BEING BRAVE: What does it take to REALLY be brave?
October 5, 2021
Glennon Doyle:
Hi, everybody. You came back to We Can Do Hard Things. Thank you for coming back. We also came back, because this is our favorite thing. We absolutely love meeting you here every week. We’re going to start today’s episode, which is all about what in the hell brave actually means, with a story?
I have a story, which is a beautiful story about a man. I know. It’s exciting because, sister, I have heard in the ether, people suggest that perhaps I don’t like men, and that is not true. It is not true that I don’t like men.
Here’s the situation for me. The situation for me is that I love human beings. I feel like we’re born with all of this unique, wild energy, and love, and potential. And then this thing happens on the Earth, where we are given these roles, you’re male, you’re a boy, you’re a girl.
Along with our roles, we’re given these scripts, and these costumes, and these ways of being, to the point where you all know. You two know. Sometimes when I’m out in the world, I’m looking around going, “Oh my God! What is happening? Why are we all acting like this, looking like this, dressing like this, what are we doing?” The whole world is a stage, right?
Amanda Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Glennon Doyle:
And so what I don’t like, and I’m willing to admit, I am allergic to who men are conditioned to become in our culture. Not who they are, but the man act. The man act that the poor humans who have been labeled men are stuck inside, like the matrix.
So what this act involves to me; what I see the act being in the world is like just walking… No yield. There is no yield in the man act. And what I mean by that is there is no yield on the sidewalk.
Abby Wambach:
Oh gosh!
Glennon Doyle:
Abby knows, I’ve tried to walk in our town and not yield to the men. I literally have a bruise on my left shoulder. They walk as if there is no need to yield at any point.
Abby Wambach:
When you actually do rub shoulders with somebody, a man, and you take a hit, I’m like, “How is that?” You’re like, “It hurts.”
GD:
I know. I don’t like this.
AW:
But I stood my ground.
GD:
I know. And then they look at me as if I am batshit crazy. As if I am so rude to not have moved-
AW:
For them.
GD:
But they did not move. It’s so confusing. And then that no yield, it’s the entitlement of the talk time. In a meeting, the man act says, you must speak for 80% of the time. The man act says, on an airplane, you must spread your arms and legs over to the other side.
And by the way, in fairness, I want to tell you that I am equally allergic to the woman act, of which I have been conditioned. I’ll give you an example of the way I cannot stand my woman conditioning.
So I’m at a grocery store a while back and I’m standing with one of my kids, and this human being who has been conditioned to the man act, is standing next to me in line.
Because he has to stay in his role, he is approaching me, coming very closely. There’s something with a man act that thinks that men who walk by women are supposed to put their hands on our waist, or our back. What in the sam hill is that?
If you want to know if it’s appropriate to put your hand on a woman’s waist that you don’t know when you’re standing next to them in the grocery line, I want you to consider men.
If you, in fact, would put your hand on the small of a man’s back standing next to you in the grocery line. And if the answer is no, then keep your hands to yourself. Anyway, that had just happened. I was already prickly as all hell. And then-
AW:
Prickly.
GD:
… the man said a joke that wasn’t funny. It wasn’t funny at all. It was entitled, obnoxious, reeked of a little bit of… And sister, I want you to tell me what I did.
Yes. I laughed. I laughed at the man’s terrible semi rude joke, who had just put his hand on my back for no reason, who I couldn’t stand. I laughed at him because it is the woman’s role, in any situation, to protect the male ego.
I could have. Kate Manne in her new book called this Himpathy, we are trained to have so much sympathy for men. That in that moment, I knew that my job was to make him comfortable, even though he had just made me uncomfortable. What I’m trying to say, is that I do not like the acts. That’s all I mean.
I don’t like the toxic masculinity act, I don’t like the toxic femininity act that just keep us on script and in our roles, and keep us free from being whole, and from being ourselves, and from really seeing each other.
That’s all I mean. Now, onward to the beach story. All right. First actually, I’m going to tell a shitty story about a man, but then I will get to the political story about a man.
AD:
In a development, no one stopped coming. Glenn’s going to tell a shitty story about a man.
GD:
I need the juxtaposition. And also, it’s just important. I feel it’s important. Abby and I live by the beach now. It’s amazing. We go there a lot. I sit and read. Everywhere I am, it’s just a different place to sit and read. Abby does things in the water, surfing and such.
So I’m sitting on the beach reading my book. There’s a family next to me, and they are so sweet, and they’ve got all these children, and they’re all having a good time. And then I see the dad turn around and look off in the distance, and his two children are approaching. And the little boy looks like he’s about eight, and the girl looks like she’s about 12 or 13.
And the girl is carrying, it’s like a big game or something. She’s carrying it over her head. They’re trying to get it to the family. The man is so upset, he yells to his son, “Why are you letting her carry that? Why are you letting her carry that?”
He’s shaming him the whole way up, for not carrying this heavy thing. “Why are you letting a girl carry that? Why are you letting your cousin who’s a girl, carry that?”
And it’s so loud and everyone’s looking. And so, they get closer, and I am telling you that the man, he brought the little boy and the girl over to the family. And he said, “Did you see what this…”
It was his son. “Did you see what my son just did? He just let his cousin carry this thing all the way over. This boy let this girl carry this thing all the way over.”
And it was just this very intense. And you guys, you humans, I was sitting there watching this little boy’s face, also watching this girl’s face. Watching the rest of the little of the children in the family’s faces. All I could think of was, this is where boys start to hate girls. That was my thought.
Because that little boy is being so humiliated by his father, but he can’t hate his father. That’s not the role here. So what’s happening, is that he is now hating this girl. The misogyny begins there.
It begins in this fake idea of what that dad would’ve considered chivalry. The chivalry is the flip side of misogyny. It’s, “Little boy, you are stronger than her. Your job is to what? Protect her.”
AD:
Her showing strength that exceeds yours in your presence is shaming to you.
GD:
Exactly.
AW:
And also, it’s teaching the little girl to hate herself.
GD:
Yes.
AW:
Because-
GD:
That’s right.
AW:
He’s saying her, “You are weak.” And she’s like-
GD:
That’s right.
AW:
“… I guess I’m not supposed to be carrying this stuff. I’m not strong.”
GD:
Fast forward a week or two later, I was in the grocery store, and this father next to me was talking to his daughter. It’s like the middle of the conversation, and the dad says, “Don’t forget…” I think they must have been planning to go to an amusement park the next day.
The dad says, “Don’t forget, honey, if you decide to go on the rollercoaster, that’s brave. But don’t forget, if you decide not to go on the rollercoaster and you tell us that you don’t want to go on the rollercoaster, that is brave too.” Oh my gosh! You guys, I just…
First of all, my first thought was, “He’s totally read Untamed.” Because there’s this story. And I’m still dying to find someone in the wild who’s reading Untamed, it hasn’t happened to me yet. I’m just waiting for that.
AD:
Oh, really?
GD:
Isn’t that ridiculous?
AD:
It’s happened to me.
GD:
It makes me so sad. I’m like, “What…” I always secretly look at what everyone’s reading my whole life. I want to talk to everyone about their book. That’s the only thing I want to talk to strangers about, is what they’re reading. Someday, I just want there to be someone reading Untamed so I can be like, “Oh hey! I wrote that book.” But it hasn’t happened yet.
AW:
In all fairness COVID happened. So we weren’t allowed to actually be outside.
AD:
Oh yeah, you haven’t seen that many people.
GD:
I haven’t seen that many people. So I talked about this rollercoaster story on Instagram, and apparently there’s a woman named Maria who wrote a children’s book about a rollercoaster and being brave. So it was wasn’t about me at all.
They probably just read this rollercoaster book. But it made me want to talk about this idea that we have about being brave. And what this word means. We’re all telling each other every day, be brave, be brave, be brave.
We’re telling ourselves to be brave, we’re telling our children to be brave, but what the heck are we telling them to do and be? I want to discuss what we mean by the word brave.
AD:
This is like the quitting episode where you have the very, very different going on the record about it. Abby’s line is of the ilk courageous is feeling the fear, and doing it anyway. And Glennons’ is, whatever the hell this means, not doing the brave thing is often the bravest thing we can do. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, people. Not doing the brave thing. What is that?
GD:
I think that makes sense to me. That makes perfect sense to me.
AD:
We’re going to talk about brave. As per your ush, I’m going to tell you what the definitions are from the dictionary, and then we’re going to talk about what they actually mean to us. So, adjective and verb. Adjective, ready to face and endure danger or pain. Verb, endure or face unpleasant conditions or behavior without showing fear.
GD:
That’s such horse shit.
AW:
I don’t like that one, without showing fear.
GD:
The dictionary is wrong. And by the way, what I would like to suggest is that the dictionary is very patriarchal.
AW:
Yeah.
GD:
That is such a ridiculous definition of, “Doing dumbass things while looking happy.”
AW:
I don’t think that’s what it’s saying. I don’t think that’s what it’s saying.
GD:
To endure or face unpleasant conditions or behavior.
AW:
Okay.
GD:
I’m sorry.
AW:
There’s a wide definition of that.
GD:
Babe, who could have written that? Let’s see, who do we want to endure or face unpleasant conditions forever without showing their emotions?
AW:
Right, I understand.
GD:
Everyone except for rich, powerful white men.
AW:
I understand that this sounds very patriarchal, but-
GD:
It does.
AW:
… I also think that we have to break into this definition. Because the way you define some of the words inside the definition, can determine what kind of brave is.
GD:
I see what you’re saying.
AW:
Fear and your… I don’t know. The ability to endure something, unpleasantness. Glennon, that your level of unpleasantness and mine is very different, our thresholds.
AD:
That’s true. I still have my eye on Merriam Webster, and whoever the hell wrote this. I want to present my case for why the dictionary and Abby are wrong. I’m just joking loud, but I’m not.
AW:
This is the story of my life.
GD:
A while back, years and years ago, I got this precious email from this woman who was a mother. And she told me that she had just been to this family reunion. So bless her heart right away.
They were at this river or something, that they were doing this activity where people were supposed to jump off this big rock into a flowing crystal river. Babe, it sounds like something you’d make me do. It’s this adventure, so to speak.
AW:
I would never make you do. You would never do that.
GD:
Correct.
AW:
Whether I would make you do that?
GD:
So the woman was asking me about this moment that she had with her family, which was this. Her 11 year old son, human who had been conditioned with the boy man act, was standing at the top of this rock that everyone was supposed to jump off of. The whole family was at the bottom of the rock.
They were all looking up at the son, and the son was standing on the edge, looking over, preparing to jump. And this mother could see that the boy was terrified. That this was a crisis moment for him, that he did not want to jump.
And the entire family from the bottom, except for this mom, started yelling up at the little boy, “Come on, be brave, be brave, jump, jump, be brave, jump, jump.” And she said, “Why did that feel wrong? I don’t know why Glennon, why did that feel wrong? That why did that moment feel so wrong? To me, it felt so off.”
And here’s what I think felt off. We have trained people to believe that the word brave means what you said, “Just feel the fear and then do it.” That’s what we tell our children, “Feel the fear, be afraid and just do it anyway.” That works for our four year olds.
But what about when our kids turn 16, and they’re getting in the car, and they’re driving away with their friends, and they’re telling us they’re going to the movie but they’re really going to the kegger down the street. So are we going to go to the car and say, “Honey, tonight I want you to be brave.”
And by that, what I mean is, if you feel afraid because any of your peers are doing anything that makes you feel afraid, I want you to ignore that gut feeling, and I want you to just do it anyway. Just do it anyway, because that’s what brave is.
No, that is not what brave is. To me, that little boy up on that cliff, if he looked inside himself and felt a knowing that said, “This is not right for me, this is not the right thing. This is not for me right now.”
The bravest thing on Earth for him to do, would have been to look at his family and say, “No, I’m not jumping. I’m not jumping because it’s not right for me.” The reason why that would’ve been brave, is because brave is honoring the inner self and the inner knowing, even if it goes against all of the outer expectations of you.
Being brave sometimes requires you to allow the whole world to think you’re a coward. Jumping because a bunch of other people yelled at you and told you to, is not brave if all you’re doing is cowering to the outer crowds expectations of you, instead of honoring yourself.
If you’re losing yourself to honor expectations. Sometimes the bravest thing to do is the not brave thing. That’s what I meant, sister. I knew what I was talking about even though everything I say sounds like an enigma wrapped in a puzzle. What I meant was, sometimes you are the only one who knows that you actually did the brave thing.
Because what you have done is honor the inner knowing that no one else can see. And it’s bravest. When that thing is the opposite of what the outer world is screaming at you is brave, and what they will applaud for. That requires the most courage to me.
AW:
I hear that. I don’t think you’re wrong, Glennon. I really don’t. I think you make a strong case.
GD:
Thanks babe.
AW:
I do have to say though, that it is all going to be different and based on what each one of us value in life. For instance, for me, the way that I was raised, the person that I am is different than the way that you’re raised and the person that you are.
So our value systems of what we want to get out of life, are just inherently different. And those shape and change as we go and walk through our lives. I might have what you would call a more patriarchal view of brave. I take more physical risks, sometimes bordering on the side of reckless, especially pre-sobriety.
I don’t really overthink much, I’ve gone skydiving. I’ve done a lot of stuff that would be categorically patriarchal in the world, in the way that we see in view bravery. But for me, that’s what I value. I am attracted to a kind of adrenaline of life, a kind of liveliness.
Something that I can feel, and something that makes me feel something. So me standing on top of that cliff and my family yelling to me, “Jump, you can do it.” That’s support, that’s not pressure. It’s so fascinating.
AD:
It’s affirming your inner voice.
AW:
That’s exactly.
AD:
Yes. This is exactly what I want.
AW:
So if I could amend my quote of feeling the fear and doing it anyway, it’s being in line with what you value in your life. And searching out some of those things that you fear to embrace, or evolve towards, or grow into, and find out what your threshold level is of that fear. Don’t skydive if you’re terrified of heights. That might not be something that you value.
GD:
The idea of brave is still very aligned with you, with physical adventure.
AW:
Of course.
GD:
And I just think of it as something completely different. That doesn’t to me feel… Sometimes when people are doing all of these wild physical adventures, I just feel like, “You have a lot of time on your hands.” I just feel like… I don’t know.
AW:
It relates to the inner world though. It’s not just about taking a physical risk, it’s about feeling something. It’s about embracing, or interfacing with the world in a way that you experience. Experience for me is something I value.
GD:
Do you think this is why you like scary movies too? It’s like your whole life, you’re trying to feel something. And I, my whole life am trying to feel less.
AW:
That’s right.
GD:
The last thing I need to do is go surfing. Because my inner world is a storm of waves.
AD:
But that’s not true. You access your feelings in a different way. You read 700 books and dive deeply into the characters of all of those. And you’re feeling all of that. That is your adventure.
Abby is experiencing adventure and thrill in just a very different way than you are, but you are still accessing that stuff. You’re accessing it through reading and thinking. It’s just a different level of buzz.
GD:
That’s true, and I would say that. I would say that I feel like all of my adventures are internal, and it works for me. It’s more than enough.
AW:
Quite frankly, we’ve just gone through a week of stuff that I’ve realized that I’m a little bit more scared to do individual work.
GD:
Internal stuff.
AW:
The internal stuff.
GD:
Interesting.
AW:
And so, obviously that’s what I’m now leaning into. So it’s just where we are at every single year, day, it’s going to be different.
GD:
It’s so cool.
AD:
What’s so funny about bringing up internal. Because to me, that’s the central part of what brave is. I think about that Jeremy Goldberg quote that says, “Courage is knowing it might hurt and doing it anyway, stupidity is the same. That’s why life is hard.”
GD:
Amen. How do you know if it’s stupid or brave?
AW:
That’s good.
AD:
That’s the whole thing. It’s foolish and heroic, look exactly the same on the outside.
AW:
That’s right.
AD:
Exactly the same. You never know. And so for me, it’s the bravest things. The ones that really stir me in my heart when I see them, are the ones that by definition are singular and externally inexplicable.
The words that are used surrounding brave, like pain, and hurt, and fear, and fearlessness, and boldness, those don’t resonate with me at what actually the most breathtaking bravery is.
It’s the singularity of the decision. In action it’s like, “For me, it’s the decisions that are made in the quiet, in your head or in your heart, where only you know whether it’s brave or stupid.”
I think that something is brave when you know that the people that love you or hate you, they might be able to support you in your decision, but they can’t ever confirm your decision for you. It’s only you.
GD:
I hate that.
AD:
And that’s why when we know it, when we see it.
GD:
That’s so good.
AD:
Because you are relying on only you. And in this world, when we have so much need for affirmation, for support, for confirmation, of everything that we’re choosing, it’s like to actually do an extraordinary thing where you know something and are doing something that by definition, no one ever can understand.
GD:
Oh my God!
AD:
Is real. It’s so bold. That to me is why brave is just this radical posture that says, “I am, I will, I can, I won’t, yes, no.” And there’s no explanation that can validate it. It’s just you.
GD:
I am obsessed with that. That’s it?
AW:
I am too!
GD:
That is so amazing. And reminds me so much of the Georgia O’Keeffe quote, that is, “Courage is making the unknown known.” That really the bravest thing we can constantly do is just know ourselves deeply and then show ourselves in one way or another to the world, or to someone, or to ourselves, which… Sister, is what you were just getting at in some ways.
AD:
That’s exactly it. Because it isn’t the making it known by going around and explaining it forever. Because by definition, you can’t ever explain it enough to make it be able to be rejected or affirmed. Every trans person in the world to me, is just so breathtakingly brave.
No one can know what they are except for them. In their way, they just make it known. And it would either have been that they just knew it inside of themselves and never made it known their whole lives.
GD:
I think that’s why I have such an affinity. It’s probably true, but I don’t want to say it, but I’ll say it anyway. I don’t like queer people better than straight people. But I do. And I try to think about why that is.
When I walk into a room, I always want to be with queer people right away. It’s almost like I already know they’ve passed a brave litmus test. And I’m sure that the straight people have in the million ways too, but I just can’t see it right away.
I know that the queer people, I can see that they’ve already made a decision to just live as who they are, even though the world’s expectations maybe doesn’t jive with it. I already have this huge respect, I guess. Because I can see that decision right on them usually.
AW:
Anybody in the marginalized community has had to do so much self-analysis and uncovering, that those are the kind of people we want to know anyway.
GD:
Tell us about your story, when you finally made the unknown known to the world. It’s one of my favorites.
AW:
One of the things that you and I talk a lot about, is these moments in our lives that not just changed us, but that were really difficult and were a struggle. And I guess I’ll just take you back to the late nineties, and just talking about my own queerness and coming out story.
I watched Ellen DeGeneres come out publicly. This is during very formative years. I was 16, I think, at the time. And she just got exiled, she just got sent off, she got fired and could never get hired.
Even though people talked about it for a moment, her not getting hired and being sent away from the fame world, was news to me. It was like, “Okay. So I can’t do that.”
GD:
Can’t come out.
AW:
That’s what was entered into my subconscious from the time that I was a young teen coming into my own sexuality and my own sexual identity.
AD:
And that was pre Macaroni Grill even.
AW:
That was. That was like a year or two before Macaroni Grill. But I think for me, one of the things that I attribute a lot of my strength from and bravery from, is a former coach that I had. Her name is Pia Sundhage. She is Swedish, and she came into my life 2008.
So this is like 10 to 12 years after I was told subliminally, that I needed to hide myself. And of course I had come out to my family, to my friends, and the world, in many ways. At the time, as a pro female athlete, one of the ways that I was able to make money other than just play the sport, was endorsements.
As one of the faces, I guess, of women’s soccer, in order to get more of those endorsements, I knew that I could not come out publicly, so as to not lose chance at more financial independence. And that is the truth, I was terrified.
GD:
And also, you’ve told me that you already didn’t match the look that those endorsers wanted.
AW:
Yes.
GD:
They wanted the ponytails, they wanted the very fem look and you already were not that.
AW:
That’s right. I definitely was afraid of being completely in the zone of, “That is…” Even though I’m sure that I presented gay, I was really trying hard for the corporate world to be straight passing enough. I had a ponytail for a while that I just-
AD:
You’re like, “Look at me, I’m wearing earrings.”
AW:
Yes, yes. That’s right.
GD:
It was a different world back then.
AW:
Look at me. I’ll let you even put makeup on my face.
GD:
Oh God, help us.
AW:
There were seriously campaigns that I am so embarrassed about. And I remember feeling so uncomfortable during those shoots, just because I needed the money. And I just thought, this is the only thing that corporate America accepts.
GD:
Or America.
AW:
Or America, or the world.
AD:
America Inc.
AW:
So in walks Pia into my life. I had really met a woman who was so uniquely themselves. Our very first meeting with our team, she played a song, these Times They Are A-Changin. At the time, our team took itself, probably a little bit too seriously. Like, “We are U.S.A.”
Jamming the flag in the ground of every room we walked into, and beating our chest, “America, that’s who we are.” And she walked in, and she’s a Swedish woman who’s completely herself in every shoe she puts on, and every room she walks into.
It was so fascinating. And I just remember feeling in this moment of this song. She didn’t alter herself. Obviously the moment gets awkward when she’s just playing a freaking…
GD:
With a guitar, right?
AW:
Yes. She’s “Playing a Bob Dylan song in front of us, serious people, and Americans.” I’m like, “What the hell is happening?”
AD:
Our folk song is going to win gold.
AW:
Yeah. That’s right. That’s exactly what we all thought. And then, she didn’t stop. And so this awkward moment became unawkward, because we became… I don’t know, we all were sitting back, looking at each other like, “This is a horrible experiment gone wrong.”
And then as the end of this song came to us, we just all were leaning forward. And we had never seen a woman operate in such a strong way. And so, she invited us into a higher sense of ourselves. And yes, she was gay, and yes, I had never seen a gay woman be so confident in their own skin.
And so this was the first time that I was given permission, I guess. You know how they say, “If you see it, you can be it.” And then I witnessed it. And I spent time studying her, and watching the way that she acted, and watching the way that she walked.
I guess it was just a couple years later, because she was such a great coach and she stayed on as a coach for many years for our team. It was in 2011, she came up to me at the very first camp that year, and she just looked at me square in the eyes and she said, “Abby Wambach.”
And I was like, “Pia.” She said, “Best player in the year 2011.” And then she just walked away. And I was like, “Huh.” It was this very subtle thing. And every single camp, the first time I would see her, she’d go, “Abby Wambach, best player in the year 2011.”
And for those of you non-sporty folks, every year there are best players awarded from FIFA, which is the world’s governing body of soccer. And so, this was obviously Pia’s goal for me. That’s never been something that was on my mind.
And this was the year that actually in fact, my life changed in many ways, because we had a World Cup in Germany that year, 2011. This is an eight to nine month process of building, where you’re intensely practicing with each other every single day.
You’re on the road for over 200 days that year. And then you find yourself in Germany, and Pia all year has been telling me, “Abby Wambach, 2011 Player of the Year.”
And so I’m like, “What am I going to do?” And every lead up to every tournament, you try to do something that gets you in the zone, that puts you in this place, the flow, as we like to call it in sports.
And I decided, “Okay. I’m going to cut my hair.” I remember, I’ll never forget it. I went to this European hair cutting salon, and they cut my hair. In this-
GD:
Can I just stop and say, what I want listener to be thinking right now is that, this was a huge making the unknown known, for you. Because you were deciding to cut your hair in a gay way. How do we say? You were gaying up your head.
AW:
I was going to match my insides with my outsides, completely.
GD:
Yes. You were finally going to just take off that pony tale, and you were going to come out-
AW:
And own it.
GD:
It was your way of coming out, right?
AW:
Yeah. It was definitely-
GD:
This is pre Abby Wambach hair that everyone has now.
AD:
I was going to say, it’s BC. It’s before there was the iconic Abby Wambach and all of the progeny that has followed.
GD:
Exactly.
AD:
There was no Abby Wambach haircut.
GD:
Exactly.
AD:
There was just another ponytail in a sea of ponytails.
AW:
Listen-
GD:
And nobody could tell her whether that was the right or wrong decision. This was an unconfirmable and horrible decision, right?
AW:
Yeah. I just had to do something to step into myself completely. And I didn’t know it at the time, how symbol emblematic this would be for the whole of this actual tournament, and for the literal rest of my life. It was like, “This was the thing that was blocking me from becoming the player that I ended up becoming.”
Truly, I know that this sounds ridiculous, but sometimes when we allow our inner ourselves to match our outer selves, everything becomes aligned. This is the year that we scored that wild goal against Brazil in the 122nd minute.
And truly, my life completely changed because of that moment. I absolutely believe with every fiber of my being, that that moment doesn’t happen if I have a different haircut, truly.
AD:
Totally.
GD:
Interesting.
AD:
No, totally. Because you’re letting go. Everything you said about possibility, about, I can still revert to this lane if I need to. You stuck yourself out of that link completely and said, “I am standing on this ground that is my ground. Whether it crumbles or not, I am flag in the ground right here where I stand.”
GD:
This is me, this here I am-
AW:
And that’s why I think it’s so important, that we have people in our lives that we want to learn how to become our best selves from. Now, they’re not going to be the ones that do the work. But Pia, this coach was this symbol for me of what was possible.
Watching her go through her world. And it took me years to get the courage or bravery, to step into my full self with this haircut. And you should have seen me by the way. Minutes after I got my haircut, I was freaking out.
AD:
Of course.
AW:
And my teammates, they could see it on my eyes. I had tears in my eyes. I was like, “I think I ruined it. I think I’ve gone and messed up my whole life.” But the irony is, if I actually could draw all of the goodness in my life, I think I can literally point it to this one simple choice that opened the doorway for me to be able to walk into a higher, bigger, more purposeful version of my life and myself. And by the way, I didn’t win Player of the Year 2011, I won it in 2012.
GD:
And I love that. I think the most awesome people in our lives, are the ones who… It’s not like we want to be them, they just make us want to be us.
AD:
Yes.
GD:
You didn’t look at Pia and say, “I also want to be Swedish and play guitars in the locker room.” But her showing her unknown, made you want to show your unknown. And those are the best teachers. They just make us want to be more ourselves.
Because I remember you saying to me, I’m not going to get this right, so correct it. Going through the process of watching Pia and that making you feel freer to be you, made you think about your place in that line.
So what if you being freer about who you are, and your sexuality, and your gender identity, and all of it, would inspire for all kids watching the freedom that Pia inspired in you. Then we go from, “I can’t be myself because it will hurt people.” To the truth which is, “I cannot be myself because it will hurt people.”
AW:
That’s right, that’s right. It’s a really beautiful switch, just to think of it like that. Because sometimes we can’t be brave enough with our own lives, because it’s so fucking scary.
But sometimes actually, it helps to think about a little kid, or the little you, or the little child who could help, or who could be helped by some action you could take.
And that could be the courage or the bravery that we need, or the thing that pushes us to do that, or uncover the unknown as Georgia O’Keeffe said.
GD:
I think about, how terrified I was to come out to the kids. And then I would’ve said to myself, “I can’t do this because it will hurt them.” Anything different is scary as a parent. And then I think about one of our kids coming out a year later, and what possible freedom, what I thought would hurt them.
AD:
And that’s why the boldness. The boldness for me, isn’t about the action itself, it’s just about… The boldness has to do with the boldness of being okay with only you knowing it, that it’s right.
GD:
Yes.
AD:
To just circle back to the definitions, do you know the origin of the word brave? It comes from the Italian bravo, which is bold, and the Spanish bravo, which is untamed.
GD:
Shut up.
AD:
Yes.
GD:
Stop it. Wow!
AD:
Yes.
GD:
And just to bring this full circle, that’s what I was trying to get at. It is. Suppose you’re not crazy, you’re a goddamn cheetah, the weirdest, most unique, weird, wild things about you, let it be known.
AD:
Because if they’re not untamed, you can do a bunch of shit that’s bold. You can do bold stuff all day long, but it coming out of your taming. The bravery comes from the intersection of bold with untamed.
GD:
That’s what makes it real, right?
GD:
If we get back to that kid on the rock.
AD:
Cliff too.
GD:
Whatever the hell thing I won’t ever be on. It’s not about the jumping or not jumping. It’s not about the outer thing that you do. It’s not to do the thing or not, but it’s the inner choice to honor the self or not.
AD:
I in that, that’s not even the one I see in that. What I see is the mom who is like, “That’s not right. I can’t explain it, but not in my family. We’re not doing this. I don’t need to explain to all of these people and my family why that isn’t right, what’s happening. But I’m going to say, Nope. Not us.”
GD:
Yes. You guys are a bunch of zookeepers right now, and I want my kid to stay free. By the way, I just want to say to all the parents right now, you never figure it out in the moment. You’re like, “That’s not right.”
It’s okay to circle back with our kids, like two weeks later and be like, “Okay, so here’s the thing that happened.” It’s not like any of us figure it out in the moment.
AW:
I remember. We have to cover our bases. So if this moment does arise and you feel like there might be what would be classified as a more patriarchal view of bravery coming out in people, “Jump, go, do it, do it.” You can just cover the bases, and be the person that says, “Or don’t.”
GD:
Look inside yourself, find your truth, honor your knowing.
AW:
Look inside yourself, find your truth, honor your knowing. You can say it, even though it might look, “Patriarchly uncool.” But that might be really helpful for that person.
GD:
Yeah.
AD:
Also, don’t you think it’s a little bit of a false paradigm. I just think as a society, we’re always looking at the cliff, we’re looking at the roller coaster and we’re saying like, “Brave is doing that or not doing that.” And I just feel like y’all are looking for brave in all the wrong places.
GD:
Thank you.
AD:
That is something that maybe is brave for some people, maybe people give two shits about whether they jump or not.
AW:
That’s right.
AD:
You only know brave in you. You only know if you are brave, is the like saying, “I’m leaving this relationship or I’m staying in this relationship. And my mom’s not going to understand, and my neighbors aren’t going to understand, but I know what I need, and I’m going to trust that that is enough.”
It’s like my friend, Dana, who is one of the bravest humans that I can imagine in the world. At 39 years old told us all that she needed to be a mother, and she had a baby on her own. And she is raising that baby in the most beautiful way you can imagine.
We’re there to support her. We can see what an amazing mother she is, but only she knew. Only she could have known that. It’s those things. It’s those moments you can look at in your life that are sometimes the loneliest. The loneliest clarity you can have, are sometimes the bravest moments.
GD:
Okay. Brave can feel a lot like lonely clarity. Damn, that rings true to me. Lonely clarity.
AW:
That’s so interesting because I feel like all of my brave is external. And I think I need you to do so much more work on internal.
AD:
What is your haircut? Your haircut.
GD:
Yes. That’s right.
AD:
Abby, did anyone on your team, anyone in the agencies that were representing you, and your family, that you could have made a procon’s list that somebody else could have understood.
Only you knew the significance of this seemingly very minor event in your life, which is to cut off some dead cells of your head. But that only you knew how transformative that moment was for you stepping in to your thing. That is lonely clarity.
AW:
Right.
GD:
Yes.
AW:
It was terrifying too.
GD:
I don’t know if anyone else is going to feel this way, but this is my favorite conversation so far, I loved this so much. Next right thing, let’s just think about what’s the bravest thing we’ve ever done, and do not necessarily looking for it in places that we’re expected to, like on cliffs and jumping out of airplanes, but when in our lives have we really made something unknown known?
AD:
And I would just add that, it doesn’t have to be something you’ve done. It doesn’t have to be an action. It can be the thing that you knew undeniably, but couldn’t defend. Yes.
AW:
That’s good.
GD:
And we want to hear them, I want to hear them. Send your voicemails, write to us on the Instagrams. We’re going to be back with you in two short days, because we can’t get enough of talking to you.
Until next time when it gets hard to be brave, don’t forget, we can do hard things. And also more importantly, don’t forget, we can quit hard things every damn day. Love you so much. Talk soon. Bye.