We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - How to Make Loving Corrections with adrienne maree brown

Episode Date: October 15, 2024

354. How to Make Loving Corrections with adrienne maree brown adrienne marie brown returns to discuss how to make loving corrections with the people in your life.  Discover:  -The three essential human needs—and what happens when we don’t get them -How to break free from the need to be “good” and find something better -What defines a loving correction (and what doesn’t) -Why acting as a protector for others reveals deep truths about your own healing journey On the guest: adrienne maree brown grows healing ideas in public through writing, music, and podcasts, nurturing Emergent Strategy, Pleasure Activism, Radical Imagination and Transformative Justice. adrienne’s work is informed by 25 years of social and environmental justice facilitation primarily supporting Black liberation. adrienne is the author/editor of Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds; Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good; Grievers; and Maroons. adrienne’s latest book Loving Corrections is available now. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From the kitchen to the laundry room, your home deserves the best. Give it the upgrade it deserves at Best Buy's Ultimate Appliance Event. Save up to $1,000 on two or more major appliances. Shop now in-store or online at bestbuy.ca. Exclusions apply. Adrian Marie Brown. Her work is informed by 25 years of social and environmental justice facilitation, primarily supporting Black liberation. She is the author and editor of Emergent Strategy, Shaping Change, Changing Worlds, Pleasure Activism, The Politics of Feeling Good, Grievers and Maroons, and Adrienne's latest book, which I just absolutely loved, is called Loving Corrections, and it's available now.

Pod Squad, this is what we're talking about today. Adrienne Marie Brown is the only person who can help us with the debacle that we are in, which is that we are in a place where so many of us are trying to move us towards progress, move us towards kindness, move us towards inclusivity and justice. And how we do that is we just tear each other's faces off. We just exclude each other. We ostracize each other. We want to be more loving and so we screw each other over constantly. We want police reform so we police each other online. We're in a bit of a quandary, Adrienne Marie Brown. And those are the people that we like. And those are the people we like. Those aren't even the people that we don't like. Those are the homies.

No, it's so true. Those are the people we like. The Those aren't even the people that we don't like. Those are the homies. No, it's so true. Those are the people we like. The rest, we call it accountability. And we say, well, we're just holding each other accountable because the other side, we're not accountable for them. So we leave them alone. These are the people we love.

And that is why we are horrific to each other. So enter Adrienne Marie Brown, who is not new to this. Okay, she does have a new book which is incredible and all about this called Loving Corrections. And the reason why you should read and trust it is because she has been doing this work in a loving inclusive way for a very long time, which is why I trust her so much. It is because I know a lot of people in movement work that I trust their vision, but I don't want to be like them. And Adrienne is someone whose vision I trust. Like Maya Angelou used to say, I like what she does

and I like how she does it, okay? Adrienne, I don't want you to feel too much pressure but I just need you to fix everything in the next 45 minutes. And can we start by talking to us about how sometimes when we are thinking that we're engaging in making the world a better place, we learn something new, and then we pretend like we've known it forever, and everyone who hasn't known it forever is a complete moron who must be chastised. Oh my God, I hate this people.

Okay, but we do it, I do it. I don't do that. I do not do that. I know, because you're a good person, yada, yada, yada. Adrienne, help the rest of us. Yes. Be like Abby. Well, first of all, it's nice to see y'all. And I'm really excited to talk about this book with y'all

because I actually feel like you're a living model of this all the time with each other. Y'all are living, loving corrections. Every time you sit down and talk, you're always catching each other and being like, well, wait, but hold on, but I see this and I love you. And you report back on the loving corrections you're making with each other.

And we need models of what it looks like to be in relationships where we each get to be very different and we're navigating space and love and time and wellness and sickness and all the things together. So good job. I wanna start just by saying thank you for doing that for the pod squad and in your lives in general.

I came up in the somatics lineage where we learned that what humans all want and need is safety, dignity, and belonging. That everybody, that's kind of the universal set of things that most people are trying to figure out how do I protect and balance these three things. That's safety. Can you say it one more time? Safety. Safety, dignity, dignity, and belonging.

Belonging, safety, dignity, and and belonging, belonging, safety, right. And often we're trading between them. We're trading between them. So a lot of times if you're a child and you abuse child sexual trauma, things like that are happening in your childhood. You make these moves towards safety, right? That you're like, I have to give up belonging maybe to my family and I have to run away. I have to go find safety. Or you make the other move.

OK, well, safety is not possible. I have to let that one go because I want to belong to this family. And this family is an abusive space, but I want to belong. I'm going to stay in it. And then dignity is kind of that in the middle bridge, right? Where you're like, I might not be unsafe, but this person really doesn't see me in my wholeness. They don't see me shine. They're constantly shrinking me. They're shaming me. They're making, you know, I get small, small, small, but I'm going to belong. You know, I think about the high school lunchroom, I'm going to sit over in the corner of the cool people's table, but at least I'm at a fricking table. Okay. Yes. But if you think about that, right,

that safety, dignity and belonging piece, then what happens when we learn something new, where it's like, oh, I was wrong about trans people. I was transphobic and I learned something new. And I had to be a little unsafe often to learn it, right? It's like, oh, I had to take some risks. Maybe I put my foot in my mouth and someone comes and they're like, I see you. And what you're saying, you don't belong to the future. You say you belong to, you don't belong to the vision

of the world, you say you believe in by the way you're acting. So you see that. You're like, okay, well, let me get myself together and get on the right side of this. And then all of a sudden, we feel that unsafety and lack of belonging constantly at our backs, right? Like someone sent some dogs after us to grab us and to be like, I see that you're secretly still,

whatever it is, not belonging, not thoroughly educated, you're not standing up for the right legislation, whatever it is we're looking for, where is the gap in your solidarity? Where is the weak spot? Where is your Achilles heel as a human? And the easiest way to take the light off of ourselves is to turn and look at someone else and be like,

well, that person is, you're really transphobic. Like I can see that. And it's a way to assert dominance. It's a way to assert like I belong, okay. I'm with the good. And I think so much of loving corrections for me is being like, none of us actually just get to be with the good.

There's not like some little island of good and we all just land on that island and then we just get to stay there. Every single person is actually floating in the same systems of harm, right? If that's the water that's all around us, we're all in it and we're bobbing, we're weaving. And what we get to learn in this life is actually all about who we choose to be in relationship with. So if we choose to be in relationship with people who hold a set of limited worldviews, then we're going to stay in that limited place and we're going to learn what that limitation allows

us to learn. So when I think about growing up, my dad was in the military, you know, so I grew up in a patriotic worldview and I could have chosen to stay in that. Instead, I was like, I have questions, I have doubts. I don't know that we're supposed to be occupying the entire world with guns. Something doesn't feel right about it for me. And so then I put myself in relationship to other kinds of people.

I also got politicized before the internet. So I put myself in relationship with people who were questioning me, but lovingly being like, girl, have you heard about feminism? Girl, like, do you understand what imperialism is? Can we sit down and talk about Malcolm X? Like, people would just gather me and be like, do you know anything?

And I was like, no, I don't. I was trained by the Department of Defense schools to be a cog in a system of believing in patriotism. If I'm gonna do something else, I have to put myself into other relationships. And then we get in those relationships and start tearing each other apart, right? So what I'm trying to do right now is figure out

how to be part of something that knows how to hold on to each other. Ashley Woodard Henderson, we were in a conversation about this election period and she said, act like you need each other, move like you need each other, talk to each other like you need each other. That feels like a lot of the essence of this is instead of turning back and being like, let me chastise you for what you don't know yet that I just learned.

Instead, how can I be like, oh, someone needed me to liberate myself from those systems and I need other people to liberate themselves from those systems because we all live on this earth and we need as many of us as possible to get free. I think that's so interesting because I don't think we do this consciously and so I'm not saying this in an accusatory way I felt this in myself a million times. Yeah. But there is a thing that happens where even if you believe that you are part of a movement of moving the world towards a more beautiful version of itself, of the future as you say. In the moment, ego can transcend that movement. So now, I'm looking at a situation and I can choose one of two things. I can choose to do what you're saying.

Instead of ostracizing or accusing, I can gather you. I can bring you closer. I can approach with love and gentleness, which means I am prioritizing the movement because that's what moves people. Or I can choose ego, which is a little bit of glee inside me that I feel. Sometimes it's like a gleeful like, oh, I gotcha. I am going to prove my goodness. I know more than that I can separate myself from you in this way

Which is so interesting because every time somebody does that to someone else and I see it to me It's proof that they are prioritizing their own ego above the movement That's what you say Adrian when you say wisdom used as a sword by identifying and humiliating those who don't know, who don't yet have the wisdom that you do, that you got five minutes ago. So you got five minutes, you just received it. Octavia Butler is one of the people I reference a lot

and I think about, I learned a lot from her. And she said that our human fatal flaw is that we have intelligence and we always use it for hierarchy. That we take this beautiful big brain that is unique as far as we understand on earth and maybe in the universe. We have this beautiful brain where we can be so self-aware and we can verbally process and we can understand the world and we can philosophize.

And we use it to be like, how can I be just a little better than you? And over and over again, and we take that to the furthest extent where we're like, some people really are like, the whole earth is for me, I'm the best and I deserve it all. And then if you're not someone who's been in that track or you weren't born into that privileged location and no one ever gave you that idea,

then you're in the rest of the world where you're like, it's not all for me. I'm not supposed to have it all. I'm just going to eke by. I'm going to try to get my little piece of it. But that hierarchy is killing us. That form of hierarchy where it's like, I'm better than you. I'm gooder than you. Yeah. And Miriam Kaba talks about what happens if you let go of that idea of good, like of being good. And what happens if you let go of that idea of good, like of being good, and what happens if you pick up instead this idea of being human. Almost every faith I've ever come across, it's asking this question of like, can you relinquish this idea that you are going to be good or perfect?

And can you surrender that you need a higher power, you need something larger than yourself that you can belong to, that you can account to, that you can belong to, that you can account to, that you can pray to, that you can surrender to in some ways. And I've been thinking a lot about that lately, that for me, loving corrections is a way that we get to be holy with each other. Right? It's like, oh, you're not good. I'm not good. But we're really trying to figure out how to be human with each other and how to make room for all of you and all of me. And then if we are intentional, could we do less harm to each other?

And if we do harm, could we repair that harm and maybe in the repair become more beautiful and more holy? Looking at it and saying, oh, white supremacy. Yeah, that's not good for you as a white person and it's not good for me as a black person. So let's adapt together. And it's gonna be messy.

It's gonna be clunky, but like it's time to adapt because that system, that hierarchy, it makes you isolated and it makes me oppressed. And then we're battling with each other instead of enjoying the abundance of this earth. I want to like get the image of a dinner table. And I'm going to call myself out here. Glennon's like, oh geez.

Okay. There are so many times around our dinner table because you know, Adrienne, like you, even though I didn't come from a military background, I grew up in a patriotic world, the world of the United States, and I was representing it. So because of that, I had formed so many opinions and belief systems around affirming what I was doing every day. And it was kind of an important thing for me to believe in order to do

it for a lifestyle. And so sometimes when we're sitting around the dinner table, Abby says inappropriate things or says something that's off a little bit, whether it's because I grew up in a big family that lots of people, boys, energy, and also in locker rooms where everything was kind of on the table. And one of the things that I notice is like our children, the cringe

that happens in them because they're, they're like budding, you know, philanthropists and social workers and what's an activist. That's the word I'm looking for. Plus their kids. So they are differentiating by saying whatever you are is wrong and whatever I am is better than that. Adrienne, yes they are. And when the corrections come, I have this enormous amount of humility. And I think that what is interesting, because one of our kids is really a big time into activism right now, and I love that for them.

And I think it's really important. And I think it's this identity, this intellectual hierarchy and this identity thing. And I think that that's beautiful. But I just want to shout out to all the parents who sit around a table and get icked, cringed at. And the truth is, is like, I am the kind of person who believes in progress and wants the world to be better and also knows that like I'm not fully there yet and I never will be. I am fucked from my childhood and my time.

I'm working on it. No, you're just moving forward. But no one is unfucked. I mean you're doing a fantastic job. I mean you are doing a really, I see it in you, but I will say I was the one, you know, when I got politicized by all these loving people in college, I came home and was not in a loving correction tone with my parents. You know, I came home and I was like, what is the military and why would you do

this and how could you make me complicit? And, you know, I mean, I really was just like, you're the problem is you. And sometimes that still comes out in me, right? Sometimes I'll be around my parents and my dad or my mom, someone will say something, I'll be like, cringe like a teenager and I will be like, I've got to fix them. And what I have learned over years and years of them, you know, they're like, oh yeah,

I am the shell that you have to break out of to be yourself. And I also am a person who is breaking out of a shell, right? I'm also, those things coexist, right? And the contradiction exists that the ideas that my parents have, the worldviews that they came up with were the ones they needed to survive the times in which they grew up. They were steeped in even deeper waters. In some ways I'm like, oh, it was not legal for y'all to even get married until a little bit before you got married. That's the worldview you were in. And if I go back to my grandmother's age and I try to think about

what my grandmother would think about who I am now if I met her when she was in her forties or twenties or something, it's wild to imagine her worldview didn't have any way of comprehending what matters to me right now. But there's a through line, which is every generation was trying to be as safe and dignified and to belong as much as they could in their time. And that's what's happening too. With your kids, I think the best sign, like I'm like, I know that I am loved because when I come to my parents and I'm like, your whole worldview is wrong. They're like, tell me what you're talking about. Tell me what you mean.

I'm curious. I would like your tone to be a little, you know, like we can work on that. It took about a decade to get the tone together. Right. And it was a hard decade. It was a decade of a lot of, you know, we had gaps, we had times when we weren't talking, but the whole time I knew I was unconditionally loved by them. And I could come back.

I could come back over and over and over. And, you know, I brought them a lot of stuff. You know, I was like, hey, I'm tripping on acid. Okay, well, that sounds, that sounds stiff. Maybe you should take a nap, you know, tell me more. I slept with a girl. Well, what was, did you like that? Was that fun? I'm going through a massive breakup a nap, you know, tell me more. I slept with a girl. Well, what was, did you like that?

Was that fun? You know, I'm going through a massive breakup and I think I'm having a break. Okay, well, do you need to come home? You always have a place here. So there's something about that fundamental curiosity. My parents are like, whatever you become in this life, we're not going to let go of you. We're going to hold on to you. And I see them do that with their own families as well. My mom has a bunch of family who were Trump's voters and coming home into that space has been fraught for us. Cause we're like, wow, you really like,

do you notice that you have black and brown family? Does it matter? My mom continues to go into that space lovingly and be like, I wanna talk to you and I wanna know you and I want you to know me. It takes rigor. There's a rigor to being a parent, but I think there's a short story I always wanna write

about a whole world that's driven by mothering because I think there's something about that sacred act of parenting, that unconditional love that's at the root of loving corrections. It's like, I love you and I'm gonna hold your hand and we're gonna change together. I'm gonna tell you everything I know about these systems.

And what you're calling cringe, that thing evolves, right? Where like now I'll feel it as like, oh, there's dissonance. So instead of feeling it as like, ugh, something's wrong with you. I'm like, oh, there's a dissonance. You came from a different place than I'm coming from or you have a different worldview than I have.

I'm trying to create more space in myself for those things. And curiosity is my way. Curiosity is always the path. When I look at your career, Abby, and I look at your life, I'm like, what you have done for women in the world is so important that I can overlook your USA, that that was the box that you were in to do that. Because it was like, you know, that's the box

that all athletes have to get into in order to compete at these scales. That's how the world is structured. But I see what you were doing as still doing liberating work inside the structure that you were given. And now you still have life ahead of you to be like, well, how do I feel about the American experiment, right? There's still room to grow.

There's still room to say, I want to understand more about who we've been and what's possible. And we can have a conversation. We can be curious. There's still room to grow. There's still room to say, I want to understand more about who we've been and what's possible. And we can have a conversation. We can be curious, right? And we can believe that the other person can change. That's the other part.

Your kids may not believe you can change, but if you keep changing with them, they'll learn that you can change. And that's going to be delicious. It's the season to shop new styles, electronics, and definitely a holiday trip. And what if each time you made a purchase, you got a little something back? With Rakuten, you can earn cash back on just about anything you buy from over 750 stores. That's seven five zero. So if you're looking to buy a new

phone, clothes, skincare, or getaway, well, you can get cash back on those. So treat yourself, family and friends and book that holiday trip now. Start getting cash back today by joining Rakuten. It's free and easy to use, and you get cash back deposited into your PayPal account or sent to you as a check. It's the smartest way to shop, plain and simple. Start your shopping at rakuten.ca or get the Rakuten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N dot C-A. It's so beautiful and it requires we think about this constantly because all I feel like, Adrienne, is, and we've talked about this, but I feel like I am in the middle,

I call it like between coasts. Like I'm looking back at my parents and so mad at them just for being from a different time, truly. And then looking at my children and hoping they don't think the same way about me that I do about my parents. But it's like this binary. It's like, do I say right and wrong? If I look, am I right or are you wrong?

Everything goes bad. But if I get curious about just being on this continuum of time, it's like the Khalil Gibran idea of like our children belong to the future and we can't go there even in our dreams. But we can go there when we're curious. When we're not defensive or fragile, when we say, tell me about your world.

Well, and the thing that I was gonna say to you that I think the thing that I hope people take away from this book is what you're angry at is the systems, not the people, right? And I keep trying to do this like reframe move where I'm like, because I have to have it, I'm like, oh, you to have it, you know, I'm like, oh, you got trapped in this bad idea.

You were born into the bad idea and you never saw anything other than that. And you really got it steeped into you. And now you are a defender of that bad idea, whatever it is, patriarchy, white supremacy, ableism, something that makes you feel like just a little better. And it makes you feel secure in your little better and it makes you feel secure in your place in society. But you got trapped in that idea. And I'm so angry at that idea. That idea is

causing so much harm. That idea is not compatible with the future. You know, I'm biased that I really like my side of things, but I'm like history really agrees with me. Empires always fall, systems of power over that when there's never an equalizing, there's never a balancing, that always falls apart. People always rise up. People always want freedom. That's just history. I didn't make that up.

And direct action and protest and social justice and all that, people always do those things. That's humans, that's how we do it, right? That's how we move. That's what I've been thinking with my parents. I'm like, oh, my job is to hold on to you and help you keep coming forward and also grab onto that generation that's out ahead

and be like, oh, and you pull me, right? You help me not to fall too far to the right as I start to think that like, I can't take the risk of changing anymore. I have to uplift Gracely Boggs here because when I met her, she was a mentor of mine, she was 92. She was still curious. She was still changing. She was still like, tell me about this Skype and what does this make possible? You know? And she was like really excited about like, I can talk to anyone in the world about these ideas of mine, who knew?

I never thought I'd see the day, right? If you can orient that way of like, I'm gonna keep going. And until the day I die, I hope to have curiosity and I hope to still be changeable. I also don't have to push anybody, right? Everyone's not on the same trajectory as me. Everyone's not moving at the same pace. Some people are really interested in going backwards. So I'm like, oh, I'm going to pass you in the road, but I'm going

the other way. And the boundaries help. I'm like, oh, you're living your life. You've got your lessons. I'm living mine. In the places where we're supposed to push up against each other, let's do that really well. Let's do that with as much dignity as we can. If you sit down and you're fighting and you take that person's hand, it will change your fight. Because policing people, it's like not using the tools of the master's hat. Like you can't point towards or move towards a more beautiful world

while using the tools of the old world. Exactly. The shaming and the ostracizing and the anger. I want to ask you when you have been lovingly corrected, because while reading your book, I was thinking about a moment in my life where I was in big trouble on the interwebs, which happens to me every once in a while, because I had spoken about my dissonance with the born this way narrative. This was years ago and I still can't feel that in my body.

It's not true to me and I feel like it's kind of an old idea that we had to use to prove our existence. Yes, yes. Clarify what born this way is. The fact, okay, the idea that we have to, in order to have equality, say, well, we can't help it, we were born this way. As if it's like an apology almost or an excuse.

As opposed to I can be gay, I want all my equality whether I decided this two weeks ago or, you know, anyway. At the time it caused a bit of a hubbub. I can imagine. And I was dealing with all of the pushback on the interwebs. Brandi Carlile called me and this is now she's one of our dearest friends in the entire world, which is what tends to happen after a love

and correction that turns beautiful. Exactly. Exactly. And I was like, what's happening? Oh, now I'm in fucking trouble. Now Brandi Carlile is calling me. Now the queer eye caught, like it's over for me, right? Yeah. Yeah.

That's what happens when you do something against the gays, a drone just drops green color. Brandy and Carlisle on your porch. Listen, now it makes me kind of want to put my gay foot in my gay mouth in some way. I'm like, Brandy could call me out the blue. Okay. She said, Hey, it's me. I love you.

I've read all of your stuff, my wife and I talk about you constantly. I just watched this video and Catherine's trying to explain to me what you meant and I don't understand it, but I think there's something true in there, but it's still making me really scared and nervous and I trust you and I want to hear everything that you have to say about this. And it started a four hour conversation and then a friendship that is probably one of the closest friendships in our family's life. Yep. And you understood from that, she was bringing to you a perspective that you didn't have, which is people like me who grew up when I grew up, where I grew up, needed that to protect

our lives from our family members. And you dismissing it is dangerous. It feels dangerous to me for those people. And so you were able to like really share how dangerous it felt to you, how dangerous it felt to her. It was a beautiful. Yeah, it was a beautiful. Well, and it's also interesting, right? Cause you're, you're advocating

for your own experience in a way, right? You're trying to say like, I just want to make sure that I fit into the gay belonging. Cause I didn't feel like I was born this way. I didn't figure it out. It took me a while. I didn't feel like I was born this way. I didn't figure it out. It took me a while. I didn't understand. I didn't know I was trained to not think this was a way.

But I think a loving correction that I've experienced that happened very recently, I had my feelings get hurt and I went to tell a friend about it. I was like, someone just hurt my feelings. Like I feel so rejected by this and like misunderstood. I feel like a little kid. I just feel like, oh my gosh, dist. I tell my friend and I made the mistake of trying to do this all through text. I was flying through the airport and I was like, someone hurt my feelings. I'm like, blah, blah, blah. I need this friend to just be like, you're so right

and no one should ever hurt your feelings. And like, I'm never gonna hurt your feelings and I love you and you didn't do anything wrong and like you're perfect. That's all. That's the only right answer. Like fuck everybody else. Like you're perfect, right?

So what I get back from my friend was a text that was like, I really understand why that person did that. I understand why they drew the boundary. And the way they said it made me think, yeah, it was just like, oh, you're on that side. Like you're over there. And I spun all the way out. I was like, how can we even be friends? I'm all alone in the world. There is no God. Like I went all, you know, that's where I go. There's no belonging possible for someone like me. My heart is just broken and I just...

I'm gonna live the rest of this life by myself. And it took me a while to even say to him, I'm like, my feelings are so hurt that you are taking their side, right? My friend's like, you just really misunderstood. I missed a comma, but you took that all the way. They're like, what is going on with you? You just really misunderstood. I missed a comma, but you took that all. They like, what is going on? And my friend is like, you're wrong.

And I could take it personally, but I'm not going to. But I am going to say I'm a little worried about you because you're wrong in a way that like is not like you. What's going on? Right. And I was like, oh, it's because my therapist stopped being a therapist for me in July and I don't have a new therapist. Like all this, it was like a whole different journey, right? I was like, oh, the thing that hurt my feelings would not have mattered if I had my therapy

situation on the way. Totally. Right? I was like, I don't have anywhere to process this weird thing that I need to process somewhere. Part of what happens for me, the loving correction I often need, is for people to call me into presence. I'll get going so fast and I'm using shorthand and I'm using emotional shorthand and I'm using text shorthand and I'm just like, can everyone just understand me? I just have too much to do. I can't really do the verbal processing, but I do need you to know you fucking hurt me. That's not fair, right? My friends know to be like, Adrienne, slow down.

Take a breath. Have you put your feet on the ground? What's actually going on? And I think you and I have talked about this a number of times, Glennon, that I've been in this eating disorder journey that is uncovering so much trauma in my life that is reshaping how all of my relationships work.

And I need loving correction right now more than ever actually in my life, because so many of the ways that I've thought were me were actually shaped by this control system. The system is trying to control and create safety for me. I became the person who could be the safest person. I became that version of myself. And now I can't stay in that. I can feel like all the ways that that's crowding in on me. I'm like, no, I gotta be much bigger than that,

which means I gotta be messy. I gotta bust out this way and bust out that way. And I need people around me who are like, yeah, bust out, make mess and get bigger. Already this week, that friend and I are like, we're 20,000 leagues deeper. And I was like, how could we even go deeper? You know everything about me, but now we're even deeper, right? Because I fucked up. And then she got curious and asked me the question and we talked. And it was risked a conflict. It was a conflict. Right. It was a conflict. And I used to be so scared of conflict too. I think that's the other thing that loving

corrections is inviting is like, I quote my sister often with this from consensus model, that if we can't meaningfully disagree, we can't meaningfully agree. And I feel like so much of this is saying like, we have to learn to be uncomfortable, to have tension in our bodies and between us. And then like what you said, to say, here's what I feel. Here's what I feel. Is there room for that here? I think so often when people are moving on the internet,

they're trying to just say, here's what I know. And to pull it away from the feelings of being a human being. And so much of what I'm trying to do is intervene on this social media world we live on. I'm like, the real world, when you're walking around and you're at each other's dinner table, you're not sitting there with a bunch of bots and trolls and atomic farmers and other people throwing stuff in.

You're with real people who have whole complex stories and they have a reason for everything that they think they're doing. And I hold that space, because even the people I'm like, I don't understand how MAGA is so big. I don't understand why people like listen to Trump. I don't understand why people listen to Netanyahu. I don't understand it. It's befuddling to me, but I do know that each person

who feels that way, they have a story behind it. And that story is full of shaping, that story is full of, this is where I felt belonging. These people accept me as I am. These people wanna protect whatever thing I think is my power. Exactly, because we don't have to understand why some people listen to Trump or Netanyahu,

but you and I do understand wanting a strong man in our life, whether it's an eating disorder or a dogma or a religion, we all understand running from the complexity and nuance and pain of being a human being by just believing some horrible strong man who will say, I will protect you, whether that's anorexia or binge eating or Netanyahu

or Trump or Christianity for me or a wellness program or whatever, it's all the same because we don't want to live in the mushy, gushy, terrifying nuance of I don't know, you don't know, can we not know together but move lovingly towards a better idea? That's right, that's right. It's messy. It's not tone policing.

It's not just like, I really hate how you just said that. It's messy. It's not tone policing. It's not just like, I really hate how you just said that. You know, like it's not being nice. It's not being polite. It's not, it's not about that. It's really like, sometimes love is the most ferocious activity you can engage in. Sometimes you're like, I'm going to fight for you. My mom calls this a love ambush. You know, I'm going to ambush you with love. Like you're not getting away from what I've got to give you. Sometimes it looks like millions of people protesting in the street and feeling hopeless, but feeling it together.

And sometimes it looks like sitting with a grandmother who you know is homophobic and saying, I'm gonna tell you about my girlfriend. Cause I just want you to know that I have love in my life and I know it makes you uncomfortable and I'm just gonna be okay with that. I'm not gonna ask you to accept her but I didn't mean you need you to ever meet her but I need you to know that I'm very happy. Adrienne, could you help us understand? Because this was really fascinating to me.

As important to know what is a loving correction as what is not. And you contrast it, like so far as I can tell, it's like relationship required in loving correction. If it's not based on relationship and wanting to get closer as opposed to wanting to get farther away, it's not a loving correction. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's a big piece of it. And then you contrast it with this policing, which you say like the last damn place that a loving correction is going to happen is on the internet where it's policing, surveilling, punishing. Tell us your theory on that because a lot of people would think like, oh, well, it's all loving corrections. You probably take the feedback on the internet and you're like, oh, I will take it to my heart. Explain what happens with the surveilling, how you handle it, why it has not to do with what we're talking about.

If we don't have any relationship to each other, and parasocial relationships are, you know, we might need to do a whole nother conversation around that because a lot of times what I experience is that people are like, I think I have a relationship with you. I listen to your podcast. I read your book. I follow your memes.

And so I think I know who you are and what you stand for and what you just did. I am so disappointed because that doesn't fit with the idea that I came up with about who you are. And I feel like I had to learn this. I'm like, Oh, I don't have a relationship with this person. I don't know them. It's not mutual. I don't know anything about you. I don't know what you stand for. I don't know if you're showing up in good faith I don't know if you believe that I can change. I don't know if you have the same vision of the world that I have and I'm always tracking for the punitive, right? So I'm always tracking for when someone starts with like I'm so disappointed in this right to me That's like the first step of the punitive or I'm like, oh, you want to make me feel bad about this, whatever this is. And we grew up in a punitive world. We started in our

homes where it's like, you're going to get spanked or put on timeout or something punishing that moves you away from belonging. Then you go to school and it's like, you did something bad, you're going to detention, you're getting suspended, you're getting expelled away from belonging. Then we get to juvenile detention, juvenile stuff, and then it's prison. It's punishment. We're going to move you away from everybody. Belonging is the first thing we're going to take from you, right? That's the punishment.

So I'm always tracking that. I'm like, if you want to follow me, if you want to be here, be here. If you don't, don't. You have agency to be here and not be here. But if you came to police me, those are the people that I restrict. Because it doesn't create change. For me, being shamed has never created

the kind of change that I want. It makes me feel small instead of making the idea. I'm like, help me shrink the bad idea, but make me grow, let me expand. And that happens in relationship. The policing piece and the way that surveillance is happening online right now, I'm also like, where are you putting your attention? You know, if I take it back to emergent strategy, one of the biggest pieces of it is what you pay attention to grows. So you're spending all your time online trying to find the place where I'm out of alignment with something that you have

decided is my value system or you spending all your time being like, I'm going to intentionally misunderstand the purpose of what you're doing here. And I'm going to try to draw you into writing a whole book in my comment thread or whatever. So I think that that's the piece for me where I'm like, Oh, you're not paying attention in the way that I'm trying to pay attention. I'm trying to pay attention to where can I grow? What can I learn? How can I be authentic and in right relationship? Where can I love more?

I'm trying to bring my attention to the people who are embodying love, doing love, growing love. If I pick up my attention and come meet you where you're at, right? I move into this defensive mode where I'm like, I'm actually a really good person. And if you look at my history, I'm good. I'm like, no, I'm not. I probably fucked up and I might've disappointed you now, but I don't know you. If a lot of people say something, I will take it to my team, my community, my circle.

Often when I check on my friends, they're like, most of my friends are not online very much. I think that's probably intentional, but a lot of my friends are like, do you know any of these people? Do you think that your values are slipping away? Are you out of alignment? And they'll just ask me to self assess a little bit. That helps me slow down and be like, oh,

just like with a gentle parenting with a kid, you're like, what's going on right now, buddy? You got ice cream all over your shirt. You know, like what's happening, right? I talk to myself like that too. Like I will catch myself being like, you really are doing your best right now and you may have made a mistake. You can trust yourself. You repair. Whenever repair is needed, I am very trustworthy. I'm great at repairing. I know how to apologize well. I know how to not repeat something I've done. I've been practicing. So the online space for me,

I really had to pull my ego out of that space. My ego, that sense of like the part of me I wanna protect, I let my friends and family hold that part of me. They're the ones who I trust to hold me. The online space I use for mobilizing people, I use to move people, educate people, but I'm not trying to deepen relationship. Yeah.

If that makes sense. Yes. I mean, I've gotten to the point where I actually feel really proud of people who, like us, honestly, I'll just, I feel proud that we have somehow made it and continued to be speaking in these spots because I think 10, 20 years from now people are gonna look back on this time and wonder how any of us survived the

toxicity and shame and horrifness of the way we have allowed online discourse to happen. For 15 years, Adrienne, I was like, I am going to be the comments whisperer to every single person. I mean, so my sister will tell you, I spent 15 years. And I'm not regret it, I guess it's what I needed to do for that time. It was right for me then.

I have such a different feeling of it right now. I think a lot of it came from shame. I think I thought I'm a bad person. And so what I'm trying to do is pretend I'm good. So anytime anybody says you're not good, I have to real quick just be so loving. And I think through years of loving correction, not online, but in therapy and with my family,

I have stopped thinking that I'm bad or good. And I have started thinking, Oh, I'm just a person who shows up. And so I no longer have to defend my goodness. But what I do know about every single person who really tries and who shows up to block every single person that you think has a whiff or a spice of policing you or not liking you. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye forever. You get to create the environment that you need to flourish and bloom. And if that place needs to be full of gentleness and kindness, then you just block the fuck out of anybody who brings you anything but love.

Yeah. Can we have a moment of silence? Can we just have a moment of silence that Glennon just said something? That's a big deal. For me, because I've never said that before in my life. And I'm like sweating, defending my little self. Her eyes are like getting glossy,

like more watery right now. Like that she doesn't believe that. Because it took, because Adrienne, you'll know this, because it always takes seeing your kid. Because now my kids, now I never was able to do it for myself, but now I'm watching my kid try to grow a creative presence online. And the second somebody shows up with a surveillance energy

who I know is just hates watching her, I went to her last night and said, you do not have to deal with this shit. Block, block, block, block, block forever. That's right. I love this because your protector is activated, right? And when for me, when my protector self, that part of me is activated, what I And when for me, when my protector self, that part of me is activated,

what I'm learning through therapy is that's me protecting some part of myself. Whenever I'm trying to, you know, I'm like, I will shield all the, everybody's from all, that's me being like, I need shield. I need shield. I need protection, right? And since no one has done this for me,

I'm gonna become a protector and I will shield us all. I'll take it all, you know? So you're saying when you are acting as a protector to others, it is always an activation of something that needs to be protected in you? It's almost always an activation of something in you that's like, I need to protect this, right? So when you move to protect your kid, that's very literal, right? You're like, this is someone that came from me and I'm going to protect them. This is a part of me. I'm going to protect them. But if you're like, I see this a lot online, too. People are like, I'm trying to advocate for this person. I'm going

to try to protect them. I'm like, you think that person isn't seen and you don't feel seen. And you're like, I know what that's like. I'm going to protect that. I'm going to show up for that. You know what I do? I tend to restrict a lot more than I block. So I'm like, I am not gonna allow you to just willy nilly run rampshod all over my page, but I don't want you to not have access to the medicine that I have to offer. At some point, maybe it'll be of use to you. So I love this status, Glennon, this naming,

like, cause I fight very much to be authentic. You know, like I'm'm like it took me a long time it has taken me a long time to get as authentic as I am now and I don't think I'm done yet you know but I I'm like I have worked hard to stay whole and I think one of the things that we have to also notice is social media and the internet like what it means has changed drastically so when we first came on, you were only connecting with people you knew. You were making networks of people.

You were like, I went to high school with that guy. We don't really get along, but like, I know that person. It's a relationship. It's a relationship. Even then when it started to expand, it was like, okay, I might not know them directly, but like, I know someone who knows them. And like, there was still some sense of like,

ah, now we're really playing with fire. We're trying to continue to build community and connection in a space that we know is being surveilled. We know people are flooding it with misinformation. We know people are flooding it, trying to build antagonization. And we know that it is monetized based on how much conflict happens there. So we're really, I mean, all my friends who are like, girl, get off of social media. I'm like, you're all correct. You're all correct. You're all correct. But I have not yet found another way to reach as many people as quickly when things are happening, right? When, when things are in motion, like we haven't figured that out. I think in the next 10 to 20 years, whatever, we will find these ways of creating something

that nourishes the part of us that wants a town square, but not in the stocks, right? And I feel like that's what happens is I was just trying to come go to the market and I was just trying to get like some potatoes or something. And all of a sudden someone's just like, you're the ugliest person. And I'm just like, okay, okay. I know you don't love me. I know you don't love me. So everything else you have to say, I can just turn down the volume of that.

I think that I'm supposed to listen to the people who love me in this life and keep moving towards that love. I also think there's something in here about staying curious about yourself. And so for me, I have had to really limit my time online because I need more time to just be curious about myself. I need more time to journal.

I need more time to read. Maybe loving corrections in a way is like trying to get people to gather their energy back and really get more precise about how they're going to spend it for the rest of their lives. Right? I'm like, you can keep pouring it into things that you don't love and that don't love you back. And I don't think you'll ever find satisfying change there.

And I don't think you'll necessarily become a better person. You might not change at all. Or you can pour your energy into places that love you and that you love and that you want to be there. You want to fight for the relationship. You want to fight for the relationship, you wanna fight for the connection, and then you'll change so much, an infinite amount.

Like, I'm such a different person than I was last week. You know what I mean? Like, I feel that way all the time, that I'm like, is anyone keeping up with this? This is outstanding. Like, I'm, again, totally, totally different. And my friends who know me are like, girl, it's you, but it's more you, you're more you. And I'm like, yeah, but it feels like totally different. And my friends who know me are like, girl, it's you, but it's more you.

You're more you. And I'm like, yeah, but it feels like wildly different. It's all because of loving correction. Adrienne, that's your next book title, please. Is anyone keeping up with this? And then just all your growth. Anyone keeping up with this? Just give me a fucking ribbon.

Okay, I wanna end with this. We've talked about the internet and how to handle creating and only allowing the kind of feedback that allows us to grow. And I think we've landed on restrictor block, whatever you're feeling that day. Yeah, I think restrictor block, but also take yourself out of that space, right?

Artists existed before social media. We will exist after social media. People have fans and followers and they spread word of mouth. And if you make good art, people will want your good art. Yes. I know tons of artists who are never online, who have no social media presence whatsoever. And somehow they still have amazing careers

of making music or making art or whatever it is. So I'm also keep reminding, I need that reminder too, that I'm like, even if I got off the internet tomorrow, I would still be a writer and people still buy my books and they would still wanna hear what I had to say and I would find a way to say it. We can't be reliant on something that doesn't love us. Okay, I wanna end with a real life story

because I just think it's so important and simple and beautiful, but people like every, we all struggle with it. Because when we talk about love, it is interesting because love sounds like a, you know, just a, is it love or is it not? However, we all know that, especially when we're talking generationally,

you're in a family where the generation before, some people in that generation think of love differently. You come out as queer, you have sisters. Yes. Thanks be to God, you have sisters. Thank God. Please just leave us with the model of solidarity that your sisters helped you achieve with your family

and how that went down because there's something in here that is just how it's done. Yeah, thank you. I ride hard for my sisters and they ride hard for me, but I had always had the sense of I'm the oldest sister and I'm the one who protects them. And I don't need that protection necessarily from them. And then when I came out to my grandparents,

which again, I didn't go about it in the most elegant way. I wrote them a letter while I was tripping on acid that was like, I date both men and women and I think that God still loves me. And I mailed it before I came down. There was no going back, right? So they wrote me back. I mean, that sounds like a very sober thought to me.

The thought was sober and the identity was sober, but you know, if I could do it over again, I don't know if I would ever do it differently actually. Anyway, don't tell my mom that. She thinks I would do it differently.. I don't know if I would ever do it differently actually. Anyway, don't tell my mom that. She thinks I would do it differently. Okay, so I tell my grandparents, they send me back a letter basically full of scripture. And it's clear that I'm not welcome to come visit.

I'm not welcome to come be around them until I get right with God and let go of these demonish ways, right? My sisters, both younger, one of them who had started having kids were like, if Adrienne is not welcome, none of us are coming. None of us will be visiting. None of us will be maintaining the relationship

as if that's something we can do when Adrienne's not here. She's our sister. And that meant if we're not coming, the grandkids aren't coming. Right? So then now you're getting into real territory. Right? I'm like, y'all can throw me away, but you're not the two-year-old perfect kid. Really? You know? So that lasted for almost a decade. I didn't know that. No, I didn't know it was a decade. I didn't know that. No, I didn't know it was a decade.

Yeah. I just realized it because we, over this past year, have been reuniting, have been going back. My parents moved back down south and my mom was in relationship the entire time in ways that made sense to me and that I felt honored by. I never felt like she was shrinking me in order to stay in relationship there. But eventually the time came where there was shift. There was an opening.

There was a, I want the relationship. I understand things a little differently. Now I'm ready and I wanna see you guys. I wanna see my grandkids. And we were able to come home and it felt like coming home and it felt like it's still Tinder, right? It's like, there's still things that I'm like,

I don't have to bring this up. We were actually visiting, I think, one of Donald Trump's like first indictments and it came up on my phone and I was like, I don't have to cheer. I don't have to say anything about it. I don't have to do anything about that. Right now we can just focus on being here

and playing a round of cards with someone who is really trying to make a major step on her homophobia. And here I am holding her hand and we're taking her step. But you held the thing first. So Adrienne, you were able to come back and maintain dignity. So many of us are asked to come back.

Because my sisters flanked my dignity, right? My sisters stood on either side of me and they were like, what you are matters so much to us and you belong to us and no one is gonna tear us apart, we got you. And I didn't know I needed it. It broke me down, it broke me down. I bet, that's so fascinating because I didn't even think of it as your dignity.

I thought of it as their own dignity. Yeah, it's both. When you told that story, I was like, they are protecting their own dignity because they would have to be pretending going into that place and bringing their kids and being like, I'm going to disassociate from the fact that I am so offended by this. But I think this is part of what I think of as like American culture and white supremacist culture. There's a way that like going into a place and not speaking about politics and not speaking about religion,

that's what dignity looks like. It looks like dignity not to create a fuss, don't ruffle any feathers, that's dignity. And I think what my sister showed me was like, no, holding a line, that's dignity. And they didn't think twice, I could feel it. And they didn't think twice. Like I would have never asked for this,

but they didn't think, they were like, we're not going. I was like, what? We're not going. And then the return has been really powerful because we don't go alone. We always go together. I don't go unflanked. You know, I'm like, I still need them.

And now I know that and they know that. And we go, we listen to Stevie Nicks usually as we drive and we're just sing our hearts out, move it all through. And then we go have a, an afternoon. And it amazes me then to look at my grandmother and to think about when she was born and what she was told to believe in a tiny town in Georgia and where she is now. That's right. And your mom. I mean, I think about everybody. And my mom for sure. and what she was told to believe in a tiny town in Georgia and where she is now. That's right. And your mom. I mean, I think about everybody.

And my mom, for sure. And her job. But I've been thinking about the lineage, right? Because I'm like, how does someone like my mom become as open as she is, if there weren't these small openings in the generation before? Exactly. And small openings in the generation. Like, it looks so small small and that helps me now

because right now I'm like, I want every change to be massive, whole holistic, total, global. But I'm like, what's much more likely is it's gonna be me making changes that feel massive for me and look small to someone else. And that's gonna be the world. Oh, Adrienne., Adrian, thank you.

Thank you. Always so good to talk to you. Always so beautiful. All of you pick up loving corrections. So good. Go get it. Read it. Go get it. And sister somebody, you know, sister somebody, flank somebody, reach out to somebody. And especially like I really recommend people have practice partners for this.

Find practice partners. Find people and be like, I want to get better at like this. At conflict and correction and like, being able to shape each other. We're doing it anyway, but I want to bring it out of any manipulation. I don't want to be behind the scenes talking about you. I want to get better at like just bringing it right here.

And Pod Squad, the internet is not your practice partner. Okay, you gotta find a question board. The internet is not your practice partner. But you might meet your practice partner on the internet and then get on the phone, get on Zoom, talk to each other, go for a walk in a park. It's fall, get some tea. Beautiful.

We love you, Pod Squad. See you next time. Bye. If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us. If you'd be willing to take 30 seconds to do these three things. First, can you please follow or subscribe to We Can Do Hard Things? Following the pod helps you because you'll never miss an episode and it helps us because you'll never miss an episode. To do this just go to the We Can Do Hard Things show page on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey or wherever you listen to podcasts and then just tap the plus sign

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Alison Schott, Dina Kleiner, and Bill Schultz.