Writing & Art: When does your real self get to breathe and be seen?

October 19, 2021

Glennon Doyle:

Well, hello. Thank you for coming back to our We Can Do Hard Things Party. We are delighted to host you. How are you doing, sister and Abby?

Abby Wambach:

Good, good, good.

Amanda Doyle:

I’m doing great.

GD:

You are.

AW:

Excited to be here. Just so excited.

AD:

Thank you. Thanks, babe. On this very day, I’m actually feeling good. I’m not just saying I’m feeling good. I’m feeling good today.

GW:

Wow.

AD:

I know.

GD:

What do you attribute this rare occurrence to?

AD:

We just don’t even ask those kind of questions at days. We just feel grateful for that being nominated.

GD:

I actually agree with that completely. I feel like my general attitude and feelings are rarely tied to reasons, right?

AW:

I would actually totally disagree with both of you.

GD:

Really?

AW:

I just think that there are probably things that happened in the last couple of days in your life that have given you the outlook you have today. So finding those little bits and trying to recreate them, for me that’s all I do every single day is just try to recreate … I know that’s probably a good definition for addiction, but recreate something so I can feel good.

GD:

Interesting.

AD:

I dig it. That’s good. It’s a conscious living, conscious living, what is leading to a better happier me, let’s do that instead of something else.

AW:

Yeah.

GD:

That whole revolutionary idea of do more of what makes you feel good.

AW:

Yeah.

GD:

Feels so simple. Every time I see it, I’m like, that is a mind blowing idea.

AD:

Yeah, suspicious. Highly suspicious thing.

GD:

Yeah. So speaking, who can go about doing things that make you feel, what the hell kind of woowoo nonsense is that?

AD:

Speaking of woowoo nonsense, what are we talking about today, sister?

GD:

So today, we are talking about art and creativity and writing and all of it. The why and the how so many people in our pod squad have asked about writing and about how this whole little writing revolution came about for me and all of the different things it’s morphed into. Not what it does for the world, but really what it does for, for me and my personal life. So we thought we’d chat about the power of art in the world and in a human being’s life.

AD:

Beautiful.

GD:

Yeah.

AD:

So in every human’s life or just in the artist’s life? I’m just wondering if this applies to me.

GD:

Well, I mean-

AW:

Samesies.

GD:

Well, I guess first, you have to ask like, “Why the hell art? What is the point?”

AD:

Yeah, that’s what I was trying to ask.

GD:

Yeah, you were trying to ask more kindly of what the hell is the point of all this woowoo art. I mean, so obviously, in preparation for this podcast, I’ve been thinking a lot about, “What the hell is the point?” Why did I start feeling this desperate need to create art? I think that it comes down to, for me, this idea that I have always felt like I had two selves. Okay? That even when I was 10 years old, that I had this like public self, this representative self that had to go out into the world and kind of act appropriate and have good manners and represent myself to teachers, to my parents, to the world. But then I have this real self.

GD:

So it’s like the representative self and the real self. Then my real self, and I think this came into such clear focus to me so early because of my bulimia. It was very clear to me that I had this self that I sent out into the world, to school, to do the things. Then I would come home and binge and purge. So it was very clear, just like I had my out in the world self, and then I had my bathroom self, my kitchen and bathroom self. That was a completely different self.

GD:

And it made sense. It was like, a way to kind of indulge or live into the hunger and humanity of being human. Appetite, hunger, all that, while publicly following the rules of girlhood. Right? Don’t be wild. Don’t be hungry. Don’t be animalistic. So what was clear is that my real self was not fit for public consumption. That’s what I understood to be true. I mean, this idea of two selves. I mean, you know sister because you lived it with me. Then Abby, I’ve told you so much about this.

GD:

But on the last podcast, I talked about the moment when I was a senior in high school. I went into the guidance counselor’s office and said, “I can’t do this life anymore. I need somebody to help me.” So I actually did leave high school. I went to a hospital. I stayed there for a while in the hospital. I’ll talk about that on another podcast, that actual experience in there because it was really life changing and important for me. But then when I came back out of the hospital, I went back to high school. Okay? So it was just right back into that environment that I was so afraid of.

GD:

Then the wild thing is, is that I think, a week later after I got back to high school, I was voted leading leader of my senior class. This is a huge ass class, okay, it was like 1000 kids in this class. Everybody sat down at their desk and thought, “Who is the best leader in this class?” They were like, “The girl that just got sent to the mental hospital. That’s the one, her. We want to follow her.” Okay. So I had the sash that said, “Leading leader.” I’m driving around on a car and the homecoming parade, having just been discharged. That, for me, is the pinnacle of the two selves for me. There was the mental hospital self. Then a week later, there was the leading leader smile, wave to the crowd self. Right?

GD:

I know that most people have maybe less dramatic versions of the two selves, but I do feel like everyone has them, right? You have yourself, okay. You’re at a party, for people who go to parties. You’re at a party, you have the self that’s on the couch or mingling and talking to people. Then you have the bathroom self, where you’re staring in the mirror, and you’re like, “Okay, what did I just say? I want to leave.” Right? I mean, do you all have two selves?

AW:

I mean, this sounds a lot like me, a lot the way that I went through my addiction. It’s like, I had this shadow self, the self that I didn’t really let anybody know about. Then I have my public self. So I think probably a lot of folks out there who struggle with addiction probably will absolutely understand what you’re talking about for sure.

AD:

Yeah. Or even just in day to day relationships, where you’re like, you’re in a relationship, and you’re thinking in this moment, what a healthy, constructive person would say is X. But what I’m thinking inside my head, is a whole different ballgame. But you’re not allowed to say what you’re thinking. Right? Some of that is like good call. Because if I said everything that I was thinking, I would have no relationships at all. So there’s a thin line, but I think everyone can recognize there’s some things to the internal monologue and drama that you’re dealing with internally. Then there’s what everyone else can see.

GD:

Exactly. It’s like, when someone asks you, “How are you,” like we talked about in the last pod. What you say is, “Fine, I’m good.” Then your other self is thinking life is shit, my marriage is suffering, I’m so tired. If you ever said something that your inner self was not saying, that’s the two selves. Right? It’s like throughout the day, and then you staring at the ceiling at the end of the day. It’s the onstage self and the backstage self. What you just said is where eventually I’ll get the art part, which is like, it’s good. You can’t just release that self all the time. But to me, it feels of existential importance that that self does get released somewhere and somehow. Art is a way to do that. Right?

AW:

And explored, right? Not just released, but to explore it. Yeah.

GD:

Yeah. That self has to come up for air and be seen. That’s why art. I mean, how many people who couldn’t say the things that they wanted to say to their families or their parents write a novel or a short story with all the rage they’ve ever had in it, right?

AW:

Or a memoir.

GD:

Right. Or my little kids in school. I mean, when I was teaching, I’ll never forget this little one who was … Oh my god, his name was Oscar and he’s one my favorite humans. We were writing poetry. All these kids were of course writing their fancy stanzas with the rhyming ending. I love roses, and I love noses and all of the things.

GD:

This kid got out a red crayon and wrote “mad” with red crayon on a piece of paper. I was like, “That is art.” Right? The art is not about showing off. Art is about showing yourself, that inner self that you’re not allowed to show anywhere else because of all the scripts we have, and all of our discomfort with humanity. Whenever you get a glimpse of somebody’s insides, which is usually unfancy, right, that’s art. It’s like allowing that inner self to breathe.

GD:

So when I got sober, I started going into the recovery rooms, right. That was one of my first experiences except for the mental hospital, where I got to see people actually live out loud their real self. that’s what happens in those circles is it’s like the place to breathe for that inner self that people are not allowed to. So that was extremely comforting to me, to have a real live place where you could let your real self breathe. I realized I feel more comfortable with people’s inner wild selves than with their representative selves. I would just live in these circles if I could.

GD:

Then I started having all of the children and couldn’t leave the house. Just felt so overwhelmed and underwhelmed and all the things. I started freaking out. There was no time for my inner self. Right? That was over. It was just one role after another all day. I’m sure many people will be able to relate to that. Then one day, I was getting ready to put the babies down for a nap. I passed my computer. There was this thing going on on Facebook called the 20 things or 25 things that was like this little challenge and the challenges that go around the interwebs.

GD:

It was like, “Just write 25 things about yourself.” Okay. Something tingled in me, like, “Oh, I could do that. That little tingle of interest, of curiosity.” I sat down. I typed out a list of 25 things. I post on my personal Facebook page. I walked away, put the babies down, did all the vacuuming and all the things that get done every day, and nobody ever sees them. Came back to the computer a couple hours later and had this very confusing moment where I looked at my computer. I saw that my list from my personal page had been shared like a million gazillion times.

GD:

I looked at my email and I had like a ton of emails. If you’ll remember, sister, I had like four or five voicemails in a row from you. Okay, which is the moment that my blood went cold because usually when I have a lot of voicemails in a row from you, it’s a signal that I’ve done something weird that like normal humans don’t do. Right? So what had happened and the only way I can describe this is to just tell you, listener, here was my number six. Okay. I’m a recovering food and alcohol addict, but I still miss booze in the crazy way we can miss those who repeatedly beat us and leave us for dead.

AW:

Just light little casual Facebook 25 things, little number six.

GD:

Here’s my friend Lisa’s number six, “My favorite snack food is hummus.” I was like, “Oh shit.” I should have read other people’s lists before I did my list. We were not doing that here.

AW:

Or not, like or not. Yeah.

GD:

Or maybe we should have been doing that there, right?

AW:

Yeah, yeah.

GD:

Okay. I freaked out at first. I had what Brené Brown calls the vulnerability hangover. I just thought, “How do I get this back?” Because of course number six was my lightest one. I was easing in. But then I started reading these emails from people. Okay. They were from people who I had known my whole life but were telling me things that they had never told me before. Things like, “I just read your list my sister’s bulimic. I have no idea how to help her. I just read your list and I’m struggling with depression and have been for years. I just read your list, and my marriage is just so difficult, and I have nowhere to talk to.”

GDn:

It was like, all of these me too’s, me too’s, me too’s. It was mind blowing to me, because it was like, Oh, I talk to these people all the time, but our representatives are so busy talking to each other that we never show each other our real selves, which means we never bring to each other, the real stuff that we were actually meant to talk through and help each other through and feel less alone about. Right?

AW:

So boring.

GD:

It’s so boring to stay on script all the time.

AW:

Geez.

GD:

It’s so lonely.

AW:

So boring and so lonely. Just in our experience, in my experience, because I too have done this. But my question, honey is, is it possible to get rid of these two selves and become one?

GD

I don’t think so. Because after this epiphany of like, “Oh my gosh, everyone wants to actually release their real selves,” you’ll remember, Amanda, that I’m always doing these, like mini challenges for myself. So I was like, “I am going to just do this, I’m just going to be my real self.” The only places I went back then were like a playground. So I was at the playground.

GD:

Somebody said, “How are you?” I started just telling the person, this poor woman. I talked to her about my marriage, I told her about my eating stuff. I just saw her face. She just was like, “Oh my God.” How are you is just something we say. I’m trying to watch my kid. So what I’m telling you is that I actually believe that there are places for it. Maybe we need more of it in real life. But when I try to be my real self everywhere, it’s just very disruptive the day I have noticed.

AW:

I mean, I would disagree. I think that your your real self is perfect everywhere. It’s just sometimes you got to know who’s going to be receiving. Right? Or understand that not everybody’s going to receive you, your full real self in the ways that is required. I think that that’s important too.

GD:

That’s a good point. That’s a good point.

GD:

Well, back then, I remember having that experience and being so amazed that writing, writing was a place. What I learned from that is that writing is a place where I can explore that. I can be this real self. I can show my real self to the world. They can actually see me. It’s like I heard my friend Holly talking about writing as like this flare we throw up into the air saying, “Find me. Help. I’m here. My people, find me.” We look for people’s flares, and we find our people. That’s what it felt a lot like to me.

GD:

Then for Christmas that year, my sister came to my house for Christmas. She brought me, right around Christmas time, brought me a laptop, said, “You were meant to write, I want you to get up every morning. I want you to write. I want you to use that voice you used in that Facebook list.” So I started getting up every morning and writing. I don’t know if you remember, but I started writing and just sending emails to people, to my friends.

AD:

I remember, I remember.

GD:

Yeah. I would just get up every morning, write all of my thoughts and opinions about everything, and send them to five of my friends over and over and over again.

AW:

Angels, angels they are.

AD:

It’s true, it’s true.

GD:

Oh my god. Then if they didn’t write back, babe, because they were trying to have a life and at work. I would ping them and just be like, “Just wanting to know if you had any chance to read my thoughts.” Finally, my precious friend, both of our friends, Joanna, Joanna Cosmedes then, Joanna Edwards now who’s one of my favorite artists in the whole world who actually designed the Love Warrior book jacket. She was one of those lucky, lucky five.

GD:

She wrote to me one morning and said, “Honey, I’m attaching a tutorial about how to start a blog” Blogs are for people who have as many thoughts and opinions and feelings as you do, but want to keep their friends. Godspeed. We love you. Joanna.” Now, it is the truth. So I started writing on this blog called Momastery six years ago. So my writing career started because my friends didn’t want to read my writing. This is true story. It’s a true story.

AD:

We didn’t not want to read your writing, but to have to read it from like 8:00 to 8:20 every day and then send you her reaction was a lot of responsibility.

AW:

A job. It’s a job. You had five editors.

AD:

What was it? Did you read it yet? I’m just wondering, did you read it? Did you read it? Every morning.

GD:

So bad, embarrassing. It’s embarrassing.

GD:

So I started that blog, Momastery. It was called Momastery because I was so obsessed with every spiritual tradition. Right? Back then, my everyday spiritual practice was motherhood. That’s how I was in the trenches. That’s where I was learning the most about myself, my capacity for caring, my capacity for rage, my exhaustion. All of it was a crucible, early motherhood. So I call it Momastery. I promised myself I was going to get up every single day, no matter what was happening. I would go up at 5:30 in the morning to this little playroom, tiny play room that we had upstairs. I would sit and I would write for an hour. Then I would press “post” every single day.

AD:

That was a big part of it too because you made that promise that you were going to just after an hour post it, whether you thought it was good enough or not. I think that was a big part of how you ended up doing what you were doing because you didn’t wait for everything to be perfect. It was just everyday you’d just do it.

GD:

That’s exactly right.

AW:

Can you be an artist without posting? Because I think that we have that question with Tish. Sometimes she writes all these songs, and won’t play them for us or won’t let us read the songs. It’s like, does art need to be made public to be considered art?

GD:

I don’t know, I think people probably won’t like my answer to this question. But my first reaction to that, and I’m sure this is wrong in a million ways. But I feel like for me, the people who make art and then don’t release it, it feels purer to me. It’s like, they’re just doing it because they have this self that they want to get out and see for themselves. They’re not doing it for anyone else’s applause or reaction, or … It just feels so pure to me.

AD:

Oh my god. That’s how I feel about trips. There’s something so sacred to me about traveling and visiting and seeing new things. I have this feeling about it, about not posting anything about it on the internet because I feel like then that becomes … You’re living for that post or you’re doing it for the people’s response to, “Oh, you went to that place,” as opposed to just living it and being it and having that be the end and of itself.

AW:

I love that.

GD:

That’s exactly it. That’s exactly it. I feel that same way. It’s like once you give something away, it’s it’s so important in so many ways. This is not a black and white thing. It’s so important. Art can change people’s lives and change the world. Obviously I believe in putting it out there. But there’s something that when you keep something to yourself, you just get to keep it.

AD:

Well, it’s also proved to yourself that that was an end in and of itself.

GD:

Yes.

AD:

Just that there is value just having produced that not for the consumption of others, but just that that was worth it, that it got out of you and that you created it but not that anyone else saw it or understood it or appreciated it.

GD:

Yes. I think that’s why reading Emily Dickinson makes me so emotional. It’s because I’m like, “Oh my god, she just just writing this.” It just makes me feel when I read her stuff because it’s clear to me that she was just trying to get her insights out for her and not for the world’s approval or response.

AW:

Well, think about her during the time when she was creating that art, how little women were respected and especially in I bet the art world still. Right? It’s hard as a woman to get like any respect. But you did get respect, Glennon, with the don’t Carpe Diem post that went viral. Tell that story.

GD:

Because people always want to know. How did it get big? I mean, I wrote on the blog, just that, without a doubt, that is what I was looking for. A place to tell the truth. A place where other people … It was like a meeting. It was like turning the my life, my everyday life, the interwebs, my life and my home where I was so isolated into a meeting, because I’d get to say every morning, “Hi, my name is Glennon. I am a recovering everything. Here are the things.” Then everyone else will go, “Holy shit. I think that stuff too. I thought I was the only one.” Then it’s like this process where the deep dark thing inside of you that you’re trying to hide, you get it out in the light. Everybody else goes, “Oh, same.” Suddenly you’re free from it. It’s not dark anymore. You feel lighter. That’s what I was looking for.

AD:

It’s like that Muriel Rukeyser poem that what would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open. That’s kind of what happened over there.

GD:

Yeah. Yes. It was beautiful. It was what I wanted and needed. Then somebody revamped the blog and added, share buttons. I didn’t even have share buttons on it for a year or two or maybe longer than a year or two. So like five years?

Amanda:

Four.

Glennon:

Four, yes.

Abby:

Clearly you set the blog up, sweetheart.

AD: 

Because she followed Joe’s tutorial. She’s like, “Dear Google, blog.” 

GD: 

So I wrote for years and years with just no sharing ability. Then somebody came in, revamped it, and added share buttons. Then the next day, after it changed over, I wrote a post called, “Don’t carpe diem,” about raising small children and how people are always telling you to pay attention because it goes by so fast, which is the worst thing we can say to parents of young children, because every day feels like a freaking millennium when you have small children. So then not only do you feel exhausted, but you feel guilty for not being joyful enough, and on and on and on. So that post, and I remember you and I were on the phone that night, sister, because I was like, “What’s happening? Why do these numbers keep saying like 40?”

AD:

Yeah. Our blog is broken. My blog is broken.

GD:

My blog is broken. Yeah. Just went so crazy viral. So then all of these agents, the only agent I had ever had in my life before this one was a real estate agent. So literary agents started emailing me. I just did nothing. I was like, “This is too weird.” I remember I started forwarding them to you, sister, and saying, “What am I supposed to do with this?” You said, “Find one that you like and email them back.” Find one that you like. So I read one email.

GD:

There was two women that I vibed with, I felt like their email was great. I wrote back, I said, “What the hell is happening and what am I supposed to do?” They said, “You’re supposed to pick an agent.” I said, “How the hell am I supposed to pick an agent?” They said to me, “You just need to ask around.” That was the moment where I was like, “How in the hell?” Okay, let me tell you where I go.

GD:

I go to the bus stop. I go to the grocery store. Should I ask around at the bus stop about like, “What’s the best process of choosing a literary agent?” You and I, Amanda, end up going to New York City a month later, to meet these agents and to go on a publishing oct tour where we go around and meet all of these different publishers in New York City.

AD:

Yeah, it was actually two separate trips, first the agent, then the publisher.

GD:

Okay.

AD:

But I do think it’s important to note here that for people who aren’t as lucky to get an influx of agents trying to get their attention, that like three months prior to this, we had printed out every single page of the blog and organized it into chapters and did a letter to a couple of a couple of agents to try to get published.

GD:

Yes.

AD:

And was rejected by them. So I think it’s important to know that if you get rejected, it is not necessarily because your work is not worthy. Because fast forward a hot minute, and they were all trying to get your attention. So anyway.

GD:

Yeah. Then you get to think about those people that rejected you. Just every once in a while, you just get to think about them.

AW:

It’s the best.

GD:

I think that trip to New York, I don’t think I’d ever been to New York City. Had I ever been to New York City? I remember walking around with you in the streets.

AD:

It was so fun.

GD:

You just holding my hand and begging me to walk faster and just being like, “Oh my god. What is happening in New York City? Why are all these people walking so freaking fast? Where’s everyone going?” You just begging me to pay attention and begging me to look at the street. I had to run in order to walk New York.

AD:

Yeah, your poor little legs.

AW:

Yeah, you weren’t made for a place like New York City, babe. No offense. It’s just not …

AD:

Incompatible.

Abby:

Yeah.

AD:

Incompatible.

AW:

Just no …

GD:

Yeah, nope. Nope to that. I will say that that weekend in New York, before anything had happened, but like we were like, “Whoa, something’s happening,” nothing from the rest of my career compares in any way to that time with you in New York. I think we got on a freaking rickshaw. Actually I still have that video. We’re going to play that for, yeah, the Pod Squad. The rickshaw you and me sit, being like, “Wait, they have carts that you go through the streets of this chaos in a bike?”

AD:

Well, we couldn’t get a cab. We were late for our train back because our meetings went too late. We were going to miss our train back, and we couldn’t get a cab. So we had, that was our only choice. Then we were like, “Well, it’s been a good run, but we die here. This is where it happens.”

GD:

Yeah. But it’s okay.

AD:

It’s okay.

GD:

That’s okay if you die.

AD:

You die happy.

GD:

This was so fun. I was so excited. I remember we went to a lunch, like a fancy lunch in New York with some kind of publisher type person. I just felt like all of New York was for us that day. I remember leaving, walking out of the restaurant. The man who was holding the doors, looked at us and said, “Congratulations.” I looked at him and said, “Thank you. This is a really big day.” We walked away and you said to me sister it’s because I’m nine months pregnant like he was talking to me. No one knows what’s happening with you in the city. So many other more important things are happening in the city.

AW:

I mean, you’re so, so freaking cute. Thank you so much, sir. This town is lovely.

GD:

I mean my parents are so excited. We’re so grateful. Just an honor being nominated.

AD:

As if every New Yorker got a bulletin that morning, “In big news today, Glennon Doyle is in New York for a meeting that’s important to her personally.”

GD:

Exactly. But yeah. People often want to know what is that process like, that’s what that weekend was for us. Then we turned. The first book was Carry on, Warrior. That was a line from Don’t Carpe Diem, which became a chapter in the book. I just spent a lot of time turning the blog posts that people resonated with the most into that first book.

AD:

I love that book.

GD:

I love that sweet little book too.

AD:

It just feels like your first house you lived in.

GD:

I know.

AD:

You just like love it so much.

GD:

Then I look back, sister, the way I was talking in that, it’s like so strange, you all, to have a version of yourself a decade ago out in the world. I want you to think about if like your senior picture from high school, like people were walking around looking at it, talking about it. It feels like, “This is why Jesus only wrote in the sand. Right?” It can be very cringey to have this version of yourself that is so young.

AD:

But it’s beautiful and it’s true.

GD:

I know. So is everyone’s senior picture. So is everyone’s senior picture.

AD:

No. Nah. Nope.

AW:

Well, not mine, but …

AD:

Nope, not mine.

GD:

Well, beautiful in the way of that was a true snapshot of you at the time.

AD:

Exactly.

GD:

When you were in fact doing your best with what you knew.

AW:

My snapshot.

GD:

Baby, did you have long hair in your senior picture

AW:

I had a ponytail and I had my …

GD:

Hand on-

AW:

My class ring here. I was just like crushing it.

GD:

You leaned into it.

AD:

For everyone listening, Abby is resting so gently her chin in her hand in a very artful and natural pose, that you can imagine for a senior picture.

AW:

I had this baby blue cashmere-like, it wasn’t real cashmere, cashmere-like sweater on. Oh my gosh. Good times.

AD:

All right. So what do you … That was, gosh, 12 years ago, something like that, 10 years ago. What would you say is your favorite thing about being a writer since that was the moment that you could actually officially call yourself a writer or did you call yourself a writer before that? What’s been your favorite part?

GD:

My favorite thing about being a writer, which is I think the most life changing aspect of having art in your life in any way. So I remember when our oldest decided that he was going to be a photographer. Okay? So being a photographer just means someone takes pictures. All right. So I don’t think of being a writer, or being a photographer, or being a painter, as someone who makes a living off of that thing. It’s just someone who does that thing. So anyone who writes is a writer. To be clear, I know plenty of people who write and do not get paid for it, who I believe are true who artists.

GD:

I know plenty of people who write and are marketable in a way where they get to make money off of it, who I don’t feel come close to these other people in terms of depth and talent. So there’s a million things in our world that affect who gets to be paid for their writing, things like race, things like gender, things like a million different reasons why some people get opportunities to get paid and others don’t. That does not define whether you’re an artist or not. I’ve just seen that be disproven every day. So when our oldest decided to become a photographer, I just felt so … My heart just exploded because I started to watch him experience his days differently. Okay? Because he was always looking for something interesting or beautiful to take a picture of.

GD:

So what was important and life changing about the decision to be that thing was never the result. Honestly, the picture was just this cool thing at the end of the day that he had. What was amazing was that the way he experienced his world and his day was changed forever. Because seek and you shall find. We find what we’re looking for. What I love about being a writer is that I am constantly thinking what is true about this moment, what is beautiful about this thing. I’m experiencing my day differently. So it’s not just about what I do when I come back to the computer. It’s about what I’m looking for all day that makes my life better, that makes my life more interesting, that makes my experience of other people and of the earth and of the entire world just alive.

GD:

Then there’s the other side of that. Every good thing can become shit, right? Where sometimes I feel like, “Wait, am I even getting to have an experience here? Because all I’m doing is seeing everything as potential writing material.” Actually this is my wife, not character. Right? Actually, that’s just a cactus not a metaphor. Actually that’s just a piece of chicken.

AW:

Oh my gosh.

GD:

That’s a table. That’s just our daughter.

AW:

Our kids would have so much to say in this moment. They’re like, “Mom, everything doesn’t have to be a metaphor. My goodness.”

GD:

They can’t take it.

AW:

Although they’re all sort of starting to do it, which is so beautiful.

GD:

I know.

AW:

It’s so beautiful.

GD:

I know. I know. They don’t see a table as a table anymore either. The other thing I love about being a writer is that I think one of the reasons I can’t stand the two selves is I understand that because of all of our conditioning, when we see someone, we are never really seeing that person. As human beings, it is our nature to prejudge everything. So when we see someone, our experience of them is always skewed immediately. Right? Through no fault of our own, just the way that human beings are made. So it’s art when somebody puts out a painting, when somebody makes a play, when somebody writes a poem, when somebody dances a dance. It feels to me like a way of showing that untamed self to other people’s untamed self. Right? I mean, it makes me so stressed out and sweaty to think about this, to really think about like, “How do we ever show our real true selves in a way where other people can actually see us?” It’s not perfect, right? I feel like I’m writing in a way that is as close as I can get.

AW:

Okay, hold on a second. This is fascinating. It’s like striking me. This might sound super odd. I don’t know. But it feels like what I was doing on the field was a little bit like that. So maybe I also have art in me because yes, I was creating something out of nothing, but I don’t know. Maybe sports is like art in motion on some level because just hearing you talk right now, Glennon, I’m like getting like this … When I was on the field, I wasn’t performing gender roles. I was out there just being free, and being powerful, and being fast, and being talented, and being creative, and being skillful, and being tactile, and all of these things, though it might not from the world’s, quote-unquote, “definition” of what art looks like. I think that that is art on some level.

AW:

I think that this could be kind of telling in terms of the way that our women’s national team is experienced because maybe I for a long … Maybe the whole of my life have been breaking free from gender norms or the conditioned idea of what being a girl is on the field. I’m just going out there playing and being fierce and being myself and not following the guidelines or the conditioning that was handed to me when I was born into this world. Right? So I don’t know. I think I could just be free to be myself out there. Maybe that is what is so contagious and magnetic about watching our women’s national team is we’re watching women not just break free from the social norms we were handed at birth, but also the freedom that we are our being and using our bodies. We kind of took, we took this freedom from like a young age. I don’t know, I mean …

GD:

It’s fascinating. Well, far from perfect, sports do seem to … First of all, of course, it’s art. You’re creating something out of nothing. You’re creating the play, you’re creating the thing. Using your mind and your body, you’re creating this thing that was not an existence before. That people are seeing and feeling and reacting to in real time, it’s like a play. I’ve had that experience, Abby, where I’ve watched the boys play the sports on the television.

GD:

I have watched them hug each other, kiss each other on the cheeks, be so affectionate to each other, watch the men in the stands with a full unbridled enthusiasm and passion and tears. I have wondered, “Is this why they love the sports? Because it’s a place where they can be fully human, where they’re allowed to let go of this conditioning boys have,” which are don’t touch each other, don’t show vulnerability, don’t show enthusiasm, don’t show joy, don’t care. They’re allowed to do it in that realm. Right? Girls are allowed to be fierce, and animalistic, and mighty, and not care how they look, and just care how they feel, and compete. This is my question for you, what I’m really interested about, when you stepped off the field, because you felt free. But what about the world’s reaction to you?

AW:

Yeah. Okay. It was like I guess this oasis, this field for me just thinking about it instantly. When I’m walking off the field, right? The first things that are said to me are just first of all, surprise at what I was able to do. Wow, you don’t play sports like a girl. You don’t run like a girl. So from a young age, I’m internalizing this misogyny. I don’t understand it to be that. I’m taking it as a total compliment, right?

AW:

But what’s getting set in my conditioning is hatred of women. That women are less than, that women are not to be aspired to be. Right? So this probably informed so many of the decisions that I ended up making on how I want to dress and how I want to present and how I want to walk in the world. What looked like a big compliment is this total sexist way of being. Yeah, well, what not to be like. So I don’t know, I think it’s really fascinating thinking about this freedom that I was expressing on the field was then being not just judged, but put in this corner. I mean, the male privilege that I have experienced in my life is true, is real. It’s something that I’m trying to work through. Right? Why have I made some of the decisions that I have made, and a lot of it has to do with the way that the world responded to the freedom that I showed on the sports court or field.

GD:

I would say that about art, I would say that exact thing that that has been my experience. That in art, I feel free to show my true self, my real self in a way that feels less encumbered by my conditioning. When I step off the field, right, when I put that art in the world, the world’s reaction to my art is completely gendered. Okay? Men write about their lives and it’s called literature. Women write about their lives, and it’s called women’s issues. Men write about their lives, and they’re called leadership books. Women write about their lives, and they’re called self help.

AW:

Such bullshit.

GD:

Right?

GD:

Go ahead, sister. I can tell you want to jump in there, and I know you do.

AD:

Well, I just have scrupples. I think that’s really important because I think the whole idea of women’s art being self help, I think is important because it isn’t this kind of, “Oh, an author feels annoyed about being labeled a certain way,” which I know that that’s a thing too. But to me, it has nothing to do with the author. It has all to do with how the world views women. This phenomenon where every author that connects on a grand scale with women is defined as self help, it’s based on this circular logical fallacy that completely patronizes and completely pathologizes women. Because here’s how it works, it assumes that women’s lives are a series of isolated problems as opposed to these deeply problematic, political and social structures. Then it says, “These individualized problems, clearly these women need to help their selves out of. Right?”

GD:

Yes, yes.

AD:

So therefore, anything that connects deeply with women, anything that edifies them, anything that is a conduit, in which they recognize their own lives and experience must be an answer to our collective yet individual neuroses.

GD:

Neuroses.

AD:

Right?

GD:

Yes.

AD:

So that’s why art that is the story of men’s lives. Hemingway, Vonnegut. Fitzgerald. That’s art, right? But art that tells the story of women’s lives is self help.

GD:

That’s right.

AD:

It’s horseshit. Every time someone hears that, they should think, “You are viewing me as neurotically in need of self help.”

GD:

Flawed. Inherently flawed.

GD:

Yes. All of my male counterparts are either memoirists, artists or leadership people. All of my female, that’s what they’re labeled, all of my female counterparts are self help.

AW:

The self help idea is only talking to the individual. This leadership idea is talking to the masses. Right? So it’s this whole philosophical difference between women can only help one. Men can help everyone. This is why the systemic and institutional bullshit, like who made up these fucking terms. Right?

GD:

It’s how the world sees us.

AW:

It’s ridiculous.

GlD:

The world believes that men’s challenge is to just unleash themselves, leadership, just unleash your power, women’s issue is that they just need to fix themselves.

AD:

I think it’s deeper than that. I think it’s whatever the default group is. I think that men’s stories are about our stories because that’s the default, because that is the lens through which the world allows them to just be stories. Women’s stories and women’s experience must be a lens through which we see that all women have these various and inexplicable individual dramas in their lives.

AW:

That’s right.

AD:

One can’t know why they’re also deeply, deeply irritated. But that’s good, because we’ll give them lots of books. Then maybe they’ll figure out what the hell is wrong with them, and then they can help themselves out of it.

GD:

Yes. That’s right. That’s why they used to call it in the second wave, feminists. They used to call the conscious reasoning groups “therapy”. They would make fun of them, “The girls are in therapy again.” Yeah. This is repeated over and over again to all female artists forever and ever. We just have to see it.

AD:

That’s why I feel like when you’re talking about creativity, and people might think of themselves as I’m not a writer, or I’m not a painter, I’m not a poet. So I’m not a creative. But one of the main theories about creativity is that a driver of it is this, is called the assumption breaking process or counterfactual thinking. That you need to engage in counterfactual thinking to lead to creativity. So you have to get rid of all these kind of preconceived assumptions to even begin to attempt a new approach that hasn’t been tried before. That’s why all of this, it always starts with like, “If only or why can’t it be more, why can’t …” So that’s why all of that kind of deconstruction of conforming to gender roles or white supremacy or worthiness is productivity, all of that is inherently a very creative process, if you’re willing to think, “What if or why not?: That is creative. You’re doing a creative thing.

GD:

So I think what we’re both saying here with this art and sports, and all of it is that what is crucial to me is that art is just about finding a place to tell the truth about your life, as close to the truth as you can get.we call it like the truthiest truth. To be free, to let that real self free. Then there’s this crucial moment where you have to only be responsible for that. When you leave the field, which the equivalent for me would be putting it out in the world or letting other people read it, understand that nobody will see it as clearly as you said it. That everyone’s conditioning will come into it. That is not your responsibility. Right?

GD:

That it is not our responsibility to follow our art around and be a lawyer for it or be a defender of it. That actually when I used to do that, that is what wore me out, trying to make sure that everybody sees it the way that I meant it and trying to prove that it was right or whatever. I almost quit writing a few times, not because I wasn’t a writer but because I wasn’t a good lawyer. I just stopped that part of it. Understanding that once you step off the field, your job is done. You’re responsible for telling the truth, and in no way responsible for how the world handles your truth or reacts to your truth.

GD:

So I think for our next right thing here, we’re just going to ask you, “Where does your real self get to breathe and be seen? Where and how is it that your real self gets some air. It certainly does not need to be seen by other people. That’s not what I’m saying. It’s just, is there any time in your day where your real self feels any freedom? Is it a coffee with a friend? Is it a quiet moment in the morning? Is it a walk? I actually want to know from the Pod Squad. Where is it during your day that you give your real self a moment to breathe and be seen and be acknowledged?

GD:

We love you. I’m going to ask sister. I just feel like we didn’t hear enough from you which is shocking. I can’t believe I talked so much, and it’s just so unlike me. I think if it’s okay with you, I would love to start the next episode with hearing about your approach to creativity and how it has or has not played out in your life. Is that okay?

AD:

No.

GD:

Okay. Thank you for sharing your true self. I see your no. I acknowledge it. I celebrate your no as much as a yes, I said that to somebody on email and it felt good. I asked them for something. I said I will celebrate your no as much as I would celebrate your yes.

AW:

That’s good.

GD:

Okay. We love you all. Find a place this week to let your real self breathe. It’s hard but we can do hard things. See you soon.

AW:

Also, babe, good job. You were using sports metaphors. Well done.

GD:

Thanks, love. Thank you, love. Bye all.

AD:

Bye.

GD:

I give you Tish Melton and Brandi Carlile.

GD:

We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios. Be sure to rate, review and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey or wherever you get your podcasts. Especially be sure to rate and review the podcast if you really liked it. If you didn’t, don’t worry about it. It’s fine.