We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - Sara Bareilles: The Magic of Grief

Episode Date: August 25, 2026

Good Grief, the album, is out everywhere this Friday, and the documentary comes to theaters nationwide September 2! Our dear friend Sara Bareilles joins us to talk about Good Grief—her deeply personal new album and documentary—and what she’s learning about grief, love, mental health, and the terrifying practice of trusting life to hold us. Sara shares how infertility, loss, and some of her hardest moments became music; why grief might be love that has everywhere to go; and what becomes possible when we stop trying to fix ourselves and start telling the truth. -Why Sara says avoiding pain doesn’t work: “It hurts anyway.” - Sara on mental health, the fear of being “too much,” and learning to trust that life will hold her -The unexpected connection between Sara’s infertility journey, Andrea Gibson, and the creation of Good Grief -The stories and meaning behind the songs and lyrics including what it means to “worship your weather” instead of fearing your feelings For everything Good Grief—the new album, documentary, and more—visit sarabmusic.com.  About Sara:  SARA BAREILLES is an award-winning singer, songwriter, actor, producer, activist, and New York Times best-selling author whose accolades include two Grammy Awards, three Tony Award nominations, and three Primetime Emmy Award nominations. As a recording artist and songwriter, she has sold more than 3 million albums and 15 million singles in the U.S., and her songs have been streamed more than 3.5 billion times worldwide. On Broadway, she composed music and lyrics for Waitress. On the screen, she executive-produced and wrote original music for the series Little Voice. She plays Dawn Solano on the Emmy-nominated musical comedy series Girls5eva. Her song "Salt Then Sour Then Sweet" appears in the Peabody Award-winning documentary Come See Me in the Good Light, on which she also serves as executive producer; the song was shortlisted for Best Original Song and the film was nominated for Best Documentary at the 2026 Oscars.  Her new solo album, Good Grief, will be released this Friday, and Sara Bareilles: Good Grief, a documentary about the making of the album—which we are very proud to be Executive Producers on—comes to theaters nationwide on September 2.  Follow We Can Do Hard Things on:  Instagram — ⁠https://www.instagram.com/wecandohardthings⁠

Sarah Borellis is an award-winning singer, songwriter, actor, producer, activist, and New York Times best-selling author, whose accolades include two Grammy Awards, three Tony Award nominations, and three primetime Emmy Award nominations. On Broadway, she composed music and lyrics for Waitress and on the screen. She executive produced and wrote original music for the series Little Voice. She plays Don Solano on the Emmy-nominated musical comedy series Girls Five Eva, and if you haven't, just do. Her song, Salt, Then Sour, Then Sweet, appears in the Peabody Award-winning documentary, Come See Me in the Good Light, on which she also serves with Amanda and Abby and I as executive producer. The song was shortlisted for Best Original Song, and the film was nominated for Best Documentary at the 2026 Oscars. Sarah's new solo album, Good Grief, will be released this Friday.

And Sarah Borellis, Good Grief, a documentary about the making of the album, which we are very proud to be executive producers on, comes to theaters nationwide on September 2nd. Tickets are on sale now for the film, as well as for her live tour this September and October. You can find all the details you need about her new album, about her new documentary, and about her tour at Sarah B-music.com and in our show notes. And now we give you Sarah Borellis. That's our girl. That's our girl. No one else's.

Mine, mine, mine. My date. Our romantic Oscars couple's photography session. Sarah, that was just our first date. Don't say our date like it's over. No, it was our most famous. famous date. That's all I meant. So many more to come. I just wanted to start by saying this. We've been doing this like public life, whatever, for a long time. Decades and decades, right? Okay. So if there was one huge room,

and inside this huge room was every single person I've met during this public life. Okay? Every writer, every musician, every healer, every teacher, every psychologist, every movie star, everyone. If they were all in that room and I walked in, the person who I would sit next to is Sarah Borrellas. Out of every single person I've ever met in this interesting life that we've had. Not even me. Well, I knew you were going to say that and we can talk about it after. But I'm going to have to let it stand. Me and sister will sit next to each other.

Glenn, we both know it's only because I would be alone in the corner and you'll be like, I'll have what she's at. And then Sarah and Glennon would get in a car and leave the party. That's exactly what would happen. Yeah, totally. It's true, though. It is true. I love you.

It is how I feel about you and it is how, well, the whole world feels about you. and we just need to jump in because I once again sat with the album, the new album, Good Grief. This yesterday at the airport, I listened to it all again. Abby's laughing because I was bawling, just sitting there at the gate, just trying to go, I was pulling the AirPods going, Sarah, Sarah, so she would understand. At first I didn't know what she was doing. I was like, what's wrong? It's like, Sarah. Nothing's wrong.

Everything is outright. right and okay. But like that's correct. Like what I want to say about it is that the tears that I have when I listen to the album or watch the documentary, they are tears. They are in fact tears that might alarm the people around me. But they aren't sad. They're not sad tears.

They're like the kind of tears that come when something feels true enough, when you feel connected when you feel held, when you feel like someone's being honest, they're like, it's like relief. Baptismal tears. How are you? Where are you? Tell us what you're doing today. Well, that is, first of all, the nicest.

It was making me think about just like, well, it's something you have said is like when something feels true. That happens to me when something feels like true enough. I just will spontaneously start crying, whether I've generated it or someone else has generated. It's just like there is some resonance about like what feels just utterly true. And that's like the greatest compliment I could ever receive for anything I make. I'm in New York City right now. I'm in my house in Brooklyn.

I'm having this very interesting, wobbly, excited, but fearful. I'm just like on the precipice of people receiving this very personal. sensitive, tender, meaningful to me expression. So it's a really interesting feeling. I feel equipped to handle it, but I'm also, I was just, I had breakfast with Joe this morning, my husband, Joe, and I was like, I just feel wobbly. I'm just like on the precipice of feeling even more seen, which I'm totally up for and feel a little nervous about. Because you just want people to like care about the thing you made and I don't know but we were going through it it's like it's already all right which is a lyric from the record anyway it's just like it's already all right it was

meaningful to make this it was catharsis for me it was connection for me there was so much learning there's like no better way to honor the grief that has changed my life than to put it somewhere like this so I feel really good and skis at the same time. Yeah, it's so weird the way the universe works. Like how weird for you to be at some point a while back deciding to delve into this deeply personal grief and make art about it and then just happen to release it at a time when the world needs a place to collectively grieve more than we ever have before. Like, does it feel weird to you? Does it feel divinely? Oh, God, it feels so divinely ordained.

Like everything, even sitting and having this conversation. The fact that I get to sit and have conversations about the art that doesn't feel disjointed or, like, out of alignment with the way I really feel in my life, feels like a miracle. Like, I can't think of another time where I've had something that I was out, you know, like on a press tour for or promoting, where there wasn't some kind of sense of, of a dog and pony show that was happening out there while this whole other inner life of whatever was happening. And this is the first time I feel integrated because the material is dealing with what I'm really dealing with. So the conversations are all invitations to hold what I'm really

dealing with. And the journalist I'm talking to or whomever is on the other side of the conversation, they're all going into deeper places because everybody holds, I mean, I think, grief is just like a miracle. It's so universal. I think more so than anything I've ever discovered. Like it's just we all hold it. And it's a place like politically, for example, where people are so divided. It's actually a place I can still find compassion for people where I have struggled so hard recently if I know that I disagree with people on the political spectrum. I can actually still find genuine compassion. I'm really sorry your mom passed away or I'm really sorry, you know, whatever it is. It's like, it's kind of night. I find that relieving.

It's a great leveler. It's like this is, nobody doesn't get touched in this way. Yeah. Okay, tell me if this is true to you, maybe or not be, but it felt like when I was listening to album again and again and again and also again and well after this, it felt like there were a lot of different genres of grief. Mm-hmm. And like, I think in genres, because, you know, so. here's the genres that I was feeling and hearing. It's like grief Zanadu is what's happening. It's like we're,

like if I could make grief as a rock and roll jazz roller skating club that Olivia Newton and John could emcee, it would be the grief Zanadu. That's the record. Okay, well, you did do that. When we get to the song Nervous Breakdown, we'll talk about that. It did feel like a jazzy celebration that we would roller skate to. Okay. We have death grief, this absolute devastating loss of losing someone on this realm.

We have political and world grief. We have infertility grief. We have what I'm calling mental health grief, but I want to talk to you about what that actually means. We have romantic relationship grief. And then we have this sort of spiritual fate, just like overall grief about the human experience, which is the only way I can describe it. Can you tell us which one of these you feel like you'd like to talk about, like you have the capacity or desire to talk about right now today

where you are and would not make you feel disjointed? Thank you for asking. I really feel like I could go into any of those realms. I'm drawn towards the sort of the obtuseness of the spiritual of just like it is a hard thing to wrap your arms around. It's sort of ache of being alive. And that feels kind of like that's the sort of mothership on the record is like it holds all of these other kinds of grief. So I'm sort of drawn to that one, but I will truly talk about anything. Perfect. Okay. Well, since you want to start with that one, then I guess we go to love story. I guess we just go straight. We go straight. Okay. Well, you know what we can do? Let's Why don't you tell us the story about how our journey as artists who create together started,

which I remember beginning at Andrea Gibson's last show. Yes. So tell us that story because there's a story in this song about that weekend. Yes. And Andrea's in this song. Yes. This feels like Andrea's song to me on the record, not only because they're featured, but the whole seed and the cadence and the feeling.

of this song felt like it was born of being at that show and being in Colorado. I had traveled to Colorado. I was a couple of years into a fertility journey that had not been successful at that point. I'm still on that journey just to catch people up. I'm still in the messy middle. Don't have an answer. I'm not pregnant. I had a miscarriage. But I was in Colorado at the time and had gone to sort of like what I had been told was like the holy grail of fertility clinics. So I was out there and I had a good friend who was helping me with some of my like transportation stuff, E.D. Carey, who's a good friend of mine who lives out in Colorado. And she was going to Andrea's show. And she's like, I have tickets to this thing. Do you want to come? So I was like, oh my God, absolutely. I didn't even realize that

was happening. Got a ticket. Saw the two of you, saw Glenn and an Abbey. at the show, emailed you because I didn't, maybe just had been on the podcast. That's the contact I had. So I emailed you and I was like, I think, I think we're here in Denver together. You guys came back to my seat. We talked briefly. I told you why I was in Colorado. You told me about the experience with Andrea a little bit, but we were all there as fans.

You were so sweet about my, just very tender, the very tender place I was in. And then I think it was the next morning that I had my egg retrieval. So I did my egg retrieval the next day, and it was not successful. No one had told me that there was a possibility in an egg retrieval that you might not even have egg. They might be measuring something that isn't even an egg. So I ended up having like one follicle that was actually just a sack of fluid. I was devastated. But I came home from that experience of watching Andrea on stage, and that felt like talk about a baptism.

like a holy sacred experience of, I don't know, just devotion, devotion to life, surrender to the mystery and the awe and the miracle of just being here at all. And I came home from that procedure devastated, but I wrote that song that day. And I just felt Andrea so vividly just in my spirit that day. And it was like make something beautiful out of something awful. And that's, so I had had this experience of running into a man on a walking path and he thought I was assigned from his wife who had just passed away. And I was like, you know, if the whole reason I came to Colorado was to go to that show and

to be assigned to this man that his wife was going to take care of him from the afterlife, so be it. Like, what if there's just a kind of mystery in all of this that, like, this kind of love we're looking for is just so much bigger than we could even imagine. So that whole experience in Colorado, I didn't get a baby out of it, but I got another life-changing experience, which was come to me in the Good Light, which was our experience as producers on that film and being invited into one of the most extraordinary experiences I, I had. could ever imagine getting to sit beside Andrea watching the film at Sundance premiere, writing a song with them and Brandy Carlisle and going to the Oscars. And the Oscars being like the least cool thing that happened. You know what I mean? Like it was it's just like a I don't even have words. I know you all totally get what I'm saying. It's like Holy Water. That experience was

just unbelievable. Yeah, there's this line in that song. So it goes, demolish me my maker. Nothing that I've asked for has ever been as true as what was coming for me when it comes from you. First of all, Jesus. Second of all, what is your faith? What do you think of when you think of God and who are you talking to when you say my maker? What is your version of spirituality like this hour today? think of God as like life force. It's like the engine. It's like the thing that makes everything animate and move and connect and change. And it's the animator. It certainly isn't a man with a beard in the sky. It's made of everyone I've ever loved and everyone I've never known yet. Like it is just, it's beyond human comprehension, but it is like the mystery and the miracle of being

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The film is such a gift. It's such a gift. I'm so thankful for it. I don't remember if you were talking about, you know, how either just being like so grateful that you, even though all your instincts are to run or to get out of things and always one foot out the door or or if it was in reference to your infertility journey, but you were talking about like kind of. the ache as not trusting life to hold me. Like, I don't trust that life will hold me. And to me, that is, like, one of the themes of this film and this beautiful album is just, like, releasing to a trust that it is. And I just wondered if you could talk a little bit more about that. How does the trust and the holding you relating to how? how you're dealing with all of this grief. And does that relate to your sense of God and creator and

maker? I think so. It makes me think about growing up. I feel like I internalized a lot of like, be careful. Like there was a lot of fear in my household around just like, be careful. Or maybe you shouldn't go because it seems like maybe something will go wrong. There's a lot of just like worry. And I think I internalized that as being, I'm fundamentally, like, not entirely okay. Like, I think that there will be something that happens that will be more than I can handle. And my whole sort of mental health odyssey has been around building a language and just like a general belief that, I mean, shit will get bad, but I'm not going to dissolve. and that I have a greater capacity to hold hardship than I thought I did. And, yeah, the fear, the fear, it's pervasive.

It feels like a lifelong sort of negotiation. And I think something that I say in the film that I think about a lot is like, it hurts anyway. We get so conditioned to try to protect ourselves from what is, painful or what we fear might bring pain upon us. But it hurts anyway. So there is no, so why not try a little bit more of sort of opening up to the experience, the rich, complicated, yes, sometimes painful experience of being alive, a little more surrender in that way. And trust that you can hold it and life is like working to your benefit. I have people in my life who are just really,

They believe that life is working against them. Yeah. It is like a fundamental, like it's an organizing principle. I think it's malleable. I think there's room for growth there. There's a theme that is so apparent. I'm thinking when you're talking about the album's insistence that there's nothing outside of you that's going to happen to you that's going to take you out completely.

Like the cap size song, which seems to be about no matter how big the waves get. I finally understand that I cannot be capsized. So there's nothing outside that's going to happen that's going to drown me. And then wind is the weather, to me, felt like a song about, and there's nothing inside that's going to take me out. Like there's no feeling Pod Squad, just there's about to be a song. Friday specifically, okay? Yeah.

insists everything we've been talking about. That insists that every feeling that arises inside of you is some sort of weather that comes for a moment for a reason and then subsides. And that there is no specific flavor of weather that's going to take you out. And that there is a line in this song that says, worship your weather. Talk. That is the only experience of writing I've had in my life where it was like a full channeling. I wrote that song on my birthday in 2020. That is the worst I've ever been, mental health-wise.

It was pre-medication. I was not sleeping, ruminating, hyper-fixated on problems in my relationship with myself and my personality, with like just bad, bad, bad. And I said a prayer to life, force, God, whatever, universe, mystical, magical, whatever it is. And I pressed record on my phone. And that song was written. Whoa. And it felt like an answer.

I reference this thing, you know, those, like when you write a letter to God and then write back to yourself, there is something we access. There is some kind of wisdom, some kind of outside perspective that we have, that is available to us if we sort of slow down and quiet and listen. And it didn't feel like me talking to me. It felt like God. And so it was just like, you aren't broken. There's nothing to fix. Give me your sadness.

You have enough to go around. That it's all unborn too. I will be born. Like the future, the love, the possibility. like it's just all born in love, that there's nothing to fear, I guess, ultimately. I mean, I say that and I look at the way our world actually functions. And of course, I don't, I'm not saying that there aren't horrible things that happen. But this idea that we are susceptible to sort of like dissolving inside of it,

I think was a fear that I genuinely had that like I wouldn't be able to be okay in this life. And I feel more okay than I thought I could. Yeah. So, Sarah, I think one thing that I want to talk about, because the album and the doc are so good, and for me, the doc came at such an important moment. I lost my brother a couple years ago. And so I've been walking around kind of trying to live with the grief. And sometimes it just like takes me out in a random moment.

and sometimes I'm fine. But what struck me with both your album and the doc is how much gets talked about with grief that it's like sad, right? And how I actually think of grief more or less. This is so not expansive. But it's just like, I'm afraid that I am now going to have to myself alone carry the love that I have for my brother. forever without being able to express it upon him any longer. And it's the carrying of this love without maybe being able to express it.

It's a complicated woven way back to this love thing. And I know that's so oversimplified, but to me, so much of what you said in the doc and in your lyrics, it's like all the arrows feel so pointed towards this other thing. called love. And whatever zone we're talking about, whether it's death grief or infertility grief, it's like it's this love thing, whether we get to express it or experience it or not. And I just want to say that you know how much I love your work. And I've been such a big fan of yours from the get-go, from the jump. I mean, you're a gay icon stand for all of us older queer. calls us, you know, come lately's over here.

Sarah's been here longer than I have. I will admit this. And I've been to Sarah's show. I've been a fan of Sarah's longer than you guys have been. Anyways, whatever. I said the thing about the room. I just want you to know. I guess I'm curious what your relationship between grief and love is.

I feel like it's making me think about what Andrea says about to die. to be reincarnated in the people you love. So I lost a dear friend in 2020. Chad Joseph was my first close friend to pass away. And then a few years later, Gavin Creel, who was also a very close friend of mine, passed away. I think I was so shocked by Chad's death and so disoriented by it because he was so young.

And I wasn't as like available to what the thing is that I think you're talking about, which is like this tenderizing quality of grief that makes everybody so soft and so available and so open. Like there are very few things I can think about that just like they just soften. They cut you to the quick. They're just. So with Gavin's death, I just was much closer to that part of myself, I think, already. And then Gavin was so sort of generous with his dying.

And there were so many conversations, there was like nothing that we didn't talk about. I could just see that there's like no difference between grief and love. It's the same experience, but it's that thing that gets as yeah, grief is love with nowhere to go. But I love connecting it to that idea that Andrea talks about that we just, we play out that love on the next and on the next and on the next and on the next and on the next. And like that love that has nowhere to go has everywhere to go. We don't get that experience of like wrapping our arms around our people again, but we can wrap our arms around someone else and shine that incredible fountain of beauty on the next person. I just love that that feels like someone's legacy is even so much more than the imprint they made. It's like the imprint they made upon the next person and the next person.

It's just infinite. It's so incredible. but I love what you're talking about that it's just it's just the ache, it's just the ache that you just wish there was more time. But this album, it's like, the reason why that's a saying that we all just accept, grief is love with nowhere to go, is because of what our culture teaches us about grief.

That's right. It's the line you have that says, I was taught to bury with the dead, the presence of my grief. We say, oh yeah, it has no. nowhere to go because we're taught that now we have to keep it inside. So your album, like when you're talking, I'm thinking of the way the concerts are going to feel. Which is that now suddenly grief is love that has everywhere to go. This album and doc is going to make that saying seem stupid. We're not going to believe that anymore. That grief is love with nowhere to go. That's not even

going to make sense anymore. Because what if we didn't at all bury the dead? Yeah. But if we carry the dead. Totally. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that is the song that you sing home, which is going to be stuck in people's hearts and heads forever and ever. Amen.

And there is the, what's it called in a song when it keeps repeating? A chorus? A worm home? No, the chorus. Whatever. Okay. I thought you meant like, you know when you get a song. That's why I'm here.

I'm a musical expert. I'm also going to stay on a worm for a second. What's the musical term? She meant earworm where it's like, yeah. Yeah, baby shark do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. Okay, so in the chorus, the song is called home, and in the worm. In the worm. It repeats over and over again.

I can carry us home. Okay? So my question is, who is I? Who is us and what is home? Seriously. Like when you're writing this song, there is a promise in it that is saying, I can carry us home. I'm thinking of an answer. I'm going to make something up because I'm going to tell you.

I know it if you don't. You don't worry. I know. You do? Wait, I really want to know. Okay, I want to know. Here's what I think. I'm going to tell you what I think.

Okay, I'll tell you if you're right. Okay. About your own work. Okay. I love this. So I wrote that song after a conversation between Anderson Cooper and Stephen Colbert. And it was an episode of Anderson's beautiful podcast called All There Is. It's all about grief.

And I think Anderson is doing some incredible work around grief and destigmatizing. And it was very moving to hear these two men talk about their grief in such vulnerable ways. And I don't remember which of the two of them said this on the podcast. but it was just about the power of your story, about, like, that's what we have to give each other. It's like our stories and our experiences, our life. And I think the I is like the God in all of us. And the home is sort of like back to yourself. Tell me your story.

I'll tell you mine. We have this reciprocity, this exchange. And that each of us, if we. We just can hold with compassion and a little bit of grace that we might be able to deliver each other like back to ourselves again and again and again. I don't know. Did I get it right? I mean, you're close.

Oh, my God. Okay. I need to be very clear that I'm joking. Just in case there's one person out there who's so pissed at me and defensive of Sarah Borrellas right now. It's me. It's me. It's me.

I think that when I was listening to it over and over again, it just felt like this promise of the grief thing that we avoid so much, if we trust it, is what continuously and over and over again carries us to love. That home is just whatever experience you're talking about what you just said when two people come together and have this moment of softness together or whatever moment of connection is love. And that this grief thing that we try to avoid so much is like actually this train that if we stay on does deliver us to this only place that we're going or whatever is closest to home, which is this feeling of softness and heldness. I love that. That's right. You're right. If you need to update your glasses, Zeni has changed the game. At a traditional glasses store, the pair of. I might want easily could cost around $250, but you can get Zeni glasses for under $50. Zeni is an online eyewear shop where you can order prescription glasses, sunglasses, and blue light lenses starting at under $30.

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long. Go to factormeals.ca and use code we can. That's up to $90 off plus free shipping, but only with code we can at factormeals.ca. Factor. Canada's number one ready to eat meal delivery service. I want to stay here on the trusting piece of the like trusting where it's going because I think you do something even more terrible, Sarah, because you suggest that we need to not only trust the sacredness of and not only trust the size of love and that life will hold us, you're asking us to trust other people. Yeah. And that is the place where you leave me on the side of the bridge, Sarah, because you're saying, you say life's holiest lesson, what is broken cannot heal until it's known and loved by name. When a shattered heart is desperate, the only respite is to let someone

in. Tell me your story and I'll tell you. mind. So I feel like there's universes of people who can't even touch the heat in themselves, right? It's too hot. It's too scary. But then there's certain people who honor that sacred. If you lose a child, if you can't have a child, if you lose your parent, if whatever, it's so sacred. And if you can't move through that grief, if it's not released until it's shared and named with others through your story, you have to trust someone to receive that story. I have often felt that what is expressed is sometimes lost a little bit. That like, you know, you tell someone something and they can't by definition totally get it,

right? Because it's your thing. And then it feels like you've lost a little bit. Like, tell me how that's wrong or tell me about that fear and does that have. something to do with your wobbliness now of like, I've done my truth. I know this is true and I know you won't be able to totally get it or misrepresent it or be one degree off, which will be devastating or what do you do when you have all of this and you share it with people and they say just not exactly the right thing? I mean, that's real, right? Like the time and we can all relate to that experience of making the decision to try to trust someone with something very precious, and they don't hold it. They don't show up for it. And it is really, really painful. But I wonder

if the growing and the learning is the not learning that there's no one to hold it, but that the act of asking is a part of the medicine. And like the act of asking is a part of the medicine. And like, the act of asking to be held is a part of the holding. And maybe somebody gets 5% right and then another person gets 2% right. But that's 7% that's more held than it was. You know what I mean? And I do think that I have better relationships now that where like they might not get to 100%, but they're holding a lot with me and for me now that I can't say that about relationships where I wasn't risking anything, you know, those relationships where you're staying completely safe and protected and feeling totally insular. I'm just not that, I'm not

that interested in those relationships and the risking, my therapist is always talking about our unique and ordinary medicine, that the telling of the truth is everybody's unique and ordinary medicine, that there's like nobody's special here with more or less medicine. We all have this totally incredible, unique, and totally ordinary thing to offer each other, which is just the truth. And I think that just the practice of telling the truth, I don't have any data to support this or no science, but I do think it does start by telling the truth more often, you do start to feel more held. I think that is true. But I might be wrong. Let's ask one. Nope, I think you're right. Yeah, it doesn't depend on the way the person receives it. It's the

It's the telling. It's the risk that you're taking with the universe, which is similar. That makes sense to me. You're like, this is me betting on black that the universe will hold me. Yeah. I think that's right. I think that's really right. And also betting that, like, whatever is not held by the other is still being held within yourself.

That's right. And also that there's nothing to fix. Yeah. Because I think sometimes what we're looking for in that when somebody says the wrong thing is they could have said something that would have fixed it. And they didn't say the thing that is that fixed it. Totally because it's not fixable. There's nothing to fix. Right. Right, right. Being seen, I think it is. Like if you feel like you're not totally seen. Is it even being seen? Yeah. Like maybe we have the focus on being seen, which takes away all of our agency. That means success or failure of our share has to do with the other person's interpretation. But if it's, our goal changes to, no, I'm not trying to be seen, I'm just trying to show myself. Yeah. Then the success of the action ends with my share.

That's exactly right. I think that's exactly right. And it also is making me think about this. We did a, I'm sorry about my dad. No, we're not sorry. That's Louis, everyone. Who's the baby? Hey, Louie.

Hey, somebody just must have knocked on the door or something. It's making me think we launched this voicemail project. because, you know, the tell me your story, I'll tell you mine. We wanted to give people a place to sort of put their story. And so people left thousands of voicemails that all have to do with grief. And we have to figure out the best way to create a kind of interface so that people can hear each other's stories. But I have never found this is the most profound experience I have had. I was just listening back to these messages.

And I don't know. It's this thing you're talking about, Amanda, where it's like, nobody's there to hold it or to respond. But the sharing is so deep. It's so profound. And I'm getting so much medicine from someone literally just offering their experience. It's like I just got home from my mother's memorial service and she suffered with Alzheimer's. And I sat with her for years and was grieving the loss of the person I knew. And now I'm grieving the loss of the body that didn't know me, of just being able to sit with my mom,

with my mom's body, ultimately. And a young man who was sharing about his dad, who had passed away, they shared a love of baseball. And every time he watches baseball and he gets like a text message, he can't help but feel that it's coming from his dad and he grieves him over and over and over again. Just like on and on, someone who was on tour and they had a stroke and they lost the use of their right side of their body. And they're like, I'm grieving the person I was. And I watch videos of myself when I used to be able to, I mean, just on and on and on. It's so deep, you guys. It's just all I'm saying, I think, is that there's so much value in just sharing whatever you're holding.

It's so valuable for other people to know. what we're holding. Anyway. That's so good. There's a lot, you know, you've written so much about on this album and in the doc. There's a lot of you discussing what you describe as your struggles with mental health. A lot of the songs, I feel like on the album kind of reference this. Nervous Breakdown is one of them.

I can't. I've listened to it seven million times. I was like, what is this reminding me of? What is this song reminding me? And then I woke up last night thinking what the song that it reminds me of is Joni Mitchell's song Twisted. Cool. There's something about it that it feels like it's about a nervous breakdown.

But it's also sort of a reclamation of struggling with mental health as part of being alive and like, and sort of this idea that you don't always want to be safe. and a nervous breakdown is almost something that it feels as sacred as grief that you don't want to let people into. So there's this line that says just me, myself, and I, you, you're not invited, I got to go mad. Can you just talk to us about that line and how it relates or does not relate to the moment in the dock when you are emotional outside of the chapel where you're recording this album? and you explain that you're feeling emotional because you're thinking about Joe, I think, and about how hard it is to be partnered with someone who struggles with mental health. I think nervous breakdown.

So I wrote that with my friend, Ingrid Michelson, who we all know and love. And it was like the part that you want, if there was any way to help. me not take me so seriously. It's like the part where you're like also can it's something that Joe is so good about with me. He helps me laugh at myself and sometimes it makes me angry but mostly it's really helpful to be reminded that like most of the time it's not that deep like it's just not that it's not as big a deal as it feels. And so the song was like, how do we also kind of dance around this subject matter in a way where like someone might have this as a tool if they're really on the edge? And they're like, I'm just going to take a little walk

around the block and I'm going to do it on my own because if you come close, there's a really good chance I'm going to grab a sharp object and it's going to find its way into your rib cage. So that's a little bit how it feels to me. It's like, how do I let off a little steam and just let whatever this is is going to pass but I'm going to put on a cheeky smile and take a walk around the block while I calm back down kind of thing but you're not invited I think it's protecting the other person oh out of love you're not invited because there's a really I'll say something I don't mean or you're going to get hurt in this so it's like I got to I got to go mad for a minute and then I'm going to come back being probably more in the Joe seat perspective

of this is real show off we're so lucky for you we're so lucky to have you speed of god is the relationship that you have with this part of yourself something that you don't want to share you mean like get rid of get rid of and invite other people into it because it's your own little secret place for both of you oh is it like the sacredness of grief where you're like I kind of want to keep it protected and do you really think that you have mental health problems. I think I have mental health problems like I'm gay or a woman or a Christian. Like I think they're just problem, problem, problem. They're just words and that I use a shorthand because other people understand them. I actually don't truly believe in them. I actually think I just pay really close

attention and feel a lot of things and see things a little bit more slowly maybe than other people in slow motion. So I'm like feeling them. And sometimes need medication for that. But like, Yeah. Do you, how do you understand it? And do you find it like Abby's saying a place you want to keep sacred and private or you do want to share with your partner? I don't know if I would say that I have like mental health problems. That's a really good question. There were times where I really did where my mental health was a problem for me.

It was not sustainable. It was disruptive. it was totally all-encompassing. It was the only thing I was managing was my okayness or not okayness. So it was taking complete control of my life. And that felt like a problem. And then medication was an incredible tool to help get that back into balance. As far as the sharing of it, I think there might be parts of it that I wouldn't even know how,

to share. And I do suppose there is something that feels so utterly mine about it, that it's a part of how I understand myself as like a being in the world that I feel a lot of like fondness for. Like I've always talked about like my melancholy as being like, I'm not trying to get rid. I've always had her. She's been with me since I was a little kid. I was always achy. I was always like, oh, the movie's so sad. You know, just like, whatever, you know, whatever it is. Like, this episode of Rainbow Bright is so sad. It's like a picture of me as a kid or something.

Like there's something akin to that that feels very precious to me. There's like very little I wouldn't want to share with Joe at this point. But there is some of it that I feel like I don't even wouldn't even know how. It just feels like it's not even a, it's not a chamber of my heart. I'm keeping closed. It's like there's no door kind of thing. Like it's just there isn't anywhere to like invite someone into. It's just mine or something.

I don't know. I did some quick math the other day. If dinner takes you about 45 minutes, let's say to plan, prep, cook and clean up, that's more than five hours every week. And as someone who's always looking for ways to get to eat. little time back, that's one of the many reasons I love Factor. Factor meals are always prepared, fresh, never frozen, and in just a couple of minutes, you've got a meal that actually feels homemade without having to plan grocery shop, cook, or clean. Their whole thing is having a ton of options,

whether you're looking for protein plus, calorie smart, keto, or just something delicious that makes life easier. Right now, get up to $90 off plus free shipping. Hurry, this offer won't last long, go to factor meals.ca and use code we can. That's up to $90 off plus free shipping, but only with code we can at factormeals.ca. Factor, Canada's number one ready to eat meal delivery service. This episode is brought to you by CLR Brands, calcium, lime, and rust remover. Okay, do you remember, this might be a Gen X thing? I don't know, or a millennial thing, But do you remember when Nicole Ritchie and Paris Hilton did the show? I think it was called The Simple Life in Paris kept saying, that's hot.

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So find all 100 plus uses at CLRbrands.com slash pep talk. CLR, so clean, so hot. Today's episode is brought to you by Alma. Wanting support and being able to actually find the right support are two very different things. There's so many hurdles in place when it comes to therapy. Where do I even start? Who takes my insurance? What if I don't click with the first person?

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I recommend searching for a provider through Alma. Get started now at helloalma.com slash we can. That's helloalma.com slash W-E-C-A-N. Can I let you in a little secret? Yes. Joe and Abby both understand. And I'm speaking for Joe, so correct me if this feels off or wrong.

but we both already know and we've already known that part of you and we've already before we even knew you knew that part of you existed and we already loved that part of you like it's the part of you that we love you the most the other night we were in bed and I was in a full on anxiety attack my body gets really tight and I was like and Abby was holding me and I just was saying I'm so scared. I'm so scared. I'm so scared. And Abby has uses all different kinds of techniques. And she just burst out laughing. And then I looked at her and I somehow was able to see myself above the situation. Like, I am terrified. I am in bed with my wife and my dog in my extremely nice home in the middle of an extremely nice neighbor. In California, like, there might not be anybody safer than me on this entire fucking planet. And I am in the fetal position going, I am so scared.

I am so scared. And for one moment, I was able to see how absurd it was. And it was like, oh, so beautiful. And like, and I don't recommend it, honestly. Like, it was a risky. It was a risky game. She gets it. Abby gets it, though.

It was a risky game. Can't do it every time. No. When you were talking about in the documentary, was it about it being difficult for Joe? Are you worrying about it being difficult for Joe? Was it because of what you just referenced with the times where it seems to take all of you just to stay steady? Because that's what I feel guilty about sometimes as a person who, quote,

allegedly struggles with mental health. Is that love requires something to come. at the other person. And sometimes when you are a person who struggles with mental health, it seems like the best I can do for you is to give all my energy to staying steady myself, which makes me feel guilty. I definitely think there is a part of me that worries about, I mean, I will say that it's so different now than it was maybe even five years ago in terms of we just spent all of our time managing my okayness. It was just there was no, there was no room for him at all. But I also didn't have, I didn't have the tools and I didn't have the ability to be like, you know what? I'm going to just,

I'm going to go over here for a minute. I'm going to do my nervous breakdown for a minute. And I'm going to, I'm going to manage me for the both of us. So we don't both have to be in, you know, hitting the panic button. It's like, let me regulate and then I'll be back. I have so many more tools to get to that sort of more regulated place now so we don't run into this problem nearly as often. But yeah, there was a part of me that worried about like the novelty wears off. It stops being cute to be like, oh, we're doing the thing where we're like, everything's falling apart again and that I was worried that it would be just too much. It's just too much. And then it's the part of you that worries that you'll be,

yeah, rejected or not loved. That is there something fundamentally unlovable about me? Yeah, I think that's the fear that comes to the surface. Like, what if I am this way? Am I unlovable? You know, it's evolving. I think it's evolving. But God bless them. God bless the Abbeys and the Joes out there. Oh, God. God. And God bless the Amanda's. God bless the Amanda's. God bless the Amanda's. God bless the Amanda's the most. That's right. All right, Sarah, I can't wait to do this all with you. Like, I'm just so excited for this album to come out.

I can't believe that we get to be part of the team that's going to help this documentary come to the world. And I want to make sure that I say thank you for that. And through your pod squad knows. They already know how amazing you are, but just the extraordinary gift of saying yes and partnering on something that is so just deeply personal and so tender to have, you know, invited you in and to get a big fat yes was just an incredible, incredible gift. And I'm so, I feel so lucky and so grateful. So thank you for being my producers.

Well, when we got your email asking us, we were in an airport again. And I will admit that I am a person who does my duty. diligence. And I will admit that. I will also retweet that. Yeah, that's a little bit of an understatement. Jesus. I have some trust issues. When you asked us to be a part of the doc, I wrote back in five minutes and answered yes before watching it, which is so weird for me. Yes. But my first language is Christianity. And we have this scripture that's like, when the tree is good, the fruit will be good. And that's how I think about you. I'm like, you are such a good and true tree that whatever fruit comes off of it, I'm going to be like, yep, I'll take that. Like, I don't need to see the fruit. I don't need to hear

the fruit. I don't need to taste the fruit. No, we don't. I trust the fruit. We're not taking the fruit. We're saying, look, people. Have some fruit. Have some fruit. Right. I feel like I've lost my way a little bit with that metaphor, but I actually love it because Joe calls me a tree. He calls me a tree all the time. He calls me a tree because I grew up in the redwoods and I really, like the redwood forest is sort of like the, you know, the church that I grew up in as like the trees. But it's like, yeah, I am slow. I am like methodical in many ways and I cry. So it rains a lot. Yeah. So yeah. He's always, he's like, I'm immovable. I'm so steady. You're steady. A weeping willow.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sarah, we love you. We'll be talking about all of this forever and ever a day. And I'm so excited for you, Pod Squad. Just go listen to the album, watch the doc, just send the voicemails. We will keep talking about it. Don't worry.

We're not going to leave you alone with this. We're doing good grief together. Okay. I love it. I love you so much. I love you all so much. We love you, Sarah. We love you so much, too.

Talk soon. Bye, bye, God Squad. We can do hard things. We are proud to say that we can do hard. Things is an independent production brought to you by us, Treat Media. Treat Media makes art for humans who want to stay human. And you can follow us at We Can Do Hard Things on Instagram.