How to Love Your Body Now with Carson Tueller (Best Of)

Speaker 1 One thing I love about our listeners is how industrious all of you are. The stories we hear about you guys going off on your own and starting your own ventures like we did, it's truly inspiring.

Speaker 1 It's a big part of why NetSuite came to us as a sponsor. NetSuite offers real-time data and insights for so many business owners, and by that I mean over 42,000 businesses.

Speaker 1 NetSuite offers the number one AI-powered cloud ERP. Think of it as a central nervous system for your business.

Speaker 1 Instead of juggling separate tools for accounting here, HR there, inventory somewhere else, NetSuite pulls everything into one seamless platform.

Speaker 1 That means you finally have one source of truth, real visibility, real control, and the power to make smarter decisions faster.

Speaker 1 With real-time data and forecasting, you're not just reacting to what already happened, you're planning for what's next.

Speaker 1 And whether your company is bringing in a few million or hundreds of millions, NetSuite scales with you.

Speaker 1 It helps you tackle today's challenges and chase down tomorrow's opportunities without missing a beat.

Speaker 1 Speaking of opportunity, download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at netsuite.com/slash hard things.

Speaker 1 The guide is free to you at netsuite.com/slash hard things.

Speaker 1 Netsuite.com/slash hard things.

Speaker 2 Well, hello. Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things.

Speaker 2 Okay, listen.

Speaker 2 Here's the thing that's important to us about this pod that you may have picked up. I'm sure you did.

Speaker 2 So we didn't introduce you to a LOC several episodes ago so that you could learn to be an ally to trans or non-binary folks.

Speaker 2 We introduced you to a loke because since a loc has done the work to free themselves from the gender binary, a loc can teach us how to free ourselves from the cage of the gender binary that every single one of us is in.

Speaker 2 In that vein,

Speaker 2 what does in that vein mean?

Speaker 2 Who knows? In that vein, we are introducing you to Carson Tuller today. We are not introducing Carson so we can learn how to be allies to disabled and or queer people.
Not just for that, okay?

Speaker 2 We are introducing Carson to the pod squad because since Carson has done the work to know in his soul that his body is complete and whole exactly the way it is,

Speaker 2 he is able to share that good news of body freedom with all of us, with every last one of us

Speaker 2 who are caged by the lie that our bodies are not good enough. As Carson says, talking about disability is talking about the nature of human bodies.
So it includes everyone.

Speaker 3 Yay! Yay!

Speaker 3 Yay!

Speaker 2 Okay, Carson Tuller is a coach, speaker, and activist whose work provides people with the tools they need to live authentic, fulfilling, and powerful lives. He identifies as queer and disabled.

Speaker 2 Carson grew up as a Mormon in a military family, moving around a lot before settling in Utah.

Speaker 2 His own journey into powerful living began in 2013 when, in the same year, he came out and then was injured in an accident that paralyzed him from the chest down.

Speaker 2 Since then, Carson has brought his work to international nonprofits and presidential campaigns.

Speaker 2 When he isn't coaching or speaking, Carson can be found at the gym reading nonfiction or playing Pokemon with his niece and nephews. First of all, it's July.
Happy Disability Pride Month. Carson.
Yes.

Speaker 3 Thank you. Isn't that so exciting that that's a thing? Yeah, it's terribly exciting it's terribly exciting and important can i just preface by saying how grateful i am to be here a

Speaker 3 and two also i need to clear that like maybe i'm gonna just be emotional a lot through this i was like prepping and i was already just like oh just like moved

Speaker 3 by

Speaker 3 what glennon said at the top right this is about freedom

Speaker 3 yeah it's freedom it's like freedom to be with one's actual self.

Speaker 3 And so when I was like prepping, you know, I go back to places in my past where that wasn't available and how much suffering was there. And

Speaker 3 so I'm just like really in the presence of that. And I just want to say that before I start.
So thanks for letting me just be me with you.

Speaker 2 Carson, what is that like for you? And you said that it made me think of having to go back all the time.

Speaker 2 Like I feel like I'm in this good place and I'm finally free in many ways and I'm happy, and then I go back,

Speaker 2 and it's very like going back into a haunted house over and over again. Like, do you feel as free when you come out of the backward trauma to prepare for things as you did before you went in?

Speaker 3 Oh, it's a really good question. I

Speaker 3 okay, so the truth is that I am in and out of the haunted house of

Speaker 3 my

Speaker 3 body stuff really frequently.

Speaker 3 I think that's kind of why I feel raw coming into this is because, like, I was in the haunted house for two weeks, two weeks ago.

Speaker 3 Okay. I had some health disruptions, and that always brings up the whole, like, what if this wouldn't have happened? What if I never would have been paralyzed? What if I didn't have chronic pain?

Speaker 3 What if I could just drive to my friend's house and go inside for a hangout? All these little things where there's like grief and anger.

Speaker 3 So, I think I just have tried to develop the freedom to just be like, I'm going to go to the haunted house and then I'm going to be in like the pretty castle of whole, whole incompleteness or whatever it is.

Speaker 3 I just kind of go in and out of that, actually.

Speaker 2 That is so freeing to me to hear that because sometimes we can feel like when we go back into the haunted house, that that's failure or backward motion.

Speaker 2 But what you're saying is life is just this eternity loop back and forth from the haunted house to the castle.

Speaker 3 I know. And I so badly want to tell everybody and all the listeners, No, no, you can leave the haunted house forever.
That's just not my experience.

Speaker 3 And so if someone has like that trick, send me a DM.

Speaker 2 We wouldn't have them on Carson because we wouldn't believe them.

Speaker 3 No, I know.

Speaker 3 So I have like, I just have like multiple residents, I guess, in that space. But there is a freedom about just knowing that when I'm in that space.

Speaker 3 I know how to leave. And sometimes it takes time.
And sometimes I just have to let my like physiology chill out, cool down

Speaker 3 because I get spooked

Speaker 3 and then just ease my way back into it. So I have like a strategy for doing that, like talking to people and writing and all the things.

Speaker 2 Do you think that the fact that you so freely and often go back into the haunted house or go back to that feeling of not feeling good enough or not, or magical thinking, what if not this, what if not this, that that's why people love you so much?

Speaker 2 Because so many people only show us the after, and then they talk to us about their old self who struggled. And, like,

Speaker 2 the struggling self is never present, so we can't relate, we can't feel less alone. But your struggling self allows itself to be seen sometimes, and that makes us all feel

Speaker 2 connected to you.

Speaker 3 So, thank you. That means so much to me.
So, I had a friend when I became injured, when I broke my neck, spoiler

Speaker 3 that

Speaker 3 was doing all the updates for my family. So my family wasn't bombarded with keeping people up to date.

Speaker 3 So we started a blog, but there came a point where I was like, well, I have something to say about this. I'd like to share something.
And

Speaker 3 there was this pivotal moment of me going, like, am I going to really say all of it in this hospital, but about to like bring in everybody into what it feels like to not know who I am anymore?

Speaker 3 To wonder wonder if I can do this, the most human raw things. And there was a moment of like, yes, and here we go.
And once I do this, there's no going back.

Speaker 3 And this is going to be my thing that I give to the world is to say, this is what's up.

Speaker 3 I have such an aversion to hearing like that, like, I beat it story. That's why when anyone calls me a motivational speaker, I'm like, I'm not.

Speaker 3 I'm just going to like tell you the truth. And for me, that means learning how to live a powerful, self-expressed life

Speaker 3 inside of a lot of suffering and inside of a lot of joy. Um, but that I get to choose who to be, whether I'm in the castle or the haunted house, I get to kind of choose how to show up.

Speaker 3 That's really what I care about because I think that's real life.

Speaker 2 It's beautiful. Okay, we're going back.
We're starting

Speaker 2 when you're a little queer Mormon kid, because that's a super easy place to be, I imagine, being a queer Mormon kid.

Speaker 2 Haunted House Castle, I'm not sure what that is, but

Speaker 2 you come out to your sweet parents, who I'm sure were then put in an equally easy place.

Speaker 2 What you're talking about with the castle and the haunted house reminds me of the story where you were trying so desperately to figure out, you were in the place in the Mormon faith where you had to choose either, okay, so be a gay

Speaker 2 man.

Speaker 2 And if you do that, you will be disconnected from your entire family and community, not only in this life, but in for all eternity. So you had to decide.
That was your decision to make it.

Speaker 2 So you were grappling with that.

Speaker 2 And tell us about that time, that period where you were going to church, kind of doing your inventories and trying to like smell the devil out, because that reminds me of the castle and the house where you were navigating all of that.

Speaker 3 I had kind of told my parents in high school, sat them down and was like, I'm watching all the other boys love

Speaker 3 girls. And that's just not my experience.
I don't know what's happening. I don't know if I'm a late bloomer.
At that point, I wasn't like, and I'm attracted to men.

Speaker 3 So I just like left it there, put it on the table. And then they're like, okay, we'll see how things go after your mission.
I went to Chile for two years, served a mission. It was great.

Speaker 3 Because I was still in this like suspended reality where my sexuality actually didn't matter so much

Speaker 3 until it was time to get married, because that's the path. Come home from the mission, you get married in the temple, and that's like the next step.
So that's when I couldn't be me

Speaker 3 and stay on the path. It started by just actually saying, okay, I think this is a part of who I am.
These are my words then. I think this is like a for real part of who I am and not some phase

Speaker 3 or some feeling or tendency or whatever we wanted to call it back then. I think this is actually like kind of written into who I am.

Speaker 3 So that's when it started. But then

Speaker 3 the twist was I was like, I'm gay, but I'm not going to be gay. You know, like I'm going to be.

Speaker 2 Turn it up like a light switch.

Speaker 3 Great news. I'm actually not going to be gay.

Speaker 3 I'm just going to feel gay.

Speaker 3 Right?

Speaker 3 This was my way of being authentic, but also getting to be with my family in the next life, which is like always the big thing.

Speaker 3 It's kind of like this really special part of being Mormon is like this idea of an eternal family that happens under very specific conditions.

Speaker 3 And so we like sing songs about eternal families and living together forever, and which is complicated for several reasons, including like if you don't like your family.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that could be hell. Is this heaven or hell, Carson?

Speaker 3 Exactly, exactly.

Speaker 2 The castle or the haunted house.

Speaker 3 Right. What is this really?

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 sat them down, was like, okay, I'm gay. And my plan, but I said homosexual at the time.
I'm homosexual, right? I have homosexual, whatever.

Speaker 3 And I'm going to

Speaker 3 stay a member of the church. And

Speaker 3 I think I'm going to try to marry a woman because I think I could probably pull that off. What happened was you said, smell out the devil, I think is the phrase used.
Like such a

Speaker 3 great way to describe that because

Speaker 3 I was like, okay, I'm going to do this thing. I'm obeying God's commandments.

Speaker 3 You should know contextually that I was like a really good Mormon. I was not a Mormon for fun.

Speaker 3 I was like in it to win.

Speaker 3 It made its way into every single part of my life. As I chose to be alone and started considering that I would have a life without a family,

Speaker 3 possibly, because after a while, that whole idea of marrying a woman just didn't seem sustainable or helpful or anything that I wanted.

Speaker 3 I was like, okay, I guess I'm going to just kind of self-eliminate from the dating pool and from any kind of romantic relationships or sexuality, like all of this.

Speaker 3 And things started to get really dark. I was confused because I had learned from the scriptures that

Speaker 3 when you are on the right path, that you reap the benefits, like the fruits of the spirit, Galatians 5, right?

Speaker 2 That's right. Galatians.

Speaker 3 Yes. And long suffering.

Speaker 3 Right? But

Speaker 3 I'm not not feeling any of this. So like something's up.

Speaker 3 And so I started very, very slowly introducing some new experiences and ideas. I even went to my bishop and I was like, look, I'm telling you, I'm going to go on a date with a dude.

Speaker 3 We're not going to do anything that would disqualify me from any of God's blessings.

Speaker 3 And I'm going to feel it out. So I went on a date and I come back to church.
God bless you.

Speaker 2 You got your bishop's blessing and permission before your date.

Speaker 3 Oh my God.

Speaker 3 I kind of told him, to be fair, I was like, what are you going to do about it? Cause I'm not really breaking any rules.

Speaker 2 That's right. I'm just,

Speaker 2 I found the Mormon loophole and I am rushing through it.

Speaker 3 Exactly. So then I went to church and I sat there and I was like,

Speaker 3 this is good. I feel bigger, like more expanded.
The lights turned back on.

Speaker 3 And then I went on another date. I had my first kiss, right? Like all of these things, and then it was just like my life lit up and expanded.

Speaker 3 And all of those fruits of like goodness and all of the things you look for showed up. Yeah,

Speaker 3 and it was in direct contradiction. People were predicting I would, you know, like come creeping into the chapel after having been with a man, and none of that happened.

Speaker 3 Like, I was more like Jesus than ever, you know. You're like, gay latians, galations, sister, crushing it, latians.

Speaker 3 It was very deliberate. It was very deliberate and just like piece by piece by piece to make sure like, yeah, this is right.
Beautiful.

Speaker 1 Beautiful.

Speaker 3 And then I told my parents and they were good.

Speaker 3 I don't ever remember them like shaming me or, or, you know, they were just kind of like wanted me to be careful and cautious and thoughtful about my decisions. And

Speaker 3 then they had to grapple with having an actual gay son, not just one in theory. And, you know, and then they did that.

Speaker 2 Did they remain in the Mormon church? I'm always so interested in that.

Speaker 2 When you have a situation like that and your family remains part of an institution that does not believe in you, does that feel like a conditional acceptance of you?

Speaker 2 Or is it like each of you are radically accepting the other?

Speaker 3 Let's both. At first, it felt like betrayal.
I never thought, I thought I wouldn't talk to my parents again for a period of time. I was angry, like slamming fists on the table, fighting.

Speaker 3 Especially, there was a policy that came out. We called it the exclusion policy.
It's now been rescinded,

Speaker 3 but it specifically targeted queer families inside of the church. When that came out, it was like when I had some serious, huge blow-ups.

Speaker 3 Now, this was all very complicated because I was like, mom, dad, I'm gay and I can actually be gay. And then I broke my neck.

Speaker 3 And then my parents were literally keeping me alive through this entire period of time. So there was kind of like this forced exposure,

Speaker 3 which made things like very complicated.

Speaker 2 This show is sponsored by MIDI Health. For way too long, we've been told that we just have to power through the symptoms of menopause.

Speaker 2 That hot flashes, mood swings, sleepless nights, exhaustion are just part of the natural order of things.

Speaker 2 It's no wonder why 75% of women who do seek help for perimenopause and menopause end up getting no treatment at all. 75%,

Speaker 2 zero treatment. A friend of mine was talking about this just a few weeks ago.

Speaker 2 She'd been dealing with constant perimenopause symptoms and said just trying to find a doctor who actually understands menopause felt impossible.

Speaker 2 Researching specialists, figuring out insurance, waiting forever for an appointment, it's all too much. So I told her, skip all of that nonsense, go straight to MIDI.

Speaker 2 She went online and got an appointment the next day. With MIDI, you can meet one-on-one with a perimenopause trained clinician online from wherever you are.

Speaker 2 They'll actually listen to your whole story and build a plan around you. That could mean hormone therapy, lifestyle changes, preventive care, or all of the above.

Speaker 2 They even send prescriptions right to your local pharmacy. Ready to feel your best and write your second act script?

Speaker 2 Visit joinmitti.com today to book your personalized insurance-covered virtual visit. That's joinmittie.com.
MIDI, the care women deserve.

Speaker 1 One thing I love about our listeners is how industrious all of you are. The stories we hear about you guys going off on your own and starting your own ventures like we did, it's truly inspiring.

Speaker 1 It's a big part of why NetSuite came to us as a sponsor. NetSuite offers real-time data and insights for so many business owners, and by that I mean over 42,000 businesses.

Speaker 1 NetSuite offers the number one AI-powered cloud ERP. Think of it as a central nervous system for your business.

Speaker 1 Instead of juggling separate tools for accounting here, HR there, inventory somewhere else, NetSuite pulls everything into one seamless platform.

Speaker 1 That means you finally have one source of truth, real visibility, real control, and the power to make smarter decisions faster.

Speaker 1 With real-time data and forecasting, you're not just reacting to what already happened, you're planning for what's next.

Speaker 1 And whether your company is bringing in a few million or hundreds of millions, NetSuite scales with you.

Speaker 1 It helps you tackle today's challenges and chase down tomorrow's opportunities without missing a beat.

Speaker 1 Speaking of opportunity, download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at netsuite.com/slash hard things.

Speaker 1 The guide is free to you at netsuite.com slash hardthings. Netsuite.com slash hard things.

Speaker 2 As the air turns crisp and the holidays draw near, comfort becomes the best gift of all. That's why I love Quints.
They deliver layers that last.

Speaker 2 Think sweaters, outerwear, and everyday essentials that feel luxurious, look timeless, and make holiday dressing and gifting effortless.

Speaker 2 Right now, I'm obsessed with their camel double-faced merino wool trench coat. It looks straight out of a designer showroom, but costs a fraction of the price.
The quality is honestly incredible.

Speaker 2 Warm, structured, and so elegant, it instantly feels like you are wearing something very much on purpose.

Speaker 2 I have so many items from Quince layered underneath, like button-ups and sweaters, but the coat is my current fave. And Quince really does have it all.

Speaker 2 100% organic cotton cardigans for under 50 bucks, oversized blazers, classic denim, silk tops, and fleece hoodies, down outerwear, everything to make you look chic, and most importantly, be cozy this fall and winter.

Speaker 2 Step into the holiday season with layers made to feel good, look polished, and last from Quince. Perfect for gifting or keeping for yourself.

Speaker 2 Go to quince.com/slash hardthings for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too.

Speaker 2 That's q-u-i-n-ce-e dot com/slash hard things to get free shipping and 365 day returns.

Speaker 3 Quince.com/slash hard things.

Speaker 2 Tell us about that time. So you'd been living out your Galation self for six months, feeling like the fruits were there.
And then what happens?

Speaker 3 And then it was December 30th.

Speaker 3 I had just decided that I was going to

Speaker 3 leave my pre-med studies and just focus specifically on flute performance because that's what I was studying.

Speaker 3 And five days after Christmas, my family decided to go to a trampoline park because I loved trampoline parks and I had tumbled all growing up, but I'm 6'5.

Speaker 3 And so now like I can't pull the same things on the floor. So I love the trampoline.

Speaker 3 So we went and

Speaker 3 got my wristband and like ran straight to the tumble track.

Speaker 3 It was just my favorite part of the, of the park. And I bounced on it and got my bearings and went to the end of the pit and bounced in.

Speaker 3 And my plan was to pull a like a tight triple front tuck because you could just into the pit.

Speaker 3 And I did, but I like sailed through the pit,

Speaker 3 past the foam. and then into the trampoline at the bottom where I hit ground

Speaker 3 and I hit the back of my head and I heard like a little, like a little pop.

Speaker 3 It wasn't that painful, actually.

Speaker 3 Felt like a tweak,

Speaker 3 the most powerful tweak of all time.

Speaker 3 This little tweak. And then I tried to move and just jump out of the pit and it was like

Speaker 3 nothing. It was just silence.
It was like I'd been unplugged, like the vacuum, you know, like you're flipping the switch and it's just not happening.

Speaker 3 And I eventually realized I could kind of move an arm. And so I put one of my arms up because my family had watched me tumble into the pit.

Speaker 3 And so I put my arm out. My dad came into the pit and I said, dad, I think I'm paralyzed.
And he said, I know.

Speaker 3 And then all he said after that was like, my boy, my boy. And I was actually.

Speaker 3 trying

Speaker 3 to console him. And I was like, dad, it's going to be okay.
Wow. We're going to see how this goes.

Speaker 3 I had a very poignant moment actually in that pit that I think is worth mentioning that I don't share often.

Speaker 3 And that is that

Speaker 3 when I realized I couldn't move, I was like,

Speaker 3 this is the thing. This is the thing you see in movies.
This is that word, like paralyzed, the worst thing that can happen to anyone. Like we've all heard about it, right? What if that's this?

Speaker 3 Is this forever? Is that, you know, there's just like this panicky thing.

Speaker 3 And then it was like

Speaker 3 something like

Speaker 3 intercepted and I had this like very clear thought that was I have people who love me I have people I love and that's all I need

Speaker 3 and then

Speaker 3 there was nothing but peace after that for a very very long time until I like came home and started reintegrating myself but it was a very peaceful situation because I felt just immediately like, okay,

Speaker 3 it's about love and I don't need my legs to love.

Speaker 3 And so

Speaker 3 they got me on the helicopter, put me on the stretcher, sent me out and I went and got two spinal fusions and thus began my journey as a disabled person.

Speaker 2 So for a long time you called that day your death day. So I imagine the peace that you had,

Speaker 2 that peace that we

Speaker 2 Bible people call the transcending all understanding, that piece that came to you from the GOD.

Speaker 2 That passed, and then things got very, very hard. And you actually referred to that as your death day for a long time.
And then your sister said something to you on June 16th, 2018

Speaker 3 that changed things.

Speaker 2 What was that that your sister said to you?

Speaker 3 We went on like a little brother-sister date to get pretzel bites at the strip mall.

Speaker 2 She's 13, right? Your sister's 13 at this time.

Speaker 3 She's your time, she's 13. Yes, yeah.

Speaker 3 And we come home, and I can't remember why I referred to the day of my accident and I called it the day of my death, dark humor, jokingly,

Speaker 3 to elicit a response.

Speaker 3 And she said, What if we called that the day of your rebirth? I was like, No, we can't call it that. But

Speaker 3 as I drove home,

Speaker 3 like it stuck with me. I was like, well,

Speaker 3 who's to say? Am I right? Is Kate right?

Speaker 3 And over the course of like three hours,

Speaker 3 I literally had this powerful paradigm shift that ended in my realization

Speaker 3 that the only thing that happened to me

Speaker 3 was that the bones in my neck moved.

Speaker 3 They hit my spinal cord. And my body now works the way it does, the way it doesn't.

Speaker 3 No drama, no brokenness there.

Speaker 3 That's all that happened. And I have added all the rest.

Speaker 3 And so that left me with the realization that I can create the meaning around all of these events that I thought had some fixed meaning in them.

Speaker 3 And I left the gym that day saying,

Speaker 3 that's the day of my rebirth. That's the day of my rebirth.
That's the day that the stars aligned and I became exactly who I was supposed to be. This is plan A.

Speaker 3 Is it true? No.

Speaker 3 Is it false? No.

Speaker 3 The day of my death, the day I was devastated, the day that I lost, I veered from the path I was destined to be on is as true as this is exactly where I'm supposed to be. This is my plan A.

Speaker 3 But living inside of either of those produces very different results

Speaker 3 and a very different way of being. And like, suddenly, when I claimed this as plan A,

Speaker 3 I had access to whole new ways of being and acting

Speaker 3 that were like unprecedented. I started going on dates.
I started taking risks. I started telling people to carry me up the stairs.

Speaker 3 I started doing all of these things that I wasn't doing before because I was broken. I was this tragic hero.

Speaker 3 and it all changed just by

Speaker 3 changing the the story or interpretation about the actual event

Speaker 3 and my body

Speaker 2 you had all of those years living inside of a religion that told you that you were irredeemably broken as a as a gay person and having to decide that you were in fact not, that you were perfect.

Speaker 2 And that was plan A for you. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Do you think that that process over so many years prepared you to, even though ableism says you're broken, to get to the point where you were so quick to see that that was just as much horseshit

Speaker 2 as the religion telling you you're broken?

Speaker 3 Yes, it's totally prepared me because the principles are the same. And if I were to describe them, I'd say coming out is about hearing

Speaker 3 yourself

Speaker 3 and then saying,

Speaker 3 hmm, that wasn't me. And I have now realized that wasn't me.

Speaker 3 This is who I am.

Speaker 3 And kind of this reclaiming of the self that requires like listening to your knowing, right?

Speaker 3 And so.

Speaker 3 When I became paralyzed and suddenly I felt all of the same, like, it had the same texture, that feeling, brokenness, unworthiness. No one will love me.

Speaker 3 It was a variation on a theme, but it was the same thing, which is unworthiness.

Speaker 3 I was now prepared to like, you said, call, call bullshit. I know that this, myself, the self,

Speaker 3 will never tell me I'm broken. That is always from something outside of me.

Speaker 3 And that knowledge alone had me be like, okay, so what is it? Where is it?

Speaker 3 And then I found it and it turned out to be ableism, this idea that there are such things as good bodies and real bodies and that disability is a broken version of a good body.

Speaker 3 But to answer your question, yeah, it prepared me because I was ready to like not believe those feelings

Speaker 3 because they'd betrayed me before.

Speaker 2 So you go from this heady understanding, this spiritual heady heady understanding, but of your wholeness, but then you have to go into the like

Speaker 2 gladiator world of freaking dating and sex, which is where you test all your theories of like hell, where all the haunted house comes up. We can believe that we're whole and so,

Speaker 2 but then we have to go on a date.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And we forget everything we know.
So like, how, tell me about that first date.

Speaker 2 And then I'm dying to talk about sex with you because I just, I feel like the work you're doing in that area for people is so mind-blowing.

Speaker 2 You said of yourself back then that you were thinking, no one's Prince Charming is in a wheelchair. In my mind, the best I could hope for was that someone would settle for me.

Speaker 2 How did you get out of that mindset and tell us about the beginning of dating for you, like your first date after this?

Speaker 3 Okay, first,

Speaker 3 I'm not sure I actually

Speaker 3 ever got out of that mindset

Speaker 3 before I started dating.

Speaker 3 It was kind of like, that's my fear,

Speaker 3 but that's not how I want to show up. So I'm going to do this anyway.
This is something that I do a lot in my work as a coach and inside of kind of transformational education and things, is that

Speaker 3 I get to choose who to be in the face of my fears and stories and things like that. So that was really the process was the moment where I was like, no one's going to love me.

Speaker 3 And then I was like, okay i'm not gonna take any action inside of that i'm gonna take action inside of someone will love and adore me even if i don't feel that way

Speaker 3 so that's what i did um and it was terrifying you know because at some point i'm gonna have to pee and i have catheters in my backpack and i'm gonna have to hope the restaurant is is accessible or we might hit a space where I need to push and I'm meeting this person for the first time and have to immediately engage in this intimate act of literal physical support, right and i just didn't know what to expect i didn't know how people are going to respond to me so it was really terrifying um

Speaker 3 and i had really come into dating with all of this having watched in the media and and heard all of these stories about like when people get paralyzed then people leave them or they want to die or you know it's just always worst case scenario and so I think that's why I came into it being like, people are just going to have to settle for this version of me.

Speaker 3 The first date itself was actually someone who knew it was my first date and i hadn't dated like in a year so he knew

Speaker 3 and he was like i'm not asking you out

Speaker 3 you know because he knew i needed to like so i asked him out

Speaker 3 excellent Yeah, so he set it up and then I was like, will you go on a date with me?

Speaker 3 And he was like, yes. And so he had like rented some like suburban thing and like helped me transfer into the front seat.

Speaker 3 We went to this Mexican restaurant and had a good time, but he made it particularly

Speaker 3 easy to just kind of have that first experience.

Speaker 2 And love it.

Speaker 3 It was very sweet.

Speaker 2 Okay. And so now can we please talk about sex?

Speaker 3 Because yeah, I love talking about sex.

Speaker 2 Well, you have reading everything that you write and teach about sex,

Speaker 2 okay, just confirms

Speaker 2 what I feel like about how sex got ruined for me, which is, well, what we say on this pod over and over again, that the thing that screws us up most is the picture in our head of how it's supposed to be.

Speaker 2 So here you come to sex. There was no way for you to get sex ed.
Well, no, by the way, there's no way for any of us to get sex ed, but for you in particular, you had to figure it all out yourself.

Speaker 2 Nobody was talking about disabled, queer sex. You had no models, no representation.
So that sounds like bad news. But was that the best news ever?

Speaker 2 Because you weren't mimicking something that someone else was telling you to recreate in the bedroom, right? Is that sexual freedom? You say disabled sex is so much better than abled sex.

Speaker 2 Tell us why, Carson.

Speaker 3 Can I give you just a little couple of things of context?

Speaker 2 You can do whatever you want forever.

Speaker 3 Okay, so

Speaker 3 another important piece of information is I did, I have have never had sex as an abled person.

Speaker 3 Oh!

Speaker 3 I didn't have sex before.

Speaker 3 So I didn't have ever like a this is how sex is supposed to feel, look, never did it because I was again such a good Mormon. And I have mixed feelings about that because sometimes I'm like,

Speaker 3 but maybe it would have been nice to feel this particular thing.

Speaker 2 Bishop, what I'm saying is

Speaker 3 just gonna be good.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 The other piece is that because I was such a good Mormon, also,

Speaker 3 I did not consume any pornography.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 3 Wow.

Speaker 2 My God, you're like a science experiment.

Speaker 3 Yes. Right? I isolated all these variables

Speaker 3 via mostly trauma.

Speaker 3 Sorry.

Speaker 3 It was trauma the other way, too.

Speaker 2 That's right. Too much mortality, too much sex, too young.
Also traumatic.

Speaker 3 Exactly. I just didn't come in with any ideas of sex

Speaker 3 so that i'm here in this body i don't know what it does

Speaker 3 i have heard it can like be very pleasurable mostly from straight people who are like oh yeah i could like do these things with my nipples or i've changed these orogenous zones um

Speaker 3 and so it's like okay i've heard that there are some possibilities here

Speaker 3 And I got to figure this out. And so I would just kind of set up

Speaker 3 situations with people that I trusted

Speaker 3 where we could just kind of start

Speaker 3 trying

Speaker 3 things out.

Speaker 3 And it was just like this slow experimentation of starting very small and with like kissing and with touching and like a lot of foreplay-esque kind of things.

Speaker 3 I started to have moments of like, oh, whoa, that felt very special.

Speaker 3 That was a treat. Let's just

Speaker 3 Let's go there.

Speaker 3 And slowly I found all of these really incredible ways to experience pleasure and orgasm in ways that

Speaker 3 weren't available to me before.

Speaker 3 I did masturbate before my injury, like a handful of times. Again, good Mormon.
This was different.

Speaker 3 The orgasm was like, I could repeat it. It could be so powerful that I almost couldn't stand it and I'd have to stop things.
And my sexual

Speaker 3 would

Speaker 3 often say, this is

Speaker 3 basically like the

Speaker 3 best sex I've ever had. Just say it.
Just say it. But it was

Speaker 3 the best sex I've ever had.

Speaker 2 Okay, so let's be telling everyone. Repeat what Carson just said: my sexual partners would always say, this is the best sex I've ever had.
So just go ahead. I just want to make sure everyone got that.

Speaker 3 And my hypothesis is it's because there were no rules, no expectations.

Speaker 3 It was truly just like explore, discover.

Speaker 3 There wasn't like a, you're going to come. Am I going to come? Are we going to like do it? Yeah.
It wasn't that.

Speaker 2 It was just like, yeah.

Speaker 3 I think that's why it was like fulfilling. And it also required a lot of communication because

Speaker 3 no one's going to come into the bedroom with me, me, and unless they've done like extensive homework

Speaker 3 and be like, I know what to do to have Carson have a great experience here. Also, it's not always predictable now for me.
The trick that worked last time might not work this time.

Speaker 3 I don't know why that is, but it requires this new level of communication. It just makes sense, right?

Speaker 3 Like when I'm telling you what feels good and doesn't, I'm just going to get a better result and vice versa.

Speaker 3 Instead of like being like, oh, yeah, this is how I'm going to go. And you're going to make this sound when I do that.

Speaker 2 And we're going to like perform together i mean carson okay i'm gonna say this abby at one point when we were trying to unlearn everything that we've learned and like acting and all the shit that you're saying that you it's almost like erase it's coming to sex with beginner's mind like the beautist beginner's mind right but at one point sweet abby was like um honey what are what are all those noises you're making

Speaker 2 Did you hear those somewhere? Like, did you have,

Speaker 2 is that when Harry met Sally? Did you just memorize that shit?

Speaker 3 I was like, I don't know.

Speaker 2 I just feel like this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Like, I'm supposed to be making these noises.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God. It's just so beautiful the way you talk about it.

Speaker 2 If everybody could approach it that way with their partners, the way you talk about it, it's how every single one of us could have true sexual experiences.

Speaker 3 And that's why I say. abled people could could have so much better sex if they just like adopt this idea.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 But they have to drop some things, right? You have to drop like the, like the, uh, the role, right?

Speaker 3 That might be comfortable for you because sex can be vulnerable when you're like, this feels good and this doesn't. So it requires a whole new level.

Speaker 3 So you don't get to like hide behind your like dom top mask, you know? You've got to like

Speaker 3 actually show up and be like, so this is actually what I want.

Speaker 3 And then it's like whole new levels of connection, pleasure, and all of it's there.

Speaker 2 Carson, it's so freaking beautiful.

Speaker 1 I don't know about you, but mornings in our house can feel like a marathon before 9 a.m.

Speaker 1 And I am just used to powering right on through, which always left me dragging by mid-morning. Cachava has completely changed that for me.

Speaker 1 It's a plant-based superfood meal shake that actually feels like real nourishment, not some chalky health drink.

Speaker 1 With over 85 superfoods, nutrients, and plant-based ingredients, cachava is a whole-body meal that supports your strength, energy, digestion, metabolism, cognition, and immunity.

Speaker 1 And best of all, it's the taste. They really understand that we need to be motivated by actual flavor here.

Speaker 1 I have more steady energy, fewer crashes, and I am not rummaging through the pantry at 10 a.m. for snacks.

Speaker 1 It's become this little anchor in my day, something easy and good I can do for myself, even on the most chaotic mornings.

Speaker 1 If you've seen me recently, I'm probably sipping on their new strawberry flavor. They use real freeze-dried strawberries, and you can really actually taste the difference.

Speaker 1 You've never tasted strawberry like this. Go to cachava.com and use code we can do hard things for 15% off your next order.
That's cachava, k-a-c-h-a-v-a.com, code We Can Do Hard Things for 15% Off.

Speaker 2 We Can Do Hard Things is brought to you by Bumble, the app committed to bring people closer to love. I went through it in my first marriage.

Speaker 2 I was desperately in love, and then in a whiplash of a moment, it was gone. I felt abandoned, betrayed, crushed.

Speaker 2 A while out from the divorce, when a friend asked me whether I was ready to date again, I said, Listen, I love men, but I also love hamburgers.

Speaker 2 And I just had the juiciest burger, and it gave me food poisoning. And I don't even want to look at another burger for a very long time.
When I was ready to look, I was terrified.

Speaker 2 How in the world do you put yourself out there after that?

Speaker 2 I don't think there are a lot of people more courageous and cool than those folks who have been through the depths of heartbreak and are brave enough to reveal their heart again.

Speaker 2 It starts with that first step, a shaky voice inside of you that says, I want this even more than I don't want that.

Speaker 2 I want to share life and this beautiful banged up heart with another beautiful banged up heart. These days, that first shaky step often happens online on a dating app.

Speaker 2 In celebration of you brave ones, we want to tell you about Bumble. What I love about what Bumble is doing is they are making that first step feel a tiny bit less scary, more possible, more human.

Speaker 2 They make you feel more safe.

Speaker 2 New Bumble users have to add multiple layers of verification like mandatory photo, phone number, and ID verification so you can feel more confident that the people you're seeing are who they say they are.

Speaker 2 Plus, profiles aren't just about photos. They highlight personality, interests, and passions so you can get a sense of whether you will actually connect with someone.

Speaker 2 You can be shaky and scared and show up anyway. You can start again.
Bumble helps people do exactly that. Start your love story today on Bumble.

Speaker 1 You know what we don't talk enough about? Sleep. I mean, we spend a third of our lives doing it, and it literally impacts everything.

Speaker 1 Your mood, focus, workouts, even how you show up for the people you love. But here's the thing.
Not all sleep is good sleep.

Speaker 1 That's why I'm obsessed with my Coupe Sleep Goods and my Coupe Adjustable Pillow. It is revolutionary because it's an adjustable pillow where you can remove or add fill to fit your sleep needs.

Speaker 1 Back sleeper, side sleeper, stomach sleeper, this pillow actually adapts to you, not the other way around.

Speaker 1 I got two of these king-size original adjustable pillows after I completed the short sleep quiz, which I highly recommend everyone do. You can ensure you're buying the exact right pillow for you.

Speaker 3 I love it.

Speaker 1 I love being able to take out the fill until it was perfectly adjusted to my neck and spine. You can feel the difference, and I want all of our listeners to try this pillow.

Speaker 1 Upgrade your sleep, visit coopsleepgoods.com/slash slash hard things to get 20% off your first order. That's COOP sleepgoods.com slash hard things.

Speaker 2 All right, I want to read part of the DM that you sent me.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 2 You said, I became paralyzed at 23, and I found that most of my suffering and sense of unworthiness was a product of ableism, not paralysis.

Speaker 2 I have become deeply committed to spreading the good anti-ableist word since it's so rarely discussed, even in the most progressive spaces.

Speaker 2 I believe that it is the link to freeing human beings in their bodies, whether it's liberating people from the stigma of depression and anxiety or from the narrow definition we have of, quote, the good body.

Speaker 2 Carson, talk to us about what ableism is and how it causes suffering for all of us.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I am just so

Speaker 3 grateful to be with you too. I'm just going to say that one more time.
Same.

Speaker 3 There's a point where I was starting to get better at living in a wheelchair and was still dealing with like

Speaker 3 really intense brokenness.

Speaker 3 And I told my mom, I said, I can survive being paralyzed. I can't survive feeling unlovable.

Speaker 3 And I think that captures

Speaker 3 my experience, which is like

Speaker 3 being paralyzed, I'll speak for myself. And by the way, it's so important for everyone to know, people listening everywhere, that

Speaker 3 disability is a huge range of experiences. There are a lot of disabled people who don't experience grief in their bodies, who

Speaker 3 don't experience pain as a part of disability, who really feel totally at home and in love with their bodies as they are.

Speaker 3 And then some people experience a great amount of pain. Some people who acquire disability experience a lot of loss and grief.

Speaker 3 And so this is only my experience.

Speaker 3 And the experience is that

Speaker 3 I was dealing with the grief and the loss.

Speaker 3 But that started to kind of wane over time as grief and loss do.

Speaker 3 You miss something, you long for something, but then, you know, two years later, it doesn't have the same frequency or the same intensity.

Speaker 3 And so I could deal with that pain. And slowly it became more natural for me to use my wheelchair and to push and do that first transfer in the morning.

Speaker 3 And I realized that all like the majority of my suffering, especially once I had kind of recovered after those two years, was all socially constructed.

Speaker 3 It was all about feeling like something was wrong with me. It didn't have to do with the fact that it was hard to transfer or that I have constant burning nerve pain.

Speaker 3 Like that kind of just became part of life.

Speaker 3 But the brokenness piece, the ableism piece is what caused this unnecessary suffering because I just had the experience of not belonging, not being worthy of sex or intimacy or romance.

Speaker 3 So while I still experience pain that's specifically due to disability, and that is true,

Speaker 3 most of it still comes from some form of I'm not good enough,

Speaker 3 something's wrong with me,

Speaker 3 I don't belong in this world, and additionally,

Speaker 3 the world has not created space for me.

Speaker 3 I lived in New York for two years and I literally left because

Speaker 3 actually

Speaker 3 because I was reading Untamed.

Speaker 3 And I realized that everything inside of me was like, New York has not earned disabled people.

Speaker 3 And I have to acknowledge the privilege that I have of being able to leave and having a family who could take me in for a short period of time and all of that.

Speaker 3 But New York is under like so many lawsuits about discrimination against disabled people because the subway system is only 20% accessible. It's the only way to get around.

Speaker 3 At the time, my boyfriend, Ryan, we would just go to restaurant to restaurant and bounce around and go in and they'd be like, sorry, we don't have room for you. And I just go to another one.
Sorry.

Speaker 3 And we would sometimes just be there like at midnight, sitting there feeling so rejected and out of place, right? All of that is ableism. That's right.
Yes.

Speaker 3 Because we could have chosen to create a world that had space for all bodies on the spectrum, including the fact that even able-bodied people become old. If you have the privilege of aging,

Speaker 3 you will likely get a disability. And we could create a world that is prepared for that whole journey, but we've decided to create it around the peak of ability.

Speaker 3 But it's arbitrary.

Speaker 2 It's arbitrary.

Speaker 3 It's arbitrary and it's all ableism.

Speaker 2 It's not the disability that causes the suffering. It's the ableism.

Speaker 2 It's not the queerness. that causes the suffering.
It's the homophobia. It's not the blackness, the brownness, it's the racism.
I love what you said that New York hasn't earned.

Speaker 2 That's how we felt about Florida.

Speaker 2 Florida has not earned our queerness.

Speaker 2 We're lucky enough to get the hell out of here. So we're getting.

Speaker 3 It's like a boundary. Yes.

Speaker 2 Yes. It's like a boundary.
That was so profound to me when you said I was 10 times more paralyzed in New York City than in Utah.

Speaker 2 It just shows that it's the decisions that that place has made that tell you

Speaker 2 what you can do and can't do. It isn't your body that is

Speaker 2 setting up those parameters. It's the structural,

Speaker 2 systemic decisions that have been made and priorities and non-priorities that have been established that make you 10 times more disabled in New York City than in Utah.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 So perfectly said. What you just described is

Speaker 3 the difference between like the medical model of disability and the social model.

Speaker 3 The medical model says disability lives in your body and like lack of access lives in your body. And the social model says disability only exists

Speaker 3 in relationship to its environment. So if we have a fully accessible society, people are not functionally disabled.

Speaker 2 Well, because Carson, doesn't that, isn't that inherent in the world, in the word disabled?

Speaker 2 Like I am not able to do, I am only not able to do what the structure has set up for me to be able to do or not.

Speaker 3 Right.

Speaker 2 Right. Right.

Speaker 3 And again, there's this caveat here because, you know, chronically ill people or people with mental illness would probably also, and it's so important to acknowledge, there's some inherent suffering in certain pieces of disability that have nothing to do with the social model.

Speaker 3 They're just painful.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 I think there's the majority, even of like the stigma around mental health and the stigma around, it just compounds it all.

Speaker 3 And I just believe if we didn't stigmatize it and people could just exist as they are in their minds and their bodies, that they could flow in and out of that space with so much more ease. Yes.

Speaker 3 Yes. Because you can talk about it.

Speaker 2 Carson, do you just love it when people call you an inspiration? Do you just love being, do you just love being a target of inspiration porn? Let's talk it through.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's an important PSA for the world.

Speaker 3 It is. It's so important.
Yes.

Speaker 3 I have such strong feelings about inspiration porn, mostly because because it's so insidious and it presents itself in such a feel-good way that it like constantly slides under the radar.

Speaker 3 But it carries with it the most ableist messages. Stella Young coined the term.
She was an Australian disabled activist.

Speaker 3 And inspiration porn is when disabled people's stories or bodies or activities are used by abled people to create a sense of inspiration or

Speaker 3 sometimes pity or the sense of,

Speaker 3 wow, that is so hard. If they can do it, I can do it, right? If their life sucks so bad, then like I can deal with my moderately sucky life.

Speaker 2 It's so cringy.

Speaker 3 It's so cringy.

Speaker 3 Sometimes people literally come up to me and say that in the flesh. They'll be like, I can't imagine.

Speaker 3 if i were you i'd never get off the couch my problems are half as bad i can do anything if you can get out of the house right

Speaker 3 and i'm like thank you so much

Speaker 3 thank you and you

Speaker 3 and

Speaker 3 but also sometimes i want to be like my life is better than yours of course you do i have a beautiful life this is sometimes what i have called the miscategorization of disabled suffering because people want to kind of categorize what they see as difficult or hard always to my body instead of categorizing it as ableism or an ableist structure.

Speaker 3 So if I'm struggling at the gym, it's probably not because like my body is because like the piece of equipment that I have, there's like nothing at the gym that's made for me.

Speaker 3 But then people look at me and they go, his life is so hard and he's such an inspiration. So it's just, it's always diminishing and it paints disabled lives as, as tragedies.

Speaker 3 You'll see this just everywhere. You'll see, again, in really progressive spaces, sometimes someone will post a meme and it's like a person in a wheelchair doing pull-ups.

Speaker 3 And like, it says, what's your excuse, right?

Speaker 3 Or that kind of vibe, that's all inspiration porn.

Speaker 3 And the reason it's so insidious, again, is because it makes people feel like they're complementing the strength of disabled people.

Speaker 3 But the truth is that in order to actually know what a disabled person is dealing with, you have to know that disabled person.

Speaker 3 You can't come up and assume that this is what's hard for me or this is what's painful for me.

Speaker 3 And I think abled people, because I did it too, when I was able, I would look at someone and think, like, oh, if I were in that situation, this is how I would feel.

Speaker 3 But that's just not accurate. You'd have to ask to really know.

Speaker 3 And it most likely wouldn't be appropriate to ask in this. Right, exactly.

Speaker 2 So don't do that again.

Speaker 3 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 What do well-meaning people

Speaker 2 get

Speaker 3 wrong?

Speaker 2 I heard you say that you do not appreciate when people first meet you the first thing, dude, what happened to you? Where is the line?

Speaker 2 Because I think there's probably also the reverse where people are like, I'm not going to acknowledge this part of your personhood because I don't see any of that. I don't see color.
I don't see.

Speaker 2 I am wheelblind. I don't

Speaker 2 see any of it.

Speaker 3 Wheelblind. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 What do people do well-meaning that you're just like, please, y'all, stop, stop doing it? Or start doing this?

Speaker 3 I think people want to connect over. They see the disability as a like a little bridge sometimes for connection or to be like, oh, I've also been through something very hard.

Speaker 3 Again, not knowing if like. this is actually hard for me.
Tell me yesterday in the gym, a young guy is like, hey, I see you have like a scar, like a spinal fusion. What happened? Were you born?

Speaker 3 Just asked all the questions. And then later he disclosed that he has dropped foot from an accident.

Speaker 3 And so sometimes people want to connect over that. And disabled people, I'll be honest, have different responses to this.
Some people actually don't mind it.

Speaker 3 And some people do.

Speaker 3 But anytime you are treating a disability as like a hard thing or a tragedy, it's a moment to stop and just say,

Speaker 3 what is this person presenting to me i would just defer to the disabled person like if this person wants to talk about their injury then let's talk about it or their disability um

Speaker 3 but if it's not a relevant part of the conversation i wouldn't ask either of you like hey so like tell me the the most intense piece of your medical history like out of the blue at the gym

Speaker 3 at the gym At the gym. It's just not relevant.
You're like,

Speaker 3 so I'm here to work out and my name's X. Yeah.
Right. And that's usually what I do.
I just go, I'm here to work out. I'm Carson.
How's your workout going?

Speaker 2 Interesting.

Speaker 3 It's well-intentioned,

Speaker 3 but it still treats me like I am a story. I am a thing that happened.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 All of this work you're doing to free so many people.

Speaker 2 How does, if it does, internalized homophobia and ableism still live in you

Speaker 3 in lots of ways that I am currently really working on.

Speaker 3 I'm just going to say this feels vulnerable to talk about.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 one of the things that I deal with, and when I was preparing for our conversation, one of the things I was thinking about a lot was

Speaker 3 my struggle with masculinity as a disabled man.

Speaker 3 and feeling just all sorts of things about it because I still have this pull to want to fit the role of a man.

Speaker 3 I think because I've just assimilated those values, because sometimes I do stop and I'm like, wait, what is a man anyway? You know, and I pause and kind of go there.

Speaker 3 But the first experience, like the first wave is like,

Speaker 3 I'm not a real man.

Speaker 3 I remember very clearly within the first year of my injury, I was sitting in the passenger seat of my mom's van. She was going into Walmart to pick up something.

Speaker 3 And I said, I didn't want to come, just didn't want to, at this point, I didn't have an accessible vehicle. So she would have to bring out the wheelchair.
And I was just like, just go.

Speaker 3 And as she walked across the parking lot, I had an image, like, you know, those thoughts and fears of like, what if something happened to my loved one?

Speaker 3 Like, I was like, what if my mom, I was like, I hope she's safe. It was dark.
She's walking across the parking lot.

Speaker 3 And that is when I realized, like, if something happened to my mom right now, I would have to sit and watch.

Speaker 3 I could do nothing.

Speaker 3 And this is right on the heels of having,

Speaker 3 this is, I mean, and this isn't just like a man thing, right? Because like all of us have this impulse, I'm sure, to like go and rescue someone or intervene or something.

Speaker 3 I could like yell or call someone and watch. And that was the moment where I was like, what does it mean for me to to be a man?

Speaker 3 If I can't help the ones that I love who are closest to me, or like, you can't see, but there's not a cover on this light bulb here because I can't reach it.

Speaker 3 Just taking care of things, being strong, being capable. So much of masculinity is about what your body can do.

Speaker 3 And I can't do a whole lot.

Speaker 3 And so I struggle with that. I struggle with that.
And I struggle with that in the context of dating queer men also. There's such a,

Speaker 3 and I don't want to speak in too broad terms, but my experience is that sexual prowess is important, like what we were talking about earlier. Like, can you play the role?

Speaker 3 And we have names for the roles.

Speaker 2 Yes, we do.

Speaker 3 And we ask each other what those roles are. It depends on what spaces you're in, but it happens pretty quickly.
And if you asked any like gay man, most of them will be able to tell you those roles.

Speaker 3 So that's also a place where I've got this like internalized ableism and homophobia where like I want to be man enough. And I, and I feel shame for even wanting that.

Speaker 3 And I just have to pause and be like, Carson, you picked this up.

Speaker 2 That's right.

Speaker 3 From someone else. And then this is where I get to choose who to be, how to describe manhood or masculinity, or, or also not, because I'm also really being like, what does that even mean?

Speaker 3 And so often I don't want to experience that. Or like, I'll use he, him pronouns.
And I'm like, is that right?

Speaker 3 Like, is that, am I, am I

Speaker 3 a he, him?

Speaker 3 Same.

Speaker 2 Same.

Speaker 3 What is that?

Speaker 3 What is it? Yeah, I don't know. I don't either.
I'm not, I'm just watching it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 3 Same.

Speaker 2 That was so beautiful. Thank you for sharing that.
Felt every word. Can you, Carson, give us a next right thing for our pod squad

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 is something that they could do to free themselves in the way that you have?

Speaker 2 And we're not saying you live in the castle because you're an honest human being, but you are freaking

Speaker 2 pretty castly.

Speaker 2 What do we do to get a little freer from our body shit, Carson?

Speaker 3 I would start by saying, consider

Speaker 3 that

Speaker 3 you, your capital S self,

Speaker 3 will never tell you that you're broken.

Speaker 3 It will never tell you something is wrong with your body,

Speaker 3 whether that's its shape or size or color or anything about it, function. That is never coming from the self.

Speaker 3 so the next right thing

Speaker 3 that i could offer would be to

Speaker 3 listen for

Speaker 3 that voice that is the self and i think that there are a lot of ways to do that i think therapy can be really helpful i think coaching can be really helpful i think journaling writing

Speaker 3 But I want to convince everybody listening that there is a you that is present and and

Speaker 3 always speaking

Speaker 3 and

Speaker 3 there's like no greater task or more important task in this life than to know how to find that and hear it and then live consistently with it

Speaker 3 um

Speaker 3 and like i said i think there are lots of ways to do that but that has proven to be the most absolutely the most important thing i've ever done with my life

Speaker 2 I mean, I love you, Carson.

Speaker 2 I

Speaker 2 am going to put my phone number right here in the chat. And the next time you're in the haunted house,

Speaker 2 would you please just text me and tell me you're there? And I'll remind you

Speaker 2 of the outside and then vice versa.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Oh, my gosh.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 For all of you listening, I just hope that this conversation was as freeing for you as it was for me and comforting and all the things. Just feel like, what a guide, what a teacher.

Speaker 2 Thank you for being you, Carson.

Speaker 3 Thank you so much for being you, both of you.

Speaker 3 And also for trusting me

Speaker 3 with your people, your loved ones, means more to me than I can say.

Speaker 3 I'm just so grateful. I'm just so grateful.

Speaker 2 We are grateful to the rest of you.

Speaker 2 So, Sissy, did you want to say something? I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 I just wanted to say that I'm still

Speaker 2 back

Speaker 2 in the sex part of the conversation.

Speaker 2 I mean, I've been listening to everything. All right.
It's all been really good since then.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 your capital S self

Speaker 3 is

Speaker 2 just very,

Speaker 2 very

Speaker 2 strong and courageous. Yes.

Speaker 2 Because when you talk about just saying, like, this is what I want, and this is what feels good, and more of that, and less of that, with no expectations, like you're just in there saying the stuff.

Speaker 2 I mean, I'm going to be thinking about that for a while. I mean, honestly, that's a little bit of inspiration porn.
Come on, Carson.

Speaker 2 I didn't know how to respond in a way that wasn't like, put that on an upworthy meme. All right.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Yeah.
Upworthy.

Speaker 3 Upworthy meme.

Speaker 3 Because

Speaker 2 my brain can't even understand

Speaker 2 how to operationalize that. And I think it's so amazing.
And you're absolutely right. Like, if every,

Speaker 2 any kind of body that is listening could

Speaker 2 even do that one thing. This is what I have the courage to identify and say.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 like, my God, how much life would change.

Speaker 2 It's amazing.

Speaker 2 We will meet you back here next week or tomorrow or whenever the next We Can Do Hard Things is. Okay.
We love you so much. Thank you, Pod Squad.

Speaker 2 Talk soon. Bye.

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 Lograsso, Allison Schott, Dina Kleiner, and Bill Schultz.