39. Passion, Praise & Getting Personal

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Here we are.

We have shown up again for we can do hard things.

You also have shown up again.

Thanks for that.

It's all we can do, right?

Just keep showing up.

Abby, Amanda, thank you for showing up.

Did you want to say something?

Because

that was kind of like a prompt where I...

I was like thinking, you're welcome or, you know, you're my boss.

Yeah, thank you for showing up.

Do we even have a choice?

Well, this is going well.

Thank you, podcast listener, because you do have a choice and you're here voluntarily.

This is the best part of my day.

I'll tell you, even though we talk about, you know, infidelity and anxiety and depression and

trauma,

you'll be unsurprised to learn it's the highlight of my day.

Because the rest actually is the anxiety and the trauma.

Exactly.

This is where we get to just talk about it and not do it.

Respite.

Respite, as it were.

Talk about that.

It's happening.

But also, because it does make us feel lighter to talk about the heavy things.

Do you agree with that?

Or do you actually think that your life has gotten worse since we've made you start talking about this is a good question, actually.

Sister, because you used to just go so fast that you never really gave yourself time to stop and think about all this crap.

So now now you have

welcome to my world where I don't, I go very slow and only think about this crap.

So, how is it going for you?

Well,

two things about that.

First,

I feel my friend wrote to me recently and said, Well, how is it going to be on the podcast?

And I feel like

what it did is it made life

and

self-analysis

part of my job description?

Therefore, I started paying attention to it.

So it was like this forced contemplation period where I had to sit and think about things in order to have anything to say.

And then I realized that I had not prioritized thinking about very unfire things in my life because it wasn't part of my

to-do list.

And so putting putting that on the to-do list, I feel like really helped me

to see how it's like I viewed everything as zero-sum game.

Like, if I put extra time into life, it's at the expense of my work.

If I put extra time in my work, it's at the expense of my life.

It's not zero-sum.

Like, the investment in your life actually helps

you

in all aspects of your life.

So, I think kind of putting

therapy

in this form on my business to-do list has forced me to actually pay attention, which I think is good.

Well, and it makes you kind of mull through

a lot of what you're feeling and thinking.

Because when we talk about this stuff, it's going to the world.

It's going out into the world.

So doing a therapy session for the world to hear is really kind of an intense thing.

So I think, I mean, Glennon, what do you feel about this whole experience, opening yourself up and talking talking about this stuff?

I know that you do it, but to do it on a weekly basis, kind of talking about a new thing and our marriage and you independent of that, like, what is it like for you?

Well, I'd first like to note, right now, I'm thinking of the moment that I sat with someone, I think maybe it was probably Liz, I don't know, and saying that

writing is so important to me because it's my therapy.

And whoever that was said, the important thing for you to remember is that therapy with no therapist is not indeed therapy.

So, what I'd like to note is that this

time, sister, is still just you and me and Abby talking.

There's no therapist.

I have actually onboarded one of those.

Please see a couple of episodes about, you know, dangerously close to the black hole.

So, all good.

I am, I am,

I am getting actual therapy and then

this.

Okay, good.

All right, because

none of us have therapy degrees.

So you listeners should also remember, there is no therapist present.

Check all the things we say with your actual therapist.

Okay.

I love, you know, like this podcast is

my favorite creative thing I've ever done, I think.

I mean, because it's so unlonely.

You know, writing books is so freaking lonely.

And also, I just feel like when you work with your wife and you work with your sister, who you two are my most important people in the world, you just end up doing all work all the time and you don't ever talk about each other or

our hearts or our lives or our family, like any of it.

So I just feel like for sure that this podcast has made us closer.

Sometimes I think, you know, when you start cleaning out your room, like I always get, I get excited about like a project and then I

pull everything out from all of the shelves.

It's the bane of my existence.

Right.

And then I just get tired.

And she's the starter of things.

I start things.

And then, and then I just, I don't know, that hopeful version of me goes away when I see all the shit everywhere.

And I just think.

No, no, you just see how long it's going to take and you're like, dang it, I bit off more than I can chew.

And then I get tired.

I get tired.

It's like an HD TV where the entire home renovation is in a 30-hour thing.

You're like, that I can get behind.

Yeah.

And maybe it's because I'm so into HGT.

Like I watch that shit and I feel like it's going to be done in 27 minutes.

You know what?

I can do this backsplash like this afternoon after dinner.

I can totally redo a backsplash.

So the amount of times that Abby has come home and been like, what happened?

Like

the whole bathroom's torn apart, but like, I'm not going to do the other part, you know?

So I just think that that is how starting to think about your life feels.

It's like pulling everything out of all of the shelves.

And it feels exciting at first, but then when you see your life in shambles in front of you, you realize why you wanted to live an unexamined life, right?

That's why we have junk drawers, people.

That's right.

That's right.

Damn good metaphor to hear.

So this podcast is like making you pull out all your junk drawers.

And what I'm trying to say

is that it gets worse before it gets better, I think.

Like it feels like a damn mess and you just want to say,

you know, can you do the rest?

I think what's so interesting is that so many people have said to me, my God, I can't believe you're getting so personal or you're such even, this is my friend this weekend who is was so surprised.

She's like, you're such a deeply private person and you're sharing all this stuff.

And you would have been the last person I thought would have shared all this personal stuff.

And I realized,

I'm kind of like when people say that to me, I think, I don't know what you're saying.

And I realized it's because

I don't feel like any of this is personal.

Infidelity, eating disorders, you know, how

overwhelm how I'm feeling about being perceived at work.

It's like,

oh, I see you think that I think that those things are personal, but I get that they involved really intimate details of my life.

But I think it's that I truly have this belief that none of that is personal, that all of this is just something that's happening in me and around me.

That is something that is also happening in and around everyone else.

And I don't have that, that personal protection or shame around it because I think I place it in the context of what we're all living in.

And so therefore I don't feel the need to protect it.

I feel that so deeply.

That's how I've always felt.

And that's why it almost, it's always made me a little bit embarrassed when people say to me,

you're so brave for saying that thing.

So when people say, Glennon, you're brave for talking about your life.

I'm like, no, that's,

and it's also a woman's thing, right?

It's like.

One of the most important parts of this podcast for us, what we've always talked about, is the more we talk about our personal woman problems that we all feel alone in our lives having,

then the more other women say, wait, you too, me too.

And then we all together discover that these aren't personal failings or problems.

They're very much cultural and institutional failings that make us all feel like we are failing, right?

This is what all the consciousness raising groups from the second wave of feminisms were.

And by the way, back then, they were, people were dismissed.

You know, those women doing those, those consciousness consciousness-raising groups were told, oh, that's just therapy.

Dismissed as, oh, these are just women talking about their problems.

No, what they were doing was getting together, refusing to be siloed,

you know, top telling the stories of their lives, which then they realized were so connected that they were just a reflection of the culture.

And instead of worrying about changing themselves, they could get together and together demand change from the world.

I don't take it as like an insult of you're so brave, brave, like you think that there's something wrong with me, but it feels like I just it feels like a reflection that people are thinking that the things that happen to them and the things that are happening inside of them

are them.

Right.

Same thing, yeah.

And there you and therefore you have to somehow

not show what happened to you and what happens in you, because somehow that makes you a certain kind of person.

And I just wish people would

be able to have freedom from that because we can't control what happens to us.

And it is not a poor reflection on us, what happens to us and what is going on inside of us.

And all we can do

is to

separate those things so that we cannot feel like we're constantly carrying this heavy burden as if it was ours to carry.

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Shamelessness is a spiritual gift.

So speaking of shame and shamelessness, this is so weird, but I just have to say this one thing because

it's been bothering me every single day.

And I have no idea if it's a big deal or not.

But so I don't listen to any of these podcasts.

I don't listen to anything that I do.

I've never watched a segment that I've done on TV.

I've never, I cannot.

It's actual torture to me.

I have let myself off the hook of that part of my job because it just hurts my feelings so much.

And

so there's probably a million things that I've said on this podcast that already that I should apologize for.

We should do an episode of that.

The podcast.

Yes.

A podology.

Apodology.

Yes.

One thing is bothering me so much, which is that when we were talking about polyamorous, people.

Somebody asked us a question about like, what do you and Abby feel or think about polyamory?

And

I said something like, you know, I think it's great for people who are into it.

I would never, I could never.

This is not something that, and I strongly was saying,

it's not for me.

It's not for me in ways that

and no one's i haven't no one's left a voicemail about this i don't know i might be overreacting to my own self which happens often but i feel bad about it because

so i i feel like it reminded me of when people talk about queerness and they say things like

Well, I mean, it's fine for queer people, but I mean, I could never,

like they say it the same way I was speaking about polyamory, which actually feels judgmental and weird.

It's like othering.

It's like it's a different kind of person that would be into that than the kind of person I am.

Exactly.

And I haven't listened to it, but I know the tone of it because I know how I was feeling when I said it.

I think that a little bit you're protecting me too.

Yeah.

Because in our marriage, I think

you know how sensitive I am in monogamy and how it's a big value of mine for a lot of reasons.

Mostly she's a fan.

She's a fan of monogamy.

I'm a big fan.

I'm a big fan.

I think that you are hyper-sensitive to my feelings.

So, making sure that there was no way, shape, or form that I would believe that you have any inkling towards Pollyanna.

That's right.

So, I just want to give you a little bit of an out there because you know that in my being, that makes me feel scared.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

And there's no judgment.

It's just my experience and my opinion and my feeling and what I want out of my life.

I don't care what other people do with their lives.

Like you get to be you.

Go ahead and polyamory your way through it all.

I just, I do care what other people do with their lives.

I am always busy minding everyone's business.

We have reached the crux of the distinction between Ben and Abby.

Blenden definitely cares what you do with your life.

But I do care about, and if people are,

I don't know, I just don't, I don't think I feel the way I was representing myself in that moment.

I feel amazing about people who have found this any way of loving that makes them feel free.

And that's it.

That makes them feel free.

I think it's amazing.

It's like the intellectual honesty of it.

Anytime you suggest, I can't even possibly understand that.

It's, it's not true.

You know, just like when you're, you see someone cheat on their spouse and leave.

You see someone, you know, have to make a hard decision about their kid.

Anytime someone says,

I don't even understand how they could do that.

It's like, do you not?

Do you really not exactly

understand?

Because you're just trying to draw a distinction between like your value system and something someone else has done.

But if you really lean in,

I know in the recesses of your mind and your heart, you can understand just about anything.

Exactly.

It's like when people say, I can't imagine.

Whenever someone says that to judge someone else, I'm for sure that they imagined it for six hours last night.

And why do we say that?

What a weird phrase.

I can't imagine what you must be going through right now.

Do just try.

Try to imagine it.

It's like, it's like a very, very good.

Imagination is a bridge of empathy.

That's what I was going to say.

Literally just sit down and imagine it.

Like your brain does that.

Maybe I just don't want to imagine it.

Like maybe that's what we should be saying.

I don't want to imagine that.

Yeah.

I don't know what it is, Abby, is I don't want,

I don't want for you to imagine that I might be like that.

That's what people are saying.

They're saying, like, by saying, I am othering that group, it's like, I am.

I am placing my flag in this sand, which is definitely not over there.

So don't even begin to imagine I might be over there.

The point of all of this is that

Glennon apologizes to the polyamorous community.

She imagines and understands.

Also,

to everyone,

we should maybe consider stop saying, I can't imagine, because

just last week, someone said to my friend, my friend called me, who's so upset, this friend of hers,

she is a single mom, which by the way, I I also do this so don't have to be a single mom to do this but her friend said to her I just can't imagine leaving my baby in daycare for all of those hours I just can't imagine it's like oh my gosh

all the we do this all the time in different contexts which is basically first of all you can imagine it but but anyway that's not the point what I'm saying is even in these contexts where we're trying to draw a distinction between our lives and other people's and we say this it's not helpful because because everyone is doing the best they can.

And it's, you're just othering people.

It's a way of judging.

Yeah, it's like building walls instead of bridges.

It's ridiculous.

It's like,

me and you are not the same.

Nope, me and you are the same.

I believe in apologies.

I believe in real apologies.

So if something comes back to me over and over again, like it has been about this polyamory thing, I know I have to like clear the spirit about it.

Clear the spirit.

Okay.

You're good at it.

Has the spirit been cleared?

Has it?

I feel cleared.

Okay.

Okay.

His house is clear.

I feel cleared.

I'm sure I'll, you know, do something else that will, will mess up the clearing.

But okay, let's jump into this one.

I want to talk about our interview with Simone Biles and Lori Hernandez because I feel so passionately about these two women.

I mean, what they have done,

you know,

what blows my mind the most about these two is

it feels like women are put in so many insane circumstances where we know something's off.

Okay, we're being mistreated, someone else is being mistreated, or we are just like

our spirit, our being is like, no, no, no, no.

But everyone else is telling us, no, it's okay, or you're too sensitive, or this is just the way it is, right?

And so we allow ourselves to be gaslit, gaslit, gaslit, gaslit.

And these two,

in their freaking teens and 20s

said

no to entire institutions

you know lori

was being emotionally abused by a coach

was told over and over again that she was overreacting and finally got to the point where she was like nope and sued the coach Well, she didn't sue the coach.

She was part of an investigation that resulted in the coach being suspended from gymnastics for several years.

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We know Simone's story.

I just would like to talk about that interview and what we learned from them.

So we have four takeaways

that we want to talk about from Lori and Simone's interview.

The first one, do you all remember when Lori said, I asked her, how the hell does a girl your age, because she was a teenager still when all this happened,

learn to trust herself enough to publicly say enough about a coach, about an authority figure.

Right.

In the effort to save herself from further abuse and other girls from further abuse.

Like where does that kind of fierce self-trust come from to do something that big?

And Lori said, I didn't start off trusting myself big.

I had to, she felt so gaslit and so people were telling her she was wrong and she was oversensitive that she had to start with the smallest things

to learn to trust herself.

Like she would say, okay, what am I actually hungry for?

Like, which candle do I want in Target?

That one got me.

Because I will stand in an article in an aisle in Target and call you to ask you which pillow I should buy, right?

Like it's like

trusting yourself with those tiny, tiny things

is such a good advice to practice getting to the big stuff.

It's like my friend who a while back was trying to decide what to do in her marriage, everything was all busted up.

And I said, well, what do you want?

And she said, I don't know what I want for my marriage.

I don't even know what I want for dinner, Glennon.

We lose this ability to go inside ourselves and find what we want and need and trust it.

It's like what you said all throughout Untamed, though, right?

Women for all of time have been told and taught how to not trust yourself.

So when we compare ourselves to like men walking around the world where everything that they think, they trust, they believe, we have to remember it's like those little bitty details that sometimes gives us enough courage or gas in your own tank to be able to like actually trust the whole self.

And I think what Lori said, it's manageable.

You can do this every single day.

And in my world, soccer, when I started to get unconfident or I started to not be able to trust my ability, I had to like remember, oh, you, you're the international at the time, you're the international goal scorer of the world.

I would get unconfident.

And I know these are two separate things, but you still have to do that.

Like, find those little things that bring you back to yourself, however it may be.

Yeah.

And I think it's interesting, too, about

those little things.

There is a distinction, right, between saying, I

trust myself that X is right for me, notwithstanding everyone saying why.

And then there's this distinction between that and saying,

I

want X

and it's reason enough just that I want it.

The whole idea of which candle or

which food

opens up this question of, is it the food that I want or the food I should have?

Is it the candle that I am leaning towards or is it the candle that's the best candle?

And so I have to do a lot lot of research or figuring out which one I should do.

And there's part of that that's cool that's, it's just the one I want.

And that's enough.

It's just the, the, what, it's just, I like that candle.

And I don't, I just really want that candle.

And it go, that goes wider to the question of it doesn't even matter in that situation where you're with that coach and everyone's telling you you should be able to take it.

Just being like, but I don't want to take it anymore.

Like, I don't have to trust myself that on balance, I have a justifiable position vis-a-vis their justification for what they're saying to me.

It can be as simple as like, it is good enough that I don't want to be here anymore.

And so I'm leaving.

You know, it goes to the idea that women tend to just have this unbelievable, freaking, laborious process that we go through to make any effing decision.

And it's like three stages.

It's like the pre-stage where we ask everyone on earth if it's okay, if we can do the thing that we want to do, like what would they do?

What would everybody do?

Is it what all the friends, all the quizzes, all the everything?

Is it,

is it the best candle?

Then we finally make the decision and do the thing.

And then we spend the third

portion, which is justifying and explaining the thing we did.

It's like the three stages.

So what you're saying saying is what a revolution it would be if we just did the next thing we wanted without asking permission first, without explaining afterwards.

Like, in other words, what if we just like lived like a man?

Yeah.

It reminds me of the diffuser situation, honey.

Remember when that happened?

We, somebody sent us this like diffuser, like a oil

thing.

What's a diffuser?

So, it's like a thing.

So, I'm very, very big into smells.

Smells are important to me.

They bring me back to

the moment.

Cliff notes.

Abby is into monogamy.

Glennon is into smells.

I know that this is going to sound to you extremely woo-woo and weird, but

it is science.

Like I,

I am an anxious person.

And so anything that can bring me back to my senses always helps me.

Okay.

It works for me when you're back in your senses.

That's exactly.

So you should want me to have smells is what I'm saying.

Now,

I am anxious, but also very forgetful.

Okay.

So the smells that I want, Abby feels it's dangerous for those things to be candles.

Not only candles, but like, I also like the new house smell, like new paint.

Like I want that to last for a long time.

So when we first moved into this house, we had this, this

diffuser that like you put oil in it and it.

it sends this like it's no fire sister no fire okay okay so it emanates the scent is like going throughout because of this little device called a diffuser.

Okay.

For one second, I kind of was trying to put a disbelief that this was the good, the best decision for the house.

And she just was like, it's what I want.

And with nothing afterwards, no explanation.

And I was like, that's what's going to happen.

That's where we're going.

Because how does one, here's a good example.

How does one explain, right, or justify why I need the smell of incense to be all over?

Like, there's, it's just what I want.

It just makes me feel

good.

Yep.

And so we've gotten down to,

she's allowed to do candles and incense, but she can only burn one incense one day.

Yeah.

She was doing four in a day and that just felt like she's never been in moderation, Abby.

Not her strong suit.

Yeah, the kids are having struggles

Breathing.

It's like a convent in there.

It is.

It's like a church in holy water.

Or like a college dorm.

Right.

It's like these little incense triangles.

It reminds me of magic.

That's all I'm going to say.

Anyways, we digress.

Let's get back to the takeaways from Simone and.

Okay.

Second one.

And we'll do these.

I'll do these faster.

Okay.

One of my favorite things that Lori said was how after all of the shit that she went through in gymnastics, her starting to hate it completely, right?

And then having to

examine

everything to figure out was it really gymnastics she hated?

Or was it everything surrounding gymnastics she hated?

And what she landed on was no, she still had a love for the sport.

She loved gymnastics.

What she hated and had to let go of was the particular environment that she was in because of gymnastics.

And she did change it.

She started to say no to that.

No, thank you to that.

I don't want to do that part.

I don't want to do that part, but I'm not going to give up this beautiful thing that has brought me so much love and joy in my life just because this part's, you've ruined it.

I love this so much.

I love what she said so much.

And I also want to say

for everyone out there who is on a journey towards,

you know, get promotions or gold medals or whatever it is you're striving towards, it is easy to be able to then analyze your situation after you've gotten to the top, right?

So like, what I think is so special about Lori

is she analyzed it.

She said, I actually love gymnastics.

I don't like the whole thing.

So she was able to pick and choose.

I just want to say in real time.

In real time, but I just want to say that not a lot of us have the ability to pick and choose some of the situations we find ourselves in.

And maybe they're not as big changes as Lori talked about, but maybe you can do little things here or there to make your circumstance or environment a little bit better.

Yeah.

And to not have to give up the thing you love.

I mean, I, when she said that, I thought immediately about faith.

Like so much shit in the church and in religion.

has me over the past two decades and now still so angry and and

that there has been time have been many times in my life where I've just like screw it completely.

Screw faith, screw, screw.

It's all there's so much nastiness.

I don't want to be part of it at all.

And then I have to resist that because it's like, no, I'm not going to give up this beautiful thing just because somebody came and held it hostage.

Like that's like abandoning the thing I love to the hostage takers.

I get to have the thing I love and I get to decide what environment I want to live that thing out in.

Yeah.

I just, it's, it's one of the biggest tragedies to me is

of so many survivor stories is that

the

choosing to free yourself from

an institution that is hurting you

often means

having to grieve and mourn

a whole part of your identity and

life and purpose that you have

through your blood, sweat, and tears arrived at.

And that to me, as just

from a power dynamics perspective, just makes me absolutely

rageful that, you know, we look at a survivor and we say,

okay, you were strong enough to stand up at this institution.

Good job.

But, like, we don't look and see the other layer of

that person who worked since they were a kid to work to get into that college, to work to get into that law school, to fight her way through up to that law firm, to have this storied career of all of this, all of that gets washed away, and she becomes

the person who was a whistleblower.

I think

the trail of

wreckage behind people's decisions includes the lives that a lot of people have built and worked really hard for when they have to call these institutions out.

And

they lose those communities, right?

Like a lot of times they actually, in fact, have to leave those communities,

which is in and of itself a trauma.

Like to choose to leave the very thing that you identified with for so long and not to mention the whole career that they just built.

It's just,

I mean, it's a lot.

And the fact that they have to be the ones to do it, that nobody who's actually in charge, who's actually in power

risk to speak up.

And then when we call the people like Lori and Simone heroes, which they are,

then are we by default saying that those women who didn't decide to blow up their entire career, to blow up the entire, are not heroes?

Because

I certainly see and respect that decision too.

The decision to be like, No, I worked my ass off this whole time.

And because you are abusive, I not only have to suffer that trauma, but I have to lose the thing that I love and that I've worked my ass off for my whole life

to martyr myself.

Well, I chose that.

Yeah, I mean, I under, that's a whole nother podcast, longer conversation,

but

that

I

stand very much with the people who have

survived and decided that they are going to stand up and call it out.

And I stand solidly with the people who have survived and decided that

the

for their lives

that

they

do not bear the responsibility

of

something that is not their responsibility.

That's right.

That their responsibility is to survive and take care of themselves and do what their lives need.

And I know that's a complicated conversation, but

I don't misplace the blame of those situations on the failure of people to step forward.

I place the blame of those situations on the actual perpetrators of that behavior.

That's right.

And as Tarana, my personal hero, Tarana Burke, says

the only responsibility is to heal.

People who have been victimized

in any way own to the world nothing except their own healing.

That's why sometimes the like no more, like don't be silent is a little bit confusing of a message, because actually, if you are someone who has suffered, you get to be silent if that's what is healing to you i think that this is totally a podcast in our future

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I have something.

I thought it was super interesting.

I loved the part where

Lori and Simon both talked about it, but they were talking about in the context of like, they're doing these ridiculous things that only, you know, 0, 0, 0.1% of the world can do.

And they talked about this dynamic where

people will say,

you're a superhuman.

I don't even understand how you could do that.

You're superhuman.

And how it creates this disconnect between the person who is saying it and them.

Like you, you, Lori and Simone, are a different thing.

You're a different breed.

I'm just human.

You're something else.

And I, and I get in the context of being an elite once in a generation type of athlete.

But I think it applies to so many contexts.

Like I think, I think we do this all the time.

I think we do it to single moms.

I think we do it to teachers.

I think we do it in this way that

Whenever we call somebody a superhero, like it's a compliment.

You know, you know, the Mother's Day cards, you're a superhero.

The teachers, you know, teacher, they don't always wear capes, but they're, I mean, this whole line of the way we talk about people in that way.

It's like whenever we're about to call someone a superhero, maybe we should consider that we're calling them that because they do more than they should.

That's right.

And because we don't want to fix it institutionally.

We just

often they're doing more than they should because of the expectation that they will do more than they should.

And so we are actively participating in the reinforcement of that expectation

by calling them a superhero.

Yep.

I think about that every time.

Like I think about that with black women a lot.

And especially the white reaction to every time something horrific happens in a black community.

And then the

community has any met any measure of forgiveness

and then the only thing the the the white world we talk about is oh my god the superhuman forgiveness the superhuman forgiveness and it's like a fake way of

what honoring but it's like

no no no how how they probably feel about that tragedy to their family is exactly how you would feel if that happened to your son Right.

But you can't consider that because that would bridge our humanity too much.

So instead, we make change in our minds that they must be different.

They must be superhuman.

To consider that our humanity is exactly the same is out of the question because then we'd have to change so much.

Yeah.

I mean, I think about it from the athlete's perspective, obviously.

It's a way for the quote-unquote average American or average person to not feel bad about themselves.

That's why people say that shit.

You know, like this whole idea.

And by the way, when you're in it, there is a part of my psyche, there was a part of my psyche that needed to actually feel superhuman to be able to do some of the stuff that I was doing, to be able to sacrifice some of the things that I was doing, to be able to warrant and rationalize the life that I was living in some ways.

But I'm telling you what, that has been the hardest thing to unlearn in my entering into real life.

I mean, I say that.

My entering into the retirement of, of soccer, that has been the hard, hardest thing for me because narcissism is a very luring thing.

Like feeling like you're superhuman feels good.

Believing it feels good.

And then, but then you feel like a fake all the time.

Realizing you know you're not.

It's just bullshit is really terrifying.

It must be a huge sense of imposter syndrome to walk around thinking that you have to convince people you're a superhuman when the one thing you for sure know is that that is not true.

That's right.

Right.

I feel like in the context, like you, Abby, that's a unique cross to bear.

I'm just talking about the context of the people like this.

I don't know how she does it.

I'll tell you how she does it.

She's, she does it by suffering and not sleeping and giving up parts of her life that she should have.

That's how she does it.

So if you're ever tempted to call her superhero, maybe you just give her a sandwich instead.

Yes.

No, no, no.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Like that's a good, I think that's a really important takeaway.

Every single time you're tempted to

shower someone with the gift of suggesting they're superhuman, reconsider that what they actually need is some support rather than pandering, right?

Or some change or some help.

That's good.

Okay.

Last one.

Super quick.

Loved Abby and I've talked about this maybe for an hour this morning about when we asked Simone about her relationship with her boyfriend.

And then we talked about the things that keep them human, that remind them that they are actually human.

And how Lori and Simone both talked about the places they feel most human are the places that feel like they're not metaphorically or literally on stage,

that they're the places where they feel like they don't have anything to prove to anyone.

And we talked about that so much this morning because it's like, wow, we all live wild lives where we just feel like we have to prove things all the time and it's so exhausting and that's why we're so grateful for the couch time with the people who love us no matter what and we don't have to perform for right those like backstage times where you just feel like you're done producing and impressing and you can just breathe

what a world it would be to not perform i mean my Enneagram I am the performer so um This is going to be a tough one for me to

wriggle away from because I love it and also hate it.

But

where do you feel, sister, like you're not having to prove anything to anyone?

I was told there'd be no math.

I,

the love of your children.

Yeah, I was actually just thinking, I was playing

downstairs, you know, not like the Winnie the Horsey play, which makes me want to stab my eyes out.

But

yesterday we were,

I was doing like the airplane flying thing and every time we play Alice does this thing where she takes off all of her clothes she loves to be naked my husband is so deeply Catholic in his soul that like when he goes out of town everyone in my house is naked all the time I love naked time he

doesn't is not as enthusiastic about it

so

he so I'm just always like yay everyone's naked and we're playing and we're like doing airplane where you like get on the feet and you

fly, and um, they're both doing that.

And I was just like, I feel like this is very human right now.

Like, it didn't.

Now, granted, the impetus for going down there was like, I've been working 15-hour days, so I just, this is my 45-minute look, look, I'm momming, I'm doing it.

So, like, the incentive was very much performance-driven to be like, Look at me spending quality time.

But then, in the moment, I felt very human.

Okay, 45 minutes, though, that's pretty good.

Were you really?

Did you really play for 45 minutes?

Damn.

I don't know.

I mean, that was the

intent.

I don't know.

I can't talk about the actual execution.

There were probably seven minutes that just felt like 45 minutes if I remember.

And then I'm like, let's clean up the basement.

Won't it be fun to play a game of cleaning up the basement?

Clean up, clean up, clean up.

Everybody, everywhere.

Clean up, clean up.

Everybody does their share.

Okay, anyway, the point, pod squad.

Let's think about some places or times or moments or rooms or people with whom we don't feel like we have anything to prove.

I just think that might be a good exercise for us.

All right.

And now we shall end with our pod squatter of the week.

Smiley Erica.

Hello, Glennon.

This is Erica.

I'm catching up.

And

I just

burst out into tears when Abby explained about how she feels like she was broken because she doesn't have that emotion that some people do.

And I had to call up and tell you that it made me feel so good

that,

first of all, I didn't think that I was the only one in the world, but it made me feel good that somebody voiced it.

because I've always been called cold or heartless

over things.

And it's not that I just don't feel them.

It's

I don't express those feelings.

I express my feelings kind of away from others a lot of the times, or you know, scream, cry in the shower with loud music so the kids don't hear.

So, you know,

I don't like to express them out in front of people all the time.

So that's more or less anyway.

I just,

it made me feel good how supportive you guys were of her and how you need us in the world.

And

thank you.

I love you guys.

Oh my God, Erica.

I love Erica.

I just love that she, I mean, it is so our we can do hard things vibe to be a woman who calls and leaves a whole message about how unemotional she is while being so preciously and beautifully deep and emotional and moving.

And Erica, You have given me the gift of the visual of a mother screaming and crying in the shower so that her kids can play on blissfully outside and i don't know i needed that so bad today yes to that

yes to that kind of rawness and honesty erica we love you we love you erica so much thank you for that and also thank you for sister and glennon for also handling my lack of emotion or lack of feeling or whatever it is with such grace and love.

We're going to operate from a strength space perspective.

So you're not lacking emotion.

You are rich in

ability and solidness.

That's right.

That's what we're going with, Abby.

Okay.

I'll take it.

People like me need people like you.

People like me.

And a lot of incense.

And a lot of freaking incense.

Right now, I have my candle here, and now I shall go light more.

We love you, Pod Squad.

We love you.

Back here next time,

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