What If My Partner’s Jokes Hurt My Feelings?

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Speaker 2 Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. And today

Speaker 2 we have one of our favorite shows for you, which is when we avoid our own problems by trying to solve yours.

Speaker 2 Yay!

Speaker 2 This is my comfort zone. What a relief.
I know, right? Isn't this great? Okay,

Speaker 2 so let's just jump in. Let's just hear from these loves.
Let's start with Jesse. Hi, Glenn and Sister and Abby.
My name is Jesse, she, her,

Speaker 2 and I have a big question for you. My partner is the love of my life.
He's so sweet. He's so thoughtful and so kind.
And our relationship overall is amazing.

Speaker 2 And sometimes he makes jokes that I

Speaker 2 just think are hurtful. And I

Speaker 2 I've told him and he says they're not even spirited and he's just joking, but it's hurtful, and I can't get past it. And I

Speaker 2 don't know what to do to make him see my side, because I feel like if he could understand that his impact was not matching his intent, then he wouldn't be making the jokes.

Speaker 2 But it's been a real sicking point in our relationship that I really don't know what to do. So if you have any advice, please help me out.

Speaker 3 This is juicy.

Speaker 2 Bueller?

Speaker 1 Anyone?

Speaker 3 I have something because I think I understand this. Okay, the context I have for this is in my

Speaker 3 relationship, we have figured this out with any comments about food or exercise.

Speaker 3 And so I think the

Speaker 3 idea is,

Speaker 3 so in my relationship, John has just learned that he can say absolutely nothing about food, not even the most benign things. Like,

Speaker 3 if I'm saying I've had trouble sleeping or I'm not feeling well, and the obvious answer is, you need to go exercise or you need to eat better, which is clearly everyone knows is the answer.

Speaker 3 This cannot be said out loud because any kind of suggestion that I should be exercising or that eating a certain thing is better than eating another certain thing is so close to the bone that it just, I actually can't tolerate it.

Speaker 3 It's so upsetting to me. And I think I understand

Speaker 3 maybe her partner because

Speaker 3 by any objective measure, that's insane for John not to be able to say what is obvious and objectively true. And

Speaker 3 when it comes with zero,

Speaker 3 I have zero data to think that John wishes wishes that I would be anything other than exactly what I am so it doesn't make sense that I interpret things like him saying you look healthy to be you look fat oh God and you have had changes to your body and you whatever so notwithstanding that notwithstanding that there is zero evidence to support that that is his intention

Speaker 3 that is how I am feeling about it. Yes.
And so it was a journey, right? Because similar to maybe how her partner is saying, but there's no meanness in it. He's feeling the need to defend.

Speaker 3 Like, I am not being mean. I have no meanness in me about it.
It's funny. I should be able to say funny things.

Speaker 3 It could be like that same parallel. Yes, in a neutral world, you should be able to do that.

Speaker 3 And in a neutral world, my husband should be able to suggest that maybe if I didn't eat six pounds of sugar before bed, I would sleep better. But we don't live in a neutral world.

Speaker 3 And I think being able to explain to John that this has absolutely nothing to do with

Speaker 3 what he is bringing with his comments. It has everything to do with a wound that was existing before I even met him.

Speaker 2 Yes, I think 100% all of that is so clarifying. I feel confused when someone says, well, my intent isn't that.

Speaker 2 That works for me the first time.

Speaker 2 What I get confused about is if Jesse's partner is making a joke about a particular thing, let's just use food because you're using that example, but insert whatever your sensitivities are.

Speaker 2 And Jesse explains to her husband or her partner, that

Speaker 2 I don't think that's funny. That's hurtful to me

Speaker 2 for this reason. And then it continues.
To me, the intent argument doesn't work anymore.

Speaker 3 Right? Right, but it's not about intent. I could see, I have to live my whole ass life.
I like making funny jokes. I like quipping.
That's the way that I have endearing.

Speaker 3 It puts one person against another person. It puts one person's rights against another person's rights as if that is the battle.
But when you say, yes, in a neutral world,

Speaker 3 I should be able to roll with that. I get that.
In a neutral world, you should be able to

Speaker 3 comment about certain things, but that's not like I need you to see

Speaker 3 not that this is a battle between me and you, but this is a thing that is not about what you're saying. It's about something that happened to me way before.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 And you

Speaker 3 saying this very benign thing is activating that piece. It's not a power struggle between me and you about what is funny and what is not.

Speaker 3 And I think that opens up people don't have to to defend themselves. Right.

Speaker 3 Like if you say that's not nice, that's not funny, that's mean, of course they're going to be like, that's not mean for the following 47 reasons. And that's just natural instinct.

Speaker 3 But I think if you're able to show that it's literally not about them,

Speaker 3 then I think that you can both stand on the same side and look at.

Speaker 3 it together and be like, oh shit, that's your thing?

Speaker 2 Yeah. That's how you feel?

Speaker 3 That's scary and sad.

Speaker 1 I think that this is like really interesting and helpful, the way that you're kind of framing it, Sissy, and you too, Glennon. And I think one of the things that I've noticed in our marriage that

Speaker 1 this happens to us, because Glennon also likes to have fun and the wit and who can like land the thing the fastest, like that's part of our marriage dynamic.

Speaker 1 And I think that rather than focusing on for us.

Speaker 2 Hold on a second. Can we stop there? Really? You think we have a dynamic of landing jokes and saying things in a fun? That is not at all how I would characterize it.

Speaker 1 No, I think that we do have a way with each other that the way we, sometimes we tease and we like have fun. And I do.
I think that we're like playful with each other. 90% of the time.

Speaker 1 It lands. And then there's this 10% gray area where it doesn't.

Speaker 1 And Sissy, I love that you're talking about the specificity of some of this like jokey, teasy behavior, because I think that's really helpful.

Speaker 1 I also think that sometimes the 10% gray area just has to do with where we are both at in our collective day, in our collective emotional state. And so it's this being in touch with your partner.

Speaker 1 And sometimes Glennon will have to say, like, I'm in the 10%. And so it's like really helpful for me to be like, okay, like cool it on any kind of jokesies.

Speaker 1 Or teasing. Or teasing.

Speaker 2 I don't actually like teasing. I don't like it.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 there's a playfulness

Speaker 2 to light, loving teasing that I don't want to eliminate completely because it feels like part of the healthy-ish carbonation of a relationship. So I don't want to squash it completely.

Speaker 2 But I'll say specifically, for example, 90% of the time, jokes about

Speaker 2 teasing about, you know, me leaving things, getting lost or leaving or whatever, the airheady thing of situations. Yeah, bumping the car into the things and then forgetting things, whatever.

Speaker 2 It's okay and light. And then 10% of the time, Abby will just say something that she could have said last Tuesday the same way.
And I'm like, enough. Yeah.
Right now, stop. That does not feel loving.

Speaker 2 And so we can't figure out if it means that the 90% isn't okay either.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, this is what I was going to say.

Speaker 1 I think it's important to actually think about the way in which we're all trying to connect in this jokey, teasy way, because I think all of us tend to do it.

Speaker 1 But what I have actually figured out, which is maybe why you don't think that we tease or joke very much, it's because I actually think.

Speaker 1 that the teasing and joking is trying to communicate something actually real

Speaker 1 without saying,

Speaker 1 that really bothers me. It's a cover.
And then the partner gets defensive, like, no, I was just joking.

Speaker 2 Yes. Were you right? Were you, what is a jackpot?

Speaker 3 You have to be honest about what you're doing.

Speaker 2 It reminds me of, you know how the kiddos these days, like the millennials and the Gen Zers, whenever they text something, they will be like,

Speaker 2 this is an example. Mom, I'm scared.
LOL.

Speaker 2 Can you pick up my backpack? LOL. It's like, if anything's too sincere, there has to be an lol after it.
I don't exactly understand, but it's just a disclaimer of maybe this is too vulnerable.

Speaker 2 Maybe I don't mean this. It's not funny.
Nothing they said was funny. Our producer just texted, I do this LOL.
Like, I don't understand it.

Speaker 2 Okay, maybe it's their equivalent of Gen X is how we put smiley faces and exclamation points after things to soften.

Speaker 3 Or how we write like, or if not, no worries.

Speaker 2 Exactly.

Speaker 2 It's like their disclaimer of sincerity.

Speaker 2 And I do think that I was just joking can be a disclaimer of sincerity. Like, people who don't know how to communicate things, like, actually,

Speaker 2 it makes my life harder that you lose things every day. I actually would prefer not to follow you around the house wondering if your coffee is in the dryer.

Speaker 1 Like, it was one time, just to be clear.

Speaker 2 I don't think we need to get specific.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 in the dryer, inside of it. How? How did my coffee mug with coffee in it end up in the clothes dryer? We will know.

Speaker 3 I can't tell you because I don't know if we're in a 10% area.

Speaker 2 Exactly. It's part of my charm.
I need a t-shirt that says it's part of my charm. Anyway,

Speaker 2 the point being,

Speaker 2 maybe Jesse's partner is trying to communicate something, but just constantly putting LOL after it. Because here's the thing.

Speaker 2 It reminds me of the Forrest Gump, like love is as love does. Just to me, words are communicating something that can be loving, can be hurtful.
Okay.

Speaker 2 Just like our bodies can hit each other or hug each other. So if you think of something that words I'm saying can either be a hug or a hit,

Speaker 2 you don't get to hit somebody in the face. And then when they say ow, you say, but that was just a joke.

Speaker 3 That was a hug. That was a hug.
You misinterpreted it as a hit.

Speaker 2 It doesn't make sense to me.

Speaker 2 I don't know how to put it into words, but to constantly say things that are hurtful and then say, you don't get to be sad about that because I'm saying these magic words that are, it was just a joke.

Speaker 2 No, it wasn't. It's not funny.
It might be funny to you in your head by yourself.

Speaker 2 So the next time you want to say that thing, you should go by yourself into a closet and say it because it's funny to you, but not to the partner you keep sharing it with. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And we know this with kids. We know with kids when one little kid says to another little kid, you're a stupid idiot.
And then the other kid cries. And the first kid says, I was just being funny.

Speaker 3 We say like, well, do you see how funny only works if you're laughing together? Exactly. And it's not funny if the other person is crying.

Speaker 3 But then we get into adults and then we're like, what's wrong with that other kid?

Speaker 2 Why are they crying? Yeah.

Speaker 3 So the flow chart is first,

Speaker 3 you're figuring it out. Okay.
You have this problem.

Speaker 3 Your first step is figuring out, is this hurtful to you? Because there is something underlying in your relationship that makes this hurtful.

Speaker 3 Do you believe that your partner is harboring this kind of like wishing you would change, holding a resentment that they're unwilling to address directly?

Speaker 3 So they're sneaking it into these jokes and trying to pretend like they're not doing it. That's the first step, right?

Speaker 2 If

Speaker 3 All of that is not true and you don't have any other data to support that they are trying to get this meanness to you, but they still can't understand

Speaker 3 why you're impacted in such a serious way that they're trying to defend themselves and be like, but I wasn't being, I wasn't hitting you, I wasn't hitting you.

Speaker 3 Then you go to this next step where you have to figure out what is the legitimate wound pre-existing this partner in you?

Speaker 3 Did your mom, who always said she loved you, but made merciless fun out of you and laughed about it in front of your friends and you were supposed to laugh too because it was quote unquote funny.

Speaker 3 What was the thing? What is the thing that is, or is it the specific substance of the joke, kind of like me with the food thing

Speaker 3 that is just like a pressure cooker spot for you? And you just have to explain and show

Speaker 3 that it doesn't have anything to do with him and what he can and should be able to get away with.

Speaker 3 It has to do with who you are as a partner and whether he wants to continue to rip open that wound or not.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Navigating otherness.
Isn't it fun?

Speaker 2 And then I did want to say one more thing about this question, because there is a way of reading this question that is that Jesse is struggling with a way that her partner is teasing her, making jokes about her.

Speaker 2 But there's another way to interpret this question that what if Jesse's partner is making jokes that are universal or a wider that hurt other people?

Speaker 2 Do you know what I'm saying?

Speaker 3 I did not think about that at all in reading that question, but it's such a good point that it's a sticking point for them.

Speaker 3 She feels bad. She keeps bringing it up to him.
And so I wonder if like in that first part of the flowchart where like, is there something that is being revealed through these jokes that

Speaker 3 he should be bringing to you directly? There's also a sub part of that is, is there something being revealed about

Speaker 3 him?

Speaker 3 through these jokes that is very upsetting to you. Exactly.
Like, are you like, don't say that? Because that makes me think you're an asshole or you're a misogynist or you're a whatever it is.

Speaker 3 Exactly. And so, of course, that's deeply upsetting to her because then she has to confront, is my person a misogynist?

Speaker 2 Yeah. And there's a whole thing about that that we just need to, when people say something,

Speaker 2 that feels hurtful or that feels inappropriate or use a word that is.

Speaker 2 And look, I'm not talking about the big words. Like there are words that you can say that mean you're just dead to me forever and it's over.

Speaker 2 But I'm talking about the whole nuanced of the rest of it, right?

Speaker 3 And we have normalized a whole culture where we're supposed to think those things are funny and brush them off even when they're not. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I think there's like this way of some people feel that there's a get out of jail free card.

Speaker 2 That you can say these things that are in this gray bubble, but if you add, I was joking afterwards, it somehow should be a get out of jail-free card. So, I just want to be clear.

Speaker 2 You can think that, you can say that, you can keep saying I was just joking. But what I want you to know is that everyone else in the room, that doesn't change what you just said.

Speaker 2 And it doesn't have to do with whether what you said is funny to you or somebody else. What happens

Speaker 2 in the aftermath is that you have revealed something about yourself that now everybody else cannot unknow. And it doesn't have to be that you're an evil person.

Speaker 2 It just is that you have not done any sort of deep thinking about what you just said. And it reveals something about you to everybody.
And it's not, nobody's asking themselves, is he funny or not?

Speaker 2 Everybody's just saying, Wowza.

Speaker 3 I didn't know that about him.

Speaker 2 I didn't know that about him. I didn't know that he thought about that issue so little.
I didn't know that he was the type of person who would think punching down in any way would be funny.

Speaker 2 It is an illumination of who you are on the inside, the words that come out of your mouth.

Speaker 2 And so that is very, when you have a partner, like I imagine Jesse could be in this, that is constantly illuminating something about himself in front of other people, it can be humiliating to the partner because by association,

Speaker 2 it feels like it's illuminating something about Jesse,

Speaker 2 which is that she's partnered with this person.

Speaker 3 Or it's illuminating something about

Speaker 3 their relationship in front, because the same thing, whether it's, you know, we've all sat in a room at a dinner party where someone is quote unquote joking, making fun of their partner, where it is very clear that that joke is illuminating a level of disrespect or contempt or disdain that they have for their partner.

Speaker 2 And you can't get away with it.

Speaker 3 It is clear if you are loving and mutually silly with each other and the respect is there, you feel that and it's funny.

Speaker 3 And if you don't have that, you feel that and it is awkward as shit. And everyone walks away being like, wow, I didn't know

Speaker 2 he

Speaker 3 had such contempt for her.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 That was upsetting. And we were all somehow complicit because we were sitting there taking taking it.
So it's just humor is a very tricky, tricky beast. It can endear you.
It can bring you together.

Speaker 3 Like some of my best bonding with John is humor. I can tell the status of our relationship by the level of silliness and teasing we can do with each other.

Speaker 3 It's almost like a place we can't go unless we're good.

Speaker 2 Yeah, totally, totally.

Speaker 3 And there's other places where it's a place you go when you're not good.

Speaker 3 And then it's also a place where you're standing on the other side of the gulf where one person has a sensitivity that doesn't make sense to the other person until it's shown.

Speaker 3 And so it's really tricky.

Speaker 1 Doesn't this kind of just, the way you described it then just made me like really see that it's illuminating the

Speaker 1 possible shared reality that might not be aligned. So one person might be in a different place connectivity wise to their other partner.

Speaker 1 And that is why the conflicts happen because maybe the 90% of the time Glennon and I are fine.

Speaker 1 It's because we are connected and we do trust each other and we do give each other the benefit of the doubt. And then this other period of time, maybe one partner feels a little less connected.

Speaker 1 And so when these moments happen, it's like, what is the, not just the wound, but like, what is the actual state of where we are as a couple?

Speaker 2 What's the quality under it? Like, what if the 10%?

Speaker 2 But that we can't ever figure out why am I triggered right now when I wasn't last week.

Speaker 2 It could be that there's like an energy of vibration in the exact same words that suddenly feel critical, which makes me think about humor in general. Humor, the word comes from humble, right? Really?

Speaker 2 Humor is a place where people go

Speaker 2 to

Speaker 2 indifferent with different intentions. One of the reasons I love Tig Nataro, who's of course one of our dear friends, is that if you watch, I don't think there's anybody funnier than Tig

Speaker 2 and her her stand-ups, and if you watch her stand-ups from beginning to end, there is never a punchdown.

Speaker 2 Not a single one of her jokes takes a victim, except every once in a while when it's her, herself, yeah. Which she doesn't even do that in a punishing way.

Speaker 2 And so it's this very high level of humor that now we all know we can watch another comedian. Is that humor? Yes, it's humor, humor.
And it says such a different quality. It's biting.
It's not humble.

Speaker 2 There's kind of like a nastiness in it that makes us laugh in a way that doesn't feel quite as good as you do laughing with Tignatara. Yeah, it's like a, oh, gosh.

Speaker 3 Totally. You can tell.
I mean, the origin of humor is like humid. It's moisture.
And it's like this fluid moisture that something grows from.

Speaker 3 right so it's almost like what is that growing from is that growing from a resentment is that growing from a connection? Is that growing from an intimacy? Or is that growing from an anger?

Speaker 2 It reveals

Speaker 3 what is under it. And you can tell.
You can tell.

Speaker 2 Cool.

Speaker 2 There you go, Jesse.

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Speaker 2 Let's hear from Rachel. Hello, you beautiful humans.
My name is Rachel, and I just listened to part one of the anxiety episodes. Fascinating.

Speaker 2 My question is around the link between creativity and anxiety and how the creativity kind of pulls you out of it on it.

Speaker 2 I've seen big correlations

Speaker 2 between

Speaker 2 most talented, creative humans also being

Speaker 2 extremely anxious or struggling with depression and anxiety and all of those things.

Speaker 2 And have even seen some artists or singers, when they find more peace in their life, their art really changes or they stop creating altogether, at least at the same level. So I guess my question is,

Speaker 2 why is that?

Speaker 2 Is it kind of a chicken or egg thing?

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 it seems like the struggle and anxiety fuels some of the most beautiful things that have ever been created. So we just love your thoughts.
Thank you.

Speaker 2 Okay, so Rachel just asked the question that I might swirl around the most. I think this is so fascinating.

Speaker 2 And being a person who is in this world and thinks of themselves as an artist and a writer and has a million writer, artist friends,

Speaker 2 I have had so many fascinating conversations about this.

Speaker 2 And I feel like I could talk about it a million different ways on a million different days.

Speaker 2 But I'd like to address the specific thing that Rachel talks about, which is, is the anxiety fueling the art in a way that when peace comes, the art suffers?

Speaker 2 When the artist stops suffering, as much does the art suffer? And does the artist need to suffer to create good art? And why do people who naturally suffer become artists or vice versa?

Speaker 2 It's just like she said, the chicken and an egg thing.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 I'm going to say one thing and then argue with myself on the other side.

Speaker 2 I sometimes feel like,

Speaker 2 yes, it does feel like artists

Speaker 2 have more dramatic highs and lows, whatever you call anxiety and depression. We also know more about artists.
Like, in our particular culture,

Speaker 2 people who make movies and TV shows and books and all of these things are just more visible, discussed more.

Speaker 2 They're the people we've decided should have spotlights on them, which I think is arbitrary and weird.

Speaker 2 Like, I sometimes think, why don't teachers and doctors, why don't we have the magazines full of them? But okay,

Speaker 2 since we know more about them

Speaker 2 and since they reveal their insides as their profession,

Speaker 2 we see their insides. Okay.

Speaker 2 It's possible that if you sit down and ask a hundred doctors and teachers to pour their insides out, we would see more anxiety, depression, complexity.

Speaker 2 But that's not their job. They have to actually do stuff.
So they can't just walk around emotionally and spiritually bleeding like artists do on a regular basis. So there's that.

Speaker 2 I also think that there are people

Speaker 2 in cultures since the beginning of time who for whatever reason, nature, nurture, spiritual reasons, trauma, whatever, become

Speaker 2 visionaries for the group, for the culture. Okay.
And this is just studyable. It's the medicine men.
This is since the beginning of time.

Speaker 2 Every culture has people who their job is to be a little weird and, you know, stand on the bow of the Titanic.

Speaker 2 And while everyone else is keeping things moving, say, I think I see an iceberg, iceberg, iceberg. And everybody else is like, all right, she's screaming about an iceberg.

Speaker 2 Do we think this one is real? You know, these are the prophets in the desert screaming to the people.

Speaker 2 Okay. The person who is that person.

Speaker 2 who we would call an artist, whether a highly sensitive person, whether they're in a family or in a culture, in a neighborhood.

Speaker 2 The reason they are that is because they have this weird internal vision of how things could be.

Speaker 2 All right, so they see what's on the outside of the world, what's visible, the order of things.

Speaker 2 But they have this internal vision of how it could be,

Speaker 2 how it should be, a more beautiful version of whatever they're looking at, their family, their marriage, their community, their world.

Speaker 2 They carry around with them this internal longing, this vision.

Speaker 2 There is a gap

Speaker 2 between what they see every day outside of them and the vision, the internal vision, a huge gap between

Speaker 2 what is and what they know could be.

Speaker 2 And that gap is the anxiety and the depression.

Speaker 2 The stronger the internal vision,

Speaker 2 the more dramatic and hard the gap is between. Imagine if you were looking at a situation and

Speaker 2 every part of your being knew that person would hurt less. That

Speaker 2 community would be better off if everybody just

Speaker 2 and you had this heaviness that

Speaker 2 was a knowing.

Speaker 2 You know, the bigger the vision, the bigger the gap. I think that

Speaker 2 that is an oversimplified way of

Speaker 2 presenting it, but it's part of the beauty of being an artist.

Speaker 2 And the burden of being an artist is carrying a vision that you can't necessarily get everybody on board with unless you struggle in the dark

Speaker 2 to pull the vision out of your body and somehow put it into words that other people can see and act upon to bring your idea of heaven to earth. On earth as it is in heaven is how I think of artists.

Speaker 2 Like the heaven is the internal beauty, beautiful family, relationship, community world that I can almost see and touch.

Speaker 2 And my job is to bring it to the earth

Speaker 2 in a way that everybody can see it as possible marching orders.

Speaker 2 which can feel freaking hard and heavy because we can never figure out how to actually put

Speaker 2 the unseen order into action.

Speaker 1 The way that you explained it made me think of like creativity on one end of the spectrum and reality and truth on the other. So you're saying an artist,

Speaker 1 their job is to look out and see what is true, what is happening, and to be extraordinarily honest.

Speaker 1 And I think that that's one of the things that I think about you

Speaker 1 that I respect and admire so much is your ability to see what is happening and to be honest about it.

Speaker 1 So many of us, myself included, we walk around the world and I want to like pretend that reality is somewhere more in the middle, in between

Speaker 1 a beautiful version, a different version of a heaven.

Speaker 1 And then artists live on the truth side. And what you're saying is the vision is over on the other side of the spectrum.
And the anxiety, I think, lives when you are just in the noticing of what is

Speaker 1 rather than trying to go and create what it could be.

Speaker 1 So does this make any sense? There's a spectrum and one side is the way things are and the other side is the way things could be.

Speaker 1 And that gap is where... some artists might experience this anxiety, where you're closer to the way things are before we get to the way things could be.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And think about the fact that when an artist, or okay, I'll use myself for an example.
I could not figure out how to make my

Speaker 2 primary romantic relationship be even close to as true and beautiful as I believed two people can be together. I'm talking about my first marriage.
It was. I was like, whoa.
No, my first marriage.

Speaker 2 Like I,

Speaker 2 all of my writing was pointing towards that. I can't even look at Love Warrior anymore.
I feel heartbroken for both of us, for Craig and me. It was an anxious struggle to be like, this isn't it.

Speaker 2 Like, how do we make it better? It was the gap between what was

Speaker 2 the kind of marriage we had and what I had inside of me as a vision for what a marriage could be between two people. The gap was so vast that it was so painful.
Okay. And some good art came out of it.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 When I met you and we built this life together,

Speaker 2 the gap is not there anymore.

Speaker 2 I mean, I've got other gaps, but like the gap, it's not the easiest thing. I mean, we work for it,

Speaker 2 but there's not a gaping gap anymore. And

Speaker 2 I stopped writing.

Speaker 2 Like I didn't, what Rachel is saying

Speaker 2 is there is a truth in it. When the gap

Speaker 2 is lessened

Speaker 2 between what a person like me knows could be, and then they finally get the thing.

Speaker 2 There is less of an internal struggle to describe the gap, to point people towards the gap, to like be the prophet in the desert of the marriage, going,

Speaker 2 like, put on your hair shirt. There just is a

Speaker 2 sort of

Speaker 2 ah

Speaker 2 that then relates in less struggling art.

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Speaker 3 This thing that you're talking about,

Speaker 3 the distance between what is and what could be

Speaker 3 is so fascinating. It's almost like there was something in you and you needed to get it out of you.
You needed to make it real. You needed it not to be an idea inside of you.

Speaker 3 So you needed it to be embodied, tangible. It's like, what else is life? Of like, we have this little minute, right? And we've got to get what is in us out of us because we know us is going.

Speaker 3 So you got it out of you. in Love Warrior in the book, because you couldn't make it real in your life you could touch.
And then you and Abby, you got it out of you and Abby. Like you have that now.

Speaker 3 You don't need to create an alternate vision and version of it in a book. And I'm thinking about, this is so wild, but I'm thinking about Ina Garten.
I'm thinking about what makes an artist an artist?

Speaker 3 What's the difference between someone who's selling shit? and someone who's an artist. And I think it's that thing.
They're motivated to get the thing out of them.

Speaker 3 I went to go see her and she was talking about

Speaker 3 she once had a Boston cream pie in Boston. And she had a vision for, I'm going to make this Boston cream pie and I'm going to have some orange flavor in it or whatever.

Speaker 3 She came home, she made a Boston cream pie. She was like, this isn't it.
This isn't it. 10

Speaker 3 years.

Speaker 3 Oh, God, I love her. She made.
1,000 versions of the Boston cream pie.

Speaker 3 Like, I'm telling you, the first one would have been good enough to go in her cookbook and sell a Bazillion teen copies like she does.

Speaker 3 It wasn't having a recipe that was sellable enough to go in her book. It was, I had the vision.
I can see the orange Boston cream pie. I can taste the way it's going to taste.

Speaker 3 And I won't stop until I taste that in my mouth.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's amazing. Until I've made it out.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 That's that's artistry. The gap between

Speaker 2 existing Boston cream pies

Speaker 2 and the truest, most beautiful Boston cream pie she could possibly imagine was insufferable to her.

Speaker 2 The gap between the two, the fact that that hadn't been born onto the earth was so insufferable to her that she was willing to spend years

Speaker 2 making sure that she brought to earth the heavenly cream pie that was being born inside of her. That is artistry.
Yes.

Speaker 3 Knowing that we wouldn't know the difference between year third and year 10.

Speaker 2 Like, we're so stupid out here. It was her thing she needed for herself.

Speaker 1 Yeah. One thing I remember was a concern of yours when you were at the early stages of your eating disorder diagnosis and the recovery

Speaker 1 was

Speaker 1 this kind of correlation between anxiety and creativity. And that

Speaker 1 when you are tapped into this kind of anxiety and depression and all that comes with it, I think think that there was a part of you, because you're an artist and you do kind of and have kind of swayed between these two poles.

Speaker 1 I think you were nervous if you were going to actually get well and maybe deal with this anxiety and depression

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 would there be any creativity left? Could you muster the creativity? Is the anxiety something inside of you that's creating the creativity?

Speaker 2 Exactly. I do worry about that.
And I don't have a

Speaker 2 like a super

Speaker 2 great answer. I haven't figured it out completely, but I'll tell you, I've written 50,000 words.
I've written a book's worth of

Speaker 2 essays

Speaker 2 about that time, and I will probably never publish them.

Speaker 2 There's an energy that I'm not interested in

Speaker 2 exploring publicly right now. There's something about that sort of suffering.
It was all real, and it's all part of

Speaker 2 the journey I've been on to be freer.

Speaker 2 But at the moment, I'm not interested in dragging people back into that energy. I think it's a place I can get stuck

Speaker 2 and I think it's too easy for me at this point. It's almost like trauma bonding.

Speaker 2 It's like trauma bonding or something. I don't know.
I can't figure it out. It's just not.
the truest, most beautiful version of what I think we all need next is what I can say.

Speaker 2 But I also sometimes think it's not,

Speaker 2 we write and we create for the same reason people who are stressed out, they tell you to breathe deeply. It's like when you focus on your breathing, you can't focus on your

Speaker 2 spinning mind because you can't focus on both things at the same time. Okay.
It's not just that breathing deeply gives you more oxygen, which makes your brain work better. It's not just that.

Speaker 2 People say, stop and focus on your breathing because you literally cannot do both at the same time. You can't spin out and concentrate on your spinning thoughts and concentrate on your breath.

Speaker 2 So one of the reasons why anxious people create, go to the page, go to the paintbrush, go to the, is because you cannot

Speaker 2 be anxious and creative simultaneously.

Speaker 2 It's a coping mechanism. It's a coping mechanism.
It's not just that we're like, oh, if we're anxious,

Speaker 2 they're directly

Speaker 2 antithesis of each other.

Speaker 3 So it's almost like the anxiety is a causal connection with the art as opposed to the art of the anxiety.

Speaker 2 Exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So maybe we create for the same reason we go for a walk or we, in some ways, it's very lucky to have that thing because lots of people have

Speaker 2 these anxious feelings and depressive feelings and don't have an outlet like that.

Speaker 2 I mean, we have a kid who we really didn't know which way it was going to go in terms of their sensitivity and their spinning out and their existential, you know, and they found art and a lot changed.

Speaker 2 Their beingness changed because they had an outlet. They had a go-to thing.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 there's that. I mean, I do wonder if I write again when I write again, which I will,

Speaker 2 I don't know, I just want it to be from a different energy. I do want to be as honest as humanly possible as always, but I don't want it to all be from suffering.

Speaker 3 Well, why does it have to be suffering? It reminds me of the Martha Beck where it's like, all of your stuff has come from sadness, but joy is an equally vast well.

Speaker 2 Exactly.

Speaker 3 Why can't it come from that?

Speaker 2 That's what I want because I care about what I'm putting out in the world, but also because when you're a person who is writing about suffering, then that's all you're thinking about and that's all you're looking for.

Speaker 2 And so, of course, that's what magnifies. I always think, what if I just wanted to, if I had a project where I was like, I am going to look for and write from joy from that well,

Speaker 2 I wonder if my entire life would change because that's what I would be looking for. That's what you seek, you find.

Speaker 2 You know, if I'm a photographer and my book is about suffering, then that's what I'm living in. If I'm a photographer and my book is about hummingbirds and flowers.

Speaker 2 Anyway, do you know what I'm saying? It's just like,

Speaker 2 it would be an interesting experiment to try next.

Speaker 1 Okay, then I propose we change the name of this podcast.

Speaker 2 We can do easy thing. Yes.
We can do beautiful things. We can beautiful things.

Speaker 3 Problem solved.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Thank you, Rachel.

Speaker 3 I also would recommend, if this is a fascinating topic for people, to listen to episode 141 with Sarah Boralis, because she talked over and over about how she thought sadness was her identity, and that was from where her art came from and her decision to start medication and how scary that was for her and what she found on the other side of it.

Speaker 3 And it's, that was a beautiful conversation.

Speaker 2 And one last thing I want to say, because this is, it's completely related.

Speaker 2 I, in terms of intention and writing and creativity, all of you listening know that I have been on a journey of thinking about social media and what it's for and how it affects artists and how it affects all of our human brains.

Speaker 2 And I have removed myself personally from social media. We still have a presence there where we put out what we think you'll want to see and what will be important to you.
But

Speaker 2 I

Speaker 2 don't feel like I can be

Speaker 2 my most creative, honest self there, or that I even should be, or that that's what it's for. And I don't honestly love the idea of hosting a loving party there anymore.

Speaker 2 Meaning, I don't love the idea of

Speaker 2 even having you there with me. I just, I want a truer, more beautiful place for us.

Speaker 2 But I do miss writing to you. I do miss being in touch with you.
I have felt it so much more recently with the fires in LA and wanting our community and wanting to be talking to you.

Speaker 2 And so, anyway, all of this is to say, I am going to ask you, if you are interested in hearing from me directly, hearing from Abby directly, hearing from sister directly, hearing what we have to say

Speaker 2 about our work or about our days, to consider

Speaker 2 giving us your email address because I think I'm going to start a newsletter that I and we write directly to you.

Speaker 2 I don't know how, I'm not going to, I don't know how often, but I just know that there are,

Speaker 2 actually there's a big project going on that I want to tell you about that I know you're going to be excited about. And I just so excited.

Speaker 1 Oh my God.

Speaker 3 I know. I can't believe we can't talk about it yet.
I'm like peeing.

Speaker 2 It's big. It's going to be something that you all are going to want to be a part of and that we've had you in mind for every step of this, which we've been working on something for the last two years.

Speaker 2 Anyway,

Speaker 2 give me your email addresses. Okay.

Speaker 2 You know that I will never sell your email addresses. Okay.
I don't know how. to do that if I could, but I will not.

Speaker 3 And she won't even let me sell them.

Speaker 2 So no, I will protect your email addresses with my little life. Okay.
But I just want to be able to reach you about some some things that are important coming up that I don't want you to miss.

Speaker 2 And then I also just want to be able to pour out my heart somewhere sometimes when in a way that doesn't have a freaking evil algorithm attached to it and isn't jacking up your nervous systems while we all work together to get some peace and agency back in our lives.

Speaker 2 So can you tell me, sister, how to tell them to give them my email addresses?

Speaker 3 Sure thing. So if you are currently on social and you're following Glennon on Instagram, you go to her page and you click the link in the bio.

Speaker 3 That's the one website that is showing, you know, on her Instagram page.

Speaker 3 The second button down after you click that link will take you to a place where you can enter your email address and then we can add you to the newsletter.

Speaker 3 Also, if that seems too complicated and you're not on IG, you can just go to glennandoyle.com.

Speaker 3 In the middle of the page, there'll be a little box that says your email and then a button by it that says sign up.

Speaker 3 And that's it. Not selling anything, not doing anything like that.
Worst case, if you have trouble, you can go to Glenn and Doyle and then there's a connect link at the top.

Speaker 3 That connect will also take you to a page where you can sign up for the newsletter. So lots of options, but GlennandDoyle.com or the link in the bio on IG.

Speaker 3 And also, it is true, like there's a lot of really cool things coming up, and it's very toxic and gross on social media and also ineffective to tell people about things because just a very small percentage of you all will see what we post.

Speaker 3 And there's really stuff you're going to want to see. So we'll do the updates there.

Speaker 2 Without giving away too much, just listen to me, please, when I tell you that there's going to be a time very soon where we're going to send important stuff out on that email and the thing that we're doing is going to be.

Speaker 2 filled up really fast. And then you're going to be upset and you're going to write to me and say, and I just know this from many, lo, so many times this has happened.

Speaker 2 Just trust me, I can't tell you why, but just please sign up, get your email address there, and then you'll find out the information and then you'll be able to make all of your choices before it's too late.

Speaker 2 Okay, I love you. Thanks for listening.
I feel so delighted. And now we go back to our actual life and our actual problems.
Thank you for allowing us to be distracted by yours.

Speaker 2 We love you, Potspud. We'll see you next time.

Speaker 2 If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us if you'd be willing to take 30 seconds to do these three things. First, can you please follow or subscribe to We Can Do Hard Things?

Speaker 2 Following the pod helps you because you'll never miss an episode and it helps us because you'll never miss an episode.

Speaker 2 To do this, just go to the We Can Do Hard Things show page on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and then just tap the plus sign in the upper right-hand corner or click on follow.

Speaker 2 This is the most important thing for the pod. While you're there, if you'd be willing to give us a five-star rating and review and share an episode you loved with a friend, we would be so grateful.

Speaker 2 We appreciate you very much.

Speaker 2 We Can Do Hard Things is created and hosted by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle in partnership with Odyssey.

Speaker 2 Our executive producer is Jenna Wise-Berman, and the show is produced by Lauren Lograso, Allison Schott, Dina Kleiner, and Bill Schultz.