Anorexia, Zillow, and the Search for Self with Glennon Doyle

1. 0:00 – 1:09

   From body peace to feeling at home in yourself

   1. BEDr. Becky0:00

      How do I make peace with my body? I, I feel like you might think that the chapter of your book I wanna talk the most about is parenting, but actually you know me and you probably know that's the chapter I wanna talk the least about. Um, which it is. Um, I ... Can we... Legitimate question, can we talk about this?

   2. GDGlennon Doyle0:16

      Absolutely. I, I w- I will just bring where I am now. I might not be the expert you're looking for at the moment, but I will, I would ha- gladly swirl around that question with you, yes.

   3. BEDr. Becky0:31

      Maybe about ... It was probably like two weeks ago, kind of wrote something up about some things I was putting together around my own kind of anorexia as a kid and my own journey. And so when I came across this chapter in your book, there was just like a lot of pinging going on in my own body. Okay, so let's just start there. Where, where are you currently? This chapter, How Do I Make Peace With My Body, it's not just about anorexia. It is really about feeling at home in yourself. I mean, that's kind of ... I feel like I got from the headline and all the different nuances around that. So yeah, just jump in there with me.

2. 1:09 – 2:27

   Zillow as a mental-health metric: chasing comfort externally

   1. GDGlennon Doyle1:09

      Okay. Um, well, I told my son recently that I can usually tell my level of mental health and embodiment by how long I'm spending on Zillow each day, because w- I tell myself... [laughs] So, so I've been on Zillow a lot [laughs] this, this last couple weeks. And what I figured out about that is that I am constantly, um ... I feel, I've felt very uncomfortable my whole life, is what I would say. I just am generally uncomfortable, and I'm always trying to find ways to make myself more comfortable. So I usually think I need a new, um, wardrobe or a new town or a new state or a new ... Um, and, and what I figured out recently is that while I keep doing that, I mean, I've lived ... I don't even ... I would be embarrassed to tell you how many places I've lived in the last 20 years, constantly trying to find this perfect place that I'll feel comfortable. And then what I've realized over time and through lots of recovery work is that wherever I go, there I am, and that's the problem. [laughs]

   2. BEDr. Becky2:20

      That's the inconvenient truth of, of where change actually happens. It's like always inside.

   3. GDGlennon Doyle2:27

      Yes.

   4. BEDr. Becky2:27

      Ugh.

3. 2:27 – 5:14

   Turning fantasy into a need: cabin solitude vs. life upheaval

   1. GDGlennon Doyle2:27

      So I, this morning, I can tell you how, how now when I catch myself spending hours on Zillow ... Um, I think I should say I'm neither connected nor rejecting Zillow in any way. This is just a agnostic pl- okay. So, um, I think, what, this morning I was on Zillow for an hour when I was supposed to be writing, and I was looking at like little cabins in a, in the forest [laughs] that also had water near them. And so now when I'm doing that for hours, I think, "Okay, what is this place representing that I just need to make in a little way in my life today?" Like, clearly I wanna be alone. Like, what's, what's drawing me to this little cabin is that it feels isolated. Like, maybe I have too much responsibility right now. Maybe I have too much exposure. Maybe I don't have the solitude that I need in my life. But I can actually make that in my house for a half hour instead of moving to Idaho, which I was thinking this morning.

   2. BEDr. Becky3:34

      You know, Glennon, I, there's ... I, I picture my husband listening to this and being like, "Did you write this script?" Because a couple years ago, I, I was looking up, me too, I was looking up this like very small town in Colorado that I was like, really, I was like, "I feel like we have to move here or this other place." And my husband says, "You only think about moving places you've never visited." And you have this sense that like all the good things of your life you will bring with you, and all the not so great things will be additive, [laughs] you know? Um, and so me too. And, but, but what you're saying that really resonates is I think we can have this really self-critical lens of like, "What's wrong with me? Shouldn't I be just be happy where I am?" But what you're saying is actually something gets externalized, like through a house or a town, that's, that's actually a deep, true internal need. But this pattern of getting it filled as if it is the concrete external thing our minds tell us it is, is just this like treadmill. And that the reversal of, okay, there's nothing bad about that house. And for me, I live in Manhattan. I was fan- ... I mean, this Colorado town, I mean, it was like expansive and so beautiful and, um, you know? And I think what, again, what you're saying, it's really true, especially at that time in my life, like, I, I felt closed in. I, I needed more space. I, I was always producing and one thing to the next, and my body did need to slow down. And it might n- not needed to have moved t- to this random town in Colorado that, you know, I never actually visited.

4. 5:14 – 6:01

   Cabin or commune? Learning to hold competing needs

   1. GDGlennon Doyle5:14

      Three days ago, Becky, I was searching for a commune. Like, I was online searching for a place where I could bring all of my friends and live together in one place. So which is it, Glennon? I think, [laughs] I think what it means is each day I need to spend a little bit of time in solitude and I need to spend a little bit of time in connection. Not that I need to either live in a cabin or on a commune.

   2. BEDr. Becky5:44

      Or I think my husband's been like, "If it was up to you," 'cause you can turn urge into action so quickly, "you'd move to the cabin, and then you'd move to the commune, and, and your life would just be in disarray, you know, for everyone around you who's kind of dragged along [laughs] along the way." Right?

   3. GDGlennon Doyle6:00

      That's what I've done.

   4. BEDr. Becky6:01

      Right. Yeah.

5. 6:01 – 7:17

   Parenting as unhealed material: ‘Try to figure your shit out’

   1. GDGlennon Doyle6:01

      That's what I've done. My kids have lived in way too many places. They ha- there's beautiful things about them because of that. But I always think if I'm talking to, um, you know, par- people are always trying to figure out how to be better parents. You know that. But, like, if I could tell anybody anything from the beginning, I'd say, "Just, like, try to figure your shit out yourself." Like, because [laughs] you wake up one day and you're like, "Oh, sorry, guys. That was actually about me. Sorry." So had I sat with that, investigated that, started recover- this, this brand of recovery and therapy a little earlier, I may have figured out that these urges don't need to be turned into action, and that there is investigation that could have caused healing that would have given people a little bit more peace.

   2. BEDr. Becky6:55

      Yeah, I often think about that with parenting, that all of your unhealed stuff just comes out before our eyes. And then we just... There's just a fork. I either act it all out [laughs] or I heal and resolve at least some of it. Um, those are... That's kind of all parenting is, kind of. And, as you noticed, kids didn't even really c- [laughs] come into the discussion, right?

6. 7:17 – 8:11

   Food rules and people rules: the same safety strategy

   1. GDGlennon Doyle7:17

      The first time I went to therapy for this last round of eating disorders, my therapist said, "So let's talk about how the way you deal with people is the same as the way you deal with food." And at the time, I was like, "Just sh- honestly, shut up. Like, just tell me-"

   2. BEDr. Becky7:30

      What a therapist thing to say

   3. GDGlennon Doyle7:31

      ... how, if I can get over this part. Like, I, I really didn't register at all. I just thought, "This is nonsense." And now I think about it, you know, two years later, I think about it all the time because it is true. I only have a few... I had a few safe foods, and everyone else, everything else was scary, and I have a few safe people, and everyone else is scary. And because I am so scared of other people, the way that I keep myself safe and my family safe is I just explain to my family why everyone else who comes into our life is bad [laughs] and needs to stay away.

   4. BEDr. Becky8:02

      Which really is a gorgeous thing to do to your children. [laughs]

   5. GDGlennon Doyle8:06

      [laughs] It really helps them have a lens on the world that is open-

   6. BEDr. Becky8:10

      Definitely

7. 8:11 – 12:08

   A ‘dirty lens’ conversation with her daughter: naming the pattern

   1. GDGlennon Doyle8:11

      ... and, and yes, yes. So they-- I had this moment with my youngest recently, she's 17, where she brought somebody up at the table, and I started my thing. I started my thing about why this person is bad and needed to stay away 'cause I'm scared for her, and I could see this, like, thing happen on her face, which was, like, kind of a dimming. Makes me so sad to think about it. It was kind of like a... I mean, maybe it was a little mini dissociation. Whatever it was, I could see on her face that I was hurting her or something. And so I actually took her to dinner the next week, and I just said, "Look, here's the thing. I do this thing. Like, I'm scared of people, so I... And I... So I judge them as a way of protecting you, and it's not protecting you. It's a lens I'm putting on you, and it's dirty. It's a dirty lens, and I don't want you to see the world that, the way that I see it. I want you to see the world the way that you see it. Your way is better." So, but for some reason, I think it's called trauma or nervous system, I can't stop yet. [laughs] Okay? So when I'm doing it... So there's the gap that I'm talking about, right? Gap between. So I said, "When I'm doing that, when you see me start that, I want you to look at me, not the person I'm pointing at. This has nothing to do with the person I'm judging. Just look at me, think Mom's doing that thing again. I'm not gonna put her lens on. I'm gonna keep my lens. She'll be done in a minute." [laughs]

   2. BEDr. Becky9:41

      Yeah.

   3. GDGlennon Doyle9:42

      That's the only way I can deal with the gap without passing it on. It's like a stop gap.

   4. BEDr. Becky9:49

      But I, I think that is how we don't pass things on because, like, those patterns, obviously, for you, were put in place initially to be adaptive. Like, you weren't born, I think, hypervigilant of the world and mistrusting of everyone but four people or four foods. Like, I just, I just don't see babies usually being born entirely that way. We have temperaments, and then we have environment, and then we adapt, which is amazing that we figure out how to adapt at such a young age. And then usually our adaptations early on, they're not always the things that are adaptive later on. [laughs] That's just now how it works. But it's hard to let go of that initial response because it was put in for a protective evolutionary place, and our bodies don't really enjoy letting go of those things. And so what you said, to me, sometimes the best it gets in adulthood with anything is actually, I use that same language, "There I go again. There I go. Oh, I just did that thing." It's like we do the thing, and the best it gets is calling ourselves out on doing the thing or being very open or even inviting of someone we love in our life. "Please tell me when I'm doing the thing for my benefit and also, by the way, for yours," because it is just a thing. And it, it also, it's so interesting 'cause I think this connects, 'cause I don't know if anyone listening is like, "How does this relate to anorexia?" Um, but I think in your chapter about your body and when I think about that moment with your, your daughter, we all have these moments, uh, with our sons and fathers too, but there's something I think about with my daughter, which is like, "Do I trust myself right now, or do I trust my mom?" Right? Like, who's right? I think I like this person. Do I like that person if my mom doesn't like this person? Does my mom know enough about this person to even trust that she's making a sound judgment? Uh, could we both be right in a weird way, and what would I do about that? Could we both be wrong? I mean, uh, again, I think the best it gets is probably questioning that. Like, I don't know if there's a truth. But so much of, I think, this chapter, which I just, just spoke to me, especially in this moment, Amen, is about, is about gazing in and instead of gazing out toward the homes me and you both would move to in an instant. Um, and, and wondering if we could trust something inside us or at least just be curious about it, right? [laughs]

8. 12:08 – 14:06

   Seeing the water you’re swimming in: building inner authority

   1. GDGlennon Doyle12:08

      Yeah. I think that's it. I think that's what that moment is about. It's about- It's like if you, if you don't help your people around you see the water they're swimming in, which is the environment that you created [laughs] as a parent, then they don't see the water they're swimming in. They just think it's, it's... They don't even-- They think it's the way it is, as oppos- op- as opposed to the way that you are. What the little one said to me after I said, "Just don't, just..." There I go again. Just say, "That's Mom." Is she said, "Well, it's really hard..." She said, "I know what you're saying. I know what you're talking about when you do that, but it's hard because you're so smart. So I do think you're usually right. I don't..." She said, "But I don't think you're always right." And I said, "Yeah, that's, that's the tricky thing about life, right?" Is like there's nobody that you can just swallow it all with. Like, you have to maintain that inner... You have to look inside and take the good stuff and leave the rest with everybody. And in some way it spoke to me about a larger moment we're in in this country. Like, I don't want to raise a kid who thinks another person has the answers and follows anything blindly. I want her to question every leader in her life, even the ones who th- she thinks are pretty smart because all of us have a lens. None of us see clearly. So yeah, I mean, the w- Um, b- in, in a way what I'm trying to do is, is make her un-anorexic. It has everything to do with anorexia. Anorexia is just a, a way of externalizing control, of, of not being embodied, of looking f- I've always done that. Look, look, give me a... I'm so cult susceptible. Like, give me a leader, give me a religion, give me a wellness plan, give me an ideology. Like, I have lived my life thinking the answer is out there.

9. 14:06 – 15:25

   Rigidity, morality, and ‘maybe’: the antidote to certainty addiction

   1. BEDr. Becky14:06

      A- and the rigidity. The rigidity. There's such morality in anorexia. There's something that's good, there's something that's bad. It's always moving. You know? Ketchup was good, then you, I don't know, then you find out how much sugar, and then it becomes bad, and then that's bad. You know, it's this... And there's this external rigid truth that can feel very comforting because it's... Things that are non-nuanced can be very comforting because they're just like a one thing that is true, right? And what you're talking about with your daughter, it's so interesting. I think about the power for kids of just, I, I don't even know if it's the right word, but I call it dissonance. Like, the ability to see something and just say, "I don't know. Like, I'm just, I'm not taking it in. I'm also not rejecting it. I'm just gonna keep it in front of me. Maybe that's true. Maybe that's not. Maybe, maybe there's another way to see it. I don't know. Maybe my mom's right. Maybe she's wrong." And I think me too. I, I, I struggle with maybe. You wanna be like, "But is she right or is she wrong?" Like, we want that certainty. It's so rigid. It's so singular. But that idea of like I might be right about this person you're describing, I might be wrong. Again, it might be somewhere in the middle. And I, I do think, I think about that with my kids a lot. Like, just the ability to say maybe. Like, like, to keep it outside. That's all. It's just a maybe. You don't resolve it. It's so protective, [laughs] you know, to, to mental health.

10. 15:25 – 20:16

    Helping kids think (not what to think): yielding mental space

    1. GDGlennon Doyle15:25

       Yeah. Yeah, and as they get older, it's just like there's such a difference between... So if you picture that dinner table, there's such a difference between me saying, "Okay. H- hold on, hold on. Here's the five red flags I've seen about that person. Here's blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." And, and in a way that's me saying to her, "I've got you. I've got you. I've got this." But, like, she needs to hear, "You've got you." Which at a dinner table would look more like me saying, "So, so tell me more about that guy. Like, what do you..." And not in my way where I'm asking a question that is really, "So what do you think about that jackass?" Is not maybe.

    2. BEDr. Becky16:06

       [laughs]

    3. GDGlennon Doyle16:06

       Like, in a way that feels open.

    4. BEDr. Becky16:09

       Yes.

    5. GDGlennon Doyle16:09

       So she's exploring because I think when we, when we im- pose too many of our, too much of our rigidity, their entire job becomes to resist it. They don't even, they don't even ha- They're not even telling you their opinion anymore. They're just asserting their own independence from you by believing the opposite thing you're saying.

    6. BEDr. Becky16:27

       I mean, it's so, it's so unfortunate. It's like the [laughs] right? The impact. And I also think with, with conflict, right? We all have conflict. We like someone. There's a part of us that's like, "This is the person forever." And there's a part of us that's like, "I don't know. Maybe I should move a little more slowly. I did see this red flag." Like, and what, what is so easy to do I think as a parent is you represent one side of the conflict. I don't know about this person. And all that's actually left for your kid is the other side of the conflict, right? For right, they resist more. When the goal actually isn't for them to say, "You're right. This person is horrible," the goal is actually to be able to have conflict inside your body. A part of me likes him, and a part of me isn't so sure yet. I do have the tendency [laughs] to run, you know, full speed ahead, and part of me thinks that's okay, but I have another voice saying, "Ooh, I got hurt in the past. Let me just wait a little bit longer." And again, like that conflict which maybe does, I haven't thought about this, back to eating disorders, like that's so much of the healing, is your ability to sit with uncertainty and conflict, right?

    7. GDGlennon Doyle17:34

       Uh-huh.

    8. BEDr. Becky17:34

       To say, "I ate something I didn't actually feel good about eating today, and I'm not a horrible person, and tomorrow will come." And, like, it's just to get out of the rigidity and morality, right? And kind of put all that conflict back inside.

    9. GDGlennon Doyle17:48

       Yeah. As you're talking, I'm thinking about this thing that used to happen to me at the dinner table, which I've never written about or, or said, but my, my dad used to... So I would start eating, and then my dad would go, if I started to reach for more, he would go, "Stop. Wait for your message." And it was with this very, like, um, kind of almost scary energy of like Anyway, his point, I guess, was that I was going to feel a message from within that would tell me when was enough, and I would stop. But what happened was he became my message. I never... I di- I, I didn't know how to find that message for 25 years. I just... So there's something, I don't wanna be my kid's message.

    10. BEDr. Becky18:47

        Uh, I, I think what... I mean, actually, what I... It deeply resonates, even when I think about, like, the house is the message. Like, it becomes so external.

    11. GDGlennon Doyle18:56

        Mm. Yeah.

    12. BEDr. Becky18:56

        And it, it is so hard. I mean, my kids are younger than yours, but as they get older, and you feel like the stakes are higher in these life situations. Like, you do, you have such... You and I, like, we have such good advice [laughs] to give. It's really important that they hear our thoughts and our advice, and obviously there's a place to share an opinion. But this thing that just resonates, 'cause it's, like, a powerful but simple phrase that I do try to think about is, like, I really wanna teach my kids how to think and not what to think.

    13. GDGlennon Doyle19:29

        Yes.

    14. BEDr. Becky19:30

        What to think always leads to that. So, like, either I'm dependent on someone else always to tell me what to think, like-ish, or I become so angry about that that I actually really start to regularly act against my own best interest-

    15. GDGlennon Doyle19:46

        Mm

    16. BEDr. Becky19:46

        ... just as a way of resisting someone, because nothing is more important than feeling like an individual. And if the only way I could do that is by rejecting my parents, even good advice, I will choose that every time, right? But either way, what doesn't happen is in the years I'm out of my parents' house, like, I don't even know how to ask myself the right questions. Like, because I'm in a situation in college, I'm uncomfortable. Again, the best it gets is, is this a little sketchy? Like, do I, do I feel good about this? I don't know anyone who's like,

11. 20:16 – 23:32

    A concrete example: the ‘club’ and resisting the 30-second fix

    1. BEDr. Becky20:16

       "This is sketchy. I'm 100% sure. This person's a creep." Uh, uh, you don't have that. The best it gets is you've practiced generating questions and being curious enough then to, like, lengthen the amount of time you have before you make a decision, and that is a skill, you know? And so this is, like, maybe an unrelated example, but maybe not. Like, I think about this time my son, who's now 13, he was probably six, he's like, "I started a club at school." I was like, "Oh, okay." He's like, "And I get to decide who's in the club and who's out of the club." And I was like, "Of course." I was like, "That's so mean."

    2. GDGlennon Doyle20:53

       It's-

    3. BEDr. Becky20:53

       Like, and what am, what am I doing wrong as a parent to le- you know, okay. A- and, and I just, and I-

    4. GDGlennon Doyle20:58

       You probably like, "This is way off-brand, and you cannot have this."

    5. BEDr. Becky21:01

       Seriously, do... Uh, yeah. Do, do you know who I... No. You know, actually, I would say it's on-brand. Kids do all the things. That is... It's very on-brand. But, like, actually, and I think we were in the car. I, I remember this moment so vividly, exactly. We were on the highway, so I think there's something about that, that it gave me a little space. I wasn't looking at him to, like, access my sturdiness, and I, I just... I... The way that that moment transpired, it is one of my proudest parenting moments. I've had plenty of moments, obviously, of like, "Why did you do that?" Right? But I just don't know a teenager who's like, "My parent told me it's not nice to exclude people, so I won't..." It's just not [laughs] how, like, things happen. So what I said is, "Oh, well, like, how'd you get that, how'd you get that position? Oh, like, what is it, what does it feel like to decide? Like, that's kind of powerful. Like, what, what's good about that?" Like, I always think we have to understand what's good about s- bad behavior before a kid's [laughs] willing to relinquish it, you know? Something is feeding that. And I remember... And then eventually we got to a, like, "Okay, well, what about the kids who are left out, and what would that be like for you?" And I really did resist the urge to say, "Okay, so we have figured it all out. It is never nice to ex-" It's just, I just feel like the rest of his life, he's gonna be in situations where, like, do I do something that short-term gives me power and worth by making someone else feel small, or do I kind of pause and think through this? And again, you're always gonna have that urge. The urge isn't gonna go away, [laughs] you know? And so could I create space around the urge where he just has more questions he asks himself? And, and it's so different, though, because it does go back to trust, I think. Like, can I trust that I don't have to do all of my parenting in the next 30 seconds? [laughs] Like, you know? Like, do I have time? Like, is it okay if still six months from now I hear he kind of excluded someone again? Like, how much of an arc do I allow myself to, like, have the more substantial long-term impact I, like, really want for him later on?

    6. GDGlennon Doyle23:06

       Yeah.

    7. BEDr. Becky23:06

       You know?

    8. GDGlennon Doyle23:06

       I guess you do have to re- that's why it starts with personal work, because in order to trust that your kid has that inside of them, whatever you call it, w- whether it's intuition or knowing or the higher power, like my, in my 12-step programs, they're always saying, "Don't forget your kid has their own higher power. You're not their higher power," which I find confusing. [laughs]

    9. BEDr. Becky23:28

       It's the next episode.

    10. GDGlennon Doyle23:29

        Like, believe-

    11. BEDr. Becky23:29

        We'll unpack that

    12. GDGlennon Doyle23:30

        ... believe in my-

    13. BEDr. Becky23:30

        It's done.

12. 23:32 – 28:51

    Mind-spreading, trauma-speed ‘smartness,’ and the body’s wisdom

    1. GDGlennon Doyle23:32

       Um, my... You know, if you don't trust that you have it, you're not gonna trust that your kid has it. So if you are a person who's externalized knowing, then of course you're going to, bless your heart, think that you need to become your kid's knowing. So it starts what you really believe is true about being human, right? I, I th- when you're talking, I'm think- my friend, one of my dear friends is Ashley Ford. She's an author and this incredible human being. She was at my house a few weeks ago, and we were talking about fear and need to control, in particular mine, and she said, "You know what I, I know about you, Glennon, is you really don't like man spreaders. Like, you don't, you really don't like a big guy in a room who doesn't yield and who uses his body to take up too much space and block people out and not- That really bugs you. I know that about you. And so maybe you could think about what you do sometimes as, like, mind spreading.

    2. BEDr. Becky24:38

       Mm.

    3. GDGlennon Doyle24:39

       Like, when you-

    4. BEDr. Becky24:39

       Mm-hmm

    5. GDGlennon Doyle24:40

       ... took a situation or a meeting or a family dinner or a... Like, maybe you do get there pretty quickly. Maybe you do know how to sum it up. Maybe you do, but you're spreading your brain all over the table, and nobody [laughs] has any space to meet or think or come to their own. And now I think about that all the time, like, you gotta yield. You gotta yield and give kids space to ask their own questions and to work it through things, even if it takes a minute. And what if you don't know? What if it's not even about just don't mind spread? What if your mind doesn't know it all?

    6. BEDr. Becky25:25

       Yeah. A- and I think you... I'm thinking about your daughter saying to you, "You're so smart." Like, I think my, my mind can work really quickly, and I c- I can, I can say a lot of things I don't even believe in pretty convincingly. [laughs]

    7. GDGlennon Doyle25:37

       Oh, 100%. Strong opinions loosely held.

    8. BEDr. Becky25:40

       100%. I always say, I'm like, "I don't even believe what I'm about to say, but it's gonna sound... I think it's gonna sound decent." Um, our kids, our kids might not know that about us, and so they just think my mom has this special short-circuiting to the truth power, um-

    9. GDGlennon Doyle25:56

       Mm-hmm

    10. BEDr. Becky25:57

        ... which, which both isn't true and, and isn't useful, [laughs] you know-

    11. GDGlennon Doyle26:02

        Well, it's-

    12. BEDr. Becky26:02

        ... for them

    13. GDGlennon Doyle26:02

        ... a lot of it's just a trauma response, right? It's not that I'm smart. It's that I'm scared.

    14. BEDr. Becky26:09

        Mm.

    15. GDGlennon Doyle26:10

        Right? So that even, just them understanding that little bit.

    16. BEDr. Becky26:15

        Yeah. You know, you know what I'm just thinking? I don't know why I'm thinking this. I'm gonna ask a question. Like, I, this picture asking this to my kid, and I, I've never thought this question before. What's the difference between being smart and knowing what you want?

    17. GDGlennon Doyle26:27

        Well, I don't know. When you said that, I, I, um, immediately thought of this song by Florence and the Machine which I listen to almost every morning because it just saves my life over and over again called Free, and there's just an a l- a line in it that says, "Being clever never got me very far." And then there's this other line that says, um, "Is this how it's... Is this how it is? Is this how it's always been to exist in the face of suffering and death and somehow still keep singing?" Which I guess to me, being smart is just a mode of controlling it all. Like, being able to understand it all makes me feel like I have control.

    18. BEDr. Becky27:13

        Mm-hmm.

    19. GDGlennon Doyle27:14

        It also makes me miserable and scared and rigid and sick and insufferable to everyone around me. So that might be smart, but it's sure as hell not wise.

    20. BEDr. Becky27:25

        Yeah, there's, like, this... Uh, because when I think about my kind of bout, dance, whatever I wanna call it, with anorexia, um, like, when I really think about that time in my life is right before I went to college. I was such a good girl. Now I would call myself an inconvenient woman, which is kind of the polar opposite, you know?

    21. GDGlennon Doyle27:46

        Mm.

    22. BEDr. Becky27:46

        And, like, I think about my anorexia as like, it's like I don't want anything. I have such a disavowal of desire that I don't even want food. Like, that's how scary desire is for me, or that's how scary it is to know what I might want or to get close to that, that, like, even the basic thing you want to survive I can make myself self-abandon. A- and it just makes me think about during that time, I mean, I got into Duke. I was doing very well. It's just all the energy is, like, in your brain, right? Which also is the system anorexia can operate on. It's pure rigidity. It doesn't actually make sense 'cause it's killing you, but you're like calories and numbers and good and bad and, and there's, like, a superiority to, like, watching other people eat when you're, like, anorexic and you feel... And it's just all in your brain, and, like, I, I, I really never thought about it as, like, that's, quote, "smart." The energy is, like, in your brain, and so much of, like, knowing what you want I, I feel like happens much... in a much deeper place in your body.

    23. GDGlennon Doyle28:48

        Mm-hmm.

    24. BEDr. Becky28:49

        Right? Like-

13. 28:51 – 33:25

    Anorexia, hustle culture, and gendered conditioning: constrict vs. expand

    1. GDGlennon Doyle28:51

       Yeah, I guess in your mind all you can know is what other people want of you. Like, in cult- your culture is your brain. So anorexia and hustle culture are the exact same thing. Like, but the crazy thing is that that is in a way what I believed the world wanted from me, and while it's not 100% true, it's 90% true. Like, what... In my little family culture and wider, th- the world, it, it was important for me to stay small and not indulge my appetite and stay. That is the message everywhere. Like, for women it's not just bodily. Like, look at, look at bodily culture for, uh, for women, it's get smaller, restrict. For men, it's bulk up, get bigger. Like, my books are self-help, whereas the guys who write the exact same books are in the leadership aisle.

    2. BEDr. Becky29:40

       Hey, hey, my book is in cookbooks. Do you know this?

    3. GDGlennon Doyle29:43

       Oh.

    4. BEDr. Becky29:43

       Cookbooks and miscellaneous.

    5. GDGlennon Doyle29:45

       Oh, miscellaneous. For cooking or miscellaneous. Of course, that makes perfect sense. Ah. I mean, even in, even in the financial world, all the, the advice to women is about not buying, saving, restricting, and, and the advice to men is invest, get bigger. In every arena, the advice to s- for women to stay safe and good is, is, is constrict, and for men it's to get bigger. So, uh, that is all in our minds. So if we stay in our minds, of course we're going to... If, if you don't have food issues, but you are someone who is on the treadmill of achievement in hustle culture, you are not gonna get punished by... about that by culture. You're gonna get rewarded. The, the culture wants you to work yourself to death. The last thing the culture wants is for you to land in your body and find rest and ease and joy and desire. So I think in our bodies, maybe the answer to your question from my perspective where I sit right now is, like, in my mind is where o- is where I figure out what other people want from me, in my body is where I find out what I want from me. And it's just easier and quicker to go to your mind because landing in your body, it's, I'm... I just started learning about it a couple years ago, and it's very messy, and all, all your, like, trauma is in there. And so desire's in there, and that's great, but it's like, it's like that's down the road, and in between you and that is all this other junk that you have to sift through to get to the treasure. And, and it's hard. Nobody wants to do that, and I don't blame them because it a little bit messes things up for a while because every structure and pattern and relationship in your life is based on not challenging any of that, not facing any of that.

    6. BEDr. Becky31:54

       Yeah, I mean, I think I wrote a, I wrote about my journey reflected, uh, you know, I wrote about this journey of mine related to this term that just, this idea of, like, what does that mean to be an inconvenient woman versus a good girl, and how many of us were raised, yes, be the version of yourself that everyone wants you to be. Your value comes from meeting everyone else's needs, which you can only be good at if you distance yourself from what's going on in your own body. [laughs] That's the only way you become an expert at taking care of every single other person around you and pleasing them, right? And I think about, again, we're talking about conflict and what's external and what's internal. I mean, anorexia is, is such, like, a beautiful conflict. I mean, you shrink away, and, and you also take up space. Like, e- everyone's looking at you being like, "Oh, you do not look well," right? Like, you are so good, and the morality around it, and what you're really also doing is expressing an immense amount of rage. Like, it... There's so much-

    7. GDGlennon Doyle32:50

       Yeah

    8. BEDr. Becky32:50

       ... rage that comes out [laughs] in rejecting basic sustenance, especially around the people around you who are so worried about you and just wanna feed you. And so much of the resolution, ironically, comes with a lot more internal conflict, right? Oh, maybe I'm angry about things. Maybe that's useful to know. Maybe I want things for myself that I don't have, right? Um, and so yeah, the, I guess, [laughs] I don't know, the answer to life's 20 questions is always something messy and nuanced. [laughs] It's never fully, fully resolved, any of them.

14. 33:25 – 35:33

    No false certainty: peace as surrender, nuance, and shared questions

    1. GDGlennon Doyle33:25

       I mean, I think if anybody... I think it's the opposite of resolution. Like, I, coming from fundamentalism in everything, in food, in religion, I think that if anyone's offering this version of false certainty, it's, it's comforting for one moment, and then it doesn't work. And then you have to slowly die inside 'cause it's not true. So I think that's why I've, for some random reason, brought up that Florence song because there's something about it that's just, like, spinning and dancing and why arms wide open and no answers and just a- asking the questions with other beautiful, honest people that feels like the closest I'm ever gonna get on this planet to peace. It's not safety. That's what I've been looking for. There's no safety here. There's none. There's just this sort of beautiful surrender that happens when you stop, when you, when you admit to yourself that there is no safety, but there is this, like, wild, beautiful dance that you could be a part of if you're not hiding inside of dogma-

    2. BEDr. Becky34:35

       Yeah

    3. GDGlennon Doyle34:36

       ... or false certainty.

    4. BEDr. Becky34:37

       Well, look, I, I kinda just wanna end by saying something I said to you in the beginning. It's wild to me. I know this journey you've been on with your eating disorder and all these topics that we're talking about are not topics. They're, like, the things you're, like, living and breathing, and me too, and trying to figure out. And it's wild when you haven't seen someone for a long time. Sometimes you're, like, a, quote, "better judge" of, like, what's changed about them 'cause it's not gradual to you. Like, you literally look so much more embodied, this glow. It just doesn't feel so cerebral. That's maybe the word I was looking for earlier. Like, it really doesn't. Like, even, like, just the way you look just feels so much more embodied, and it's like a different glow than I've ever seen in you, and it's, like, really brings me joy [sniffs] to see it and witness it.

    5. GDGlennon Doyle35:22

       That means so much to me.

    6. BEDr. Becky35:25

       [laughs]

    7. GDGlennon Doyle35:25

       It really does. I'm gonna take it with me today. I loved this conversation. So good.

    8. BEDr. Becky35:30

       So good.

    9. GDGlennon Doyle35:31

       Yeah.

Episode duration: 35:33