The Best Advice We’ve Got on Loneliness & Jealousy  ## Metadata - Author: [[We Can Do Hard Things]] - Full Title: The Best Advice We’ve Got on Loneliness & Jealousy - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/fab61d56-5056-44dd-9e53-8fbfcfaf5b5f ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Seek Advisors Who've Done The Work** - Trust friends who have actively explored their inner lives; they reframe pain into growth opportunities. - Amanda says Liz Gilbert and Alex Hedison give perspective because they do therapy and soul work. Transcript: Glennon Doyle Who do you two trust to give you good advice? Can you think of people that when you have a problem, you know, that person will give me good advice. Amanda Doyle I mean, I obviously will say you two, for sure. You both are brilliant advice givers. But outside of you two, I would say Liz and Alex. Yes. Same. Those are my two. Liz Gilbert, Alex Hedison. Why? Glennon Doyle What is it about, let's first take Liz. What is it about her that makes you trust her advice? Amanda Doyle I think because she's gone through a lot of stuff in her life and has proactively went in search of figuring some of that stuff out. Both Alex and Liz aren't, well, that just happened. I'm not going to go in any kind of search and analyze. They are the most proactive about understanding themselves and the world and how those two can compete against each other and with each other. Yeah. Glennon Doyle It's like if you were going to trust somebody to tell you about the world, you would trust an adventurer, like someone who had gone out and seen a lot of different places. And Alex and Liz are both people who are adventurers of the human experience. They dig in. Yes. They do recovery. They do therapy. They do talking to people. They do like their adventures of the soul. Yes. And so when you bring them a problem, it's almost like they're like, please. I know. Amanda Doyle I've done it a few times where I brought this one thing to Alex that I was so, I was devastated. I was devastated about. And she reframed that shit in two seconds. And the way that she heard my story, she was unaffected. Yeah. And I was like, how is this person not floored and surprised and shocked by this? It was like she had heard a million worse stories. Yeah. Like you think you're special? Yes. This shit is just life. Glennon Doyle So what was interesting about that story is you brought her to her a problem you were having. Somebody did something that upset you very much. Yes. And the way that Alex reframed it, which I thought was so interesting, is that she didn't focus on the thing that happened. She didn't focus on the person that did it. She said, isn't it interesting that this thing is causing this much turmoil in you? Yes. What has happened is that something has come up in you that is unhealed. Amanda Doyle Yeah. So thank God this happened. I know. This has given you an opportunity to heal. Literally, four minutes later, she was just like, eventually you're going to say, thank God for this person. Abby Wambach It's like the Maya Angelou ([Time 0:04:04](https://share.snipd.com/snip/801fcfdc-9b79-4e1d-8697-cabd3cfabbe5)) - **People Often Want Listening, Not Fixes** - Most people share problems to be heard, not to change. - Abby says offer truth only when someone explicitly asks for advice. Transcript: Abby Wambach Mean, I think it's an interesting question, too, about advice. I think, at least for me, probably 90% of the time that I am sharing a problem purportedly for advice, I actually don't. I'm not seeking advice. Because I think there's so many things that we go to people like, I need to share this with you ostensibly for the idea that people are going to advise us. But really we just want to either share and commiserate over like the betrayal or the bullshit that someone did, or just like be outraged together or just share this monumental thing That happened to us. But I feel like I rarely seek actual advice as in counsel as in like I'm stuck between these two or three roads which one do you advise me to go down based on what you know about me but obviously You too also my friend Bonzo I only go to her when I'm like ready, ready because she isn't going to bullshit. She is going to actually tell me what she thinks I should do. And she knows me really well. And so often if I'm not actually ready to change the thing, I'm not going down that road. Glennon Doyle Yes. She's not the one you call just to confirm your story or to gather witnesses for your own case. Yes, exactly. Abby Wambach It's like, well, do I actually want to solve this? No. Well, then I'm not going to go there. And so that's good to have someone like that. And it's also interesting to pay attention to whether you're actually like, do you actually want advice? Advice suggests like action and change and movement. And if you're not going to do that, you're just sharing a story. You're not asking for advice. Glennon Doyle Yeah. It's such a good point. Most of us don't want, that's why it's so important to know that about human beings. Cause I feel like we always jump into advice giving when really the only time that you should really offer advice is when someone calls your voicemail podcast line and says, do you have Advice for me? Well, it's like the lying episode. Abby Wambach It's like when someone says, I want to hear the truth. I mean, most think of how many relationship stories that people have come to to share a story and you're like, he's never going to leave her. Everyone knows he's never going to leave her. Like, you're not actually asking me what I think. Yeah. Because everyone knows the correct answer to your conundrum, which is you leave his ass or stop doing whatever you're doing. But you're not actually asking me that. What you're asking me for is to lend you a listening ear and to actually not say what I think, which is what we do most of the time. So I think it's like that lying episode where you kind of create a social contract. I think my social contract with Ponzo is you're going to tell me where my dysfunction is in this, and you're going to give it back to me. And then you're going to tell me the changes that are going to help to not make that happen again. And then John is just ([Time 0:07:06](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2c192fc6-475a-4aa6-8efd-43fedc9594c3)) - **Ask Before Advising** - Only give advice when someone asks for it or when they want action. - Stay with someone's feeling without trying to fix it when they just need empathy. Transcript: Glennon Doyle Yeah. It's such a good point. Most of us don't want, that's why it's so important to know that about human beings. Cause I feel like we always jump into advice giving when really the only time that you should really offer advice is when someone calls your voicemail podcast line and says, do you have Advice for me? Well, it's like the lying episode. Abby Wambach It's like when someone says, I want to hear the truth. I mean, most think of how many relationship stories that people have come to to share a story and you're like, he's never going to leave her. Everyone knows he's never going to leave her. Like, you're not actually asking me what I think. Yeah. Because everyone knows the correct answer to your conundrum, which is you leave his ass or stop doing whatever you're doing. But you're not actually asking me that. What you're asking me for is to lend you a listening ear and to actually not say what I think, which is what we do most of the time. So I think it's like that lying episode where you kind of create a social contract. I think my social contract with Ponzo is you're going to tell me where my dysfunction is in this, and you're going to give it back to me. And then you're going to tell me the changes that are going to help to not make that happen again. And then John is just the most, for better, for worse, most level, a emotional reactor to things ever. So it's a very helpful one when I'm like, this person just said this to me. And sometimes I don't know because I am a very emotional reactor to things. And I'll be like, is that weird? And he will tell me honestly, when he says something's weird or strange you're like oh I'm like well wow okay that is really weird yeah then I am confirmed in my reaction to that being weird Glennon Doyle I think that's a really helpful it's helpful when you're a very sensitive person you have to have that I mean Abby and I once a day once a, we have a thing where we have figured out that just Because I am triggered by something doesn't mean anything happened. Right. And I'm not like being hard on myself. I'm saying like, so I will ask her, did that feel weird to you? Or like whatever. Objectively speaking, was that odd? Yeah. Or she'll be like, I'll be like, did that, like, even with you, I'll be like, did sister seem stressed? And Abby will be like, yeah. And I'm like, well, and she's like, I don't think it's a problem. But so here's the deal. We're both with you. Is sister stressed? Yes. For me, that's a very upsetting thing. For Abby, it's a fact. It is new information to me and something that is so important in my recovery and also unbelievable to me that it is true that in a space, a person can be sad or upset or angry. And I do not have to immediately become sad or upset or angry. And I'm not there, but I can see. Yeah. You can entertain that intellectually and conceptually. Right, right. So I don't know what that has to do with advice other than there's some advice for you. You can be in a room with someone who's upset and you can stay how you are. ([Time 0:09:03](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6822338a-d3cf-4743-8842-43ecfac6f8a5)) - **Loneliness Can Be Feeling Unseen** - River describes feeling unseen even in crowds and needs deep recognition to feel safe. - They ask whether learning to be alone or building community is more valuable. Transcript: Glennon Doyle My name is River. My pronouns are they, them. I am someone who can feel alone in a crowd of my family and friends. And I need to feel really seen and known to feel safe and also to feel present. I'm very sensitive to not having those things, especially right now. I recognize that we are all communal and social beings. That's human nature, really. But we also live in a very individualistic world. I'm currently building a community in my life with people capable of giving me these things, but that's not the only people I have in my life. So my question is, how badly do I need to learn to be alone? What is the value of aloneness? Is there value to loneliness? And how can I let my community in more when they are present, when they are there for me? Thank you so, so, so much. You are all like my mothers, my sisters, my guardian angels, my teachers. Thank you for everything. I listen to you basically every day for your guidance. ([Time 0:19:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9ff79b3b-0f5e-4335-83b7-da4a043549fb)) - **Aloneness Lets You Exist Fully** - Aloneness can let you 'exist' fully while groups can dilute identity. - Glennon and Abby say disappearance into collective experiences and solitary selfhood both matter. Transcript: Glennon Doyle And our kid was starting to feel a little bit lost. So they carved out more alone time just to go for walks, do all the things. And they were reporting back to me about the results of that. And they said, when I am alone is the time that I feel like I exist the most. Whoa. They can feel themselves existing the most. And I feel the same way. Okay. So it's like I am blue. Okay. It's like I'm blue and I can feel my blueness. And then when I'm with other people, it's like I suddenly turn green. Like I'm mixed with their colors and I just start to feel like disintegrated a little bit. And I love that feeling. Like when you think about being at a concert is like the ultimate experience of that to me. It's like you're disappearing. And that is so beautiful. Like I love to disappear with a group, whether it's like us on the couch with our team last night, which the five of us and it's like we're a mushy stew or at a concert where it's like you really Feel like molecularly you have disappeared. Like you are in the collective, you're gone. I must have those experiences and I must return to blue. Like if I don't disappear and exist completely, then I feel like I'm not whole. So River, I think, is there value to aloneness? Oh my God. To some of us, it's when we exist fully. ([Time 0:21:02](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0638cfbe-577f-4882-ae8c-542a7502213d)) - **Loneliness Shows Up In Brain Patterns** - USC research shows lonely brains process the world idiosyncratically and differ from non-lonely brains. - Abby explains this helps explain why adding people doesn't always fix loneliness. Transcript: Abby Wambach Think it is so interesting what you just brought up about the concert, because that togetherness is not lonely precisely because you are having what feels like dissolving into the Same experience together. And what River is talking about is that they have the experience of friends and family who they feel they are lonely around because they don't share the same, I forget how they put it, But like experience of life or same values or whatever. And I think this is significant because there was a study out of USC last month, and it's very different research than has ever been done that is showing the brain processing of people Who are lonely and people who are not lonely. And this to me blows my mind and makes sense of this kind of self-fulfilling prophecy of loneliness. So people who are not experiencing loneliness have very similar patterns in brain information processing as other people who do not experience loneliness. Okay, so you're not lonely. Your brain works a certain way. You work very similarly to other people who are not lonely. If you are lonely, your brain processing is very individualized, distinct, idiosyncratic. So the brains of lonely people do not look like the brains of not lonely people and also do not look like the brains of other lonely people. Your brain just looks very individual, which means that when you feel like you are not experiencing the world in the same way with a shared experience and understanding, you are correct. Amanda Doyle Wow. Abby Wambach And the research is completely unaffected by how many friends you have, how much socialization you do, how many people are around you does not affect your experience of your loneliness Being the result of a feeling like you do not experience the world in the same way. Glennon Doyle So does that mean that if you're a lonely person, you can't just change your circumstances? It means that you are born a lonely person. Are people who have this lonely brain, are they, is that why artists are always like, please let me show you or paint you or, or sing to you or write to you what it's like for me, because no One else is sharing this experience. So we're constantly like, look, because it is an unusual experience that nobody else is having. Right. Lonely people are lonely people are lonely people are lonely people forever. We don't just get a dog or get another friend. Abby Wambach Well, this is what's mind blowing. They haven't done the research yet to show whether it's a cart or a horse thing. I see. Question is, right, if your brain is that idiosyncratic, do you become lonely because you realize by watching the world and being around people that your brain isn't working like all These other people's brains and that makes you feel more lonely? Or are you just born with lonely brain? But what is true is that it doesn't matter how many people you surround yourself with, you're still going to be having a very distinct experience that is not the same as them. And so in fact, they have found that that actually might be, the research is still out, but it actually might be a risk factor. They say the possibility that being surrounded by people who see the world differently from oneself may be a risk factor for loneliness. So not only that just adding those people to your mix doesn't make it better, it might make it worse. So if you're blue and blue and blue and you're surrounding, you're saying, I'm so blue. I need to surround myself with more other colors. If half of those people who are not lonely are all red and the other half are lonely, but they're not blue, they're teal and yellow and purple and orange. Glennon Doyle So let me just put this into a visual so that the pod squatters can visualize with me. So like what sister is saying is the people studied loneliness and they're like, all right, we've got these hundred people who are saying they're lonely. So we're going to put them in a room and study them and figure out, do they have a dog? Do they have enough friends? Do they have enough family? And then what they found out was, oh, they all have different amounts of those. The thing they have in common is they all have an idiosyncratic brain. So their brain is what they have in common, not any circumstances that we define as loneliness. Abby Wambach Well, for the record, I don't know that they looked at dogs and families and whatever. All they looked at is brain. You assume that they would look at circumstances also. It was just MRI imaging. So basically they looked at, let's say they looked at a hundred brains on MRIs. They said, okay, 50% of these people are lonely. 50% are not. What's wild to us is that the 50% that are not lonely, their brains look very similar to one another. Then they looked at the other 50% who are lonely and they're like, Lord have mercy. ([Time 0:24:01](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0d3d29bc-b865-4808-a35e-5e30eb3661e8)) - **Keep A Small Circle Of Shared Experience** - Prioritize finding a few rare people who experience the world like you. - Glennon suggests keeping that circle tight instead of chasing many surface connections. Transcript: Glennon Doyle Yeah. Rare. And that's why maybe we don't need a lot of them. Maybe we just keep it tight. Yeah. Keep it. Yeah. Wow. That's so interesting. Just reframing what loneliness is. That's the biggest difference between my first marriage and my second marriage. I was so freaking lonely in my first marriage because I constantly felt like we were having different experiences. We would be in the same room. Something would happen with a kid, with a life, whatever. Something would happen in the world. And I understood that we were having completely different experiences. I felt so lonely. And that's the biggest difference now in my marriage is there's lots of things, but that's very rarely happening. We are having similar experiences. I can trust, I can look at Abby and be like, yeah, she knows exactly what's happening with me. What just happened with the kid. That's the opposite of loneliness to me. And many people don't have that with their partners. Abby Wambach But if you have that with someone. Glennon Doyle Yeah. And at a concert, that's what you're saying. Yeah. It's the same experience. If I'm at a concert, I'm watching Brandi Carlile and Catherine singing, and my heart is like busting open with joy at their love and their community and their lives. That is what everyone around me is thinking. Abby Wambach Yes. That is why you dissolve into them because it is an indistinction. It is not the distinction of having a different experience. So if you're at a party, you know, you're not having the same experience. And so that is why you're lonely at a party. That is why you're not lonely at a concert. Glennon Doyle And that's why what I really want at a party is for everyone to ask one person a question. Like I love at a dinner when you do one, let's have one question that everybody answers. That's because everybody then is having the same experience. We're looking at the person all together, collectively. We're all focused on one thing. We're all having the same experience. Amanda Doyle And that's really interesting because I wouldn't consider myself an overly lonely person. And so I'm not as concerned with needing to have the same experience because it's not as important to me because I don't think of myself or I wouldn't consider myself a lonely person. So going to small talk cocktail hour, though I'm not having any cocktails, doesn't bother me because I don't care if I'm having a different experience than other people. Abby Wambach Or you're on the 50% where your brain works similarly to others. And so you have never picked up on the clues throughout your life that you are experiencing the world vastly differently than everyone else. And so you don't have- So that's less alone. There's no like yearning. Yes. You don't have the automatic presumption that you understand the world differently. So you don't have that craving that needs to be met because it's possible. And so you look around, you're like 50% of this party is experiencing the same way as I do. And maybe you have that kind of understanding of the universe. Glennon Doyle So River, in short, in short, you are blue. We try to do this every time, like voicemails, and we get through like one. I know. And I feel like people, they leave us messages hoping for an answer. And we return to them 50,000 more questions and much more confusion. We're very sorry. Well, let's try to give River an in short. Okay. In some, River, it is possible that it's not that you just haven't found the right conglomeration of circumstances or people. It is possible that you just have an idiosyncratic brain, a different sort of brain. And so what we could do is not label that as a yearning, but just a difference. And that it is possible that you will feel best in experiences where there is a decided shared experience, like a concert, and with the very few people you will find throughout your life Who you feel like see you and know you and you share a common understanding with. Abby Wambach And that there's not anything wrong with you. Right. That you feel lonely in groups of people where you get the feeling that you experience things differently than them. That is actually correct. ([Time 0:31:31](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b5fc0026-2884-456a-b115-91ddc85980b8)) - **Use Boundaries To Rebuild Physical Safety** - If a partner avoids human touch due to trauma, start with clear, bounded touch agreements. - Glennon suggests snuggle-only rules to build safety before progressing. Transcript: Glennon Doyle Okay, God help the next one. Let's hear from Emily. My name is Emily. I have a situation with my boyfriend. He is a wonderful guy. He's very loving. He's very sweet. He comes from a very abusive background. And so because of that, physical touch is very complicated for him. And so our sex life isn't that great. Our physical sex life isn't very, isn't what I need it to be. But I want to respect his needs and respect his boundaries. The issue is he is able to be physically affectionate with our dog. He is able to shower this dog with all of the love and affection that I wish I could have. And I never thought I'd be in a relationship where I felt jealous of a dog. So I don't know. I don't know if you have any advice or if you've ever been jealous of a dog. But that's my question. What do you do when you're jealous of a dog? Love yourself. Emily, first of all, I'm so sorry for you and your partner. That's so much. The reverberations of abuse are just so stunning. Just how far it goes, how many relationships it touches like ripples from a stone, like how many generations, how many. It's just amazing. Um, the pain and the destruction that abuse continues. I'm so sorry. The dog thing, it's interesting. I'm thinking about how, when I was in therapy in my first marriage, um, when we were in healing from one of many things. The therapist used to insist that we try to cuddle and touch each other in a way where there was absolute clear boundaries around nothing going further than snuggling. And the thing about dogs is that they don't, it's uncomplicated. Like there's nothing that's going to be pushed. There's no moment that like energy is going to switch and it's going to become sexual. There's no like power dynamic. It's so simple. That's just something that came to my mind. Like, I wonder if there were times where you could snuggle like dogs, where there was like a boundary around it, where you both agreed that the rule was it wasn't going past the snuggle, That that could make both people feel safe. ([Time 0:39:52](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9a8719a9-0c30-4976-84d8-60ef93fea5f7)) - **Pets Get Uncomplicated Love** - People can show unconditional affection more easily to pets because animals lack complex memory and judgment. - Abby explains pets receive joyful, nonjudgmental love humans often struggle to give one another. Transcript: Abby Wambach Understand Emily's boyfriend. Much easier for me to show affection, like unbridled, just joyful abandon of affection to my dog than my partner. Yeah, I get that. I actually wonder sometimes if it's like a thing. Like I, you know, if it's noticed. Oh, if it's yours, I'm sure it's noticed. Yeah. And I think it's exactly right because it's, it's uncomplicated. And I think it's like at a deeper level, it is about self-love. I think it's possible because when you think about it, when you introduce the idea of people, it's like, is the other person worth it? Is the other person deserve it? Is there is the scorecard today? What will it lead to? Do I have to work out anything before I show this love? The memory is so long with people and the memory is so long in relationships that, but a dog's, there's no memory. It's also so vulnerable. It's almost like you would have to show that much acceptance and joyful reveling in yourself to be able to share that with another human. But whereas a dog is a different species, it's like, of course deserve that they don't have any of this human fallibility or complications or whatever I don't have to project on them Any of my confusion about myself yeah whereas with partners you not only have your issues in your relationship you also are projecting on them all of the things about yourself. Yes. And all of the judgments and all of the, you know, they did this study where they had like a fake news story. And it was the victim in this story was attacked and they had bones broken. Okay. And they changed who the victim was in every, and it was an adult human, a child, an adult dog, and a puppy. And then they analyzed the levels of sympathy and empathy that the people had based on hearing the story. The levels were the exact same for child, adult dog, puppy. High levels of empathy. They did adult person, low levels of empathy. Wow. The exact same outcome, the exact same situation. That makes sense. And why is that? Glennon Doyle Because we've all been hurt by so many humans. Abby Wambach We've been hurt by so many humans and we see our own selves as not worthy of empathy and sympathy. We see our own selves as not worthy of the kind of reckless, joyful love that is unconditional that we see as a dog worthy of. And so I actually think it makes total sense. ([Time 0:43:06](https://share.snipd.com/snip/46b65170-7ae1-4e14-9eb6-41bd14772500))