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- [00:00]
Glennon Doyle
We just got this package from Symbiotica and I'm so excited. I've used their liposomal glutathione and the vitamin C and they're my favorite products by far. The liposomal form gets it into your system and actually gets it to the places that you need it to be. So that especially during the winter times and the colds and all the things, I just need my system and my immune system to be like strong and capable of going outside and not worrying about getting sick. And that's what symptoms Symbiotica is giving me. It's giving me for real belief in my body.
- [00:33]
Abby Wambach
I know it's real. Just to Symbiotica. Thank you for making my wife so happy.
- [00:37]
Glennon Doyle
High quality holistic wellness right at your fingertips. Be present and feel your best for life's most memorable moments. Go to symbiotica.com Glennon for 20% off your order plus free shipping. Today. That's symbiotica.com Glennon for for 20% off your order plus Free Shipping.
- [00:57]
Amanda Doyle
The Apple Watch Series 10 is here.
- [01:00]
Abby Wambach
It has the biggest display ever.
- [01:02]
Amanda Doyle
It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever.
- [01:05]
Abby Wambach
Making it even more comfortable on your wrist whether you're running, swimming or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch.
- [01:12]
Amanda Doyle
Getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for.
- [01:18]
Abby Wambach
The first time in glossy jet black.
- [01:19]
Amanda Doyle
Aluminum compared to previous generations.
- [01:22]
Abby Wambach
IPhone Xs are later required charge time and actual results will vary.
- [01:28]
Amanda Doyle
Hey everybody. We're getting through, aren't we? That's what we're doing. One foot in front of the other. 2025 is looking like it might be a real doozy. And we are in it with you. And we're here for you and with you. Recently, our show was selected by Apple as one of their 10 shows we love and they called it a comforting support system for braving the everyday. And that is what we hope. We hope that we can help you brave the everyday. That's what you help us do. And so on Sundays, we are publishing an episode for you, one of our favorite episodes of the past four years that we've selected to be a comforting support system for all of us as we brave this new year. So in addition to our new Tuesday Thursday episodes and the ones that we're posting on Wednesday as well, please come on Sunday for some togetherness, some support, some soothing Sunday Togetherness for 2025. Thank you. We will see you there.
- [02:52]
Abby Wambach
Well, hello everyone. Welcome to We can do hard things. We have missed You. Here's what we're doing today. We have had so many amazing conversations with so many brilliant experts and we do love those episodes. But our favorite episodes are the ones where it's more family meeting vibes. Right? It's like the three of us and some pod squatters. And so that's what we get to do today. We are absolutely delighted. We are taking your questions and we are going to give you our responses. Now please hear that we are not giving you answers. We don't know answers. But we are going to respond and be together, right?
- [03:39]
Glennon Doyle
Yep. That's my goal. I'm right here with everyone.
- [03:43]
Abby Wambach
You're right here with everyone. That's nice. Good for you, babe.
- [03:48]
Amanda Doyle
I am also right here with everyone. Yes, I'm excited because as fun as it is to talk to all the people, it's very, very fun to talk to our people. And I love when they call in. It's such a delight.
- [03:59]
Abby Wambach
Me too. You're a damn delight. Let's start with Georgia. I love that name, by the way.
- [04:06]
Amanda Doyle
What a good name.
- [04:07]
Abby Wambach
Yeah. Hi, my angel.
- [04:10]
Georgia
My name is Georgia. My query quandaring thought, you know, thing is, I'm in my 20s, I'm 26, almost 27. And the thing that comes to mind a lot is that I'm really dreading becoming irrelevant. I'm actually super excited to age and go into my 30s and like that feels like a big gift, especially with so much shit going on in the world just to age. But it seems like women from 40 to 65 are considered irrelevant in the society. How do we integrate them into our world? I'd love to hang out with some 40 year old women. Like they actually seem really cool. They just seem overlooked. I'm not excited for that part of my life. I'd love to, I don't know, make it more fun or not irrelevant. Okay. I love you guys, that's all.
- [05:02]
Glennon Doyle
Georgia, Georgia, Georgia.
- [05:05]
Abby Wambach
Sweet baby Georgia in her 20s.
- [05:09]
Amanda Doyle
Why have we not been calling our Q and A episodes queries? Oh my God, it's a really huge misstep.
- [05:18]
Abby Wambach
Queries. How did I miss that? How did I miss that? That gay pun. I'm obsessed with gay puns. Abby and I just had a big conversation with a lot of our queer friends that we were all planning a thing together. And there's this thing we decided that happens when there's a critical mass of queer couples that you can get other queer people to join by just telling them how many queer people are already going, then they'll feel left out. And want to come. And we call this queer pressure instead of peer pressure.
- [05:50]
Amanda Doyle
I thought you were gonna say homo instead of homo.
- [05:52]
Abby Wambach
Well, Megan Fowley, when I said to her, it's queer pressure, she said, it's homo fomo, which was better because Megan's a poet. So of course. So anyway, that was an aside. Let's come back to Georgia. Okay? I wanna hear your all's take, your guys take on this. Cause I feel like I'm gonna have a weird one of what was happening in my body when I was listening to Georgia say this question.
- [06:17]
Glennon Doyle
For.
- [06:17]
Abby Wambach
For example, when Georgia said the words, it seems like women from 40 to 65 are considered irrelevant. How do we integrate them into our world? My immediate thought was, georgia, stay the hell away from us. We do not want to be integrated back into your world that we just narrowly escaped with our lives. Okay, Georgia, Georgia, don't cry for us, Argentina. Okay? Secondly, here's what I want to say, George. I have two stories to tell you. One of them, if you've listened carefully to this podcast, you may have heard before, but it's in a different context, and it's important for me to tell it this way. I read this story in a book called how to do Nothing by Jenny O'Dell. It was this story about foresting this really big, beautiful forest in Oakland, California. And it had been around for a very long time, and the people loved the forest. But then the foresters came, okay? And they needed to harvest all the wood. So they came in with their bulldozers and whatever tree people use, and they start chopping down trees, okay? Now, over time, all the trees start disappearing. There's this one tree that the loggers don't cut down. It is an old, twisty, twisty tree. It's not shaped conveniently like all the other trees. They need, you know, like, straight wood. This is like a queer tree, okay? This is like. This tree is misshapen. It's old, it's curvy. So at the end of the day, this tree is the only tree left standing. The reason why it's left standing is because it was useless to the loggers.
- [08:26]
Glennon Doyle
Wow.
- [08:28]
Abby Wambach
Hold that thought. Last year, I read this book called the Matrix by Lauren Groff. Lauren Groff is such a good writer that, honestly, she pisses me off.
- [08:42]
Glennon Doyle
I love it when you read a book and you're like, damn it.
- [08:45]
Abby Wambach
Yes. I just say damn it every few pages. It's so good. She's so good. I also read an article where she writes two or three books at A time.
- [08:55]
Amanda Doyle
What? Whoa, that's crazy.
- [08:57]
Abby Wambach
They're like in different parts of her home and she goes to this one and then she goes to that one. And if you understood how frequently freaking intricate and incredible every book is, I don't understand it. Okay? She has this book called the Matrix, okay? Or Matrix loosely. It's a story about this woman a long time ago who leaves her village and creates this like convent, kind of like this nunnery. The nunnery ends up being integral to the survival of the people in this huge culture in like this revolutionary, crazy, weird way that only a bunch of outcast, badass women could create. There's this one part in the book where the woman who's leading the nunnery is explaining how she started this whole thing, because it's very strange for a woman to be leading this way. She explains that she was from a group of sisters in a family and she was the only one who wasn't pretty. All of her other sisters were beautiful women. And so one at a time they were picked off by men in the town and they were all now living like maybe they were happy, whatever, I don't know. It was a time where they were being dominated by their husbands. They were second class citizens and they were basically servants in their homes. Because she was useless to the culture, to that culture. This is how she defined it. Because she did not have the characteristic that was most valued in that culture, she was left alone to create her own life. She became this leader of this nunnery and she was free. Okay, Georgia, we do not want to find a way to continue to be useful to the world that has sucked us dry. Okay? I am so serious, Georgia, when I say that I have never been more excited, never been more. Started to feel more free. I feel like I understand what George is saying. I now walk down the street, nobody looks at me. I feel like underestimated all the time. I feel like in some ways this, like the world, the cultural relevance goes down a little bit. I feel like age for a woman can be a little bit like wearing an invisibility cloak. But do you know how dangerous and happy a bunch of women underneath an invisibility cloak are? I was with my daughters the other day and I was so pissed because they came home and were like, they went for a walk. And Abby knows this. They got catcalled on the street and I just, you know, they felt very icky. That ick that begins when you're 10 and then doesn't stop until you're 50. And I felt so exhausted for them, I just felt so, like, wow, we are entering a time where, yes, the bad news is, we might be ignored on the street. And the good news is, we might be ignored on the street. Like, we can do whatever for the. We are not going to be sought out for or used like those logs in the forest anymore. Once you hit 50. The bad news is you might be a little less needed by your kids. The good news is you might be a little less needed by your kids. The bad news is, in a meeting, you might be overlooked because you suddenly don't look like the freshest, most usable item. But that's the good news, too. It's a superpower, I think, and especially for women. I mean, I do think that the world sort of looks at young women like a freaking forest of trees that can be cut down and used in a million, trillion different ways. And the name of that tree that was left there because it was unusable and it kept being able to grow in weird, swirly ways is called Old Survivor. That's the name of that tree. So, Georgia, we're just old survivors. Like, please, honey, you're looking at me, and I'm almost 50. And you're thinking, oh, my God, that's so scary. She feels irrelevant. And I'm thinking, oh, my God, Georgia, you're 20. I feel so tired for you. Just hang in there. You will get to the point where you, too, can be an old survivor. All I want to do for my life. I mean, Abby and I talk about it all the time. We think of our house as, like, we call it the coven. All we want to do for the rest of our lives is to have old women around us and sit on the couch together and cackle and dream up schemes we can do underneath our invisibility cloaks and be irrelevant to the culture so we can finally be relevant to ourselves and our friends and our lives and our integrity and our creativity and our joy and our freedom. So that's where I am. I would not go back to being 20. I would not go back to being 30. I would not go back to Being 40. I just keep feeling freer and freer, and I think about that. My hair's, you know, it's an inch of gray now. I keep dying it. Maybe I'll stop At some point, I notice all these wrinkles, and, like, my body's looking different, and I'm kind of like, okay, like, I feel I'm smiling. They can't see me, but I feel a little bit like this is the superpower of what will signal to the world that I'm irrelevant so I can finally be left the fuck alone and do whatever the hell I want to do.
- [15:05]
Glennon Doyle
It's really good. I have no notes.
- [15:08]
Abby Wambach
Really?
- [15:09]
Glennon Doyle
Yep. It's really good.
- [15:11]
Amanda Doyle
Yeah. Those are beautiful stories. I think there's a few things, like she was saying from the posture of, I feel so bad. I don't want to be invisible like that, but also how do I integrate into my life? Which is in some ways what you're saying, too. You're saying you want your coven and you want older people there integrated into your life. And I think it's a really good call. Just a side note of that we didn't discuss on. This is like, the intergenerational aspect of it is really wise for people to have older people that they hang out with and younger people that they hang out with. We're learning from all of those folks. And I think it's one of the. Just in the very, very recent history of humanity, we have lost that, which is very unfortunate, because I think that's why we're a little adrift, is that we don't have that wisdom being passed down and passed up. That's an important piece of it. I think of it as, like, the relevant means, important to the matter at hand. And, like, that's the thing, right? We are no longer important to the matter at hand, which is the uber striving and trying to find your identity, the uber striving to prove yourself and your worth and to be desired. I mean, there's plenty of older women that are trying to be desired, but I think they're actually more interested in what they desire as opposed to being desired, which is the shift there.
- [16:36]
Glennon Doyle
It's also a little science in biology here because a lot of women are going through perimenopause, menopause, post menopause, during this period of time that we're talking about. And it's like, literally, the chemicals in your body make you give less shits, make you care. Like, you're. The nurture part of you starts to fade away. And so you get to be like, oh, I don't actually give a fuck anymore, and I'm just going to go and live my own life. And for me, I'm excited about that.
- [17:04]
Abby Wambach
Yeah. Somebody needs to tell us. I read this. I'm not saying it's true. I think it is, though, this thing called the veil that, like, we call it menopause, we call it whatever, but. But what Abby's saying is science. There's something that's equivalent to a people pleasing hormone that starts to disappear.
- [17:21]
Amanda Doyle
It's estrogen. That's the empathy, the taking care of everyone around you. That's an evolutionary thing that is wired in us so that the people around us don't die.
- [17:30]
Abby Wambach
Yeah, yeah. So it makes you understand then why men tend to trade their wives in for younger models. I don't believe that it's just all about like better boobs or whatever. I think that they want somebody that still is strongly in the people pleasing, caring for them. Most hormone. Like they can sense a woman who has become only relevant to herself and they can sense a woman who is still, you know, striving to be chosen. And an important part of the capitalism experience, which it does include little family units where women are running the show at home. And you know, I mean it's, it's all part of a bigger system. But I do wonder if the reason why, and I'm sure I felt exactly the same way as Georgia when I was in my 20s and 30s.
- [18:25]
Amanda Doyle
Like a pity about older women.
- [18:28]
Abby Wambach
Yeah. And I wonder if it's because we have lost the intergenerational thing. Like if all Georgia is seeing in media is what the media wants people to think of older women, which is that they are sad and just all sitting at home wishing their kids would come home. And they're all like, you know, you.
- [18:46]
Amanda Doyle
Know, they're all staring wistfully at 20 year olds just wishing to go back.
- [18:50]
Abby Wambach
Yeah.
- [18:51]
Glennon Doyle
Maybe if not for all the money in the world that I go back to 20.
- [18:56]
Abby Wambach
No. So maybe if, you know, I should. It makes me think, as I create my coven world of older women who are sitting around cackling with me, that we should invite younger ones in to see us. Like just to see us.
- [19:14]
Amanda Doyle
Just alternate programming.
- [19:16]
Abby Wambach
Right. To just see that actually this is the promised land. Actually what they're selling you as the end is the real beginning. It's like a dream to become this sort of old woman. Not something to avoid.
- [19:32]
Glennon Doyle
It's hard to sell something to an older woman who has herself.
- [19:35]
Abby Wambach
That's it.
- [19:36]
Amanda Doyle
And what a vision to not only like have those glimpses. I think the dream world vision is not like you want to see us so that you can imagine being this when you're older, so then you can imagine that this is what's ahead. It's the way we used to live, is we're all living this together.
- [19:56]
Abby Wambach
Exactly.
- [19:56]
Amanda Doyle
The older people are living with the middle people who are living with the younger people. And so that is all happening at once. So you have an older woman's wisdom in you throughout every step of that. You have the younger person's awe and joy every step of that. And we have like such fragmented lives from isolation and from just. We're surrounded by people with this very narrow frame of reference on life. And that's at the detriment of all of us. It's a damn shame as my daughter starts to enter into the phase where she will be going through puberty and she will be starting to go through all those stages. I'm like, I want all kinds of women around her all the time. I don't want her only talking to 12 year olds. I want us all to be doing life together at every stage, which would be a goddamn dream. But I think it is relevance is a question of centering. Who are you centering? Because I know that now when I go to a concert, I get ma'am'd left and right. And that was a shock the first time people started like, excuse me, ma'am. And I was like, oh, I'm wearing tight black pants and someone just called me a ma'am. Like that's a first. So I know that I am invisible to those 30 year old men, but I feel absolutely as visible as I've ever been to the people who are in my orbit. Yeah, I feel more visible than ever. So why are we looking at that 30 year old man's perspective and calling it invisible, when in fact it's the first time I've really emerged as visible in my real life ever. So we're choosing some random perspective and it's not at all random and calling that true of the whole thing.
- [21:45]
Abby Wambach
Yeah, and we can forgive Georgia for thinking that that perspective is the perspective, because that is media's perspective. Queerness can help the start of this because for the first few years of being married to Abby, I started to experience what it feels like to not be living under the male gaze. Truly, it was a very strange experience to suddenly be in rooms, be at a party and feel the difference when I was not feeling like prey, okay, like there was something that shifted in the energy around me, in the way people approached me, in the way men did and did not approach me, in the way women didn't, did not approach me. Where I started to understand, oh, everyone is seeing me differently. I am not a conquest for that man anymore. I am not a competition for that woman anymore. It changed in my every experience of my life.
- [22:52]
Amanda Doyle
You were not important to the matter at hand for that man or that woman. So therefore you were irrelevant for. For those right.
- [22:59]
Abby Wambach
Same when I'm walking down the street. Same when I'm in a store, everywhere. Now, when I'm with Abby, I have a different experience than when I'm not with Abby. And when I'm at a place where everyone knows me and knows I'm queer, I have a different experience than when I'm in a room where no one knows me and no one knows I'm queer and I can feel it and no one could ever talk me out of it. I know exactly the difference. It's in the air around me. To live outside of the male gaze, even in moments in this country as a woman, is a fucking miracle. It's also a challenge because there are things you get and things you need from people in power. And so I'm not knocking it. But to live free of it at all is a miracle that makes me understand and want to step into also being outside of capitalism's gaze. We don't talk about that enough. Being seen as a conquest is to live inside the male gaze, but to be seen as a resource, consumer or consumer, or any sort of resource is to live inside of capitalism's gaze. And so to become an older woman, to not be marketed to all the time anymore because they think you. I don't know why the hell that is true. But to not be invited to as many things, to not be tapped on the shoulder as many times, to not be catcalled, to not be, you know, zeroed in with a red target all the time is for me, the next level of the queer experience that I had.
- [24:38]
Amanda Doyle
Yeah.
- [24:39]
Abby Wambach
Thank you, Georgia. We love you. You're invited to my house to sit around with the coven and just dream of one day join.
- [24:51]
Amanda Doyle
Foreign.
- [24:56]
Glennon Doyle
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- [25:56]
Abby Wambach
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- [26:53]
Glennon Doyle
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- [27:28]
Abby Wambach
Okay, let's hear from Casey.
- [27:30]
Georgia
Hi, Glenn and Abby and Amanda. My name is Casey and I'm a huge fan of the podcast. I've been listening since you started and I just had a question for you. I was listening to the episode on Confronting crisis with Compassion and it came up a lot. The idea of needing to process emotion. I was wondering what does, like, what do you think that that actually means how do you process emotion? Because I think what I normally do is what you all sort of described as like jumping straight into action. Glenn and you were talking about calendaring out the treatment plan for Amanda and that not really being processing emotion. So I'm just wondering, what does processing emotion mean and how do you do it? Thank you so much, Casey.
- [28:17]
Amanda Doyle
I love people who ask the questions that everyone's thinking, like, what the hell do you mean when you say processing emotion? Because there's so many phrases we throw around that's like, truly, what the fuck does that mean? Yeah, but I don't want to be the last one to ask because it seems like everyone's saying it like they know what the fuck it means. I am just learning this, which is why I like Casey, because she's talking about the episode from a while back, what we did about when going through the breast cancer situation. And I remember I had not cried yet. And so I was reading Prentiss Hemphill's book where they talk about setting a date with yourself to do it. And I was like, okay, I know that this is probably something I need to do and I just don't cry really. And so I set a time and I went into my basement and I was like, this will be the time where I cry about breast cancer. And like I put a candle on. I put on my friend Wendy's T shirt that her partner gave me and I put on music and I just cried and it was really good. And then I finished that and then.
- [29:24]
Abby Wambach
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Stop for one second. I need to process this. Okay, first of all, I need to know, was it on your to do list? I just have a few follow up. Was it, was it like something that you wrote on your list for the day?
- [29:39]
Amanda Doyle
It was planned. There was a. Yes, it was planned. Yes.
- [29:42]
Abby Wambach
Okay. And then when you got down to the basement, did you have a slotted amount of time that you were giving yourself?
- [29:48]
Amanda Doyle
Well, I was generous with myself. It was an open ended. There was about an hour of open ended time where I could just. Sky's the limit, you know?
- [29:57]
Abby Wambach
Okay. And then when I'm picturing you doing it, you light the candle. Were you like, come on. Tears? Like, come on, don't fucking do it, Doyle.
- [30:05]
Glennon Doyle
Do it.
- [30:07]
Abby Wambach
Did it come naturally? Did you have to think of sad commercials? Did you really like. Were you method acting or did it really come naturally?
- [30:16]
Amanda Doyle
Yeah, I mean, at that point I think there was probably enough stored in reserve from the prior couple months that I think it was there. However, I will tell you that flash forward many, many moons from that crying date to on yesterday the clock. I recently have shifted up my meds and so I have found myself feeling this strange phenomenon of like. I feel like this is what people, people must feel before they think they need to cry.
- [30:54]
Abby Wambach
Oh.
- [30:56]
Amanda Doyle
And so I was having like a really, really tough time, you know. And this is relevant to our friend Casey. Everything felt like. You know how when you're like so full of food and there's no room, that's the feeling for me where it's like everything is so full, like up to my throat and there's no more room even when you're breathing, I feel Like, I can't take a full, full breath. It's just like there's only that little part of my throat that can take the breath in because everything else is too full. That's the way it feels to me. So it's yesterday. I'm feeling like total shit. My therapist comes on a little late to thing and I'm doing that thing where I'm praying that she had to cancel at the last minute. And I'm like, I can get out of this. This is amazing. But then she shows up and I'm like, God damn it. And we start to talk and I'm like, in my head, this is what I'm doing, okay? I am thinking this is a code red. I can feel it in my throat. I think I might have to cry. And so in my head, I'm going through the entire day that I have and I'm looking through to try to find a 30 minute window where I might be able to take care of this thing that I have while I am actively at therapy trying to pretend to listen to a woman who there's an allotted hour of time with a skilled professional to whom I'm paying hundreds of dollars to presumably do things like process my emotion. And I'm like, won't be able to do it today.
- [32:35]
Glennon Doyle
Is it hard for you to cry in front of somebody else?
- [32:38]
Amanda Doyle
Yes. So I'm so proud of myself. I told her that. I'm like, right now what I'm doing, just so you know, is trying to figure out when today I'll be able to cry.
- [32:47]
Abby Wambach
Oh, that's good, Sissy. That's such a good start.
- [32:50]
Amanda Doyle
I did. So this relates to Casey, because this is it. Okay? So we talked about it. I'm like, it's not going to work. You know how like, if you're having sex with someone and you're like, this isn't good. We're not. This isn't going to go there. We should just stop.
- [33:05]
Abby Wambach
No, I'm usually like, this isn't going anywhere. This is awful. Let's get married and do this for 20 years.
- [33:12]
Amanda Doyle
But you're like, can we, this is embarrassing for everyone. Can we just tea and just stop? This isn't going to happen. We could pretend like we're going to keep doing this and it's going to happen, but it's not. This is what I felt with the therapist. I'm like, oh, we're going to do the thing where you're going to be like, try to get it out of me. And it's Going to be so awkward for everyone. But the, the orgasm thing is relevant, truly, because my therapist has talked to me about this. It is. Emotion is a wave.
- [33:37]
Abby Wambach
Yes.
- [33:37]
Amanda Doyle
Okay. So when you're actually processing an emotion, there's all these steps. It's physiological because there's five core emotions. Right. Like, you don't really process feelings. You process these five core emotions. And if one comes up and people call it different things but you. Basically the first step is recognizing it, which is like, that alone takes like a lot of years. Not just thinking, oh, it's oh, I'm so pissed at the mail carrier for coming late. It's like, no, you're very sad about something else. You know, so recognizing what you're feeling and then allowing the wave to come. And that's where I always was, like, nope. And I jumped ship. Right. Because you have to let the wave crest up and you actually have to feel the shitty, shitty shittiness in your body and let it all come in order to ride the wave down and finish the cycle. It's like any other physiological cycle. And so you don't get that release, you don't get that catharsis, you don't get that orgasm, you don't get that whatever. The thing is, if you don't let your body actually ride it all the way up or down and you remain full like that.
- [34:51]
Abby Wambach
Yeah.
- [34:52]
Amanda Doyle
And so for me, that's what it feels like. It's the space making in your body that if you actually allow yourself to fully ride that up and down, you're actually not doing anything. You're tolerating something and the tolerating of it naturally creates what you need. Like the wave crashing makes the water stiller.
- [35:27]
Abby Wambach
Yes.
- [35:27]
Amanda Doyle
That's the way it works. And so that is what processing the emotion is. But it's so petrifying because a, as we've learned that I've learned, it is so impossible for me to do that with someone else. Like, I literally, in this instance, when we're going through it, I covered my face with my hands because it's so awkward to me to have it happen that I just was like, I'm gonna need to cover my face for this. And she was like, you just do whatever you have to do. But after it, it flowed through me and there was more room. And I think that's what it is. But the reason a lot of people don't do it is because it's actually so scary. Scary at the very top of the wave. That's where people usually stop because it's so scary. And that's where our fight or flight behaviors come from. Is that that like fear right at the top?
- [36:24]
Abby Wambach
Yeah.
- [36:25]
Amanda Doyle
So you have to just keep riding it through.
- [36:27]
Abby Wambach
Yeah. I mean, the word. It's emotion. It's motion. It's emotion is energy in motion. When you're having an emotion, it is energy stirring inside of your body. Energy stirring inside your body, whether it's a wave gathering or whatever you want to label it. So what we do is we tend to say, I am feeling sad or I am feeling angry. And that is because my father did this and I blah, blah, blah, blah. And so we stay in our head about it. We stay in the story. But energy in motion is not about a story. That's why people say, oh, you're angry. How does it feel in your body? Is it in your chest? Like when you get really still? It's a tightening in my chest. And then suddenly this magical thing happens, which is that you've been so scared of 30 years of story that's about to pour out of you in this moment. And actually all it is is a tightening of your chest.
- [37:25]
Amanda Doyle
Yeah.
- [37:26]
Abby Wambach
That is processing emotion also. When you realize, let me get out of the story of this into my body. What is actually happening? My fear, my anxiety is often in my chest. It's a feeling in my chest. My dread or depression. It's in my gut. It's in my gut. My sadness always manifests as a overall bodily exhaustion. There is when you start to get out of your head and into your body. You feel where the energy is. And this amazing thing happens where you can actually just physically ride the wave of the emotion without the story attached.
- [38:13]
Amanda Doyle
And the physical piece is so huge of it because it's like this crazy circle. Right. Because in order to ride through the emotion and create the more space in your body, you have to recognize it.
- [38:25]
Abby Wambach
But.
- [38:25]
Amanda Doyle
But you can't recognize it until you've gotten so skilled at feeling where it is. And it's also that what your emotions are trying to tell you is how safe and stable and secure you are or not. That's what their whole job. That's why there's only five of them. You know, that's why there's things like fear, joy, anger, sadness, disgust. Those are the five things. Why is disgust on that list? Because it's evolutionarily like we needed to know not to to eat that fruit because we would die because we weren't safe. So these emotions are evolved to keep us safe. So that's why when something happens that we don't understand why we're so disproportionately out of our minds about something. It isn't that that thing is that bad. It's that it touches this place in us that we've never really spent a lot of time living in that feels deeply unsafe right around that thing. And then the people who are like, oh, I know what I want. I know that that person's not good for me. I have a really highly attuned intuition and gut wisdom. It's because they've practiced this shit.
- [39:35]
Abby Wambach
Yeah, exactly.
- [39:35]
Amanda Doyle
Because they can feel it at the slightest nudge. Whereas it takes some of us getting run over by a car to be like, I don't think that was very good. Should have seen that coming.
- [39:47]
Abby Wambach
Yeah, because it's like a car. There are some cars that are so highly sensitive, and those are the really expensive cars. You just touch the brakes and it stops. You just tap the whatever. A highly sensitive, highly attuned, well practiced emotional processor doesn't need a lot of dramatic signals anymore because they feel it right away. And because it is physiological. It is in your body, but it is also signaling. And I think what I want to say to Casey is, for me, processing emotions is two different things. First of all, it's the physiological riding of the wave and the not suppressing it and the not ignoring it and the stopping and the being embodied and the feeling it. People, since the beginning of time have had different ways of doing this music. Okay. We lost a beloved aunt during the time where I was on tour with Tish, and she was opening for this incredible artist named Monrovia. And he every single night sang a song called Damn these Forces that was about him losing his best friend. I was so busy, I was on the road during that time that I felt like I didn't have enough time to, like, sit with what had just happened to our aunt and our family. And so I used to go out to the venue and for that set when he played Damn these Forces, I would just bawl. Just stand there in the middle of the crowd and just cry for three songs. And I. Music I know when I am in a Not a good emotional place or disconnected or dissociated place because I won't listen to any music. Yes.
- [41:31]
Amanda Doyle
Oh, shit, that's so true.
- [41:34]
Abby Wambach
When I am in my body and I know I can hear and I am processing right, and I can listen and I want to listen to music, I want to feel it. I want it to move through me. When I'm in a suppressive state. I won't touch it. It's like hot coals. Music, art, movies. Why are we crying? It's not about that character that we're crying. It's because it's touching an unprocessed emotion in ourselves. That is the beauty and importance of art. Is that it? So there's that. You go for walks by yourself. You give your body time to let the wave rise. And then for me, there's a second part which is, for me, it's not just about the riding the wave. It's about then figuring out why did that make me angry? It's sitting with my journal in the morning. It's taking the walk and thinking over, okay, I rode the wave. But what information was that trying to give me? Why am I continuously angry about this, this, and this? What patterns are there that are guiding me to make a different decision in my life? For me, emotions are not good for immediate decisions. Often it's the riding of the wave first, and then it's phase two, which is a kind of grounded reflection. When I'm out of the wave. When I'm out.
- [43:00]
Amanda Doyle
Yeah, yeah.
- [43:01]
Abby Wambach
When I'm out of, like, the fight or flight, whatever it is that brings the wave brings. It's then looking back and really taking time to figure out what is my body trying to tell me? Why am I disgusted by that and that and that? Why am I feeling this deep sadness about? And what can I do differently? What is my anger trying to signal? That that's not good for me. I think that's kind of the sensitivity of the car, too. It's like, what's the point if you're not turning the wheel based on the signals you're getting?
- [43:38]
Glennon Doyle
And I think it's important. You know, I think that you two are really interesting, like, examples in this, because I think that Glennon, especially recently, you've been really doing quite a bit of work on processing emotions and feeling them in your body. You've lived a lot of your life head up, and you've thought through your problems a lot. And one of the most beautiful things that I've noticed that you've put in your daily life is whenever we have a discussion about pretty much anything now, you actually say out loud, I don't know if this is something that you're doing intentionally, but it's something I'm noticing. You say, I'm feeling that in my body, and you'll feel it somewhere specific, or you'll attach an emotion to it. And I think that that is, like, such a Good kind of way to begin. And maybe it's like varsity level. I don't know. I'm not a psychologist. But what it actually does for me in a conversation is it actually allows me to check in with myself in my own body so that I'm not just in my headspace trying to solve the problem. We in our culture and our society, there's all these nails that need to be hammered down, all these problems that need to be solved, but so much stuff that happens in a day, we are conditioned not to even process this shit. We are conditioned to just keep moving forward, keep trucking along and giving yourself the moment. Or even in a conversation, to just be like, oh, God, I feel that in my chest, or I feel that in my gut, or I feel that in my heart, whatever it might be. And what I've noticed about you and whatever kind of way you're processing through this is you've become more curious and consciously curious. And I don't know how to say this without sounding weird, but, like, less certain. There's an uncertainty around it. And I think that that also is part of what makes people scared about processing emotion, because there is no certainty. It's like, well, I think I feel sad, or I think I feel angry, and then what do I do with it? Or how do I solve the problem? Because it's a longer thing. Right. It's not just about the awareness, though, that that's a really great step. It's not just allowing it, letting to go through you. It's also like you said, Glenn, and trying to, like, capture the why of it all. And is it a story I've told myself? Am I just riling myself up over here because some sort of conditioned belief that I have had since I was 4 years old? How old is this emotion?
- [46:16]
Abby Wambach
Yeah.
- [46:16]
Glennon Doyle
Does this track way back? Is this even something that I actually still believe in my 44 year old body now? Or is this just like 7 year old? I mean, I had a tantrum the other day, a literal physical in my body tantrum. And it is a young part. It is a young part of me. And Glennon can feel it. And I'm like, embarrassed about it and.
- [46:43]
Amanda Doyle
Trying to, like, be embarrassing.
- [46:44]
Glennon Doyle
Yeah. So I just. I love this question, Kasey, because it's not one size fits all. Who knows what will work best for you? We're not like therapists here, but I just feel really proud of both of you two because I know how difficult it is for you or it has been to just want to actually get into the emotion of your lives.
- [47:05]
Abby Wambach
Yeah.
- [47:06]
Glennon Doyle
And in your body.
- [47:06]
Abby Wambach
Good stuff. We have a very exciting trip coming up.
- [47:18]
Glennon Doyle
Oh, I can't wait.
- [47:19]
Abby Wambach
Pod Squad. We are going to stay in Park City in a big house with all of the people who we worked with to produce Andrew Gibson's documentary, which is called Come See Me in the Good Light. Okay. So we've been working on this documentary all year, and it's going to Sundance. Yay. Yay. And we all wanted to stay together. And so Abby and I found this big, beautiful house that all the. I mean, I think it's pretty much all lesbians. Mostly all lesbians. It's gonna be a very gay, cozy house. We all want to have our own spaces, but we all wanna feel connected.
- [47:54]
Glennon Doyle
Yeah.
- [47:55]
Abby Wambach
So we went with Airbnb. If you're traveling with family or friends this winter, like we are, consider an Airbnb. Those extra rooms and a full kitchen make all the difference. And if you're going solo, you can still find a place that feels like your own little San no matter where you are. So next time you're planning a winter getaway, give Airbnb a try. Trust me, it's an experience you won't regret.
- [48:17]
Amanda Doyle
You can save every day by shopping at Whole Foods Market. Seriously, don't just go for their big sales. Walk the store and see the savings for yourself. In the seafood department, look for the yellow low price sign on Whole Foods Market. Responsibly farmed salmon. This fish is perfect for the grill. Buttery, fatty, yet lean. Nice thick filets. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it, and I know I can get it at a great price. There are so many ways to save at Whole Foods Market now, you know, for the people, like, that seems like a fucking lot, a lot of work. And thinking about it and feeling it, what I think I'm figuring out is that it's a lot of work either way. The energy that it takes to not let your emotions, to not let the wave come, you're putting your body up and trying to stop the wave from coming takes at least as much energy as it takes to actually let it happen. So you're using that energy anyway.
- [49:26]
Abby Wambach
Yes.
- [49:27]
Amanda Doyle
So you might as well let it create more room in your life.
- [49:32]
Glennon Doyle
I actually have no basis of reality and what I'm about to say, but what I believe to be true is I think it's actually way more detrimental to not process emotion. And I actually.
- [49:43]
Amanda Doyle
Oh, it's way more detrimental.
- [49:44]
Glennon Doyle
I'm just.
- [49:45]
Abby Wambach
For sure.
- [49:45]
Amanda Doyle
I'm just saying the energetic output I.
- [49:47]
Glennon Doyle
Know, but I also think that it shortens a person's life. I have no research or science, but if you are not processing your emotions, I believe that we are doing real harm and real damage to our physical beings.
- [50:00]
Abby Wambach
Yeah, I mean, that's what the whole. When anyone says that's a defense mechanism, all that means, a simple way of understanding what that means is that is a way a person has learned to not feel their feelings. And so when you're in relationship with someone who doesn't feel their feelings, doesn't process, you're in relation with a group of defense mechanisms. That's it. You're not in relation with the person. The person is not present. So when I am in an argument with you or a conversation and I say, okay, I know what you're talking about, I'm like, okay, I'm going to stay embodied. I'm going to stay in my body. What I'm doing is I'm stopping myself from jumping into my mind and activating a million stories about this is what this means. This is what always happens. Because that's my defense mechanism, is to go to my mind. And so I'm avoiding that. I am not activating story, because when we activate story, this vicious loop happens between our emotions and our story, and we don't even know what's real anymore because our story is intensifying the wave.
- [51:06]
Glennon Doyle
That's right.
- [51:07]
Abby Wambach
The wave then is hijacked.
- [51:09]
Glennon Doyle
Yep.
- [51:09]
Abby Wambach
And you actually don't have to hijack your wave with story. That's why. Where do you feel it? In my chest. Let's stay in our body. So then when I'm staying in my body, I am actually having a conversation with you, my wife. I am not in conversation with my own mind. You're gone. I'm not even with you when I do that.
- [51:28]
Glennon Doyle
Yeah, I know. And I think that it's really. It has been maybe one of the most profound things, and we've said this on this podcast, that, like, sometimes when we get into an argument or I'm telling you that my feelings are hurt, I've never felt until recently that you actually cared. Honestly. We just had a big conversation the other night, and it was. I'm not kidding. It was literally one of the first times that I actually think you cared. And I'm like an anxious, attached person. So the not caring is really hard for me to not just get over, but to be like, are we okay? Is it really okay? We had a big conversation, and it was the first time that I was like, oh, no, I think that we're really okay. And that was huge. That was really huge. Not that I thought we were, like, getting a divorce, but, like, I didn't have any adverse secondary questions and wonderings about what her experience was. I knew it. I could feel it.
- [52:29]
Amanda Doyle
Yeah. And that's so interesting because, Glenn, you said defense mechanisms are trying to avoid our feelings. I think defense mechanisms are survival strategies.
- [52:39]
Abby Wambach
Yeah.
- [52:39]
Amanda Doyle
And a lot of people's survival strategies are don't feel your emotions.
- [52:44]
Glennon Doyle
Right, Right.
- [52:45]
Amanda Doyle
And then you start to get to the sadness of how sad it is that your survival depended on not feeling your emotions. And so then when you can actually feel them and bring them to your relationship. Oh, my God. How beautiful and redemptive is that to be able to do in your relationship?
- [53:05]
Glennon Doyle
So good?
- [53:06]
Abby Wambach
It's just the whole goal changes. Like, I thought the goal was to work it out. The goal is to fix it. The goal is to, like, make your columns figure it out who's right where. We're moving on from here. It used to drive Abby crazy. I'd always say, where are we moving on from here? Just tell me, what have we learned?
- [53:20]
Glennon Doyle
And we will never come back to this thing again. We will.
- [53:23]
Abby Wambach
No, I'm not talking about this again.
- [53:25]
Glennon Doyle
Yeah.
- [53:25]
Abby Wambach
All right. Write it down. Let's sign it. What have we decided? But, like, I'm understanding now that that's not it at all. It's just like, oh, we're just supposed to be messy and, like, present with each other, and that's all that comes out of this. And it actually then isn't right. But when that's the only goal, all of this magic comes out of it. So anyway, Casey, in short, find a couple processing things, music, walks, whatever it is, and then write down your noticings. I think that's what processing means. Okay, here's what we've been doing. Pod Squad. The reason why this episode was such a great, great joy to me is because anyone who's been listening for long enough knows that I am in a process of learning that unsolicited advice is, in fact, criticism. Okay, so if you've listened, you know that I. Basically, my entire mind used to be made of metaphorical file folders. One was for each kid, one was for each person in my family. One was for the world. I had file folders full of ideas of how everyone should live their lives and how they'd be happier and how. What they should do, and just waited around for people to ask me to retrieve their file. And then, of course, when no one ever did ever. Not one time. I just assumed that they didn't know to ask. And so then I would just pull out their file at any given time and lovingly, or so I thought. But it turns out this is not the most connective strategy for relations. So I am working on it in my various ways, one being 12 step meetings. It's a good time. But I have found a loophole, and that is that. So, as Megan Fowley says, I am allowed to be a source of water. I am like a pond, a lake in the wilderness. If people come to the pond for water, I am allowed to give them water. What I am not allowed to do is chase them down with buckets of water. I'm not allowed to. I have to stay in the source of the lake. But POD Squad, that means if you want to come visit my lake, if you have your problem, a challenge, if you're stuck somewhere in your life, in your relationship, in your family, in your work, if you have a big problem that you want some advice about, if you have a little problem, like you don't know what to name your dog, or you don't know what sofa to pick or something that's light, if you bring it to me, I am allowed to respond to you. And I will if you write me an email. Okay. If you write to the pod squad, if you write to the podcast@wcdhtpodmail.com and you write me your problem with the subject line, solicited advice, not unsolicited solicited advice.
- [56:35]
Amanda Doyle
Do you have to show these receipts to your 12 step program so they know? Look, it says solicited right here.
- [56:41]
Abby Wambach
Oh, no. I didn't run this by anyone in my 12 step program. They would not be allowing me to.
- [56:44]
Amanda Doyle
I hope they write in.
- [56:46]
Abby Wambach
Yeah.
- [56:46]
Glennon Doyle
Yeah, that's good.
- [56:47]
Abby Wambach
So write an email. Then I can read it, think about your problem, and then give you some advice on the pod. Or if you're more of a talker than a writer, you can call in the number 747-200-5307. And please, only one minute, y'all. You can only leave a message that is one minute long or we can't use it and you have to use the word advice in it so we know that it's for this purpose. Okay. I just think this would be great fun.
- [57:25]
Amanda Doyle
Maybe we'll bring one of these horses with their water. I feel like that pond thing was your.
- [57:31]
Glennon Doyle
With their thirst.
- [57:32]
Amanda Doyle
With their thirst, maybe they could come on the podcast.
- [57:35]
Glennon Doyle
I want the pod squatters to be people that we talk to, like, they're our guests.
- [57:40]
Abby Wambach
Okay.
- [57:41]
Glennon Doyle
Irl in real life, I want this.
- [57:43]
Abby Wambach
Oh, that would be so.
- [57:44]
Glennon Doyle
I want this so bad, you guys. Nobody cares that I played soccer anymore. The deal is I'm a podcaster now, and I need a little bit of, like, I don't know.
- [57:53]
Amanda Doyle
What you're hearing is Abby's sick of us.
- [57:55]
Abby Wambach
Yes.
- [57:55]
Amanda Doyle
No one recognizes her anymore. She's sick of talking to us. Just help a sister out.
- [58:00]
Abby Wambach
Help us help you.
- [58:01]
Glennon Doyle
Do you want to come on the pod? Is what we're asking.
- [58:04]
Abby Wambach
Okay. I love that idea.
- [58:05]
Glennon Doyle
Does the pod squatter want to come on the pod, but you have to.
- [58:07]
Amanda Doyle
Have a problem or else.
- [58:09]
Abby Wambach
Yeah.
- [58:09]
Amanda Doyle
And it won't let you on.
- [58:10]
Abby Wambach
That's right. That's right.
- [58:11]
Glennon Doyle
Or I think it would be kind of cool if one of the pod squatters wanted to come on and talk about an episode that changed their life in some way that they've, like, put into practice some things that we've been talking about. I mean, my goodness. My shadow side. Anybody else working on their shadow side? I would like some freaking pod squatters who are on my side here. We could talk about it.
- [58:32]
Amanda Doyle
It's like Liz Gilbert's Eat Pray Love made me do it, but we can do hard things. Made me do it.
- [58:37]
Abby Wambach
Yes. Oh, yeah. And Liz won't care if we steal it from her because she's our bestie. So let's just steal it from Liz. Let's just actually call it Eat Pray Love Made Me Do It.
- [58:44]
Amanda Doyle
Yeah, exactly. No, no, no. Welcome to the new podcast called Eat Pray Love Made Me Do It.
- [58:48]
Glennon Doyle
Yeah.
- [58:48]
Amanda Doyle
With Glennon Doyle, the never ever was a soccer player, Abby Wambach.
- [58:53]
Abby Wambach
Okay, so we're going to end here, but I'm just going to say then, in sum, let's process this. If you have a problem you want me to help you solve or any combination of us to help you solve, you're going to write to us an email with the subject line, solicited advice. Okay. And I actually love your idea. If you are someone who one of these episodes made you think about something differently, try something differently, do something different in a relationship or in work or there's some episode that sparked something cool that you want to tell us about and maybe even come on the pod to talk about.
- [59:31]
Glennon Doyle
Yes.
- [59:32]
Abby Wambach
Okay.
- [59:33]
Amanda Doyle
Let's do an email for that, too. And the subject can be made me do it.
- [59:36]
Abby Wambach
Made me do it.
- [59:37]
Glennon Doyle
Made me do it. Okay, you guys, I'm feeling an emotion of joy, and I'm feeling an emotion of joy. Big joy in my body.
- [59:47]
Abby Wambach
All right, POD Squad, we love you so much and we will see you next time and we will see you in the inbox and on the voicemails. All right, Bye Bye. If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us if you'd be willing to take 30 seconds to do these three things. First, can you please follow or subscribe to We Can Do Hard Things? Following the POD helps you because you'll never miss an episode and it helps us because you'll never miss an episode. To do this, just go to the We Can Do Hard Things show page on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you listen to podcasts and then just tap the plus sign in the upper right hand corner or click on Follow. This is the most important thing for the pod. While you're there, if you'd be willing to give us a five star star rating and review and share an episode you loved with a friend, we would be so grateful. We appreciate you very much. We Can Do Hard Things is created and hosted by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach and Amanda Doyle in partnership with Odyssey. Our Executive producer is Jenna Wise Berman and the show is produced by Lauren Legrasso, Allison Schott, Dina Kleiner and Bill Schultz, SA.