Julia Gets Wise with Anne Lamott
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Hi there. It's me, Julia li. Drive this. We're back for season three of wise than me. We're ready to bring you even more wisdom from the magnificent old women i've had the pleasure of talking to this season and get a lot of this.

We've added some fun new items to our wiser than me merge collection along with our classic tote bag and kitchen t tail. We're introducing a new wise of the me branded hard cover notebook and and an exclusive partnership with lingua franca, a new ork city bed luxury and sustainable clothing brand. You've gotta check out the gorgeous hand and ordered sweatshirts, cashmere sweaters for you and your dog with wise than me phrases, yeah, kashmir for your dog.

I did say that. Browse the whole collection and start shopping today by visiting. Why are the me shop not come? lemonade. Oh, aren't transitions hard? Maybe they're harder for some people than others, but I have to say for me, they are brutal.

My parents divorced when I was really little, and I would go back and forth between my mother's family and my father's family on the old eastern airlines shadow. And that was the granddaddy of all transitions for me. IT was absolutely exercise, but even run of the mill transitions are rough.

Like going to college, for example, I remember having a moment of object fear when my mom left me on my own with my eleven bags at northwestern. Yeah, I brought eleven huge bags to college with me because I have always travelled very light, leaving people that I love separating, even happily separating. It's just heart rending for me.

So recently, my parents moved from one place to a new place. And the new place is this kind of just amazing, wonderful, cozy cot. Gy, seen you, your living thing, which makes sense. Since my mom is ninety and my daddy time is ninety two, my sisters and I worked so hard to help them with that move.

Maybe we went over board, I mean, because we were involved in every design decision at the new place, hiring movers and contractors and picking colors and putting things away and organizing and saying this out loud right now, I think we might be helicopter children. But whatever we got IT done, I got to say, though I was emotionally wreaked, there is a lot of anxiety about this move. You know, what is? They gonna smooth, where they are going to be happy.

And I was feeling a lot of, Frankly, inexplicable separation anxiety. I and, you know, I haven't live with my parents and basically like half a century. So i'm not going to claim that any of this has any rational basis.

But a couple of things happened during this move. So just to give you a little background, my sisters and I when we were growing up, we lived near american university Mason D. C.

And uh, they had and still do have an old clocktower there. And I would go off every hour, you know, OK, so that my parents new helping them move in, and i'm putting boxes and keep sakes in a storage shed. And this is very nostalgic stuff.

IT has almost a magical quality. Its a ema from my parents, from our shared past is very emotional for me. And then of a sudden I hear this dumb. There's a clock tower somewhere close by.

I don't even know where that is and it's going off and it's exactly the same tune, you know, 等等等， the sound of that, that sound that was the sound of my childhood and hearing IT in that moment all these years later. My god, I just, I have this familiar, coy and at the same time, melon colleague feeling to IT. right? So that happens.

Then after that, I go back from the storage to my parents new cottage. And the number on their cottage is three, one, zero, seven. And IT totally blew me away, because the address number of our house in washington, dc, where we grow up, was three, seven, one, zero.

And looked to me, IT was kind of remarkable. Now, I know it's not the same number exactly, but IT is the same for numerals. And this is a small coincident, okay? Tiny even.

But I look for these signs that happen all around us. For me, they kind of confirmed the mysteriousness of the world is about landi. And I talked about that last year.

right? You don't have to be religious to believe that there is mystery in this life. So somehow the combination of those numbers being related to one another, and the clocktower ganging this, this synchronicity IT gave me a sense of real well being.

Something was at work here that felt correct, and that I was being reassured. This move for my mom and dad, which is a loaded thing, moving into probably what is their last house, this transition was eased by that. We pick up little random artifacts in our lives, images, number of sounds, smells, smells, my god, in each one Marks a place in time.

And we Carry them forward with us. We bring them through our transitions. And when they bump into each other, there's a little comfort there.

And sometimes a little comfort is a powerful thing. And the mot says that holy rollers see coincidences like the ones I just described as god working anon, mostly. And, you know, maybe she's right.

I take some solace. I take a lot of solace in these kinds of life coincidences. I just love him. And so today we're talking to M A mod.

Hi, i'm sure you will we dry this? And this is wiser than me, the podcast where I get schooled by women who are wiser than me.

And that really is what we do here. We talk to smart, thoughtful, funny, accomplished, wise women. And today is no different, except except, I think IT actually is a little different because today i'm talking to somebody who is kind of professionally wise, right?

I mean, what do you call somebody who is a spiritual and philosophical guide to millions of people, somebody whose stock in trade is their ability to actually unica wisdom and deliver enlightenment? You call that a stage, right? So get ready, guys.

Today we're talking to an actual modern stage, and she's not a bullshit stage either. She's the real deal. Even her bond modes are secretly meet.

Almost everything will work again if you unplug IT for a few minutes, including you. I'd love that it's simple, right? hardly. And you'll find a milk million things like that in an laos twenty books, twenty fiction and non fiction. Her writing just has this incredible mix of raw transparency and humor that hits you right in the gut.

The first book of hers that I read was Operating instructions, which he wrote about the first year of her son's life, in which I read in the first year of my son's life. And I guarantee we're going to talk about that today because IT was a game changer for me. Her straight forward, open, honest, daring approach to her work is just unique.

And she's not writing about easy stuff either. Her words on addiction, shaped by her own struggles, Carry immense significance within the recovery community and have truly shifted perceptions and how we view the priest and substance abuse. And she's got one of those top to bottom amazing resumes, all kinds of awards and guangdong fellowships, fancy teaching positions, all these best sellers plus meaningful important essays publish in meaningful, important places.

Look, let's face that she's kind of perfect the show, right? So i'm going to waste any more time yeah in a way about in the mot because it's time to talk to and the mot. Hello, am a mod.

I'm sorry that was so long but went on forever. apologies. Hi.

hello, love. I could listen to that all day.

I'm happy to read IT all over again. Okay, that'll be great.

Thank you.

Hi, i'm july lured to know. I think so. Are you comfortable if we share your real age? Yes and what is your real age?

My just seventy. I'm a very Young seventy though except physical sick and .

cognitively so how old do you feel? Um I feel that .

i'm forty seven except for my body which um things are sort of deteriorating ating slowly my feet in my hip hurt so some mornings I wake up and I limp around like walter brand and you know but before your inside person doesn't age, right you're inside person as all the ages you've ever been and will be and shall be forever more and so I trust my inside age more than a physical hey.

can I ask you question about your feet?

Yes.

we'll edit this part out. But what part of your feet are hurting because i'm having this issue oh.

I don't think you should add this sound I think I have had so answer is often on um in my arch most people get IT in their heel but my art church I really limps so I was limping it's getting Better but here's the thing um you have to do what the doctor says which I I don't like to do but what they say you stay off IT for a while but i'm a little neurotic because i've also had a lifelong eating disorder.

So I feel that if you don't get ten thousand and steps a day, you can't tell where you're going to end up. So I would always keep my steps, and coincidently, my feet wouldn't keep that. And so this is funny. I was my husband. I were in cuba in the spring, and I feed her.

And but I had been in this cuban church, and I was by myself, and I stopped suddenly, and I said to myself, what if I do what they say? And I was so profound, I wrote IT down, because I never do what they say. I kind of do reform what they say, right? yeah.

yes. So they say, don't stay off of IT permont and I think, well, i'll do half walking from us and I started doing what they say and my feet are so much Better. But what helps is if you have your feet hurt.

well, it's the top of my foot.

the top of IT.

That's yeah it's like, I mean, I don't know if you can see.

but yeah, I can see yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

yeah and I don't know what's going on. I say after we do this park kiss time to call my doctor and i'm going to do what he says.

They say.

i'm going to do what he sets .

and have you tried icing? IT?

No, I am. Tried anything.

Okay, here's what you do. You do the the right rest IT you I said you use a compression, get a brace, a one of those sales tic braces at cbs, and you elevate IT and do that for a few days and it'll be Better. You also need to take add view for the inflation tion.

If you ask me and do you .

take insurance?

I do. Yes, perfect.

I take most insurance.

great. What I hope take mine because I I really rather not pay for the set of network. Hi guys, july here. Okay, just want to give you a quick update in case you were concerned. I did go to the doctor after we recorded this podcast, and he diagnosed this problem as tender.

I this and he said that under no circumstances should I be icing the area so um yeah doctor lamos advice was ill advice and i'm actually considering a more practice suit of sorts but anyway I still lever so I guess the next question I was gonna you is what's the best part about being your age? And I think I might answer IT for you. I think giving medical advice to people, this might be one of your best, best things about being your age.

You agree with me about that. Well, being my age means that everything is hurt at one point to another. And I know what to do for a lot of different elements.

Yes, everything. One of the things about being seventy is that everything has happened at least once. Almost everything like like you, I know you're very Young, but no, not really medium.

Medium Young 是 medium Young by a certain age， we have all had unsurpassable losses. Boy, right? And I know how you come through, and I know what helps, and I know what doesn't help. Little nice Christian bump stickers is don't help. The god never gives you more to Carry about a clock, bum stickers and plantigrade net work.

What works when somebody y's going through and survival losses that you show up and you sit with them yeah and you are willing to feel like shit with them and you don't try to get them to feel any Better than they do for as long as IT takes them. IT could be years, some losses we never recovered from, but it's like having a badly broken leg where IT heels, but you you dance again, but with a limp. yes.

And so I know what people, I know what life has to offer. And I no longer I no longer think that is anything like in the movies for the ads. I know you don't buy IT rented this achieve IT it's an inside job and IT has to do with an inner healing of the of the spirit and um IT has to do with having people that are not trying to get you to be a different person than you are or feel any differently than you are who who look at you and say, god, I I get at me too. I've been there. Can I get you a carpet right? Do you want to put your feet up in my lap?

You know, I had cancer um a few years back and that was my experience too. You know I had a group of friends who would show up in that kind of way, even just to sit there. They didn't have to talk. I found that to be very comforting.

not. They weren't .

saying things like, what can I do? Which is exhAusting. IT was just being there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so let's talk about your your a wonderful husband, neil. Um you've got married in twenty nineteen, right? Yes.

I got married three days after I started getting medicare. Okay.

what I want to know you not because I don't think you shot up, by the way, that sound agressive. I didn't mean to why did you decide to get married at sixty five?

We live in together for a few years and he's really lovely. And he's he changed my life. And on our third day, he taught me about this interactive work. You, I call IT K F, K, D. I don't know.

We can say that word on your absolutely .

in bury bird I call IT k fuck radio and is said seeing stereo that out of the right hands speaker says, oh, your different than you're Better than you yeah that's more certainly more humble than and then out of the left hand speaker IT just says you're a fraud and that the gig is up and talk about beating a dead horse. And if people really got to know you too well, eight runs, screaming for your cute little life.

And he taught me to isolate this voice of k of radio and to talk to IT. And he taught me to say, oh, it's just you. And then to kind of help IT figure out somewhere else to go when I get that days work done. And as soon as he taught me that, I thought.

this guy is a keeper, yeah, I love IT talk about falling in love and how I felt falling in love in your sixties. If there is a difference between falling in love in your six versus in your twenties and your thirties is there?

But we're different people. You know, where were a little bit wiser? yeah.

And I knew when you hit ted at the first date, I had come there anxious and uptight and guilty and full of shame, and I was instantly had a lot of relief. And so I thought you, and then we were jamming. We are just gaming the way you do with your best girlfriend.

yeah. And I had always held out for being with a man who I would want to be best friends with if I was a woman. yes. And before then I had often been with men that I loved, that I was addicted to, or i'd like to be with, but that wouldn't have been my best girlfriend, and neil would have been, because he's so real and so honest and so just funny and and so on.

About the thirty fourth day when I realized we were gonna talking for the rest of our life, I said, I want to keep this in the soda shop stage for a while and we did. And that, you know, when you're forty, fifty, thirty, you don't it's like, um you immediately have all this adrenaline, you know and you're kind of this tree, you have this. Energetic trance with a person, you know, when you start to and incites a vampire dance floor IT gets very smoking and a little bit of strove lives and you get out there and it's like so much a drena you're getting down with a get down.

You're getting down and you get so much a drinking and you get the endorphins. So it's like a speed ball. And I thought i've been sober, cleaner, soa, thirty seven years travel.

And I don't want to get stoned on anything anymore, you know, except for maybe nature. And and so we did. We got to know each other for a few weeks, and IT was very different, and IT was really fun.

I know that in your book, in your that's right, in the new book, I have all these books you have written. I'm surrounded by your books right now and and neil said that eighty percent of everything that is true and beautiful can be experienced on any ten minute walk. I love that.

I love IT and I believe it's true. And I think I also might be in love with a neil. I've also found that I hope you don't mind.

No, no.

what have you learned since you've gotten married? What have you learned about .

yourself and and or any can I call you? I've just learned that um you know once I wrote a bird by bird, perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor. It's the voice of the enemy i've had.

I grew up with a lot of shame. I grew up with pretty unhappy parents who were marry twenty seven unhappy years. I grew up looking very hard.

The stuck about shame later to its my favorite topic. But I grew up with this crazy, kinky hair, and I got bullied a lad, and people threw stuff at boys through stuff at me. And, I mean, he was very crazy.

So that my solution, accepting my parents, encourage as the perfection. I was always the best in my class. I was a tennis champion. I was, and I will make you sicker and more mentally and crazy than any other quality. And so I learned little by little with neil.

And then definitely after marriage, where I let's face, and I was stuck with him, I learned how that life is just, you know, it's it's very messy and it's very real. The miracle of being older is that you might go to the same default places. Minus is victim's self righteous ness in this weapon science.

But you move through IT in two or three hours instead of months and in one case, my an entire decade, you know and that you know that you're going to come through, you know that the problem is mental. But so I remember it's not them. You know, it's like it's an inside job.

I can choose serenity ity. I can pray for piece of mine. I can pray and not be an assemble.

Yeah, I meant to that. So tell me though, what was that like to have neil into your life with your family?

Well, you know, sam is very used to me being there for him and jacks. And so there was just a tiny, tiny bit of resistance to you, jack. I mean, that was never been all that excited about long term boyfriends.

But with neil and with jack like them, he's great with kids. He's got a bunch of kids of his own. And so jacks was fine.

You know, it's just like the the mobile and that old john bradshaw family systems, mobile, where one thing happens, a person gets sober and every all the figures on the mobile start to move again and sometimes so strings get caught up in each other. And and IT was ccc up for a while. It's sorted itself out, but it's really lovely.

Yeah you know I I would be remiss if I didn't tell you how important Operating instructions was to me personally.

Wow.

thank you. I really was any because my actually both of my kids, but my my first son had collect, and I had, I know, I just reread, and I was reliving IT. And IT was so difficult.

And I, of course, thought I was because of me and my bad mothering or bad something I talk about, shame, right? And there was a me too part of that book comforted me away from all of IT. And um there was a quote that I pulled, where is IT? yeah.

My heart is so huge with love. I feel like IT is about to go off. At the same time, I feel that he has completely ruined my life.

And I know I would like, all truth is paradox, and I would feel like I literally would tack what pass my life for him.

And then i'd look over and think of him raising his ugly, rip tilly and head, you know? And then there's a part, I don't, if you remember, where the colleague was so bad, and I just thought casually about bundled ling him up and putting among the porch for the night so I could get one night sleep and every mother worth her weight and salt. What said me too, oh yeah, just not you not supposed to say that.

You not supposed to say there were so much you weren't supposed to say that had to be said in that book. IT was critical. IT was urgent that IT was said. And IT is such a shock to have a child in so many ways um in in the most beautiful of ways and in the most difficult of .

ways too but you know I wrote a follow up to Operating instructions because sam had a baby at nineteen chice and I route table called some assembly required yeah and I think IT, I mean, if I had to go to a desert island, it's a book I would take because spiritless the tougher stuff I ever did. I was to have to let go of my son and to let him be the parent because i'm sure you're not like this with your children. But I think I have excEllent forth.

oh yes, I think I do two.

by the way, right in all areas of their life. And that know, I finally heard someone say that help is the Sunny side of control. But I didn't hear IT in time for once. Sam had an infant.

That is great. Can can you just describe the difference if there is one?

Yeah, when you're a mom, they don't leave. When when your grammar did they all leave at some point, right? And that's a blessing.

And so that when you're and also when you're grammar, you're older and I was see a Young grandmother are fifty five, but I didn't went same. Sam called me the night before thanksgiving in two thousand and eighteen and said he was going to be a father. Of course, I had twenty five people coming, and IT was not on my bingo card.

IT was not what my plan for him was. Great college was the plan. And little, tiny, tiny bit of a career like that would be so much skin options.

And and how is Young? And sam was a mess. He was a mass head in alcohol. And so because i'm a black built code dependent, I also thought that what he should do next was to get sober and so and so forth.

What he should do after that was to this, and what he should do after to that. And I had all these plans, and some we require is so much about how the more you offer your plans for your children, the more they need to resist you. Yeah, because you're crazy.

And I really would SaaS thirty for now. And without my recovery program and a lot of therapy, I would be running outside him on his hero's journey, you know, with kuper sun and and lip bomb and sunscreen. And that's that's an insult.

That's that's disrespectful. And IT injuries him and IT injuries me, yes, but IT injures our children to try to control them. So this book, some assembly, is where I kind of learned pretty much most days to stop trying to control them.

So you could have called IT just shut the fuck up and sit down yeah I mean.

yeah yes yeah there is a great acron um in recovery for people with tiny, tiny control issues in its wait W A I T Y M I talking and so I just sit there quietly and I think i'm not onna compare. I'm not going to correct i'm gonna complaint. I'm just gonna love these people, just love them.

love them, love them. And you that sounds like .

you've gotten Better at IT. As time lei play piano or something, you start off really badly and you take the action and the insight follow the action might be um not saying what you thought um that what was your tongue to say and instead just kind of gently stroking your show during saying, quite lead yourself it's OK honey why did we get us a nice cup tea? We settle and then yeah, you get Better.

There is something about being a mom and having that focus on that grounding that is when it's working well. IT really takes you out of yourself. Yes, and that is one of the many blessings of being a mother.

I think we're going to take .

a short break right now. There's more with M A ot. On the other side.

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about writing okay.

IT would be horrible if we didn't really talk about that. Um do you mind just um briefly telling the story of the title of bird byword and the story where that came from? I love that story.

Yeah well, okay, when I was coming up in california at the end in forth grade, you wrote your first term papers yes, and you have to do a bird paper and so um my older brother hate at school and wasn't very good at IT because he didn't care and he had his bird paper and you have the whole semester to do that and IT was do the next day this was a sunday and IT was due on monday and he had started, he couldn't start IT was too much like any writing project.

He start it's it's I can unassailed ice flow and he was in tears. And my older brothers, a tough guy, was a tough fourth greater. And my dad, who was a writer, SAT down with them and put his arms around him and said, just take a bird by bird, buddy.

And he taught him to read a little bit about tickets, for instance, and then in one in his own words, which is the only way you can share what's inside of you to share with us. If you write, tell us about chickies, and then find an illustration. Okay, next we're going to do great blue hearts. I want you to read a couple of pages of otto von on great blue hearts. And then I want you to tell me in your own words about great blue hear that comes from.

I love so much. It's such a beautiful expression. In fact, my sin had a teacher. It's not quite as beautiful.

But he used to say when he would get overwhelming SHE would say, just break IT down into manageable parts, which is exactly what your dad was saying. Yeah, yeah. Of course, you're known for your talks in your teachings on writing.

Two things that you said really struck me. One was the act of writing turns out to be its own reward. You and publication is something you have to recover from yeah and I am so struck by that any because you know, you could really .

apply that to everything .

yeah IT certainly is applicable to acting and producing and editing a film or a television show or anything crunching, crunching, crunching IT down. I was amazed that how universal those those teachings are of yours.

Oh, i'll thank you. Well, the publication and is it's that american fixation that that what you seek is outside of you? That's right. And it's a perfectionism and eo doctor, the great novelist, right time and book a Daniel, of course, he said in vanity fair twenty years ago. He said, riding the like, driving at night with the headlights on, you can only see a little ways in in front of you, but you can make the whole journey that way. And that is the true est thing.

I know whether it's about what you're working on, your production stuff, your creation stuff or you're spirit like being a mother, having a color key baby is like driving at night with a hand lights on and you can only see a little ways, but you can make the whole journey that way. It's hard someday. Ys, are so hard. And you know, one of the acronyms for shame in recovery is should have already mastering everything know in the terrible feeling you have when you have IT, when you have a color key baby, when you have a, when you have a very old parent, you know, how could we know this stuff? But we think you're supposed to.

right? I know. And that reminds me of the piece that I read that you recently wrote in the washington post about the beauty, i'm gna say, the Grace of not knowing.

Yeah, I don't know. Yes, how could you know? Yes, that really resonated with me.

Yes, we think, like we have. no. Yeah, that getting the answer is what you're striving for. But maybe living in the unknowing is its own sort of blessing.

Yeah my mom had alzheimer said he was living an independent living but falling apart and so we, my brothers and I were just trying to managed IT all and he also had diabetes and SHE sneak over a safe way and steel bread and cookies and and the cashers would pay for IT because he was such a lovable person. And then, and so we have this nurse and my brothers and I were with, and we said, oh, we don't know what we're doing.

We don't know how much longer SHE can. We don't know how to get her to stop eating the cards and the sugar, and we don't know if she's even doing the and we we went on and on just in the grief, but also that self doubt, you know, that toxic self debt. And this gentle, gentle nurse looked at us and he said, how could you know and that literally hadn't occurred to us.

Well, that is incredible.

How could you know?

How could you know? And just so you know a thanksgiving this year or this past, I should say I referenced that in a toast that I made to our family because we um so thank you for sharing that as I start to cry. The reason being is because we've got a lot of family stuff, people getting older, people are struggling with health and our family different people. And so it's forgiving yourself for for not knowing and being comfortable with not knowing is an okay place to be.

And it's not only okay, it's supported supporting to something more spacious and more expensive. There might be Grace and there might be fresh air instead. If you know, going over, over and over again, your ideas and your plans, none of which .

work right, can you talk about how you're writing changed after you got sober?

And oh my god, let's I got sober when I thirty two, yeah, I had publish three books I had, you know, i've born in race in the same county I still live in so I was loved out of all sensor proportion and I just thought I was, I mean, my insight it's were like swiss cheese from the polymers and I was added c and and um I got sober to light seventh and I didn't think I be able to write again because certainly the what you learn is the writing you love mostly alcoholic.

Is this true really? no. But I was raised.

He was in color. His friends called. I was coming way and fits jered. yeah. And surely Jackson and dorsey Parker and and all the writers I love most were very severe alcoholic. But anyway, I didn't know if i'd right again.

And that bad voice said, well, at that, you can either get sober or you can keep on being a writer. And I decided to get sober because I thought I was gonna a die otherwise. And this guy said to me when I first got sober, he said, um he said at the end of my drinking, I was determining faster than I could lower my standards.

And I had gotten there. I had nowhere. I had no more good ideas. So I stop drinking and for a while, nine months, just like what IT takes to have a baby. I didn't think I could write.

And I and my friends and the sober woman said, don't worry about IT. Go to a meeting. Do you need to? You need a ride to wanna have coffee.

Come with me. I'm coming over and say, no, no, don't come over. I'm coming over, you know, because your mind is a bad neighborhood and you shouldn't be in IT alone. And they come over.

And so I wrote my first book, my novel, which is called all new people, which is, in many ways, I think the best thing i've ever written, but is the first thing I row sober. And i've had a strange feeling one day that the story was inside of me, and I felt t to have come and was tugging on the sleep of my sweater. And IT was trusting me to get IT right.

Finally, because I wasn't drunk, I didn't think I could write without IT. I didn't. And IT tugged on my sleep and IT said, you know, bird by bird, I always had my writing students get one inch picture frames and give them to our two in picture frames.

Give him to each other to remember. You just have to do. That that one passage that you can see through the one age picture frame, that one seen, that all you have to do the day.

So I started doing that. I started slowly doing what i've always told my writing students. And then you do badly, do shady first straps, right? And then you do a Better second first shop, and then you do a really decent second trap and give IT to summer to.

So IT was really slow. It's a long road back. And and I did IT one day of time with a lot of help, with very profound people along the way.

I'm in all of the current that took. And the andy, i've just admire you so tremendously. And I really, I have a sister who unfortunately died of a drug overdose.

And I really wish I could have gotten you and your people together with her because I think, no, anyway, IT is what IT is. But I I do admire you. And i'm in all of the strength of that took and the power that that took. That's a lot of power.

That's a lot. I was a lot of help too. And if you ever said to me, and I need you to go to new york or chicago because I have a niece and worth age, he's gonna die, and I want you to spend a couple days just having walks with that, I would go as god as my witness.

You know, i'm a sunday school teacher, and I mean that i'd go like that because that's what the women, that's what the sober women did for me. They said, there's literally nothing, no way that you need help, that I won't try to get you out help. So Angels, yeah.

Angels, Angels. We will get more wisdom from m. Lao after this break.

By the way, on the first season of the show, our first guess was jane fan.

I love her and I love her lover .

and he loves you and SHE quoted you, SHE quoted you he said, no is a complete sense as and lamar said, and here's the incredible thing at the end of the season, our final guest with carbery tt and he quoted you too.

no way.

I swear a guy.

yeah. Oh, I got to have to write that down. Isn't that cool? Yes, yes. Wow loves that.

which is it's an a fabula expression. It's a fabulous idea. But also, I get the sense that you are a yes person, that you're somebody who said yes to a lot of things in life.

Is that right? I mean, you teach sunday school, your church, you write, you're in the recovery community, you take your your grand sound. So what are you saying no to? Because that sounds IT seems to me you're really saying yes, a lot, which I also admire.

Well, I say, notice things that I really don't want to do. I say, notice things that i'm only used to agree to do. So people would like me more because before a recovery, I got all of my value from how other people thought about me and if if I was a value to other people and I felt that I was a person of value, but I say no now to stuff that is just um damaging to me, I do as an older women have less energies and I used to and so I say no to trips even if they pay well.

If it's there's not a nonstop, you know I don't want to do that anymore and so I say, no, do a lot more things that people ask me to do because you know what I wanted do. I want to be at home. I want to be in my funny little town. I wanna a be with you people that I have my spiritual and walking and pick ball life and sam and jack and neil and the Kitty and the dogs and you know I just wanted I just quite a lot of the striving but it's a huge change um as you get older is that the driving really quiet down.

you know oh interesting and .

the being grows the long inch for the being. You know what E E comings called the human merely being instead of the human doing and the and the impressing people and you know moving my numbers up and get the striving is just orginally quieted down for every single person I know.

Yeah the pond of the striving settles down and you kind of thing well I can give you an image um then the hebrew by by the famous song twenty three that ends my cup run is over before a recovery before I got older, it's like I had discuss this choice and I ran around trying to get everybody's overflow because I had such shaky self, a steam and such a raging ego, you know, this terrible pingpong game going on and in. As you get older, you stop running around trying to get other people's leftovers, and you start letting your own cup be filled up with that that really hydrates and nurtures you and fills your cup with love and memory. Sweet memories, you know, yeah, you start making sweet memories instead of working on your clubby size.

And I think, you know, another thing that you talk about in your riding is a breathing which also which also resonates with me because there have been moments in my life where you know everything IT feels like it's so bad that you can't escape IT yeah, you can get your head away from IT yeah, I mean, like IT feels like you physically cannot escape you. And in those moments I have found that if I can just remind myself that I can still breathe, i'm still able to get breath yeah. So i'm not even though IT feels like i'm suffering ting, i'm actually .

I can break. Yeah you could put your hand on your tummy and just breathe .

into your hand. Yes, I just breathe.

Yeah but i'll tell you it's the most perfect breathing montreal and exercise. I know I have this tape to my bathroom. That's how you know it's important is tick not home and just died maybe a year ago, but he has this montreal and exercise and he says, breathing in, I call myself, you take a deep breath breathing and I come on up and then breathing out.

I I smile and it's not a big funny smile. It's a tiny a smile like mona lisa or just a tiny smile of, thank god i'm breathing again yeah and you do that for three minutes you go breezing and I call my self breathing out. I smile and IT breaks the trance.

IT breaks that terrible hook into your mind that is spinning like the rat exercise will. And if I promise you, IT connects you ubiquity to something beautiful and outside, outside, surrounding and in dwelling us for just three minutes. So i'm totally doing that.

I love IT, and it's not like a twenty minute meditation and get IT done in three minutes and get on with IT. I love IT. Okay, we've run out of time, of course, which is a bummer because I could talk to forever, although i'm sure you have a million other things to do.

Let me ask you a couple of really quick questions that we sort of end with. If that's alright. sure. Is there something you go back and tell yourself at twenty one?

Wow, I would tell myself you are so beautiful as is, you don't need to change a thing. You don't need to worry about your hair or your what your butt looks like. You don't need to worry about anything inside of you.

This is an inside job. That's what I tell my sunday school kids. You know, it's an inside job. You are loved and chosen as is.

And I would have said, there is nothing that any man out there can ever say you or think about you that matters. An extreme unit IT is not out there. IT is not what they think is a value in a person.

What is a value in a person is what you learned at those women's meetings. What you learned is that all of your feelings are okay. It's okay to be mad.

It's OK to feel really ugly inside. It's gna hear you. You're anger, and it's okay to be grief struck when I was coming up in the fifties, you could women couldn't be angry or grief struck. They got, they were exiled. They were either institution's or divorce.

And then the men, i've got cute new fifteen year old wives, you know, right? And so I would say all of our self inside of you is the way home, talk to another person about IT, talk to an older woman about IT. And I think that's probably the most important think that I would have said is that we're starting over we are starting over as of now. And this is a new page. And from now on, it's what we think about us that we're gonna go by.

Oh, I love that. And i'm not going to ask you one more question because that is just like the perfect wisdom to end this conversation on. I just am in all of you, and I thank you for me. You are such a dream boat. You are in positive dream boat.

Thank you. love.

Oh, that was so much good stuff. I ve got to get my mom zoom and process all of this. Hi mommy weed.

okay. So today we had the great pleasure of talking to any limit. And I know you're a fan of her work.

absolutely.

So she's seventy and um I was asking her about because she's a grandma are the difference tween being mom and a grandma and he was saying the thing about being a mom is that they never leave.

Um what's your take on that? How would you characterize the difference in the mother relationship versus the grandmother relationship? And for our listeners, my mom has three daughters, myself included and then um five grandchildren you know .

apparently requires its a big responsibility and you have all kinds of worries. And so for but with your grandchildren is there is a sheer joy because as he says, they go home at night, other words is like taking care. Somebody else is garden, but but you know that is their garden to to really tend and and that releases you from the kind of worry and attention of being apparent. And you have the cheer, joy of everything from their first immersion for first time. You see them coming out with a little wet hair and and and to all the things along the way, but it's not that you know I have any worries about them, but you compared to being apparent, it's just like having the sheer joy of every moment that you wisdom is, is because you know that you're not the know you're not the final the final vote.

Well, I think that, that makes complete sense and and that's something to look forward to. SHE was saying that in terms of her parenting, SHE somebody who really wants to like fix things and get in there and and offer her help. And he said, and the more that SHE tried in the past to offer help, the more resistant SHE got from her sun.

And there's this acronym called weight. I think it's something from A A that he sort of falls back to a lot. And IT stands for. Why am I talking?

That's so good. Yeah.

it's a good one. That's a good one. Why am I talking?

I think that's very interesting. In in and and to turn on its side, I would say that you know, you girls have helped us move into this this place that we've come to. Yes, 很 有 so many things and so many things。 And so I was talking your sister today and SHE and I was talking about something that doesn't work.

And SHE said out of our call, i'll take care that. And I said this, you you are, you are so wonderful, but IT makes me weak if you were gonna do all the, all the, all the. I mean, is time for me to start the struggle and do do the the the adJusting here. yes. And if somebody else is always coming into to save you and to to save you from struggle, and so for IT makes you weak.

right? right?

Or you give into that. So so I think that interesting that I thought that this is.

is that funny? And we felt the need to get in there and help and make decisions for you and daddy. Um so it's a real role reversal is a complete .

role reversal yeah but also um it's one that is you have to worry the same way you worry about over period.

right? So i've i've over parented you is what's happened .

not saying that are a little.

but that's okay.

I get with me. I totally get IT. Well, IT was interesting just being with you and your sisters and and having all these decisions that you were and toper than that. And by the way, it's critical because we're old and IT been the the uh the move was very difficult for us at this age and so is essential that you guys do that. But also is the central now that we take take charge of our of ourselves and our situation.

Yes.

member, we got tired, a big thing of tired. And I and I tried to do a laundry today, and I couldn't find IT. I was gonna call. You would say, where do you put the tide?

Did you find IT?

I opened up looking for some two taste, and I found IT.

Good for you, mama.

I know I felt like I, I, A huge success.

I got my P, H, D. Yeah, you ve got your P, H, D in my. Um okay, mom, I love you so much. Have fun in your new digs.

Well, thanks, honeys, and thanks for helping me .

with my new welcomes. You call, if you need to find things, find them for you. 我 看看。

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