Glennon & Abby's Guide to Confronting Crisis with Compassion

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Speaker 3 Welcome! I'm sorry, I just have to have a like I just need to interject a little bit of fun into our day.

Speaker 2 Do you not think this is so fun?

Speaker 3 What we're doing? No, I know, but we need to change up some of the vibe, like, every once in a while, because it's just like, Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. Okay, here we are again.

Speaker 2 Can you

Speaker 2 start us off in a new, shaky up kind of way? Yeah, okay, here we go, everybody. Hold on to your little hats.

Speaker 3 All right, welcome, welcome back, welcome, welcome back. Here we are.
We're about to discuss some really

Speaker 3 hard things today on We Can Do Hard Things. Welcome.

Speaker 3 Welcome back. Welcome.

Speaker 3 Welcome back. Welcome.
Welcome back. I can't.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 2 Well, why don't you all vote? Would you like us to do that each time or just go back to our simple welcome back to We Can Hardly Do Things?

Speaker 3 Today, we have

Speaker 2 your friend Abby Wamba.

Speaker 3 What's up?

Speaker 2 And me. Sister is out.
I know all of the sister fans are so upset when she's not here. And what I want to say to you is join the club.

Speaker 2 We are also upset that she's not here because who is going to know facts during this conversation? Who's going to understand history and things like,

Speaker 2 I don't know,

Speaker 2 facts.

Speaker 3 We can't even think of a fact.

Speaker 3 We can't even think of a fact of what she's brought to the table because we just, we lean on her so hard for them.

Speaker 2 We really do. So let's see if we fall because we have no one to lean on, but we'll just talk about feelings.
How about that?

Speaker 3 How are your feelings today?

Speaker 2 I, as you know,

Speaker 3 am overwhelmed. I am overwhelmed.

Speaker 2 I was laying in bed this morning wondering

Speaker 2 if there's just, because I keep thinking that we're just in a phase, like since the beginning of the year, year, we have had so many hard things happen to people around us.

Speaker 2 And to us, death, diagnoses,

Speaker 2 divorces, and

Speaker 2 just, it feels like every day there's a new,

Speaker 2 one of our friends or family members are going through some kind of horrible trauma. And we've been looking at each other each day.

Speaker 2 kind of stunned by it all, just trying to

Speaker 2 respond appropriately and lovingly and hoping that it's just a phase. We've been saying like 2024.

Speaker 2 But this morning I was thinking, so I'm almost 50.

Speaker 2 I actually wrote this out to

Speaker 2 my new friend, Selise,

Speaker 2 who I love very much.

Speaker 2 But she checked in on me and I told her just what I have told you, Pod Squad. And then I told her that I've been wondering if this is just what life is when you're older.

Speaker 2 If

Speaker 2 there's a phase of adulthood that's building, where you're like building and building and building.

Speaker 2 And then there's a very short phase of just enjoying what you built.

Speaker 2 And then

Speaker 2 is the next phase losing?

Speaker 3 No,

Speaker 3 I don't believe that. I talked to my therapist about this yesterday, and you know what we came to.
So our world gives us

Speaker 3 these

Speaker 3 unspoken unspoken rules. It's a fallacy that we are handed when we are children, that if you work hard enough, if you do good enough, then bad things won't happen to you

Speaker 3 or your people.

Speaker 3 And I think that that kind of way of thinking is, you know, capitalism and all of it, but it also kind of keeps us safe. It keeps us safe in some ways and it hurts us in others.

Speaker 3 So the expectation that life is supposed to be butterflies and roses, and that when hard things come, they will be fleeting, and you will then return to your normal life.

Speaker 3 And what I've learned, and not just my therapy, but over the course of the many months since I've gone through quite a bit of struggle, is

Speaker 3 I was trying to talk to my therapist yesterday about this. Like, okay.

Speaker 3 Maybe I'm getting it wrong. Maybe my expectation of things not being so hard or crisis coming, maybe that's the issue.

Speaker 3 And she listened and she said, Yeah, you know, that sounds like a very Buddhist way of thinking, of surrender to what is, et cetera.

Speaker 3 And I believe that that's a beautiful way to live. I really think that that's something to aspire to.

Speaker 3 But what she did say and mentioned to me yesterday that I'm going to be sitting with all day today is

Speaker 3 when there is crisis fatigue, you start to get

Speaker 3 confused. You don't know how to make decisions or whatever.
And something that I am working on

Speaker 3 is acknowledging that this just fucking sucks.

Speaker 3 And like saying it out loud and actually having the moment you acknowledge that something sucks is the moment that then you can also have sincere compassion for yourself.

Speaker 3 around the sucky thing, around the crisis, around

Speaker 2 you mean not just jumping into action.

Speaker 3 Yeah, because that's what we've been, that's that's what I think that I've been doing. I'll speak for myself.
You know, my brother dies or whatever it is.

Speaker 3 I'm just like, okay, what do we need to do to get through this?

Speaker 3 And I think I've been skipping the piece where I'm really acknowledging that this sucks.

Speaker 2 That's interesting.

Speaker 2 I'm just thinking, as you're talking about this yesterday on the couch, when we found out about Amanda's diagnosis, I immediately figured out our calendar, how we were going to get there, when we were going to get there, who was going to watch the dogs, who was going to whatever.

Speaker 2 And I came upstairs, told the kids to sit down and presented what happened, and then presented the calendar and presented the plan.

Speaker 2 And then

Speaker 2 looked at them, and their eyes were just so big.

Speaker 2 And they said,

Speaker 2 Can we talk about what happened?

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Tish said,

Speaker 2 So, when are we going to talk about our feelings? Yeah. She literally said that.

Speaker 2 So that is,

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 3 because we are in crisis fatigue.

Speaker 2 We are in crisis fatigue.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 the analogy in my brain is like, I feel like I'm in a boxing ring and the hits just keep coming and I can't figure out how to bob and weave away from the

Speaker 3 haymaker that keeps coming towards my face.

Speaker 3 So today I'm going to sit and be pouty about

Speaker 3 the things that have happened and then really

Speaker 3 lean into

Speaker 3 this compassion and this, like, sweet

Speaker 3 love girl in here that wants

Speaker 3 somebody else to fix it and make it better.

Speaker 3 Because, like, as adults, we have to do the fixing and making it better ourselves. But there's also this part of us that's like, oh, I don't want to.

Speaker 3 I'm scared. I'm sad.
I'm mad. I'm angry.
Whatever.

Speaker 3 So that's where I'm at today.

Speaker 2 I think that both of the things are true. I think that both of what we are saying is true.
I think that

Speaker 2 while I hear you saying, no, that's not what life is now,

Speaker 2 I don't believe you. I actually

Speaker 2 do think

Speaker 2 in my heart that

Speaker 2 When you hit a certain age, I guess if you're lucky enough that the previous ages ages haven't been all crisis and sadness, you do hit a certain age where people do start getting sick and people do start dying and relationships do start ending and the way you see the world changes so much that your rose-colored glasses are gone and you actually see things for as painful as they are.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 what I'm trying to figure out is

Speaker 2 how to have and both. I know that I can't fight against the current of what life is.

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 2 insanity would be holding my breath until the loss stops because it's not going to stop. That's not life.
Right.

Speaker 2 So, what I do feel committed to doing

Speaker 2 is figuring out how to do this phase of life where there is so much loss, where there is so much caretaking, where there is so much

Speaker 2 shock and pain, and with

Speaker 2 some some dignity and peace and

Speaker 3 power and joy

Speaker 2 and softness and not bitterness.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, I think that that's probably what I don't want, I hear what you're saying.

Speaker 3 And correct me if I'm wrong here, but I feel like what we're saying is we don't want to lose our humanity in the things that are really sad.

Speaker 3 Because I think that when I look out and talk to, you know, my parents and folks who have lived longer than me and us,

Speaker 3 there's a part of me that feels like so much trauma happens, especially in the older years like this,

Speaker 3 that it makes them become a little bit cold-hearted.

Speaker 3 Like as a defense mechanism.

Speaker 2 Sure, I get that. Just stiffening yourself.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 I mean, I want to do that right now. I want to be like cold-hearted and I want to not feel at all.

Speaker 3 Like harden, not soften hardened yeah and I think that what we're saying is we want to be able to get through

Speaker 3 whether this is a new phase or a forever phase like whatever it's like accepting that what is is

Speaker 3 and also not losing our humanity so that we stay open to all the emotions that it brings it just feels like so a lot like it's all of my emotions are just at the tips of myself

Speaker 3 and that's rare i don't know if that's like my therapy and getting like more in touch with myself, but I think it's rare to have so much. I feel like I'm an exposed root.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I suspect that it's beautiful.

Speaker 3 What?

Speaker 2 This time.

Speaker 2 I suspect that it's like before we're just adulting, adulting, adulting with flashes of humanity when something happens. Yeah.
We're climbing, we're climbing, we're building, we're

Speaker 2 hustling, we're whatever. And then every once in a while, there's a moment of true humanity or love.

Speaker 2 And it feels like

Speaker 2 now that's reversing.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 That actually

Speaker 2 through no choice of our own,

Speaker 2 we are

Speaker 2 in the humanity and the gritty, painful love of it all the time with flashes of remembering to adult.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 You know, and that's got to be

Speaker 2 more true to the bone of what it means to be human. So anyway,

Speaker 2 that is what I'm thinking about.

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Speaker 3 off.

Speaker 2 You know what's really weird is that

Speaker 2 I read these questions that we're going to read today from the pod squad. And I think we should go straight to Becky because,

Speaker 2 well, we'll see why in a second

Speaker 5 hi this is Becky I recently went through a divorce and I feel like I'm doing really well psychologically but I feel like I have all this stuff trapped in my body all this grief pain and rage from a lot of things in my life and I don't know how to get it out and I feel like I exercise and I'm in therapy and I read books and listen to books and podcasts and I do all this stuff but I feel like it's it's still stuck in my body.

Speaker 5 And I was wondering if you've had any ideas on how to process grief, pain, and rage, all these shameful emotions to move them through our bodies so we can operate in a less weighed-down way in the world and just get on with our best lives.

Speaker 5 I love what you're doing. Keep it up.
Goodbye.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 So when I read this this morning,

Speaker 2 first of all, hi, Becky.

Speaker 2 I was thinking, babe, about

Speaker 2 our visit. So Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley just came to visit us for a few days, and it was

Speaker 2 beautiful, as one might expect it to be. And Megan was talking to me about how she

Speaker 2 has this new thing where whenever she's feeling a big feeling, which Megan is dealing with her partner Andrea's cancer diagnosis and a lot of,

Speaker 2 I can imagine, fear and beauty and sadness. And

Speaker 3 she

Speaker 2 does this thing now where when she notices an overwhelm of feeling, she actually lays down on the floor and just lays there for a minute. Okay.

Speaker 2 Now,

Speaker 2 I find this to be brilliant because

Speaker 2 She said that the reason she does it is because if she doesn't lay down on the floor and stop herself, she knows herself and she will start wiping down the counter. She'll start putting away things.

Speaker 2 She'll start organizing. She'll start doing an action that is distracting from the feeling.

Speaker 2 But when she lays down on the ground, it's her way of telling her body, we have something to process right now and we're going to focus on it and process it so it can move through us.

Speaker 2 And I was listening to her thinking, oh my God, is laying down on the floor, because I've seen this before like this laying down on the floor

Speaker 2 moment that people are doing and having is it like the new i'm gonna go smoke a cigarette it's like the healthy

Speaker 2 dramatic punctuation of it it used to be you'd see the character go smoke a cigarette or when they had something deep to process that was like the signal of depth because that was the way the big cigarettes

Speaker 2 want us to feel that way, right?

Speaker 2 But is the laying down on the floor the new

Speaker 2 I have something deep to process moment? Because when she's laying down on the floor, you're literally putting yourself out of commission to do anything to distract yourself.

Speaker 2 Your hands can't reach anything, your legs can't move. I feel like it's not, everyone says exercise, exercise.
And that's not it for a lot of us.

Speaker 2 Like exercise is an energetic release of energy but it can also turn masochistic and be this like

Speaker 2 i don't know that it's processing feelings

Speaker 3 i mean all the time yeah for sure has a function of that for me it's almost like a moving meditation where i if i'm moving i'm not now in my head thinking but i hear what you're saying about megan's It's almost like a positive way of saying, I give up and laying down.

Speaker 2 It's like I have something to do. Yep.
Oh, there's something to do right now. It feels like so embodied.
Like I feel something rising in me and it's my body signal that we have something to process.

Speaker 2 And so I'm going to give myself

Speaker 2 a moment to do that. It's like, don't jump in the pool right after you eat.
Don't move around the house right after you have a big feeling.

Speaker 3 Also, what did she say? She says, I'm becoming less of myself.

Speaker 2 Yeah, she's just everything she's doing.

Speaker 3 It's so cool. She'll lay down and say, I need to become less of myself.

Speaker 3 And I'm like, that is so smart.

Speaker 2 It's a timeout.

Speaker 3 It's an adult timeout.

Speaker 2 But it's like a time in.

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 It's a time in because we're always timeouting ourselves.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that's what Becky's trying to get away from.

Speaker 2 Yeah, she's trying to time in. I will tell Becky this one thing.
When I

Speaker 2 think about

Speaker 2 why I love painting,

Speaker 2 it's not really because

Speaker 2 of any result, because the results are not anything to write home about. It's not that.

Speaker 2 I think that the reason I love it the most is because I am doing this, because I am processing

Speaker 2 feelings.

Speaker 2 When I spend

Speaker 2 time painting, I notice that I am more stable, clear, maybe whatever Megan said, less of myself. Maybe it's more of myself.
I don't know. But that time is different than any other time for me.

Speaker 2 It's like my hands are moving,

Speaker 2 but I'm not thinking, thinking.

Speaker 2 And it's not like writing where I'm forcing some kind of meaning onto the page. It's just,

Speaker 2 it feels like a passive surrender so that I can process. It's emotional digestion.
It's like a digestion system. kicks in

Speaker 2 and I notice things come up that I haven't dealt with

Speaker 2 and they process through.

Speaker 2 And I wonder, is there like a state of like peaceful flow that people can get into

Speaker 2 where that is happening, where it's like the emotional digestion kicks in?

Speaker 2 I think walks, painting, walking,

Speaker 2 and writing when I'm not doing it for an audience.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, I think that there's a lot of other avenues in which people

Speaker 3 in the world try to work through some of their grief, pain, anger, shame. Obviously, you have talk therapy.
One for me that really works is IFS.

Speaker 3 Using the IFS approach, internal family systems has really helped me really work into the grief, the pain, the anger, the shame.

Speaker 3 We've had Hillary McBride on this podcast before talking about psychedelics, and that's been scientifically researched and proven to really get into some of this stuff.

Speaker 3 And more than anything, as these crises come to us now, like we were just talking about,

Speaker 3 I'm having a weird experience around them. I feel more like annoyed and sad and all of the things.
But it's like, I feel solid.

Speaker 3 Like the thing about this whole experience in this last couple of months is I don't feel like I'm losing my shit.

Speaker 2 Right. But what's the annoyance?

Speaker 3 Well, like,

Speaker 3 oh, this is like a new crisis we have to deal with. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 Because you're, you're experiencing it as a constant interruption. Yes.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And I think what my problem is, is I'm trying to figure out how to quell that annoyance.
If I'm always expecting easy, breezy sailing,

Speaker 3 whenever a storm comes in, I'm like, oh, gosh, rather than actually being a sailor, going, oh, this is the way that the world works.

Speaker 3 And sometimes storms bring real wind that can move us faster.

Speaker 3 So, Becky, I don't have answers for you, but what I do know is the first step in dealing with all of these big things that you're dealing with is for me, I sometimes jump over it and try to fix it through all of this stuff, through running, through exercise, through books, through podcasts, through therapy, all of that.

Speaker 3 And like, sometimes I think we just haven't even accepted that that shit happened.

Speaker 3 We're already moving into like taking care of it mode.

Speaker 3 So, maybe you get to give yourself a compassion day. I don't know.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I mean, the word emotion is energy and motion, right? It's like there's something inside me

Speaker 3 that

Speaker 2 is swirling.

Speaker 2 And the idea is that that thing needs to keep swirling, keep swirling, and then be released. Who knows if that's even true?

Speaker 3 Yeah. Right.

Speaker 2 But I do think that there are things

Speaker 2 that we can bring into our lives that allow a container for that.

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 I think art for me is it. And not just creating it.
Tish's favorite movie in the whole world is Interstellar. And so we have to watch it all the time.
And it's like 400 hours long.

Speaker 2 And so two nights ago, we watched it. And this is like in the middle of all of these crises.

Speaker 3 And I

Speaker 2 cried so hard at my seventh viewing of Interstellar and

Speaker 2 P.S. It's a very deep movie and it's about love and everything and death and time and it's just shit

Speaker 2 but

Speaker 2 I was crying so hard

Speaker 2 and like having this double consciousness of oh I don't know, like all the crises kept coming in my real life.

Speaker 3 I haven't cried about any of them.

Speaker 2 But these experiences that we can put on a movie that taps into something that's tangential to our thing,

Speaker 2 and that allows a release.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's like this is about everything, right?

Speaker 2 And so I truly believe that that is one of the reasons why we need and love art, because it offers us a safe container

Speaker 2 to release.

Speaker 3 And the process, the hard feelings that may be in like a conversation or.

Speaker 2 Yep. yeah because i actually don't have to solve matthew mcconaugh's problem

Speaker 2 he's

Speaker 2 i don't know where i'd begin with time space continuum whatever the hell is happening there but like i don't have to get out a piece of paper and make a calendar for jessica chastain and matthew mcconaughy to like there's no logistics to handle in our lives we get to skip to logistics all the time yep But in art, we just have to sit there.

Speaker 2 We can't solve it for them. And so we are forced to feel it in a safe way,

Speaker 2 which is why I often avoid deeply feeling movies because I know what's going to happen.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 music, and all the things.

Speaker 2 I'm like, I need to be ready. When I walk up the stairs and Abby has Adele or Tish or

Speaker 2 I'm like, what are you doing? Like, we need to prepare for this processing. It can't just be sprung upon us.

Speaker 3 I'm trying to get those streams for Tishi. Yeah.

Speaker 3 I'm trying to do.

Speaker 2 Anyway, it would be very cool for all of us to figure out.

Speaker 2 and why isn't that a part of wellness? Like this whole wellness world, like where the hell is the processing of emotion and all of it? It's like green juice doesn't do that for us.

Speaker 2 Red light therapy does not process our emotion. We need

Speaker 2 focus.

Speaker 2 We need focus upon emotional health.

Speaker 3 I think that's what therapists are trying to do.

Speaker 2 No, but like therapy is all brain. Look, I am.

Speaker 3 There's many kinds of therapy, though, that also deal with the body.

Speaker 2 yeah I just think for the majority of people it's talk therapy talk therapy talk therapy which for me is just more hamster wheel stuff I think that therapy is where we dredge up all the things that we're gonna have to go process on our own yeah it's not the processing oh I think that that's interesting what you just said it's like accepting real accountability and responsibility for actually having to do the personal work yourself yeah

Speaker 3 it's like Becky I love you and I hope that this sounds loving and sweet.

Speaker 3 But maybe there's probably no exercise or therapy or book or podcast, even this one that you can find

Speaker 3 that's going to actually do the work of processing it, all of this stuff. Maybe it's just like you.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you can't outsource the processing of emotions.

Speaker 3 Sucks. I wish we could.

Speaker 3 But like, you really do have to actually go through it and process it. And, you know, we're not therapists, so who knows?

Speaker 2 We love you, Becky. We're processing alongside you.

Speaker 3 Yeah, we're with you.

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Speaker 2 Okay, let's hear from Lindsay.

Speaker 5 Hi, my name is Lindsay. As a former college athlete, I love listening to your sports episode.

Speaker 5 Glenn, and something you said resonated with me, that the word agony and agony of defeat sounded hyperbolic to you when you were a kid.

Speaker 5 And it just reminded me, I was thinking about as a high school basketball player, I always wanted to win.

Speaker 5 I cared about winning, and I tried my best every game, but I don't remember ever feeling the emotion or emotional anguish of losing until

Speaker 5 one bus ride home after a loss when our male coach ripped into us for enjoying the ride. We were talking, laughing, even though we had lost the game.

Speaker 5 After he yelled at us, we spent the rest of the ride sitting silently, suing for being chastised. So my question is, perhaps this question is for Abby.

Speaker 5 If you ever remember a time when you were taught to feel this anguish in relation to sports, and is this a thing?

Speaker 5 Okay, thank you so much. I listen to your podcast every week.
I really enjoy it.

Speaker 2 That is such a fascinating question, Lindsay. Is the agony of defeat inherent, internal, or is it something we're taught that we're shamed into? It's good.
Abby Wambach, what say you?

Speaker 3 Both.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 3 I think every person is kind of

Speaker 3 based on their circumstances, the relationship they have with their competitiveness is individual. Mine,

Speaker 3 because of the family I was raised in, and because of the energy and the dynamics and the readings of how I felt like my family system worked, I knew that I was going to be seen

Speaker 3 as a valid person if I excelled at something,

Speaker 3 if I excelled at this one thing that I felt really naturally gifted at. And so

Speaker 3 it wasn't conscious then, but my competitiveness was absolutely

Speaker 3 due to the attachment issues that I had as a young child and the way that I might not have handled it that well,

Speaker 2 but

Speaker 3 then I was able to transfer that competitiveness, that feeling like my life actually depended on it, because I do think that there was a part of me that really felt like my life depended on it.

Speaker 2 That's attachment theory.

Speaker 2 That

Speaker 3 as I got older, I didn't go back because it was affirmed in what I was doing in sport that competitiveness competitiveness actually is really good for outcomes.

Speaker 3 Being really competitive is really good for success.

Speaker 2 Right. But what she's saying is an important part of competitiveness, feeling absolute agony and misery after you lose, because I have seen you, Abby,

Speaker 2 secretly say to me, when one of our kids loses something, and then is okay,

Speaker 2 is laughing with their friends, is whatever,

Speaker 2 You have said to me that that makes you nervous that they don't have what it takes to succeed because they are not crushed and destroyed after a loss.

Speaker 3 Yeah, because in my experience in professional sport, that is kind of one of the things that allows some athletes to rise and others to not.

Speaker 3 I think that there is this emotional component and this vulnerability about being competitive that some people embrace and other athletes don't. And I'm not judging other athletes.

Speaker 3 I'm just saying that if you wanted to do this thing at a high, high level professional sport, it's almost a requirement for entry that you need to have a competitiveness, a self-assuredness, this matters to me mentality in order to really succeed.

Speaker 3 Now, the players, in my mind, mentally speaking, because at that level,

Speaker 3 even in high school basketball, everybody's decent enough. They can dribble-ish.
They can shoot-ish.

Speaker 3 But when you get to the professional ranks, what are the things that you can set yourself aside and apart from other players with?

Speaker 3 Everybody's strong. Everybody has the basic abilities.
Everybody has certain qualities. And mentality is like this one piece.
I would also put...

Speaker 3 emotionality and emotional intelligence in that bucket of mentality. Even though I know that they're kind of separate, it's just like in the sport world, we talk about it as sports psychology.

Speaker 3 If they can have

Speaker 3 more access to themselves and that vulnerability piece and that competitiveness, because really, what is competitiveness? What is it?

Speaker 2 Isn't there a form of this?

Speaker 2 To me, it feels like

Speaker 2 it's old thinking. This idea that there must be a purgatory of misery that is a manifestation of humiliation

Speaker 2 and that you must prove your suffering after a loss feels to me that it is rooted in the old belief that shame is motivating.

Speaker 2 I don't know anything about sports,

Speaker 2 but I do know about people and motivation and I don't think that that okay it works.

Speaker 3 It might not be healthy. Exactly.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I'm not saying it's healthy.

Speaker 2 But so does screaming at a kid. Yeah, that works until they're broken and it doesn't, they spend the rest of their lives trying to

Speaker 2 recover their humanity from that. So I'm not saying it doesn't work in the short run.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 But is it possible for a human being to work their ass off for what they want, come to a field,

Speaker 2 give everything they have to give,

Speaker 2 lose,

Speaker 2 then gather up their people

Speaker 2 and find peace and joy, and yes, maybe even some laughter,

Speaker 2 having known that they laid it all out on the field.

Speaker 3 I don't know. I don't know because I never experienced that.
I can't speak to that. I would like to think that that's possible.
But what I know

Speaker 3 from

Speaker 3 listening to

Speaker 3 some of the best athletes in the world,

Speaker 3 the Michael Jordans, the Kobe Bryants, all of my former national team players,

Speaker 3 We knew we were going to survive the event,

Speaker 3 but there was a part of us that felt so

Speaker 3 bad. And it wasn't like I felt bad about myself.
I felt like I let everybody down and I didn't do my job. And if I did my job, we would have won.
And there is a motivational component to that.

Speaker 3 And so, do I think it's 100% healthy? No. Do I I think it's required for professional sports or even sports in general to need to be competitive and successful so that you can be successful? No.

Speaker 3 I do think that there are people out there that have a healthy relationship with their craft, that they can go to the office, essentially, play, win or lose, and then go home to their families and have a normal existence.

Speaker 3 I wasn't one of those people. Right.

Speaker 2 And that could have been part of your greatness.

Speaker 3 And I can't for certain say it was or it wasn't. What I have a hunch about

Speaker 3 is that

Speaker 3 the kind of way that I

Speaker 3 experienced loss and the kind of way I experienced failure,

Speaker 3 because I do think that we get the word failure wrong,

Speaker 3 is I was able to transfer that into

Speaker 3 fuel

Speaker 3 and into a way of motivating myself to think about things differently, to be better.

Speaker 3 Do I think that there are some people who can dance around after losing a game, a really big one?

Speaker 2 Yes, I do. Our kids do.

Speaker 3 I do. And do I also have like an old school self in here that thinks

Speaker 3 that's wrong?

Speaker 3 Yeah,

Speaker 3 I do think at times maybe that behavior isn't right. And I also have the awareness to say, that might not be correct.

Speaker 3 That thought, that thought might be an indoctrinated thought of how people should be. My only experience is having gone through it acting really sad after a loss or really disappointing.

Speaker 2 You said.

Speaker 3 You said acting. Well, no, being really sad.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 All I know is

Speaker 2 when I watch our youngest who plays very competitive the soccer, when she and her teammates have played a game and they've left it all out on the field, and it's just amazing how they, the vulnerability of how hard they try and how they

Speaker 2 show up for each other on that field and they pour it all out and they lose.

Speaker 2 And then I watch them walk, you know, they meet with their team, they have their post-mortem meeting.

Speaker 2 And then when they are walking towards us after the game and I see her with her friends and they are

Speaker 3 laughing,

Speaker 2 I feel

Speaker 3 so

Speaker 2 grateful.

Speaker 2 I feel like, oh, they're going to be okay

Speaker 2 because

Speaker 2 I sometimes feel like the price of greatness is too high. Yeah.
Like I feel like we look at people who achieve the highest in wherever they are.

Speaker 2 And we think that is success, but I wonder if some of the people who achieve the most greatness are the people who are the most threatened

Speaker 2 their self is most threatened by any sort of loss like you you're so devastated when you lost because your attachment to your family felt based on whether you won or lost like when i see a kid who leaves it out on the field and then is able to understand that was a game and now it's done and i am still a whole person deserving of connection and joy and no matter what happened on that field i think it's an and both

Speaker 3 i do hear you and I do agree with you. I think that that feels like a healthier relationship with game, with sport.

Speaker 3 I also think

Speaker 3 it takes an extraordinary amount of courage and bravery,

Speaker 3 if you do have competitiveness in you,

Speaker 3 to be actually outwardly upset. Yes, I hear that.
And especially a young teenage group of young women, young girls.

Speaker 3 I think that the the desire to want to jump over the sadness and into a normal life again happens too quickly only because they don't want to stay in the pain of the discomfort.

Speaker 3 And so I think both things can be true at the same time here.

Speaker 3 I don't necessarily think my way was the healthiest way. I also don't think that Emma should look to the way that I did things.

Speaker 3 And I don't think that I should project onto her the way that I did things.

Speaker 2 Is that the answer? Is it like

Speaker 2 whatever way

Speaker 2 you feel

Speaker 2 is the right way?

Speaker 2 But what is not right is to look at a bunch of kids and say, you are not experiencing this right.

Speaker 2 So you should be full of agony.

Speaker 3 That's right.

Speaker 3 Or

Speaker 2 what I'd be more prone to is if my child came to me in agony, I wouldn't be able to handle it. And so I would be like, you should feel proud.
You should feel happy. You should feel connected.

Speaker 2 So not shitting on anyone's feelings post-loss and allowing them to experience whatever they experience.

Speaker 3 I think that it's so important because

Speaker 3 rather than a coach standing in front of this crew on the bus, shaming them into silence for the rest of their ride home, a better coaching move would be

Speaker 3 girls are talking, laughing, you know, and the coach comes back and says, Hey, I really want to talk and I want to ask you guys some questions so that I can understand

Speaker 3 what you're feeling. You know, know, we just lost

Speaker 3 and maybe I'm old school here, but I'm sad and disappointed and upset. And I want to know more why you all feel like you're happy

Speaker 3 and or

Speaker 3 mid or whatever, you know, like maybe the new coaching model is to invite everyone to talk about how they're feeling so that they can also understand and acknowledge if they are just jumping over over the sad part.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's good.

Speaker 3 I don't know how I would do that necessarily. You know, you guys are all happy-go-lucky right now.
And back in my day, and I don't want to project on you, we would be sitting in silence.

Speaker 3 I just want to make sure that we're not missing this huge thing that just happened, that we're not missing this huge emotion that actually really benefits us. Yeah.

Speaker 3 I think that worry about the pain of it, worry about our children being sad,

Speaker 3 We all parents try to like fix it for them or whatever, but really having them move through the sadness.

Speaker 3 And sometimes, you know, as I get it, as a teenager, you don't really know how to process some of this stuff.

Speaker 3 And so sometimes you learn, oh, if I just pretend to be happy, then I'll just inevitably be happy. But it's the process of winning, dealing with that.

Speaker 3 It's also the process of losing, dealing with that. And that's their journey.

Speaker 3 And they will become who they need to become based on the wins and losses and based on how they learn how to handle those wins and losses.

Speaker 3 And it's the job of a coach, a job of a really good coach to be in touch with what the players are feeling.

Speaker 2 And not just telling them.

Speaker 3 And not to drive the feeling, to guide them, to be the bumper, you know, at a bowling alley, to be the bumpers, to be like, hey, I don't know. Are we getting a little bit too off the lane here?

Speaker 3 Let's talk about it.

Speaker 2 It's interesting because it feels like what we keep ending on

Speaker 2 you know I'm always looking for a theme babe it feels like what this

Speaker 2 episode keeps being about is

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 the answer is never how we should be feeling that we keep asking ourselves how we should be feeling when really the only thing we can ever do is acknowledge how we actually

Speaker 2 feel

Speaker 2 and process it with other people.

Speaker 2 What you keep saying and what we keep coming back to is not living outside in on what should this look like? And are my feelings matching the picture I have in my head of how this is supposed to feel?

Speaker 3 Or

Speaker 2 do I not start with the map outside of myself? Do I actually start with the compass? Is it I acknowledge how I actually feel? and start there

Speaker 2 and allow the other people in my life to do the same. And so it's not about how you should feel.
It's about how do you feel? And there's a curiosity to it. We love you, pod squad.

Speaker 2 Thanks for all of these incredible questions. We love speaking with you so much.
And we will see you back here next time. 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?

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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 this show is produced by Lauren Lograsso, Allison Schott, Dina Kleiner, and Bill Schultz.