We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - 83. Brené Brown: What to Say to Get What You Need

Episode Date: March 31, 2022

1. How to know when to dig deep–and when to quit digging.  2. The greatest blocker of connection–and how to remove it. 3. How to handle our fear (without obsessively controlling our people and our environment). 4. Why we all deserve a standing ovation for navigating relationships over the past two years.   About Brené:  Dr. Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston where she holds the Huffington Foundation Endowed Chair at The Graduate College of Social Work. She has spent the past two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy, is the author of six #1 New York Times bestsellers, and is the host of the weekly podcasts Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead.  In her latest #1 New York Times bestseller, ATLAS OF THE HEART, which has been adapted for television and now streaming on HBO Max, she takes us on a journey through eighty-seven of the emotions and experiences that define what it means to be human.  Brené’s books have been translated into more than 30 languages and titles include: Dare to Lead, Braving the Wilderness, Rising Strong, Daring Greatly, and The Gifts of Imperfection. Most recently Brené collaborated with Tarana Burke to co-edit You Are Your Best Thing: Vulnerability, Shame Resilience, and the Black Experience.  Brené lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband, Steve. They have two children, Ellen and Charlie. TW: @BreneBrown IG: @BreneBrown To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, everybody. Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. Sister and Abby and I are welcoming back to the pod today one of our favorite people to talk to in the whole world. And I think she might be one of the whole world's favorite people to listen to because, well, let's just see. Her name, you may have heard of her, is Dr. Brene Brown. Dr. Brene Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston, where she holds the Huffington Foundation Endowed Chair at the Graduate College of Social Work. She has spent the past two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy, is the author of six number one New York Times bestsellers, and is the host of the weekly podcasts, Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead.

Brene's books have been translated into more than 30 languages and titles, including Dare to Lead, Braving the Wilderness, Rising Strong, including Dare to Lead, Braving the Wilderness, Rising Strong, Daring Greatly, and The Gifts of Imperfection. Most recently, Brene collaborated with The Tarana Burke to co-edit You Are Your Best Thing, Vulnerability, Shame Resilience, and The Black Experience. In her latest number one New York Times bestseller, Atlas of the Heart, which has been adapted for television and is now streaming on HBO Max. So good. She takes us on a journey through 87 of the emotions and experiences that define what it means to be human. Brene lives in Houston, Texas with her husband, Steve.

They have two children, Ellen and Charlie. Today, her new series, Atlas of the Heart, Today, her new series, Atlas of the Heart, launches on HBO Max. We have already seen it. So we now are smarter than you. But soon you will catch up. It's so freaking good. Brene, thank you for being here. Thank you for the gift of this series.

You've done it again. Oh, man. Thank you. This is of this series. You've done it again. Oh, man. Thank you. This is so scary for me. What is? Yeah. And I like to do hard things, as you know, like if it's to a fault, like if it's not hard, I'm like, should I even be doing it? Yeah.

But this feels scary. This is because I'm out of my medium. You know, like this is weird. You don't seem out of your medium when you do it. I'm just telling you. Like it feels so natural. It feels so good. It feels like being in a room with you. It feels like talking to you like a friend. I've been thinking about something. I think that you said either in the first or second episode, which feels to me like really one of the many beautiful things about the Alice of the Heart project, whether it's the book or the series, which is this idea that we all want to connect with each other. That's one of our deepest needs, but that we can only connect to other people

in direct proportion to how connected we are with ourselves. Yeah. Yeah. And that is kind of a thesis of all of this work that you're doing, which is that the more we can identify and communicate our emotions, the more grounded in ourselves we are and the stickier we can be with other people, right? So good. Yes. And I think I've been thinking about it in terms of

why are my relationships getting so much better as I get older? Why is my second marriage so much freaking better than my first marriage? And it's not because, well, it's because of people, okay? It might have something to do with me. For sure.

A little bit. For sure. But listening to Brene, when I watch Atlas of the Heart, I think, I just have been thinking lately, it's also because I am more grounded in who I am. Yeah. So I can communicate. It's not just like insert better person and relationships are going to be better. Right. So can you talk to us about what the hell does that mean? Because we do talk about, you know, people say, do you have to love yourself before you love someone else?

What do you mean when you say we must be connected to ourselves before we can even begin to connect with other people? God, you just went straight for like the heart of the whole thing. And I have to tell you that Atlas, I really did not think I was going to survive writing this book. I did not think this book was going to happen almost to the very end. And I always think about Elizabeth Gilbert, who writes about how great the creative process is for her. I am not that person.

I'm more, is it the Emily Dickinson quote? It's like, writing's easy. You just kind of cut yourself and bleed out on the page or something like that. That's how this felt. I think one of the hardest parts of this for me, first of all, the data set was huge. So just wrestling that. But I think coming to grips with so many things that I got wrong over the years and thinking about not just, wow, as a social scientist, wow, I didn't get this right, which to me, that's fine. That's what science is. there's a great quote that I include in the book that's when science changes its mind it never lied to you it just kept finding more and more data you know and so

but it was also how I raised my kids how I reparented myself how I engaged with Steve and so I think one of the big things was there were two big things and related one is what you're talking about, that the depth of connection we have with ourselves is the best predictor variable of how deeply we'll be able to connect with other people. Yeah.

And I think the second part is, shit, for years, for 20 years, I've said, let's try to understand emotion. Let's try to recognize emotion in ourselves and others. And I am fully convinced now that we cannot recognize emotion in other people. Wow. Wait, say more. Well, yeah. And let me tell you, and it's not just me. It's like almost every, it's almost like a sentence that everyone who studies emotion just says like reflexively. Let's understand emotion so we can, you know, in ourselves and others. And in doing this research, what I learned is it's such an attempt to hotwire connection. connection is to pretend like I see Abby and she's visually emotional and her head is in her hands. She may be crying a little bit. And to be able to think that I can read emotion in her and say,

man, I know you look really sad, is a get out of jail free card for the actual work of saying, hey, what's going on? And Abby says back to me, you know, I read this comment online and it just pierced my heart directly. It was so hurtful. Normally I can blow that shit off, but this was just really hurtful. And then this is the hardest part of empathy that I did not see anyone talking about in any of the literature until I wrote it in Atlas of the Heart is then the choice we have to make to believe people when what they're saying does not resonate with our lived experiences or what we need from that person. So I look at Abby and I think, and y'all know this, anyone that's ever met me knows that I totally love you and respect you and have to tamper down the fan

girl in me. Anytime I talk to anybody, I'm like, seriously, Wolfpack changed my life. If you read it, you need to point. Why are you not leading from the bench? This is just literally, as someone who studies research, I mean, you're 15. I've never in my life read a better, more impactful leadership book than Wolfpack. Oh my God. No. So I have a lot of expectations of you so maybe when you say this heart-piercing thing hurt you without even thinking i think to myself fuck that abby wombat cannot they stapled her head together she cannot be affected by this stuff because that means i have to you know i'm like yeah you're probably just having an off day or, you know, fuck that stuff. It's not real. And then I choose to walk away from connection

and care with you to control the image I need to have of you to feel safer in my life. Or Amanda says, you know what? I put together this event. Took me a year and a half. We're in this room. I'm with all these, you know, big producer people. And they're shooting every question over to this guy who knows nothing about this event. And I'm crying because I'm so enraged right now that I'm trying to pull my shit together before I go back in there.

And I go, could you maybe be taking it too personally? Like, are you sure that's what's really happening in there? So if we back up from those examples with Amanda and Abby, I don't know myself well enough to take a breath and say, yeah, you think she's a badass and she's tough and she's an athletic hero, but she's hurting right now and you need to keep other focus, not self-focus right now. What does Abby need from you right now? And to say, God, those hurt sometimes, don't they? And when you least expect it, you read something and it's like, I'm really sorry. What does love look like right now for you? What does love look like right now? I think about that

when she, I'm thinking about the kids, Brene, every time the kids say to me something about how having two houses or, you know, the results of divorce are hard. Like I will be like, well, just this morning, you know, they have to go back and forth. It's like a really hard part of divorce. It is hard. Kids don't feel like they have, they're ever settled, you know? And I'm like, but I mean, you have two houses and like, we're only a block apart. And it's just like, I cannot, my need for you to think you have a good childhood. Yeah. Instead of saying, what does love look like right now? Yeah, this must be really hard.

And this gets to what's kind of overlooked because I think the shiny part of Atlas of the Heart is kind of the 87 emotions. But the real, to me, the really hardest part was the framework, and probably because it's complex, but the framework in the back of the book, I have, I started working on with my dissertation. So that was 20 years ago, 21 years ago. And I couldn't figure out, like, I mean, come on, fuck, Brede. It's a framework, a theory on meaningful connection. You study connection. You have a fricking three degrees in social work. All you study connection, bullshit. Like, come on. And I couldn't get it from my dissertation. Like, I couldn't make it happen. And then when I wrote Daring Greatly, I told my editor,

this back chapter is going to be this framework I'm working on. I couldn't do it. When I wrote, you know, Rising Strong, Braving the Wilderness, Dare to Lead, I told them every time, save this back thing. It's going to be at least 24 pages because you have to do the four count. And, you know, and I couldn't do it. Then when I was studying Atlas of the Heart, I came across this concept of near enemy. And I had heard this concept before, I think from maybe Kristen Neff or one of the Buddhist thinkers that writes about this that I study. And I was like, this is what's missing. Because if I see Amanda and she's rage crying about how people are treating her as the only woman in this room, and I'm like, are you sure you're not being too sensitive? The far enemy of connection is disconnection. That's easy.

We know that. When I go, you know, suck it up. Really, that sounds tough, and walk away. We know that. We're like, oh, that's shit. That felt bad. But I recognize that right there. That's like, that's disconnection. But it's not the far enemy that unravels everything we're so desperate for in our relationships. It's the near enemy.

It's that fucker that masquerades as connection. But silently, as we're trying to figure out, why do I feel bloody and bruised? She said something nice or she tried to be helpful. That's the thing, the near enemy. And the fact that what emerged from the data is, it's a weird concept, but let me give you an example of near enemy from someone who writes about it. So this is Chris Germer writing, this is his quote, near enemies are states that appear similar to the desired quality, but actually undermine it. Far enemies are the opposite of what we're trying to achieve. For example, a near enemy of loving kindness, a near enemy is sentimentality. It's similar, but it's different. A far enemy of loving kindness is

ill will, the opposite. So one of the examples that they use, and I think this one would really resonate. This is from Jack Kornfeld, who I love his work on near enemy. Talking about love, the near enemy of love is attachment. Attachment masquerades as love. It says, I will love this person because I need something from them, or I will love you if you love me back. I'll love you, but only if you will be the way I want you to be. This isn't the fullness of love. Instead, there is attachment. There is clinging and fear. True love allows, honors, and appreciates. Attachment grasps, demands, needs, and aims possessed. Yeah. And so what was so powerful about this kind of Buddhist concept is the virtues that we're looking for drive connection where near enemies fuel separation.

So Glennon, to use your example with your kids and the two houses, like, oh my God, I just do not want to be the subject of my kid's therapy. I want my kids to go into therapy and say, well, obviously my mom, Brene Brown, caused none of my issues, but that will not be the case. You know, they'll be like, my mom is Brene Brown. The therapist will be like, oh, fuck, how much time do we have?

You know, like that's how that's going to work, right? That's good. So when you say what you want to say is, but you have two homes, you know, and it's, you know, it's so great. We're a block apart. The near enemy of connection is control. Yes, that's it.

Yes, is control. And this works. This is what it means to be a grounded theory researcher and a social worker. So as a social worker, you want to say a theory is really only good if you can apply it to a relationship between me and my child and the relationship between Trump and his followers. It has to have both micro and macro relevance. You have to be able to use it to solve family systems, but also community systems. and you look at Trump and you're like, wow, he seems very connected to this group of people. I mean, these groups of people have all the stickers and all the stuff and all the paraphernalia and the artifacts of group cohesion. It is that connection. But then you think, oh, wait, the near enemy of connection is control. It's not about meeting vulnerability with vulnerability. It's about leveraging vulnerability

with power and control. It's not about feeling emotion with people. It's about exploiting emotion, exploiting fear. Let me tell you, your life does suck and you should be afraid. And let me give you who you need to blame for that. The black folks, the immigrants, the women, the poor people. And so this whole idea of control, it's just like if my kid comes home, one of my kids comes home and says, hey, I got in trouble today because I was talking while the teacher was talking. They said I was being disrespectful. And immediately I go, you need to march your ass upstairs and you need to send an email to this teacher. Apologize for being disrespectful. As opposed to connection, which is, God, that must have been really hard. Yeah, I was just asking if they had an extra pencil.

I'm really sorry. What does support look like for you right now? What can I do? I can listen. I can help. No, just knowing that it's like, you know, Mom, I'm not disrespectful in class. And I know you're not. And I know it means a lot to you.

So that had to have been really tough and maybe embarrassing. Yes. It was embarrassing, but it was just mostly, I just felt like I love this teacher. You know, like control. Damn. Valentine's Day season of my podcast, The Happiness Lab. We'll explore the science of making our intimate relationships more harmonious. This is like the worst possible way to spend a relaxing vacation. Journalist Charles Duhigg will help us all become super communicators. Everyone knows that experience, right? When you've had a great conversation and you just feel like you're on cloud nine afterwards. And we'll hear from husband and wife relationship

experts, the Gottmans. I turned the phone off. You didn't turn it off. On why we should argue better. I did, yeah. Uh-uh. Listen to The Happiness Lab wherever you get your podcasts. And what are you controlling in that situation, Brene? Because what I would be controlling in that situation was my own embarrassment that I had a kid who- That's it. That's it. How you're perceived by a parent. Yes. As a parent, by a teacher. Yeah. I want to be the parent who has the kid that's not disrespectful, that apologizes via email. It's just how I'm seen. Everything around control really comes back to some level of fragility around our own worth. This is the biggest issue in our relationship. Oh, good. I'm excited to learn about it.

I'm fixed now. I'm fixed-er, I think. I'm a very controlling person, Brene, which I just always saw as good leadership skills in my other relationships. But at one point we figured out that, Abby said, it hurts my feelings when you try to control me because I respect you so much and I trust you. And when you do this, it makes me know that you don't trust or respect me. And I had never thought of control as a lack of respect and trust, but it is because love and control, we only control the things we don't trust, right?

Hold on just a second. I want to think about that for a second. Say that again. So when I think about everything that I control, I made a list actually. It's in my journal about like the things that I just trust and the things that I control. And everything in my life was on the control side. The reason I try to control my body through over-exercising, through restriction, through all of that is because I actually on

some level don't trust that my body's just going to do what it needs to do and be what it needs to be if I feed it. So Abby, why I'm saying like, do you think you really should be laying on the couch? Like, I just feel like there's a lot to do. Or do you think that you should say that in front of those people? Or do you think that it's because I'm not trusting that she knows what she should say and that she knows what she should do and she knows what she needs.

If I'm saying to my children, but you have two houses and your parents get along so well. And like, isn't your life great? It's because I don't trust that they can form their own opinions about their life. So what do we love instead of control is my question. What does it look like? Yes.

Yeah. And I think it's interesting because I'm really thinking about this like, it's hard. Yeah. And especially coming out of COVID, hardest season in my marriage. Just so grateful we're still standing. Congratulations.

It's a big deal. I mean, I feel like everyone needs to really acknowledge what a big ass deal it is to be standing after this. It's been a lot. It's so much. And then I had parents and kid stuff. And it's like, oi. I want to think about this for a minute because sometimes I wonder if the laying on the couch,

because we've got a lot to do, like does that resonate so painfully? So one of the things that was really helpful during COVID as we were trying to figure out, develop new skills for managing what felt like an unmanageable communication in our marriage was the Gottman's work. I think about how when I say something like that to Steve, he takes it as a real criticism. And this is the Gottman's, 90% accuracy, predicting divorce, observing a couple for minutes. Wild. Right. Looking for signs of contempt.

Contempt, right. So what they're looking for instead of criticism is I feel instead of saying to Steve, hey, how much longer are you going to be napping? Oh, this is so good. Yeah. To say how I feel and ask for what something I need, like not, I need you to get off your ass and stop napping, but like, so to say, I feel anxious about Charlie coming over with his friends after school. And I need to know that we'll carve out some time to get the kitchen ready and to clean out the garage. And so I'm trying to think to myself, is it about trust for me or is it about fear and anxiety that I'm not managing and that I'm using control and criticism to manage my own fear and anxiety. That's interesting. I'm so invested in not being crazy or flighty or out of control

that it's hard for me to say, I'm feeling anxious. Can we talk about what time we're going to use to get something ready? So it's easier. It's easier for me to say, fuck, are you still napping? Yeah. Because claiming I'm feeling anxious is claiming this is my thing. This is my responsibility as opposed to saying you are lazy. Right. Right. And it's a double responsibility. I mean, to be fair, if you already feel like you're the one who's thinking about Charlie coming after school, you're the one who knows that like, at least according to your standards, X, Y, and Z need to be done by the time Charlie comes in so that you can be the type of family that welcomes Charlie's friends in this type of environment.

So you're already holding that up. For sure. And then you have to remind the other person that that is the things that needs to be done, but you have to present it in a vulnerable way that talks about your fears surrounding what's going to happen instead of part of you wants to say, why aren't you worried about this? Why am I the only one carrying this worry right now? I mean, that, that, yeah. And so now it has to turn out to is like, let's say we're partners, Amanda, and I say, hey, I'm feeling anxious about the house being ready for Charlie and his friends.

And what would be helpful for me is to just get level set expectations about what we think the house needs to look like and how much time we think we're going to spend doing that. Totally. I think a lot of this has for sure a lot to do with communication and early on in our marriage. We've talked about this on the podcast before, this idea of tickering, thinking about all of the things, the whole ecosystem of the family. And this is when I actually used to sit on the couch a lot more because I didn't really have a job. I just retired. And so it was kind of concerning for her. Also concerning for me at the time. I don't sit on the couch nearly as much. But the truth is, is I wasn't a partner. I wasn't a co-parent. A mental partner. A mental co-parent at the time. So now Glennon will walk

into the room and she'll say, what are you doing? And I'm like, I'm tickering. And so I'm just thinking about the day and I'm thinking through every person in our family, their little small ecosystem, how it affects the bigger ecosystem. the one who's working the most in this family, it's now my responsibility to make sure that I'm the one, you know, in different seasons of our lives that goes up and down if I'm on the road or whatever. But at the end of the day, I think that there has to be this understanding, a communication in a marriage. Because I do think that we were struggling. We were kind of nitpicking on each other and it was about control and power. And I think at some point that shifted. And I think the shift really did come when I started to take on. Emotional labor. The emotional labor of our family.

And I think that that is so possible for everybody involved. so the two things you just said about atlas the huge things are if we're only able to connect with others to the capacity we connect with ourselves and also we have to avoid near enemy in our connection with others. What is the near enemy in terms of our connection with ourselves? Ooh. Because if I am saying I need to know myself and love myself, what is my near enemy in those things? Wildly, wildly still control. Makes sense to me. But what we do is we try to control the environment rather than understand our response to the

environment and what's happening within. And so we try to control, just speaking from an addictions lens, like I, instead of feeling my feelings, processing and working through them, I try to numb them. I try to control what I'm feeling through, for many years, alcohol, food, work. I try to control what I'm feeling through, you know, for many years, alcohol, food, work. I mean, I have the poo-poo platter of all addictions, so just pick one. I'll swirl around to it. Yeah. But so I think it is still control, but what we're trying to do, and I think one of the things that is so hard for me is what keeps me the most from being deeply connected with myself is trying to control the environment around me. Oh,

oh, yeah. What does that look like? And trying to control perception. Like, so I, so I'm trying to control perception when I don't tell Steve. Like, this is how a conversation between Steve and I will go. Trying to control. This is me trying to control. Hey, are you going to keep on napping much longer? Or what's the plan? So he's pissed already.

This is it. No, it's just like, I mean, one of us needs to care about what the house is like when Charlie and his friends get here. So now what will happen, which is really hard for me is I'll say, hey, it looks like you're getting ready to take a nap, which is great. I want to just say that I'm anxious. I have some anxiety about Charlie's friends coming over and I want to do some level setting of expectations about getting the house ready. So like pie in the sky, we would repaint the downstairs and landscape before four o'clock. That's why he wants to sit on the freaking couch. Right, exactly. And I said, so I know, I just like, I really want him to have

friends over more. So I want it to like be perfect. I want to be the cool house. And so I know that I'm a little bit, I'm kind of, I'm high strung about it right now. So I just want to talk to you. And he's like, well, we're not going to landscape and paint, right? And I said, no, but I'm just telling you that's where I am right now. So anything down from that already feels like I'm giving in. And he's like, okay, so they're going to come over and play pickleball and then they're going to play video games. So why don't I blow the court and do that? You get the media room ready. And do we have groceries and snacks and stuff? And I said, no, I haven't picked those up. And he's like, okay, I'm a gnat for 30 minutes.

I'll go pick those up and blow the court and you take upstairs. And how does that feel for you? I said, that feels good. Okay. That's helpful. Thanks. But that requires a level of self-exploration and interrogation before I engage with him. And it's really thinking about what's going on with me before I jump all over his shit. And so again, what am I trying to control and what am I really after? It's interesting when you said the way you'd present it to Steve is you also said, I really want him to have more friends over here. The self-exploration before you go in is why do I care so much? Yes. I care so much because it's not just because I'm a crazy mom who wants the house clean. The most vulnerable spot of that is I just really want him to have more friends over at our house.

It's so sweet. Yes. And that's, don't we want to be the fun house? Yes. You know, and we want to do all that. And so, yeah. Yes. You know, and we want to do all that.

And so, yeah. And like, you know, and when he's dating a girl, I'm like, give, you know, let's talk about, you know, and he's like, no, I don't think so. But, but, you know, I'm here, right? Yeah. I'm super clear that you're right here, right here. And I'm like, and that I'm really good at this you know i'm super clear on all that oh what a treat what a gift he's giving you to work on some of this stuff internally before you before you burst you know

that's really funny you know i am gonna burst i i need to shine, people. Yeah, so good. I get it. Lightning in a bottle. I played a sport for 30 years because I needed to shine. I get it. Brene, Atlas of the Heart is absolutely beautiful. And I know you're feeling vulnerable, but you should know. You should know that the world is going to love it. It's going to help.

They do already. We're all trapped inside of our skin and we have all of these emotions that we don't know how to label and understand. And if we can't label them and understand, we can't put them into language. And if we can't put them into language, we can't connect with other human beings in this series is going to help people do that. So thank you for you and your work and your being brave. Also so you really shine in it. You shine. Oh, Jesus Christ. Then I just want to be under the bushel.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank y'all very much and thank y'all for this podcast. You make him watch you shine on that show. Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no. He's like, on HBO publicly? I think that's hard. I mean, I have to ask. I think that's hard I mean I have to ask just a minute I think that's hard like I think that's hard oh we have a one child who is so private

that won't we go to an event he'll every once in a while come to an event but he'll go around the bat he doesn't want anything to do with anything. No postings, no pictures. Nothing public. And then, Brene, we have another child who when she went to the national team game without Abby once, we saw her on the effing television holding up a poster that said,

I am Abby Wambach's daughter. On the TV, we saw it for the first time. It was really cute. So that she could get airtime, which she did. So we have- Oh. Different philosophies. Different levels, different people.

It's amazing how they're different people. They are just different people that need different things. Yeah. And you've done a beautiful job of honoring your children's privacy. Just respecting their lives, their little lives. And you're a good example of that. It is hard. I just have this question because I think it's an interesting question that I haven't started to figure out yet.

an interesting question that I haven't started to figure out yet, but do you think underneath all of the addiction stuff that we can also find this near enemy of connection and control? Yeah. When you said controlling and numbing and controlling our environment, and controlling our environment. That's, you know, the one thing that one of our wise children said that they would change about me. We were playing this damn game where they tell the truth. Oh, geez.

And one of the kids said, I think you'd be happier if you didn't have to control every single environment you step into to not bump up against your anxiety. And if I just felt okay with who I was, if more of what is about being human was normalized for me younger, I feel like maybe I wouldn't have always felt like I had to control my humanness through booze, food, whatever. Or because I control my own internal experience through substances.

Or experience, yeah. And I control my outward experience through hypervigilance. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oof. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oof. Okay. So yes, I think, how the hell do I ever know who I am

if all I'm trying to do is escape it constantly every time it comes up? So control in my life would be absolutely the enemy of self-connection. It's really interesting though with addiction, structure is something that we talk about as something that liberates us and how it's like a fine line between control and structure. It's like actually it's this thing, this vehicle that allows me to maintain my sobriety, my peace, but it's also the very thing that sometimes compromises it if you get too structured or too controlled. Yes.

It's frustrating. Yeah. I mean, yes, I do think ritual and structure and discipline will set you free. Yes. I mean, I think that's 100%. And then that's a slippery slope for me. That's right. Yeah. I had an early sponsor tell me one time the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection. Yeah.

And so I started thinking about, wow, the application of this far enemy thing around control is, yeah, I had to think about it more. But I also think a near enemy of self-connection is productivity. I think that living in the culture we are in, we have to constantly disconnect from our needs, from our emotion so that we can produce the next thing we're supposed to produce so that we can be part of a cog so that we can keep going. I think if I were to honor who I am on a more regular basis, I would get a lot less done in terms of work. Oh God, yes. Right? Yes. Productivity in some way. I don't know if that's the right word, but this constant need to do the next thing. But isn't that a byproduct? Isn't it all control

and productivity is one of the inevitable byproducts of control in a culture where you think that your worthiness and lovability is connected to that outcome. So you're trying to control perception, the perception of you and your worthiness of love and place in the world by being productive the same way you're controlling, like, you know, it's good eating disorders or thinness or whatever is just a by-product of trying to control your understanding of yourself as worthy of love and therefore you look like this. Like it's all just stemming from the same tree, isn't it?

I think it's just one more substance. Productivity, exhaustion is self-worth. Productivity as, yeah, I think it's, yes, I think that's right. That's good. So in order to self-connect, what's, I mean, I have this be still thing on me, which I always just feel like for me, self-connection comes most consistently when I force myself. And it's weird because stillness for me sometimes requires movement. Like I go for walks. Walks is my self-connection time for sure. But for you, what is your practice or what are you doing when you feel the most self-connected?

Walking probably. You know, and I used, I still use from early work of yours, I still use stay on the mat. And I don't mean that as like, you know, at first I was like, yeah, stay on the mat. Like, wrestle this fucker down till they're dead. Like, that's what I thought. But then I was like, I don't think that's what she means. I think it means like even just stay on the mat, stay with the emotion. I mean, I think in the end, it all comes down to, I think this is where our work intersects, like inextricably connected in some ways,

is the need to tap out of discomfort and pain as opposed to feel our way through it is probably at the root of everything. And that's addiction. Yeah. And so that's when I say stay on the mat to myself, it's almost like preparing for that talk about the nap and Charlie's friends coming over. I'll just be like, okay, why is fucking napping and having probably thought about this

and like, I don't need a helper. I need someone to help me put the list together, not work off the list. Like that whole thing. Amanda's doing the, oh yeah. Yeah. Like that whole thing. And then I'm just like, stay on the mat. Okay. So this, okay. Okay.

Okay. I want this to be a comfortable, fun place for Charlie to bring his friends. Which means A, less time cleaning and B, probably less time me trying to manage his friends once they get here. Oh, but that's sad. Boo. Boo, because I'm like, hey, do y'all need a fourth for doubles? Yeah.

For pickleball. Yeah. Charlie's like, yeah, I just want to be right in the middle of it all. And that's the opposite. Yeah. Stay on the mat. I just had a thought because we recorded a sister's podcast that's coming out soon. And you were talking about your digging deep as just like a core religiosity value of

yours. So I wonder if the final frontier of all of this work, you know, the very final step is distinguishing between what is staying on the mat and staying with your pain versus what is digging deep where you should stop digging because all the pains are not equal you know like the pain of staying on your mat is valuable to you because it it helps you connect to who you are. Digging deep through the pain, it dis-connects you from who you are. I think you hit on one of the biggest things that's come up in all the research we've done over the last 10 years is Carl Jung said the paradox is the closest thing to being able to define what it means to be human. It's the greatest spiritual gift to humanity is the closest thing to being able to define what it means to be human. It's the greatest spiritual gift to humanity is the paradox. So I do think exactly what you're saying is true,

to be able to straddle the tension of staying on the mat and not digging deep beyond human scale, to understanding structure and discipline and straddling that with the dangers of control. So I think these paradoxes are what it means to be human and being able to straddle those tensions of those and know just to hold the tension of those things, I think is what it means to be, in Jungian terms, a fully integrated human being. Mm-hmm. You know, and I think that's what we're, integration is what our life work is about. Will you help us and the whole world with their life's work? 100%.

And we're very grateful for you. Well, I feel the same way. I feel exactly the same way. Have y'all read Wolfpack? I have not. I have not, but we have a few copies around the house. So I'll pick one up. Yeah, you need to. Yeah, you need to. Point and run, baby.

Point and run. And I do, I will say that every now and then we get questions that come in that say, I'm very surprised how you and Glennon or when Liz has a book come out or Yabba Blay, Tarana, like there's a group of y'all that even if you have like similar launch dates, you're like, go. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think that's another part about pointing and leading. I mean, pointing and running, pointing and running. And here's what's beautiful about it. You know how much time we spend stressing about somebody else's success or somebody else's situation?

Yes. It's like, actually, let's just do it. Let's just do it all. And like, that's abundance. That's something that people can wrap their minds around and their hearts around and like dive deep into it. Where like when you're full of like rage or jealousy or envy, that's a stop sign.

It's like, no, don't do that. Point and run. God, let's go. Let's go. Let's fucking go. Renee, I love you. We love you. Go do all the things.

We're going to be yelling about Atlas of the Heart from the rooftops because we believe in it and we believe in you and we are grateful for you. Thank you. And the rest of you, we will see you next time on We Can Do Hard Things. We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios. 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.

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