We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - 255. Glennon on One Year of Recovery!

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

Glennon tells three stories that reveal how recovery from anorexia has changed who she is and how she experiences the world. Together in G’s home, recording for the first time, Abby and Amanda respond with their reflections and the impacts that G’s recovery work has had on the entire family. 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

Hello everybody, welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. We are welcoming you to our house because for the first time in 250 episodes, the three of us, Abby, me and Amanda are all sitting together. Is this really the first time we've ever done this? This is the first time. Yeah, we're all in one place. In one space, this feels so different and cool. It's wild.

Yeah, so we're in what we call the office, but it is kind of like a room for books and also is our oldest son's bedroom when he comes home from college. He's sort of like a book too. Yeah, he's a book. So it's a room for all the books. Yeah, yeah. So welcome to our book Chase Room. We're so glad to have you here, sister.

I feel so happy to be here. I feel like this is very special to be, what's always special to be in your presence. I feel like I'm at my best. I feel nervous. And this feels, yeah. It feels like live stage performance. You should do some live stage performances.

I think we should. The pod squad should chime in here. I mean, oh my god. Would they want us to come on a nationwide tour? Probably, probably I should. The pod squad should chime in here. I mean, oh my god, I want us to come on a nationwide tour. Probably, probably I should. Oh my god, do you guys? Maybe they want to see me dance. I think also we should talk about these things before we bring them up on the pod. Okay. This is something that we did not think about. We didn't plan to talk about today, but we are in the very early stages of considering going out on the road and coming to the Pod Squad's towns and inviting them and all sharing space together.

By early stages, you mean like 60 seconds ago? That was it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, early stages. As in you heard the early stage, I feel like, um, yeah, take this shit on the road. I'm feeling frisky right now. So I don't know how this is going to go. Well, it's an interesting segue because I have not done any public things. No speaking engagements, no appearances, no nothing. For about a year, right? Didn't you say Abby that I've been in recovery for about a year? One year ago. Right. So I don't know that that's true. I don't, I'm, time for me is just an idea that some people believe in. It is true.

Yeah, it is. It is. It is true though. Okay. So that's so interesting. So when I think about going on tour, it makes me understand how much I have accomplished during this recovery, this year of recovery, because it doesn't feel horrible or terrifying to me, suddenly. Interesting.

I think I have a sturdiness that I didn't have before. And that's what I wanted to talk to you all about today, because I haven't done an update for the Pod Squad, or for you to, I mean Abby you see it every day, but we haven't done an update on how recovery is going a year later. And what we're talking about obviously is recovery from anorexia, which I started talking to the pod squad about maybe about eight months ago or now I told the pod squad when I first had. So what happened is that I for any new listeners, I have been in different stages of recovery from eating disorder since I was 25. I became blemish when I was 10. Well actually you went to therapy for like it wasn't effective

or real. You just said you were fine for a little bit. When you were to therapy for like, it wasn't effective or real. You just said you were fine for a little bit. When you were quite young. Yeah, that's true. I was hospitalized, et cetera. But I was not thinking of that. I was not in recovery. I feel like a break.

Recovery's when you mean it. When you mean to get better. Like what I was in is breaks from my life, right? I was like a celebrity who is having exhaustion and needs to go to a hospital like for a break because I wasn't a celebrity and I was horrifically believing. Right. And it wasn't like to some exotic location. No, it was actually.

To the local mental hospital. It was a mental hospital. Yeah, which let's do a whole episode on that. My time in the mental hospital. I would like to do that actually, but that's not for today. Not to. Um, so then I got what I thought was sober from eating

disorders when I got pregnant with Chase. So this was 21 years ago. And I was okay for a while or what I thought was okay, but about a year and a half ago, I had a relapse of bulimia. about a year and a half ago, I had a relapse of bulimia. And so after six months of doing nothing about it, I went into some deep therapy. And what I learned when I went back into therapy was that a very short way of explaining this is that what I thought was recovery from bulimia was actually that I had just taught myself anorexia to fix

my bulimia. Okay. So, basically what I did is I didn't really do any of the work. I just kind of figured out how to control the bulimic urges. Right. You could abstain from bulimia by practicing anorexia, which is harder to quantify than belief me. So you were like, I'm good. Yeah, I thought I was just really disciplined, which I was, but that can become inter-exia.

So I entered this whole new level of therapy, and it wasn't just therapy. It was a lot of things, like a lot of doctors appointments, kind of felt like a holistic over time thing where I was doing something related to my recovery every day for a long time. And the people who followed the pod know a lot about that recovery and it's been very difficult and all encompassing and confusing. And I think it's so important to do this kind

of stuff, to stop and be like, wait, I want to talk about who I am right now today, as opposed to who I was a year ago, because you can miss it all. If you don't stop. I think about those, the travelers who used to build those, I think they're called Karen's. They're like, when you know when you go walking and you see like a stack of rocks on top of each other, they're called Karen's. I think it's C-A-I-R-N. I might be making that up. We'll have to look at that after. But you stop on your journey and you kind of like build something to, to show how far you've come where you've been. It's like, here's a moment. And I think it's important too, because lots of weeks or days, I feel like nothing has changed and I'm still exactly the same and blah, blah, blah.

I lose it all. So today, I would like to tell a few little stories that make me understand that I am recovered at ring. Like I'm a different energy than I was a year ago. I'm in a different mind space, spiritual space, bodily space than I was a year ago. And none of the stories have anything to do with food or weight or body, which is so interesting to me. Like, I tried to think of one. Yeah. Then they all kind of do.

Well, the first one. So, do you remember a while ago, I was telling the pod squad, and you all that, I decided that my anorexia in the beginning was just an obsession with appearance. And so how I was going to fix it was become like an appearance monk. I was going to stop doing everything related to appearance. I made all these rules for myself. No more Botox, no more hair, no more makeup, no more. For like, anyway, that was just like replacing one set of rules with a different set of rules,

which is what a lot of people try to do in the beginning of recovery. That didn't work out. So then I decided I want to be the kind of human being, the kind of woman who doesn't want to get Botox. But I'm not gonna stop getting Botox until I don't want to. Mm-hmm. Like I'm never gonna make myself do something

just because of the idea of it that I don't want to do. I'm not going to pick the flower. I'm going to like go to the root and hopefully. Exactly. Exactly. And I'm going to be so gentle and kind to myself until it was I just when I decided that I felt like that's so calming, I want to want to not die my hair. I want to not want to, but I do want to. That's the thing. Like at the end of the day, I still, I would be disciplining myself to not do it. Right?

Well, it's denial of yourself, which is the same thing as the inner exeo, right? Exactly. Denying what you want, denying what you need, as opposed to being like, how can I get to the place where I don't want or need that thing? And then it's not denial. It's actually like gratification of yourself to not do it. Yes. And I had this hunch that if I keep becoming whatever this round of recovery is helping me become, that there will be a time that I won't want to. I just thought that, but I thought maybe it'll be in 20 years. Right. You know? So, a couple weeks ago, I get a message that I have a dermatology appointment. Okay. So, wait, were we together? I feel like, yeah, I was like,

I don't, why do I have a dermatology appointment? Everything that happens to me is like a big surprise. It's not like I was like, oh, it's coming up. I have no idea what this is, right? So, I call and I say, what is this appointment for? And they say, it's for your Botox. And what happens in my body is like, I don't want to go. I don't want it. I don't want to go to that appointment. I don't have any want in me to go. And so then I did this thing, these words came out of my mouth

that would never in a million years, and I say to the person, I don't want Botox, but can I keep the appointment and can they make it like a skin test, like to test me for skin damage or cancer? Like, what do you, you know, like a mold check, like a mold check. A mold check. A mold check.

A mold check. Yeah, it's what a dermatologist was supposed to be. Like exactly. When did dermatologists become places where they're like, yeah, check, check, you don't have cancer. But the primary focus of this is to offer all of these aesthetic things. Same with the gynecologist.

I just had to leave one because I went in for my literally not just, but after Alice was born, I went in to get my six month checkup after the baby was born, and there were huge posters offering body sculpting. Oh my God. And I was like, give me my file. What the fuck? This is supposed to be a medical establishment where you check to see if my body's okay after massive health situations. So anyway, no, that is so it should be extraordinary. You shouldn't have to ask for the dermatology appointment to focus on the health of your skin. That is such a good point. And did you I've said something to the gynecologists before. Oh, I took my file. Oh, you left. I said, I am walking into this waiting room with all of these people who are about to give birth,

or have just given birth, who you should be focusing on indications of whether they have postpartum depression, whether they have the supports they need for their child and their baby, whether they're able to breastfeed, if that's what they choose. And instead, they're walking in post-mortem, post-mortem. Post-mortem, which is a foreign,

post-mortem. Yes, thank you. And a little bit post-mortem. To giant posters of sculpted bellies and saying, we offer body sculpting. I said, this is outrageous, I want my file. Highlight? Yes. It's a ridiculous.

Blurry of the line even more in these offices between our own bodies and what we owe the world. So these women are sitting in this waiting room and they're trying to deal with all of the emotions and the mental transition to parenthood and they look at a poster that says right now they should be worrying about their tummy how it looks to the outer why isn't this like that is the battle of like wait. It's supposed to be this hard to figure out how to take care of ourselves as people and not just as. care of ourselves as people and not just as beings that, oh, this outer shell like that quote that pretty is not the rent you pay to exist in the world. Like it feels like it is. I think that you both are very right about this and the paradox of the world that we live in. There's a reason why these doctors places and these facilities are offering is because people are buying them. But they have a first-do-no harm.

Oh. And you think it's more harm than... I think walking into an office as a woman where you want to get your skin taken care because your skin is an organ that holds you in and like walks you through your life, walking in for your health and then being told by a doctor, being suggested that you need cosmetic changes is doing harm. Absolutely. I think it's, yeah, I think there should be a brighter line. Yeah, between cosmetic shit. Yeah, that's true. And your actual health. I got that. I really 100% deal. I think those services should be available and I think you should be able to opt into them or inquire about them and I think you should keep the main thing the main thing which is that your doctor is there to I mean the the myriad things that go uncovered, unasked about, I have a whole condition. My belly never came back together after, and I have a hernia, I have all the stuff that

was never detected. And I didn't even know to look for it. And that would have been at those post appointments. But we didn't have time to make sure that was okay, but you have time to check in with me and make sure that I don't want body sculpting. So I just feel like, yes, if those services are for you, awesome. You should have the opportunity to inquire about those, stop into those, but to have that confronted as if like this is the main purpose as to why you're here feels like complete bullshit to me. And it's a bigger issue about the medical,

cosmetic establishment, and why these individual providers are being incentivized to go into these cosmetic areas because insurance companies are squeezing them and not. So it's a bigger thing, but it's just I think if more people were like, don't shove that in my face as something that I need to be thinking about if I'm not already thinking about it. Yeah, absolutely. And don't shove it in our daughter's faces when we bring them in for their things. What are they learning from that?

If you're a doctor who doesn't do that shit, good job. Way to go. Thank you for fighting the fight. Speaking of not doing shit, if I'm thinking about what the difference is, why I don't want it now. And I think one of the reason is, why I don't want it now. And I think one of the reasons I'm just feeling a lot more comfortable in my body,

just a lot more comfortable. I just wanna like look how I look and feel, how I feel. And I was thinking Abbie about how, like a few months ago, you started ordering. So I get home one day and there's like all of these eye creams at our house. And like we we don't know we're doing with it. We don't, it's not like, we don't know what we're doing. We're not eye cream people.

Like everyone's not someone sends us some shit and we're like, what's this? And we, you know, whatever. Use it for three days and you're like, that should do it. Yeah, exactly. That's it, right? It's like a one time use thing. And also come on, just come on with this. Like I know that I'm probably going to yell at me

about this because everyone feels so strongly about skin care. But this shit, really, we're still buying it. We're not one bottle away from like, you know, eternal life, but anyway, which is why I was surprised when I got home and my wife, Abby Wombach, had ordered a bunch of eye creams. And I said, what is this shit?

It's like all lined up by her, you know, Irish spring on the... On the... On the... And she said, I just have felt been feeling bad about my wrinkles lately. Oh, wow. And then she said, I mean, look at my face.

She goes, you're going to not age with me. She goes, you're just, I'm over here aging and you're not going to do it with me. You're peer-pressuring her into being. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't say it was necessarily peer pressure, but like, it is noticeable, the difference between our faces. It is very noticeable. I'm just noticing more. And I do think it's in stark contrast to Botox face, like your forehead.

I'm just like, you're a little older than me, too. And I'm like, what am I doing wrong here? There must be something. So yeah, I mean, that's interesting that you picked up on that, that I might be feeling a little more insecure because I look at you and you're so beautiful. I keep up with the Joneses over here. I think bathroom sink. Yeah. It was a microcosm moment a microcosm moment that made me understand very acutely what we do to each other. What we do to each other in the wider world. When we, God bless our hearts, I'm not blaming, I've done it my whole life, but two things can be true at the same time. It cannot be our fault. We have been conditioned to do this shit. Some women say like if they don't look a certain way in their business,

places of work, they don't get promoted. Like I understand all of it. And when we opt into it, we are part of people look at our faces and we get used to the way people look. And then we look at ourselves in the mirror. And if we have a wrinkle that we have earned by our lifetime, it suddenly looks like a problem because other people don't have it. I just suddenly feel so excited to not be a part of that. I am a person who, because of my work, people look at my face. A lot. People more people look at my face. A lot, more people look at my face than the average bear. And the average bear, that's for sure. Yeah, I'm just like excited to be in quiet solidarity with just resisting the tyranny of like,

you are not allowed to be a human being. When we think about aging, it just means living. Yeah. It just means continuing to live. Right. So as my daughter, Tisha always says, like, but it's just like proof of life. And that's my favorite thing, proof of life. Like it's just proof that you're alive. Yeah, I mean, I hear all of this and it is hard to age. I really think that there's no shame in people wanting to express themselves how they want to. And I remember telling that to my grandmother when I was young, I was like, I love your wrinkle so she was so worried about how she looked.

And I remember when I was young, I mean, it's really easy when you have not a single wrinkle to be found. So I understand, and I think that what is so cool for you is that you have been able to go through this process of your recovery and figure out maybe what are the things that have been making you sick All along and it's not just body stuff. It's the way that you feel about yourself I love this conversation because I think that it is full Chocful of paradoxes where I can see it in both ways because I mean if you're

If you're 50 60 70 80 year old woman and you're listening to this, you're probably thinking these people have no fucking clue what they're talking about because their faces have not aged yet. Yeah. You know, so I just, I want to like, well, almost 50. But I'm almost 50 and my face has not aged yet and that's because I've been stinking poison in it. I'm just saying these things are true, right? I know.

But now it's coming back. I haven't gotten it for like six months. And I'm like looking at myself again. How is it looking at yourself again? I think it's okay. Like I really think it's okay. I think I'm okay with it. Anorexia is kind of like a commitment to being a steel,

to being unhuman, to being unmoving, to being a robot, like resisting, like whatever the opposite of Wabi Sabi is, like Wabi Sabi is like the idea that everything is decaying and that's fucking beautiful, everything's out of control and that's beautiful, that's like what makes it all beautiful. And then our culture is like threes it. Don't show time passing. Don't show mess. Don't show love.

The opposite of the Velveteen rabbit. I want all of the Wabisabinas. And so I guess what in the paradox, I would say, that if I had to like tell women anything right now, it would be just do exactly what you want. Yeah. And then when you want something different, do that. Yes.

Don't go outside of yourself and think I should. Mm-hmm. If you don't want to do that, I should do it. I should do the Botox. I should do the hair, but no. But if you want to and you think I shouldn't do it, I shouldn't do it then just do it. Exactly. Because another wrinkle, no pun intended in this, is that like I have never even considered doing those things.

Like I've never gotten Botox, I've never gotten whatever, but it is because I would never let myself think about doing that because I would be so embarrassed. It's almost like a pride thing of like, why can't be someone who gets Botox. It's like that rebellion is just as much of a cage or as obedience is. Like I am, I wouldn't allow myself to entertain any of those choices because I'd be like, that is outside of who I should be, which is a woman who doesn't do that bullshit. So, you know how everyone throws around the term narcissist? Uh-huh. So, you know where that comes from, is like this old Greek myth,

where a person named Narcissus goes and looks at himself in a lake and then falls in love with the image of himself and he gets frozen because he's so in love with the image of himself. And so we now call a narcissist a lot of different things and we've done episodes on what narcissism really is, but what people think it is, is someone who loves themself so much. But that story is not is someone who loves themselves so much. But that story is not about someone who loved themselves. It's about someone who became obsessed with the image of themselves. Not themselves.

Narcissists didn't have self-love, Narcists became enamored with an image. So, like, that's what that is. It's not coming from inside of you. It's not love of self. It's love of an idea of yourself, an image of yourself. It's the flip of you. Your image of yourself is you don't show any decay.

My image of myself is that I am a woman who would never entertain such tomb fuller. Yeah, but they're both images. Exactly, and I was always just like, what kind of person am I? Am I a good enough person? Am I the kind of woman who wears flowy clothes? Am I the kind of woman who looks comfortable?

Am I the kind of woman who wears a suit? Do I wear beads? I've been trying to find an identity where so fucking long, you know? And it's like, what kind of person am I? I guess I should check in. I guess I should check myself. Right now, and like, what I am now

might be different than what I am tomorrow, which I feel like is kind of the opposite of anorexia or frozenness or narcissism. Okay, so that was the first little thing. Was the Botoxic. A little thing. Well, and by the way, like I have a hair dying appointment tomorrow. Yeah.

So nobody's going off the deep end here. If only my forehead is decaying. Okay, that one thing at a time. Okay, one, I'm going to, like the Velveteen route, I'm going to become human one thing at a time. Okay, one, I'm gonna like the Velveteen route, I'm gonna become human one thing at a time. Right. So then we have this really cool thing which the Pod Squad probably already knows, which where we had new pictures taken and the three of us were together. Yes. Okay, so our dear friend Alex had a son, who's a photographer and Abby and I's best friend besides sister Dina Nelson came to us to take pictures of us.

We were the three of us were together for the pod art. I don't think there's many things that I hate more than a photo shoot. Me too. But for different reasons, you just earn noise and want it to be over. I don't know how to be. I don't know what I'm supposed to wear. I don't know what my hair is supposed to be like. I don't know how people smile.

It's awful. So I was dreading. McDread. Dreader. McDreader 10. Okay. Yes. I had the most unusual experience, which is that I got up that morning. I got, took a shower.

I didn't do anything with my hair. I put on my little light makeup, which is foundation, which is really has sunscreen in it. So it's really just like medicine, not even makeup. Dr. Perscribe. And we had a six hour photo shoot, and I didn't feel one ounce of stress. I felt very natural and normal the whole time. And when we got the pictures back, I was like, that's looks like me. It's the first time I have ever looked at a picture and been like, oh yeah, that looks like me. No way. I've never, I've never seen a picture where I was like that person looks familiar to me. And it wasn't that, because looks like you. It wasn't about that. It was that you were calm and in yourself and you weren't performing.

Yes. I wasn't posing. I wasn't becoming a different person for a photo shoot. That's so interesting, because you have ever since I've known you, I can look through some pictures that have been taken of you over the years. And every single one looks different. know new, I can look through some pictures that have been taken of you over the years. And every single one looks different. I know that you actually look like a different person because I think you're trying to act like a different person other than who you are. So this to me makes so much sense because you're feeling a little bit like yourself so you

don't have to act. It's like with you were never able to listen to your voice in anything because your voice maybe was like 1% off of authentic. Yes. Because you weren't actually at home and grounded and coming from that place. So you were so turned off of the sound of your voice, because even that smidge of it in authenticity is like, like staring at the sun. But then you were saying how you can listen to your voice now. Yeah.

Because the same thing as it sounds like me, is the same thing as when you look at those pictures and say that looks like me. It isn't what the picture looks like. It's that you, when you look in that picture, you see a woman who is comfortable. Yes. Yes. Familiar. Exactly. It's not about what I looked like. It's about what I look like I felt like. Yeah. You look comfortable. Yeah. I looked like somebody who was not performing or acting a different self. And Alex said that she went home and told her partner, I just took the first good pictures of Flenn and Doyle. It's like, oh my god. Also, really? Yeah, that's true. Or the best. I think she said the best. Anyway, so there was that day. And then another thing

that happened is that I'm so scared all these stories. I know. I'm like, I'm like, am I this? I'm like, did I do something wrong? No, no, no, they're all the other. These are just very little ones and they have nothing to do. Well, you won the last one. This includes you sister. But so this one is so silly, but for me felt like, oh my God, this is recovery. Okay, so I was at a store and I was looking at bracelets. And I really hear something that is true about me. I really like sparkly things.

Yes, you do. Okay, and I don't like sparkly things. Yes, you do. Okay, and I don't like sparkly things because of the way they look to other people on me. I like to look at sparkly things. Do I look at, I could, I'm, sparkly on the inside. Right, no, sparkles, spark joy. I mean, I

I just like sparkly fucking things like that is true to me. I was not taught this. I knew three things about my one is that I like sparkly and it's a little embarrassing right? No, it's like so like Fem and like why is it embarrassing? I don't know. It's not like cool. It's, yes it is. It's that it figured something out. Okay.

That shit's fucking cool. Okay. All right. Like even fish, like fish that are sparkly. You know, the ones with the silver, like I'm just like, oh, I can't believe that that got made by God or something. Like just all of it, just the sparkles. So I was at a store and I saw this thing of beads and it was just sparkly, sparkly,

sparkly. And it looked so stupid. Like it did not look good. It did not look good. Yeah, it wasn't like a sophisticated, it's not like what someone would choose to wear. Nobody would choose to wear this, right? But I was like, I want this because I want to look at this. Right.

I don't think this will look good on me. I think this will look good to me. Yes. You don't understand. I was in will look good to me. Yes. You don't understand. I was in the store going, oh my God. Is that what things are for? Is that what things are for? Like I should have things that I love to look at.

Yeah. On my body, in my life, in my house. Not like if someone else is going to think this thing is cool, but do I like to look at this thing? Oh my God, I'm sure that so many people are listening and are like, what the fuck are you talking about? One's over here. No, it's profound to me. To me? Yeah. Profound. Congratulations Abby, that you learned that early.

I just want things on me and around me that I like and that I like to look at. And I'm not caring so much. Oh my God, one of our daughter's friends said to her, they were talking about looks. She said, well, I don't care about my face. Your face is more important to me. I have to look at you. Isn't that so good? I don't have to look at me. My face is your problem.

Yes. That is the revolution. Yes, it is. It's good. Okay. Last thing is that yesterday, sister and Abby and I were on a walk with Alison and Dina at our house because we're all here. We're all here right now.

The most wonderful time of the year. It is. And we're going to actually, we should just have a whole episode on the things that we've been making you guys do since you've been here. Anyway. It's good. So we're walking down and sister turns to me. And we talk about emotional things, but we don't have a lot of like sincere tender moments

between us, right? It's the Irish Catholic and us. Yeah, it's like, whoa, like being earnest is, we're, I'm getting better at it, we're getting better at it. Yeah, it's like whoa, like being earnest is where I'm getting better at we're getting better at it, but sister turns to me and says a very emotional hinder thing. She stops and looks at me and says, this is the least fucked up you have ever been. fucked up you have ever been. Make it a greeting card. Well, this is the least and it's as happy as I get. I would look good on a fucking sweatshirt.

I take I'll take it. This is the least fucked up I have ever been. I really do believe that. It's true. I think this is the least for life. But what did you mean? It's not like you're watching me eat food and thinking she's eating the right amount or it's not like my body is a certain thing where you're like so what is it? I think it's a

astertiness. Yeah. A groundedness. It's hard to explain but there's a centrality in you that it's like, you are inside of you. And the things that come at you or come around you, or whatever's going on outside of you doesn't feel like it disturbs the sturdiness of you. the sturdiness of you and you have a clarity, I feel like, and you're able to maintain that energetic sturdiness regardless of energies or people or challenges around you that would normally have been before this. Those energies would have come into you and would have changed the whole ecosystem. Like you would have been affected by other energies and that would have morphed you. But now I feel like you are like, this is what I am. And I'm not blocking out those other energies. I am able to kind of digest them, deal with them,

understand them, but they're not changing my energy. Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah, it's almost like for the whole of your anorexia, you would go out into the world with your representative, your anorexia, you would go out into the world with your representative, your anorexia representative. And over the last year, I've seen an eroding of that representative. It's like this truer, this little kid kind of,

I see this little kid. You know how kids are just like, they ask questions, there's like a curiosity to you. But now this whole person, like the, the essence of you is coming forward and you were just becoming more full. And I'm not, not having obviously anything to do with your body, but like, you're becoming more of a full human being. And it's not to say that you don't have moments of anxiety or internal conversations about your recovery or about whatever.

But it's just been so lovely. In fact, I find myself not being able to be the calm one anymore, because that's the world I used to live at. You were anxious and I had to balance the scales. And so now I feel myself healing through this process too. Like you're able to have a more range of emotions because her being calm doesn't mean you always have to only be calm. Exactly.

I mean, we've talked about this a little bit on the podcast where I'm starting, I'm doing therapy, I'm working on my shadow work. And it has completely changed my life. And the only way I think that I was ever going to give myself permission to do the work is if I knew that you were okay, and I totally know that.

That's so true that it might not be anxiety versus calm thing, but that polarization within partnerships. Yes. It's so real. If someone is on the surface side of the spectrum, the other person's humanity is diminished because the polarization just occurs where they become the equal in the opposite. Yes. Because they have to occupy that space, even it out.

And then that further polarizes. So it's like no such thing as one way liberation when people expand their range of humanity that other person gets to too. You know what I think it is? That is so different is that there is a complete lack of defensiveness in your posture. It reminds me of when you were getting together with Abby and Mom was so concerned and it was asking all the questions and you were so unedged and so defensive and so Ready to react at all times to what you're saying and I was like You only have to be defensive if if someone can take something from you

Mm-hmm. That is your constant posture now is like I Don't have to defend anything No one can take this piece from me. No one can take this solidity for me. Like this, this solidity doesn't come from other people. So they can't take it. It's like an internal calibration. So I think that's where the inquisitiveness and the curiosity can come from

because it isn't like, okay, I'm asking where you're coming from because it might change where I'm coming from. It's I can ask you that because it might edify me in some way, but you're not gonna take anything for me. Yeah, and it's interesting when you say the one way liberation, I mean, I talk about our family and like what has happened in our family since my recovery has started,

which like our oldest went abroad, got himself this little grant and went to a different country for the whole summer. Like that is just... Okay, and then the middle one really started her music, like really got into it and is off doing it with other people that aren't me. Literally right now. Right now, she's in Tennessee right now. And it's just, I mean, I talk about like, that's not a coincidence. Like it's like the kids energetically finally understood like she's okay. We can do our thing. That's how it feels. Yeah. For sure.

That's how it feels. Yeah, for sure. And what's so important to me about these conversations is if you could have talked to me like two weeks ago on a Tuesday, I have moments all the time where I'm like, this is just all bullshit. Like, what is this? I'm not, what am I doing? This is not real. Like, I'm not really recovering.

I'm not, I'm just the same person as I was before. I just have so many moments like that. But coming around the mountain. Oh my God, over and over again. But I just got a message from the practice that I'm a part of for this holistic recovery thing that was like, are you going to renew your thing? Like your membership in this group or whatever. And I, there was a part of me that was like, oh no, I'm good. Oh really? Yeah.

I was like, hell, I'm not going to spend all that money. I'm not going to, I mean recovery is so expensive. It's such horseshit. It's such horseshit. See aforementioned medical complex and horseshit. God. But then I was like, oh, you're so funny. Like this is of course you're going to do this. Look at just trust, trust this process. So I

resigned up. And it's just so funny because I'm almost 50 and I'm like, oh, yeah, this is who I am. I was just flipping through one of my favorite like quote places and I saw this picture of Miles Davis and right underneath it just said man sometimes it takes a long time to sound like yourself. And that's how I feel like it can take a really long time to look how you look it can take a really long time to feel how you feel to be who you are. So anyway, thank you for letting me do this today. It feels really good. And thanks for being steady and with me throughout this past year and forever. I just feel like you're you're walking me through this has been what has allowed it kind of and I love you both so much and I'm so grateful. I mean, the gratitude should be also pointed back at you because like I said, not only has it completely impacted my personal life like in the day to day and the interactions with

you and the kids, but there is something so beautiful about watching your partner go through a difficult uncovering and a difficult time. And to watch you continue to do it, you know, this is the first I've heard that you had to like, resign up for the year-long membership. And that is something that I would have been worried about a year ago. Something that would have lapsed. Something that I needed to take care of. Something that I know you wouldn't have done. And so to me, this has been so awesome because I was ready to go all the way to my grave, just protecting you, taking care of everything, doing whatever I needed to like support you.

And what a gift this has been for me. just protecting you, taking care of everything, doing whatever I needed to support you. And what a gift this has been for me, because I feel less stressed about having to do the things right. You've got you. And to be able to know that deep in my bones has like softened me and made me capable of looking at myself and do work on myself, but I said to you last night, it now looks like you are actively wanting to live a really long time. In the decisions and the ways that you're being and the things that you're thinking about and the ways that you're thinking about stuff, like, it's not just like right now we got to deal with this one moment. It's like you have like a long term plan. And for me, I know that that's going to affect me the most and I want you to be around as long as fucking humanly possible. I love you. Thanks, Pod Squad. We'll see you next time. Bye. If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us.

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