Good Inside with Dr. Becky - Anorexia, Zillow, and the Search for Self with Glennon Doyle

Episode Date: April 29, 2025

This episode is inspired by Glennon’s upcoming book, We Can Do Hard Things: Answers to Life's 20 Questions, written with Abby Wambach and Amanda Doyle—available May 6, 2025. Pre-order now wherever books are sold.Content Warning:In this episode, we discuss eating disorders, including personal experiences with anorexia. If this topic is sensitive for you, please take care while listening. You can skip this episode or return to it when you're in a safe and supported space.Get the Good Inside App by Dr. Becky: https://bit.ly/4fSxbzkFollow Dr. Becky on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbeckyatgoodinsideSign up for our weekly email, Good Insider: https://www.goodinside.com/newsletterFor a full transcript of the episode, go to goodinside.com/podcast.Today’s episode is brought to you by Midi. ****Two things are true: There are great things that come with age and there are some not-so-great things. If you’re a woman in mid-life, you know what I’m talking about: insomnia, brain fog, mood changes, sleep disruptions. It feels hard because it is hard, and you deserve resources and support through this phase of life. That's where Midi Health comes in. Midi Health clinicians are specialized perimenopause and menopause experts. They get it. They're not going to tell you it's "all in your head." They’re not going to dismiss your concerns or struggles. Instead, they offer real solutions: safe, effective, FDA-approved medications when needed, plus guidance on supplements, lifestyle changes, and preventative healthcare. Midi is covered by most major insurances —plus, you can connect with their clinicians through convenient telehealth visits and 24/7 messaging. You deserve to feel great. Book your virtual visit today at JoinMidi.com.Today’s episode is brought to you by Great Wolf Lodge. As a mom of three kids, I’m always on the lookout for family adventures that offer something for everyone (including myself!). That’s why Great Wolf Lodge is high on our list of future destinations! They offer a world of fun, all under one roof, including water slides, a lazy river, a massive wave pool, arcade games, mini golf and nightly dance parties! With 23 locations all across North America, and more on the way, chances are there’s a Great Wolf Lodge just a short drive away from you. You can save up to 40% off on any stay at Great Wolf Lodge from now through August 31st when you book at participating lodges. Just visit GreatWolf.com and enter the promo code “GoodInside” – when you book.

How do I make peace with my body? I feel like you might think that the chapter of your book I want to talk the most about is parenting, but actually you know me and you probably know that's the chapter I want to talk the least about, which it is. Legitimate question, can we talk about this? Absolutely, I will just bring where I am now.

I might not be the expert you're looking for at the moment, but I would gladly swirl around that question with you. Yes. Maybe about, it was probably like two weeks ago, kind of wrote something up about some things I was putting together around my own kind of anorexia as a kid and my own journey. And so when I came across this chapter in your book, there was just like a lot of pinging going on in my own body. Okay, so let's just start there.

Where are you currently? This chapter, how do I make peace with my body? It's not just about anorexia. It's really about feeling at home and yourself. I mean, that's kind of, I feel like I got from the headline and all the different nuances around that So yeah, just jump in there with me

Okay, um, well I told my son recently that I can usually tell My level of mental health and embodiment by how long I'm spending on Zillow each day because I Tell myself so so I've been on Zillow each day because I tell myself, so I've been on Zillow a lot this last couple of weeks. And what I figured out about that is that I am constantly, I feel I've felt very uncomfortable my whole life is what I would say.

I just am generally uncomfortable and I'm always trying to find ways to make myself more comfortable. So I usually think I need a new wardrobe or a new town or a new state or a new... And what I figured out recently is that, well, I keep doing that. I mean, I've lived, I don't even, I would be embarrassed to tell you how many places I've lived in the last 20 even, I would be embarrassed to tell you how many places I've lived in the last 20 years, constantly trying to find this perfect place that I'll feel comfortable. And then what I realized over time and through lots of recovery work is that wherever I go,

there I am. And that's the problem. It's the inconvenient truth of, of where change actually happens. It's like always inside. Yes. So this morning I can tell you how now when I catch myself spending hours on Zillow, I think I should say I'm neither connected nor rejecting Zillow in any way. This is just a agnostic. OK, so I think this morning I was on Zillow for

an hour when I was supposed to be writing and I was looking at like little cabins in the forest that also had water near them. And so now when I'm doing that for hours, I think, okay, what is this place representing that I just need to make in a little way in my life today? Like, clearly, I wanna be alone. Like, what's drawing me to this little cabin is that it feels isolated. Like, maybe I have too much responsibility right now. Maybe I have too much exposure.

Maybe I don't have the solitude that I need in my life, but I can actually make that in my house for a half hour instead of moving to Idaho, which I was thinking this morning. You know, Glennon, there's, I picture my husband listening to this and being like, did you write this script? Because a couple years ago, I was looking up, me too, I was looking up this very small town in Colorado that I was like, really, I was like, I feel like we have to move here or this other place.

And my husband says, you only think about moving places you've never visited. And you have this sense that all the good things of your life you will bring with you and all the not so great things will be additive, you know? And so me too. And, but what you're saying that really resonates is I think we can have this really self-critical lens

of like, what's wrong with me? Shouldn't I be just be happy where I am? But what you're saying is actually something gets externalized like through a house or a town that's actually a deep, true internal need. But this pattern of getting it filled as if it is the concrete external thing our minds tell us it is, is just this like treadmill.

And that the reversal of, okay, there's nothing bad about that house. And for me, I live in Manhattan. I was fan of, I mean, this Colorado town, I mean, it was like, expansive and so beautiful. And, you know, and I think what again, what you're saying, it's really true, especially at that time in my life, like, I felt closed in, I needed more space, I was always producing and one thing to the next and my body did need to slow down and it might not needed to have mood

to this random town in Colorado that I never actually visited. Three days ago, Becky, I was searching for a commune. Like I was online searching for a place where I could bring all of my friends and live together in one place. So which is it, Glennon?

I think, I think what it means is each day I need to spend a little bit of time in solitude and I need to spend a little bit of time in connection. Not that I need to either live in a cabin or on a commune. Or I think, my husband's been like, it was up to you, because you can turn urge into action so quickly. You'd move to the cabin and then you'd move to the commune and your life would just be in disarray, for everyone around you who's kind of dragged along

along the way. Right? That's what I've done. Right. That's what I've done. My kids have lived in way too many places. There's beautiful things about them because of that. But I always think if I'm talking to, you know, people are always trying to figure out how to be better parents. You know that.

But like, if I could tell anybody anything from the beginning, I'd say just like try to figure your shit out yourself. Like because you wake up one day and you're like, Oh, sorry, guys, that was actually about me. Sorry. So had I sat with that, investigated that started recover this, this brand of recovery and therapy a little earlier, I may have figured out that these urges don't need to be turned into action and that there is investigation that could have caused healing that would have given people a little bit more peace.

Yeah, I often think about that with parenting, that all of your unhealed stuff just comes out before our eyes. And then there's just a fork. I either act it all out or I heal and resolve at least some of it. That's kind of all parenting is kind of. And as you notice, kids didn't even really come into the discussion, right?

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Book your virtual visit today at joinmitty.com. That's joinmidi.com. The first time I went to therapy for this last round of eating disorders, my therapist said, so let's talk about how the way you deal with people is the same as the way you deal with food. And at the time I was like, just honestly shut up. Like just-

What a therapist thing to say. I can get over this part. Like I really didn't register at all. I just thought this is nonsense. And now I think about it, you know, two years later, I think about it all the time because it is true. I only have a few, I had a few safe foods and everyone else, everything else was scary. And I have a few safe people and everyone else is scary. And because I am so scared of other people, the

way that I keep myself safe and my family safe is I just explained to my family why everyone else who comes into our life is bad and needs to stay away, which really is a gorgeous thing to do to your children. It really helps them have a lens on the world that is open. Definitely. And yes, yes. So they, I had this moment with my youngest recently, she's 17, where she brought somebody up at the table and I started my thing. I started my thing about why this person is bad

and needed to stay away. So I'm scared for her and I could see this like thing happen on her face, which was like kind of a dimming. Makes me so sad to think about it. It was kind of like a, I mean, maybe it was a little mini dissociation, whatever it was I could see on her face that I was hurting her or something.

And so I actually took her to dinner the next week and I just said, look, here's the thing, I do this thing. Like I'm scared of people. So I judge them as a way of protecting you and it's not protecting you, it's a lens I'm putting on you and it's dirty, it's a dirty lens. And I don't want'm putting on you and it's dirty. It's a dirty lens.

And I don't want you to see the world the way that I see it. I want you to see the world the way that you see it. Your way is better. So, but for some reason, I think it's called trauma or nervous system. I can't stop yet. Okay.

So when I'm doing it, so there's the gap that I'm talking about, right? Gap between. So I said, when I'm doing that, so there's the gap that I'm talking about, right? Gap between, so I said, when I'm doing that, when you see me start that, I want you to look at me, not the person I'm pointing at. This has nothing to do with the person I'm judging. Just look at me, think mom's doing that thing again.

I'm not gonna put her lens on, I'm gonna keep my lens. She'll be done in a minute. Yeah. That's the only way I can deal with the gap without passing it on. It's like a step. I think that is how we don't pass things on because like those patterns, obviously for you,

were put in place initially to be adaptive. Like you weren't born, I think hypervigilant of the world and mistrusting of everyone, but for people or for foods. Like I just don't see babies usually being born entirely that way. We have temperaments and then we have environment and then we adapt, which is amazing that we figure out how to adapt at such a young age. And then usually our adaptations early on, they're not always the things that are adaptive later on.

That's just not how it works. But it's hard to let go of that initial response because it was put in for a protective evolutionary place and our bodies don't really enjoy letting go of those things. And so what you said to me, sometimes the best it gets in adulthood with anything is actually I use that same language. There I go again.

There I go. Oh, I just did that thing. It's like we do the thing and the best it gets is calling ourselves out and doing the thing or being very open or even inviting of someone we love in our life. Please tell me when I'm doing the thing for my benefit and also by the way for yours because it is just a thing.

And it also, it's so interesting because I think this connects because I don't know if anyone listening is like, how does this relate to anorexia? But I think in your chapter about your body, and when I think about that moment with your daughter, we all have these moments, with our sons and fathers too,

but there's something I think about with my daughter, which is like, do I trust myself right now, or do I trust my mom? Right, like who's right? I think I like this person. Do I like that person? If my mom doesn't like this person, does my mom know enough about this person to even trust that she's making a sound judgment? Could we both be right in a weird way? And what would I do about that? Could we both be wrong? I mean, again, I think the best it gets is probably questioning that,

like, I don't know if there's a truth. But so much of I think this chapter, which I just just spoke to me, especially in this moment, amen, is about is about gazing in. And instead of gazing out toward the homes, me and you both would move to in an instant. And wondering if we could trust something inside us, or at least just be curious about it, right? Yeah, I think that's it. I think that's what that moment is about. It's about, it's like if you don't help your people around, you see the water they're swimming in,

which is the environment that you created as a parent, then they don't see the water they're swimming in. They just think it's the way it is as opposed to the way that you are. What the little one said to me after I said, just don't, there I go again, just say, that's mom. She said, well, it's really hard. She said, I know what you're saying. I know what you're talking about when you do that, but it's hard because you're so smart. So I do think you're usually right. I don't, but she said, but I don't think you're always right. And I said, yeah, that's, that's the tricky thing about life, right? Is like, there's

nobody that you can just swallow it all with. Like you have to maintain that inner, you have to look inside and take the good stuff and leave the rest with everybody. And in some way, it spoke to me about a larger moment we're in, in this country. Like I don't want to raise a kid who thinks another person has the answers and follows anything blindly. I want her to question every leader in her life, even the ones who she thinks are pretty smart because all of us have a lens. None of us see clearly. So yeah, I mean, in a way, what I'm trying to do is make her unanorexic. It has everything to do with anorexia. Anorexia is just a way of externalizing control of not being embodied, of looking, I've always done that.

I'm so cult susceptible. Like give me a leader, give me a religion, give me a wellness plan, give me an ideology. Like I have lived my life thinking the answer is out there. And the rigidity, the rigidity, there's such morality in anorexia. There's something that's good. There's something that's bad. It's always moving. You know, ketchup was good. Then you, I don't know, then you find out how much sugar and then it becomes bad. And then that's bad. You know, it's just, and there's this external rigid truth that can feel very comforting

because things that are non nuanced can be very comforting because they're just like a one thing that is true. Right, and what you're talking about with your daughter, so interesting, I think about the power for kids of just, I don't even know if it's the right word, but I call it dissonance. Like the ability to see something and just say, I don't know, like I'm not taking it in,

I'm also not rejecting it, I'm just gonna keep it in front of me. Maybe that's true, maybe that's not, maybe there's another way to see it, I don't know, maybe my mom's right, maybe she's wrong, and I think, me too. I struggle with maybe, you wanna be like, but is she right or is she wrong?

Like we want that certainty, it's so rigid, it's so singular, but that idea of like, I might be right about this person you're describing. I might be wrong. Again, it might be somewhere in the middle. And I do think I think about that with my kids a lot, like just the ability to say maybe like like to keep it outside. That's all it's just a maybe you don't resolve it is so protective, you know, to mental health. Yeah. Yeah. And as they get older, it's just like, there's such a difference between.

So if you picture that dinner table, there's such a difference between me saying, okay, hold on, hold on. Here's the five red flags I've seen about that person. Here's blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And in a way way that's me saying to her, I've got you. I've got you, I've got this. But like, she needs to hear you've got you. Which at a dinner table would look more like me saying, so tell me more about that guy. Like, what do you, and not in my way

where I'm asking a question that is really, so what do you think about that jackass is not maybe like in a way that feels open? Yes. So she's exploring because I think when we, when we impose too many of our, too much of our rigidity, their entire job becomes to resist it. They don't even, they don't even,

they're not even telling you their opinion anymore. They're just asserting their own independence from you by believing the opposite thing you're saying. I mean, it's so unfortunate. It's like the impact. And I also think with conflict, right? We all have conflict. We like someone, there's a part of us that's like,

this is the person forever. And there's a part of us that's like, I don't know, maybe I should move a little more slowly. I did see this red flag. And what is so easy to do, I think as a parent, is you represent one side of the conflict, I don't know about this person. And all that's actually left for your kid is the other side of the conflict, right? For right, they resist more when the goal actually isn't for them to say,

you're right, this person is horrible, the goal is actually to be able to have conflict inside your body. A part of me lights him and a part of me isn't so sure yet. I do have the tendency to run full speed ahead and part of me thinks that's okay, but I have another voice saying, oh, I got hurt in the past,

let me just wait a little bit longer. And again, like that conflict, which maybe does, I haven't thought about this, back to eating disorders, like that's so much of the healing is your ability to sit with uncertainty and conflict, right? To say, I ate something I didn't actually feel good about eating today and I'm not a horrible person and tomorrow will come.

And like, it's just to get out of the rigidity and morality, right? And kind of put all that conflict back inside. Yeah, as you're talking, I'm thinking about this thing that used to happen to me at the dinner table, which I've never written about or said, but my, my dad used to, so I would start eating and then my dad would go, if I started to reach for more, he would go, stop, wait for your message. And it was with this very like, kind of almost scary energy of like, anyway,

his point I guess was that I was going to feel a message from within that would tell me when was enough and I would stop. But what happened was he became my message. I never, I didn't, I didn't know how to find that message for 25 years. I just, so there's something, I don't want to be my kids message. I think I mean, actually, it deeply resonates when I think about like the house is the message, like it becomes so external.

And it is so hard. I mean, my kids are younger than yours, but as they get older and you feel like the stakes are higher in these life situations, like you do, you have such, you and I, like we have such good advice to give. It's really important that they hear our thoughts and our advice. And obviously there's a place to share an opinion, but this thing that just resonates, because it's like a powerful but simple phrase that I do try to think about is like, I really want to teach my kids how to think and not what to think. What to think always leads to that. So like either I'm dependent on someone else always to tell me what to think like each or I become so angry about that, that I actually really start to regularly act against my own best interest,

just as a way of resisting someone, because nothing is more important than feeling like an individual. And if the only way I could do that is by rejecting my parents, even good advice, I will choose that every time. Right. But either way, what doesn't happen is in the years I'm out of my parents' house, like, I don't even know how to ask myself the right questions. Like, because I'm in a situation in college, I'm uncomfortable. Again, the best it gets is, is this a little sketchy? Like, do I feel good about this? I don't know anyone who's like, this is sketchy.

I'm 100% sure. This person's a creep. You don't have that. The best it gets is you've practiced generating questions and being curious enough them to like lengthen the amount of time you have before you make a decision. And that is a skill, you know? And so this is like maybe an unrelated example, but maybe not. Like I think about this time, my son is now 13, is probably six. He's like, I started a club at school. I was like, oh, okay. It's like, and I get to decide who's in the club and who's out of the club. And I was like, of course I was like, that's so mean.

And what am I doing wrong as a parent to lead, you know, okay. And I just, and I was like, this is way off brand and you cannot have seriously. Yeah. Do you, do you know who I know? You know, actually I would say it's on brand. Kids do all the things that is, it's very on brand. is way off brand and you cannot have this. Seriously, do you know who I know? You know, actually, I would say it's on brand. Kids do all the things that is it's very on brand. But like, actually, and I think we're in the car. I remember this moment so vividly exactly around the highway.

So I think there's something about that, that it gave me a little space. I was looking at him to like access my sturdiness. And I just I the way that that moment transpired is one of my proudest parenting moments. I've had plenty of moments, obviously. I'm like, why did you do that? Right, but I just don't know a teenager who's like, my parent told me it's not nice to exclude people.

So I won't, it's just not how things happen. So what I said is, oh, well, like, how'd you get that position? Oh, like, what does it feel like to decide? Like, that's kind of powerful. Like, what's good about that? Like, I always think we have to understand what's good about bad behavior

before a kid's willing to relinquish it. You know, something is feeding that. And I remember, and then eventually we got to like, okay, well, what about the kids who are left out and what would that be like for you? And I really did resist the urge to say, okay, so we have figured it all out. It is never nice to, it's just,

I just feel like the rest of his life, he's gonna be in situations where like, do I do something that short-term gives me power and worth by making someone else feel small, or do I kind of pause and think through this? And again, you're always going to have that urge, the urge isn't going to go away, you know? And so could I create space around the urge where he just has more questions? He asks himself. And it's so different though, because it does

go back to trust, I think, like, can I trust that I don't have to do all of my parenting in the next 30 seconds? Like, you know, like, do I have time? Like, is it okay if still six months from now, I hear he kind of excluded someone again? Like, how much of an arc do I allow myself to like have the more substantial long-term impact I like really want for him later on, you know?

I guess you do have to, that's why it starts with personal work because in order to trust that your kid has that inside of them, whatever you call it, whether it's intuition or knowing or the higher power like my, in my 12-step programs are, don't forget, your kid has their own higher power. You're not their higher power, which I find confusing. The next episode, we'll unpack that. Leave it in my... If you don't trust that you have it, you're not going to trust that your kid has it. So if you are a person who's externalized knowing, then of course you're going to, bless your heart, think that you need to become your kids knowing. So it starts what you really believe

is true about being human, right? I, when you're talking, I'm thinking, my friend, one of my dear friends is Ashley Ford. She's an author and incredible human being. She was at my house a few weeks ago and we were talking about fear and need to control in particular mine. And she said, you know what I know about you Glenn

is you really don't like man spreaders. Like you don't, you really don't like a big guy in a room who doesn't yield and who uses his body to take up too much space and block people out and not that really bugs you. I know that about you. And so maybe you could think about what you do sometimes as like mind spreading. Hmm. Like when you situation or a meeting or a family dinner or a, like maybe you do get there

pretty quickly. Maybe you do know how to sum it up. Maybe you do, but you're spreading your brain all over the table and nobody has any space to move or think or come to their own. And now I think about that all the time. Like, you gotta yield. You gotta yield and give kids space

to ask their own questions and to work it through things, even if it takes a minute. And what if you don't know? What if it's not even about just don't mind spread? What if your mind doesn't know it all? Yeah, and I think you, I'm thinking about your daughter saying to you, you're so smart.

Like I think my mind can work really quickly and I can say a lot of things I don't even believe in pretty convincingly. 100%. Drive opinions loosely held. 100%. I always say, I'm like, I don't even believe what I'm about to say,

but it's gonna sound, I think it's gonna sound decent. Um, our kids, our kids might not know that about us. And so they just think my mom has this special short circuiting to the truth power. Um, which, which both isn't true and isn't useful. You know, for them, a lot of it's just a trauma response, right? It's not that I'm smart, it's that I'm scared, right? So that even, just them understanding that little bit.

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after a fun day of splashing and playing. Best part? I'm excited to announce an exclusive offer just for our Good Inside audience. You can save up to 40% off any stay at Great Wolf Lodge from now through August 31st when you book at participating lodges. Just visit greatwolf.com and enter the promo code GOOD inside when you book. That's one word, good inside at greatwolf.com. Book now at greatwolf.com and strengthen the pack. You know, you know, I'm just thinking, I don't know why I'm thinking this. I'm gonna ask a question.

Like I had this picture asking this to my kid and I've never thought this question before. What's the difference between being smart and knowing what you want? Well, I don't know. When you said that I, I immediately thought of this song by Florence and the Machine, which I listened to almost every morning because it just saves my life over and over again called free. And there's just an a line in it

that says being clever never got me very far. And then there's this other line that says, is this how it's, is this how it is, is this how it's always been to exist in the face of suffering and death and somehow still keep singing? Which I guess to me, being smart is just a mode of controlling it all. Like being able to understand it all makes me feel like I have control. Mm-hmm. It also makes me miserable and scared and rigid and sick and insufferable to everyone around me. So that might be smart, but it's sure as hell not wise.

Yeah, there's like this, because when I think about my kind of bout dance, whatever I want to call it with anorexia, like when I really think about that time in my life is right before I went to college, I was such a good girl. Now I would call myself an inconvenient woman, which is kind of the polar opposite, you know? And like, I think about my anorexia is like, it's like, I don't want anything.

I have such a disavowal of desire that I don't even want food. Like that's how scary desire is for me. Or that's how scary it is to know what I might want or to get close to that, that like even the basic thing you want to survive, I can make myself self-abandoned. And it just makes me think about during that time, I mean, I got into Duke, I was doing very well. It's just all the energy is like in your brain, right? Which also is the system

anorexia can operate on. It's pure rigidity. It doesn't actually make sense, because it's killing you, but you're like calories and numbers and good and bad. And there's like a superiority to like watching other people eat when you're like anorexic and you feel,

and it's just all in your brain. And like, I've really never thought about it. It's like, that's quote smart. The energy is like in your brain and so much of like knowing what you want. I feel like happens much in a much deeper place in your body. Right. Like, yeah, I guess in your mind, all you can know is what other people want of you. Like in culture, your culture is your brain. So anorexia and hustle culture are the exact same thing. But the crazy thing is that that is in a way what I

believed the world wanted from me. And while it's not 100% true, it's 90% true. Like what in my little family culture and wider, the world, it was important for me to stay small and not indulge my appetite and stay. That is the message everywhere. For women, it's not just bodily. Look at bodily culture. For women, it gets smaller restrict. For men, it's bulk up, get bigger. My books are self-help, whereas the guys who write the exact same books are in the leadership aisle. Hey, my book is in cookbooks. Do you know this? Cookbooks and miscellaneous. Oh, miscellaneous. Cooking or miscellaneous.

Of course, that makes perfect sense. Ah! I mean, even in the financial world, all the advice to women is about not buying, saving, restricting, and the advice to men is invest, get bigger. In every arena, the advice for women to stay safe and good is constrict, and for men, it's to get bigger. So that is all in our minds. So if we stay in our minds, of course we're going to, if you don't have food issues, but

you are someone who is on the treadmill of achievement in hustle culture, you are not going to get punished by about that by culture. You're going to get rewarded. The culture wants you to work yourself to death. The last thing the culture wants is for you to land in your body and find rest and ease and joy and desire. So I think in our bodies, maybe the answer to your question from my perspective,

where I sit right now is like, in my mind is where I figure out what other people want from me. And my body is where I find out what I want from me. And my body is where I find out what I want for me. And it's just easier and quicker to go to your mind because landing in your body, it's I'm, I just started learning about it a couple years ago and it's very messy and all, all your like trauma is in there and so is in there and that's great. But it's like, it's like that's down the road

and in between you and that is all this other junk that you have to sift through to get to the treasure. And it's hard, nobody wants to do that. And I don't blame them because it a little bit messes things up for a while because every structure and pattern and relationship in your life is based on not challenging any of that, not facing any of that.

Yeah, I mean, I think I wrote about my journey reflected. You know, I wrote about this journey of mine related to this term that just, this idea of like, what does that mean to be an inconvenient woman versus a good girl? And how many of us were raised? Yes. Be the version of yourself that everyone wants you to be. Your value comes from meeting everyone else's needs, which you can only be good at if you distance yourself from what's going on in

your own body. It's the only way you become an expert at taking care of every single other person around you and pleasing them, right? And I think about, again, we're talking about conflict and what's external and what's internal. I mean, anorexia is such like a beautiful conflict. I mean, you shrink away and you also take up space. Like everyone's looking at you,

being like, oh, you do not look well, right? Like you are so good and the morality around it. And what you're really also doing is expressing an immense amount of rage. Like if there's so much rage that comes out in rejecting basic sustenance, especially around the people around you who are so worried about you and just want to feed you. And so much of the resolution, ironically, comes with a lot more internal conflict, right? Oh, maybe I'm angry about things. Maybe that's useful to know. Maybe

I want things for myself that I don't have. Right. And so yeah, the I guess, I don't know, the answer to life's 20 questions is always something messy and nuanced? It's never fully, fully resolved, any of them? I mean, I think if anybody I think it's the opposite of resolution, like I coming from fundamentalism in everything in food and religion. I think that if anyone's offering this version of false certainty, it's it's comforting for one moment and then it doesn't work and then you have to slowly die inside because it's not true.

So I think that's why I've, for some random reason, brought up that Florence song because there's something about it that's just like spinning and dancing and arms wide open and no answers and just asking the questions with other beautiful, honest people that feels like the closest I'm ever going to get on this planet to peace. It's not safety. That's what I've been looking for. There's no safety

here. There's none. There's just this sort of beautiful surrender that happens when you stop, when you admit to yourself that there is no safety, but there is this like wild, beautiful dance that you can be a part of if you're not hiding inside of dogma or false certainty. Well, look, I kind of just want to end by saying something I said to you in the beginning. It's wild to me. I know this journey you've been on with your eating disorder and all these topics that we're talking about are not topics. They're like the things you're like living and breathing and me too and trying to figure

out and it's wild when you haven't seen someone for a long time. Sometimes you're like a quote better judge of like what's changed about them because it's not gradual to you. Like you literally look so much more embodied, this glow. It just doesn't feel so cerebral. That's maybe the word I was looking for earlier. It really doesn't. Even just the way you look just feels so much more embodied and it's like a different glow than I've ever seen in you. And it really brings me joy to see it and witness it. to see it and witness it. That means so much to me.

I'm going to take it with me today. I loved this conversation. So good. So good.