We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - 78. REGRET: What if we’d done things differently?

Episode Date: March 15, 2022

1. Amanda shares the biggest regret of her life: the one that still wakes her up in the middle of the night. 2. The five biggest regrets of the dying—and how to make the necessary changes to avoid them. 3. Why we should reframe regret as proof of a life well-lived.

And it took some time, but I'm finally fine. Well, hello. How are my favorite people? Hi. Hi, sis. Hi. How are you doing today? We are so like coffied up and wired because we've been up since so early, 5.40 or something.

It's Tish's birthday today. So when we're recording this, so we had, we do breakfast and breakfast. bed over like for whoever kids birthday it is. We all just walk in with a plate. Happy birthday to you. And they were at Craigs this morning. So we went over there. Tish is 16. Sweet 16. Isn't that a big deal. How does that feel for you? Um, it feels weird since she was born like two weeks ago. I am that mom now who's like, what happened? It went so fast. But. Because it's true. There's this weird thing that is two things are true at once.

Like the first decade with children is so freaking slow that when anyone who has a 16-year-old says, oh, just it goes by so fast you want to stab them in the eyeballs because you think this is the longest day of my life every day. Right. But there's this thing. It's, you know, it's the roller coaster. It's like the first 10 years. or up the hill and then you hit this part. And it's like when they're 11 or so.

And then it's whoosh, just down the hill and you just have to like hold on. I don't know. It's awesome. She's so cool. All the people who I think that, you know, there's, I have this theory that there's one zone that you feel awesome about when you're a parent and you just only get one. Like some people love pregnancy. and then after the kid's born, it's all over for them.

Some people are awesome baby parents. I'm really liking this teenage part. I am. I feel like, I don't know when they go do their things. I constantly feel like that scene from Pinocchio where Geppetto like makes Pinocchio and then just watches him come to life and dance about and just says, oh my God, like that thing that we raised is is animated and moving with its own energy. I like it.

I like the teen years so far. Would you say that you have any regrets? And with that incredible Segway. Master of Segway. My wife is telling me that I'm talking too much about the topic that is not our topic for the day. That's right. And the topic. Just trying to stay on task here, babe.

Thank you. I love you. And that story was beautiful. But we're here to talk about something else. Today. Beautiful but irrelevant. Both things can be true. All right. I'm sorry. I regret that I took up so much of your time with that sidebar about parenting and our daughter. But today we are here to talk about regret. Regret. And it's really got us thinking and talking to each other. When I think of a memory,

my regrets come back to me in flashes of memory. because I, first of all, because I have suppressed much of my life, but also because I was drinking for so long that I actually did live a lot of my life in sort of this eternal blackout. So I have flashes that attack me. A memory will flash into my mind of something that I did and I will actually like shake my head to like get it out. Yeah. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Shake it off. Yes. Yes. You've done lots of research for us to see about what regret is and isn't. What is it? Regret is something we say all the time. So what are we talking about today? Like what is regret and what is regret not? So regret is the emotion that you experience when you think your present situation would be

better or happier if you had done something different in the past. That's a very specific thing. Like we use regret in a lot of context. You know, we'll say things like sending you deepest regrets at the passing of your grandfather. But presumably you didn't have any role in your neighbor's grandfather passing. So if I killed your grandfather, yes. I wouldn't necessarily regret that that would be like remorse. I'd be apologizing, right, if I killed your grandfather purposefully. That would be remorse.

Well, presumably it would be both because your life would presumably be happier were you not incarcerated for killing someone's grandfather. Okay. So you would have both remorse and regret in that context. And you also would likely feel the pangs of feeling like maybe that was not your best self. Right. So I think that one kind of covers the field. But the reason it doesn't make sense to say I regret your grandfather's passing is because your grandfather's. is because your grandfather's passing had nothing to do with me.

It had nothing to do with an action that I took or didn't take. Exactly. So the regret we're talking about right now has to do with our decisions. And then there's, I regret treating that person like shit, which is your life wouldn't necessarily be different now had you not treated that person poorly. But you do feel this pang of remorse, which is a little bit different. I think that that's how we kind of comment. commonly think of regret. I regret having done that bad thing. But that has more to do with remorse

and confusion about ourselves than it has to do with how our present situation would be different. Okay. So is remorse like remorse is I've wronged someone else and I think their life would be better if I'd chosen differently. And regret is I feel like I've wronged myself and I feel like my life would be better if I'd chosen differently. Interesting. Yes. But I also think there's this crossover between remorse and regret, which is kind of they've done research on this where there's kind of two types of regret, exactly

like you've just said. And one is that idea of wronging yourself. You made a decision or you failed to make a decision that you believe had you made the other choice, your life would be better now. Okay. And those emotions are trickier because they, they describe them as kind of cold. You know, it's this kind of achy, hollow, empty, wondering. Yes, longing.

So there's the regret that's like, ouch, hot searing. And I have, I think that I live with all those kinds of regrets. Most of my regrets are white, hot. searing. I just touched a hot stove because I remembered this thing that I did. Some way I treated someone, way I acted that is so discordant with who I believe I am now. And the other one is, what if I would have? And of course that's empty because you don't have any evidence for it. It's just a what if. Like the road not taken or something? Right. Exactly. The road not taken. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And I think that that hot searing

thing you talked about. The way that overlaps with regret is it's so painful. It kind of knocks the wind out of us to remember the people that we were who did those terrible things. There's a lot of remorse because a lot of people were in pain because of the way we acted. But there's a lot of regret because that person who did that thing does not match who we believe we are now. It's the pain of that. It's kind of having to. come to peace with the fact that you were different then. Okay, but isn't that... Isn't that in some way, I feel like,

I want to get to what our regrets are in a minute, but like it feels like regret in one way is tied to triumph. In one way, it's tied to progress. It's tied to a human who is better today than she was then. We're all doing the best we can, basically, right? So if I am feeling searing regret from something that I did before, that's because now I can see, now I'm the type of person who would never do that, which is proof of growth. If I were the same person back then, I wouldn't have that searing regret because I'd have the same consciousness that I had back then. So in that way, isn't even having that bucket of regret proof of growth. Yeah.

Yes. Yeah, I love that. And I think that, in fact, the only way to not have regret is either to never examine your life, to never look back and see is any of that out of alignment with who I am, or to never realign your life, to never be changing because then the person that you were then is still the person that you are. So the whole cultural idea of, I don't live with regret or no regrets is basically, like, well, great, like you're sociopath. It is one of the diagnostic indicators of a sociopath is the inability to experience regret. The other people who don't experience regret are the people

who have had prefrontal cortex brain damage. It's actually an indicator of a mind and a life that is working well. It's proof of two things. One, that you've grown because of the searing thing. And two, that you made some freaking decisions. You made some decisions in your life. That's what I'm going to say. Like, how many freaking decisions is a human being making in the course of a day? And we are not 100% all the time, ever. Like, every day we're making decisions that are wrong.

Now, they might not be earth shattering or, like, life altering. But they do change the course of your life. But I want to learn about what your specific regrets are. So I have never felt less prepared for a podcast because I was thinking a lot about what I would say. And I realized that none of what I was preparing to say was actually as real as what a tiny little bit ago I decided that I was going to say. Regret is something you can talk about at a pretty surface level or you can kind of make it tidy. Or it's something that in some ways is the most painful thing to talk about. And I was imagining a listener,

listen to some of the things that I was going to say and feeling shitty because feeling like, oh, my regret is worse than that regret. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So I just decided to talk about one of the things that, like, you know, will wake me up in the middle of the night and still makes me feel like pretty ashamed. So when I was in middle school and high school, I had a pretty dysfunctional, long-term relationship. And it wasn't yet at the, you know, it wasn't like social isolation

abuse, but it was pretty, it was on that spectrum sort of where he didn't like my friends wasn't consistently kind to me, was kind of withholding. We didn't have shared friends. I, and I'm not trying to excuse my behavior, but I'm setting the context of for some reason I believed that I had to have, like, fidelity to him over the other things in my life.

And I remember I had been best friends with my best, with my best friend since we all through elementary school, all through seventh and eighth grade. And she was just the best. I mean, she was fiercely loyal. She was better to me than she should have been. She was just radically wonderful. And I loved her very much. And I started to treat her badly.

And I remember it all came to a head when I was in 9th or 10th grade at this point. And I was in a friend's basement and my best friend was in the bathroom with me trying to talk to me about why I was treating her like shit. And she was just trying to get me to basically give any indication that I valued our friendship. And I just remember her, she was bawling. And she was so sad and she loved me so much. she was talking to me and being so vulnerable and honest. And I, for some reason in my head, believed that I had to declare my undivided loyalty to my boyfriend.

And it was almost like it was a grand inquisition and he was my God. You were like denouncing everything but him? I was like denouncing everything but him. And I remember over and over saying almost with the pride of a zealot, right, saying, I will always choose him over you. I will always choose him over you. Literally saying those words as she wept with nothing but the last, you know, years of treating me 100 times better than he ever treated me. Yeah. And I remember walking out of that. room feeling like I had fought the good fight. Like I had done what I was supposed to do. And I can see her face perfectly. And when I think about what she deserved just as a human, but what she had earned from me for everything she did for me and the way she loved me, it was cruel. I was cruel. I just can't even identify with the kind of person that would be so cruel and so confused about what to value in life and so misguided. And there was another friend outside the door who heard the whole thing. And obviously my mistreatment of my best friend changed us. And it changed my relationship with all of my friends. And I eventually went. And I eventually went. And I was. And I eventually went. And I. And I was. And I was. And I was treatment of my best friend changed. And I,

off to college and there is, I got unconfused about things. You know, my entire world became centered around my friends and none of my identity had anything to do with boys or men at all. And some part of me kind of always thought I'd have time to make who I was now redeem who I was then. And then the year after I graduated from college, you arrived at my doorstep from three hours away and you had driven there to tell me that she had died. We were 21 years old. She had been struck by a drug driver and she died. And that was 20 years ago last month that you came to tell.

me that, Glennon. And I just, I think about that a lot because she, you know, one of the best people to love me the best in my life was one of the people that I treated the worst in my life. And she died without me never having acknowledged that or made amends for that. And, And I just, I always thought I'd have time to do that. And I didn't. And there's nothing that I can do about it. And I never, you know, it's just. Death makes it so clear.

It's like regret is when it feels like there's no more redemption possible. There's no way to redeem it. Is that how it feels? And is there anything about that regret? how does it feel like your life would have been different and better had you not done that? You'd still have those friends maybe. That whole thing wouldn't be like a... Yeah, I mean, a regret, I guess, is sometimes it has that remorse about the way your cruelty impacted others. But it always has a sense of loss for yourself.

And I think that I didn't know then in that room that day that, the best thing I'd ever have was the love and loyalty and devotion of my friends. And so I was staring at that and telling her no and that I didn't want that and that I declared this other thing more valuable. And as a result, I lost that gift from her and that that gift of friendship, I mean, that whole group of friends is still very, very close. And they have a beautiful relationship that I will never have with them because I chose not to. And they rightfully chose not to do it with me because I was incapable of it. And so I'm very thankful that those are the kind of relationships I have with my friends from college.

But it is a loss. You know, I don't get to go back and recast that history. And I think we just think there's an abundance of time to make things make sense. And that is a thing that will never make sense. The only good part about it is the regret we feel most when we are just baffled at thinking about something we did is the fact that we're baffled about thinking about it. You know, the person that we were then who could do such a thing is not the person we are now who couldn't. Yeah. It's so interesting because, and weird, and I don't know why this is and I don't have any reasons for it.

But when I think of my most searing regrets, their flashes and what? One of them is a time when you told me something in high school. You came home from a thing and you were sitting on mom's bed and you told me something and you were really, really hurt and hurting. And it was like a time where you like sit down and you stay for hours and you talk it through and you whatever. And I was like, okay, great. I'm sorry.

I'm going to pick up my boyfriend at the airport and I'm going to get wasted and just left you. to deal with it on your own. And then another one I was thinking is one time when you visited me in college and I was wasted and just left you with this dude who was totally unsafe and I knew it. And a third that I woke up last night thinking about was in a fraternity basement where this freaking jackass said something horrific to one of my dearest friends about the way she looked and I looked at her and looked at him and just said, said nothing. Like it was a line, it clearly aligned with this dude. And I just think it's interesting that

all of these regrets have to do with abandoning the love of our sisters or women and aligning with men who didn't deserve it and abandoning the women who did. And I don't know. When you talk to me about her looking at you and say, it's like you were in a cult. Yeah. It makes me think of all of the poor parents who look at their kids or all their whatever and are like, where are you? And you're like gone.

Allegiance is over here and any connection with you. by the way sister that's like classic abuse behavior like that's like people who are abused do think that their loyalty to the abuser is everything and that any connection outside of that is disloyalty but i just think it's strange that both of us were so willing to abandon love for that kind of protection. I don't know. It's interesting. Yeah, it is interesting. For your child, as the school year continues, patterns start to emerge. You can see what's clicking and where a little extra reinforcement could help. That's where I-XL steps in, giving kids targeted practice so they can strengthen those areas early and keep moving forward with confidence.

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when they sign up today at www. I-XL.com slash we can. Visit Ixel.com slash we can to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. One of the regrets I have is I kicked my very best friend out of a house that he was living in. back when I was living in Los Angeles. And, you know, this is when I was still using. And he was the most important person in my life. And I was screaming and I was yelling and I was throwing things. And I was doing it in this like dehumanizing way. And it was about power. And it was about my inability to properly communicate. And so I didn't say any of the things that bothered me for the

year or whatever leading up to this moment. I didn't do any personal work. And so it just like came to a head and I just blew up. And he literally had to get into a car that day, pack his shit up and drive to Florida from California because he had nowhere else to go. Have you guys ever talked about that? No. Is there anything that you feel like, I just wonder, is there anything you haven't done? because I've never talked to you about those things that I just brought up. I have these regrets that I truly am just feeling, hoping that no one remembers. Yeah.

Like that is my, like maybe people don't remember that thing and maybe. But do you, is there anything in your mind that you feel like might relieve some of the regret from that situation with your best friend? Because it's interesting, right, that you've never talked about it, that I've never talked about it. You've never, I just wonder, is there something like, you know, that idea that these dealings that we have inside of us are so scary when we keep them in? But then when we let them out in the light, do they loose it? Like, will they, is there anything that you think you can do that you haven't done that might, that would be a release valve for the pressure of that regret? Well, I think part of it is right now. I mean, the fact that she has passed is kind of like that temptation to hide from it.

And to not take account is even more possible to try to recast that whole situation rather than what it was. And so I think part of it is saying it out like. loud. I have thought about the woman who was, the friend who was sitting outside the door who heard everything. I have thought about reaching out to her to just acknowledge what she heard and say, I know how awful it was. I think that we say, like, had we not gone through that, how good we would have been. Like, I think about that with her too. I mean, she was so deeply good and had such a short, tremendous life.

And I think, what if I had been good to her? You know, like, what if I had been the friend that she deserved to her in her short life? How would her life have been different? because no doubt she made beautiful friendships and beautiful love and impact in her short life, but I wasn't part of that. Part of me thinks in the redemption of it, it's acknowledging the fact that hopefully, in the best case, we are evolving folks whose ability to... be in alignment with ourselves is increasing and changing over time.

Is increasing. Yes. And that's all we can hope for. That's right. And also acknowledging that if that is the case, then the integration that we have now is not the integration we will have in five years and 10 years and 15 years. So what is what I'm doing right now?

in my life right now, something that in 10 years, in 5 years, in 15 years, I will say, I don't even recognize myself in that. And how do I expedite that change now? Because if there's anything that that story tells me, it's that we can't count on the 5 and the 10 and the 15 to have enough time to change. That's an amazing way to use regret as a guiding principle for now. Because there's this one way of dealing with regret where it's just directionally unhelpful. It's like this playing of an old song over and over again, like a security blanket that keeps you from engaging in the now, that keeps you from singing a new song that is too safe, that is too comfortable, it's too easy.

or it's the wrong kind of hard. It's like it keeps regret from the past keeps you from even this moment and then this moment will become the past and then you will regret this moment and then your entire life

you're living not now. But there's a way to use it that's like I do wonder it's so it is curious, sister, that I think if people would list three things

about you like fiercely almost insanely loyal is probably one of the things and to your to the women in your life. And it's just interesting that maybe that searing pain has has informed her. informed you. Yeah. Yeah. What a beautiful way to look at life in terms of evolution. And like,

to prepare ourselves for a future of regret because we have chosen to truly evolve to become more integrated with ourselves year over year over year because who we are today is hopefully different than who we are in a year, five, 10 years. And so I guess it is the hope for me that I'm going to regret a whole bunch of shit in 10 years that I'm doing right now because I am not the evolved person that I dream of becoming in those 10 years. Yeah, absolutely. And keeping in mind the finality and like the brevity of life, it's actually an ancient spiritual tradition. Many cultures keep skulls everywhere. Keep a skull on their desk. Keep a skull. It's seated in this idea of regret. Keep in mind that this will all end. The future. And so don't wait. Because right now, and then I,

and I think about this idea of regret as being kind of perverted by like capitalistic ideas, too. It's like, we think of regret as like, I have to do the big thing. Right now. I have to do the big thing. I have to like, am I successful enough? Am I, whatever enough. And I was thinking this morning about this poem that so many people over and over again reference because it's the seed of regret. And it's the Mary Oliver. I won't read the whole thing. But she's looking at a grasshopper in the grass. And she says, now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open and floats away. I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel in the

grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last and too soon? Tell me what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? And over and over again, this poem is used to like make people feel like they should have gone to college or they should have like gone to this one thing or they missed their opportunity to be a famous singer or whatever and Mary Oliver. It's like our friend Jessica Faith Kantrowitz talks about so beautifully. This poem is used to shame people into doing more. And what Mary Oliver is saying is that your life is too important and wild and singular not to do less. Her answer to what to do with your

one wild and precious life is to walk around a field and stare at grasshoppers. Exactly. That's what Jessica was saying. Right. It's to be idle and blessed. Did I notice how beautiful everything is right now? It's that idea of how do we avoid, you know, at the deathbed. There's these studies about what people most regret on their deathbed. And it's never, I didn't have enough money or I didn't do the big career.

Like it's, I wish I had let myself be happy. Yeah. I wish I had more myself. What are they? Do you have them? Yeah, Brani where she was at an Australian palliative care nurse and she walked a lot of people to their deaths and she wrote five regrets of the dying. And those five regrets were, I wish I'd have the courage to live a life true to myself, not the one others expected of me. I wish I hadn't worked so hard. I wish I'd wish I'd have the courage to express my feelings. I wish I'd stayed in touch with my friends. And I wish that I had let myself be happier. Yeah. And that's a gut punch. All we can do is try that today. That's all we can do. The only way to avoid deathbed regret, right, is just try to avoid

bedtime regret. This show is brought to you by Alma. When I first tried to try to avoid deathbed regret, right? When I first tried to find a therapist. It felt like a scavenger hunt with no map, pages of names, long waitlists, 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 hello a L-M-A dot com slash W-E-C-A-N. Let's go to a question. My name is Amy. I love this podcast. I recently got divorced from my husband of almost 10 years, and we shared two small kids. I immediately started dating a woman for the first time and fell for her really hard.

It was a long-distance relationship, but somehow we were able to make it work for it. least a few months. I was reading Untamed at the time and felt really connected to your story. I just kept coming back to the same thing. I kept missing my husband, our family, our life together. The woman and I broke up. It was clear I wasn't ready, but my friends remind me over and over again the reasons I left my marriage. I'm just really in my feelings right now. You can't tell. I'm feeling compelled to run back to my old life as if that's even possible. I guess my hard question is when you leave something that didn't feel right, where is the line between missing something and regretting something? This feels too hard to be right. It feels like regret, but I know we can do hard things. I would love your thought. Oh, Amy. I love this question so much for Amy. I hate this for Amy because you can just feel the pain. You could just feel doubt,

doubt, pain, oh God, the road not taking, you know, there's two roads and you take this one. And then you spend so much time imagining what life would look like had you taken the other one. And replaying it, replaying it. And Karen Schultz has

a TED talk called Don't Regret, Regret. And she talks about how the I the just even the concept of regret requires two things it requires agency right so you go back there's that fork in the road and you have chosen one you have made that choice that's your agency and then it requires imagination because in order to regret you have to go back into the fork and the road imagine having taken the other road and then fully play that out yeah and And so you are necessarily comparing your reality and the pain that you're in right now with the imagined reality of where you would have been in the other road.

Yes. Imagined reality. And I think that we have to really think carefully about misconstruing our pain and our loss and even our remorse for the pain we caused other people and just generally how conflicted and shitty reality is with the idea that if we were on the other path, we wouldn't have any of those things. Yes. Because we have to be humble enough to admit that the imagined reality is not actually

reliable. And we likely would have a lot of the same pain and confusion and hurt. were we on the other path? Yeah. Yes. And I just, I'm imagining myself as Amy. So I'm trying to think of like, this would be like if I divorced Craig, fell in love with Abby, and then the Abby thing.

And then Abby and I broke up, right? Yeah. I hate the story. I know. But like I'm trying to, I'm trying to put myself where Amy is. I hate it. I'm just saying it's this is a terrible alternate reality. And in this terrible alternate reality, I could imagine looking at Craig in the

kids and being like, what did I do? There's this picture that somebody sent me, my friend Sarah sent me actually, and it's like this woman and she's just jumped off a cliff, okay? And there's this big hand and it's like the universe. And the universe is the one that pushes her off the cliff. And then there's this big hand underneath her that she hasn't hit yet. And that is also the universe. So the universe is going to push her off the cliff and the universe is going to catch her at the bottom of the cliff. But the fall is so effing scary and you don't know that the universe is going to catch you. So when you're in the free fall, the temptation is to turn around and climb, like claw your way back up to the cliff that you just got that you just got pushed off of. And right now, Amy is in the free fall.

She jumped. She pushed her for a reason. She left that cliff for a reason. That's what her friends are trying to tell her. Like, remember, remember, remember. But it's just she hasn't been caught yet. But I think that what I would say to Amy with humility and fear and what the F do I know is what I really want to say to her is just keep trusting the fall. Yeah.

And trust that the universe is going to catch you. Not that it's somebody else. Exactly. like she's anticipating a person, whether it be her husband or ex-husband or the girlfriend or somebody else or some other thing in the future to catch her. It's herself and the universe that she is going to be able to stand on her own two feet. You know, one of the things that you said is people always asked early on like, well, if this doesn't work out, you know, would you consider going back to Craig? And you always said, you know, I can't unknow what.

I know now. The climbing back to the cliff is trying to unknow. The moving backwards is trying to unknow what became clear to you at once. But the knowing has led you to do something so scary and hard that you really do believe that it would be easier and better not to know. But the thing is, you go by, I did that. You go back and you still effing no. Yep. Yeah. And so then it's the wrong kind of hard. And I think people think if they have pangs of the regret, that's an indication that they made the wrong choice. And I think that that is not, I think that's unhelpful to us. It's, it's, it's unnecessarily confusing because if we view regret as an inevitable consequence of making a tough decision, then we won't confuse regret with the fact that we made the wrong decision.

There's this reality that, say, you miss your flight. If you miss your flight, by three minutes, you will regret your decisions that morning leading to the missed flight more than if you miss that flight by 45 minutes. And the reason is you were so close. So you miss the flight either way. It's irrelevant. It doesn't matter. You're not getting there.

But you have so many more emotions around the three-minute miss than the 45. And that to me is evidence that for Amy, that's just all of your big pangs of fear and discomfort and anxiety are proving that that was a hard decision that you made. Yes. All of these things that pointed, but this was a good guy, but this was whatever it was. Oh, but this didn't work out over here ultimately. So that indicates I made the wrong choice. No, what you're looking at is the three minutes.

That's right. the plane was leaving anyway. You were flying off that cliff. That was your decision. That's right. The pain that you're feeling is the fact that it was a three-minute miss instead of a 45. And that doesn't make that decision any less correct. It just means it's harder emotionally.

That's right. And I want to just emphasize that there's a difference, I think, when I'm figuring out right now, that there is a difference between pain and regret. All pain is not regret. When I see my kids struggle because they're going between two houses. I was literally just going to say this. When I watch them get packed up and I'm like, they are, it sucks. It's sad.

You think, and this could be my conditioning, but you think like this is not the way kids are supposed to live. They're not supposed to be trekking back and forth and all their stuff in their, I feel pain. Yeah. Same. And there's a pain, but it's not, I have had to learn that it's not regret that I'm feeling. It's not, oh, I wish I would have done it differently.

It's just the acknowledgement that things can be hard and painful and still be right. We are in a culture where we feel like if we have made the right decisions, everything will be easy and pain free because we're imagining the other path as pain free. But like that idea that you can, Amy, you can be in, it can hurt. And that hurt can still not be regret. Yeah, both things can be true at the same time here. The only things that are pain free are the imagined things. Oh. Yeah.

That's so good. Which ones are you going to trust? That's good. Your real experience or your pretend imaginary experience? 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 360. 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. Let's hear from Beth. Hi, my name is Beth, and I had a question for Glennon. I was Belenick for about four years from freshman year in high school

until freshman year in college. And then after that, I had probably a little bit of anorexia and then a lot of healing and recovery. And during that time, I just probably made not the greatest decisions or followed my heart or probably wasn't great at relationships. So it was like a 10-year period where I felt like I just missed out on life and all the things that people go through during those years about learning about themselves. So I just have a lot of guilt and remorse for those years and I struggle with letting that go.

And I also feel like I want to explain to people for bypassed what I was going through. But I think that's more just like validating that I made mistakes. So I'm just wondering what you did to let go of that time where you were Bolinic and just to forgive yourself and move on. and let that go. So I love your podcast and I love listening. And thank you for doing this. And it makes the light in my day. Hashtag same, Beth.

Hashtag same. Yeah, I mean, I relate to everything that Beth said except for the last sentence, which is what Beth is trying to get to because someone has told her the words let go and move on. Those are two things that somebody told us we have to get to. I don't know how to let go. I don't know how to move on. I'm just like treading along with my whole entire self all the time every day. What I do know is that, and I don't know how relatable this is going to be for people who weren't lost to addiction for so long. But I became believing when I was 10 and then I didn't get sober until I was 20. And so most of my formative years, I was just lost to addiction. My whole life was this little like world that I created that I could control, which was addiction. And so I was basically dropped out of life. And so what I have figured out in the second part of my life is that I missed a lot. Okay. Like to the point where it's, I feel embarrassed a lot of the time. Like I don't know,

I don't know a lot of things that other people know. And I mean that in terms of, of facts like yeah like facts right like I don't know a lot about freaking geography and science and history and like all that stuff that people were learning during that time I also don't know a lot about like french like all of a lot of things that you know how many times a day am i to you in a joking way but I'm like when did people learn this like when did everyone learn this and it's funny on a daily basis but on a like spiritual basis, it's a little bit terrifying because I'm like, no, seriously, when did everybody learn this? Now, what I want to say about that is that I have come to value, to find the value in that for myself.

And that is, what I believe to be true is that there is something about that negative thing that people sense and feel in my writing and in my soul and in the way I experience life, which is this childlike, not childish, child like awe and beginner's mind like I'm seeing the world for the first time. So all I'm saying to Beth is like I don't know how we move on or if we even do. Yeah. But I do know that there can be. something beautiful and special that comes from that being gone. Yeah. And that is being fresh.

It rings really true, the embarrassing bit when I was training from the marathon and running with some of my former teammates and we would run together. And then for the actual marathon, they would tell stories. And I would just kind of like, yeah, I didn't remember many of the things that they talked about, which was really embarrassing. And I didn't say it in the moment. but here I am saying it. And then it just makes me think of my time on the national team.

It makes me wonder what my life would have been. Had you been sober? Had I been sober during my career. And yeah, I mean, it's a regret. It's a complete knowing that I would have been a better soccer player. I would have had better relationships. I would have been a better leader. I bet our national team would have won more games.

Being sober makes me understand that I put up with less bullshit. And I do not accept certain ways of being interacted with like I know that I did back then. I know deep down that I could have done more. And I feel I feel terrible about that. and this is not a perfectionism thing. I just know it. I just know that I, in some ways, I think that I probably was drinking because I didn't know how to handle all of it.

I didn't know how to handle men talking to me in misogynistic ways because they thought I was one of them. I was one of the boys. I couldn't handle conversations with leaders with presidents of, of, or, you know, organizations, CEOs of organizations talking to me about pay and equal pay and equitable pay and me just taking the very least. It feels like that's what I did. Trying to get a deal done. Trying to get a collective bargaining agreement done. I just, I didn't fight as hard as I should have. And it's because I wasn't the kind of person that I am now.

I wasn't sober and I know that. And I do have a lot of regret about that. And I'm just so glad that there's probably some women that are fighting that battle now. It's good to our Pod Squader of the week. For me, it's you. I love you. Hi, Glemen, Abby and sister. This is Sarah. And this is Kate. So we are dear friends and we are both mental health therapists. and we're sitting on the couch right now together, feeling like a mess and holding hands. And we work with clients who are dealing with all sorts of things. And I mean, I'm personally just having a hard time holding all of it. And we were talking and wanted to call you to say hello because we love you. Thank you so much for sharing your story.

It means the world to me. Just sitting on the couch holding hands? I mean, that's what we're doing. I just, Sarah and Kate, first of all, God, God, goddess, whatever, bless the people who are the mental health therapists. I mean, you saved my life. Yeah. You saved my life. Sarah and Kate. And for the people who hold everyone else's stuff and then have to find a way to hold their own stuff, I just, I don't know. I don't have anything to say other than thank you. Sarah and Kate. And to everyone else who is listening, life is really, really hard. Yeah. Find somebody's hand to hold this week, even if it's your own. That's good.

We can do hard things. We love you. I give you Tishmilton and Brandy Carlisle. I came out the other side. I chased desire. I made sure I got what's mine. I continue to believe that for me because I'm a...

Because we're adventurers. and heart breaks on map a final destination they've stopped asking directions some places they've never and to be late to we can do a heart a brand new star and sometimes things fall apart

I continued to the best people are free It took some time, but I'm finally fine Those were adventurers and heart breaks I'm at a final destination They stopped asking directions to places they've never been and to be like to find you hard to play and to yeah

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