We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - How to Let Go of “Not Enough” with Melissa Arnot Reid

Episode Date: July 24, 2025

431. How to Let Go of “Not Enough” with Melissa Arnot Reid Melissa Arnot Reid—the first American woman to summit Everest without supplemental oxygen—opens up about her journey from a difficult childhood to discovering true self-worth, revealing how even the highest peaks can’t quiet the voice of unworthiness within. -Why Everest became Melissa’s classroom, not her accomplishment-How imagining her own funeral saved Melissa’s life -How Melissa’s shift from “I’ve done enough” to “I am enough” changed everything. -Why Glennon completely relates to Melissa’s story of scaling Everest Melissa Arnot Reid is the first American woman to summit Everest without supplemental oxygen. It was her sixth summit of the highest ground on earth, cementing her place in mountaineering history. In doing so, she became a media star, in demand from many publications, television shows, and organizations looking for inspirational speakers. She continues to work as a mountain guide as well as running The Juniper Fund, the non-profit she co-founded. Her new book, ENOUGH: Climbing Toward a True Self on Mount Everest, is available now. 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

Hello, Pod Squad. We have Melissa Arnott-Reed. She is the first American woman to summit Everest without supplemental oxygen. It was her sixth summit of the highest ground on Earth, cementing her place in mountaineering history. And in doing so, she became a media star in demand for many publications, television shows, and organizations looking for inspirational speakers. She continues to work as a mountain guide, as well as running the Juniper Fund, the nonprofit she co-founded.

Her new book, Enough, Climbing Toward a True Self on Mount Everest is available now. And let me tell you, this conversation is one of my favorites. First of all, because there's so much athleticism and psychology around athleticism in this. So much around the conversations of self-worth and pursuit and what we're running from. Melissa is just a gem. You're gonna wanna stay tuned. She's wonderful.

And also, Glennon is here and she was like trying to learn about sports and it was fun but this is not a podcast about sports y'all. This is a podcast about somebody who's climbing the Mount Everest of herself. Take a listen. Okay I'm so excited for various reasons but the pod squad may not know this about me. I have had a small fascination, especially throughout my time as an athlete with Mount Everest. And it was always something that I thought throughout my career,

that that's something that I would accomplish when I retired. And for all of the reasons that I thought that at the time, yeah, I don't know. I just find it so fascinating now having been retired for 10 years. Like that thought is so comical to me now. Cause I've healed a little bit from professional sports, but today we have bit from professional sports. But today we have, Melissa or not Reed, but I really want to get into with our pod squad who may not be as versed in what Mount Everest is. They probably know of it, that it's a high mountain. But can you give us like a crash course, a 101 on what Mount Everest is to you and why Mount Everest for you.

Yeah, so Mount Everest is so many things for me. I mean, obviously it's the highest mountain in the world. It's a technical, glaciated peak that sits on the border between Nepal and China. And for me in my life, it has been a classroom. It's been a church, it's been a pretty incredible mirror, both reflecting who I am and allowing me to see who I could be as well. And it has defined so much of my life, but it's not everything. I started out my career working as a mountain guide, and I think if you are a mountain guide and a technical mountain guide, Mount Everest is sort of the PhD, right? It's like the pinnacle place to go and working as a guide there sort of should mean you've

made it. And for me, that didn't quite feel that way once I first got a chance to go there. So I decided that I wanted to climb without the use of supplemental oxygen, which no American woman had done successfully and survived. And it was an incredibly naive thought and it wasn't born out of some sense that I was incredibly capable. It was deeply born out of a sense of wanting to prove that I belonged, that I was actually a mountaineer because so many people looked at the container that I came in and really

discredited me and I wanted deeply a place to belong. And I came to learn through my journey and I'm still kind of learning through my journey this idea that Everest was really a classroom for me. It was never a stage. It was never the place where I would arrive. It was really like a place that I had to pass through and continuously revisit to learn. Oh my gosh. Okay. So you said supplemental oxygen. I want to get into that really quick, because I don't know if our listeners know

why you would need supplemental oxygen on Mount Everest. Can you talk a little bit about the dead zone? Yeah, so when we're climbing at really high altitudes above sea level, and Everest is 29,000 feet above sea level, so any elevation that's really above like around 26,000 feet above sea level, you need supplemental oxygen to sustain life. So the available oxygen in the air, the molecules are all really far spread apart. So each breath you breathe in, you're getting a hugely decreased volume of oxygen and you

can measure that with a pulse oximeter and you would see in town, whatever town you live in, your pulse oximetry is probably around 90 to 100 percent. And when you're in what's considered the death zone, which is above 26,000 feet on Everest, your pulse oximetry without the use of supplemental oxygen will be somewhere between 40 to 60 percent depending on your individual physiology, which for me, working as a medical professional, like if somebody has a 60% oxygen, we sedate them, intubate them, and take them really imminently to the emergency room. So that's the idea.

It's not that you die upon arriving in that area, it's that life can't be sustained without some aid for very long. And so that's the challenge of going to climb without the supplemental oxygen is how can you sustain life and can you? It's a kind of a question really. Okay so this is like technical and maybe the Pod Squad is now tuned out. No they're not. That's cool. But I think what I want you to walk us through and

we'll get into like more depth in a minute but I want you to walk us through the process by which you have to acclimatize and how many camps you need to hike to and at what level and how long you need to stay at those camps and then how long you're in the death zone for. Yeah, so on your average Everest climb, there's a number of ways you could do it, but the most common way, an average expedition

takes about 60 days, so about two months in total. And that's not because of the distance, you could climb from the bottom of Everest to the top, really. You could do it in just a day if you wanted to. But you have to allow your body to slowly, over time, adjust to those lower oxygen levels and the change in atmospheric pressure. And if you don't adjust, things happen like your brain swells and you could have a stroke. Your lungs start to leak fluid out and you could drown in your own body fluids, really. You know, you could get really, really sick.

So it takes about 10 days if you're climbing from the Nepal side, the south side of Everest to walk into Everest Base Camp starting at 9,000 feet. Base Camp is at 17,800 feet. And then there's a series of four camps. And you climb in a really interesting way. And I find something about this to be incredibly beautiful, where you kind of move up, adjust to the altitude there,

then go back down and rest and recover at base camp. You kind of return to your home. And suddenly over time, you start to see base camp, which when you first arrived, felt terrible and just cold and nothing grows here. It starts to be this place that suddenly feels warm and welcoming because where you've gone is so much worse than what is below. And so you climb a little bit higher the next time, go to the next camp, spend a day or

two there, climb back down to base camp, rest and recover, climb back up, climb a little bit higher this time and climb back down and rest and recover. So to go to the summit of Everest one time, you have to almost get to the summit, really about three times, before having a chance to go to the summit, pass through the death zone. And when you are on that final summit push, you really don't want to be in the death zone

for more than 24 or 48 hours. So you move continuously up, staying at Camp 4 for one or two nights, and then go to the summit and return down to Camp 4, or very reasonably much lower, and get as low as you can so that your body can not be as susceptible to the altitude. That's so beautiful.

That's what I want to be for our kids, our adult kids. I want to be base camp. Yes. And they can keep coming back. I mean, there's something I just... The idea of climbing Everest, I think, you know, especially to people who don't know anything about Everest except for, oh, it's this really high mountain and I've seen pictures of lots of long lines and I've heard about garbage, you know, because it's kind of sensationalized

in the news. I get asked all the time and I actually once had a therapist who said this to me. She was like, you know, you need to work on your addiction to adrenaline and your need to like go to these very extreme places. And I sort of giggled internally because I was like, if you only knew how non adrenaline high altitude climbing is, it is just walking so slowly uphill for many, many days. It's like the most meditative and truly boring thing that you could ever do. And it's why you don't see Everest climbing as a televised activity. And like it's why it's just a still photograph because like people are walking so slowly

up to a little spot and then saying, okay, I'm here. And then turning around and going back down. But it's so meditative. And there's something for me that has always happened climbing really any mountains even lower than Everest, which is I am a person who likes to control things. I like to manage things. That's part of why I'm a mountain guide. But nature will never allow me full control. You know, I'm always at the mercy of nature. And so I have to relinquish my desire to control things because I can't. And then I'm also forced to stop distracting myself from myself, because we put so many distractions between us and ourselves in our daily life,

like we all do in so many ways. And when you're in the really high mountains for a really long time walking uphill slowly, you can't avoid it. Like you could avoid it for a little while. I'm guessing it's a somewhat like silent meditation in that way. Like you can probably distract yourself

from yourself for a bit of that, but at some point you're gonna just be there with yourself. And there's something, I don't know, the death zone accelerates that experience too. And it might just be hypoxia and like the lack of oxygen to your brain, but it is a pretty special experience. Okay, I wanna get into this idea of facing yourself because I guess

for a lay person like me who's never summited Mount Everest six times. As normal, like well-adjusted healthy people don't do that. So thank God you haven't because you know there should only be one of us doing that crazy banana stuff. Well I wonder because you talk a lot about, I've followed you ever since we met years ago and I've read your book, it's amazing. I've watched lots of videos about your life and I'm kind of impressed and enthralled and fascinated

by this idea of the focus and the drive that has needed to be very present, omnipresent in a way in your life to be able to sustain and accomplish what you've accomplished on Mount Everest and beyond. I mean, you're not just an Everest climber. You do a lot of things, you run now, but that extreme focus you've had,

there's a part of me that relates a lot to it because I needed it as a soccer player. part of me that relates a lot to it because I needed it as a soccer player. And in a way, that focus was a leaving of myself. And so I wonder if there is a deeper level, even though it's boring, even though it might be this silent, like this meditative expression, step after step, slowly up a hill. Is it also a way to avoid yourself in a way? Yeah, I mean, my personal experience and interaction with what, especially summiting mountains, because like summit is not guaranteed, but from my journey, summiting Everest, every time I did summit Everest, I was lauded and celebrated and clapped for. It became this place to go where I could be really

celebrated and feel like I was enough. I could have proven it by, look, I did this amazing thing. It was in so many ways running away. I always think about it now in this perspective of imagine if going to the death zone and exposing yourself to some of the harshest environments possible and exposing yourself to not theoretical death,

but a real possibility of death, what could be going on inside of you that that feels like a safe place to be and that feels like where you should be? And for me, that's what it was. It felt safer than what was inside of me. It felt, and I had this feeling of like, the worst thing that can happen

when I'm climbing is I'll die. And the worst thing that can happen if I sort of just stuck with myself feels far worse, like rejection and, you know, all of this other deeper stuff. So for sure, for me, climbing Everest was running away. It was an escapism and it was so big and so shiny and so much more interesting than who I really am that people wouldn't even look at who I really might be. They would just look at this beautiful, big, shiny mountain,

and then they would clap for me. And I could go back into my, like, hidey hole of shame and feel guilty that they clapped for me because I knew what was really going on for me. And my process has really evolved to now it's really a different experience for me. It's a really present experience where I'm not quite running away in the same way. But if I'm very honest, yeah, I was using it to, you know, hide, hide myself.

I have to say, when I got your book, I remember meeting you at the photo shoot and thinking you were wonderful. But I told Abby, I'm going to read this book, but there can't be anyone that I would relate to less. On the face of the earth. And then there was this in the first, you know, somebody who's constantly climbing Mount Everest just felt like a bridge too far for me to relate to. I don't get her. That sounds fun. We're not friends. But no, not friends, but just like I wouldn't relate to your.

And then there was this part in your first chapter that said, you climb mountains over and over again to see if you'll finally feel good enough. And then I was like, oh, we're the same person. I just climb mountains that are internal, no one will ever see. But I'm constantly trying to do the thing to become good enough too, so that there'll

be some moment where somebody says, yeah, you did it. You are good. You are worthy. What is it? It was amazing for me to read about your childhood. So Abby has gotten us to the top of the mountain. Tell us what is the thing that you're running from. What is this unworthiness? Where does it come from?

You know, raise your hand if it came from your childhood, but like, what's your version? Yeah, you know, I used to joke when people said, like, what makes a good high-altitude climber? I would say a deep sense of self-hatred and a belief that you deserve to suffer. And I wasn't joking, of course. I was like, that's kind of why I'm there, right?

That's what I'm doing. I'm punishing myself because I deserve it. And so I also sort of wondered, looking at my peers, like, are they feeling the same thing? And I can't answer for them. But for me, I was born into a family where my origin question was, do I belong and am I wanted? And I had a really challenging relationship with my mother, particularly. And it created some really confusing relationship dynamics for me because my mother really needed the full

and complete love of my father only for herself and my parents were married to each other. And so if my father loved me, I would be punished by her. And she really couldn't love me because there was something just innate, I think, in who I was as a person upon my birth. You know, I immediately, and I've thought a lot about this idea of like, becoming a parent really divides you and ideally, you know, adds to you as well. And it was like

it just divided and it was a zero sum game for her. And she was dealing with and is dealing with, you know, a lot of undiagnosed mental health issues and addiction issues. And it's rough, because I have also a confusing relationship with the addiction side of it, because my mom used pot and was, you know, a really compulsive pot smoker. And I've had this hard time in my adult life talking about that as something that was harmful to me,

because so many children grow up in homes with really destructive alcoholism or other addiction. And the immediate reaction is sort of like, I wish my parents were stoners, that would have been lovely. And I'm like, there's nothing lovely about it. You know, my mom was, and it doesn't really matter what the thing is. I think children just want to know that there's not this thing that's far more important than them. And there was this thing that was far more important than me and it was omnipresent and always in my face. And so that was my sort of like origin question

and do I belong, am I wanted? And I began my life with that question. And luckily for me, I had this really warm and loving father but he was also really enabling a toxic, toxic mother. And so I had this little island of somebody saying, you could do, I remember being three years old and my dad saying, you can do anything you want to do. Like you are amazing and you can do anything,

like especially you. And that was just this like salve to my little tiny heart because the other really loud voice and most dominant voice in my mind said, you can't do anything. You're worthless. You're a liar. You're destructive. You don't belong here. I can't wait to get rid of you. And I then, you know, continued growing and had some confusing ideas about where I fit in and how to get the attention that I so deeply craved and really, you know, I don't know, I can't say unfortunately,

because I believe what happens sort of prepares us for what's coming. But when I was 11 years old, I was, I don't know how to say this, it's a hard thing to say because I can't say like I got into a relationship. I was brought into a relationship with an adult man who was a police officer and a teacher in my school. And he was 26 and he started a predatory relationship with me, which ultimately led to my parents being arrested and me going to live in a foster home.

And my belief that I was being saved and that he loved me and was in love with me and we were gonna run away together and be together. And instead, that situation created a really intense and permanent fissure with my family of origin because I betrayed them. And ultimately, I went back to be with them. But I never was a member of the family again.

And so I now started my life in that precipice of already confusing time when you're becoming a woman. I started with a really confusing sense of my relationship with women, especially women in power and control, like my mother, and a really confusing sense of my relationship with men and men in control, and a very confusing idea

about the difference between being accepted and being desired. And I spent most of the rest of my adult life seeking to be desired and creating destructive dynamics of my own and replicating that origin dynamic where I'm competing with women and I'm putting myself in a position to be desired by the men in power, hoping that they will take me up,

bring me up, save me, take me out of where I am. And, you know, it just created so many problems. And then I created so many more problems out of that. And it took a really long time. And still it's happening now, you know, for me to actually be able to like, unwind that ball of yarn.

That was so beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel so impressed by your capability and willingness to want to be kind of open and vulnerable about this because so few people are, especially those who are that have the spotlight shining on them. So like good on you. And I hope that like having written this book and getting like super honest about this stuff.

And then also, it sounds like you've done quite a bit of analysis and exploration into yourself around this. How has that process been? Has it been linear? Has Everest been the greatest teacher for you? Or have you been using therapists? Or like, what has been the process by which you've gotten to this point? Because, gosh, this is incredible. to this point because gosh, this is incredible. And tell us about, you get to the top of the mountain and you're like, that wasn't good enough. Yeah. Is it, cause there's no there there

at the summit of anything. And so then you're like, oh, are you always just trying to earn your mom's approval? And does the fact that your dad say to you, you can do anything, fuck you up the fact that your dad say to you, you can do anything, fuck you up as much as your mom saying to you, you can't do anything. Because what I want is a parent just to say,

you actually don't have to do much and we love you. Right? Like, cause someone says you can do anything, makes you feel like you have to spend your whole life proving them right by doing these ridiculous things. Mm-hmm. It's this complete lack of unconditionality. Yes!

I never experienced unconditionality. And so everything felt conditional. And so you could probably, like, I'm an amateur untrained psychologist, but I bet a trained one might say, you were pursuing a path with conditional appreciation and accolades of if you get to the summit, then you can be celebrated. There is also no unconditionality.

And it's not that that's safe, but it's what you're used to. And of course, because it is what I'm used to with this really confusing way of experiencing it, I'm going to get to the summit and it's not going to feel like enough. And it's also like this really silly idea that I could somehow, and I think of it as so silly now because it's like seeing a mirage when suddenly you're like, oh, yeah, okay, now I can see what that is. I can't believe I for so long couldn't see what that was.

But I truly, genuinely believed. If I can get to the summit, I honestly, I first thought if I can become a mountain guide, then everybody will respect me and I will have power. And if I can become a mountain guide, then everybody will respect me and I will have power. And then I like really quickly realized that that meant nothing. And actually most people were like, she's 120 pounds and five, three and 21. I don't respect her at all.

She's not even a mountain guide. So then I was like fighting to belong in this place where I was really different from my, you know, six foot tall, very masculine peers who were also mountaineers. And so then I had to like aim higher, you know, and then if I get to the summit of Everest, then I will be deserving and people will say, you have done it, you've done enough. And of course, that wasn't enough. And so then I'm going to do it in this way that like nearly no one has done. You know, at that point, when I was pursuing this, only three women in the world in history had gone to the summit of Everest

without supplemental oxygen. And I sort of like naively stated, no, this is what I'm gonna do. And again, it's that confusing question. Like I've been able to will my way through nearly every situation, like with incredible consequences, of course, as anybody who's ever tried to prove their way

into belonging knows that that comes with quite a lot of wonderful baggage that you eventually do have to unpack. But I thought, okay, I'll just prove my way into belonging. I'll just arrive there and then I will know. And then I can rest with this ease. Because the thing I didn't, I couldn't have named it, but that's what I was seeking was ease. It was just the ability to exist and not feel like I needed to either fight or achieve to be worthy of being. And, you know, of course, what ended up being the truth is that I couldn't have done this really big and hard thing until I came into my own body of belonging and I formed the beginning of a process of unconditionality with myself. And I realized like one of the

saddest parts of my journey was realizing that I hadn't given myself any unconditionality. I had, you know, Deb's voice was the loudest voice in my mind, which was constantly saying, you are not only not good, you are bad. You are undeserving. How dare you be so entitled to think that you deserve anything. And I wasn't even allowing myself to believe anything different. And so of course, it was going to feel empty. And of course, I was going to not be able to really, you know, even experience life in so many ways. Like, my life gets pretty dark for a number of years there, where, you know, from the outside perspective, if you followed my career at

that time, you probably would have thought things were going great. You know, I was getting to the Summit of Everest every single year. I had gotten married to this gorgeous professional athlete and had like the white picket fence and I was getting a lot of media coverage and I had a lot of sponsors and a lot of external success and I was really just scrubbing my life of color. And I was moving into the gray, the monotone and the true belief that it doesn't matter because I don't matter.

So, okay, I relate to this so much. And the desire for ease is exactly, it's like a better way that I've heard describe what I was searching for. And I also, and I'm curious if you feel the same way, like I also had this like little chip on my shoulder throughout my life as an athlete, that whatever kind of difficulty or relational problems that I had with my parents,

I also told myself the story that because of this desire to get their love and attention, that is why I have achieved all this greatness. That is the sole reason. And I remember trying to explain this to Glennon one day, I don't know if I would have turned into the athlete that I was, had I not had that friction or tension there as a person.

And she just said something that, I mean, it dropped me to my knees. She said, I wonder how much more you could have done with love and acceptance and worthiness. And I think about that, I swear, on a daily basis. And I wonder, the pursuit of it all, for me, was very externalized. And sounds like this is true for you too. And until you were able to get right

and actually start turning that towards yourself, when did that start happening for you? When did you start realizing, I need to actually do this for me. I need to work on me. I need to start feeling worthiness inside of me in order to actually do the thing that I'm trying to do. You know, I think that there was this little seed in me

from the beginning that sort of knew, right? That this, none of what I truly wanted, which I also couldn't have articulated, was ease. I didn't, because until you feel ease, I don't think you know that that's something you can feel. It's like, I felt like it was a lie. Like, who has ease? That's not really a thing.

But I had this little seed that knew, I'm gonna kind of have to stop running away. I'm going to have to stop hiding behind the mountain at some point here, I really am. But it also was really easy to hide behind the mountain and hide behind my relationships and hide behind the illusion of success. And I don't say that, you know, to seek people saying like,

you were summiting Everest multiple times, like you had actual success. Cause again, let's like realize that didn't feel like success to me. Again, it was really wrapped up in conditionality, my worth being in my achievements. And I think a lot of introspective athletes can relate to that on some level,

because it's terrifying, because if your worth is actually wrapped up in your achievements, that means that you can lose it. And that is a really scary feeling. And I had had sort of the converse feeling about everything. Like I'd had the converse feeling about my own survival, which was that I watched my peers in my young adult life in my twenties be terrified of failing

because what would they do if, you know, X, they lost their job or this didn't work out. And I sort of had this mindset of I came from zero. You know, I moved out of my parents' house with truly nothing but 17, and everything I had around me, I built. And so if it all disappeared, I knew I could build it again. But then also that idea of like,

it can be the accolades, the praise can be taken away from me. And on my journey, as I sort of like was in this, a bit of a ping pong game between external people saying like, you're great, you're, however they were describing what I was doing as good and this internal feeling. And also like, you know, I was participating in what I now call low character choices, you know,

where I was replicating patterns that had worked really well in the past that were pretty toxic. You know, I was using people in my life to get ahead. I was not considering humanity didn't feel like a thing, honestly. And that's one of those, I think, not often talked about parts of being somebody who doesn't feel a sense of worth. You kind of don't see other people's worth either.

And you can accidentally treat them pretty terribly without feeling too bad about it in the moment. And I was doing that for sure. I felt like they should just get over it, everyone should just get over it. But then some really bad things started happening. And I mean, I say this as a person who came from like an emotionally abusive childhood and sexual abuse and grooming as a child. So now when I'm saying some really bad things started happening in my space, in my safe,

safe place of the mountains, friends started dying in accidents in the mountain. I experienced a front row seat to two mass casualty incidents on Everest where the loss of life was, you know, one accident, 16 people were killed at one time. And you really aren't meant to see death on that scale. No one is, I don't think. It's really intense. And it wasn't just death, because I wasn't afraid of my death. You know, I really wasn't.

I was sort of ambivalent in many ways about it. And I was much more afraid of my life, actually. Ooh. But I had this thought, which is really self-centered, and it's kind of embarrassing to admit at this moment. But I had this thought when I went through multiple really horrific accidents in the mountains where a lot of people died. And I had this thought, like, what if it's my fault? What if me not being a good person is causing all these people to die?

Because I'm here and I'm acting not in a high character way, not with wholeness, not with respect for anybody and not with respect for myself. And that thought was incredibly insidious, it's also toxic, but incredibly insidious because the blame that I had for something that was not my responsibility really started to corrode my sense of belief that I should exist in the world.

And I think for me, I had to really go to some of the darkest places where I was pretty certain that if I didn't live anymore, it would take people a really long time to notice that because I had isolated myself so much. And then when I imagined, you know, because as a professional athlete in a risky environment, you have peers who die and you read their eulogies and you see the outpouring

of love, memories, and support. And I had this thought one day where I was like, my funeral would be empty. Like nobody would come. And my parents wouldn't come. They don't know me at all. They don't love me. I don't have any friends.

I haven't let anybody get close to me. And fans aren't going to come to your funeral. And it was a really incredibly dark place. And somehow in that dark place, I also was able to lean really gently into this idea of what I get in the mountains is a sense of autonomy, is a sense of like do-it-yourselfness. You know, like you walk yourself up to that point. Nobody walks there for you. And I have self-belief. I know I can do really, you know, nearly impossible things. I really can. And I have to believe that I'm deserving. And so how am I gonna shift this idea of deservingness? And I was really at a breaking point

and I ended up having this wild experience and it's, if you're reading the book expecting this to be like an adventure story about Everest, it's like most certainly just not an adventure story about Everest, it's like a really human story and it is on Everest sometimes and story. And it is on Everest sometimes, and a lot of it is on Everest, but it's really the story of my journey

in all the ways that we're talking about here. And then you get towards the last third of the book, and suddenly we take a pretty hard turn into a monastery in Tibet that I walk into. And I'm at like the darkest place really in my adult life. And I have been, you know, unfaithful to my husband and he doesn't know it. And I'm punishing him in all the worst ways. And I'm punishing myself in all the worst ways as well. And I enter this monastery

and there's a painting, a really, really old painting of a really particular form of a Buddha. And it is a glowing painting in this monastery. It's truly glowing. It's like casting light out of it. And it feels warm. And monasteries in Tibet are really like incredibly damp and cold and dark spaces. And I have this thought about like this little light inside of this really dark space. And I wonder, is this calling me?

And I go towards this painting and I feel like the painting is talking to me. And I'm sure that this is like, I'm at the very precipice of a psychological break of some sort, because I feel that this painting is talking to me. And I also think there's some divinity in it because I come to learn that this painting, this particular bodhisattva, this Buddha is the mother of liberation. It's a female Buddha

and she's considered the mother Buddha. And she's called the green Tara. And if you know who the green Tara is, the belief is that she has sought you out. And I learned this slowly over the next days. And I have this wild, like, dream wake experience where the green Tara comes to me and she opens me up and she finds all this darkness inside of me. And I feel really relieved to know that what I think is in me is actually in me. It's dark. And then she just pulls it out and it turns to light and she lets it go.

And I wake up from this day, and I know it's unsatisfying if you're suffering to hear that it's like this flip of a switch because it wasn't quite so exacting, but it really also was. I woke up the next day and the world had like a little bit of color for the first time. And I had this idea that I can let my darkness out.

And I began that process. And if you would have asked me right around that era, I would have probably told you like, no, I'm good now. I let the darkness out. But now, looking back, that was 10 years ago. And I can tell you, I have to say goodbye to that darkness fairly regularly. And sometimes I actually have to call it back,

just so I can look at it again and appreciate its presence and know that it was there and let it go again and again and again. And once I did that, the whole purpose, my whole purpose of trying to chase this achievement completely changed. And it didn't matter if I got to the summit of Everest or not. It didn't matter if I got divorced or not. It didn't matter if any external celebration of who I was, none of it would change this

really innate enoughness that I could see, but was also the tiniest little seed. Like it had to be nurtured to grow. And so I began the process of starting to grow that and I'm watering it daily. You know, it's a forever process. I'm sure it's, it's unsatisfyingly not a summit climb healing isn't. It's like a forever journey where you never get to the summit. And I'm just on that forever journey. without getting arrested. Is he serious? Is he serious? No.

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Buy your online Go pass ahead of the show at gotransit.com slash tickets. ["The Way It Goes"] Glennon's crying over here, which is a rarity on the pod. So I think you just said so many things that have related so deeply to me. I think that being a professional athlete, there's a massive cost. And I think that narcissism and self absorptionabsorption and the inferiority complexes that all of us have to embody in a way in order to continue for you, like literally putting yourself in harm's way over and over and over again to prove this thing, this worthiness thing, this enoughness.

And, you know, just hearing that story, I just feel so struck by your candor and also curious to dig a little bit more into why you named your book enough and have you been able to come to a good definition of what that means to you now. And are you still scared of yourself? When you said you're scared of life, like what is your life? If it's not the Everest climbs and it's not the races, Abby told me now you run like 400,000 miles a day. I don't understand what's going on.

The ultra-marathoning, yeah. But if there's not the there there, what is it that still compels you to do those things? And where do you get, we're all trying to figure out, if we know, I think a lot of us have figured out, I was sitting at a table recently with all these people who have scaled the equivalent of the Everest in the business world or the whatever world,

all these very fancy, famous business people. And I was listening to them talk and I just had this moment where I thought every single one of these people is just trying to prove to their mom or their dad that they're good enough. These people are all 50 years old and they're not saying that. They think it's the next summit.

But I know these people and I know they're all just trying to get the moment where their mom says, I was wrong. You're good enough. Where does that come from now? Where do you find your satisfaction? That idea though, I constantly am sort of investigating it still in my mind. This idea of, and even with this book, I have to tell you, it's really unsatisfying to me to find out that I hoped that I would hand this book to my mother and she would read

it and she would say, oh, I see you. And I would hug her and she would hug me. And like, I won't tell you what did happen, but it wasn't that. I can guess. At all. And yeah, so it's this idea that we think we can contort ourselves into belonging. Again, like we can prove our way

into being worthy of existing. And I'm not immune from it at all, right? And I'm launching into a really scary process for me and my relationship to achievement because I love writing. Writing saved my life when I was 12 years old. It really truly saved my life. And my writing has never been in the world

because that's not how I have been known. It's been really personal. And now I've chosen to put it into the world. And I've also chosen to be searingly honest and share all of the stuff that I feel really compelled to tell people who have looked at somebody that they admired and thought, wow, they have everything. I've really always wanted to be like, wait, no, there's more.

There's so much more I need to let you know. And it took me 304 pages to be able to do that. And so I don't want to reenter this relationship with, again, that achievement thing of like, what if the world hates my book? Because for sure there are a lot of Everest junkies that are going to get my book today and be like, yes, I can't wait to read about Everest and get to chapter two and be like,

this is not a book about Everest and chuck it in the garbage can or wherever they do with it. And that's scary because that's rejection. And I'm so innately wired to be afraid of rejection. But I also, I've gone through again, this really beautiful process of understanding and the book again, with like bringing the book to my mother and finding out that there is actually nothing I can do to make myself acceptable to anybody else and nor should I try. And so for me, like I really love the word enough

because it means something, it means a million things. It means so much to so many different people in so many different contexts. And for me, it really is this idea of I have done enough. I have done enough, I don't need to do more. And I've also had enough. I have tolerated enough. I don't need to do more. And I've also had enough. You know, I have tolerated enough. I am not going to give a pass to the people who have acted unacceptably anymore. And I am enough. And it's really tied together. And I don't think I could get to a place of knowing I am enough until I passed through

this, I've done enough, and I've had enough to be this. I am enough. And my relationship to achievement, you know, is evolving, but it is so much softer now. Like the running, I used to run because I really disliked running and I felt this like slight mental strength where I knew I was doing something I hated, but I was able to do it. But that's also like a really toxic way to exist.

I mean, I'm sorry, you might relate. What do you think that's about? Like, what is this about? Like this idea, cause I get it. Like the more discomfort I can withstand than the more self-esteem that I have about myself. And it gives me a sense of worthiness. What the fuck is that?

What is that, Melissa, in us? It's banana's idea that we have to suffer to prove that we're tough and can survive. And I mean, I do, I have to confront it all the time. Of like, if I suffer, like again, there is no award for being the person who suffered the most silently for your entire life. And I could justify it, right?

And you could too. You could easily say, no, no, no, I'm not punishing myself mentally because deep down I have a sense of self-hatred and a deep belief that I deserve to suffer. I think that's what it is. I mean, I think sadly that is what it is. There's something in you that is saying you deserve pain, you deserve punishment. And when you get to feel that,

you're like, oh, I'm getting what I deserve. It's scratching the itch. My relationship genuinely has changed though, because I now engage with things like that really differently and really from a place of curiosity about what's possible for me. And it isn't quite as attached to this, like, you can do anything, which I really appreciate

that perspective, Glennon, of, like, that's just as toxic in so many ways. I just feel this sense of, like, on my best days, I feel this sense of deserving that I can exist in the world. And part of it has come from this process that I started with the green Tara. And immediately after I had that experience, I went back to Everest for my final time and my final attempt to try to climb without supplemental oxygen. And I had been trying really hard to do this really hard thing all by myself.

It was essential to me that I accepted no assistance so that nobody could look at my accomplishment and say it was somebody else's. Well, of course, there's this idea of like if we could do it ourselves, we would have by now, because we can do amazing things. We mostly can't do everything by ourselves. We need a community. And I started to accept that. And I climbed with, at that time, my boyfriend and I, instead of sort of like resisting his, because I knew like he's going to receive the accolades of this climb. People are going to say he did it for her, even though everything

I know about this is like, that's not the case. And I just sat with that and let it go. And just said, OK. And then what? And the dead honest truth was, I could not have done it without him. I had to fully open myself up and be willing to receive support. And that was what allowed me ultimately to feel

like I was worthy of supporting. And it didn't change immediately, but that started this process of getting to let help in, because I deserve to be helped. People want to show up for me. I'm not forcing them to do that. I'm not holding them against their will. Like, people aren't impressed by my stoicism, you know? People are impressed by my softness. And I now have a six-year-old daughter, and she is one million years old.

Like, she's the oldest soul. She's the leader of the family. Last night, I was getting ready for a book event, and I was, I tried on, like, three dresses, and she came over and she Sat next to me and she said mama it doesn't matter what you're wearing people are there to hear your words and I Sort of like touch my heart and I then said well, that's true if I were a man, but I'm a woman

So I have to like actually also look good but she has this like beautiful way of seeing the world and I get these chances to, I mean, it's terrible like the re-parenting yourself through your own children. It's such an unfortunate thing for our children that we do that. But it's also like this incredible thing and her wisdom has been such an incredible soothingness to me because I want her to accept help. And I want her to know what unconditionality is.

You know, and at Six, we're constantly talking about, do we get in trouble for making mistakes? No, we do not. We're never punished for accidents. You know, accidents are opportunities to learn. They're not opportunities to get in trouble. And she takes that in and like, I say it to her and I said something to her the other day and I was like, it must be a terrible experience for my daughter to have like a mother who thinks like

a motivational speaker to you in the car while we're driving to school. And I'm like, baby, you can do anything because you can do anything you want and you know what you want. Your internal voice is the loudest voice. And then she's like, okay, I just want to go down the slide. You know, it's like, it must be terrible for her. But I can listen to those words I'm saying to her and say them to myself at the same time and really remind myself to hear them. And I have a two-year-old son who lives his life

narrating his feelings in the world. Like he walks into a room and he will just come over and say, mama, I excited. Or he'll say, like, mama, I feel a little sad. And then he'll say, mama, I'm not sad anymore. And I'm like, you know, gosh, the universe sure does give you just what you need. And this is this incredible reminder that softness and openness and willingness to not know the answer and to like stumble my way through sometimes is actually what I want them to see, but I just want to say like a couple of things before we sign off. One, and I say this in total seriousness, the professional athlete part of me has so

much respect for you. I marvel at what you've been able to do. And also in the same breath, the healed professional athlete in me also wants to say the path you're walking right now is so much more beautiful to me and so much more awe inspiring because I know how hard it is and I know what kind of effort, you know, it's like you can climb fucking Mount Everest. You've proven that you've done it without supplemental oxygen. That's difficult. That is really, really difficult. I think for us, the other side of that coin is harder because that's the

thing that we went toward. And the thing that we avoid is this idea of calm, slow, ease, rest, don't have to strive for love, for achievement. I mean, I spent two years choosing not to suffer in discomfort physically in order to learn for myself that I could actually establish self-esteem within me without that. And I disrespect you so much for your generosity with your time. And also you've been doing this, fighting this world, fighting the ground underneath

your feet and I don't know, I just find you so warm and lovely and like all of us have darkness in us and yeah, just to bring it back to the beginning, I mean, what is your Mount Everest right now? I mean, I honestly think that continuing to know and really have it be a thread of who I am, that you can be flawed and make mistakes and make all the future mistakes I'm gonna make and still continue to be really deserving. You know, this will be my forever mountain.

And whatever I sort of like do athletically in the in-between is just for fun now in a lot of ways, you know, like it's just to like, I like being outside. Mountains are pretty. I like feeling strong in my body, but my forever unsatisfyingly, but again, like my what's next, because I get asked that constantly from people, you know, I'm in what's next, I'm doing it, I'm

trying to do this work, I'm trying to continue to remember that like the things that I thought were scars are scabs and they're gonna maybe bleed again and I'm gonna have to heal them again and you know, that's, that is what's next. That's what's for me now. And that's, that's my work in the world. And that's my work with the book. And you know, I want to be seen and be really scared of being seen.

And I said this, this week, somebody said like, how are you feeling? And I said, I'm terrified. And they said, don't be. And I was like, no, no, no. Like that's a perfectly appropriate emotional response response and I'm trying to practice having those being like stoic and like oh no I'm so it's cool yeah it's cool I'm fine like we're just going on TV and talking and everybody wants to talk about Everest and

I want to talk about my feelings so that's what I'm doing now. The night Avy and I first met she was freaking out she's retiring and she's going through a lot of addiction stuff and it had just become public and she was, I didn't know any of this, okay. Cause I didn't watch a lot of ESPN or wherever these things are discussed. And she said something like, you know,

I was thinking about writing my real story in my memoir, but like the people want the shiny Captain American story. And I was like, oh, you're not, if you're leaving that shiny Captain American world, then you have to get real because in the real world, we like real people. Yeah.

And so that's why I loved your book. I didn't understand that you were gonna be a real person. I thought it was gonna be a shiny hero story. Oh no, it's far from it. But it is a hero story. Yeah it is. This is a hero story. This is the real story that all of us need to hear.

Melissa, you're awesome. Thank you for coming on. We can do hard things. Pod Squad, we will see you next time. Also, you don't need another job, but I'm just saying you need some kind of show or something. You are freaking good at this. You're very good. Thank you. You're both so incredibly kind. And I know you have to go, but thank you so much for taking the time.

And my work is to deconstruct the idea that this is an Everest story. And so getting to have your voice helping is really helpful. Because I want people to be shocked and the Everest people to be annoyed at the book. Like that's my main goal is that they're like very disappointed that it's not about how to get to the summit tactically. Yeah. Well, I think that's what we did that hour. I mean, the point is, is you got there spiritually.

You got there. Yeah, far, far more important. Yeah. And I just, you're fucking awesome. I will follow you wherever you go. Thank you for doing this for real. No, thank you. I appreciate you both so much and good luck, you know, with your journey you guys are on right now.

I know it's so wild and so much and I hope you get lots of rest and quiet time and de-sensory everything in this process, but everybody loves you. And I think what you said just is, I want to tell you this idea of when your words resonate with other people, that is because you're being your true self. And I think for you both, I hope that when you're falling asleep at night

and the audience feels big and wild and everything else, just remember that. You're narrating all of our internal thoughts, and that's so incredibly powerful. And I, for one one deeply appreciate you both. Bye Pod Squad, we love you! If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us if you'd be willing to take 30 seconds to do these three things first Can you please follow or subscribe to we can do hard things?

Following the pod helps you because you'll never miss an episode and it helps us because you'll never miss an episode To do this just go to the we can do hard things show page on Apple podcasts Spotify Odyssey or wherever you listen to podcasts and then just tap the plus sign in the upper right-hand corner or click on follow. This is the most important thing for the pod. While you're there, if you'd be willing to give us a five-star rating and review and share an episode you loved with a friend, we would be so grateful. We appreciate you very much. We Can Do Hard Things is created and hosted by Glennon Doyle,

Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle in partnership with Odyssey. Our executive producer is Jenna Wise-Burman, and this show is produced by Lauren Lograsso, Alison Schott, and Bill Schultz.