Glennon: Is it Insanity or Life?

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Speaker 2 Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things.

Speaker 2 I just wanted to pop in before we roll this conversation and tell the pod squad this.

Speaker 2 We recorded this episode before the election, okay?

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 What I need you to know is that I think it might be really helpful

Speaker 2 because it's about

Speaker 2 sanity versus insanity.

Speaker 2 It's about the abyss that we all live so close to,

Speaker 2 the abyss of lack of control, the abyss of depression, the abyss of oppression, the abyss of all of it, and how to survive that abyss.

Speaker 2 I can't wait to hear what you think of this episode. We're calling it Weird Glennon because in fact

Speaker 2 it is about Weird Glennon. But I hope it's a little bit about all of us.
I love Weird Glennon.

Speaker 1 Weird Glennon might be my favorite, especially the one with now two nose rings.

Speaker 2 Sister, have you seen her?

Speaker 2 Bring yourself closer.

Speaker 3 What's better than one nose ring?

Speaker 2 Two nose rings. And it was an accident.
What's better than two nose rings? Who knows?

Speaker 3 That's good. I went over to my friend's house last night and good job.
She was having a real hard time. So I was dropping things off.

Speaker 3 And then

Speaker 3 she invited me in and she just read me dad jokes for 45 minutes. Oh, and I really recommend that to people.
Dad jokes. Here's one for you.

Speaker 2 A pirate

Speaker 2 parrot flew away.

Speaker 2 But honestly, it was a weightlifted off his shoulder.

Speaker 2 Oh boy. I just have a pirate one.
What is a pirate's favorite letter? R.

Speaker 2 R.

Speaker 2 You would think, but no, it's the sea they love.

Speaker 2 What's a pirate's worst exercise?

Speaker 2 Planking.

Speaker 2 Okay, since we've already lost them, what does a very proper owl say?

Speaker 2 Whom, whom? Ah, damn it! You know that I was going to get that one. Oh my God, I love a grammar joke.
Okay, all right.

Speaker 1 This is a perfect segue, though, into Weird Glennon.

Speaker 2 We love you.

Speaker 1 Look at how fucking weird we are.

Speaker 2 Good luck with this one. Let me know what you think after, but only if it's nice.
Enjoy.

Speaker 2 Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. It's been an awkward start for us.
Abby keeps making jokes.

Speaker 2 And nobody's laughing. They're funny, but nobody's laughing.
I think if they're funny, that's when you know if it's funny is when people laugh.

Speaker 1 No, it just means that your guys' sense of humor is off.

Speaker 2 That's true. And first of all, welcome to We Can Do Hard Things.

Speaker 1 Did I already say that? No.

Speaker 2 Okay. Welcome to you, Pod Squad.
Today, this is one of those episodes that is coming to you from Weird Glennon.

Speaker 1 Okay. Oh, fun yeah

Speaker 2 so

Speaker 2 here's what i have decided i'm gonna give you an update about

Speaker 2 my life experience lately oh because god knows the world needs another update of my life experience okay we're doing it okay this is fun now everything that i'm about to say during these 50 minutes makes perfect sense to me okay i do not know if it's going to make sense to everyone but here's what i have is this kind of like abby's joke Yeah, it might be.

Speaker 3 How her joke is very funny. She doesn't know whether people are going to experience it as funny.
Yes.

Speaker 1 Is this why this was a good segue?

Speaker 2 Segue.

Speaker 2 The reason she thinks Segu, y'all.

Speaker 2 It's like a legume, but it's a segue.

Speaker 2 Yes. I have spent my entire life thinking that

Speaker 2 people were making segues in their conversations in my books. And I just learned that there's no such thing as a segue

Speaker 2 maybe a year ago. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Also, I will remind everybody. It's a segue, by the way.
It's a segue.

Speaker 3 If people are like, what the hell are you talking about? It's also not one of those things that tourists do on

Speaker 3 sidewalks that appear very dangerous. It's a cross between a scooter and a bicycle and it looks like it's from Mars.
Right.

Speaker 2 But I knew that there was a word called Segway in the world. Like I say that in my life.
And let's make a Segway so we can get to the same time.

Speaker 1 Did you just say Segu and Segway were the same?

Speaker 2 I thought Segu was a completely different word. I'd never heard anyone say it in real life, but what do you think the meaning of segue was? I thought that a segue was very similar to a segue.

Speaker 2 This is so

Speaker 2 just like I didn't know that nothing goes houry.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. Everything just goes awry, whether it's in a book or in real life.
There is no going houry.

Speaker 1 You're such a book nerd.

Speaker 2 So cute. Shout out to all the kiddos who spent their childhood in books instead of listening to human beings because we have a confusion.

Speaker 2 about words. Okay, what I was going to say is, what I've decided is that it's not that it doesn't make sense or not.

Speaker 2 It makes sense to me. It might not make sense to everyone, but two things can be true at the same time.

Speaker 2 I did shoot this whole concept of this episode and my experience to my therapist the other day and said, do you think that people are going to resonate with this situation?

Speaker 2 And she said, Glenn and as always, I think we just have to try.

Speaker 2 I don't know what that means.

Speaker 1 I think the rest of us have to try to understand.

Speaker 2 She said, I think that I just have to try. Oh, you see.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 She understood it,

Speaker 2 but I do pay her to understand it. So I'm not sure.

Speaker 2 When I was little,

Speaker 2 maybe not so little, maybe like in my in elementary school, middle school, maybe. Okay.

Speaker 2 We lived on this street and then there was this bike path that was a mile away.

Speaker 2 Okay, so it was too kind of dangerous to get our, we lived on this main road and then the intersection was another highway.

Speaker 2 So we would put our bikes in our van, in the back of our van, and then drive the three quarters of a mile to the beginning of this bike trail. And this would happen like every once in a while.
Okay.

Speaker 2 And then we would all get on the bike trail. as a family and ride a couple miles.
I don't know. It wasn't a big deal.

Speaker 2 Now, what I remember from these times is that it was a beautiful trail kind of through the woods,

Speaker 2 but to the sides, there were cliffs. Okay.

Speaker 2 There was like drop-offs to either side. And

Speaker 2 I just could not believe there were no fences.

Speaker 2 It was just a trail, a little bit of trees, not much, few feet, and then just

Speaker 2 death. Okay.
So you went mountain biking? Well, no, it was like an asphalt trail. Like there was like three-year-olds walking on the trail.

Speaker 1 Okay, so it's proper concrete.

Speaker 2 Okay. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 2 yeah, concrete for sure. You don't think I was like, I was on like my a little 10-speed.
Okay. Right.
Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 3 Well, when you said cliffs and death, it did indicate a little more rugged terrain

Speaker 3 than a community bike path.

Speaker 1 I was excited.

Speaker 2 I was like, shit, we're going to get you a mountain bike today. It was cliffs, though.

Speaker 1 I believe you.

Speaker 3 Your perception was it was cliffs.

Speaker 2 It was cliffs. All right.
Do you not remember this? It was

Speaker 2 horrific cliffs. And I used to ride my bike and the whole Virginia.

Speaker 2 Sister, do you not remember this? This is a bourbon, Virginia. I'm struggling to figure out where we're talking about.
Okay. Remember interstate van lines?

Speaker 3 Yes, I do remember. Okay, so for all of you, we're placing you in Burke, Virginia on the intersection of Burke Road and Rolling Road.
Right. Interstate van lines where they used to have those letters.

Speaker 3 They would say something. It would change like every month.
Okay. Yes.
Close to West Springfield High School.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Actually, equidistant for West Springfield High School and Lake Critics.

Speaker 2 Lake Credit. Go Bruins.
Bruins. Bruins.
Hats off to thee to Thy Colors. Cheery.
To the colours.

Speaker 2 Bruin Strong United Standard Raffer Bruins Strong fight the battle in England. Cheer for purple and gold.
Go Bruins. Wow.
Anyway, there were horrific cliffs to eat.

Speaker 2 And if you don't remember it, then I don't know. Okay.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 all I would think the whole time, I would squeeze my little handlebars and I would think,

Speaker 2 I hope I don't turn

Speaker 2 myself and plunge myself into the cliff. Solid intrusive thoughts.

Speaker 2 Certain death. Right.
Now, I think that's the same thing. Intrusive thoughts.
Yeah, I get it. That's what my therapist said.
Intrusive thoughts. Interesting.
Okay.

Speaker 2 I wasn't thinking,

Speaker 2 I hope I don't accidentally fall off. Oh, oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 Like, I hope I don't do something.

Speaker 2 I mean, absolutely

Speaker 2 crazy.

Speaker 1 All of us do that when we're driving the car. They're like, what if I just turn the wheel and I go into the oncoming traffic?

Speaker 2 So when you're on a balcony, are you thinking, I hope I don't jump off this balcony?

Speaker 1 Every once in a while, I'll have an intrusive thought.

Speaker 2 Oh, that's so, that makes me feel better. Yeah.
Okay. Same.

Speaker 1 It's like a little fun game we play with ourselves to not do it.

Speaker 2 Sometimes I'll be speaking when I used to speak and I'll be like standing up at a church. Yeah.
And I'll be like, what if I just scream, fuck you all?

Speaker 2 Fuck you. Fuck you all.
Like,

Speaker 2 I hope I don't do that. I might.

Speaker 1 One of my intrusive thoughts is when we're driving in the car and you know how people like, don't stop short with me. Seinfeld.
Seinfeld. Yeah.
Don't stop short with me.

Speaker 1 I have this intrusive thought that I do the don't stop short with me, but I hit you really hard.

Speaker 2 Oh, that's nice. Isn't that so bad? Yeah.

Speaker 2 No, that makes me feel better because I do like, if I'm holding a child, it's one of my favorite things about myself is that people will just hand me babies and when i'm holding baby i'm always thinking what don't don't drop the baby like which i would never do don't on purpose drop the baby yeah yes okay you know my worst intrusive thought what the one that bothers me the most

Speaker 3 is I would travel with the babies when they were very, very young on planes. Like we always have business meetings across the country when my babies were like three weeks before we were

Speaker 2 always.

Speaker 3 And so I would be traveling with them. And you know how the airplane bathroom, where they have this tiny little thing where you change their diaper on the bathroom.

Speaker 3 So I've done that like a thousand times. And

Speaker 3 only in the last couple of years, I've realized, oh my God,

Speaker 3 that

Speaker 3 little thing was right on top of where the toilet is, where it just goes through the toilet into the sky. And oh my God.
And so I think, it's in the past. I'm literally never going to do it again.

Speaker 3 Hold on.

Speaker 2 But I wake up in the middle of the night once a week thinking my baby could have fallen off the diaper thing into the toilet into the sky hold on oh whoa whoa whoa to outer space no hold on a second don't be logical about it it's just a fear that i know but i just want to i want to i i need to i fly enough

Speaker 2 our and piss does does not go out into the sky no they keep it in a container okay but you're saying out into the sky well i don't know none about it is logical but i'm gonna find out okay okay i'm gonna a really good point.

Speaker 2 Amanda,

Speaker 2 the poo is poo isn't flying out.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's going into a bin.

Speaker 2 Either way, it wouldn't be great for the baby.

Speaker 1 Also, the baby's not fitting down that little hole.

Speaker 2 I do not think that these are

Speaker 2 logical.

Speaker 1 We're really yucking your intrusive thought here.

Speaker 2 I need to know this.

Speaker 2 Do you guys ever just

Speaker 2 lay in bed? I think this usually happens to me in bed, but do you ever just lay in bed and think of a scenario and then

Speaker 2 lose your shit about that scenario that is definitely not happening? But for example, go through the whole thing. Well, I'm always in a home invasion.
Oh, yeah. Every night I do that too.

Speaker 2 I'm thinking what I'm doing.

Speaker 1 Yeah. What am I going to do? What door am I going to lock myself behind?

Speaker 2 Yes. And then do you like come to and it's like 10 minutes later and you are full on so upset about that thing.

Speaker 2 And then you have to remind yourself that didn't happen and you're just in this bed still. You're not the hero of your little story you're telling? Zero times.
I've never been the hero.

Speaker 2 You're the victim in your story.

Speaker 1 I'm always the hero. That's interesting.

Speaker 2 Huh. That must be nice.
What about you, sissy?

Speaker 3 I always figure I need to pressure test the plan a thousand times. And then that's how I end up with, you know, ordering another,

Speaker 3 well, another fire ladder or something.

Speaker 2 Because I'm like,

Speaker 3 I realized I have a soft spot in my plan of what I'm going to do.

Speaker 2 Fire ladder. So I got to.
Hey, always want to know something.

Speaker 1 I just just saw the other day on a reel. If you keep a bat by your bed, because, you know, a lot of people don't believe in guns and stuff, which is great.
I don't either.

Speaker 1 If you keep a bat by your bed, put a long sock on the end of it

Speaker 1 because if you go to hit somebody with it, an intruder, and they go to stop it, the sock will pull it off and then you can hit them again.

Speaker 3 You get two whacks at them.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 So that's good. And then also

Speaker 2 in my head, I make up the scenario. I go through the scenario.
Lots of horrific things happen. There's, it's just, it's endless.
Then I wake up sweating, but I'm not even ever asleep. Now,

Speaker 2 back to what we were talking about. Oh, yeah.
The cliffs.

Speaker 1 The cliffs of Virginia suburbia.

Speaker 2 It was freaking the woods. It was an epic landscape.
Got it. Okay.
Okay. We're there with you.
With you. With the toddlers and their parents walking.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Anyway, that is a memory that is seared into my mind.
And

Speaker 2 as both of you know, I think that that actual situation morphed with

Speaker 2 kind of a way that I see myself and my life, which is, as you know, I've told you many, many times, I always feel like I'm kind of walking on the edge of a cliff.

Speaker 2 Okay, like that's what I'm doing. I'm walking on the edge of a cliff and I feel an abyss

Speaker 2 to my side. And the abyss is like this sea of purple, swirly, silvery, sparkly, dark purple, like kind of scary,

Speaker 2 but also like a lot of depth and a little bit of magic in it. And the abyss is what I have always thought is insanity.
It's kind of like alluring. It's like calling.
Okay, it's calling.

Speaker 3 It's like a siren calling.

Speaker 2 Yes, yes, yes.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 my job, as I have understood it, is to stay on the motherfucking cliff. Okay.
Just stay the course. Stay

Speaker 2 score. Glennon, do not jump.

Speaker 2 Are you going to jump, Glennon? I hope I don't jump. I don't know who gave me the power to decide.
That's what pisses me off.

Speaker 2 We just make these balconies and we just assume that people aren't going to use their own volition. Anyway, all the things that I have

Speaker 2 employed,

Speaker 2 all the strategies, eating disorders, alcoholism, anorexia, medication, controlling other human beings with my brain,

Speaker 2 these have all been strategies to keep me on the cliff. This is what I have told myself I have to do.
I'm like white knuckling the handlebars.

Speaker 2 Whether I'm parenting, whether I'm working, whether I'm just just taking a walk, whether I'm in a friendship, I am just white-knuckling the handlebars so I don't veer off into the abyss of insanity,

Speaker 2 even though it looks kind of great.

Speaker 2 Okay?

Speaker 1 That's interesting.

Speaker 2 Now,

Speaker 2 lately,

Speaker 2 I

Speaker 2 have

Speaker 2 one at a time taken away all of my

Speaker 2 white-knuckle knuckle handlebar strategies. Okay.

Speaker 2 And it kind of feels like I just let go of the handlebars completely. Feels a little ridiculous and stupid and reckless.
Okay.

Speaker 2 Lately, I have felt

Speaker 2 like I'm in the abyss.

Speaker 1 So you've jumped.

Speaker 2 I feel like I am in the abyss. And what

Speaker 2 I would like to explain a little bit

Speaker 2 is I don't know how to describe it. So I'm just going to tell like some stories about what it feels like to be in the abyss.

Speaker 1 Okay. This is fun.

Speaker 2 Nothing

Speaker 2 is good.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 Is that true? It's not that nothing is good. It's that

Speaker 2 I am overwhelmed all the time.

Speaker 2 Okay, maybe I shouldn't say I am overwhelmed all the time. I feel

Speaker 2 overwhelmed all the time. I feel

Speaker 2 like everything

Speaker 2 is

Speaker 2 too hard or too much or too good or too bad or too everything. Just, it's just so much muchness.

Speaker 2 Here's how a few things that it feels like to be in the abyss.

Speaker 2 I have no distance from things anymore. It's like all the things that I had to protect me

Speaker 2 from life or from being

Speaker 2 are gone.

Speaker 2 Just gone. All of my protections, all of my little armor, weapons, all the things.
And so now it's just me and life.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 So a few little things. We took this trip to Seattle because our kid was in a soccer tournament.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I do not know how we're supposed to handle. our kids in soccer tournaments.

Speaker 2 These children are teenagers, young teenagers. This kid plays at a high level.
So, all of these freaking college coaches are watching them.

Speaker 2 All of their parents are gathered around, like staring at them. You can like feel the stress and the love and the hope and the control and the pressure.

Speaker 2 And they love each other so much, but they're kind of like competing against each other.

Speaker 2 I just feel like I'm going to die from the vulnerability of it.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's like so much is riding. A lot of how they do,

Speaker 3 it isn't just perception, is going to affect the opportunities they have because they're trying to get recruited, right? So it's like, it really is that kind of

Speaker 3 how you play matters and not just to us egotistically.

Speaker 2 So the vulnerability you're experiencing is a vulnerability on behalf of our child or it's just like the vibe of the totality of what's happening for all of these kids it's an abyss i sit there and i you can feel that so many of them are doing it just to like make their parents happy and their parents are just you can just feel the muchness of all of it so i'm handling it i'm i'm doing okay sam is a coach from uf she's so wonderful she walks over she and abby are friends go gators because i went there so i know them i'm half watching the kids half just sometimes i just try not to i try to distract myself.

Speaker 2 She's telling me about her kids. And I, they sounded so wonderful.
I asked about one of them. And she's like, let me show you this video of my kid.

Speaker 2 And her kid had just gone through this season of, I think it was soccer and their team had like won no games. And they had kept trying.
And then they won like one game at the end of the season.

Speaker 2 And this video was of the game ending. And Sam was holding the phone.
And her little boy could, like they blew the whistle and they had one. And this kid,

Speaker 2 you just see his face like he can't believe it. And then he just takes off from his friends and runs to his mom.

Speaker 2 So you see him running at the camera, and then you see the camera go down, and she's hugging him.

Speaker 2 And then he quickly hugs her, and then he runs as fast as he can back to his friends, and his like fist is in the air, and he's like hugging his friends. She's showing me, I just start bawling.

Speaker 2 And Sam is like, what's wrong with your wife? Like, what?

Speaker 1 No, she really appreciated that. You were so touched by it because it is a touching thing, A, to have your kid run to you.
And then B, to get it on film.

Speaker 1 And then C, after he hugs her and he's running back, he's kind of like jogging back to his team to go celebrate again with his teammates.

Speaker 1 He like looks up and has this take it all in moment that like, finally they did it.

Speaker 1 finally they had this moment you know like he finally had it and as a parent she caught it all on video like get out of here with that it's beautiful beyond yeah

Speaker 1 yeah

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Speaker 2 So then that night, Emma goes off with her friends, and Abby and I are in this random city we don't know in Seattle, and we wander into this tiny little restaurant.

Speaker 2 It's like the size of a kitchen, it's so small, and there's these little tables. There's probably 10 tables in the whole place.

Speaker 2 We walk into the restaurant, and there's this couple,

Speaker 2 this man and this woman, young, maybe like lower 30s, I don't know.

Speaker 2 And they're eating, and the woman looks over at us, and you just, her face just, you can see she's recognized us in a very meaningful way. Like you can tell when it's

Speaker 2 somebody that is very connected to

Speaker 2 our work in the world. I can tell that she's just about to melt.
So I just walk right over.

Speaker 2 She stands up. It all happens very fast.
She's hugging me.

Speaker 2 The man that's sitting with her,

Speaker 2 no time has passed enough for her to explain anything to him or to make any explanation of what's going on.

Speaker 2 The man waits patiently for us to hug and then says very gently,

Speaker 2 he turns to me and says, would it be okay with you if I got a picture?

Speaker 2 Now,

Speaker 2 I don't know why that made me so, I felt like, oh my God, he is so in touch with his partner that he knows.

Speaker 2 She didn't say, get a picture. Like, I'm watching the whole thing.

Speaker 2 There's no way this guy knows exactly who we're like.

Speaker 2 Yeah. He just was so

Speaker 2 attuned to her. Yeah.
And he knew that she wasn't going to want to ask me because she was so respectful, but he knew that it was going to be important to her and that he should

Speaker 2 step in for her and get what she's going to want to leave this with.

Speaker 2 And so

Speaker 2 we take a picture.

Speaker 2 Abby and I go sit down. And then, of of course, I'm like all emotional about the whole thing.

Speaker 2 And then they come over when they're leaving and I say, I just want you to know what we've been talking about is how beautiful that was

Speaker 2 that you didn't have to ask, that he knew, that he asked so gently, that you all too are so attuned.

Speaker 2 She told us that the reason she was so emotional is that they live an hour away, that she's going through a very hard, interesting time, that she has listened to every single podcast and read every single word we've ever written, and that has gotten her through the hardest times.

Speaker 2 That she's been relying more heavily than ever on this podcast lately. And that night, something was just like, Go to that restaurant an hour away from their house.

Speaker 1 Whoa.

Speaker 2 And she

Speaker 2 came.

Speaker 2 We leave the restaurant

Speaker 2 and we're walking home.

Speaker 2 And this woman, she's in this different woman, no. Different woman.
Different woman. Okay.

Speaker 2 She's in a big SUV and she's got like 17 kids in the car. Okay.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 she is driving by and she just screams out the window, Glenn!

Speaker 2 Glenn!

Speaker 2 We love you, Glennon!

Speaker 2 And she's waving and all the kids are waving.

Speaker 2 and I just thought

Speaker 2 I cannot believe this I spend so much time being scared I'm so scared of like the internet and like people hating me and like people I feel so constricted all the time because I'm scared like the world is a scary place the world is scary yeah and so I have to be constricted and on guard and like white knuckling all the things and I'm always white white-knuckling public things too.

Speaker 2 Like, I don't exactly know how to handle it. I don't know what's appropriate.
I don't know what I should protect our kids from. I don't know how to do it.
And so I always feel constricted.

Speaker 2 Andrea Gibson tells the story about how they went to the Grand Canyon when they were really fucked up and like really in their depression. And they were, they came to the Grand Canyon

Speaker 2 and they looked at it and they were like,

Speaker 2 eh.

Speaker 2 I mean, whatever. I guess it's a big hole.

Speaker 2 You're glad I drove all this way.

Speaker 2 And then, oh, it's so funny.

Speaker 1 If you've ever been in the Grand Canyon, that's hilarious.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And then they were in a different spiritual place in their life, and they went back to the Grand Canyon.
And they just thought, oh my God, is this what it has always been? Like,

Speaker 2 this is the most unbelievable thing I've ever seen. And they talk about, of course, the Anias Nin quote that we do not see the world as it is.
We see the world as we are.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 experience in Seattle is like, is this how it's always been? Like, am I just not afraid? Is it, I don't know. I felt overwhelmed by the beauty and love of it.

Speaker 2 And then a week later, we go to the Noah Khan concert. I'm standing there with the girls and one of our kids has her girlfriend with her and the other kid has her good friend.
And

Speaker 2 Noah is just like, he does this divorce song, you know, know, it's about divorced kids. And he says,

Speaker 2 shout out to all the kids from divorced families. And our kids just, he's saying all my love.
And they were all, the kids are just the whole

Speaker 2 Hollywood bull is just bawling and screaming and dancing and losing their minds. And I'm looking at my kids and they're bawling.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, oh my God.

Speaker 2 I was seeing them for the first time. Like they are children of divorce.
Like they had their family

Speaker 2 separated. They have two houses.

Speaker 2 I had one of my strategies of gripping my handlebars is just to tell myself stories

Speaker 2 about how everything's okay because I did it. And we're, it's not a broken family because we're a whole family because we've, we're, we're fixed.
We're fixed. We're not broken.
We're fixed.

Speaker 3 We're the exception. We're the exception.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's kind of sad, but not really. It's fine.

Speaker 3 It's kind of sad. It would be sad if it wasn't so magical and unique and extraordinary.

Speaker 2 Yes. Yeah.
Yes. Yeah.
So I was seeing them for the first time and it did not kill me. It like overwhelmed me to the point of like explosion, right? I was bawling with them.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 it did not kill me.

Speaker 2 And I realized these narratives that I make.

Speaker 2 are another strategy to keep me on the thing. I will tell you what it is.
I will arrange all the chaos into a story with characters. And this is your character and this is my character.

Speaker 2 The other day we went to see our son in New York City and

Speaker 2 being in the abyss while raising adult children, because this has been the biggest doozy for me, we walked around New York City for two hours and then we went to a dinner.

Speaker 2 We took our son to dinner with two of his best friends, him and two girls, and they go to college together and they talked about their adventures and their lives for two hours at dinner.

Speaker 2 I've never seen our kid so alive.

Speaker 2 They just love each other so much and they take such good care of each other. And he just had this like sense of you could just see the belonging and the joy.
And

Speaker 2 I think I thought that like I was supposed to

Speaker 2 make everything so perfect that he would always just want to have that with us

Speaker 2 that like our our house and our town and our

Speaker 2 would be his place of belonging and joy and connection, you know.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 when I saw that, I thought, okay, I felt such relief because I felt like he has it.

Speaker 2 And then I felt relief that I was relieved

Speaker 2 because

Speaker 2 it made me know that I don't need it to be us. I just need him to have it,

Speaker 2 you know, in general.

Speaker 2 So on the way home, I have this new fun thing that I think is from early menopause. I'm not sure what it is, but it's a really good time.

Speaker 2 And what it is is that I have constant motion sickness. Okay.
I used to be able to spin around in circles for fun.

Speaker 2 And now, if I'm in a car for longer than five minutes, if I glance at my phone, if I can get motion sickness from watching a movie that's moving too fast, like it's just ridiculous.

Speaker 2 So, and I know this, I know this, but we get in an Uber, like one of those big Ubers in New York City, and it's 11 p.m.

Speaker 2 And Abby and I are going back to our hotel, and we've got the kids, the kids, they're 21, but they're in the back, all lined up, the three of them, just chattering, chattering, chattering, because they're about to go off and do whatever they're this is.

Speaker 3 This is the beginning of their evening.

Speaker 2 Yeah, this is lunch for them, right? Pre-game, right? Right. But they're talking about like relationships, and one of them turns to Chase and says, Well, you're securely attached.
So you're good. But

Speaker 2 I almost died. I just almost exploded.
I'm like, wait, no.

Speaker 2 It's all I could do just to not stop them and say, did you say he's securely attached? Do you think that's because of me? Do you,

Speaker 2 can we talk about this more?

Speaker 3 Did your child aggrieve?

Speaker 1 He did.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 2 He did. Jesus.

Speaker 2 Just retire. That's the closest you could get to an A-plus valedictory address as a parent.

Speaker 2 You know that like.

Speaker 2 how much that meant to me to hear because it has been, I have felt like

Speaker 2 I'll talk about this in another episode, but I have felt like maybe I did everything wrong.

Speaker 2 Maybe like I have started to see myself from his eyes in a way that has freaked me the fuck out and made me lose myself a little bit.

Speaker 2 And I think it might just be something that happens as they get older, but it's been hard. It's been the hardest phase of parenting for me.
And it's all been internal. Nobody else has done anything.

Speaker 2 It's just been internal.

Speaker 1 So I'll never forget that moment as long as I live because Glenn and I got to do the look, even though she was experiencing insane nausea.

Speaker 1 She looked at me, and I looked at her, and our eyes were like,

Speaker 2 We're going to talk about this later.

Speaker 2 Is he securely attached? How do they know about secure attachment? Oh my god, oh my god, can I get this in writing? Can okay, yeah,

Speaker 2 so

Speaker 2 I'm there in the back, like Abby and I are in the two like bucket seats, you know.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I am looking at them,

Speaker 2 sister, and I am so sick.

Speaker 2 I am close to throwing up.

Speaker 2 I cannot stop looking at them.

Speaker 2 I cannot.

Speaker 2 I was like, I don't care.

Speaker 2 I just, they were so, they were the three of them were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. And I could not

Speaker 2 stop looking at them. We get to the hotel.

Speaker 2 I get in my room. I throw up for two hours.
I'm sick for 24 hours. Okay.

Speaker 2 I would do it again. It was too beautiful to look away from.

Speaker 2 Being in the abyss

Speaker 2 is

Speaker 2 much, much messier

Speaker 2 than being on the top of the cliff.

Speaker 2 I feel

Speaker 2 out of control all the time. I feel overwhelmed all the time.
I feel very messy.

Speaker 2 I feel confused.

Speaker 2 I feel

Speaker 2 so much more.

Speaker 2 And what I

Speaker 2 figured out

Speaker 2 just about a week ago

Speaker 2 is that the abyss,

Speaker 2 the purple, swirly,

Speaker 2 silvery, sparkly

Speaker 2 abyss that has been calling to me since I was 10

Speaker 2 is not

Speaker 2 insanity.

Speaker 2 It is life.

Speaker 2 It is life.

Speaker 2 It is being fully human and present without all of the things that we put

Speaker 2 in our lives to protect ourselves.

Speaker 2 And the reason why

Speaker 2 being in the abyss is so overwhelming is because it's supposed to be, is because it's just

Speaker 2 love.

Speaker 2 It's like to be

Speaker 2 really alive with a wide open heart

Speaker 2 and to be that present with things you love and things you're afraid of and all of your messy mistakes and

Speaker 2 all of it.

Speaker 2 It's not insanity. It's like the truest reality.

Speaker 2 Right?

Speaker 2 There are definitely times where I feel like I enjoyed

Speaker 2 being on the cliff better.

Speaker 2 It was easier to have some distance between me and everything.

Speaker 2 And I kind of feel like I'm annoying now. All of the things

Speaker 2 that kept me on the cliff also gave me this kind of like cooler, detached

Speaker 2 thing where things didn't affect me as much. So I wasn't so desperate.

Speaker 2 Like I feel very desperate lately, desperate to, like, I don't even know for what, like, for the kids to understand me in every way, for everyone to know I love them.

Speaker 2 I just feel desperate all the time. I think I'm more annoying.
I think I'm more needy.

Speaker 2 I think I'm less efficient.

Speaker 2 I'm more confused.

Speaker 2 But you know how, like, if you're having dinner with somebody and they have a couple glasses of wine or pills they don't need and

Speaker 2 they act a certain way,

Speaker 2 and you don't know who they are really.

Speaker 2 Their reactions might be a certain way

Speaker 2 and you take it

Speaker 2 as who they are.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 the thing is between you, like you can't really know who they are because it's not their natural reaction.

Speaker 3 Or you wonder, is that their actual reaction, who you deal with normally, is not them. Like it is that there's like an alter like, oh, now I'm dealing with Betsy 2.0.

Speaker 3 Yeah, there's a 1.0 and a 2.0 version of you. Which one?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 So I feel like, even if

Speaker 2 I now am, like, say to the kids, or like less together, less held together, less pretending that I know what I'm doing, less detached, less cool and calm,

Speaker 2 I do feel like they can feel my

Speaker 2 love more, probably

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Speaker 2 It makes perfect sense to me when you're talking about the cliff, right?

Speaker 3 The cliff is so

Speaker 3 much simpler because you only have one job.

Speaker 3 Your job on the cliff is very, very clear and clarity

Speaker 3 is

Speaker 3 very helpful.

Speaker 3 And so your one job is to keep your ass on the path and so you might have constant fear but the only thing you have to metabolize is fear that's the only emotion you just have to keep feeling the fear only emotion coming in and your only job is to control

Speaker 3 your

Speaker 3 direction.

Speaker 3 So I'm controlling my direction. I'm only feeling the fear.
That's all I have to do.

Speaker 3 And so

Speaker 3 that's simple.

Speaker 3 And the promise of that is that it'll keep you safe. But the highest upside reward

Speaker 3 is

Speaker 3 remaining in fear and control for the rest of your life.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 3 when you go off the cliff,

Speaker 3 You have to metabolize everything. No matter what, it's coming at you.
It's like the real key quote. let everything happen to you.

Speaker 2 Yes, no feeling is final.

Speaker 3 You just have to let everything happen to you. And so you're like up and down.

Speaker 3 You can't even anticipate what your job is because every moment is going to either make you buckle to your knees in like the glory of the Shakespearean moment of the five-year-old on the soccer team

Speaker 3 or break your heart because you realize your baby's never going to be a baby and whatever.

Speaker 3 It's just what letting everything happen to you, which is the promise and the reward yes and the terror yeah and it's like when you're on the cliff

Speaker 2 you are driving you're

Speaker 2 in control

Speaker 2 and then the swirly abyss you are surrendered to the

Speaker 2 swirling. I do just feel like I'm taken over by a swirly situation.
And every once in a while, I'm just popping up and like yelling something. I don't even know.
Like I have absolutely no control.

Speaker 1 Well, I think what's happened, because like with everything new, like this jumping into the purple swirly abyss,

Speaker 1 it makes sense to me that it feels uncomfortable. It makes sense to me that you feel confused and overwhelmed and everything is happening.
all at once, seemingly.

Speaker 1 But I think part of what you're going through is that you've brought a little bit of the cliff,

Speaker 1 dare I say, rigidity and control, and

Speaker 1 trying to apply some of those mechanisms that you learned into this purple swirly abyss.

Speaker 1 And so I think that that's why it feels uncomfortable.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 makes sense. Of course, you would do that.
Like you, you bring what you know into new experiences.

Speaker 1 And so to me, it feels like it won't be as uncomfortable forever because you will learn how to flow with the purple, swirly,

Speaker 1 glittery

Speaker 1 mechanism that's in the abyss.

Speaker 2 Well, it's interesting that you use the word metabolize.

Speaker 2 Like, how do you metabolize it all? Because

Speaker 2 I think it's another version of.

Speaker 2 Like, the word anorexia is sort of ridiculous because it like implies that it's all about food

Speaker 2 But it's not it's just a complete way of life. It's the person on the cliff with the handlebars.
I did not know

Speaker 2 That I could metabolize food like everyone else and just keep going

Speaker 2 that was a unbelievable discovery for me and I think that I also didn't know that I could just metabolize feelings that it wouldn't kill me the feelings that have

Speaker 2 come up in the last

Speaker 2 six months,

Speaker 2 two years, I can't believe. I've had days where I didn't think

Speaker 2 that it was okay,

Speaker 2 like how strong they were.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 all of the mechanisms that I used were to protect myself from big feelings because I felt like I would not be able to metabolize them and go on.

Speaker 2 And, like, the discovery that I had with physical things and food is the same as the discovery that I'm having with emotional things that I can, in fact,

Speaker 2 it might not be pretty.

Speaker 2 It might not look like a day I used to have

Speaker 2 where it's just one thing after the other on the to-do list and I can handle all of it because I'm not in any of the things,

Speaker 2 but

Speaker 2 I have

Speaker 2 survived. Yep.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 3 Do you know what you're talking about reminds me a lot of

Speaker 3 Dr. Dan Siegel's model of healthy minds, because it's a different analogy from the cliff and the water, but he talks about how

Speaker 3 There are like two banks on a river, and one bank of the river is chaos and a lot of people live there and that's this idea that we feel all out of control in our life we are caught in this turmoil we have no control over it it's like instability anxiety fear all the things

Speaker 3 and then the other side of the river is rigidity And that is this idea that if we impose enough control over everything and everyone around us, and we just never try to adapt to anything going on, but we stay the course of where we are, then we will

Speaker 3 just

Speaker 3 maintain control and nothing bad will happen to us.

Speaker 3 So, one side of the river is like pure fear and anxiety, the other side of the river is like utter stagnation because all you're trying to do is have control. And like, where you want to be

Speaker 3 is in the flow of the river between,

Speaker 3 like, where you are

Speaker 3 finding the balance between

Speaker 3 some chaos

Speaker 3 and some rigidity where you're like, I do have

Speaker 3 some ways of living that I want to have. I do have this like canoe to keep me afloat, but I'm letting it flow.
Like I am letting the river take me where it's going.

Speaker 3 So it's like, I don't know exactly how we're going to get there. I trust we're going to get there.
Like I am flowing. I'm not fighting the rapid.
I'm going, you know? And so it's a really interesting

Speaker 3 way to think about it. And also, I think it's a good clue.

Speaker 2 Like, when life is full of chaos,

Speaker 3 we're probably like hugging one of the banks too much. And when it's just full of stagnation

Speaker 3 and

Speaker 3 we feel threatened by the idea of being flexible about anything, we're probably on the other side.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 That's what I've got for you today. I know.

Speaker 1 But I feel impressed by you.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Because I have watched you

Speaker 1 experience a lot of this discomfort over the last many months.

Speaker 1 And as the person in your life, that it does not sit very well when you're uncomfortable. I like to fix problems.
It has been difficult to watch,

Speaker 1 but I think slowly but surely, there's this confidence that's brewing inside of you that you're like, I'm not going to be killed by my emotions.

Speaker 1 The world is not going to kill me. Yes, this is a lot.
Yes, this is overwhelming. And I think that the courage that it's taken for you to do this,

Speaker 1 especially because it's making you look at your whole life, all of the relationships, your children, me, your family, all of it.

Speaker 1 And you're like,

Speaker 1 I'm going to survive this. Like I feel this, I've got me energy.

Speaker 1 And boy, is it really scary for me? Because I like to be the one that's got you.

Speaker 2 That's interesting.

Speaker 1 But I'm sitting on my hands and I am doing my time also.

Speaker 1 But I just think that you are coming through this extraordinary period of your life and it's just been really beautiful to watch. Thank you, babe.

Speaker 2 I think I was thinking last night about how all of these things that I have had to discover through this work and actual embodiment and actually taking things away that I was using as protection from life,

Speaker 2 I was writing this in Untamed.

Speaker 2 There's whole chapters about feeling it all, about not being killed, about the ache and entering the ache and like how that is life and like the ache is where the bravest people meet each other and how the only thing worse than feeling it all is missing any of it.

Speaker 2 And I was writing all of that while severely anorexic, heavily medicated.

Speaker 2 I didn't know that, but it makes me emotional because it feels like my writing self is just me five years ahead of me. It's like an arrow pointing me towards this is where we're going.
And

Speaker 2 your brain knows it. Your spirit knows it before your body does.
But like, you cannot, Glennon, learn anything but the hard way. Like, you cannot.

Speaker 2 It's just going to be a doozy of a five years, but this is where we're going. I feel like a lot of people write, and it's like, this is where they were.

Speaker 2 And mine is always like, this is where I hope to be soon. Yeah.
You're imagining the truest, most beautiful life. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So anyway, thanks for listening, you all. And yeah, I actually just feel like thanks for listening.
You're welcome. Okay.

Speaker 3 Thank you for sharing. And on another day, I want to know how you think you

Speaker 3 slid into the water, like how you got yourself off the path. And was it just removing?

Speaker 3 And I don't mean just as it, if that wasn't a Herculean effort, but was it the removal and then not relying on the coping strategies that got you in the water? You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 Because that would be if you know that you're a person on the path and you want to like submit to the swirl.

Speaker 2 I think it's the roomy thing. It's like our job is not to seek for love, but to remove all the obstacles that we have built between ourselves and love.
And those things are different for everyone.

Speaker 2 So it's one at a time removing the walls that you needed, that you built.

Speaker 2 I mean, look, we were all raised by human beings, which means that our first environments were places where we learned what was going to threaten our attachment to them. And so, in our situation,

Speaker 2 everybody has different situations with their parents. But when we were in a situation where our

Speaker 2 muchness,

Speaker 2 big feelings, big appetites was

Speaker 2 absolutely disallowed. And it didn't always have to be in words.
It was in body, it was in energy. But,

Speaker 2 you know, when

Speaker 2 I learned very early

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 messiness, bigness, gooeyness, juiciness,

Speaker 2 confusion,

Speaker 2 indulgence, big feelings, big whatever was absolutely a threat.

Speaker 2 And not what we're doing here.

Speaker 2 This is not

Speaker 2 hard to put together.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 Like eggshells, keep it small, keep it quiet. Of course.
So, how do you do it?

Speaker 2 You figure out what was disallowed, what part of your humanity was disallowed in your earliest environments, is still disallowed in your culture. You figure out what

Speaker 2 part of you threatened your survival in the first half of your life. And you're thriving in the second half of your life is reclaiming that thing

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 threatened your survival in the first half. And it's different for everybody because everybody has a different family and culture and life, you know,

Speaker 2 time they're here. It's always different, but we all have things that we have built up to protect ourselves from life.
And

Speaker 2 i have a few more and the adventure of a lifetime for me has never been like go see this place or or go bucket listy things i'll do it because abby wants to do it but i'm just like okay here's another hotel like okay that's a mountain like it doesn't do it for me

Speaker 2 what the adventure of a lifetime for me is to like experiment with removing blocks between me and life because for me now like the more walls i remove i am as moved

Speaker 2 to tears taking a walk and seeing a dad with his kid playing rock, paper, scissors on the sidewalk as if no one else is around and lighting each other's faces up.

Speaker 2 There's no way I would be more moved by the Grand Canyon. It doesn't matter where you are.
If you have nothing between you and life, life is everywhere breathtaking. You don't have to go anywhere.

Speaker 2 It's like God.

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 2 yeah.

Speaker 1 I think that that's a perfect way to end.

Speaker 2 Okay. I love you all.
Thanks. I don't know.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 Beautiful.

Speaker 2 Bye. We love you, pod squad.
Bye. 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 Wombach, 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.