We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - 80. This is 46: Why I’m Pumped About Midlife

Episode Date: March 22, 2022

1. How Glennon is using her 46th birthday as an intermission–to slow down and decide what to bring with her into Act 2. 2. The counterculture power of knowing what is enough, and letting ourselves go. 3. The way to transition from Role Living to Soul Living–and why Glennon has Joni Mitchell on repeat. 4. The real meaning of “crisis”–and the idea that living well now means reimagining everything we learned in the first half of life.  5. Amanda’ s good news that if you don’t feel like Glennon does at this moment in life, it is very, very normal.

And because I'm a... I just feel kind of giggling. Well, Abby's going to have fun. Okay. I just feel happy and giggly and... I'm just so glad to be home. Okay, so welcome to we can do hard things. We also hope that you are glad to be home.

Here with us. Today. Here with us today. I don't know what's going to happen because Abby. being very weird. Well, we are talking about something that is my favorite thing in the whole world. Okay, what is that? It's the day you were born.

Oh. I can't believe how lucky we all are. And I can't believe I get to be in close proximity to you. So this is just like my favorite episode to talk about your birthday. Okay, so if this episode, if I was Adele, I would name this episode 46. Okay, so maybe that's what we'll call it. We'll call it 46. This is the month of my birthday.

I was born on March 20th, actually. The first day of spring. Pisses me off to no end when people say that March 21st is the first day of spring because it is not. Okay. Pisces. Ish? Nope. Nope.

Oh. You don't want to have that fight today, I have to be Walmart. I'm on the cusp. I think you're in a year. I might be astrologically fluid, but just like I'm sexually fluid. But I. Are you sexually fluid? I don't know what the hell I am.

Can we talk about my birthday and not my sexuality? I know. You're the one that brought it up. I'm just saying, like, if you're going to talk about it. Okay. You're 46. You should know him by now. 46.

Yeah. So, I mean, that's interesting because when we talked about what to do for a birthday episode, I think my sister was like, maybe you could talk about like some things you know, like some things you've learned or lessons. And I tried. I really did. I tried to think hard. I thought hard and long about what do I know and blankness. Okay. It's like we spend our whole lives trying to know things. And then when we get to our 40s, we're like, I don't know shit. Yes, the longer I live, the less I know, right? And it's like, God help those people who think they do know because they don't know shit. They know less than people who admit they don't know. So anyway, I am not in a place of knowing right now. I have decided that I am in a place of feeling. And so what I'm going to share today is how I'm feeling at 46, at the time. this particular moment in my life. Okay. Okay, I'm 46. That's amazing. Like, I'm close.

That is amazing. Good job. Thank you. Closer to 50 than I am to 40. That's wild. And also, I am not, if you're looking for any sort of like, woe is me, I'm getting older. Like, I don't have any of that. I keep getting awesomer and awesomer every year. I can attest. Like, that is, I wouldn't give, if you offered me. all the Twizzlers in the world. If you offered me all the coffee. If you said, you can be in charge of all the coffee forever. I would not go back to 20s, 30s, hell no.

It is so funny when people are like, oh, now I'm 43, now I'm 44. I'm like, the alternative to aging is not aging. It's dead. Like, is dead. It's so awesome. It's like everyone should be pro aging because if you're not pro aging, you're pro dead. You're pro dead. There's two options. There's two freaking options. So here's how I feel. We live by the ocean now. Okay. And by the Pacific Ocean. That's correct. It took us a while.

Took us a few months to get that one down. It is for sure the Pacific Ocean. And I remember that by saying, by telling myself Glennon, it's a specific ocean. And Pacific Ocean and Pacific. It joins with specific. Oh my gosh. That's how I get there. That's so good. So I have this moment each day where I can stand and look at the ocean and I see the shore and I see the waves coming on to the shore and I see the ocean as far as I can see. And I have this feeling that makes me peaceful, which is I have gone as far as I can go. I love living here because that's it.

I've gone as far as I can go. Unless I'm going to walk in to the specific ocean, I have gone as far as I can go. At 46, I feel that way about a lot of parts of my life. I feel like I know my capacity, okay? So I'm not saying that no one else could do better at these things or do differently. I'm just saying I know myself. I know my capacity.

I know where I came from. I know what I started with. I know my own particular battles and my own particular challenges and fears and all of that. And given the package of life that I've been given, I've gone as far as I can go. Interesting. With love, with romantic love. Like there's nowhere better or bigger or further or different that I want to go. My children are still growing, but they're baked.

You know, the oldest one is off to college. The middle one is herself, tis herself, and always has been. The youngest one is she's baked. You know, now we're more dealing with, like, her dealing with the world rather than helping shape her. I have poured into them what I wanted to. It's interesting. With work, I, there's no dreams that I have that haven't in terms of who I've gotten to work with, my family, my Allison and Dina, like my, what we've gotten to do in the world together rising. I'm not like, now I'm just like, what?

What? What do I do next? Or not, you know? How do I keep doing this? Yeah. I mean, I feel like, and this is not an acceptable thing for women to say. So I understand that this might feel hard to hear for women to say it. Yeah. If you're not sharing this experience. Like, I'm proud of myself. Cool. Like with what I've given, been given and what. I've done and all the privilege that I have and all of it, I feel like I've done my best. I did my best. That's, I think, a better way of saying than maybe like I've gone as far. Because it feels like such an ending. I've gone as far as I could go. But like doing your best. Yeah. I mean, I want to talk about that part too about it, feeling like the ending. But I remember, and the sentence I've done my

best might sound not too revolutionary to people, but to me it's really revolutionary. Because I was drinking for so long and I was not, I just, it is an awful feeling to look at your life and think, I can do better than this, but I'm not doing it. Like, I could do better than this at love. I could be doing better than this at sharing my particular talents. I could do. But, and so for me to be able to say, I'm doing my best now. It's good. I've done my best. I'm doing my best. It's like a huge moment. for me. And the flip side is true. I mean, if you know you're not doing your best and something is stopping you from doing that, that is a grief. But the same is true on the flip side.

If you're doing your best, but you're still telling yourself, it should be better. It should be better. You can do it work harder and, and be better than this, that is a different kind of anguish. So being able to say I did my best and it's good is a beautiful thing on either side of the spectrum that you're on. Yeah, because it implies, I think, an idea of enoughness too.

And enoughness is culturally not even, we don't even understand what is enough. Like I think that is also something that I'm feeling strongly. Abby and I've been talking about what that means, what does enough mean over and over again for the last, really the last year. And it's, there's a lot of people who are exactly where I am in work or exactly where I am and don't feel like it's enough, right?

They wouldn't say, I've done my best because, and I work with people like that, you know, I work with that idea all the time. Like if you're where I am, you've just begun. Yeah.

You have so many other things to do. Like, imagine what else you can do. That's right. It's not because, it's not because of what I've done that I feel. It's because it's, it's, um, an approach that I want to bring into the second half of my life, which is the idea that like, I feel like this is an intermission time. Okay. That's how I feel about 45.

Two halves. Two halves, right? Now we're in the middle half time. The first half was like, I lived hard, man. I haven't breathed for decades, right? In terms of, you know, being very sick for a very long time. And then recovering and then starting the second I recovered from or began recovering from alcoholism and food addiction, starting life, like becoming the mother of three children

and becoming a wife and then having the career and then the divorce and the remarry and the, you know, it's been fast and hard and a lot. And I feel like all of us spend the first half of our lives just like kind of building. We're just like striving and we're trying so hard and we're building things. And then we're feeling like, oh, wait, this wasn't exactly right. This isn't what I wanted. This is what somebody else wanted me for me. So then we're unbuilding and we're unlearning and we're deconstructing.

And we're like fighting to make this out. life that matches us. That's why I think it's so important to have the conversations that we've been having, like what really is enough. Because had we not started those conversations, the only thing that we were considering is what's next. And that what next piece always had to be more than what we just did. And that is a real fast way to misery. That's the carrot that you can chase your whole life. If you do not believe in enoughness, there will never be enough. Like if enoughness isn't a spiritual practice, like really figuring out what is enough contentment.

What is enough ambition? Like what is enough accomplishment? What is enough money? What is enough relevancy? Like all of it, right? Then you just keep hamster wheeling forever and ever. Amen. It's like if all of life is anything as possible, right?

Like that's like through all of life. And your happiness really depends on your precise posture toward anything as possible. So I feel like it's like the first half is like, anything is possible. Here we go. What can we be? What can we build? What kind of life can we have? And then that seems like a really positive attitude, but it makes us the unhappiest.

And then, and this is research backed. But then the second half of our life, it's like, anything's possible. You really know the impermanence of things and that you could lose these things and these people and everything you cherish. But it's precise, that is the paradox, that that is the time that you are happiest. Like, it's facing and accepting the inevitability of loss. that makes us happy. It's good. It's so interesting.

It's like I see the way of like a person's life as like a bell curve. So like physically speaking, it's like and it can apply to this. Like you're, you're attaining all of these like, whether it's labels or things or roles. Rolls or goals or whatever. And you're always building and you get to a point. And I feel like maybe we're here. It's like we need to like enjoy. And so maybe we're ready for that.

bell curve to kind of go down. But I also think about it spiritually speaking. And then I think that that bell curve is inverted spiritually. It is. It is. That's what I think. It's a happiness you curve. I think that the curve, the hill you're talking about is the bullshit. Yes. The hill is like, okay, because here's what I think. What, where we get over the hill and all of that is, is, is a visual for life if you really only believe in the first half bullshit. if if if if you believe that our joy and our peace and our power comes from accumulating things and roles and power and relevance and all of that then it is a then it is a curve that it curves down because that stuff you gain gain gain gain in the first half of life and

then it starts to go away when you think about when I'm looking past 46 and I'm looking at like literally got looked at my neck the other day and I was like what is happening like oh like the wrinkles are coming in the neck or like I see a picture of myself without a bra and I'm like, oh my God. You have a picture of yourself without a bra? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did. When I took those pictures in our living room the other day with a low. Oh, with a shirt on. Yeah, I had a shirt on for God's sake.

I mean, look, you said, I was just excited that this is possible. I didn't know we're doing that. No, but I was like, oh my God, look at my boobs. They're like at my belt. Like that's so interesting. What I'm saying is if I continued to believe what the first half of life tries to teach women in particular, this is just one version of first half philosophy, that like your beauty and your youth are your power and your peace. Right? Your cultural idea of beauty.

Yeah. And the way your body looks youthful are your, if I still believe that, then yes, the second half. of my life will be a downward spiral. If I believe what culture tells me that all of my relevancy as a woman comes from the roles that I play, right? Comes from momming, comes from my status in the neighborhood, in the community, comes from what, then as my children grow and go and don't need me as much in the same ways, it will be a bell curve down. Relevancy in terms of work. I mean, we all know how that goes. Like the amount of energy and like just blood, sweat, tears and almost manic hamster wheeling you have to do to maintain what your work will tell you keeps you relevant.

Sure. If I continue to do that, it'll be a bell curve, right? So there's this other way of doing it that I really am wanting to do. And I feel like the intermission right now is a time. where the Sela, the holy pause, we love that word. This is a holy pause in life. The Sela is the symbol in holy scripture that appears between scripture when it's a signal to the reader to stop and really take a moment to let the music or the scripture from the previous part sink in. So a holy Sela in our lives, we consider those moments where things slow down for a minute and you're allowed to actually take a breath and be intentional about what you just learned and how it's going to change you

for the next part. And that's what this is. Yeah. And I think there's a way to make your life not the up and then the down, not the over the hill, but a continued up. But in order to do the continued up, you have to let go of believing what the first half of your life taught you. You have to actually believe that your power and peace does not come from the power of the first half. The accumulation of roles. You have to move into soul territory. Like from believing in your roles to believing in the soul, right, right? Which is like, actually, we know none of that's true. If all of that were to make a person happy, I'd be the happiest damn person on earth, right?

That's right. I've got a lot of roles. Yeah. There's this way that I see people doing the second half that I worship so much this way, which is just like the power in stillness. and the power in like actually allowing yourself to become irrelevant in the ways of the world. It's like that Ram Dass idea. Like the first half of your life is becoming somebody and the second half of your life is becoming nobody.

And when you can finally become nobody, that's when you actually find peace and power. Yes. And God, it feels so hard. It's a new year. and instead of trying to reinvent myself, I've been asking a simpler question. What would actually support me right now? And honestly, a big part of that answer is my home. I want my space to feel calmer, more functional, and a little more like a place that can reflect my goals and energy for this year, which is why I've been turning to Wayfair.

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Visit helloalma.com slash we can to schedule a free consultation today. That's hello-a-l-m-a-com slash W-E-C-A-N. This might not ring true to everybody listening, but it kind of rings true to me because I do think that there are some things in my first half that I know have been And it's a lot spiritual. It's a lot like internal. It's like the soul part of me that I've been trying to curate. I think that the build of that is giving me kind of confidence in the exploration of the second half. Because I think so many of us get stuck in the belief system that there is going to be an over the hill. And now everything is just going to be hard. My body's going to hurt all the time and it's going to start sagging in places.

and I'm going to lose all the roles that I've built my life on. But part of me knows that the roles that I have attached myself to was building a kind of soul to be able to do that next half. So the way that I think about it is our women's national team. I know that this is weird to bring a sports metaphor analogy or story into it. But we always said the last 20 minutes of every game of the second half is where we we will thrive. And it had nothing to do with that specific game. It had everything to do with all the stuff that we did mentally to prep for those last 20 minutes. And wouldn't you know a lot of

the biggest games we ever played were one in the last moments of the game? Because we were mentally preparing ourselves for the inevitable things that happened in the second half. Like you're more tired. You're exhausted. Isn't that interested, though? It's like the mental fortitude. That's it. Yeah. That's it. Of the last. I mean, because when you think about it, and another way I think about this intermission is it's a beautiful time to take a breath and sort of fortify, like get ready. Because I think the second half of life, the way I watch it in other people, it is more challenging in many ways. You do lose. We're going to lose parents. We're going to walk you. We're going to walk. other through unbelievably difficult things. Our children are going to grow and have real adult

problems. We're going to get sick. We're going to have friends that get sick. Like, it requires, you know how it feels like in parenting the first half is so physically exhausted, exhausting that you can't even see straight? And then the second half is like completely mentally exhausting. It feels like it's going to be like that. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And I think that if we can kind of get outside of what the world tells us the second half is going to be like. And, oh, we're going through a midlife crisis. Like, no, like, we're in a, we're in a se la right now. Like, we're in intermission. And we want to, the way we want to approach this is not with a crisis mindset. Well, let's talk about that. I mean, the, when you're, when you guys are talking about the

curves and the crisis, like it, the good news is, I have two sets of good news for the good people. First of all, you don't necessarily have to be thinking through all of these things and as, like, deep in it and prepared as you are, Glennon. I mean, the life does this for you. Happiness is a you curve, as you said. Happiness reaches its peak at the end of life. And so there's high happiness at the beginning, but the highest is at the end. So women are happy. between the ages of 65 and 79. That's just, and one survey even found that women are most likely to reach their peak happiness at 85 years old.

Oh my God. So what is happening is that you're going to get there, right? Like, life is going to do it for you because it's going to teach you the impermanence of things and you're going to treasure those moments because you have let go. of all the striving you're talking about, right? So do we call that running in culture, in our culture, we call that women running out of fucks to give, right? That's what that, that's what we call it, right? That's when we stop trying to please everybody, when we get outside of being defined and controlled by our roles of caretaking of all of that, when we finally get to stop and live

and notice our own life, that's probably that time, right? Yeah, we become less dependent. We become less self-critical, more confident and more decisive as we age. That is true of women. Like on the average women becomes more of those things as she gets older. And so you're coming into yourself at that time. But I have another piece of good news, which is that if you are not feeling in this moment of life the way Glennon feels about this moment in her life, that is normal. In fact, midlife is the hardest. That is where you get a drop in life. So you have the highest at the end, high at the beginning.

And then midlife is generally the most stressful period in people's lives because they have the work performance demands. They have caregiving demands of their kids and their parents. They're still striving so freaking hard. And that is when dissatisfaction peaks. It's during the 40s, and it's actually at its worst at 45 on average. So if I just want to, and I am in a period like that right now. So I just want to shout out to the people that if you're not, if you're not feeling this deep sense of peace and preparedness, that's totally normal. You're doing it right.

And you will be happier. Literally the best is yet to come for sure. Yeah. That's amazing. It's interesting to bring up the crisis word. That's what we used to always call it, right? This is a midlife crisis. And I was thinking about that in my walk this morning. And I was thinking about, first of all, what we see as a midlife crisis. I mean, of course, when you think of midlife crisis, of course, we only get to think of men right away, right? That's our first. That's my, that's what comes. It's a man with a red Ferrari. Like a man with like trading in his wife for younger versions or whatever. It's like. Like a midlife crisis, what I think of it is it's approaching the second half and doubling down on the first half's values. Yeah. It's instead of why, like to me, this is how I'm seeing it right now. Wise midlife is a look at what's coming. Okay.

inevitably coming, which is that we are going to maybe lose isn't the best word, but it's the best word I have right now. We're going to lose a lot of the things that we cherished in the first half. We're going to have to stop worshipping a lot of things that we worshipped in the first half. We're going to have to find our identity and our groundedness in other things other than the things that we did in the first half. You can either look at that inevitability. and figure out how to jive with it, like figure out how to turn that way directionally, or you can use your intermission to turn back towards the first half

and go kicking and screaming and doubling down on all of those things, right? Like being bound and determined to keep yourself young. Yeah. Right. Keep yourself looking young, thinking young. You can buy a bunch of, cars. That's the crisis that our culture shows us. It's a doubling down on the first half's life of values. But also, this is an interesting thing about the word crisis. I wrote about this in Love

Warrior. I remember learning from Kathleen Norris in one of her books that the root of the word crisis is a Latin word that means to sift. Okay. So a crisis is if you want to think about one of those kids who goes to the beach, right, with one of those sieves and digs up the sand and holds it out in front of them and just watches all of the sand fall away, hoping that there's treasure left over. That is what crisis is. A midlife crisis is the time where we scoop up the sand of our lives and we let everything fall away except for the treasure that's left over, which is the truth.

It's good. We don't try to keep the sand in the sieve. We don't, right? We let it all fall away, that which actually never mattered. And by the way, that which never brought us the piece it promised. That's the other thing to remember. Like, if you are buying more Ferraris or whatever people do, you're doubling down on something that never worked because don't tell me that anybody ever got a car and was like,

now I am the man I always. Like now I can never have enough of what you don't really need. No. Trying to get more of it to see if that's enough is not a wise plan. I love that vision of that being the crisis. Like crisis meaning like an evaluation, a being willing to morph and change into the next thing. like you have, by the way, 17 times before. We act like midlife is the first time we have this transformation.

Not even close to true. I mean, remember adolescence? Remember like your early adulthood? I mean, we've done this a thousand times. Why is this different? I think because we attach, in part, we attach this idea of a midlife crisis to it, which is a myth.

Like that is not even a real thing. Very few people report having some kind of definable crisis that's related to their age at all. It was actually, that term wasn't even a thing until 1957. And it was this guy who studied composers and thought they got less creative in their 30s, by the way, that was the midlife crisis in the 30s. And so he decided that people had years long depressive periods in their 30s. And that is where we got midlife crisis. So it's not a thing for you don't have to like wait for it to spring on you. Right.

You're just, you're just changing and evolving. There might be a moment though. Like, there might be a moment where you get to catch your breath and you look at the thing you've built and you say, I think I've done my best. And you might think I'm finally at a point where I don't want things to be different. I just want more of the same. Let's talk about the other way it could go Because I think about what if you get to your intermission Or your Sala and you don't like what you've built

Yeah That's a good question That's why you don't take a Sala Or you don't like what you've built You don't stop to assess it Like that's why people go go go go go That's because you know in the back of your mind It's easier to keep

keep sprinting no matter how hard it is, than to stop, rest, turn around, and acknowledge that it isn't good enough. Because Abby and I were talking this morning about how five years ago.

Yeah. It wasn't good enough for me. Like five years ago had I, I mean, I guess I sort of did, but like, I did not even have close

to the life that I wanted. You had just turned 40. I was in a marriage that I didn't. And same with me. I was 35, 36 and I was fucking miserable. Like I was at the worst point in my life. I'm almost six years sober. I have had the best six years of my life because of that one day at a time approach.

I think that sobriety does help actually. Because I think that sometimes whatever you do to take the edge off, the edge is what makes you change things. Like, I think when you, at 6 o'clock each night start to check out, it's like you don't sit in the misery of the life you don't want long enough to actually freaking get to the point where you can't take it anymore. and you have to to change something. Yes. It's like so you can live your whole life and just take the edge off every single night. And that, it's that that keeps you from the misery that demands change. Like if you are numbing your misery, you are putting out the fire in you.

that is your fuel. It's good. It's so good. It's like if you can stand a little bit of that misery, it will point you directly to changing the things in your life that you want to change that are making you miserable. Yeah, you must sit in the misery. You have to.

That's where you get your fire. I think it's just hopeful. It's just exciting to think about that there's a whole, different part of life that we haven't started. There's a whole different way to think about it. It's just funny how, you know how there's like insults we say about people as they get old, like, oh, they're really starting to slow down. Like that's an, like that's an insult? Like, I am desperate to learn how to slow down. Well, you know, it's like what we talked about that the first half is, this is oversimplified, but it does feel a little bit like the first half is for building a

house and then the second half is for living in it. I do not want to be building a house until I die. No. I want to learn how to be. Yes, especially knowing how much you want to keep changing things in our house. Like, can we just be in our house? I think a lot about that song, all I do is listen to Joni Mitchell, poor Abby. It's over. It's all we listen to in the house. Like literally the same song. over. I love Joanie, though. I know you do. She's good. But there's this song that talks about midway.

She says, I'm midway down the midway and I'm slowing down. And then she talks about the other way of life. I think she's talking about looking back at the first half people or the first half or the people who bring the first half into the second half. And she says, always playing one more hand for one more dice. And she says, I envy you the valley that you found. Was it hard to fold a hand you could win? And I feel like that's the lure of bringing the second half into the first half into the second half.

Because it's like, when do you fold? Like when do you say enough? I'm good. Because you can keep saying just one more year. Just one more, just whatever that is. Just one more promotion. Just whatever it is. But like, I envy you the valley.

that you found, the idea of like sitting down in the valley and just... Your name is Glennon. Yes, my name does actually mean girl from the valley. So anyway, I'm just Joni right now. I'm midway down the midway, slow and down. I just think that, you know, looking forward and being intentional, there's a lot of things that I'm thinking about in this intermission that I know are going to fade and shift. And a lot of the things that I've built are going to fade and crumble and shift.

And it's like that time where you realize that you are not the sand castles in the sand that you've built. You are the builder of them. Right? You do not change. The you that is the newest you that has. been you since you were born and will be you on your deathbed, changes not at all. It doesn't change through passage of time. It doesn't change through what you lose or gain. It is exactly the same. Nothing lost from the moment you're born to the moment you die, that you are the builder.

You are not the castle. So how do you spend this intermission finding that treasure that reminds you constantly that all of those things you're going to lose weren't you anyway. And so you can just stand there and watch the tide with like deep dignity. And you can show your people how that's done because that's what's really important to me too. I've done my best to show my kids how you keep learning and unlearning and building and unbuilding and building and trying to get and true and true and true to who you are. And now it's time for me to show my kids how to do the second half. Like I have to, with how I face losing, show them how to lose me. Oh, God. I'm not ready. You know, it just, I think that the second half is going to require a grace and a dignity and a power and a

fortitude and a philosophy and a real perspective, right? To like do it with the piece that I want to do it with and I want to be completely prepared and celebratory about losing the things that the first half promised me I couldn't live without career, relevancy, beauty, all of that stuff. So beautiful. So that's why I have the freaking tattoo on my wrist. Be still. Like I, the only reason why I allowed myself to get that is that I knew that it would be as true on my deathbed as it was true the day I got it. That is one thing, be still. And no, because it's like the stillness is the opposite of the striving.

Right? And it's time now to find some peace in the stillness. Even the opportunity for striving goes away. Right. 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.

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too much on your plate or really prioritizing the things that, you know, you need to do. And I'm wondering if you could speak to those of us who have the opposite problem. those of us who would rather just lay on the couch all day and watch TV and who struggle to get the motivation up to really do anything or do it really, really well. So do I don't know if any of you struggle with that. How do we push through to do the things that we need to do, let alone, you know, all the things in life? Thanks, guys. Hi. Who could possibly answer this one?

Babe, you're up. You were made for such a time as this. Oh, I mean, I giggled, right, as she started talking me, because listen, people might not know this about me. But if I had it my way, like, without like my best life mindset on, my shit would be on a couch all day long. That's right. And I feel no shame about it.

Like I love sitting. I love laying down. You love laying even more than sitting. Much more. Laying down and watching shows and just like hanging out with the dogs. And I think part of it was because I lived such a weird life that I would like, I would basically just be sprinting or laying. Like that was the whole life that I lived.

No in between. I'd be playing soccer and then part of my job was to rest and recover. So I actually was forced. It was part of my job description to lay. You told me once you were recovering a year into our marriage while you were laying on a couch watching another freaking vampire movie. And I was like, what has happening? And you said, I'm in recovering. I'm in recovery.

And I was like, from what? From 30 years of playing soccer, God damn it. also were watching vampire movies. So what are we recovering from? I was recovering from 30 years of, of torture. Right. So what do we say to Sweet Brittany? Like, how do we, what do people who don't need, they don't feel that their greatest need is to slow down? They actually feel like their greatest need is to speed up. First of all, I love them. They're my favorite. It's not like I do too much. It's like, I really do too little. I feel like Brittany is comparing herself to the people that. are like, go, go, go, go, go.

And she is feeling like she's a very different type of person than that kind of person. But to me, continuing to go and not be able to stop is the exact same thing as not going and not being able to start. That's right. It's not like one is better than the other. I mean, socially acceptable, yes. but that's Newton's first law of motion, right? An object at rest tends to stay at rest. An object in motion tends to stay in motion.

Sweet Britney, sweet Britney at rest tends to stay at rest. Right. Sweet sister in motion tends to stay in motion. So what do we do with Brittany and sister who are two sides of the same beloved coin? First of all, stop beating yourself up. Because it's literally a law of motion. It's science. Brittany.

You can't, what? You're going to go tell Newton that he's wrong about that? Yeah. So I just think stop beating yourself up and I just think it's going, it takes a big change. It's a big change. You're not going to just like get a new planner and watch a new inspirational video and suddenly you're going to start like getting your shit done, Brittany. Just like I'm not going to like do a morning meditation and start like being very present

in my life and letting go of the things have to do. It's just, it's going to be a big fucking change, Brittany, okay? Check back in in a couple months. Brittany's gonna Britney and sister's gonna sister. That's so good. I mean, I would just say one thing since everyone asked me. I do feel like there's an element of should in all of this. Yeah.

Like Brittany feels like she should do something different than what she is, than what her natural self is telling her to do. Sister, you're feeling like you should do morning meditation or whatever. I don't know. Maybe you're probably not even. But you know what I'm saying? If we just remove should completely, because neither of those things have anything to do with desire. Like, if Brittany desires to do some stuff and she's not doing them, that's one question.

If busy body people desire to rest and they're not doing it, that's one thing. But let's start with desire instead of just should or momentum. Right? What do you want? Yeah. And then go there because, I mean, I don't know. Brittany, while you're, while you're sitting there on the couch, download or or whatever, the notebook. What do you want? Come to the scene. What do you want? She loves the notebook. Okay, let's hear from Libby. Hi, Glennon, sister and Abby. My name is Libby. And I am wondering, is there a way to be too honest. Can you be? Sorry, like my heart is speaking really fast. Can you be too honest with your kids? I'm talking like ages 13 and above about your past, about things in your relationship. Where do you draw the line or you just lay it all on the table and hope that it makes them bigger, better people than you that won't make the same mistakes?

Or if they do, we'll know how to deal with them. Thanks. I have thoughts about this, sweet Libby. Yeah. Libby, Libby, Libby, when she said, I hope that it makes them better people than you, that makes my heart hurt. Because I just don't think anybody's better than anybody else at all.

They're just kind of human. I just can't imagine anyone being better than Libby. Except maybe Brittany. Except Britney. Brittany is kind of crushing it. I like them both. So it goes Britney than Libby. Let me just tell you my thoughts about this because I think about it all the time as someone who's set my life up in such a way that I don't have a choice that my kids know all my shit, right?

And I'm not talking right now about little little ones. I know that's different and things have to be developmentally and age appropriate in the way they're shared. But Libby asked specifically about ages 13 and above. And what I just want to say is that what I found over and, over again is that what our culture teaches us about what makes a good parent is that we are perfect whatever the hell that means right that we present a version of ourselves that is robotic and plastic and has no pain and has no regret and has no shame and has no anger and has no fear and has no and that we present this plastic version of ourselves to our children and that somehow that

will protect them from something i don't know it it is such a disdise. service. Yeah. We show this version, this plastic version of ourselves, this non-human version of ourselves to our children who are human, who are fully fucking human, who are, have all of the angst and terror and rage and all of it. They have all of the swirly stuff inside of them that we have. And then we show them no model for how to navigate that in any way, because we hide all of ours from them. We are the only ones who can make them feel less alone by showing them that we are exactly

as human as they are. And even if we let them see all of our mistakes, they're still going to make their own, they're just going to make different ones. It's just, you know, and I think I think a lot about, I saw this tweet the other day about how mothers with eating issues

that like their kids notice everything and see everything and like no matter what, you do. They always, and then I think about that all the time. Yeah, my whole heart just like clenched. But then I thought, no, it's okay. Even though I am still fucked up with food and my kids see a million things a day that, you know, they see me like, eat a bite of cookie and then put the rest in the pantry. They see me like do all of this. But they also see me saying, I have eating issues and this is not normal and I'm working on it. And I'm going to be working on it until the day I die. I talk about it overtly, right?

They know, mom's got, this is an issue. They don't think my mom's trying to show me this is normal. They think that, they don't, they think that's her struggle when they see it. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I just think when we hide ourselves, we might make our kids feel like my mom's perfect, but they're going to feel inversely bad about themselves as they feel shiny in admiration about us because they know in their bones that they are fully human.

It's kind of about like the whole conversation about first half of life and second half of life. It's almost as if in the second half of our life we just, we stop suspending reality. It's like the first half we're pretending as if we're immortal and we can keep going forever and go, go, go. And the second half we let it go. With our kids, it's kind of like we're were so afraid of their own humanness that we pretend that they're not human. Like she said so that they will become better people than me. Like that isn't putting yourself down. That's pretending that your kids are not going to be human.

Right. They're not going to be better than you. They are not going to be better than you. No. Exactly as human. They're going to be exactly like you. And so it's just. odd the way we do that. I mean, I recently, even with little kids, she asked about big kids,

but very recently Bobby brought home something. One of his friends' parents got divorced and he doesn't see a lot of that. And so he was like, so-and-so's friends got divorced. And he was like a little bit worried and scandalized. And I was like, that's, I'm so sorry for them. And also, like, that's real normal. Real normal. And I was like, I'm divorced. And he was like, what? And I just, like, sat them both down and told them everything. Because, and they asked all kinds of questions. So why did, so why did you break up? And did you love him and what happened and all that?

And then, and it was a way of saying, like, this, we're all normal. We're all the same. So, like, that, those parents you're worried about, same as me. Yeah. Like, they aren't bad parents unless you think I'm a bad parent. And this is. And they can handle all of it. They can handle all of it.

Except it was so amazing because we talked about it for like one hour and they asked all their questions. And then we were done. They were like, I'm good now. I'm good. I have all the questions. And Bobby got it from music. Oh, one more. When you were married before, did you have any kids?

And I was like, I probably would have led with that, Bob. Okay. Come in little Kaylee. I don't know. Meet your new siblings. I feel like Glennon and I, we've had this conversation a lot. You live your life out loud, Glennon, so the kids know a lot of this stuff. But there's also stuff that they don't know that you, and through that conversation of you telling them who you are, you give them the space to tell you who they are.

And I think that that is a really, that's a dynamic that's hard, I think, for parents, because it's like parents put them. themselves on this pedestal and the expectation is to either become exactly like me or don't be like me at all because I had such a horrible like adult childhood, whatever. And at the end of the day, it's like, actually, we just like want our kids to know everything so that they're equipped when they start feeling these hard feelings. Like, oh, I had this big breakup. Oh, yeah, remember that time, whatever it is. So I don't know. I've always age appropriate for sure, but like. But honest. Completely honest. And not in hopes that they're going to become anything other than as fully human as you are living.

That's right. And that's beautiful. Yeah. This show is sponsored by Midi Health. Parymenopause and menopause aren't personality flaws or phases. They're medical transitions. And yet nearly three out of four women who actively seek help are sent home with nothing. No treatment.

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This is DJ. I'm wondering if you all might talk about. about how you are dealing with the existential dread, like big picture dread, you know, with climate change realities and whatever the next pandemic is, the direction that feels like we're all plummeting. I mean, how are you avoiding just like daily paralysis? From at all, how are you avoiding complete hopelessness? Like, how are you keeping the light in?

And believe in just any of this, any of this matters. It just feels harder and harder every day, doesn't it? Anyway, sorry. Downer. Anyway, thank you. Okay, so it goes DJ, then Brittany. Brittany, you're bumped. Then Livy.

Okay, can I take this one? Because it's about existential dread? Yep, girl. Yes. This is the album cover for 46. Yes. Existential. Yes. Okay.

I know that there are many experts who tell us not to dress, rehearse tragedy. Okay. I think that's a lovely thought. I am going to for the rest of my life because that is how it helps me to do that. I need to think through what is worst case scenario. all the time every day, every minute. And that's when I can relax. Okay?

I have a plan for when the thing inevitably goes to shit. Okay? And everybody, it's not going to go to shit. It's not going to go to shit. That's fine. I hear you and your toxic positivity. What I'm saying is we can both relax now.

You because you're delusionally happy and me because I have a plan. Right? So I DJ. Have actually... This is the story of my life. Yes. Literally. Yes.

I have actually thought this all the way through to the end. Okay, DJ? So I have thought about what would I do if the world were actually ending? Like tomorrow. Like what? Okay. Because existential dread is, does it matter? Climate change.

All the things are coming. The world's going to end. Okay, great. Like let's take it to its... What if next? week we find out that the world's ending. Okay. Two parts of this. Number one, here's the two things I can control with that. I can keep trying to make it not end. Okay. I am not going to be the person who just says, fuck it. Eat drink and be merry. No. That's not going to be me because that's not

my main character character trait. I want my main character character trait to be the sort of person who continues to work for the world not to end, even if it inevitably is going to. Number one. Number two, when it ends, if it does, if it's next Tuesday, I fucking know what I'm going to do. Okay? You know that? Okay. It's a little bit, a little bit close to it. Don't look up with spoiler alert. In the end. In the end of the movie, there's a scene. Okay, it's the world's ending and you see what this family does.

Okay. If the world ends, I am going to be amazing about it. Okay. That's one of us. I am going to sit with my family around a table. my entire family, we are going to talk, we are going to hug. They are going to see nothing but love and peace in my eyes. Okay?

Not me. Also, I'm going to be on Instagram live. That's true. I'm not kidding you at all. Okay, I've thought this all the way through. I am going to have my phone on a stand at the table for anyone else who is alone, the night the world ends so that they can be with my family and my family can be their family and I can look at them with my peaceful eyes because not everyone in the world is going to be as prepared and

lexaprode up as I am at the end of the world okay I will not be peaceful what I'm saying DJ is that I have decided that we do not get to control the plot of this freaking life in any way So we get to control what we can control, which is the main character. What am I going to do until the world ends? And what am I going to do when it ends? Because it's going to end for all of us. And nobody's going to steal my fire before that and my care. And nobody's going to steal my peace at the night of it.

And my kids are going to look in my eyes and see, even though nothing's okay. Somehow everything's okay. Uh-huh. I can't, if I see a spider, I will lose my shit and run out of that. house, but I can handle the end of the world, DJ. So if you can't, you just get on your Instagram live. I will be losing my shit. So she thinks that this table is going to be nice and sweet. Not a chance. I want to say, thank you for my birthday episode before we get to the Pod Squad. Happy birthday, sister. Thank you. I'm so glad you were born. It's my favorite day. Thank you. Seriously, it's more favorite than my own birthday. Of everything in the world, I am most

grateful for you too. I love you both so much. My sister and my wife, my best things. My best thanks. Hi, this is Pat. Hi, Abby Glenn and sister. I'm going to retire next week after 32 years in a very traditional environment. And people keep asking me, what are you going to do? You're not going to be able to slow down. And my response has been, do I have to do something? And it's kind of throw me off. Yes, they've seen me as somebody who has been very structured and has training programs plans two years in advance, but I'm ready. You know what? I am ready. I have survived cancer three times. Last year, I lost two sisters, and so it is time. The universe is telling me it is time. I'm going to hang out with my husband, spoil my kids and grandkids

volunteer travel, get into some good trouble. which is probably going to end up in some civil disobedience and some strange encounters with my seem to be former coworkers if you get my drift. But I'm ready. I don't have to do anything, be anything. I just get to redirect my pace and my journey in retirement. So thank you so much for all you do and the heartprints that you have left on me and on the rest of the world. Love you all.

That seems like somebody who knows. is what they're about to go do. Yeah. So it goes Pat. It goes Pat. Then DJ. Then Britney. Then Libby. Libby, you're still, it's just, you know, it's just these people. I don't know what to do. You all, we just, we just need to be like Pat. Yeah. Okay. I don't have to do anything, be anything. I get to direct my pace and my journey. Hey, girl. Yeah. It's not just for retirement. Yes. Let's say it again. I don't have to do anything, be anything. I just get to redirect my pace and my journey.

That's your next right thing, y'all. Okay, we love you. Thank you for being with me on my birthday. We're going to see you next time. We're going to see you next time and we can do hard things. Bye. I give you Tishmilton and Brandy Carlisle. Oh, fire I came out.

The other side. I chased desire I made sure I got what's mine and I continued to believe that I'm a cause we're adventurers and heart breaks a map a final destination we lack They've stopped asking directions to places they've never. We'll find... We can do a heart, a brand new star. And sometimes things fall apart. I continue to believe the best people are free.

And it took some time Because we're adventurers and heart breaks On my final destination We've stopped asking directions To places they And to be loved We'll find that our can do hard And sure of asking to play

Never been And two can 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.