We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - You’re NOT A MESS. The world is.

Episode Date: September 9, 2021

1. The viral note Glennon wrote to herself in her car this week—and how the world’s response confirmed that we’re all struggling right now. 2. How we tend to either Avoid the world’s pain or Be Consumed by it—and how to survive the overwhelm by embracing the Third Way. 3. What Glennon fears most as her oldest child leaves for college. 4. Why we can’t let the fact that we can’t fix everything keep us from doing something—and how Together Rising began. 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 12.99 per month. Hi everybody, it's Glenin. Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. Just want to start this episode by saying, good luck to you. Good luck to you. We are recording this episode two days

before I drop my son off at college. So today is Doom's Day Eve Eve, okay? And I am in the midst of just some real deep feelings that I'm not really sure I can even isolate before I knew of Chase's existence. So I got sober the day I found out that I was pregnant with Chase. Okay, it was on Mother's Day 19 years ago. And so before that day, I was not who I am today. Okay, I was an addict, I was a food addict and an alcohol addict. I was I had no sense of myself at all. I had no I hurt people I lied to people I stole I I

just Was just a really really lost Human being I had no North Star. I had no Self really and so the day that I found out I was pregnant with Chase no North Star, I had no self really. And so the day that I found out I was pregnant with Chase, well, I guess is the first time I ever wanted something more than I wanted to just be numb. And so I decided that I wanted to become a mother,

which meant that I was also going to have to become like a human being. Right? And so the way that I became a human being is that I just constantly asked myself consciously at first and then subconsciously, okay, what would this kid's mom do? Every decision that had to be made, every in my work, in my life, in my, was just like, okay, I would look at this little child. Because, you know, I think the universe just kind of looked at me and was like, oh, bless her heart. Like, we are, we are going to have to give her the easiest child ever first, because she can't handle a normal person, right?

She's just learning to become a normal person. So we're gonna have to give her this child that is like this little Yoda of a person, okay? This like, and I'm not lying, right? You guys, like, he's just, oh, no, he he's he's objectively Just exceptional. He's just this gentle wise Beyond his years little

Human who has been so patient with me and you know, he's the child who He's very rarely Pushed the boundaries of anything, but, no, in his, I mean, it worth me. But once he was, I told him to stay inside this little fence and he and his friend jumped the fence and I got there and he wasn't at this little playground and I was so scared and I found him and I brought him back to the house and I was just staring at him because he'd never done anything like this. And I said, what, what is happening? And he said, Mommy, I'm, I'm just, I'm going to, I'm gonna, you know, push, push boundaries sometimes. And you're just gonna have to give me a

consequence. It was like five. It was five. You're gonna have to give me a consequence, Mommy. How, how the world works is I learn about boundaries through natural consequences. He was parenting the ones that you, he's always been like that. He's always been parenting me and I have become a person that I'm proud of right like I have become a person who trusts herself and who other people can trust and who the world even trusts on some level and it's because every day, every day I have looked at this kid

and been like, what would this kid's mom do? Like, what would the woman who is worthy of being this child's mother say right now, do right now, decide right now, create right now? Every day, I've just been trying to be worthy of being Chase's mom. And it hit me the other day. What my friend has, you know, this is a time when a lot of people's kids are leaving and one of my friends kids is leaving and she

said, you know, I'm just scared for him. I'm scared for him. I'm just laying in bed thinking. I just hope I've taught him enough. You know, I hope he's learned enough from me to, you know, go out into this big world on his own. Oh, my God. And, y'all, you know what I thought? Oh, my God. That's not what I've been thinking at all. I've been thinking at all. I've been thinking. Oh my God, I hope he's taught me enough. I hope that he has trained me enough so that now I can go out into this world and be

good and brave and wise enough without him. Like I hope that he's done enough to set me off into this world where he's not watching me every day. And so, and I can still be good and I can still be way, and I can still be good and I can still be weight wise and I can still be brave and I can still be strong. But what I'm telling you is that the truth is that I have never been any of those things without him in my daily life. And so, what I'm wondering is if in maybe in some ways we're all just trying to be as good as the person

who loves us the most believes we are. You know, like maybe we are all just each day creating this character that we just hope one day we've practiced enough to just become reflexively. Lives into the dream of who we wish we could be one day we've practiced enough to just become reflexively. Lives into the dream of who we wish we could be one day. Yeah. And that's what he's been for me is just he's helped me create this self that I am just trying to be good enough for him. That's so beautiful.

It's so beautiful, honey. And I just if you could just only see yourself through my eyes, that's all I will say. I see it every day. I see you every single day having gotten strong enough for this moment. And you are. I love you. Well, and it's just this amazing, I mean, through all of these times, it's so wild. You look at your kid walk away and you're like, first of all, helping him pack the other day.

And I'm like, this is not parenting. This is like, we have to help our children break our hearts. Like, I'm helping you leave me. Like, the indignity. That's what you should say to me when you break up with me. Exactly. It's like that. Like the unselfishness it takes. I just want to sabotage everything, you know. And so I have, what I'll tell you is I do feel like I'm on the edge of that canyon, like that dark, pit of despair. I mean, last night Abby you said to me,

she's Abby's tip towing around me a little bit and like not even asking how are you quite often because there's just too much to that answer. So last night when you did ask me how are you. And the truth was that I told you that I was thinking about how we're almost dead. Yeah, she says to me, she says, well, the truth of it is I feel like this is the step, the first step to the end.

The next step is death. And I said, oh, okay, but we're 45 and 41 and. Exactly. Okay, but we're 45 and 41 and exactly. It's just it's not for a long time. Hopefully. Okay, but what I'm trying to say, it's the Harry Mitzali and I'm gonna be 40. In eight years. But it's out there.

That's how I feel y'all because what I know that I go too far with things, I know that, you know, real me in or whatever, but what I am on the edge of is watching your kid separate from you. This him walking away, like now doing life on this level without me, it's just like feels like dress rehearsal. It feels like practicing for when one day we're going to separate for real. Okay? Like I just... Yes. Yeah. ...feels...

I get that. Like that is what I'm touching. Like that's the hot stove that I'm touching here with the separation. And what I've decided is that I can't feel these feelings. So, your leader who's told you over and over to feel it all, I have scheduled three days where I'm going to feel my feelings. Okay, I've not gotten away from this family for so long. So Abby's taking me to a place for three days. Inside of those three feelings, I'm going to, three days

I'm going to allow myself to feel the feelings. It's going to be loads of fun, folks. Right. In structure liberates, I'm just going to jump into the pit of despair during those three feelings, because when you're a mom, you don't even get to feel your feelings. I have to walk Emma and Tish through this experience. I have to make chase not worry that his mom's going to jump off a cliff. So I'm sitting in the car, I think, last week. Actually, in a parking lot, I stay there during amus practice. As an active of maternal resistance, I refuse to watch children play soccer. I mean, I watch them play. I refuse to watch children practice soccer.

There's a new thing where now you don't even... It's not enough to go to practice soccer. There's a new thing where now you don't even, it's not enough to go to the games. The parents sit and watch the children practice. I just, that is where I draw the line. So I will take her and drop her little self off and then I go sit in the car. So I'm sitting in the car, thinking about chase leaving, thinking about it even.

You guys feel like touching like a hot stove. Like I just, I think about thinking about it and then I shut down a little bit. I wrote myself a note in the car. I started having this big, big, you know, feelings. So I wrote myself a little note, as you know I do, sister. And the note said, I wrote on my phone, it said, you're actually not a mess at all.

You're just a feeling person in a messy world. You are exactly right to feel a lot right now. It does not mean your week. It means you're strong enough to be paying attention. Be gentle with you. Listener, if you're asking myself right now, does she actually write herself notes? The answer is yes. I have you notes, right, babe? Uh huh. So I wrote that note and then I was like,

you know what, I should share this. Maybe it'll help someone else, could it actually helped me a smidge? So I shared and I put it somewhere on Instagram or something and I just, the responses, people are feeling a freaking lot right now. Okay. People are feeling so much the comments that came back, the idea that actually we are not all a disaster. We are not all a mess. We just are paying attention to what is a very messy world, right? And actually, being upset by these things, having these feelings does not at all imply

weakness. It implies the strength that is inherent with the decision to pay attention. Right? I... jobs. And because of that, I think about class a lot. And I want to talk about it. That's what we're doing on my new podcast, Classy. And what did you all eat? You know, trailer food. I was like, Girl, we're 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. So one of the comments that came back sister what was it because I think I I sent it to you. It was just like the world is on freaking fire. Yeah, the world is constantly on fire. How do we go on and keep breathing? Yeah, exactly. That is the question. And I think we have a voice now, don't we?

Yep. Hi, son and sister. My name is Ella. I just wanted to start off by saying that I absolutely love your podcast. I also love on James. Funny story. I actually read the book on an earplane in one sitting and then once I got off the airplane a few days later, I got, we can do our things tattooed on my arm. So it's now with me forever. That is just how much I love your book and you too. But anyways, my hard thing, my question that I wanted to ask

is that I am really, really sensitive. I'm also an environmental science nature. So I'm constantly burdened by just climate change global warming, all kinds of really horrible offloadings. And I constantly think about that. I mean, there's not a day in my life that doesn't go by that I do not think about, you know, the end of the world in our future and plastic and turtles

and you know, all of those things. So I just wanted to ask if you had any advice on like, how do I not think about these things or how, like constantly constantly how do I not be burdened by them? And also, I don't know, I mean, you guys have that same experience. Anyways, I love you both, I hope you have a fabulous afternoon. Bye. Ella, Ella, thank you for being burdened by what's happening to our planet. I mean, Ella made me think of, um, Tish, actually. Remember, um, I've told you all this story and I put it in an untamed and I'll tell a brief

version of it. We have a, Ella described herself as sensitive. I have a kid that I is sensitive. And one day her kindergarten teacher called me and said, Glennon, we have an issue. And I said, of course we do. And she said, so I mentioned to the kids about climate change and I talked to them about the polar bears losing their homes

because of the melting glaciers their their homes because of the melting glaciers and the rest of the kids were sad, you know, they felt sad, but they were able to carry on, they were able to like soldier on to recess, but Tish is still sitting on the the rug, the circle time rug, with her little face in shock and she keeps asking me question after question, you know, what about the polar bear's mothers? Why isn't anyone helping the polar bear? Oh, okay. So, what anyone who has a sensitive kid knows what the next few weeks of my life were like, like all we did was talk about freaking polar bears day in and day out. I had to sponsor some polar bears online. I had to buy polar bear posters. I had to in one of

the lower moments of my parenting life. I had my friend Liz write me a fake email about how the polar bears were now fine. And we didn't have to worry about the polar bears anymore. They were okay. Tish did not believe that email because she's not an idiot. Polar Bears' logo continues one night. I'm putting Tish to bed. I'm almost to that place, which is like outside the door. I'm almost to the couch. I'm almost to the Netflix. And then I hear mommy and I say, what's wrong?

Okay, she says it's the polar bears. And I'm like, oh hell no, no. And she says mommy, it's just... It's that now it's the polar bears, but no one cares, so next it'll be us. And I was like... Oh my god, the polar bear! Like, oh! She is not crazy to be perseverating to be burdened by the

polar bears we are crazy to not be perseverating to not be burdened what she is worrying about is the end of our planet. Right? She is not annoying. She is a prophet. She is looking at the end of the world, wondering why we are all carrying on, which is what Ella is doing. Right?

Ella lives in a world that is so bad, shit crazy. That is like, can the Ella's just be quiet? Like could they stop annoying us while we've redestroy our planet? Right? So, Ella, I mean, the first thing I would say to you is that you are not crazy. You are goddamn shita. You are paying attention. You are one of the ones like we say, like a canary in the coal mine, right?

You're standing on the bath, the Titanic yelling iceberg, iceberg, and the rest of the world, like a canary in the coal mine, right? You're standing on the bow of the Titanic, yelling iceberg, iceberg, and the rest of the world is like, can you be quiet? We just want to keep dancing, right? You're also dancing. And icebergs are melting from global. Right, that's right, that's right. That's full circle there, babe, full circle.

So number one, Ella, you're not crazy, you're correct. And, and, you're not crazy. You're correct. And, and. You get to have joy too. You get to have, we have to find a way for people like Ella who are so many people listening to this podcast. A lot of our pod squad are big carers, right? And we're in a moment right now, and maybe have been for a very long time where people are finding themselves thinking two things. Number one is I care so much

that I just have to look away And the second option is I care so much that I have to look all day Right this idea sister we you and I talked about it, you gave it a different term. It was this all or nothing idea of being of paying attention to the pain of the world, which was right. Well, also Ella is an environmental science major. So it's all the more important that she not, you know, wear herself down so completely in being devastated by this that you can't actually do the good and helpful work she's gonna be able to do for environmental science. So the the idea was this idea of rumination or repression that you can either just get so dwelling in the thing that you just go kind of on loop where you can't step out of thinking about it, but

you're actually not, that's not doing any work in the world, right? It's just, it's just immobilizing you or you can repress repress it completely. Which are both self indulgent in the act, right? Because what I think we get confused about, and I do often, is I confuse myself when I tell myself, I can sit and read this shit or listen to the shit all day. Because that is doing something. Right? That is what, responsible citizenship, but actually I'm not doing anything. I'm just re- like watching the news all day or listening to the news all day is actually not doing anything. Right. Right. And all both of those things lead to poor health too for yourself. So you're actually being self-indulgent and you're rendering yourself unable to do anything

effective for it. But I think if you go there, right, if you make yourself feel the feelings and imagine it like in Afghanistan right now where you know you're Where you can you can digest all this information, but then you can like try to get there in your head and really imagine like that's just dumb Luck that I was born here and not there with my babies trying to get out of a horrible situation and having no options.

You know, you can get there on a humanity level, which also isn't doing anything, but I think there's this kind of like recognition of mutual humanity that happens, that I think it might be the kind of heart change. Like it's not like that woman in Afghanistan who is the other being, right? The other part of that coin. That's not doing anything to help her, but I think if we could all kind of get to that humanity place, I think it might lead to a world

in which we didn't have as much of this shit all the time. That's right. I do think that's doing something. That is different to me. When you do the recognition of your humanity connecting to their humanity, then you're undoing what starts more to begin with, what leads people to those places because that is always based on other. It is always having to say their humanity is

different than yours. Therefore, you can tolerate this happening to them, whereas you couldn't tolerate it happening to you. So I think there's that part of it. And then I think there's this other part that you said about, we can't let the fact that we can't fix everything, stop us from doing something that we can do. Right? And there's always something you can do. If you recognize it, your humanity and you would want someone to step up for you Then you can step up them the ways that you can. I mean, that's what that's how it's got the rising started It was just a response to knowing that we could do a little bit to help a little bit and you know

33 million dollars later little bit and you know $33 million later individual donations of about $25 each. We've spent $10 million at the border reuniting families who were separated. We just pledged and already have on the ground money in Haiti to help families there with boots on the ground patient partners who have been embedded forever. We just invested $250,000 in Afghan women for women and they are working 24-7 to get folks out as quickly as possible and to save lives. I think that there is this hopelessness that happens with us when we know that we alone can't fix it and that our little bit won't make a dent. And there is power in knowing that many, many people for whom that's true can get together

and actually do something that does. And that's what we try to do. And that's what we try to do. But doing something on a personal level, that little thing is the pressure of apathy, like of hopelessness. I love the idea of doing something, deciding that you're always going to do something. That is a huge act of resistance to hopelessness, but that you're also going to be committed to this thing we're talking about, which is in a world that wants us to be numb, that wants us to other people, that you're going to resist that by finding ways to find humanity in these crises, in these situations all over the world.

And the headlines don't do that for me. It's the stories, it's the well reported places that give you the humanity of the situation. Well it just reminds me, I don't know, you got to tell the story about the man in the candle outside the White House. Oh god, I love that story so much. Okay, so during the, during Vietnam, there was this man who, I can't remember his name right now, but we'll put it in the notes, who every single day would go to the White House and would stand outside of the White House

holding a single candle, day after day after day, okay? And finally this news reporter, you know, people caught wind of this weird thing happening. And so this news reporter came up to him with a camera and said, sir, do you really think that you standing here with this single candle is going to change anything. Do you really think that you in this candle is going to change them?" And he said, oh, I don't come here and hold this candle to change them. I come here and hold this handle, so they don't change me. And I love that story so much because I think the ultimate active resistance in a world that wants to defy us in a world that wants to other people, that own a world that it seems to be getting harder and harder

is to just refuse to become hard, right? To find all of the different ways that you are insisting on your own humanity and other people's humanity. And to remember that the reason we all feel overwhelmed is because we actually were not designed to be exposed, to be constantly deluge with this much information about so many places in the world, right? That we were actually wired to be able to respond

to a village, right? A smaller world. And so this complete overload of information feels like overload because it is overload. And so what we can do after we enter into the pain of the world is to remember to act locally, to care about the world also that we can touch to when we worry about the world's loneliness to meet the loneliness in our communities. to when we worry about the world's loneliness to meet the loneliness in our communities, right? To constantly be involved with and connected to the worlds that are in our reach, right? Because what social media does

and what the media in general does is it makes us simultaneously feel like we have to be connected to everyone. And in reality, be connected to no one, because we are not even out in the worlds that we can touch. I want to say one thing. I think that it is so true. Everything you've said, and I would just say that also a woman, a woman in Afghanistan knowing that you recognize her humanity and a woman of Afghanistan knowing that you're reading 30 articles and your heart is broken,

doesn't help her for shit. Yeah. Right? So like if your humanity rails against something that you see, respond to that call of your humanity, do something. Because we live in a world that is over connected, over exposed. And you know what that means? That means that there are places that you can find that are doing the work that your humanity demands to be done. So it isn't about you and your feelings. It's about what your humanity requires you to be part of. So recognize the humanity and then do something with your hands and your wallet if you can

to that that woman in Afghanistan can feel. Yeah, I remember some saying to me like pity is your pain in my heart. Hmm, who the hell cares? Who the hell cares? Compassion is your pain in my heart and back out through my hands. I just have to ask because this is and I don't know, I'm sure a lot of people are going to have a lot of feelings about this. But I am not like you in this way, Glenin. I am not an empath. And so I sometimes find it more difficult to get to where you are. I do all the time in my brain. I'm like, yes, this makes sense. This is what we're going to do.

You mean in terms of like feelings, in terms of caring? Yeah, like sometimes, you know, when you sit at the foot of my bed and you have an easel and a coffee and you're like, coffee revolution, we're gonna get these kids out of cages at the border. I'm like, okay, this is, I understand that it's terrible in my brain, but I don't, I don't experience it in my body. And it actually feel like a lot of your listeners

might understand and feel the similar way that it actually feels like something's broken in me because I see it so happening, so real and fervently inside of you that I'm like, why am I ice cream? And am I cold? When we go to art museums, you're walking around and you have tears in your eyes.

And I'm like, I got nothing. Nice picture. I'm just like walking around with my hands behind my back, acting the part, like this museum. It looks like she's having a grand old time. That's, I'm excited for you. It's, I don't know, I just feel like there are probably some of us out there

who don't feel as deeply, who will do the right thing. I always get there in my mind. I always do and I care. I do care, but I don't care the most amount. You care. You don't care with your body. Yeah. You care with your head. That's right's right. And thank God for that, my love. Can I just take, I wanna respond to that, to people who, because we empaths, whatever that is, right? We feel really precious about ourselves a lot. I do. I wanna tell a quick story, babe,

that I just thought of when you were talking. Okay. A couple years ago, you and I were at one of our kids' sports events. Oh, Lord. During this sports event, you and I were two of the only adults there. I don't know how this happened. There was just a ton of high schoolers and you and me. And then I had the girls with me too.

It was one of Chase's events and then the girls were with us. Oh, cross-create. Right, yes. Oh, yeah, here we go. OK, so at the end of the event, one of the children passes out and lays down on the ground. OK, long horrifying story short, which ends fine to all of my warriors, it ends fine. But it was like not breathing.

Cardiac arrest is the proper term. Yeah. Okay, but I just want you to know that the kids okay, because I'm actually starting to get upset too. So the kid ends up fine. He lives. But in this moment, the child is laying down on the ground with high schoolers all around him. He's their friend. His heart has stopped, okay?

People are doing, are starting to circle around him. Abby runs over and starts to direct CPR. Okay. She turns towards me. I am. Hold on, I just want to be clear. There was a couple of parents, one who is a doctor who was on top and performing CPR. So I wasn't directing high school kids to do CPR.

No, no, no, no, I'm sorry. You were helping direct two other adults who were doing CPR on this child. Do you see PR? Okay. No, no, no, no, I'm sorry. You were helping during two other adults who used to be here on this job. D.C.P.R. Okay. All the other children are in need of guidance in this moment, okay? Because there are several adults who are helping with the person who is on the ground. I am the only other adult, okay?

So Abby turns towards me to direct me to go help the other children dear with their emotional moment. I was trying to get you to take the other children away from said situation so that they weren't. Our small children. Yeah. So Abby turns to me. I look at her and I probably I look at her and I probably pass the F out on to the ground. Okay? Like a tree has fallen over. So my two children who are already in trauma because they're watching this child do now their mother has passed out cold on the ground. Okay?

So not only my two children are double traumatized, but all of the other high school children have now lost their only hope for any sort of adult supervision or guidance. What I'm not to mention the poor doctor. Who's like, no, no, no, he's got this one dropping like fly. I'm like coordinating the ambulance. I look over and Glennon is now on the ground. And of course, like, what's going on over here makes me think that's what's going on over there. So I see Glenin go down and I think I think cardiac arrest, right? And that is what my children also think. I'm not a doctor, you know. Okay. So they're all white. They're about to go down. It was like, it was like the standby me moment

where everybody just was growing up. Yeah. That's what I was just thinking, babe. Okay. In other words, just not super helpful. Not super helpful. What I'm getting at here is that I'm gonna tell you why I went down.

I remember the moment before, I was watching a parent watch their child, the parent thinking that the child was dying. Okay. I was consoling the parents. I was like, the parent's way. It was. This moment for a deeply feeling person,

I was a circuit breaker that was just like, nope, nope. Nope. Mm-hmm. Must save self, okay? Like whatever, my body was just not having it. My point, babe, is empaths are good for some things. We are good for pointing out problems.

We are good for sensing things in the universe that needs to be healed. We are not often the people who are gonna do the healing. We, you know who you don't want to be an empath, you're surgeon, perhaps. Right? Like, you know who you don't want to be an empath, maybe like a hostage negotiator,

maybe like there are lots of actually deeply helping things that empaths should be nowhere near, okay? Like you were much more helpful in that situation than I, our deeply feeling family empath was. I feel like we empaths need to be very careful about how precious we are, about ourselves and our role in the world, because we sure as hell don't want a lot more of us running around passing out left and right. Maybe some of sister's advice from the other days podcast would really help in that moment that like this emotion will not take control over me that if you become the observer, maybe you would just at least stay conscious. Maybe. I mean staying conscious

would be the first goal. But I just think babe, what I'm trying to say to you is you and your way of being, you and your way of being are not broken. You are so deeply, deeply helpful to the world. You just do it in a different way and there's different roles. I mean, if we were both, if we were both me, we would just sit around in our weighted blankets all day and do nothing, right? That's why we're like a team. Exactly.

Certain strengths. I have a solution requires it. Yes, I help us feel you help us do it. You are not broken. You are I might be. You are seriously, seriously helpful. You're not broken. You are I might be you you are seriously seriously helpful. You're not broken. Let's go on to the next question. Okay, here's a write-in. Hi, Glennon. My name is Casey. My kids are six and nine, and I am a fierce mama bear who wants to dive in and protect my children anyway and all circumstances where they can potentially be emotionally harmed.

I understand on some cognitive level that that's not my job. But what am I supposed to do when I see negative situations happening at school or on the field or with their friends? And all of my instincts went desperately to intervene and fix and protect. What do I do when my babies are facing pain? I love it.

Casey, first pass out. Yeah. Casey, stay conscious. First of all, stay conscious. First of all, stay conscious. I think Kasey said, I can't handle when my kids could possibly experience emotional pain. It's like potentially be emotionally harmed. Yeah, potentially, maybe not life.

Life might be tough on you sister. All of life, that's right. Life is just one situation after another in which we will likely be potentially emotionally armed. Right, right? I mean, listen, I think that this is a major challenge for the particular parenting generation that is raising children right about now because there are parenting generations in the past who have not been so completely obsessed with the idea that our job is to protect our children from all pain. Right? That's actually kind

of a modern way of being that this is what's created us as like helicopter parents, lawnmower parents, right? This idea that we're not, it's not our fault. Like we were given this idea that our job as parents was to just mow down anything in our children's way. That could make them feel sad or make them feel lonely or make them feel left out or angry or anything. And that's why we are all neurotic, right? Because that we have been given an impossible job.

Protect your humans from being human, right? Give life and protect from life, right? Like it's, we have been given an utterly impossible situation. And I'll never forget early on being at this convention and this sweet woman she stood up and she raised her hand and she said, Glennon, I'm going through divorce and my little boy is so sad. And every day I look at him and I think, oh my God, it was my one job to protect you from this sort of pain. And I couldn't do it. And so every day I feel like such a failure.

And all the other people in the audience are just nodding and crying. And it was just this moment where, and I think coming from a sobriety background where my job as a human being was to learn, just to learn deeply that pain is okay. That pain is actually more than okay. It's like what teaches us in many ways. It's like how we become fully human, right? That it away pain can be trusted. Like when you figure that out, then you realize that that's also what you have to pass on to your kids. And I just remember looking at her and saying, okay, just give me three words that you would use to describe the kind of person you're trying to raise. And she said something like, I want

them to be brave and I want them to be wise and I want them to be kind. And so then the question becomes, okay, what is it in a life that creates wisdom and kindness and bravery? And we all know that the answer to that is the struggle, right? It's not never overcoming anything, it's overcoming, and overcoming, and overcoming. So the irony of our parenting generation is that we are constantly trying to protect, to steal from our children the one thing that will allow them to become the adults that we dream they'll be. Right? Which is this idea of this idea that like our job is not to run in front of our children, putting out every

single fire over and over again, like frantically putting out fires behind them and around them in soccer practice and at school and in friends groups and that our job is just to notice the fires ahead with them, right? And to just like walk them towards them over and over again, and let them walk through the fire and sit in the fire. Because what we all know, everyone listening to this podcast knows is that the more fires you walk through, what you learn is that your fireproof, you don't have to ever avoid those fires because you will survive and survive and survive.

And so for me, I feel like my goal is to just, I want them to be able to do that when I'm gone. It's easier said than done, right? You see your kid being left out or you see your kid being made fun of where you see this, you know, this vulnerability that your kid has out in the world and you just know the looks that everything pierces like a knife, right? And but I think it's interesting and researching for the episode we just did on Tuesday.

This idea that the people who place the highest value on happiness are the least, are less happy than those who kind of view emotions neutrally because they're constantly striving and wondering why they're not happy. And I'm wondering if we're doing, if every time our kids are anything but happy, we are in a tizzy about it. And we are trying to intervene and say, like, oh, God, did that not make you happy? Did that not make you happy happy? Like that is teaching them that something is wrong with them if they're not happy. Something is wrong in their life if they're not happy. And so are we setting them up to live really unhappy lives? By constantly queuing to them that it is bad when they're unhappy. It is something to be fixed when it is unhappy.

You bring it to me and we're gonna make this unhappy, transform and to happy. You know, I just wonder if it's more just like that neutral mindset of like, did that happen? Wow, yeah, that happened to me too. Moving right along. You know, anything that's okay. And it makes me...

Right, there's nothing to fix. There's nothing to fix if you're sad. There's nothing to fix. Let it come. It's visiting. It'll go. Yeah, that's good. Well, and it just makes me...

I'll take the sports perspective because I think that a lot of parents feel this way when they put their kids in sports and, you know, Glenn, and it goes back to you not wanting to watch practice. Like, actually, that's like a philosophy. It's a good parenting technique. And in fact, it's important for parents to let the kids go out and to practice without them watching. So that the kids starts to learn

to not look over their shoulder for their parents' affirmation, for their parents' attention, that they can actually start to build and develop their own self-individual identity away from that parent. So I think when we're talking about sports or putting your kids in situations where other people, adults, might have a little bit of power or control over how this child is getting acclimated into that life, whether it's school or a team,

I think we've lost trust in other adults to be able to do that for us, instead of us. So what I would say is to do the best research you can on the teachers that your kids are going to have, or on the coaches that you're going to put your kid in front of, make sure that those people, and then let your kids tell you the story of their life. All right, let's get to our pod squatter of the week.

Who is it? I love these people so much, I love these people. Hi, this is Amy. I am just calling, I'm not even all the way through today's episode, and I just need to communicate that Amanda's sister Doyle is a God-Fam sheet of bad-ass police fuck. She just versioned like the prison part about what she did in her weekends and like my jaw

dropped. Then she took a leave of that since she got a half. Like, what the actual fuck? You, I just, I love everything about this. That's all, continue your good work. Bye. I literally listened to the podcast, and I was like freaking out. I got home and I was like,

Clinton, I didn't know some of this stuff about sister. Are you kidding me? She went to wear during law school on the weekends? Like, I wouldn't even know. She doesn't even know, you don't even know about the time she went to Hawaii by herself to learn how to surf for a summer. Or when she told our parents,

I wanna go to Ireland, but like I'm just gonna go by myself and I'm just gonna walk around. Oh my gosh. To stay and live. That will be a different. This is like finding out your best friends with somebody that you don't even,

like that you are so, so excited to keep learning about. What the heck? I know. I mean, I just wanna say to Amy, who was that woman who called in? Amy, okay. I don't know why the Amy made me so happy, but it just, because she,

Amy was listening to the podcast and she stopped it to call in to say the thing and that just makes me feel so warm and cozy because that means we are having a freaking In real-time conversation with Amy like she was like I need to tell them something real quick hold on And she called us to tell us something. I love it. And then basically her comment was like sister. What the actual fuck? Which is what I've been saying my whole life. Yes, Amy to that. Amy, we love you. We love all of you. I think the takeaways from this week are go ahead and feel your feelings. Let your people feel their feelings. And don't let the fact that you can't fix everything keep you from doing what you can do.

All right? We love you. We're gonna keep showing up and do what we can do forever so you can just join us and we'll do it together. All right? Because we can do hard things. We'll see you next week. Bye.

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, Spotify, 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