From Small Town To Big Influence: Jerrie Merritt’s Legacy of Giving Back

In our lives, we are often confronted with moments of profound change - whether it's the result of circumstances beyond our control, or a deliberate choice to step into something new. During these pivotal transitions, it can be tempting to focus on pleasing others or trying to meet the expectations of our family, friends, and community. However, truly transformative growth requires the courage to choose ourselves and to trust our inner wisdom. Author and activist, Najwa Zebian, offers a powerful example of what it looks like to reclaim one's autonomy in the face of a lifetime of feeling out of place and unworthy. Her journey of self-discovery provides a roadmap for navigating change with conviction, self-compassion, and a commitment to living one's truth. Jen and Najwa explore:  The profound impact of emotional neglect and feeling out of place can deeply shape one's self-worth and choices later in life. Connecting with the power of language and self-expression can be a vital lifeline and pathway to healing. Making bold choices for oneself can be a necessary and courageous act of self-preservation. Allowing one's "world to revolve around you" and trusting your own inner wisdom is essential for navigating life's changes and uncertainties with conviction and self-compassion. Author Bio Dr. Najwa Zebian is a Lebanese-Canadian activist, author, speaker, and educator. Najwa began to write to connect with and help heal her first students, who were a group of young refugees. Through that effort with her students, she began a deep healing process for herself. She is the author of six books. She delivered the Ted Talk, “Finding Home Through Poetry.” She also recently launched a digital school called Soul Academy and a podcast called “In the Clear.” Her latest book is called “The Only Constant.” * * * Thought-Provoking Quotes: “Neglect isn't just about not getting your basic needs met. I think the most harmful neglect is not getting the things you do need." - Najwa Zebian "There was always this invitation to not allow myself to experience anger because it was a negative thing. But now I realize there's healthy anger; there's healthy resentment; and it's also healthy to project those feelings outwards. Otherwise, they're inside." - Najwa Zebian "I look at myself as a people pleaser — as somebody who's like, "I can't handle disappointing someone, I can't handle disappointing my family, I can't." But it got to a point where I was definitely willing to do that because I was so aware that continuing to live my life in a certain way meant that I was going to be suffering so much, and I wasn't willing to suffer in that way [anymore].” - Najwa Zebian Resources Mentioned in This Episode: Finding Home Through Poetry (Najwa’s Ted Talk) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNRygxe_8Ys Soul Academy (Najwa’s Digital School) - https://najwa-soul-academy.teachable.com/p/home In the Clear (Najwa’s Podcast) - https://najwazebian.com/podcasts The Only Constant by Najwa Zebian - https://najwazebian.com/the-only-constant Welcome Home by Najwa Zebian - https://najwazebian.com/welcome-home Hijab - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijab Mind Platter by Najwa Zebian - https://najwazebian.com/mind-platter Guest’s Links: Najwa’s Website - https://najwazebian.com/ Najwa’s Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/najwazebian Najwa’s Tik Tok - https://www.tiktok.com/@najwazebian Najwa’s Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/najwazebian1 Najwa’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/najwazebian Najwa’s YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/najwazebian Connect with Jen! Jen’s website - https://jenhatmaker.com/ Jen’s Instagram - https://instagram.com/jenhatmaker Jen’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/jenHatmaker/ Jen’s Facebook - https://facebook.com/jenhatmaker Jen’s YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/JenHatmaker?sub_confirmation=1 The For the Love Podcast is a production of Four Eyes Media, presented by Audacy.  Four Eyes Media: https://www.iiiimedia.com/ 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

Million Dollar Advice is a work and career advice podcast hosted by friends and colleagues Kim Lessing and Kate Arend. Together, Kim and Kate run Amy Poehler’s Paper Kite Productions and are very cool and good at their jobs. Each week, they will help live callers with their work-related dilemmas. Whether you have a question or you just like listening to other people’s problems, this show will change your life. If you have a problem at work or a career question big or small, write in to [email protected] or leave a message on the Million Dollar Advice Hotline (888) 799-6327.  Kim and Kate can’t wait to give you some Million Dollar Advice! * * * Connect with Our Friends! Million Dollar Advice Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/million-dollar-advice/id1737475094 Connect with Jen! Jen’s website - https://jenhatmaker.com/ Jen’s Instagram - https://instagram.com/jenhatmaker Jen’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/jenHatmaker/ Jen’s Facebook - https://facebook.com/jenhatmaker Jen’s YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/JenHatmaker?sub_confirmation=1 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

Making a change in our lives can feel like a big, all encompassing thing; and sometimes we avoid change because of that very notion. But here’s some good news: making meaningful change in our lives actually starts with one small choice at a time, and it doesn’t have to be overwhelming or hard. This week, we’ve got the inside scoop on how to form habits that you actually want to stick with and someone who is going to let us in on the simple secrets to real and lasting change. James Clear is the bestselling author of “Atomic Habits.” His approach to building sustainable habits has resonated with millions, helping people make positive changes and reach their full potential.  In this conversation, James shares personal stories and scientific principles to empower journeys of growth and transformation. Jen even shares her personal experience of choosing one small habit to do each day in the wake of her seismic divorce and how that choice radically affected the trajectory of her recovery.  Jen and James explore:  How to embrace a 1% improvement mindset - small, incremental changes compound over time and lead to meaningful results. The willingness to try different approaches and habits until you find what works for you Why we’ll be set up for success in the long run by having a toolbox of different strategies instead of adhering to specific “must-have” habits The importance of focusing on your identity and becoming the type of person you want to be, rather than just setting goals. No matter where you are in life —you have it within you to make meaningful and practical changes in your life. * * * Thought-Provoking Quotes: “There was a time in my life when I was forced to start small. So I was trying to find little wins; just something I could look at and be like 'Today was a good day.' I think that mindset ended up really helping me in later life." - James Clear "The whole world is going to emphasize your position and where you are. What I'm trying to emphasize is, "Are you getting 1% better? 1% worse? Is the arrow pointing up to the right, even if it's just a little bit? Or have you flatlined?" Because if you're on a good trajectory, all you need is time. All you need is patience. Time will magnify whatever you feed it." - James Clear “There is no one way to build better habits. There are many ways. My job is not to tell you how to do it. My job is to lay all the tools out on the table, rather than trying to tell you this is the way to build habits.” - James Clear “It's very easy, once you're listening to a conversation about habits or thinking about your own habits, to bite off more than you can chew, or start getting pulled in ten directions and be like; 'I'm going to change all ten of these things.' I think one good thing to remind yourself of is this energy will naturally extend into other areas of your life. So maybe take just one of those ten things and try to really master that.” - James Clear "There's this common advice that if something doesn't work, you should try, try, try again and I think the better advice is if something doesn't work, you should try, try, try differently." - James Clear Resources Mentioned in This Episode: Atomic Habits by James Clear: https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits James Clear’s 3-2-1 Newsletter - https://jamesclear.com/3-2-1 Guest’s Links: James Clear’s Website - https://jamesclear.com/ James Clear’s Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jamesclear/ James Clear’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/JamesClear James Clear’s Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/jamesclear/ Connect with Jen! Jen’s website - https://jenhatmaker.com/ Jen’s Instagram - https://instagram.com/jenhatmaker Jen’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/jenHatmaker/ Jen’s Facebook - https://facebook.com/jenhatmaker Jen’s YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/JenHatmaker The For the Love Podcast is a production of Four Eyes Media, presented by Audacy.  Four Eyes Media: https://www.iiiimedia.com/ 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

Hey, book lovers! We’ve got something a little different straight coming to you from the Jen Hatmaker Book Club this month, and if you haven’t been a part of the conversation, we invite you to join us and all our fellow book nerds over at JenHatmakerBookClub.com. We’re sharing our March selection, with you, our dear listeners, and we hope it will inspire you and have you thinking a little differently about the lies we tell ourselves as women and how we can get to that next right thing for our lives. We’ve got the fabulous Jamie Kern Lima, the author of a new book called “Worthy.” If you don’t already know about Jamie, she’s the founder of IT Cosmetics and the author of another book, “Believe It,” which told the story of how she founded IT in her living room and how IT went on to be the largest luxury makeup brand in the country. But if that wasn’t enough, she eventually sold the company to makeup giant L’Oreal, making her the first female CEO of a L’Oreal brand in the company’s history. But her story is much more than a rags to riches adventure, which she continues in “Worthy”--it’s about how she overcame a fear of failure, the paralyzation of never feeling like she was enough, and a litany of rejection she faced through all phases of her career. “Worthy,” contains key lessons Jamie’s learned toward reversing lies we’ve been told and claiming new truths for ourselves, including: Why self love is important (and not selfish) and mirrors how deeply we can relate to and love others  You can never achieve enough to feel like you are enough; that comes with believing in yourself innately as who you are Your past mistakes do not define your present worth or determine your future As Jamie says, the moment we learn to believe we are worthy is the moment unhealthy relationships fall away, ideas are birthed, and art is shared with the world. She invites us to step into the freedom that happens when we embrace who we truly are and believe we are worthy of the good things that come our way. * * * Thought-Provoking Quotes: “If we don't think we're worthy of something, we will either stay stuck, find a way to sabotage it, or–the best case is–we’ll go for it and achieve it. But we'll still feel unfulfilled and still feel like we're not enough in the process. ” - Jamie Kern Lima “If you are someone that prides yourself in being selfless and being a giver, and you can't think about doing this for yourself, the greatest gift you can give people is to learn to love yourself, and to learn to believe you are worthy. Because the depth of love that you have for yourself will expand the depth of love you now have for them.” - Jamie Kern Lima “I do not care how many past mistakes, failures, or things that you feel are shameful or regrettable incidents [you have had]. None of them define your worth.” - Jamie Kern Lima “I believe your intuition is never wrong. I believe it either leads you to the next right step or the next right lesson. I have peace and trust in that.” - Jamie Kern Lima “The moment a person learns to believe she is worthy, that is the moment unhealthy relationships end or unhealthy friendships end or ideas are birthed or hands are raised and art is shared with the world.” - Jamie Kern Lima Guest’s Links: Jamie’s Website Jamie’s Instagram Jamie’s Facebook Jamie’s Twitter Jamie’s YouTube Books & Resources Mentioned in This Episode: Believe It by Jamie Kern Lima For the Love Podcast Episode ft. Jamie Kern Lima Worthy by Jamie Kern Lima For the Love Episode ft. Daniel Pink Feeding America (Food Bank Charity) “The Life You Want” Class (Taught by guest teacher Jamie Kern Lima) Connect with Jen! Jen’s website - http://jenhatmaker.com/  Jen’s Instagram - https://instagram.com/jenhatmaker Jen’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/jenHatmaker/  Jen’s Facebook - https://facebook.com/jenhatmaker Jen’s YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/JenHatmaker?sub_confirmation=1 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

Continuing in our series of Embracing Change, Jen talks with an elite athlete who found their life caving in, leaving themselves with no other choice than to flow with the transitions. In this candid conversation, Jen and Olympic figure skater Gracie Gold delve into Gracie's battles with mental health, disordered eating, and the intense pressures of elite athletics. Gracie’s story speaks to immense strength - navigating the insidious grip of an eating disorder that spanned longer than many of her close relationships. Gracie recounts how the illusion of control through restrictive eating eventually triggered a "nuclear meltdown," forcing her to confront the compounding traumas. Jen and Gracie explore: The toxic underbelly of perfectionism glorified in figure skating and its ties to disordered eating Society's tendency to stigmatize mental illness that doesn't fit a textbook definition The arduous, perpetual work of managing an eating disorder Reclaiming authenticity after realizing her projected "ice princess" persona was unsustainable With refreshing candor, Gracie shares how curiosity and embracing life's small joys enabled her to begin reconstructing an integrated identity beyond skating's rigid expectations. Her courage to openly discuss such profound struggles is a beacon of hope for anyone confronting their inner critic. * * * Thought-Provoking Quotes: "In most industries, to be a woman in this world, typically and historically, you were rewarded if you were smaller." - Gracie Gold "Instead of feeling anxious that I don't have a plan and I don't have an exact to-do list with everything on it checked off — instead of finding anxiety in that, I try to find freedom." - Gracie Gold "[I'm] continuing to put one foot in front of the other and being okay with not knowing where I'm going and that the universe will bring me where I'm meant to go." - Gracie Gold “I just thought I could push through [depression]--very type A. I just thought 'Oh I can push through, if I just work harder, or be better, then it'll go away.' Which it didn't.” - Gracie Gold Resources Mentioned in This Episode: 2014 U.S. Olympic Figure Skating Team (Gracie’s team won a bronze medal) - https://olympics.com/en/olympic-games/sochi-2014/athletes Outofshapeworthlessloser: A Memoir of Figure Skating, F*cking Up, and Figuring It Out - https://www.amazon.com/Outofshapeworthlessloser-Memoir-Figure-Skating-Figuring-ebook/dp/B0C4J8MLF6 Top Ten Female Figure Skaters of All Time - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest_scores_in_figure_skating Guest’s Links: Gracie’s Website - https://graciegold.figureskatersonline.com/ Gracie’s Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/GracieGold Gracie’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/GraceEGold Gracie’s Instagram - https://instagram.com/graciegold95 Connect with Jen! Jen’s website - https://jenhatmaker.com/ Jen’s Instagram - https://instagram.com/jenhatmaker Jen’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/jenHatmaker/ Jen’s Facebook - https://facebook.com/jenhatmaker Jen’s YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/JenHatmaker?sub_confirmation=1 The For the Love Podcast is a production of Four Eyes Media, presented by Audacy.  Four Eyes Media: https://www.iiiimedia.com/ 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

Our new series of Embracing Change is a deep examination of all the different ways change shows up in our lives and all the ways we can respond to it. As Jen says in this interview, our guest today went through a “chosen change.” Hers was a transformation that felt inevitable after all the small, incremental posture changes made her ready for the leap to follow — a leap toward more sanity, more love, and more joy.  Joy Sullivan is a poet and community builder. Her new book “Instructions for Traveling West” is “for anyone flinging themselves into fresh starts.” She received a Masters in poetry from Miami University and has served as the poet-in-residence for the Wexner Center for the Arts. She joins the podcast today sharing her story of walking into the unknown. Through her unique viewpoint as a poet, she unlocks potent ways for us to trust our intuition and stay curious about what is scaring us. Jen and Joy touch on: The importance of embracing loneliness and stillness as opportunities for self-discovery and hearing one's true inner voice and callings. stories from Joy’s life that served as lessons for her to love herself more deeply Reclaiming selfhood by rupturing constrictive cultural and religious narratives, especially around womanhood and female identity For anyone feeling the tug to upend the inertia of their life and lean into evolution, this conversation is an inspiring guide for following one's deepest callings into new horizons. * * * Thought-Provoking Quotes: "I started driving west and I spent six weeks hiking in Sedona, being in the beautiful desert. During that time, I really had this sense of awakening and the sense of rupturing. It was that question like, ‘Am I doing work that matters?’ And I was so awake to my life again in that intense way that loneliness just pricks us alive. And I really began to grapple. I just looked at every aspect of my life and said, ‘Could there be more?’" - Joy Sullivan “I don't think it matters where you go, but to be able to give yourself an opportunity to really reinvent, that's the good stuff.” - Joy Sullivan "I didn't have the life that I sort of felt like I always should have had based on what a woman was supposed to get — a husband, kids, the stability of the white picket fence, etc. And what's been interesting is when I sort of recreated or fractured some of those stories culturally and religiously that I had been given, my life just expanded into possibility because it had never occurred to me that a woman could be really, really happy if she didn't choose those things." - Joy Sullivan “Poetry is the only place that can hold the unsayable. It's the only space we have that holds that which cannot be spoken in any other art form. All the ache, all the beauty, all the impossibility of being alive; that's what poems are for.” - Joy Sullivan Resources Mentioned in This Episode: Sustenance (A Community of Poets and Writers founded by Joy Sullivan) - https://joysullivanpoet.com/sustenance Necessary Salt (Joy Sullivan’s Substack Blog) - https://joysullivan.substack.com/ Instructions For Traveling West by Joy Sullivan (A book of poems coming April 9, 2024) - https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/734503/instructions-for-traveling-west-by-joy-sullivan/ Guest’s Links: Joy’s Website - https://joysullivanpoet.com/ Joy’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/Joy_E_Sullivan Joy’s Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/joysullivanpoet/ Connect with Jen! Jen’s Website - https://jenhatmaker.com/ Jen’s Instagram - https://instagram.com/jenhatmaker Jen’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/jenHatmaker/ Jen’s Facebook - https://facebook.com/jenhatmaker Jen’s YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/JenHatmaker?sub_confirmation=1 The For the Love Podcast is a production of Four Eyes Media, presented by Audacy.  Four Eyes Media: https://www.iiiimedia.com/ 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

We’re finishing up our For the Love of Wonderful You series intentionally with a deep breath and a gentle word of encouragement. In this episode, even though we are talking about trauma, critical inner voices, and the arduous process of grief, Jen and her guest unwind these topics in the most gentle and loving way.  Kobe Campbell is an award-winning therapist who specializes in helping people process grief and trauma in a way that unearths true empowerment. Hidden beneath the clamor of everyday life, the voices of our inner critic lie in wait to echo our grief. These voices, though silent to others, can roar deafeningly within us — shaping our perceptions, beliefs, and actions. Kobe’s suggestions of journal “prompts” help guide our own trauma excavation process, and her gentle but challenging questions further that sometimes painful work, while steering us toward self compassion.  Jen and Kobe touch on:  The understanding that grief can take a lot of time to process; which can ultimately lead to wisdom and true empowerment A working definition of trauma and that trauma is highly personal and contextual How we can feel brave enough to examine the inner critical voice and discern where it’s coming from Acknowledging the cultural pressure to live at an unsustainable pace that doesn’t allow space or time to heal If you ever needed permission to grieve or drop the unrelenting pace of your life, then this is the invitation. * * * Thought-Provoking Quotes: “I love to tell people that trauma is not what happened to you. It's about how it affected you. And those effects can live in our present, even if the moment is in the past. I help people parse through that in creative ways with poems, quick words, and thoughts from my kitchen right after I'm done with the session.” - Kobe Campbell “I think that many of us have not been given the space to grieve long enough to know what genuine and internal empowerment feels like, and we keep trying to give ourselves that empowerment from the outside. We keep trying to grasp motivation from somewhere.” - Kobe Campbell "Trauma can be acute, meaning it can be a moment, or trauma can be chronic, meaning it could be several moments over time. And I like to give the example that trauma can be a boulder or it could be pebbles. But the reality is–it doesn't matter. There is no big 'T' trauma and little 't' trauma because, at the end of the day, all those pebbles amass to the size of a boulder anyway. It's just being accumulated over time." - Kobe Campbell "The person who holds the wound holds the wisdom. If we lock away that version of us that is deeply wounded and wants to cry for three months, then we're also locking away the wisdom of those situations that we need for our present." - Kobe Campbell "My humanity is good. God created it good. And if I believed that I was good for just existing as I am, how would I treat myself?" - Kobe Campbell Resources Mentioned in This Episode: Why Am I Like This? How to Break Cycles, Heal From Trauma, and Restore Your Faith by Kobe Campbell Journal Prompt on Kobe’s Instagram Brain Neuro Coupling I Feel Like Woman by Shania Twain on Spotify Minaa B. Website (Therapist and Colleague of Kobe’s) I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou Michell C. Clark Instagram Guest’s Links: Kobe’s Website Kobe’s Facebook Kobe’s Twitter Kobe’s Instagram Kobe’s TikTok Kobe’s YouTube Connect with Jen! Jen’s website Jen’s Instagram Jen’s Twitter Jen’s Facebook Jen’s YouTube  The For the Love Podcast is a production of Four Eyes Media, presented by Audacy.  Four Eyes Media: https://www.iiiimedia.com/ 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

We’ve got someone on the show this week who makes it her business to show us exactly how wonderful we as women are–just as we are! She is the queen of keeping it real, a hilariously honest actress, standup comedian, and the Instagram star who has become our go-to for a belly laugh when the world's expectations just seem a tad too polished–it’s Celeste Barber! If you haven’t seen Celeste on her Instagram account, get on over there and join the nearly 10 million people who are clamoring for her content each week (and if you have any doubt, she won the “Funniest Lady on Instagram Award” back in 2017). She’s also a successful standup comedian who sold out three seasons of her “Challenge Accepted” Tour in the US, and has a Netflix Special (“Fine, Thanks”) and a dramatic comedy series that we just love called “Wellmania.”   Jen and Celeste get into it about:  The riotous juggle Celeste manages by shining a light on the quirks of the beauty industry, all while paving her own extraordinary path.  Celeste opens up about the nuanced battles of being valued for her sharp mind and quicker wit in a scene often unforgiving to women. Celeste and Jen share about the beautiful chaos of balancing a career with being a superhero mom (or at least trying to be).  This episode is more than just laughs (though, swear, you'll have plenty); it's a pat on the back for every one of us out here, doing the thing, being utterly magnificent in our complexity. Here’s to celebrating the splendid and wonderful you! * * * Thought-Provoking Quotes: “I would like to live one day without anxiety. I would also like to be a Janet Jackson backup dancer. That's all I ask for.” - Celeste Barber “I take my hat off to women in general, just always and forever. "The mothers who work in the day and then go home and be excellent mothers at night, and they go back to work in the day and they come home and they're excellent mothers. How do they do that?” - Celeste Barber “With women, [being] funny or smart or boundary-pushing is fine as an idea, but [we're asked] 'can you be safe and pretty because that's just easier for us.' And so shifting that lens, the thing is, we're multifaceted. There are so many different types of things to celebrate within women." - Celeste Barber Resources Mentioned in This Episode: Celeste Barber: Challenge Accepted (Celeste’s 2019 Comedy Special) Celeste Barber: Fine, Thanks (Celeste’s 2023 Comedy Special) All Saints (Medical Drama that got Celeste her start) Wellmania (2023 Netflix Series Starring Celeste) Celeste Barber: Backup Dancer Tour Celeste Barber and Tom Ford Collab Celeste will be in Dallas June 10th at the Majestic Theatre, in Austin June 13th at the Paramount Theatre, and in Houston June 14th at 713 Music Hall Guest’s Links: Celeste’s Website Celeste’s Instagram Celeste’s Facebook Celeste’s Twitter Celeste’s YouTube Channel Connect with Jen! Jen’s website Jen’s Instagram Jen’s Twitter Jen’s Facebook Jen’s YouTube  The For the Love Podcast is a production of Four Eyes Media, presented by Audacy.   Visit Four Eyes Media: https://www.iiiimedia.com/ 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

Here’s a little bonus for all our listeners this week–a preview from one of our fellow Audcacy Network podcasts, We Can Do Hard Things! Life is freaking hard. We are all doing hard things every single day – things like loving and losing; caring for children and parents; forging and ending friendships; battling addiction, illness, and loneliness; struggling in our jobs, our marriages, and our divorces; setting boundaries; and fighting for equality, purpose, freedom, joy, and peace. On We Can Do Hard Things, Glennon Doyle, author of UNTAMED; her wife Abby Wambach; and her sister Amanda Doyle do the only thing they’ve found that has ever made life easier: Drop the fake and talk honestly about the hard things including sex, gender, parenting, blended families, bodies, anxiety, addiction, justice, boundaries, fun, quitting, overwhelm . . . all of it. We laugh and cry and help each other carry the hard so we can all live a little bit lighter and braver, free-er, less alone.  Enjoy this special excerpt from We Can Do Hard Things! * * * Connect with Our Friends! We Can Do Hard Things Podcast Nadia Bolz-Weber Connect with Jen! Jen’s website Jen’s Instagram Jen’s Twitter Jen’s Facebook Jen’s YouTube 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

It’s the start of a new series, For The Love of Wonderful You! Spring is arriving and as the winter slumber fades away, many of us are likely plunging into a frantic pace of commitments and To Do lists. But we want to take a minute (or approximately 45-mins to an hour) to create a moment where we can punch the brakes a little. Let’s tell that inner taskmaster to relax; and instead, reflect on finding value in who we are in this moment, and how worthy we are just as we are.  Jen’s amazing conversation partner today is Amanda Doyle. Amanda is many amazing things but you may know her first and foremost as “Sister” on the We Can Do Hard Things Podcast with Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach. She’s also part of the leadership team at Together Rising, the amazing non-profit that has raised over $50 million dollars and given it away to people all over the world who need it most. Amanda has been a longtime social justice advocate and she uses that knowledge to break down deep truths and complex social issues in all her conversations. Today, she reminds us that spending the energy to stay vulnerable in our relationships will always pay out. In this episode Jen and Amanda talk about: The struggle to be vulnerable and truly open up versus managing perceptions and staying in control in relationships How Amanda chose sobriety and the surprising clarity that emerged in her marriage, especially during the pandemic Jen’s journey to understanding herself and her avoidant tendencies in the aftermath of her divorce The profound impact of the "love letter" exercise guided by Liz Gilbert, where “Love's voice” urged Amanda to stop keeping score in life * * * Thought-Provoking Quotes: “A relationship has to have some equilibrium. The farther you go this way, the more the other person has to go the other way. What I have learned is that no one wants to be in those places.” - Amanda Doyle "What I have recently realized is that many people who either view themselves or are viewed in their relationships as control freaks; actually what they want the most is to not be in control of everything. They feel like they have to be in control of everything, because that is the way that they show their love is by taking care of things. But what they want more than anything else is for someone to step up and be like, 'I got this, I got you. You don't have to be in control of this.'" - Amanda Doyle “You are so fixated on the score of this life, but there is no score except the one in your head. You are exhausting yourself to death, trying to keep a score and figure out where you've won, and figure out where other people have disappointed you and slighted you and not met your expectations. But the score is fiction. We're not being scored." - Amanda Doyle “We think when we're giving up alcohol, we're giving up fun. And that's with good reason. It's like fully marketed--growing up, it's part of the narrative; anything that is fun also includes alcohol. But then I had the enormous blessing of being so close to Abby and Glennon's life and seeing that they were the most fun people with the most delightful, satisfying lives of anyone else I know. And none of that included alcohol." - Amanda Doyle Resources Mentioned in This Episode: We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle For the Love Podcast Episode ft. Glennon Doyle For the Love Podcast Episode ft. Abby Wambach For the Love Podcast Enneagram Threes Episode ft. Lisa Whelchel Untamed by Glennon Doyle We Can Do Hard Thing Episode ft. Liz Gilbert Letters From Love with Liz Gilbert (Substack) For the Love Podcast Episode ft. Sarah Bessey Guest’s Links: Together Rising Website Amanda’s Twitter Together Rising Facebook Together Rising Instagram Connect with Jen! Jen’s website Jen’s Instagram Jen’s Twitter Jen’s Facebook Jen’s YouTube  The For the Love Podcast is a production of Four Eyes Media, presented by Audacy.  Four Eyes Media: https://www.iiiimedia.com/ 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