Glennon & Abby's Guide to Confronting Crisis with Compassion

Glennon Doyle
You know, finding a great mentor can be tough, but imagine learning from the world's best. My dream mentor, Amy Poehler. God, she's so funny. So I was really excited when I heard that she has a class on Masterclass. With Masterclass, you can learn from the best to become your best.

It's the only streaming platform where you can grow and learn with over 200 of the world's top experts. For just $10 a month, an annual membership with Masterclass gets you unlimited access to every instructor. Whether you're on the phone, computer, smartphone, or even listening in audio mode, masterclass fits right into your lifestyle. For me, the most valuable takeaway was learning practical advice that I could immediately apply to my life and work. I use this and you should, too.

Plus, every new membership comes with a 30 day money back guarantee, so there is no reason to wait. Right now, our listeners get an additional 15% off any annual membership@masterclass.com. hardthings that's 15% off@masterclass.com. hard things masterclass.com hard things hungry root. Is the easiest way to eat healthy.

Abby Wambach
They send you fresh, high quality groceries and simple recipes. It's like your personal assistant for healthy living. We built our first personalized cart after taking the fun little intro quiz, and soon my fridge will be filled with dairy. Free snacks and drinks for john and the kids, prepared heat and eat meals for the whole family and other high quality groceries they're shipping over. Each order is fully customizable, so you can take their suggestions or choose anything you want.

They got fresh produce, high quality meat and seafood, healthy snacks, smoothies, sweets, ready to eat meals. Really all that you're looking for right now, hungry root is offering we can do hard things, listeners. 40% off your first delivery and free veggies for life. Free veggies for life. Just go to hungryroot.com hard things to get 40% off your first delivery and get your free veggies.

That's hungryroot.com hard things. Don't forget to use that link so they know we sent you.

Glennon Doyle
Welcome. I'm sorry, I just have to have a like. I just need to interject a little bit of fun into our day. Do you not think this is so fun, what we're doing? No, I know, but we need to change up some of the vibe, like, every once in a while.

Cause it's just like, welcome back to we can do hard things. Okay, here we are again. Can you start us off in a new shaky up kind of way? Yeah. Okay, here we go, everybody.

Amanda Doyle
Hold onto your little hats. All right. Welcome. Welcome back. Welcome, welcome back.

Glennon Doyle
Here we are. We're about to discuss some really hard things today on we can do hard things. Welcome. Welcome back. Welcome.

Welcome back. Welcome. Welcome back. I can't. Okay, well, why don't you all vote?

Amanda Doyle
Would you like us to do that each time or just go back to our simple welcome back to we can hardly do things? I don't know. Today we have boring. Your friend Abby Wambach. Wazzup?

And me sister's out. I know. All of the sister fans are so upset when she's not here, and what I want to say to you is, join the club. We are also upset that she's not here, because who is going to know facts during this conversation? Who's going to understand history and things like, I don't know facts.

Glennon Doyle
We can't even think of a fact. We can't even think of a fact of what she's brought to the table because we just. We lean on her so hard for them. We really do. So let's see if we fall.

Amanda Doyle
Cause we have no one to lean on. But we'll just talk about feelings. How about that? How are your feelings today? I, as you know, am overwhelmed.

I am overwhelmed. I was laying in bed this morning wondering if there's just cause. I keep thinking that we're just in a phase. Like, since the beginning of the year, we have had so many hard things happen to people around us and to us. Death, diagnoses, divorces, and just.

It feels like every day there's a new one of our friends or family members are going through some kind of horrible trauma. And we've been looking at each other each day, kind of stunned by it all, just trying to respond appropriately and lovingly and hoping that it's just a phase. We've been saying, like, 2024 f you. But this morning I was thinking, so I'm almost 50. I actually wrote this out to my new friend Selyse, who I love very much.

But she checked in on me, and I told her just what I have told you, Pod squad. And then I told her that I've been wondering if this is just what life is when you're older, if there's a phase of adulthood that's building, where you're building and building and building, and then there's a very short phase of just enjoying what you built, and then is the next phase losing? No, I don't believe that. I talked to my therapist about this yesterday, and, you know what? We came to, so our world gives us these unspoken rules.

Glennon Doyle
It's a fallacy that we are handed when we are children, that if you work hard enough, if you do good enough, then bad things won't happen to you or your people. And I think that that kind of way of thinking is capitalism and all of it, but it also kind of keeps us safe. It keeps us safe in some ways, and it hurts us in others. So the expectation that life is supposed to be butterflies and roses, and that when hard things come, they will be fleeting, and you will then return to your normal life. And what I've learned, and not just my therapy, but over the course of the many months since, I've gone through quite a bit of struggle, is I was trying to talk to my therapist yesterday about this.

Like, okay, maybe I'm getting it wrong. Maybe my expectation of things not being so hard or crisis coming, maybe that's the issue. And she listened, and she said, yeah, you know, that sounds like a very buddhist way of thinking, of surrender to what is, et cetera. And I believe that that's a beautiful way to live. I really think that that's something to aspire to.

But what she did say and mentioned to me yesterday that I'm going to be sitting with all day today is when there is crisis fatigue. You start to get confused. You don't know how to make decisions or whatever. And something that I am working on is acknowledging that this just fucking sucks. And, like, saying it out loud and actually having the moment you acknowledge that something sucks is the moment that then you can also have sincere compassion for yourself around the sucky thing, around the crisis.

Around. Do you mean not just jumping into action? Yeah. Cause that's what we've been. That's what I think that I've been doing.

I'll speak for myself. You know, my brother dies, or whatever it is. I'm just like, okay, what do we need to do to get through this? And I think I've been skipping the piece where I'm really acknowledging that this sucks. That's interesting.

Amanda Doyle
I'm just thinking. I was just talking about this yesterday on the couch. When we found out about Amanda's diagnosis. I immediately figured out our calendar, how we were going to get there, when we were going to get there, who was going to watch the dogs, who was going to whatever. And I came upstairs, told the kids to sit down and presented what happened, and then presented the calendar and presented the plan, and then looked at them, and their eyes were just so big.

And they said, can we talk about what happened? Yeah, Tish said, so when are we going to talk about our feelings? She literally said that. So that is. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, because we are in crisis fatigue. We are in crisis fatigue. And the analogy in my brain is like, I feel like I'm in a boxing ring and the hits just keep coming, and I can't figure out how to bob and weave away from the haymaker that keeps coming towards my face. So today I'm going to sit and be pouty about the things that have happened and then really lean into this compassion and this, like, sweet love girl in here that wants somebody else to fix it and make it better.

Glennon Doyle
Because, like, as adults, we have to do the fixing and making it better ourselves. But there's also this part of us that's like, oh, I don't want to. I'm scared, I'm sad, I'm mad, I'm angry, whatever. So that's where I'm at today. I think that both of the things are true.

Amanda Doyle
I think that both of what we were saying is true. I think that while I hear you saying, no, that's nothing, what life is now. I don't believe you. I actually do think in my heart that when you hit a certain age, I guess if you're lucky enough, that the previous ages haven't been all crisis and sadness, you do hit a certain age where people do start getting sick and people do start dying, relationships do start ending. And the way you see the world changes so much that your rose colored glasses are gone and you actually see things for as painful as they are.

So what I'm trying to figure out is how to have and both. I know that I can't fight against the current of what life is. So insanity would be holding my breath until the loss stops. Because it's not going to stop. That's not life.

Glennon Doyle
Right. So what I do feel committed to doing is figuring out how to do this phase of life where there is so much loss, where there is so much caretaking, where there is so much shock and pain and with some dignity and peace and power and joyous and softness and not bitterness. Yeah. I mean, I think that that's probably what I don't want. I hear what you're saying, and correct me if I'm wrong here, but I feel like what we're saying is we don't want to lose our humanity in the things that are really sad.

Because I think that when I look out and talk to my parents and folks who have lived longer than me and us, there's a part of me that feels like so much trauma happens, especially in the older years like this, that it makes them become a little bit cold hearted, like, as a defense mechanism. Sure, I get that. Just stiffening yourself. Yeah, I mean, I want to do that right now. I want to be like, cold hearted and I want to not feel at all, like, harden.

Amanda Doyle
Not soften, harden. Yeah. And I think that what we're saying is we want to be able to get through whether this is a new phase or a forever phase, like whatever. It's like accepting that what is is and also not losing our humanity so that we stay open to all the emotions that it brings. It just feels like so a lot.

Glennon Doyle
Like it's, all of my emotions are just at the tips of myself and that's rare. I don't know if that's, like, my therapy and getting more in touch with myself, but I think it's rare to have so much. I feel like I'm an exposed root. Yeah, I suspect that it's beautiful. What?

Amanda Doyle
This time I suspect that it's like before we're just adulting, adulting, adulting with flashes of humanity when something happens. Yeah, we're climbing, we're climbing, we're building, we're hustling. We're whatever. And then every once in a while there's a moment of true humanity or love and it feels like now that's reversing that actually, through no choice of our own, we are in the humanity and the gritty, painful love of it all the time with flashes of remembering to adult, you know? And that's got to be more true to the bone of what it means to be human.

So anyway, that is what I'm thinking about.

Abby Wambach
Quick math. The less your business spends on operations in multiple systems, the more margin you have and the more of your hard earned money you get to keep. But with higher expenses than ever on things like materials and distribution, everything just costs more. That's why smart businesses are graduating. To Netsuite by Oracle Netsuite is the number one cloud financial system, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, hr into one platform and one source of truth.

You'll reduce it costs, you'll cut the cost of maintaining multiple systems, and you'll improve efficiency by bringing all your major business processes into one platform, slashing manual tasks and errors. Over 37,000 companies have already made the move, and expenses don't slow down. So why should you? By popular demand, Netsuite has extended its one of a kind flexible financing program for a few more weeks. Head to Netsuite.com hardthings netsuite.com hardthings that's Netsuite.com hardthings.

Hey, y'all, I've been telling you about a brand I love called quints, and I'm here to talk about them again. They are my go to for high quality vacay and everyday essentials. I am in a linen era right now, and recently I got a strapless linen top for under $35, wide leg linen pants for under $40, and a linen shirt dress that feels like pajamas but looks like a party for under $50. What I love about quints is that all items are 50% to 80% less than similar brands, and they only work with factories that use safe, ethical, and responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics, which is so important. Pack your bags with high quality essentials from Quince.

Go to quince.com hard things for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's quince.com hardthings. To get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com hard things.

Amanda Doyle
You know what's really weird is that I read these questions, questions that we're going to read today from the pod squad, and I think we should go straight to Becky because, well, we'll see why in a second. Hi, this is Becky. I recently went through a divorce, and I feel like I'm doing really well psychologically. But I feel like I have all this stuff trapped in my body, all this grief, pain, and rage from a lot of things in my life, and I don't know how to get it out. And I feel like I exercise and I'm in therapy, and I read books and listen to books and podcasts and I do all this stuff, but I feel like it's still stuck in my body.

Becky
And I was wondering if you had any ideas on how to process grief, pain, and rage, all these shameful emotions to move them through our bodies so we can operate in a less weighed down way in the world and just get on with our best lives. I love what you're doing. Keep it up. Goodbye. Okay, so when I read this this morning, first of all, hi, Becky.

Amanda Doyle
I was thinking, babe, about our visit. So Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley just came to visit us for a few days, and it was beautiful as one might expect it to be. And Megan was talking to me about how she has this new thing where whenever she's feeling a big feeling, which Megan is dealing with, her partner, Andreas cancer diagnosis, and a lot of, I can imagine, fear and beauty and sadness, and she does this thing now where when she notices an overwhelm of feeling, she actually lays down on the floor and just lays there for a minute. Okay, now, I find this to be brilliant because she said that the reason she does it is because if she doesn't lay down on the floor and stop herself, she knows herself, and she will start wiping down the counter. She'll start putting away things.

She'll start organizing. She'll start doing an action that is distracting from the feeling. But when she lays down on the ground, it's her way of telling her body, we have something to process right now, and we're going to focus on it and process it so it can move through us. And I was listening to her thinking, oh, my God, is laying down on the floor? Because I've seen this before, like, this laying down on the floor moment that people are doing and having.

Is it like the new, I'm gonna go smoke a cigarette? It's like the healthy, dramatic punctuation of it. It used to be you'd see the character go smoke a cigarette, or when they had something deep to process, that was like the signal of depth, because that was the way the big cigarettes advertising wanting us to feel that way. Right. But is the laying down on the floor the new I have something deep to process moment?

Because when she's laying down on the floor, you're literally putting yourself out of commission to do anything to distract yourself. Your hands can't reach anything. Your legs can't move. I feel like it's not. Everyone says exercise, exercise, and that's nothing.

It. For a lot of us, exercise is an energetic release of energy, but it can also turn masochistic and be this, like, I don't know that it's processing feelings. I mean, all the time. Yeah, for sure. Has a function of that.

Glennon Doyle
For me, it's almost like a moving meditation, where if I'm moving, I'm not now in my head thinking, but I hear what you're saying about Megan's. It's almost like a positive way of saying, I give up and laying down. It's like I have something to do. Yep. Oh, there's something to do right now.

Amanda Doyle
It feels, like, so embodied. Like I feel something rising in me, and it's my body signal that we have something to process. And so I'm gonna give myself a moment to do that. It's like, don't jump in the pool right after you eat a. Don't move around the house right after you have a big feeling also.

Glennon Doyle
What did she say? She says, I'm becoming less of myself. Yeah. She's just everything. She's so cool.

She'll lay down and say, I need to become less of myself. And I'm like, that is so smart. It's a time out. It's an adult time out, but it's. Like a time in.

Time in. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a time in because we're always timeouting ourselves. Yeah. That's what Becky's trying to get away from.

Amanda Doyle
Yeah, she's trying to time in. I will tell Becky this one thing. When I think about why I love painting, it's not really because of any result, because the results are not anything to write home about. It's not that I think that the reason I love it the most is because I am doing this, because I am processing feelings. When I spend time painting, I notice that I am more stable, clear.

Maybe whatever Megan said, less of myself. Maybe it's more of myself. I don't know. But that time is different than any other time for me. It's like my hands are moving, but I'm not thinking.

Thinking. And it's not like writing, where I'm forcing some kind of meaning onto the page. It's just. It feels like a passive surrender so that I can process. It's emotional digestion.

It's like a digestion system kicks in, and I notice things come up that I haven't dealt with, and they process through, and I wonder, is there a state of peaceful flow that people can get into where that is happening, where it's like the emotional digestion kicks in? I think walks. Painting. Walking and writing when I'm not doing it for an audience. Yeah.

Glennon Doyle
I mean, I think that there's a lot of other avenues in which people in the world try to work through some of their grief, pain, anger, shame. Obviously, you have talk therapy. One for me that really works is ifs. Using the IFS approach, internal family systems, has really helped me really work into the grief, the pain, the anger, the shame. We've had Hilary McBride on this podcast before, talking about psychedelics, and that's been scientifically researched and proven to really get into some of this stuff.

And more than anything, as these crises come to us now, like we were just talking about, I'm having a weird experience around them. I feel more like annoyed and sad and all of the things, but it's like I feel solid. Like, the thing about this whole experience in this last couple months is I don't feel like I'm losing my shit. Right. But what's the annoyance.

Well, like, oh, this is like a new crisis we have to deal with. Do you know what I mean? Because you're experiencing it as a constant interruption. Yes. Yeah.

And I think what my problem is is I'm trying to figure out how to quell that annoyance. If I'm always expecting easy breezy sailing whenever a storm comes in, I'm like, oh, gosh, rather than actually being a sailor, going, oh, this is the way that the world works. And sometimes storms bring real wind that can move us faster. So, Becky, I don't have answers for you, but what I do know is the first step in dealing with all of these big things that you're dealing with is, for me, I sometimes jump over it and try to fix it through all of this stuff, through running, through exercise, through books, through podcasts, through therapy, all of that. And, like, sometimes I think we just haven't even accepted that that shit happened.

We're already moving into taking care of it mode. So maybe you get to give yourself compassion day. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, the word emotion is energy in motion, right?

Amanda Doyle
It's like there's something inside me that is swirling. And the idea is that that thing needs to keep swirling, keep swirling and then be released. Who knows if that's even true? Yeah, right. But I do think that there are things that we can bring into our lives that allow a container for that.

I mean, I think art, for me, is it. And not just creating it. Tish's favorite movie in the whole world is interstellar, and so we have to watch it all the time, and it's like 400 hours long. And so two nights ago, we watched it. And this is, like, in the middle of all of these crises.

And I cried so hard at my 7th viewing of Interstellar. And PS, it's a very deep movie, and it's about love and everything and death and time, and it's just shit. But I was crying so hard and having this double consciousness of, oh, I don't know, all the crises kept coming. In my real life, I haven't cried about any of them. But these experiences that we can put on a movie that taps into something that's tangential to our thing and that allows a release, it's like, this is about everything, right?

And so I truly believe that that is one of the reasons why we need and love art, because it offers us a safe container to release and. To process the hard feelings that may be in, like, a conversation or. Yep. Yeah. Because I actually don't have to solve Matthew McConaughey's problem.

He's. I don't know where I'd begin with time space continuum, whatever the hell is happening there. But, like, I don't have to get out a piece of paper and make a calendar for Jessica Chastain and Matthew McConaughey to, like, there's no logistics to handle in our lives. We get to skip to logistics all the time. Yep.

But in art, we just have to sit there. We can't solve it for them, and so we are forced to feel it in a safe way, which is why I often avoid deeply feeling movies, because I know what's going to happen to music and music and all the things I need to be ready when I walk up the stairs and Abby has Adele or Tish, or Tish, what are you doing? We need to prepare for this processing. It can't just be sprung upon us. I'm trying to get those streams for Tishy.

Glennon Doyle
Yeah, that's what I'm trying to do. Anyway, it would be very cool for all of us to figure out why isn't that a part of wellness, this whole wellness world? Where the hell is the processing of emotion in all of it? It's like green juice doesn't do that for us. Red light therapy does not process our.

Amanda Doyle
We need focus. We need focus upon emotional health. I think that's what therapists are trying to do. No, but, like, therapy is all brain. Look, I am.

Glennon Doyle
There's many kinds of therapy, though, that also deal with the body. Yeah. I just think for the majority of people, it's talk therapy. Talk therapy. Talk therapy, which for me is just more hamster wheel stuff.

Amanda Doyle
I think that therapy is where we dredge up all the things that we're going to have to go process on our own. Yeah, it's not the processing. Oh, I think that that's interesting, what you just said. It's like accepting real accountability and responsibility for actually having to do the personal work yourself. Yeah.

Glennon Doyle
It's like, Becky, I love you, and I hope that this sounds loving and sweet, but maybe there's probably no exercise or therapy or book or podcast, even this one that you can find that's going to actually do the work of processing it. All of this stuff. Maybe it's just like you. Yeah, you can't outsource the processing of emotions. Sucks.

I wish we could, but, like, you really do have to actually go through it and process it. And, you know, we're not therapists, so who knows? We love you, Becky. We're processing alongside you. Yeah, we're with you.

Amanda Doyle
Think about how delicately you hold your baby, you dress your baby, and you feed your baby. We do that because they're adorable, of course, but also because their skin is delicate. Know this, there is only one diaper brand that we recommend to give you the gentle, protective care your little one needs. And that's pampers, the number one pediatrician recommended brand. Their swaddler's diaper absorbs wetness better versus the leading value brand and provides up to 100% leak proof skin protection to keep your baby's skin dry, healthy, and beautiful.

Glennon Doyle
And when you use swaddlers in tandem with new pampers free and gentle wipes, you'll keep your baby's skin healthy. The wipes are made from 100% plant based cloth, and you won't have to. Worry about tearing with free and gentle mess meets its match. That's right. So download the Pampers Club app today and earn Pampers cash.

Amanda Doyle
Redeem your pampers cash for exclusive pampers coupon savings and rewards building a portfolio. With Fidelity basket portfolios is kind of like making a sandwich. It's as simple as picking your stocks and ETF's sort of like your meats and other topics, and managing it as one big, juicy investment.

Mmm. Now that's pretty good. Learn more@Fidelity.com baskets investing involves risks, including risk of loss. Fidelity brokerage Services, LLC member, NYSCSIPc. When you're hiring for your small business, you want to find quality professionals that are right for the role.

Abby Wambach
That's why you have to check out LinkedIn jobs. LinkedIn Jobs has the tools to help find the right professionals for your team faster and for free. It isn't just a job board. It helps you hire professionals you can't find anywhere else, even those who aren't actually searching for a new job but might be open to the perfect role. In any given month, over 70% of LinkedIn users don't visit other leading job sites.

So if you're not looking in LinkedIn, you're looking in the wrong place. On LinkedIn, 86% of small businesses get a qualified candidate within 24 hours. 2.5 million small businesses use LinkedIn for hiring, and 86% of small businesses get a qualified candidate within 24 hours. Post your job for free@LinkedIn.com. hard things that's LinkedIn.com hard things to post your job for free.

Terms and conditions apply.

Megan Falley
Okay, let's hear from Lindsey hi, my name is Lindsey. As a former college athlete, I love listening to your sports episode Glennon, something you said resonated with me that the word agony and agony of defeat sounded hyperbolic to you when you were a kid. And it just reminded me I was thinking about as a high school basketball player, I always wanted to win. I cared about winning, and I tried my best every game, but I don't remember ever feeling the emotion or emotional anguish of losing until one bus ride home after a loss, when our male coach ripped into us for enjoying the ride, we were talking, laughing, even though we had lost the game after he yelled at us. We spent the rest of the ride sitting silently, stewing for being chastised.

So my question is, perhaps this question is for Abby. Do you ever remember a time when you were taught to feel this anguish in relation to sports? And is this a thing? Okay, thank you so much. I listen to your podcast every week.

I really enjoy it. That is such a fascinating question, Lindsay. Is the agony of defeat inherent, internal, or is it something we're taught that we're shamed into? It's good. Abby, Wambach, what say you both?

Amanda Doyle
Okay. I think every person is kind of based on their circumstances. The relationship they have with their competitiveness is individual. Mine. Because of the family I was raised in and because of the energy and the dynamics and the readings of how I felt like my family system worked, I knew that I was going to be seen as a valid person if I excelled at something, if I excelled at this one thing that I felt really naturally gifted at.

Glennon Doyle
And so it wasn't conscious then, but my competitiveness was absolutely due to the attachment issues that I had as a young child and the way that I might not have handled it that well. But then I was able to transfer that competitiveness, that feeling like my life actually depended on it. Because I do think that there was a part of me that really felt like my life depended on it. Attachment theory that as I got older, I didn't go back because it was affirmed in what I was doing in sport that competitiveness actually is really good for outcomes. Being really competitive is really good for success.

Amanda Doyle
Right. But what she's saying is an important part of competitiveness. Feeling absolute agony and misery after you lose. Because I have seen you, Abby, secretly say to me, when one of our kids loses something and then is okay, is laughing with their friends, is whatever you have said to me that makes you nervous that they don't have what it takes to succeed because they are not crushed and destroyed after a loss. Yeah.

Glennon Doyle
Because in my experience in professional sport, that is kind of one of the things that allows some athletes to rise and others to not. I think that there is this emotional component and this vulnerability about being competitive that some people embrace and other athletes don't. And I'm not judging other athletes. I'm just saying that if you wanted to do this thing at a high, high level professional sport, it's almost a requirement for entry, that you need to have a competitiveness, a self assuredness. This matters to me mentality in order to really succeed.

Now, the players, in my mind, mentally speaking. Cause at that level, even in high school basketball, everybody's decent enough. They can dribble ish, they can shootish. But when you get to the professional ranks, what are the things that you can set yourself aside and apart from other players? With?

Everybody's strong, everybody has the basic abilities, everybody has certain qualities. Qualities and mentality is like this one piece. I would also put emotionality and emotional intelligence in that bucket of mentality, even though I know that they're kind of separate. It's just like in the sport world, we talk about it as sports psychology. If they can have more access to themselves and that vulnerability piece and that competitiveness, because really, what is competitiveness?

What is it? Isn't there a form of this? To me, it feels like it's old thinking. This idea that there must be a purgatory of misery that is a manifestation of humiliation, and that you must prove your suffering after a loss feels to me that it is rooted in the old belief that shame is motivating. I don't know anything about sports, but I do know about people and motivation, and I don't think that that.

Amanda Doyle
Okay, it works. It might not be healthy. Exactly. Yeah. I'm not saying it's healthy, but so.

Does screaming at a kid that works until they're broken, and it doesn't, they spend the rest of their lives trying to recover their humanity from that. So I'm not saying it doesn't work in the short run. Yeah, but is it possible for a human being to work their ass off for what they want, come to a field, give everything they have to give, lose, then gather up their people and find peace and joy and, yes, maybe even some laughter, having known that they laid it all out on the field? I don't know. I don't know because I never experienced that.

Glennon Doyle
I can't speak to that. I would like to think that that's possible. But what I know from listening to some of the best athletes in the world, the Michael Jordans, the Kobe Bryant's, all of my former national team players, we knew we were going to survive the event, but there was a part of us that felt so bad, and it wasn't like I felt bad about myself. I felt like I let everybody down and I didn't do my job. And if I did my job, we would have won.

And there is a motivational component to that. And so do I think it's 100% healthy? No. Do I think it's required for professional sports, or even sports in general, to need to be competitive and successful so that you can be successful? No.

I do think that there are people out there that have a healthy relationship with their craft, that they can go to the office, essentially play win or lose, and then go home to their families and have a normal existence. I wasn't one of those people. Right. And that could have been part of your greatness. Right.

And I can't for certain say it was or it wasn't. What I have a hunch about is that the kind of way that I experienced loss and the kind of way I experienced failure, because I do think that we get the word failure wrong, is I was able to transfer that into fuel and into a way of motivating myself to think about things differently, to be better. Do I think that there are some people who can dance around after losing a game? A really big one? Yes, I do.

Amanda Doyle
Our kids do. I do. And do I also have, like, an old school self in here that thinks I. That's wrong? Yeah, I do think at times maybe that behavior isn't right.

Glennon Doyle
And I also have the awareness to say that might not be correct, that thought. That thought might be an indoctrinated thought of how people should be. My only experience is having gone through it, acting really sad after a loss or really disappointing. You said. You said acting well.

No, being really sad. All I know is when I watch our youngest, who plays very competitive the soccer, when she and her teammates have played a game and they've left it all out on the field, and it's just amazing how they. The vulnerability of how hard they try and how they show up for each other on that field and they pour it all out and they lose. And then I watch them walk, you know, they meet with their team, they have their post mortem meeting, and then when they are walking towards us after the game and I see her with her friends and they are laughing, I feel so grateful. I feel like, oh, they're going to be okay.

Amanda Doyle
Because I sometimes feel like the price of greatness is too high. Yeah. Like, I feel like we look at people who achieve the highest in wherever they are, and we think that is success. But I wonder if some of the people who achieve the most greatness are the people who are the most threatened. Their self is most threatened by any sort of loss.

Like you. You're so devastated when you lost because your attachment to your family felt based on whether you won or lost. Like when I see a kid who leaves it out on the field and then is able to understand that was a game, and now it's done, and I am still a whole person deserving of connection and joy. And no matter what happened on that. Field, I think it's an and both.

Glennon Doyle
I do hear you, and I do agree with you. I think that that feels like a healthier relationship with game, with sport. I also think it takes an extraordinary amount of courage and bravery, if you do have competitiveness in you, to be actually outwardly upset. Yes, I hear that. And especially a young teenage group of young women, young girls.

I think that the desire to want to jump over the sadness and into a normal life again happens too quickly, only because they don't want to stay in the pain of the discomfort. And so I think both things can be true at the same time here. I don't necessarily think my way was the healthiest way. I also don't think that Emma should look to the way that I did things, and I don't think that I should project onto her the way that I did things. Is that the answer?

Amanda Doyle
Is it like, whatever way you feel is the right way, but what is not right is to look at a bunch of kids and say, you are not experiencing this, right? Yeah. So you should be full of agony. That's right. Or what I'd be more prone to is if my child came to me in agony, I wouldn't be able to handle it.

And so I would be like, you should feel proud, you should feel happy, you should feel connected. So not shitting on anyone's feelings post loss and allowing them to experience whatever they experience. I think that it's so important because rather than a coach standing in front of this crew on the bus, shaming them into silence for the rest of their ride home, a better coaching move would be girls are talking, laughing, you know, and the coach comes back and says, hey, I really want to talk, and I want to ask you guys some questions so that I can understand what you're feeling. You know, we just lost, and maybe I'm old school here, but I'm sad and disappointed and upset, and I want to know more. Why you all feel like you're happy and or mid or whatever, you know, like, maybe the new coaching model is to invite everyone to talk about how they're feeling so that they can also understand and acknowledge if they are just jumping over the sad part.

Yeah, that's good. I don't know how I would do that necessarily. You know, you guys are all happy go lucky right now and back in my day, and I don't want to project on you. We would be sitting in silence. I just want to make sure that we're not missing this huge thing that just happened, that we're not missing this huge emotion that actually really benefits us.

Glennon Doyle
Yeah, I think that worry about the pain of it, worry about our children being sad. We all parents try to, like, fix it for them or whatever, but really having them move through the sadness. And sometimes, you know, as I get it, as a teenager, you don't really know how to process some of this stuff. And so sometimes you learn, oh, if I just pretend to be happy, then I'll just inevitably be happy. But it's the process of winning dealing with that.

It's also the process of losing dealing with that, and that's their journey. And they will become who they need to become based on the wins and losses and based on how they learn how to handle those wins and losses. And it's the job of a coach, a job of a really good coach, to be in touch with what the. Players are feeling and not just telling. Them and not to drive the feeling, to guide them, to be the bumper, you know, at a bowling alley, to be the bumpers, to be like, hey, I don't know, are we getting a little bit too off the lane here?

Let's talk about it. It's interesting because it feels like what we keep ending on, you know, I'm always looking for a theme, babe. It feels like what this episode keeps being about is that the answer is never how we should be feeling, that we keep asking ourselves how we should be feeling, when really the only thing we can ever do is acknowledge how we actually feel and process it with other people. What you keep saying and what we keep coming back to is not living outside in on what should this look like? And are my feelings matching the picture I have in my head of how this is supposed to feel?

Amanda Doyle
Or do I not start with the map outside of myself? Do I actually start with the compass? Is it I acknowledge how I actually feel and start there and allow the other people in my life to do the same? And so it's not about how you should feel, it's about how do you feel, and there's a curiosity to it. We love you Pod squad.

Thanks for all of these incredible questions. We love speaking with you so much and we will see you back here next time. Bye.

If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us if you'd be willing to take 30 seconds to do these three things. First, can you please follow or subscribe to we can do hard things following the pod helps you because you'll never miss an episode, and it helps us because you'll never miss an episode. To do this, just go to the we can do hard things show page on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, odyssey, or wherever you listen to podcasts and then just tap the plus sign in the upper right hand corner or click on follow. This is the most important thing for the pod. While you're there, if you'd be willing to give a a five star rating and review and share an episode you loved with a friend, we would be so grateful.

We appreciate you very much. We can do hard things is created and hosted by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle in partnership with Odyssey. Our executive producer is Jenna Wise Berman, and the show is produced by Lauren Lagrasso, Alison Schott, Deena Kleiner, and Bill Schultz. Sadeena.

Glennon & Abby's Guide to Confronting Crisis with Compassion

Primary Topic

Episode Summary

Main Takeaways

Episode Chapters

1: Introduction and Theme

2: Personal Stories and Reflections

3: Strategies for Resilience

4: Closing Thoughts

Actionable Advice

About This Episode

People

Companies

Books

Guest Name(s):

Content Warnings:

Transcript