We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - 135. Letting Go of How It’s “Supposed to Be”

Episode Date: September 29, 2022

1. The twinge of loneliness that comes with searching for what it *seems* like everyone else has.  2. A Varsity-level question from Christie that challenges everything we said about Help on Tuesday��s episode. 3. How to make “your thing” more of an “our thing” in relationships–and how Abby got Glennon into the sports. 4. If there is anything worse than vacationing with your own kids, it’s vacationing with other people’s kids–and the time Glennon staged a sketchy early exit from a group trip.  5. Abby and Glennon’s brilliant compromise boundaries for future extended family gatherings.

Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. We love your guts. We love you so much that all we've been doing is listening to your amazing voicemails and questions. And today we are hearing from the pod squad. Our people... Woot. Are people still saying woot, woot, can someone tell us what the new generation of woot, woot,

is? I don't know. It's just you still saying woot-wut-wut. I actually don't know if anyone ever said woot-wut. Okay. But I do write it in a text every once in a while. woot. Let's go. Let's hear from our first pod squad. Julie. Hi, Glennon, Abby, sisters. This is Julie. My question is a sports question. Oh, God. So my partner is a professional soccer coach in the U.S. and I hate sports, but I love him. I'm trying to figure out how to be supportive and engage

in the sports or soccer without hating my life. So I just think there's too many sports, too many games, too many seasons, too many things. It never stops. And I find myself rejecting like even conversations about scoring goals and all those things. Like I'm just like I don't care how many times the ball went in the net or like who won. I just genuinely don't. And so, yeah, I guess my question is, how do I support and not hate my life? That's all.

Thank you. This is such a foreign concept to me. I have no idea how to talk to Julie about this because I've never experienced anything like these feelings. I love Julie's guts. I love this question. Do you want to take a stab? Yeah. Relate to Julie's husband, maybe.

I mean, listen, Julie, I appreciate the honesty here. I think one thing that I would ask in response is, do you love your husband and do you love what he does, right? Like through his eyes. So for an example, I watch my wife read books for hours during a day. She does. And reading is not something that it's not like my first. first instinct. I'm not like, oh, where's my book? But I do see Glennon reading all the time, and she loves reading. And so I love witnessing her doing something that she loves. I know, but

baby Julie and her husband are not lesbians. Okay. So they're not going to stare at each other. No, I understand that. Okay. Let's go a different route. Okay. Maybe you can look at his coaching. He's not just a coach. He's like a life guide for these people. I understand that it's weird because there's rules and this team has to score goals and that net and this team is trying to go to the other way. And there's a lot of these complications during sports that can feel confusing and not fun to watch. But if you could see it as maybe like a TV drama that's unfolding before your eyes, maybe you could find it more. So when he comes home and he might be talking about the X's and O's in sports, we call the X's and O's like the tactics of the game.

It's hugs and kisses, right? Yeah, XOX. No. Maybe you could inquire and ask about the people. Yes. Agreed. Ask him about the people because Glennon, you've told me when we were watching sports on the televisions.

And you want to maybe die at times. and then they start talking about this woman's story. Right, right. But also, you get annoyed when I ask you, is that person married? What is that person's mental health? Where do they live? Do they have pets? You don't want to talk about it.

You just want to talk about the net and the ball. That's not true. I talk about the people because I am a leader. I think that you have to get into the hearts and minds of the people that you're trying to lead, especially as a coach. and we all get to like different parts of it. I just don't know if Julie has found that there is a different part to watching sports or listening to a coach, husband, talk about the sports.

She might have to prod with a follow-up question of, well, you know, who's struggling the most? That's interesting. I'm desperate to hear what sister thinks of me. Sister, what are you thinking? Shocking to everyone, I'm sure. I just don't understand why we can't each individually do what each of us individually loves. And then if we happen to have a struggle in that area, bring it to each other and say, I need, I need your help in this area. But why can't we reserve our togetherness for this?

things that we together love. Why does our together time need to be consumed by our individual idiosyncratic interests? I don't want to spend my life pretending to be interested or impressed by shit that is not interesting or impressive to me. Yeah. I did that a lot as a teenager and I just don't feel like I need to do it anymore. I'm allergic to placating. And it's not even about having a realistic expectation of my partner's genuine fascination with my interests.

I don't expect him to do that. I don't expect him to be genuinely interested about the things that I find individually fascinating. But I also, 100% I'm not going to fake fascination in his tangential interests. Why are we faking that? It's silly. There should be enough that we can be. like, you have a bucket that you love. I have a bucket that I love. What's in our bucket of things we love together? And perhaps we could focus on that when we're talking. Like also, just for context,

I just want us to imagine a world. Julie has called in, okay? She's struggling with her lack of genuine fascination with the sports with which her husband is consumed. Can we please try to imagine a world for one hot second in which Julie's husband is sitting around fretting and asking for advice about how he can become more actively and genuinely engaged in Julie's love for gardening. It has never happened, not going to happen ever. I hear that. But I also think that what people do for their life, like their career, their life's work, which might be gardeners. I'm not taking that away. I do feel like there has to be a little bit of open-heartedness in what that...

Don't tell sister that there has to be open-heartedness. She will turn this pot around. But they're spending half of their fucking life doing this thing. Right. I could be totally wrong, but there's a little flavor in this of, I have this one image of myself from my past that as God is my witness, I will never return to again. And that is this. I know what you're going to say.

It's watching your boyfriend play video games. Yes. Okay? I used to sit my very smart, albeit wasted at the time, ass on a dirty couch. And for hours, I would watch my boyfriend play video games. Okay? I don't like video games. I don't like boyfriends.

But for some reason. I felt like what I should do with my one wild and precious life. Like it would have been dumbass enough to spend it playing video games. But now I'm spending it watching someone else play video games. And all I'm just saying is that I don't know how to say it other than that's a vibe I am not returning to. And it feels like maybe there's a flavor of this as God is my witness. I will not do that again in Julie. Okay?

Because here's what I will tell you. And I'm not saying this is fair. I'm not saying this is fair. I understand it's not fair. When I was married to a man, as God as my witness, was not going to be interested in the sports. But when I married Abby, I was like, huh, all right. I don't know.

there was something about the power dynamic. She brought more of the sports to me. It was very clear that it wasn't just about the sports. It actually wasn't about the net. It was about like the human struggle of learning how to work together as a team, learning how to experience deep emotions like competitiveness and loss and jealousy, pouring yourself out and losing and like all the things I actually do care about in the world. But like, it's all playing out in front of you on a field.

She brought humanity to it to me in such a way. When our daughter wasn't playing sports, she was like, why? And I was like, well, she's not that good at them. And she was like, so, that's not what any of this is about. And so we put our girl back in sports. And I watched the teamness of it. I watched her learn how her body was for accomplishing something and not like appearing a certain way.

I watched her learn how to lose. This child never knew how to lose without like having a complete breakdown. I watched her to lose. I watched her pull herself together. I watched her experience all of these emotions on the field safely in the container of a game. Sports became, I can cry now watching this shit. But it was because it was brought to me in like a human to human way, not the way some people do it. I'm curious, does she respect what he's doing?

Because is what she's seeing just like a more. glorified version of her watching video games. Him playing video games. I think there's two things going on. I think that Glennon, what you're saying is what I think I'm trying to say with the third bucket. You can love your thing over here I'm disinterested in. I can love this thing over here that you are disinterested in without having my thing

feel threatened and without personally feeling threatened. And then there's a third bucket in the middle that is the thing that we can both genuinely without pretending be engaged and interested around. What Abby did is she took some of her first bucket and poured it into a third that you could be like, you know what? I am genuinely interested in that. That is so cool to me. I'm never going to be remembering the stats, but I love this heart of this thing.

And therefore I can be really engaged with it. And so I think that's the job of both parties. You don't have to say, come over here and entertain my bucket and love it, love it. That's right. It's like, no, my job is to translate it to you in a way that you will love it. And include you in it. Yes, that includes you. Includes you in a way that is generous because I know my partner and I have this thing I love.

And so I'm going to figure out what is the Venn diagram of that. Yes. If Abby had come to me and just talk to me constantly about statistics, that would not have included me. I needed her to be like, this is my wife. I actually, I know her so well that this is the part of my thing that's going to light her up and think that through and include me in it. But if you don't, it's a repetitive scene from fried green tomatoes where it's just the dude coming home and taking his, you know, TV dinner to the sports and leaving his wife out of it. Because there's no generosity. There's no vend diagramming.

And both parties need to be a part of that vend diagram. Like Julie's husband has to translate it to her. And she also has to have some openness and some curiosity with the sports. I'm also going to take a little gander, which was not included in this question, and wonder if a little bit of the there's too many. seasons, it's too much. It is quite possible that in some relationships when somebody's hobby or work overshadows and dominates the life and the conversations and the time and eclipses not cool, the rest of it, that then the expectation that you're going to be giddy, in discussing it just breeds resentment.

That's good. Right? Yes. So if you have a husband that plays two rounds of 18 hole golf every Saturday, and you're already bitter as shit because that's your family time and he is not taking care of the responsibilities, you're taking care of him Saturday. And then he comes home and wants to talk to you about golf, you're probably going to be like, you can fuck all the way off. I hate golf. That's right.

So, and just for the record, my husband doesn't do this because I know sometimes I present theoreticals that are like, are you just trying to couch that? That is not a thing. But I think there's a lot of, well, why don't you like golf? It's so not cool. You don't like golf. There's a reason she doesn't like golf, you guys. Yeah. Yeah, because you can send someone's priorities to. It's like, is sports your life and you're just trying to fit your family into it? Or is your family your life and you're adding sports to it sometimes? It's complicated. But I'm with in the fact that the sports presents itself as in like it's a season. So that's a lie.

It's not a season. It never ends. It's not, it doesn't end. It like, seasons stop. Like fall, winter,

spring, summer, that's a season. Okay, the sports, they just overlap and they keep going. And the second, there's a championship,

but then the next day, there's a practice. It never ends. It's a big lie. Even when the game's over, it's not. There's extra time. There's like,

it's just, I'm with Julie in the fact that the farce is over. Like there's no end to it and it's just sports till we die. Yes. Right? That's what it is. That's right. Okay.

Thank God. This show is brought to you by Alma. When I first tried to find a therapist, it felt like a scavenger hunt with no map. Pages of names, long wait lists, voicemails that never got returned. I remember thinking if this is what it takes just to talk to someone, no wonder people give up. So when I found OMA, it felt like someone finally turned the lights on. Alma, A-L-M-A, is this beautifully simple way to find licensed, in-network therapists without all the

runaround. You can browse without even making an account, and you can filter for what actually matters. The therapist's approach, background, specialty, lived experience, whatever helps you feel understood. Nearly everyone who finds a therapist through Alma, 97% say they felt genuine. seen and heard. Better with people, better with Alma. Visit helloalma.com slash we can to schedule a free consultation today. That's hello a L-M-A-com slash W-E-C-A-N. This time of year, I am always looking for my sweaters. Luckily, Quince has all of the

staple sweaters covered from soft Mongolian cashmere sweaters that feel like designer pieces without the markup to 100% silk tops and skirts for easy dressing up to perfectly cut denim for everyday wear. I can't tell you how much I'm loving my quince cashmere sweater in this gorgeous oatmeal color. It's become the thing I grab almost every day. It's held up beautifully. It still feels soft and it honestly looks way more expensive than it is. You know how frugal I am. And I've started picking up a few quince pieces for home too. They have travel bags and sheets. Their sheets are awesome. 10 out of 10. Refresh your wardrobe with quince. Don't wait, go to quince.com slash hard things for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns.

Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash hard things to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash hard things. If you're a business owner who knows nothing about AI and feels really out of the loop, you're not alone. In today's data-driven world, you really need to understand your customers and NetSuite can deliver those insights with zero fuss. No more waiting. With NetSuite, you can integrate AI into your operations today. NetSuite is the number one AI cloud ERP trusted by over 43,000 businesses. It brings your financials, inventory, commerce, HR, and CRM into one single source of truth. And now with NetSuite AI connector, you can use the AI of your choice and connect it to your actual business data. So you can finally

ask every question you've ever had, who are key customers, what's our cash on hand, what's trending in our inventory, and you can automate all those manual processes no one wants to do. Right now, get our free business guide, demystifying AI at netsuite.com slash hard things. The guide is free to you at net suite.com slash hard things. NetSuite.com slash hard things. We have an anonymous question. Oh, let's do it. I am 46 years old and I still feel like friendships are such a struggle for me. And I'm highly sensitive. I'm a teacher.

I'm a mom. And I still am struggling to find where I fit with friendships. I have a few really close friendships that do provide me a lot of joy and are very fulfilling. But it's the times where I get these challenges of loneliness or when I see. other females having like ladies nights out or these families at vacation together and all the families and kids get along and then I think gosh am I doing something wrong here how come I don't have that so I guess I'm just wondering at this phase in my life how to do this friendship thing I'm with anonymous I actually called that question in you paid somebody

You are 46. All I can hear in this question is the red flashing words vacation together. Vacation together. I'm just because I want to honor this person and this question, I'm going to tell this story. And if my friends who it's about are listening, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. but I here's what happened so what happened was I decided that I was going to go from like zero to 60 right that I needed to jump into the friendship thing I was very much like anonymous I didn't understand

how people were doing this my friends every summer this group of friends who were always like togetherness was easier for them than it was for me I was kind of in but not really all the thing they would go for a vacation together in a big beach house every single summer, all of their children and them, like six freaking families with their children. Okay. And so I was like, you know what? I'm going to do this. I am a person who goes on beach family vacations.

That's the kind of person I am now. Yes. I saw the pictures. It looks delightful. I am going to do it. Oh, my God. Day two. Terrible idea.

Day two, I love these people. Oh, they're the best. I love these people. Like, as far as people on the planet go, they're my favorite people, okay? It was a slice of hell on earth. All of these freaking children, so many children, so many different parenting strategies, so many different approaches, some people getting up in the morning, some people, my kids were little, I lived for 7 p.m.

because I was like, they're out, kids are done, we're done. Some people's kids stayed up till midnight. So it didn't matter. There were still children everywhere. It was so many, so much. So here's what happened. Craig and I got in bed both nights and we just couldn't even talk. We were just like in the fetal position.

We didn't, what we were going to do, the next seven days spread out in front of us like a fiery hell. And Tish woke up one morning and said, my tummy hurts. And you're like, yes, it does. I looked at Craig like, oh, we have been given a gift. I proceeded to make Tish appear so sick. I behaved concerned. I laid her on the couch in front of everyone, took fake temperatures.

We prepared this dramatic exit. I took her to the emergency room. to make my story complete. Okay? You were like leaving the house. Pray for us. Yes. Yes.

Craig was in on it with me. He will call in and verify this whole story. We took her to the emergency room. She was like, what the fuck? I feel like that might have been a bridge too far. Couldn't you just say you say you went to the emergency room? Oh, no, because that would have been a lie. This was more of a performance with a truth at the end.

Okay. I got it. So you were just like, everything was reasonable as long as we keep it within the factual, plausible deniability. It's trueish, right? Trueish. So we took her to the emergency room. Lo and behold, they couldn't find anything wrong with her. But just to be safe, just to be safe, we packed up, drove home, best trip home of my entire life.

The point being, don't try that, Anonymous. don't jump into family vacations. I think it was sister who said if there's anything worse than being with my kids on vacation, it's being with my kids and someone else's kids on vacation. Yeah, that's right. That is what I said. And that is true. What do you think about this love bug and her wishes,

her desire to have this group of friends? Well, I would just ask, like, clearly she might not be the kind of person, maybe a little bit like you, Gleinen, that would do well, that would thrive in these. But she wants to be the kind of person in some ways because there's something about what she's seeing or hearing or looking at on the fucking Instagram. God help us with everybody's favorite around candles. It's just, it's just not ever totally like that. So I don't know.

I would ask, what is she seeing that other families are getting from these family the vacations. Because there's a difference between a vacation and a trip. Like a vacation is what you take without any children. And a trip includes children. It is not vacation. It is a trip. There's probably some like tree climbing in our family. Rapids. I totally agree with you, Abby. I think there's two things happening here. I think the main thing is when we see ladies nights out or These people are in this book club together. These people do this and the family vacations together that we feel like there's this wide swath of something that we're missing. And I get that too.

Definitely. I see things and I'm like, out. You know when you get that little like, for me, she said, what did you say? She said, twinges of loneliness. Twinges of loneliness. I love that because mine always just feels like a little baby boa around my heart. Like contract, contract. And it just makes you feel sad, especially if it's people who you used to be friends with and you see it.

And I think that's totally natural. And that is valid. And also has nothing to do at all with whether you should be someone who's going to ladies nights out or going on group family vacations. That's right. Like the fact that you have that twinge means, oh, that. looks awesome. And oh, I wish I had something that feels like that looks like that feels. Yes, exactly. That feels like that looks like that feels. Because I always think every time there's a picture like that, I'm like, okay, but somebody had to arrange and take that picture, which means

it's staged a bit. And for every group of people that are together, she's like, how do their families get along and their partners get along and their kids get along, for sure they don't. For sure, that's a picture. And then their kids are like, I hate her and I hate when you bring me here. And like, you know, and the partner's like, how much longer we have to stay here. And like, for sure they don't all get along. Or I have never been a part of that where everyone's just magically melding together. And if they are, if you have that good on you, that is so great. I love that for people. And I believe that there are whole groups of people that go and it's the time of their life and that is beautiful. And I wish I were a person who would do that. And also it's like a

personality test. I am never, ever, ever going to be a person who does that. No. So I think there's that whole bucket. And then there's this like, am I missing something? Do I have my friendships right? And she said that she has a few really close friendships that provide me with a lot of joy and are very fulfilling. And to that, I say, me too, anonymous. Yes. That is what I have. And, I don't particularly think I'm doing it wrong. Yes. Is there a third way here? Because, you know, Glennon, we have, I, my birth family has a place that we sometimes go to in the summer for a few days.

And we go because we know, you know, it's my favorite place in the world. And it's our kids, one of their favorite places to go to. But it's a literal island with my whole family. And but tell them it's like 40 people. It's it is entirely 40 people too much for you. And I need you to explain to them what an island means. They're picturing tropical looking. The island is like the size of a bed.

It's a quarter acre. It's very tiny. It's very tiny. Okay. And there's a lot of people and a lot of goings on all the time. Isn't there a bathroom outside? There's an outhouse. Yeah.

There's an outhouse is the bathroom. It's the best. And for you. And also it's the worst. There's 40 people and there's two bedrooms. So, but the bedrooms don't have walls. The walls are half, half, half walls. So this is an late 1800s build.

The walls don't go all the way up to the ceiling. The point of my story is- There's one shower and it's outside and there's spiders in it. We have gone a couple of times. 25 children. And you were more inclined to go early on because you didn't know what it would be like. Because you were still chemically dependent on Abby. I was still hiding my personality.

So as. Yeah. And so now I know. To get you under contract. Kind of what. And I believe that if we were to ever go back to this area, that we would have to actually stay somewhere else. We would have to have a place of our own. Okay.

Third way. And then opt in to said family vacation. Maybe the kids stay there. I feel so cozy about this. You know, maybe the kids stay there. And we're just over here doing our thing. Or maybe we opt in on dinner or we're only there for a few hours a day that it allows you and your kids to have this kind of familial friends experience. But also boundaries, but also a safe place to return to with bathrooms on the inside.

Yes. Yes. No, but we're laughing, but I think that's brilliant. It's like it doesn't have to be all this way or all or nothing. Yeah. That there can be, I mean, we've learned this with our families. We can still go, but like stay in different houses and then opt in and then opt out. And that that's, I think there's also something that Anonymous mentioned in the beginning that she started with.

And she said, I'm highly sensitive. That's the first thing she said. What I want to say about that is if you had supersonic hearing, you might be more uncomfortable at a loud dinner party than someone else. You would hear things that that person didn't hear. So it didn't upset that person. It's not because there's anything wrong with you that you're upset or emotionally, you know, disregulated.

In large social settings. It's because you have supersonic hearing. It's because you are affected by more things that. So that I have, I have, I'm 46 and I'm not going to change that about myself. So what I know is that that picture of the way things are supposed to be, that thing we say over and over again on the pod, that the thing that screws us up most is the picture in our head we have of how things are supposed to be. So just because Instagram presents women and friendships as this ever, never ending get together in someone's living room around the beach, that has never worked for me. It won't, but what I am creating now is a few deep friendships. A couple people at a time, I'm getting that connection.

It sounds to me like she's getting the connection she needs from friendships. And it's just this idea out there of how it's supposed to be that's causing the twinge of loneliness. We're with you, Anonymous. Have you ever hit a point at work where everything just, just feels heavy, not just a bad week, but the kind of burnout where you're staring at your laptop thinking, I can't keep doing it like this. You're not alone. Strawberry.me is career coaching that helps you get to the real root of your burnout, whether it's workload, boundaries, a tough manager, or feeling disconnected from the work you used to love. Our coaches help you untangle with

straining you, build boundaries that actually stick, redesign your day-to-day so it energizes you and create a plan so burnout doesn't sneak back. And with a new year starting, it's the perfect moment to rethink how you want to feel. You can get matched with a coach in just a few minutes and sessions are flexible, private, and built around the reality of your life. Go to strawberry. dot me slash we can do hard things and try a coaching session for 50% off. Strawberry.combe, because your career should feel good again. This show is sponsored by Midi Health. Parimenopause and Menopause pause aren't personality flaws or phases. They're medical transitions. And yet nearly three out of four women who actively seek help are sent home with nothing. No treatment, no roadmap, no support.

Not because help doesn't exist, but because the health care system makes it absurdly hard to find someone who actually knows what they're doing. That's where Midi changes the game. With Midi, you're matched directly with a clinician who's trained specifically in midlife care. Appointments happen virtually on your schedule and prescriptions are sent straight to your local pharmacy. Even better, Mitty is the only midlife women's telehealth platform that accepts major insurance. So this isn't boutique care or luxury workaround. It's real medicine covered. Ready to feel your best and write your second act script?

Visit join midi.com today to book your personalized insurance covered virtual visit. That's join midi.com. Midi, the care women deserve. Okay, let's hear from Christy. This is a question that's based on our help conversation. Hi, I'm a Christy. I'm 45 and I'm a married mom of two teenagers. I have a full-time corporate job. And I have a question. So all the time when we hear advice about self-care, we're told, don't be afraid to ask for help. Don't forget to ask for help. Be sure to ask for help when you need it. And often it's implied that someone else is going to like pick up your kids or make you a meal or provide three daycare for you while you have a date night or a spa day.

What's the actual hell? Every time I hear it, it makes me grit my teeth. Like literally my jaw clenches and I'm totally not a gloss of jaw clencher. My immediate reaction to that every time is, don't ask me for help. I mean, I'm buried in work and my own family obligations. I'm behind in every single aspect of my life. I'm barely keeping my head above water myself. And then I guess so someone might say, well, then you should ask for help.

But who do I ask? I mean, most of my friends are in the same situation I am. You don't have any family near me or at least not family who's like willing or available to help? My boss is very kind and flexible, but he just wants me to get my work done. I do buy some help. Like I have someone clean my house and do some other health. tests. I get take out all the time. I pay for child care when I need it, things like that. And I do often get asked for advice or connections or referrals. And I'm very happy to provide

that kind of help when I'm asked. I do offer to help in some situations when I see that I could do something easily that would help someone else. But the idea that I would like make a meal for another family because somebody recently had surgery or somebody had a new baby, it's like completely in conceivable to me. I can barely get it together enough to be my own family. And so I feel guilty for gritting my piece about the meal train request. I feel trapped because I don't have anyone ask for help myself. So am I alone in this? Why are we telling everyone to ask for help? Who are they asking? I just, I don't understand. Thank you for everything you're doing. I really appreciate you. Oh, Christy. Christy. She just summed it all up right there.

Bring in the varsity level questions. So, Christy, if everyone didn't listen to the last podcast that we did, it was all about help, like why it's so hard to ask for help, why some people are helpphobic, and why you should ask for help. And Christy is doing what they say calling us out on who the hell should you be asking. And sure is shit, don't ask me. I love her. It's so true.

It's so true. Why are we telling everyone to ask for help? Who are they asking? Does anyone, wife, sister, have a freaking answer for Christy? I have one thing that I think. First of all, good on you, Christy. Yes. Bullshit.

There is nobody left. I double dare you to send me a meal train. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to send out a meal train for my regular ass family every day of the week. When I think, and we alluded to this a little bit in Tuesday's episode, this very thing, before I even knew about this question, there is this understanding that everyone around you is drowning. And so you putting your hand up and saying, I need help, is in some ways not cool. Because you're like, who am I to say that I'm struggling more than everybody else that I look around and is struggling too? there's like a, God, I don't know, like a self-importance about that that I'm not comfortable doing.

So maybe it isn't even starting with the asking for help if you're in Christy's position. Maybe it's even just like a getting together with the other friends that are in the same situation as you and all admitting that it sucks and that you're struggling. and that you all need help. You know, it's like the first step, right? Yes. Christy's life has become unmanageable. Yes. And can we just allow for life to be unmanageable for women without an added crisis?

What I hear her saying also is you have to have a death in the family or have surgery. It's like my friends who voluntarily stay in the hospital for days after they have a baby because they're like, this is my best life. This is my vacation. This is the only time people will bring me food. It's all over after this. I just think that with the demands of life right now, every day is helpworthy. So I just think she's the exact person to lead the this is bullshit revolution amongst her people.

Because she's so honest about it. It's like almost crazy making what I'm hearing in her voice. It's like this is like all a game here. And I think what you're saying is true. what she needs is for a group of women to be like, everything is bad. Everything is bad. And I don't need you to fix it because I know it's equally as bad for you.

But I just need to tell you what my kind of bad is. And it's like this little place where you can be honest with each other before you even get to the help part. Before we're making food, it's just the acknowledgement. I'm exhausted. And sometimes when you share that with each other, it makes it a, little bit easier burden to carry. And also what's annoying is like we're always talking about the women, the women, the women, the women. And then when the meal train goes out, I actually don't know, is the meal train like sign up for Josie? Yeah, it means like she, this person's in chemo and we need to deliver

lunches every Thursday for the rest of the year. Right. But typically in our culture, it's always the women that are also doing the helping. So what Christy's saying is, I can't like help this other woman because I'm drowning. So, and then we're like, we'll get all the women together and then help each other. But it's like most of these women are in straight marriages. So where the hell are the guys? Maybe the guys need to get a support group together because every time there's a problem in a classroom, the email goes to the woman.

You know, somebody says to a dad is your kid free for the birthday party? And the dad's like, oh, you can send the email to my wife. Like, right? Where's all the helping that goes on the dads? Girl, don't get me trying to keep my blood pressure low for this one. First of all, Christy, you're going to sit your husband down and have them listen to two podcasts. It is the overwhelm episode. Yeah.

And then the acts of service one. And then we're going to get together with our friends and talk about how awful it is. because honestly, Christy clearly is managing it all and she's the one that is suffering from it. It does not appear to Christy's people that she is struggling. And so I think sometimes if you say it out loud, it's just an opening. I have a group of friends where we all admit how much it sucks all the time. And so therefore it's like an open invitation for any help that you can give. That's nice.

There's structural ways. Like it makes me, it makes me absolutely crazy that we are all with our opportunity cost hourly rate of life doing all the same shit. Yes. In our houses individually. Yes. Divisions of labor. Divisions of labor. It's insane.

So this year, I went through the whole school calendar. I wrote down every single day, picture day, field day, alternate field day. is the day they get off early. I made an entire document with the three pages of every date we needed and I sent it around to every single person I know. Because I was like to hell with us all reinventing every wheel and doing it every time. That's so good. Put these in your calendar and by doing stuff like that, you know what? The next time my friends are always like, Doyle, you won't know this, but tomorrow's tie-dye day at school. And I'm like, thank you because of course I didn't know that. That's not dramatic help, but if you open yourself up to be like, I'm willing to receive all intake that is provided to me.

Yes. Life is a- It's more likely to come to you. Yeah. And like treating life is a communal experience. Let's recreate the village somehow. Yeah, that's really cool. And also when you said people probably don't know that Christy's struggling, I feel bad for people who have the reputation or of being very sufficient. like of being very steady. I think it's wonderful for me that my people are a little bit worried about my mental health. Yeah. High alert.

Like I love that. Right? Yeah. They tread carefully. Right. That's good. And that's good. We should all tread a little bit carefully

with each other. Because we are all just teetering on that cliff. It's just that some of us, our faces are like, and some of our faces are like, I'm fine. I've got this. But everybody's teetering. Yep. Truth. Teeter Central over here. Teeter Central, Christy. We love you. We agree with you. There's no one to ask for help and don't ask us for help.

It's a new year and instead of trying to reinvent myself, I've been asking a simpler question. What would actually support me right now? And honestly, a big part of that answer is my home. I want my space to feel calmer, more functional, and a little more like a place that can reflect my goals and energy for this year. Which is why I've been turning to Wayfair. It's truly a one-stop shop for everything your home needs this season. What surprised me most was how easy it was to find exactly what I wanted in my style and within my budget. Whether you're organizing kids' rooms, upgrading your work from home setup, tackling clubs,

or just trying to make weeknight dinners easy. Wayfair really does have everything. Your home doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to support the life you're living right now. Get organized, refreshed, and back on track this new year for way less. Head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-R.com. Wayfair.

Every style, every home. Let us please hear from our pod squader of the week, Cynthia. My name is Cynthia. I called you to thank you for inspiring me with courage that I needed. I'm a recovering Ivy League perfectionist and people pleaser who often prioritize the regard of strangers to the point that if a salesperson spent long enough with me, I would either put the item on hold or buy and return it as to not disappoint them with an on-purchase. Anyway, today I did a hard thing and resigned from a professional job after,

less than a month because it wasn't the right place for me. And I told myself over and over on the way, I will disappoint them before disappointing myself. I really appreciate it. Leaving was the right kind of quitting as it was honoring myself. It's on to greener pastures for me. Anyway, I appreciate you ladies so much and your inspiring words and vulnerability every week. It really matters. Thank you. Oh, my God, Cynthia. she is an Ivy League perfectionist and people pleaser who formally, if she was talking to a salesperson for too long, would just go ahead and buy the shit she didn't want, so I'm not to disappoint them. I get it. Do you know that that made me think of when I used to check out at the grocery store?

And then there would be people behind me. And inevitably, the lady would ask me, are those organic? apples or regular conventional apples. And for sure they were conventional apples. But I would be so scared that the lady was going to think I was lying. That I would just say they were organic. Because you'd pay more. Because I'd rather just lie instead of her thinking I was lying.

So I would lie to the lady to pay more so that she didn't seek. think, suspect that I was lying. That's amazing. You would lie in order to preserve your integrity as a truth tell. Yes, I would lie to preserve my integrity. That's exactly right. I mean, checking out, like shopping, forget it. It's a death trap of stress when you check out at those places.

And then besides all the questions about is that organic. And then you have you have the moment where you put your freaking credit card in and then you have to concentrate so much because it's like, do not remove, do not remove card, do not remove card. And then there's like this split second where it goes from, do not remove card to remove card, remove card, remove card. It's like,

pay such close attention. And then it always beeps in the shameful way. It's like, you don't have any money. What are you doing trying to buy those organic apples? And then I always think it's not sufficient funds. And I look at it and I'm like, and then it's just like, remove card. And I'm like, why do you have to be such a judgy, ominous beep?

It's like my nervous system is too nervous for this system. Is this why your wallet is always out of sorts? Yes, because also, yes, because then if you don't pay with a card and you try to pay with cash to avoid, remove card, remove card, remove card, that doesn't work because then they hand you change. They hand you change while all the people are in line behind you. So then you have to figure out what to do with the change. You can't get out. It's like too long and then you have to take out your wallet and put it in. So I just feel like throwing the change and running.

You can have it. Just keep it. It's too much stress. I can't handle change. I can't handle change both literally and figuratively. But Cynthia, let us focus on this because you went from that level to a professional job one month in. So connected to your knowing, knowing that. Quitting was honoring yourself.

Yes. And this, this needs to be our next right thing with God bless Cynthia. She said over and over I told myself on the way, I will disappoint them before disappointing myself. Amen. Cynthia. That's it. Let's disappoint somebody this week, y'all.

Don't disappoint me, honey. Okay. You will disappoint them before you disappoint yourself, right? That's the energy. You need to disappoint Pod Squad. Yeah. Let's get to it. We love you.

Bye. Bye. I give you Tishmilton and Brandy Carlisle. I came out the other side. I chased desire. I made sure I got what's my. And I continue to believe that as I'm a... Because we're adventurers in heartbreaks on map.

A final destination we lack. They stopped asking directions as they've never been. And to be too hard, a brand new star. Things fall hard. I continue to work. The best people are free Look sometimes

But I'm finally fine Because we're adventurers and heartbreaks I'm a final destination They've stopped asking directions To places they've never been We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios. Be sure to rate, review, and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts. Especially be sure to rate and review the podcast if you really liked it.

If you didn't, don't worry about it. It's fine.