We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - Why We Should Stop Doing Our Best

Episode Date: August 16, 2022

1. Abby’s new nightly ritual of 80’s parties and Amanda’s wild adventure at a crawfish boil. 2. Glennon’s transition out of depression, and how she’s moving off “The Landing.” 3. Why our parents are so triggering – and how we can see them differently. 4. Glennon, Abby, and Amanda answer pressing Pod Squad questions. 5. Amanda pays tribute to a particular Pod Squader, Lexi – and to all women of her generation.   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

Whether you're doing a dance to your favorite artist in the office parking lot, or being guided into Warrior I in the break room before your shift, whether you're running on your Peloton tread at your mom's house while she watches the baby, or counting your breaths on the subway. Peloton is for all of us, wherever we are whenever we need it, download the free Peloton app today. Peloton app available through free tier, or pay subscription starting at 12. Oh my God. Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. Oh, this is what my kids do in the back of the car. No, sister, she does this to you.

No, she follows me around and will not stop repeating things like she's five freaking years old. I know, but didn't you guys laugh a little bit just right now? No, look at me now. You did. You laughed. You laughed. You're smile. We laughed, so we don't cry. Okay. Yeah. Hi everybody. Sissy. Hi. This is your summer going talk to us a little bit about your summer and how it's

going. This is going great until this. Sorry. I just needed a bring some joy. So look how joyful I am about it. She's so joyful, look at that face. So we have a new member of the family I need to tell you about. Okay. Last weekend we went to a crawfish boil. Okay. So this is a thing that is usually, it's sort of a southern thing I think,

because crawfish are from Louisiana That's where the crawfish sing. Yes, we're the crawfish sing exactly and so some folks up here had a crawfish boil We got invited so I was John was out of town and I took the kids up there and I learned something about the two types of kids There are in the world and one type of kid goes to a crawfish boil and eats. And then another type of kid goes to a crawfish boil and searches the entire yard for any lone survivor of the crawfish boil that doesn't make it into the pot. And picks it up with their bare hands and demands that we rescue

this crawfish and make it part of our family. So that is in fact what happened. Alice found this little baby crawfish and God bless her. She she has no fear. She just ran. You know, it's like a mini lobster. Yeah, it's little pictures. It looks like a tiny mini lobster. Yeah, it's just little pictures. It looks like a tiny mini lobster.

She found it on the ground. She picked it up and was carrying it around and she was like, I'm not leaving without buddy. Not without my crowd add. Not without buddy, which she had immediately named. And so I had to go and borrow a pan, like a baking pan and put the crawfish in the pan. We rode our bikes there.

I had to abandon my bike and walk home with this large baking pan with the water. But at first, I tried to put it in a little mason jar, but I only had filtered water that had been sitting in the cooler at the crawfish boil. So I poured the water on it at which time it like clenched up into a tiny bowl because Louisiana water is not apparently like that. And it was little buddy was like in a frozen bowl. So then we had to take buddy off

and put him on Alice's skin on skin. Oh my gosh. To warm buddy up, skin on exoskeleton, skin on exoskeleton skin on exoskeleton and Somebody warmed up and then transfer him to the pan Okay, and walked him home and It was a whole situation. I had to watch five YouTube videos. She made me watch so we could determine the sex

So buddy turns out buddy's a female, buddy, buddy, the the Crawfem. And buddy will reveal buddy's gender when buddy's dim-ready. Right, right, right. But then turns out buddy needs all kinds of various accoutrements, because buddy cannot live in a pan. And so I went on Facebook Marketplace because all of the aquariums are like $700. And I'm like, no. No, over my dead buddy, am I gonna spend $500 on this thing? So I go on Facebook Marketplace

and I buy this aquarium and filled up the tank and we just watched Buddy for like 10 hours. Watch Buddy and their Buddy was so happy and then the next morning. Oh. Oh no. What? The next, I went to the different lands. Yeah.

What did Alice do? How did she respond? She just kept saying I don't understand. I don't understand. And it was very sad. And I tried to explain that buddy had been through a lot of trauma. I mean, buddy was sent in a cooler from Louisiana. All the cradads are in their fighting each other and the cooler than they get there. Then 99% of buddy's comrades boiled. Oh, Jesus. Buddy then frozen with my filtered water then unfrozen.

And then spent the last 24 hours of buddy's life in the bougie aquarium of its wildest. She had a good son. Yeah, I feel like she really had the last little happiness. So we have a this weekend we have a memorial. Of course, Alice wanted to wait to buddies, Godmother, which was her other little friend, who was also at the crawfish boil with us. When the Godmother returns to town, we can have a proper. This Alice eat meat. She mostly vegetarian. Um, she does eat meat, but I remember recently she asked me, why do we eat animals? Oh, shit. And I was like, I don't understand.

I don't know. Like that. I don't know. It's really fucked up. It is fucked up. Yeah. Anyway, so that was the big events of our last couple days. I mean, buddy, it might be the only crawfish on earth who really experienced true love. You know, it was truly loved at the end there. Well, we don't know. And there are a lot of true loves down in, I mean, it's New Orleans.

A lot of them. Yeah, that's true. Free, free crawfish love down there. I'm not sure. How are you, babe? Pleasure, Summer. Anything that exciting? That's true. Free, free, pre-professional love down there. I'm not sure. How are you, babe? Pleasure, summer. Anything that, of exciting?

My summer has been going really wonderfully. Really? I just feel like our kids are at a, are at a cool age where we're starting to like really get to know them. Their personalities are starting to like really stabilize. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, the young years are. They're picking a lane. They're picking a lane. They're taking a freaking lane. But something that's been happening recently, the last two days, I've decided to play music loudly. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And our top floor, one hour before dinner, where I get to kind of center myself before I have to go into the cooking, cleaning, whirlwind of dinner. And we've been choosing to listen to the station called Born in the USA.

True spring steam. Yeah, last night we ended up with a white snake. Yeah. It really, it's a little bit life changing that hour. And so we sit there, we play solitaire. We dance. We get the cards out and we sing, and I take silly videos of Glennon,

because that's my favorite thing. Because you know, we've been going back to my 80s glam rock head banger. And before every song, sister, literally, before every top 80s song comes on, she goes, this might be my favorite. This is my favorite. This is my favorite. This is my favorite.

And then goes into. I'm out. I'm out. And then she goes into my hair was this big. And it was. God, I'm just like, did you go to any of these concerts? And she's like, no, I wasn't allowed to do anything, but I had all their posters covering my walls.

I'm doing good. This has been a good summer. I'm not excited for it to be over. How is your summer going? Well, I feel like I have just kind of figured out over the last couple of weeks that I'm in in like a different phase. So you know how the winter was kind of hard for me.

I had the eating disorder relapse. All the things I think I was in a bit of a depression. When you're in that, I don't know why, but it's hard to recognize it. I just feel like, oh, my life is terrible and everything's awful and I hate everything. I've always hated everything and I've always been this way. I can't see it as like a season when I'm in it. But now I am starting to see it as a season. So I think about the time that comes after that season for me. So I have a time where I am down, we'll call it down, depressed, melancholy, whatever you want to call it, sadness comes, like sinks in like a haze over my life. And then I come out of it and it lifts. And now I'm in the post-lift time. And what happens

in this time is that it's like the depressed time is a forgetting of everything. And I always forget the beauty of the after season because I forget everything and then I come back to life. And the next season is a very much like a springtime. Everything is brand new. I'm learning everything for the first time. Everything's beginner's mind. It's like I'm learning how to be human again for the first time. And it's silly. It's like, oh, water. Oh, moving my body. Oh, the sun. Fresh air. It's like, I'm an alien who's been dropped on the planet and I'm learning everything for the first time and it's quite wonderful actually and I've been thinking about it in terms of crabs. Just stick with you. Like the animal. Yes, we've

been on the crawfish. Which by the way I didn't think of until you said that. Okay. Sister and I spent a lot of time near the Chesapeake Bay, so everything was about crabs. So crabs, they have seasons where they start to hide. They go into very dark places of the bay and they hide. And then they're hiding because they're losing their shell. And they have to hide because they're very vulnerable when they lose their shell.

They're soft shell crabs. Soft shell crabs are crabs that are caught in between losing their old shell and growing a new shell. They're mid transformation. Right, they're mid transformation. They're on the landing and they got caught. They're on the fucking landing

and they didn't make their boundaries. Okay, they snuck out and they got picked off. That's why when you are in a depression, you keep your boundaries. Okay, they snuck out and they got picked off. That's why when you are in a depression, you keep your boundaries. You don't, you don't go out where there's predators. Oh, okay, because you are a soft shell crab. I do believe that there is something about going through a deeply sad melancholy time that is about growth, that we can't understand like what the hell is happening and we think it's all bad. But what I do think is in this season, and by the way, I won't be able to see this next time

it happens to me. I will not be able to see it until afterwards. I know, I'll remind you. But there is a time where it's like a molting that this like depression thing for me is sort of terrible and I don't think I would choose it. But it also is a reset that happens every once in a while in my life that is about getting bigger.

What do you mean growing into a new self? Oh. It's a new self, it's a beginning, but it's like leveling up, it's like a video game. And I'm on a new level and it has nothing to do with like outer things like you wouldn't be able to see, but there's just a spiritual growth. Yeah. That's happening. So I just want in case anyone is in the the melting part of the dark part or the whatever, I want to read this paragraph that has helped me through many a molting times.

Many a molting? Many a molting times. So I'm going to read something by Rilka. It's called Letters to a Young Poet. He's writing to his friend, to is a young poet. And young poet is going through a melancholy time. He's a feely. Not just poet.

Going through a melancholy time. So, Star, yes. Okay. So, he is an older writer, anxious, sensitive bunny, who's trying to coach this young poet about making it through these times and being this kind of deeply-feeling person. And he says to him, this, so you must not be frightened and he says to him this, so you must not be frightened if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen. If a restiveness like light and cloud shadows

passes over your hands and over all you do, you must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand, it will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life, any agitation, any pain, any melancholy, since you really do not know what these states are working upon you? Okay, so that's where I am. I don't know what the next thing is. I just am experiencing everything as brand new.

When a crab molds. Yeah. Does it mold into a larger show? Yeah. Oh, for real. I've got somebody in tell on that. Oh my god. Of course you do.

You have done research. I hope. I had to watch all the YouTube videos without this. She put them all up. We had to watch them all so When at least a crawfish I assume they're related. Yeah, when a crawfish Maltz that's when it's exoskeleton. It comes out. It's the soft thing it Actually consume they said don't take that skeleton out. You've got to leave that in there because

they eat it to have the strength to build their next one around them. That is some shit. So they need the nutrients from the what looks like a discarded useless past identity to grow into their new, going to take them forward identity. Wow. Nothing is wasted. Nothing is wasted. None of that old pain.

I feel that in my endoskeleton. That is true. That we are using every bit of every version of ourselves we have ever been to create the next version of ourselves that we will be. And that sometimes when we're feeling really, really tender in our family, we call it tender. We're feeling really tender, really porous, really sensitive. We think that that's a weak state, but I think actually that could be a transformative state where we are becoming the next thing. 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 my new podcast, Classy. And what did you all eat? You know, trailer food. I was like, girl, why not doing that anymore. 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.

Wherever you get your podcasts. I have a question for you about your beginner's mind. When you talk about how everything is new and it's beautiful when you kind of wake up from the depressive state. How long does that last? Because my only analogy to that is when I'm feeling sick and I'm in my bed, I always, well, first of all, I always think I'm going to die whenever I get sick and I'm like, this is over. I had such a good run. Yes. I wasn't ever as happy as I should have been and now I'm never, this is like I have a fever. Okay. Now I'm never going to get better. And God, if I had only

enjoyed my life. And then I always swear to God that once I feel healthful again, I'll never complain. I'll be so happy just to be able to not be sick. And then I start to feel better. And I feel like that truly. I feel so grateful for about seven and a half hours. And then I'm back to my just curmudgeon self. So how long does that last? Okay, I love this whole comparison because I, we're here, comes weird glenon. Okay, so here we are.

If there's a god, and I've always, even when I was like, you know, just on cocaine and alcohol, and would feel like God was hanging out with me, and we were just like, you know, just on cocaine and alcohol and would feel like God was hanging out with me and we were just like buddies always. If there's a God, if God is like joy and love and peace for human beings are when they notice the little miracles of life, that's it. People who can soak in the sun and see their friendships and their loves as a miracle and breathe and feel like that's a miracle and walk around if that's the joy

carpet, I rose, great, then when I get too far from that because I've become so capable again, mm-hmm, because I've become so efficient, because I've become so like steady and stable, then that's when the depression comes. Because that takes me back to beginner's mind and the beauty and the joy again. So I don't necessarily feel like it's, I feel like I'm gonna get in trouble for saying like depression is a blessing from God that takes us back to beginner's mind.

I don't think it's exactly that, but I do think that for me, that's how I can think that for me, that's how I can frame it to make it instead of feeling cruel, to feel like a blessing. That's what the episode with Dr. Lawyer Santos about, she's the professor who teaches the happiness class at Yale. And the science behind it really is that the irony is that the happiest people are deeply in touch with the precariousness of life. They are happy because they realize that anything could change at any time.

And that it is not as steady as it feels. You think those would be the people that would be most sad about life, but they're actually the happiest because they appreciate that this is all very unstable and therefore their gratitude for it is bigger. Yes, that's how it feels. Yeah, and it feels like back to the basics. But oh, that's so cute that you thought you were like

an actual grown-up and you were like chugging right along and like a dip back to the beginning. And little things, if I describe to you what that bigger self looks like, I can already feel it coming and it's silly, like really silly. Like when I am in my beginning growing the new shelf is, I have to find little teeny spots where I feel safe. So as you all know, I've been going to this little yoga studio. I'm talking about it a lot because it's my little safe place right now and I freaking

love it. And I'm laying there the other day and there's these teachers that are all different, they're all amazing and they say the nicest things. They just are like, you all are beautiful and perfect and amazing. And you all are breathing. And that is amazing. I'm like, yes to this. I love you. I need somebody saying really nice things to me.

Mm-hmm. I need somebody who tells me I'm perfect the way I am. I need this. You are. Okay. That's a basic thing. Yes to that. This is a new thing for my new self

that I'm learning in the yoga studio. When I go there, there's all these like young people there who are doing very hard things for a very long time. They are doing hard yoga. And I think of myself as the permission to rest, lady, in those classes. Yeah. P-T-R. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hashtag PTR, okay?

I am like, hmm, child's pose for 20 minutes or whatever it is. And I just do it and it feels so good to give myself exactly what I needed. And here's the thing, I realize this, I am 46 years old. That's how old you are. Yeah, and I don't want to do my best anymore. I actually, and I'm sorry to tell you my business partners, I don't want to give 100% anymore. I don't believe in it. I want to show up at things that make me feel good and I want to give like 70% and I want to keep a little bit for extra and for me.

I don't want to work hard and play hard. I want to work medium and play low. Play low. Your play also just don't forget. It's just reading and resting. That's play low. No, it's balance, right? It's like work medium, play medium.

That's. Okay, but what I'm saying is I don't buy it anymore. I don't buy the like show up and give 100% anymore. I feel like show up and do exactly what feels right and good and tender and loving to you. Every time I'm there, I'm like, well, I already did it. I'm already here. Who cares what happens next?

Yeah. You know, so this is, well, I already did it. I'm already here. Who cares what happens next? Yeah. You know, so this is a new way of this new self. And it feels like if we just showed up and gave medium, we wouldn't have to be like always wanting to quit. Yeah, we wouldn't stress about it. That's been revolutionary for me in my working art right now. So I just show up and whatever happens happens. Yeah, it's awesome.

So this is what I mean by a new self. It's not like a, you know, leveling up in any way that anyone else would be able to tell. It might look like leveling down. What you're saying, Tony Robbins isn't coinciding on this for that for a long time. I'm sick. No, it's the opposite.

I'm like a demotivational molter. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Okay, and I know that that sounds funny, but I actually think it's very true and real and deep because it's like unlearning all of the things that frantic capitalistic culture teaches us about what we have to do to be relevant. And oh, no, no, this is what I have to do to be peaceful. One of my favorite things that I've recently read, a famous person was just asked, what is your most favorite thing you're doing right now? And they said, divesting. And I thought, shit, that's so awesome. They're a little bit older. And I thought, yeah, divesting. Because like, you get to the, you're like, I need to get and, and invest and create and grow my

family and whatever. And I thought, I think that we need to make the transition to the divesting sooner. I think that that's where. And by that you mean just extricating yourself for things that aren't the core of what you care about. Yeah, looking at all the things that everyone told us we had to do and being like, do I? Yeah. Questioning everything. Anyway, that's how we're somewhere's going. I'm so excited to hear from a pod's

squadron today. We get this one question asked over and over again from so many people. So we're going to do a focus on in on one question today and that question is from Catherine. Hi, my name is Catherine. My relationship with both of my parents has never been easy. They are both complicated people, but I know they love me, but there have been many times in my life where I have been extremely hurt by their words and their actions. I know these

words and actions stem from a place of being from their own experiences and challenges that each of them has faced. Despite knowing this, I find it so hard to not hold on to how they have treated me in the past, which leads me to resentment. This is what now feels like a barrier between us. Do any advice on how to accept the people we love, knowing they are imperfect, and to not always recognize how they suspect you're less in the past? I love my parents, and I still need them in my life, but I can't help but wish they were better to me. Thank you so much in advance. I love all three of you. Bye bye.

Katherine, I feel like this, I don't know about YouTube, but it feels like this in some form is the question that every single one of my friends is dealing with right now. Yeah. It's like a time of life thing or... And our age, right? Our parents are getting a little older. We're having existential crisis because of the age of our parents. And because we are figuring more out and looking back on our childhoods, and some of us are parenting. We're figuring out how we're parenting and then wondering why they didn't parent us the way that we're parent to.

Anyway, it's... Lots of problems here. Yeah. I mean, I can tell you, Katherine, I had a really cool conversation with a couple of friends recently who were talking about this exact scenario that they want to be able to hang out with their parents

and not be angry all the time and not be resentful and not wish things were different, but just accept what is, especially when you get to the point where you realize you're not gonna change anybody. Mm-hmm. And you kind of give up on that, that idea that forgiveness is letting go of the idea

that your past could have been any different. I know I have a friend who told us that one of the ways she made it through this was that she stopped. She was 50 years old before she stopped thinking of her parents as her parents. So let's say that her parents were Bob and Joe. Nope, maybe there was a woman and a man. I love that. I love that. You just like, you went into a gay man. I said I'm sorry, that's so cool.

Homosexual brain. It's a heteronologist brain. Okay, let's just go to like Betty and Joe for this one. Okay, so Betty and Joe are your parents and you've called the mom and dad your whole life. When you're 50 years old and you're trying to figure out how do I have a relationship with these two people that is not so freaking loaded with resentment. One strategy is to stop thinking of Betty and Joe as your parents as my mom and dad

and just start thinking of them and refer to them in your mind as Betty and Joe as your parents, as my mom and dad, and just start thinking of them, and refer to them in your mind as Betty and Joe. Okay, now let me explain why. Because when we say my mom, my mom, my mom, my mom, what we're also bringing to that is all of these expectations we have for what a mom should have been, what we believe a mom should have been,

and the gap is there between what we think should have happened and what actually did happen. Or even even in the present, like what we think should happen when my mom should call me right now. If we call her mom, we're bringing all of these expectations and resentments and sadness to it right away. But at some point we figure out that our parents are just freaking people who have their own personalities and their own trauma and their own upbringing and their own experiences on the earth. And they've just always been themselves, right? So when we think about whether our mom called us or not, when we hoped she would and she didn't, we just think, instead of my mom didn't call me,

it's like, well, Betty's just bedding. Mm-hmm. There's Joe over there. Joe's just showing. It's like this depersonalization of roles. And when we take the role out of it, there's something I've been trying it, and there's something kind of sweet that comes into it too, where you just start seeing

your parents as human beings. We see it all now with our grown kids. They're already telling us stuff we did wrong, or stuff that we would ever. And I think that for them to start seeing us as like Glen and Annabee, two people that are just trying to do their best, and have them and have our own shit. It's just one little strategy. Is it possible to accept familial relationships as they are and also crave more? I think that the acceptance of the way things are has allowed me the chance at time spent with

with my family, with my mom, especially. She's recently gone through some health stuff, which she's she's come out perfectly on the other side. And I feel like I kind of left my resentments in the past, and I just want to experience the time I have left with her in a non chaotic, non resentful. And I think that maybe there will be a part of me that always craves more. But that's just like me, you know, and I can't. Judy's just gonna Judy. Judy's Judy. She's gonna Judy and Abby's gonna Abby. Yeah, Abby's gonna Abby. I still I'm a person who craves more connection. And that's okay too. I think both things can be true at the same time. I think there's a distinction here. We hear this all the time and what we hear from Catherine is she says

I find it so hard to not hold on to how they have treated me in the past with resentment. So I think there's two buckets of people who are dealing with this. One is I'm looking back at my life and seeing freshly for the first time that I was not treated the way I should have been. And now it's hard for me to be in live relationship with you knowing that this unexcavated treatment that we have never talked about is always there. And then we have this whole second group of people

where there's active mistreatment, crossing of boundaries in the live right now. And that's the second bucket. We're gonna have a Nedra toob on soon to talk about that whole phenomenon, but I think with Katherine, I just wanna say that I get it. It comes from a really real place.

There's almost a sense of justice that our lives and our personhood demands to be, when I'm looking back on this and I see that this was candidly fucked up. But now I'm in a relationship with you that doesn't acknowledge, that doesn't on earth, that doesn't deal with that. And it's somehow, I am complicit in my own mistreatment by not unearthing that or not

testifying to it. So does it feel like you're abandoning your old self, your little self if you let it go? Yeah, I think that the reason a lot of us are getting to this point in our lives is we're just beginning to understand boundaries is we're just beginning to understand boundaries. We're just beginning to understand what we will accept and what we won't.

And then we look back in our lives and say, the people that are closest to me are the people that I have that I have accepted the most bullshit from. So you want to set like retroactive boundaries. Exactly. But what I want to say to that is like, you, we don't need to defend unless it's an active thing right now, that's a separate bucket, we don't need to defend ourselves

and we don't need to, in some ways, punish ourselves for being unable to defend ourselves then. Because we were children. And the fact that somebody treated us badly doesn't mean we did anything wrong. And it's almost like a self-legulation that happens now when we are uncomfortable because of the way people treated us in the past. Like, we have to make it right for ourselves.

But that's not on us. That's on the other person to make it right. If they choose to and many of them will not. So it's the freedom to be like, yeah, Joe and Sally, they didn't do right. And also that's not my problem. What's happening right now is deciding what relationship I want with the limitations of who these people are and can it be a satisfying situation for me

and that I don't need to carry this book bag of burden just because it was handed to me when I was young. I can put it down and try to have whatever relationship feels warm to me now if it does. It's cognitive dissonance because we're like, I love you. This is lovely, but yet I keep looking back and seeing how fucked up that was. That's not ours to carry. That's theirs to carry. And I bet they're thinking the same thing. But that's their bag to carry. You don't have to live in the cognitive dissonance. You can live right now because you don't have to

get that retroactive justice for yourself. Yeah, it's good. I think there can be a letting go and a forgiveness of the past when we remember. I was reading this article recently that brought up the idea of presentism, which is presentism is the idea of applying what we know now and who we are now to pass situations. So what that means is I look at like, I think of myself and what I know now about boundaries and what I know about like healthy relationships and even my parents know now about boundaries and healthy relationships and mental health

and all the things. And I take who, everything I know now and I look back at my life when I was 10 and I'm like, why the hell didn't this happen and this happened and this happened and this happened? Because I'm taking my consciousness now and applying it back then and there's like sweet Jesus. I hope that my children in 30 years will not apply their consciousness then to me right now because I hope 30 years from now that I even have,

like, I know a lot more and I can understand more a lot about interpersonal relationships and I know more about the world. But now, I actually am doing the best I can with what I know. So sometimes people are doing the best they can with what they know and it's still not good enough for your future self

because you know more. It's also sometimes not good enough for your present self. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah that's a big quagmire that everybody has to figure out, but that little idea helps me as presentism of not applying the same consciousness retroactively. Yeah. And expecting that everything should have happened the way it would now. Yeah, that's so hard to do. I bet a lot of parents are like, I did the best that I could. That's what they mean. You're just different now.

Yeah, they just mean like, I think I was doing the best I could. And the thing under the thing that I think is the reason that this type of question and this type of feeling is so pernicious is that what she says is how they've affected me. So when we get to this stage in our lives and we have as much as self-awareness, it's not just that they did that thing back then. It's because what they did back then is so inside of us that we can see it in our own actions, in our own automatic responses to things in the way that we are parenting our kids.

And that makes us pissed. Yes. That's why parents are so triggering. Because the thing in them is the thing in you that you are most allergic to. I just always view it as like a football player carrying the ball. I'm like view it as like a football player carrying the ball. I'm like, my parents were given a set of circumstances on the field.

And they really did carry the ball. They carried the ball as far as they could. And they carried what for them was a dramatic drive down the field. Yeah, that's right. Now my job, I know that I have shit in me that is going to affect my kids and I wish it weren't and all I'm gonna do is carry the ball as far as I can down the field and then I know that my kids will have the same. But when they finish their play, it is going to look

wildly different than my parents. Yes. Just because we're all just doing the best that we can. And what you've just said allows us to take the power in a situation where we didn't get or receive the kind of love and attention that we needed back then, because if we are playing out these scripts in so many ways, like all of us do, that we have our parents in us, that's something that we can proactively do,

to figure out, okay, where am I going to make sure that I don't pass this on? Do you like it? That's what therapy is, but you don't, I don't know, I'll talk about the sports, but I imagine that you don't spend your down, going back to your parents down and like, rerunning their place over and over.

Like you stay in your part. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, let's hear from our pod squatter of the week. Can we hear from Sweet Lexi, please? Hi, this is Lexi, and I am calling because I just want to thank you all for changing the world. You are getting into people from conscious, including mine, and a couple of honest things here. I talked to three of you all day long. I asked you questions and you answer me back.

We are in conversation all the time because I listen to your podcast and you are in my head and thank you for that. Another thing I just want you to tell me I'm doing a good job. I have four children, seven and under, and it's a lot. And if I could ever hear it from you guys that I'm doing a good job, it would mean the world to me. Oh, Lexi, I am a person that words of affirmation is my jam. Mm hmm.

Glennon is not as much. Lexi, you're doing an incredible job. For children under the age of seven, the fact that you even knew to remember numbers, to dial numbers. She knows how old they are, she knows how many of them they are. Well, the numbers to the pod squad.

She knows phone numbers. To the voicemail, to dial in, to call and leave this voicemail. She says, crushing it. Get out of here. I get this. I mean, going back to the beginning of this episode, when I sit in that little room, and those women tell me

that I'm doing a good job just by breathing, and that I am fine, and that, like, see, sometimes when I think about those teachers, I get scared they're going to leave. Like, I get terrified that they're going to leave because I need for them to tell me that I'm okay. And I actually was thinking about that this morning, and I thought, I wonder if that's how the pod squad

feels about us. That's like a bold thing to say and consider, but it made me feel really good and important because it made me feel like maybe that's all that they need is to just hear us say we are here and it's hard for us to and we love you and you are crushing it. And if it's really hard for you, if like life and love and marriage and work and losing and all of it's really hard for you, that doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong.

In fact, Lexi, that probably means you're doing it right because people who are doing what I would call life right, which means that you're just showing up again and again and trying and failing and flailing and trying again, are often the people for whom life is the hardest. Yeah. Lexi, we love you. We think that actually there's nobody better on the entire freaking earth than Lexi. Right? No, we better. I'll go ahead and say it. Go ahead.

You're the best in the whole earth. You're the best in the world, Lexi. Lexi, you're doing a beautiful job. And it's like in school when they said, if someone asks a question, it means the rest of the class at the same question. I think we should go ahead and extrapolate from Lexi that everybody needs to know they're doing great.

And I would just like to say I was listening to a podcast this morning about historically our roles. And I firmly believe at 50 years, 100 years from now, they're going to look back on this generation of women and be like, what in the actual fuck? Like we are at this intersection of having an all of having the careers, of having the educations,

of having the whatever, and we are doing more than has ever been done before. You know what we all did, 100 years ago? Farmed. The kids farmed. We farmed. The kids farmed. We farmed. Husbands farmed. There were dance classes.

Nobody had taken anybody to school. Nobody was making sure they got tutored on Saturday. No one was making origami, okay? Some of them were not a thing. Some weren't. This was everybody, they woke up, they farmed, they went to sleep. Nobody talked about what they felt. No, there was an essay writing class for college admissions and also your 50 hour a week job. And also, did you remember avocados? Because it's a super fucking

food. Nobody was doing that shit. Okay. So this is what I want to say Lexi. Historically, people will look back on you. There will be statues of Lexi. And they will say, thank God, we stopped that horrendous experiment. We were doing that just eviscerated all the women. Yeah, that's right. That's it. And with that, it. And with that, with statue and honor, to Lexi, we end. We will see you next time. If you come back on We Can Do Hard Things. Pour one out for buddy. Bye. Bye. Bye! Bye! I give you Tish Melton and Brandy Carlisle. I chased desire, I made sure I got once mine And I continued to believe, I walk the line Cause we're adventurous and heartbreak So man, a final destination

And we'll stop 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 hit rock bottom, it felt like a brand new star I'm not the problem, sometimes things fall apart

And I continue to believe The best people are free And it took some time But I'm finally fine Cause we're adventurers And heartbreaks on map A final destination with that We stopped asking directions

So places they've never been Can 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 our thing from do hard Those perfecturers and heart breaks on land We might get lost but we're only in that Stopped asking directions

Some places may have 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. Yeah, we can do hard things.

We can do hard things, is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios. Be sure to rate, review, and follow the show on Apple podcasts, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts, especially be sure to rate and review the podcast if you really liked it. If you didn't, don't worry about it. It's fine. you