A

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Hi everyone and welcome to Magic Lessons, a podcast produced by MaximumFun.org I'm Elizabeth Gilbert and last year I wrote this book called Big Creative Living Beyond Fear. But even when I was finished with the book, I was definitely not finished with the topic because I'm still as much as ever fascinated with the intricacies of the creative process and how we find our way through that strange journey, the obstacles we meet along the way, and the joy of what we ultimately create. And it is through my desire to keep having that conversation that this, the Magic Lessons podcast was born. So here we are, season two and we are back. Back with more real conversations with real people, amateurs and experts. This season we will be meeting poets and novelists, dancers, photographers, comedians, and whether they're ready or not, me and my friends are gonna help them figure out how to shake off their fear, get unstuck and start making stuff. You know why? Cause I think they are ready. So let's go. So, wow, everybody. Today is the season finale of the Magic Lessons podcast, season two. And there's this word that keeps arising for me as I reflect on these last eight episodes, and that word courage. These eight creators who we met on this season are so courageous. Jo, Keith, Ann, Cecilia, Colleen, Penelope, Britta, and Hope. It took extraordinary courage for each one of them to write the essay that they wrote to try to get my attention. It took an even bigger amount of courage for them to actually hit send and submit it. And then it took courage for them to come out in this public forum and share how hard it is for them to create and why it matters and why it's sacred and why it's essential. Who they are without it, who they are with it. And it took a ton of courage for them to report back to tens of thousands of listeners about it. So I just want to send out a special love message to my very brave team of creators this season. Thank you. I admire you. Your courage has inspired me, and it will continue to serve all of you well throughout life, as well as making other people braver, which, again, is not the primary reason that we do our creative work. The primary reason that we do it is for what it illuminates within us. But one of the many secondary benefits is that your courage of expression makes it easier for other people to find theirs. And so thank you to all of you. You're wonderful, and I love you. And that subject on courage brings me to a special guest today, Glennon Doyle Melton. So what we do here on the Magic Lessons podcast is at the end of every season. We started this last year with our dear friend Brene Brown. I bring on one last special guest, and we just do what I call a benediction, which is going to a long and freeform conversation about sort of all the issues that came up this season as a way of closing out all the discussions that we've been having. Glennon is one of my favorite people in the entire world. She's an author, a speaker, a blogger, an activist, a mother. I consider her my sister. She's the author of an extraordinary new memoir called Love Warrior, and many of you know her from following her fantastic blog, Mamastery. I've also worked with her in a lot of social work stuff, especially this big refugee relief project that she and I have been on for quite a Long time. I am so happy to walk through this world shoulder to shoulder with Glennon. And as you will see when you get to meet her now, she is one of the most courageous people I've ever met. So let's begin. Hi, sweetie. It's Liz.

B

Hi. How are ya?

A

Oh, man, I can't wait for this conversation. I have so much that I want to talk to you about. For those of you who are listening, who don't know who Glennon Doyle Melton is, in which case, what is the matter with you? So you can just pause now and Google her and look her up and read all her books and come back to the conversation, or I can just let you, Glennon, give me the thumbnail version of how you came to be in the world in the manner that you are in the world.

B

Well, I was in hiding for the first 25 years of my life. I was an addict and just hide her. I was in bulimia, alcoholism, drugs, all the things. And so when I decided to get sober, which is when I became pregnant with my chase, which was, I guess, 14 years ago now, I think you call it, when I started deciding to create instead of destroy myself, yeah, I just decided to do the opposite of that, just to live completely out of hiding. Because I figured out that it's not pain that takes us down, it's the shame about the pain. And so if I just, every single day, got all of the icky, shameful stuff out of the inside of me into the light, that I somehow stayed magically sober, right? It's like a sobriety strategy. So the way I did that is I got up every single morning and just started writing it all out, just like pulling all the demons out from inside of me and throwing them onto a blank page. And then I started posting them online, and everyone started saying, me, too. And something about the me, too, about my darkest stuff made me stop being afraid of myself, right? Made me just, like every day want to show more and more of myself. And then not only did I fall in love with telling the truth and living out in the open, but I started falling in love with all of the people who were then showing me their selves, right? Because the amazing thing about being super honest is it's like this key that unlocks other people. And so people say, there you are. And so here I am, too. So I started falling in love with them. And then I just decided what I wanted to do is love the hell out of them forever. So then I became an activist. And so every day, I just Kind of use my writing to heal myself, and then I use the love I have for my readers to try to heal the world. So I run Together Rising, a nonprofit, and I write all the things I wrote. Carry On Warrior and a new book that's coming out called Love Warrior. And I write at monastery. And that's it.

A

Yeah, Monastery, everybody. That's like a monastery where monks live, except she spells it momastery, because she's a mom. Momastery is where to go if you want to sort of get in on the Glennon Doyle Melton revolution. And it is a revolution, and it is extraordinary. And I know you've told this story a million times before, but I need you to tell the story about that first revelatory thing that you put on the Internet when somebody was passing a Facebook meme along a sort of friendly thing where people were saying, tell us 10 things we don't know and then pass this to all your friends. This is the story I always tell about you when I try to tell people who you are. So if you could just share that, that would be wonderful.

B

So I figured out that I wanted to be honest somewhere, which is so hard to do in real life, that I was, like, dying for a place to tell the truth outside of a recovery group. And so I was testing my computer this one day, and there was this thing going on on Facebook called the 25 things. So people were just, like, listing things about themselves. And I thought if I could do this, I could make a list. So I sat down and typed out a bunch of stuff, and Liz, I walked away, and I came back an hour later, and my list been shared, like, all of these gazillions of times from my personal page. And I had something like 39 emails in my inbox, and I had, like, six voicemails from my sister, which is like our bat signal for I've done something inappropriate. This is like, require a lot of cleanup on her part or whatever. So. So I was like, what on earth happened? So here's what happened. I didn't read anyone else's list before I wrote mine, which is like the kiss of death for me. So here's my number six. I'm a recovering food and alcohol addict, but I still find myself missing booze in the same twisted way, we can miss those who repeatedly beat us and leave us for dead. Which is so true. Right.

A

Can you give an example of what somebody else's number six was?

B

Yeah. So then I go to my friend Lisa's number six, and her says, my Favorite snack food is hummus. And I'm like, dear God. So, like, what I think in my head, which is what I think a million times a day, is like, oh, we're not doing that here. Right? So, like, everyone's faces are always saying to me, like, oh, we're not doing that yet. So it was terrifying. But then later that night, I logged onto my email and I got brave and started opening up all these emails from people and Liz. They were from people who I had known my whole life, many of them, but they had never introduced their true selves to me. Right? Because we've been so freaking busy staying on the surface with each other and trying to, like, convince each other that everything was shiny and happy that we had not brought to each other the stuff that, like, keeps us up at night, you know, like, the stuff that the heavy stuff that we were actually meant to help each other carry here. So they, you know, said things like, I've been bulimic, too, for 15 years and nobody knows. Or, you know, my marriage is crumbling and we don't know who to turn to. Or my sister's drinking herself to sleep every night and nobody knows what to do. Me too. Me too. Me too. So that's when I was like, this is something I could do. Like, I. I remember going to Craig and being after that list and being like, oh, my God, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to be a shameless truth teller for my whole life. Because this is magic. This is a key that can unlock people. And Liz, he goes, damn it. He goes, do you have any other marketable skills? And I said, no, that's the thing. I feel like it's just one shot we have. So I started getting up really early and writing every morning, every single morning. And I was like, this is my hour of my own. I didn't have a room of my own. It's so hard for women, especially mothers, to find creative time, because in order to be creative, you have to go so deep, you know, you have to let yourself sink away. And mothers are so used to living on the surface because at any moment, somebody could need you. Right? Yeah. So I had a closet. I wrote in my closet every single morning at 4:30. I still do this, although I have graduated out of the closet. But I think because there was a door, there were two doors between my children and me, like, they had to go through to get to my husband. Like, they'd have to run into my husband before they could get to me. So it was like that barrier that made me able to sink away and monastery started.

A

I love that thing that you say. I didn't have a room of my own, but I had an hour of my own. And what I think is so extraordinary about what you chose to do in that room and with that hour is that you took it to this kind of like, almost like performance art, gonzo, extreme sports level. And I could see people say, saying, I'm going to get up and I'm going to tell the truth and I'm going to write and I'm going to get this out of me. You would do that, and then you would hit send and you would put it into the world that day, the deep, honest truth about what it felt like for you that day, to be who you were on earth with those kids, with that husband, with that chaotic mind, with those responsibilities, with this anguish, with these fears. Like you did something that was so ferociously wild. I mean, I'm sure you've gotten blowback, and I'm sure you've gotten criticized. I know you've gotten criticized. I know you've gotten death threats. I know you've gotten all kinds of things. I know that everywhere you go to speak, lawyers need to be there sometimes. But I also know that more than that, far more than that, what you've gotten is that enormous chorus of, me too, me too, me too.

B

Yeah. God, it's the best. It's magic like that. Echo.

A

So much of what happened on this podcast this season, I felt, was people saying that they didn't want to do something till they were good at it, you know? So I had people who are sort of addicted to taking classes in the thing that they want to do. And I had people who have done it, but they're refusing to show it to anybody. I've had people who've collected all the material over the years, but they can't quite bring themselves to make the thing. And I'm fascinated by this idea that somehow in this culture, we've got this misconception that you're not allowed to either create or produce anything until you're already good at it. And what you did was so the opposite of that, that I wonder if you could sort of speak and riff on that idea.

B

If I think of my writing as kind of parallel to a recovery meeting, I mean, that's what you do. You share your stuff and it's out there, right? And that's part of, like, staying in the light, staying sane, staying sober is like you have to kind of put it out there. You can't just keep it to yourself. Right. But it also kept me from ever considering perfectionism.

A

Right?

B

Right. Like that was my role for myself. So I didn't have the luxury or what turns out to be terrible way to burden of making sure everything was shiny and perfect. Like all I had to do was do what I had promised myself, which is show up, put my butt in the chair, type the words and press post no matter what. The other rule for myself was like, okay, put your stuff out there. But you are not like in a babysit it. You're not going to follow it around and make sure everybody likes it. And when somebody misunderstands it right back to that person and explain yourself, that's not your job. Because so many people that I see quit this. They don't quit because they're not artists. They quit because they're not lawyers. They don't quit because they didn't like making the thing. They quit because they can't handle defending the thing.

A

Okay.

B

Which was never their job.

A

Right. So they're good artists and they're terrible lawyers.

B

Right. Like you have to be one or the other.

A

Right. And because they think they're a bad lawyer, they mistakenly think they're a bad artist.

B

And that's why I love what you say about don't consider your art your baby.

A

Yeah.

B

Because if you consider your art your baby, you have to freakin follow it around and babysit it. Right? So you're thinking about the art, you're thinking about what you want to make and then it's the during you're making it. But there's no after.

A

There is no after, there's no after.

B

You just release it and then you're back to the beginning again.

A

So all you are in is contemplation and creation. You're not in the business of doing the post mortem on it. You know, I have this statement that I'm always saying, which is that time is not something that you find, it's something that you make. And so I wondered if you could talk as a mother of three who was getting up every day at 4:30 in the morning to write about how you do that. Like how you decide that it is more worth it for you to make those hours than it is for you to sleep. And I would imagine that sleeping might be kind of high on your list of priorities at this point in your life.

B

I felt like there was going to be some huge answer to that question. Like some big groundbreaking spiritual answer to like how does a mom Find the time in that. So for me, what it was is I had to stop watching TV at night. It was like. And it was so annoying, Liz, because that was harder for me than like any big spiritual epiphany that I was hoping to have because I love watching TV at night. That's like, for a mom, that's like the finish line. That's like the promised land. It's like they're all asleep and it's the only time you have to just not get anyone any snacks, you know, and. But I couldn't. I was like, if I'm going to get up at 4:30, I have to put those kids to bed and I have to have my butt in bed by nine. You know, by nine, if you want to have what you want to have, which is a creative life, you have to give up this hour of tv. That was it. That's freaking it. So I went, I started going to bed at 9 and it wasn't so bad to get up at 4. And honestly, I still do that list. Like, I'm up at 4:30 most days.

A

Glennon, why is it important? This is the fundamental question about why do humans make things? Why is it so important for you to do this? Who are you without it? Who are you with it? What does it do to you? What does it do for you? Why do you. Why do you care? Why do you bother?

B

So many answers to that. I think I am just really, really desperate to be known. I think I just really want to be known. I just want to be seen, you know, Like, I have all of these thoughts and ideas and dreams and fears, and for whatever reason, I just need people to say, I see you. I don't even need them to say, I like you.

A

I have somebody once who said the definition of an artist is anybody who walks through the world saying, don't erase me. You know, just don't erase me. I need to know that I'm here. I need to feel that, you know, that I'm here.

B

Yeah. And like my favorite, one of my favorite scripture that I have written on my new 40 year old boots that my sister got me when I turned 40 is here I am. Like, I just, there's something about here I am. And I think it's such an important thing for women to feel like it's okay to like, take up your space on the earth, you know, to be big enough and bold enough to say, here I am. Look at me for a minute.

A

Can I just tell you how much I'm loving this answer? Because I have to give you my honest response. When you first said, I want to be known, I want to be seen, I had a little wince of like, oh, oh, oh. I kind of want your answer to be, look, I don't care if anyone ever knows or sees it. I just do it for the pure love of making things. And then I relaxed into, like, wait a minute. It's cool that she wants to be known and seen. It's okay that she wants to be known and seen. And my God, how many women never get known and seen? Suddenly I realized, oh, that's a very brave and very honest answer, and one that maybe people aren't allowed to say because they're afraid of being viewed as narcissistic or entitled. Whereas entitlement is, of course, a word that I'm always trying to reclaim for the good. But I like that you made me a little uncomfortable with that answer.

B

That's my job. Don't you think it's okay? Like, God, it's okay. Because when what you find out, what you know is that there's nothing that you can really put out there that is truly your own. Like, the more personal you get, the more universal it is. The deeper you go into yourself, the more everybody else can see themselves in you. And so you start realizing that you can be seen because there is nothing freaking unique about you. You're not special. Like, you're amazing. You're freaking amazing. You're a child of God. You're a child of the universe. You're, like, made of stardust. And also, you are not unique.

A

Okay, so this is the really interesting knife edge to walk on, which is when people get that revelation that I'm not that big a deal. Everything I'm ever gonna say has already been lived. Nothing is very special about my life. They tend to shut down and say, therefore, it's pointless for me to try to create anything. It won't be special. How do you walk that line of, I'm just the same as everybody else. I'm absolutely nothing special. I'm a miracle, and I need to put this out there.

B

Everybody can say the same thing, but every single person has a different voice. So, like, if the truth is that we can do hard things, or, like, love wins, there's a million different things, ways to say that. And the way that I say it might resonate with somebody else so strongly they can hear it for the first time. And, Liz, the way you say wakes up this particular person and the way somebody else says it, but it's like this Chorus. And we need everyone's voices, you know, so you do it to hear yourself. You know how, like, when you're in, like, a tunnel and you make the noise and you hear yourself, like, it's like, there I am.

A

You said something once to me when we were talking about the most common questions that we get in the book signing line. And because you came out of the blogosphere, right? Like, you were born of blogs out of nowhere, out of your closet. So the question that so often comes at you in book signing lines are people saying, how do I get to where you are? I would like to have a million people reading my blog. How do I get a bigger platform? How do I get more attention? How do I get more followers? How do I get more likes? And you said something that was so lovely to me. You get a bigger platform by serving the platform you already have, by serving the few people who are already listening to you. Can you explain in more detail what you mean? And did I quote you correctly on that? Because I thought that was really your frustration with that question I found really interesting.

B

Yeah, I mean, that's what I still do. So it's so interesting. With social media and with, you know, the whole promotion game, I think people get confused about how you grow your audience. That's what people say. How do you grow your audience? How do you grow your audience? There are shortcuts, right? There are a million shortcuts. I think there are apps you can buy that add 100,000 followers or whatever you want. But the problem is, that's not real. I've never promoted my blog anywhere. I've never done any of that. But what I have done is served the people who show up. So, like, when my blog was like, 14 followers, I was doing the exact same thing as I'm doing now when there's millions. Like, same thing. Like this book. We'd have a book club with 12 of us. And I do the exact same thing as I'm doing now. It's such an honor. Like with social media, if you have 10 followers, that's 10 people who are looking at their phones. You have the opportunity to shape their consciousness for that day. Like, what you put out there will change their day. Because what we consume, we become, right? So if you have 10 followers, give them light. Like, people want love and people want light and people want encouragement. And if you give them that, if you wake up every morning and think, I am so lucky to be serving this community, guess what happens? Like, they want to share the light, and so they share yeah, you don't try to get other people. You do not try to get more followers. You try to serve your followers so well that they invite other people to you.

A

We're going to take a quick break and when we come back, we're going to hear more from Glennon about her latest project and the courage that it took her to bring it forth into the world. But first, a word from our sponsors. Like so many of you curious souls out there, my love of learning did not stop when I finished school. I've kind of never stopped going to school in my own way, and that's why I'm such a fan of the Great Courses plus and I would love for you to be able to try it too. With the Great Courses plus, you get unlimited access to engaging lectures on a wide variety of topics presented by award winning professors. With the Great Courses plus, you can expand your knowledge on subjects like history, psychology, music, or you can explore new interests like photography or meditation. And you can fit these short video lectures into your own schedule from any device. And you know that one of the courses I'm going to love taking is the one called the Everyday Rediscovering the Lost Art of Cooking that was created in partnership with the Culinary Institute of America where you get to learn from a master chef how to enhance your cooking skills. Exactly my kind of thing. I'd love for you to try the great Courses plus today, as one of my podcast listeners, you'll have a special opportunity to get a free month of unlimited access to all of the great courses plus lectures when you sign up. Start your free month today by going to thegreatcoursesplus.com lessons. Remember, that's thegreatcoursesplus.com Lessons. Magic Lessons is also supported in part by stamps.com A lot of small businesses get stuck doing things the old fashioned way just out of habit, including vital operations like mailing and shipping that can be so time consuming and frankly, annoying if you're in that boat. If you're still making trips to the post office, you need stamps.com with stamps.com you can do all your mailing and shipping right from your desk and never have to go to the post office again. With stamps.com you can print postage for any letter or package using your own computer and printer, and then you just hand it to your mail carrier or drop it in a mailbox and that's it. Stamps.com is convenient and easy to use and it will save you money and you'll even get special postage discounts that you can't even get at the post office right now. Sign up for Stamps.com and use my promo code lessons for this special offer. A four week trial plus a $110 bonus offer including postage and a digital scale. So don't wait. Go to stamps.com and before you do anything else, click on the microphone at the top of the homepage and type in this lessons. That's stamps.com enter lessons good news everyone.

C

There are still a few tickets remaining for the London Podcast Festival, September 22nd through 26th. We've just announced a dazzling new addition to the Bullseye lineup. Sharon Horizon, creator and star of the hit shows Pulling and Catastrophe, as well as a new show, Divorce, which launches soon on hbo. Comedian Josie Long, Veep creator Armando Iannucci and musician Romare round out the Bullseye lineup. But the fun doesn't stop there. Friends, International Waters and judge John Hodgman. Tickets are still available too. Do not sleep on this. Feast your eyes on the juicy full lineup and grab your tickets right now@maximumfun.org.

A

So can we have a little bit of a candid conversation about your book that just came out?

B

Yeah.

A

I read in manuscript your new book, Love Warrior, and I know you, okay? I know you as my friend. I know you as my chosen sister. I know you as a writer who I admire and an activist in the world. I feel like I know your voice really well. Like as a consumer of Glennon Doyle Melton, I made the dangerous mistake that people so often make with creators of thinking I know what I'm getting into with this book. It's going to be self deprecating, it's going to be funny, it's going to be revealing, it's going to be spiritual. What I didn't know was the depth of soul and pain that you were ready with this book to reach into and the mastery of writing, you know, the next step of writing that this book took and the next step of honesty that this book took. And you know, I wrote a whole book about marriage called Committed. I spent years studying marriage to try to figure out how to make sense of marriage, to try to feel like, how to be comfortable with this institution that makes me inherently nervous. And that once again, for the second time in my life, as you know, I have not been able to stick with, you know, and even after trying to become a master of understanding marriage, I still just failed another marriage. Failed is a strong word and I don't mean it as a shame. I just know that this thing is really hard and Even after all the research that I did on marriage and on matrimony, when I read Love Warrior, I thought, this is the first really honest book that I've read about marriage. And I wondered if you could just speak about that.

B

Yeah.

A

Where you went with that book and what you had to reach into to do what you did.

B

Yeah, man. Okay. So what happened is that I got married right after I got sober right away. Right away. And I married a good man, and I thought we were having an honest life. And I kind of replaced my identity as drunk with mom and wife, and that was better and healthier, and, like, all my people were proud of me, and I was an upstanding citizen, and I was feeling good about myself, and I became a writer, and I was about to go on tour with my first book, which was about marriage and having a family. And so right before I was going on tour, I was in therapy with my husband, and he told me that he had been being unfaithful to me my whole marriage. So, like, right after we got married, right up to that moment, which was over a decade, and I never saw it coming at all. And I always thought people who said they didn't see it coming were, like, a little slow, but I didn't. I don't know. It was like the. It was just going right back to rock bottom, you know, because. Because I feel like rock bottom is this place that feels like there's an eviction from your life. Like, you had this before life, and then this eviction becomes. And everybody. Like, it's whatever. There's like, you can't ever go back. You know, there's like a before and after. So it's like the phone call you get that diagnosis or whatever your news is, you know, after which there will always be a before and an after.

A

Yes.

B

And so what I learned, though, and I really believe, even though it's so hard to believe in the moment, is that I don't really think evictions from our life come unless they're also invitations to, like, a truer identity. Right. So, you know, for me, drunk and bulimic and drug addict was replaced by wife and mother. And that was better. But the problem was that it wasn't true enough. Because, you know, women, we define ourselves by our roles. I mean, if you ask a woman who she is, she says she'll tell you who she loves sometimes, what she does usually who she loves. My mother, I'm a wife. I'm a sister, which is great. I mean, that's what makes the World go round. But it's also such a precarious situation because these things change.

A

Yeah.

B

And they can be taken from us. And that's why we women live in fear. Right? So within this terrible eviction was this invitation to, like, what the hell? Like what. What do I need to learn about myself? Who am I that is truer and longer lasting than wife and mother. So love warriors, just that journey, like, figuring it out. And story of that is that I just figured out I am a child of God. That's what I was born with. That's what I'll die as. That's something that no one can take from me, that no decision I make will disqualify me for that. No one can give or steal, you know, that no one's opinion of me will change. Like I'm a child of God. And that's all I will define myself by for the rest of my life. And, you know, I mean, it's. It's the story of sex, man, and how confusing it all is and how I had to go back to when I was 10 and I figured out that I have all these sex issues, you know, that. That are related to being a woman in this culture and have to do with, you know, being a body that's been objectified so long that I just started objectifying myself, right? So, like, women are trinities. We're all trinities with body, mind and spirit. And the healthiest of us live out lives of the body, lives of the mind, and lives of the spirit. But the problem is that women get so. We get so, so many confusing messages from our culture about our bodies that early on we just vote them off the island, Right? We just don't even anymore see our bodies as ourselves. We've been so objectified that we objectify our own selves. We only know how to be desired. We don't know how to desire. Wow. We only know how to be wanted. We don't even know how to know what we want. Right? So we are so concerned with what we look like that we forget to care about what we're for looking. And so. So basically, one of my therapists, one of my therapists was like, we gotta vote your body back on the island. Like, we gotta have a reunion. We gotta make you whole again. And I was like, that sounds really hard. Do you have any more pills? And she was like, no, you're gonna do the work. You're gonna do the work. So it was just like, love words is my. My journey of becoming whole again. And by the way, the same thing for the guys, right? So women, we get shamed out of our bodies early on. They get shamed out of their emotions. Right, right. Because boys don't cry, boys don't get sad, boys don't whatever. So they vote those off the island. And so what happens, I think, is that, you know, we marry these people and, like, they are trying to love us with their bodies, and we can't feel that love because we're not. We don't live there.

A

Right.

B

And, like, we're trying to love them with our minds, but they don't live there. And so we're just freaking missing each other. And so it's like everything we learn about masculinity and femininity in our culture keeps us from, like, a real man and a real woman loving each other, you know? And so you just have to. When you try to love someone, you just have to unlearn so much and start over. And so I think love warriors just. It's an unlearning, you know, it's how I just tried to just tear it all down and, like, unlearn everything that I had swallowed about what it means to be a woman in this culture and just get down to who I really am and what I really want and to figure out that still that voice that speaks to us, you know, that voice that knows what to do and how to, like, bring that voice to the surface and start living my life in accordance to what she wants.

A

God, Glennon, what struck me when I was reading it was not just the honesty, but the curiosity and compassion that you brought to yourself and to your marriage, where getting past anger, getting past self hatred, getting past all sorts of senses of how things should be, you did what I think of as sort of the ultimate creative journey, because I think no successful creative journey happens without a tremendous amount of patience and a tremendous amount of curiosity to just try, you know, to just see, like, what would it be like to try to do this? What would it be like to try to understand this? What would we like to try to feel this? And you are so much more interested in getting to the truth than you were in trying to be right. That there's this beating heart in that book that. That I just have never seen the likes of. And it's how I think of you as somebody who just consistently cares so much more about her curiosity for the truth than she does about her position or her status or how she's perceived, you know, and because of that, you just keep being really brave Again and again and again. And there's a softness in curiosity. Right. Like, we think of bravery as being this sort of almost a macho word sometimes. Like, there's an, you know, like, you think of, like, a brave person with an armor and a sword. You don't go into it that way. You go into it unarmed.

B

That's right.

A

Totally soft, totally open, and totally ready for any outcome. Like, I don't know how this is going to go. I don't know what's going to happen when I say to my husband, what happens if we just tell each other the truth? You know, I don't know what I'm going to hear. I don't know what he's going to say. I don't know if it's going to work. I don't know if any of it's going to work. But I want to. You know, I think of you. I know you don't want to be labeled as anything other than a child of God, but I think of you as a child of God and a explorer of truth.

B

I love that. Yeah. I mean, because the people I love and respect are not the people who are always talking. It's the listeners.

A

Why do you like me?

B

Are you kidding? You are the best listener ever. You're the most curious person I've ever met.

A

But I like talking. Glennon.

B

Yeah, no, I really meant metaphorically. What comes back to me all the time, Liz, is that stay open. Like, this is, like, the command that comes to me, like, in every argument in. During that marriage time. Like, every time someone says something to me on the Internet, every time someone cuts me off, like, stay open, stay open, stay open. Like, all of life for me is about just not shutting down. The longer I can stay open, the more that's what all the growth is for me.

A

I always say, go back in, go back in, go back in one more time. And when I'm helping people edit their work, and they are like, but this is my third draft of my book, I'm like, go back in, go back in. You know? And when my friends are encouraging me to have painful, difficult conversations, and I'm like, but I already said the hard thing. Go back in, go back in, go back in. It never ends. Stay open, go back in. That's what it means to be curious. That's what it means to be creative. The other reason I wanted to talk about Love Warrior is because as I'm trying to show people what it looks like to be really brave and how it never ends.

B

Right.

A

You did this Extraordinarily creative and courageous thing by living through your marriage infidelity the way that you did and approaching it with curiosity and compassion and trying to figure out how to learn from it instead of shutting down in rage and bitterness. And then you did this incredibly curious and creative thing by writing a really open and honest and searching book about that. And then you did another really creative and courageous thing on the heels of a book coming out that is about saving your marriage. Tell us what happened next.

B

Good God. Good God. Yeah. So. So. So Three months before. No, no, no. I'm sorry. Yes. Three months before the release of Love Warrior decided that my marriage is over. And as these things happen for me, I say decision, but it feels more of just like this knowing that arises inside of me that I can't unknow. So I was talking to Brene Brown. She said she gave it to a friend. And her friend said, what is it about? And she said, it's about trust. And her friend said, is it about trust in a marriage? And Brene said, no, it's about self trust. And that is to me what Love Warrior is about. So if I had to define, like, what's that journey of the warrior thing? For me, it's being able to listen to this voice inside of us that knows what to do. Like, if you. I would be still tattooed on myself because another one of my favorite scriptures. It's like, be still and know, right? Like there is a voice inside of us, every person. And it doesn't freaking matter what you call it, whether you call it God or intuition or the still small voice. I have a friend who calls it Sebastian. She has some God issues. I don't think it matters. It's just. What matters is that there is a voice. And when every time we say we don't know what to do, it's just because we don't want to do the thing that we know we have to do, right? And so for me, Liz, this is. All I know is that I can't freaking spend any more time in my life betraying myself, right? So for me, self betrayal is allowing the fear voice to drown out the still, small voice that knows what to do. So what happens is that all of a sudden I just knew that my marriage needed to end. And it wasn't in an angry way and it wasn't in a dramatic way. It was this way of, oh my God. Like we have. We've gone through all of this stuff together and we were put together for a reason. And we did help make each Other whole in ways that we probably wouldn't have ever been without each other. And we have these beautiful children, and yet. Done. And, oh, my God, to know that and realize I can't. If I. If I don't listen to that still small voice, that knowing, like, my journey's over.

A

Mm.

B

That's. Doesn't. Like, I have to listen to her. Like, that's all I have to do in this freaking life is listen to my knowing and do what she says. Right? So. So I just, you know, did what I've learned to do, Liz, which is listen to that voice and then make it my own. Right? So I listened to that voice long enough, and then I sat my husband down and was like, here's. Here's what's happening. Like, I love you, and we are going to have to love each other in a different way because we aren't going to be married anymore. And it was a terrible, hard conversation in some ways, and in some ways, it was the most beautiful conversation I've ever had, because the first thing Craig said to me is, I'm devastated. And you gave me the most selfless love I've ever received. And I'm going to return that to you now. So what the last few months have been about is him returning to me what I gave him a few years ago when he actually showed me who he was. And I made it kind of my job to. I don't know what it is, Liz. I don't know if it's like, just putting your ego aside for a minute. And I guess it's curiosity. I guess it's like searching for the truth. And so we've been walking through this together. It is, like, unbelievable bad timing. Like, everyone in my life. Can you imagine you're coming out with a marriage book in three months when I. That's great. That's awesome. This is really, really good professionally, but

A

almost everyone in your life thinks it's really bad timing. Your friend Liz Gilbert was like, this is so beautiful because this is a book that was all about what a marriage really is. And this is also what that's about. And you are going to serve so many more people with this completely true next chapter of this story, you know, being revealed than by people thinking. This is a book called how to Save youe 10 Steps by Glennon Doyle Melton, which it never was. Ever.

B

That's about how to save yourself.

A

It's about how to save yourself in one Step by Glennon Doyle Melton. Listen to your inner voice.

B

Here's the top 10 lists how to save freak and listen to yourself.

A

You know, it's so. And I know that you got such static and feeling fear and anxiety from professional people in your life and from publishers and from agents and from all these people who are invested in the product that you made of this book. And I have never loved you more than I love you right now for having the courage and the integrity and the glenninness to say, this is now the accurate, updated story. That story that I published was the accurate, updated story. As of the moment of the completion of that book. I will not live a day outside of the accurate and updated story of who I am. And this is how it's gonna be. And it was also just very helpful for me because, as you know, here I am, the author of Eat, Pray, Love, a romantic and beautiful story that many people have come to love and claim as their own. And at exactly, pretty much the same time as you, I had to make an announcement saying that my marriage to that lovely Brazilian man has ended.

B

But.

A

And I remember somebody saying to me, it was so weird, like, a close friend, when I told them that I was getting divorced, said, how are you going to tell your fans? You know, like, in its very worried way, like, what are people going to say? What are people going to do? Like, are you sure this is a good idea? Like, almost like, are you sure this is a good career move? You know, And. And I said I had so many reasons that I wanted that marriage to last. And satisfying fans and publishers was not even on the list of why, you know, and what I'm going to tell them is what I've always told them, what happened. You know, here's what happened. And that's the only way that you can be in the world. And the reaction has been very loving and very beautiful, as I know it will continue to be for you. We're trying to be creative, we're trying to be honest, we're trying to have integrity. And this is what it looks like today for me.

B

Today.

A

Here I am, here I am, and there you are.

B

Our only job is to allow people to see us learning. It's not to be an expert on anything.

A

John Steinbeck said now that you don't have to be perfect. You can be good. It can be good. But I'm gonna take it another level. Something that I heard our dear friend and brother, Rob Bell's wife, Kristen, say. And she said it with this look on her face that just like I saw it, like, sent a bolt of electricity through my heart. She said, I am so tired of being good. And now all I want is to be free.

B

Hey, to the freaking men.

A

She took it one step farther from Steinbeck. So just like, let do this evolution now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good, said John Steinbeck. And then Kristen Bell says, now that you don't have to be good, you can be free.

B

That's our new thing. Okay. All right. Because good is just another cage. Right. It's another, like, constructed thing that will try to fit inside of.

A

Yeah.

B

And free is different for everybody. Oh, my God. That's all I want to be.

A

I know. And I'm watching you do it, and it's making me feel like everything in life is possible. It's making me more brave. I love watching you do it, and I love sorting it out with you.

B

Me too. I don't know what I'd do without you.

A

I don't know what I'd do without you, Glennon. And luckily, we have not been asked to try to figure that out.

B

That's right. Right. And that's one. Just don't always tell me to do that. I'm gonna tell this still small voice to take a hike. Yeah.

A

This still small voice can just fuck right off the day that it tells me that I have to figure out how to do things without you. Look, I just thank you for everything that you are and everything that you do and for just modeling, not just for the millions of people who follow you and read you, but for really intimately and in a very molecular level, showing me again and again what it looks like to have integrity. And I love you for it, and I just am grateful that you're a child of God at the same time. I am

B

ride or die, Liz.

A

You're my ride or die sister, Glennon, forever and ever. And I want to do something that I want to ask you to do, something that I asked Brene to do last year. You don't know specifically the stories of the eight artists, the two novelists, two poets, a dancer, a storyteller, a comedian, and a photographer who came on the podcast this year and with the most outrageous vulnerability, just shared their fears and their obstacles and their dreams and their processes and their victories and their failures in this incredibly open way. But you do know them because they are us, and they are our tribe, and they are part of who we are and what we're all about. And I was wondering if, to close out season two of Magic Lessons, I could ask you to offer a sort of benediction and a prayer for them and for everybody like them who is trying to make and be in the world in a new and honest and revolutionary way.

B

Yes. Okay, Liz, this is what I think of every morning. This is what I want to say to all artists. So I had this moment in my life when 14 years ago, I'm sitting on the bathroom floor, right? And I've been a drunk and a bulimic and a drug addict, and I've been completely lost for 15 years. I'm sitting on the bathroom floor and I'm holding this pregnancy test. And I'm looking at it thinking, okay, there is no worse candidate for motherhood than I am, right? There's nobody on earth who is less prepared or less qualified to be a mother right now. And yet still holding this freaking invitation, right? And I think about that every time I'm trying to make something new, every time I'm trying to decide whether I'm going to show up. Because all of us are always on the bathroom floor, right? We're always on the bathroom floor. We're always holding some kind of invitation from the universe. And we are arguing with the invitation. We're saying, I'm not ready. I'm not good enough. I need to take another class, I need to lose £10. I need to do some more research. I need to be more like her. I need to listen to my mom who said I could never do anything. Or arguing and arguing and arguing. We are deeming ourselves unworthy of invitations instead of just, just trusting the inviter, right? Creativity doesn't ask us to be ready first. It just finds us on the bathroom floor, hands us an invitation and says, don't wait till you're ready. Just get up and dance with me. And so the whole entire everything on earth, everything beautiful in the history of the world has been made by people who show up before they're ready. So that would be my benediction. Let's just all stop deeming ourselves unworthy of invitations to create, and let's just start trusting the inviter and let's all just show up before we're ready. Amen.

A

Amen. I love you, Glennon.

B

I love you, Liz, forever. Bye.

D

Bye,

A

Glennon. Doyle Melton, my great friend, is an author, an activist, and a public speaker. She wrote the New York Times best selling memoir, Carry On Warrior, and of course, her new extraordinary memoir, Love Warrior, which came out this month. She's also the founder of an online community called Monster. And through that she also founded a terrific nonprofit called Together Rising, which I'm very proudly part of. Which has raised millions of dollars for families in need all over the world. So that is it for this episode of Magic Lessons and this season of Magic Lessons. It's been wonderful, as always, going on this very curious journey of exploration with all of you. I thank you for lending your ears and your hearts to this project. And I hope that all of you feel emboldened and inspired to go out and make whatever is calling you to make it become whatever you are being called to be. And that most of all, you will, as we constantly try to remind you here, not ever choose your fear over your curiosity. Magic Lessons is a production of the Maximum Fun Network. Michelle Siegel is our extraordinary producer. Our theme music is by Dave Cahill and it was performed by Dave Cahill and Dallas Vietti. Special thanks to Paul Ruest of Argo Studios and Jesse Thorne of Maximum Fun. You can hear all the episodes and find out a lot more about my comings and goings@elizabethgilbert.com and of course, if you want to continue your own explorations into creativity, which I really hope you will do, it might help you to pick up my book, which is called Big Magic Creative Living Beyond Fear, published by Riverhead Books, and it is coming out in paperback this very week. If you can please leave us a comment on itunes. It helps other people discover the show and we appreciate it. And let's keep this conversation going on Facebook and Twitter. I'm GilbertLiz. Thank you again so much for listening and we'll see you next year.

B

What's the deal with Brexit? Have you seen Happy Valley yet?

A

How do British people pronounce Edinburgh, Leicester or Norwich? Not like that.

B

Are you tired of getting your world news from reliable sources, often with no puns or sexual innuendo? Why was there a butcher's hat haunting Coronation Street?

A

What's Coronation street?

B

And why is Dave Holmes obsessed with it?

D

International Waters pairs a team of comedians in LA against a team of comedians in London in a pop culture battle royale. Join us once a fortnight to hear the best comedians in the world trade jokes and stories and. And maybe even learn something at the same time. International Waters with me, Dave Holmes. Find it at maximumfun. Org or wherever you download podcasts.

A

Maximumfun. Org comedy and culture, artist owned, listener supported.