May 12, 2025 • 41 mins
For as long as writer Glennon Doyle can remember, she’s felt that something inside her was broken. 'Who am I really? What am I meant to do? And why does it feel so bad to be in this body?' These are the messy questions that Glennon has been grappling with for years. On today’s episode, Glennon, who hosts the wildly popular podcast We Can Do Hard Things, details her perpetual search for belonging, and shares the wisdom she's gained along the way.
Glennon’s new book, also called We Can Do Hard Things, is out now.
If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder, visit the National Eating Disorders Association for support, resources, and treatment options: https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/get-help/
Pre-order Maya's new book, The Other Side of Change: Who We Become When Life Makes Other Plans at changewithmaya.com/book.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Pushkin Heysite Changers. I have exciting news. I've written a book.
It's called The Other Side of Change, Who we become
when life makes other plans. It's available for pre order
now at changewithmya dot com slash book. It's not coming
(00:36):
out for a while, but preorders make a huge difference.
They send a powerful signal to booksellers that this book
matters to you. I would be so grateful for your
early support. It's truly the thing I'm most proud to
have created. You can find the link to pre order
in our episode description. Thanks so much, and now on
to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Many times in my life, I've had moments where I'm like.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Oh, I can't do this for one more second.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Like whether it's my old marriage or my work life,
I can fake it for only so long, and then
I have a moment where I'm like, oh, I'm out
of here.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Glennon Doyle is a best selling author and a host
of the podcast We Can Do Hard Things. Over the years,
she's learned to pay close attention to those signals that
something is wrong, and rather than ignore them, she's chosen
to listen.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I've wondered for so long why I always feel like
I need to change my hair, my clothes, everything, And
it's because the problem is that I am still here.
Wherever I go there, I am like that is the problem.
So it really becomes a matter of figuring out how
to be at peace in my body.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
On today's show, Glennon Doyle is still trying to figure
out where she belongs. I'm Maya Shunker, a scientist who
studies human behavior. And this is a slight change of plans,
a show about who we are and who we become
in the face of a big change. Who am I really?
(02:31):
Where do I belong? And how do I figure out
what I want? These are some of the big, messy
questions Glennon has been grappling with for years. She's the
author of the New York Times number one bestsellers Untamed
and Love Warrior. She's been incredibly open about her struggles
with addiction, motherhood, and marriage, and in her new book
(02:54):
We Can Do Hard Things, she shares the wisdom she's
gained along the way. As we began our conversation, Glennon
told me that for as long as she can remember,
she's felt that something was off.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
I felt like there was something deeply wrong with me.
I did not know exactly what it was. I don't
think that I would have been able to put it
into words. I think my only real safe places were reading.
I read like Ramona Quimby, Yes with Beverly Cleary, and
I would read the same books over and over again
(03:29):
because I always wanted to know what happened.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
I didn't want a new experience.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Life was so unpredictable that I loved the idea of
I'm entering this world, I know what's going to happen,
I know how it's going to end.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
I went to school like a normal kid.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
I just I always felt very exposed, like I just
remember thinking, and I still think this. I think it's
so weird how we just have to walk around in
the public and people can just look at us anytime
they want, Like, that's so.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Weird and vulnerable.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
I would come home and I felt like I was
kind of holding my breath all day, just making it
through social exposure. And then I became really severely Believe me,
by the time I was ten years old and my
entire life was bolimia. I couldn't wait until three pm
(04:17):
because I would get home starting an elementary school, through
middle school, through high school actually, and then through college,
and then I would just binge, like it was like
I was holding my breath all day. I'd get home
my parents were both teachers, so they wouldn't be home yet,
and I would just it was like I could finally
relax or let go, and relaxing or letting go was
(04:42):
a very private experience of just binging food by myself,
and then I would throw it all up, and I
think that moment of being laid out on the bathroom
floor after getting it all out was what I equated
(05:04):
as relief finally, And that was my experience life every
single day.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
What do you think Lennon led you to fear self
exposure to the extent you did.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
I think that I lived in a household that had
a lot of love in it and was deeply well intentioned,
but there was no absolutely no room to be human, zero,
(05:38):
Like it was extremely rigid. There was a ton of
control and anxiety that controlled every moment, to the point
where I very much remember as a child just desperately
trying to control my facial expression when I looked at
my parents so I didn't freak anybody out if I
(06:01):
gave the wrong facial expression, it would set my father off. Okay,
so I would have told you that I was broken
and crazy, and I would have had no idea why.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Yeah, I mean, you're making me reflect back on my
own childhood, where I was one of very few kids
of color to be at my school, and even though
I knew I looked different from all the other kids,
I saw their cruelty as evidence that I was deeply
flawed in some way, And so I fully resonate with
(06:33):
your experience. Now, of course, the behavioral manifestations of it
were very different for both of us. But you talked
about feeling relief on the bathroom floor, right, What constituted
that relief? What were you escaping from or what was
giving rise to that feeling in your body or your mind?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Being very small and controlled and disciplined and pretty and
tiny was extremely important in my family. The binge in
the purge was almost like an animalistic indulgence of.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Rage.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
I think bulimia is a way of being like a
bad girl and a good girl at the same time,
because you're like, fuck it, I am all the things,
I am doing this, But then your conditioning is like,
but I have to stay small, but I can't like
show any evidence of this rebellion.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Highly contained rebellion. Yes, yeah, yeah, Wow, that is so interesting.
Did you ever feel comfortable expressing to them or was
that wrapped up in the space of stuff that was
just unacceptable to talk about In the Doyle family.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
I mean, my parents were like most parents in that
they had so much trauma from their childhoods and they
were doing so much better than their parents did, and
their one thing was we want to be good parent
like you. You could feel it, and everything they said
or did they all the control that fucked me up
(08:06):
big time, was like they're desperate to be good parents.
So I think I always had this feeling that I
can't break them. I feel very nervous that I'm saying
these things because it feels like breaking a family rule
or saying these things would hurt them in a way.
It does, it does hit them, but it hurts me
(08:27):
more to not say it, So I'm saying it anyway.
But I would never have had the language when I
was little. I just felt like I have to hide
this thing this. How could I even put into words
what I do after school in our house? It's so
it felt so shameful.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Tell me more, Glennon, about that moment when you go
to that total stranger at school and you say, like,
someone needs to take me away. I can't do this,
I can't be here.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
I think it was my senior year in high school.
I remember walking into the school cafeteria. I mean, maya,
I could start Just saying the words makes me start sweating,
like wow, it just is the ultimate to me Lord
of the Flyes situation, Like I didn't know where to
put my body. I didn't know to whom I belonged,
(09:15):
what table do I sit at? Who wants me at
their table? Eating in front of people was the most
vulnerable thing in the world.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
I just couldn't.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
I had a moment where I remember standing with my
tray and I just walked out of the cafeteria, walked
straight into a guidance counselor's office who I didn't know,
sat down and said, I need somebody to take me away.
I'm not leaving this office until somebody takes me away.
I have flashes of sitting in the guidance counselor's office,
(09:46):
and then I have flashes of my parents coming in,
and then I remember some kerfluffle and that kerfluffle.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Kerfuffle, whatever that word is. You know what, I like, kerfluffle.
We're gonna go with that. Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
It's a joke in our family that I have always
read more than I've talked to humans, so I often
say words wrong because I've read them for so long,
but not hurt them. So anyway, Then I remember like
a very cold hallway which was walking into the hospital.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
What was really a mental hospital.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Now we have so many other options, but for like
my family's insurance and my situation back then, it was
really just kind of a mental hospital. I remember sitting
with whoever was like the intake nurse and my parents
there and them taking all my stuff, like looking through
my bags and taking away anything that could hurt me,
(10:44):
which I bodily remember feeling reallye fat, like finally somebody's
taking my power to hurt myself away from me, Like
that's what I wanted.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Wow, what was it about that moment on that school
day that led you to go to the school's office.
I mean there were probably so many other days where
you felt spare. You've been battling this for years and
years and years, So what was the catalyst for you
to say or right, enough is enough.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
I think that that is a gift that I have.
I think that I break every once in a while,
and I think that the people in my life who
never break have harder lives. Like I am a little
(11:39):
bit like, uh, you know the circuit breakers that like
if you things start to go out and then you
can like flip the circuit breaker and stop everything. I
feel like I'm a bit of a circuit breaker.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Satisfying, by the way, so satisfying, yeah, small, Plus I
have no.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Idea why this works.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
I have no idea how this works, but it's so
fun that these buttons are gonna work. So I feel
like I do just break every once in a while.
I think we live in a world that breaks you, Like,
I don't think that it's all a personal problem. I
think that there is stuff happening in our lives and
(12:19):
culture and country and world and families that should break us.
And many times in my life I've had moments like
that in the cafeteria where I'm like, oh, I can't
do this for one more second, Like whether it's my
old marriage or my work life, or there's just something
(12:40):
builds up in me I can fake it for only
so long, and then I have a moment where I'm like, oh,
I'm out of here. I won't spend another moment in
this cafeteria, in this high school, in this marriage, in
this life, and then just I need help. It's like
and I need help moment. Yeah, And then that usually
(13:01):
kind of saves me for a little while, and then
I get lost again. But I have circuit breaker moments
which I think keep me from burning the whole house down, right,
isn't that what.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Circuit breakers do?
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Yeah? Exactly, you said, I can't do this anymore. That
was the feeling in high school, and help me understand
exactly what this was, because it wasn't simply binging and purging, right,
It was deeper than that.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
All the acting, all the posturing, all the who are
you going to stand with? In the high school, I
was extremely self conscious, clearly, and I didn't know to
whom I belonged. I didn't know where to stand, who
to stand with, what club I should be, and how
I should be acting. I could watch some girls laugh
a certain way, or I just did not know how
(13:49):
to be, so I felt like I was acting all day.
It was like being on stage all day and I
needed to get backstage.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Tell me about what you learned at the mental hospital
from being around kids that could no longer act. Almost
by definition, I will tell you.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
It felt less crazy to me than high school. I
felt like the same way I feel now when I
go to my twelve Step meetings, Like I feel like, oh,
this is where they keep the honest people. Like you know,
it's hard for me to explain, but there was no bullshit,
there was no acting. I learned what I wish everybody
(14:32):
would get to learn, which is like being human, Like,
can anyone tell me how to feel sad? Like I
like how we deal with the fact that we have
these people we love who also hurt us, and that
we love so much and we're going to lose everybody
we love, and like any ideas about that? Like that
(14:54):
is all we did in the hospital. We learned how
to sit with pain, We learned what it felt like
to be a being on this planet with other beings,
and like how trauma works. And we learned strategies to
process emotion. Even if it was just like painting or dancing,
(15:14):
we always had to hold each other's hands. Okay, so
please imagine being a senior in high school, I had
to go on field trips to art museums with other
people and just walk around with our little crew of
crazies and hold hands.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
But Maya, that's my ideal day. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
How fascinating is it that someone who was so afraid
of exposure and rawness actually found her greatest comfort in
a mental institution in which she was forced to confront
the deepest, darkest parts of her There's yeah, a deep
irony there that I'm like still in this moment trying
(15:54):
to grasp fully because it is wildly unexpected.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
So it's not really exposure. I guess it's just like
acting like exposures. Okay, if I can just be how
I am? Yeah, because that was exposure and weird exposure,
like everyone was staring at us, but I felt like
so much safer and so much realer.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
So what I'm hearing then is that when you were
in the mental institution, you were forced to challenge this
underlying belief that you yourself were broken, because when you
actually confronted who you were, but without the script, without
the veneers, without the acting, there was actually an underlying
comfort there, or at least some relief.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
There is this underlying vibe that we all kind of
either verbally or nonverbally agree on, which is like, oh,
they think on the outside that were the broken ones
in here, but like, actually were the ones who know
the truth and are telling the truth, and they are
all acting. So it was something like a feeling of
(17:04):
a redemptive solidarity of like finding your people and being like,
that's fine. I don't care if all those people on
the outside think that I'm broken, because I know if
I'm broken, this is the kind of brokenness that I want.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Yeah, And it seems like young Glennon, who thought for
sure she was broken, really was just saying I feel
like I'm broken in relation to these other people and
what their expectations are, what the norms are. But actually
that whole thing was a farce anyway, So like maybe
I shouldn't have bought into it in the first place.
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (17:38):
And I sometimes feel frustrated now because I feel like
I'm supposed to have some sort of like victory, Like
i feel like I'm supposed to get to some kind
of finish line of this story.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
No, like I'm supposed to have some kind of redemptive moment.
I keep trying to force redemptive moments every five years
with a new book. I'm like, I've I'm better, I've
figured it out. Yeah, and then I go back too.
But I still feel that way. I still when I'm
talking to you and I'm thinking out this moment in
this country, I spend most of my day feeling like,
(18:15):
get me the fuck off this planet, like I. So
I still feel that way. I don't trust anyone who
doesn't feel that way right now.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
That's the thing.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
It's like, is that brokenness or is not being broken
hearted about the state of things the problem. I wrote
about that recently and this beautiful stranger wrote back to
me and said, it's okay, You're just like a humpback whale.
Humpback whales get like one song that they have to
sing their entire life. They just sing that one song
(18:46):
in the same tone over and over again.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
So you're just a whale. I was like, I'll take it.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
I think this question of when we feel truly comfortable
is just one of the most relatable questions. It's a
simple question and it's a super hard thing to answer.
So I get why that's the song of your whaledom,
because I think that's like a very very see I
(19:14):
made of a word too, whaled them. I think that's
like one of the most primal questions that we ask
as humans, because all we're trying to do is like
fit in and belong. So of course that question we'll
get a front row seat all the time.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Yeah, you know, I've wondered for so long why I'm
I always feel like I need to move? Why I
always feel like I need to change my hair, my clothes,
everything just And it's because you know, about five years ago,
after twenty moves, I realized, Oh, the problem is that
I am still here. Yeah, wherever I go there I
(19:48):
am like, that is the problem. So it really becomes
a matter of figuring out how to be at peace
in my body.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
That's like the place I always am.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Tragically, we'll be back in a moment with a slight
change of plans. If there's one place where Glennon Doyle
(20:23):
has felt fully free to be herself, it's on the page.
She's the author of three best selling memoirs that chronicle
her journey through addiction, the unraveling of her first marriage,
and ultimately the choice to leave her husband to be
with the woman she loves.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
When did you.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
First figure out that you could find a comfortable space
through words? Through writing?
Speaker 2 (20:51):
I love that question. Okay, I don't think I knew it.
For a long time through writing, I knew that my
only comfortable place was reading. I am able to take
anything to an extreme, So I actually reading for a
lot of people is like their goal, like they should
read more. But for me, I have to watch it
(21:14):
because that is also where I go to just not
be in this world. So my family needs me to
not be reading as much as I was. This this
has been made clear to me. Okay, so that's fine.
Staying present and not in a book is necessary. I
(21:35):
don't know the actual answer to that question. I may
have found it earlier if I wasn't so gone. I
was very gone to my addiction until I got pregnant
with my son when I was twenty five.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
And do you mind just sharing the addiction for those
who don't know. Oh?
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Yes, I mean so it clearly started when I was
young with food and binging and purging. In high school
I found alcohol, and then in college I found drugs,
and so I just did what addicts do. I just
kept upping the anti. I couldn't use my food strategy
(22:11):
publicly like that is a tricky thing about an eating disorder,
especially bulimia. It's something that can bring comfort privately. But
I needed something to make me feel comfortable and gone
when I was in public situations, which alcohol was just
amazing for. So I became a real severe alcoholic. I
(22:34):
drank every single day of my life from the time
I was seventeen until I found out I was pregnant
when I was twenty five. So, then I found out
I was pregnant, I was twenty five years old, and
I had a cafeteria moment. I just was like, oh,
I'm going to die. I had a real knowing that, like.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
This is it.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
I just had barely any life left in me. So
I and one day that day I just quit. I
was in a pack of day. I was drinking every day,
I was using cocaine and all the drugs, and I
was still binging and purging every single day.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
And I quit all of it in one day. That
was a good time. Wow, I don't know how Yeah, that.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Kid who I was pregnant with is now graduating from college,
and I have struggled so much with my kids leaving.
I thought I was going to be awesome about it,
and I haven't done very well with the transition. And
I think it's because I didn't know how to be
(23:47):
a human being. I just became a mom. I was like,
I think this kid's going to be cool. I think
he's going to love me. So I'm just going to
create a personality that is Chase's mom. And when that's over,
I'm like, I don't know what I am now.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
I love that you said that, because the central thesis
of my book is that the reason why change can
be so harrowing is that it's a threat to our
self identity, adopting new identities in our new environments, and
then suddenly a change happens that strips you of that
identity that you didn't even know you were so tethered to.
And then all of a sudden you're like, well, then
(24:25):
what I am I now? Because this whole time I've
been mom Glenn, and no, I'm supposed to be human
glennin anyway that's a cyber Oh my god, you just
spoke to my heart. That's exactly my core thesis about
why change screws us over In a really big way
and desorients us to the degree it does.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Before we move on from that, can I ask you
one more question, because, okay, so this is what I
can't stop thinking about, which you've probably already figured out.
It's not just the change, but it's belonging. This is
what I have figured out as someone who has spent
my entire life trying to find something to belong to,
trying to find some group of people who I feel
(25:03):
fully comfortable with, the only place that I have ever
felt fully known, fully needed, fully loved is this little
group of people. And now they're all leaving. It's like,
what do I do now? To whom do I belong now?
It's like, that's the question again?
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Yes, okay, so I have thought about this a lot,
and let me share with you what's helped me build
a more resilient identity during these tough moments of change. So,
rather than attaching your identity to specific pursuits like being
a mom or a writer or a podcaster, it can
(25:45):
be better to anchor your identity to the underlying features
of those pursuits that really make you light up, that
really make you tick. It's like a can I anchor
my value and my worth and my sense of self
not to what I do, but why I do it,
because that is the part of us that nothing in
the universe can touch, like it's well protected forever. And
(26:07):
then it helps guide you in your next pursuit. Because now, Glennon,
you're thinking, okay, empty nesting has been like a running
into a freight train. Right. My heart is broken to pieces.
I don't even know who I am anymore. It's like, well,
now I know belonging is the number one thing that
I was getting from motherhood. I have to really prioritize
that when it comes to my next thing, my next pursuit,
there has to be this like crazy feeling of belonging.
(26:29):
Otherwise I'm not feeling that same need. So for me,
it's been a bit of a north star too, when
I face these inflection points.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
That's really fucking good. That's so good. I hope that's
in your book. Is that in your book? Yeah, it's
a couple of things. It's not you need to stop
the press.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
So you are if we pass forward to this moment
in time, a mother of three, you're married to your husband,
you start writing these emails to your friends where you
found this safe space where you're like, I feel like
I can be myself through these words. Tell me when
there was a moment where you felt safety in these
(27:07):
vulnerable words that you're putting out there.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Well, I remember being home with three little ones. I
do remember feeling quite isolated. I remember thinking, how is
it possible that this always feels like way too much
and not enough at the same time. I remember that
feeling very deeply. My sister was my person, she still is.
(27:32):
She brought me a computer and she said, you are
going to write, because that's what you're meant to do.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
So I do what my sister says.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Man, she's the one who's always known me the best,
and I started writing. It's like, in writing, it feels
like I can use a voice that I can't.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
Use out there.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
It feels like I can use the same voice that
I use in my twelve step meetings in the hospital,
just a very like raw. I mean, people say no filter,
but that's true. Like that's when you're out in the
world and someone says, how are you, No one really
wants to hear the answer, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. And
I think I learned that from my family, like my dad,
(28:16):
who I describe to you who is kind of has
a rigidity and an anxiety that makes it hard to
communicate in person. He always wrote me the most beautiful letters.
It still does.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Interesting, that's how we communicate it. We say things in
letters that never in a million years would we say
in person.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Do you think in part it's because so as someone
who is hyper conscious about even their facial expressions, right,
who's presumably really hypervigilant, is picking up on the emotional
states of everyone around them, and are they approving of
what I'm saying or not? Do you think it's because
in writing, you just do not collect immediate feedback from
other people. So you're just like staring the words in
the face and you're just like, are these true or not?
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yes, I've never exactly thought about it like that, But
when you said that, I thought of something am Lamott
said was the great thing about writing They can't boo
you right away.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Yeah, there you go, some version of that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Maybe maybe all I had to decide was is this
true or not?
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Not?
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Like what does everyone see or think about this?
Speaker 1 (29:21):
And it's funny because so Anne LaMotte focuses on the booing,
but it's almost just as pernicious to get the cheers
right away too, just as it's like, oh, I guess
they like this. Okay, more of this, Glennon, even if
it doesn't feel faithful.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
That is absolutely true.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
The approval is as every bit is controllinglutely disapproval.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
It's attachment theory through writing.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Yes, we do more of what makes people happy, we
do less of what makes people sad. So not seeing
facial expressions is probably a very big part of being
authentic for me.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
When it went from just emails to friends to this
big blog to like, oh my god, now I have
this massive audience. How did you retain that authenticity now
that in your head you're thinking when you're writing, there's
a consciousness like, oh my god, millions of people are
going to read this, or I'm getting comments, I'm getting
reader comments about what they're liking or not liking. How
did you, if it all, block that out or did
(30:16):
you just never feel burdened by it?
Speaker 2 (30:18):
No, I didn't block it out, and it did affect me,
and it does affect me, and I've never learned to
block it out. I don't think I have ever written
anything except for the beginning when I wasn't also thinking
how would this paragraph be better or land more or
(30:39):
be received in a way where it's a real mic
drop or I'm always thinking that. I mean, it makes
me really sad, actually, like it freaks me out to
even say this, because I'm like, wait, but what is real?
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Then? I think?
Speaker 2 (30:55):
I think painting, for me is the realist thing that
I do right now. I paint all the time, and
I'm awful at it. I'm not saying this in a
self deprecating way, like it's really bad. It's not anything
that anyone would ever want, and so that protects it.
You can't turn it into a commodity. But I feel
(31:16):
that feeling of it doesn't matter, and I'm not doing
this for anyone, and it's just about what I'm putting
into it and not about what people are going to
say in that moment, more than I do in writing.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Now, what I'm hearing you say is I, Glennon, have
a desperate need for realness, and at some point writing
was no longer the medium through which I could achieve that,
and so I found an outlet through painting. Yeah that's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Yeah, I mean it makes me want to fix it
about writing I don't know, because I'm still thinking about
what people are going to feel.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
If you were to imagine reclaiming some of that authenticity
down the road, what would it look like?
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Okay, because I've thought about this at nauseum, I'll tell
you I think all the time about Emily Dickinson. Okay,
I'm not saying that's the right way to go is
to like hide all your writing away in a drawer
and never put it out there.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
But it's so badass. She was just doing it for herself.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
I mean, she kind of arranged them so after she
was dead, she would like she was like and then
first this and then I mean it feels like maybe
she she was.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
A little more like us than she le Okay.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
I think so, you know, I think about what is
the version of that. It's like writing a poem and
then burning it.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Yeah, but that's not good either.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
I'm not saying that's like the right thing to do,
but that's the only way I would ever not was
for myself.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
It's the equivalent of like if a tree falls in
a force and no one was there to hear it
did to make a sound. It's if I wrote something
and no one read it. Was it even written? Did
it even matter? Was I just wasting my time? Because
we're so utility focused in terms of like push stuff out,
push stuff out, get it out there, we forget about
intrinsic motivators and like the intrinsic value of creating art.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
That's it, that's my That's like the only test where
I would know that I was being.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
That.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
I wasn't like capitalizing, because art is really just like
getting it out, getting something out for no other reason
than getting it out. I do think that that is
the most pure version of who I would am, or
would want to be, or was meant to be, is
(33:32):
just making something and then putting it away and never
using it, using it, using it.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Yeah, I want to jump to twenty sixteen. You're in
your forties, you have the successful blog, you're a best
selling author, you're still with your husband at the time, Craig,
and then you end up meeting Abby soccer player, two
time Olympic gold medalists. So like, to all of us
it's like have you want back, oh my gosh, athlete,
(33:59):
and to you it was like love of your life.
So can you just for all the hopeless romantics out there,
just first tell me about that initial interaction with Avi.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Oh my god, oh god, my h okay, all right,
So first you have to know that I was doing
my first event for Love Warrior, which was a book
about the redemption of my.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Marriage to your husband, and.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
My marriage was just I was like forcing it, man,
I was really forcing it for a lot of reasons.
It doesn't matter. But I was at the first event.
Abby walked into the room. I was at a table
full of writers. Abby stands in the door. I've never
(34:42):
kissed a girl before. I've never I didn't I wouldn't
have known queerness to I was a Christian writer with
three children. I was a Sunday school teacher in one
of the most conservative counties in Florida.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
This was my life.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
And I saw Abby, and the next thing I knew,
I was standing up at the table with my arms
wide open.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
I actually bowed.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
I bowed, hoping like maybe people think I'm just weird
and I do bows.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
People walk in the room.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
So it's a family joke for us now, like when
someone walks into a room, my son will bow. Anyway,
I love it now because I was like, Oh, my
body knew. My body knew that something really important was
happening before my mind did, which for me maybe that
was the first time that had ever happened that I
had trusted a bodily reaction. We had a couple exchanges
(35:33):
that night. It was at a librarian's convention. She had
just gotten sober, she had just retired, she was having
a big change which was causing a major identity crisis.
We started emailing after that day, which was interesting because
we fell in love through writing where it could be
my actual real self.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Wow, oh how interesting. Yeah, so she got to know
the real you.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
We had been emailing for maybe two months, and then
I or a month maybe it was a month I
realized I was in love with her. I also realized
that it was never going to work, Like it was
never going we were never going to have a future.
I mean, I was who I was in my life
with three children with it. But I definitively remember talking
(36:20):
to a dear friend and saying, it doesn't matter whether
it works, because now I know that this thing is real,
Like I know that what I have is not this,
Like now I know what the misery is about, because
there is a real thing that people feel, and I'm
feeling it, so it doesn't matter if this works out,
I can't go back to that. So I ended my marriage.
We had never seen each other in person, We had
never had a moment in person. That first night when
(36:43):
we met, we just were kind of like, woo, what
is this?
Speaker 3 (36:46):
Yeah, So I.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Told Craig I was leaving him. This is all before
we ever kissed or touched or saw each other again.
After that night, I talked to my kids about it,
said the marriage was over. It was the most brutal
day of my life telling them that, And then I
flew to La to see if what all of these
(37:09):
were correct, to test it all out.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
And which is not the normal order of operations.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
It's just for the record. Yeah, no, no, it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
But it was like another cafeteria moment, right. It's like
sometimes in order to know not this, you have to
have some experience of yes, this inside your body, like
you don't blow something up even if it's hurting you
sometimes until there's hope. That's why when people ask me
(37:41):
the really honest question of like, well, that was brave
that you did that, But do you think you ever
would have left had there been no Abby? I don't
have an honest answer to that question, I don't know,
Like maybe I just would have kept kind of suffering silently,
and or maybe the thing would have grown in me
enough to not be able to take it anymore. But
(38:03):
I don't know that that's true.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
You know, as I reflect on our conversation, glennon one
thing that's so beautiful to me about your story when
it comes to feeling comfortable and at peace with yourself
and at home and your body. You're a constant work
in progress, right, I mean, you found these pockets of
life right like writing and with Abby where you've just
(38:27):
sparkled and it's like, yay, okay, great, I got the
finish line. But then a new thing hits you and
it humbles you again, Like recently you've talked about getting
an anorexia diagnosis, and so how are you learning to
make peace with the fact that there likely won't be
that final redemption story. Do you have any advice for
(38:49):
listeners who feel the same way.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Well, I think some of us are just humped back
whales maya. I think that some of us are just
born with one thing that is just a big question
that we just spiral around it over and over again,
and I think it's a spyling. But I do feel
like an ascension with the spiraling. I think I'm getting
better views each time. I think I'm learning new things
(39:15):
each time. I think having a singular story it's kind
of interesting because if you're singing a certain song, then
that's how you find the other people who are also
singing that song.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
That kind of draws them to you.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
But I have just figured that out just this time,
that I'm never going to figure it out.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
So that's freeing.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
That's great progress.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
I know.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
I love it. Victory laugh. Hey, thanks so much for listening,
(40:01):
and just a reminder, you can pre order my new book,
The Other Side of Change at the link in our
episode description or a change with my com slash book
and enjoin me next time when we explore what happens
when two people live through the same traumatic event but
have wildly different responses. We'll hear from world renowned climber
(40:24):
Beth Rawdon, who is kidnapped and held hostage with her
partner Tommy Caldwell on a climbing expedition in Kyrgyzstan. Tommy
and I never talked about Kurrysion. We never talked about
my nightmares, my paranoia, my fear. That's next time on
A Slight Change of Plans. I'll see you then. A
(40:46):
Slight Change of Plans is created, written, and executive produced
by me Maya Schunker. The Slight Change family includes our
showrunner Tyler Green, our senior editor Kate Parkinson Morgan, our
producers Britney Cronin and Megan Lubin, and our sound engineer
Erica Huang. Louis Scara wrote our delightful theme song, and
Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of
(41:10):
Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries, so big thanks
to everyone there, and of course a very special thanks
to Jimmy Leef. You can follow a Slight Change of
Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker. See you next week.
Pushkin Heysite Changers. I have exciting news. I've written a book.
It's called The Other Side of Change, Who we become
when life makes other plans. It's available for pre order
now at changewithmya dot com slash book. It's not coming
(00:36):
out for a while, but preorders make a huge difference.
They send a powerful signal to booksellers that this book
matters to you. I would be so grateful for your
early support. It's truly the thing I'm most proud to
have created. You can find the link to pre order
in our episode description. Thanks so much, and now on
to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Many times in my life, I've had moments where I'm like.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Oh, I can't do this for one more second.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Like whether it's my old marriage or my work life,
I can fake it for only so long, and then
I have a moment where I'm like, oh, I'm out
of here.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Glennon Doyle is a best selling author and a host
of the podcast We Can Do Hard Things. Over the years,
she's learned to pay close attention to those signals that
something is wrong, and rather than ignore them, she's chosen
to listen.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I've wondered for so long why I always feel like
I need to change my hair, my clothes, everything, And
it's because the problem is that I am still here.
Wherever I go there, I am like that is the problem.
So it really becomes a matter of figuring out how
to be at peace in my body.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
On today's show, Glennon Doyle is still trying to figure
out where she belongs. I'm Maya Shunker, a scientist who
studies human behavior. And this is a slight change of plans,
a show about who we are and who we become
in the face of a big change. Who am I really?
(02:31):
Where do I belong? And how do I figure out
what I want? These are some of the big, messy
questions Glennon has been grappling with for years. She's the
author of the New York Times number one bestsellers Untamed
and Love Warrior. She's been incredibly open about her struggles
with addiction, motherhood, and marriage, and in her new book
(02:54):
We Can Do Hard Things, she shares the wisdom she's
gained along the way. As we began our conversation, Glennon
told me that for as long as she can remember,
she's felt that something was off.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
I felt like there was something deeply wrong with me.
I did not know exactly what it was. I don't
think that I would have been able to put it
into words. I think my only real safe places were reading.
I read like Ramona Quimby, Yes with Beverly Cleary, and
I would read the same books over and over again
(03:29):
because I always wanted to know what happened.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
I didn't want a new experience.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Life was so unpredictable that I loved the idea of
I'm entering this world, I know what's going to happen,
I know how it's going to end.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
I went to school like a normal kid.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
I just I always felt very exposed, like I just
remember thinking, and I still think this. I think it's
so weird how we just have to walk around in
the public and people can just look at us anytime
they want, Like, that's so.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Weird and vulnerable.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
I would come home and I felt like I was
kind of holding my breath all day, just making it
through social exposure. And then I became really severely Believe me,
by the time I was ten years old and my
entire life was bolimia. I couldn't wait until three pm
(04:17):
because I would get home starting an elementary school, through
middle school, through high school actually, and then through college,
and then I would just binge, like it was like
I was holding my breath all day. I'd get home
my parents were both teachers, so they wouldn't be home yet,
and I would just it was like I could finally
relax or let go, and relaxing or letting go was
(04:42):
a very private experience of just binging food by myself,
and then I would throw it all up, and I
think that moment of being laid out on the bathroom
floor after getting it all out was what I equated
(05:04):
as relief finally, And that was my experience life every
single day.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
What do you think Lennon led you to fear self
exposure to the extent you did.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
I think that I lived in a household that had
a lot of love in it and was deeply well intentioned,
but there was no absolutely no room to be human, zero,
(05:38):
Like it was extremely rigid. There was a ton of
control and anxiety that controlled every moment, to the point
where I very much remember as a child just desperately
trying to control my facial expression when I looked at
my parents so I didn't freak anybody out if I
(06:01):
gave the wrong facial expression, it would set my father off. Okay,
so I would have told you that I was broken
and crazy, and I would have had no idea why.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Yeah, I mean, you're making me reflect back on my
own childhood, where I was one of very few kids
of color to be at my school, and even though
I knew I looked different from all the other kids,
I saw their cruelty as evidence that I was deeply
flawed in some way, And so I fully resonate with
(06:33):
your experience. Now, of course, the behavioral manifestations of it
were very different for both of us. But you talked
about feeling relief on the bathroom floor, right, What constituted
that relief? What were you escaping from or what was
giving rise to that feeling in your body or your mind?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Being very small and controlled and disciplined and pretty and
tiny was extremely important in my family. The binge in
the purge was almost like an animalistic indulgence of.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Rage.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
I think bulimia is a way of being like a
bad girl and a good girl at the same time,
because you're like, fuck it, I am all the things,
I am doing this, But then your conditioning is like,
but I have to stay small, but I can't like
show any evidence of this rebellion.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Highly contained rebellion. Yes, yeah, yeah, Wow, that is so interesting.
Did you ever feel comfortable expressing to them or was
that wrapped up in the space of stuff that was
just unacceptable to talk about In the Doyle family.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
I mean, my parents were like most parents in that
they had so much trauma from their childhoods and they
were doing so much better than their parents did, and
their one thing was we want to be good parent
like you. You could feel it, and everything they said
or did they all the control that fucked me up
(08:06):
big time, was like they're desperate to be good parents.
So I think I always had this feeling that I
can't break them. I feel very nervous that I'm saying
these things because it feels like breaking a family rule
or saying these things would hurt them in a way.
It does, it does hit them, but it hurts me
(08:27):
more to not say it, So I'm saying it anyway.
But I would never have had the language when I
was little. I just felt like I have to hide
this thing this. How could I even put into words
what I do after school in our house? It's so
it felt so shameful.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Tell me more, Glennon, about that moment when you go
to that total stranger at school and you say, like,
someone needs to take me away. I can't do this,
I can't be here.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
I think it was my senior year in high school.
I remember walking into the school cafeteria. I mean, maya,
I could start Just saying the words makes me start sweating,
like wow, it just is the ultimate to me Lord
of the Flyes situation, Like I didn't know where to
put my body. I didn't know to whom I belonged,
(09:15):
what table do I sit at? Who wants me at
their table? Eating in front of people was the most
vulnerable thing in the world.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
I just couldn't.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
I had a moment where I remember standing with my
tray and I just walked out of the cafeteria, walked
straight into a guidance counselor's office who I didn't know,
sat down and said, I need somebody to take me away.
I'm not leaving this office until somebody takes me away.
I have flashes of sitting in the guidance counselor's office,
(09:46):
and then I have flashes of my parents coming in,
and then I remember some kerfluffle and that kerfluffle.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Kerfuffle, whatever that word is. You know what, I like, kerfluffle.
We're gonna go with that. Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
It's a joke in our family that I have always
read more than I've talked to humans, so I often
say words wrong because I've read them for so long,
but not hurt them. So anyway, Then I remember like
a very cold hallway which was walking into the hospital.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
What was really a mental hospital.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Now we have so many other options, but for like
my family's insurance and my situation back then, it was
really just kind of a mental hospital. I remember sitting
with whoever was like the intake nurse and my parents
there and them taking all my stuff, like looking through
my bags and taking away anything that could hurt me,
(10:44):
which I bodily remember feeling reallye fat, like finally somebody's
taking my power to hurt myself away from me, Like
that's what I wanted.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Wow, what was it about that moment on that school
day that led you to go to the school's office.
I mean there were probably so many other days where
you felt spare. You've been battling this for years and
years and years, So what was the catalyst for you
to say or right, enough is enough.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
I think that that is a gift that I have.
I think that I break every once in a while,
and I think that the people in my life who
never break have harder lives. Like I am a little
(11:39):
bit like, uh, you know the circuit breakers that like
if you things start to go out and then you
can like flip the circuit breaker and stop everything. I
feel like I'm a bit of a circuit breaker.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Satisfying, by the way, so satisfying, yeah, small, Plus I
have no.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Idea why this works.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
I have no idea how this works, but it's so
fun that these buttons are gonna work. So I feel
like I do just break every once in a while.
I think we live in a world that breaks you, Like,
I don't think that it's all a personal problem. I
think that there is stuff happening in our lives and
(12:19):
culture and country and world and families that should break us.
And many times in my life I've had moments like
that in the cafeteria where I'm like, oh, I can't
do this for one more second, Like whether it's my
old marriage or my work life, or there's just something
(12:40):
builds up in me I can fake it for only
so long, and then I have a moment where I'm like, oh,
I'm out of here. I won't spend another moment in
this cafeteria, in this high school, in this marriage, in
this life, and then just I need help. It's like
and I need help moment. Yeah, And then that usually
(13:01):
kind of saves me for a little while, and then
I get lost again. But I have circuit breaker moments
which I think keep me from burning the whole house down, right,
isn't that what.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Circuit breakers do?
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Yeah? Exactly, you said, I can't do this anymore. That
was the feeling in high school, and help me understand
exactly what this was, because it wasn't simply binging and purging, right,
It was deeper than that.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
All the acting, all the posturing, all the who are
you going to stand with? In the high school, I
was extremely self conscious, clearly, and I didn't know to
whom I belonged. I didn't know where to stand, who
to stand with, what club I should be, and how
I should be acting. I could watch some girls laugh
a certain way, or I just did not know how
(13:49):
to be, so I felt like I was acting all day.
It was like being on stage all day and I
needed to get backstage.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Tell me about what you learned at the mental hospital
from being around kids that could no longer act. Almost
by definition, I will tell you.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
It felt less crazy to me than high school. I
felt like the same way I feel now when I
go to my twelve Step meetings, Like I feel like, oh,
this is where they keep the honest people. Like you know,
it's hard for me to explain, but there was no bullshit,
there was no acting. I learned what I wish everybody
(14:32):
would get to learn, which is like being human, Like,
can anyone tell me how to feel sad? Like I
like how we deal with the fact that we have
these people we love who also hurt us, and that
we love so much and we're going to lose everybody
we love, and like any ideas about that? Like that
(14:54):
is all we did in the hospital. We learned how
to sit with pain, We learned what it felt like
to be a being on this planet with other beings,
and like how trauma works. And we learned strategies to
process emotion. Even if it was just like painting or dancing,
(15:14):
we always had to hold each other's hands. Okay, so
please imagine being a senior in high school, I had
to go on field trips to art museums with other
people and just walk around with our little crew of
crazies and hold hands.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
But Maya, that's my ideal day. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
How fascinating is it that someone who was so afraid
of exposure and rawness actually found her greatest comfort in
a mental institution in which she was forced to confront
the deepest, darkest parts of her There's yeah, a deep
irony there that I'm like still in this moment trying
(15:54):
to grasp fully because it is wildly unexpected.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
So it's not really exposure. I guess it's just like
acting like exposures. Okay, if I can just be how
I am? Yeah, because that was exposure and weird exposure,
like everyone was staring at us, but I felt like
so much safer and so much realer.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
So what I'm hearing then is that when you were
in the mental institution, you were forced to challenge this
underlying belief that you yourself were broken, because when you
actually confronted who you were, but without the script, without
the veneers, without the acting, there was actually an underlying
comfort there, or at least some relief.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
There is this underlying vibe that we all kind of
either verbally or nonverbally agree on, which is like, oh,
they think on the outside that were the broken ones
in here, but like, actually were the ones who know
the truth and are telling the truth, and they are
all acting. So it was something like a feeling of
(17:04):
a redemptive solidarity of like finding your people and being like,
that's fine. I don't care if all those people on
the outside think that I'm broken, because I know if
I'm broken, this is the kind of brokenness that I want.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Yeah, And it seems like young Glennon, who thought for
sure she was broken, really was just saying I feel
like I'm broken in relation to these other people and
what their expectations are, what the norms are. But actually
that whole thing was a farce anyway, So like maybe
I shouldn't have bought into it in the first place.
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (17:38):
And I sometimes feel frustrated now because I feel like
I'm supposed to have some sort of like victory, Like
i feel like I'm supposed to get to some kind
of finish line of this story.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
No, like I'm supposed to have some kind of redemptive moment.
I keep trying to force redemptive moments every five years
with a new book. I'm like, I've I'm better, I've
figured it out. Yeah, and then I go back too.
But I still feel that way. I still when I'm
talking to you and I'm thinking out this moment in
this country, I spend most of my day feeling like,
(18:15):
get me the fuck off this planet, like I. So
I still feel that way. I don't trust anyone who
doesn't feel that way right now.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
That's the thing.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
It's like, is that brokenness or is not being broken
hearted about the state of things the problem. I wrote
about that recently and this beautiful stranger wrote back to
me and said, it's okay, You're just like a humpback whale.
Humpback whales get like one song that they have to
sing their entire life. They just sing that one song
(18:46):
in the same tone over and over again.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
So you're just a whale. I was like, I'll take it.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
I think this question of when we feel truly comfortable
is just one of the most relatable questions. It's a
simple question and it's a super hard thing to answer.
So I get why that's the song of your whaledom,
because I think that's like a very very see I
(19:14):
made of a word too, whaled them. I think that's
like one of the most primal questions that we ask
as humans, because all we're trying to do is like
fit in and belong. So of course that question we'll
get a front row seat all the time.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Yeah, you know, I've wondered for so long why I'm
I always feel like I need to move? Why I
always feel like I need to change my hair, my clothes,
everything just And it's because you know, about five years ago,
after twenty moves, I realized, Oh, the problem is that
I am still here. Yeah, wherever I go there I
(19:48):
am like, that is the problem. So it really becomes
a matter of figuring out how to be at peace
in my body.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
That's like the place I always am.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Tragically, we'll be back in a moment with a slight
change of plans. If there's one place where Glennon Doyle
(20:23):
has felt fully free to be herself, it's on the page.
She's the author of three best selling memoirs that chronicle
her journey through addiction, the unraveling of her first marriage,
and ultimately the choice to leave her husband to be
with the woman she loves.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
When did you.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
First figure out that you could find a comfortable space
through words? Through writing?
Speaker 2 (20:51):
I love that question. Okay, I don't think I knew it.
For a long time through writing, I knew that my
only comfortable place was reading. I am able to take
anything to an extreme, So I actually reading for a
lot of people is like their goal, like they should
read more. But for me, I have to watch it
(21:14):
because that is also where I go to just not
be in this world. So my family needs me to
not be reading as much as I was. This this
has been made clear to me. Okay, so that's fine.
Staying present and not in a book is necessary. I
(21:35):
don't know the actual answer to that question. I may
have found it earlier if I wasn't so gone. I
was very gone to my addiction until I got pregnant
with my son when I was twenty five.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
And do you mind just sharing the addiction for those
who don't know. Oh?
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Yes, I mean so it clearly started when I was
young with food and binging and purging. In high school
I found alcohol, and then in college I found drugs,
and so I just did what addicts do. I just
kept upping the anti. I couldn't use my food strategy
(22:11):
publicly like that is a tricky thing about an eating disorder,
especially bulimia. It's something that can bring comfort privately. But
I needed something to make me feel comfortable and gone
when I was in public situations, which alcohol was just
amazing for. So I became a real severe alcoholic. I
(22:34):
drank every single day of my life from the time
I was seventeen until I found out I was pregnant
when I was twenty five. So, then I found out
I was pregnant, I was twenty five years old, and
I had a cafeteria moment. I just was like, oh,
I'm going to die. I had a real knowing that, like.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
This is it.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
I just had barely any life left in me. So
I and one day that day I just quit. I
was in a pack of day. I was drinking every day,
I was using cocaine and all the drugs, and I
was still binging and purging every single day.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
And I quit all of it in one day. That
was a good time. Wow, I don't know how Yeah, that.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Kid who I was pregnant with is now graduating from college,
and I have struggled so much with my kids leaving.
I thought I was going to be awesome about it,
and I haven't done very well with the transition. And
I think it's because I didn't know how to be
(23:47):
a human being. I just became a mom. I was like,
I think this kid's going to be cool. I think
he's going to love me. So I'm just going to
create a personality that is Chase's mom. And when that's over,
I'm like, I don't know what I am now.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
I love that you said that, because the central thesis
of my book is that the reason why change can
be so harrowing is that it's a threat to our
self identity, adopting new identities in our new environments, and
then suddenly a change happens that strips you of that
identity that you didn't even know you were so tethered to.
And then all of a sudden you're like, well, then
(24:25):
what I am I now? Because this whole time I've
been mom Glenn, and no, I'm supposed to be human
glennin anyway that's a cyber Oh my god, you just
spoke to my heart. That's exactly my core thesis about
why change screws us over In a really big way
and desorients us to the degree it does.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Before we move on from that, can I ask you
one more question, because, okay, so this is what I
can't stop thinking about, which you've probably already figured out.
It's not just the change, but it's belonging. This is
what I have figured out as someone who has spent
my entire life trying to find something to belong to,
trying to find some group of people who I feel
(25:03):
fully comfortable with, the only place that I have ever
felt fully known, fully needed, fully loved is this little
group of people. And now they're all leaving. It's like,
what do I do now? To whom do I belong now?
It's like, that's the question again?
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Yes, okay, so I have thought about this a lot,
and let me share with you what's helped me build
a more resilient identity during these tough moments of change. So,
rather than attaching your identity to specific pursuits like being
a mom or a writer or a podcaster, it can
(25:45):
be better to anchor your identity to the underlying features
of those pursuits that really make you light up, that
really make you tick. It's like a can I anchor
my value and my worth and my sense of self
not to what I do, but why I do it,
because that is the part of us that nothing in
the universe can touch, like it's well protected forever. And
(26:07):
then it helps guide you in your next pursuit. Because now, Glennon,
you're thinking, okay, empty nesting has been like a running
into a freight train. Right. My heart is broken to pieces.
I don't even know who I am anymore. It's like, well,
now I know belonging is the number one thing that
I was getting from motherhood. I have to really prioritize
that when it comes to my next thing, my next pursuit,
there has to be this like crazy feeling of belonging.
(26:29):
Otherwise I'm not feeling that same need. So for me,
it's been a bit of a north star too, when
I face these inflection points.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
That's really fucking good. That's so good. I hope that's
in your book. Is that in your book? Yeah, it's
a couple of things. It's not you need to stop
the press.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
So you are if we pass forward to this moment
in time, a mother of three, you're married to your husband,
you start writing these emails to your friends where you
found this safe space where you're like, I feel like
I can be myself through these words. Tell me when
there was a moment where you felt safety in these
(27:07):
vulnerable words that you're putting out there.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Well, I remember being home with three little ones. I
do remember feeling quite isolated. I remember thinking, how is
it possible that this always feels like way too much
and not enough at the same time. I remember that
feeling very deeply. My sister was my person, she still is.
(27:32):
She brought me a computer and she said, you are
going to write, because that's what you're meant to do.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
So I do what my sister says.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Man, she's the one who's always known me the best,
and I started writing. It's like, in writing, it feels
like I can use a voice that I can't.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
Use out there.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
It feels like I can use the same voice that
I use in my twelve step meetings in the hospital,
just a very like raw. I mean, people say no filter,
but that's true. Like that's when you're out in the
world and someone says, how are you, No one really
wants to hear the answer, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. And
I think I learned that from my family, like my dad,
(28:16):
who I describe to you who is kind of has
a rigidity and an anxiety that makes it hard to
communicate in person. He always wrote me the most beautiful letters.
It still does.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Interesting, that's how we communicate it. We say things in
letters that never in a million years would we say
in person.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Do you think in part it's because so as someone
who is hyper conscious about even their facial expressions, right,
who's presumably really hypervigilant, is picking up on the emotional
states of everyone around them, and are they approving of
what I'm saying or not? Do you think it's because
in writing, you just do not collect immediate feedback from
other people. So you're just like staring the words in
the face and you're just like, are these true or not?
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yes, I've never exactly thought about it like that, But
when you said that, I thought of something am Lamott
said was the great thing about writing They can't boo
you right away.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Yeah, there you go, some version of that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Maybe maybe all I had to decide was is this
true or not?
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Not?
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Like what does everyone see or think about this?
Speaker 1 (29:21):
And it's funny because so Anne LaMotte focuses on the booing,
but it's almost just as pernicious to get the cheers
right away too, just as it's like, oh, I guess
they like this. Okay, more of this, Glennon, even if
it doesn't feel faithful.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
That is absolutely true.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
The approval is as every bit is controllinglutely disapproval.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
It's attachment theory through writing.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Yes, we do more of what makes people happy, we
do less of what makes people sad. So not seeing
facial expressions is probably a very big part of being
authentic for me.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
When it went from just emails to friends to this
big blog to like, oh my god, now I have
this massive audience. How did you retain that authenticity now
that in your head you're thinking when you're writing, there's
a consciousness like, oh my god, millions of people are
going to read this, or I'm getting comments, I'm getting
reader comments about what they're liking or not liking. How
did you, if it all, block that out or did
(30:16):
you just never feel burdened by it?
Speaker 2 (30:18):
No, I didn't block it out, and it did affect me,
and it does affect me, and I've never learned to
block it out. I don't think I have ever written
anything except for the beginning when I wasn't also thinking
how would this paragraph be better or land more or
(30:39):
be received in a way where it's a real mic
drop or I'm always thinking that. I mean, it makes
me really sad, actually, like it freaks me out to
even say this, because I'm like, wait, but what is real?
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Then? I think?
Speaker 2 (30:55):
I think painting, for me is the realist thing that
I do right now. I paint all the time, and
I'm awful at it. I'm not saying this in a
self deprecating way, like it's really bad. It's not anything
that anyone would ever want, and so that protects it.
You can't turn it into a commodity. But I feel
(31:16):
that feeling of it doesn't matter, and I'm not doing
this for anyone, and it's just about what I'm putting
into it and not about what people are going to
say in that moment, more than I do in writing.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Now, what I'm hearing you say is I, Glennon, have
a desperate need for realness, and at some point writing
was no longer the medium through which I could achieve that,
and so I found an outlet through painting. Yeah that's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Yeah, I mean it makes me want to fix it
about writing I don't know, because I'm still thinking about
what people are going to feel.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
If you were to imagine reclaiming some of that authenticity
down the road, what would it look like?
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Okay, because I've thought about this at nauseum, I'll tell
you I think all the time about Emily Dickinson. Okay,
I'm not saying that's the right way to go is
to like hide all your writing away in a drawer
and never put it out there.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
But it's so badass. She was just doing it for herself.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
I mean, she kind of arranged them so after she
was dead, she would like she was like and then
first this and then I mean it feels like maybe
she she was.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
A little more like us than she le Okay.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
I think so, you know, I think about what is
the version of that. It's like writing a poem and
then burning it.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Yeah, but that's not good either.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
I'm not saying that's like the right thing to do,
but that's the only way I would ever not was
for myself.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
It's the equivalent of like if a tree falls in
a force and no one was there to hear it
did to make a sound. It's if I wrote something
and no one read it. Was it even written? Did
it even matter? Was I just wasting my time? Because
we're so utility focused in terms of like push stuff out,
push stuff out, get it out there, we forget about
intrinsic motivators and like the intrinsic value of creating art.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
That's it, that's my That's like the only test where
I would know that I was being.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
That.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
I wasn't like capitalizing, because art is really just like
getting it out, getting something out for no other reason
than getting it out. I do think that that is
the most pure version of who I would am, or
would want to be, or was meant to be, is
(33:32):
just making something and then putting it away and never
using it, using it, using it.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Yeah, I want to jump to twenty sixteen. You're in
your forties, you have the successful blog, you're a best
selling author, you're still with your husband at the time, Craig,
and then you end up meeting Abby soccer player, two
time Olympic gold medalists. So like, to all of us
it's like have you want back, oh my gosh, athlete,
(33:59):
and to you it was like love of your life.
So can you just for all the hopeless romantics out there,
just first tell me about that initial interaction with Avi.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Oh my god, oh god, my h okay, all right,
So first you have to know that I was doing
my first event for Love Warrior, which was a book
about the redemption of my.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Marriage to your husband, and.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
My marriage was just I was like forcing it, man,
I was really forcing it for a lot of reasons.
It doesn't matter. But I was at the first event.
Abby walked into the room. I was at a table
full of writers. Abby stands in the door. I've never
(34:42):
kissed a girl before. I've never I didn't I wouldn't
have known queerness to I was a Christian writer with
three children. I was a Sunday school teacher in one
of the most conservative counties in Florida.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
This was my life.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
And I saw Abby, and the next thing I knew,
I was standing up at the table with my arms
wide open.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
I actually bowed.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
I bowed, hoping like maybe people think I'm just weird
and I do bows.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
People walk in the room.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
So it's a family joke for us now, like when
someone walks into a room, my son will bow. Anyway,
I love it now because I was like, Oh, my
body knew. My body knew that something really important was
happening before my mind did, which for me maybe that
was the first time that had ever happened that I
had trusted a bodily reaction. We had a couple exchanges
(35:33):
that night. It was at a librarian's convention. She had
just gotten sober, she had just retired, she was having
a big change which was causing a major identity crisis.
We started emailing after that day, which was interesting because
we fell in love through writing where it could be
my actual real self.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Wow, oh how interesting. Yeah, so she got to know
the real you.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
We had been emailing for maybe two months, and then
I or a month maybe it was a month I
realized I was in love with her. I also realized
that it was never going to work, Like it was
never going we were never going to have a future.
I mean, I was who I was in my life
with three children with it. But I definitively remember talking
(36:20):
to a dear friend and saying, it doesn't matter whether
it works, because now I know that this thing is real,
Like I know that what I have is not this,
Like now I know what the misery is about, because
there is a real thing that people feel, and I'm
feeling it, so it doesn't matter if this works out,
I can't go back to that. So I ended my marriage.
We had never seen each other in person, We had
never had a moment in person. That first night when
(36:43):
we met, we just were kind of like, woo, what
is this?
Speaker 3 (36:46):
Yeah, So I.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Told Craig I was leaving him. This is all before
we ever kissed or touched or saw each other again.
After that night, I talked to my kids about it,
said the marriage was over. It was the most brutal
day of my life telling them that, And then I
flew to La to see if what all of these
(37:09):
were correct, to test it all out.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
And which is not the normal order of operations.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
It's just for the record. Yeah, no, no, it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
But it was like another cafeteria moment, right. It's like
sometimes in order to know not this, you have to
have some experience of yes, this inside your body, like
you don't blow something up even if it's hurting you
sometimes until there's hope. That's why when people ask me
(37:41):
the really honest question of like, well, that was brave
that you did that, But do you think you ever
would have left had there been no Abby? I don't
have an honest answer to that question, I don't know,
Like maybe I just would have kept kind of suffering silently,
and or maybe the thing would have grown in me
enough to not be able to take it anymore. But
(38:03):
I don't know that that's true.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
You know, as I reflect on our conversation, glennon one
thing that's so beautiful to me about your story when
it comes to feeling comfortable and at peace with yourself
and at home and your body. You're a constant work
in progress, right, I mean, you found these pockets of
life right like writing and with Abby where you've just
(38:27):
sparkled and it's like, yay, okay, great, I got the
finish line. But then a new thing hits you and
it humbles you again, Like recently you've talked about getting
an anorexia diagnosis, and so how are you learning to
make peace with the fact that there likely won't be
that final redemption story. Do you have any advice for
(38:49):
listeners who feel the same way.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Well, I think some of us are just humped back
whales maya. I think that some of us are just
born with one thing that is just a big question
that we just spiral around it over and over again,
and I think it's a spyling. But I do feel
like an ascension with the spiraling. I think I'm getting
better views each time. I think I'm learning new things
(39:15):
each time. I think having a singular story it's kind
of interesting because if you're singing a certain song, then
that's how you find the other people who are also
singing that song.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
That kind of draws them to you.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
But I have just figured that out just this time,
that I'm never going to figure it out.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
So that's freeing.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
That's great progress.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
I know.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
I love it. Victory laugh. Hey, thanks so much for listening,
(40:01):
and just a reminder, you can pre order my new book,
The Other Side of Change at the link in our
episode description or a change with my com slash book
and enjoin me next time when we explore what happens
when two people live through the same traumatic event but
have wildly different responses. We'll hear from world renowned climber
(40:24):
Beth Rawdon, who is kidnapped and held hostage with her
partner Tommy Caldwell on a climbing expedition in Kyrgyzstan. Tommy
and I never talked about Kurrysion. We never talked about
my nightmares, my paranoia, my fear. That's next time on
A Slight Change of Plans. I'll see you then. A
(40:46):
Slight Change of Plans is created, written, and executive produced
by me Maya Schunker. The Slight Change family includes our
showrunner Tyler Green, our senior editor Kate Parkinson Morgan, our
producers Britney Cronin and Megan Lubin, and our sound engineer
Erica Huang. Louis Scara wrote our delightful theme song, and
Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of
(41:10):
Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries, so big thanks
to everyone there, and of course a very special thanks
to Jimmy Leef. You can follow a Slight Change of
Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker. See you next week.
Host
Dr. Maya Shankar
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