(BEST OF) Jane Fonda: How to Not Lose Yourself Right Now

Summary

Podcast Summary: We Can Do Hard Things

Episode: Jane Fonda – How to Not Lose Yourself Right Now

Date: April 14, 2026
Hosts: Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, Amanda Doyle
Guest: Jane Fonda

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Overview

This deeply moving, candid, and inspiring episode features Jane Fonda, the legendary actress, activist, and author. The conversation spans Fonda’s lifelong journey through activism, personal trauma, recovery, aging, embodiment, and hope for the planet. Fonda opens up about her childhood, her battles with disembodiment, eating disorders, relationships, activism, and her ongoing fight for justice and the environment. The Pod Squad—Glennon, Abby, and Amanda—explore with Fonda how staying awake, present, and embodied is the true work of a lifetime.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Jane Fonda’s Lifelong Activism and Impact ([00:12]–[04:33])

• Glennon and Abby honor Fonda’s activism: From Vietnam protests and the Black Panthers, to LGBTQ+ allyship and environmental work.
  • "Her evolution marked our nation’s revolution. She is a woman who owns her brilliant light as clearly as she owns her shadows.” – Glennon Doyle ([02:30])
• Memorable moment: Fonda is visibly touched:
  • "Oh, that’s so beautiful... gonna make me cry. Thank you." – Jane Fonda ([04:34])

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2. Disembodiment, Trauma, and Returning to Self ([05:01]–[14:38])

• On leaving herself:
  • "When you found out your mom had died, you left your body and you didn’t come back for 50 years. Can you talk about disembodiment?" – Abby Wambach ([05:01])
  • "I think the disembodiment... happened much earlier than my mother’s suicide... It was like a double image... I had to work really hard to bring myself back into myself." – Jane Fonda ([05:41])
• Effects of trauma and body image:
  • Fonda discloses both her and her mother’s histories of sexual abuse.
  • "If you’re pretending to be someone you aren’t... you fill up that hole created by inauthenticity. For us, it was food..." – Jane Fonda ([08:43])
• Eating Disorders as coping mechanisms:
  • Both Abby and Jane connect eating disorders to disconnection from authenticity and self.

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3. Struggles and Lessons from Relationships & Perfectionism ([10:00]–[14:38])

• On marriage and fear of intimacy:
  • "I’ve been under bombs. I’ve been shot at. But if… a guy said to me, come on Fonda, show up. Who are you? Show me... I fled in terror because they were going to demand that I show up." – Jane Fonda ([10:00])
• Impact of parental expectations:
  • "Most people blame eating disorders on moms, but for me, it was stuff my dad said... I want my father to love me, so I’ll get really, really skinny." – Jane Fonda ([11:04])
• Chameleon tendencies in relationships:
  • "You want me to be that kind of woman? Okay, I’ll do that... But under that, I can become pretty much whatever a guy wants me to be. And I did that for a long time." – Jane Fonda ([12:20])

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4. Becoming Whole: Aging, Bravery, and Spiritual Insights ([13:11]–[18:41])

• Fear of regret as motivation:
  • "My big fear is getting to the end of my life... with a lot of regrets. My dad died with a lot. Oh my god, I don’t want that." – Jane Fonda ([13:20])
• Pivot toward wholeness:
  • "I left them [her husbands] for the idea... that you can reside in your own skin..." – Glennon Doyle ([14:12])
  • Fonda recalls feeling herself "moving back into myself" after the end of her marriage to Ted Turner, and connecting this to the concept of wholeness rather than perfection:
    • "What [Jesus] said was, you have to be whole like our Lord in heaven is whole." – Jane Fonda ([17:51])
• Rebirth and self-acceptance in her sixties:
  • "I’m being reborn. It’s appropriate that I get reborn in the home of my firstborn. It was the most beautiful time in my life." – Jane Fonda ([18:05])

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5. Remembering, Healing, and Generational Trauma ([19:49]–[29:27])

• Remembering vs. dismembering:
  • "Remember is also to come back together... members of your body." – Jane Fonda ([20:27])
  • "If we lived authentically as embodied men and women, there would be no climate crisis, no racism, no patriarchy." – Jane Fonda ([20:42])
• Learning parents’ humanity:
  • "In order to know where I wanted to go in my third act, I had to know where I’d been." – Jane Fonda ([25:37])
  • Fonda shares research into her parents’ lives and the power of generational empathy:
    • "That’s the value of finding out who your parents are… It didn’t have anything to do with me. It was because that happened to them. And then you can have compassion and forgiveness." ([27:35])

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6. The Differences Between Men and Women in Emotional Expression ([28:24]–[31:02])

• On men’s and women’s friendships:
  • "Men friendships... are sharing things outside of themselves. What do women do? — we show up emotionally for each other." – Jane Fonda ([28:24])
  • "Men don’t have it. I feel so sorry for them... It’s important to have empathy for men." ([29:27])
• Voice changes and embodiment:
  • "As you begin to connect to your core self, the voice drops. It started to happen... when I made Klute... I touched my core self and became a feminist. And my voice dropped." – Jane Fonda ([31:02])

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7. Embodying Joy, Contentment, and Agency ([34:22]–[36:41])

• Who is real Jane Fonda?:
  • "I’m a brave, strong, persistent, curious woman who wants to make things better." – Jane Fonda ([34:47])
• Finding happiness:
  • "I’m always happy when I’m high on a mountain. Nature to me is my soul, my religion... I’m happy most of the time. Isn’t that weird?" – Jane Fonda ([35:09])
• Intentional living and agency:
  • "You have agency over what you do with your life. But that can only happen if you’re really intentional about who you want to be and where you want to go." – Jane Fonda ([35:48])

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8. Marriages, Strategic Relationships, and Friendship ([36:41]–[41:10])

• Choosing partners for growth:
  • "What if instead of passively assuming your husband’s identity, you actively selected men that were aligned with your personal and political objectives?" – Abby/Sister ([37:17])
  • "That’s what I did." – Jane Fonda ([37:19])
• Life after marriage:
  • "I don’t need any more marriage... I’m alone now and so happy. ...Girlfriends…are just all so wonderful." – Jane Fonda ([38:46])
• Fire Drill Fridays origin:
  • Fonda describes how a climate crisis conversation with close friends led to her moving to D.C. and launching the Fire Drill Fridays protests ([39:14])

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9. Climate Crisis and Hope ([41:10]–[47:10])

• Activism for the Earth:
  • "The things that are being destroyed by us... breaks my heart. And I’ve read the science... there’s a way to stop it and to save it. And so that’s what I’m devoting my life to." – Jane Fonda ([41:19])
  • "You don’t have to only be that thing [activist or embodied]. You can do that [heal] while you’re being an activist." – Jane Fonda ([44:28])
  • "We don’t have time. You have to do that while you’re doing the other." ([44:52])
• The Jane Fonda Climate PAC:
  • Targets politicians who accept fossil fuel money and supports those who fight for people and the planet, with a focus on down-ballot races ([45:13])
  • "We kept seeing important legislation isn’t passing because all these damn elected officials are getting money from the fossil fuel industry... So I should start a PAC that brings fossil fuels into the electoral arena..." – Jane Fonda ([45:41])
• Activism metaphors:
  • "You can only pull people out of the river for so long till you go upstream to see who’s pushing them in... Fire Drill Fridays is getting people out, while the PAC is confronting those pushing people in the river." – Glennon Doyle ([47:10])

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10. Final Reflections: Legacy, Advice, and The Work Left To Do ([50:41]–[54:53])

• Doing your part:
  • "On my deathbed, I want to say I did everything I possibly could so that this incredible planet… is saved for the young people." – Jane Fonda ([41:19] & [50:41])
  • "Everybody can do something. The most important thing is join an organization so you’re not alone." – Jane Fonda ([51:06])
• Hard thing for the new year:
  • "I have to get better at not being afraid of conflict... I want to try to get more used to talking things out so they don’t fester." – Jane Fonda ([51:37])
• Wisdom for grandchildren:
  • "You can be anything you want to be. Figure out what your dream is, what your passion is, what would make you happy, forget about rich, what will satisfy you, and then go for it." – Jane Fonda ([53:28])

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On authenticity:
  "The goal isn’t perfection. It’s alignment. It’s integration. It’s matching your insides with your outsides." – Abby Wambach ([00:12])

• On showing up in activism:
  "Activism isn’t something you do once you have your life all sorted out... You just show up as you are." – Abby Wambach ([00:12])

• On wholeness, not perfection:
  "What [Jesus] said was... you have to be whole like our Lord in heaven is whole. So Jesus knew that the goal of humanity is to become fully integrated, fully whole." – Jane Fonda ([17:51])

• On resilience in the face of detractors:
  "You’re not gonna scare me. I just refuse to play into that preconception... I wasn’t gonna let them get me down." – Jane Fonda ([22:59])

• On moving toward what breaks your heart:
  "Go towards the thing that breaks your heart... I think really every decade. Vietnam, racism, misogyny, the teenagers in Georgia with the G cap. Aren’t these all things that tore at your heart and so you rush towards them?" – Abby Wambach ([53:41])

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Notable Segments & Timestamps

• [05:41] Jane explains disembodiment and work to reintegrate self
• [08:43] Eating disorders and inauthenticity
• [14:12] Leaving relationships to live aligned with self
• [17:51] Concept of wholeness vs. perfection – spiritual reflection
• [27:35] Investigating parental history, forgiveness, and generational trauma
• [31:02] Voice and embodiment, transformation through acting
• [39:14] The origin of Fire Drill Fridays
• [41:19] Fonda’s impassioned call for climate action
• [45:41] The Jane Fonda Climate PAC explanation
• [53:28] Jane’s advice and wisdom for her grandchildren

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Episode Tone & Style

The conversation is intimate, raw, witty, and deeply compassionate, balancing humor and gravity. Fonda’s humility and wisdom shine throughout, with all participants leaning into honesty, self-reflection, and mutual admiration.

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Final Toast (Abby & Glennon at Jane’s 85th Birthday) ([56:24])

"To say I love Jane Fonda is to say I stand on the side of goodness and courage and the people and the earth and revolution. Happy birthday to the woman who lives her life in such a way that her name has become a clarion call, an ethos in itself, a battle cry." – Glennon Doyle & Abby Wambach

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Takeaways

• Wholeness, not perfection, is the goal of life and activism.
• Embodiment is both a personal healing practice and a revolution against the dismemberment caused by trauma, patriarchy, and modern life.
• Strength comes from community. Activism is a collective effort.
• Facing our histories—personal and generational—allows us to live with compassion, intent, and fewer regrets.
• Each of us can do something. The work is urgent, imperfect, and ongoing.

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For anyone seeking hope, courage, or a blueprint for “doing hard things”—this episode is a masterclass, and a lifeline, from Jane Fonda.

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Listen to the full episode for even more wisdom and laughter.

Transcript

[Glennon Doyle]

Content warning that in today's very special episode, we reference the existence of past sexual abuse and ongoing eating disorder recovery. Please take care of yourself.

[Abby Wambach]

Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things, everybody. Today we are sharing our conversation, our beautiful, funny, deep, healing, epic conversation with the epic Jane Effing Fonda. This conversation with Jane feels especially right for this moment because so many of us are asking the same questions she's been answering publicly with her life. How do we keep aging without disappearing? How do we stay awake to our bodies, to each other, to the truth, while our country feels so chaotic and overwhelming? How do we stay brave day after day, year after year? Jane reminds us that getting older doesn't mean getting quieter. It means getting wholer, getting braver, getting louder. She reminds us that the goal isn't perfection. It's alignment. It's integration. It's matching your insides with your outsides. And that activism isn't something you do. Once you have your life all sorted out, you just show up as you are. You join a movement that moves you, and you speak your mind. In this conversation, Jane shares how she left her body as a child and spent decades finding her way back home while also fighting again and again and yet again for democracy, for justice, for the planet. Jane Fonda is a human blueprint, an embodied courage in showing up, and she is a lifeline for this moment. Let's go. Okay. Welcome to we can do hard things. We're not doing a normal bio today because we don't have a normal person. So where we would normally read our guest bio, we're doing something different today because today we have the unbelievable honor of hosting Jane Effing Fonda, a singular human who has pushed six decades of our history forward fearlessly. It is our honor to share a glimpse right now into Ms. Fonda's seismic and sustained impact. Sissy. Go.

[Glennon Doyle]

Ms. Fonda was a pivotal voice on behalf of service members and activists to expose Nixon's deadly lies in Vietnam as the nation turned its back on Vietnam vets who gave everything. Her film Coming Home forced America to see vets experiences with compassion and ease their re entry into civilian life. She fought beside Black Panthers, including for the release of Angela Davis, setting a standard to support them with love, money, and risk, for which she was rewarded with years of illegal FBI surveillance into the most intimate aspects of her life. She was a vocal ally for the LGBTQ community when it was rare to be, including during the White Knight riots after the assassination of Harvey Milk. She stood in solidarity with indigenous Americans for 50 years, amplifying their work from Bernie White Bear's occupation to the 1970 Alcatraz coalition to Standing Rock. She started Jane Fonda's Workout for the express purpose of funding the Campaign for economic democracy, funneling $17 million to that pivotal organization through her founding work for 26 years with GCAP, the only Georgia organization that has doggedly focused on teen pregnancy prevention in her state. She has overseen her state's teen pregnancy rate drop by 72%. This year, she launched the Jane Fonda Climate Pack and continues her work with Fire Drill Fridays, hell bent on ousting politicians who are on the tab of the fossil fuel industry. Ms. Fonda has also won two Oscars and seven Golden Globes for films extolling empathy and progress, like Klute, in which she personalized the plight and power of sex workers, and 9 to 5, which was based on her conversations with real office workers, amplifying their organizing efforts and bringing their stories of sexual harassment and unequal pay to the mainstream. Her evolution marked our nation's revolution. She is a woman who owns her brilliant light as clearly as she owns her shadows. Thank you, Ms. Fonda, for a lifetime of hard things well lived.

[Abby Wambach]

Damn.

[Jane Fonda]

Oh, that's so beautiful.

[Abby Wambach]

Thank you.

[Jane Fonda]

Gonna make me cry. Thank you.

[Abby Wambach]

Oh, my God.

[Jane Fonda]

Thank you.

[Abby Wambach]

Abby and I were lucky enough to be at your 85th birthday very recently. It was so beautiful. It was also a FundRaiser to support GCAP. We were so unbelievably moved to be there.

[Jane Fonda]

I was sure happy you were there and your words. I didn't think you were gonna get up on stage and pay a tribute like that. They were so beautiful. Thank you so much.

[Abby Wambach]

Oh, my gosh. It was such an honor. I'm gonna record the toast that I did for you for our Pod Squad. So don't worry, Pod Squad, you'll hear it. But first, we wanna get into some beautiful, hard things with you. Jane, we're gonna start with this question, a really hard one. So your mom died by suicide when you were 12, and you say that at that moment, when you found out that your mom had died, you left your body and you didn't come back for 50 years. I relate to this so deeply. Can you talk to us about what you mean by when you talk about disembodiment?

[Jane Fonda]

My mother was sexually abused as an 8 year old. I was sexually abused as a 7 year old. And I didn't know that for a long time. I had to go through a lot to kind of get back there. And I think sexual trauma and abuse causes women. It Happens to men, too, but mostly women, to become disassociated from their bodies. It's very easy to slip away from a relationship to your body, especially for women, because so much importance is put on our body. We're so judged by how we look, you know? So I think the disembodiment, the leaving my body happened much earlier than my mother's suicide when I was 12. I know that I went through a whole lot of my early life wanting to be perfect because I thought, nobody's going to love me unless I'm perfect. And so all the interesting, complicated parts of myself moved out and took up residence alongside. It was kind of like a double image. And every now and then there would be somebody. Simone Signore was one of them. Theater critic Kenneth Tynan was another one. There were certain people along the way who. Who seemed to see the Jane Fonda that was over here and get interested in that. And it was like, who is Simone talking to? It's not me. I'm not smart. But she saw that other part. So it was like this good girl, you know, that's who presented herself. It's who took men into the bedroom. But all the interesting stuff was. Was next door. And I had to work really, really, really hard to bring myself back into myself. You know, like a double image that's finally. Yes, that's. That's coming together, and it's. It's a work in progress, you know, it doesn't. It's not like everything just goes away, but you learn to manage it. Yeah. Yeah.

[Abby Wambach]

When I did your speech, I actually started crying on stage. And I've never done that in 15 years of doing this job because I always stay completely disembodied. I don't ever mesh the two together. But I've been doing a lot of work lately trying to get embodied again. I've had eating disorders my whole life. And I started crying on stage with you, and that was the first time. And I got off stage, somebody said to me, this, jane, you seemed very embodied up there. And I was like, I'm putting the two together. How do you. Because eating disorders does that, too. You used to struggle with bulimia, all of the eating disorders, just like I have. Was that a coping mechanism for disembodiment? How do you see that now?

[Jane Fonda]

I think eating disorders happen in the presence of inauthenticity. If you're pretending to be someone you aren't, if you're in a relationship that isn't 100% authentic, we're going to tend to fill that empty space with something. And for us, it was food. It can be drugs, it can be shopping. It can be workaholics. It can be all kinds of things, but you fill up that hole created by inauthenticity. And it took me a long, long time to understand that because of my early abuse and my mother's mental health challenges, I never was able to really have a relationship, be fully authentic. And I've had three of them, and they've all been fascinating, wonderful men, but it just didn't ever really. It was never democratic.

[Abby Wambach]

Yeah, you said that you were so courageous for the ideals of our democracy in our country, but you never once had a democratic marriage.

[Jane Fonda]

Oh, my God. If that's what you're scared of, showing up fully for another person, that's going to be terrifying. I mean, I've been under bombs. I've been shot at. But if earlier in my life, if a guy said to me, come on, Fonda, show up. Come on, who are you? Show me who you really are. You know, I just wonder how many. How many appropriate relationships came my way, and I fled in terror because they were going to demand that I show up. And most of my relationships with. Were with men who couldn't show up themselves.

[Abby Wambach]

Yeah.

[Jane Fonda]

And I blamed them, but it was really both of us. It was me.

[Abby Wambach]

Mm. Do you think it was that perfection, though? Because you also said with the eating disorder stuff that I loved this because I. I relate to everything that you ever say. But you said most people blame eating disorders on. On moms, but for me, it was stuff my dad said. But did you learn that from your dad that a girl was supposed to be so perfect in this way? And so that's.

[Jane Fonda]

Yeah. He was married five times, and he would say to his wives, tell her to wear a bigger bathing suit or tell her not to wear a bikini or tell her to wear a longer dress or tell he she's too fat. I would hear those things, or the stepmothers would tell me those things. And, you know, so I just thought, well, I want my father to love me so I'll get really, really, really skinny. And of course, that doesn't just stop with your father. It goes on into your. Yeah.

[Glennon Doyle]

When you said, I put my complicated self over here, my interesting and complicated self, and it made me think of with. With those marriages. It's almost like those people were allowed to be complicated and interesting, but you were not, in those marriages, allowed to be your entire self. And it's fascinating to me because I'm thinking About when your daughter said, you're about to make the film of your life, and your daughter said to you, why don't you just get a chameleon? Let it walk across the screen. Was she talking about the melding into the people that you were married to?

[Jane Fonda]

Yeah. I mean, I look at pictures of me through the various marriages and boyfriends, and I look like a different person. Each one. The way I dressed, the way I did. You know, I just. I'm really good at. Oh, you want me to be that kind of a woman? Okay, I'll do that. Under that, I can become pretty much whatever a guy wants me to be. And. And I did that for a long time. And then, you know, at a certain point, you then try to, oh, my God, I really love him. I want this to work. Which means that I have to now become who I am. And a couple of times, it's like, he didn't want that.

[Abby Wambach]

No. How that goes.

[Glennon Doyle]

And that's so brave, because you could have just not found your wholeness. Right? You could. You could.

[Abby Wambach]

You could have forever stayed.

[Jane Fonda]

I have a big fear. My big fear is getting to the end of my life. And I'm pretty close at 85 and having a lot of regrets. My dad died with a lot of regrets. Oh, my God. I don't want that. We never know how we're going to die. But it's important to vision how you want to be. I want to be in a bed either. I hope in my home and have people around me that. That love me. I have to earn that, deserve that. And I want to feel that I've done my very best. And so that's what I try to do. I'm aware of my failings, and I try to get better, make it better, get better. So I hang out with girlfriends who are better. They give me strength and put starch in my spine and inspire me. And my girlfriends are just all so wonderful. And they all do hard things all the time.

[Abby Wambach]

I know they do.

[Glennon Doyle]

One thing that you said that just rocked me was when you were trying to make these decisions and you could see yourself, but you knew you couldn't be. Be who you needed to be in the relationship you're in. And you said that you didn't leave your husband for another man. You left them for the idea. Like, the idea that you can reside in your own skin with all of your needs and ambitions, and then you don't have to exile yourself anymore.

[Jane Fonda]

Exactly. Yeah.

[Glennon Doyle]

How could you recognize that self in you if it had been so Separate for so long. How did you feel it and know it?

[Jane Fonda]

Well, I really started coming together when I was married to Ted Turner. And we knew about a year in advance that the marriage was going to end. And I had a lot of time to prepare. And one of the things that I did was in Preparing for my third act for my 60th, I made that little movie about myself, I researched myself. And one of the things that I discovered in doing that was that I'm brave. And then I've always been brave. Oh, who knew? I didn't. That I, I, I didn't, I didn't know. So that was good. And then from there, there were two more years with Ted. I started to feel, this is good, this is good what I'm doing, you know? He said, you're, you're going to come back. You'll come back to me. And I said, what makes you think so? And he said, because I'm so interesting. And he is most interesting person I know. But I remember, oh, it was hard. We split up January 2nd of the year 2000. He has a little private plane and he dropped me at the airport in Atlanta where I lived with him. And I had a rented car waiting for me. And I turned around and I saw the next woman getting on his plane. My seat was still warm. Painful, huh? And my daughter Vanessa, who had a one year old child, she was in Paris with her father, my first husband, who was dying of cancer. And I asked if I could stay in her house. And I remember, you know, I left so many properties, vast vistas, such a magnificent, huge life to move into my daughter's house in a little room with no closet. I had my golden retriever with me. And there was such silence. And I remember standing in the middle of the room and I could feel myself moving back into myself. And I said, this is God. I know that this is God. Now, here's something really interesting. I was writing a book about aging and this notion of why I felt like it was God when I could feel myself becoming re. Embodied. And so I started reading books about the Bible. And it turns out in most books, Jesus is quoted as saying to his disciples, you have to be perfect like our Father in heaven is perfect. Which I just felt, that can't be what he said. And then I read a book that said no in Aramaic, which is the language that Jesus spoke. What he said was, you have to be whole like our Lord in heaven is whole. So Jesus knew that the goal of humanity is to become fully integrated, fully whole.

[Abby Wambach]

That's right.

[Jane Fonda]

Yeah. I mean, it just. It was like, wow, it's happening to me. I can feel it. And even though my heart was broken because I loved Ted so much, I knew that I'd made the right decision.

[Abby Wambach]

Yeah.

[Jane Fonda]

And I remember Oprah decided it was her second issue of the O magazine and she wanted to interview me for it. And she came to my daughter's house and she said, good God. I mean, didn't he get you a penthouse? I mean, what are you doing? And I said, no, I'm being reborn. And it's appropriate that I get reborn in the home of my firstborn. Yeah, it was the most beautiful time in my Life. I was 62.

[Glennon Doyle]

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[Abby Wambach]

You know when you told that story about the origin being whole and not perfect, I was thinking about my. My whole journey, my final frontier. All of it is this embodying again, because I was gone too. I'm still gone. Ish. But landing. And I always think about the most repeated phrases in the Bible are do not be afraid and remember. And I always think of remember as the opposite of dismember. Like remember can mean to recall an old idea. But remember is also to come back together. Right.

[Jane Fonda]

And the members of your body.

[Abby Wambach]

Yes, like body, mind, spirit in one. And just live in this body. That for so many of us wasn't safe. And refusing to believe that and living inside of it is, I think, what the whole thing's about.

[Jane Fonda]

It's what the whole thing is about. That's right. If we did that, if we lived authentically as embodied men and women, there would be no climate crisis, there would be no racism, there would be no patriarchy. It's all part of a poison that's been in our, in our species for thousands of years. But I'm, I'm hopeful. I believe that we can change it.

[Abby Wambach]

Yes, you do believe it and you're working toward it.

[Glennon Doyle]

It's wild to me that when you were 60 and decided that I, in order to understand myself and not have regrets, I need to know who I am. Which means I need to know my history. I need to find out who I am and know my parents history and know who they were.

[Jane Fonda]

Right.

[Glennon Doyle]

And so that part of remembering, like not being afraid to look at your life and pull the pieces together.

[Jane Fonda]

Right, Exactly.

[Glennon Doyle]

And same with our universe. We are dismembered from our history and where we are as a country in a world because we, we are not remembering. We are not looking at our history and where, where we are, we've forgotten

[Jane Fonda]

that we're all part of the same. Dust molecules from the stars, we're part of the animals and the rocks and the trees. And that's the reality. It's hard for people to grasp that.

[Glennon Doyle]

Speaking of hard to grasp, you spent decades working on myriad campaigns for so many people. And you. There were always the people who

[Abby Wambach]

were

[Glennon Doyle]

hell bent on trying to take you out, the detractors. And they had a very large voice. There was administrations behind them.

[Abby Wambach]

It was big.

[Glennon Doyle]

How in the world, even notwithstanding all of that, you would apologize when you needed to, but you would always fall forward in any after every one. You would keep showing up, you would keep doing your work. How did you find the strength to do that? And then what would you say to folks now who are so terrified to take a step because they know they're gonna make a mistake and that all the people will come rushing to take them out?

[Jane Fonda]

I think one very important thing is if you wanna be an activist, don't do it alone. Be part of a movement. I've always been part of a movement, so there's always been support around me and love at the worst of the contro. There were always people with me who knew what was in my heart and knew why I was doing what I do, knew the mistakes that I'd made. But we were in it together for survival. That's really, really important. The other thing is people expected me to be scared away. Oh God, look at white privilege. Henry Fonda's daughter. You know, we'll give her a little hard time and she'll disappear. You, man. Yeah, you're not gonna, you're not gonna scare me. I'm gonna show you. You know, I, I I just refuse to play into that. That preconception that they had. I was gonna show em that I'm tough. And I am. I'm really. I don't know. Sometimes I think I'm missing a gene because things don't upset me as much as they upset other people. But also, I always knew what was in my heart. You know, I could make mistakes, but I knew why I did, and so I could keep going. And I wasn't gonna let them get me down.

[Abby Wambach]

Jane, how and why there's all of these people, all of these colleagues of yours through. Like, you're the one who got into these fights, stay in these fights. Like, what is it about you where there's others?

[Jane Fonda]

There's been lots of others too. I'll tell you. Partly because I've thought a lot about it. See, growing up, right, what was my dad doing? He was making Grapes of Wrath. He was making Young Abe Lincoln. He was making the Wrong Man. He was making 12 Angry Men. And I always knew those are the roles that he loves. Those roles represent the values that he respects and admire. I want some of that. And so I wasn't really conscious then, but I think it was like fertilizer that was being sprinkled on my soul. So that when the Vietnam War surfaced and I began to realize what it really was, that fertilizer allowed the sprouts to start growing. The sprouts of activism.

[Abby Wambach]

Do you have a time when you remember deciding to not live to please your dad? Was there like a fork in the road where you were like,

[Jane Fonda]

oh, I

[Abby Wambach]

don't know if any of us have stopped?

[Glennon Doyle]

No, I haven't. So let me know.

[Abby Wambach]

Does it happen around 84? I'm still crossing my fingers.

[Jane Fonda]

I don't know. I mean, I. I don't know. I. I always wanted to please him, I think. You know, I just. I didn't always know how to talk to him, but. And I miss him so much. And I would so love to talk to him now, but I just think we. We grow up and we can get over it. Yeah, we grow up and you see the parents frailty. It's so important to try to see your parents as human beings. When I was preparing to turn 60, which to me was the beginning of my third act, you know, I decided, and it speaks to, you know, to what you said, Amanda, that in order to know where I wanted to go in my third act, I had to know where I'd been. And so I really. I did very intense research for a year about my life and there was a lot. You know, there was a. Stacks of FBI files in case I forgot what I was doing on that day. And my father made a lot of home movies, and there were a lot of interview. I mean, there was a lot of material. I thought in order to do this research, I have to find out really who were my parents, who really were they. And they were dead. So it was hard, but I did a lot of research. And that's when I found out. Because my mother killed herself in an institution, I got a hold of the medical records, and that's when I found out that she had been sexually abused as a girl. And explained. Interestingly, When I started GCAP, I. I was noticing that all these girls, 15 and younger, all of them had been sexually abused. These girls who were pregnant or parenting, if they were young, they'd all been sexually abused. And I began to study that. So when I read the medical records of my mother, I was like a lay expert. I knew a lot about what happens to a young girl or boy when he or she is sexually abused. And so what? I knew exactly why my mother had been the way she was, and I was able to forgive her.

[Glennon Doyle]

And you knew that it had nothing

[Jane Fonda]

to do with you had nothing to do with me. That's the value of finding out who your parents are, because you'll probably find out. It didn't have anything to do with me. It was because that happened to them. And then you can have compassion and forgiveness. There's a generational trauma. Even if a daughter, for example, hasn't been the shadow of her mother's abuse can affect her life. And it's one reason why it's really important to talk to our parents, especially our mothers, to find out if something like that happened to them.

[Abby Wambach]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Jane Fonda]

You have to talk to them separately.

[Abby Wambach]

Oh, separately from each other.

[Jane Fonda]

Oh, yeah.

[Abby Wambach]

Wow. That's a really good point.

[Jane Fonda]

Well, we're so different. We do hard things like admit.

[Abby Wambach]

Yes.

[Jane Fonda]

Men don't do that, Jane.

[Abby Wambach]

Why is that?

[Jane Fonda]

Well, because that's the way they're raised, to detach from their heart. I don't know if you heard, but at that night at the gcap, I said, we're going to start programming for boys. The difference between women friendships and men friendships. Men friendships are two guys sitting side by side looking forward, saying, oh, my God, look at that car. Oh, my goodness, look at him. Kit got football. It's out there. Yes, they're sharing. Nothing wrong with it necessarily, but they're sharing things outside of themselves. What do women Do. Oh, my God, I'm feeling so bad. I need some help from you. We ask for help. Yeah, we. We look. We sit opposite each other and we look into each other's eyes. We show up emotionally for each other and allow ourselves to be vulnerable. It's such a great gift and men don't have it. And I feel so sorry for them because they don't. So it's important to have empathy for men. I have a lot of empathy for men.

[Abby Wambach]

Yeah, we're all disembodied. They're dismembered from heart, from intimacy.

[Jane Fonda]

And we're cut off from our voice.

[Abby Wambach]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jane Fonda]

Which is different.

[Abby Wambach]

Do you know what?

[Jane Fonda]

The voice, it doesn't go away. It just goes underground. And then we have to learn as we grow up to bring it back up again.

[Abby Wambach]

Yeah. This freaked me out. In one of your books, you talked about how after you became more embodied, your voice changed and dropped. Jane, for the last like five episodes. Since I read that, I've been trying to talk

[Jane Fonda]

because.

[Abby Wambach]

Because people make fun of my voice and it's so high. And I think that's what it is.

[Jane Fonda]

It is. It is.

[Abby Wambach]

Was it on purpose? Did you, did you lower your voice on purpose?

Yeah. How does this happen?

[Jane Fonda]

No, no, no. You know, I. It occurred to me when I read Carol Gilligan, the feminist psychologist, her book called Voice. When she talks about how girls, especially girls who are disembodied, especially girls who've been sexually traumatized, the voice goes up into the head because it doesn't reveal anything. You're not going to know what I'm feeling. It's way up here. As you begin to connect to your core self, the voice drops. And what I discovered, it started to happen with me when I made Clute because Klute was a film where for the first time I think I really, I went to my core. I touched my. My core self and became a feminist. And my voice dropped.

[Abby Wambach]

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Let's talk about routines for a second, because I feel like mine is either completely locked in or completely out the window. Especially around the time with spring breaks and vacations coming up and when everything falls apart. The sleep, the schedule, the good intentions, the first thing I try to anchor back into is my Ritual multivitamin. I started taking Ritual because I trust what's in it. Everything is vegan, non gmo, tested for heavy metals, and they actually tell you where every ingredient comes from. For someone like me who needs to know exactly what I'm putting into my body, that means everything. I take mine at night. Two capsules and they have this light, minty essence that makes it something I genuinely look forward to. Gentle on your stomach too. So no food required. And here's what I love most. Ritual isn't about being perfect. It's about foundational health. Instead of striving for perfect health, aim for supporting foundational health. Save 25% off your first month at ritual.com Wendohard things that's ritual.com WecandoHardThings For 25% off okay, I have to tell you about something from a brand that I'm pretty familiar with, and I think that all of our listeners must try. It's Gatorade Lower Sugar, and it has everything you need for hydration. It's all the Gatorade electrolytes you love and 75% less sugar than Gatorade Thirst Quencher we talk a lot about doing hard things here, but one of the most important hard things taking care of yourself. Even on the busiest days. Recording, traveling, juggling, family and work. Supporting your body helps you stay steady. Maybe you're headed into a workout, running between meetings or driving your kids to practice. It has no artificial flavors, sweeteners or colors, and it hydrates better than water with 75% less sugar and all the electrolytes of Gatorade Thirst Quencher Try Gatorade Lower Sugar today. It has the electrolytes Gatorade is known for with 75% less sugar and no artificial flavors, sweeteners or colors. You can find Gatorade Lower Sugar online or in stores near you.

When you talk about being real, like you talk about looking at yourself crying in the mirror and saying, oh, that's how I look, crying. I should use this on stage. And you would always say, I'm searching for what is real in there. Is there somebody real in there? Who is that? When you get to your embodied self, when you get to your realest self, who is real? Jane Fonda.

[Jane Fonda]

I guess I'm a brave, strong, persistent, curious woman who wants to make things better, is who I am, for sure.

[Abby Wambach]

Make it better. Where are you happiest now? Like, what's. What are the moments that you're the happiest?

[Jane Fonda]

Well, I'm always happy when I'm high on a mountain. You know, nature to me is my. My soul, my religion. So hiking, being in the mountains, being in a forest is my happy place. I like being in bed.

[Abby Wambach]

Yeah, Nature.

[Jane Fonda]

I have a great bed. I love my bed. You know, I'm happy most of the time. Isn't that weird?

[Glennon Doyle]

Wonderful.

[Jane Fonda]

I know I didn't used to be that way. I come from a long line of major depressives, but I. I learned to be content.

[Abby Wambach]

Are there any tricks for that?

[Jane Fonda]

No, it takes a lot of work. No, there's no shortcuts or tricks. It's that investigating your life. It's called doing a life review. It's meditation. It's therapy, if you can afford it. And it's a good therapist. It's girlfriends. I mean, it can be all kinds of things, but it all comes from a desire to be intentional about how you live. See, there's one way to live. You're in a canoe and a river and you have no ore. And so you're just taken where the current takes you. Or agency. You have an or. I am going to go over to this. You control, to the extent that any of us control anything, which we don't really. But you have agency over what you do with your life. And that can only happen if you're really intentional about who you want to be and where you want to go.

[Abby Wambach]

You know, this is interesting because. So when. When you talk about the chameleon, and you just became whoever for your husbands. So Sister and I were talking about this after reading one of your books, and Sister said this thing that I thought was so interesting. She said, the narrative seems to be that you matched yourself to each husband, and you did that. But what if instead of viewing you as passively assuming your husband's identity, what if you actively selected the men that were perfectly and strategically aligned with Your personal and political objectives.

[Jane Fonda]

Yeah, that's what I did.

[Abby Wambach]

Like, you're a mastermind.

[Jane Fonda]

I wanted to know what it meant to be a woman. And so I married Roger Vadim, who before me had been married to Catherine Deneuve and Brigitte Bardot and made the movie with Bridget called God Created Woman. I didn't know that it was going to be a female impersonator, but that's what that was about. And then Tom Hayden, he's going to show me how to be an activist. And he did, and that was a good choice. And then Ted. It was about the outdoors, about nature and being taken care of. I'd always supported everybody. It was nice to be taken care of. Yeah, absolutely. Scared me at first, but I remember the first time that Ted and I went to a hotel and the porter came with the luggage, and I went to my wallet to tip him, and Ted got there first, and I got scared. And that's where I realized, oh, my God. My being the one that had the financial strength in the marriage gave me power, and I don't have that now. And I got scared. I got used to it pretty quick.

[Abby Wambach]

So then metabolize that fear pretty quickly.

[Jane Fonda]

Pretty quickly.

[Abby Wambach]

In terms of your marriages, do you think at this point in your life you got what you needed out of them and you're like, I don't need any more marriage? Is that ever something that you ever considered since divorcing Ted?

[Jane Fonda]

Oh, yeah. Oh, it's over. I don't need any more marriage. I mean, I had some major boyfriends, and. No, I'm alone now and so happy. I wouldn't want to be in a relationship now. Girlfriends?

[Abby Wambach]

Your girlfriends. What does that look like? Do you hang out on the weekends? Like, what do you do with your girlfriends? Didn't fire Drill Fridays start with you hanging out with some girlfriends?

[Jane Fonda]

Yeah.

[Abby Wambach]

Can you tell us that story?

[Jane Fonda]

I was really depressed because I knew I wasn't doing enough about the climate. And my friend Naomi Klein had just written a new book about the climate crisis. And I had the galleys and Rosanna Arquette and Catherine Keener, and I drove up to Big Sur for the Labor Day weekend, and I read Naomi Klein's book, and I knew exactly what I had to do. I said to my. To Catherine and to Rosanna, I'm going to move to D.C. for. I wanted to go for a year. I called Annie Leonard, who's the director of Greenpeace, and I said, I want to come to D.C. i'm going to live in a tent for A year opposite the White House, and I'm going to raise a ruckus. I'm a little worried about where to poop because I have camped at 24,000ft. I mean, I have camped in the wilderness a lot, and you know what to do with your poop, but in a city. And she said, well, I don't think you have to worry about it because it's illegal now. You cannot do that.

[Abby Wambach]

Thank God.

[Jane Fonda]

So that's when we shifted to fire drill Fridays.

[Abby Wambach]

And what did your friends say when you said, I know what I have to do, because they were probably thinking, you know, post something on social media. And you said, no more.

[Jane Fonda]

We looked at maps together and, well, maybe you could be there and we'll come with you. And, you know, all of that. And then I went and I made an appointment with Ted Sarandos, who runs Netflix, and I said, ted, I want to move to D.C. for a year, and I need you to let me out of my contract with Grace and Frankie.

[Abby Wambach]

Oh.

[Jane Fonda]

And he said, that's so great, Jane, but I can't do that. I mean, I signed the contract, so I went for four and a half months, and then Covid hit.

[Abby Wambach]

So, you know, it's so beautiful to think about you as a kid. You were always in the woods. Nature really, Always has been.

[Jane Fonda]

Yeah.

[Abby Wambach]

Would you say the place you feel most embodied?

[Jane Fonda]

Yeah.

[Abby Wambach]

And now you're working to save the Earth. Talk to us about climate change. Can you just give us your heart about it?

[Jane Fonda]

Oh, gosh. Well, you know, I. I grew up in California in the 40s, and there was never any smog. You could swim safely in the ocean. It was so beautiful. I've swum with sea turtles in the world. I've swum over the most beautiful coral reefs, including the Great Barrier Reefs. I've hiked in the most beautiful forests. I've hiked to Machu Peach. I've done all these things. They're not going to be there for my grandkids. The coral reefs are dying. The forests are dying. The ocean is dying. Now. The ocean is where we get oxygen, little things called plankton. Phytoplankton in the ocean is what provides us with oxygen, and it's dying because of acidification, because of burning fossil fuels and heating up. You know, we had, like, 700 whales washed up on the beach, dead, and many of them had, like, 80 pounds of plastic in their stomachs in the forests that give us the rest of the oxygen, they're going. I mean, it's the things that are being destroyed by us. Breaks my heart. And I've read the science and there's going to be pandemics coming. There's going to be extreme weather events coming. There's going to be hundreds of millions of refugees that need to find a place where they can live safely. What are we going to do? We have to cut our fossil fuel burning in half in seven years. I mean, it's not easy to do it, and we're going in the wrong direction. So that's what I want to feel when I'm on my deathbed. I want to say I did everything I possibly could so that this incredible planet of which we are an integral part, is saved for the young people that are coming up. I remember two and a half years ago, it was like 112 here in Los Angeles, and because of the fires, the sky was brown orange. Then I read that birds were falling dead out of the sky. I mean, birds falling dead out of the sky. I grew up with nightingales and meadowlarks and songbirds. And they're gone. And they're gone. And the insects are gone. You notice when you drive, there's not a lot of crushed insects anymore on the. On the windshield. There is in Italy because they don't spray the way we do. We're destroying life on the planet. And I think that there's a way to stop it and to save it. And so that's what I'm devoting my life to. I do believe what I said earlier, that all these things are connected. So it's a very profound change that we have to go through.

[Abby Wambach]

Yeah, we need to remember our bodies. We need to come back to our bodies and we need to remember. We need to stop being dismembered as a one human family, that we come back together as kin as one human family, and we need to be also reunited with our environment.

[Jane Fonda]

You don't have to. Like, I'm going to be someone who now concentrates on reintegrating my body. You can do that while you're being an activist. One doesn't preclude the other. You know, you don't have to only be that thing.

[Abby Wambach]

And we do make a mistake when we say, oh, I have to get my shit together. I have to be personally before I show up for the world. We don't have time for that.

[Jane Fonda]

We don't have time. You have to do that while you're doing the other.

[Abby Wambach]

Yeah, and that's more of what you were saying before. Like, I have to be perfect before I can. Whatever and we've never been that. And we're never going to be that. We just have to show up as ourselves.

[Jane Fonda]

That's right. You know, we're human beings. We're flawed, and it's a toxic desire to want to be. We'll be nothing but disappointed.

[Glennon Doyle]

I also love what you're doing with the Jane Vonda climate Pack because it goes to the table where it's like Hamilton Room, where it happened, the room where it happens. You're getting in the room, and instead of saying, oh, I wish these rascals wouldn't take this money, you're saying, well, two can play at that game. And we're. We're coming after folks who are getting elected based on fossil fuel money. Can you talk to us about what you're doing?

[Jane Fonda]

You know, I have these two prongs. One is Fire Drill Fridays, whose goal is to take people who are concerned about the climate and turn them into activists. That's grassroots, and we need millions and millions and millions of them. But we kept seeing the important legislation isn't passing because all these damn elected officials are getting money from the fossil fuel industry. So I should start a PAC that brings fossil fuels into the electoral arena, that targets the people who are taking that money, call them out on it, and then try to get elected. The people who say, no, I'm working for the people. I'm not working for big oil or big corporations. They're mostly women, mostly women of color, mostly young. And they're all over this country. And we're not a pack that's rich enough to deal with the presidential or Senate level. So it's all down ballot. Oh, my God. But down ballot is where everything's happening. You know, it's amazing. I have met the most amazing, brave people who have run for office, and most of them won all over the country. And they're. They're the future.

[Abby Wambach]

It's like we always think about activism, as, you know, that Desmond Tutu quote, that you can only pull people out of the river for so long till you have to go upstream to look who's pushing them in. Fire Draw Friday is like, we're getting people out of the river. Like on. This is like grassroots right now. And then the pack is looking up river and confronting the people who are causing everybody to fall in the river in the first place.

[Jane Fonda]

I like that. I like that. I'll use that. I'm going to steal that from you.

[Abby Wambach]

Please do. Do it well as Desmond Tutu, but via. Via Glennon Doyle.

[Jane Fonda]

Yeah.

[Abby Wambach]

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[Glennon Doyle]

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[Abby Wambach]

Pod Squad. Listen to what Jane said. She did not say, I have to fix the climate. She said on my deathbed, I want to know that I did everything I could. It's different. So we don't not start just because it feels too overwhelming, because it is not our job to do everything. It is just our job to do our thing.

[Jane Fonda]

Yeah. And everybody can do something. And the most important thing is join an organization so you're not alone. So you're with other people.

[Abby Wambach]

Yeah. And everybody listening who's a parent, who has kids. I mean, we're all raising kids who are looking at the climate change. Like, what the hell are all of you all doing?

That's right.

So important for our kids to see us showing up, not ignoring what they're gonna face in their generation.

[Jane Fonda]

Yeah.

[Abby Wambach]

It's so freaking inspiring, Jane. Thank you.

[Jane Fonda]

Thank you.

[Abby Wambach]

We're going into a new year here. Do you have any ideas or habits or anything that you're leaving behind in 2022? Are you thinking in that way at all yet?

[Jane Fonda]

Well, I have to get better at not being afraid of conflict, which probably sounds weird coming from me.

[Abby Wambach]

Yes, it does.

[Jane Fonda]

But I don't like conflict, so I stay away from it, which means that I don't often talk things out the way I should. So I want to try to get more used to talking things out so they don't fester.

[Abby Wambach]

Yes. In one of your books, I'm remembering this line where you said, I'm afraid of intimacy. Intimacy is what's in here. It's easier to be out there. So are you. Because this might be familiar to me. Are you good at conflict out there? Like big conflict, public conflict, and less good at interrelational conflict?

[Jane Fonda]

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Behind the closed doors, let there be no conflict. That's why I'm a chameleon. Or I used to be.

[Abby Wambach]

Yeah.

[Jane Fonda]

To avoid conflict.

[Abby Wambach]

Okay, so Jane wants me to be a bimbo.

[Jane Fonda]

I can be a bimbo.

[Abby Wambach]

Oh, it's so damn good. Okay, so is that your hard thing? I'm. I'm in my final frontier, which now that you probably think that's hilarious, because I'm probably going to have six more final frontiers in the next 100. Right. But I'm in doing the work right now of my life, which is this body shit. And. And this is my final frontier that I'm in right now. Would you say your public frontier right now is the planet?

[Jane Fonda]

Yeah. And I just. I don't want to. I want to go out feeling that my grandkids will be okay.

[Abby Wambach]

Yeah.

[Jane Fonda]

You know.

[Abby Wambach]

Yeah, yeah, I do know.

[Jane Fonda]

I'm not going to be around to see them, you know, reach middle life, but I just. I want them to be okay. So I'll do whatever I can to help that happen.

[Abby Wambach]

We appreciate that. On behalf of all the grandkids and

if you could impart any kind of wisdom on those grandchildren of yours, what would be. What would you want them to know?

[Jane Fonda]

You can be anything you want to be. Figure out what your dream is, what your passion is, what would make you happy, forget about Rich, what will satisfy you, and then go for it.

[Abby Wambach]

Yeah. And what you've done, it seems, is constantly, forever. Go towards the thing that breaks your heart.

[Jane Fonda]

I have.

[Abby Wambach]

Yeah. I think really every decade. I mean, Vietnam, racism, misogyny, the teenagers in Georgia with the G cap. You said that we do. We teach what we want to know. And your passion became, you know, pushing off teen pregnancy so that girls can have a chance. Aren't these all things that kind of tore at your heart and so you rush towards them?

[Jane Fonda]

Yeah, I guess that's true. Yeah. I mean, when something feels really wrong to me, I sort of feel like it's. This is narcissism, probably, that I'm going to make that go away. And I think it's my responsibility to end that war. It's my responsibility to turn around the climate crisis. I feel like all the responsibility is on me, and so I can't stop. I just have to keep going and working as hard as I can. If only more sleep. Nine hours a night.

[Abby Wambach]

Good for you.

If only more. Had that mindset, we could actually get some shit done. So that's a. That, to me, is not narcissism. That is just leadership. That is leadership.

It's mothering the world.

[Jane Fonda]

That's a good.

[Abby Wambach]

Yeah, it's mothering the world.

[Jane Fonda]

Thank you, Abby.

[Abby Wambach]

Jane Fonda, for fuck's sake. We love you.

[Jane Fonda]

God. Thank you. I love you, too.

[Abby Wambach]

Oh, my God, thank you for.

[Jane Fonda]

You both moved me so much when you came to Georgia and we talked together, and really, it meant a lot to me.

[Abby Wambach]

Same to us.

[Jane Fonda]

Yeah.

[Abby Wambach]

We're in your corner forever.

[Jane Fonda]

So many people love your show.

[Abby Wambach]

They do.

[Jane Fonda]

Unexpected.

[Abby Wambach]

Yeah. Yeah. They really do.

We also agree that it's unexpected. We love doing it, and it's because we get to have such amazing people like you on, who have. You have lived, it feels like a thousand lives, but you have taught us so many freaking lessons. Jane Fonda. Thank you for being on with us.

[Jane Fonda]

I appreciate your having me. I really appreciate it. I hope we can stay friends. Yes.

[Abby Wambach]

Oh, please. Yes. Yes. All right, Pod Squad, we love you. Okay, Pod Squad, before we go, we want to give the toast again that Abby and I gave to Jane Fonda at her 85th birthday party for you. Take it away, love bug.

Okay, so I just have to set the scene a little.

Okay. Set the stage.

So there we were. We were on stage. Jane was to our left. There was lots of people in the crowd.

Yes. And it was a beautiful tent.

It's a gorgeous tent. And this is what we said.

[Glennon Doyle]

Where did you poo.

[Abby Wambach]

Poo. It was a tent in the yard of a house.

Yeah.

Connected. There was toilets by a tunnel.

Do you want me to do this or.

Yeah, go.

Okay, great. Hello, everybody. I'm Abby Wambach, and this is my wife, Glennon Doyle. See, Jane is my wife's hero. So I'm going to start this toast while she does the breathing exercises she's been practicing with her therapist in anticipation of this exact moment. Glennon breathes. Glennon and I have three teenagers, so we are very, very tired. This morning at the airport, in a long line for coffee, I looked at tonight's itinerary and saw that this party ends at 10pm I said hopefully to my wife, Jane's turning 85, right. Certainly she won't want to stay up till 10pm, right. And time stopped as my wife glared at me with the fire of a thousand burning suns. And this is what she said.

I said, let me make something perfectly clear. Jane Fonda has spent her life making 50 films, winning Oscars and Emmys and Golden Globes, healing trauma, breaking generational patterns, reducing the rate of teenage pregnancy, working tirelessly for the liberation of women, indigenous people and all marginalized people.

[Jane Fonda]

Oh.

[Abby Wambach]

Ending wars and also saving our planet from apocalypse. So I'm pretty sure she can stay up till 10pm Furthermore, if Jane Fonda asks us to stay up till February, we will stay up till February. Wombach. And then a lady behind us in line tapped me on the shoulder and I turned around and she looked me in the eye and she said, I love Jane Fonda. And I looked right back at her and I said, I do, too. And she squeezed my arm and chills ran down my spine because I realized that two women saying I love Jane Fonda to each other means something much more than I love Jane Fonda. It's like a secret code that means I love justice. I love truth. I love fiery women who risk it all for both. It means I want to be like that. I want to wake up in the morning and rush straight toward the most dangerous, complicated battles of our times to save us all. To say I love Jane Fonda is to say I stand on the side of goodness and courage and the people and the earth and revolution. Happy birthday to the woman who lives her life in such a way that her name has become a clarion call, an ethos in itself, a battle cry. Let us offer a birthday toast with that battle cry. I love Jane Fonda. And we love you too, Pod Squad. See you next time. We can do Hard Things is an independent production brought to you by Treat Media. We make art for humans who want to stay human. And you can follow us at We Can Do Hard Things on Instagram.