How to Stop Worrying with Martha Beck
January 9, 2025
Glennon Doyle:
Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things.
In the last episode, if you have not listened yet, we dove into anxiety culture anxiety with Dr. Martha Beck, and Martha walked us through why it is that the things we do to try to help ourselves feel safer actually make us feel less safe and take us into anxiety spirals that we can’t get out of, and she taught us how to get out of anxiety spirals with actual real skills and tricks.
Today, she’s going to walk my sister, Amanda, my wife, Abby, and me, through particular issues that bring each of us great anxiety. She’s going to show you, Pod Squad, how to stop that anxiety in its tracks and how to move into a place of peace and creativity, and it actually freaking works.
Okay? So just sit down, listen up, watch Martha work her magic on us, and you’re going to learn how to work this magic on yourself.
Welcome, Dr. Martha Beck.
Martha, let’s start with this and then you are going to go into an exercise with each of us to coach us through and out of an anxiety spiral is how we’re thinking about this.
Martha Beck:
This is going to be fun.
Glennon Doyle:
And I’m hoping it will serve the entire Pod Squad, and they’ll be able to recreate it…
Martha Beck:
Okay.
Glennon Doyle:
… in their own lives. But can you first just quote to us what Erma Bombeck said about how she keeps airplanes in the air? Because…
Martha Beck:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
If not, I have it written down. But do you know that?
Martha Beck:
She says, “People just falling asleep all around me while I alone am keeping the plane in the air by pulling upward on the arms of my seat. Yes. That is how we should live, not.” Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
So my beloved love bugs, Pod Squaders, you understand? We are not the pilot. We are literally sitting in seats with no control, watching people around us rest, feeling mad at them because we believe that we are running the world through the slight pressure we’re putting on our arm rest. So Martha is going to show us how we, too, could be the people that just take naps when the plane is in the air. Amanda, would you like to start?
Amanda Doyle:
Sure. I love that quote because it just shows that a lot of anxiety is coming from a place of love and protection of people.
Martha Beck:
Yes, absolutely.
Glennon Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Doyle:
I mean, we’re not doing it to be the God in the sky. We’re doing it…
Glennon Doyle:
No.
Amanda Doyle:
… because we really do believe that pulling up is keeping everyone on this plane safe. So it’s just like all of that beautiful energy, but it’s just going down the wrong tube.
Martha Beck:
Right.
Amanda Doyle:
Or something.
Martha Beck:
Isn’t that adorable that we really, really are trying to control the world so no one ever has to suffer again?
Amanda Doyle:
Right.
Glennon Doyle:
I know, and it’s poison in a little bit, right, Martha? Like, one of the things I have thought about so much over the last year is that the thing that I’m doing to help my people is in fact hurting my people. Because when you’re on a plane, actually… Let’s just stick with that metaphor.
Martha Beck:
Uh-huh.
Glennon Doyle:
And you see someone gripping the handles. What does that do? It makes you, whether you like it or not, viscerally have a reaction of, “Maybe I should be doing that too.” Like, “Maybe she’s onto something.” Tish, one of our daughters, was going on a trip, and I was dropping her off at her friend’s house, and I said, “Okay, just make sure, like, when you’re walking around the town, just, you know, keep your little voice inside your head that’s like, ‘Watch out for danger, blah, blah, blah.” She goes, “Mom, I think you can officially rest. That voice you have in your head is in my body. I am always doing that.”
Martha Beck:
I love that. She’s brilliant.
Glennon Doyle:
But it’s sad, Martha. I did that to her.
Martha Beck:
No, that’s okay.
Glennon Doyle:
Is it?
Martha Beck:
Because… Yeah. I mean, I remember when I was 13, and I read for the first time that the brain is fixed and rigid by the age of five, and I was like, “Fuck, I’m 13, and it’s over for me.”
Glennon Doyle:
“I’m 13.”
Martha Beck:
And then…
Glennon Doyle:
“I retire.”
Martha Beck:
I know. Then, you know, like, three decades later, they figured out, “Oh, oops. The brain is actually malleable, and moving, and rearranging itself all your life.” So all you have to do is say, “Oh, let me fix the anxiety tendencies in my own brain. Then I’ll be a touchstone for Tish about not only being calm, but getting there from the anxiety I gave to her.”
You just have to live it in order for it to emanate out from you. You teach it. You teach your own beliefs with every action, every choice, everything you say to anybody. So if you can calm your own anxiety and live in a place of joy, and creativity, and connection, which I truly believe we all can, the people around you are going to be affected very powerfully no matter how old they are.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, that’s a good start. Okay.
Martha Beck:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
So there’s so much hope. It’s not done by the time we’re five. If you’re 48, we can start right now if you’re listening…
Martha Beck:
Absolutely.
Glennon Doyle:
… in this moment to figure out how to emanate calm and peace instead of terror. Sister, would you like to start?
Amanda Doyle:
Sure. It’s a good segue, segway.
Glennon Doyle:
Segue. Let’s do a segue. So, Martha, what do you need to know from her to get started on this journey?
Amanda Doyle:
Or do you already know enough? Like, you could just do me without, like…
Glennon Doyle:
You’re just…
Martha Beck:
Stop being anxious or I’ll bury you alive in a box. Have you seen that Bob Newhart thing?
Amanda Doyle:
No.
Glennon Doyle:
I’ve not.
Amanda Doyle:
But it sounds great.
Martha Beck:
That woman goes to a psychiatrist and she have this terrible, terrible fear of being buried alive in a box, and he says, “Okay, I’ll give you my cure. Stop it, stop it or I’ll bury you alive in a box.” Which is kind of what we do to ourselves.
Anyway, all I need to know is on a scale from one to 10, how anxious are you feeling today?
Amanda Doyle:
I am not feeling anxious today. Talking to you all makes me not feel anxious. Maybe a two or three today?
Martha Beck:
Then my work here is done. Ah. Let’s go to… No.
Amanda Doyle:
But as soon as we stop recording, as soon as we stop recording, then we’re right back up.
Glennon Doyle:
Is that true?
Martha Beck:
All right, so what has made you feel anxious today? Earlier, before we started recording?
Amanda Doyle:
I mean, this week, I’m splashing around in a little pool that I thought that I had made a bunch of progress with.
Martha Beck:
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Doyle:
So I’m kind of revisiting in a way. But I have always had like a kind of existential anxiety about my daughter not having a sister.
Martha Beck:
Ah.
Amanda Doyle:
Because of just, like, the permanence of that, the kind of, like, your whole life, you know, even if you weren’t to be, like, best friends with your sister, you know that’s a constant. That’s a touch tree. That’s like a…
Martha Beck:
Sure.
Amanda Doyle:
… forever there. I don’t know what it’s like to not… Especially, she’s about to get in middle school times, and it’s like, so how do you know who your person is? If your person changes, if it’s just a flow of people. I feel very fearful about it, and I don’t know how to navigate that with her. So I have a big… And something happened last week where I see some dynamics, and it gets triggered up.
Martha Beck:
Sure.
Amanda Doyle:
And I don’t know how much I should do versus not do versus just let happen.
Martha Beck:
Well, first of all, we need to, not only just let things happen, but let’s go inside your brain and find a calm, creative place where you can address the issues that you’re afraid of. So to boil down this fear, what I’m hearing is this, and tell me where I’m wrong. It feels to me like you had a sister, she was your person, and still is in many ways, and having her was an absolute lifeline for you pretty much your whole life. Tell me where I’m wrong.
Amanda Doyle:
No, correct.
Martha Beck:
All right, so you then define an emotional lifeline as a sister. So everybody has to have a sister the way you had Glennon as a sister. Tell me where I’m wrong.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes, it just kind of feels like a sheltering place from…
Martha Beck:
Right.
Amanda Doyle:
… what I know what’s coming of, like,…
Martha Beck:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
… it would kind of friend disappointments, or friend betrayals, or abandonments just feel like there’s no shelter around that because you’re just out in open field taking those hits. That’s how it feels.
Martha Beck:
All right. So sanctuary, safety, protection from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. That security, for you, came from a sister.
Amanda Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
True?
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Martha Beck:
Okay. So then, you have defined those feelings, sanctuary, protection, love, a person to go to, a person who understands you as sister. But I know many, many people who are terrified of their sisters, have terrible sisters. Do you have brothers?
Amanda Doyle:
No.
Martha Beck:
I know a brother-sister pair who, like, could not live without each other. They’re both married, everything. It’s a very healthy, normal relationship. But they grew up way out in the wilderness together. They’re both brilliant, and the sister can only say, “I cannot stand to think of people who don’t have a brother.”
Amanda Doyle:
Uh-huh.
Martha Beck:
Because her brother was that for her, and she was that for him. But I’ve known people whose greatest fears and most devastating traumas came directly from their sisters. So sister is not necessarily the same as sanctuary.
Amanda Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
So what you’re really saying… What’s your daughter’s name?
Amanda Doyle:
Alice.
Martha Beck:
So could we say that your real fear is that Alice has no sanctuary? Alice has no person? Alice has no protection from slings and arrows? Alice is all alone out there? Is that the biggest fear?
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Martha Beck:
Because she doesn’t have Glennon. This is actually really specific.
Amanda Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
Does she not have Glennon?
Glennon Doyle:
She sent me a pitch to be on the podcast last week. She definitely has me.
Martha Beck:
Good segue there. Segway. See last episode. Alice also has you, Amanda, whom Glennon calls sister in her books. You are that source of safety and protection. It’s not the sisterness of you. It’s what you are, and Alice has you. She has Glennon. She has Abby. She will find other people in the same vein because she has been given the example of this patterning of choose people like these, not horrible, backstabbing people, which is what people choose when their sisters have been backstabby to them.
Amanda Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
Am I making any headway here?
Amanda Doyle:
Yes. Yes.
Martha Beck:
Okay so…
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Martha Beck:
… this is the calming part of addressing an anxiety. You just gently talk sense to the frightened little creature that conflates sister with safety so that you can say, “There is safety, and that can happen with almost anyone.” You know?
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
And she has you and Glennon, the two sisters in this equation before Abby came along. She has both of you.
Amanda Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
How cool is that? Double sisters.
Glennon Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s true, and she has a brother who’s wonderful to her.
Martha Beck:
Well, there you go. Okay.
Amanda Doyle:
I think maybe it’s like when I’m thinking about it, I’m like, “Is it that if she had a sister that was my daughter, then I would know that I had raised both of them to protect each other.” Since her people are going to be people that just other people raised, and how vulnerable is that? I can’t even… I have no control over those people. Those people are just out there running wild.
Martha Beck:
Oh, sweetheart, it’s so funny that you think you have control over how your daughters grow up. That is hilarious. It’s so much more nature than nurture. They’re going to be who they’re going to be, and you can’t control it. So, basically, you’re now in a story that says, “Be afraid and take control. Here’s how to control it.”
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Martha Beck:
“I need to control it.”
Amanda Doyle:
That is correct.
Martha Beck:
“I need to control it. That’s the way.” Now, this creates what we call an anxiety spiral. You have a bolt of fear that comes from, “The world is unsafe. My daughter had a triggering incident. Oh, no.” Then immediately, your brain tells a story. “She has no sister. She’s alone out there.” Then it goes to its favorite method of fixing things. “I will control everything. I must have another child and raise it to be my sister’s sister no matter what it wants.” I mean, so now…
Amanda Doyle:
“No matter what it wants.”
Martha Beck:
… you’re in a full anxiety spiral, and it is, and I love you so much, but it is fucking insane.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, yeah. When you put it like that, it is, Martha.
Martha Beck:
Yeah, I do put it like that. You put it like that. So, now, when you get to a space of laughter, you’ve shifted from the anxiety spiral. Remember the right side of the brain?
Amanda Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
The only place that uses language are poems, jokes, and songs. So by joking, I call it a joy jolt. You open up the right side of the brain. You haven’t lost sight of the fact that the world is hard and your daughter’s vulnerable. You know that. But you can also look at the people around you. Glennon’s here. Abby’s here. I’m here. The Pod Squad is here. There are so many people and so many forces surrounding Alice to make sure that it buoys her up, and yeah, she’ll have difficult experiences, but you’ve heard about those trees that they grew in geodesic domes. Have you heard about this?
Amanda Doyle:
No.
Martha Beck:
They grew them inside these domes to try to simulate a little ecosystem, and all the trees fell down before they were mature. What they realized is the trees need the pressure of wind in order to become strong.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, wow.
Martha Beck:
So, yeah, it’s a windy world out there and sometimes the wind can be cold, but it makes people strong. I mean, look at you all. You’ve been through some really dark stuff. All of you, right? You’re strong. You’re brave, and right now, you’re creating. You are creating connections between yourselves and millions of other people who are on the same wavelength, who would love to help keep Alice safe.
This is just a different story, but it feels…
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah.
Martha Beck:
… to me, when I tell it, my body relaxes, and that is my signal from nature, which runs my body to say, “Oh, you’ve landed in the truth. Alice is okay. She’s okay.”
Amanda Doyle:
She is.
Martha Beck:
And you’re okay. The little scared girl inside you is who also really needs your care and compassion. The one who’s afraid that Alice feels as scared as she did. I bet Alice never feels as scared as you did. I don’t know.
Amanda Doyle:
No, I hope not.
Martha Beck:
I don’t think so with you all as parents. No. But that’s her story, and people can go through really hard things, and it makes them very strong. You three are a testament to that. As long as we can laugh and love and tell stories about our adventures along the way, that’s the fun of it.
Glennon Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
Would you go to a movie about some nice people who are born in very tidy circumstances, have nice lunches and dinners every day until they die at the age of 110 with no conflict? Let me out. My God, that’s boring.
Amanda Doyle:
Yup.
Martha Beck:
Why would you?
Amanda Doyle:
It’s true. It’s true. Okay, so I’m just going to let everything happen, Martha.
Martha Beck:
Guess what? There’s no alternative, Amanda.
Amanda Doyle:
The alternative is I could think of all the ways.
Martha Beck:
That’s right.
Amanda Doyle:
Figure it out and then still let everything happen.
Martha Beck:
Yeah, because everything’s just going to happen the way it’s going to happen, and the more clenched up you are, the less influence you’ll have. Because if we can unclench completely and go into a state of real, present joy, what happens is that conditions tend to shift around us in favorable ways. I wrote three parts of this book on anxiety.
First part is the creature because that’s the animal that gets anxious. Then there’s the creative who says, “Oh, the world is scary. What should I do now? But what should I make now?” Which immediately takes you into creativity, and if you can go into the creative part of your brain, then the last third of the book is called The Creation because you stop. When you’re deep enough in joy and far enough away from anxiety, you start to feel yourself as kind of a field of compassion that is moving with your body and sometimes through your body, but there’s no sense of effort, and it’s not really known in our culture.
In China and Japan, it’s well-known. People have been talking about it for thousands of years. But when you get to that state of transcendent happiness, you make everything around you better, but you don’t have to do it. It just happens.
Glennon Doyle:
I understand that because it feels like the inevitable outcome of that would be that you would become a sanctuary.
Martha Beck:
Yes. Yeah. My favorite poem from the poet Hafiz, who was a 13th century Persian poet. There’s a little bit of it that just goes, “Troubled? Then stay with me for I am not.”
Amanda Doyle:
Thank God.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, gosh. So good.
Martha Beck:
All you have to have is someone like that.
Amanda Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
So why not be someone like that?
Glennon Doyle:
Do you want to go love?
Abby Wambach:
Sure.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Martha Beck:
Abby, you’re up.
Glennon Doyle:
Go ahead.
Abby Wambach:
What’s the game? What do I say?
Martha Beck:
What are you most worried about? What are you most anxious about lately?
Abby Wambach:
See, I don’t do anxiety. It’s not something that I relate to because I think being an athlete for so long, I’ve learned to, like, use my body in a way to work through it.
Martha Beck:
Absolutely.
Abby Wambach:
So I have had anxious times in my life. Absolutely.
Martha Beck:
Mm-hmm.
Abby Wambach:
When the wheels fall off and people die, all of that, those feel like real moments. I’m not in an extraordinarily, like, anxious moment of my life.
Martha Beck:
Mm-hmm.
Abby Wambach:
But I’ve had the worst year of my life.
Martha Beck:
Okay, first of all, let me just address what you just said because it is profoundly important. All the time you spent perfecting your skills in athletics, soccer, of course, mostly, but everything you do, really. As an athlete, you’re grounded in your body, and you’re paying really close attention to things like the arc of the ball as it comes toward you.
You’re not thinking about what you’re going to do with your friends next week. You’re present. You’re physically grounded. Your senses are wide open, and you’ve fired your brain in that direction so often that you don’t wire for anxiety. You have wired yourself for no anxiety. So kudos. You thought you were just a world-class athlete. You were also world-class brainiac.
Okay. Now, why was it the worst year of your life?
Abby Wambach:
First time that’s ever been said out loud. I’ll take it. Yeah, so my brother passed away at the end of December last year.
Martha Beck:
Oh, sorry, honey.
Abby Wambach:
It has felt like the hits just have kept coming.
Martha Beck:
Oh.
Glennon Doyle:
Amanda’s.
Abby Wambach:
Sister’s cancer stuff that she went through.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, yeah.
Abby Wambach:
We’ve had some… You know, just like life was, like, really… I wasn’t able to transcend is what I’m saying.
Martha Beck:
Yeah, yeah.
Abby Wambach:
I wasn’t able, and I think I’ve been grounded in so much grief over the last 12 months that that’s kind of been my baseline.
Martha Beck:
Yeah, yeah.
Abby Wambach:
Because of that, it’s given me, I think, this negative outlook.
Martha Beck:
Sure. Absolutely.
Abby Wambach:
Because I keep saying every month, and I’m like, “Okay, that’s done. We’re moving on.” But, like, you know, grief is not something to just chuck into the closet and be done with. It’s something that keeps showing up.
Martha Beck:
Right.
Abby Wambach:
So I’ve done quite a bit of, like, intense therapy around it, and the moment I started to accept the fact that I was going to live with this grief forever,…
Martha Beck:
Right, right.
Abby Wambach:
… it will move in different ways, and it’ll show up differently.
Martha Beck:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
Then the light has kind of started to show back into my life, which is great.
Martha Beck:
Right.
Abby Wambach:
I think maybe there’s an anxiety that now kind of lives in my body around, “Is it true?” Like, there’s fear that I have that I will never be able…
Martha Beck:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
… to have access to pre-peter’s life feeling of okayness.
Martha Beck:
Yeah. I was just going to ask you, are you afraid of feeling this way forever?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Martha Beck:
Yeah, because that is a real thing. It’s really interesting because, in our last episode, I talked about how, with fear, the first thing you do is calm the animal of your body, and you know how to do that. But then, you go into a place where you make something, and in your case, I say C-A-T for cat. C is for calm. A is for art, and your art, your primary art was soccer, is soccer.
Abby Wambach:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
So you’ve been doing art your whole life, in case people think I’m narrowly defining art. It’s anything you make or do that you can master.
Abby Wambach:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
So you’ve done that. As you continue to make things, you get to this point, I just talked about, called transcendence. Abby, I think your life is bringing you an opportunity because you’ve already come so far on this path of evolution away from fear, that it’s asking you to transcend the deepest fears that a human being has. So you are in the black belt training right now.
Abby Wambach:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
What we have to do with any of our fears… You saw how I sort of picked away at Amanda saying, “Are you sure this is true?”
Abby Wambach:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
So let’s take your brother’s death.
Abby Wambach:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
What’s the most painful thought you have around his being gone?
Abby Wambach:
That it’s going to happen to me too.
Martha Beck:
Well, your body probably will eventually lie down and stop talking.
Abby Wambach:
Yup. I’m really scared to death.
Martha Beck:
Oh.
Abby Wambach:
That’s part of what I’m, like, in active therapy around.
Martha Beck:
Okay. All right.
Abby Wambach:
Because this really brought it to the surface. Obviously, I’m devastated for his family and his children.
Martha Beck:
Sure.
Abby Wambach:
And him.
Martha Beck:
Yeah, yeah.
Abby Wambach:
He really liked living, and he liked having a good time. He was total joy guy. But it stoked this real deep fear of…
Martha Beck:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
… the unknown. The thing that’s really happening…
Martha Beck:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
… to all of us right now.
Martha Beck:
Mm-hmm. As I said in the last episode, all long-standing fears that aren’t of something in the room, they come from stories.
Abby Wambach:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
And culture tells us different stories. Every culture tells slightly different stories, sometimes very different stories about death and what it is. We live in a very left hemisphere-dominated society. The left hemisphere only believes in material objects, and it identifies itself as material objects, and wants to grasp them and hold onto them. The idea of losing the self and losing control are maxed out in the idea of death.
Abby Wambach:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
Interestingly, when they test meditators, Tibetan meditators who are in complete bliss all the time, you know what’s not working in their brains? The part that says, “I am a self.” And the part that says, “I am in control.” Those two things are off.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Martha Beck:
So you know the materialist story of what death is. Our culture says you die, you’re gone. That’s all there is. Does that bring peace to your body to think that story?
Abby Wambach:
Mm-mm.
Martha Beck:
To just have those thoughts?
Abby Wambach:
Mm-mm.
Martha Beck:
Does it bring a sense of freedom that we die, and we’re gone, and the material?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Martha Beck:
And there’s nothing else?
Abby Wambach:
No.
Martha Beck:
So I may have told you this before. The Buddha used to say, “Wherever you find water, a body of water, you can know if it’s the sea because the sea always tastes of salt, and wherever you find enlightenment, you can recognize it because enlightenment always tastes of freedom.”
Abby Wambach:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
So when we think thoughts that are deeply true to us like the thought… Think this thought, you three overachievers, at no time am I ever required to do more than I can do in peace. Give that one a trip around your brain.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, that’s good.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh.
Martha Beck:
Does it make you feel freer?
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Martha Beck:
The reason it makes you feel freer is that it’s true. That’s my belief.
Now, I have had in near-death experience or something very much like it, and after it, I became obsessed with near-death experiences because it was so exquisite. I just couldn’t live without it. I just would read books, anything I could, about people who had, like, gone through this transition because what they experienced… Actually this painting, it’s kind of blurry.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, yeah.
Martha Beck:
This is a painting I did based on that experience. It’s a man going through this sort of stained-glass windows in a cathedral that’s also a forest, and he’s going to toward this light. So, long story short, I was in surgery, I regained consciousness even though I wasn’t feeling any pain, and I could see, even though my eyes were taped shut, and this light appeared to me, and it permeated me, and it was the most exquisite feeling.
Oh my God, and it was just laughing with me. We were laughing together. We were like, “Oh my God, I forgot that I was this.” The light was saying, “I know. We told you you’d forget, and you said, ‘No, no, I won’t.’ Then you totally forgot.” We were laughing and laughing. It was physically warm. It was like liquid bliss, and I couldn’t stand to live without it, and I had to find my way back to it. But I know that I probably am going to go through that when I die. It’s such an intensely real experience. It’s so much more real than the physical universe.
But, Abby, is there any way we could, like, chip away at the story of death that you’ve been taught by your culture or by your religion where God’s really pissed off at you?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
And where she’s going straight to hell.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, that’s the…
Glennon Doyle:
She was taught that as a kid.
Martha Beck:
Oh.
Glennon Doyle:
That she was going to hell.
Martha Beck:
Me too.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. Yeah, that’s the deal.
Martha Beck:
I left Mormonism. Not to mention being gay, that is the sin worse than murder. I’m going…
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly.
Martha Beck:
… through eternal darkness.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Martha Beck:
Yeah. Except that is not what sets my soul free, and I refuse to read things that are just told to me arbitrarily by my culture when they don’t set me free. That… No, I’m not going to stop with their bullshit stories.
Abby Wambach:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
I’m going to keep digging in. What’s your brother’s name?
Abby Wambach:
Peter.
Martha Beck:
Peter’s gone. Can you be sure that’s true?
Abby Wambach:
Oh, yeah.
Martha Beck:
Now, ask it a second time, only this time, drop it down into the deepest interior part of yourself, like if it’s infinite out, there’s also an infinite in. Drop that question in and wait for a response from the deepest part of yourself. “Peter’s gone. Can I absolutely know that that is true?”
Abby Wambach:
No, that’s not true. I know that.
Martha Beck:
I just got me the chill of truth, like… Feel that?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. But it’s so difficult for me because, see, I feel so conflicted around even saying that out loud because it conflicts with, not just the things that I was taught, but then I had to rebel against everything that I was taught in order to be in my body, and to leave my home,…
Martha Beck:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
… and to be able to live the life that I did. So I went through atheism, and then agnosticism, and then…
Martha Beck:
Me too.
Abby Wambach:
… I met Glennon who is, like, very, you know, Jesus-minded. I’m just like, “All of it’s so confusing. The truth is we will never know what happens until it happens to us.”
Martha Beck:
Absolutely.
Abby Wambach:
So even, like, these stories that I make up, even the positive stories, I don’t know if that’s even true.
Martha Beck:
Exactly. We cannot know. This guru I love, who says, “The only true thing the mind can say is, ‘I do not know.'”
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Martha Beck:
But it’s very different to live in what’s called “don’t know mind,” which is common in Asian philosophy where you’re not projecting stories. You’re actually in the present moment, and you’re very, very sensitive to what’s happening in and around you. When my father… I wrote a book about many things, leaving Mormonism, he sexually abused me, the whole thing. He was 95 when I published that book, and I couldn’t understand why I felt I had to write it while he was still alive.
But the day it came out, where the New York Times was doing a whole cover on the art section, and I was getting death threats, and my family wanted to put me in prison and everything, and I woke up at 4:00 in the morning with this overwhelming sense of my father’s presence. But it was beautiful. It was like a symphony. It was like I’d been hearing him through a staticky radio, this beautiful song, and it was just glorious. I sat there for two hours. Then I got up and got ready for the day, and I thought, “I guess it’s because both of our truths are out there.” Then as I was doing an interview, someone came in and said, “Your father died at 4:00 this morning.”
I had no investment in… Like, I loved him. I love him, but I didn’t necessarily need him to be alive to be happy.
Glennon Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
So I didn’t really have a dog in the race. So, his… Whatever it was, hit me so tangibly. It stayed with me through this book tour where I had to have guards, and people, you know, getting frisked for guns coming into book readings and stuff, and I would hear him singing, like, songs from the Carpenters, songs that he would never have sung, but it was his voice, and he was there the whole time, so powerfully, like all the terrible fathering he did was kind of made up for in the month of great fathering he did once he died.
Glennon Doyle:
Wow.
Martha Beck:
This is just another story. Was it really his… I don’t know. Of course I don’t know. Is the religious story true? No. Anybody who says, “This is the way it is,” fuck you. It is not. You do not know that. You’re just a little monkey in shoes like me. Stop pretending you know shit. But then, live in the “I don’t know.”
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
Sometimes you feel him.
Abby Wambach:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
Sometimes you feel that when you say, “We all just die and get buried, and that’s the end,” and it’s like, “Oh, that doesn’t set me free. Religion doesn’t set me free. What if I just leave my mind wide open and walk into the mystery?” That’s what this guy behind me is doing. He’s not walking into certainty. He’s walking…
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Martha Beck:
… into the mystery.
Abby Wambach:
Isn’t maybe that, like, the most brave?
Martha Beck:
I think you know, Abby. I think you just said the truth.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. Isn’t that the right way?
Martha Beck:
It’s not the right way, but it is the brave way.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. I don’t mean to say right. It’s the brave way. It’s like that’s the thing. I haven’t known the direction to take the thought or the fear.
Martha Beck:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
This has been a huge suffering point for me throughout my entire life.
Martha Beck:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
It’s like I can attach myself to the brave way.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
Because that’s the truest way.
Martha Beck:
You’re the hero in your story. Absolutely.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. Okay.
Martha Beck:
The heroic story is not to allow any religious dogma to determine what you think about death. It is not to let atheistic science, which is just as dogmatic as religion,…
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Martha Beck:
… tell you what death is. Leave your mind and your senses open the way they are open when you’re on the soccer field playing ball.
Abby Wambach:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
Be present in that moment, and you will meet, in their energy, people that you’ve lost to death. What is it? I don’t know. But it feels like freedom.
Abby Wambach:
All right. Well, this is good.
Martha Beck:
Also, let me just say, in the words of my Australian wife, “Sucks, mate. Sucks.”
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
We were talking the other night in bed about this, which is an…
Abby Wambach:
Ongoing conversation.
Martha Beck:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Forever, eternal conversation. Abby was saying… We were discussing the possibility of an afterlife, and, like, what it could be, and what… Even existing, even another place…
Martha Beck:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
… existing, and how insane that is to think about.
Abby Wambach:
Right.
Glennon Doyle:
But then, I was like, “Well…” Okay, what makes me confused about people…
Martha Beck:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
… not even possibly believing there could be another existence is that we’re in an existence.
Martha Beck:
Right.
Glennon Doyle:
Right now. I’m doing it. It’s like…
Martha Beck:
Exactly.
Glennon Doyle:
… I’m having, “How could there possibly be another place where there’s beautiful rivers?” I’m like, “I’m looking outside right now. I see an ocean. I am existing in this place.”
Martha Beck:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
I feel like it’s like a bunch of people at a party sitting around going, “There sure as hell is not another party.” Like, “What kind of idiot would believe another party exists?”
Martha Beck:
Yeah. Every time you make me laugh, I cough, but I enjoy this so much I’m willing to cough. But it’s hilarious.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Martha Beck:
People say, “I think I can move things with my mind alone. Oh, look, I just did it.”
Glennon Doyle:
“What the hell?”
Martha Beck:
No one…
Glennon Doyle:
“How are you doing that?”
Abby Wambach:
They’re moving their hands up and down, you all.
Martha Beck:
You’re moving your hands with your mind, and nobody… One philosopher says, “Nobody has any idea why consciousness can inhabit a physical form, and no one even has the slightest idea what it would be like to understand how consciousness can animate a physical being.” Nobody knows it. Science doesn’t know. We don’t understand a thing about it. But one thing we do know, as you said, is here we are, or at least we’re wondering where we are.
So by the way, to Abby’s situation, you know Descartes, the great philosopher, he said, “Cogito, ergo sum. I think, therefore I am.” But that’s not what he said. He said, “Dubito, cogito, ergo sum.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Martha Beck:
He said, “I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t have a clue. But that means something here is thinking. So I must exist.” It was doubt.
Glennon Doyle:
Doubt.
Martha Beck:
It was an open mind, not a celebration of thinking. Right?
Abby Wambach:
Oh, wow.
Martha Beck:
Yeah. By the way, there are a lot of physicists right now who believe seven more dimensions are unfolded within every point of space-time, and we can’t perceive them. There are levels, and levels, and levels of existence that are on planes of existence that we, as monkeys in socks, can’t understand.
Abby Wambach:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
We can’t. So we make it up as so.
Glennon Doyle:
Make echolocation.
Martha Beck:
Yes, and humans are willing to do that.
Glennon Doyle:
Every time we say… I’m like, “You’re telling me a shark can tell the distance of its prey because there’s some kind of electrical force field surrounding it? Yeah, But we think we don’t have gut instinct?
Martha Beck:
That’s right. Actually, people learn to echolocate blind people, sometimes learn to echolocate by clicking, and then the sound bounces off objects. “Hey, try this one on. There is an artist named Esref Armagan in Turkey who was born with one eye the size of a lentil, which is totally non-functional. The other eye just isn’t there.
This person paints realistic portraits and landscapes. He is an artist by trade. He has no eyes. He was born without them, and all these different… You know, Harvard went, did a study on him just to make sure he wasn’t cheating. He’s really doing it. How the hell is that happening? And we think we understand the universe?
Glennon Doyle:
Mm-hmm. It’s the not understanding.
Abby Wambach:
We have to get you though.
Glennon Doyle:
No, listen. The Pod Squad does not need to, “What is Glennon anxious about?”
Martha Beck:
Oh, yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t think we need to do…
Martha Beck:
Because we want to know what Glennon’s anxious about.
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t think we need to, but… We can do one real quick if you want. But I just so love that thing about Descartes because it’s what makes me feel like I exist is the doubting. It’s like the existing in the most vibrant existence…
Martha Beck:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
… is, at first, always a rejection. It’s like when you are just parroting, when a religious leader is just giving you dogma and you are just soaking it in…
Martha Beck:
Uh-huh.
Glennon Doyle:
… and repeating it, to me, that’s not vibrant existence.
Martha Beck:
No.
Glennon Doyle:
I love that. That quote starts with the doubting is the beginning…
Martha Beck:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
… of existence. It proves that there’s a chemical reaction happening between what you’re saying to me and what is inside of me that is creating a third thing, and that is proof that I exist. It starts with my rejection…
Martha Beck:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
… of swallowing what you’re saying. I’m adding myself.
Martha Beck:
Exactly.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s the creativity.
Martha Beck:
Yeah, yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s the right brain stuff.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. It’s like, “I see your things, I see your facts, and I’m adding this, like hmm.”
Abby Wambach:
Exactly.
Martha Beck:
I will consider it in the field of not knowing where I live. There’s a terrific neurological researcher named Andrew Newberg who’s written a lot about spirituality in the brain. He himself had this experience early in his life where he was in agony trying to figure out what was real. One day, he found himself in what he calls “the infinite sea of doubt.”
It sounds odd, but he said, “It was warm. It was sweet. It was buoyant. It cared about me.” That was my experience with the white light that came to me in the surgery. He just calls it “the field of infinite doubt.” But it’s conscious, and it loves us. Why not? That’s a story. We might as well believe it. It’s just as good as, you know, you lie down, stop talking, and we bury you, and walk away.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s a better story.
Martha Beck:
So what are you worried about, Glennon?
Glennon Doyle:
Well, I had a list, but…
Martha Beck:
Oh.
Glennon Doyle:
I will bring one up, and I think you could probably do it quickly because I’ve heard you talk about it as, perhaps, one of yours.
Martha Beck:
Huh?
Glennon Doyle:
Which is why I’m not too embarrassed to bring it up. I will try to explain it as a, “I know how to be a peaceful, vibrant goddess of a human being.”
Martha Beck:
Uh-huh.
Glennon Doyle:
“As long as 47 conditions are present to make me, and they all are related to my body.”
Martha Beck:
How interesting.
Glennon Doyle:
I’m so scared of not sleeping.
Martha Beck:
Oh.
Glennon Doyle:
So I have to have all of these things in line. I am afraid of different… Not having my specific foods.
Martha Beck:
Mm-hmm.
Glennon Doyle:
Not having my specific, whatever the hell it is that month that I believe, like a magic potion,…
Martha Beck:
Control.
Glennon Doyle:
… is making me have aliveness.
Martha Beck:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
So it narrows my life in terms of travel, in terms of new experiences, because I could live, Martha. I could live a solid month.
Martha Beck:
Mm-hmm.
Glennon Doyle:
And be my version of peaceful and happy and never leave my house.
Martha Beck:
Oh, me too.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Martha Beck:
Oh, lockdown was heaven for me.
Glennon Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
I’m an introvert, and I don’t like people. But I love humanity and would die for any of you.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, yes.
Martha Beck:
But I’m just a paranoid introvert at heart. But I think this is really exciting because I think you’re actually ready to experience because you say that, but also, you know the stuff that I’m telling you, and you’ve talked to brilliant people from all over the world, and everything, and you’re brilliant yourself, and these guys are there to support you. So it’s not a big deal.
But if you can go into “don’t know mind” where it’s peaceful and joyful, when you’re in a sea of loving, compassionate not knowing, but just going through it. Like, if you’re present in your current space, that’s the first thing. C-A-T, get calm and present in the current space. Right?
Glennon Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
Nothing’s going to attack you right in this very moment. When I talked to Jill Bolte Taylor about what the world was like when her left hemisphere was offline, this brain scientist who had a big left hemisphere stroke, she said there’s no anxiety in the right hemisphere because there’s no time. So we’re just right here.
Glennon Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
So here we are, and there are all these conditions that you think are necessary to make your physical self vital, and alive, and feeling good. Yeah?
Glennon Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
So I started doing this research, and I came up with this idea that creativity is the opposite of anxiety, and that if you go into creativity, you’re going to leave your anxiety behind. I experimented on myself, and I did it religiously, and I got to a place. I did a lot of arty things. Then I started to experience transcendent things, and then the exact fears you’re talking about, my deepest fears were very much like these. I started experiencing what felt and still feel like miracles.
Insomnia was my number one fear. Had it my whole damn life. I met these three Canadian women who run a thing called Sleep Underscore Works. You can Google it. They said, “We can fix your sleep cycle.” I said, “No, you can’t.” I once took a drug that literal… They said, “Put yourself, empty your bladder, and then arrange yourself exactly the way you want to sleep, and then drink this liquid because you’re not going to move for four hours, and you will pee yourself if your bladder’s full, and you won’t record memories.”
I took the thing. I waited. 45 minutes later, I got up and started learning to play the ukulele. So I could check whether I was putting… Yes, I remember that night. It was horrible. I did not sleep at all. These Canadian women, and dude, they did things, you know, that have to do with the way you’re exposed to light and the way you’re exposed to temperature. After about two weeks, I felt melatonin come into my brain for the very first time, and I was like, “Oh my God, I’m going to fall asleep without meaning to.” I never felt that.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
Wow.
Martha Beck:
Ever. I’m 62 fucking years old. You can learn to sleep. But that miracle came to me. Okay, the same time. Then the next email said, “You are invited to go on a seven-day walk in England. We will be walking 85 miles, 10 to 12 miles a day.” Now, I have not walked for 10 years because I broke my foot. It healed badly. It was a mess. I couldn’t walk for, like, five years. Then I had surgery, then I couldn’t walk for five more years.
So I’m all atrophied, and old, and what the hell? The next email said, “You have a free round trip ticket to London from British Airways.” I was like, “I think I’m supposed to do this.” I started walking, even though I had all kinds of pain and all kinds of fear, and it brought up every anxiety I had about physical pain, and they were many.
Last October, I went to England. I had to skip a day because my son was sick, but I walked 75 miles in six days and loved it. Right? Like, that wasn’t supposed to happen in my 60s.
Glennon Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Doyle:
Wow.
Martha Beck:
Then it’s like I could go through a list of things. Everything that I am most deeply afraid of was given to me and then healed. It just starts to be magic. Anxiety pulls us out of what we’re meant to be, which is, let us face it, witches.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Martha Beck:
Right?
Amanda Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Glennon Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
We all know that’s what we are.
Amanda Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, we do.
Martha Beck:
Oh, now they’re coming for us. That’s all right. They’re coming for sociologists, anyway. They are. They don’t teach it in Florida anymore because it’s too left [inaudible 00:46:11].
Glennon Doyle:
Oh my God.
Martha Beck:
But, Glennon, let’s tell a few new stories about these fears.
Glennon Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
So that first, the biggest physical fear, what is it for you?
Glennon Doyle:
Getting sick.
Martha Beck:
Okay.
Glennon Doyle:
Or feeling bad, feeling tired, feeling off, not feeling right.
Martha Beck:
Feeling bad, feeling off, not feeling right. All right, so there is a belief in the brain that says feeling bad is bad.
Glennon Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
Pretty solid story.
Glennon Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
But can you be sure it’s true? Doing hard things often feels what we might see as bad. Like, if you’re climbing a mountain, and you’re at the very peak capacity, and your muscles are straining, and you’re hanging on by your fingernails, you have bad feelings.
Glennon Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
There’s pain. There’s a rock under your fingernail. There’s scratches on your knees. Your shoulders feel like they’re being ripped out of their sockets, and then you get up on a little ledge, and you’ve done it. That is actually the condition for flow, which is the most, greatest sense of bliss that humans can experience, being at the outside edge of capability where it is really uncomfortable and mastering it.
Glennon Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
You happen to marry someone who’s a master of it.
Glennon Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
So feeling bad is always bad. Is that true?
Glennon Doyle:
No. No.
Martha Beck:
How do you feel, and how do you react, and what happens when you think the thought, “Feeling bad is bad?”
Glennon Doyle:
It feels constricty.
Martha Beck:
Yeah. That’s the anxiety spiral tightening on you.
Glennon Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
It does not feel like freedom.
Glennon Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
It is not enlightenment. So who would you be if it were impossible… This is the Byron Katie work, by the way. If it were impossible for you to think painful feelings, bad feelings are bad. You couldn’t think that thought. Animals don’t think that thought. There is pain, and there is not pain. They don’t sit around thinking about how bad it is.
Glennon Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
They just are there.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, I guess I would avoid less things. It feels like that’s what animals don’t do. Right? They don’t avoid based on beliefs they have about things.
Martha Beck:
They don’t have any beliefs, yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Right.
Martha Beck:
My dog has a few but…
Glennon Doyle:
So I guess I would not avoid things.
Martha Beck:
Yeah, they don’t avoid things they love. They avoid things that seem dangerous or unpleasant. Yeah, because they’re not afraid of being shamed, humiliated, attacked if they don’t do the thing. They’re going to stay away from things they don’t want. But they’re going to really go toward things they love without any particular… They’re just in the sea of unknowing about whether they’re going to feel negative sensations, or emotions, or not. They’re sort of up for it. All right.
I just remember what Jill told me, you know, when she was without that left hemisphere anxiety. She was in a state of perpetual awe and glory, like beauty, bliss. She said they thought scientists say that left hemisphere strokes make people depressed because they cry a lot. She said, “I wasn’t crying because I was in pain or in depression. I was crying because I was in awe all the time.”
Glennon Doyle:
Martha, was she in awe? She was in awe of just what was around her. See, this is my question.
Martha Beck:
Yeah, yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Is it possible? I feel like I love my life…
Martha Beck:
Mm-hmm?
Glennon Doyle:
… in my house. Like, I love my people. I love my living room. I love doing little creative things at my table. I love going for a walk, and I feel like I’m supposed to want…
Martha Beck:
What?
Glennon Doyle:
When I travel, I’m at this beautiful place, and I’m like, “Okay.” I would…
Martha Beck:
Then why are you doing it?
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly.
Martha Beck:
Why are you doing it? I’m serious. Why the hell are you leaving when everything’s so perfect at home? Why would you do that?
Abby Wambach:
Because experiences also expand us.
Glennon Doyle:
Because Abby tells me I have to.
Martha Beck:
Well, that’s a story, isn’t it?
Abby Wambach:
Well, it’s a truth for me. It might not be a truth for you.
Martha Beck:
I am sorry. I didn’t mean to cut you down. I respect your truth, and I have had voyages of discovery right in the chair where I’m sitting now…
Glennon Doyle:
Oh my God, me too.
Martha Beck:
… that are just as good as anything I’ve ever traveled.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, that is why sometimes I don’t know I haven’t left the house for a week.
Martha Beck:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Because I have had a week of great adventure.
Martha Beck:
Why would you not? Every one of us is different, and yeah, we make compromises to be with each other, and to learn each other’s joys, and share those things. If they’re fun, keep doing them. But don’t do them if you don’t want to do them. It’s that simple. That was the integrity thing. Know what you really know. Feel what you really feel. Say what you really mean, and do what you really want.
Amanda Doyle:
So how do you know then, Martha, if you’re not doing something because you’re deeply satisfied in what you’re already doing?
Martha Beck:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
Or you’re not doing something because you are afraid of the friction it will cause you?
Martha Beck:
The difference is that when you’re doing something out of deep satisfaction, you feel deeply satisfied. When you’re doing something out of fear, you’re afraid. So if a Glennon wants to go out, but she’s like, “No.” That’s a fear reaction. But if she’s just like, “Oh my God, look at these. I have made a table full of beads or whatever, and I’m just going to sit here making precious, pointless things, and it’s joyful.”
I did an experiment in January of lockdown year. Every day, I just got up, and I said, “What will happen if I only do right hemisphere things?” So I would get up and start drawing. Hadn’t drawn for a long, long time. Drew a lot as a kid and all that. I said, “I’ll start with drawing and move on from there.” I never moved on from there. I started drawing and then painting 20 hours a day. I was waking up at 4:00 in the morning to go paint. I got just high on it. I was so excited all the time. I was like, “This is so fun.” Then I was supposed to stop, and I could not. I couldn’t.
So I called my IFS therapist, and I said to her, “I need you to stop me from painting all day.” she said, “Why?” I said, “Well, because I have to do other things.” She said, “Why?” I said, “Because it’s not normal to paint all day.” She said, “Well, go inside and find your true self and ask it what it thinks.” So I was like, “Okay, all right.” Then I was like, “It’s not working. My true self doesn’t think I should stop painting.” She’s like, “All right.” Then she said, this very, very brilliant professional woman, she says, “Dull disclosure, I am taking an oil painting class, and I also cannot stop.”
She’s like, “I’m a bit conflicted out of this. You’re going to need a new therapist.” Yeah. How awesome is that? This is why Ro and I made our online community of creatives. I have noticed creativity rising…
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Martha Beck:
… in the very people who are the opposite of the actors at the top of our government and so on that we’re all a bit nervous about, right?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
There are people who are going to fight them through politics, through policies. I have great honor and respect for those people. But to go into the other part of the brain and begin to create, like in your living room is, I believe, a far more seditious act. It undermines the structures based on fear, making art out of joy and celebrating it and making things with one another. It undermines the structures of white supremacist patriarchy. It is so many people from other cultures will tell us that they’ve known it all along.
Look, do whatever is making you happy in your house, and get rid of the stupid story that says you should do anything except what makes you happy. That makes no sense to me. That’s a wrap, you all. Does that help?
Glennon Doyle:
It helps so much. I can’t wait to get up, and be done with this podcast, and go nowhere.
Martha Beck:
Yes. Me too. I’m just going to literally pick up my palette and just keep doing watercolors.
Glennon Doyle:
Same.
Martha Beck:
Which is what I was doing when we got online.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, God. Martha Beck, I love you so much. I’m so grateful…
Martha Beck:
I love you too.
Glennon Doyle:
… for you in the world. Just so grateful, and just please give a hug to your entire family. I love all of you. I think Rowan might be present there. I just feel her. Is she around?
Martha Beck:
She may be.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Martha Beck:
But there’s a CAT online that says, “I love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you.” That’s always how I feel when I see the three of you.
Glennon Doyle:
And we’re back to CAT. Okay, one more time. Calm.
Martha Beck:
Calm.
Glennon Doyle:
Artistic.
Martha Beck:
Artistic, that is creative in any way, and then transcendent. This has been a lot of fun for me, but I also can feel the grief in Abby’s heart, and I’m surrounding that in the gentlest, warmest, most loving energy I can send you. I promise you, it gets transmuted into something beautiful. There’s an alchemy to this, and I know that you know how to use it.
Abby Wambach:
Mm-hmm. I’m getting there. I feel it’s starting to happen.
Martha Beck:
You know.
Glennon Doyle:
You know. You know, Pod Squad. You know. We’ll see you next time. Go get Martha’s book. Go get Beyond Anxiety. We are all going to get Beyond Anxiety together.
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, Odyssey, 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.
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We Can do Hard Things is created and hosted by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle in partnership with Odyssey. Our executive producer is Jenna Wise Berman, and the show is produced by Lauren LoGrasso, Allison Schott, Dina Kleiner, and Bill Schultz.