We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - 194. Glennon Finds Her Healing Partner

Episode Date: March 30, 2023

Glennon takes us along on her “exile walk” to share how recovery’s going and some new found wisdom that will help us all including:  1. How to shut off the mind and stop over-intellectualizing to allow space for other parts and memories to rise up. 2. Acknowledging that nobody’s “fine” – and we’re all either transforming or transmitting our pain.  3. Glennon's interaction with a young surfer that offended them both (in very different ways).  4. How to start to let go of the prize of privilege in order to receive the treasures of being fully human.  If you haven’t listened to Glennon’s last recovery episode, check it out here: Ep 182 Glennon Update: Lessons from Therapy. If talk about eating disorders and mental illness helps: Listen today. If it triggers: Skip today. CW: eating disorders If you have an eating disorder, you may find the National Alliance for Eating Disorders a helpful resource: https://www.allianceforeatingdisorders.com/

Hi everybody, it's me. Before you listen to this, I just want you to know that there's lots of talk about mental health, about trauma, about eating disorders, about pain. It's a lot. It's good. It's freaking good. If you can handle it, you should listen. But I love you and I always want to tell you that first, your safety. So if it's too much for you, don't listen. If you can listen, do because I think it might change your life. Okay, bye. It was so sad sounding. Was it? Yeah. Well, I'm not always a happy person. You were like, okay. Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. Okay.

Well, interesting that you mentioned that because today's going to be one of those days where I talk about how recovery is going and what I'm learning that I think might help everybody. Everybody. First of all, just God bless every single person who decides at some point. in their adult life to really freaking do therapy and dive into all of their shit because it is hard. You know, I mean, babe, I just, I cannot believe how hard it is. I cannot believe how uncomfortable and tiring and, you know, I didn't sleep last night. And sometimes, as I've told you, I just feel like, why the hell am I doing this?

is ridiculous. I was fine. I was fine before. And now everything feels so hard. And as I said to yesterday, it feels like everyone else is just going on with their lives and doing all of these things. And when someone asks me, what did you do today? I'm like, well, just spent all day trying to be less fucked up as usual. It's just. Yeah. Well, and like I said, yesterday, it feels like you were fine long ago based on the hardship that you're going through now. But let's not forget that I was internexic. That you were not fine. That's right.

Yeah. That's correct. The only thing harder than doing all the things you're doing and the only thing more exhausting than doing all the things you're doing is doing all the things you were doing before. Yeah. Like that was exhausting and consuming. It's just what you were just got really expert. at it. It was comfortable, and now you're in the uncomfort.

Yeah. And I do think about, you know, to anyone who's doing this, it can feel like self-indulgent. It really can't. I'm so grateful that I have this to create and give because it feels so indulgent, so much time, so much hours, so much energy uncovering all of this and trying to figure it out. And, you know, as I say to Abby all the time, everyone else seems fine. Like everyone else is just going about their lives, being fine. But then I think, no, they're not.

No, we're not. Nobody is fine. Actually, the reason why most of us have to do this work is because however many generations before us didn't do this work and passed on a bunch of stuff that now we either have the choice of doing this really arduous, annoying work or just passing the buck to go. the next generation, whether it's through our own children in our house or just the culture

that we keep passing down all this bullshit because all this body stuff and eating stuff is not just something that happens in family. It's something that happens in the entire culture. And I don't want to propagate it in my home and I don't want to propagate it in the world. It's interesting to me that you just use the word indulgence because it seems like maybe that's where we all want ahead. Because like wouldn't it be amazing if we're all women everywhere lived into indulgence. Yeah. I mean,

it's an interesting word when we talk about food, food and bodies and rest and eating and all of it. Like it kind of is the opposite of self-denial. Is your perspective, gee, that the other generations of folks, with whatever it is, alcoholism or eating disorders or whatever,

that they passed it on because they chose not to face it? Or do you, because there's another way of looking at it, which is like, these things fall through. And then if you're the one to be able to face it, maybe it's like this ecosystem of privilege and resources and safety that maybe didn't exist before. It's both.

Yeah. For sure. I mean, I think there are generations where there was no time, money, or resources to even consider this shit, which is really probably why every generation is a little bit bitter at the next one to be doing all of this work. because it's like, well, if I didn't have to walk to school backwards, up six miles. You know, there's truth in that. But then there's also, I think, if we're being completely fair, there's the desire also to not hot potato our pain.

Because I'm not just talking about like eating disorders or drinking or whatever. I'm talking about whatever kind of pain we experience as human beings. And then in our homes, we can go inward and figure it out. or we can just hop-tato it out to somebody else. I think it's Richard Roar that says pain is either transformed or transmitted. Like there's only two options. I think that that maybe if you look at like a bunch of generations in a row, then there maybe is like a generation where there is the time, the resources, the money, the awareness,

the consciousness in the culture, instead of just being rageful at all the other generations for not doing it, not breaking whatever, then it's cool to think of all of them working to prepare a space for somebody to be able to do it. Yep. And if you do have the space to do that, you should. I think that's the idea. And then you become like the matriarch for the new order. Yeah.

It's a cool way of thinking about it that you will be the one that it's like, oh, and that change there. You know? Maybe. It's a beautiful way of thinking about it. Yeah. So inside of it, it doesn't feel like any of that. It feels like leaving my bed because I can't sleep, getting in my daughter's bed because she's not there, having a huge thing of animal crackers and a book and reading until 5 a.m. And then realizing, oh, this is what I used to do when I was little. Anyway.

That's interesting. I know. I figured that out at 2 a.m. I was like, fuck. I'm staring at my teenage daughter's ceiling, shoving animal crackers. reading, try not to think, so I'm reading, reading, reading, reading, reading, reading. Reading Judy Blume. Oh my God. I was reading this book called Sam.

It's this new novel. I think it's freaking beautiful. But it is all from the consciousness of a girl child all the way from the time she's four and now she's like 17. And by the way, nothing happens in the whole book. But everything happens because it's just her life. And I was like, thank you, universe for letting me read this during this time. As I've said before, I am kind of experiencing this as like, uh, Taylor Swift would call them eras as themes of each month when I look back on it.

It's like you're going through different chapters of this recovery that allows you to look back into different chapters of your life. Yeah. When I'm in it, it doesn't feel like anything. It feels like nothing's working and nothing's happening. And I hate everything and I want to quit. Here's what this month has been like. So if you remember the last update I did, I was in that era where I was desperate for

some other set of rules to replace my anorexia rules with. Like, I was thinking, okay, fine, if I'm going to let go of this set of ideas that kept me safe or so I thought, that kept me in control, fine, I believe you that this isn't healthy, but what the hell am I supposed to do instead? So like you lose one religion, you're trying to replace it with another religion. So my thought was that kept coming to me was like, okay, you have to replace it with nothingness. You just have to replace it with nothing. Because you originally tried to replace it with other rules. Oh, yeah.

I remember all of my beauty rules I replaced it with. I was going to be like a beauty monk. And so you realized maybe that wasn't it and you're now moving into the place of nothingness. Well, I realized it after my 16-year-old daughter told me that wasn't it. And then my doctor told me that wasn't it. And so, yes, myself discovered that it wasn't it. And then the idea was that people who don't have an internal locus of self-trust create outer ideas of control because they think that will keep them safe.

So my thought was I have to figure out what this inner locus is instead of replacing old ideology, old control ideas with new ones. And that's on episode 182 for folks, if you want to hear back on that one. So during this time, I decided that I was. going to really stick to my morning walks. I've talked about walks before. Walks are my most important, I don't know, like spiritual time with myself. So I live close to the beach. I kept waking up early in the morning and going out to the beach for my morning walk by myself. And the interesting part of this is that when you think of a beach walk, that's not what it was because it was like really,

really cold. Well, cold for Californians. So it would be what, like 40 degrees? 40, 50 degrees in the morning, yeah. Right, 40 degrees. So I would put on like a big coat and scarf and hat and like there would be a lot of wind. You were so cute. It felt very like Virginia Woolf or something. I don't know. I was like a very head of a lot of main character energy by myself. Just walking in the cold for a long period of time. And here's what happened. And like a long period of time, like an hour. Yeah, exactly.

So long. I was basically Cheryl fucking staked. I know. I just want people to not think it was like a five hour, you know, walkabout. So this is what I think started happening. Since I demanded of myself to not replace my thinking structures with any other thinking structures since I decided I don't think I can think my way out of this. something else started happening during those walks. And what it felt like was that my mind started shutting down

and other things started rising up is the best way I can tell you. All I'm doing, you got, you all is like trying to put into words things that cannot be put into words all the time. So I'm just going to do my best to explain it in my own way. And then maybe. you'll understand. So all of these things started rising up as I'm walking on the cold beach. And what started rising up was kind of like memories, just like flashes, but flash is too violent. Like it wasn't flashes. It was just like gentle rising of ungentle memories.

And so while this is happening day after day after day, because I think we're talking about actually a couple months and it's still happening now, the beautiful thing for me was that I was walking on the beach and feeling upset because it's a rainy season in California. We live in a town that has bad irrigation. So when it rains in the town, all of the trash, the plastic comes from the town and gets washed into the ocean. And then overnight, the ocean, you know, the waves in the ocean push the plastic back out onto the coast. So when you go out in the morning in the rainy times, there's just little teeny toxic plastic all over the freaking coast. So it's upsetting. You know, you're walking and you're seeing all of this little plastic. And this one day I was walking and there's never anybody out there because it's too early, but I walked towards this kind of young surfer guy.

He was out there. And he was just standing on the beach. And so I walked towards him and we kind of made eye contact and he looked at the plastic and the ocean and he said to me, it's a shame. And I felt like we were kind of having a moment, you know, because that's how I was feeling. Like, it's such a shame. And I said it really is. And then he looked out at the ocean and he said, yeah, I mean, I can't even surf. And I just felt, of course, I didn't think of anything.

I mean, I just kept walking. But as I was walking away, I felt so much sadder. because that was not the shame. The shame was not that we couldn't use the ocean anymore. The shame was that our carelessness and toxicity, because of that, the ocean had to work so hard every damn night to get our toxic shit out of her. That is the shame. the shame was not that we couldn't continue to use her while she's trying to save herself. Where you're going with this, Doyle?

Right. Y'all, I cannot, I, my healing partner right now is the ocean. I go out there every morning, no matter what the weather is. And together, side by side, we just, just get the toxic shit out of ourselves that carelessness and people have put into us. Just that is what we are doing. The ocean, she's getting it out through her waves, and I'm getting it out through this gentle rising of memories that I believe now we keep our brains so.

controlled and busy so that these things don't rise. It's so beautiful. I'm out there sometimes and I, you know, some mornings the ocean is like angry and just scary and nobody can go near her, but she's not apologizing for any of it. This is just the way it is today. And sometimes she's just so gentle and rolling and there's no judgment attached to any of it. It's just the way the ocean is today. And God bless the surfers, but everyone's not all be watching. And she'll just like spit one off her into a wave. And I literally find myself like winking at the ocean. Okay. I wish there was a crystal ball to tell the future sometimes. And I'm sure anyone who runs or wants to start a business would totally agree. Fortunately, there is a lot of tools out there that can

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Just bless us all. Like, it's a self-protection mechanism. It's like a sinking ship or we're climbing to the very top of it and living there. We're like, it'll be the last to go down. Listen, you picture that scene in Titanic. right? Yes. All the people are holding on for dear life up in the top.

They know what's beneath, right? I think that that's really fascinating. I'm glad that you pointed that out because that's what I was thinking about the fact that for the whole of your life you've armored yourself with rules and regulations in order not to maybe allow some of this stuff that happened in your childhood or along the way to surface, you know? Yeah, there's a lot from childhood that's come up, but it's not all child. It's my whole, it's our lives, you know, living in a woman's body on this planet,

living in anybody on this planet, what happens to us and what we watch happen to other people is traumatic, period. What I want to say to people who have trauma for living in these bodies on this planet, I have felt so gaslit my entire life about how we're all supposed to act like what happens to us down here as normal. And what I just want to say is to anyone who has struggled or continues to struggle with, living in a body on this planet. Because that's what eating disorders are about. They're not about, you know, do my thighs look fat and this?

That's not what it is. It's the terror of living in a body and feeling unsafe living in a body on this planet, which is real. I just want to say, you are not crazy. We never stood a fucking chance. Okay? What I am reading and learning about how all of these disorders happen, there's three factors on our planet that contribute to them. Their home media peers.

We grew up in homes where for many, many real reasons, our parents were not exposed to the healing that we are exposed to now or for eating stuff. We were born to the generation of like spa lady and dexatrim and slim fast. And they didn't have the consciousness we have now. That was poured into us, into our homes. The media, upon the time we were born, every single image that was shown to us was to believe that our worthiness was based in our appearance and that our appearance was only worthy if it was small. We were exposed to constant, constant images and reality that said that living in a woman's

body is not safe. it will be assaulted, it will be raped, and then once we speak up, it will not be believed. We were exposed to all kinds of degrading messages and treatment in schools. When we wonder why we are like this, it's because this was the plan for us. Sometimes I think of a room full of women suffering from eating disorders, just getting smaller and smaller and smaller with no voice and body shrinking. And I think, why isn't anyone doing anything about this rampant issue? And I think because this is ideal. In a world like ours, a bunch of women wasting away to nothing and becoming completely

voiceless and small and irrelevant and not causing any problems was the plant. So, you know, to all of you suffering from this shit, like it's not our fault. It's a cultural sickness that we have become sick with. And so what I would say is we didn't do this to ourselves. I didn't do this to myself. But I sure is how I'm going to undo it. Because I only have one life. You only have one life and we are just not going to let them have it. I have a question for some of the people who might not understand the macro, the plan. Like, whose plan? I guess you could look at it through any lens, like a political lens, a capitalism lens.

I mean, I've stopped using basically the internet because I feel like I'm working so hard in therapy and in my reading and in my all of it to stop objective. myself to change my thinking about what a body is for. And then if I go on the internet, it's like, all it is is images of that. It feels like going for a long hike in the wilderness and then smoking a pack of cigarettes. Like if I work this hard on therapy and then I go on the internet, it's like all of these images of a certain kind of body, we don't know what that does to us. Like, it's real. It feels like you're like a character in somebody else's simulation. Yeah. And that's to sell things. Like women who feel like.

like shit about ourselves, we buy more. And when I look at the world, I have thought about this a lot lately, when I look at the world, it doesn't look like that. When I walk around, when I go to my kid stuff, when I go to, bodies look all different. It's not the world that looks like that, that does that to us. It's not the actual people in our community. It's not our actual life. It's the media, which media means medium. There's a medium between us and our world that is telling us what to think and telling us what to do and that media's main goal is to sell things. And you do not sell things by telling people that they're all right how they are. You have to tell them that they're not all right the way they are.

To go back to Abby's point about the plan, from a historic perspective, what you're saying, about a broom full of women who are sick is the ideal. That was when the Industrial Revolution happened and we stopped having families work as a unit so that kids and partnerships were necessary to keep a family afloat and and it shifted from that where everyone's contribution was necessary for the survival of the family to a situation in which there was one earner of the family and when that happened in the upper white class in which there could be one earner it became the ultimate status symbol for that earner who was a man, for their wife to be so, it's almost unbelievable, but it's truthful, for the wife to appear to be so sick that she couldn't work.

Wow. Okay, that was the model. Because if my spouse appears to be the kind of body that is so frail that she cannot work, that reinforces my status as being able to hold down this entire family. Holy fucking shit. It's true. But that phenomenon was about the inverse of power. If you're just walking around looking like your full-bodied, healthy, can take care of yourself,

that reflects negative on me because then how is everyone going to know that I am the one who's providing for this whole family? Wow. The stronger you appear, the less strong I appear. And the weaker you look, the stronger I appear. And that still holds true. Like if you extrapolate out of that, I mean, women who earn more than their husbands, are multiple levels more likely to be cheated on.

Women who are successful, the husbands report multiple levels above dissatisfaction and discomfort in the relationship. It is when you think about it six generations later, that same, how is anyone going to know my worth if you're out there proving yours? Yeah. This time of year, I am always looking for my sweaters.

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explain to the pod squad carefully is that as part of my recovery, I've mentioned this before, but I have like a scale in my room and I weigh myself every once in a while and then the, the information goes to my therapist, not me. So I can't see any numbers on it. But as a, um, as a, like a security blanket or stepping stone in the recovery, what often happens and what happened in my case is that my therapist and I created like a window of weight gain that if I were inside of that window, and it was pretty substantial. For me, it was a pretty substantial window. Everyone's window is different. But it was a way of saying, you don't need to worry about it. I'll let you know if you're out of this window. But people who are recovering from eating

issues aren't great at self-analysis in terms of we don't understand. We don't know what's happening to our bodies. So it's a way of us doing the work without worrying that we're like off the charts of our own chart. So what happened was that this day, my therapist in a beautiful, wonderful way just said, so I have to let you know because we have this deal. You are out of your window. The amount of weight you've gained is out of the window that we made. together. Meaning, just so everyone knows, meaning that this was the window that you decided to, in order to curb your, this is totally out of control and none of this will be predictable. And how do I know I'm not going to wake up tomorrow and everything's going to just be

wildly out of control? There was a certain number of pounds after which you gained more of, she would agree to tell you. So the window isn't like, this is your optimal health. No. The window is just that comfort zone where it's like, okay, if you're going to be able to, If you gain more than X, I promise I'll tell you. So you will know what's happening. And you don't ask me all the time and you don't obsess about all the things. So she tells me that. And I'm sitting on my bed with the computer up and she's looking at me.

And I, it feels like the way to describe it is, you know, sometimes in a movie where the character's sitting there and then something has. happens like whoosh and then the whole background is different and they're like taken to another place and it's like all different. That's how it felt. The second she said that, it felt like everything is different. Scene change. My entire being, the best way to describe what happened in my body was I'm in trouble. I am in trouble. Like that feeling that maybe you haven't had since you're an adult listening to this podcast, but like, you know, the feeling you had when you were like in a teenager or something and you got busted. Like the jig was up. Like you got busted and you were like, oh, shit, I'm in so much trouble. The feeling that I had from the top of my head to my bottom of my

feet was I am in so much trouble. So I don't even know, like I'm not trying to analyze. all of this to death. I'm doing all of this in real time. But when I came upstairs to talk to all of you, I don't even remember the rest of therapy session. I'm sure I said some words to try to act like I was fine with this or whatever. I don't know, the opposite of what you're supposed to do in therapy. By the time I made it upstairs to all of you, we did sit and talk for a while. Do you all remember anything about what do you remember, sister? I remember being scared. First of all, feeling just incredible empathy and pain with you because of the just kind of felt like a oddly like a verdict had been read or something and that we were dealing with it. And I, I remember being

afraid that since this is kind of where the rubber meets the road, that it would be like, well, I've gone too far. I trusted this process. And I told you all this would happen and this is happening. And now I am going to pretend like I'm going to keep doing this. But I'm going to secretly have another agenda where I get this shit under control. Right. Like that was my fear.

Me too. You were going to start managing it. It did feel like a verdict. I wasn't scared of that. I knew that you are so open and you've been so outwardly communicative. The fact that you told us made me know that you weren't going to go down that road. That's true. That's a big step.

Because had you been less healthy, you would have just been like, it's fine. Everything's fine. She wouldn't have said anything. Yeah, she would have just kept it to herself. I think what I remember most was just seeing that little girl. inside you, scared. You were like glassy-eyed. You were almost on the verge of tears, and that very rarely happens. But it was kind of like that, almost like you had that feeling in your throat where you're just about to cry, and it stayed there for about an hour. Yeah. It was really,

I think, such a beautiful moment because you sat on the couch and sister and I literally got on our knees in front of the couch. And Alex sat right next to you. And we were just flanking you. Like we were just completely surrounding you with so much love. And you just were like, confused. You kept saying, I just feel very confused for a lot of reasons. And I thought that you were super honest and you said so many things that felt true to you. And we all just listen as much as we can and I just that little girl needed needed to be scared and around other people who weren't. Wow, that's good. It did feel that way.

Thank you. And to everyone who is wondering why this was such a big deal, it feels like when you're doing this kind of work, mostly what you're doing. is you're letting go of or challenging some ideas you learned as a young person, some rules that your family and your culture promised you you needed to follow in order to stay safe. Okay? And you believed it. And it was kind of true in some ways. It's true. People with eating disorders, it's less about a obsession with appearance and more about obedience. the women who are complying with the rules about denying our appetites and self-denial.

And it's so interesting because it's obedience to power, but then it creates its own kind of power in white womanhood. Thinness is a signal of status of, we've talked about this before, of control, which translates to power. And just privilege. Privilege. Right. You know, there's a certain amount of privilege in that. Right. And it's also control.

It might be shitty, but you know if A, then B. If I am this then, then I know that these things will happen to me in the world and these things will not happen to me. And if you decide to not be, then it's like if X, then I don't know what. I don't know what's going to happen. And eating disorders are about. control and predictability and surviving, as you say, in a body in this world that is completely out of control. And so if you are voluntarily acquiescing the modicum of control you have, that is a very brave thing to do. Yeah. And it feels like, you know, one of the things that I

kept saying to you is it feels like the roosters have come home to roost. I don't even know what the fuck that means, but I kept saying it. And what I did. And what I did. meant was, fine. It's all well and good that you're going to go into therapy and challenge the rules or stop following the rules that your family and culture laid out for you. Mine would be you must control your appetite. In order to stay safe and powerful on this earth, your body needs to look a certain way. And in order for your body to look that certain way, you need to deny your appetite. For your child, as the school year continues, patterns start to emerge.

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And we can do hard things listeners can get an exclusive 20% off I-XL membership when they sign up today at www. IXL.com slash we can. Visit Ixel.com slash we can to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. I want to know if you remember what you said your biggest fear was when you came up after hearing this from your therapist. No, what did I say? You said I'm the chubby little girl that I was. Yeah, I said I'm the chubby little girl. Although I did, that's what I felt. I felt like I am in this moment roomed into, I am that chubby little girl again and I'm in trouble. And I feel like one of the things that was important to hear from the three of us talking to you. Because a lot of this has to do with trust, like trusting yourself and that your body will be what it is and that the fear of that little girl doesn't have to subsist now in your adult life.

Yeah. Well, the little girl was right to believe that this is what would keep her safe. That is what she was taught. And so she was correct. Yeah. That it's just that now that little girl doesn't live in that particular world. She lives in this world where we're doing something different. Yeah.

Except that that little girl also lives in this world where it's also still true. It's complicated. For anybody who is doing this very difficult work, who is challenging, an old idea that was taught to them, a rule that was taught to them by their families and their culture, and it has stopped working for them and wants freedom. So they are starting to try to disregard that rule and live a different way. So for me, it was a very like, I don't know that this self-denial, staying small rule, is helping me anymore.

So what if I try something different? What if I just actually eat what I want to eat? And what if I, every time I want to restrict, I don't allow myself to restrict. What if I indulge my appetite? That's great. Except for then there's this moment where the roosters come home to roost, where the consequence of the breaking of the rule happens. So if like your rule is, we talked about this, you can rest when you're dead.

Like if your parents taught you that, hustle, hustle, hustle, you can rest when you're dead. You decide to try something different. You indulge rest. You indulge self-care. You indulge all of these things. And then somebody comes to you and says, that's great, but you didn't get the promotion. Yeah, exactly. It's like people are like, you're so stressed.

You work too hard. You shouldn't stay up all night. And you're like, you're right. My rest and my mental health is worth it. And then you try something different. Yes. You trust them. And you don't study like you did before.

and you get a B minus. Exactly. And you're like, so what, so wait, now are you wrong that I should have? Were you wrong about what you said and what I believed? Because now I need to go back and study the way I used to. Exactly. Or is it that it is true that you deserve to rest and you shouldn't sacrifice your mental health.

And what that world looks like is you get B minus. Yes, because what our parents taught us, what culture taught us is culture. They weren't lying. What they taught us was if you, as a white woman, want to have any safety and power, fake safety, fake power in this, this is what you have to be. They were right. Okay? If they taught you do not rest. In order to get ahead in this culture, you have to grind.

They were right. It's just that culture is shit. We have to decide which prize we want more. So in that moment, I realized, oh, changing the rules, there is a consequence. There is a prize that we give up. Am I willing to give up the price? Yeah. Also, I have to give up the rules and I have to give up the price.

And so for me, that moment was my therapist saying, you're the boss. I'm not the boss. If we want to rethink things, because you truly feel that this is out of control, we can work with this. You know, we can change things. We can slow it down. We can whatever. And it was me saying, no, no, I am not going back. I cannot unknow what I know now.

I will not deny myself anymore. So this is the person who says, no, I will rest. And then gets passed up for the promotion and then doubles down and says, that's fine. I will give up the culture's prize because I don't believe in it anymore. And start valuing the prize that you're creating. Exactly. Yep. The prize of being fully human.

Yes. And living by my own values instead of the culture's values because I'm finally giving them up. So that's it. I mean, I think that might be enough for one episode. That's it then? That's all. That's what's been happening over here. How long did it take you to decide that you were like, okay, no, the prize that I am experiencing

internally is worth foregoing the prize of staying in that window. Was that an immediate knowing or did it take you a while to get there? It was an immediate knowing. There was no seconds in me that thought, oh, well, now I'm going to just go back. No, but you were grieving. Exactly. There was a grief. I was grieving. I was grieving the release of the prize of being this. Culture's price. Yeah. And does the grief process for that is that are you grieving an identity? Are you grieving the privileges? Are you grieving the lack of control and not knowing what's coming? I don't know. What is it? Yeah. I don't know the answer. All I know is I was grieving feeling like what I said to you guys, like the chubby little girl who's a trouble.

Maybe in my next era next month, I will figure out exactly what. But also so much of this is, it probably sounds funny after hearing all this, but I really am trying to just allow myself to feel it and not try to intellectualize everything because I know how to intellectualize this shit. Like, if intellectualizing was going to work for you, it would already have worked for you. So I'm just trying to feel all of it this time because I'm trying to do it differently this time and this is what's happening and this is what I'm sharing and I hope that it made sense to anyone. Do you think that's because the feeling is the source of the bigger prize for you?

Like you can't point to what the prize is that outweighed the privilege prize, but it has something to do with the feeling of it. It's just inside of you as a feeling, right? So it would make sense that you'd have to return to the feeling again and again because that's where the prize is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think the prize is like living authentically in any way, actually living in response to what I feel and want and know and hunger for and urine for. And the entire prize is not replacing this with another control mechanism. the entire prize is figuring out how to live from the inside out as opposed to the outside of because there's no prize on the outside that is big enough to sacrifice my one wild and precious

life for. I've had a front row seat to a lot of this. And one thing that I think is miraculous. having lived with you for a long while now, seven years, is that I'm like seeing this birth happen. And some days it comes in blips, like in a moment, I can see this embodiment happening, that you are becoming completely integrated.

And then it goes away or you get in your head or whatever it is. but there has been such a settling of your spirit, of the energy of you that, I don't know, every once in a while when I look at you, it's like you're finally taking a breath and maybe you only get one in a day or maybe you're getting 10, I don't know. It's just I see you doing this hard work and I see some of the fear come up and it's like this little child in you is like screaming, thank you. And I see that. And I just want you to know, and all those listening who might be dealing with something similar or something adjacent, those moments in the day are the purpose, are the worth it.

Well, it makes me think of, when you say it that way, it makes me think of, oh, I'm that chubby little girl again. That's what that is what I am again. Like that's what I'm walking on the exile. I call it the exile walks. The things the parts of myself have exiled. That is who I am on those walks. I am like allowing her to speak, to remember, to tell us what she needed. And the reason that I can do that now is because there is a responsible adult in the room and it is me. Yes. Hey yo! It's me. I've got us. Go ahead. Come up. Say the things. Remember the things. I have got us here. We're going to be okay. Gives me the chills. So when I say I'm afraid I'm that chubby girl again, I'm in trouble, that is correct. Like I think I might actually be trying to get back to that. Yeah. All right.

I love you. We're going now. I'm done. I'm fucking dead. Thank you, G. Bye. We can do hard things. See you next time. Bye. If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us. If you'd be willing to take 30 seconds to do each or all of these three things. First, can you please follow or subscribe to We Can Do Hard Things? Following the pod helps you because you'll never miss an episode and it helps us because you'll never miss an episode.

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I give you Tishmilton and Brandy Carlisle. Back through fire, I came out the other side. I chase desire, I made sure I got what's mine. And I continue to believe that because I'm a... We're adventurers in a final destiny They stopped asking directions To places they've made We'll finally find

Can do a heart A brand new star I'm when sometimes things fall I continue to free book sometimes but I'm fine those were adventurers and destination they stopped asking directions to places they're too hard to play never been