National Writers Series author stays drama free
From staff reports
Nedra Glover Tawwab wants people to know that positive changes in relationships are possible, even if those around you don’t want to revise their behavior.
That’s what her new book, Drama Free: A Guide to Managing Unhealthy Family Relationships is about. The National Writers Series will host her at 7 p.m. on Friday, July 21 the City Opera House and via livestream.
Her first book, Set Boundaries, Find Peace became an instant New York Times bestseller.
Tawwab was born and raised in Detroit where she became a licensed therapist after getting her undergrad and graduate degrees from Wayne State University. She now resides in Charlotte, North Carolina with her husband.
The guest host for the event is Saginaw-native Madison Meter, who spent her summers visiting Leelanau County. As a young adult, she interned for the TART Trails—which later turned into a job—and made her home base Traverse City.
NWS marketing and communications director Noelle Riley recently caught up with Tawwab about her path to helping people.
What made you want to become a licensed therapist?
When I was in grad school, I wanted to do more micro-level social work and I had a few internships doing grant writing and these broader things. I was like, “This is not what I want to do. I want to work more with people.” And then I had an internship that was one on one working with clients, and that just felt ordained. When I saw my first client, it was at a runaway shelter in Oakland County for teenagers, and the work we did there was so amazing and so impactful. You could see them just being so open because they just wanted to be heard. They just wanted to have someone to talk to and someone to listen to them.
From that experience, I switched into doing more micro-level social work, which we know as being a therapist. It feels so natural to me to listen to people share and help them process all the things they’ve been through.
What made you decide to write your first book?
My first book happened after I created a community on Instagram (Tawwab has two million Instagram followers), and I was posting a lot about boundaries and it seemed to be the information that people needed. People had so many questions, and I thought, “What a wonderful way to start my writing career with something I think we don’t know enough about.”
When we thought about boundaries—at that time, it was really only saying “no” to stuff. If you say “no” you set a boundary—that was our interpretation of it. But it is so much more than that. It’s so broad, and I wanted to share what I’d been doing for years with clients with a larger audience. So that book was birthed from the community I built on Instagram.
And what prompted you to write about family relationships in your newest book, Drama Free?
After “Set Boundaries, Find Peace,” so many people were like, this book is great, but what about my family?
People need to understand that even with your family, things can improve. It’s not about changing. That’s not the magic we’re looking for. We’re looking for you going in with different expectations of a person who may have an addiction, or a person who absorbs a lot of energy in a space. Sometimes we trick ourselves into thinking, “Oh, if they would just change, everything would be better.” And it’s like, “How can things be better if they don’t change?”
Is it possible to be in this relationship if they continue to show up as they are? That’s a choice that we have. I wanted to give people options. So, with “Drama Free,” it is a book of options.
For those hesitant to confront family drama, how would you persuade them to read your new book?
If we don’t do anything different, we continue to experience a lot of what we don’t want. We think that the difference is that time will be magical. If I just give it more time, or try it again the same way this time… something will be different. None of that is true.
People will come to therapy and they have this therapy guilt for not being able to do things on their own. They feel like it’s human failure to not be able to figure out depression or anxiety or a marriage issue. When in actuality, you’ve done everything you know how to do.
I’m the person who will help you develop new ideas, who might spark a different way of thinking about it. You’ve tapped out of your resources. Everything that you’ve thought of, I’m sure you’ve done it. You’re not a failure for doing everything you can think of. But you can certainly make the situation more successful by allowing yourself to be open to some new possibilities.
You’ve been interviewed by Oprah a few times. How does she connect to your work?
She appreciates the work on boundaries. It empowers a person to do something rather than wait for people to change. I think she really appreciates the work around that because so much of her philosophy is, “How do you own your life instead of allowing people to drive what you feel and think?”
You were born in Michigan. What was it like growing up in Detroit?
It was an explosion of culture. Growing up in Detroit, I felt surrounded by people who were like me, and I absolutely loved it. I think Detroit is certainly an urban, segregated environment. I think now there are more non-black folks moving into the city, but when I was growing up that was not the case. When I go back, my neighborhood looks completely different in a really good way.
You see the things that have never been inhabited… these stores and restaurants popping up. It looks amazing and it looks beautiful. I grew up in Detroit at a time where I think we dealt with the brunt of what happened in the 70s and 80s. It was pretty much a gutted city, and now to see it coming back and thriving, I feel like I’m missing it.
I can’t wait to come to Traverse City and be able to see another part of Michigan.
