Elizabeth Gilbert On Her Most Important Daily Practice
January 2, 2024
Glennon Doyle:
Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. During this episode, we’re talking to our bestie. Our bestie is back, and her name is Elizabeth Gilbert.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s Lizzie Day. Happy Lizzie Day to everyone. Happy Elizeration.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, that’s great, sissy, and happy Lizzie Day to all who celebrate. Elizabeth Gilbert is author of the international bestseller, Eat, Pray, Love, which has been translated into over 30 languages, and sold over 12 million copies. The book became so popular that Time Magazine named Elizabeth Gilbert as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. I feel like, to me, she’s definitely one of the most five influential people in my world. In 2010, Elizabeth published a follow-pp to Eat, Pray, Love, called Committed, as well as Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. She’s the author of three novels, Stern Men, The Signature of All Things, and City of Girls.
Glennon Doyle:
Elizabeth is the creator of the Onward Book Club, spotlighting, studying, and celebrating the work of Black women authors. You can also find her on Substack, and subscribe to her newsletter, Letters From Love, which we’ll be talking about today with Elizabeth Gilbert. Returning after a year and a half, if you haven’t listened to our original episodes, go back and listen to episodes 94 and 95, is the one and only Elizabeth Gilbert.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
Where are you? What is happening?
Liz Gilbert:
I’m in the devil’s waiting room, is what it feels like here. I’m renting an Airbnb in a building in San José, Costa Rica, and they have a party room that’s completely lined with red carpet, that I thought I would rent for me, and us, for this party we’re about to have. I’m just going to show you what we’re dealing with here.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Liz Gilbert:
It’s all for us, just this party room that we’re in.
Glennon Doyle:
You guys, it’s a red-
Liz Gilbert:
Hi, guys.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s like a red velvet. It’s like you’re in a womb. You’re in a womb room.
Liz Gilbert:
Or I’m in an antechamber of my heart-
Glennon Doyle:
Oh.
Liz Gilbert:
… that also happens to have wall-to-wall carpeting, like my actual heart.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. We all miss you. How are you?
Liz Gilbert:
I miss you. I love you. Hi guys.
Abby Wambach:
Look at your fucking head.
Liz Gilbert:
Hi, Amanda.
Abby Wambach:
You’re beautiful scalp.
Liz Gilbert:
Hi, Abby. Okay. I really wish you guys could just feel this. It’s like I have my own puppy. It’s like I have my own puppy.
Glennon Doyle:
Pod squad, what we’re talking about right now, she just comes on, Liz comes on. We haven’t seen her for a couple of months. You came and stayed at our house for a while, and we got to experience the Letters From Love IRL, but we haven’t seen you since then. Now you’re in a red velvet room, and your head is shaved, and you look like a love monk right now, is what you look like.
Abby Wambach:
A love monk is right.
Glennon Doyle:
You look like a love monk. Okay?
Amanda Doyle:
That’s right.
Liz Gilbert:
I have never felt more like myself, probably, than in this exact moment. It’s like, “Of course. Of course this is the haircut I should have always had.” I’ve been dreaming about doing this for years. I actually really almost did it when Rayya died. It felt like I had to, and I remember taking her clippers, because she was a hairdresser, and standing in front of the mirror, and I was like, “I don’t even know how to do this, but I’m just going to do this, because it feels like it must be done.” And then I heard her voice as clear as day of, “Oh, babe, no, just go get a good short haircut, and pay somebody some money. Don’t do that. You’re going to regret that. Don’t do that.” But I did it, finally, and I love it.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, it’s so beautiful.
Abby Wambach:
Do you just pet yourself? Do you pet yourself all the day?
Liz Gilbert:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, I shaved my head in college and that’s what… I just was like, always.
Liz Gilbert:
I can’t keep my hands off it, and it’s so-
Amanda Doyle:
… you say you have your own puppy. It’s like you-
Liz Gilbert:
I Have my own puppy.
Amanda Doyle:
… can be your own comfort source.
Liz Gilbert:
Exactly. I’m my own teddy bear. It’s just incredible. I love it. I wish I had done it a long, long time ago. I’m traveling right now, and just jumping in and out of oceans, and jumping in and out of rivers, and jumping in and out of swimming pools. And taking a shower and rubbing a bar of soap on my head, and jumping out two seconds later. Done. Perfect. Ready for everything. It’s so good.
Glennon Doyle:
When you texted me the little video of you doing it, you kept saying, “I did it myself. I did it myself. I did this myself.” Can you talk about the epiphany of that?
Liz Gilbert:
Yes. Because my hair has been a problem. Many people listening to this probably have a similar experience. That their hair was identified, at a very early age, by some parental or authoritative figure, as problematic. Then enormous resources have been poured into de-problemizing this hair. A lot of suffering, and a lot of pain, and a lot of longing, and a lot of, “What do I have to do to make it look completely different from what it actually is?” And the hair that you have all seen me with over the years is not what my hair looks like. My hair is dark, and frizzy, and curly. And it is not shiny, and blonde, and platinum, and straight.
Liz Gilbert:
It costs me a fortune to make it look like what it isn’t, and it costs me an enormous amount of time. I love the people who I go see to do all this stuff. But the idea that I could not have to have someone tend to my hair as if I was like 18th-century nobility, and you have to have servants who put your clothes on for you. Because you can’t, who dress your hair because you can’t. I don’t need to have staff anymore to tend to my fucking head.
Abby Wambach:
So good.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s so big from a world perspective. You’re like, “I’m ready. I’m already ready.” It’s cosmic when you think about, “No, in this moment, I’m ready. Let’s go.” Oh my God.
Liz Gilbert:
I woke up like this. I literally woke up like this. It’s incredible. And then I was in a meeting recently and I looked around the room and this is in New York City, in the West Village. So one of the most liberal enclaves on earth, and there are 40 people in the room and all the men had short hair, and every single one of the women had expensive looking longer hair. And I was calculating the amount of money, and I was like, why are we still doing this? I don’t understand why this is still that in everything that we’ve put aside and rejected it. Why am I still buying into this story that if you’re a woman, your hair has to be long and if a man has to be short, it’s so stupid. It doesn’t even make sense. It’s so arbitrary. And I was like, these dudes just got to get out of the shower, get dressed, and come here. And I feel like that’s male privilege that I’m now claiming for myself.
Abby Wambach:
Yes, yes. Amen.
Glennon Doyle:
Do you feel scared at all? Does it feel scary? Because I always think-
Abby Wambach:
Do you feel scared?
Glennon Doyle:
No, I feel, I feel unscared when I have a bunch of hair over my face. It feels like a shield of some sort or a blankie, like a security blankie or it just feels so brave to just be like, “Hello, this is my face with no frame.”
Liz Gilbert:
It’s my whole entire face. Yeah, I’ve heard a lot of women say that since they saw this, that they’re like, “It’s so brave. You’re letting yourself be seen.” And I think, oh, right. There’s not this thicket that I can hide behind and peek out from. But I never really had a thicket, which was part of the problem. I really wanted a thicket but I never really had one.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, like a thinket, a thinet.
Liz Gilbert:
I had a had more a few strands of Q-tips that I was trying to hide behind. But yeah, I don’t want to be seen wound. I have a lot of wounds, but I don’t have that one. Abby, I think you and I have this in common. I’m not at all afraid to be seen, so that’s not frightening for me. But what was frightening for me was this crazy idea I had for years where I was like, I really want to do this, but I’m a public figure who’s seen as a certain way? Who gets paid to go speak at corporate events and who has this image that people are accustomed to? So I really must look like my author photos. And just a few weeks ago I was like, that is so stupid. If I can’t do this, who can do this? I’m self-employed, I’m an artist. Somebody has to do this.
Liz Gilbert:
And then I read this article in the New York Times about all these young Chinese women who are shaving their heads. Did you read about this?
Abby Wambach:
No. No.
Liz Gilbert:
It’s like this mass movement that’s happening in China right now of all these young women in their twenties. Including some people who were beauty influencers on Chinese social media who are like, we’re done with all of your standards of what we’re supposed to look like. And they’re all buzz cutting their hair, and of course they look amazing. So I think I was afraid I was going to look like a withered old man, but I don’t think I look like a withered old man. I don’t think it looks really beautiful and I like it better than I think I’ve ever looked, and I feel more like myself than I think I’ve ever felt.
Abby Wambach:
I just have some follow-up questions. Do you have any cow-licks or weird things that happened I do that you weren’t really totally aware of?
Liz Gilbert:
Yes, I do. So I’ve had to learn how to shave it in circles. It grows in circles, but basically it’s pretty straightforward and it takes five minutes. I do it like every five or six days, and it feels like so cleansing to do it. And religious renunciants have always done this partially it’s just because you don’t want to be dealing with this. Your whole life is about something else. Your whole life is about your devotion to something else. And that feels accurate too to me.
Abby Wambach:
Have you been more misgendered since shaving your head?
Liz Gilbert:
I haven’t walked around the United States with it yet, but I’ve been walking around Central America with it. Which is in many ways more conservative and and I’m with a friend of mine who keeps, she’s like, I don’t see you getting any fewer or more looks than ever. And I don’t feel that either, which makes me think maybe it just looks right to other people too.
Glennon Doyle:
It does.
Liz Gilbert:
Maybe it’s not just me who feels like this is what I’m supposed to look like. Maybe it’s people who’ve never seen me who are like, “Yeah, that’s what that person looks like.”
Abby Wambach:
That’s so cool.
Liz Gilbert:
It’s so cool.
Abby Wambach:
So cool.
Glennon Doyle:
Like I asked you on text though. The problem is what will you do with all of the hours that you’re not just thinking about your hair being annoying or when you’re going to get the hairdresser, and also what will you do with all your money and your drawers with all the magic potions? It’ll just be hard.
Liz Gilbert:
I know-
Amanda Doyle:
My God, all this stuff. You don’t need all the shit anymore. The bags of shit.
Liz Gilbert:
I don’t have travel with anything, Amanda, except the Clippers.
Glennon Doyle:
I would be embarrassed for the world to know how much of hours I think about my hair when they had that thing that was like, what’s your Roman Empire? It’s my head. It’s my hair. My own hair.
Amanda Doyle:
The exterior of my head.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, the exterior. No. And it’s not hair in general. It’s not like as a study. It’s not your hair. It’s just my own hair all day every day.
Liz Gilbert:
Well, you have magnificent hair.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, well thank you.
Liz Gilbert:
Thank you. And I’m sure you just woke up with it.
Glennon Doyle:
It did.
Liz Gilbert:
And it just never… It’s just like that.
Glennon Doyle:
And over time it’s only cost me $17 million.
Liz Gilbert:
Can you imagine the amount of money and time?
Glennon Doyle:
No.
Liz Gilbert:
But I also really love the people who have done my hair over the years, and I’m delighted that they have a living. And Rayya was a hairdresser.
Glennon Doyle:
I know.
Liz Gilbert:
She made a living that way. So it’s not like I want to take away the livings of people who do this, but I think this might be it. This feels really good.
Glennon Doyle:
Is there a connection between… Because you said, I mean really when you came to stay with us, when was it what month?
Abby Wambach:
It was maybe two months ago. A month and a half ago.
Glennon Doyle:
The time before now, but relatively recently. Every time we spend time together, you’re teaching me something just by what you’re doing. You’re not trying to teach me because then I wouldn’t listen. But you’re just being yourself. And I feel like for me, you are one of my dearest friends in the world and someone that every time you’re doing something, I’m like, “Huh, that feels like something I’ll probably be doing in five years.” So I’m going to really enjoy my hair now.
Abby Wambach:
You would look awesome with a shaved head.
Liz Gilbert:
You would look awesome and you would feel like a God.
Glennon Doyle:
So what started this practice, I’m going to call it a spiritual practice, and then you tell us what you call it. Where you began waking up in the morning and saying to God, your deepest self saying, “Love what would you have me know today?” You call them two-way prayers. I remember when you were trying to get me to understand that I could have a higher power early in 12 steps. And I would just say, Liz, I can’t fucking do this. I cannot surrender to this higher power that is this He and you would say you can create a higher power of your own understanding and you can surrender to that. Is that the being you’re talking to when you say, “Love, what would you have me know today?” And can you just take the pod squad through the spiritual practice that really is changing peoples’ lives?
Liz Gilbert:
Nothing would bring me more joy, and I am so happy to be here. And I don’t even think I said hello to you guys. I just jumped into talking about shaved heads and carpeted ceilings. But hi, and I love you all. Hi Amanda. Hi Abby. Hi Glenn. It’s so good to see you and thank you for letting me talk about the thing that is my most favorite thing to talk about and to think about and to be with. So I’ll start at the beginning, which my first encounter with this force when I was going through my first divorce. And my collapse from an absolutely love-addicted infatuation with the guy I left my marriage for. Where we flew very close to the sun and then crashed and almost died. Because it was that kind of love story, and I was just wrecked and shamed and full of despair and felt so much shame.
Liz Gilbert:
It was mostly shame, just so much shame and so lost. And I wrote about this in Eat, Pray, Love. So this was like twenty-five years ago, and I woke up in the middle of the night. When I look back on it now, I just think, “Man, I didn’t have any tools for what I was going through.” I was just going through it raw, but it was the going through it rawly that started to collect me my tools. But I don’t know, I can’t remember the moment of inspiration that caused me to take a notebook in the middle of the night and to just write a letter to myself. Saying the things that I have always wanted to hear somebody say to me. They were really simple.
Liz Gilbert:
And essentially what love said to me was, “I’m right here.” There was this presence that said to me, “I am right here. I have always been right here. There is nothing that you can do to lose me. There is nothing you can fail at so much that it will cost you my love. You can’t earn my love. You can’t lose my love. It is innate. It’s yours. I am never going to leave you. I was here at the moment of your birth. I’ll be here at the moment of your death. Whatever you need to do, I’ll be with you.”
Liz Gilbert:
I remember that night I was struggling with whether I needed to go back on antidepressants. And this voice was like, “If you need to go back on antidepressants, I will be there with you loving you through that. If you don’t need to, I will be there loving you through that. There’s nothing you need to change about yourself to be more or less loved than you are, and I’ve got you, and I’ll stay up with you all night if you need to stay up all night crying, I’ll be with you. I’m right here with you. If you fall asleep, I’ll be here when you wake up.”
Liz Gilbert:
And nobody had ever said anything like that to me. Although I’d been trying to train and trick people into saying that with medium levels of… And if they did say it to me, it didn’t end up working anyway because it wasn’t supposed to be coming from them. It wasn’t supposed to be coming from them no matter how many games I played to extract that from them. So I started doing it as a practice, and I didn’t even know really what to call that thing that was speaking to me. I didn’t really feel very comfortable with the term God, unlike you guys, I was not raised in a high demand religion. So I hadn’t had something forced on me about spirituality that was so aggressive and domineering that it made me want to recoil from it, but I hadn’t really had anything.
Liz Gilbert:
So in a way that’s kind of easier, I was sort of building my own ideas, but over the years I just kept reaching out to it and then I just started calling it love. And it’s what it is. It’s this unconditional loving voice. And I have a tattoo on my chest that says I’m right here. Because that is the thing. It says most, more than anything, there are a few things that it constantly says. One is I’m right here. The other is you can’t lose me. The other is you haven’t done anything wrong because I’m such a guilt addict and I’m such a shame addict.
Liz Gilbert:
So it’s constantly telling me you really haven’t done anything wrong and you don’t need to do anything and it’s okay. It’s okay if you can’t do anything, which is very different from what I was raised as. It’s like you must constantly be perfect and you must never make a mistake. And mistakes are totally unforgivable, and any lapse is an emergency and a catastrophe. So fix it, shape it up, zip it up and love’s like, “I don’t need your zipped up self. I don’t need you. I don’t need anything from you.” It’s another thing. It often says, “I don’t need anything from you.”
Liz Gilbert:
And I remember when I was first beginning this relationship with this thing, I would sometimes say to it, “I don’t believe in you.” And it would say, “I have no problem with that. I have no requirement for you to believe in me.” And I would say that you’re not even real. And then it would say, “Well, then who are you talking to, sweetheart?”
Glennon Doyle:
I had that experience too.
Liz Gilbert:
Who are you talking to right now? Who are you up in the middle of the night having a conversation with? “I don’t know. You’re not even real.” So I didn’t do it daily. I used to use it. It was real foxhole stuff. It was like when I was in real crisis, I would reach for it. And it got me through Rayya’s death and Rayya’s relapse into drug addiction. It got me through two divorces. It got me through multiple shame and episodes of multiple breakups and failures and my own addiction.
Liz Gilbert:
It’s really been true to its word that it’s never not going to be there, and it’s never not been wise. There’s never been anything that he has ever told me that wasn’t wise. If I go back and open up journals from 10, 20 years ago, it’s right on point. And lots of times I would go to it when I was frantic about something that was happening, and I really wanted to know how that thing was going to end and what was going to happen.
Liz Gilbert:
And this is where love is sort of a wise ass to me, which I enjoy because of course it would have to be if it was mine. And so I would say things like, I need to know how this is going to end. I need to know when this divorce is going to be over. I need to know what’s going to happen. And love would say to me, that’s not my department. I don’t have actually any information about the future. I don’t, it’s not my department. And I would say, “Well then what are you?” And it would say, “I am love. And what I can assure you is that I’m here to love you through whatever happens. So that’s all I’ve got for you.” And I would say, “That’s not good enough.” And it would say, “I understand why you would feel like that wasn’t good enough. And yet I am here.”
Liz Gilbert:
And I remember saying to it one time, “Well, what is your role then? If you can’t fix anything, you can’t change anything. You can’t predict anything. You can’t undo horrible things that are happening.” And it says, “My role is to be present and comfort with you in your darkest hours. And that is what I’m here for, and that is what I will always be here for.” So when I entered twelve-step recovery, I discovered that there’s this thing that people in twelve-step recovery had been doing forever that’s called two-Way Prayer that Bill W, who was the original founder of AA, said that it was the single most important practice that a recovering addict could have. That it was more important than having a sponsor. It was more important than doing the steps. It was more important than going to meetings. And it didn’t make it into the big book.
Glennon Doyle:
What the hell?
Liz Gilbert:
Because as much as people have issue with the big book as being too religious, they were actually trying to make it less religious. Because they didn’t want to scare away agnostics and so this is a mystical practice. So they didn’t want to put this mystical practice in here that says, you can actually directly speak to your higher power and it will speak back to you. They’re like people aren’t going to be able to handle this. So they just left that out. But Bill W did it every single day of his life. And the original 100 who never relapsed of the first 100 AAs did it. It was like their foremost practice was this two-way direct communion.
Liz Gilbert:
And Bill W said, it’s so important to do this because it’s more important than reading spiritual texts. Because any spiritual text that you read is somebody else’s downloaded divine experience.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly.
Liz Gilbert:
Not yours.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes, somebody else’s two-way prayer.
Liz Gilbert:
It’s somebody else’s two-way prayer that then became the Psalms or then became this divine revelation. But you get to have your own. And in fact, you have to have your own. And as I said to you, Glennon, when you were struggling with doing this… I always say this to my sponsees in 12 step, nobody, nobody will or should surrender to a God who was forced upon them. Because that is coercion and that is not spiritual surrender. But I run my life now on these letters. I can’t… That is no exaggeration. Every single morning when I wake up, I say to this force, which I sometimes call God and sometimes call Love and sometimes call Source, “What do you want me to know today? What would you have me know today?”
Liz Gilbert:
And for the first 20 years, all it told me again and again was I love you so much because I needed 20 years of that. I was so wounded from lack of love, and it didn’t matter how many people loved me, millions of people could love me. It wasn’t digesting. I didn’t have the enzymes to be able to receive love. So this thing had to just be like, “You’re perfect. You’re my child. I love you. You don’t have to do anything. I’m right here.”
Liz Gilbert:
But now, as I’ve gotten more and more well through my recovery, now I find that it gives me instruction. Because it can because I’m willing and open to that. And also I believe that I’m loved. So it’s convinced me that I’m loved. So that was the main job that it had, was to convince me that I’m loved. And then once it convinced me of that, it’s like, “Okay, here’s like today, it was like, bring the very best of what you have to this podcast today. And just share your own story and don’t try to convince anybody or impress anybody. Just tell the truth about what’s happened to you, and I’ll be with you.”
Liz Gilbert:
Then it’ll say like, “Call this person, check in. I want you to do this today. This is the work I want you to be doing. Here’s the person I don’t want you to be calling today.” So it’s now giving me direction. And my rule is I don’t do anything if it tells me not to do it, because we don’t want me out there in the world operating the way I operated for the first 50 years of my life. That the highest intelligence in the universe is mine. We don’t want that. That doesn’t even make any sense. So I’m like, “I’ll give it over to you,” to this presence, and it tells me what to do and that’s what I do. So that’s how it all started. And then I started this thing on Substack recently that’s called Letters From Love, which is this community where I’m sharing my Letters From Love and teaching people how to do this.
Liz Gilbert:
And they’re sharing their Letters From Love. We’ve had it for about two months, but we’ve got 50,000 people now doing this. And their letters are so beautiful. And Abby did one the other day that was… Oh God, it was just I do this with my best friend, Margaret Cordy, who you guys know and love, and I administrate this together. And we were like, we know we’re not supposed to have favorites, but Abby’s letter is our favorite. And the irony is that you were so nervous about doing it because you’re like, “I’m not a writer.” But this practice has nothing to do with being a writer. It’s not about writing, it’s about hearing, it’s about listening. And you’re a really good listener, Abby. It’s about hearing something that’s trying to speak to you and then writing down what it’s saying. It’s not a creative writing exercise. It’s a mystical download where you are tuning into a channel and it’s actually coming through you as revealed wisdom. And that’s got nothing to do with being a writer.
Abby Wambach:
I was so nervous.
Glennon Doyle:
Is it the texture of the voice when you’re listening to yourself and when you’re channeling. How do you distinguish between this is the voice and the wisdom of Liz Gilbert that I don’t want to rule my life? This is the thing that ruled me for the first decades of my life. This is the wisdom that I am channeling from my higher wisdom, from love. How do you actually tell the difference?
Liz Gilbert:
You can’t. And that’s part of the humility is that the only really honest and humble answer is I don’t know. And I don’t know. And I have no way of knowing whether what I am hearing when I ask Love what would you have me know whether that is in fact a divine spirit. Whether that is the innate, whether that is what the Buddhists call original mind, which is our shared mind before thought, before the contamination of thought. There’s this original mind that we all share, which is sometimes what it feels like when I read the letters that people post because they sound so much like mine. It’s like, “Wow, we’re all listening to the same radio station when we ask this question.” Or is this just the part of me and my consciousness that is the kindest, the wisest, the most gentle and the most forgiving aspect of me?
Liz Gilbert:
Or is there even a difference between the kindest, wisest, most forgiving aspect of me and God’s voice? What would God’s voice be? But the kindest and highest and most forgiving aspect of me coming back to what I was telling you Glenn, and about what I learned in India at the ashram that was so moving to me. When they used to say, “God dwells within you as you, God dwells within you as you, God dwells within you as you.” So it’s going to sound like my voice, but it’s going to sound like the highest, kindest, wisest, most temperate, most universally compassionate version of me. And if that’s all it is, I’ll take that.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, exactly.
Liz Gilbert:
I’d much rather be listening to that radio station in my head than the one that tells me that I am a worthless piece of shit, which is also playing 24 hours. So I’m replacing trust in one kind of voice with trust in another kind of voice. And when people say sometimes as they’re learning this practice, “Well, this just doesn’t seem like it could be true that this voice is speaking to me.” I’m like, “You never fucking question the voice in your head that tells you that you are a failure.” You never hear that voice that says, you’re a failure. You’re a loser. You fucked up. You never hear that and go, “That doesn’t sound like it could be true.” You never have any skepticism about that. How about a little skepticism about that voice and a little less skepticism about this loving? Why is it so impossible to imagine that you might be loved and that there might be something that wants communion with you?
Liz Gilbert:
There’s something, there’s an intelligence, a loving intelligence that wants communion with you and is right there waiting. I mean, Love often says to me, or God says to me in these writings, “It was so funny watching you travel all over the world looking for me. It was so funny watching you go to India for four months and get up at 4:00 in the morning and chant.” And it’s like, look, that’s all great. That’s all part of it. But God was like, “Literally all you had to do was ask me what I want you to know. And I would’ve told you, I am not a remote presence. I am not something that has to be searched to the ends of the world. I could not be more here. All you had to do is ask.”
Glennon Doyle:
There is an element of it that is reparenting. It’s like spiritual reparenting. If you had a circle and you got this little part of it with your parents and you imagine all the rest that you needed in a pie graph, then this it’s like you always have at your fingertips or in your heart or all of it that you ever needed. But this is a way of spiritual reparenting too. And is it the opposite of love addiction for you? Because is it like love addiction is searching for this in other people and other things? And this is a returning and finding it within. Would that be the antidote?
Liz Gilbert:
Yes, among other things, including a recovery community and certain practices of recovery in the steps. But yes, if I have an infinite love hunger that’s bottomless, and I know that it is. Because I’ve had it my whole life. And it doesn’t matter what anybody throws in there, it’s just a black hole. It just goes right… It doesn’t stick. If I’ve got that the only possible remedy for infinite love, hunger would have to be infinite love.
Liz Gilbert:
And that’s what I always thought, which is why I was out there looking for it in all these other people. But it’s like Tolstoy had that beautiful spiritual metaphor of the beggar sitting on a pot of gold just thinking about that their whole life with their hand outstretched, begging for just scraps. When they were literally sitting on a pot of gold the entire time because everything that was needed was within you. And that’s in all spiritual traditions. I mean in the gnostic gospels, it says, “Anything you do not bring forth that is within you will destroy you. And anything that you bring forth that is within you will save you.” And in the Upanishads it says, “Where are we to find light? When the sun has been extinguished from within.” It’s all pointing to the same thing, which is the last place you’re going to look. That’s the beautiful humor of it. It’s like I looked for God everywhere else and I looked for love everywhere else. The last place I checked was that it might be within me.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s the Christian. The kingdom of God is not outside. It’s within. That’s repeated. I think it’s interesting that they didn’t put it in the 12 step in the big book. I feel like maybe it’s because they didn’t want it to be too religious, and maybe it’s because they wanted it to be more religious. Maybe it’s because they didn’t want the power. It feels like the gospel of Thomas, or it feels like every time there’s any section of any spiritual book that says actually it’s within you, it gets cut out.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. Then you wouldn’t require the book.
Glennon Doyle:
Then you wouldn’t require the book.
Liz Gilbert:
Then you wouldn’t require the book. Yeah, you could be right about that. It’s true. Well, you can’t really build a movement around that. That’s what Elaine Pagels wrote about in the Gnostic Gospels. Was the reason that the gnostics didn’t take over was because they were just saying, “You don’t need a church and you don’t need priests and you don’t need these documents and you don’t need these rituals.”
Liz Gilbert:
But I think the other reason she wrote very wisely was that it didn’t take on, that it didn’t really take over as a religion. Was that because most people, for some reason, would still rather go to an authority or to a structure and be told what to do. Because the self-responsibility that comes with this is all within you is sometimes a little overwhelming. And they’d like, “Okay, I’d rather just go to confession every Sunday and be told to say these things and go home and live my life. I don’t really want to take responsibility for my own spirituality.”
Glennon Doyle:
I’d rather go to the hairdresser. I’d rather go to the hairdresser.
Liz Gilbert:
I’d rather go to the hairdresser.
Amanda Doyle:
I don’t want to take responsibility for this head. Especially when you think about the people. I mean, this was born out of your desperation, frankly. I mean, beautiful healing work is often born out of sheer desperation of I have nothing left. “So I might try this horseshit thing, because why not?” If you think about a bunch of addicts who are coming to a place they themselves would think, and folks looking at them would think, you’re the last people who were going to say, “Look at yourself.” And I mean, when you’re at that depths, it’s so counterintuitive to think, “No, just go a little deeper in there in that thing that is the very thing that is causing you so much pain that you can’t get anything right.” Keep going. It’s there. It’s just it’s very counter cultural. We think when we get to that place, we have demonstrated our untrustworthiness to the world. So why the hell would we say, “I’m the most trustworthy person to me?”
Liz Gilbert:
Why do you think Jesus liked hanging out with prostitutes and alcoholics and drug addicts and the outcasts? They were closer to it. They were closer to it. They had more ego collapse. Like Carl Young and Bill W wrote these beautiful letters about addiction, and they said, “For the addict to recover, they have to go through ego collapse at depth, all the external systems that you’ve been relying on to prop yourself up, they have to collapse.” And that’s the only way that opening can happen.
Liz Gilbert:
And it’s in Dante’s Inferno too. What’s at the bottom of the center of the frozen lake of hell, inside of Satan’s Belly? You come through that into paradise. That’s the journey. It’s the hero’s journey. It’s like this is the oldest story in the entire world. You’ve got to go through this dark night of the soul. Don’t quit before the miracle. Keep going, keep going. But boy, when you’re in it, you’re like, “This can’t be right. This can’t be right.”
Abby Wambach:
Correct.
Liz Gilbert:
This can’t be right.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s exactly how it feels. This can’t be right.
Amanda Doyle:
Does anyone else have any idea?
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly. Anybody honestly, anybody?
Liz Gilbert:
This sure feels like I’ve lost the way. You really went? What you’re telling me, this is the way? It’s so hard to believe. And yet you hear that story again and again and again on the floor, face down pile of snot, everything gone. Nobody left who will pick up your calls, bankrupt, divorced, shamed, arrested, all of it. It’s like ego collapse, ego collapse, ego collapse. Now you’re getting closer.
Liz Gilbert:
Steven Mitchell says this first they pull the rug out from under you, and then they pull the floor out from underneath the rug. And then they pull the ground out from underneath the floor. And now you’re getting there. Now you’re getting there. But no one wants to do that. No one signs up to do that on purpose. That’s why so much of this happens in crisis. It’s like, no, I’m doing everything I can to not have the rug, the ground, the carpet, the parking garage pulled out from underneath me. I don’t want to let go.
Glennon Doyle:
I think Abby’s going to read her letter, right? Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
I’m starting to sweat.
Liz Gilbert:
Yeah, and I want to hear about what that experience was like for you.
Abby Wambach:
We will.
Glennon Doyle:
Do you have any letter that you can think of that really like… I know all of them do for you, but one that really woke you up and made you change something that was big for you, that you can think about recently?
Liz Gilbert:
I don’t want to get into the details because it involves other people, but being told to walk away from relationships that were very unhealthy, but that I felt I was obliged to. And there was about a year there where I was getting that message every single day, which was, “I don’t want you in that.” And all of my cultural traits and all of my upbringing was like, “But you can’t get away from that. We’re related to these people. This is the central bond. There’s no way out. You have to martyr yourself and suffer. You have to. You just have to.” And Love was like, “Actually, you really super don’t have to. And in fact, you’re getting in the way. It’s not just that I want you out of that for your wellbeing. I want you out of that for the greater good. And I know it doesn’t look like that right now, but that’s what I need you to do.” And that was probably the biggest act of faith since I’ve started this practice, because I just kept saying, “That can’t be right. That can’t be right.”
Liz Gilbert:
But I’ve made this decision to just do it, because what’s my other option? To just do the way I’ve always done things, which has led me to the brink of suicide so many times. That maybe can’t be right. So there’s a radicalness that happens. And I think that’s why that entity, that voice, had to spend those decades just pouring love into me before they started giving me direction. It is like, “I need to really shore you up and let you know that you are loved no matter what you do. And now I’m going to tell you to do some stuff that might be very hard for you.” And it’s certainly been like that with substances when I came into program was that it just kept saying, “We’re doing this now, honey, we’re doing this now. You used to have to do that thing, and I’m going to ask you to just put that down and come with me because we’re not doing that anymore.” And that was hard, but that made more sense than some like… Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
So when Liz came to our house and we were just all hanging out for a few days, it was amazing. She would just start this…
Abby Wambach:
Liz is the best house guest-
Glennon Doyle:
Ever.
Abby Wambach:
… in the whole world because Liz wants to do everything that we want to do.
Liz Gilbert:
Which is nothing.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly.
Amanda Doyle:
That’s the secret folks.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s exactly right.
Abby Wambach:
We saunaed and we cold plunged and we breathed and we meditated and ate, and we talked and we ate. And that’s what we did.
Liz Gilbert:
For three or four days on the couch. We pretty much just didn’t move from the couch.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
And I think at some point you were like, do you want to see this sights? And I was like, “No.”
Glennon Doyle:
Why would I want to see anything but this? That’s what you said, “Why would I want to see things?” I said, “God, I love you so much.”
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, that was great.
Amanda Doyle:
Because Liz Gilbert she doesn’t get out much. So it’s forced to show her the sights.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
So I will admit that when you first suggested that we write our own Letters From Love, after you explained what you were doing. Abby was the brave one that said, “Yes, please.” I said, “No, thank you.” Tish said, “No, thank you.” Tish kept saying, “But who’s writing back? I don’t get it. So I write, and then what happens? Who’s going to write back?” And Liz was like, “Love.” And Tish was like, “I’m going to go back to TikTok.” So Abby said, “Yes.” And then would you share the rest?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. Well, the pod squad knows that I’ve been on my own personal therapy journey. In an episode that’s been previously dropped I talk a lot about my desire and need to develop more self-love. And I think that because of this therapy, and then Liz shows up at our house and she’s like, “I’ve started this new project and I’m doing this Substack thing, and it’s Letters From Love.” It was like when the world shows up in certain ways, you’re like, “Oh yeah, that’s right. This is what we’re doing now.” So when Liz was telling us about it and then asked me to do it, I said yes. And then I was like, “Oh fuck, but I’m not a great writer like Liz and Glennon.” And so I had an immense amount of insecurity because it feels like a writing in the diary and publishing that. It’s like a diary journal writing entry.
Abby Wambach:
And so I sat down and it took me 10 minutes.
Glennon Doyle:
Wow.
Abby Wambach:
This thing came out of me in 10 minutes and it was like-
Liz Gilbert:
Wow.
Abby Wambach:
… and I will say this. I was like, “Okay, so am I writing to myself or?” I had to figure it out. It feels a little confusing, but really it’s what Love would say to you. And so I sat down and it just poured out. And this was honestly, I don’t think I fixed much about it in the second read through and then I sent it to you and Margaret. Yeah-
Liz Gilbert:
Beautiful.
Abby Wambach:
… you both were really affirming, which I needed.
Liz Gilbert:
And we went bananas.
Abby Wambach:
And I think one of the things that I’m no longer surprised about is how when we open ourselves up to certain things, they just literally show up in our lives. So Glennon was like, “Hell no.” And I was like, “Oh, hell yes.”
Amanda Doyle:
Very tracks. What would Love say to you, Glennon?
Glennon Doyle:
Hell no.
Liz Gilbert:
Oh, we’ll be getting to you, Amanda. Don’t you sit there. Don’t you sit there too smugly. You’ll have your turn, my dear. We’ll see how you feel about this.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Liz Gilbert:
Because you are coming up too. All right.
Abby Wambach:
Okay. I’m just, I’m going to read the letter and then we can talk about it. You guys can-
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, yay. Okay.
Abby Wambach:
Also, I really don’t like reading publicly, but here I go. Okay, “Dear Love, what would you have me know today? Dear Love, oh, sweet little girl. Yes, I said little girl. You spent much of your life trying to figure yourself out, trying to understand yourself and how you fit into the world. Your questions about why you’re here and what this is all about are good. These questions keep you alive and awake. Sometimes though honey, they can take you out and make life unmanageable. Know that I see you, know that you are good. Also know that good and bad is bullshit. Know that your goodness isn’t something I need to see. Know that I love looking at you and watching you and seeing you explore. Isn’t that what you love to do the most? Isn’t seeing things and doing things and experiencing things, the stuff that makes you feel the most? And isn’t feeling the best?
Abby Wambach:
And let me get back to the questions, honey. The questions will keep coming and coming and coming. Don’t be so concerned with finding the answers. That’s where you can get stuck. Life isn’t about the answers. It’s about living out the questions. You have worked really, really hard trying to understand yourself and the world, and sometimes it’s exhausting. And you also have this little worry deep down that the kind of work you’ve done and become expert at excludes you from other work. Or asking other questions of yourself and the world.
Abby Wambach:
You did go down a long arduous road. It was very focused. You did that for certain reasons that you’re still uncovering and reaping the benefits and also recovering from. But that does not limit you to just that one thing. Sweetie, you have always known you were more than just soccer. And now that you are truly stepping into the pureness of love and self-expression, you will keep discovering that.
Abby Wambach:
You are discovering that nothing is by chance. And everything that happened to you was on purpose. The addictions, the heartache, all of it was necessary. But even during all that tumult, I was there. I was with you, and I know you heard me. My feelings aren’t hurt that you needed to ignore me for so long, and I can understand how hard it is to believe that I was there then as I am now. Can you trust that I exist and that I’ve been there with you from the beginning? I’ve been here before this body came, and I’ll be here after this body leaves. You have spent so much of your life believing that the world or someone else would make you believe in me. In some moments that’s been true, but not because someone else made it real. Someone else made you see that I exist inside of you.
Abby Wambach:
See that I’ve been here with you all along, and when that someone left you, you doubted my existence. But I’ve been here. I will always be here. I think it’s easier to not believe I exist inside of each and every one of us. It’s easier in some ways to agree that there is no magic. Because what if magic doesn’t touch us? What if we are the ones love isn’t allowed to have? It’s just not true. I’m here for you all. So here you are awake to the possibility of believing I exist. Do you think you could try easier to prove your worthiness? Your mother’s love isn’t necessary. If you believe I exist and I’m here, and when you do, you will see your mother loves you. You’ll see that you are so worthy and so endlessly loved. What would it take? What would you lose if you chose to believe I exist and I am here with you always?
Abby Wambach:
Why does it feel like such a risk? I will never abandon you. You have never been abandoned. I will never leave you. You have never been left. But I understand why it’s so hard. You’ve taken so many wonderful risks in your life. Heck, it’s why you have had a beautiful life. Those risks you thought would prove you were strong enough to do life alone. I would say that living the questions and those risks are proof that I exist. You were doing them in the name of independence, but deep down, I think you were trying to get at a deeper question of your life. I think you believe I exist. You know I do.
Abby Wambach:
Why not just accept it once and for all? I won’t leave you. I won’t abandon you. And if you choose to jump, I will catch you. Those cracks on your heart that you think are unfixable, well sweetie, they healed a long, long time ago. It’s just the story about them that you can’t get over. And maybe this leap of faith into my arms could be the thing that helps you change that story. Just an idea. Any who, I love you and you are love, baby girl, but it’s not about me. It’s about you and what you want to do. And if you want to believe as I always have, that love doesn’t just live outside of you. It’s everywhere. I am in everything, I am in everyone. I understand how hard life can be. We can do hard things right?” The end.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh my God.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh my God. Wow.
Liz Gilbert:
Wow.
Abby Wambach:
The thing that I feel most surprised about that for me is how it’s been like this weird door that’s opened for me. That though it’s not open all the day as long, because like I am not there yet. I just think that this was one of the most life-changing things that has ever happened to me. And when you were here sitting on our couch talking about this and reading the Substacks to us, and there was just this part of me that was a full body yes. And I don’t talk about myself in my head. I don’t listen to the mean cynical voice as much as I used to.
Abby Wambach:
And this just is like it really is there’s a new door that I can open and I have access to that is not locked. I feel like the whole of my life has been this hallway and all of these doors I’ve just broken through. But I’ve just kept walking past the love door. I’ve just kept walking past it. I’ve knocked on it a few times. I’ve jiggled the doorknob that nope, it’s locked. And for whatever reason, this opened this door up, at least it left it a jar for me. When I walk by it, I can walk through or I can peek my head in. And that’s kind of where I’m at in the process. I also still sometimes am like, “Where is this fucking Love thing? Where are you?” And it just said, “I’m here.”
Liz Gilbert:
Did you just hear it?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Liz Gilbert:
I was going to say ask it. You can ask it anything, yeah.
Abby Wambach:
I just said, I’m right here, baby.
Liz Gilbert:
I’m here.
Abby Wambach:
So I’m just so grateful that I chose to do this. I didn’t know. It’s just ironic that it’s all happening at the same time that I’m actually trying to do this work.
Liz Gilbert:
Yeah, you’re right on time for the appointment. And I think what was why Margaret and I both really wanted you to do it was because, and I wrote about this a little bit when we posted it on social media. People think of you, people see you as so formidable. I wrote on social media about going to see you speak when Wolfpack came out, and I went with a male friend of mine, and he had never heard you speak before. And you came out on stage, you said like ten words. And he said, “I would follow that woman into battle. I would follow that woman over a cliff.”
Liz Gilbert:
You have this quality that makes other people feel like, “Oh, well, there’s the leader that we’re looking for. That’s the one we’ve been waiting for. Let’s follow her over the cliff, let’s go. She’s got this confidence.” You’re literally the Olympic champion captain. And I’ve been lucky enough to see this intimately when I’m around you and Glennon and the kids, the leadership that you show, the way that you make people safe around you.
Liz Gilbert:
And I also, when you and I were talking about doing the letter and you were talking about your insecurity about being a writer, and I reminded you of the letter that you wrote to your Olympic teammates when you broke your leg, the letters that you wrote. I was like, “You know how to do this Abby.” You wrote letters to every single person on that team from the hospital room when your leg was broken, telling them why they were so great. And then you did the same thing with the kids when it was time to marry Glennon, you wrote them each a letter from Love saying, “Here’s what I’m here for you. I’m going to commit to you.”
Liz Gilbert:
So I think that it was so astonishing for so many people to imagine a world in which you wouldn’t know how loved you are, that you would be insecure that maybe if you knocked on love’s door, it would open and nobody would be there, or it wouldn’t open, even Abby Wambach? And that’s why it’s such an incredible service that you did to write the letter so vulnerably. And I remember after you wrote it, you texted me and you said, “I showed it to Glennon.” And I said to Glennon, “This is really vulnerable.”
Liz Gilbert:
And she said, “I think maybe it’s supposed to be.” It’s like it’s not going to do anybody any good if it isn’t. Because then what we hear is yeah, that’s also how I feel. And if you can reach for that and find it, then we can too. So I know I screenshotted a bunch of responses and shared with you about how that Substack community felt about your letter, but it was so important for them.
Abby Wambach:
I think that with regards to leadership too, I’ve been a recovering professional athlete for the last almost eight years now. And what I have learned is that so much of my life, I absolutely thought that leadership was just white male. And just trying to be that. And what I’ve learned over these few years is, oh no. The reason why I think that I was such a good leader is I did lead with so much vulnerability, but I wasn’t able to lead myself in the vulnerability. And I think that that’s what has been so profound about this is you can be on the outside. You can look like this amazing champion, literally gold medal Olympian, and you can lead all the people around you amazingly. And yet I didn’t have that kind of quality for my own self. So this has just been so impressive. I feel impressed with myself, actually.
Liz Gilbert:
Oh, I love hearing that.
Abby Wambach:
I do. I feel impressed with myself.
Glennon Doyle:
And what a beautiful experience to hear your person read what they hear from love and learn what they most need to hear.
Amanda Doyle:
Also, that part about those scars on you and saying that those were healed long ago, and it’s just the stories you tell about them that are still there. I was like, wow. We can dissect it.
Abby Wambach:
Well, Liz helped me with that one when she was here because we talk a lot about stories and Byron Katie and getting to the truth of it, doing that exercise. And I haven’t stopped thinking about that since you left. And I do that a lot of work in my personal therapy, what is true here, because I actually need to know what the truth is rather than the story I have. So that’s been life-changing for me too.
Liz Gilbert:
When Love said to you, you’ve never been abandoned. You’ve never been left. It just reminded me of something that Byron Katie says, which is, you can’t abandon me. That’s my job. I’m the only one who can abandon me. Nobody else can do that. They can leave. People can leave, but they can’t abandon me. Only I can abandon me. And as long as I have this practice, I can’t abandon me.
Abby Wambach:
Oof. Oof.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Pod squad, we’re going to stop here, but don’t worry-
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, What’s coming next, babe?
Glennon Doyle:
Well, we’re going to come back and I’m going to talk you through the arduous, difficult process that I went through. You’ll be shocked to know that I made this very difficult.
Abby Wambach:
Kicking and screaming.
Amanda Doyle:
The love warrior had a tough time with the love letter?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, kicking and screaming.
Glennon Doyle:
I mean, y’all just wait. Come back. We love you. We can do hard things. See you soon.
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.
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. 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 Cadence13 Studios.