58. New Year, Same You: Good News About Bad January Branding

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And I continue to believe

that I'm the one for me.

Welcome to the first We Can Do Hard Things

of 2022.

Whoa.

Whoa.

That's weird, right?

2022?

What's up?

That just explains the difference in our personality.

I'm like, what?

2022?

And sister's like, whoa, 2022.

And Abby's like, ha am 2022.

Let's go.

I'm confused.

I was just

sad.

Abby's excited.

Of course.

Which means that it might be a new year, but we are the same uses.

Okay.

Let me tell you where we are right now.

Abby and I are in our office slash recording room slash living room slash Chase's bedroom when he's home from college.

He is home now for his break.

So what we do on podcast day is we just come in here and we step around all of his piles of clothes and books and we fold up the high-to-bed couch to set up.

And so we're in here now.

This is my favorite room of the house.

We have these glass doors so we can see out onto the street of our little LA beach town.

And so as we record, we can see little families lugging their kids in gear to the beach, pretending to have a good time.

And occasionally we can see a badass woman in a wetsuit carrying a surfboard, which always makes me so happy.

But not today because it's raining outside today, which is an anomaly in LA and is my favorite.

Because when I wake up and hear rain, it feels like the universe has handed me a get out of jail free card.

You know, because in LA, it's always freaking sunny,

which is wonderful, I guess, but it's also annoying because when you think about it, the sun is really bossy.

Do you know what I mean?

It's like, it's like an indictment.

If you're not out here enjoying the sun, look, it's, you're wasting your life, not taking advantage.

I mean, talking about a pretty bossy human being, you just don't like being bossed, do you?

No, I don't.

I don't like being bossed, especially by the sun, which just sits there in the sky, just shaming me for living my home body, homosexual life.

That's how I identify as a homosexual.

I love my house.

I would marry my home if I were not already married.

It's the only identity I've ever had that has stayed constant.

You can't even figure out.

All right.

All right.

I don't know if I'm a homosexual.

I just identify as queer, but I do know that I'm a homosexual.

So,

you know, it's just like when the sun doesn't come out and the rain comes, it's just an invitation to just stay snuggly and cozy.

So it's a rainy, snuggly day, and Abby and I are in the couch.

Sister's in her son's bedroom.

That's where she records.

And in here, there's a little fire on, and our lazy dogs are on the floor, and we're we're talking to you.

So, so far, 2022

is pretty good stuff.

It works for me.

Give it a minute.

But give it a minute, she says.

So, the one thing that doesn't work for me that I want to start off with is this

January can drive me a bit that shit.

Okay.

And it's because I've been thinking a lot about this, and it's because of the way that January is branded.

Okay.

It is as if January has this PR agency that all sat around a table and decided that

the way that we will brand January is to capitalize on how much people hate themselves.

Right.

By creating this tagline of new year, new me.

Okay.

Actually, new year, new you.

New year, new you.

New year, new you.

Okay.

So two reasons why this is stupid.

All right.

New year, new you is stupid.

Number one, it does suggest that all of us hate who we are and are just waiting for the right month to come

so we can completely change our horrible, stupid ass, hateful self.

It's so true.

It's so insulting.

It's so

like new year,

new wife.

Yes, new year, new husband, as if like you'd take the first chance you got to throw them to the curb.

Exactly.

New year, new self, new year, new you.

You suck, in other words.

So number one, it suggests we hate who we are.

But number two, it goes against the way life is and the way people are.

Okay, this is not how life works, new year, new me.

This is not it.

Okay, so what is fundamentally true about people that I have observed in my own life and with other people is that on our core,

like at our deepest, truest self, we are unchanging forever.

We are always the same self.

Okay, like I have just recently accepted this,

that there,

I am not, never

no days in the future am i going to wake up and suddenly be an adult

right like i just had this idea that there was myself

but at one point out there i was going to wake up and i was going to be this future self that i had dreamed up that had more things figured out that was like now like everything's been a dress rehearsal but at one point it's going to start.

Yeah, it's like, it's like a page loading, loading, loading, and then it gets stuck at 99% and will never fully load.

That's how I feel about life.

Loading, loading, ah,

floating forever.

There is no future version of myself.

Like, this is it.

Okay.

And I don't mean like our identities stay the same.

All right.

That shit changes constantly.

Like, used to be straight.

Now I'm gay.

I'm married, divorced, single, non-mother, mother, woman.

Those are just costumes, right?

Those are just roles.

I'm talking about like at our soul level.

Okay.

I'm talking about at our consciousness level.

like what is actually you?

What is actually me?

What I really am.

Like the me that is in here looking out at the world.

This weirds me out.

I actually just thought of this a few weeks ago.

Okay.

That the me that is in here looking out at the world was the same me

that was in here looking out at the world when I was like 10 years old.

like in the backseat of my van looking out at the backs of my parents heads.

Same me inside that was looking out at the world, right?

Same me

that's been in here looking out that like was watching doctors deliver chase.

Like same me inside that was what that was watching Abby say her vows.

Like it will be the same me

that is on my deathbed, like hopefully, if that's the way I go, like looking around at people who love me, right?

Same, same

inner self.

And this is bad news for January branding, right?

Because the truth is forever new year,

same as me.

Okay.

But I think it's good news because actually it makes me feel safe.

I'm going to be okay forever

because I'm never going to leave me.

Like this self looking out from inside at everything is going to be the same self.

It's like I also just began to understand yesterday that if I'm never switched into this different grown-up adult future version of myself, that means that nothing ever is going to be able to separate me from myself till the day that I die,

which is very comforting.

And also scary as shit.

I'm stuck with this self forever.

But good news, bad news.

Great news, bad news, people.

Good news, bad news.

So, but it's beautiful.

It's kind of right.

It's like weird.

I don't know how, I don't know if I'm explaining it right, but it is weird to me that this inner self that's looking out at the world was the same when I was five, twelve,

twenty-five, forty, sixty, like the same.

But is it just

weird?

Because I think in your brain, you're making it weird.

Like the consciousness self is like,

this is what I've been trying to teach you all along.

Right.

That it's just the now.

It's just the now.

It's always here.

I have always, always been.

It's exactly like

the

sun being out all the time and making you feel like you should be doing something.

We are here to say it is January.

The sun is shining.

everyone is new year, new youing all over you.

And you get to say,

I am not going to accept that shame and expectation that I should be out running around in the sun.

I'm not going to accept the job you've given me, which is to apparently throw my old self to the curb and

start fresh and new.

That it's always just the next right thing, one thing at a time.

And there's no radical promise of transformation, but there's also no radical assignment.

Just doing the next thing.

There's no

premise you have to accept that who you are wasn't good enough in the first place.

Yes.

Right?

It's a very insulting campaign now that you think about it.

Screw you, January PR people.

Screw you.

It's a great way to run an economy.

Yes, exactly.

Because all it's really about, the PR for January is really just everybody on earth who's trying to sell you this shit that will certainly make you a new year, new you.

So it's new rule, new year, screw you.

Yes.

Screw you, January is my January vibe.

Okay.

But what I will tell you is I do not think that you need to be better.

I think you are

perfect right now.

But there is a cool thing, like when I think about this me self, this soul level self inside of of me that's been with me forever and will be with me forever more.

That one thing that has saved me at every point of my life,

no matter what identities are changing or relationships are changing, is returning to that self over and over and over again, like a touch tree, right?

Like a thing that I'm coming back to.

And when I think about what the hell is that that I'm talking about, that self, what I would describe it as, is this like churning stillness inside of me.

That's the best I can describe it right now: that it is a stillness, but it is a moving stillness inside of me.

That if I return to, it saves me.

And so,

what I would say is, let's have an episode today that's about not being better, but being still.

And how can we use stillness to save us?

I was thinking in prep for this little conversation with y'all

about how I've kind of experienced life thus far to be three different parts.

Okay.

It's like, well, from when I got sober, because I don't know what the hell was before that.

That was just a

prologue.

Very dicey prologue.

It was a very dicey prologue is what it was.

Yeah.

Bit of a tornado.

But it feels like

as an adult,

there's this level one where you're just like becoming whoever the world told you who to be.

You're just like, you look at the world and say, what is makes for a successful person?

And then you just gather up those things as the best you can, right?

Try to become like a good whatever, whatever your culture has decided, a good mother, a good wife, a good partner, a good worker, a good community, whatever.

You build that way.

And then you burn out from that and you wake up and you realize you look at your life and you're like, what?

This is not my beautiful life.

You're like, what the hell?

I did all the things they told me.

And either I crashed and burned or I just feel meh about all of it.

So then

you level up to this level two.

I love level up.

Level up, which is like

this time where you actually figure out what who you are and what you desire and what your true feelings are and your true ambition and your true

intuition and imagination.

You create a self

separate from what the world told you.

I feel like that's what a lot of untamement is about.

Creating this self, like, who am I?

What are my feelings?

What do I want?

What are my boundaries?

What are my values?

And then you kind of figure out who you are.

Okay.

And then,

and you know that there's this part we're trying to enter into now, which is like this other level,

which happens when you figure out you have created such a self that you cannot stand your damn self.

Right.

You've created so many boundaries that you can't stand anybody.

Your values are so strong that you are kind of

not able to see other.

You just.

You've selfed yourself out.

And then I feel like there's this third level, which is transcending the self.

It's like that, we watched that Ramda special recently that was like so good.

You spend your whole life becoming somebody, but the actual goal is to become nobody.

It feels so counterproductive.

You spend the whole first part of your life being somebody that you're not.

Then you spend the next part of your life trying to find the person and that's somebody that you are.

And then you spend the rest of your life trying to become nobody.

To lose thyself that which you just found.

Yeah.

To become as wise as you were when you were born.

And I don't think you really get from level one to level two, level three, and that it's like this permanent thing.

I just feel like you, I'm always dipping in between all of it.

Every single day, I'm like finding myself becoming who the world wants me to be and then

finding my fire and being all and then transcending.

Like it's all every single day.

Studies of happiness and age find that people are least happy.

and least satisfied with their lives in their 20s, 30s, and early 40s.

There is the worst satisfaction of life in midlife.

And then you gain an appreciation for life as you age.

It's crazy because, notwithstanding ageism and sexism, and this kind of archetype in the media of this miserable old woman, it's actually women are increasingly happy after age 55.

So

they're just like have

better well-being and lower levels of anxiety and stress.

And actually, women are consistently rank higher than men in life satisfaction as they grow older.

The happiest people, period, are women aged 65 to 79.

So even if you don't, even if none of this rings true,

I think there is kind of a low-grade

process happening in us where either it's like we've learned from our life or we're learning because we're getting closer to death about what's important.

God, it's so hopeful to me.

It's countercultural because the culture promises us that we are done as women after what?

Like now it's probably 18.

I don't know.

Right.

The ages where they tell us we're worthless.

And what we, what I see in my life is what you're saying.

That

I want to look at most 20 year olds, 30 year olds and say, just, honey, hold on.

It gets better.

Like you stop, you stop when you finally figure out that, oh, I can't please everyone.

It's the phenomenon of people saying, I've run out of fucks to give.

Like that is, it's a joke, but it's not.

It's like this very deep letting go of, oh, I see the game here and I'm not going to play anymore.

And I'm just going to please myself.

The very thing that the world tells us we should fear, which is that the world will stop looking at you like an object,

is probably what is freeing.

Like when the world stops preying on you in a million different ways, not just for praying, like I'm not just talking about sexually and physically, physically, although that is real, but for everything.

The world just looks at women as objects to serve, to fix, to, so when, when you start to disappear in terms of the culture, that might be the first time you actually can exist inside your own skin.

Oh, it feels so exciting.

I know.

It is.

It's like the great giving up.

You know, that's what the, I've run out of fucks is basically when

you can still strive to meet any kind of standard, it's the striving is keeping you miserable.

when you're out of the game.

And I'm not saying, I'm saying from a cultural perspective, you're in pursuit of something else at that point.

And I think, I mean, I think that actually dovetails really well with you wanting to talk about stillness today because stillness is a lot of a great giving up.

It's yeah, you know.

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When I think about

those levels that I was just talking about, which I think sometimes correlate with age.

Often 20s and early 30s are this striving to be what the world tells us to be.

And then we kind of find our own backbone and heart and soul in our mid-30s.

And then we, you you know, try that for a while.

And then often people, like you're saying, around their 50s, let go of that identity too.

And when I think about what is the, for me,

what is the

magic trick of the leveling up?

Like, what is the teacher that has always

been there to push me up?

A level, it's always been stillness

in a million different, well,

actually, just a few ways.

Getting still

has

been

the greatest teacher of my life, just forcing myself.

So,

so I wanted to talk today about,

well, I want to tell a story about stillness and how I first discovered its power.

And I'm excited to talk about it because I haven't talked about it in so long and I don't know how it's going to feel now.

I used to think it was so smart.

And now I'm,

it was like revolutionary.

Yeah.

Oh my God.

10 years ago.

It was epiphany to me.

So

a long, long time ago, after I found out about the infidelity in my first marriage, you know, we've gotten to this place now with our family that all is well, but that was an horrifying,

terrifying time for me.

I really.

You know, for those of you who haven't been with us since the early days, I was married for for a decade and my then husband told me that he had been unfaithful to me pretty much our whole marriage.

And I was

deeply shaken and so afraid because I had no idea what to do.

I had very little kids

and I could not see a solution.

Like I could not see staying with this person

and living with that kind of pain and dishonesty and betrayal in my own home.

And I could not see leaving

because

breaking up my family at that point felt like an impossibility to me.

And so I was just in a slice of that was your experience because there's a lot of people out there that that must leave.

Or must stay.

Or must stay.

Clearly.

I mean, I did both.

I get, I understand completely, but at that moment, I had no,

no, you know, those moments where you just feel like frozen because

this way is impossible and that way is impossible.

That's real.

Like, I just couldn't, I spent all day just trying to make something make sense in my brain and I,

in my heart, and nothing, there was nothing.

And I was so furious.

And then when you're a young, when you're a young person and you have children, you can't even deal with your own stuff because your kids are constantly there and you're trying to help them through.

Anyway, I was in a rough place

and I was going to therapy and explaining a lot of my rage and pain.

And my therapist recommended that I go to yoga.

Okay.

And I was like, no,

that's not going to happen.

I was much, I was, I was not, I did not have a lot of woo-woo back then.

I know.

I can't believe there was ever a time where you didn't have woo-woo.

It's so wild.

Wild.

Think about it.

I mean, now I'm just woo-wooed out.

Five Five incense burnings a day.

Candles lit.

We are a fire hazard, literally.

I know.

It just, I did, I, the smells are so, well, we always talk about that, but it makes me feel like there's more magic when the, when the incense is going.

Anyway, whatever floats your boats.

Yes.

Thank you, love.

So,

so I said, no, but then there's this one morning.

Where I'll never forget it.

The kids were at the kitchen table.

I was at the counter in the kitchen and my ex-husband walked over to me and tried to put his hand on my arm and I yanked my arm away just like really, really

hard.

And I looked over and the kids were watching the whole thing.

And I remember one of them going, mommy, what's wrong?

And I was just like, nothing, everything's fine.

Everything's fine.

Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine.

And I like sat and grabbed them.

And I just thought, oh, this is, I'm in a, I'm just, we're all lying to each other.

I'm telling them it's fine.

they know something's wrong I'm teaching them not to trust their own instinct like all of it was just so I drove to dropped them off at school and then I drove straight to this freaking yoga studio that I'd driven by a million times okay

and I walk into the studio and there's all the freaking incense

I'm like I have no mat I don't know what's happening just where do I go Okay, so the nice lady sent me into this room.

I sit down in this room and you all know this story.

I, it was 490 degrees.

This was a hot yoga class that you did.

Well, I didn't know that.

I just thought that the air conditioning was broken.

I just sat there and thought, why does my life suck so much?

Like all,

all of this is happening to me.

And then now I go to the one yoga studio that the air conditioning is broken, right?

So,

but all these other women are sitting around the, they're sitting there in the heat

so i'm like forget it i'm leaving i pick up my little rented mat and start to walk out and then this yoga student yoga teacher walks in so then i just sit right back down because i because we are nothing if not um

uh pleasing of authority figures like yes okay i was just repositioning thank you exactly i was like this i'm out of here oh hey hi hi hi i was just i just had to pee i'll be right back yes i'm looking to get an a plus in whatever class this is.

Thank you.

Oh, my gosh.

Isn't that so true?

So I sit down.

The woman says, welcome to hot yoga.

And I'm just like,

oh, what kind of, what slice of fresh hell have I stepped into?

She sits down on her mat.

So I sit down on my mat.

Everyone else is sitting on the mat.

And then she says,

Let's all set our intentions for the day.

Now, how normal does this sound?

Now we always set, we set intentions, we do all of these things, right, babe?

Yeah, but the first time, the first go-around with somebody setting intentions, it's like, what the hell are you doing?

I was like, what?

She might as well, well, come in with a witch hat and a cauldron.

I was like, what is this sorcery that's happening here, right?

So the freaking lady next to me says, I swear to you, I swear to both of you, on this worst day of my life, this lady goes, my intention

is to radiate loving kindness to all sentient beings.

Is that how you say that?

Sentient.

Isn't it sentient?

I think it's sashi.

I don't know.

I just have only heard you say sentient beings.

That's how it's spelled.

And I usually say things how they're spelled because I only read.

How do you spell it?

S-E-N-T-I-E-N-T.

But sish.

I wanted to stab this peaceful lady.

I just felt like my intention is to make it through this class.

Yeah, she was abstaging everybody everybody with her freaking out.

She's just like, I mean, are you serious?

We're just trying to get through the day.

I give an intention.

I say,

my intention is just to make it through whatever's about to happen here over this next hour without picking up my mat and running out the door.

Very good intention.

And, well, actually.

It was, I think it was a good intention because the yoga instructor looked at me like I had said something very revolutionary.

Like you were a sentient, satiant, whatever it is being.

Yes.

I was one of those beings they were talking about.

So she looks at me and she says, Okay,

you just sit there and stay on your mat.

And I was like, okay, I can probably do that.

Okay.

So

here's what happens.

The woman starts the class.

She's telling everyone to do all of these various choreographed situations.

Okay.

The other people know how to do the choreographed situations.

I

sit there on my mat for 50 minutes in the 150 degrees while everyone else does their stretches.

And

what happened to me was my first experience of deep, deep stillness.

Okay.

Because what I figured out is

I was running so fast from what had just happened to me in my life.

I was, had been running, I think, since I actually first got sober.

I think this was my first deep sobriety experience in that class because when I got sober 10 years before, I immediately was like, I was pregnant.

I got married when I was sober for four minutes.

I was like trying so desperately to become,

I was level one-ing.

I was trying so desperately to become everything that I was trying to be a good girl.

I had been a bad girl my whole life.

I was trying to be a good girl.

No, but

that's what I had.

And I just decided, I'm just going to push under the rug.

Like, I'm going to

put everything, push it under the bed, all of my addiction, all of my pain, all of it.

I'm just going to push it under there.

I'm going to become this

upstanding citizen, right?

And

then this thing happened in my marriage, and I was so terrified

of the future and I was so ashamed that this was my life and I was avoiding all of it.

And then while I was sitting there for that 50 minutes, I just let it all come up.

It was like every single fear, every single bit of shame, all my anger, all my memories, all of my, they just started all popping up one at a time, like one of the, like a twisted game of whack-a-mole, where like all the moles are your worst um the things you think will kill you if you feel them

and i had no mallet

and i was just like crying and just it all

came up and then at the end of the class

there's this thing that they do in yoga called shavasanana anyway it's a nap it's a little nap okay

it's the best ever they just it's they just just did that the whole time.

So hold on.

So your teacher just told you just to lay there.

Yeah, she was amazing.

And then she, no, I didn't lay there.

I was sitting.

Oh, I see.

You just sat there, just sit there the whole time and you just didn't move.

Exactly.

And she exercised her intention.

She just

stayed true.

Yeah.

I stayed on my mat and didn't run out.

And I'm telling you, this yoga instructor knew something big was happening.

She was looking at me with her encouraging face.

Her encouraging face was like, you're doing a good job.

I mean, I was bawling.

Like clearly, she knew something was happening then at the end of yoga i was in the nap laying down just wrung out with sweat and tears and all of the things

and that

was

the first experience i had with the power of doing nothing like the power of not running the power of not of staying on your mat of not picking up your mat and running out of the room which is what i was symbolically doing with every feeling that i had because i felt like if i let the memories come up if i let the pain arise if i let it all be and looked at it

i would die

and i think that was my real first understanding of what sobriety is which is just a not running because i had really kind of replaced the the running with booze to the running of achievement and of identity building.

And so that's when I stopped being afraid of my feelings.

I was, it was like that deep stillness of refusing to run from emotion.

It didn't free me from pain.

I feel pain all the time, but it freed me from being terrified of pain.

I don't have to be afraid of pain anymore.

I can allow it all to come up.

I've heard you tell that story.

so many times.

And it's the first time that I have thought of the fact of stillness,

like that perfect storm happening because

it was the first time that you didn't have motion in your decisions too.

You know, you had when you, when you got pregnant with Chase, okay, I'm, I'm getting married, I'm having a family, I'm doing the thing, you get the house, you have the kids, you get the family together, you're going, going, going, going.

I'm just thinking for the first time is part of that

ability to have that stillness set in was precisely because there was no forward motion in your ability to make the decision.

Because if you had been like, I'm staying no matter what, then you would have been like, insert, you know, couples, therapy, insert everything we need.

Like, you would have project managed that.

Or if you were leaving, you would have been project managing that.

But, but the fact you were in this,

you know, intractable middle space where you couldn't make a decision

made you

have to.

That is so interesting because I, first of all, I've never thought about that before,

but it also is how I tend to fix problems is like rush into something else.

And that is what makes me feel like

progress is happening.

That is a bit of a numbing too.

It's like sometimes is our stuckness.

It's almost a claustrophobic feeling of like, oh my God, like there has to be, it's a suffocating, like there has to be a decision that will relieve this pain.

And when there is no decision that will relieve the pain, is that perhaps an invitation to stillness?

Like there's still more that needs to be

healed or faced and

your life won't allow you movement until

you've faced that which stillness will bring up.

I think maybe that

we will avoid stillness at every possible cost.

And so because we will only succumb to stillness when we absolutely have to,

maybe it's those places of stuckness where we kind of get that gift.

Because if we can move left or move right versus staying still, we absolutely will.

So

it's those moments that you have that are horrible.

I wouldn't wish them on anyone, but they are unique in that you're so desperate

for any kind of shift and there is no external shift you can make.

So it has to be an internal shift.

Yeah.

I mean, I couldn't agree more.

It feels like all of us, I mean, I can just remember the times in my 20s.

I've had friends who were trying to get me into meditation and do more yoga.

And I'm just like, oh, yeah.

But deep down, I knew that that was the thing that was helping me the most.

Like, I knew deep down

that sitting quietly for 10, 15, 20 minutes a day is going to be a thing that can help.

But like, why wouldn't I do it?

I know, because it's the hardest thing.

And so that's an interesting point because I'm thinking.

When I think about the moments of stillness that have changed my life, they always are right after a massive rock bottom.

Okay.

So a massive rock bottom.

And then there after that is the, is the big stillness that has shifted something for me.

So is it the fact that stillness

is

the gift of rock bottom or is stillness always there?

We just only will go there when we have completely run out of any other

option.

I think that's exactly what it is.

I mean, I think it's the latter because

of course it's available to all of us.

We just only take it when it's the only thing available to us.

I mean, it's available all the time to all of us, but we will only take it when it's the only thing available to us.

It's like praying to God for me.

It's like praying to God at the end.

Yeah, you're like, I'm literally out of every other opportunity.

I will do anything.

I promise I'll go to church on Sundays from now on.

I'll believe in you from now on.

Right.

And then there's meditation after that.

After that, that's what that.

That's right.

It's because it's very hard.

It's the simplest, hardest thing.

The truth is in the stillness.

And who the hell wants that?

I think it's fear for me.

Of what's going to come up.

I just, I feel like I've been afraid of my internal world self,

of finding out who I am.

I'm like I'm a fraud, like I'm an imposter.

Like

any second now, people are going to like.

catch me for not being real and true.

Totally.

I always feel that way.

What is that about?

about?

Well, let's talk about that because Glenny, you said that's the first time that you were still with your feelings, that you weren't afraid of them.

What does it mean

about us that we're afraid of our feelings?

What is it that we are afraid of?

Like, what is the

thing that keeps us in motion?

Well, I don't, I mean, I have a couple thoughts in this moment.

One is,

as we talk about a lot, we are not

taught

how to experience uncomfortable emotions.

Yes.

Like we think

if the pain, that the pain of uncomfortable emotions ends in death, like we do not understand that we can feel rage and anger and sadness and heartbreak and that it will go through us and pass.

Because I think we just live in a culture that is so obsessed with happiness.

Sadness is not marketable.

Right.

It's just not.

It's not like, you know,

sad Christmas.

Right.

Sad holidays.

It's like, happy everything.

Everything is fucking happy.

That's right.

Happy Christmas.

Happy holidays.

Happy New Year.

Yeah.

We should change it.

And then I think medium new year.

Medium.

Mediocre.

Have a mediocre new year.

Well, happy-ish.

I've always liked happy-ish.

Happyish ever after.

And then maybe there's something

that our feelings will make us do.

There are conversations that I need to have that when I feel my anger

kind of remind me that I have to have that conversation.

Or like

resentments where I feel like, oh, that's right.

Like you still are in that friendship that you, that is not good for you.

in the stillness your feelings kind of guide you toward hard truth hard decisions they guide you towards truth yeah and and those truthy things are decisive hard things that are disturbing to your life

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I also wanted to talk about this second version of stillness because I would say the first version

for me is a stillness with feelings.

Okay.

It's a stillness that allows emotions

to exist and live and be acknowledged and be released in one way or another.

Okay.

To feel the energy of motion.

Yeah.

It's like what?

Yeah, emotion, right?

Energy and motion.

Like it's energy and motion.

So it can't be completely stagnated.

We can't ignore it.

It has to be released in one way or another.

I mean, that's what we teach our kids.

It's okay to feel this thing.

How do you feel?

You know, we, there's a lot of adults that get to the point where

that they don't know how to feel their feelings and how to sit with it.

And so that was a big epiphany for me.

But there was this second experience that I had with stillness that taught me something completely different.

Okay.

So this was a teacher.

where a time when stillness was a teacher again for me, but it was, it taught me something completely different.

Okay.

So

sometime later, when I was still in this like

shitstorm of what am I going to do, we'd already been through, this is my first marriage.

We'd already been through tons and tons of therapy.

I could not find peace to save my life.

I could not find peace about going.

I could not find peace about staying.

I did not know what I wanted to do.

I did not know what I wanted to do.

I would go back and forth every single day, argue with myself, argue with myself.

One night I find myself

sitting on the the bed, just shoveling Ben and Jerry's into my mouth and googling.

Okay.

What do I do if my husband is a cheater, but also a really good dad?

Enter.

Okay.

So

I was Googling my one wild and precious life.

Okay.

I was, I was asking a bunch of bots and trolls if they knew what I should do

with my life.

Thoughts and trolls.

Yeah.

And I mean, I had

that was looking at that question in the Google search bar, you know, was like

a wake-up call to me.

It was like, oh my God, when did you start trusting literally everyone else on earth more than yourself?

Wow.

Right.

Like, and up to that moment, you guys, I had been talk calling everyone, calling friends, asking them what I should do.

What would they do?

Reading every single article that anyone has ever written about infidelity and broken up families and yada, yada, yada.

I had taken freaking BuzzFreed quizzes, you know, those quizzes that 16-year-olds make in their parents' basement.

I was getting into that.

I love those.

I'm like, who am I?

Like, whatever.

I will always take all the quizzes.

I love them.

But I realized looking at that, the computer that night,

I am never, I have one life

and I am never going to live my one life if I don't figure out what I want to do.

If I don't keep desperately searching outside of myself for somebody to tell me

what to do, if I don't quit living my life by

inquiry and consensus and permission.

So

that is

the kind of moment that that rock bottom, that kind of like

advice rock bottom, I guess lack of self-trust rock bottom, desperate searching for

approval rock bottom is when I

committed myself to stillness again.

It's when I decided that's when I started to sit in my closet for seven minutes at a time to try to like,

you know, I just kept feeling like every day I'm waking up and asking the world what I should do.

If you want to do that, it's easy to do because the exterior voices in our lives are so freaking loud.

Yeah.

Here's your next audio book.

Here's your next TV show.

Here's your next expert.

Here's your next, you know, minister, teacher, whatever.

There's all these voices on the outside of ourselves that it drowns out this kind of knowing

that we all have inside of ourselves.

And that was a weird return to stillness.

It was just like this desperation for some kind of

wisdom.

So you were going in the closet for seven minutes and doing a kind of meditation.

Like, how did you learn about this meditation?

Or you were just sitting there quietly?

Because I kind of think that that's my favorite definition of meditation.

I didn't have any.

I didn't just sit quietly.

Yeah, I didn't have any like special technique or anything back then.

I just was committed to quiet.

You know, stillness had already taught me something.

And I kind of instinctively knew that that was the place to return to when I was lost.

And

instinctively knew that there was something to be found there that I would never find in all of my desperate searching outside of it.

So

that time is when I

found

this inner,

it's not a voice, it's just what I call the knowing.

It's intuition, it's spirit, it's whatever, you know, you call it gut, Abby, right?

Like it's this inner guide that always knows what I need to do next.

It never tells me like the five-year plan, but it always guides me towards the next right thing.

And then when you commit to the next right thing, it gives you the next thing.

And then it's like becomes a yellow brick road,

right?

Where you can find your entire way home, just one

thing

at a time.

So do you experience that knowing or that intuition?

How do you experience the knowing?

And is it, do you find it in stillness?

Well,

intuition, first of all, everyone experiences it.

It's not just if you believe in the woo-woo.

I mean, it's a real thing.

Like it's intuition is the ability to know something without analytical reasoning.

It bridges the gap between conscious and non-conscious parts of our mind.

So we both, whether you believe in the woo-woo knowing or not, it is a thing that's happening.

The science shows that intuition operates through the entire right side of the brain and through our gut.

That's why it's called gut instinct.

So, the enteric nervous system is located in your gastrointestinal tract and it's full of neurons that convey information just like the brain does.

So, you are having, whether you acknowledge it or not, your body is sending signals through your gut and through the right side of your brain.

So, I just feel like whether you believe in it or not, it's there.

But I think I really resonated with what you said before about kind of coming from the

most desperate moments where we literally have nothing else that we can turn to that to

are the kind of some of the best practice zones for that.

And I think

it is for

me

when things were miserable enough that I was desperate enough to try to figure out whether there was any kind of something better, a better idea or or a better way to feel.

That happened right after my divorce.

And I think that that wrecked me so much in my view of how the world worked that I wasn't willing to rely on how the world was working anymore.

And that, how it kind of, in that darkness, I started looking for any kind of light, for anything that made me feel alive.

I didn't know what I wanted, or I didn't know what a plan would be.

I didn't even know how to trust what I wanted because of what I'd just been through.

Ashley Ford's new book, Somebody's Daughter, which is so amazing.

In her book, she has this incredible story of this moment in her life.

And she says, Inside of myself, I let go.

For half a minute, I was flying.

For a half a minute, I knew I had it in me to tell the truth and be loved anyway.

And for me, that's what

inner knowing feels like, like what joy and freedom and anything that makes me feel alive, it just always shows up just about for a half a minute.

It's never sustained and it's not a static place of arrival.

It's sadly and tragically, it's just for kind of half a minute of believing and half a minute of seeing another way for yourself.

And at that time in my life, I was so desperate for anything that made me feel a little more alive that I just

started to take a chance that

I could go towards that and eventually

feel more alive.

That

to me is how we know that something is for us, how we know that something is of our knowing and our choosing is that

we can practice learning what our intuition is by running toward anything that feels like a half a minute of being alive.

And I think anything that feels like freedom to you

is

what you can trust

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I just have one question for you about that.

The 30 seconds of freedom, when you experience that feeling and then everything goes back to shit, normal, mundane life.

Always, always and inevitably.

Right.

Exactly.

So are you able to

tap?

Because the feeling isn't enough, right?

Like, are you able to tap back into the feeling, remember the feeling, and make decisions in your mundane life based on what that flash of freedom taught you?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think, I think so.

I mean, I think in a, in a day, in a month, in a year that is in that claustrophobic, intractable middle place, like you were just talking about for those two times where, you know, you couldn't go left or right and the internet wasn't even telling you what to do.

And there's nothing that I think

those 30 seconds at a time that are these kind of like raindrops in a desert.

It's not going to fill you up.

It's not going to take your thirst away, but it's enough to remind you that water exists, right?

It's enough to

show you it isn't always going to be exactly like this and there is a better

place for you,

but it's not here and it's not right now.

So you have to rush toward

wherever,

whatever looks like and feels like that freedom because that's going to take you closer to the place that is not right now

yeah yes

that's good all right y'all for the next right thing today i think we just

find

a minute of stillness oof one minute

i mean if

you're feeling like kind of hardcore like get you two no we're not going to do two we can do hard things we can't do impossible things One minute of stillness, pod squad, and see what comes up.

We love you.

Next episode, I'm going to talk about some new stillness that is kind of rocking my world these days.

Ooh, can't wait.

Things get hard this week.

Don't forget.

What are we not going to forget, Leftbug?

We are not going to forget that we can do hard things.

Hard things.

See you soon.

Bye.

I give you Tish Melton and Brandy 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 back.

A final destination

lack.

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 game.

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.

A final destination

lack.

We've stopped asking directions

to 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 a hard pain.

We're adventurers and heartbreaks on that.

We might get lost, but we're okay with that.

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 on.

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.

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