Podcasts · We Can Do Hard Things

(BEST OF) How to Not Disappear: Chanel Miller

29 Oct 2026 · 57 min

What does it look like to keep showing up when the world gives you every reason to disappear?

Writer and artist Chanel Miller joins us for an unforgettable conversation about depression, healing, and her definition of success: refusing perfection and exhaustion, and continuing to show up as exactly who she is.

- Chanel’s brilliant way of understanding depression: seeing life through “toilet paper roll binoculars”—and why we shouldn’t make big decisions when our vision has narrowed;

- Why healing might sometimes be the permission to finally let go and move forward;

- How Chanel learned that presence—not perfection—is success;

- Why refusing to give up can itself be an act of resistance; and

- The extraordinary moment Chanel returned to Stanford, was “held in sound,” and heard the message that set her free: We got it. You can go now.

About Chanel:

Chanel Miller is a writer and artist who received her BA in Literature from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her critically acclaimed memoir, KNOW MY NAME, was a New York Times bestseller, a New York Times Book Review Notable Book, and a National Book Critics Circle Award winner, as well as a best book of 2019 in Time, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, NPR, and People, among others. She is a 2019 Time Next 100 honoree and a 2016 Glamour Woman of the Year honoree under her pseudonym, “Emily Doe.”

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Links in the notes 1

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