The Bossticks - Glennon Doyle On How To Take Hold Of Your Life By Becoming Braver, Bolder, & More Self Aware

Starting point is 00:00:00 The following podcast is a dear media production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her.

Starting point is 00:00:21 Aha. I really do believe that if we're here to keep changing, keep changing, keep becoming true more beautiful versions of ourselves, then our opportunity to do that is every time someone speaks to us, right, to actually like sit and take it in and not doing the waiting till, it's my turn. I think maybe if we got a little bit more comfortable with pauses and silence, that might be helpful because I think we wait to talk and plan the thing we're going to say next while the other person is talking because we're scared of any silence coming after. but like silences and pauses are really transformational and beautiful.

Starting point is 00:01:04 Happy Tuesday. That clip was from our guest of the show today. I can't even say it. I am so fucking excited, Glennon Doyle. I have wanted her on this podcast since I read her book. Well, I should say books. I started with Love Warrior.

Starting point is 00:01:22 Then I read Untamed, which so many of you guys have read. And then lastly, I read her first book. carry-on warrior and I am obsessed. She is a best-selling author. She's a mother. She's a spiritual bean and she has raised so much money for charity. I could not be more excited. Michael, I am freaking out. I'm freaking out so much that we flew from L.A. to Miami just to interviewer. Not only flew to Miami, but then drove over an hour and a half to Naples to do the interview, booked a studio just for you long because I knew how important this was. Actually, it was a really

Starting point is 00:01:55 badass conversation. I was excited to do it myself. Honestly, Glennon Doyle is to me the role model of my time. I like stumbled upon her books before Untamed was even out and found Love Warrior. And I have sent it to so many people. I have sent it to Amelia Gray Hamlin. I have sent it to tons of people who have been on the podcast. I think I sent Untamed to Topsy. I am just obsessed with her writing. I feel like she communicates to women in a way. way women didn't even know they needed to be communicated to. Her first two books are about her struggle with bulimia and addiction and her struggle in her marriage. And she's so transparent and so honest. And I've really never read a piece of work where a woman is so honest. And it happens that her husband cheats on her in Love Warrior. And she talks all about that and how they had to go to therapy and work it out. And then in Untamed, she comes out in the most beautiful way that she is in love with U.S. soccer superstar Abby Weinbach. And you have to read the books to even understand this because

Starting point is 00:03:03 there's so many things in her books that are so relevant to the world we're living in. She's smart, she's sharp, she's savvy. I honestly am such a big reader. And I have to say that these three books are definitely in my top five. I want to say top five. She is so incredible. You guys have to read her. her books. I have nothing but amazing things to say. With that, let's welcome the Glennon Doyle to the skinny confidential, him and her podcast. This is the skinny confidential him and her. Okay, so you say studies prove that the more powerful, successful, and happy a man becomes, the more people trust and like him. But the more powerful and happy a woman becomes, the less people like her and trust her. Wow. Okay. So talk to our audience.

Starting point is 00:03:54 about our training and our conditioning and why you think that this is happening. Yeah, so I started noticing this a lot at my speaking engagement. Somebody would always raise their hand at the end and say, Glennon, you know, when you used to talk all the time about addiction and depression and how hard life was, it just related to you so much. But now that you've been with Abby and now that the book is out there and you're doing fancy things, like I just find it harder and harder to relate to you. It was just this kind of refrain over and over again.

Starting point is 00:04:27 And I think that I know what that is, right? We are conditioned to expect and demand modesty and kind of messiness from women, right? It's a bell curve. Like, it's just a fact that when you poll people about how they feel about public people, the bolder and more certain and happier a man is, the more people not only like him but trust him. And the bolder and more confident and happy a woman becomes the more we don't trust her. And you hear that over and over again when you hear people say, I just, I don't know, it's just something about her. Right?

Starting point is 00:05:13 Like, I don't know. It's just, she's just not likable, right? Like, I just can't put my finger on it. I can put my finger on it. It's internalized misogyny. It's that we are conditioned to want our women uncertain and humble and quiet. And when we see a woman who is stepping out of that cage, makes us uncomfortable. It's violating our social conditioning in the same way that when we see a man who is vulnerable and uncertain and merciful, maybe with tears, that also makes it. makes us uncomfortable, right? Because that man has stepped out of our expectations for what a man

Starting point is 00:05:53 is. When I was thinking a lot about this, a story I put in untamed. I was at a soccer game with my children recently. And there was this girl on the other team. Okay. And she came out on this field. She was so freaking good at soccer, first of all, and she was crushing us, our team. But it was like, it wasn't just her talent. It was the way she carried herself around the field. She was just like so certain of herself, shoulders back, head up, kicking the ball, like scoring like it was the easiest thing in the world. And I started to have an experience. And I looked over at my soccer mom friends and they were having an experience. They did not like this girl.

Starting point is 00:06:36 I did not like this girl. I am a 44-year-old feminist. And this 12-year-old confident girl was bugging the crap out of me, right? And that is our knee-jerk reaction to confident, right? We don't even know it. It is often subconscious. But what we don't like about them is that they are violating our unspoken gender roles. And I think one of the reasons we also don't like them is because we're envious of them.

Starting point is 00:07:07 Because we too would like to walk in the world with that much boldness and that much confidence and that much certainty, right? I really think that one of the best things we can do in a moment like this especially is to admit that we have conditioning. Right. And when we, when some, when a woman irks us to just take a minute and question why, like question ourselves, right? Because our need jerk reaction is not our truest reaction. That's our conditioning. Right. So we have the option to when we don't relate to someone, say, wait, why is that?

Starting point is 00:07:44 And could that be my conditioning? Because if we don't start to love instead of criticize and dismiss, strong, confident women and vote for them, we're not going to have any left. Do you think social media makes it worse or better? I think social media makes everything better and worse, right? Social media is just an amplifier for everything that we already are. I certainly think it's easier to dismiss people on social media than it is in real life, right? Because it's much, much easier to hate people than to from a distance than it is close up. I think social media is a great place to practice. So we can find bold, confident women. That is such good advice. On social media.

Starting point is 00:08:22 To just observe your thoughts. Yeah, absolutely. Like, why did that tweet irk me? Why does that picture of that woman that she took of herself? Because clearly she's feeling herself today and she likes how she looks and she took a picture of it and posted it. And it irks me. Why? You know what Charlie Munger says about envy? He says it's the most useless of the seven deadly sins because it's the only one you can't have any fun at. I always think about that. I love that one. Yeah, that's so good.

Starting point is 00:08:51 And I actually, I would argue that to me, envy is one of the most helpful and useful emotions. I think we're all trained not to feel envious. We think we should be ashamed of it. But so when I was drinking all the time, I'm recovering alcoholic. And when I was really sick, if someone handed me a book written by a woman that was a beautiful book, I would not read it. Why was that? Because something about reading words that a woman wrote felt like looking straight at the sun,

Starting point is 00:09:18 it was like so painful. And I think that's because a part of me knew that like a braver, bolder version of myself could do that. Your superpower is self-awareness. Like I think the reason I'm so attracted to your writing is because it's so self-aware and it's so blunt and it's so honest. And it's also relatable. And I'm sure you hear that all the time.

Starting point is 00:09:38 But you're like, oh, that's a feeling that I've been feeling that I didn't know how to put into words. You know what I'm saying? There's so many things you talk about in your book where I'm like, I felt that before, but I didn't know how to contextualize it. So there's a topic that you hit on throughout the book. And I feel like this one really resonated with me and I'm sure with other people. And it's the audacity of someone ringing your doorbell. I was worried because we read the book and I was like, we had a text this morning. I was like, oh, shit.

Starting point is 00:10:03 I said she might not respond for me. We might not get a response for a week, a month. We might never hear back. I know. Which I get it. And I was like, oh my gosh, our relationship is leveling up very fast. We're texting each other. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:10:16 I don't. Okay, so here's how I really feel about that. First of all, I am a very committed introvert. Okay, so I could stay home all day, every day, and just have great adventures in my home, in my head. It really does feel to me like stimulus from the outside. Like, I'm living inside here. my whole inner world is in here.

Starting point is 00:10:37 Okay, so sometimes Abby, when before COVID, she would go on a trip and she would come back after four days. And I would real quick before she got home, I would go out and move the car. So it looked like I had gone somewhere because I was embarrassed. I don't have to leave the house for days and days and days to feel. Who does that sound like? You both are cerebral.

Starting point is 00:10:55 Yeah. I could sit in the house all day. People like, aren't you bored? I'm like, no, this is my, this is, I'm going to sit there. I'm going to read for hours and hours. I'm going to sit in one place and just think for once. myself. It's heaven, right? Quick break to tell you about rituals, new launch. Okay, you guys, if you think that your kids are picky, you haven't met the parents at ritual. After scanning

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Starting point is 00:13:24 it feels like an alarm, like a like a some kind of intrusion. This is why I have no friends. But also it just I also think it speaks to something bigger. It's like we have become human beings who think that we should have constant access to each other all the time. Oh my God. Can you please, please, please talk and elaborate more on this? Because when someone texts you and you're in the middle of working and they want to text right away and then it's question mark, question mark, it's like you're intruding on my time. Right. And we have we have surrendered this. Like we need to stop. We cannot surrender this. This is not, it's taking away from our humanity. Like this is the first time in the history of any

Starting point is 00:14:05 culture where you can just be going about your day and anybody at any time through this text, through this email, through this can just demand something of you and basically send you and I, and I owe you like you owe me. Yeah. And it's, it's awkward because it makes you obligated in a way. And then if you don't like, I get in trouble all the time. I talk on the show about how sometimes I don't even respond to an email or it takes me a while to answer or I'll take certain times in the day to just in the morning I'll answer and then in the afternoon. And like, what am I doing between? I'm working on myself doing other things. But people get mad about that. I'm like, what makes you think it's okay to just get access to somebody whenever you want on your time. It's not realistic.

Starting point is 00:14:39 It's not okay. And it's also utterly incondusive to a creative life. Okay? Because what my job is to wake up in the morning and decide what I want to create, what the people I want to activate. Like my day and my plans need to come from inside, inside out, right? But the way we live, everybody wakes up and their to do list is to is responsive. What did you need for me today? What did you ask me? What did you? Like all day, we're just responding to what other people want from us. Instead of saying, no, no, no, I have this like one wild and precious life and like,

Starting point is 00:15:14 I don't know how many days I have left. What do I want to create today? What do I want to do? So I just don't live in response mode. Like I rarely, I will respond to texts when I feel like talking to that person. Yeah. We were going to save this for later, but I think it's a good segue to talk about disappointing people in order to not disappoint yourself.

Starting point is 00:15:32 I know that's a big theme in your book. And I think like it's actually an unselfish thing to do in a way, disappoint. Because what I always say is like if I can't 100% commit to somebody or something, I'd rather not do it because I'm going to let them down. And so I'm like if I'm either all in or all out. And I'm the opposite. I overcommit.

Starting point is 00:15:49 And then I disappoint people. So you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. Right. That's true. Although I would suggest that you're more damned if you overcommit and then feel bitter. And then because I think you're actually damneder. And I have like thought this through many times, right? I think that the more we can be, my friend Brunei Brown calls this just clarity is kindness.

Starting point is 00:16:12 Like the more we can be clear from the beginning. We just are conditioned as women to constantly measure our worthiness based on how much everyone likes us. And then we try to earn our likeability by saying yes to every damn thing. Right. And then after we say yes, we get really. really, really mad that we said yes and then we're bitter for all of the hours leading up to the thing that we didn't ever really want to do, which destroys the likeability anyway. Right? Right. Right. Because by the time we show up, we're pissed at the person who asked us to do the thing, but they don't know what, like, we said yes. Right. So I have found, especially right now and you guys and all the things that people will ask us to do, I mean, people will ask you to death. I think that I probably, my nose are probably 90% because. I want to do the things life is so short. Like I want to the things that I say yes to I want to

Starting point is 00:17:06 to be all in. I want them. We call it in my little teeny, my sister and the two other women I work with is what feels warm and what feels cold. And that sounds really woo-woo at first. But actually it's instinct. It's science. It's how we are, we get out of our minds to make all these decisions and we get back into our bodies and just say like what lights you up? What makes you feel what's a hell yes? Like what makes you, for us, it's, it's truly like what makes you feel constricted and fold when somebody asks you to do it? And what makes you feel expansive and warm? And just go towards those things. And the amount of times that I used to obsess about how to say no to things, it's so incredible. It's like, I can't do that right now. Wish you all the best.

Starting point is 00:17:50 How did you get to a place where you were okay with it? It's like literally that's it. I think I probably got okay with it like three weeks ago. Because I think there's a lot of people that struggle with this. People pleasers and they don't want to let anyone down and their parents and their friends. And also like, let's be honest, it's someone's birthday every day. It's someone's birthday. Oh, so you have too many friends. This is another benefit of never texting anyone back.

Starting point is 00:18:15 I don't know when the hell anyone's birthday is. I haven't had a birthday party for myself in 10 years because I'm hoping I don't get invited to birthday parties. And I can say, I can say, I never did it to you. There you go. That's like every time I get a thank you note from someone, I'm like, oh, God, damn it. Like, this is aggressive. You're sending me a thank you note, which means you expect a thank for me, and that is never going to happen. Oh, gosh.

Starting point is 00:18:36 So I want to know, I just have a selfish question about you. When COVID happened and you had this incredible book coming out. And you have the tour planned and all this stuff, I'm sure, lined up. I know your sister's a big part of your team. She's streamlined all this stuff. And then it all goes to shit. Yes. Are you happy because you get to stay home?

Starting point is 00:18:57 or are you pissed? Or are you both? I'm embarrassed to tell you that I was a little bit. Okay, so as an introvert, maybe you'll understand this. As an introvert, my favorite thing is when things get canceled. Like, every social engagement I have, I feel like it's like a game of chicken. We almost got off the hook today, but they almost tried. I'm like, should I cancel or should I just wait?

Starting point is 00:19:22 Because if they cancel, because most of my friends are introverts too. So like if I waited out and then maybe she'll cancel last minute, then I'll get credit for not canceling. Right. So I stalked you. I came all the way from Florida. I know. I'm sorry. I was so freaking sweet.

Starting point is 00:19:35 I know. I know. You might have got the door knock. Yeah, totally. I know. I did think about that. I mean, maybe they should come to my house. Sit outside.

Starting point is 00:19:43 So it was so weird because we were on the road for the book tour, which had been planned for a year, which was sold out all over the country, which was our biggest event, three weeks of the last decade or five years. And we were on the road on starting it on March 10th, which was literally like the tipping point four days of COVID. Like before that, nothing was canceled. Nobody was canceling before that. And it was just this hint of like, I'd be in the back rooms getting ready for an event. And everybody would just be like quietly looking at their phones and talking about what was going on trying to like not freak me out. Right.

Starting point is 00:20:17 It was actually Abby who we were laying in bed one night. And she was like, are you okay? hey, like, what do you think we're going to do? And I just said something like, this is, how can I cancel this? This is the most important thing I've ever done professionally, like this tour. And it sounded, it just sounded wrong in my head. And I realized, oh, that's not true at all. The most important thing I've ever done professionally is create this community of human beings,

Starting point is 00:20:41 who I'm now inviting into these rooms where I don't know if it's safe or not. Right? So it was like this shift of defining, I always think everything's about defining your one thing. thing. Like you're one thing that's the most important to you. And then all other decisions around that become easier to make. So I just realized, oh, my one thing is these people. It's the community. It's not the book. It's not the work. It's the whatever. It's the people, which makes this decision very easy. Quick break to tell you about loungeware. Loungeware that you need because it looks so business like. That's what we want right now. I feel like, I feel like Beta Brand knew we were going to be

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Starting point is 00:23:41 I do like like several people. But I was such a sensitive human being and had trouble in not trouble, but just like a little bit of anxiety in social situations. I never understood like where do I belong in this situation? Where do I sit? Where do I? When Abby talks about her social situations when she was little, she describes it with such a lot, such a joy and a lack of self-consciousness. And I've just always been very conscious of like, where do I fit here? What do I say?

Starting point is 00:24:11 Do they like me? Do I like them? Just in my head a lot. And books were a place where I could really get to know what human beings were like on the inside without having to deal with any of the social or awkwardness of dealing with people on the outside, right? It's like I've always been terrible at small talk, and reading for me is a way to just cut all that out and get to the deep humanity of people without having to deal with actual human beings. Right? So I think words, I think people who read constantly tend to be good with words. That's been

Starting point is 00:24:44 my only, my deepest and best form of communication since I was very, very small. And then I also am a person who dealt with and deals with mental health stuff. So I've been in therapy, in and out of therapy, since I was 10. Maybe a little bit before that. Maybe I was nine. And so not constantly, but in and out and out and out and out. And that offers an extremely high level of self-awareness. And then the way I got sober is through recovery meetings.

Starting point is 00:25:14 And so there's nothing that you learn more in those circles. than what human beings are really like. And you said something on someone's podcast. You said, too, the reason that you felt at home when you went to those meetings is because it was the first place that you have been that people actually listen. And you write a lot about listening. And my husband and I are working on listening just as a practice all the time. Like we're constantly talking about how important it is to listen.

Starting point is 00:25:42 I have to do double the work. He does have to do double the work. It definitely has to do it. Good listening. I would say triple the work. Yeah. But can you talk about why you think like 2020 more than ever? It's so important to listen.

Starting point is 00:25:55 Yeah. I think if I could give the world one superpower, like if I could just give everybody one little, like they used to have this floppy disks or whatever that I could just like insert inside of each human being. It would be the skill of listening. And as a former teacher, I was an elementary school teacher,

Starting point is 00:26:13 it makes me so frustrated that we don't teach how to listen because I can't think of a more important human characteristic. I think people think like, you're either a good listener or not, but that's not it. It's a skill that you learn, just like reading, just like anything else. So one of the reasons why I think that, well, A.A. has been one of the most successful and long-lasting programs in the history of the world. They have nothing. They have like bad coffee and basements, right?

Starting point is 00:26:44 And yet people go there over and over and over again. unbelievable numbers for so long is because it's not just because it's a place of like-minded people or it's because it's one of the only places where people can actually get listened to. Okay. Because there are actual rules about the people in those circles are taught how to listen. Okay. When somebody starts talking, there are rules that people get to share without ever being interrupted, right, without ever getting any feedback, right?

Starting point is 00:27:15 You don't, nobody says, oh yeah, I just heard. that story, I know what it's like because my brother, da-da-da-da-da, because that's stealing the moment that is bringing it back to yourself. There are all these rules or guidelines for good listening that nobody is taught overtly, but people in AA are taught overtly. And so it becomes one of the safest, people just desperately need to be seen, right? Like when people are in those circles and they bring their pain to the circle, they don't want to be fixed. They don't want advice. They don't want to be fixed.

Starting point is 00:27:51 They don't want people to tell them why their experience is just like their experience. People do not need their pain fixed. What everybody needs is a witness. Right? And when you are a witness, you are quiet. So I think that it's the safety of those circles. It's knowing that when I show you myself, you will honor my pain. You will honor it because you are a person who knows the value of pain, right?

Starting point is 00:28:22 And who knows that it's not to be fixed. It's not to be swept under the rug so we can step around it. It's not to be grabbed with all those jackass things we say when we don't know how to deal with pain. Like everything happens for a reason and no, it's darkest before the dawn, or all of those things we say when we don't know how to sit with pain. And that's something, one of my kids' friends called me last night in deep pain. And I literally, you guys, I'm biting my tongue because she's a little one, well, she's 16, but little to me.

Starting point is 00:28:53 And like, more than anything, I just want to tell her why it's okay. And what we're going to do to make it better. About, like, biting my tongue so that I just am holding that hot loneliness of not being able to fix somebody else's pain. And just saying things like, yes, I hear you. Yes, it hurts as bad as you're saying. yes, you are exactly right to feel that way. Yes, yes, yes. And then we get off the phone and I'm like, oh, I did nothing there.

Starting point is 00:29:23 And then Chase texts me, my kid, my 17-year-old texts me and he's like, thanks, Mom. You made her feel heard. That, I think that's the biggest thing. I completely, my wife got a lot of postpartum depression after she had the baby. And I completely blundered it because my default state. I felt aware, though. Well, no, but I mean.

Starting point is 00:29:40 That's a turn on. But I've learned that. I've learned that over the course because my deep. fault was one, I didn't understand postpartum to begin. It was the first child. And I never seen her go through that. And she usually doesn't get super depressed. And so my instinct was like, how do I help? How do I talk her out of the time? And like, all she wanted me to do a lot of the time was just sit there and listen. But I just didn't, I wasn't aware that that was a way to help her. It's taking time to get there. We went through it again, I would know. But I think it's so important, especially with what we've seen in this country. I mean, we just saw the disaster that was that first presidential debate. And like we've gotten to a place where just nobody is listening to anybody anymore.

Starting point is 00:30:13 and you can't accomplish anything if people are unwilling to listen, whether you agree or disagree. I think it's so important. It's like a skill that we've all lost. And people just love everybody's talks, talks, talks, talks, talks because they want to be liked, first of all. And that's hilarious because, listen, if you all knew how many times I have just sat in a space and listened to someone talk for 30 minutes, every time they leave and they're like, I just like her so much. I didn't say anything. People like people like people. people who make them feel. I just always want to give people a hint. Like, if it's really important to you to be like, stop talking, right? It's just this incessant need to, for validation maybe,

Starting point is 00:30:55 or like to prove we exist. I don't know. But I really do believe that there's, if we're here to keep changing, keep changing, keep becoming true or more beautiful versions of ourselves, then our opportunity to do that is every time someone speaks to us, right? To actually like sit and take it in and not doing the waiting till till it's my turn. I think maybe if we got a little bit more comfortable with with pauses and silence, that might be helpful. Because I think we wait to talk and plan the thing we're going to say next while the other person is talking because we're scared of any silence coming after. But like silences and pauses are really transformational and beautiful too. We can allow more of those. And you have to forgive

Starting point is 00:31:41 yourself for for wanting to fix her because that is what you have been taught as a guy. Sure. Your worthiness comes from what you can get done and what you can get fixed and what you can like conquer, right? So what we always say in my house like because Abby has this too, this need to fix. And that's been really challenging with her with my mental, whatever we call them, differences because it only took her about six months to figure out like there's no fixing. there's no fixing this. And it's not a reflection of her that she can't fix it. So somebody taught me

Starting point is 00:32:16 this, which was like in every moment of somebody sharing their pain to switch from the goal being, oh, it's not my goal to fix. It's my goal to connect. Right. So at any point saying like, I hear, I see you, I feel you, I hear you. That and then it like deflates the pain in a way that you'll learn this with your little one. It's like they freak out. They freak out for no reason. She'll be like tying her shoes or something. She won't be able to tie her shoes. And that will ensue. That will cause a 45 minute temper tantrum, right?

Starting point is 00:32:47 And what you want to do is be like, are you freaking kidding me, kid? Like this is not a big deal. Calm down, which will then make the tantrum three and a half hours long. Right? Because anybody who's in pain that you tell them to calm down, that it's not a big deal. So that's exactly what I did, but I turned into three and a half minutes. Right. There you go.

Starting point is 00:33:06 You could have saved yourself months, right? by just saying, you know, one of my favorite child psychologist says the best thing you can do with the kid when they're freaking out is like, get down on the ground with them and mirror their experience to them. Like if they're crying, just be like, oh my God, I know. This is so frustrating. And there's something that when a human being sees themselves reflected, they're like, okay, she gets sick. I can move on. As opposed to like digging their feet in, right, digging their themselves in because they have to prove how much pain they're in. Once you get it, we can move on.

Starting point is 00:33:41 Are you going to be doing therapy sessions here? Because we'll fly out for therapy sessions. Yes, but I will be the patient, not the teacher. Can you do Skype therapy or something? Hold up. I'm going to take a quick break to talk to you about function of beauty. Mine just showed up. Don't mean to brag, but it's customizable beauty.

Starting point is 00:34:04 So I got to customize my shampoo and conditioner. I personally feel like one size fits all is not a phrase that should describe your hair care routine. I mean, everyone's different, everyone's unique. And the drugstore is totally not your friend when it comes to your hair. I feel like everyone knows what I'm talking about. You want to get customized hair care for your unique hair type. And that is function of beauty.

Starting point is 00:34:27 So here's how it works. First, I went on and I took this quiz. And the quiz just tells you about your hair goals. you can choose the color that you want, the fragrance you prefer. So I seriously customized what I was getting in the mail. Then the function of beauty team determines the right blend of ingredients. And then, like I said, they bottle your custom formula to go. It's delivered straight to your door in this cute customized bottle.

Starting point is 00:34:52 I'm telling you, mine is like this teal color. It looks so cute in my shower. And I know it's customized for me. The cutest part of this is that they print your name on the bottle. so it says Lauren and they have this little pump, they have stickers, they have gifts. It's just very, very customized, which I love, especially when it comes to my hair. The main thing and the reason that I really wanted to partner with function of beauty is because they only use clean ingredients. So all their formulas are vegan. They're cruelty free. They never use sulfates, parabins,

Starting point is 00:35:24 or any other harmful ingredients. And the main reason I'm obsessed is that there's over 50,000 five-star reviews. All right. So what are you waiting for? you're going to go to function of beauty.com slash skinny to take your quiz and save 20% off your first hair care order. Just go to function of beauty.com slash skinny to let them know you heard about it from our show and you get 25% off your hair care order. That's function of beauty.com slash skinny. I'm telling you you're going to be obsessed. I think you touched on something that I, it's obviously a theme throughout the book, which is we are trained to think a certain way, to act a certain way, to be accepted a certain way.

Starting point is 00:36:08 And I thought it really, obviously, a very touching story in the book was when you, when, when Abby asked your parents for to marry you and your mom said, that's the first time since you were 10 years old, that you are lighting up like that. I don't know. Maybe I've pictured the words. Yeah. Exactly right. But I, and what you said really resonated me, it's just like at 10 years old, it's around the time we all start to figure out like what we're, how we're supposed to act, or according to others. And one thing that Lauren and I talk about on the show all the time is try to be the best version of yourself. And the key there is yourself and whatever that means.

Starting point is 00:36:35 And I think, again, we get into all these situations where it's like, are those beliefs really ours politically, emotionally? Like, are those things that turn us on and turn us off are really our thoughts? And maybe you could speak to that a little bit because I think there's a lot of young people listening that are trying to figure out who they are and what they're actually, what they actually want to be. Yeah. The untamed concept is cool and fun and people relate it to wild and all of that. And that's awesome. But what it really is is just a study that is done through my personal life of social conditioning. Okay, so social conditioning is just a process that we all go through as little individual human beings who are trying to fit inside of a larger civilization, right?

Starting point is 00:37:15 So it's like the way that happens is we are born, these kind of wild individual unique selves. And we as children, most of us have a few good years of freedom, meaning we are all emotion and intuition and imagination, right? We just are what we are, like a complete lack of self-consciousness. And then social scientists say that between the years of seven and 12, somewhere in there, we start to really internalize our social conditioning. And what social conditioning is, it starts when we're born, but we start to really consciously understand it a little bit later. And so what that looks like is, oh, I see, I'm a girl.

Starting point is 00:37:57 And girls are pleasant and smile and are not bossy. Oh, oh, I'm a boy. Okay, boys are not allowed to cry in the playground. And boys have to, like, only talk about these two things. And boys can't be friends with girls. Okay, I'm a Christian, they tell me. So I have to believe these certain things, and I can't admit these doubts. And I'm supposed to not like those people.

Starting point is 00:38:16 And I'm supposed to, oh, okay, so I'm an American. So I see. So I have to be patriotic, and that means that I have to do this and not question this. And not go. Oh, I'm a doyle. So that means, like, I have to be tough and I have to like that. So these become these little social constructs, whether there are religion, whether there are gender, whether there are sexuality, right?

Starting point is 00:38:36 Whether there are politics, our nationality, become tiny little cages that we live in. And the reason why we accept these cages is because these identities are how we get our protection over time from the tribe. Right. So you can see this when I was teaching. I could see what would happen when a little boy broke out of his cage and would start crying on the playground. What happens immediately after that is called tribal shaming. Okay. So everybody who sees the man, the little boy breaking code starts attacking, right? Same with what you're talking about when a woman is bold. And like the tribal shaming that comes after that is like you got out of your cage.

Starting point is 00:39:13 Okay, here's a Christian. I'm a Christian who came out in love with a woman. The tribal shaming just was merciless, right? So it makes sense because what we've done over time is we have not found a way to a human beings to be both held by the tribe and free to be themselves. We all over time have had to sacrifice our selfness for protection from the tribe, right? And we see that like in families so much, right? The families that have this one vibe and this one way of being and then one of the kids

Starting point is 00:39:53 steps out, like that just causes these ripples and families that that cause major breakage and people really do over time, over and over again have to decide, am I going to abandon myself or am I going to abandon my sense of belonging? You talk about that a lot. Can you talk to us? And tell us how you talk to your kids about that, too. In terms of who we want them to be is what you are saying themselves, right? I think there's ways we can talk to our kids about this. I know that one of the little examples I put in Untamed is the one night Tish came home to us, it's our middle kid. And she, She said, Mom, Chase wants me to join all of these clubs in high school.

Starting point is 00:40:35 And I don't want to join these clubs. Like, these are not my jam. And I was like, okay, so what's the big deal? Just don't join the clubs. And she said, oh, I know, but I don't want to disappoint him. And I just remember saying, honey, because I just saw myself in her of like me spending 30 years in my life, giving up everything that I was to not to disappoint other people. And I just said, babe, your job for your entire life is to disappoint as many people as it takes to avoid disappointing yourself.

Starting point is 00:41:10 And she said, even you. And I said, especially me, because there's no cage that is harder to break free from than the ones that your precious parents made for you. Right? Nobody wants to disappoint their mom. Nobody wants. I know activists who are out there like on podiums in front of thousands of people talking about gay rights and women's this and then they are scared to death to come out to their parents. Right? It's like that's the one that's hardest to break.

Starting point is 00:41:42 So that's the one that I don't, I want my kids to, I don't ever want them to feel like I have a list of expectations for them and that their job is to make sure that they are meeting all of my expectations. I want there to be no expectations. I want it to be more like we're just treasure hunting together, right? And they are over and over again trying to figure out who they already are. And I'm just like celebrating, whatever that is, right? I was talking to this guy the other day. He was a dancer for Alvin Ailey. He is a beautiful gay black man.

Starting point is 00:42:18 And he was talking about how interesting it was to grow up in a family in the black community, in the specific community, he was in religious group as a gay kid. And he said something so beautiful. We were talking about the knowing that I talk about and untamed, how we all have this knowing of who we're supposed to be. And he said, what my parents did is they always allowed me to know. And I think that's the best definition of parenting I can imagine ever. I have to give my parents a shout out because they did that for me too.

Starting point is 00:42:51 And if I can pinpoint one thing they did right, I'm always like there was no judgment around who I wanted to be. And I think that is so important as a parent. And so unusual. I didn't know it was so unusual actually until I read your book, but I'm realizing and after having conversations that it is unusual. So thanks. So unusual. My parents. I got to show them out. Yes, shout out to my dad's driving. And also, I just think we can forgive them for it because it's not most of the time, it's based out of love. It's like we all have these ideas of what what our kids' lives will look like to keep them safe. When I told my mom that I was coming, that I was in love with Abby,

Starting point is 00:43:33 my mom is my best friend. We are so incredibly close. And she was scared, so scared. Right? She just was, she had this idea of the way the world would treat us. And she felt afraid for us. And she, and so her fear came out. with like in all these different ways.

Starting point is 00:43:57 And I would find myself just arguing with her all the time about like why it was okay and why we were okay. And just like defending myself. I'm just defending myself and justifying myself. One day I was talking to my sister about a conversation we were having and she said, Glenn, why are you so defensive? Like defensiveness is for people who are afraid that someone can take what they have. But nobody can take this from you. Like you're a grown woman.

Starting point is 00:44:23 You can have Abby. mom can't take this from you. And I realized, oh, every time I'm justifying myself or explaining myself, that is my first signal that I've started to abandon myself. Right? Because what I realize with my mom is like, oh, she thinks she knows what's best for me. And I know what's best for me. I have to decide whether I trust her more or I trust myself.

Starting point is 00:44:48 Right? And I said to her, it was a very hard moment, but I said to her mom, you're a very hard moment. your fear is not our problem. And my job is to make sure it never becomes our problem because our kids aren't afraid. They don't know this generational fear that you have. But if you bring it to our home, they will see it in your eyes and help you carry it because they love you. Because fear is contagious. Right.

Starting point is 00:45:13 So I can't let you come to our house until you have figured out this internalized homophobia you have. That you think is love but is actually fear. Right? That, and it was so hard, and that is the moment I became a grown-up. That is the moment that a mother and a daughter became two mothers, right? Because I was like, this is my island, this is my family, and you can't come until you're ready to just do nothing but celebrate and accept us. So what happened?

Starting point is 00:45:39 I almost hate telling this story because so many people have a different experience than I do when they do set their boundary. A lot of people lose their families. My mom, I think what she desperately wanted was for me. me to be okay, right? And I think that's what most of our parents want for us. They want us to be okay. And something about me explaining myself, setting my boundary, and then living with freedom and joy and honor made her realize for the first time that I was at fine, that I was okay for the first time, right? So what I watched over the next few months was her just watch us

Starting point is 00:46:20 and just fall deeply, deeply in love with Abby and watch her see our family work in different ways than the typical nuclear family, but work in ways that was kind of making everybody come to life more and be honest with each other for the first time. And fast forward, my mom is like, she's the fiercest activist in our family. She plans trans remembrance ceremonies at her universalist church. She marches more than any of us do. She has, it was like this her seeing me demand my, demand justice and equality and freedom and respect. It was like this thing that I let out into the air that she just was like, it was like my cheetahness, like unlocked her cheetahness.

Starting point is 00:47:10 And she is freaking fierce. She's fierce. Every time I call her now, she's phone banking. She's texting. she's organizing, she's rallying, she's incredible. And she's got to the point where she realized that that moment when Abby asked her, or I should say told her that she was going to ask me to marry her, where she connected my 10-year-old self.

Starting point is 00:47:35 That makes me cry all the time because she watched me disappear at 10, right? She just watched me slowly disappear into addiction. I became a blemick when I was 10 and then be gone, just be gone for 15 years. And what I think is that she knew I was still a little bit semi gone even after I got sober because I was still trying to be perfect. I was trying to be a good wife, trying to be a good daughter, trying to be a good mother, trying to like match all of these expectations that the world had for me.

Starting point is 00:48:05 And so I think for her to see me really have the self rise up that had nothing to do with rebellion or conformity, right? Because the first half of my life, I was just rebelling. which is not freedom. It's still in response to what the world tells you to do. And then the second half of my life, I was conforming to everything the world told me to be, right? And so I think she saw in this third phase freedom for the first time. She saw me become who I was before the world told me who to be. You are so open about infidelities with your husband. I'm sure there's people that are listening, that are experiencing cheating. I know it's hard to give blanket advice,

Starting point is 00:48:49 but is there any sort of thing that helped you through that? Lexapro. It was super helpful, all of my antidepressants. It is tricky. What I would say about infidelity or any sort of betrayal. Betrayal. Yeah. Inside of a marriage is, I think I just expected that there was this formula, that there was this thing that we could do. which was do all the things that everyone told us about how to heal after infidelity, right? We all just want to map. Just tell me what to do. Tell me what to do.

Starting point is 00:49:22 And so we did all the therapy. He did all the therapy. He did every single thing that a person who makes the mistakes that he made could do to heal, right? To make it up to the family, to do whatever. So did I. And I just kept waiting for forgiveness to just like fall upon my head, like as a, as my reward. for like long suffering and for doing all the things that I wanted that I did to fix it. And there were there were times when I'd look at our family together and I was like,

Starting point is 00:49:53 okay, we're doing it. Like we're still together. We're like trying. We're one family unit. But the truth is that I was always furious. But like I was like a dormant volcano with lipstick on, right? I was just and the fury would come up any time there was any suggested intimacy. Right? Whether it was physical, sexual, emotional, there was a part of me that rose up every time he tried to reinstate intimacy that was like rage. Right. And over time I realized that I needed to shift the question I was asking myself because I just kept playing this tape in my head over again that was like, how could he do this to me?

Starting point is 00:50:43 How could he do this to me? How could he do this to me? And one day I just woke up and was like, oh, wait a minute. And the question is, how could you do this to you? You're the one who's still here? There's nothing else he can do. Like he's done everything that he can do. And you're the one, the anger that rises up in you

Starting point is 00:51:02 when he tries to be intimate is yourself saying, I am not safe. I do not feel safe no matter what I do. The truth of me is that I do not feel safe and I do not want to be here. here anymore. And so if that's the truth, then why are you the one who keeps doing this to yourself? Right? I needed to forgive my husband, my ex-husband, in order to co-parent with him for the rest of my life. And what I realized is, oh, forgiveness comes when you feel safe again.

Starting point is 00:51:28 It did that intimacy really change when you married Abby? Oh, my God. Like night and day. Oh, my God. Being married to a woman, like, honestly, like, it sounds great. Yeah, this is why I'll, I want some of my favorite. I was, when I read about the book, I was like, I don't know if I want Lauren reading. Yeah, that sounds great. Yeah, you've been refined your listening skills. No, I think so many people love this story. And it's such a powerful story because it's a story of somebody who, in your words, was kind of put in a box and was living the way that you didn't feel was maybe true to yourself. And then it's a real like redemption story of you really taking ownership of your life and really living life on your terms the way you. And I think so many people love that story because

Starting point is 00:52:07 they want to do it. But I think that there's some people that are still held back from doing that. So if there's any action steps, and then there's a lot in there, but there's any like specific action steps or thought process that you went through to say, like, you know what, this is how I'm going to take control of my life and take accountability and basically live on my terms. Like, what would those steps be? And I know that's a fully loaded question a lot there, but. Yeah. I think that what I would say is most of my friends want a different relationship than the one

Starting point is 00:52:34 there. But most of them want them with the same person. They want that different relationship with the same person, right? Most of my friends don't want to leave their husbands and marry a woman, which I do recommend. We're going to the next question. No, no, no, no. I'm just joking. I think that it's not as dramatic for most people as it was for me.

Starting point is 00:52:56 I think that what my wish for people, and not just women, but men too, is just this idea that if you are feeling discontent in your head, If you're feeling a longing for more, you're feeling a longing for different in your marriage, in your family life, in your community, in your job, in your nation, that is not a sign that you're not grateful enough. And that's what women are trained to believe. Like, if I have any sort of wanting something else, if I have any sort of unhappiness, that's just me not being grateful. And what I would suggest is if you can imagine more for yourself, that might actually be a sign that you are made for more. Right? And the only way to get the more or the different is to share what you need and what you know and what you want.

Starting point is 00:53:49 Right. And it's amazing to me how many of us I was in a relationship for so long where it was the most intimate, supposedly intimate relationship that I could possibly be in. And I had no idea how to say what I needed and what I wanted. I just didn't feel practiced in enough. I didn't feel worthy or like I had the right to say what I wanted or what I needed. And I didn't feel emotionally safe, probably because none of us know how to listen to each other to say those things and feel like they wouldn't be used against me. And that that horrible moment wouldn't come where the person looks at you and says, I can't give that to you. I think that's what are the reasons we don't say what we need because we're afraid that

Starting point is 00:54:30 will be the catalyst to the end. Right? But I do think that we really do just have this one life, right? And that we don't, what happens when we are brave enough to say the things on the outside that we feel on the inside, which I think is integrity, right? That's, it's integrating our actions and our lives and our words with our inner selves. So many of us has such a chasm between those two things, right? integrating is integrity, the more we say the thing that's on the inside, it's like our outer

Starting point is 00:55:07 world start to change because of what we bring to them from our inner worlds. And I don't know how else to describe that, except that that's what happens for me all the time. That's so interesting because the whole foundation of how you started this, and maybe you can tell our audience and Michael, for those who don't know, is off a Facebook post that was truth-telling. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, you have to tell that story because that's so relevant to what you're saying. Yeah, so after I had been sober for, I don't know how many years, a handful of years, I had three babies. I had them all very close together.

Starting point is 00:55:40 And I got to the point where I was so just dripping with babies. I just didn't have any time to get to recovery meetings anymore, which was a problem for me because that was the one place where I could be honest and feel grounded and safe. So one day I was passing my computer and I saw. this thing going on on Facebook called the 25 things. And this was 10 years ago, so I don't know if you guys remember, but people were just writing 25 things about themselves. That was the big thing of the day.

Starting point is 00:56:07 And so I was like, oh, I could do this. This feels like something I could do. So I put the baby down and I came back to the computer and I typed out my list. And I pushed post. And I walked away. And this is like my personal page. Just like improv too, like wasn't fully edited. Just quickly.

Starting point is 00:56:20 Oh, no, no, no. No, never. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Just like, and I walked away. And when I came back to the computer, I think I laid down with a baby or something.

Starting point is 00:56:30 It wasn't too long. And I came back to my computer and was like, holy shit. Like something has happened here. This list had been shared all of these times my personal page. I checked my email and there was something like 38 new emails in my inbox. And I had three or four messages from my sister right after each other. And that's always a sign to me that I've done something inappropriate that normal people don't do, that she's going to have to like, do a lot of cleanup for, you know. So what I realized is that I had not read anyone else's list

Starting point is 00:57:03 before I wrote my list. So I didn't understand the vibe of what we were going for with this little list thing. So I'll give you an example. My number six was, I'm a recovering food and booze addict, but I still find myself missing booze in the same twisted way we can miss those who repeatedly beat us and leave us for dead. Oh shit. And other people's lists were like what, like favorite movies and food? My friend Lisa's number six was my favorite snack food is hummus. Oh God. Okay, like we weren't doing that there. So and it was like that was like my lightest one, you guys. That was like my easy, breezy one, not number six. Like all of them were like that because I was using the recovery circle voice. Like I just was like, why the hell who cares about hummus? Why are we

Starting point is 00:57:47 bothering with these lists if we're just doing these surfaced crap? But I was like so humiliated. and I went, I just closed my computer. Later that night, I opened the computer back up and I started opening these emails from people. And you guys, they were from people who I had known my entire life, but I had never known. They were things like, opening up to you? Oh, my God. Like, oh, I've been struggling with an eating disorder for 13 years and nobody knows. Oh, my husband's been depressed since we walked down the aisle and we don't know who to get help from.

Starting point is 00:58:18 My kid, my parenting, my mom, me too, me too, me too. So it was just like a moment where I was like, hmm, maybe this thing that has always been weird about me, which is this complete lack of shame, shame, shame. Like you guys, my family's like, when they were giving out the shame gene, they just, they just missed you, right? Lucky though. Lucky. It's lucky. Yeah. It's lucky.

Starting point is 00:58:47 And it's helpful in this one thing, right? like I can share things with people that make them feel less alone. And I just really don't know what the hell else is we're doing down here than that. I think you just hit it on the head is like it's either the actual feeling of shame or the fear of shame that holds people back. And I think it's also to take it a further, it's like those feelings and then the lack of asking the question why. I got in trouble a lot when I was a kid. I was always in trouble with something. I was kicked out of every school and all the time.

Starting point is 00:59:19 But it was, I wasn't that bad of a kid. I just always had to ask why to everything. You got to do this. Why? You got to go here. Why? Why? Why?

Starting point is 00:59:26 And I still do it. I ask a lot of weird things on the show and I say a lot of wacky things. But at the core of it is just a curiosity of why. Like, why do we think that way? Why do we do it that way? Why does it have to be this way? Even with politics recently, I'm like, why does it have to be one or the other? Like not in terms of candidates, but in terms of like Republican Democrat.

Starting point is 00:59:41 Like why can't there be thought process in between. And I think we've gotten to place. A lot of people don't want to answer the questions. Why? but they're also unwilling to ask them, not everybody, but a lot of people. And I think because of that, we stop listening, we stop questioning, we stop learning, and we start living lives that we don't necessarily want to live. Yes. And this idea that of whatever perfect means, which I can't really stand that word

Starting point is 01:00:05 because it has no meaning, I guess this idea that we're supposed to be more android than human, that that's what's acceptable now, which is very interesting because as our consciousness shifts from human interactions to social media to online, all of this, we are more and more expected to be less human, right? You're not allowed to be human on Twitter. You're not allowed to be like the second you admit a vulnerability or something about you that is in the gray. Or you ask a question that's not in line with the questions they're supposed to be asked.

Starting point is 01:00:35 It's 2020. You can't do it. Right. But isn't that interesting? It's like the more we are represented as androids, the more we expect it from each other, the more truth and vulnerability and nuance is shocking, right? The more, if we are going to maintain our humanity during this transition time to everything being tech, we're going to have to commit ourselves to nuance and to gray and to

Starting point is 01:01:03 compassion and to vulnerability in our internet communications. Chrissy Teigen just posted that a horrible story about how she had a stillborn birth. And I was like just looking at the comments and so many of them are hateful. And how could you post this during you going through this? And I wanted to just be like, everyone grieves differently. There's no right way to grieve. And in my opinion, Chrissy Teigen did a service to women to open up about this. She's beautiful.

Starting point is 01:01:35 She's rich. She's thin. She has the husband. And for her to open up about it makes it so much more easier for other women to open up. Yeah. Yeah, I have to believe that Chrissy Teigen counted the cost of that because I actually believe that Chrissy Teigen's a genius. I really do.

Starting point is 01:01:54 Like, I think that the way she uses social media and the way she uses humor and the way that she speaks to people who then use what she says to talk to their relatives and she's she knows what she's doing. She's a brilliant woman. And I can't imagine the decision, I can imagine, I can imagine the decision it takes to decide to be publicly vulnerable when you, when it's the worst moment of your life, when you know people are going to use against you and you do it anyway. One of my favorite definitions of courage is into kill a marking burden that says courage is when you know you're licked and you show up anyway. That's what she did. She knew that shit was going to happen.

Starting point is 01:02:32 She knew how evil people on the internet can do it, couldn't be. but she did it because loss of a baby, especially when it's preterm, is brutally, brutally painful and is so often dismissed by the public as no big deal. At least it wasn't full term. At least, you know, all the things that people say that her showing those pictures and the agony of it, people can say whatever they want, but it will change the consciousness of what, of the experience of losing a baby midterm or preterm, it will change the world's consciousness about that experience. So what she offered was an unbelievably meaningful and effective public service,

Starting point is 01:03:11 and she did it at great cost herself. So I think that that whole decision of hers and John Legends was heroic. And again, it goes against what people feel they should see a Nazi, right? They don't like that's a very painful, uncomfortable thing to see. And people don't like that coming into their sphere of consciousness. And when you, like you said, when you can see something like that and acknowledge that type of pain and understand what women go through in that way, it's a helpful thing to move society forward, at least in my opinion. Absolutely. She did what we just talked about.

Starting point is 01:03:37 She took this space and made it more human at great cost to herself. So if only we were all brave enough to do that regularly. I agree. Opening up in the painful moments too. What is something that we would be surprised to know about you and Abby? To know about me and Abby. I think that you'll know this because I feel like, Like you've read me a lot and paid it.

Starting point is 01:04:03 But I think that because of the work that I do that's so grounded in activism and community, that people think that I'm like the soft one and nice one and she's like the hard-ass one because she's, she looks a certain way and whatever. And for sure in our relationship and in our community, like she's the nice one. Like people, I'm very boundyed and very introverted and very careful. and she is just the smushiest, kindest. Everybody gets the benefit of the doubt. Everybody.

Starting point is 01:04:39 Like, she, my kids call her an M&M because she kind of looks badass on the outside. At inside, she's just this mushy, mushy, mushy thing. But don't you fucking dare drink her smoothie. That's right. Don't fucking drink her smoothie. You drank a couple of her smoothie. And she said, get your own smoothie.

Starting point is 01:04:57 Which is so rude. I don't know her that well and haven't had. obviously the benefit of interaction, but like she's somebody that radiates. Like there's people that, you look at them and they draw you in. Obviously, like, look at her career and what she's done. But there's certain people that just have that. In here, I don't know what it is. Yeah, she does, man.

Starting point is 01:05:12 She's just, and she's just so good and so kind and so open. And there's just nobody that meets her that doesn't love her. And she's just absolutely, I don't know, she inspires the crap out of me. And scares me because as somebody who, who lives through boundaries. It's scary to me to like the way she throws open her heart to everybody. But I'm good for her and she's good for me. She also seems to have really embraced your children.

Starting point is 01:05:43 And I think you wrote about somewhere how she's also on a soccer team with your ex-husband. It seems like she's really good at seamlessly coming into the family. Yeah, she and Craig are the reason that our family works the way it does. Craig from the beginning, the beginning was difficult, but I think that Craig and I had been through so much together with the infidelity and with all of it. We'd just been through in the foxhole together. And I don't know, we weren't meant to be in love forever, but we earned each other's respect through that process. And when I told Abby that I was in love with Abby, when I told Craig that I was in love with Abby, he believed me and he supported me. And he was able to bring Abby to the children

Starting point is 01:06:25 in a way that made them able to love her because they never in a million years felt like they had to choose between Abby and Craig or that loving Abby would be a betrayal of Craig or because Craig said, you are going to love her and I love her. And then Abby just in her goodness, I think one of the reasons our blended family works is that when you're divorced, you still get annoyed with each other. Okay. Like this is, we get annoyed with each other still. Okay, because it never ends. No, and we're still the same people that we always were. I'm here for a while. Okay, right. No, no, no, don't think it never, you can't. Yeah, you're done. Okay, this is, this is for her. Got her with that child. Now she's, now it's even harder. Walk her in with that baby. I know. I know. It is hard. But one of the things that I find interesting is that, so my friends, like when they're in divorce situations, when they start bitching, I shouldn't say bitching, when they start complaining about their ex, the new partner will often love that. Right. The new. partner because there's this like thing going on that's maybe a little bit of

Starting point is 01:07:28 insecurity still or a little bit of bitterness all understandable of the X the new partner kind of feeds that moment okay Abby from the very beginning there has not been one time where I have gotten annoyed with Craig and said it to her where she has not taken Craig's side over and it's she she does it in a beautiful way that doesn't me feel abandoned at all. It's just like, let's look at this from his. Think about this. Well, he's such a good, blah, blah. And like, it's heroic because I know part of her wants to be like, yeah, it's the reason why things are so beautiful and honest between the three of us, because she never lets me be my worst self. It sounds too like she's very secure in the relationship and

Starting point is 01:08:17 maybe recognizes, again, don't know you that well, that you and Craig were not meant to be what her an arm it to be. So it's not a threat to her. We're like sometimes in other relationships you break up and they're like there's still a threat of like oh is that person, they're going to go back to that other person. But like you guys have such a strong bond that maybe she just recognize like Craig is not a threat. He's more of somebody

Starting point is 01:08:36 like an ally that you guys are going to co-parent with. Yeah, you're exactly right. There's no threat there. I remember somebody saying like that we have some unique situations like Craig can just tell himself. He never has to say I wasn't man enough for her. He can just say well I wasn't woman enough for her. We have a lot of specific situations that

Starting point is 01:08:52 make our blended family uniquely set up, I think, to work. But, but, but, but, but it's not all circumstantial. It's also because Craig and Abby just, they both have egos, we all do. And they just work so hard to, to choose the love and success of our family over their feelings and their egos. Besides your book and Abby's book, which you guys have to check out is called Wolfpack. What's a book, a podcast or resource that you could leave our audience? with that's brought you value. Oh, God, books. Could be a resource.

Starting point is 01:09:27 What did I just finish? I just finished yesterday, this beautiful book called Good Morning Monster. That is a book about a psychotherapist and these six cases of human beings who have overcome unbelievable, neglect, abuse, narcissism, whatever it is by their families and how they've overcome. And I was actually really moved by it. It's like with so much going on like in the macro politically and all of that, it's like we forget what people are actually dealing with in their micro situations. And like that's one of the things I love about reading and even especially that kind of book is it just reminds me how hard life is for everybody. And that helps me remember

Starting point is 01:10:13 to be kind in my daily interactions, right? That book actually moved me a lot. I also just finished cast by Isabel Wilkinson, which she went a Pulitzer Prize for The War of the Other Sons, which just explains America and how America came about and describes race in terms of caste, like comparing it to India and other places that is like just really blew my mind. And I made my son read it, making Abby read it, made my mom read it. Podcasts, I love, I just want to listen to poets and spiritual thinkers all day, because it calms me and grounds me. So I listen to On Being with Krista Tippett a lot.

Starting point is 01:10:55 Yeah, that's it for now. That's amazing. I have one selfish question because while I have you here and I usually try to ask questions for the audience, I think they'll get benefit. But this is selfishly for me. First time dad, first time parents, obviously a lot in there. But if you could give one piece of advice or that you would say, you're going to go through this, obviously you've got a long road ahead.

Starting point is 01:11:14 Like what would that be to raise a young or confident, curious, empathetic, sympathetic human being so that they can live on their own terms. So learn to listen without fixing. Oh, that's going to be a fucking hard one for you. That's why you had a girl. And it's the karma. It's so hard.

Starting point is 01:11:37 Oh, my God. You don't even know when they come home. Oh, my God. Right now the problems are little, but wait until they come home from school and like somebody's been mean to them in their class. You'll see a mugshot. Oh, my God.

Starting point is 01:11:48 You just, it's like you get homicidal and then you have to figure out. And then you're thinking, okay, instead of figuring out how to teach my child how to assassinate this person, I have to actually talk to them about when I felt left out as a kid. Because you can't fix left outedness. You can't fix unbelling. All you can do is make them know in the moment that they're not the only ones who have ever felt that way. Because what happens is when we feel left out or unbelonging or meanness, then we think we're the first. person that that's ever happened to and then we take it as personal failure. So when our parents tell us a story, not advice, but a story, that's one of the things I would tell you. Just whenever

Starting point is 01:12:28 you're tempted to give advice, tell a story instead. Right. That's good advice. And then the other, the other thing is, I just really feel like with my first one, I was so obsessed with being a good parent, being a perfect parent. And that is a cage, right? That's, That is a socially constructed made up thing and you will know that when you look at like, okay, what did a perfect parent look like in the 90s? Okay, what does the, it changes every decade. It changes. Human beings don't change, which means that it's just this idea, right?

Starting point is 01:13:04 Just this idea of what makes the perfect parent, which is largely consumer driven. So what I do think that I know about kids now that I have a 17 year old and a 14 year old a 12 year old is that they just become what you are. They just watch what you do and how you live. And that's what they slowly start to emulate. So for me, it was like, oh, at some point, I have to stop being, I have to stop worrying so much about being a good parent and just keep becoming a good woman. Right? Like keep becoming the best like version of yourself every single year, every single decade. Like never. giving up on yourself because I think what good parenting is is just good modeling at the end of the

Starting point is 01:13:50 day. There are no tricks to it tragically. It's like you just have, they will give themselves permission to live as freely and boldly and authentically as you give yourself permission to live. And that's it. That's why I had to ask you this question. Incredible advice. Before you go, I just want you to pimp out everything you're doing. Definitely tell us about together rising. I know you've raised 25 million plus, which is insane. Just tell us about that. Tell us about the book where they can find it, your Instagram handle. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:14:21 Okay. So untamed at all the bookstores. If you can get an indie bookstore, what else? Together Rising is really my baby. That's what I think every word that I write or read is really about Together Rising. It's just an all-woman-led nonprofit that exists to serve women and children who are marginalized in all different ways all over the country. And yes, we have raised, I think it's $28 million now.

Starting point is 01:14:45 And the crazy thing is that the average donation is still $25. So it's all completely grassroots. It's all just ordinary people showing up using our heartbreak to actually band together and make effective change. So you can go to Together Rising at Instagram. And then my Instagram handle is, I think it's just at Glenn and Doyle. Instagram is my favorite place. I'm also on Facebook and Twitter, but I don't really understand Twitter.

Starting point is 01:15:08 So Instagram is where I live. I'm surprised you don't use Twitter more. I mean, but I just don't, I don't know, I can't. It's a wild place there right now. It's a wild place. And I like it to share articles and to say like funny things every once in a while. But there's something seriously wrong with the idea that we can make change, be effective, communicate or show who we are in 55 characters or less. I agree.

Starting point is 01:15:30 Something's inherently wrong with Twitter. It's why I love this medium because you couldn't, we can't do this without these types of conversations. But I also like when you do your IG TVs and you can see your face. too. Yes, because that's why I love Instagram. It's more human. I mean, and, you know, Abby and I do, we just love to like put our little family out there because we figured out that we can do more to change consciousness about LGBTQ families with a freaking video about our toothpaste than we can at 10 Marches. Like, it's just. It's true. People like love to watch you guys. Right. I mean, it's crazy. The engagement.

Starting point is 01:16:09 Oh my God. They're just like, exactly. You can see the wheels turning. So yeah, I love Instagram. That's where I spend most of my time during the day. You are incredible. You can come back anytime. I won't text you. You can text to.

Starting point is 01:16:25 You can text. But next time you come on, I would love to do you and Abby together. She would love it. I would be so fun. When you come to LA, we'll get you in the future. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll be there in June. So much for taking the time.

Starting point is 01:16:37 We appreciate it so much. That was incredible. Thank you. Thank you. So wonderful. I hope you guys love that episode as much as I did with Glennon Doyle. Let us know your favorite part of the episode on my latest Instagram at The Skinny Confidential. And I will send you the latest pink cheeky pen and stickers.

Starting point is 01:16:56 We'll drop into your inbox. We hope you loved that episode. Also, make sure you've rated and reviewed the podcast on iTunes. See you next week.

The Bossticks - Glennon Doyle On How To Take Hold Of Your Life By Becoming Braver, Bolder, & More Self Aware

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