We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - 53. How to Love Yourself & Let Yourself be Loved with Ashley C. Ford

Episode Date: December 16, 2021

1. Why Ashley says we have to talk about what hurts if we’re ever going to heal. 2. Glennon asks Ashley about the power of apologizing—and why Ashley says we must begin apologizing to the people we love. 3. How many of us are really good at loving other people, but often struggle to let ourselves be loved. 4. Why Ashley says that nothing has ever given her more peace and power than knowing that she doesn’t really need others to believe in her—because she believes so deeply in herself. About Ashley: Ashley C. Ford’s New York Times best-selling memoir, Somebody’s Daughter, was published by Flatiron Books in June 2021. Ford is the former host of The Chronicles of Now podcast, co-host of The HBO companion podcast Lovecraft Country Radio. She currently lives in Indianapolis, Indiana with her husband, poet and fiction writer Kelly Stacy, and their chocolate lab Astro Renegade Ford-Stacy. Ford has written or guest-edited for ELLE Magazine, Slate, Teen Vogue, New York Magazine, The New York Times, Domino, Cup of Jo, and various other web and print publications. Book: Somebody’s Daughter Instagram: @smashfizzle Twitter: @iSmashFizzle

Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things, one of our favorite people in all the land is back with us today. You know her. Her name is Ashley C. Ford. And we're just going to jump right in. We were talking about a couple of things. First of all, I just remembered this, Ashley, but you are the first human being to ever say any words to me about untamed. Okay. Sister and Abby, do you remember sitting on the beach?

in Nailed Florida. Yes. Untamed had been sent out to just some fancy writing people. Okay? So I had gotten no feedback, zero feedback except from like my mom and Abby and sister, all of whom thought it was great, okay? But I didn't, I hadn't heard from, and I was not even looking at social media because I was, I would look at Twitter like it was a jack in the box.

Like I was so scared that something would pop up about Untamed and it would be, and you had gotten an early copy and you wrote most beautiful thing. I think it was, I handed it to Abby on the beach. She called sister over and we, the three of us sat together and Abby read what you wrote out loud to the three of us. It was my first experience hearing from anyone. Oh, because she wrote a, a beautiful, like a review. Which I never do, actually. I don't know what you noticed. I don't write a lot of reviews of books or mention them. But yeah. And then you sent me. an early essay from somebody's daughter. And then I got the actual galleys.

And I just, after I think 100 pages, I had, well, I probably texted you like 30 times before them, but I just remember writing to you and saying, do you know, like when you were writing this, did you know how magical that what? Like, did you know that you were writing a timeless piece of art that would change the world and change people's lives. And something really cool happened. And I just stared at my phone because, I don't know, I just wait. I just wait.

And I think you said something like, yeah, I think I knew. I knew that it was hard as hell. And that it better be worth something. Yeah, yeah. I knew that. I knew that my publisher had paid a pretty penny for it. As well, they should have. Yes, they should have.

I'm not going to play. I deserve that money. But I got, but I also, you know, that's one of the things that I like to talk about when it comes to publishing. I'm like, yeah, I wrote a book that was really hard to write and I could not have written it if I had not been supported by my publisher, not like just like, hey, you can do it. But also like, hey, here's some funding so that while you're working on this book that is sort of. of, you know, ripping you apart a little bit, you can take care of yourself while that's happening. I hope everybody gets that. I wish that for every writer. Yeah. You, in the last episode, we talked a lot about how hard it is and people write to us, the pod squatters write to us

about this all the time, how hard it is to tell the truth about your life when the truth of your life is a Venn diagram with the truth of other people's lives. And those people don't want you to say the thing, but my sister and I were actually talking this morning about a gift that your dad gave you. Because part of your family pressure was be quiet. Don't say anything. Which if you know Ashley, you know that something you said in the first episode was, I could not make that feel right. I think everyone just needs to listen. I could not make that feel right. When you cannot make something feel right, that's an indicator that that's not true to you. And Ashley, telling the truth of what hurts is very important to you. I have written down somewhere what you said in an interview with Oprah,

where you said, we will never heal if we don't talk about what hurts. Is that what you said? Yeah, yeah. We won't be okay unless we talk about what hurts. I think some people think they're going to get out of it. I think that's one of the secrets that we have in this country that, not really in this country, but really as a people that people don't want to deal with, which is that you're not going to get out of it. You're not going to get out of it. And your attempts to get out of it are just distractions from your real work in a lot of, in a lot of cases, which is unfortunate because it's like, you know, sometimes you're walking away from what you want. Yes. So nobody gets out of here alive. In other words, like, you have to talk about what hurts if you want to heal. There's this whole idea of like, it's selfish. But the way that your dad said that, it was that it is a telling the truth.

is a valuable, one of the best things you can do in the world in and of itself just to tell it. Can you read the quote? Yes. Do you have it? I want you to read what your dad said because, Ashley, I'm imagining you having this belief that you had to tell the truth to heal, going right up against a family value, which is we keep our family secrets. We take them to the grave, right?

And then your dad says this to you. And you have to read the book to understand what a powerful, just crescendo moment this was with the full context. So, okay, but he says, do me a favor, Ashley. When you write about you and me, just tell the truth, your truth. Don't worry about nobody's feelings, especially not mine. You got to be tough to tell your truth. But it's the only thing worth doing next to loving somebody. Yeah.

And you say, a little bit later, you say inside of myself, I let go. For half a minute, I was flying. For half a minute, I knew I had it in me to tell the truth and be loved anyway. That's all it takes. I mean, but the thing is, you know, part of the reason why I wrote that is because that's all it took was half a minute. Half a minute of maybe. Half a minute of maybe.

Half a minute of like that might work out. That might be okay. It could be okay. Just believing that for half, let not just getting that from my dad, but allowing that for myself. Because my dad could have offered that gift and I still could have rejected it. I still could have come up with a million and five reasons why he was wrong. I could have said to myself in that moment, oh great, you'll be okay with it. You're in jail. Like, how does that help me? But it did help me. And all of the reasons that I could have come up with to deny that help in that moment for that half a minute, I just pushed them away. And I let myself have hope. I let myself have it for half a minute. But the problem with opening the door to something like hope, which is often related to light, right? The problem with letting it in is that you don't forget what it looked like.

You always remember. When you open a window in a room, you don't forget what that room looks like with the window open. Even if you decide to keep the shade drawn. And at some point, you're going to want to pull that shade up again because you're going to remember what it felt like to have the sunlight on your skin and you're going to crave it. You're going to want it. You're going to keep reaching for it. And that's what hope is for me.

That's what want and desire are for me. I want it so badly to be able to deny my own desire because I thought I was raised to believe, I was conditioned to believe that having desire outside of what could be. provided for me was harmful to my provider and hurtful to my provider. So learning how to want again, having the light and then reaching for it over and over again becoming kind of addicted to it, it's only led to good and better things in my life. And that doesn't mean it hasn't led to pain or challenge or struggle. It's just meant that all of that pain, challenge and struggle ended up being worth it just because it was in the right direction.

Ashley, I think what you just said about the opening the window, that reminds me of forgiveness, too. It's just that's, it's, it's, forgiveness, I think people think, like, if I'm still mad sometimes or I'm still whatever, then I haven't forgiven. But that is my experience of forgiveness. It's just a memory, like, I've been there a few times. I remember what it felt like for 30 seconds. I remember what this room looks like when I had those 30 seconds of forgiveness.

And so sometimes I remember to open the window again. But forgiveness for me often is a state where the window's closed. I just remember. Yeah. God, that's so good. It's not a static state. Like it's not a place you arrive and now you're there. It's that half a second of maybe that opens up.

the possibility that all things can be true in that one moment. Yeah. Yeah. It's giving up on certainty, you know, the addiction to certainty. And just saying, you know, like, certainty isn't real. Like, those things are not real. And it's okay that they're not real because me recognizing, accepting and acknowledging that it's not real doesn't actually change anything about my reality.

It doesn't make me less safe to acknowledge that the kind of safety I'm seeking doesn't exist. Because if it never existed, believing in it never made me safer. So I can just let it go. I can just understand that so much of what is happening, so much of what has happened, I am involved, but I am not always the architect. That's right. And it's okay to accept that I am not always the architect of this moment and just figure out what I can do, where I can move, what I can change.

And if I want to, you know, like thinking about those things and moving in that capacity, it is really hard for me sometimes to ungod myself. Yeah. It's so hard to ungod myself. and just remember that I am not in charge of anything other than me. Have you ever hit a point at work where everything just feels heavy? Not just a bad week, but the kind of burnout where you're staring at your laptop thinking, I can't keep doing it like this.

You're not alone. Strawberry. Me is career coaching that helps you get to the real root of your burnout, whether it's workload boundaries, a tough manager, or feeling disconnected from the work you used to love. Our coaches help you untangle what's draining you, build boundaries that actually stick, redesign your day-to-day so it energizes you and create a plan so burnout doesn't sneak back. And with a new year starting, it's the perfect moment to rethink how you want to feel. You can get matched with a coach in just a few minutes and sessions are flexible,

private, and built around the reality of your life. Go to strawberry.me slash we can do hard things and try a coaching session for 50% off. Strawberry. Because your career should feel good again. Speaking of not being in charge of anything but you, we've talked so much about forgiveness. One of the things that you come back to a lot, especially in your childhood, is the power of apology. I want to read one part to you. I think we all struggle for some reason to apologize to our children.

And you do such a beautiful job of just discussing how crucial it is to our children's self-worth. You just were wanting an apology from your mom and you said, she knew what I wanted and she wanted to know it would not be mine. We were locked in a power struggle, not that I would have known to call it that. And I was confused because I did not want power from my mother. I wanted her to acknowledge the pain in my body and heart. I wanted it to mean something to her because she loved me and I knew it. And I couldn't understand why she couldn't just say sorry.

What was so wrong with me that I didn't deserve that? A teacher apologizes to you in the beginning and it just makes you feel so seen. Can you talk to us about the power of apologizing and what you needed as a kid and how you use it now? and what it means to you. When I was a kid, I needed apologies. I didn't know this at the time, but I needed apologies to feel safe because I felt very clear about what it happened. I would feel very clear about the fact that my mother had made a wrong choice or a wrong

assumption. And when she would refuse to acknowledge that or refuse to. apologize, I would worry that me and my mother were not living in the same reality, that we were not in the same place. Or I would feel confused about what it meant to lie or what it meant to be wrong or what it meant to hurt. And did those things not count when you did them to people you loved or did it just not count when adults did them to children? And those questions could not and would not be answered because there was not really a decision made. There was no intentionality.

You know, it's not like my mom was a person who was like, I spank with intention or, you know, I make sure I talk to my kid. It was none of that. It was just like, you know, my grandma used to sometimes pull my mom aside. And my grandma would, I guess, be trying to whisper, but that woman couldn't whisper a day in her life. She had no whisper voice. And she would pull my mom aside and she would say, like, you can't hit your kids like they're strangers you're fighting in the street.

And my mom would have this look of just fury and rage on her face. And I could see that, like, even then, like, as my grandma, Mama was talking to her, she would still be staring at one of us. Like that anger and that that, that all of it was like right there. And we was like, what, did I do something that bad? Like, what did I do? I don't even know sometimes because it wasn't about us, really. It was her frustration with being a single black mom in the Reagan years where because

she could not at 22 years old figure out how to work a full-time job and have two kids under two, that that meant she was a quote-unquote welfare queen and a non-contributing member of the United States of America. Like that was her perception of herself and the image that she felt like she was getting from other people. But for me, I don't know nothing about no Ronald Reagan. I don't know nothing about welfare and welfare queens and image maintenance. What I know is that my mother beat the crap out of me for something I didn't do. And instead of apologize, she is forcing me to basically pretend I have forgotten that it happened to me. That's what I'm supposed to do right now.

And to her, that's the love. thing, the gracious thing for a child to do. And that's warped. It's not okay. I knew that it wasn't okay. I knew that. I knew that. And, you know, I grew up on all these movies.

And you guys probably in the movies like Hook and stuff like that where it's like the whole point of those movies is that this is what adults become when they forget what it was like to be a child. that was the premise of so many family-oriented movies when I was growing up is that the adults were stiff, they'd lost their ability to have fun. They'd forgotten who they were because they'd forgotten what it was like to be a kid. They mistreated or ignored their kids because they forgot what it was like to be a kid. And I remember having this moment where realizing that my mom wouldn't apologize. And the thing that made me sad, like the thing that made me most sad was realizing I'm never going to forget this.

I'm never going to forget. This is never going to go away. This is always going to be in my mind. And maybe she will forget, you know. Maybe she won't think about this ever again. That actually seems like that is what's going to happen. But it's going to be stuck with me forever. And that doesn't feel fair.

It doesn't feel right. And that's my reality, you know? The fairness is so interesting because it's, you know, what we learn in early childhood development classes is that kids have to, when they're little, believe that the world is fair. That's a very important part of childhood development. So when something terrible, like abuse happens to a child, they have to make it fair. inside their head by saying, I'm bad. It's more important for me to believe the world is fair than to see this as unjust. So then when we don't apologize afterwards, after we make a mistake with a child, it's a double

unworthiness because now I was not worthy of being treated well and now I'm not even worthy of an apology. Yeah. Yeah. And I spent most of my life thinking I wasn't worthy of apologies, you know? It wasn't until I got into school and became more involved with school activities more heavily that I realized in real time how different my life could look outside of my mother's home. I felt like I was living sort of two different lives once I got to late middle school, early high school, because at home it was quiet. It was go to my room, just stay in my room, only come out if I can tell that everybody outside my room is in a good mood.

It's the only time to come out. Otherwise, either stay in your room or be gone. Those are your options. At school, I was everywhere. I was everywhere. I was in every club. I was there before school started. I was there after school started.

I wasn't even a great student. I was just around all the time because I could be that version of myself there. I could be a person who was like kind of out loud. I could be a person who liked to be involved. I could be a person who was seen without it always be like, why are you trying to be seen? And that was more comfortable for me. This show is brought to you by Alma.

When I first tried to find a therapist, it felt like a scavenger hunt with no map, pages of names, long wait lists, voicemails that never got returned. I remember thinking if this is what it takes just to talk to someone, no wonder people give up. So when I found Alma, it felt like someone finally turned the lights on. Alma, ALMA, is this beautifully simple way to find licensed in-network therapists without all the runaround. You can browse without even making an account.

and you can filter for what actually matters. The therapist's approach, background, specialty, lived experience, whatever helps you feel understood. Nearly everyone who finds a therapist through Alma, 97% say they felt genuinely seen and heard. Better with people, better with Alma. Visit helloalma.com slash we can to schedule a free consultation today. That's helloa-l-m-a-com. W-E-C-A-N.

What is self-love for you, Ashley? I believe you love yourself. I mean, you live with an ease and a peace. At least that's what we think. We see. Well, yeah, but I'm just telling you that I know a lot of women. She lives a little bit differently, okay? And it's just what I find the most admirable in a woman these days.

It's just this way that you have. have about you. What does it mean to you? What does self-love mean? Everybody talks about self-love, but what does it look like to you? And do you feel like you've come to a place of self-love? And what the hell does it mean? I think I'm always practicing self-love. And I think I see self-love, I see self-love as a practice more than a destination or an arrival point in any capacity. So self-love is about holistic love to me. So what does it mean to love? So what does it mean to love? myself well, well, I know that I'm really good at loving other people. I'm great at it. It's a thing that if I've had an intentional practice over the course of my life, that has been my intentional

practice. I think because I felt a dearth of love and safety in my childhood, I have always wanted to be really good at providing it for someone else and for friends and lovers and everybody, right? And it took me a really long time to realize that I had not practiced turning that love inward at all and didn't know how. So for the past, I would say probably three years. I've been in active practice figuring out what it means to love myself and what it looks like. And it has changed over those three years a lot because at first it was like, okay, love myself, love myself, by myself. By myself. self things? Yeah, I can do that, I guess. Yeah, let's give that a shot. And then it was like, okay,

maybe that's not totally what loving myself is. I mean, it's a little bit. It's a little bit. I'll take it though. I'll take it. Don't get me wrong. Damn good start, Ashley. But maybe it also has to do with things like acknowledging that I have a body, which I spent so many years kind of pretending that I didn't. And, unless my body alerted me to its existence, I was like, what's that? I don't think about that. And now I am at a place where I'm like, well, like, this thing has actually kept me alive for 34 years through not just childhood medical neglect, but then obviously some adulthood medical neglect because I didn't know, I didn't have any of the prompts for what should make you go talk.

to a doctor. Because my whole life growing up was about not going to the doctor and actually being kind of blamed when you need it to go to the doctor. The two times that I got really badly hurt in my childhood, one was a fractured foot and one was a fractured wrist. My mother's reaction to both of those times was to be very, very angry with me, extremely angry with me. Getting sick made her angry with me. So I spent most of my adulthood thinking if I go to the doctor, they're going to be mad at me. Like I'm going to walk in there and they're going to be like, what did you do to your foot? Why did you do that? What were you up to?

What were you doing? I really thought that that was going to be my interaction with doctors. And I avoided medical professionals for a really long time to my detriment. To my detriment, I avoided medical professionals. And I now know that loving myself is treating. I'm treating myself the way I would want anybody I love to treat themselves. That's what it is. It's treating myself.

When I think to myself, man, I really wish my friend would just take a break. Like, she needs a break. I wish that she would tell her husband that he needs to take the kids and she's going away for a weekend. And she just needs to do that, right? And I could come up with all these reasons why everybody else deserved a break, why they deserved love, why they deserved a gift, a surprise, why they deserved compassion. And for some reason, when it came to me, none of that stuff could be pointed my way.

And it wasn't until somebody said to me, okay, well, then what's the best example you have of you being loved? Who's loved you the best? What did they do? What did that feel like to have them love you? And I was like, holy shit. Like, I don't do any of that stuff for myself. Like, the things that make me feel most loved, I don't do any of those things for myself.

The things that I do to show other people love, I don't do any of those things for myself. Wow. Why? And it was because I still kind of hated my child self and my teen self. And I hated them for the mistakes they made. I hated them for my perception of them as helpless and weak for not fighting back, for not speaking up. for not running away, for not, you know, having all the words and not having, you know, the resources and the circumstances, I hated my younger self because I couldn't allow myself to be angry at the people who

actually failed me and the systems that purposefully oppressed me, that oppressed my family, that oppressed my community. Because I couldn't be angry at them, that felt wrong. That felt like pointing the finger and not taking personal responsibility. And so it had to go somewhere. And it was with me. It was with me. And I was like, you know what? Fuck that.

I'm not doing the work of people who would harm me anymore. I'm not joining that club. I'm actually not on their side. Yes. So why am I doing their work? And so now I just try to do the opposite. I just think about what would I tell a friend who had a long, hard day, who is, in the middle of a depressive time, how would I ask her or encourage her to take care of herself?

What questions would I ask her about what she needs to take care of herself? And I just let myself be that friend to me. That's the freaking women's new golden role. Okay. So treat yourself as you would have your friend treat herself. Yeah. Give to yourself what you wish your friend. would give to themselves. I love that so much. I want to talk to you about the single line in the book

that made my sister just burst out crying. We talk a lot on this pod about not becoming anything new, just kind of getting back to the beings we were when we were younger, like how wise we were when we were younger before we learned all this crap that helped us stop trusting ourselves. You say this on page 12 of somebody's daughter. When my life was new, I understood in my bones how little it mattered what anybody else was doing or what they thought about what I was doing. I believed my bones then. I just, that gives me the chills.

I believed my bones then. What does it mean, Ashley, to believe your bones? Do you believe your bones now? What does it feel like when you do and when you don't? Is this the intuition we're looking for? Is this believing your bones? Is that the way forward? I mean, yeah, you can call it intuition.

You can call it self-trust. It's just trusting yourself. I tend to attribute so many things to either, you know, luck or circumstance and those things are real. Like, that's part of my reality. But the truth of the matter is, I've kept me alive this whole time. Any success I have, any, you know, thing I hold on to within or outside of myself that makes me feel pride and makes me feel. pride and makes me feel happy and makes me feel love. I sought those things out. I was smart enough to do that. Yep. I was smart enough to seek them out and I was smart enough to hold on to them when I

found them. And the things that weren't serving me, for the most part, I have been smart enough to either let them go or be in the practice of letting them go. I can trust me to take care of me. I can trust me to love me through anything. I can trust me to see me to the other side of anything. And when I am most clear, when I am most present, when I am most aware of who I am in a moment, that truth is undeniable. It is coursing through my veins. It is in my marrow.

It is traveling from the top of my head to. the tip of my toes, out to my fingers, and I feel like I am on fire. And I feel like I could catch anything else on fire that I wanted to. And we could burn down all the bullshit and rebuild something beautiful from the ashes. That's how I feel when I am in the center of myself in that way. And I am always trying to get back to that place. With everything I do, with everything I say, with everything I am, I'm always trying to get back to that place, because that is true Ashley. That is core Ashley. That is the Ashley that was Ashley before Ashley knew her own name. That's what that is. I want to get to the center of Ashley too.

Like, geez, you just got me so excited about being close to you. Ashley. I think I want to be Ashley. Abby's Ashley too. If you're a business owner who knows nothing about AI and feels really out of the loop, you're not alone. In today's data-driven world, you really need to understand your customers. And NetSuite can deliver those insights with zero fuss. No more waiting. With NetSuite, you can integrate AI into your operations today.

NetSuite is the number one AI cloud ERP, trusted by over 43,000 businesses. It brings your financials, inventory, commerce, HR, and CRM into one single source of truth. And now with NetSuite AI connector, you can use the AI of your choice and connect it to your actual business data. So you can finally ask every question you've ever had, who are key customers, what's our cash on hand, what's trending in our inventory, and you can automate all those manual processes no one wants to do. Right now, get our free business guide, demystifying AI at netsuite.com slash hard things. The guide is free to you at net suite.com slash hard things. NetSuite.com slash hard things. Ashley, do you feel it in your bones when you are speaking, when you're doing something like this?

Yeah. Like you have a clarity and a fire and a wisdom when you speak that just feels different than a lot of people, babe. Like do you feel that fire in your bones when you are? speaking in a public way. Yes, which is weird because, you know, you spend an entire childhood being really quiet around anybody who supposedly loves you or, you know, like that is your loving gift to them is your silence, only to find that when you open your mouth and you say how you feel and you say what you mean and you let people see you, you are powerful.

That's mean. And I struggle even now to accept that power and to accept the potential of that power because I still have trouble trusting myself to, I still have trouble trusting myself to make sure that whatever power I have directly relational to responsibility that I have. Because I know that the more power you have, it doesn't matter if you asked for it, it doesn't matter if you signed up for it,

if you got it, there is a proportional amount of responsibility that you have to your fellow human beings. That's right. And that you have to your family and your community and your loved ones and also the global community of the world. That's right.

And I get terrified of that power because I still have trouble trusting myself to choose right, to choose to be behind and for the right thing. Even though I don't really have a history or a tradition of being for the wrong thing, I have just, I have just, I am still overcoming the part of me that is conditioned. not to trust my sense of right, not to trust my sense of justice. And I'm getting over that, over time. I am being very compassionate with myself about those hindrances because I'm not going to hate myself into being the version of the person I want to be. It's impossible. Only love is going to get me there.

So I've got to love myself into being that person. I've got to trust myself into being that person. And it's not going to happen tomorrow. You know, there are times when I think to myself, now's the right time, Ashley, people are looking, people are paying attention. Just do it now. Just do whatever.

But inside of me, it's telling me you've got more work to do. You've got more to see. You've got more to figure out. And it's not that you're waiting because you're not good enough. It's that you are waiting for your time. And you trust yourself to know when your time is. I don't have to rush it. And I don't have to hesitate.

I believe that my time will reveal itself to me. And when it's there, that I will be able to show up for people the exact way I want to. That's right. And I might fail. With all the readiness. And I might get it wrong. I will get it wrong. I'm going to fail at some point.

That's okay. Right? I'm strong enough to handle that. But I also want to minimize that harm. as much as I can. And if the cost of minimizing harm is a little bit of preparedness, I am more than happy to pay that cost so that no one else has to deal with my public mistakes in a way that could have easily been avoided. Some things, you're not going to be able to easily avoid it. It's just going to happen. Come back, make amends. But sometimes we rush because we want to be the person.

And it's just not our time. And I'm okay with that. Wow. You said something in an interview with Clint Smith that about shame that just I've never heard anyone say anything like this before. And I'm just, can I tell it to you? And then can you say more? Because it's, okay, thank you. Okay. So you said when you start hiding things about yourself, not because they are private or sacred to you, but because you are ashamed. You are essentially creating the environment inside of yourself for that shame to grow and hold you back in ways that you might not realize. And when shame is holding you back, the easiest thing to do is start blaming people around you for why you're being held back. Your partner, your kids, your friends, it becomes they are not doing enough. If they were more, if they were better, I would feel better. I didn't want to do that to anybody that I loved and cared about.

I wanted to stop doing it to myself. And the only thing that has ever, ever, ever helped me bring that goal to fruition is telling the truth and letting people know how I feel, who I am, and what I come from. Yeah. Good. You still agree with yourself? I still totally agree with myself. Yeah.

It's like I said in the beginning, to be perfectly honest. the other way wasn't working, keeping the secrets, hiding what hurt. It wasn't working. Nobody was getting better. Everybody was getting sicker. Everybody was sadder. It was only getting harder. And so you have the decision at some point to keep doing what you've been doing and see if it's going to turn out different. Or you can try something different. And at the very least, know that you tried. And there is something to me about effort on my own behalf,

on my own behalf, for myself, that has always been so hard to get motivated for to access, but has always ended up being the most. life-altering in a positive direction choice that I've ever made whenever I have decided this is embarrassing I am feeling shame about this but I know in my mind I know in my brain even if my feeling system doesn't know yet my thinking system knows that this is not correct and it knows that holding on to it is not going to be what heals me. It's not going to be what brings me peace. So I can know that and I can know that I don't know what to do about it, but I can also start

trying some things just because every time I try, every single time I put effort into myself, there is a growing confidence within me that I will take care of me, that I will look out for me, and that I won't ever give up on me. And just knowing I won't give up on me is the most freeing thing I have, knowing that I have me, no matter what. I'm so lucky and happy that I have my husband, that I have my dog, that I have friends like you guys, that I have love and community. I'm so lucky and I'm so proud that I've been able to build that and maintain that

and seek it out and hold on to it. I'm so, so happy. But none of that, none of that has ever given me the peace of knowing that I have me, undoubtedly, and that I won't ever give up on myself. And no one else is allowed to say any more words. Okay? Because nothing is ever getting better than that. I have me.

And that is how you don't live in fear anymore because you're not looking around your life, wondering who's going to abandon you because you know that the one person you need to never abandon you will never abandon you because you have learned to trust her. Never. She is you. Glennon, don't you feel like you're your own safety net? Yes. And isn't it beautiful to know that even if I'm my own safety net? Right? That I still have people who would catch me. And I still have people who would hold me through the worst of myself. But even if all those people decided that they don't want to do that

work and they don't want to show up in my life like that anymore, guess who's still got the string? That's me. Guess who's still holding up that net? That's me. And I'm going to be okay. I'm going to be okay. I'm not going to live a life that's free of pain or challenge, but I am going to be okay. You loves are also going to be okay because you've got you. When life gets hard this week, don't forget, we can do hard things. Thank you, Ashley. We love you forever. I love you guys forever and ever and ever.

We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios. Be sure to rate, review, and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts. Especially be sure to rate and review the podcast if you really liked it. If you didn't, don't worry about it. It's fine.