We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - 67. How to Get More Joy with Martha Beck

Episode Date: February 3, 2022

1. Why it’s important to prioritize our own needs, wants, and feelings–and how that creates freedom and peace for those we love. 2. What Glennon says was the hardest thing about telling her kids that Craig and she were getting a divorce–and how truth telling frees us all. 3. Martha’s helpful strategy for how to choose freedom over fear when we’re faced with a tough decision. About Martha: Dr. Martha Beck is a New York Times bestselling author, life coach, and speaker. She holds three Harvard degrees in social science, and Oprah Winfrey has called her “one of the smartest women I know.” Martha is a passionate and engaging teacher, known for her unique combination of science, humor, and spirituality. Her newest book, The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self, was an instant New York Times Best Seller. Book: The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self Instagram: @themarthabeck Twitter: @marthabeck

Hello, lovebugs. I don't know why I just called you love bugs, actually, but I'm not going to redo it. That's what I call my family. And so today, you are lovebugs. Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. We are super psyched about today because the response to the last episode was so huge. because we were with Ms. Martha Beck, who is reminding us about how to return to our wild and live with a little more integrity, just meaning integrated. So our outer lives and our inner selves are the same damn thing for once in our lives. And because acting is so exhausting. And so we're trying to figure out how to just be. The parts of Untamed that people responded to the most, I think, were this idea that

there is a part of us that knows how to live and what we were meant for, but that we get that part drowned out by the expectations of our culture and by family and by religion and by all of these forces that tame us into forgetting our wild. And so so much of my life was transformed when I kind of figured out how to get back to that knowing. And I know that's true, but I'm not always amazing at describing how to do it perfectly. So we brought in the human who knows how to describe how to get back to our knowing. And her name is Martha Beck. Martha is back. Hello, Martha. Hello, love bug. Thank you. Thanks for that. I needed that. Do you mind, Martha, if we just jump into these questions because they're more beautiful and

fascinating and brilliant, then you can imagine this pod squad that we do life with just always brings the ringers. So let's just jump in. Is that okay? Oh, love it. Okay, let's do it. My name is Anna, and I am wondering about whether or not you think selfishness is real. And by that, I mean, as someone who has recently made the decision to stop drinking and who is really working on prioritizing myself and learning how to get in touch with what it is that I really like to do and how I like to spend my time. I've come up against a lot of moments of not knowing when it's okay to just do what I want to do, which sometimes means not leaving the apartment for several days.

and times when I should prioritize other people's feelings and what they want me to do. I guess I'm just wondering, what do you think about the word selfish? When is it important to prioritize other people's needs, wants, and feelings? And when is it okay to prioritize yours? All right. So selfishness is definitely a thing. and it happens when someone is starved of self. So if somebody holds a pillow over your face, you are thinking only about breath. But if you're able to breathe freely, you don't think about it at all.

If you are able to be yourself, you don't think about it at all. So there are people who are very selfish and they're mean and awful, and you can be guaranteed that that person's self is being stifled to the point where they cannot think about anything else. And they can be really toxic, but it's always because they've been robbed of their true selves. So a lot of the time, like when you drink, it's probably partly because you've lost yourself and you need to anesthetize the pain because the separation from self is unbearable. So what I would say is, first thing is restore your understanding of self by pouring as much nourishment into your true self as possible. And notice this. When you give yourself something,

when you prioritize yourself, like this sounds so simple and it's very sort of standard magazine things, but I get a massage once a week. I stopped during the pandemic for a while, then I started again. It was amazing how much more energy I had for others when I knew that I got that for myself. So that was something myself needed to be happy. And the moment I prioritize self, what happens is that you're breathing freely now. And instead of saying, how do I get my breath back, how do I get myself back, you see other people for the first time and you go, oh, I want to interact. I want to give things to them. It's joyful. So coming out of drinking and stuff, it probably means you were already in a life where you were starved of self.

So I would say you are your first priority. Like 90% of your energy should go to just understanding who you are and what it takes for you to be happy. And you will have to go and do things for your real life, but like you're going to have to go through a recovery period of self. And you'll notice that you'll feel a little more energetic toward others every time you give yourself something it genuinely needs. When you go overboard and start grabbing for things, it won't feel good to yourself because that's not the true nature of you. You are made of love. So to give you an example of how to sort of live through the adjustment period. Think about driving in a place where you've got your Google map on your car, but you've never been to the place, right? So you want to sort of look at the surroundings.

You want to look at the traffic. You want to see where you're going. But rather than admiring the view, your eyes are flicking down to the Google map over and over and over. Let's say it's a really intricate route. You're going to your internal navigation system over and over and over, and you notice what you're moving through. But most of your attention has to be, where does myself want to go now? Like, what feels warm, free, and joyful now? Okay, that's your navigation system. And it's internal. So 99% of your attention should be internal until you get to know the roots. Once you've traveled and the GPS has told you which way to go, you're going to start saying, oh, I know that building. This is where that river is. And you can.

start just completely taking your attention off the navigation system because you've internalized it, that's when your entire life will be selfless. You will go from feeling completely selfish to being completely selfless. So first get your breath back and always navigate by checking inside first. Oh, holy shit. Baby, you were having a big reaction to that one, Huh? Yep. The idea of selfishness, being starved of self and desperately needing it. That's why people who live as martyrs are always the most bitter and angry. Yeah.

And superstars, I never experienced Abby as bitter or angry at all, but I've worked with professional athletes who, I mean, talk about not having a self. Everybody thinks that you're up on a pedestal and you should feel great. But in fact, you are a commodity bought, sold, traded. It is, I mean, tell me where I'm wrong, Abby, but it's a rough life. Listen, it's why I become an addict at the end of my career because it felt, and I say this now. I mean, all of this is making perfect sense. I say I was so selfish. It was the only way I could be in that life.

Yeah. Everything I thought about was myself. And the fact that you just, you just saved me a lot of money in therapy. Thank you for that. I mean, I thought that there was something, I thought that that was my own, that was only my experience, but it was proof that my spirit probably wasn't doing what I wanted to be doing. Yeah. You weren't free at all. I was not, I was not free at all. And it's the idea of, you know, we, especially women, I think we just think that we can get to ourselves at the end of the list. Like, if we do everything for everyone else, then we'll put ourselves at the end and check that. box, but that means that the energy with which we're doing things for other people is actually angry energy. Yeah, if at all. I mean, eventually it will, it will simply run out. Like, that is not the way the system's supposed to work. So I always, I met one therapist who said, all of our

energy should be 75% focused inward all the time, up to 100% when we're alone. But even if you're in a room with people who desperately need you, and this is a woman who worked during, she worked on hospital wards where there were a lot of really needy people. And she said, if more than 75% of my attention got outside my body, I would burn out like that. So just notice the moment you feel burnout, focus on your internal navigation, go, okay, what do I need now? I need to go outside. I need to breathe the fresh air. I need to not talk to that person. I need to call that person. Is this selfishness the same concept that you describe in the book of the self sabotage? Like, are they two sides of the same coin as in, like, if you're not, like, that

egg scene blew my mind. Like, is it if you're not getting your needs met, it's going to come out? If you're not free to follow your nature, you will start to do dysfunctional things to sabotage the program that is taking you out of your nature. So the egg story was that I, I'm not supposed to eat eggs. My system doesn't handle them well. And one day, I was actually staying at Liz Gilbert's apartment in Manhattan. And I cleaned up the apartment. I took everything to the laundromat, cleaned it. Then I went to a diner and sat down and just ordered these eggs and just hoovered them. And it's not hard for me to resist eggs. They're not like, and I'm like, why am I doing this? And I went through it and it was that I gone to the laundromat. I came back in. It was hot outside.

And there was this feeling of, oh, I really wish I could just sit down. down in the cool and rest for 10 minutes. And then I thought, no, when the going gets hard, the tough get going. I've got to keep working, which was stupid. It would have been 10 minutes of giving my body the rest it needed. But carrying on and never stopping is one of my consensus cultural values. So I did that. And at that moment, I began to skid off the rails. And by the time I got to the diner, I don't even love eggs or anything. It was just like, screw you, world. I'm going to the rules. Watch me eat these eggs. That'll show you. You know, and it just made me sick. God, it's so true. It's the same reason why we all like scroll for 14 hours a night, even though

we desperately need to go to sleep because we're not giving ourselves the rest in other way. Yeah. Does self-denial for no reason create self-sabotage? Yes, absolutely. In fact, it's not self-sabotage. It's true. Your true nature. trying to trick the system into letting you be free. Yes. It's the truth. Self-sabotage is the truth trying to get you out of the cultural matrix that has taken your freedom.

So it's like, I'm going to drink this whole bottle of wine because I don't want to be in so much pain from doing all the shit in my sober day that I know I shouldn't be doing because it hurts my feelings. Exactly. I'm going to do what I absolutely loathe all day long because I am a good person. And then I'm going to drink six bottles of Jack Daniels because screw you world. Yeah. And then the next day you're hospitalized and things aren't going well.

But you can't out-fox your true nature. It will be the one, it'll be the last person standing. It will kill you if necessary to get you out of the wrong life. I've seen that happen. So maybe wait, don't wait till it kills you. just start doing what you want right now. If you're a business owner who knows nothing about AI and feels really out of the loop, you're not alone.

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My name is Kathy. I have been through a lot of traumatic events in my adult life. I'm cancer survivor. I had cancer when I was 29. I had infidelity. In my marriage, I have neuroatypical children. I'm a musician, and right before my album came out, both of my eardrums ruptured, and I haven't been able to promote it the way that I wanted to. I had a lot of traumatic things happen.

And I used to have a very intricate knowing. Like, I could sense when things were off. I could sense when people were lying to me. I could sense when energy shifted in a room. And now I don't trust that part of me. that inner knowing so much because fear and trauma-based fear and my knowing often feel the same. And so I was just wondering if you had some kind of a trick or a way of deciphering between what is your knowing that you should listen to and what is fear that you just need to breathe through

and heal through. Thank you so much. And with Kathy. What's trauma? What's our knowing? How does our trauma affect our nature? Okay. So there are only two things that will take you off your true nature, because all babies are born knowing who they are and knowing what they want. And we abandon what we know about ourselves when we are pressured to do things by sort of socialization. People are nice to us when we smile and they don't like it when we cry. And then the other thing is trauma. And that can happen. You can just fall off a cliff. Nobody needs to be involved. And it's very, very traumatizing and it can change the way you go. The reason that this happens is that humans have the ability to imagine future things. And other animals don't

have as much imagination. So they don't lose themselves because of trauma. They're just like, oh my God, I fell off a trip, off a cliff. That sucked. But a human can start to think things like, the whole world is unsafe. Like, there comes one trauma, another trauma, another trauma. Nothing is safe. So then you tell yourself that message, nothing is safe. And that actually is not true to the deepest part of you, to the deepest part of you. And I've worked with many, many people. And I've had a lot of trauma in my early life and really, really warped my personality because of trauma. And I've gotten through it to the other side. And what happens, I remember once, for example, I had to have surgery without anesthesia once. It was an emergency surgery. And they gave me a local, I am telling you,

in TV when people don't scream when that stuff happens, it's not real. There is literally no way you can not scream. It was one of the most traumatic events in my life, and it left me very shaken. Every trauma makes you think the whole world is a dangerous place. And after all, you're going to die. We know that. Other animals don't. So the world can get very, very dark. And psychologists have found that people get this image of the world as dark, inert, and meaningless. And it's a choice that it affects the brain a certain way. And once you're there, everything frightens you. And what this does is it takes away your ability to trust the truth inside you. So all you feel is the fear. So I was dealing with this surgery thing, and I went to see someone who said, okay, we're going to go into this. And you're going to tell me why you were safe during this experience. And I was like, I wasn't safe. It was excruciating pain. And they went in, no, no, no, go in. So I went into the experience. And I was shaking and I was sweating. And they said, no, what's the worst part? What's the worst part? And I realized that the pain itself,

was not as bad as hearing the surgeon pick up an instrument. It was me anticipating what was coming. And it was my consciousness that was frightened. If I had been unconscious, my body would have been fine with being cut up, right? So what I realized from that is, oh, it's my consciousness expecting to be hurt that is making me so completely off track. And the whole world was dangerous. I mean, and when you think the world is dangerous, you run from everything and you run right into brick walls. I mean, you do things that put you in danger because you're off your trust scale.

Once I realized that it was my mind that was causing that suffering and not the knife as much, I slipped into this place where I thought, oh, what an incredible experience. Here was this surgeon who was willing to operate on me while I was screaming, and he was so skilled and brave that he did it without anesthesia. And I was so lovingly cared for by the people in that room when I was at my absolute, the rock bottom of suffering. And suddenly the whole thing transformed inside me into the experience of the world being. And this is the same research says that you go from the world being dark, inert, and meaningless. And then there's a flip. and the world as you get to the other side of your trauma is safe, enticing, and alive. So right in the middle of that, of processing that trauma, everything in my world flipped.

And I lost my fear of physical pain. And I lost my fear of death. And I mean, because of the trauma I'd gone through. And suddenly I thought, if I can survive that, then the world is safe for me. And it became this, I started to regain trust. And I would just say the world is safe, enticing, and alive. And then I would look around for the evidence of that. And I could always find it, but always. And little by little, I built back my trust in the world. So that's what I would ask you to do is go into the trauma, find the place inside the

trauma where you were actually okay, and start building on the part of you that knew you were okay. And you will find it. I promise you, you will find it. Start building. on the part of you that knew you were okay. That's so good. Okay, let's move. Does anyone, you're good? Everyone's good. Okay, let's move on to Shannon.

And Martha, I just want to say, if people are doing it, one of things I respect about your book so much is that you're always telling people, like, if it's a very serious trauma, we get help. Yeah. When we explore these things with someone who will walk us through it. Right, right. I actually have one thing I want to say about that for those very people. And I know what it's like to not.

be able to find the part that was okay. So here's an exercise I put in my book that I'd really like you to try right now. Because what I was giving you was a big picture, but now, here's what I want you to do. Wherever you are, see if you can get relaxed in a relaxed physical position. And as you breathe in, think, I can allow everything in the universe to be the way it is right now. Okay, so I'm okay breathing in. All right. Now, as I breathe out, I'm going to drop my resistance to reality being as it is right now. Not in five seconds. Now. So you breathe in and you allow things to be as they are right now. You breathe out and you stop resisting. You breathe in and you breathe out and you surrender and allow and then this moment becomes the haven that is okay. Just this moment. And from there, you'll start to feel your way into the trauma with help from a skilled counselor. And you'll find that moment is always there.

It's always there. It will always be there. So use it right now. But it's about the starting place. So you're saying if it's too much to go back and find the okayness in the trauma, you can start right now. So I really don't want to sound facile and like, oh, it's so easy. Just find the happiness. Turn your frown upside down. I mean, that is pure unfiltered bullshit.

But right now you're breathing in, breathing out, and the universe is as it is, and it's okay. In every moment of your life, including the moment of your death, will be that way. Yes. Retweet and amen. Okay, let's go to Shannon. Hi, Glenn and Amanda. I'm Shannon. I'm 32, and I'm struggling with the decision to have kids.

My whole life, I assumed I would have kids, but I never really thought about it until I got married three years ago. When faced with the reality of what that decision would mean, my anxiety came raging in full force, panic attacks and all. And what I can't figure out is, do I truly not want to have children? Or is it just my anxiety telling me it will be too scary and too hard? And of course these thoughts are alongside the pressure I feel from society and family and friends that having a family is the right thing to do. Luckily, none of that pressure is from my partner who is an angel on Earth. But I guess my question for you is, how do you find and trust your knowing when there are so many other voices in your head? Or how do I make the right decision based on my own truth and not just based out of fear?

Thank you. Here's what I always tell people. If you're afraid to do something, but you also really want it, imagine standing on a high board over a pool on a very hot day and the water is sparkling and blue, but it's way down there and it's scary to jump, but you really want to be in that water. So there's this conflict between the longing to be cool and the fear of the fall. Now imagine that you're on the same high dive, same hot day, but what you're looking down at is a pool of toxic sludge. Like it stinks. You You can smell it from where you are. So you don't want the fall, and you also are just revolted by the whole idea of being down there. If your fear and your longing conflict, choose your longing, no matter what anybody else says. If you long for a life of travel free from children where you can do anything you want, go with that no matter what pressures are placed on you. But if you long to have children and then something comes up and says, but I can't do it well enough, I'm not good enough. that's social voices coming in and conflicting with your heart. So always go with your longing, no matter how frightened you are, and you'll always find the right path.

Oh, I love that. Because I didn't actually hear any longing in Shannon's paragraph. It was all like I was kind of like not wanting it, and then I really had to think about it. And then I had anxiety attack. So should I do it? She was like, first I was like, no. And then I was like, hell no. And then I was like, for Christ's saying, no.

So everything should I do it? Yeah. That's how powerful societal pressure is. I know. Especially for a woman to have kids. I mean, my friends who do not have kids, the stories they tell me about the things people say to them and the way the culture gets so angry when a woman decides she doesn't want to have children is like, wow. If you have fear and you have longing, go towards the longing. Always go with your longing.

Can I just ask you one thing? How do you talk to, I'm asking for a friend, of course, how do you talk to people who have also actually really have chronic anxiety? Oh my God, I have chronic anxiety. Are you kidding me? So how do you know between your chronic anxiety self, whether it's a good, because Martha, like everything can look to me like toxic sledge sometimes is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, and that's a signal that it's time to rest.

Okay. Yeah, when everything looks like tux, it's like you don't go toward anything. You know, when you and Abby fell in love, like, the longing was very clear. And I'm sure there were times when the anxiety was so much, you just wanted to put the covers over your head and hide for a while. And that was the right thing to do because that's what you longed to do in that moment. But when the covers came down and you went off and got a sandwich, you still longed to be with Abby. Yeah, that's right. And your longing won't abandon you.

And if you're longing not to have kids, do not have them. Amen. 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.

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today. That's hello a L-M-A-com slash W-E-C-A-N. All right, let's get to Carrie-N, please. I love this, Carrie-Anne. Hi, Glenn and sister. I was wondering if you could talk about decision-making and their knowing.

I related so much to your description, of how you handled and felt overwhelmed by big decisions in your past, Glennon. I have a lot of trouble with decision-making. I always see every side and I feel paralyzed. When I finally make a decision, I struggle with regret and just being okay with the choice. How do you make big decisions and how do you access your knowing and differentiate it from feelings that can be fleeting or misleading? Thank you, Glennon.

Decision making. Decision making. Not something that we ever talk about in our marriage. Ever. At all. But also this distinction she's making between feelings that are fleeting, like impulses versus real, you know, like how can you tell? Because I've had some feelings where I'm like, oh, thank you to the tiny baby Jesus that I did not act on those impulses because that was not my truth. That was something else.

How do you know the difference? Well, there's something else will feel manic, and the something will always feel peaceful. One of the things, when I wrote this book about integrity, I was like, how do you know what's true? And I realized that it's when your heart, your mind, your body, and your soul are all saying the same thing. And what it feels like is like puzzle pieces clicking or locks coming into alignment. And I found after checking with hundreds of people, the thing that made most people feel a, sense of true knowing was this statement. So say this if you're listening or whatever, say it in your mind and feel what happens. The statement is, I am meant to live in peace. So just say that to yourself,

I am meant to live in peace. And I've never met anyone, not people convicted criminals, psychopaths, they always, still, when they said that, there was nothing in them that said that is not true. I really believe that we are all meant to live in peace. So when this beautiful Carrie-Anne says, I can always see every side of a question, that's coming from cognitive stuff. That's the head. And it's her mind because she's taking different perspectives. The problem is, if you're taking all the different perspectives, they're not anchored to anything. They say the mind is a wonderful servant and a terrible master. So the mind sees every side and then drop down. Your cognitive mind is processing about 40 bits of information per second.

Your whole nervous system is processing 11 million bits of information per second. I've heard even 180 million. So, okay, here are all the size. They're in your head. Now drop in to the body. What feels like peace. What feels like calm? What feels warm and free, all the things we've been talking about.

And what makes you... Here's something that happens. When you get to the right choice, you will notice. your body spontaneously go, ah, yeah. And if you really watch, it's so interesting,

I'll be messing around trying to make a decision and then suddenly I hear it myself. And my mind is not what makes it happen. Because the body, there are more nerves going from the heart to the brain than from the brain to the heart, and they're giving information.

So, yeah, take all the perspectives and then go by yourself and drop into your body. and feel what's warm and free and at peace. And you'll always find the right answer. Okay, let's hear from Morgan. Hi, Glennon. This is Morgan.

I just graduated college and started what I was hoping would be a really great dream job. And it's not shaping up to be. I think I'm going to stick this out for a year, but I'm wondering how I'm supposed to know if I'm doing the right thing. Thank you so much for your podcast. I listen to it while I'm doing my very hard job. And I love your book. Oh, sweet. Morgan, she's a little baby.

Morgan is a little baby. And she already knows. She just needs some grownups to tell her if you're saying it's not shaping up to you. I'm going to stick this out and it's hard, but I can listen to a podcast by a woman who talks about breaking free from cultural pressures. So I'm surviving it with that. Sweetheart, you know, you know. You need to be more like Lynn and Abby and Amanda and less like the people at your job. And you know.

If I'm wrong, then you'll know I'm wrong. So, sister, ask Martha about your, because I feel like you have had questions like Morgan. Like, is there, is there amount of time where you stick something out because you're, can you put it in your words how you were saying before? Well, yeah. I mean, I guess I'm wondering, is there part of things that are true? Like, if every truth makes us relaxed and every line makes us tense, that doesn't necessarily mean that every truth is 100% relaxed, right? Like that's the process of going through it. So there's momentary tension along a path that might be true to you. Well, there's something, there's a poem by Sarah Teesdale called barter. And it says,

sell all you have for loveliness. Like it's about the barters you make between what's beautiful in your life and what isn't. So I'm going to do an exercise with y'all. And you'll see how this works. say I asked you to go clean a disgusting, we're in the desert, like driving across the Mojave Desert, and there's a rest stop, a truck stop, and the men's restroom is disgusting. Sorry, that was sexist, but I used to have to clean restrooms, and the men's were disgusting. So, like, there was a lot of urine everywhere, and it's baked in there, and it's 110 degrees in there. Now, I tell you, I want you to clean this, Amanda, and for your efforts, I'm going to give you five shiny dollars. Now, you say yes and go in to do it. How do you feel? I feel like I've made a

bad deal. Yes, you have. So I say, wait, wait, wait, I will pay you $50 cash on the barrel to clean that restroom. You go in, you're cleaning away for $50. How do you feel? How old am I like right out of college? Because I might have taken that deal. It's you now. Oh, me now, no. No, you could have your 50, Martha Beck. Okay, $500. How do you feel cleaning it for $500? I mean, I might, I might jump on that $500. Okay, let's just do it. Okay, what about $50,000? Yes, thank you. How about half a million? No. Okay, Abby, $5 million. Yes. There you go. Everybody has a price. I'm still holding out. Here's the thing. Imagine you're cleaning it. You don't, you get rubber gloves. You get a hazmat suit on, you go in there.

And there's $5 million, $50 million on the other side. Not only would you clean it, but you would be like, I am having the joy. This is amazing. I would do it with a song in your heart. And, sister, I do feel like you have done the thing, the grind, the brilliance, the whatever, and you get so many rewards, pats on the hat. You've been the smartest one in every room. Best awards in elementary school, high school, college, winning all the awards,

the best, the best, the best, the best, the smartest, smartest, smartest. So it makes perfect sense. The culture was training you to continue this grind. This was the whole point of untamed. Yeah. Like, we're conditioned with all these little stakes and applause from the people on the sidelines and whatever to continue the cheetah run. Actually, we were meant to be in the, wherever cheetahs are supposed to fucking be. I don't know.

And because your own self as Martha. the Beck says it will keep teaching you and teaching you and teaching you, it won't let you escape. You can't outfox yourself. This is why, despite doing everything quote unquote right and all my gifts and prizes that I have accumulated along the way, I feel inexplicably fucking miserable right now. Yes. Yes. Because. Yes. Here's the thing. You haven't wasted any time. Nobody out there, everybody, you haven't wasted a moment. So what you get by being brilliant and smart and doing all the prizes and what Glennon does by being incredible and fabulous and bestselling author, and what Abby did by being a world famous athlete is you bought a ticket that says, I am certifiably okay in culture.

Now, everybody follow me. We're out of this fucking joint. Because if you were just like lying on the street going, hey, don't do cultural things. People would not like it. But if I say to people, I have three Harvard degrees. Don't do a fucking thing you don't want to do. They're like, oh, she has three Harvard degrees. It's just a ticket. Use it. Can I just tell you one thing is that in the middle of one of the breakdowns, one of the low, so many breakdowns, Liz made me write down like what my, what I was working so hard for, like what was my ideal dream. And I said, I, I don't remember this. I could not think of any dream that I wanted more than just to be in my pajamas with my family, my sister, and like three other women that I love and know in cuddly socks and pajamas with nowhere to go.

That that is literally it. Yeah. That's my entire bucket list. Me too. And I've done a lot of it now. I know. So, there's a lot. We have a whole, our whole family system is based around communion.

First thing, morning communion. Everyone gets together. We all get together in the same room. We all cuddle. Okay. Then we get up and we go do things in the world and that's enjoyable. But then we have, it's Adam that made this. This is going to sound awful, but it's called wine time because Adam likes a glass of the good red every so often.

Oh. And he made a rule. Five o'clock is wine time. We all have to be there. It's communion. You are not allowed to look at your phone or whatever. We drink something. I don't drink wrong.

cuddle. After that, there is dinner, which is we, it's a very cuddly sort of dinner. After which there is cuddling time. And COVID has been such a gift because nobody ever comes to interrupt it. But literally like, we are social primates. All we want to do is sit around and groom each other. It's awesome. God, I love it so much. This time of year, I am always looking for my sweaters. Luckily, Quince has all of the staple sweaters covered from soft Mongolian cashmere sweaters that feel like designer pieces without the markup to 100% silk tops and skirts for easy dressing up to perfectly cut denim for everyday wear. I can't tell you how much I'm loving my quince cashmere sweater in this gorgeous oatmeal color. It's become the thing I grab

almost every day. It's held up beautifully. It still feels soft and it honestly looks way more expensive than it is. You know how frugal I am. And I've started picking up a few quince pieces for home, too. They have travel bags and sheets. Their sheets are awesome. 10 out of 10. Refresh your wardrobe with quince. Don't wait. Go to quince.com slash hard things for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash hard things to get free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash hard things. Can I ask you a quick question before we stop? There's so many people here who are listening and who are, they're going to, you know,

they're learning to come back to themselves, but they want to know how do they get their kids to never leave themselves, right? So like, how do we, how do we interact with the children in our lives, whether they are ours or other peoples or whosovers? so they're not conditioned to abandon themselves. Yeah. It's so simple and so counterintuitive. You just every, you say the same thing.

Every life coach ever does, which is, how do you feel about that? They want me to do this. How do you feel about it? My daughter came home from a Montessori school, and she was like all rigid. And I was like, what's wrong? And she said, today we learned that we must control our bodies. And I was like, well, how does that feel? She's like, horrible.

I said, don't do it. And that's all I've been telling any of them at any time. What are you doing? How does it feel? Awful. Don't do it. Feels great. Keep doing it. You just let them do what they want to do. They're just, they're not going to make the wrong decisions. They're awesome. Oh, my God. That's so freeing. One of the things that somebody, well, I'm saying I probably read this recently. So it's probably one of your books. So feel free to tell me this was your thing. But like the idea, another thing, another thing, thing is we can do is stop gaslighting them all the time. Like every time they walk into a room and they sense that they're like, what's wrong, mom? And we're like, nothing. Nothing, honey? Everything's fine. Everything's awesome. Or they walk into a room and they sense that we're in a fight with our partner or something. And they're like, what's wrong? And we're like, nothing. We're awesome. Like, every time we do that, we are telling them that their senses, what they were sensing, were actually off. Yeah. Yeah. And then they look. And then they. learn to not trust their senses, right? Because you're always saying come back to your senses.

Yeah. Come back to your senses. And be in integrity. I do this thing called the integrity cleanse, where I don't, not only do it, I not lie, but I don't even like assume a facial expression that's not sincere. Like I'm really, I get really hardcore on it. And when you're in an integrity cleanse and your kids ask you, you know, why there's death and are you getting divorced, You have to find a way to tell them with love the truth. And the truth will set them free. Even eventually hard truths will come, but they are never as bad as lies, not ever. Martha, the hardest part of telling my kids that I was getting divorced was not telling them I was getting divorced.

It was when Tish looked at me and said, but you promised me you weren't going to get divorced. Why the hell did I do that? I remember it. I remember sitting on a couch with Tish years before and her saying it was one of her friends' parents was going through divorce. And that little face looked at me and said, could this ever happen to us? And Martha Beck, I looked at that little face and said, no. No, that's never going to happen to your family. And in the moment that I told her her family was going to be split, her first thought was, but you told me not that.

And what did you say to her when she told you that? I think in the moment, I just said, I am so sorry I shouldn't have said that to you. I mean, I don't know. I didn't have anything brilliant to say in the moment. If you were to have told her, like, dig in. What was the truth? Why did you say that? I just wanted her to have a security in the moment, even when I knew it was a fake.

You knew even when you said it that it was fake? No, because I didn't, I don't think I knew it was fake. There you go. I don't think I knew it was fake. Here's the thing. Teach your children that it is okay not to know because none of us really knows anything about the next five minutes. So if you sit with them and say, you know what? I really believed it at the time.

I really thought that was true. And I found out that I was wrong. And I'm really sorry that it hurts you, but we all get to be wrong. And a lot of what we believe, really believe, may turn out to be wrong. And that's beautiful because it's called learning. And none of us knows anything, really. We're all just walking forward in trust. But we love each other.

And that's the whole point. So when the truth comes to me, I will tell it to you the moment I know it. And when we don't know it, we can say, I don't know. To our kids. We can say, I don't know to our kids. Exactly. I have no idea. the more I learn, the more I know that I don't know anything.

Yeah, but I love you, but we love each other. That I do know with my whole self. Oh, Martha, the fact, I love you so much. I love you guys. I want me to bring you to our cuddle sessions that happen all day every day in our house. Thank you. Thank you. We will be there with our jammies.

Okay, we love you. Thank you for being here so much. Keep doing. our pod squatter of the week. And then we're going to go. We love you. We can do hard things. We can live in some integrity this week.

Let's hear from our pod squad. Let's hear from Jamie. Hi, Glenn and Abby and sister. My name is Jamie and I'm from Sacramento. All I want to say is this. My life is really hard right now. I have two kids that are two years old and under. My youngest is four months.

old. We feel like my partner and I, we feel like we're barely hanging on every day is just such a slog. We are also both teachers. I'm a seventh grade English teacher at a public school, and the day is just so fast moving that I finally get to lunchtime. I have 30 minutes, and I have to go into a literal closet to pump. where I don't have enough time to eat a real lunch. So I eat cold, bad snacks over my pump in the closet. And every day I listen to your show. And it just feels like a warm hug.

And it's exactly what I need to give me the strength to make it through the rest of the day. So that's all I wanted to say. Thank you so much for making this beautiful gift for the world. Keep doing it. I like it. I love it. I need more of it. Keep it coming. Love you all. Thank you. Bye. Jamie.

Oh, we adore you. Jamie. I just want to tell you that I, too, used to pump in the closet of a front main office of an elementary school sitting on a bunch of Xerox boxes, like those boxes of paper, creams of paper. That is where I used to pump, like two feet away from all of the people walking out of the office on my lunch break where I, too, would eat. Granola bars and sad cold snacks. Sad snacks. Jamie, we love you. You, my love bug, can do hard things. We'll see you all next week. Bye. Bye. 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, 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.