The 90 Second Rule: Feel Your Feelings

Speaker 1 Do you guys see my eyeballs?

Speaker 2 I mean, everyone sees your eyeballs. We're on video.

Speaker 3 This is wild. It looks like

Speaker 4 little weird men were just poking my eyes out with sporks all night.

Speaker 2 Okay, do you want to talk to me?

Speaker 5 I wouldn't be surprised if they were.

Speaker 2 It does feel like that's what they're doing all day to us.

Speaker 4 I'm just having that weird time of life where my face is getting older and it's scaring me.

Speaker 2 I mean, Amanda, are we recording?

Speaker 1 Is this what's happening? Oh, wait, hold on.

Speaker 2 So, last night, so last night we were in bed, we were taking pictures of our faces. No, this is two nights ago.
Two nights ago, yeah.

Speaker 2 We were just taking pictures of our faces, handing the phone to each other, going, when did we start, when did this happen?

Speaker 2 It's really something.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 I was looking at old pictures from

Speaker 4 my

Speaker 4 camera roll, and I was like, oh my gosh, I think I used to be kind of good looking. Past tense.

Speaker 4 At the very least, my face looked fine.

Speaker 2 It's a time.

Speaker 5 Also, the opposite is true. Sometimes I look at myself and I'm like, you look amazing and you look better than you did then.

Speaker 1 So it's a real...

Speaker 2 We're having a different fucking experience.

Speaker 8 We can look at you and see that too, you asshole.

Speaker 1 Or no, you look great. That doesn't work.

Speaker 5 No, but I'm just saying it's all relative.

Speaker 5 Everyone has their moments. Some of us are late bloomers.

Speaker 2 Oh, so you feel like you're peaking now?

Speaker 5 I mean, yes, and also it's a strange time.

Speaker 5 Also, I was having this conversation with my friend. I won't say their name, but

Speaker 5 they were wearing this sweater to dinner the other day. I don't think we're going to use any of this, but it's interesting.
And they had, um,

Speaker 5 they've always had

Speaker 5 a really beautiful bosom.

Speaker 8 Bosom?

Speaker 9 Like, wearing bosom.

Speaker 5 I'm, I'm, what is the words we use? Breast, they've got a rubber.

Speaker 1 I can never.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 5 No, butt is lower than bosom.

Speaker 4 Yeah, but I never know if bosom is butt or bosom is chest.

Speaker 2 She also doesn't know if medium is in the middle. Every time

Speaker 1 medium.

Speaker 6 My god.

Speaker 4 Mild, medium, I don't get every time.

Speaker 4 Although I I now know that medium is in the middle. When I tell you

Speaker 2 that we have to have a 10-minute conversation every time we try to order any sort of food with spice.

Speaker 9 I blame it on heading, the soccer ball.

Speaker 7 She'll hold it and go, which one's

Speaker 3 in the middle again?

Speaker 2 Is it mild? Or is it? So then I have to say, I want you to picture some shirts.

Speaker 2 Large, medium, small. So medium is always going to be in the middle.

Speaker 5 And she'll go, yes, got it.

Speaker 2 And then the next time, what's medium again? Can you go ahead and finish your sweater?

Speaker 9 Big boobs, great rack.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I got to know.

Speaker 1 Great rack.

Speaker 5 And she is talking about how she's wearing the sweater that she's had for 20 years and how annoyed she is that she

Speaker 5 didn't wear things in her 20s

Speaker 5 that would have

Speaker 5 shown off her great rack that she was this was the sweater that she was wearing 20 years ago and she's like, why?

Speaker 5 Why is that the case? Of course, because she was self-conscious then. And we're all like, think the thing that was awesome in retrospect is always a thing that makes us self-conscious in the moment.

Speaker 5 And I was like, yes, that is true. Like,

Speaker 5 yes,

Speaker 5 may we have been people who would have worn this sweater 20 years ago and didn't.

Speaker 5 But also let us remember that in 20 years from now, we'll be saying, I can't believe our asses were sitting there worried about X, Y, and Z

Speaker 5 when we could have been enjoying what was good then. And like, we're failing to see it right now.
So, what the hell? Like, just

Speaker 5 it is true that there are things that you are sad not to have, and it is true that the things that you can't appreciate now, you're going to be sad not to have in the future. And so, just

Speaker 5 like what there's to like,

Speaker 1 Like what there's like.

Speaker 2 Because two things are true at the same time.

Speaker 9 Number one, yeah,

Speaker 5 that's your face. That's your face.

Speaker 2 Time is passing. Your face is acknowledging it.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 1 you will never look younger than you do right now.

Speaker 4 This is the youngest you will ever look on this side.

Speaker 9 of life.

Speaker 9 Every once in a while, though, I'll have a good face day.

Speaker 1 Where I'm like, there you are.

Speaker 10 Because the thing that's startling about it for me.

Speaker 8 Startling.

Speaker 2 It's startling.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Is that I don't look like the self that I feel like.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's the second part.

Speaker 4 It's like a, I identify very much with my face. And when it changes, it's a little bit, it's scary.

Speaker 9 I feel a little scared.

Speaker 4 Like, whoa, am I going to like the future face?

Speaker 2 It's so interesting because it's a double whammy. It's like

Speaker 2 you feel different on the inside. So it's like you want

Speaker 5 to feel older on the inside and you don't.

Speaker 2 And you don't want to feel older on the outside and you do.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 2 We could switch it.

Speaker 4 Yes.

Speaker 5 Yes. That's the truth.
It's like time is marching on, but yet I'm the same dumbass I've ever been. So I feel like if time is marching on,

Speaker 5 we should at least have the benefit of that by accruing some kind of wisdom.

Speaker 2 Exactly. And then people are always trying to equate the two, which I appreciate.
All the songwriters are saying the lines on our face are the lessons we've learned.

Speaker 1 Well, where the fuck are they? Where are the lessons?

Speaker 5 The only evidence of the lessons that I see is the evidence on my face. I see no evidence in my lived experience or the decisions that I make.

Speaker 10 So I appreciate the effort, poets.

Speaker 8 But I fail to see the silver lining.

Speaker 4 Or

Speaker 9 it's not in reality. Yeah.

Speaker 4 I remember looking at my grandmother's hands when she was alive. And I remember her being really conscious and self-conscious of her

Speaker 4 frail skin and her wrinkles.

Speaker 4 And I remember just being like, but grandma, I think that when you have like aged skin, I think it's so beautiful. And I really meant it.
I really meant it then.

Speaker 4 Well, yeah, I meant it then. I was, I didn't understand then what she was feeling.

Speaker 2 I think, I also think that people who look really old are the most beautiful thing. So here's what I think.
I don't think I like the in-between.

Speaker 2 Like, when you're really old, you look like you're doing that shit on purpose.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 9 That is a...

Speaker 2 That is a decision. You are being that thing.
It's like with my hair, like, I'm trying to figure out what the hell because it's really all gray when it grows out now.

Speaker 2 And I don't think I would mind all gray hair. I just don't like look walking around looking like I'm not in on the joke.

Speaker 1 Like, I don't like the transition. I don't look, I don't like looking like

Speaker 2 I am not neither here nor there. Like, I haven't made a decision.

Speaker 9 Like,

Speaker 2 the roots are a secret, and I forgot to keep it.

Speaker 2 So it's the in-between.

Speaker 5 You know what we are? We're in the middle school of middle age.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 5 that feeling of being like, we feel awkward in our bodies. We don't understand the changes that are coming.

Speaker 1 We're becoming a woman now.

Speaker 5 But it's the tweens. We're in the tweens of middle age.
And it's just maybe going to be awkward as hell for a minute until we really get there.

Speaker 2 And to that point, everyone's just going to have to be patient with our mood swings and our bitchiness.

Speaker 2 Because it's a hard time.

Speaker 4 Well, I see a lot of older women, older than me women, who their faces look fucking normal.

Speaker 4 And I realize that there's things that they're doing, and maybe it's not Botox, or maybe it's not facelifts.

Speaker 9 No, it's not those things.

Speaker 4 But it's also maybe like a skincare regimen that I just can't seem to figure out.

Speaker 2 You know how everyone has 49 bottles of shit? We can't do that. We can't understand it.
We can't know all the things and the steps. It's just hydrochloric acid.

Speaker 2 I do think I could drink water, that that might help.

Speaker 1 Right now, thinking that might help. Water? Like, we have a

Speaker 2 plant,

Speaker 2 and it's called a lily of something.

Speaker 2 I don't know. Anyway, somebody got it for us.
And sometimes, maybe every five days, it just droops. It just, I love this plant because it does not suffer silently.

Speaker 2 It's not going to die because it shows its needs. Okay? It's like

Speaker 2 just sitting on the copy table, just just slowly dying in front of us.

Speaker 2 And I think, oh, thank you for sharing your needs because I need people to be loud around here because I can't, I don't want to silly plants.

Speaker 9 Okay.

Speaker 2 I take this plant to the sink, I pour a bunch of water in it, and I'm telling you, it's like two hours later, it's like,

Speaker 2 and it's all tall again. And I say to Chase, is that what water does?

Speaker 9 Is this why everyone's carrying around water bottles?

Speaker 2 If that is, I feel like the universe is trying to teach me, Glennon,

Speaker 2 we're serious about the water.

Speaker 1 Look what it does. Glennon you are the lily

Speaker 5 you're a droopy ass lily

Speaker 2 so I believe them and then I just carry around the water bottle all day right taking zero sips well it's sort of like weightlifting too which is also important for the osteoporosis so it's great two birds

Speaker 2 so we're doing great pod squad um

Speaker 2 today is when we do what my dream of heaven is which is pretend that we are all just on a cozy couch together, just chatting, just asking each other questions. There's no end to it.

Speaker 2 There's nowhere we have to be. We're just in cozy clothes, just talking things through.
And so we have

Speaker 2 gathered many of your questions that if we were all sitting on a couch, you'd ask, and we'd ask you back.

Speaker 2 And we have them here, and we're going to read them, and we're just going to have some couch time where we're all just

Speaker 2 chatting.

Speaker 4 Does that sound good? I love this. These are my favorite podcasts because I love to know more about you too.

Speaker 2 You're so sweet, and I love your face, and it's perfect.

Speaker 4 Well, my eyes, little men were stabbing them with forks all night long.

Speaker 2 Well, if that's the case, then I'm even more impressed with how good you look.

Speaker 2 Been stabbed all night.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 2 Amanda

Speaker 2 has a question for you, and it is this.

Speaker 2 Amanda, I feel like my mind works like yours, so I have a question. I keep hearing from very wise people

Speaker 2 that I need to feel my feelings.

Speaker 2 I keep wondering if she's actually just heard that from me, and I want to say I don't know if it's a wise people.

Speaker 2 I feel like I must be doing it wrong because it doesn't give me any relief.

Speaker 1 Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 Okay, sister, how do you do it?

Speaker 5 I'm very happy about this question

Speaker 5 because

Speaker 5 two weeks ago I would have been like the wise people are full of shit

Speaker 5 because I

Speaker 6 but

Speaker 5 I have

Speaker 5 a therapist who I love and is like really

Speaker 5 wonderful and working for me for the first time. If you've done the thing where you're like, I'm in therapy, so it counts Like, I have a gym membership.
I just haven't gone in three years.

Speaker 5 I've done that for like decades. And if it's not working, it's annoying, but just find a new one.

Speaker 5 Also, CC your relationships.

Speaker 5 Just start a new one because it doesn't count just because you're doing it.

Speaker 9 It's got to work. I see.

Speaker 1 It's like the water bottle.

Speaker 2 You can't just carry it around.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I think so.

Speaker 5 I think so.

Speaker 5 Anyway, I feel grateful for her, but she is always doing very annoying things like

Speaker 5 I'll be having a really

Speaker 5 good

Speaker 5 discussion of what's going on for me. And she will stop me mid-stride when I'm really about to reach the crescendo of explaining what's going on.
And she'll say, stop.

Speaker 5 Where do you feel that?

Speaker 5 And it's so annoying because I was just about to get to the point where we were going discover the discovery and then we have to do this thing where I have to pretend to close my eyes and pretend like I feel something I don't know in my belly or is it supposed to be in my chest I don't know what they're looking for but this happens all the time

Speaker 5 so I try to just get through that moment so I can get back to explaining what was going on sure sure um

Speaker 5 so like two weeks ago

Speaker 5 I had

Speaker 5 what if you're very healthy listening to this and it feels like what shouldn't be a revelation, like good for you, but for like the one person who this might feel relevatory to, I want to explain it.

Speaker 5 So, what usually happens when I try to feel my feelings is

Speaker 5 I will usually it's when I'm going to bed because I think the rest of the time I'm able to avoid it, but like I feel some disquiet, I feel some like restlessness, I feel something that like won't let me go to sleep,

Speaker 5 and so I think I need to feel my feeling. And so

Speaker 5 I try to identify what the feeling is. So am I feeling stressed? Am I feeling angry? Am I feeling?

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 when I identify what the thing is,

Speaker 5 I begin to process through that by thinking, okay, you're angry about this.

Speaker 5 This is what you're angry about. This is what they did.
This is what you did. Can you think of

Speaker 5 a way through that what if you try x i try to talk it into resolution okay and this is the way of dealing with my feeling

Speaker 5 a couple weeks ago i was having a feeling and i think it was stress

Speaker 5 and

Speaker 5 i was doing the thing where I was talking about it, processing it, solving it.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 for some reason, I decided,

Speaker 5 okay, I'm just gonna do what she tries to tell me to do in therapy, and I'm just gonna try to feel what it actually feels like.

Speaker 5 And so I sent my energy away from my thoughts about the feeling to try to feel what it felt like. And so my energy goes away from my head and into wherever it is in my body.

Speaker 5 And in that case, it was like a kind of like clenching,

Speaker 5 like pulsating.

Speaker 5 And I stayed with it

Speaker 5 for one minute, and then

Speaker 5 it stopped.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 this is what I think people are talking about.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 5 It turns out

Speaker 5 that thinking

Speaker 5 about

Speaker 5 feelings

Speaker 5 is not the same as feeling your feelings.

Speaker 4 Wow.

Speaker 1 That's right.

Speaker 4 That's good.

Speaker 5 Thinking

Speaker 5 about your feelings turns out to be the opposite

Speaker 5 of feeling your feelings.

Speaker 5 Feelings

Speaker 5 don't have words.

Speaker 5 This is important to me because I think this

Speaker 5 all I have is words.

Speaker 5 And so then I talked to my therapist about this, and she's like, Yeah. And I'm like, well, you should have just fucking said that because it's really clear now to me.
But here's what,

Speaker 5 here's what the actual science is, okay?

Speaker 5 A feeling, a real emotion feeling,

Speaker 5 is like a wave

Speaker 5 where it builds, it crests, it crashes, it's done. That process, good people of America, lasts a maximum of 90 seconds.
That is one minute and 30 seconds that that lasts.

Speaker 5 Why then do we stay up

Speaker 5 for two hours and 20 minutes

Speaker 5 sitting with our feelings? It's because we aren't feeling our feelings. We are thinking about our feelings.
And that is a different thing. Here's what happens.
If you have disquiet, if you have

Speaker 5 anxiety, if you have sadness, if you have clenchy, icky, fiery, and then you go to it like I do and say, hey, little baby, we're here to help. We're going to start

Speaker 5 identifying what that is. That's a first kind of thinking.
Even going to it and saying that's stress, that's anger, that's whatever. You don't need any of those words.

Speaker 5 In fact, you need not those words. You don't even need to identify what it is, and you sure as shit don't need to start thinking about

Speaker 5 why it's there

Speaker 5 or what to do to solve it. Because when you start putting words on a feeling,

Speaker 5 you have now taken it out of feeling and you have taken it into

Speaker 5 processing, solving anxiety, and you are

Speaker 5 prolonging it for as however long that takes.

Speaker 5 And by the way, that takes indefinite amount of time because you're solving something you have possibly misdiagnosed, and you are solving for potential outcomes that aren't even in the present.

Speaker 5 They are made-up things, right?

Speaker 5 So

Speaker 5 that is what is happening when you add words to a feeling. And

Speaker 5 not only that, but the wave never crests and it never breaks.

Speaker 5 You don't allow that process to happen. And so

Speaker 5 for me,

Speaker 5 what was absolutely mind-boggling is that

Speaker 1 there

Speaker 5 was no work to be done. There was no solving or fixing to be done.
Like literally, I just put the energy towards whatever the rumble constricting thing was. Then it was over.
And I had this weird

Speaker 5 peace and was able to go to sleep.

Speaker 5 Because I hadn't introduced the words that then I needed to spend the next three hours solving for and working my energy and frustration and having all the pretend arguments in my head that I thought was in service to resolving my feeling.

Speaker 5 But the feeling resolved on its own in its 90 seconds

Speaker 5 of a window.

Speaker 3 Wow.

Speaker 2 It's like that idea of you don't beat your own heart. Your heart just beats and you don't have to think your own feelings.
They just come and go. So from the outside, how would that look have looked?

Speaker 2 In the first scenario, you would have stayed up all night and tried to match stories to the feeling. And then the words and the stories would have been more fuel for

Speaker 2 the feeling, and it just would have kept going, going, going, going, going without cresting or falling. You're like adding, it's like a wave, but you're adding a wave machine with your thoughts.

Speaker 5 But it's not even the wave.

Speaker 5 You've ignored the wave. You have now been like,

Speaker 5 I think you're solving the wrong problem. And

Speaker 5 it is not a feeling, it is anxiety. When you're adding words to a feeling, you are in anxiety.
And so when you're in anxiety, that is the opposite. Anxiety doesn't exhaust itself.

Speaker 5 Feelings exhaust themselves. So,

Speaker 5 when I would say, hey,

Speaker 5 my tool is anxiety. I'm here to solve your feelings.
I am now ignoring my feelings because they don't operate in words.

Speaker 5 And now I am in the spin cycle of anxiety, which by definition will never end. So, like,

Speaker 5 and I'm also feeding that anxiety to such an extent that I am now fighting with people who haven't started fighting with me. I am

Speaker 5 finishing pretend conversations that will likely never happen. And so, I'm now

Speaker 5 adding that to my mental load. So, when I have the actual conversations or the actual things, I am bringing all of that pent-up energy to those interactions.
But, like,

Speaker 5 what

Speaker 5 is so huge to me

Speaker 5 is that

Speaker 5 there is a system that requires nothing of me to resolve itself. Like it seems so simple that it should not be true.

Speaker 9 Right.

Speaker 2 Well, it requires presence of you. It requires, like, what you're describing to me sounds like

Speaker 2 refusing self-abandonment. Like, sometimes we go to our mind

Speaker 2 because that's what we've been doing forever. And it's almost like a form of self-abandonment of not like staying with yourself and staying with the feeling.
So it does require something of you.

Speaker 2 Like you did something different

Speaker 2 with your awareness.

Speaker 2 Right. Right.

Speaker 5 It's it's a but it doesn't feel like self-abandonment. It feels like like I always thought when I went and was like, what am I feeling?

Speaker 5 Let me solve that I was partnering with myself. Right.
Exactly. That I was helping myself out, that I was hooking myself up like, hey, body, you don't need to be alone in this.
I'm here to help.

Speaker 5 I'm here to solve for you. I'm here to, I'm here to brainstorm and problem solve.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 And so it didn't feel like a denial. It felt like,

Speaker 5 you know, it's the equivalent of like, if your kid is crying and you run in and you say, oh my God, what happened? Who's mad? Okay, I can call their mom. Who can do whatever?

Speaker 5 Maybe you could try this versus going in and holding them and letting them cry it out.

Speaker 2 Oh my God, that's it. That is what everyone's talking about.
It's a form of parenting your inner child, reparenting yourself. It's like staying with yourself, not making up stories,

Speaker 2 being with the wave until it's over.

Speaker 2 And now it's time to thank the companies who allow you to listen to We Can Do Hard Things for free.

Speaker 5 One of the biggest moments of my life was probably the day I decided to leave the corporate law job I worked so hard for, jumping out into the unknown.

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Speaker 4 I have a follow-up question, Sissy, because I think I'm interested to know

Speaker 4 for me, when I actually let myself feel my feelings,

Speaker 4 I will feel anger

Speaker 4 and I am very very reluctant to feel sadness. Is there like an emotion now that you're new to this that you're like, okay, I can do that.
Is there like an another

Speaker 4 deeper emotion that you're afraid to actually go into?

Speaker 1 A feeling?

Speaker 5 I am not even at that place, and I don't know if it's a more beginner place or it's actually a more advanced place because the only way I can stay out of anxiety is by bringing zero words.

Speaker 5 So I can't even say this is anger, this is sadness, this is whatever it is, because as soon as I bring a word into the mix, I have done some kind of identifying and diagnosing that my next step is, why are you angry?

Speaker 5 Why are you sad? Why are you whatever? So I have to just like,

Speaker 5 I literally have to say to myself, no words.

Speaker 5 No words.

Speaker 4 And then are you, are you like dissecting or like trying to figure out where in the body this this this

Speaker 4 this disruption is or this feeling is coming from? Is that a place that like I know you're trying not to break free from the the mind-body connection because that's where there's getting a lot of like

Speaker 4 knots in the process when you go into experiencing your feeling are you going to a certain place in your body or are you just letting it happen?

Speaker 5 I can't even often tell like where it is.

Speaker 5 Like if it's sometimes I can feel it in my chest, sometimes I can feel it in my belly, sometimes, but like I think even that thinking is too hard for me, like, like brings in too much of my brain.

Speaker 5 I think I just try to

Speaker 5 like send energy to it and try to meet it without deciding where it is, and just ride with it

Speaker 5 and then have it go. Because

Speaker 5 the more like

Speaker 5 any kind of processing I do, the more I risk getting into words.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 it feels like there is

Speaker 5 one kind of

Speaker 5 communication that is valued, right? This is, if you can make a logical, compelling,

Speaker 7 forceful,

Speaker 5 eloquent argument, that is like the communication that is valued, period.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 what felt so interesting about this is: I'm like, this first of all, well, two things.

Speaker 5 I want to come back to the communication thing, but this, in a weird way, felt the fact that the body has a self-processing, self-cleansing,

Speaker 5 no actual assistance required. In fact, assistance

Speaker 5 will only fuck it up.

Speaker 2 System

Speaker 5 felt as

Speaker 5 profound to me as when Bobby was being born, and we took, you know, six months of Bradley

Speaker 5 natural birth classes and read the books and bought all the shit and figured out what we need to do on day one and day two and day three. And here's like

Speaker 5 the

Speaker 5 breast consultant person who's gonna come help with the thing.

Speaker 5 Um,

Speaker 5 and he was born,

Speaker 5 and 30 seconds after he was born,

Speaker 5 they put him on my chest,

Speaker 5 and he started rooting around,

Speaker 5 looking for my breast,

Speaker 5 attached himself, and started nursing. Now, I also realize nursing is very hard for a lot of percentage of the people and very hard for a lot of babies for a lot of reasons.

Speaker 2 It didn't happen for me, but

Speaker 5 yes, But for some large,

Speaker 5 for my baby, and for some large portion of babies,

Speaker 5 30 seconds after they're born,

Speaker 5 you have taught them nothing.

Speaker 5 There has been zero, literally zero things modeled for them in the world.

Speaker 5 There is no learning or

Speaker 5 of any kind.

Speaker 5 And he knew exactly what he needed to do to exist.

Speaker 5 And for me, it felt like this kind of like,

Speaker 5 oh my God, is everything I've taught been wrong?

Speaker 5 Because I've always just taught that you had to acquire more knowledge, you had to figure something out, you had to get the inside scoop to know how to do what you needed in order to be okay.

Speaker 5 This is

Speaker 5 how I felt when that feeling went away that I have spent my lifetime fighting and not being able to sleep trying to figure out the solve for all these complicated things happening in my body and my mind

Speaker 5 is that the body knew what to do the whole time. It just needed me to get out of the fucking way

Speaker 5 to do it.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 when it happened,

Speaker 5 I was like, okay, if this is happening, if a feeling happens and a feeling resolves itself, as long as I don't get in its way,

Speaker 5 as long as I

Speaker 5 don't impede its process by adding my words and my anxiety,

Speaker 5 then that means that feelings are happening all the time

Speaker 5 only in me and only because of me and whatever my makeup is, which means

Speaker 5 that there is a form of communication that is between me and me.

Speaker 1 Yes, only.

Speaker 1 And only

Speaker 5 me

Speaker 5 and me.

Speaker 5 That there is a world that only we exist in.

Speaker 5 And there is communication happening in that world.

Speaker 5 And that has to be the ultimate intimacy.

Speaker 5 Like when you think about intimacy with your people, you think about, you look over at them and you know they're thinking what you're thinking and you're thinking what they're thinking and you never have to do it.

Speaker 5 It's the, it's, it's a secret,

Speaker 5 special world that only you exist in. That is what intimacy is.

Speaker 5 But I have never had intimacy with myself because I have never been able to receive the communication that was only between me and me.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 5 And think about that wisdom. Think about like,

Speaker 5 I have like over-indexed to the moon on the other kind of communication, on the other kind of wisdom, on the but, but because I never knew this was a thing,

Speaker 5 I have lost full access

Speaker 5 to, I've never had this wisdom. And it's like so exciting.

Speaker 10 Did you just come up with all that right this second? Because that was fucking amazing.

Speaker 4 Like, that's

Speaker 4 that's new.

Speaker 2 It's so is it's like even the words we have around the thing you're talking about aren't right because you're you're talking about it and I'm like, yeah, that's it.

Speaker 2 But then we say things like, what are your feelings trying to tell you?

Speaker 2 And the word tell

Speaker 2 activates our mind. Like, oh, it's trying to tell me something.
Tell means talk. Tell means words.
So then we translate what really emotion is energy and motion. No, like, word before it.

Speaker 2 Not good energy, bad energy, sad energy, anger energy,

Speaker 2 energy that is trying to... to tell you something that you should translate into words.
It's none of those things. It's just energy.

Speaker 4 Yeah, we lay all of this like made-up judgment on what it is and what it means and why we have it and how we fix it and all the bullshit. It's like, if we could just be still enough for

Speaker 4 90 seconds. Like for me,

Speaker 4 that's the breakthrough here.

Speaker 2 It's that Pemeshodron Shadron quote. It's like,

Speaker 2 if you can sit with the hot loneliness for 1.6 seconds when yesterday you could only sit with it for one, then that is the journey of the warrior.

Speaker 2 And in this context, what she's talking about is the journey of the warrior is this inner intimacy where there is communication of some sort that maybe is non-verbal, that is your relationship with self that is a ride.

Speaker 2 Like it's more of a ride than a talk.

Speaker 5 Yes, yes.

Speaker 5 And I don't know if there's some kind of evolution of this where the communication goes from,

Speaker 5 oh, there's a feeling, to, oh, there's a feeling, and now I'm so intimate with myself that I know that this feeling

Speaker 5 my wisdom tells me that means this in my life.

Speaker 5 And I don't know if that's like, if that's an evolution, but I know right now that attaching any kind of intention or diagnosis or assistance or meaning is actually opposite of helpful to me in this baby stage because I think what happens is

Speaker 5 like

Speaker 5 your body

Speaker 5 is existing in the present

Speaker 5 right so

Speaker 5 whatever is happening

Speaker 5 and whatever emotions are happening or feelings are happening is by definition in the present and that's what the body does

Speaker 5 but your mind is only in the past or the future

Speaker 5 So when you, when you bring your mind to your emotion, you're by definition

Speaker 5 not actually accurately

Speaker 5 helping it because you're bringing the past to it and the future to it which is why it's anxiety and not the actual thing that's happening and so I feel like maybe

Speaker 5 I never felt like my emotions were present because I never existed in a place that wasn't my mind and By definition, my mind is never in the present.

Speaker 4 It feels like this is like an evolutionary leveling up for human beings.

Speaker 4 Like it feels like there's something really sacred and special about this, like to be able to bring a personal sovereignty back to ourselves that we were born with, because it's like the world beats it out of us, like one little age grade step at a time.

Speaker 4 And I will just say like, Amanda, I am so grateful that you're saying this out loud because I've never been able to actually, ironically, put words to some of the ways ways that I feel about myself.

Speaker 4 Like, why can't I love myself? And I think that this has a lot to do with it for me in terms of that personal intimacy, like that personal relationship that I have with only me.

Speaker 4 And my God, I need to care for that so much. And so to have the sovereignty with myself will inevitably kind of be cast out into the world for other people to also have sovereignty within themselves.

Speaker 4 And I think that that is an evolutionary development of human species. Truly, if we could collectively do that, like, but good job for you personally in that body, in your sovereignty.

Speaker 2 It would help our relationships, our outer relationships, too.

Speaker 2 Because what I'm always doing, this happened last week, and I'm trying to analyze what happened, but I think I started feeling a feeling.

Speaker 2 And then I attached just and the feeling was about like fear and the kids and like how to have them out in the world and feeling like I can't protect them, and a lack of control, and just like this feeling that I have that I'm attaching words to right now, that is like there's no system in the world that will ever protect the kids, and me, and

Speaker 5 anyway,

Speaker 2 I did not sit with it enough. What sometimes I tend to do when I'm attached words, and then I reach out to somebody that I think should fix it.

Speaker 2 And I'm like made up a story about

Speaker 2 no one's protecting us. And then I somehow connect that to somebody in our life who I feel like should be doing more.

Speaker 2 It's like a weird step process. And then I, last week, I reached out to this person.
Usually, now that I'm almost 50, I can feel when I'm activated. I can feel when that wave is happening.

Speaker 2 And I know don't do anything right now.

Speaker 2 The last thing you need to do is do anything right now.

Speaker 2 But sometimes when I'm, when the wave feels really strong, I can override that. I hear it.
I feel it. I know it.
And I'm like, fuck it. I don't care.

Speaker 2 It's too big and I'm going to do it anyway.

Speaker 2 So I've reached out to this person.

Speaker 2 said some shit like it didn't even it was just shit

Speaker 2 it was ridiculous like i have to see this person today, I have to be like, I am so sorry.

Speaker 2 And the crazy thing is that what I was saying to this person who I love so much was basically like, I don't trust that you're showing up. I don't trust you.

Speaker 2 I didn't say those words, but that's what I was saying.

Speaker 2 And I think what I really meant, like, if you took out my heart and like untangled everything that was going on in that moment, I think what I meant is, I trust you so much.

Speaker 2 And I'm scared that,

Speaker 2 Can you help me? I think that's what I was saying. I trust you.
Can you help me protect my family?

Speaker 1 Can you, are you my mom?

Speaker 2 Like,

Speaker 4 I trust you so much, and I feel scared.

Speaker 2 And I'm scared, and can you fix it? And all of this,

Speaker 2 all of this is stuff that I'm going to have to clean up today. This stuff that I like, I got messy.
I got messy. It's embarrassing to get messy.
It's like

Speaker 2 needy and messy and not making sense and

Speaker 2 entitled and all these things. Anyway, if I had sat

Speaker 2 with the energy inside of me and not asked someone else to fix the wave,

Speaker 2 none of this would be happening.

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Speaker 4 You know what happens to you more now than ever is when the kids get activated and that they when they call you, it it triples your activation.

Speaker 4 If the world is not treating them, it's like really interesting to me.

Speaker 2 Yeah, why is it self gone?

Speaker 5 But that's what is, I feel like there's a lot with like the system

Speaker 5 that I feel, you know, like death and losing everyone you love and it's hard, you know, that I feel like I would have made a better system than that. Okay.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 I don't, I mean, you did, that's a, that's a solid C on this system.

Speaker 5 But this, I feel like, great job, God. I feel like the 90 seconds is not too much to ask.
What if it had been like 35 minutes? What if it had been like bad news, humanoids?

Speaker 5 It's going to be 35 minutes for every emotion. That would not work for me.
But like 90 seconds feels imminently doable. You know when it's not 90 seconds is when we do any attachments to it.

Speaker 5 It's just like

Speaker 5 it's just that we think we're going to drown in the emotion.

Speaker 5 And if we add any meaning or any words or any solves to it, we are absolutely going to fucking drown because then the 90 second deal, the cosmic deal of 90 seconds is off the table.

Speaker 5 You've turned it into another deal that is of your own making and it's going to take as long as it takes.

Speaker 5 And by the way, that's going to include the cleanup of what it took for the thing that you did.

Speaker 5 So that's infinite. Infinite minutes of that.

Speaker 2 My 90 seconds is very long.

Speaker 8 Yes,

Speaker 5 sometimes it's three and a half years.

Speaker 3 And so, but like,

Speaker 5 that is the beauty of that promise. Like, that is a promise.
If you sit with it and don't try to solve it,

Speaker 5 it is 90 fucking seconds.

Speaker 5 We can do that.

Speaker 2 Do you think that, and then I'll let this go. This is what always happens.
We have like seven questions from people, and then, but

Speaker 2 do you think that it's because some of this, like attaching, going to your brain and trying to understand and making up a story about why this is happening is partly because or due to

Speaker 2 or stronger in people who

Speaker 2 don't believe that they deserve to have the feeling they have or have a little bit of shame about the feeling that they have.

Speaker 2 So they constantly go into courtroom mode where they're trying to, and I'm talking about myself, but like where you're trying to like justify, label, prove that this feeling is legit and okay.

Speaker 2 Like I'm not crazy, I'm not, it's like you're trying to not gaslight, like un-gaslight yourself by

Speaker 2 creating a case for yourself.

Speaker 5 So

Speaker 2 if we really believed that this is just being human, that these waves, these this energies in motion, this disquiet, whatever, it's restlessness, this ache that comes, clench, ache,

Speaker 2 whatever it is, is just truly the human experience and does not need in any way to be justified,

Speaker 2 then maybe we would do that less. It's like an acceptance of humanity.

Speaker 2 Like people whose feelings were denied when they were little or whatever end up

Speaker 2 making cases for their own feelings for the rest of their lives.

Speaker 5 I think there's

Speaker 5 at least as many reasons for us to do that as there are people and experiences. I think people who

Speaker 5 think that their value is solving things. And so, you know, if you're only tools, a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
This thing has presented itself. My job is to solve.

Speaker 5 We'll jump in and do that. I think people who

Speaker 5 for whom that's their gift, where they're like, I, okay,

Speaker 5 this is how

Speaker 5 I contribute, is I help to solve. I think there's people who

Speaker 5 have never been taught that there's any value in feeling, which is, by the way, probably 95% of us.

Speaker 5 But we have been taught that the way that we survive this world is thinking and strategizing and solving.

Speaker 5 And so, of course, we're going to jump straight to that because we don't know what this weird thing is that keeps interrupting shit quietly, but we do know that if we keep our head on a swivel, we'll be able to get through things.

Speaker 5 And so, of course, that's why we do that. There's also that, like, ooh, I feel like I'm not sure I'm allowed to have this feeling.

Speaker 5 So, let me build a case for myself before anybody else tells me I'm not allowed to have it. But also, I think at the end of the day,

Speaker 5 whether however you get there,

Speaker 5 it is the baseline is,

Speaker 5 I

Speaker 5 don't have a tolerance for this discomfort.

Speaker 5 And so I can't tolerate this. I can't tolerate this icky thing.
So, my way to

Speaker 5 survive that is to attach whatever it is, is to say, I'm going to make this go away by doing the solve. I'm going to make this go away by making it someone else's fault.

Speaker 5 I'm going to go by lashing out at someone else. You know, I was

Speaker 5 at Gilbert's

Speaker 5 All the Way to the River

Speaker 5 book event last

Speaker 5 a couple weeks ago, and

Speaker 5 she

Speaker 5 in her

Speaker 5 recovery for codependency and love and sex addiction

Speaker 5 defined her sobriety as any day

Speaker 5 in which she does not use

Speaker 5 another

Speaker 5 person

Speaker 5 to regulate her nervous system.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 2 last week

Speaker 5 that

Speaker 5 is what I do

Speaker 5 every time I have a feeling and it is either using myself

Speaker 5 or it is using someone else. Like yourself can count as that.
You don't need to use a person to regulate your nervous system. Like by adding on your own solves or, and I think that's what happens

Speaker 5 with you and your mess, right? You're like, I need, I need someone else. I did it last night.

Speaker 5 I was super upset about something and I felt very itchy and very uncomfortable in my body and very like, this is all fucked up. But I couldn't, I, it didn't make any sense to me.

Speaker 5 And so I texted John about why, why the fuck don't we have any avocados in this house?

Speaker 5 That's basically my problem had nothing to do with avocados.

Speaker 3 Right.

Speaker 5 Avocados have have never been anyone's problem. But

Speaker 9 that little hit of someone take a fall

Speaker 5 right now to balance out the fact that I feel like shit and don't know why

Speaker 5 is using someone else to regulate my nervous system.

Speaker 5 Even when it has nothing to do with my original disquiet. But still, when if I'm paying really close attention, that did level that shit out a little bit.

Speaker 5 Someone else got in trouble for something, even if it had nothing to do with with my thing.

Speaker 2 You know, but then what happened? But then you had guilt, and right?

Speaker 2 Did you experience the same thing that I'm experiencing now?

Speaker 9 Where I

Speaker 2 want to cringe, I go to bed each night. I go to bed every night and think about this thing last week, and I can't sleep.
I have to force myself to think about something else.

Speaker 5 What if today? What if tonight, when you go to bed, feel like shit about that thing,

Speaker 5 you don't add any words to it?

Speaker 5 Whatever the disquiet is will rise up in your body and it will because it's there

Speaker 5 and you let it.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 5 It will go.

Speaker 5 See, here's what I think the thing is, is like I spend so much of my energy and time and thoughts purportedly solving my problems, which is not solving my problems because I'm solving something that isn't a fucking problem.

Speaker 5 The feeling that I'm having is not the problem. And so if I let the feeling come in its baby 90 second lifespan and then go,

Speaker 5 suddenly I have so much time and mental energy to actually solve a problem.

Speaker 2 This is making me wonder

Speaker 2 if this is the whole deal with trying to get parents to be emotionally mature because hear me out.

Speaker 2 If you live with a parent who didn't learn all of this and who thinks that every feeling is a problem to be solved and that everyone in the family are chess pawns to rearrange in some way so that they can be calm again because they actually believe that.

Speaker 2 Then if you're one of the pawns, you don't ever have any practice

Speaker 2 in this internal language because you're a pawn. You're always being moved to regulate somebody else's nervous system.

Speaker 2 So you don't witness what it feels like for somebody somebody to just deal with their own stuff, and you also don't learn how to deal with your own stuff.

Speaker 2 That is the aversion of eggshells that psychologists talk about, right? So that could be,

Speaker 2 for some listeners, an origin of

Speaker 2 then it's evolution, because I actually think a lot of the past generation didn't have this language.

Speaker 2 and really thought if they were upset, I mean, even the word upset just means like a lake where there's a little ripple and then the bottom comes up a little bit.

Speaker 4 You up the sediment.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's like upset. It's like what?

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 6 if you,

Speaker 2 there's actually not

Speaker 2 a value or judgment of the word upset. It just means activated a little bit.

Speaker 5 Well, and what you're talking about with the, I mean, there's the whole cultural idea of like, if we can feel it, if it has logic,

Speaker 5 I mean, if we can say it, if we can hear it, if it has logic, if it can be in a five-paragraph essay, it's valid, right?

Speaker 5 It's also exactly what you're saying. If you grew up

Speaker 5 in a system in which your body

Speaker 5 was being used to regulate someone else's nervous system, which half of us grew up in,

Speaker 5 then

Speaker 5 you have learned very, very early, very, very ingrained

Speaker 5 that this communication, this intimacy with yourself

Speaker 5 is actually dangerous, is actually, it's not relevant because you, your,

Speaker 5 yourself could be giving you a signal saying,

Speaker 5 this isn't right. I don't feel good here.
I don't like this. Let's go away from here.

Speaker 5 and it doesn't matter because that's where you are. So, you have

Speaker 5 adaptively turned that off. Because, what a worse place to live than getting all those signals that this needs to change when the conspiracy in the family is to pretend that this is normal.

Speaker 5 And by the way, it's never going to change anyway. So, of course, you turn that off.
So, this is why, like, awakening that

Speaker 5 we're not stupid.

Speaker 5 We came by all of this stuff very honestly and very adaptively but then there's a certain point where it's like oh no i'm missing out on half of the wisdom of communication available in the universe because i've shut up the half that is only for me to me i also think one of the things that you probably do a little bit glennon is you attach any feeling that arises in you is that you are crazy

Speaker 4 And so...

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm just trying to make everyone think I'm not crazy.

Speaker 4 And so that's why you go to your brain

Speaker 4 and

Speaker 4 your brain is very good at working the magic to prove to yourself that the emotions you're feeling doesn't make you crazy.

Speaker 4 It's because there's all of these problems out here that once you solve them, then that...

Speaker 4 then you and only then will your nervous system settle and relax but that's never been true no it's never worked and so

Speaker 4 i don't know it's like this is a really interesting conversation to me because it's like oh, the attachment of thought to the experience of the feeling is what's blocking us from becoming the person that we're supposed to be.

Speaker 2 Yeah, this is the non-attachment that the really smart Buddhists are always talking about.

Speaker 4 It's not like, don't like your yeti.

Speaker 2 Don't be attached to your, you know, dog. It's like

Speaker 1 this.

Speaker 4 Yeah, the non-attachment, the Buddhist, the way,

Speaker 4 there's always something that when I hear that word, there's something that happens in my body that I'm like, oh shit, that's the truest truth to me.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's like, I don't know what that means, but I think they're onto something and I don't want to.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it's scary.

Speaker 5 But Glennon, of course,

Speaker 5 you aren't trying to convince everyone you're not crazy

Speaker 5 because you're crazy. It's because of this.

Speaker 1 Like, if

Speaker 5 you had

Speaker 5 an internal

Speaker 5 communicator that was telling you that things weren't okay

Speaker 5 when the entire ecosystem was predicated on

Speaker 5 these things are okay. We all agree these things are okay, right?

Speaker 5 Right, everyone

Speaker 5 and

Speaker 5 that was the reality of your existence during the whole time where your internal communicator god bless it was like i sure think these things aren't okay but oh my i'm just giving you another signal in case but

Speaker 5 then of course

Speaker 5 Every time you have a feeling, your immediate posture towards that feeling is like,

Speaker 5 okay, but I'm going to be the only one thinking this. Okay, but I'm going to be that, like, I'm alone in this.

Speaker 5 I'm, I am the one who has the crazy ideas when your ideas could have been, by definition, the only ideas that weren't crazy, but it was just contrary to what we'd all agreed was the terms of engagement.

Speaker 9 That's right.

Speaker 2 Right, right, right, right. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 It's an interesting thing about, like,

Speaker 2 I don't know if this is true.

Speaker 2 It's just something I'm thinking of right now: of like the idea of parenting, the switch from like the authoritarian to something else is sort of the decision that it is okay

Speaker 2 to raise a child in which in a way in which you are ensuring that your voice and your will is not louder and stronger than their inner voice and their inner will.

Speaker 2 That there's like I don't think it's quite that black and white, but that is

Speaker 2 a turning towards like

Speaker 2 instead of listen to me

Speaker 2 the effort of listen to you,

Speaker 2 or like, instead of I've got you, you've got you, but like, but it's not passive parenting. It's not, there's nothing passive about it.

Speaker 2 It is extremely disciplined and tricky to use all that energy that you would have used towards authoritarianism to holding space and turning your kid back to themselves over and over again and like creating space in which your kid gets to practice that and

Speaker 2 fail at it and try again. And

Speaker 2 do you know what I'm saying? It's like just, it's harder.

Speaker 7 It's much harder.

Speaker 2 Authoritarianism, just listen to me. This is the way it is.

Speaker 4 We're breaking the generational chain of the way that we were all parented to hopefully the way we're trying to parent our children. And so there's this tension and

Speaker 4 fear because this is new to us.

Speaker 4 It's like an experiment in a way.

Speaker 5 So yeah, I and it's like art.

Speaker 2 It's all full circle because what activated me to do all this crazy shit is because my kid called me and was upset and I could not sit with,

Speaker 2 I could not sit with her hot loneliness for 1.7 seconds.

Speaker 2 And I only cannot do that because I must not believe that she can sit with her hot loneliness for 1.7 seconds. So like if you buy this theory, then it works all the way through.

Speaker 2 Then you actually just have to keep turning your kid back to feeling it and letting it pass.

Speaker 2 Then fixing it and making a big mess. Because that makes them not trust themselves either.
Then they're like, oh, my mom had to do all that shit.

Speaker 1 That's right.

Speaker 4 That is correct.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God.

Speaker 5 I also just think if you say out loud, like, I think the other, I think you can get really

Speaker 5 religious about atheism too. And this is what I mean by that.
Like, that could be like, I am

Speaker 5 trying,

Speaker 5 I am not going to be an authoritarian parent. I'm going to be so, whatever the hell they're calling it.
I don't know, that you like try so hard to get it right.

Speaker 5 And then, when you fuck that up, you like try to hide it. I mean, I think

Speaker 5 I'm just always messing up. I'm like, I'm like getting it right barely, and then I'm messing up it up.
And then I'm just trying to be like,

Speaker 5 oh, Lord, what just happened there was

Speaker 5 I was upset that we keep making dinner and nobody eats it. And it's really frustrating.
And like this just happened last night.

Speaker 5 I like got so upset because of trying so hard to make them eat the food and nobody's eating the food.

Speaker 2 But that's a story too. Do you think that's even it? Or is the wave like

Speaker 2 we're all going to lose each other one day?

Speaker 5 Well, I'm just saying in the moment to moment things where I'm like, I'm just super frustrated and I snapped, but I snapped at a moment where Alice was like, I don't like that. And I was like, oh,

Speaker 5 and I, and so, and so I came back and I was like, listen,

Speaker 1 I want,

Speaker 9 I got

Speaker 5 really frustrated. I am really frustrated that no matter how hard we try, we can't seem to make this work.

Speaker 5 And what I want you to know is that I don't want you to pretend to like things you don't like.

Speaker 5 And I don't want you to put into your body things you don't want in your body, and I always want you to be free to say that, and so this is why I'm telling you that that was not about that.

Speaker 5 The way to fix that was not, let me pretend to like this thing and smile, even though I don't like it.

Speaker 5 What I'm telling you is, I am just a human who's frustrated about not being figure being able to figure out how to do dinner, and you bear no responsibility for that.

Speaker 5 What you're going to have to do is go in the kitchen and find something for yourself. Amen.
I'm not taking responsibility for that. Thank you

Speaker 2 for that.

Speaker 1 Thank you for that.

Speaker 5 Like, Godspeed and hope you like bagels and cream cheese because that's probably what you're having. But like, but I'm going to take responsibility for what was mine there.

Speaker 5 You're going to take responsibility for what's yours. And we're going to super clarify that

Speaker 5 I actually actively don't want you

Speaker 5 to use your body to regulate me.

Speaker 5 I will be so sad if you ever put in your body something you don't want in your body or pretend to like something to make mommy happy.

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 5 That's what so like I think it's just like saying out loud the things. I don't even think there's a perfect way to do any of it.

Speaker 8 Well'cause also and then I'm sorry, we're gonna stop, but like

Speaker 2 if you had jumped and fixed her thing, then Alice is learning to use you to regulate her problem.

Speaker 2 She has a problem.

Speaker 5 She does have a problem. She has a problem.
She has a problem.

Speaker 9 She has a situation every night.

Speaker 2 Like, she doesn't like what's on the plate.

Speaker 2 You got upset because you were defending your right to not be used by Alice to solve her problem.

Speaker 2 So really,

Speaker 2 if Alice learns,

Speaker 2 I get upset at dinner because I don't like any food, so I better get up and get something, then Alice is regulating herself. You're okay regulating your own self.

Speaker 2 You might have a feeling when Alice gets up to make something else, and that will be your problem.

Speaker 1 Right. Everyone has to solve their own problem.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 2 Thank you for that. Absolutely amazing.
Pod squad.

Speaker 2 I mean, let us know what you're thinking or feeling.

Speaker 2 And we're going to practice

Speaker 2 riding the wave.

Speaker 3 So good.

Speaker 2 And we'll see you next time. Bye.

Speaker 2 We Can Do Hard Things is an independent production podcast brought to you by Treat Media. Treat Media makes art for humans who want to stay human.

Speaker 2 And you can follow us at We Can Do Hard Things on Instagram and at We Can Do Hard Things Show on TikTok.