The One You Feed - Glennon Doyle Melton

Episode Date: March 17, 2015

This week we talk to Glennon Doyle Melton about staying open to life  In This Interview Glennon and I Discuss...The One You Feed parable.Having to get through the bad stuff to get to the good stuff.For more information visit our website..See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What I keep discovering these days is that I have to run towards the fear, and I actually have to sit with my anger, and I actually have to look my envy right in the eye. And if I can be still with it, it eventually transforms into something beautiful. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear.

We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction. How they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander.

And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor. What's in the museum of failure? And does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to really, no really dot com and register to win five hundred dollars. A guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition signed Jason Bobblehead. The really, no really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest today is Glennon Melton Doyle, founder of Momastery.com and the author of the New York Times bestseller, Carry On Warrior, Thoughts of Life Unarmed. In the book, Glennon tells her story of being a recovering alcoholic, addict, and bulimic in a collection of confessional essays that lay bare the dark secrets of her past while maintaining a welcoming, inclusive, and hopeful tone about her current life as a mother of three. Her work has been featured on the Today Show, Parents Magazine, and Reader's Digest. Here's the interview. Before we get started with the interview, I wanted to remind you that I am offering some one-on-one sessions.

Confucius said that all men's natures are alike. It is their habits that separate them. So if you're looking for some help with your behavior and habits to help you build a better life, send me an email to eric at oneufeed.net. Thanks, and here's the interview. Hi Glennon, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Thrilled to be here. Yeah, I appreciate you taking the time to talk with us. So our podcast is called The One You Feed. And it's based on the parable of two wolves where there's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. And he says in life, there are two wolves inside of us.

One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second. And he looks up at his grandfather and he says, but grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Well, the interesting thing is my dad used to tell me that story all the time. Yeah, yeah. So it kind of gives me the chills to hear it again. I mean, that parable means something different to me today as I hear it, I think, than it always has before. I mean, I've

always understood that to mean that we are to run towards the good. And the interesting thing that I keep learning the hard way and over and over again is for me, the good stuff, it's almost like I have to get through the bad wolves to get to the good stuff. Like I can't just run one way or another. Like for me, you know, I started this whole journey. I kind of got lost to addiction when I was very, very young, when I was eight years old. And then it morphed, I was lost to food addiction, and then that morphed into some other

addictions and I didn't get out of it until I was 26. And so this whole past 11 years has been kind of trying to unravel all of that and figure out just what happened. And I really, really believe that it all comes down to the fact that I was uncomfortable with pain, that I was so terrified of the hard parts of life, you know, my own anger and sensitivity and fear that I felt like I had to numb it all. Yep. That I just had to numb it all away and run from it. And I ran from it for decades. and run from it, and I ran from it for decades. And what I keep discovering these days is that I have to run towards the fear.

And I actually have to sit with my anger. And I actually have to look my envy right in the eye. And if I can be still with it, it eventually transforms into something beautiful. You know, I just, envy's on that list. And I just spent two hours writing about envy today and how, oh gosh, as a creative person, envy can just eat you alive. But I actually have found, when I don't run from it, right, when I actually run towards that wolf of envy and just admit that I'm envious and sit with it for a while, I find these beautiful gifts inside of envy. Like, for example, when I was just drinking myself to death, I was so incredibly envious of writers to the point where if somebody gave me a good book and said it was beautiful, I would not read it. Because I was too just brokenhearted by this envy for this writer.

And now I know that, you know, I feel like we're envious of people who are already doing what we were made to do. that wolf, that envy wolf as sort of a arrow pointing us towards, you know, maybe our destiny. That's a beautiful thing that can come out of staring that wolf down. Right. So I don't know. Now I see it as like, I gotta get, I gotta face those, those bad wolves just so I can get to the good ones. I explore on the show all the time, some of those dichotomies really around, and, you know, your story is very resonant to me. I'm a recovering alcoholic and addict. And, you know, I started into being sort of troubled very early in life, you know, by the time I was

probably about the age you describe, I had, you know, challenges that were going, I mean, I wasn't, you know, like kicking back a six pack of booze at nine, but I was, you know, I can look back and go, well, there was some things that really weren't working out well there. And you talk about how I've heard you say that you, around that age, you started to feel very uncomfortable and you lost yourself to pretending and addiction. And one of the things that we talk about on the show a lot and I'm always interested in is the difference, you know, that line between positive thinking and delusion. Like when are we feeling what we need to feel and dealing with it? And when are we – so one extreme is to sort of do that, is to wallow in our feelings. And then the other extreme is to deny

that they're there at all and the world's a wonderful place. And it feels like somewhere in between those two things is the place to be. And it can be really challenging to find that right balance, at least for me. Totally. But don't you find, yeah, so it's like this continued journey of valleys and mountains, right? Like you're in a valley or you're on a mountain. But I do think that people who won't let themselves experience the agony of being in the valley also then don't get to experience sort of the ecstasy of the mountain moments. I do think that there's a sort of a type of person that kind of numbs both. You know, we call it, so I call it the word brutal, like that there's this, these parts of

life that are so, so brutal. And, and they are also beautiful, you know, and that, that, you know, marriage, parenting, recovery, health, all of these parts of life. You know, I just had an experience recently where somebody asked me, tell me, talk about what the word beautiful means. I am, my sister just had a baby, and the night before she had the baby, we found out that my grandmother was dying. And so I flew to Virginia. My sister and I are inseparable, extremely close. And so I flew to Virginia, and I was holding her her baby and she named the baby Alice after my grandmother.

So I'm holding this brand new little thing. And then that night I get on a plane and I fly to Ohio. And there I am in the nursing home and I'm holding my grandmother Alice's hand. And the last thing she says to me is, take care of my baby Alice. And the last thing she says to me is, take care of my baby Alice. And I mean, just within 24 hours, one of the most beautiful experiences and then one of the most brutal. And I just felt both. I just felt both so intensely.

And it was so hard. It was just the hardest day, but I was so grateful because I just felt human, you know? Like I've numbed those feelings for so long because I felt like I couldn't handle them. Like the pain would be too much and the duty would be too much. And so to be fully present for something so beautiful and for something so brutal in a 24 hour period just felt like victory to me. It felt like I'm doing this human thing. I can doing it, you know? Um, so I don't know. I was, I was at this, uh, my marriage sort of just imploded two years ago and we're working our way back, um, to some honesty and health and some good stuff right now. But

a couple of weeks after the implosion, I was at this grocery store checking out kind of like a zombie. And I was in that depressed mode where I hadn't showered for a week and I looked really bad. And a grocery checkout woman asked for my ID, so I handed it to her. And she looked at it and she said, oh, Glennon, that's a pretty name. What does it mean? And I said, oh, it's an Irish name. It means a girl from the valley. And then I just started cracking up because I thought, oh my gosh, that's so ironic. Like, you don't know why I'm laughing, but I just figured out that this is hilarious because I basically live in the valley and I've never put that together before that that's actually my name. And so she, she started, she just looked very serious and and she stopped me, and she said, Listen, don't knock the valleys.

She said, Everybody wants to be on the mountaintops, but up there, the air is so thin, you can barely breathe, and all there is to do is stand still and try not to fall. But in the valley, that's where the river runs. That's where all the power is. Wow. And I thought, oh, my God. That's so beautiful.

I felt like I handed this lady this idea, and she handed me back this whole new identity. Because the truth is that for me, in the valley times of my life, like my addiction, recovery, and during that time of my marriage falling apart, the hardest times are sometimes the times where I glimpse the most power and beauty. And yeah, it's kind of my goal just to not numb it anymore and just sit with it. Because pain is a really harsh, horrible teacher, but a really good one. Probably the best one I've ever encountered. Right. You say there's a bunch of things in what you just said there. A, that's probably the first chapter in the best wisdom ever dispensed in a grocery store chapter of some book.

I know. For sure. But you've said before that a broken heart is not the end of anything. It's a beginning. Yeah. I just talked to my kids about that recently, actually, about how we're all, well, it's the same idea. I mean, how we're all just, you know, so scared, holding our hearts so, so, so tight, like, you know, they're made of glass

and that if anything hurts our heart, we should run from it. My experience is that the opposite is true. I mean, I was just with a friend who was telling me that she was so lonely growing up, that she was one of the kids that nobody played with in elementary school and then bullied in middle school and grew up brokenhearted, and now she's a mom, and what she does is she starts these programs all over the country for kids to have these benches where kids who are teased can sit and find friendships with other kids. And that just got me thinking about how every, I mean, I get to travel a lot because I do a lot of nonprofit work. And so I get to meet people who are doing really good things to change the world. And I can't, I really can't think of any

of them who, when I sit down with these incredible leaders who are changing the world. And I can't, I really can't think of any of them who, when I sit down with these incredible leaders who are changing the world for people, don't tell me that their passion started with their own broken heart. It's always that way, that something happened in their life that hurt them. And then they used it as fuel to help others with the same pain. So I don't know. I think, you know, that's another wolf, right? Brokenheartedness, like envy. And if we run from it, we could be missing kind of a stepping stone to our best life. Well, I think the way that I interpret the parable in that way is that it's what we do with all those things, right? It's not about just feeling the good

or the bad feelings, but how do we interact with all those things in a useful way? But I have a question for you about this idea of, you know, broken heart is not the end of anything, it's the beginning, or that we find our passion and energy from our pain, because I believe that absolutely, because that's certainly been my experience. But I also know that there's a reason that lots of people numb themselves. And there's a lot of people who never find their way back up out of that. So what are some of the ways that you work with that pain so that it becomes transformative instead of being something that turns you bitter or permanently shuts you down? What are some of the things that allow it to become a positive experience?

Yeah, so, I mean, for me, I am a words person, obviously, and I just, there's a word that every time I feel really, really hurt. It happened to me today. It happens to me all the time. But every time I feel really, really hurt, I have this instinct where I want to absolutely, it feels like shutting down. Like I just want to shut down completely. I want to close my computer and never go back on my blog. I want to stop writing. I want to circle the wagons. I want to quit what I'm doing.

I want to get hurt. I want to stop writing. I want to circle the wagons. I want to quit what I'm doing. I want to get hurt. I want to stop. And I just, this, this thing, this words, these words that say, stay open, stay open, stay open. The words stay open for me are some kind of magical thing. I don't know. Every single time that I've been hurt and I have refused to lash out, you know, because when we lash out, it's just, we're deflecting pain, right? It's like, sometimes I feel like pain is like a hot potato, you know, like somebody passes it to us and we just want to quick, as quickly as possible, just pass it to somebody else, hurt somebody else and get it out of our own hands. And I get that completely. I mean, I do that all the time and I have to apologize for it. But when I don't do it

and I just force myself to be still, I actually have that tattoo on my wrist. That's a constant reminder. Just be still in it and let this pain turn into something beautiful. It always does. If I can stay open and let the pain sort of, um, I don't know what it does to tell you the truth. It just morphs into widening my heart, I guess.

And what is it? I don't know. It's forgiveness on the other side of it. I don't know what it is on the other side of it. Um, but when I sit still with it and don't deflect it or numb it or run from it, I think that's growth. I think maybe growth is the right word. Yeah, I had a friend tonight I was talking to who was feeling kind of, I guess lonely would be the word, and he said, well, okay, so I'm sitting with it. Now what?

What do I do next? And I thought that was a really interesting, I think the only answer I had was I guess you sit with it. Now what? What do I do next? And I thought that was a really interesting, I think the only answer I had was, I guess you sit with it more. I'm sure you hear that all the time. Well, I've sat with it and it's still, it's still here. Yeah. Well, I mean, service and art are the two things that saved me again and again. I mean, you can't just sit forever. I get that. Right. I mean, I think that in order to, well, I'm a, I, given, um, my judders, I'm a completely destructive person. Like that's what I did my first half of my life, just destroy. Right. So for me to have basically a rule for myself that I'm going to do with my feelings now things that are constructive, to me that's art in service. So, you know, when I say something magical happens, usually for me it's a new essay.

I write something out of that experience of sitting with that pain and whatever it taught me, and I write something, and what comes out of me after that experience touches a lot of people. Yeah. And that, for me, seems like that it was all worth it. Wow, I love that. Art constructive ways that I've learned. Besides feeling the emotion, those are the two other constructive approaches that have worked for me. Isn't that interesting, right? So feeling it and then doing something constructive afterwards. I think that's the whole ballgame for me.

I think it's just that over and over and over again. And I think there's one other component to it that you talk about a lot. You say that the only difference between your life in the past and now is that you used to numb your feelings and hide, and now you feel your feelings and share. And I think there's some element, you've got that other piece, which is, and I think that's maybe the service element of it, but it's also just the connection to other people. It's that not feeling alone element. Oh, absolutely. That's it. I mean, that's, you know, that's what I experienced at my meetings the first time when I started going to meetings. And I thought, oh my God, I thought all of this nastiness inside of me and all of this fear and, you know, things I'm ashamed of.

I thought this was just me. I thought everyone else was fine. And I was living this horrible, dark existence inside. So, you know, the first time I went to one of my meetings and sat around and listened to people telling the truth about themselves, I don't know if there's anything more wonderful than that. And just hearing the words, me too, me too, those have got to be some of the most freeing words that another human being can hear. They are. I remember, my memory is so foggy for obvious reasons for so many years. But I remember the first time I ever came across a recovery book, it was a Narcotics Anonymous book. And I was still years away from getting clean. But I remember I read that book. And I just sat and sobbed because I'd never heard anybody describe what was going

on inside me. And I was like, holy shit, like that is, I could never have put it into words. I was so lost and confused. But when I read that and realized that other people felt that way, it was certainly, again, it took me a while to get there, but it was certainly the beginning for me of recognizing what was happening. Yeah, because we don't even need, like you said, you don't have to figure much else out. That's another thing that I've learned. People don't even need, for me, I mean, I have this community of people who depend on me right now to show up, and that's really all they depend on me to do. They don't need me to show up and fix anything for them or figure out anything. Basically, I realized a while ago that all we need is witnesses.

We just need to witness for each other. We just need to say, I see your pain. It's real. Yes, I witness it. We just need to witness for each other. We just need to say, I see your pain. It's real. Yes, I see it. And we need somebody else to say that same thing for us. We don't want anybody to snatch it away from us. You know, like, I think that's another really big mistake we make with each other's pain and each other's grief. We think that we have to fix it or, you know, a friend tells us about her pain and we just want to grab it. You know, it's out of love, I think, but we just want to take it from her and we're so uncomfortable with pain. But I think that pain is a, you know, it's a gift. It's holy. It's

just like joy. I mean, it's a human holy there for a purpose, and we don't actually need to snatch it from each other. I think we just need to say, I see it. Yeah, I see it. It's real. I feel that too. It's in this hard, this being human together. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast,

our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts?

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on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You had a line that really struck me, and I think it's a useful thing to explore, particularly for people who might be wrestling with addictions of any different sort. And you said that getting sober was like recovering from frostbite. Oh, God, yes. And my corollary to that is I always say, you know, getting sober is terrible. Being sober is pretty wonderful, but getting there, that process, is really so painful. But the reason I think that's important to talk about is so that people don't confuse what that feels like

with what being sober is. No, absolutely. Oh, Lord. I mean, that's the detox, the withdrawal. I mean, you just realize every single hour why it is you started drinking in the first place. I mean, you know, you're just like, oh yeah, that's right. All of these feelings, all of this stuff you've been numbing. And then,

of course, I mean, for those of us who've been drinking for decades before that, then you have to face all, we keep drinking so we don't have to think about all the awful things we've done too. I mean, it is certainly, you know, physical and it's an addiction. It's real. But it's also the second we start getting sober, we have to face things that we are uncomfortable and messes we've made and bridges we've burned. And so, oh, sweet Lord, have mercy that those first weeks and months and days are horrible. And yeah, people need to talk about that because it's worse before it gets worse or whatever they say. Like, it's just so rough. Yeah. But I mean, but, oh gosh, I just, I don't want people to let the hard part

of getting there keep them from how wonderful it is on the other side. I remember, you know, trying to get sober and it would be that bad. And I go, if this is what sobriety is, forget it, right? Like, no way. Yeah, you feel like the smart one. Yeah, exactly. And so it's that there is really another side to that, It's that there is really another side to that, that that early part is just not indicative of what being sober is.

And boy, I think I've stayed sober before just remembering how hard it is to get there sometimes. Oh my gosh, that is enough to do it, isn't it? That is enough to keep you sober, for sure. Just not wanting to go through the first few days again. I feel like the bad wolves are things that people get addicted to also, you know, like my addictions are kind of like flashy and like so dangerous that, um, they seem so like bold and wild and, and put me in like a different category of addict. different category of addict. But, you know, I also feel like I run into a lot of people who are addicted to unkindness and snark and jealousy and guilt and false pride. You know, I think that those things, especially unkindness, like I think, I think that those things can be,

um, equally destructive in a life and can keep people from, um, their best lives and from connection just as surely as booze can and drugs can. Um, and I think people use those things. I run into people all the time who I feel like are using unkindness as a pain deflector. Yeah. So they don't have to, they get hurt and then they automatically lash out. They are using, they are keeping, not allowing pain to transform them, just like somebody who's addicted to booze does. Yeah, I think there's a lot of different levels of that. And sometimes I feel grateful for the type of addictions that I had

because it certainly led me to a place that I had to do something about it. There was nowhere else to go with it, really. I'm grateful for that all the time. I hear you completely. I was doing an interview recently and I said, I brought up my addictions and the reporter said, oh, you know, we don't need to go back to that. Like you're, you're past that. You're over that. That's in the past. Let's move on. And I was so mad and I couldn't figure out why I was mad. And then I didn't think of anything good to say. So

I blew it. But later I figured out that I was just so upset that somebody would look at that rock bottom moment I had. I was on the bathroom floor. I just, I was holding a pregnancy test. I, it was the end of 20 years of being lost to food and drugs and booze. And I was like being faced with this idea that I might need to become a mother. And it was just, wow. And, um, God, I think of that moment as the best freaking moment of my life.

Right. Like it, I mean, I am grateful to God, the universe, whoever is in charge around here for forcing me to the ground. You know, it's like life just wants you to just say uncle already.

You know, just wants you to say, I can't do it. I can't do it on my own. I need help. And some people never get forced to their knees like that. Right. And so they just spend their whole life with just good enough. And I would hate that. Yeah.

So I don't know. I'm good. I'm so grateful. And then the same thing happened with my marriage. You know, it was like another rock bottom moment. I was like, are you serious? I'm on the freaking bathroom floor again, basically, with my marriage. And I didn't have the perspective to be grateful for it at the moment,

but I am now. Like we were forced. Our marriage was forced to the ground. And we had to like deal with it, man. Our marriage was forced to the ground, and we had to deal with it, man. We didn't get to do the, okay, well, let's just be good enough for 50 years. Right.

And I don't think it's possible to be grateful in those moments. I mean, that's one of those, like, when you're in a bad space and somebody's like, well, that's a chance to grow. You're kind of like, I'm going to strangle you. Oh, absolutely. But it's such a true thing. I mean, it's one of those, like, when you're in a bad space and somebody's like, well, that's a chance to grow. You're kind of like, I'm going to strangle you. Oh, absolutely. But it's such a true thing.

I mean, it's one of those things that's interesting to, helpful to try and get to that perspective. But it isn't usually, like, to your point, sometimes the only way through the pain is really through the pain. Yes. And no one's allowed to tell you. No one's allowed to try to give you perspective when you're in the middle of your pain. That's my rule. Even if everybody knows it's all going to be good, even if everybody knows it's all happening for a reason, no one's allowed to say it until the person who's in the pain says it. They get to say it first. say it first. Exactly. You use the phrase a lot, just show up. But I've been exploring the idea of bringing our whole selves to every situation that we end up in. It's easy, at least for me, to bring one person to a consulting situation and a different person to playing music or, I mean, not different people, but only certain elements of, you know, of ourselves. And you have a,

you said the problem with surface conversations, which it's easy to get into in all those situations, is that you stay lonely all the time because everybody's surface is different. But if you take the chance and a leap of faith and you go deeper, you find that at those deeper levels, we're all the same. Yeah, and I think the blessing of figuring that out is that I was forced to because I'm just a raging, raging introvert. Put me in a cocktail party with people talking about the weather and I can't handle it. I mean, my husband and I actually have these like hand motions where he tells me that stop.

Like, you know, she just asked about, you know, the kids. You don't need to talk about your depression or whatever. Like because I tend to go. It's like this, you know, the kids, you don't need to talk about your depression or whatever, like, because I tend to go, it's like this, you know, the throat, like, he's like making the slash across his throat, like, no, Gwen, and we're just at the playground. It's the more subtle version. Yeah, yeah. So I'm learning that there are, you know, places that are good for it and are not, but I don't know, I find something logical between people seems to happen when I say the thing that I'm really thinking instead of the thing I think I'm supposed to say, you know, it feels like going off script. You know, it feels like we all have to, we're supposed to be, I sometimes feel like I'm like in a show, like I'm on a, in play, and I already know what everyone's going to say,

and then I have to say my lines, and all day it feels kind of crazy to me. Why don't we all just say what we're thinking? I like that lady in the grocery store. I mean, she changed my life. That lady who grabbed my ID and told me that little story. Like she was going completely off script with me. She was just supposed to say, here's your bag, have a nice day. And instead she stopped and saw me as a human being and probably saw my pain and had something beautiful to offer me. And so she did it, even though it was kind of weird and truly changed my thinking that day. So I don't know. I, I, I do, I do think that we stay on the surface of people. You know, we talk about our, I don't know, religion and cars and countertops. Yeah. And I, and that's fine, but I, I do think that's why we're lonely. Because those, like you said, those surface things are all different.

But I have learned, because I tell my story so honestly in my books and online, by far the most transformative and beautiful and holy part of my work is not the writing and it's not the speaking, although I do that a lot, It's the reading and the listening because I spend part of my day every single day reading letters from women all over the world. They write to me, they tell me their stories, like their stories, like the stuff they've never told anyone. And that daily practice of just, I call it just being brokenhearted. Like I'm just going to sit here and I'm just going to be brokenhearted for you. I'm just going to read your story. I'm just going to hold some space in my day and my heart to just hear you.

So how, that word brave is interesting. So you started writing, you know, you're one of the things you're known for is how just very incredibly honest and upfront you are about what's going on in your life. When you started doing that, you were, I believe you were a school teacher at the time. How hard was it for you to start doing that? Did you wrestle with that in the beginning? You probably still do, but did you wrestle with that more in the beginning? And did you wrestle with it particularly because you were like, well, I'm going to go back into this school. And, you know, I'm going to work with these people that have just read these incredibly intimate things about me.

How did you deal with that? Yeah, like my husband said, well, I hope this writing thing works out because you've rendered yourself completely unemployable. And I was kind of like, that's awesome. That is awesome. I accidentally can never get a job again. That's amazing. Well, listen, this is how that happened. So I was feeling like when I started just dripping with babies, I had so many kids and I had been sober for, I guess, six years.

And I was starting to have those moments where I remembered why I started drinking, you know, like, oh my gosh, life is so hard. And I started to get some shame and that of course, shame is like the kiss of death for addicts. And so I did know that art and service, art and service, art and service. And so I really did want to start writing, but I was lazy about it. So one day I was passing the computer and there was this thing going on on Facebook called the 25 things. And so people were just listing 25 quick things about themselves. And so I thought, oh, I could do that. I could make a quick list. So I made a list, walked away, came back to the computer like 20 minutes later and my inbox was smashed with so many emails.

And this list had been shared so many times. Well, I, of of course did not read anyone else's list before I did mine. So this is, okay, let me give you an example of my number six because it's like etched into my brain forever. So I'm sweating right now as I'm trying, as I'm telling you this, because it was so such an embarrassing situation. But my number six was, I'm a recovering food, alcohol and drug addict, but I still sometimes miss booze in the same twisted way that you can miss someone who beats you and repeatedly leaves you for dead. Okay. Here's my friend Lisa's number six.

My favorite food is hummus. Okay. That's how my entire list was. Everyone, all of the, all the numbers were like that. No, it was, I remember calling my sister and saying, how do I get it back? And she was saying, you can't, it's out there. It's done. You can't just step away from the computer. And so it was terrifying, but listen, the amazing thing was is that when I checked my email box and started reading these emails, they were from people that I'd known my entire life but who were like introducing themselves to me for the first time. They were saying, I just read your list.

I can't believe it. My sister's so depressed and I don't know how to help her. I just read your list and I'm struggling so much in my marriage and I don't know who to talk to about it. I just read your list and my brother's an addict and we're so sad. It was like people telling me

I was almost pissed because I was like what are we doing? Why are we even calling each other friends? We sit together and we're talking about these things that don't matter when you're in so much pain and I have the same pain and that's got to be what we're talking about these things that don't matter when you're in so much pain and I have the same pain and we, that's gotta be what we're here for to talk about this stuff, you know? So I don't know. That's, it was an accident and I, I didn't really understand what I was doing. Um, when I put that list out there, but that was the day that I learned maybe this whole shameless

revealing of myself could actually be used to sort of unlock people. Oh, it absolutely can. And yet it's still sort of a frightening thing. I mean, I'm at a point with the show where there's a lot of visibility, but it's not what I do full time. I still do some different consulting work. And occasionally I'll walk into a consulting place and people start being like, I listened to your podcast. I heard your podcast. And my immediate reaction is, oh shit. Like, you know, like I, I wonder what thing I said last time, but what's been to your point exactly. The amazing thing is that nine times out of 10, they go on to say something about themselves that I never would have known. I mean, we would have just kept skimming along on the same level, and all of a sudden now, most of these people are saying something to me.

I'm like, well, I didn't see that, but the level of relationship deepens. It's funny that for every nine experiences, the one that is maybe more, I wouldn't even go so far as to call them bad, but maybe lukewarm is still sometimes enough for that fear to start to seep back in. And it's sort of a conscious going against that consistently and saying, nope, I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing. I'm going to keep bringing who I am to every situation. That's right. And if we didn't have that one, then it wouldn't be great. Good point. You know? Good point.

If everybody was just telling us how awesome we were all the time, something would be missing in it, right? Because there has to be a struggle in it. I don't know. There has to be a constant overcoming as a truth teller and an artist. Otherwise, what's the point? I mean, I think that's part of the growth for us is to be, is to be a little scared and do it anyway. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor.

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reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Brian Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging.

Really? That's the opening? Really, No Really. Yeah, really. No really. Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason Bobblehead. It's called Really, No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So I've got just a couple more things,

although I could probably do this for about the next four hours, and I know that how long before the kids go to bed? How much longer do we have to do this? Oh, I don't even know. I'm not even checking in. They're fine out there. Well, I think we were trying to avoid them going to bed, or avoid you having to put them to bed. No, that's the point here. The point here is that we continue until they are found asleep.

I'm trying to figure out. So then I just get to go out and watch TV. So how long do we have to keep this going? Forever. No, you're good. We have to balance your desire to do that with Chris's desire to go to bed himself here shortly. Got it. But speaking of parenting, I haven't known your story that long, but it seems to me like there was a point where you wrote something about not always enjoying parenting, and there

was some degree of controversy about that. But what I wanted to talk about in that were two things that I thought was really interesting. One was you're not enjoying certain parts of parenting, which I think is a completely obvious statement. Like, yeah, it's not always fun. I can't even... You would think so. Yeah, it's just completely obvious to me. But what you talk about was the double guilt about parenting, about, okay, I'm not doing it well, which I think every parent has, right? I mean, that's, at least I do on a consistent basis, as well as now I also feel guilty because I'm not enjoying it enough. And I talk on the show

a lot about this idea of layering suffering on top of suffering. Like, I feel bad because I feel bad. Like, I'm depressed and now I feel bad because I shouldn't be depressed. And I was really struck by that. So can you explain a little bit about what was going on? Or it probably still does go on with you related to that? Yeah. So things are a little different for me right now because my kids are a little bit older. They're 12, 9, and 6 right now.

But there was a time when they were, and don't check my math because I'm awful at numbers. I'm a words girl. But they were little. They were like 5, 3, and 0. You know, they were, and don't check my math because I'm awful at numbers. I'm a words girl. But they were little. They were like five, three, and zero. You know, they were just tiny. And I was, you know, like I said, it felt like I was dripping with children. And, man, I love my kids like everyone does. But there's something about parenting young children that just brings the anger.

You know, it's like you don't even know. I heard somebody say once, you don't know how angry you are until you have kids. And you don't know how selfish you are until you get married. Like I feel that to be true. We're not allowed to say that. I don't know why. I think that, I think we make parenting harder by just walking around pretending it's not hard. You know, I think the one thing we could do to probably make it easier for each other is to admit out loud that it gets really freaking hard and lonely and scary. Not because we don't love them, but because we love them so much. And so we're terrified that we're doing it wrong and not giving them what they need and not good enough for them. So yeah,

I mean, I don't know. I would be at Target and like, I don't know, people with young children live at Target. We all live at Target. And I would be checking out and there would be like one tantrum on the ground. I'd be like moving her forward. Like you do with your luggage in the airport line, just like pulling her by her jacket forward. Cause she was screaming and one would, you know, have like a bra on his head and they'd all be tantruming. And I'm just like counting the minutes till I get out there. And some woman who was always an older woman would always stop me and just say the following words. Oh, honey, I just hope you're enjoying every moment because it just goes by so fast. And now I understand. I get it. Like I get the nostalgia. I already get the nostalgia. And my kids are, you know, they're, they're not babies anymore. And I already feel it.

I get it. But it's just an example of what we talked about before, how you don't like step into someone's painful moment and like shame them for it. It really did feel like a shaming, you know, because I would just want to say what part of this looks enjoyable right now? Because now not only am I stressed and sad, but I'm also ashamed. Because I feel like I'm not doing this right, and now I feel guilty because I feel like I'm supposed to be enjoying it too. And I always knew, even the hardest moments with my little ones, I always knew that there was something really precious and something to be treasured and cherished about most moments. But I sure as hell

didn't enjoy a lot of it. And I think that is okay. It's like this idea of, you know, the and both of life that you can find parenthood and your children to be absolutely beautiful and also completely brutal. All the best things in my life are that way. My marriage, absolutely one of the most precious and beautiful parts of my life, and absolutely one of the hardest. I think there's no doubt, and it's back to that sort of very fundamental idea of only trying to recognize or find the good parts of something and deny that those other parts are there, which they absolutely are. And I think it is that when we start feeling bad about the fact that we feel just like

everybody else does. But since we tend to not talk about it, we don't know that everybody feels that way. I know. And then we feel so alone and ashamed. And here's something that I think is true. we feel so alone and ashamed. And I, I, here's, here's something that I think is true. It might sound obnoxious and I've never said it before, so I'm just trying it out here, but I really do believe, I mean, I hinted at it before, but I think that the fact that I am willing and able and often do step right in to the how hard this is and how brutal this is and admit to, you know, the down moments.

I feel like I am able to enjoy and like grasp beauty in a way that I'm not sure everyone does. I really, I mean, I cry at freaking trees. I can't sit at church without crying six times. I mostly just want to, I can be out at dinner and I just want to like stand up and clap for everyone in the room because I'm so proud of everyone for just, you know, being vertical because life is so hard and we are doing such a good job and just, you know, I, I have a need, an intense capacity for joy and beauty. And I don't think that's an accident. You know, I think it's because I'm also willing

to just sit in the valley. Well, one of the first things I heard in recovery that I, well, I heard a lot of things, but I do remember that idea of you, you can't selectively repress. You can't, it's like, you just basically you, you're gonna, you're gonna repress everything. You're going to turn the volume down on everything. And I know that's true, certainly in my case. So I think it, I think you're absolutely right. I think that I, I, I never get into sort of like,

well, I don't know how everybody else is doing, but I just know for me when I am, that numb is sort of numb across the board. Yeah, the bad turns down, but so does the good. So you do feel that way. Like you feel like the more, the deeper you get into sobriety, I like how you said the volume was turned up. It does feel like that, doesn't it? Like the colors are turned up, the volume is turned better. It's like it goes up, it goes down. And I think there are times that I've been more open to life and more open

to feeling things than I do across the board. And I think there's other times where I get into more of a pattern of sort of just trying to turn it all down, maybe not in the dramatic fashion, as dramatically as I used to, but there's plenty of other ways to numb or to, to lessen our ability to feel. And I think we, it's very easy to use personal development and spirituality in that way. We had a guest on who called it the spiritual bypass. And I was like, that's exactly it. It's like, and, and in recovery programs, that is a, I think that's a very common one is, you know, oh, it's all happening for a reason. We tell ourselves that so quickly, right?

Just to not feel it. Just, okay, God, that'll, you know, or, you know, I think service is so important. But I know in recovery, there's sometimes it's like a bad mood starts to enter the room anywhere. And it's like, you got to work with another person, right? You got to do like, all right, let's just relax a little so I can get into that with work or anything. But I do think it's a true statement of, you can't, you can't selectively repress things. And a lot of that is just refusing to try to fix things too fast. hasn't come out yet, but he said something, his name is David K. Reynolds, and he wrote a book called Constructive Living, which is, it would be interesting to explore in context of what we're talking about here. But he has something that he said that really struck me. And he, he's very

focused on behavior, you know, that, that you, you drive, you drive change in your life by behavior, which I think is very much a partially true statement. But he said that for people who don't have their behavior under control, they're more afraid of feelings because those feelings have the ability to just lead you way, way off track. But that if you get to the place where you've got your behavior on some degree of control, you can feel that full range of emotions with less fear about what's going to happen. I get that. That really hit me strongly.

It's that idea. I have a little sticky on my little mirror above my computer that says structure liberates. And I feel like that is so important for me. I mean, I think that's important for a lot of people who are in the creative world or recovering people. Oh my gosh, I have to stick to my daily disciplines. I think people would be surprised by how structured I am, actually. structured I am, actually. And it does feel safer being me and knowing that I'm going to have a wide range of emotions throughout the day. It feels safe knowing that they're all going to happen within a structure that I already have planned out. That makes perfect sense. Yeah, because I think, at least for me, you know, if I go way back into those really bad years, a particularly sad feeling could just lead to, you know, weeks of

even beyond the normal destructive behavior, right? And that's scary. Whereas now, I think there's a structure in my life that I go, okay, well, I can handle this. I don't, yeah, I can feel that without going on a 12-day bender. Yeah, yeah. But isn't it weird? Because it's like the second you think you figure something out, nothing's black and white. Because it's like, you're exactly right. I'm like, yes, we need to feel it all.

But then in my head, I know, I can hear my therapist saying, actually, Glennon, you're not going to feel your way out of anything. You have to just do something, right? You have to do what you need to do, regardless of how you feel about what you need to do. So yeah, there's a big, a gray area, and it's all a balance of feeling and doing, I guess. That's such a common thing. It's one of probably the most prevalent thing we talk about on the show is that, you know, you've got to take the phrase that I use, and I probably got, I'm 99% sure I got it somewhere in recovery, is you can't think your way into right action. Sometimes you have to act your way into right thinking. And I'm just interested in that idea of how thoughts, emotions, and actions all interact with each other in some extraordinarily complex way, but that sometimes we can use one of those. If we can get a handle on one of those, we can use it as a lever to work with the other ones. And that different lever seems to work better for different types of things or situations I have to remind myself all

the time that I am part mind part body part spirit and that there's three lives going on every single day and if it were up to me I would just stay in my mind all day and I would go I would be back where I was you know because the mind is a beautiful and terrifying place to live so I have that's part of my discipline and my structure is that every day I can spend I don't let myself write all day and that would not be good for me I let myself write for a few hours a day and then I'm doing some some kind of like body stuff, some kind of exercise,

even though it's not my natural want to do that. And I have to have some stillness every day because of that spirit part. And that's what tends to keep me healthy is just remembering that I'm a triangle and that I have to address each day the three different parts of myself. That's a very good way to think about it. And that, that resonates very much with me. And, and when I'm doing the best is when it's all those things

are being taken care of. Don't you think? And then it's like this weird thing, like I'll be having this, this challenge writing and I can sit, I could sit in front of my computer all day and try to figure it out and it won't work. But then like, if I remember that I have a body and I go for a walk or go for a jog, like magically halfway through the jog, the mind thing gets worked out. Like I figure out, like when you said the lever thing, I'm like, what is that? That's exactly right. Like why? It's not even just, I'm addressing my body right now. It's like, okay, I'm going to remember I have How is that even a question? I've been listening to the Smiths and old band a lot, and one of the quotes is, does the mind rule the body, or does the body rule the mind? And I think the answer is both. The answer is both.

Absolutely. And there's just people who tend to, I think people who identify most with their mind have to work to live the life of the body. And, you know, my husband's opposite. He's an athlete. He's an athlete his whole life. He would live his whole life in his body. He has to work to address the mind part. And that's really been interesting. I mean, that's been part of the journey we've been working on with our marriage is like we live two different ways. Yeah. Yep. And that's just been fascinating.

I certainly have not even come close to unraveling all of that, but it's just a new journey. Yeah, I think the amazing part of that is when you've got that kind of difference, if you can find a way that those differences complement and support each other, it's so powerful. And then the flip side of that is when they don't, it's so, so hard. That's right. We're hoping we're going to get to the beautiful part. It's going to be just amazing. But right now. All the time.

Always amazing. Oh, come on. Totally. Nothing but good. Totally amazing all the time. Yes. Exactly. Well, let me know when that happens. Right. That's right. I'll call you right away.

We'll get you back on the show and you can solve this for all of us once and for all. Yeah. You'll have to get me on real quick before it all falls apart again. Exactly. That five minutes. As it does. That's all perfect. Well, thank you so much. This has been really a great time. And like I said, I could do it a long time,

but we're already like double the normal show length. So I'm going to show some degree of discipline here, structure, liberates, as you say. I'm just grateful. Thank you. It's been a great conversation. Yeah, it really has. Thank you so much for taking the time to do it. And let's keep in touch. Let's please do. And thank you. I, it really has. Thank you so much for taking the time to do it. And let's keep in touch.

Let's please do. And thank you. I just love your show. I'm so grateful to be a part of it. And just keep doing your work. It's so important and so good and so helpful. Thank you so much. You too.

Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye. And as a reminder, if you're interested in doing some one-on-one work with me, I might need a second here. And as a final reminder, if you're interested in doing some one-on-one work with me, and you want some laughs, send an email to eric at oneufeed.net. Thanks.

You can learn more about Glenn and Melton Doyle and this podcast at oneufeed.net slash Doyle.