23. Lightning Love & Not Calming Down

Hi, everybody.

Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things.

How are you doing, Amanda and Abby?

Hi.

Amazing.

Amazing.

Ish.

Ish, as usual.

I was trying to think of a word that would sound good.

So I thought amazing.

I have a perfect life with my wife, so

I have, I do not have a perfect life.

That's because you don't have a wife.

That's because you don't have a wife.

That's right.

Come on over to our side, Sissy.

Every woman needs a wife.

Okay.

What you do have is 10 years of marriage under your belt.

This week was yours.

This week.

Yeah, I just do.

I do deserve that clap.

Abby, I thank you very much for it.

Yes, we just had our 10-year anniversary this weekend.

How was it?

And my favorite part was the day before your anniversary when we were on our morning meeting with Dina and Alice and our team.

And Dina said, sister, she looked at her notes and she said, sister, I do need to remind you that tomorrow is your anniversary.

We're so, John and I are so bad at those things.

And we just, there are a couple of years where we've woken up that morning and been like, oh,

oh, or like the next day, it was our anniversary.

Yeah.

We're just not.

This date feels familiar, but I can't put my finger on it.

It feels like we owe a lot of money to this date.

Yes.

So, yes, but we actually, it was 10 years.

So

John was very sweet and he planned this fancy dinner at this place like 45 minutes away and got all the reservations.

And an hour before we were supposed to leave, I

just felt highly unsettled about the situation.

And I was like, I don't feel,

I was taking a shower, getting ready to go.

You know what feels like luxury to me is not some luxurious meal that we have to like drive 45 minutes to and get to a place on time and sit in some fancy place with some fancy people.

Luxury feels to me like flip-flops and getting there when we get there and walking down the street and finding the first place with an open table outside and just sitting there and then coming home and watching Ted Lasso.

And that,

but I was, I didn't know if I should tell him that because he had like done this sweet thing of getting the reservation.

And so I told him, I was like, how would you feel?

Would it be sad for you if we just didn't do any of that?

And he was like, no, it's great.

Let's just go.

Let's do whatever.

That felt like a good analogy for 10 years.

It felt like it may be not what you imagined or what you planned, but maybe it's just the best thing you can do is to just stay in touch with what you in this moment, this unplanned moment of your life, like what feels warm to you and just hope that you're in a place where you're safe enough to voice that.

But I do have something I want to talk about on my anniversary, and it's tangential but related.

So, well, did you get to watch Ted Lasso?

Like, that is what it's about.

Okay.

This is exactly, I'm so glad all roads lead to Ted Lasso.

Okay.

Of course they do.

Yes.

So this is what I want to talk about.

Are you up to speed?

I won't do any spoilers.

So we get home and we watch.

There's this iconic scene where Rebecca brings her new boo to a double date with Kelsey and Roy

and Keely.

Keely.

Keely, Keely.

Sorry, Keely, Keely.

Roy Kent.

Roy Kent.

He's here.

He's there.

He's there.

He's there.

Roy.

I mean, God.

God.

Damn.

Okay.

So he, so Keely is being very polite about this new guy.

And Roy, as Peruge, is definitely not.

And this is what he says, okay?

He says, he's fine.

That's it.

Nothing wrong with that.

Most people are fine, but it's not about him.

It's about, it's about why the fuck you think he deserves you.

You deserve someone who makes you feel like you've been struck by fucking lightning.

You don't you dare settle for fine.

Oh,

I love that line so much.

Of course you do, Abby.

Of course you do.

And it is iconic

and powerful and beautiful.

And also,

I want to talk about that for a little bit because I feel like

we get this message a lot

that

there is this kind of hierarchy of love

and that the best, rarest, most precious kind of love is, you know, the there she is love, the lightning love, the lightning strike,

and that every other kind of love is by definition

settling.

I mean, he says, you deserve someone who makes you feel like you've been struck by fucking lightning.

Don't you dare settle for fun.

And I

get it, but

do you know what else lightning does glen and abby

lightning occasionally burns down your fucking house along with everything you love and treasure inside okay correct

It does have that tendency sometimes.

It does.

And so I just want to unpack for a minute and push against this idea of like this hierarchy of loves with lightning on the top because it's not the best kind.

It's just one of the kinds.

That's one of the kinds of love.

It's not the best.

What I chose is like this like comforting summer shower.

It's like a light, warm rain.

It's a cozy sunny day and you're sitting on your front porch and you're cuddling with your people and you're playing cards and you have this certainty of knowing that every most important thing is within arm's reach of you

and that

this ordinary thing can be the most precious part of life.

That kind

of

place of coziness and comfort and warm summer rain for myself and my kids, what I want to say is that that is not settling.

Your love that you chose

is just as good and magical as any other kind.

That's right.

And that's right.

That's what I want to say about that.

Well, I think it's very American, right?

And Hollywood to

put the lightning, this quote unquote lightning bit of love at the highest

peg of the podium.

But the reality is, sister, I feel like your lightning

definition is different, right?

I just, as a writer,

I'm figuring out what was off with that scene, okay?

And what was off with that reaction?

Because the problem

was not in that moment that this dude and Rebecca had a lovely summer rain love, and Roy Kent was saying you need lightning.

The problem was this guy would never have offered Rebecca

that kind of love you're describing, would never have been the cozy where she felt safe and

she felt seen and everything.

That was not the issue in that scene.

So, like,

there was also, I'm just saying, a creative issue in that scene.

Okay.

He could see our last episode, and he was clearly talking all about himself and monopolizing the conversation.

But when you remember that scene where she's sitting there and she's watching, and she realizes, she says,

basically,

I am choosing safe

here.

I am choosing, you know, matchable and safe versus

I opening myself up to attack.

But that she says her friend says that intimacy is opening yourself up to attack, right?

And she's saying, and that's when she realizes that going, she is going with this dude who feels safe because she's unwilling to open herself up for attack.

And that's a little bit,

I think that it's fascinating because you have described that sometimes too, G, as is love, is vulnerability, is all of that, just like opening yourself up to annihilation.

And I think

that sits a certain way with me because I don't know

that is saying that safety and comfort and security is not a worthy and high value.

It's like, what he brings is the absence of attack.

No, what he brings

to me is this very high value

comfort

and

peace of safety and grounding

that incidentally means he also won't,

I won't be attacked.

You know what I mean?

So I feel like that's a very, I don't don't know if it's just

people who haven't been annihilated that resonate with that statement or people that,

but it's always been confusing to me.

I'm like, so, but what about the people who are just like, actually, I have been annihilated and in retrospect, I have reevaluated my values and place a high value on not being fucking annihilated.

I get that.

I get that.

You get to do that.

That's like, that's adulting right there.

But also, I just see it differently with the Rebecca thing because I saw her looking at that guy, seeing, thinking, I will never have to be seen by this human because he'll never want to see me anyway.

What he wants, what he wants to see is a reflection of himself in everyone that he looks at.

That's what that, that's what that whole ditter was.

I will talk about, I could live my whole life and never be seen.

in this relationship.

And that is what I want because I allowed myself to be seen before and I got annihilated.

I guess what I know plenty of people like that.

I used to pick friendships like that because I was sick and bulimic and alcoholic and I didn't want anybody who required anything of me.

The only people I could be close with are the people who required nothing of me.

Right.

So in choosing someone who won't see you, you are choosing not to be annihilated.

What I do think is interesting in your relationship, and you know, we relationships aren't on a spectrum.

They're all over the place, but like you are so freaking seen,

I think, in your relationship.

Like,

I sometimes am like, surely

he's gonna, he's gonna say,

surely he's gonna send her to therapy now.

Surely

he's gonna, I mean, you know, no offense, but like, you are fully yourself in that relationship with no apologies, with no, like, you are fully your freaking self to the point where I'm like, sometimes, like, we're just gonna have to rein it in a bit, okay?

And he just

sees you and never tries to change you and thinks you're a, you know, I don't know.

So I guess I just

am looking at things a little bit differently.

I don't mean like I'm opening myself up to annihilation.

I'm opening myself up to lightning.

I mean like,

is this relationship going to going to require me to show up?

Yeah.

Right.

Because if you don't actually

show your real self, then your real self could never get rejected.

That's exactly right.

Right.

That

I, so I am understanding that second scene in a different

way.

I get that.

That's helpful to me.

Yeah.

It's interesting.

It's interesting.

And it is also our cultural obsession with love as pain.

Like love as pain instead of love as comfort and closeness and coziness.

Because even if you don't get struck by lightning, it's not real love.

Lightning is deadly.

Like, if you get struck by lightning, you are dead.

Dead.

Well, I'm just saying I think it's an interesting and underspoken about topic.

Yes, that's right.

And I agree.

I think you're right.

I don't think that we should all be or hold ourselves to the standard of lightning striking love.

Or assuming that that's the only valid kind.

Because it's not.

Well, one thing we did not do is underspeak it today.

We spoke it to death.

We speaked it.

We overspeaked it.

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We had some beautiful questions based on communicating and having better conversations and really reaching each other.

So let's hear from Tess.

Tess.

Tess.

Hi, Glennon.

My name's Tess.

I'm a woman at a mostly male company, and meetings are a slice of hell.

Often my thoughts are interrupted, stolen, or dismissed.

How do we amplify each other in professional settings?

Thanks.

Oh, Lord, have mercy on all of us.

Yeah.

Well,

Tess,

many of us have felt inside of this

special slice of hell.

Wouldn't it be cool if we all lived by the idea of if you find yourself at a table and you are the person with the least amount of privilege in that scenario then your job is to speak up right and if you are at a table and you find yourself as one of the people who has the most privilege at that table then your job is to shut up like wouldn't that be wonderful if that was just our general guideline for the next

um i can propose it tess i propose it i don't think

i've proposed it many many times and it keeps not really like taking hold so in the meantime well Well, where are you proposing this such thing?

You know, in general.

It's a problem, babe.

At many states.

I'm just proposing like we need to make actual rules on this.

I hear you, Tess.

Like there needs to be standards set inside of corporations, inside of government.

Yes.

This is so annoying.

And you are not alone.

But she's talking about a specific thing.

She's talking about in professional settings.

You can't have, I mean, presumably, if there's 10 men and four women at that table, presumably the 10 men are there because because they have jobs.

Like they're not, they're not going to not speak at their jobs.

She's talking about things like, well, what's going on on Project X?

Well, ma'am, we're not speaking because we have

to be good.

No, they're there.

But what about the thoughts of interrupting, thoughts being interrupted, stolen, and dismissed and amplifying each other?

Abby, you should tell the story about the thing that happened with the meeting and the texts because I feel like that is like what not to do.

Yeah.

I sit on an elective board.

And the deal is

I did some research and found out that those of us that were electing said thing or person

were mostly male.

And then I looked at all of the women who had been elected.

And there were so few women.

And I was like, wait, this whole system is set up to fail for women, right?

Like there's no way

more women will ever, like we'll never catch up because

the voting committee was so overwhelmingly male.

So the people who were voting for the people who would be chosen were all, almost all male.

Yes.

So

we were on a...

a big Zoom call and I decided, okay, I'm going to say the thing that needs to be said because my wife is my wife and she coaches me up.

And I said the thing and I was like, look, I actually think that we have to go back to the drawing board here and find more women to be the electors in this position, because otherwise this is going to never, this is always going to be the case, right?

And then the most common thing happened, right?

A few women whom I texted before this,

warning them that I was going to say something, amplified my voice.

They were there for me.

They supported me.

And then

mostly all of the men, you know, on this call said no things.

Zero things were said.

And

it felt like I was a little like,

I felt like a fool.

I felt, I felt to be made foolish in that moment because

there was really no, there was really nothing.

There was no.

No support.

No support.

No support.

Yeah.

Sorry.

So then the thing happens,

the meeting ends.

and then this thing happens that happens all the time.

And I'm sure if you're a woman and you're listening to this, you can, you will relate.

I get many emails and text messages from the men on the call

in support of what I had just said.

And so

for whatever reason, I show you Glenn.

And I'm like, what the hell?

Like, this is such bullshit.

Just little texts like, oh, I heard what you said in the meeting.

It was so brave.

I have your back.

I have your back.

You were so rough.

Yeah.

I thought it was really cool that you brought that up, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But nobody, none of them said anything on the actual freaking Zoom call

in my support.

Right.

And so we had a long discussion about it.

And what did we coin this term?

Well, it's, we just talked a lot about this.

this illusion of silent solidarity that if you're a person if you're you know a man in a meeting or you're you're a white woman in a meeting if you're if you're in of any privilege in a meeting and somebody else brings something up someone with less privilege in that situation that you can say nothing

because if you did say something that would be risking right that would be risking your proximity to power that would be risking your alliance with the old boys club which is which is creating the status quo that the other person is challenging so the idea that you could not risk anything in that moment and still

try to have your cake and eat it too afterwards silently when it's of no risk to you, you know, elbow nudging the brave person who you left hanging when it mattered.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

That this idea of silent solidarity is not a thing.

It's not a thing.

It's just actually completely offensive.

Yep.

And so what I had to do actually is I called out.

a few of the people who texted me.

I said, you know what would have been really nice is if you were to have said something the actual call.

That, that is the kind of support I'm looking for.

And I think that that matters, right?

Because they're going to keep doing the same thing until we tell them what they're doing actually is really offensive and it hurts.

It hurt my feelings.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's a, that's something we can do because it's like, there's always the person that's so brave and says something.

But if that person does not have a net of other people who in the moment will amplify, who in the moment will say, don't interrupt her, who in the moment will say, yes, I also agree with her, who will be the net to catch her,

then what you said, honey, happens is that the person ends up feeling left out to dry, foolish, and nothing changes.

And the thing that it teaches me is next time, don't ever say anything.

Next time, I won't say anything.

Yes, she will.

There's also, I mean, and that's what the, that's what like allies can do.

But if the tess is talking about like in those meetings, ideas getting stolen and dismissed, like what the women can do together, there's actually the

Obama staffers, they came up with a real strategy, a coordinated strategy among them of what to do.

Whenever a woman in the office, like at meetings or

in, you know, wherever they were, where a woman made a key point, the other women would repeat it and credit that back to her.

And so say, what Sheila just said was, that's a great point, which yes, Sheila's point that, and, and so they'd reiterate it and it forced the men in the room to recognize the contribution and

denied them the ability to morph it and claim it as their own.

So, and also by saying it over and over again, you know, the initial reaction is to dismiss something that a woman says.

And so it just floats in and floats out.

But if you say it three times, it's a great idea.

No one can deny it was Sheila's idea.

Okay, now we're getting and running with it.

Yeah.

So it requires, as always, it requires organization, right?

Like I loved that you.

Abby called those women beforehand and said, I'm going to do this thing in a meeting.

Like gathering your troops, gathering your troops first is a very important thing because it takes courage.

Even the bravest people, it takes courage to amplify.

It takes courage to stand up and to stand with someone.

And sometimes people need a heads up to gather that courage.

So if you're going to say something important in a meeting, gather your people beforehand, right?

Or read that article.

I remember when the Obama staffers did that, like read that article.

They had actual strategies to combat.

Yeah, the structural dismissal of women.

Well, and if you can actually create those little, what I call wolf packs of women inside of your businesses or your professional settings, that you're not only holding each other accountable, but you're holding your male counterparts accountable.

So it's not just singularized to you.

So you get together with the other women in your workforce, your workplace, and you say, listen, we're not going to let this happen.

We're not going to keep letting this happen.

And you have to talk to HR.

But if you do it collectively together, then that's how you structurally change things from the bottom up so that they know what they can and can't do.

Because it's all social dynamics that have to change, right?

And so you have to do something to change them.

One of the greatest ways to do that is to grab the people around you that will be not only allies but accomplices in the fight for more talk time and for original thoughts to be out there.

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All right, let's hear from Julia.

Hi, Glennon and Amanda.

My name is Julia.

I have a highly sensitive kid, and I find it nearly impossible to communicate with her when she's upset.

So I end up walking away half the time help

i love the podcast thank you

abby is that your question actually about me

julia

julia i get you i feel you i am you i raise and am raising a very very highly sensitive kiddo And I am a very highly sensitive kiddo.

And I would have thought that that would make it easier, but I think it makes it harder sometimes.

Here's what I have learned about getting through those so many moments when your deeply feeling kiddo is feeling the deep feelings.

I think I spent the first

five years of my kiddo's life trying to, maybe 10 years,

trying to explain to her why the thing she was freaking out about was not worth freaking out about.

Okay.

So if you have a highly sensitive kid, you know that, you know, if they struggle to tie their shoes

one morning, it's like the end of the freaking world, right?

It's just the breakdown that ensues, the pain, the trauma, the balling.

And so, you know, a practical-minded person might try to explain to the child that, you know, nobody, no house is on fire, no one's dying, that this is okay.

We can, we can maybe dial down our reaction.

And so that has never worked in the history of the world, right?

So

calm down.

Yeah, just

need to calm down.

Yeah, that, if you want to think about like how the child will receive the message that you should just calm down and this is not a big deal, you just consider how every time that anyone's ever said that to you, how you've felt, right?

And the answer,

you go from upset to like homicidal, right?

It's like,

it's, it's this feeling of nobody knows how I feel.

Like no, but you are explaining, you're dismissing this pain.

And we know that for these little sensitive ones, the pain, it's not measurable.

It's not comparable.

It's not rateable.

It's not something that you can, it's not, you can't compare it to something else.

Their big feelings are as big as the feelings get, right?

Their feeling when their,

you know, their shoelaces won't tie is filling them.

You know, there's just not enough room in this world for their pain.

It's like big.

And so it took me a decade, but I did learn that if instead of,

oh, come on, honey, this isn't such a big deal.

We'll just fix your shoelaces.

I'll do your shoelace.

Honey, this is so

upsetting.

You are so

upset.

Okay, I know that sounds so overly simple.

You guys, it works every time.

Every single time.

It's freaking amazing.

It's magic, actually.

It's like they look at you like someone is finally seeing me.

Okay.

Like, if you want to think about how this feels to your child, imagine yourself and your partner actually looking at you and saying,

this is so awful.

You are in so much pain.

And imagine how seen you would feel in that moment, right?

Yeah, it is awful.

I am in pain.

Exactly.

Shoelaces won't try themselves.

Exactly.

And it's like

half of the sensitive person's battle, it's not the problem.

It's getting another person to see

how much we're feeling about the problem.

So the second somebody sees us and validates it, we're halfway there.

Okay, we're not all the way there, but we are halfway there.

Okay, so my first tip with a sensitive kid is just look at them, go the opposite of your instincts, which are to agree that this is the worst thing that has ever happened and this child has every right to be devastated.

Okay.

Next,

you are going to want to

fix the problem.

Okay.

You are going

to assume that if the child, said child has a problem, that the solution to a problem is to fix it.

It's not yours to fix.

You are wrong.

You are wrong.

It's not yours to fix.

It's not yours to fix.

No, sir.

Dead wrong.

Dead wrong.

You want a sensitive child to jump off a ledge.

You try to fix her problem.

That's so funny.

I mean, not really funny, but.

With our sensitive sensitive child, we've learned this trick.

Okay.

Here's what we do.

She says, she comes to us.

She is a gaping, vulnerable, wide-open wound of something, of some sort.

We don't know of what.

She explains the ridiculous situation to us, okay?

And then we look at her and we say to her two things: we say,

That sounds awful.

This is awful.

And then we say,

Are you ready for a solution yet?

And 90% of the time, what is her answer, babe?

Nope.

No.

I am not.

Nope.

She doesn't want a solution.

She wants to wallow.

All right.

Every sensitive people want a minute to wallow because I'll tell you what sensitive people are not.

We are not idiots.

If we wanted the solution, we would figure out the solution.

Our problem is our pain.

Okay.

We just want the pain to be witnessed.

So, what I would say is a sensitive child does not need a fixer.

She just needs a relentlessly patient witness.

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Okay, we're going to hear from Natalia

Hi, G.

How's sister?

My name is Natalia.

I just finished listening to one of your episodes about parenting.

And this morning, we had a conversation with our four-year-old daughter, and she's experiencing being left out of a certain group of friends.

And

I remember being

left out of certain groups of of friends and not really liking that feeling, but I don't want to put my own experiences and feelings onto her and label her as, you know, sensitive.

And so I kind of wanted to get your thoughts, if you can, on how to navigate and how to manage and how to help her without

writing her story for her.

Thank you so much.

Is there anything worse than your kid feeling left out?

I want to stab people.

I know.

That mama bear thing comes up.

That mama bear instinct comes up.

And it's just so hard not to just call all their parents and just rat them all out.

And

I know.

I mean,

I have some thoughts.

for Natalia.

First of all, I just want to say that I think Natalia has really, really good instincts because the first thing she said is,

when she said, her daughter has been feeling left out of certain groups of friends.

And then the next thing she said was, and I remember being left out of certain groups and not liking that feeling.

And I just want to say one thing, which is

that I think when our kids bring us a problem like this,

My friends are leaving me out.

That it is our instinct to jump to like what we just talked about, fixing.

Like, well, why?

What's the problem?

How do we fix it?

But sometimes I think the best thing we can do is just

explain to them that how they're feeling is not,

that they're not alone in it.

You know, like when our kid is feeling left out, if we can.

After we do our act of listening, if we can say to them, you know what?

I know how this feels too.

You know, it's like a moment instead of fixing, but connecting, like showing our kids that feeling left out is a human emotion that we're actually going to have throughout our lives and that there's no shame in it and that it's just universal, I think is a really good instinct of hers and would probably take a situation where she's feeling disconnected at school and make her, have it be an opportunity to make her and her mom feel more connected to each other.

What do you think?

I mean, I just feel like

I feel like 25%

of

issues like Natalia is dealing with are how to help your kid through the experience of it.

But honestly, 75% of it is: how the hell are any of us going to be able to survive the pain it feels

watching

our kids go through

the treachery of life.

Yeah, exactly.

Like, I mean, honestly, that's why I am not as worried.

This might sound crazy, but I feel pretty confident my kids are going to make it through the world.

I am not at all confident that I am going to be able to make it through the world watching my kids have to deal with the inevitable pain of life.

Like,

honestly, it's a mental, like, and it's that can be the most micro, micro thing.

Like, I will be what, you know, somebody turns their back on my kid and I'm like,

I'm like hyperventilating.

I mean, I don't,

it is my honest question.

Like, how, when she said, like,

how to help her without writing her story for her, like, how to, how are we going to

get through

all of these things that are, that our kids go through without

so traumatizing ourselves that we are then like vicariously traumatizing them, even though they're the first people who had the actual experience, which may or may not even have blipped on their radar.

Right, right.

Well,

I think that we have to remember that we somehow figured it out.

We somehow navigated that stuff ourselves.

It is.

Did we, Abby?

Because you could just hear me.

I don't think I'm very look at her right now.

Like, I don't know at all.

I don't think so.

I do think so.

I think that,

unfortunately, the world does have some sharp edges to it.

I think that putting our kids in many different kinds of environments so that they can figure out and find their people, like, that's one of the most important things.

Like, for instance, we've got three different human beings as children, and they all go in their own different ways.

And yes, we never want to see

our kids and a friend of theirs ignore them or leave them out.

It's like the worst feeling in the world.

But we just have to do a little bit more searching, I think, to find the environments where they find their people.

Yeah.

And I would say this, and none of this helps, Natalia, in the moment, because you just want your kid to have no pain and you want your kid to always be included and for everyone, for a raindrop to never fall on their head and to never feel sad.

But, you know,

I sometimes feel like when we let our kids feel that stuff, when we hold them close and we tell them we have also felt that way and we,

you know, elicit more out of them and we just have that moment together, but we let that feeling be and try not to overfix and over fix and over fix.

What ends up happening is that the kid actually feels it.

Like the kid actually feels what it feels like to feel left out.

There is value that I can see later in wise, brave, resilient people to letting our kids in safe, loving ways feel

this stuff

and later having conversations about what it means to not recreate that kind of pain for other people.

And I have a feeling that Natalia and her little one are going to get through this

because they can do hard things.

They can do hard things.

Okay, we're going to sign off for this week, but we will be back in a few days.

Okay.

And we love you and we want you to remember every damn day

that we can do hard things.

We can do hard things.

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

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