We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - The Cycles We’re Breaking: Abby, Amanda & Glennon

Episode Date: September 19, 2024

347. The Cycles We’re Breaking: Abby, Amanda & Glennon Abby, Glennon, and Amanda discuss Tuesday’s conversation with Dr. Mariel Buqué about intergenerational trauma. Each share examples of how they’re working on healing it in their lives and families.  Discover: -Abby’s hilarious and heartbreaking breakdown that revealed how deeply she’s into her healing work. -Why Glennon no longer believes that she has a debilitating mental illness; and -The shocking study that made Amanda feel a kinship with mice (literally). Check out Episode 346. How to Break Family Cycles: Dr. Mariel Buqué here. 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

Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. Today, it's just the three of us again. We're going to talk more about the interview we just did with Dr. Marielle Bouquet about intergenerational trauma. And we're gonna just talk to you about what all of that means to us, because it is the juiciest, most important topic in all the land. And I think that the episode got so many people thinking and talking and having a million questions, us too.

So we're gonna do that. You'd said, sister, I'm just looking for little ways to like break cycles. This is very on the spot. I have no idea what my answer will be. So if you guys don't have answers, that's fine. But when you think about cycles you are wanting to break and ones that might be tied to intergenerational trauma

or you don't even know if they are. Do you two have cycles that you can identify that you are actively, even if you're not doing the work to break them yet, that you suspect your life might be freer or better if you broke? Yep, 100%. Yes. Would you like to go first then? Sure. Your life might be freer or better if you broke. Yep. I 100% Yes, would you like to go first then sure?

the thing that I feel most worried about is my parents dying without saying the things that I need to say and It's funny because as I've done like kind of this work through therapy The things that I would have said early on are very different than what I would say now. And I think that the work of accepting them for who they are is what I am doing. And I think the thing that I thought that I needed to hear from them was like, I'm so sorry that not even specific things, just like being in a huge family, being raised cat, like all these things that had an impact on me. I don't even think I need and I'm sorry specifically, but I want to approach them when I do with,

I get it. Like I understand. That is how they knew how to be people. They only did what they thought was best. And what they were taught and what their parents taught them and what those parents taught them and it's like I don't I have lost the desire for like a kumbaya situation to happen between me and my mom and dad I think that what I've come to understand is how I first get the chance to break this generational trauma is to accept what has happened first.

And to not necessarily need an apology from them, but just say, this is what happened. And I don't want this to keep going on. I don't want the silence or the secrets to keep hurting our people going forward. And I'm going to be that transitional character. I am, I know that I am that transitional character. I don't know what's gonna happen. I'm sure our kids will have their own sets of trauma

that they need to unwind. But I do feel like there's like a pit in my stomach that I know that I need to have that conversation with my mom at the very least. I don't know if I'll ever do it with my father, but just like, thank you for having me. I had a hard time. I had a hard time. I had a hard time.

And I think that that really shaped our relationship. And I think that there's a responsibility I have in kind of the rebellion and the hardheadedness and stubbornness that I took on as a way of protecting myself throughout my life and I understand more of why she had to be the way she was you know and I understand that there is no way I can go back and fix it but absolutely I can try my fucking damn dis now to not implement some of the things

and the ways that she was taught at how to be a mother on our children in the way that I am a mother. Do you have an answer to the question, what was the wound? What was the thing that you are trying not to pass on? When you said, I have a hard time, there's no easy answer to that. But like in you, what happened that you're trying not to repeat? It's really complicated because it goes off in a lot of different ways. But I think at

the root of it, it's this confusion in this line between power and parenting. And like what I know that that probably stems from is fear, like the base of it. And so being more in touch with the fear I have throughout my parenting will kind of slice the need to be in power over our children, which I think really did come into conflict with a lot of the struggles of all of my brothers and sisters, but I can only speak for myself. That in the lines of being the oldest to the youngest, we all experience my parents differently and we experience that power differential very differently. My sister Beth and my mom have a very different relationship than I do with her and I really struggled with it. I didn't feel

seen or heard or or as loved as I needed to and I think that that fear of whether you're a good or a bad parent makes you act in certain ways that make you, in fact, not such a great parent. So I think my mom was so afraid of keeping control and keeping the power because she didn't want us to be hurt or bad things to happen to us or whatever, mama bear, you wanna talk about it. But it was really her inability to regulate

her own inner world and her own inner fear around how the world will interact with her baby cubs. And so because of that, all of these things kind of display itself across the personalities of all of her children. And I don't want my inability to not be able to deal with my nervous system to impact our children in any way. Does that make sense? Yeah. Was that good? I don't know what's good or not.

You were so good, you were so loved. I see everything about you. Okay good. What did Dr. Bouquet say? Like yeah that was really good. Yeah that was really good Abby. It was really good. What did Dr. Bouquet say? Yeah, that was really good. You should congratulate yourself. Yeah, that was really good, Abby. It was really good. Do you feel it come up in you? I just am so obsessed with this true fact that I've recently learned that you can, I can feel it in my body when it's happening.

It's not this like weird elusive mystery that you have to go back. I mean, I experienced memories from my childhood like I experienced when I used to wake up after blackouts, which was when I was drinking was every single morning. Literally every morning I would wake up and have absolutely no idea what happened after 4pm the day before. But I would have a general feeling like I don't know what happened, but I feel like I should be ashamed. Well, I mean, that was a safe bet. Yeah, that was always a safe bet. But it would be like often be a specific feeling like, yeah, I don't know what happened, but I feel like

be a specific feeling like, I don't know what happened, but I feel like the after effects of something violent. And that's how I feel about childhood. I'm like, I don't know what happened, but I feel like it was suboptimal. Something. There's a presence, a vibe of something that you can't put your finger on, especially because you're young and you don't know how to necessarily name or claim some of the feelings that you were having. Right. And when you're scared, you don't, you're shut down. You don't remember. But what is an amazing and beautiful thing that is true is that I can tell in my body now that I know how to pay attention to my body and be in my body When I'm about to be in trauma response So my question to you is this idea that you are trying to break the cycle of wanting to control and overpower

Which is so interesting in authoritative parents because what they do is they lose control in order to gain control. That's their strategy. I will lose control of myself so that you will be so scared that you will fall into line, right? How do you experience it now, those moments, like you said, when maybe you didn't get enough affection from your parents, so when the kids try to kiss you, you have a moment that you have to overcome

to get past the trauma response into your new self. How do you experience the authoritative moment with the kids? Yeah, I mean, this has been something I have unconsciously been working on my whole life because I have been interesting in rebellion. That was my need to take control back for myself, to not feel controlled.

And then I think throughout the course of parenting these three children, the only way I can explain it is I, this is so weird to say this out loud, but when I feel like I have lost control, I either feel like my skin can't go beyond itself. Like I am full up, like it's almost like the Incredible Hulk that I feel kind of this ragey thing.

Yeah. And it's because of knowing what it feels like to be out of control as a child. Because essentially your parents are in control of you. To know what that feels like and to feel like I just need to get out of this body so that I can be in control in a different place. I have this feeling of like becoming Mr. or Mrs. Hulk. And what I've learned over years of this is I just have to pause. Because the swelling goes away. I do think it's a swelling of the ego in a way. Where my ego gets outsized and I'm like, oh wow, like that's definitely not a way that you wanna be.

And so usually the only thing that helps is for me to do literally nothing. Abby, I wonder though, you're talking about it in the sense of like your need to control mirroring your parents need to control, like you are duplicating what was modeled to you, but I wonder if it could be different. Like I wonder if it could be their controlling of you made you invisible, no one paying attention to you, no one

listening or seeing you, and what you bring to the table. Is what you're doing in parenting and that big reaction, is that mirroring your parents need to control the children or is that the exact same thing? Is that no one sees me, I have good wisdom for these children, I am bringing myself and I am being ignored and not being paid attention to you. And why aren't they seeing me and what I have to offer?

Yeah, it's the same thing. Can I tell a story about you? Yeah, yes. Okay. You can. I. It's the same thing. Can I tell a story about you? Yeah, yes. Okay. You can. I think this is the most beautiful example of this, it's just happened. So when you have big children,

they start to just make their own big decisions. Do things. They just start to do things and they're out in the world and they make decisions and then things happen to them and you can't, you know, it's just. So the other day, our oldest child was making some big decisions, which were beautiful and brave decisions and still decisions that would have consequences.

Our middle child is making big decisions. She's taking a gap, you're gonna become a rock star. We keep saying, what could go wrong? Yeah. Our youngest daughter had some injuries in soccer, whatever. We just had this moment where we have had a hard year. Part of the hardness is that everyone just keeps doing whatever the fuck they want, even though we have good ideas, okay?

And we have lost completely the control that we never had. Okay? But the illusion is bust. P-U-S-T. And so Abby- But the truth is, is like they're becoming young adults and there is this period of parenting time that it is confusing to know when it is your time to step in or when it is your time to just step back completely.

And that's something I'm struggling with just in terms of parenting. Anyways, go on. Yeah. But this one night, somebody brought something to us hard and then another kid and then Abby Jess, she had been keeping it together and trying to guide them and trying to for so long and she just, the kids weren't here. She sat on the couch and she just started bawling. And she said, Chase is doing this hard thing. T's making good decisions and Emma won't eat enough protein. She's bawling about protein. I know she just needs to eat more protein and I just thought it I think she was having a muscular issue. She pulled her quad and, you know. But it was, to me, I felt like this is the difference. This is the difference. Instead of hooking it up, she's crying.

That's not trans, that's transforming it because actually what it is is grief. What your mom had was grief, knowing like I can't Protect anyone. Mm-hmm. So I will just be so controlling I will force feed them their protein every fucking day to make them Okay, and they did my mom was doing my glass of milk at dinner But I think you had had enough

therapy and Safety and a moment to just actually break down about it and admit to your powerlessness and your I don't know. Nobody will listen to me. She kept saying. I have good ideas. Nobody is listening. And they keep making decisions.

They keep deciding differently than I would. But I feel like I just I don't know how to explain it. I just felt like that was it. Because you didn't rage at them. You didn't shame them. You didn't once again strategize like we always do, like we're one good plan away from like fixing everything. We just sat and like, you cried and I just kept saying,

I don't know, I don't know. And it feels like in some ways this work is making us dumber. Yeah. It's like we finally are wise enough to know we don't know shit. Yeah. Or that it doesn't matter what you know. Exactly. I mean, it matters what you know for you.

But like, you know enough to know that acting on your rage is unhelpful to all parties involved and that going to the pain or the fear under the rage is the correct thing. And that crying, mourning, and grieving your lack of control is more productive than continuing to exert the control that you never had. That's right. Yes, it's the allot on shit that helps me so much.

These little things like all the things happen and then I just say to myself, well, I guess we'll see how God's gonna handle this. And then Abby will say, do you believe in God? I say, I don't know. I believe in that sentence I just said, let's see how God's gonna handle this. But it helps me instead of thinking,

let's see how I'm gonna handle this and like strategize 4 million things. And what I'm saying is I think even when we think we've lost it and we think, oh, that was like a not a good moment for me, that those are our best moments. I know, you took a picture of it and sent it to me. And I was like, really?

I sent you a picture of you crying on a chair. And I said, this is how much you love our babies. I think it's one of my favorite pictures of you ever. I'm not gonna post it, I'm just saying. I was so upset. It is upsetting to experience the generational trauma for the past. But here's the deal, you're experiencing it. Which I feel like is at least three quarters of the battle.

For me, what I'm most afraid of is not experiencing it. I think like the whole epigenetics world, these, I've been thinking of myself a lot lately as a mouse and trying to see how I'm living like a mouse because they did these studies where, okay, bear with me because it's very interesting. So they did these studies of mice where they took male mice and eventually they replicated it with female mice. But they put them in this little cage. It's terrible. So bad news for the mice, but just bear with me. We did not conduct the experiment. We did not. We are no way affiliated nor do we condone it. I'm just telling you what happened.

We are pro mice. We are pro. I am a mouse. That's what I'm telling you. I'm a mouse. As a mouse, I reject this study, but I find the findings informative. Okay. So they put these male mice in this thing. They have a smell that's a fancy word. It's like a seed of phantom or something, but it smells like cherries and almonds. Every time they put the smell into the container, they do an electric shock. Smell electric shock. If there's no smell, there's no electric shock. They do it, they do it, they do it. Then eventually these mice breed. Okay. The pups of these mice never, ever, ever have a shock. There's no actual shock experienced by them.

But three generations, when they smell the smell, the mice freak the fuck out. What? The children and grandchildren pups that have never been shocked, run around smelling the smell, freaking out, hiding on things. Their nervous systems are jacked. They're trying to escape the cage. They also replicate this with the females. It works

the same. So they're never even living together. It's not like the baby mice are looking at the adult mice and being like, oh, I learn when the smell happens, I run and hide. Totally independent of the parents. Also their brains, the mice brains, have more neurons that are made to be more heightened ability to smell things. So they have been genetically passed down in one generation. Their genetics are different for multiple generations. So they've never experienced it and they have the fear as if it were real to them. And their brains and bodies are designed to be specially suited to smell the things that they are afraid of that they shouldn't be afraid of.

Okay? This is why I'm a mouse. And that's why I'm afraid. What is my brain looking for constantly? Because if your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. What is my brain predisposed to be searching for, to be afraid of? And what is my smell reaction? That if I knew, if I could assure my body and my brain that there are no shocks coming in this department, then I could stop running and jumping on top of things

to hide for them every time I smell something that represents something that doesn't exist for me. Damn. Yeah. Dr. Mariel Bukay tells a story about a woman who came in to her office and one weird thing about her was that she could not stand the smell of coffee. She was allergic and her daughter, same thing. They found out that her grandfather had been brutally attacked.

And the man who brutally attacked him was just had had a huge coffee. It was like reeking of coffee. This is not a story that had ever been told to the family. Evolution helps us learn things in our bodies that will protect us. But our bodies are not protect us. Yes. But our bodies are not wise enough to know that we are not in that generation and we're

not in that situation anymore. And so we are allergic to coffee and miss out on coffee. Which when you think about it is the biggest intergenerational challenge you have ever heard. That's why it sticks with me. It's so tragic. God. Sister, what do you think, what is happening, like what do you believe made you this mouse?

And what does it feel like? How do you experience it on a daily basis? it feel like? How do you experience it on a daily basis? I think I experience it as not being at ease. I experience it as like ease is synonymous with danger. Like what a foolish thing to do. And I mean, just, you know, keeping your head on a swivel. Gotta know what's around. Gotta know what's happening. Gotta know who's doing the right thing and who's not doing the right thing. And I mean, always being critical. Always being, like looking for ways

that things could be better instead of just being pleased with how they are. All of those feelings are reflective of like a nervous system that is not at rest, that is continuing to work and work and work and look and look and look and monitor and monitor. I think, I don't know, I'm trying to figure out my categories of weirdness. And also I'm going to stop saying things like weirdness, Like it exists for a reason. Right. Probably those mice looked really fucking weird when a random smell came in and they started jumping on things to escape it. That's weird and odd. And you'd be like, what a big weirdo. But actually their brains were telling them because their genetic coding

said fire danger run. So like, that's why I'm trying to be compassionate to myself as a mouse. But I think that my mouse wiring is like, it'll always be up to you. You should not stop. I don't know, I'm trying to figure all of that out. You know, my friend V was over this week and I was just talking about how like,

I'm so tired of myself and the ruts that I'm in that like my patterns of thinking and my neuro pathways that are just the same shit all the time. And I was talking about how critical I am. Like I find myself looking for bad things. Not thinking I am, but I think I'm like looking for bad things even in like being critical in my relationship and whatever. And she was like, do you think that you are unwilling to not give a break and not be critical in your relationship because like look how hard

you're trying and if you're operating an A and you won't even stop being critical of yourself ever. How are you ever going to not be critical of someone else? I don't know. how are you ever going to not be critical of someone else? I don't know. I just, I'm like wondering if that all relates back and like my critical internal voice of myself comes from a critical externalized voice

of growing up that might, out of fear, been pushing me to be that at best I could be. Or maybe it was a role connected to an external voice that became an internal voice that would never let me let up, therefore I can never let anyone else let up either. I don't know. But I smell. I smell the things and I react to them as if they are threats. It feels to me like a real threat. I believe you that that's what is happening.

And I'm sorry. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. Does it? that that's what is happening. And I'm sorry. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense to me. Does it? Yeah. What about you? I mean, I have a lot of that, I think. Weird coincidence.

Yeah. It's so weird. I think that it would be really interesting for you two to do some therapy together in the same room. To talk through what each personal and collective experience through this stuff might be. I don't know, maybe that's down the road, but. I mean, I guess. Well, first we have to separate. We have to do the work of separating people

so we can do the work quickly. That's what it would be. That's right. That's what the therapy would be, I'm sure. Yeah, I mean, I guess how I would, I feel like that's what I was thinking of myself a while back too. And like I really felt like I, all the like labels I tried to put on myself, like I'm

just anxious. I'm just depressed. I'm just a person who lived as a straight person and now I'm queer. I'm just, it was religion. I'm just always trying to find like what the problem was, what's wrong with me. And so for me, there's also this shame if you can't point to something in your childhood that was this one specific thing that was so traumatic

that it's an excuse for everything. That has been confusing to me. It's like death by a thousand cuts then. And there's a theory of that. Yeah, well, it's, I think the reason why the intergenerational thing happens to make me have more peace is like, okay, well, I wasn't physically abused by a parent, what the fuck is wrong with me?

Like, why am I like this? Well, the truth is that I have a parent who was physically abused. When you are raised by someone who has extreme trauma, even if they did the best they could, they are going to pass on a worldview that came to you from their being. Their words could have said a different thing, but their body, the way they are, their energetic, their worldview

that is based on real things, that they were not safe, that they had to protect themselves, that they had to be vigilant, that they had to because they really did, right? That can be passed to you. That can be passed to you. Like look at the mice, they weren't even living with the person. They weren't seeing the mice jump on the things. They just knew it because of their biology. But if they had been living with the mouse and both had it inside of them and were watching their dad freak the hell out every time the smell came, that's a double with me.

Yeah, I said to Abby the other day, we were talking about something and I said something like, well, I said out loud that I don't believe that I'm mentally ill. And like that's the first time I've thought that or known that since I was 10 years old. I do not in any way believe that there's anything wrong with me inherently. Or that I was born broken, which I wrote in my first memoir. Or that I have this like debilitating mental illness that will always...

Now that, P.S., is not all great news for me. I find that to be more terrifying than any of the other reasons that I had for being the way I am. Because what does that mean? That means I am entirely responsible for myself, for my reactions to things, for the way I am in the world, I am entirely responsible. Wow. Which, whoa. And you viewed when you were viewing yourself as having a mental illness,

you didn't view yourself as entirely responsible? No, because, come on, I'm just crazy. Just like, I'm just, I'm depressed. I don't have to show up. I'm anxious. There was always this like explanation which has been given to me since I was little. Like when I was going around saying I'm broken,

nobody was saying, no, you're not. Nobody in my family said, actually, maybe there was other things going on. Nobody corrected my narrative. Everybody was more than happy to be like, that sounds right, let's go with that. She's crazy, look at that one. That's the crazy one.

Cuckoo, cuckoo. God, if we could just figure out what's wrong with that poor little thing. And then I am always causing the drama so nobody else has to. There's just, there's a lot which we can talk about on another episode, but. Or in therapy. Right. I already do that. So I guess my point being that it was maybe the most profound

learning of my life. And it wasn't like a mental, like I had to do it all bodily. It took me two years. I don't even explain how it happened. It just, it was, it had to be visceral that actually there's nothing inherently wrong with me. I am a little jumpy and on guard and scared because I was trained to be. And it is the work of my life to understand that I am not now in a place where I was when I was a kid

and that I don't wanna pass on that worldview. Not just not to my kids, which is the most important thing that I don't, but to anyone. Yeah. But changing that worldview is a fucking exorcism. It's absolutely, I've never done anything harder in my entire life and all I'm doing is sitting here. You would think that I was running a marathon every single day. I don't know how

to explain it any differently other than it is the hardest, most confusing, most baffling, most uncomfortable, most profound, important, life-changing, family-changing, world-changing work I've ever done. And all it is is it shows up in two second differences. It's like getting outside of trauma. Okay, so yesterday we're pulling into this parking space behind our house and there's this poor guy who's in the house next to us and he's desperately, he's lost his keys. He needs to get out of our way because we're in an alley.

We can't get by him, okay? It is clear that this man is losing his mind because he has lost his keys. And so it takes 10 minutes of him running around his house, running around the car, running around the trunk. What's amazing is that there's two huge trash cans next to his. All he has to do is move the trash cans and we could drive right by him. And that is what trauma is. You are in such a heightened space that you will spend six hours trying to find your keys and you will never see that all you have to do is walk around the car and move the trash cans.

car and move the trash cans. It is, the gift of it is seeing everything differently. It's this hard hard hard impossible journey that makes life 50 times easier on the other side of it. So anyway that's I don't know. I love you Sissy. I love you Sissy. I love you, Sissy. I love you, Sissy. I love you, Abby. She loves you too. You're such a cute little mouse. Eek, eek, eek.

All right, loves, we can do hard things. We'll see you back next time. Bye. Bye. 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

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