Get Free From Perfectionism | Live on Tour  ## Metadata - Author: [[We Can Do Hard Things]] - Full Title: Get Free From Perfectionism | Live on Tour - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/d56fe87f-1819-445d-8788-a3824f3ca33d ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Parenting Is Making It Up As You Go** - Parenting is improvisation; no one knows exactly what they're doing. - Expect to make it up, find what works, and adapt as the child changes daily. Transcript: Abby Wambach This is the only true thing I really know about parenting. Nobody knows what they're doing. You're gonna make it up for you and you're gonna find things that work. You're gonna find things that don't work. You're gonna have the baby. The baby is gonna change ages within a day. It's crazy. And the baby's gonna hate the thing that they loved yesterday and it's just like making it up as you go along. That's it. That's parenting in a nutshell. ([Time 0:05:41](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1fdfd94a-fe28-4a98-9b76-e27542835032)) - **Talk To Your Perfectionist Part** - Don't shame your perfectionist part; instead get curious about its job and origin. - Update it by acknowledging its protection role and telling it you no longer need that hypervigilance. Transcript: Glennon Doyle Well, good job to your mom. Good job, mom. Good job, mama. So first, what I would say is the first step is not shaming yourself for that at all. Not saying why in a way of like, why do you do that perfect part? You know? In a way, because what we've all been exploring so much in internal family systems therapy is that like, yeah, IFS to the rescue! Is that every single part of ourselves is working for us. Like it has its job and it thinks it is working the way that we need it to work. Like it's in there just hustling so hard and, and it doesn't know that we, where we are now, don't still need that. Right. So I don't think it's like anyone's fault. Sometimes it's someone's fault. In your case, clearly not. She's lovely. But I mean, it's more like a curiosity, which clearly you have. But like, for me, at least, it was like, my perfectionist part, for example, was everything will go to shit if I don't stay hypervigilant and try to look out for things that could be bad. My family, the business, whatever. Like feeling like if I put something down, I was letting everyone down. Right. And also feeling like that part that really at the end of the day, that piece was trying to show that I was worthy of being here in whatever place I was. And so I think it's different for every person, but I think it's so cheesy and I'm like the worst therapist person because every time my therapist is like, go to your part and talk to it, I'm like, how? Where? But if you actually like get curious, everything is logical. Like it's not illogical that you have a perfectionist part. It's what is it doing? What was it working toward? What kind of update does it need that like you actually don't need to hustle to be perfect anymore? Like it needs an update. So I don't know. I just assume best intentions about everything that your crazy little self is doing. And then just get curious about it and see if you still need it doing that other thing. Because you want to know what's my, my perfectionist part is doing right now. Okay. This is so embarrassing, but my perfectionist, I realized was a protector. Like it wasn't trying to be perfect. It was trying to protect me from what would happen if I wasn't perfect. And so what I am doing now is actually, like, when it comes up, because even with the new thing I'm trying, with the whole, like, let the world unfold bullshit, which we're trying, we're Still trying it. It's still like my anxiety is like, hey girl, are you sure? And I'm like, I see you, but we're not hanging out anymore. Yes. And I have to like consciously be like, and then we, and then I say like, okay, here, like we're actually okay. Yeah. I see you. I know you're working to protect me. ([Time 0:09:58](https://share.snipd.com/snip/96aff405-0dd3-4627-948b-901169c7521d)) - **Filter Feedback; Trust Your Self-Assessment** - Treat external feedback selectively: reflect, accept useful parts, and ignore projections. - Value the feedback you give yourself nightly over most external judgments. Transcript: Glennon Doyle Or somebody gives you an opinion and you're like, I can decide really how I want to interact with that. But here's the kicker. Abby Wambach Nobody gives you the space to grow based on that feedback. So particularly like Glennon you're an activist, you all are, like when we're asking for change including for ourselves, how do we as cheetahs, how do we stay resilient to that constant Asking for you to change who you are, how you interact with people, but get zero space. That's a good question. Amanda Doyle Happy unpacking. Yeah, good luck, babe. I mean, I can only tell you like my most recent experience with this because it changes for me every year. I think that I just realized, I think I spent so much time trying to be or appear to be or convince people that I was a good person. Like that is, I was doing that all the time. Like when anyone was mad at me or when anyone was criticizing me or when anyone was saying all the things, which people do say a lot of things to me, I was constantly wondering if they were Right secretly that I was not a good person or that I was, that's always what I heard in the criticism, right? Or trying to argue back and show all the reasons that I was a good person. I finally realized that doesn't matter. I was in a situation recently where there was so many people mad at me and so many people yelling at me about whether I was doing anything right or giving me lots of feedback. And I realized, oh my God, why would I spend one, I don't even know if I'm a good person. Like, who cares? There's so much shit to get done. Why would I spend one minute arguing with you about whether I'm a good person? Why don't I just go do something good and keep doing good things and keep showing up for people who have, they don't give a shit. These people being rounded up by ice, all the people in this country who are absolutely have so much less power and privilege than we do right now, they do not care whether we are a good Or bad person. They just need us to show up and do the right thing. So I think it's almost like a touch of futility and narcissism to even care anymore. It doesn't matter whether you like me or not. I think what matters is that I can sleep at night. Yeah. I mean, because honestly, half the time people say shit to me, I'm like, yeah, you're right. That's dumb of me. Half the time they're right, half the time they're wrong, half the time it has nothing to do with us. Half the time somebody says something to you about you, we don't see the people as they are. We see people as we are. So most of the things that people are saying to you are about them. And then also there are these beautiful moments where somebody says something to us that we're like, yeah, I'll take that. That's right. That one's right. It's like 20% of the time. I think the most important feedback is the feedback you give yourself at the end of the day when you look in the mirror. ([Time 0:18:16](https://share.snipd.com/snip/15bb1fc9-9bf6-4c30-acc2-e6da5f6a0303)) - **Stand Firm With Sibling Boundaries** - When a sibling resists your need, hold your boundary and give them time to recalibrate. - Keep a soft heart and stick with yourself while they process the change. Transcript: Amanda Doyle Hello. Glennon Doyle My name is Sophia. I'm just so excited to be here. So excited to be in front of you three. I was going to ask a question that was very similar to what above me asked. But I want to adjust it a little bit, which is that I'm actively in a disagreement with my sister, who I adore. She's my older sister. She has two kids. I was going to go visit her in two weeks, and now I'm not. Oh, that's hard. And it happened because I asked for a little accommodation based off my history of being a people pleaser, codependent person who was trying not to self-abandon. Trying not to what? Amanda Doyle Self-abandon. Oh, yes. Glennon Doyle And what happened was that I was told that I was a little bit too much and I was making things complicated for people. And so I agree with you, Glennon, when it is someone who is not so meaningful and has such a long history of love and warmth. Abby Wambach So I don't know what to do then. Yeah. When I'm trying not to self-abandon and I don't want to lose this relationship. And so wondering if you can talk about how you do that when you care about the person that's different yours is different yeah family is different you know Ram Dass used to always say you Amanda Doyle Think you're enlightened to go home and spend a week with your family What do you think about that? I mean, sisterhood is hard. It is the most beautiful thing in the world. And it is very hard because, you know, we're all walking around here trying not to deal with our core wounds. Like our core wounds, the stuff that happened to us in our family of origin, whether there was a lot of love there or not. Like no matter what, we have wounds there. The beauty of much of siblinghood is that with each other, those core wounds come right to the top every time. So every interaction is not even about the thing ever. It's like 50 leagues beneath the sea, right? What do you want to say to her about sisterhood? That's a hard one, man. Glennon Doyle I mean, I think, good. You deserve to sit down. That was stressful. I have a lot to say about it, but I think you can't, nor should you save her from the impact of your existence on her. Right. Like, that's not a thing that you can fix or should fix. It's when you say I want to save the relationship like you will lose that relationship if you know in your heart you said what you needed she balked and you took it back like it's over then Because you know that you are not safe to show up the way that you need to show up and that you can't trust yourself around her. Because if yourself said what it needed and then yourself took it back when it got icky, then you can't trust yourself around her. So it really isn't a question of whether you can trust her. It's a question of whether you can trust yourself and to stay with yourself in her presence. ([Time 0:22:12](https://share.snipd.com/snip/054353bf-3324-47a9-a37b-e97d70afcd6b)) - **Trust Yourself Over Saving The Relationship** - Prioritize staying true to yourself even if a loved one reacts poorly to your needs. - If you retract your request when it gets hard, you lose trust in yourself around that person. Transcript: Glennon Doyle I mean, I think, good. You deserve to sit down. That was stressful. I have a lot to say about it, but I think you can't, nor should you save her from the impact of your existence on her. Right. Like, that's not a thing that you can fix or should fix. It's when you say I want to save the relationship like you will lose that relationship if you know in your heart you said what you needed she balked and you took it back like it's over then Because you know that you are not safe to show up the way that you need to show up and that you can't trust yourself around her. Because if yourself said what it needed and then yourself took it back when it got icky, then you can't trust yourself around her. So it really isn't a question of whether you can trust her. It's a question of whether you can trust yourself and to stay with yourself in her presence. Abby Wambach I also think that because I have a complicated relationship with my whole family too, and whenever I go home, I literally do this on the plane and don't make fun of me. I literally surround myself with white light in my mind, and I'm like, you can take your body anywhere it wants to go. You have a credit card. You can leave whenever you want. You can leave whenever you want. And so I don't want to take, oftentimes when we ask for some sort of accommodation in some way, what we're also trying to do is grow the spine to be strong enough to be able to stand up and Walk out of any fucking room you need to walk out of. The interpersonal relationship is less important right now until you can get your relationship with you solid enough where you can walk yourself in and out of any room. Amanda Doyle Ooh, that's good. Abby Wambach Because then the other stuff doesn't matter. And then you can have compassion for her. Glennon Doyle Because I think that's the other thing. In sister relationships it's like you know each other's like if it was a video game like you'd know exactly the place that you're like well that's death kill right there right and and That's what makes it so intimate and that's also what makes it like frankly, dangerous. And so I think you can also, if you know you have your own back, then you can look at her with compassion and be like, oh, this is so hard for her. Like, she's got a little sister who she's probably severely codependent and enmeshed with who suddenly asserted that she was her own person. And she is taking that deeply and tragically personally, because she thinks you're one person. Mentioning for a friend. That friend is me. We feel you. Yeah. So she's just having a hard time with you separating yourself in some way. And that's hard. And it's also necessary. And she'll get through it. And you will also get through it if you stick with yourself. ([Time 0:24:36](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d2c6b045-e4f8-4619-9ba8-ebcebc3f215e)) - **Boundaries Trigger Family Recalibration** - Setting a boundary is only the first move; the real work is weathering the family's storm afterwards. - Families will panic because off-script behavior forces everyone to change roles, so wait and hold your ground. Transcript: Amanda Doyle Great. But what we don't tell people is when we finally get up the courage to set the boundary like you said the thing, that's actually not the hard part. It's not. You say the thing. Never in the history of the world has anyone in a family unit said something that was different than what we all agreed on before. You have no needs. This is your role. Because we're all given scripts. Every family role is a script. Nobody has ever gone off script. And then everyone in the family went, oh, okay, that sounds good. No. No. No. When somebody on stage goes off script and says a new line, everybody else freaks the hell out because then they all have to change their roles. Like she's freaking out right now. That's okay. Yeah. You recalibrated. Now she has to recalibrate, right? Yeah. You can give her time. You can do that with an open, gentle heart. You don't have to be mad at her while she does it. That's what I do. I get so mad at people for thinking they're mad at me, and nobody's ever said they're mad at me. You actually don't have to do that. It's like you set the boundary, and then you just wait. The storm is going to come after you set the boundary. Hold, hold, hold. It's not your time. It's like you played chess, you did the thing, you're not. You just wait for the storm to pass, wait for them to change their roles, and then see. ([Time 0:28:31](https://share.snipd.com/snip/38130974-94b2-4e16-8423-c8c2ca1b4ced)) - **Slow Down And Use Small Self-Care** - Slow down to notice feelings and intuition instead of chasing happiness. - Use small acts of self-care — call a friend, take a minute alone — to ground yourself in hard times. Transcript: Abby Wambach My question is, what is your self-care to stop hurting? To stop what? To stop hurting? Yeah. What is your self-care to stop hurting with all of the shit that we have to fucking deal with? Yeah. Yeah. Amanda Doyle I never stop hurting. That's true. Yeah, I don't even think that's the goal for me anymore. Like I'll never forget being at one of my first AA meetings and I said something like this, like I just wanna be happy, I just, how do I be happy, how do I be happier? And this like old lady kind of grabbed my leg and she said, oh honey, being human isn't about feeling happy, it's about feeling everything. And like, I don't know. I just think this whole like pursuit of happiness thing, it's so, it's like the pursuit of it is what makes us miss everything. Like, I don't even know what we're trying to do. I just, I think the only self-care that's real for me is to like slow down. Like just slow down enough to notice how I feel and to notice my humanity and to notice intuition. Like we run so fast to try to get happy, grabbing all the things like the next, I mean the amount of time I spend on Zillow, it's just, I am also guilty. It's insane. Love Zillow. You know, I've gotten to the point where I can measure my mental health by how many hours I'm spending on Zillow a day. Abby Wambach I can measure it by how many houses you send me on email from Zillow. I'm like, oh, it's not a good day. And I'm like, okay. Amanda Doyle My self-care is like if I'm looking for a cabin with no electricity in the middle of the woods in some state I've never been to, maybe I just need a minute by myself in my house. If I'm this, the next day I'm looking for a commune in New York where all my friends can live. Like, maybe I just need to call Liz. Like, it's very small things, you know. But I know it looks like online, it looks like everybody's happy. I know everybody and they're not happy. Right? They're just like us. Everybody's just like either avoiding their feelings or sitting in them a little bit. And I think when we sit in them, we find what we're meant to do next and who we love and I mean I'm slowing down a lot getting quieter I'm crying all the time now I'm like I don't know where that Abby Wambach Came from that's fun well I've been the crier in our family so it's actually fun like before she was just like It'd be like a sad movie. I also feel sad. Well, I've been on Lexapro since I was born. I know, but she'd just be like this looking at me and I'm like, oh, now she's crying. Amanda Doyle So it's good. I think it's okay to hurt. I think the best people hurt. That's like, we need the people who are sensitive enough to feel what's going on in the world. And the people who are sad, the sadness is the gap between the vision you have inside of yourself about how things should be and the reality of how things are. ([Time 0:36:07](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f0172070-5d3a-4cb4-bbf7-c7709a5b6fde)) - **History Helps Fight Overwhelm** - Overwhelm from national crises is often an intentional tactic to numb and divide people. - Reading history of past movements reduces fear and clarifies where you belong in the struggle. Transcript: Glennon Doyle I've felt on the what's going on in the country situation, I think that a lot of the overwhelm where we feel like we're getting flooded right now, just absolutely flooded as an intentional Strategy with so much violence, so much dehumanization. It is an intentional strategy to do that because when they do that to us, we feel like our only choice is to either look away or to go numb. And it's shrewd. It's actually historically a repeated process. And so I think when we're so flooded like that, when we're so overwhelmed, it feels like, oh my God, this is brand new. This is unprecedented. I am full of fear. What will happen? If we're even daring to continue to look as opposed to look away. And what I find to be super helpful in those times is to not look forward, but look back. This moment is alarming and outrageous, and we should be outraged about outrageous things, but it is also something that has happened over and over and over and over. And so I like to read stories about freedom fighters of the past. I like to read stories about American history. I think that about apartheid history, about fascism 1.0, like I really think we would all benefit from that because it is horrifying to read and strangely comforting when we find ourselves, Oh, this is not a unique personal experience to us. This is not an individual fear that we are facing about something that is happening to us. This is the human story. Like Michelle Alexander said, we are not the resistance. They are resisting the flood that is the people's pursuit of their self-determination, of their liberation, of their joy. And when you look back and see all the ways that others before us have fought really, really hard for what they have gained, you suddenly don't feel overwhelmed and scared. You just decide, am I taking my place where I belong in the way things work, which is that people rise up to take totalitarian power, and then the people either take their place to fight It and to caretake the world or they don't. And it makes it very simple. It's like, I want to do that. ([Time 0:45:23](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f5e721fe-e306-4e13-907e-cb7601bfe3c4)) - **Public Vow Renewal Surprise** - Abby surprised Glennon with a public vow renewal on their anniversary during the Minneapolis show. - The surprise embarrassed Glennon but became a memorable moment for the tour audience. Transcript: Abby Wambach What is your name again? Darcy. Darcy. I have a little surprise. Because you guys are so beautiful. Today is Glennon and Mai's anniversary. Yeah. I wanted you all to be a part of this because I knew it would embarrass Glennon so much. I knew it was our anniversary because my dad texted me this morning and then I googled it. Yeah. She's not good with numbers. I don't take it personally. She has other strengths. So one of Glennon's least favorite things is big shows of love. So that's what we're going to do right now. And what I will tell you is a few years back, I re-proposed to renew our vows, and that didn't go over so well because her family was there. So I'm gonna try again. Because our family's here. So Glennon, will you please renew your vows with me and marry me again? I will, I will. Speaker 4 She said yes! Happy anniversary. Amanda Doyle Happy ([Time 0:50:42](https://share.snipd.com/snip/05628716-feb4-415c-9254-77043298f61d))