We Can Do Hard Things: Answers to Life's 20 Questions

by Glennon Doyle

It’s so important to have care for who we were, to know inside, at the core, at the root, we’re still who we’ve always been.

When life became one flat gray relentless to-do list, I was officially gone. When there was no difference between the things that I should be looking forward to and the obligations I had to meet.

When folks ask you, kindly and casually, what you do to “earn a living,” you don’t think of how it says everything. You earn your right to live. Earn your right to exist. Earn it by producing, making money, being useful—being used.

Many of us are so burdened by what we do that we feel a sense of loss of who we are. I think that at my core I am a playful, silly, funny, absurd person. Over the last several years, that playful, silly, funny person has been inaccessible to me—so much so that I started to resent when others were that way around me. I’m like: Must be nice to be able to be playful and silly. Because I know that is actually my true self and since I can’t access it, I’ll be damned if you’re able to access it around me. Then we look back on who we were twenty years ago and wonder: What happened? Well, what happened is that we all took our responsibilities very seriously, and good on us for doing that. But it would be tragic if our whole lives were spent functioning and never being. I’ve been functioning really hard for a long time and not being. I only remember this when I have glimpses into my essential playful, silly self, and it feels good. Amanda

And so when I see Abby relaxing, I get irritated and think: Oh, really? Another vampire movie at 2:00 p.m.? I’m resentful. But the reason I’m resentful is not because she needs to stop resting. The reason I’m resentful is that I need to listen to the part of myself that wants to rest. Now when I get annoyed and think: That must be nice, I stop and think deeper: Yeah, actually, that would be nice. Maybe I want that, too. I think of resentment as a big flashing arrow pointing me toward what I want but learned I couldn’t have. Glennon

When bids to connect from people you love feel like burdens, it’s time to pay attention.

To break free from suffering requires a force that is intense. And the process is not fun. But I now really value suffering because I’ve come to understand that it’s always telling me that I’ve lost myself.

I don’t know how to stay found; I’m going to get lost every single day, maybe every hour. So I need Touch Trees. I need practices and truths, big and strong and rooted enough that whenever I return to them, I feel found.

Tracee: That’s it, though. It’s funny, I have been nursing another deep disappointment, and my little inner child was just crying so hard. And for the first time, I was able to sit with her and I was like: Here’s the thing, my love, I’m not going anywhere. I’m not going anywhere.

There’s a lot about our child selves that we blame. We blame them for these things that they went through. But now there’s just a softness I want to hold for her because she didn’t know. She didn’t know a lot. She didn’t know that she had grief and trauma. She didn’t know how to communicate the things she needed. I need to be softer toward her and toward myself. Kaitlin Curtice

I think we all know this feeling of a thing that we’re holding. It could be anything, but the thing we’re holding, we think if we articulate it, it makes it true. And we’re more scared of that thing being true out in the world than we are of keeping it inside.

Nothing is wasted. None of that old pain is wasted. We use every bit of it to create the next version of ourselves.

When I’m feeling super tender and vulnerable, I think of myself as a crab. When crabs outgrow their shells there is a slice of time between shedding the old and finding the new when they have to hide—because they are extra soft, extra vulnerable. We get soft and have to hide sometimes, too. I think that means we’re growing. We’re just between shells. Glennon

We don’t always need the next strategy to cope with our life. Sometimes we need to create a life that requires less coping.

I said the things I’ve always wanted someone to say to me. There was this presence that said: I am right here. I have always been right here. There is nothing that you can do to lose me. There is nothing you can fail at so much that it will cost you my love. You can’t earn my love. You can’t lose my love. It is innate. It’s yours. I am never going to leave you. I was here at the moment of your birth. I’ll be here at the moment of your death. Whatever you need to do, I’ll be with you.

There are a few things that Love constantly says. One is: “I’m right here.” Another is: “You can’t lose me.” The third is: “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

I think we keep ourselves so controlled and busy that what needs to rise and be acknowledged in us never rises. If it doesn’t rise, we can’t let it go. So in the morning, I let it all rise.

We all embody a whole lot of things we have learned from our families and from the world. We embody all these things we don’t really value or believe in, but they come out of us. And so before we try to heal the world, there’s work to do in our interiors. There’s work to do around realigning who we actually are and how we behave with what we believe.

If I feel filled to the brim with stress or pain or confusion, I write it down. Pulling all the ick from my insides and exorcising it outside me where I can see it makes me feel emptied, clear again, ready to act.

We think of healing as something that has to come from the outside and fix us on the inside. But writing, breathing, crying—that’s all release. They are all different ways of not holding it all in.

I have found that the changes I make on the journey to self-love are quieter. And they’re the kind of changes I can’t see any more than I can see a plant or a baby grow. But, little by slowly, I can see the difference. And then in spring we go out and we go, “Oh, my garden’s grown.” And we need to do that with ourselves too. We need to also tell ourselves about the progress we’ve made little by slowly.

How do we learn that I was not safe then, but I am safe now? We can practice recognizing we are safe now by answering the questions “Why am I safe? Where am I safe? How am I safe? Who am I safe with?”

We can always handle the deep end if we remember that we know how to swim.

I can trust me to take care of me. I can trust me to love me through anything. I can trust me to see me to the other side of anything.

I’m not going to hate myself into being the version of the person I want to be. It’s impossible. Only love is going to get me there. I’ve got to love myself into being that person. I’ve got to trust myself into being that person. Ashley C. Ford

One thing I know can be trusted is that I have something inside of me guiding me. I experience this guide differently all the time, so I’m not even going to try to describe what it feels like. I just have something inside of me that always knows what to do next. Even so, following that knowing is so difficult. I often try everything else first—anything to avoid trusting it. Every time I notice a cage around me—a job, an event, a relationship, something that just doesn’t feel right—I can trace it back to a moment I felt a knowing on the inside and ignored or defied it. Every misstep starts with a knowing that I didn’t turn into a doing.

In our most desperate moments, when we literally have nothing else to turn to, our intuition is there.

For me, inner knowing feels like joy and freedom and anything that makes me feel alive. It shows up for about thirty seconds. It’s never sustained, and it’s not a static place of arrival. It’s the flash of seeing another way for myself.

We can practice learning what our intuition is by running toward anything that feels like a few seconds of being alive.

I tend to attribute so many things to either luck or circumstance, and that’s real. But also, I’ve kept me alive this whole time. Any success I have, anything I hold on to within or outside of myself that makes me feel pride and makes me feel happy and makes me feel love—I sought those things out. I was smart enough to do that. I was smart enough to hold on to them when I found them.

If you want to know what intuition is, ask yourself: What does ten-year-old me need? Because ten-year-old you is not going to say that she needs a new business strategy. Ten-year-old you is going to say, “I need rest. I’m hungry. I want to feel safe. I need fresh air. I need to scream.” Glennon

One day I was meditating, and I visited my little Sonya. I spent some time with her. I went up to her and asked her what she wanted. And little Sonya said, “I want to go home.” I was like “Oh, I’ll be your home. We are our own home.” It was really sweet and tender and beautiful. And little Sonya was like “No, chick. I want a plane trip to Pittsburgh, and I want a hoagie. Thanks for all your fluffy duffy therapized meaning, though.” It was this phenomenal moment of awareness. That need didn’t come from my head; it came from my soul, from the smallest parts of me. Sometimes the work is to not be in our head at all. You have no answers there. The answer is in the center of you. It’s in your gut, it’s inside the deepest, quietest, usually most disavowed part of ourselves. And that part isn’t thinking. Sonya Renee Taylor

The cruel reality hit me for the first time that choosing one thing you love means losing another thing you love.

So if you’re not sure of exactly who you are, you’re not alone. You’re just honest.

Authenticity is not a destination, it’s an orientation, and what matters more is that you’re showing up, not where you’re going. Alok

You don’t always know exactly what it is you want to do, but just start. Just start doing something that would be interesting. And that will lead to something else that’s interesting. And that leads to something else. Ina Garten

We forget how to want when we learn how to please. Experimenting can help us remember.

Instead of: I should… Let’s try: I want…I need…I feel…I am…

Now I grocery shop as me. I pack as me. When I receive an invitation, I ask myself: Glennon, would you want to attend this event tonight? If you don’t want to go this night, you’re not going to want to go that night. Then I curl up in my sweatpants with my Doritos, and I am happy.

I have a very clear vision of myself as an eighty-year-old. It’s actually my favorite vision of myself. I’m walking slowly on a beach, and I have the most beautiful gray hair. It’s long and curly, pulled back in a ponytail. I’m wearing loose, flowy clothing, no shoes, a couple dogs gleefully running up ahead. I’m just doing my daily walk, heading back to my tiny purple cottage. I’m so full of peace and power and calm. I always think: What do I have to do today to get closer to becoming that badass peaceful woman in the flowy robe walking barefoot on the beach? What would she tell me to do about this situation? It’s a cool exercise to imagine the truest, most beautiful older version of you. Then that image can become a lighthouse, guiding you to her. Instead of growing older being something to avoid, it becomes something incredible to become.

When we try to decide what we want or don’t want, we always go to our mind to try to figure it out. But what I have discovered again and again is that it’s never there. I need to do the body thing to figure out what feels warm or cold—spacious or restrictive.

I’m just trying to follow what makes me feel good inside, what makes me feel tingly. I can feel when my aliveness is being drained from me, and I can feel when it’s being added to. And that is the measure by which I’m currently evaluating all of my business decisions: Is it giving life, or is it taking it away? Justina Blakeney

I ended up asking myself a question I’d been asking other people: What’s something you say you want to do but you supposedly don’t have time for?

Our body communicates what it needs with energy and temperature and impulse.

I often like to allow myself to take a breath and imagine that I’m breathing into a sensation. And then I ask the sensation: Is there something you want me to know? What is it that’s there? What needs to happen next? What do you want for me? Dr. Hillary McBride

The real work is paying attention when you are having uncomfortable feelings. That will reveal what your needs are. When I am feeling anxious, what is the thing? Is it that I have to interact with a person who doesn’t allow me to ever speak about myself? If so, my need is to talk more about myself in this relationship. When we have the discomfort of anxiety, depression, resentment, those are all times to really think about why. Why am I feeling this? And the need will come up. Nedra Glover Tawwab

Resentment and jealousy are in fact very helpful data points. When I’m feeling jealous and resentful, it may come out as “I don’t like that person.” But likely it isn’t even about that person. I’m probably just super annoyed that they’re always posting their #FriYAY Date Night pictures, and it makes me think I don’t like them, when it actually means I just really need a #FriYAY Date Night. Amanda

When there’s deep dismissal or profound judgment of something, maybe that’s actually a voice that’s telling you you want it and you’re afraid of it. Chloé Cooper Jones

Allow your longing. I believe our longing is the thing that has already happened to us, but we haven’t caught up to it in time. It’s loving something before we believe in it. It is right to long. It is right to yearn. It is our yearning that takes us forward toward our soul’s desire. The only real map of our lives is in our yearning. If you can sit in it and say: You know what, Yearning? I believe you. I believe you’re meant to be fulfilled, you will feel a piece of truth come into your heart. There will be freedom in believing your yearning can be fulfilled. Martha Beck

Conjure up the truest, most beautiful life, relationship, community, world you can imagine. Write it down. Put pen to paper. Think about an architect. Before imagination becomes three-dimensional, it usually needs to become two-dimensional. Now read what you’ve written and consider that your imaginings are not a pipe dream. Your imaginings are your marching orders. We must start accepting that what we can imagine, we can also create. Glennon