We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - Be Still: How to Listen to That Something Inside That Always Knows

Episode Date: January 6, 2022

1. What if we stop trying to figure out whether our feelings and intuition are “right” or “wrong”– and instead, just acknowledge them as real–and move toward them? 2. How Glennon is experi...encing a little shift in peace, joy, and non-reactivity through her newfound relationship with meditation. 3. Why a lot of our suffering exists in the space between the Knowing and the Doing–and how life is at its best and most exciting when we shorten that gap. 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

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Whether you're doing a dance to your favorite artist in the office parking lot, or being guided into Warrior I in the break room before your shift, whether you're running on your Peloton tread at your mom's house while she watches the baby, or counting your breaths on the subway. Peloton is for all of us, wherever we are whenever we need it, download the free Peloton app today. Peloton app available through free tier, or pay subscription starting at 12.99 per month. Hello, Loves! Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. When you say loves, are you talking about me and sister or the people?
Starting point is 00:00:52 I'm talking about the pod squad. Oh my gosh. I feel a little sad. Well, you're my loves too, but you know how much I'm obsessed with this pod squad. Yeah, it's actually something. Yesterday we were on our walk and this woman was walking by us on the sidewalk and looked at us and her eyes got big and she held up her phone at us and it was she was listening to we can do hard things. Yeah, it's so cool. It is so cool. Okay, we did this episode on Tuesday about stillness. On that episode, told everybody that I'm in this weird new stillness place right now, and I wanna explain what the hell has happened
Starting point is 00:01:34 to me over the last few months. Oh, buckle up everybody. No, and I'm not gonna do a great job, and I'm gonna say things wrong, and I'm gonna get it wrong, and I just, I wanna be very clear with the pod squad that I'm not ever trying to get things right. Okay.
Starting point is 00:01:51 I'm just trying to tell you the truth of my experience. Okay. I'm not trying to like match up with some idea that we have all decided is right or wrong. You are just experimenting with yourself all the time. I'm just trying to tell like I'm trying to describe what's going on on the inside of me, on the outside of me. That's right. Which to me has absolutely nothing to do with right and wrong. I'm just trying to tell the truth. Okay. Which, by the way, is the whole point of the last episode. If we stop trying to figure out whether our feelings and our intuition is right and wrong and just acknowledge it as
Starting point is 00:02:28 real and there and experience it and go towards it, then that's the whole ball game. Yes. Yes. And it's like, I mean, this happens to me sometimes when I'm talking about my sexuality or, you know, how I'm understanding my sexuality and somebody will say, that's not right. That's not either how we say it or like, and I'm like, wait, what? Like, what does this have to do with right?
Starting point is 00:02:53 I'm telling you how I am and feel inside my own skin. And you're telling me it doesn't fit into the categories that you have decided to already exist. Yeah. It's strange. So anyway. That's the experience of almost every gay person up until like five minutes ago when gayness became cool. Okay. Abby is so bitter that I just have to gayness, which is cool. Yeah. She's so bitter and she deserves to be because though, geez, have been showing up for a very long time when there was much more risk and much more resistance.
Starting point is 00:03:27 Yes. And then, you know, the love's like me, just got here five minutes ago and we're like, what's the problem? Look at all the flags. All right. All right. So, here's what happened to me a few months ago. Okay. I would say that I hit kind of a different kind of rock bottom for myself, okay, which you
Starting point is 00:03:51 know well about, which I wouldn't, I wouldn't have said or classified it like that. That's the first time hearing of it, you're classifying it as a kind of a rock bottom. I think so. I mean, I think as I get older and have more experience, my rock bottoms are less outwardly dramatic to other people, which is a beautiful thing. Like I haven't yet screwed up everyone else's lives. And, you know, I'm just interlease suffering. The version of suffering I'm talking about that was leading to this other rock bottom is this unbelievable situation I have where I have been dealing with and eating disorder since I was 10 years old.
Starting point is 00:04:30 And then when I was 25, I got sober from it. And for the rest of my days, since then, I have been outwardly, I think what people would assume is healthy-ish. You know, I have like normal eating habits and I'm not binging and purging and I'm being normal, whatever the hell that means. But it's like my brain never got the message that we were gonna be done with that, okay? So my brain still obsessively thinks about
Starting point is 00:05:02 body, food, all of that stuff. And it's ridiculous and it's infuriating because as I've said before, when I think about during my hardest times, when I imagine that maybe 50% to 60% of all of my thoughts all day are about food and body, it's just unbelievably embarrassing as a feminist, but also like makes me so mad because when I think about what I could have done with that 50% of brain power as an artist as an activist as a mother as a wife as a sister, it's just the opportunity cost of all of that obsession. So the difference is you are no longer engaging
Starting point is 00:05:47 in the behaviors that would indicate that you have the compulsions, but you are not free from it internally. I think that a lot of folks can identify with that. A lot of people have been through like infidelity and their marriage and they their functioning, but their relationship still isn't free of the vestiges of that and their anxieties and their fears and their heads.
Starting point is 00:06:13 A lot of us are inactive recovery from a lot of things, but still tormented by it to some sense. In our minds. In our minds. We're tormented in our minds. My mind torment about food and body, which comes up in a million different ways, it's just like all day like what am I eating? What have I eaten? What have I eaten? What have I eaten? Yesterday, what can I eat today? How is my butt house is fitting? How is all of this, inane, inane, things. Which is so beyond, it has nothing to do here
Starting point is 00:06:47 35 years later with how I look. It has nothing to do with that. It's way deeper than that. It's like in my bones. Well, it's control and words can. It's control and yes. Yours. Right. So I just desperately have been trying for the last, I don't know, 10 years,
Starting point is 00:07:13 but really feels like the last two years since COVID started, because I feel like that's when it got really weird in my brain, because when things are out of control, she says she's getting weird. I have just been desperately trying to fix my brain. Just like, what can I do to stop my brain from thinking this way? So that has been my focus. And especially for the last two years, like, what books do I have to read? What therapy do I have to do? What are the things that I have to do to rewire my brain so it stops tormenting me like this? Okay. Nothing has worked. Nothing has worked to the point where recently even I said, you know what, I'm just going to give up. I'm just going to give up on this. You know what sucks is being a 45 year old woman who still thinks about this stuff, 50% of the time, But what really sucks is being a 45 year old woman who thinks about this 50% of their time and then spends 25% of her time trying to fix the 50%
Starting point is 00:08:13 And so she has 25% of her life left, right? So maybe if I stop fixing it at least I'll get that 25% and I can just let the crazy Compulsive thoughts be. It's like I just count exactly. So here's what I actually figured out. Is that I'm usually with my instincts on to something, but just it's skewed a little bit. Okay, so the giving up was the right call, but this is what happened. So when Chase left for college, I just got
Starting point is 00:08:46 real weird. Like that just kind of, you know, leveled up everything. And Abby actually said, you're even when Abby tells me that I'm off, that's when I worry because she's like the least judgmental person in the world. She's noticing that I am off. That's when I worry because she's like the least judgmental person in the world. She's noticing that I am suffering. It's like code red. It's code. Terror alert. Right. Yes. So here's what happened. She took me away to this place we like to go to for two or three days. She was like, if I take you there, will you promise you'll feel your feelings and you'll be still? Because I was not wanting to do that. She was avoiding everything at every cost, right? It was like, oh, look, a bird. Oh, look,
Starting point is 00:09:38 I mean, I feel grateful because partly it's why we moved. She was like, let's just move. Yeah, no, yeah. I know. And I'm like, yes, we're getting into California. You're like, you're like, I valued your health, but can we get you healthy after I take you up on this offer to move? That would be great.
Starting point is 00:09:56 Well, I know that is exactly what happened. I'm glad you got us here too before you got me settled. But before you got you settled. Thank you, thank you. So here's what happens. We go to this place up until then my newest strategy was that five pound thing of Twizzlers and books. I was just reading books reading reading reading. That's like I'm trying not to be in my own mind. Gonsa she's in a different world. Yes. I was like where is my wife? So we go to this place and I take this little class
Starting point is 00:10:28 on meditation. Now, I want to explain to you, sweet pod squad, that people have been trying to teach me about meditation for 20 years, all right? Like, the world has been meditating for a very freaking long time. Okay. I have never just got it.
Starting point is 00:10:48 You know how when you, you can read a book and it just doesn't hit you and then you don't think you like it even and you don't think it makes any sense and then you read it a few years later and you're like, holy shit. You're ready for something? Yeah. I mean, four years ago we got educated on transcendentalcendental Meditation, we like did the whole program, and then we never did it. Quit.
Starting point is 00:11:09 We just gave them our check, left and never. So here we are at this. That's like me at the gym. Yeah, exactly. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, that's what we did. We're like, of course, we're going to do this meditation if we pay this much money.
Starting point is 00:11:19 It's not like I'd be giving them $40 a month just to see it on my credit card. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm Jonathan Menevar. I'm a podcast producer and someone who likes fancy things. But I grew up working class.
Starting point is 00:11:42 My parents were immigrants with factory jobs. And because of that, I think about class a lot. And I want to talk about it. That's what we're doing on my new podcast, Classy. And what did you all eat? You know, trailer food. I was like, girl, we're not doing that anymore. You'll hear from people who told me awkward, embarrassing, and strangely intimate things about
Starting point is 00:12:11 what class means to them. She said, you know, for the house cleaner, I hide the tag on the $6 bread. And I just thought, don't you think she knows that you're wealthy? You're hiding the tags from yourself. Classy. A new podcast from Pineapple Street Studios. Available now, wherever you get your podcasts. So here's what I want to say to you, because I feel that this is going to be a very like ongoing conversation,
Starting point is 00:12:44 and it's not like we're going to nail it in this one time. But the gift of this new stillness. Okay, now, by the way, I've tried to explain this to several of my friends and I, it is such an epiphany to me and it's so amazing and no one has ever responded me to me in a way that makes me think that they also think this is amazing. It's been very anticlimactic and upsetting. But it is amazing to me. So here's your... Let's hear this.
Starting point is 00:13:15 Okay. That's here the elevator pitch on meditation. For me, not for... I don't know if this is right. For me, not for, I don't know if this is right. Okay. What I realized is that I was wasting all of my time trying to control my thoughts, trying to change my mind, trying to somehow reprogram my brain so I would have stop having all of these crazy thoughts. Or go back into my trauma or go, I mean, I have someone who's had decades and decades of therapy.
Starting point is 00:13:53 Like maybe I just, I'm on the right therapy. Maybe like all of these things that would reprogram my brain. What I needed to do and what is actually working for me, whatever the hell that means, is stop believing my brain. Yeah, you were trusting your bots. Yes, when my brain said, did you eat too much yesterday? Did you do, did you do, did you?
Starting point is 00:14:16 I was engaging it as if it wasn't that shit crazy. Mm-hmm. Like if somebody else, if my wife walked up to me and said, well, do you think you ate too much yesterday, do you do it? I would be like, get the hell away from me. Why are you talking to me like that?
Starting point is 00:14:30 Like, don't, but my own brain, I was like, yes, that sounds like a worthy discussion to have. 45 year old brain. Let's talk about that. What I'm saying is what I'm learning now, because then I started reading everything, you know, untethered soul again. That's so good. I read it a decade ago and was like, okay. what I'm learning now because then I started reading everything, you know, untethered soul again.
Starting point is 00:14:45 That's so good. I read it a decade ago and was like, okay. Now it's blowing my mind. We have this voice in our head, which is our thoughts. And everybody's voice is for lack of a better word, a little crazy. Everybody's mind is offering it up, horrible ideas about ourselves, and horrible good stuff, and all these thoughts that mean nothing,
Starting point is 00:15:13 but that we get so elosted and we believe. And then when we try to control them, it's hurting cats, like you, it's hopeless. Right. But the beauty is that there's this other place we can live from that is, I don't, this is not the right word, but it feels like below my brain or behind my brain or something. And this is what people talk about in terms of consciousness. So it's the idea of if I can hear the voice, if I can hear the voices going in my head,
Starting point is 00:15:47 then that by definition means that I am not the voices. Right. His line is, singers line in that book that is so good is there's nothing more important to true growth than realizing that you are not the voice of the mind. You are the one who hears it. Oh, exactly. That is correct, my daughter, by the way.
Starting point is 00:16:08 Just think about that. Yes, yes, and I'm telling you. You're the one that hears it. Yes, and then you can hear it, and you can be like, oh, look at that. She's going to do that whole body food thing again. Oh, look at that. And then you're going to go about your day.
Starting point is 00:16:24 I just have stopped consulting it. That's good. I have stopped believing. If my mind had a solution out of this, I feel like my poor sweet mind would have gotten us out of this a lot of decades ago. Mm-hmm. Yeah, but here's the thing.
Starting point is 00:16:39 Your mind is brilliant at so many things, right? It's just that in certain areas, this being one of them, it is not to be trusted. Yes, not yet, but no one's is. No one's is. I mean, I think that's the thing. That happens to be your struggle of your life. But everybody, there's not a person that doesn't
Starting point is 00:17:01 have the voice and hear the voice. And whether it's about your worthiness and your need to hustle or the fact that like your partner's gonna leave you and you're never gonna be good enough, or whatever it is, we have one. And the problem is we think we attach to it and think that is us and think that we have to negotiate it and negotiate with it
Starting point is 00:17:27 and respond to it. And then we know that voice is harmful and bad. So then we think that we are bad because that voice, why would we be saying those horrible things all the time? Yeah. And I think one of the goals is to not attach bad or good to it at all. You can notice like your frustration or your anger or jealousy or whatever and just be like, wow, far out. Like you're, there you are. There's some jealousy rising in you. There's some anger.
Starting point is 00:18:00 Like that's so interesting. Like what's that about? Yeah. You can have a bit of separation from it. And then you realize that the voice is telling you about everything that happens in your life. Oh my God. So it's like someone says something to you
Starting point is 00:18:14 and it's not that the reality is that they've said X to you. It's the reality is they're trying, they're manipulating me, they're disrespecting me, they're like you are, the voice is telling you all the things that just happened, which are actually just projections on what happened. When the reality is that person was just like, hey, can you move your car?
Starting point is 00:18:36 And you're like, yes. You're trying to threaten my. Yes, the stories we make up. The interpretations, the narrations, the constant, and then we're never in the moment because we're always lost to this. And when you said your brain is good at some of the things, our brains are good at so many things. It reminds me, as somebody said, the brain is an excellent worker, but a terrible master.
Starting point is 00:19:04 Like when we tell our brain what we want it to work on, that's good stuff. But when we are just like allow our brain to take us wherever it wants to take us, and then we just follow it. And then we lose all of our intuition because we just are being controlled by this mad scientist. Math scientist. Our brain who hates everyone and us.
Starting point is 00:19:27 Yes. Anyway, I'm new to this, but for what, three months? Two months now. Two months, I've been meditating for 20 minutes a day. It's unbelievable. And I'm telling you, I feel like there's just maybe a little percentage shift of peace, enjoy, and non-reactivity during the day throughout the days that's kind of accumulating into
Starting point is 00:19:56 what I would feel like is a little bit more peace. And I will take that. Listen, as like the person that is in the closest proximity to you all the day, I know that it might feel like a very small percentage shift just in your state of awareness and your mind and your life, but the way that I see you responding to your environment and your life feels like it's a thousand percent different because I see you moving into the more beautiful and truer version of yourself that you always knew that you had inside of you. But that the parts of your mind weren't allowing you to necessarily access it a hundred percent
Starting point is 00:20:43 of the time. Yeah, it's been, it's good. It feels like... Marriage shifting. Marriage shifting. It feels like another level of untaping. Oh, yeah. It really does.
Starting point is 00:21:12 Okay, so why don't we get to some cues from our pod squad about stillness and all of this? These are our first pod squadder. Hi, Glennon and Amanda. So, I would like to know what you guys do for your nighttime hygiene. So, what is your bedtime routine? Do you guys do yoga? Do you guys listen to meditation? Do you guys fall asleep watching a friend?
Starting point is 00:21:29 Like me? I just want to know how you guys wind down at night before bedtime. Love you guys, thanks. Oh. OK, I want to hear first what we're going to be all over the place with this one. OK, we've got a lot of things.
Starting point is 00:21:43 But what do you have a routine to start? What do you do at night? I don't even know you've you know my My nighttime routine is same as in my morning routine. I just stay okay way too late and Scroll through things and bring my computer to bed and do all of the things That I know I'm not supposed to do and I do them anyway, because I'm a highly, highly evolved human. Okay, that sounds good. Our's kind of starts after dinner. I'd say we kind of wind down with the kids before their bed times,
Starting point is 00:22:17 although we were going to bed earlier than them now. That's very weird. That's very weird. You go to bed earlier than every human on the planet. That's right. I mean, everyone so weird. You go to bed earlier than every human on the planet. That's right. I mean, everyone should know that we go to bed latest nine. Yeah, nine, we're in bed at the latest nine thirty. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:22:32 And if the kids aren't there, we are often in bed at seven or seven. Literally, they're not lying. Seven thirty. I'm three hours later than them. And I will often text them and they're like, we're in bed. I mean, sometimes it's like seven o'clock on this watch watch that yeah, listen in your bed. So Brian, these are beautiful things. It gives you a lot of sleeping moments in time. Yeah, and I don't feel like anything good happens after 8 p.m.
Starting point is 00:23:00 I don't know what is people are doing, but it can't be good. And the morning time is my joy. And plus the earlier I go to bed, the faster coffee comes in the morning, which is really the only moment that I live for. Every night I go to bed and think, oh my god, eight hours to coffee. Okay. So what do you think about our bedtime routine? I think that depending on what time we do get in bed, we will watch like an episode of one of our favorite shows.
Starting point is 00:23:25 Yes. Right now we're watching succession, and then we're watching, what else are we watching the morning show? Morning show, Ted Lasso. Yeah. Yeah, that's about it right now. Next question please.
Starting point is 00:23:38 Ha ha ha. Hi, Glennon and sister of the Cisco. I love, love, love your podcast and it has helped me so much. I have struggled with anxiety and depression for a very, very long time. And I find it harder and harder as I get older to get out of those kind of moods, I guess. I normally have kind of muddled my way through it, but I want to get some tools and tricks to help me in order to make the process more beneficial to growing in my mental health journey
Starting point is 00:24:20 and making my life more positive and more meaningful. I wondered if you guys had any self-care tips for anything that you guys like doing that you think that I should try and would be beneficial. I know what the need to yoga. I didn't know if you had any other advice. Nicole, though we are not therapists in any way, so we don't ascribe to like You listening to every word. I know my wife is the self-care master for Glennon Doyle um, I would listen to everything she says and try it all on Seriously, well, and it changes all the time. I mean, I think I'd have a couple different responses to Nicole
Starting point is 00:25:06 based on whether this is, you know, diagnosed depression and anxiety, right? And if it is that, or if she thinks it is, then get to doctor, right? Of course. Get to doctor first. Nothing in my life works if I am not medically treated. Okay. So none of this, I also have to do a shit ton of woo woo self care stuff, but the base of it is my medicine. I have no concern about talking about how important my medication is to me. So first of all, if you do think that you have something that is debilitating, anxiety
Starting point is 00:25:55 or depression that is debilitating, get to a doctor. If your doctor is not taking you seriously, get to a different doctor. Yeah, because she said moods, and I think that that's an important thing because exactly for people who have mental health struggles, it's important that you don't see that as a mood because if you're in a mood, it's like you are responsible for shifting yourself out of that mood and that is not the case if you have just like if your leg was broken you wouldn't say, why is your leg in such a bad mood? You know, you just you need to get the help that you need and it's not like a character deficiency that you can't make it better. Yeah. And I mean, what I have found from depression anxiety
Starting point is 00:26:45 and everybody that I know a lot, people feel differently about it. Experience it differently. I experience it. It starts out as a loneliness that is the depression, that is sort of close to sadness, but then it gets deeper and deeper until it's just an absence of feeling
Starting point is 00:27:05 at all. It's not like sad. It's like all of the colors are mushed together and it's all gray. So it's in an inability to experience the normal highs and lows of life. It's not the normal highs and lows of life. So when I talk about my medication, what my medication does, it does not highs and lows of life. So when I talk about my medication, what my medication does, it does not excuse me from the human experience. It allows me to have the same human experience that everybody else does. Just like other people who have different diseases, their medication allows them to have the human experience and join the human, join humanity. That's what the medication is. So if it's real, if it's that, start with medical treatment. And then, you know, we've been talking to our kids
Starting point is 00:27:50 about moods too, just regular moods. And what one of the things we've been talking a lot about this week is music. Is the power of music to contribute to or deepen or shift a mood. Okay, so if we're just talking about moods, then just since we've been talking about this week and my family, I just would like to bring it up. One of the reasons is we took our daughter
Starting point is 00:28:17 to a Phoebe Bridgers concert and I love Phoebe Bridgers, but we were talking to our little one about how if she's feeling very sad for any extended amount of time, maybe like the 12 hours a day of Phoebe Bridges isn't gonna be the thing that shifts that. And so my deeply feeling, highly sensitive daughter was like, well, it helps me. She knows how I feel.
Starting point is 00:28:48 So when I hear her sing, it validates my feelings and it makes me feel seen and yes to that, for maybe a couple hours. But like, there's a point, right, with the music where we are moving past validation into wallowing. Yeah. Rumination. Yeah. This is the rest. Correct.
Starting point is 00:29:10 Correct. And so, you know, I do just want to throw out there in terms of mood that sometimes we overlook very simple things that actually can have a profound difference in the way we're experiencing our day. And so maybe putting together a playlist of songs that reminds you of your humanity, that reminds you of joy-ness that make you feel good and cared for and loved and that validate your feelings but don't invite you to take them into an unhealthy. Yeah, I also think that you do yoga, you meditate, you go on walks, you listen to music. And one of the things that I find so fascinating about you, Glendon,
Starting point is 00:29:55 is that you are never too tired to keep trying different things on in terms of your self-care. Which is ridiculous sometimes. But it's not. Like, we're human beings. Sometimes things get a little bit old. Like, you stopped going on walks for a month. And then all of a sudden you started back up
Starting point is 00:30:14 and it's like, oh, that thing that I really like. So one of the things about self-care is to not be so rigid. Yes. What do I need today? What it is. And doing it hard court every day because that's also not self-care. That's just torture. Right. Remember about all the trying things
Starting point is 00:30:32 on a couple days ago, I was having a no-bones day. I was just like really down and. Do people need to know what no-bones is? They can Google it. Google it. And so I was like kept coming to you. I was like, okay, I went and did yoga. I still feel like shit. Okay. Okay. I went for a walk. I still feel like I'm so tired. Okay. I went. I did this. I still feel so tired. And you go, have you considered just taking a nap? That's like, that's a great idea. So sometimes your self-care does work in counterintuitive ways. Right. Where you're like, I'm so tired, I'm going to go get, I'm going to go for a two and a half mile walk, or a five mile walk.
Starting point is 00:31:12 I'm going to go do this thing to snap me out of it. Yep. Okay, let's move on to the next question. Hi, my name is Kim. I just want to thank you for first of all putting out all these episodes on things that are truly, truly challenging. I just went through a breakup from a 12 year relationship. We were not married and everything is resonating with me. So my hard question has to do with intuition. When people say, do what's right for you, sometimes I don't know the answer to that. So how does one hone the art of really listening to intuition and trusting yourself
Starting point is 00:32:05 kind of having faith in yourself. Thank you so much. Your podcast has been life-changing for many many people like me. Bye. That's so sweet. I mean I think that sister said it earlier about her marriage and when something like that falls apart, it is so hard to trust yourself because you got yourself into that thing. And now that thing failed, or we don't say that in our world,
Starting point is 00:32:33 that thing's ended. And it's like so terrifying to then turn back towards yourself. Like how do you do that? How do we, how do we even begin to do that? How do you do that? How do we even begin to do that? I know that if there's one thing that I believe that I feel like can be trusted in this weird life,
Starting point is 00:32:58 it's that I have something inside of me and I describe it differently all the time, so I'm not even going to try to describe it right now. I'm just going to say, I have something inside of me that knows what to do next. There is something inside of me that knows, that always knows. Now, I threw a lot of work, you know, through what was
Starting point is 00:33:27 entamed, through a lot of trial and error, through ignoring it, through drinking it away, through I have tried everything else, you know, I have tried a million other ways other than living and trusting that thing. And what I have found is that it's like we all look outside of our lives and see things that don't feel right or don't fit or don't belong or like this job or this person or this relationship. Something on the outside of us that doesn't feel right, that feels like a cage.
Starting point is 00:34:10 And I think that that thing that's in our outer life can always be directly connected to some knowing on the inside that we didn't make into a doing. That like the more that we have these little teeny inklings, hunches, you know, one of my friends describes it as like a carbonation, which makes me feel like it's different for everyone. And the more we act on it, our outer life changes. And that's not magic. It's like, oh, when I feel like this person isn't right for me and this person's making me feel bad.
Starting point is 00:34:49 And I say, I'm not gonna do this anymore. Then that person disappears from my life. And suddenly, my outer world is more aligned with my inner knowing. It's like slowly over time, the more you act on that inner knowing, even when it's uncomfortable, the more your outer world aligns with what is true and beautiful and comfortable on the inside.
Starting point is 00:35:15 And so what I see is that people who do trust themselves, know not that person, yes that person, know not that job, yes that person, know not that TV show, yes this music, know not that candle, yes that person, no, not that job, yes that person, no, not that TV show, yes this music, no, not that candle, yes this, this work, like all the big nose and little nose and big yeses and little yeses. There, people wonder why their outside lives are so unique and beautiful and it's because it's all directed by what's on the inside. Right?
Starting point is 00:35:47 And, you know, what I would say is it Kim, is her name Kim, is that whenever people tell me that they don't know what to do next, I always know that that's not true. But they do know what to do next because everybody knows deeply. It's just that the next thing is usually very hard and scary. And so we have to do a million things to pretend that we don't know first. The last thing we want to do, in some ways. Exactly. It's usually the last thing we want to do in some ways. Exactly. It's usually the last thing we want to do. And what we talk about, Abhin, I talk about a lot, is like, how do we, that life gets really good and exciting when we shorten the gap between the knowing and the doing as much as possible?
Starting point is 00:36:40 Yes. I actually think that most of our suffering lives in the space between the knowing and the doing. When you know this job is killing me, when you know this relationship isn't right, when you know this house isn't where I'm supposed to be, when you know like I'm I need to have that conversation, but you're not at the doing yet. Yeah. Life procrastination, internal, emotional procrastination. It's all the suffering, whether it's the fear of the doing or the pretending not to know or the millions of things we do when we, you know, the judgment we put at other people
Starting point is 00:37:20 when we're jealous that they're doing the doing, it's all of that suffering is in between that space. And I think for Kim, truly learning to trust herself, she knows, Kim knows I can tell by her question, that she's a person who knows that she can trust herself. It's just the trying again. And the looking back on your life and not seeing failure for what the world tells us is failure.
Starting point is 00:37:44 Like the truth is that Kim has gotten herself to this point in her life. She has made it this entire way. She has gotten herself through a relationship. She is in a place right now where she's in a stuckness and a loneliness and is still reaching out, is still connecting. And even asking it, how do I do the right thing for me? Like I think that is even tricky because half of, you know, the pain that you talked about between the knowing and the doing, it's a building our case to ourselves and others that this
Starting point is 00:38:14 is right. When, what if it didn't have to be right? What if it was just the thing you knew that you were going to do next? I mean, I just think it's worth asking the question, if this didn't have to be right, would I do this thing? If this thing didn't have to be right, would I already know that it was my thing? Is the needing to justify it as being right
Starting point is 00:38:39 part of what holds us back from doing what is our next thing. That's good. It's like the word right is your red flag. That's right. All the time. Right is a red flag. It's not real. Okay, so if you're looking to do what's right,
Starting point is 00:38:56 then you know that you're looking to somebody else's map instead of your own inner compass. And that's why it's never gonna feel like intuition. And that's why it's never gonna feel like knowing intuition. That's why it's never going to feel like knowing. There's knowing doesn't speak in that language. Knowing speaks in the language of feeling alive, of feeling free, knowing speaks in questions that ask things like, is it possible that I'm worthy of this,
Starting point is 00:39:19 even if no one else benefits from it? Is it possible that how it's been going is not working for me? Is it possible? Is it possible? Is the language of intuition not? Is it right? Mm-hmm. So take out the right.
Starting point is 00:39:35 Don't say, is it right for me? Just say, is it for me? It's good. It's really good. Is it for me? Should we jump to our pod squadder of the week? Let's do it. All right, let's hear from our pod squadder of the week. Who is Christa? And from reasons you are about to discover, I'm feeling Christa.
Starting point is 00:39:56 Hi, this is Christa. And I just want to say, I'm late to work driving, stop the podcast. I need Abby to know how much she adds to this podcast. Like, sorry, I'm a crier. A wisdom that she pours out of her soul on a regular is just amazing. And Glenan and Amanda, you are the Wonder Tens. Wonder Tens. I'm telling you what. And Abby is just the freaking cherry on top of the, I don't even like cherry. Anyway, I just want Abby to know that her wisdom and her vulnerability just really fucking make my day.
Starting point is 00:40:50 And I love you, three. Keep doing what you're doing. My wife just said lately, if you realize that every podcast that you listen to, I love being well accepted for it. But everybody else, I'm like, I found my people finally honey. I found my people anyway. I love you guys. Have a great day. Keep doing hard things. We're going to go together. Oh my gosh. Okay. I feel like I'm sweating a little bit. Also, Christa, I mean, I don't know, it makes me so emotional when people say I found my people.
Starting point is 00:41:28 Like that, would I imagine like people walking or in their cars and they're, and they're listening and we're all kind of in this together, it makes me feel very unloanly. And I don't know, I just love you, Christa. Thank you. And she's right. You are very, very special. Well, you two are the Wonder Twins. Wonder Twins activates!
Starting point is 00:41:50 Okay. When life gets hard this week, don't forget, y'all, we can do hard things and we'll see you back here next Tuesday. Bye. We can do hard things, is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios. Be sure to rate, review, and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, 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.
Starting point is 00:42:22 It's fine.

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