Culture
Magic Lessons Ep. 209: “Show Up Before You’re Ready” featuring Glennon Doyle Melton
In this season finale of Magic Lessons, host Elizabeth Gilbert engages in a heartfelt conversation with author and activist Glennon Doyle Melton about courage, creativity, and the transformative power...
Magic Lessons Ep. 209: “Show Up Before You’re Ready” featuring Glennon Doyle Melton
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The End
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Hi everyone and welcome to Magic Lessons,
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a podcast produced by MaximumFon.org.
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I'm Elizabeth Gillor, and last year I wrote this book
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called Big Magic, Creative Living Beyond Fear.
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But even when I was finished with the book,
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I was definitely not finished with the topic
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because I'm still as much as ever fascinated
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with the intricacies of the creative process
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and how we find our way through that strange journey,
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the obstacles we meet along the way,
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and the joy of what we ultimately create.
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And it is through my desire to keep having that conversation
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that this, the Magic Lessons podcast, was born.
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So here we are, season two, and we are back,
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back with more real conversations with real people,
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amateurs and experts.
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This season we will be meeting poets and novelist,
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dancers, photographers, comedians,
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and whether they're ready or not.
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Me and my friends are going to help them figure out
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how to shake off their fear, get unstuck,
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and start making stuff.
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You know why?
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Because I think they are ready.
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So let's go.
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So wow, everybody.
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Today is the season finale of the Magic Lessons podcast season two.
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And there's this word that keeps arising for me
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as I reflect on these last eight episodes.
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And that word is courage.
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These eight creators who we met on the season
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are so courageous.
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Joe Keith and Cecilia, Colleen, Penelope, Britta, and Hope.
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It took extraordinary courage for each one of them
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to write the essay that they wrote to try to get my attention.
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It took an even bigger amount of courage for them
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to actually hit send and submit it.
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And then it took courage for them to come out in this public forum
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and share how hard it is for them to create
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and why it matters and why it's sacred and why it's essential
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who they are without it, who they are with it.
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And it took a ton of courage for them to report back
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to tens of thousands of listeners about it.
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So I just want to send out a special love message
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to my very brave team of creators this season.
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Thank you.
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I admire you.
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Your courage has inspired me and it will continue
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to serve all of you well throughout life
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as well as making other people braver,
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which again is not the primary reason
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that we do our creative work.
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The primary reason that we do it is for what it illuminates
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within us, but one of the many secondary benefits
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is that your courage of expression makes it easier
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for other people to find theirs.
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And so thank you to all of you.
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You're wonderful and I love you.
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And that subject on courage brings me to a special guest today,
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Glenin Doyle Melton.
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So what we do here on the Magic Lessons podcast
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is at the end of every season,
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we started this last year with our dear friend,
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Bernet Brown.
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I bring on one last special guest
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and we just do what I call a benediction,
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which is going to be a long and free form conversation
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about sort of all the issues that came up this season
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as a way of closing out all the discussions
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that we've been having.
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Glenin is one of my favorite people in the entire world.
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She's an author, a speaker, a blogger,
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an activist, a mother.
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I consider her my sister.
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She's the author of an extraordinary new memoir
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called Love Warrior.
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And many of you know her from following her fantastic blog,
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Mama Sterey.
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I've also worked with her in a lot of social work stuff,
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especially this big refugee relief project
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that she and I had been on for quite a long time.
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I am so happy to walk through this world,
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shoulder to shoulder with Glenin.
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And as you will see, when you get to meet her now,
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she is one of the most courageous people I've ever met.
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So let's begin.
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Hi, sweetie, it's Liz.
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Hi, hello, yeah.
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Oh, man, I can't wait for this conversation.
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I have so much that I want to talk to you about.
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For those of you who are listening
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who don't know who Glenin Doyle Milton is,
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in which case, what is the matter with you?
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So you can just pause now and Google her and look her up
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and read all her books and come back to the conversation.
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Or I can just let you, Glenin, give me the thumbnail version
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of how you came to be in the world
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in the manner that you are in the world.
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Well, I was in hiding for the first 25 years of my life.
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I was in addict and just hide.
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I was in bullying and alcoholism, drugs, all the things.
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And so when I decided to get sober,
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which is when I became pregnant with my case,
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which was 14 years ago now, I think you call it
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when I started deciding to create instead of destroy my phone.
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I just decided to do the opposite of that
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to feel completely out of hiding
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because I figured out that it's not pain that takes us down.
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It's the shame about the pain.
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And so if I just, every single day,
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got all of the icky shameful stuff
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out of the inside of me into the light,
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I somehow stayed magically sober, right?
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It's like a sobriety strategy.
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So the way I did that is I got it every single morning
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and started writing it all out,
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just like pulling all the demons out from inside of me
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and throwing them onto a blank page.
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And then I started posting them online
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and everyone started saying, need to.
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And something about the need to, about my book of stuff,
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made me stop being afraid of myself, right?
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Made me just like, every day want to show more and more of myself.
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And then, not only did I fall in love with telling the truth
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and living out in the open,
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but I started falling in love with all of the people
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who were then showing me their selves, right?
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Because the amazing thing about being super honest
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is like this key that unlocks other people.
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And so people say, there you are.
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And so here I am too.
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So I started falling in love with them
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and then I just decided what I wanted to do
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is love the hell out of them forever.
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So then I became an activist.
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And so every day I just kind of use my writing to heal myself.
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And then I use the love I have for my readers
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to try to heal the world.
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So I run together rising and then profit.
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And I write all the things.
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I wrote Kiran Warrior in the new book,
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it's coming out called Love Warrior.
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And I write at monastery.
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And that's it.
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Yeah, mom is scary.
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Everybody, that's like a monastery where monks live,
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except she spells at mom is scary.
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Because she's a mom.
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Mom is scary is where to go if you want to sort of get in
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on the Glen and Doyle, Melton revolution.
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And it is a revolution.
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And it is extraordinary.
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And I know you've told the story a million times before,
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but I need you to tell the story
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about that first revelatory thing
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that you put on the internet
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when somebody was passing a Facebook meme along
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a sort of friendly thing where people were saying,
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tell us 10 things we don't know about you.
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And then pass this to all your friends.
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This is the story I always tell about you
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when I try to tell people who you are.
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So if you could just share that,
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that would be wonderful.
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So I figured out that I wanted to be honest somewhere,
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which is so hard to do in real life.
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But I was like dying for a place to tell the truth
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outside of a recovery group.
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And so I passed to my computer this one day,
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and there was a thing going on on Facebook called
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the 25 things.
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So people were just like listing things about themselves.
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And I thought, well, I could do this.
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I could make a list.
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So I sat down and typed out a bunch of stuff.
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And Liz, I walked away and I came back an hour later
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and my list been shared like all of these gazillions
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of times for my personal page.
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And I had something like 39 emails in my inbox.
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And I had like six voicemails from my sister,
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which is like our bad signal for I've done something inappropriate.
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This is like require a lot of cleanup on her part or whatever.
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So like what on earth happened?
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So to hear that happen, I didn't read anyone else's list
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before I wrote line, which is like the kiss of death for me.
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So here's my number six.
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I'm recovering food and alcoholic,
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but I still find myself missing booze.
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In the same twisted way, we can miss those
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who repeatedly beat us and leave us for death.
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Which is so true, right?
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So can you give an example of what somebody else's
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number six was?
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Yeah, so then I got a my five Lisa's number six in her says,
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my favorite snack you to come at.
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And I'm like, dear God.
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So like what I think in my head,
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because what I think a million times today is like,
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oh, we're not doing that here.
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Right?
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So like everyone's faces are always saying to me,
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like, oh, we're not doing that yet.
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So it was terrifying, but then later that night,
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I logged on to my email and I got brave
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and started opening up all these emails from people and Liz.
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They were from people who I had known my whole life.
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Many of them, but they had never introduced their two selves
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to me, right?
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Because we've been so freaking busy staying on the surface
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with each other and trying to like convince each other
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that everything was shiny and happy,
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that we had not brought to each other the stuff that
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like keeps us up at night, you know?
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Like the stuff that the heavy stuff that we were actually
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meant to help each other carry here.
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So they said things like I've been believing
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like two or 15 years and nobody knows,
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or my marriage is crumbling and we don't know who to turn to
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or my sisters drinking herself to sleep every night.
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And nobody knows what to do, me to, me to, me to.
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So that's when I was like, this is something I could do.
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Like I remember going to Craig and being after that list
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and being like, oh my God, this is what I'm going to do.
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Like I'm going to be a shameless truth teller,
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like from my whole life, because this is magic.
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This is like a key that can unlock people.
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And Liz, he goes, can it?
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He says, do you have any other marketable skills?
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Okay.
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And I said, no, that's the thing.
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I feel like it's just one shop we have.
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Oh wow.
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So I started going to have early and writing every morning.
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Every single morning.
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And I was like, this is my hour of my own.
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Like I didn't have an at a room of my own.
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It's so hard for women, especially mothers
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to find creative time.
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Because in order to be creative, you have to go so deep.
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You have to let yourself sink away.
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And mothers are so used to living on the surface
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because at any moment somebody could need you, right?
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So I had a closet.
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I wrote in my closet every single morning at 4.30.
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I still do this, although I have graduated out of the closet.
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But I think because there was a door,
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there were two doors between my children and me.
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Like they had to go through to get to my husband.
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Like they'd have to run into my husband
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before they could get to me.
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So it was like that barrier that made me
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able to sink away.
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And I'm a serious child.
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I love that thing that you say.
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I didn't have a room of my own, but I had an hour of my own.
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And what I think is so extraordinary about what you chose
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to do in that room and with that hour
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is that you took it to this kind of like almost like
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performance art, gonzo, extreme sports level.
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And I could see people saying, I'm going to get up
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and I'm going to tell the truth, and I'm going to write.
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And I'm going to get this out of me.
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You would do that.
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And then you would hit send.
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And you would put it into the world that day.
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The deep honest truth about what it felt like for you
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that day to be who you were on earth with those kids,
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with that husband, with that chaotic mind,
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with those responsibilities, with this anguish,
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with these fears.
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Like you did something that was so ferociously wild.
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I mean, I'm sure you've gotten blowback.
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And I'm sure you've gotten criticism.
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I know you've gotten criticized.
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I know you've gotten death threats.
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I know you've gotten all kinds of things.
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I know that everywhere you go to speak,
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lawyers need to be there sometimes.
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But I also know that more than that, far more than that,
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what you've gotten is that enormous chorus of me to me to me to.
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Yeah.
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God is the best, magic, we've got echo.
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So much of what happened on this podcast this season,
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I felt was people saying that they didn't want to do something
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till they were good at it.
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You know, so I had people who are sort of addicted
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to taking classes and the thing that they want to do.
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And I had people who have done it,
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but they're refusing to show it to anybody.
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I've had people who've collected all the material
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over the years, but they can't quite bring themselves
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to make the thing.
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And I'm fascinated by this idea that somehow in this culture,
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we've got this misconception that you're not allowed
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to either create or produce anything
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until you're already good at it.
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And what you did was so the opposite of that
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that I wonder if you could sort of speak and riff on that idea.
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Yeah.
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If I think of my writing as kind of parallel to a recovery meeting,
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I mean, that's what you do.
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You share your stuff and it's out there, right?
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And that's part of like staying in the light,
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staying, staying, staying sober,
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is like you have to kind of put it out there.
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You can't just keep it to yourself.
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Right.
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But it also kept me from ever considering perfectionism.
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Right.
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Like, that was my role for myself.
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So I didn't have the luxury or what turns out
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to be a terrible way to burden of making sure everything was shining perfect.
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Like all I had to do was do what I promised myself,
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which is show up, put my button to share,
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type the words and press post no matter what.
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Yeah.
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The other role for myself was like, okay, put your stuff out there.
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But you are not like in a babysitter.
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You're not going to follow it around and like make sure everybody likes it.
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And when somebody misunderstand it,
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right back to that person and explain yourself,
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like that's not your job.
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Because so many people that I see quit this,
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they don't quit because they're not artists.
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They quit because they're not weird.
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They don't quit because they didn't like making the thing.
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They quit because they can't handle defending the thing.
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Okay.
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Which is never their job.
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Right. So they're good artists and they're terrible lawyers.
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Right.
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Like you have to be one or the other.
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Right. And because they think they're a bad lawyer,
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they mistakenly think they're a bad artist.
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And that's why I love what you say about don't consider your art your baby.
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Yeah.
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Because if you consider your art your baby,
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you have to freaking follow it around and babysit it.
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Right.
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So you're thinking about the art, you're thinking about what you want to make.
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And then it's the during, you're making it because no after.
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There is no after.
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There's no after.
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You just release it and then you're back to the beginning again.
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So all you are in is contemplation and creation.
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You're not in the business of doing the post mortem on it.
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Yeah.
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You know, I have this statement that I'm always saying,
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which is that time is not something that you find.
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It's something that you make.
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And so I wondered if you could talk as a mother of three,
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who was getting up every day at 430 in the morning to write about how you do that,
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like how you decide that it is more worth it for you to make those hours
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than it is for you to sleep.
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And I would imagine that sleeping might be kind of high on your list of priorities
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at this point in your life.
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I felt like there was going to be some huge answer to that question.
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Like some big groundbreaking spiritual answer to like how does a mom find the time in that.
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So for me, what it was is I had to stop watching TV at night.
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It was like, and it was so annoying was because that was harder for me.
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Then like any big spiritual at Tiffany that I was hoping to have,
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because I love watching TV at night.
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That's like for a mom, that's like the finished line.
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That's like the promised plan.
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It's like they're all asleep and it's the only time you have to just not get anyone any snack, you know?
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And but I couldn't, I'm going to get up at 430.
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I have to put those kids to bed and I have to have my button bed by nine, you know, by nine.
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If you want to have what you want to have, which is a creative life,
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you have to give up this hour of TV.
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So that's it.
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That's freaking it.
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So what started going about it mine and then it wasn't so bad to get up at 4.
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And honestly, I still do that was like I'm up at 430 most days.
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Glennon, why is it important?
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This is the fundamental question about why do humans make things?
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Why is it so important for you to do this?
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Who are you without it?
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Who are you with it?
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What does it do to you?
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What does it do for you?
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Why do you?
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Why do you care?
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Why do you bother?
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So many answers to that.
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I think I am just really, really desperate to be known.
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I think I just really want to be known.
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I just want to be seen, you know, like I have all of these thoughts and ideas and dreams and fears.
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And for whatever reason, I just need people to say I see you.
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I don't even need anything to say I like you.
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I have somebody who said the definition of an artist is anybody who walks through the world saying don't erase me.
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You know, just don't erase me.
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I need to know that I'm here.
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I need to feel that you know that I'm here.
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Yeah, and like my favorite, one of my favorite scripture that I have written on my new 40-year-old boots,
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my sister got me.
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When I turn 40 is here I am.
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Like I just, there's something about here I am.
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And I think it's such an important thing for women to feel like it's okay to take up your space on the earth, you know?
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To like be big enough and bold enough to say here I am.
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Look at me for a minute.
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I can't just tell you how much I'm loving this answer because I have to give you my honest response.
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When you first said, I want to be known.
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I want to be seen.
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Like I had a little wince of like, oh, oh, oh, I kind of want your answer to be,
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look, I don't care if anyone ever knows or sees it.
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I just do it for the pure love of making things.
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And then I relaxed into like, wait a minute.
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It's cool that she wants to be known and seen.
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It's okay that she wants to be known and seen.
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And my God, how many women never get known and seen.
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Suddenly I've realized, oh, that's a very brave and very honest answer.
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And one that maybe people aren't allowed to say because they're afraid of being viewed as narcissistic or entitled.
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Whereas entitlement is of course a word that I'm always trying to reclaim for the good.
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But I like that you made me a little uncomfortable with that answer.
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My job.
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Okay.
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Like, good.
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It's okay because what you find out what you know is that there's nothing you can really put out there
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that is truly your own.
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Like the more personally you get, the more universal it is, the deeper you go into yourself,
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the more everybody else can see themselves in you.
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And so you start realizing that you can be seen because there is nothing
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freaking unique about you.
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You're not special.
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Like you're amazing.
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You're freaking amazing.
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You're a child of God.
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You're a child of the universe.
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You're like made of star dust.
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And also you're not unique.
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Okay.
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So this is the really interesting knife edge to walk on, which is when people get that revelation
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that I'm not that big a deal.
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Everything I've ever going to say has already been lived.
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Nothing is very special about my life.
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They tend to shut down and say, therefore, it's pointless for me to try to create anything.
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It won't be special.
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How do you walk that line of, I'm just the same as everybody else.
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I'm absolutely nothing special.
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I'm a miracle.
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And I need to put this out there.
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Everybody can say the same thing, but every single person has a different voice.
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So like, if the truth is that, you know, we can do hard things.
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Like love wins.
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There's a million different things ways to say that.
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And the way that I say it might resonate with somebody else so strongly,
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they can hear it for the first time.
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And let's the way you say it wakes up this particular person.
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And the way somebody else says it, but it's like this chorus and we need everyone's voices.
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You know?
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So you do it to hear yourself.
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You know how like when you're in like a tunnel and you make the noise and you hear yourself,
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like it's like, ah, there I am.
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You said something once to me when we were talking about the most common questions that we get in the book signing line.
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And because you came out of the blogosphere, right?
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Like you were born of blogs out of nowhere, out of your closet.
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So the question that so often comes at you in book signing lines are people saying,
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how do I get to where you are?
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I would like to have a million people reading my blog.
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How do I get a bigger platform?
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How do I get more attention?
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How do I get more followers?
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How do I get more likes?
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And you said something that was so lovely to me, you get a bigger platform by serving the platform you already have.
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By serving the few people who are already listening to you.
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Can you explain in more detail what you meant?
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And did I quote you correctly on that?
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Because I thought that was really your frustration with that question.
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I found really interesting.
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Yeah.
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I mean, that's what I still do.
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So it's so interesting with social media and with, you know, the whole promotion game.
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I think people get confused about how you grow your audience.
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That's what people say.
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How do you grow your audience?
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How do you grow your audience?
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And I mean, there are shortcuts, right?
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There are a million shortcuts.
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I mean, I think they're like apt.
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You can buy that.
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Wow, there are a hundred thousand followers or whatever you want.
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Like, but the problem is that's not real, right?
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So I've never promoted my blog yet.
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I've never done any of that.
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But what I have done is served the people who show up.
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So like when my blog was like 14 followers, I was doing the exact same thing as it is as I'm doing now when there's millions.
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Like, same thing like with book, we have a book club.
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It's 12 of us.
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And I do the exact same thing as I'm doing now.
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I would get it's such an honor.
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Like, what's social media?
spk_0
If you have, if you have 10 followers, that's 10 people who are looking at their phones.
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You have the opportunity to like shape their consciousness for that day.
spk_0
Like what you put out there will change their day because what we, what we consume, we become, right?
spk_0
So if you've 10 followers, give them light.
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Like people want love and people want light and people want encouragement.
spk_0
And if you give them that, if you wake up every morning and think, this, I am so lucky to be serving this community.
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Guess what happens?
spk_0
Like they want to share the light.
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And so they share.
spk_0
You don't try to get other people.
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You do not try to get more followers.
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You try to serve your followers so well that they invite other people to you.
spk_0
We're going to take a quick break.
spk_0
And when we come back, we're going to hear more from Glenan about her latest project and the courage that it took her to bring it forth into the world.
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spk_0
So can we have a little bit of a candid conversation about your book that just came out? Yeah, I read in manuscript your new book Love Warrior and I know you.
spk_0
Okay, I know you as my friend. I know you as my chosen sister.
spk_0
I know you as a writer who I admire and an activist in the world.
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I feel like I know your voice really well.
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Like as a consumer of Glenn and Doyle Melton.
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I made the dangerous mistake that people so often make with creators of thinking I know what I'm getting into with this book.
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It's going to be self deprecating. It's going to be funny. It's going to be revealing. It's going to be spiritual.
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What I didn't know was the depth of soul and pain that you were ready with this book to reach into and the mastery of writing.
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You know the next step of writing that this book took and the next step of honesty that this book took and you know I wrote a whole book about marriage.
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Um called committed I spent years studying marriage to try to figure out how to make sense of marriage to try to feel like how to be comfortable with this institution that makes me inherently nervous.
spk_0
And that once again for the second time in my life as you know I have not been able to stick with you know.
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And even after trying to become a master of understanding marriage I still just failed another marriage.
spk_0
Um failed is a strong word and I don't mean it as a shame.
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I just know that this thing is really hard and and even after all the research that I did on on marriage and on matrimony.
spk_0
When I read Love Warrior I thought this is the first really honest book that I've read about marriage.
spk_0
And I wondered if you could just speak about that.
spk_0
Yeah.
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Where you went with that book and what you had to reach into to do what you did.
spk_0
Yeah man okay.
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So so what happened is that I got married right after I got sober right away right away.
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And I'm married to Goodman and and I thought we were having an honest life and I kind of replaced my identity as drunk with
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mom and wife and that was better and healthier.
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And like all my people were proud of me and I was an outstanding citizen and I was feeling good about myself.
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And then became a writer and I was about to go on tour with my first book which was about marriage and having a family.
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And so right before I was going on tour I was in therapy with my husband and he told me that he had been being unfaithful to me my whole marriage.
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So like right after we got married right up to that moment which was over a decade.
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And I never thought coming at all and I always thought people who said they didn't see it coming were like a little slow but I didn't.
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I don't know it was like the it was just going right back to the right bottom you know because
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because I feel like rock bottom is this place that feels like this anyviction from your life.
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You had this before life and then this eviction can't become.
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And everybody like it's whatever there's like you can't ever go back you know there's like a before and after.
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So it's like the phone call you get that diagnosis search.
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Whatever your news is you know after which there will always be a before and an after.
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And so what I learned though and I really believe even though it's so hard to believe in the moment is that
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I don't really think evictions from our life come unless they're also invitations.
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So like a truer identity right.
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So you know from the junk and bulimic and drug addict was replaced by a wife and mother.
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And that was better but the problem was that it wasn't true enough.
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Because you know women we define ourselves by our roles.
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I mean if you ask a woman who she is she says so tell you who she loves sometimes what she does usually who she loves.
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My mother I'm a wife I'm a sister which is great.
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I mean that's what makes the world go around but it's also such a precarious situation because these things change.
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Yeah.
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And it can be taken from us and that's why we live in live in fear.
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All right.
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So within this terrible eviction was this invitation to like what the hell like what do I need to learn about myself who am I that is truer and longer lasting.
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Then wife and mother so love warriors just that journey like figuring it out and story of that is that I just figured out I am a child of God.
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Like that's what I was born with.
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That's what I'll die as.
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That's something that no one can take from me that no decision I make will disqualify me for that no one can give or steal.
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You know that no one's the pinion of me will change.
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Like I'm a child of God and that's all I will define myself by for the rest of my life.
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And you know I mean it's it's the story of facts man and how confusing it all is and how I had to go back to when I was 10
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and I figured out that I have all these sex issues you know that that are related to being a woman in this culture and have to do with.
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You know being a body that's been objectified so long that I just started objectifying myself right so like women are trinity so we're all trinity so body mind and spirit and the
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healthiest of us live out lives of the body and lives of the mind and lives of spirit.
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But the problem is that women get so we get so so many confusing messages from our culture about our bodies that
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early on we just vote them off the island right we just don't even anymore see our bodies as ourselves we've been so I get
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objectified that we objectify our own self we only know how to be desired we don't know how to desire
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wow we only know how to be wanted we don't even know how to know what we want
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right so we are so concerned with what we look like that we forget to care about what we're looking at
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and so so basically one of my therapists one of my therapists was like we have
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about your body back on the island like we got to have a reunion we got to make you hold again
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and I was like that sounds really hard do you have any more pills and she was like no you're going to do
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the work you're going to do the work so it's just like love words is my my journey of becoming
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whole again and by the way the same thing for the guys right so women we get shamed out of our bodies
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early on they get shamed out of our their emotions right right because boys don't cry boys don't get
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sad boys don't whatever so they vote those off the island and so what happens I think is that you
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know we marry these people and like they are trying to love us with their bodies and we can't feel
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that love because we're not we don't live there right and like we're trying to love them with our
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minds but they don't live there and so we're just freaking niffing each other and so it's like
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everything we learn about masculinity and femininity in our culture keeps us from like a real man
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and a real woman loving each other you know and so you just have to when you try to love someone
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you just have to unlearn so much and start over and so I think level where it's just it's an
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unlearning you know it's how I just try to just tear it all down and like unlearn everything
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that I had swallowed about what it means to be a woman in this culture and just get down to who
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I really am and what I really want and to figure out that still that voice that speaks to us you
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know that voice that knows what to do and how to like bring that voice to the surface and start
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living my life in accordance to what she wants. God Glannon. What struck me when I was reading it
spk_0
was not just the honesty but the curiosity and compassion that you brought to yourself and to
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your marriage where getting past anger getting past self-hatred getting past all sorts of senses of
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how things should be you did what I think of as sort of the ultimate creative journey because I
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think no successful creative journey happens without and it tremendous amount of patience and a
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tremendous amount of curiosity to just try you know to just see like what would it be like to try
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to do this what would it be like to try to understand this what would we like to try to feel this
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and you were so much more interested in getting to the truth and you were in trying to be right
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that there's this beating heart in that book that I just have never say the likes of
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and it's how I think of you as somebody who just consistently cares so much more about her curiosity
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for the truth than she does about her position or her status or how she's perceived you know
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and because of that you just keep being really brave again and again and again and there's a
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softness in curiosity right like we think of bravery as being this sort of almost a macho word
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sometimes like there's an you know like you think of like a brave person with an armor and a
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sword you don't go into it that way you go into it unarmed it's right totally soft totally open
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and totally ready for any outcome like I don't know how this is going to go I don't know what's
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going to happen when I say to my husband what happens if we just tell each other to truth you know
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I don't know what I'm going to hear I don't know what he's going to say I don't know if it's
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going to work I don't know if any of it's going to work but I want to you know I think of you
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I know you don't want to be labeled as anything other than a child of God but I think of you as a
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child of God and a explorer of truth I love that yeah I mean because the people I love and respect
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are not the people who are always talking it's the listeners why do you like me
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you are the best listener ever but I like talking Glennon
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yeah I really meant a four what comes back to me all the time is if this
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stale gun like this is like the command that comes to me like in every argument in during that
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marriage time like every time someone says something on the internet every time someone cuts me off
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like stay open stay open like all of life for me is about just not shutting down the longer I can
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stay open the more that's what all the growth is for me I always say go back in go back in go back
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in one more time and when I'm helping people edit their work and they are like but this is my third
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draft of my book I'm like go back in go back in you know and when my friends are encouraging me to
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have painful difficult conversations and I'm like but I already said the hard thing go back in
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go back in it never ends stay open go back in that's what it means to be curious that's what it
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means to be creative the other reason I wanted to talk about love warrior is because as I'm trying
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to show people what it looks like to be really brave and how it never ends right you did this
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extraordinarily creative and courageous thing by living through your marriage and fidelity the way
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that you did and approaching it with curiosity and compassion and trying to figure out how to learn
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from it instead of shutting down and rage and bitterness and then you did this incredibly
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curious and creative thing by writing a really open and honest and searching book about that and
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then you did another really creative and courageous thing on the heels of book coming out
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that is about saving your marriage tell us what happened next good god yeah so so so three months before
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no no I'm sorry yeah three months before the release of love warrior excitement that my marriage is over
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and as these things happen for me I say decision but it's built more of just like this knowing
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that arises inside of me that I can't unknow so I was talking to Renee Brown she said she gave it to
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a friend and her friend said what is it about and she said it's about trust and her friend said
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is it about trust and the marriage and Renee said no it's about self trust and that is to me what
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love warriors about so if I if I had to define like what's that journey of the warrior thing for me it's
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being able to listen to this voice inside of us that knows what to do like if you I would be still
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tattooed on myself because one other one my favorite description is like do you still and know
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right like there is a voice inside of us every person and it doesn't freaking matter what you
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call it what you call it god or intuition or just tell small voice I have a friend who calls
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it Sebastian she has some God issues I don't think it matters it's just what matters is that
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there is a voice and when every time we say we don't know what to do it's just because we don't
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want to do the thing that we know we have to do right and so for me Liz this is all I know
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is that I can't freaking spend any more time in my life betraying myself right so for me self
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betrayal is allowing the fear voice to drowned out the still small voice and that's what to do so what
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happens is that all of a sudden I just knew that my marriage needed to end and it wasn't in an
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angry way and it wasn't in a dramatic way it was this way of oh my god like we have we've gone
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through all of this stuff together and we were put together for a reason and we did help make
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each other whole in ways that we probably wouldn't have ever been without each other and we have
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these beautiful children and yet it's done and oh my god to know that and realize I can't if I
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don't listen to that still small voice that knowing like my journey is over that's it
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it doesn't like I have to listen to her like that's all I have to do in this freaking life
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is listen to my knowing and do what she says right so so I just you know did what I've learned to do
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is which is listen to that voice and then make it my own right so I listen to that voice long
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enough and then I start my husband down and I was like here's here's the happening like I love you
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and we are gonna have to love each other a different way because we aren't getting married anymore
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and it was a terrible hard conversation in some ways and in some ways it was the most beautiful
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conversation I've ever had because the first thing Craig said to me is I'm devastated and
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you gave me the most selfless love I've ever received and I'm gonna return that to you now
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so what the last few months have been about is him returning to me what I gave him a few years ago
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when he actually showed me who he was and I made it kind of my job to
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I don't know what it is Liz I don't know if it's like just putting your ego aside for a minute and
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I guess it's curiosity I guess it's like searching for the truth and so we've been walking through
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this together it is like unbelievable bad timing like everyone in my life can you imagine you're
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coming out with a marriage book in three months limit it's great that's awesome this is really really
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good professionally but almost everyone in your life thinks it's really bad timing your friend
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Liz Gilbert was like this is so beautiful because this is a book that was all about what a marriage
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really is and this is also what that's about and you are gonna serve so many more people with this
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completely true next chapter of the story you know being revealed then by people thinking this
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is a book called How to Save Your Marriage 10 Steps by Glen and Doyle Melton which it never was
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ever that and it's about how to save yourself and one step by Glen and Doyle Melton listen to
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your inner voice you're the top 10 list how to say break and listen to yourself you know it's so
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and I know that you got such static and fear and anxiety from professional people in your life and
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from publishers and from agents and from all these people who are invested in the product that you
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made of this book and I have never loved you more than I love you right now for having the courage
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and the integrity and the gleniness to say this is now the accurate updated story that story that
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I published was the accurate updated story as of the moment of the completion of that book you know
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I will not live a day outside of the accurate and updated story of who I am and this is how it's
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gonna be and and it was also just very helpful for me because as you know here I am the author of
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Eat Pray Love a romantic and beautiful story that many people have come to love and claim as their
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own and exactly pretty much the same time as you I had to make an announcement saying that my
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marriage to that lovely Brazilian man has ended and I remember somebody saying to me it was so
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weird like a close friend when I told them that I was getting divorced said how are you gonna tell
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your fans you know like and it's very worried way like what are people gonna say what are people
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gonna do like are you sure this is a good idea like almost like are you sure this is a good career move
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you know and I said I had so many reasons that I wanted that marriage to last and
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satisfying fans and publishers was not even on the list of why you know and what I'm gonna tell them
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is what I've always told them what happened you know here's what happened and yeah and that's
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the only way that you can be in in the world and the reaction has been very loving and and very
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beautiful as as I know it will continue to be for you we're trying to be creative we're trying to
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be honest we're trying to have integrity and this is what it looks like today for me today here I am
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here I am and there you are our only job is to allow people to see us learning it's not to be an
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on anything john Steinbeck said now that you don't have to be perfect you can be good you can be good
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but I'm gonna take it another level something that I heard our dear friend and brother rod bells
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wife Kristen say and she said it with this look on her face that just like I saw it like sent a
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bolt of electricity through my heart she said I am so tired of being good and now all I want is to
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be free a to the freaking man she took it one step farther from Steinbeck so just like let's do
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this evolution now that you don't have to be perfect you can be good said john Steinbeck and then
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Kristen Bell says now that you don't have to be good you can be free with that's our new thing okay
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all right all right because good is another page right yeah another like constructed thing that
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will try to fit inside of yeah and three is different for everybody oh my god that's all I want to be
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I know and I'm watching you do it and it's making me feel like everything in life is possible it's
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making me more brave I love watching you do it and I love sorting it out with you and I don't know
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what I do without you I don't know what I do without you glenon and luckily we have we have not been
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asked to try to figure that out right and that's what if it's don't always tell me to do that I'm
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going to tell this little small boy figure yeah this still small boys can just fuck right off the
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day that it tells me that I have to figure out how to do things without you look I just thank you
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for everything that you are and everything that you do and for just modeling not just for the
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millions of people who follow you and read you but for really intimately and in a very
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molecular level showing me again and again what it looks like to have integrity and I love you for it
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and I just am grateful that you're a child of God at the same time I am
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right or dial it right you're my right or dices they're glenon forever and ever and and I want
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to do something that I want to ask you to do something that I asked Brenna to do last year
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you don't know specifically the stories of the eight artists the two novelist two poets a dancer
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a storyteller a comedian and a photographer who came on the podcast this year and with the most
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outrageous vulnerability just shared there are fears and their obstacles and their dreams and
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their processes and their victories and their failures in this incredibly open way but you do
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know them because they are us and they are our tribe and and they are part of who we are and what
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we're all about and I was wondering if to close out season two of magic lessons I could ask you
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to offer a sort of benediction and a prayer for them and for everybody like them who is trying to
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make and be in the world in a new and honest and revolutionary way yes okay let's
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I'm so late into the morning so I don't want to say to all artists so I had this moment in my life
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when 14 years ago I'm sitting on the bathroom floor right and I've been the drunk and a bulimic
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and a drug addict and I've been completely lost for 15 years and I'm sitting on the bathroom floor
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and I'm holding this pregnancy test and I'm looking at it thinking okay there is no worse candidate
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for motherhood than I am right there's nobody on earth who is less prepared or less qualified
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to be a mother right right now and yet still holding this freaking invitation right
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and I think about that every time I'm trying to make something new every time I'm trying to decide
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whether I'm going to show up because all of us are always on the bathroom floor right we're always
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on the bathroom floor we're always holding some kind of invitation from the universe and we are
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arguing with the invitation we're saying I'm not ready I'm not good enough I need to take another
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class I need to lift him down I need to do some more research I need to be more like her I need to
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to you know listen to my mom who said I could never do anything I'm arguing arguing arguing we are
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gaming ourselves on worthy of invitations instead of just trusting the invite right creates
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a bit of a task to be ready first it just finds us on the bathroom floor hands us an invitation
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don't wait till you're ready just get up and dance with me and so the whole entire everything on
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earth everything beautiful in the history of the world has been made by people who show up before
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they're ready so that would be my benediction let's just all stop giving ourselves unworthy
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of invitations to create and let's just start trusting the inviteer and let's all just show
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their body amen amen
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I love you Glenan I love you Liz forever bye
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Glenan Doyle Melton my great friend is an author an activist and a public speaker
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she wrote the New York Times best-selling memoir carry on warrior and of course her new extraordinary
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memoir love warrior which came out this month she's also the founder of an online community called
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Mama Sterry and through that she also founded a terrific nonprofit called Together Rising which
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I'm very proudly part of which has raised millions of dollars for families in need all over the
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world so that is it for this episode of magic lessons and this season of magic lessons it's been
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wonderful as always going on this very curious journey of exploration with all of you I thank you
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for lending your ears and your hearts to this project and I hope that all of you feel emboldened
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and inspired to go out and make whatever is calling you to make it become whatever you are being
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called to be and that most of all you will as we constantly try to remind you here not ever
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choose your fear over your curiosity magic lessons is a production of the maximum fun network
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Michelle Siegel is our extraordinary producer our theme music is by Dave K. Hill and it was
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performed by Dave K. Hill and Dallas Vietti special thanks to Paul Ruest of Argo Studios and Jesse
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Thorene of maximum fun you can hear all the episodes and find out a lot more about my comings and
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goings at Elizabeth Gilbert dot com and of course if you want to continue your own explorations
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into creativity which I really hope you will do it might help you to pick up my book which is called
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Big Magic Creative Living Beyond Fear published by Riverhead Books and it is coming out in paperback
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this very week if you can please leave us a comment on iTunes it helps other people discover
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the show and we appreciate it and let's keep this conversation going on Facebook and Twitter
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I'm at Gilbert Liz thank you again so much for listening and we'll see you next year
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what's the deal with Brexit have you seen happy valley yet how do British people announce
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Edinburgh lightchester or Norwich not like that you tired of getting your world news from reliable
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sources often with no puns or sexual innuendo why was there a butchers hat on tink coronation
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street what's coronation street and why is Dave Holmes obsessed with it international waters pairs
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a team of comedians in LA against the team of comedians in London in a pop culture battle royale
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join us once a fortnight to hear the best comedians in the world trade jokes and stories and maybe
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even learn something at the same time international waters with me Dave Holmes find it at maximumfund.org
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or wherever you download podcasts maximumfund.org
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comedy and culture artist owned listen or supported