We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - 239. Why Are We Never Satisfied? with adrienne maree brown

Episode Date: September 7, 2023

Are you capable of being satisfied? Today, adrienne maree brown helps us uncover:  How to find beauty and connection in the everyday; How to stop wasting your time on things that don’t feel good; Why the greatest risk of life is also where its preciousness comes from;  How, through the discipline of pleasure, we can ALL be satisfied.  About adrienne: adrienne maree brown is a pleasure activist, writer, and radical imaginist who grows healing ideas in public through writing, music, and podcasts. adrienne has nurtured Emergent Strategy, Pleasure Activism, Radical Imagination and Transformative Justice as ideas, frameworks, networks and practices for transformation. adrienne’s work is informed by 25 years of social and environmental justice facilitation primarily supporting Black liberation. adrienne is the author/editor of several published texts including Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds; Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good; Grievers; and Maroons. After a multinational childhood, adrienne lived in New York, Oakland, and Detroit before landing in her current home of Durham, NC. TW: @adriennemaree IG: @adriennemareebrown To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. Today we are going to finally figure out how the hell to be satisfied in our lives. I don't make that promise lately. I think we have the one person on this planet who might be smart enough to help us with this. I really, really think they are. The person who is on our podcast today finally, sister has been counting down the days till now, is Adrian Marie Brown, who grows healing ideas in public through writing, music, and podcasts. Adrian has nurtured emergent strategy, pleasure, activism, radical imagination, and transformative justice. All the most important things in the world, no pressure, Adrian. No pressure.

Adrian's work is informed by 25 years of social and environmental justice, facilitation, primarily supporting black liberation. Adrian is the author and editor justice, facilitation, primarily supporting black liberation. Adrian is the author and editor of emergent strategy, shaping change, changing worlds, pleasure activism, the politics of feeling good, grievous and maroons, and Adrian lives in Durham, North Carolina.

Thank you for being here, Adrian. Thanks for having me, y'all. Oh, I love being here with y'all. Since this came in, I've been walking around like, at what point do I sing the theme song to y'all? Can I let you know? Immediately. I love you. I love you. I love you. You're a really good voice. Your voice is so good. I think maybe you should do it now. I love you. I think maybe you should do it now. I love you. I think maybe you should do it now. I think maybe you should do it now. I think maybe you should do it now. I think maybe you should do it now. I think maybe you should do it now. I think maybe you should do it now. I think maybe you should do it now. I think maybe you should do it now. I think maybe you should do it now. I think maybe you should do it now. I think maybe you should do it now. I think maybe you should do it now. I think maybe you should do it now. I think maybe you should do it now. I think maybe you should do it now. I think maybe you should do it now. I think maybe you should do it now. I think maybe you should do it now. I think maybe you should do it now. I think maybe you should do it now. I think maybe you should do it now. I think maybe you should do it now. I think maybe you should do it now. I think maybe you should do it now. I think maybe you should do it now. I think maybe you should do it now. I think maybe you should do it now. I think maybe you should do'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not.

I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not.

I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not.

I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. It's an excellent song. It's very rare that you can have a song that you're going to play every single podcast and every time you're going to want to hear it, it's excellent songwriting. Oh my God. And that's your thing, is songwriting. She's great. She's a little love bug who did not know what to do with her feelings for a very long time.

And it was not an easy road agent. I'm just going to tell you. Thank you, her. And then she found something for her. This is your's 16, I'm 44 and I'm still like, what do I do with my family? Same, same. I'm just like, so you're 16, you already know that like, you stopped following, asking directions from people

you've never, where you've never been. I didn't figure that out for a really long time. I'm really impressed. And just to have something to go to, when you have big feelings, she went from no outlet to this journal thing and then she went from the journal to the guitar and then the guitar to the voice and now we hear her in her room just, you know, everything happens.

It's just saying the world into being, you know, I really feel like a lot of what singers and songwriters, I've been playing with this this year. I've finally gotten to do music and musical ritual and my sister and I, she's also making music. We sat up last night exchanging songs and just being like, you know, if the world is made up all these vibrations and right now so many vibrations are harmful and scary and terrifying,

and they were able to process, like take it into our bodies and process it through into something beautiful, hopeful, or connective tissue, that feels like a very sacred act. Like I think it's really important. And then the younger you find that power, that superpower, like, oh, this doesn't have to crush me. I can actually take it and compost it

and make it into something beautiful. That's what the world, I think that's what we're supposed to be doing. One of the main what we're supposed to be doing. One of the main things we're supposed to be doing is letting it move through us and then changing the world through us. I'm taking my nibblings to see Beyonce tonight. And I'm like, so geeked out. We're so geeked out that they're both musician artist people.

And at the young ages of 10 and 13, they're like, I'm a songwriter. I'm an actress. I know what I'm supposed to do. And I'm like, great, I'm an actress, I know what I'm supposed to do. And I'm like, great, let's go see the best. Let's go witness what it's like, when a witch is fully empowered and just casting spells over the whole universe through vibrations and sound and music.

And you know, it's the time, it's a crappy time. We might as well make things beautiful. And we're dead. So thank you for your time. We could do hard thing. It's a crappy time. We might as well make things beautiful. It really is like you gotta have some form of alchemy, like something to take the shit and spin it into something that it's power. Well, because when you're in the hard time, you know, I've been reflecting on this a lot because I'm like, oh, fascism, you know, it's not a small hard time. It's a too late hard time and global hard time.

But then I also'm like, well, fascism has never won. You know, it cycles around. It comes, it tries to win and it is terrifying and it costs us so much every time it comes through. But it never wins. We are all the survivors of fascism always. And then when you look at like, well, how did we do it each time?

We told jokes, we hugged each other, we hit each other's secrets, we saw each other as valuable. Like it's always been, it's like small things, but song is always a part of it. People sang in the camps, people sang on the fields,

people always sing. We sing our way through. This is one of the reasons I'm so obsessed with everything that you do is because it is both hope and faith and aspirational, but it is very, very grounded in discipline. Yeah. It is a discipline to understand that everything that has happened has happened before. Yeah. That this is not shocking. And it is shocking, lowercase, and not capital case shocking. And that we need to ground ourselves in really what is the opposite of a self-indulgent shock, but it's saying, this is the way of the world. And we take our place in the way of the world and we find our huge moments of victory over that,

connecting with each other and so on. And in game, I was just listening to happy, you're remembering of the World Cup. And I'm just like, oh, that feeling and like being in a stadium with everyone having that feeling, that's a liveness, you know, that satisfaction. There's a moment there was like, yes,

this is everything. I've been getting into basketball and I've been like, this is it. I've been really amazed. I'm like sports, sports are like really up to something. And I feel like for the longest time, I didn't get it. I was like, no, sports are a distraction from the movement and the revolution. And now I'm like, oh, no, there's something really revolutionary about what happens when people are fully in their bodies and

they come together and galvanize. And especially if you have progressive sports participants, right? Where you're like, Oh, I'm going to now use this. Are you excited? Are you turned completely out by my amazing this? Also justice. This is a very exciting moment, you know, for someone like me to be like, Oh, open just what makes people feel alive and want to come together. And then how does that become a portal to the world we want to be like? And what is that divine stirring thing that I don't cry? Okay, I always say I cried and I'm always lying. I never cried.

I just- It's your like a tear came to my eye. Exactly. And it stops. I consider it a tear. Intellectually. Well, it's a good thing to press and it freezes the thing. It dries you out. Yeah.

But I have a feeling inside me that I assume is what other people feel before they cry. So what I mean, except sports, theater, and concerts. Yes. And then all of a sudden it opens you up and you can do it. It might be a scale thing for you, Glenn. And you know, like for me, there's a scale thing that happens where because I've had a lot of intense experiences in my life and I need intense, I need extreme experiences in my life when I met something that's really massive. Like I just did this ritual and it was like 600 people singing at the top of their lungs and

feeling belief and I was like now I can feel now I can feel it or I just want to see stevey nix and concert. It was like watching this witch and watching the scale. I was like, this whole room just believes in a freaking landslide right now. Like everything can happen, but the scale does something for me. Me too. I think in relationship to the intensity post addiction. Post addiction. Post addiction.

It's like, what can touch that for me? It's like the place that ecstasy used to take me to, where I'm like, now everything is connected. And I'm like, okay, everything is connected. I can feel everyone feeling togetherness right now. And anything that's making them feel that I'm curious about. And then I'm like, how do we make people feel that?

It not cause harm. That's like the thing I'm just like, okay, because people feel that after a game and they're like, now let me go tear up this city. Let me go destroy everything. Or you know, I used to live in Detroit near the downtown area. It was like after the game. So it's just like, oh, like, why did you feel so excited? You had to throw up everywhere. Like, what was that about? You know, or what the last president did is like taking that feeling and whipping it into like, let's go destroy everyone and get to go hate people.

So that feeling is almost neutral. It's a live-ness, a tool. Neutral and then we have to figure out like, how do we make that feeling, something that moves us from life moving towards life? And it's like there's room for this feeling and everyone could actually be connected into it. You can use it for good.

Because church doesn't, you know, you've seen that thing on Twitter where it's like, I was, I thought that that feeling I got with my hands in the air and the evangelical church was God, but then I so founded out of you two concerts, like, yes, that's what happened to me. Yeah. Yeah. I thought, oh, this is Jesus, which bless, maybe it is, but it's also Brandy Carlyle. Like,

Brandy Carlyle, do it. I think that what you're speaking to right now is like really interesting, because when you're collectively in a stadium, I've been in a few. I've been the subject of why people were there. And when there's this collective moment of awe, of like, we've never seen this moment before.

And we're all like the expectation and the hope and the belief that this thing can come true, this big moment, the crescendo, after every world championship I've ever played in, where there was multitudes of these throughout the month or however long the tournament was. I would go into a mild depression. Absolutely.

Absolutely. And so I think of it as the unplugging. Right. So it's like I was plugged in, you know, so completely. And I was, you know, like, oh, I just felt all of this, like the love and the aliveness and the hope of all these people and their ancestors and their future, like, I could feel that time was an illusion and I could feel that separateness is a game.

And I could feel all of that. And now I have to like not unfeel it, but I have to like kind of unplug so I can function. Right. So like, okay, now I've got to be back in the world that doesn't know that all the time. And it's not gonna respond well. If I'm walking around all the time, I'm like, oh my goodness. Yes.

You guys, you know? So I'm like, okay, how do I write size that for daily life? And here's something I've been playing with, is can I access, can I touch into it when I'm doing something mundane? So can I touch into like, I'm that connected right now doing the dishes? And I'm that connected if I'm taking care of one of the kids in my life. You know, one of my babies who's almost two just visited and one of my goddess friends, kids. And we're playing, we're making art together, we're like just drawing on this box.

And I was like, how connected can we be drawing on this box right now? Like how much can we just be one being? Because you know, he's down. He's like, I don't even know about separation yet. I haven't reached that point. I'm like, I'm here, she's mine. She's a part of me and you're now a part of me.

And we just went into it. And I was like, I'm so present. I'm being so present right now, which is what those big feelings call in. And I also feel that I'm plugging when he leaves. So I'm like, okay, now there's no little kid who's completely available. But if I can learn to just ride that and just be like, all of it is true. I'm just, I'm alive now with missing that. I'm missing the connection. I'm missing being 600 people, plugged into one emotion in a moment.

I don't know if I could sustain feeling it all the time either though, like, I don't know if you could stay in that, you know, winning moment and live. You know, but what you just said, I mean, it just like completely floors me thinking about the, the games, the big games that I played, where literally millions and millions and millions of people are on the world are watching.

Yes. That is like, to want to participate in that moment, you know in your mind about what it is, but in your soul, it really is about feeling less alone and being and trying to be a part of this energy that all of these human beings consciousnesses are coming together and exploding into this oneness. Yeah well and you know Abby I'm interested in this because I'm like not

everyone can handle it either. So I'm really curious about what the role is like amongst humans. I think about this you know I'm like watching a Steph Curry I'm watching someone like you I'm watching someone become a body that all these people are pouring their hope into. And if you miss all this disappointment's gonna happen, and if you get it, everyone's gonna be like, we did that. In a way, we all poured into you doing that.

And your body was a vessel for this thing that happened. I'm like, not everyone is called to be in that work, but I do think there's a way that we can be like, but everyone can tap into that happened. I'm like not everyone is called to be in that work, but I do think there's a way that we can be like, but everyone can tap into that connection. And then how do we take care of those people who do become the body of the whole for a moment? Because I think celebrity culture has it all wrong, right? I think it's like, Oh, putting that person on a pedestal and taking them away from humans is often the next thing that happens is being like, you're not like us.

You're so different, you're over there. Instead of being like, you're so of us. Thank you for what you did with us. Thanks for being a part of this and like, let's take care of you. Now you get to take three years and just sleep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You get with the hot water bottle

because you did the thing where you let us pour through you. And then someone else can step up and be poured through whatever, you know, in my vision of the future, there is a lot of that sharing that work, right? Being like, oh, we cultivate excellence and we share the work of holding it and we take care of those who embody it. And then everyone's like, oh,

and I play a role in that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh. ["The Little League Game"] Do you ever think of it as a distilled aliveness? Because I have the same feeling when I watch my kids play in a little league game as when I watch the World Cup.

Literally the exact same thing. She does, she does. And for me, it is less about like, oh my gosh, so much is riding on you because this is this moment of it's distilled humanity and the lifeness. It's like I see you trying so hard and we don't know what is possible and we don't know if we're gonna lose or we're gonna win but I know you're relying on her. You're gonna throw that ball and you're

gonna hope she catches it and you're gonna gonna, and to me, it's just like, this is what we're all doing when we watch this. This is it. Well, I'm a little kid going to school, right? It's like in some way doing the work that I've been doing lately, this like theatrical ritual stuff has been really interesting because people have been like, you know, theater it's just a place where someone goes

and feels on behalf of everyone else. That's what the original purpose was. It was always rituals. It was always like, this person's gonna get up and they're gonna grieve for us and they're gonna tell us a love story so we can all touch into it. I think sports is theater.

You know, when you talk about, you know, when you watch the one and they're like, they're injured and you're like, let's see what happens, right? Yeah. They injured or not, you know, they're giving a great show of what it would be like to be so injured right now or what it would be like to win or what it would be like to be so injured right now, or what

it would be like to win or what it'd be like to be like, I'm a fucking badass right now. Part of what got me into basketball was watching the women's college games go down and watching. I was just like, I could watch these girls do anything forever and just be like up in each other's face, like deal with it. And I was like, this is, it's erotic, it's powerful. I feel alive. But it's all theater. Something's playing out that all of us can somehow tap into. And I think if we see it that way, then it's like, I mean, I can't imagine when it's like to have someone who came out of your body also, then becoming a body that all that is pouring into. I feel like that must be a whole

another level. But for me, I'm just very interested in the healing capacity of that, which is theatrical. Or even Glenn, and I think this is so much of the power of what you do, is like, you're like, I will feel it, and I will testify, and then other people are able to be like, oh, I know what addiction is like, I'm going through eating disorder recovery too right now. And I'm like, I never thought that we would talk about that. You know, that anyone would talk about that. It's so private, but I'm like, actually, not performing, but testifying, here's what it is, it's fucking hard. Here's what's happening inside of it. Then everyone else can be like, oh, relax, you belong.

You belong. You're doing, you're going through this thing and someone else is going through it and you can see them going through it. And it makes you understand, you're going through this thing and someone else is going through it and you can see them going through it and it makes you understand. You're not outside of humanity, you're not outside of belonging to the species. In fact, the things that make you feel sometimes worthless, right? Because we live inside of capitalism. All these things we think of as flaws or things that we're struggling with are made to feel make us feel worthless. or things that we're struggling with are made to feel, make us feel worthless.

But it's like, actually, I'm never worthless. I'm in this experience with all these other people. And my experiences are worthwhile. So every time you share it, it's like you're literally helping people be like, oh, maybe I should get therapy or maybe I should talk to someone about this or maybe my partner could help me with this. And that is so valuable.

It's so valuable. But it's not that it's like a world cup win, right? It's like I'm winning at eating disorders or whatever, right? I'm just sort of like I'm testifying that this is another part of a live-ness. Uh-huh. Right. Yeah. And it's so, um, I just feel like addiction for me is the same as I'm fucking crying right now. I know, I'm like looking at you going, what is happening? I know. We're in the stadium, we're in the concert. It is like the feeling of the scale you were talking about is also for me about disappearing. But is it, is it disappearing or is it like dissolving? That's what I wanted out of drugs. Yeah. That is sort of what I wanted out of the eating disorder

with bulimia because it was a swallowing up of everything that everything just disappeared. It was just, yeah, it's the numbness, you know? Like I think of it as this numbness that I could mistake for aliveness for me, right? That I was like, I'm going and I'm going to get so high. And then I'll think I'm connected. But actually, it's like, I'm disconnected from the things that hurt me. And you can misplace that for connect. It's like, well, nothing's actively hurting me right now because I'm so high that nothing could.

So yay. And then I tried other mushrooms and I was like, oh, now I feel actually very connected. Maybe in a way that I can't quite handle, but yay, also. And then for me, it was binge eating. But I'm like, I, you know, fuck with anyone one. Oh, sorry, I keep cursing.

Oh my gosh. I'm not gonna curse, because the baby's listening. But baby's, there's curse words. So, yeah, I feel like this is a stage. We curse here. Yeah, but I think that for me, the eating was like, oh, I can numb the impact of the world. There's this numbness.

But I'm like, even when I'm trying to numb of the world. There's this numbness, but I'm like, even when I'm trying to numb, it's because I feel so connected. And if I can remember that, that I don't need to do the self-harming behavior in order to feel connected, maybe I can write a song instead. One of my practices right now is being like,

could I sing my way through this moment instead of having a pizza? And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't work. Or could I write something or the last thing I think of when I'm in the moment is could I reach out to someone? Like, even though that's usually the thing that I most need is like, now I feel like I'm gonna cry, but I'm like, I'm mostly like someone just hold me, you know, and can we just hold each other in the spirit of climate crisis and in the spirit of racism and in the spirit of all that

is happening. Can we just hold each other with the fact that that's the world we've chosen to create with the miraculous time we have. And it feels like there's not enough time to make another one. Sometimes I feel that and I'm like, someone hold me. And instead, you know, I don't reach out, I don't say anything. I just do a, do this coping mechanism that from very young has protected me. It has kept me alive. When I wanted to die, I didn't die.

You know, pizza. I'm also very grateful to pizza. You know, it's gotten me here, right? But now that I'm like, here, I'm like, okay, I'm 44 about to turn 45 and I want to feel connected and I want to feel alive and I want to feel satisfied in my life with this being the short time that I'm going to have and this is the impact I will have. I want to be in it, I want to feel it and no drug quite gets me to that place, right? So far. Still looking. I'm still like, I don't know. You know, also just trying to deal with shame, you know, just being like, oh, I'm not ashamed of however I got to hear. Yeah, I'm not ashamed of how are my people. You know, and I think of the lineage that's behind me. We've all made compromises to get to hear.

And but maybe I get to have the most time to reflect on it of anyone that's ever existed in my ancestor. I'm like, I have time to sit and think about what I'm living and how I'm surviving and what I want to do with my life. And I want to heal, turns out. How do you think about being satisfied? Talk to us about the shift that happened when you were speaking with

a teacher who asked you, are you satisfiable? Yes. I'm scared of that question. I'm scared of that question. I was in Semantics work, which I think you all have understanding of what Semantics is. It's the understanding of embodiment, really looking at what does it mean to be in a body. And we're in a class and my teacher turned and asked me that in front of everyone, are you satisfiable? And it was one of those like, stop me in my tracks questions because I thought of myself as a very already very pleasure oriented person. You know, I'm like, yeah, I get what I want, you know, badass, whatever. But that I was like, no, I'm definitely not satisfiable.

And there's nothing in my entire life that has cultivated satisfiability in me. I think it is like fundamentally an anticapitalist thing to be satisfiable. Right. So we live in a culture that is constantly like, you don't have enough, you are not enough. You are not pretty enough, you're not skinny enough,

you need better skin, you need better hair. Everything is wrong with you. You need a better car, you need a better house. You're just not there yet. And we export, this is our primary export from the US, to the rest of the world. It's like, this is our primary export from the US, you know, to the rest of the world is like, we've got the best cars or whatever, we've got the best everything. And so constantly, from a very young age, what we've all been seeped in, but

for me, I can speak to my life, I've been steeped in, I am not enough, I'm not doing enough and I don't have enough. And so then to inside of that, decide, wait a second, maybe, maybe the satisfiability thing is actually something I could access. I could be enough. Maybe I already am enough. Is that that there's no way that possible. So a lot of satisfiability is just even sitting and considering the question, could you be enough? Could you consider that you're already enough and that there's nothing to fix about you? Like, there might be places that want to grow, but that's different from like there's something

fundamentally wrong with you that you need to go purchase a way out of. And I feel like that for me, then I started living in my life and being like, well, when do I feel satisfied? When do I feel satisfied? And if I'm not feeling satisfied, why not? What is the texture of my dissatisfaction? Is it from inside me or is it from someone else's narrative of my life? And that, you know, it turns out when I start moving other people's voices out of my mind, and I start to notice in my own body, what that does feel good enough for me.

That does feel good enough for me. That does feel good enough. I think about this with orgasms. You know, when I was writing pleasure activism, I was like, it's so important to me to write a book about this that kind of allows people to feel good with what feels good to them,

rather than what someone else is saying. I'd be like, as a woman, I can have multiple orgasms. So I'm just gonna have as many as I can have because I can't freaking have so many instead of being like, what is the quality of this connection? And what is the quality of this touch and what is the quality of how I feel in my body?

And then what is the orgasm that comes out of that attention? And it might be one, which is shocking to me. But it might actually be sometimes I have one that I'm like, that is totally satisfying. Or a moment, you know, Audrey Lorde is the patron saint of pleasure activism. And she wrote about this in this essay, the uses of the erotic as power. And she talked about painting a fence or laying in bed with her lover or writing a poem as all these experiences that give her this erotic aliveness. And now I'll be like, oh, I'm sitting on my porch

watching the geese fly across the water. And I'm like, God, that satisfies me every time. Like just the rhythm of them and the sounds of them and the formation that they get into. And the beautiful divine design of it all, I'm like, this is very satisfying. So I think a trick to satisfaction is it's actually simpler than we think, but you have to sort of say,

what if I wasn't purchasing it? What if it wasn't something money could ever buy? Then what would satisfy me? And I think I was laying up last night writing about this. I actually think the clue to our future is in there somewhere that's like, because we have to redistribute everything. If our species is going to survive right now, we have to really let go of having too much.

All the people who have too much are not satisfied. So that clearly is not a winning strategy. So we have to let go of that. And we have to materially redistribute things because some people don't have enough to even get to think about what would satisfy them. Because they're constantly trying to just meet their basic material needs. But like, if I can recognize, oh, the simpler thing satisfy me, I don't have to keep hoarding and accumulating and aiming for millions and billions when,

you know, you can live a good life, right? It's the whole pizza. It's the whole pizza. It's binge eating. Yeah, it's absolutely that. It's like, actually, my body can be full. It can have just the right amount of food in it. I'm learning to feel this sensation, Glenn. I don't know if this is part of the work you're in, but for me, it's like, actually, I'm like learning at a sensational level to be like, can I be in touch with what's happening inside my body rather than,

like, for instance, what's someone across the table thinks about how much I'm eating. Okay. Okay. Can I just tune in and be like, I'm just in my stomach. How is it inside there? What you're saying is seven months in for me. Like, I'm like, oh, like what?

That's what you're listening to Adrian thinking that for me, that has taken me seven months. Yeah. To do that. No, I mean, that's what you're listening to Adrian thinking that for me that has taken me seven months. Yeah. To do that. No, I mean, that's what we're doing. I'm about the same where I started to be like, oh, I think this is not just a quirk. Same. I think it's an inside me.

I have to learn how to feel something. Yeah. And then as I'm sometimes I cry when I feel it, you know, sometimes I'll get really I'm just like That's enough Like the literal sensation of it and I'm just like this is mind blowing and and then I wonder In our world like what would it look like to care about that being a sensation that everyone got to experience And what would change if enough is what we focus on, kids experiencing in school,

having enough belonging and enough space to make art and enough food and enough adult attention, right? Instead of being like, there's something wrong with your parents, no, they're probably working. So how do we make sure you're getting enough attention in school or whatever? Yeah, but if like enough was the focal point of how we educated our kids, I think that we wouldn't have all the crap that we deal with today. And what makes us cry in that moment of the enoughness,

or I should say, when it makes me have that exact feeling you're talking about, we're one person. Yes, exactly. Adrian, what makes us is because the fear that we were unsatisfiable, like that's why I was a binge eater for so long, I didn't think I would tell my therapist, just now, no, I'm just not a normal person. Like I, God bless everyone else,

great with your little lives and your bodies that work and your souls that are not empty pits, a bucket with no bottom, but for me, my body doesn't, I don't know what it is enough. I will never be satisfied. And so that feeling of, oh my God, my body works, I am satisfied, is the same as sitting and watching the geese. It is.

You're like, it's so, it's a wide design. It's like, I was not left out of the divinity of the design of all things. I wasn't left out of it. We are species, you know, because I do think our species is like, on, you know, we're struggling. We're struggling. Not exactly.

We're not all the species in the world. We're definitely like at the bottom of whatever that list is. But I do think we were not left out of the divinity of the design of all things. And the design of all things is there is a balance. There's an order enough matters. And enough looks different. I'm like, oh, I'm not a bear preparing for hibernation.

So I don't need to eat like a bear preparing for hibernation. I'm a creature who is designed to eat a little bit every day, all year long, to sustain my system. And there's certain things that my body really likes, and there's certain things my body really doesn't like. And I'm just like everything. I'm like the bees like honey, and I like ice cream, and there's a way to be in relationship to that.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Don't you have respect, though, for like, I think like taking a step back and being like, it was subversive and beautiful that you became Benjyners. Oh, yeah. Because you looked at a world and you were like, I deserve something. Yes. I deserve to be satisfied.

Oh, yeah. It started as a subversive act. Like, I will get my pizza. I will have a million orgasms. I like this also because I can't speak for boys as much. My experience was very much being a young girl and being a young girl and deciding like, like I was told at a very formative moment,

no one wants to marry a fat girl. It was like right as I had started to put like a couple of pounds on, which now it's like embraced. It's like, have a thick, but that's great. We love it, right? But at the time, it was like how flat and thin and bony and like non-structural can you get? And that was not the body that the divine design had in mind for me, but I was told no one wants to marry a fat girl. So it was very like tied into my sense of what was going to give my life value if I couldn't be someone's wife,

right? The assumption of it. And so for me, there was a rebelliousness in it to be like, I'm eating everything. Yes. No one wants to marry fat girl. I don't care. I'm going to eat everything. But then because I was raised in diet culture, then I'm gonna try to diet. But then I'm also gonna rebel against that and eat everything. It should've been like this. When I'm gaining weight, it's almost always

this feeling of like, I don't care what anyone thinks is. Such a freedom in it. But then I'm like, oh, this is causing other situations in my body that are really painful or really hard or I'm trying to navigate. And I'm interested in the public conversations about this because I think this is an area that we have not figured out at all yet. It's kind of like, you know, you're fat, you're judged for that, you're dieting, you're judged for that. Oh, you're not fat enough anymore. Now you're judged for that. If you talk about health and what

your own desires are for health, you're judged for that. If you talk about health and what your own desires are for health, you're judged for that. I look at people and I'm just sort of like, no one's winning in this game if we're dealing with external positions on it. This is internal work. You really have to be like, how do I get good with myself? And I think that's the key coming back to this question about

satisfiability for life, for enoughness. It's always like, you only have your own one little miraculous life. That's it. And so you have to get really good with your choices. You have to get really good with yourself. And whatever arrangement you have to do around you of boundaries and who gets to be close and far

and how much you look at social media or don't make those adjustments so you can hear yourself. Because when you can hear yourself, you're much closer to actually being able to feel your good life. Yes. Yeah. And it's like mind blowing and almost unacceptable at first that the satisfiable, because we weren't wrong. The culture put a bunch of stuff in front of us and said, this is what's gonna make you satisfied. This is it. And then there was this other way.

Yeah, that what you're doing. And we did know, divine disaster. We didn't know how that stuff was made. So I'm like, oh, I didn't know that ships were like, specifically designed to make me like almost satisfied but need one more. Oh my God. I didn't know someone was nefariously thinking that. No. So our cars, the map, it's literally everything is just every piece of technology to fall apart. And I wouldn't even do one or plan obsolescence and everything we buy.

So it's like we're so fucking exhausted because they promise it's just right there, but you get there and then you're just like, oh, I'm so exhausted, but I gotta keep going because I'm just right about there. And then you don't wanna become like this paranoid person or this negative person. My early years of activism, I was rough on my family.

You know, I come back and be like, you guys are all participating in this matrix of hell. You know, it was very intense. That was really- You were on our Christmas episode where you were all anti-capitalists. Yeah. Exactly.

Oh, you're... I forgot I called in about that. Yes, exactly. So I love telling my family about themselves, right? And I came back, I was just like, I got a lot to tell you about your stuff. I mean, we've gone through many variations of what is a righteous person, and how is the righteous person live and eat and talk and think and do all this stuff. And there's some balancing out of all that you have to figure out in there,

but I don't want to be someone who's constantly lecturing at people about how to live either. So a big thing I've been tuning into is just like, what does it mean to just live it? And let my life be the communication about it. Yes. I am a writer, so I'm going to write about it. I am a singer, so I'm going to sing about it because that's how I live it. But not I'm like, I don't know more about this necessarily than anyone else does because I'm, I'm really focused on my own experience.

And then I'm listening for other people, like, I don't know what it's like to be the sports person who is right in front of the goal about to do the thing with millions of people watching. But I can listen to what Abby's saying and I can learn from that, right?? There's presipuses in my life that are that important for me, even if that's not the way it's going to play out. And so you're going to help me understand something about my own humanity. And I think if we have that sense of like, oh, I'm responsible for living mine. God didn't give me extra special soccer skills.

God gave me like a certain kind of voice and a certain way of of voice and a certain way of hearing things and a certain poetic license and sisters to belong to, you know, and things like that. So I always am asking people that to, I'm like, what are your gifts? What were you given? You know, do you know yet? Right? No one else can tell you. And other people might like see it in you. But some people are like, I have 20 gifts. I'm not interested in most of them.

Some people have like one really big one. It's even that part is really interesting to me. But everyone, I have not met someone yet who didn't have anything. I've only met people who were not invited to develop it, invited to live into themselves. And that's devastating. When you talk to other people who are on the journey of becoming satisfied,

of finally realizing, oh, I see how it works is, you can't ever get enough of what you never really needed. So, that's the thing that I was just on the wrong ladder over there. And so now I'm going to test the possibility that in our divine design, there was satisfiability planted inside of us. Because it would be pretty cruel to not have that, to make a person who was constantly

hungry and could never be satiated. So if we have that, do you find that the people who find it that they're often the simplest things? Because that's what's almost so mind blowing to me, I'm like, is it okay? Is it okay? That actually, it's just sitting on my deck with a book. Yeah, I do find that absolutely to be the case. One of the principles of emergent strategy is small is all and everything largest made up of the small, everything in our bodies. We're not individual beaks.

We're beings made up of tons of cells and bacteria and longings and dreams and memories. And I mean, it's all in here. It's all these small parts in motion. And even when I think, oh, my depression is actually this small set of organizers inside my system up to something. And there's other small things up to something inside of me. But the simplicity of it, I think, is the trick that we have not figured out in this time how to be simple and to be interconnected. We know more now than we've

ever known at any point in human history about what's happening with other people. And so it's like, oh, can I remember to stay with the simplicity of my own life inside of that? And the people I know who feel the happiest and most satisfied are the people who are able to really land in the small things that give them pleasure in their lives, the routines, that give them stability in their own lives. Even the things I'm like, I don't really enjoy, you know, like I wake up in the morning, and I need to do stretching and some Pilates and some PT to be a functional body. And it's not like I wake up and I can't wait to do the hundreds, but I do feel the joy, the pleasure of like I

woke up and I did the routine that my body needs. I nourished the system. And now I'm gonna be able to stand up a bit straighter and walk for a bit longer and feel less pain. There's something so delightful about just being like, this is my body and I'm being in it. And now I'm making my T. That's dope. I'm just like making, I don't know, the T came from somewhere. There's just so much about if I can tune in to what I'm doing. The other thing that I do, I do these sabbaticals are these little trips, these vacations for myself.

And the only practice of it is do exactly what you want next. So, you know, I'm like, okay, now what do I wanna do? Oh, I wanna blow a cereal. Okay, now what I wanna do, I need to go put my feet on the cereal. Okay, now what I want to do, I need to go put my feet on the dirt. Okay, then now what I want to do. Yes. It's time to write and idea is coming. And what I find is if I clear the decks and just ask myself what I want to do, it always gets me to writing. That's how I know that that's my purpose. That's my thing I meant to do in the world that always brings me there. And love, I always want to be falling in love,

being in love, loving people, like talking to my loved ones, I just am a lover. You know, then that's the simple things that my life is now constructed of. And if it doesn't align with those things, I'm getting much better now at being like, oh, that's okay, that's just not a part of my life. I used to work so hard to be like,

I need to convince those people about how to be in right relationship with me and I need to convince everyone to do exactly what I want to do, the way I want to do it. And that's not what we're here to do. Let them go do their thing. You do yours. You know, and then surprise, there's tons of people who want to do that thing with me. Several of my closest friends now are people who are like, oh, we're loud introverts. So we're like visible introverts or whatever. We make plans and we're in pencil because we probably don't actually want to do anything.

But we just love each other enough to make a plan. And then we just check in and we're like, do you still want to do the thing? And mostly it's like, no, but I love you so much. I'm so glad that we had to talk today to talk about the plan that we're not going to do. And then sometimes we do do it. And the whole time we're like, we are outside. Do you want to just read together? Or do you want to sit in the hot tub and gossip? Or like, what is the most unimportant thing we could do? Or the easiest thing, you know, last year goes like, I'm going to come over while you

make food for your baby. And we're just going to sit and focus on the kid. We're just doing this, this is so normal. And it's so like, unimportant. And it's so joyful. Just stop wasting your time on things you don't want to do and things you don't like and things that don't feel good in your body. The world has enough of that. Ha ha. [♪ Music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in So specific to me and the way that I have found to live my life post soccer because I had so much, there was just so much in that world that I've had. It sounded so rigid too. Yeah, there was a lot of rules and you had to do X and Y. And so I had to kind of cultivate a whole new existence as a person. And what I have found is doing very simple things because a lot of these simple things

are the things in my life, whether it's my daily wellness care, whether it's getting in the cold plunge, whether it's going to the gym. I tried to do that as early in the morning as possible because then what ends up happening is like the divine, the world is allowed to now come through me because I've opened myself to it.

Yes. And I think that that's what you're saying. Yes. You find yourself always getting to writing, and it's because you're doing all of these simple, next-right thing moments that gets you to the place that your body can be to accept the divine. That's it. I think of it as getting everything else out of the way.

That's right as well. I went to a big break up a couple of years ago. It was an big relationship and I thought I was going to get married. And I went through this breakup and part of the break apart of what I realized I needed. I was like, I love this person. I love being up in this, but it takes so much time and attention and it's there's a lot of instability inside of it. And I can't write. I'm not getting to my writing. I'm spending all of my creative work trying to create this relationship to function. And I was like, oh, I have to let this go, even though I'm breaking my own heart to do so,

because I actually have to trust that my calling my destiny is this writing thing. And I'm not going to be satisfied if I'm not doing it or if I'm trying to just do it on the edges, sort of like when the toxicity or the thing that's not working takes the main character location in the story, right? It's like, that's not the main character of my story. So I'm casting it, you know, I'm like, go get it on a different story. My story is, Adrian Marie Brown was a writer period. That's my main story. And I'm doing all this get it on a different story. My story is, Adrian Marie Brown was a writer, period.

That's my main story. And I'm doing all this other stuff, but I found that, and I feel blessed that I found that as early in my life as I have. Tony Morrison, for a long time, was the person I looked up to because I was in my 20s and 30s,

and I hadn't published fiction. And I was like, this is just never gonna happen. And I'd be like, but Toni Morrison didn't publish her for his fiction until she was 38. And she didn't really get going with that until she was in her 40s. I'm doing okay, right? It's okay, you can still be,

we all know that Toni Morrison was a writer period, right? And reading about how she landed that in herself. I'm like, everyone has to go through their own journey to land it in themselves. I'm like everyone has to go through their own journey to land it in themselves. I sometimes think people can go their whole lives without never knowing what that sentence is for themselves. And so I think even if you're living a very successful life, if you don't feel satisfied in it, it's probably because you haven't found that sentence yet. And that sentence can have commas, you know, you can be mother and

writer or right, it can be sister. I'm also a daughter and an auntie. I'm the best auntie, you know, like I have a lot of destiny, but having that sentence really matters for me. And yeah, and then I think you are supposed to organize your life. And there are a lot of it is the simplicity. It's like, how do I clear everything out? That's not that. And then how do lot of it is the simplicity. It's like, how do I clear everything out that's not that. And then how do I inside of capitalism make a living doing that? You know, and I call myself a post nationalist and a post capitalist because I really, I feel like part of my mind is in another time where I'm like, we don't have to do things we don't love or not part of our destiny or to make a living doing the thing we love. But I also feel really blessed in this lifetime that I've written enough books and that I've listened enough to the calling to be able to do that. And then like most days I can spend my time

writing. It's so simple, but anyway, if I'm writing with my hand on paper, if I'm on my computer, if I'm doing it on my phone, I'm just like I'm the happiest. Is it easy for you? Because that is simple but not always easy. What I'm hearing from you is like, we think of pleasure or satisfaction as, because I'm like, yes, I am with you. Let's sit on the deck and watch the geese. But what I hear you saying is that there's an end both

of discipline and pleasure. There is a hard part of being satisfied. The discipline of pleasure. There's a discipline. There's a discipline, the places where I'm rigorous now are really when I notice that there's attention in me where I feel like, oh, I'm holding back. I don't want to be here.

I don't actually want to do this. And I can feel the tension of my not wanting to do something. My rigor now is, can I actually honor that and not do the thing. Right. So because in my head, I'm like, if I can say no to the things I don't want to do, it makes more room for me to say yes to the things I do want to do. It makes more room for me to say yes to the writing I do want to do. It makes more room for me to say yes to the writing. And then I'm lucky. I love writing. And most of the writing I do does come in a way that feels easy to me. It's pouring. It's flowing through. It feels like it's channeling. I like you so much till now. Right. But listen, but the things that matter the most to me are not always like that.

I look up to people like you who spend a lot of time in memoir and who spend a lot of time in being like, I'm going to tell you the hardest parts about my own life. I have not done a ton of that. A lot of my writing is like, I did all this facilitation. Here's everything I know about what you need to know about that. Or I lived in Detroit for 12 years. Here's this fiction about the future that we can live, you know, going through this process in Detroit. And the hardest parts to me to write

are the parts that often feel like they resonate with people the most. And those, it might take me like a whole day to write a sentence. And I'm really trying to honor those days because they don't feel the same level of satisfaction. You know, like on a day when I'm like, I wrote 4,000 words

and a new computer love story or something, you know, that I'm like being in awesome day. And then I'll have one day where I'm like, I wrote one line, it cost me everything I had today. I had to cry, I had to grieve. I had a friend pass away a few months ago, Evans Richardson, and it was such a shock to my system. And I kept trying to write for him and about him. I was like, I need to write with you because you're not here anymore.

And that's not right. And I need to figure out a way to get it through. And I just kept writing all this stuff. I was like, this is crap. This doesn't come anywhere close to what I'm feeling. It's just so trite and so stupid. And I can't write about how big my grief is. And then the other day I was writing something and like a line came through that as soon as I wrote it, I was just, I stopped and just started weeping, like bawling. And I didn't think I had anything to do with him. It had to do with grief.

It had to do with like what it really means to realize you have to live the rest of your life without someone. You know, that's like, I'm okay. I know that we all die, but your timing is off. You know, your timing is off. We're supposed to do a lot more of this together. And then you die or I die when we're old. We're not old. Even if the kids think we're old. We're not old. And so when I realized I was like, I have to live the rest of my life without you.

And I, every time I sign on to a friendship, that's a part of it. That's a part of the risk of every love story is like, I'm supposed to freaking fall in love with you knowing that I might have to live the rest of my life without you. It's so dumb. Like, who made it so dumb? So dumb. And it's also so amazing. Like, it makes me cry.

That's where the preciousness comes from. I think if we all lived forever and we knew we had forever with each other, we wouldn't have a necessary purpose or reason to grow and to get better at how we treat each other and to get better at how we treat ourselves. Since he died, I've cleared, I've made like four more boundaries in my life that I needed too. Because I'm like, I've made like four more boundaries in my life that I needed to because I'm like,

I'm not wasting my time. Evans isn't even here anymore. Like who knows who else I'm going to lose? Who do I need to call? Who do I need to deepen with? Who do I need to experience today? And what of myself do I need to experience today? But yeah, all of that, right?

So it was just like one line that I could get out in a day, but all of that came with it and around it and through it. Everything you're saying right now, and I have this vision that I'm seeing in my head, which is that when you said about the clearing out and whatever the main story is, because I just have so much compassion for myself and everybody. I just wanna say, you're not satisfiable because that was the fucking plan. It's still the plan.

And it's still the plan. And so as long as that's the main story that we're telling, then you're never going to be satisfiable because it's not those fucking kitchen counters and it's not those shoes and it's not your husband and it's not like definitely not your husband. I'm the biggest like break up break up break up with people, you know, because I was

definitely raising like you stick it out, you know, just about you stick it out. And I'm just like, no, you don't. You do not stick it out. If it's not working, it's not working. And if you cannot get help and get it to work, you let it go and you go live a different life. And it's okay. And actually all the divorced people I know, I've not yet met.

And I'm like, I'm sure there's exists because all things exist. But I have not yet met someone who's like, I'm sure there's exists because all things exist. But I have not yet met someone who's like, I'm divorced and that was the bad decision. All the people I know are divorced. They're like, I wish I had done it sooner. All the people I know, like when you go through the breakup where you're like, I was trying and trying, I believe in relationship therapy, but I'm like, I don't think you need to be in there in the first three, six months. There's certain things I'm like, what was you talking about the other day? Bage flags. I've been thinking about this like, the red, yellow, green flags of life, right? We apply it to relationship. But I'm like, in all of life, these flags are constantly showing up.

And it's just like the signal inside of my body that I'm like, I'm full. I also get a signal that I get nauseous. When I eat something that my body is like, that's not good for me, right? My body is like, I get nauseous. The same thing happens in my life. When I'm sitting down with someone, I'm like, this person is not authentic, which is not gonna work for me. It literally shows up as a sensation in my system, and now I'm learning to feel it.

You know, I've spent like 10 years learning to feel again. And now I'm like, oh, I can feel that? Yeah. God, I wish someone had showed me that when I was five, I really think of it as like, stop wasting your life. And not that we're wasting it on purpose. I also have this compassion for myself. I'm like, I did the best I could with what I was given.

Now I have new tools. Now I have new capacities, but I don't just want to do the best. I want to do the, I think it's the realest, right? Like I'm like, oh, I want to be as real as I can and kind about it and honest in it. I think you all understand this. I'm always dancing with like Buddhism is like, don't be attached, don't feel desire.

That's the way. And I'm like, I think that's mostly the way. Yeah. Mostly the way. But I also think that there's something around like, when I feel this aversion, there's something in my soul that's like trying to take care of my capacity that feel the simplicity and the goodness of life. And when I feel desire or longing, now what I'm trying to do is, can I hone that? So it's not moving me towards toxicity, but it's moving me towards things that are good for me. Right? And that's the trickiest part, Adrienne. That's the trickiest part. The main story is this unsatisfiable destination that doesn't exist. We are either trying to trek towards that or we are acting in direct opposition to it. And it's just like

Brennan says with the rebellion is the same cage as obedience. And that's the reason we don't stretch in the morning. That's the reason we don't get it going the walk. That's the reason we eat the pizza. Even though the one will make us feel better. If the main story is the satisfaction journey that is bullshit, we are either doing it or we're acting direct opposition to it. And we're not doing it. It's what we need to clear the slate and be like, where is my capacity to feel these things? I have lost. I don't think these are fun and cute and satisfying because that's not my. I need a sister're not going to piss sister off. No, I'm not. I'm not going to piss sister off. You're like, geez, because, no, but I mean, because of my program settings, are this other journey.

Right. It's a radical stripping down to understand that there is a whole other system setting that you can set up. And only when you start acting in operation with that alternate system. Yeah. Can you even want to do your stretching? Because I'm fun stretching just like because I never give myself good things that I want. So why am I so afraid?

You're like, why would I start now? Yeah. I'm so grateful in my life. Therapy has been such a helpful thing. Having teachers has been such a helpful thing, but nature has always been my shortcut. And I will say this, like when people are like, mm, I don't get any of this stuff, right? And I'm not a camper.

I'm not like that kind of hard for me, three person. I'm not that self-camper. I'm a porch. I'm a porch. I'm like, if I can step outside on my porch, and if I can step and put my feet on actual grass, or I love the ocean, so I'm like, if I can get, if I can swim, if I can, even if I can step and put my feet on actual grass, or I love the ocean, it's like if I can swim, if I can,

even if I can slow down, I'm a swimmer. So that's, but also I have early onset of arthritis. So swimming in now for me is the place where I can feel the capacity of my body to do anything. So swimming has become very important for me. But it's also like, if I can notice the quality of the light coming through leaves, there's certain things in my life that I'm like,

I'm in a good place if I can actually notice these things. It's a kind of a shortcut for me. Friends, leaves have been tripping me up a lot lately because I'm just like, there's so many leaves and there's so many humans. And leaves fall down, they just all fall off the tree. They just all go. And that's not insignificant. They were still part of this green, very gorgeous thing. And then they're all going to go and something else is going to emerge. And it's been a really helpful teacher for me. Because

whether I live my life well or don't live well, I'm going to fall off the tree and something else is going to happen. I might as well be a bombastic ass leaf. Like I might as well do it all the way. Be the greenest and then when the colors change, be the brightest orange, I want to go all out. And I've been thinking that in my life too, the balance of that and simplicity, right? That I'm like, oh, the more I lean into this, like, trust the sensation. The sensation leads you to the most bombastic, wonderful life. The most bombastic, wonderful life might be brushing your teeth next to a person you love, or it might be singing a song that 600 people sing with you that you first heard in your own body, or it might be having

a good conversation. I'm telling people this all the time, like, you know what this is like, because you have a good conversation with your homies. And we don't take it seriously. I'm like, you know that feeling when you're sitting there, you're like, we're so amazing. At being bad, or at being whatever, or, you know,

we're just, this is great. I also hate that person, or whatever it is. I could be anything you're talking about. I feel it now. But being alive, you just sort of like, oh, this is it. This is a being alive. It's like we're both here, right here, all here.

And you remember those, you know, that's like that is what life is actually all about. I'm trying to live so much of that that it doesn't even stand out to me anymore, right? It's just like, that's the baseline even stand out to me anymore. Right. That's just like that's the that's the baseline. Right. And I'm doing well. I think I'm yes, you are.

Tell us your friends name one more time so we can think of them. Evans Evans Richardson. He's a black, beautiful queer man. He's just one of my favorite people to look at and watch and play. We dance together for years. I mean, just the best. The most sophisticated. When he died, I was like, oh, I have to upgrade my art collection in my home because he always

just had framed, gorgeous art everywhere. And I'm always the kind of person who's like, I like that idea. Even if I get a painting in, you know, if something's in the house, I'm like, okay, now I need to get it framed. That's gonna take 20 years. Now it's framed, now it's leaning against the wall. How do people put pictures on walls? I don't know, this is a mystery to me.

So now I did it, I put like four pictures up. Now my office is covered in the other things I bought that either need to be framed or need the frame to get up on a wall. So Evan's just, he's just going to be with me. Because now every time I look at him, I'm like, these are the Evan's things that I'm integrating into my home somehow. But you know, it's actually been a season of intense loss.

I think six people in my peer group in the last six months have transitioned. And each one has been very unexpected. And I was reaching out to my friends like, is this just what it is to be in our 40s or is this what it is to be in 2023? Or should I make a meaning of of this? And all I can conclude is like life is precious to live it now. Love yourself now. Love the people. Tell whoever it is you love right now. Whatever you can do to bring yourself

into the present moment, do it right now, and then just keep doing that. And with that, just start at the beginning and listen to it again. So you know, whatever you Yeah. I'm sure. Um, I love y'all. Yeah. I love y'all. I just want to say too, I as a sister in a podcast situation, the level of vulnerability that you all come on here in practice, that too is a rigorous

thing. Like I don't think people necessarily always know what it takes to get on and say, I'm gonna let you all come close to me. And then you meet people and they're like, I feel close to you. And it's like, I don't even know you, but I also feel close to you. Like, you're sort of sitting out this beacon

for your people in the world. And I love that our beacon centers really overlap. But, you know, like, I'm like, I love the things you all bring up and talk about, but mostly I just love the intimacy and the bravery you all share of just really being honest with each other and letting us witness that. So.

I wonder if you and your sister would consider coming on and doing a double date with me and my sister? I thought you'd never ask. I do think we need a double date. I do think we need a double day. I do think we need a double day. Okay. Because I think sistering is the whole thing that just needs so much attention as a practice. And then I'm also really interested in partnerships. Partnerships and sisterhood. I've been seeing someone really sweet and my sister just got to meet them and it was

like this really amazing moment. The first, but since it was like, um, like pro thumbs up, which was a big, big deal, hard to get. And what you all are pulling off here, it's not easy. Every time you fall in love with a new person, it shifts all the dynamics of your existing relationships. And the prayer is that those people can also find right relationship with each other. And you know, and I'm really, it's been cool, like watching y'all navigate. And I feel like even in the podcast, watching y'all continue to deepen your love with each other.

So it's all cool. So cool. What an amazing person. Gosh, you're amazing. I love you too. I love you. This is a astounding. I love y'all.

Thanks for the gift of my little tin man's self having some real tears. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. Well, you know, I think it's because we brought the stadium into the studio. Yeah. Yeah. We got big enough, huh? We got big enough. Oh, I love your agent, Marie Brown. Thank you for the sour. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, you soon on the sister podcast. Yeah. I love you. Thank you, Pod Squad. You love you. 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?

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