Hey, it’s Marie Forleo and you are watching MarieTV, the place to be to create a business
and life you love.
Now, if you’ve ever hit rock bottom in your relationships or in your life and wondered
if you had the strength to come back and make it to the other side, this episode is for
you.
Glennon Doyle Melton is a New York Times bestselling author, activist, and creator of the wildly
popular online community, Momastery.
She’s also the founder of Together Rising, a nonprofit that has raised over 4 million
dollars for women and children in crisis.
In her highly anticipated memoir, Love Warrior, Glennon tells the story of her journey of
self discovery after the implosion of her marriage.
Glennon.
Marie.
Oh my God, I’m so excited.
I’m so happy you’re here.
So first of all, congratulations.
You guys, Love Warrior, this is amazing.
I could not put your book down.
I was so excited every single night to come home and read it.
And I had it on my bedside table.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
So let’s start with your story and this concept of brutifal, which I know is core
to your brand.
What does that mean?
Brutifal, ok.
So, well, I guess the first time I figured brutifal out was when I was 10 years old.
So I just kind of was a super sensitive kid and I remember looking out at life and being
like, “Woah, this is like… yikes, like, this is hard and scary and there’s too much
pain here,” and so I decided to drop out of life into addiction, so I became bulimic
when I was 10 years old.
And I think addiction is really just like a hiding place.
Right?
Where sensitive people go to hide from love and pain.
Right?
Or from beauty and the brutality of being human.
So I hid there for a long time and as addictions do, bulimia morphed into alcoholism which
morphed into all the other things.
And it wasn’t until I was 25 years old and sitting on a cold bathroom floor staring at
a positive pregnancy test just shaking from terror and withdrawal and I was so unfit to
be a mother.
You know?
I’d been lost to addiction for 15 years at that point and I just remember thinking
there could not be a worse candidate for motherhood than me on the floor shaking.
And still something about that invitation just…
I’m sorry, about that pregnancy test just read as an invitation to come back to life.
And I remember looking at the… at the little positive sign and thinking, “Oh, I get it.
Like, if I want something this beautiful, if I want to be a mother, then I also have
to take all the brutal stuff.”
Like, if I’m gonna claim the beautiful parts of life then that means I have to show up.
Right?
Like, vulnerable.
I have to show up like without the booze, without the drugs, without all of the crutches
I’ve used.
If I want to be a mother I have to just show up sober as me and that means I’m gonna
have to take all the pain too.
Right, so that’s when I figured out that you can’t have one or the other.
Like, you can’t have the beautiful parts of life and not have the brutal parts of life.
You know, you can’t do what we try to do, which is selectively numb.
Right?
I’ll just numb the pain away, I’ll just make the valleys not so bad.
And you get none of the mountaintops.
Right?
So that’s when I figured life is not either/or.
You know, like, a fully human life is and both.
It’s so brutally hard and it’s also so freaking beautiful.
And the beautiful is just a little teeny bit more powerful than the brutal.
Right?
And that little teeny bit just makes it all worth it.
So one of the main messages in your book is the power of rock bottoms in our lives.
What was the big rock bottom for you that really catapulted the idea to want to write
this book?
Rock bottom is just a second home to me, Marie.
So… so I had my first rock bottom, which was the bathroom floor pregnancy test eviction
from my life as a drunken and bulimic.
Right?
That’s what a rock bottom is to me, it’s like an eviction from your life.
You know, it’s whatever happens that…
there’s a before and after.
You know?
So whether it’s like it’s a diagnosis or it’s an announcement that you… of…
in a marriage.
It’s whatever it is that divides your life into before and after.
So… so the first one was the bathroom floor and the pregnancy test and then the second
one after that first one I got married and had the baby and had 2 more babies and became
this, like… a grown up vertical person that I was just amazed.
Like, an upstanding citizen.
I had got a library card.
Amazing.
Yeah, which was still so terrifying when I think about it.
So I was just kind of going along with life and I started…
I became a writer and I was kind of out there.
I was like… like kind of a relationships expert.
Well, that’s what Amazon said.
So if Amazon says it it’s true, right?
It’s true.
Oh my…
I didn't know that.
So that was really the kind of, the framing of your blog in the beginning.
Right.
Which I never said.
Like, I’ve never said…
I always said I don't know what the hell I’m doing.
Right?
But that’s what Amazon said.
So… but that made it more awkward when, and terrifying when, I was in therapy with
Craig I guess about 10 years into our marriage and Craig revealed to me, I was clueless about
this, but he revealed to me that he had been unfaithful to me our entire marriage.
So in less of a relationship way and more of like a serial one night stand kind of way.
So anyway, that is… that was a big, huge rock bottom for me because it was the most
painful day of my life, I think.
Which is saying a lot.
Because the first time… because I felt evicted from my life again, but the first time when
I was evicted from my life I was a disaster.
Right?
Like, I was a drunk and I was a bulimic and I was on drugs.
So even I was like, “Good call,” like, solid eviction.
You know, like, my life sucks.
So I’ll just take this invitation to become something else.
A good person.
Right, right, right.
Right.
But this second time I was like I’m everything I’ve ever wanted to be now.
Right?
Like I’m sober and I’m sane-ish and I’m happy-ish and I’m a mom and I’m a friend
and I’m a career woman and now?
And I’m a relationships expert.
So how the hell am I going to be that anymore?
Like, I didn't even know my own relationship, you know?
So I just felt like… and I think it’s great, I think because women, we define ourselves
so much by our roles.
Yes.
Right?
So we don't even know who we are at a soul level, we just… we grew up by becoming things.
Right?
I got sober and I’m like, “Oh, I just become stuff.”
Like, I’ve got to become a mom and become a… so when all that stuff gets taken away
from you and you don't know who you are on a soul level, I was paralyzed.
Like, I didn't…
I did not know what to do with myself in the morning.
Like, I didn't know.
If I’m not a mom, if I’m not… you know, my kids fell apart, all of it.
And this was like 2 weeks before my first book came out, so then I had to hit the road
and…
Put the smile on.
Right.
Was that extraordinarily difficult?
Like, that internal struggle of knowing that you’d produced this one piece of work and
you wanted to see it out in the world and feeling inside like everything has just crumbled.
Yeah.
Yes, but here’s the good news, when you’ve been to rock bottom before you also know the
power of it.
Ok?
So the thing about rock bottom is… and pain and being evicted from your life, is that
you live in the emotional spot of it and the emotional spot of it tells you, well, everything’s
over and this is the darkest time in my life and nothing is ever going to be good again.
But then you have this wise side of yourself that’s been there before and knows that
rock bottom, what it really is is a crisis.
Ok?
So we all want to avoid crisis, but what crisis literally means is to sift.
Ok, so like a child who goes to the beach and lifts up the sand and watches all the
sand fall away hoping that there’s treasure left over.
Yeah.
So that's what crisis does.
It sweeps into our life and it forces us to hold up our life and let everything fall away
that we thought we needed so that we can find out what’s left over.
Right?
Like, what can never be… and that’s why… that’s why people who have been to rock
bottom are the people who are wise and kind and brave and able to laugh at the days to
come because these are the people who know that the way this life is designed is that
the only things you need are the very things that can never be taken from you.
Right?
So fear just… so it’s sad for me that I’ve been to these individual rock bottom
and marriage rock bottom, but oh my God.
I wouldn’t change any of it.
Because I’m just not freakin’ scared anymore.
That’s amazing.
You wrote about “I cannot save my marriage but I can save myself.”
Was that just like a download you got?
Was that a mantra you kept repeating or was it just like a realization?
You’re just like no, no, no.
This is how I must move forward.
Yeah, it was a download.
I love that.
I love that term.
Because I say that all the time, it feels… wisdom often feels like a download.
So I was in the van, in my freaking minivan, after I got out of therapy and learned that
my minivan life was over.
Right?
I was like, “I hate this minivan.
I need a freaking sports car.”
Right?
So I remember getting in the minivan and I remember downloading this whatever it is,
wisdom, that told me, “Ok.
I am not what just happened to me in there but I might be what I do next.”
Right?
It was like this moment of, oh my God.
It’s all about next.
Right?
So I remember thinking…
I mean, and there was all the grief that I went through.
I mean, I think after you get news like that there’s a shock period.
So the shock period came right away.
I had that wisdom and then the shock period came.
And the shock period is actually amazing.
Like, I think of it as a grace period because that’s when I… the grief hadn’t sunk
in and I was just, like, gathering what I needed for winter.
It was like the fall happened in the therapy and then it was like winter was coming and
I knew it.
Because when grief takes over…
It’s like the Game of Thrones.
Winter is coming.
Prepare!
So for me it was like call my sister, rally the troops.
Like, get…
I remember going to my computer and, like, writing down everything that I know.
Like questions that I can’t answer.
What’s gonna happen to my marriage?
What’s gonna happen to my children?
What’s gonna happen to my life?
Questions I can answer.
Am I loved?
Yes.
Have I survived rock bottom before?
Yes.
Do I have the people that I need who love me around me?
Yes.
So everything was like what I can answer, what I can’t answer.
And I did, I called my sister.
She came.
She was on the road the next day to get there.
My parents came.
But, yeah, I remember thinking this…
I don't know if this will be a redemption story for my marriage, but this is sure as
hell going to be a redemption story for me.
Right?
Like I’m gonna use this crap… because pain, I mean, we don't do well with pain.
Right?
Like, we think pain is something to be fixed or something to be numbed and the second we
feel pain we think we did something wrong.
Yes.
Right?
We think, like, it’s a mistake.
And we need to get over it immediately.
Get over it.
Get rid of it.
Numb it.
Like, give it to somebody else.
Yup.
Hot potato.
Like, every time someone is unkind to you it’s just because they didn't know how to
be still with their pain.
Right?
So they just passed it on to you real quick.
But I don't know.
I mean, I’m someone who avoided pain my whole life.
Right?
I started avoiding pain when I was 10 years old.
And now what I’ve learned and what I knew to do with that… with that pain is pain
is like… it’s holy, man.
It’s like joy.
You know?
It’s not something to be numbed, it’s something to be felt and then to use.
You know, pain can become… if you can be still with it, pain can be transformed into
this fuel, you know, that you use to get your work done down here.
So… but you have to be still with it.
Right?
You can’t easy button your way out of it with the million things that I always want
to easy button my way out of it.
Right?
It’s like… it’s like an alchemy.
Like you have to sit inside of it.
So that’s what I did, I used my pain to save myself.
Let me ask you a question from a practical standpoint because I think this is something
that a lot of people don't really talk about.
They don't really have the opportunity to have a conversation.
You were already somewhat of a public figure.
I mean, you had your book, you had a blog, you had a growing audience, and then you get
this news.
Was it hard for you to think about going to write to your audience and discerning how
much you could reveal right then and there?
And thinking like I need to process this for myself first?
Was that hard?
Oh, yeah.
So I didn't do a lot.
And I used used to, like, living out loud.
Like living out loud.
Which is fine when you’re telling your own story.
Yeah.
And also because I’m usually writing from like, we call it writing from a scar and not
a wound.
You know, I mean, I’m writing about myself 5 years ago or whatever, but in that time
was so different.
Like, I remember thinking, “Oh, I can’t process this the way I used… because somebody
else is… this is not just about me.
This is about my husband, this is about my children, this is our story.”
So I told enough, I always say, like, try to be brave enough to tell your own story
but kind enough not to tell anyone else’s.
Right?
So I told enough so that people knew that I was, like, having a hard time.
Right?
That… but I was actually secretly writing every morning.
Because that’s how I process, right?
So I was in my cloffice because I didn't have a room of my…
I didn't have a room.
So I’d go into the dark cloffice and write every single morning and that…
my editor, who is a dear friend, 6 months in said, “How are you doing?
What’s… how are you doing?”
And I didn't have it in me to explain what was going on so I just sent her a few pages
of what I’d been writing.
And she wrote back and was like, “Oh my God.
You know you have to publish this, right?”
And I was like, “No.
I don't know that at all, actually.”
And so that’s what started this.
And so then it was like I was like in this, you know, moral dilemma.
Like should I do it?
Should I not do it?
And then at one point she was like, “Well, you know you’re a writer so if you don't
you’re gonna have to write something else.”
And I was like, “Ok, let’s just publish it then.
I don't wanna write something else.”
And then I figured I was sitting with Craig one night, we were talking about all of it,
like the possibility of publishing it, and it was like why wouldn’t I?
Ok, what would be the main reason not to tell this story?
And the only reason is shame.
The…
I tried to come up with a bunch of other ones.
Right?
But the bottom line was that I was ashamed.
Like I was in this marriage and whatever the stories we tell ourselves.
Like I wasn’t enough and he… and I’m a fraud and my family’s a fraud.
Like, all the stories I was telling and it all comes down to shame.
And, Marie, for me, the only thing that I know as a recovering addict is that shame
is the kiss of death.
Right?
Like shame is not true.
Right?
It’s a lie and it tells us that our experience is different than everyone else’s and that
we’re bad and that… and shame, I have to check my shame levels every day like diabetics
check their insulin.
You know, that’s why I write because the second something feels dark and scary that’s
what I have to get it out.
Because truth, it feels scary on the inside and then you get it out and it’s just…
What’s the big deal?
Yeah, it’s nothing.
And then everybody goes, “Me too, me too,” and it goes away.
Yeah.
So really the question for me and for Craig was like is shame true or is it not?
Because there’s no… that’s a yes or no question.
Right?
It’s not like no there’s no shame, but for you because you’re an alcoholic, but
sex shame.
That’s real.
No, it’s not true.
Like, this stuff is… is heavy and it’s scary because we don't talk a lot about sex.
We talk a lot about sex, just in bullcrap… in ways that aren’t real.
Right?
In ways that are completely unrealistic and this is actually another question I want to
talk about because I felt such…
my shoulders relaxed and I was so relieved when you were telling the story about, you
know, being with this man that you loved and obviously you guys had experienced a lot,
but this person, feeling repulsed by him and like you didn't want to have sex.
And I wanted to ask you, because I talk to so many girlfriends about this who absolutely
love the husbands despite the state of their relationship whether there’s infidelity
or not.
They’re in a marriage, they’re committed to each other, and yet they don't want to
have sex.
I mean, it’s something, I’ve talked about this on the show a little bit, sometimes I
have so much trouble staying in my feminine.
And I’m a person who’s really in my body.
So I was curious about your journey, especially going through the forgiveness that has to
come after infidelity, but then being able to get yourself turned on again enough for
you to be able to be intimate with Craig.
Was that difficult?
Yeah, so it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.
So it took like, I don't know, 18 months to even consider.
I mean, that’s the thing, this process takes so long.
I mean, here’s what I think happened to me, what I figured out in therapy because
I went back to therapy for the billionth time during this time.
Because, you know, you have to dive into it.
If you’re gonna get the gifts of rock bottom you have to, like, dive the hell into it.
You have to go straight towards whatever pain you would prefer to run away from.
So I went back into therapy and what we figured out in therapy was that I had all kinds of
body issues still, right?
Which I kind of knew.
I mean, I became bulimic when I was 10 and I’ve struggled with body image and body
stuff forever.
So, like, I used to use food to numb, now I exercise too much.
It’s like I can’t freaking figure it out.
You know?
I will die not figuring it out.
Most of us.
I mean, you’re not alone with that.
I mean, almost every woman regardless of her size or shape, it does not matter.
You know, we were talking about this off camera, sometimes Elsa and I will talk about this,
and how, you know, nuts we can make ourselves.
It’s exhausting.
It is exhausting.
It’s so freaking annoying.
And it’s because we’re poisoned.
Right?
So I used to think, “Oh, I’m broken.
What’s wrong with me?”
Well, it’s because, you know, we get messages every freaking day from the time we’re zero
to now saying, you know…
Beauty looks this way.
We can be successful… women can be successful if they’re beautiful, and this is the one
way that you need to look beautiful.
And so what you have to do is you have to spend your entire life becoming smaller and
smaller and smaller in voice and in being.
Like, just… if you could just almost disappear, that would be perfect.
That would be perfect.
It’d be great!
But if you can’t disappear just shh.
Right?
And take…
so anyway.
The interesting thing that I learned in therapy is that… so if we’re trinities, right,
we’re body, mind, and spirit, which I think we are, then the healthy… the healthiest
of us live out lives of the mind, lives of the spirit, and lives of the body.
Right?
Physical lives.
But women and girls, we get shamed so early for our bodies and we get so many confusing
messages about our bodies that what actually takes place is it’s almost like we vote
our bodies off the island.
Right?
Like we’re like I’m just going to live in this mind and feeling and sometimes spirit
space, but this stuff?
Like… because we’re objectified.
Right?
So we don't even care how we feel, we care how we look.
Like, we don't care what we desire, we care that we’re desired.
We are constantly objectified so our… so of course our bodies would become objects
even to us.
So we’re not living out this life, we’re not feeling.
We’re just… so that’s what happened to me.
I voted my body off the island and so that’s why sex for me feels like I’m being used.
Because I’m not… this isn’t even me.
Like, I don't know what this is, I’ve been shaping it into this thing that is as acceptable
as… but then I’m angry about it.
Right?
There’s a part of me that’s really pissed, that knows that I should be doing something
different with my body and feeling differently about it and caring how I feel instead of
how I look and caring what I desire and what I want instead of being wanted.
So… so my therapist and I figured, she said we need to have a reunion.
Like, we need to, like, vote your body back on the island.
And I remember saying, “That sounds really hard.
Do you have another pill?”
And she goes, “No, we’re gonna do the work.
We’re gonna do the work, Glennon.”
So I ended up in yoga.
So, Marie, this yoga thing freaking saved my life because there’s like a bunch of
stuff you have to do before the sex.
Right?
Like, you can’t just be in your body if you’re someone who’s lived in your mind
your whole life.
I mean, I started reading obsessively when I was 3, then I became bulimic, then, I mean,
my whole life has been a retreat into my mind.
Right?
So when you say I’m someone who lives in my body, I can tell that about you.
I’ve always been able to tell that.
That is not me.
Right?
I’m just not even here.
So what would happen during sex is I would be like planning dinner.
And I’d be like, “Is this… are we done?
Like, are you done?”
Are you done yet?
No.
So… so I had to practice in yoga.
Like, I had to practice…
I remember sitting there and being like, “Oh…” like, they would tell me to move and they
would say something.
I remember being about balance one time and they were like, “Push in with your leg in
the front and push in with your leg in the back.
That’s how balance happens.
It’s 2 opposing forces pushing in on an object.”
And I remember being like, “Oh my God.
I thought you became more balanced by eliminating pressure.
So you’re saying pressure keeps us grounded.
Like, these pressures in our lives, like love and family and friends, this is what’s,
like, keeping me grounded.”
It was like this downloading of, like, “Oh my God, my body is teaching my mind.”
That’s great.
Body is teaching mind, that’s crazy.
Like, I could have this whole life of the body, which is, of course, what we have to
get to at sex.
Right?
We have to be fully present and let our bodies take over.
So it’s still a process for me and sex still isn’t easy for me.
I don't think it’s easy for most of us.
I know it’s gotten harder as I’ve gotten older, but I love talking about this again
because it’s something that we don't get a chance to talk about.
We don't get a chance to talk about publicly and there’s so much shame around it.
So thank you for entertaining that question for me and for sharing that.
You know, there was something in the book that you wrote about when you were digging
deeper into the Bible about the idea that women are helpers.
Tell us about the discovery that you made with the Hebrew word ezer and what that means.
Yeah, so like sex, religion is something that I’ve struggled with for a long time.
So I’m…
I’d say I’m like a God freak.
Like, I’m obsessed with God even when I was just, like, just drunk all the time.
I just felt like there’s this force loving me and holding me.
I always felt held, you know?
And I’m a Sunday school teacher.
I’m like a church lady.
But I’m always, like, pissed about church too because, I don't know, probably because
of the messages to women.
You know, in the Christian church just make me crazier.
And so… so I remember going through… when I was going through the separation, I was
at church and this woman walked up to me and she said… this is what the Christian ladies
say when they’re gossiping about you.
They’re like, “So, we were talking about you at prayer group.
And everyone’s just really praying for you and Craig.
We’ve requested prayers.”
And I’m like, “Oh, my God.
Just tell me that you’re gossipping.”
Ok?
So… so she goes, “We just want to remind you that, you know, you are here to help Craig
through this time.
You were given to Craig as a helper.”
So this is a Christian thing that we’re told that the word ezer, that God uses to
describe Woman, means helper.
Ok, so that’s what I was taught as a child.
God made man and then God man a helper.
Ok?
So that’s nice and helpful.
Not.
So… right.
So that has always just pissed the living hell out of me but it’s scary to raise your
hand in church.
Right?
So I quit going to church after that woman said that to me.
Because I thought, “Oh, ok, so now I’m not only supposed to deal with this infidelity
and all this crap.
I’m supposed to help him through it because…”
Not so much.
Right.
So I’ll just skip all the other things that I thought during that time.
So I quit for a while.
So I remember sitting in my…
I had just got into this breathing class, which was so amazing.
This woman…
I was having all these, like, spiritual experiences that were kind of making me doubt a lot of
things that I’ve been taught in church.
And so I… this woman that I had been talking to kept saying go to the source.
Like, you need to get rid of all the middlemen between you and God.
Right?
You need to just start going to the source.
And that kept going back to me in my head and I came home one night and so I went, I
picked up my Bible, which I hadn’t picked up for a while because I just was so mad about
all of it, and I looked up the word that God used to describe woman and then I started
researching myself.
Right?
I got on the internet and I got on a bunch of, like, really reputable sites and started
learning.
So, Marie, interestingly enough it turns out that ezer doesn’t friggin’ mean helpful…
helper.
Ok?
Ezer means warrior.
Right?
Ezer means strong and benevolent.
Right?
So ezer is used in the Bible to describe really, really strong military forces, God herself,
and woman.
So can you just tell me how from strong benevolent warrior they got helper?
Right?
Wishful thinking.
Like, it’s a… because it was a bunch of men at a table they decide they’re like,
“Well, we have to freaking get the laundry done.
Ok?
So we’re just gonna say it means helper.”
That’s why you have to be at the table.
That’s why there has to be women at every single table because if you’re not at the
table you’re on the menu.
Yeah.
Right?
So that just changed everything to me, man.
I was like, “Oh, this is not like…
God put me here as, like, a freaking love warrior.”
That’s where love warrior came from.
Like, what God cares about is peace and love and beauty and caring for hurting people.
And so God put woman here as someone who cares about peace and love and beauty and caring
for hurting people.
This leads us exactly where I wanted to go next, which is sistering.
There’s two more things I want to cover before we wrap up, but sistering is something
I saw you post about on Facebook and I loved it.
Can you share a little bit about your philosophy of sistering?
Yeah.
So it’s this idea that life gets hard sometimes, gets really heavy, and what do we do with
that.
So there’s this term in carpentry, so what carpenters do is they build.
Right?
And they… the building block of carpentry is the joist.
And so joist is just a corner.
I don't know if this is right, but whatever.
I like it.
Keep going.
So joist, it’s a corner.
And so what sometimes what happens is that there’s too heavy of a load on top of the
joist and so it starts to weaken.
And so when the joist starts to weaken the carpenters bring another board to the left
of the joist to shore it up.
And if that doesn't strengthen it enough the carpenters bring in another board to the right
of that board.
And then it’s so solid with a board to the left and the board to the right that it can
handle any kind of load.
And so that process is called sistering, which I feel like is the most perfect description
of how I’ve gotten through life.
I can’t even.
Like, we think...
like sometimes life just gets too heavy.
Like the load on us gets too… and the mistake we make is to think it’s a mistake.
Right?
We think, “Oh my God, I did something wrong.”
But I think life gets too heavy and too hard because it’s supposed to.
Right?
Because when it gets too heavy that’s when we have to call for a sister to the left and
we have to call for a sister to the right and that’s the best part of life.
It’s not getting through it so perfectly and… it’s needing people and being needed.
Yeah.
Right, so I just want my whole life to just be a dance between being sistered and sistering.
And the best part is you don't have to, like, say the right thing or do the right thing
or bring the right thing to be a good sister.
You just have to show up and just stand there and be strong.
That’s my whole plan.
Which we can do.
Yeah, I can stand there.
I loved that.
I really… that video brought me to tears.
It was awesome.
And speaking of sistering, I was so, so honored and so excited that we got a chance to play
together earlier this year with The Compassion Collective.
So I know so many people in our audience loved being a part of that campaign and loved being
a part of the collective.
So I was curious if you have any updates for us because I know everybody would love to
hear.
Yeah, I do.
First of all, thank you to your community, you guys are an amazing army of love warriors.
You really are.
So, yeah, I mean, The Compassion Collective, this is this idea that, I mean, I guess when
you figure out that all of the magic in your personal life happens when you rush towards
the pain instead of away from it, you kind of take that to the universal and you think,
“Oh, my God.
Like, what if I rushed towards the pain of the world instead of turning away from it?
Right?
Like, what if heartbreak, what breaks my heart, is actually not something to be numbed or
avoided or be silent about either?
What if what breaks my heart is a message to me?
Like, is a wake up?
Is like a shining arrow that is pointing me directly towards my purpose?
Right?
Because that’s what we’re freaking here to do.
Yes.
That’s it is to, like, heal ourselves and heal the world.
And you don't heal yourself completely before you heal the world.
Yes.
That’s the other thing people think, like, I’ll just wait till I’m done then I’ll
get started.
Well, good luck.
Ok?
Because no, that’s never gonna happen.
It’s just this constant of both.
So when we figured that out we thought, alright, we’re just going to… what breaks our heart,
man?
What… this year, what is…?
And so the refugees, of course.
We have…
I have this friend Amy who I work with and she’s… her heart for the refugees is so
huge.
So then the best thing you can do when your heart breaks for something is assume that
other peoples’ are going to also because we’re all exactly the same.
Right?
So then the best thing you can do is just invite people into the story.
So that’s what we do with The Compassion Collective.
So it was you and Brené and Liz and Rob and Cheryl and then this year we had Valerie and
Laverne Cox too.
And, God, I don't know, it was the best thing in the world.
But, I mean, I’m a writer so I just write the freaking story.
Right?
So, I mean, we all have these gifts.
I think writing is a gift for me.
And the only use for it is service.
Right?
It’s like what are we gonna do?
Where are our gifts gonna take us?
It’s always gonna take us right to the service lane.
Right?
It’s not a mystery, that’s why anyone doing anything awesome always ends up in the
same river.
Right?
And all the cool people are there.
Right?
Everyone awesome is in that river, like in the service river.
So this, I don't know, I think we’re up to like 2 and a half million dollars for the
refugees.
The best part of The Compassion Collective and the love flash mobs is that no one’s
allowed to give more than 25 dollars so it just creates this feeling of community and,
you know, it totally dispels the idea that you have to be, like, rich to be a giver.
Absolutely.
Because giving isn’t about how much you give, it’s about what changes inside of
you when you do it no matter how much it is.
So these efforts are not, you know, it’s not just for the refugees, it’s for… it’s
for us.
And also for the…
I love that for this particular campaign that it was about homeless youth in America as
well.
I thought that was a really beautiful component.
And that’s the biggest update we have now.
So just amazing things are going on right now in 16 different cities all with homeless
shelters who are… or homeless shelters or programs who are serving youth.
So we’ve learned so much, one of which is youth homelessness is the fastest growing
population of homeless people in America.
Also the LGBTQ community is the largest growing population of that homeless group because…
because of a lot of reasons mainly being rejection from family.
Ok?
So… so that makes me want to, like, stick a knife in my eyeball.
Right?
That makes me want to explode because for so many reasons.
And so what that tells me is that’s where I need to be.
Right?
Yeah.
So… so now we’re just in it, man.
We’re just like…
I mean, just creating all of these programs for these LGBTQ… we’ll give you all the
updates too.
We’re working on them right now.
We’ll put links too below the show.
Just so you guys have them.
Yeah, but what’s better on earth than, like, seeing some kids who have been rejected from
family and being like we’ll be your family.
It was… it’s such a beautiful thing and I’m so excited to continue and to bring
the work to even more people and to see how much more goodness we can bring to the world.
Glennon, you are amazing.
Thank you for the work that you're doing.
Thank you for this beautiful book and for making the time to come on the show.
I adore you.
I adore you too.
Thank you for you and your work and thank you for trusting me with your people.
Now Glennon and I would love to hear from you.
What’s the single biggest insight that you’re taking away from this conversation today?
Leave a comment below and let us know.
Now, as always, the best conversations happen after the episode over at MarieForleo.com,
so go there and leave a comment now.
And when you’re there, be sure to sign up and become an MF insider, that means you’re
just gonna join our email list.
And the moment you do you’ll get access to a powerful audio I created called How to
Get Anything You Want.
You’re gonna love it.
You’ll also get access to some exclusive content and special giveaways and insights
from me that I don't share anywhere else.
Stay on your game and keep going for your dreams because the world needs that special
gift that only you have.
Thank you so much for watching and I’ll catch you next time on MarieTV.
Oh, yeah.
Oh snap.
Damn.
Smack it, smack it, damn.
In the air.
Oh, you think I don't have that level of coordination like that?
Oh yeah.
I know how to do book choreography better than anybody else.