FUN: What the hell is it and why do we need it? (Best Of)

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hello everybody thank you for coming back to we can do hard things i am really thrilled about this episode because it's about fun.

Okay, so last night I sat down in preparation for this introduction here and I wrote down every single thing I know about fun.

And in front of me, I now have a blank sheet of paper.

I know nothing about fun.

I am unfun.

And so for today's episode, we have brought in our resident fun expert.

She is my wife.

Her name is Abby Wombach.

She has found a way to make a living

playing games.

One in particular is called soccer.

And so she is here today to talk to us all about fun and challenge us to have some of it in our lives.

Let's get started.

All right.

So this is already my favorite episode of We Can Do Hard Things because My two favorite people are here.

Not just my one favorite sister, but my other favorite person who is my wife, Abby Wombach,

is joining us today.

Hi, babe.

How are you?

Hi, love.

How are you?

Hi, I'm so good.

How's it going?

It's good.

I'm just really excited you're here.

And actually,

I feel a little bit nervous right now, just like seeing you and hearing your voice right there.

That's weird.

Why?

I don't know.

I don't know.

Okay.

Anyway, you're so cute.

Oh, just gosh.

Well, the people can't see the cuteness.

I know.

I feel sad for them.

I'll describe her.

She's just so,

she's just got a sporty spice tank top on,

and she's got her little headphones on, and she's just a beautiful human being.

So before we get to the- I would like the record to show that I, sister, also look very cute today.

You do, you do.

You're wearing royal blue today, which is so strange because you and I always only ever wear black.

So it feels very special today.

Yeah, well, laundry, yeah, you did some laundry.

Okay, so before we get into our hard thing, she just loves me more than you, babe.

She loves me more than you.

Well, that's a good, that's a good transition into what we're about to talk about right now.

Thank you for that segue because before we get into our hard thing, I think we need to just talk to you

about the relationship between the three of us because I think it's unique, maybe.

And so, um,

how would you describe the little triangle that we have here, this

relationship between the three of us where all we do all day ever is just talk to each other?

Okay.

So here's the thing.

When I stepped into your family, and

I do feel like it was a stepping into,

the very first correspondence I had with sister.

was this.

Don't ever lie to Glennon.

Now that taught me a lot about you Glennon also taught me a lot about sister because she inadvertently I think was telling me also don't lie to me right because this family revolves around integrity like that's like the core value but I don't think that I've met

people who are more integrated with what's going on in their insides and what goes on in their outsides.

Now,

I've also never met more hardworking people.

In fact, it's one of our five fights that sometimes I like to lay down in the middle of the day.

And Glennon, that's not something that you understand.

I also probably would think that Amanda doesn't understand this either.

Amanda doesn't lay down.

She's like one of those people who just goes to sleep and hangs herself on the wall with a computer attached to her face so she can go through some emails in the middle of the night.

Right?

Right.

Yes.

But here's the thing.

I'm fascinated by the two of you because, first of all, I love you so much and I have never felt so trusted and taken care of in the same breath.

It's like

because you guys operate with this integrity so intact, it is at the core of everything that we participate ourselves in, whether it's a card game.

Although, Glennon, you do cheat sometimes.

I do cheat in card game.

I just want it to be over.

I i hate games of all kinds i don't care about them

um tell

babe tell sister what you told me on a walk yesterday about the one thing that you feel jealous about with sister because it was an interesting

yeah it was a fascinating thing coming together the three of us because when i married a man It's not like it was a threat to our sisterhood.

We were just, it was like, so what?

But like, when I brought another girl to us,

woman.

We got to stop saying that.

Okay, whatever.

Sorry.

Sorry.

When I brought a woman to our sisterhood sister, it was like, wait, what?

Like, did you feel

any threat to our sisterhood when Abby arrived on the scene?

Shockingly, I didn't.

I really didn't.

And in, and I,

understanding myself, I would think that I would have.

But I didn't.

I feel like it very quickly became, and I think that's a testament to Abby, actually, completely, the way that she showed up

in our world with

this

appreciation for what we had and wanting to be there for you and wanting to respect our relationship.

And so that was completely her.

But very quickly,

very quickly, we three became one of those, you know, those examples in nature of the, of symbiosis, like the hippo and the oxpecker, or like the shrimp and the boyfish, where it's like these odd pairings of species, but they go through their whole lives together because like the shrimp can't see and the fish needs someone to build it a shelter.

And then, and that's what they do.

It's just like we're three totally different species, but each of us has something that the other two can't offer.

And now we're just like in this state of mutual reliance for life.

That's how it is.

So,

what are our gifts and challenges?

Like, if one of us is the shrimp, like, what we have talked about, what if we had a

home flipping

show?

Remember, we talked about that last year.

Oh, yeah.

Yes.

Okay, here's the home flipping show.

The home flipping show is like Abby's like, I will, we will source the like,

the, the Gucci countertop from granite from Sardonia or something.

She's such a, she's so fancy.

I would be like, I'm going to get us some cabinets from Goodwill because we can really,

we can repaint those in a jiffy.

And Glendon would be like, I just need all of it to be outsourced and I need soft, just soft things.

Yeah, and good energy.

And good energy.

The light needs to be,

I need to know that the neighbors are like really kind to their children.

Yeah.

It's about how it feels.

Sister.

Tell sister what you are jealous of.

Well, I just have to give her credit for nailing that description of us.

Three different species that when you combine us all together, it's like we make, we make the perfect pairs or triple.

I wouldn't know how to say that.

Well, what I was telling you on the walk, because

you like to talk about everything that you're gonna do, right?

And you were about to do an episode on something or other.

So, we were having this conversation about jealousy, and

it came up.

You said, you know, you're not really jealous, you don't really have jealousy in you.

And I was like, Well, I do, I just like deal with it differently.

And I was talking about how I feel sometimes jealous of sister

because she can't

not be your sister.

Like she's tied to you by blood forever.

And

you have to choose to be with me forever.

It's like a choice, you know?

And I know that we're tied

energetically and legally, but you can always break that.

Like you can't break up with your sister.

And that gives me so much jealousy for Sissy.

That's amazing.

Well, I will have you know that I do know people who have broken up with their sisters.

You can.

You can break up with your sister.

Some people have to break up with their sisters.

Yeah.

That's a real thing.

It's true.

However, you're not the kind of sister that people break up with, sissy.

Nope, she's not.

She's the luckiest in the entire world.

And for the people out there listening, Amanda Doyle, Glennon's sister,

is the taker carer of our family and not just Glennon and I, but like of our children.

She's always holding everybody in place somehow.

Like she is the strength.

She is the

person who

makes everything less confusing because she's smarter than all of us.

No offense, Glennon.

But she legally takes care of us because she's smart with the law organizationally and then contractually and

then emotionally.

She's always there.

Like the other day I said, you know, I want to get sister, a sister somehow.

Literally, like

Abby says to me, this is what she says to me, sister.

You were going through something and Abby goes, do you know what sister needs?

She needs a sister.

And she's looking at me saying these words.

I'm like, what the hell do you think I am?

You need Amanda kind of sister.

Exactly.

She meant she needs like a bulldog, like someone who shows up no matter what, who always knows what to do.

Right.

I mean, I don't always know what to do.

I just,

it's a beautiful thing, the symbiosis between the three of us.

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Babe,

now we need to bring your hard thing.

What is your hard thing that you're bringing to us today?

Okay, I'm going to throw a little curveball and my apologies.

What we in the sports world say curveball or audible.

Okay.

You know what those mean?

You do.

Your dad was a football guy.

It's when you change plans at the last minute, which by the way, I'm really, really open to and easy breezy about.

So I'm not freaking out at all right now.

But it's like we talked for six hours about what we're supposed to.

Abby told me what Abby already told me what we're talking about, sister.

So there you go.

Yeah.

So here is the deal.

I'm having an intervention with you two because I'm not bringing my hard thing.

I'm bringing something that I notice is both y'all's hard thing.

And we talk about it.

We have talked about it.

We have different opinions about the subject.

And what I'm here to intervene with you two about

is fun.

Oh, God.

Having fun, defining fun,

deciding what you each individually feel like is fun.

I mean, this is an intervention, and I'm not standing up from this seat until we figure it out for both of you.

Is this because of the freaking garage this weekend?

Yes.

Yes, because tell the story, honey.

Well, on Sunday morning, we had some time, which is weird, right?

We just had some free time.

And Abby was about to go do something, play golf or something.

And she said,

okay, I want you to tell me what do you want to do for fun today?

And I thought about it for a while.

And then what did I suggest?

She said, well, let's go clean out the garage.

Do you want to do that with me?

That sounds like fun.

And I said,

that is not fun.

That's just.

You got really upset, actually.

I was like, what are you talking about?

Like, no, that's a chore with like an outcome that'll make you feel good, but surely it's not fun.

What is fun?

So, babe, what is your this is what I really don't understand.

Like, I truly have not,

I don't understand what fun is.

I understand what rest is, I understand what work is,

um, I kind of understand what self-care is, but this idea of fun of which you speak

is not something I've grasped.

So can you define for me what fun is to you?

Okay, so

I know that

everybody's going to have their own opinions and definitions in this, but for me personally, fun is the experience of joy.

And sometimes that means

you don't know what the outcome is.

For me, I grew up competitive, a competitor by nature.

And so anytime I can weave in some sort of competition, which is why I like walking with you into the grocery store and beating you by one step.

Okay, that's pause.

Fun.

Y'all, I will be getting out of my car to go into the grocery store.

And the next thing I know, Abby's gone.

Why is she gone?

Because she's running ahead of me so she can beat me into the grocery store as if I give a crap.

That's the thing.

I don't understand caring who wins things.

But nobody really don't understand caring.

Would you agree, though, that nobody really wants to go to the grocery store?

Yeah.

Okay.

So sometimes when I have to do a chore of some sort, I weave in some semblance of fun, some sort of competition so that I can talk myself

or fool myself into believing that, oh, this could be fun on some level.

Okay, sister, do you understand what fun is?

What's your, what's a different thing?

She doesn't either.

She doesn't either.

Well, I like to put the fun in function.

So

I am I find a lot of fun in things that are connected to some utility, some

productivity, some something that has some

outcome from which I will derive joy.

But so, and actually the process, the process of some, you know, like I like to go treasure hunting and find things.

That is fun for me, but I

like it.

Like at thrift stop shops, you're talking about.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, yes.

That's

right.

So, but unfortunately, Abby told me last night we were going to be talking about this today.

And apparently, that those things don't count because

play and fun by nature has to be like purposeless.

It has to be, yes, it has to be done for its own sake, not connected

to an outcome that you already know.

So, like, find, yeah, finding a $10 mid-century dresser at Goodwill is not the definition of fun, which is highly unfortunate.

So I don't know, actually, but I

do derive joy from things.

Like I'm not a joyless person.

Right.

Exactly.

The idea of doing something

that is by definition purposeless is to me like

hilarious.

Although I did think,

I'm just like, why would one?

One can't know why one would do that.

But I did think about it for a very long time.

I tried to identify any single thing that I could connect with there.

And I know what it is.

Riding roller coasters.

Oh.

Like being in an amusement park for any reason, like that, it's an actual,

I

find it delightful.

I love to be on it.

Yeah, that is, I mean, I've done it once in the past 20 years, but when I think of like that, I get that.

That, that is a fun thing.

Huh.

But what about the rest of the amusement park experience?

Like, no, no, no.

People, the lives.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Can we just get deep for a second?

Because I was, I actually was talking about this with a few friends recently.

And it made me feel better because none of, babe, you were there.

We were talking to Karen and Jessica and none of them also understood what fun was.

And so I thought, wait, why do women not

understand fun, right?

So we started talking about, is it because we're mothers?

Is it because we're caretakers?

Is it because we have so much to do that we always feel like something has to be productive?

And then we decided, no, that it's earlier than that.

It's part of it.

I'm not saying all of it.

But part of it is being raised as girls in this culture where, first of all, a lot of people find sport.

You're talking about competitiveness and sports, people find fun in that, but girls are kind of teased early out of

losing themselves in sport, right?

We're kind of, you run like a girl, you're, you know, we're, we're, you're, you're teased and you start to feel self-conscious, right?

That girls are trained to care about how we appear to other people.

or whether we're looking desirable or looking attractive or are we fitting in and i think does fun require some kind of being unself-conscious?

Does fun require losing yourself and like not worrying about how you appear?

And that is what is trained out of girls so early.

And babe, I feel like you,

for some reason, that conditioning did not sink in for you, which makes me feel like this is a difference

between the two of us.

So can you talk about that?

Like, do you feel that you just didn't get, you're not a person who worries a lot about how you look?

You're not self-conscious.

I don't care.

Like

my

thought process of what the out world, the world out there thinks of me is so little.

Like I don't think about what other people, I mean, I care about what you think of me, honey, but and what sister thinks of me on some level.

But

the reality is growing up the way that I did, I was challenging from the very beginning the way that I was feeling on the inside.

I didn't know that it was about my gayness.

I didn't know that it was about being an inherent and born feminist.

Like I didn't know any of those things when I was young.

All I knew is just that when I went out into the recess and got on the playground, that I wanted to play as rough and hard and have as much fun as I saw the boys having, right?

And it's like.

Even though you may not have participated in the monkey bars or whatever it was on the playground, I wanted to have the ability to do that.

And I knew that I could do it at the same level that they could.

And so I think because I was also naturally gifted as an athlete, that gave me some leveling of social dynamics as a really young kid, which probably affected the way that I view the world.

You know, it's like,

I mean, right now, the thing that I have the most fun doing is play golf.

And like, I think both of you would want to like stab your eyes with forks out having to go play a round of golf.

We did it once.

We did it once together.

Golf, the game that is

so incredibly boring, but don't worry because it's also really stressful at the same time.

And only like six hours long and six freaking hours long.

Not the way I play it, but thank you for bashing so much of my fun, honey.

Okay, I'm so sorry.

I'm sorry, but yeah.

But it's fun for you.

Can you describe what's happening in your body?

Cause I'm really trying to, like, I understand that for me, like getting a massage is fun.

Does that count?

It does because if something sparks joy, it's like the Marie Kondo thing, right?

Like if you hold something, if you're experiencing something, the thing is, I don't know if you and sister really truly have experienced pure joy without like some sort of conclusion or a required outcome.

You know, it's like.

going on the boat.

And for you, Glennon, I know it's like being with the kids and having like a day that is full of complete life.

Like I know that that fills you up.

So and everybody's different.

Like you're not going to have the same kind of fun as I am.

But at the end of the day, you have to figure out what fun is to you so that when you do walk away from work life, you don't have to totally reform and transition into a complete unknown.

You have set up some foundational building blocks that will give you a little bit of confidence heading into that next part of your life.

I feel like that's, I feel like there's two kind of tracks of what we're talking about and both are so important.

Like that, what you're talking about, Abby, is play.

Like play, when you were growing up and the need to be

un

to be connected inside your body, but unselfconscious of how other people are viewing your body is all about play.

It's physical.

You're getting lost in it.

And I feel like for many, many girls, we've become so aware that our value is connected to how our bodies are perceived that

we very early lose the ability to become unselfconscious of our bodies.

So that's like play.

So there's a whole gendered space there.

But then there's this whole idea of fun too, which I think also

we

at least

I feel, Glenn, I'm interested to hear from you.

I don't feel like we have great models for that either.

Like the, even the idea of fun as separate from play.

So maybe it's not physical, maybe you're not totally losing yourself in it, but just like your preference of what you desire to be doing with your time

is a whole nother thing.

Like I'm, so we grew up sailing on our little sailboat all the time.

And at my,

every weekend, all weekend,

like, did mom like sailing in the sailboat or did she ever consider whether it was relevant if she liked it?

Like, did she like our house being decorated with Civil War memorabilia and duck decoys and paintings of ships?

Or did she never think whether I prefer this is relevant to the conversation?

And I think that's how I, that's how I got to a place when I was, you know, 26 and divorced and trying to figure out what is fun to me that I literally had no idea.

That's so true.

All we do is decide whatever the person we're trying to have a relationship with thinks is fun.

And then we decide that that thing is fun.

I mean, I spent my honeymoon

on

a fishing charter.

Okay.

Oh, dear God.

It never occurred to me to be like, is this my preferred way of spending on

a tiny

sun burning boat for eight hours with a stranger for i mean it never occurred to me because but that's deeper than that.

It's like, it's the decision to try to acclimate to what is fun to your person because what you do, the outcome of that you like, you like this happy arrangement with this person where they're happy and that makes you happy, but it never

like that's acclimating to that set of fun is so much easier and more palatable than and natural to me, frankly, than determining what my fun would look like and then

asking for accommodation to what that looks like.

Well, exactly, because it's more acceptable culturally too.

I mean, I remember I'm having a flash right now of sitting on a couch in college.

I used to spend a good amount of time watching my boyfriend play video games.

Yep.

Okay.

Watching him.

That was what I would have told you I was having fun doing.

Like,

and it wasn't weird.

It wasn't weird for girls to sit and watch their boyfriends play video games.

Yes, it is.

It's so weird, but I'm just saying, like, it wasn't perceived as weird.

It wasn't uncommon.

Yeah.

Right.

But, but if that were flipped, right?

Like, would my boyfriend have like watched me do yoga?

Or like, like, none of that, that would have been less normal, right?

And, and also, we're always saying, like, what you just said, babe, you know, when we're together with the family,

I would probably tell you that what's fun for me is to do whatever my kids think is fun.

But that's also not fun.

That's right.

For me.

Yeah, it's because it's basing somebody else's opinion about what they want to be doing and taking it on as your own.

So I think that you guys have a fun, stunted growth because of the way that you were raised on a sailboat, truly.

And I think that because the way that maybe you've perceived the modeling of what being a good wife is, it's like you have to ask the people around you, like, what is fun?

I mean, honey, you actually ask me that all the time.

Like, what do I want to do today?

Like, what do I think is fun?

What do I want?

What do I like?

What is fun?

What I want to actually say is, have you ever thought about why watching our women's national soccer team is so interesting for women?

Oh, God.

It makes, you know,

you know how emotional it makes me.

It makes me so emotional.

Why?

I'm so glad you brought that up.

It's because watching women

use their bodies to compete instead of perform

to the way they just

try

so hard and don't give a shit what it looks like.

They're not trying to be pretty.

They're trying to be fierce.

They're sweating and it could, they're doing it for themselves and for each other.

And it could, they could give a shit what anybody else is seeing.

It's there's, they're completely lost.

They're using their bodies in a way that I have never seen modeled for me.

I mean, you're right.

That's a beautiful,

it affects me deeply.

It moves me deeply.

Even watching my girls watch, or my son watch

that moves me.

Both men and women, right?

A lot of times I've been told, you know, I just, I don't know why I love watching you so much.

And a lot of times it's covered up with this whole winning thing, which helps.

I do understand that.

But I think it's way deeper than that.

I think for women, it's like this,

this awareness, like this,

a great deep learning about what could be.

And then for men, too, because they also are conditioned to believe that like women don't know how to have fun because we never have been given the chance or taken the opportunity to have fun.

I think that that's why.

I confuse both of you so much is like all I'm looking for in life is to have fun.

It's, it's why, it's why I turned into an alcoholic.

It's the reason why it took me so long to get sober because I, quite frankly, I thought that all of my fun would be zapped, like just gone instantly as soon as I stopped drinking.

But the reality is, you have to create new ways of having fun without drinking, obviously.

But I don't know, I just feel

we all have to do a little bit of digging on you individually, on me individually.

What do I experience as joy?

And what I do now is different than 10 years ago, will be different what I do in 10 years.

But the experience of it, like I even enjoy doing something new for the first time, just to see if it's going to be fun.

I know.

It's so wild.

I think it's an interesting thought and challenge for us all to think about a little bit.

Because when you even look at what's modeled for women as fun in the world it's always like let's go get a manicure or like something that's based on what the way the world perceives us instead of the experience we're having right or the idea of let's just the wine culture right let's just all just get drunk which doesn't really teach us anything more about ourselves either right

So, all right, let's sign off here.

We're going to have to take a break and we'll get into some hard questions.

Can you think of anything fun that you want to try in the next month?

And I want to ask you a question, babe, is reading and thinking about the book, does that count as fun?

Because I feel like that's great fun to me.

That is one source of fun I've always had since I was little.

Does that count?

I think so.

I absolutely think so.

I think that seeing how you devour books, like you don't just sit, you're not just doing it to pass the time.

You're actually interested in what's happening.

Yes.

And you're listening what you're reading and and then when you go on your walks you're thinking about the thing that you just read like that to you i think is actual joy yes and also i thought of another one how about going to an art museum or a concert but not with a ton of people just like a few people at the concert and i thought of another one

what if in the future we have some kind of social situation because I'm always about to be social.

Like I'm about to figure the social thing out.

It's probably going to happen next year.

I'm about to have friends.

So I can picture a scenario that would be fun where we are in our living room and there's a few other people there.

And we know these people well.

Okay.

And they might be all women or there might be a couple of men, but the men that are there have no toxic energy.

Okay.

They're, they might be gay or they might just be these unicorn men that have no toxic men or energy and they're there and we are all talking about like funny but cool but serious things.

We're not just talking about bullshit.

And people who drink are drinking, and people who don't drink are not drinking, but the people who are drinking are not getting wasted and being annoying.

They're just drinking.

And then everyone leaves at 8:45.

Okay.

So, honey.

Can that happen?

Because that sounds fun.

I think it could happen.

But I don't want to worry that they're not going to leave.

I want it to be understood.

Stop, stop, stop.

What you need to understand is that this can't just be a thought.

The way that fun is had is, is you actually have to experience it, right?

So we are

going to spend the next six months talking about this futuristic social gathering

that we will then find any kind of possible problem,

which will lead us to never pick a specific person or couple.

Okay.

All right.

So, okay, so we'll try it.

Because here's the thing.

Like one of the most important elements of fun is that you don't know what the outcome is going to be.

So,

the act of life of like experience, you might have fun and you also might not, but that gives you some information of what you should do next time or what you shouldn't do next time.

All right.

That sounds like great fun.

I do think it's we need to address the fact, though, that there is some of this disparity has to do with

privilege and the ability to have time.

Yes.

And this disparity between like

levels of needs, right?

So a lot of women in their roles are the caretakers.

They are making sure that all the immediate needs get met.

And so if they have any amount of time left, that

they need to rest.

Yes.

Right.

And so rest is at a higher need level than the next level, which is this idea of play and fun.

And I actually always thought that if I read this thing recently from this doctor doctor and he said that the opposite of play isn't work,

it's depression.

Ooh,

which was so interesting to me because I always thought that like the absence of work, rest is enough.

Like as long as you get enough rest, then from your work, then you can avoid this kind of malaise that you get where you're just putting one foot in front of the other, but you're never like really driving joy out of your days.

That like that, my problem was a deficiency of rest.

But that isn't it, apparently.

Apparently, like, rest is to work,

what play is to gloom.

Wow.

So, you can't rise out of your melancholy just based on rest.

Like, you actually have to actively add in the antidote to that, which is fascinating to me.

So, I just think from a perspective of women who are kind of always

only getting to the urgent things

that

this sense of melancholy that I go through a lot, that I think a lot of us go through, that you're, you actually should be prescribing yourself

some of this fun

in whatever small doses you can get, because apparently, and this was news to me, that resting is not the same as that.

Yes.

Wow.

It's really good.

And I think that, you know, Glennon, there's times where I'm like, hey,

have you run out of Glennon today?

And you're like, yes.

And sometimes that happens earlier in days than normal.

Yeah.

And maybe this is it.

Maybe the antidote or the prescription is

that you need to have a little bit more play in your life so that you can stay having enough Glennon for the whole day.

All right.

Sounds like a challenge.

All right.

Thank you, babe.

It was really fun having you here.

I love you so much.

I love you, Sissy.

Love you.

And we'll get you on a roller coaster soon.

And we're going to take a break and we'll be back with some hard questions.

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Okay, sister, our first question

today is from Sarah.

Hi, Glennon.

My name is Sarah.

I'm a wife, sister, daughter, mother, and healthcare worker.

When I think about my life,

it strikes me that I've never known how to have fun.

When I think about my family, it strikes me that none of us, none of the women, my mother, my grandmother, cousins, sisters, aunts, have fun.

The closest we get to having fun is drinking wine together.

I keep asking myself, what do you want to do for fun?

But

I have no answer.

Just silence.

I'm worried that I was born without a fun self or that my fun self is dead.

What do you think?

Thanks for the show.

So the gendered thing is so interesting, right?

I was talking to a friend about this recently.

And at first, she was not buying the whole gendered idea on fun, right?

That women don't know how to have fun and men do,

which is, of course, a huge generalization.

And I'm just saying it because it's always true.

Okay.

So,

but then she started thinking back to her childhood, right?

She knows how to have fun, this friend.

So that's why she was pushing back on this idea because she is the opposite of me on the fun spectrum.

She has actual hobbies, things she likes.

I know.

I know.

Things she likes to do when she has free time.

She understands what to do with free time.

She has passions.

It's so interesting.

And

so that's why she was pushing back on this idea of it being gendered.

But then she started thinking back on her childhood.

Okay.

And like where it was that she developed these hobbies and fun things.

And she remembered that, well, her parents were divorced.

Okay.

So every week she would live during the week, she would live with her mom and her mom would do, you know, the wake up and the school and the homework and the dinner and the bedtime.

Repeat, repeat, repeat.

All the things.

And then on Friday afternoon, she would get dropped off at her dad's.

And then she would have fun for the weekend.

Okay.

So for 48 hours,

they'd have fun together.

Her dad was an awesome dad.

He would take her to do all of the things he loved to do, right?

They'd go to baseball games.

They'd go to the photography store and

then go take pictures.

They would go to movies.

They would listen to music together, buy records, go to the record store, right?

So as my friend grew, she learned to love what her dad loved.

Right.

And so as adults, they were super tight.

That's what they did together.

They still went to movies.

They still went to baseball games and on and on.

And so her point was

that she said, now that I think about it, I've never seen my mom.

have fun.

Like, I actually don't even know.

I know what my dad loves.

I don't know what my mom loves.

I don't know what my, my mom likes or dislikes.

I've actually never invited my mom to go to a movie.

Right.

And she said, the interesting thing is, whenever she and her mom do have some free time together, they don't know what to do.

Often her mom will just say, well, do you want to just like go grab a glass of wine?

Right.

So

it's just got me thinking.

I mean, is it possible that families have historically been and still often are structured in a way that means men often have more time and energy and space to find out what they like and dislike, right?

To find out what is fun to them and what brings them to life.

And women often have not had that time to discover their humanity, right?

So that often means that we know our fathers as human beings, as people, and we know our mothers as devoted, selfless caretakers and servants.

Okay, but anyway, she actually asked me a specific question, didn't she?

Juliet, or who, Sarah, Sarah?

Sarah is worried that she was born without a fun self.

Oh, right.

Okay.

I'm with you.

I'm with you, Sarah.

I also was worried about that.

Here's my theory.

Okay.

My theory is not that our fun self is completely dead.

Right.

That we do have a fun self.

It's just that she's hibernating.

Like she started, she gave up on us when we gave up on her.

Like she just decided to go dormant when we stopped feeding her or asking her opinion on anything.

And so what Sarah said, I understand.

Like when I sit there, it drives Abby crazy.

When I sit there and ask myself, what do you want to do, self?

What would be fun for you?

It's just radio silence.

Right.

But there is this magical thing that happens every once in a while that sister you and I have talked about.

Okay.

I'm going to set the scene for you.

I'm taking my kids to soccer.

That's all I do all day, every day until I die.

Okay.

And they're all in the car.

And usually they get to control the radio, but every once in a while,

like a few weeks ago,

White Snake came on.

Okay.

Here I go.

Go again.

Mama.

Boom.

Boom, boom.

Right.

And something

just, Amma went to change the station.

Oh, hell no.

No.

And I said, stop.

And I cranked up White Snake.

Just so you know, there's five kids in my car at that point.

I had other people's children in the car.

But for a moment,

I was freaking Tani Katain

in that convertible.

I, my fun self just blossomed up and was like, hell yes, here i go again

on my own okay

every once in a while music okay i'll be listening i'll be doing the dishes i'll be doing the dishes okay

and while i'm doing the dishes and it's quiet i am a boring

long-suffering bitter

bad woman

yes But then the right song will come on.

I don't know what it is.

It be, I don't know, it could be the Spice Girls.

Could be Beyonce.

It could be Bon Jovi.

It could be, and suddenly I am alive again.

I'm still doing the dishes.

Yeah.

But my fun self, it's like she smelled a delicious aroma and she has awakened.

It's, you got out of your head.

Like, that's what it is.

I mean, we live so much inside our heads.

We're living with like the

ticker that never stops in the head.

And there's something that, I mean, other people who have like hobbies and stuff, this is the way they get out of their head.

But like just the music, it, it takes us out of the interior and like enlivens some part of us.

And I think that it does, I get that completely.

In fact, I'm so glad you brought that up because

I

don't integrate music the way you do in your life, except that a couple weeks ago, you posted a set of like three videos where you were on your boat, you were driving your boat and you were singing and dancing to songs and you were just,

it, they were amazing.

I watched them like 1400 times because I felt something when I was watching them, when I was watching you sing and dance.

And I realized that I don't have that feeling in my life.

And so I, I swear to you, for the past couple of weeks that since I watched that, I've been like, I'm gonna

put music on.

I never put music on.

I'm in my car.

I'm like listening to NPR.

I'm doing whatever.

So I was like, I'm going to put music on.

And I swear to you that

it's doing something.

It's like, it's taking me out of the trap of my head.

It's, it's like, and it's not adding something to my plate.

It's just these regular moments, like you said, like the dishwasher or the driving.

It's just these interstitial like joy moments that otherwise would have not been the joy moments.

And I realize it's, it's a real thing.

Like I feel like in the story of my life, it becomes like the daily grind.

It's like my life story reads like endless pages of footnotes.

It's like, da, da, da, da, da, here's the thing we have to do.

Here's the thing I should be thinking about next.

And when I'm, when I have music on, when these like fun songs or that remind me of a memory or, or

it's just like, I swear to you that it, it, it allows me to see the poetry of my life.

Like allows me to see

things that take me out of the footnotes.

And it's like, oh my gosh,

listening to some cheesy country song.

I'm like, oh, I love my husband.

Yes.

Remember when I thought country songs was who I was?

So I moved to a town with one stoplight and then I realized I was just a person who liked country music and not actually a country person.

I do remember that.

I do remember that.

One of the turn moves.

It's because

it's this thing of you thinking in spreadsheets and me thinking in colors.

It's like you actually don't believe you need art in your life to be a human being, right?

And art,

good books, beautiful movies, music, it's something that wakes up the humanity in us that is separate than this capitalistic grind that wants to keep us productive over and over and over.

It's like it's resistance.

Like rest.

Art, they're these things that don't make sense in terms of productivity, right?

And so it feels like holding on to your humanity in a culture that doesn't want you to do that, that wants you to just keep thinking you have to produce and that your worth is based on what you contribute as opposed to what you experience.

And I think the experience part of it is huge.

Like, I don't have experiences where I'm not just totally inside my head.

And so the things, and I don't drink anymore, right?

So like that was the way I used to get outside of the trap of whatever was just on constant loop in my head.

But the music does, it takes me out of the loop.

Like it puts me in a different loop.

And I, and I, and this is another

thing that

this is like a tragic

reality that I have become aware of in my own life that I think that

actually

that the way that I feel about the people in my life and my daily life

has much less to do about the people in my life and my daily life.

And the way I feel about them has to do with how I feel.

A

man, if I'm happy, I love you.

If I'm unhappy,

you suck.

Well, and it's just like that is that to me, it seems so simple and ridiculous, but it really feels true.

And so when I, these, these moments where I can get myself outside of the loop, I can see it better.

I can see it all in a different way than when I'm trapped in it.

And for me, music has done it and it feels doable.

Like it feels for someone like me, like you can just add a little bit in.

And also bonus, ding, ding, ding.

When you put music on him, you're with your kids, it's like you're playing, but you don't have to play.

Exactly.

It's the playing for people who hate playing like us.

It's like you're suddenly a fun, loving house.

Look how playful we are.

Look how we're like us.

Yes, absolutely.

We're a little band.

Now continue without me, please, over there.

Yeah.

Oh, God.

Okay.

Speaking of music, I'm very glad you brought that up because I want to ask you a question.

Okay, I know you don't pay attention to any of this, and so you won't have a clue about this.

I hope this isn't dropping something on you, but I do pay very close attention to these things.

So I want to ask you about those videos that I was just talking about on the boat.

So when you posted those, you were driving your boat, the music was blasting, you were singing and dancing, and you were so happy and free.

Okay.

On that day,

you had the single biggest unfollowed day of

ever.

So on social media on that day, more people unfollowed your page

than ever in like 10 years.

So I was watching those folks on Follow and I kept thinking about that part of Untamed where you said it's easier for the world to love a suffering woman than it is for the world to love a joyful, confident woman.

And I'm just wondering what you make of that.

Like this like audaciously free, happy woman living unapologetically in that moment.

It clearly made so many people just deeply uncomfortable.

Like, what is that about?

Well, listen, okay, I'll set the scene.

This Abby and I live on a little canal off the Gulf of Mexico.

And when we moved here, we got this boat, and it's so wonderful.

It's a little fishing boat.

We don't fish,

but it's

on a dock in our backyard.

So we can literally get on our little boat.

The first few times we were out on the Gulf of Mexico on it, I realized I was happier than I had ever been in my entire life.

Like with my wife out on the Gulf of Mexico, can't see land anywhere.

No one is driving this boat except for the two of us.

I used to look at her in the driver's seat and think, oh my God, why is the world letting us do this?

Like no one is the boss of us.

We are completely free.

Wind

just, it just was utter joy and this like wild thing

it brought up in me.

And when we were thinking about what we were going to name the boat, we decided what, what is that wild, free spirit?

And we could think of only Liz's partner, Rhea.

who died, but her spirit was so unbelievably free and wild.

And so we named the boat Rhea.

Raya.

So

I used to let Abby drive the boat all the time.

I didn't ever want to like, I was too scared to take control of the boat.

And recently I learned how to drive the boat because I was like, this is bullshit.

Like, stop it.

You can do this.

And I learned how to drive the boat.

So

I was on the boat that day.

We had the kids on the boat.

I was driving and Abby was videoing me because music, if you think it's good in the kitchen, it's so good.

You just like, she, she was videoing me dancing to, I think, all about that bass.

Okay.

I actually hate.

No, I hate that song.

I think it's a terrible, terrible song.

I can't stand it.

I think it's like so obnoxious and anti-feminist.

Fine.

I loved it that day.

Okay.

And then the Spice Girls came on.

And then Pink, I Am Here came on.

So what I was like, it was like the best dancing day.

So Abby was videoing me.

She showed me the video later.

And honestly, sister, when I watched that video, my thought was,

This is my favorite version of myself.

I'm driving that freaking boat.

I'm dancing.

I'm happy.

I'm free.

I

have like sweatpants and a tank top and a baseball cap and a bikini top on.

I just like felt so, I was like, I love myself in this.

And I posted it.

And

maybe so many people unfollowed because my dancing was bad, but I don't think so.

I actually think if my dancing had been bad, more people would have said,

I think that the problem was my dancing was actually kind of good.

It's a stretch.

It was good.

It was for me.

Come on.

I was like, holy shit.

Very good.

Yeah, for me, very, very good.

I think the truth is: the happier, the more joyful, the more successful, the more bold a man is, the more the world likes and trusts him.

And the more successful, confident, bold, and happy and free a woman is, the less we like and trust her.

Right.

And so, something when we see that,

it irks us, right?

And it, you know, that's why so many people end up saying,

I don't know, it's just something about her.

I can't put my finger on it.

I can put my finger on it.

It's internalized misogyny, right?

Well, is it because we don't give ourselves permission or feel like we are able to be happy so that when someone else is doing it, it's this audacious kind of clash that we can't really identify, but we're like, that feels bad because I want it.

Yeah, I think that's how I used to deal with envy all the time.

Every time I felt envious of something, it would hurt inside and I would shut it down.

I would just decide I didn't.

I hated that person.

I didn't, I would just shut it down until I realized that envy is, of course, a red flashing arrow pointing me towards the thing I want.

And so I can either decide,

well, you did it.

You were like, that makes me feel something.

I want that.

I'm going to try to incorporate that into my life.

You can do that and use it.

Now that's what I try to do when someone does something awesome that makes me feel jealous.

I just try to sit with it and think like, okay, what is this telling me that I want that I was made to do next?

You know, but

I mean, listen,

I know people who, women, who, when they feel like they're being too

happy or fulfilled or successful or whatever, they will know that because of the way the world works that they will need to insert something, a post or whatever that shows them really weak and vulnerable and sad.

Because the world will only tolerate a happy woman for so long.

Right?

So, I mean, I don't know.

It makes me,

it makes me, you know, I used to, I caught myself when I first was

promoting Love Warrior and Untamed.

I would catch myself, every time someone said, so you left your husband, I would find myself making sure I brought up the infidelity right away.

My ex-husband's infidelity.

Whenever anyone talked about the success of my books or my speaking career or I would find myself right away bringing up the nonprofit, bringing up Together Rising.

Because I know that the world will only allow me to do what I want to do in that marriage if I have a get out of jail free card, if I have permission because he was unfaithful.

And I know that the world will only allow me to do well in the world if I'm doing good.

Right?

So it's okay that I'm successful at books because I do all this charity work and I'm an activist and I'm

and I caught myself doing that and I've stopped.

I do not, because I do not want women to listen to me and feel like they need a permission slip to do what they want in the world.

And I don't want them to feel like they need an excuse for doing well.

Yeah.

Because at the end of the day, it's about worthiness, right?

Like when people see that video of you, they don't think they're jealous of you on the boat.

They think at a deep level, I do not believe that I am worthy of joy in my life.

And it is offensive to me when someone is audaciously claiming their worth that way.

I mean, maybe they just freaking hate my dancing.

It could be a lot of things.

But you know what?

It makes me actually more hell-bent on showing myself in those strong moments.

Because, you know, I've never pretended to be stronger than I am in any given moment.

And so I'm sure as hell, not going to pretend to be less strong than I happen to be in a particular moment.

Right?

My promise has been that in every moment, I'm going to show up how I am,

exactly how I am inside of my moment.

That's been my promise to the world.

So when I'm feeling free and strong and joyful, I'm going to show up that way.

And honestly, I think.

that we all need to show ourselves in those moments too.

And I think we need to stop stop requiring suffering and sadness and meekness from other women.

Right?

Normalize joy for women.

Yeah.

So that eventually it becomes less shocking and audacious and annoying for women to show themselves as strong and happy.

Okay, everybody, this is our next right thing for the week.

Here's what we're going to do.

We're going to listen to music this week.

We're not even going to add an extra thing to do.

We're just going to add this thing to what we're already doing.

Okay.

We're going to put on music during our regular day in the car, in the kitchen, at work, wherever we are.

We're going to do that to awaken this fun self inside of us and let her know that we still believe in her, right?

And we're going to be calling on her soon.

So I have made a playlist.

of fun songs for you.

The link to that playlist is going to be in the show notes.

I do not want you to notice that all of these songs are from 20 years ago.

I did notice it.

It's possible that that's the last time I had fun.

If it's not your jam, make a list of jams for yourself, of fun jams, right, Sissy?

Is this what we're asking them to do?

Yes.

So the link to the playlist is in the notes to this podcast.

And we're also going to do a post on your social details on the playlist.

And there we want people to tell us the songs that awaken their fun self so we can keep building this out for folks.

Awesome.

We're going to save the world through fun songs this week.

Love it, sissy.

Okay, everybody, thank you for being with us today.

When life gets hard this week, don't forget we can do hard things.

We will see you back here next week.

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

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