10% Happier with Dan Harris
10% Happier with Dan Harris

Sara Bareilles On: The Feelings You Fear Might Destroy You, What Antidepressants Actually Did to Her Creativity, and Why There's Nothing to Fix

August 28, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

Sara Bareilles was terrified that taking an antidepressant would destroy her creativity. She had resisted medication for years, worried it would suppress some essential part of herself. But when she finally started taking Lexapro, she discovered something surprising: "What I experienced being on medication felt like a return to myself." The medication didn't mute her—it quieted the "fearful, paranoid, depressed, anxious person who was having ruminating thoughts" so she could actually recognize herself again.

The Grief That Changes You

Bareilles's new album and documentary, both titled Good Grief, emerged from losing three people she loved deeply within a short span. Her friend Chad Joseph, who had been her first road manager and "sacrificed his own dream for mine," died in 2020. Broadway performer Gavin Creel, whom she describes as "a sparkler" she fell in love with platonically, died quickly after diagnosis. And poet Andrea Gibson, whom Bareilles calls "a prophet," faced cancer with a strange rapture.

Continue reading the full summary in the app — free to try.

Read Full Summary →

Free • No credit card required

Listen to Audio Summary Open in App

What you'll learn

  • 1 (00:03) **Episode Introduction & Guest Welcome** - Dan Harris introduces the episode's theme of grief in pop music and welcomes Sara Bareilles.
  • 2 (01:19) **The Vulnerability of Releasing Personal Art** - Sara explains the emotional risk of sharing work that is deeply integrated with her personal life.
  • 3 (05:17) **Coping with Wobbliness: Naming It to Tame It** - Sara shares her go-to strategies for managing vulnerability and anxiety.
  • 4 (07:38) **The Concept of "Good Grief"** - Sara explains the double meaning of her album title and the transformative power of grief.
  • 5 (14:39) **Meet the "Dead Friends" Behind the Album** - Sara introduces the three people whose deaths inspired the record.
  • 6 (23:37) **The Fear of Being Eaten Alive by Grief** - Sara describes the terrifying physical sensation of overwhelming grief and the lesson of survival.
  • 7 (25:49) **Medication, Art, and the Return to Self** - Sara discusses her initial resistance to taking Lexapro and what it actually did for her.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Plus: her complicated relationship with antidepressants, weathering fertility struggles, and aging in public.

Sara Bareilles joins Dan to discuss her new album Good Grief, a record she made after losing three close friends — Chad Joseph, Gavin Creel, and poet Andrea Gibson. The conversation covers grief as a transformative force, medication and mental health, fertility struggles and miscarriage, the creative process as spiritual transmission, aging without intervention, and patriotism as grief.

In this episode we talk about:

  • Grief is a shortcut to the truth — it strips away distraction and forces presence
  • "Name it to tame it" — putting feelings into words reduces their power
  • Sara's fear that medication would suppress her artistry turned out to be the opposite: Lexapro felt like "a return to herself"
  • The creative process as clearing a channel rather than owning the output — music arrives, it isn't manufactured
  • "Nothing to fix" — acceptance as a countercultural act in an era of optimization
  • Acceptance isn't resignation — you can surrender to what is and still take compassionate action
  • Grief of country: loving America and mourning what it's becoming aren't mutually exclusive
  • Social media distorts your experience of reality — have your experience of the world in the world

Sara Bareilles is a two-time Grammy winner and Tony-nominated composer whose music and lyrics powered the Broadway hit Waitress — a role she later performed herself, both on Broadway and in London's West End. On screen, she earned an Emmy nomination for Girls5eva and for her performance as Mary Magdalene in NBC's Jesus Christ Superstar Live! She has sold over three million albums and 3.5 billion streams worldwide.

Related Episodes:

Get the 10% with Dan Harris app here

Sign up for Dan's free newsletter here

Follow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTok

10% Happier with Dan Harris

More from this podcast

10% Happier with Dan Harris →