Martha Beck Helps Amanda Let Go
October 24, 2023
Glennon Doyle:
Hi, Martha.
Martha Beck:
Hi, everyone. How are you?
Glennon Doyle:
Better now.
Martha Beck:
My work here is done!
Glennon Doyle:
And that was, We Can Do Hard Things, with Martha Beck.
Amanda Doyle:
I would be so relieved if that was all it was. Okay, so it’s been so fun, everyone. We’re all fixed up.
Martha Beck:
I just re-listened to the Amanda Relaxes podcast, or Amanda Talks About Relaxing.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh my gosh. Thank you for coming here today. After we did that episode, it was episode 238 and we got off and Glennon was like, “We can no longer have this discussion without the Martha Becker to guide us. We are wandering in the wilderness without her, and she needs to come and we need some adult supervision to tell us what’s going on.”
Martha Beck:
Oh, sweeties. Aw-
Amanda Doyle:
So-
Martha Beck:
I was just-
Amanda Doyle:
Thank you.
Martha Beck:
I love you all so much. You are trying so hard, all of you, to stop trying so hard.
Amanda Doyle:
Dr. Martha Beck is a bestselling author, life coach, and speaker, offering powerful, practical, and entertaining teachings that help people improve every aspect of their lives. She’s known for her unique combination of science, humor, and spirituality. For over two decades, she has been, in the words of NPR and USA Today, the best-known life coach in America. Her published works include several self-help books and memoirs, including New York Times and international bestsellers, Finding Your Own North Star, and Expecting Adam. Martha’s most recent book, the Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self, was an instant New York Times bestseller.
Amanda Doyle:
Okay, for the listener, to get you up to speed, if you haven’t listened to 238, listen to that episode. But it was about a relaxation intervention that Abby and Glennon were trying to have with me that didn’t go the way that they thought it would go. But it’s more than about relaxing. It’s about this quandary that I’m having about, how am I blocking myself from being human and feeling the breadth of the human experience and why, is it my approach to life that’s fucking me up? Or is it my obligations that can’t let me access those things? Or is it some mix of the two? And it becomes a dynamic among us because Glennon gets stressed when I’m stressed and then we do this work together. So she’s then like, “I don’t want this work to be hurting you, and so should we stop doing this work,” and then I get more stressed because then I think it’s all going to…
Amanda Doyle:
So I thought it was very interesting, Martha Beck, that when we sent you the episode and said, “Can you help us, SOS,” your notes back were actually about our dynamic with the three of us, mostly.
Martha Beck:
A little bit.
Amanda Doyle:
Can you share that to start this? You’ll notice that Glennon hasn’t said any words. Probably because I just read all of your notes out loud to her, before we came on.
Martha Beck:
Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to make anybody feel shy. But yeah, basically, if you listen to 238, it’s three people talking about overworking, essentially, and losing touch with humanness, which I want to talk about. I’m not really sure what you mean by that. When I first heard about this, they said they wanted you to feel more joy. Joy, joy, joy. That’s more specific to me than humanness. Anyway, we’ll get to that in a minute. But what I felt was three people talking about the conundrum of being too stressed by life, to feel joy. And during that conversation, the whole thing could be described as a stressful effort to get something done. So you were falling into the pattern as you were trying to fix the pattern, and you end up with nothing to hang onto. You just get pulled into the whirlpool of it. Not to insult you. Here’s the problem. You’re incredibly smart, all of you, and you’re incredibly well-meaning, but the way that’s been expressed in your lives is overwork, exhaustion, loss of joy. So how are you doing now, Amanda? Since that 238?
Amanda Doyle:
I think that I have this dual relationship with it, which is, I start to peek around the corner where I’m like, “I could have that. I could have that.” And then I get protective of myself because then I think, protect yourself from the hope that you could actually have that, because-
Martha Beck:
Okay, but what? What is it you want to have? When you peek around the corner, what you see is like, “Oh,” what is it you see? Paint me a picture. What’s the thing you can almost have?
Amanda Doyle:
Some ease. Some times where I shouldn’t be doing other things. Time periods where it’s not the conscious, like I am choosing to pay for this later because I’m allocating time to this thing I want to do. Because it feels like moving around little… What was that little Atari game where all the pieces fit together?
Glennon Doyle:
Jenga? Jenga?
Amanda Doyle:
That’s the one with the blocks that all fall down.
Glennon Doyle:
Tetris?
Amanda Doyle:
That’s probably right. Jenga is more like uh.
Martha Beck:
You’re Tetrising away.
Amanda Doyle:
Tetrising away. Right, where it feels like, okay, I can reallocate this block, but then I have to find space for it somewhere else, because it’s still got to get done. So there’s no actual ease. It’s just either paying for it now or paying for it later.
Martha Beck:
So you’ve got ease on one hand and then you’ve got something else on the other hand, and you described it as functioning, in that episode, like you’re always functioning so you can’t be at ease. Is that a fair estimation of what you mean?
Amanda Doyle:
I think it is. I think it is. And the fear that if I stop functioning, things won’t… It’s like, okay, so I have this… Potentially all these great things that I could enjoy. Like I have this awesome team that I love and I have this family and I have this work that’s really meaningful. And I get frustrated with myself because I feel like not actually enjoying that, not actually fully living into the possibilities of what a blessing all of those things are. Because I feel like I need to be maximally functioning in order to keep those things beautiful. So that-
Martha Beck:
So you have to work.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Martha Beck:
Work and work and work for every bit of relaxation and joy.
Amanda Doyle:
And then it just feels like, well, I could stop doing that, but then it threatens the very things that I am trying to protect, but then I never can really truly access them because I’m always functioning.
Martha Beck:
Yes. I gotcha. So what do you mean by functioning? What are you functioning at? You’re a mother, you do this whole magnificent empire with Glennon and Abby, of the whole Doyle world. So you’re working, you’re raising kids. To what end, Amanda? Why are you doing this? What’s your definition of victory? If you live to be 110 healthy years old and you look back and the angel of death comes in and says, “Okay, it’s over,” and you look back and you used your life, this wild and precious life, you succeeded, what would that look like?
Amanda Doyle:
That my people knew me and loved me and their lives were made better because of me. And that I knew and loved my people and allowed my life to be made better because of them. And also that I did what I could uniquely do in the world.
Martha Beck:
You did what you could uniquely do in the world, which I think is a brilliant way of phrasing your mission in life. What is the thing that you can uniquely do in this world, that would constitute complete success?
Amanda Doyle:
At the risk of sounding self-important…
Martha Beck:
No, go for it. We know you’re a big, big soul. Go for it. No modesty.
Amanda Doyle:
I think that I am good at locating what feels like unique and idiosyncratic pain and malaise and frustration within a bigger framework of what has always been happening in the world. And I hope that by being able to name that, it helps people to see that it’s not their failure in the world, it’s just the way the world has always worked, and getting a little freer from that.
Martha Beck:
So your unique ability is to name the pain that people feel in the world and help them see that it’s not their fault?
Amanda Doyle:
To give it a little more meaning that is not their failure, but is part of something that is systemic so that they can use what would be self-hatred to get mad and use anger to free themselves.
Martha Beck:
Okay. So there is something systemic that is taking people away from their joy, and you can name it for them and tell them that it’s not their fault, and then they can be free from the pressure of this system that has them?
Amanda Doyle:
Maybe.
Martha Beck:
Is that fair? Let me put it in another way. Okay. So one thing I noticed so much on the 238, the famous episode 238, is how incredibly verbal you are. And you not only think verbally, but you think in very complex analytical language. Much more than most other people do. And it’s because you and Glennon are both wordsmiths. Abby jumps right in and joins, runs with the cheetahs, with the best of you. So that was a festival of words. And I think Glennon brought up the point that you’re also an animal.
Martha Beck:
So what I saw with you, Amanda… And I’m just jumping in, ordinarily I would spend hours teasing this out of you, but I’m just going to go for it because here we are, recording. All of you are caught in a system where you need to produce high value in terms of our culture’s definition of achievement. So if that’s winning the championship, if it’s having more episodes of more podcasts, if it’s getting more people to a feeling of liberation from the system, that’s success. We’re going to go and find the places where people are stuck in misery and we’re going to set them free to be truly human. And we’re going to do that with… There was a point where Glennon said, “Well, we could cut down to just one podcast a week,” and you were like… “No! We have to reach more people and free them from the system!” That’s the system.
Martha Beck:
“I have to make more podcasts to free people from having to make more things!” If you looked back and said, “I set so many people free from the obligations that had been imposed on them by culture that had nothing to do with their true nature, I set people free from that,” would that feel like success?
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Martha Beck:
That was my guess. So you’re going to do it. Are you going to actually set yourself free or are you going to kill yourself, telling people that they have to do less? It’s a whole do as I say, not as I do, scenario. And I’m sorry to be so direct, and I can feel your little heart.
Amanda Doyle:
No…
Martha Beck:
How does that feel? Because I worry that I’ve injured you.
Amanda Doyle:
No. No, please. No.
Martha Beck:
Okay.
Amanda Doyle:
I am here for the full contact sport, too. Is it true? Does it work that way? Because I’m wondering, do the people that live freely actually help other people?
Martha Beck:
I think I kind of help people sometimes.
Amanda Doyle:
And you live that way. Okay.
Martha Beck:
I do exactly what I freaking want. I don’t do a podcast every week, let alone two. Because you know what? Even if it would set more people free, I wouldn’t be free. If I can’t show up free, it is impossible for me at an energetic level to help others be free. But if I show up free, it is impossible for me at an energetic level not to set others free.
Abby Wambach:
That rings true.
Martha Beck:
Thanks, Abby.
Martha Beck:
So there are different levels going on here, and Amanda, you’re so, so, so, so intellectual and that’s beautiful. I wouldn’t have it any other way. And when you say, “I showed up for the full contact sport,” I believe that part of you. I also see a part of you that is like a baby deer, and it runs and it runs and it runs. It was born knowing how to run, and it’s running to save everyone. And there are tigers right behind it, and it’s terrified to slow down and it’s terrified to be caught. Tell me where I’m wrong.
Amanda Doyle:
I think you’re right about that. I’m terrified to stop. And I’m terrified to let myself fantasize about stopping, because I believe that I won’t be actually able to, and then that will be even more crushing than just continuing to run.
Abby Wambach:
Wow. Super honest.
Martha Beck:
Yeah, I love this.
Martha Beck:
Could we do a strange little exercise? And it’s partly designed to pull you a little bit out of the left hemisphere of your brain, which is so analytical but is also driven and it also tends to do things to excess. All left hemispheres do. So to do this, I often have people hold up their literal physical hands because that activates two sides of your brain, and Abby and Glennon, please jump in. Put it on your lap or whatever’s comfortable. But what I want, Amanda, is to see the two sides of you, the part that is driving, driving, driving. I want that one to be in your right hand as a two-inch tall miniature, and you give it the form you want. Maybe it’s a soldier that is saying, “Go, go, go! March!” A Navy Seal, right? Top level. That’s in your right hand, and it just stomps around, going, “Move, move! We can’t afford to stop moving!” See it?
Amanda Doyle:
Yep.
Martha Beck:
I call mine The Dictator. What do you want to call yours?
Amanda Doyle:
Well, my first husband was a Navy Seal. I guess I shouldn’t call it that name.
Martha Beck:
Go right ahead.
Amanda Doyle:
Got it.
Martha Beck:
Okay. Or call it the Army Ranger. Whatever. Yeah, call it the Navy Seal.
Amanda Doyle:
Okay. Ranger. Ranger.
Martha Beck:
Okay.
Amanda Doyle:
Let’s do this.
Martha Beck:
So, now, in your other hand, your left hand, there’s that part of you that is terrified. Terrified to stop running. The baby deer part. Yeah?
Amanda Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
In my mind, I call that The Wild Child, and it’s just a little, maybe eight year old, dressed in rags, been raised by wolves, and the right side of your brain doesn’t use language, so The Wild Child doesn’t have any language. It’s just an ache. It’s just a cry. It’s just a yearning. And it’s just trying to be good. Can you see yours?
Amanda Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
What does it look like?
Amanda Doyle:
I think, like little me. Little kid me.
Martha Beck:
Yeah? How old, would you guess?
Amanda Doyle:
Preschool.
Martha Beck:
Okay. So, little. Like four. Three, four.
Amanda Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
Little one.
Amanda Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
Okay. Now-
Amanda Doyle:
I had glasses and a patch over my eye.
Martha Beck:
Aw, sweetie. Okay, so there she is. Is she sitting down? Is she standing up? What’s she doing?
Amanda Doyle:
I think she’s standing up.
Martha Beck:
Okay. How does she feel?
Amanda Doyle:
Nervous.
Martha Beck:
So let’s just stop and relax a little bit, and let her know that I don’t want to hurt her. Glennon and Abby don’t want to hurt her. We don’t need to make her do anything. Not one thing. She just gets to be this little girl. That’s it. During this session, I’ve got her. I won’t let anyone hurt her. Does she feel that?
Amanda Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
Okay. So what shall we call her?
Amanda Doyle:
Panda.
Martha Beck:
Amanda.
Amanda Doyle:
Amanda Panda.
Martha Beck:
Amanda Panda! Amanda Panda! That’s so cute! Okay, so Amanda Panda is in your left hand. Little, little. And the Navy Seal is in your right hand.
Glennon Doyle:
Ranger.
Amanda Doyle:
We’ll call her The General.
Martha Beck:
The General!
Amanda Doyle:
The General’s over here.
Martha Beck:
Okay. The General is like, “Go, go, go! You can’t afford… Get up and move! Come on, you’ve got to keep functioning! Come on!” And little Amanda Panda’s going, “What?” “Just get up and move!” Can you feel that?
Amanda Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
You said in episode 238 that sometimes there’s a part of you that gets mad at you for being silly and relaxed, but also at other people for being silly and relaxed. So that’s The General. Okay. And it’s yelling at all the Amanda Pandas in the world to stop being Amanda Pandas and start being part of the military. March when you’re told to march. Sleep for five hours and you’re up and at ’em again. Okay? And so the whole culture divides all of us. Well, it doesn’t divide us. It wants us to be like The General. We live in a society that is based on the factory line, which never stops, and it’s always dedicated to the production of more. Did you know, when they had factories come into villages, people weren’t showing up on time. So they put in these horns in the factories that would wake up every single person in the village at 5:00 in the morning, to make sure they got to work. And we still live in that culture. So there’s The General. And you can see how society formed The General. And can you look at them both and see that The General is actually trying to be good?
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah.
Martha Beck:
And can you see that Amanda Panda is also trying to be good?
Amanda Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
Now let me ask you something. Are they tired?
Amanda Doyle:
I think The General is tired and the Panda is scared.
Martha Beck:
Is she tired of being scared? How long has she been scared?
Amanda Doyle:
I don’t really know. I haven’t really thought about her that much, honestly.
Martha Beck:
So can you ask her?
Amanda Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
Or would she let me ask her?
Amanda Doyle:
Okay.
Martha Beck:
Because I’m really all about her side.
Amanda Doyle:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You speak her language.
Martha Beck:
Yes. So, sweetheart, little Amanda Panda, you feel scared, yeah?
Amanda Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
Does she ever let you relax?
Amanda Doyle:
She doesn’t really know what she’s supposed to do.
Martha Beck:
No, because she doesn’t even understand language. But can she hear that she’s being pounded on to get up and do things all the time?
Amanda Doyle:
When I see her, she’s just kind of looking around nervously, like, “What am I supposed to be doing? I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing.”
Martha Beck:
Oh, okay. Let me try this. I’m going to do something then I’m going to take this a certain direction. So I want you to put your hands down and look at both of them. The General and Amanda Panda. And you can see that they’re very different people, yeah? And yet they’re both really deep, intrinsic parts of you. The achiever and the exister, the consciousness that has no functioning, it just perceives. Can you feel that both of them are trying very hard? That both of them are inherently good, so there’s no criticism and no judgment here whatsoever. Can you feel compassion for both of them?
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Martha Beck:
At the same time?
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Martha Beck:
So look at them both and offer them a loving kindness wish, like, “May you be well.” “May you both be well. May you both be happy. May you both be content. May you both be satisfied. May you both be happy.” Just sink into that. Can you go there?
Amanda Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
Okay.
Amanda Doyle:
Do you want me to say it out loud?
Martha Beck:
No. It’s enough to say it to them in your head and your heart, but I can feel that you’re there. So right now you’re not Amanda Panda who’s confused and nervous and you’re not The General who’s driven. You’re something else. Who are you? Because you’re not Amanda Panda and you’re not The General, you’re something else. What are you?
Amanda Doyle:
Someone who can choose.
Martha Beck:
Sure. Yeah. The agency to choose. But actually, you’re not having to choose. You can love both sides. You can love the paradox. You can contain a paradox. And what I felt when you dropped in was just pure compassion. Can you find that place of pure and total compassion? And then look at Abby and Glennon, and without thinking about them as producers or functioners or people who get things done, look at them through the eyes of that same compassion. Now imagine people doing a funny, silly thing and your General would jump up and go, “Stop that!” Can you feel The General tense up like that when people are being silly?
Amanda Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
Now, so say to The General when it gets activated, “May you be well. May you be happy. I love you. You’re good. Sit down now, sweetie. Sit down. It’s okay. You don’t have to do it anymore.” Can she feel that, or he or it, they?
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. I wonder what that would be like in those moments, because it does feel like it’s coming from within me, or I feel like it’s like a resentment or something.
Martha Beck:
Mm. Okay.
Amanda Doyle:
And I think because I’ve so divorced myself from the ability to access that, when I see it being accessed around me, it’s like a visceral kind of, if I can’t have that, you can’t have that, kind of a feeling.
Martha Beck:
Right. Right. Right. So, wish The General and Amanda Panda well, and tell them they can go to sleep now. And I want to talk to you about this person who feels that resentment.
Amanda Doyle:
Okay. Night-night, babies.
Martha Beck:
You’ve had Dick Schwartz on the show, right? The guy who created…
Amanda Doyle:
No, we talked to Becky Kennedy about Dick Schwartz’s work. We have not spoken directly to him, but wow, I was just thinking about that when you said thank you. I was like, “Oh, that feels like my General part is front and center.”
Martha Beck:
So we all consist of many people. We all consist of many parts. And it gets really confusing because we’re like, “I want to relax, but somehow I don’t want to relax.” And it’s because there’s a part of you that wants to relax and there’s another part that doesn’t. Once you say it, it’s not exactly rocket science. But you have a very strong sort of… You just said, when you see someone being silly or you think about being silly yourself, it triggers a resentment. So what I want you to do is just relax as much as you can, and go to the feeling of that resentment. You were able to access it really well, a second ago. Can you find it?
Amanda Doyle:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
Okay. When it’s active, what do you feel inside your body? Where is it located in the body?
Amanda Doyle:
It’s in my core. In my center.
Martha Beck:
All right.
Amanda Doyle:
And it rises.
Martha Beck:
Okay. So what does it look like?
Amanda Doyle:
It’s flashes out of me. It’s not a conscious thing, it’s just a…
Martha Beck:
Is it like a flame? Is it like a dragon? If it flashes, that gives me the image of fire. What’s it like for you?
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, I think it’s pretty fiery.
Martha Beck:
Okay, so it’s like a dragon that comes out and breathes that fire. Now notice that I’m trying to pull you away from analytical language into visual and sensory detail.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes. Yep.
Martha Beck:
If you are going to experience joy, that shift is at the core of it. So getting out of language and analysis and into sensation and emotion. Our culture says it’s cheaper and stupider. Like pure thought and the abstract is the gold standard. Only, all it does is it runs us in little circles. It makes a little factory line of our heads and it throws our lives into it. And there go our lives.
Amanda Doyle:
That has been my experience.
Martha Beck:
You said it. So you feel this flashing resentment, this fire. Do you want to give it a name so we can just refer to it, as part of you?
Amanda Doyle:
It’s like The Bouncer. Because I think it’s, because I know that that is true of me, but I’m not having it. And so, since I’m bouncing it out of me all the time, it’s, I’m bouncing it out of you. Because that should be mine, but I’m not letting myself.
Martha Beck:
Okay. So there’s the Bouncer. How do you feel about the bouncer?
Amanda Doyle:
The Bouncer is a giant asshole. Everyone hates The Bouncer. I hate The Bouncer. The Bouncer’s no fun. So annoying.
Martha Beck:
I don’t want to get too complicated with all these parts, but it’s very important. So you know what The Bouncer is, and there’s another part of you that hates The Bouncer.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Martha Beck:
Find that part. The part that hates The Bouncer.
Abby Wambach:
This is good.
Martha Beck:
Thank you. We all have these. Play along.
Abby Wambach:
I know. I’m doing it.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, I’m with you.
Abby Wambach:
I’m like, “Oh, there you are.” Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
Who is it that hates The Bouncer? Where’s it in your body? Just feel it. Feel, “Oh, you Bouncer, I freaking hate you!”
Amanda Doyle:
It’s deeper in my belly.
Martha Beck:
Okay.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s deeper in my belly than the bouncer is.
Martha Beck:
Okay.
Amanda Doyle:
The Bouncer’s higher up in a flash, and The Bouncer hater is lower, and slower to come up. Usually just 30 seconds after The Bouncer.
Martha Beck:
Okay. So what are you going to call it?
Glennon Doyle:
Penelope.
Martha Beck:
Okay.
Amanda Doyle:
Is it like a descriptor word or just a name?
Martha Beck:
Anything that comes to you, that seems to fit.
Amanda Doyle:
The Come On! That’s the best name-
Martha Beck:
Okay. Come On! All right. So Come On is like-
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, Come On! This shit again?
Martha Beck:
All right, so now I want to talk to the part of you that’s Come On! Can I talk to her? Is she aware that I’m here?
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Martha Beck:
Okay. Now, what I’m going to ask her to do, and this will sound really odd, but I would ask her to respond, not you.
Amanda Doyle:
Okay.
Martha Beck:
So, Come On, I’m talking to you. If you could just give me some space, I would like you to step out of Amanda and sit maybe two or three feet away from her. And I promise I will let you right back in, after I’ve finished talking to the rest of her. So could you please sit on the couch and let me have access to the rest of Amanda?
Amanda Doyle:
Come On is delighted to excuse herself. She is very tired.
Martha Beck:
Excellent. So give her a good stiff drink and a little leopard outfit, whatever. Let her have some fun. Okay. Now, Come On is over on the couch and I’m here to talk to The Bouncer, whom everybody hates. Now, I don’t hate The Bouncer. Could I talk to the bouncer, please? It’s that flashing energy.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Martha Beck:
Can I talk to it? Is it willing to talk to me?
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Martha Beck:
Okay.
Amanda Doyle:
Good Luck.
Martha Beck:
I think you’re doing a very, very significant job. I think you have taken on the responsibility of making sure everything happens the way it has to happen. Tell me where I’m wrong, again.
Amanda Doyle:
Okay. The Bouncer, sometimes, it’s like these are actually things I want to be happening in my life.
Martha Beck:
Sure. Absolutely.
Amanda Doyle:
Like, I want there to be ease and joy. So why does The Bouncer show up and get mad at that?
Martha Beck:
Okay, so whatever just talked to me, could it please step aside? Because I want to talk to The Bouncer about that.
Amanda Doyle:
Okay. Okay.
Martha Beck:
So Bouncer, you see some people being silly and you’re like… Why? Bouncer, why are you doing that?
Amanda Doyle:
Because it’s not fair.
Martha Beck:
Okay, why isn’t it fair for people to have fun?
Amanda Doyle:
Because I don’t get to.
Martha Beck:
You never got to. And how old were you when you first realized that you never get to have fun? Let her answer. Not Amanda. I want to talk to The Bouncer. How old you were you when you realized you would never get to have fun again?
Amanda Doyle:
I don’t know. I don’t know how old I was. Probably younger than I should have been.
Martha Beck:
Remember the age that came up when I asked you to look at your hand? It was preschool. Does that land? How old were you when you looked around and thought, “I have to take control of this. I’m the one who gets this. Nobody else gets this. I have to do this. And that means I never get to have fun again.”
Amanda Doyle:
Elementary school. Yeah.
Martha Beck:
Yeah. Little kid. That’s why I don’t hate The Bouncer at all. She’s just a little kid and she’s taken on the responsibility probably for her family, for the rest of the world, because she knows she’s smart and she knows she’s strong, and she wants the best for everyone. So she’s going to put her own happiness into the furnace. And every time she sees somebody having fun, it flashes out for a second, but then she shuts it down again. But she never, ever stops burning. And she’s just a little kid, Amanda. She’s just baby. Would you do that to one of your kids?
Amanda Doyle:
God, I hope I’m not. I hope not.
Martha Beck:
How old are your kids, right now?
Amanda Doyle:
Eleven and nine.
Martha Beck:
Okay. Imagine sitting down with your nine year old and saying, “Guess what? You are really smart and you’re really strong. So you are going to serve the world for the rest of your life. And the only catch is you will never get to experience joy, relaxation, fun, or ease, again, ever. So kiss it goodbye. It’s done. It’s over.” Would you do that to your nine year old?
Amanda Doyle:
No.
Martha Beck:
Of course not. Okay, so Bouncer…
Amanda Doyle:
I think I know why.
Martha Beck:
Say.
Amanda Doyle:
I think when you flash that of… I remember when I was really little and if my dad would get really mad and start yelling, then I remember I would try to deal with it and say something and try to stop it and make things right. And I always felt like that was what I had to do.
Martha Beck:
Oh, God.
Amanda Doyle:
To make it not that.
Martha Beck:
So your entire universe depends on creating harmony between people who have so many wounds and scars and have built up such a long relationship. And now here you are, little, little. Nobody can control any other person, and here’s this little kid doing her absolute utmost to control people who were fully grown adults that had their own histories. And you know what, Amanda? I bet you were really good at it.
Glennon Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
Even when you were two, three years old, I bet you were already doing it.
Martha Beck:
And Glennon’s written about this. “Little ball of joy, make everybody happy.” You both do it. Abby’s done it. It’s, “I am going to go train every day ’til I throw up, so that the world can rejoice in my athletic ability…” You’ve all thrown yourself into the furnace of the culture. Make everything happy for everyone. The only person who doesn’t get to be happy in this equation, is you. But it’s okay because you can touch so many millions. Only, you can’t set them free if you don’t leave the cage. So how do you feel toward this little one who was trying to help her parents be happy, help keep the world on its axis? How do you feel toward her now?
Amanda Doyle:
I feel sorry for her that she didn’t think that that was her job to go have life, but just to always be aware of what needed to be done.
Martha Beck:
Yeah. So can you ask her what she’s afraid… Because she’s not in the past, she’s still here.
Amanda Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Martha Beck:
She’s a little kid, sort of locked into that… Glennon said in the last episode, this is trauma behavior. Yeah. It is. The culture that tells us we are just meant to function in productive ways, that is traumatizing to a small child who was not born for that. We have to traumatize it into ourselves. So if you could ask this little sweetheart… Because to me, she’s coming across as more like three than nine. Could we ask her what she thinks would happen if she stopped doing her job, which is to make everything okay for everyone all the time?
Amanda Doyle:
It’s funny because I’m circling back to the original, what is my purpose, where I’m like, it wouldn’t be fair.
Martha Beck:
Mm. It wouldn’t be fair for you to stop.
Amanda Doyle:
It wouldn’t be fair for the people in my life, what would have occurred if I didn’t try to stand up.
Martha Beck:
You’re making an equation between feeling the need to be joyless, and working all the time. This is what I believe. If you can set yourself free, if you can set this little one free, what happens, actually, it’s not that you would gain your full humanity. It’s, to me, you can use whatever language you like, it actually allows you access to something that is bigger than our humanity. It gives you access to this pure, compassionate energy that is flowing into the world, then through you. And there’s tremendous joy. And sometimes you do things, often you do things, things get done, and you’re like, “Huh, I wonder how that happened.” But it takes this huge risk of departing from the cultural paradigm of continuous physical and intellectual work, and saying, “I believe that I am meant for joy. I believe every human is meant for joy. So let’s jump off this cultural paradigm and go to the places where we are in joy, and see what happens. Will everything actually grind to a halt?” If you were experiencing intense joy, would you then be unable to work?
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, that’s a good… No.
Martha Beck:
I don’t think you’ve ever really tried that as an experiment, but I would like it if you did. So Abby, Glennon, my impression of both of you in the little bit that I’ve known you is that you often work from joy. Tell me where I’m wrong.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s true.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Martha Beck:
When I first met you, your relationship was really new, and talk about jumping off the cultural paradigm, and you wrote about this in Untamed, but it’s like you saw each other and your hearts knew, they ignited and you got together and there was so much joy. Am I getting this right? Is the story…
Abby Wambach:
It’s correct.
Glennon Doyle:
And that’s the story of our family, a little bit. When sister is talking about the time she would jump into the fray with our family, she’ll also tell you that if she tries to imagine who was there, that I just wasn’t there. I would be hiding, I would run away, or I would be in my room. And I was older. So for me, it feels like maybe it’s, my sister gets to have it, I don’t get to have it.
Martha Beck:
Could be that.
Glennon Doyle:
I wonder if that’s what my sister thinks.
Martha Beck:
It could be that, but I would actually… One of the interesting things in therapy systems now is that they’re stepping away from looking at the incidents that happened in childhood, even if… Obviously if you have a trauma, you have to talk to someone about it. But instead of saying, “Oh, these were the family dynamics,” it just looks at the parts that are functioning now.
Martha Beck:
So it’s like if you came into me and you had an arrow stuck in your chest, you said, “I need to get this arrow out.” And I said, “Okay, but I want to know about exactly how you got shot, and who was holding the bow, and how far did you draw back?” “Just get the arrow out!” Right? The arrow here is that Amanda developed the theory at a very, very core part at a very, very young age, that by continuously functioning, as she puts it, continuously working in very narrow-defined ways, she can make the world a safer place and do her life’s work. But she sacrificed herself for that. So by comparison… I’m glad you ran away, Glennon. And it did not make Amanda feel like she had to take care of things. That just happened. It’s not your fault. She reacted like she reacted to circumstances.
Martha Beck:
I want to go to the one thing I know well about Abby and Glennon, which is the joy of their relationship and how they just took a running leap off a cliff so that they could have it. Very few people would’ve made that jump, and look how unproductive it’s been! How dare you? How very dare you go for joy and do nothing? This whole thing is because of your joy.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, that’s right.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s so true.
Glennon Doyle:
You told us that.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
You told us that.
Martha Beck:
I was one of the voices, but damn, if I were good enough to just fix it like that for everyone, everyone would be free! Because I’ve tried, damn it. I’ve tried for decades. I did the joyless thing and now I’m just like, “No! I will not.” So I just want to gently talk to the little parts of Amanda and say, recognize when that part rears up, get that resentful energy, and instead of hating it, you can bring in Come On, you can bring in that part again. But does she now know that The Bouncer is just a little girl who’s trying to control a scary situation?
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that The Bouncer also knows even more that the things that upset The Bouncer are the things that are actually, I need. That, that’s why The Bouncer reacts so much. That I actually really am very silly, but because I’ve foreclosed that to myself, The Bouncer gets mad.
Martha Beck:
A part of you. It’s very helpful to see it as parts.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes. A part. A part. A part.
Martha Beck:
Because otherwise you just keep getting stuck and getting stuck and getting stuck in the contradictions. That’s what happened in episode 238, the infamous. So what you do is go, “Oh my gosh, a part of me resents the fact that people are having fun.” “Oh, a part of me hates the part of me that resents it.” “Oh, it’s okay, it’s little Amanda. It’s Amanda Panda throwing herself into the furnace.” And instead of saying, “This is so weird, I value this yet I don’t do that,” you sit down with the little group of them and say, “Okay, peeps, yes, it’s a rough world and we’re all caught on the horns of this productivity-obsessed culture, but let’s all just take a breath.” And the reason I wanted to do the hands exercise is that when you feel compassion for the parts of your personality, what you feel is not another part. It’s what Richard Schwartz calls Self with a capital S. And it runs through everyone and it is inconceivably powerful and productive, but all it does is love. And the first thing it has to love is the cast of characters inside your own mind. Love The Bouncer, love Come On, love The General. Can you find compassion for the whole group of you?
Martha Beck:
Gosh, aren’t you beautiful? Aren’t they all beautiful?
Amanda Doyle:
They are. And they’re all just trying so hard.
Martha Beck:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
They’re trying so hard!
Martha Beck:
And Abby and Glennon, can you see the parts of yourself that are so beautiful, like the part that makes Abby work out until she throws up. And the part that would rather stay in bed and be goofy, and Glennon, the part that hates food and never wants to eat again, and the part that loves food and wants to eat everything in the world. We are all made up of these different parts and every one of those is perfectly human, but the love holding us is bigger than human. It’ll be there when you’re on your deathbed. It won’t have changed a bit. It’ll still be able to love little Amanda.
Martha Beck:
So the practice, and Abby made this beautiful list of things to put into your schedule because your schedule was too full of things… And that’s what the culture does. You have too much to do. Well, put it on your daily prospectus to do less! It’s internally contradictory. But one thing that is not contradictory and that you can do anytime is to notice the different parts coming up. There’s the part that’s exhausted. There’s the part that never stops moving. There’s The General, there’s all of them. And say to them, “What a beautiful creature you are. Be well, be happy, be satisfied. Come into my arms. I’m so proud of you.”
Martha Beck:
And I don’t care if somebody listening to this is a heroin addict on the street. I have worked with heroin addicts on the street. And self still loved them from inside them, from me, from everywhere. They were just casts of fascinating characters doing their damn best. And then see. See if maybe The Bouncer will kind of back off a little sometimes, and maybe Come On will actually give her a cuddle. And then you’ll find yourself doing something kind of goofy and you’ll be like, “No. I love the part that says no, but we’re going to try something new.”
Glennon Doyle:
Beautiful.
Amanda Doyle:
Beautiful.
Martha Beck:
So how are all your bits now?
Amanda Doyle:
I feel like I’m giving them all a big hug.
Martha Beck:
That’s beautiful. Oh, everybody out there listening to this. If you have the [inaudible 00:53:06] to give yourself a big hug, you do it. For God’s sake, the world hasn’t done it for you, but it’s right there inside us. The infinite capacity to love every aspect of our experience. And when we fall back into that, it’s like falling into a cloud. All I want to do is that. I just try to focus on loving my bits.
Amanda Doyle:
Loving your bits.
Martha Beck:
That actually sounds really naughty, and do not-
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, I like it. I like it. You can remember it really easily, like…
Martha Beck:
Love your bits.
Amanda Doyle:
… “Hey, I’m Martha Beck. Have you loved your bits today?”
Martha Beck:
Right. It’s good.
Abby Wambach:
I feel like this is so fascinating to me because yes, I’ve learned a little bit about IFS, internal family systems, and having children, I can see this really being helpful for kids who are going through puberty and hormones and trying to figure out what parts they’re developing. They’re actually in the process of developing the parts. So it’s an interesting way of not controlling, but just giving them more access to parts of themselves. Because when we were growing up, I had no…
Glennon Doyle:
No, we had this idea you were a self.
Abby Wambach:
You were one.
Glennon Doyle:
When you think about the idea, it’s about what a self is. The theory is that we are actually more like communities than individuals.
Martha Beck:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
And God, it’s helpful.
Martha Beck:
And one of the biggest contributions from Dick’s work, as well, is this identity… He said after working for thousands of hours with everybody’s inner community, he found that the self would step forward in every single person. People in prison, everybody. And he’d say, “What part is that?” And they would say, “That’s actually not a part. That’s what I am.” And from then on, the whole goal of that kind of therapy is to identify the self, locate it, and then allow it to love the other parts. And it’s always the self that heals the community. It’s never the therapist.
Abby Wambach:
Damn.
Amanda Doyle:
Wow.
Glennon Doyle:
We’re going to stop here. We’re going to come back. I get stressed out every time. This is really healthy. I get stressed out every time I’m with Martha because all I see is the minutes counting down that we’re going to have left with her. But we’re going to come back and have Martha respond to a lot of pod squatters with challenges, which makes me so excited. But what also makes me excited is that based on this episode, we know we can actually look into the mirror in the morning and say we can do hard things.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah… Oh, because there’s all the parts.
Glennon Doyle:
Because we’re a fucking we.
Abby Wambach:
All the parts.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Yeah.
Martha Beck:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. All right let’s go.
Amanda Doyle:
I love it, too, because you’re not like, “Oh, I’m shitty today, I’m good tomorrow, I’m today.” You’re like, “No, I’m just, a different part was forward today. A different part was operating the machinery in that moment.”
Martha Beck:
And I would actually say, yeah, we can do hard things and then as you’re looking in the mirror, have all the parts step aside a minute, and see nothing but the light. Nothing but the self. And it will say to all the parts, you can do hard things, but you don’t have to.
Glennon Doyle:
You don’t have to.
Martha Beck:
Because I will. And y’all… Relax. Be happy. That’s what you’re here for. That’s it. I’ll do the rest.
Glennon Doyle:
We got everything. Our whole title.
Martha Beck:
I don’t think so.
Glennon Doyle:
We’ll see you next time.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, Martha Beck, thank you…
Martha Beck:
Thank you, puppies.
Amanda Doyle:
… so much.
Glennon Doyle:
We love you.
Amanda Doyle:
Thank you.
Glennon Doyle:
If you’d like to go back and listen to the episodes that we mentioned in today’s conversations, don’t forget to listen to the three other times that Martha has been on this pod and rocked our world. And also, if you want to learn about the internal family systems that we talked about in this episode, check out episode 170, The Most Radical Way to Heal, with Dr. Becky Kennedy.
Glennon Doyle:
We’ll see you next time, Pod Squad. Are you okay, sister bear?
Martha Beck:
Yeah. How are you?
Amanda Doyle:
Sort of. No, I’m great. I’m great.
Martha Beck:
Yeah? Seriously, don’t fake it. Tell me what’s really going on.
Amanda Doyle:
No, I feel like I want to go meditate on everything. You know what I mean? I want to fully let it digest, but that was really powerful and I thank you so much.
Martha Beck:
Oh, thank you. And when you go, just hold Amanda Panda on your lap.
Amanda Doyle:
I will.
Martha Beck:
Yeah. She’s been waiting a while.
Amanda Doyle:
She’s very cuddly. She has been waiting a while. She’s like, “What the fuck took you long enough?” That’s the way she was looking. That’s why she was so nervous. She’s like, “Geez!”
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 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. 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.