Glennon’s Friendship Contract with Alex Hedison

June 27, 2024

Glennon Doyle: Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. Today is part two of our delicious, soul-shifting conversation with one of the most important people in Abby and I’s life, Alex Hedison. She’s been a friend and a guide to us, and she is going to become a friend and a guide to you. I can already tell. Welcome back, Alex.

Alex Hedison: I’m just so excited to be here.

Abby Wambach: So I have a question, because I think that there’s a post-mortem you do with friends. We all still do post-mortems with every social interaction we have, whether we are conscious of it or not. What are the things that make you know that you are out of alignment? And I know the practice of doing it in real time is probably ideal, but what are the ways in which you know you’re not in alignment in order to post-mortem or go back or fix it?

Alex Hedison: You’re saying after the fact?

Glennon Doyle: Or during.

Abby Wambach: Yeah, or in… yeah.

Glennon Doyle: How do you know that you’re out of alignment?

Alex Hedison: I think that there’s a journey of listening that is really necessary, listening and paying attention to ourselves, which for me has had to do with slowing down. I love nothing more than using my brain, than operating from the neck up logic. And probably for the rest of my life I will privilege logic over anything. It will take me the rest of my life to turn in the other direction and stop and breathe and feel into something, sense something versus make sense of.

So it’s a habit that I’m really conscious of, of trying to slow down, but I notice when I’m going too fast. If we’re all together as friends and I’m talking like this and I’m talking like this, and then I drop something or I trip over… I’m multitasking it. I’m noticing it. Oh, shit. I’m doing that thing. Slow down. Breathe. What’s happening? I’m really uncomfortable right now. I’m really nervous that this person is not getting what they need. Is there a way to talk about it gently? Is there space for it? Is there room for it here? And sometimes there may not be. But if you’re with good friends, most of the time there is.

And we work together, so we’re like this thing. We’re all working together, and we’re all detached. If one person is detached, if one person’s offline, kind of everyone gets offline. And you’ve seen it in groups, even in groups that are intentional, where everyone’s talking about something that’s spiritual and nobody is making any sense. What are people talking about right now? Why am I feeling so disconnected? I’m terrible. This is a yoga retreat. I should be feeling connected because everyone here is so wise and spiritual, but I’m feeling totally disconnected. I guarantee you, if in that moment you were to use the space to invite people to be more connected by allowing yourself to say, “I don’t know why but I feel disconnected,” “I don’t know why but I feel uncomfortable,” “I don’t know why I’m not connecting”, I guarantee you, just, it’s like the air. People will start to come into their bodies and they’ll make room for all the ways they feel disconnected. And you change the energy in the room. And you’re not doing it to change the energy. You’re doing it to, again, privilege yourself, to align with yourself, to listen in. Something is off and I’m going to listen to you.

Someone who’s really, really helping me with that now… There’s so many different people who I’ve worked with and talked to and been friends with, and I have an amazing friend. Her name is Mory Fontanez, and she’s a intuition coach, but she’s really a guide. She’s like a guide back to yourself. And she is constantly reminding me, because there’s so many times where I’m offline and I don’t know how to find my way back. And she’ll remind me. We’ll do a session together. And again, my mind, I’m always suspect. I’m like, whoa, what is this? I know enough. Knowing enough means nothing. It’s the willingness to not know. It’s the willingness to be humble. It’s the willingness to be open, to do it differently, and the only time that I’ve been willing to do things differently is because I’m suffering so much in my old way. Right?

Glennon Doyle: That’s right. Sissy, what were you going to say?

Amanda Doyle: When you’re talking about the fast talking, mine feels like a fluttering. It’s like, I’m not there. I’m fluttering above this thing. I’m not connected. I feel awkward, but I’m still trying to say the things, and then after, I’m like, what did I say? I don’t even know what I said. That feeling.

But can we go back to stressing relationships?

Alex Hedison: Yes.

Amanda Doyle: Because that… I’ve never heard anyone say it that way. And if all of this feels a little woo-woo, and it feels like how could I possibly say to my friend or to my partner, “This is how I’m feeling”, or, “Is that what you meant?” or the only alternative to stressing a relationship by saying the thing is living in insecurity and anxiety.

Alex Hedison: There’s another alternative too.

Amanda Doyle: What?

Alex Hedison: It’s leaving. It’s divesting silently from the relationship until you are gone. Or actually, I’m going to advocate for myself and I’m going to leave this relationship, but I never really stressed it. I never really advocated for myself and tested the waters to see if there’s room for me in this relationship, if there’s room for both of us to come forward and do things differently. I never tested the waters and discovered whether or not I could trust myself, because I chose this person for some reason and maybe they actually have the capacity to hold me in the way I need to be held. And maybe even more importantly, I have the capacity to hold myself in the way that I need to be held.

Glennon Doyle: So is that why this embodiment, stressings, when we were talking about how does this work, friendship confuses me, there’s not rules, where are the guidelines, how do we know we’re doing it right, where’s the paperwork… Oh, actually Alex did give me paperwork.

Alex Hedison: Where’s the contract?

Glennon Doyle: She gave me an award.

Alex Hedison: I gave you a contract because you were asking for paperwork and I wanted to honor that.

Glennon Doyle: Yeah.

Alex Hedison: I don’t remember what the paperwork… what it said.

Glennon Doyle: It said “You are a good friend,” and there was a gold star, like a seal, like it was official decree. But you said to me one time, “Just don’t leave without talking to me first.” That was your thing. Just don’t ghost. Don’t disappear. And this is what you were saying. You were saying, “Don’t decide this isn’t for you without asking if you’ve communicated enough to even know that I know that,” right?

Alex Hedison: Right. Yes. I think what I was saying to you was there is infinite room, there is infinite space for you in this relationship, and that includes stepping away from the relationship if you need to. The one thing I ask is that you negotiate it, meaning that you advocate for yourself and say, for whatever reason, “This doesn’t feel good for me anymore,” or, “My life is too busy and I don’t have the space,” or, “I’m spending time doing something else,” or whatever it is. It doesn’t have to be because I don’t like you anymore. It can just be life has changed.

But what I didn’t want you to do was not bring yourself into the relationship and slowly divest until you disappeared, or not stress the relationship by saying, “I really have a hard time when you do this,” and then just leave. I was saying don’t just leave.

And believe me, I’ve not been perfect at this by far. There are friendships that I have had to step away from and I find it so painful, people I love deeply who it is not a full-bodied yes for me to be around them anymore. I don’t feel comfortable in a way that I used to feel. Nothing wrong with them, nothing wrong with me. It just doesn’t feel… It’s not a full-bodied yes. So I’ve had to step away, and it’s been really painful, you know? It’s hard.

Glennon Doyle: You tell them? What do you say? Give us an example.

Alex Hedison: What do I say to step away?

Glennon Doyle: Mm-hmm.

Alex Hedison: I think that the amount for me that I communicate is contingent on how intimate I feel with a person, how important the relationship is. If I’m at the grocery store and someone does something to offend me, I’m not going to be stressing the relationship. I probably won’t see them again so I’ll just deal with it, unless they really cross a boundary and then I need to protect myself in some way. But with someone I’ve known for a long time, and this is true of the last couple years, there is a friend I have who I’ve known for years and years. And the truth is, as much as I love her, as funny as she is, as much joy as I’ve had at times in the relationship, I’ve never felt fully comfortable. I’ve always felt like I had to protect myself a little bit because I didn’t know what she would say next. I felt like there was an acting out part of her, that it was a patterning she had to do in order to feel safe in the world. I felt like she was always breaking things around her in order to get connection.

And I felt very protective, so I wasn’t able to be my full self. I wasn’t able to move easily. And I found over time and as I got older that I just… and my wife didn’t feel comfortable with her, but it was more than that. I wasn’t feeling comfortable, but I just wanted to deal with it. I wanted to endure. And as I’ve gotten older, I’m less willing to endure what is unacceptable. It’s not acceptable to me. It’s fine for her. It might be fine for her other friends. It’s not fine for me, and I’m not comfortable.

So I started slowly stepping away. I would say things. I didn’t feel like it was met with understanding. So I’d start stepping away, not calling as much, not responding as much. And then when I’d get a pushback like, “Where are you? Why haven’t I heard from you?”… which, by the way, is just not something I would ever… I would just never say to anyone, “Where are you? Why haven’t I heard from you?” Anyone who knows me knows that I forget where my phone is. I’m terrible at texting back. I am not really and truly of the generation of people who are always on a device, and I don’t like it. I still wish they would go away, meaning the device.

So even in the negotiating of it, it felt difficult to me. It felt like she wasn’t listening, that she didn’t have the capacity to hear me, to soften. So it really got to a point where she demanded an explanation, and I gave it in the best way I could. It wasn’t satisfactory. People are not always going to get it. You have to risk them feeling alienated or angry. I had to tolerate her feelings, and her feelings are anger, confusion, betrayal. I have to allow that to be because I did my best. And ultimately I wrote her an email really explaining it more in case she needed to review, because I’m not going to go back and forth over and over. I had to just create the boundary. And it’s difficult, and I feel bad that she feels bad. I have to tolerate that. I’ve done everything I can do.

Abby Wambach: I think what you’re saying is really important, because so often we honor and privilege other people’s bad feelings over our wellbeing. And I think that that’s… I mean, I know that I’m having this conversation in my head right now about a friend, and I think it’s really important that we set those boundaries for ourselves. Because what happens otherwise? If you don’t set the boundary, then you just loop over it, over and over again in your head.

Glennon Doyle: Yeah.

Alex Hedison: And also, and where does that energy go? As Amanda said, you have two choices. You said the other choice. If you don’t stress the relationship or you don’t privilege yourself, you don’t listen in, you have to suppress the feeling. So what happens when we say, “Stop it, shut up”? You’re not really feeling that way. We start gaslighting ourselves. And that’s where we start being out of alignment ourselves, and it affects everything. Now I got to move really fast because I have feelings.

Glennon Doyle: Oh.

Alex Hedison: I got to start moving fast. I got to start doing other things.

Amanda Doyle: And I don’t trust that you’re my friend anyway.

Alex Hedison: Yeah.

Amanda Doyle: If I truly believe if I say this thing, it will not be met with understanding or it will never change or you won’t honor my feeling, then we’re not friends anyway. Then I am acting [inaudible 00:14:42] part to begin with.

Glennon Doyle: Right, you’re not losing anything.

Alex Hedison: That’s right.

Amanda Doyle: So I’m staying in this relationship to quote-unquote keep the relationship, but I actually don’t have a relationship.

Alex Hedison: That’s right.

Amanda Doyle: Because deep down, I believe that if I were to bring the stressor out, it would not be met with understanding.

Alex Hedison: Right, right. And what’s worse is when you strengthen the ability to not listen to yourself, you do it in all areas. It’s not just in that relationship. So I’m doing it with that person. I’m doing it with my partner. I’m doing it with my kids. I do it all the time and I don’t even remember myself. And I’m moving so fast and I’m so capable and I’m all… I’m just from the neck up, functioning, doing, being a good soldier, going, going, going.

It’s cumulative. And in the same way, when you start listening, at least this is my experience, when I start listening, when I’m able to say the thing out loud, it has an exponential effect that the next time, it’s way easier. And I do it again and I do it again and I’m building up the other muscle of, what does it look like for me to be free? What does it look like for me to have really authentic relationships? This relationship I have with Abby and Glennon didn’t come out of nowhere. I was ready for it, after years of practice and being willing to have kind of a blank slate. I’m not around a lot of people. I used to have a ton of friends. I was busy. Not that busy now, and I’m so much more at peace.

Glennon Doyle: I mean, the two points of that that I’m just going over in my head right now are like, okay, so if you lose someone or something by bringing yourself to it, that was not something you ever had in the first place. It’s okay. It’s just a culling, right? And then the second part is while we have to be okay being a bad guy in somebody else’s mind. We must allow that. If we break up with somebody, whether it’s a friendship or whatever, and it’s not because you’re wrong or I’m wrong, it’s just this is wrong for me, we don’t need to spend the next year controlling the narrative in that person’s head that they were the wrong one and we were the right one, restoring order that I am the good guy, I am the good guy. It is okay to be the bad guy in somebody else’s mind. And in fact, sometimes we have to let them have that, right? That is the way we separate sometimes, but we work so hard to make sure that the narrative is controlled here and that I am justified in this leaving. But what if we didn’t do that?

Alex Hedison: Right, but I think that that’s why what comes first is troubling yourself with yourself. So learning how to listen in, because I don’t actually suggest just going out and saying to that person, “This isn’t working for me,” because I could tell someone right now, “Oh, that relationship is not serving you.” They could go deliver the message to the friend, and then they would not be able to hold it. They wouldn’t be able to tolerate it because they haven’t done the work. They haven’t listened in long enough to have a landing space for themselves where they’re able to return home over and over again and know themselves and know it’s okay that the person’s uncomfortable. It’s okay. I really did do my best because I know myself so well. So I think the work is starting to listen. Maybe it’s journaling. Maybe it’s having a friend or a sister who you can talk to and go, this relationship with this person doesn’t feel good, or this thing I’m doing doesn’t feel good. And you can trouble it with each other where there’s a safe space where you start to listen to yourself differently, and then, then you go out into the world.

So I think it really does start with doing the inner work. I think that’s what this podcast is. I do. I think that every time we listen to this podcast, we’re listening to people who are aligned. We’re forming a habit. We’re listening to conversations that feel courageous. We can do hard things. We can listen in. We can ask difficult questions. We can be curious. We can be uncomfortable. I’ve heard you so many times in this podcast be uncomfortable in real time, trouble things in real time, so you’re modeling something. So surround yourself, to anyone who’s listening, to surround yourself with people who return you to you.

Abby Wambach: Yes. And I think that that right there is one of the most important elements about having any of these difficult or troubling or… these conversations with friends, because so many times I haven’t dealt with myself first. And what happens is you go to a friend and you file your grievance of some sort, but you haven’t really gotten right with yourself around why you feel that way. So when you go and file the grievance, you then have feelings about their feelings. But if you actually can sit with yourself and sort out what it is you feel and what it is has brought you out of your own alignment, if you have sorted that out and then you go and you have the conversation, then it really doesn’t matter.

Alex Hedison: Right, because you’re able to tolerate your feelings-

Abby Wambach: Yes.

Alex Hedison: … and theirs.

Abby Wambach: Yes. Yes.

Amanda Doyle: The part of this that I feel like we could talk about for seven more hours is the divesting piece that you brought up as the third option, where you could either bring it to the person, you can not bring it to the person and just feel anxious and insecure in the relationship, or you can slowly step back and get smaller and smaller in the relationship and silently… what do they call it? Quiet quitting? Quiet quitting at work. It’s your quiet quitting a relationship.

And the thing about that that resonates so deeply with me is that we think the brave thing sometimes is having the courage to leave a relationship or having the courage to not engage with a relationship. But the braver thing, the thing that requires more of us, the thing that really makes us dig deep and be vulnerable, is to actually know what we need, say what we need, and own it enough to say it to ourselves and then say it out loud before we decide that that other person can’t give it to us.

But because that’s so fucking vulnerable, to identify what you need and then believe you deserve it enough to say it, and then to risk them saying that they won’t or can’t give it to you, we would rather slowly and quietly walk away and say, “That person wasn’t for me anyway,” because it requires more of us. I mean, we were in marriage therapy recently, and I’m saying all the things, and then this and then this, and then our therapist said, “I don’t want to hear any more about that. What do you want? You say what you want.” And I realized that that, identifying what I want and bringing it and saying, “This is what I need and want,” is 1000 times harder than just saying, “I don’t want that thing.”

Abby Wambach: Mm-hmm. Yes. Because it insinuates that if you say what you want, then you actually have to go about cultivating it on some level in yourself.

Amanda Doyle: You have to identify what it is.

Abby Wambach: Yep.

Alex Hedison: [inaudible 00:23:41].

Amanda Doyle: So much easier to say no, not that, than to say, what do I actually want? What is a world that I can dream up and imagine for us and for me? And then ask for it.

Glennon Doyle: That’s why relationship work is so silly without personal work.

Abby Wambach: Yeah.

Alex Hedison: Yes. And also, and also, I want to make space here for people who are so misaligned that they are in relationships where there are unequal power dynamics that turn into abuse of some kind, where… like for me, use of alcohol felt like it was abusive to me. If I had waited for self-esteem or if I had waited for a healthy relationship with myself to stop drinking, it would not have happened. Sometimes it’s the actual action of doing something that leads to right thinking, versus I’m going to have right thinking that leads to right action.

Glennon Doyle: Yes. Yeah.

Alex Hedison: Right action can sometimes lead to right thinking. So in the case of abuse, and I’m not just saying physical abuse, it’s emotional abuse, in the case, one must, if they can, leave, quit it, walk away, find a safe space, and not wait for all of the healthy inner dialogue. That will come later.

Glennon Doyle: Yeah, that’s right.

Alex Hedison: Do you know what I mean? That’s the only time where I feel like, yeah, just get out. Break it. Get out.

Glennon Doyle: Yeah. I was telling you this last night, Alex, but I needed to leave a therapist, or I wanted to leave a therapist. And so I was talking to another person, my doctor, actually, at the time, and she was like, “You have to tell the therapist. I’m not going to tell the therapist.” And I was like, “Well, I don’t understand what I’m paying you for then. Clearly you told me to go to this person. I’ve decided your referral was shitty. Tell her.”

Abby Wambach: “It’s your fault.”

Glennon Doyle: And she was like, “Okay, but this is part of your therapy.” And I was like, “Well, isn’t that fucking convenient?” Wow. Everything’s part of my therapy, right? But wow, was it so… She was just saying to me exactly what you’re saying to me. You are learning how to person. You are learning how to have a need. Yay, you had a need. You need something else, awesome. But then there’s this other part that you keep not doing, which is very the same as you know how to relapse over this last Christmas. I am learning in real time that when I disappear without stressing a situation, when I go without negotiating a situation, whether that going is not calling someone back ever, quitting something, dissociating at a dinner table till I wake up in a bathroom, there is a moment of not stressing a relationship, whether it’s myself, my family, a friend, that there is a fucking direct cost to.

What you are teaching me, what that doctor is teaching me is, awesome, there she is. You have a need. You are upset. You have identified something that is not working for you. Step one. Now there’s the step two. What are you going to do? Are you going to just disappear? I did not know, Alex. I went into therapy, like, well, I threw up again. This is indecipherable. I don’t even want to talk about it anymore. Nobody knows why. We’ve made the conditions. I am out of control completely. And we sat for a month and I walked back the moments, and there was a moment of disembodiment. There was a moment of disassociation where I was in a situation or in situations where I felt this is unacceptable and I did not stress it and I did not use my agency, and I did not speak up, and I didn’t do anything because I thought I could endure. My plan is to endure.

No, it never is. I don’t endure. I throw up. Like, wow, it’s directly related to what you’re teaching me in friendship. There comes a moment where you either manifest yourself and your feelings on the outside, or you self-harm.

Alex Hedison: That’s right. That’s why I was saying the price is so great. You self-harm and you disappear. And then there’s behavior that covers up the disappearing act. For me, it’s moving really quickly. It’s talking really fast. It’s barking out orders. It’s multitasking. And then that affects everyone around me. And then I wonder why my wife needs to protect herself and be in her own world, because I’m creating so much chaos because I’m offline.

Glennon Doyle: It feels to me like all of this is connected to your work in the world too.

Alex Hedison: Yes.

Glennon Doyle: Because you once sat with me at a table and said something like, “If I don’t find a way to put my full self into my art, I will die.”

Alex Hedison: Yeah.

Glennon Doyle: Okay. Now, if you’re not a lesbian or if… This is a normal conversation for us at a dinner table. If I do not find a way-

Abby Wambach: Queer people all around are like, “Oh, this conversation is so familiar.”

Glennon Doyle: … yeah, to put more of myself, put my full self into my art, I will die. And you, there was no… That was-

Alex Hedison: Serious.

Glennon Doyle: Real serious.

Alex Hedison: Earnest for sure.

Glennon Doyle: Absolutely. There was no part of me that… Actually, I’ve never thought this once when I’m talking to you, but there was no part of me that thought, well, that sounds dramatic. It was real and is real.

Can you talk to us about that, how that’s connected to this, to this time in your life? How are you doing that? What did you mean? Is your art different now? Is this tied to your new projects? What do you mean?

Alex Hedison: Okay. So I do many things, but the thing that I’ve done primarily, the work I’ve done primarily, is my artwork as a photographer, making that work, photographing that work somewhere in the world, showing it. And it’s been a project of solitary nature, and I chose it for that reason. It does not require anyone else, no one else’s input. I felt that I had complete agency over my work, over myself. And I’ve been doing it for a long time, and I love it. I am very visual. I am a photographer. I am an artist.

And as I’ve been waking up, as I’ve come into my late 40s, early 50s, I’ve realized how much I’ve separated myself from the world. And that’s where I talk about curated spaces, where I was shocked to know that the conversation we’re having in your living room is the same as something you’d have on the podcast, that is not curated, that is messy, that is real, that is true, and it scares me. It’s connected. So I profess to want to have a deep experience of life, and yet I am so careful with my work and with myself that I have designed a profession where I do everything on my own. And in a gallery space, you’ll see this work on the walls that has to do with something. It’s like an idea of an idea of an idea of an idea, and I’m quite far away from it. There’s beauty in it and there’s poetry in it, and I feel strongly about my work, and I felt like I was not using a part of myself. I was not using the majority of myself, and I wasn’t connecting with the world in the way that I want to.

And you very much, both of you, and Amanda, have inspired me to connect more. You do so much. You reach out. You show yourselves. You are connected, and I wanted to do it more. Filmmaking, for me, uses more of me. Being on this podcast right now is using more of me. It’s vulnerable. I got nothing to sell. I’m not promoting anything. I’m just being with you, and I feel safe enough with you and with your community to show myself.

So I made this film with Alok, because when I met Alok I felt awakened in many, many ways. I felt like they were challenging me. They were inviting me. They were provoking me. They were exciting me. And I just started following them around. I didn’t know, like, okay, so this is the thing I’m doing. I didn’t have an end goal. I didn’t come with an assumption of what it would look like or what I would make or what their story was. I just started following them, and it was an absolute love project. And that feels like the first step into this new chapter of using myself more, and it was so hard. It was hard and it was glorious and it was connected. I worked with these incredible producers, Natalie Shirinian, Elizabeth Baudouin, and Meggan Lennon. So I was in community with people who were helping me and working with me. Great editors, DPs, sound people, mixing people, colorists. It was so exciting to be in community.

And then when we got into Sundance, it was so exciting. It was such an exciting, improbable thing. And then I was again thrust into this community of storytellers, filmmakers, film lovers. And it’s exciting and it’s scary, because I just want to do more, and what if it’s bad? What if I… You know, I was nervous about being on this podcast. When we had dinner last night and Jodie was talking about something, it was so interesting. She’s endlessly interesting to me, and I said to you, kind of in jest but kind of not, “If you want to interview her tomorrow, not me, 100% I get it.”

Glennon Doyle: That was so funny, Alex. That was so funny and interesting.

Alex Hedison: It’s just showing we go up and down, up and down.

Amanda Doyle: You are endlessly interesting and brilliant to me.

Abby Wambach: I’m stunned by… You know, we’ve known you for a couple of years now, over two years, and the work that you’ve done over the time that we’ve been friends, it’s amazing to me, but I feel like it’s important to note that you wanted to bring more of yourself into your art through this doc, and you did that, and look at what happened when brought more of yourself into a piece of work. You will forever have the Sundance Film Festival logo forever on all of your professional shit.

Glennon Doyle: Remember when they FaceTimed us from bed? We’re always in bed, but all four of us, so that’s really convenient. It was probably 4:00 PM.

Alex Hedison: Well, you know, it’s 5:00 PM. Yeah.

Glennon Doyle: Right. Yeah. Remember when they FaceTimed us and their little faces were there and they told us about Sundance?

Abby Wambach: Yeah. It’s just like, I’m not surprised. I mean, I am not surprised. The more that you can keep bringing to the world, the more the world will just keep replying, “We love you, Alex.”

Glennon Doyle: Yeah. Your photography is so wildly beautiful.

Abby Wambach: It’s all over our house.

Glennon Doyle: It’s our whole house. I have one friend, all right? She’s well-represented.

Amanda Doyle: You chose the correct one.

Glennon Doyle: No matter how beautiful it is, the images, you yourself in real time blows any image of you out of the water. It’s like you in real time, I just feel so lucky that I get to know you-you in our living room, in your living room. I mean, Alex, the other day, she’s coming over for dinner, and I said, “You can’t come till 6:00 or something.” That’s very late for us, because Emma has a soccer game. And she’s like, “Oh, I’m going to the soccer game.” I sent her three texts about different ways she could get out of going to this soccer game, because if it were me, I’m the mother and I’m looking for ways to get out of this soccer game. There Alex is, on the sideline. I mean, the girls…

Abby Wambach: Well, eventually she had to text us back and-

Glennon Doyle: Tell me to stop.

Abby Wambach: “I really would love to be at Emma’s game.”

Alex Hedison: And let me know if, for some reason, it would be better if I’m not.

Amanda Doyle: She was stressing the relationship.

Alex Hedison: I was stressing the relationship by saying, “I just want you to know that that I’d like to go”-

Glennon Doyle: “What would it look like-“

Alex Hedison: “… but I’m open if it doesn’t work for you. But please don’t think for me.”

Abby Wambach: Yeah. That’s good.

Glennon Doyle: Oh, that’s good.

Alex Hedison: I’m able to take care of myself. I’m able to say no.

Glennon Doyle: Oh, god, that’s so nice.

Alex Hedison: I’m able to say no. And I’d like to go, and I’m fine if for some reason it doesn’t work. I wanted to go to Emma’s soccer game, because how many soccer games of hers am I going to see? Time is going very quickly. How many times am I going to see her play soccer with her high school team? It went by so quickly with our boys. I mean, they played sports for about four seconds, by the way, but even going to their plays or going to school, it’s over. Those times are over. Driving them to school, done.

Abby Wambach: Yeah, that part, I’m happy about that being done.

Alex Hedison: Okay. I didn’t drive them to school. I drove them to the bus stop. I mean, [inaudible 00:38:26].

Glennon Doyle: We are going to come back and talk about grief. I just have a knowing that the pod squad is going to demand that this is an ongoing series with Alex Hedison for a very long time, so-

Abby Wambach: Agreed.

Alex Hedison: I love being here.

Glennon Doyle: We might have to book you six more times.

Alex Hedison: I love it. I love this. I just, I love being with you guys. I love it so much. I loved when we had our shoot at your house for We Can Do Hard Things.

Abby Wambach: Yeah. You guys, the cover art, when you click on the podcast to listen to this podcast right now, that little picture that you see to click on this podcast was taken by Alex Hedison.

Alex Hedison: And it was such a joyful experience. It was so much fun.

Glennon Doyle: Yeah, it sure was. That was my first picture ever taken of me that I was like, I think that looks like me.

Alex Hedison: Yes.

Glennon Doyle: I recognize myself. I can see myself.

Alex Hedison: That was my hope, is that you would look at it and say, “This is the most beautiful photograph of me, and it looks exactly like me.”

Glennon Doyle: That is how I felt. Didn’t you go home and tell Jodie, “I think I just took the first pictures”-

Alex Hedison: I did.

Glennon Doyle: “… of Glennon that exist.”

Alex Hedison: I said, “I really think I took the best pictures of them ever.” I was so happy. They were so joyful and beautiful. So beautiful.

Glennon Doyle: Tell me before we end, isn’t today the eighth anniversary of your mother’s death?

Alex Hedison: Yes. Today. My mom died eight years ago. My brilliant, complicated, extraordinary mother Bridget.

Glennon Doyle: Bridget.

Alex Hedison: She died eight years ago, and then my father died three years after that. And three years before my mother died, she was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer, and so it was a lot of caretaking and doctors and sickness and dying for years with both of them, and then death and walking them through that, which was one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life. So hopefully we can talk about that sometime, because it was… That time was, especially with my mother, where we had had such a difficult relationship, the love was so concentrated. There was no space for anything else but truth and presence, realness and love. It was an amazing time, those three years, when she was diagnosed to when she died.

Glennon Doyle: I can’t wait already to come back and talk about that. Before we leave, tell us one thing about you that is directly from Bridget.

Alex Hedison: The willingness to accept the complexities of life and truth, that things are not just one way. As soon as we concretize something and make it this thing that we can live with, it becomes a shadow of itself. It becomes an object that we can’t actually interact with. It’s not a living, breathing thing. Because anything living or breathing is changing, is challenging us, is exciting us, is disappointing us, is leaving us in grief or heartbreak or madly in love and enthralled. So she taught me to look for the truth and accept that that truth always changes over time as we change.

Glennon Doyle: Even the truth is embodied and changing.

Alex Hedison: The truth is embodied. It’s breathing, and our stories change over time as we change. Our relationships grow. They fall away. This time is precious.

Glennon Doyle: Mm-hmm.

Abby Wambach: Damn.

Glennon Doyle: Well, we love you, Alex Hedison. Thanks for being our friend.

Alex Hedison: I love you so much.

Abby Wambach: I love you, Alex. You’re the best.

Alex Hedison: Amanda-

Amanda Doyle: Thank you. I love you, Alex.

Alex Hedison: … I’m so happy to know you now.

Amanda Doyle: I’m honored to know you, Alex. You’re a wise bird.

Alex Hedison: And you all bring me so much. I feel like one of the things I wanted to talk about is how much joy Abby brings me, how much joy and fun and play and excitement. I am 12 with Abby, and I mean, Abby got me into the cold plunge.

Glennon Doyle: I know. Oh, wait. Can we end with that story, please?

Alex Hedison: Yes, yes.

Glennon Doyle: So Alex comes to our house to go in the cold plunge and do the list of things because she wasn’t feeling good. So Abby walks her through, and it makes her feel better. So she comes over two days later. And Abby goes upstairs to make dinner for us, and so I say, “I’m going to help you with the cold plunge. It’s in the garage.” So I walk out with Alex and I go, “You just get in there. Get in.” And she’s like, “I don’t want to get in. It’s so cold.” I’m like, “I know. I know. I’m so sorry.” And she goes, “You know what? I need Abby. This is not right.”

Alex Hedison: I was advocating for myself.

Glennon Doyle: Yeah, exactly.

Alex Hedison: I was stressing our relationship and saying, “Look, I’m going to have to be honest, but I really trust Abby in this situation, and I feel that if I’m going to get into this cold plunge, she’s going to need to be here and not you. This is not working for me.”

Glennon Doyle: That’s exactly right.

Alex Hedison: You’re good at many, many things, Glennon, but getting me into the cold plunge is not one of them.

Glennon Doyle: No. But if you want to get out of doing something hard, I’m your girl.

Alex Hedison: Yes.

Glennon Doyle: I was ready for us to get the hell out of that garage together.

Alex Hedison: Yes.

Glennon Doyle: You knew that’s not what you wanted.

Alex Hedison: No.

Glennon Doyle: So I went upstairs, got Abby. I said, “I’ll keep stirring this. You have to go coach or something. I don’t know what she needs, but it’s not me.”

Alex Hedison: And Abby just stood there. Her arms are folded, and she’s like, “If you don’t want to do it, you don’t have to do it.” Like, oh, goddamn it. And I got in. “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to do it, but you’re just a sucker if you don’t.”

Glennon Doyle: But by the way, that’s just proof that it’s all about how you say something, because I was saying the same thing. I was saying, “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to do it.”

Amanda Doyle: No, but your eyes and your heart say…

Glennon Doyle: But my energy was like, let’s not do it then.

Alex Hedison: Your body language, everything.

Glennon Doyle: I want to save you from this. And Abby’s heart and I say, “I want to not save you from this because I want you to save yourself by getting your ass in that plunge.”

Alex Hedison: Abby’s a champion, looking at me going… I mean, literally every accomplishment of her entire life was just staring at me. She was there in her Olympic uniform. That’s all I could see, with me going, “I don’t want to get in the cold plunge. I don’t know. It’s going to be hard.” I thought, I can’t. It might be chilly in there, but it might be cold. And the thing is, and I thought, I can’t. I cannot, and I said to her, I said, “I can’t not get in.”

Abby Wambach: Yes.

Alex Hedison: That’s just, no.

Glennon Doyle: You’re such a good girl, babe.

Abby Wambach: I mean, Alex, all that is really sweet, and you had to make the choice for yourself. Here she is.

Alex Hedison: I did.

Abby Wambach: And so sometimes there’s these external elements that help us make this choice for ourselves or hurt us and not let us make those choices for ourselves.

Amanda Doyle: Like Glennon, then me.

Abby Wambach: And getting into the cold plunge is the hardest thing I do every single day. Hardest physical thing I do every single day.

Alex Hedison: You’ve helped me with many, many choices and many things that have brought so much joy. So much joy, Abby. I’m just so grateful for you.

Abby Wambach: Yeah. I’m a joy junkie. Joy junkie over here.

Glennon Doyle: Me too. I feel so grateful. You’re We Can Do Hard Things, really. I’m We Can Hardly Do Things.

Abby Wambach: No. Okay. I would say the physical stuff, yeah, I can do hard things, and the emotional stuff, you-

Glennon Doyle: True.

Abby Wambach: You’re down that… I’m on your coattails.

Glennon Doyle: Emotional cold plunges every damn day over here.

Abby Wambach: That’s right. Yeah.

Alex Hedison: Yeah, yeah.

Glennon Doyle: Yeah.

Alex Hedison: But I’m like, do we have to do things at all?

Glennon Doyle: Right. Yes. Yes. That’s a great question. All right, pod squad, don’t worry. We will be back with Alex Hedison one day very soon and many other days. We love you. See you next time.

Alex Hedison: Love you so much.

Glennon Doyle: Go forth and stress your relationships. Bye.

If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us if you’d be willing to take 30 seconds to do these three things. First, can you please follow or subscribe to We Can Do Hard Things? Following the pod helps you because you’ll never miss an episode, and it helps us because you’ll never miss an episode. To do this, just go to the We Can Do Hard Things show page on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audacy, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and then just tap the plus sign in the upper right-hand corner or click on Follow. This is the most important thing for the pod. While you’re there, if you’d be willing to give us a five-star rating and review and share an episode you loved with a friend, we would be so grateful. We appreciate you very much.

We Can Do Hard Things is created and hosted by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle. In partnership with Audacy, our executive producer is Jenna Weiss-Berman, and the show is produced by Lauren LoGrasso, Allison Schott, Dina Kleiner, and Bill Schultz.