What do you do when life doesn't go according to plan that moment you lose a job, or a loved one, or even a piece of yourself. I'm Brookshields and this is now What, a podcast about pivotal moments as told by people who lived them. Each week, I sit down with a guest to talk about the times they were knocked off course and what they did to move forward.
Some stories are funny, others are gut wrenching, but all are unapologetically human and remind us that every success and every setback is accompanied by a choice, and that choice answers one question, now what. I'm so happy to be talking to you, Duff. I was thinking because every time I hear your name in the book, I forget that your name is Karen.
Thank you for that. That's one of the million of reasons why I adore you. It's really interesting to feel that you get mislabeled. My family calls me Cannonball. I've never been called Karen, even before it became a pejorative for a whiny white woman. I always said, like, what were you thinking? And my mom was like, well, I was gonna name you Willie May, after my best friend. But I'm an Irish twin. I've got a brother who's ten months and she just said, oh, we just picked Karen.
I'm sorry to all the other Karens who love their name.
My guest today is my good friend Karen Duffy, or Duff as she likes to be called. Duff is a writer, an actress, a model, an unofficial spokesperson for Stoic Philosophy, and a former MTV VJ. She was a red carpet mainstay in the nineties until a life changing medical diagnosis forced her to pause and ultimately of it from the path she'd envisioned for herself. Duff's diagnosis changed her life and career drastically, but her incredible spirit has stayed the same.
She built a new life, started a beautiful family, and wrote three hilarious books, including her latest Wise Up. I'm in awe of Duff's grace and I'm excited to share some of her genuinely good advice with all of you. So, without further ado, here is Karen Duffy. Duff thank you so much for joining the podcast. I was trying to figure out how I was going to introduce you, and it just feels impossible. Because you're so many things to so many different people. How would you describe yourself?
How about the slow hied, raven haired pixie that's stealing America's heart?
Wow? Oh okay.
Aspiring Stoic I think a most proud of in life, besides raising my son, I think is finding a way to be useful in life. I find that, you know, we have a choice to be useful or useless, and
that usefulness, that sense of purpose is actually evolving. So going from a recreational therapist, which was my first job, I didn't realize that being a recreational therapist in a memory care at the nursing home, that the skill set that I learned having a specific elocution, knowing how to move my body to capture somebody's attention or perfect for MTV because MTV was shrinking America's attention span. And I was like, Oh, That's what I've been practicing for for my whole life.
You mentioned Stoic and Stoicism For the laymen, who are the Stoics and what is Stoic?
The Stoics were a group of philosophers who wanted philosophy to be available for everyone. Probably the most well known Stoics would be Marcus Aurelius, Seneca Zeno, and then my main man is Epictatus, and the Stoics believe we can't control what happens. We can only control how we respond, and that is what stoicism is all about.
How did you? How did you come upon? What was your journey to being able to open your heart and mind to what you're just describing. You know, it's.
Probably been about thirty years. I realized that when I got my job at MTV, that like I had a responsibility to be less stupid, and so I kept trying. You was always taking courses and reading Marcus Aurelius's meditations. Ignited the incandescent love that I have for the Stoics. And then I was diagnosed with a degenerative nerve disease called sarcidosis of the central nervous system, which causes chronic pain, and I thought, I don't want this pain to make
me mean, because I am full of gratitude. And I found the Stoics to be a great help. Atpictatus, who is my Stoic main man. He was enslaved by one of Emperor Nero's secretaries, and he was a sadist and broke Atpictatus's leg, and Epictatus is always shown with his walking stick, and I know that two thousand years ago he lived in chronic pain and was able to have his radiant mind inspire the smartest people who've ever exist.
Can you just tell me a little bit more about what sarkoidosis is? How does it create the chronic pain.
So it's a rare disease of unknown origin, maybe one hundred thousand of us in the US. So it normally is in the lungs. And what happens is the tissue. It's all soft tissue. So the only place you can't get sarcodosis is your teeth and hair, but everything else is game. And so the soft permeable cells of your skin or your brain tissue where I have it and my spinal cord, become crystallized. They then these crystals make
a lesion. I equate it. When I wake up in the morning, it feels like a donkey wearing ice skates is kicking me in the neck. And then when I take my medicine, it feels like the donkey put on skateguards, but he's still kicking pain. Really hard to talk about because it reduces our language. But I realized that pain is inevitable. We will all experience physical pain emotional pain, but suffering can be an option.
What was it like for you to get that diagnosis. Was it like going through the stages of death? Was it like going through the stages of grief?
Yeh, yes, Elizabeth Koobler's Ross's Five Stages of Death, and it's like, you know, disbelief, anger, bargaining, acceptance. Well, mine were like finger pointing, whining. I honestly felt that I knew it was pretty serious early on, and I just figured, all right, this may take a lot out of my life, but it's not going to take my sense of humor, or my sense of curiosity or my sense of purpose. And I believe that having a purpose is so simple.
It's just having something to love, something to do in, something to look forward to.
Were you working with Revlon at that point?
Yes, I was working with Revlon MTV. I'd done a few movies. Did it change your job as the VJ? Well, at that point, you know, there's a really short windowspan for VJs. You tend to age out. But what's interesting with Revlon I was on chemo and I was on steroids, and trying to keep my illness a secret was like keeping a beach ball underwater. So I did tell the good folks at Revlon, who have donated so much to women's healthcare research. I was like, listen, I'm not that
the mean tomboy that you hired. I'm sick and I'm gonna and I'm really changing. And you know, my hair was falling out. I grow a mustache from a hunchback from the steroids. So unless they were going to have an aftershave, I was not going to think that I was going to keep going. But the amazing thing about Revlon was they were like, well, keep you around, and they did keep me around for almost twenty years. But they were like, you know, we hired you for inner beauty.
And maybe that's why I feel such a sense of compassion to my brothers and sisters who live in chronic pain, because I think I've tried to make good choices, but also I have been on the receiving end of a lot of luck, and so I feel like it is my responsibility to share. And honestly, we can really thank sarcoidosis for a spate of taren duffy movies that never got made because I am box office poison. I wouldn't watch blank Check if it was screening on my own corneas, so.
I will start our own library and them and they still didn't get.
Seen, you know, Like I remember telling my son Eddie was like, Oh, I can't believe this, This doesn't make any sense. And I was like, you know, Jack, somebody has to make the bad ones. They all can't be Citizen Kane.
Now you wrote wise up for Jack or your son. Can you talk a little bit about how and why you decided to do that and what his reaction was.
It's interesting there is a Stoic tradition that Stoics wrote letters like Letters to a Stoic by Seneca, and I knew I wanted to share the radiance of Stoicism and how it gave me a roadmap to navigating my life. I had written it as a collection of essays and and I realized I wanted the reader to feel so loved that I figured, well, who do I love the most? And so I asked, Jack, can you stand in for
the reader? Can I use your name and address these letters and let the reader hopefully feel this love, and he was very funny. He was like, yes, but please use my real name, don't use my don't call me Lefty or Jack like it?
Do you do a couple of times he I can't teach you all dog nw tricks, but he said, you know, I'm proud of you, and I would I would like to do this.
Do you ever talk to Jack about mortality? You know?
It was funny. We were in the car the other day and uh, I have neuropathy in my hands, and so is.
That a result of of starcoidosis and being on chemo for so long?
So I'd spilled a cup of tea on my computer and so my husband just said, well, I'm just getting you a sippy cup, and he did. And I just mentioned, like, you know, it's really important, like when I'm on my deathbed, you gotta make sure I have lipstick. And the two boys they said, see what we get to look forward to. It's interesting because nothing is guaranteed. And that's what I admire about the stoics. They understand that our life is a perishable good and it is up to us to
do our best. You know, one of my favorite words is a it's phill a fugal phil a fugal fin a fugle. It means the fear of endings, and I thought, I don't have a fear of endings. We have a tradition in our house. We have this thing where we pick a motto. Most recently it's been from Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said, write it on your heart that every day will be the best day of the year. He who
is rich, who seizes the day. And so we just pick a motto and we memorize it the three of us, and then it's something to kind of fall back on. And that's something that I hope more people will think about because it really binds us. And that's what I think. I think the beauty of writing wise Up was celebrating this idea of having a life philosophy where it's not you know, people in cafes with black turtlenecks smoking gal waws is. It's like, no, it's you know, you can
be an absolute knucklehead. But we all have a philosophy of for life. Sometimes we just aren't aware or haven't really contemplated it. And so that that was the goal of what I was hoping to ignite.
There's so many different quotes that I pulled from your your book, and they're just you know, they're quotes that are from noted, brilliant philosophers. They're quotes that you say just as duff. You know, you give really a good, good advice without it being preachy. So I would love it if you would repeat some of that. For instance, what would be your advice for coping with and now what moment?
Again? I think I would go back to the dichotomy of control. Everything can be taken away. The one thing you will always have is control over your thoughts.
And it's also you talk about, you know, surrounding yourself with people who do fuel you rather than suck you dry and change, you know. And how about distinguishing a good relationship from a bad one, because you talk about that and the obligation. Where is the obligation? And how do you get out of a bad one? How do you recognize it? How do you get out of it?
Well, you know, it's interesting, Brooke. I always thought that loyalty was a virtue, but then I realized, if this person's being a real weasel, maybe they don't deserve to have my friendship. And so we do have control. We can weed our social garden. Friendship is a nine letter word for love, and it multiplies our happiness and divides our sorrow. But it's also really critical that we be a friend to ourselves.
That goes back to life philosophy. Do you have multiple life philosophies or is there just one that you lived? By?
Many? And that's the great thing, you know.
I read all the time, and I don't look avid reader. You're like voracious and you remember stuff. You and your sister have like ridiculous picture memories or what do you call that?
They're not photographic? I would say photogenic. It's funny. I did. I did tell my son that he inherited a superpower, which is memory, which is not at all inherited. There's there's no proof of that, but I figured if I just kind of steered him. I was like, dude, if you could just practice mnemonics, which are little tricks to remember things, like I try and remember a quote a day, and we forget eighty percent of what we've learned the day before. So I wanted to hang on to that
a little bit. I look at books and I think these are not lifeless slumps of paper. These are radiant minds alive on the shelf, and we're competing for so many things with social media, and you know, there's a million things to pay our time. But I think it's important that we pay attention to what we're paying attention to.
I feel that you've had many, many now what moments, But can you tell the listener what some of the most important now what moments and what decisions you made during those now what moments? Because like, I'm obsessed with this idea of the difference. What makes one person when faced with something, react one way and enough different person react another and how do you move forward?
Well, a make or break moment was, honestly the fertility struggle of having so many chronic conditions and then just trying to get that one lucky egg. I just remember thinking I cannot go on. I can't. I would say fertility brought me to my knees. And I thought I was tough because I like spat in death's eye with sarcoidosis, and but the fertility journeys really what cut me off at the knees. But one of the most beautiful things was I was just like to my husband, was like, dude,
I can't do it. I just can't. I just can't go another round.
How many rounds do you mind me asking? You went through three transfers, five cycles over a course of three years, Yes, three years. I mean as someone I think we've talked about this, I went through seven transfers and Rowan ended up being from the first batch and she had been frozen for two years from me. So that's a whole other podcast. But what made you then decide to try it one more time?
Well, I think what kept me going was my husband. It was, you know, there's been so much with you know, the cataclysm of seeing two thousand, nine hundred and seventy three people die on nine to eleven, and then the subsequent wars, and I just was like, dude, I don't know if I could bring a kid into this world. And my husband was like our son Constantine Agna menmon el Frios Lambropolis. He just made this elaborate Greek name, which totally cracked me up, and I was like, all right,
you're in the amazing thing. We were blessed with a surrogate who I call my wombmate, and we met in the parking lot of Lbean in Freeport, Maine. And I was asking, you know, the therapist of the CLI, like how will we find each other? And they're like, oh, you will know, and it was amazing. We just saw each other thousands of people fighting over fleeces and boots, and I was like, why would you ever do this? And she said how many times in your life do you get a chance to do something this big for
somebody you don't know? And it was amazing And it did take several times. And my son was a ten pound baby. All of her children were five and six pounds. So as he's coming cannon balling out of the business end of the birth canal, she was like, I should have looked up the size of your head before.
I said, yes, and your husband, and it was amazing.
So they had to call in a pediatrician who then caught him and said, okay, who do I the baby too? And so give the baby to his landlord because he had a nine month's sublease, and then she can introduce us. And the amazing thing was later that day the doctor went in to see her and they fell madly in love and got married. Oh my god, Yeah, it's like a lifetime movie.
You returned the kindness back and said you're gonna get a reward after this.
It was amazing. It was the altruism and the heroism. Women are just amazing. I just we're just incredible.
Are you still in touch with her or does Jack know her?
Yes? Very well. And it's interesting because we were matched because she was like, I don't want to be anybody's auntie. She's like, I've got four kids, a big community, Like I I'm doing.
This because as I can, Well, what was that time like? Like, was it was it common for you? Was it taboo? Did you feel like yet another failure? I mean I felt like a failure. I felt that my life had been so extraordinary that this was going to be the price that I had to pay, that I wasn't allowed to be normal and have a child because it's the only thing I've known for sure my whole life.
So was it did I'm sorry?
What was the reaction to that? We have stuff? What was sort of the tenor of that time from other people? For you?
Well, I've never really been concerned. And that's one of the great things that Marcus Aurelia says, is like it's almost amusing how we care for other people's opinions when we really just must trust ourselves. So I didn't feel you know, I didn't feel in any way Judge. I felt spectacularly lucky, and the fact that she has such a great sense of humor, Like I was like, what if they scramble the eggs? So I took lipstick and she wrote like Duffy Lambrose insert here. She was just
really funny game and we talked all the time. We see each other and there's a really beautiful relationship there.
Well, you talk about miracles, like you say, people don't you know, there's two schools of thought. There are no miracles or miracles happen every day. And to me, that's the miracle of you meeting her, the miracle of her meeting the guy, the miracle obviously of Jack. When Georgia throw was.
The one who introduced us to this surrogacy, he was like the bachelor who was never going to have kids. He made lunch for my husband and invited another couple over and just said, you guys should have a talk.
Well you had. Uh, it's in the whole fertility thing, really is. It's so interesting to me because it is about aging, but we're not taught, you know, especially if we're you know, I was right. I was where I worked ever since I could breathe practically, and you know, we're not taught that by a certain time. Yeah, you maybe want to be a VJ and a model and I do all this and have a career all that, but yeah, you're clock's ticking, you don't. We don't really
get educated until it's almost too late. Did both the fertility and your diagnosis. Did that affect the way you viewed aging in general, aside from being a model in Revlon and that world, because the beauty industry does something else to the view of aging.
Yeah, I kind of felt like I snuck into a party and was just waiting to get kicked out. I was very aware that this was a this was a very short window, and I I was going to fly when the windows open, and I was going to have as much fun as I could. You know, It's funny. I have no fear of aging, and maybe because I was I was so young when I got sick. I've been sick half my life, and I think my attitude is, you know, truly just so rooted in gratitude and enthusiasm.
So I think that having an enthusiastic spirit, not taking things too serious, and also trying to share, you know, the good vibes and share my luck with others. I think has been It's made it feel more palatable to me.
You know. It's it's fun to look to sort of look back and see the trajectory and and you know, and then be able to read a book like this that's filled with so many facts and so many fun facts and great stories and and lucky for Jack to be able to hear these letters that end with love mom, you know. And it's if you had to sort of look back throughout all of it, what would you say is your through line?
I think that in your life, when you're asked what are you proud of? What are you grateful for? The only answer is love. You know. We're not like this wildly smushy, demonstrative family, but we show love in many ways. Words are vessels, and we have love and we use it in so many primitive ways, like I love a mister softy cone, I love of Joe's pizza, I love Nito point, I love my family. And I think the ancient Greeks with surprised at how primitive we look at love.
We think of love as a soulmate or you know, erotic love as the pinnacle of love. But the ancient Greeks had this much more expanded definition that they actually looked, you know, Aros was more destabilizing. Philos was a friendship, which was the highest form of love. So there's many ways to love.
That was the aspiring Karen Duffy. If you want more of her wit and wisdom, go pick up a copy of her book, Wise Up. You'll be glad you did. That's it for us today, See you next week. Now, What with Burke Shields is a production of iHeartRadio. Our lead producer and wonderful showrunner is Julia Weaver. Additional research and editing by Darby Masters and Abu Zafar. Our executive producer is Chrisstina Everett. The show was mixed by Baheed Fraser.