Nice to meet you.
It is so nice to finally meet you.
Yeah, this is great.
And you're here in person and I appreciate that very much.
Absolutely, are you kidding?
I'd go anywhere to sit with you.
Oh, thanks so much.
Really.
All right so for those of you out there
watching that don't know you, tell everybody what you do.
I'm a writer.
I wrote a book called Untamed, and I'm an activist.
I run a nonprofit that helps hurting kids and women.
And I started writing when I was trying to stay sober.
So I got sober when I was 25.
And I found myself in those recovery meetings
and felt like I was meeting the first honest people I've ever
met in my life.
And that is what I needed is to hear the truth
and tell the truth.
And then I started having babies and I found myself
just dripping with babies.
And I couldn't get to the meetings
and I started to panic.
And one day my sister showed up at my door with a computer.
And she said, I want you to start writing each day.
And I want you to use the voice that you use in those meetings.
And so I started writing and the first time
I saw those letters on a blank sheet of paper
I felt, oh, there she is, there I am.
And I use writing as a way to just tell the truth.
And it helps me stay sober for 20 years.
Yeah, congratulations.
[APPLAUSE]
You started drinking at 10?
Well, yeah it was a tough life.
No, but I actually did become bulimic when I was 10.
So my addiction started very, very early
and just morphed into everything else as addiction
does when you don't get it healed.
Yeah.
And then, so you're married, you have babies.
I do.
And still do.
But you were married to a man, had babies.
Then you meet Abby Wambach, of course the brilliant soccer,
player, and just everything changed in your life?
Yeah, yeah.
I was married to a man.
And I was in a kind of a broken marriage to a really good man.
And that's a tricky place to be because women
are supposed to be grateful for whatever we have, right?
The first time I saw Abby I fell completely in love with her.
And I had never kissed a girl before, right.
This is like completely wild, out of context, for me.
But like so many other parts of my life,
in order to find a relationship, and a love,
and a sexuality, that made me feel comfortable
in my own skin, I just had to go outside of what everyone's
expectations of me had been.
So we fell in love.
We became this blended family.
Craig was just unbelievably gracious
throughout the whole process.
Abby always says he gave the kids permission
to love Abby which was an unbelievable gift.
And Abby became a bonus mom.
And she, I don't know, just watching
her be a stepmother to our kids, I just
think that step parenting is the most scrappy, selfless,
thankless, divine love on Earth.
It is something that should be celebrated more.
I just love Abby.
Yeah, well, and it's apparent.
I mean, you have it seems a great relationship.
I follow you on Instagram.
So I watched--
Oh, you do?
--her try to dance and cheer you up the other day.
Yes.
And I say try to dance, I don't mean to be--
But, I don't know what she was doing.
I don't either.
It was convulsing, a lot of convulsing.
But it did make me laugh.
It did cheer you up, yeah.
Yes.
So before you became an author you were a elementary teacher?
Yes.
And what made you change careers?
Well, I don't have a very romantic story about that.
I mean I became a teacher because it's in my blood.
My parents are both school teachers.
And so I was taught to understand
that the best and the brightest become teachers.
I still feel like I'm a teacher.
I just have a much bigger circle time now.
And I left because I couldn't afford to work anymore.
So when I started having babies I had to pay more for daycare
than I got paid in the classroom.
So I had to leave like so many teachers do,
which is why we should pay teachers a hell of a lot more.
We sure should.
Teachers-- it's crazy we expect them to raise our kids.
I say "our" like I have kids.
But, I mean, I want kids to grow up, and be educated, and learn
kindness, and learn everything that great teachers teach them.
And then we don't pay them enough.
It's ridiculous.
That's right.
I also love how transparent you are about all of your struggles
that you've had in the past.
Or continue to have.
And I think that's what everybody responds to
with your podcasts and when you speak because you really
are honest about, you know, we all have feelings.
Yeah, yeah, it's hard to be honest about who you are
and how you feel.
But it's harder not to be.
Yeah.
Right?
I mean I think that's one of the reasons I fell into addiction.
I had big feelings and I thought I had to numb it all.
I thought it wasn't OK.
But the first-- in a meeting that I went to early on,
I stood up and I said, I'm Glennon,
and I have been sober for a hot minute, and I'm miserable.
And I'm afraid-- It feels like everyone else has some secret
to life that I don't have, because it
looks like it's easier for everyone else
than it feels for me.
Yeah.
And this woman sat next to me and she said,
so the secret to life is not that it's hard
because you're doing it wrong, it's
hard now because you're finally doing it right.
And if there's any secret to life, it's that being human
is not about feeling happy, it's about feeling everything,
right.
So we just talk about, forget feeling happy,
just feel it all, and tell the truth about it.
And that is the only thing I found
that makes life any easier.
Yeah, yeah, and it's hard to feel it all.
All right when we come back, we're
going to talk about your podcast, which
is doing very, very well.
We'll be back.
The book Untamed which I thought I had it here,
and where's the book?
Can someone bring me the book?
Oh, thanks.
[APPLAUSE]
Oh, my God.
[APPLAUSE AND INTERPOSING VOICES]
Am I doing OK?
Oh, that was so nice.
Well, she was upset that you were on the show before her.
So I wanted her to be on the show
at the same time you were on the show.
She has feelings, she has feelings about it, Ellen.
Yeah.
So that's why I wanted her to bring the book out.
OK, so Untamed is a beautiful book.
It's going to be turned into a TV show, right?
Mm hmm.
That's amazing.
And when and where?
Soon and I don't know where.
And it's very strange because someone else
is writing about me.
I'm used to controlling the narrative.
So I showed the first script to Abby
and I said, this character's all wrong, me.
She's a neurotic and dramatic and I don't even
recognize this person.
And Abby said, I think that they're right.
I think it's dead on.
So I had to kind of just let go.
Wow.
Well because that makes a great TV show.
We'll see.
Yeah.
And so the book inspired the podcast.
And the podcast, how did you come up with the title?
And tell everybody what it's about.
So it's called, We Can Do Hard Things.
And that slogan, we can do hard things, is how I got sober.
My friend, who was a teacher, had it in her classroom.
And I used to walk by it every day just
to give myself a little courage, I guess.
And so I wrote about it in the book.
And We Can Do Hard Things during COVID became a real rally cry.
First responders were writing it on their masks
for their patients, and teachers were writing it
in chalk on the sidewalk.
And so I have a dear friend who, during COVID, started
to do hard things walks with her friends.
So a group of women who had known each other for a decade
would show up on this path and they
would each bring their hard thing,
whether it was about their family or the world,
or their work.
And through these walks they started
to know each other better.
And my friend Allison told me that they had become closer
than they'd ever been before.
And I think it's because they finally stopped faking, right.
And they finally brought to each other
the hard stuff that we were meant to help each other carry.
Yep.
And I think that this is something that we
can bring post COVID, right?
There are some things that we actually
learned during this time that we want to bring with us.
And that is this thing that we can
let go of some of the small talk, and the fakeness,
and just really be honest with each other about how
hard life and relationships and all of it can be.
And it's great.
And each one is a different topic.
But for people-- because I think a lot of people
do struggle with anxiety.
I am honest about I struggle with anxiety.
But what tips do you have for people
who struggle with anxiety?
Oh gosh, well, I am a clinically depressed, clinically anxious,
motivational speaker.
So first of all, if I can be that,
anyone can be anything, right?
I think one thing we can do is really
there's so much stigma around depression and anxiety
but I also have found great gifts from it.
I think we can talk about the gifts
that people who are extra sensitive bunnies bring.
I mean the sensitivity that led me to addiction and depression
is the same sensitivity that makes me a really good artist,
right?
And the fire-- my therapist calls it anxiety
but I call it my fire, that makes
me a little bit sweaty and fearful
also makes me a really good activist.
So I think there are gifts from it
that we should talk more about.
And the little tricks that I've learned over time with anxiety,
one of the things is when I get really anxious it's because I'm
future tripping in my mind.
I'm scared of everything, that what if, what if, what if.
Or I'm obsessing about the past.
And so one of the things I do is to locate and listen.
So I learned that very early on as a kid.
And the first thing I do is try to find something
that I can touch because that grounds me, or something
that I can hear because that grounds me.
So that brings me out of the what if and into the what is.
And what I've learned is that if I come back
to the what is and the right now, I'm always OK.
100% of the time I've been OK in the what is.
And so if I can get myself back to this moment,
I can remember that I've survived
every moment before now.
And one thing at a time, I'll survive every moment to come.
And so that's how I make it through the day.
Well I recommend you read untamed
because it's a beautiful book.
And you can listen to Glennon's new podcast.
It's called We Can Do Hard things
on all podcast platforms.