How to De-Stress: Relaxation Intervention for Amanda (and You)!
September 5, 2023
Glennon Doyle:
Wow. I am so excited to say welcome back to, We Can Do Hard Things.
Amanda Doyle:
Welcome back, back, welcome back. We’re always welcome back. But this is a back, back.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, because we took a little break for a few weeks.
Amanda Doyle:
We were on a break. We were on a break.
Glennon Doyle:
We wanted to, I don’t know, just rest and take a breather. We also didn’t know that podcasts were supposed to have seasons, so I think our first season was 250 episodes.
Amanda Doyle:
Ish.
Glennon Doyle:
Ish. So here we are back with you. I’m feeling really grateful. I’m also feeling grateful that we took the rest. That felt good.
Amanda Doyle:
I’m feeling very, very grateful for the tens of thousands of voicemails and emails and comments of suggesting guests and topics. We have been calling through them. Y’all have amazing ideas and insights, and thank you for co-creating this podcast with us by giving us all of those. We have been working on those during this break and we have really exciting things coming up thanks to your ideas. So thank you so much.
Glennon Doyle:
And you know what it makes me think when I read all the Pod Squaders’ ideas of what we need next and what we need to talk about next and who we need to have on. It solidifies the idea for me that what we’re doing with this podcast is kind of journeying together, because if you all could see the list of suggestions that you have made to us on people and topics compared to the list that we have internally brainstormed of people we need and topics we need, they are almost identical.
Abby Wambach:
It’s amazing.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. There’s like an 85% overlap between what we have in process, the conversations we were already initiating and what was recommended. It’s wild. It’s like, “Oh wait, we’re aligned. We’re aligned.”
Glennon Doyle:
And it’s like when you’re journeying together, you all think of the same supplies that you need on the journey because you’re all facing the same things and so your lists are similar. And so it really made me feel like, “Oh my God, we are all walking together this life.” So this season’s going to be awesome.
Glennon Doyle:
And one of the things that we think about a lot is that we have topics we’re all journeying together on. But what has become clear to us is that because of this work we’re doing, we are all three, Abby, me, and Sister working on something different in our own personal life, each month, each season.
Glennon Doyle:
We think of them as tent poles. Right? So last season for me it was very much about the eating disorder, recovery and embodiment. And I’m still there and working on that and what that means in my life. And Abby, you talked about you’re digging in more to your shadow side.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, I mean it’s been really interesting because I’ve been way more vocal with you recently around when I’m feeling upset.
Glennon Doyle:
I know. Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
Good for you. And how much into therapy are you right now?
Abby Wambach:
I’m like I guess four weeks in now.
Amanda Doyle:
That’s awesome.
Abby Wambach:
But actually something that happened the other day, we were on a little family vacation and I’m the person in our family that deals with the organization of the trips and getting us to where we need to go and the logistical thing. And so we were having this conversation, and I have never really broken down in front of our kids before, of overwhelm. I just handle it. I have trained overwhelm out of me.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, I bet you have.
Abby Wambach:
And this thing was happening where they were thinking about readjusting the plans of what I had already spent lots of time doing and planning and spending money on. And I just put my hand in, my face in my hands. And Tish goes, “Are you going to cry?” And I was like, “No.” But I started talking and my voice starts cracking.
Glennon Doyle:
She did.
Abby Wambach:
I was like, “You guys just don’t understand how much effort and work goes into planning around this family. And so switching plans is not easy.” And Tish was like, “I’m so sorry,” right away. And it was really cool that I was able to say it out loud. I don’t know.
Glennon Doyle:
It was amazing.
Amanda Doyle:
That is so beautiful and important.
Glennon Doyle:
I was wishing it for every Pod Squader. She was like, “I will show you how I feel about this as a parent and how hard it is, and I will not act like it’s not hard.” And it was like every bit of entitlement sucked away from the table.
Glennon Doyle:
It was like, “Oh, my mom’s a human being too?” It was so important and so good. And you never would’ve done it a year ago.
Abby Wambach:
Totally.
Glennon Doyle:
So we’re going to be exploring Abby’s delving into the uncomfortable feelings. And for Sister, we want to set up this episode today. How would you do that? What’s your tent pole for the season?
Amanda Doyle:
My tent pole is getting more in touch with my humanness, trying to access ease and in terms of not being afraid of ease and peace as indicia of not hustling hard enough, but being important parts of the human experience that I am lacking as opposed to evidence of me killing it, not having those. I’m trying to see not having those as evidence that I am depriving myself of the human condition.
Glennon Doyle:
So to that end, Pod Squad, you should know that we gave Sister an assignment, but what happened was he gave Sister a relaxation assignment and she couldn’t or didn’t or refused to do it. And that is what sets up today’s episode. We know you’re going to have feelings about today. So grateful for Sister’s vulnerability and maybe some of you are on this similar journey and we want to hear from you. Let’s go.
Glennon Doyle:
Welcome to, We Can Do Hard Things. Today is going to be really interesting Pod Squad because we don’t know what the hell is going to happen because-
Amanda Doyle:
As opposed to all the other days where we know exactly what’s going to happen.
Glennon Doyle:
Right, well we usually have more of an idea, but we need to tell you about a recent experiment gone, well, the word is awry. I will tell you that for the last 30 years I have been reading that word as “owry” because I’ve never heard anyone say it out loud. I just really thought in books, every time something went askew, it went “owry.” And I just figured out that that word is actually awry.
Amanda Doyle:
You’ve never heard someone say, “Something’s gone awry”?
Glennon Doyle:
I have. And I thought that was a word. And I also thought that there was a word that was “owry.”
Abby Wambach:
What’s the other word that we’ve just recently come across that you’ve been pronouncing wrong in your head all these years?
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, so sword.
Amanda Doyle:
Sword? Okay, that’s a weird one.
Abby Wambach:
Sword.
Amanda Doyle:
I just feel like sword is a very commonplace word.
Glennon Doyle:
No.
Abby Wambach:
She was reading to us the other day, I’m crying, and she just said, “Sword.” And our friend Alex who was sitting with us, she interrupted her. She said, “I’m sorry, did you say sword?” “Yes.” And she said, “What?” And had no idea it was sword. I love you so much.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Just before we jump into this very important podcast, since you did that, I’m going to do this.
Abby Wambach:
Uh-oh.
Glennon Doyle:
I’m doing it again. I may have told the story in the beginning. It’s worth it to tell it again.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
We’re driving down the street with the girls in the backseat. One of the girls says loudly, “Oh my gosh, look at that cute, red wheelbarrow.” And Abby bursts out laughing like she’s laughing right now. And I’m like, “What’s so funny?” And she says, “Did you hear what she said? She said, ‘Wheelbarrow.'”
Amanda Doyle:
It is a funny word.
Abby Wambach:
It is.
Glennon Doyle:
And I said, “Why is that funny?” And she said, “Because it’s wheel barrel, it’s wheel barrel.”
Abby Wambach:
And then everybody proceeded to laugh out loud at me. But in my defense…
Amanda Doyle:
Yes, I’ll come to your defense.
Abby Wambach:
It makes way more sense to be a wheel barrel than a wheelbarrow.
Amanda Doyle:
You fill up a barrel and you wheel it away.
Abby Wambach:
Yes. That’s exactly right.
Amanda Doyle:
What are you going to do? Fill up a barrow?
Abby Wambach:
What’s a barrow?
Amanda Doyle:
No barrow has ever been filled. It’s one of those ones that is correct, but at a deeper level, incorrect.
Abby Wambach:
I know. That’s the difference between commonsensical people and smart people.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, it’s also that story just kills me, too, because it’s like the proof of Abby’s motherhood evolution because the fact that she was hysterically-
Amanda Doyle:
She was mocking-
Abby Wambach:
Laughing.
Glennon Doyle:
… and mocking the child. No, I mean karma real quick, just circled back because the girls were dying.
Abby Wambach:
And they never let me forget it. This is a common story that goes around the dinner table once a month.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Look at the wheel barrel.
Abby Wambach:
I still live and die by it. It’s wheel barrel.
Glennon Doyle:
No, I can’t remember. Which one is it?
Abby Wambach:
It’s wheelbarrow. It’s wheelbarrow.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s barrow.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s barrow. Okay.
Abby Wambach:
It’s really barrel.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, rhymes with sparrow. All right, so-
Amanda Doyle:
Rhymes with sword.
Glennon Doyle:
I just want to say I like it sword because it makes me think of words. You can use words as… Anyway. Okay.
Amanda Doyle:
Sword feels like sexual or something. Sword. It’s like a provocation. Sword.
Abby Wambach:
It feels almost like what you do with a sword.
Glennon Doyle:
An onomatopoeia.
Amanda Doyle:
A swashbuckling sword.
Glennon Doyle:
Winnebago. All right.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, that reminds me, Winnebago.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, God.
Amanda Doyle:
We got that wrong. We did an episode with Michelle Zaner and she was talking about words that she loves, apropos of maybe this discussion, and she was talking about how sheet cake and Winnebago invoke this visceral reaction in her. Thank you to the Pod Squad who wrote into us and said that Winnebago is actually an Indigenous word for a group of Indigenous folks who are the Winnebago.
Glennon Doyle:
Wow.
Abby Wambach:
Cool.
Amanda Doyle:
So we did not know that, and we failed to identify that. So thank you for illuminating us.
Abby Wambach:
Cool.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, here’s what we’re going to do today. Today we have our second episode that wasn’t. You might remember the first episode that wasn’t. It was episode 147, and we had brought a guest on, and the guest behaved like an asshole to someone on our team. And so we canceled it in real time, and then the internet tried to figure out who it was forever. And they still are trying to figure out who it was. Will we announce who it was? We will not. I can’t imagine ever doing that. We are not into publicly shaming people, usually.
Amanda Doyle:
Unless it’s me, apparently.
Glennon Doyle:
Unless it’s Sister. Because today is our second episode that wasn’t because Pod Squad, here’s what happened. A couple months ago, we decided that we wanted to do an episode about relaxation and Amanda. Okay. Abby came up with a bunch of ideas to help Sister relax and they were like assignments. They were things such as…
Abby Wambach:
Go for a walk.
Glennon Doyle:
Go for a walk without headphones. One hour before going to sleep, figure out the next day’s schedule. When waking up, try and think about getting 30 minutes of activity in your day.
Amanda Doyle:
You’re just going to omit the one where she told me to put my entire head into an ice bucket for as long as I can hold my breath? That one. You’re like, “Go for a walk. Plan your schedule. Immerse yourself, bodily, in an iceberg.”
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, well she was trying to give you some different ideas, and actually that is really helpful. All right? So one of them was a bit of a cold plungey situation, but just to put her head in ice.
Abby Wambach:
Your face.
Glennon Doyle:
Now when you say it this way, it sounds weird, but yes. Turn on two songs and dance to them. We even picked songs for you. We picked a energetic song like You Ought to Know by Alanis Morissette to get some rage out. We picked Easy on Me by Adele to get some self-compassion in.
Glennon Doyle:
We thought that was great. We scheduled a 30-minute relaxation time after lunch every day. Abby said, “You can sleep. You can just lay there doing nothing, no scrolling, no email, do nothing.” And she said, “If 30 minutes is too long, just do five minutes.”
Glennon Doyle:
Then she suggested a short meditation, some short breath work. Then she said no working after dinner. That was another idea. Really, she said afterwards, “Please note from this list, one thing that is important is that multitasking isn’t real. So you can’t do these things while also doing something else.” Okay? She tried to protect you from yourself there.
Glennon Doyle:
Now, because she knows you, also, she added another little thing at the end that said that you could score yourself each day on how well you relaxed because she knows that you like to have some feedback. I mean, no, not feedback, like some goals.
Abby Wambach:
Hold on. It wasn’t about how well she did, it was how she felt.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, okay.
Abby Wambach:
So that was my idea to be able to track in the couple of weeks that she does this, if in fact this is helpful or not.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. So Pod Squad, in short, Abby sent her a list of possible modes of relaxation. I will tell you that the reason we did this is because a dynamic in our lives: work, home, relationship, is that Abby and I worry that Sister is not relaxing enough. Now I, through much therapy, am taking responsibility for my feelings about it. I’m not saying you don’t relax enough. I’m saying I tend to worry that you’re not relaxing enough. So that doesn’t mean that’s your business. That’s my business.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, it really is. And also I just want to… Side note, all of the nine possible things that Sister could do, I’d said, “Please choose three to four of these to incorporate into your day for two weeks.”
Glennon Doyle:
And note, some of them were like just do nothing for five minutes. Okay, they’re not extreme sport resting.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s not like a seven-day silent retreat.
Glennon Doyle:
Go for a walk, go for whatever. So Pod Squad, today was the day we were to get together and discuss with you how it went. Okay? Today was the report on how it went. So yesterday we come to the meeting where we prepare for what’s going to happen today, and Sister says, “I didn’t do any of it.”
Amanda Doyle:
No, to be fair, I said, “I have allotted today to do my relaxation homework.”
Glennon Doyle:
Okay? Oh my God.
Abby Wambach:
You’re going to cram it all in one day?
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
I fucking love you.
Glennon Doyle:
All right. And by the way, I want to know how many things were on your list because that’s bullshit. I know you did not black out the whole day for relaxing. I know you’ve never done that in your life. So lies, lies, and more lies. You sit on a throne of lies. Okay?
Glennon Doyle:
Now Pod Squad, why this is interesting is because it is the first time, maybe since second grade that Sister has been unprepared. So we ask questions, we say, “Why? Why? Why did you refuse to do the homework?” Here we are Pod Squad. What I want you to know is that today we are going to try to get to the thing beneath the thing.
Glennon Doyle:
Now you might say to yourself, “Well, you told her to do something that she didn’t want to do.” No, you would be incorrect. When we proposed this idea, Sister was very open to it. She thought that’s a good idea. Well, I will say, you said that will be funny, and you are right. It is funny. Maybe this is what you meant. Did you know you weren’t going to do it?
Amanda Doyle:
I don’t know. I don’t remember exactly the same level of engagement that you remember in my response to this idea. I think maybe I was like, “Yeah, that would be funny.” And look, correct.
Glennon Doyle:
All right, so you didn’t do it.
Amanda Doyle:
I didn’t do it.
Glennon Doyle:
All right. I have some questions for you.
Amanda Doyle:
I bet you do.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Do you feel as if rest and relaxation, and we’ll get to what the hell that means, because maybe our problem is semantics. It might mean something different to everyone. I think that’s important.
Glennon Doyle:
Do you feel like it’s something that is missing in your life that you want to make room for? Or is this only a codependent problem that your sister and other sister are identifying?
Amanda Doyle:
I think I am missing a key piece of being a human. So yes, I think part of my other problems in life are stemming from my missing a key piece of being a human, which is time that is not pre allocated to identified priorities.
Glennon Doyle:
What are the other problems you’re talking about?
Amanda Doyle:
So I’m just thinking of something that happened last week. I usually wait until it’s without a doubt too much to be like, “It’s too much.” So I wait until I’m at a 20 to be like, “Oh, okay, too much.” And I don’t build it in as a process to avoid that happening.
Amanda Doyle:
So I remember one time my therapist 10 years ago was like, “If life is parallel lines, you are always operating on right up to the upper limit and right up to the lower limit, emotionally, capacity, everything. And so any little thing pushes you outside of the margins, and it’s just like having zero margin in.” And I think that I do do that.
Amanda Doyle:
I think I maximize to the margins as part of my regular life. And so I’m like, “I can do that, I can do that. That puts me right within my margin right up to the end.” And so anything that is extra just spills over.
Amanda Doyle:
And so we had just hosted three events at our house in a row for all of, it was the Sunday night, then the Friday night, then the Saturday night. And then Sunday the lacrosse girls’ party, the baseball party, the other baseball team party, the whatever.
Amanda Doyle:
So it was just two weekends that were not weekends, and then the week is so crazy. And so Sunday I was like, “Oh, I can feel myself overextended right now, and so we need to have a couple hours of nothingness.”
Amanda Doyle:
And so I preserved that couple hours of nothingness, and the four of us were just hanging out for those two hours because I allocated it for that, because I’m like, “I need two hours of nothingness,” and we were just playing around, and it was so nice. And I felt like a little humanity and lightness in me.
Amanda Doyle:
Then later that night I was like, “You know what? I feel like making out tonight.” It was so weird. Then later I was like, “Oh, that’s got to be connected.” When I am not feeling like a human, why would I ever want to do something so deeply human as that?”
Abby Wambach:
That’s really interesting.
Amanda Doyle:
So I’m just wondering, even if not for just having the lightness, if having a little bit of the lightness opens up desire or capacity for other human things?
Abby Wambach:
Just for also a little context, the list that I made you, some of the stuff was trying to help to induce even more productivity in some ways. So taking a five-minute rest or a 30-minute rest, whatever you can do after lunch is actually supposed to create more productivity in the rest of your workday. But everything on here is, I think that that’s a really good way of saying it, is to try to gain more humanness.
Glennon Doyle:
I think that is beautiful. Let’s stick with that for a minute because I resist and reject the idea that rest is something that I am going to do so that I can get back to productivity. That feels so miserable to me that I reject that version of rest.
Amanda Doyle:
And that’s not my need.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s not what we’re talking about.
Amanda Doyle:
I don’t need a tool to be more productive.
Glennon Doyle:
No, you don’t.
Amanda Doyle:
I need a tool to unlock the part of the pie chart of my life that I don’t live in.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. And so that I understand deeply. It’s like to me, it’s getting back to the creature self of yourself. It’s the animal self, really. It’s the whatever the capitalist industrial hustle complex has created this robotic part of us. And honestly, the things you’re talking about are beautiful things. But even school things: all the parties, all the teams, all the whatever, these are things that really kind of pull us out of ourselves. And there is something about returning to your creature humanity that has to do with what you said rising inside of you.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s like an aliveness, electricity, it’s like this tingling that happens sometimes that busyness distracts you from that sometimes I think the reason why so many of the things on the list have to do with stopping. Is not just so your body isn’t moving, it’s because when you’re slower, you tend to look inward. There’s an inwardness that you can feel as opposed to being constantly distracted by what’s going on in the outside.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. I guess to me if there was something on a list that could save me, I would’ve been saved. And I think it’s probably different from a lot of people, I don’t know, or maybe the same. It’s like I live and die by a list and I make three different lists a day. It’s like the morning what I intend to get done. Halfway through the day, I figure out what I haven’t done and what I need to do.
Amanda Doyle:
Then I have my PMPs, which are PM Priorities, that I do after the kids go to sleep. There’s not a list that is going to deliver to me my humanity. And maybe that’s hubris, maybe it’s like, “Well, if I incorporated these things into my life.” But to me it’s a lot like the analogy of working out and eating healthfully.
Amanda Doyle:
No one doesn’t know that moving your body will help your body. No one doesn’t know that eating a box of Girl Scout cookies makes you feel like shit. It’s not a lack of knowledge that drives us to eat a box of Girl Scout cookies and to not move our bodies.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s because something else inside of our lives is pulling us or pushing us in a certain way. I know I feel better when I move my body. So the question isn’t, “Well, have you put it on a fucking list so you do it?” The question is what is going on in your life and under your life-
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
… that is making no space for that, and more importantly, making no desire for that? Because when you desire something enough, you make space for it. So for me, it’s like the cart and the horse.
Amanda Doyle:
When there is humanity in my life and when there is almost a self-respect of centering my human experience within my own human life, then what will naturally flow from that is doing the things that I’ve already known for decades are the things that make me feel better. It’s not a lack of knowledge.
Abby Wambach:
But desire and habit have to be formed in a lot of ways. In all of my training, there was never a single day that I wanted to go out and train so hard that I felt like my body was going to fall off.
Abby Wambach:
And so I understand that we want to get to a place in terms of our psychology and our humanness that the desire comes, but so often it just doesn’t. And I think so many of us live in this space that you’re living in. I mean I do it every single day, and I just do behavior activations because I know the outcome is going to make me feel better.
Abby Wambach:
I don’t want to go to the gym every day. I don’t. Every single morning I’m like, “Ugh.” And I just make myself do it and I feel better afterwards, and I know that. And so over time the habit, you can turn it into some sort of “desire.” I actually desire the outcome more than the actual beforehand dread.
Amanda Doyle:
Totally.
Glennon Doyle:
So you’re arguing for the list?
Amanda Doyle:
The discipline leads to desire in a kind of cyclical way because then your body desires that thing because it has experienced that thing. When it doesn’t experience the thing, it doesn’t desire it.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, it’s like food for me. I was like, “Oh, food isn’t enjoyable for me.” But then I had to discipline myself to eat three meals a day and now I’m like, “Oh my God, I love food.” I did not understand. And that has made me more human. When you said, “If this were going to save me, if more things on a list were going to save me,” what is it that you’re saying you need to be saved from?
Amanda Doyle:
From not being me. I think that I am a playful, silly, funny, absurd person.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
And over the last several years, that playful, silly, funny person has been inaccessible to me.
Abby Wambach:
Wow.
Amanda Doyle:
And I’m almost like the reverse of that. I almost resent when it’s playful and silly around me because I am like, “Well, must be nice to be playful and silly.” And I’m probably triple like that because I’m like, “I know that is actually my true self and I can’t access it, and so I’ll be damned if you are able to access it around me.”
Amanda Doyle:
And I think this is probably an experience that many, many, particularly women but probably others feel, is the sense of loss of who we essentially are because of the requirements of what we do. And so I think a lot of people were really funny, and I think a lot of people were really silly, and I think a lot of people were really playful.
Amanda Doyle:
And then you look back on who you were 20 years ago and you’re like, “What happened?” And I think what happened is that we all took our responsibilities very seriously, and good on us for doing that. And also, that would be tragic if our whole lives were spent functioning and not being. And I think I’ve been functioning really hard for a long time and not being. And I only remember that when I have glimpses into that, and it feels good.
Amanda Doyle:
And it’s usually, honestly, obligations that force me into a situation where I have to be non-functional that remind me. So summertime, the schedules are all off. It’s like, “Well, the kids are home for these two hours, they’re not normally home. And I’ve decided I’m going to greet them and be with them for that half an hour.”
Amanda Doyle:
And it’s even just that pausing of the functioning to just be has a little spark of me come back, which then shows up later if I’m just being silly. And I’m like, oh, that silliness at 6:00 PM for 30 seconds, I’m talking 30 seconds of, I noticed myself being an idiot and dancing just to horrify someone in my family, was a result of having to get up earlier in the day when I didn’t want to and do a thing that was unproductive.
Abby Wambach:
Wow.
Glennon Doyle:
I’m trying to figure out at what point the feeling that the doing and responsibilities overcame the who you are. Can you identify that? Because you said just the last few years, I’m trying to feel like if there’s for people for whom this is an issue, which I think is everyone. We all know I have different, similar but in different ways with the anorexia. It’s kind of like anorexia. Is this something that is just because of work and family life, or is it something inherent in you that would come out regardless of what responsibilities in particular that you had?
Amanda Doyle:
I think the latter.
Glennon Doyle:
You think it’s something in you that would manifest-
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, but I think it’s a slippery slope. I think it’s a slip for people like me, and I know there’s a lot of you listening. For people like me, it is a slippery slope and it starts a little bitty when your friends in high school are going out and you’re like, “I don’t know. I got to study for this test,” or whatever it is. And you get very practiced at negotiating yourself out of life, negotiating yourself out of frivolous things in order to choose the delayed gratification things.
Abby Wambach:
Wow.
Amanda Doyle:
I think it has been just a slow, slippery slope to where it’s again at the margins and you’re like, “How did I fill all this shit up every day and for the next three months?” There’s no more places to add.
Glennon Doyle:
So if you had one kid and you were a meditation teacher, do you think that you would fill to the margin your meditation classes? And that’s what you’re saying? It’s not-
Amanda Doyle:
100%.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, so it’s-
Amanda Doyle:
I would be the most miserable. If I had no kids and I was an unpaid flower picker, I would be the most miserable unpaid flower picker on the planet. It has nothing to do with the obligations. It has to do with no matter what I was doing, it would be zero margin set up in that. So no, it doesn’t have anything to do. I’m not like, “Oh, woe is me. I have so many things.” If I had zero things, I would be at 10.
Abby Wambach:
What is the root of that?
Glennon Doyle:
What is at the root of that? Because this is trauma behavior. Tons of people do it. It’s very typical. What do you believe is at the root of your determination to be a miserable unpaid flower picker?
Amanda Doyle:
Well, I think the objective is not to be miserable. The byproduct of my personality/trauma/make up/gifts is misery. So I do not have, and maybe I do, but I do not believe I have a conscious goal of being miserable to prove my worthiness. I think that I’m a maximizer by nature. I think that I look out and see possibilities. I think I have a tremendously high self-efficacy, meaning my ability to apply myself to the world of possibilities and make them so.
Amanda Doyle:
And I do think I have a worthiness complex of being like, “Oh, this thing, look at what I can do and that this is unequivocally worthy, my ability to do this thing.” And so I think it’s a perfect storm, and I think you get a lot of praise for that in life. And so it’s a self-fulfilling deal. I think it’s largely like I can do all this shit. So why wouldn’t I?
Glennon Doyle:
Self-efficacy is a curse as well as a blessing. I would be so upset if I thought I could do everything. I really do not think I can do a lot of things. I mean, I know what I can do and I do them and there’s a lot of things I know I can’t do, so I don’t try. But really, you can do anything.
Glennon Doyle:
My therapist said to me in the beginning of recovery, she used to make me write it down, “Just because you can do something does not mean you should do that thing. Just because you can do something does not mean that you can.” Just because that job is offered to you does not mean that money is for you. No to possibility.
Glennon Doyle:
What do you want? Because as people who love you deeply, I feel like this list, suddenly asking you to stick your head in an ice tank feels like… Although, I will tell you what she was getting at that. Okay? There is a jolt of feeling.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Some of these things can enliven that creature part of yourself that makes you remember.
Amanda Doyle:
To remind you that you’re a human.
Glennon Doyle:
Why life is worth living.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s like electroshock.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
“Tune in, tune in. You forgot you’re a human for a long time and we have to do some drastic measures to remind you you’re human.” First of all, I take that entire thing as a love offering. I love it. And I’m not trying to shit on that parade at all.
Amanda Doyle:
I think had I not had these recent experiences of that little electricity, I would need that to remind me. I think I just had the reminders recently had the, “Oh, that feels like something good,” and therefore I’m reminded of the pie chart that’s missing.
Amanda Doyle:
So I get that and I think that’s a great strategy for if this conversation feels so foreign to you, it might be because you have not been reminded of your humanity for so long that this isn’t even a place you can enter the conversation.
Amanda Doyle:
And then if so, go put your fucking head in an ice bucket. But there’s a part of this that’s just tired. It’s so boring to talk about how busy you are, and it’s so boring to be a fucking martyr. What I want is to have the dignity and take myself seriously enough to know that if I can do anything, I have the self-efficacy to actualize my humanity in my own human life.
Amanda Doyle:
There isn’t a like, “Oh, I’m so sorry for Amanda.” That’s bullshit. I can do all the things. I am choosing, like the Girl Scout cookies, to not do this for a reason. And that’s all on me. And so I’m thinking of part of the self-efficacy, curse, crisis, blessing is that’s so much individual driven. And I think people who get in that path, like me, operate under the fiction that you can do everything yourself; and then you do everything yourself, including try to live your life yourself.
Amanda Doyle:
And in the Ross Gay episode where he was talking about that the saddest, hardest times of his life was when he was operating under the delusion and the lie that we were disconnected. And the joy and the delight comes from the recognition of the truth of the interconnectedness. And that sounds very esoteric except that I do find when I have these seedling saplings moments of connection, whether they’re silliness with my kids, or whether it’s an exchange with a human that was unexpected, or a sharing of something with a friend, that feels frivolous because it was not on my to-do list. But that is the seedling of connection that actually does make me feel more human, even if it’s little.
Amanda Doyle:
And that then opens up my own humanness, which then has me doing something silly later, which reminds me that I am not only a human, but I’m a very specific type of human who is most myself when I am acting like myself.
Amanda Doyle:
And that is as much an important part of me and a part that needs to be expressed in this lifetime as the thing that is as much about me, which is that I can get a lot of shit done.
Abby Wambach:
Do you see yourself as the kind of person that would want to incorporate, forget this list, want to incorporate more humanness in your life? Knowing what in terms about the way your life operates, is it something that you crave?
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. It is.
Glennon Doyle:
So what would you have to believe to do that?
Amanda Doyle:
I would have to believe that I could live this entire life and eventually die without frivolous moments of joy and connection, and delight and rest, and ease, and that I would die a really impressive human. It’s scares me my capacity to do that. I much more have to consciously choose to not do that. My default setting would be that that would be the story of my life.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, so you would lay on your deathbed thinking…
Amanda Doyle:
I’m so impressive.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, but also that’s a understatement. It’s not just about being impressive for you. It’s like, “I was so worthwhile to so many other people’s lives.” It’s like the idea of worthiness is so interesting because you would have earned your worthiness so much with other people because you make everyone else’s lives run smoothly, but you would never have experienced enough of what even makes your own life worthwhile. What makes living worth it? It’s these joy, it’s this connection. It’s the peace or whatever those words are that describe you getting to live as you and not hustling for worthiness.
Amanda Doyle:
I mean, I think that one of the things, again, my son has been such a blessing to me over the past couple of years because I think that is an example of I almost missed him. I was so focused on solving him and preparing the path for him with his ADHD and his challenges there that I was exerting my efficacy on his life, and I almost didn’t know him. And he’s so awesome. I was managing him and I wasn’t knowing him, and it is one of the greatest delights of my life is to be like, this person is just such a puzzle of fascinating stuff. I almost never knew it, and I could do the exact same thing with my own life, so busy managing it that I didn’t get to know it.
Abby Wambach:
Woof. Geez.
Glennon Doyle:
So you, like me, are very good at understanding things in your head. My therapist in early recovery would be like, we would get on the zoom and I would say everything.
Amanda Doyle:
You’re like, “I have recited the diagnostic behavioral chart and here’s how I’m presenting, and I know my steps for it.”
Glennon Doyle:
And here’s what I need to do and here’s what all my trauma and here’s why I do the things I do, and everything was neck up. This whole process for me has been about for the first time actually living what I know or letting it sink down into my body and my life.
Glennon Doyle:
Do you think you’re going to do that? And I really do wonder, because I as your sister and work partner have, whatever the word for worry, tried to fix, tried to boss you about relaxing. I’m sure I’ve done it a million wrong ways, have said, “I’m going to quit this.”
Glennon Doyle:
I read this book, it’s called, The Matrix, by Lauren Groff and it’s about this badass nun who starts this convent and then all of her friends join her and she keeps having these great ideas. So then all of her friends work until they die on her great ideas.
Glennon Doyle:
And so I was like, “Oh, shit. Is that what I’m doing to Sister?” I have had truly part of my deep therapy is not thinking that everything about Abby is my fault. Not thinking that everything about you is my fault because that’s extremely narcissistic, too, and…
Abby Wambach:
A touch codependent.
Glennon Doyle:
But it’s not uncomplicated.
Amanda Doyle:
No, it’s not uncomplicated.
Glennon Doyle:
To be working together. Sometimes I have wondered, should I just stop this whole thing? Should we quit? Because I’d rather not do any of this work than to run you into the ground. And then I wonder, am I solving a problem doing that? That isn’t the problem, because if you’re going to be a flower picker.
Amanda Doyle:
Flower picker.
Glennon Doyle:
Right? No, truly. And then I think then is there a way to not solve for the wrong problem?
Amanda Doyle:
No, it’s my problem.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s my problem. And to the extent that my boundaries that I would need to set affects our business, it would become your problem to then solve because then that would be your problem. But no part of this is your problem because it’s not yet. I’m not saying it would never be. I’m just saying it’s not yet.
Amanda Doyle:
I think that it’s a mix of what Abby said. I really do think it is a mix of if it is connections that I want and knowing that life doesn’t set up the pockets of time for that and put them in your path, you have to make them. That there’s a part of this that is listy and structural, setting that up to be like, “Okay, I want to go on a walk with a friend twice a week. Who’s that going to be and what time is it going to be?” And then protecting that time and not letting it disappear.
Amanda Doyle:
If it’s, I’m going to, the people that I’m best being playful with are my kids. And not from the extent of like, “You got to practice the piano,” not the managing of them, but the just are we going to sit on the couch and we’re going to look at Taylor Swift YouTube shorts, and then we’re going to rank our top five songs? Whatever it is for a half an hour every day.
Amanda Doyle:
And then when I introduce that playfulness with them, a little shadow of playfulness comes out where I can be playful with John. It’s just a tired trope for me. Now, I’m getting bored of my own self being like, “I’m so tired.”
Glennon Doyle:
But that’s okay. That’s okay. That’s what life is. We’re all just only circling around the one problem that we have that we’ve had since we were a kid. I can’t deal with food. It’s a basic thing that we put in our mouth and chew and I’ve been talking about it since I was 10, but that thing is about everything else.
Glennon Doyle:
So it’s not tired. It just takes what it takes, and it’s probably going to be the thing until you’re dead. But life does offer us these moments where we can say, “I know all these things in my head and I’m actually going to do something about it.”
Amanda Doyle:
But you only, again, the thing under the thing under the thing is trust. The thing under the thing that lets me do the thing that gives me ease and playfulness is the trust that if I do that and not the 47 things that are already on my list, that life and our business will not fall apart.
Amanda Doyle:
The trust that if I do my best, that enough is enough. And that’s the scariest thing of all is to not continue to try to have a hyper hold on, “I will know that I’ve done everything to protect my family and my business and my life and my people if I just keep doing and never stop doing. And if I have the audacity to stop doing for a second and something breaks bad, will that be because I stopped doing for a second?”
Amanda Doyle:
And so I think it’s trust. I think it’s trust in that, “You know what? I have worked my ass off today. I have tried to prioritize the way I can. I have done what I can do and tomorrow I will do what I can do again.”
Glennon Doyle:
And not that it won’t fall apart because that’s the illusion of ever having had control. It’s like Liz always says to me when I say I’m letting go of control, she says, “You’re not letting go of control. You’ve never had control. You’re letting go of your illusion that you ever had control.
Glennon Doyle:
Your trust cannot be in it won’t fall apart. Like, “Oh, my kids won’t fall apart. My family, my marriage won’t fall apart, my business won’t fall apart.” No wonder you don’t stop. If that’s what you think you have to have trust in it likely will fall apart. Everything’s going to fall apart over and over again. So it’s like when it falls apart, I guess we’ll just do the next right thing together. I guess we’ll figure it out tomorrow.
Amanda Doyle:
But done enough. I trust that I’ve done enough so that I deserve to rest. And when you don’t know if you deserve to rest and there is no quantifiable thing that is ever enough, then you by definition have never done enough to deserve to rest.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Do you ever want to just stop all this?
Amanda Doyle:
No.
Glennon Doyle:
You don’t want a experiment of enough?
Amanda Doyle:
I’ll tell you what, I’d take two thirds of this.
Glennon Doyle:
But would you?
Amanda Doyle:
Of the whole bag. I would because I think I do, I don’t know if that’s capacity. I don’t know if it’s hiring someone else. I don’t know if it’s me just figuring out how to draw back a third. I don’t know if it’s…
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. If you like two thirds of this, would you want help from the team to figure out how to get two thirds of this? Because one of the things I see with the people we would call overfunctioners is that sometimes I think it’s not the two thirds of the list that will ever happen. It’s like taking requirements for A plus work to two thirds of that.
Glennon Doyle:
We’re going to be okay with B pluses everywhere. Because if you’re the filter through which everything goes: your family, your community, your team, your lacrosse team, your work team, and you always have to make it an A plus, then there’s never going to be any room for enough because it’s always going to have to go through you.
Glennon Doyle:
For someone who loves someone like you, what I’m trying to say is it is the tendency of us to want to fix things for you when you say, “I want two thirds of this,” or when you’ve come to me and said, “This is going to make me sick if I keep doing this.”
Glennon Doyle:
It is the tendency of the person who loves you to want to, “Okay, let’s sit down. Let’s figure out how to take some of this away from you.” But that feels threatening to you. It feels like you don’t want things taken away from you. And so then for the person on this side, it feels like we’ve fucked it up. Is that tracking?
Abby Wambach:
Or does it feel like, “Well, that’s just not going to even happen”? Is there a part of you that’s like, “Okay, this is a really nice, fun game that you want to do.”
Glennon Doyle:
But for the over-functioner, if you take the thing and you’re like, “Okay, we’re going to take that from you and we’re going to put it over here,” then that person’s still going to go back and grab this thing because they can do it a little bit better.
Amanda Doyle:
There are a handful of people that I trust with every piece of this, and they’re already on our team. And every single other person we have tried to incorporate to offload shit to, it has come back to me except for the people in our team. So what I’m just saying is, theoretically, awesome. And we might be getting a little tangential here.
Glennon Doyle:
I am really trying to figure out if this is structural, if this is a workload thing or if this is below that, if this is something that is not workload but is internal response to the world.
Amanda Doyle:
When I say two thirds, when you said, “Do you want to stop this?” And I am like, “Unequivocally, no. I love this.” I love the whole thing, the whole business. In a perfect world, is it like a few less hours a day? Yeah, that would be perfect for every member of our team. All of it is awesome, and it’s all just a little too much awesome.
Abby Wambach:
I just want to ask you, are you feeling okay about all that we’re talking about? Are you feeling like your feelings starting to get hurt a little?
Amanda Doyle:
Well, I’m just feeling like A, I don’t know if this is a practical exercise. I feel like it’s a theoretical enterprise. And then B, I feel like what I need to do is what I already identified I need to do, which is do my best and work really hard and then trust that it’s enough and build in slots of time.
Amanda Doyle:
I don’t think that it’s ever realistic that I’m just going to lower my standards and be like it’s a B. And I also don’t think it’s a failure of my management of the thing that it’s the amount of work it is.
Amanda Doyle:
Our whole team works their asses off and it’s just like we are not victims of this. We’re here because we are devoted to this and we’re really good at it, and we are responsible for our own selves in our own lives and making that work for us.
Glennon Doyle:
I just do feel like if we have a beautiful thing and what’s way more important to me than a successful podcast show is that we are all having the human experiences that we’re supposed to be having, way more important. So let’s just stop there because this has just been a lot.
Amanda Doyle:
It would’ve been easier if I put my head in a bucket.
Glennon Doyle:
For fuck’s sake. That’s why people do this shit instead of getting to the stuff below the stuff.
Abby Wambach:
It’s actually quite amazing.
Glennon Doyle:
I love you so much, and I feel very grateful for your vulnerability and honesty. I don’t think we really expected to go that deep. So I’m really grateful that you did, and I think we should plan a month from now to have another chat. And if it’s exactly like this, that’s fine.
Abby Wambach:
But I also think if you want to make your own list, this is the shit that works for me, the stuff that I’ve implemented in my day. And also Sister, I just want you to know I understand what it’s like to be a high achiever, and I know how much self-esteem being good at shit brought me.
Abby Wambach:
I really know that that’s also so alluring and enticing, and it’s hard to turn your back on that or at least even turn a quarter a ways away from that. And so I don’t want you to ever feel like in this conversation or the way that I think or the way that Glennon, I don’t think that there’s anything fucking wrong with you, but what I would love to see more of is that frivolous, fun situation you’re talking about.
Abby Wambach:
I would love more of that just because when you talk about it, you light up. When you talk about that part of who you are, who you’ve been suppressing a little, that gets me really excited. I don’t know. I get really excited.
Amanda Doyle:
I appreciate that because to me it’s less of a zero-sum. It’s less of a like, “Well, you have got to stop focusing so much on being good at that you’re doing,” because then there’s not enough in this bucket over here and it’s more like you’ve got to focus that energy of being so good at shit and start being so good at being alive.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
So it’s not that you need to stamp out that part of you. No. You need to kindle the shit out of that part of you and start using it to live too.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Amanda Doyle:
And that for me feels the most empowering version of it, which is like, I know I can do that. So it’s just a question of just doing it.
Glennon Doyle:
Can you do me a favor? When you feel the bubbly or the inside, you call it playful a lot, when you feel that, will you just jot it down when you felt it?
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
So maybe that’s a good start instead of a list, just like a noticing.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. An essay ette?
Glennon Doyle:
An essay ette.
Amanda Doyle:
Just joking.
Glennon Doyle:
Of times when you noticed the joy or the whatever it is, and then maybe that will help us know what.
Amanda Doyle:
We can call it, Proof of life.
Glennon Doyle:
Proof of Life.
Abby Wambach:
Good.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh my God. Tish always says that. “Show me your proof of life.”
Amanda Doyle:
And also, I don’t want to do it in one month. I want to do it in three months.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, look at you. Three months. We’ll chat in three months. I love it.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah,
Glennon Doyle:
I love it.
Amanda Doyle:
No, I think that is my thing.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
If I do it in a month, then I’ll be like, “Well, you know what? I’ve got to get three things on the schedule for this week and the three things on the schedule for this week.” I’m not interested in that.
Abby Wambach:
Is there anything that we can do to support, help in that way? We can hands off for three months, or I can send a text every once in a while, like, “Proof of life?”
Amanda Doyle:
Please send proof of life.
Abby Wambach:
What are some proofs of life that you have?
Amanda Doyle:
I will think about that, Abby.
Abby Wambach:
Just let us know.
Amanda Doyle:
I appreciate you and I love you.
Abby Wambach:
I want you to tell us what will work best for you in your mind.
Glennon Doyle:
And it’s no small thing. So three months, if we figure this out, it will be a cultural breakthrough. This is like an epidemic of what, in the world.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. But what I’m saying is it’s 44 years in the making and it’s like let’s meet back here in four weeks.
Abby Wambach:
No, not you.
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t mean for you.
Abby Wambach:
Not you. Not you.
Amanda Doyle:
No, no, no. I know, I know.
Glennon Doyle:
I mean, worldwide, bringing women back to life and allowing them to live as who they are. We will give you three months to solve that.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, I mean I think you’re exactly right. When we did, I don’t even know what episode it was, but I was talking about some things like I used to be funny and silly or something on one episode probably a year ago, and I was reading every single comment under the Instagram post that was driving to that episode. And the number of people that I saw saying things like, “I am a really funny person and I always have been. And I just talked to my family about it and they’re like, ‘Mom isn’t funny. I’ve never heard Mom be funny.'” Or, “I am silly and I just realized I haven’t been silly in 10 years.” We think we are these things, but there’s no evidence of that in our lives.
Abby Wambach:
You got to be them.
Amanda Doyle:
And it’s so sad. It’s like the stupid is as stupid does. It’s like smart is as smart does. Silly is as silly does. We think we is, but we don’t does.
Glennon Doyle:
But we is not. We think we is, but we don’t does.
Amanda Doyle:
We don’t does. We got to start does-ing. Is what it is. Oh my God.
Glennon Doyle:
I read something Ally Wong said recently, “I don’t just want equal pay. I want equal pleasure in life.” We love you Pod Squad for fuck’s sake. I don’t know. We’ll see you next time.
Amanda Doyle:
Do you hear that ambulance going by my house?
Abby Wambach:
Uh-huh.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s like this is the emergency rent level. They heard it and they’re coming for me.
Glennon Doyle:
See? You’re silly. We love you.
Abby Wambach:
We love you.
Amanda Doyle:
Love you.
Abby Wambach:
See you guys next time.
Amanda Doyle:
Bye, fold.
Glennon Doyle:
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 each or all of 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.
Glennon Doyle:
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.
Glennon Doyle:
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 produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios.