258. Abby Asks, “Why Can’t I Love Myself?”

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To be loved, we need to belong.

Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things.

Today,

especially Abby Can Do Hard Things.

So Pod Squad, we have tried over time to share with you what

kind of the personal journeys each of us is going through

and give you updates about that.

You know, mine over time has been recovery from anorexia and embodiment.

This last couple years, sister has been on an ongoing journey to

determine the role that joy and peace and relaxation and full humanity will play in her life as opposed to spoil alert it's not much

yet minor yes

very

minor role it's a journey it's a journey the longest journey starts with a single well spreadsheet

abby

has recently been i actually think many things led to this one being our episode with Suzanne Stabile,

who told you that since you're seven, maybe you don't dive much into the harder sides of emotion, that you tend to stay on the sunny side of things, that you're a

positive patty, that you are constantly trying to mold situations to look at the bright side.

Yes.

The episode is 226.

It was the Enneagram episode we did with Suzanne Stabile, and it's amazing.

Go back and listen.

So she convinced you, along with many other things at that time in your life, it wasn't just that, but convinced you that maybe

you would benefit from

exploring the harder emotions and the other side of

being human.

You have started therapy and started to explore other emotions than positivity, like sadness and anger and pain.

And we just want to know,

how is it going?

Has it been worth it?

What are the benefits?

Why did you decide to do it?

Where are you right now?

Well, I think for some context, when you decided to go down and into the road, onto the road of therapy,

I had a front seat to kind of watch you.

explore that part of yourself and dedicate yourself to the consistency of therapy week after week.

And because I knew what you were doing and how vulnerable that was and how hard that was, it gave me confidence to even want to think about, think about going to therapy.

I've been in therapy many parts of my life, just different.

I just have never really had like a consistent practice.

It was always I was having a big issue that I needed to deal with.

And so I would go to therapy, talk about it.

But watching you kind of go through this experience over the past consistent 12 months, I've seen a considerable benefit.

There have been a lot of things going on in my personal life, professional life, in our life, in our family life, that it felt like it was just becoming unmanageable.

I think we all, a lot of us use our marriages in some ways to like work through a lot of our problems.

And you're very, you're very.

Yeah.

And I know that you and I are very good at processing and working through stuff.

But I also know that that has limitations, not only because neither of us are clinically licensed to do this,

but I think having these conversations with somebody that isn't involved in any of my drama is like really important.

So you were having challenges in the professional realm, family of origin realm.

Yes.

Raising teen, young adults realm.

Yes.

Are those pretty much the realms?

Yeah.

I don't know if there are any other realms in my life.

Friendship realms.

Friendship realms.

Friendship realms.

Yeah.

So how is that different, Abby?

Because I'm interested in a couple of things you said, like how you had been to therapy at other points in your life.

And then you use the word all of these things happening, making it unmanageable.

Was that a

new

feeling for you?

Yes.

Like, was that a rocking moment to, because you are, you are like, I got it.

I'm on it.

Nothing can phase me.

Here I go.

Yeah.

Kind of a human.

Yeah.

What did that feel like to feel like it was unmanageable?

And was that a new feeling for you?

Yeah.

Well, because for more context, the times that I had been in therapy before, my life had fallen apart.

I was an addict.

I had heartbreak.

Like my life.

not only was unmanageable, I was unable to actually live in it.

And so I felt like I had to.

It was like a forcing.

This circumstance was different because everything

on not only on the outside, but even on the inside was like, it was fine.

It was, it was fine.

I was, I was doing everything I needed to do.

You know, bills are paid.

Kids are off to school

at the right time.

It was okay.

My life was okay.

It was like the other things when you have like the divorce or the addiction, you can point to that thing and be like, that's the problem.

Yes.

And now I need help dealing with that little tangled web.

But when you're in it and you're just like,

everything is fine, but everything is terrible.

Yeah, it was a very different thing.

And yeah, there were just like a few crises, but they were minor in the grand scheme of what I thought therapy was for.

And I think that that, like, for me, it was, that's really important.

But, but watching Glendon go through this last year,

yes, maybe hers was a specific crisis and her life was hard to get her into that therapy.

But for me, I was like, well, I don't think it could hurt.

And when we had that podcast with Suzanne, I don't know, she just put this little nugget inside of my heart.

And it was like the thing, I just, as soon as she said it, I just had this sinking feeling in my stomach.

What did she say that gave you the sinking?

She said, well, you need to really work on and get into your shadow side.

And it was like the truest thing that anybody has ever said to me because I've known it.

I've known it all along.

I've like deep down have been avoiding it at all costs on purpose.

And what did that mean to you when she said your shadow side?

Was that uncomfortable feelings?

What did that mean to you?

I think that I interpreted it as my anger.

I think that I have,

for every reason, for every good reason, the life that I have lived in, I didn't have a lot of time or space or the financial stability to, this is how I thought.

This is not true, but this is what I believed.

In order to create the life that I created, I could not focus my attention on my anger.

I think that I was afraid.

I think it has everything to do with attachment.

And I have been very afraid to touch anger.

because I think that to me, it threatens my attachment to the people that I love.

So when I was growing up, we were not allowed.

We were told not to cry.

We were not allowed to like bring a kind of energy into

the fullness of a room and change the energy of that room.

Wow.

We had to

assimilate, I guess, in a way.

And then I go off into locker rooms.

after locker room after locker room.

That is a very similar mentality around

don't be the one that rocks the boat fit in kind of deal with whatever happens but you have to make the best of it because it was my life so

by by virtue of necessity i think that i have buried all of my anger

and i think that it definitely

has made me a half person

and i have felt that way a lot in my life like i have felt split And I thought it was because I lived two lives.

But I think more, the more therapy that I'm doing, it's because that I never really lived into the fullness of myself.

And so

it's just been a very fascinating, you know, it's like every therapy,

the beginning of therapy that a lot of us get into.

You don't think anything's happening.

Right.

The first couple of weeks, I'm like, I don't know.

You know, like, I just, I'll talk to you.

Yeah, well, because I feel like.

You won't charge me, I can just talk to you.

You say good stuff, yeah.

Not only do you say good stuff, but you know more about me, so like getting that's why we can't do it with each other, right?

Like, yeah, yeah, we know each other too well, we think we know each other.

Like, how our son told us that he has an artist friend, and the artist friend told him that you can't paint a portrait of someone you know super well.

Well, oh, interesting, like you don't do it right, totally.

But I think it's like frustrating having to

tell

stranger the whole of my story because how can they understand all of the complexities but that is the reason why it's so important is because they don't know the complexities because the complexities are beliefs that i have brought to the table yes they're like all of the the trauma and the beliefs about the things that happened

is what i feel what you know because i've told you yes

she doesn't have these I know.

And so she's been able to listen and I've had to, over the many, many months that I've been in therapy with her, try to relate my story to her.

And she's very good at being like, okay,

is that true?

Do you believe that?

We talk a lot about nonviolent communication in terms of setting boundaries because a lot of what I struggle with is confrontation

and having like

a hard conversation with somebody around something that I feel or some hard emotion that I'm feeling around whatever's happened.

That to me feels like, nope.

Is it because of what you learned when you were little?

If I bring them a hard thing, why would they stay?

If I bring them a sad thing, if I bring them an angry thing, if I bring them something, a preference, a boundary,

they're going to leave.

Like, why would I be more trouble than of course?

And so i guess just going back to like the two two weeks after this this therapy started i started to allow some of the anger some sadness just the the not popular emotions

the not pleasing the people pleasing yes i remember those early weeks yeah and you actually one morning you said to me babe are you okay And that was not a good moment of mine.

And let's explain why.

You can explain that part.

Well, looking back on it.

Okay, so I'll set the scene.

So it was like for a few weeks,

like I would wake up and it was like I went from living with little Miss Sunshine to living with like

the devil like

in the sweetest way.

Like I'd wake up, I'd wake up in the morning and like upstairs would, she'd be like, the coffee machine.

And you guys, damn it.

Yeah, yeah.

That would, that's you.

God damn it.

I was so,

I think I was scared.

I, I was, I, I understood that something important was happening,

but

I

had a moment of, that I think happens when two people are

surrendered to a growing experience.

It's like, I want you to get better.

I, your partner, want you to get better and experience the full humanity.

But hold on a second, not like that.

And do I?

And like, tamp this shit down because where's my sunshine?

Like, I was with my, are you okay?

I was trying to control you.

I was like, oh, no, no, no, this has gone too far.

Like, let's get back to little missunshine.

And reinforcing her fear thing, which is that if I act

in a way that isn't sunshine, it is going to alienate me from the people that I love.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Right into the heart of that.

Yeah.

Interestingly enough, about that, I knew what you were doing.

I knew you were

covertly trying to get me to be happier or whatever you were trying.

I knew what your intention was by that question, but it actually forced me

to really ask myself, am I okay?

Yes.

And

though though I know maybe it was kind of

the design of the question might not have been perfect, it was really important that you asked me that with the undertones underneath it

because I had to be like, wait, what is this work for?

This is like complicating my living situation.

Am I okay?

And I had never asked,

I guess I had never experienced feeling the anger of my life or myself inside.

And then asked myself,

wait, I'm okay.

I think that I equated anger with not okayness.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like it's the evidence is in, if you're okay, you wouldn't be mad.

So what did you know?

You can't be both mad and okay.

Yeah.

And I was like, I am okay.

I am, I am able to feel anger.

And I am also at the same in the same breath able to be okay.

I'm okay with this.

That's so huge.

Yeah.

You were able in that moment to say, I am both angry and okay.

I have anger.

Yes.

Not I am anger.

That's right.

That's right.

I have anger right now.

Yes.

And I am something else.

Yes.

And I am okay.

And I was able to be like, oh, I am living with anger in my house and I am okay.

No, there's a reason why I have chosen partners who don't show anger.

I grew up in a house that had a lot of anger in it.

Yeah.

And so when anger is near me, it's triggering.

I

you're not okay.

I'm not okay, except that I am.

So did you both realize we were okay?

That's really fascinating.

Yeah.

I

think that throughout my life, I felt like I was going to have to do this on my own, you know?

And being okay was, that was it.

That was, that is all I needed to be.

Like, I need to be okay.

And I think that the belief that I had around

if I'm angry and that equating to not being okay, it was like, well, I can't do that.

That's a no-fly zone for me.

So that was like a really important moment.

And then to just go a little bit further, because I haven't over the whole of my life really accessed anger as much, I would bury it down because it was there.

I was, I was feeling it, but I was not expressing it.

And so I'd bury it and then it would start stacking and stacking and stacking and it would lead me to blow up very rarely, but I would blow up and I would, it would take me down.

And at odd times.

Very odd times.

Like it would be the weirdest thing.

It would be the like the straw, right?

That broke the camel's.

Like you'd take the wrong exit off of a highway and it was like the end of the world.

Yeah, pissed for the hungry.

Yes.

Oh, hungry.

You were hungry.

That's a whole different,

That's a whole, I think, a whole different psychological discussion, but yes.

And so now that I've, I'm starting to express my displeasure or distaste or unhappiness or

anger or sadness or whatever, I'm saying some of these things more vocally.

I still am probably not perfect, but I'm trying my best to say things.

I realize now that when I say them, they don't, they don't last.

There's like a, it comes up, I experience it, I vocalize it, and then it goes away.

Where before

I'd let it pile up, something would set me off and then I would stay angry and upset.

And I'd be like mad at myself because here I am now not okay.

So it was like the shame cycle and spiral that I was, that I would experience when in fact I would blow up in a rage of some sort.

So that's been really interesting because I'm able to say it and let the emotion kind of move through me.

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Can I say one thing about the background of this?

Because the Suzanne piece that you're mentioning is so interesting.

And when you say the shadow side and the dark emotions, the way that she described it to you, that your face turned 14 different colors of recognition she was talking about how folks like you specifically in this context sevens just learn very early and your natural inclination is anything that happens if it

even if it looks to other people like disappointing or tragic or upsetting or whatever, that your instinct is to immediately reframe, that you're just constantly reframing, oh, that thing.

Oh, here's the good part about that.

Or this is why it looks like a bad thing, but here's why it's a good thing.

And constantly, this like cycle of that over and over and over.

And no one ever wants you to change that because it's very convenient for the people around you.

But then you don't change that until the one thing that you can't reframe.

And then she said, and then all

of everything falls apart, and you have to go back and grieve all of that.

So, are you having a process now, or are are you yet at the period where you are

grieving all of it?

She said that it's not just forward-looking, that like when you accept things in your life and you're like, I'm not trying to reframe that.

That thing that happened that's shitty and I'm going to name it as shitty and I'm going to let it flow through me.

Are you still at that phase or are you yet feeling like you're going back and like grieving all the shit that you never were able to because you were constantly reframing it as something kind of good?

Yeah, I think I'm still in the process of like

pulling up all of the things that I have a story around that

was hard, sad, angering.

Because I think what in the process of the reframe

And then in the process of the analysis of that reframe over the whole of my life has made me, I think, skew the truth.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah.

And so I think that the truth is what I'm after.

As a kid who's 17, 18 years old and has to go out into the world and now feels like I have to make my own life for my own self.

There are really good stories I think that I have told in order to prop myself up.

as the hero of my story.

There are really true stories that also make that that true.

There are some hard truths of my story that

I think in the end

I will understand as the truth.

But I am trying to go back and examine all the relationships that I've had in my life that have impacted me.

And

what I am realizing in the last session I had with my therapist about my relationship with my parents, my parents getting older, all of the things that go along with having a full life with two parents.

I think

it's been fascinating because the expectations that I have had on my parents

have been unmet.

And

those were expectations that I levied on them.

They have been the same people all the way through.

And I'm hurt because I think I hurt myself.

So you were bright siding them.

I was bright siding my parents.

And that caused a gap between what is and what you were wanting them to be.

Yep.

With your positive spin on them.

Yes.

And that gap was suffering.

Yes.

And I think

the responsibility in my therapy and for myself and for my future is to claim what I own in the way that my relationships,

whether it's my parents or friends or past people I've dated, whatever, I haven't held as much responsibility as I needed to in the way that those relationships have unfolded because I have put expectations on these people that were impossible.

for them to meet.

It's a really fascinating way to protect yourself.

Yeah.

It's also the shadow side of being a positive patty because it's that thing where hope is dangerous.

Hope is what we put on.

I put on you because I think you can be better than this.

Yeah.

You, I see your best self.

I see you're this thing.

And they're not meaning that

you did that to them.

That's right.

It's on me.

Yeah.

It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy of being alone.

And

then I get to create the story around why that all happened.

This person was this way, that person was that way.

And I think it was just

impossible expectations because people were telling me all along who they were.

My parents have been telling me all along who they have never deviated from themselves.

They didn't sign on to your improvement plan.

No.

And that is fine for them.

Yes.

But I have been carrying this.

Look at me.

I'm over here self-helping myself and, you know, pushing myself and ambitious and wanting more for myself.

And I cannot put that on my parents.

They have chosen the life that they have and the life that they wanted.

Yeah.

But I have put on

a hope

for love, a hope for

my relationships with my parents that

for whatever reason was just not possible.

And that is my responsibility to own.

Do you feel angry about it now?

Now that you're letting go of the bright siding of

your family of origin, you're not

pushing them to be something that they are not.

Is there a process of looking at the truth of things?

and grieving what actually always was.

Yeah, I'm not at that stage yet.

I'm trying to go through this process of thinking about myself as that like eight-year-old little girl,

where I think a lot of this was imprinted on me in terms of what I needed to do to survive.

There was a part of me that needed to do all of this to survive.

Yes.

And I have to honor that little girl inside of me that was so scared and was trying her best and didn't know and wasn't wasn't really educated about this stuff and didn't have the capacity and was was fighting for her life.

I mean, being a professional soccer player, there is a selfishness and a narcissism

that I thought I needed to have in order to be the best at it.

And whether that's true or not is irrelevant at this point, because that's what I thought I needed.

That's the person that I had to create in order to be in that world.

And you couldn't ask too many questions and you couldn't have too many needs and you couldn't have too many feelings because there was somebody behind you that would do the job, that would show up if you didn't have needs.

And the same thing happened in your family.

When you have a huge family like that, that's not deeply into emotions.

You walk into a room, you can't start.

telling your needs.

No.

You can't start crying.

You will get sent to your room.

That's right.

So it was a very real, if I show up with needs, I will be banished, which is what attachment is, is based on.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is like probably the biggest work of my life that I've been avoiding for a long time.

And I know that I needed to feel really stable and grounded.

I mean, one of my therapy sessions, you know, the story,

but it makes me chuckle every time.

because she just asked me, well,

do you trust people?

It seems like with your childhood and

the life that you lived, it seems in the way that you are operating.

I'm curious about trust and how you trust people.

And I'm like, oh, yeah, I trust people.

And she's like, like, with your life,

with everything,

to know you completely.

And that was a really confronting question to me because

I haven't touched this part of myself

to really even

know if somebody would accept all of these parts of me.

Wow.

You know, and so I had to,

I mean, it still makes me laugh.

She's like, okay, so

who do you trust?

And I'm thinking in my head, I'm like, well, of course I trust Glennon.

And so I was like, I was on a Zoom with this woman and I'm like, well, I trust.

So I trust my, I trust, I trust my wife.

And she's like like looking at me weird.

And I'm like, I can't say it out loud.

What the fuck?

Because it was like,

it was too vulnerable.

Too scared.

I was too scared to say it, not to you, to her.

I was like, what the fuck?

What felt so vulnerable about it?

If I said it out loud, it was real.

And if it was real?

Then it could be taken.

Then it could be taken away.

And so I got off the call with that, with my therapist and I came upstairs and I sat down and I said,

do you remember this?

Yes, I was in the middle of, I was like doing an email and she sits down next to me.

She goes,

I didn't even know she just had therapy.

Okay, I'm just like trying to get through my day.

I'm sitting at the computer.

She walks up, she sits down next to me, she goes,

I

trust you, Glennon.

I was like, me too, babe.

Me too, babe.

Just finishing this email.

She's like, no.

I

trust you and starts crying.

I'm like, what is happening?

It was just such a big deal.

And to you just trust me in that moment, because trust can mean so many different things to so many different people.

In that moment, where you defining trust as, I believe I could bring to you my anger, my shame, my weakness, all the things, and you would stay.

Yes.

Right.

Yeah.

And I I will also be super honest

that

four seconds after I said it, look, I'm early in therapy, folks.

So don't judge me for this.

I said,

but you're not going to leave me, right?

Yeah.

You're still like, you won't ever leave me, right?

I was like, I don't even know what's going on.

She's like, I'm just a million over here.

Incredibly disruptive confession that I trust you.

I need you to tell me that you're not going to leave me.

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You know what I was just thinking, babe, is when I think about all the ways that you used to allow your anger to come out,

none of it had to do with people.

You only let your anger come out about things,

about machines that broke in our house,

about

car situations, inefficiencies,

food.

But if I brought up anything with a person or relationship and said, doesn't that piss you off?

You'd be like, oh, yeah, but they're trying to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Oh, yeah, but like it was always a reframe if it was about a person because things can't leave you.

You can bring your feelings to things because they won't go.

Yeah.

I mean, this is the truth.

I want to be the kind of person that

doesn't

have these problems.

Amen.

But I also want to be the kind of person more than that

that has these problems and can have

the most grace for myself.

And that is what I'm trying to bridge.

I'm trying to bridge that gap because

I know all of us have so many problems that we work through on a daily basis, and the world is throwing shit at us every single day.

And I guess this is this whole like path I'm walking right now is

truly about loving my whole self and not being afraid of myself.

I think that there is a part of me that is afraid,

not only of losing people, but like that I am unlovable and

and God, I just want to fucking I just want to once and for all

feel

like I love myself

and that

I am not in jeopardy because of that love of anything

that is my dream for myself that

I've just learned

so many fucked up messages throughout my life about

humanity and people, and

we all do.

But my God, that should be something that is just innately in me.

And I feel like such a failure for not even be able to like,

I know I'm a good person, but how could I not love myself?

Like, why is that so fucking hard for me?

And it's not fair,

and I'm just like,

I just feel disappointed because it feels like the work of my life.

And I don't, I don't know, I don't know when I die.

I don't know if I'm gonna just like

know

that I have this

And I think that this has a lot to do with my fear of death because it feels like such an impossible mountain to climb.

And

it's like, how do you do that?

How do you,

I love so big

and how can it be impossible?

It doesn't feel right.

It doesn't, it feels like there's like a glitch in the matrix for me that I, I don't have the the makings of being able to actually love myself

enough that i am not afraid that people might leave me that i am not afraid of dying that i am not afraid of existing in some ways it's just so annoying and

i don't know like

i think that there are a lot of people that think i mean i do understand therapy is so fucking expensive and that is a huge privilege that i get to have to be able to go and talk to somebody for 50 minutes.

And it feels strange to be in this body and to have this spirit

and to feel like I don't have that part of me

that other people have.

Feels like I was born without it or something.

And it's been like this

thing that's eating at me for my life.

it's frustrating and sad and i'm i'm so angry

because

i feel like i've i have a problem i have a something wrong with me

tell me what the thing that's wrong with you is are you this the self-love goal which is

so beautiful when you're talking i'm thinking about that Raymond Carver poem that says, and did you get what you wanted on this earth?

And what was that?

To feel myself beloved.

Like you just want to feel yourself beloved on this earth.

By myself.

Like

I want to feel

beloved by myself.

Yes.

When you worry about something being wrong with you, it's so interesting because this is what you know very well has always been my challenge, like something's wrong with me.

Do you see how it would be possible that a kid who's born into a family where their emotions are shut down, which by the way was a lot in that generation, and you were not allowed to bring your full self to the table, so part of you was banished.

And then you entered the spiritual realm, which was church, where you were told by the people in charge, just like you were told by the people in charge in your home, that the part of yourself that you weren't showing

was bad.

And if you showed it, you would be banished and sent to hell.

And then you got into sports where only strength and only power is allowed to be shown.

And if any weakness or vulnerability is shown, you're banished and you're kicked off the team.

Do you see how

it would be not just possible, but inevitable that having lived that life, you would believe over time, you would have had to be insane not to believe

that there was a part of yourself that was unacceptable for public consumption and that was

bad, and evil, and unlovable.

Yeah.

I mean,

it makes sense.

I get why I am the way that I am.

Okay, so you don't think that it's something wrong with you, but you do think that it's something wrong with you because that's what you were taught.

Yeah, but here's the thing: this is where I kind of go in circles around this concept because I understand the landscape.

I get it,

but it feels like

the one thing you're not supposed to lose.

It feels like,

hmm,

it feels like breath.

How could I be, how could I be doing this all with no breath?

Like

self-love feels like

breath, that is right.

And we all lose it.

We all lose our breath.

It just is like,

I don't know, like we can,

we can scratch the surface of all of these things.

We can even go deep down.

But, like, at the end of the day, like, that's what this is about for me.

I

am scared

to feel anger.

I'm scared to be in confrontation.

I'm scared to threaten my attachment.

I can go through all of the things.

And at the end, it's like, what?

What is going to give?

What do I need to do?

Because I don't hate myself.

That's not what we're talking about.

I just don't think that I, I have never, I don't know if it's something you can develop.

What would it feel like to you, Abby?

Like if we don't know how to get there yet, and that's fine, can we cast a vision of what it would feel like

if you knew you were beloved to yourself?

It would feel like this.

You would know it because of this.

What is the world

of your future that you're living in

look like when you know you're beloved to yourself?

I don't know.

I think

the only thing that

I can think of is just like

being held in my little blankie when I was a kid.

Like that feeling of like complete

security

you know i have a lot of codependency things that i'm also working on in therapy because of this i have always felt like

there was somebody else that would make me love myself that would make me feel love so much so that i would love myself And I found you.

And what I have realized is like we found each other not only to express ourselves and love each other and have a beautiful family but to also like figure out how to really love ourselves yeah and i i think that that might be part of like your therapy but i really hit like a brick wall

because i'm like yes i'm ready I understand all the whys.

I'm here.

Yeah.

Oh, but why can't it sink in?

Why can't I just

feel it?

I get it.

And that is what you mean about when you say earlier, when you were saying, like, it is a great strategy to protect yourself

and keep yourself alone

by making sure that you are dreaming into the other people's version of what they can be.

Yes.

Because as long as they are failing to meet your standards you've set for them.

it will always be about them.

It will never be about you.

So now you're in this relationship where you're like, I've set all these highest of hopes and you and our relationship are meeting them.

And yet I still have this

thing.

Well, that's the absolute beauty of getting everything you've ever wanted

is that you figure out that it didn't do it.

That is the absolute gift

of our relationship is that we thought

that we were going to save each other.

But what happened is that you studied the boat enough for me to feel safe enough to save myself.

And I studied the boat enough for you to feel like you were steady enough to save yourself.

Because I mean, I remember when we first got together and you were like, I don't think you're going to have to take your meds anymore.

I was like, oh, isn't she going to be surprised about the year?

But it is, it is such a gift to,

it's terrifying.

It's a terrifying gift to get what you want and have it not fix everything

and realize that it's all up to you.

And we're going to come back in the next episode and talk more about this.

But what I think you just did is I think that you think that you just

revealed

your dark

personal situation.

And I think what you just did more beautifully than I've ever seen anyone do it and more honestly and more crystal clear is that you just revealed the human condition.

What you did is reveal with unbelievable beauty the human condition of

why

can't we love ourselves and what did the world do to us to put us in this situation.

Yeah.

I thought it was absolutely stunning.

And if there's something wrong with you, then that's the thing that's wrong with all of us.

And you're more advanced because you've identified it.

Right.

I'm sitting here this whole time being like,

wow, she got to the place where she knows that.

I've never even asked myself that question if I love myself.

Yeah, it's about all of us.

so thank you babe

you're so beautiful

wow

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I'm just imagining you for your whole life.

I'm envisioning it and I'm going to keep thinking about it.

The Abby that has access, no matter what's what's happening no matter what anger no matter what conflict no matter what relationship she's in to always be able to return

to the touch tree inside of you of you secure under that blanket and that you will always always have access to that that's what i that's what i want yeah I think that this goes to part of what we were talking about earlier too.

It's like

that's what I was trying to create my whole life while creating the madness here and the insanity.

I was trying to be okay and I was doing it incorrectly.

I was managing it wrong.

I was drinking.

You were managing exactly as you needed to.

You were right.

Yeah.

You were right that you couldn't bring the needs to your house.

You were right that you couldn't bring yourself to church.

You were right that you couldn't bring your full self to the sports world.

You were right.

Yeah.

It's just that now you're suddenly in a place in your life, in your mental health, in your family,

where you might not have to use those things anymore.

But you did have to, it got you to where you are now.

You were taking care of yourself.

But how will I find out

for myself once and for all?

Like, what will be the thing?

What is the way?

I want to, I'll do anything.

So, Pod Squad, we'll be back next with the way.

See you next time.

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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We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios.

I give you Tish Melton and Brandi Carlisle.

I walked through fire, I came out the other side.

I chased desire,

I made sure I got what's mine,

and I continue

to believe

that I'm the one for me.

And because I'm mine,

I walk the line.

Cause we're adventurers and heartbreaks on map.

A final destination.

We've stopped asking directions

to

places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives bring,

we can do a heart pain.

I hit rock bottom, it felt like a brand new start.

I'm not the problem,

sometimes things fall apart.

And I continue

to believe

the best

people are free.

And it took some time

But I'm finally fine

Cause we're adventurers and heartbreaks on that

Our final destination

directions

to places they've never been

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives

bring,

we can do a hard

pain.

This world adventurers and heartbreaks on that.

We might get lost, but we're okay.

We've stopped asking directions

in some places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to belong.

We'll finally find our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives

bring,

we can do hard

things.

Yeah, we can do hard things.

Yeah, we can

hard

things