Okay, Pod Squad, welcome back.

Question for you, when was the last time you did something completely pointless just because it made you feel alive?

Have you ever looked up from your life and realized you've become really good at managing it, but you're not sure you're actually living it?

Like, you're sort of nailing adulting to the point where you've completely forgotten how to human.

Many of us have gotten really good at carrying a lot.

We're checking the boxes, solving the problems, taking care of everyone, and somehow convincing ourselves that we'll rest, laugh, play, and breathe a little easier once we just get through this week or this list or this month or this season.

You might know you're one of those people if you hear yourself saying again and again like I do, oh, it'll slow down when.

But what if it isn't going to slow down when?

What if either we slow down or it never slows down?

And what if life isn't waiting for us on the other side of the to -do list?

That's what this conversation is about.

It starts with Abby and I attempting a relaxation intervention for Amanda, which lasts about five minutes before it goes totally off the rails and becomes about something much bigger.

What unfolds is a conversation about why so many of us resist rest.

why play can feel almost impossible, and why the goal isn't actually getting better at relaxing, it's getting better at being alive.

We talk about over -functioning, perfectionism, the parts of ourselves we've slowly negotiated away in the name of being responsible, and the tiny moments of connection, delight, and absurdity that help us find our way back.

If you've been waiting for permission to stop managing your life long enough to actually experience it, you must join us for this one.

Let's go.

Wow.

I am so excited to say welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things.

Welcome back, back.

Welcome back.

You're always welcome back, but this is a backpack.

Yeah, because we took a little break for a few weeks.

We were on a break.

We were on a break.

We wanted to, I don't know, just rest and take a breather.

We also didn't know that podcasts were supposed to have seasons.

So I think our first season was 250 episodes.

Ish.

Ish.

So here we are back with you.

I'm feeling really grateful.

And I'm also feeling grateful that we took the rest.

That felt good.

I'm feeling very, very grateful for the tens of thousands of voicemails and emails and comments of suggesting guests and topics we have been calling through them.

Y 'all have amazing ideas and insights.

And thank you for co -creating this podcast with us by giving us all of those.

We have been working on those during this break and we have really exciting things coming up thanks to your ideas.

So thank you so much.

Yeah.

And you know what it makes me think when I read all the PodSquatter's ideas of what we need next and what we need to talk about next and who we need to have on?

It solidifies the idea for me that what we're doing with this podcast is kind of like, journeying together.

Because if you all could see the list of suggestions that you have made to us on people and topics, compared to the list that we have internally brainstormed of people we need and topics we need, they are almost identical.

It's amazing.

Yeah.

There's like an 85 % overlap between what we have in process, the conversations we were...

already initiating and what was recommended.

It's wild.

It's like, oh, wait, we're aligned.

Yeah.

And it's like, it's like when you're journeying together, you all think of the same supplies that you need on the journey because you're all facing the same things.

And so your lists are similar.

And so it's, it really made me feel like, oh my God, we are like all walking together this life.

So this season is going to be awesome.

And one of the things that we think about a lot.

is that we have topics we're all journeying together on, but what has become clear to us is that because of this work we're doing, we are all three, Abby, me, and sister, sort of working on something different in our own personal life each month, each season.

We think of them as like tent poles, right?

So like last season for me, it was very much about eating disorder recovery and embodiment.

And I'm still there and working on that and what that means in my life.

And Abby, you talked about your kind of digging in more to like your shadow side.

Yeah.

I mean, it's been really interesting because I've been way more vocal with you around recently around when I'm feeling upset.

I know.

Yeah.

Good for you.

And how much into therapy are you right now?

I'm like, I guess, four weeks in now.

But actually something happened the other day.

We were on a little family vacation and I'm like the person in our family that deals with the organization of the trips and getting us to where we need to go and kind of the logistical thing.

And so we were having this conversation and I have never really broken down in front of our kids before of like overwhelm.

I just handle it.

I have.

trained that I have trained over overwhelm out of me.

Yeah.

I bet you have.

And this thing was happening where they were thinking about kind of readjusting the plans of what I had already spent lots of time doing and planning and spending money on.

And I just like put my hand in my, my, my face in my hands and Tish goes, are you going to cry?

And I was like, no, but I started talking and my voice starts cracking.

I was like, you guys just don't understand how much effort and work goes into planning around this family.

And so switching plans is not easy.

And Tish was like, I'm so sorry, you know, like right away.

And it was like really cool that I was able to say it out loud.

I don't know.

It was amazing.

So beautiful and important.

I was wishing it for every pod squadron.

She was like, I will show you how I feel about this as a parent and how.

hard it is.

And I will not act like it's not hard.

And it was like every bit of entitlement sucked away from the table.

It was like, oh, my mom's a human being too.

It was so important and so good.

And you never would have done it a year ago.

So we're going to be exploring Abby's delving into the uncomfortable feelings.

And for sister, we want to set up this episode today.

How would you do that?

What's your top goal for the - for the season?

My temple is getting more in touch with my human -ness.

Trying to access ease and in terms of not being afraid of ease and peace as indicia of.

not hustling hard enough, but being important parts of the human experience that I am lacking as opposed to, you know, like evidence of me killing it, not having those.

I'm trying to see not having those as evidence that I am depriving myself of the human condition.

Yeah.

So to that end, PodSquad, you should know that we gave sister an assignment.

But what happened was he gave sister a relaxation assignment and she couldn't or didn't or refused to do it.

And that is what sets up today's episode.

We know you're going to have feelings about today.

So grateful for sister's vulnerability.

And maybe some of you are on this similar journey and we want to hear from you.

We need to tell you about a recent experiment gone.

Well, the word is awry.

I will tell you that for the last 30 years, I have been reading that word as awry because I've never heard anyone say it out loud.

I just really thought in books, every time something went askew, it went awry.

And I just figured out that that word is actually awry.

You've never heard someone say something's gone awry?

I have.

And I thought that was a word.

And I also thought that there was a word that was ari.

What's the other word that we've just recently come across that you've been pronouncing wrong in your head all these years?

Okay, so sword.

Okay, that's a weird one.

I just feel like sword is a very commonplace word.

No, she was reading to us the other day.

I'm crying.

And she just said, sword.

And our friend Alex who's sitting with us, she's interrupted her.

She said, I'm sorry.

Did you say sword?

Yes.

And she said, what?

And had no idea it was sword.

I love you so much.

Okay.

Just before we jump into this very important podcast, since you did that, I'm going to do this.

I'm doing it again.

I may have told the story in the beginning.

It's worth it to tell it again.

Yeah.

We're driving down the street with the girls in the backseat.

One of the girls says loudly, oh my gosh, look at that cute red wheelbarrow.

And Abby bursts out laughing like she's laughing right now.

And I'm like, what's so funny?

And she says, did you hear what she said?

She said, wheelbarrow.

It is a funny word.

It is.

And I said.

Why is that funny?

And she said, because it's wheelbarrow.

It's a wheelbarrow.

And then everybody proceeded to laugh out loud at me.

But in my defense.

Yes.

I'm coming to your defense.

It makes way more sense to be a wheelbarrow than a wheelbarrow.

You fill up a barrel and you wheel it away.

What are you going to do?

Fill up a barrel?

What's a barrel?

Anyway, no barrow has ever been filled.

It's one of those ones that is correct, but at a deeper level incorrect.

I know.

Yeah.

That's the difference between commonsensical people and smart people.

Well, it's also, that story just kills me too, because it's like the proof of Abby's motherhood evolution, because the fact that she was hysterically laughing and mocking the child.

No, I mean, karma real quick just circled back because the girls were.

dying.

And they never let me forget it.

This is a common story that goes around the dinner table once a month.

Yeah.

Look at the wheelbarrow.

I still live and die by it.

It's wheelbarrow.

No, I can't remember.

Which one is it?

It's wheelbarrow.

It's wheelbarrow.

Okay.

It's barrow.

Okay.

Rhymes with sparrow.

All right.

So.

Rhymes with sword.

I just want to say I like it sword.

Because it makes me think of like a word.

So you can use words as any.

Anyway.

Okay.

Word feels like sexual or something.

Sword.

It's like a provocation.

Okay.

It feels almost like what you do with a sword.

An onomatopoeia.

A swashbuckling sword.

Winnebago.

All right.

Oh, that reminds me.

Winnebago.

We got that wrong.

Oh.

We did an episode with.

Michelle Zahner and she was talking about words that she loves apropos of maybe this discussion and she was talking about how sheet cake and Winnebago invoke this like visceral reaction in her.

Thank you to the pod squad who wrote into us and said that Winnebago is actually an indigenous word for a group of indigenous folks who are the Winnebago.

So we did not know that and we failed to identify that.

So thank you for illuminating us.

Cool.

Okay.

Here's what we're going to do today.

Today, we have our second episode that wasn't.

You might remember the first episode that wasn't.

It was episode 147.

And we had brought a guest on and the guest behaved like an asshole to someone on our team.

And so we canceled it in real time.

And then the internet tried to figure out who it was forever.

And they still are trying to figure out who it was.

Will we announce who it was?

We will not.

I can't imagine ever doing that.

We are not into publicly shaming people, usually.

Unless it's me, apparently.

Unless it's sister, because today is our second episode that wasn't because PodSquad, here's what happened.

A couple months ago, we decided that we wanted to do an episode about relaxation and Amanda, okay?

Abby came up with a bunch of ideas to help sister relax, and they were like assignments.

They were things such as...

Go for a walk.

Go for a walk without headphones.

One hour before going to sleep, figure out the next day's schedule.

When waking up, try and think about getting 30 minutes of activity in your day.

You're just going to omit the one where she told me to put my entire head into an ice bucket for as long as I can hold my breath?

That one.

You're like, go for a walk, plan your schedule.

Immerse yourself bodily in an...

Iceberg.

Okay.

Well, she was trying to give you some different ideas and actually that is really helpful.

Right?

So one of them was a bit of like a cold plungy situation, but just to put her head in ice.

Now, when you say it this way, it sounds weird, but yes.

Turn on two songs and dance to them.

We even picked songs for you.

We picked a energetic song like You Ought to Know by Alanis Morissette to get some rage out.

We picked.

Easy on me by Adele to get some self -compassion in.

We thought that was great.

We scheduled a 30 -minute relaxation time after lunch every day.

Abby said, you can sleep.

You can just lay there doing nothing.

No scrolling.

No email.

Do nothing.

And she said, if 30 minutes is too long, just do five minutes.

Then she suggested a short meditation, some short breath work.

Then she said, no working after dinner.

That was another idea.

Really, she said afterwards, please note from this list, one thing that is important is that multitasking isn't real.

So you can't do these things while also doing something else.

Okay.

She tried to protect you from yourself there.

Now, because she knows you, also she added another little thing at the end that said that you could score yourself each day on how well you relaxed because she knows that you like to have.

Some feedback.

I mean, no, not feedback, like some goals.

Hold on.

It wasn't about how well she did.

It was how she felt.

Oh, okay.

That was my idea to be able to track in the couple of weeks that she does this, if in fact this is helpful or not.

Okay.

So pod squad in short, Abby center, a list of possible modes of relaxation.

I will tell you that the reason we did this is because a dynamic in our lives, work, home, relationship, is that Abby and I worry that sister is not relaxing enough.

Now, I, through much therapy, am taking responsibility for my feelings about it.

I'm not saying you don't relax enough.

I'm saying I tend to worry.

that you're not relaxing enough.

Okay.

So that doesn't mean that's your business.

That's my business.

Yeah, it really is.

And also I just want to side note, all of the list of nine possible things that sister could do.

I'd said, please choose three to four of these to incorporate into your day for two weeks.

Right.

And no, some of them were like, just do nothing for five minutes.

Like, okay.

They are not extreme sport resting.

It's not like a seven -day silent retreat.

Go for a walk.

Go for whatever.

So, PodSquad, today was the day we were to get together and discuss with you how it went.

Yeah.

Okay?

Today was the report on how it went.

So, yesterday, we come to the meeting where we prepare for what's going to happen today.

And sister says, I didn't do any of it.

No, to be fair, I said.

I have allotted today to do my relaxation homework.

Okay.

Oh my God.

You're going to cram it all in one day.

I fucking love you.

All right.

And by the way, I want to know how many things were on your list because that's bullshit.

I know you did not black out the whole day for relaxing.

I know you've never done that in your life.

So lies, lies, and more lies.

You sit on a third of lies.

Okay.

Now pod squad, why this is interesting is because.

It is the first time, maybe since second grade, that sister has been unprepared.

So we ask questions.

We say, why?

Why?

Why did you refuse to do the homework?

Here we are, pod squad.

What I want you to know is that today we are going to try to get to the thing beneath the thing.

Now you might say to yourself, well, you told her to do something that she didn't want to do.

No.

You would be incorrect.

When we proposed this idea, sister was very open to it.

She thought that's a good idea.

Well, I will say you said that will be funny and you are right.

It is funny.

Maybe this is what you meant.

Did you know you weren't going to do it?

I don't know.

I don't remember exactly the same level of engagement that you remember.

In my response to this idea.

I think maybe I was like, yeah, that would be funny.

And look.

All right.

So you didn't do it.

All right.

All right.

I have some questions for you.

Bet you do.

Okay.

Do you feel as if rest and relaxation?

And we'll get to what the hell that means because maybe our problem is semantics.

It might mean something different to everyone.

I think that's important.

Do you feel like it's something that is missing in your life that you want to make room for?

Or is this only a codependent problem that your sister and other sister are identifying?

I think I am missing a key piece of being a human.

So yes, I think part of my other problems in life are stemming from my missing key piece of being a human, which is like time that is not pre -allocated to identified priorities.

What are the other problems you're talking about?

So I'm just thinking of something that happened last week.

I usually wait until it's without a doubt too much to be like, it's too much.

So I wait until I'm at a 20 to be like, oh, okay, too much.

And I don't build it in as a process to avoid that happening.

So I remember one time my therapist like 10 years ago was like, if life is parallel lines, right?

You are always operating on right up to the upper limit and right up to the lower limit, like emotionally, capacity, everything.

And so any little thing pushes you outside of the margins and just like having zero margin in.

And I think that I do do that.

I think I...

maximized to the margins as part of my regular life.

And so I'm like, I can do that.

I can do that.

That puts me right within my margin, right up to the end.

And so anything that is extra just spills over.

And so we had just hosted three events at our house in a row for like all the, it was like the Sunday night, then the Friday night, then the Saturday night, and then Sunday.

The lacrosse girls party, the baseball party, the other baseball team party, the whatever.

So it was just two weekends that were not weekends.

And then the week is so crazy.

And so Sunday I was like, oh, I can feel myself overextended right now.

And so we need to have a couple hours of nothingness.

And so I preserved that couple hours of nothingness.

The four of us were just kind of hanging out for those two hours because I allocated it for that because I'm like, I need two hours of nothingness.

And we were just playing around and it was so nice.

And I felt like a little humanity and lightness in me.

And then later that night, I was like, you know what?

I feel like making out tonight.

It was so weird.

And then later.

I was like, oh, that's got to be connected, right?

When I am not feeling like a human, why would I ever want to do something so deeply human as that?

That's really interesting.

So I'm just wondering, even if not for just having the lightness, if having a little bit of the lightness opens up desire or capacity for other human things.

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And just for also a little context, the list that I made you was steeped in a lot of research that I've done.

Some of the stuff was actually really trying to help to induce even more productivity in some ways.

So taking a five minute rest or a 30 minute rest, whatever you can do after lunch is actually supposed to create more productivity in the rest of your workday.

But everything on here is, I think that that's a really good way of saying it is to try to.

gain more humanness.

I think that is beautiful.

Let's stick with that for a minute because I resist and reject the idea that rest is something that I'm going to do so that I can get back to productivity.

That feels so miserable to me that I reject that version of rest.

And that's not...

That's not what we're talking about.

I don't need a tool to be more productive.

No, you don't.

I need a tool to unlock the pie chart of my life that I don't live in.

Yes.

And so that I understand deeply.

It's like, to me, it's getting back to the creature self of yourself.

It's the animal self, really.

It's the whatever the capitalist.

industrial hustle complex has created this robotic part of us.

And honestly, the things you're talking about are beautiful things, but even school things, all the parties, all the teams, all the whatever, these are things that really kind of pull us out of ourselves.

And there is something about returning to your creature humanity that has to do with what you said rising inside of you.

It's like an aliveness, electricity.

It's like this tingling that happens sometimes that busyness distracts you from.

That sometimes I think the reason why so many of the things on the list have to do with stopping is not just so your body isn't moving.

It's because when you're slower, you tend to look inward.

There's like...

an inwardness that you can feel as opposed to being constantly distracted by what's going on in the outside.

Yeah, I guess to me, if there was something on a list that could save me, I would have been saved.

And I think it's probably different from a lot of people.

I don't know, or maybe the same.

It's like...

I live and die by a list and I make three different lists a day.

It's like the morning what I intend to get done.

Halfway through the day, I figure out what I haven't done and what I need to do.

Then I have my PMPs, which are PM priorities that I do after the kids go to sleep.

There's not a list that is going to deliver to me my humanity.

And maybe that's hubris.

Like maybe it's like, well, if I incorporated these things into my life.

But to me, it's a lot.

like the analogy of working out and eating healthfully.

No one doesn't know that moving your body will help your body.

No one doesn't know that eating a box of Girl Scout cookies makes you feel like shit.

It's not a lack of knowledge that drives us to eat a box of Girl Scout cookies and to not move our bodies.

It's because something else inside of our lives Right.

Is pulling us or pushing us in a certain way.

Right.

I know I feel better when I move my body.

So the question isn't, well, have you put it on a fucking list so you do it?

The question is, what is going on in your life and under your life?

Yes.

That is making no space for that.

And more importantly, making no desire for that.

Because when you desire something enough, you make space for it.

So for me, it's like.

the cart and the horse, when there is humanity in my life and when there is like almost a self -respect of centering my human experience within my own human life, then what will naturally flow from that is doing the things that I've already known for decades are the things that make me feel better.

It's not a lack of knowledge.

But like desire and habit.

have to be formed in a lot of ways.

In all of my training, there was never a single day that I wanted to go out and train so hard that I felt like my body was going to fall off.

Yeah.

And so I understand that we want to get to a place in terms of our psychology and our humanness that the desire comes, but so often it just doesn't.

And I think so many of us live in this space that you're living in.

I mean, I do it every single day and I just do behavior activations because I know the outcome is going to make me feel better.

I don't want to go to the gym every day.

I don't.

Every single morning I'm like, and I just make myself do it and I feel better afterwards.

And I know that.

And so over time, the habit, you can turn it into some sort of quote unquote desire.

I actually desire the outcome more than the actual beforehand dread.

Totally.

So you're arguing for the list.

The discipline leads to desire in a kind of cyclical way because like then your body desires that thing because it has experienced that thing.

When it doesn't experience the thing, it doesn't desire it.

Well, it's like food for me.

Yeah.

I was like, oh, food isn't enjoyable for me.

But then I had to like discipline myself to eat three meals a day.

And now I'm like, oh my God, I love food.

I did not understand.

And that has made me more human.

When you said, if this were going to save me, if more things on a list were going to save me, what is it that you're saying you need to be saved from?

From not being me.

I think that I am a playful, silly, funny, absurd person.

Yes.

And over the last like...

several years, that playful, silly, funny person has been inaccessible to me.

Wow.

And I'm almost like the reverse of that.

Like I almost resent when it's playful and silly around me because I am like, well, must be nice to be playful and silly.

And I'm probably triple like that because I'm like, I know that is actually my true self and I can't access it.

And so I'll be damned if you are able to access it around me.

And I think this is probably an experience that many, many, particularly women, but probably others feel is like the sense of loss of who we essentially are because of.

the requirements of what we do.

And so I think a lot of people were really funny.

And I think a lot of people were really silly.

And I think a lot of people were really playful.

And then you look back on who you were 20 years ago and you're like, what happened?

And I think what happened is that we all took our responsibilities very seriously.

And good on us for doing that.

And also, that would be tragic if our whole lives were spent functioning and not being, you know?

And I think I've been functioning really hard for a long time and not being.

And I only remember that when I have like glimpses into that.

And it feels good.

And it's usually, honestly, obligations that force me into a situation where I have to be non -functional that remind me.

So like summertime, the schedules are all off.

It's like, well, the kids are home for these two hours.

They're not normally home.

And I've decided I'm going to like greet them and be with them for that half an hour.

And it's even just like that.

pausing of the functioning to just be has like a little spark of me come back, which then shows up later if I'm just being silly.

And I'm like, oh, that silliness at 6 p .m.

for 30 seconds.

I'm talking 30 seconds of I notice myself like being an idiot and dancing just to like horrify someone in my family was a result of having to get up earlier in the day when I didn't want to and do a thing that was unproductive.

Wow.

I'm trying to figure out at what point the feeling that the doing and responsibilities overcame the who you are.

Like, can you identify that?

Because you said just the last few years.

I'm trying to feel like if there's...

For people for whom this is an issue, which I think is everyone, like we all know I have different, similar but in different ways with the anorexia, it's kind of like anorexia.

Is this something that is just because of work and family life?

Or is it something inherent in you that would come out regardless of what responsibilities in particular that you had?

I think the latter.

You think it's something in you that would manifest.

I think it's a slippery slope.

I think it's a slip for people like me.

And I know there's a lot of you listening.

For people like me, it is a slippery slope.

And it starts a little bitty when you're like, friends in high school are going out and you're like, I don't know, I'm going to, I got to study for this test or whatever it is.

And you get very practiced at negotiating yourself out of life.

negotiating yourself out of frivolous things in order to choose the delayed gratification things.

Wow.

I think it has been just like a slow, slippery slope to where it's, again, at the margins and you're like, how did I fill all this shit up every day and for the next three months?

There's no more places to add.

So like if you had one kid and you were like a meditation teacher, do you think that you would fill to the margins your meditation classes and that's what you're saying?

It's not - Oh, 100%.

Okay.

I'd be the most miserable if I had no kids.

And I was an unpaid flower picker.

I would be the most miserable unpaid flower picker on the planet.

It has nothing to do with the obligations.