Lightening Love & Not Calming Down

September 2, 2021

Glennon Doyle:

Hi, everybody. Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. How are you doing, Amanda and Abby?

Abby Wambach:

Hi.

Amanda Doyle:

Amazing.

GD:

Amazing?

AD:

Ish.

GD:

Ish. As usual.

AD:

I was trying to think of a word that would sound good. So, I said amazing.

AW:

I have a perfect life with my wife. So, I’m great.

GD:

Aw, okay.

AD:

I do not have a perfect life.

GD:

That’s because you don’t have a wife. That’s because you don’t have a wife in-

AW:

That’s right. Come on over to our side, Sissy.

GD:

Every woman needs a wife.

AD:

Lord, have mercy.

GD:

What you do have is 10 years of marriage under your belt. This week was your…

AW:

Oh.

GD:

This week-

AD:

Yeah. I do deserve that clap, Abby. I thank you very much for it.

AW:

That’s right.

AD:

Yes. We just had our 10-year anniversary this weekend.

GD:

How was it?

AD:

And-

GD:

My favorite part was the day before your anniversary, when we were on our morning meeting with Dynna and Allison, our team, and Deanna said, “Sister… ” she looked at her notes and she said, “Sister, I do need to remind you that tomorrow is your anniversary.”

AD:

John and I are so bad at those things. And there are a couple of years where we’ve woken up that morning and been like, “Oh, oh,” or the next day, “It was our anniversary.” We’re just not-

GD:

Yeah. You’re like, “This date feels familiar, but I can’t put my finger on it.”

AD:

This date… it feels like we owe a lot of money to this date.

GD:

Yes.

AD:

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 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.

But I didn’t know if I should tell him that because he had 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, 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-

GD:

Okay.

AW:

Well, did you get to watch Ted Lasso?

AD:

That is what it’s about, okay?

AW:

Oh, oh.

AD:

I’m so glad. All roads lead to Ted Lasso. Okay.

AW:

Of course, they do. Yes.

AD:

So, this is what I want to talk about. Are you up to speed? I won’t do any spoilers.

AD:

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-

GD:

Keeley.

AW:

Keeley.

AD:

Keeley, Keeley. Sorry. Keeley, Keeley.

AW:

Roy Kent. Roy Kent.

GD:

He’s here. He’s there. He’s everyfuckingwhere.

AD:

He’s here. He’s there. He’s everyfuckingwhere.

AW:

Roy Kent.

AD:

Yeah. I mean, God. God damn. Okay. So, Keeley is being very polite about this new guy. And Roy, as per ush, 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 why the fuck you think he deserves you. You deserve someone who makes you feel like you’ve been struck by fucking lightning. Don’t you dare settle for fine.

AW:

Oh, I love that line so much.

AD:

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 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 fine.”

AD:

And I get it. I mean, I’ve been lucky enough to have been lightning-struck. And it’s that full-bodied, intoxicating madness that you go through. And it’s very, very special. I get it. And I’m grateful in my life to have intersected with that. But do you know what else lightning does, Glennon and Abby?

GD:

Hm.

AW:

Uh.

AD:

Lightning occasionally burns down your fucking house along with everything you love and treasure inside, okay?

GD:

Correct.

AW:

It does have that tendency sometimes.

AD:

It does. And that’s what my lighting did to me, okay? And so, I just want to unpack for a minute and push against this idea of this hierarchy of loves with lightning on the top because I think it’s just like we paint romantic love as the highest form of love, when often the most intimate relationships in people’s lives are not with their spouses or their lovers; they’re with friends and they’re with sisters and with their chosen partners. But we put romantic love at the top and then, by definition, the rest of those are less than.

AD:

And it’s the same kind of harm when we paint the highest form of romantic love as lightning love 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. And it marks those of us who’ve chosen partners for reasons other than lightning strikes as settling for lesser love. I mean, that’s what-

AW:

That’s good.

AD:

… it does when… I hear that as an aspirational thing, but what it’s really saying is there’s lightning and then there’s less-than-lightning. And I, after my house burned down, I didn’t value that the same way. I valued other things. And I feel like when I heard that line… and first, I felt a certain kind of way about it, right?

GD:

Mm-hmm.

AD:

And then I realized that what I chose is this 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. And I didn’t decide to settle; I decided to settle into that kind of life and that kind of place of coziness and comfort and warm summer rain for myself and my kids. And I know that nobody’s going to write a movie about that because it’s not sexy enough, but what I want to say is that I am here to bring unsexy back.

AW:

Oh! Hey!

AD:

I do feel like it’s important. No one talks about this because everyone feels like, “Okay, if you didn’t get struck by lightning, you’re lacking this thing. And if you say that out loud, everybody knows that your love is less than.” 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.

AW:

That’s right. That’s right.

AD:

And that’s what I want to say about that.

AW:

Well, I think it’s very American and Hollywood to put the lightning, this “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?

GD:

As a writer, I’m figuring out what was off with that scene 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 she… that was not the issue in that scene. So, there was also, I’m just saying, a creative issue in that scene, okay?

AD:

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 matchable and safe versus opening myself up to attack,” but that… she says her friend says that intimacy is opening yourself up to attack and she’s saying and that’s when she realizes that 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, is love, is vulnerability, is all of that just 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 I won’t be attacked. Do you know what I mean?

So, I feel like that’s a very … I 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. But what about the people who are just like, “Actually, I have been annihilated and, in retrospect, I have reevaluated my values and placed a high value on not being fucking annihilated?”

GD:

I get that.

AW:

You get to do that.

GD:

Yeah.

AW:

That’s adulting right there.

GD:

But also, I just see it differently with the Rebecca thing because I saw her looking at that guy, thinking, “I will never have to be seen by this human because he’ll never want to see me, anyway. What he wants to see is a reflection of himself in everyone that he looks at.” That’s what that whole dinner was. “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 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 relationships aren’t on a spectrum, they’re all over the place, but you are so freaking seen, I think, in your relationship. I sometimes am like, “Surely, he’s going to send her to therapy. Surely, he’s going to …” No offense, but you are fully yourself in that relationship with no apologies. You are fully your freaking self to the point where I’m sometimes like, “We’re just going to have to rein it in a bit. Okay?”

And he just sees you and never tries to change you and thinks you’re a … I don’t know. So I guess I just am looking at things a little bit differently. I don’t mean I’m opening myself up to lightning. I mean, is this relationship going to require me to show up or not?

AD:

Right, because if you don’t actually show your real self, then your real self could never get rejected.

GD:

That’s exactly right.

AD:

Right. So I’m understanding that second scene in a different way. I get that. That’s helpful to me.

GD:

Yeah, it’s interesting.

AD:

It’s interesting.

GD:

And it is also our cultural obsession with love as pain, love as pain instead of love as comfort and closeness and coziness, because if you don’t get struck by lightning, it’s not real love. Lightning is deadly. If you get struck by lightning, you are dead.

AD:

I’m just saying, I think it’s an interesting and under-spoken-about topic.

GD:

Yes.

AW:

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.

GD:

Or assuming that that’s the only valid kind.

AW:

Because it’s not.

GD:

Well, one thing we did not do is under-speak it today. We spoke it to death. We over-speaked it. Okay?

We had some beautiful questions based on communicating and having better conversations and really reaching each other. So let’s hear from-

AD:

Tess.

GD:

Tess.

AW:

Tess.

GD:

Tess.

AW:

Yeah.

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.

GD:

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. Wouldn’t that be wonderful if that was just our general guideline for the next … I can propose it, Tess. I propose it. I’ve proposed it many, many times and it keeps not really taking hold. So in that meantime-

AW:

Well, where are you proposing this such thing?

GD:

In general-

AW:

That’s the problem, babe.

GD:

… at many-

AW:

“I’m just proposing.” We need to make actual rules on this. I hear you, Tess. There needs to be standards set inside of corporations, inside of government. Yes. This is so annoying and you are not alone.

AD:

But she’s talking about a specific thing. She’s talking about in professional settings. Presumably, if there’s 10 men and four women at that table, presumably, the 10 men are there because they have jobs. They are 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 the most privilege.”

GD:

That would be good.

AD:

No, but what about 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 text because I feel like that is what not to do.

AW:

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? There’s no way more women will ever … We’ll never catch up because of the way that this-“

GD:

Because the voting committee was so overwhelmingly male.

AW:

Yes.

GD:

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

AW:

So we were on 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 always going to be the case.” And then the most common thing happened. 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 on this call said, “No, thanks.” Zero things were said. I felt like a fool. I felt to be made foolish in that moment because there was really nothing. There was no-

GD:

No support.

AW:

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 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, Glennon, I’m like, “What the hell? This is such bullshit.”

GD:

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 right.”

AW:

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.

GD:

Mm-hmm.

AW:

And so, we had a long discussion about it and what did we coin this term?

GD:

Well, we just talked a lot about this illusion of silent solidarity that, if you’re a man in a meeting or you’re a white woman in a meeting, if you’re 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 creating the status quo that the other person is challenging.

GD:

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, elbow nudging the brave person who you left hanging when it mattered, that this idea of silent solidarity is not a thing. It’s not a thing. It’s just actually completely offensive.

AW:

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 I’ve been really nice is if you were to have said something on the actual call. That is the 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.

AD:

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

GD:

So that’s something we can do because 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.

AW:

And the thing that it teaches me is next time don’t ever say anything. Next time, I won’t say anything.

GD:

Yes, she will.

AD:

I mean, and that’s what allies can do but Tess is talking about like in those meetings, ideas getting stolen and dismissed, what the women can do together. 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, at meetings or wherever they were, where a woman made a key point, the other women would repeat it and credit that back to her. “And so, what Sheila just said was that’s a great point, which yes, Sheila’s point that …”

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. And also, by saying it over and over again 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.

GD:

Yeah. So it requires, as always, it requires organization, right? I loved that you, Abby, called those women beforehand and said, “I’m going to do this thing in a meeting.” 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, or read that article. I remember when the Obama staffers did that, read that article, they had actual strategies to combat the structural dismissal of women.

AW:

Well, and if you can actually create those little, what I call wolfpacks 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 single singular eyes 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.

GD:

Cool.

Alright, let’s here from Julia.

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.

GD:

Abby, is that your question actually about me?

AW:

Nope.

GD:

Julia, Julia, I get you. I feel you. I am you. I raised, 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 you’re 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 as highly sensitive kid, you know that if they struggle to tie their shoes one morning, it’s the end of the freaking world, right? It’s just the breakdown that ensues, the pain, the trauma, the bawling. And so, a practical minded person might try to explain to the child that no house is on fire, no one’s dying, that this is okay. We can maybe dial down our reaction. And so, that has never worked in the history of the world, right?

AW:

Calm down.

AD:

You need to calm down.

GD:

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 felt, right?

AW:

Yeah, that’s good.

GD:

And the answer, you go from upset to homicidal, right? It’s this feeling of nobody knows how I feel. 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. You can’t compare it to something else. They’re big feelings are as big as the feelings get, right? Their feeling when their shoe laces won’t tie is filling them. There’s just not enough room in this world for their pain. It’s big. And so, it took me a decade, but I did learn that if instead of, “Oh, come on, honey, this is 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.

AW:

Every single time, it’s freaking amazing. It’s magic, actually.

GD:

It’s like they look at you like someone is finally seeing me, okay?

AW:

Yeah.

GD:

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.” Imagine how seen you would feel in that moment, right?

AW:

Yeah, it is awful! I am in pain!

GD:

Exactly.

AW:

These shoelaces won’t tie themselves!

GD:

Exactly. And 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. So, my first tip with the 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.

Next, you are going to want to fix the problem, okay?

AW:

Don’t do it.

GD:

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

AW:

Ain’t yours to fix.

GD:

You are wrong, you are wrong.

AW:

Ain’t yours to fix. It is not yours to fix, no, sir. No, ma’am.

GD:

Dead wrong. You want a sensitive of child to jump off a ledge you try to fix her problem.

AW:

That’s so funny. I mean, not really funny.

GD:

With our 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?

AW:

Nope, I am not.

GD:

No, she doesn’t want a solution. She wants to wallow, all right? 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.

Okay, we’re going to hear from Natalia next.

Natalia:

Hi, G. Hi, 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 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 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.

GD:

Is there anything worse than your kid feeling left out?

AW:

Ugh. I want to stab people.

GD:

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. 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 what we just talked about, fixing, like, “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.

When our kid is feeling left out, if we can, after we do our active listening, if we can say to them, “You know what? I know how this feels too,” 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 have it be an opportunity to make her and her mom feel more connected to each other. What do you think?

AD:

I mean, I just feel like 25% of issues like Natalia’s 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?

GD:

Yeah, exactly.

AD:

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. Honestly, it’s a mental…And it can be the most micro, micro thing, like, I will be… somebody turns their back on my kid and I’m like… I’m hyperventilating. It is my honest question, like when she said, how to help her without writing her story for her. How are we going to get through all of these things that our kids go through without so traumatizing ourselves that we are then 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?

GD:

Right, right.

AW:

Well, I think that we have to remember that we’ve somehow figured it out. We somehow navigated that stuff ourselves. It is-

AD:

Did we, Abby? Because did you just hear me? I don’t think I’m very-

GD:

Look at her right now. I don’t know at all if she did.

AW:

I 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 it out and find their people, like, that’s one of the most important things.

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 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.

GD:

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 a rain drop to never fall on their head and to never feel sad and to… but 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 elicit more out of them and we just have that moment together, but we let that feeling be and try not to over-fix 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 the 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.

AW:

We can do hard things.

GD:

… hard things.