25. You’re NOT A MESS. The world is.

Speaker 1 One thing I love about our listeners is how industrious all of you are. The stories we hear about you guys going off on your own and starting your own ventures like we did, it's truly inspiring.

Speaker 1 It's a big part of why NetSuite came to us as a sponsor. NetSuite offers real-time data and insights for so many business owners, and by that I mean over 42,000 businesses.

Speaker 1 NetSuite offers the number one AI-powered cloud ERP. Think of it as a central nervous system for your business.

Speaker 1 Instead of juggling separate tools for accounting here, HR there, inventory somewhere else, NetSuite pulls everything into one seamless platform.

Speaker 1 That means you finally have one source of truth, real visibility, real control, and the power to make smarter decisions faster.

Speaker 1 With real-time data and forecasting, you're not just reacting to what already happened, you're planning for what's next.

Speaker 1 And whether your company is bringing in a few million or hundreds of millions, NetSuite scales with you.

Speaker 1 It helps you tackle today's challenges and chase down tomorrow's opportunities without missing a beat.

Speaker 1 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 hard things.

Speaker 1 Netsuite.com/slash hard things.

Speaker 2 Hi, everybody. It's Glennon.

Speaker 2 Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. Just want to start this episode by saying good luck to you.
Good luck to you.

Speaker 2 We are recording this episode two days before I drop my son off at college.

Speaker 2 So today

Speaker 2 is

Speaker 2 doomsday Eve, Eve.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I am in the midst of

Speaker 2 just some real deep

Speaker 2 feelings that I'm not really sure I can even isolate.

Speaker 2 Before

Speaker 2 I knew of Chase's existence, so I got sober the day I found out that I was pregnant with Chase. Okay, it was on Mother's Day, 19 years ago.

Speaker 2 And so

Speaker 2 before

Speaker 2 that day,

Speaker 2 I was

Speaker 2 not

Speaker 2 who I am today. Okay.
I was

Speaker 2 an addict. I was a food addict and an alcohol addict.
I was,

Speaker 2 I had no sense of myself at all. I had no, I hurt people.
I lied to people.

Speaker 1 I stole.

Speaker 2 I

Speaker 2 just

Speaker 2 was just a really, really lost human being. I had no North Star.

Speaker 1 I had no

Speaker 2 self, really. And so

Speaker 2 the day that I found out I was pregnant with Chase,

Speaker 2 well, I just, I guess it's the first time I ever wanted something more than I wanted to just be numb. And so I decided that I wanted to become

Speaker 2 a mother,

Speaker 2 which meant that I was also going to have to become like a human being.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 2 And so the way that I became a human being.

Speaker 2 is that I just

Speaker 2 constantly asked myself consciously consciously at first and then subconsciously, okay, what would this kid's mom do?

Speaker 2 Every decision that had to be made,

Speaker 2 in my work, in my life, in my, was just like, okay, I would look at this little child

Speaker 2 because, you know, it, I think the universe just kind of looked at me and was like, oh, bless her heart. Like we are, we are going to have to give her the easiest child ever first

Speaker 2 because

Speaker 1 she

Speaker 2 can't handle a normal person, right? She's just learning to become a normal person. So we're going to have to give her this child that is like this little Yoda of a person, okay?

Speaker 2 This, like, and I'm not lying, right? You guys, like, she's,

Speaker 3 he's objectively

Speaker 3 just exceptional.

Speaker 2 He's just this

Speaker 2 gentle, wise,

Speaker 2 beyond his years, little human who has been so patient with me. And, you know, he's the child who

Speaker 2 he's very rarely

Speaker 2 pushed the boundaries of anything, but he, no, in his, I mean, for me,

Speaker 2 but once he was, I told him to stay inside this little fence. And he and his friend jumped the fence.
And I got there and he wasn't at this little playground. And I was so scared.

Speaker 2 And I found him and I brought him back to the house. And I was just staring at him because he'd never done anything like this.
And I said, What, what is happening?

Speaker 2 And he said, Mommy, I'm, I just, I'm going to,

Speaker 2 I'm going to, you know, push, push boundaries sometimes and you're just gonna have to give me a consequence.

Speaker 3 He was like five.

Speaker 2 He was five. You're gonna have to give me a consequence, mommy.

Speaker 3 How the world works is I learn about boundaries through

Speaker 1 natural consequences.

Speaker 3 He was parenting ones that you he's always been like that.

Speaker 2 He's always been parenting me and

Speaker 2 I have become

Speaker 2 a person that I'm proud of. Right.
Like I have become a person who trusts herself and who other people can trust and who the world even trusts on some level. And it's because every day,

Speaker 2 every day I have looked at this kid and been like, what would this kid's mom do?

Speaker 2 Like, what would the woman who is worthy of being this child's mother say right now? Do right now, decide right now, create right now?

Speaker 2 Every day, I've just been trying to be worthy of being Chase's mom.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 it hit me the other day. What my friend has, you know, this is a time when a lot of people's kids are leaving.
And one of my friend's kids is leaving. And she said, you know, I'm just scared for him.

Speaker 2 I'm scared for him. I'm just laying in bed thinking, I just hope I've taught him enough.

Speaker 2 You know, I hope he's learned enough from me to, you know, go out into this big world

Speaker 2 on his own.

Speaker 1 Oh my God.

Speaker 1 And y'all,

Speaker 2 you know what what I thought? Oh my God, that's not what I've been thinking at all.

Speaker 1 I've been thinking,

Speaker 2 oh my God, I hope he's taught me enough.

Speaker 1 I hope

Speaker 2 that he has trained me enough

Speaker 2 so that now I can go out into this world and be good and brave and wise enough without him.

Speaker 2 Like I

Speaker 1 I hope that

Speaker 2 he's done enough

Speaker 2 to set me off

Speaker 2 into this world where he's not watching me every day. And so, and I can still be good and I can still be wise and I can still be brave and I can still be strong.

Speaker 2 But what I'm telling you is that the truth is that I have never been any of those things without him

Speaker 2 in my daily life. And so,

Speaker 2 what I'm wondering is if

Speaker 2 in maybe in some ways we're all just trying to be

Speaker 2 as good as the person who loves us the most believes we are.

Speaker 2 You know, like

Speaker 2 maybe we are all just each day creating this character that we just hope one day we've practiced enough to just become reflexively.

Speaker 1 Lives into the dream of who we wish we could be one day.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And that's what he's been for me is just,

Speaker 2 he's helped me create this self that I am, just trying to be good enough for him.

Speaker 1 Um

Speaker 1 that's so beautiful. It's so beautiful, honey.
And I just, if you could just only see yourself through my eyes, that's all I will say. I see it every day.

Speaker 1 I see you every single day having gotten strong enough for this moment. And you are.

Speaker 1 I love you.

Speaker 2 Well, and it's just this amazing, I mean, through all of these times, it's, it's so wild.

Speaker 2 This, you, you're looking at your kid walk away and you're like, first of all, I'm helping him pack the other day.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, this is,

Speaker 2 this is not parenting. This is like, we have to help our children break our hearts.
Like, I'm helping you leave me. Like, the indignity.

Speaker 3 Here's what you should say to me when you break up with me.

Speaker 1 Exactly. It's like that.

Speaker 2 Like, the unselfishness it takes. I just want to sabotage everything, you know? And so I have

Speaker 2 what I'll tell you is I do feel like I'm on the edge of that canyon, like that dark

Speaker 2 pit of despair. I mean, last night, Abby, you said to me, she's, Abby's tiptoeing around me a little bit and like not even asking, how are you?

Speaker 2 quite often because there's just too much to that answer. So last night when I, when you did ask me, how are you?

Speaker 2 And the the truth was that I told you that I

Speaker 2 was thinking about how we're almost dead.

Speaker 1 Yeah. She says to me, she says,

Speaker 1 well, the truth of it is I feel like this is the step, the first step to the end.

Speaker 1 The next step is death. And I said, oh, okay.

Speaker 1 But we're 45 and 41.

Speaker 2 And exactly.

Speaker 1 It's just, it's not for a long time, hopefully.

Speaker 2 Okay, but what I'm trying to say.

Speaker 3 It's the Harry Mitzally.

Speaker 1 And I'm going to be 40

Speaker 3 in eight years. But it's

Speaker 2 that's how I feel, y'all, because what I know that I go too far with things. I know that, you know, reel me in or whatever.
But what I am on the edge of is watching your kid separate from you.

Speaker 2 This, him walking away, like. now doing life on this level without me.
It's just like feels like dress rehearsal. It feels like practicing for when one day we're going to separate for real.
Okay.

Speaker 2 Like I just

Speaker 3 feel

Speaker 2 like that is what I'm touching. Like that's the hot stove that I'm touching here with the separation.
And

Speaker 2 what I've decided

Speaker 2 is that I

Speaker 2 can't feel these feelings. Okay.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 your leader who's told you over and over to feel it all, I have scheduled three days where I'm going to feel my feelings. Okay.
I've not gotten away from this family for so long.

Speaker 2 So Abby's taking me to a place for three days. Inside of those three feelings, I'm going to, three days, I'm going to allow myself to feel the feelings.

Speaker 1 It's going to be loads of fun, folks. Right.

Speaker 2 In structure liberates, I'm just going to jump into the pit of despair during those three feelings. Because when you're a mom, you don't even get to feel your feelings.

Speaker 2 I have to walk Amma and Tish through this experience. I have to make Chase not worry that his mom's going to jump off a cliff.
So I'm sitting in the car, I think last week,

Speaker 2 actually in a parking lot. I stay there during Amma's practice.
I, as an act of

Speaker 2 maternal resistance, I refuse to watch children play soccer. I mean, I watch them play.
I refuse to watch children practice soccer.

Speaker 2 There's a new thing where now you don't even, it's not enough to go to the games. The parents sit and watch the children practice.
I just, that is where I draw the line.

Speaker 2 So I will take her and drop her little self off, and then I go sit in the car. So I'm sitting in the car,

Speaker 2 thinking about Chase leaving,

Speaker 2 thinking about it, even, you guys, feels like touching like a hot stove. Like, I just, I think about thinking about it, and then I shut down a little bit.
I wrote myself a note in the car.

Speaker 2 I started having this big, big,

Speaker 2 you know, feelings.

Speaker 2 So I wrote myself a little note, as you know, I I do, sister.

Speaker 2 And the note said, I wrote it on my phone. It said, you're actually not a mess at all.

Speaker 2 You're just a feeling person in a messy world. You are exactly right to feel a lot right now.
It does not mean you're weak. It means you're strong enough to be paying attention.

Speaker 2 Be gentle with you.

Speaker 2 Listener, if you're asking yourself right now, does she actually write herself notes? The answer is yes. Abby knows, right, babe?

Speaker 2 So I wrote that note and then I was like, you know what? I should share this. Maybe it'll help someone else because it actually helped me a smidge.
So I shared it.

Speaker 2 I put it somewhere on Instagram or something. And I just, the, the responses,

Speaker 2 people are feeling a freaking lot right now.

Speaker 2 Okay. People are feeling so much.
The comments that came back, the idea that actually we are not all a disaster, we are not all a mess.

Speaker 2 We just are paying attention to what is a very messy world,

Speaker 2 right? And actually,

Speaker 2 being upset by these things, having these feelings does not at all imply weakness, it implies the strength that is inherent with the decision to pay attention,

Speaker 1 right?

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Speaker 2 So one of the comments

Speaker 2 that came back, sister, what was it? Because I think I

Speaker 2 sent it to you. It was just like, the world is on freaking fire.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 The world is constantly on fire. How do we go on and keep breathing?

Speaker 2 Yeah, exactly. That is the question.
And I think we have a voice now, don't we? Yep.

Speaker 4 Hi, Son and then sister. My name is Ella.

Speaker 4 I just wanted to start off by saying that I absolutely love your podcast. I also love Untamed.
Funny story. I actually actually read the book on an airplane in one sitting.

Speaker 4 And then once I got off the airplane a few days later, I

Speaker 4 got We Can Do Hard Things tattooed on my arm. So it's now with me forever.
That is just how much I love your book and you too. But anyways, my hard

Speaker 4 thing, my question that I wanted to ask is that I am really, really sensitive. I'm also an environmental science major.
So I'm constantly burdened by

Speaker 4 just

Speaker 4 you know climate change, global warming, all kinds of really horrible, awful things. And I constantly think about that.

Speaker 4 I mean there's not a day in my life that doesn't go by that I do not think about you know the end of the world and our future and plastic and turtles and you know all of those things.

Speaker 4 So I just wanted to ask if you had any advice on

Speaker 4 like

Speaker 4 how do I not think about these things or how like constantly how do I not be burdened by them? And also, I don't know. I mean, do you guys have that same experience? Anyways, I love you both.

Speaker 4 I hope you have a fabulous afternoon.

Speaker 4 Bye.

Speaker 1 Ella.

Speaker 2 Ella, thank you for being burdened

Speaker 2 by

Speaker 2 what's happening to our planet. I mean, I, Ella made me think of

Speaker 2 Tish, actually.

Speaker 1 Remember,

Speaker 2 I've told you all this story and I put it in Untamed and I'll tell a brief version of it. We have a, Ella described herself as sensitive.
I have a kid that is sensitive. And

Speaker 2 one day her kindergarten teacher called me and said, Glennon, we have an issue. And I said, of course we do.
And she said,

Speaker 2 so I mentioned to the kids,

Speaker 2 about climate change and I talked to them about the polar bears losing their

Speaker 2 homes because of the melting glaciers. And the rest of the kids were sad, you know, they felt sad, but they were able to carry on.
They were able to like soldier on to recess.

Speaker 2 But Tish is still sitting on the rug, the circle time rug, with her little face in shock. And she keeps asking me question after question.
You know, what about the polar bears' mothers?

Speaker 2 Why isn't anyone helping the polar bear? Oh, okay.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 what anyone who has a sensitive kid knows what the next few weeks of my life were like. Like all we did was talk about freaking polar bears day in and day out.

Speaker 2 I had to sponsor some polar bears online. I had to buy polar bear posters.

Speaker 2 I had to, in one of the lower moments of my parenting life, I had my friend Liz write me a fake email about how the polar bears were now fine.

Speaker 2 And we didn't have to worry about the polar bears or anymore. They were okay.

Speaker 2 Tish did not believe that email because she's not an idiot. Polar bear saga continues.
One night, I'm putting Tish to bed. I'm almost to that place, which is like I'm outside the door.

Speaker 2 I'm almost to the couch. I'm almost to the Netflix.
And then I hear mommy. And I say, What's wrong? Okay.

Speaker 2 She says, It's the polar bears.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, oh, hell no, no.

Speaker 2 And she says, mommy, it's just

Speaker 2 that now it's the polar bears, but no one cares. So next it'll be us.

Speaker 2 And I was like,

Speaker 2 oh my God, the polar bear. Like, oh,

Speaker 2 she is not crazy

Speaker 2 to be perseverating,

Speaker 2 to be burdened by the polar bears. We are crazy to not be perseverating, to not be burdened.
What she is worrying about is the end of our planet.

Speaker 2 right

Speaker 2 she is not annoying she is a prophet she is looking at the end of the world wondering why we are all carrying on which is what ella is doing yeah right ella lives in a world that is so batshit crazy that is like can the ellas just be quiet like could they stop annoying us while we redestroy our planet

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 2 Ella, I mean, the first thing I would say to you is that you are not crazy. You are a goddamn sheeta.
You are paying attention.

Speaker 2 You are one of the ones, like we say, like a canary in the coal mine, right? You're standing on the bow of the Titanic yelling, iceberg, iceberg. And the rest of the world is like, Can you be quiet?

Speaker 2 We just want to keep dancing, right?

Speaker 1 And also, icebergs are melting from global circles. Right, that's right, that's right.

Speaker 2 That's full circle there, babe.

Speaker 1 Full circle.

Speaker 2 So, number one, Ella, you're not crazy. You're correct.

Speaker 2 And,

Speaker 2 you get to have joy too. You get to have, we have to find a way for people like Ella, who are so many people listening to this podcast.
A lot of our pod squad are big carers, right?

Speaker 2 And we're in a moment right now, and maybe have been for a very long time,

Speaker 2 where people are finding themselves thinking two things. Number one is, I care so much

Speaker 2 that I just have to look away.

Speaker 2 And the second option is, I care so much that I have to look all day.

Speaker 1 Right?

Speaker 2 This idea, sister, you and I talked about it. You gave it a different term.
It was this all or nothing idea of being, of paying attention to the pain of the world, which was.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 3 Well, also, Ella is an environmental science major. So it's all the more important that she not,

Speaker 3 you know, wear herself down so completely in being devastated by this that she can't actually do the good and helpful work she's going to be able to do for environmental science. So

Speaker 3 the idea was this idea of rumination or repression, that you can either just

Speaker 3 get so dwelling in the thing that you just go kind of on loop where you can't step out of thinking about it, but you're actually not, that's not doing any work in the world, right?

Speaker 3 It's just, it's just immobilizing you, or you can repress it completely.

Speaker 2 Um, which are both self-indulgent in the end, they are, right?

Speaker 2 Because

Speaker 2 what I think we get confused about, and I do often, is I confuse myself when I tell myself, I can sit and read this shit or listen to this shit all day

Speaker 2 because that is doing something.

Speaker 2 Right. That is

Speaker 2 what? Responsible citizenship. But actually, I'm not doing anything.
I'm just like watching the news all day or listening to the news all day is actually not

Speaker 2 doing anything. Right.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 3 And both of those things lead to poor health too for yourself. So you're actually being self-indulgent and you're rendering yourself unable to do anything effective for it.

Speaker 3 But I think if you go there, right? If you make yourself feel

Speaker 3 the feelings and imagine it,

Speaker 3 like in Afghanistan right now, where, you know, you're,

Speaker 3 where you can, you can digest all this information, but then you can like try to get there in your head and really imagine like that's just

Speaker 3 dumb luck. that I was born here and not there with my babies trying to get out of a horrible situation and having no options you know you can get there on a humanity level which

Speaker 3 also isn't doing anything but i think there's this kind of like

Speaker 3 recognition of mutual humanity that happens that i think it might be the kind of

Speaker 1 heart

Speaker 3 change like it's not like that that woman in afghanistan who is the other me right the other part of that coin.

Speaker 3 That's not doing anything to help her.

Speaker 3 But I think if we're, if, if we could all kind of get to that humanity place, I think it might lead to a world in which we didn't have as much of this shit all the time.

Speaker 2 That's right. I do think that's doing something.

Speaker 2 That is different to me.

Speaker 3 When you do the recognition of your humanity connecting to their humanity, then you're undoing

Speaker 3 what

Speaker 3 starts wars to begin with, what leads people to those places, because that is always based on othering. It is always having to say their humanity is different than yours.

Speaker 3 Therefore, you can tolerate this happening to them, whereas you couldn't tolerate it happening to you. So, I think there's that part of it.
And then I think there's this other

Speaker 3 part that

Speaker 3 you said about

Speaker 3 we can't let the fact that we can't fix everything stop us from doing something that we can do, right?

Speaker 3 And there is always something you can do. If you recognize your humanity and you would want someone to step up for you,

Speaker 3 then you can step up in the ways that you can. I mean, that's what that's how Together Rising started.

Speaker 3 It was just a response to knowing that we could do a little bit to help a little bit.

Speaker 3 And, you know, $33 million later, individual donations of about $25 each.

Speaker 3 We've spent $10 million at the border reuniting families who were separated.

Speaker 3 We just pledged and already have on the ground money in Haiti to help families there with boots on the ground, Haitian partners who have been embedded forever. We just invested $250,000

Speaker 3 in Afghan Women for Women, and

Speaker 3 they are working 24-7 to get folks out as quickly as possible and to save lives.

Speaker 3 I think that there is this hopelessness that happens with us when we know that we alone can't fix it and that our little bit won't make a dent. And there is power in knowing that

Speaker 3 many, many people

Speaker 3 for whom that's true can get together and actually do something that does.

Speaker 2 And that's doing something, the doing something on a personal level, that little thing

Speaker 2 is the crusher of apathy, like of hopelessness.

Speaker 1 One thing I love about our listeners is how industrious all of you are. The stories we hear about you guys going off on your own and starting your own ventures like we did, it's truly inspiring.

Speaker 1 It's a big part of why NetSuite came to us as a sponsor. NetSuite offers real-time data and insights for so many business owners, and by that I mean over 42,000 businesses.

Speaker 1 NetSuite offers the number one AI-powered cloud ERP. Think of it as a central nervous system for your business.

Speaker 1 Instead of juggling separate tools for accounting here, HR there, inventory somewhere else, NetSuite pulls everything into one seamless platform.

Speaker 1 That means you finally have one source of truth, real visibility, real control, and the power to make smarter decisions faster.

Speaker 1 With real-time data and forecasting, you're not just reacting to what already happened, you're planning for what's next.

Speaker 1 And whether your company is bringing in a few million or hundreds of millions, NetSuite scales with you.

Speaker 1 It helps you tackle today's challenges and chase down tomorrow's opportunities without missing a beat.

Speaker 1 Speaking of opportunity, download the CFO's guide to to AI and machine learning at netsuite.com slash hard things.

Speaker 1 The guide is free to you at netsuite.com slash hard things, netsuite.com slash hard things.

Speaker 2 I love the idea of

Speaker 2 doing something, deciding that you're always going to do something. That is a huge act of resistance to hopelessness.

Speaker 2 But that you're also going to be committed to this thing we're talking about, which is in a world that wants us to be numb, that wants us to other people, that you're going to resist that by

Speaker 2 finding ways to find humanity in these

Speaker 2 crises, in these

Speaker 2 situations all over the world. And the headlines don't do that for me.
It's the stories. It's the well-reported

Speaker 2 places that give you the humanity of the situation.

Speaker 1 Well, it just reminds me. I don't know.
You got to tell the story about the man in the candle outside the White House. Oh, God.

Speaker 2 I love that story so much. Okay.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 during the

Speaker 2 Vietnam,

Speaker 2 there was this man who

Speaker 2 I can't remember his name right now, but we'll put it in the notes. Who every single day would go to the White House and would stand outside of the White House holding a single candle

Speaker 1 day

Speaker 2 after day after day. Okay.

Speaker 2 And finally, this news reporter, you know, people caught wind of this weird thing happening. And so this news reporter came up to him with a camera and said, sir, do you really think

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 you standing here with this single candle

Speaker 2 is going to change anything? Do you really think that you and this candle is going to change them?

Speaker 2 And he said, oh, I don't come here and hold this candle to change them.

Speaker 2 I come here and hold this candle so they don't change me.

Speaker 2 And I love that story so much because I think the ultimate

Speaker 2 act of resistance in a world that wants to divide us, in a world that wants to other people, in a world that seems to be getting harder and harder, is to just refuse to become hard.

Speaker 2 Right. To find all of the different ways that

Speaker 1 you are

Speaker 2 insisting on your own humanity and other people's humanity.

Speaker 2 And to remember that the reason we all feel overwhelmed is because we actually were not designed to be exposed, to be in, to be constantly deluged with this much information about so many places in the world, right?

Speaker 2 That That we were actually wired

Speaker 2 to be able to respond to a village,

Speaker 2 right? A smaller world. And so this complete overload of information feels like overload because it is overload.
And so what we can do after we

Speaker 2 enter into the pain of the world is to remember to act locally, to care about the worlds also that we can touch to, when we worry about the world's loneliness, to meet the loneliness in our communities,

Speaker 2 Right. To constantly be involved with and connected to the worlds that are in our reach.

Speaker 2 Right. Because what social media does and what the world,

Speaker 2 what media in general does, is it makes us simultaneously feel like we have to be connected to everyone

Speaker 2 and in reality be connected to no one

Speaker 2 because we are not even out in the worlds that we can touch.

Speaker 3 I want to say one thing. I think that it is

Speaker 3 so true, everything you've said. And I would just say that also

Speaker 3 a woman, a woman in Afghanistan

Speaker 3 knowing that you recognize her humanity, and a woman in Afghanistan knowing that you're reading 30 articles and your heart is broken doesn't help her for shit.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Right?

Speaker 3 So, like, if your humanity rails against something that you see,

Speaker 3 respond to that

Speaker 3 call of your humanity. Do something because we live in a world that is overconnected, overexposed.
And you know what that means?

Speaker 3 That means that there are places that you can find that are doing the work.

Speaker 3 that your humanity demands to be done.

Speaker 3 So it isn't about you and your feelings. It's about what your humanity requires you to be part of.

Speaker 3 So recognize the humanity and then do something with your hands and your wallet, if you can, to that that woman in Afghanistan can feel. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I remember some saying to me, like, pity is your pain in my heart.

Speaker 2 Who the hell cares? Who the hell cares? Compassion is your pain in my heart and back out through my hands.

Speaker 1 I just have to ask because this is, and

Speaker 1 I don't know, I'm sure a lot of people are going to have a lot of feelings about this.

Speaker 3 But I am

Speaker 1 not

Speaker 1 like you in this way, Glennon. I am not an empath.

Speaker 1 And so I sometimes find it more difficult to get to where you are.

Speaker 1 I do all the time in my brain. I'm like, yes, this makes sense.
This is what we're going to do.

Speaker 2 You mean in terms of like feelings, in terms of caring?

Speaker 1 Yeah, like sometimes, you know, when you sit at the foot of my bed and you have an easel and a coffee and you're like, coffee revolution, we're going to get these kids out of cages at the border.

Speaker 1 I'm like,

Speaker 1 okay,

Speaker 1 this is, I understand that it's terrible in my brain, but I don't.

Speaker 1 I don't experience it in my body. And

Speaker 1 I actually feel like a lot of your listeners might understand and feel the similar way that it actually feels like something's broken in me because I see it so happening so real and fervently inside of you that I'm like, well, why am I an ice queen?

Speaker 1 Am I cold? Like when we go to art museums, you're walking around and you have tears in your eyes. And I'm like, I got nothing.

Speaker 3 Nice picture.

Speaker 1 I'm just like walking around with my hands behind my back, acting the part. Like this museum i it looks like she's having a grand old time

Speaker 1 that's i'm excited for you and so i don't know i just feel like there are probably some of us out there who don't feel as deeply who will do the right thing i always get there in my mind i always i always do and i i i care i do care but i don't care the most amount like you care yeah you don't care with your body yeah you care with your head that's right And thank God for that, my love.

Speaker 2 Can I just take, I want to respond to that to people who, because we empaths, whatever that is, right?

Speaker 2 We

Speaker 2 feel really precious about ourselves a lot. I do.
I want to tell a quick story, babe, that I just thought of when you were talking.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 A couple years ago, you and I were at one of our kids' sports events.

Speaker 1 Oh, Lord.

Speaker 2 During this sports event,

Speaker 2 you and I were two of the only adults there. I don't know how this happened.
There was just a ton of high schoolers and you and me. And then I had the girls with me too.
It was one of Chase's events.

Speaker 2 And then the girls were with us.

Speaker 1 Oh, we were cross-country. Right.
Yes. Oh, yeah.
Here we go. Okay.

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 so

Speaker 2 at the end of the event, one of the children

Speaker 2 passes out and lays down on the ground. Okay.

Speaker 2 Long, horrifying horrifying story short, which ends fine to all of my warriors. It ends fine.
This child.

Speaker 3 But it was like not breathing.

Speaker 1 Cardiac arrest is not

Speaker 3 a proper term.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Okay. But I just want you to, everybody, to know that the kid's okay, because I'm actually starting to get upset too.
So the kid ends up fine.

Speaker 1 He lives. Yep.

Speaker 2 But in this moment,

Speaker 2 the child is laying down on the ground. with high schoolers all around him.
He's their friend. His heart has stopped.

Speaker 2 okay people are doing are starting to circle around him abby runs over and starts to

Speaker 2 direct cpr okay

Speaker 1 she turns towards me i am hold on i just want to be clear there there was a couple of parents one who is a doctor who was on top and performing cpr so i wasn't directing high school kids to do cpr no no no no no i'm sorry you were helping directly there was a doctor two other adults who came

Speaker 2 do CPR.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 All the other children are in need of guidance in this moment. Okay.
Because there are several adults who are helping with the person who is on the ground. I am the only other adult.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 So Abby turns towards me

Speaker 2 to direct me to go help the other children deal with their emotional moment.

Speaker 1 I was trying to get you to take the other children away from said situation.

Speaker 2 So that they're small children. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So Abby turns to me. I look at her and I promptly pass the F out

Speaker 2 onto the ground. Okay.

Speaker 2 Like a tree has fallen over. So my two children who are already in trauma because they're watching this child do now their mother has passed out cold on the ground.
Okay.

Speaker 2 So not only my two children are double traumatized, but all of the other high school children have now lost their only hope for any sort of adult supervision or guidance.

Speaker 3 What I'm saying. Not to mention the poor doctor who's not.

Speaker 1 No. Jesus.

Speaker 2 Yes. No, now he's got this one dropping like fly.

Speaker 1 I'm like coordinating the ambulance. I look over and Glennon is now on the ground.
And of course, like what's going on over here makes me think that's what's going on over there.

Speaker 1 So I see Glennon go down and I think she's, I think cardiac arrest, right? right?

Speaker 1 And that is what my children also think. I'm not a doctor, you know?

Speaker 1 Okay. And so they're all white.
They're about to go down. It was like, it was, it was like the standby me moment where I was

Speaker 1 growing up. Yeah.

Speaker 2 That's what I was just thinking, babe.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 3 In other words, just not super helpful.

Speaker 2 Not super helpful.

Speaker 1 What I'm getting at here.

Speaker 2 is that I'm going to tell you why I went down. I remember the moment before I was watching a parent watch their child,

Speaker 2 the parent thinking that the child was dying.

Speaker 1 Okay. I was consoling the parents.
I was just

Speaker 2 this moment for a deeply feeling person.

Speaker 2 I was a circuit breaker that was just like, nope.

Speaker 1 Nope.

Speaker 2 Must save self. Okay.
Like whatever. My body was just not having it.
My point, babe, is

Speaker 2 Empaths are good for some things.

Speaker 2 We are good for pointing out problems. We are good for sensing things in the universe that needs to be healed.
We are not often the people who are going to do the healing.

Speaker 2 We,

Speaker 2 you know, you know who you don't want to be an empath? Your surgeon, perhaps.

Speaker 1 Right?

Speaker 2 Like, you know who you don't want to be an empath? Maybe like a hostage negotiator. Maybe like there are lots of actually deeply helping things that empaths should be nowhere near.
Okay. Like

Speaker 2 you were much more helpful in that situation than I, our deeply feeling family empath was.

Speaker 2 I feel like we empaths need to be very careful about how precious we are about ourselves and our role in the world, because we sure as hell don't want a lot more of us running around passing out left and right.

Speaker 1 Maybe some of Sisters advice from the other day's podcast would really help in that moment that like this emotion will not take control over me that if you become the observer maybe you would just at least stay conscious maybe i mean staying conscious would be the first goal but i just think babe what i'm trying to say to you is

Speaker 2 you and your way of being you and your way of being are not broken you are so deeply deeply helpful to the world you just do it in a different way and and there's different roles i mean if we if we were both if we were both me we would just sit around in our weighted blankets all day and do nothing, right?

Speaker 1 That's why we're like a team.

Speaker 2 A team,

Speaker 1 certain strengths. I have evolution requires it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yes. I help us feel, you help us do it.
Um,

Speaker 2 you are not broken. You are, I might be.

Speaker 2 You are seriously, seriously helpful.

Speaker 1 You're not broken either.

Speaker 1 You know what we don't talk enough about? Sleep. I mean, we spend a third of our lives doing it, and it literally impacts everything.

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Speaker 2 Let's go on to the next

Speaker 1 question.

Speaker 3 Okay, here's a write-in. Hi, Glennon.
My name is Casey.

Speaker 3 My kids are six and nine, and I am a fierce mama bear who wants to dive in and protect my children in any way in all circumstances where they can potentially be emotionally harmed.

Speaker 3 I understand on some cognitive level that that's not my job. But what am I supposed to do when I see negative situations happening at school or on the field or with their friends?

Speaker 3 And all of my instincts want desperately to intervene and fix and protect. What do I do when my babies are facing pain?

Speaker 3 I love it. Casey, first pass out.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Casey, stay conscious. First of all, stay conscious.

Speaker 2 I think, didn't Casey said, I can't handle when my kids could possibly experience emotional pain. It's like that.
Potentially be emotionally harmed.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Potentially, maybe not.

Speaker 1 Life might be tough on you, sister.

Speaker 2 All of life. That's right.
Life is just one situation after another in which we will likely be potentially emotionally harmed.

Speaker 1 Right. Right.

Speaker 2 I mean, listen, I think that this is

Speaker 2 a major challenge for

Speaker 2 the particular parenting generation that is raising children right about now, because there are parenting generations in the past who have not been so completely obsessed with the idea that our job is to protect our children from all pain.

Speaker 2 Right? That's actually kind of a

Speaker 2 modern

Speaker 2 way of being that this is what's created us as like helicopter parents, lawnmower parents, right? This idea that we're not, it's not our fault.

Speaker 2 Like we were given this idea that our job as parents was to just mow down anything in our children's way that could make them feel sad or make them feel lonely or make them feel left out or angry or anything.

Speaker 2 And that's why we are all neurotic, right? Because that we have been given an impossible job.

Speaker 2 Protect your humans from being human,

Speaker 1 right?

Speaker 2 Give life and protect from life,

Speaker 2 right? Like it's, we have been given an utterly impossible situation.

Speaker 2 And I'll never forget early on being at this convention and this sweet woman, she stood up and she raised her hand and she said, Glennon, I'm going through a divorce and my little boy is so

Speaker 2 sad. And every day I look at him and I think, oh my God, it was my one one job to protect you

Speaker 2 from this sort of pain and I couldn't do it and so every day I feel like such a failure

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 you know all the other people in the audience are just like nodding and crying and

Speaker 2 it was just this moment where and I think you know coming from a sobriety background where My job as a human being was to learn,

Speaker 2 just to learn deeply that pain is okay.

Speaker 2 That pain is actually more than okay. It's like

Speaker 2 what teaches us in many ways. It's like how we become

Speaker 2 fully human, right? That in a way pain can be trusted. Like when you figure that out, then you realize that that's also what you have to pass on to your kids.

Speaker 2 And I just remember looking at her and saying, okay, just give me three words that you would use to describe the kind of person you're trying to raise.

Speaker 2 And she said something like, I want him to be brave and i want them to be wise and i want them to be kind

Speaker 2 and so then the question becomes okay what is it in a life that creates wisdom and kindness

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 bravery and we all know that the answer to that is the struggle

Speaker 2 right it's it's

Speaker 2 It's not never overcoming anything. It's overcoming and overcoming and overcoming.
So the irony of our parenting generation is that we are constantly trying to

Speaker 2 protect, to steal from our children the one thing that will allow them to become the adults that we dream they'll be,

Speaker 2 right? Which is this idea of

Speaker 2 this idea that like our job is not to run in front of our children putting out every single fire over and over again.

Speaker 2 like frantically putting out fires behind them and around them at soccer practice and at school and in friends groups and that our

Speaker 2 our job is just to notice the fires ahead with them

Speaker 2 right and to just like walk them towards them over and over again and let them walk through the fire and sit in the fire and because

Speaker 2 what we all know everyone listening to this podcast knows is that the more fires you walk through what you learn is that you're fireproof You don't have to ever avoid those fires because you will

Speaker 2 survive and survive and survive. And so for me, I feel like my goal is to just,

Speaker 2 I want them to be able to do that when I'm gone.

Speaker 3 It's easier said than done, right?

Speaker 3 You see your kid being left out or you see your kid being made fun of or you see this, you know, this vulnerability that your kid has out in the world and you just know the looks that everything pierces like a knife, right?

Speaker 3 And,

Speaker 3 but I think it's interesting in researching for the episode we just did on Tuesday, this idea that the people who place the highest value on happiness are the least, are less happy than those who kind of view emotions neutrally because

Speaker 3 they're constantly striving and wondering why they're not happy. And I'm wondering if we're doing, if every time our kids are anything but happy, we are in a tizzy about it.

Speaker 3 And we are trying to intervene and say like, oh God, did that not make you happy? Did that not make you happy? Like that is teaching them that something is wrong with them if they're not happy.

Speaker 3 Something is wrong in their life if they're not happy.

Speaker 3 And, and so are we setting them up to live really

Speaker 3 unhappy lives by constantly cueing to them that it is bad when they're unhappy. It is something to be fixed when it is unhappy.

Speaker 3 You bring it to me and we're going to make this unhappy transform into happy. You know, it, I just wonder if it's more just like that neutral mindset of like, did that happen?

Speaker 3 Wow. Yeah, that happened to me too.

Speaker 3 Moving right along. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, anything that's okay.

Speaker 2 And it makes sense. There's nothing to fix.
There's nothing to fix if you're sad. There's nothing to fix.
Let it come. It's visiting.
It'll go. Yeah, that's good.

Speaker 1 Well, and it just makes me, I'll take the sports perspective because I think that a lot of parents feel this way when they put their kids in sports.

Speaker 1 And, you know, Glenn, it goes back to you not wanting to watch practice. Like, actually, that's like a, that's like a philosophy.
It's a good parenting technique. And in fact,

Speaker 1 it's important for parents to let the kids go out and to practice

Speaker 1 without them watching so that the kid starts to learn to not look over their shoulder for their parents' affirmation, for their parents' attention, that they can actually start to build and develop their own self.

Speaker 1 individual identity away right from that parent.

Speaker 1 And so I think when we're talking about sports or putting your kids in situations where other people, adults, might have a little bit of power or control over how this child is getting acclimated into that life, whether it's school or a team.

Speaker 1 I think we've lost trust, right, in other adults to be able to do that for us instead of us, right? So what I would say is to do the best research you can

Speaker 1 on the teachers that your kids are going to have or on the coaches that you're going to put your kid in front of. Make sure that those people, and then let your kids tell you the story of their life.

Speaker 3 All right, let's get to our pod squatter of the week. Who is it?

Speaker 1 Oh, I love these people so much. I love these people.

Speaker 1 Hi, this is Amy.

Speaker 4 I am just calling because I'm not even all the way through today's episode and I just needed to communicate

Speaker 4 that Amanda Sister Doyle is a goddamn cheetah badass. Holy fuck.

Speaker 4 She just, first she like said the prison part about what she did on her weekends and like my jaw dropped. Then she took leave of absence to go to Rwanda.
Like, what the actual fuck? You,

Speaker 4 I just, I love everything about this. Um, that's all.
Continue your good work. Bye.

Speaker 1 I literally listened to the podcast and I was like freaking out. I got home and I was like, Clennam, I didn't know some of this stuff about sister.
Are you kidding me?

Speaker 1 Like, she went to where during, during law school on the weekends? Like, I want to know.

Speaker 2 you you don't even know about the time she went to hawaii by herself to learn how to surf for a summer or when she told our parents i want to go to ireland but like i'm just going to go by myself and i'm just going to walk around oh my god places to stay and live that will be a different

Speaker 1 this is like finding out you're best friends with somebody that you don't even like that you are so so excited to keep learning about what the heck i know i mean i just want to say to amy who was that woman who called Amy, okay.

Speaker 2 I don't know why that Amy made me so happy, but it just, because she, Amy was listening to the podcast and she stopped it to call in, to say the thing.

Speaker 2 And that just makes me feel so warm and cozy because that means we are having a freaking in real time conversation with Amy. Like she was like, I need to tell them something real quick.

Speaker 1 Hold on.

Speaker 2 And she called us to tell us something. I love it.
And then basically her comment was like, sister, what the actual fuck? Which is what I've been saying my whole life.

Speaker 1 Yep.

Speaker 2 Yes, Amy, to that. Amy, we love you.
We love all of you. I think the takeaways from this week are go ahead and feel your feelings.

Speaker 2 Let your people feel their feelings.

Speaker 2 And don't let the fact that you can't fix everything keep you from doing what you can do.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 2 We love you. We're going to keep showing up and do what we do forever.
So you can just join us and we'll do it together.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 2 Because we can do hard things.

Speaker 2 We'll see you next week.

Speaker 1 Bye.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.