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How to Find Yourself with Glennon Doyle

that we love you. Hello, Internet Hope. You having a great day today, too. Good friend. Chase Jarvis here founders that you have creativelive and your compadre in this crazy time Here, I'm coming at you live from the front room of our little cabin. It's been in my family for 90 years, so I hope you enjoyed the wood paneling. But more importantly, we are in for an amazing conversation. Say, if you're ah, if you've been watching creativelive dot com slash tv and you're seeing us here, um, this is the Chase Service Live show where I sit down with many of the world's top creators and entrepreneurs and I do everything I can't unpack their brains whether that helps you live your best life in, ah, career and hobby. And ultimately, the goal for today is for you to be able to ask some questions for you to get some nuggets from my guest that I will introduce in just a second. But before we dio were also streaming to a lot of different platforms on Facebook on YouTube live. So if you're joining u...

s there, you can enter some comments or head over to creativelive dot com slash tv. There's a video right there. You can hit, join, chat and then I will see all of your comments coming in. Presumably we are. We will be hearing from folks from all over the world if this broadcast is anything like the other broadcast we've been doing since the cove it struck. And if you're familiar, creativelive. This is where more than 22,000 hours of content from many of the world's top creators. We teach things like photography, design, filmmaking, how to make a living in a life doing what you love. And we launched Creative Life TV to bring you into the homes, the couches, the kitchen counters, the studios. The office is, um, the desks of our community, because these are very, very strange time. So we hope you'll enjoy this broadcast because today we're going live with one of the most impressive guests we've ever had on the show. This is her second time. Um, she is, um, is Glennon Doyle, the author of the number one Still like four or five weeks straight since it came out Number one New York Times bestseller Untamed. Been in the top of like every best seller list for the past. I sense it came out, and she's also in Ah, Reese Witherspoon's book club. It's a selection for that, Um, for that community. Ah, she's also authored books like Love Warrior on Oprah Book Club Selection, Carry on Warrior. An activist and thought leader. She is the founder and president of Together Rising, an all woman led non profit organization that has completely revolutionized the grassroots philanthropy industry, where she and her team there have raised more than 25 million. That's 25 million for women, families and Children in crisis. She lives in Florida with her wife and three Children. My guest is the one and all the the inimitable Glennon Doyle in the house. Shayes. It's so good to be back together together ish, Yeah, as as a very overtly introverted person. Is this timing? I know we can both hold the fact that there is crisis happening, and this is one of the hardest times in the last century and find some Solis and some comfort and ah ah, ah, way of living differently. For someone who's introverted, is this is it because it kind of is it okay for you? Or how is it Chase? I mean, I think it was 20 days into quarantine, Abby said. Is your life any different? And I was like, No, it's not I mean, it's you know what it is? Chase. It's a lot of frickin family togetherness. It's a lot it is. But you do such a great job of sharing Ah, on your social channels. And for anyone who's interested just at Glen and Doyle specifically, I'm referencing Instagram Uh, I really enjoy singing your bulldog. Ah, the goodnight song, which is really, really fun. But, um so a lot of family time. Three Children, Abby and yourself. You guys were in Florida. I trust you're safe and everyone healthy. Yeah, we are. I mean, as I do run the nonprofit together rising, which has existed for a decade to serve women and Children in need. And you can imagine that right now the needs are words were working double time just to keep up with the people who suddenly need food and diapers and rent. And it's just it's pretty amazing to be looking at the real pain out there every single day. And yes, at the same time finding some joy in? Um no, no, The stillness of it. The kind of slowness of it and the forced family togetherness. Well, get in that. Yeah, And that's, you know, before we get into your latest book, I think it's really interesting to, um, examine this. You know what I said off the cuff. But I wanted to hear a little bit more from you. How Weaken both be present with the pain that's happening in the world right now. Not just for the people who are struck with the virus, but for those serving them for the alienation, the isolation, Um, in a lot of really hard times and find, um fine. Like you said, that stillness, the opportunities There's gotta be some element of self discovery for everyone, certainly even for you doing, ah, book tour, being the number one book in the country on basically every platform. And, you know, talking about that from your own home that's got to be both calming and disjointed. I'm wondering if you can help reconcile this, and I know you have overtly again talked about Ah, a life that has been peppered with anxiety and this is a very anxious time for so many. So how do we reconcile those two, I guess, Or how do you reconcile those two things? And can you provide a little guidance for those of us that are are really conflicted in this tough time? I mean, I think one of the reasons why it's it's strange that my book happened to come out at this time, but I do think it's largely a book about using pain as a, um, springboard, you know, rock bottom kind of as a starting place for coming to life for creativity. Um on. And I think one of the things that's going on right now is there's all that pain out in the world that we all see in some of us. Everyone's going through that pin and people are losing people that they aren't even they can't even say goodbye to I mean, the stories we have heard in our inbox. People are losing jobs and people are losing livelihood, and everyone's lost. What used to be right? We've all lost. Um, but there's this other thing going on chase that I think is so interesting to me as a recovering addict. Um, because it's while all this pain is going on. While this truth has been revealed to all of us, that was always true, right? The truth, which is? We are all as vulnerable tell and none of us have control. And the only thing that's really the end of the day is, you know, our health and the people we love, but always true, right? Yeah, but But now we can't avoid it. It is on display. It is like Yeah. Oh, and we're stuck at home without all the distractions that we usually keep ourselves. I'm busy with so that we don't have to face the terrifying truth of being human, right? That's I think that I was when I was little, I had this snow globe, but I I I was scared to death and because it had this little drag and in the middle of it that I thought was scary. So I keep it, shake it off all the time, like, Oh, so you have to see the driving like that's what we dio, right? Keep ourselves shaking up, shaking up with all the things and the things so we don't have to face the truth of hell scary it is to be human. And right now all the snow was settling right, and it's settling for all of us on we're stuck in her homes were stuck with ourselves. We're stuck with the truth. We're stuck with our people for better or worse earlier, straight. So all the check, all the problems that we have inside and all the problems that we have in our relationships and all all of this is unavoidable in this moment, it feels very much to me like early sobriety, right? Like everybody's been forced into a collective early sobriety. But nobody has the tools right now that a lot of us are lucky enough to get in early sobriety, which is community and people telling the truth. Uh, the first time I ever went to make no fifth time, Evelyn's recovery meaning on this my six day of sobriety, I'm I stood up and finally spoke, and I said something like, I'm Glennon and I'm an alcoholic, and I feel horrible, and I'm afraid that everyone else has a secret to life that I don't have, because everything just feels harder for me than it seems for everyone else. Um and I'm scared to death. And that's all. Thank you very much. And this woman came up to me after the meeting and she sat down next to me and she said, I just want to tell you this one thing that someone told me in early recovery and that's this. The fact that it feels so hard right now does not mean that you're doing life wrong. It means that you're finally doing it, right? Right. The secret to life is that doing it right, being human, right? Feeling all of your feelings is just really, really hard. That's why so few people do it. Um, but the thing is that all feelings offer feeling even the hard ones. And the only thing that's worse than feeling at all is missing. Mm. And so power is like a power shot right there. Well, in cheese, it seems so obvious. Right? Feelings on Fallon. But like, I swear to you, Chase. And I didn't know that before that meeting at we live in a culture where we are told over and over again that happiness is for feeling white and that fear and shame and anger and envy and all of those other feelings are are things to be ashamed up right there for numbing and fixing and deflecting and ignoring. And so this concept that being human is not about feeling happy, but it's actually about feeling everything. Waas it. Wasin is the springboard for every good thing in my life. My every good thing in my life. My, my new marriage, much family, my sobriety, my art, my activism all is a direct result from my commitment to quit running. All of it rightto sit with the pain of being human and allow it to transform May. So that's what I think is the opportunity of this moment. I think everybody's really miserable because we're all in detox suddenly and we didn't ask for it. Uh, but I think that it we're kind of in, like, this cocoon of grief. Yeah, and I don't think we can help but emerge new after it. I think this will break us down in ways that will make us more human and more tender. And we're connected. I already feel that way. Do you? I feel walk in my ball the other day and this guy, this old guy was walking by with a Naples over was told he was walking his dog, you know, 10 feet away. And and Abby was like, You don't even like that guy. And I was like, I like it. No, I like everyone now. And that old these air over, you know, So I don't know. I think that at this time of intense vulnerability and intense pain, uh, if we surrender to it and allow it to change us can have beautiful after. Well, if you're just joining us, um, I'm sitting down with Glennon Doyle, Um, number one New York Times bestseller of lots of books, most recently untamed. Um, and I don't know where you're seeing this, whether it's on Facebook live or YouTube live. But I know that I'm seeing all your comments right now. I love to know where you're listening or watching from, Um, if you have some questions that I can serve up to Glenn, and I'd be happy to do it, um, just, you know, go ahead and type of comment there, or head over to creativelive dot com slash tv and I will get your questions there. Um, well, thank you for articulating that thing that we're all feeling, Ah, the both the frustration, the sadness, the on we, the the desire to connect. You know, we're social animals. That's what people forget, even the introverts, right? Uh, like I have that same exact experience walking down the road. If there's someone over there, of course, first making sure it's safe, which is a weird calculation to do every time you see a human. I was It's so weird. I was driving. I went, had to go to the grocery store, masked up all that stuff, and I'm I realized that I'm I think it might be judgment, like making sure. And I think it comes from a scared place, making sure everyone around me is safe. But I'm like, safe, safe distance if it's just that such a weird calculus to do. But also simultaneously like, I wonder what that person's story is. I wonder if that person is lonely. I wonder if this person has, um, is there on Elder. They scared to go into the store right now. Is that like, just there's so much it's I feel overwhelmed and and yet there I feel like we're getting something that that has to happen, and it's a weird feeling to feel like I would never wish this had never wish the pain. And it's like, I appreciate you sharing your insight there because it's something that I'm I'm trying to reconcile, and I haven't quite figured it out yet. So and I think there's something beautiful about. But when you said we're social animals, I mean, I am after seeing anybody in real life right, which I don't normally see anybody in, Really. I was just telling taste that 19 days into quarantine. Addison is your like any different? Really? Oh, but Ali, there's the people that I am talking to you on, Zoom or, you know, I have noticed this level of vulnerability that I've never noticed in people before. So I'm seeing people that I work with or no in ways I've never seen them before. I'm seeing them in their homes. I'm thinking with Children and dogs crawling all over them. I'm seeing them in the kitchen and seeing them, afraid on seeing them without all the answers, without their, you know, representative, shiny fancy face with the real human face. And that is something That's something I don't know what it is exactly. Uh, but it reminds me of the pepper meetings. It reminds me of how real people are having meetings. It reminds me of this. This thing that happens to human beings when you're in a situation where it's like, OK, the jig is up. All of us can stop pretending and we'll be human with each other. It's so true. And I've loved like my wife, Kate. Night don't have any kids. Ah, it was a choice who made people ask us a lot of questions about it. And I'm an uncle. Have a shirt that says Funchal with this fun on, go to lots of kids. But I have had the experience with co workers and people that are in the creative life community are partners and what not of like seeing their kids. The cat runs through the you know, there's a noise going on in the kitchen. You get to see the wood paneling and the shag carpet of our little of our little beach house has been in our family for like, to me, there's this weird connection that I actually think can't get to us any other way. Like I can't think of another experience in the last years that where we have the ability to connect remotely and tap into one another's lives. Because in the Spanish flu, you're just gonna walk by people's house. You don't get to go in with the camera. So is it Is it weird to be grateful for this moment because I feel so conflicted? No, I mean, listen as someone you glad I mean, with together rising like if I did not spend if I don't make it a spiritual practice to be able to enter into people's pain every single day and to allow that pain to make the beautiful even more beautiful. But that's the thing like it doesn't you know, people say to me all the time, like, How do you deal with all that stuff? It's so heavy, Like, how do you listen to all those stories and then move on like that heavy stuff to me is the good stuff. What crushes me? Give me, you know, two hours of small top where people are talking about bullshit for to like that makes me want to die, you know, But like, you know, this is the good stuff way have. This would come beautiful, like life is beautiful and life is brutal at the exact same time, all the time everyday. This isn't new, like mass pain, people suffering. None of this is new. This happens every single day. And to me, the people who are able to still find joy in times like this are the people who enter into the suffering with other people, right, because it's the feeling of despair. Despair is very distinct. Despair and see mostly in people who so badly want to do something or so bad. We want to be connected but can't get and don't tell themselves they can't go right? People who are, um you know, the people weren't showing up who are resuming. Their parents will zoom who are reaching out who are really those people aren't feeling, is there you're telling, Came the number pain in being human, But, um no, I think that the over we enter into the real stuff with people, The more beauty parents. I I saw you say something online. I don't know if it's sometime in the last couple of days, you know, like I as and I think you started it. Something like, as an introvert. I feel for you. I'm connected to you. I would die for you. I just won't have a cup of coffee with you. Helena off me for my left lung. Do not ask me to Starbucks tell, you know I love deeply community, but actual human gains are tricky, for I want to love people from my home in my in my in my writing People magazine called you the patron saint of female empowerment. And that is, um, amazing. Um, I don't know, label to get, but I feel like you're so much more. There's there's a part of your work. Um, that is therapy. There's a part of your work that is courage is a part of your work. Um, that, um, connects us. There's a part of your work that, um, empowerment feels like just that's like the gateway that is like, you step inside, maybe even the outside. You see it from the outside and step into it. And it's you know, of course, people magazine, um, talked about female empowerment. Um, as a male, I still feel and and I feel like I gain empowerment from your message is someone who is looked to, um, by so many not just in your books, but, um with, you know, together rising and all the work that you do exact exhausting or is that does that give you the energy that drives you? I feel that the reason it is not exhausted is that I made myself a promise a long time ago that I would never, ever tried to be everything other than exactly what Right. So, um a have never promise to have any answers at all? I think one of the reasons why people trust me is because I'm always admitting that I don't know shit. Okay, so, um, I feel blessed. Lucky that my sobriety, um, demands that I only worry about doing the next right thing in the The only thing I really have to care about his integrity, And to me, integrity doesn't mean doing the right thing, because what does that even mean? But it does mean having your inner self and you're out herself integrated, which means that I can't ever have any shame or lies on the inside because that's what takes me out. That's what takes addicts out. That's it. Takes everyone up. So I mean, this has been tested in my life. Taste I mean, the last time we were you interviewed me, I waas releasing Loved Warrior, which waas talented us. You know the ethic Mirren's redemption story. But I fell in love with Abby after weeks before it was launched. And so I freaking had meetings save with huge tables and people in New York. Of all these people who had whose careers were based on this, you know, partly from this book, succeeded and say Sorry, I have to announce I have to tell everyone like I can't my sobriety like I had people say to me, uh, if you announced your divorce weeks before your ethic merit redemption but launches it'll be career Susan, like it'll be over, came over. And also, if you lady with your lovely faith based base, you know, also throws in that you're gonna go ahead and marry a female Olympian gave up, it's and, um and I remember thinking, OK, I guess if I have to decide between career suicide and soul suicide, I won't just choose clear night. So that was the biggest test for me of what can I do this thing we're in actually telling the truth in real time and still have a career? Um, and of course, as the truth always does, I told the truth. I told it as, uh, you know, as much as I could tell without sacrificing my Children and families process and the world handle that and the whole always handles it because the world cannot believe truth anymore. It's just sounds different, doesn't it? Truth sounds different. You know it when you hear it, and I So can I dive a little bit deeper into this? Because we don't We touched on it in our last conversation. But for anyone who's just joining right now, um, if you could go a little bit deeper and recounting that just what I know is that you had this marriage redemption story and I want to explore two things simultaneously and I'll let you figure out how you wanna address them. One is just a little recap of that story for anyone who is new to your work, although, you know, it's probably like eight people in the whole planet that are new to your work because you bid, crushing it so hard. But the part that I also think is fascinating is all of the people. And these were people that you respect then appreciate their peers or their collaborators. Co conspirators at you know, the biggest publishers in the world. Some of these are our dear to your friends, and they're telling you that it's career suicide and they're telling you that it's, you know, your faith based base. It will leave you because you're marrying a woman. And yet you do it anyway. And not only does it not pan out like they tell you, but arguably like, I mean, that is where I really, really came into work. It's like, That is truth. You know what The truth? It sounds a certain way, and once you've heard it, you can't unheroic it. And it's so powerful. That is a very global stage for someone with your stature and, um and and you're very public face. But that happens to people everyday. People that they know and trust and appreciate are telling them things that are horrible towards their their best outcomes. So two things I don't care how what order, give us a little recap for folks who are just tuning in. And then address, if you would, how your experience there is so parallel to so many other people and what you have to do with the information that you get that you know isn't your truth. Yeah, well, I think it's the story of all of our lives, right? I mean, the story of all of our lives. And I think especially the second half of our lives is, you know, we spend the first half trying to match ourselves to the world's expectations, whether it's, you know, our families or the culture or whatever. And then we spend the second half of our life trying to get out of this cage is that we allowed ourselves included for so long. So, um yes, taste. I was in a, um, bad marriage to a good man, okay? And that is a very tricky place for a woman to be because, you know, you can just convince yourself that it's just fit enough, you know, and And I was in the kind of marriage that women are training to be grateful for. Okay. And I was also slowly dying. Um, and, uh, I at the first, I wrote Love Warrior, uh, in which was the story of my husband's infidelity and are kind of just excruciating metals. A beautiful effort to just save our manage right on and, oh, a little bit before the book launched at my first event to discuss, like, warrior Abby walked into a room and face. I just I still don't understand what the hell happened. I just know that I I every bone in my body just screamed. There she is. Okay. And chase, like I have never even kissed a girl before. Okay, this is not like in my universe. I had no freaking clean. And, um And so the interesting part, which I never talk about, is that we were together that evening speaking. OK, so we were with about 10 other authors, and we were speaking to hundreds of librarians at this like, but it's very sexy on. And so we were together in a big room for a couple hours with a bunch of other people, And then we went our separate ways, and I went to Naples and she went into Portland, and over the course of the next few months, we both have dismantled our entire lives to be together. We were never in the same room again. How would never saw each other again? I know batshit crazy. OK, so I almost missed, though, that we've now been married for three years. But all right, almost Mr Most Beautiful invitation I've ever received. Like I almost did not follow that voice. I almost abandoned myself again, as I had been doing for my whole life because I was so freaking terrified of everything of breaking everyone's expectations of me of not being that good wife. I was supposed to be of not being a good mother, of not being a good employer like I was employer. I was an employee. I was all, and all of these people's lives had their lives invested interests in mind the most the hardest window chase was the mom thing. I mean, I just and I I just remember thinking I can't do this because I was tamed to believe that a good mom does not break her Children's hearts. My and then one day I was breathing my daughter's hair and I just remember looking at her and thinking, Oh my God, I'm staying in this marriage for her. But what? I want this marriage for her, right. Uh, and if I would not want this marriage for my little girl than why and I modeling bad love and calling that good mothering and it's because I know why now, Like, it's because we just women are just given these messages. You know, just days I was trained to believe that a good mother is a murder, right, that the epitome of motherhood is just burying yourself. Just burying your dreams, bearing your ambition, burying your emotions, burying all of it in honor of your Children, right? Like what I'm burning for kids to bury t carry to be the reason that they never knew their mother to be the reason that their mother stopped living right? Like I think that t taught. I mean, this one kills me to be taught merit. In order to love or be loved, you have to disappear instead of the truth. Which is that in order to be loved or or loving, like to fully emerge right, you have to keep appear in a scary as it is. And so I just realized Oh, my God. like this is I have to throw that belief away. Like the culture gave me that believe it's been controlling me. But to me, a good month. A good mother is not a martyr. A good month. Mother is a model, right? Like, yeah, our Children will only allow themselves to live as fully as we will. So weak. So we can't settle for any any relationship or world that's less beautiful than the one we want for our Children. Right? So So I just kept realizing What are these other you know, unconscious beliefs that are controlling me because I haven't examined them like my whole life became this this quest, like dig up these routes and examine them like all these messages that I've been getting about what a good girl does, what a good woman does what a good wife does with a good, uh, mother does. They're all just the same exact message. A 1,000,000 different ways, which is just disappear, disappeared. Good girls are quiet in pretty good wives are accommodating and pleasing. Good. I'm female workers are great, grateful and pleasant. Good mothers are martyrs, like just every message of disappear, disappear, disappear and So, um, and the faith messages Forget it. I mean, I was taught in religion, like, just shot at. I mean, the first message I ever got as a little girl in the church was Okay, So God made Adam and they were like, bro's, and everything was cool and then each other, right? And what did she want? She wanted more. And then all hell broke loose. Right? And suffering was unleashed on the earth. So the message was clearly Just be grateful. Don't want more. Don't ask them on which is what I was doing in my life. I was looking at my marriage and my family and my life and saying I actually want more. And this this is not the kind of love that I want. This is a lot more. And so chase. I mean, I had already told Craig, I don't You know, broken cranks aren't I had already told my Children, and I already told my frickin parents which, by the way, was the scariest one. Wow. So what? That might telling my agents with nothing. Ah, but I don't tell you that they I did have to look them in the A and tell them you are going to have to trust you like the thing is that when you're the artist, it is your job to keep doing the ridiculous thinned like that. You have this little nugget of vision inside of you and my mother vision was like, I don't think they like me because I'm perfect. I've never been perfect a day in my life. I'm a shit shop. I think that they like me because of honest and brief, and what I'm about to do is honest and brain. And I think people are smarter and better than we think they are. And I think they're going to get it. And I think some So, uh, my job was to keep believing in that vision. Their job was to keep being afraid and pushing back on it. But I wouldn't have been the artist they trusted me to be. If I didn't like, That's the tension right. That's the tension of the of the art and the business like you have to handle. But if you don't have, uh, if the people in the business side aren't even kicking and screaming along for the ride, then you're dead in the water in the first place because nobody follows anybody who's not doing nothing that's new. Untrue. I saw, um, so I I am announced it one day on Instagram. I posted a picture of me and Abby on a porch. She's playing the Children sitting next to her. I told the story as clearly as I could with no apologies. My and in my I was not going to be like, ah shucks about this open when I waas clear that that, um, I was not insisted in um see that amazing Ah, you know, there's this way of being and I learned it with my parents because my parents were scared to death about this whole thing. And so, for a long while, every time I talked to my mom, I would get really defensive and anxious because I don't think it's like the hate from I don't think it's like the cool criticism from people that hate us that shakes us from our knowing. I think it's like the quiet concern from people who love us, right? That's what scares the crap out of us. Uh, and so and so I felt myself constantly explaining myself to her telling her tell Okay, it was and how okay we were And how Okay, Everything waas until I realized, like, the only way you can ever convince other people that you're okay is to just go about being okay, right? Because once you find yourself explaining yourself for justifying yourself, that's proof you're not okay. People who are okay and happy and full of power enjoy. Do not go around explaining to other people how okay and perfect and find they're just living their amazing, beautiful, wild and precious life. Right. So that's how I learned with my announcements of my talking about it. That's all I could do. But I am not a day of my life. Am I gonna explain myself anymore? I mean, I'm 44 years old. I think I got Tonto just and I'm just done explaining myself. You know, I'm just gonna live my life and be is OK as we are, and some people will be inspired by it, and some people will be pissed off about it. And that's just that is such a beautiful, um, explication of a trial that so many people go through and arguably at a very, very much, you know, much different, Um, every of course individual but otherwise similar experience that you're getting input from the world to be a certain way. Whether that's your parents want you to be a doctor, your faith wants you to be, um, uh tamed To use the word that you used in your book. There's so many inputs and part of what I'm like You do such a good job. I feel like sharing your story. I've listened to a lot of interviews and we've had a few conversations and I ask you to give advice and you just tell a great story. But is there Can you just look at the people? Look, look into the camera and tell people right now like there are people. You did say that the conversation with your parents and other folks were harder than the business and the art and the creators and the entrepreneurs were in our community. I think they gravitate. They can. They can do that. But it is their parents. There's house, their partners that these are those air, the tough conversations. And you feel like you shared that. What? What gave you the courage And how specifically did you approach that conversation? Yeah. I'll tell you exactly how I put specific situation here. My bet is that taste no matter what you know, having challenges everyone has, Like you just said with their boss, with their whatever sitcoms on your pants, I'm telling you, I know the fiercest activists. People who get on podiums in front of thousands and thousands and preach, preach freedom, preach justice. And then they cry at home about the prince, like the expectations and our parents have, because it's all because of love. It's because we love them so much, and they love us so much. But they were created for a different world than we are, right? And so we're not doing anything that they don't that they don't understand. And we're not living for the new World that they weren't made for, right? If they can't go into the future with us, and we actually don't have to go back into the past with them, we can love each other and still refused to go backwards. Um, I will tell you one day, um, a long time after I told my mom she was still worrying and calling that love. No, just worrying in Parliament. And I was on the phone with her and she was saying all the things she said, Like what would have a little the kid's parents up? Kids, parents say, How will the world treat you? And I just had this moment of clarity where I thought, Oh, my mom loves me and she disagrees with me about what is best for me and my family. So I have a decision tonight. I have to decide whether I chest my mother or myself more with my money. Right? And at that moment, I heard my mom say, Okay, honey, you're done. They're gonna come next week. We're gonna fly income visit. In case I just heard myself saying, No, you can't come here. You can't come here because you were still afraid. And it what? You are not afraid. We taught them that love and informs to be celebrated, and that and that it is best to be yourself and let the world catch up so they don't carry this year you carry. But if you bring it to this house, they will see it in your eyes, and they will help you carry it because they love and trust you. So I have to tell you this hard thing, Mom, which event? Your fear is not my family's problem, and my job is to make sure it never becomes their problem. So go deal with your problem. And when you can come to my family with nothing but love and celebration, we will lower our drawbridge for you. But not one freaking seconds. And that day is when I became an adult. That is the moment I became an adult. Because that is the day that I realized that we do not become responsible adults until we become disobedient. Some of the numbers, huh? That the Onley truly the only true way to honor our parents, is to trust fully the people they raised night ourselves. Um and so, yeah, that was it. I mean, it's it's a simple and a smart is not right if it's, uh, figuring out that you are building a life like we used. You know, Abby and I use the analogy of an island or building on island with different specifications in the ones that your parents built, all right. And they had And now it's our turn night. Anybody who comes to our island pass to anybody, whether it's our parents, anybody has to approach as the respect no guests that they are. How did you How did you, um how did you learn to trust yourself? Sobriety. So I sometimes feel bad for people who are not medics. Because when you hit around bottom like I did, I mean, I was I was almost dead at 25. Okay, I had been lost to food. I can't believe it when I was 10 and then that never I just never got got taken care of. So that morphed into alcoholism, which marked in tow all the other ISMs. And by Vatana was 25. I was just I don't know how far I waas but couldn't have been far. Uh, and I got myself on the bathroom floor holding a positive pregnancy test, and I understood clearly that it was my last jets. I don't know how I knew that. I just knew This is that I think this is my last chance to come to life. So when my first meeting, and, um And over time, what I learned is this chase. So I just thought I thought that there was something seriously wrong with me. I always thought that there was something seriously wrong with me. That's why I started binging with food and nothing myself. That's why I just felt like I was so sensitive. Like, I just just so freaking sense of Chase. And I didn't have the tools to deal with that of the child. So I just started numbing. And I think a lot of that what happens to a lot of addicts is that they're highly sensitive. People don't have the tools to deal with their sensitivity, so they start self medicating night. Um, but what I've learned over the last 18 years of sobriety is that there was never anything room, mate, that I just didn't know how to use my fire yet, right? Like because I'm still the exact same person I was when I was 10. So my this the sensitivity that led me to addiction is the exact same sensitivity. Now that makes me really good artist, right? And the fire that will. My therapist calls it anxiety, but what I call it my butt my fire. That makes me sweaty and afraid a lot, Um, is also an exact same fire That makes me really good activist, right. So what I'm telling the reason I answered that way is because I think that we in our culture, both men and women, are saying note to trust us when we're trained not to test who we really are. So, like the messages that I bought at the kid that I still struggle with as a woman like stay small Smith, Stay quiet, Stay pretty, Say whatever. So in our particular clips of boys will get the opposite message, right. Don't be vulnerable. Don't cry. Don't be all of these things. And so we get this message is about what we're supposed to be a not supposed to be. So we stopped trusting who we are. I think we really forget who we are when we learn how to please. And so sobriety for me has just been one long returning to you. I really woo that's what untamed it about when I slice myself, even when it's different than what everybody else wants for me. When I myself, when I speak and I tell the Children confidence, we just want you to live with confidence and what the word confidence means. It comes out that the roots of confidence or with Khan and Finn, with Fidelity, right, living with fidelity to stuff disappoint as many people as you have to, so you don't ever have to disappoint yourself. Night abandoned everybody else's expectations of you so that you don't have to abandon yourself. Um, and a beautiful thing about that is people who are listening carefully. We'll hear that say, Oh, isn't that being selfish? And that's ridiculous, because the suis beautiful version of me when I give that to the world that is exactly what the world always wants me like. It means for me when I give myself permission to live as my true self. I gripped permission to everyone in my circle to do the same, and that's all anybody wants is to be able to exist as who they are. That's freely. That's possible. So the best thing we can do for each other this still live with confidence so that everybody else gets that magic key to do the same thing. Do you prefer the word confidence to trust? I noticed that I use the word trust. Learn to trust yourself and you shaped it to confidence. Or is there Ah, Is there a significant difference between those is It's semantics, or is there something at the core of that? I think I'm just a word nerd, and I just love when I figure out what words me and I just love to throw them into interviews. So I found smart. Well, I love it. It's a It's a better work. It's a better word. It's about things like the roots of confidence come with con. And if I didn t o e 00 it's so poetic. Lenin, um, there's a I want to shift and talk specifically about untamed. And it obviously there's like what you've just been sharing is the guts of the book. And there's analogy that you open with a story that you open with around about the Cheetah. And, um, it's so powerful. And, uh, I've got the audio book and you you did your own stunts. You read your own audiobook. Um, I'm wondering if you can share that story because I feel like it is such a great on ramp to the book. Thank you. Uh, So, yes, I am a few years. It all had taken the girls. My daughter's Teoh a safari, but and it was around the time where I was just feeling very stuck. And, um, you just have this, like, longing inside of me for something more, something different. So longing, you know, And, uh and we went in to see this event of the at the park called the Cheetah Run. And we were lined up on the side with all the sweaty families, you know, and this zookeeper walks out and she's holding the lease of a from the Labrador. And I was like, OK, like if she tells my kid, this isn't Tina, it's over. Your, uh this isn't many. This is our cheetah. Tabatha, his best friend and way raised many alongside top of a cheetah two team her. So everything that many does Tabatha wants to do. So now you're gonna watch many run the tap that TT race and then tell the trouble with it. So we watch the lab run the cheetah run, then talent and the cheetah comes out of her cage. And she is just just yeah, him longest. And who? Muscles are just like, rippling underneath her for and chic winds up at the starting line This jeep takes off and the jeep has this dirty pink bunny tried to it. And of course, over time Tabatha has been trained to chase this dirty pink Benny. Right? So the gym takes off time to take self after it. She's done in the two seconds she crossed the finish line. So keep your throughs or the steak and should just like Naz and NYSE it in the dirt and all the people are talking. And while all the people were clapping, I just kept looking at tied with it and thinking, Oh my God, like all day long this wild, powerful, fierce animal chase is this dirty pink bunny down this well war narrow path that has been created for her listening to the uplands of sweaty strangers. This is what she thinks her life iss night. It felt very familiar to me. And that while does your keeper of this little girl raises her hand and she says, um, is top that sand just have with Mr Wilde and a zookeeper cents. No, honey, She was born in captivity. This is she's safe here. This is a good life for type of this. She doesn't know any different. Then my daughter Tish She, like, uh poked me and she said, Mommy, look at Tabatha And they had put Tabatha in this other field for the Q and A and Tabatha chase like her. She should changed like far away from us in this field. Her posture had completely changed. She was pacing the periphery of the field. She was looking beyond it hurts, looked regal and and scary and tissue owes money. She too wild again And I just sat there, sat there and thought, OK, if a while cheetah can be tend away from herself tend to forget who she is, so can a woman, Right? And I started thinking that all of the freakin dirty pink bunnies that I had been trained to case my entire life, you know, be a pretty big smile. Big right, I'm be pleasing. Be grateful. And then I thought, Oh my God, If the crazy thing is this, if you asked that wild animal we could talk to that wild animal, right? What would she say? What? What would she explain? She would say I just feel like it was all supposed to be more beautiful than this. I can just just feel this longing to, like, sleep underneath star filled skies to chase and hunt and kill, right? She she knows all of that. She's never seen the wild, but she knows it. And that's the same with us, right? Like we have this longing inside of us that it was all supposed to be more beautiful this But we look outside of ourselves and always see our frickin labs chasing freaking pink bunnies, and we think that's all there is, which is why it is so important to return to our imaginations, right? This is what I believe. I believe that if we only look at what is outside of ourselves for what is possible, we will only get what we've always gotten. But in our imagination, in our imagination, it's not where we go to escape reality. It's where we go to discover alternate reality, right? It's where we go to find the thing that we were meant to give birth to on this earth. So after that day, I just said that first of all, that's the perfect freakin metaphor from the Book of Untamed. That's what I'm starting with. And, um, I just wanted to be somebody who remembered her wild and who just stopped chasing the concerts Dirty Ping by ice. To say that the Internet crowd is going wild would be the most mild way that I could possibly frame it. Um, Gunther and Don Warren and Jennifer and Joanna. Um, people from every corner of the globe are Some are in tears. Some are saying that's my truth. Some are saying, um I try to look after myself, but I'm so that it feels so selfish. This is helping. Some are saying that the g d cheetah dang it and, um and Gunther asks, Where can, um, he or she want to be presumptive or they get the book? Of course I'm gonna Yes, thank you for saying he sheer they chase. You're such a good guy. Your Honor. That's really great. Thank you for that. I, um thank you. That is so I a love to share something, but that that just touched ah, part of me that I don't really talk about, but the I wrote a also a best selling book in the fall last year called Creative Calling and, um, The Process. It was my first book with words. I'm usually a picture book guy says my first book of words and ah, as someone who's not new to this and like it can't be this hard and then part way through your like this is 10 times harder than I thought it would ever be. And, um, I made a spreadsheet of every single example in the book and of every Pronin on every page. This was like a 10,000 maybe not 11,000 lines spreadsheet to make sure that it was balanced and to make sure that it was equitable and to make sure that the the representation And I'll tell you the first before. And I have to give my wife, Kate a ton of credit. Um, because she helped me with this as the spreadsheet person of the two of us. But it was fascinating because what I found in doing this work and shared it with my publisher but had shared previous drafts with the publisher. Um, and the sentiment was I said I was starting on this endeavour, and they're like, Oh, my Gosh, that's gonna take so much time. I was like, Yeah, but there's no way I'm not doing it without this. I need to know. And they said, Well, when you read it, it feels balanced, right? And I was like, Yeah, feels pretty balanced, but I'm doing the work and you can imagine this is a 300 page book is not It's not an insignificant amount of work tracking every pronoun and every example gender. The outcome of the example was a positive negative and what felt great to every person I had read the book that was in the sort of the inner circle because I asked this question was unbelievably out of balance towards all of the conditioning that we were raised with. And it was such an unbelievable, uh, eye opener for me and three and five trips through the work to change and adapt and modify and think. Outside of the conditioning was some of the most powerful and helpful work that I've ever done. And I can't go back e think the stuffs all around me. But every time I hear, feel something and you caught there was a second was like he or she or they There wasn't. It was like he she they So I can't say my conditioning is completely unwired yet, but I don't know why I felt compelled to share that. But it is. It's a I think he felt compelled to share it because it's the most important story that we can hear. I I am so ah, heartened by that story. I never hear ever, ever hear that. I will be telling that story everywhere. I feel like that is what it takes. That is what it takes. Because what sounds right to us will always be status quo. Right? And status quo is inbounds, but it takes and like, it takes people who care for no reason, like you don't have to care. That is, um, the example that I will give people when they ask me, what does Allah ship in art look like? That is it. Thank you. I cannot wait to tell you that story. I'm a huge, huge admire of Appiah's. Well, please say hello to her way. Have the soccer history together. Um, but what? What a champion as well. I would love it if you'd share that with her. and I don't feel like the work is done. But, you know, that was one of my questions is like, How How can, um, we be better allies and maybe maybe answered it without even have media? Haven't ask it. I mean, it's such a beautiful example. I don't know what we could say. That's better. It's just questioning everything, pushing everything. And also, I think it's almost chaste. Like if things that were saying don't sound weird, we're not pushing it far enough like what you said was like he she or they like if it doesn't feel that we are artists and we're supposed to be, ah, head. We're supposed to be saying things that sound weird now and five years from now will be as normal as it comes, right? I mean, just I think we're gonna get to the point. I really, really think we're going to get to the point where all of the ideas we have about gender or just they all seem ridiculous. You know, I think we're gonna this idea what we have now that certain personality characteristics are gendered is going to seem like archaic insanity, right? Like we're going to get to the point where we're not trying to raise, like, bad ass brave girls or, like, sensitive met like we're just gonna have this huge bucket of human characteristics, right? And we're gonna look at our babies and we're going to say, OK, what do we do to make sure that this human being gets the permission to express this person's entire humanity? Right. And nothing's gonna be gendered in the future. But it takes this kind of pushing and pushing and pushing. And by the way, what you didn't mention is that that's money, Okay, It's money that that you have to say to your team, going to know we're going to stop, and we're gonna do what All that is is dollar signs, dollar signs, and that's what you have to put online in order to do the work well in this arena. So anyway, no, it does it also. Another thing about it harkens back to the story that I was asking two of you to share around. Well, these were people that care about you and that you respect and appreciate and admire. And you're you, you know, gone through the trenches with these people and even those people who are like, amazing, they're like, I mean, that's pretty good. It's fine. It's like it's gonna cost time and money and all. And you're like, cool, cool, trust You were doing it anyway. And it's there is that I think it's a bit of continuity with what you said. Like, where Where did that information come? And it's somewhere deep in there. Yeah, um, got a lead with that. Gotta leave without nobody is gonna We're in a different world, and people who are not leading with, um, the truest self were not leading with heart are just not gonna make it like the truth stumps different. You said it before the chief sends different. Um, we get a lot of people asking about the book. Uh, I'm assuming that I'm looking at the Amazon, so that's probably a one area to get it in a world where it's the covert world. Do you have any other place where you wanna send people to get untamed? Which, to my memoir, I don't know how someone writes three memoirs and has every one of them continue to get better and more badass. But anyway, sorry. Where you want to see European? Still people lose the museum. A life chase. I prefer Indies. Okay, I feel like right now just go to look. Go on. Indeed. Bound. Go on. Untamed dot com We have been working so hard. Untamed book dot com, I think is one of this. We've been working so hard with Indies trying Teoh get as much business to them as we came because we need the bookstores to survive. The bookstores are the hearts of their communities, and we just really need them to be alive after this is over. So go toe untamed book dot com and support your local indie. It's also on audio. It's a really good audio. It's awesome. Hey, everybody, stop looking at planning for a second and look at me. The audiobook is amazing. It's amazing. I love it when people do their own stunts. You in particular. Glennon crushed it So good. Sorry. Now back to you. Yeah. So wherever people get audio books in the air, Amazing in this part to go to your indie bookstore getting get the hard over there or go get the audio or get any book. Yeah, he has a great time, Teoh. Ah, do some of the digital stuff. But truly if you can get the hard copy A that helps authors a ton and it's something special to hold on to it. Um, I I know. Ah, I want to ask one more question before I let you go. Um And I think as humans, we're conditioned to, um, pay attention to ourselves, pay attention to things that are outside of us. And And I'm just doing that in this question, which is I personally talk a lot about there not being a map on that. We have a compass, and the difference between a map and a compass is a compass just points in a direction and a map pretends to show you like, here's the Red X and there's a bunch of dots, and then over here is where the buried treasure. And if you start here and you follow this Redpath, you're gonna end up here and we're sold these maps and these maps, I don't know anybody whose life looks like the map that they were sold. A lot of people have a compass and trying to listen to your compass. There's this NPR article that was written about the book. I seriously so many amazing reviews on the book for a good reason. But you said there is no map. What did you mean? I meant what you mean. It's so wild to me. It's like people write to me all the time in there like I start writing. Yeah, well, they say, I want to start writing and I just I keep writing and I sound like you. I just keep I keep getting to these things that are just about love and like that's because if it's true, it isn't new, right? That's because we're all just like digging to the center of the earth and there's only one center of the earth. So if we're all digging all over the earth, we're still going to get to the same thing in the middle, Right? Like seekers will always discover this. In the end, we try so hard to follow everybody else's directions, and at some point we realize I'm asking other people for directions to places they've never done. Jesus, because like each of nobody's ever landed the life that I've lived, that I'm living like our every life is an unprecedented and unrepeatable external right? Nobody's ever lived. The kind of life that you live that you're living with, your paid in your past and your gifts and your Constitution in your So the only answer, the only answer if we want to live the like singular shooting star of life we were meant to is to throw away the idea that anybody has in that. And thats scary as hell because and figuring out that nobody does that there's like NOAA's behind the curtain that, like we can't outsource our faith to ministers that we can't out completely outsource our our mental health to therapists that we can't outsource our our our spiritual lives to like, um, female author gurus like we can't outsource ourselves at all. Nobody knows. But the good news is that you always know right, and that's the compass that is. The single greatest gift of my life is figuring out that when I am brave enough to get still and let the snow settle for long enough, I will feel a nudge. I can't know how else to describe it other than like a nudge. It's just like it's not a voice. It's not. It's just like a kind of gravity of knowing what the next thing is. And then the bullshit of it all is that that this knowing will never give you a five year plan, right? It's always just the next right thing at a time, One thing at a time. But the beautiful part of that is that you can get all the way home that way, right? Just the one thing at a time when once you commit to the next thing, it's like a yellow brick road the next thing like that. So, um, so the bad news is that nobody knows The good news is that, you know, thank you for in your own in a way that Onley you could do or that you do better than anybody I've ever read or paid attention to, Uh, show us this beautiful. Um, I don't know. The collision of the hardest things and the best things, um, brewed awful, I think is the way that you've said it so many times and so eloquently, Um, And for those folks out there who have joined late, I have had the amazing privilege to sit down with you. Glenn in, Um, the every book that you write is incredible. This one to me, um, was is transformative. And the timing could not be better. I don't. You know, the universe has a plan to drop this book in a in a way, that, um I can only imagine how hard and weird it is to be talking about your book in a in a pandemic world and knowing that you're an introvert and you're happy to from your home in Florida be doing the book to her. Um, but it is so well timed. Um, the moment in history. Its ah, perfect. Thank you. So thank you so much for being on the show. Um, where else? Woken people up. We've talked about the book. What about you personally? Where do you want to steer people Acklin and oil on? You want to go to your Teoh? Yeah, very No, I didn't even Dumas Mr anymore. Just actually enjoy oil on Instagram. That's where I hang out all the time. You can follow me on Twitter, but I stuck a twitter, so don't bother. Instagram is like you accurate and oil and go to another rising to if you are in a situation right now Where you need some help? Um, just it's the tend to ask for help. You know, we're just working around the clock to get people food. We're not doing big projects right now, so don't write to me about your big project right now. We're trying to do, like diapers and food and lights and rent and all of that. So if you are someone who has found yourself in a place where you could use some help, come on over to together, rising and write to us like loaves and fishes over there. Thank you so much for that work to the world is a better place, because because of you and the team and what you've done 25 million, Um, totally remarkable transform so many lives. And I love you. Do a very good job of sharing the stories that help us understand that this money and your effort goes to a place that matters. So thank you. Ah, hey, to sign off. But I want you to have some of your day back. And thank you so much for showing up as you do. And we in the creed of life community myself personally. So grateful for your work. And you, the human. Please say hi to Abby and the family. And I can't wait to catch the song that you sing every night to your dog tonight. I'll see you during honey. Goodnight, song. Thank you so much.