GET UNTAMED (Live!): This is How You Find Yourself
December 7, 2021
Glennon Doyle:
Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. Today is a wild situation, I’m really excited about it. It’s an experiment, we did an experiment on We Can Do Hard Things. So this episode you’re about to hear is our first attempt at recording a podcast live with The Pod Squad.
Amanda Doyle:
It was so fun.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh my God, it was so awesome, it was the journal event when we launched Get Untamed: The Journal. And it was so much fun that we are definitely considering doing more.
Abby Wambach:
I mean, wasn’t it over 13,000 people registered?
Glennon Doyle:
Yep, yep, yep. Yep.
Amanda Doyle:
That’s so cool.
Glennon Doyle:
That were there. Yeah. What did you think Sissy?
Amanda Doyle:
Well, I loved it for so many reasons. First of all, the fact that every time we record one of these podcasts it’s we imagine that we’re talking directly to the person. So it was so cool to be able to do it and actually be talking directly to the next person. So I thought it was great and I loved it. And the coolest part of the whole thing is that everyone who registered for that event got a copy of the journal and we sourced all of those 13,000 books to local independent brick and mortar black owned bookstores. Which was very, very cool and very hard for them, but it was amazing, they were so grateful, it was record breaking, it was the biggest event that our publisher had ever done.
Amanda Doyle:
And also all the black owned bookstores, they dug so deep to get all those orders out, they had to rent different space and members from our internal team went out and actually helped them wrap those books with love and send them out. So it was just very, very cool to be able to support those small businesses who have endured so much over the last 20 months. I mean, on average during the pandemic one local indie has closed every week and to be able to support those bookstores and have people support them through us was really, really cool.
Glennon Doyle:
It was awesome. And I love independent bookstores. I last year was the ambassador for independent bookstores, did you know that Abby Wambach?
Abby Wambach:
I did, you actually haven’t stopped talking about it. Every time we walk … So Glennon’s thing is she loves to go into independent bookstores.
Glennon Doyle:
I do, it’s my favorite.
Abby Wambach:
It’s like, she sees one across the street and she’s like, I got to go. And she just leaves me sitting there waiting.
Glennon Doyle:
And it’s the only time I walk around just praying that someone will recognize me.
Abby Wambach:
Well, she walks in and as she’s walking in she’s always like, “You know that I was the ambassador.” Every time. And listen, we go into independent bookstores once or twice a week, every time I’m like, “Babe, I got it.”
Glennon Doyle:
It’s like Chase says, it’s the only time when being recognized is awesome for me and Chase.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s the only time we actually love it is when we’re in a bookstore, I don’t know.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s going to be so sad for you when they name a new indie ambassador for the next year, you’re going to have to retire your crowd, it’s going to be really awful.
Glennon Doyle:
Are they going to do that?
Abby Wambach:
I can tell you what that feels like when-
Glennon Doyle:
When someone takes away what?
Abby Wambach:
When somebody takes over, so I’ll be here for you when you fall down.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, that’s sad, I only have two more months as the national independent Bookstore Ambassador.
Amanda Doyle:
Well, you’re really getting all the juice out of this appointment, as in we’re still talking about it 10 months later. You’re really maximizing.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, listen. Here’s why it’s important to me actually, because of my job and because of my personality have been inside bazillions of independent bookstores. And what I will tell you about people who own, found work at independent bookstores is that none of them are assholes.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, they’re good people.
Glennon Doyle:
They’re just always, because I don’t know, they’re just always amazing people who get into it to spread the love of books and knowledge and connection and serve their communities in such important ways, so.
Abby Wambach:
Also kind of mysteriously intimidating, because I haven’t read all the books that they have, right? So when you walk into, you know that an independent bookstore worker, they’ve read a lot.
Glennon Doyle:
They’re smarter than you.
Abby Wambach:
They’re smarter than you and so it’s a little intimidating, but if you can get over yourself and just start asking questions, they’ll point you in the right direction.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right, if you can admit that you have not read all the books.
Abby Wambach:
All of the books that they have. That’s right.
Amanda Doyle:
Right, so if your therapist ever cancels during a certain week, just find your local Indie and go in and be like, Hey, what’s the answer.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s so true.
Amanda Doyle:
Maybe they’ll be able to help you.
Glennon Doyle:
They probably are the only people who actually have the answers. But we don’t have any answers as you know, but we do have some really freaking good questions.
Abby Wambach:
And one of the questions I have for the pod squaders is did they like the live event?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. We want to hear, because we were thinking about doing more.
Abby Wambach:
Maybe we might do it again or multiple time, maybe once a month, I think it would be interesting and fun and maybe the pod squaders could get the episode early, because we have to record these episodes early.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, so by listening?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, you get in on the action beforehand. I don’t know, is that interesting?
Glennon Doyle:
Maybe, I’m scared. Start making any huge commitments, like-
Abby Wambach:
Voicemail it. Call it.
Amanda Doyle:
My favorite part was the chat.
Abby Wambach:
Oh my gosh.
Amanda Doyle:
The 13,000 people chatting with each other on the side and they were planning, I kid you not, retreats with one another. They were planning, Instagram pages that they were setting up during the event, so they could all get together and read and fill out the journal together. They were planning T-shirts, it was like a entrepreneurial community connection in the 13,000 people commenting, it was awesome.
Abby Wambach:
That was amazing.
Glennon Doyle:
That makes me so happy. And I feel like that’s a fit for me, is I can provide a space for other people to plan to get together. I can’t plan the get together, but I can provide a fake space, an internet virtual space where other people can do that. Okay. Awesome, amazing, clearly we loved it, you guys and people, humans tell us if you loved it. But for now let’s jump into our Get Untamed live conversation.
Glennon Doyle:
You should know that I’ve been sitting in front of this computer for probably 45 minutes because I’ve been so excited.
Abby Wambach:
Loads of fun.
Glennon Doyle:
To start this event. I still cannot believe that you all keep showing up. I know some of you are new to this whole, whatever it is that we’re doing here. And some of you have been around for so long, but I started writing and speaking to you all 15 years ago when I was raising a tiny little people and I basically was sending messages out into the void, just like I’m so lonely.
Abby Wambach:
Does anybody hear me? Is anybody out there?
Glennon Doyle:
And basically that’s what I’ve been doing every day since then.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, that’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
I heard somebody say recently that when we write or make art, that we’re just throwing flares up into the, a dark night, just hoping that our people find us. And I just want you all to know that for the last 15 years, which really was right after I got sober, I mean, it was early on going for me, you have been my people. I mean, you don’t know what having you all to show up for over and over and over again every day, has steadied me and has been just one of the greatest damn gifts of my entire life, this is very, very real to me when I am 90 years old, I will look back on this, well, I hope I’ll still be on Instagram, liking all, that’s me, I like every single one of your freaking comments for the last 15 years.
Abby Wambach:
Some days I look over, I’m like, what are you doing, babe? She’s like, “Just liking some IG.
Glennon Doyle:
I love it. I’m just really grateful for you and I know that this past year or two now, I think about how much collective loss we have all endured in the last two years, it’s just freaking incredible what we-
Abby Wambach:
Good job everybody.
Glennon Doyle:
… have had to do and keep showing up for our people and ourselves and it’s just everybody, everybody on earth right now does, well, there’s a few people that … Most people deserve a standing ovation these days, right? So thank you, I love you, you are my people. I’m deeply grateful for every single last one of you.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. So, I thought about how I wanted to talk about this and I’ll tell you this, when Abby used to go away, for she’d have to go away for a speaking trip or something, she’d have to leave for three or four days.
Abby Wambach:
Pre-COVID obviously.
Glennon Doyle:
Right, pre-COVID. She used to this thing where she’d leave the car in a specific way and place, she’d park it in a specific way and place.
Amanda Doyle:
We all know you’re not parking in a very specific way.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right, that’s right. So she did that because she would be amazed every single time when she’d come back home four days later, five days later and she would see that the car had not been moved at all. And she would come in the house and she would say, “For Christ’s sake again, you did not leave the house again.” And I would say, “What really?” And she’d go, “No, you didn’t leave the house.” And it would blow my mind because I would say, “But I feel like I did so much. I feel like I had such great adventures while you were gone.”
Abby Wambach:
That’s correct.
Glennon Doyle:
And it just became this joke between us, but something was kind of interesting about it. And the truth is that I have all always had the greatest adventures inside myself, I have always been a great adventurer, but without moving, okay. Meaning-
Amanda Doyle:
Stationary adventures.
Glennon Doyle:
Stationary adventures.
Amanda Doyle:
So like Glennon Doyle.
Glennon Doyle:
There’s so much. And I can be stimulated by poetry or art or music or something, an article or whatever, but none of it requires any movement, right? So it’s like, it stirs up something and then eight hours later I’m just spinning around through the house.
Abby Wambach:
Oh yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Right. And so-
Abby Wambach:
Everything out of cabinets.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s true.
Abby Wambach:
Everything mauled through.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, things do happen. Things happen.
Abby Wambach:
Nothing put back or no cabinets closed. Things such as this.
Glennon Doyle:
And so what I’m trying to say is that actually there are a lot of people, it’s funny and it’s also, there are people who are more wired for inner adventure than out adventure.
Abby Wambach:
Totally.
Glennon Doyle:
For many reasons, social anxiety, anxiety of all kinds, high sensitivity to sound and light a lot of the things that make us go into sort of shut down mode outside, we can stay open and curious inside. The point being that I realize that am never going to be able to write you guys a … You people a travel guide. I’m never going to be able to be a, one of those travel writers who tells you where to go and about the beautiful sites out there.
Abby Wambach:
Out there, that’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
But I can be an inner travel guide.
Abby Wambach:
That’s correct.
Glennon Doyle:
Right?
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s like the interior bucket list that you’re looking for.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, it’s like a scuba diving, but it’s inner-
Abby Wambach:
That’s really good.
Glennon Doyle:
… Without any water or equipment.
Abby Wambach:
An interior bucket list, that’s blowing my mind Sissy.
Glennon Doyle:
And I feel, I said so many things that were good.
Abby Wambach:
I know, but-
Glennon Doyle:
God, I’m working so hard over here. Anyway, it’s a good time for an inner scuba dive, okay? Because we are going into this, wherever the hell we are in COVID, but I think we are kind of considering what’s next, right? The building of the new normal, which has to be different than the old normal, because the old normal is only serving like five people. And so we need this, whatever we build next with our relationships, our different family structures, different institutions, different work life, all of that, we have to start somewhere better, meaning before we just kind of went with status quo, right? We just plugged ourself in, we designed our lives from the outside, inside. We fit ourselves into other things and tried to make ourselves fit.
Amanda Doyle:
We got it done. We’re like, we see the game, here’s how we’re going to play, yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. And now I think we have a real chance to take a minute and excavate ourselves, think about what we actually want, what our actual emotions are, what our actual intuition is telling us, what our actual imagination … Pull it all out and so we have a better starting place for what to build next, it’s almost like, the question for me now is not, what are we going to build next? It’s hold on a second, let’s decide who is going to be doing the building.
Abby Wambach:
That’s good.
Glennon Doyle:
Before we decide … Thank you, babe.
Abby Wambach:
Thank you.
Glennon Doyle:
So I just thought, for this, that we could have a homecoming, that maybe this journal could be a bit of a homecoming for each of us, because so many of us just started cleasing so early that we really haven’t … The world hasn’t insisted that we take the time to figure out who we are and what we dream of and what our emotions guide us to and what our intuition tells us to do. How do we take that time to use our own imagination, spirit, whatever you want to call it as the starting place.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, I mean that was the thing after Untamed was published, it was the thing that everybody kept asking us, okay, this is really good, but how do we do this?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. And that was a hard question for me, because the last thing, and all of you all know is that I think the reason why so many people ask me for advice is because I never give it, right? Because I’m so anti advice because, well, the only thing I know is that each of us is living out a completely unprecedented and unrepeatable experiment. Nobody in the entire world has ever lived your life, so they sure as hell don’t know what you should do.
Glennon Doyle:
So when people started asking me that question as you know, I just kept saying, I don’t know, I don’t know, because I felt like they were asking me for the answers and everyone’s answers are different, but what I figured out eventually was, no, no, no, I can give questions, I can ask questions that I ask myself during my great adventures by myself in my, whatever I am for the day. I can ask questions that will guide people.
Abby Wambach:
The couch.
Glennon Doyle:
The couch, right? Here, that will guide people towards the answers that are already inside of them. And that is what I hope this journal is, stuff to just stir up, excavate itself that has been buried for so long beneath what everybody in the freaking world expects from us, just the idea that there is a self.
Amanda Doyle:
And you kept calling it an experiment, you kept calling the journal the experiment. And it was like a process that we could go through and just undertake and see what we could learn about ourselves. And so I’m curious, because we’ve all done it, she has assigned, Glennon assigned Abby and herself to go through this whole journal and it was so wild, because I was like, I mean we live and breathe Untamed, but I just didn’t think there would be anything revelatory that we hadn’t actually already thought about, but it blew my mind to be like, oh, there’s so much more.
Abby Wambach:
G, I feel there’s a part that you want to talk about that unearths our hidden beliefs?
Glennon Doyle:
Well, the first part is about, so if you think of us as trees, which you probably don’t, but I do.
Amanda Doyle:
Obviously.
Glennon Doyle:
These are my people, they think of us as trees. Okay. So if you think of us as trees, there’s the parts of us you can see and then there’s the stuff underneath, right? The roots that are beneath us that keep us grounded, right? But also keep us planted in the same place, so I think about these as our hidden beliefs that were passed down to us from our families or our religions or our culture. And some of them are serving us and are great and some of them no longer do. And we don’t even know what they are until, we’re like, why am I doing this? Why am I not speaking up? Why am I martyring myself? Why am I … Oh, because I have this deep belief that was planted beneath me that good mothers martyr themselves, right?
Glennon Doyle:
And you don’t … Why am I, all of those things? And so we don’t know what those are until we really think about, what do I believe about what makes a good woman? What makes a good partner? What makes a good worker? What makes a good daughter? And then you start to journal all that down and you’re like, oh, well, no wonder I do what I do because I have software or hardware probably, programmed into me that makes me act in a certain way. So that’s what unearthing those things and those are hella hard to change.
Abby Wambach:
Hella hard.
Glennon Doyle:
Right. But I think they are, if you can see them, if you can make the invisible visible, it hell helps you understand yourself better.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right. I mean, I think that when I read through this journal, one of the parts that just struck me big time was the stuff about mothering. And for me, I think that I had a root belief that I needed to be, in order to be considered or to consider myself a mother, I needed to have some sort of DNA bond with our children when we first started talking and then dating. And then when we got married, you know that children have been an important thing that I wanted to experience.
Abby Wambach:
And so this whole notion about what a mother is just totally floored me. And it took me a long time to actually get through it, because the experiment as you would call it, because it was hard, it was hard to get true and real with maybe this idea, this belief about what I believe a mother is that I grew up understanding, I was trying to, I didn’t want to force the rewrite of it, I wanted it to be real. And so I also didn’t want to lie, I didn’t want to put down things just to prove my current life correct.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. I’ve lied in so many journals
Abby Wambach:
Totally.
Glennon Doyle:
To whom, to no one, to myself.
Abby Wambach:
All of us have and I have like 20 journals that have just the first page written in and that’s it. Anyways, I just think that getting through the mothering part for me and I think if I can remember, it was the very first couple of pages of this journal, working through it. It was really helpful and it made me understand a part of myself that I’m a little bit of afraid of. I mean, you know that I’m a little bit scared and Sissy, I think, you know this too, that I’m a little bit afraid, I have been in my life, I need to stop saying that. I have been afraid in my life to go inside, to do this interior adventure work.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, you’re more of an outer adventure.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right. And I have overcompensated in the outward adventure of my life, so as to never go inside, so maybe we have the opposite, maybe that’s why we were brought together. Touch.
Glennon Doyle:
I have actually called my myself a home sexual, because I am so, I love home so much, I want to marry home, I never want to leave home, I am a home sexual.
Abby Wambach:
People are going to have some thoughts about that, I bet.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s okay, because I’m also a homosexual.
Abby Wambach:
Okay. So this one night, sister happened to be here in our house. Our whole team was actually here and we were playing this game, this question game that … And Tish was also with us. We were playing this question game and what ended up happening was the question got asked to Tish, who has taught Tish the most about love? And in fact, Glennon kind of made Tish answer this question.
Glennon Doyle:
I rigged it.
Abby Wambach:
She rigged it because she thought and she knew the answer that Tish was going to give.
Glennon Doyle:
It was going to be me.
Abby Wambach:
Of course, she was like, it’s a done deal, I’m going to look good in front of my whole team, right? Well, Tish sat there for a second and she considered her options and understood that there was a lot kind of playing on the line right then in that moment.
Glennon Doyle:
She knows her mom.
Abby Wambach:
She knows her mom. And so she looked at you to kind of get, is it okay if I’m actually really honest?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, she said, “Is it okay if I’m really honest?” And I was like, “Well, no.”
Abby Wambach:
Unless it’s going to be Glennon coming out of your mouth. And Tish ended up saying me.
Glennon Doyle:
She said, “Abby.”
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. And so-
Glennon Doyle:
“Abby has taught me the most about love.”
Abby Wambach:
Everything in my body paralyzed, it goes completely numb. And I am struck by joy and I start to completely lose it, I start to cry. Because I didn’t understand that that would be a thing. And so Tish then explains to us that the reason why she feels this way is that Glennon, you and Craig have to love her, right? And that I choose to love her. And I think that the very thing that I was afraid of actually not making me or making me feel or be seen or experience motherhood is in fact the very thing that makes my child feel love. And so, even though I went through that part in the journal and it was really hard and I got some truth out of it.
Abby Wambach:
And because this was a part of my consciousness, this is why I broke down, is because I had been filling this stuff out and looking through the journal and trying to figure out my place in it all. And as a bonus parent, what we call it or stepparent, it’s just one of those things that you just don’t ever know if you’re going to be seen as a parent or in my case a mother. And when a child expresses themselves to you that they see you in that way, it completely blows up all of the notions of the stupid conditioned mindset that we were all raised to believe what love is, because it was not what I thought, it was not what I thought.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s so incredible that … And that night was unbelievable. Everybody was crying.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, I know. She started crying and sister started crying.
Glennon Doyle:
I cried inside, but my Lexapro just stops the tears, right at the tear duct, so you can’t see it, so I have to tell people when I’m crying.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. She’s like, “I’m crying too I swear.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, but I just think that what you said is, that the very thing you thought, well, I’m not a real mom because I don’t have the paperwork, I don’t have the DNA, I just choose to be here, so I’m not a real mom. And Tish is like, the fact that you don’t have the paperwork and that you don’t have the DNA and that you keep choosing to love me is the reason I feel such strong mother love from you. It’s just-
Amanda Doyle:
And the fact that you weren’t … You were trying to convince yourself that you believed it, it’s also, but actually you had to believe it was true in advance to make it true, right? The only way that Tish ends up in that room saying that to you is because of those years of you pouring into her like that, behaving as if it were true to have real genuine, rock hard love with her.
Amanda Doyle:
So it was shocking and unbelievable to you, but some part of your imagination had to have already believed that it was true or else all of your years of action wouldn’t have made any sense. So it’s maybe believing in something is acting as if it were true even when we doubt it. Or like in [crosstalk 00:28:05] you have to see it.
Glennon Doyle:
Until it’s true.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes, until it’s true.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s the invisible order. Believe in your invisible order, believe in your imagination, believe. And it’s like you can’t see it, you can’t be it if you can’t see it, but it’s like, maybe you have to believe it in order to see it.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. And it’s so funny because I feel that so much of my life has been in search of outward affirmation or acceptance in any way. And for Tish to say that to me helped me feel like a mother. So it wasn’t just because I needed to hear it from her, it unlocked something inside of me that made me be like, oh right, this is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. And actually I said that that night.
Glennon Doyle:
you did, you said, this is the best day of my life.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, this is the best day of my life.
Glennon Doyle:
Did you feel like that actually helped you replace that belief? Because that’s what I don’t know, for real. Because things happen and we’re like, no, I believe that. But do you really feel like you’ve replaced your belief about what makes a real mother?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, so I think that some of this stuff goes only so deep, right? It can get into a layer of you and then the conditioned part of my mind can play tricks, right? It totally can play tricks on me, but I have to … I have to get into the part of my mind that remembers that moment.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, that’s right.
Abby Wambach:
Right. And so the more of those moments you can have and store in your memory, I think that that’s the antidote to combat the overall conditioning that we have and we’ve been sent through the whole of our lives, right?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, I love that.
Abby Wambach:
Just takes a lot of those times and repetitions, I like to say, I’m going to keep that in my back pocket. I’m going to keep that in my back pocket forever. And so whenever the voice in my head or that conditioning kind of shows its ugly little face, I’m like-
Glennon Doyle:
You can remember. You can remember.
Abby Wambach:
Look what I got, I got a mother card back here.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s so good. What about you Sissy? Amanda, I’m sorry, sorry. What thing struck you in the journal?
Amanda Doyle:
For me it was definitely the Be Still and Know section, which you’ll be shocked to learn was the case. But I think it really, especially after the whole pandemic, I think that it’s clear to me that throughout this pandemic I have not coped well. And the Be still in no section made me realize that what COVID kind of did for me is it took all of my anxieties and traumas and these relational cracks that were previously just on a slow burn of plausible deniability and kind of brought them to center stage in three dimensional technicolor. It was like what had before been an elephant in the room that a semi healthy person could kind of ignore, became an actual elephant stomping on my actual face. It felt like that the whole time of COVID, which was lovely.
Amanda Doyle:
But one of the ways it became most apparent to me was with my children over this past bit. And I have two neurodiverse kids and what had before felt like this kind of the theoretical anxiety about the challenges became in COVID actually sitting with my son in real time, watching him struggle to try to follow and learn from a system that in many ways is not compatible with his executive functioning and his attentional biology. And it was just this kind of hellacious crucible for me, because it was a perfect storm of all my internal bias and all of my fears and all of my achievement addiction.
Amanda Doyle:
So at the end of the day, it came down to this kind of primal fear of will they be okay? If he can’t follow this three minute task, how will he be okay in a world that demands so much of us and can be so cruel. And so slowly painfully as I was working through that section and it was painful, but I realized that, oh, the only thing that is going to help them be okay is if I truly believe that they are. Not that I tell them that they’re okay, but that I truly believe in the deepest parts of me that my children are perfect and miraculous even, right?
Amanda Doyle:
Because until I really believe that all of the fear in me that’s trying to protect them from the world will inevitably just be received by them as the shame and judgment … That is the same shame and judgment I’m trying desperately to protect them from. Be Still and Know for me is actually about actually knowing and believing that my kids are okay, because when they know that they will be that. That made perfect sense to me for my babies, because I actually believe that they are miraculous. But when that truth settled in on me, I realized that I actually don’t hold that truth about myself. And it’s kind of that same shame and judgment of not being enough that I allow myself to heap on myself, is fear poisoning my life. Just that poison will never leave me until I truly at the deepest parts of me believe that I’m okay.
Amanda Doyle:
And so I think that is what I know is my challenge, I have to be still and know that I am okay and miraculous even, because when I know that I will be that. And to me that’s maybe the most … Really believing I’m okay is maybe the most important thing that I can do and probably the foundation of anything else I can do.
Abby Wambach:
I mean, if you could just understand how I feel about you and how I see you, that you could ever, and I know that you feel this way and I want to honor the way that you feel. But if you need the way that I see you some days just ask me to tell you how I feel about you. If you need it, I will pump you up because there is nobody who feels more sure that you are magic than me. And I know you, I mean, good Lord you’re incredible.
Glennon Doyle:
Sissy, what does the not enoughness, the fear feel like? And do you have waves of the enoughness and what does that feel like? Do you know what I mean? What does it feel like in your body or to you when you have the I am not okay feeling?
Amanda Doyle:
I mean, to me it feels like a loop in my head, it feels like the stories I tell myself, if I am comfortable, if I am not at breaking point, then I’m not doing enough. If I am not at breaking point, someone will suffer and my work, my team, my kids like that, it’s just never enough. And I know intellectually that those are projections of my insecurities and that this belief that I have to kind of hustle for my worthiness, but I’m trying right now to really ask myself questions about how true that is. Like is this working for me? Are my people benefiting from my insistence that this is in fact true? Is it possible that something else is true that will feel more like freedom? And I mean, is it possible that my life and my family and my work would benefit from me not being empty? And also, is it possible that I’m worthy of that even if no one benefits from it?
Abby Wambach:
Yes. Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
So I’m just trying to … That’s what it feels like. It feels like the constant questioning, the constant, you can’t rest, you only have what you have because you haven’t stopped hustling. And at any moment if you choose to do that, you won’t have it anymore.
Glennon Doyle:
As our friend Kate Bowler would say, I am the center that must hold, right? I am the center that must hold. Yeah, Ooh, Sissy, she’s just a barrel of monkeys of light, easy breezy is what we call sister and me.
Amanda Doyle:
You are a good time, call me.
Glennon Doyle:
We are a good time.
Amanda Doyle:
Fun, fun, fun everywhere you look, I want to know from you.
Abby Wambach:
I love you both, gosh.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, I love you, Abby. Okay. After years of writing Untamed and years of writing this journal, how the hell is it possible? I want to know what … Did anything new come to you G, when you did your experiment?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
Because I’m like, oh my God, it’s a bottomless pit of adventure.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, well, I mean, first of all you give me a bunch of questions, so my job is to ask myself these questions alone by myself for days.
Glennon Doyle:
And then wait a minute, I made the questions.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s rigged, it’s rigged.
Glennon Doyle:
I love these questions. Yeah. Yeah, no, I actually feel like it stirred up a lot for me. You know that my loop got a little intense, I think it’s so interesting that you describe the not enoughness as a loop, because when I got still and new during the Be Still and Know part, I realized I was not in a good place and started meditating again. And it’s just interesting to me and I won’t get too far off on this, but that the not enoughness is always up here, whenever you describe … The not enoughness is always a mind thing, it’s always a loop. And then usually when people feel the enoughness, the piece it’s more embodied, it’s like a dropping below that wild not enoughness. And so that was really important to me because I was trying to change my thoughts and that doesn’t work for me, I have to get below my thoughts, I have to almost ignore my own thoughts, which is weird, because my thoughts also do good things for us, right? So it’s like, how do we know when to pay attention and when to ignore?
Abby Wambach:
That’s a really good question.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s not.
Amanda Doyle:
Billion dollar question people do any-
Glennon Doyle:
I do, it’s like when my thoughts are creative and kind, it’s like, I’ll join them. But when my thoughts are mean to me or other people, I don’t trust them. It’s like, here we go again. This is not. And also, your mind is a good thing to be the boss of, but not a good thing to let boss of you. So if I’m like brain, we have a project, we’re going to write an Instagram post about blah, blah, blah, my brain is great, my brain is like, yay, let’s go. But if I’m like trying to relax and my brain is like Glennon, here’s what we’re going to think about, we’re going to think about how much did you allow yourself to eat yesterday? And also that friend, that friend is getting a lot more done that you are.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s like when I allow my brain to take me somewhere, it’s not a good place, right? It’s not a good place.
Amanda Doyle:
So your brain is like a toddler.
Glennon Doyle:
My brain is a toddler and a jerk-ass one, a really not trustworthy, poorly raised, just Ugh.
Abby Wambach:
I think that at one point you said, I’ve been listening to my thoughts, they are the reason and true and correct all these years. And I thought that maybe I was the thing that was wrong, but maybe it’s my thoughts.
Glennon Doyle:
Remember when we were in the kitchen and I was like, babe, my brain doesn’t know what the hell it’s doing.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. So anyway, that is something that came up with …
Glennon Doyle:
There’s a part in the journal about envy and about things that, the idea that whatever we’re bitter about is the thing we need to go for which I believe with all of myself.
Amanda Doyle:
With all of my bitter, bitter heart, I believe that.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, exactly.
Abby Wambach:
The experience I have in this.
Glennon Doyle:
Ever we’re bitter about, we just have, whenever you’re like, oh, that must be nice, it’s like, wait, what you’re saying to yourself is, that must be nice.
Abby Wambach:
That must be nice.
Glennon Doyle:
I would like to have that nice thing. Right?
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
So do you know what I got really bitter about? I got really bitter about the fact that I was always having to write these things all by myself, go into my mind, which isn’t always a good place to be all alone and all of these dudes were starting podcasts where they just got to talk to their freaking friends, I was so bitter about it. And then I was like, wait a minute, I could be a dude who just starts a podcast and talks to my freaking friends. You guys, we can do hard things started largely because of bitterness, right? Of envy, I mean, it was also that I wanted to have a place where we could have more nuanced conversations in social media because I kind of I’m seeing the tide of social media, maybe not being the best place to have any sort of conversation, but it was also envy, okay, of dudes with microphones.
Glennon Doyle:
And then I want to tell you one other thing, the dare to imagine really got me this time, the dare to imagine, I thought I had imagined everything up, I’m telling you, it’s because it’s this it’s always new, it’s always freaking new, you come back and you’re in a different day, in a different week, in a different place and you’re imagining different things. But after the brew ha-ha from Untamed, life gets really weird because so many people want you to do these things. You can do all TV shows this, that, all these things, but there was like, there’s a part of me that wasn’t feeling any of it, that just wasn’t feeling any of it. And I felt stupid listening to that part of me because I’m supposed to be grateful for these things, I’m so like, if you can do them, you should and sitting, right?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
And sitting down with the dare to imagine part, I was like, I just started imagining no, no, no, what is my ideal? I don’t have to do any of those things just because I can actually, I love this crew. I love these people, I love the real conversations that we’re having, I love working with my sister and Abby, I love this little community that shows up for the world over and over and over again and shows up for each other and tells the truth in very radical and weird ways. This is a very strange community we have here, unusual, beautiful, just beautiful. And other things are not better just because they’re bigger.
Glennon Doyle:
So it really just helped me figure out, no, no, no, because when the world starts telling you what you should want, things can get very tricky. So it helped me ground myself back into what I really do want. And also this journal helped me go start going on TV with no makeup. You guys all my whole life, since this whole thing started and I started having to go on TV, I’ve always wanted to go on TV with no makeup. I don’t hate makeup, I like makeup, I wear makeup in my house sometimes all by myself.
Abby Wambach:
I’m like, where are you going?
Glennon Doyle:
No, because sometimes I just like it.
Abby Wambach:
She’s like no where, just going to the couch.
Glennon Doyle:
But I don’t like wearing makeup on TV, because I feel like so many people watch TV and we watch these faces and we think we’re watching real people, but we’re not, we’re watching people who have been in a chair for an hour and a half, having things literally added to their face. When I get out of makeup chairs, I look like a completely different human being, right? So what happens is that we don’t know that we don’t consciously understand that, so then we start looking at our own faces in the mirror and we expect our faces to look like those faces on TV and we actually start feeling like shit about ourselves.
Abby Wambach:
Yep.
Glennon Doyle:
Right. And so that has happened to me over time and I don’t want to do it to other people, so I go to the TV show and I say, I am going to have no makeup today. And then I get back stage and all the worrying starts and I’m about out to go on TV and they’re like, would you like hair and makeup? And I’m like, I would like all the makeup, if you could just take pounds of makeup and sparkle me, like a pallet painting, just, because it feels like armor.
Glennon Doyle:
So I go to this really big TV show and I’m like, I’m going to do it, I’m sweaty, I’m going to do it. And I was promoting this journal, I’m like, I’m not promoting get untamed without an untamed naked face. So they pull me in to the makeup chair and I’m sitting there and I say the words, “No, thank you, I’m just going to go out there looking like I look, just like what faces look like.” And I did it and no one died.
Abby Wambach:
And guess what she said when she saw herself in a picture.
Glennon Doyle:
Because I don’t watch my own things ever.
Abby Wambach:
She said, “I like the way that I look.”
Glennon Doyle:
Did I say that?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. You said, “I like the way that I look, you know I didn’t wear any makeup.” I’m like, “Baby, I know you told me the whole car ride home.”
Glennon Doyle:
Just sweating. I was like, is it okay? Am I allowed? There’s like some part of me that as a woman still feels like, I’m not doing my job. Like I’m not prepared enough, I’m not being professional enough.
Abby Wambach:
You didn’t play a role. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
I didn’t play my role. I’m like, am I … It’s almost like, do I feel disrespectful for not doing the whole Shebang?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, you know what? People spend more time sitting in the makeup chairs longer than they spend sitting in the actual chair on stage.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Okay, so those are the things that I’m doing and let it burn, that was kind of like a let it burn idea, a let it burn that I have to go to these things and put on this other face, I am actually trying to show up in the most authentic way that I can just with my own heart and my own brain and my own eyeballs and my own face, it’s all I can do.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s so interesting too, what you just said. I mean, it’s a makeup thing, but it’s also, you said I felt disrespectful, like I should be trying harder. And I feel like that’s a thread through so much, you’re lucky to be here, never mind that you’re supposed to put in 30 more hours a week than do down the hall. It’s disrespectful of the opportunity that you have been granted and the gratefulness you should have to question any of it, just keep, keep, keep, keep, keep.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s just interesting, I feel like it goes … I feel like it’s a thread through a lot of things.
Abby Wambach:
And it happens every day, I mean, I was on a board call this morning and I was wearing a beanie, because it was an eight o’clock in the morning board call and I hadn’t done my hair and I was like, I’m going to put a beanie on. Well, one of the guys on the board call calls me out and he’s like.
Amanda Doyle:
No.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. He’s like, “Oh, you must be in a cold weather place Abby.” And I said, “No, I just didn’t want to do my hair.” Just like this. And I’m like, I want to dress and present every single time the way that I want to dress and present. I’m not there to, not piss somebody off or follow the rules, because guess what? I spent a lot of my life putting on dresses and wearing heels and girly shoes, because that’s what I thought I was supposed to do. And I made myself miserable, I hated myself when I did that. Now I just do and dress however I want.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. We’re going to stop there for today, even though it makes me very sad because I loved this hour so very much. Here’s what we want to ask you, if you get a copy of Get Untamed and you are taking your own dive, your inner dive and you’re allowing me to be your inner tour guide, I’m very grateful. But would you please call in and tell us how you’re feeling about it? Would you let us know if there’s any questions or parts that really got to you or if you had any self epiphanies or anything came out that was beautiful or hard or interesting to you? I just want to hear, yeah, I just really want to hear.
Amanda Doyle:
And any questions about it is great too.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, any questions? So the number is 747-200-5307.
Amanda Doyle:
That’s 747-200-5307.
Abby Wambach:
Can I say it?
Glennon Doyle:
Go ahead.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes, you can.
Glennon Doyle:
Go ahead.
Abby Wambach:
747-200-5307. Good luck everybody.
Glennon Doyle:
I think you did the best.
Abby Wambach:
Thank you.
Amanda Doyle:
Mine was the best, I think.
Abby Wambach:
Also, I still cannot believe that you did not wear makeup on that talk show.
Glennon Doyle:
I know. So freeing, nobody died. I did it, nobody died, I can do it whenever I want to now. And it feels-
Abby Wambach:
So proud of you.
Glennon Doyle:
… So freaking freeing. If half the population can walk around with their face just facing, so can I. I can also just let my face face what it wants to face.
Abby Wambach:
It’s a beautiful thing.
Glennon Doyle:
Thank you. All right, listen. When life gets too hard this week and it will, deep breaths, unclench that jaw, drop your shoulders and don’t forget you can do hard things.
Abby Wambach:
Well, we also-
Amanda Doyle:
And come back Thursday, we come back Thursday, because we’re going to go back and answer all the live questions that were asked during the event that were so good. So psyched, see you then. Bye.
Glennon Doyle:
I give you Tish Melton and Brandi Carlile.
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, it’s fine.