Creativity, Chemistry & Claiming Your Joy
October 27, 2021
Glennon Doyle:
Hello, loves. Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. Thank you for joining us. I think you’re going to like this conversation we have today. It’s all about creativity, but first I want to tell you about something special. I want to tell you about some new writing and art that I am putting out into the world and how you can join me in launching. We are about to launch this very exciting first ever virtual live event with me and Abby and Amanda to celebrate the launch of Get Untamed, the journal. So the story behind this journal, it’s the first thing I’ve put out since Untamed and after the Untamed extravaganza, people kept asking me, well, that’s great that you’ve gotten untamed, how do we get untamed? How do we break free from our cages? How do we find that person we were before the world told us who to be?
Glennon Doyle:
And this journal is my response to those questions. So like I always say, every life is a absolutely unrepeatable and unprecedented experiment. So I certainly don’t have any answers for you. But I think in this journal, I’m pointing you towards the questions that will lead you to those answers that are already inside of you. So I’m really excited and proud of this journal. I think you’re going to love it. It’s really beautiful.
Glennon Doyle:
And to celebrate all of that, we are asking you to come party with us, all right. How we party. We are celebrating this launch with an event. The event is on November 18th and we are working with six black owned independent local bookstores, and they all have special clearance to start shipping books early so that they can land with you before the event. And if you register before the event, but you can’t be there live, you get to watch the event for 72 hours after. Okay. So if you want to come, go to get untamedjournal.com and RSVP, and we will see you there. All right. Thank you for letting me tell you about that. Let’s jump right into our conversation about creativity.
Glennon Doyle:
Hi, everybody. Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. We’re just really grateful to you for always coming back. I want to start today by talking to sister Amanda Flaherty Doyle. Abby, and I just talked and talked and talked the last episode about creativity.
Abby Wambach:
Well, I don’t know if it was Abby and I [crosstalk 00:02:47] You went on a…
Glennon Doyle:
That’s like how I used to say John and I split a bottle of wine every night. He had like, I had half a glass. So that’s a split. You weren’t lying. And Abby and I split the conversation. Maybe not equally, but we did split it. And it was about creativity and sister, I just am fascinated to talk to you about the role of creativity in your life because as your sister and now creative partner-
Abby Wambach:
And always creative partner.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
Always creative partner.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, that’s true. But just we’ve come into a different realm recently because of creating this podcast together. I just want to hear about the role of creativity in your life. And have you thought of yourself as a creative person and what does it look and feel like to you these days? I just want to hear all things, sister.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh boy. Okay. So I am a creative person. I would not have led with that ever in my life because I think we accept labels on ourselves and kind of assume these little jerseys pretty early on about that’s the sporty one, that’s the smart one, that’s the creative one, that’s the artsy one. And I think we also give our kids those way too early and we’re trying to give them something that is their own things, so they can feel good about themselves, but by definition, we’re excluding the rest as if those are inapplicable. So it didn’t occur to me that I was creative, but I am creative and I use it all the time. And I think listening to you too, it occurred to me that we think of creativity as this very specific lane, as in there are creators and not creators, but we’re all creating our lives.
Amanda Doyle:
We’re all doing that. And I didn’t want to interject because I was loving listening to you in the last episode, but the whole origin of creative and create was always creating something out of nothing, which you both said that. And that was the actual real origin of it. But it was exclusively for God. It wasn’t until like 500 years later after it was originally used that people were audacious enough to apply it to them because it was about the creation of the world. It was just always about God creating the earth out of nothing. And in fact, the first person to use it was a Polish poet and to dare to say that poets were creative and there was a huge backlash that it was people can’t be creative. Anyway, that’s an aside.
Amanda Doyle:
But I think it’s interesting in the context of really any one who’s creating something out of nothing is creative. And for me, I’ve been thinking about it a lot in a much bigger picture because I’m kind of the opposite of a woo woo person. And I feel like I’m very pragmatic and creativity in life seems a very indulgent and not vital part of life, I think, especially to a life that already seems overflowing, but recently I got to a very bad place, a really low, bad place. And it occurred to me to my surprise that the most rational and pragmatic response to that place ended up being something that feels a little bit woo woo. And that felt ironic to me. But I think that I just want to say it because there was such a response to the overwhelm episode that I think it dovetails with that.
Amanda Doyle:
And it’s just that everything in my life became duty. And as I say it in past tense, this is very, very newly freshly being thought through, but it’s just like nothing wasn’t a demand, nothing wasn’t a duty, everything was shoulds and nothing was wants and it just felt like even things that had been joys just became jobs, like my kids and sex and even special events, they were just all more things I had to do. And I didn’t used to be that way. I used to be full of wonder and I was joyful and I was full of life and all of that seemed to kind of go away for me. And I realized that I am joyless because I’m all duty and I don’t have fun.
Amanda Doyle:
And I don’t have joy because joy and fun are like an answer to something. Desire is an answer to something. And if you don’t leave room and space in your life for the question, then you’re never going to get to the answer. And then even joy and desire, they become a obligation on you instead of a need from you. And so I began to resent all of those things because it just felt like just more things on my to-do list. And then I got in a really bad place because I was like, well, there’s clearly something wrong with me, there’s clearly wrong with my relationship, there’s clearly something wrong with all of these things, because all of this is dead inside of me. And I realized that I was not treating having a life as a priority of my life.
Amanda Doyle:
And that is why I wasn’t having it. And that is very logical. I could understand it that way. If there is no time and space and room for my life, then I am not going to have one. I’m not going to have a life force in me if there is no room and space and air for a life force to emerge from me.
Glennon Doyle:
And you’re talking about life being different than life. So for me, what I’m hearing is that you’re talking about the difference between adulting and humaning.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. I’m talking about things like desire and curiosity and imagination and hopes and the difference between I should feel happy and I do feel happy. The difference between I should be wanting to have sex, and I do want to have sex. The thing that is from you, as opposed to ever being required of you and for me, it’s like fire.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s like the analogy is fire because I did once feel like my life was I was fiery person. I was full of fire and in chemistry, fire burns when fuel meets heat and oxygen. You need heat and oxygen to turn fuel into fire. And I realized that I have that fuel in me. I do have fuel in me for fun and joy and desire and curiosity. And I think we all do. But I think because of the way our lives are structured, mostly for women, we don’t give those things heat and we don’t give those things air. And that is giving space and time for these things and allowing attention for them. And if you have no room or time in your life to live, you just won’t. And the truth is, is that the world is fine with women not living.
Amanda Doyle:
And that means that we have to decide whether we want to live because not a damn person is going to require it of us, because that is how the world turns. And so I just realized that when I started to think of it that way, I realized that there is just not any oxygen around my fuel and it’s not burning. So I’m either going to smolder with resentment and smolder with bitterness and be all smoke and no fire, or I’m going to have to get some oxygen around my fuel.
Amanda Doyle:
And either way, it’s going to cost my life. Either way, it’s going to cost my relationships if I keep being smoldering. That is a price to my life, or I could take the time to give it air and that’s going to be a cost to my life, but either way it’s going to need to happen. And I think the key thing for me has been not viewing this as yet another duty that I’m failing to meet. Not just another way I’m jacked up, not just another way that I have a problem or my relationship has a problem, or I haven’t prioritized correctly, but it’s just that I have been doing the best that I can.
Amanda Doyle:
And that best has been not making any fucking room to have these things in my life. And I’m just viewing them not as a something I’m failing to make happen in my life, but as a birthright that I want to reclaim. And so I’m taking back that room because I can either spend my time resenting the world for failing to ignite me, or I can make some time to give myself the heat and the air that I need, because nobody else has the heat and the light to light up my life, but me, nobody does.
Abby Wambach:
That’s so good.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s true. I’m not trying to be like a mantra like nobody has… [crosstalk 00:14:20].
Glennon Doyle:
No, you’re not a mantra.
Amanda Doyle:
I have looked around and literally no one can. It is my fire. And it has to be my fuel, my air, my heat, to make that burn. And it’s going to be smoldering and I’m going to make everyone feel the smoke around me for my whole life, or I’m going to make it burn for myself, but either way, it’s going to cost. So I’m just trying to make room for those things, because I just know I have it in me and I don’t want to live without it.
Glennon Doyle:
Jesus. That was so fucking good.
Abby Wambach:
I know. So good. My eyes were watering, but it wasn’t feeling emotional. It was just happening. I didn’t even feel, like that throat, it was just tears. It was just building up.
Glennon Doyle:
Sister, I don’t have anything to say in reaction to that, because you just said everything, bu you’ll be shocked to know that I did think of a poem while you were speaking. And I just want to read this poem to all of our pod squatters. It’s called The Journey by Mary Oliver.
Glennon Doyle:
“One day, you finally knew what you had to do and began. Though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice, though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. ‘Mend my life’ each voice cried, but you didn’t stop. You knew what you had to do. Though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible, it was already late enough and a wild night and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little as you left their voice behind the stars began to burn through the sheet of clouds. And there was a new voice, which you slowly recognized as your own that kept you company. as you Strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do, determined to save the only life that you could save.” Mary Oliver.
Glennon Doyle:
What do you think this freaking looks like? Not that that matters because just the recognizing of it is such a revolution. Do you have any inklings about next right things or how to make this be a revolution and not another freaking thing to add to people’s to-do lists? Joy. 7:30 to 9:00 PM. All the advice to women like just get up earlier, just triple whatever, how do we change our lives in a way that lets us not adult all day, but human without adding but recreating?
Amanda Doyle:
I think maybe it starts… For me it was a big relief to realize, instead of feeling ashamed that I didn’t have joy or desire to recognize that of course I didn’t because when every bit of your life is full, there is no empty spaces for anything else.
Amanda Doyle:
There’s so many of us that have lives that are very, very much overflowing, but don’t have life running through them, that don’t have where every hour is full, but you are empty. And I think that I just realized that I need to have the discipline to not fill every hour and every moment, because that’s not going to give air for other things to grow because I do believe that these things are in me. I know that I am full of life and full of fire. I just can’t ignite it because there is no space left. There’s no room for that to take shape because I am suffocating it with every minute of my life, having other obligations.
Glennon Doyle:
And if creativity, what you defined for us and whether it’s creativity, we’re not talking anymore about making a painting. We’re talking about making a life worth living. If the definition of creativity is making something out of nothing. If you have no nothing in your life or your day, you cannot create. If you have no nothing, you will by definition never have creativity. You will only be living in reactivity to the world. That’s the difference. Creativity starts with nothing and makes something and reactivity asks, what does the world need of me right now? And gives it to it.
Amanda Doyle:
In the actual research about creatives, the number one trait that they have in common is openness to experience. And if you don’t have any room in your life that isn’t booked with obligations, you don’t have the capacity to be open to an experience. You are on one minute, I belong here, the second minute I belong here and all the minutes in between my mental space is already accounted for. There is no openness when you’re trying to get through that. And again, I feel like I had to reach a pretty bad place to say, okay, I’m going to pay either way for this.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. I love that. It’s hard to do it. It’s hard to not do it. Pick your hard.
Abby Wambach:
And I think one of the most important things that she did say, which sister, I feel like so emotional about this for you, because there’s nobody that I feel outside of Glennon and my immediate family, like you are the most important person in my life and I want a good life for you. I want you to be happy. And I think one of the hardest things is from an individual’s perspective, you are the only person that can learn this for your life.
Abby Wambach:
We can tell you all the things that worked for us and all of that, but this shame that women harbor about not being able to make a good life or happy life or a joyful experience on earth for themselves, though it might not be your fault, it is your responsibility. And I think that that is one of the hardest things, because that feels like a to-do list. Oh, I’ve got a responsibility now to have joy. It does sometimes feel like that’s another thing that we have to do, but that kind of responsibility is the right kind of responsibility. It’s the right kind of hard that will, I think, unlock maybe some of the suffering that you and so many women are experiencing in the world. It’s beautiful.
Amanda Doyle:
And the response to the overwhelm episode, the response to the fun episode that we did, I read every single one of those comments and the number of people who said, I used to be so fun. I used to love doing things. My kids say that I’m no fun now. I agree with them. I can’t even think of what I would do for fun. I can’t even look at my husband because I’m so resentful that he enjoys his life and I have nothing but obligations all day long. When I think about all that, I’ve got to think that our fun selves didn’t just all die. There wasn’t a mass extinction of fun selves on one day because of a meteor.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s because we found ourselves in this life where we are using our creativity to make something out of nothing, but we’re doing it all for other people. We are making something out of nothing because we’re supposed to be picking up from three different practices at the exact same time. Guess what? We’re figuring that out. We’re figuring out how to make the world spin, but we are not leaving any room. For me, it was so reassuring because it’s like, oh, I actually don’t have to do anything. What I have to do is leave room because I am the fuel. I have the fuel. What my fun self, my joy self, my part of me that used to want to make out, that used to have that desire saying that’s not something I have to do. That’s something I want to do.
Amanda Doyle:
That is in me. All I have to do is give it air and heat. That’s all I have to do. I don’t have to figure a damn thing out. I have to give my life force room to breathe. Fire is an actual chemical event that is recurring on its own. You don’t put a match in every single time, you put a match in and then you give it the air and it keeps going. And that’s what I believe is going to be true about me. I know what I am inside of me. And I know that if I structure my life in a way that once those flames are going, I get to have that life.
Glennon Doyle:
Can I just mention one thing that I’m really emotional about because of this? It’s just different than what you’re saying, Abby, is that it seems to me if I’m reading this right, that what has happened to you, this personal revolution is the exact same thing that happened to me at the beginning of my creative life, which is that I told the truth in writing form, you told the truth in podcast form, you had to bring your real self to these podcasts.
Glennon Doyle:
And you told the truth about your overwhelm. You told the truth about the lack of fun, and then you put it out in the world. And then you started reading all the people who saw your real self, the pod squatters who were writing back and saying, oh my God, me too, me too, me too, like you just said, you read everything. And that’s what I’ve always done. And that made you understand that this wasn’t just a personal failing, but a huge, huge issue. And that is what has continued you on this personal revolution, which will probably change your life, which I don’t know an any better story about art. This is the cycle. This is what happens when we tell the truth.
Amanda Doyle:
And I think a key part of the cycle for me as a pragmatist is reckoning with the cost associated with not being able to access those parts of me, because what I recognized in… I think there’s a lot of people who could think of these things as frivolous or self-indulgent. And what I’m here to say is that my experience of this situation is whatever the opposite of self-indulgent is.
Amanda Doyle:
I recognized in my body, in my relationship, the resentment that I felt about not being able to have a life fire was so toxic and overwhelming that it was a dramatic cost. And that I had to either figure out what I was going to do about that or it was going to be a very, very big problem for me. That’s when I realized that I require joy and desire and as coming from me and of me, because I realized that that outcome on my life of not having it, was poisoning my life.
Glennon Doyle:
And so I think dear listeners, that what we’re saying here, there cannot be another person who’s more obsessed with productivity efficiency than sister. Okay. What I am saying to you is that if sister is willing to admit that desire, enjoy, and fun are crucial to life, then everyone else just needs to cave. We are now entering into, we can do our thing, lexicon of fact, this is just something we are all going to accept now.
Abby Wambach:
Well, we have to understand that until she created the personal accountability and took back the power that this is on her, that this is her life because it’s so easy, when we get into a marriage and we get into a family, it is so easy to point the finger out outward. Well, my husband or my wife, they just have all the joy. They’re the ones that are just gallivanting around their lives, like look at them. But the truth is that that is on all of us personally. We have to go out and get fun. We have to go out and get joy. That’s something that we have to create. Even if it’s 10 minutes a day, do something for yourself every single day that is just for you. And that is how you start to build up your little pot of fire or fuel or air that you are needing that you’re just not giving yourself right now. I think it’s so freaking beautiful, sissie. God.
Glennon Doyle:
Wait, just wait for… This is the cool part too, is that women don’t get to make margin or space without telling other people to fuck off in one way or another, sweetly.
Abby Wambach:
Or not.
Glennon Doyle:
We’re not actually saying fuck off.
Abby Wambach:
Or not.
Glennon Doyle:
But there will be things that change.
Abby Wambach:
A reckoning.
Glennon Doyle:
There will be things that you don’t do. I don’t know what it’s going to be, but I’m just saying, as you say yes to yourself, there are going to have to be no’s to other things. And so this belief of the whole world will fall apart if I don’t, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. There is a measure of, I guess we’ll see how the world looks when it falls apart. I guess we’ll see who else steps up. I guess we’ll see how everybody does with 80% of the 100% good life they had before. I’m taking back my percentage. And if it means you kid, you kid, you husband, you sister have 80% of what I was giving you before, that’s how it’s going to be.
Abby Wambach:
And sister you have permission to disappoint us, me personally. So as long as to not disappoint yourself in this situation. You get to do that. A new world is going to get built and it’s going to be more beautiful and more true around you. I know it.
Glennon Doyle:
I, for many years have been Ben Affleck. Okay. I am Ben Affleck in Goodwill Hunting. I am driving my car every day to your little house, with all the stuff in the yard. I am walking up with my coffee. I am knocking on the door, getting ready to take you to our construction job. Okay. Knowing you’re an effing genius. Knowing why the hell is she still in this fricking house? I’m just waiting. You know what gets me going every morning? It’s just the five seconds before you answer the door. Just hoping that one day I’m going to knock and you’re not going to be there. Okay. So you’re Matt Damon.
Abby Wambach:
We got it.
Glennon Doyle:
So what I want from you is, sister, I want a note and I want the note to say, I went to see about a girl. Okay. And do you see where we’re going? Because the girl is you. Alright. I love you. I love you so much.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. I can’t do questions. I don’t think we can do questions about art. I just want everyone to think about all of this forever.
Abby Wambach:
But I think the next right thing has got to be write yourself a note or your people a note, and just say, I got to go see about a girl.
Glennon Doyle:
Or I went to see about a non-binary, I went to see about a boy, I went to see about whatever your gender is.
Amanda Doyle:
I went to see about me.
Glennon Doyle:
I went to see about me.
Abby Wambach:
That’s good.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. Okay. Let’s just get to the pod squader before we go, because this has been really heavy. And I just really love this person, Colleen. Okay. She wrote this in. I’m just going to read it. Colleen says, “I think this is the perfect example of we can do hard things, but not the easy ones. I’m newer to podcast listening, but definitely wanted to listen to this one. Loved the topics. Love the conversation. Loved the weekly insights and aha moments, but hated how fast you guys spoke, so much so that I was thinking about sending that negative feedback until I realized that I was listening on two times speed. Now it’s perfect.”
Glennon Doyle:
Coleen, I want you to know that my friend back in Naples called me to tell me that it was ridiculous how I was speaking on the podcast that I never speak like that in real life. And she also was listening to it on two times. So Coleen you’re not alone. And it reminds me of what we always say, sister, that quote of before you decide you’re depressed, make sure you’re not surrounded by assholes. Before you decide your podcasters are speed talking, make sure you’re not listening to it on two times.
Glennon Doyle:
Is that how you say it? Two times?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
I think so.
Amanda Doyle:
Y’all, although I’m still definitely listening to everything on two times because I’m going to make time for my life. I’m definitely still listening to everything on two times.
Glennon Doyle:
Amen.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, that’s good.
Glennon Doyle:
All right. I’m going to go see about a girl. [crosstalk 00:35:46].
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, that’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
We love you. See you soon.
Amanda Doyle:
Bye.
Glennon Doyle:
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. That’s fine.