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Your Nervous System Needs This

We Can Do Hard Things

Tue Dec 23 2025

Summary

Podcast Summary: We Can Do Hard Things – “Your Nervous System Needs This”

Podcast: We Can Do Hard Things
Hosts: Glennon Doyle, with guest Isette Rose
Date: December 23, 2025
Recorded at: Kripalu Center, Massachusetts

Episode Overview

In this year-end special, Glennon Doyle sits down for a heartfelt, wide-ranging conversation with artist, healer, and thought leader Isette Rose. The episode is framed by the challenges of the holiday season and transitions (menopause, empty nesting, midlife, societal upheaval), exploring how agency, grief, community, and enoughness intersect with our nervous systems. Together, Glennon and Isette examine ways to remain truthful, connected, and alive through periods of upheaval, discomfort, and transformation.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Welcoming the Hard Conversations & Setting the Scene

Glennon expresses gratitude for the Pod Squad and introduces Isette Rose:

"Our hope for you is peaceful, cozy, slow days with your people full of warmth, gentleness, and rest... This is our last episode of the year." (00:00)
Glennon frames the conversation as touching on agency, self-abandonment, burning old scripts, relationships, menopause, midlife, and redefining enoughness.

2. Fury, Agency, and Self-Abandonment

Isette asks about channeling fury into creativity and boundaries.
(02:02)
Glennon shares her experience with eating disorder recovery and how family-of-origin dynamics trigger regression and dissociation:

“When I get back around my family of origin, I’m seven, right? … you have to leave so you can stay when you’re a kid.” (06:36)
On adult agency:

“…the thing that I have as an adult that I didn’t have as a kid is agency. It doesn’t feel like a lot … but the difference is, I can refuse to dissociate.” (07:37)
Insights: Emotional regressions are real; reclaiming adult agency is critical to staying present and not abandoning yourself.

3. Reimagining Family, Partnership, and Midlife

On chosen family, menopause, and empty nesting:

“I’m living at the intersection of menopause, fascism, and empty nesting. I find it upsetting.” (09:48) “Perimenopause hit me really hard... I made an emergency appointment with my doctor and then found out Abby had done the same.” (10:33)
On loss and identity shifts:

“I just created an entire identity around ‘mom’… this little crew of three kids and Abby is the first little community that I ever felt belonging in.” (12:41) “It feels like a landslide… I am unable to tolerate stuff that I was able to tolerate before. Maybe menopause is spiritually important because of that.” (15:21)
Memorable Moment: The “lake house / homo stead” fantasy as the next unattainable carrot (see Section on Enoughness).

4. The “Not This” Stage & Embracing Uncertainty

Naming the “Not This” phase:

“My friend Liz calls it the ‘not this’ stage. Like, I don’t know what the next is, I just know not this, which is a really important stage.” (18:01)
Insight: Naming periods of confusion is powerful; clarity often begins by recognizing what isn’t working.

5. Community as the Answer (But It’s Hard!)

On the necessity and challenge of community:

“Community… I think it might be the answer. I just keep looking for a different one because it’s so hard.” (21:48)
Glennon recounts the AIDS-era activist wisdom:

“Every day we wake up and we bury our friends in the morning, we march in the afternoon, and at night we dance... there’s something about that holy trinity of grieve, work, dance that I think is the way forward." (22:03)
Metaphors: The personal vigil, the candle outside the White House — not to change others, but to stay true to yourself (25:29).

6. On Grief, Artistry, and Brokenheartedness

Brokenheartedness as proof of inner vision:

“Brokenheartedness is a badge of honor … if you’re not rejecting what’s going on, then maybe you don’t hold the vision of something more beautiful. I don’t want to be around anyone right now who’s not pissed off and sad.” (28:36)
On parenting and modeling authenticity:

"I let him feel so alone because he needed to see his brokenheartedness reflected in his family." (32:07)

7. Capitalism, Enoughness, & The Metrics of Worth

On capitalism’s trickery:

“The trick of capitalism is to take all of these birthrights from us and then sell them back to us and make us earn them. Sex, food, rest, community. None of these things were ever supposed to be things we had to buy.” (38:54)
Audre Lorde reference:

“Look at what you’re building today. It should look a lot like what you want to be building for the future.” (39:42)
On rest sounding like death:

“If we actually start talking about enoughness, it sounds like death. Like people only have enough right before they die … That cannot be right.” (46:43)
Lake House Metaphor:

“So Abby wants a lake house. What does the lake house mean? Rest. So then we’re going to get another job, save up, to buy this thing so we can rest. Or we could just … rest.” (45:13)
Experience of Enough:

“What if everything that we’ve ever wanted is somehow inside of now?” (47:45)

8. Transgenerational Healing & Parenting

On passing down anxiety, judgment, and raising emotionally attuned kids:

“It’s like putting my dirty glasses on your clear eyes… I want you to be like you. Your way is better.” (54:24)
Repair, not perfection:

“Maybe with each generation some of the mud comes out, and we get a little clearer.” (58:56)
Isette's parenting story:

“As soon as he had words, he said: ‘Mommy, I just need some time in the car before we go in.’” (60:23)

9. Leaving and Beginning Anew

On knowing when to leave, with or without a clear “next”:

“I’m most amazed by people who leave situations that aren’t for them without something else that is for them ready. I think that’s the most badass thing you can do.” (61:50)
Desire is enough:

“The desire to leave is enough to leave.” (65:13)

10. Queer Joy & Friendship in Midlife

Finding friendship as the ‘final frontier’ in her 50s:

“I might be, like, cultivating what people call a friend group ... I think that's what I want to do with my 50s, is like, figure that out.” (65:55)

11. Having Hard Conversations

Timing: when you are not charged:

"It has to be when you're not charged about it. ... The brilliance of what you're teaching is the simplest, hardest thing, which is when the activation happens to sit with it and breathe through it..." (67:32)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On self-abandonment:
"I don't want to abandon myself anymore. I don't want to leave... If I'm leaving, I want to take myself with me." – Glennon Doyle (08:02)
On menopause as a moral injury:
“We hold up the whole sky… and then we get to this time in our life when we actually need medical research, support, ideas, and every— it’s just not there. So I find it infuriating.” – Glennon Doyle (10:02)
On the “not this” phase:
“My friend Liz calls it the ‘not this’ stage. Like, I don’t know what the next is, I just know not this, which is a really important stage.” – Glennon Doyle (18:01)
On brokenheartedness:
“I want to be with the brokenhearted because I just know right away those people have an inner vision that is aligned with mine.” – Glennon Doyle (28:36)
On the metrics of enough:
"Is it possible we have right now everything we've ever hoped and dreamed for?" – Glennon Doyle (45:28)
On leaving:
“The desire to leave is enough to leave.” – Glennon Doyle (65:13)

Important Segment Timestamps

00:00 – Glennon’s warm holiday wishes & intro to the Kripalu conversation
02:02 – Isette’s first question: “How do you channel fury?”
06:36 – Glennon’s family-of-origin story and eating disorder recovery insight
09:48 – Reimagining family: menopause, empty nesting, and identity
17:23 – "Is it the fallen estrogen or the fallen democracy?"
21:48 – Community as survival (“It might be the answer. I just keep looking for a different one because it’s so hard.”)
28:36 – Brokenheartedness and artistry; story about parenting through sadness
38:54 – The trick of capitalism and reclaiming birthrights
45:13 – Lake house metaphor for rest & enoughness
53:00 – How to break cycles of judgment, anxiety, and shame with your children
61:50 – The courage to leave without knowing the next step
65:55 – Queer joy and building a chosen family in midlife
67:32 – When to have hard conversations: only when you are not emotionally charged
70:49 – Final thoughts: "Maybe we do need friends and community."

Closing Tone

The conversation is candid, humorous, self-deprecating, and deeply humanizing. Glennon and Isette model radical honesty about messiness, grief, and transformation — with both laughter and tears, skepticism of capitalist metrics and an abiding belief in the possibility and necessity of new ways of being and connecting.

For listeners seeking solace, validation, and practical wisdom for navigating their own “not this” seasons, resilience amid societal turbulence, or transitions in body and family — this episode offers a fiercely compassionate roadmap.

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Transcript

Glennon Doyle (0:00)

Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things before we dive in today, Pod Squad, we want to send you off into this holiday season with so much love. Our hope for you is peaceful, cozy, slow days with your people full of warmth, gentleness, and rest. This, however, will be our last episode of the year. We're taking two weeks off and then we will return on the first Tuesday of the new year, January 6th. Today, we're sending you into the season with something special. A conversation I had recently at the Kripalu center in Massachusetts, hosted by the brilliant, warm, and deeply wise Isette Rose. She is an artist, a healer, a thought leader, and truly one of the most grounding presences I've sat with. We got to the heart of so many themes we've been circling lately on this pod. In a room full of beautiful, beautiful people, we talked about how to not abandon our own agency. How to stay with ourselves in the hard moments. How to let the old scripts burn so something new and truer can grow. How to reimagine our relationships in ways that deepen connection. How menopause and midlife are horrific and also somehow quite spiritually important. And how enoughness can feel like death. When we've been raised inside of capitalism. And we talked about the work we will need to do, the grieving work, the healing work, the work of changing the metrics of our lives so we can live inside what is real and right now and stop arranging our existence around the next thing as we wind down 2025. It was a doozy, wasn't it? Pod squad. And once again, we made it through together. We love you. We're grateful for you. We look forward to meeting you again on the other side of this holiday season. We'll see you in 2026. Let's jump right in to this conversation with Isset.

Isette Rose (2:02)

So you've spoken recently about fury and joy dancing together when fury shows up not as something to push down, but as something to pay attention to. What helps you channel it into truth and creativity or boundaries instead of letting it consume you.

Glennon Doyle (2:24)

Well, I think it's good that we're starting with an easy one. Thanks, love.

Isette Rose (2:34)

Just get right on in there.

Glennon Doyle (2:36)

I mean, first of all, I just want to say I feel really grateful and amazed and that we're all here right now. It just feels like. I mean, I'm grateful and amazed when I leave my house at all. But this, I just feel like I've been feeling so confused and stuck and lost, and I just feel like this is a really big gift for Me to just see all your faces and be here in the same place. And so I'm really grateful that you did whatever you have to do to make this happen because I know it isn't easy. It's really moving to me. I've been doing whatever it is I do for 20 years. I'm not sure what it is that brings us all here. I think that besides the kids and Abby, that the greatest honor of my life is whatever this is. And I just don't take it lightly. And I'm really grateful for you. So, anyway, today I'm just going to try to tell the truth and do my best in honor of you. So, Fury, I think that the way that you channel that, I mean, I can tell you that I recently started. Well, not recently, a couple years ago, a new round of eating disorder recovery. Because now I think I understand that that's going to be something I'm dealing with for the rest of my life. I thought until this recent bout that I was going to have like a victory line that I keep writing books and being like, and now it's done. Last word. I feel like that is my way of saying to God, like, okay, are we good? Like, are we good? And it keeps resurfacing. And I think that's all right. I think we all probably just have some sort of song or story that is our thing and we circle around it over and over again and hopefully we're getting like a higher perspective on the thing over and over again. Like, hopefully we're not doing this. We're sort of going up a mountain. That's what I'm going for here. So I was in another round of recovery and we hit Christmas and I had a relapse over Christmas last year. And it was really confusing to me because I was talking to my therapist and I said, okay, I was just like sitting at a table eating. And then the next thing I knew, I think my words were, I came to my senses and I was like full on the middle of like a huge binge and perch. And I had no idea how I got from the table to that situation. I could not explain it. And so over time, we started to try to slow down what actually happened in those moments. And the best way I know how to describe it is I was sitting at a table with my beautiful family of origin, which is so full of love and so full of some fucked up stuff. Okay? Patterns, old patterns and old stuff. And this thing happens to me when I'm almost 50, but when I get back around My family of origin. I'm seven, right. So I think what happened is that there was a moment at the table where a pattern rose up that made me upset and uncomfortable and angry. And the problem was that I was 7 again. So when you're 7 or you're 10, you don't have any agency to deal with what is happening. You can't say your thing, you can't get up and leave. You are stuck in the dynamic. And so my way of dealing with that was to dissociate. So dissociation is how you leave so you can stay. And we all do it in different ways. Mine was always related to food. I just will eat, eat until I'm just gone. I'm gone. You have to leave so you can stay when you're a kid. So the thing that I had to remember was in those moments that I'm not a kid anymore, so the thing that I have as an adult that I didn't have as a kid is agency. It doesn't feel like a lot of agency, even when you're 50 and with you're with your family, still feels scary. But the difference I think is that when I am feeling that I'm in a system, a group, a country that feels to me very much like a dysfunctional family, almost parallel to a lot of the dysfunction in our own families. Some of us had fathers who didn't know how to regulate fathers, fathers who were authoritarianism, fathers who were angry, and then mothers who were afraid and complicit. It feels very much like the micro of our family is being reenacted in the country a lot. And that is hard for all of us. And that's why it doesn't just feel like it's happening out there, it feels like it's happening in our bodies. Because we're like seven again and feel like we don't have agency. And all of this is just happening to us. And so the way that I know how to try now is to use some agency, whether it's with my family of origin or whether it's with my American family. It's to refuse to dissociate. I think that what we can do is decide what power or control we do have. Like what is a thing that we can say?

Glennon Doyle (9:48)

Well, I think one of the tricky things about the last year for me is that. Well, as many of you know, because I've mentioned this several times, several hundred times, is that the intersection that I'm living at, which is menopause fascism and empty nesting. I find it upsetting. And look, I'm gonna laugh about it and we should all laugh about it, but Jesus, God, like, what? I am so pissed that nobody's helping us with this. It's like a deep moral injury to me. I'm like, we hold up the whole sky, we wiped your asses, we take care of your shit. We've carried this whole thing and then we get to this time in our life when we actually need medical research, support, ideas and every. It's just not there. So I find it infuriating. Perimenopause hit me really hard, maybe like four or five months ago. And I didn't know what was wrong with me. I sat Abby down one night with a list of noises she makes with her body page. Long list of like the noises that happen in the morning, the noises that happen in the afternoon, the coughing noises, the clearing of, throat noises, the whatever. And I said to her, we need to negotiate this. I need you to. Jesus. I said, I need you to tell me which noises on this list are most important to you. And it seemed completely logical to me. It seemed like this Is what a wise, loving partner would do. Yes. Is negotiate the noises. And then the next morning, I woke up. I mean, right now, I'm thinking of Abby's face when I was doing this. And it was heartbreaking, okay? Because it wasn't the first moment like this. We'd had many moments that led up to the list moment, okay? And she was like, where has my wife gone? And so the next morning, I made an emergency appointment with my doctor and said, I'm not waiting for your freaking hormone tests. I need something. Do something. Do something that will make me, my family, not leave me, okay? And then, you guys, I got home and I couldn't find Abby anymore. This is my favorite thing. I texted her, I said, where are you? What's going on? She had also made an emergency appointment with our doctor. Went in right after me to tell him he had to help her find a way to make less body noises. So it's like a medical gift of the magi, each going, help us. We can't help ourselves. So that. And then we left. That's dramatic language. We didn't leave our daughter. Our daughter went to college. And I don't know how to do this. I feel like I can be pretty logical about changes. Like, I've had a lot of changes in my life. So I understand in my head that things are supposed to change and that best case scenario is that your children go off on their own. And wings and all that shit, give them wings. And that makes sense to me in my brain, but my body cannot handle it. I don't understand. I think that I became sober by becoming a mom. Just was like, I guess I'll be a mom now. And I just created just an entire identity around mom. And then I don't have any groups that I ever feel belonging in. I always feel like I don't belong in this group. Like my friends who feel belonging all the time, I just don't even understand what they're talking about. I just always feel like I'm encroaching or uncomfortable or looking in from the outside. But this little crew of these three kids in Abby is the first little community that I've ever felt belonging in. I've ever felt like I could be my full self. That they love me for exactly who I am. I mean, honestly, they're contractually obligated to stay with me. They need money. Well, actually, maybe that's it. Like, they need me, right? They can't leave. They are so poor. So this idea of them going off and becoming their Own thing. I just don't understand how to be. I don't understand what I'm supposed to, like, make my decisions around or there's, like, scaffold plans around. I feel like when Tish was walking away into her dorm, I just kept hearing that Stevie Nick, the Landslide song. Like, the Landslide. That's how it feels. It feels like a landslide. And those lines about, I'm afraid of changing because I've built my life around you. Can I handle the seasons of my life? Just. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. And then relationally, like, this stuff. One of the things that Abby and my sister and I are talking about, like, the podcast is so beautiful, and it is so beautiful, and it means so much, but we've somehow, like, allowed. The two most important relationships in my life are with Abby and my sister. And now they're like, all we talk about is work. I go weeks where I haven't. We haven't talked about anything other than that. Or Abby and I now have, like, a. It's like, way too much information. I haven't even. Okay, so I should probably tell Abby first, and then next year. I'm just joking. We've talked about this. I think that it's another thing that I'm gonna have to figure out. Sometimes it's something that is very beautiful and good. It can get in the way. That's another reordering that I have to figure out. Like, I don't want my 50s. I'm almost 50, and I really don't want my 50s to be based on any sort of arranging people I love to make work things or to. So I don't know what I'm going to do about that. But what I'm saying is it's like landslide in a lot of areas. And maybe it's beautiful in a way of, like, you know how they have those controlled fires of places, because sometimes things have to be on fire for, like, absolute newness to come. I'm hopeful that that's what this is. And I feel like maybe menopause is spiritually important because I am unable to tolerate stuff that I was able to tolerate before. And so now I think the problem isn't that I can't tolerate this now. The problem is that I tolerated this shit. And so it's like the body's way of saying, all right, we're not even gonna give you whatever chemicals you need to tolerate it anymore. I guess so. I do. I haven't gotten to the point where I can see what the beauty that's coming from It. But I can feel in my bones that it's spiritually important and probably for my best next life. I just don't know what the next life is.

Glennon Doyle (21:57)

It's so hard. I mean, how we make it through this moment, I keep thinking about every day now. I think about this. There was this queer activist that was really speaking out a lot during the AIDS crisis. His name is Dan Savage. And he. During an interview, somebody asked him about community and about making it through this time. And he said, what we do is every day we wake up and we bury our friends in the morning, we march in the afternoon, and at night we dance. And I think that the answer is in that sentence. I think that we have to make space to grieve. We cannot dissociate from it. If this is a time that is sad for us, we have to sit with that. There's something about the facing, the feeling, the sitting with the feeling, the not dissociating that creates fuel, right? It's like without that, you don't get to the afternoon. I know that there's some kind of groundedness or directionality or realness that people who grieve bring to the afternoon work, which makes me trust them. It's like you gotta let your heart break to be worthy of the work. Otherwise you're doing the work for different reasons. And I can't really explain it. It just feels, like, not real for show or for performance or something. So the grieving and then the working, we don't get to abandon the work. Whatever the work is for you is different for all of us. But there has to be the work, and then the work has to stop every day. And then the dancing and whatever that is for us, whatever is the thing that brings us to life, whatever is the thing that reminds us that life is worth living. Because if life isn't worth living or celebrating, then the grieving doesn't matter and the marching doesn't matter. So the night, for me, this doesn't happen at night because I'm asleep. But this is a metaphor, you see. So can change the times, but the dance is the thing we hold onto so that we remember each morning why all of this matters and why to grieve and why to work. And there's something about that holy trinity of grieve, work, dance that I think is the way forward. We cannot work our way through this like good luck. It has to stop every day. Like, it has to be something that is done each day. And by the way, the work doesn't mean you're marching. Whatever the work is for you is that. But I feel like for me, I have to really do all of those things every day in simple ways. And sometimes the grieving is like, I'm gonna paint my picture and just feel right. And sometimes the work is a phone call or a project or something that is about collective good, sometimes something with the family, but it's something that's about getting outside myself and working towards the collective good. And then the dancing is always something like, do you remember that activist in the. Which I think this. It was the longest running vigil our country's ever had that just ended. But this man started a nightly candlelit vigil by himself in front of the White House during the Vietnam War. And every single night he would go there and stand with his one little candle just by himself, just stand there. And the media finally caught on and came to him and said, what are you doing here every night? Like, do you actually think that you standing here is going to change the administration or change the war? And he said, oh, I don't come here every night to change them. I come here every night so that they don't change me. So whatever is you like, whatever is the thing that makes you feel like life is worth living, whether it's art or being with friends or dancing or single candle, like, whatever is that dance for you? You must do it each day. Because this whole slide we're in will require people to forget how precious life is. That is the slide that is the slow deadening, the thing we feel in our all our bones right now where the rage that we had, which. Which was proof of life, is now settling in. And we don't even feel that rage proof of life anymore. We just feel like this lead settling into our blood that feels like a chill and is like, scary as shit. We have to get the fire back. And I think we do that through our little candlelight personal vigils.

Glennon Doyle (28:36)

Yeah, and the shadow stuff. Like I feel right now that the sadness that people feel or the anger or the confusion right now I feel like brokenheartedness is a badge of honor. I don't feel to me like my sadness or my anger or my bafflement at what is going on. Is she. I feel like it's proof of the beauty inside me. Because it's like if there's something happening in the outer world and you're rejecting that, that is because you have an inner vision of something truer and more beautiful. If you're not rejecting that, that's because that's. That's okay with you. That's the vision. So for me that this is why sometimes artists have such a deep sadness. You know, people are always like, why are artists always addicts? Which all my friends are artists. And I can confirm that is true. But. But there's a correlation of numbing sadness, right? It's because there's a great sadness. And I think sometimes the sadness is the distance between the inner vision and the outer world. The greater the distance is between those two things, the greater the ache, the greater the sadness, the greater the anger. I don't want to be around anyone right now who's not pissed off and sad. They scare the crap out of me. Like I want to be with the brokenhearted because I just know right away that those people have an inner vision that is aligned with mine and that is what's causing the brokenheartedness. And I also think we shouldn't hide it from each other. I mean, I just had an experience where our oldest just graduated from college. But he was home over break his senior year, and I had been struggling very much to, like, have my shit together each day and be, like, vertical. I told myself right before he got home that I was going to get. I was going to tighten it up, okay? Because he's coming home and he needs joy and he needs. He'd been through a lot at school, and he needs, you know, a mom who's together and whatever. So he came home and I was like, sunshine. I was sunshine each day. I was music on. I was doing the whole thing. And two thirds of the way through the week, he just walked up and was just, like, despondent. And I was like, what's going on? And basically he was like, I can't be in this place. Like, what is going on? Do you people not know what's happening in the world? Like, what? And I was like, God damn it. Because then I couldn't be like, oh, actually, I'm just lying. I'm just. I've been acting for four days, and I'm actually really good news is I'm so sad and miserable. I just had to, like. I mean, Abby and I just looked at each other across the room like, you've got to be kidding me. I let him feel so alone because he needed to see his brokenheartedness reflected in his family. And I gaslighted at him while trying to be a good mom. Right. So I think that it's okay. We're not making this up. Like, all this is happening, and we're feeling it in our bodies, and it's okay and might even be our work to let other people see it so they can find their people and not feel so crazy and alone on the earth. Right. Yeah.

Glennon Doyle (32:40)

Stretchers to show up with each other on. Yeah. I mean, I do have friends who are able to pull it together in a way that, like, they're peaceful and logical and, you know, many of them, and they go out in the world with a different demeanor, and I love them and follow them And. But I'm not. That's not my jam. Like, I'm not. So the three kids. I have the three children, and I have the oldest and then the middle and the youngest one. And the two older ones were always able to, like. So I would say, you guys, we're gonna leave in 15 minutes. Be in the foyer in 15 minutes. And 15 minutes later, the three would show up, and the two were ready and they had clothes on, and then the third was just. God, just, like, a pizza box on her head and, like, two different shoes and, like, a mustache painted on her thing and no pants and just, you know, the whole thing. But it would be too late. So I would always just say, look at them. Be like, okay, you two are good. And you just. You're gonna. Honey, you're just gonna have to go like that, okay? And I just feel like God is like that with me. Like, God looks at my friends and he's like, okay, you're good. You're good. And then looks at me and he's like, honey, you're just gonna have to go like that, right? And that's okay. Like, if we just wait till we're different to show up. I've been waiting to be different since I was five. Like, I don't think it's gonna happen next Tuesday. I think this is just. There's many of us who are supposed to show up without tidiness and a bunch of different answers. And I feel like maybe it's even more important in this moment, because if the only people who are showing up are the people who have their shit together and who are not deeply affected, that's dangerous. That's. Think about that. That's really dangerous. If you're not broken hearted and you're not messy right now. Like, I'm not sure that's the voice. Like, we need people who are broken hearted out front. And now it's time to thank the companies who allow you to listen to we can do hard things for free.

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Glennon Doyle (41:30)

I've done a lot of therapy, and I do feel like probably in my notes, like in the notes the person takes, I would imagine that there's probably something about being attached to suffering and being attached to. To struggle and being like, not able to let go of that identity. No one said that to me yet, but if I were her, I would write that down. Right now. I'm thinking a lot about the roles we learn as kids in our families. I feel like that stuff is under studied in our lives. Like, I think we get an identity in our family. It's like we're born into a family, and a family is just like a cast of characters. And in order for the whole play to take, to gel, it's like, here's your script. Here's your script. Here's your script. This is what you're gonna play. This is what you're gonna play. And then you wake up and you're 35 and you're like, is this even who I am? So for me, I know that one of my roles in my family was the, like, identified patient. So there's a lot of different scapegoat or bad one or whatever, but it's like the one who embodies all the sickness so that we can just have her be sick. Then we don't have to look at the sickness of the whole unit. And so people arrange their roles around that one too. Like, then you have the hero. I mean, I think my sister takes on a lot of that. And she doesn't have a lot of permission to be human because she was always the one who had to distract from this mess of a sister that she had and prove the family was still good because she could achieve. And, you know, all of these things that happen. And I think it's really. If you want to panic everyone in your life, attempt to change your role. I don't even know if I recommend it. Everybody loses their shit. Because if you change your script, nobody knows what to say. If you change your role. Nobody knows what their role is. Yes. I think we can become addicted to the script we were given when we were kids. And I think we can be forgiven for it being very difficult to let go of that script because it means the communities that we've depended on the most lose it and we kind of lose belonging and we mess everything up. And I think it's probably the work of our lives. I think if there's a hero's journey for each of us, it's probably undoing whatever script we were given when we were kids. And I think if there's any freedom, it probably has to do with that, but it's not an easy freedom. It causes a lot of chaos. What was the question? Enoughness.

Glennon Doyle (44:15)

Yes. Okay, so I will tell you a particular familial story that just happened a few days ago that I know is tied to this. And I know that Abby would give me permission based on a lot of the other things that we just. That I've talked about here, what we're going to do to get our. The sacredness of our relationship back, to get capitalism out of our love, to get work dynamics out of our. Anyway, a lot of that. And Abby was talking about a project she wanted to do which had nothing to do with, like, relevance or attention or money or any of those metrics that we are taught to strive for and think that the only things that we do are worthy if they win those things. And basically she was like, so is it okay if I make no money? Right. She said it more flowery, but that's what she was asking. Now, when. When you hear the story, I want you to keep the context of this story, which is that we have a lot of money. Like, way too. Like, it's just enough. So this is different for, like. And I'm telling you that so you can see the insanity that is there even when there is no scarcity. Okay? So I said, yeah, I think it's okay and beautiful if you want to remove money as a metric from what we do, but that if we're going to remove that, then I also need to remove the metric of wanting more, needing more, the next thing. The next thing. Because we have arranged our life to only be aimed at what's next. So what are we, like, we Need a grandma retirement house. This is the thing we've made up in our head. Now our kids are 23 and have no partners. So what we need is a lake house where lesbian grandmas live that we're gonna call the homo stead that kids will play cornhole. And I don't know, it's made up. There's no kids, there's nothing. So this is the trick of capitalism, right? To, like, sell you something that is not about that thing. Because, okay, so Abby wants a lake house. So what is the lake house means? Rest. It just means rest to her. It's just a symbol for stopping and being so. Then we're going to get another job, save up to buy this thing so we can rest. Or we could just remove the lake house and rest. Now, okay, now I was talking like this and saying, is it possible that to change this metric, we need to change this metric? And is it possible that we have right now every single thing we've ever hoped and dreamed for and everything we've ever needed or wanted? And is it possible that for the rest of our lives all we have to do is sit still and love the people around us and love each other and never strive for another thing? And do you know what Sweet Abby said? I was telling you backstage, she looked at me and she goes, her face was just like ashen. And she goes, I feel like you're talking about end of life stuff, But you guys, like, I think that was so important that she said that. I think capitalism has fooled us so much that if we actually start talking about enoughness, it sounds like death. Like people only have enough right before they die. That's when you get to rest. That's when you get to stop. That cannot be right. This whole idea, this whole, like, western idea, the expansion, the more the. The stuff we see playing out on the news, which is greed and more and all that, it's in us too. Like, the agency that we have might not be that we can stop them, but we can stop us. We can stop this shit. We can get this out of ourselves. We can say, okay, maybe the American dream, the problem was the dream. Maybe the pursuit of happiness, the problem was the pursuit. Like we're promised that we're just going to get there soon. Just put your head down. It's a dream, It's a pursuit. What if everything that we've ever wanted is somehow inside of now? And what if the saving of our lives and our families and our planet has to do with everybody saying, enough? Just enough. And Abby's like, I think we should start that right after we get the lake house. And now it's time for our ads.

Glennon Doyle (53:00)

First of all, I have a different kind of framing or way of looking at anxiety and depression. I know I have both, so I know that it's not an easy life. But I also honestly, every beautiful person that I know and trust has some version of this. So I just don't know that it's like a curse we're passing down. I think that we don't understand it. I don't think we know what we're talking about. I don't know what I'm talking about. But there's something about anxiety and depression that also has to do with being someone who's awake and paying attention. So I don't know that it's a curse we pass on. I think it's a tricky life. It's trickier maybe, maybe harder in some ways. But I wouldn't trade it. I wouldn't be different. So beginning with that, there are things that we are learning are not ours that were passed down to us. Then it's tricky to be a person who is then you know, you're passing down stuff to your kids that is not theirs. I don't know exactly how to solve that, but I do have one story to tell you that is the closest I've come. Okay, so my youngest was at the table and she was talking about this kid that is in her high school that I do not like. Okay. And I have a Lot of reasons for feeling this way. And when people bring up things or people that scare me, like when people I love signal to me that they are opening their lives to things or people that scare me, what I go to immediately is judgment. That is what I, that is my security blanket. I am a good arguer. I make a good case against people. If you bring up somebody who I think is unsafe, if you give me eight minutes, I can make a case that you will never text that person back. Okay? It's a skill that I have developed and, and it's not kind, and it's not real. And it is only because I'm very scared of letting people in. The first time I went to therapy for this new round of eating disorder recovery, the therapist looked at me and said, glennon, how is how you handle people the same way as how you handle food? And I was like, shut up. What are you talking about? But the truth is that I only had a few foods that I decided were safe and everything else was bad and unsafe. And I only had a few people that I, I decided were safe and everyone else is bad and unsafe and black and white and good and bad, and that is that. So I watched my daughter, who had brought up this person who was, you know, 13, and then watched myself starting to talk shit about this 13 year old, okay, making a full 50 year old woman case against this person. And I'm watching it and it's happening, and for the first time, I could see my daughter's eyes go dark. Like, I could see something blocking or hardening. I don't know how to explain it, like dulling, dimming. I kept going, but I noticed it, okay. And it stayed with me for like, days. And I could not. I was like, oh, my God. I just saw, I saw the effect of me passing that crap on to her. And so a few days later, we went to dinner and I sat with her and I said something like, okay, so here's the thing. Your mom, I have made this kind of like defense mechanism or this behavior that I do when I get scared. And, and that thing is judgment. And so I think that if I'm making a case against someone, that you will stay away from them. And so it's my attempt to protect you, but it's not protecting you. It's like putting my dirty glasses on your clear eyes. Because I don't want you to be like me. I want you to be like you. Your way is better. I want you to be open. I want you to let people in. I want you to trust yourself enough that if they cross a boundary, you can stop it. You don't have to cut them off at the pass. You don't have to stop people before they even come into your life, like I do, because you have yourself so much that you know if they cross a line, you'll stop them. Then I want you to have your glasses on. I don't want to keep putting my dirty glasses on you. But this weird thing is happening, which is that I can't stop. I know it, I feel it, I know it. But I'm in this weird in between time where I can tell that I'm doing it, but I'm still doing it. So what I'm asking you to do is every time your mom starts doing that, I'm pointing at somebody else. I'm pointing at that kid. This has nothing to do with that kid. Only look at me, only think, oh, my mom's doing that thing. Because she still has. She hasn't learned how to not do that thing. She's just really scared. That. And she was like, ah, yeah, that makes sense. Like it was one of those, you know, sometimes you talk to your kids, it's just like, no, it's not working. This was a moment where she was like, she got it. That is, I think, the closest I can come to expressing how I think we put a stop gap by actually knowing ourselves well enough and doing the work on ourselves to know when we're doing our shit, to know when we're doing our bullshit, and then teaching our children what our bullshit is so that they know with love, oh, my mom's doing her bullshit again. And that's not mine. And you guys, my kids can like, they're like, She's doing her bullshit. And then we get through it. The reason why it's important to do our own work is to know the things and express the things that we love and are good and we want to carry throughout our lineage and then to be able to express the things and identify the things that we don't want to be carried on through our lineage. Because it feels like it's just like a bunch of muddy water that hopefully with each generation some of the mud comes out and we just get a little bit clearer and clearer and clearer with each generation. And that is part of doing that clearing work.

Glennon Doyle (61:50)

I think I'm most amazed by people who leave situations that aren't for them without something else that is for them. Ready? I think that's the most badass thing you can do. The people who just, like, honor their own desire for freedom or for something better or just their hunch that it's supposed to be more beautiful without an actual eviction notice, you know, because I got an eviction notice, truly. And, God, what would have happened? I don't know. I mean, I hope that my discontent. I think discontent is like the biggest gift in the world. I think that's why we have to practice sitting with ourselves. That's why we have to practice not numbing. Because I really think in that the little numbing things we do each day, like the ways that we take the edge off, that the edge is exactly what is pushing us to. To make decisions that are freer and truer and more beautiful for us. So I get so scared about those little daily numbings. Like, if you're a person who numbs each evening, even just a little bit, what if you're numbing the very energy that is in you to propel you to the next thing? And what if that little teeny daily numbing is like, a big freaking deal? I have many people in my life who have left relationships, jobs, scenarios, friendships without knowing, like, who've just stepped off the cliff without knowing where they're going to land. And I've seen magic happen with that. So I think that's like a new frontier. I mean, all the excuses we need to leave are really bullshit. I mean, I used to. Every time. I don't ever. I've never listened to myself in an interview. I've never read one of my own books, and I've never listened to my own podcast ever. Not one time. One of my dear friends told me that when I was doing the tour for Untamed, that every time an interviewer or reporter would bring up me leaving Craig, I would immediately, within the next two minutes, bring up the fact that he had been unfaithful to me. And another thing I used to do all the time, if anyone in any interview mentioned my success, anything revolved around success, whatever the hell that means. But like a list or a book sales or whatever, within the next three minutes, you would have heard me mention my activism, charity work. And I wasn't doing that consciously. My body had a story that women are not allowed to do well unless they're doing good. You're not allowed that. They will not accept this. They will not accept this success unless I also show my hair shirt, you know, unless I also show, like, how much I'm giving of myself. And I did not think that the world would let a woman leave her marriage unless she had a get out of jail free card. And neither of those things are true, right? So when that was pointed out to me, I immediately was, like, biting my tongue and putting my. It's still hard for me because I don't want women or anyone who's listening to me to think, oh, she got to leave because her husband was cheating on me. I wish I could get to leave. Like, the desire to leave is enough to leave.

Glennon Doyle (67:32)

Okay. The only thing that I know that's true is that it has to be when you're not charged about it. This is something that I learned in therapy that I override all the time. Okay. So I just did this. Like, I just did this. So about a week and a half ago, after Tish had left from college, I think it's a very hard time in the world to launch a child into the world. It's just baffling to me. Something happened, and I was so scared. And I basically doesn't matter the details, but I called a Friend who had some connection to Tish and decided I was mad at that friend for not doing something to support Tish, which was absolute insanity. Like, it had nothing to do with my fear. But I needed an object of the fear and I needed to fix it, and I needed to put it on somebody. I remember texting that friend, and I remember thinking, this is not a good idea. You are fearful. You are charged. Stop texting. And I was like, as soon as I'm finished, I don't know why I cannot. I don't know. I don't freaking know. But the point is, I sent the text and then the phone call came. And then I had to spend nine days, every night I went to bed reliving what I said and discuss gross. And then I had to do an apology tour, and I had to do the whole thing, and it was a complete mess. So when I have a feeling and then I think there's a way to fix that feeling and it involves someone else, it has never ended well. Because I think what I'm doing is I'm using a person to regulate myself. Like, I think being a grown up is learning to regulate yourself without using other people, like cat scratching things to regulate your own self. And every time I use another human being, I use food, use booze, use drugs. I've tried everything. I've been to the mountain. I've been to the. It also doesn't work with people. Okay. And then the cleanup is awful. And I think the brilliance of what you're teaching is the simplest, hardest thing, which is when the activation happens to sit with it and breathe through it, and then wait until the activation passes, and you can say to yourself, I don't feel any rage for this person. I don't feel any bitterness for this person. I don't feel. It's like a more neutral place. And then you can have the conversation. And the couple times that I have tried that, it has gotten much better.