Let’s start with the elephant in the room: Nosy readers will no doubt comb through Sophie Grégoire Trudeau’s much-anticipated memoir, Closer Together: Knowing Ourselves, Loving Each Other, looking for details (hints? clues?) about her surprise split from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last August after 18 years of marriage. Here’s one: “Sometimes I’d be asked if I was ‘Trudeau’s wife,’ to which I usually responded with a grin: ‘Well actually, I’m Sophie – pleased to meet you!'” 

If Grégoire Trudeau was feeling smothered by the cumbersome label of First Lady, this reader’s takeaway from a frustratingly vague memoir – which the publisher calls a “deeply personal journey toward self-knowledge, acceptance and empowerment” – it that she’s free as a bird now. (Despite her famous married name lingering on the book’s cover.) A sitting Prime Minister has separated from their spouse just once before in Canadian history; the first time, it was Justin’s parents who split – Pierre and Margaret Trudeau – in a bizarre example of history repeating itself. 

 

 

Though I want Grégoire Trudeau’s therapy notes on their story, her hunky husband is conspicuously absent in Closer Together. The book is a little bit memoir – she’s a lonely only child turned aimless student turned Montreal TV host – but there are many more inspirational takeaways from pop psychology’s big names. Dabbling in everything from attachment styles to the vagus nerve to the patriarchy, her go-to gurus include psychotherapist and Where Should We Begin podcaster Esther Perel; and bestselling When The Body Says No author Dr. Gabor Maté.

While we glom onto such self-help at airport bookstores, Grégoire Trudeau has the unique pleasure of calling them up personally, thanks to her many famous friends. “Recently I had a chance to catch up with my friend Jewel Kilcher,” she writes, “whom you likely know simply as Jewel, the Grammy-nominated singer.” 

So, as Closer Together hits bookstores, here are five of the former First Lady’s personal psychology picks and their nuggets of mental health wisdom. 

Dr. Gabor Maté on Small-T Traumas

During an “insightful chat” Sophie Grégoire conducts with the Hold On to Your Kids author, the Vancouver doctor goes into a full therapy session, moving at rapid speed from “what was your childhood like?” to “little Sophie wants to make everything okay for her parents” in the turn of a single page. Grégoire Trudeau buys in: “Trauma comes in all shapes and sizes, and we carry even the smallest ones in our emotional baggage as we grow,” she writes. Her small-t trauma involves her parents arguing and no siblings to talk to. Her very Freudian take on the inner child: “The early days in our lives really do set the tone for all that follows; vital clues about who we really are deep down inside are hidden there, if only we decide to look.”

 

 

Dr. John Grey on Attachment Theory 

Does Grégoire Trudeau believe in attachment theory? I think we know. And, thanks to Dr. John Grey, she has helpfully broken them into four styles: secure, insecure avoidant, insecure preoccupied, and disorganized. “Where do you think you fit in?” she writes. “If you’re not sure, there are many ‘find your attachment style’ quizzes online.” Grey, the co-author of Five-Minute Relationship Repair, also lumps humans into “islands” (shutter-downers) and “waves” (reacher-outers). “Knowing whether you’re a wave or an island – and also knowing what your partner is – can make a big difference when you’re in the middle of a disagreement,” Grégoire Trudeau writes. (Is Sophie a wave or an island? What about Justin? Unknown.) 

Terrence Real on Marital Bliss 

Grégoire Trudeau and couples therapist Terrence Real, or “Terry” as she calls him, have a loaded chat about “relationship advice for the end of the patriarchy.” Following a cringe-worthy Oxford Dictionary definition of the word “patriarchy,” things pick up with the founder of the Relational Life Institute. “The Catch-22 for the woman is, ‘If I don’t teach the guy how to step up for me, I don’t get it; if I do teach him … he feels like I’m condescending and bossing around,’” Real says to Grégoire Trudeau. “So, [do] you recognize that?” She laughs and says, “Oh yes.” She then lists Real’s five “winning” marital strategies and five that don’t work from his book, The Five Rules of Marriage. Awk-ward! 

“My Friend Jewel Kilcher” 

The Pieces of You singer, who once lived in her van, shares her story of poverty with Grégoire Trudeau, who has this aha moment: “We must learn how to quiet the noise, how to survive and adapt, how to step away from our distractions and fall safely into the intimacy of presence.” They discuss how Jewel conquered her “addiction to shoplifting,” which happened just as she became successful, not when she was hungry and homeless. In a moment begging for a broader discussion about poverty and privilege, Grégoire Trudeau reminds readers to “feed the good wolf instead of the evil one.” 

 

 

Dr. Zindel Segal on Mindfulness 

“What is mindfulness, anyway?” Grégoire Trudeau writes, quoting the Buddha before turning to Segal, a Toronto doctor and co-author of The Mindful Way Workbook, for tips and tricks. Grégoire Trudeau started long ago, with five minutes in the morning and night, before incorporating mindful meditation into the rest of her day and her yoga practice. She morphs from someone who “thought only hippies and monks practiced meditation and yoga” into a dedicated yogi after a single class. “In a matter of an hour, it felt like I had found another home,” she writes. She also quotes one of her diary entries: “Go where life unfolds: within. When you avoid silence, you avoid yourself. Befriend silence and you will befriend yourself.” While I’m still unsure where Grégoire Trudeau’s really at, I do hope she’s befriended herself while there.