The Best Advice We’ve Got on Loneliness & Jealousy (Best Of)

Summary

We Can Do Hard Things – “The Best Advice We’ve Got on Loneliness & Jealousy (Best Of)”

Hosts: Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, Amanda Doyle
Date: August 31, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this special “Best Of” episode, Glennon Doyle, her wife Abby Wambach, and sister Amanda Doyle dive deep into the complexities of loneliness and jealousy, especially in the context of advice-giving and relationships. The trio shares personal stories and perspectives before addressing listener questions: River asks about the value of aloneness and the meaning of loneliness, while Emily wonders how to deal with jealousy toward her partner’s affection for a dog. The conversation is vulnerable, compassionate, peppered with laughter and memorable insights into being human—reminding listeners that it’s normal to struggle and seek connection.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Who Do We Trust for Advice? (03:29-16:36)

• The hosts explore the nature of advice—why we seek it, who we turn to, and what we’re really looking for.
• Glennon and Abby trust friends like Liz Gilbert and Alex Hedison for advice because they've “proactively went in search of figuring some of that stuff out” (04:37, Abby).
• The importance of having “adventurers of the human experience” in your corner—those, according to Abby, who “dig in... their adventures of the soul” (05:27).
• Amanda notes most of the time “I am sharing a problem purportedly for advice, I actually don’t... I'm not seeking advice” (07:06), instead aiming for connection, validation, or just to process feelings.
• The hosts emphasize the difference between sharing for solution versus sharing for companionship, joking that some friends are best for “gather[ing] witnesses for your own case” (08:34, Abby) or commiseration.
• Quote: “...when someone says, I want to hear the truth. I mean, most—think of how many relationship stories that people have come to share a story, and you’re like, he’s never going to leave her... you’re not actually asking me what I think. What you’re asking me for is to lend you a listening ear and to actually not say what I think.” — Amanda, (09:24)

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2. The Value of Aloneness & Understanding Loneliness (20:07-37:13)

Listener Question from River
“How badly do I need to learn to be alone? What is the value of aloneness? Is there value to loneliness? How can I let my community in more?” (20:07-21:08)

What the Hosts Say:

• Glennon: Sometimes we feel the most ourselves when alone: “When I am alone is the time that I feel like I exist the most... I am blue, and I can feel my blueness. And then with other people, I suddenly turn green...” (22:01, Glennon).
• Being “alone in a crowd” may be lonelier than solitude—loneliness is rarely about sheer proximity.
• Amanda references a USC study showing lonely people’s brains have uniquely individual processing styles, which only intensifies the sense of being different:
  “If you are lonely, your brain processing is very individualized, distinct, idiosyncratic… your brain just looks very individual. Which means that when you feel like you are not experiencing the world in the same way with a shared understanding, you are correct.” (26:46)
• Abby: Adding more people doesn’t always solve loneliness; sometimes it amplifies it if you’re not understood.
• The difference between feeling connection at a party (often missing) vs. at a concert (collective dissolution, feeling “molecularly... gone”).
• Amanda: The craving for “shared experience” is why finding “your people” is so rare and so deeply cherished.
• Quote: “Reframing what loneliness is—that’s the biggest difference between my first marriage and my second marriage. I was so freaking lonely... because I constantly felt like we were having different experiences.” — Glennon, (32:08)

Key Takeaways:

• Loneliness ≠ being physically alone; it’s about sharing meaning and understanding with those around you.
• For those who process uniquely ("blue" people), community is about finding rare kindreds—not just increasing one’s social group.
• It's normal to have a fundamentally different way of experiencing life—nothing is “wrong” with you.
• Art can offer connection when person-to-person understanding is elusive: “Art is where we express our little idiosyncratic worlds and say, someone please look.” — Glennon, (36:53)

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3. Jealousy in Relationships: When the Dog Gets the Love (39:49-52:55)

Listener Question from Emily
“What do you do when you’re jealous of a dog and you love yourself?” (39:53-41:07)

What the Hosts Say:

• Compassion for Emily and her partner: Recognizing the trauma ripple effect—abuse can make physical intimacy with humans (but not pets) fraught.
• Glennon: With animals, affection is simple—no threat of escalation, no messy history. Suggests experimenting with nonsexual, boundary-defined touch (“snuggle like dogs... nothing going further than snuggling”) as a gentle first step (41:07-43:03).
• Amanda: Admits it’s "much easier" to show unguarded affection to her dog than her partner — “it's uncomplicated… with people, you have to work through all this memory and vulnerability” (43:03–43:31).
• Relates a study comparing empathy given to humans vs. animals: “The levels were the exact same for child, adult dog, puppy... adult person, low levels of empathy.” (45:08)
• Jealousy toward the dog is totally valid; Glennon even jokes about being jealous of Abby’s food: “I’ve been jealous of ice cream. I’ve been jealous of steak. So dogs to me are like, yeah, that makes perfect sense.” (47:38)
• Amanda: Sometimes the dog is “the wife that my ex-husband needed... all devotion, no memory, no counted costs...” (48:22)
• Advice: Emily’s feelings are natural and worth expressing, tenderly and without accusation; therapy for both partners can help.
• Quote: “It isn’t about whether that person deems you worthy of the kind of affection they can give the dog. It’s whether that person deems themselves worthy to give and receive that kind of love with another human.” — Amanda, (52:52)

Key Takeaways:

• “Dog jealousy” points not to the dog, but to layers of self-acceptance, vulnerability, and partnership challenges.
• Being honest about these feelings with your partner is important—though every partnership has limits.
• Healing requires compassion for everyone involved and a realistic sense of what may or may not change.

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Notable Quotes & Moments (With Timestamps)

• On Advice:
  “We’re not saying it’s going to be good advice... what we're saying is we're going to give you our best ideas and advice.” — Abby (03:29)
• On Processing Out Loud:
  “When we are all in our heads, our problems, our frustrations are so incoherent, you can't touch them... if you’re able to verbally process, you are walking through yourself in that.” — Amanda (15:19)
• On Loneliness as Brain Wiring:
  “If you are lonely, your brain processing is very individualized, distinct, idiosyncratic.” — Amanda (26:46)
• On Craving Sameness:
  “That is why you dissolve into them, because it is an indistinction... you’re not lonely at a concert.” — Amanda (33:28)
• On Comparison:
  “I realized at the close of that marriage that the dog was the wife that my ex husband needed... all devotion, no counting.” — Amanda (48:22)
• On Root Causes:
  “It isn’t about whether that person deems you worthy... it’s whether that person deems them self worthy to give and receive that kind of love with another human.” — Amanda (52:52)
• Final Comfort:
  “There is nothing wrong with you. Not a damn thing. And life is really hard. And it’s not hard because you’re doing it wrong. It’s just hard because it was designed that way.” — Glennon (53:17)

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Key Segment Timestamps

• [03:29] – Advice Giving: Who Do We Trust?
• [20:07] – River’s Question: Loneliness, Aloneness, Value
• [26:46] – Brains & Loneliness Study Discussion
• [39:53] – Emily’s Question: Jealousy of the Dog
• [52:52] – Amanda’s Insight on Worthiness and Affection

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Conclusion

Glennon, Abby, and Amanda remind listeners that hard feelings—loneliness, jealousy, longing for advice—are universal and not to be pathologized. The episode encourages radical honesty and self-compassion, the pursuit of rare, meaningful connections, and granting ourselves grace in the messy effort of being human.

Listener takeaways:

• Seek advice from those who approach life consciously and honestly.
• Recognize that loneliness is about shared meaning, not numbers.
• It’s normal to feel jealous, even of a pet—talk about it, and be compassionate.
• There is nothing wrong with experiencing life as “hard”—it’s what connects us all.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

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[A]

Hello pod squad. I just want to let you know that we will be taking a quick pause with no new episode on Tuesday, but you're going to want to come back on Thursday, September 4th for the first episode of my new video first women's sports podcast with Legends and my friends Billie Jean King and Julie Foudy. If you haven't yet listened to last Thursday's episode with Julie Foudy, you're going to want to go back and make sure you do to hear all about it. And if you have listened and you're not already following, welcome to the party. Go do that now wherever you get your podcasts and follow elcometothepartyshow on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. In the meantime, please enjoy this best of episode where we talk about who we really turn to for advice and whether we even want advice at all or just someone to truly listen. We also take on your questions about navigating loneliness and the unexpected jealousy that can arise when your partner's affection is directed towards. Towards your pet. Let's jump in.

[B]

Hello, love bugs. Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things Today. This is the plan. We're gonna give you our best advice. Okay. Not like advice that we've gathered from other people. We're going to listen to some challenges that you all have sent to us via email or voicemail and we are going to give you our best advice. Okay. We're not saying it's going to be good advice.

[C]

Yeah, just our best.

[B]

What we're saying is we're going to give you our best ideas and advice. So before we start, let's take a minute and talk about advice. Who do you two trust to give you good advice? Can you think of people that, when you have a problem, you know that person will give me good advice?

[A]

I mean, I obviously will say you two for sure. You both are brilliant advice givers. But outside of you two, I would say Liz and Alex.

[B]

Yes, same.

[A]

Those are my two.

[B]

Liz Gilbert, Alex Hedison. Why? What is it about. Let's first take Liz. What is it about her that makes you trust her advice?

[A]

I think because she's gone through a lot of stuff in her life and has proactively went in search of figuring some of that stuff out. Both Alex and Liz aren't. Well, that just happened. I'm not gonna, like, go in any kind of search and analyze. Like, they are the most proactive about understanding themselves and the world and how those two can compete against each other and with each other.

[B]

Yeah. It's like if you were going to trust somebody to. To tell you about the world, you would trust an adventurer. Like someone who had gone out and seen a lot of different places.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And Alex and Liz are both people who are adventurers of the human experience. They dig in.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

They do recovery, they do therapy, they do talking to people. They do, like their adventures of the soul.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And so when you bring them a problem, it's almost like they're like, please. I know I've done it a few.

[A]

Times where I brought. I brought this one thing to Alex that I was so. I was devastated. I was devastated about. And she reframed that shit in two seconds. And the way that she heard my Story. She was unaffected.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I was like, how is this person not floored and surprised and shocked by this? It was like she had heard a million worse stories.

[C]

Yeah. Like, you think you're special.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

This shit is just life.

[B]

So what was interesting about that story is you brought her to her. A problem you were having that somebody did something that upset you very much.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And the way that Alex reframed it, which I thought was so interesting, is that she didn't focus on the thing that happened. She didn't focus on the person that did it. She said, isn't it interesting that this thing is causing this much turmoil in you? Yes. What has happened is that something has come up in you that is unhealed. So thank God this happened. I know this has given you an opportunity.

[A]

Literally, literally four minutes later, she was just like, eventually you're gonna say, thank God for this person.

[C]

It's like the Maya Angelou thing. Like, say thank you right now. Say thank you right now.

[A]

And at the beginning of that conversation, I was like, fuck this person. And at the end, I was like, thank God for this. I hadn't done any of the work yet, of course, but I was like, oh, I'm gonna have to say thank God for so and so forth, showing me what I need to work on. And that is why Liz and Alex are the best.

[B]

What about you, Cece? Who do you go to?

[C]

I mean, I think it's an interesting question, too, about advice. Like, I think, at least for me, probably 90% of the time that I am sharing a problem purportedly for advice. I actually don't. I'm not seeking advice because I think there's this. There's so many things that we go to people. Like, I need to share this with you, ostensibly for the idea that people are going to advise us, but really we just want to either share and commiserate over, like, the betrayal or the bullshit that someone did or just, like, be outraged together or just share this monumental thing that happened to us. But I feel like I rarely seek actual advice, as in counsel, as in, like, I'm stuck between these two or three roads. Which one do you advise me to go down based on what you know about me? But obviously, you two also. My friend Bonzo, I only go to her when I'm, like, ready, ready. Because she isn't gonna bullshit. She is going to actually tell me what she thinks I should do. And she knows me really well. And so often, if I'm not actually ready to change the thing, I'm not Going down that road.

[B]

Yes. She's not the one you call just to confirm your story or to gather witnesses for your own case.

[C]

Yes, exactly. It's like, well, do I actually want to solve this? No. Well, then I'm not going to go over there because. And so that's good to have someone like that. And it's also interesting to pay attention to whether you're actually like, do you actually want advice? Advice suggests, like, action and change and movement. And if you're not going to do that, you're just sharing a story. You're not asking for advice.

[B]

Yeah, it's such a good point. Most of us don't want. That's why it's so important to know that about human beings. Because I feel like we always jump into advice giving when really the only time that you should really offer advice is when someone calls your voicemail podcast line and says, do you have advice for me?

[C]

Well, it's like the lying episode. It's like when someone says, I want to hear the truth. I mean, most think of how many relationship stories that people have come to to share a story, and you're like, he's never going to leave her. Everyone knows he's never going to leave her. Like, you're not actually asking me what I think think, because everyone knows the correct answer to your conundrum, which is you leave his ass or you stop doing whatever you're doing. But you're not actually asking me that. What you're asking me for is to lend you a listening ear and to actually not say what I think, which is what we do most of the time. So I think it's like that lying episode where you kind of create a social contract. I think my social contract with Bonzo is you're going to tell me where my dysfunction is in this and you're going to give it back to me, and then you're going to tell me the changes that are going to help to not make that happen again. And then John is just the most, for better or for worse, most level a emotional reactor to things.

[A]

Ever.

[C]

So it's a very helpful one. When I'm like, this person just said this to me. And sometimes I don't know, because I am a very emotional reactor to things. And I'll be like, is that weird? And he will tell me, honestly, when he says something's weird or strange, you're like, holy. I'm like, well, wow, okay. Then it's really weird. Then I am confirmed in my reaction to that being weird.

[B]

I think that's a really helpful. It's helpful when you're a very sensitive person. You have to have that. I mean, Abby and I, once a day. Once a what? We have a thing where we have figured out that just because I am triggered by something doesn't mean anything happened.

[C]

Right.

[B]

And I'm not, like, being hard on myself. I'm saying, like, so I will ask her, did that feel weird to you? Or whatever.

[C]

Objectively speaking, was that odd?

[B]

Yeah. Or she'll be like, I'll be like, did that, like, even with you? I'll be like, did sister seem stressed? And Abby will be like, yeah. And I'm like. And she's like, I don't think it's a problem, but. So here's the deal. We're both with you. Is sister stressed? Yes. For me, that's a very upsetting thing with Abby.

[C]

It's a fact.

[B]

It is new information to me and something that is so important in my recovery. And also unbelievable to me that it is true that in a space, a person can be sad or upset or angry, and I do not have to immediately become sad or upset or angry. And I'm not there, but I can see.

[C]

Yeah. Entertain that intellectually and conceptually.

[B]

Right. Right. So I don't know what that has to do with advice other than there's some advice for you. You can be in a room with someone who's upset, and you can stay how you are. Okay. So should we hear from. Do you have anything else to say about advice?

[A]

I just want to make sure that you feel like you. You said who? Your advice.

[B]

Oh, I agree with Liz and Alex. Yeah. I was thinking about how funny it is. Like, my people think their parents. And I was thinking about my mom and advice. And my mom is, like, the worst advice giver ever because she hates everyone I hate. She loves everyone I love. She thinks everything that I've done is perfect. She. So there's no, like, otherness to offer.

[C]

That's the commiseration and the validation. And you need that, too.

[B]

Oh, my God. Totally. Totally. And I did think about. We have one kid who constantly wants to report trauma and drama, but never wants to fix it.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Wants no ideas. That is not her purpose.

[C]

That is not what we're doing here.

[B]

No. And so it is a different way of being to listen to someone's pain or problems and say, that sounds so hard, and then nothing else. But I bet more people are like that than we know. Because actually, usually when someone offers me advice, it makes me feel stupid. Most of the time. Because I'm like, I know that. Yeah, I know what to do.

[C]

Does it make you feel stupid, or does it make you feel like you dislike them?

[B]

It makes me feel like they think I'm stupid or do you know what I mean? Like, obviously, I know how to solve the problem. We're doing something else here, right? Yeah. Yeah, but these are people. These are pod squatters who don't know how to solve their problems.

[A]

Maybe.

[B]

And so maybe they just ask.

[C]

Maybe they want to come to us. And we can be like, mom. We can be, like, delusionals.

[B]

I can't believe it. And also, don't you have those friends? Like, when I think about Alex and Liz and telling them stuff, Usually when I'm telling them a problem, I'm thinking right now about a problem that I reported to Alex a couple weeks ago. We were on FaceTime, and by the end of me talking, I was already embarrassed. Cause I was already looking at her face, listening to me.

[C]

She's like, I'm waiting for the problem.

[B]

Yeah, I know. No, but I know exactly what my problem is. I know exactly what to do. I know exactly what she's gonna say before she opens her mouth. Because I have heard myself through Alex's ears. And now I know that this is all horseshit. She doesn't have to say anything.

[C]

What is that? Verbal processing.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

That's a big thing. That's why writing down in journals is so important. That's why having people to share our issues with is important. Because when we are all in our heads, our problems, our frustrations are so incoherent, you can't touch them. You can't. They just feel overwhelming. So if you're able to verbally process, you are walking through yourself in that. And if you're able to write, you are making them more manageable by putting something so amorphous and undealable.

[B]

Yeah, you are making it through. I think you should have a list of people when you want to just get all riled up. You have that friend, you know, you have that friend who's just gonna hate everyone you hate be with you, a very valuable person, confirm your case. Like, yes, you're the winner. That other person is all the things. And then you should have an empathetic person who's just gonna be sad and soft for you. And then you should have the bonso who's like, I assume you're not gonna waste my time if we're not gonna get to a solution here, right?

[C]

And, like, we're gonna sit here and pretend like you haven't done that same horseshit pattern for 30 years. Oh, I'm so surprised.

[B]

That's.

[A]

That's the trouble of having friends for a long time. You keep bringing back the same shit over.

[B]

Yeah, it's better to get new ones. You can pretend like you're just discovering this issue.

[A]

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[B]

All right, let's hear from our first pod squatter.

[D]

My name is. My name is River. My pronouns are they, them. I am someone who can feel alone in a crowd of my family and friends. And I need to feel really seen and known, to feel safe and also to feel present. I'm very sensitive to not having those things, especially right now. I recognize that we are all communal and social beings. That's human nature, really. But we also live in a very individualistic world. I'm currently building a community in my life with people capable of giving me these things. But that's not the only people I have in my life. So my question is, how badly do I need to learn to be alone? What is the value of aloneness? Is there value to loneliness? How can I let my community in more when they are present, when they are there for me? Thank you so, so, so much. You are all like my mothers, my sisters, my guardian angels, my teachers. Thank you for everything. I listen to you basically every day for your guidance.

[B]

River.

[A]

I love that name, too. River.

[B]

Well, you know, I love this question. We have a kid who was talking to us recently about how they had been surrounded by people so much, and they love. They have a group that is the most beautiful little community of people that I know at their age. It's. They love each other, they take care of each other, they pull each other intellectually and emotionally. It's really gorgeous community. And our kid was starting to feel a little bit lost, so they carved out more alone time just to go for walks, do all the things. And they were reporting back to me about the results of that. And they said, when I am alone is the time that I feel like I exist the most.

[A]

Whoa.

[B]

They can feel themselves existing the most. And I feel the same way. Okay, so it's like, I am blue. Okay? It's like I'm blue, and I can feel my blueness. And then when I'm with other people, it's like I suddenly turn green. Like, I'm mixed with their colors, and I just start to feel, like, disintegrated a little bit. And I love that feeling. Like, when you think about being at a concert is like, the ultimate experience of that to me. It's, like, communal. You're disappearing, and that is so beautiful. Like, I love to disappear with a group, whether it's like us on the couch with our team last night, which the five of us, and it's like we're a mushy stew. Or at a concert where it's like you really feel like, molecularly you have disappeared. Like, you are in the collective. You're gone. I must have those experiences, and I must return to blue. Like, if I don't disappear and exist completely, then I feel like I'm not whole. So, River, I think, is there value to aloneness? Oh, my God. To some of us, it's when we exist fully in our culture, we define loneliness as being alone. And I am the most lonely when I'm with a group of people and I can't connect with any of them, and everything's just talk, talk, talk. And I can't see anybody's blueness or greenness or redness. And I can't feel my own blueness because there's so much noise. And that's when I feel the most lonely, when I'm in a space that's not supposed to be disappearing. It's not supposed to be a concert, but I still feel like we're all disappearing, which is why I don't like a party. I mean, I have friends who are married and are the most lonely when they're with their partner on a couch and they're together because they feel so unknown by that person, and they feel like they're supposed to be known by. And when you feel like it's supposed to be connection and it's not there, that's really lonely. I know people who hate to be alone, and that's loneliness for them. So I think loneliness can be so many different things, and it's not just aloneness. And if you're asking river, is it important to be alone and to have community, or if that's an either or, I think it's an and both.

[C]

I think it is so interesting what you just brought up about the concert, because that togetherness is not lonely precisely because you are having what feels like dissolving into the same experience together. And what river is talking about is that they have the experience of friends and family who they feel they are lonely around because they don't share the same. I forget how they put it, but like experience of life or same values or whatever. And I think this is significant because there was a study out of USC last month and it's very different research than has ever been done that is shift showing the brain processing of people who are lonely and people who are not lonely. And this to me blows my mind and makes sense of this kind of self fulfilling prophecy of loneliness. So people who are not experiencing loneliness have very similar patterns in brain information processing as other people who do not experience loneliness. Okay, so you're not lonely. Your brain works a certain way. You work very similarly to other people who are not lonely. If you are lonely, your brain processing is very individualized, distinct, idiosyncratic. So the brains of lonely people do not look like the brains of not lonely people and also do not look like the brains of other lonely people. Your brain just looks very individual. Which means that when you feel like you are not experiencing the world in the same way with a shared experience and understanding, you are correct.

[B]

Wow.

[C]

And the research is completely unaffected by how many friends you have, how much socialization you do, how many people are around you does not affect your experience of your loneliness. Being the result of a feeling like you do not experience the world in the same way.

[B]

So does that mean that if you're a lonely person, you can't just change your circumstances. It means that you are born a lonely person. Are people who have this lonely brain, are they? Is that why artists are always like, please let me show you or paint you or, or sing to you or write to you what it's like for me, because no one else is sharing this experience. So we're constantly like, look. Because it is an unusual experience that nobody else is having.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Lonely people are lonely people are lonely people are lonely people. Every week. You don't just get a dog or get another friend.

[C]

Well, this is what's mind blowing. They haven't done the research yet to show whether it's a cart or a horse thing.

[B]

I see.

[C]

So the question is, right, if your brain is that idiosyncratic, do you become lonely because you realize by watching the world and being around people that your brain isn't working like all these other people's brains and that makes you feel more lonely? Or are you just born with lonely brain? But what is true is that it doesn't matter how many people you surround yourself with, you're still going to be having a very distinct experience that is not the same as them. And so, in fact, they have found that that actually might be. The research is still out, but it actually might be a risk factor. They say the possibility that being surrounded by people who see the world differently from oneself may be a risk factor for loneliness. So not only that, just adding those people to your mix doesn't make it better, it might make it worse. So if you're blue and blue and blue and you're surrounding, you're saying, I'm so blue, I need to surround myself with more other colors. If half of those people who are not lonely are all red and the other half are lonely, but they're not blue, they're teal and yellow and purple and orange.

[B]

So let me just put this into a visual so that the pod squatters can visualize with me. So, like, what sister is saying is the people studied loneliness, and they're like, all right, we've got these hundred people who are saying they're lonely. So we're going to put them in a room and study them and figure out, do they have a dog, do they have enough friends, do they have enough family? And then what they found out was, oh, they all have different amounts of those. The thing they have in common is they all have an idiosyncratic brain. So their brain is what they have in common, not any circumstances that we define as loneliness.

[C]

Well, for the record, I don't know that they looked at dogs and families and whatever while they looked at his brain.

[B]

You assumed that they would look at circumstances also.

[C]

Well, it was just MRI imaging. So basically, they looked at. Let's say they looked at a hundred brains on MRIs. They said, okay, 50% of these people are lonely. 50% are not. What's wild to us is that the 50% that are not lonely, their brains look very similar to one another. Then they looked at the other 50% who are lonely, and they're like, lord have mercy. These people are all over the map. Their brains don't look like each other, and they also don't look like the people who are not lonely.

[A]

I mean, talk about a perpetuating loneliness.

[B]

Exactly, exactly. So then what we need is a different word then the word lonely, it just has such a negative connotation, and it makes us feel like the thing we're experiencing is that we need more people around us. So what we need is a different word. If what we're saying is lonely means your brain works differently than everybody else and that makes you feel isolated, then we just need a different word from that. Like, how do you feel? Idiosyncratic again.

[C]

Yeah, exactly. How do I feel? Like. Like I am not neither seen nor understood nor experience the world the same way as others.

[B]

Exactly.

[C]

How do you feel?

[B]

But not lonely. Yeah. Like, I feel like nobody fucking gets me still, or I'm having a different experience than everyone else's. What's the word for that?

[C]

Yes. And I think that that is super helpful because then even people who are not lonely people, maybe their brains work like all these other 50%. Congratulations. You're lucky. They still could have periods of that. Like, what is this icky feeling when I'm with these three people and this thing happens and I appear to be the only one that experiences it in this weird way? And so that is loneliness. Right. It's like I am alone in this feeling and this experience in this understanding of what's happening. And so river already nailed it because they have identified for themself what's already the issue. It's not the lack of people around them. It's the having a connection with those who experience the world in the same way and who have similar reactions. And I think that's why that is so coveted. That's why when we find those people, we rarely let them go because they are fucking rare.

[B]

Yeah. Rare. And that's why maybe we don't need a lot of them. Maybe we just keep it tight. Keep it. Yeah. Wow. That's so interesting. Just reframing what loneliness is. That's the biggest difference between my first marriage and my second marriage. I was so freaking lonely in my first marriage because I constantly felt like we were having different experiences. We would be in the same room, something would happen. With a kid, with a life, whatever. Something would happen in the world. And I understood that we were having completely different experiences. I felt so lonely.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And that's the biggest difference now in my marriage, is there's lots of things, but that's very rarely happening. We are having similar experiences. I can trust I can look at Abby and be like, yeah, she knows exactly what's happening with me. What just happened with the kid. That's the opposite of loneliness to me.

[C]

And many people don't have that with their partners. But if you have that with someone.

[B]

Yeah. And at a concert. That's what you're saying.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

It's the same experience. If I'm at a concert, I'm Watching Brandi Carlisle and Catherine singing, and my heart is, like, busting open with joy at their love and their community and their lives. That is what everyone around me is thinking.

[C]

Yes. That is why you dissolve into them, because it is an indistinction. It is not the distinction of having a different experience. So if you're at a party. Party, you know you're not having the same experience over there. And so that is why you're lonely at a party. That is why you're not lonely at a concert.

[B]

And that's why what I really want at a party is for everyone to ask one person a question. Like, I love at a dinner, when you do one, let's have one question that everybody answers. That's because everybody then is having the same experience. We're looking at the person all together, collectively. We're all focused on one thing. We're all having the same experience.

[A]

And that's really interesting because I wouldn't consider myself an overly lonely person. And so I'm not as concerned with needing to have the same experience because it's not as important to me because I don't think of myself or I wouldn't consider myself a lonely person. So have going to small talk cocktail hour, though I'm not having any cocktails. Doesn't bother me because I don't care if I'm having a different experience than.

[C]

Other people or you're on the 50% where your brain works similarly to others.

[A]

Right.

[C]

And so you have never picked up on the clues throughout your life that you are experiencing the world vastly differently than everyone else. And so you don't.

[A]

So that's less alone. There's no. Like, yes.

[C]

You don't have the automatic presumption that you understand the world differently. So you don't have that craving that needs to be met. Because that's interesting. It's possible. And so you look around, you're like 50% of this. This party is experiencing the same way as I do. And maybe you have that kind of understanding of the universe.

[B]

So, river, in short.

[C]

In short, you are blue.

[A]

We try to do it every time, like voicemails. And we get through, like, one.

[B]

I know. And I feel like people, they leave us messages hoping for an answer, and we return to them 50,000 more questions and much more confusion.

[A]

Sorry.

[B]

Let's try to give river, in short.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

In sum, river, it is possible that it's not that you just haven't found the right conglomeration of circumstances or people. It is possible that you just have an IDIOSYNCRATIC brain, a different sort of brain. And so what we could do is not label that as a yearning, but just a difference. And that it is possible that you will feel best in experiences where there is a decided shared experience, like a concert, and with the very few people you will find throughout your life who you feel like, see you and know you and you share a common understanding.

[C]

With and that there's not anything wrong with you.

[B]

Right.

[C]

That you feel lonely in groups of people where you get the feeling that you experience things differently than them. That is actually correct.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

It is not your moral failing or.

[B]

Emotional failing or theirs.

[C]

Or theirs. That you are in this group and.

[B]

Feel lonely and maybe go for art. Art is where we express our little idiosyncratic worlds and say, someone please look.

[C]

And tell me if you agree. I am blue.

[B]

I am blue.

[A]

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[C]

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[B]

Okay. God help the next one. Let's hear from Emily.

[D]

My name is Emily. I have a situation with my boyfriend. He is a wonderful guy. He's very loving, he's very sweet. He comes from a very abusive background. And so because of that, physical touch is very complicated for him. And so our sex life isn't that great. Our physical touch life is a very. Isn't what I need it to be, but I want to respect his needs and respect his boundaries. The issue is he is able to be physically affectionate with our dog. He is able to shower this dog with all of the love and affection that I wish I could have. And I never thought I'd be in a relationship where I felt jealous of a dog. So I don't know. I don't know. Or if you've ever been jealous of a dog. But that's my question. What do you do when you're jealous of a dog and you love yourself?

[B]

Emily, first of all, I'm so sorry for you and your partner. That's so much. The reverberations of abuse are just so stunning. Just how far it goes, how many relationships it touches, like ripples from a stone. Like how many generations, how many. It's just amazing, the pain and the destruction. That abuse continues. I'm so sorry. The dog thing, it's interesting. I'm thinking about how when I was in therapy in my first marriage, when we were in healing from one of many things, the therapist used to insist that we tried to cuddle and touch each other in a way where there was absolute clear boundaries around nothing going further than snuggling. And the thing about dogs is that they don't it's uncomplicated. Like, there's nothing that's going to be pushed. There's no moment that, like, it's gonna. Energy's gonna switch and it's gonna become sexual. There's no, like, power dynamic. It's so simple. That's just something that came to my mind. Like, I wonder if there were times where you could snuggle like dogs, where there was like a boundary around it, where you both agreed that the rule was it wasn't going past the snuggle that that could make both people feel safe. I don't know. That's the only idea that I have about the dog love. What are you thinking?

[C]

I understand Emily's boyfriend. I. It is much easier for me to show affection, like unbridled, just joyful abandon of affection to my dog, then my partner.

[B]

Yeah, I get that.

[C]

I actually wonder sometimes if it's like a thing, like I, you know, if it's noticed.

[B]

Oh, if it's noticed. I'm sure it's noticed.

[C]

Yeah. And I think it's exactly right because it's. It's uncomplicated. And I think it's like, at a deeper level, it is about self love. I think it's possible because when you think about it, when you introduce the idea of people, it's like, is the other person worth it? Is the other person deserve it? Is there, like, what is the scorecard today? What will it lead to? Do I have to, like, work out anything before I show this love? The memory is so long with people and that the memory is so long in relationships that. But a dog's. There's no memory. It's also so vulnerable. It's almost like you would have to show that much acceptance and joyful reveling in yourself to be able to share that with another human. But whereas a dog is a different species, it's like, of course they deserve that. They don't have any of this human fallibility or complications or whatever. I don't have to project on them any of my confusion about myself.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

Whereas with partners, you not only have your issues in your relationship, you also are projecting on them all of the things about yourself.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

And all of the judgments and all of the. You know, they did the same study where they had like a fake news story and it was the victim in this story was attacked and they had bones broken. Okay. And they changed who the victim was in every. And it was an adult human, a child, an adult dog, and a puppy. And then they analyzed the levels of sympathy and empathy that the people had based on hearing the story. The levels of Were the exact same for child, adult, dog, puppy. High levels of empathy. They did. Adult person, low levels of empathy.

[A]

Wow.

[C]

The exact same outcome, the exact same situation. And why is that?

[B]

Because we've been. We've all been hurt by so many humans.

[C]

We've been hurt by so many humans, and we see our own selves as not worthy of empathy and sympathy. We see our own selves as not worthy of. Of the kind of reckless, joyful love that is unconditional that we see as a dog worthy of.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

And so I actually think it makes total sense. It's shockingly awful for Emily's experience. It's shockingly awful for her partner to not see themselves as either the recipient or the giver of that kind of abandonment. And also, logically, it makes total sense to me.

[B]

Yeah. Damn. I mean, Emily, I will say that I sensed at the end of your question a little bit of like, is this okay or weird for me to be jealous of a dog? I'm gonna tell you, Emily, that I have had moments in my marriage with Abby where I'm jealous of her dinner, I'm jealous of her food, because she gets excited about food in a way that, like, first of all, the way Abby gets excited about food is so wonderful. Wonder the way Abby gets so wonderful.

[C]

The way she gets excited about a lot of things.

[B]

That's true.

[C]

But not on the human spectrum.

[B]

Right. But in terms, she's like a food person. I've been jealous of ice cream. I've been jealous of steak. I've been jealous. So dogs to me are like, yeah, that makes perfect sense.

[C]

Get in line.

[B]

But it's funny, but connected. Right. It's like when you see your person finding. When I see Abby, I'm like, oh, that's how you used to desire me. It's how you desire that cupcake. Right.

[A]

You literally said it to me a few times.

[B]

Oh, I have. I've said it out loud. Oh, okay.

[C]

You used to make that noise for me that you're making for that cold stone.

[B]

Exactly. That's exactly right. Right. And so, yes, it makes perfect sense to me that you would feel like that is the way you're loving and being comforted by the dog is how I wish you were being loved and comforted by me and vice versa. I think it makes perfect sense.

[C]

I mean, not for nothing, my first marriage, too, the dog was a big.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

I realized at the close of that marriage that the dog was the wife that my ex husband needed.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Like, no memory, all devotion, no counting of any pains and costs. I mean, he would go away for six months at a time, walk to the door. I would be standing there harboring the hurt and pain and counted costs of all the losses in those six months. The dog would be just as fucking happy as if he had gone to the grocery store.

[B]

Oh, damn.

[C]

And that's what he needed.

[B]

And think about Emily's partner, where Emily is asking her partner to, like, engage and probably do the work to recover from abuse and, like, doing all these hard things. And the dog's like, I don't need any of that from you.

[A]

I just think there's a lot of things that I've been thinking. I just think it's so beautiful and vulnerable for Emily to call and tell us this. You know, to, like, admit that she's jealous of her dog. Like, yes to that.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

I also think that it's gotta feel even more difficult in moments because it's like, don't you trust me? Right. Like, Emily's feeling like, why can't you just trust me? I'm not that. There's just so many layers to this that we don't know about. And so to me, it's. It's just therapy. It's like, I hope that he could hear this and to hear, like, how much you love him and to hear how important this is to you and to maybe want to do a little bit of work. And I also think that she. Emily, you have to explore that. Because even though we might have ideas and desires, and, yes, we want to honor those as much as possible, when you are in a partnership, those desires have limits in some ways, because somebody else is a part of this equation. And though that is beautiful in many ways, it's also really difficult. And so, I don't know. I just think communicating this with your partner is, like, the number one step. Like, not in a judgment way.

[B]

So not like you used to look at me like you look at that brownie.

[A]

Not like that would be better to do it. Not in that way.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I would be more. I would be more open to a conversation if it didn't have that attached to the front part of the sentence.

[B]

Totally got it.

[A]

But I think that there's so much opportunity here. Like, it could be interesting to grow your relationship and build your relationship in different ways. That might not have much to do with physical touch right now, but that it could promote that down the road and in the future. I don't know. It makes me Excited. Of course, here I am being excited.

[B]

And.

[C]

And also, I just say, absolutely, Emily. Like, I was in my first marriage, very jealous of the dog. Like, he would come back in town, he would pick up the dog before he'd come see me. Like, actually, that was the order of priority. So I. I completely understand that. And to the extent you feel any embarrassment about that, like, I have absolutely been there. And also, two things is that, like, the dog might seem like it's a barrier right now to your affection, but it also might be the road. Like, if he can only do that with the dog right now, it is at least a stepping stone towards the ability to show affection, the ability to allow himself to do that. And I'm not saying you should stick around for this to work out. Maybe you shouldn't. Honestly, if you are not getting your needs met, Emily, I bless you to go get your needs met somewhere else, because you might never get them met here. I wasn't in my first marriage, and that was a really good decision to not be there anymore. And maybe this is a step on that road. And also, it isn't about whether that person deems you worthy of the kind of affection they can give the dog. It's whether that person deems them self worthy to give and receive that kind of love with another human.

[B]

Yes. That's it. Mm.

[A]

That's good.

[B]

That's right. Oh, my goodness. I think that we should, every once in a while, do these. And I just love hearing about these people.

[C]

This beautiful people are out there being so brave every day.

[B]

Yeah. River and Emily, thank you so much.

[C]

River runs through it.

[B]

Thank you. So.

[C]

So.

[A]

Probably not the first time they heard.

[B]

That that was coming.

[C]

I restrained myself for, like, 20 minutes.

[B]

Pod Squad, we do not have any answers, but we know a couple things. And one is that there is nothing wrong with you. Not a damn thing. And that life is really hard. And it's not hard because you're doing it wrong. It's just hard because it was designed that way. And the cool thing about life being hard is that it forces us to need each other. And it's probably one of the reasons why you're listening to this podcast. So thank you for that. Thank you for being the community that we rely on to get through this thing, this hard life. We love you. We will continue to do hard things together. And we will see you back here next week. 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 loved with a friend, we would be so grateful. We appreciate you very much. We Can Do Hard Things is created and hosted by Glenn and Doyle 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.