We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - My Hardest Thing

Episode Date: February 15, 2022

Today, Glennon shares about her recent eating disorder relapse.   If talk about eating disorders and mental illness helps: Listen today.   If it triggers: Skip today.     CW // eating disorders 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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Hi. Hi, my sister. So if that welcome sounded a little bit dramatic and dready, it's because we are going to talk about something pretty serious today. And that topic, I actually haven't even spoken directly to sister about any of this. Abby and I, we have been in light conversation about this situation for the last couple of weeks at least that's what we do here. Because we talk about things that are important even when they're hard or especially when they're hard. So what we're going to do is talk about the fact that over the holidays, I had a eating disorder relapse. days, I had a eating disorder relapse. And that sounds way too simple for what happened and has been happening, but I only have words to describe things so I can only use words.

So that is what happened over the holidays. And so today I'm going to talk about it here with all of you. And I'm going to just try to use words which is all I have to describe what I've been going through for the last bit of time. Well, before you get into it, tell us how you're feeling right now? I feel a little bit, I feel nervous to represent things accurately. I feel a big responsibility to speak about something that so many people suffer from. I feel scared because whenever anyone, anyone, I don't think it's just in the public, anyone speaks about what the world would consider a failure. It feels like you're making yourself vulnerable to people discounting you. So I feel that that's a risk, but I also feel like a little bit grounded in a way I never feel as grounded on this podcast because I know how to do this.

I know how to tell the real truth of things even in scary ways. That's how I've survived. I feel like I know what I'm doing, but I also know that it's risky. Yeah. Well, it feels like you're just opening yourself up, which I just find so freaking beautiful. And it's just, I can't. How do you feel? You're nervous. You've been nervous. You've asked me a million times. Are you sure you want to do this? Well, you know, you're twiddling your thumbs. I want to protect you.

And I also, I think you're perfect. And I know that we are all imperfect. I truly do. And yet I still want to make sure that you understand that like, no matter what, like, we are right or die. And this is why, like, this is a reason why I love you, not something to not love about you. And I think that I just, I find you to be, this isn't courage or bravery. Like, this is just like, this is exactly what I feel like I was made for. Such a time as this. And you are doing great. And it's, you know, what you said this morning when we were just leaving the bathroom to come

down here to do this and you asked me one more time, are you sure that you want to do this? And I said, well, one of the reasons is because of my unshakable belief, whether this is true or not, that I'm not about to explain to everybody why I'm fucked up. Like I really truly believe that we all have these weird, swirly, dark maybe spark whatever this weird wild self inside. And that one of my jobs, gifts, whatever, is to just really talk about that. But I feel like there's part of what I'm revealing that is true about all of us, regardless of how it manifests in my life. And this part feels dramatic, like it feels dramatic to say, because, you know, the whole word relapses

dramatic. But if something is true, it's true all the way through. And if we say we want to show up with our mess and that we're still worthy of love, it's true whether we're talking about our house as a mess or we're still worthy of love. It's true whether we're talking about our house as a mess or we're talking about where our insides are mess or we're talking about, you know, it's got to be true all the way through. It doesn't make anything about who you've become less valid. It actually proves that you truly believe in what you say that you're willing to show up like this. So I do. I had this feeling this morning of this is going to sound so weird. This isn't the right word, but pride or I feel like I have been hiding again, this like part of myself. And I don't feel ashamed of this. I

don't feel ashamed of this weird side of myself. But I've been because of the hiding, I have been acting like I do. So in talking about it, I feel like this part of myself is like a friend and I'm like standing up for her right now. It's weird as that sounds. I'm like, no, no, you can speak. Yeah, you're allowed to show up at the table. Like we're not hiding you when the people come visit. That's right. That's right. Because this part of you that makes your life so hard, sometimes, is also the part that, in a swirly different way, that people celebrate this weirdness that shows up in different ways.

So we don't get to just love her when she's shiny and whatever. Like, we love ourselves even when we're hurting. Maybe more importantly than. Right? So that's what we're doing today. And the why is the why we're doing it is for all of the reasons we just talked about. It's not it's interesting because my friend Nadia Bulls Weber says we don't write from our wounds, our open wounds we write from our scars, meaning we wait until pain has turned into wisdom, because otherwise things just seem like a cry for help

instead of an act of service or a piece of art. And I think that all rules, you have to learn them and know them and get them in your bones so that you know when to break them. And you also have to have enough, I guess success at recovery and humaning behind you so that when you're in the middle of the open wound, you still have a grounding beneath you. Like I know how to do this. I am someone who's been to rock bottom a few times in terms of alcoholism, in terms of mental illness, in terms of all of it eating disorder stuff.

And I kind of, although I feel very scared because when you're in the middle of it, you kind of forget that you're going to get out, I can look back on my life and know that I will, because of, because I have, because I trust myself. So I am speaking from an open wound, but also one that I've seen scar over so many times that I trust the process enough to speak right now. I'm also with my wife and my sister, I'm with my two people that I trust most in the world,

and I'm speaking to this pod squad that I really do trust. I feel safe here. In a way, I don't feel on social media or whatever. Also, I have been thinking for the last few days about how mental illness is discussed in the world and it just always feels like it's being discussed by someone who has it all figured out

or who is talking about it, but not from it. Wow. Which I don't know. There's something weird about it. And I get it because when someone is in the middle of a low or when someone who struggles with mental illness, you know, I used to use the metaphor of being swallowed by the whale. Like when you're in the whale, you can't really speak clearly. So how are people going to speak from it?

But it still makes you feel all the time like people are talking at you that don't even understand it. Like it's always like, here's your ten steps on mental, but it's not, you're not hearing from somebody in it, which is how you feel less alone. And it's like before or after, but not the middle, like you never hear from the middle. So I think there's something important to speaking in the middle if it's possible. And then the how I'm going to do it is I am going to say whatever I want to say for the next hour. So I'm just going to tell the story of

the last month or so with words that are matches closely as possible to experience. I'm not going to worry about sounding crazy or triggering people. What I need you to do loves is if eating disorder talk, mental illness talk, all of this sort of traumatic talk is triggering to you. Please skip this. Okay. Because I'm not going to worry about it starting in a minute. Okay, so I need you to take care of yourself so that I don't have to take care of you for the next hour.

Okay. So does that sound okay? Sounds wonderful. I mean, how are you doing, Sissy? Do you feel nervy? I mean, I feel, I feel so many things. I feel curious. I feel sad. I feel proud of you.

I feel like unhelpful. I feel that, you know, it's wild because I first learned about this when right after we left from the holiday break and we had just been together for two weeks and I felt a little like, oh man, she was going through all of this and I was right there with her, but I was not right there with her at all. And so, I'm proud of you for doing this, and I'm going to support you for the next hour, and then all the hours after that. I'm Jonathan M. Hevar. I'm a podcast producer and someone who likes fancy things. But I grew up working class. 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. Shh. I was like, girl, we're not doing that anymore. Ha. You'll hear from people who told me awkward, embarrassing,

and strangely intimate things about 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.

Well, what? Okay, so looking back, I feel like, and you please tell me, because I'm not always good at when I'm in something I can't always remember what I was like before in anyway, but I do know that I remember At the beginning of COVID Which was a strange time for everybody and for us it was strange in the way that Untamed was like blowing up and I had 70,000 interviews a day and all of that. I do remember spending a lot of time talking about

having untamed myself in many, many ways in terms of sexuality and our family and marriage and gender stuff even and talking a lot about how frustrated I was that I still have not broken free from compulsive thinking about body and food. Right? So the reason I say that is because when I try to trace back this relapse, and I say, oh, it was two weeks ago or a month ago, I'm like, well, okay, we can trace the like getting weird, as we call it, like the slow fade into this.

I remember feeling compulsive thoughts come back right around a couple of years ago, because we would talk about it too, right? Yeah, I mean, I think that if you want to know like the logistics of it, it's like you were preparing so like, less we forget, you were about to go on a nationwide book tour. Okay, so it was before then.

And so it was before COVID hit, and oftentimes before you go on the book tour, there's a huge to-do, you know, like your whole team has planned an entire, for a whole year, this book tour. You have a whole situation of clothes. And so, you're gonna be on stage. You're gonna be on stage. And you are about to go talk about this art

that you've just created. It's now gonna go out into the world. So, when we talk about getting weird or getting weird again, I just want to talk about all of the contacts that was and is a part of those times when you start getting like we talk weird, but like you start to obsess, I think, a little bit about your body. Yeah, there's an element of, okay, things are about to be so out of control and I'm going to be so vulnerable Because people are going to be staring at me and I'm going to be on stages and I'm going to be talking about the

Chporing my heart out. There's a feeling of How can I what can I do to make myself in vulnerable? and I think that comes with a lot of like in my compulsive twisted thinking, well, I can make myself out like robot in terms of body, face, all of that. Like I can make myself completely unjuicy, like I can make myself completely unjuicy, unhuman, and human, because the way that a woman looks in the world is a vulnerability all the time, because anybody can say shit about whatever. And so when you're about to go out into the world and say things that are controversial in themselves,

and you know people are going to have a whole shit ton to say about what you're saying and who you are if you can control one part of it. They can't say this, they can't say I'm whatever so controlling your physicality that's interesting. Yeah that's true. And you were also about to un, you know, to deliver your this love story. So everything that was in the book, I don't know, I just think it's really important in terms of the context of it all. Like you are literally turning your insights out and letting people read your insights. Yeah. And when I look back on pictures of them, I was really fucking skinny. Like it was something when I look back on those pictures.

So interesting. Okay. So then that happens and then the tour gets canceled. And then we're home and then the pandemic happens, right? Yep. So you are right. I was probably already in those that way of thinking. For a few months before the pandemic. Yeah.

And also I would say for anybody, you know, there's an anxiety controlling. If you have some anxiety going into a big thing, working at sweating, working out, all of those things are anxiety. You feel like it's gonna take the edge off. If you just exhaust yourself, you exhaust the anxiety out.

So I was probably working out too much. Yeah. exhaust yourself. You exhaust the anxiety out. So I was probably working out too much. Yeah. So what I know is that at some point, the thinking, the overthinking about food and body just felt like it was getting more and more intense. The next marker I remember is the scale came back. I must have found a scale somewhere in our garage. Yeah, I don't know why I was even still not. But that's just like a marker for, you know, the scale came into our bathroom.

Over months and months, I just, you know, it was like I was, I'll just wave myself once a month then it was once a week, then it was once a day, then it was, you know, most recently it was like eight times a day, like every time I went into the bathroom, just like, to give you context, at the one point I remember being like, I'll just do this without my headband on. Like I'll just weigh myself without my headband,

like that kind of level of obsession. I just want to remind you that at the time too, we were trying to do things to keep ourselves busy during the pandemic. So I hired a trainer to come and train us on the driveway. Yeah. And so this is what I thought because at the time, we were having kind of open conversations about like, you know, I'm starting to obsess, you know, and I'm like, okay, I think that what we should do then is we should work out so that you Your body is strong so that you know that your body is strong, but I think that that was like gas The fire me. Yeah, and I knew that I mean I

Looked at that lady one day and was like I'm never coming back to the driveway. Yeah, like I don't like this Yes, isn't the right vibe for me and didn't come back So but that's what happens. You try all these things. You know, so I think that I did actually throw up a couple of times or maybe two or three times over those months. And then the two weeks did Abby know about that? No, okay. No. You did tell me. I did.

Yeah, you told me that you were getting weird and like there was just a couple of ice cream incidents. I did. Wow, good for me. Well, okay, so that and then write it Christmas. This Christmas? This Christmas, yeah. The, the family, the whole family was here,

and I think that, you know, we have had some family stuff come up over the last year. That has been mostly good in terms of like talking about things that our family hasn't talked about. Bringing up some old stuff, dynamics in our family that probably for sure originally contributed to an environment that would have been allowed to flourish. Right. So that stuff has been brought up, but I don't know, you know, people who are listening when you're dealing with stuff with your family of origin. It's like brought up and that's an amazing, ridiculous, Librave step that most people don't do at all is bring up dynamics that

may have been harmful in one way or another, especially in a family so full of love and so full of goodness. It's hard to bring up the stuff that wasn't good enough. But then there's this period where it's not, nothing's taken care of really. It's just like this weird time, this weird in between where the thing, the elephant in the room has been pointed out, but like it's still there.

The resolution. No one ever talks about that part of the elephant in the room. You're like, but now we just part of the elephant in the room. You're like, but now we just got a fucking elephant in the room. Like, that's how it feels. Not helpful. It's not like, well, it should be, it should be like, excusing the elephant from the room, but it's not.

It's just calling out the elephant in the room, but it's still trampling over all your shit. I mean, you know, shout trampling over all your shit. I mean, you know, shout out to all the family therapists. Is there, because I feel like that's a part you've missed. I know. How do you resolve the problem you've just pointed out? There's no elephant removal crew. So then there's the like, you know, the canaries in the coal mine or the, you whatever, the families who have the elephant pointer outer.

But then when you point it out, then you just feel like a jackass because then everybody's like, well, thanks a lot. Yeah, you pointed out the elephant, but now we're all staring at an elephant. So way to go, you know? So anyway, the context is that the Christmas happens and all of this is to lead up to the last week of Christmas, the last week of 2021 is that what it just was. I was throwing up every night. Right. So New Year's Day, you guys leave Sister, you and John leave it on New Year's Day. So you and the kids

in John left New Year's Day. Our friends, our dear friends, Katie and Cam texted us like a few hours after you left and we're like, we're in your town, can we come say hi? And like literally if there was anyone else, we would have pretended that we couldn't find our phones because we were like de-stressing and like getting the quiet house back, but it was Katie and Cam, so we were like, get over here. And so I had this moment because at this point, I'm still just keeping this all to myself. And that's a tricky place for me because I think I kind of know I'm keeping

a secret from myself. And that's how that's the my definition of my own sobriety. It's when I'm a break in sobriety is when I'm keeping a secret Even from myself That's that's it But that's even tricky for me Because so much of my life You know since I was 10 years old was kind of was Was this life of like eating and throwing up and whatever and so It kind of just feels like life

to me. I can very much switch back into like, oh, this is just what life is. This is how I can, some people go for walks, some people go to a therapist. It's a well-trot myself. A well-trot path for you. Yes. It's familiar. Yeah. But so Katie and Cam sat down and everybody, I think somebody said, well, what are your intentions for 2021? You know, their lesbians were lesbians. This is, you don't, you, there's no small talk. We get right into like our deepest, right? And it's 2022 incidentally. There's no demarcation, but intentions for 2022 is what you intended. Is that what I said? You said, but it's the groundhog year. So it's fun. Exactly. And so Abby said something and awesome and Cam said something and they all looked at me

and I had no, I had nothingness. I had nothing to say. I could not think of one true thing to come out of my mouth. And so I kind of panicked and just said something about work, which is I never ever. Anybody asked me about like, what is my work? Is not what I go to. But I had, and so I don't know how to explain why that was such a red flag to me other than, oh, I'm lying to myself. I have nowhere to start. That blankness, that nothingness, that looking at three people on my couch, who I trust,

you know, top 10 people in my life, the three of them were on that couch. And I had nothing, I had no there there anymore. Like, it was, it's the opposite of the there she is moment. It was like, where'd she go? Like, where am I? I have no, I have, I have lies blocking any truth, anything that I could say is bullshit, because the truest thing I know is I'm fucked again. And I'm not saying that. Why am I not saying that? So since the true thing I know is that I'm scared because I'm like back in this scary place, then why am I not saying that? I'm not saying that

because I am deliberately hiding. And that means I'm fucked. Not the fact that I'm throwing up again or whatever. It's the fact that I'm sitting here with these three people that I love and know and trust. And I'm not saying to them what my thing is. I get that completely because it's the verification. It's like we live so much in this conflict within ourselves of like what is true, what is not true, what is the inside of me, what is the outside of me. There's never any black and white in like what I'm, what is a lie between what I'm presenting to the world and what is my internal reality. It's such a gray swamp of what is real and what isn't. But then when you know what is,

in those rare rare moments like that where you know what is true and you know what's most important and you know what is clear, but you're not saying it. That is the explosion where you're like, oh, it, we're in the deep now. Yes. This is. Yes. I remember being on the couch looking at you like, wow. Really? She couldn't come up with a thing. I don't even know if you said you were like, I don't know. I don't. You just I couldn't do. I could not conjure up anything. Yeah, I that that has never happened. You know, we're we talk. We talk a lot. When you gone, you're gone because you weren't bringing you. That's why you were gone. Yes. It's not that you can access it. It's because you you weren't ready to bring it forward. Yes. That is why at the beginning of this when I was saying there was a level of like

pride isn't the right word, but maybe it's relief that I'm talking today is like yeah. It's the opposite of that moment on the couch. Like, I don't care. Fine. Say I'm crazy. Say I failed. Say I'm relapse. Say I'm whatever. But don't but I'm still here.

Whoever that I is is still here and is going to speak. So, Katie and Cam left. I didn't say anything for the rest of the day. And then, I don't know if you remember this and I'm not going to use any names, but the next morning you had a friend call you who was in their second day of sobriety. And the truth is that I sat there, you were on like speakerphone or something and I sat there listening to a very early in sobriety person say all the very early and sobriety stuff with all the like hubris of early sobriety and all the like beauty and like things you can hear them say that they're going to crash and burn about and like the I don't know.

I actually found myself feeling a little bit judgy and annoyed by myself doing the dishes listening. Like listening to this beautiful human who has just reached out to Abby who is in their second day of sobriety and feeling judgy and like jaded, shaded. And they hung up and I put one more glass in the dishwasher and was like, I'm fucked. I think I said, I think those are my words, babe, I'm fucked. You actually said, I was gonna wait until, because the kids were still with us. They were going to cry, cry, cry, cry. Crags house that afternoon. You said I was gonna wait until the kids went to Crags,

but I'm fucked. Yeah. I was like, okay. Okay. And then you just told me. Yeah. Yeah. And then I told you,

and then you were completely amazing. I was. Yes. Because you were undramatic. You were unshocked. You were soft and loving and huggy. And there was no flick of terror. There was no, you're not who you said you were in your face. It was just like, of course. And now we will get through this. So you were amazing. And then we told the kids we were going to go for a hike that day. So here's where I try to explain this thing about

food and body and Eating disorders and mental health and mental illness. So I have always felt like You know what well there's all these science words and there's depression and there's anxiety and there's eating Sort of there's mental illness and all this thing But like the way it manifests inside of me at times is there is this black hole or a canyon of merciness that exists inside of me and I could jump in. But my job is to stay on the land side of this manhole or canyon of sorely dark energy. But there is something seductive about the canyon. It's not all terror and weeping and gnashing of teeth.

It's like a little bit purple and swirly and sparkly too. So it's like Vegas. It's not like Vegas at all. But Vegas may well be Abbey's Canyon. So let's just table that for a second. That's another episode, Abby. That's right. It's like the opposite because Vegas is all like lights and man made and bullshit.

This is like spiritual in a weird way. Okay, I don't know. It's not, it's, it's, it's a seductive part. It might be the internal tendency to glorify this thing. Yeah, I was going to say your story about it is that it is spiritual right whether that may be true. It may not be true, but in your story when you look at the canyon. It is my diminutive, because it is maybe a higher or deeper reality than the actual changeable reality of the shore.

It could be yes, that, but also it's because it is so hard to, and it requires so much work to stay on the land. Yes. It's not, because the land is part of its seduction. Exactly. It represents not having to work so damn hard, like a succumbing. So what I'm trying to say is that when eating food, body stuff, is my way of getting closer to the canyon, it has nothing fucking to do with eating and food.

Okay, it's like my friends who are cutters or my friends to all of the different things. Those are their ways of inching closer to the canyon. It has nothing fucking to do with the eating. So when I get weird about eating in food, and it's like, oh, we'll get a personal trainer. Or it's like, whoa, let's talk about nutrition. It's like the equivalent of saying, okay, I have once again set myself on fire and Someone saying well what we can do to explore that is let's just sit down and talk about pyro techniques. Yeah. Do you have you taken Fire Yeah, like it's like not no, that's elementary. No, no, yeah, We want to know why cosmically am I an arsonist? Not how fireworks.

Right. Okay. I'm talking about the canyon of sorely dark. I'm not talking about freaking nutrition. Okay. So we have to go hiking and I actually decide we're going to do that. Like we are there's no point in we're going to continue. What could be better than going on an easy hike with the family and staying in the light and being outside and all the things. I wasn't so sure. I think that you had to convince me that that was going to be okay. Yes. Yeah.

It's like, um, so we go, and we're just going to this like place that's 25 minutes away, or whatever. Um, and on the car ride there, it was just so interesting because, first of all, I was in a bit of trauma because I had just told you I had just, it's like, to take yourself out of the secret place to where someone can see it in the light, it's like there's no turning back. Now it's real. It doesn't always feel like it's real when it's inside of you, even though it's happening and you can see yourself throwing up, it's like, it could still be not real.

So in a bit of trauma, I think the best way that I can describe this part is that this is when I really feel crazy. Whatever that means. So we're driving there. I notice that my breathing is so shallow. I can't take a deep breath. I'm sitting there in the passenger seat. Abby's driving the kids are in the back. I think we had the dogs with us. It's just like utter chaos, like everybody. Happy chaos. And I can't catch a breath. And I realize it's like I'm being as still as humanly possible and not breathing deeply. And it's so interesting because it is the same way of being that you would be if you were hiding because there was like a killer in the room. Okay. So you're like,

trying not to be found. It's like being paralyzed, being not being able to breathe because there's a stalker and then you're thinking hard about why you're behaving that way and then you realize, oh no, no, the stalker for you, honey, has always been inside of you. Like the call is coming from inside the house. That's, yes. So this is what I'm thinking about. And then I realize I look around and I think everyone listen to like Taylor Swift or something.

Like the cognitive dissonance between what's going on inside of me and what's going on outside of me is so it's like all light and Happiness on the outside on the inside is like this swirly thing and I realize that I am holding so tightly to my arm that like I mean for sure I'm bruising myself. I'm holding some tight. You do have a grip, like that's just like a general state that you get into.

Coal of their grip. Like sometimes we'll just be holding hands watching TV and I have to actually like move my hand, like because she's now completed and gotten the grip into a vice grip and my circulation is being cut off. Like you have a tendency to just do it. Would you say that not sometimes, but every time? Every time.

Every time we're holding hands, you have to. I have to like kind of wiggle and you have to say sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Yeah. You don't have to, but that's what I'm saying. I have a question about that cognitive dissonance. So you for the week prior, when you were actively purging, you did not feel that cognitive dissonance because and only after you had told Abby you had that cognitive dissonance because

theoretically you could have had that the whole time that you were new. This was happening and the world was just unfolding around you obliviously. But it's only after you told Abby that you had that. I just, I think it's phases. I think it's like, it's real now. It's real now. Yeah. Yeah. No turning back, no turning back. No takebacks, no takebacks, no takebacks.

Exactly. So I've realized that I'm holding myself so tight. And I remember looking around and they were all dancing, they were like dancing and singing and and I'm looking at their hands and their hands are all flailing around and my thought was it is so beautiful how much they trust gravity. And then I was like what the fuck does that mean? Like what, why don't you try, like I'm holding on in the car. Like I am holding so tightly so that I do not fly away and these fools are just, it is as if gravity is real to them.

They do not even have to hold themselves down or in or together. Yeah. I'm just telling you what my thoughts were at that time. Right now sitting here on this couch, I understand how that chick I see that sounds. But in the moment I was like, wow! Look at this magic trick they're all doing. They're all just so loose.

So we get to this hike, we're walking. It's really, really beautiful. And we're in palace goddess, okay? And we're going around this cliff. And we come across, oh my God. This staircase, okay. Do you remember? I now understand what you're doing.

Do you understand now what was happening to me during that time? Do you remember how I stopped at that staircase? Been stared for so long and then walked down it, which I'd never do. I'm like the least adventurous person in the world. No, I was so, I was like, is she nervous? Cause Chase had walked down there. I was like, is she nervous?

Is Chase's gonna fall? Like why is she going down there? That's so weird. No, the second I get out of the car to go to a hike, all I'm thinking is like how long will it be till we get back in this car? Like, if I don't trust gravity in the car, I'm sure it's hell not going to trust it on a cliff.

It's all very precarious. So we're on this cliff overlooking the ocean. And there's this staircase. And it's wild. It's the longest staircase in the world. It goes from the top of this cliff, and it's cut it. Not really, but it looks like it. Right, it looks like it, and it like somehow goes all the way down to the water, but you can only see the top half of it. You can't see the bottom half of it. So, and then halfway down, the whole top of the staircase is in the light.

You can see it. And then there's this platform. It's like bigger part of the staircase. And then that's all you can see. So I was like, okay, I have to walk down and get down to that platform. So I walk down the staircase and there's that platform. And then the staircase turns and then the rest is just all down to the ocean and it's all dark. It's out of the sun.

So that's when I walk back up to the top so I can see the whole thing, right? And I realize that platform, which I had to Google, because I could not freaking think of what that was actually called in a staircase. It's called the landing. I was going to say a landing. The landing is where I was last day. Yes, I feel that. Yes, yes, yes. The landing is where I still am today. Yes.

Weeks later. Okay. But here's what I'm saying. The landing is where you stand and you can go either way. You look down and the down is so seductive because it's easier and it looks like it'll take less effort and it's in the dark. You can get lost in it, nobody can see you, you can just keep descending one step at a time. Or you turn and you look up at that mother fucking staircase again, right? Just like one step at a time and you think about your freaking

poor little legs who have done this so many times. Anything about like the sun that's so freaking bright and like everyone can see your struggle and it just looks so steep. And so for a minute you just stay on the landing. And so, that's where I am right now. I'm on the landing. And I only know, which I'm really delighted about, that I'm not going down. I'm not. I'm not. What do you know that I'm not going down. I'm not.

I know that because I know myself and I know. What I know about myself is that once I get to the landing, I will not go further. I've trust myself completely to not descend. Further, when I know where I am. I trust my weary little legs. I trust the light. I trust the climb. When you were throwing up, were you below the landing in the darkness or on the landing? I feel confused. Walking down, right? I don't know. I mean, I think this is where metaphor kind of breaks down a bit.

I don't know exactly where I was fucking. I just want to know this staircase. No, listen, I just want to know because this is as a as a partner. Yeah. This is important knowledge. I mean, the landing is day zero. Like the landing is when you look at yourself and there are no lies between you and you anymore. Got it.

Right? It doesn't feel like a staircase until the landing. It feels like a free fall of in that thickness. It doesn't feel, you're not deliberately stepping down and down and down. It only feels like the staircase That staircase wouldn't have made any sense to me the day before I see you have to be on the landing to recognize the landing It's like an acknowledgement of

acknowledging it actually forms this staircase. Yeah, it's like a forming of it. That's really interesting. I mean a landing is a platform that allows you to change directions or allows a climber to rest. So there's a graciousness of the landing too. There's enough space too, there's enough space to rest, right, to like gather your strength up for the climb again. Wow. Yeah. So that's where I am now. I'm on the landing.

And what that means to me in practical terms is that there will be a next, there will be a climb, there will be, it will probably include therapy and all kinds of different things. But I will say that I have a confidence about me this time. Like I really do, I think the climb will be different and will feel different, but I'm 45 years old and I know myself and I trust myself. And I also have been through this enough times to have a level of curiosity

times to have a level of curiosity because I think what was annoying me about that conversation you were having with that person in their second day of sobriety was that that person sounded the opposite of jaded. There is an awe, a beginner's mind that returns to you when you realize that we're all on the fucking landing all the time. There is a returning of awe when you start that first step that feels a little bit magical, that isn't as present when you're feeling really big and bad about yourself because you're on step 409,000. So I have a positive anticipation about the magic that will come as the climb begins again. And I'm just being super tender and careful and gentle with myself as I wait on the landing. And that is what I wanted to say today.

And so with that, I just want to say directly to you, sweet listener. It is true that we can do hard things and we will keep doing them together. See you back here in two days with more love notes from the landing. Bye. Bye. I give you Tish Melton and Brandy Carlisle. I chased desire, I made sure I got once my name And I continue to believe that I'm the one for me and because I'm mine I want the line cuz we're adventurous and heartbreak so man a final destination Rest in nation, that you stopped asking directions Some places they've never been And to be loved we need to be known We'll finally find our way back home

And through the joy and pain That our lives bring We can do a heartache I hid rock bottom bottom it felt like a brand new star I'm finally fine. Cause we're adventurous and heartbreak so mad A final destination will act We stopped asking directions So places they've never been

And to be loved we need to be known We'll finally find a way back home And through the joy and pain That our lives bring We can do a heartache This world finished her arous and heart breaks on land We might get lost but we're only in that Stopped asking directions Some places they've never been

And to be loved we need to be long We'll finally find our way back home And through the joy and pain That our lives bring We can do hard things. Yeah, we can do hard things. Yeah, we can do hard things. We can do hard things,

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