How to Make The Ordinary Come Alive with Amanda Doyle

Glennon Doyle

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Glennon Doyle

Today I am offering you one of my favorite episodes of all time. We can do hard things, but we can also do easy things, like revisiting a message that may have hit us in one place before, but hits us in a completely new way today. This episode might just do that for you. It's an episode about how to face your biggest fears. And it is with my favorite person on the planet besides my wife, Amanda Doyle.

In this episode, Amanda talks about her relationships, the biggest decisions in her life, why traveling alone was the place she felt most alive and comfortable throughout her entire life. Her time hitchhiking across Ireland, her time prosecuting child sex offenders in Rwanda, how she made the biggest decision of her entire life in an ethiopian airport, and how exactly she ended up on a horse in the middle of a parade in Costa Rica. Can you tell? She's had a very different life than I have. I love this woman.

I love this episode. It's just a really gorgeous exploration of her lifelong fear of the ordinary and quest to the extraordinary and how this part of her life is a settling into the beauty of the ordinary. Take a listen.

Amanda Doyle

Okay. Welcome back to we can do hard things, folks. Abby here, a little switcheroo. It's usually Glennon, but I'm just giving her a little rest because guess what we got on the docket today. I'm so delighted and also a little bit nervous because this is like a new thing that we're doing because we're actually interviewing the most amazing person.

Abby Wambach

We say this, but this is actually, this is true. I've never said the most amazing. Yeah, that's true. So today, pod squad, we are getting in deep with Amanda Doyle, sister Amanda Doyle, who so many of you have asked so many questions about because she has been a bit of a enigma wrapped in a puzzle wrapped in mystery. Yeah.

Glennon Doyle

So today we are doing a this is your life interview. Oh, okay. With sister Bear, as I call her. Amanda Doyle is Glennon Doyle's business manager and head of staff and a co host of the we can do Hard Things podcast. She is also the vice president, general counsel and a member of the Together rising board of directors.

She graduated with high honors, who didn't from the University of Virginia, where she double majored in studies of women and gender and political and social thought and wrote her distinguished major thesis in defense of the Violence against Women act. She graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law on merit scholarship, practicing at the law firm of Hogan levels and then as a legal fellow with international justice mission. She loves roller coasters, thrift and vintage treasure hunting. And then she also loves to tell you, when you say, I love your shirt, she says, I got it for $4.

And making pretend future plans for herself and others on zillow. That's where you'll find her on zillow or goodwill. You can't get anything for $4 on Zillow is the unfortunate reality. That's why they're pretend plants, right? Goodwill or zillow.

Abby Wambach

She lives in northern Virginia with her husband, John, two children, Bobby and Alice. And their dog, shaman. The goodest boy. The goodest boy. Most beautiful rescue I've ever freaking seen.

Glennon Doyle

I know. He's just such a love bug. Also, I'm gonna amend this bio because there's nothing in it about what she does for me. Oh. She is not just your business manager, but she also thinks through and reads through all of my contracts that I ever.

Well, she just runs our life. I do want to tell you one thing that Abby said just last week that I just remembered, or maybe it was last month, but at some point, it was, like, seven in the morning in California, and I was getting a bunch of texts from sister, and I was waking up to all of these texts, and I was cranky as shit. And I turned to Abby and said, why am I getting all this text in the morning, sissy? I'd just woken up, so you just give me a call. Oh, I know.

I know. You talked to me about amending the. Good morning. Here's 14 things for you to consider. Plan.

And Abby looked at me and she said she had just woken up, too. And she said, I know you want me to be mad, but I need to tell you something. I am never going to be mad at sister. I love you, Abby. I was like, really?

Never. She could never. So it's a boundary. It's just a boundary. It's a boundary for her.

Amanda Doyle

It's on her field of honor. That's right. That's right. All right. There are a million different lenses through which we could look at your life.

Glennon Doyle

And I got a little bit stressed trying to decide which one to take until I realized that if I don't get to everything during this hour, we have, lo, so many more podcasts in years to ask each other questions. So when we were starting to think about this, this one moment popped into our heads. Abby and I. Oh, God, I'm scared. Okay, I want to start with a bit of a sliding doors moment.

Okay. So this is a moment where things in your life could have gone one way or another. We all have those. So, 14 years ago, you're sitting in an airport in Rwanda. You're waiting to catch your flight home from Rwanda after you've been there for a year, sitting in the airport, tell us what happens.

Amanda Doyle

It was actually an airport in Ethiopia at that time. At the end of my year in Rwanda, I planned some solo travel for a few weeks before I came back to the US, as was planned. And I wanted to extend the time as long as possible. So I had my flight returning from Kigali to the US was planned for, like, 14 hours after I was gonna return to Rwanda from that trip. So in order to catch the flight home, I made it so that I could come home, say goodbye to my people, grab my stuff, and then go back to the US.

Glennon Doyle

What people? Say goodbye to what people? Oh, the people that I was living with in Rwanda. We can get into this deeper later, but just so everyone understands. What were you doing in Rwanda for a year?

Amanda Doyle

I was a legal fellow with international justice mission, and we were working there to collaborate with local authorities to set up prosecutorial functions to prosecute child sexual assault cases and to return land to widows whose land was stolen from them after their husbands died. So I had gone to several countries, and I think I was flying in from Egypt at a stopover in Ethiopia, and had to get on that flight in order to get home from Rwanda. So I'm sitting at the airport in Ethiopia, having a drink with a bunch of other backpacked passer throughs, and a few minutes before I have to board my flight, one of the girls says, you should come with us to South Africa. And all of a sudden, I am frozen because these two paths just crystallized. And one was this path of passing through these extraordinary adventures and unknowns with who the hell knows?

And this other path was a path of. Of ordinary adventures with this man that I loved at home who was waiting for me, John, and the family that we would eventually have. And both were so beautiful to me. And choosing either one of them meant forsaking the other one. And it's just like this impossible reality hit me for the first time that choosing one thing you love means losing another thing you love.

And I think maybe that's why we don't choose things, because it prolongs this kind of fiction that we'll be able to have both of them. That's why Zillow's more fun than actually buying a house. Oh, totally. Yeah. Exactly right.

Exactly right. So I'm frozen in that moment. And it felt like a long time, and I think it was a long time because all of the sudden, over the airport intercom, I hear this. Amanda Doyle, your flight is departing. This flight is gonna leave if you don't show up now.

And I was forced in that moment to kind of make a momentary, lifelong decision. And the calculus happened, and my body just chose and I on my backpack, and I, like, sprinted like hell to the airplane. And that path was the path that I chose, and the other one disappeared. And I think that's a moment that it changed for me because I was like, this is where I am. This is where I'm going.

Glennon Doyle

Okay, so let's rewind to figure out how we even got to that moment. Pod squad, you have to know that the path we are going to take to walk through sister's life is riddled with boys. Okay, here's something you don't know about sister, y'all. Throughout her life, she has been a major flirt. Would you say that that's fair, sister?

Amanda Doyle

It is very fair. And I would like to have a discussion about that, because I think flirting is an understood phenomenon. Okay. Okay. I want you to teach us about flirting, because if there's anyone who knows less about flirting, like, if there's a spectrum of flirting, sister is all the way to one side, and I am all the way to the other side.

Abby Wambach

I'm on your side, Glennon. I'm not a flirt. Okay. Sister was visiting me very recently. We went for a walk on the beach.

Glennon Doyle

This is the place where I walk every single day, twice a day, to keep my shit together. So I've been to this place hundreds of times. There's always people playing volleyball out there. Sister and I walk onto the sand. This amazing thing happens, which is that, I don't know, 40 men who were all playing volleyball just suddenly recognized this energetic field around sister.

And all of the energy on the beach turned towards us. It was terrifying. And all the men started yelling and saying things. Like what? Like, hey, hey, no, no.

Amanda Doyle

It was not that. It felt like a cat calling thing. It wasn't that at all. It was a mutual acknowledgement of forcefield. Okay, well, mutual between you and them.

Glennon Doyle

Okay. So they turn all their attention towards us, and I feel like, oh, my God, what are we gonna do? How are we gonna get out of the situation? And sister turns to them and starts talking back. Hey.

Hey, you jokey joke. I've walked that beach. No one has ever noticed me, not one time. It was the weirdest thing. It's just this force around her.

Talk to us, sister, about what flirting is to you. Just give us an education. Well, it's cause I got big jugs, says the double a doyle over here. Well, what is it, then? Okay.

The gorgeous. There's the gorgeousness.

Amanda Doyle

Honestly, I really, truly, I know that this is a phenomenon, and I believe to my bones that it has very, very little to do with how I look, because I don't look good when I leave my house. That's not a lie. But it's not a lie, so it can't be that. So I think, first of all, I am an equal opportunity flirter. I feel like I flirt with people who I'm attracted to, and very, very rarely does that have anything to do with a sexual attraction at all.

So that's how I am in the world. So if I see a woman at school pickup and she just looks like she has this great energy, I'll say, you have amazing energy around you. It's so cool. Or if I hear someone in a meeting say something, maybe I'll say, like, I really loved what you just said. That was awesome.

What's different from that? To, like, you send a text to your friend and you're like, I've really been thinking about you. It's a mutual acknowledgement of energy in whatever setting. So sometimes, yes, it has the sexual piece to it, but 99% of the time it's just walking around with noticing energy. Open energy versus sending energy.

Abby Wambach

Yeah, open energy versus sending energy. If I had a choice, I would have one. I think about this all the time, actually. Sometimes it's a strategy that I use. You know those invisibility cloaks?

Glennon Doyle

I think about that all the time, and then I think, nobody can see me, so it's fine. You could have a neon visibility cloak with flashing lights on it. Okay, so fascinating. And insister is like a noticer. She's like a lighter up of a room.

She lights up other people, she notices everyone in the room, they notice her back. It's like this moth and flame thing. I'm like a fly swatter. She's like a moth to a flame. Well, I just feel like if that's what flirting is, then if you're not going through your life flirting, then it's either you're going through life cut off from those energy exchanges, or you're going through life with unexpressed attractions.

Amanda Doyle

Like, what is it? You don't get a buzz from those energy exchanges with random people? No, I do, but I also, like, I have to temper how much energy I give other people. Because you're famous. No, no.

Glennon Doyle

She's famous in everywhere we stand. No matter. It has nothing to do with fame. No, it's not. It's not necessarily that.

Abby Wambach

It's just, to me, sometimes I worry about that energy exchange being misunderstood, and so I actually do consciously hold myself back from doing that, like my natural state would, because I never want to complicate or confuse any situation. I'm very boundaried around what other people leave walking away from me in terms of that flirtation. Because you're saying, sister, it's just all the same. But it's not always just the same. No, it's different.

Glennon Doyle

When you're with men. It's way different. No, that's so true. So here's how I feel like it is with. When there is that sexual thing that is present.

Amanda Doyle

Cause there is. I feel like it's just a really cool reminder that the world is just one big pool of pheromones. And it's just like occasionally you smell out a match, and it doesn't mean anything other than it was a match. It's like a magnetic force. And it reminds me of those people who walk around with the Pokemon go, and they're just, like, searching.

They're walking the blocks. They're looking for their pokemon or whatever the hell it is they find in their pokemon go. And then occasionally, bam. Like, they have their little match, and I feel like they have their little moment of bliss. They log it, and they keep walking.

And I feel like that's exactly what I do. I just feel like. It's like you just walk around, there's an energy exchange. It's like, bam. Who would have thought, of all the gin joints on this block, you, person, who I'm never going to see again and never want to just have your little mutual acknowledgement and walk along.

Abby Wambach

What I think is cool about that is because my personality is so monogamous. I think it's really interesting that you don't think that there's anything wrong with that in, like, a committed relationship. Well, I don't know. Maybe people are gonna tell me it's interesting, but here's the problem. No, I think it's really open and really probably more natural.

Glennon Doyle

Yeah, it's really cool. I never, ever, not once have flirted with someone I will ever see again as a practice in my life. The only comfort I have is when it is literally, like, in passing. Like the walking on the volleyball beach. Like, there's never passing.

Yeah. We are not going to pass this way again. There is no suggestion that there is an after this moment. There's and no one that I know, like, in my life, because that I think that suggestion of availability or interest. Yeah, that's true to me, is very, very wildly inappropriate.

That's right. But if I'm cross, literally crossing a path with someone and they say something funny, that's a joke, and I can throw it back to them, and there's, like, a exchange of energy that many would call flirting. My only other alternative is to keep my head down and be like, I don't see that thing. I'm not. I'm scared of that thing.

Amanda Doyle

I can't engage with that thing. But I think that it has to do with safety, because if I'm walking on that beach and a man is like, hey, I am giving, sending energy because it scares me. Mm hmm. Yeah. I'm not scared by it.

I think for me, it is like a spar. I think if you are highly attuned to energy around you and you have this, like, confidence and funny and humor and quickness, where it's fun to spar like that, then I think it's just an outgrowth of that. It's almost like he thought he could say that to me and I would be nervous and giggle, and that's not gonna happen. Oh, cool. What's gonna happen is I'm gonna, like, send it back to him, and he's gonna be like, well, what do I do with that?

Glennon Doyle

Oh, that's cool. Yeah, that's really cool. Cause I hate it when somebody says something to me, and then I just nervous giggle and then leave. I'm like, ugh.

Pod squad. Some of what we share with you on the show are our individual, unique experiences in therapy and the takeaways that help us grow, appreciate each other, and navigate this beautiful life we're doing together. Thank you for doing it with us. But the things we talk about in therapy itself, these are things we wouldn't necessarily share with just anyone. I think there are few things more important than finding the right person to share your deepest thoughts, feelings, and questions with, like a therapist.

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Amanda Doyle

Imagine your first time parents struggling with time management and financial burdens don't really have to imagine. I remember it directly. And all the challenges of your first child, and then you get a huge shipment of diapers funded by all your family and friends. That's a good feeling. Yeah, that's a good idea.

Glennon Doyle

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Can you. Can you talk to us about what your earliest memory is of your first romantic relationship? Yes. I think I was, like, 14 and got together with this guy who I was on and off again for years, and only in retrospect do I see that it was real bad. Real bad.

It was real bad. There's a lot to unpack there. He was very unavailable. He was not nice to me or really anyone else. But if he was gonna be nice, I guess it would be to me.

Amanda Doyle

And maybe that made me feel special. It was very strange to people that knew you because she was this golden girl, and then he was this, like, bad boy. What do you think? That attraction? Yeah, it's a great question.

Glennon Doyle

Cause it was weird, sister. It was weird. What? It got really fucked up, too. This is so embarrassing to say, but when you look back at the manipulation to isolate, to further manipulate process.

Amanda Doyle

I was so fucked from that. I remember it got to a point where I would. I had this, like, compulsory confessional thing where I had no personhood of doing anything or deciding anything was okay on my own. I remember calling him and telling him when I would cuss.

Like, that's humiliating to say, but I just think it is a very slippery slope to get to a point where you're doing things that don't make any sense. Can you get us there? How does that happen? How do you get to a point where you are actually calling to confess to your person when you do something that was out of his idea for you or your idea for you? I don't know.

That's what I don't remember. Maybe that was representative of me even. Having a life separate from him. Separate from him? Yeah.

I don't know what it was. I was so desperate for affirmation from him, which was so ironic. The power dynamic of the relationship was inverted from an outside perspective in terms of, like, I should have had the more of the power, but inside of it, it was exactly the opposite. I think it was like this. Obviously, I'm oversimplifying his humanity, but from the outside world, very rough human, whose softness was only for me, even though it was few and far between, made me special.

Glennon Doyle

Right? Like, if I can access softness in that, then I'm extraordinary. Cause anyone can access softness and care from a perfectly healthy, well developed individual. Who is the person you should be with? Who would want that shit?

Amanda Doyle

That's easy. We can do hard things. Exactly. That's easy to conquer. Who the hell wants that?

Kind of just low hanging fruit. Oh, my God, it's so good and true and terrible. Do you remember any particular ways that that manipulation happened? And then how did you get yourself out of that relationship? Cause it lasted a long time.

Yeah, too long. Well, you know, the typical, like, your friends are terrible and never knowing when he would make himself physically available to me. So, like, he had his whole group of friends that, of course, that would be more fun and more cool to hang out with. And then every once in a while would be like, all right, fine, we can hang out. So you're, like, waiting for the moment where it is allowed, but, like, you're not.

You're never certain. You're always off balance. You never know when it's gonna happen. And you have no agency in it, right? You're waiting for it to be revealed.

And also just the mercurial nature, super annoyed, super unavailable. Then the next moment may be, oh, I love you so much. You unstable from the perspective of not knowing what you're going to get. Also the diminishment of whatever ways that I was given value from the rest of the world, undermining those as valuable things. And I just want to point out to the pod squad, one of the reasons why this is so interesting is in elementary school, middle school, high school, Amanda was like the captain of every single team, the president of every single thing.

Glennon Doyle

The fashion plate. I remember she got this award that was called the optimist award. And the principal stood up and said, she is the kindest student, and she makes being kind cool. Like, that's who she was. She was the coolest one.

Abby Wambach

Still is. And also the nicest one. Like, there was not one mean girl thing inside of her. So for her, who was getting all of these success and accolades and kindness and goodness, the golden girl to be in this relationship. It's interesting.

Yeah, it's a record scratch. It's an button. The thing that is consistent is that it was something that was out of the ordinary and exceptional for you, because what would have been expected would have been something different. That's interesting. It was out of the ordinary.

Glennon Doyle

So do you remember how you got out of it? I think after a while, I think I felt very shitty enough for long enough. And then I also was, like, in different spaces where I was feeling good in those spaces, and I just decided that I would give feeling good a try. That's why the manipulation, isolation. Right.

Because they don't want you to feel joy in other places and realize that there's life out there. So you graduate from high school, you go to Uva, and you said this really cool thing to me, which is, you know, I always say the first thing in my life that I've ever done that was actually my idea was falling in love with Abbie, starting a life with Abby. Every single other thing was just from a guidebook that someone was like, this is how you should do life. You say that the first thing you ever wanted to do that was completely your own idea was after your freshman year at UVA, you decided you wanted to go to Ireland by yourself with, like, no agenda and just travel throughout Ireland. Yeah.

Amanda Doyle

I just remember being just. I didn't know why, but I was like, that's what I need to do. I remember laying in bed, buzzing about it, being like, that's the thing. I have to go. I have to figure it out.

And so this dear woman who was a senior when I was a freshman, her name is Maggie Sly, and she's an educator in DC. She's still an amazing human. I haven't talked to her 20 years, but she was studying in Galway at the time, and she had this apartment with these irish women, and I was like, can I drop my bag there? Can I just, like, set up shop for a few days and then figure it out? That's annoying, right?

A tiny apartment. She doesn't know me from Eve. All I can think about is what a ridiculously egregious ask that was of someone. And she was like, okay. And so I went there and then just stayed with them for a bit, and then just kind of hitchhiked around, which is a terrible idea.

Abby Wambach

Hold on. Hold. You stuck your thumb up and you got in people's cars, and you got around Ireland this way. Yeah, but that's not a good idea. Like, this was the nineties in Ireland, which was a little bit like, I imagine, being in the sixties here, which was also not a good idea.

Amanda Doyle

All I'm saying is that. Yes, but it wasn't. I mean. Okay, so try it at home. Right?

Glennon Doyle

Okay, so let's put out that disclaimer, obviously. But, like, this is so amazing. What are some highlights from Ireland?

What is it like to be. His name was Kieran. Oh, Kieran, of course. Of course. But, no, I feel very strongly about Maggie.

Amanda Doyle

I feel like I owe to her this blooming love of traveling alone, which has been, I think, one of the greatest loves of my life. And so I'm very thankful to her for that. And I just feel like there is something so amazing about traveling alone, because it is this, like, only opportunity in the world to be in a place where no one knows you. And there's something so awesome about that because you can be anything you want, and you won't pass this away again. So because of that, I am able to live in the now in a way I am never able to in any other time, because.

Precisely because it is not leading to anything where I feel like so much of my life, I'm thinking, like, okay, if x now, then y in a month and z in a year, and when you're traveling by yourself for a limited period of time in a place, there is no y and z. There's only x. There's only right now. And so it's the only time that I can, like, shut that part of myself down and just think about, like, this day, this week. And so no one has any expectations of you beyond their own biases.

You don't have any expectations out of everyone else, and you don't have a plan. Like, if you go with a group or a few people, you have a plan. And if you have a plan, you already know what's gonna happen. But if you don't have a plan, you don't know what's gonna happen. And that's awesome.

So cool. And you also don't have to take care of anybody. You're not like, okay, I'm going with this person. This is what this person knows about me. This person knows that I would definitely do x or definitely not do x.

When you're by yourself, you're a free agent nobody knows that you're a person who's not going to do x. So you might might do x. You really might. It's so interesting because the two things about sister that are so everybody who knows her would say is, number one, you're the most planned person. You plan everything, you strategize everything, and that you take care of everyone.

Glennon Doyle

So it feels like those are two parts of yourself that you are free from when you're traveling alone, which must feel like a different part of yourself you live into. Yes. Wow. Can you tell us about Kieran? Cause I feel like you made out with him in a castle.

Is that true? Yes, but I feel like these serendipitous things happen when you just show up places. Like, I think I met him in a bar in Galway, and we were hanging out for a little bit, and then I traveled up to Duningall by myself somehow, and was walking through Donegal, and he walked out of this other bar and was like, hey, and this is, well, as far as way you can get in Ireland. And turns out he's from there. And then we hung out at his grandma's house and went to a castle up there.

Amanda Doyle

It's just like, I feel like the universe is making connections when you're by yourself, that it's not able to make in the buzz of when a lot of people are around. So what are some other places that you've traveled alone? I was in Hawaii for a couple. Months, and you were learning to surf and working at a pizza joint in Hawaii. Terribly.

I was learning to surf terribly. I still am horrible at surfing. Tanzania, Kenya, Zanzibar, Egypt. I just want to give a shout out to my mom, because I just can't imagine if my kid was living this way. I might be just making this up, but I feel like one time we almost had you home and you were at some airport and all you had was a layover.

Glennon Doyle

It was just like an eight hour layover. And then we were gonna get you home, and then my mom called me and was like, oh, Jesus Christ. She left the airport for the layover and she's at some woman's house, and now they're on a donkey or something. Well, she couldn't have known that. That must have been after the fact, because I sure as shit didn't tell anyone that that was the plan.

Amanda Doyle

So, yes, so I was flying to meet a friend of mine in Costa Rica, in the Osa peninsula, and we, for some reason, I had an eleven hour layover in San Jose, which is the capital of it. I'm sure. Cause I could save $75 by having our layover. So I'm there in San Jose, and I have 11 hours. So I'm like, well, this is fun.

So I just walked through the cab line to find a woman cab driver. So I finally found a woman cab driver, and I'm like, can you show me around? She's like, yes, I will absolutely do that. And I spoke better Spanish at that point because I was closer to my years of education. So she takes me to go to her house, hang out with her kids.

Glennon Doyle

We eat. We're just, like, hanging out for the day. And it's at this point that I learned that it's December 26. It's the day after Christmas. It is the national day of horsemen in Costa Rica, which means they have, unbeknownst to me, this thing called El Tope, which is this traditional horse parades are all over the country, and the biggest one is in San Jose.

Amanda Doyle

All her friends and family are going to this thing. She invites me to join them. Of course I am joining them, but I don't have boots and a hat, which I feel like is critical if you're going to go to a horse parade. So she's like, yes, we will go. And so she takes me downtown, I get boots and a hat, and then we go back to the parade.

And then at some point, I'm in the side watching with all of her family. And I don't know how this happens, but I just. I go from being in the crowd to being hoisted in the parade. Hoisted on a horse in the parade. And then I just ride the horse for the rest of the parade, and I still don't have any recollection of how that particularly happened.

Then it was time to go back to the airport. So then she just dropped me back at the airport and that you do San Jose experience? Yeah. Okay.

Glennon Doyle

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Glennon Doyle

When did you meet the man your first known as our, that's your husband. Let's call him Tim. Tim's great. Tim's a great name. Okay, so did you meet Tim when you were in law school?

Amanda Doyle

No, no, I met Tim in undergrad. So as part of this group at school and we had this party. It was kind of a crazy group. We had this big bonfire and like wood through it so you could kind of walk through the fire. And I remember I was walking through the fire, and as I got to the edge of the fire, he walked up and I saw him and I was like, oh my God, it was like, this moment that I can remember and I will never forget.

But I was like, fire, hot, danger, danger, fire. And I didn't do anything with it, but we were really good friends. Started dating this other wonderful man. They were really good friends. Not all good enough friends to not eventually make out with each other.

Glennon Doyle

Right? But not until I had broken up with the first guy. Okay. That was very hard. Okay, so you and Tim get together.

Why? Because I could not stand to not be together with him. Looking back, do you see it as doomed from the start? Number one, you have said of that marriage, I wasn't there for a lot of it. The marriage, what does all of that mean?

What were the problems there? Why were you not there for it? How did it all fall apart?

Amanda Doyle

I was so enamored with him, and he was so larger than life to me and such an appropriate match, in my judgment, to me, that I assimilated into him, and I didn't have a separateness from him. And as I got sicker and sicker because I was miserable in law school, because I didn't have a personhood outside of him, it wasn't just the absence of me, which it had been before. It was a sick me plus him. And so I didn't have any agency over anything to improve it. And I didn't recognize any problems because I was in my own drama of my bulimia.

I was in my own self destruction. And so I wasn't present there. And so I don't know. I don't know what would have happened. I don't know if it was doomed from the start.

We both had a lot of reasons why that relationship shouldn't have worked, but I don't know that anything is doomed from the start. I think there's some times when I think back when I think if I hadn't given him the ultimatum to leave his job or be together, that we would have stayed together, and then I don't know when it would have dissolved. So part of me is like, would it have dissolved at a chance? That didn't give me a chance to have another life? And also because I felt so passionately about him, if I was connected with him through a child, I think that would make life really, really difficult.

Yeah. Because I can just abstain from him forever. I don't have to have any interaction with him, nor have I ever. And so that's a blessing. Cause I really feel for the people that were desperately in love with their spouses and now have to reclassify them in their brain and every interaction probably peels the scab off every single day.

And I don't have to have that. I can have a deep scar and leave it untouched. Yeah, that's really good. What is your take on why everybody has their self destructive bents, but maybe, I hope. Self destructive what?

Glennon Doyle

Like, bents. Like, ways they go when things get tough. Like, if you're not healthy and integrated, like, things you do to cope, to manage that are ultimately self destructive. What's your take on why we both leaned so hard on bulimia? We had such different lives.

It's just interesting that we both ended up there.

I don't know. I think maybe it wasn't going to be okay for me to be, like, I'm not okay. So it was really bad my first year of college, my bulimia, and then it was intermittently bad, but under control ish throughout the rest of college. Then in between my year, between when I wasn't at school, it was great. And then first year of law school, absolutely disastrous.

Amanda Doyle

Worse than ever before. So it's not like I was gonna say, I'm fucking miserable in law school, and this is not for me, and I hate this, and I'm leaving. That was never gonna happen. So, like, what do I do with my misery? What do I do with that?

Same with the first year of college. I didn't know what was going on. I'm there. I don't know what my place is here. I don't know how to reestablish myself.

Everything is overwhelming. I don't know who I'm going to be friends with. I know I don't fit exactly that mold, but I see very clearly what the mold should be, and it's all overwhelming. And so I wasn't going to be like, I'm doing bad in college. So where does that go?

Energy is neither created nor destroyed. It goes somewhere. So I think it's the shitty consolation prize. Like, I'm miserable. I'm not gonna get myself the help I need, but I got this little thing we could do that'll make you feel better.

I'll take care of you. You'll do this thing, you'll work it out. Then you'll go back out there and fight. Is that a tragic flaw for you, not being able to say, this isn't working for me? There are some people who would be like, law school's miserable, and I hate this, and I'm taking a different track.

Abby Wambach

That'd be me. Or do you know what I mean? Yeah. Is the inability to flip the switch on the circuit breaker and say, this is not working. This is too much.

Glennon Doyle

And so then the house burns. Yeah. Is that a higher priority for you than not admitting defeat?

Amanda Doyle

Yeah, I think probably that plays a lot like that. Reminds me of the Brene Brown thing we did where she said that her biggest power and her biggest weakness is the ability to dig deep. And we talked about how the bullshit of that is that you think when you're digging deep that there's no cost to it, but, like, you're excavating from somewhere, you're excavating from yourself, or you're excavating from the soil that belongs in your relationships or the soil that belongs to your own health. And so you're digging. You can keep digging, but you're stealing soil from somewhere else.

And I think that I have been in soil debt for a lot of my life. Wow. What about now? What are the other self destructive bents for you?

I think one of my self destructive bents is that I have this pull toward extraordinary, and I have this fear of ordinary, which is kind of like the two paths that cleared in Ethiopia, where it's like, okay, then that's an extraordinary life. You're gonna take your book bag, you're gonna meet how many different folks, you're gonna go to how many different countries. You're gonna see. See all these things. You don't know what's ahead.

That's extraordinary. That's wild. And then there's ordinary, which is a partner and two and a half kids and a job. And you know what's gonna happen there. I mean, theoretically, you don't really.

Spoiler alert. You don't really. But you think you do. And I think that the more that I've thought about that is like, maybe it's not a fear of being ordinary. Maybe that fear of being ordinary is really a fear of accepting who I am and where I am and who I'm with.

And maybe my need to feel extraordinary, to feel valuable, and my need to have experience that are extraordinary to make them valuable. And I need to have a partner that's extraordinary, for example, a highly decorated Navy Seal, to be valuable. Maybe that makes. In terms of what I have chosen, because that makes it extraordinary, as opposed to believing that there is worth in the ordinary and being okay with who I am and being okay with where I am and who I'm with, because that is so much peace. Do you have the audacity to give yourself that much peace and stop chasing just being okay with it?

And then and I think that's, like, my biggest fear, right? Because remember when we were talking about the. When the guy told me I only had. I would only need one more boiler for my house for the rest of my life? Oh, yeah.

And it just made me cry, because I think that it's the chase and, like, what happens when you're on the chase and then the finish line is closing in, then there's no more path to chase down. Like, if that has been what you've done. And I think my biggest fear is that when I get to the period in which I have nothing left to plan for or build for or chase down, that I will have this aching emptiness.

Glennon Doyle

Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Which makes the ordinary seem a lot more attractive.

So, as life does, life lets you beat your head into the extraordinary for a while. You've got your extraordinarily bad first relationship. You've got your extraordinarily decorated second relationship. These things don't work out. You're in the law firm, which I would remember as being a place that you met some wonderful people and also was not your best life.

Just say it. Hashtag, not your best life. No, but you were digging deep to make it work. You were not going to quit. I remember you were living with me after the divorce, and every day, you would be so miserable, and I would be like, what about quitting?

And you would get so furious with me. You would. You would be like, I'm setting myself up for future freedom. And I would be like, but now that's the conversation we've been having for 30 years. Right?

And they're both right, and they're both wrong. Okay. Yeah. So you meet John. If I remember this correctly, I believe it was our dear friend Joanna who was trying to set you up with John.

And she kept asking me if it was okay, and I kept saying, no, it's not okay. I'm scared of everything. Just everyone stopped doing anything near this woman. And then finally, one day, for whatever reason, I just said okay. Cause I actually knew John.

Amanda Doyle

Yeah. Through my ex boyfriend. Okay, this is backstory for the long haulers here. So, Glennon's boyfriend from college, we'll call him Rob. Rob, Rob, Rob.

Okay, so Rob grew up from little bitty playing, like, little league in football with Johnny. Okay? And then when Johnny would come visit you guys at college, he would talk with you. I mean, like, talking is a. Is a.

Glennon Doyle

I don't know. We would mumble in each other's direction. We were both totally wasted the entire time. Well, and then okay, flash forward to, like, four years ago, I'm telling John about. Cause then you continue throughout college, like, in the summers, you come home, like, you'd occasionally hang out with Johnny.

Amanda Doyle

I've never met him at all. I don't have much interest in this whole group, but, like, four years ago, I'm like, oh, my gosh. So I want to tell you about memory. I have, like, we used to have this big blue van. It was a club wagon.

It was crazy. We would drive to the boat, and he goes, oh, oh, I know the club wagon. And I was like, what? How do you know about my. He was like, oh, I've made out with people in the club wagon.

And I was like, what the f. Like, my life is so the little club wagon that I used to sleep my whole body in. My future husband is making out with somebody before I meet him anyway, because. I gave the van to Rob's fraternity. I gave it my parents van to a fraternity, and they took all the seats out, and they would drive it to parties and bring 20 people in it.

Glennon Doyle

And then they would put lawn chairs on top of the van. So my dad would be like, why is our van caved in? And I'd be like, I don't know. I don't know. Weird birds, probably.

I mean, what our parents have been through. Yes. But you can understand why I wouldn't be super excited about green lighting the meeting. Brilliant sister to someone in this group. How did you and John first meet?

Abby Wambach

What was your first date? I remember the day because it was on. I went to Vegas for my 30th birthday for the first and very last time that will ever happen. That is a place that is incommensurate with my personhood. I met this person who then changed their flight so they could stay the whole time.

Glennon Doyle

Was it a baby? Was it a boy? Yes. We already have plans to meet in New York in a couple of weekends, and I'm on this flight home, and I am banged up. Like, it's not a good scene.

Amanda Doyle

And I get three emails from John because he was so nervous writing me. He kept pressing tab to make a new paragraph, but he kept sending it. So I'm like, hi, dear Amanda, my name's John. Send. Oh, shoot.

I accidentally pressed the tab button. Anyway, I talked to Glenn last weekend. Send. So we got. And finally he was just like, I'm wondering if you want to go out on a date next week.

Glennon Doyle

Bye, John.

It was so amazing. So we got off to a very awkward start, which was beautiful. And I was like, yes, I do want to meet you, but I am not suitable for meeting anyone until Thursday because I'm banged up. And then we met on Thursday. I walked into O'Connell's, where we eventually had the reception for our wedding.

Amanda Doyle

It's an irish pub in old town Alexandria. And I walked in and he was just so damn cute standing there. And he didn't speak. It was literally out of a movie. I walked up and I was like, hi, are you John?

And he said.

He didn't say any words. And I was like, shall we go to our table? And he was like, mm hmm. I was like, well, as awkward as the emails, but that's okay.

And we sat and we had steak and Guinness, and then they had to kick us out when they closed it, too. And then we sat in the car. And talked for a long time. And then the street sweepers came, so then we had to move the car. And I was like, hmm, I'm gonna save you in my phone.

And then the second time we went out, I called the Vegas guy and I was like, this is awkward, but I'm not coming to New York. And then I called the two other guys I was dating and I was like, this is very awkward. And I don't know if this is gonna come to anything, but I don't wanna be in the position to like, let's say I marry this guy that I just met and then I have kids with them, and then I'm gonna know for the rest of my life that in between the time I met this guy, I made out with you in the middle. Yeah. And then I might do a podcast about it and then I'd have to tell that part.

Abby Wambach

Oh, my gosh. You knew. Yeah. There was a part of you that. Knew what was happening, and John couldn't speak because he thought you were so beautiful.

Glennon Doyle

And then when you ordered the Guinness, he knew he was gonna marry you. That's what he told me. Well, it might have been the medium rare steak, I don't know. So here's the part. You fall in love with John.

John falls in love with you. And as you crawl towards this soft landing space of this relationship, that could be the real thing, could be marriage, could be family. The universe does its thing. And IJM calls you and asks you to come.

Amanda Doyle

To Rwanda and. Prosecute child sex offenders. Fight for widow's land. You have a decision to make. Stay, continue this relationship with John, go to Rwanda, do this work, some combination of both.

Glennon Doyle

You sit down, you have a conversation with John, and this is a another sliding doors moment. What was that conversation about? Actually, I had known I was going to go on to when I met him. And so a couple weeks into it, I was like, here's the deal. You're awesome.

Amanda Doyle

I think you think I'm awesome, and we should probably break up because it's not fair to you, because I'm going to go to this. I'm going to do this thing. And so I don't feel like it's fair to you, because I feel like what you'll think is that I'll fall so in love with you that I'll decide not to go. And I'm just telling you that's not gonna happen. And I feel like, in fairness to you, we should probably break up, because I don't want you believing that that's gonna happen.

Cause it's not. And he was like, I'm good. I'm good. And I was like, huh? All right, well, great.

And then right before I was gonna go, I was sitting down with him, just having all of my lurching, agonized heart things about if we were gonna have a life, it was gonna be like this, and this is gonna be this extraordinary thing, and then we're gonna do this. And why aren't we like this as a couple? Like, we need to be like this. And I remember him just being like, why do you want those things? And I remember using the word extraordinary.

I remember saying, I just feel like that is the way to have an extraordinary life. And I feel like that's what I'm going to have. And he said, what's wrong with ordinary? I really, really want ordinary. And it was so touching because it was like, oh, wait.

Ordinary isn't the lack of extraordinary. Ordinary is its whole other thing that. Has all of this beautiful cadence and rhythm and purpose and bond and magic. And here's this lovely man that is putting a very high value on ordinary, and not as a thing that lacks whatever extraordinary has, but a thing that has something that extraordinary doesn't have. Ah.

Glennon Doyle

Whoa. Yes. What does ordinary have, sister, that extraordinary doesn't have? Because now we are back, full circle in the airport when you decide to come home to ordinary, which in your case, might be the extraordinary, because what's hard for one person is easy for another person, and vice versa. For some people, the scary thing might be to go travel and hitchhike across Ireland.

God help them. For you, the scariest thing was coming home and doing the ordinary thing, which was intimacy and relationship and motherhood and family and marriage. Did you end up choosing the thing that was scarier for you. Yes. In fact, I remember on my wedding day, you gave me a letter that said that I was stepping into the hardest thing for me and the biggest adventure and challenge for me.

Amanda Doyle

And you gave me that pendant that said, I am not afraid. I was born to do this. The Joan of Arc quote. And I think that that has rung true. I think that I have always been comfortable, whether it's flirting or.

Or traveling with the. I will not pass this way again. And I am passing through, and there are no expectations of me, and I have no expectations of you. And what has been harder for me is the not passing through and the staying and the not finding something to fix the thing, but settling into the thing and trying like hell to become interdependent. And because the irony of everything, right?

And this is how I think I know this is true, that I can flirt my ass off with anyone that I'm never going to see again, but you tell me to say something I want in bed with my partner, and I am stone cold immobilized. How can someone be so flirty and sexy out there, but when it comes to the real deal, not know how to speak or even in relationship? Like I need help in life. I can't do that. Being there to ask someone to help me and for them to be there and know that they're helping me.

In other words, that I could not have done it without them. They know. They helped. They know that you need help. Not only is it horrifying to ask for it, now I've got this person running around knowing they're helping me.

I'm just saying that I think for me, for a lot of people, it's being brave enough to go get the thing, and going and getting the thing has always been easy as shit for me. The staying and getting the thing is very, very hard for me. And I am very, very lucky, very lucky to have a lover of the ordinary that loves the staying. I would like to end with this. Sister, I just sent you the poem that you loved, I think, years ago when we were talking about this ordinary versus extraordinary thing that you found.

Glennon Doyle

And it's called make the ordinary come alive. Would you read it for us to close out? I sure will. This is make the ordinary come alive by William Martin. Do not ask your children to strive for extraordinary lives.

Amanda Doyle

Such striving may seem admirable, but it is a way of foolishness. Help them instead to find the wonder and the marvel of an ordinary life. Show them the joy of tasting tomatoes, apples and pears. Show them how to cry when pets and people die. Show them the infinite pleasure and the touch of a hand and make the ordinary come alive for them.

The extraordinary will take care of itself.

Abby Wambach

Sister, making an ordinary life extraordinary. That's what you do. We love you, cissy bear. I just wanted to tell you that when we were talking about interviewing you, I was talking to Alison and Dina, who, of course, are our family. Alison said that she was thinking about attachment theory and why she's so attached to you, and then also why she's attached to all three of us in real life, and then also why everyone is attached to we can do hard things podcast.

Glennon Doyle

And this is what she said. She said, if you think about attachment theory in terms of the way Doctor Becky presents it, which is like, am I real? Am I safe? Do I matter? She said, glennon, you answer the question for me.

Am I real? Sister answers the question for me. Am I safe? And Abby answers the question for me. Do I matter?

And Alison said, I never feel more safe in my life than when I'm in the presence of sister.

And that is so true. Yep, same for me, too. And for you, too. And that must be a lot of pressure. So we should send her abroad by herself once a year as a break.

Amanda Doyle

No, it doesn't work anymore. I know it doesn't work anymore. By the way, if you can't be whoever you're gonna be. Cause there's no expectations on you. Spoiler alert.

When. When you're you married with children, there are expectations. Exactly. There's nowhere you can go. That proverbial ship has sailed, people.

Abby Wambach

You did it at the right time. We love you, sister Bear. Sure did. We love you so much. I love you.

Glennon Doyle

And to the pod squad, we'll see you back here next time. We can do hard things. Bye. We can do ordinary things.

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 us 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, Ellison Schott, Deena Kleiner and Bill Schultz.

How to Make The Ordinary Come Alive with Amanda Doyle

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Episode Chapters

1: Introduction

2: Discussing Interdependence

3: Vulnerability and Help

4: The Beauty of Ordinary

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