We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - 244. Stop Carrying Other People’s Pain with Chloé Cooper Jones

Episode Date: September 26, 2023

Where do you go to escape the pain of reality? Today, author Chloé Cooper Jones shares:  The survival strategy many of us use to retreat from our lives and how to become more present;  How she grapples with the world dehumanizing her disabled body;  Why desire and disgust are so connected – and what they teach us; and  The thing Chloé wants most – to be seen as inherently whole – and how to get it.  About Chloé: Chloé Cooper Jones is a professor, journalist, and the author of the memoir Easy Beauty, which was named a best book of 2022 by The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, TIME Magazine, and was a finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Memoir. She was also a Pulitzer Prize finalist in Feature Writing in 2020. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.  TW: @CCooperJones IG: @chloecooperjones 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

to be loved. We need to be known. Hi everybody, welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. I am already excited to hear what you are going to say to us after you listen to this episode with Chloe Cooper Jones. Lots of talk about being present and being mindful in all of this in the world. Not a lot of talk about why we don't do that, about why we dissociate from the moment of our lives for good reasons and how we can rearrange our minds so that sometimes we can be brave enough to try to be present. was life changing, Chloe's brilliance has helped me figure out why I dissociate and how to bring myself back to my people in my life. Listen, tell us what you think. Enjoy. I actually just ordered another one. If I could just show you, there's just so many notes

in writing in it, and then I wanted to have one that's pure for other people to read. It's really, really beautiful. And let me just introduce the podcast. Yeah, let's listen. This is Chloe Cooper Jones. Chloe is a professor, a journalist, and the author of the memoir Easy Beauty,

which was named a best book of 2022 by the New York Times, the last Angeles Times, the Washington Post, Time Magazine, and was a finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in memoir. So, babe, that's like an S.B. That's like a VFO world player of the year. That's like the best you can get. That's my jam. She was also a Pulitzer Prize finalist in feature writing in 2020. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. So Chloe, what I'd like to start with is your idea of the new children. In reading your book, I recognize that I have spent much of my life in the new children. So, can you explain to us how you learned about the neutral room and what it has been for you

in your life? Yeah, absolutely. First, I just have to say thank you so much for having me. It's a total honor to be here. It's very meaningful to me that within the framing of your question about the neutral room that you immediately say, I feel like I've been in the neutral room because I feel like the most important thing for me with this book is that while it is a very, very specific, you know, story about one person's life, that it was my goal to

make sure that there was many entry points or like moments of resonance with readers. I don't think that it serves any of us to write books that are just so insular that they become objects of like voyeurism, inviting people into voyeurism. And I know you know this may be better than most. The incredible importance of writing things that leave themselves open for other people to enter. So in talking about the neutral room, I'm really curious to hear what your versions of the neutral room are, because I think everybody sort of has their own neutral room.

So the way that I encountered mine is I have a physical disability and a pain disorder and the pain disorder when I was very young, I didn't have a good sense of how to manage it and a pediatrician told me that the anticipation of pain in the mind was its own form of very, very real pain. So I could learn to manage pain a little bit or get a better handle on pain

if I could first just figure out a way to kind of cut that anticipatory pain out of my sort of mental process. And I'd be very interested to hear what Abby has to say about this because the thing that I have learned since is that athletes have to do this a lot, have to go into a place where they're not imagining the pain that they'll feel hours later, even days later,

but just focus on the moment. So I know cross country runners do a version of this neutral room. And so the sort of core of know cross country runners do a version of this neutral room. And so the this sort of core of it is just you find a place in your mind. And the world doesn't come into that place. For me, it's like a highly visual place of um white walls and on these walls, flash, I count to eight. So the numbers one, one, two, three, what you know to eight. And then all that I'm thinking is I'm in pain for eight seconds, not anything past that. So I just stay in that sort of present

space of the eight seconds. And then the eight seconds can repeat. And it's a way of just not thinking about or panicking or spiraling about the pain to come. So that's the sort of bare mechanism of the neutral room. And then the book sort of looks at the ways in which that neutral room, which is a very powerful place of like agency and peace in my life and pain management and control in a really positive way, can, if a threshold is crossed, become also a place

of absenting myself from responsibilities, a way of managing social pain when I should actually be facing social pain. So it's both a physical place of remove, but it also can become a mental place of remove. And I think the book really begins at just a moment in which I'm recognizing for the very first time that I'm not particularly good at locating the threshold between where that place of remove is a choice that aids my agency. And when the threshold is crossed, when it becomes a place of complicity or absensia in a very negative way. So that's in some ways one of the core struggles of the book. Mm-hmm.

I think this is so fascinating because as an athlete, and of course I retired long ago, all I would do is count. Mm-hmm. And I would get into the hundreds of long runs or sprints. And for whatever reason to be in the counting of the seconds allows me to escape the physical pain that I was like enduring. Mm-hmm.

That is really something. Yeah. One of the many reasons why I resonate with your work so much, and this discussion in particular is that my version of the neutral room has always been escape. I'm not comfortable in this situation, the social situation, whatever it is. And so I'm gone. And so my family will call that underwater. It's a joke in our family. Mom's underwater because they'll like ask me a question. I'm looking at them. But I'm not

there because that's not true. I don't feel unsafe with my family. It's like a thing you can get addicted to is being gone. And so this idea that you discuss is like at what point is this survival strategy? Keeping me from the moment and from connection with other people, which is where I most find joy. Can you talk to us about the Beyonce concert and how that did or did not relate to the neutral room? Yeah, absolutely. First, I just have to say to Abby, I'm so grateful that you shared

this thing about counting. I think that, and this relates to the Beyonce story, and it relates to what you're saying to Gunn and like, this fear that I have about being fully present in the moment and being fully with others is that I will not be understood. I think everybody is always caught up in the act of translation between our disparate and mysterious minds, that's not unique to disability, but I do think something that has followed me around a lot as a very visually disabled woman

is that people write on a lot of ideas and assumptions about who I am or who I could possibly be or how my life could unfold or what things I do or don't have access to. And so what builds up over time is the sort of defensiveness of like, we will have nothing in common. You will not find any bridge to really see me or understand me. And I think, of course, with an athlete that feels in my mind like a deeper chasm or like we're coming from two separate planets,

we couldn't possibly find a bridge because your life has been in part about physical power and prowess and kinesthetic intelligence and mine is about in terms of the way that people read my body is about lack or absence or inability. That's the perception. It's not necessarily the truth, but it's the perception. And it's one in this book that extends even to the ability to become a parent, right? It's just assumed that I won't be because how could a body like mine reproduce and make a child let alone, you know, this beautiful child that I made, like this miracle child that I made.

And so to just have these moments where I can be speaking to you, a body that seems so foreign from mine and find this moment of like deep connection. It's a reminder of like how, how those acts of translation, how we ourselves or I, myself, can make it harder with my own preconceived notions. So I don't know, I just wanted to acknowledge that. I know I'm not answering your question yet,

but it just feels really powerful to me to be able to like see those moments and to recognize them. And so I really appreciate you telling me that. And I think Glennon, your point about this like being present and not being present, it's like the question of the neutral room and some ways comes from a line and a letter from my father. My father says, where do you go to escape the pain of reality? And that's a question for everybody. Like we all have

that answer, whether the pain of reality is the physical, you know, epic run that you're on, or the difficulty feeling fully embodied in your present moment, even with, or maybe even especially with the people that you love the most. There's also a joke in our house. My son will often point out that I won't finish a sentence, that I'll start a sentence and then get lost in my head and he'll wait. Neutral room mid-sentence. Here I am, God.

He'll just wait. and then he'll go, Mommy, you're doing that thing again. You want to tell me the end of that sentence? Oh, I love it. But something along the way told us that we were safest within our own minds. And the thing I think that's so tricky about that is that look at what our minds have accomplished. You know, like look at that social conditioning.

We've done so much. I don't want to lose all the things my mind has accomplished. I'm so proud of those things. But then it's like that threshold. Can I also find joy in the present moment? So very simply with the Beyonce concert, I didn't want to go. I ended up in Italy. I had to sort of scam my way a little bit into a section of the stadium where I could actually see Beyonce and the huge sort

of lesson that happens there is being able to see in real time the unbelievable, palpable joy the unbelievable, palpable joy that people feel when they are given radical presence. And I think people can be a Beyonce fan or not, it doesn't really matter, but a great performer or a great even sporting event or film or anything. Like, we sometimes are in the presence of people who are giving us all of themselves. Like, no part of them is split. They are radically present with us. They're not thinking about their grocery list. They're not retreating.

They're not hiding. And you know it when you're in this space. And a really brilliant performer, which of course Beyonce is, she really understands how to translate from the stage this feeling of just being there with us in that moment and being nowhere else, like no part of her split. And what I saw was one, just the radical generosity of that, the gift, and the courage and the strength that it takes to really be present, but then also the unbelievable amount of joy that is generated in a, this stadium with San Sarah and Milan, it's 80,000 people.

And the joy was, it was just this ocean of human joy. And I looked at this massive example of it and I thought, maybe I can't do it on this scale, but I could try to do it with my son. And so taking the kernel of this huge call and response of presence and joy and saying, how do I scale that down to just be radically present and generously present with my child and this, you know, because that's what matters most. That's the stakes of the highest.

Yeah. I find it fascinating that, you know, you were taught. We are all taught. Our parents try to teach us to stay safe in one way or another and your mom, who I love her, tell us what your mom taught you and how that may have aided you in residing in the neutral room. There's so many things in this book that and and maybe this will be unsatisfying for some readers, or I hope it's the opposite. I hope it feels, I don't know, like, weighty and complex in a positive way, but there's a lot in this book where it's like, well, on one hand, this thing is good, but on this one,

it's so brilliant. That's why it's so brilliant because everybody's like, be present. Just the secret of life is presence. And I'm like, it's so much more nuance than that. And I think your story brings it into sharp focus throughout this story. It is very clear that being fully present with other people is not always the right thing because people are jackasses often. Right? So this thing of my mother's advice is sort of one of those things that has either or

edge to it. And the more that I sort of think about it in the book, the more kind of complex it is, which is just, you know, she loves me. I'm her only child. Her priority is to protect me. And so one of the pieces of advice that she gives me very young, and this is good advice on some levels, is be aware of the fact that most people are going to give you one thought, one cursory thought. And that thought is going to be informed by

what they've been told about you or your body or or what you represent to them. It's going to be a lot of social narratives. It's going to be a lot of prejudice. It's going to be a lot of preconceived notions. And she said, the vast majority of the world is not going to give you a second or third or fourth or fifth thought. So if you're aware of what that first thought is, then you can use that to your advantage. And she would say, just learn how to play her card. And so sometimes what that meant was having a recognition, the way that a disabled body, especially a body like mine, in that I am very short. I walk with a very precarious sort of side to side gate. So there's a lot about me that presents to other people

as childlike, fragile, weak, precarious. In general, I think disability is often narrativeized as inherently tragic, as weakness, as something to be pitied, as unlucky, as sexless, as a person whose agency has been removed. These are the stories that have been told about what we perceive to be fragile bodies or disabled bodies. My mother actually, she's the hero of the book, for sure. And she's been this like very powerful person, very healthy, very powerful.

And this year she got cancer. And it was the first time in which she really could understand how I felt, because when she got sick and when she was doing chemo, people in her life started removing her agency and stopped listening to her and stopped believing that she was fully capable of making her own decisions. And so, you know, so many years into being my mother, it was the first time in which that thing in my life really clicked.

And so this thing of like playing your card, she taught me that as a defensive thing, like be ready for people's negative assumptions about you so that you have a plan for it. And so in that Beyonce chapter, I bring that up and I use my card, which is I allow a security guard to believe that I am sort of weak and confused and I really play up a certain ambiguity about my mental acuity, my physical, you know, and I lean really far into this assumption that I'm deeply unable and it works out really well for sure to us. It works out great and I get

what I want, but I also have this other edged moment where I'm no longer thinking about myself or my mother, but I think forward to my son. And I say, he can never see me do this because I recognize that playing that card where that advice comes from a really beautiful and and considered and protective space for my mother is also an act of complicity with people's worst ideas about me and about disability. And so I ethically feel like I can't do things. I don't want Wolfgang to see me doing things that add to or perpetuate that complicity. And the last thing I'll say about this is I make that decision in Milan and then I just double down, I do it again in Salt Lake City.

And I had this moment later in the book. I just manipulated another security guard to get what I want. I had this moment where I thought, oh, I should cut that piece of the book because people will be like, oh, she just made this decision not to do this. Then a month later, she's doing it. But I left it in the book because I think that's just much more authentic to how change can actually happen for us is in fits and starts and beginnings and failures. And that doesn't mean that

that I wasn't really working toward being a better self or a better model for my son. It just means that recognizing I need to change doesn't, you know, instantly make it so. Of course. And your mom was teaching you that people weren't going to get it. They weren't going to get you. Was there like a superiority in your brain? Like you are so effing brilliant. So was there a protection mode that was like we aren't going to get each other person to person. So I'm going to fix your thinking that I'm below you by being above you. And then you have these moments because the neutral room is that too, right? It's like a judgment.

You're going to judge me. I'm going to judge you intellectually. So I'm up here. And then with the experiences you have, like at the Beyonce concert, it's like, I think you say, if I must exist at a distance, let it be from above. But then at the Beyonce show, you have this like not above, but within, or withness with other people. Is that the most joyful place for you, even though it is unsafe? The witness. Yeah, absolutely. I think that there are a lot of stages to recognizing

I think that there are a lot of stages to recognizing your place in the world, your identity, the way that people are going to treat you, the way that people are going to reduce you. I mean, being dehumanized or reduced through the eyes of other people, whether they be strangers or the people who love you, like, I think that's, that's the most painful experience. The feeling that your interiority is impossible for anyone to see. And that's not specific disability. That's something every single one of us are dealing with. There's not a single listener of this podcast who hasn't had a moment where they thought, oh wow, my exterior self is being read in a way that is so dehumanizing to my interior self. And that is one of the core mysteries,

but also sort of complexities of being a human, and it's where a lot of great art has come from or a lot of great thought. But it's also, of course, where a lot of pain has has come from and maybe our most profound pain comes from that disconnect. And I think when you're really trying to deal with that disconnect in an authentic way, you might go through several steps, just like a grieving process. is defensiveness and maybe even discussed or a longing for some sort of way to place other people who've been unkind to you or who haven't even been unkind, but you perceive they might be below you. I certainly felt that way, especially because the thing that was valued so much for me and my life was my mind.

So I thought, okay, well, I'm not a body. Nobody values my body. I won't be a body. I'll only be a mind, but let me tell you, I'm gonna be the best possible mind. I'm gonna be the best mind in the world. But there was a part of that accumulation of the mind's power or knowledge that was less about doing it for the sake of those things,

but was more about setting myself apart, but in a way that I controlled, and not in a way that other people were choosing to marginalize me. And it was also on the flip side of it, this plea to be like, if I just get enough degrees, if I just get enough awards, if I just write a good enough essay, if I just am a nice enough person, won't that be enough to see me as real, unvaluable? So I'm thinking a lot about this sort of discussed desire matrix, like how those things are are really in a deep relation. I've been thinking a lot about

this because I just experienced this dancer and choreographer. His name is Maddie Davis, MATTY-Y Davis, and I saw his work for about five seconds, and it was so physical, and it was so visceral. I saw it on my computer that I slammed my computer screen down and I was like, I hate this. I hate that, you know, and then I kept coming back to it and coming back to it and coming back to it. And the thing that I realized is that he's doing a kind of dance that's very physical and a kind of choreography that's very intense, but he always includes a really wide variety

of bodies. So it was the first time in which I could imagine a dance universe where my body would be valued. And that was so threatening to me on one level, because it asked me a question, that question was, do you wanna do this? Are you up for this? And on the other side was this desire.

Like, yes, I do want to be up for this. But those two things lived very close to me in relation. And I recognize that immediately is this thing that's popped up in my life over and over. So to live a life with others, that's my greatest desire. To be very present, to be loved by the people that I love, to make my son feel like I'm endlessly present with him, like that's my greatest desire. But if the thing that I've been taught or the thing that's been reinforced over and over again is there's no space for you. We

don't make space for disabled bodies. We don't make accessibility important in the world that you move around. We don't put bodies like yours the world that you move around. We don't put bodies like yours on the cover of magazines. You are not ever going to be a romantic lead and you're not going to see a body like yours in a romantic comedy. We would rather actually imagine that you don't exist at all and not think about you. You're excluded even from like, conceptions of what diversity even is. Like, if that's the message, that's a

drum beat over and over and over again, then this desire that I have of being one with other people and connected to other people seems very far away. So what do I do in the early stages of trying to grapple with this pain? Disgust, dismissal, rejection, I will put myself above. But I think, you know, becoming a parent, certainly for me and I would imagine, I would ask if this resonates with you. It's one of those things that forces you to imagine moving past the pain of dismissal and moving past the pain of trying to cling to moral superiority is a life raft and rather move into a space in which you're living a life that's worthy

of modeling for your child. And when I imagine the life that I think is worthy of Wolfgang, it's one in which he has a mother that's brave enough to try. Wow. You know, I think a lot about gayness and religion with this conversation and how early on I had to rebel. And rebelling in is still a part of the same system as soon as I stopped rebelling so hard core to like the Catholic church I realized oh now I'm in my body now. I'm I'm in my own Authenticity and making decisions for myself because if you're rebelling so hard again, something you're still a part of that system.

You're controlled by it. Yeah. And your disgust was desired. Excessed by the church. You wanted acceptance really when we get down to it when we're really super honest. Your description of all of this is absolutely universal. Yeah. Yeah. I'm so grateful that you're talking to me about this. It's, you know, it's something that I write about Neese Beauty, but it's this thing I'm really writing about now as I'm thinking about this artist, Maddie Davis, and like this project of embodiment, and I think part of what's so sort of intense about that experience looking at his work is it shows me just how far I have to go, like how many things I'm still afraid of. And how even after writing one book, there's a lot more work to be done. It's not over. And so I'm just seeing this like big road ahead of me. And I think part of what I want to say is like

that disgust, that rebellion, that rejection, I think that's a really necessary part of the process. Absolutely. And I want to be really clear, like, I place no moral judgment. I try to be very forgiving and kind to myself about the mistakes that I made, because I just don't know how any real change happens without pain and struggle, and even some regret about decisions or things you wish you could do differently. So I think it's a really important part of this process,

but I think you're both saying, like there's a point in that rebellion or that struggle where you realize that while a fine first stage, you're still defining yourself in relation to that thing. Yes. So you're not free. Yes. That's right.

So then the second, or I don't know how many stages there are, maybe it's the 100, but a stage that comes up is, okay, I needed to reject this. I needed to define myself temporarily in a oppositional relationship to this thing. But now how do I get free? Yes. Yes, because obedience is a cage, but rebellion is an equal opposite cage. That's my question. I love what you said earlier about the perception of future pain and that anticipation of that future pain. I think that that's what we're kind of talking about.

Like that's the little crux right here. I think my rebellion was in anticipation of future pain and going, nope, I'm just going to turn my back on it and I can avoid all of this pain. But I think what we're trying to say here is maybe don't just throw yourself in a pile of pain, but turn towards it and step into it and figure out how to be able to go and however you do with that pain. How do you do it now, Chloe, when do you find yourself, oh, I don't wanna be in the neutral room right now.

Do you have an answer to that question that we're asking? Like, when is it painful, when is it keeping you from connection and when is it keeping you safe in a way that's good for you? I do, to be clear, I think like locating that thresholds between how the neutral room or removal or any of these things are separating yourself from pain, like locating that threshold between where it's an active agency, because as you said, like, there are reasons to not engage with people that are great, and there are reasons to avoid pain in suffering.

Not all pain is productive pain. So I would say first, like that locating that threshold between the kind of productive pain you need to move through in order to grow and the kind of pain that you can leave for others, that's a lifelong project. There's no way to locate that threshold once and then have it. And in fact, I love that, right? Because that threshold shifts as I shift, and as I become, you know, hopefully wiser and more experienced.

So I, that threshold is growing alongside me. But I do think that one really important thing for me, when I'm thinking about this desire discussed matrix or the things that I'm rejecting and the pain that I need and when it's all sort of mixed up in a way that is very important and productive, but I'm afraid of it. And that's where the disgust or dismissal comes from. I just had to really think sincerely at the core of my life, what is the thing that

has caused me the most pain that has caused so much of my actions to unfold in both positive and negative ways? And I think that it is very simply that it is hard for a lot of people in this world to see the disabled life as whole. And what I mean by that is there are so many bad notions and so many bad narratives around disability that it is very hard for people to see me as a real person. And that's the story that sort of begins the book is a friend of mine saying, you know, disability is such an inherent tragedy, such a huge flaw that it negates the value of any other thing in your life so much so that he argues that I should not have been born and Nobody like mine should have been born so there's no shock in that argument That's the basis of eugenics. That's the basis of a lot of prejudice against a lot of bodies that one single aspect of us

reduces our entire human value or allows people to dismiss our human dignity. And so that belief and how that is operated in my life in both really minor ways in the grocery store and really major ways within my family or within my relationship to my father, all of that is kind of tied to that one thing. So the thing that I want for myself

more than anything is to be seen as having inherent human dignity and to be seen as whole. Okay, well, what's the problem with that? If I want that for myself, I have to figure out how to give it to other people. No. Say it isn't so Chloe, anything else. What a drag, right?

Wait, same more about that. Shit, I forgot that's where we were going. It's such a drag. It's the same thing with raising a kid. It's like, you can't just tell them how to be. You have to model it. I find that so rude and it's terrible. But yeah, I mean, how can I really demand this from for myself and from the world if I have no ability to give it? If I have no ability to try my hardest to seek the fullness, the wholeness, and the humanity of other people. And to remember that even in moments of great pain, people are not reducible down to the

worst thing that they have said. People are not reducible down to their worst action. And my mother has this really brilliant line in the book. I mean, it's sort of devastating in my life. I have a conversation with her about ways in which I feel that pain has come to me and the way that I perceived it from other people. And she says, you're always looking at the wrong hurt. And what she means by that is, I'm often in a situation where somebody is saying a cruel thing to me or a dismissive thing, and I'm taking on that hurt as that they've located some visible flaw in me and my character when, in fact, of course, they're only speaking from their own hurt. And that doesn't mean that I have to forgive them or be complicit in what they've said,

or it doesn't mean that I don't hold them accountable. But it also is, if you really think about it that way, like one, you don't have to dismiss them as an entire person, but also you just don't have to take their pain on. You never have to. And the book ends, you know, as a very purposeful bookend, it begins with these men in a bar telling me my life is not worth living, and I take all that pain on, and I allow it to separate, you know, to isolate me from

my life. And it ends in a bar with another man asking me, how is it possible that your husband manages the burden of your body? And it's important to me that those moments bookend, you know, this story because the world is not magically better. Like those men are always going to exist or women or anybody. Like, I'm always going to have to be navigating that. But the arc is, I just get a little bit better from the beginning to the end at not carrying that pain or not looking at the wrong hurt.

And so this man who says, how do people deal with the burden of your body at the end of the book, I can just see that he's speaking from his own limitations. He's speaking from his own ignorance. He's speaking from his own pain and intoxication. And it really has nothing to do with me. And I can say goodnight to him and then go on and enjoy the rest of my life, my evening. Yeah. And the way it ties for me to the anticipatory pain is I see it in myself. And when I'm in a space with a man who I perceive to have any sort of mailness. Any kind of toxic masculinity.

It's anticipatory pain removal. I will retreat in anticipation of something you might do, which it felt like it's almost a self-trust, too, that I don't have to retreat because it's not that these people aren't going to be jack asses. It's not that these people aren't going to say the wrong thing. It's that no matter what they say, I will be able to handle it. So I don't have to remove myself beforehand. And it's like removing yourself in case somebody doesn't see your humanity is denying that person's possible humanity. Prompting it, right?

Right. Some way it's almost proving that they're right. Yeah. Like when you enter into their crazy and their drama, that is like a proving of their point in some way. So it's like, you're trying to quit the job before you get fired. You're always like, you'll leave the relationship before somebody leaves you. Like that's the, that's the kind of energy in terms of this

toxicment. You're like, I'm out, not even going to see you. Yeah. Just to respond though to this great thing that I feel like we're, you know, collaboratively drilling down on is on is that feeling of you know, disgusted dismissal in these spaces and preemptive defensiveness of pain. I think it's really important in those moments to look at oneself and be like, how much am I latching my psyche to these assholes? Am I allowing them to control my behavior or how I might navigate this room or the space? Because then all the worst things have already come true. And it's actually not because they were assholes because you collaborated with them at

that moment to make it so. So it's like back to that question of like, okay, that rejection rejection is a good first step. But the next step is, how do I just get free? There's a question throughout the book of like, you know, sometimes these men say things to me at bars or whatever. And I'm like, can I just enjoy a Friday night? Can I just put on a little dress and and have a beer? And it's like at the beginning, I can't and at the end, I can't, I can just go, okay, you're gone. I'm not going to latch my psyche to you. I'm not going to let you move, okay, you're gone, I'm not gonna latch my psyche to you,

I'm not gonna let you move me geographically around this bar, I'm not gonna let you drive me out of the bar, I'm not gonna let you taint my night, and that feels like a much deeper freedom. And I'm somebody who feels my emotions extremely deeply, so before this sort of attempt at freedom, which by the way, I don't succeed at this all the time. It's just something I'm aiming for.

But before I was really working in aiming toward this, like, it wouldn't just be a retreat in the moment. I would hold on to like frustration or anger or I would revisit these moments and, and I would let the negativity of it haunt me for, you know, sometimes for weeks. I mean, there's still things I think about with decades, sort of talks that, yeah, what a waste of my energy. I do recognize all these things are much easier said than done. So there's no part of my book in which I go, wow, I've got this all figured out. It's just a little bit attraction toward, toward awareness or something, that's it. In terms of your disgust, desire, thing, you were talking, I'm thinking about what disgusts me. And I swear, I'm thinking about,

for me, I'm an inter-exe recovery, and I'm in it. I'm like, doing it, I'm eating all the food, and it was food, it was eating, that disgusted me. And now I understand that I was fucking starving for 15 years, like I desired more than anything, or like rest, anyone resting, disgusted me. Oh, yeah. These things I was desperate for.

That's really interesting. Wow. So Chloe, keep going with that. Oh good, I'm writing about this right now. So you guys are doing very encouraging. I'm writing very explicitly about this disgust desire thing. But I had the same thing. I mean, one of the biggest sort of voices in my mind is that my self-worth is found only in work ethic and my work ethic or my ability to produce. And that if I can't produce, then I have no value. And part of this,

I think, just comes from my poor mother. She's so great, but she just works. She's lives on a farm. Was a third grade school teacher just as constantly in motion? And there's a great sense in, especially for me, as a disabled woman, maybe my power wouldn't come any other way. Like, nobody was going to give it to me for my beauty, or my connections, or any other sort of marker that allows us to

access sort of power in our lives, but I could maybe access it through work. And so if I saw my friends, I'd be sort of what I perceived problematically as being lazy or resting or like enjoying their lives or something, I'd be like, that's what a shame. I'm losers. What a God. Look at that person enjoying their life on a Sunday. Like they don't know what live it. You know, it's like it's so ridiculous. But of course it's because I wanted,

I mean, I want my work ethic. I love my work ethic. I love being able to produce. I also want to rest. Yes. I also want joy. But something, yeah, there's that drum beat in one's mind that certain things are not acceptable for them. So when we see them

projected in the real world, I think there is that disgust as our, I'm curious if anything's coming to Abby. I think the things that disgust me are the things that I feel most insecure about myself. trust me are the things that I feel most insecure about myself. I'm not an extremely judgmental person because I am pretty aware of all of the ways that I have fucked up in my life and the faults. So I'm pretty generous when it comes to, and in your mind, I do think that you think I'm overly generous, that I give people too much of the benefit of it out. But what I do think is interesting about this, the paradox between disgust and what was the word used?

Desire. Desire. I think that they are intrinsically linked. I think that you can't have one without the other. I mean, we've been talking to some friends recently about our daughter and her musical possible career that she wants to go down. And these folks we keep talking to is, go towards what's making you jealous

in other musicians. And what can be brought up in jealousy and disgust is actually like a really nice path and a guide for you to like figure out maybe you got to work on that or go towards that. I don't know. I don't know. Because disgust is like I can't even look at that. Yeah. Why? Why can you not even look at it? Yeah. Because you want it. Yeah. Because you want it. Yeah. I love this jealousy is sort of like a cool like on ramp to disgust. Yes. Because sometimes I have like light jealousy where I'm like, oh, that meal looks good. Like I wish I had eaten them. It's a gaining traction in I have like light jealousy where I'm like, oh, that meal looks good. I wish I had eaten them.

It's a gaining traction in my psyche. But it's like, if I keep following jealousy to the point where it turns into disgust, it's like, ah, now I've gotten, now I've really gotten somewhere, you know, it's like we're just that deep dismissal of something or that profound judgment of something. That's maybe actually a voice that's really telling you you want that. That's right. You're afraid of it. Or is this something you gotta look towards to work through?

When we talk about jealousy, I wanna end with, just tell us about what your husband for so obsessed with your husband as I am with your mom. And Wolfgang, this whole family, Yes. Can you talk to us about what he said about school dances? We went to a magic show in our neighborhood in Brooklyn in Prospect Park and my son, there were kids from his school

there and he chose not to sit with them. He was sort of sitting back with us and sitting very close to me and away from the crowd, very separated from his peers. And as the magic show went on, he kept ruining all the tricks. He kept figuring it out. He actually still does this. We just watched this show on Netflix Magic for Humans, which we love. But the whole time we would watch it, he'd be like, he's pulming that.

It's this thing. Like, and I loved this because I was like, his intellect, like, he's so critical, he's crushing, you know, these other kids are just dazzled by. And so I was being very encouraging of this dismissal response to magic. And I kept being like, yeah, tell her she's wrong or like, you know, like, ruin the trick or something. And of course, what I was prioritizing in that moment was one, what I perceived as, as again, that sort of moral superiority that comes from the intellect that I have sought and found a lot

of value in, of course, very destructively in my life. But here I am even at the end of the book, still very seduced or tantalized by it. But also, I loved the end of the book, still very seduced or tantalized by it, but also, I loved the feeling of my son and I against the world, right? Like, if I have to be separate in this separate little bubble of marginalization, doesn't it feel so tempting to bring him into that bubble with me? And then it's us we're together and the rest of the world's against us. Of course, that's not what I want for him, but I'm being honest in this moment of being,

yeah, seduced by it or leaning into old habits and my husband keeps saying like, please stop doing that. And then he says, I went to high school dances and I never danced. And I immediately was like, oh yes, I did this too. And he said, sometimes standing apart from the crowd is really important and is an act of bravery. And sometimes it's cowardice. And he said, I look at our son and I think that he is both sensitive and confident and smart enough to know the difference between that bravery in cowardice

if we just get out of his way. And that was, right, that was very correct. It's really hard as parents to get out of the way, but I think it goes back to that thing you said a while ago of like, can you trust the self? And of course, one of the amazing things about being a parent and raising a child that I think is so exceptional and so brilliant is I also have to trust him and get out of his way and that, yeah, he is wise enough

and beautiful and sensitive enough that he could possibly live a life with others a little bit more seamlessly than mine, especially if I can model it and get my own, my own shit out of his way. So hard to do, so easy to say, so hard to do. So you're offering him the witness, like teaching him, he doesn't have to be above, to prove he's not below. He can be with him. Absolutely. Damn, to prove he's not below. He can be with him.

Absolutely. Damn, to prove he's not below. Chloe, you are a freaking philosopher for our time. I'm so grateful for you and your work. It really is world shifting for me. Please come back a million times. I will. Anytime you invite me, I'm here.

And I just have to say quickly, I have loved how this has felt like such a collaborative, generative conversation and such a gift to me. So thank you for having me and just thank you for your time. You're the best. Yeah, wait for the desired discussed book. If you could just hurry that up. Seriously, so it could be quickly like, let's go.

If you need a chat again, we're here. We're, I'm disgusted by almost everything. So I'm a good reference. Well, thank you. Thanks for the encouragement. It makes me want to write for the last of the days. Pod Squad, we love you. Go out there and be with.

We'll see you next time. Bye. MUSIC 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 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. To do this, just go to the We Can Do

Hard Things show page on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and then just tap the plus sign in the upper right hand corner or click on follow. This is the most important thing for the pod. While you're there, if you'd be willing to give us a five star rating and review and share an episode you loved with a friend. We would be so grateful. We appreciate you very much. We can do hard things, is produced in partnership with Keynes 13 Studios. I give you Tish Melton and Brandy Carlyle. I walk through a fire I came out the other side

I chased, desire, I made sure I got what's mine And I continue to believe That I'm the one for me And because I'm mine, I want the line Cause we're adventurers in heartbreak We're adventurous and hard-priced, so mad A final destination that They've stopped asking directions Some places they've never been

And to be loved we need to be known We'll finally find our way back home Through the joy and pain That our lives bring We can do a heartache I hit rock bottom, it felt like a brand new star I'm not the problem sometimes things fall apart And I continue to believe the best people are free And it took some time, but I'm finally fine Cause we're adventurers in heartbreak

So man, a final destination with that We stopped asking directions So places they've never been And to be loved we need to be known We'll finally find a way back home And through the joy and pain That our lives bring We can do a heartache This world finished her rose and heart breaks on mine. We might get lost but we're only in that.

Stop asking directions Some places may have never been And to be loved we need to be known We'll finally find our way back home Through the joy and pain That our lives bring We can do hard things Yeah, we can do hard things

Yeah, we can do hard things I can hardly