How Amanda Finally Calmed Her Brain & Her Letter from Love with Liz Gilbert
February 15, 2024
Glennon Doyle:
Hi everybody. Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. If you have not listened to those episodes in which our beloved friend and yours, Elizabeth Gilbert discusses with us the thing she does every single day, which has changed her entire life, it’s a spiritual practice that actually people have been doing a long time.
It’s called two-way prayer. A lot of people would recognize that practice. It’s basically where you sit down and you write a letter to yourself from love. If you are a person to whom that sounds ridiculous, today’s for you. Okay, on the last episode that we did with Liz, Abby and I read our letters from Love, which were pretty intensely transformative experiences for us. Would you say, babe?
Abby Wambach:
Oh, yeah. Big time.
Amanda Doyle:
And those were episodes 268 and 269 for y’all to go back to.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, great. And during those episodes, Liz issued Amanda a challenge, which was to write her own letter. And I’m not sure that any of the four of us thought that would actually happen because sister is pretty logical. She’s a pretty logical human being. It happened. It happened, and sister sent her letter from Love to Liz and to me, and we both lost it.
Abby Wambach:
Me too.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right. That’s right.
Abby Wambach:
I know that you sometimes think that you includes me, but the people don’t know that.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, that’s right. You’re right. I mean a collective me, I mean lesbian me, which is-
Amanda Doyle:
See or we.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
That includes us.
Abby Wambach:
Sorry, I digress.
Glennon Doyle:
Let’s welcome Liz Gilbert and get into this today. Liz Gilbert is obviously the author of the international bestseller, Eat, Pray, Love, which has been translated into over 30 languages and sold over 12 million copies worldwide. In 2010, Liz published the follow-up to Eat, Pray, Love called Committed.
She wrote Big Magic, which changed everybody’s creativity. If you’re working on your art, go get Big Magic. She’s the author of three incredible novels, Stern Men, The Signature Of All Things and City Of Girls. She’s the creator of the Onward Book Club, which takes place on her Instagram, which is so cool.
She does live chats with black women authors discussing their newest works. And lately you can find her on Substack where she’s creating this incredible online community of beauty and kindness, which is based on her letters. And she sends out a newsletter called Letters From Love with Elizabeth Gilbert, which if this episode speaks to you, you’re going to want to go check it out.
Abby Wambach:
Also, I just want to say this, I’ve read sister’s letter, and if there’s anybody out there who relates to sister and the way that she thinks and the way that she talks, you need to listen to this episode. It is going to blow your fucking mind.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh my God. And also, if you relate to me in how your brain and heart works, my sincere condolences to you.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s interesting-
Amanda Doyle:
I stand in solidarity.
Glennon Doyle:
Blow your mind is exactly what it’s like about getting out of your mind.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, that’s good. That’s good. I meant it.
Glennon Doyle:
Welcome.
Amanda Doyle:
This is a lot of buildup. Now I’m nervous. I feel like you should have just done no buildup because then it’s [inaudible 00:03:42].
Glennon Doyle:
It’s okay. You’ve got Liz. She makes everything more magical, sissy, so don’t worry.
Amanda Doyle:
That’s true. That’s true. She’ll help.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s what she does. She’s human fairy dust. Okay, so here is the human fairy dust herself. Liz Gilbert.
Amanda Doyle:
Yay.
Liz Gilbert:
Hi guys.
Glennon Doyle:
Look at you.
Liz Gilbert:
We meet again. Amanda, what did you do?
Glennon Doyle:
What did you do, sissy?
Amanda Doyle:
Thank you for coming back with us, Liz.
Liz Gilbert:
Are you kidding me? This is my favorite place in the entire world.
Abby Wambach:
I know. It is so fun to go to work and hang out with Liz. It’s my favorite. I’m like, this isn’t even work.
Glennon Doyle:
You know what’s more fun? The only thing that’s more fun than going to work and hang out with Liz is not working and hanging out with Liz.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, going to the cold plunge with Liz.
Glennon Doyle:
Just hanging out with Liz just by Liz’s self. This doesn’t count as work. This is a joy and love fest.
Abby Wambach:
There’s nobody on the planet that does a cold plunge as fun as Liz Gilbert.
Amanda Doyle:
What does she sound like when she does it?
Liz Gilbert:
Is that true?
Abby Wambach:
Listen to me. I’m like, just let out whatever you’re feeling and she takes whatever you say and does it and just was like, [inaudible 00:04:53]. It was awesome. I felt like such a good coach because she was such a good student.
Liz Gilbert:
I’m very responsive.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Liz Gilbert:
A lot of words happened. A lot of screaming words and exclamations of various feelings, and there might’ve been some cursing and there might’ve been some singing. I think it was very loud. I’m sorry for your neighbors because it’s in your garage, right?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, it’s all good.
Liz Gilbert:
God. Amanda Doyle, can I tell everybody what Amanda did?
Glennon Doyle:
Please.
Liz Gilbert:
We are here celebrating something amazing. Amanda Doyle wrote a letter from Love or rather, didn’t write one. Love wrote a letter to Amanda Doyle. What does everybody have to say about that?
Glennon Doyle:
You go first, sissy.
Amanda Doyle:
I’m amazed by it because I obviously was part of the two conversations that y’all had about Abby’s letter from love and Glennon’s. And I honestly didn’t think it was going to take. I was really trying for a long time to try to get quiet enough to hear from this voice and to just ask it. Every night before I went to bed I’m like, maybe tonight you could marinate on that and then we could be ready to hear.
And then in the morning I would be like, any news, love? Any news you want to report? But I didn’t hear anything. And I would try when I would get quiet and it was like these two competing voices where I would just hear my brain being like, well, this would make a good letter. This would make a good. And I honestly didn’t know that I would ever be able to quiet my desire to sound smart and good enough to actually hear what the alternative version would be.
So I really was like, I’m screwed. I’m going to have to just think about what love would sound like and try to make it sound like that because I’m going to have to use my brain and not my heart. And then what was so crazy is, well first of all, it was due after weeks of asking very graciously and patiently for love to say something and love not saying anything, it was due that week and Alice got sick and was throwing up all the days.
And I was like, I can’t hear love over the sound of the vomit. I don’t know what to do. So I wrote to Liz and said, “I can’t hear love over the sound of the vomit. I’m so embarrassed.” And she showed up as love in the form of take another week. It’s great. So then as soon as Alice got better, I sat down one day and miraculously my brain turned off. I don’t know, but it just turned off.
And every time I was tempted to be like, this doesn’t sound good, I could just let that go. And I knew it was actually from love because it wasn’t something at the end of it that I was like, this is good and therefore I’m giving my stamp to it. And also it was so weird. It just was weird. It turned out being a football analogy, which would never ever be something that I’d be like, you know what would make a really compelling letter from love? An elaborate football analogy.
Liz Gilbert:
That’s how you knew it worked.
Amanda Doyle:
So that’s how I knew.
Liz Gilbert:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
That’s how I knew it was not from me because I would never be like, this will really sell.
Liz Gilbert:
This is on brand.
Amanda Doyle:
And then when I sent it to you and Margaret and found out, I mean this is unbelievable to me, this is that the schedule for when my letter from love was supposed to go up was Super Bowl Sunday.
Glennon Doyle:
I know.
Amanda Doyle:
I actually-
Liz Gilbert:
Because of the vomiting. Because of the vomiting, because you got delayed a week and all of a sudden you were the Super Bowl Sunday letter and you didn’t even know that. And the whole letter is a football analogy. God’s got jokes.
Amanda Doyle:
I was like, love, you are a rascal and a half
Glennon Doyle:
LOL G-O-D.
Amanda Doyle:
LOL G-O-D. So I just felt like honestly, because it was so odd and not something that I would write, I knew it was correct. And then to have the Super Bowl thing happen, I was like, oh, that’s funny. It wasn’t a me thing. And that felt like the win.
And I don’t know if it’s going to relate to people, but it just felt so personally like it is possible to mine from a place other than my brain and logic and whatever kind of perfectionism, this will make it better thing. And that felt for me like a very, very big deal.
Abby Wambach:
Can I ask you a question?
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
So during the few weeks of-
Amanda Doyle:
Beseeching love?
Abby Wambach:
Yes. What did that feel like? Because I bet there’s a lot of folks out there that are or have gone through this that they’re like, this exercise sucks. They’re like, I don’t get it. I don’t understand. What did that feel like to you as a perfectionist or more logic minded person?
Glennon Doyle:
And also who do you believe you were talking to? What is your language for this when you think about it or do you not think about it?
Amanda Doyle:
So to Abby’s question, it felt like a tiny bit panicky because I am not going to let down Liz Gilbert and it’s such an honor to speak to her ridiculous community. So I felt a little panic. Like, what happens when I have to write this from my brain and will people know that it wasn’t from love and I’ll be found out?
And then slowly, I think it was a good process though of the asking in the morning and the evening because what I think it clarified after many weeks was this is the barrier because I didn’t even know that at the beginning. I just first thought it wasn’t going to show up.
And then I realized that the problem was my brain was trying to show up to perform and that my endeavor was going to have to be to let brain know that it was okay, that it would be okay for brain to not do this one and try to give somebody else a chance. So I think that was actually helpful. So I think if you’re struggling a lot, maybe giving yourself the time to say what is showing up for you that is drowning out the love voice, for me might be brain.
Maybe it’s fear, maybe it’s anxiety, maybe it’s shame because you’re afraid of what you’re going to say might reveal something about you. I don’t know what it is, but for me it was helpful to be like, oh, I know what the barrier is. And then just to have enough time to be like, it’s okay.
And I told myself, brain, if you don’t do this and whatever comes out is not something that you feel comfortable with, we can throw it away, but just give it a shot. You don’t have to do anything with this, but I would like to know if this is possible.
Liz Gilbert:
Can I make an observation?
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Liz Gilbert:
So many things that this brings up and I’m so happy that you did this and I feel so honored that I got to see you do it and watch it find you. It sounds to me from the way you told the story that you didn’t shut your brain down and then love came in. It sounds like love shut your brain down and came in because if you are like me and I know you are, I can’t shut my brain down.
I’ve been trying to do that my entire life. Anybody who read Eat, Pray, Love knows what a difficult time I had meditating. I can’t do it. I don’t know where the pull plug switches on that thing. And what I’m hearing from what you were sharing is that your experience was like those weeks where you were talking to love to me sound like how I was taught to pray, which is a lot of my voice.
That’s how I was taught to pray. It’s like talk to divinity, talk to the mystery, talk to God, and I hear enough of my voice all day. All I hear is my voice in my head and I can’t quiet it and I can’t still it and I can’t make it stop. And it’s like driving me to an early grace. I can’t with it. It thinks it’s the highest intelligence in the universe. It’s totally frightened of everything.
It needs to control and understand everything. It can control and understand nothing. That doesn’t stop it from trying to. So those nights and mornings with you saying, okay, well, and even offering suggestions to love like, here’s what you might want to say to me, when I finally sit down and do the exercise what I also noticed is you weren’t doing the exercise. You were talking about it and thinking about it and analyzing it and preparing for it.
But the second you sat down and actually did it, which is you sat down and you wrote the words, dear love, what would you have me know today, something bigger than your brain came in and pulled the plug. And you became a channel, an open channel for something that came through you that was not familiar to you because you didn’t script it and you didn’t plan it and you didn’t analyze it.
It was there. And I feel like one thing that I think is so amazing about this process, and I’ve been doing it for so many years and it never stops amazing me, I always sit down thinking I know what it’s going to say. My brain’s always trying to be five steps ahead of everything. So I sit down and I am already, I basically know what I’m going to be told today, and I’m never not surprised by what comes through.
But for that magic to happen, I have to ask the magic question. I have to actually write down the magic question. What would you have me know? And that’s like the abracadabra that seems to open it up and then I don’t have to shut my brain down. It does. To take your football analogy, Amanda, because I know how much you love football analogies, it just does end run around my brain.
And so watching and hearing about that, I’m like, wow, you got to experience the mysticism of this, the mysticism of this, meaning you’re stepping into a field beyond what your rational brain can understand. And it blows my mind, but it’s supposed to blow our minds, I think because our minds have gone as far as they can.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right. That’s what we said in the introduction before you got here. Abby goes, “This letter’s going to blow your mind.” And I was like, “Oh my God. That’s exactly what this process is for, beyond mind.”
Abby Wambach:
It’s good. Do we want to read it? Is that where we are?
Glennon Doyle:
No, we’re going to wrap right now.
Amanda Doyle:
Well, gee, you asked what I think it is, and I didn’t know until I sat down, but it did feel … it felt like it was of me but a realer, sturdier, maybe unaccessed part of me.
Glennon Doyle:
Cool.
Amanda Doyle:
Like maybe an unscared part of me is what it felt like.
Glennon Doyle:
So the self IFS language?
Amanda Doyle:
I was thinking that the IFS self stuff, it felt like, oh, is that what that is?
Glennon Doyle:
Some people call it God, IFS calls it the capital S self, spirit, whatever. But it was something inside of you that was untapped or unheard from before for you?
Amanda Doyle:
Yes. And maybe it’s all of those things, right? Because if God is in you, then if it’s coming from you as your highest self, that is the same thing as God.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, you sound like Liz Gilbert right now, shit, this works fast.
Liz Gilbert:
Glennon and I just made the same gesture. It was a little bit of on the nose. Bingo. Got it. Why would those be different things? Going back to that idea that God dwells within you as you, that’s something that I often hear people say about this. They’re like, it’s me, but not me. It’s the closest and most familiar intimacy. It’s in my voice, but it also isn’t me. But it also is.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, it’s like it knows you well enough to know every single thing. And so it is part of you. So here’s the distinction I’m trying to make, and it’s because probably our false senses of what God is, but it wasn’t like, I am outside of you handing down lessons that you can integrate. It was like, I am integrated from you and therefore I know everything there is to know.
Abby Wambach:
I have a question. Do you have other times in your life, can you recall any other times in your life where love showed up for you where this entity, this being, this part of you that you can remember?
Amanda Doyle:
That’s a really good question.
Glennon Doyle:
Isn’t it?
Amanda Doyle:
I feel like it’s weird, the two things that come to my mind, but when I’ve had full clarity about what I want to do, it feels like that has been moments because I’m not doing the well on the pro side, it’s this and on the con side it’s this. And so let’s net out where we belong. It’s like I can’t explain why, but that thing.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s so interesting.
Amanda Doyle:
I want that thing. I want to do that thing. That feels like another level of self that isn’t asking all the participants what they think.
Glennon Doyle:
Liz, for background on that, sister and I have a thing where I will ask her, okay, but what do you want? And it is like I’ve asked her quantum physics, maybe I have, but it is really surprising to me as the smartest person I know. And when you ask her what she wants truly about work, about vision, about life, about whatever, there is no answer. And it’s almost like you get annoyed at me for asking that question. Would you agree?
Amanda Doyle:
I mean, how do you answer impossible questions like that? That’s ridiculous. When Abby asked me the question, I can think of two times in my life that I felt like-
Abby Wambach:
What are they?
Amanda Doyle:
… I want.
Abby Wambach:
What are they?
Amanda Doyle:
After my first year of college when I knew that I wanted to spend the summer in Ireland, I just wanted to go. I just knew that’s where, and I just needed to be there. It was like humming in my body when I knew I wanted to go work for IJM in India or Rwanda, it ended up being Rwanda, which didn’t make sense.
Abby Wambach:
Okay. Wonderful.
Liz Gilbert:
There’s an expression that I share with some recovery fellows of mine when we’re spinning and trying to … they say in the rooms, figuring things out is not a tool of recovery. I’ve spent my life trying to figure things out and just getting myself wrapped around the axle just so spun out.
And one of the things I tend to do is I ask everybody, I do a lot of research. I do all the research that I can so I can become an expert on the question. And then I ask everybody, which seems like not the worst thing like, why would you not go gather information and gather data and gather opinions? But one of my first sponsors in 12 step called that taking a monkey survey, which means you’ve got monkey mind and then you go out into a tree filled with other monkeys and you ask all the other monkeys what those monkeys think that you should do.
And that’s called taking a monkey survey. And it is the farthest thing from wisdom that you could possibly gather. And we catch each other. We’re like, are you taking the monkey survey? Are you calling me because you’re trying to gather 75 different voices around you to solve this thing? And one of the things that you can also do, here’s a little bonus trick with this exercise, is that you can ask love what would you have me do?
You don’t just have to ask what would you have me know? And that is very interesting what I heard and when you were talking about, especially when you said the times in your life where you knew, where you had a full body, yes, going to Ireland for no apparent, sensible, rational reason and the going to Rwanda also, when you used the term make no sense, these are not things that your intellect came up with.
This is not something the monkey survey would’ve told you to do. You could have taken a monkey survey from now till times get better and nobody would’ve been like go to Rwanda. But something was guiding you and you had the humility to allow it to. And I think that this practice requires a tremendous humility in setting just for a minute, and I love that you reassured your brain by saying, look, if anything comes up in this letter that’s really squirrely or wonky or makes us feel weird or look bad, we can throw it in the garbage.
You gave your brain permission to stand down and to allow guidance from some other place. And I think there’s an ego collapse that has to happen here. The famous ego collapse at depth that has to happen here, even if it’s just for five minutes to be able to allow something else to speak that doesn’t make sense to you or the other monkeys, but that somehow your body knows is true with a capital T.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. It’s like the bad news is nobody outside you knows what you were meant for, nobody. But the good news is is that there’s something within you that will always know. And we ask it last, it’s like you call your wisest friend last because they’re going to give you the real deal.
Abby Wambach:
It reminds me a lot of, because even going through this process myself, I never asked myself that question, when has love shown up for me? And it’s happened so often, but the thing that is coming top of mind right now is every single time I would play soccer, there was a surrendering to something wiser, bigger.
And I’ve been trying to figure this out and I’ve been talking to Glennon about this a lot, and I actually think that this really might be one of the reasons why people like watching sports so much is because top athletes, especially the ones we all know, or these big moments, these big plays, I am convinced it has absolutely nothing to do with my body specifically. But there’s some sort of energy, some sort of different field that some of the best athletes you know tap into because they have all the circumstances sorted.
They know the plays, they know what they’re doing, they’ve practiced, they’ve done all the things. Why then are some people more capable of achieving higher levels of success in their craft than others? And I believe it’s this. I believe that there is a different level that some athletes are able to listen to, let in or surrender to, however you want to describe it.
And that is why the goal against Brazil in 2011 that I scored, that never happens unless something else takes over. And I think that that’s what love is. It steps in when we let it, when we can get humble to it. Liz, I thought that that was really, really important what you said, allowing your being to say something else, come and do this. I believe that something else greater is out there-
Glennon Doyle:
Or in there.
Abby Wambach:
Or in there. Yeah, it’s good.
Liz Gilbert:
I love that Abby, and I’ve experienced that writing at times too. My book, The Signature Of All Things, I don’t really have any memory of writing it. I have an enormous memory of researching it as I’m sure you have memory of practicing, but I don’t have any memory of executing it. I wasn’t there. But lest anybody out there starts thinking that all of this is pointing toward greatness, but many different kinds of greatness.
And many, many times I’ve been doing this practice for 25 years, when I have asked love what it would have me know or what it would have me do, it has said, go get a glass of water, take off your bra, lay down and stop. That’s enough for today. Because that was actually the only thing that it could offer me because I was so burned and I was burned. I was so ravaged and burned to the ground that the best accomplishment I could have for that day was to have a glass of water and to lay down.
And a lot of times love is like, we’ll talk more about this tomorrow. We’ll talk more about this tomorrow. And then sometimes it gives me instructions that I’m like a couple of years ago I was like, what do I do? And it like, and it said, you’re going to buy a plane ticket to this city and you’re going to go there this week and you’re going to call this person and you’re going to ask if you can come and see them and make amends.
And I was like, not this week, not that person. And love was like, yeah, let’s get that plane ticket. Tomorrow’s good. And I did it. I did it and I didn’t even contact that person before I flew to that city because I was like, I’m really hoping that when I get there, she’s not there. That she’s not there because I know she travels a lot. So I’m going to do my half and I’m going to go to the city and then I’ll go call her that morning because she’s really busy and she won’t be there.
And I called her that morning. And she was homesick and she was like, “I would love to see you.” And I went and knocked on her door and she came to the door and we were crying in each other’s arms two minutes later. And if you had told me a week earlier that me and that person would ever speak to each other again, I would’ve told you you were smoking roofing tar.
And so sometimes that’s what it tells you to do. So I encourage you to try it. And I’ve just gotten to the point now where I just do what it says, even if it doesn’t make any sense, especially if it doesn’t make any sense. Now look, obviously if it tells you to do something psychotic and violent, like somebody looked at-
Glennon Doyle:
That’s not love.
Liz Gilbert:
… me the other day and said, “I feel like I’m going a little crazy because I hear love talking to me, but am I just losing my mind?” And it’s like, well, is it telling you to do something that’s destructive, violent, or harmful to yourself or any other human being? If so, go see a medical professional and turn yourself in. But I’ve never done this exercise with anybody where it tells them to do anything that’s harmful to themselves or to others. It has usually very good guidance.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, and like sister said in the last episode we did, it’s like we’re all listening to voices. Let us not pretend that this is a crazy thing to ask yourself for your best self or love to step forward. All we do all day is listen to voices in our head and then do one of the things that it says. Like, what else do you think we’re making decisions by? This is just asking for a particular voice to step forward, which we might be able to trust the most.
And it’s like a teacher where it’s like all the same people are always raising their hands and it’s like, put your hands down. We’re going to ask that one this time. And I would say about the greatness thing, which is I believe that, I think it’s like the intense vulnerability of trying as hard as you can. Nobody sees that and when you try as hard as you can, when you put your entire heart on the line and your body and everything, love is like, okay, I see you. I will come because but also-
Abby Wambach:
That’s good.
Glennon Doyle:
… for me, I have noticed lately that love is always telling me the opposite of greatness, what we think of as greatness. Love wants me to not have to do the things.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, that’s so cute.
Glennon Doyle:
Like love wants me to not feel like I have to write that book or do that speech or be in that thing or be amazing or be whatever. That’s the opposite. Remember that day when love was like, you’re going to learn how to make chocolate chip cookies?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, that was a good day.
Glennon Doyle:
I made my first batch of chocolate chip cookies for my son-
Abby Wambach:
One week ago.
Glennon Doyle:
He is 21-
Abby Wambach:
One week ago.
Glennon Doyle:
… and he got his first batch of chocolate chip cookies.
Abby Wambach:
Her 18-year-old daughter came over to teach Glennon how to make chocolate chip cookies. Talk about love.
Glennon Doyle:
I know.
Liz Gilbert:
How did it feel to make those, Glennon?
Glennon Doyle:
Well, Liz, I woke up with so much love for my kid because he had just left and gone back to college. And so I painted him a painting which was a sunset and us walking and I had to say, this is a sunset and us walking because it didn’t look like that. So there was a note accompanying the painting.
Liz Gilbert:
Did he do the elementary school teacher thing? Tell me about this picture, mom? Did he say that?
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, it looks like you tried so hard, yeah. And then I baked him cookies and then I went to the post office and I packaged it all up and they said, that’s going to be like $100 to send it. So I was like, “Just send it in two weeks. They won’t be good [inaudible 00:32:52]. This is really not about him.” The painting’s unlookable. The cookies are inedible.
Abby Wambach:
Not true.
Glennon Doyle:
But look at my love.
Abby Wambach:
They’re yummy.
Glennon Doyle:
The point-
Liz Gilbert:
Unlookable is a very important word that we need in our vocabulary.
Glennon Doyle:
But the point is that I just got to do those little things for my boy and I had such a wonderful day and I didn’t do something else. What I would say is that love is always telling me to do the little things that I want to do, not the big showy things.
Abby Wambach:
That’s good.
Glennon Doyle:
Do we want to hear from sissy?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, I do.
Liz Gilbert:
I do.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. All right. Well, you’re not going to hear from me because I wouldn’t have written this. I’m just joking. I love you, love.
Liz Gilbert:
I’m so excited. Oh, love doesn’t care.
Glennon Doyle:
Love doesn’t need my love and validation.
Amanda Doyle:
Okay, dear honey bunny, you have never asked to hear from me, so you are afraid I will have nothing to say. For weeks now before you go to bed, when you wake up, you’ve been asking love to show up, but deep down you don’t believe I will have anything to offer. You keep thinking that brain will be the one you’ll have to rely on for anything worth reporting.
You’re finally asking love to come on the field and play, to have faith in myself as a walk-on, but even while you say it, you’re eyeing your star player on the bench and you know it’s a matter of minutes before I fail to deliver and you pull brain in the game to get the job done. Why is brain the star? Is it because she’s run so many plays, she’s scored so many times, she’s brought home so many championships?
Is it because your walls are lined with her glories? Your security exists because she has consistently converted in the clutch. Is it because people look at the varsity letter brain has delivered and call you good? I understand why you put brain in the game. I understand why you trust her with every important play. I love her too, but if I’m never in the game, I can never make a play.
I would though. My plays would be so glorious you would call this game by an entirely new name. You might just watch me play once and retire altogether. You’d go and do a completely new thing because you’d have finally seen the glory you’ve been incessantly striving for and it would be so effortless and so beautiful that you would know there is no more for you to do. Your work would be done and you could rest.
I have so much to say to you. Please ask brain to go back in the locker room for a well-deserved break so you and I can play without you constantly looking back, second guessing your lineup. What I want to say to you is that it could have been easier than all of this. You have been struggling so hard, so gallantly to win for so long, but very tragically and very miraculously what I need to tell you is that no one has been keeping score other than you.
Darling one, there is no score other than the one you have been tallying in your head. What if I told you that the reason we meet on this field together is just to be on this field together? I know this is blowing your mind. I know you can’t possibly believe what I’m saying to you, but what if you could indulge me for just a moment and consider this possibility?
We come to this field to play, to come to this field to play. How would you play if you knew that the playing was the point? How would you play if playing wasn’t a means to winning, but the end in itself? Would silliness and satisfiability and peace and risk and adventure and softness get to play the whole game instead of just the last 60 seconds when your sure brain and grit and judgment and long-suffering have already locked down the win? Would even waste of time who’s been suspended every season, get to suit up?
You love brain and so do I. She loves you as much as I do. She wants to play well for you, but have you noticed how tired she is? Have you noticed how lonely she is with no one else to play with? But there’s more, love. I feel like you are so insistent to win. You may be confused who you are playing with, with who you’re playing against.
And darling, what I need you to know is you are not playing against anyone. There is only playing with or not playing with. There is no playing against. But you get confused. This happens with your husband. You look at him sometimes with eyes that say you think he’s not playing with you but against you. You see his plays and get mad. You want him to push as hard as you are. You’re mad he didn’t train like you did, that he can’t remember the play you’ve run 1000 times.
Now he’s sitting on the bench next to satisfiability and they’re staring blankly, wondering if you’ll ever let them on the field at the same time, if you’ll ever be satisfied with him or anything else. Do you know they both wondered why they keep coming out for this team. I understand that to you they seem nuts. Why aren’t they playing to win?
But please understand that to them you seem nuts because you are the only one keeping score. And you are keeping score very meticulously. I know you don’t know how to stop keeping score, how to refrain from compulsively tallying the wrongs and slights and disappointments against you, and counting at least someone is counting, how hard you are trying. But have you noticed how boring, exhausting, and annoying the score keeping has become for you? I wonder what you would start seeing if you could watch the whole game instead of having your head buried in the score book.
Have you noticed that every challenging play your kids run is to you, a game of survival. You play to exhaustion and injury for them so that everything will be okay. But what if I told you that everything is already okay, now, later and forever, that there is no elimination game, that the whole point is for the kids to stay on the field and keep playing and that maybe they are more likely to keep playing and let all of their players join the team if they know that losing isn’t possible?
But baby doll, I know this is deeper than that. I know how crucial your pretend score is to you. It’s how you know you’ve tried your best. It’s how you know you’ve done enough, how you know are worthy. That without the score you are lost because then there’s no way you’d ever be able to look at yourself and say, I’ve done enough to make myself worthy of this life. I’ve done enough to love, provide for and protect my people.
My people are safe enough. The fiction of the score is as vital as breath to you because it is as close as you’ll ever feel to safety, as close as you’ll ever feel to rest, as close as you’ll ever feel to worthy. But Amanda, I am that love. You think I have nothing to say, that I have no plays up my sleeve, but look wider. I am the entire reason you show up on this field. I am the commissioner.
The stadium is named after me. It is me in you that has you showing up so unrelentingly on that field, strategizing, training, recruiting, and sacrificing. It is the love in you that has you so hell-bent to win. Without me you would not even be playing this game. And when you tally up your made up score, I am what you think you are winning. I am the reward you are not resting for.
I am the safety you are desperately striving for. I am what you are trying to be worthy of, but I am already here. There is no way to win me. There is no way to lose me. You already have me. All I want is to watch you play. I know this is hard for you to imagine, so I’m going to paint you a picture. You know how Taylor looks down at Travis on the field and it’s all bright red lips and a glory of unabashed joy and pride and revelry?
That’s me watching you play. I’ve never been so proud of anyone ever. And that will be true even if you decide to keep fighting against an imaginary adversary, even if you keep only playing brain, even if you burden yourself with the stress of a made up score forever. And that will be true if you decide to throw all of that away and start the underdog, even if every pass gets intercepted because you are too distracted by my awe for you, too busy beading new bracelets.
When people see this love we share, they will look at us with disgust and disbelief and say, that’s too good to be true and you will throw heart hands up at my box and we will wink together and say yes, that’s the point. We can’t lose, me in you, love.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh my God.
Liz Gilbert:
Straight out the gate, first time. Straight out the gate. That’s what shows up. Wow. Amanda. Glennon, what’s happening to you listening to that from your sister?
Glennon Doyle:
I feel like it would be too good to be true in the truest way if sister and I got to play together. I don’t think we ever have.
Amanda Doyle:
Really?
Glennon Doyle:
Not even when we were little, I don’t think. I mean, we’ve done life together. We’ve survived together. We’ve achieved together. We’ve loved each other, but really, I just think that that would be so wonderful. I don’t know what it looks like or what it is.
Abby Wambach:
Maybe your loves have not played together.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
You know?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
You guys play together a lot. Your brains play together a ton. Your starters, so beautiful.
Glennon Doyle:
I also had the thought during this that this is the most Enneagram three letter from love that ever existed. Every enneagram should have their own letters from love. I just imagine all the pod squatters that are all threes just right now in puddles on the floor just like … What did you think of Liz when you … I know you texted me right away.
Liz Gilbert:
Well, first of all, I met yesterday at this event in Richmond, somebody who is a pod squatter and also is on my Letters From Love Substack, and had found the Substack through the podcast. And unprovoked she said, “Amanda’s my favorite because she is me and everything. Her brain and my brain are the same brain.” Hi Caitlin, by the way because I know you’re listening to this.
Glennon Doyle:
Hi, Caitlin.
Liz Gilbert:
She also said that she’s been following the letters from love. She’s like, “I’ve been following it. I’ve been getting so much out of it. I haven’t written one yet, but I’ve been following it, and get so much out of it.”
Glennon Doyle:
Caitlin, I see you.
Liz Gilbert:
It’s like, I’m going to circle this thing till I trust it. I’m going to circle this thing. I’m going to find out some more information. I’m going to do some more research. Great. Circle it. I was like, “Sit poolside as long as you want.” I was like, “Just come and hang out with us. You don’t have to play.”
And then I said, “I’ve got a surprise for you. Guess who’s writing a letter this week?” And she was like, “Oh my God, she did it.” So you’re so right, Glennon that all the Enneagram threes out there are going to feel this. I was thinking about winning and I was thinking about satisfaction and I was thinking about safety.
And those are the concepts that I felt like I heard in that letter that the brain is obsessed with. It’s obsessed with winning, which is a kind of controlling, which leads to a kind of security. It’s obsessed with security. How do I get security? How do I get security for me? How do I get security for the people around me?
And I’m just thinking about something that the teacher Ram Dass said once where he said, “When you embark on a sincere spiritual journey, there is going to come a moment where something is going to have to matter to you more than safety. Something is going to have to take precedence over security.” And I think that’s actually the next level of evolution of the human brain that we’ve been working on for a few thousand years now on this latest software download of our brains.
Because the earliest version of our brains is nothing but a search for security. It’s nothing but danger is around every corner, every shadow, every flicker, every sound is danger. And we’ve got these hyped up nervous systems and then we have this brand new, beautiful frontal cortex that takes all of that intelligence, feels all of that danger and tries to solve the danger by using intelligence, which doesn’t work because ultimately I’m not sure that this planet is meant to be safe.
I’m not sure that this experience of a soul in a human body, it doesn’t look like it is because I don’t know anybody who has sailed through life in a human incarnation and been like, that was easy. That was super easy and not at all painful and there was no suffering involved and it was just a breeze. It doesn’t appear to be the contract that security is promised.
So maybe we’ve been killing ourselves trying to find the wrong thing, and maybe the age of trying to find security is over and the age of something else is being introduced here, to be here, to actually be here in all of the danger and to play just for the sake of the game. I also was thinking about satisfaction and how I wrote this to you after you sent me the video of you reading this. You had a line in the video where you introduced talking about this on the Substack. You talked about, what was the word you used?
Glennon Doyle:
Unsatisfiable.
Liz Gilbert:
To describe yourself.
Amanda Doyle:
Unsatisfiability.
Liz Gilbert:
Unstasfiability. That you lived in a state of unsatisfiablity, right? And I wrote you back and I was like, “You can’t have as many marriages as I’ve had and be somebody who’s satisfied, obviously.” You can’t live the life that I’ve lived. Nothing about the blueprint of my life looks like this is a person who is easily satisfied, right?
It’s like, no, this is also not good enough and this is also not, and you are also not good enough, and living in this place isn’t good enough. I moved almost 20 times in 20 years. It’s like, nope, this doesn’t feel comfortable. This doesn’t satisfy. It’s impossible for me to find satisfaction. And it reminded me of the adage that I’ve heard that to search for God like a man with his head on fire searches for water.
I’ve been searching for something that will feel satisfying. What is going to do it? Meaning what is going to calm me down, make me feel full, make me feel safe, make me feel held, make me feel seen, make me feel known? Who’s going to do it? What’s going to do it? And the only thing that has ever done it is this practice consistently.
And the other reason that it keeps me satisfied is because it keeps me guessing because I never know what it’s going to say. We can’t settle into a routine because I can’t predict it, which is fantastic and humbling for my brain, which thinks that it’s smarter than everything and that it always knows what’s coming. It doesn’t always know what’s coming, and it’s not smarter than everything.
And there’s something enormously satisfying about watching the piece that settled on you, I watched it twice now because I also watched you record a video of you reading the letter, but watching peace just settle into you until at the end you are just this warm, satisfied, safe person. And the world didn’t have to change at all for that to happen. Nothing external had to change.
Amanda Doyle:
That’s it. That’s it. That is it. How wild is that, that it’s like it was just this then, it was all internal then. And your line about, I have to read it because I’ve been thinking about it since you wrote it to me where you said that when you’re studying in the ashram, they used to say to look for God like a man with their head on fire looks for water, because until you find that true source of love, nothing will satisfy you.
And then once you do find it, nothing will ever be dissatisfying again. And that is it, right? It’s the big thing. The big thing is missing. And when the big thing is missing, of course, everything around you that fails to fill the role of the big thing is going to seem to you to be not good enough because precisely it is not good enough.
Liz Gilbert:
Exactly. You’re not wrong.
Amanda Doyle:
But then when you have the big thing, you are correct, nothing is good enough. Your marriage isn’t good enough, your kids aren’t good enough, you are not good enough. Your job isn’t good enough-
Glennon Doyle:
Your house isn’t good enough, your town.
Amanda Doyle:
… your family, your house, nothing is good enough because you are trying to make it as good as the big thing because the big thing is missing. But then when the big thing isn’t missing, guess what you just need, a good self and a good house and a good marriage. You don’t need a big thing level good enough because that is already sorted.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh my God.
Amanda Doyle:
It makes so much sense.
Liz Gilbert:
Suddenly everything else is fine.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly. Everything was just meant to be fine. Nothing was meant to be the big thing level good. And so is success what you’ve been trying to make God too? Because the image that sticks with me this time when I’ve read it, I’ve probably read it six times, but is the just, you guys can tell me why this makes sense, but the visual of you and me on the same team, and then we just keep getting interceptions. We just keep it fucking up.
And no one’s cheering. They’re like, they suck. Get off the field. And then we’re like, okay. And then we sit on the bench and we are giggling and laughing so hard because we keep dropping the ball and it’s hilarious.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
That is the vision that I have that I think would be amazing because we’ve caught so many passes and it’s not God.
Liz Gilbert:
It’s not God.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s not God. So many touchdowns.
Amanda Doyle:
And then it’s even funnier because everyone thinks we’re losing and jokes on them because look how fun this is.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly.
Liz Gilbert:
And then it just gets interesting, which I think is the opposite of anxiety. I think the opposite of anxiety, I think when all the wars are over, when all the internal fires have been put out because the big thing has been found and you’re just resting in the big thing and you’re like, oh, I can’t lose the big thing, the big thing is in me.
There’s nothing I can do to ever be separated from it. Now, this is a really interesting world. Now I’m kind of glad to be here. Now I’m super curious. I’ve just been doing this thing lately where I’ve been thinking about what would it look like if security wasn’t the most important thing in my life? What would it look like if I was willing to die, but not in the grandiose martyry way that we were all taught was noble, not willing to die for a cause, but willing to die because of my curiosity and because it’s just interesting to be here, and I’ve been practicing this.
I’m like, what would it be? What would it be like to not have staying safe be as important as just knowing that this game might end at any moment? I don’t even know what the rules are. This is so interesting. It’s so interesting being here. I have no idea what’s going to happen next. What would this look like if it was just really easy? And the reason that it’s easy is because it doesn’t matter very much whether I live or die.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s so funny. It’s so funny. We spend our whole lives trying not to die, and it doesn’t even matter if we die.
Liz Gilbert:
It’s hilarious. I actually thought, oh wait, it’s always been this source of huge anxiety for me like, it’s such a weird, hard thing to be a human incarnated because you know you’re going to die and it’s so heavy. And what if they let you know that so that you wouldn’t have to worry about it? Oh, don’t worry. Oh, listen, we’re going to give away the ending, the ending as you die at some point. So now that you know that, you can just have a really interesting time here in this experience and see what happens next.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s so true because they’re trying to be like the worst case scenario was that you’d be just hyper focused on trying to avoid dying your whole life and what a joke of a waste that would be. So we’re just letting you know that will happen, so you don’t have to spend your whole time avoiding it. There is no avoiding it. And we’re like, great. Gotcha. Message received. We will now, every day try not to die.
Liz Gilbert:
And make sure that nobody we love or cares about dies, which is the cause of all war, ironically. It’s so wild. And I think that’s what Ram Dass meant when he said at some point, what if something becomes more important than your security or the security of those you love? And what if that is love, curiosity, humility, and presence.
Glennon Doyle:
We’re going to stop there.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Liz Gilbert, thank you.
Abby Wambach:
Just love you.
Glennon Doyle:
Thank you.
Amanda Doyle:
Love you so much.
Liz Gilbert:
I love you guys. Thanks for playing along. It’s so good.
Glennon Doyle:
Let’s keep dropping passes.
Amanda Doyle:
I’m truly grateful because this opened up something for me and 100% would never have done it for anyone else on the planet.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right. That’s right. Liz and Margaret. Liz and Margaret, those are the ones you don’t want to let down.
Abby Wambach:
After our first episode, we’ve gotten so many letters from love from our pod squad.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s so beautiful.
Abby Wambach:
Hundreds and hundreds of people who have sent us and voice mailed to us. It’s been really something. So we’re so grateful to you.
Glennon Doyle:
And y’all, go to Liz’s Substack. We’ll leave all the information in the wherever we leave things.
Amanda Doyle:
In the show notes. It’ll be there. And then you can make sure you cross post your letters there too, so everyone else can read them because they’re so beautiful. We’ve loved reading them.
Glennon Doyle:
Bye, pod squad.
Amanda Doyle:
Bye, pod squad.
Abby Wambach:
See you next time.
Glennon Doyle:
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