Coming To Terms With Your Shadow Side - Uncut with Abby Wambach

Today’s guest has been on our bucket list for a few years now. Even with that in mind, the conversation still exceeded our expectations! It’s raw and open and we go to some of the darker parts of what shaped the person that Abby became.

Abby Wambach is a soccer icon, speaker, Podcaster, New York Times Best Selling author and activist. Abby is one of the most dominant sportswomen in the history of women’s soccer and she is a two-time Olympic Gold Medalist & FIFA World Cup Champion. After winning the Women’s World Cup in 2015, Abby retired and has gone on to be one of the most prominent voices fighting for equality and inclusion. 

Abby has recently released her latest book that she co-authored with her wife Glennon Doyle & Amanda Doyle “we can do hard things”. The book is broken into 20 of life’s biggest questions like ‘why am I like this?’, ‘how do I figure out what I want?’ ‘why can’t I be happy?’ and ‘How do I forgive?’ So, today we wanted to speak with Abby about the hard things she has faced in life and what those challenges taught her about herself and the world.

First up, Abby shares the moment that she truly hit rock bottom that exposed a big secret she was struggling with to the world. We also chat:

• The reason so many athletes struggle with alcohol/drug issues
• The search for identity when you go through big life changes
• Validation and how to cope when the source of validation is removed
• Overriding self esteem coming from ‘the grind’ and pushing through suffering
• The interesting way Abby reacted when one of their kids came out as gay and how it reshaped some of her own experiences of coming out
• Creating friendship with parents
• What your shadow side is
• Grief and a better response to ‘there are no words’
• Dealing with grief when you’re non religious
• Abby’s advice - don’t use your partner’s weaknesses against them
• The ‘who cares more’ rule

You can find more from Abby on her instagram 

You can get yourself a copy of the book ‘We Can Do Hard Things’ 

And listen to the podcast also titled We Can Do Hard Things 

You can watch us on Youtube

Find us on Instagram

Join us on tiktok

Or join the Facebook Discussion Group

Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because WE LOVE LOVE! Xx

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode was recorded on Cameragle Land.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of Life
on Cut.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
I'm Brittany and I'm Keisha, and today we are so lucky.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
This guest that is joining us has been on our
bucket list for I'd sell you a couple of years.

Speaker 4 (00:23):
Now.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Well, yeah, you guys know that I'm a bit of
a football girlie. Now I'm a soccer girlie. I'm officially
a wag as of the last couple of weeks. But
today today's a bit of a flex for anyone in
the football world. But I think even if you're not
in the football soccer world, you'd be hard pressed not
to know who our guest is. Abby Wambach. She's a
soccer icon, speaker, podcaster, New York Times bestselling author, and

(00:46):
activist for equality and inclusion. Abby is one of the
most dominant sportswomen in the history of women's soccer, and
she's a two time Olympic gold medalist and beever World
Cup champion. Do you know it was actually so hard
to write this intro because there was so many things
that she's done and so many achievements.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
I was like, Wow, we're to overachieve Abby.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
After winning the Women's World Cup in twenty fifteen, Abby
retired and has gone on to be one of the
most prominent voices fighting for equality and inclusion.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
Abbi has recently released her latest book that she co
authored with her wife, Glennon Doyle and Demanda Doyle.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
It is called We Can Do Hard Things.

Speaker 3 (01:19):
The book is broken into twenty of life's biggest questions,
like why am I like this? How do I figure
out what I want? Why can't I be happy? And
how do I forgive? This book you get bang for
your buck. It's over five hundred pages, so it'd like
cost per page, very very low, and.

Speaker 4 (01:35):
On YouTube I'm showing you now.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
It includes editions from some of the world's most interesting
and influential people like Jane Fonda, Elizabeth Gilbert, who we
have been lucky enough to chat with, Brene brown, Estaperel
Reese Witherspoon, just to name a couple. So today we
wanted to chat with Abby about some of the hard
things that she has faced in life and what those
challenges taught her about herself and the world.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
Abby Welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 4 (01:58):
Thank you guys both for having me and I just
want to say give a big shout out to my
favorite azzie footballer, Sam Kerr. Yes, come on, Samkurr. I
love her so much and what you all did with
the World Cup was just so fun to watch last
time around.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
It's actually been so incredible. And I mean Sam, here
is like royalty. I don't know what it was and
I'm trying to put my finger on it, but it
just exploded in the football world here, Like the World
Cup just changed everything for women's sport, not just in Australia,
but I think around the world. But in Australia, I
think football was always of interest, Soccer was always of interest,
but it wasn't like the number one sport. And after

(02:38):
that World Cup, it's all anyone talks about. It outsells
the men's sports. It's actually so incredible to watch.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
And there were also such high percentage increases in girls
that were being signed up to join like local league
soccer teams and that kind of thing. It was just
amazing and I think it was the most viewed thing
in Australian TV history. Yeah, she's really really I will
fact check that before this guy and the birth name
for females of Matilda, Yes, went up like I'm making

(03:05):
this up.

Speaker 4 (03:05):
Fifty I made up.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
We start every episode with an accidentally unfiltered your most
embarrassing story. I can only assume for some reason you're
giving the energy of that.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
You've got many.

Speaker 4 (03:19):
I've got a lot. And for the listener who has
no clue who I am, just stay with me, stay
with her here. I am hard. It is hard to
embarrass me because I'm the youngest of seven children. Yeah,
I've basically been abused and teased and battered my whole

(03:40):
life around just being the youngest of seven children. And
so it is very difficult to embarrass me. And by
the way, like this is going to sound pretty serious
when I say what I'm going to say, But don't worry,
there's a lot of healing that has taken place. Here's
what happened. I won the World Cup in twenty fifteen,
was deciding on whether I was going to retire or

(04:04):
continue on to play in the Olympics in twenty sixteen.
I was living in Portland, Oregon, in the Pacific northwest
of the United States at the time, and I made
the very stupid decision to go golfing with some buddies
of mine and I was drinking a lot of alcohol
that day, and we went to a barbecue after the

(04:26):
round of golf, and I thought that I was fine
to drive home. I got in a car and I
got a DUI, got pulled over and I get a dui.
And I'm sure I think that most places other than
the United States, like that is abhorrent behavior, Like I
know in the UK, like if you get a dui,
like you're like people, people are like, what the fuck

(04:48):
is wrong with you? So I went to jail and
I woke up and my face was on the ESPN,
which is like the most famous sports television show here.
Mugshot was on the ticker the bottom where they like.
It was just like the most embarrassing thing that has

(05:09):
ever happened to me, the most shameful, because it really
pointed out a bigger problem that I was having with alcohol,
that I was hiding and I was keeping secret from
the rest of the world. A lot of my people
knew that I had this problem, and I was kind
of suffering and struggling with alcohol at the time. But
you know, worst decision ever, Yeah, best outcome because I

(05:32):
have not had a drink since that night. You know,
almost ten years sober, which is the part of the
story that gets better. Folks, congratulats. Most embarrassing thing that
ever happened to me.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
I mean, I'm not gonna lot.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
This is the most serious, accidentally unfiltered we've ever had.
But I understand it because before we started this conversation, guys,
we you know, said to Abby, do you.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
Have this accidental filter?

Speaker 2 (05:56):
She's like, yeah, does it have to be funny? And
I said, no, it doesn't have to be. And in
my head, I thought, what could it be that could
be that embarrassing because every story almost ends in laughter,
and that one doesn't like that, that that actually you're like,
then I went to prison and then the whole nation
that I M. Yeah, I guess I see that roundabout

(06:17):
way because it ended well for you. Now, I guess
you can look back and I mean probably be grateful
and I have a laugh at that moment.

Speaker 4 (06:25):
Yeah, you know, I think that. You know, I'm sure
that there's a lot of people in the world that
struggle with alcohol. I know Ozzie's love to party. Honestly,
in the Olympic village, Ozzie House was like the one
that was always going off like.

Speaker 1 (06:40):
Ohsie aussy ossy OI.

Speaker 4 (06:43):
Like it's so wild, they're like the biggest partiers. But
I do think that, like, embarrassment comes in all forms,
and if you knew what it was like to be
me at the end of my retirement. When you're a
professional athlete, there's this weird relationship you have the public
where it matters to you more because so much of

(07:06):
your livelihood is dependent on whether people like you or not,
which is terrible, but it's just true, especially at the
time for a woman footballer. I was making most of
my money and endorsements off the field, and that has
everything to do with if people like me and if
people think I'm a good footballer, right, and so that
is the biggest, for sure embarrassment of my life. I mean, look,

(07:29):
I perioded on my pants during a couple of soccer games,
like white shorts. I think now Nike and the national
team doesn't allow their women to wear white shorts for
this purpose, So you're welcome. I took one for the team.
They just bleed on their pants exactly exactly.

Speaker 3 (07:50):
I mean, I don't want to jump ahead too much
because you know, we had planned on talking to you
about alcohol and your decision to go sober and that
kind of thing, but I can't remember the name. There
is a like psychological term for this, and essentially it's
around the concept of if things are medium bad, you
don't tend to make change in your life, but things
sometimes have to get so bad that you are forced

(08:12):
to make a big change. Was that moment of getting
a DUI having your face on every news program and
you probably internationally for it, Like, if not nationally, it
was likely in international news. I'm curious about how bad
it had to get for you to be like, holy shit,
I need to change everything about this and my relationship
with alcohol is not a good one, and this is
like the impetus for change.

Speaker 4 (08:34):
That was the only thing that was going to wake
me up, right, you know. I tried a couple of
times before to go, and as an athlete, like, look,
I trained really hard, and when I was with the team,
I never drank right, But then when I'd get home,
I'd party really hard. And so my ability to have
like a high functioning alcoholism was really difficult to even

(08:56):
admit that I had a problem because I was winning
like gold medals and shit, you know, like it's very
difficult and it makes a lot of sense. I do
understand why so many of us pro athletes struggle with addiction,
because we're so accustomed to having our brains and the
dopamine and the pleasures parts of our brains utilized a lot,

(09:18):
Like when we're out in the field and you're being
screamed for by fifty thousand people, and then you go
back to your hotel room, you're like, well, this sucks,
and so that's like an easy fix for it. So yeah,
that moment needed to happen because it had to be
so horrific and so shameful and so embarrassing. By the

(09:40):
way I've processed through it, I don't feel that way
about myself anymore because I was just like hurting, and
I was suffering so much, and I was having a
lot of mental health stuff I was coming up into.
I was going into a retirement that I didn't plan for.
I didn't know what the hell I was going to do.
I didn't know what to call myself. I didn't know
what to f feel identity wise. I was just having

(10:02):
a total existential crisis. In fact, when I got this DUI,
I actually ended up changing and completely reorganizing my entire
life I got. I moved. I moved to Florida. I
moved totally out of state. I don't talk to a
lot of the friends that I had at the time
for various reasons, but mostly it's due to geographical proximity.

(10:24):
Here's the thing, Like, what does Oprah say? She said,
life will send you whispers and if you're not listening,
then life eventually will send you a big brick in
the face. And that's what you go. That's what I got.

Speaker 2 (10:36):
Did you know that you had a problem with alcohol?

Speaker 4 (10:39):
Like? Was it?

Speaker 2 (10:40):
Were you every time you drunk? Were you, like, I
know this isn't right. I know I'm drinking to excess.
I know I need to change it. Or was it
just a really normal part of your life because you've
been doing it for so long?

Speaker 4 (10:48):
I had no idea. Yeah, for a long time. It
wasn't until my first wife started to ask me questions
about it, Like, and here's the thing, Like, I think
that that alcoholism and addiction is a symptom to what
something else that was going on inside of me. And
I was suffering because I was struggling in this first marriage,

(11:10):
and I didn't know how to fix it, and I
didn't know what to do about it. I was struggling
because I was coming upon this retirement. I did not
know what to do. And that was the only thing
that I had ever learned throughout my life that was
able to soothe me quickly, was to soothe this desperation,
this horror, this fear, and without guardrails of soccer, because

(11:35):
soccer really did protect me from going into like a
real full fledged addiction, because I had to go into
camp every few weeks, I had to keep playing soccer
for most of the year, so it in some ways
saved me and also some ways kind of covered and
like camouflaged the addiction for all the years. Because if

(11:55):
I were to be really honest, I've been a problem
drinker since the very first time I ever drink alcohol.
I was I was drinking to get drunk as soon
as it hit my lips. I didn't have like an
off button like I watched, you know, being the youngest
of seven kids. My dad is a drinker, and my
brothers and sisters were all drinkers, and watching them do

(12:17):
it kind of gave me this like aspiration for it
in a way, And there's parts of me that still
like think like, at least in the memory of the
person I wanted to become, Like, there were parts of
me growing up that wanted to be like my dad
where he got to like go to the golf course
and drink with his buddies during the day in his retirement.
Like that was like the dream. And now I'm like,

(12:39):
that is kind of an absurd dream.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah, well, I mean I think that's a really good
place for us to go. Now is back to your childhood, Abby,
But you do say you're one of the youngest of
seven kids, which I imagine is a bit manic. What
was it at that time that led you to get
into football? And I know you speak about it pretty
beautifully in the book, but for those playing at home,
was it something that the rest of your siblings did?

(13:02):
Was it, you know, you just something that your parents
really put you into? Was it something that you found
on your own?

Speaker 3 (13:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (13:07):
I came from a family of athletes. The way that
the brothers and sisters are oriented. There's two older sisters
that are like ten years older and eleven years older,
and then there are four boys and then me and
so because all of them, my sisters included, were very
into sports, soccer, basketball primarily those are the big sports.

(13:28):
My brothers also played ice hockey. Interestingly enough, my sister
Beth actually her friends were playing basketball when she was
like really young, and she said to my mom, I
want to learn how to play soccer. And my mom said,
I don't know how to do that. Let's go to
the library. So they like checked out a book on
like how to play soccer for my sister Beth to learn,
which is I think so important as to like how

(13:51):
then I became the soccer player. I became like literally
anything as possible for us.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
Is Beth pissed? Like yeah, she was a little bit.

Speaker 4 (14:01):
Yeah, I mean she's fine. She went to Harvard and
played basketball and became a doctor.

Speaker 2 (14:06):
Like she's fine, She's like, fuck you, I did the research,
real achieve is.

Speaker 1 (14:12):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (14:13):
Well, here's the thing. I saw what she did and
I was like, I'm not going to go that route.
I'm just gonna play She played basketball, I played soccer, Yeah,
and I definitely don't. I went to the University of Florida,
did not go to Harvard. But anyways, to answer your question, yeah,
I think that being in a big family of athletes,
it put me in an environment where I was like

(14:34):
always on a team, and I think that it kind
of gave me the ability to watch people and to
learn a lot from watching. Even now and I'm forty
five and I just started to play beach volleyball. And
somebody can tell me how to do something one million

(14:54):
times and I don't understand what they're saying, but if
they literally visually show me how to do it, I
can do that. And so I spent my whole like
literal childhood before I could walk, and then I was
like jumping off the diving board in eighteen months or
two years. And then as time goes on, you know,
I start to develop like actual interest interests in soccer.

(15:18):
And I'm good because I've been playing against ten year
olds and I'm five. I've been playing against my bigger
brothers and sisters, ten, fifteen, twenty year you know, and
as I'm getting older, they're getting older. So I'm always
competing against somebody that's far stronger, taller, faster than me,
which I think was really inevitably something that absolutely shaped

(15:40):
me as a pro athlete.

Speaker 2 (15:42):
It also just sounds like you're probably a natural athletes
as well, like some people can when you say you
can just look at something and pick it up like
some people just have that. But you write in your book,
I really liked this, and I'm really interested. I became
an athlete to get my mother's love. All I really
wanted was love, full acceptance, and attention from my mom.
But because I had these deep knowing about my gainess,
I felt like my mom would never accept this part

(16:04):
of me. So I developed an athlete persona to make
up for my gainess and it worked. I was celebrated,
but that kind of affirmation was something I could never
really latch onto. I came home from soccer and my
family would be so amazed at all of my goals,
but I always felt like, what if I stopped scoring goals,
will they be able.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
To love what's left?

Speaker 2 (16:23):
That is beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time to
think that that is how you found yourself in sport,
But then it sounds like you just felt like you
needed so much validation and you were only getting that
from football.

Speaker 4 (16:35):
Talk us through that. Yeah, some people ask me a lot,
like why I played soccer and how I achieved the
level of success that I did, And I think like,
if I got to the bottom of it. It's basically
like a bigger version of like, Mom, watch this, yeah,
you know at the Olympics though exactly, like seriously, and

(17:00):
I know that that, Like that's funny, but it's true.
Like a lot of what motivated me deeply is just
childhood stuff and being in a family that a lot
of us, I would say, all seven of us were
always wanting more attention than we were getting because God forbid,

(17:21):
like my mom didn't have enough time to be able
to give all of us the attention that we needed.
She tried her best, but it's just impossible. There's seven
fucking people that are looking to you for something, you know,
and so yeah, it's like it's hard to say at
this point. I've done a lot of healing around this

(17:42):
because I love the family that I grew up in
and I wouldn't change any of it because it's made
me who I am. But I like wonder if I
would have been as good of a soccer player had
I not had that kind of motivation, Like I wonder
like if I I had like Glennon has asked me
a few times, like what if you had the kind

(18:04):
of attention and love that your person needed that you needed,
do you think you would have been striving so hard?
And I'm like, I don't know, Like I kind of
think that a lot of us pro athletes, we're out
there to prove something, there's something, and yeah, I think
greatness and being the best is one faction of it.

(18:27):
But I also think that there's a deeper part of
it that is truly heartbreaking. Like what we're actually doing,
it's like watch me mom, or show up for me Dad,
or whatever it might be. It's like there is some
sort of unmet need from our younger years that we
are trying to create in this avenue of professional sports.

(18:50):
In fact, I think it's like I think it's probably
pretty pervasive if you were to get I mean, it's
hard to get athletes to be as honest as this,
as open about their families and their childhood, especially ones
that were famous blah blah blah. But it is a
little heartbreaking to wonder if had I not had soccer,

(19:15):
would I Because it's about self love at the end
of it, right, Like I was always looking for external
validation and in the end, I've had to really do
a lot of work for myself around actually loving who
I am because I get to take myself everywhere I go,
and then I don't need I do need people, but

(19:36):
I'm not like at the mercy of them. It is
not going to kill me if they decide they want
to leave, because guess what parents leave, right, they end
up dying and what then? Like I need to be
able to hold myself and hold my little kid heart too,
that just wanted to have the attention she won't she deserved. Aby.

Speaker 3 (19:57):
I think it's so incredibly relatable, even though very few
of us will take it to the extent of being
professional athletes, but that question of like am I good enough?

Speaker 1 (20:06):
Am I doing enough for you? You know, like are
you proud of me? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (20:09):
And I think it really impacts a lot of us
in the sense that it's something that we tend.

Speaker 1 (20:13):
To carry throughout life.

Speaker 3 (20:14):
It can create anxious attachment styles, it can create kind
of an insatiable need for validation. I know that this
is something I very much experienced in my romantic relationships before.
Like you said, you kind of do the work, you
unpack where that's coming from. And yeah, I think that
that's one of the most relatable things that a lot
of us experience when it's just that question of like

(20:35):
am I good enough? And with professional athletes, something that
I know you experienced was a lot of change in
a very short period of time, and it was when
you decided to quit soccer, quit your marriage, quit alcohol,
but when you were conditioned in a way to kind.

Speaker 1 (20:52):
Of still seek that validation.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
How do you go from getting all of that validation
and being reinforced that you are fantastic, will adore you,
and you decide to stop doing the thing that gives
you that adoration and go into retirement. How did you
adjust to all of that change?

Speaker 4 (21:08):
This is a great question, and actually nobody's ever asked
me this question, and so I've never actually told anybody
how I've done this part because there was about two
years of my life before I felt well enough, like
stable enough, i should say, post alcohol, where I could

(21:31):
I felt strong enough to like actually want to start
doing the real work. Like yes, I was like doing
the work by just staying sober, Like that's hard fucking enough.
And the only way I can describe this is like
what I did so as an athlete. This is going
to sound so freaking crazy, y'all, but I'm gonna say
it anyway. The only metal that I ever kept up

(21:53):
and out for me to see is this third place
medal from the qualifying tournament for the two thousand and
eleven Women's World Cup where we didn't straight away qualify.
We got second place and had to play a home
and away match against somebody to qualify for the World Cup.
And that was a huge deal in the women's soccer world.
I took a lot of responsibility for it because I

(22:15):
felt like I let my team down. Anyway, this is
the metal that drove me that. It was like the
constant reminder things happen, you need to make sure that
you're working harder than everybody else. You need to make
sure that you're scoring the goals that the team needed
to score the goals. So this was the symbol this motivation.

(22:37):
This motivated me right and when I retired, I switched
that out, especially going through all of what you just said.
I switched it out with my gold medal as a
reminder that if my ego started to get back online
because my ego got like that, it was interestingly, like

(23:01):
in the jail, like the light switch of my ego
goes just got shut down. It just turned off, like
oh no, like it was like the most humbling thing
that's ever happened to me, Like, oh wow.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
But that perception of the shiny athlete was shutted.

Speaker 4 (23:15):
Not only for the external but for the internal. Yeah,
like I'm untouchable, I am immortal. I mean the amount
of times people as an athlete tell you that. And
especially for me, like I was a big strong player
for this moment to actually happen, to be able to
open myself up to healing into doing this like work.

(23:41):
That gold medal symbolized this remembering of like, wow, you
you are a good person and you have done really
good things. This one moment in your life is not
going to define you, and you will also make it right.
You will somehow find a way to make the best
out of this. This is not this is a moment
where a lot of people pivot in certain ways. And

(24:04):
I just like I am a firm believer that things
happen for reasons and also if things just happen, period,
and what you do with what happens kind of cultivates
your character. And yeah, so that was a really weird
and wicked time. And when I got to it was
about eighteen months that I started. I gave myself a full,

(24:27):
like eighteen month break of not working out because my
body literally needed like a total reset. And then around
eighteen months later, I was like, you know what I'm
gonna start. I'm going to start walking and like getting
back into the embodied abby and then of course it
like turns into like I'm running, and then I'm training

(24:49):
for a marathon, and then I'm running a marathon, and
so that addictive ego part of me gets back online
and goes for it. And so when we moved to
Los Angeles in twenty twenty one, I I said, Okay,
I'm going to figure out how to love myself once
and for all. And part of what I thought was
was on the menu for how you love yourself is

(25:11):
through suffering, like self esteem only came from the grind.
But I didn't realize that my self esteem was so
attached to my ego, and so I just took that
offline and I was like, Okay, I'm going to spend
the next year and a half to two years learning
how to establish self esteem without engaging my ego by

(25:36):
the suffering proxy, if that makes sense. So that's what
I did.

Speaker 1 (25:41):
What did that look like in practice?

Speaker 3 (25:42):
Though, because like, I think everyone has an element of
that where it's like, Okay, I need to learn to
love myself internally.

Speaker 4 (25:50):
How yeah, do I.

Speaker 2 (25:52):
Write in a diary?

Speaker 1 (25:54):
Do I just write the things that I think I'm
a good person for?

Speaker 3 (25:56):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (25:57):
Yeah. I think that it's different for everybody. We all
have our different backgrounds and traumas and the things that
we're working through and dealing with blah blah blah. But
the things that work for me, I can only tell
you what worked for me is I have a very
strong will, like I can do something for a long
period of time, and I have an ability to maintain

(26:19):
that suffering experience because I've had so much positive outcome
from those suffering experiences. So when I was planning out
the next like eighteen months of this search for self love,
I decided, Okay, I'm not going to run. And it
was also really good timing because the marathon that I
did really messed up my ankle so I couldn't actually run,

(26:42):
And I'm going to go to the gym five days
a week and I'm not going to when I get
my body into a state where I have the thought,
I don't want to do this because I would have
the thought this is so hard. I don't want to
keep doing this set. Like I'm on, I'm on wrap
eight of fifty pound chest press or whatever, like I

(27:04):
go into this weird pain cave dark place that I
can I can do it, I can wrap it out,
but I just Okay, that's going to be my limit.
I'm going to go to the limit and I'm not
going to go beyond it. And like, over time, it
was interesting because the first couple of weeks, I was like, Oh,
I feel like I'm kind of weak, you know, I'm

(27:25):
like I'm weak minded in some way. But what's been
able to happen is I've been able to like turn
back about eighteen months later, and the suffering there's like
a torture. I was like torturing myself. There was a
torturing element to it. So how could I love myself

(27:45):
if I'm literally torturing myself? How could those two things
can't happen at the same time, at least for me?
So when I would look back, I just thought, Wow,
you really had a hard time for a lot of
years a pro athlete, and it's psychologically wires your brain
in a certain way that makes it very difficult in

(28:09):
my experience to understand what self love could possibly be
because you're always overriding your natural needs. You're always saying,
oh that feels wrong, Oh that hurts, and you're just
saying doesn't matter, Yeah, doesn't matter, doesn't matter. So I
don't know how to do that. It's just being soft

(28:32):
with yourself and like kind of being like your friend,
you know. I think a lot of people work with
a lot of psychedelics. I also have worked with psychedelics
in my life and they've been really profound. And I
remember during an experience, I was just like, oh my gosh,
I'm so in love with myself. That's so good, I know,

(28:56):
and I just think, yes, that's the energy we need, right,
Like have you done ayahuasca? No, I'm a little bit
scared of that, and I know everybody like, I don't know.
I just don't know if I want to like shit
myself and throw up no fame bucket.

Speaker 2 (29:12):
I was actually in the Amazon Jungle, booked in with
a shaman, like ready to go, and then I pulled
out last minute because I was like, I.

Speaker 4 (29:20):
Just don't think I want to shit myself and.

Speaker 2 (29:21):
Vomit and like and I get this thought of being
stuck in that psychedelic world. And I've heard the horror stories,
but you do talk a lot about the fact that
this all stems back from because you didn't love yourself,
and that's a lot of your struggle coming to terms
with who you are. How much of that stems back
to your sexuality and figuring out who you were as
a teenager. And I know you grew up in quite

(29:42):
a religious household. Yeah, do you I don't want to
use the word blame, but do you come back to
that being a really big driving force of your battles.

Speaker 4 (29:53):
I think one of the things that I've been taking
into my daily life. My parents are aging, they're getting older.
They were like little kids at one point too, and
that form of compassion exercise has been really helping me
with trying really hard not to blame them, because I
do believe that they were given the set of circumstances

(30:16):
they were given. They had, the parents that they had,
they had, the time that they were born into. And
in fact, when one of our kids came out to
us when they were sixteen, I had this like profound
experience in my body. You know, Glenna and I are
like the gayest gays who ever gained like we are

(30:37):
we are exactly. But then when when your child comes
to you and they say, you know, I think, I
think I'm queer, and I like, there was there was
an extraordinary amount of fear that lived in me. So
some of that is tied back into the conditions of

(31:00):
my childhood. Some of that is also tied into my
fear for him of the world because I have walked
the walk. I have experienced what it is like as
a queer person in the world, and especially during a
time when it wasn't cool, right when it was uncool

(31:23):
and unpopular and untalked about illegal and illegal exactly exactly.
So when this happened, I was talking with Glennon and
she was just like, wow, I think that this might
mean a lot for you if you can really hear it.
And what she said was maybe your mom was scared

(31:45):
for you, honey, and not of you. And I mean,
like it was like one of the most like profound
and important things somebody could ever say to me, because yeah,
like growing up in the Catholic Church. Look, I'm not
a religious person anymore, but I do believe that like

(32:07):
what the faith communities are trying to do like the
good ones, like the good people, that they're not attaching
themselves to the financial institution of it all. What they're
trying to do is spread peace and love. Like I
understand that language. But I do think that some of

(32:27):
these institutions and religions have these like these rules that
make you feel like you are either in or out,
whether like you belong or you don't. And when you're
a queer teenager and you are hearing it from the
pulpit that the way you feel in your body is

(32:51):
not the way of the parish, of the church, and
that now you are going to not belong if you
come out and be this way. And for me, I
just remember being like I wish I could fucking help this.
I wish I could choose, but it's just not an
option for me. It just will never be an option.

(33:12):
It's a hard way to grow up. And yet there's
a part of me that's like a lot of the
way that I love myself now is due in large
part to the care and strength that it took for
me to say not that religion, this life. I mean,

(33:35):
I went against the grain, I went against what was
expected of me, knowing that I was going to probably
be in more of a public position in the world
dealing with brands and partnerships that at the time nobody
was coming out. This is like the early two thousands,
So being closeted in the way in that way because

(33:57):
it very much affected my livelihood. All of these things,
when you stack them up, it's like, Wow, you're amazing
for going through all of that for yourself. Yeah, you're incredible.
And also I really wish you didn't have to do that.

Speaker 3 (34:15):
You know.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
I really like this sentiment or this idea of it's
our parents' first time walking this world as well, like
it's our parents' first time walking this path and making
their discoveries and dealing with everything that life throws their way.
And I think it's amazing that you can now go
back and look at the way that your parents interacted

(34:35):
with you or the lessons that they taught you and
have a little bit of grace for it. I think
that that's really important as well. And I don't know
if that's something that you've even realized more now that
you have become a parent.

Speaker 4 (34:44):
Yeah, of course, I mean when you're a parent, children
are incredibly wonderful, But also incredibly annoying.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
And I've never heard true a sentiment.

Speaker 4 (34:57):
Yeah, and they just do things that you are just
like what are you doing? And so patience is the
thing that I think about parenting that I did not
interact with my parents the way that our children interact
with me with my parents, And I feel like I
didn't tell them how much gratitude I had enough, Like

(35:17):
I had this idea that them being my parents was
their job, like this is what they chose to do,
you know, like this is what they get. But it's
a partnership, it's a friendship. And if I could go back,
I think I would probably change that part of my childhood.
But I was a stubborn asshole. I was like really
wanted to do what I wanted to do all the time,

(35:37):
and I didn't care what the consequences are. Also hallmark
for addiction down the road. But yeah, having kids is
a great humility and also the time I think in
which you can have the opportunity to reconnect with your
parents if they're still with us, Like, yeah, it's really interesting.

(35:58):
Parenting is a fucking bitch.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
I think you're alone and put that feeling like I
feel like every kid is an asshole until they grow
up and they're an adult and they realize how fucking
hard life is. Like life, I said to my husband, say,
I don't want to adult anymore. I don't want to
do it. I got so many bills on the table
and I was like, I'm done with it. I was like,
and I don't even have kids, kind of look after
my dog. Do you speak about the shadow side? And

(36:21):
I had never heard of that term before, honestly until me.

Speaker 4 (36:24):
Neither, by the way, yeah, neither before Suzanne Stabil, Yes.

Speaker 2 (36:28):
Yeah, yeah, And you're right about the fact that you
have this conversation with her.

Speaker 4 (36:32):
What is it?

Speaker 2 (36:32):
Tell everyone what a shadow side is.

Speaker 1 (36:34):
And like how it relates to you.

Speaker 4 (36:35):
Yeah, So we were doing this enneagram interview with Suzanne Stabil.
She's wonderful And if you don't know what the enneagram is,
I'm going to totally botch how to describe it. But
it's like an ancient BuzzFeed quiz about your personality, right,
and so it's nine numbers and you do the test online. Nowadays,

(36:56):
like back in the day, you have to like read
a book and decide which short story felt most like you.
But now you can do like the quiz online, Enneagram Institute,
dot org or something, and it gives you this number,
and this number is like essentially gives you an understanding
of who you are and also parts of yourself that

(37:21):
you might not be as aware of or in constant
conversation with. So, for an example, I'm a seven, which
means I'm like an enthusiast and I love to like
have a good time, and experience is really important to me.
And I can see the bright side of everything, and
I'm very resilient and all of these really cool things.

(37:42):
And in this interview, Suzan Stabil was just like, well,
my son's a seven, and I do think it would
be really good for you to work on your shadow side,
like my dark side, essentially, like like the sad, the
sad feelings, the sad part. You know. An In and Out,
So I'm talking a lot of in like internal family systems,

(38:04):
and I don't know if you've ever heard of it,
but it's a psychological approach to understanding all of the
different parts of ourselves that sometimes can be at war
with each other. The movie In and Out is like
one of the best ways to understand internal family systems.

Speaker 1 (38:21):
I'm so sorry. I mean when you said in and out,
I thought even if a joint.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
No, yeah, a movie inside inside out, Okay, most profound
moments have happened at.

Speaker 4 (38:32):
The No, it's called inside out, inside out.

Speaker 3 (38:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (38:37):
Maybe I said it wrong. So inside out it's like
it's the animation movie. I don't know if you've seen it.

Speaker 2 (38:44):
I thought it was a movie, yes, okay, yeah yeah.

Speaker 4 (38:46):
And so internal family systems, it feels like you have
a team of beings of things inside of you yourself, right,
and so sometimes like a part will come online that
will be protecting yourself, right, Like anger can come online
and it's because something's happened and you are in protection
mode or joy or whatever. In my Enneagram world, as

(39:09):
a seven, I don't allow sadness to come online and
drive the bus very often. It's the sadness. It's a
foreign body inside of me. I've not had a really
great relationship with it, and so I have actually been
spending the last two years since I talked to Susanne
stabil in therapy in IFS therapy, discussing all of this

(39:35):
stuff and trying to figure out what the shadow side
is for me and lo and behold like a year
and a half ago, my oldest brother Peter died of
a heart attack, and talk about shadow side and the
serendipity of the conversation with Suzanne and the timing of
it when my brother passed away, and having already been

(39:57):
doing this work on my shadows or the sadder feelings
or the less muted parts of me, it really made
going through the grief of my brother and losing him,
I think probably much more fruitful. I actually had access
to my sadness and anger and frustration and disappointment more

(40:18):
than I ever had before, because I just like I
just covered it up with joy and with overwork and
with excellence, you know. And so that is I think
I've probably done a terrible job explaining the enneagram. Just like,
go watch a video on it. It'll be understand.

Speaker 1 (40:36):
We'll try and a link to the quiz. We also
haven't done it.

Speaker 3 (40:39):
But Abby, speaking about your brother Peter and him passing away,
there was a part of your most recent book that
it really hit me in the heart, to be honest,
and we've had many conversations in the podcast about grief
and the fact that we really struggle in grief as
a culture.

Speaker 1 (40:56):
I don't think that we're.

Speaker 3 (40:57):
Very good at talking about it. I don't think that
we're very good at processing it for ourselves. And this
one thing that you wrote about you said often we
will say there are no words, you know, And when
we're talking to people who have lost loved ones or pets,
or like going through something really heartbreaking.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
We're like, Wow, I just have no words. I'm so sorry.
I have no words to describe how I feel.

Speaker 3 (41:20):
And you wrote that that was not how you've learnt
to feel and not how you've learned to act. Can
you talk us through kind of this revelation you had
about grief?

Speaker 4 (41:30):
Oh, I mean, I've had so many, and so you
might get maybe even a different version because it's a
beyond when the book was published version specifically about this
one story. As a person who's been on both sides now,
it is hard to come up with words that feel
appropriate in moments that are completely devastating to a friend

(41:55):
or a family member. I get it. I get not
knowing the words and so not reaching out. I get it,
I've done it. And then I also get now being
on the other side where my brothers died, A lot
of the messages or the words that were said to me.

(42:16):
All were so appreciated, Like all were so appreciated, because
when you say something, you are witnessing that person's pain,
and that is all that you can do with somebody
in grief, is to witness their pain. You can't do

(42:36):
It's frustrating. I think that what gets people hung up
is that they can't fix it. This hard situation, this
thing that has happened. There's no going back. And so
one of my friends actually taught me the most beautiful
lesson in the whole world. And it makes me like
tear up every time because I think about the story
and it's so I just I love her so much

(42:59):
for this. She wrote me this long text because her
mother had passed away recently, and a lot of people
write things that they don't mean. And you know, it
was always darkest before the dawn and all of these cliches,
and she said, but the things that mattered and meant

(43:20):
the most to me is what I'm going to do now.
And she just shared this beautiful, beautiful story about my
brother and how he and what he meant to her
and what kind of joyful, beautiful person he was to her,

(43:42):
and how when that story came through and I read it,
it was just like, oh my gosh, I am not
alone because this loss, even though she was my friend
and not his brother, his personality and his life I've
shaped other people in similar ways that it shaped me,

(44:03):
and it meant similar things, and it was just such
an important It was such an important moment for me
to learn about how to deal with somebody going through
grief when somebody dies. And then ironically, when the one

(44:24):
year anniversary of his death hit and this is like
the second part. This is like the grief two point
zero that I'm like learning right now about and going through.
Our culture has like a stop clock, like a stopwatch
on grief, like you only get one year, and once

(44:45):
that year comes up, we are all moving on. We
don't talk about it anymore. We just learned to live
with it and accept that this thing has happened. And
that has been the really big kick in the ass
for because I'm like, wait a second, because I did
it myself, I did it internally, and I'm also getting
the external affirmation that this is the correct thing to

(45:11):
do culturally because people stop talking about it, people stop
asking about him, people stop because they don't know should
I bring him up? Should I not bring him up?
And all of this, And so I actually just had
to ask Lennon a couple of weeks ago when we
were doing a book tour event, can you ask me
more about my brother? Oh, because I'm afraid to talk

(45:32):
about him. Yeah, like I'm afraid to talk about him
a little. And it would mean a lot to be
able to know that I have the space to feel
about this still because I'm still thinking about it and
I'm still feeling about it. It's still something that is
actually happening.

Speaker 2 (45:48):
We've spoken a lot about grief over the years to
different kinds of people and had different kind of exposure
to grief. But there's this one story that stands out,
and it was not on the podcast. It was actually
a Laura who had this interaction. And she met a
woman at a pool on holiday and the woman started
to play with her daughter in the pool like that,
so like, sorry, this woman she met was playing with

(46:10):
Laura's daughter. They got talking for a little while and
Laura was like, I'm really sorry. If she's annoying, you
let me know, and she said, no, I actually lost
my daughter and this is really making me feel the
feels and the conversation continues to say, people often don't
know what to say. They get really uncomfortable with it,

(46:31):
and they think that bringing up is going to hurt
their feelings, but in fact, all they want to do
is relive it.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
They not really live the pain, but relive.

Speaker 2 (46:39):
The person, and they want to be asked about exactly
what you just said. And I think that's probably one
of the biggest lessons that I've taken away from the
conversation about grief, is like, people don't want to relive
the pain, but they don't want to forget the person.
It's not like you tick off exactly right, Yeah, And
I think that's such an important lesson to say, like
maybe you do need to ask your loved one to
continue to bring up something, laugh that he's hot, so

(47:01):
you can relive.

Speaker 4 (47:01):
It and to relive it in a way that feels productive, right, Like,
because I also understand that there's a lot of stuff
that people grieve, not not just losing people, but grieving
I mean a lot of us in the United States
right now. We're grieving the myth, the idea of what

(47:22):
is to be an American. We're grieving the idea of safety,
We're grieving democracy, we're grieving things. And I think culturally,
and this is not true for every culture, but like
death especially is hidden, you know, like in some cultures,

(47:43):
like they keep the body out and they wash the body,
and they and they do all of these beautiful ceremonies
and these things that make death so real that we
cannot not see it, which allows I think us to
live more fully into our daily lives. You know, so
many of us Western cultured folk who you know, the

(48:05):
person dies and they just get like swept away. It's
like this weird. It feels like death is shameful, Like
this grieving of death is there's a shame attached to it.
So that's what I want to unwind, and I want
to continue to work through. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:21):
I mean, I've always kind of been curious about this
because I was also brought up in the church, and
I am now non religious. Also culturally a lot of
us are shifting that way. A lot more non religious
people exist now, And I've wondered whether we deal with
death in particular really differently when we don't believe or
we don't have faith in you know, and afterlife. And

(48:42):
I think it's it's something that I've kind of battled
with myself where I'm like, well, now my belief system
is that there's a bit of a full stop on
this person, you know, and I don't really know.

Speaker 1 (48:52):
I don't.

Speaker 3 (48:53):
I no longer believe that they've gone somewhere else, and
I kind of have.

Speaker 1 (48:57):
Been in a way.

Speaker 3 (48:58):
This is a weird thing to kind of come to
terms with. But I've almost been jealous of people who
still have faith and have you know, that understanding that
their loved one has gone to a better place. And
I wonder whether that's maybe a reason that a lot
of us do struggle with with death in particular.

Speaker 4 (49:12):
Now, I think that what you're saying is exactly how
I feel and have felt. I think that I like vacillate,
if that's the word oscillate. Oscillate, yeah, vacillate might be sexual.
Sounds sexual.

Speaker 2 (49:28):
It does sound pretty sexy.

Speaker 4 (49:31):
I think I oscillate between this idea of nothing, there's
nothing after this, and the hope that there is something.
And it's weird because I was I loved going to
church when I was a little kid. I love singing
the songs, I love the community. And then I got gay,
and so God gay I got gay and became like

(49:54):
a hardcore atheist because I had to reject You're not
going to reject me, I will reject you.

Speaker 1 (49:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (50:00):
And then I met Glennon, who I think kind of
walks the walk that Jesus tried to teach us to walk,
and she softened my edges a little bit. And I
think that there's probably more than we know what's going on.
Nobody knows. I think if you're atheist, I think Ricky

(50:21):
Gervais has this really great line that he said he
was debating religion with Stephen Colbert here in the US,
and he said, but I just believe in one less
God than you, Like you know what it's like to
not believe in things you don't believe in a lot
of religions. I just believe in one less and a
lot of us millennial gen zers. The religious institution is

(50:51):
giving them an us all the ick in a way.
But I think that there is so much beauty in
the hope, and through so much of my healing and
my my therapy with the grief of my brother, I
have learned that I am actually not worried about what
comes after life. I am very concerned about losing this

(51:14):
particular life, like I love my life and I have
worked really hard for it, and I love the people
that I love. And then one day over Christmas, Glennon
gave me this Saint Christopher necklace or sorry, Saint Peter necklace.
And I didn't know this, but Saint Peter evidently in
the Christian religion, Saint Peter was like Jesus's best friend

(51:40):
BFFs okay, And evidently Jesus gave Saint Peter the keys
to Heaven. Now, Glennon says to me when she's handing
me this beautiful medallion, is like, so your brother is
Saint Peter, and now he has the keys to heaven.
And if you are worried for any reason and about

(52:01):
whether Heaven exists or not, or where we go, or
whether you would be accepted, because all along you've been
kind of getting told that you're going to hell for
being gay, do you think your brother's letting you into heaven?
And I was like burst into tears.

Speaker 2 (52:17):
I was like, oh my god, hell yeah, he.

Speaker 4 (52:20):
Is not only that, but Peter my brother. Like if
you knew him, dude loved a party and everybody was welcome.

Speaker 2 (52:27):
He Javen's going on right now.

Speaker 4 (52:29):
Yeah, yeah, So I don't even know what the question was,
but I think that I answered something in there.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
I'm so sorry. I don't even know if I asked
you a question.

Speaker 3 (52:36):
I think it's just it's something I've thought about for
a while and I don't think I'm at a point
of resolution with it yet. And it's something that I
think I'm trying to work out for myself in terms
of dealing with you know, various forms of grief in
my own life. And yeah, I was just curious about
your thoughts, and it kind of is related to you
writing the book. You know a lot of us and

(52:57):
we speak all the time that we share things publicly.
We share a lot with classic overshares, but often we
won't share things until we're at a point of resolution
with it. You know, we'll share from sca not a wound.
But when you wrote this book, you were in the
wound stage, and it was really interesting to read certain

(53:18):
things that I don't think you've come to resolution with.
How did you go? I mean, I guess you've written
quite a few books. How is this one different? In
terms of writing from that place?

Speaker 4 (53:28):
I think that if you've ever really gone through grief
and done it without denying it and done it honestly.
As we were writing this book all last year, I
understood and have understood deeply that there is no getting
over this, there is no end line. That this is

(53:51):
an accepting This is like accepting to live with it forever.
And that's also part of like the and why people
don't want to deal with grief is because at the
end of it, when you do all the work and
you get all the way to the end and you're like, Okay,
I want this to be done, it doesn't it. Grief

(54:15):
doesn't die.

Speaker 1 (54:17):
It evolves.

Speaker 4 (54:18):
It evolves and it changes. And you know, my brother,
it's the way that I live with him now, Like
I don't get to call him on the phone. But
this grief, the function of grief isn't always negative. Like
the function of grief is also a reminder. It's also
the thing that's connecting me to him, ironically, and so yeah,

(54:39):
if you're wanting to do the grief thing correctly and
not skip over any steps, like at the end, for me,
it's just I've had to get to accepting that it
is a it is a forever relationship. It is a
forever part of me.

Speaker 2 (54:55):
Now, I think it's interesting just what we're talking about.
Just to touch him briefly. Well, I don't, I'm not
really just at all. But I don't associate whether you
believe in it afterlife with religion. Personally, I've never been
really just assume I never will be. But I do
believe there is something after, not necessarily heaven, but I
believe that we live on. Maybe we come back in
reincarnation or another life or sometimes I'm convinced that's what

(55:17):
deja vous is, that we've walked this earth before. But
I am leaving here to get married, so I am.
I never thought that Abbi Wombak would be a part
of my marriage day, but here we are. But we
were talking before, Abby, just before we jumped on the interview.
We're talking about the fact that I'm going to get
married today, and you were giving me some advice just
off the cuff. You said, Hey, I want to give

(55:39):
you like a piece of advice surrounding weakness and fear.
And I know that you had that advice in your
own wedding vows to your wife.

Speaker 4 (55:47):
Glennon, tell us.

Speaker 2 (55:48):
What you mean by that, what your advice is and
where did it stem from.

Speaker 4 (55:52):
Yeah, so both Glennon and I are on our second marriages, which,
sadly for you, I just wouldn't recommend it enough, like
it's like having to damn no. But in all seriousness,
like the things that we struggled with in our first marriages,
both in the relating part and in the interpersonal part,

(56:14):
the stuff that we could control, we just put it
all in the table because like neither one of us
like really wanted to be back in the same scenario
and we knew that we actually needed to figure out
why that happened. So when we put all of our
cards on the table, we were able to like figure
out very very quickly what our hot button issues were,

(56:37):
what were my triggers, what were her triggers, what were
her fears, what were my fears, what were her wounds?
What were my wounds? And then what we did, and
not just the creation of vows, but in the creation
of like the way that we live our life every
day is that we never use those things against each other.
We never try to capitalize on some other on her

(56:58):
wound or her fear in order to get something that
we want. And there's also I'm going to give you
a second tip that we do this like who cares
more rule when we're trying to decide, Like, you can
also attach percentages to it. Some people like to do
that game where it's like, hey, I want Indian food

(57:20):
like sixty percent and I want Mexican food forty percent,
and she's like, okay, but I want Mexican food seventy
percent and I want Indian food thirty percent. The seventy
percent wins. So whoever cares the more about the thing
you don't even need to bring percentages to it because
eventually you will start understanding who historically cares more about

(57:43):
this one thing. It's like, Okay, we're going to do
it her way. Making decisions. Yeah, making decisions about dinner
every night is not the best part of marriage. So
if you can break down the ways to make it
the easiest and easier for each other, the better off
you'll be.

Speaker 2 (58:02):
I love that the first tip was really profound, and
the second tip was like, if you're a Mexican, you
laid out there.

Speaker 4 (58:07):
You put that exactly exactly.

Speaker 3 (58:10):
You just said that that picking what you want for
dinner is not the best part of marriage.

Speaker 1 (58:15):
What is the best part of marriage for you.

Speaker 4 (58:17):
It's interesting because I think relationship, I think love is
different than marriage. I think love is this two way
outward expression and internal acceptance of somebody else who cares deeply,
who knows you deeply, who loves you deeply, with the

(58:39):
good and the bad. Right Like, I think love is
not all peaches and milkshakes. It's like love is the
whole You're getting the whole package. And marriage is different.
I think marriage is teammate, somebody that like you're gonna

(58:59):
You're going to build this shit together. You're like you're
in the weeds. You want to pull your hair out,
You're so tired, but you just keep you just you're
just trucking along. You're doing this thing. You've got these
kids and one person who's going this way, the other
person's going that way. You got business stuff going on,
and you're tired, and and you figure out a way

(59:20):
in marriage to not forget and prioritize the peace of
love inside of the partnership and the teammate. Because that's
that's how I see it. I'm like, you know, I'm
a sports person, so I'm like, okay, like we're the
co captains of this team of this whole unit or
the CEOs of our lives or the CEOs of our

(59:42):
children's lives for now, and like they're like the vice
presidents right now they're teenagers, are like they're just like
they're climbing the ladder of their own life and they're
about to like go out in the world, and we're
about to like hand them their own business. Go stand
on business, kids, is what we want to say. And
I think that that is that's marriage and love to me,

(01:00:06):
best friendship, deep understanding, deep acknowledgment of the other, of
their of their existence, of their life. I mean, there's
nobody better to be in a marriage with and in
love with than Glennon because she's such a We're so different.
The way that we interpret a single experience is just

(01:00:30):
so different, and it's so interesting, Like I'm never not
interested in my day because she gets to tell me
her story about her experience, and then I get to
tell her my story. We kind of use each other
as this mirror and this bouncing off ideas of two

(01:00:50):
in a lot of ways come up with the best
idea and the best path in the plan forward. So
that's it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
Abby, You're so fascinating, interesting, all at once. I genuinely
wish I could talk to you for so long, but
I do have to go get married.

Speaker 4 (01:01:04):
Like I'm so excited I have to get to my wedding.

Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
But I cannot thank you enough. I really mean that.

Speaker 2 (01:01:12):
This has been one of the most interesting interviews I've
done in a very, very long time.

Speaker 3 (01:01:16):
I think the word vulnerability is thrown around like a
hot cake, especially on social media.

Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
Yeah, you are.

Speaker 3 (01:01:22):
Someone who I think is so authentic again another buzzword,
authentic and genuine in your vulnerability and.

Speaker 1 (01:01:29):
Nothing performative, nothing at all.

Speaker 3 (01:01:31):
It's like, this is just how it is, you know,
And I think a lot of us accessing those actually,
like especially the shadows side. You know, it's fine to
be vulnerable about the things that you've come to resolution
with and the things that you can kind of tie
your bow on and be like I'm sober now, but
it's harder to be honest about the darker parts of ourselves.
And Yeah, I'm really grateful for that. I've learned a

(01:01:51):
lot from you. I'm very grateful that we got to
have this chart with you.

Speaker 4 (01:01:54):
Ah well, thank you for having me on your show.
We're big fans and have the best. I'm so proud.

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
You're going to be on my part of my anniversary
for the rest of your life, every day, on every
day every year. Today I'll be think you know, so
you can rest easy. Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (01:02:14):
If anyone would like more details about Abby's social media,
her podcast, or her brand new book We Can Do
Hard Things, everything will be linked for you in our
show notes. Thank you so much.

Speaker 4 (01:02:24):
Having thanks so I really appreciate having me