How to Get More Joy with Martha Beck (Best Of)

Summary

Podcast Summary: "How to Get More Joy with Martha Beck (Best Of)"

In this compelling episode of "We Can Do Hard Things", host Glennon Doyle, alongside her wife Abby Wambach and sister Amanda Doyle, delves deep into the pursuit of joy and authenticity with renowned life coach and author Martha Beck. Released on June 7, 2025, this episode tackles profound themes such as selfishness, trauma, decision-making, and personal integrity, offering listeners actionable insights to navigate life's complexities with greater ease and joy.

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1. Understanding Selfishness and Self-Care

Listener Anna initiates the conversation by questioning the nature of selfishness, especially in the context of prioritizing one's needs over others'. Anna shares her journey of sobriety and the challenges of distinguishing between healthy self-care and perceived selfishness.

Martha Beck responds by redefining selfishness as a consequence of being "starved of self." She explains that true selfishness stems from a lack of self-awareness and self-nourishment, leading individuals to act out of desperation rather than genuine self-interest.

Martha Beck [05:19]: "If you are able to be yourself, you don't think about it at all. You're breathing freely."

Key Insights:

• Prioritize self-care to restore and understand your true self.
• Selfishness often masks a deeper need for self-nourishment.
• Regular self-care activities, like weekly massages, can replenish your energy for others.

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2. Trauma and Reconnecting with Your Authentic Self

Listener Kathy shares her traumatic experiences, including battling cancer and dealing with familial challenges, and how these events have eroded her trust in her inner knowing.

Martha Beck emphasizes that trauma disrupts our innate sense of safety and trust in ourselves. She recounts her personal experience of undergoing emergency surgery without anesthesia, highlighting how trauma can alter one's perception of the world but also how it can lead to profound personal transformation.

Martha Beck [19:29]: "All babies are born knowing who they are and knowing what they want."

Key Insights:

• Trauma shifts the internal narrative from safety to fear.
• Rebuilding trust starts by finding moments of safety within traumatic memories.
• Healing involves recognizing and nurturing the part of you that knows safety and peace.

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3. Navigating the Decision to Have Children Amidst Societal Pressures

Listener Shannon grapples with the anxiety surrounding the decision to have children, torn between personal desires and societal expectations.

Martha Beck introduces a powerful metaphor comparing decision-making to standing on a high dive. She advises embracing one's true longing despite fears, emphasizing that genuine desires should guide decisions over societal pressures.

Martha Beck [27:59]: "If your fear and your longing conflict, choose your longing, no matter what anybody else says."

Key Insights:

• Distinguish between fear-induced doubts and genuine desires.
• Let your true longings guide your decisions, irrespective of external expectations.
• Trusting your inner voice leads to more authentic and fulfilling life choices.

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4. Mastering Decision-Making and Trusting Your Inner Knowing

Listener Carrie Ann expresses difficulty in making decisions, often feeling paralyzed by overthinking and fearing regret.

Martha Beck advises integrating the body’s responses with cognitive processes to make decisions. She suggests that true knowing is when the heart, mind, body, and soul align, creating a sense of peace and clarity.

Martha Beck [35:33]: "What feels like peace, what feels like calm, what feels warm and free."

Key Insights:

• Recognize the difference between fleeting feelings and true inner knowing.
• Allow your body to guide you towards decisions that feel genuinely peaceful and freeing.
• Alignment of heart, mind, body, and soul signifies a true and informed choice.

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5. Overcoming Job Dissatisfaction and Trusting Your Path

Listener Morgan, a recent college graduate, shares her dissatisfaction with her dream job and her uncertainty about whether to persevere or pivot.

Martha Beck emphasizes the importance of trusting one's inner compass and the signs that guide personal fulfillment. She encourages listeners to follow their true desires rather than conforming to external expectations.

Martha Beck [38:09]: "You need to be more like Lennon and Abby and Amanda and less like the people at your job."

Key Insights:

• Trust your inner knowing when assessing job satisfaction.
• Prioritize personal fulfillment over societal or external markers of success.
• Recognize that leaving a dissatisfying job is a step towards honoring your true self.

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6. Supporting Children in Maintaining Their Authenticity

Amanda Doyle addresses the broader topic of nurturing authenticity in children, ensuring they remain true to themselves despite societal conditioning.

Martha Beck advises parents to focus on their children's feelings and experiences, avoiding gaslighting and fostering an environment where children feel safe to express their true selves.

Martha Beck [46:08]: "Teach your children that it is okay not to know..."

Key Insights:

• Encourage children to express their feelings and trust their instincts.
• Avoid dismissing or minimizing their experiences to maintain their trust in their own senses.
• Foster environments where truth and authenticity are valued over appearances.

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7. Listener Messages and Community Support

Throughout the episode, listeners like Jamie express gratitude for the podcast's support during challenging times, highlighting the impact of communal empathy and shared experiences.

Jamie [51:04]: "Every day is just such a slog. I listen to your show and it just feels like a warm hug."

Key Insights:

• The power of community and shared experiences in overcoming personal hardships.
• Providing and receiving support can significantly bolster resilience and emotional well-being.

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Conclusion: Embracing Authenticity and Joy

This episode masterfully interweaves personal stories, listener questions, and Martha Beck’s profound wisdom to guide listeners towards a life filled with authenticity and joy. By addressing the complexities of selfishness, trauma, decision-making, and parenting, the hosts provide a roadmap for navigating life's challenges with courage and integrity.

Takeaways:

• Prioritize Yourself: Understanding and nourishing your true self is essential for genuine connections and fulfillment.
• Heal from Trauma: Confronting and processing trauma can lead to profound personal growth and trust in oneself.
• Trust Your Inner Voice: Making decisions aligned with your true desires leads to a more authentic and joyful life.
• Support Authenticity in Others: Encouraging authenticity in children and loved ones fosters a supportive and honest community.

By embracing these principles, listeners are empowered to face life's hard things with resilience and an unwavering commitment to living their most authentic lives.

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Notable Quotes:

• Martha Beck [05:19]: "If you are able to be yourself, you don't think about it at all. You're breathing freely."
• Martha Beck [27:59]: "If your fear and your longing conflict, choose your longing, no matter what anybody else says."
• Martha Beck [35:33]: "What feels like peace, what feels like calm, what feels warm and free."

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Join the Conversation: To delve deeper into these topics and more, tune into "We Can Do Hard Things" on your preferred podcast platform. Embrace the journey towards a more authentic and joyful life with Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, Amanda Doyle, and Martha Beck.

Transcript

[Glennon Doyle]

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[Abby Wambach]

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[Amanda Doyle]

Hello Love Bugs. I don't know why I just called you Love Bugs actually, but I'm not gonna redo it. That's what I call my family. And so today you are Love Bugs. Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. We are super psyched about today because the response to the last episode was so huge because we were with Ms. Martha Beck who is reminding us about how to return to our wild and live with a little more integrity. Just meaning integrated. So our outer lives and our inner selves are the same damn thing for once in our lives. And because acting is so exhausting and so we're trying to figure out how to just be the parts of untamed that people responded to the most, I think, were this idea that there is a part of us that knows how to live and what we were meant for, but that we get that part drowned out by the expectations of our culture and by family and by religion and by all of these forces that tame us into forgetting our wild. And so, so much of my life was transformed when I kind of figured out how to get back to that knowing. And I know that's true, but I'm not always amazing at describing how to do it perfectly. So we brought in the human who knows how to describe how to get back to our knowing. And her name is Martha Beck. Martha is back. Hello, Martha.

[Martha Beck]

Hello, love bug.

[Amanda Doyle]

Thank you. Thanks for that. I needed that. Do you mind, Martha, if we just jump into these questions? Because they're more beautiful and fascinating and brilliant than you can imagine. This pod squad that we do life with just always brings the ringers. So let's just jump in. Is that okay?

[Martha Beck]

I'll love it.

[Amanda Doyle]

Okay, let's do it.

[Listener]

My name is Anna, and I am wondering about whether or not you think selfishness is real. And by that I mean as someone who has recently made the decision to stop drinking and who is really working on prioritizing myself and learning how to get in touch with what it is that I really like to do and how I like to spend my time, I've come up against a lot of moments of not knowing when it's okay to just do what I want to do, which sometimes means not leaving the apartment for several days and times when I should prioritize other people's feelings and what they want me to do. I guess I'm just wondering, what do you think about the word selfish? When is it important to prioritize other people's needs, wants, and feelings? And when is it okay to prioritize yours?

[Martha Beck]

All right, so selfishness is definitely a thing. And it happens when someone is starved of self. So if somebody holds a pillow over your face, you are thinking only about breath. But if you're able to breathe freely, you don't think about it at all. If you are able to be yourself, you don't think about it at all. So there are people who are very selfish, and they're mean and awful, and you can be guaranteed that that person's self is being stifled to the point where they cannot Think about anything else and they can be really toxic, but it's always because they've been robbed of their true selves. So a lot of the time, like when you drink, it's probably partly because you've lost yourself and you need to anesthetize the pain because the separation from self is unbearable. So what I would say is first thing is restore your understanding of self by pouring as much nourishment into your true self as possible. And notice this when you give yourself something, when you prioritize yourself like this sounds so simple and it's very sort of standard magazine things, but I get a massage once a week. I stopped during the pandemic for a while, then I started again. It was amazing how much more energy I had for others when I knew that I got that for myself. So that was something myself needed to be happy. And the moment I prioritize self, what happens is, is that you're breathing freely now. And instead of saying, how do I get my breath back? How do I get myself back? You see other people for the first time and you go, oh, I want to interact. I want to give things to them is joyful. So coming out of drinking and stuff, it probably means you were already in a life where you were starved of self. So I would say you are your first priority. Like 90% of your energy should go to just understanding who you are and what it takes for you to be happy. And you will have to go and do things for your real life. But, like, you're gonna have to go through a recovery period of self and you'll notice that you'll feel a little more energetic toward others every time you give yourself something it genuinely needs. When you go overboard and start grabbing for things, it won't feel good to yourself because that's not the true nature of you. You are made of love. So to give you an example of how to sort of live through the adjustment period, think about driving in a place where you've got your Google map on your car, but you've never been to the place, right? So you want to sort of look at the surroundings, you want to look at the traffic, you want to see where you're going. But rather than admiring the view, your eyes are flicking down to the Google map over and over and over. Let's say it's a really intricate route. You're going to your internal navigation system over and over and over. And you notice what you're moving through. But most of your attention has to be, where does my self want to Go now. Like, what feels warm, free and joyful now. Okay, that's your navigation system, and it's internal. So 99% of your attention should be internal until you get to know the routes. Once you've traveled with the. And the GPS has told you which way to go, you're going to start saying, oh, I know that this, that building, this. This is where that river is. And you can start just completely taking your attention off the navigation system because you've internalized it. That's when your entire life will be selfless. You will go from feeling completely selfish to being completely self less. So first, get your breath back. And always navigate by checking inside first. Holy shit, baby.

[Amanda Doyle]

You were having a big reaction to that one, huh?

[Glennon Doyle]

Yep.

[Amanda Doyle]

The idea of selfishness, being starved of self and desperately needing it. That's why people who live as martyrs are always the most bitter and angry. Yeah.

[Martha Beck]

And superstars. I never experienced Abby as bitter or angry at all. But I've worked with professional athletes who. I mean, talk about not having a self. Everybody thinks that you're up on a pedestal and you should feel great, but. But in fact, you are a commodity. Bought, sold, traded. It is. I mean, tell me where I'm wrong, Abby, but it's a rough life.

[Glennon Doyle]

Listen, it's why I became an addict at the end of my career, because it felt. And I say this now, I mean, all of this is making perfect sense. I say I was so selfish. It was the only way I could be in that life.

[Martha Beck]

Yeah.

[Glennon Doyle]

Everything I thought about was myself. And the fact that you just. You just saved me a lot of money in therapy. Thank you for that. I mean, I thought that there was something. I thought that that was only my experience, but it was proof that my spirit probably wasn't doing what I wanted to be doing.

[Martha Beck]

Yeah. You weren't free at all.

[Glennon Doyle]

I was not free at all.

[Amanda Doyle]

And it's the idea of, you know, we, especially women, I think we just think that we can get to ourselves at the end of the list. Like, if we do everything for everyone else, then we'll put ourselves at the end and check that box. But that means that the energy with which we're doing things for other people is actually angry energy. Yeah.

[Martha Beck]

If at all. Eventually it will. It will simply run out. Like, that is not the way the system's supposed to work. So I always. I. I met one therapist who said all of our energy should be 75% focused inward all the time, up to 100% when we're alone. But even if you're in a room with people who desperately need you. And this is a woman who worked during. She worked on hospital wards where there were a lot of really needy people. And she said if more than 75% of my attention got outside my body, I would burn out like that. So just notice the moment you feel burnout. Focus on your internal navigation. Go. Okay, what do I need now? I need to go outside. I need to breathe the fresh air. I need to not talk to that person. I need to call that person.

[Abby Wambach]

Is this selfishness the same concept that you describe in the book of the self sabotage? Like, are they two sides of the same coin? As in, like, if you're not. Like, that egg scene blew my mind. Like, is it. If you're not getting your needs met, it's going to come out.

[Martha Beck]

If you're not free to follow your nature, you will start to do dysfunctional things to sabotage the program that is taking you out of your nature. So the egg story was that I. I'm not supposed to eat eggs. My system doesn't handle them well. And one day I was actually staying at Liz Gilbert's apartment in Manhattan, and I. I cleaned up the apartment. I took everything to the laundromat, cleaned it when. Then I went to a diner and sat down and just ordered these eggs and just hoover them, like. And it's not hard for me to resist eggs. They're not like. And I'm like, why am I doing this? And I, I went through it and it was that I. I gone to the laundromat. I came back in, it was hot outside, and there was this feeling of, oh, I really wish I could just sit down in the cool and rest for 10 minutes. And then I thought, no, when the going gets hard, the tough get going. I've got to keep working. Which was stupid. It would have been 10 minutes of giving my body the rest it needed. But carrying on and never stopping is one of my consensus cultural values. So I did that. And at that moment, I began to. To skid off the rails. And by the time I got to the. The diner, I don't even love eggs or anything. It was just like, screw you, world. I'm gonna break the rules. Watch me eat these eggs. That'll show you. You know? And it just made me sick, though.

[Abby Wambach]

God, it's so true. It's the same reason why we all, like, scroll for 14 hours a night, even though we desperately need to go to sleep, because we're not giving ourselves the rest in other ways. Yeah.

[Amanda Doyle]

Does self Denial for no reason create self sabotage.

[Martha Beck]

Yes, Absolutely. In fact, it's not self sabotage. It's true. Your true nature. Trying to trick the system into letting you be free.

[Abby Wambach]

Yes.

[Martha Beck]

It's the truth. Self sabotage is the truth. Trying to get you out of the cultural matrix that has got. Has taken your freedom.

[Amanda Doyle]

So it's like, I'm gonna drink this whole bottle of wine because I don't want to be in so much pain from doing all this shit in my sober day that I know I shouldn't be doing because it hurts my feelings. So.

[Martha Beck]

Exactly. I'm gonna do what I absolutely loathe all day long because I am a good person. And then I'm going to drink six bottles of Jack Daniels because scre. And then. And the next day you're hospitalized and things aren't going well. And it just. It. But you can't. You cannot outfox your true nature. It will be the one. It'll be the last person standing. It will kill you if necessary to get you out of the wrong life. I've seen that happen. So maybe wait. Don't wait till it kills you. Just start doing what you want right now.

[Amanda Doyle]

You know that feeling when you're traveling and you stumble into a neighborhood cafe and suddenly feel like you're actually part of the place, not just visiting? That's why I love staying in Airbnbs. It's not just a place to sleep. It's how I get closer to the real version of wherever I'm going. When I travel, I want to feel like an insider, not a tourist. I want local. I want authentic. I want the side streets, not souvenir shops. And the experiences, that's where the magic happens. Whether it's a historic walking tour, a cooking class with a local chef, or a yoga session in a secret garden, you get to meet people, try something new, and actually connect with a place.

[Glennon Doyle]

Speaking of, we're hosting an Airbnb Original experience at the Angel City FC match on Saturday, June 14th at BMO Stadium. You'll get insider access, connect with other fans and watch with me and Glennon to and one of us knows the game inside and out. It's gonna be something really special. Check out our experience and [e-mail] experiences.

[Abby Wambach]

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[Amanda Doyle]

All right, let's hear from Kathy.

[Listener]

Hi, Glennon and sister. My name is Kathy. I have been through a lot of traumatic events in my adult life. I'm a cancer survivor. I had cancer when I was 29. I had infidelity in my marriage. I have neuro atypical children. I'm a musician and right before my album came out, both of my eardrums ruptured and I haven't been able to promote it the way that I wanted to. Had a lot of traumatic things happening. And I used to have a very intricate knowing like I could sense when things were off. I could sense when people were lying to me. I could sense when energy shifted in a room. And now I don't trust that part of me, that inner Knowing so much because fear and trauma based fear, my knowing often feel the same. And so I was just wondering if you had some kind of a trick or a way of deciphering between what is your knowing that you should listen to and what is fear that you just need to breathe through and heal through. Thank you so much.

[Amanda Doyle]

I'm with Kathy. What's trauma? What's our knowing? How does our trauma affect our nature?

[Martha Beck]

Okay, so there are only two things that will take you off your true nature. Because all babies are born knowing who they are and knowing what they want. And we abandon what we know about ourselves when we are pressured to do things by sort of socialization. People are nice to us when we smile and they don't like it when we cry. And then the other thing is trauma. And that can happen in. You can just fall off a cliff. Nobody needs to be involved, but. And it's very, very traumatizing. And it can change the way you go. The reason that this happens is that humans have the ability to imagine future things. And other animals don't have as much imagination. So they don't, they don't lose themselves because of trauma. They're just like, oh my God, I fell off a trip off a cliff that sucked. But a human can start to think things like, the whole world is unsafe. Like, here comes one trauma, another trauma, another trauma. Nothing is safe. So then you tell yourself that message, nothing is safe. And that actually is not true to the deepest part of you. To the deepest part of you. And I've worked with many, many people and I've had a lot of trauma in my early life and really, really warped my personality because of trauma. And I've gotten through it to the other side and what happens. I remember once, for example, I had to have surgery without anesthesia. Once, it was an emergency surgery and they gave me a local. I am telling you in tv, when people don't scream when that stuff happens, it's not real. There is literally no way you can not scream. It was one of the most traumatic events of my life and it left me very shaken. Every trauma makes you think the whole world is a dangerous place and after all, you're going to die. We know that other animals don't. So the world can get very, very dark. And psychologists have found that people get this image of the world as dark, inert and meaningless. And it's a choice that it affects the brain a certain way. And once you're there, everything frightens you. And what this does is it takes away your Ability to trust the truth inside you, so all you feel is the fear. So I was dealing with this surgery thing, and I went to see someone who said, okay, we're going to go into this, and you're going to tell me why you were safe during this experience. And I was like, I wasn't safe. It was excruciating pain. And they went, no, no, no, go in. So I went into the experience, and I was shaking and I was sweating, and they said, no. What's the worst part? What's the worst part? And I realized that the pain itself was not as bad as hearing the surgeon pick up an instrument. It was me anticipating what was coming, and it was my consciousness that was frightened. If I had been unconscious, my body would have been fine with being cut up, right? So what I realized from that is, oh, it's my consciousness expecting to be hurt that is making me so completely off track. And the whole world was dangerous. I mean, and when you think the world is dangerous and you run from everything and you run right into brick walls, I mean, you do things that put you in danger because you're off your trust scale. Once I realized that it was my mind that was causing that suffering and not the knife as much, I slipped into this place where I thought, oh, what an incredible experience. Here was this surgeon who was willing to operate on me while I was screwed, screaming. And he was so skilled and so brave that he did it without anesthesia. And I was so lovingly cared for by the people in that room when I was at my absolute, the rock bottom of suffering. And suddenly the whole thing transformed inside me into the experience of the world being. And this is the same research says that you go from the world being dark, inert, and meaningless, and then there's a flip. And the world, as you get to the other side of your trauma, is safe, enticing, and alive. So right in the middle of that, of processing that trauma, everything in my world flipped. And I lost my fear of physical pain, and I lost my fear of death. And, I mean, because of the trauma I'd gone through. And suddenly I thought, if I can survive that, then the world is safe for me. And it became this. I started to regain trust. And I would just say, the world is safe, enticing and alive. And then I would look around for the evidence of that, and I could always find it. But always. And little by little, I built back my trust in the world. So that's what I would ask you to do, is go into the trauma, find the place Inside the trauma, where you were actually okay. And start building on the part of you that knew you were okay. And you will find it. I promise you. You will find it.

[Amanda Doyle]

Start building on the part of you that knew you were okay. That's so good. Okay, let's move. Does anyone. You're good. Everyone's good. Okay, let's move on to Shannon and Martha. I just want to say, if people are digging. One of the things I respect about your book so much is that you're always telling people, like, if it's a very serious trauma, we get help when we explore these things with someone who.

[Martha Beck]

Yeah, I did that with a therapist.

[Amanda Doyle]

Right, right. With.

[Martha Beck]

I actually have one thing I want to say about that. For those very people. And I know what it's like to not be able to find the part that was okay. So here's an exercise I put in my book that I'd really like you to try right now. Because what I was giving you was a big picture. But now here's what I want you to do. Wherever you are, see if you can get relaxed in a relaxed physical position. And as you breathe in, think I can allow everything in the universe to be the way it is right now. Okay. So I'm okay breathing in. All right. Now, as I breathe out, I'm going to drop my resistance to reality being as it is right now, not in five seconds now. So you breathe in, and you allow things to be as they are right now. You breathe out, and you stop resisting. You breathe in and you breathe out, and you surrender and allow and surrender and allow. And then this moment becomes the haven that is okay. Just this moment. And from there, you'll start to feel your way into the trauma, with help from a skilled counselor. And you'll find that moment is always there. It's always there. It will always be there. So use it.

[Amanda Doyle]

It's about the starting place. So you're saying it's too much to go back and find the okayness in the trauma. You can start right now.

[Martha Beck]

So I really don't want to sound fast and like, oh, it's so easy. Just find the happiness. Turn your frown upside down. I mean, that is pure, unfiltered bullshit. But right now, you're breathing in, breathing out, and the universe is as it is, and it's okay. In every moment of your life, including the moment of your death, will be that way.

[Glennon Doyle]

Yes.

[Amanda Doyle]

Retweet and amen. Okay, let's go to Shannon.

[Listener]

Hi, Glennon and Amanda. I'm Shannon. I'm 32, and I'm struggling with the decision to have kids. My whole life I assumed I would have kids, but I never really thought about it until I got married three years ago. When faced with the reality of what that decision would mean, my anxiety came raging in full force. Panic attacks and all. And what I can't figure out is, do I truly not want to have children? Or is it just my anxiety telling me it will be too scary and too hard? And of course, these thoughts are alongside the pressure I feel from society and family and friends that having a family is the right thing to do. Luckily, none of that pressure is from my partner who is in angel on Earth. But I guess my question for you is, how do you find and trust your knowing when there are so many other voices in your head? Or how do I make the right decision based on my own truth and not just based out of fear? Thanks.

[Martha Beck]

Here's what I always tell people. If you're afraid to do something, but you also really want it, imagine standing on a. On a high board over a pool on a very hot day. And the water is sparkling and blue, but it's way down there. And it's scary to jump, but you really want to be in that water. So there's this conflict between the longing to be cool and the fear of the fall. Now imagine that you're on the same high dive, same hot day, but what you're looking down at is a pool of toxic sludge. Like it stinks. You can smell it from where you are, so you don't want the fall. And you also are just revolted by the whole idea of being down there. If your fear and your longing conflict, choose your longing, no matter what anybody else says. If you long for a life of travel, free from children, where you can do anything you want, go with that, no matter what pressures are placed on you. But if you long to have children and then something comes up and says, but I can't do it well enough. I'm not good enough. That's social voices coming in and conflicting with your heart. So always go with your longing, no matter how frightened you are. And you'll always find the right path.

[Amanda Doyle]

Oh, I love that. Cause I didn't actually hear any longing in Shannon's paragraph. It was all like. I was kind of like not wanting it. And then I really had to think about it. And then I had anxiety attacks, so should I do it?

[Abby Wambach]

She was like. First I was like, no. And then I was like, hell no. And then I was like, for Christ's sake.

[Amanda Doyle]

No. So, Mark, should I do it? Yeah. That's how powerful societal pressure is.

[Martha Beck]

I know.

[Amanda Doyle]

Especially for a women. A woman to have kids. I mean, my friends who do not have kids, the stories they tell me about the things people say to them and the way the culture gets so angry when a woman decides she doesn't want to have children is like, wow, if you have fear and you have longing, go towards the longing.

[Martha Beck]

Always go with your longing.

[Amanda Doyle]

Can I just ask you one thing? How does, like, you're. How do you talk to. I'm asking for a friend, of course. How do you talk to people who have also actually really have chronic anxiety?

[Martha Beck]

Oh, my God. I have chronic anxiety. Are you kidding me?

[Amanda Doyle]

So how do you know between your chronic anxiety self whether it's a good. Because Martha, like, everything can look to me like toxic sludge sometimes, is what.

[Martha Beck]

I'm trying to say. Yeah. And that's a signal that it's time to rest.

[Amanda Doyle]

Okay.

[Martha Beck]

Yeah. When everything looks like toxic sludge, you don't go toward anything. You know, when you and Abby fell in love, like, the longing was very clear. And I'm sure there were times when the anxiety was so much you just wanted to put the covers over your head and hide for a while. And that was the right thing to do because that's what you long to do in that moment. But when the covers came down and you went off and got a sandwich, you still long to be with Abby.

[Amanda Doyle]

Yeah, that's right.

[Martha Beck]

And your longing won't abandon you. And if you're longing not to have kids, do not have them.

[Amanda Doyle]

Amen.

[Glennon Doyle]

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[Abby Wambach]

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[Glennon Doyle]

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[Amanda Doyle]

All right, let's get to Carrie Ann please.

[Listener]

I love this Carrie Ann hi Glennon and sister. I was wondering if you could talk about decision making and your knowing. I related so much to your description of how you handled and felt overwhelmed by big decisions in your past. Glennon I have a lot of trouble with decision making. I always see every side and I feel paralyzed when I finally make a decision. I struggle with regret and just being okay with the choice. How do you make big decisions and how do you access your knowing and differentiate it from feelings that can be fleeting or misleading. Thank you, Glennon.

[Amanda Doyle]

Decision making.

[Glennon Doyle]

Decision making. Not something that we ever talk about in our marriage ever at all.

[Abby Wambach]

But also this distinction she's making between feelings that are fleeting, like impulses versus real. How can you tell? Because I've had some feelings where I'm like, oh, thank you to the tiny baby Jesus that I did not act on those impulses, because that was not my truth. That was something else. How do you know the difference?

[Martha Beck]

Well, the something else will feel manic, and the something will always feel peaceful. One of the things, when I wrote this book about integrity, I was like, how do you know what's true? And I realized that it's when your heart, your mind, your body, and your soul are all saying the same thing. And what it feels like is like puzzle pieces clicking or locks coming into alignment. And I found after checking with hundreds of people, the thing that made most people feel a sense of true knowing was this statement. So say this if you're listening or whatever. Say it in your mind and feel what happens. The statement is, I am meant to live in peace. So just say that to yourself. I am meant to live in peace. And I've never met anyone. Not people. Convicted criminals, psychopaths. They always still when they said that there was nothing in them that said that is not true. I really believe that we are all meant to live in peace. So when this beautiful Carrie Ann says, I can always see every side of a question, that's coming from cognitive stuff. That's the head and it's her mind, because she's taking different perspectives. The problem is, if you're taking all the different perspectives, they're not anchored to anything. They say the mind is a wonderful servant and a terrible master. So the mind sees every side and then drop down. Your cognitive mind is processing about 40 bits of information per second. Your whole nervous system is processing 11 million bits of information per second. I've heard even 180 million. So, okay, here are all the signs. They're in your head. Now drop into the body. What feels like peace, what feels like calm, what feels warm and free. All the things we've been talking about and what makes you. Here's something that happens when you get to the right choice. You will notice your body spontaneously go.

[Amanda Doyle]

Yep.

[Martha Beck]

And if you really watch, it's so interesting. I'll be messing around trying to make a decision, and then suddenly I hear it myself. And my mind is not what makes it happen, because the body, there are more nerves going from the heart to the brain. Than from the brain to the heart, and they're giving information. So, yeah, take all the perspectives and then go by yourself and drop into your body and feel what's warm and free and at peace, and you'll always find the right answer.

[Amanda Doyle]

Okay, let's hear from Morgan.

[Listener]

Hi, Glennon.

[Martha Beck]

This is Morgan.

[Listener]

I just graduated college and started what I was hoping would be a really great dream job, and it's not shaping up to be. I think I'm going to stick this out for a year, but I'm wondering how I'm supposed to know if I'm doing the right thing. Thank you so much for your podcast. I listen to it while I'm doing my very hard job. And I love your book.

[Amanda Doyle]

Oh, sweetie. She's a little baby. Morgan is a little baby. Oh.

[Martha Beck]

And she already knows. She just needs some grownups to tell her. If you're saying it's not shaping up to you, I'm gonna stick this out. And it's hard, but I can listen to a podcast by a woman who talks about breaking free from cultural pressures. I'm surviving it with that, sweetheart, you know. You know, you need to be more like Lennon and Abby and Amanda and less like the people at your job. And, you know, if I'm wrong, then you'll know I'm wrong.

[Amanda Doyle]

So, sister, ask Martha about your. Because I feel like you have. Have had questions like Morgan, like, is there. Is there amount of time where you stick something out because you're. Can you put it in your words how you were saying before seeing.

[Abby Wambach]

Well, yeah, I mean, I guess I'm wondering, is there part of things that are true? Like, if every truth makes us relaxed and every line makes us tense, that doesn't necessarily mean that every truth is a hundred percent relaxed, Right? Like, that's a process of going through it. So there's momentary tension along a path that might be true to you.

[Martha Beck]

Well, there's something. There's a poem by Sarah Teasdale called Barter, and it says, sell all you have for loveliness. Like, it's about the barters you make between what's beautiful in your life and what isn't. So I'm going to do an exercise with y' all, and you'll see how this works. Say, I asked you to go clean a. Disgusting. We're in the desert, like, driving across the Mojave Desert, and there's a rest stop, a truck stop, and the men's restroom is disgusting. Sorry, I'm so. That was sexist. But I used to have to clean Restrooms and the men's were disgusting. So, like, there was a lot of urine everywhere. And it's baked in there and it's 110 degrees in there. Now I tell you, I want you to clean this, Amanda, and for your efforts, I'm going to give you five shiny dollars. Now, you say yes, and go in to do it. How do you feel?

[Abby Wambach]

Feel like I've made a bad deal.

[Martha Beck]

Yes, you have. So I say, wait, wait, wait. I will pay you $50 cash on the barrel to clean that restroom. You go in, you're cleaning away for $50. How do you feel? I know.

[Glennon Doyle]

Where.

[Amanda Doyle]

How old am I? Am I like, right out of college?

[Abby Wambach]

Because I might have taken that deal.

[Martha Beck]

It's you now.

[Abby Wambach]

Oh, me now? No, no. You could have your 50, Martha Beck.

[Martha Beck]

Okay, $500. How do you feel cleaning it for $500?

[Abby Wambach]

I mean, I might. I might jump on that.

[Martha Beck]

$500. Okay, what about 50,000?

[Abby Wambach]

Yes. Thank you.

[Martha Beck]

How about half a million?

[Glennon Doyle]

No.

[Martha Beck]

Okay, Abby, five million.

[Glennon Doyle]

Yes.

[Martha Beck]

There you go. Everybody has a price.

[Amanda Doyle]

I'm still holding out. I do not like toys or their bathrooms.

[Martha Beck]

Imagine you're cleaning it. You don't. You get. You get rubber gloves, you get a Hazmat suit on. You go in there and there's 5 million, $50 million on the other side. Not only would you clean it, but you would be like, I am having joy. This is amazing. I would do it with a song.

[Amanda Doyle]

In your and sister, I do feel like you have done the thing, the grind, the brilliance, the whatever. And you get so many rewards, pats on the head. You've been the smartest one in every room. Best awards for in elementary school, high school, college, winning all the awards. The best, the best, the best, the smartest, smartest, smartest, smartest. So it makes perfect sense. The culture was training you to continue this grind. This was the whole point of Untamed, like we've were conditioned with all these little stakes and applause from the people on the sidelines and whatever to continue the cheetah realm, when actually we were meant to be in the wherever cheetahs are supposed to fucking be. I don't know.

[Abby Wambach]

And because you're, and because your own self, as Martha Beck says, it will keep teaching you and teaching you and teaching you, it won't let you escape. You can't out fox yourself. This is why, despite doing everything quote unquote, right, and all my gifts and prizes that I have accumulated along the way, I feel inexplicably fucking miserable right now.

[Amanda Doyle]

Yes.

[Martha Beck]

Yes. Because. Yes, here's the thing. You haven't wasted any time. Nobody out there, everybody. You haven't wasted a moment. So what you get by being brilliant and smart and doing all the prizes and what Glennon does by being incredible and fabulous and best selling author and what Abby did by being a world famous athlete and is. You bought a ticket that says, I am certifiably okay in culture. Now everybody follow me. We're out of this fucking joint. Yes. Because if you were just like lying on the street going, hey, don't do cultural things, people would not like it. But if I say to people, I have three Harvard degrees. Don't do a fucking thing you don't want to do. They're like, oh, she has three Harvard degrees. It's just a ticket. And use it.

[Amanda Doyle]

Can I just tell you one thing? Is that in the middle of one of the breakdowns, the. One of the low. So many breakdowns, Liz made me write down, like, what my. What I was working so hard for. Like, what was my ideal dream? And I said, I. Abby won't remember this. I could not think of any dream that I wanted more than just to be in my pajamas with my family, my sister, and like three other women that I love and know in cuddly socks and pajamas with nowhere to go. That. That is literally it.

[Martha Beck]

Yeah.

[Amanda Doyle]

That's my entire bucket list.

[Martha Beck]

Me too. And I've done a lot of it now. I know so many.

[Amanda Doyle]

There's a lot.

[Martha Beck]

We have a whole. Our whole family system is based around communions. First thing, morning communion, everyone gets together. We all get together in the same room. We all cuddle. Okay. Then we get up and we go do things in the world. And that's enjoyable. But then we have. It's Adam that made this. This is going to sound awful, but it's called wine time. Because Adam likes a glass of the good red every so often. And he made a rule. 5 o' clock is wine time. We all have to be there. It's communion. You are not allowed to look at your phone or whatever. We drink something. I don't drink wine, but we cuddle. After that there is dinner, which is a very cuddly sort of dinner, after which there is cuddling time. Like. And Covid has been such a gift because nobody ever comes to interrupt it. But literally, like, we are social primates. All we want to do is sit around and groom each other. It's awesome.

[Amanda Doyle]

God, I love it so much. Can I ask you a quick question before we stop? There's so many people here who are listening and who are. They're going to. You know, they're learning to come back to themselves, but they want to know, how do they get their kids to never leave themselves? Right. So, like, how do we. How do we interact with the children in our lives, whether they are ours or other people's or whoever's. So they're not conditioned to abandon themselves.

[Martha Beck]

Yeah, it's. It's so simple and so counterintuitive. You just every. You say the same thing every life coach ever does, which is, how do you feel about that? Oh, they want me to do this. How do you feel about it? My daughter came home from a Montessori school, and she was, like, all rigid. And I was like, what's wrong? And she said, today we learned that we must control our bodies. And I was like, well, how does that feel? She's like, horrible. I said, don't do it. And that's all I've been telling any of them at any time. What are you doing? How does it feel? Awful. Don't do it. Feels great. Keep doing it. You just let them do what they want to do. They're just. They're not going to make the wrong decisions. They're awesome.

[Amanda Doyle]

Oh. Oh, my God. That's so freeing. One of the things that somebody. Well, I'm saying I probably read this recently, so it's probably one of your books, so feel free to tell me if this was your thing. But, like, another thing is we can do is stop gaslighting them all the time. Like, every time they walk into a room and they sense that, they're like, what's wrong, Mom? And we're like, nothing.

[Listener]

Nothing, honey.

[Martha Beck]

Everything's fine.

[Amanda Doyle]

Everything's awesome. Or they walk into a room and they sense that we're in a fight with our partner or something, and they're like, what's wrong? And we're like, nothing. We're awesome. Like, every time we do that, we are telling them that their senses, what they were sensing, were actually off.

[Martha Beck]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Amanda Doyle]

And then they learned to not trust their senses.

[Martha Beck]

Right.

[Amanda Doyle]

Because you're always saying, come back to your senses.

[Martha Beck]

Yeah. Come back to your senses and be in integrity. I do this thing called the Integrity cleanse, where I don't. Not only do I not lie, but I don't even, like, assume a facial expression that's not sincere. Like, I'm really. I. I get really hardcore on it. And when you're in an integrity cleanse and your kids ask you, you know, why there's death and are you getting divorced? You have to find a way to tell them with love the truth. And the truth will set them free. Even eventually hard truths will come. But they are never as bad as lies. Not ever.

[Amanda Doyle]

Martha. The hardest part of telling my kids that I was getting divorced was not telling them I was getting divorced. It was when Teresa looked at me and said, but you promised me you weren't going to get divorced. Why the hell did I do that? I remember. I remember sitting on a couch with Tish years before and her saying it was one of her friends parents was going through divorce. And that little face looked at me and said, could this ever happen to us and Martha Beck? I looked at that little face and said, no, no, that's never gonna happen to your family. And in the moment that I told her her family was gonna be split, she. Her first thought was, but you told me not that.

[Martha Beck]

And what did you say to her when she told you that?

[Amanda Doyle]

I think in the moment I just said, I am so sorry. I shouldn't have said that to you. I mean, I don't know. I didn't have anything brilliant to say in the moment.

[Martha Beck]

But if. If you were to have told her, like, dig in, what was the truth? Why did you say that?

[Amanda Doyle]

I just wanted her to have a feeling. Security in the moment, even when I knew it was a fake.

[Martha Beck]

You knew even when you said it that it was fake?

[Amanda Doyle]

No, because I didn't. I don't think I knew it was fake.

[Martha Beck]

I mean, there you go.

[Amanda Doyle]

I don't think I knew it was fake. I think.

[Martha Beck]

Here's the thing. Teach your children that it is okay not to know, because none of us really knows anything about the next five minutes. So if you sit with them and say, you know what? I really believed it at the time. I really thought that was true. And I found out that I was wrong. And I'm really sorry that it hurts you. But we all get to be wrong. And a lot of what we believe, really believe may turn out to be wrong. And that's beautiful, because it's called learning. And none of us knows anything, really. We're all just walking forward in trust. But we love each other. And that's the whole point. So when the truth comes to me, I will tell it to you the moment I know it.

[Amanda Doyle]

And when we don't know it, we can say, I don't know. To our kids. We can say, I don't know.

[Martha Beck]

Exactly. I have no idea. The more I learn, the more I know that I don't know. Anything.

[Amanda Doyle]

Yeah, but I love you. But we love each other and that's that.

[Martha Beck]

I don't know. With my whole self.

[Amanda Doyle]

Oh, Martha Beck, I love you so much.

[Martha Beck]

I love you guys. I want you to bring you to our cuddle sessions that happen all day, every day.

[Amanda Doyle]

Thank you. Thank you. We will be there with our jammies. Okay. We love you. Thank you for being here so much. Well, we're gonna end with our pod squatter of the week and then we're gonna go. We love you. We can do hard things. We can live in some integrity this week. Let's hear from our pod squad. Let's hear from Jamie.

[Listener]

Hi, Glennon, Abby and sister. My name is Jamie and I'm from Sacramento. All I want to say is this. My life is really hard right now. I have two kids that are 2 years old and under. My youngest is 4 months old. We feel like, my partner and I, we feel like we're barely hanging on. Every day is just such a slog. We are also both teachers. I'm a seventh grade English teacher at a public school school and the day is just so fast moving that I finally get to lunchtime. I have 30 minutes and I have to go into a literal closet to pump where I don't have enough time to eat a real lunch. So I eat cold, bad snacks over my pump in the closet. And every day I listen to your show and it just feels like a warm hug. And it's exactly what I need to give me the strength to make it through the rest of the day. So that's all I wanted to say. Thank you so much for making this beautiful gift for the world. Keep doing it. I like it. I love it. I need some more of it. Keep it coming. Love you all. Thank you.

[Amanda Doyle]

Bye, Jamie. Oh, Jamie, we adore you. Jamie, I just want to tell you that I too used to pump in the closet of a front main office of an elementary school, sitting on a bunch of xerox boxes, like those boxes of paper, reams of paper. That is where I used to pump like 2ft away from all of the people walking in and out of the office on my lunch break, where I too would eat granola bars and dinos.

[Abby Wambach]

Sad, cold snacks.

[Glennon Doyle]

Sad snacks.

[Amanda Doyle]

Jamie, we love you. You, my love bug, can do hard things. We'll see you all next week. 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 rating and review and share an episode you love 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.

[Abby Wambach]

Sam.