59. Be Still: How to Listen to That Something Inside That Always Knows

I think that I know more than anyone on this entire planet that having the right therapist to talk to can make a life-changing difference.

That's why I think Alma is so cool.

Alma connects you with real therapists who understand your unique experience.

You can use their directory to search for someone who specializes in the areas that matter most to you, whether that's anxiety, relationships, or anything else.

And what stands out to me about Alma is that 97% of people seeing a therapist through Alma say their therapist made them feel seen and heard.

You know I love that.

That level of connection isn't something you can get from scrolling through online advice or following social media.

It's about finding someone who truly understands your journey and is dedicated to helping you make progress.

Better with people, better with Alma.

Visit hello alma.com/slash hardthings to get started and schedule a free consultation today.

That's hello A L M A dot com slash hardthings.

It's the beginning of a new school year and also the classroom sniffles and sneezes that go along with it.

From home to school and back, stock up with Kleenex Ultra Soft Tissues.

Start the school year off the right way by preparing for the messes that come with it.

You don't want to be caught without a tissue on hand to help.

Kleenex Ultra Soft tissues are soft and absorbent to stand up against runny noses, to keep you and your family clean and comforted as the school year starts.

This back-to-school season, make sure to get the classroom essential that teachers and students can rely on.

For whatever happens next, grab Kleenex.

Hello, loves.

Welcome Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things.

When you say loves, are you talking about me and sister or the people?

I'm talking about the pod squad.

Oh, my gosh.

I feel a little sad.

Well, you're my loves, too, but you know how much I'm how obsessed I am with this pod squad.

Yeah, it's actually something.

Yesterday we were on our walk and this woman was walking by us on the sidewalk and looked at us and her eyes got big and she held up her phone at us and it was, she was listening to We Can Do Do Hard Things.

Yeah.

It was so cool.

It is so cool actually.

So cool.

Okay.

We did this episode on Tuesday about stillness.

On that episode,

told everybody that I'm in this weird new stillness place right now.

And I want to explain what the hell has happened to me over the last few months.

Oh, buckle up, everybody.

Now, and I'm not going to do a great job.

And I will just, and I'm going to say things wrong and I'm going to get it wrong.

And I just, I want to be very clear with the pod squad that I'm not ever trying to get things right.

Okay.

I'm just trying to tell you the truth of my experience.

Okay.

I'm not trying to like match up with some idea that we have all decided is right or wrong.

You are just experimenting with yourself all the time.

I'm just trying to tell, like, I'm trying to describe what's going on on the inside of me.

on the outside of me.

That's right.

Which to me has absolutely nothing to do with right and wrong.

I'm just trying to tell the truth.

Okay.

Which, by the way, is the whole point of the last episode.

If we stop trying to figure out whether our feelings and

our intuition is right and wrong and just acknowledge it as real and there and experience it and go towards it, then that's the whole ballgame.

Yes.

Yep.

Yes.

And it's like, I mean, this happens to me sometimes when I'm talking about my sexuality or, you know, how I'm understanding my sexuality.

And somebody will say, that's not right.

Like, that's not like either how we say it.

And I'm like, wait, what?

Like, what does this have to do with fright?

I'm telling you how I am and feel inside my own skin.

And you're telling me it doesn't fit into the categories that you have decided already exists.

Yeah.

It's strange.

So anyway.

That's the experience of almost every gay person up until like five minutes ago when gayness became cool.

Okay.

Abby is so bitter that I just used used to gayness when it's cool.

Yeah.

She's so bitter and she deserves to be because the OGs have been showing up for a very long time when there was much more risk

and much more resistance.

Yes.

And then,

you know, the loves like me just got here five minutes ago and we're like, what's the problem?

Look at all the flags.

So

here's what happened to me a few months ago.

Okay.

I would say that I hit kind of a different kind of rock bottom for myself.

Okay.

Which you know well about, which

I wouldn't, I wouldn't have said or classified it like that.

That's the first I'm hearing of it.

You're classifying it as a kind of a rock bottom.

I think so.

I mean, I think as I get older and have more experience, my rock bottoms are less outwardly dramatic to other people, which is a beautiful thing.

Like I haven't yet screwed up everyone else's lives.

And, you know, I'm just innerly suffering.

The version of suffering I'm talking about that was leading to this other rock bottom is this unbelievable situation I have where I have been dealing with an eating disorder since I was 10 years old.

And then when I was 25, I got sober from it.

And for the rest of my days since then, I have been outwardly, I think what people would assume is healthy-ish.

You know, I have like normal eating habits and I'm not binging and purging and I'm being normal, whatever the hell that means.

But it's like my brain never got the message that we were going to be done with that.

Okay.

So my brain still obsessively thinks about body, food, all of that stuff.

And it's ridiculous and it's infuriating because as I've said before, when I think about during my hardest times, when I'm imagine that maybe 50 to 60% of all of my thoughts all day are about food and body, it's just unbelievably embarrassing as a feminist, but also like

makes me so mad because when I think about what I could have done with that 50%

of brain power as an artist, as an activist, as a mother, as a wife, as a sister, it's just the opportunity cost of all of that

obsession.

So the difference is you're, you have, you are no longer engaging in the behaviors that would indicate that

you

have the compulsions, but you are not free from it internally.

But I think that a lot of folks can identify with that.

You know, a lot of people have been through like infidelity in their marriage and they're functioning, but their relationship still isn't free of the vestiges of that and their anxieties and their fears and their heads.

You know,

a lot of us are

in active recovery from a lot of things, but still tormented by it to some people.

In our minds.

In our minds.

In our minds.

We're tormented in our minds.

My mind torment about food and body,

which comes up in a million different ways.

It's just like all day.

Like, what am I eating?

What have I eaten?

What did I eat yesterday?

What can I eat today?

How's my body?

How's this fitting?

How's all of this inane, inane things,

which is so beyond?

it has nothing to do here 35 years later with how i look it has nothing to do with that it's way deeper than that it's like in my bones well it's control and words control

yes yours

right

so

um

so i

just

desperately have been trying for the last,

I don't know, 10 years, but really

feels like the last two years since COVID started.

Cause I feel like that's when it got, I got really weird in my brain.

Cause when things are out of control, she says she's getting weird.

I have just been desperately trying to fix my brain.

Just like, what can I do to stop my brain from thinking this way?

So that has been my focus.

And especially for the last two years, like, what books do I have to read?

What therapy do I have to do?

What, what are the things that I have to do to rewire my brain so it stops tormenting me like this?

Okay.

Nothing has worked.

Nothing has worked to the point where recently even I said, you know what, I'm just going to give up.

I'm just going to give up on this.

Like what's, you know what sucks is being a 45 year old woman who still thinks about this stuff 50% of the time.

But what really sucks is being a 45-year-old woman who thinks about this 50% of their time and then spends 25% of her time trying to fix the 50%.

And so she has 25% of her life left.

Right.

So maybe if I stop fixing it, at least I'll get that 25% back and I can just let the crazy compulsive thoughts be.

It's like a discount.

It's a discount.

Exactly.

So here's what I actually figured out is that I'm usually with my instincts on to something, but just it's skewed a little bit.

Okay.

So.

The giving up was the right call, but this is what happened.

So when Chase left for college, the, I just got real weird.

Like

that just kind of, you know, leveled up everything.

And Abby actually

said, you're

even when Abby tells me that I'm off,

that's when I worry because she's like the least judgmental person in the world.

She's noticing that I am suffering.

It's like code red when

it's like terror alert red.

Yes.

So here's what happened.

She took me away to this place we like to go to for two days, two, two or three days.

She was like, if I take you there, will you promise you'll feel your feelings and you'll be still?

Because I was not

wanting to do that.

She was avoiding everything

at every cost, right?

It was like,

oh, look, a bird.

Oh, look.

I mean, I feel grateful because partly it's why we moved.

She was like, let's just move.

Yeah.

No.

Yeah.

I know.

That's real.

And I'm like, yes, we're getting into California.

You're like, I value your health, but can we get you healthy after I take you up on this offer to move?

That would be note, that is exactly what happened.

That's why I'm glad you got us here too before you got me settled, but before you got you settled.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So here's what happens.

We go to this place.

Up until then, my new strategy was that five pound thing of Twizzlers and books.

I was just reading books, reading, reading, reading.

That's like I'm trying not to be in my own mind.

Don't she's in a different world.

Yes.

I was like, where is my wife?

So

we go to this place and I take this little class on meditation.

Now, I want to explain to you, sweet pod squad, that people have been trying to teach me about meditation for 20 years.

All right.

Like

the world has been meditating for a very freaking long time.

Okay.

I have never just got it.

You know how when you can read a book and it just doesn't hit you and then you don't think you like it even and you don't think it makes any sense.

And then you read it a few years later and you're like, holy shit, you're ready for something?

Yeah.

I mean, four years ago, we got educated on transcendental meditation.

We like did the whole program and then we never did it.

We quit.

We just gave them our check, left and never.

So here we are at this.

That's like me at the gym.

Yeah.

exactly.

That's exactly right.

Exactly.

That's what we did.

We were like, of course we're going to do this meditation if we pay this much money.

It's not like I'd be giving them $40 a month just to see it on my credit card.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Whether you are working remotely or in office, many of us require collaborating with team members on projects, tasks, and outcomes.

Monday.com is one of our sponsors and a platform that our team at Treat Media has actually used to coordinate our workflow.

It is a platform that helps you from planning to execution, thinks ahead to deadlines, assign owners and actions, and allows you to see progress as a team.

It actually helps us get some work done.

There is a lot of AI out there, but not a lot actually moves the needle.

Monday.com's sidekick is different.

It can actually build workflows, spot risks, update the team.

You just say what you need, and you can consider it done.

Sidekick in Monday.com saves so much time.

Using our Sidekick integration, help to update deadlines, brief teammates, reassign tasks, and it even helps us spot risks before they actually become problems.

Stop managing the busy work.

Let Monday Sidekick handle it so you can focus on the real work.

Try Monday Sidekick, AI, you'll love to use on Monday.com.

So here's what I want to say to you because I feel that this is going to be a very like ongoing conversation.

And it's not like we're going to nail it in this one time.

But the gift of this new stillness.

Okay, now, by the way, I've tried to explain this to several of my friends and I, it is such an epiphany to me and it's so amazing.

And no one has ever responded to me in a way.

that makes me think that they also think this is amazing.

It's been very anticlimactic and upsetting.

But it is amazing to me.

So here's

let's hear this.

Let's hear the elevator pitch of meditation

for me.

For me, not for, I don't know if this is right.

Okay.

What I realized is that I was wasting all of my time

trying to

control my thoughts,

trying to change my mind, trying to somehow reprogram my brain so I would have stop having all of these crazy thoughts or go back into my trauma or go, I mean, after someone who's had decades and decades of therapy, like maybe I just haven't found the right therapy, maybe like all of these things that would reprogram my brain.

What I needed to do and what is actually working for me, whatever the hell that means,

is stop believing my brain.

Yeah, you are trusting your thoughts.

Yes.

When my brain said, did you eat too much yesterday?

Did you do that?

I was engaging it as if it wasn't that shit crazy.

Like if somebody else, if my wife walked up to me and said, well, do you think you ate too much yesterday?

Do you do?

I would be like, get the hell away from me.

Why are you talking to me like that?

Like, don't, but my own brain.

I was like, yes, that sounds like a worthy discussion to have, 45-year-old brain.

Let's talk about that.

What I'm saying is what I'm learning now, because then I started reading everything, you know, Untethered Soul again.

So good.

I read it a decade ago and was like, okay,

now it's blowing my mind.

We have this voice in our head,

which is our thoughts.

And everybody's voice is, for lack of a better word, a little crazy.

Everybody's mind is offering it up horrible.

ideas about ourselves and horrible good stuff and bad, like all these thoughts that mean nothing, but that we get so lost in and we believe.

And then when we try to control them,

it's hurting cats.

Like you, there's, it's hopeless.

Right.

But the beauty is that there's this other place we can live from

that is, I don't, this is not the right word, but it feels like below my brain or behind my brain or something.

And this is what people talk about in terms of consciousness.

So it's the idea of if I can hear the the voice, if I can hear the voices going in my head, then that by definition means that I am not the voices, right?

His line is

singer's line in that book that is so good, is there's nothing more important to true growth than realizing that you are not the voice of the mind, you are the one who hears it.

Oh, exactly, that is correct, my tripping, by the way.

Just think about that, yes, yes, and I'm telling you who hears it.

Yes.

And then you can hear it.

And you can be like, oh, look at that.

Oh, she's going to do that whole body food thing again.

Oh, oh, look at that.

And then you're going to go about your day.

I just have stopped consulting it.

That's good.

I have stopped.

I've stopped believing.

If my mind had a solution out of this, I feel like my poor sweet mind would have gotten us out of this a lot of decades ago.

Right.

Yeah.

But here's the thing.

Your mind is brilliant at so many things, right?

It's just that in certain areas, this being one of them, it is not to be trusted.

Yeah, but no one's is.

No one's is.

I mean, I think that's the thing.

That happens to be your struggle of your life.

But everybody, there's not a person that doesn't have the voice and hear the voice.

And whether it's about, you know, your worthiness and your need to hustle or the fact that like your partner's going to leave you and you're never going to be good enough or the, you know, whatever it is

we have one and the problem is we think

we attach to it and think that is us and think that we have to negotiate it and negotiate with it and respond to it and and then we know that voice is is harmful and bad so then we think that we are bad because that voice, why would we be saying those horrible things all the time?

Yeah.

And I think one of the goals is to not attach bad or good to it at all.

You can notice like your frustration or your anger or jealousy or whatever and just be like, wow, far out.

Like you're, there you are.

There's some jealousy rising in you.

There's some anger.

Like, that's so interesting.

Like, what's that about?

Yeah, you can have a bit of separation from it.

Yeah.

And then you realize that the voice is telling you about everything that happens in your life.

Oh, my God.

So it's like someone says something to you, and it's not, it's not that the reality is that they've said X to you.

It's the reality is they are trying, they're manipulating me.

They're disrespecting me.

They're like, you are,

the voice is telling you all the things that just happened, which are actually just.

projections on what happened when the reality is that person was just like, hey, can you move your car?

And you're like,

you're trying to threaten my.

Yes, the stories we make up, the interpretations the narrations the constant and then we're never in the moment because we're always lost to this and and you know when you said your brain is good at so many things our brains are good at so many things it reminds me somebody said the brain is a um

excellent worker but a terrible master

like when we tell our brain what we want it to work on

That's good stuff.

But when we are just like, allow our brain to take us wherever it wants to take us

and do we just follow it.

And then we lose all of our intuition because we just are being controlled by this mad scientist.

Mad scientist in our brain who hates everyone and us.

Yes.

Anyway, I'm new to this, but for what, three

months?

Two months now.

Two months, I've been meditating for 20 minutes a day.

It's unbelievable.

And I'm telling you, I feel like

there's just maybe a little percentage shift of peace and joy and non-reactivity during the day

throughout the days that's kind of accumulating into what I would feel like is a little bit more peace.

And I will take that.

Listen, as like the person that is in the closest proximity to you all the day.

I know that it might feel like a very small percentage shift just in your state of awareness and your mind and your life.

But the way that I see you responding to your environment and your life feels like

it's a thousand percent different

because

I see you moving into

the more beautiful and truer version of yourself that you always knew that you had inside of you,

but that the parts of your mind weren't allowing you to necessarily access it 100% of the time.

Yeah, it's been, it's good.

It feels like marriage shifting.

It's marriage shifting.

It feels like another level of untaming.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

It really does.

What does the future hold for business?

Ask nine experts and you'll get 10 answers.

Bull market, bear market.

Rates will rise or fall.

Inflation, up up or down.

Can someone please invent a crystal ball?

Until then, over 40,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite, the number one AI cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, HR into one fluid platform.

With one unified business management suite, there's one source of truth, giving you the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions.

With real-time insights and forecasting, you're peering into the future with actionable data.

When you're closing the books in days, not weeks, you're spending less time looking backwards and more time on what's next.

Whether your company is earning millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities.

I highly recommend it.

Speaking of opportunity, download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at netsuite.com slash hardthings.

The guide is free to you at netsuite.com slash hardthings.

Netsuite.com slash hardthings.

Okay, so why don't we get to some cues from our pod squad about stillness and all of this?

Who's our first pod squatter?

Hi, Glennon and Amanda.

So I would like to know what you guys do for your nighttime hygiene.

So what is your bedtime routine?

Do you guys do yoga?

Do you guys listen to meditation?

Do you guys fall asleep watching friends like me?

I just want to know how you guys wind down at night before bedtime.

Love you guys.

Thanks.

Okay, I want to hear first because we have, well, we're going to be all over the place with this one.

Yeah, we got a lot of things.

But what, do you have a routine, sister?

What do you do at night?

I don't even know.

You know,

my nighttime routine is the same as my morning routine.

I just stay okay way too late and scroll through things and bring my computer to bed and do all of the things that I know I'm not supposed to do.

And I do them anyway because I'm a highly, highly evolved human.

Okay.

That sounds good.

Ours kind of starts after dinner.

I'd say we kind of wind down with the kids before their bedtimes.

Although we've we're going to bed earlier than them now.

Then them now.

That's so weird.

You go to bed earlier than every human on the planet.

Right.

I mean, everyone should know that we go to bed latest at nine.

Yeah, nine, we're in bed at the latest 9:30.

Yeah.

And if the kids aren't there, we are often in bed at 7 or 7.30.

Literally, they're not lying.

7.30.

I'm three hours later than them.

And I will often text them and they're like, we're in bed.

I mean, sometimes it's like seven o'clock on the swatch watch that you're in your bed.

Sobriety is a beautiful thing.

It gives you a lot of sleeping moments and time.

Yeah.

And I don't feel like anything good happens after 8 p.m.

Like, I don't know what people are doing, but it can't be good and the morning time is my joy and plus the earlier i go to bed the faster coffee comes in the morning which is really the only moment that i live for yeah every night i go to bed and think oh my god eight hours till coffee okay so what about what do you think about our bedtime routine i think that depending on what time we do get in bed we will watch like an episode of one of our favorite shows yes

right now we're watching succession and we're watching what else are we watching the morning show morning show Ted Lasso yeah

yeah that's about it right now next question please

hi Glennon and sister this is Nicole I love love love your podcast and it has helped me so much I

have struggled with anxiety and depression for a very very long time

and I find it harder and harder as I get older to get out of those

kind of moods I guess.

I normally have

kind of muddled my way through it but

I want to get some tools and tricks to help me in order to make the process more beneficial to growing in my mental health journey and making

my life more positive and more meaningful.

I wondered if you guys had any self-care tips or anything that you guys like doing

that you think that I should try and would be beneficial.

I know, Glennon, you do yoga.

I didn't know if you had any other advice.

Oh, Nicole, though we are not therapists in any way, so we don't ascribe to like you listening to every word, I know my wife is the self-care master for Glennon Doyle.

I would listen to everything she says and try it all on.

Seriously.

Well, and it changes all the time.

I mean, I think I'd have a couple different responses to Nicole based on whether this is, you know,

diagnosed depression and anxiety, right?

And if it is that,

or if she thinks it is, then get to a doctor, right?

Of course.

Get to a doctor first.

Nothing in my life works if I am not medically treated.

Okay.

So none of this, I also have to do a shit ton of woo-woo self-care stuff, but the base of it

is

my medicine.

I have no concern about talking about how important my medication is to me.

So first of all, if you do think that you have something that is debilitating,

anxiety or depression that is debilitating, get to a doctor.

If your doctor is not taking you seriously, get to a different doctor.

Yeah, because she said moods.

And I think that that's an important thing because

for people who have mental health

struggles, it's important that you don't see that as a mood.

Because if you're in a mood, it's like you are responsible for shifting yourself out of that mood.

And that

is not.

the case if you if you have just like if your leg was broken you wouldn't say why is your leg in such a bad mood?

You know, like you just, you need to get the help that you need.

And it's not like a character deficiency that you can't make it better.

Yeah.

And I mean, what I have found from depression and anxiety and, and everybody that I know, a lot of people feel differently about it, experience it differently.

I experience it.

It starts out as a lowness that is the depression that is sort of close to sadness, but then it gets deep, deeper and deeper until it's just an absence of feeling at all.

It's not like sad.

It's it's like all of the colors are mushed together and it's all gray.

So it's it's in it's an inability to experience the normal highs and lows of life.

It's not the normal highs and lows of life.

So when I talk about my medication, what my medication does, it does not excuse me.

from the human experience.

It allows me to have the same human experience that everybody else does.

Just like other people who have different diseases, their medication allows them to have the human experience and join the human, join humanity.

That's what the medication is.

So, if it's real, if it's that,

start with medical treatment.

And then, you know, we've been talking to our kids about moods too, about regular moods.

And what one of the things we've been talking a lot about this week is music, is the power of music to

contribute to or deepen or shift a mood?

Okay, so if we're just talking about moods, then just since we've been talking about this this week in my family, I just would like to bring it up.

One of the reasons is

we took our daughter to a Phoebe Bridgers concert, and

I love Phoebe Bridgers, right?

But we were talking to our little one about how if she's feeling very sad for any extended amount of time, maybe

like the 12 hours a day of Phoebe Bridgers isn't going to be the thing

that shifts that.

And so my deeply feeling, highly sensitive daughter was like, well, it it helps me.

She knows how I feel.

So when I hear her sing, it validates my feelings and it makes me feel seen and yes to that.

for maybe a couple hours.

But like there's a point, right?

With the music where we are, we are moving past validation into wallowing,

rumination is the right thing.

Correct.

Correct.

And so, you know, I do just want to throw out there in terms of mood that sometimes we overlook very simple

things that actually can have a profound difference in the way we're experiencing our day.

And so maybe putting together a

playlist of songs that remind you of your humanity, that remind you of joyness, that make you feel good and cared for and loved, and that validate your feelings, but don't invite you to

take them into an unhealthy way.

Yeah, I also think that you do yoga, you meditate, you go on walks, you listen to music.

And one of the things that I find so fascinating about you, Glendon, is that you are never too tired to keep trying different things on in terms of your self-care.

Which is ridiculous sometimes.

But it's not.

Like we're human beings.

Sometimes things get a little bit old.

Like you stopped going on walks for a month.

And then all of a sudden you started back up and it's like, oh, that thing that I really liked.

So one of the things about self-care is to not be so rigid.

Yes.

What do I need today?

What it is and doing it hardcore every day, because that's also not self-care.

That's just torture.

Right.

Remember about all the trying things on?

A couple of days ago, I was having a no-bones day.

I was just like really down.

And do people need to know what no bones is?

They can Google it.

Google it.

And so I was like,

I kept coming to you.

I was like, okay, I went and did yoga.

I still feel like shit.

Okay.

Okay.

I went for a walk.

I still feel like I'm so tired.

Okay.

I went, I did this.

I still feel so tired.

And you go, have you considered just taking a nap?

It's like,

that's a great idea.

See, sometimes your self-care self-care does work in counterintuitive ways.

Right.

Where you're like, I'm so tired.

I'm going to go get, I'm going to go for a two and a half mile walk or a five mile walk.

I'm going to go do this thing to snap me out of it.

Yep.

On this show, we talk a lot about resilience and what it really means to support one another.

For healthcare and wellness professionals, that's the job.

Day in and day out.

Nurses, doctors, therapists, the healthcare workers all across the nation, they're the ones who show up for us.

So it's just as important that they feel supported too.

That's why we partnered with Figs.

For too long, scrubs were an afterthought and not anymore.

Figs scrubs are thoughtfully designed in innovative fabrics made to meet the demands of the job and look good doing it.

There's a full range of styles and go-to colors plus limited edition drops that bring a little joy into every day.

So if you work in healthcare or wellness or love someone who does, these are the scrubs.

Use code FIGSRX for 15% off your first order at wherefigs.com.

That's 15% off at wearfigs.com with code FIGSRX.

Okay, let's move on to the next voicemail.

Hi, my name is Kim.

I just wanted to thank you for, first of all, putting out all these episodes on things things that are truly truly challenging.

I just went through a breakup from a 12-year relationship.

We were not married and

everything is resonating with me.

So my hard question has to do with intuition.

When people say do what's right for you, sometimes I don't know the answer to that.

So

How does one hone the art of really listening to intuition and trusting yourself, kind of having faith in yourself.

Thank you so much.

Your podcast has been life-changing for many, many people like me.

Bye.

That's so sweet.

I mean, I think that sister said it earlier

about her marriage.

And

when something like that falls apart, it is so hard to trust yourself because you got yourself into that thing.

And now that thing failed, or we don't say that in our world, that thing ended.

And it's like so terrifying to then turn back towards yourself like how do you do that how do we how do we even begin to do that

i know that

if there's one thing that i believe

that i feel like can be trusted

in this weird life

it's that i

have

something inside of me.

And I describe it differently all the time, so I'm not even going to try to describe it right now.

I'm just going to say, I have something inside of me

that knows

what to do next.

There is something inside of me that knows, that always knows.

Now,

I,

through a lot of work, you know, through what was an untamed, through a lot of trial and error, through ignoring it, through drinking it away, through,

I,

I have tried everything else.

You know, I have tried a million other ways other than living and

trusting that thing.

And what I have found is that

it's like we all look outside of our lives and see things that don't feel right or don't fit or don't belong or like this job or this person or this relationship, something on the outside of us

that doesn't feel right, that feels like a cage.

And I think that that thing that's in our outer life can always be directly

connected to some knowing on the inside that we didn't make into a doing.

That like the more that we have these little teeny inklings, hunches,

you know, one of my friends describes it as like a carbonation, which makes me feel feel like it's different for everyone.

And the more we act on it,

our outer life changes.

And that's not magic.

It's like, oh, when I feel like this person isn't right for me and this person's making me feel bad

and I say, I'm not going to do this anymore.

Then that person disappears from my life.

And suddenly my outer world is more aligned.

With my inner knowing.

It's like slowly over time, the more you act on that inner knowing, even when it's uncomfortable, the more your outer world aligns with what is true and beautiful and comfortable on the inside.

And so what I see is that people who

do trust themselves,

no, not that person, yes, that person, no, not that job, yes, that person, no, not that TV show, yes, this music, no, not that candle, yes, this, this work, like what all the big no's and little no's and big yeses and little yeses.

People wonder why their outside lives are so unique and beautiful.

And it's because it's all directed by what's on the inside.

Right.

And, you know, what I would say is it is it Kim?

Is her name Kim?

Is that

whenever people tell me that they don't know what to do next,

I always know that that's not true.

That they do know what to do next because everybody knows deeply.

It's just that the next thing is usually very hard and scary.

And so we have to do a million things to pretend that we don't know first.

The last thing we want to do in some ways.

Exactly.

It's usually the last thing we want to do.

And what we talk about, Abby and I talk about a lot is like, how do we, that life gets really good and exciting when we shorten the gap between the knowing and the doing as much as possible.

Yes.

I actually think

that most of our suffering

lives in the space between

the knowing and the doing.

When you know this job is killing me, when you know this relationship isn't right, when you know this house isn't where I'm supposed to be, when you know, like, I'm, I'm, I need to have that conversation, but you're not at the doing yet.

Yep.

life procrastination internal emotional procrastination it's all the suffering whether it's the fear of the doing or the pretending not to know or the millions of things we do when we you know the the judgment we put at other people when we're jealous that they're doing the doing it's all of that suffering is in between that space and and i think for kim truly learning to trust yourself.

She knows, Kim knows, I can tell by her question,

that she's a, she's a person who knows that she can trust herself.

It's just the trying again.

And the looking back on your life and not seeing failure for what the world tells us is failure.

Like the truth is that Kim's, that Kim has gotten herself to this point in her life.

She has made it this entire way.

She has gotten herself through a relationship.

She is in a place right now where she's in a stuckness and aloneness and is still reaching out, is still connecting.

And even asking it, how do I do the right thing for me?

Like, I think that is even tricky because half of, you know, the pain that you talked about between the knowing and the doing, it's a building our case to ourselves and others that this is right.

When what if it didn't have to be right?

What if it was just the thing you knew that you were going to do next?

I mean, I just think it's worth asking the question, if this didn't have to be right,

would I do this thing?

If this thing didn't have to be right, would I already know that it was my thing?

Is the the needing to justify it as being right

part of what holds us back from doing what

is our next thing?

That's good.

It's like the word right is your red flag.

That's right.

All the time.

Yeah.

That's good.

Right is a red flag.

It's not real.

Okay.

So if you're looking to do what's right, then you know that you're looking to somebody else's map.

instead of your own inner compass.

And that's why it's never going to feel like intuition.

And that's why it's never going to feel like knowing because knowing doesn't speak in that language.

Knowing speaks in the language of feeling alive, of feeling free.

Knowing speaks in questions that ask things like, is it possible that I'm worthy of this, even if no one else benefits from it?

Is it possible that how it's been going is not working for me?

Is it possible?

You know, is it possible?

Is the language of intuition not, is it right?

So take out the right.

Don't say, is it right for me?

Just say, is it for me?

It's good.

It's really good.

Is it for me?

Should we jump to our pod squatter of the week?

Let's do it.

All right.

Let's hear from our pod squatter of the week.

Who is Krista?

And for reasons you are about to discover,

I'm Feeling Krista.

Hi, this is Krista.

And

I just want to say

I'm late to work, driving.

Stop the podcast.

I need Abby to know how much she adds to this podcast.

Like,

sorry, I'm a crier.

The wisdom that she pours out of her soul on a regular is just amazing.

And

Glennon and Amanda, you are the Wonder Twins.

Wonder Twins.

I'm telling you what.

And Abby is just

the freaking cherry on top of the I don't even like cherries

no

anyway I just want Abby to know that her her wisdom and her vulnerability just really fucking make my day and I love you three keep doing what you're doing my wife just said lately do you realize that every podcast that you listen to

are lesbians well except for Brunette but everybody else I'm like it's because I found my people finally, honey.

I found my people.

Anyway, I love you guys.

Have a great day.

Keep doing hard things.

We're going to do them together.

Oh, my gosh.

I feel like I'm sweating a little bit.

Also, Krista, I mean, I don't know.

It makes me so emotional when people say, I found my people.

Like that when I imagine like people walking or in their cars and they're and they're listening and we're all kind of in this together, it makes me feel very unlonely.

And

I don't know, I just love you, Krista.

Thank you.

And she's right, you are

very, very special.

Well, you two are the Wonder Twins.

Wonder Twins activate.

Okay,

when life gets hard this week, don't forget, y'all, We Can Do Hard Things, and we'll see you back here next Tuesday.

Bye.

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

Be sure to rate, review, and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Especially be sure to rate and review the podcast if you really liked it.

If you didn't, don't worry about it.

It's fine.