The Liz Moody Podcast - Glennon Doyle—Overcoming Lyme Disease, Finding Hope During Hard Times, and The Best Relationship Advice

Episode Date: August 19, 2020

My guest today is the incredible Glennon Doyle. Glennon is the author of the two number one NYTimes bestsellers, Love Warrior, and more recently, Untamed. She’s also the founder of Together Rising, an all-women led nonprofit organization that has raised over $25 Million for women, families and children in crisis. She lives in Florida with her wife who also just happens to be the Olympian soccer star Abby Wambach. On this episode, we talk about: How she deals with depression, anxiety, and “not losing her shit” daily How to find joy in a world that feels hard and scary How to show up for activism work without letting it drain you Why feeling depressed can be a GOOD thing Her Lyme disease journey (including bed ridden and taking 60-70 pills a day), and how it changed her life Practical tips to get in touch with your “knowing” or intuition—and how to differentiate it from the feelings anxiety produces Her thoughts on the concept of soulmates, and how to deal with the fear you might not meet yours Her best advice for new couples Her best advice for raising children The first step to take when you’re feeling stuck Her morning routine non-negotiables You can find Glennon on Instagram at @glennondyole, and we’d both love to hear your reactions to this episode, so please screenshot and write any thoughts or questions that come up as you’re listening and tag us both (I’m @lizmoody).  Enjoy! PS: Healthier Together is officially a number one best-seller! You can get your copy on Amazon or at lizmoody.com/cookbook. Please keep sending me your creations on Instagram—they make me so happy! This episode is sponsored by Kyoto Botanicals, the first CBD brand I’ve recommended on this podcast! They believe every ingredient matters and should contribute to your overall health, which is why they only use USDA certified organic oils to deliver flavor with benefits. Their products only have organic, single-source plant extracts, not lab developed flavors and colors, so you get whole plant benefits as nature intended. Finally, their hemp is grown according to strict organic and biodynamic standards, and they only use only organic coconut MCT oil as a carrier. I recommend all of their products, but especially their tinctures. You can get a whopping 25% off your order (AND they always have free shipping!) by using the code “HEALTHIERTOGETHER” at kyotobotanicals.com. This episode is sponsored by Lifeway Foods, makers of America’s best-selling brand of kefir.  Kefir has 12 different strains of live and active cultures and 25-30 billion Colony Forming Units (CFU), while the average yogurt can have anywhere from 1 to 5 strains with 6 billion CFU. Plus, it’s also up to 99% lactose-free. Lifeway Kefir comes in all sorts of delicious flavors, and they even have a dairy-free Plantiful line. Go to lifewaykefir.com and click “where to buy” to find a store that carries Lifeway near you! Healthier Together cover art by Zack. Healthier Together music by Alex Ruimy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Healthier Together podcast. I am your host, Liz Moody, and I am a longtime journalist and cookbook author, and I am so happy to have you here. And I am so, so, so excited to share today's guest with you, the amazing Glennon Doyle. I feel almost silly giving her an introduction, but Glennon is the author of two number one New York Times bestsellers, Love Warrior, and more recently Untamed. She is also an activist, which we talk about a lot in this episode, and the founder of Together Rising in all-women-led nonprofit organization that has raised over $25 million

for women, families, and children in crisis. She lives in Florida with her wife, who also just happens to be the Olympian soccer star Abby Wambach. Yeah, I told you she was amazing. I tried to fit as much as I possibly could into this episode and pack in every question I have ever wanted to ask Lennon, and I was also able to sneak in a few of your questions as well. We talk about her crazy Lyme disease journey, which included her being bedridden at points for months, for taking all of these pills. It really caused her to change her entire life ultimately. We talk about how to show up for activism work without losing hope or becoming depressed,

which is a question I've gotten from a lot of you recently with everything that's going on in the world. We talked about what's helped with her anxiety and depression. Gosh, so much. I have her walk me through how to get in touch with my intuition or knowing, as she calls it, I have really, I know I need to zero in on it. She talks about her like closet time. I'm like, I know I need to trust my intuition, but I don't know how to quite parse out what's my intuition and what's my thought. So I have her walk me through that specifically. And then we talk about soulmates and her story with Abby and her advice for people who are afraid that they won't ever meet

their own soulmate. We also talk about her advice for new moms. This was one of your questions. And it was such a good one, her morning routine, and so much more. There's so, so much, you guys. I've listened to this episode three times now, and each time I've gained something new. So I encourage you to sit with her words and let them sink into your soul. We would also both love to hear your thoughts on the episode, so please screenshot and share on Instagram, share your reactions, your feelings, your questions, your feedback, whatever you're viving with with at Glenend, and at Liz Moody. I love turning this into an actual two-way conversation. I know you're out there, but I would love your thoughts back so we can continue the conversation. Also, if there are any

women in your life that you think would benefit from this episode, please do share it with them. You've been so wonderful at spreading the word about this podcast. And I think that this is an especially important episode for female identifying humans everywhere to hear. So I thank you in advance for helping get that message out there. All right, without further ado, I am so, so excited to share this conversation with Glennon Doyle. Enjoy. All right, Glennon, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for taking the time to join me.

Liz, I'm thrilled to be here, mostly because I get to hide from my family for the next hour. So let's just try to make this podcast eight hours long. If there's any way we can do that. Happy to serve. Are you guys getting to know each other on like a different intimate level being quarantined? Yeah. I mean, that's a nice way to look at it. Yeah, that's what we're doing. We're getting to know each other on a different level. I feel

I was really optimistic and feeling good for the first few months. I just, I've hit a wall the last week. I just, it just feels really, really hard right now. I don't know. I have this like claustrophobic, just claustrophobic feeling of like, you know, when you're, when you're feeling a little down or you're feeling, you know, stressed or stuck, you can usually like make a change. Like, let's go somewhere. Let's do something. The inability to do anything with the being human is difficult. It's just a long stillness. So what do you do with that when you feel that way? So, well, I mean, I'm someone who's dealt with actual clinical anxiety and depression in my entire life. So I have all of my strategies, right?

Most of my day is just like, what do I need to do today to not lose my shit? Like, really, that's my main question in life. Like, what is my job as a writer, as an activist, as a mother, as a wife? My main job is not to lose my shit. Okay? Like, that's – because if I lose my shit, we all go down. Everybody's going down, right? So that's also, you know, my family understands that concept, too.

Let's help mom not lose your shit. So, you know, I have a list. I've always kept a list of easy. buttons and reset buttons on my office wall. I'm looking at it right now. And my easy buttons are the things that I do when I'm stressed or I feel what Pamesha Dron calls the hot loneliness, which is just like when I start feeling really the discomfort of being human. These are the things that I do that make me abandon myself, right? So you'd call these like the damaging things. And those for me are, well, booze, you know, they have an easy button to that for 18 years now,

but that's just their booze, drugs, unless they're prescription, which I believe in wholeheartedly. And I depend on, binging, overeating, like, I call it sugar comatose eating. Like, I can still do that. Like, one thing that will take me out is a box of cereal. Me? Oh, my God. Serial is, I feel like cereal is the best food. And I bought it.

I've let myself, so we were in New York for the first three months of the pandemic. And I was like, you can have unlimited fruity pebbles. You're an anxious, you're already were a hypochondriac, and now you're living in the middle of a pandemic. You can have unlimited fruity pebbles. And then it legitimately got out of hand. Like, I just was consuming several boxes of fruity pebbles, like, every few days. And I had to put the kibosh on it and just say this isn't.

I think there's a fine line. And I wanted to talk to you about this, the line between knowing, when you need that self-care moment. Like my friend called me the other day and she's like, everything's got me feeling so down and I don't feel like I'm being productive. And I wanted to be, I waver between being like, just say, F it for the day, watch your crappy TV, lay in bed all day. But then I know that those days don't really make me feel better that much.

So it's like I don't know when it's self-care and when it slips into like you should force yourself to do it, even though you don't want to do it because you actually will feel better at the end of it. Yeah. And I feel, yes to that. And I have zero wisdom. But I do have a feeling that one of the reasons we're also suddenly confused about this is because the structure, which in lots of ways was horseshit that we used to have in the world where, you know, we had a certain hour of work hours a day. We had certain projects that had to be completed. Some of us had had children that had to go to school and had to be picked up and had to go to practice. And then dinner was at a certain time and you woke up. Like there was a structure that sort of forced you

to have a balance between work and showing up and rest. Like we had a rhythm. Okay. Now, I don't think that rhythm was healthy. A lot of us were slowly dying inside and we're stressed out to, we learned to base our self-esteem and our mental health on how much we were producing. producing, right? So we could tell ourselves, check, check, check. We're good enough because we did those 40 million things and we answered those 40 million phone calls and we went on the carpools and we did the things. Now we have, we are creating a whole new structure and we don't know. We don't know like what is success now? Like, how do I, if the game is canceled, how do I know if I'm winning? Like, the game has been canceled. I don't know what success anymore for my children.

I don't know if they should go to school, if they shouldn't go to school. I don't know. know how I'm supposed to be showing up in my activism anymore. Like, I can't march. I can't, like, what, I don't know how, you know, I used to be a speaker. Like my, I knew how much I was contributing to my, um, success of my company based on how many speeches I gave on the road, based on how, what are we all measuring our worth and our success by anymore? It's a complete restructuring. And I have a hunch that it's good in the long run, because the old ways of doing things were inhuman. But it doesn't surprise me that we are all in this time of like, how do we define ourselves now? And I think it makes sense that we're all very confused about it.

I think it's interesting when you say that because I'm immediately like it feels good for two reasons. One, I think people with, I think all people need structure, but I think people with anxiety need structure more than any other people. I noticed, so I went through a period of like extreme or gorophobia, couldn't get out of bed. And that directly correlated to when I stopped having. having a full-time job and like structuring my days, I quit to write a book. And then when I went back to a full-time job where I had to be in a certain place at a certain time, it was the thing that sort of ultimately helped me get over it. And I had to learn and working for myself to

create that structure in my days rather than to rely on the crutch structure that the artificial outside world gave me. So I do think that us having to learn what our ideal structure looks like because I do think it's different for everybody. I think everybody needs structure, but we all try to fit ourselves into like the nine to seven same structure as everybody else. So I think maybe learning to do that could be good. And then my second thing is I wonder if switching are what we value. It just feels like a very almost masculine model of achievement of we're valuable because we've hit these metrics because we have these notions of success. And I'm completely prey to that. no idea what my value is outside of that, but I know I'd be a happier person if I could figure that

out. Which is why it's my hunch is that it's good, right? So how do we figure that out? Well, listen, you know, what I know is that there is no revolution without revelation, and this is a revelation time, right? Like we are, there is no construction without deconstruction, right? We over and over again the pattern of our lives and our community. and our nation and our world is first the pain, then the waiting, then the rising, right? That there is always that we are, I feel like our world is like, or our country at least, is somewhere in the middle of the pain and the waiting, right? You can see the pain everywhere.

You can see the revelation everywhere. I mean, sometimes when I hear from people, oh, 2020 is trash, let's go back to, you know, I wish things were the way they used to be. there's such a level of privilege in that way of thinking because my, you know, in my activism world, none of my activist friends are talking like that. Like this is a moment of hope in many ways because it's the first time that the whole, one of the reasons why the whole more and more people are anxious and depressed is because more and more people are looking at things that activists have been pointing to for very, very long time. Right. So like, and, you know,

there's not more police brutality now. There's more cell phones. Right. There's not more inequality in our hospitals and in our police forces and in our schools. It's just that now COVID has forced us. It's all just, it's revelation. It's all being revealed. And we can't change anything until we look at it, right? So, you know, what we're seeing in the streets, what we're seeing, that's just people showing us their pain. And so, you know, we decide, we decide how we react to that, whether we say, oh, go back, hush, let's go back to the way it used to be. Right. Listen, it's all about direction right now. Like, everything's directional when you look at the two sides, right? The two sides of things, which we've created this binary country, right? But like, everything is directional. It's either make America great again, which is resistance to progress. Go back. Go back to the old ways

of doing, to the hierarchy of like white men at the top, everybody else below. Go back. Make America great again. It's a harkening back to a nostalgic time and that nostalgia is nothing but pain for most people, right? Or make America great for the first time, right? Like make, move forward, get all of these injustices out into the open. Let's look at all of them and let's reorder all of it. Right. And so what you're saying, like it feels like a very masculine way of ordering things is putting your finger on all of it. Yes, the entire country has been built on. It's not just a masculine way. It's white supremacist patriarchy. So that is, we are undoing, please God, all of that, and all of our structures are crumbling. Thank God. So it's a matter of will we keep letting them burn, right? So we can

rebuild. And hopefully have everybody at the table the next time so that institutions, governments, hospitals, public schools, all of them are built for all of us and not just for those white men at the top who want to make America great again. Do you think there's something pragmatically we should be, I mean, I think we should be educating ourselves about anti-racism and doing activism work and things like that. But then there's also this hopelessness that can come up during this time. And you talked about it in your book. You talked about this feeling that your daughter, Tish, she saw the world for what it was. And so she felt everything. And that it's hard.

I think there was a line in it that was like angry, heartbroken women aren't broken. They're just the only people who are paying attention. And it feels sometimes like there's so much to pay attention to. that how do you even find joy or find happiness and how do you find a balance of waking up every day and making sure you're pushing towards the revelation while also not having life feel heavy because the world actually is heavy. Yeah, so good. Well, okay, there's so much in that to unpack.

But, I mean, the first thing I would say is that I think there are these things inside of women. They might be inside of men, too. Men are not my business at the moment. All right, half the population I'm just going to focus on. Good luck, guys. Men have had a lot of time to have their names. And I have actually hunches about them too, but I'm just talking to women right now, okay? I know all genders matter, blah, blah, blah, blah, talking to women. I think that women have parts of ourselves. No, I don't think. I know that women have parts of ourselves that have been gassolet and shamed out of us in the public sphere.

Okay. So what I would point to is first our emotions. Okay. We have been trained, tamed, I would call it. And that's what I call it in the book, tamed, to believe that, well, for example, anger. You brought up anger. Okay. So God help you if you're an angry woman, right? We are all trying not to look angry. Like, I'm not angry. I'm just, I'm not angry. I'm just, I barely ever did a speaking engagement where during the Q&A, a woman didn't raise her hand and say, I'm just really struggling with anger lately, right? Like, this is a mantra. I'm not angry. I'm just, I'm struggling with anger.

I would say to her, why are you struggling with anger? Are you struggling with joy? Like, stop struggling. Anger is, we are every marginalized group, whether there are people of color, look, can't be an angry black woman, right? Whether they're, you know, God help you if you're an angry Muslim. God help you if you're an angry woman. Like the reason why we are gaslit out of our anger is because angry people demand change.

Because no revolution on earth has ever started, no progress has ever started without a bunch of pissed off people at first who then figure out how to turn their anger to fuel. Right. So women are trained to believe that every time I feel angry, it means there's something wrong with me. It doesn't mean there's something wrong that I can be a part of people. changing, right? So it's very important for every marginalized group when they feel anger to feel shame and to go to the therapists instead of going to the voting, instead of going to the government, instead of going to the streets, instead of, right, like, fix me, fix my anger instead of believing that anger can be a red arrow pointing you towards the thing you were meant to fix in the world.

So at this point, what I say to those women who say, why am I angry? I say, look, there's only two kinds the women I respect on earth right now, and those are angry women and women who are in an act of coma. Okay? Like, if you're not angry, just hold on a second. I'm going to send you some links. Like, you're not going to believe the shit we have going on down. Like, the angry women are the only women who are paying attention, right? If you're not angry at the level of injustice in our world right now, then you either have

such privilege that you, I can't even fathom the level of privilege it would take or apathy, right, that it would take to be able to look at the injustice we have going on right now and not feel some sort of anger. So anyway, that's the gaslighting of women, right? We say we're angry and they say, oh, stop being emotional. Just be grateful for what you have. We have to bring our emotions into the after of this. We have to stop being gaslit out of our emotions. We have to say, no, no, no, I'm heartbroken about that. And that doesn't mean I'm overly sensitive. It means that that's a part of our culture that is heartbreaking and I am going to be a part of healing it. We need to say, oh, no, no, no, that's, I am angry. I am an angry woman, right? I am an angry woman and I'm now going to

bind myself to all of the other women who are brave enough to be angry about that thing and we are going to make change. That's how Together Rising started. It was just a bunch of women who refused to be gaslit anymore about our heartbreak and our anger. We decided, no, the fact that we're heartbreaking and angry doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with us. It actually means that there's something wrong. And we're going to get together and we're going to change it. So we need to embrace that and bring it into the after. We can no longer be gaslit for our emotions. Intuition. Intuition is another thing that we have inside of ourselves that we have been gaslit out of. You know, every time we have a knowing of the next thing we're supposed to do, of the next thing

that an organization should value of the next person that we should allow in and out of our lives, we talk ourselves out of our intuition left and right. Right. We call it we it's not logical. It's not, this is masculine, patriarchal thinking, right? Women do know. And we've always known. And we are going to have to get back to turn up all the voices outside of ourselves and turn back inward to that inner voice that is always speaking to us that some people call intuition. And some people call intuition and some people call God and some people call spirit. And my wife calls it gut feeling.

I have a friend who calls it Sebastian. She has some God issues. It sure as hell does not matter what we call it, right? We can all stop arguing about that. but everything depends on that we call it, right? That we know how to stop asking people for directions to places they've never been, that we know how to look inward and stop following other people's maps and honor our inner compass, right?

Because nobody else has ever lived in the life we're trying to live ever. So we can stop asking them what we should do. They don't know. We are the only ones who know. And then what I would say, the third thing is that we have inside of us ourselves that we're going to have to depend on more, and the after is imagination. Okay, this is like, I can't imagine anything more important, especially for any marginalized group, to bring into the after, then a commitment to honoring the unseen order inside of

themselves. And by that, I mean that my favorite definition of faith is the unseen order of things. So we have two orders of things. We have the order of things we can see on the outside in the material world, right? It's what we can see on the news right now. It's what we can see. It's pain. It's the injustice, it's the inequality, it's all of that.

And something inside of ourselves, no matter what religion we are, no matter what culture we're from goes, that's not it. That's not right. That's not the way it was supposed to be. And the thing inside of us that is saying, ah, that's not the way it's supposed to be is the unseen order. We all have a vision inside of ourselves about what a true and beautiful and just order would look like.

Okay? And most of us just poo-poo that as like, oh, Pollyanna stuff. Polyana stuff. This is what every culture calls. You know, Christianity calls it, okay, bringing on earth as it is in heaven, right? Heaven is not a place outside of ourselves that maybe we do or do not go after death. To me, it's the order inside of ourselves that is always begging to be born. Okay. So this is why Martin Luther King said, I have a dream. Because he couldn't see the order. He couldn't see the beautiful, fair, just unseen order on the outside of himself. He had to look on the inside of himself for that. That's why Gloria Steinem says. dreaming is a form of planning, right? Because for people who the scene order has never served and was not built for, if we only look on the outside to what is already built for what is possible, we will keep getting what we've always gotten. We will continue to be part of structures that weren't made for us. So we have to be bold and brave and crazy enough to say, actually I have this hunch for the way that this, the true and more beautiful way that this

marriage could be, that this family could be, that this company could be, that this career could be, that this nation could be. Right. We've got to like dig deep, consider that what's inside our imaginations are not pipe dreams, but it's our marching orders. Right? We've got to depend on what we cannot see in order to build the next. You're listening to the Healthier Together podcast. When I asked you on Instagram recently how you were feeling in life generally. So many of you replied that you were stressed, which I definitely get. There is a lot going on right now. I wanted to take the time to share a few of my favorite stress relieving supplements with you. I love Garden of Life's Whole Food magnesium chelate, which is non-GMO, vegan, gluten-free, organic, all the good stuff.

It's great for keeping your gut healthy, which is an important part of managing stress. But magnesium also just melts away tension in the body. Seriously, try sipping a glass and you will notice a huge difference. The Garden of Life one comes in raspberry lemon and orange, and the orange tastes like a creamcicle, which is crazy and so delicious. Garden of Life also makes my favorite, favorite, favorite probiotic, the mood plus one, which is the one that comes in a purple bottle. It's a great general probiotic. It's great for supporting your gut health, which again is so important for stress management, and it's also great for supporting your immune system, but it has specific strains selected to help with anxiety, in addition to Ashwaganda, which has a ton of studies to back up its stress-relieving

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So, okay, two questions. One, is there a room in that for the feeling when you just wake up today and you're like, this is all too much? I can't mentally bear this today? Or is that type of thinking a privilege unto itself that we can allow ourselves. Thank you, babe. My wife just brought me a smoothie. Every woman needs a wife. Okay. Every woman needs a smoothie.

I just finished my smoothie this morning. It's my number one health thing I try to force on people. Okay, so here's what I would say is that I think the idea that we can't feel our feelings and that we can't have days where we don't get out of bed and that we can't have time to be heartbroken is also patriarchal thinking. So I do know that people who are committed to feeling it all, to being angry, to feeling, you know, this idea that we should just keep trucking no matter what happens, no matter what we read on the news, no matter what happened to our neighbors, no matter what happened in the streets, no matter who got shot yesterday, no matter who's suffering, that we should just keep trucking. Don't feel it compartmentalize, keep trucking. That is capitalism. That's all that is. Do you know, so here's one story. Together Rising, my nonprofit has become one of the leading American forces,

reuniting children at the border with their families. The way that started is that I read a few stories and went to bed for 36 hours. I could not get out of bed. I just felt like I was having a mental breakdown. It was like on all of the heels of all of this Trump shit after Trump shit after Trump shit. And then I read this article about this. this baby girl being ripped out of her mom's arms. And I just tapped out.

What you just said, I'm done. I'm done. It's too much. I went to bed, didn't get out of bed for 36 hours, woke up the next day and called my team and was like, this is it. This is the mountain we're going to die on. Start. We're starting now.

And that had turned into years and year. I mean, it takes up most of our time, honestly. But that did not start with me subscribing to the idea that I'm just going to keep trucking, yeah, that sucks, but I'm going to compartmentalize it. I'm committed to feeling all of it. And because I tapped out, because I went to bed, like, I sometimes feel like the hopelessness comes with the slow, dull surrender to there's nothing I can do. I'll just keep going. There's nothing I can do. You know, I do not see the hope. I am like half the time today. I'm doing this podcast and like I've had such a breakdown of the day today.

Like you would be like, wow, like relational, personal. I want to get to you. I want to talk about the food stuff because I'm like so out of just hanging on. But like despair with the world, that doesn't do it. The people who are despairing about the world are the people who have decided there's nothing I can do about it. the people who are following their heartbreak and who are in it and who are fighting, they might feel tired. They might feel, um, ragey sometimes.

They might feel heartbroken about sometimes, but it's not despair. Despair is for people who aren't showing up. What's in your smoothie? Okay. I think it's bananas. Some kind of vanilla protein. Okay. First of all, I need to you to understand that I don't know what happens in my kitchen.

Okay. That's Abby's place. But I feel like she puts some black seeds in it that I think are called chia seeds. Yeah. Those are great for your gut health. Okay, that's great. That's good. Strawberries, frozen straw.

It's too good to be, it's too delicious to be super healthy, I think. What should I be putting in my smoothie with smoothie? Tell me everything. Oh, I mean, I'm a, so I drink a smoothie every single morning. I have a whole guide in my book to, like, it's called like an ode to the perfect green smoothie. Okay. So your base. Your base is greens always.

If you don't have greens in your smoothie, you're just missing this opportunity to, like, have a salad before breakfast. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Yeah. Well, talk to Abby about that. Okay. Go ahead.

And then some banana, some frozen fruit to make it taste good. If you don't like banana, you can also do dates. Then you need some protein, some healthy fat because you can't absorb the vitamins. I've got peanut butter. Yeah, great. Okay. Yeah, fat soluble vitamins and vegetables. So you need your healthy fat.

And then I love to put spices in. That's like my fun thing. So I think of it as like whatever flavor would be good in a pie would probably be good in a smoothie. So like blueberry cinnamon, you're like, oh, that'd be a good pie. Oh, that is brilliant. And spices are the original superfood. And they're like cheap unlike most bullshit advertised superfoods. Okay, I'm telling Abby that that is so exciting.

I think I might be able to get away with the greens if I also tell her about the spices. She's going to be disfused about the greens. I'm not going to lie. She's going to be displeased. This is like a lesson in merit unto itself. I think I can get away with the greens if I also tell her about the spices. Some metaphor there. All right.

So I want to, speaking of health, I would love to go back. I read the New York Times article that you wrote about your Lyme disease. And to me, it feels like every superhero has an origin story. And I kind of feel like your origin story was your Lyme disease just from reading that. You have this line in that article that's thanks to my love. Lyme disease, I finally feel certain that I am the great love of my life. I know what my love needs and I know how to take care of her. It's a beautiful, lasting relationship. And it just feels like the origin for a lot of the concepts that you explore further in untamed. So I'd love to know, first of all,

I'm fascinated by Lyme disease because I'm terrified of it because exactly what happened to you, honestly. Like I'm terrified of how much it is like acquiring this very significant health change. And that freaks me out. So I'd love to know about your diagnosis, how you treated it, how you overcame it, and then how it changed your thinking and your life in the long run. So no one's asking about my Lyme disease for years. It's so interesting that you see it that way. I always think that like my mental health and addiction stuff was my kind of origin

get over it story. But okay, I can see that. I can see that too. I think that getting really sick with Lyme disease and almost dying, again, was for sure when I finally realized no one's going to take care of me but me. And I don't mean that. I had people that love me. Like, that's not what I mean.

I don't mean it in terms of nobody's going to freaking take care of me. I mean, like, I understood it is my responsibility to take care of myself. I remember I moved to Naples, Florida, as a result of my Lyme disease, because I needed to be in a really hot place. And I had always wanted to live by the Gulf of Mexico. It was in my imagination. It was like a hunch. But I couldn't do it.

I mean, I couldn't do it. Why? I don't know. Just for the same reason that we always say we can't do the thing that we know we want to do, right? And I remember meeting the first time I ever met Liz, one of my best friends, Liz Gilbert. we were standing in an airport and she said, where do you live? And I said, I live by the Gulf of Mexico. I said, I've always wanted to live by the Gulf of Mexico, but I got Lyme disease and I finally moved there. And I just said, I guess a woman has to almost die to let herself live how she wants to live.

So I guess if you're seeing it as that critical moment, that would be the truth of it. That it was like, as a woman, I had to almost be dead to give myself permission to be like, I'm going to do this thing. And I'm going to drag my family with me. And I'm going to interrupt everybody's lives. But I would never have done it because I wanted to. I needed the excuse of I might die if I don't. Right.

So wouldn't it be wonderful if women would just do the thing before they were almost going to die about it, right? So I would love that for women. Right? I have to almost die. So I got diagnosed with Lyme. I was living in this community in Virginia, which called Lown County, which we now know was just being so quickly overdeveloped that the ecosystem got all jacked up.

And Lyme disease became unbelievably prevalent in this development. So there were more cases than Lyme, Connecticut during the time that I was there. but it was being very hush-hushed because so much the economy was booming because there were so many new houses. So it was just swept under the rug left and right like secret town hall meeting. Oh my God. There were seven women on my little cul-de-sac who had neurological Lyme disease. Two of them so bad that they were in wheelchairs. One of them so bad that she couldn't, it had affected her nerves to the point where she couldn't close her eyes all the way.

So she had to sleep with gel that she put over her eyes. so her eyes wouldn't dry out in the nighttime. So this is... Speaking of gaslighting women. Thank you. We were all just dying and they were like, no, no, no, economy, economy, economy. Okay, this is what... It's not made up.

It's like this is a real thing that lives are sacrificed for economy. That's what we'll see over the next couple years with COVID, too. Lives are sacrificed for the economy. It's not even the quiet part anymore. People are just saying it. We're not pretending anymore. So anyway... I get so, I actually get very afraid to talk about Lyme disease because I usually try to understand something at least a little bit before I talk about it publicly.

And I still don't freaking understand what happened to me. Okay. I know that I was lucky enough to be diagnosed right away. A lot of people, the diagnosis is so, being diagnosed is so hard and tricky that a lot of people don't get diagnosed for years and are so sick and are being gaslit by doctors who are saying, you're crazy, you're crazy, you're crazy. This is a mental disorder, whatever. I was lucky enough to get diagnosed right away. They couldn't. Sometimes Lyme disease can be very simple.

Like, it's just a couple rounds of doxy and you're done. Sometimes it crosses over in this weird way that they'll call it neurological Lyme disease. Some people will say it can go straight to your brain in some cases. That's when it turns into neurological or chronic Lyme. And that's when you're screwed. Okay? Because nobody really understands. And I went to every, I was lucky enough to have access to.

to a lot of great doctors, nobody at the end of the day understood what to do. And I don't think that they do yet. Okay. And so the world of Lyme is very scary and there are no solid answers and people have very strong beliefs in one way or another. For me, the only thing I can do is tell you my journey is that I was bedridden for close to a year. I was on, I got to say, 60, 70 pills a day. I had been so doxied out that they were going to have to pull me off of the doxy completely because I was in danger of becoming immune to antibiotics, which then would make me what? I don't know. I don't know how you live if you're completely. It's like being the 80s. Exactly. So at one point, my adrenals just completely shut down. So I was unable to regulate my own

body temperature. So I would go from my bed to like this infrared sauna that I kept next to my bed. I would just go back and forth all day. And so at that time, a friend came over to visit me, and she just looked at me and was like, Jesus. And she just said, listen, I have this condo in Naples, Florida. Just go there. It was cold. It was in the winter.

And so I came down to Naples and I just felt better. I don't know if it was the humidity, if it was the sun. I don't know what it was, but I was so desperate for any feeling better that. Craig and I were married at the time and he just, we just said, why don't we just move here? Like, if you're feeling better at all, why don't, you know, life or death situations come and you realize what the hell else could matter? So all I can tell you is that I moved here. That's when all the shit hit the fan about the infidelity in my marriage. That's when there's a part of me that this is very spiritual and woo-woo.

And I'll probably get in trouble for saying this too. as somebody who has dealt with the science of mental health and the spirituality of mental health and believes in both and I also believe in the both end of physical health and part of me wonders if there was something yes there was a tick yes there was you know all the tests and the science of it and I also wonder if my body was breaking down because there was a lie in my life that really needed to come to the surface. Interesting. So when we moved here away from all of the distractions of home

is when it all hit the fan, right? So it's just fascinating that you identified that as a time because I haven't, you know, as a shifting point because I haven't focused on that a lot, mostly because I'm scared to talk about line. I mean, it's a very Latin. topic, but I do think it's interesting in the timing of your life. You were an addict for a really long time and then the lime seems like it happened at this tipping fine. Yeah, totally. So then I was

off all the pills. Months, I was here for, I don't know, three months. Three months later, I was off every single pill and I haven't been on medication for limes for seven years. Do you feel good now, health-wise? I mean, good-ish. I don't know, Liz. I'm not exactly like a pinnacle of health. I don't know. I mean, I still struggle with depression. I still struggle with anxiety. I for sure still have some disorder thinking about food, which I'm, which always comes up in weird out of control times. So now I'm dealing with a little more, but I'm also kicking ass, you know, I'm dealing with all of that mental stuff, but I'm also like kicking ass as a writer and an activist and, um, and being a decent wife and mother. So all,

all at the same time. But no, I'm not like, yay, everything's perfect. I'm crushing it. Like, I'm everything's great. I'm just happy-ish as everyone else. I'm being human. Right. Do you think that you could still have,

or any person still has access to what you refer to as like a true, beautiful life if they are suffering from a health perspective or if they have other sort of background or life circumstances, do you think that everybody always has access to a true. beautiful life? Yeah, because all that, all that question is, is like, what is the truest most beautiful life I can imagine right now? Right? So it's just like, right now. When you were laying in bed, did what was the truest? I mean, could you imagine a life outside of that bed? I must have because I moved to Naples. Right. Interesting. I just want, it's an interesting

thing. I know what you're saying. I get like, is it, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like Maslow's hierarchy. It's like, is there a spiritual hierarchy? Is there, is there some kind of level of life that makes you, it's so hard that you were not able to access this like, yeah,

this pie in the sky idea of what is true and beautiful? I don't know. I mean, I can tell you that my lowest moments in my life are where my need to imagine has kicked in. So like when I was on the bathroom floor, holding that positive pregnancy test, let's see, 18 years ago, I was such a serious addict that I had burned every bridge in my life. I was so bulimic. I was so alcoholic. I had nothing, just nothing. I was just, you know, holding on to the thread of life. And that is

when I found out I was pregnant. And that is when I decided, no, I can do better than this. Like, it was the immediately like, I want to be a mom. And listen, there was no worst candidate for motherhood on earth. Like, I had no business. Like, the only thing I had proven on earth was that I could not take care of my own self. That was the only thing I had consistently proven, right? Yeah. And still, in that moment, I was like, yes, yes, please.

I am going to become a mother now. So I think there is something about like rock bottom moments that allow this audacity of hope to kick in in a very weird way that only people who have been at rock bottom really understand that. It's like this last gasp at. And also all bets are off. There's, I think that, listen, I think that what keeps people from the truest, most beautiful life is often not pain and drama. It's the good enough. Right? It's the good enough of, no, I'm good.

I've got this thing going. On the outside, it looks great. Like, those are the people who won't fuck up their lives for something better. People who are at the bottom who have nothing to lose. Why do you think, like, it's always, it's, listen, I'm an artist and an activist. So all of my friends are mentally ill. Like, these are the people who have been to this shit who somehow, like, end up in these gorgeous places, creating beautiful art, creating beautiful, like, movements, creating, like,

it's the people who get trapped in the good enough, right? That's why, like, functional alcoholics. Functional alcoholics is the most dangerous kind of alcoholic to be. Because you can live your whole life with just that good enough, right? You can trick everybody. I was blessed to be completely dysfunctional alcoholic. So I had to like make a change. So I think my response to that is it is not it is not the people in my life who reach those low lows who I worry about.

It's the people in the middle. I totally. Yeah, that that resonates deeply with me. You're listening to the Healthier Together podcast. This episode is sponsored by LifeWay Foods, makers of America's best selling brand of Keffier. If you're unfamiliar with Kefair is a probiotic. rich drink high in protein, calcium, and vitamin D. It has a tart and tangy flavor and is incredibly addictive. You'll feel real gut health benefits when you start drinking it. If you're listening to

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Now let's get back to the episode. I want to talk about the concept of knowing for a bit, knowing with a capital K, which you talk about a lot in your book. I have anxiety and I know that you do too. And I find that it makes it so hard for me to trust my gut. Because if I trusted my gut, I would never get on a plane because I'm totally positive It'll crash every time. I would often never get out of bed because the world is dangerous and it's scary. And so I would just love, I love the idea of knowing.

And I'm not sure about how to tap into it when I just, I want some like super practical tips for how to get in touch with my knowing. Yeah, good luck. Don't we all? Just give me, just give me a three-step process to understand God and being human. Don't we all list? Because you talk about like going, getting quiet and going into this like sometimes into a literally like confined space and just getting quiet with yourself.

And I also think anxiety sometimes makes me, I know a lot of people with anxiety are overachievers because they don't want to stop and listen to their brain and be quiet in their brain. That's the scariest place for them. So how do you bounce that as a person with anxiety? Knowing is sure as hell not in your brain. It's in your body. in your brain. Your brain is just a crackpot of like indoctrination and fear and everything your culture has ever taught you and everything your parents have accidentally scared this shit out of you.

But your brain is just a hamster wheel of shit. Okay. No, no, no. I'm aware. Right, right. Not yours, Liz. No, I'm confident in the general term. Mine, for sure. No, I'm positive. You're speaking directly to me. So, like, that's one thing I know for sure is that your knowing is not your brain. That's indoctrination, right? That's what we're trying to be. and get out of, I think. And the only way that I can explain it, which it makes me feel limited in talking about it, because all I have is my own experience. This isn't something that I can like, I just know how I experience it, which is that as someone with chronic anxiety, like I'm not, I'm talking about since I was 10, like, that,

God, this is going to sound so woo-woo, but there is the part of me that knows that I should not get on any plane because like for sure it's going down, right? 100% it's going down. And this is going to be the time that I ignore that and get on and then it's going to go down. And I'm going to be on the plane and it's going to be going to be like, you asshole, you knew it. You knew it, but you blah, blah, blah. Okay. So what I do know is that my anxiety, Liz, is high. It's like a shaky hovering. It's a high frequency. It's fear based. It's buzzing. It's buzzing. There's a knowing for me that is lower than that, that is beneath that, okay? And so what I know every time, so I'm sitting on, I'm sitting at the gate, okay, getting ready to board. That used to be my

life. And the shaky hovering starts that this is it, it's going down. I'm seeing the headlines. I'm seeing the like, the untamed author goes down. Like, I am going all the way down the rabbit hole. Okay, I don't just, I have anxiety and a big imagination. Okay, so now I'm at my funeral. Now I'm looking at who is there, who's not, who's on their phone, who's not. I'm considering, oh, I should have written something for Abby to read at my funeral. Like, it's not going to be good enough if I didn't say, like, just the list. So what I'm trying to explain is I understand.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. So all of the, this is happening at this level. and all I can tell you is that there is this thing beneath, that whenever it's voices and like fear-based, I know it's my anxiety, right? And there's something below it that is heavier, that is more grounded, that is not shaking, that is solid, that is the knowing. And I actually now am at a time in my life, what am I, am 45 years old, where I can tell the difference. And I also

know that my anxiety is never going to go away. That sucks. Okay, I don't believe anybody anymore who wants to therapist me out of it. I just, it feels like too much hope and hope can be dangerous. Like, I don't, I've lived with this since I was small. And I am now okay with if this shaky hovering part of myself never, ever goes away because I know how to access a truer, deeper knowing, which is, I guess what I would say is it's almost like different levels inside of me. Like all my anxiety is in my head and my chest and my knowing is deeper. It's a gut. It's in my gut. Is there anything that you've done in your life that's helped to teach you how to access that or anything that's happened in your life that's helped you access it?

Yeah. So I didn't even know anything about this situation. I just thought I was my anxiety. for a very long time. I thought I was afraid, right? That's not what I think anymore. I think I have this anxiety. I have this fear, but I also have something else I can access in myself that is truer and deeper. And by the way, I sometimes want to live in the anxious place. Like, I can have, sometimes I feel like my anxiety is what's holding all this shit together. Like, it would be wonderful. If I could relax as much as everybody else, then my whole family would spin out of control. Like there are those of us who believe that we are earning our family's peace by worrying. Okay. And I can tap back into that like martyr, martyr space in and out. But when I was trying to

decide what to do about my first marriage in the aftermath of the infidelity, I started realizing that I could not make this decision out of anxiety. Like, I don't know what it was that that woke me up to it except that like I realized, oh, this is too important. I guess I felt like I can't, I don't actually trust that part of myself as much. Like the anxious part of me is not the wisest part of me, which made me understand there must be a different wiser part of myself that I can make decisions from. So this is when I started literally committing myself to seven minutes in the closet, which used to mean something so much more fun when we were little. But I would make myself sit in the closet because I wanted to discover this freaking place inside myself that all of my spiritual friends

were always talking about that I had never really, you know, tapped into. And all I can tell you is that it's there. That whenever now a woman tells me she doesn't know what to do, I always say bullshit. You do know what to do. You do. you just don't want to do the thing you know to do because it's hard and scary. So it's easier to say you don't know and go ask all of your friends what they would do and take 49 BuzzFeed quizzes and Google it 79 times. But everybody knows what to do because we're like those snow globes, right? We like stay shaken up.

So we don't have to see the little thing in the center that is the next right thing to do. So that's what I think. I don't believe anybody anymore who thinks they know what people. should do. Like the amount of weariness I have about any kind of self-help or or, you know, five steps to whatever or like any of that shit, the only teachers I respect and trust are the ones who tell people not I know what you should do, but you know what you should do. Okay. I have one more big question. I'm trying to be cognizant of your time and then we're going to do quickfire, but I just need to know your answer on this, which is that you and Abby are like clearly

couple goals times infinity. You seem to be soulmates. Like I got physical tingles in the book in the scene where you meet each other. I just was like, I like, I still get tingles thinking about it. It's just such a moment. I was drunk when I met my husband, so I didn't have such a tingle moment. You probably add any more tingles. It was great.

He's my soulman. I love him. But do you, I'm curious first if you believe in soulmates and the concept of it. And then second, I'm curious because Abby and meeting Abby was such a transformative thing in your life, what would you say to somebody who desperately wanted an Abby or if they're an Abby, they wanted Glennon, but had given up hope that that person was out there for them. God, that's so beautiful. Do I believe in soulmates?

Oh, God. I mean, I guess, yeah, but I don't ever believe that there's one person who you have to find or not find, and that person will complete all of your, you know, spiritual life goal. Like, that's not, I don't believe that. I don't think I believes that. I think that in some ways I would say that Craig was my soulmate for that time. Like, by the, we didn't, we weren't madly in love with each other ever. Okay? We married each other because it was the right thing to do, not because we were the right. ones for each other. But oh my God, did my soul have to learn every single damn thing that that marriage taught me? I am not the woman that I am today. If I don't have that time with that man, which was, you know, hell on some levels and beautiful on some other levels, he was for sure my soulmate for that time. My sister is my soulmate, right? My sister in ways that my soul needs to grow and to be loved and to be cherished and to be challenged and to be known. My sister is for sure my soulmate.

My mom is for sure one of my soulmates because I have had to find a way to love and be loved without being codependent and ask somebody for permission and live for approval. She has taught me and I have taught myself that through that relationship, right? For sure, my French bulldog is one of my soulmates. Like the only one Who truly loves me Behind him Yes

Yes Yes So do I believe in the soulmates? Yeah I think like When you're somebody who's committed To being the truest most beautiful There she is

Do you hear her? God she must have shot See? See? She knows when I'm thinking about her Her ears are burning To for somebody who's committed To growing

And like becoming, you know, the truest, most beautiful version of myself throughout all of my life. The soulmates that have come in and out of my life are so many. I wouldn't even know. And some of them I don't even like. Right? I don't at all. And I don't ever want to see them again. And some of them have been people who I would describe as enemies. I mean, I had this frenemy for a few years, a nemesis. I will never reveal her name. You know.

Is she somebody I would know? Oh, oh, oh, I want, is it Oprah? Oh, my God, no. She's a straight soulmate. No, Jesus. Talk about a soulmate, Oprah, man. She's taught me more than anything. But no, this, this, this annoying human that I just,

the reason why she was annoying is because she was so much like me. And I had so much, I could not stand her. And it was all of the things that I could not stand about myself. It's like my kid. My kid came home the other day and said, she couldn't stand this girl. I can't stand this girl. I can't stand this girl. She's so competitive.

And I'm like, she won't let you win? It's so cute. Like, that's so funny, right? I mean, we only, we can't stand the people who are just mirrors of ourselves. To answer your question, do I believe there's one soulmate? You have to spend your whole life trying to find that one soulmate. That's poor shit. Like, if you're trying to find your soulmate, that means you're, that's an active rejecting

of all the soulmates who are in your life already trying to teach you the thing, right? But I do feel like if I said, I've said some iteration not as wisely or beautifully put to my friends. And they're like, yeah, but you have your romantic partner. And even if you have all of those other things, if I can't find my romantic partner, it just feels different. Yeah. I hear that. That's not. That's true.

True enough. I mean, I've been in both places. I've been in a marriage where zero percent of myself thought that my partner was my soulmate. That's a tricky place. I'd rather be with my soulmate. And but, but, okay,

I guess if you want to define soulmate as somebody who you feel like you are with and is a good partner for your spiritual growth, right? Because they're showing you parts of your, because they're challenging you, because they're, like that's what I would call a soulmate. Okay, somebody who you feel like you can get your work done on this earth with. Yeah.

All right. anybody who believes in soulmate as like, oh, this one person you will find to then forever, you'll be happily ever after and all things will be nirvana. And you'll, that's good luck. Like, good luck, because when you find the person you're meant to be with, it's not going to be like that. It's still going to be hard. And you're still going to be yourself. And like, you know, so I would say that if you are somebody who hasn't yet found your soulmate

and you're single, that's better than being with somebody who you know is not your soulmate and you're married. Right. And all I can tell you is I was in the other situation and wham, bam, one day found myself at 44 years old madly in love and experiencing love in a completely new way. So what I do know is you can't plan for it, right? And you can be certain it'll never happen for you. You can be certain it'll never happen.

for you. I was certain. Okay. And I was okay. I was like, look, I used to say this crap to my family. Like, oh, well, you know, love is like light. And, um, you know, some people are meant to have laser love, just focused on one person. I'm just meant to be like a floodlight. I just love everybody a little bit. Right. I'm just like, I'm an activist. So I can't like spend all my laser did on that. Right. So you never freaking know is all I can tell you. But I sure is how don't have like a three-step program about how you find your soulmate. I also think that regardless of whether it sounds fun and exciting and Disney romantic, that soulmates come in many, many different forms.

And they are not always people who stay forever. Yeah, I think that's very wise and very true. Okay, do you have time for a few quickfires? Yes, these make me sweat, but I will do my best. I'll try to pick it easy. So a few of these are from listeners. One from a listener is best advice for newly married couples. Oh, Jesus.

I guess just expect new issues to come up, especially in new relationships when you've already been in one before. I mean, what I mean by issues is that it's just parts of yourself that you never had to deal with before. That's what a relationship is, right? It's just somebody holding you accountable to yourself all the time. And like sometimes things work in your old relationships that suddenly stop working in new ones. Like for example, I'm, turns out, Liz, that I am an incredibly controlling person.

Okay. But I didn't know this in my other marriage. I thought that I was just a really good leader. I am the leader. And a lot of the things that worked for me in my first marriage just suddenly stopped working in the second. And so what your partner will bring to you is sometimes things that are annoying, but often are they holding up a mirror to you of things about yourself that you have not had to deal with before? And that is fascinating too. It's like it sends you off on this whole other inner spiritual journey.

Like the stuff I'm dealing with right now in myself about like what that means about being controlling and what it means about my beliefs about people and the world, which is all based in lack of trust. Right. It's like I guess my my answer would be this is supposed to be a rapid round. Do you see how awesome I am at this? When things come up, sometimes they are invitations not just to do. deal with something in the relationship, but just whatever this next decade or year is inviting you to learn about yourself. I have to say one of my favorite parts of your book was when you were like, I'm just going to take a fake it till you make it approach to seeding control in my life.

And then you're like, oh, wait, that actually makes things better. Like, you're like, I'll pretend I'm seating control until people realize that I should be in control. And then you're like, oh, wait, I didn't need to actually have the second part of that. Like nobody asks me to come back. Nobody missed me. It's very, very resonant. I think anxiety and control also go really hand in hand. It's like how we deal with anxiety. Of course.

Would your best advice for a new mom? This is also from a listener be similar to that where it's going to bring up stuff in yourself or do you have a different one? Like let the kid sleep in a different. No, I mean, I guess I have a lot to say about parenting and control. But one of the best things that I have done with my children, there are a lot of things on the worst side that if we had more time I would get to. But one thing that's clear to me about raising untamed kids is that we really do need to train them from when they're little to

disappoint us, meaning that children, and we know as adults, we grow up kind of caged by our parents' expectations of us. So you see this, I see this in my friends whose parents have been dead for 20 years and they're still living to get their parents' approval. Right? Yep. So, you know, what I've taught my kids over and over again is your job is to disappoint as many people as it takes to make sure that you don't disappoint yourself, right? And so I want them to live by their own guide and not by this false set of expectations that I have put on them. So teach them to disappoint you. I love that. What's the very first step, this is also from a listener, the very first step to take when you're feeling absolutely stuck? Yeah, I guess this is, you know,

counterintuitive, but for me, stuckness is always an invitation to stop and go inward, right? Because stuckness usually means that we are in a place where we've been chasing other people's ideals and expectations. And there's a truer place to get to, which is inside. So for me, stuckness is always a sign that I have lost connection to my inner guide, which means, and I for get all the time and I, you know, quit meditation and I quit quiet time and I quit all the things that keep me sane. And so, you know, this, whenever I start obsessing about the answer being just a change that I need to make on the outside, you know, I just need like a new job or I just need like a new therapist or I just need like a new diet or I just need a new, well, hair color would be a new

My hair is a different color every week now because I'm sure that will fix things. It's just a reminder that actually it's an inner connection that needs to be reinstated. So do you go back to the closet? I actually don't have to be. I've come out of the closet now, Liz, which is but I don't have to be in the closet anymore. I think I've practiced enough that I know that if I just like I'm sitting by myself in my bedroom and breathing, I can get back to myself. if I go on a walk.

Walks are good for me, Liz. Walks. Is that a sign that I'm getting really old? I'm like, mom needs to go on a walk. The pandemic made walks like my favorite thing in the world. I was like, oh, I can leave my 500 square foot apartments. I get so pissed when one of the kids gets the mail. I'm like, no.

That is my me time. Go put it back. Do you have any non-negotiable steps of your morning routine or morning routine things that make you feel really good all day. Well, I don't feel really good all day, but I will tell you that my amount of what I guess the world would suddenly call self-care is legendary because I, the things I do every day, I get on the elliptical every day, have to sweat every day. I have to have to have quiet time every day. I have to, I started an infrared sauna routine when my line was really bad. And I have continued that. I have to do some level of involvement with

together rising, meaning I have to do some level of activism. I am a person who will get so lost in my own little problems in my brain. If I'm not connecting, if I'm not serving, if I'm not constantly connected to something that's bigger than me, I will go under. So for me, other care, and I don't mean like making dinner. Okay. Like, we all have to do that shit. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about others care in terms of connecting my own pain and suffering to, like, a wider cause is crucial for my self-care. I think it is for so many people with anxiety because anxiety is, I say this as somebody with anxiety, I think it's a fairly narcissistic disorder because you're living literally in a world that you've created in your head, a future you've created in your head.

it's not real. It's in your head. And I think that the second you can do anything that focuses you on other people, it's like one of the least talked about antidotes to anxiety, but it almost instantly, it's like clonopin for your mind. Oh, I miss clonipin. Those were the good old days. Yeah, but I mean, that's what kind of, it's full circle. I mean, that's what we were talking about in the beginning, but despair is not for people who are involved, right? Like despair is something else. Like, it's, uh, it's, uh, involvement like running towards what pisses me off running towards what makes me heartbroken and being in it with people is is for sure an antidote to to anxiety okay two more super actual quickfire what's something that you have bought recently that's made your life healthier happier happier physical purchase oh i got a new yoga mat oh what brand i don't i don't talk about brands okay i don't do brands i've never done a brand in my life

And so when I mention a brand, people think that I'm connected to that brand and I have no brands I'm connected to. So it's purple. Does it, does having like a pretty yoga mat make you want to do yoga more? No, but having a clean one does. I have children and dogs. And so a lot of times I'm sitting down. It's just so disgusting that my needs are simple. But I do like a clean one.

Yes. And do you feel successful? why or why not? Yeah. I mean, I think that I feel wildly successful because I'm still sober. Like, for me, all of my success or failure is based inside of sobriety. I have nothing without sobriety. And so the fact that I have, that I'm still showing up for whether it goes well or not,

whether I'm crushing it or not, but I'm still showing up for my people, for myself, for my wife, for my kids, for my work for the world, and I'm still doing it sober is wildly successful to me. I love that. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today. I really appreciate it. I loved this conversation, Liz. Thank you. I loved every minute. So good. I hope you loved this episode. I hope it gave you a lot to ponder and think about and chew on and talk about with the people that you love in your life. There is anybody that you know who you think would benefit from Glennon's amazing wisdom and insights. Please do share the episode with them. I love thinking about you guys all out there getting healthier together with the people that you love in your life.

and I also love growing our little H.T. fam here, so I'm always so appreciative of that. Also, if you did love the episode, I would so appreciate a quick iTunes rating or review. It means the world to me. It just takes a second. It's completely free, and it's a great way to support the creators that you love in the internet world. So any podcast you love, I'm always really encouraging of dropping onto iTunes really fast and giving a quick rating and review. All right, that is all for me. I cannot wait to share the next episode with you, and I will see you then on the Healthier Together podcast. Thanks for listening. If you have headaches, allergies, brain fog, skin irritation, or you've been dealing with hormone issues, you are especially going to want to

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