181. Hypervigilance & Loss Without Closure

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Speaker 2 Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things.

Speaker 3 It's so hard out there.

Speaker 3 It is hard out there. It is hard out there.

Speaker 4 It's brutal out there.

Speaker 2 So here's what we're doing today.

Speaker 2 We are here to answer your hard questions of us.

Speaker 4 At your service, Spod Squad.

Speaker 2 At your service.

Speaker 2 What happens is that we decide what we want to talk about and then we talk about those things here. And then sometimes you ask us questions that we ignore because they feel hard.
And today,

Speaker 2 we are going to Joan of Arc the shit out of these hard questions, meaning we are going to get on our little horse and rush straight towards the hard of the pod squad's questions because there's a lot of good stuff in the questions we want to ignore, isn't there, Mary Abigail?

Speaker 3 There is. I feel a little bit.

Speaker 3 What's the word? I feel like a soft shell crab, vulnerable.

Speaker 3 So y'all are here to support us, right? Out there, the pod squad. Yes, absolutely.
Absolutely. It's going to be a good one.

Speaker 2 Okay. So

Speaker 2 Amanda, do you mind starting?

Speaker 4 It's so funny when you try to call me Amanda. So Amanda.

Speaker 3 Well, it's always this.

Speaker 3 She's always the tongue, exactly.

Speaker 2 Samanda. She's going to end up being Samanda.

Speaker 4 Samanda.

Speaker 2 Here's the thing, and I want to address that. Okay.
I have called you sister since

Speaker 2 forever, since you were born. After this horrific three years that I was left on the planet without you, it deeply upsets the pod squad.
Okay, just

Speaker 2 the pod squad loves you and they feel that me calling you sister is dismissive of every single thing you are because it's reducing you to the role that you are to me, as opposed to what you are now to the world, which is Amanda in all of your many dimensions.

Speaker 2 I will never stop calling you sister outside of this pod, but I understand that and I want to honor that because I get it. So, I'm going to try to call you you Samanda on this pod.
I mean, on the pod.

Speaker 2 So Samanda, we're going to first hear from Ashley.

Speaker 4 I'll tell you what I don't like is Samanda.

Speaker 4 I like sister. All right, Ashley, what do you got?

Speaker 5 Hi, this is Ashley, and I was just listening to episode 162 and listening to Sister's story. And I just wanted to know how it was the story about the Christmas ornament, by the way.

Speaker 5 How did you come to find peace without knowing what happened? I feel like that's that's something a lot of us really struggle with.

Speaker 5 I love hearing your perspective about that and would love to hear more. Thanks.
Bye.

Speaker 4 Thank you, Ashley.

Speaker 4 I too struggled with that. So what Ashley is referring to, go listen to 162, but broad strokes of what she's referring to is

Speaker 4 very quick. separation with my former husband, didn't know which way was up, why it was happening.
I thought it's because I asked him to choose between his job and his marriage.

Speaker 4 But

Speaker 4 all fell apart very, very surprisingly quickly, and then he vanished. And as I was trying to put together the pieces, I received in the mail to the former home that we had a

Speaker 4 baby's first Christmas ornament

Speaker 4 that

Speaker 4 was congratulating him on the birth of his new baby.

Speaker 4 So that gave me a little clue into because you, in fact, were not pregnant.

Speaker 3 No, no, I was not. And how many months later was this from the separation?

Speaker 4 After I got the gift, I looked up

Speaker 4 baby registries and the birth date at the time the registry was made was strongly correlated with a co-occurrence of events.

Speaker 3 Got it. Yeah.

Speaker 4 So regardless, what I was talking about during that is like, I don't know what happened. I don't know.
I don't know the timing. I don't know the details.

Speaker 4 I don't know exactly what precipitated what some people

Speaker 4 would look at me and say I was a fool to not wholeheartedly believe that that was happening.

Speaker 4 the whole time, which explains why everything fell apart so quickly, which explains why a baby was born so quickly, which all of it.

Speaker 4 And yet,

Speaker 4 one cannot know exactly what happened. So, the last time I talked to him, we had two five-minute conversations about the demise of the marriage.
At the second one,

Speaker 4 he walked out the door, and I haven't talked to him since. So, that was,

Speaker 4 you know, was that 15 years ago, something like that? So, I don't have any details as to what happened. And I really actually wanted to have those details.
Like, I wanted to have a story.

Speaker 4 I wanted a narrative to be able to say what happened to me and to my life and to my marriage. And

Speaker 4 I wanted to be able to explain it to myself and other people, and to draw lessons, and connect some kind of dots that were there.

Speaker 4 And I think to

Speaker 4 draw some meaning and justify my sorrow, to explain my sorrow to myself.

Speaker 4 And really, it felt like a dignity thing to me. It felt like an insufferable loss of dignity to not

Speaker 4 know my own story.

Speaker 4 And so, the hardest thing was to let go of the having an explanation or a story. And

Speaker 4 I think I realized that I would either have to choose whether to continue to rail against this impossible unfairness that I would never know the truth of what happened, or

Speaker 4 to release it into

Speaker 4 mystery.

Speaker 4 And it actually gave me more peace to release it into mystery.

Speaker 4 And I think that's closer to the truth, actually,

Speaker 4 because the truth is that most of life is a mystery. Yep.
And that acceptance of that mystery might be as close as we get to reality.

Speaker 4 Because

Speaker 4 there isn't much explanation for a lot of the sorrow that we have.

Speaker 4 Even if I had my story of what happened, even if I knew the facts and the dates and the times and and the events, that would be my story of what happened.

Speaker 4 It wouldn't be his story of what happened. It wouldn't be her story of what happened.
There would be no capital T truth in that. It would just be the way

Speaker 4 that I

Speaker 4 use a story to survive sorrow.

Speaker 3 Wow.

Speaker 4 And I have a friend right now.

Speaker 4 a dear, beautiful friend who is my age, who has kids my age, and who loves her kids as much as I love my kids. And she is dying right now.

Speaker 4 She is fighting to have weeks and months with her kids

Speaker 4 and her breath.

Speaker 4 And there is no story

Speaker 4 or narrative

Speaker 4 and there are no dots you could possibly connect to make sense of that.

Speaker 4 And so this isn't to say like some kind of sorrow relativism, like my divorce was less traumatizing traumatizing than her fighting to live. It's about

Speaker 4 the fact that we struggle so hard to manufacture knowing what happened, and we almost always can

Speaker 4 until we absolutely can't.

Speaker 4 Like my friend, like the friends who are mourning and walking with her. And

Speaker 4 I just think maybe there's a little more closeness to the reality of life when we surrender to mystery earlier than when we absolutely must.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 The less I seek my source for some definitive, the closer I am to find. It all keeps coming back to that.

Speaker 2 That is so

Speaker 2 beautiful. Yeah.
And true. And when you said that maybe the surrender to the mystery of things is closer to the truth than the trying to figure out the truth.

Speaker 2 I mean, I can tell you as a person whose job has been to write memoirs of my life, the more memoirs I write, the less

Speaker 2 I know.

Speaker 2 All it is is looking back from this perspective. But what if I turn a little bit and look from this perspective? But what if I

Speaker 2 turn and look from this perspective?

Speaker 2 It all changes. Even so, even all of that being true, which I do believe everything you just said is the truth, do you ever find yourself like Googling to figure it out?

Speaker 2 Do you ever become a detective again?

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 4 So,

Speaker 3 only

Speaker 3 God,

Speaker 4 I didn't

Speaker 4 for a really, I think I did it like once,

Speaker 4 um,

Speaker 4 like four years after.

Speaker 4 I don't know like what kind of bee got in my bonnet that

Speaker 4 i

Speaker 4 did that um it's relatable though it's relatable so i appreciate it yeah and to be fair like my initial googling it wasn't like i want to be together it was still trying to piece together it was being a detective like trying to be like together how does this story work then yeah does the story work that that was his true love and they're still together does the story work where that was like oops, we accidentally accidentally got pregnant, and now we're broken up?

Speaker 4 How does this story work? Like, I was still trying to get the story, so it's not like I have,

Speaker 4 you know,

Speaker 2 no, not feelings. It's not about feelings at all.
It's about

Speaker 2 putting a puzzle together. It's about still thinking of your life as a puzzle that you're just one piece away from putting together, which is actually

Speaker 4 makes sense.

Speaker 2 It's never gonna happen.

Speaker 3 It's never gonna happen.

Speaker 4 And then somebody wrote into

Speaker 4 this, our podcast

Speaker 4 email address

Speaker 4 and

Speaker 4 saying that they knew him, which was very odd because I would not have revealed his identity or any kind of anything.

Speaker 4 And that felt weirdly

Speaker 4 intrusive to me.

Speaker 4 It felt like because of the nature of it. So Allison, who got the email email first and who's been my friend for decades,

Speaker 4 called me and was like, red alert. I'm not going to send this to you because I don't know what's going, but do you want me to send this to you? Because it's like explaining some things.

Speaker 4 And I said,

Speaker 4 no, I don't want it. I don't want to see it.
But it wasn't explaining things, according to her. It was just kind of empathizing with him, which is great.

Speaker 4 I got that.

Speaker 2 When that person called in

Speaker 2 to

Speaker 3 offer

Speaker 2 empathy or perspective from the ex's side, I'm mostly just trying to figure my own self out because I am obsessed with this Proud Squad and I was so pissed about that.

Speaker 2 I don't know. I didn't hear the message.

Speaker 2 I don't know. I just still feel pissed about it.
I feel like we are all sitting at a table where we're like each other's people, we're each other's friends.

Speaker 2 And like if somebody, one of my friends pours their heart about out about their divorce and then somebody at the table is like,

Speaker 2 yeah, but have you thought of his person? I just feel like it's a breach of some kind, but maybe I'm in sister bear mode.

Speaker 2 How did it make you feel and why?

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 a couple of things. A, the breach felt to me

Speaker 4 like my privacy had been invaded somehow because I had not identified him.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 4 I had not said, this is the person. Here's the identifiable information that you can use to ascertain who this person is.
And so

Speaker 4 that person identifying him

Speaker 3 to me

Speaker 4 before I did,

Speaker 4 this was about a year and a half ago, before I'd given any kind of information,

Speaker 4 felt like you're putting together pieces back to me that I have not invited you yet to do.

Speaker 4 And then, you know what? And this is going to be kind of

Speaker 4 opening myself up to something here. But

Speaker 4 the way that Allison described the email going

Speaker 4 was some of the stuff that I just feel is so fucking tired. You know, a lot of the stuff that explained away a lot of his behavior.
So So the whole

Speaker 4 really jacked up relationship with his dad,

Speaker 4 military and hard stuff overseas, and he just compartmentalizes and jacked up relationship with dad. Did I mention the relationship with dad?

Speaker 4 Like these things that I feel like, yes, those are all very valid. And yes,

Speaker 3 we

Speaker 4 need to be aware of them when we go into relationships with people. They dramatically affect everything.
It is real.

Speaker 4 And also,

Speaker 4 there comes a point in people's lives

Speaker 4 where we stop explaining

Speaker 4 and excusing behavior

Speaker 4 for

Speaker 4 decades and decades and decades

Speaker 4 based on an unwillingness to confront the issues that they're bringing to the table and ongoing choices about what they're exposing themselves to.

Speaker 4 What that means to me when people say that to me is, here, can you hold these bags for him? And then can you let go of any kind of accountability you would put on him?

Speaker 4 Like he has to hold those bags.

Speaker 4 Those bags that he won't put down, he has to hold. And they are not mine to hold and they don't have anything to do with his ultimate decision to make the choices he made towards me.

Speaker 4 And I am not in a position to condemn. And I'm also not in a position to absolve.

Speaker 4 That is not my business. And so I don't need you coming to me

Speaker 4 any more telling me to absolve him

Speaker 4 than you are coming to me

Speaker 4 telling me to condemn him. I'm not taking your advice on either of those things.

Speaker 2 Amen, sister.

Speaker 2 So good. It's also this suggestion of like, I have more information or compassion than you do yeah and i you were in the fucking marriage yeah

Speaker 2 like anyway yours is better

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Speaker 2 Can we please go to the next question for Samanda?

Speaker 3 Oh, God.

Speaker 5 Hi, sir. My question is:

Speaker 4 what can your family do to help you relax and enjoy yourself?

Speaker 6 My husband is very similar to you. So, when you're not conquering the world and taking care of everybody's things for them, because that's what you do, and we love you for it.

Speaker 6 How can we help you relax? Love you guys so much.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 4 Oh, I'm scared.

Speaker 3 I know.

Speaker 4 Wouldn't that be nice if I had an answer to that?

Speaker 3 Because I don't.

Speaker 4 I think I have

Speaker 4 two possibilities.

Speaker 4 As a partner to someone who worries a lot,

Speaker 4 what you can do is worry more.

Speaker 2 Yeah, damn it.

Speaker 4 And here's what I mean by that.

Speaker 4 There is this idea

Speaker 4 that someone is holding

Speaker 4 the accountability, or someone is holding the quality control, or someone is ensuring that what needs to happen is going to happen, whether it's getting to the place on time, whether it's getting out to the bus, whether it's making sure the homework's done, whether it's making sure the bills are paid.

Speaker 4 Okay. And so

Speaker 4 if

Speaker 4 the person who is usually

Speaker 4 the most,

Speaker 4 like you said, your husband, you conquering the world and taking care of everybody's things is often by default, that person.

Speaker 4 And no one talks about it. No one talks about it, but everybody knows that that's going to be the person who makes sure the shit gets done.

Speaker 4 Therefore,

Speaker 4 the other people don't have to.

Speaker 4 Now.

Speaker 4 If this goes to the overperforming, underperforming that we talked about in another episode,

Speaker 4 When my husband, and I can tell ever since we've been talking about this, he is starting to

Speaker 4 take

Speaker 4 that torch of being the person who is the one ensuring this happens. So for example, this morning

Speaker 4 went downstairs. He is the one saying to the kids, It's 8, 19.
You need to brush your teeth. It's 8, 19.
He was saying the things that suggests he is going to be accountable to the clock.

Speaker 4 And I was

Speaker 4 relaxed.

Speaker 4 I was relaxed because it was not

Speaker 4 me.

Speaker 4 And the reason why I'm an asshole a lot of the time is because I'm the one doing that. And everybody else is just responding.
to my accountability.

Speaker 2 Yes. Oh, say that again.
They're not responding to your assholery. They're responding to your accountability.

Speaker 3 Interesting.

Speaker 4 And that makes me mad because I'm not allowed to just be in the situation. I'm the one holding the clock.
I'm the one thinking what six steps need to be done so that this thing gets done.

Speaker 4 And I noticed that when he worries more, I worry less.

Speaker 4 And that is a crappy way of saying that

Speaker 2 shared accountability.

Speaker 4 Shared accountability. Yep.
So that's number one. And it's so much easier to say, I wish you'd relax.

Speaker 3 I wish you would,

Speaker 4 I wish you would feel better. Like, what can I do? No

Speaker 4 friend who with the husband, go take a ball from his lap and carry that ball.

Speaker 4 And when you're carrying that ball, he will be less burdened because he won't be carrying that ball.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 4 So you take it and you let him know what you need from him to to do what you need to do and what your family needs to do for you so that you can effectively carry that ball.

Speaker 4 But just looking at someone carrying 14 balls and being like, I wish you weren't so stressed is a dick move.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And also even saying, what can I do to help when you see someone with 14 balls? Then you're giving that person another job, which is explain how this ball works.

Speaker 2 Like just take the ball and figure it out with your big grown-up brain.

Speaker 3 I go back, listen to the overwhelm episode. Yeah.

Speaker 4 and it isn't true that overperformers can't stop doing that because just in this microcosm of thing that happened this morning i could as he shifted from underperforming towards the middle i could shift from overperforming towards the middle

Speaker 4 because

Speaker 4 i wasn't so nervous that the thing wasn't going to get done.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I had a situation with that recently with, with Abby, with a work thing. And it was a person we were working with.
And I am always the one who's like, I don't know about that person's motives.

Speaker 2 I'm feeling weird about this.

Speaker 2 And she's always the one that's like, let's just keep our arms wide open and trust, which makes me feel like I have to be even more careful because we're just recklessly being open-hearted and open-armed all the time.

Speaker 2 But I'm saying that ironically, you understand that, babe, because I actually believe more in your way being right in mine. So, okay.

Speaker 2 And so this thing happened.

Speaker 4 And then I actually said, how do you feel about this?

Speaker 2 And she was like, I'm worried about it. I don't feel good about this.
I don't like what that person just did.

Speaker 2 And I actually got to be unactivated and consider possible, like maybe even assigning good intent to this other person. Do you know what I mean? Like the roles.

Speaker 4 Oh, I know exactly what you mean.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 4 When John gets fired up and pissed about something.

Speaker 4 It is the oddest feeling in my bones. It's like as close as I get to relaxing and feeling like a human because I'm like, oh, you wait, so you're really fired up.
So that means my job is to be calm.

Speaker 4 Okay, this is actually what this moment needs. So look at me.
I'm calm precisely because you're so fired up. Yes.

Speaker 4 I get to be polarized from you, which if you are always so calm, that is when I am on the other side of the spectrum waving my arms, freaking out because I think someone needs to be paying attention.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So if you think that your partner needs to calm down about getting the kids to the bus stop,

Speaker 2 what you don't need to do is to tell your partner to calm down about getting the kids to the bus stop. What you do need to do is stop being calm about getting your kids to the bus stop.

Speaker 2 If you want your partner to calm down about something, you get uncalm about that thing so that your partner can naturally calm down about it.

Speaker 3 A better way of saying that might be take a little bit more responsibility in that thing that you want your partner to calm down in.

Speaker 2 Yes, calm up, right?

Speaker 4 Come up. Right.
I'm using the calm thing and the worried thing just because that's what's so often attributed to people like me. But I think it's passive versus active.

Speaker 4 You take a more active role so that the other person

Speaker 4 can be less activated. The second thing I think that people can do is that I realize that a lot of this

Speaker 4 worry and anxiety and hyperactivation around things

Speaker 4 that

Speaker 4 people like me who feel responsible for taking care of people's stuff

Speaker 4 comes from a deep place of fear. It comes from a deep place.
And mine comes from this deep fear that I am alone, that it is all up to me.

Speaker 4 that I can't stop patrolling with vigilance because then things will fall apart.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 when that happens,

Speaker 4 when that part of me is activated, my reaction is not commensurate with reality. Like it is missing the bus

Speaker 4 is just as big of a deal as some really huge thing because the burden I feel is like, see, it's just an example that if I'm not taking care of everything, everything falls apart.

Speaker 4 It's not reality based.

Speaker 4 And so I am spinning in my head and it is physiological. It's something that's happening physiologically to me.

Speaker 4 And I need to be grounded in my body, is what I have learned to stop that activation so that I can approach things in a way that makes more sense and works better.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 we have learned that the only thing that we found that works is that if John will

Speaker 4 take hold of my arms, like arm to arm, take my arms and look in my eyes and say,

Speaker 4 i'm here i'm with you we've got this

Speaker 3 it

Speaker 4 it puts me back in my body

Speaker 4 it does two things it's like the physical touch somehow keeps me from spinning in the place where all i have is like resentment and anxiety and freak out

Speaker 4 and That physical touch is really important. It can't just be with words.
It has to be like this physical reminder. you are not alone.

Speaker 4 I am here.

Speaker 2 Body to body.

Speaker 4 Body to body. And then the second thing it does, it is it speaks directly to that fear, that fear of like,

Speaker 4 I am proving you wrong, that you're alone.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 in a way that's even bigger than that, because

Speaker 4 he is seeing me be activated often before I am.

Speaker 4 And the fact that he can see me be activated even before I am and can react that way shows me that he is helping me.

Speaker 2 Yes, he's paying attention and he's noticing you. And yes.

Speaker 4 And that he is doing something for me that I can't do for myself. That's good.
Which further disproves this thing that it is all up to me and I'm the only one that can fix things.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 if your partner also has the anxiety that is, that comes with the like, I need to do everything you might want to explore like what that fear is what that

Speaker 4 you know thinking trap is and what you can do to help ground them and be their partner in those moments

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Speaker 2 I have a follow-up for you.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 That feeling of

Speaker 2 I have to do all of this. I am controlling all of this.
If I drop a ball, it all falls apart.

Speaker 2 Your partner coming to you and holding you and saying, I've got you.

Speaker 2 You're not alone. You're not alone.
We're going to get through this together. So my reaction to that is that that even scares me

Speaker 2 because

Speaker 2 your partner

Speaker 2 is kind of,

Speaker 2 it's not totally true that they've got you. Like,

Speaker 2 and I might be saying this wrong because I'm just thinking of it as you're talking. So tell me if I'm totally off.
But to me, putting my like okayness

Speaker 2 in

Speaker 2 another person who's saying, I'm here, it's okay, I've got you, is like not enough for me. It's helpful, and Abby does that sort of thing all the time with me and my anxiety, but my

Speaker 2 okayness

Speaker 2 has to be grounded in the idea that there is some force

Speaker 2 that's got this, that's beyond human being,

Speaker 2 beyond a person that can grab me and say, I've got this. Because at the end of the day, I don't feel like anybody else has got me any better than I've got me.
And that scares the shit out of me.

Speaker 2 So my question to you is, do you have,

Speaker 2 because

Speaker 2 we don't talk about this often with you.

Speaker 2 Do you have a faith practice or a, because at the end of the day, what, if I drop the ball, this is all falling apart. I don't know anybody in the world for whom that is truer.

Speaker 2 Like in all the worlds that you're in, you are the quality control, you are the holder of the thing. I understand that that is based in a lot of reality.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 4 there is a layer of,

Speaker 2 but I'm not God.

Speaker 2 There is a solar system here moving things. There is a million realities here that are actually not controlled by me.
And we do know that control is an illusion. Like

Speaker 2 Liz said to me recently, she said this much more beautifully than I'm saying it, but she said, it's so wonderful that in your new recovery, you're learning to give up control.

Speaker 2 But isn't it hilarious to think that you can give up control? Like we never had control. When you give up control, you're not giving up control.
You're giving up the delusion.

Speaker 4 You're giving up your struggle against your lack of control.

Speaker 2 Right, right. So like, do you have

Speaker 2 the only thing that works for me is a return to like stillness and whatever comes there, which some people call God, which some, you know, I find it in yoga, I find it meditation, I find it in on my walks, like

Speaker 2 this other being that I make contact with that is like, that's so cute, honey. You don't got this.
Abby doesn't got this. Sister doesn't got this.
I got this.

Speaker 2 Do you have that?

Speaker 4 Well, first, I'll say it's a very good point

Speaker 4 about

Speaker 4 what

Speaker 4 it does for me when he grabs my arms like that.

Speaker 4 And it has nothing to do

Speaker 4 with me thinking he's got it. It has nothing to do with a confidence like, oh, thank God you're here and you've got this.
What it is the acknowledgement that I see you and what you're going through.

Speaker 4 So A, you're not alone and you're not crazy. I see it happening to you.

Speaker 4 And also the physical touch

Speaker 4 grounds me

Speaker 4 back out of my tail spin in my head.

Speaker 4 So it isn't the physical touch is just what's necessary to get me back in my body. Because when I'm in that state in my head, there is no end point that is good for me or anyone else around me.

Speaker 4 It's a dropping back into myself and my moment so that any kind of plan or better outcome is deemed possible.

Speaker 4 It's not like, okay, the plan is you take it from here. That's not the plan.
It's so that some kind of plan can happen or some kind of peace can happen in the process.

Speaker 4 I think the baseline answer is getting out of my head and getting grounded back in my reality of what I can feel and see and touch.

Speaker 4 That is the first step to the next step.

Speaker 3 I also think we're missing one of the most important components about John, not just noticing, but the physical touch, is this idea

Speaker 3 that you're not alone.

Speaker 3 Because I think so much of our suffering, especially in those moments of being this high functioning person,

Speaker 3 feels like you're alone. And so you call, you know, your desire to understand and surrender to not knowing what the next reality is, not having any control.

Speaker 3 And the only way I think. human beings spirits can actually accept that is by touching somebody else and going, okay, we don't have any of this shit together.

Speaker 2 It's like proof. It's like proof that I'm not alone because you are alone in your mind.

Speaker 3 That's what's so terrifying. You are alone in there.
And I think that touching somebody else who's also experiencing this fucking weird shit that's happening down here and we have no control.

Speaker 3 And it's just like, yeah, we're doing this weird shit together.

Speaker 2 Oh my God, it's so true, babe. Because when we're in our minds, we are alone.

Speaker 4 It's it

Speaker 2 bodies touching, bodies being together are the only way we can actually be together. Yeah.

Speaker 4 And I think, especially for the person, like this person who's saying, How do I help my husband, the person who helps everyone else?

Speaker 4 There is a deep belief by the person who helps everyone else that no one can help them.

Speaker 3 That's right.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 you're in tuneness

Speaker 4 to that person

Speaker 4 when they start to spiral. And being able to sometimes even see it before they do

Speaker 4 and help reground them

Speaker 4 is throwing on its head the helper's whole belief system, which is that no one else can help me but me.

Speaker 2 I get that.

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Speaker 2 Let's hear from Sophie.

Speaker 5 Hi, sister. My name is Sophie and I love the podcast.
And I was wondering what it is like to be in a heterosexual relationship when you are surrounded by lesbians and gays.

Speaker 5 I found the advice of Glenn and Abby very, very helpful, but I also sometimes feel like

Speaker 5 it's not

Speaker 5 for my type of relationship. So I would love to have your input in that.
Thank you. Love you.
Bye.

Speaker 2 God, I love it when our pot squatters say love you. I'm such a cheese.

Speaker 2 I love you too, Sophie.

Speaker 4 This is a great question, and it's a fascinating one. Well, first, I'll just say, Sophie, exact same for me.
I feel like I find the advice of Glenn and Abby very, very helpful.

Speaker 4 And I also feel like it is sometimes not applicable to my type of relationship.

Speaker 2 Example. What do you mean?

Speaker 3 Oh, God.

Speaker 4 So I feel there's like a spectrum, right?

Speaker 4 And so everything we talk about, like communication, okay?

Speaker 4 That is a great value and so important.

Speaker 4 And I feel like

Speaker 4 y'all are usually working on getting

Speaker 4 from 98% to 99% full communication.

Speaker 4 And then there's a whole bunch of us who would be very pleased to get from like 42 to 48

Speaker 4 degree of communication. And I actually don't even think

Speaker 4 that it has to do with queer and non-queer couples because I have friends in opposite sex marriages and they would probably relate

Speaker 4 to your relationship more than I would.

Speaker 4 But I do sometimes think it's aspirational in ways that are

Speaker 3 no.

Speaker 4 No, it's not annoying. Like, it's, it's not at all.
And I don't have like an iota of jealousy about it.

Speaker 4 I think it, to me, it's, it's been empowering and interesting because it kind of has an expansiveness

Speaker 4 that is

Speaker 4 intriguing and allows me to think about the ways that I might pursue

Speaker 4 things that I want in my relationship. So the expansiveness about what you think about and what you pursue are kind of like, well, I would take that one.
I would leave those for you.

Speaker 4 I don't really care about that, but that's one that I am very interested in. Whereas I feel like, in some cases, if I were to look at the peer relationships of couples around me, I don't feel

Speaker 4 tragically as inspired

Speaker 4 by those.

Speaker 4 So I think that that's huge. I also think that a lot of what y'all grapple with, specifically sexuality, is

Speaker 4 super fascinating and instructive to me because it's just the idea of

Speaker 4 even pursuing what you

Speaker 4 want, what you desire outside of

Speaker 4 this kind of check the box normative way of thinking about it, that like there is a whole life there that everyone.

Speaker 4 For everyone, not just for queer people to discover. And I think that that a lot of us who

Speaker 4 check the box early,

Speaker 4 those lives went dormant precisely because we didn't think there was anything else to explore.

Speaker 4 And so

Speaker 4 I think anyone who is queering different areas, it just is kind of inspiration. I will just like chuckle at it because I'm like, oh my God, this is the thing you're working on.

Speaker 3 I think something that Sophie is also kind of talking about is

Speaker 3 it's easy to look at the three of us and the dynamic we have. Sister, you're in a heterosexual marriage.
There are so many, like you said, it's a spectrum.

Speaker 3 But what I would challenge you, Sophie, is to not see it necessarily as the spectrum of gender, but the spectrum of things that you want in your relationship and the things that that maybe that you see in ours or that you see in Amanda's, because it doesn't have anything to do with like the actual sex act that's going on in the bed.

Speaker 3 It's like the kind of people who are in these relationships and what you're seeing as a byproduct of these kind of people.

Speaker 3 And if you're seeing that stereotypically two women are going to have a different communication in their relationship than a heterosexual one will, if that's something that's interesting to you, then explore that.

Speaker 3 But I wouldn't say, well, that's just not the kind of relationship I have.

Speaker 3 Look at all kinds of relationships and explore what is interesting about that couple and maybe explore trying to do that in your personal relationship.

Speaker 2 Yeah. As the one

Speaker 2 tripodter who has experienced both heterosexual marriage and homosexual marriage.

Speaker 4 Can we just say like queer marriage? It's freaking me out. Homosexual.

Speaker 2 And heterosexual. Like, what is that?

Speaker 4 Marriage to a man and marriage to a woman.

Speaker 2 I mean, yeah. Marriage to a human being who has been conditioned as a man on this planet and married

Speaker 2 to a human being who has been conditioned as a woman on this planet. It's not going to stop.

Speaker 2 Well, because I think that's true work. I know.

Speaker 3 I know you do.

Speaker 2 We talk about this all the time. I don't think it's real.
I don't think it's real.

Speaker 3 Nothing that we can understand is real. We haven't landed on a truth yet, though, because we're still working towards it.

Speaker 2 Point being, Bose has this amazing new book out called The Urgent Life. Actually, it's not Holly Life.
Bose Ma St. John.
Bose Ms. St.
John.

Speaker 2 She has this whole thing about she was married to a white man and like having to translate her blackness to a white man constantly. Okay.

Speaker 2 And she describes the whole thing so freaking brilliantly and beautifully as she always does. And I can't wait for everyone to read it, but I think that I,

Speaker 2 in my relationships with men,

Speaker 2 struggled very deeply and had a big resentment towards always having to translate my experience as a woman on this planet to someone else.

Speaker 2 It made me feel very lonely. It made me feel like we were never having the same experience.

Speaker 2 Walking down the street, being in a meeting, walking into a bank and being treated differently, walking down the street and feeling unsafe or that person feeling safe, walking into a room with a man and just the lack of yield, the lack of like spatial awareness because they've never had to have that, the posture of it.

Speaker 2 Every time something happened in the news, every time I heard about a sexual assault, I would have this visceral pain

Speaker 2 emotional reaction. And it felt like the person I was in partnership with could only empathize, was never experiencing it viscerally.
And that was

Speaker 2 unsurvivable to me, is what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 To me, the biggest difference

Speaker 2 between

Speaker 2 same sex, different sex marriage is never having to, and it's not never actually, because we've had different experiences as women in the world and you have had more male privilege and I have had more privilege because of my femme presenting self.

Speaker 2 There are differences, but the bridge is shorter.

Speaker 2 The translating my experience, we are often having the same experience, the same reaction, and that

Speaker 2 having been conditioned as the same gender on this planet, and that makes me feel less alone. That's the biggest difference to me.
It doesn't have to do with sex.

Speaker 2 It has to do with not having to translate myself constantly.

Speaker 3 Well, it's sad it doesn't have to do with sex.

Speaker 2 Even in sex, I'm not having to translate myself differently. Let's think about it.

Speaker 3 Oh, I'm thinking about it.

Speaker 2 I'm having sex with someone who has the same parts as me.

Speaker 3 I'm not having to translate.

Speaker 4 We got where you were going with it.

Speaker 3 Okay, okay, great, great.

Speaker 4 Right after you said, let's think about it.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 4 Okay. But you know what's so interesting to me? Just playing with this for a second.

Speaker 4 I agree with you, the loneliness of that. And I have felt that.
And the like, there are parts of me you will never, ever get,

Speaker 4 just because you can't, not because it's a fault of yours. Right.
Just like there's parts of you that I will never, ever get. But the translating,

Speaker 4 I don't know that I have ever asked my husband.

Speaker 4 to translate his experience to me.

Speaker 3 I know that I have because is that the default?

Speaker 3 I don't think so.

Speaker 4 I have struggled with the fact that he could never understand what it was like to watch Trump get elected

Speaker 4 and watch Hillary lose, what it was like to

Speaker 4 see Brett Kavanaugh become a Supreme Court judge, what it's like,

Speaker 4 you know, any number of things fill in the blank to get Roe to get overturned.

Speaker 4 And that has felt lonely as shit.

Speaker 4 But I've never,

Speaker 4 dare I say, been interested

Speaker 4 enough.

Speaker 4 Because if I was interested enough, I would have asked, right?

Speaker 2 That's fair.

Speaker 4 What is it like for you? And maybe it's like what you said, Abby. It's such a default.
It feels like, well, you get the standard experience and I get the shittier one.

Speaker 4 But if we're ever going to make it anywhere,

Speaker 4 we have to stop thinking that way

Speaker 4 they are getting a very specific experience just like we're getting a very specific experience and granted it's a hundred percent of the 70 pay that we get and it's a hundred percent of the opportunities of the percentage we get i get all of that but in the actual conditioning of what it means

Speaker 4 For them to actually be human emotional beings in the world,

Speaker 4 they are having an experience

Speaker 4 that isn't just default

Speaker 2 right nobody is having a default experience in their own body because it's the only experience they've ever had yeah

Speaker 3 this is really fascinating

Speaker 2 i just want to say thank you so much for

Speaker 2 being brave enough to answer the hard questions from the pod squad because i absolutely freaking loved this conversation and i'd like to apologize to the pod squad for not

Speaker 2 for not taking any questions from me and Abby. We actually did plan to, but sister was too wonderful.
Amanda, Samanda was too beautiful and smart. Samanda.
So we'll save ours for another time.

Speaker 3 We'll do ours next. Yes, we will.
And I just think that there's so

Speaker 3 much to continue to explore.

Speaker 3 I love learning about you, Samanda.

Speaker 2 And also, Pod Squadron, here's a challenge. Let's think about the one question we don't want to answer when people ask it to us.
And let's just think about why this week.

Speaker 2 Because it turns out there's probably some good stuff there.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And with that, We Can Do Hard Things. We'll see you next time.

Speaker 3 Bye. So good.

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 each or all of these three things.

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Speaker 2 We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios.