Abby’s Greatest Fear & the One Gift that Freed Her

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Speaker 2 Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things.

Speaker 2 We, the three of us, talked about what we might like to share with you today. And here's where we came to.

Speaker 2 It is a tough time

Speaker 2 in Los Angeles, where Abby and I live right now. We actually live in a town right outside of Los Angeles.
So as you know, we have been protected from the fires in our home.

Speaker 2 but not from the

Speaker 2 just fear and devastation of all of it because so many of our people are suffering. And we've been talking a lot about what all of this means and the loss of life and the loss of things.

Speaker 2 And we just thought maybe it would be a beautiful time to rewind a few weeks and talk about a happier time, which was our holiday experience as a family together.

Speaker 2 And that that just might feel like a really cozy, warm, wonderful thing to do today.

Speaker 2 You know, I have been thinking a lot about

Speaker 2 my team will start laughing because of the amount of times that I say this, but I'm obsessed with words. So whenever I can't understand something, I just try to go deep into the entomology of a word.

Speaker 2 I recently learned that I was saying the etymology of a word, which is actually the study of bugs.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 entomology of a word means where.

Speaker 1 Wait, do you have it correct?

Speaker 2 Yeah, entomology is words. Etymology is bugs.

Speaker 1 Are you sure? Never.

Speaker 2 But I'm pretty, I have a good hunch. I'm surprised by this.

Speaker 1 So I'm googling because I was pretty sure it was always etymology.

Speaker 2 So maybe entomology.

Speaker 1 I think you might have it backwards because I took a course and this is neither here nor there because this is studying an abbey and but entomology is the study of bugs. I was

Speaker 2 etymology is the study of words. The irony of this conversation,

Speaker 1 this has gone. Check it out.
You can remember entomology sounds like ant. Oh, that's

Speaker 1 ant. Did you confirm something? Well, I know that etymology is the study of words.
So, okay.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 2 So, good. Let's just land there.
This conversation has gone houry before.

Speaker 1 Anyway, and it's like the origin, the origin of the words. Okay.

Speaker 2 The

Speaker 2 etymology of the word crisis. Stay with me.
Okay.

Speaker 2 The word crisis,

Speaker 2 the origin of the word crisis means to sift.

Speaker 2 So listen, this is cool. Crisis, not good, bad, terrible.
We try to avoid them.

Speaker 2 But it is cool for me to think of what crises tend to do, which is

Speaker 2 if you picture a little kid with one of those sieves that they take to the beach, you know, and they like scoop up all the sand.

Speaker 2 And the reason they scoop up all that sand is because they hope that the sand will filter out the bottom and there will be little treasures left inside

Speaker 2 the little sea glass and the shells and all of that.

Speaker 1 And I do bugs if you're into etymology.

Speaker 2 Yes, babe, babe, thanks.

Speaker 2 And I do know

Speaker 2 through so many experiences

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 we wouldn't ask for it to come. But what crisis does tend to do is put into sharp relief

Speaker 2 the treasures of your life, all of the things that you hold so dear and love. the most important things.

Speaker 2 And that's what you're seeing right now all over Los Angeles with people just holding their people so tight and rushing to take care of each other. And,

Speaker 2 you know, the people who have had their things saved because their houses were spared.

Speaker 2 One of the interesting things is you are watching these people ransack their own homes, bring everything they own to these shelters because they want to give the things that they do have.

Speaker 2 You can see it playing out, people valuing community and love above things.

Speaker 2 It's just, you can see the treasures that crisis brings, even if we don't,

Speaker 2 even if we'd prefer a different

Speaker 2 process.

Speaker 2 So anyway, let's talk about love and family and treasures today.

Speaker 1 Okay, Steve. Yeah, I just want to say to the folks that are horrifically been affected by these fires, you know,

Speaker 1 this is just

Speaker 1 so difficult. I mean, there's nothing you can say.
It's a really, really, really, really devastating time for so many people. And

Speaker 1 just love you guys.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 we're with you somehow.

Speaker 2 Do you guys know how in the episode that we did with Jessica Yellen?

Speaker 2 Jessica's still here, by the way, in our house with her little Bruno and sheltering here, how we talked about Altadena, the city, the historically black neighborhood in LA that has been burned to the ground.

Speaker 2 And we talked a lot about that city. And then right after that, we were talking about Octavia Butler and Adrian Marie Brown and all that Octavia Butler taught us about

Speaker 1 whew.

Speaker 2 She wrote about the future in like a dystopian way, but it was absolutely applicable to life now. And I just learned that Octavia Butler is buried in Al Tadena.

Speaker 1 What?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I just had to tell you that. No.

Speaker 2 I know. Wow.
I know. It feels bespoke.

Speaker 1 What's so wild about that, the Al Altadena and Butler thing, is that her whole

Speaker 1 world that she created through her fiction was

Speaker 1 post-apocalyptic worlds.

Speaker 1 That was the point of her

Speaker 1 work.

Speaker 1 It's going to be really wild to go back and reread her work with like, you know, she has people who live in Altadina in her

Speaker 1 fiction and

Speaker 1 just like what that

Speaker 1 is going to mean for people who have experienced this kind of apocalyptic scenario and how to live after it.

Speaker 2 She has this little hero in her, in the parable of the sower, which I think is one of her most famous books.

Speaker 1 That was in Al Tadina. I mean, that was based there.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.
And I just remember this little one had a

Speaker 2 set of principles of her new religion isn't the right word, but way of seeing the world. And the first one over and over again, I think, was God is change.
God is change. God is change.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 there is obviously something there that is embraceable, even though change is unembraceable. Like it literally sifts through your hands, like the crisis conversation.

Speaker 2 But the idea that love is change and that there is

Speaker 2 truth in the falling apart, that there's a way to find

Speaker 2 love and God, even

Speaker 2 in the midst of it all slipping through your fingers.

Speaker 2 I feel like we're kind of seeing that. It's hard to explain.
And if you're not here, the horror is so stark that

Speaker 2 the bright moments are just so much brighter. Like it's like a night sky, you know?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I woke up this morning and the moon was, I don't know if it was full, but it was shining and you could see it over the ocean. And it was just, it was amazing.

Speaker 1 And actually, I read you the quote that John Mayer said about the fire. I just talked about it.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's just the proof of existence is so important. Yeah.
And I think that that's

Speaker 1 one of the reasons why we wanted to talk about this holiday thing. Should I tell my story?

Speaker 2 Please, babe.

Speaker 1 Okay, so.

Speaker 1 I don't know if anybody is like totally aware of this, but I have had this very large fear of death and I've been working on it for the last couple of years. I had the distinct honor

Speaker 1 to

Speaker 1 work with and through

Speaker 1 and learn how to embody the grief of losing my brother Peter this past year,

Speaker 1 which obviously has been incredibly hard and brutal in moments and also

Speaker 1 It's just been like the most kind of enlightening thing and it's gotten me to sit with that fear of death.

Speaker 1 Now I wish I could say like, I no longer have the fear of death.

Speaker 1 I'm still a little uncomfortable with it, to be perfectly honest. We are not your favorite.
Yeah, still not, still not excited about it.

Speaker 2 When you were in through all of your thoughts, and I already know this answer, so I'm just asking it like I'm an interviewer, but like,

Speaker 2 what have you identified as the source of your what you would call outsized terror of death?

Speaker 1 Well, I was born and raised in the Catholic faith tradition.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I think that from the time that I started to know that I was a queer

Speaker 1 lesbian teenager, I started to kind of

Speaker 1 wonder, what does this mean? And it was interesting because even though at the time

Speaker 1 everything and people in my life were telling me that I would go to hell, literally, the church was basically telling me in all of the ways that I would go to hell.

Speaker 1 I was still

Speaker 1 believing that on some level and knowing that was a possibility in the outcome of my life. I still needed to be gay because I was.
It was like almost this choice that I had to make between like,

Speaker 1 I'm going to be gay. And if that happens, like, this is just who I am.
Right.

Speaker 1 And so all along throughout my life, I've just harbored this

Speaker 1 misbelief. I think I need to categorize it more as a misbelief that if I were to do this thing,

Speaker 1 if I were to be gay and live a gay life, that in fact I would go to hell. And so that was something that I've carried with me.

Speaker 1 And that has created some serious internalized homophobia inside of my own body, fear of myself, all the things.

Speaker 1 And not too long ago,

Speaker 1 you

Speaker 1 had a conversation with me that

Speaker 1 kind of pretty much changed my life.

Speaker 2 Do you remember we sat down on a bed and I said, I have something to report.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I have something to report.

Speaker 1 And what Glennon proceeded to tell me, and by the way, I actually have like a little bit of like, like, I can't believe you didn't tell me a year ago.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I knew when it was time.

Speaker 1 Report as soon as you know.

Speaker 2 Yeah. No, I knew when it was time.

Speaker 1 I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready yet because I had to go through a grieving process.
Anyways, you'll understand folks when I get to the part of the story. And I'll get there, I promise.

Speaker 1 Glennon sits me down. And do you want to tell them how you explained it to me or do you want me to tell it?

Speaker 2 Well, I'm happy to do that. I mean, I can tell you to my best ability how I reported it to you.
I said, I have something to report.

Speaker 2 It's an important report. And you said, what's the report? This is something that we say to each other every once in a while because I'll be thinking about something.

Speaker 1 It's really funny that that's something you say to each other, like, breaking news. It is.

Speaker 2 It feels like breaking news to me. Like, because sometimes it's something I've been like noodling in my head for a long time.

Speaker 2 And then it feels like it's ready to, the way I can describe it is it feels like it's ready to be reported. Like it takes a while while for it to be ready to report it.

Speaker 1 And then I had to fact-check it, I had to see if I had concurring sources.

Speaker 2 Yes, you know that I didn't.

Speaker 1 And there's a difference between, like, hey, you know, the weather is this outside, it's important.

Speaker 1 So she's like, I have something to report. And I'm like, oh, and so that's my knowing I've got to sit down and be completely ready to listen.
Focus in. Okay.
Right.

Speaker 2 And it's usually something that's a little bit weird. Okay.
So here's what I reported. I reported this.

Speaker 1 You,

Speaker 2 your biggest issue this last

Speaker 2 years, has been your terror of death. We have identified that the distinct terror of death is not just a terror of death, it is a terror of hell.
Okay?

Speaker 2 It is absolutely not a mystery why you are scared of hell. You are a small child.

Speaker 1 It's quite logical to be afraid of hell. Burning for eternity seems like you're just acting very reasonable.
That is not an outsized fear. That is an appropriate size fear.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 2 the, please, like the poor pod squad doesn't need to hear me go off again about the utter insanity of teaching small children

Speaker 1 that there are fires of hell waiting for them if they don't nail this. Okay.

Speaker 2 How do you nail it?

Speaker 1 We don't know. Okay, just be alert.
One can't know. Just keep your head in a swivel.

Speaker 2 It's unfreaking believable.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 That is one of the reasons why I love talking about this. I think it's important that people see in real time a case study of someone who's being very honest with you because

Speaker 2 people don't tell this story or they haven't had the access to the work that will help them untangle the story to as a fine of a point as we can put on it. But this is what happens.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 You have a fear of hell. That fear of hell was placed inside of you purposefully by many, many confused adults adults and systems and cultures, okay?

Speaker 1 Who were also afraid of hell. So they were just like, we don't know, but be like us.
Right.

Speaker 2 Now, here's what I am saying to you. If we are going to live our lives in fear of a magical fairy place

Speaker 2 that has been decided probably was meant as a poem.

Speaker 1 Okay?

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 I like to consider myself an amateur poet.

Speaker 1 I know a poem when I see one. Okay.

Speaker 1 I have read the Bible.

Speaker 2 I have read it. I have read it front to back, which by the way, I'm saying in this voice, because many of the freaking ministers I've met with that asking my questions, I feel like they haven't.

Speaker 1 That's all I'm saying.

Speaker 2 And that's some pointed questions.

Speaker 2 Now.

Speaker 2 What I will say is I know a poem when I see it. I know when we talk about the fires of hell and all the lots of those things are metaphors.
Anyway,

Speaker 2 some people decided it was literal. They taught it to you.

Speaker 2 I have some other poetic ideas. If we're going to accept this thing that's going to control our lives out of fear based on some imagery and some poetry, I have an alternative poem to

Speaker 2 submit to the court.

Speaker 1 Great, great. Okay.

Speaker 2 And it is as follows.

Speaker 2 During the time that Abby has been healing from this

Speaker 2 pinpointed fear of hell passed to her by the Catholic Church and her family,

Speaker 2 passed from the Catholic Church via her family to her,

Speaker 2 I have also watched Abby grieve the loss of her brother, right? So these two things have been tied together for the past year, just tied together.

Speaker 2 Losing Peter, fear of death and hell, just that's been her path. One side of the path is each of those things.

Speaker 1 I,

Speaker 2 because of my

Speaker 2 contempt for and delight in, I am equally appalled by and intrigued by religion. I can't stand it and love it in equal measures.
I want to obliterate it and want to be obliterated in it equally.

Speaker 2 It's a confusing thing, but I feel feel like some people really understand that.

Speaker 2 Because of that, I know a lot about the imagery and the state. I just love to read about it.
I'd love to study about it. Okay.

Speaker 2 Peter,

Speaker 2 Abby's brother Peter.

Speaker 2 Judy Wambach

Speaker 2 is

Speaker 2 Abby's mother and she is just as Catholic as our grandma Alice. Like she just named all of her kids after just, you know, saints and various virgin mothers of God.
And Abby's real name is Mary.

Speaker 2 And we've got the Peters, and we all of them are just named after saints in the Catholic Church. Okay, Peter

Speaker 2 was Jesus's

Speaker 2 BFF, Saint Peter. Yeah, well, he wasn't Saint Peter yet, right?

Speaker 1 Right, he was a dude, the apostle Peter, right? No longer talking about my brother, right? Right, right. Abby's brother, we don't know, we don't know, he could have been right.

Speaker 2 Saint Peter,

Speaker 2 Jesus's best friend,

Speaker 2 they're so tight that when

Speaker 2 they all ascend to heaven,

Speaker 2 Jesus assigns Peter

Speaker 2 the role of being the gatekeeper of heaven. Okay?

Speaker 2 St. Peter's whole gig to the point where his image, his little icon, is a set of keys.
Okay.

Speaker 2 St. Peter's role in the church is,

Speaker 2 I decide who gets in and out of heaven. I guard the gates of heaven.
I hold the keys to eternal life. Okay?

Speaker 2 So I tell Abby,

Speaker 2 what I'm here to report to you

Speaker 2 is that you no longer have to fear any.

Speaker 2 You can celebrate the future moment. at which you approach the gates of heaven because guess who's going to be there? Peter

Speaker 2 is in charge of heaven. There is no way.
If there is a line 40 miles long, that guy's going to see his little sister and he's going to say, get your ass.

Speaker 2 He's going to have a keg there.

Speaker 1 If heaven is a club, your brother is the bouncer. You are so getting into that club.

Speaker 2 Exactly. And if I were God,

Speaker 2 I would put Abby's brother in charge. Like, he is the most open, like everything was a party.
Everybody was invited. Everybody's in.
His,

Speaker 2 do you want to talk about this? I feel like now I'm talking too much.

Speaker 1 You go and you, you, you.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So when she reported this to me,

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 Jesus' bestie, his name was Peter, who eventually became Saint Peter. And Jesus gave him essentially like the keys to heaven.

Speaker 1 And so Glennon just was like, so do you understand what this means? This means your brother is like the bouncer of heaven. And I was like,

Speaker 1 Peter lets everybody in. She said, yes, Peter lets everybody

Speaker 1 in.

Speaker 1 When I tell you that in my body,

Speaker 1 it was like a full body yes.

Speaker 1 And like, I don't know if this is a part of grief or whatever, but there's just been so much confusion in my body.

Speaker 1 I'm a justice person. This doesn't make sense, all of it.

Speaker 1 And for the first time, I was like, oh, okay, this is something I can grasp. This is something I can hold.
This is something I can carry with me that

Speaker 1 brings me

Speaker 1 not just like an ease of pain, but like actually brings me joy and kind of

Speaker 1 a weird, like

Speaker 1 the relief of death or hell,

Speaker 1 it just like kind of blew it all up for me. I was like, oh, wait.

Speaker 1 And I've, I know that this is something that has been programmed into me,

Speaker 1 but in my body, it was like the first time my body breathed or took a breath.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 yeah, it was so incredible. And so, of course, I call my mom and trying to picture my mother in the light most favorable.
Mom, I love you. And I know that you were also just scared for me.

Speaker 1 And I know that you were taught this too. And I know that that's probably not your fault.

Speaker 1 But when I was younger, my mom said, I'm scared that you're going to go to hell.

Speaker 1 I think that that's a real possibility here.

Speaker 1 And so I called my mom

Speaker 1 and I said, Did you say, I have something to report? Yes. I have to tell you something that Glennon just fucking just, Glennon told me.

Speaker 1 And so I tell her the whole story and she said, oh,

Speaker 1 I don't believe in hell.

Speaker 1 A little fucking late, Wombuck.

Speaker 1 And I was like, wait. Mom,

Speaker 1 what are you talking about? She said, oh, yeah, no, I kind of don't. don't, I don't believe in hell.
I don't believe in heaven. I kind of just think, I think we're all just like,

Speaker 1 I don't know. I just don't believe in it.
And I just, I didn't have the heart because she's going through a really hard time with losing my brother too. I didn't have it in me to be like,

Speaker 1 what the fuck, mom?

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 I will say,

Speaker 1 I think what this really has taught me more than anything, and we'll we'll get to like the little gift that you gave me, Glennon. But what this has taught me is to

Speaker 1 re-examine some of these conditioned beliefs, some of these like deep things that are in us and why they're in us and who taught them to us.

Speaker 1 And go talk to those people if they actually believe that shit or not. Still, exactly, Joe.

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Speaker 2 It made me feel, at first I was like, are you kidding me? Like

Speaker 2 Abby's been suffering with this for decades and based on faulty information a bit, you know, I mean, it's still all still there.

Speaker 2 But it made me, we're going to be talking to Sonia and Renee Taylor soon about having these important conversations with our kids based on like sex and faith and money and all.

Speaker 2 And I feel like it has done a major disservice to all of us to consider them the talk

Speaker 2 because we as parents, we're just growing too. And the snapshots of the conversations we have are just snapshots of who we are at that moment.
And we are changing and evolving.

Speaker 2 And how many of us have given our kids the money talk, the sex talk, the faith talk

Speaker 2 at a time where, from which we have changed and evolved and our children are holding on to that version of what we said one day.

Speaker 2 When, you know, I think about sex and the ideas I used to have about sex when I was in the fundamentalist Christian church, which would have been when I was having some of those early conversations with my kids.

Speaker 2 Like, what?

Speaker 2 It has to be an evolving conversation that we reveal new thoughts and new doubts and new ideas forever so that we release them from a particular version of that thing.

Speaker 1 Yeah. But you're assuming that even those talks were being honest about what our actual thoughts are at the moment.

Speaker 1 Like, I think most people aren't even being totally clear and honest about this is a snapshot of me and what I think right now. We're thinking,

Speaker 1 well, I mean, I'm going to confuse this kid that we're choosing to raise us in the Catholic Church, but half of it, I think, is bullshit. But I really like this part and this is why I'm taking them.

Speaker 1 Like they can't possibly handle that information.

Speaker 1 They can't possibly handle like all of these doubts and the fact that we live in this paradox where we say we believe something, but we really actually in our hearts only believe half of it.

Speaker 1 And so we like fix our faces to try to look as believable as possible and say the thing we think will be simple and digestible and understandable to them.

Speaker 1 And then we walk away and they're like, well, when they're older, they'll figure and navigate all the complexities, but they're navigating all the complexities now.

Speaker 1 They're wondering all those things now. So I think.

Speaker 1 that having those evolving conversations are so huge, but also not putting too much pressure on yourself to have the answer for the talk or have it be simple at all. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Just to be like, I don't know, it's so weird. Church is so important to me.
I love it. I love the sense I feel.
I love the community. I love the way it helps the poor people.

Speaker 1 I hate the way there's only a dude at the top. And I hate the way it's whatever.
And I don't believe this. And I do believe this.
Like,

Speaker 1 why are we so scared of saying? those things. Yeah, we need to be more religiously like fluid.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I think too, like one of the things that this period of my life has taught me is that I started therapy like two years ago to work on my shadow side.
Thank you, Suzanne Stabile.

Speaker 1 And it led me down this like wild path that I feel like was preparing me for my brother's death in a way. And now my brother's been dead for over a year.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I can't believe how important it is to do therapy for me, that to have done continuous therapy, to get really

Speaker 1 focused and understand

Speaker 1 some of these childhood belief systems that were programmed into me that I believed

Speaker 1 that I've carried. I've been an adult for a fucking long time.

Speaker 1 And you're not new here. And I've gone through all the things, atheism and agnosticism.

Speaker 1 Like I've done so much work, but that still like these beliefs that are very young that come into your body very young, they're hard to

Speaker 1 disprove in yourself.

Speaker 1 And so, like, I don't know. If you are wondering, and if you have some overall, like, big fears, to me, what has helped is to understand when they got embedded in me.

Speaker 1 And so, this leads to the whole point of this story.

Speaker 1 On Christmas Day,

Speaker 1 Glennon,

Speaker 1 my present from Glennon. Well, one of my presents from Glennon,

Speaker 1 she got

Speaker 1 me this

Speaker 1 St. Peter medallion, and she had it specialty made.

Speaker 1 And there's three black diamonds for my brother's kids, and one

Speaker 1 sparkly, normal-looking diamond. for Peter.

Speaker 1 And it's St. Peter, and he's holding the keys.
And so now I wear this almost every single day. And it's so beautiful.
Can you tell me? I can't read what's on the back. What is this?

Speaker 2 Well, Peter was the one who took care of everyone in Abby's family.

Speaker 1 Relax. I'll take care of that.

Speaker 2 And also, he was the dude that just always kept a very centered nervous system. Like whenever anyone else would get upset,

Speaker 2 he just handled everything. And so whenever anyone got in a jam or

Speaker 2 stuck, he would say,

Speaker 2 well, what would he say, babe?

Speaker 1 He'd say, relax. I'll take care of it.
Or what do you need?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 He was like the guy that like would pull over the side of the road and like fix your tire for you for a stranger and would do all like the gardening and clean the pool and paint the pool for my parents at my parents' house.

Speaker 1 And he was the guy that showed up and did whatever needed to be done.

Speaker 2 So it's engraved on the back. It just says, relax, I'll handle it.
Yeah. Because I could see Abby telling Peter how scared she was about heaven and him just saying, relax, I'll handle it.

Speaker 2 Like leaning on the keg, holding the keys to heaven.

Speaker 1 And what's also exciting about this is like,

Speaker 1 do we get to drink in heaven?

Speaker 2 Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 I don't. I was, when you were saying about the poems, I was like, I've really been counting on the kingdom of God, the heaven, like a vineyard.
Like, it better be a vineyard.

Speaker 1 If I find out that's some poem i'm gonna be pissed yeah so

Speaker 1 long story short this was the most uh one of the most

Speaker 1 important

Speaker 1 gifts you could give me not just the medallion but the story that can help me reshape my belief system and

Speaker 1 one thing i also know about peter and

Speaker 1 Obviously, he would probably wish to be alive no matter what. But if he were going to be dead, I do think he would like to have the power of

Speaker 1 being the one that like gets to decide who's in. And P.S., everyone, he'll let everybody in.
Yeah, right. Yeah.
Like he won't be. He's like, you're on the list, Abby.
Yeah. Also, so is everyone else.

Speaker 1 Yes. Yeah.
Yeah. Like he's just, he was just the best guy.
And I don't know. I'm just so grateful, Glennon, that

Speaker 1 you waited for the right time because had you had told me that a year ago

Speaker 1 before his services and a month after he died or two months like, I might have not been in the place

Speaker 1 to really land it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it felt like any earlier than that, it felt like it would have been like I was just trying to distract you or like a patronizing thing. Like there had to be a little bit of space.

Speaker 1 Do you remember the look on my face?

Speaker 2 Yeah, you were freaking stunned. I was like, oh, I am nailing this report.
This is,

Speaker 2 the exact impact I needed this report to have. You looked like you were.

Speaker 2 I mean, look, it's one of the reasons I love you so much. To me, it felt like the most important moment in the world.
It was.

Speaker 2 And to you, I could tell on your face that you thought it was one of the most important moments in the world.

Speaker 2 And I feel like if anyone had been watching us on the couch, they would have been like, they are batshit crazy.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 All to, all to, all yes to that. And I don't know, like, I think just like in terms of thinking about how much devastation and loss has happened already in 2025 with the fires in LA.
And

Speaker 1 I don't know, this just brings it very focused to me that material things, quote unquote, don't matter.

Speaker 1 But this makes me feel like, I think one of the things when you lose somebody is this contemplation with existence, like, what is it? And so I've been like concerned with Peter's like existence.

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 if we will forget or if I will forget memories.

Speaker 1 And so like this piece of jewelry that I will wear all the time is like proof not only of existence, but of love, of like how I felt about him and how he felt about his people. And

Speaker 1 that like one day I want to believe, I like to believe. that maybe one day I will meet him again.

Speaker 1 And it was just really profound. And I'm so glad that you have the brain that you have.

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Speaker 2 Isn't it cool the idea of like stories? To me, it feels like,

Speaker 2 okay, so if I were in a movie where I was like suddenly animated and I was in one of those like superhero movies and I had to have like a superpower,

Speaker 2 I would be like, the story person. It sounds so ridiculous.

Speaker 1 Captain Superstory.

Speaker 1 Watch her plot twist.

Speaker 2 I know it sounds crazy, but it is. It's like stories

Speaker 2 ruin lives. Stories divide civilizations.
Stories could blow up our planet. Stories.

Speaker 1 That is what turned us. That is what separated us as Homo sapiens from our ancestors.
Meaning making stories, myths, and meaning making.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we can rail against bad stories. Like the amount of times that I could tell Abby, oh, come on, here's all my proof that this is just poetry and imagery.

Speaker 2 Here's all of the studies, here's all of the papers I've about why we decided there was a hell and this is just a thing-made up thing about people. None of that ever worked.

Speaker 2 Except being like, okay, I see your story.

Speaker 2 I see your hell story, and I'll raise you a better story.

Speaker 2 That shit worked.

Speaker 2 There's some kind of fine.

Speaker 2 I'll just tell more beautiful stories

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 can reduce fear and division in a way that I haven't seen battling against a particular story works.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think it's like two parts. It's we accept as truth and fact

Speaker 1 and as self-evident the story

Speaker 1 that we have internalized, we don't see that as a story. We just see that as real and anything else as this pretend story trying to make us feel better about the reality that is already inside of us.

Speaker 1 And so when you can see another story and you think, well, that's absurd. Peter at the bouncer of heaven, that's crazy.
And then you're like, Is that any more crazy

Speaker 1 than burning fires of damnation?

Speaker 2 Like that the maker of the universe who loves us more than anything, right, right, sends us to.

Speaker 1 And then you start to be like, whoa, whoa, wait. So I'm choosing to believe one story is real and one is not.
That's a choice. And then like, which one is serving me? Why? It really is,

Speaker 1 which one brings me joy? Which one feels like it? could be more real. Then you see,

Speaker 1 oh, this is like a conscious thing. That is why.
That is the exact reason why there is a power in the art. And honestly, I think it's an art of positivity.

Speaker 1 Not like the kind of, how would you say this, like toxic positivity, but the kind of positivity where you're like trying to see the world in the light most favorable and you're trying to see people in the light most favorable and you're trying to curate because The way your perception of your reality is the story that you're telling yourself.

Speaker 2 Yep, it is a curation.

Speaker 1 And so how are we out here trying to curate the most optimistic, positive, motivating stories so that like we can actually enjoy what's happening here? Because I've, I mean, look, I lived 44 years

Speaker 1 with this belief

Speaker 1 that I potentially, I mean, I guess it 30 years that I'm going to go to hell. The first 14 went at pre-gay, I was totally on the, I was going to heaven.

Speaker 1 And then

Speaker 1 I'm going to hell. It's fucking lunacy.
So like

Speaker 1 what we talk to ourselves about and the stories we tell ourselves matter.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I, it's not to be wildly full circle, but Octavia Butler, that's why

Speaker 1 she wrote science fiction. That's why she chose that is because it was so wildly imaginative.
She She said, at its best, science fiction stimulates imagination and creativity.

Speaker 1 It gets reader and writer off the beaten track, off the narrow, narrow footpath of what everyone is saying, doing, thinking, whoever everyone happens to be this year.

Speaker 1 We're so on the footpath that we can't even see it as a path. We're like, this is just what we do.

Speaker 1 And then when you bring stories into it, imagination into it, crazy ideas into it, it illuminates that you were walking this path to begin with. And you're like, do I want to be be here? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Do I want to be here?

Speaker 1 So, yes, I am all in Captain Super story over there. I think it's a great way of doing it.
You could just like touch everyone's head. You think you're not good enough?

Speaker 2 Oh, that's a story.

Speaker 2 I have a better story.

Speaker 2 Have you heard this story?

Speaker 1 You think you deserve a cheater? Oh, that's a story.

Speaker 1 But that's, see, that's why it's so important to get in touch with yourself because so many of us, and by the way, like this is me for much of my life, where I'm just like unaware of what my story even is.

Speaker 1 I just think that I'm like living life, but I actually don't understand that like the software and the coding that's been happening all along is in fact the story that's happening behind the scenes kind of at all times.

Speaker 1 And so dissecting that with internal family systems with my therapist and it's like, oh, what's that part?

Speaker 1 And so being able to separate my own consciousness and my own self into all of these parts, figuring out how old these parts are, figuring out what's the story? What's that wound?

Speaker 1 What is it limiting me? And how can I alter and protect and let this very young part know that, hey, 44-year-old old ass Abby has got herself now and knows more and is programmed better.

Speaker 2 And I do think it's cool to,

Speaker 2 you know, how we've talked about when you're in trauma in any way, you can't see. You just can't see outside your little reality.

Speaker 2 And I think that we are all on some level in a bit of trauma, which limits our vision, limits our story.

Speaker 2 I've mentioned this before, but remember when I watched our neighbor trying to back out of the driveway and he spent 40 minutes going forward and back, forward and back.

Speaker 1 I don't think you've drawn this carry yeah i i don't think i've heard this oh okay

Speaker 2 well i'm so sure it wasn't me that's like me no well i'm sure i was watching because that's all i do but he just kept trying to narrowly he needed to get out of his driveway okay

Speaker 2 but the only thing he could think of doing

Speaker 2 was all I can describe it was go a little bit to the left, a little bit to the right, a little bit to the left, a little bit to the right.

Speaker 2 But from my vision, I was watching from above because our houses are kind of like, if you think about like townhouses, they're kind of tall.

Speaker 1 Anyway, I could see right there's like an alley in between.

Speaker 1 He's trying to get out of his, yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So I was watching it.
And from my thing, I could see all he had to do. There was a trash can.

Speaker 2 Like, oh, all he had to do was move the trash can, get out of his car, move the trash can, and he would have wide open spaces.

Speaker 2 But he was trying to navigate within this left, right, inside the trash can. And I just kept looking at going, that is me.
If I could just, I spend all day going, left, right, left, right.

Speaker 2 But if I could just see a little bit higher, I could see there's infinite other possibilities.

Speaker 2 You know, there's always, when you think, is it A or is it B? Is it A or is it B? I don't know if it's A or it's a B. It's never A or B.
It's always F, right?

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 2 Right. And when you can take a breath and get higher and see.

Speaker 2 So that's.

Speaker 1 Or you can be like Lennon and just hit the trash can. Yeah, that's true.
But that's better than being like, well, I guess I live here now in this driveway.

Speaker 1 option d no kidding some better to move the trash can second best cream the trash can and get your ass out of there yeah have you seen those videos where the little kids they're like toddlers and the little kids are like hanging on the bars they have like their legs up they're hanging on the bars and then they're just like bawling yes because they're like I can't get down from here.

Speaker 1 I'll never get out.

Speaker 1 Like the mom comes up and like straightens their legs and they're just standing.

Speaker 1 They can let go of the thing, but it doesn't occur to them. They're like, I'm going to die on this bar.

Speaker 2 Yes. And so that, like, I want to

Speaker 2 challenge everyone in the pod squad today, whatever that little decision you're trying to make, like, is it A or is it B? Tell yourself you're going to give yourself 24 hours.

Speaker 2 You're not going to make that decision today. And instead, you're going to dream up.
What is C D and E and F?

Speaker 2 What if I could see this from such a wide perspective that I could actually see the trash can? What are the out-of-the-box possibilities that aren't option A or B?

Speaker 2 Because, like, to come back to why I started talking about this, it's a very interesting when you're in, say, say, particular religious trauma, your car situation is you're going back between, like, am I going to go to heaven or am I going to go to hell?

Speaker 1 I'm like, is it heaven or is it hell?

Speaker 2 Is it heaven or is it hell? And, like, anybody looking at you from above is thinking, that is not the question. The question is, why are you an extremely smart person

Speaker 1 who thinks that there's a flake full of fire

Speaker 1 or

Speaker 1 a bunch of angels and those are your options?

Speaker 2 There is a bigger question is what I'm saying. There's a bigger question.

Speaker 1 Like, perhaps we examine that. And,

Speaker 1 and,

Speaker 1 if,

Speaker 2 if, if you land, which P.S., I am not judging because I am so fucking weird. And there's a part of me that thinks maybe all this shit is realish.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I give it like a 30, 70.

Speaker 2 If we're going to believe in the version that has angels and laps of fire and shit, let's make up our own story about it. Okay.
Let's just continue the story and make it wider and more beautiful.

Speaker 1 And the story we're going on from here is Peter, my brother, is at the gates. He will meet you there with your beverage of choice.
If it's weed,

Speaker 1 whatever. He's letting you into a great party.
Relax. He's got it.
Relax.

Speaker 2 Handle it.

Speaker 2 We love you, pod squad, so much. Thank you for listening.
And we'll see you back here 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.