Inside Out 2 Review + Our Fav Books & TV Right Now
July 11, 2024
Glennon Doyle:
Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things, Amanda and Mary Abigail, people ask us this question all the time and we never answer it, let’s just try. They want to know what are we watching/reading/listening to these days. Let’s just each try to answer that question. I’m happy to go, I’ll do the reading one. Let’s just all do all of them. What are we watching? Sissy.
Amanda Doyle:
I am watching YouTube shorts with my kids because that’s all they want to watch of baseball highlights and Mr. Beast and Golf With Chandler and things like this for as many seconds as I can handle before I leave. And that is all I’m watching except for I took six kids and myself to watch Inside Out 2 last week.
Glennon Doyle:
Loved it.
Amanda Doyle:
And I would like to discuss it because I know that you did too.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, great. So let’s tell the pod squad, there might be a couple spoilers in this discussion, we will try to avoid too many spoilers. This is also not a murder mystery, so there’s not any huge thing that we can give away, it’s more an exploration of the inner self and how it’s developed. But if you don’t want to hear anything about the movie fast-forward or whatever people do in 2024 to get through. What did you think of the movie?
Amanda Doyle:
I loved it.
Glennon Doyle:
Me too.
Amanda Doyle:
I really loved it. So the idea here is that Inside Out 1, which is if you’ve watched it has Joy is the leader of … it’s sort of IFSE in that there’s different pieces of … Oh my god, what’s the girl’s name? Riley is the main character. So she’s younger in Inside Out 1 and there’s Joy, there’s Sadness, there’s Fear, all of the primary emotions that you’re born with.
So what’s interesting is what they based it on, it’s real psychology. In fact, I noticed that Kristin Neff was one of the main advisors on Inside Out 2.
Glennon Doyle:
No way.
Amanda Doyle:
Which I thought was cool.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s cool.
Amanda Doyle:
And we’re having Kristin Neff on soon. She’s amazing. So the emotions that you’re born with are Inside Out 1. Beyond those emotions, every other emotion, which I didn’t know this, is learned. So empathy is learned, compassion is learned, all of these things you’re not born programmed with.
Glennon Doyle:
So these are the social … this is what Patrick talked about on our sociopath episode, which is coming up, that a sociopath like Patrick has the primary emotions, but the secondary emotions, so if you want to think of the primary like primary colors, bold colors you’re born with, we all have those, happy, sad, but then there are other colors, other emotions that are learned over time. So these are the ones that blend other ones together, secondary emotions like shame, empathy, what, compassion?
Amanda Doyle:
Yes. So Inside Out 2 includes several of these learned emotions. It does also include Disgust, which is a primary emotion. So they added that in. So the primary emotions you’re born with just for your edification are happiness, which is joy in the case of Inside Out, sadness, disgust, fear, surprise, anger, all born with, you have to learn the other ones.
So this one, the key player here, which is the most prominent role in Inside Out 2, is they introduce Anxiety as a character. And it’s a very helpful situation because they show Riley is going through puberty and her whole sense of self that she’s developed since the time is all jumbled up. And she brings on embarrassment and anxiety and a few other emotions and they are all kind of dueling for primary driver of her decisions. I thought it was really well done and I resonated a lot with it.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, yeah.
Abby Wambach:
Did you cry, Sissy?
Amanda Doyle:
I did not cry. Did you cry?
Glennon Doyle:
Of course I did.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, we both did.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. All my kids cried, everybody was crying. I mean, I just felt like it was so sympathetic, it shows how anxiety steps in to help when we get into scary situations. Riley enters a scary situation for her and the Anxiety character pops in and takes control of the dashboard of Riley’s brain. Because Anxiety, who is played by Maya Hawke, is trying to help Riley, thinks this is scary-
Amanda Doyle:
Protect her.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, this is scary. So what we have to do is think of every single thing that could go wrong, and have her base all her decisions on what could go wrong. And so you actually see a visual of what happens to us when our anxiety steps in and means well. But the beauty of watching Anxiety take over the dashboard, when Anxiety takes over, all the other emotions don’t exist. It’s so interesting. It’s like the visual of that, watching anxiety become this spinning Tasmanian devil in the brain trying to keep the kids safe, and then joy, sadness, there’s no room for any of them. It’s like a whirling dervish of thinking, thinking, thinking, and all of the emotions disappear. That was so resonant to me.
And to see sweet little Anxiety, she knew she was screwing things up because when Riley based her decisions on what Anxiety was telling her, which was so fear-based, things got worse, and Anxiety didn’t understand because she was trying to help. It was so sympathetic to all of us I felt like.
Abby Wambach:
I think one of the things that I loved the most about it is that they’ve chosen to have a female character. That is such an important thing to me because so often throughout my life, all of our lives, we were forced to imagine what it would be like for a girl or somebody that looked like me or talked like me, I just like in that she was a hockey player, there was just so much that was so beautiful, to be able to simply in a lot of ways communicate internal family systems and this, that we have complex emotions. And one of the emotions can take over, and that it’s a survival instinct, it is based on the need to survive. To me, it just is so beautiful because it puts it in the minds of our teenagers like, oh, I’m so much more complex than just the emotion of anxiety taking over the control panel right now.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. I love the gendered mention. I wanted to bring up one thing that I felt-
Amanda Doyle:
Yes, I’m so interested.
Glennon Doyle:
In an otherwise beautiful … Oh really, you had something too?
Amanda Doyle:
I had one thing that I was like, ick.
Glennon Doyle:
Me too. Oh, I can’t wait to see if this is the same.
Amanda Doyle:
And I’m sad that that was included.
Abby Wambach:
What happened?
Amanda Doyle:
I’m so interested to see what yours was.
Glennon Doyle:
So I go through the whole movie, I’m crying, I am there, the sense of self what they replaced it with, I mean, yes to all of it, yes, yes, yes. And then there’s this part at the very end which-
Amanda Doyle:
Yep, same.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. So I thought it was a beautiful … the whole movie is in Riley’s mind, it’s all the emotions in Riley’s mind. And then they do these cute cutaways where you see Riley’s mom, Riley’s mom’s trying to deal with Riley, and then suddenly you see all the characters in Riley’s mom’s head trying to make sense of what’s going on with Riley, which was so humanizing for the parent.
There’s this moment at the end, and I actually, I’ll try not to get upset about it, but I couldn’t believe it, I could not believe they left this part in the movie.
Amanda Doyle:
I couldn’t either.
Glennon Doyle:
So after this incredible exploration of the depths and complexities of being a human person, a human kid, the very end, there’s a part where they go into Riley’s mom’s brain. Riley’s mom is having all of these complex emotions about Riley and her development. Then they switched to Riley’s dad’s head.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
And in Riley’s dad’s head what they show, what this movie chooses to show, is a second of complex emotions and then one of the characters goes, “But let’s just go back to the game.” The joke is the man’s brain is not as complex and doesn’t care as much and can turn it all off and just cares about sports. I could not believe the miss of that. I could not believe that you’ve got all of these children sitting in these seats, and after this incredible exploration of what it means to be human, the last message you’re going to leave them with is, except not for the guys, they’re stupid, they don’t care.
Amanda Doyle:
Exactly. And I was watching that movie with Bobby and two of his friends, and Alice and two of her friends, and so this whole thing that gives you permission to have this angst and envy and embarrassment and anxiety and ennui and disgust and explains why you’re yelling at your mom when you don’t mean to, and all the regret and all the fitting in and the horror of that and why it makes you be not the person you want to be because you’re just trying to survive, except other than you boys, who clearly this only the complexity and interest and dynamics only apply to girls.
Glennon Doyle:
Inexcusable, inexcusable. I cannot believe that Pixar made that decision. I feel like they should issue an apology. I don’t understand how-
Amanda Doyle:
They should cut that scene.
Glennon Doyle:
They should cut that scene. How a bunch of people at a table who have made this beautiful, incredible thing, who have been discussing every iota of it in how to bring more humanity to kids, and then would leave that. It was an undoing for half the population of every single thing, of all of the permission to feel all of it. It was like, not you, you just swallow it and all you care about is sports. I just [inaudible 00:10:47].
Amanda Doyle:
It was like an apology. It was like we have made … And nothing is not strategic, they pressure test all this shit. They put millions and millions of dollars in this. This was not an oversight. This was their assessment that you can only get to touchy-feely and interpersonal as long as you’re not threatening the status quo with boys.
Abby Wambach:
Yep. Urgh. Goddam.
Amanda Doyle:
As long as you’re saying boys, you can stay exactly the way you are, and we don’t want to introduce this scary dynamic where boys start really thinking about things, that’s a bridge too far. Girls, you can do this. You can do this cute little thing that you do where you think about all your emotions, but we’re not going there with boys, that’s a bridge too far.
Glennon Doyle:
So messed up.
Amanda Doyle:
That really sucked. I hated that a lot. And it was so not even in character because the dad the whole time was super sensitive and interesting and complex. And then at the end, not. So I do … that part was the one part I was like, that sucks.
Glennon Doyle:
I would love … is there somebody in charge of that that would come talk to us about that? I seriously want to be like, what on earth? I would love to. And I wouldn’t be as upset about it if the premise of the entire project was helping kids understand their full humanity. It really feels inexcusable to me. I would love to understand what the hell anybody was thinking that a bunch of little boys sitting there watching would be like, “Oh, I actually am not allowed to have feelings, I just have to care about sports.”
Amanda Doyle:
The other thing that I think was really, going to the virtues of the film … I agree with you. Pixar, can you talk to us about that? Because we would like to and we would like to make a pitch for just cutting that little scene. I think it was really beautiful, the whole anxiety, especially with the epidemic, mental health epidemic for kids right now, I think this film with the portrayal of anxiety, I can’t imagine how helpful it is to little ones because it was helpful to me. The ability to see anxiety, see an actual anxiety attack happen, which you never see with kids in film. So they represent an anxiety attack, how it feels, how it looks so that kids can identify what that is when it’s happening to them.
The bigger picture for me, which it took 45 years to understand, is this idea that what presents as our personality, what presents as who we are in the world is often just this habitual reliance on one of these emotions. So Riley is not … her personality is not someone who has to … it could look like, as a personality, someone who has to constantly perfect, constantly work, constantly keep up with, all of these things. We could say, “Oh, that’s just her, she’s just type A, she just wants to be good.” But actually is it that or is that her anxiety that is trying to keep her safe, trying to keep her to be accepted, that is coming out and presenting as if it’s her personality. And that is something that I have been trying to figure out for myself. How much of my personality that I’ve accepted as this is just me is actually just the manifestation of my anxiety.
Glennon Doyle:
And I think they did a brilliant job of showing what is the underlying thing that guides that, that pursuing perfection, pursuing not making a mistake. So the idea that they introduced in this one was that there’s a sense of self, basically that’s just your beliefs about yourself, and I thought that that was done beautifully, especially for parents to watch. Because we so often want to tell our kids, you’re good, you’re good, you’re so smart, you’re so beautiful, you’re so kind, you’re so brave. And the fact is, sometimes giving them only a positive sense of self ruins everything because then the kid thinks my parent loves me because I’m all of these good things, so I can only show those good things. I can only be perfect, I can only be beautiful, I can only be kind. But the truth is we are all kind and we are assholes and we are all beautiful and we are all disgusting and we are all striving-
Amanda Doyle:
Generous and envious and proud and embarrassed.
Glennon Doyle:
So the replacement of this only goodness with this I am everything then allows kids and adults, myself I’m learning that now, to be everything, you’re not hiding, you’re not … So then anxiety doesn’t have to come in and say block all that stuff out, we have to keep her perfect.
Amanda Doyle:
And same with Joy. That scene where Joy is saying to Anxiety, “You have to let her go, you don’t get to choose, you don’t get to choose what her sense of self is.” And then you realize Joy is realizing that same moment, holy shit, also I don’t get to choose [inaudible 00:16:10]. Because Joy kept wanting her sense of self to be like, “I’m a good person, I’m a good person, I’m a good person.” And then you see those two merge and it’s, “I’m a good person, I’m a bad person, I’m a good person, I am a fearful person, I am a …” And that’s when her true I don’t have to hide from anything sense of self emerges and it’s like … I’m so happy that my kids were watching that. I’m like, yes, it isn’t you’re a good person, it’s like you’re an everything.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, that’s right.
Abby Wambach:
That’s what I was going to say, you’re an everything person. I think that’s just so perfect. I, aside from that one part, I just … to explicitly talk about this stuff is so important. We’ve evolved as a culture over the years, you can watch whatever, I watched Little Mermaid, that was my favorite cartoon growing up, and there’s so much of this stuff talked about but it’s under the radar. I love the explicitness of actually talking about this stuff that the kids … my hope is that Bobby was watching this and seeing himself in Riley, not the dad in that last fucked up scene. That’s my hope. And I do think that we have evolved enough, but the explicitness is so cool.
Glennon Doyle:
What character did you all relate to the most, Abby, which emotion?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, Joy, big time, Joy and anything that compromises Joy, I’m just punting those negative emotions as far away from me as possible. So that was a good lesson for me. Like oh yeah, I do need to confront some of the beliefs about myself that I think that I need to have. Rather than the beliefs that I should have.
Glennon Doyle:
So what do you think is the character you need to introduce the most, if you had to pick one, who do you need to let come to the dashboard every once in a while?
Abby Wambach:
Sadness.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Sister?
Amanda Doyle:
I identified most with Anxiety. I loved seeing Anxiety in a positive protective role. Even that alone as … Anxiety isn’t someone we banish. Anxiety isn’t someone that we’re like, “Shame on you, you ruin everything.” Anxiety is just like every other thing, like embarrassment and envy, trying to protect us and make the best path forward. Its intentions are just as good as everyone else.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s intentions. Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
And so I really loved that. I saw that projection scene where it was like Anxiety had everyone on the premises working to think of the worst case scenario and like, “Come up with it, come up with it, come up with it.” And that was like, “The whole factory’s working for Riley’s benefit.” But they’re all populating the entire situation with what is the worst thing that could happen now. I was like, oh, okay, yeah, I feel that deeply in my bones. And they even were using the terms that we use in psychology, like projection, you’re projecting onto the future what … and they were literally projecting it on screens. It was beautiful. So Anxiety is what I resonated and loved most. What do I need more of?
Glennon Doyle:
If you could invite one of the characters to the dashboard for the day, which one would it be, and you could tell all the other ones to go away?
Amanda Doyle:
I guess Joy. Joy. I also thought it was really interesting how, and I loved how Sadness, it wasn’t … Sadness was doing the primary work. Joy was pushing, pushing, pushing. But it took Sadness to be the bridge between Joy and Anxiety. Sadness was the one who had to figure out how do I get this done? How do I relate to everything? And so I think that was a really cool missing piece of Sadness as the bridge between I can understand Joy because I go … And there was that one scene where Joy was like, “We go everywhere together, Joy and Sadness.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
They were sisters and flip sides of the same coin. And it was like Sadness had this special connection with Embarrassment because when we’re embarrassed we’re just so sad and when we’re … and Anxiety is trying to avoid us being sad. And so there is some kind of magic in sadness that I feel like I’m just on the cusp of understanding. And I thought it was really interesting, and I have not spoken with Bobby yet about his reactions, but I talked to Alice and her two friends that went, and all three of them, their favorite character was Sadness.
Glennon Doyle:
Because Sadness is so patient and you just feel like you trust Sadness. Joy, I love Joy, but Joy is a little manic man and it always is. It’s like, oh god, let’s not … Joy is avoidant. Joy is like, oh, let’s not let anything else in. And Sadness just has this unrelenting presence and calm and oh, you’re going to deal with me eventually type energy.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. Joy is directional, Joy is action, Joy is movement. Same with Anxiety. Joy is going somewhere, get on the train. Where Sadness is … just kept saying over and over, “That’s so sad. That’s so sad.”
Glennon Doyle:
God, I love that.
Amanda Doyle:
And was just there to-
Abby Wambach:
It’s a presence.
Amanda Doyle:
But then doing what needed to be done, not enthusiastically, but doing it.
Glennon Doyle:
She was, she did do it.
Abby Wambach:
It’s a presence. Because if you were to get real present and not think about the past and not think about the future, there will always be some sense of sadness there. And I think all of the emotions. And that is such a beautiful thing because it equates to me the preciousness of what we’re doing here and the impermanence of what we’re doing. And that every present moment we are moving beyond the prior present moment and there is a sadness to that. And also it’s a beautiful thing. But there is that groundedness and the presence of sadness is I think is probably closer to the truth than maybe even joy. I think what you’re saying is right, sister.
Amanda Doyle:
Agreed. When you think about it, the whole premise of this show, this all starts because she’s going to this camp and finds out her two best friends aren’t going to her school next year. And that kickoff, everybody comes joins in because we can’t sit with the sadness of how sad that is.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right.
Amanda Doyle:
That they’re leaving, that the two of them are going to be together, that she’ll be by herself and have to make new friends. The whole reason Anxiety comes in, and the whole reason Joy is pushing to get rid of those feelings, is because we can’t possibly just be sad about that. And I think so much, I just haven’t done the work yet, but I think so much of maybe how I am with my kids, where the need to spin up action and movement and whatever is about just not being able to accept the sadness of reality, which is that they’re going to experience deep sadness I can never protect them from. And they’re going to face things that I never had to face. And my anxiety rushes in to be like, “That can’t be so, we can make it better, we can make it better.” Joy is like, “Look, da da da, look, you’re so happy, we can make you happy.” But is it all to avoid? I think it’s all to try to pretend we are not just left with sadness.
Abby Wambach:
It’s almost like sadness gets a bad name. We should be calling sadness deeply feeling.
Glennon Doyle:
The ache depth.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. But it makes sense because we’re made this weird way, where the only thing that’s permanent about life is change. And the only thing that’s permanent about humans is we prefer not change. So the basis of being human is sadness because you are constantly witnessing change that you would prefer it not to be happening.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh my god, it’s such a bad design, it’s like the only thing we know about life is we’re going to die. We are evolved for every single thing inside of us to avoid death at all costs.
Abby Wambach:
To survive.
Glennon Doyle:
But it’s only a bad design if sadness is bad. That’s what I don’t think is right. It’s only a bad design because we’ve added this layer where we’re like, “And also all we can be is sad and we shouldn’t be sad, sadness is bad.” What if sadness is the shit? What if sadness is the place where we become the most human, where we’re not so annoying and chipper and chirpy and joyey and distracting and the sadness is a beautiful place where we can all meet and be our most human?
Abby Wambach:
That’s why there’s so much strife in the world it feels like, people not being able to sit in their sadness.
Glennon Doyle:
I love, here’s what I think was most important to me just because of the place I’m in right now, is I loved how they pointed out what Anxiety is good for and what she’s not good for. For me, I’ve been doing this thing recently where I’m literally for real each morning writing down, okay, what are the things that I can control and what are the things … I’m like, “God box, Glennon box.” Okay. Two lists.
And on the God side, I’m picturing myself putting, I’m actually going to get a box right now I’ve just been writing it down, but putting every single thing that I’m ‘worrying or anxious about’ in its rightful place, oh, here’s a God thing. Okay. Emma’s soccer journey with recruitment. All the shit that’s happening right now. I cannot, I can’t, there’s nothing I can do. Things about co-parenting. Things about my adult children’s lives.
And it’s so amazing because I cannot tell you how much it helps me. It’s so silly and cheesy, I understand that. But when you realize how little is on your list, 99% of the things that I spend my entire day in anxiety about, the reason why it’s a problem is because my poor anxiety can’t do the job that I’ve given it.
So basically each morning I’m like, “Can you figure out how to heal my generational trauma in 24 hours?” Also, “Anxiety, can you figure out how to make my daughter’s college experience go perfectly for her? Anxiety, can you figure out how to get my other daughter’s rock star career to work out perfectly with no problems? Also, can you figure out how to keep my sister healthy?” It’s like, no, it will try though, it tries.
And so it’s not fair to Anxiety because there’s this moment in the movie where Joy looks and says, “Okay, Anxiety, what can you control today?” She takes Anxiety away from the dashboard and puts her in a chair in the back and is like, “What can you work on today?” And there’s one thing, she’s like, “I think we have a test today.” And Joy’s like, “Great, do that.”
That is the most important thing to me because I can’t tell you how much my day gets better as soon as I see the list of things that it is not fair for me to put my anxiety self on. These are God things, these are universe things, out of control things. This is the serenity prayer. Grant me the blah, blah, blah, blah. Grant me … kill the things I cannot control or whatever that means.
Abby Wambach:
Grant me the strength.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. So that for me is there are no bad parts, there are just bad applications of parts. If you are trying to get anxiety to fix the problems of the earth and being human, that will never be fixed because they’re completely out of our control, like other people, like health, like the way the world works, like war, like pain. If you are applying your little anxiety brain to those things, you will have no room in your life for any of the other emotions.
But if you can give anxiety a job each day, which is the tiny little thing it can control, put it in its seat, all the other emotions get to come forward. There’s this moment where Joy says, “Is there just less joy, as they get older, is there just less room for joy? Is that just a fact of life?” And I think there is a little bit, but I think it’s because as we get older we think we can control more. And so we bring anxiety to the table for so many things and joy gets smushed out.
Abby Wambach:
I think it’s because we start developing different kinds of emotions. And so I don’t believe that joy gets put out, that somebody else comes in and takes over the control panel. But I also believe that emotions can happen simultaneously. I think that there can be real joy happening and anxiety. I think that things are happening simultaneously. So the more emotions we learn, the more behaviors, emotional behaviors that we learn, sometimes when the overlap happens, I think that sometimes the anxiety, we can focus our attention and feel the anxiety more than the joy that’s present there. That’s what I think happens.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, you guys, so that’s what we’re watching. Pixar, cut the last scene and get in touch with us. But also, good job on the rest.
The question was also what are we reading? So I’m going to tell you all what I’m reading. And I also want to say that people often ask me why I don’t talk more about what I’m reading. Why don’t I have a book club? Why don’t I da da da … ? I know you’re always reading, why aren’t you whatever? Okay. So here’s why I don’t do that because I think of it, Abby, as … Remember when you several years ago you tried your hand at commentating the soccer game, you did the Euros or something, you were behind the bar.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, it’s eight years ago now, 2016.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Right. And you hated it so much, you hated commentating.
Abby Wambach:
Yes, yes.
Glennon Doyle:
And why did you hate commentating?
Abby Wambach:
Because, well, a bunch of reasons, but the primary reason was because it felt so critical. The way that I was actually seeing the game was from a different lens. I had this critical lens that was over my eyes and I hated that because it took all of the joy. I wasn’t seeing the hope and the excitement. I was just trying to break down what I would do different. And yeah, I was a great soccer player, but I have no idea what’s going on in their locker room, I don’t know what they think of their coach, I don’t know what they feel about each other. I am projecting all of my assumptions and I just think it’s not for me.
Glennon Doyle:
So that is I think how I feel about this thing, reading is so … it is not a realm in which I want to start thinking of it in terms of what’s better and best and the bestest and the worstest, I don’t want to start thinking about-
Amanda Doyle:
Like the star thing, where it’s like this is four stars instead of five stars, and it’s like this is someone’s soul that they’re baring.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly. I know what it takes to write a book. I know the soul baring nature of it. I know that when you write a book, you put every bit and more of your heart and soul and brain and whatever and I do not want … And reading for me is the most sacred relationship I’ve ever had, before my marriage, since I was little. That is where I found my connection, my joy. I am not about to start saying, “Oh, I don’t like that that author …”
And by the way, whenever I don’t like a book or I don’t whatever, it’s because of the time I’m in, there’s a million times where I relate so much to something that I didn’t like 10 years ago. And it has nothing to do with a hierarchy. I don’t want to start rating art. I don’t want to start bringing a critical eye to art. I want to keep my love for it and my joy for it and not commodify it. And maybe there’s a time when I’ll figure out how to do that. I also don’t want to … You know when people have book clubs and then everyone starts hoping that they … then your relationships are weird because you’re like, “Wait, do I have to-
Amanda Doyle:
Oh. Will she pick my books? Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly. Most of my friends are writers. I don’t want that. So anyway. But I also will tell you now what I’m reading. And then I have this thing, whenever I see things online where people are trying to read, I don’t know, what do they do, a hundred books over the summer and they’re bragging about it. And I’m like, oh my God, I’m always hiding how much I read because … I do. I hide it. First of all, I read too fast. Abby’s always like, “Can you slow down?” Because we keep having to buy a book every day. And I would like to slow down. I would like to eat slower also, I don’t like that I sit down at the table I’m done in four minutes. I would like to be one of those people who luxuriates in a meal.
Amanda Doyle:
Savor, you want to savor the book.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. But for some reason I have to know as fast as humanly possible what is going to happen to these people. So it goes fast. So I have read six books in the last six days. And that is not a lie. So I’m going to tell you what I’ve read. I promised myself I’m in an era of fiction. Summer is a fiction time for me because, well, for reasons we’ve already talked about today, because I’m trying to move towards a life of juiciness, of joy and comfort and luxuriating and indulging and cozy and soft and delicious. As opposed to my non-fiction, be better glutton, do better, be better.
Amanda Doyle:
Strive, strive. What did you learn today? God damn it.
Glennon Doyle:
Every book is like, this one has the answer, this one will fix me, this one … this sort of-
Amanda Doyle:
At least learn a historical nugget for all this sitting.
Glennon Doyle:
God, it’s so exhausting. And the weird thing is novels always make me think more and make me light up connections more truly honestly than non-fiction does. And no offense to non-fiction, it’s what I write.
Amanda Doyle:
But what you say about fiction, which is also what you say about the Bible, is that these things didn’t necessarily happen, but they’re true.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly.
Amanda Doyle:
So they can be true and not real, they’re realer in the sense of big picture truth, than they’re actually based on real historical events.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. It just feels sometimes like nonfiction feels a little more like a puddle and novel is like the ocean.
Amanda Doyle:
Well, I love nonfiction too, but I’m just saying it isn’t like a strain of this is a fanciful not real thing and this other thing is the serious thing.
Glennon Doyle:
No, not at all.
Amanda Doyle:
They’re both serious and real and just different angles.
Abby Wambach:
I think we got it. You guys just went for five minutes.
Glennon Doyle:
Abby’s like, fuck your fiction/nonfiction analysis. Okay, go ahead.
Amanda Doyle:
Just because you’re not interested in that part doesn’t mean it wasn’t … I love that discussion.
Abby Wambach:
No, listen. It was a good discussion for the first three to four minutes and then we got into the fifth and sixth minute where you-
Amanda Doyle:
The last minute jumped the shark. Okay, got you, got you.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. We got it. You both like nonfiction. Glennon loves fiction.
Glennon Doyle:
So here’s what I’ve read. I read Martyr! Oh my God. Everyone must go get the book, Martyr!
Abby Wambach:
I want to read it, what’s it about?
Glennon Doyle:
It’s about this boy who’s trying to figure out whether he’s a nihilist or is going to choose life in a million different ways. And it’s utterly gorgeous. I’ve read this book called Within Arm’s Reach, which Ann Neapolitan, so she wrote Dear Edward and Hello Beautiful. And this book, Within Arm’s Reach, she wrote I think 25 years ago, but it didn’t sell a bunch of copies because she wasn’t as famous as she is now. But then her last books did so well that they reissued this first one.
All I’ll tell you about it is it’s about how much we love each other and how we can’t reach each other, and how we cannot love each other. It’s about how we love each other so much that we cannot love each other. And I will tell you that Abby and I finally got away for my birthday vacation, we got away for three days, and I was outside of this little cabin just bawling. I don’t know the end of the book. I haven’t cried at a book for so long. I just, it’s the moment of life I’m in, it’s about raising adult children, it’s about trying to love people and doing it wrong. And it’s about Irish families and I don’t know.
Abby Wambach:
What is that one called again?
Glennon Doyle:
Within Arm’s Reach. I read a book called Sandwich. You’re going to sense a theme in all of these books that I’m picking this summer. But it’s about a mom who takes her kids to the Cape Cod Sound or something and she’s between … she’s raising her adult kids and she is the adult child of her parents who are there too. So that’s the title, Sandwich. And it’s a real beauty. That one.
Then I read this book called Margo’s Got Money Problems about a 20-year-old who gets pregnant, has a baby, and then tries to make her way starting an OnlyFans account. Fucking delight. Just a delight of a book. Just a delight. It’s about masculinity and femininity and morality and fighting for your kid. And it’s just good stuff. And then I read a book called Bear.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, I’ve heard about this.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh shit, I don’t even know. It’s about a town, it’s about two sisters and a bear that shows up at their house one day and then what plays out afterwards. I think that it’s about sisterhood and enmeshment. And I think that the bear is the symbol of life and the terror and beauty of life. Wowza. So good.
Amanda Doyle:
Wowza.
Glennon Doyle:
And then lastly I read this one called Thou Shall Not Kill about … it was this Palestinian doctor who wrote about his entire experience in Palestine and Israel and his just-
Amanda Doyle:
It’s fiction?
Glennon Doyle:
Oh no, that one was … I snuck in a nonfiction, you’re right. Yes, yes. Absolutely gorgeous. So all of them, I recommend every single one. And I don’t recommend one more than the other. I have just had a really excellent-
Amanda Doyle:
You’ve had a good run, sis.
Glennon Doyle:
I’ve had a good run. I mean, I was at a soccer tournament for five days, so that’s how I got six books.
Amanda Doyle:
Right, right, right. That’ll do it.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
Do you guys want to know what I’m watching?
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
All right. So-
Amanda Doyle:
Tiny Ponies.
Abby Wambach:
No. If you are listening to this, pod squad, I’m going to be appealing to more of the, I don’t know, less intense crowd, the non-reader if you will, the just love to turn on a show and I just love a little bit of drama kind of a person, it’s called Perfect Match.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh Jesus.
Abby Wambach:
On Netflix. And what Netflix has done here is that they now have these dating game shows. For an example Love Is Blind, that’s one that I love also, check it out. Nick Lachey is in fact the host from 98 Degrees.
Amanda Doyle:
I think he was a Backstreet Boy.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, Nick Lachey, he was the one who was married to Jessica Simpson is now married to Mrs. Lachey.
Amanda Doyle:
Mrs. Lachey.
Glennon Doyle:
Vanessa.
Abby Wambach:
Vanessa.
Glennon Doyle:
Vanessa Lachey.
Abby Wambach:
These shows are just for me where I’m at right now in my life, where I’m looking for other people’s problems and not my own. I am not looking inward right now. I just-
Glennon Doyle:
You’re done with OPP.
Abby Wambach:
I am looking for other people’s problems. And this show is giving me that. I have done the work for a while, I am giving myself a break from my fucking self.
Glennon Doyle:
You got to.
Abby Wambach:
That is what I’m doing this summer.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, yes to that. Yes, Abby Wambach, and you deserve that, a break. We don’t have anything left. We don’t have booze left, we don’t have drugs left, we don’t have smoking left, we don’t have anything left. They will take reality TV from our cold dead hands.
And also I will say, do you know what Adrienne Maree Brown told me recently, because she’s really into reality TV, so is Yabba, so all these people that I think of as super amazingly deep activists are also watching the Real Housewives. And I’m like, what is happening here? Because something is happening here. Yabba calls 90 Day Fiance cultural anthropology.
Abby Wambach:
I fucking love that show. I fucking love that show. And The Other Way, oh my God.
Glennon Doyle:
I do too. So Adrienne said, “I think it’s like people who are always trying, women who are always trying so hard to be good, love watching for an hour nobody trying to be good.”
Abby Wambach:
Nobody’s watching those shows for just an hour, we’re in for for three, four, five.
Glennon Doyle:
Those people are just wild-westing of the morality and it is freeing. And there is something that is inspiring and hell yes about it. And PS, do you know that Bozoma Saint John, our friend-
Abby Wambach:
Yes, I know.
Glennon Doyle:
Just got cast on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
Abby Wambach:
And it couldn’t have been a more perfect fit.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s the best casting ever.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s going to be my first time watching it, ever watching Real Housewives because I love her.
Abby Wambach:
She’s going to own it.
Glennon Doyle:
And also, can you please just watch it, sister, we just need you to watch it because watching reality TV-
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, I will because of her.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, I mean, I just [inaudible 00:43:36]
Amanda Doyle:
When is it happening, soon?
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t know. I’ll tell you when.
The last question is what are we listening to? And I do want to mention that we just took the girls to a Noah Cohn concert at the Hollywood Bowl. And we just cried for two hours. The kids … Noah Cohn. We’ve been listening to Noah Cohn for years because our kids brought him into our life early. He is this amazing mixture. It’s the perfect storm of things for me. It’s like generational trauma, love, nostalgia, mental health, addiction. It is like he is in the ocean, man, he is just swimming in the ocean. And he’s bringing these kids all this stuff that people don’t talk about.
I mean, there was a moment where he set up the entire concert, the stage, they brought these couches out and this specific art and these huge pictures, it looked like Noah’s childhood pictures, and he said, “I’m trying to recreate my mom’s living room up here.” And then he said, “But I couldn’t fit the generational trauma up here so you have to do without that.” I mean-
Amanda Doyle:
The stage isn’t big enough for the generational trauma. Just introducing that term to that many people is huge.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh my God. He says, this song, I mean, there’s a song called All My Love that’s about divorce, and he says-
Abby Wambach:
Oh God.
Glennon Doyle:
“This is for all the divorced kids out there.” He goes, “Can we say two Christmases? Can we say 16 days of Hanukkah?” And our kids stood up and just bawled throughout All My Love, through the whole divorce thing. And then he goes, and by the way, I’m just so biased, and so I don’t mean this literally, just deal with it, but he goes, “I need you all to know …” Because all the kids of divorce stand up, thousands and thousands of kiddos, “that it’s not your fault. The divorce is not your fault.” He goes, “It’s your dad’s fault.” And then he goes, “Dad’s house is weird and empty.”
And all of these kids who think their situation is only theirs, they’re all seeing each other, they’re all bawling, the kids are holding each other. I was looking at my kids and I feel like I have created these stories in my head about, oh yeah, we’re a family of divorce, but not really because we’ve worked it out we’re da da da and we’re co-parenting and [inaudible 00:46:07].
Amanda Doyle:
And we only have one Christmas Day, we only have one Christmas.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s like my stories and defense mechanisms jump and that’s what I see. But I was looking at them bawling during the divorce song and seeing them for what they actually are, which is they did go through this, that is their reality, this is who they are. I mean, it just … I have so much love in my heart for Noah Cohn is all I’m saying. I feel like he’s doing such … By the way, besides all of this goodness that he’s putting … he’s just a fucking incredible musician. Anyway.
Abby Wambach:
I have something I’m listening to I think that the pod squad needs to know.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh great.
Abby Wambach:
Chappell Roan.
Glennon Doyle:
Chappell Roan. H-O-T-T-O-G-O.
Abby Wambach:
Listen, all of us millennials/Gen Xers listening to this podcast, just give it a couple listens. Give Chappell Roan a couple listens because first couple times I was like, can’t stand this, because one of her songs was about Pink Barbie.
Glennon Doyle:
Pink Pony Club.
Abby Wambach:
Pink Pony Club. I just interpreted it as Barbie and I was like, this is annoying to me. It’s catchy as fuck. And it’s great. It’s the summer anthem. Chappell Roan has blown up. Chappell Roan went from I think Spotify or Apple Music, I can’t remember, in three months her numbers went from, I don’t know, a hundred thousand to 24 million.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
Whoa.
Glennon Doyle:
But she’s been working so hard for so long. Her first music deal was in high school and now she’s in her upper twenties. She’s always in drag. Her roots and her passion is the drag community and she’s constantly honoring of them and brings … Pink Pony Club is about leaving your small town and finding your juiciest self in LA.
Abby Wambach:
Her music is incredible. I’m so here for it and so is the rest of the world, so check it out.
Amanda Doyle:
I love it. And what you just said, G, about Noah and the it’s your dad’s fault and dad’s house is weird and empty, I really want to do an episode on boys right now and masculinity and what’s happening there because I feel like we want to say, oh, that’s such a stereotype and that’s not true. But it is true. It is true. And in the majority of cases. And the reason it’s true is not because boys are inherently weird and empty and unable to hold down a household. It’s because of the way we’re raising them and the way we’re socializing them.
And this Atlantic article recently that I read was very fascinating on this subject and had this whole thing that’s like, boys get everything, boys in America get every privilege and everything except the most important thing. And they don’t get real human connection and an invitation to that and a requirement of that. And so they are over benefited and deprived on the most important things. And that’s how you end up with a weird empty house where you don’t know how to create connection. And I just think we need to do, we talk so much about girls and women, we need to do that and figure that out.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s like looking at somebody and giving them all the money, drenching them with jewels, covering them with all and then saying, but you can’t have any water. Let’s do an episode on that.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. Good.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s so important because I think people are scared to talk about what they see in front of their faces, which is what’s wrong, are the men okay? Why do they struggle so much with connection, with carrying emotional load? It’s okay to say what you see, but then also not dismiss it as un-nuanced and uncomplicated and not something that we are all contributing to. With the goal of not just pointing it out and shaming it, but what do we do, this isn’t working.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, it isn’t working. And it dovetails with the conversation that we’re going to have about the anxious generation, about why we’re ending up the way we are with boys and girls.
Glennon Doyle:
And it also loops back to the beginning of our conversation, if you want to know why, it’s because of things like what we talked about in the beginning. It’s like even when we delve into this thing of like, oh my God, what if we’re all human, there is always something that maintains the masculinity status quo. That says no, back in their boxes.
Amanda Doyle:
Exactly.
Glennon Doyle:
Just like Inside Out did at the end of the movie. Just like no matter what and no matter how deep we get, we still put them in that corner. So why is that so important? We definitely need to delve into that.
Amanda Doyle:
And why is that not just as offensive? That’s my thing. If we had done a whole Disney movie about ambition, which we did for a lot of years, and kept gender roles and put women in boxes, but then we did a whole one about ambition and purpose and career and drive, and then had a scene at the end that was like, oh, except for women, you stay in your box of no ambition. That became offensive and we had to fix that. But we still in 2024 have one about emotions and connections and nuance and complexity, interior complexity, and have it end with except for boys, get back in your box. That doesn’t happen. But we’re not outraged about that, we are supposed to laugh.
Glennon Doyle:
And, we don’t have to get into it, but it’s so shaming to the guys, it’s like … Okay, all right, we got to go. We love you. Go watch all the things, listen to the things, read the things. And then also, pod squad, would you tell us what you’re reading, what you’re watching, and what you’re listening to? I really just need to not every single day ask Abby what we should watch. So any help.
Amanda Doyle:
And also tell us who you love that’s talking about boys and men and masculinity and how to raise boys better and more real. 747 200 5307.
Glennon Doyle:
And not even just raise, but relate to in the world, I would like to understand.
Abby Wambach:
Love you, guys, got to go.
Amanda Doyle:
Bye.
Glennon Doyle:
If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us if you’d be willing to take 30 seconds to do these three things. First, can you please follow or subscribe to We Can Do Hard Things. Following the pod helps you because you’ll never miss an episode and it helps us because you’ll never miss an episode. To do this, just go to the We Can Do Hard Things show page on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audacy or wherever you listen to podcasts, and then just tap the plus sign in the upper right-hand corner or click on follow. This is the most important thing for the pod.
While you’re there, if you’d be willing to give us a five star rating and review and share an episode you loved with a friend, we would be so grateful. We appreciate you very much.
We Can Do Hard Things is created and hosted by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle in partnership with Audacy. Our executive producer is Jenna Weiss-Berman, and the show is produced by Lauren LoGrasso, Allison Schott, Dina Kleiner, and Bill Schultz.