Glennon Doyle: Manage Anxiety, Personal Truth & Transformation

[Music] i'm a a person who's raised as a woman in this culture who had an eating disorder and still does well how the hell could that have happened in this culture that is shocking people who don't understand that are confusing to me like i feel like they're just not paying any attention like the good news is when when somebody's writing a new yorker profile about me i'm like have at it i know for a fact you're not going to find any i didn't already say there's no secrets anymore hi i'm i'm bialik and welcome to my breakdown this is the place that we break things down so you don't have to today we're breaking down mayam bialik literally reducing her to a pool of mush it's my ambiance she's gonna break it down for you because you know she knows a thing or two so now she's gonna break down she's a breakdown she's gonna break it down that's exciting we're gonna be speaking to a an unbelievably important person i think she's so important we're speaking to glennon doyle and if you don't know who she is you should know who she is we're going to be speaking to her today about i'm going to let my co-pilot jonathan cohen tell you what we're speaking about i'd like to introduce my love warrior jonathan cohen it's the title of glendon doyle's first book hello everyone hello my aim jonathan what's today's episode about besides your general concern and fear about it going horribly wrong it is so nervous that is going to be a a component of the show for sure we're going to talk about anxiety we're going to talk about personal truth we're going to talk about desires to control things we're going to talk about when we don't feel anxiety and the things in our life that bring us joy we're going to get a little motivation yes we do talk about all those things but we're talking about them with you know a woman who's known for i mean the new yorker just reviewed her existence which is like you have arrived if the new yorker just like does a piece on you it is speaking to someone who has essentially written books with honesty you know on her sleeve so i mean she's the most honest person i think that i've spoken to just like in my life she's just everything's out there and it's not it's i don't find it pretentious or obnoxious like she's just it's a very different conversation than others we've had that have included total society we're not totally we're not being clinical in this situation we're sharing personal experience we're talking about the lived moments and what that feels like and how people's or glennon and mime's relationship to anxiety has changed over time what they've done also just in this episode i publicly identify as someone with an eating disorder which i've never done before so we'll save that for the big reveal for the interview but that was a big deal i felt i mean i only feel inspired because of her you know to do that i've known about my my problems for years um and i've been in recovery as it were for two years but um really felt like if she can do what she does why couldn't i be well she bears her soul in her work in that she's extremely very raw very raw and we talk about the notion of how so many of us are projecting an image that we think is appropriate i mean she she had a marriage that she was very public about the marriage fell apart very publicly she is now with a woman um who also is a public person and i mean she's lived so much complexity in the public eye and also is still i don't know she seems like the kind of person you'd like just like curl up on a couch with like she's the kind of person you know when you go on vacation and you're at a hotel where there's like a a communal space where people like hang out after hours like i'm picking like a like a yosemite lodge or something like that right and like there's like chess and there's she's the person that like would be like you know on the corner of the couch like hanging out and you would just like strike a a conversation with her and like end up talking all night with her and realize that she's a philosopher and then you like are making notes during the conversation you're like this if i just put this on my mirror in the morning this little one well and she's not a person and i think this is where i really resonate with her she's not a public person who's like i've figured it out you know which is completely not what this podcast is in case anyone is keeping track anyone is making notes to say this is how we should live correct that's not what we do in case you think i'm like i figured it out and here's a podcast about that i practically end up on the floor in this episode word of the day word of the day today miam is really exciting because it comes from the episode and it's something that you say all the time [Laughter] the word of the day is terminally unique terminally unique this phrase refers to a misconception that that many people have that their situation is so different from what anyone else is going through that no one can understand or that they can't get help or they couldn't get the right kind of help because they're so you know and it's a defense mechanism it's a form of denial it's a lack of acceptance it's a lot of things and for many of us it's our kind of default um and our protection against our fear that we can't be made whole so the defense is well this is why it's not gonna work therapy's not gonna work medication won't work it's not gonna work because that's not really the problem the problem is my situation is so incredibly specific and if you knew this person you'd act this way too you know whatever it is um and that's terminal uniqueness the opposite of terminal unique or the flip side is that there are a lot of commonalities between people's struggles i mean yes and i think that when you're in a place of feeling terminally unique i don't know if that's the direct like most of the fear is about having to open up because if you say i'm terminally if you say no one will get me then you don't have to try so terminally unique in this sense is a kind of a pejorative you know it's it's not like a yay i'm terribly unique which yes we're you're all individual beautiful snowflakes that's true and what i'm going here is that the expression of whatever's going on or the causes may be very unique no one has that parent or that stressor or that you know ex-husband but the impacts of those are often very similar well the human the human experience is similar and the human experience of suffering across different states we can all suffer the same is not so unique and has a commonality to it which is why well and people are able to get help yeah and and the fact is and this is you know really just from years of slogging it through in in therapy you know whatever you think your problem is that's usually not your problem no usually it's your mother well i mean i'll be a little more no i don't even get a joke i don't get no because i'm talking about something very serious right now whatever you think is the problem is usually not the problem meaning at the root of almost every kind of issue we have outside of like mental health issues meaning like if you're schizophrenic if you're bipolar you know if you're dealing with those kind of diagnoses that's its own thing but most everything boils down to you know fear and resentment or expectations of how something that's also fear like if if you really if you made a list of the 10 things that are most pressing i would argue that they would probably all fit into one of those categories if not both it matters if you're worried about the boyfriend or the girl finances finance like but whatever it is we and and you know glennon talks about this like it's the structure that we come from that then frames everything mime why don't you tell everyone a little bit more about glennon uh in preparation for bringing she's amazing but like how many books has she written so many books what are the titles you want me to read her bio i want you to tell us okay all everything you know about her i do recommend the new yorker profile on her because i will also say this is an unusual interview in that it's not a classic interview of like tell us how you got here like i start by crying you'll see glennon doyle's the author of the number one new york times best sellers untamed and love warrior that's me love warrior was an oprah's book club selection which is a very big deal she's also the author of the new york times bestseller carry-on warrior which was i think her second she's an activist she's a thought leader i love that she's a thought leader she's the founder and president of together rising and all women-led non-profit that has revolutionized grassroots philanthropy they've raised over 27 million dollars for women families and children in crisis she lives in florida but the new yorker article says she's coming our way she lives in florida with her wife and her three children who she co-parents with her ex-husband um i was i'm overwhelmed with excitement and anxiety it's strange that when she gets overwhelmed with excitement she gets so quiet so upset i was so nervous i couldn't even tell you why i was nervous i couldn't even articulate it well here's the interview let's welcome glennon doyle break it down thank you thank you thank you so much for being here i am the most nervous about any podcast guest right now i'm terrified i'm already starting to cry that's it i'm very very nervous and i'm so grateful that you're here and we share an agency and i literally we met on a on a zoom thing that we were both on and i like lost my mind and then you were like oh we're big fans and then i really lost my mind i think i started crying then too i'm a crier you should know that and uh i thought of canceling today i didn't even tell jonathan that this is terrified and i was actually introduced to you and the fact that you exist by a very close friend of mine her name is abby and what she said was there's a person who's kind of you and i was like what and you know it's i'm an odd person so i usually don't believe people when they say that and she was mainly talking to me at a point in my career where i was kind of like what am i supposed to do beyond like entertain people you know like what am i supposed to do like why did god do this to me why me why the blessings why the curses like all the things and what she said is i think you need to learn about glennon because you know she really does use her platform like for tremendous tremendous good and you know i was like whatever so then i i looked you up and i was you know really really blown away and this was really well into your journey also so i got to sort of learn about your full journey and then another friend of mine whose name is hannah got me um untamed your last book and like literally gave it to me weeping because she and i cry a lot and it and so you know obviously the book really really touched me i mean as it has many many people but then i was like everybody likes glennon like gwyneth paltrow likes her i'm already it's forget i'm gonna cry this we may not even use this and i'm like freaking oprah winfrey like what what am i supposed to do like you know i this is gonna be a disaster it's not i love it it's beautiful what i was most nervous about you know was like not wanting to be that person by that person you mean someone who like that person who's like omg you get me like you totally like tell my story and or the celebrity version which is this book will change your life this is the thing that you need to make you feel good about all of your things because i feel terminally unique and i have a spy of the most special connection i have a more special connection than oprah and then gwyneth like i'm more special than anyone in terms of my relationship with you and we don't even know each other well already i feel like just based on these last two minutes our relationship is so much more special than my relationship with either oprah or all i needed to hear thanks for being here have a great day done no but like here's the story i either was i either was like well because i this is what i said to jonathan as i was crying about this last night i don't want to like ask you to tell us your story because that's what you do that's what the books are for i mean well and also that's not just like that's what the book like your books are literally about being honest about telling your story so it's like tell us how you like i don't want to be that person and i didn't know if anyone would want to talk to me at all for this podcast and like this was a huge source of like strife with me and jonathan because it's true every single person we listed doesn't want to talk to us right you were on that list she doesn't want to talk to us this is why we're so connected i never think anyone wants to talk to me i i don't talk to people just because i think it's the nicest thing to do is leave them alone also like we're both people of faith who also think and live outside of the box of a lot of like traditional structures of religion and really like struggle with that and you know although we're not of the same faith like we're of the same faith like there's like you know there's this kind of like higher power you know oneness and then there's the way that we live our lives to try and like be an expression of like that force whatever that force is so that i happen to be um a compulsive overeater and i'm an anorexic and i'm a restrictor and people i've never said that and this is obviously the first time this is the first time i've ever talked about it because people are like well why are you so overweight well because i'm a compulsive overeater and in addition to being you know an anorexic and restrictor so um you know your particular struggles um that you've been so so raw and honest about um are first of all incredibly significant which you know but for me as someone who's never talked about it i have i have this envy that i fee and this is just my whole life is like compare and despair like you have this life where like i feel like why does she get to live all the things like why does she and that's just the notion and this is like if we want to go deep there's not enough in the world right there's a finite amount of happiness and there's a finite amount of confidence and there's a finite amount of beauty and so like if you've taken any of the confidence that i'm trying to like there's less and i know that that's not rational right why are you hoarding my happiness it's a valid question so anyway so there's like so i so i have this pathetic little post-it i'm like this makes me cry just before you get into the post-it we both read uh the new york times the recent new york times profile new yorker no sorry new yorker profile which was um i don't know how you feel about it clinton but we thought it was quite beautiful and you know what though i was mad at it because i was like i know her better why why weren't you tasked to write that profile why wasn't i tasked to write it who's ariel levy why did she get to write it we have the same agency new what is richard white's doing sitting there and here i am on the sidelines like i eat too much when no one's looking well thank you i i i thought it was nice i don't um i think it's very very strange to read words that someone else has written about you when you are a writer i i don't know abby tried to explain it as if someone was playing soccer about her like it's just a very strange experience um but i but i will tell you about arielle that i don't like her as much as i like you this is going really great that train going for us i think okay so here's here's some of the words that came to me and also like you know jonathan is well he doesn't like that i call him these things jonathan is a poet and he's a writer i know and yes so so also like like i had these sort of like poetic thoughts about what i wanted to talk about and here i wrote down three fs and three r's i wrote down food fear and faith and then i wrote down resentment resistance and resilience i was like i just wrote chapter titles for glennon's next book so those were some of the things that you know just feel like sort of themes that that i love about you and i also wanted to talk specifically and maybe we can start here about what you get from being so honest in particular about you know challenges to your mental health food stuff um anxiety you know depression what is the freedom that you find or is there freedom from having that kind of openness because it's can be terrifying and again i also you know relate and like being a public person who's not on like the oprah gwinnie level right but everything you do and choose to do is public so i'm curious if there's freedom there if it feels like a different kind of prison doesn't feel like a prison um i don't know if i miss i truly i think about this a lot because you know i have a friend who um when she posts pictures of herself on in the internet people tell her like if she posts them in a bathing suit people will respond to her by saying you're so brave and she's like that's not what you want to hear when you post a picture of yourself in a baking i had someone tell me that i was brave for being in a movie 30 pounds over my normal weight that's what that's what i was told like you're so brave yeah the implications of that are so aggressive right right like it's it's framed as a compliment but what it reveals about what that person believes about how people should be is pretty intense right um because what you're saying is oh you're not supposed to look like that so just by posting that you have broken barriers right so that's kind of how i feel when people ask me why what i you know can consider it brave to talk about just like being a fully human being like i i i feel like somebody who just posted a picture of their of their plain old human body and everyone's like holy like that's so brave and i'm like no no this is just like who i am and also p.s this is also how you are jackass like that's how i feel is like all i'm doing is talking about what it's actually like to be a human being and i'm not pretending to be a different way and for some reason that people consider that very brave which to me just says we have a lot of shame issues about being a human being that's why it's brave to post a picture of your own body because we have so many ridiculous shame issues about bodies right i think that you know i don't know what it is that i'm sharing that is so shocking i mean i i am a woman in whatever that means i i don't even know what that means anymore at all actually i i i'll get into that another year i guess but that's losing all meaning to me i'm a woman a person who's raised as a woman in this culture who had an eating disorder and still does well how the hell could that have happened in this culture that is shocking like how could a little girl develop an eating disorder growing up in america like to me it feels so freaking obvious that people who don't understand that are confusing to me like i feel like they're just not paying any attention right or oh i'm a human being who developed addictions over time like oh my god imagine that wanting to numb yourself from the freaking human experience which by the way is ridiculous like being a human being is ridiculously hard or like oh my god i'm a human being who whose sexuality has like grown and changed and evolved and i mean is that i guess my question is i i really don't know what why more people don't do it i guess why more people aren't just like um [Music] really because it because the freedom that it gives you is it just makes you feel less afraid like the good news is when when somebody's writing a new yorker profile about me i'm like have at it i know for a fact you're not gonna find any i didn't already say there's no secrets anymore which there's just a you don't have to be a person with a public platform to feel what it would the possible power of not having any thing you're afraid of people finding out about you the question of why don't more people do this i think it's twofold one is there's an enormous amount of compartmentalization and just disconnection from those aspects of ourselves like we we have to sanitize and then the second part is like we're constantly disconnecting and sanitizing and protecting and projecting these very false or un non-full images of ourselves so that we can appear some way that we believe to be uh acceptable and that's just ingrained in us from just it's only getting worse but it's getting i think the problem's the patriarchy though i mean i think a lot of the structure of this is that lens you know i mean i don't mean to i'm not but for men too like you don't want to show them no men live in the patriarchy too i'm just saying that like this notion of of presenting a certain sanitized version of that kind of perfection i think it does it has a very you know it has a very a particular gaze to it you know at least in terms of social media so for you does it not feel like freedom it just feels like being well i think it's all the patriarchy it's also just living in a consumer culture i think it's it's consumerism it's this idea that everything we're looking at you know what is it like 98 of freaking messages we get every single day from someone trying to sell us something right and the way things are sold to us is here is a person who has no problems right and if you want to be like this person who has no problems you have to buy this that's it right every product has a problem that it's trying to overcome exactly or a perceived problem and if you don't have that problem we're going to convince you that you have that problem so that we can solve it for you yeah absolutely i mean consumer culture is like the mafia right it shows up at your door and it's like if you don't have you didn't have a problem a second ago but now you do but they could do this we can solve it and you're like crap what just happened that was fine i think it was fine i didn't even know i needed those countertops i didn't even know i needed those jeans i didn't even know and then you just like keep buying stuff till you because like you know the way people buy more who feel less than right i mean i do it all the time if i could show you what my freaking counters look like in my bathroom like i still believe i'm one batch of lotion away from nirvana i will probably order something as soon as we get off this so yeah i think it's it's consumerism it's it's patriarchy it's the idea that we think if we're admired we will be liked and we will have connection like we don't understand that there's a difference between admiration and love right so would just like try to get admired not knowing that that what we really want is connection and an admiration actually separates from us from connection because people think oh she's cool but i'm different than her right as opposed to real connection which can only be like i'm showing you my real self you're showing me your real self there might not be any admiration left but it's real but it's real yeah so you know i don't know if it's it's a freedom i will tell you that it's interesting to be a memoirist which by the way is something they really just only call women writers men are writing stuff but like we're we're doing like confessionals and tell-alls like like we're just like sitting in our therapy writing down our notes in our little diary with a little key and like whatever the the first article i read about um untamed i think it was the new york times and the title was glenn and doyle has a third memoir question mark that was the title david sedaris was like david cenaris 48th book but it was like literally a question mark like are we gonna let her say a third thing she has three things to say we've been humoring her twice this is too much [Music] this episode is brought to you by betterhelp online counseling i've been in therapy since i was born i'm a huge advocate for therapy i say go twice a week i do go twice a week thanks for asking and bump it up to three i've done that for periods in my life too if you're having any trouble meeting your goals trouble sleeping are you feeling anxious are you feeling like what is this feeling i'm feeling if you constantly find yourself in miscommunications and needing help figuring it out better help is available betterhelp offers online professional counselors who can listen and help jonathan has better help a crisis line it is not a crisis line is it self-help it is not self-help it is secure online professional counseling better help counselors have a broad range of expertise which may not be available in your area but the service is available for clients worldwide better help is committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches so it's easy and free to change therapists if you need to it's more affordable than traditional offline counseling and financial aid is available so many people have been using better help they're recruiting additional counselors in all 50 states and listeners of this show get 10 off their first month at betterhelp.com forward slash break visit betterhelp.com break join the over 1 million people who have taken charge of their mental health with the help of an experienced better health professional there is no shame in asking for help why are you saying that to me oh you mean for everyone there's no shame in asking for help this episode is brought to you by zip recruiter finding great candidates to hire can be like trying to find a needle in a haystack sure you can post your job on a job board but then all you have to do is hope that's not enough you should try zip recruiter for free at ziprecruiter.com break they do the work for you when you post a job on ziprecruiter it's not like posting it on a job board no it gets sent out to over a hundred top job sites with one click then zip recruiters matching technology finds people with the right skills and experiences for your job and actively invites them to apply you get qualified candidates quickly so while other services may overwhelm you with applications that you have to sift through zip recruiter finds what you're looking for the needle in the haystack in fact ziprecruiter is so effective that four out of five employers who post on zipper recruiter get qualified candidates from the site within the first day the first day it's amazing and right now you can try ziprecruiter for free at ziprecruiter.combreak that's ziprecruiter.com b-r-e-a-k go to ziprecruiter.com break ziprecruiter the smartest way to hire [Music] how do you know all the stuff you know like there's a difference between admiration and love like i know that's true but i would never think to say it where do you get the things that are in your head like is this like you are you are um you're not a therapist you know you didn't go to school for that that's not your thing like you're you had a a very you know i don't say domestic life but you had like a you had that kind of life right where did all those were those things in there and they were just like waiting to find a place for for you to release them like sometimes i say things or i was interviewed next to um you've all know i'm harare the other day and he's a historian and a philosopher and like the man said things that sound like the preface to a book that he hasn't written yet i'm like i don't talk like that and i'm not saying you speak like this philosopher historian but like you know when you read your when one reads your books it's like where did it come from it's just you sit and think it obviously you've been to therapy and you have a 12-step structure but like it's just like this is just that's how you think yeah okay well i i actually believe there are some practical answers to this question okay and i've never tried to put them into words before so forgive me if they're not organized but i think that there are some benefits to the kind of severe um introvert that i am i truly believe and i don't mean this funny in a funny way that while people are out there doing things yeah they're busy doing things i don't know what the hell they're doing out there they're shopping yeah they're right i'm just online and they're in stores maybe i don't know but they are doing things social you know i am have always been a a stay homer a thinker a reader of things i spend a lot of time i think of it as like a gift i could offer to the world like while i you go out and you have your real jobs my job is to stay home and think so hard that i'm gonna give you this sentence that's gonna help make it it's gonna make sense it's gonna make your brain make more sense that's what i can do so i think being someone who has been a serious dedicated almost obsessive reader since i was six years old i think um being an introvert being someone who's constant i think some being someone who's in a same gender marriage i'm sorry but like all we do is talk yeah that's astounding to me too i can't understand it listen we're two women we're both seekers we're both sober we don't do anything but talk like i was talking to my friend liz liz gilbert's my best friend she when she was um in a relationship with with rhea or her love who died um a couple years ago but we used to talk about what it's like to be in a same gender marriage and she used to talk about it feels like those women who used to like go down to the river and just start beating out rugs and just beat them all day that's what it's like abby and i all day just talking about subjects until we just want to die really but that doesn't sound attractive right now no no i'm not trying to say it is i'm just saying that's what it's like over here right okay through that conversation you simplify very complex things and you get gems of sentences that sound very poetic and make other people uh have their life make sense great and it's like oh wow she just said that thing and i'm like that thing took me eight and a half months right like that thing and also you guys i have a high level of anxiety about everything but particularly when i am releasing a piece of art into the world i am appalled by this situation where you make something and that's the thing you made like untamed is the best i can say about the subject right those are the words that i worked really hard on and multiple drafts lots of thinking lots of thinking and then the world's like can you go talk about about that book right for a year and i'm like but i'm just saying things worse then i said them in the book right so i have anxiety about that part of it about going out into the world and talking about the thing i made which is very interesting like painters don't have to do that they don't have to make a painting and then go talk about their painting for a year you just have to re you just have to look at the painting and decide what it means well my cousin's a modern painter and she has to write like a little paragraph which sounds so painful to have to describe what all these lines are yeah just look at them just look at them just look how do you feel that's how you feel you write the paragraph after you look at it that's right exactly right exactly thank you so when i was starting this process to go talk about the book i would write down and questions that i knew people would ask me i would write paragraph answers i would speak the answers you guys into a phone and then listen to myself it's embarrassing to tell you how much i would prepare right you literally were creating the tape in your head as we call it exactly so so so that i could be like one of those dolls where you just pull the string in the back yeah and they're like tell us what you think about sexuality and i'm like huh let me think and it just like all comes out from when i so some of it's not spur of the moment it's just stuff i've thought about and and did that reduce the anxiety no nothing reduces my anxiety i mean maybe i lexapro medication does i actually believe that breathing exercises some of this woo-woo stuff really does help me we talk about a lot of woo-woo stuff here because like my feeling is like i don't know what that crystal does but i like having it there so let's just let it be there yeah i don't know it's a lovely rose quartz i will take all the help i can get from any arena correct that's kind of how we feel has your relationship with that anxiety changed in the different aspects of your life yeah i mean yes yes i mean there i have had a lot of time where i've tried to reframe it completely because you know nobody knows really what it is what is it i don't know it's like part science part spiritual part personality it's a big mix of things i've had times where i've reframed it i said it's my fire it's not anxiety it's my fire that really didn't help as much as one would hope i i actually one of the things i find a little bit panicky and um depressing in the moment is that i don't feel like it's getting much better like i'm 45 now well it moves around doesn't it yeah it feels like it should be it just the shoulds i know are not real but it just feels in my soul as if after as much work as i've done on myself as a human being and just with age that it should be waning but i don't find that to be true well so this is this is kind of interesting because this is something that i've been thinking about i mean i have that about pretty much everything about me and my existence like how much more god do you want from me meaning i've been in therapy since i'm 17 years old and i've been in good therapy you know because sometimes people are like well you shouldn't need it the kind of help that i needed you need it forever i promise like i believe in traditional psychoanalysis it's what i do it's how i do and i uncover revelatory things weekly i'm gonna just say it there have been periods in my life where it's more like monthly and you kind of like keep that maintenance going but literally you know 15 years of the 20 years i've been with my therapist has been still protecting the things i didn't really want to talk about and like that's just my story but you know then i like deal with the eating stuff and i deal with the well i grew up this way so i need a whole program for how i grew up and then i worked the steps and i did the thing and i like it's a constant thing and i thought when i got married at 27 that like well there's life i did it i did the 27 hard years when i was searching for my bachelorette and now i just like now i just coast now i'm in neutral oh i want to have a baby before i'm 30. let's do that oh let's have another one see what happens there right but throughout all of this like i'm struggling tremendously right and then you get divorced and the kids are four and seven and we co-parent in a way that makes many people uncomfortable because we are best friends who no longer live together who are raising these humans and we have i mean we we treat them like they're our children even though we're not a romantic couple and that freaks people out but like here we are and then it's like you try dating and then okay that didn't oh you tried that for five years why'd you stay five years okay now we do this like just that it feels like a slog and i often wonder because people say to me like maybe you're in too much therapy you're talking too much like you have to just be you're fine and especially like people who are into cognitive behavioral therapy like six weeks with a therapist i recommend and you'll be fine and i'm certain that's not true because i've been tortured by my existence just as a human since i'm very young like i cried on my 10th birthday because i knew i was gonna die and like why are we celebrating so i think for many people whose experience is not that i'm very happy for them but i'm certain that there's still more like that i keep uncovering and it's very astounding and i don't know why everyone doesn't walk around freaking out that like we exist and this is happening all the time and there's beauty but it's also terrifying and did you ever just wanna are you ever in a restaurant where you just wanna be like everyone's just eating yes as if they're as if nothing's going on and you just totally are you all aware that we're gonna lose everyone we love that like we're all gonna die maybe soon and the future of the planet is uncertain and the future of civilization and our species it's all all very precarious and you want to know mom why i bite my nails and why i'm eating so i don't have to feel anything and that's why this whole idea of anxiety and depression i'm a little bit i mean there's been a part of me since i was 10 and started therapy that was in those offices where they would tell me that i was this or i was that and i'd be like hmm we'll see [Laughter] like i just asked am i am i anxious or are you just not paying attention i think i might just be paying attention closely right so i i i hear you i hear you i i do think that maybe it's this concept we have of growing up like when i grow up i will that we think we're gonna hit milestones and we don't really understand that we're just going to be stuck with ourselves the whole way through well and also like let's add kids to the mix because even before i had kids when i would meet people who were like i've thought about it a lot and i don't want to bring children into this world i was like god bless you for knowing that and following through on it i knew that i wanted to make babies um i also knew that i came with a tremendous mental health challenge load which is essentially what i've been terrified about passing on to my children and also like trying to appreciate like we're all a spectrum you know maybe they'll get less than i've got but throw children into the mix where like i was raised by parents who they did the best they could with the support resources and education that they had i had that string too that's right but the uh the notion that they raised me with was we know everything we know everything down to when you're hungry when you're happy when you're sad and when you're tired so like i was raised to think that parents know everything so i think that's why i thought that when i grew up i'd be like them i would know everything so then you put me in therapy and you make me go through all the things that they made me go through right and then i have kids and i my one of my favorite things is being able to say i don't know how we're supposed to do this whether it's divorce whether it's loss like i say to them either right i've never been your parent with you as old as you are and me this i've never done today like f if i know and that doesn't mean that i'm their best friend like i'm their mom it's clear but it's literally like i remember we were supposed to get on a flight to san francisco and i had a talk that night like a paid talk and the flight kept being delayed delay delayed and i'm like i got to get on an hour plane but that freaking fog in san francisco and i was literally at the point where i was gonna miss the talk or make this gamble and i looked at my two children who were maybe oh i don't know six and ten and i was like we're going to call dad at my ex-husband we're going to call dada and he's going to pick us up and we're going to rent a car and they were like what i said this is my decision i don't know if it's the right one i was like this family rolls by lowered expectations and we all high-fived we rented a car we drove to san francisco i made it to the talk and like that was it but that's a great example like was i terrified yes was i scared that i had to make this grown-up decision that i didn't even feel equipped to make but i have to call my ex-husband to be like what do i do come pick us up take me to a rental car right but that's like the notion of like i parent as an anxious person that's how i have to function exactly and we do our best my little one is anxious my older one just was born 65 so i don't know what to say about that i have one but i'm curious for you also like i think people worry that we can't parent this way you know and i i wonder if that's something you think about or kind of how you approach that to even suggest that you can't parent this way means there's a way to parent i think that's even a funny idea it feels to me like uh you know when you are talking about these ideas you had of how it was supposed to be when you were grown up how you were how you were supposed to be when you were a parent it's like how much of our angst is just that we're not experiencing what we thought it was supposed to be and like the delta between those two things right so for me it comes back to the what is the freedom of of of telling the truth about experiences is what i would love for my kids to have is less of a delta between any idea of how it's supposed to be because they're dealing with who i actually am which i think will make maybe make it easier for them to deal with who they actually are totally i mean that's what i've found yeah there's a great thing that mime and i both uh have been told which is like you unpack something very you know big or you find out some new information and instead of being like that's not what i thought or that's not what i wanted it's like oh that's new information does that square with everything else that i may have thought well it's not that my thoughts before were untrue they just may not have been relevant to what is and this notion of changing our perception so that we can just be like that's new information that's what is right now um which is actually quite you know i was thinking about this in both of your stories you both had many chapters of your lives and how does the fact that you have had so many chapters change your experience of the present because in each one of the chapters you were like this is my life i expect this to be my life this is feels very real very true and yet that truth which is very real in the moment can also change which doesn't necessarily mean that it wasn't true in the moment but it does mean that it just puts a little bit of like wait a second what's next exactly it makes you scared all the time like i'm not even considering that this is real just to kind of flesh that out a little more and you know i'm curious your take on it glenn and like you know when people ask like well how could you be i mean especially like my parents who were together for 53 years until my father died and i i think she considers them still together he died six years ago um but that notion of like well how could you love someone and now you don't love them anymore right also i was raised in a very traditional household you know my my parents are first-generation americans and my mother was raised orthodox like very very religious um so there was this notion that like there's one love let's just talk let's let's use love i like this there is one love in your life and if you find someone and then you're not with them anymore it wasn't love like that's how i was literally raised like that and even today like my mother i just will catch her saying things like oh they were married 50 that was true love and it's like oof you know and you know getting getting divorced which most people i think especially if you're a celebrity person they assume was your first solution to the problem yeah why are they you just got pissed on tuesday right like that's it like why are they so free with you know like people have no idea and it's not their right to know what my marriage was or wasn't like and um but people had a lot of opinions about it which they're allowed to you know thank you internet but that notion of like love is this you know it's this shifting it is it's a shifting existence and especially for you who you know had a heterosexual kind of love right and a very kind of specific life carved out for you that is still relevant and obviously had truth and produced you know the children that you have and that you parent together but your your concept of love has to i mean everybody's does so i think that's a um maybe you can speak to that a little bit either with you know sort of how does truth have relative value and then how do we trust what our current truth is and in particular i think love is a great example yeah love and marriage i mean it's interesting because even when you say you know what is love can we can that idea evolve i mean i think even the idea of what is a successful marriage like when you're talking about your mother saying oh they were married for 50 years that was a great love i can't tell you the amount of people that i know who have who have decided never to divorce and have been married for 30 years and i look at their marriage and think i don't know what success is but that ain't it no for sure for sure i mean this whole thing the whole thing is relatively in success like our culture would call a marriage from the outside our culture would look at a marriage where they don't know or that maybe they do even that both individuals inside the marriage are slowly dying inside and are full of contempt and have been slowly dying inside for decades and they would look at that marriage and they would go success right so when after um love warrior came out i remember doing one of my first interviews after the whole divorce and someone saying do you ever feel sad that you worked you know there's so much in love where about how hard you and craig worked um to heal your marriage and does it ever make you sad that after all of that your marriage still failed and it was this really important moment to me because i was like oh that's so interesting that is how is that that's how some people see it like there's nobody nobody in that marriage thinks that it failed like craig and i are like holy like we have this amazing life now right first of all he has girlfriends who actually want to make out with him now hot dig right we're co-parenting and sometimes that gets weird and sometimes it's amazing and sometimes it's like the kids are good we met each other when we were both so effed up like we knew i was left up we learned he was later anyway once again i was more open about it okay we'll say that but we worked we ended that marriage so much freaking better and wholer and healthier than we started it we have these kick-ass kids we have this pretty cool imperfect but awesome life like neither of us thinks our marriage was a failure in any way like raging success ended but raging success right so it's not even just what love is but like what are do we just sometimes i seriously think it's as simple as people just thinking a little bit harder instead of saying like what's a successful marriage and what's not just actually think about it for yourself is it just success if it lasts forever my mother is saying yes i've just seen too much evidence to the contrary right well i mean now you're making her feel more special like because like the it was perfect that was the true love you know but it's not intimidating at all to grow up with parents who like i mean my parents were they were stunners you know like they walked into a room and it was like you know they took over the dance floor at every bar mitzvah and wedding like so this was like it's like why did i ever even try to get married right that's tough that's a tough one yeah yeah we have to take back the notion of relationships as a failure we have to take back this idea of it didn't work out like none of that is relative relevant to people who are working actively are you going to break up with me in front of glenn and doyle look we came together to start this podcast we got to speak to glenn doyle i just don't understand what else there could be for us and now we talk about how some love was our annuals oh my god that's our perennial you're joining in with him no no no no no no i'm totally on my own side forever forever but i do think that that is true like we it didn't work out what if it worked out perfectly well this is our it goes back to our expectations we have huge amounts of cultural expectations which are thrust upon most of us which you two are called the patriarchy no it's other things it's not you know it's other things and then each of us individually has our expectations which are filtered or fueled by some of these larger social expectations but then we're like what should we be doing how should we be acting how should this interview be going who like it it's constant and a source of an enormous amount of sickness i want to stop you there and just for mayam's anxiety i want to tell you that i feel like this interview is going so well okay so i just want everyone to relax i think this is the best interview i've ever done if i trusted you or anyone i might believe that when do you two have respites from the anxiety this is you know for people because we did a whole episode on anxiety actually our first episode uh with grace helbig yeah miam did a beautiful 20-minute intro breaking down anxiety and the biochemical reactions that happened and how anxiety uh we don't understand the difference between real and imagined threats so we're constantly creating these threats and also we covered uh areas where our anxiety binds and when miami said like it moves around it's like oh i thought if i just figured out this job thing then i would feel less anxious or if i quit smoking i'll be less anxious right which never by the way no then no that's not true or that i get out of this relationship and i finally wrap it up and i'm like okay you're cope like then i'm gonna feel less and then no i always it's not the case it moves and so what i mean just mine will say to me like are you really about that thing that you're persevering on or is it just like that's what your anxiety is bound to so i'm curious because we all struggle with it um when in both of your lives do you like get a respite where you sort of feel like you're in the flow and for example you it just kind of like you don't think about it you know it's locked out for a minute i have one time where i can i can only think of one time right now but and it but it's weird because i i remember a lack of anxiety during the time that i was falling in love with abby and what i think is interesting is it was the most out of control time of my life like i it was like oh i mean i had no more no no more reasons for anxiety than i had at that time like my career could have blown up my family was blowing up my whole everything was just um and i think that there was my anxiety usually manifests as a as a desire to control everything just every little and people and like it's almost like i get like ritually witchy in like how i'm trying to move people and control people and and and and that point i think it was because it was so obvious that there was nothing that i could control that it was a relief it just felt like one time in my life where i was like oh i guess we'll see how these chips fall because i i have this feeling that the reason that the world is spinning and my family's not dying and my career is because i am controlling all of it right abby and i argue about this all the time like if if something happens i am convinced that it was my concern worry sweat um insomnia i earned that thing going well for us because i worried us into that good outcome okay this is not abby's worldview that's a good course to start though towards good outcomes you too can worry yourself into a good outcome i understand intellectually that that is not the case okay it's just that i don't really understand it on some level but that was the one time where i felt like the world really freaking surprised me where i felt like i wasn't witching any of it up i didn't i didn't arrange that i didn't control it falling in love with a freaking woman in the middle of my life falling in love at all like really for the first time it was such a surprise from the universe that for a good long while afterwards i was just like okay i'm just gonna trust that something's happening here that i don't understand then eventually i went back to controlling everything why do you say falling in love for the first time well for sure the experience the intensity of the experience that i had falling in love with abby which felt to me in retrospect a lot like drugs or something is not something that i experienced before i had crushes i had had uh deep love that was based in respect and um you know co-parenting and all of that but i hadn't had the intense experience that so many other people i used to think that it was kind of people were making it up until i was 42 and it happened to me i just thought i was so special you guys i just thought that i was having this otherworldly i mean my sister would try to get glennon this is what this is what happens to people like this is you know and i feel like now it's just us it's just us um so that was my first my first time with that whole kind of mind-altering personality changing um you know brain lit up kind of love many people don't experience that at all i mean for most of human history women women women in particular were not uh it wasn't considered necessary you know to feel that no one was checking in with them you know in terms of the anxiety just you know i i feel like uh because you you did you asked both of us i am well i have a favorite answer is better answer you know i'd like to say like when i sleep but no i have i mean i've been plagued by bad dreams most of my life um and and night terrors and um you know this is a fun one and this actually really picked up during the quarantine uh waking up literally in a panic and i don't mean a panic attack because i'm a neuroscientist and we're very careful with how we use that but waking up like feeling like a gun just went off in the street or like feeling like what's happening like that was happening a lot at the beginning of actually that was before just before we decided to start this podcast because i was like if this is happening to me and i know what it is imagine if this is happening to people and they don't know why they feel like a knife to their throat when they wake up so not when i sleep and i don't have an allergy to alcohol that is not my but i've got the gene i am certain i am certain that i am i'm a couple bad decisions away from that being the thing that i am truly allergic to in a way that i acknowledge because when i'm not sober i don't feel anxious meaning when i've had you know a couple drinks not just like oh a glass of wine with dinner i still feel anxious but there's a place where you get where you are i mean you're comfortably numb like that's and that is very dangerous and it's why i have compassion for the alcoholics in my life because that safety is addictive right okay so i'm gonna i'm gonna push on you for one one part because anxiety again is a spectrum right we we say oh we're anxious all the time other things i was gonna say but okay no i'm done but the reality is is that it does ebb and flow and so mine for you i'm gonna give you two scenarios one is you're in the heart of a scene where you're like it's not about prepping the scene like the action's already been called you're in this i mean like an acting scene do you not lose so that first of all do not lose yourself and then the second part you're i've been kayaking with you you're kayaking she's a very aggressive kayaker everything's aggressive i break things i'm hard on life you're like in the middle of the lake wind's blowing you're kayaking and that morning i'm looking at you you're not anxious right you're in like because when we're very very present oh it's very hard to be anxious because anxious requires our attention of anxiety right like we have to be aware of the fact that we're anxious to register that anxiety now we can it can be operating as a slow hum in the background but it's not until we're like tuned into it we're like oh that feeling that i'm like well so this this leads to the other the other example i was going to give is like you know when i mean i can think of it with a child but you can think of it with a lover when you're holding someone it's not the whole time that you're holding someone that for me that i don't feel anxious but there's that moment you know like especially when when you know one of my kids is in a tender spot and there's that moment it's not i mean i'm gonna talk you through it it's not the moment when you're reaching for them and they're reaching for you and it's not the moment when you first make physical contact it's when they settle in it's when they settle and you settle and it's like you that drop in that's not anxiety it's like a grounding i actually have a moment like that with my dogs too i know exactly what you're talking about and it's it's not it's still anxiety before and after it but it's just this one thing that that where they do the dogs do where they lay on my legs and they and i can't move for a minute in a good way and it's a grounding a deep grounding so to me that's not anxious so i mean you could argue i think jonathan's you know possibly making a larger point like when i'm truly present i'm not anxious but the fact is like you know for me and and i get asked this a lot and especially in terms of this podcast like well do you ever get over it how do i get over it and like when can i be like when do i graduate and it's like we say in 12-step programs like you don't graduate that's not a thing like remove the concept of graduating from your vocabulary it's just that you now have this to live with and deal with and get through well i think that's the point is like finding those moments extending those moments where we feel some lack of it's not that it doesn't exist but it's not the overwhelming or predominant signal that we're processing but it's tricky because if i if i extended those moments i would be a reclose yeah you know what i mean like i have to not indulge or not listen to my anxiety a good amount of or not be controlled or not try to you know my kid i remember chase they're playing this game where you ask each other questions and then you're supposed to tell the real truth which no one should play with their family but he's it was some question like what would you change about whatever and he said i would change how my mom how you have to like make every environment so exactly right for you right like if we're at a restaurant someone's talking too loud or something it's like oh like it's she he said i wish you could just be more easy breezy and allow things and not control advice jonathan and i have no idea what you're talking about i mean and it's sad that that's the kind of anxiety that that that is contagious and then i had it i um grew up raised by a man who i believe had undiagnosed anxiety and so it came out as um just being extremely controlling of every environment right so i learned to be on eggshells all the time i learned to walk into rooms and and scan for like is that person going to be a problem are those people going to be a problem are those people's voice are those is that person going to cuss is that like every just to be such a high self monitor it's hyper pregnant yeah hyper vigilant is abby and i can walk into a room and walk out and i have had a completely different experience than she has like just i will explain it as having gone through a battle like the way i described the experience is like i have just made it through a war like you know and she's just like what you're like i just went and we sat in a nice room and you're like this person that's a threat no but also people who don't know what social anxiety feels like i mean i routinely leave events crying like every every red carpet thing i've ever been to i leave early i find like i'm crying like i'm fighting back tears and there's a sensation when you're with people who don't get that that's what it's like it's like why can't you enjoy your life why aren't you just grateful do you know how lucky you are to be at the emmys and i'm like yes i know how lucky i am i need to go home i want to tear out these 300 extensions i tear out my hair in the car it's so fascinating it's so fascinating and now i feel depressed about the whole like moment of not feeling anxiety because when you think about it i was talking about it in terms of well cosmically the universe surprised me and that but really i was kept by with my mind was altered which is what you described with alcohol which is what i did for the first 20 years of my life to numb the anxiety well it's that there's there's the god-shaped hole and that's what i mean like it moves around and look love i mean it is it's a it is a powerful drug you know it is a very powerful drug um but yeah i mean shopping sex drugs food like and that kind of makes me feel like all the people who claim that they don't need help they make me mad that's like come on people no they just don't know they're just not as far enough along to even know that they need help those are the worst kind of people yes they are well they have a lot of unconscious reactions to things do they jonathan not that i know about that it's unconscious how would you know everything is smooth sailing over here most of the time this episode just like mime's last meal is brought to you by postmates my life is brought to you by postmates i i mean it's out of hand you're yelling because i'm excited about postmates i love food but sometimes cooking it's just not gonna happen that's why i love postmates i get food delivered without leaving my house i don't even have to open my front door i mean i have to open it to get the food but i just i don't even need to open my front door pandemic safe with the current state of the world postmates created no contact deliveries now when i order from local restaurants everything is left on my doorstep the app lets me know when it's been delivered postmates also offers a pickup option if you do want to leave your house which you can use to order takeout from your favorite local restaurants i've done that too it is so important that we support and uplift our community right now and there's no better way than finding it on postmates postmates isn't all about burgers and sushi i can even order toilet paper i can order phone chargers you can order from walgreens 7-eleven a postmate will drop it off right outside your door download postmates on ios or android find your favorites get anything you want delivered within the hour it's amazing for a limited time postmates is giving our listeners five dollars off your first five orders for your first seven days that's a lot of numbers but it's a great deal to save five dollars on your first five deliveries download the app and use the code breakdown that's breakdown for five dollars off your first five orders when you download postmates app or sign up online anything you need anytime you need it post made it we gonna get postmates for dinner this episode is brought to you by bright sellers brightsellers is a wine subscription service that helps you find wines that you love without the normal intimidation and wine pretentiousness that you're used to i have bright cellars wine the the way that you do it is you take this really fun cool quiz and i don't know a lot about wine so i was nervous about it because i was like what are they gonna ask me like do i like dried like i don't know i don't know they it's not extensive it's thirty seconds it's like a really quick quiz with all these really cool questions where they're trying to kind of really get like what kind of person you are and i'm sure there's science to it and they pair you with six unique and personalized wines based on your answers to the questions every box offers a unique wine experience that includes wine education cards so that i can start to be smarter about wine they talk about the region of the wine the tasting notes the serving temperatures food pairings and many other things also if you don't like a bottle they will work to include a replacement bottle in your next box and they'll adjust your taste profile members have access to concierge services to help place custom orders answer any questions or help adjust their account each of the concierges take part in wine education classes with sommeliers to continually improve their expertise and here's what's really exciting for mayambialic listeners they're giving us 50 off six bottles of your first order of bright sellers that is so lovely by going to brightsellers.com breakdown that's bright sellers c-e-l-l-a-r-s dot com slash breakdown you can take their seven question quiz to get your wine matches and receive fifty percent off your first six bottle order grab your passport and travel the world of wine by heading to brightsailers.com breakdown for 50 off your first bright sellers box [Music] i have one more question because i i know you have to go i have one more question though about sort of being you know in a relationship with another human and this isn't about the fact that you're both female it's not about that but just being in relation with another human um you know when you both have stuff does it feel harder because you know you're you're both in recovery you know like is it helpful to have that shared language because i think a lot of people who are struggling with mental health stuff you know especially like they often don't know what it's going to look like to be in relationship with another person you know can that person hold for you you know if if one person's upset do you both get upset and like of course that's kind of classical codependency like i'm not okay unless you're okay but there's a notion of like you want your partner to get you and also be able to hold it together when you're falling apart and you know this notion of like is there room for both of you and how do you negotiate that yeah what an interesting question i mean i do think that there's room for both of us i think that in our relationship there's more space time energy taken up with my um mental differences you wanted to call them than there is for abby sometimes i do worry about that um i feel like especially lately just i don't know ever since the coven started the whole food thing has gotten weird again and so there's a lot of talk about that and a lot of concern about that and also we have we both have food issues actually but we have opposite ones so what that looks like in real life is that um she will be more of an indulger and i'm more of a restrictor and so what she does to feel safe is the opposite of what makes me feel safe and there's all kinds of triggering like like you know it just you know why can't you why do you want a sip of my milkshake why can't you order your own damn milkshake and then this whole situation is just about milkshakes but it's not about milkshakes it's because i actually can't order my own freaking milkshake and like to her she's the last of seven kids she only got like she couldn't let her have that milkshake right right i know i know no but i'm with you i'm not gonna order my own thing i'm gonna drink half of yours and get mad that you're mad at me about it exactly and and you know what i'll do i will do that tonight yeah okay like i know what's happening and i will still do it my kids i steal their food it's so sad same same and why can't i just order my own milkshake and have three sips then and throw it out no because that's i was not raised that way we don't waste food we steal food we hoard food we hoard food we but we we just steal it we but we don't waste it i don't know it's this restrictive thing so um you know when when when i think the things that you fall in love with somebody about there's so much about abby and how big she lives and how much room she gives herself you can see it with the way she lit like how much that is was so freaking magic to me and now it's the stuff that holds my stuff up like a mirror right like i want to be able to to eat like she eats and and indulge like she indulges and at the same time those are the very things that that are like rubbing up on each other so um what i will say is that i can see it being more difficult if i wasn't with someone who was so freaking curious about all of this i think curiosity is super helpful like we are able to look at ourselves and it's not even personal anymore we're just talking about our issues as if they're not personal we are able to do that and it's one of our favorite things to do which is just unbelievably helpful you know if i were with somebody who just was ever like can you get over this abby never ever ever gives the energy of like can we be done with this that is what i have the constant feeling ever since i was little that i'm like too much that i'm exhausting that like and and so that's the the energy that she has which is like this is amazing like she considers it fascinating you're fascinating it's a different way to look at this way of life that that is helpful one tiny comment is that i think it's fascinating that the things that we initially fall in love with someone about become the mirror that forces us to deal with our own stuff it's like unconsciously or maybe subconsciously we're like oh that person will help me but it gets masked with they're so engaging they're so unique they have all these things that i don't have and i want them and or i i appreciate them and i'm drawn to them and then you settle in and there's some turning point in the relationship where you're like oh wait a second i have to look at myself and all these issues that get brought up that's like the rub the chemicals start wearing off a little bit and then the work kicks in that's it if people were really smart when they were falling in love they would make a list of the things they're falling in love with and make sure they can deal with the opposite of that later inside of themselves because that's what happens it goes from like oh she's so free to like why is she so free why the hell is she's so free my friend should take up so much space yeah god quiet down there should be an app where you could put the positive characteristics of your partner and then it shows you what you're gonna have to deal with that's what you look like it will give you your therapy list for later yes it will um okay last question you know you've done a lot of amazing things and this is not like where do you see yourself in five years but i am curious um do you like do you know like do you do you plan to write more do you want like for me i want to retire like that's what i'm so exhausted just with existing publicly and i love it but the the amount of brain power like i just can't wait until it's my turn to not have to think anything unless i want to like actively i understand that vibe there like i'm just i'm curious like if if you feel like i've said enough words i've done enough things like new yorker reviewed me and my existence and like i'm going to raise my kids or do you have like i know that someone maybe it's already in the works like is going to say like she needs a show like she needs her own like i mean of course of course of course of course i'm curious though like what what do you want like do you know what you want for yourself well i think it's funny that you mentioned the retiring thing that is and i wonder if that's a like a manifestation of people with anxiety all i do is live with i live for the moment of being done whether it's whether it's like a podcast is done or like the thing the one thing i have to do if it's making a freaking do i have to order pizza tonight i cannot wait until that phone call is done like i cannot wait till the end of the day i live for the moment of the couch that's it the other day somebody was talking to me about the fear of death and i was like you know what maybe i should stop being afraid of this like i live to be done with things like that's actually the ultimate couch netflix moment right it's the final rest like no one can freaking i can't have to show up anymore so like what i what i'm getting at with that is whereas abby is often planning like these big things my obsession is when can we be done like i don't think that i want to to be done i don't think so but i don't want to have to do anything like i don't want to have people keep asking me i've written four books they're like you're gonna write another one i was like i don't know that i need to do that right now and people are amazing it's like people were asking me that the second untamed came out and i want to be like do you think that i know do you think that i like held stuff back like do you think i know more things that i didn't put in that book like i that's all i've got like that's all the things i know i wrote down that's it i didn't save anything for later you know so i what i will tell you is that i don't know mayam how you have done this for so long i think finding the balance between like feeling like you're you're doing yourself justice like you are showing up you're doing what you were meant to do you're putting out your meeting your purpose or whatever the hell it is you know what it's like you you're doing what you came here to do but also maintaining some level of like not getting on the wheel of the relevancy wheel and the like am i visible oh that that that stuff i'm like trying to release the pressure of you know being 15 pounds lighter you know which is what i quote should be by hollywood standards i'm trying to release the pressure of um you know caring that i'm wearing the clothes that make me look like those other women even though i'm not those other women um like those are those are like my short term 2021 goals like when can i wear all black and not have a stylist be like we need you in more color it's like how about if i wear black because i feel the best and i like it and they make a lot of cool clothes in the color black but for me and like when i started my youtube channel which i started with a very close friend of mine he really wanted to like help me build it to show me that i'm okay because he felt so bad that i always felt left out you know any time i see like freaking natalie portman do something it's like in my head i'm like why now there's not that left because natalie did it right like crazy crazy things and like constantly feeling like i'm not as fill in the blank right it's like that because so honestly my fear is that so many of the things i do you know once i got that youtube channel it's like look you have 100 000 subscribers look you have 500. it's like but i still it's in here it's it's like it's in here that it doesn't and of course i love that people feel seen and they feel heard and i'm sure you get this to a much larger scale of like you get me and you got it from me you get me like you've articulated something that makes me feel better right but that hole inside of me it does not get filled so it's like i keep looking for the thing like oh we start a podcast like oh will this make me feel and jonathan's like look you're helping people yeah but it's like there's it's it's in me like the world i'm trying to help me exactly you're not always worried when you're sitting in your chair that's good i was terrified for today but on that note thank you so much literally for for gracing us with your presence and your awesomeness and like i'm i'm if i had known it would go like this i would have been less nervous but that's not how life works i told her she doesn't listen to me though no she can't it's her job she worried her way into this i did look i worried my way into the perfect interview that's right and we could for your for your quick 2021 goal i also finally learned that one thing that i can do is not worry anymore about what i'm wearing so i ordered i have like 30 black shirts in my closet right now most of my closets i can't believe you said this they're all black tank tops just for for cozies and then only black shirts for any other thing and and i will never think about it again right well i'm also anorexic with like clothing beauty prod like i will i will scrimp and scrimp and scrimp and like yeah so it's hard for me even to get new so like now i just like covet had me pare down that closet like it's embarrassing it's embarrassing and like the that black sweatshirt that she's wearing right now looks very cozy i like that if you're if we're looking for a new uh you know he doesn't like the what i hear is he doesn't like the way i dress she's skinny she looks great i'm horrible thanks for being with us glennon we love you i'm glad i could help you guys i'm glad i fixed your anxiety maya okay i die now that's it thank you so much thank you you guys are fantastic thank you i am please email me and be free thank you i am okay okay all right love you both that interview was so good mime has to take a nap she's just not even able to comprehend how she was able to worry herself into having the best possible outcome for that interview i'm replaying it in my head you're left speechless after that interview no i'm not speechless i have a lot of things i think i was really really struck i've never met her you know i was really struck by she seemed really normal in a good way she wasn't one of those hollywood elite types she's not a hollywood elite type like she also has raised 27 million dollars like as part of the charity organization that she runs we didn't talk about that at all we didn't talk about it and actually this is one of the reasons that that my friend abby which is also the name of glendon's wife and different different obviously um that my friend abby like was so into me learning about glenn and doyle before i even knew who like i didn't know any of this stuff this was a couple years ago i mean to say that she's humble it's like it doesn't even it's not even an appropriate word she's a very special human like there's something very special about her what's interesting is she felt very present during our conversation well and i think part of me is like i wonder if when people hear like her say all the things she struggles with it's like see i don't need to go to therapy because you go to therapy and you still end up with all that stuff you say that to me sometimes like you've been working on this why are you still upset about it you know or that does not sound like my voice i mean maybe that's the what my mirrors section but i think i'm like kind and compassionate oh please carrying concerned no but what i'm saying is sometimes people look at me or people like me who are in therapy and in recovery all these things blah blah and it's like well you don't seem any better than i am you know i do think there is an aspect of the mind that is going to make up story and make up an anxiety for anything and that finding the pattern talking it out you can do that as much as you want but ultimately you continue to circle and circle and then the anxiety continues to move and at a certain point we have to be able to say that whatever we're thinking right now is not a reflection of a capital r reality this was a difficult episode for me let's unpack it no all right great but this is where i was going with my curiosity around how can you plan five years in the future when your life has taken so many radical changes dude that you were scaring her i was just like look your life might change drastically in the next five years and doesn't that cause a little bit of anxiety to be like well as far as i know this is my truth this is as happy as i'm going well that's what she said i wrote everything i knew in that book but like people asked people have asked me like well you wrote a book about having small kids like are you gonna write one about you know having teens like well i don't know i'm not there yet right yeah all right i i i feel very i'm feel a little out of sorts but that was really really lovely if you want to ask mime anything you can do so at bialikbreakdown.com and if you want to tell her what a great job she did on this interview you can also leave a little note there and please subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already give us a five star review it helps us make more from my breakdown to the one i hope you never have we'll see you next time it's my ambiance breakdown she's gonna break it down for you she's got a neuroscience phd or two non-fiction and now she's gonna break down it's a breakdown she's gonna break it down

Channel: Mayim Bialik

Views: 317,799

Keywords: mayim bialik, big bang theory, amy farrah fowler, mayim, Glennon doyle, breakdown

Id: s9t2eaaxank

Length: 86min 5sec (5165 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 09 2021