We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - 252. Martha Beck Helps Amanda Let Go

Episode Date: October 24, 2023

In this incredibly raw episode, Martha Beck coaches Amanda through a transformative, therapeutic session to help heal her overfunctioning, resentment, and burnout. Martha uncovers the different parts of Amanda that have existed inside her since childhood – and invites them to speak and then finally rest into peace, joy, and enoughness.   If you’d like to go back and listen to episodes referenced in today’s conversation, check out:  238. How to De-Stress: Relaxation Intervention for Amanda (and You)!. 170. The Most Radical Way to Heal: Internal Family Systems with Dr. Becky Kennedy 67. How to Get More Joy with Martha Beck 66. How to Come Home to Yourself with Martha Beck About Martha: Dr. Martha Beck is a bestselling author, life coach, and speaker – offering powerful, practical, and entertaining teachings that help people improve every aspect of their lives. She is known for her unique combination of science, humor, and spirituality. For over two decades she has been, in the words of NPR and USA Today, “the best-known life coach in America.” Her published works include several self-help books and memoirs, including New York Times and international bestsellers Finding Your Own North Star, and Expecting Adam. Martha’s most recent book, The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self, was an instant New York Times Best Seller. TW: @TheMarthaBeck IG: @themarthabeck 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

And I continue to believe that I'm the one for me. Hi Martha. Hi everyone. How are you? Better now. My work here is done. Yes, that was. We can do hard things with Martha's eyes.

I would be so relieved if that was all it was. Okay, so it's been so fun, everyone. We're all fixed up. I just relisten to the Amanda Relaxes podcast or Amanda talks about Relaxes. Oh my gosh. Thank you for coming here today. I, after we did that episode, that it was episode 238 and we got off and Glendon was like,

we can no longer have this discussion without the Martha back. To guide us, we are wandering in the wilderness Without her and she needs to come and we need some adult supervision to tell us what's going on So I was just thank you. I loved you all so much. You were trying so hard all of you to stop trying so hard Dr. Martha Beck is a best-selling author, life coach and speaker, offering powerful, practical, and entertaining teachings that help people improve every aspect of their lives. She is known for her unique combination of science, humor, and spirituality. For over two decades, she has been, in the words of MPR and USA Today, the best-known life

coach in America. Her published works include several self-help books and memoirs, including New York Times and International Best Sellers, finding your own North Star and expecting Adam. Martha's most recent book, The Way of Integrity, Finding the Path to Your True Self, was an instant New York Times best seller.

Okay, for the listener to get you up to speed, if you haven't listened to 238, listen to that episode, but it was about a relaxation intervention that Abby and Glenin were trying to have with me that didn't go the way that they thought it would go. But it's more about it's more than about relaxing. It's about this like quandary that I'm having about what, how am I blocking myself from being human and feeling the breath of the human experience? And why is it my approach to life? That's fucking me up. Or is it my obligations that

like, can't let me access those things or is it some mix of the two and it becomes a dynamic between among us because Glen and gets stressed when I'm stressed and then it we do this work together. So she's that like how I don't want this work to be hurting you. And so should we stop doing this work and then I get more stressed because then I think it's all gonna, sure. So I thought it was very interesting, Martha Beck that when we sent you the episode and said, can you help us SOS, your notes back

were actually about our dynamic with the three of us mostly. A little bit. Can you share that to start this? You'll notice that Glenin hasn't said any words, probably because I just read all of your notes out loud. Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to make anybody feel a feel shy. But yeah, basically, if you listen to 238, it's three people talking about overworking essentially and losing touch

with humanness, which I want to talk about. Like, I'm not really sure what you mean by that. When I first heard about this, they said they wanted you to feel more joy, joy, joy. That's more specific to me than humanness. Anyway, we'll get to that in a minute. But what I felt was three people talking about the conundrum of being too stressed by life to feel joy. And during that conversation, the whole thing could be described as a stressful effort to get something done. So you were falling into the pattern as you were trying to fix the pattern. And that's just you end up with nothing to hang on to. You just get pulled into a whirlpool of it. Yeah.

Not to insult you. Here's the problem. You're incredibly smart, all of you, and you're incredibly well-meaning. But the way that's been expressed in your lives is overwork, exhaustion, loss of joy. So how are you doing now, Amanda, since that 238? I think that I... I have this door relationship with it, which is like,

I start to peek around the corner where I'm like, I could have that, I could have that. And then I get protective of myself because then I think protect yourself from the hope that you could actually have that. Okay, but what is it you want to have? When you peek around the corner, what do you see is like, oh, what is it you see?

Paint me a picture. What's the thing you can almost have? Some ease, like some times where I shouldn't be doing other things. Time periods where it's not the conscious like I am choosing to pay for this later because I'm allocating time to this thing I wanna do. Cause it just, that's what it feels like, like moving around little, like,

what was that little Atari game where all the pieces fit together? It's like, that's all with the ball. Touches. That's probably right. Jenga's one of like single legs. And the shit, Jenga. Ah, that's all with the ball. Tetch us. That's probably right. Jenga is all good. Tetch us in a way. Tetch us in a way. Right.

Where it feels like, okay, I can like, reallocate this block, but then I have to find space for it somewhere else because it's still got to get done. So there's no actual ease. It's just that either paying for it now or paying for it later.

So you've got ease on one hand, and then you've got something else on the other hand. And you described it as functioning in that episode. Like you're always functioning so you can't be at ease. Is that a fair estimation of what you mean? I think it is. I think it is. And the fear that if I stop functioning things won't. It's like, okay, so I have this, potentially all these great things that I could enjoy. Like I have this awesome team that I love

and I have this family and I have this work that's really meaningful. And I get frustrated with myself because I feel like not actually enjoying that, not actually like fully living into the possibilities of what a blessing all those things are. Because I feel like I need to be maximally functioning in order to keep those things in order to keep those things beautiful. So that, yes, work at work for every bit of relaxation and joy.

And then it just feels like, well, I could stop doing that, but then it threatens the very things that I am trying to protect. But then I never can really truly access them because I'm always functioning. Yes. I gotcha. So what do you mean by functioning?

What are you functioning at? Your mother, you do this whole magnificent empire with Glennon Abbey of the whole Doyle world. So you're working, you're raising kids, to what end, Amanda? Why are you doing this? Like what's your definition of victory? If you live to be 110 healthy years old and you look back and the angel of death comes in and says, okay, it's over. And you look back and you used your life, this wild and precious life. Exactly the way you succeeded. What would that look like?

That my people knew me and loved me and their lives were made better because of me and that I knew and loved my people and allowed my life to be made better because of them. And that also that I did what I could uniquely do. You could you the world. You did what you could uniquely do in the world, which I think is a brilliant, you like way of phrasing your mission in life. What is the thing that you can uniquely do in this world that would constitute complete success.

At the risk of sounding self-importance. Now go for it. We know you're a big, big soul. Go for it. No modest. I think that I am good at locating what feels like unique and idiosyncratic pain and malaise and frustration within like a bigger framework of what has always been happening in the world. And I hope that by being able to name that, it helps people to see that like it's not their failure in the world. It's just the way the world has always worked and that getting a little freer from that. So your unique ability is to name the pain that people feel in the world and help them see that it's like their failure, but is part of something

that is systemic so that they can use what would be self-hatred to get mad and use the anger to free themselves. Okay. So there is something systemic that is taking people away from their joy and you can name it for them and tell them that it's not their fault. And then they can be free from the pressure of this system that has them. Maybe, is that fair? Let me put it in another way.

Okay, so one thing I noticed so much on the 238, the famous episode 238, is how incredibly verbal you are. And you not only think verbally, but you think in like very complex analytical language, much more than most other people do. And it's because you and Glenn and are both wordsmiths. Abby jumps right in and joins, you know, runs with the cheetahs, with the best of you. So it was, that was a festival of words. And I think Glenn and brought up the point that you're also an animal. So, what I saw with you, and I'm just jumping in like ordinarily, I would spend hours teasing this out of you,

but I'm just going to go for it because here we are recording. All of you are caught in a system where you need to produce high value in terms of our culture's definition of achievement. So if that's winning the championship, if it's having more episodes of more podcasts, if it's getting more people to a feeling of liberation from the system, that success. We're going to go and find the places where people are stuck in misery and we're going to set them free to be truly human. And we're going to do that with, there was a point where Glenn said, well, we could cut down to just one podcast a week and you were like, oh, no, we have to reach more people and free them from the system. That the system. I have to make more podcasts to free people from having to make more things. If you look back and said, I set so many people free from the obligations that had been imposed on

them by culture that had nothing to do with their true nature. I said people free from that. Would that feel like success? Yes. That was my guess. So you're going to do it. Are you going to actually set yourself free? Or are you going to kill yourself, telling people that they have to do less. It's a whole do as I say not as I do scenario. And I'm sorry to be so direct and I feel your little heart. No, how does that feel? Because I worry that I've injured you. No, no, please. No. Okay. I am here for the full contact sport. Is it true? Does it work that way? Because I'm wondering, is there the people that live free, Lee, actually help other people? I think I can help people sometimes.

And you love that. I do. OK. Exactly what I freaking want. I mean, I don't do a podcast every week. I let alone do because you know what, even if it would set more people free, I wouldn't be free. If I can't show up free, it is impossible for me at an energetic level to help others be free. But if I show up free, it is impossible for me at an energetic level, not to set others free.

That rings true. Thanks, happy. So there are different levels going on here. And Amanda, you're so, so, so, so intellectual. And that's beautiful. I wouldn't have it any other way. And when you say, I shut up for the full contact sport, I believe that part of you. I also see a part of you that is like a baby deer. And it runs and it runs and it runs. It was born knowing how to run. And it's running to save everyone.

And like, there are tigers right behind it. And it's terrified to slow down, and it's terrified to be caught. Tell me where I'm wrong. I think you're, I think you're right about that. I'm terrified to stop. And I'm terrified to let myself fantasize about stopping because I believe that I won't be actually able to.

And then that will be even more crushing than just continuing to run. Wow. Super honest. Yeah, I love this. Hi, it's Elise Luna, an author of Honor Best Behavior in the host of Pulling the Thread. On Thursdays, I interview cultural leaders and big thinkers, and on Mondays I'm starting to introduce special four-part series on topics like mystical systems or addiction. Follow and listen to Pulling the Thread on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. We do a strange little exercise and it's partly designed to pull you a little bit out of

the left hemisphere of your brain which is so analytical but is also driven and it also tends to do things to excess one all left hemisphere is due. So to do this, I often have people hold up their literal physical hands because that activates two sides of your brain. And Abby and Glen, and please jump in, put it on your lap or whatever's comfortable. But what I want Amanda is to talk to the,

see the two sides of you, the part that is driving, driving, driving. I want that one to be in your right hand as a two inch tall miniature And you give it the form you want maybe it's like a soldier that is like saying go go go march march a Navy seal right like top level That's in your right hand and it just stomps around going move move. We can't afford stop moving. See it? Yeah. I call mine the dictator. What do you want to call yours? Well, my first time was a Navy SEAL. I guess I shouldn't call it that name.

Go right ahead. Okay, or call it the Army Ranger, whatever. Yeah, call it the Ranger. Ranger. Okay, so now in your other hand, your left hand, there's that part of you that is terrified, terrified to stop running. The baby deer part. Yeah. baby deer part. In my mind, I call that the wild child, and it's just a little like maybe

eight-year-old dressed in rags, been raised by wolves, right? And the right side of your brain doesn't use language, so that the wild child doesn't have any language. It's just an ache, it's just a cry, it's just a gurning, and it's just trying to be good. Can you see yours? What does it look like? I think like little me, little kid me. Yeah. How old would you guess? Um. Like preschool. Okay. So little like four, three, four.

Mm-hmm. Little one. Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay. Now glasses and a patch of her lips. Oh, sweetie. Okay, so there she is. And she's just, is she sitting down

and she's standing up? What's she doing? I think she's standing up. Okay. How does she feel? Nervous. she's standing up. Okay. How does she feel? nervous. Hmm. So let's just stop and like relax a little bit and let her know that I'm not I don't want to hurt her. But in an abby don't want to hurt her. We don't need to make her do anything, not one thing.

She just gets to be this little girl. That's it. During this session, I've got her. I won't let anyone hurt her. Did she feel that? Okay. So, what should we call her? Panda.

Amanda. Amanda Panda. Amanda call her? Panda. Amanda. Amanda Panda. Amanda Panda. Amanda Panda. That's so cute. Okay. So Amanda Panda is in your left hand, little, little,

and the Navy seal is in your right hand. Ranger. Well, call her the general. The general. The general's over here. Okay, the general is like, go, go, go go go you can't afford get up and move Come on. You've got functioning to function at Come on and the little man to pan is going what what

Just get up and move Can you feel that? You said in episode 238 that sometimes there's a part of you that gets mad at you for being silly and relaxed, but also at other people for being silly and relaxed. So that's the general. Okay. And it's yelling at all the Amanda pandas in the world to stop being Amanda pandas and start being part of the military.

You know, like March when you're told to March, sleeper flies out five hours and you're up and out of them again. Okay. And so the whole culture divides all of us. Well, it doesn't divide us. It wants us to be like the general. We live in a society that is based on the factory line, which never stops. And it's always dedicated to the production of more. Did you know when they had factories come into villages, people weren't showing up on time so they put in these horns in the factories that would wake up every single person in the village

at five in the morning to make sure they got to work. And we still live in that culture. So there's the general. And you can see how society formed the general. And can you look at them both and see that the general is actually trying to be good? Yeah. And can you see that Amanda Panda is also trying to be good?

Now let me ask you something. Are they tired? I think the general is tired. And then the panda is scared. Is she tired of being scared? How long has of being scared? How long has she been scared? I don't really know. I haven't really thought about her that much.

So, um, can you ask her? Mm-hmm. Or would she let me ask her? Okay. Because I'm really all about her side. You speak her like what she is. So sweet heart, little Amanda Panda. You feel scared, yeah?

Does she ever let you relax? Does she ever let you relax? How does it really know what she's supposed to do? No, because she doesn't even understand language. But can she hear that she's being pounded on to get up and do things all the time? Like when I see her, she's just like kind of looking around nervously like what am I supposed to be doing? I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing. Oh, okay. Let me try this. I'm going to do something, I'm going to take this a certain direction.

So I want you to put your hands down and look at both of them, the general and Amanda Panda. And you can see that they're very different people. And yet they're both really deep in transit parts of you. The achiever and the exister, the consciousness that has no functioning, it just perceives. Can you feel that both of them are trying very hard, that both of them are inherently good? So there's no criticism and no judgment here whatsoever. Can you feel compassion for both of them? Yes, at the same time. Yes. So look at them both and offer them a loving kindness which like, may you be well, may you both be well, may you both be happy,

may you both be content, may you both be satisfied, may you both be happy. I'm just sinking into that. Can you go there? Okay. I'm going to say that I left. No. It's enough to say it to them in your in your head and your heart. But I can feel that you're there. So right now you're not a man to Panda who's confused and nervous. And you're not the general who's driven. You're something else.

Who are you? Because you're not a man to pan and you're not a general. You're something else. What are you? Some one who can choose. You can see the truth. When you can choose. Sure. Yeah, the agency to choose. But actually, you're not having to choose.

You can love both sides. You can love the paradox. You can contain a paradox. And what I felt when you dropped in was just pure compassion. Can you find that place of pure and total compassion? And then look at Abby and Glennon. And without thinking about them as producers or functioners or people who get things done, look at them through the eyes of that same compassion. Now, if imagine people doing a funny silly thing and your general would jump up and go stop that.

Can you feel the general tense up like that? When people are being silly. So say to the general, when it gets activated, maybe well, maybe happy. I love you. You're good. Sit down now, sweetie. Sit down. It's okay. You don't have to do it anymore. Can she feel that or I wonder what that would be like in those moments because it does feel like it's like coming

from within me. I feel like it's like a resentment or something, you know. Okay. I think because I've gotten so, I've so like divorced myself from the ability to access that when I see it being accessed around me, it's like a visceral kind of, if I can't have that, you you can have that kind of feeling.

Right. Right. So like, where's the general and Amanda Panda will and tell them if they can go to sleep now, and I want to talk to you about this person who feels that resentment. Okay. So you've had Dick Schwartz on the show, right? So, you've had Dick Schwartz on the show, right? No, I created it. But we talked to Becky Kennedy about Dick Schwartz's work. We have not spoken directly to him, but wow. I was just thinking about that when you said thank you. I was like, oh, that feels like my general part is front and center.

So we all consist of many people. We all consist of many parts. And it gets really confusing because we're like, I want to relax, but somehow I don't want to relax. And it's because there's a part of you that wants to relax. And there's another part that doesn't. Once you say it, it's not exactly rocket science.

But you have a very strong sort of, you just said, when you see someone being silly or you think about being silly yourself, it triggers a resentment. So what I want you to do is just relax as much as you can and go to the feeling of that resentment. You were able to access it really well a second ago. Can you find it?

Okay. When it's active, what do you feel inside your body? Where is it located in the body? It's like in my core, my center. All right, and it rises. Okay, so what does it look like? It's like flashes out of me. Ooh, not a... It's like flashes out of me. Ooh. Not a, it's not like a conscious thing.

It's just like a, is it like a flame? Is it like a dragon? If it flashes, that gives you the image of fire. What's it like for you? Yeah, I think it's pretty fiery. Okay, so it's, it's like a dragon that comes out and breathes that fire. Now notice that I'm trying to pull you away from analytical language into visual and sensory details.

If you are going to experience joy, that shift is at the core of it. So getting out of language and analysis and into sensation and emotion, our culture says it's cheaper and stupider, like pure thought in the abstract is the gold standard. All it does is it runs us in little circles. It makes a little factory line of our heads and it throws our lives into it and there go our lives. And it's been my experience.

You said it. So you feel this flashing resentment, this fire, It has been my experience. So you feel this flashing resentment, this fire. Do you want to give it a name so we can just refer to it? This part of you. It's like that um, bouncer. Because I think it's like because I know that that is true of me, but I'm not having it. And so since I'm bouncing it out of me all the time, I'm bouncing it out of you.

Like, because that should be mine, but I'm not letting myself. Okay. So there's the balancer. How do you feel about the balancer? I... The balancer's a giant asshole. Everyone hates the bouncer. I hate the bouncer. The bouncer's no fun.

Like, so annoying. Now, I don't want to get too complicated with all the parts, but it's very important. So, you know what the bouncer is. And there's another part of you that hates the bouncer. Yes find that part the part that hates the bouncer. This is good. Thank you. We all have these play alone. I know I'm doing it. I'm like, oh, there you are. We all have these play along. I know I'm doing it.

I'm like, oh, there you are. Who is it that hates the bouncer? Where's it in your body? Just feel it. Feel it. It's like a paper in my belly. Okay. It's deeper in my belly than the bouncer is.

The bouncer's like higher up in a flash. Okay. And the bouncer, Hader is like lower. And slower to come up. You're like just like 30 seconds after the bouncer. Okay. So what are you going to call it? Penelope.

Okay. Is it like a descriptor word or just a name? Anything that comes to you, it seems to fit. The, come on. That's a good name. Come on. All right. Come on. Is it again?

All right, so now I wanna talk to the part of you that's come on. Can I talk to her? Is she aware that I'm here? Okay, what I'm here? Okay. What I'm going to ask her to do, and this will sound really odd, but I really, I would ask her to respond, not you. Okay.

So come on. I'm talking to you. If you could just give me some space, I would like you to like step out of Amanda and like sit maybe two or three feet away from her. And I promise I will let you right back in after I've finished talking to the rest of her. So could you please sit on the couch and let me have access to the rest of Amanda? Come on, is it delighted to excuse herself? She is excellent.

So give her a good stiff drink and, you know, and a little leopard outfit. Whatever. Like, let her have some fun. Okay. Now come on, is over on the couch. And I'm here to talk to the bouncer whom everybody hates. Now, I don't hate the bouncer. Could I talk to the balance, or please, it's that flashing energy. Can I talk to it? Is it willing to talk to me? Yes. Okay.

So, I think you're doing a very, very significant job. I think you have taken on the responsibility of making sure everything happens the way it has to happen. Tell me where I'm wrong again. Here's the, okay, the balancer, sometimes it's like, these are actually things I want to be happening in my life. Like I want there to be like ease and joy. So why does the balancer show up and like get mad at that? Okay, so whenever just talk to me,

could it please step aside? Cause I wanna talk to the balancer about that. Okay, so balancer, you see some people being silly and you're like, Why? Why? Malancer, why are you doing that? Because it's not fair. Okay. Why isn't it fair?

For people to have fun. Because I don't get to. You'd never got to. And how old were you when you first realized that you never get to have fun? Let her answer not Amanda. I want to talk to the bouncer. How old were you when you realized you could never get to have fun again? I don't know. I don't know how that was. Probably younger than I should have been. Remember the age that came up when I asked you to look at your hand, it was pretty school. Does that land? How old were you when you looked around and thought, I have to take control of this.

I'm the one who gets this. Nobody else gets this. I have to do this. And that means I never get to have fun again. Elementary school, yeah. Little kid. That's why I don't hate the bouncer at all. She's just a little kid.

And she's taken on the responsibility probably for her family, for the rest of the world, because she knows she's smart, and she knows she's strong. And she wants the best for everyone, so she's going to put her own happiness into the furnace. So she's going to put her own happiness into the furnace. And every time she sees somebody having fun, it flashes out for a second, but then she

shuts it down again. But she never, ever stops burning. And she's just a little kid. I mean, she's just baby. But you do that to one of your kids? I don't know, but not. They hope not. How old are your kids right now?

11 and 9. Okay, imagine sitting down with your nine-year-old and saying, guess what? You are really smart and you're really strong. So you are going to serve the world for the rest of your life. And the only catch is you will never get to experience joy, relaxation, fun, or ease again ever. So, kiss it goodbye, it's done, it's over. Would you do that to your nine-year-old?

No. Of course not. Okay, so, Bouncer. I think I know why. I think when you flash that of like, I think when you flash that of like, like I remember when I was really little and if my dad would get really mad and start yelling, then I remember I would try to deal with it and say something and try to stop it and make things right. I feel like I'm going to be able to do something. I feel like I'm going to be able to do something. I feel like I'm going to be able to do something. I feel like I'm going to be able to do something. I feel like I'm going to be able to do something. I feel like I'm going to be able to do something.

I feel like I'm going to be able to do something. I feel like I'm going to be able to do something. I feel like I'm going to be able to do something. I feel like I'm going to be able to do something. I feel like I'm going to be able to do something. I feel like I'm going to be able to do something. I feel like I'm going to be able to do something. I feel like I'm going to be able to do something. depends on creating harmony between people who have so many wounds and scars and have built up such a long relationship. And now here you are little, little. Nobody can control any other person.

And here's this little kid doing her absolute utmost to control people who were fully grown adults that had their own histories. And you know what Amanda, I bet you were really good at it. Mm-hmm. Even when you were two, three years old, I bet you were already doing it. And Glennon's written about this, little ball of joy, make everybody happy.

You both do it. Abby's done it. I only go train every day till I throw up so that the world can rejoice in my athletic ability or what. You know, like, you've all thrown yourself into the furnace of the culture. Make everything happy for everyone. The only person who doesn't get to be happy in this equation is you. But it's okay, because you can touch so many millions.

Only you can't set them free if you don't leave the cage. So how do you feel toward this little one who was trying to help her parents be happy. I'll keep the world on its axis. How do you feel toward her now? I feel sorry for her that she didn't. I think that that was her job to go have life, but just to like always be aware of then what needed to be done. So, can you ask her what she's afraid, because she's not in the past. She's still here. She's a little kid, sort of locked into that glenset in the last episode. This is trauma behavior.

Yeah, it is. The culture that tells us we are just meant to function in productive ways. That is traumatizing to a small child who was not born for that. Yeah. We have to traumatize it into ourselves. So if you could ask this little sweet heart, because to me she's coming across as more like three than nine. Could we ask her what she thinks would happen if she stopped doing her job? Which is to make everything okay for everyone all the time.

It's funny because I'm circling back to like the original, what is my purpose where I'm like, it wouldn't be fair. Hmm. It wouldn't be fair for you to stop. It wouldn't be fair for like the people of my life, what would have occurred if I didn't try to make up. So you're making, you're making an equation between feeling the need to be

joyless and working all the time. This is what I believe. If you can set yourself free, if you can set this little one free, what happens? Actually, it's not that you would gain your full humanity. It's to me, not you can use whatever language you like. It actually allows you access to something that is bigger than our humanity. It gives you access to this pure compassionate energy that is flowing into the world than through you. And there's tremendous joy. And sometimes you do things. Often you do things, things get done, and you're like, huh, when are that happened? But it takes this huge risk of departing

from the cultural paradigm of continuous physical and intellectual work and saying, I believe that I am meant for joy. I believe every human is meant for joy. So let's jump off this cultural paradigm and go to the places where we are in joy and see what happens. Will everything actually grind to a halt? If you were experiencing intense joy, would you then be unable to work? Would you then be unable to work?

Yeah, that's a good no. I don't think you've ever really tried that as an experiment, but I would like it if you did. So, Abby Glennon, my question to both of you and a little bit that I've known you is that you often work from joy. Tell me where I'm wrong. That's true. When I first met you, your relationship was really new. And talk about jumping off the cultural paradigm, right? And you wrote about this and I'm in untamed.

But it's like you saw each other and your hearts knew they ignited and you got together and there was so much joy. Am I getting this right? Is the story? It's correct. And that's the story of our family a little bit. When sister is talking about the time she would jump into the fray with our family, she'll also tell you that if she tries to imagine who was there, then I just wasn't there.

Wow. I would be hiding. I would run away. Or I would be in my room. Wow. And I was older. So, so for me, it feels like maybe it's my sister gets to have it. I don't get to have it. Like, I wonder if that's what my sister thinks. It could be that, but I would actually, one of the interesting things in therapy systems

now is that they're stepping away from looking at the incidents that happened in childhood, even if obviously if you have a trauma, you have to talk to someone about it. But instead of saying, oh, these were the family dynamics, it just looks at the parts that are functioning now. So it's like if you came into me and you had an arrow stuck in your chest and I said, I need to get this arrow out. And I said, okay, but I want to know about exactly how you got shot and who was holding the bow and how far did you draw back. Just get the arrow out. Right. The arrow here is that Amanda developed the theory at a very,

very core part at a very, very young age that by continuously functioning as she puts it continuously working in very narrowed defined ways She can make the world a safer place and do her life's work, but she sacrificed herself for that So by comparison, I'm glad you ran away Glenn and it did not make Amanda feel like she had to take care of things. That just happened. It's not your fault. She reacted like she reacted to circumstances.

I want to go to the one thing I know well about Abby and Glenn, and which is the joy of their relationship and how it just, they just took a running leap off a cliff so that they could have it. Very few people would have made that jump. And look how unproductive it's been. How dare you? How very dare you go for joy and do nothing? Like this whole thing is because of your joy. Yeah, that's right. Like this whole thing is because of your joy. Yeah, that's right. It's so true.

You told us that. You told us that. I was one of the voices, but damn, if I were good enough, just fix it like that for everyone, everyone would be free. Because I've tried damn it. I've tried for decades. I did the joyless thing. And now I'm just like, no. I will not.

So I just want to gently talk to the little parts of Amanda and say, recognize when that part rears up. Get that resentful energy. And instead of hating it, you can bring in, come on. You can bring in that little part again. But the she now know that the bouncer is just a little girl who's trying to control a scary situation. Yeah, yeah. And I think that the bouncer also knows even more that the things that upset the

Bouncer and the things that are actually I need. Like that's why the Bouncer reacts so much. Yeah. That I actually really am very silly, but because I foreclose that to myself. A part of it. It's very helpful to see it as part. Because otherwise you just keep getting stuck and getting stuck and getting stuck in the

contradictions. That's what happened in episode 238, the infamous. So what you do is go, oh my gosh, a part of me resents the fact that people are having fun. Oh, a part of me hates the part of me that resents it. Oh, it's okay. It's little Amanda. It's Amanda Panda throwing herself into the furnace and instead of saying, this is so weird. I want this yet. I value this yet. I don't do that. You sit down with the little group of them and say, okay, peeps. Yes, but it's a rough world and we're all caught on the horns of this productivity obsessed culture. But let's just take a breath. And the reason I wanted to do the hands exercise is that when you feel compassion for the parts of your personality, what you feel is

not another part. It's what Richard Chortz calls self with a capital S. And it runs through everyone. and it runs through everyone and it is inconceivably powerful and productive. But all it does is love. And the first thing it has to love is the cast of characters inside your own mind. Love the Bouncer. Love, come on. Love the general. Can you find compassion for the whole group of you? Gosh aren't you beautiful? Aren't they all beautiful? You are in the room just like tried so hard. Yeah, so hard. And Abby and Glenn, can you see the parts of yourself that are so beautiful, like the part that makes Abby work out till she throws up and the part that would rather stay in

bed and be goofy and Glenan and the part that hates food and never wants to eat again and the part that loves food and wants to eat everything in the world. Like, we're all made up of these different parts and where every one of those is perfectly human. But the love holding us is bigger than human. It'll be there when you're on your deathbed, it won't have changed a bit. It'll still be able to love little Amanda. mandate. So the practice and Abby made this beautiful list of things to put into your schedule because your schedule was too full of things. And that's what the culture does. You have too much

to do. Well, put it on your, put it on your daily prospectus to do this. This is internally contradictory. But one thing that is not contradictory and that you can do any time is to notice the different parts coming up. There's the part that's exhausted. There's the part that never, that never stops moving. There's the general, there's all of them. And say to them, what a beautiful creature you are. Be well, be happy, be satisfied, come into my arms. I'm so proud of you. And I don't care if somebody listening to this is a heroin addict on the

street. I have worked with heroin addicts on the street. And self still loved them. From inside them, from me, from everywhere. They were just Damn best. And then see if maybe maybe the balancer will kind of back off a little sometimes and maybe come on will actually give her a cuddle and and then you'll find yourself doing something kind of goofy. And you'll be like, no, well, no, I'm going to take that. I love the part that says no, but we're going to try something. Beautiful. Beautiful. So how are all your bits now? I feel like I'm giving them all big hugs. That's beautiful. Oh, everybody out there listening to this, if you have the ambles to give yourself a big hug, you do it. I mean, for God's sake, the

world hasn't done it for you. What is right there inside us, the infinite capacity to love every aspect of our experience. And when we fall back into that, it's like falling into a cloud. All I want to do is that I just try to focus on loving my bits. Love in your bits. That actually sounds really naughty. And do not. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I can remember it really easily like. Love it. You're a bit.

I'm Martha Beck. Have you loved your bits today? Right. It's good. I feel like this is like so fascinating to me because yes, I've learned a little bit about IFS internal family systems and you know having children, I can see this really being helpful for kids who are going through puberty and hormones and trying to figure out what parts they're developing. Like they're actually in the process of developing the parts, you know?

Yeah. So it's like an interesting way of not controlling, but just like giving them more accessed parts of themselves. Because I didn't. When we were growing up, I had no. No, we had this idea. You were a self. You were one. Like when you think about the idea, it's about what a self is, that the theory is that we are actually more like communities and individuals. Yeah. And God, it's helpful.

And one of the biggest contributions from Dick's work as well is this identity. He said after working for thousands of hours with everybody's inner community, he found that the self would step forward in every single person, people in prison, everybody, and he'd say, what part is that? And they would say, that's actually not a part.

That's what I am. And from then on, the whole goal of that kind of therapy is to identify the self, locate it, and then allow it to love the other parts. And it's always the self that heals the community. It's never the therapist. Damn. We're going to stop here.

We're going to come back. I get stressed out every, this is really healthy. I get stressed out every time I'm with Martha because all I see is the minutes counting down. And we're're gonna have luck with her. But we're gonna come back and have Martha respond to a lot of pod squatters with challenges, which makes me so excited. But what also makes me excited is that we can based on this episode, we know we can actually look into the mirror in the morning and say we can do hard things.

Yeah, oh, because we can do hard things. Yeah. Oh, because we're all the parts. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Let's go.

Because you're not like, I, oh, I'm, I'm shitty today. I'm good tomorrow. I'm shitty today. You're like, no, I'm just a different part was forward today. Yeah. The part was operating the machine in that moment. And I would actually say, yeah, we can do hard hard things. And then as you're looking in the mirror, have all the parts step aside a minute and see nothing but the light, nothing but the self.

And it will say to all the parts, you can do hard things, but you don't have to because I will. And your relax. Be happy. That's what you're here for. That's it. I'll do the rest. Woo! We got everything, our whole title. I don't think so.

We'll see you next time. Thanks, Clan. Thank you. Thank you, Puppy. So much. We'll see you next time. Thank you. Thank you. So much. We love you. If you'd like to go back and listen to the episodes that we mentioned in today's conversations, don't forget to listen to the three other times that Martha has been on this pod and rocked

our world. And also, if you want to learn about the internal family systems that we talked about in this episode, check out episode 170, the most radical way to heal with Dr. Becky Kennedy. We'll see you next time, Pat Squad. Are you okay, Sister Bear? Yeah, how are you? Sort of. I'm great. I'm great.

Seriously, just don't fake it. No, tell me what's really going on. No, I feel like I want to like go meditate on everything. You know what I mean? I want to fully let it digest, but that was really powerful. Thank you so much. Thank you. And when you go just hold a man to panda on your lap. You will. Yeah. She's been waiting a while. She's like what the fuck do you long enough? That's the way she was. Look, that's why she was so nervous. She's like, what the fuck do you long enough? That's the way she was looking. That's why she was so nervous. She's like, jeez!

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 walked through a fire I came out, the other side.

I chased desire, I made sure I got once mine And I continued to believe, I walk the line Cause we're adventurous and heartbreak So man, a final destination And man, we'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 And 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 and heartbreaks On that, 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 our way back home

And through the joy and pain that our lives bring We can do hard things Those perfecturers and heart breaks on land We might get lost but we're only in that Stopped asking directions Some places may have never been And to be loved we need to be long 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 you