Alanis Morissette On Highly Sensitive People & Empaths
March 12, 2024
Glennon Doyle:
(Singing).
Abby Wambach:
(Singing).
Glennon Doyle:
We did not plan that.
Abby Wambach:
[inaudible 00:00:56]. Honestly, I think there are two musicians in the world that I remember the songs to and Alanis is one of them.Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Now, since no one is listening anymore and everyone has turned off our podcast-
Abby Wambach:
I mean, for sure, we’re cutting that, but-
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t think we are. I do not think we are.
Abby Wambach:
I’m so embarrassed. We just-
Glennon Doyle:
Today on We Can Do Hard Things, we have the Alanis Morissette. Alanis Morissette is one of the most influential singer-songwriter musicians and artists in the world. Her deeply expressive music and performances have earned multiple awards, including seven Grammy Awards. And she has sold over 75 million albums worldwide and was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriter Hall of Fame. Her debut album, Jagged Little Pill was followed by nine more eclectic and critically acclaimed albums. Her artistic impact can also be seen via the two-time Tony Award-winning Jagged Little Pill, the Musical, which our family has seen twice or thrice.
Abby Wambach:
I’ve seen twice.
Glennon Doyle:
I think I’ve seen it thrice. No-
Abby Wambach:
No, I’ve seen it once. You saw it in New York and then you saw it here.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. I love it so much.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Which continues to tour globally. This summer, Alanis will be on the Triple Moon Tour, so exciting, with special guests, Joan Jett. (Singing).
Abby Wambach:
Such a disservice we’re doing them.
Glennon Doyle:
And Morgan Wade.
Abby Wambach:
Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, right, right. Joan Jett and me.
Abby Wambach:
And Morgan Wade.
Glennon Doyle:
And the Blackhearts and Morgan Wade.
Abby Wambach:
And Glennon.
Glennon Doyle:
Get more info at alanis.com/events. Hello, sweet Alanis. How are you?
Alanis Morissette:
Hi, you two.
Abby Wambach:
Hi.
Alanis Morissette:
Hi.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh my God. I’m so excited to finally meet you.
Alanis Morissette:
Oh.
Glennon Doyle:
How are you?
Alanis Morissette:
So nice to see you both. I’m really well actually.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, good.
Alanis Morissette:
I can safely say. How are you?
Glennon Doyle:
Good. I think we’re well-ish too. Do you think?
Abby Wambach:
We’re very well. Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
I think we’re well-ish. I’m feeling-
Alanis Morissette:
Well-ish?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Yeah. And I’m feeling well-isher than usual because, first of all, we’ve been huge fans just for absolutely ever, like the rest of the world, not just of the music, of everything, of the meditation album, of the musical. We’ve seen it twice with our family.
Alanis Morissette:
Oh, wow.
Glennon Doyle:
But beside all of that, I have to tell you that I, in preparation for this interview, I started-
Alanis Morissette:
Rabbit-holing?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
She went down.
Glennon Doyle:
Alanis-
Alanis Morissette:
I’m sorry. And you’re welcome.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
I feel like I’ve been on your path of healing. And I kind of thought you were like an incredible student of people in the world. And then you turned into this teacher and I feel like you have done so much work down so many rabbit holes of your own-
Alanis Morissette:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
… that I have a simple goal for this next 50 minutes with you, which is to synthesize the human experience.
Alanis Morissette:
No pressure. That’s very kind. And I think pithifying is a thing, right?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Alanis Morissette:
My main intention behind it though is that not everybody wants to read as much as some of us do as biblio peeps, but we’re all experiencing the human condition, which includes despair and suffering. So if there can be some alleviating of that through distilling and just taking all the knowledge and the millions of models and having created some of my own over the last while, it’s a service. You know? Just showing up. And you do it every day, you two.
It’s an ethos. It’s an orientation, it’s a worldview. I think of us as filters. You know? There’s the course of the animating force that runs through all of us, and I think in varying speeds. Some of us, it’s coursing through really quickly and we have to be semi-responsible for that. And then some of us, it moves more slowly. So in my case, it definitely moves quickly and I just have to be aware of that and take responsibility for it, process enough, have enough people around me to process with bandy things about, with God blessed community.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. If there is a community of highly sensitive people, they are… Like, everyone listening right now. Right.
Alanis Morissette:
Yes. Oh, good.
Glennon Doyle:
If you have lasted this long with this podcast, you are likely-
Alanis Morissette:
People ask, “Who comes to your shows? Who are my people?” And it sounds like there’s an overlap in temperament, proclivity, how our brains work, highly sensitive, a lot of empaths. So 20% or 30% are highly sensitive. Of that 20%, 30%, 4% statistically are empaths as well.
Glennon Doyle:
I did not know that. Can you talk to us about that whole thing you just said? What is a highly sensitive person? What was your life like before you knew that’s what you were? And just take us down this road for people who don’t know what this is.
Alanis Morissette:
Yeah. So I always felt something was wrong with me. We live in a world that basically praises, as you both know already, praises extraversion basically. And I would look at these people who seem to let everything slide off their back. I just think, what do they have? What do they know that I don’t? Because I feel everything so intensely. And I’ve now been able to sort of organize it a little bit in categories. There’s the macro sense of what’s happening in the world that is felt in my body and those of us who are empaths. There’s the immediate microcosmic interaction with spouse, family, friends, colleagues. And then there’s this whole energetic. And here are all these parts that, you know, they want my attention a lot.
So yeah, just kind of fielding all of that and then realizing there’s people like Rose Rosetree. There’s some beautiful books that are being written about being an empath now. And the distinctions weren’t really clear for a while because I think in the neurobiology communities, the psychotherapeutic community, they poo-pooed temperament. They didn’t even want to bring it into any conversations. And I kept going, but how could it not be taken into consideration with education for kids, with programs for adults? How could it not be taken into consideration? It’s a big part of the epicenter of our filter.
So I think it’s becoming more normalized now. And I’ve even heard in television shows, people say, “Well, I’m an HSP.” So yeah, I’m a four on the Enneagram.
Glennon Doyle:
Same.
Alanis Morissette:
It’s all the self-knowledge tools that are out there in the world, I think they’re so powerful for us to embrace, not just for entertainment, although it can be wildly entertaining and hilarious, but for the self-knowledge that we know where to put ourselves. We know how to live our purpose in a way that is sustainable for our bodies and our wellbeing. Although I’m careful with the use of wellbeing these days because it can be another term that we used to beat ourselves up. So I think about wholeness. You know? I’m on the wholeness journey. I’m not on the wellness journey, although sometimes it looks like a wellness journey. The perfectionism comes in and wants to just co-opt the whole wellness journey sometimes. So I’m like, let’s maybe not use that word.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, it sure does, doesn’t it?
Alanis Morissette:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. So you just thought something was wrong with you. And then did you find a book about being an HSP? Was it Elaine Aron’s?
Alanis Morissette:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Did she sweep into your life and say, “Okay, here are the four characteristics of a highly sensitive person,” and you were like, “Oh, I’m not fucked up.”
Alanis Morissette:
Yes. You had me at the acronym. Yeah. Someone gave me the book, the Highly Sensitive Person book. And when I first got it, I was seeing still through the lens of patriarchy and extraversion centricity. And I didn’t actually want to read it. And then a few years later, there it was. And I read it in its entirety and I was just weeping the whole way through out of a recognition and just thought, oh, this explains a lot. Then I just… Talk about rabbit holes. I just wanted to go more deeply and deeply and deeply.
And a lot of times I would think, well, I’m an extrovert because I love humans, I love conversations, I love listening. And I’ve come to see that introverts and highly sensitives and empaths, we light up when we’re around like-mindeds. When we’re not around like-mindeds, we can often be pause to check or just more observing, more sort of people watching. So it depends on context as always.
Glennon Doyle:
So for those listening, the four characteristics of a highly sensitive person are the depth of processing, which means when Abby and I walk into a room and then we leave, and I’m like, “Do you not notice the 12,000 things that just happened in that room?” and she’s okay.
Alanis Morissette:
Abby, are you a non-HSP? Do you identify as non-HSP?
Abby Wambach:
I do, yeah.
Alanis Morissette:
Okay.
Abby Wambach:
But I’m married to an HSP, so that has been-
Alanis Morissette:
Well, yeah. There’s that.
Abby Wambach:
That. I mean, but it’s like… I think that that’s really important for this conversation, is because so many people listening, you may be an HSP and you may not, or you might be married to one, or you might have a child who is an HSP. This is so important because this helps me be a better partner.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Alanis Morissette:
Beautiful. And Elaine talks about the pros and cons of all couplings. And she’s married to a non-HSP and I’m married to a non-HSP. She actually mentioned, I think, in the Highly Sensitive book or maybe the Highly Sensitive Person in Love, she mentioned that, “The highest level of satisfaction,” all in quotes, “is two HSPs.” But my running joke about that is that two HSPs will never leave the house-
Glennon Doyle:
How?
Alanis Morissette:
… get out of their cozy clothes, or they won’t stop ruminating. It’s like, good luck getting out of the house with two HSPs.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly.
Alanis Morissette:
I can think of worse problems, by the way.
Abby Wambach:
I mean, I think an HSP with a non-HSP in a lesbian marriage, that might be like the middle ground.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Because-
Abby Wambach:
Because we’re-
Alanis Morissette:
Because you’re both what? Woman bodies? Because-
Abby Wambach:
We’re processors. We like to go [inaudible 00:10:49]. We’re rooted-
Alanis Morissette:
Okay. You’re thinking women. Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
Yes. Yeah.
Alanis Morissette:
Okay.
Glennon Doyle:
We say it’s not enough to understand each other. We have to overstand each other. We have to, like-
Alanis Morissette:
Well, when people say over-communicating or overstating, I always just think, “Oh, you mean communicating.”
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Alanis Morissette:
Yes. We’ve normalized under-communicating so much. But the idea too, of HSP, non-HSP, I think of examples like, if my husband and I are going to pick up food somewhere, it’s implied that he’s going to go in and get the food with tons of people and I’m going to wait in the car.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, absolutely.
Alanis Morissette:
I mean, it’s implied. Because you were mentioning a second ago Glennon. So a non-highly sensitive, not to say insensitive.
Glennon Doyle:
No.
Alanis Morissette:
A non-highly sensitive temperament person will walk into a room and get 50 pieces of information. A highly sensitive person will walk into a room, especially if they’re empath-compounded, will walk into a room and get 500 pieces of information.
Abby Wambach:
Wow.
Alanis Morissette:
So it goes without saying the acronym that you started laying out that we can get flooded more easily, more quickly. And it’s not that we’re overly fragile, although I love fragility. It’s that there’s so much information. And I actually have sought a lot of help around how do I calibrate the incoming influx of non-stop stimulation. And I even share it with my kids who are all HSPs. I share with them when they feel flooded and I’m noticing it. I just go, “Wow. It’s a lot of information,” because it’s central information, it’s auditory, visual. There’s a lot of clear element that can come into empaths. Like, my kids hear people a block away.
And so really going into the senses a lot is a big deal. And in America, we focus on academia, intellectualism, and we focus on action. We don’t always focus on the senses, and we don’t always focus on the feelings, especially the angry, sad, scared. Those three just get such a bad rep. I’m like, they’re gorgeous. They move worlds.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. One of the interesting things to me is that when we wonder why, why is this that 20% of people are like this, and then we find out that historically the highly sensitive person’s job was to pay such close attention that they would help the community avoid tragedy-
Alanis Morissette:
Everything?
Glennon Doyle:
Everything. Right.
Alanis Morissette:
Yeah. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Can you talk to us because I actually don’t know at all the difference between… We’ve got 20% that’s highly sensitive and then-
Alanis Morissette:
They’re saying almost 30 now.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh?
Alanis Morissette:
I think a lot of us are coming out of the woodwork.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, we’re coming out of the closet. Then how do you know if you’re an empath within the HSP? Are all empaths HSPs?
Alanis Morissette:
All empaths are HSPs. Not all HSPs are empaths.
Glennon Doyle:
Right. Okay. So how do you know if you’re an empath?
Alanis Morissette:
It’s a pretty good chance you know because of the level of somatic overtaking. Like, I am somatically overcome when I see animals, when I feel a room that is unaddressed trauma. And so much of this is none of my business. Right? So for me, the maturation process is about tuning into something. And I come up with tricks. Rose Rosetree, she’s sort of one of the OG empath women. She’s got all kinds of cool tricks about… Some of it is just… It looks like straight how to not be co-dependent. You know? But really it’s how to be an empath and navigate so that it’s a sustainable way of living where you can notice but not be debilitated physically by it.
For me, it’s… The begged question that can really elucidate it for me is whose is this? So now we know we got our generational trauma and we’ve got our current traumas. We’ve got our planetary traumas. And so for me, when I’m feeling debilitated or I feel depression or a rage I can’t explain, often the first question that I start with is, whose is this? Is this my mom’s? Is this my husband’s? Is this the schools?
Abby Wambach:
That’s good.
Alanis Morissette:
And then just sort of rendering distinct what’s going on helps. And then also the I notice… So a lot of ways that you can tell that you’re in an empath merge, it’s actually called an unskilled empath merge. And I was in it all the time where I would see someone and I would almost teleport into their experience to the point where I’d get home at night and I couldn’t even move. One example to kind of get out of that mode is to close your eyes because staring is an indication.
So Abby, if you see Glennon super staring, a little snip, snip, like, “Hey, what’s going on? How are we doing? How do you feel? What’s going on in your body?” the orientation helps visually, what’s happening in the body, what do I notice. Oh, I notice I’m hungry. I notice that I’m itchy on my shoulder. That brings us back into ourselves versus being outwardly oriented. That helps.
Glennon Doyle:
Is it an empath thing to actually get physically sick about anything?
Alanis Morissette:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
You go down hard when something, especially in the world macro, as you talk about, when the stuff goes off in the world macro wise, Glennon will be in bed for-
Alanis Morissette:
Yeah. Take you out.
Abby Wambach:
… for three days.
Alanis Morissette:
Yeah. Or you’re faking when you’re out of bed because you really want to be in bed.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. And you can imagine for all of you love bugs right now, who… And we’re going to get into this more this season, HSPs, don’t worry, empaths, all of this. But you can imagine if you’re a kid who’s an HSP and you don’t know you’re a freaking HSP and you don’t know this is a whole way of being and all you know is you are constantly overstimulated. You think something’s wrong with you. You are always dysregulated. You’re looking for comfort and to self-soothe this way of being that no one understands-
Alanis Morissette:
But we make great addicts.
Glennon Doyle:
What might you become? An addict of everything.
Alanis Morissette:
We’re seeking relief-
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Alanis Morissette:
… from the onslaught of incoming information.
Glennon Doyle:
Talk to us about your experience with this because it’s not a coincidence that so many of us who start out with just these tender, big, wide open hearts and eyes… I have so many addict friends. I mean, I’m an artist and activist, so all my friends are addicts. And they all get to the point where their families and their friends, everybody finds them so insensitive because they’re behaving badly. Right?
Alanis Morissette:
Yeah. But when you’re flooded, you’re not at your best.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. But you start out as the most sensitive.
Alanis Morissette:
Well, self-absorption can really kind of steal all the pros of our temperaments and everything. Right? And self-absorption is… The great metaphor that I think of is when someone steps on your toe and it really hurts, we’re animals, our first instinct isn’t to go, “Are you okay, person who stepped on my toe?” Our immediate instinct animalistically is, “Ah, fuck. Ow.” Right? “Get off me.” And then, “Oh my God.”
So our self-absorption is from being in pain and it not having been addressed. And for me, one of my questions to my therapist and people I work with is with all this incoming information, I’ve had a really hard time feeling like I catch up to real time because there seems to be this unaddressed energies over here, the future vision of what’s possible, the macrocosmic felt sense of what’s happening in the world, the immediate stuff with my relationships, it’s too much. And I just think, is there an end to this?
And one of the sweet pieces of information I got just this week is that when one part is dialogued with and there’s some healing happening, it affects all these other parts too because they often come in clusters. So these parts, they’re in pain. There’s some wisdom they have for us if we have that interiority muscle to dialogue with them. It’s basically the ability to kind of create space. Because I just kept thinking, is there going to be an arrival point where I’m not flooded, where I don’t feel like I have to catch up? And the answer is no, if I’m going with amounts of parts that want my attention, no, because I want to be in the world. I’m going to be exposed to all the incoming pieces of information. It’s about organizing it.
So I’m in this mode of attempting to organize it internally because if I am aware of all the energies, I’m just flooded and I kind of shut down. So to put even categorically, I’m going to put these energies in the past, I’ll still deal with them, but they’re in the past, they’re over here. There’s some disidentification, some stepping away, some space gotten rather than being completely blended and overtaken by it. And then there’s the stuff from the future. And then in the present, there’s this real stillness and spaciousness that allows me to function and not wait for both of these to be cleared up so that I can start living, if that makes any sense.
Abby Wambach:
It does. And you’re talking a lot about like internal family systems. It sounds like you’re talking about the parts.
Alanis Morissette:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
We talk a lot about that on this podcast. And actually, I was just talking with my therapist the other day about it. And she said something really beautiful to me. She said, “So what we’re trying to do in this work, Abby, is to turn the volume down on some of the parts of you that have been screaming and that haven’t been serving you.” So I love that visual just to turn the volume down. But that’s interesting that you talked about your parts as a past and in future.
Alanis Morissette:
Yeah, because I’m trying to organize it. In some way, IFS isn’t necessarily about relegating. It’s about dialoguing and embracing. And Debbie Ford, whom I was very close with for a long time before she passed, for her, it was about connecting with what piece of wisdom do you have for me, what action can I take on your behalf, what do you need, is there anything else. You know? And so it was a great sort of trailhead, to use an IFS term, a great trailhead in to loving these parts. You know? They’re trying to protect, they’re trying to seek relief, they’re trying to manage the unmanageable, trying to keep everything in homeostasis.
So even the ones that are super violent and cruel in there, they’re doing it for a reason. So if we can get to that nucleus, it can shift and make it a little more friendly in here. You know? And I used to just view these cruel voices as that’s just part of being a human being. But when I’ve moved toward them by dialoguing with them and journaling or whatever it is, there’s a deep wisdom in there, and it’s such goodwill. You know? These parts are just doing their best to keep it together for all of us.
Abby Wambach:
True.
Alanis Morissette:
They’re trying to make this system manageable. And sometimes they’re doing it, as you said, little wildly high volume. And Neale Donald Walsch used to say that too in the ’90s. He’d be like, “I have this incredible quality, but when it’s on 11, everyone hates me. When it’s on eight, everyone likes me.” I’m just like, nice. True.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, and you can’t turn the volume down on them until they’re heard. You can’t turn the volume down on them. And if you’re listening and you’re like, what the fuck are they talking about, it’s like you have these parts… And just very quickly and horribly, if you’re listening to this podcast, you know that I had a part of me that did not want me to eat, that my anorexic self that I’m in just a year into recovery for now. And-
Alanis Morissette:
Nice. Congrats. Wow.
Glennon Doyle:
Thank you. And well, also 35 years in recovery.
Alanis Morissette:
Yeah. I mean, a whole lifetime. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
This is the freshest version. Okay?
Alanis Morissette:
Yes, yes.
Glennon Doyle:
This is-
Alanis Morissette:
The current iteration of [inaudible 00:22:28]-
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. And so you wonder like, what is this part doing? Why is it telling me not to eat? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Turn it down, turn it down, turn it down. No. Six months in, it’s saying, “Glennon, your house wasn’t a safe place to indulge your appetite.”
Alanis Morissette:
Nourish.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. I was keeping us small and safe. That’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to keep you small and safe. I’m protecting you. And so it’s like you have these parts that did their best job, actually did a really good job.
Alanis Morissette:
Like amazing job.
Abby Wambach:
You survived.
Glennon Doyle:
Amazing job. Like, oh my God. Good. Like, well done.
Alanis Morissette:
Thank you.
Glennon Doyle:
Thank you. Now we’re in a different place with different rules. The rules here are no longer that we can’t grow. So we have to slowly encourage this little precious protector to take some risks now or relax a little bit, but not until… Alanis, I spent six months, and Abby knows this, just walking by myself. It was just a gentle walk. I was calling it an exile walk, and I had to hear these voices. I had to hear, let these voices rise and talk that were trying to protect me.
Alanis Morissette:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
So these are the parts. They’re all good. There’s no bad parts. They just might be maladjusted now.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, that’s a good way of setting.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Can you talk to us though, because we have so many, the Venn diagram of sensitive humans and people who are in addiction or are recovering from addiction. When you talk about the human condition, we are sensitive, we are overstimulated, we are noticing everything, and we want to turn the volume down. So we find… Talk about protectors, talk about things that we grab.
Alanis Morissette:
Oh yeah. The managers are very, very crafty in the best way.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Alanis Morissette:
They’ll find ways to create relief. There’s so many beautiful words for managers. And I call them relief seeking creatures, basically. And what is relief? Regulation.
Glennon Doyle:
Right, exactly.
Alanis Morissette:
Anything that puts the eye on the prize of regulation, co-regulation, regulating as adults, doing it with our kids, doing it with our puppies, doing it with our parts.
Glennon Doyle:
How did you feel when you were dysregulated? I want to talk about what we go towards when we are doing our best to regulate, but we don’t have all these skills yet because there’s a lot of people out there who are grabbing the booze, filling the carts, doing the… who are just lovebugs, trying to regulate their nervous systems. How do you feel when you’re dysregulated? And talk to us about your addiction journey.
Alanis Morissette:
Well, the best thing about drugs, alcohol, shopping, work addiction, love addiction, love addiction’s gnarly, withdrawal is gnarly, is that it feels really, really good for the first 20 minutes, and then it kills you dead. So for me, those 20 minutes were such reliefs that I didn’t care about dying until I became a parent. And I was like, “Oh, I have to stick around.”
Glennon Doyle:
Same. Same.
Alanis Morissette:
Yeah, I want to actually be… I’d like to live to 127 now, whereas in the past I didn’t even care. But in terms of the relief that it offers, it really does. I mean, alcohol… As Byron Katie says, “Alcohol does its job.” It’s a neutral thing. You know? Shopping, fashion, beauty, glamorizing. All of it. It’s all neutral in and of itself. And how we use it becomes the more pointed relief seeking measure. And it does. It offers relief for the first little bit, and then it ruins your life and ruins your relationships.
So when my eye goes on relief seeking measures that is more relational… And some would say, “Well, tequila is relational. I’m my best self.” No, you’re turning into an extrovert. I mean, a lot of times I would drink tequila so that I could be another temperament. And I miss her sometimes because I don’t drink anymore, but I’m like, “Oh, she was fun.” Yeah. But we’ll find other ways to be fun. The definition of fun changes as we get older anyway.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Alanis Morissette:
But basically, we get into a mode. We’re chasing dopamine. We’re chasing oxytocin. We’re chasing serotonin. We’re chasing the feel good because it is a birthright for us to have some semblance of joy in our bodies. So we’re chasing it, understandably, but these external means of satisfying something that can’t be satisfied through external means, it’s just a temporary blip. But we get a glimpse of it. We get a glimpse of what it feels like to feel joy or to have the serotonin go up.
So some of us who are empaths and HSPs also have a tendency to be depressed and anxious because we’re not only exposed to all these energies, but there is a sensitivity to how the amygdala works in our brains, in our biochemistry and physiology. I often use the metaphor that I’m a shaky poodle inside a black stallion body. And they’re constantly pedal break, pedal break, because I have the high novelty seeking… I want to jump off that cliff. I want a paraglide. I have motorcycles. Let’s do this. And then also this part that’s tremoring and shaking after I ride my motorcycle where I have to calm down for 45 minutes. So-
Glennon Doyle:
Wow. I’m a shaky poodle inside of a shaky poodle.
Alanis Morissette:
Aw. I always want to hold you and regulate.
Abby Wambach:
I-
Glennon Doyle:
On the outside a poodle and on the inside I’m a poodle.
Alanis Morissette:
Inside poodle. Well, that makes it really easy. No one misunderstands you and says, “No cliff diving.”
Abby Wambach:
Yes, that’s true.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. It’s so interesting though, because you do have that… I mean, my God, how do you be that dichotomous, that badass-
Alanis Morissette:
Sweaty.
Glennon Doyle:
… Alanis Morissette set on stage, and then you’re a shaky poodle?
Alanis Morissette:
You know, therein lies the inquiry, a lifelong inquiry. And there’s some Gemini stuff going on. There’s some four on the Enneagram thing where I just… I love variety. I love newness. I novelty seek all the time. But then the poodle part needs the constancy, predictability, commitment, in my case, monogamy. There’s certain things that create safety for this. And so it’s up to me to make sure that I carve that out in my life to the degree that it can be done.
Glennon Doyle:
What’s the hardest part about being you and parenting?
Alanis Morissette:
The first thing that popped to my mind was how protective I am because there’s so many considerations about being in the public eye that I have to take into account, and that are just so normalized for me now, whereas I see my kids processing certain things. And my eldest son will say, “Mom, in some ways it’s cool to be your son. And in other ways it’s just terrible.” And I say, “Yeah, that’s true. And I’m so sorry for the times where you are othered because of me.”
But then there’s pros too. You know? There’s people who come talk to you who ordinarily might not. But for him to navigate it at a young age is really… It breaks my heart a little bit because these are sophisticated considerations. The idea of fame and the effect it has on your life, that’s an adult process. You know? So for kids to be subject to it… I just leave the door completely open for them to vent or say, “Well, that’s cool.” Or we’ll be on the road and they don’t want to come to the show. And people around us will be like, “They just kind of skip shows?” I’m like, “Yes, this is very normal for them. Of course they skip.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. For God’s sake. Yes. And I bet they’re different. I mean, we have one who wants nothing to do with anything. Is very private. And we have another who went to-
Alanis Morissette:
Okay. Who’s like, “I love my baby.”
Glennon Doyle:
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. She went to a soccer game when Abby couldn’t go, a national team game when Abby wasn’t there with her friend. And she made and held up a huge poster that said, “I am Abby Wambach’s daughter,” so that she could get special attention. So the kids handle it all differently.
Alanis Morissette:
Yeah. But temperamentally probably quite different.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, yes. And there’s no right way to do it.
Alanis Morissette:
No.
Glennon Doyle:
You just have to feel your way through it, right?
Alanis Morissette:
Yeah. And just process anything that comes up. And stuff comes up. You probably deal with it every day.
Glennon Doyle:
What are your best non-maladaptive strategies now for thriving as a highly sensitive person?
Alanis Morissette:
I’ll just kind of point form it with you. Tons of breaks. Elaine Aron, and that’s one of the first things she recommends too, just breaks. And for me, the breaks have to include a door click. There’s something about pin drop silence and solitude that is instantly rejuvenative. That’s a bit of an introvert thing, the theory being that how we recharge our batteries is solitude, and how an extrovert recharges their batteries is through interaction and social interaction.
So for me, if I could have breaks throughout the day where I can take a deep breath and just be quiet, that helps sustainability. Body stuff, anything somatic. So my value system is, number one, is the triadic connection. So connection with source, other, in here. Those three. Number two is self-expression. It could be picking an orange t-shirt, it could be writing an email, it could be writing a chapter, whatever it is. And number three is body somatic and embodiment stuff.
So I’ve been disassociated most of my life and mired in fantasy. It’s been a great survival strategy, also helps art. But to come back in here has been a big deal. And that’s one way that I make being an HSP empath work. Like, okay, I can attune proprioceptively to raising my third toe. You know? And I just play with that. I play with sensation, I play with musculature, the skeleton, all of it. Just being able to use my imagination instead of for fantasy, use it for imagining parts of bodies and muscles that I want to have activate this movement. So a lot of body stuff has been incredibly helpful somatic experiencing all of the juicy stuff.
Silence, recharge moments, processing. I’m not always around people who are up for processing nonstop all the time, but when I am, it is pure joy. Yeah. So processing anything. My son and I are both pretty intensely HSPs. And when a movie’s finished, we’ll sit there obsessively watching the credits while all my non-HSP friends are ready to go. They’re like, “Let’s get out of here.” So just in moments of just letting myself slow down to move fast is a big one too because this lifestyle could really have a lot of hurry in it.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. You just said something that really brought something really big to the top for me. And as a non-HSP person who is married to an HSP, I am often put in positions where I have to take some solitude because Glennon requires it. And what I have realized that maybe I’m not so non-HSP as I thought, because the solitude that I take, I’m now choosing to do it for myself. And the world that we live in, it celebrates extraversion.
Alanis Morissette:
And noise.
Abby Wambach:
And noise.
Alanis Morissette:
The noise pollution is incessant.
Abby Wambach:
And I think it’s important for people who might not necessarily relate to all the HSP things that we’ve said, that if you would identify as a non-HSP, to give yourself some of that solitude to see, in fact. Because maybe I’m just wearing a big ass costume.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, you never know.
Abby Wambach:
Because I do feel like I am sensitive, but I don’t think that I’m as highly sensitive as you. I just had that thought and I’m like, “What if I’ve been faking it all these years?” Because that’s what was affirmed in me and how to become successful in the way that I-
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Alanis Morissette:
Right. Yeah. And by the way, there’s a lot of HSPs who don’t consider themselves to be HSPs because it’s not culturally allowed. So that could be interesting.
Abby Wambach:
I think that I’ve learned so much from Glennon and the way that she needs to regulate, that even though I don’t need to regulate in the same ways, I still need to regulate because I still get dysregulated.
Alanis Morissette:
Of course. Yes.
Abby Wambach:
Even if you’re not an HSP, we’re all getting dysregulated every day. Your kid walks in from school and they tell you a bullying story, and I’m like-
Alanis Morissette:
Activation. Activation. Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
Exactly. So all of these things are still so applicable to even those of us that wouldn’t necessarily consider themselves. Yeah.
Alanis Morissette:
I couldn’t agree. And my husband would be fist bumping you right now, because you still have a nervous system. You are still subject to dysregulation. And so all it really means to me is that HSPs and empaths, their dysregulation, the felt sense is so fudging intense. But Abby, what you just said is so true because nervous systems are nervous systems. So one might have a felt sense of hyper intensity to the point where it’s debilitating and another might be super dysregulated on the verge of a panic attack, but they’re sort of okay to some degree.
Abby Wambach:
Right.
Glennon Doyle:
You consider yourself a recovering love addict and work addict.
Alanis Morissette:
And a few others.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. Yes.
Alanis Morissette:
Yeah. Most of them actually.
Glennon Doyle:
Most of them. I love that. And you’ve had food and body stuff, right?
Alanis Morissette:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
I have a lot of them too. And alcohol was hard to beat, but then easier to keep because it’s so easy to just not do it. I mean, after 27 years of sobriety, there are things you can just cut out. Food, love, work, trickier. How do you manage recovery from love addiction and being married and in love, and how do you handle being a work addict and being such a creatively engaged-
Alanis Morissette:
And being a worker bee?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. How?
Alanis Morissette:
I can always tell when I’ve jumped the shark. So I’ll be working clickety, clickety, super inspired, and then I can feel where it shifts into like, not a full-blown mania, but a white-knuckle. And so in those moments, I’ll pause and go, “Am I done? I’ve been working on this for a couple hours. Am I? do I need a break? Am I finished?” Versus just forget breaks. And work addiction… So Bryan Robinson has been huge support.
The food conversation. Every time I meet someone with an eating disorder, I always feel like they’re the smartest people with regards to nutrients. And it’s almost like there’s an extra steeliness for those of us looking at food stuff because we have to eat. And you could avoid alcohol. Not to downplay how challenging it is to stop drinking alcohol, but with food, it is part of your day-to-day. Karen Koenig, a bunch of people who really basically saved my life, but it’s an ongoing thing. This isn’t like, “Oh, I worked on my eating disorder for six years. I’m good.” You know? It still comes up.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Alanis Morissette:
And I can tell with food, with work, I can tell when the camera has a Dutch angle and it starts turning into something that is fear-based, that is hungry, that is angry, as opposed to just inspired.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Alanis Morissette:
I can feel it in my body. So there’s this somatic indication. And then how to be a recovering love addict in relationship? I mean, there’s no better way to recover from love addiction than to be in a relationship where there’s enough functionality and enough support from couples therapy or otherwise. I love IFIO. It’s basically IFS mixed in. There’s enough safety to begin with provided often by a therapist in a triangle that it can be explored in real time versus the pain of love addiction, which is the cycle keeps happening and the abandonment keeps happening. So it’s just compounding. You got your past trauma, then you got your current ones because you’re repeating the pattern. And Pia Mellody just knocks it out of the park with love addiction recovery. I mean, she’s just got the seminal model and I’ve been following it for years and bow down to her because she gets it from the inside out.
And then eating disorder. Richard Schwartz’s wife is writing an IFS informed eating disorder recovery book. I can’t remember the title right now. But very excited about that because it’s its own… Eating food, anorexia, bulimia, recovery from it, it’s its own world. It’s hard to describe. And there’s some beautiful books out there. I think there’s one called Talking to Eating Disorders. There’s some books that can really help elucidate what it’s like for someone who is on the outside watching someone with an eating disorder. But with postpartum depression, depression in general, love addiction and food addiction, it’s a tough one to articulate unless you’ve experienced it. I will always try. I’ll chase it. I’ll try to articulate it. But that one is… If you’ve been inside of this, there’s a knowing empathy.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. I think that work addiction and love addiction are going to be the next big things that people start to identify in their lives. I think it’s going to have a moment because they’re like-
Alanis Morissette:
That’d be great.
Glennon Doyle:
They’re the things that are so celebrated.
Alanis Morissette:
The praised addiction, it’s called.
Glennon Doyle:
Right.
Alanis Morissette:
Because I think about it too. If I were staying up till 4:00 in the morning doing crystal meth or heroin, everyone would go, “Oh, we should maybe rally around her and check her out.” You know? But if I said, “Oh, my 19th day in a row working till 4:00 AM, I would get probably some high-fives. Good work, Alanis.”
Abby Wambach:
Yep.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Alanis Morissette:
So you’re praised. And you’re dying. You’re still dying.
Glennon Doyle:
And that’s another thing that maybe helped you in childhood that maybe now doesn’t anymore.
Alanis Morissette:
Yes. Yes. And also depending on our age and how we were influenced culturally and societally at the time, I mean, the ’90s… Being children of the ’90s, that was a white-knuckle culture. You feel scared? Keep going. You feel tired? Keep going. You feel sad? I don’t care. It was this very needless autonomous imperative that we were all indoctrinated with. So we’re just taking that off now too.
Glennon Doyle:
Wait. Say more about that. So this might be, say, you were raised by a football coach who would say, “You can rest when you’re dead, Glennon.” Okay?
Alanis Morissette:
Yeah, exactly.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Okay. So a white-knuckle generation. So you believe we were raised by a generation where that was the ethos?
Alanis Morissette:
A needless.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, okay.
Alanis Morissette:
A needless and feminine hating that’s still happening. So patriarchy basically is hatred of the feminine. You know? And the feminine is what’s going to bring us all to salvation because we know how to use all these multitasking capacities and come up with solutions. In days of old, they used to go up to women who were premenstrual in the villages and ask her opinion about the system or society because they knew that the woman wouldn’t mince words. And she’d bring a profound wisdom, a profound intellect, profound vision that would positively influence the villages that were going to these women for these opinions. That’s an example of making the feminine and making our biochemistry and our hormones work for us as opposed to sort of downplaying and vilifying the female experience. Holding it up.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. And also when you’re saying the feminine, you’re not just saying women, right? You’re saying like the energy that’s inside of all of us. What do you mean when you say the feminine?
Alanis Morissette:
The feminine is all the feminine qualities, feeling, intuiting, visioning, receptivity. So if you’re going to channel some profound wisdom, you’re in your feminine because you have to listen for it, listen and maybe heed. So the action part is the beautiful masculine in all of us, which I live for. Empowered masculine. So I think of it in terms of empowered feminine, disempowered feminine, empowered masculine, disempowered masculine. And that’s also the term, toxic masculinity, all of it. It’s a disempowered masculine because an masculine wants to provide, serve, uphold, protect, care for, offer, generosity. You know And then the empowered feminine is all of those things plus.
Basically the empowered feminine is profound leadership, taking everyone to account, not stopping until there’s no deal to be made here until we’re done. And I laugh with my family because I really think the power of negotiating in any context is a powerful, it’s a very feminine one because the feminine waits until everybody’s winning before she moves forward. So the idea even in our living room of, you want Mexican, you want Italian, you just want a peanut butter sandwich. Okay, so let’s take that extra three minutes, which could feel like three years for some of them, to find out what the win-win is. And we always get there. But the feminine leadership is the leadership that takes everyone into account. And those are the leaders I want to follow or be next to.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
How is your recovery? Are you 12-stepper?
Alanis Morissette:
I love 12-step, but I mean, not unlike religion and psychotherapeutic models and… I just say yes. How do you feel about this model?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Same.
Alanis Morissette:
Yeah, I’m definitely the toolkit woman. Everything’s in my back pocket, everything I know anyway, and I pull it out. It’s just an ongoing journey. I remember asking Gabor Mate. I was like, “Does this end? Is there a seminal moment where the healing is like, shit, and now we party?” I think he gave me a couple different answers, probably depending on the level of humor and our interaction. But I think eventually he said yes.
I think what it is, it’s not that we don’t get dysregulated, it’s that we now have ways of managing it. And my spiritual practice and my body practice are inextricably linked. So things like heat, hot mat, strength training, all of that, they’re all linked in with the spiritual practice. And so for me, to the degree that they can all be integrated, that is part of the recovery. And the 12 steps to me is just a profoundly soulful invitation. You know? If you go through every step, it’s just a… It’s a connective model.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Everybody can use it.
Alanis Morissette:
So I’m all about that.
Glennon Doyle:
And what is it that we’re recovering?
Alanis Morissette:
Good question.
Glennon Doyle:
When you’re like, “When does it end?” Because look. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I just know I’m doing something and it is a lot of fucking work.
Alanis Morissette:
Yeah, it is.
Glennon Doyle:
But I’m not sure what I’m doing, but I’m doing something that is… It’s working. It’s helping.
Alanis Morissette:
And what are you noticing? When you do the work, how do you know it’s helping? What do you see? What is going on around you?
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. So one of the things that I’ve been so fascinated with this past year of eating disorder recovery is that I think what I’m recovering is like the person that I was meant to be.
Alanis Morissette:
Like who you actually have always been?
Glennon Doyle:
Who I actually am. Yeah.
Alanis Morissette:
And by the way, that’s the best part of getting older as a woman too.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Alanis Morissette:
It’s like, oh, I’m actually just returning. Just returning to what was always here the whole time. And I was chopping it off, or I was denying it, or I was told to hide it or I was told to have shame around it. It’s like they’re all coming home.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, it just feels like an emerging of… And it’s something that… If someone said, “How’s your eating going?” I could tell you that this is how much weight I’ve gained. And that’s all yay, great. But it shows up in my relationships. It shows up in how I act without thinking. Like, I’m just different.
Alanis Morissette:
And can you give me some words? Like there’s more space or there’s more-
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, I’m calmer.
Alanis Morissette:
Calmer. So more grounded. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
I trust my judgment.
Alanis Morissette:
[inaudible 00:47:09]. Nice.Glennon Doyle:
I’ve spent my whole life being like, “Oh, I can’t possibly know that. I don’t know how that works. I don’t know how that works. I don’t know how that…” I’m creative. So anything else? I can’t. And now I’m like, “No, I’m actually good at things. I actually can understand-“
Alanis Morissette:
You have access.
Glennon Doyle:
… spreadsheet, I can understand… I can do basic math. I can figure out… Like, I can do shit and I’m actually pretty good at it.
Alanis Morissette:
I got this new piece of technology. Just give me four days. I got this.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. No. All right, slow down.
Abby Wambach:
Technology? Hmm.
Glennon Doyle:
But I’m just
Alanis Morissette:
That’s a quick text to somebody. So spaciousness, groundedness, calm-
Glennon Doyle:
Agency.
Alanis Morissette:
Agency is great. Juicy.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Trust, self-trust.
Alanis Morissette:
Trust.
Glennon Doyle:
I feel unafraid. I think it’s hard to be present in a moment or a day or a relationship if you don’t know who you are and don’t trust that you’ve got yourself.
Alanis Morissette:
That there’s some response ability that I can actually respond and that I have access to, and there is some spaciousness, some slowing down so that I can actually tune in to my yes or my no and all of those.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. That. Because it’s like I will not go, “I’m not going anywhere, I’m not going to be friends with anybody.” I made my life so small because I don’t think I understood that I could do whatever I wanted at any moment. I’ll give you an example. I’m going to go to a get -ogether. Like I said, I’m talking to my friend Liz. She’s helped me through my recovery in different ways. I’m going to go to a thing. She’s like, “What?” I’m like, “I’m going to go.” I got invited to a thing. I’m going to go to it.” Okay, so this is like big progress.”
Alanis Morissette:
Is that unlike you?
Glennon Doyle:
Big. Like, whoa, okay.
Alanis Morissette:
Nice.
Glennon Doyle:
And I say to her, “So what do I do if I… What if I’m there and I hate it?” And she’s like, “Glennon, you have a driver’s license and a credit card. You are not stuck anywhere for the rest of your life. You are never stuck anywhere.” Which means if I can trust myself to decide what I want to do, when I want to do it, how I feel, how long-
Alanis Morissette:
How long you want to stay. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
… then I can try things. If I can trust myself to know that this new person that I’m meeting three days in, I’m actually not digging this person and I’m out of there, that means I can go to coffee the first time. I don’t have to cut every experience off before I have it because I can trust myself to make decisions as I go through it.
Alanis Morissette:
You’ll be able to respond.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Alanis Morissette:
It’s the ability to respond versus just be triggered. Which by the way, triggered is understandable, but I think the degree of healing can also be measured by the lessening of reactivity or the lessening of triggers. It’s just informational. Not that there’s anything wrong with those. They all make sense. But less trigger, more contemplation, more taking the information and sitting with it. Because the tyranny of immediacy is pretty intense in culture like, “We need this in 60 seconds.” It’s like, really? Do you?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Alanis Morissette:
Do you need it in 60 seconds?
Glennon Doyle:
That too. Boundaries.
Abby Wambach:
I think one of the most impressive things that I’ve witnessed from the outside is the growing of trust of self that you’ve been exploring is so unbelievably seen now more in our children. Like, this mom is now trusting herself to do shit that she wasn’t normally doing for the first 10 years of some of their lives. And now the three of them are learning how to look towards themselves to figure shit out. Granted, it’s still a work in progress, but I think that it’s been one of the most revolutionary things for our children to watch you grow and the trust that you are developing inside of yourself, being of agency and having them watch and witness you do that. So they’re like, “Oh, I guess I’ll do this thing on my own.” And it’s just unbelievable to watch.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. They’re like, “Oh, she’s good? We’re good.”
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
They’re like going to do shit. What they’ve decided to do in the last year, and it can’t be a coincidence.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. One went to Berlin for the summer.
Glennon Doyle:
One’s going to be a rock star. What could go wrong? The third is doing her stuff. Anyway, we’re going to come see you on tour. We just freaking… Did you just announce that you’re going on tour?
Alanis Morissette:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh my God, it’s so exciting.
Alanis Morissette:
It’s so exciting.
Glennon Doyle:
Which, before we got on with you, I sang an Alanis song.
Alanis Morissette:
Is that your warmup?
Glennon Doyle:
And a Joan Jett song. So don’t worry. We’re ready for the tour. We love you. We’re going to be listening to everything that you do. Thank you for all of the healing work that you do to just bring it to everybody. Bring all of these brilliant things to the world and you’re just a love-
Abby Wambach:
You’re not just a rock star. You are so much more than that.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
And all the work you’re doing is just proof. And you do the work and it’s totally obvious and we are just so grateful for all that you’ve been doing.
Alanis Morissette:
Thanks Abby and Glennon. Oh my God. I want to thank you both for just being huge avatars in the world. I just don’t feel alone. So just knowing that you two exist in the world and you’re doing your profound service everywhere you show up, thank you both. It’s such an honor to be here chatting with you both.
Abby Wambach:
Same, same, same.
Glennon Doyle:
I hope we get to give you a hug someday.
Alanis Morissette:
Yeah, I’d love that.
Glennon Doyle:
And love to you and your beautiful family.
Alanis Morissette:
Thank you. You too. Sending love to you each. Thank you for having me.
Abby Wambach:
Thank you.
Glennon Doyle:
Bye-bye pod squad. We’ll see you next time, but it won’t be with anybody as cool as Alanis.
Alanis Morissette:
Hi.
Glennon Doyle:
Come back anyway.
Alanis Morissette:
Yay.