able to turn the volume down on that internal dialogue that I had to look a certain way and fit to a certain size, that that noise finally got turned down.
Okay, so you went on medication. Help you with those yes, negative thoughts? Interesting? Well, how old were you?
I was eight nineteen. I mean i've been and I've been struggling like I was, you know, I was. I'd get a little better and then I get a lot worse, and then you know, they didn't have medication back then. I mean, it wasn't just came out because we're about the same age.
And I remember going on prozac very young as well, Yeah.
And being like and all my friends were like, I didn't want to. I thought, oh no, this is so weird. I thought it was like, you know, psych meds, you know where you think of like lithium and thorisine and people sort of drooling.
Yeah.
But I had a really wonderful doctor in Maryland, in Baltimore who was out of Johns Hopkins. And he came to my house, the nicest man alive. And I went to his office. But he drew a map of like this sort of wave, and he drew a line and he drew this wave, and he said, normal is a wave. It goes up and down, life goes up and down, and he goes, but normal should go across this line of oh I feel good, feels so good, and you're experiencing your whole life below the line, and I was like, oh, so,
I would you know? At best, I was still pretty bummed out. I was depressed, and he and everybody was trying to sort of treat this eating thing. And I was like, he explained to me, and rightly, so it's not an eating thing. It's a mental thing, and it is really a function of your depression and anxiety, and this is how you're managing it. He was right. When you're really hungry and you're really limiting your ability to express yourself, you limit your feelings as well. And I
was like, this is working. I'm not having any feelings. I'm like half dead. It's awesome.
I love it.
So and prozac just it's like I went to hear like it was like the light turned on. It took four six weeks, and just remember being in an argument with my boyfriend at the time, who would really get to me and upset me, and all of a sudden I started laughing. He goes, what are you laughing about and I said, I'm laughing because this is a whole conversation is bullshit. This is ridiculous. And I realized, oh my god, I'm touching something normal. I don't have to
take everything so seriously and horribly. And it was a huge game changer, and I've always I'm happy to admit that I've been on Prozex. It's the dawn of time because it changed my life.
And it's worked for you throughout the years of your life, like you didn't have to change medications or.
I thought, you know, everybody goes through different periods where I would go off of it and be like, I don't need this, right right, I do.
That's like the story of it all. Like you're like, I'm great, I don't need this anymore. I'm going to just go off of it for a while, and then you just it starts to creep back in.
Yeah, and yes, I try. And then I I when I I was trying to get pregnant, I thought, okay, I needed to be like holistically pure and clean and nothing in me. And that was a terrible idea because then I'm like, why would I bring a child into this world? Because this immediately just went back into some major depression. And I went and I saw a woman at UCLA who did a study on women depression and
pregnancy and stuff. And I waited and waited to get into her, and I paid a fortune and I go in and fifteen minutes she goes, looks at my chart, looks everything. She goes, You're on twenty miligrams of prozac. It's like spitting into the ocean. Take your drugs, Take your meds. And I was like, what, I waited months for this. She's like, it's not going to do anything
to your baby. You're going to be absolutely fine. I did go down, just like to ten milligrams, baby, because I still felt like, I don't you know, you're creating something in your body. Yeah, And I thought, if they all fail third grade, it's going to be my fault.
Did did any of them fail?
No grade, no memories, fail third grade? They're all perfectly normal and healthy. And we talk about mental health, and we talk about, you know, good medication, and you know, should you ever need to avail yourself with medication, don't be shy. You know, sometimes depression and anxiety can run in a family. And I'm always like looking at them like good, you good. They're like, mom, I'm fine. But they're also dudes.
I know. Well that's got to make a big difference in it too. But like I do sometimes do that as well, Like I project my anxiety over what I've been through or just like trying to figure my life out when it comes to like my emotional orlder coaster or my medications or whatever it's been. And I sometimes will project that onto my kids maybe and give them worries that they didn't even have, like yeah, I know, I.
Know I have this one of you know, I've got twins and they're very different, and one is mister social and like super sporty, and his twin brother is a not identical, is much more like I was just quieter and kind of hangs back and then joins it when he feels like it. But I am guilty of projecting onto him. Oh no, oh no, you're depressed.
Something's wrong.
It's like what you know, like, don't put that on him. Luckily, I have a great therapist who tells me to stop doing that, so I don't do it.
Oh God, love therapy, Oh yeah, the best I can really relate though, with your struggles with your body image and everything, even at such a young age, even before Hollywood was ever in the picture. You know, just the pressure that we, like you said, compare and despair, like what we the pressure we put on ourselves.
Yeah, And I mean, look you were how old were.
You on Io two and L.
Twenty seventeen seventeen. Yeah, I mean I can't imagine. I cannot imagine and having gone through with my I call them my fake kids from Modern Family and watching them grow up in the public eye and go through literally changing bodies and hair and faces and everything, and going
how are you doing this? I was in awe of their composure and their ability to say and they were living out loud and on social media and getting hate on social media, and I'm like, maybe you should just not be on Twitter or Instagram and maybe you shouldn't do those things. And they were like, we're fine, We're fine. It was just they they were had so much more composure about who they were in the world. But I've definitely no, I can't imagine having done that myself, and
I can't imagine and how you did it. Yeah, I mean that was and that was a rocket chip of a show. Nine o two and oh that was like game changer.
And that was in the nineties where anybody could say anything about you or your body.
Oh yeah, and it was okay exceptable, that was okay until like five years ago.
Yeah, it feels like right, but when we struggle with our body image and then we choose to start to change the way our brain thinks and we start to love our bodies. Yeah, that is like the ultimate I Choose me moment? When did that happen for you? When were you like, was it because of the medication? Do you think that helped you reach that point?
Definitely? Without without medication and you know, the help of SSRIs, I don't think I could ever have said I choose me at all. And I know that there was also a lot of work alongside it. You know, I've had
great therapists over the years. I would have to say, really, the I Choose me, the biggest moment of that was much later, and I will never speak ill of my ex husband, but I needed to get divorced and we did get divorced, and I will never like go into the nitty gritty of it, but that was ultimately the first time as I was an adult I was a mother and I was living alone, you know, I'd had my kids for half the time, but I really had to go, Okay, you need to put yourself first. It's
still hard to say that. It's so hard to say it because if you're not okay, you cannot carry this, you can't pull this train. And it's really hard. It's still it's hard to say out loud because it feels like shameful.
Would you say that? Like for me, it was very hard for me to say I love myself and everyone would always say, oh, well, you can never really love someone else and to truly love yourself. And I used to just roll my eyes at that and think I can love people. Fine, I'm good. But it was it was the point of saying I do love myself that really shifted everything for me and being okay and able, like you said, to say that and feel me about it.
Yeah, it's I still can't say that out loud, like I can't. It just feels like, oh no, they're going to come for me, you know, like I don't know about you, but I don't. I have a hard no googling rule, like I don't google myself. When my kids got old, enough to be online all the time and everything. I said, I don't ever want to know if you see something, I recommend you don't google me or yourselves because you will come up. And I said, I don't think it's a good idea. I think it's really unhealthy.
But if you do, I don't need to hear about it because it is too upsetting, which means I'm still vulnerable, you know. And my therapist says to me all the time, I want you to get to a place where you just say I don't give a shit. I don't give a shit, But not there yet. It's really hard to say, you know, I am enough. I've gotten to a point in my life where I can say that about other people, and I think that that's a good indication, like a good step of going, Oh, I am not demanding perfection
of the people in my life. I'm not demanding that everybody beats this banana's high standard. And I can then see that reflected back to me, like why do you hold yourself to this ridiculous standard as well?
So hard on ourselves?
Yeah, so hard, so hard, and women have to do everything like we have to do. I was, I had babies and I was breastfeeding, and I was going to work at five am. I had three kids in diaper, and you know, you're going to work every day and going, oh my gosh, and you still need to be nice and professional and you have to look good and you're not sleeping at all, and it's an enormous amount of pressure. But I think it was such a loving atmosphere on set.
I was so lucky on Modern Family. I felt like, as much as you know, getting up at you know, four thirty in the morning to get to work and be a pain and not being with your kids is awful. I loved being there so much, and I felt so much validation and I felt so good. I spent the first year or year and a half of Modern Family being terrified because everybody there was so funny and so good at what they did.
I'm like, I don't know.
I mean, how did you feel when you did it sitcom? Suddenly you were like you were like in front of a live audience, you know, having to get the big laughs.
One hundred percent. And I just did an episode called about imposter syndrome and just drugg that throughout my whole life, and that was one of the major moments when it really was clear to me that I was having it was when I was thrust into that world of doing something I didn't know how to do and doing just what you did, like comparing myself and saying I wasn't good enough and I don't belong here and everybody's so much better than me, and all that messaging can just really mess with you.
Yeah, it does, and I can't even I mean, you went from I mean you were like a drama, you know, you were you were like literally lea teen soap opera of our time, and then you got to do a sitcom. I remember watching it, boy, like does she know how to do that? Like that's how does she stand there? And like go in to hold for the laugh and
all that stuff, And it fucks with your head. Yeah, especially when you're with people who I mean, I look at Tyberell and before a scene, like he went a one line in the scene, he'd be like walking around thinking that, go, what are you thinking about? Like it's one line, and then he would bust out something genius and brilliant. I'm like, oh my god, why I need
to think more? I'm not good enough? But maybe just a function of time or the fact that that was the most loving and supportive environment in the entire world that I just started to feel like, Okay, maybe I'm never going to be the best here, but I can hold my own and I felt confident about that.
Yeah, it changes. This is going to another very personal topic. Some people don't know this, but you have a pacemaker, and I'm fascinating to this. I want to know all about it. Why do you have a pacemaker? When did you get it? How do you live with it? Tell me everything.
I have a pacemaker that I got when I was twenty nine.
Wow.
I have been a really competitive runner all throughout high school and I was really good at it, but it was it, I guess was taking its toll. Also, not eating wasn't a great idea and do some damage. Yeah, and I genetically my dad is an incredibly low resting
heart rate. I always had a low resting heart rate, but it started to get really so like low and uneven that I noticed and it would feel almost like I was going to pass out when I was like sitting or watching a movie, like it would get solo that I was like, wait, and my sister was in med school or maybe her residency at the time, and she had a stethoscope one day and she just listened to my heart. Because what did they tell you that is?
I said, Oh, they say it's runner's heart. It's like a thing that happens when people are really athletic and run a lot and they get a super low heart rate. Because that is not what that is. And I said, but and she insisted that I go see cardiologist immediately. And I was like, and I tried to put it off. And I was doing two pilots that year, like two like back to back. You know, no one takes a day off of work. And I was like, well, I can't. I can't because I've got a lot of other things
going on. But she wouldn't let it go. And I went to four different cardiologists and they all were like, oh, you need a pacemaker. And I was what, And yeah, I was so freaked out. And you know, I only knew them as like a box on somebody's like chest or something. Mine's underneath the muscles sort of in through my armpit.
Okay, that's good. So it doesn't like show itself.
It does some like in some outfits you can sort of see it, but I'm like at a point where I'm like, I don't care.
Look, you just said it. I don't care.
That's true. I don't care because the pace it's such As much as I freaked out about it at the time and thought, oh no, this is like what does this mean I'm dying or I'm a free or something, I learned about the anatomy of the heart and it was there's an electrical impulse that wasn't traveling through the vagueal nerve in the middle. And it's such an easy fix. And I tell people this all the time because I've met so many young people who have pacemakers, because I
have one, and it was such a simple fix. And I have to get the battery changed every i don't know, seven years or something, which means they take out the whole thing and put it back in. It's an operation, but otherwise it does not interfere with my life or change it in any way. And I'm just so grateful that my sister identified that this was a problem.
I mean, that little box is going to keep you alive for longer than any.
Long too long.
They were like, please stop part.
When I when I get you know, you have kids and suddenly you have to make a will, like because I didn't have a will until I have kids. And I was like, and they're like, you have to have it somebody who has your medical directive and all that stuff. And I was like, oh, I made my lawyer write in like unplug my pace, turn it off. He's like, I'm wait, is that a thing? I was like, just write it in there that like if I am in a coma, turn off the fucking box because I'm not.
I don't want to be kept alive from the box. And he was like, I don't know if that's the way it works.
I was just right, that doesn't sound fun.
No, but I'm not so concerned anymore.
So we talked about your the beginnings and your your eating disordered. How do you feel now though in your body your pacemaker like you have. It seems like you've seem amazing care of yourself.
Yeah, and I'm living with the fallout of not having taken amazing care of myself right now. You know, I don't know, maybe you feel the same way. There's something about you go through I said, I mean my body was destroyed after babies, you know, and you suddenly start going, what was I complaining about? At least my skin didn't look like a melted candle. At least I could wear a bikini and not have to wear like a Lily pulletzer with a skirt one piece. Why Lily, We love you, Lily.
But yeah, that feeling of oh my god, I don't want to waste any more time. I wasted way too long and when I didn't realize how good I had it. And I think to myself whenever I get into like a little bit of a toilet spin in my head about oh I'm not good enough, or oh I'm looking old or whatever. I go, in a year, you're going to look back to today and go, what was I thinking? In ten years are going to be like, why were you not naked running down the streets having so much fun?
We spend so much time worrying about it, and that I think just perpetuates it and makes us feel and look older.
Yeah. Yeah, So to really appreciate, like, I can I can move my body, I can go running, I can I'm recently obsessed with the rest of America pickleball, and I can play for two hours at a time, and I'm just like, I'm so glad that I can do all these things. I'm so happy that my body is strong in serving me and hasn't hasn't you know, I've had a couple of injuries over the years. When you have those, you, oh my god, is this you become very grateful for just a healthy, functioning body, and that
is much more. How I look at myself, I'm like, I'm strong as hell, and that is that has served me well.
Yeah. If anything that should make you feel proud and love yourself, health.
Can't, Jenny, I can't do it.
Here's what I need you to do. I need you when we're done, I want you to go in the bathroom, look in the mirror and look into your beautiful eyes and say I love you. And you know it's going to feel gross.
I can't do it. I am. I have a whole visualization process with sort of another.
Mem wait meant wait another you like a younger.
Okay, yes, that I take care of her and I tell her how great she is. It's perfect. I can't get to the mirror yet, but I do visual I do work very hard, and like you know, because when you're suffering, when you have anxiety, or fear. I always think, Okay, what do you need? It's not you. I'm the adult, I'm in charge. I am smart and capable and strong. This feeling is coming from some other place, probably an earlier place, and I just try and think about like
this younger person, I'm like, what do you need? And just asking that question usually helps resolve the anxiety.
That's amazing.
Just acknowledge it and go, oh, poor thing, Okay, I get it. Just I see you. Life is scary. We all carry around so much old shit, and I don't try to necessarily get rid of the old shit.
I just acknowledge it and just embrace it. I love this.
I know you're there. I hear you.
Yeah, that's the best you can do, because you can't get rid of it.
To watch that documentary on Phil Stutz, the one Jonah Hill. He has a whole thing about like I mean, I don't know. He could be a giant quack. I don't know. I just watched the documentary, but he has a whole thing about like your shadow self, and that it's this like amalgamation of all the parts of you that you think that are bad and if you don't acknowledge it,
it turns time. But if you could just acknowledge it and say, yep, it's like my shadow, it's my friend, it's just there, it somehow like turns the noise down and makes it less potent.
And we all have that shadow or.
That everybody has it. Everybody has it.
Unless you're like you feel like it's only you.
Sure, But that is the ultimate sort of like I'm a piece of shit, but I'm a piece of shit in the center of the universe and everyone's talking about it, and you're like, no, most people are really just thinking about whether or not they need to get their nails done or right.
That's the most freeing thing I think as we age, you realize nobody's talking about you, nobody's even really looking at you. Yeah, it's allid stories we're making up in our heads.
And the unintended side effect of being able to have a conversation like this is I always discovered that it takes I'm very self effacing and I don't like compliments and everything, and but when you're honest about sort of anxiety or fear, WHATEVERLSE is going on, you become more human and less of And this was never intended. I never intended this, but I always feared like being somebody on a pedestal that other people wanted to shoot down.
M h. And I think that being open and human makes you less of a target, and that was never my intention, but it's a very welcome side effect. M hm.
Yeah, that's great. You mentioned We've all talked about and we talk about it a lot on this podcast, anxiety and stress and like different ways to do it. So I'm hearing from you that you you run, you play, pick a ball, do you meditate, do you do what are the things do you do to handle your stress and anxiety?
I do meditate, and I'm not as religious about it as I used to be when I was going through divorce and my very very close friend and cousin was dying of cancer, and I just felt like it was just a cycle of like I could pick anything and it was a problem that you know, it was like, oh my god, oh my god. I felt like I was constantly walking around the top of a turret just
looking down at like incoming bad things. And I always thought sleep is for the week, lunch is for losers, and meditation is for like people that don't want to deal with life. I've since completely chansen all of those Thingskay, good, good, all of them. Lunch is not for losers.
Lunch is for champions.
Lunch is for champions. Really helps to have like great friends around to have your lunch with. Sleep is not for the week. It is. I had to say that for years, and you know what I mean, because when you have kids and you're working, you can't indulge in reading the New York Times. That's telling you that if you don't sleep, your brain is turning to rot. You have to survive.
You're just surviving. Yeah.
And then meditation during that time when I was just thinking, oh no, it's all going wrong, and I didn't want to suddenly start doing a bad job at the thing. I loved my work and I could feel like the anxiety coming back. And I just started meditating and I just started by simply counting my breaths. That's it. And I was like, something crazy happened, you know, it just something switched, and I was like, oh, that's crazy. That just worked. Now I'm into breath work.
Oh oh, bim Hoff.
And like crazy breath work.
That can really change your chemical your brain, how you.
Feel, it's it can be really psychedelic because if you do it, yes, what do you do? I listened to this God, I listened to some dude that I found on YouTube. There's two people and they both have once forty minutes and one's like a half an hour, and sometimes you I'm back to back. It's it's almost like
you're hyperventilating in a way. It feels very weird, and you do all this deep controlled breathing and then faster and then you're holding your breath and then at the end you meditate, and it is I've never done acid, but I imagine that. It's I mean, it is like I feel like doors of consciousness are opening.
Oh, I need to know who these people are on YouTube. You have just sent this to me.
I will send them to you. It's you know, it's not for everyone is going this like that is No, I don't because my nose is inside is like sideways, so I can't. That's such a deviated septim it's crazy. So one not. It's like I don't breathe through it anyhow, but I do the like you do belly chest, belly chest, belly chest. It's like two kinds of breathing and then holding it, holding it, holding it, and then reading all the way out. And I don't know why it works.
I read a book that my cousin gave me called Breath That is great. I highly recommend it. It is it will by the end of that if you're not. I was like, oh my god, I have to I have to breathe. I have to start freaking about breathing. I know. And so yeah, I'm very that. And also it is like such a great enhancement to meditation because it is like very psychedelic and great.
I'm I'm inspired by that. I definitely want to try it. I want to talk to you about you are single. You have been single since your divorce. I think that was around the time of my divorce, maybe a little bit later. But you've said that you love being single, and I love hearing that so much, Like what do you love about it? I'm a lot of jealous, Like I'm a little jealous because I really love being single too. For a minute, I.
Love I am by nature an introvert, not meaning that I'm introverted all the time, but that's where I recharge by being alone. Some people recharge by Yes, well it could be and I could be hiking. I could be, but I need a certain amount of alone time every day. And I've struggled with whether or not this is just inherently selfish because I'm not sure I'm as open to sharing my life because I guard my that alone time and I work a lot. I work from home. You know,
I'm doing a development. I've got to deal with Universal for comedy that where I'm developing stuff. I've had a skinned care line. So there's all these women come to my house every day. There's usually be four or five of us, the four of us, and I'm constantly surrounded by people, constantly on zooms and digging meetings, and I need no one around for a while. And between kids and work and you know, friends, I don't know where
I would put a relationship. And I really am not willing to give up any of those things just yet. I'm not willing to give up that alone time. I feel really stressed if I don't get it.
And it sounds like you're just in this major like discovery of doing all these different projects and doing what you want to do now like you're not, I won't say stuck, but you're not committed to a show that though, isn't.
It the scariest thing though? When come on, when we started out, you took any job because you needed a job. You need to do the work. Yeah, right, and so you took any job. It didn't have to be good, it didn't have to be the perfect job. You just
took jobs. And it's much more challenging. And of course I'm grateful for the ability to have choice, but it's much harder when they're like, well, you have to pick now and you have to create, and I'm like, oh, it was easier when I could just say yes to everything and just go do it and then let the
chips fall where they may. It's much more challenging to say I'm not going to put my time and energy into that, or or put yourself out there like develop a project from the ground up with may never see the light of day. All of that, it's much more difficult. I miss the days of being able to just be like, it's a job. I'm going like my tendency is to say yes to everything, because I'm like, well, you say yes to jobs. But what makes it's easy to say?
I know, because everything's out of town now, So I do say no to a lot of stuff because I don't want to leave.
No, you don't want to leave your boys.
No, And they're like right at the you know, fifteen, fifteen, and seventeen. One's going to be gone next.
Year, and I need you so much right now, and I need them.
And the idea of like this is they're such fascinating people. I loved having babies, I loved having toddlers and little kids, and this is so interesting who they are now, and I'm like, I don't want to.
Miss it, you know, oh yeah, Like I just want to hang out with my kids all the time, and.
They don't want to hang out with me at all. Let me make it clear, it's not like we like I always hear people talk about how great religios they have with their kids, and they're all like doing things together. My kids have no interest in me. But what I've discovered is being around is like ninety percent of the work. Just if I'm not around, I'm not going to get that conversation that just suddenly happens where I'm not going
to meet their friends who are over. If I am super busy all the time and out of the house, I just won't have access to that just don't know when that weird conversation is going to come when one of your kids sits down is like, Mom, I like this girl. You're like right, look ahead, don't make eye contact, and you know, I don't want to miss that.
Yeah, you were really close with your You mentioned this before your co stars that you shared the screen with for eleven years. I can relate very close to my co stars that we were on for ten years together. And I know it sounds to me like you kind of were a little bit of a motherly figure off screen as well as on screen, and I think that
that is such. You're a nurturing person, so it's probably natural for you to want to help people, and you know, just those relationships that I know you form with your kids on screen, yes, it feels like they're really your kids kind of.
Well, I mean, especially Nolan, who I'm so grateful for because he was eleven when we started and twenty two when we finished, and so I got to see a boy older than my boys who were babies at the time, and I got to see a boy go through all these changes and he'd be really into something for a while and super into something or annoying about something, and I could say, oh, these are all phases, like you don't have to go in there and micromanage because I'm
not his actual mom, so it wasn't my job. But I'd be like I could just watch him grow and develop and make mistakes and come back from them and try new things. And it was like parenting light because ultimately, at the end of the day, I wasn't responsible for him, but he allowed me, and I love him so much and I'm so grateful to him for allowing me into
that process. Like he would talk to me and we would talk about girls or school or you know, family stuff, and I realized, Okay, boys are real people, which I really didn't know because I only knew dudes who were like you know, I was dating or adults like I did know boys. And he was my first boy that I got to know, and he really helped me be, I hope, a better boy.
Mom. That's so interesting that you said that, because I had a very similar experience on what I like about you with Amanda. I had three at the time. I had two young girls. Yeah, and I had two young girls, and I had no experience around teenage girls other than my own experiences and those weren't great. So I was really nervous about having a teenage girl. And then I got to work with Amanda so closely, and we became very very close, like sisters, and I got to see what I was in.
What what you're in for?
Right?
What was I in for? But not necessarily in a bad way, but just like this is normal teenage behavior, right, and I should be scared of it, I should love it.
Yeah, getting to have relationships with teenagers is like one of the perks of our job, you know, like how many because my kids they let me in and then
they don't. And I got to have full, realized relationships with teenagers and that allowed me to allows me to accept my own teenagers better as exactly as they are right now, because I also know it's everything is, everything is changing, everything's a moment, and you can't get to I mean, I would love to tell them to cut their stupid hair and wear different clothes, and it's like not just you know what, it's this is all a
work in progress. And the more I can step back and let them kind of live, the closer I get to them m.
Hm, because they have to figure it out on their own.
Yeah, yeah, they do, They really do, and they have to learn to fail and pick themselves up, and it's really hard not to want to go in there and just fix everything. But I'm so proud of the people that they're becoming, and it's so exciting to see them
becoming adults. And it's exciting when my sister, the doctor's kids a little older than me, and she said about this age when I was because I was like, they don't want me around, and she's like, teenagers do not need you ninety five percent of the time, but the five percent they need you, they need you, and the only way you'll find out when that is is by being around.
And very true. Yeah, we had also similar experiences. I think it just growing up in the business and being in the press and you know, having people talk about our bodies and our faces and our aging and our weight and all the things that they feel that it's their right to talk about, but also sort of pitting women against one another. Did you ever have that experience with your castmates?
Yeah? I felt it. On Modern Family, the press kept trying to make me and Sophia sort of Betty and Veronica, and I know they did that with you and Shannon. I mean, I remember it. I remember it so clearly, and then I remember seeing you guys. It is just so stupid, but I remember seeing you guys on like a Today Show segment where you took or some morning show and you guys were taking some correspondent like thrift shopping or something. You probably don't even remember it, and
I was like, Oh, they're friends. This real. That's we're not getting real life in the press. I am granted that you know it. It was a morning show segment, but when Sophia, they were just like determined to pit us against each other. I'm like, we hated each other or there was only like it's this scarcity mindset that there's only only one woman can be happy at a time.
And I was like, oh no, I love Sophia and I love how different we are, and I love what she is funny and self effacing and body and she loves life and she loves dancing and eating cake and all these things. And I'm like what. And I learned so much from being around her about what it is to be a really powerful, completely in herself like woman. No one would mistake her for like a fourteen year old boy from behind like they do me all the time, and yeah, I found that to be really disappointing on
the part of the press. But I just never fed into that. You know, it was it is, that's a scarcity mindset, and there's no such thing as like, oh, if one woman's doing well, that means others have to step back. It's I can't support.
That, right.
No.
It was definitely tricky to navigate through those young adult years of being like, wait, what are we Yeah.
We are we enemies and they yeah people. You know, I would see things because I never have never banned tabloids, and my mom would always send me pictures out of a tablished like, look, but it's a good picture. I go, please, Mom, I love you, But no, don't. I don't want to see it, right, I don't want to know because also they like, you get a picture that you I don't where was that camera? I was having lunch with my kids, and then you start to get the neurosis about where.
Oh no, I'm like, I can't live like that. But I would see sometimes, you know, you're just at the grocery store and you see like your face and see my face and Sophia like in how we hated each other. So I was like, that's so crazy, that is just ridiculous. I don't understand why society doesn't have room again like goes back to the witches, like we're too scary if we're all together. I don't know there's.
Something there for sure.
M hm.
I would be remiss not to ask you this because I am a big fan of your early work. Maybe nineteen ninety six Pavy Gilmore. Oh, yeah, they're bringing it back. They're they're doing a sequel right now. Tex is doing something. Are you going to be on it?
I'm going, Uh, we shoot in September. I just got my dates yesterday, which panics me because it's in It's on the East Coast, so I'm like, oh no, I did so much back and forth and I'm going to miss my kids. I will say I'm not in it a ton and I'm okay with that. Adam was so sweet and like called me multiple times to make sure, like before I got the scriptisay, Adam, I love you. You're like one of the kindest people I've ever met you. I don't care if I'm not in this movie. I'll
show up and support it. And but in order for it to be, you know, a story about Happy's journey. We need to he can't be happy. He can't be happily with a girl. So that's all I'll say about that. But yes, I'm going to do it and I can't and I'm very excited.
People are going to freak out. Also about your new show that's.
On Peacock Hysteria.
I saw Hysteria. I watched the trailer for it this morning. First of all, I love your whole eighties look, and your face looks incredible, like they did like a close up on you. I was like, hello, that was good.
That's either good lighting or someone did some digital retouching, which takes the bananas, because you know.
When you so touch it. I'm looking at you right now, you are beautiful.
Oh that is You're so kind. I mean, we all feel like, you know, we came of age right alongside of digital and and high death and you go do.
It must we it's a little too intimate.
I'm really I'm excited about it. It was it's like hoary and which is a genre that I can't watch because I get so scared. But it was the people that were doing it were so fun. And exciting, and I was like, Okay, I'm gonna try this. I'm just gonna do something different, just radically different. And I had so much fun.
You're just you're taking so many great chances right now. I love this about this chapter for you.
Well, I mean, the backup plan is living in a cabin far far away and like some state where you don't have to pay high taxes.
So I'm into that. Take me away if it all.
Goes wrong, if these chances are are don't pay off, that's where I'll be. You can come and visit.
Well. I want everyone to make sure that they do check out Hysteria because it looks really good. It's on Peacock and I think it debut is on October eighteenth. If I'm not mistaken.
You have so much more information than I do. I just got the trailer yesterday and they Peacock said would you post, and I was like, have you watched it? Wait, I'll watch. It was like the microwave one, the microwave yes with the baby you know, yes, good. Yeah. I was like, oh, this is fun. And the eighties you know, the eighties look is not my favorite, but I got so into it. While we were there and just I.
Just loved it, and you're like, great, you look great.
Yeah, and I do a ton of stunts. You did, yes, flying to the air and but being bad things happened to me. I'm not sure what I wanted to say yet, so bad things.
How did your own stunts you have?
I mean I had to like, yeah, there's a lot of stunts in it. I did a movie for Netflix like a couple of years ago, and I wasn't Netflix, sorry, it was Amazon. That's why I'm taking miss That's okay, and I get killed. I get killed in like the first ten pages. But I get to have this really massive brutal fight scene with the with the killer in the movie, and it was so fun and I had to like do so many stunts and learn to shoot guns and do all this stuff that I was like, Okay,
I want more of that. That's really fun. I'd like to lean into it because for years and years, I mean, Modern Family, the comedy was sometimes physical and I liked that totally killer. I don't know why, I'm being just a daft idiot, and it was that was really fun, and that kind of got me like, yeah, I want to do more of that I love.
You are unstoppable. Come on, look at You're very inspiring. Okay, before I let you go, I need to ask you, Julie Bowen, what was your last I Choose me moment?
That's such a big one. I'm looking outside, I'm looking outside. This is a dumb one. It's dumb, but it was big. I never ever spend money on myself.
Ever.
I will spend money on education or travel, but like, I never buy myself. I'm a huge Poshmark fan. If it's over one hundred dollars, I got it on Poshmark, I guarantee you.
I love Poshmark.
I love it. I live for Poshmark. And I was just away with my sister and she went to this boutique and everything there was gorgeous, but it was all very pricey and I couldn't justify it. But there was this one necklace that had made with a stone from I was on Martha's vineyard and the woman who were in the boutique made the necklace. It's like a stone
that's been like like it's held in gold. And it was expensive and it was beautiful and meaningful, and I bought it for no reason other than I wanted to, and I'm like, still feel like vaguely guilty even saying it, but I was like, yeah, it's a really pretty thing, it's from a specific place. I get to do this for me. It was it's hard to even admit that, Jenny, I can't believe, Like, I didn't know how heavy this was going to be.
No, but it's so important to give yourself things like that because you deserve it, and if nobody else is buying you gifts at the moment, like buy yourself something, make yourself feel good.
Well that was. That is the first thing that I did not posh in I can't even remember how long. And yeah, I really and I did. I do feel good about it, but I also feel vaguely selfish. So that was. I wish that I could choose me without it being having an undertone of selfishness. But maybe that's exactly why you're doing this podcast, is to make people have these deeper thoughts about it.
Yeah, that it's okay to choose yourself.
Is it?
It is? I promise you, I promise you, okay, But I'm right there with you. I struggle with it too. I think we all struggle with feeling of the feeling of guilt or that you know, it's it's really hard to be kind to ourselves or do things for ourselves when we're so used to doing things for everybody else.
Yeah, it's really really hard. And when your kids get older and they my kids need that less of that one on one, you know, like constant attention. You realize I realized I didn't have anybody to be nice to, you know, like my friends. But then you go, oh, I guess it could be nice to me as long as as long as nobody makes me say it out loud. And then Jenny Garth is going to make me say it out loud.
You're going to make you look in the mirror and say it. Oh, Julie, I could talk to you forever. I love you. Thank you so much for coming on.
Thank you. You're such a delight. I've always enjoyed running into you. I can't wait to see more of you. I hope this leads to us getting to see each other more. Me too, Thank you.
Thank you. Okay, Wow, that conversation with Julie was just so good. I want to thank her for being so incredibly open and fun to hang out with. I can really relate so much to her journey from the impostor syndrome feelings that we talked about, to the struggles with body image and how hard it is to believe that you are enough. I know a lot of us have had these same feelings, but I think this conversation is an important reminder to all of us that we're all
works in progress. It's never too late to start improving ourselves and changing those negative thoughts that try to keep creeping back in. All they want to do is derail us as we continue to choose ourselves week after week. This week, let's try to do some breathing, like some real breathing. We talked about it with Julie and how
it has helped her with her anxiety. So this week I challenge you to find a guided breathwork video online, something that looks good to you, and follow that in the morning one day when you wake up or when you're feeling overwhelmed or anxious, and if you're into it, keep it up. Maybe it will become your new me time ritual. Remember it's never too late to start something new. You can check out all our social links in our show notes. Are you following us on social media, because
you should be. Rate and review the podcast, and use the hashtag I Choose Me whenever you feel like it. I love you, I'll be right here next week, and I hope you choose to be here too,