In Calabasas, healthy boundaries are suddenly in style.
Heres how the reality star and Poosh founder insisted on balance and embraced her feelings.
Kourtney Kardashian has pulled down her pants and is showing me her underwear.
Theyre Balenciaga, she says through an enormous smile, showing off the black cotton.
Fine, Kardashian said, delivering a cutie-brat challenge: you better dress me.
Shooting our show, it became a really toxic environment at the end for me, Kardashian says.
I would fight with my sisters.
There was, like, just a lot going on.
And even for me personally, I wasnt in the happiest place.
I felt like I was being almost a character, she says.
Kardashian would will herself to enjoy the job that had given her so much.
I would give myself a pep talk before walking in, she says.
Like, say we were shooting at Khloes house.
Id be like, Its going to be a good day.
Lets have a good mood.
Lets put a smile on our face.
If you are familiar with themanyGIFsof Kardashian available on the Internet, you might probably guess this didnt work.
She has an apparently wonderful relationship, three shockingly well-adjusted children, and a growing lifestyle brand, Poosh.
She looks stunning, as smooth and dewy as if she were being Facetuned in real-time.
That it didnt involve my mom.
Despite this literal trailblazing, Kris tells me, When I made the deal with Ryan Seacrest and E!
Kourtney said, Wait a second?
Do I want to jump in?
Kardashian says of her reluctance, I actually feel uncomfortable being the center of attention.
It just makes me nervous.
The phrase to some extent is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.
But Kardashian says she wasnt rejecting choices; she was avoiding making them at all.
I just used to be really indecisive, Kardashian says.
I felt like I had to poll a lot of people to help me decide things.
I think it was in a time when I maybe felt more insecure or not in the greatest relationships.
I was used to always being a bitch and having no feelings, she says.
But by the end ofKeeping Up With the Kardashians, Kardashian had begun what she calls a therapy journey.
She says, It made me really sensitive.
Im not a bitch anymore, and I just have feelings; like, an abundance of them.
Kardashian was disarmed, left without her shield of disaffection or the unfortunate weapon of calling her sisters fat.
I would just start crying all the time, she says.
At the same time, Kardashian was working to set boundaries.
She wanted to set aside time to work out every day.
Kim and Khloe accused her of refusing to show a nascent relationship onscreen.
Filming everything, Kardashian says, was affecting my happiness.
So I was like, Whats more important to everyone?
Our happiness or sharing something that isnt going to make me happy?
A detente was reached, but the show ended.
For the first time in 14 years, the family got a rest from performing their relationships.
Having the break shifted the mindset with my sisters, Kardashian says.
I feel like I have things to show, Kardashian says proudly.
That might include her kids wearing matching pajamas or stopping to get pizza at Disneyland.
But when youre a Kardashian, being normal is abnormal.
And thats me, thats Khloe, thats Kim, thats Kylie, thats Kendall.
And she just had to say, Look, I want to set some boundaries.
I have one life and Id like to live it the way I want to live it.
I think thats much healthier for her to have more of a normal lifestyle.
Its not just healthier for Kardashian.
And its kind of true.
Like, I want to work to the place where Im happy.
Right now, Im actually working more than I have [on Poosh].
(One recent example: an Ayurvedic cleanse that included a sex fast.
Oh my God, it was crazy, Kardashian says of briefly forgoing orgasms.
But it actually it made everything better.
Like, if you cant have caffeine, when you have your first matcha, its so good.)
Poosh was meant to help people asking themselves, What am I supposed to do?
Who, like, am I?
But creating and overseeing Poosh seems to be an answer to Kardashians own existential question.
As for Kardashians other existential question How much of my life do I want to make public?
And I think that the discussion was we just have to learn how to respect those boundaries.
I think that Kourtneys really found that balance that she has craved for so long.
And shes been happy.
I think its OK to choose you.
My 40s are about being Team Me.
Im going to eat well.
Im going to work out.
I am a leader, she says, giggling through her droll Calabasas drawl.
I lead the way.
