We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - 95. Why Elizabeth Gilbert Disappeared & What She Came Back to Say

Episode Date: May 12, 2022

Part Two of our gorgeous conversation with Elizabeth Gilbert: 1. Liz describes Rayya’s death as “a fist fight”–and how Rayya went out swinging. 2. In the wake of Rayya’s death, how Liz grieved, and what helped. 3. Liz’s spiritual practices: communing with a higher power, her recovery community, and starting over. About Elizabeth:  Elizabeth Gilbert is author of the international bestseller, EAT PRAY LOVE, which has been translated into over thirty languages, and sold over 12 million copies worldwide. The book became so popular that Time Magazine named Elizabeth as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. In 2010, Elizabeth published a follow-up to EAT PRAY LOVE called COMMITTED—an instant a #1 New York Times Bestseller, as well as BIG MAGIC: CREATIVE LIVING BEYOND FEAR. She is author of two novels: THE SIGNATURE OF ALL THINGS, and CITY OF GIRLS. And she is the creator of the Onward Book Club, which takes place on her Instagram via a live chat, as a way of spotlighting, studying, and celebrating the work of Black women authors.  Elizabeth divides her time between New York City, rural New Jersey, and everywhere else. TW: @GilbertLiz IG: @elizabeth_gilbert_writer

Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. We are delighted that we have one of our dearest friends in all the land. Liz Gilbert, back with us today. If you have not listened to the last episode, just please go back and listen. We're going to pick up right where we left off. Let's do it. Liz was talking to us about, well, the coming back together, the separation from Rea when she went back to her addiction before she died and then the coming back.

And so I want to ask you, Raya did die. I remember my mom wrote me an email to check up on you during that time when Raya was dying. And she would say, how is Liz? How is Liz? How is Liz? And the question, how is Liz? I never knew how to answer. And I said, you know, I think, Mom, the question is not how is Liz, but who is Liz?

Like, who is Liz going to be after this? There's no how anymore. Like, how she is everything. But I think that who she is is changing completely because of this experience. So, number one, how did that actual walking Raya home at the end go? And then who was Liz in the wake of that experience? Her actual death was very humbling because, again, it wasn't what I planned. I don't know if you know anything about wanting to control stuff.

No. I'm easy, breezy. Probably could read a book about that, but don't really have any personal experience. I just gave codependent no more to Abby, and she said, I'll read it if you read it. I said, that's who we are. I just told a friend that she needed to come to a codependence anonymous meeting with me, which is the single most, I'm going to say the second most codependent thing you could possibly say beyond. I will read this book if you read it with me. You know, Rea was very willful and she didn't surrender.

That's also why she went on that bender, I think, before she died. She didn't surrender. I kept wanting to bring to her spiritual concepts and things about letting go. And Rayo was never one to let go. She would literally rather die than let go. And that is what happened. She didn't let go. And I said to our friend, the people who were in the room, there were four of us in the room,

her sister and her ex-wife, Gigi and her ex-girlfriend, Stacey, which is another incredible story just about how these three women who, the three women who had loved Ray the most, like a hot blonde from every decade of her life was around her the day that she died. That was her version of hospice. Yeah, she was, there's worst ways to go out, Liz. I'm telling you. And, you know, for the last day of her life, she was unconscious and we kept doing the shit they tell you to do in hospice, petting her hair and saying, let go, let go. And finally I took everybody outside and I was like, they say that the last thing to go is hearing. She can hear us. This is.

raging her. Like, I know Rea well enough to know she will not let go because somebody is telling her to. And she's also giving us the middle finger saying, you fucking like go. If it's so fun and so easy to die, like I could tell. I know her energy, even in unconsciousness, I was like, here's what she needs. She needs us to put David Bowie on and she needs us to stop talking. And she really needs to do this herself, like her own way. That is how Reya does things. And that is what ended up happening was we just went silent. And she needs us here.

Like she needs us here, but not interfering in any way. And so we just went silent and we were all sort of holding a different part of her body. And then I watched death come for a fist fight and death eventually won because it always does. but it was a fistfight, which is how Raya would die. You know, like, I wanted the kind of death for her that I would like, which is just like gently soft music and like spiritual. You know, and Raya just went out swinging because that's how she was. So even right to the end, but I will say this.

It was brutal to watch, but it was also accurate to her. but then the last breath she took, after she took her last breath, this look came over her face of, what are the words I can use to describe it? Whatever she saw, she loved. Because the look that she had on her face was like, holy shit. Like her eyebrows slew up, like her face lit up. Something was incredible. That expression stayed on her face for hours afterward of like,

joy. Like there's something, I don't know what it was, but something was amazing. And I stayed with her for hours because she'd asked me to because she was scared. She said, I'm scared of being of my body, being alone and me still somehow being there. So I stayed with her for hours. And then her cremation was incredible and beautiful. And then I, you know, I want to say about the aftermath that there's a lot of instruction on grieving, and I think there's sometimes a lot of shaming around people grieving wrong,

and a lot of judgment that people have about how we process the deaths of the most important people in our lives, as if there is some sort of agreed upon strategy that if this is the healthy way to do this impossible thing. So the way I did it is the way I needed to do it. And the way I did it was that I threw myself back into life, like full on, because that felt right to me at the time. And I say to this day it still was the right thing to do because I needed to be living very vibrantly. And I was very surprised by what I was very surprised by what I was. what grief felt like. I thought that it would feel like depression, but it was a very vibrant time for me. I was keenly alive and I was also in a lot of emotion, but the emotion was very hot,

and fiery. It wasn't like a dampness, like the way that I've experienced depression. So when I wept, I wept hard and big and ugly and riotous tears, you know, like when I was angry at people and at her and at me and at God, that anger was like hot and fiery. It was very vivid. You know, it didn't feel like depression. And there was also lots of times feelings of rejoicing in celebration. I've heard it said that all true grief has an element of rejoicing, a weird element of rejoicing underneath it because you're rejoicing at how much you loved that person

and how impactful they were. There's something huge about it, you know. that it's, I really thought that it was going to be a much quieter thing. And of course, it was grief for Raya. Nothing about Raya was small or quiet or damper. So it made sense that the scale felt like that. I started writing, I wrote a novel. I wrote a really, like, fun, lighthearted novel that I started working on a month after

she died because it was due. I hadn't written for the whole time that she was sick. And I somehow got this clue that that would be the right thing to do, that I needed to remember what I am and who I am and what I can do and that gave me things to do with my mind. I traveled a lot. I spent time with friends. I had a big year. And grief is a bill that has to be paid eventually. And I was a little bit putting that bill off. But I also don't want to judge myself for that because that's what I needed to do. I couldn't pay that bill right away. It was too big. And so what I did was other things, a lot of other things. And it wasn't like I wasn't crying or feeling.

It's just I kind of feel like I sort of thought I might get away with it. I kind of felt like maybe if I just am vibrant enough and vivid enough and Raya is present enough because I could also still feel her in such incredible presence and I spoke to her all the time and she was so with me. I was like, oh, maybe we did this right. Like we did our love story so right that we get to keep it and I don't have to really lose. I don't have to really lose. And then what I did was I threw myself into somebody else because that has always been the way that when there's stuff too big for me to feel, The way that I handle not feeling it is to look for somebody else to fall in love with. And I looked for somebody else to fall in love with.

And of course, it was an old friend of hers, somebody who connected me to her. And I felt was an extension of her in a way. And of course, he was not because nobody is an extension of another human being, nor can anybody replace another human being. And that's when I lost my mind. And I think that part of grieving is losing your mind. Because when grief is so huge, it's like having a huge head injury. It does something to you.

And it didn't happen until then. It didn't, like the real sense of like, oh, I am not okay. Like, I am not okay and I am not going to be okay. And I cannot bear what I've lost. I didn't feel until I had like impaled myself on another human being, expecting them to step in and just pick up everything that Raya had been. And then very quickly realizing that not only could he not do that, nobody on earth ever again will be able to do that. And that is another layer. That is another layer. And that's when I

fell apart completely. And that was a year later. You know, so there was a delay. And I, you know, I remember recently somebody was telling me that they were upset at their father because their mother had died and he was acting normal. And I was like, leave him alone. Like, here's my advice for people who are in your life who are grieving. Let them do it. In the same way that I had to let Rea die the way that she had to die, let people grieve the way they have to grieve. And if that means they shut themselves in their house for 10 years and don't come out, that's how they had to do that. If that means they throw themselves into workaholism like I did, then that's how they had to do that. You know, if that means they have to marry someone next week because they can't bear it, like,

whatever. Like, we're not here to judge the way that other people process the most unbearable losses of their lives. If you're a business owner who knows nothing about AI and feels really out of the loop, you're not alone. In today's data-driven world, you really need to understand your customers. And NetSuite can deliver those insights with zero fuss. No more waiting. With NetSuite, you can integrate AI into your operations today. NetSuite is the number one AI Cloud ERP, trusted by over 43,000 businesses. It brings your financials, inventory, commerce, HR, and CRM into one single source of truth.

And now with NetSuite AI connector, you can use the AI of your choice and connect it to your actual business data. So you can finally ask every question you've ever had. Who are key customers? What's our cash on hand? What's trending in our infrastructure? inventory, and you can automate all those manual processes no one wants to do. Right now, get our free business guide, demystifying AI at netsuite.com slash hard things. The guide is free to you at net suite.com slash hard things. NetSuite.com slash hard things. 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. It's truly a one-stop shop for everything your home needs this season. What surprised me most was how easy it was to find exactly what I wanted in my style and within my budget. Whether you're organizing kids' rooms, upgrading your work from home setup, tackling clients. clutter or just trying to make weeknight dinners easy. Wayfair really does have everything. Your home

doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to support the life you're living right now. Get organized, refreshed, and back on track this new year for way less. Head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com. Wayfair. Every style, every home. When you lost your mind, when you threw yourself in, how did you find yourself? Like, what happened? Is this corresponds with the time that you sort of left the public sphere? And what did you do to get yourself back? It led to that. What happened is that, well, first of all, it's not the first time I've impaled myself on somebody. You know, at all. Like, this is a thing I do. This is my drug.

right like this is my drug and just as rea when she was facing what she could not bear in death reached for her drug this is i reached for mine you know mine is you will fill me and i will fill you and you will take care of all of my emotional needs and i will take care of all of your emotional needs and nobody has to suffer and and i've been doing that my whole life um in a way that has been really is rife with self-abandonment because you can't do that without self-abandonment. And so, and I thought I was done with that. And I thought I had that thing done in the same way Raya probably thought after 18 years of sobriety that she was done with that behavior.

I didn't think I did stuff anymore like what I did with this person. I met you, I barely know you a week later, we're living together. I didn't think I was that person anymore. And I still was because that's what I needed to try to get well. And then when it just didn't work in any way whatsoever, and then my mind losing went to stuff I didn't think I did anymore. On my knees, literally sobbing, begging someone to look at me, to love me, to touch me, to need me.

You know, like things I haven't done in decades but that I used to do on the reg. Sounds like the beginning of you pray love or like one of those. precisely. It was exactly that. And by the way, that wasn't the only time that happened. Right. You know, so what I did was I did the thing again. Like I was like, wow, I thought I didn't do this thing anymore. And I did the thing again. And so, you know, there was a split. Part of the madness was like a split where I'm watching myself do this thing that I didn't think I did anymore. And it's like watching yourself drive over a cliff and you're driving the car, but you're also on the cliff watching you do that. And you're like, wow, I thought that was over. And there's not anything I can do to stop that. Like, I'm watching it happen, and I know that it's not good, and I know that it's not healthy. And there she goes. Bye.

There's Thelma without Louise going over the cliff, going over a cliff by herself, and pulling another person down into that golf with her using someone as a drug, as a sedative, as a stimulant. as and what happened was that there was a night where I was doing that thing of begging, pleading, trying to get more than I was getting, drinking out of an empty well, going to, going to the hardware store for milk, all the things that they, all the expressions that they say, there was a pause and the person who has with got up and left the room to do something. and I felt something in my heart, and it was a little voice, and I put my hand on my heart, and I heard this voice inside me say, please get me out of here.

And I said to her, I'm going to get you right out of here. And I am so sorry. And by the time my partner came back into the room, I was dressed and sitting on the edge of the bed, and I said, I am so sorry. I said it to him. I said it to myself. And I said, I am not well. And I have actually really never been well in this area.

And I need help. And I need to go find help. And I'm going to go get help. And I need to provide for myself right now. And I took myself to a 12-step meeting for sex and love addiction. And started my 12-step. journey. And within a couple weeks after that, I put drinking down. I had never been a huge drinker, but I drank every day. And then I put drugs down. I had discovered psychedelic drugs a few years

earlier and loved them so much. And loved everything about it and felt like this is the shortcut to God I've always wanted. And a lot of people in recovery do those drugs. No, this is no shade on anybody. I know it's like people call it plant medicine. For a lot of people it is, it's saving lives. For me, it is a drug because here's how I know. When I do it, I never want it to end. And when it ends, I start sobbing because I don't want to come back here. I want to be there always.

So that's how I know that that's not medicine for me. That's good. That's very good. Right? Like anything that I am like, no, I don't want to come back. I don't want to be in this world. I want to be in that world. Like, that's not probably good medicine for me. So I put that down. And then I put social media down because I realized that, oh, this is how I'm feeding validation to myself. This is me checking every day to see if I am loved,

to see how loved I am, and to see who loves me. Not just how many likes, but who, who, Who? Do the right people love me? Am I okay? Am I okay for this next hour? Am I still okay? What am I going to do tomorrow to make sure that I am still okay, that I am still loved, that I'm still approved of, not just by millions, but by the right people in the millions? And all of those things, I have to say that the decision to go into the room for love addiction was felt like it was mine, but also I felt the divine hand in that, that moment where I could hear that part of me that said, please get me out of here. You know, I really need help. But then the subsequent things that I've dropped since then, and it's been three years, I felt like it's not so much that I put them down.

It's that they were taken away. It's like once I dealt with the main addiction, the other things were like, oh, this isn't doing me any good either. And I wanted to give myself that voice, that little one in me who I heard say, please get me out of here, the stewardship that I feel toward her and the love and the care and the tenderness that I feel to her at word her made me make a promise to her that I will do my very best for you. And drinking and drugs and seeking validation on social media probably isn't helping either. So let me just get that stuff out of the way so that I can have the clearest possible mind to give you the care that you have always needed to make sure that you're never abandoned again where I never have to hear you. I never have to hear

you cry out to me in the dark, please get me out of here, you know, to make you my priority so that we're okay. So that takes us up to now. And now? How are you now? How are you today? I am so good. This is what we call a feelings check. I'm so good. Today I am so good. And I've been clean and sober for three years, three years on Easter. Easter was my three years. Oh, how perfect. So, sobriety date. Resurrection. So my world went from very big to very intimate.

So I don't have a big world right now. And I don't know that I really, really, really want one. I have a really intimate world. I have a book that I'm working on that I love and another one too. And I'm healthy and my eating has changed. All of that stuff has also happened. I've never been on my own this long. I've always been attached to somebody,

and I was in nonstop overlapping relationships from the time I was 14 until I came into those rooms, with the tiny exception of nine months of the Eat, Pray, Love Journey. That was the longest I'd ever been able. But the second someone gave me attention, I had to go to the source of that and get that a steady supply. So for me, three years of not living by myself, I live with myself, not by myself. That's how I've defined it. So three years of living with myself has been so extraordinary. All of my relationships have changed.

I have to share an anecdote because I think you'll love it. But a lot of people in my recovery room don't know me. Recovery rooms I find so fascinating because they're, they are true. truest most democratic cross-section of humanity that I have ever seen in any. And I go to, I go to all the rooms because I actually think that addiction, if you got addiction, you got all of it. You know, you're like, I got the alcohol stuff. I got the, I love the drugs. I, I love the codependence. I love the food stuff. Like, the spending. If you're hurt in that way, you're hurt in all the ways that have to do with that. And so I have loved Zoom because I've been able to

go to so many meetings all over the world and and I've so many friends I have a sponsee now I've got to you know I'm like I'm I'm part of that lineage now but one of my most beloved sisters in fellowship called me last year and she said um Liz I'm reading this book um by somebody named Glennon Doyle she left me a message she's like this is such a weird I hope this is this is going to sound crazy but she keeps talking about this friend of hers named Liz and the things that this Liz person says sounds kind of like the things you say. You don't by any chance know her, do you? And she had no idea who I, like she doesn't, and she not only didn't know who I was, she'd never heard of eat, pray, love. Oh my God. So I was like, yeah, she's a friend of mine and I'm also an author because in the rooms you don't

really talk about like what your career is and what your job is. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that wonderful though? But how beautifully did you depict our friendship that I was recognizable to somebody who knew me only in this sense, right? Like I was so incredibly moved by that. I thought that was so sweet. How integrated are you as a person that you're recognizable on a couple pages of a book as you are in a meeting? Oh, that's true. That speaks to you. That's really true. Oh my gosh. What is it like being, if you have that many years of consecutive relationship, always someone with you, living with you in relationship with,

to have a three-year span is a big deal. What kind of transitions did you have to make? What kind of itchiness did you have? How did you learn to be with you? Well, for one thing, so I think anybody who has any kind of experience with addiction knows what it's like to always feel like you are a divided self. And especially in regard to whatever the main thing is that you're using, where you feel, like I've had a split self for my entire life from very early childhood when I feel. figured out that there was a very narrow thing that I was allowed to be that was okay and that

that had to be presented. And then behind that was a bunch of stuff that was not ever allowed to be seen. I remember telling my first lie probably when I was three. Like I remember needing, I remember needing to understand how to lie because these parts of myself were not acceptable. And so you get really used to living a double life and having like a presented sense. and it feels in a weird way very comfortable because it's what you've always done. I mean, I'll keep it on the eye. It's what I've always done. So in a way, that split and that division of like, this is what I look like, but this is

the pain and this is what I'm secretly doing that nobody knows about is very customary for me. But even so during all those years where by the time I was in high school, I knew there was something wrong with me with relationships because my friends didn't do what I did. They didn't have such intense relationships. They didn't have so many of them. They didn't cheat on people. They didn't blow up one and go to another right away.

They didn't have the drama that I had. And then I thought it was something I would grow out of, but I didn't. But every single time I entered into a new relationship, with the exception of my relationship with Reya, every single time I entered into a new relationship, I had a feeling and it was like this dim sound in the back of my head that I was letting myself down. That there was something that I was not giving myself the opportunity to do.

I didn't go and do a junior year abroad in high school. I could have gone to France. I could be fluent in French right now, but I couldn't leave my boyfriend, so I didn't go. I didn't go to Mexico and teach English like I wanted to after college because I had a boyfriend who I needed and couldn't leave. Like so many things in my life I didn't do, even though I have done a lot. I always had to navigate. I also needed my drug.

I needed my source. I needed, you know, to be linked to this person so that I could get what I couldn't live without. You know, so the three years that I've spent now on my own, there's a triumphant feeling of that part of me who was always being pushed aside so that I could get my hit and get what I needed finally is having her moment where she's like, see, this is. kind of what I always, like, there was a part of me that was like, I always wanted, I'm an intro, I always kind of wanted to live alone. Like, I always kind of wanted to be able to devote

myself to my writing and my spiritual practices without being interrupted. I kind of always wanted to focus more on my friends and my relationships with them than with this one person. So there's a homecoming feeling. And then there's also just been a lot of education that I've had to learn in recovery about how I get in situations where suddenly it's too late and I'm in this thing and how I can learn how to stop it 20 steps prior to that because the point of no return for me happens very quickly. So I have to, I can't do things like any addict in sobriety. There's things that other people can do that I can't do. Like I have a friend who's a severe alcoholic and she cannot hold a glass of champagne at a wedding

and toast politely. She can't be that close to champagne. Other alcoholics can do that and be like, I'm not going to drink it, I'm just going to hold it up. She knows herself well enough to know that she can't have that in her hand, right? So similarly, there are certain behaviors that other people can do safely, and it's sort of within the realm of normal that I can't do because of where that might take us, right? So there's no such thing in my world anymore as, like, healthy, normal flirting. like that's not a safe behavior for me. And I can get myself and other people into a lot of trouble with that because I don't have any breaks.

You know, I don't have any breaks. So, so like there's stuff that I used to do that I used to be like, but everybody does this. And I can't. And I find huge relief in that. Like, it doesn't feel like constriction to me. It just feels like, oh, this is, these are the guardrails that I've always needed and I never knew how to have. So I feel safer and I want to be somebody who people are safe around. I feel like my true loving nature has had more room to bloom.

I can now be more of what I really am, which is somebody who can care about people instead of using them. I don't ever want to use another person again as a drug and I don't ever want to be used again by another person as a drug, as a sleeping pill, as a sedative, as a stimulant. And there's a great liberation that I feel. And the biggest thing I feel is dignity. Because there's no dignity in using and there's no dignity in being used. So yeah, it's good. Have you ever hit a point at work where everything just feels heavy? Not just a bad week, but the kind of burnout where you're staring at your laptop thinking,

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

private and built around the reality of your life. Go to strawberry. dot me slash we can do hard things and try a coaching session for 50% off. Strawberry. Dot me because your career should feel good again. 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 IXL steps in, giving kids targeted practice so they can strengthen those areas

early and keep moving forward with confidence. I-XL is an award-winning online learning platform that supports math, language arts, science, and social studies from pre-K through 12th grade. What I love is how seamlessly it fits alongside what's already happening in the classroom. Your child can practice the same skills they're learning at school, which makes it easier to keep up, feel prepared, and really understand the material. I-Excel is used in 96 of the top 100 school districts in the U.S. Make an impact on your child's learning. Get I-Exel now.

And we can do hard things listeners can get an exclusive 20% off I-XL membership when they sign up today at www. I-XL.com slash we can. Visit I-XL.com slash we can to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. Liz, how does that, because I'm an alcoholic. I'm an alcoholic and a food addict. They're different in that alcohol, great, I can just stay away from it forever. I mean, not that it's that easy, but there is a delineation of like, did I drink or not?

Food, just a quagmire of like, am I sober from food from food addiction? Am I not? Am I, if my behaviors are one thing, but my brain is still another. It's just, it sort of feels a little bit more like relationship or love addiction because we need love. like we need food. So tell me because I actually just don't know any of that, those steps and how it works with relationship and love addiction. How do you work your way back in at some point? Well, yeah, that's a big question. And that analogy is often used to food addiction because the way I've heard it said is that in alcoholism, you take the tiger, put it in a cage and you throw the key

away and you never open the cage. With food addiction, you have to open the cage three times a day and take the tire for a walk around the block and then put it back in the cage, which is really, really hard. Love addiction is somewhere in between there because we do need intimacy and we do need love, but we don't necessarily have to have sex three times a day, no matter what I might have told you in college. Like, it's not, like you don't have to have that, you know, and there are people, and that's why for each person you have to find what your own pathway is in that. And it's a possibility for me, I keep open the possibility. Like, I'm doing so well and my life is so good. It may be the case that I'm somebody where I'm like, actually, I actually really shouldn't

mess with that at all. Because I really, I really don't do well when I mess with that. Like, it really blows my life up in a bad way. So maybe I just treat it like alcohol. And I'm like, I'm just going to have a great life. And I'm going to get love, affection, and intimacy through my friends and through my relationship with my higher power. And, through my intimacy with myself and and there are ways to get safe touch. Like I can't get a massage from a male masseuse. Like it's not safe. It's, it's not safe for what it does to my head or a hot lesbian female masseuse. I have to be like, I have to be really careful. Really just any masseuse. You know, like, I have to look at them and be like, is there an attraction here? If there is, this isn't,

this, the benefit of the massage is not going to be worth what it does to me. You know, so I have to find I have to find a place. I have to find safety in all of these things so that I can be safe. And then, you know, when and if the time comes, and I don't feel that. And I, and for me, all recovery is the same in that it's about establishing a relationship of conscious contact between yourself and a higher power. And no matter what your addiction is, that's the remedy, is taking your ego off being the highest power in the room and bringing in a higher power. And I have a really deep, rich, loving, intimate relationship with the God of my understanding. And I check in and I'm like, am I supposed to be with anybody right now? And what I call God is like, oh, girl, no. Oh, no, no. And I feel that too that it would be, I'm not, I'm not done with what I'm doing right now. What I'm doing right now is so important. It's like a living amends. I'm giving myself back those years that starting so young that I just gave so much of myself away. And, but if that answer ever changes, that's where I'll hear it and I'll take instruction from there.

And then there's like, you know, you sit with a sponsor and you make a plan about what are, you know, what are your boundaries and your guidelines and, you know, to keep yourself and other people safe. Because nobody is safe from me when I'm in addiction. And that includes me, but it's not limited to me. We've had a conversation recently where I think I texted you and said I was back in the rooms and just pissed off all the time because of all the male language in the steps and all the things. And then you told me that I was allowed to create the higher power in my own way. When you think about your higher power, what do you think of? and what are the spiritual practices?

Because every time we talk, you're talking to me about how you've just done or you're doing your spiritual practices. I don't know what the hell. Why the hell I've never asked you, what are those things? What are you doing? Yeah. So one of the things I loved is that my sponsor said to me one time when we got to step two, she's like, why don't you write out what you're looking for in a higher power? As if you were writing what you were looking for in a romantic partner or what you're looking for in a job.

manifest this. What are you looking for? Like, what would work for you? What does it have to be? And what does it have to be? And it was so funny because even as open as I've always been about spirituality, I was like, you're allowed to do that. Like, don't you have to work with the God they give you? You can custom order it? And she was like, not only can you do that, but to get well, you must. To get well, you must create your own higher power. Because the only high power, power, who you're going to believe in, love and trust is the one that is tailored to you. And I found that to be really revolutionary. I think you guys all grew up Catholic with a high demand religion. So I have a different background than you. I didn't have to, I don't have the anger

at God because I didn't grow up assaulted in my religion. And when you grow up, a lot of people in the rooms, I'm always very conscientious about whenever I share about like saying, You know, the God of my understanding is not the God of your fathers, nor the God of my father's. But my family was pretty low key about religion. So I didn't have to erase, I didn't have to undo a lot of trauma to naturally find my way to a God of my own understanding. And what I did was I built upon a practice that I have had for years, which is whenever I've been in distress for years, I've always written letters to love. I wrote about this and he pray love where I write a letter to unconditional love herself, who I've always felt as very, female and say this this incredibly compassionate all-accepting mother, divine mother. And I say I'm in

trouble and I need help. And for years I've done this. And then I write about for years, I don't know where I learned it. It just sort of intuitively happened. Unconditional love writes back to me. And always with the same first line, which is I'm right here, which I have tattooed on my chest. I'm in my own handwriting because it comes in my own handwriting. I'm right here. I see you and I love you and I know you're in a lot of pain right now and I'm not going anywhere and I've nowhere better to be. That's the thing that love always tells me. There's nowhere else in the universe that is more important to me to be right now than with you in this moment. And if you need to be in distress all night, I will sit here with you through this because you

are my beloved and you are my child and there's absolutely nothing you could ever do to lose my love. And if you lose everything else in the entire world, I will be there still. And so I sort of expanded on that to create what I call the God of my understanding. But my primary spiritual practice these days is, I've explained it to you before, is two-way prayer, which is actually really interesting. Apparently the history is that the very early first group of people in Alcoholics Anonymous created this thing. And they at the time thought it was the most important part of recovery, more important than going to meetings,

more important than doing the steps, more important than having a, a sponsor, literature, all of that. It was really creating that conscious contact with a higher power. And the way you do it, the way they teach it, is that you find a quiet spot and a quiet moment. And you open up, the way I think of it is like you open up the doorway to the infinite through reading something that for you opens up the doorway to your infinite. So that can be a piece of sacred writing of any, whatever sacred writing is to you. So for me it's Walt Whitman. And it's any line, I open up to any line of song of myself. And I feel like Walt Women was a mystic and a great saint and that he was in direct communion

with God and that he left the door open behind him. And I draft in on his draft. So I read a couple lines of Walt and then I'm with God. Right. And it's like, thanks, Uncle Walt. And Rumi does that for me. Hafiz does that for me. All of those, Mary Oliver does it for me.

they left the door open behind them out of their generosity and you can slip in on their words and it changes something in you interiorly and now you're in divine space. And then you write one question and one question only, as my sponsor said, it's not a deposition, Liz. You know, one question and that question is, my question every day is the same and I've been doing it now for two years. Dear God, what would you have me know today? And then the answer, you start writing the answer. And that presence has never not been there. And I've been through some stuff in the last couple of years. And the answer always surprises me. It delights me. I get a letter every morning from my higher power, giving me my instructions for my day tailored to that God of my creation and my

understanding who loves me enough to have taken the form that I can handle in the creation that I projected onto it. That's how loving I think God is. God will be like, oh you want me to show up as this okay i'll love you so much that i will be this so that you can be with me and we can be together and um and that god meets me wherever i am with whatever i need and then i have two-way prayer partners in my fellowship and we call and we read each other our two-way prayers because god also speaks to me through other people's prayers and i meditate and i i i spend a lot of time in solitude that's like a very big top line for me i need that in order to be able to hear what I need to hear.

Otherwise, I'm looking at too many other people and asking them if I'm okay. And that used to be my spiritual practice. That used to be my higher power. If you want, I can read you guys. Do you want to hear my prayer from today? Yes, please. Also, this is a God I could follow,

what she's just explained. And I love that she just said, because I've never heard you say it this way before, She doesn't say I created this God. She says, I mean, I know you're right there and I'm just talking about you. But like. I'm right here, Glennon. Like there's this God that loves me enough that will take whatever form I have created that I need.

That you've projected. That's so beautiful. Why? And why wouldn't God who is infinite one be able to do that? And why wouldn't God who is infinitely loving not offer? itself to you as whatever you need. Of course. It's like me sitting at the counter with Emma and she's upset about her day and me saying like, what do you need for me? Like, yeah, that's all it is. I'll be whatever you need me to be right now. That's right. Please read your

beautiful. Your letter the first morning. It's funny. I already forgot it so I have no idea what this is going to be, but it's good. And sometimes I actually record them. So I've got months of these. So it's like my own Bible. So when I'm really stressed, I'll go back and pick a random date and I can hear God talking to me again. And usually whichever random one I hear, it's like here's God's custom made like offering for me for this day. Dear God, what would you have me know today? Oh, and then also they suggest you begin, you begin God's response to you with an incredible term of endearment. That opens up the heart space between you and the divine. So God always calls me my love or my child or

my favorite baby often comes up. My love, I would have you no humility. When first you heard my voice, nearly 20 years ago, you were so beaten down and so love starved that I could only come to you in one form as pure, unwavering, devotional, unconditional, love. You would have died without it. For many years, you could only receive me as that. We had to save your life, and this is how we saved you, by loving you back into

yourself and building you up. Now that you believe genuinely that you are both lovable and loved, now that you know that I will never abandon you, that you cannot be alone, now that you believe fully in that love, I want you to learn humility. Don't worry, this won't be bog. Ray's favorite word. This is not about beating you back down. There will be no punishing, no degradation. My love, I want you to know the sweetness and the deep all-encompassing relief that humility will bring to your life. Look how much your life has improved by handing over so much of it to me already. But every single aspect of your life that you still hold back from me because you do not trust me, thinking in your ignorance and in your self-importance that you need to handle it, that you need to control it, fix it, manage it, solve it, understand it.

Everywhere that you are still doing that, you will and you are experiencing strain and suffering and stress. Listen to what your fellow, B, passed along to you yesterday about how she came to me and asked me not just to help her with her fourth step, but to do it for her. And yes, my love, I did. I did it for her, just like that. Ask me to do things for you. That is what humility means. Ask me to do your family for you. Just say, you do it. I don't know how. Say here, God, you take it and I will. admit that you are powerless over everything. That's actually humility and life will get easier. My love, remember the exquisite sensation you used to experience in romance when you

would surrender completely to another, the way that you wanted to be devoured. I say this not to stimulate ecstatic recall, but to say, my love, that was actually nothing. That was nothing compared to the sweet, tearful, grateful relief you will experience when you give everything to me. ask me to write your book for you. Try it. I'll do it. Ask me to do this interview today with Glennon for you. I'll do it. Say God, here you do it. And open up your mouth and I will do it. Ask me to do your yoga for you. Ask me to take walks for you, not with you, for you. Ask me to schedule your life for you. Remember what Byron Katie said to you about her life that she has not done or said anything in years. She doesn't do anything. Ever since her moment of awakening, she said she either just sits there or stands there,

and then everything is done through her. She says, and you must believe her for it is true, she has not made a decision in 25 years. Something decides her for her. That is the thing that I can do for you. Don't make plans, my little love. Let me arrange your life. Pause.

Listen for me and let me do it. I don't want you to miss this experience of letting go into love and trust. This is what I would have you know, my love. More God, less Liz, is the equation for perfect peace. You've worked too hard your whole life, my love. Stop working so hard. Stop trying.

Let me do more things. Let me do everything. Trust me completely. Say, here, God, you do it. See what those words that belief will create out of you. Let me dance you. Let me live you for you. Let me show you how much I love you

when you give your whole will and your heart. whole life to me. Let me show you how beautiful humility is. Stop knowing anything except this. Accept this. You are mine and I am you and I love you. Wow. Unbelievable. That's so beautiful. This time of year I am always looking for my sweaters. Luckily, Quince has all of the staple sweaters covered from soft Mongolian cashmere sweaters that feel like designer pieces without the markup to 100% silk tops and skirts for easy dressing up to perfectly cut denim for everyday wear. I can't tell you how much I'm loving my quince cashmere sweater in this gorgeous oatmeal color. It's become the thing I grab almost every day.

It's held up beautifully. It still feels soft and it honestly looks way more expensive than it is. You know how frugal I am. And I've started picking up a few quince pieces for home too. They have travel bags and sheets. their sheets are awesome. 10 out of 10. Refresh your wardrobe with Quince.

Don't wait. Go to quince.com slash hard things for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash hard things to get free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash hard things. All right. In our last minutes, we're going to have a couple questions. from the pod squad for Liz.

There were about six million questions that were submitted for you. I want to hear what Liz has to say for Lolly. My name is Lolly. I had this super close friend. We were so close that we called each other's sisters. I trusted this friend with everything. And we just shared so much. And then in the beginning of this past school year, I heard from a friend that she was saying some really hurtful things about me behind my back.

And that was just not who I knew her to be. I asked her if we could talk and she just completely cut me off. I felt betrayed. I just felt devastated for losing this person that I love. Now it's been months since then and I've done a lot of personal work and work with my therapist. to heal from this friendship loss and even to forgive her. But almost every night, almost every night, she is still in my dream. So what do I do to release this person who I love who's not in my life anymore?

What would you do even if you hadn't had any closure from that person? How can I move on from her? I feel desperate. Please help. Thank you both. Oh, sweetheart, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. And I love your name.

My favorite person in the world was my great Aunt Lolly. And it just made me happy to hear your name. So let's start with that. I love that your desire is to free her. It tells me everything I need to know about the quality of your heart as a human being. That you're not saying, help me get rid of my rage and my anger. Like it sounds as if you're in acceptance at a certain life. level about this. Going back to the concept of powerlessness, I am powerless over my dreams.

I have a very long list of things in the world that I am powerless over. My dreams are one of them. My thoughts are also on that list. My mind is a wild horse. It's wild horses galloping in all directions. I don't have control over what I think. I don't have control over what I dream. if you have mind control and dream control, I cannot wait to take your seminar to learn how to do that. And I'm a lifelong meditator and I still don't have control over my thinking and over my dreaming. I have control over my actions. And what I've learned is that if I stay in, and I also cannot force closure. and I've given up on trying to make closure happen in relationships.

My experience is that if I focus my attention on good orderly direction, healthy activities for myself, taking care of my inner little, going to sleep at the right times, nourishing my life in all ways, if I pay attention to those things, then eventually something happens behind my back and those obsessions dissolve. I can't dissolve them. And I know a lot about obsession and I know a lot about fixating on another person. And I know a lot about not wanting to think about somebody who I keep thinking about,

whether it's because I'm in love with them or I'm angry with them or whatever. I have a lot of experience with that. I can't manufacture the end to that story. but I can turn it over to a higher power and then do what I can to nourish myself. And one day I look up and I notice, I haven't thought about that person in a month. And so what I would do, if I were counseling you is that I would make a list of top-line behaviors, like 10 things that you do that are really good for you, whatever those might be. And then every day look at that list and try to live in those top lines and live as much as you can in those top lines because that's all I am in control of.

Like that is really all I am in control of. I'm not in control of anything else. And be willing to let time do its good work and do it for let time do it for you rather than you trying to do it. And that requires patience and faith. and it also requires sitting in some discomfort and being like, wow, I don't want to be having these thoughts. I don't want to be having these dreams. I'm having them. I can't do anything about that. I'm going to turn it over and I'm going to turn my attention to self-care. And the more I nourish myself, the more I believe that something will lift this. Man, there are people who I thought I was

never going to stop obsessing about who I can, like, honestly, like, I could probably barely pick them out of a police lineup at this point, you know, but there was a time when my entire life was filled with my entire head and my entire life was filled with their name. And it passes. And also pray for her. Sorry to say that, but like, that's not a person who's well. When I'm thinking about obsessing about someone I don't want to obsess about, I will just do a quick Buddhist meta prayer, which is just, may you be free from suffering, may you know peace. Like that's it. Like right on the spot, may that person be free from suffering, may they know peace. And then move on with your good habits. I do that too because I always think I'm like tricking God.

Like if God thinks I'm so good that I'm loving this person enough to pray for them, then God will bless me by not having me think about that person anymore. You're trying to get bonus points? Yes. No, she's trying to manipulate God. I'm trying to just gaming. She's just gaming God. She's like, got it, Glennon.

I know you, Glennon. I love to just switch to self-care, switch to the, because when you're trying not to think about something, it's impossible. Thank you for that. Okay, one last question. How about Judith? Hi, Glennon, Abby, Amanda, and hopefully Liz. My name is Judith. I guess my question is around spirituality. I feel like because the conversations that you all have about life being courageous and feeling our feelings are really about getting in touch with spirit. I spent some time a few years ago living on various ashram. When I was in that lifestyle, I kept feeling like it wasn't quite real.

I needed to get back to reality. The reality is working. and relationships. But then when I eventually came back to so-called reality, I find myself thinking that Ashram life and spiritual practice is actually reality instead. So my question for Liz really is, how do you do both? Can we do both? Which one is real? And I know that that's a very binary question. Thanks again. Judith, I am you. I had the same feelings. I've been in ashrams too, as you know. one thing I hear in that question is a human ego which is that by definition can never be satisfied. The human ego is a dissatisfaction machine and no sooner does it get a thing than it wants the other thing. And then no sooner does it get the other thing than it wants that other thing back.

And then it's like, how can I game this so that I can have both of these things? And that's the nature of the human monkey mind. that's not a glitch of your system, Judith. That's how we are. That is how a human mind operates. That is what an ego does. It creates stories about lack. And so this was lacking here. I gave up that. Now I went over here. Now that's lacking. How can I get both? That's what an ungoverned human ego does. And I experienced when I was at the ashram in India, I loved it there. But I remember watching somebody who had lived there for 10 years. She went home to Chicago from India for the first time to the States in a decade for a family funeral. And when she came back, she was so, like, jacked and wrecked from having been in the world. And she was, like, so shook from how horrible the world was. And she couldn't wait to get back into the ashram. And she was like, it's so awful out there. It's so awful. And I remember it gave me pause because I was like, wait, isn't the point of the spiritual practice to make you be able to live in the world as it is? Isn't that what we're

looking for is that you're training yourself to be to be grounded in something so that whatever comes you can face that. So it felt to me like, oh, this feels, I mean, it was super judging of me, but I felt like, oh, this person's hiding here and not actually developing the skills for existence on this very difficult planet. So that's when I was like, I need a spiritual path that's not about hiding in cloistered artificial solitude, but is about teaching me how to do the hard stuff in the world. I certainly also understand the longing to go back to the cloister once you come out into the world. I feel like I have a stronger spiritual practice now living in reality than I did when I was at the ashram. I feel more spiritually mature here in my own

discipline. I've created a life that is very spiritually disciplined and nobody's disciplining it for me. So I would say that you can take what you loved about the Ashram monastic tradition and you can fold it into your life if you're willing to give up other things. And here I will quote Glennon talking about how she realized that if she wanted to be a writer, all she had to do is go to bed at 8 o'clock when her kids went to bed so that she could get up at four and right before her children woke up. She prioritized that. So if it was the meditation that you loved, what are you currently giving those hours to? That's a thing that I often say is pay attention to what you're paying attention to. So where are the most important hours of your day currently going? My most spiritual time of the

day is pre-dawn. I love those hours. I love the deep, velvety, dark silence of that time. I love that the world hasn't woken up and started calling me yet. So I sacrifice a lot of stuff later in the day so that I can go to bed early so that I can get up and have that time with God. I need those quiet mornings for myself. I don't do so well in the world if I skip that. If I skip that morning connection with myself and with my God, the rest of my day tends to be, I tend to feel very lost. So I would say maybe it's not so much about going to a monastery as bringing into your life what you loved most about the monastery. Love.

Liz, we do this thing called the next right thing. What would you say to people right now? Something so simple that they can do that might bring them just a smidge more. All we want is a smidge more of peace and freedom today. Say no to somebody. That's good. Yeah. Say no to somebody.

Disappoint someone. Somebody's expecting you to do something. Don't do it. Cancel something. Cancel something or say no to somebody. That would be the best thing that you could possibly do for yourself right now. We can do that. Nothing better than cancel.

We can do hard things. We can also do fun, easy things. It's like cancel. It's not easy though. That's really hard. Saying me to somebody is a hard, hard thing. But I bet, I mean, I don't know this, but Liz, does it get easier the second time than it is the first time to say no to somebody? Yes. And I say no all the time now. And I actually realized that I'm doing that person a service because I hate it so much when people say no to me and I don't get what I want, that that is. is a great spiritual growth edge for me. So when I am denied what I want, it causes me to have to find growth within myself. And so if I say no to somebody else, I'm giving them the opportunity to be really upset and then figure out how to take care of themselves in that. Oh my God. It's so good. So it's a public service. It is a great public service. You're giving them what we call the AFGO, right? Another fucking growth opportunity.

Yes. Go off. Go forth and give. many Afghos today. Liz, thank you. You are truly one of the most important people in my life. Abby and I are both grateful for you, for the way that you mother both of us separately and the way that you helped our love story come together. Because you did really help me trust myself during that time and that's what I needed more than anything. So I'll be grateful to you forever. There was nothing that anybody on this world or any other world would have been able to do or not do or say or not say that was going to keep you two apart. That's right. And I love that you credit me with helping you, but this thing was never not going to happen. Because this thing

is for the benefit of all of us and also for you. And I love all of you so very, very, very much. Thank you for letting me come on to your program. You're the best. We love you to the rest of you. When life gets hard this week, just say no. Love you guys. Bye Amanda. Bye, Abby. We love you. Bye, everybody.

Bye Pod Squad. Bye, Lizzie. Bye. Thank you, Liz. 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.