Brené Brown & Barrett Guillen Sisters Double Date!!
April 19, 2022
Glennon Doyle:
Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. Today is a double date, but not the sort of double date we’ve done before on. We can do hard things because we at this pod like to celebrate all kinds of love, not just romantic love. So today we are celebrating a special kind of love that has always been the steadiest love and most important love of my life, which is sister love. And this double date is with two of our favorite sisters in the world, Brené and her sissy Barrett. Dr. Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston, where she holds the Huffington Foundation Endowed Chair at the Graduate College of Social Work. She has spent the past two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy. She’s the author of six number one New York times bestsellers. And is the host of the weekly podcasts Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead.
Glennon Doyle:
Brené’s books have been translated into more than 30 languages and the titles include Dare to Lead, Braving the Wilderness, Rising Strong, Daring Greatly and The Gifts of Imperfection. Brené recently collaborated with the Tarana Burke to co-edit You Are Your Best Thing: Vulnerability, Shame Resilience, and the Black Experience. In her latest number one, New York times bestseller Atlas of the Heart, which has been adapted for television and is now streaming on HBO Max, Brené takes us on a journey through 87 of the emotions and experiences that define what it means to be human. Brené lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband, Steve, they have two children, Ellen and Charlie
Amanda Doyle:
And Barrett Guillen is the chief of staff for Brené Brown Education and Research Group. With her team Barrett supports both Brené and the organization by helping to prioritize competing demands, managing relationships and building connective tissues and strategy across business initiatives. Barrett holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in kinesiology from the University of Houston. After more than a decade in education in the Texas panhandle Barrett and her family moved back to the Houston area to join Brené’s team in making the world a braver place. Having the opportunity to work with her sisters every day has been one of the great joys of her life. Outside the office you can find Barrett spending time with her family, enjoying her daughter’s games, eating her husband’s famous burgers, floating in the water or on the pickle ball court.
Glennon Doyle:
Welcome sisters. Okay. Brené and Barrett the sisters. This is our first sister’s double date. We’re delighted. Thank you both for joining us on We Can Do Hard Things. There are so many parallels between our sister stories. It just freaks us out actually right now, pod squad, you can’t tell, but like we all kind of look alike also. It’s very weird. So Barrett, about a decade ago, you came to work with Brené during a transition time. So you had just had your baby Gabby. You weren’t sure you wanted to go back to teaching, Brené’s career was growing and she needed help. So sister, my sister, Amanda came to work with me about a decade ago. She had just had her first baby. She wasn’t sure she wanted to go back to her law firm. My work was growing and I needed help. So first of all, weird. Really. And second of all, how do four people who are as wise as we are end up intentionally deciding to work with family, What are the risks?
Brené Brown:
You know what it is, this is my theory. There’s a lot of good stuff that comes from it, but maybe it’s one of the gifts of doing all that work you have to do. There’s no way, right? None. I mean, how often are we the topic of each other like therapy sessions.
Barrett Guillen:
Often?
Brené Brown:
And maybe it works because of the work, if you stay aware and you have great communication skills and love and respect, being able to work with Ashley and Barrett, because Barrett has an identical twin sister who also works here, but we don’t work together every day. She’s a therapist and leads another part of the company. But it’s probably one of the greatest gifts of my life to be able to work together every day with people I love in my family. Having said that, how many companies do we go into where it’s a total cluster.
Amanda Doyle:
A lot of companies.
Brené Brown:
I spend 90% of my, of my time in organizations doing leadership work. That’s my primary thing right now. And in family owned and run businesses, it’s very rare, very rare to see it working well, it’s the biggest impediment to whatever metric they’re setting for success.
Glennon Doyle:
Is it because they come in with all their childhood wounds and roles and then because they haven’t done the work to free themselves of those things, they’re enacting it in the daily?
Brené Brown:
Yes. I mean I think that’s number one and with a close second is I think you have to have both of these things. And I think sometimes people think number two falls out of number one and they’re certainly related, but number two is a separate skillset. One there’re tons of self awareness about family roles, dynamics, history, who they are, how they survived in childhood and how that is good and not good in adult relationships. But then I think the second thing is really tremendous communication skills. You can’t have the second without the first, but you could do the first and not have the second.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. So what, go ahead, sissy.
Amanda Doyle:
I think that’s so interesting because we talked a lot about how the family of origin is so hard because you can be 43, but when you’re with family, you immediately revert back your immutable 12 year old role. What roles did each of you have to get over or let go to be able to work together so closely in your business?
Barrett Guillen:
It’s like our life’s work, Amanda. That’s how our life’s work.
Brené Brown:
That’s our life’s work. And first of all, when she said, go ahead, sissy. I’m like, no, I just went .
Barrett Guillen:
You call her that too?
Brené Brown:
That’s my nickname in my family, is sissy. And so like my dad nickname is Brené.
Brené Brown:
If he’s mad, “Hey sis,” and if not, “Hey sissy.” I’m the oldest of four. So I mean that says it all kind of massive co-parent in the absence of some parenting probably.
Barrett Guillen:
I think I was the peacekeeper. I think I still have peacekeeping in me making sure everybody else is okay. And taking care of and cared for.
Brené Brown:
And I’m just like, I’m take care of everything, boss everybody, be resentful. And I think I wrote Atlas of the Heart when things were bad. I was definitely the protector when things were bad between my parents, I mean like physically, everybody in my room, let’s go. And then when things were good, I was the protector in waiting because it would only take a second for things to switch. And so when I was the protector, and this is still stuff I have to work on all the time.
Brené Brown:
So when I was the protector in waiting, I was not fun because I was waiting for the wrong comment, the sideways glance that would set one of my parents on fire. And so when I was in protector and waiting mode and everything was fun, I was on the outside and did not belong at all within my family because I couldn’t switch that quick. So I had to stay very serious. And so I can still really grapple with belonging issues with my family. Like I don’t belong. I care-take and I protect, but don’t when things are fun, I’m waiting.
Glennon Doyle:
Wow. Sister that’s you. That’s you sister. Sister is the Jack Nicholson of our family. We’re like, relax, have a joy, have joy. And she’s like, you don’t need me on this wall.
Brené Brown:
Does the protector and protector in waiting resonate for you?
Amanda Doyle:
It does. And I think it’s also, it dovetails with that. But I think the identity that I am constantly, my life work, trying to shed is like the identity of a long suffering perseverator, trying to adopt the belief that things can come easy to me and that I would still have the same value if they did.
Glennon Doyle:
Brené is sneaking out off screen.
Brené Brown:
Whoa. Say that again. That’s uncomfortable.
Amanda Doyle:
I’m trying to let go of the identity of the long suffering perseverator and I’m trying to embrace the belief that things could come easy to me. And I would still have the same value.
Brené Brown:
I don’t know what you’re talking about. Sounds hard.
Glennon Doyle:
Sounds like a bad deal that you got there sissy.
Brené Brown:
Oh my God. Yeah, I have that. Are y’all enneagram people?
Glennon Doyle:
Of course. Yeah. I’m a four.
Amanda Doyle:
You’re a one Brené, right? And you’re a six Barret. Is that right? I’m a three. Glennon’s a four.
Brené Brown:
And so what is the age difference?
Glennon Doyle:
We are three years apart, but here’s the difference. I fell, jumped, whatever it was into addiction very early at 10. So while I’m the oldest sister, my younger sister, Amanda stepped into protector very early because I was out to lunch, literally. And then throwing up. I had bulimia and then alcoholism, all the things. So she really stepped into peacemaker, protector, on the wall. And then the second I got sober when I actually could start taking care of myself, she came on to work with me and be my on the wall, Jack Nicholson of the world. So we chose jobs that reinforced our childhood roles in some ways.
Brené Brown:
Okay. I could never make the ages work because I would’ve bet everything that you were the older sister, Amanda.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Isn’t that interesting. I wonder, does it happen with families with addiction or mental health?
Brené Brown:
Yes. A hundred percent. It does all the time. Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
And I think it dovetails too with the kind of, again, I think my value is in my performance because I kind of saw that as I was like a kitten bringing little gifts to the door, it was worrisome and troubling what Glennon was going through. So I’m like, “look at my A, look at my prize.” If I bring this, it’ll all have the equilibrium. And so I continued to kind of see that as my value add that I would bring those things and that’s where it came from.
Glennon Doyle:
Barrett, what about your peacekeeping stuff? Does that bring up challenges with work? Because are you hesitant to bring up problems or issues? Not that Brené would ever cause any, cause you any issues, but is it hard for you in conflict to say what you need?
Barrett Guillen:
I don’t think it’s hard for me to say what I need with Brené. I think it does show up for me in terms of trying to make sure everybody has what they need and protect her at the same time. I think for me, the hardest problems that we’ve had at work have come from me trying to protect her from the pecking to death of what everyone needs and not only in our organization, but everybody. And so I think it’s come from me trying to protect her and trying to make decisions that are, are not mine to make. But are hers to make and making sure that I just have all the right information so that she can make the decision. But I have found myself a few times just not letting the information get to her at all. And it’s caused some real hard times.
Brené Brown:
I don’t know how she does it actually. I don’t really know how she does it. I’m so intense. And I’m under a lot of pressure all the time and I don’t know how you do it actually. I’m really grateful.
Barrett Guillen:
Me too.
Brené Brown:
But I don’t know how she does it. Yesterday we were all at the lake and we were packing up and I had been there for like nine days for spring break and I said, “I’m not fucking going back to work tomorrow.” And she goes, “Your choice, strong choice. But your choice, just let me know so I can cancel all your stuff.”
Barrett Guillen:
But I mean, I knew in the back of my mind, she was going to be here.
Brené Brown:
But she would never say like maybe early on, she would say, “Look, you got a lot of stuff on your schedule tomorrow and blah, blah, blah.” She would not react to that anymore. She’d be like, “Alrighty.” Or I’ll be backstage. I’m not going on. I had a headache. I don’t feel good. I’m scared. I just want to go home.
Barrett Guillen:
And now I’m just like, okay, “I’ve got our purses. We can go.”
Brené Brown:
Yeah. And then it’s so terrible. Cause it’s like a tricky parenting move.
Glennon Doyle:
It is its. It’s been done to me so many times.
Brené Brown:
No, no way. Oh my God. No, y’all do that too? Look at Amanda is like this is old news for us.
Glennon Doyle:
I called my sister one time from the airport. Now this is on the way to fly to the Librarians Convention where I met Abby. But I called her from the gate. It was the beginning of the Love Warrior Tour. And I said, “I’m not going. I’m done. I hate this.” I say I’m quitting once a month. Everything’s too hard.
Brené Brown:
Me too.
Glennon Doyle:
Everything’s too hard. What are we doing? The amount of pressure, it’s ridiculous.
Brené Brown:
Told you.
Barrett Guillen:
I believe y’all. I mean, I don’t think Amanda and for one second would question the pressure or how hard it is or that you want to quit.
Glennon Doyle:
No, the only person I’d rather not be than myself is my sister. That’s the only thing.
Brené Brown:
That’s what I told her. I said the only job that’s harder than mine is yours.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly. So there’s nowhere to go from here. I called and said, “I’m done. I’m not doing this tour. I’m not doing this life. I’m not doing this job. It will it be a big deal if I, if I don’t go.” Okay. And she said, “Oh, you cannot go. Of course, you cannot go. It will be a big deal, but I will deal with the deal and you cannot go.” And then I just went cause I felt like that was a parenting move. Like I don’t know.
Brené Brown:
That’s what I knew too. But I went and God dang. I love those librarians.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. And I met Abby. So what if I had not gone? Oh my God. So I have stress about that. Okay. Speaking of stress, sister, ask about eggshells.
Amanda Doyle:
Okay. This is a selfish move because it just personally was so huge to me. But you talk about how growing up, it was a loving home and a volatile home. And I heard you essentially say that a child who lives on eggshells becomes an adult who is fearful.
Amanda Doyle:
And that shook me because I never saw myself as a fearful person. And I’ve worked hard to not show my fear outbursts and the kind of things that clearly require people to live on eggshells. But I am afraid I’m afraid to ease up. I’m afraid of mediocrity and of dependency. I’m afraid that my inability to let go is suffocating myself and everyone around me. I’m afraid that not being okay is just the price I have to pay to make everything okay. And that fear permeates everywhere in my life. And I just wondered how that fear shows up in both of your lives, in terms of what that looks like.
Glennon Doyle:
Cause fear can look like a lot of different things, right?
Brené Brown:
Yeah. Whew, God, let me just pause on the eloquence of that question and that thought, I mean, God, that was so powerfully put, that was so beautiful. There’s just healing in the way you pulled all that together and wove it together. Getting an answer I can cry.
Barrett Guillen:
For me, I think how it shows up as I’m a number six on the enneagram, I worry about everything. And try very, very hard every single day to not pass that down to Gabby. So I name it. The best thing I can do for Gabby, it’s just name it and I’ll be like, I’m going to crazy town right now. So I just want to let you know that’s where I’m going and I’m going to talk through that with dad and then I’ll be back and I’ll talk to you about it in a minute. So I just try really hard to name it. But for me constantly, I’m like the worst scenario all the time. And one time my therapist was like, “When you go through all those scenarios in your head is why you’re so exhausted because your body experiences those.”
Brené Brown:
Yes.
Barrett Guillen:
So I was like, “You don’t know me.”
Brené Brown:
Yeah.
Barrett Guillen:
That’s my thing. So I just really try. I know that’s where I’m going to go first and I just really have to pay attention to it.
Glennon Doyle:
God, something that does serve you in childhood though, that doesn’t serve you anymore in adulthood when you’re a kid.
Brené Brown:
Yeah. Totally.
Glennon Doyle:
Living in a volatile environment, going through the scenarios is a form of self care. It’s a form of planning and then you’re an adult and you have to unlearn a survival mechanism that worked for you in childhood. It’s hard to deprogram yourself.
Brené Brown:
It is. And I’ll tell you that as a social worker, one of the things I really appreciate about social work, that’s different from the allied professions like psychiatry, psychology, even counseling is this kind of person in environment perspective. And I’m not intellectualizing now so I don’t have to talk about my stuff. I’ll do that next. But I will say one of the things that’s interesting, because you mentioned at Glennon is that we really, as social workers get very concerned about pathologizing and mental health diagnoses because so much of what shows up as a diagnosable issue is an incredibly smart survival strategy when it comes to trauma or abuse or volatility or poverty or dehumanization, white supremacy. These are how you stay alive. And so then to turn them into, especially for women pathologies, and it’s interesting, there’s interesting research being done, even looking at borderline personality.
Brené Brown:
What people would call borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder, narcissistic personality disorder. If you pull back and look at the behaviors, how for many people, those behaviors were survival. Even down to like the idea of splitting, like I’m being parented by Glennon and Abby and I split as much as I can and say, “Well, she said it was okay.” I’m kind of manipulative that way because I’m trying to get something I need and know how to do that in a way that’s becomes immediately pathologized when you observe it in an adult.
Brené Brown:
For me, there was a real physical protection issue for us growing up. That’s real. And what you said, that was so hard for me to hear Amanda was like kind of squeezing the life out of things with control and always, I write about it a lot in Atlas, always trying to predict, okay, I see this behavior. I heard this comment. I’ve got 10 minutes to get both the girls here find Jason. Like these were the things I did. And so when that’s imprinted, I think on our hearts and our minds with a seal of trauma, it’s hard to be like, “They just want me here from my carefree attitude, my fun loving personality and my warmheartedness.” It’s not even about a question of do I have value outside of that role? For me, that’s like the second question, the first question is everything going to be okay if I get off the wall?
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Brené Brown:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
Because when you actually get good results, good results, except for your life and your brain and your heart.
Brené Brown:
Right.
Glennon Doyle:
Cause it’s dead inside. But the results out there keep being successful and you have worried and stressed and controlled your way to that result. It is easy to think, well, if I let go, I will stop earning good results with my sweat and anxiety and intensity. It feels like, it feels like, that’s a sweet idea for you.
Brené Brown:
Exactly.
Glennon Doyle:
But you don’t know what it takes.
Amanda Doyle:
Exactly. It’s like everyone else looks around and says, “Look how great it is. You can let go.” And you’re saying, “It’s only this great because I will never ever let go.”
Brené Brown:
I’m very curious about how… I haven’t read the research. So I probably need to look into it, but we should try to find somebody to talk about this, but I don’t know how you get over a childhood and a lifetime of hyper vigilance. I could do it when I was drinking or eating. I could do it there, but hyper vigilance is a very difficult thing to let go of. And it’s why I think a lot of people are like, “You want me to be vulnerable? ” I’m sending a black child out every day into the world. Vulnerability is a privilege of white folks. But then at the same time, it’s a very difficult thing because it’s not like some people need vulnerability to access joy and love and belonging. And some don’t. It’s that we need to figure out how to fight for a world where vulnerability is not a privilege and where hyper vigilance is not rewarded or necessary. That’s hard.
Glennon Doyle:
How do you two, because we grow up a certain way. Some of us pendulum parent. So we go the absolute opposite of what our parents did, which is actually not creative either. It’s just a reaction. How do you feel like you’re screwing your kids up in ways that you didn’t predict you would? That idea that adulthood or parenthood is looking both ways before you cross the street and then getting hit by an airplane. Is there anything unexpected that came that you weren’t seeing? Cause I imagine you intentionally try to parent differently than you were parented. So as not to create the same issues, are there anything that turned out to be airplanes hitting you after you looked both ways?
Brené Brown:
It can be both at the exact same time, keenly aware, especially as athletes, keenly aware of how fucked up the parenting was around that. And then be that. But we don’t act on it. But when you’re on the sideline. I’ll never forget that the first time I took dad to one of Ellen’s field hockey games and purposely did not take him because this is hard. He’s hard, like call the constable the swim meet kind of hard. Like don’t give him the starters gun, just hard. And so she’s in the middle of this field hockey game and he gets up and starts walking the fence line behind all the folding chairs and I walk over and I’m like, I’m not putting up with this.
Brené Brown:
This is it. This is making a stand for everyone this has ever happened to in all of the world. And I’m like, “Dad, what’s going on?” He goes, “One, this game looks violent to me. Two y’all are putting way too much pressure on these kids. This is ridiculous. This is high school sports. You need to take a deep breath.” And I was like, “No, sir”, I couldn’t even function. And I’ll tell you who is the athlete in the family that really made it through, was Steve, my husband. He’s like this empathy leading pediatrician. And so when we would have the troubles that I want to be out, I don’t want to play, this is too hard. Steve would be like, “That’s great. That’s okay, we’re just here, this is just fun.” And I’d be like, “What the fuck?” I would have to just take deep breaths. And he was like, “That was great.” And then ended up raising like athletes because they loved it.
Barrett Guillen:
We on the other hand are saving for therapy, right? Because we have not caught in there yet, but we’re really trying
Brené Brown:
No, we’ve played devil’s pickle ball this weekend. And I threw a tantrum.
Barrett Guillen:
It’s hard to play against your partners on that.
Brené Brown:
Like we played Frankie and Steve.
Barrett Guillen:
Told Bre I was like, play the ball. Not your husband. Play the ball. Not your husband.
Brené Brown:
Yeah.
Barrett Guillen:
Me too. I was like, “You turn around sideways and spin and hit it backwards. No sir.”
Brené Brown:
I think this, I am pleased with my parenting because both of my kids are hardcore believers in therapy. I feel like my work is done.
Barrett Guillen:
Me too.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right. If they just believe in the therapy they can do. I love that you name it. I love that because it’s so freeing to me. We don’t have to get it all right. But when we know we’re getting it wrong, we can just tell them. How I’m acting is not normal. I’m doing my best with eating with body stuff, with whatever. And still, I know I’m modeling a million different things, but my kids know when I’m doing it, that’s mom stuff, like she’s working on it. So they’re not thinking that’s normal.
Barrett Guillen:
Yeah.
Brené Brown:
And I’ll tell you one thing we are that I think we are so good at, this generation. Wow. We are normalizers. So we came from a family where no one talked about bodies, bathroom. stuff.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh yeah.
Brené Brown:
Sex, feelings. And we are like normalizing maniacs. Like what aren’t you saying? Is there a smell that you’re worried about? Let’s talk about it. Cause that’s so normal. That’s everybody, are you sure? A hundred percent. That’s so normal. We are normalizers and I started probably with them.
Barrett Guillen:
Oh yeah. And we’ve gotten to watch you raise your kids. And we’ve just taken a lot of notes along the way. Or I have. Ashley’s daughter’s older. She’s in between years, but mine’s the youngest out of the girls. So it’s been really great to watch what you and Steve do and be able to take it and run with it.
Brené Brown:
I think people do not understand that the opposite of raising a child that’s full of shame is normalizing, normalizing. I mean, normalizing things like hard things. Like sometimes when I spend time with your grandmother, I feel so grateful to be able to take care of her. And sometimes I wish she would go ahead and die cause I can’t take it another minute. And just one day know that if you’re ever in a caregiving situation, that swing between it’s my honor, and oh, I cannot do this another day is super normal. You just have to talk about it with somebody.
Glennon Doyle:
God, I like that.
Brené Brown:
Like just normalizing, normalizing,
Glennon Doyle:
Normalizing is fighting future shame.
Brené Brown:
It is as much as you could ever protect against shame, normalizing is doing that.
Glennon Doyle:
How is it with you two? Because you’re part very much in the middle of this sandwich time, right? Where you’re doing your best to raise your kids. You’re trying to have some sort of life on your own and marriage and all the things. And then you’re also dealing with parents who are aging and how is that on your sisterhood? Because how are you doing this? You’re you’re working together at unbelievably high levels of stress. You’re playing fricking pickle ball on the weekend. So you’re choosing to hang out more on the weekends. Sounds like. You’re also care taking, as a team. Do you care for your parents the same way that you work?
Barrett Guillen:
That’s interesting.
Glennon Doyle:
The same rules?
Barrett Guillen:
It was interesting when we had to clean out my mom’s house, we all had very different ways of grieving that and wanting to go through things. And that was probably the hardest thing that we’ve had to go up against since our parents have kind of gotten older, we’ve done a great job and we have amazing tools and language to talk about it and put it on the table and not ignore it. And if we do try to ignore it between the three of us, us and Ashley, someone will put it forcibly on the table in front of us.
Brené Brown:
There will be no escaping the table and something like that happens. And so that was probably one of the hardest. She went into the hospital with like a minor thing and never went home again. And so her house was just like breakfast dishes and the sink kind of thing. Six months before that she was the controller for our company, like in big accounting career, but a combination of a physical illness, rapid onset cognitive stuff. It was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever gone through. You?
Barrett Guillen:
Yeah.
Brené Brown:
And so her house is just there full of everything. And her house has always been since my parents divorce, very sacred place for not only us, but our kids.
Barrett Guillen:
Even if we do didn’t live there, that was our home.
Brené Brown:
It was our home. And it was the only one that we ever had because we never felt connected to our homes growing up, because it was hard. And. I was like, “We got to get this shit packed. We got to pay somebody do it. We got to move out and put this house on the market right now.” And then they were like, “Well, let’s do this and she’s never going to do this. This is never going to happen.” Like I was like pushing, pushing, do it, do it. And they were like dragging their feet and I was like, “Wow, what good is going on?” They’re just like back off. And then finally I go over there one day without them and just lay on the floor and cry for four hours. And Steve literally has to pick me up and put me back in the truck and drive me home.
Barrett Guillen:
We all had to have that moment. I think I had it in the closet. Ashley had it in there. I think it was just like once we had that moment and we were like, so this is grief. This isn’t about packing.
Brené Brown:
Yeah.
Barrett Guillen:
The house, this is about I’m not going to see her every day. Like I did before.
Brené Brown:
Yeah.
Barrett Guillen:
She’s not going to pick Gabby up from school. She’s no longer my emergency contact. All those things you don’t think about. And so I think once we were like this is really sad. This is hard. This is grief. We’ve been shitty to each other. All right. What do we all need to get this shit packed up? But what do we need before we get it packed up? I think Ashley for a while, wanted to touch everything and kind of go through, “Oh, I love this spatula. I want to take it.” Well, did you ever have the same? I was like, oh, “Gabby loved this fork that you expand and you poked people.” Did you have that?
Brené Brown:
I don’t think so. I was running from pain by doing that’s my forte. That would be my due that I just run from. Run from feeling by doing, was once we named it that we were in grief. And then even to the point where I was like, “we just have to do what we can.” And Ashley’s like, “I want everything in this pile in storage.” I was like for what? And then she’s like, “It doesn’t matter.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. That’s good.
Brené Brown:
She’s a therapist.
Barrett Guillen:
So we store that shit. We stored that shit right away.
Brené Brown:
And we give each other permission, my phone will blow up one day and I’ll be like, “I am not me today.”
Barrett Guillen:
I thank God for the circle back. Thank God for, oh man. I was such an asshole yesterday, but it’s because all the insurance stuff came in and I was really resentful that I’m in charge of her insurance. The circle back is so beautiful because it just gives us permission to go back and say, “Dang, that’s not what I wanted to say.”
Brené Brown:
And that’s not who I want to be.
Glennon Doyle:
The circle back and that, it doesn’t matter. God, I love that. When you’re close someone, giving yourself permission to not explain and just say it doesn’t matter put it in storage. That’s good. What are you all afraid? If this doesn’t make sense to you just tell me, but sister and I feel like each have beliefs that we’re afraid the other one thinks about us.
Amanda Doyle:
We’ve never told other what they are though. I’m interested.
Brené Brown:
Y’all have not shared them.
Glennon Doyle:
No, but I think my all the time underlying shame belief is I’m crazy. That’s what I grew up with. Since I was 10 years old, I was in all the offices on all the medicines forever so I’m always trying to convince people that I’m not crazy. Like I might be someone who would have a whole book that over and over again says, I am not crazy. I am a goddamn cheetah. Over and over again. Right.
Glennon Doyle:
I might just say that repeatedly when meeting people, I am not crazy. It’s interesting. Cause I was thinking about this morning, sister, thinking one of my shame beliefs is that my sister will think I’m flighty and I’m not consistent. And I don’t work hard enough and I’m not going to show up and I’m not on time, even though I’m in the shower this morning thinking, okay, I’ve been doing this job for 15 years and I don’t think I’ve ever been five minutes late to anything because I’m terrified of being late because that will show I’m the person I was before.
Glennon Doyle:
So first of all, sister, do you think, you know what you’re afraid that I think of you secretly?
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, I can’t wait.
Amanda Doyle:
I am afraid that you think that I’m inventing the stress that I hold. That I am making things unnecessarily harder, such that things are not working well, instead of what I’m trying to do, which is deal with all the hard stuff so that things work out well.
Brené Brown:
Wow. That was such an honor to watch.
Amanda Doyle:
Thank you
Glennon Doyle:
Sister. Do you kind of believe that a little bit about me?
Amanda Doyle:
No, I don’t. And in fact it makes sense because I feel like our conflicts that we have when I hear you say that it actually made me sad to hear you say that I think that you could be flighty because I don’t believe that for one hot second, but it makes sense. When I think about the history of conflict that we have had, it’s preemptively defensive of that. Right? So if I think that you might think I’m inventing the stress that I hold, then I have to push to you. No, look at this legitimizing factors of everything. Not that I want you to relieve that stress. Not that I want you to feel bad for me, but that I don’t want you to think that I’m inventing, making it up my own burdens and then vice versa. Like the way that you get in front of that. So if we could just let down those two things, we probably wouldn’t ever have those issues.
Glennon Doyle:
What about you two? Do you have any secret fears that the other believes might believe about you?
Barrett Guillen:
It’s a hard question.
Brené Brown:
Yeah. It’s really hard question.
Barrett Guillen:
And I was like, just so intrigued watching y’all so beautifully, like y’all are so sweet and respectful to each other and kind and loving that. I just like didn’t even think about what I was going to say.
Brené Brown:
I was just listening too. Yeah, me too. I think those self-protective thoughts just go back so deep. They run so deep and so hard. Do you have one?
Barrett Guillen:
What I would say is I think that I worry sometimes that you think that you’re not ever able to see the cracks kind of in our systems because I cover for everybody and do everybody’s job. Does that make sense?
Brené Brown:
Yeah, I think, I think that.
Glennon Doyle:
I just want to say a little bit, I think you’re inventing stress sometimes, sister. Brené, thank you very much. I really need to get that off my chest but I was scared.
Amanda Doyle:
I want to say one thing. If we’re doing this, that you have the ability to live six feet off the ground, cause I’m holding your ass up.
Brené Brown:
There we go.
Glennon Doyle:
There we go. There is it. Thank you for the honesty. And it’s true. I do get to think about my feelings all day and look at hummingbird and write poetry because you’re on the wall. Okay. And I need you on the wall. So then I shouldn’t complain that you’re having a hard time on the wall.
Glennon Doyle:
And Brené, you do sometimes feel like Barrett is covering up cracks that you need to see.
Brené Brown:
Right. I do.
Barrett Guillen:
Go ahead. You haven’t gone yet.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s your moment of reckoning.
Brené Brown:
I don’t want to go. It’s hot in here.
Glennon Doyle:
I’m sweating too. I’m sweating.
Brené Brown:
No, I feel lightheaded. I feel like we’re on the beginning of the rollercoaster. What is the question again?
Glennon Doyle:
What do you secretly think that Barrett might believe about you? You that you’re always trying to like make a case against, with everything you say to her?
Brené Brown:
Okay.
Barrett Guillen:
I’m so nervous.
Brené Brown:
I can’t believe you wore a fucking turtleneck you should have known who we were talking to here. I guess I have two things. I worry that you think that I am never content or happy or pleased because I set the bar so high. Sometimes I worry that people don’t believe me when I say I can’t do anymore, but I don’t think that’s about you because you’re usually the first one that says she’s not fucking kidding. You’re usually the one that says I like recently I had to cancel a big event. Like I was headlining a big event and I didn’t know what was wrong. I thought I was crazy. Like I actually thought I was crazy.
Brené Brown:
Talking to Steve about like, “Do I need to go into like Menninger? Like some kind of inpatient thing? What do I need at this point?” I was having a ton of anxiety. And, but the only thing that counted the anxiety was depression. And there were a lot of hard things going on in the world and then also at home and then I coughed and Steve was like, “That doesn’t sound good.” This was when you said you cannot do this event. And everyone was like, “She has to do the event.” And you’re like, “She’s not doing the event. I don’t care. She’s not doing the event. And this is going to be the hard, one of the hard calls that we have to make, but she can’t do the event.” But then it turned out I had, this was like two weeks ago, three weeks ago that I had pneumonia. And so my heart was racing, cause it was doing the work that my lungs couldn’t do. And then the depression was I wasn’t getting a lot of oxygen. It was just, I was sick.
Barrett Guillen:
When we were having that conversation. She said, “If I felt physically, the way I do mentally right now, there’s no way I could get out of bed to go do this.” I said, “That’s all you should have to fucking say, you should not have to say anything else. You should not go. Because if you felt that way mentally, you’re just going to come back even worse than when you went.”
Brené Brown:
And it was to the point where I was like, “Am I going to be able to get on stage and do anything? Or am I going to like, is something bad going to happen?” Have you ever felt like that Glennon?
Glennon Doyle:
Once per day, went on stage with a port in my arm full of IV liquids because I had to get on stage. I was already there, but I was so sick. So there was thousands of people there. They could only get the IV to me with 12 minutes left before I went on stage. So they pumped me full of 12 minutes. Didn’t have time to take out the port. So I had to go on stage with a port in my arm. Does this make any sense?
Brené Brown:
No, that’s hard. Jesus.
Glennon Doyle:
And then I walked off stage and they had the thing and then they pumped me right back to give me the rest of my IV.
Amanda Doyle:
But I think what you said is so important to everyone, but what you just said can apply to everyone, Brené you said, “I worry that people won’t believe me when I say I can’t do anymore.”
Glennon Doyle:
And it’s true. People don’t believe you.
Brené Brown:
People don’t believe me. And every now and then Barrett will be like, “Fuck your dig deep button. And you dig deep buttons. The worst part about you.” And I was it’s like, “What?” And she’s like, “No, it’s just you’ve got a level of go” I always think about stapling Abby’s head together. And putting her back in the game, like I do have a level of go.
Barrett Guillen:
Your dig deep button is your superpower and your kryptonite.
Brené Brown:
Yes. It is
Barrett Guillen:
Because we act like there is no cost to that.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. That’s what we say that like, we’ll, we’ll just find it. We’ll just find it. Guess where you’re going to find it. You’re going to excavate digging deep and you’re going to take from over here. And I do that all the time and what, where do I take from? My marriage. It’s coming from somewhere. But we just turn that part off. We just say, who I am is I dig deep, not I steal soil from where it rightfully belongs.
Glennon Doyle:
If we said it that way, it would seem less valorous and we wouldn’t keep doing it.
Brené Brown:
It sounds like shit when you say it that way.
Barrett Guillen:
Glen in and Brené like, do you ever feel like if I didn’t do another thing, I’ve contributed a lot and I’ve made this world a greater place?
Glennon Doyle:
I feel it deep in my bones. I am Jonie Mitchell, Midway Down the Midway song over and over again. I feel so close to it. I feel like all what we talk about all the time is what is enough, enough, enough, enough, enough. Yeah. I do feel that way. That there’s a time that is coming where I don’t know. That just is just going to feel different. I don’t know exactly what it’s going to look like, but there’s not going to be a lot of more digging deep. What I want to say to both of you is I love this conversation so much and I love you both and respect you both so deeply. I think the whole world’s going to be watching Atlas of the Heart on HBO max, all three of us have had real beautiful and difficult conversations as a result of watching as you people always do with your work.
Brené Brown:
As you people also do with your work. It’s exhausting.
Barrett Guillen:
I will say just before I jump, it’s been such a pleasure to watch our teams support each other. And I’m so grateful. Every time I get to talk to Amanda or email Amanda, about something crazy, that’s coming up. So thank you. When people say stand on the shoulders of others I feel like the way you guys support each other has been so amazing. And so it’s been really fun to watch.
Amanda Doyle:
Barrett I admire you so much and I see you. The sister keeper in me sees and honors the sister keeper.
Brené Brown:
Yes.
Barrett Guillen:
And we are going on vacation without the other sisters. So yes. High five.
Brené Brown:
I’ll plan it
Glennon Doyle:
I’ll bring the poetry and pictures.
Brené Brown:
I don’t think we’re invited sis.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, that’s right. That’s right. OK. Love you both love you all love. We will see you next time on We Can Do Hard Things. I give you Tish Melton and Brandi Carlile.