Passion, Praise, & Getting Personal
November 1, 2021
Glennon Doyle:
Here we are, we have shown up again for, We Can Do Hard Things. You also have shown up again. Thanks for that. It’s all we can do, right? Just keep showing up.
Glennon Doyle:
Abby, Amanda, thank you for showing up. Did you want to say something because that was kind of like a prompt?
Amanda Doyle:
No.
Amanda Doyle:
I was like thinking, “you’re welcome.” Or, “you’re my boss.”
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. Thank you for showing up. Do we even have a choice?
Glennon Doyle:
Well, this is going well. Thank you, podcast listener, because you do have a choice. And you’re here voluntarily.
Amanda Doyle:
This is the best part of my day, I’ll tell you, even though we talk about infidelity and anxiety and depression and trauma. You’ll be unsurprised to learn it’s the highlight of my day.
Glennon Doyle:
Because the rest is the anxiety and the trauma.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly.
Amanda Doyle:
This is where we get to just talk about it and not do it, the rest bit, as it were.
Abby Wambach:
Talk about that it’s happening.
Glennon Doyle:
But also because it does make us feel lighter to talk about the heavy things. Do you agree with that or do you actually think that your life has gotten worse since we’ve made you start talking about-
Abby Wambach:
This is a good question, actually.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, sister, because you used to just go so fast that you never really gave yourself time to stop and think about all this crap. So now you are welcome to my world where I go very slow and only think about this crap. So, how is it going for you?
Amanda Doyle:
Well, two things about that, first, I feel, my friend who wrote to me recently and said, “Well, how is it going to be on the podcast?” And I feel like what it did is it made life and self-analysis part of my job description, therefore I started paying attention to it.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, my God.
Amanda Doyle:
So, it was like this forced contemplation period where I had to sit and think about things in order to have anything to say and then I realized that I had not prioritized thinking about very on-fire things in my life because it wasn’t part of my to do list. And so putting that on the to do list I feel like really helped me to see how… It’s like I viewed everything as a zero sum game. Like if I put extra time into life, it’s at the expense of my work, if I put extra time in my work, it’s at the expense of my life. It’s not zero sum. The investment in your life actually helps you in life.
Glennon Doyle:
In all aspects of your life?
Amanda Doyle:
So, I think kind of putting therapy in this form on my business to-do list has forced me to actually pay attention which I think is good.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, and it makes you kind of mull through a lot of what you’re feeling and thinking because when we talk about this stuff it’s going to the world. It’s going out into the world. So, doing a therapy session for the world to hear is really kind of an intense thing. So, I think, I mean, Glennon, what do you feel about this whole experience, opening yourself up and talking about this stuff. I know that you do it but to do it on a weekly basis kind of talking about a new thing, our marriage, and you, independent of that, what is it like for you?
Glennon Doyle:
Well, I’d first like to note, right now I’m thinking of the moment that I sat with someone, I think maybe, it was probably Liz, I don’t know, and saying that writing is so important to me because it’s my therapy. And whoever that was said, “The important thing for you to remember is that therapy with no therapist is not, indeed, therapy.”
Glennon Doyle:
So, what I would like to note is that this time, sister, is still just you and me and Abby talking. There is no therapist. I have actually onboarded one of those. Please see a couple of episodes about dangerously close to the black hole.
Amanda Doyle: So, all good, I am getting actual therapy and then this.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Good. All right, because none of us have therapy degrees. So, you, listener, should also remember, there is no therapist present. Check all the things we say with your actual therapist, okay?
Glennon Doyle:
I love, this podcast is my favorite creative thing I’ve ever done, I think. I mean because it’s so unlonely. Writing books is so frigging lonely. And also I just feel like when you work with your wife and you work with your sister, who you two are my most important people in the world, you just end up doing all work all the time and you don’t ever talk about each other or our hearts or our lives or our family, like any of it. I just feel like, for sure, that this podcast has made us closer.
Glennon Doyle:
Sometimes I think, you know when you start cleaning out your room, I get excited about a project and then I pull everything out from all of the shelves.
Abby Wambach:
It’s the bane of my existence.
Glennon Doyle:
Right. And then I just get tired.
Abby Wambach:
She’s a starter of things.
Glennon Doyle:
I start things and then, I don’t know, that hopeful version of me goes away when I see all the shit everywhere and I just think-
Abby Wambach:
No. No. You just see how long it’s going to take and you’re like, “Dang it. I bit off more than I can chew, again.”
Glennon Doyle:
And then I get tired. I get tired.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s like on HGTV where the entire home renovation is in a 30 hour thing. You’re like, “That I can get behind.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. And maybe it’s because I’m so into HGTV. I watch that shit and I feel like it’s going to be done in 27 minutes. You know what, I can do this backsplash this afternoon, after dinner. I can totally redo a backsplash.
Glennon Doyle:
So, the amount of times that Abby has come home and been like, “What happened?” The whole bathroom is torn apart but I’m not going to do the other part.
Glennon Doyle:
So I just think that that is how starting to think about your life feels. It’s like pulling everything out of all of the shelves and it feels exciting at first. But then when you see your life in shambles in front of you, you realize why you wanted to live an unexamined life, right?
Amanda Doyle:
That’s why we have junk drawers, people.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right. That’s right.
Abby Wambach:
That’s a damn good metaphor here.
Glennon Doyle:
So, this podcast is like making you pull out all your junk drawers. And what I’m trying to say is that it gets worse before it gets better, I think. It feels like a damn mess and you just want to say, “Can you do the rest?”
Amanda Doyle:
I think what’s so interesting is that so many people have said to me, “My God, I can’t believe you’re getting so personal.” Or, this is my friend this weekend who was so surprised, she was like, “You’re such a deeply private person and you’re sharing all this stuff. And you would have been the last person I thought would have shared all this personal stuff.” And I realized I’m kind of like when people say that to me, I think, “I don’t know what you’re saying.” And I realized it’s because I don’t feel like any of this is personal. Infidelity, eating disorders…
Amanda Doyle:
Overwhelm.
Glennon Doyle:
Overwhelm.
Amanda: How I’m feeling about being perceived at work. It’s like, “Oh, I see. You think that I think that those things are personal.” But I get that they involved really intimate details of my life but I think it’s that I truly have this belief that none of that is personal, that all of this is just something that’s happening in me and around me. That is something that is also happening in and around everyone else and I don’t have that personal protection or shame around it because I think I place it in the context of what we’re all living in.
Glennon Doyle:
Yup.
Amanda Doyle:
And so, therefore, I don’t feel the need to protect it.
Glennon Doyle: I feel that so deeply and that’s how I’ve always felt. And that’s why it’s always made me a little embarrassed when people say to me, “You’re so brave for saying that thing.”
Glennon Doyle:
So, when people say, “Glennon, you’re brave for talking about your life.” I’m like, “No.” And it’s also a women’s thing. It’s like one of the most important parts of this podcast for us, that we’ve always talked about, is the more we talk about our personal woman problems that we all feel alone in our lives having, then the more other women say, “Wait. You too? Me too.” And then we, all together, discover that these aren’t personal feelings or problems. They’re very much cultural and institutional failings that make us all feel like we are failing.
Glennon Doyle:
This is what all the consciousness raising groups from the second wave of feminism were. And, by the way, back then, people were dismissed, those women, doing those consciousness raising groups, were told, “Oh, that’s just therapy.” Dismissed as, “Oh, these are just women talking about their problems.” No. What they were doing was getting together, refusing to be siloed, telling the stories of their lives which then they realized were so connected that they were just a reflection of the culture. Instead of worrying about changing themselves, they could get together, and together, demand change from the world.
Amanda Doyle:
I don’t take it as an insult of, “You’re so brave.” Like you think that there’s something wrong with me. But it feels like a reflection that people are thinking that the things that happen to them and the things that are happening inside of them, are them.
Abby Wambach:
It’s the same thing. Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
And therefore you have to somehow not show what happened to you and what happens in you because somehow that makes you a certain kind of person. And I just wish people would be able to have freedom from that because we can’t control what happens to us and it is not a poor reflection on us what happens to us and what is going on inside of us. And all we can do is to separate those things so that we cannot feel like we’re constantly carrying this heavy burden as if it was ours to carry.
Glennon Doyle:
Shamelessness is a spiritual gift. So, speaking of shame and shamelessness, this is so weird, but I just have to say this one thing because it’s been bothering me every single day. And I have no idea if it’s a big deal or not. So I don’t listen to any of these podcasts. I don’t listen to anything that I do. I’ve never watched a segment that I’ve done on TV. I cannot. It’s actual torture to me. I have let myself off the hook of that part of my job because it just hurts my feelings so much. And so, there’s probably a million things that I’ve said on this podcast that already I should apologize for.
Amanda Doyle:
We should do an episode of that, the pod-ology.
Glennon Doyle:
A pod-pology. Yes. One thing is bothering me so much, which is that when we were talking about polyamorous.
Abby Wambach:
People.
Glennon Doyle:
Somebody asked us a question about like, “What do you and Abby feel or think about polyamory?” And I said something like, “I think it’s great for people who are into it. I can never. This is not something that…” and I strongly was saying, “It’s not for me. It’s not for me.” In ways that… And no one has left a voicemail about this, I don’t know. I might be overreacting to my own self which happens often. But I feel bad about it because… So, I feel like it reminded me of when people talk about queerness and they say things like, “Well, I mean it’s fine for queer people but I mean I could never.” They say it the same way I was speaking about polyamory which actually feels judgemental and weird.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s like othering. It’s like it’s a different kind of person that would be into that than the kind of person I am.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly. And I haven’t listened to it but I know the tone of it because I know how I was feeling when I said it.
Abby Wambach:
I think that, a little bit, you’re protecting me too because in our marriage, I think you know how sensitive I am in monogamy and how it’s a big value of mine for a lot of reasons. Mostly because I’ve been-
Glennon Doyle:
She’s a fan. She’s a fan of monogamy. She’s a big fan.
Abby Wambach:
I’m a big fan. And I think that you are hyper-sensitive to my feelings. So, making sure that there was no way, shape, or form that I would believe that you have any inkling towards polyamory.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right. That’s right.
Abby Wambach:
So, I want to give you a little bit of an out there because you know that in my being, that, that makes me feel scared.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Abby Wambach:
And there’s no judgment. It’s just my experience and my opinion and my feeling and what I want out of my life. I don’t care what other people do with their lives. You get to be you. Go ahead, polyamory your way through it all.
Glennon Doyle:
I just I do care what other people do with their lives. I am always busy minding everyone’s business.
Amanda Doyle:
We have reached the crux of the distinction between Glennon and Abby. Glennon definitely cares what you do with your life.
Glennon Doyle:
But I do care.
Abby Wambach:
I don’t.
Glennon Doyle:
And if people are… I don’t know. I don’t think I feel the way I was representing myself in that moment. I feel amazing about people who have found this, any way of loving that makes them feel free. And that’s it, that makes them feel free. I think it’s amazing.
Amanada Doyle:
It’s like the intellectual honesty of it. Any time you suggest, “I can’t even possibly understand that.” It’s not true. Just like when you see someone cheat on their spouse and leave. You see someone have to make a hard decision about their kid. Any time someone says, “I don’t even understand how they can do that.” It’s like, “Do you not? Do you really not even understand because you’re just trying to draw a distinction between your value system and something someone else has done.” But if you really lean in, I know in the recesses of your mind and your heart you can understand just about anything.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly. It’s like when people say I can’t imagine. Whenever someone says that to judge someone else I’m, for sure, that they imagined it for six hours last night.
Abby Wambach:
And why do we say that? What a weird phrase, “I can’t imagine what you must be going through right now.”
Glennon Doyle:
It’s to protect. Do. Just try. Try to imagine it. It’s like a very, very good imagination is a bridge of empathy.
Abby Wambach:
That’s what I was going to say.
Glennon Doyle:
Literally just sit down and imagine it. Like your brain does that.
Abby Wambach:
Maybe I just don’t want to imagine it. Maybe that’s what we should be saying, “I don’t want to imagine that.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. What it is, Abby, is I don’t want for you to imagine that I might be like that. That’s what they are saying. They’re saying like by saying, “I am othering that group,” it’s like, “I am placing my flag in this sand which is definitely not over there. So, don’t even begin to imagine I might be over there.”
Amanda Doyle:
The point of all of this is that Glennon apologizes to the polyamorous community. She imagines and understands also to everyone, we should maybe consider stop saying, “I can’t imagine.” Because just last week, someone said to my friend, my friend called me so upset, this friend of hers, she is a single mom, which by the way I also do this so don’t have to be a single mom to do this, but her friend said to her, “I just can’t imagine leaving my baby in daycare for all of those hours. I just can’t imagine.”
Abby Wambach:
Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
Amanda Doyle:
We do this all the time in different contexts which is basically, you could imagine it. But, anyway, that’s not the point. What I’m saying is even in these contexts where we are trying to draw distinction between our lives and other people’s and we say this, it’s not helpful because everyone is doing the best they can. And you’re just othering people. It’s a way of judging.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. It’s like building walls instead of bridges. It’s ridiculous. It’s like, “All right, me and you are not the same. No, me and you are the same.”
Glennon Doyle:
I believe in apologies. I believe in real apologies. If something comes back to me over and over again like it has been about this polyamory thing, I know I have to like clear the spirit about it. Clear the spirit, okay?
Abby Wambach:
You’re good at that.
Amanda Doyle:
Has the spirit been cleared?
Glennon Doyle:
I feel cleared.
Abby Wambach:
This house is cleared.
Glennon Doyle:
I feel cleared. I’m sure I’ll do something else that will mess up the clearing.
Glennon Doyle:
But, okay, let’s jump into this week. I want to talk about our interview with Simone Biles and Laurie Hernandez because I feel so passionately about these two women. I mean what they have done, what blows my mind the most about these two is it feels like women are put in so many insane circumstances where we know something’s off. Okay, we’re being mistreated. Someone else is being mistreated or we are just like our spirit, our being, is like, “No, no, no, no.” But everyone else is telling us, “No, it’s okay.” Or, “You’re too sensitive.” Or, “This just is the way it is.” And so we allow ourselves to be gaslit, gaslit, gaslit, gaslit.
Glennon Doyle:
And these two, in their frigging teens and twenties, said no to entire institutions. Laurie was being emotionally abused by a coach, was told over and over again that she was overreacting, and finally got to the point where she was like, “No.” And sued the coach.
Amanda Doyle:
Well, didn’t sue the coach, she was part of an investigation that resulted in the coach being suspended from gymnastics for several years.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Okay.
Glennon Doyle:
We know Simone’s story. I just would like to talk about that interview and what we learned from them. So, we have four take-aways that we want to talk about from Laurie and Simone’s interview. The first one, do you all remember when Laurie said, I asked her how the hell does a girl your age, because she was a teenager still when all this happened, learn to trust herself enough to publicly say, “Enough,” about a coach, about an authority figure, in the effort to save herself from further abuse and other girls from further abuse. Where does that kind of fierce self trust come from to do something that big? And Laurie said, “I didn’t start off trusting myself big.” She felt so gaslit and so… People were telling her she was wrong and she was over-sensitive that she had to start with the smallest things to learn to trust herself.
Glennon Doyle:
She would say, “What am I actually hungry for? Which candle do I want in Target?” That one got me because I will stand in an aisle in Target and call you to ask you which pillow I should buy. It’s like trusting yourself with those tiny, tiny things is such a good advice to practice getting to the big stuff. It’s like my friend, who a while back was trying to decide what to do in her marriage, everything was all busted up. And I said, “Well, what do you want?” And she said, “I don’t know what I want from my marriage. I don’t even know what I want for dinner, Glennon.”
Glennon Doyle:
We lose this ability to go inside ourselves and find what we want and need and trust it.
Abby Wambach:
It’s like what you said all throughout Untamed though. Women for all of time have been told and taught how to not trust yourself. So, when we compare ourselves to men walking around the world where everything that they think, they trust, they believe. We have to remember it’s those little bitty details that sometimes give us enough courage or gas in your own tank to be able to actually trust the whole self. And I think what Laurie said, it’s manageable, you can do this every single day. In my world, soccer, when I started to get unconfident, or I started to not be able to trust my ability, I had to remember, “Oh, you’re the international,” at the time, “You’re the international goal scorer of the world.” I would get unconfident. And I know these are two separate things but you still have to do that, find those little things that bring you back to yourself, however it may be.
Amanda Doyle:
And I think it’s interesting too about those little things. There is a distinction between saying I trust myself that X is right for me, notwithstanding everyone saying, Y. And then there’s that distinction between that and saying, I want X and it’s reason enough just that I want it. The whole idea of which candle or which food opens up this question of, is it the food that I want or the food I should have. Is it the candle that I am leaning towards or is it the candle that’s the best candle. And so, I have to do a lot of research or figuring out which one I should do and there’s part of that, that’s cool, that it’s just the one I want. And that’s enough. It’s just, I like that candle and I just really want that candle.
Amanda Doyle:
And that goes wider to the question of it doesn’t even matter in that situation where you’re with that coach and everyone’s telling you, “You should be able to take it.” Just being like, “But I don’t want to take it anymore.” I don’t have to trust myself that, on balance, I have a justifiable position vis-a-vis their justification for what they’re saying to me.
Abby Wambach:
That’s good.
Amanda Doyle:
It can be as simple as, it is good enough that I don’t want to be here anymore, and so I’m leaving.
Glennon Doyle:
It goes to the idea that women tend to just have this unbelievable freaking laborious process that we go through to make any f-ing decision. And it’s like three stages, it’s like the pre-stage, where we ask everyone on earth if it’s okay if we can do the thing that we want to do. What would they do? What would everybody do? All the friends, all the quizzes, all the everything. Is it the best candle? Then we finally make the decision and do the thing. And then we spend the third portion, which is justifying and explaining the thing we did. It’s like the three stages. So, what you’re saying is what a revolution it would be if we just did the next thing we wanted without asking permission first, without explaining afterwards. In other words, what if we just lived like a man.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. It reminds me of the defuser situation, honey, remember when that happened? Somebody sent us this defuser, oil thing.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
What’s a defuser?
Glennon Doyle:
So, it’s like a thing. So, I’m very, very big into smells. Smells are important to me they bring me back to the moment.
Amanda Doyle:
Okay. Cliff notes, Abby is into monogamy, Glennon is into smells.
Glennon Doyle:
I know that this is going to sound to you extremely woo-woo and weird, but it is science. I am an anxious person, and so anything that can bring me back to my senses always helps me, okay?
Amanda Doyle:
It works for me when you’re back in your senses. That’s for sure.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly. So you should want me to have smells, is what I’m saying. Now, I am anxious but also very forgetful. Okay? So, the smells that I want, Abby feels it’s dangerous for those things to be candles.
Abby Wambach:
Not only candles, but I also like the new house smell, new paint. I want that to last for a long time. So, when we first moved into this house, we had this defuser that you put oil in it, and it sends this smell into the world.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s no fire, sister. No fire.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, okay. So it emanates, the scent is going throughout because of this little device called a defuser.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
Okay.
Abby Wambach:
For one second I was trying to put a disbelief that this was the best decision for the house. And she just was like, “It’s what I want.” And with nothing afterwards, no explanation. And I was like, “That’s what’s going to happen. That’s where we’re going with this.”
Glennon Doyle:
Here’s a good example. How does one explain or justify why I need the smell of incense to be all over. It’s just what I want. It just makes me feel good.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. And so we’ve gotten down to she’s allowed to do candles and incense but she can only burn one incense one day. She was doing four in a day and that just felt like the kids were having-
Amanda Doyle:
She’s never been great at moderation, Abby, not her strong suit.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. The kids were having struggles breathing.
Amanda Doyle:
Almost in tears.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s like a convent in there.
Amanda Doyle:
It is.
Abby Wambach:
I’m telling you.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s like a church.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s like in church or holy water.
Glennon Doyle:
Or like a college dorm. It’s just like these little incense triangles. It reminds me of magic, that’s all I’m going to say.
Abby Wambach:
Anyway, we digress, let’s get back to the take-aways from Simone and Laurie.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Second one, and we’ll do these faster. One of my favorite things that Laurie said was how, after all of the shit that she went through in gymnastics, her starting to hate it completely, and then having to examine everything to figure out was it really gymnastics she hated or was it everything surrounding gymnastics she hated? And what she landed on was, no, she still had a love for the sport, she loved gymnastics. What she hated and had to let go of was the particular environment that she was in because of gymnastics. And she did change it. She started to say no to that, no thank you to that, “I don’t want to do that part. I don’t want to do that part. But I’m not going to give up this beautiful thing that has brought me so much love and joy in my life just because this part, you’ve ruined it.”
Abby Wambach:
I love this so much. I love what she said so much and I also want to say for everyone out there who is on a journey towards, get promotions or gold medals or whatever it is you’re striving towards, it is easy to be able to then analyze your situation after you’ve gotten to the top. So, what I think is so special about Laurie is she analyzed it, she said, “I actually love gymnastics. I don’t like the whole thing.” So she was able to pick and choose.
Glennon Doyle:
In real time.
Abby Wambach:
In real time. But I just want to say that not a lot of us have the ability to pick and choose some of the situations we find ourselves in. And maybe they’re not as big changes as Laurie talked about but maybe you can do little things here or there to make your circumstance or environment a little bit better.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. And to not have to give up the thing you love. When she said that I thought immediately about faith. So much shit in the church and in religion has me, over the past two decades, and now still so angry that there has been many times in my life where I was just like, “Screw it completely. Screw faith.” There’s so much nastiness, I don’t want to be a part of it at all. And then I have to resist that because it’s like, “No, I’m not going to give up this beautiful thing just because somebody came and held it hostage.” That’s like abandoning the thing I love to the hostage takers. I get to have the thing I love and I get to decide what environment I want to live that thing out in.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. It’s just one of the biggest tragedies to me is of so many survivor stories, is that the choosing to free yourself from an institution that is hurting you often means having to grieve and mourn a whole part of your identity and life and purpose that you have, through your blood, sweat, and tears, arrived at. And that, to me, just from a power dynamics perspective, just makes me absolutely rageful that we look at a survivor and we say, “Okay. You were strong enough to stand up to this institution. Good job.” But we don’t look and see the other layer of that person who worked since they were a kid, to work to get into that college, to work to get into that law school, to fight her way through up to that law firm, to have this storied career of all of this, all of that gets washed away and she becomes the person who was a whistle-blower.
Amanda Doyle:
I think the trail of wreckage behind people’s decisions includes the lives that a lot of people have built and worked really hard for when they have to call these institutions out.
Abby Wambach:
And they lose those communities. A lot of times they actually in fact have to leave those communities which is, in and of itself, a trauma to choose to leave the very thing that you identified with for so long and not to mention the whole career they just built. I mean it’s a lot.
Glennon Doyle:
And the fact that they have to be the ones to do it, that nobody who’s actually in charge, who’s actually in power takes the risk to speak up.
Abby Wambach:
And they were teenagers.
Glennon Doyle:
And then when we call the people like Laurie and Simone heroes, which they are, then are we, by default, saying that those women who didn’t decide to blow up their entire career, to blow up their entire… Are not heroes? Because I certainly see and respect that decision too. The decision to be like, “No. I worked my ass off this whole time and because you are abusive, I not only have to suffer that trauma but I have to lose the thing that I love and I worked my ass off for my whole life to martyr myself?”
Amanda Doyle:
Well, I chose that. I mean that’s a whole other podcast, longer conversation but that I stand very much with the people who have survived and decided that they are going to stand up and call it out. And I stand solidly with the people who have survived and decided that, for their lives, that they do not bear the responsibility of something that is not their responsibility.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right.
Amanda Doyle:
That their responsibility is to survive and take care of themselves and do what their lives need. And I know that’s a complicated conversation but I don’t misplace the blame of those situations on the failure of people to step forward. I place the blame of those situations on the actual perpetrators of that behavior.
Glennon Doyle:
Amen.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
As Tarana, my personal hero, Tarana Burke says, the only responsibility is to heal. People who have been victimized in any way owe to the world nothing except their own healing.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s why sometimes the, don’t be silent, is a little bit confusing of a message because actually if you are someone who has suffered you get to be silent if that’s what is healing to you.
Abby Wambach:
I think that this is totally a podcast in our future.
Amanda Doyle:
I have something. I loved the part where Laurie and Simone both talked about it, but they were talking about it in the context of they were doing these ridiculous things that only 000.1% of the world can do and they talked about this dynamic where people will say, “You’re superhuman. I don’t even understand how you can do that. You’re superhuman.” And how it creates this disconnect between the person who is saying it and them. You, Laurie and Simone, are a different thing. You’re a different breed. I’m just human. You’re something else. And I get, in the context of being an elite, once in a generation type of athlete, but I think it applies to so many contexts. I think we do this all the time. I think we do it to single moms. I think we do it to teachers. I think we do it in this way that whenever we call somebody a superhero like it’s a compliment. Like the Mother’s Day cards, “You’re a superhero,” the teachers, “Teachers, they don’t always wear capes but they’re…” But this whole line of the way we talk about people in that way.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s like whenever we’re about to call someone a superhero, maybe we should consider that we’re calling them that because they do more than they should.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right.
Amanda Doyle: And because we don’t want to fix it institutionally. We just want to pat them on the head.
Amanda Doyle:
And it’s often they’re doing more than they should because of the expectation that they will do more than they should. And so, we are actively participating in the reinforcement of that expectation by calling them a superhero.
Glennon Doyle:
I think about that with black women a lot. And especially the white reaction to every time something horrific happens in a black community and then the community has any measure of forgiveness. And then the only thing in the white world we talk about is, “Oh, my God, the superhuman forgiveness, the superhuman forgiveness.” And it’s like a fake way of what, honoring, but it’s like, no, no, no. How they probably feel like that tragedy to their family is exactly how you would feel if that happened to your son. But you can’t consider that because that would bridge our humanity too much. So, instead, we make a change in our minds that they must be different, they must be superhuman. To consider that our humanity is exactly the same is out of the question because then we would have to change so much.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. I mean I think about it from the athlete’s perspective, obviously. It’s a way for the “average” American, or “average” person to not feel bad about themselves. That’s why people say that shit. This whole idea, and by the way, when you’re in it there’s a part of my psyche that needed to actually feel superhuman to be able to do some of the stuff that I was doing, to be able to sacrifice some of the things that I was doing, to be able to warrant and rationalize the life that I was living in some ways.
Abby Wambach:
But I’m telling you what, that has been the hardest thing to unlearn in my entering into real life. I mean, I say that, my entering into the retirement of soccer, that has been the hardest thing for me because narcissism is a very luring thing. Feeling like you’re superhuman feels good. Believing it feels good.
Glennon Doyle:
But then you feel like a fake all the time because you know you’re not.
Abby Wambach:
And then realizing that it’s just bullshit is really terrifying.
Amanda Doyle:
It must be a huge sense of imposter syndrome to walk around thinking that you have to convince people that you’re a superhuman when the one thing you for sure know is that that is not true.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Amanda Doyle:
I feel like in the context like you, Abby, that’s a unique cross to bear. I’m just talking about the context of the people like, “I don’t know how she does it.” I’ll tell you how she does it, she does it by suffering and not sleeping and giving up parts of her life that she should have. That’s how she does it. So, if you’re ever tempted to call her superhero, maybe you just give her a sandwich instead.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. No, no, no, no. Absolutely. I think that’s a really important take-away. Every single time you’re tempted to shower someone with the gift of suggesting they’re superhuman, reconsider that what they actually need is some support rather than pandering, or some change, or some help, is good.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Last one. Super quick. Abby and I talked about this maybe for an hour this morning about when we asked Simone about her relationship with her boyfriend. And then we talked about the things that keep them human, that remind them that they are actually human. And how Laurie and Simone both talked about the places they feel most human are the places that feel like they’re not metaphorically or literally on stage, that they are the places where they feel like they don’t have anything to prove to anyone.
Glennon Doyle:
And we talked about that so much this morning because it’s like, “Wow. We all live wild lives where we just feel like we have to prove things all the time and it’s so exhausting.” And that’s why we’re so grateful for the couch time with the people who love us no matter what and we don’t have to perform for. Those back stage times where you just feel like you’re done producing and impressing and you can just breathe.
Abby Wambach:
What a world it would be to not perform. I mean my Enneagram, I am the performer. So, this is going to be a tough one for me to wriggle away from because I love it and also hate it.
Glennon Doyle:
Where do you feel, sister, like you’re not having to prove anything to anyone?
Amanda Doyle:
I was told there would be no math.
Abby Wambach:
The love of your children?
Amanda Doyle:
I was actually just thinking I was playing downstairs, not like the whinny the horsey play which makes me want to stab my eyes out. But yesterday I was doing the airplane flying thing and every time we play, Alice does this thing where she takes off all of her clothes. She loves to be naked. My husband is so deeply catholic in his soul that when he goes out of town everyone in my house is naked all the time. I love naked time. He doesn’t. He’s not as enthusiastic about it.
Amanda Doyle:
So, I’m just always like, “Yay, everyone’s naked.” And we’re playing and we’re doing airplane where you’re like get on the feet and you fly and they’re both doing that. And I was just like, “I feel like this is very human right now.” Now granted, the impetus for going down there was I’ve been working 15 hour days so I just, “This is my 45 minute, look. Look, I’m momming. I’m doing it.” The incentive was very much performance driven to be like, “Look at me spending quality time.” But then, in the moment I felt very human.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. 45 minutes though, that’s pretty good. Did you really play for 45 minutes? Damn.
Amanda Doyle:
I don’t know. I mean that was the intent. I don’t know. I can’t talk about the actual execution.
Glennon Doyle:
It was probably seven minutes that just felt like 45 minutes, if I remember anything about playing with children.
Abby Wambach:
Math.
Amanda Doyle:
And then I’m like, “Let’s clean up the basement. Won’t it be fun to play a game of cleaning up the basement?”
Abby Wambach:
Clean up. Clean up. Everybody, everywhere. Clean up. Clean up. Everybody does their share.
Amanda Doyle:
Clean up. Clean up. Everybody, everywhere. Clean up. Clean up. Everybody does their share.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Anyway, the point, hot squad, let’s think about some places or times or moments or rooms or people with whom we don’t feel like we have anything to prove. I just think that might be a good exercise for us.
Glennon Doyle:
All right, and now we shall end with our pod squader of the week. Erica.
Abby Wambach:
It’s my favorite part.
Erica:
Hello, Glennon. This is Erica. I’m catching up and I just burst out into tears when Abby explained about how she feels like she was broken because she doesn’t have that emotion that some people do. And I had to call in and tell you it made me feel so good that, first of all, I didn’t think that I was the only one in the world. But it made me feel good that somebody voiced it because I’ve always been called cold or heartless over things. And it’s not that I just don’t feel them, it’s I don’t express those feelings. I express my feelings kind of away from others a lot of the times or scream cry in the shower with loud music so the kids don’t hear.
Erica:
So, I don’t like to express when I’m out in front of people all the time. So that’s more or less… Anyway, it made me feel good how supportive you guys were of her and how you need us in the world. And thank you. I love you guys.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, my God, Erica.
Glennon Doyle:
I love Erica. I just love that she… I mean it is so, We Can Do Hard Things vibe to be a woman who calls and leaves a whole message about how unemotional she is, while being so preciously and beautifully deep and emotional and moving. And Erica, you have given me the gift of the visual of a mother screaming and crying in the shower so that her kids can play on blissfully outside.
Abby Wambach:
Perfect.
Glennon Doyle:
And I don’t know why I needed that so bad today. Yes, to that. Yes, to that kind of rawness and honesty, Erica, we love you.
Abby Wambach:
We love you Erica so much. Thank you for that. And also thank you for sister and Glennon for also handling my lack of emotion, or lack of feeling, or whatever it is, with such grace and love.
Amanda Doyle:
We’re going to operate from a strengths based perspective. So, you’re not lacking emotion, you are rich in stability and solidness.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right. That’s what we’re going with, Abby.
Abby Wambach:
Okay. I’ll take it.
Glennon Doyle:
People like me need people like you.
Abby Wambach:
People like me need people like you.
Amanda Doyle:
And a lot of incense.
Glennon Doyle:
And a lot of fricking incense. Right now I have my candle here and now I shall go light more.
Glennon Doyle:
We love you pod squad. See you back here next time.
Abby Wambach:
We love you guys.
Glennon Doyle:
We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence13 Studios. Be sure to rate, review, and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audacy, or wherever you get your podcasts. Especially be sure to rate and review the podcast if you really liked it. If you didn’t, don’t worry about it, it’s fine.