Be Still: How to Listen to That Something Inside That Always Knows
January 6, 2022
Glennon Doyle:
Hello, loves. Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things.
Abby Wambach:
When you say loves, are you talking about me and sister or the people?
Glennon Doyle:
I’m talking about the pod squad.
Abby Wambach:
Oh my gosh. I feel a little sad.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, you’re my loves too, but you know how much obsessed I am with this pod squad.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. It’s actually something.
Glennon Doyle:
Yesterday we were on our walk and this woman was walking by us on the sidewalk and looked at us and her eyes got big. And she held up her phone at us and it was, she was listening to, We Can Do Hard Things. It was so cool.
Abby Wambach:
It is so cool, actually.
Glennon Doyle:
So cool. Okay. We did this episode on Tuesday about stillness. On that episode, told everybody that I’m in this weird, new stillness place right now. And I want to explain what the hell has happened to me over the last few months.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, buckle up, everybody.
Glennon Doyle:
No, and I’m not going to do a great job and I’m going to say things wrong and I’m going to get it wrong. And I want to be very clear with the pod squad that I’m not ever trying to get things right. I’m just trying to tell you the truth of my experience. I’m not trying to like match up with some idea that we have all decided is right or wrong.
Abby Wambach:
You are just experimenting with yourself all the time.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. I’m just trying to tell, like, I’m trying to describe what’s going on on the inside of me on the outside of me.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
Which to me has absolutely enough thing to do with right and wrong. I’m just trying to tell the truth.
Amanda Doyle:
Which by the way is the whole point of the last episode. If we stop trying to figure out whether our feelings and our intuition is right and wrong and just acknowledge it as real and there and experience it and go towards it, then that’s the whole ballgame.
Glennon Doyle:
And it’s like, I mean, this happens to me sometimes when I’m talking about my sexuality or how I’m understanding my sexuality and somebody will say, “That’s not right.”
Glennon Doyle:
Like, that’s not like either how we say it or like, and I’m like, “Wait? What does this have to do with right.” I’m telling you how I am and feel inside my own skin, and you’re telling me it doesn’t fit into the categories that you have decided already exist. It’s strange. So anyway…
Abby Wambach:
That’s the experience of almost every gay person up until like five minutes ago when gayness became cool.
Glennon Doyle:
Abby is so bitter that I just had to gayness when it’s cool. She’s so bitter and she deserves to be because the OGs have been showing up for a very long time when there was much more risk and much more resistance. And then, the loves like me just got here five minutes ago and we’re like, “What’s the problem? Look at all the flags.”
Glennon Doyle:
So here’s what happened to me a few months ago. I would say that I hit kind of a different kind of rock bottom for myself, which you know well about.
Abby Wambach:
I wouldn’t have said or classified it like that. That’s the first I’m hearing of it. You classifying it as a kind of a rock bottom. That’s interesting.
Glennon Doyle:
I think so. I mean, I think as I get older and have more experience, my rock bottoms are less outwardly dramatic to ever other people, which is a beautiful thing. Like I haven’t yet screwed up everyone else’s lives and I’m just innerly suffering. The version of suffering I’m talking about that was leading to this other rock bottom is this unbelievable situation I have where I have been dealing with an eating disorder since I was 10 years old. And then when I was 25, I got sober from it. And for the rest of my days since then I have been outwardly, I think what people would assume is healthy-ish.
Glennon Doyle:
I have like normal eating habits and I’m not binging and purging and I’m being normal, whatever the hell that means. But it’s like my brain never got the message that we were going to be done with that.
Glennon Doyle:
So my brain still obsessively thinks about body food, all of that stuff. And it’s ridiculous. And it’s infuriating because as I’ve said before, when I think about during my hardest times, when I imagine that maybe 50% to 60% of all of my thoughts all day are about food and body, it’s just unbelievably embarrassing as a feminist, but also like makes me so mad because when I think about what I could have done with that 50% of brain power, as an artist, as an activist, as a mother, as a wife, as a sister, it’s just the opportunity cost of all of that obsession.
Amanda Doyle:
So the difference is you are no longer engaging in the behaviors that would indicate that you have the compulsions, but you are not free from it internally. And I think that a lot of folks can identify with that. A lot of people have been through like infidelity in their marriage and they’re functioning, but their relationship still isn’t free of the vestiges of that and their anxieties and their fears in their heads. A lot of us are in active recovery from a lot of things, but still tormented by it to some extent.
Glennon Doyle:
In our minds.
Amanda Doyle:
In our minds.
Glennon Doyle:
In our minds. We’re tormented in our minds. My mind torment about food and body, which comes up in a million different ways. It’s just like all day, like what am I eating? What have I eaten? What did I eat yesterday? What can I eat today? How’s my body. How’s this fitting? How’s all of this? Inane things. Which is so beyond. It has nothing to do here 35 years later with how I look. It has nothing to do with that. It’s way deeper than that. It’s like in my bones.
Amanda Doyle:
Well, it’s control and worthiness.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s control. Yes. So, I just desperately have been trying for the last, I don’t know, 10 years, but really feels like the last two years since COVID started because I feel like that’s when I got really weird in my brain because when things are out of control-
Abby Wambach:
She says she’s getting weird.
Glennon Doyle:
I have just been desperately trying to fix my brain. Just like, what can I do to stop my brain from thinking this way? So that has been my focus. And especially for the last two years, like what books do I have to read? What therapy do I have to do? What are the things that I have to do to rewire my brain so it stops tormenting me like this?
Glennon Doyle:
Nothing has worked. Nothing has worked. To the point where recently even I said, you know what? I’m just going to give up. I’m just going to give up on this. What sucks as being a 45-year-old woman who still thinks about this stuff 50% of the time, but what really sucks is being a 45-year-old woman who thinks about this 50% of their time and then spends 25% of her time trying to fix the 50%. And so she has 25% of her life left. So maybe if I stop fixing it, at least I’ll get that 25% back and I can just let the crazy compulsive thoughts be.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s like a discount.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly. So here’s what I actually figured out, is that I’m usually with my instincts onto something, but just it’s skewed a little bit. So the giving up was the right call, but this is what happened. So when Chase left for college, I just got real weird, like that just kind of leveled up everything. And Abby actually said, you’re… When Abby tells me that I’m off, that’s when I worry, because she’s like the least judgemental person in the world. She’s noticing that I am suffering.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s like code red when Abby is like…
Glennon Doyle:
Terror alert. So here’s what happened. She took me away to this place we like to go to for two or three days.
Abby Wambach:
Three days.
Glennon Doyle:
She was like, “If I take you there, will you promise you’ll feel your feelings and you’ll be still?” Because I was not wanting to do that.
Abby Wambach:
She was avoiding everything at every cost. It was like, “Oh look, a bird. Oh look.” I mean, I feel grateful because partly it’s why we moved. She was like, “Let’s just move.”
Glennon Doyle:
No, yeah.
Abby Wambach:
I know.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s real.
Abby Wambach:
And I’m like, “Yes, we’re getting into California.”
Glennon Doyle:
You’re like, “I value your health, but can we get you healthy after I take you up on this offer to move.” That would be great. That is exactly what happened. That was wise. I’m glad you got us here too before you got me settled. But-
Abby Wambach:
Before you got you settled.
Glennon Doyle:
Thank you. Here’s what happens? We go to this place. Up until then my newest strategy was that five pound thing of Twizzlers and books. I was just reading books, reading, reading, reading. That’s like, I’m trying not to be in my own mind.
Abby Wambach:
Gonzo. She’s in a different world. I was like, “Where is my wife?”
Glennon Doyle:
So we go to this place and I take this little class on meditation. Now I want to explain to you sweet pod squad that people have been trying to teach me about meditation for 20 years. Like the world has been meditating for a very freaking long time. I have never just got it. You know how when you can read a book and it just doesn’t hit you and then you don’t think you like it even and you don’t think it makes any sense. And then you read it a few years later and you’re like, “Holy shit.” You’re ready for something.
Abby Wambach:
I mean, four years ago we got educated on transcendental meditation. We like did the whole program and then we never did it.
Glennon Doyle:
We quit. We just gave them our check, left and never-
Abby Wambach:
So here we are at this-
Amanda Doyle:
That’s like me at the gym.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, exactly.
Abby Wambach:
That’s exactly right. That’s what we did. We’re like, of course we’re going to do this meditation if we pay this much money.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s not like I’d be giving them $40 a month just to see it on my credit card.
Glennon Doyle:
So here’s what I want to say to you because I feel that this is going to be a very like ongoing conversation and it’s not like we’re going to nail it in this one time, but the gift of this new stillness. Now, by the way, I’ve tried to explain this to several of my friends and it is such an epiphany to me and it’s so amazing. And no one has ever responded to me in a way that makes me think that they also think this is amazing. It’s been very anticlimactic and upsetting, but it is amazing to me. So here, we’re going to discover it.
Amanda Doyle:
Let’s hear this. Let’s hear the elevator pitch on meditation. For me, for me.
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t know if this is right. What I realized is that I was wasting all of my time trying to control my thoughts, trying to change my mind, trying to somehow reprogram my brain so I would have stop having all of these crazy thoughts or go back into my trauma or go… I mean, have someone who’s had decades and decades of therapy, like maybe I just haven’t done the right therapy. Maybe like all of these things that would reprogram my brain. What I needed to do and what is actually working for me, whatever the hell that means, is stop believing my brain.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. You were trusting your bots.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. When my brain said, “Did you eat too much yesterday? Did you da, da, da?” I was engaging it as if it wasn’t batshit crazy. Like if somebody else, if my wife walked up to me and said, “Well, do you think you ate too much yesterday? Do you da, da?” I would be like, “Get the hell away from me. Why are you talking to me like that?” But my own brain, I was like, “Yes, that sounds like a worthy discussion to have, 45-year-old brain. Let’s talk about that. What I’m saying is what I’m learning now, because then I started reading everything, Untethered Soul again. I read it a decade ago and was like, “Okay, now it’s blowing my mind.”
Glennon Doyle:
We have this voice in our head, which is our thoughts. And everybody’s voice is, for lack of a better word, a little crazy. Everybody’s mind is offering it up horrible ideas about ourselves and horrible, good stuff and bad. Like all these thoughts that mean nothing but that we get so lost and we believe, and then when we try to control them, it’s hurting cats. Like it’s hopeless. But the beauty is that there’s this other place we can live from that is… This is not the right word, but it feels like below my brain or behind my brain or something.
Glennon Doyle:
And this is what people talk about in terms of consciousness. So it’s the idea of, if I can hear the voice, if I can hear the voices going in my head, then that by definition means that I am not the voices.
Amanda Doyle:
His line is, Singer’s line in that book that is so good, is “there’s nothing more important to true growth than realizing that you are not the voice of the mind, you are the one who hears it.”
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly. Correct, Michael Singer.
Abby Wambach:
That is so trippy by the way, just think about that.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, yes. And I’m telling you.
Abby Wambach:
You’re the one that hears it.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. And then you can hear it and you can be like, “Oh, look at that. Oh, she’s going to do that whole body food thing again. Oh.”
Abby Wambach:
Oh, look at that.
Glennon Doyle:
And then you’re going to go about your day. I just have stopped consulting it.
Abby Wambach:
That’s good.
Glennon Doyle:
I’ve stopped believing. If my mind had a solution out of this, I feel like my poor sweet mind would’ve gotten us out of this a lot of decades ago.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. But here’s the thing, your mind is brilliant at so many things. It’s just that in certain areas, this being one of them, it is not to be trusted.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, but no one’s is. No one’s is. I mean, I think that’s the thing, that happens to be your struggle of your life. But everybody, there’s not a person that doesn’t have the voice and hear the voice. And whether it’s about your worthiness and your need to hustle or the fact that like your partner’s going to leave you and you’re never going to be good enough. Whatever it is, we have one and the problem is we think we attach to it and think that is us and think that we have to negotiate with it and respond to it. And then we know that voice is harmful and bad. So then we think that we are bad because that voice, why would we be saying those horrible things all the time.
Glennon Doyle:
And I think one of the goals is to not attach bad or good to it at all.
Abby Wambach:
You can notice like your frustration or your anger or jealousy or whatever, and just be like, wow, far out, like you’re there you are. There’s some jealousy rising in you. There’s some anger. Like, that’s so interesting. Like, what’s that about?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. You could have a bit of separation from it.
Amanda Doyle:
And then you realize that the voice is telling you about everything that happens in your life.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh my God.
Amanda Doyle:
So it’s like someone says something to you and it’s not that the reality is that they’ve said X to you. It’s the reality is they’re trying, they’re manipulating me. They’re disrespecting me. The voice is telling you all the things that just happened, which are actually just projections on what happened, when the reality is that person was just like, “Hey, can you move your car?” And you’re like, “You’re trying to threaten my personhood.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. The stories we make up, the interpretations, the narrations, the constant. And then we’re never in the moment because we’re always lost to this. And when you said your brain is good at so many things, our brains are good at so many things. It reminds me, as somebody said, the brain is a excellent worker, but a terrible master. Like when we tell our brain what we want it to work on, that’s good stuff. But when we are just like, allow our brain to take us wherever it wants to take us and then we just follow it.
Abby Wambach:
And then we lose all of our intuition because we just are being controlled by this mad scientist up there.
Glennon Doyle:
Mad scientist in our brain who hates everyone and us.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
Anyway, I’m new to this, but for what, three, two months.
Abby Wambach:
Two months now.
Glennon Doyle:
Two months I’ve been meditating for 20 minutes a day.
Abby Wambach:
It’s unbelievable.
Glennon Doyle:
And I’m telling you, I feel like there’s just maybe a little percentage shift of peace and joy and non-reactivity during the day, throughout the days, that’s kind of accumulating into what I would feel like is a little bit more peace. And I will take that.
Abby Wambach:
Listen, as like the person that is in the closest proximity to you all the day, I know that it might feel like a very small percentage shift, just in your state of awareness and your mind and your life. But the way that I see you responding to your environment and your life feels like it’s 1000% different. Because I see you moving into the more beautiful and truer version of yourself that you always knew that you had inside of you, but that the parts of your mind weren’t allowing you to necessarily access it 100% of the time.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s good. It feels like-
Abby Wambach:
It’s marriage shifting.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s marriage shifting. It feels like another level of untaming.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
It really does.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. So why don’t we get to some cues from our pod squad about stillness in all of this. Here’s our first pod squader.
Speaker 4:
Hi, Glennon and Amanda. So I would like to know what you guys do for your nighttime high team. So what is your bedtime routine? Do you guys do yoga? Do you guys listen to meditation? Do you guys fall asleep watching Friends like me? I just want to know how you guys wind down at night before bedtime. Love you guys, thanks.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. I want to hear first. Well, we’re going to be all over the place with this one.
Abby Wambach:
We got a lot of things.
Glennon Doyle:
But do you have a routine, sister? What do you do at night? I don’t even know.
Amanda Doyle:
You know my nighttime routine is same as my morning routine. I just stay up way too late and scroll through things and bring my computer to bed and do all of the things that I know I’m not supposed to do and I do them anyway, because I’m a highly evolved human.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, that sounds good.
Abby Wambach:
Ours kind of starts after dinner. I’d say we kind of wind down with the kids before their bedtimes, although we’re going to bed earlier.
Glennon Doyle:
Earlier than them now.
Abby Wambach:
Than them now.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s very weird.
Abby Wambach:
It’s just so weird.
Amanda Doyle:
You go to bed earlier than every human on the planet goes to bed.
Glennon Doyle:
I mean, everyone should know that we go to bed latest at 9:00.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, 9:00. We’re in bed at the latest 9:30.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. And if the kids aren’t there, we are often in bed at 7:00 or 7:30.
Amanda Doyle:
Literally, they’re not lying, 7:30. I’m three hours later than them. And I will often text them and they’re like, “We’re in bed.” I mean, sometimes it’s like 7:00 on this watch that you’re in your bed.
Abby Wambach:
Listen, sobriety is a beautiful thing. It gives you a lot of sleeping moments and time.
Glennon Doyle:
And I don’t feel like anything good happens after 8:00 PM. Like, I don’t know what is people are doing, but it can’t be good. And the morning time is my joy. And plus the earlier I go to bed, the faster coffee comes in the morning, which is really the only moment that I live for. Every night I go to bed and think, “Oh my God, eight hours till coffee.” Okay. So what do you think about our bedtime routine?
Abby Wambach:
I think that, depending on what time we do get in bed, we will watch like an episode of one of our favorite shows.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. Right now we’re watching Succession and we’re watching. What else are we watching? The Morning Show.
Abby Wambach:
Morning Show, Ted Lasso.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. That’s about it right now. Next question please.
Nicole:
Hi, Glennon and sister. This is Nicole. I love, love, love your podcast. And it has helped me so much. I have struggled with anxiety and depression for a very, very long time. And I find it harder and harder as I get older to get out of those kind of moods, I guess. I normally have kind of muddled my way through it, but I want to get some tools and tricks to help me in order to make the process more beneficial, to grow in my mental health journey and making my life more positive and more meaningful. I wondered if you guys had any self care tips or anything that you guys like doing that you think that I should try and would be beneficial. I know when you do yoga, I didn’t know if you had any other advice.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, Nicole though we are not therapists in any way, so we don’t ascribe to like you listening to every word. I know my wife is the self care master for Glennon Doyle. I would listen to everything she says and try it all on. Seriously.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, and it changes all the time. I mean, I think I’d have a couple different responses to Nicole based on whether this is diagnosed depression and anxiety. And if it is that, or if she thinks it is, then get to a doctor, right?
Abby Wambach:
Of course.
Glennon Doyle:
Get to a doctor first. Nothing in my life works if I am not medically treated. So none of this… I also have to do a ton of woo woo self care stuff. But the base of it is my medicine. I have no concern about talking about how important my medication is to me. So first of all, if you do think that you have something that is debilitating anxiety or depression that is debilitating, get to a doctor. If your doctor’s not taking you seriously, get to a different doctor.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. Because she said moods and I think that that’s an important thing, because for people who have mental health struggles, it’s important that you don’t see that as a mood, because if you’re in a mood, it’s like, you are responsible for shifting yourself out of that mood, and that is not the case if you have. Just like, if your leg was broken, you wouldn’t say, “Why is your leg in such a bad mood?” Like you need to get the help that you need and it’s not like a character deficiency that you can’t make it better.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. And I mean, what I have found from depression, anxiety, and everybody that I know a lot, people feel differently about it, experience it differently. I experience it. It starts out as a lowness, that is the depression, that is sort of close to sadness, but then it gets deeper and deeper until it’s just an absence of feeling at all. It’s not like sad. It’s like all of the colors are mushed together and it’s all gray. So it’s an in inability to experience the normal highs and lows of life. It’s not the normal highs and lows of life. So when I talk about my medication, what my medication does, it does not excuse me from the human experience. It allows me to have the same human experience that everybody else does. Just like other people who have different diseases, their medication allows them to have the human experience, enjoy the humanity. That’s what the medication is.
Glennon Doyle:
So if it’s real, if it’s that, start with medical treatment, and then we’ve been talking to our kids about moods too, about just regular moods. And one of the things we’ve been talking a lot about this week is music, is the power of music to contribute to, or deepen or shift a mood. So if we’re just talking about moods, then just since we’ve been talking about this week and my family, I just would like to bring it up.
Glennon Doyle:
One of the reasons is we took our daughter to a Phoebe Bridgers concert and I love Phoebe Bridgers. But we were talking to our little one about how, if she’s feeling very sad for any extended amount of time, maybe like the 12 hours a day of Phoebe Bridgers isn’t going to be the thing that shifts that.
Glennon Doyle:
And so my deeply feeling highly sensitive daughter was like, “Well, it helps me. She knows how I feel. So when I hear her sing, it validates my feelings and it makes me feel seen.” And yes to that for maybe a couple hours. But like, there’s a point with the music where we are moving past validation into wallowing.
Amanda Doyle:
Rumination is the yes.
Glennon Doyle:
Correct. And so, I do just want to throw out there in terms of mood that sometimes we overlook very simple things that actually can have a profound difference in the way we’re experiencing our day. And so maybe putting together a playlist of songs that remind you of your humanity, that remind you of joyness, that make you feel good and cared for and loved, and that validate your feelings, but don’t invite you to take them into an unhealthy-
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. I also think that you do yoga, you meditate, you go on walks, you listen to music. And one of the things that I find so fascinating about you, Glennon, is that you are never too tired to keep trying different things on, in terms of your self care.
Glennon Doyle:
Which is ridiculous sometimes.
Abby Wambach:
But it’s not, like we’re human beings. Sometimes things get a little bit old. You stopped going on walks for a month. And then all of a sudden you started back up and it’s like, “Oh, that thing that I really liked.” So one of the things about self-care is to not be so rigid.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. What do I need today?
Abby Wambach:
What it is, and doing it hardcore every day, because that’s also not self-care, that’s just torture.
Glennon Doyle:
Remember about all the trying things on. A couple days ago, I was having a no bones day. I was just like really down and-
Abby Wambach:
Do people need to know what no bones is.
Glennon Doyle:
They can google it.
Abby Wambach:
Google it.
Glennon Doyle:
And so I was like, kept coming to you. I was like, okay, I went and did yoga. I still feel like shit. I went for a walk, I still feel like I’m so tired. I went, I did this and I still feel so tired. And you go, “Have you considered just taking a nap?” I was like, “That’s a great idea.”
Abby Wambach:
So sometimes your self care does work in counterintuitive ways where you’re like, “I’m so tired. I’m going to go for a two and a half mile walk or a five mile walk. I’m going to go do this thing to snap me out of it.”
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Let’s move on to the next voicemail.
Kim:
Hi, my name is Kim. I just wanted to thank you for first of all, putting out all these episodes on things that are truly, truly challenging. I just went through a breakup from a 12-year relationship. We were not married and everything is resonating with me. So my hard question has to do with intuition. When people say, “Do what’s right for you,” sometimes I don’t know the answer to that. So how does one hone the art of really listening to intuition and trusting yourself? Kind of having faith in yourself. Thank you so much. Your podcast has been life changing for many, many people like me. Bye.
Abby Wambach:
That’s so sweet. I mean, I think that sister said it earlier about her marriage. And when something like that falls apart, it is so hard to trust yourself because you got yourself into that thing. And now that thing failed, or we don’t say that in our world, that thing’s ended. And it’s like so terrifying to then turn back towards yourself. Like, how do you do that? How do we even begin to do that?
Glennon Doyle:
I know that if there’s one thing that I believe that I feel like can be trusted in this weird life, it’s that I have something inside of me. And I describe it differently all the time. So I’m not even going to try to describe it right now. I’m just going to say I have something inside of me that knows what to do next. There is something inside of me that always knows. Now, through a lot of work, through what was in untamed, through a lot of trial and error, through ignoring it, through drinking it away, through… I have tried everything else. I’ve tried a million other ways other than living and trusting that thing.
Glennon Doyle:
And what I have found is that it’s like, we all look outside of our lives and see things that don’t feel right, or don’t fit or don’t belong, or like this job or this person, or this relationship, something on the outside of us that doesn’t feel right, that feels like a cage. And I think that that thing that’s in our outer life can always be directly connected to some knowing on the inside that we didn’t make into a doing. That like, the more that we have these little teeny inklings, hunches… One of my friends describes it as like a carbonation, which makes me feel like it’s different for everyone. And the more we act on it, our outer life changes and that’s not magic.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s like, oh, when I feel like this person isn’t right for me, and this person’s making me feel bad. And I say, “I’m not going to do this anymore.” Then that person disappears from my life. And I suddenly, my outer world is more aligned with my inner knowing. It’s like slowly over time, the more you act on that inner knowing, even when it’s uncomfortable, the more you’re outer world aligns with what is true and beautiful and comfortable on the inside.
Glennon Doyle:
And so what I see is that people who do trust themselves, no, not that person, yes, that person. No, not that job. Yes, that person. No, not that TV show. Yes, this music. No, not that candle. Yes, this work. Like what all the big nos and little nos and big yeses and little yeses. People wonder why their outside lives are so unique and beautiful. And it’s because it’s all directed by what’s on the inside. And what I would say, is it Kim? Is her name Kim? Is that whenever people tell me that they don’t know what to do next, I always know that that’s not true, that they do know what to do next, because everybody knows deeply. It’s just that the next thing is usually very hard and scary. And so we have to do a million things to pretend that we don’t know first.
Abby Wambach:
It’s the last thing we want to do in some ways.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly. It’s usually the last thing we want to do. And what we talk about, Abby and I talk about a lot is like, how do we, that life gets really good and exciting when we shorten the gap between the knowing and the doing as much as possible. I actually think that most of our suffering lives in the space between the knowing and the doing, when you know, this job is killing me, when you know this relationship isn’t right, when you know this house isn’t where I’m supposed to be, when you know, like I need to have that conversation, but you’re not at the doing yet.
Abby Wambach:
Life procrastination, internal, emotional procrastination.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s all the suffering. Whether it’s the fear of the doing or the pretending not to know or the millions of things we do when we… The judgment we put at other people when we’re jealous that they’re doing the doing, it’s all of that suffering is in between that space. And I think for Kim, truly learning to trust yourself, she knows, Kim knows, I can tell by her question, that she’s a person who knows that she can trust herself. It’s just the trying again, and the looking back on your life and not seeing failure for what the world tells us is failure. Like the truth is that Kim has gotten herself to this point in her life. She has made it this entire way. She has gotten herself through a relationship. She is in a place right now where she’s in a stuckness and a lowness and is still reaching out, is still connecting.
Amanda Doyle:
And even asking it, how do I do the right thing for me? I think that is even tricky because half of the pain that you talked about between the knowing and the doing, it’s building our case to ourselves and others, that this is right. When, what if it didn’t have to be right? What if it was just the thing you knew that you were going to do next? I mean, I just think it’s worth asking the question. If this didn’t have to be right, would I do this thing. If this thing didn’t have to be right, would I already know that it was my thing is? Is the needing to justify it as being right part of what holds us back from doing what is our next thing?
Abby Wambach:
That’s good.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s like the word right is your red flag all the time. Right is the red flag. It’s not real. So if you’re looking to do what’s right, then you know that you’re looking to somebody else’s map instead of your own inner compass.
Amanda Doyle:
And that’s why it’s never going to feel like intuition. And that’s why it’s never going to feel like knowing because knowing doesn’t speak in that language, knowing speaks in the language of feeling alive, of feeling free, knowing speaks and questions that ask things like, is it possible that I’m worthy of this even if no one else benefits from it? Is it possible that how it’s been going is not working for me? Is it it possible is the language of intuition, not is it right.
Glennon Doyle:
So take out the right. Don’t say, “Is it right for me?” Just say, “Is it for me?”
Abby Wambach:
It’s good. It’s really good.
Glennon Doyle:
Is it for me? Should we jump to our pod squatter of the week?
Amanda Doyle:
Let’s do it.
Glennon Doyle:
All right. Let’s hear from our pod squatter of the week, who is Krista. And from reasons you’re about to discover, I’m feeling Krista.
Krista:
Hi, this is Krista. And I just want to say, I’m late to work, driving, stop the podcast. I need Abby to know how much she adds to this podcast. Like, sorry, I’m a crier. The wisdom that she pours out of her soul on a regular is just amazing. And Glennon and Amanda, you are the wonder twins.
Glennon Doyle:
Wonder twins.
Krista:
I’m telling you what. And Abby is just the freaking cherry on top of the… I don’t even like cherries. No, anyway, I just want Abby to know that her wisdom and her vulnerability just really fucking make my day. And I love you three, keep doing what you’re doing. My wife just said lately, if you realize that every podcast that you listen to are lesbians, well, except for Brene, but everybody else I’m like, “It’s because I found my people finally, honey, I found my people.” Anyway, I love you guys, have a great day. Keep doing hard things. We’re going to do them together. Oh yeah.
Abby Wambach:
Oh my gosh.
Amanda Doyle:
Happy.
Abby Wambach:
I feel like I’m sweating a little bit.
Glennon Doyle:
Also, Krista, I mean, I don’t know, it makes me so emotional when people say I found my people. Like when I imagine like people walking or in their cars and they’re listening and we’re all kind of in this together, it makes me feel very unlonely. And I don’t know, I just love you Krista. Thank you. And she’s right. You are very, very special.
Abby Wambach:
Well, you two are the wonder twins.
Glennon Doyle:
Wonder twins activate. Okay. When life gets hard this week, don’t forget, y’all, We Can Do Hard Things and we’ll see you back here next Tuesday. Bye.
Glennon Doyle:
We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios. Be sure to rate, review and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, 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.